Roofing Success

3 Mindset Shifts That Turned $1M Roofers into Market Dominators with Chuck Thokey

• Jim Ahlin • Episode 265

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What if your roofing company’s biggest obstacle isn’t leads, sales, or processes—but your mindset?

In this episode of the Roofing Success Podcast, Jim Ahlin sits down with Top Rep founder and renowned sales trainer Chuck Thokey to break down the 3 critical mindset shifts that separate stuck roofing companies from market-dominating powerhouses.

Chuck has worked with thousands of contractors across the U.S. and Canada, helping owners overcome limiting beliefs, restructure teams, and scale with purpose. Whether you’re stuck at $3M, $10M, or trying to build a $100M+ operation, this conversation will challenge the way you think about growth.

You’ll discover:

  • Why scaling to sell almost always backfires—and what to do instead
  • How belief and mindset directly drive your revenue (and your team’s performance)
  • Why pricing psychology can double your margins overnight
  • How to create a product and customer experience your sales team actually believes in
  • The truth about AI and the future of roofing sales


If you’ve ever said “door-to-door doesn’t scale” or “we can’t raise our prices in this market,” you can’t afford to miss this episode.

Links: 
https://www.instagram.com/chuckthokey/?hl=en
https://topreptraining.com/
https://www.mycoachchuck.com/

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Speaker 1:

What if the reason your company isn't scaling isn't your sales, your leads or your process. It's your mindset. In this episode, we're diving deep with Chuck Toki to explore how growth isn't just about hiring more reps or throwing money at marketing. It's about changing how you think, lead and inspire your team to win. Chuck is one of the most sought-after sales trainers in the home services industry and the founder of Top Rep. He's worked with thousands of roofing companies and helped scale some of the most successful teams in the country.

Speaker 1:

Chuck doesn't just talk about mindset, he lives it, whether he's helping companies 5X their revenue or coaching owners through emotional roadblocks. Chuck understands that scaling starts in your head before it hits your balance sheet. If you've ever felt stuck at $3 million, $10 million or beyond and you're wondering what's missing, this conversation will change your perspective. Let's jump in with Chuck Toki. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Chuck Toki with TopRap how are you man?

Speaker 2:

Good man, happy to be here once again, that's right.

Speaker 1:

I love having you One of my favorite people in the industry, definitely one of my favorite sales trainers out there. There's a lot of quotes that I use from you. There's a lot of stories and analogies that I use from you. I remember sitting at an event where you were speaking one time years ago, taking notes, and I took it and implemented it in our digital marketing business.

Speaker 2:

Good.

Speaker 1:

Love it. You teach sales not just roofing sales, right, or you know um, but always enjoy it, man, always enjoy it. We were talking. We were talking about scaling and and I think that's what's on a lot of contractors minds is scaling and? And you said something really, really profound, I think that you know, sometimes it's not the how do we scale is not a lot. A lot of times it's not the processes, it's not the people. Maybe it may be, it may come down to that owner's mindset.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Expand on that a little bit bit.

Speaker 2:

You know we get this so often junk. I, I want to scale this thing so we can sell. I'm like, first and foremost, if you scale to sell, you'll never sell. Uh, you have to scale for all the right reasons. What you're going to do is is I'm going to scale this thing to 10 million, I'm going to sell it and I'm going to be rich. That's not going to scale this thing to 10 million, I'm going to sell it and I'm going to be rich. That's not going to happen. It won't happen. I can promise you. It won't happen because people see what it is that you're, you're, you're why and if you're, why is because we want to sell.

Speaker 2:

Nobody wants to work for that. Nobody wants to put their livelihood on the line because the owner wants to sell. That's also the reason why so many of these companies that are selling, you had no idea that they had any plans on selling and the biggest organizations that sell never had a. They never thought they would sell. Those are the, those are the organizations that we see. But what's behind it all is mindset, and and you could have a bad mindset, I mean, when we look at the, the mindset, you can have a mindset to sell. You can have a mindset to grow. Who wouldn't want to work for the mindset to grow?

Speaker 1:

yeah, and, and that's the, that's the path that people don't think about. Everyone's thinking of that end in mind, that exit, especially with pe so heavily in the market. But boy that you're right that no one wants to work for what like? What do you? What? What? What is their purpose? Right, right, what's the sales team's purpose is for you to be a multimillionaire.

Speaker 2:

You have the mindset to grow, it's it's everybody wins. If you have the mindset to sell, there's only one person that wins and everybody else, I promise you, they'll lose.

Speaker 1:

So what does you know? What does the mindset look like? That, that the what is the right mindset that you're seeing.

Speaker 2:

So and it's. You have mindset with owners, mindset with your management staff and mindset inside of your, your sales staff, and you can't just have the you know, when we come in and we help you with that, that understanding of what mindset is and how to do it, we look at hey, I can't just come in and show you, we need to look at your sales managers, we need to look at your sales team and look at the culture as well as how are we going to bring the right type of mindset? And once you put that in place, that, because marketing and sales, those are tools, those don't scale you. You know, people talk about sales and that's just the sexy part of the business, but that's just a tool. But the mindset is, that's the gears, it's everything in inside of this. And so, when we look at what's the right kind of mindset, well, it really depends on the owner. And what is the purpose of growth? Why are we growing? How can we get everybody on the bus? You know there's a lot of people that might be standing outside the bus not wanting to go to school. However, man, you know you have that growth mindset, that that understanding that, hey, we're all going to win here we're all going to move together and you know, understanding what success looks like.

Speaker 2:

We had a, an organization out of Oregon and, uh, love these, these folks to death. It's, it's expert roofing. And they were really, really struggling. And they saw us at a GAF event and said, hey, I'd love to be able to figure out how we could get this guy into our business. And so when I sat down with them and they decided to go ahead and move forward with coaching, I says here's the thing is, as I want you to see what success looks like based on your business. And so I says I need you to go out and meet with John O'Leary out in Pennsylvania, literally flying across the country to go see what another organization I'm not going to tell you all this stuff that was wrong with this organization, but you know they. I says I just want you to go out there. And they did. Him and his wife, uh, jim and Amber decided they would fly out and meet with John O'Leary and all I wanted them to do was to see a company that was just like them.

Speaker 2:

You know, john O'Leary was in this for 35 years and was not really successful. For for when we look at success until him and I started working together and I showed him what success looked like and I you know, long story short, they got a chance to see this business that that was was built out of a similar thing that they were in, and he's like this changed my entire outlook, the way we do business, the way we see business. And when he came back and then we put in that sales process, we brought in the sales manager and they just opened up their second location or going for their third location. I mean, this is something that every time that we meet up with them, he's not the only one in tears. I mean, I'm in tears, they're in tears. You have to see something like this to really feel the emotion of why you do what you do every day. Yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a big thing. If you've never seen it now, what did they see?

Speaker 2:

So he had mentioned that, cause he, they, all of their installers, were in house, and it took several days to do a roof two, three, four days to do a roof that should have been done in a day, and I he says, well, how many people actually do a roof in a day? I'm like everybody I know know, and so at that point he had to see it. He had to see that roofing could be done in a day or two, depending on the size of the house, but you know, it was how this was run, what you know, how they were able to scale. So the biggest thing, though, was that someone could actually do a roof in a day. That was probably one of the biggest takeaways for them, and the other thing was the team the team that was in place and what everybody did there at O'Leary. So, again, once they got a chance to see that, I could sit here and talk to them, blue in the face on here, these are all the people we're going to put in place, but until you understand what these people do and why they do it, it doesn't make any sense. Okay, I'm blue in the face on here, these are all the people we're going to put in place. But until you understand what these people do and why they do it, it doesn't make any sense. And okay, I'm going to put them in place, but I don't know what to do with them.

Speaker 2:

And all of a sudden it all came to a head. It's like this all makes sense and we've done this with companies all over the United States. We, depending on your company, we, I guarantee it because we've worked with with thousands of organizations across the United States and Canada, and so there is somebody that we worked with and scaled them, and so that when this other company comes in, they're very, very similar to that company. Maybe it's a. We had a organization organization. They were 20 million, similar to that company. Maybe it's a we had a organization organization. They were 20 million.

Speaker 2:

And he says we're trying to get to a hundred million. How do we do this? I says, well, I have just the place I want to send you to. I want you to see what this looks like, because right now you have mass chaos. That's the problem with so many of these organizations is they allow sales reps and production staff to do it their way, as long as you know, we don't hear anything from the homeowner. We must be okay. And I said before I start coaching you, I want you to see what success in that realm looks like, what you're about to walk through, the doors that you're about to walk through, it was within two years. Two years, they were at $170 million, you know. So, again, you know, we, the success that we have, is based on our community. But we change their mindset, how they think, how they act.

Speaker 1:

Yeah it's. It is very hard, I mean it's very hard to even envision what it looks like, right Like, especially as you're, if you're in that startup phase, you're, you know, kind of still working in the business a lot, or even if you've been around for a long time, but you're still, you are still the main person in your business. You don't have a business, you're more self-employed. Right Like, it's very hard to even understand what. It's very hard to even understand what, what goes on over there, in that, in that company, across town, across state lines, across the country. Right Like, how does a company do that times with people who have started to kind of hit those roadblocks along the way and then express to me well, it doesn't work, or this doesn't work, right Like, a specific thing I hear like door to door doesn't work, it doesn't scale.

Speaker 1:

Like, have you heard of power home improvement? Like, have you heard of? Right? Like, have you heard of? Have you heard of have improvement? Like, have you heard of right Like, have you heard of? Have you heard of? Have you heard of? Have you heard of, because their door to door scales? It's your skillset in door to door that isn't scaling right, it is, you know, from a, from a retail focus company to a storm restoration company, there's you have to see it sometimes to really go. Oh, you know, we got exposed to a lot of companies, like you do across the country with roofer marketers, and we got to see the back end and who's doing things right.

Speaker 1:

And you know, you, we work with one company that has outrageously efficient processes that if you say, if I describe them, it may it will make the people listening feel bad about themselves, because they are. They were so detailed from every aspect of communication with their team, with their, with their customers, with. It's just a fantastic process. That was built over time, right, many, many iterations of building this up and building this up. But if you're sitting there with you know your cell phone and your, you know a couple of crews, you can't even imagine what a process would look like in that regard or what the team looks like in that regard. Right, yeah, that that's fantastic. So do you? So for people listening, like, how do they? I know you have the introductions and things like that, but you know, I mean I think about it. Just, you know we have the RSRA that has a lot of members involved. We have but going to conferences and things like that, you meet other people, make friends, right, like make friends in this industry and go visit them.

Speaker 2:

You know people think that and we get this so so often is, uh, I, I don't want to be in that group coaching because there's a competitor. Get to know them. You know in, uh, if you don't have competitors there's no excitement. You know, in your area, if you have the right type of competitors, it it throws enough dust up that brings business. So you should embrace your competitors and on the on the flip side is help your competitors. I don't know how many times when, and even in my own contracting businesses where a competitor literally down the street is asking for help and we'll go over there, we'll sit down with them. We have no problem is, if I'm going to compete with somebody, I at least want them to know what they're doing.

Speaker 1:

It's that, yeah, such a make sure you have an abundance mindset. I'll tell you, chuck, if they're listening to this show, they have an abundance mindset, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And when you're out and talking inside of these events. I mean, networking is the biggest thing people think of. Oh, what speakers are going to, who cares? And I am one of the speakers, but who cares what speakers are going to be there? I want to know what other companies are there so that I can say I've not met them, but I sure want to. You know how many of the people that I do know can introduce me to people like Eric Oberyn or Grant Rockett or, you know, zach Willard any of these big companies are like. I'd love to figure out what you guys are doing.

Speaker 1:

That's right, and you will find that a lot of those guys are very open to sharing, very open.

Speaker 2:

And they love it. Usually they're trying to figure business out. They'd love to try and figure your business out. You know it's like a playground to them.

Speaker 1:

That's right. What's the? There's that analogy like the best CEOs are the ones that ask the most questions, right, like it's? They're not talking about themselves. They're probably asking you and you're like I had who was it? Saw a? Uh, I saw a clip of some show, uh, or an interview, and someone was talking about they actually had dinner with warren buffett one time and warren buffett spent the whole time asking him questions, yeah, and he's like, no, no, I want to ask you questions. You know, like the smartest guy in the room is the one asking the questions, right, and I think there is something to the belief For me early on.

Speaker 1:

We have a friend, jimmy Nichols, who had a marketing agency. We joined a mastermind group back in I think it was 2019. And he had just hit some big levels in his agency and it was like, oh, that's possible, like that's possible. Yeah, where do you go from mindset, now that you believe it, now that you see, see, man, that's what we can really? I really truly feel like we can accomplish this. Where do you go from there?

Speaker 2:

well, you mentioned belief. Um, and it's like affirmations. Here's the thing, here's the truth about affirmation. Affirmations do you absolutely no good what? Until you decide that you're going to believe the affirmations? Affirmations, do you absolutely no good? What? Until you decide that you're going to believe the affirmations? When somebody says I'm the greatest salesman ever, do you really believe that? You know, and so is that really going to help you? As you telling yourself you're the best salesman ever? Yeah, so, but what happens when?

Speaker 2:

When we look at belief, so belief, your belief, sales reps, the managers and the owners. Your belief drives your behavior. So, if you believe success is unlikely, you're going to show up small, you're going to avoid rejection and you're going to hesitate to lead. So we need to understand what that, what that looks like. But if you believe that it is inevitable, you're going to take bold action, you're going to attract better opportunities and then you're going to become unstoppable.

Speaker 2:

And when people look at it, like, well, that's cute that you say that, chuck, that's what I believe and that's what I've done. Um, whether it's, you know, being an able Mr Roof and working with a large team to make it, at that time, the largest roofing company in America. It's not there now, but it was, and you know just understanding how big we needed to be. And then you know getting into coaching and making Top Rep what it is today. I mean you know getting into coaching and and making top rep what it is today. I mean I had to understand where my beliefs were and I knew that that success was inevitable. So again, it's all within belief.

Speaker 1:

Well, the way I say, if you have faith in the outcome, you'll execute right. So that's all you need is enough faith in that outcome, even if you like, if you're saying I'm the greatest salesperson in the world and you don't believe it, that's true. But if you have faith that if you continue to get reps in every day, you'll get there, you'll go and put the reps in every day, right. But I think if you don't believe that, if you don't have faith that it's going to come out of the other side and that's where I think it's impactful. Like the company in Oregon that traveled across the country they had, they had nothing to be faithful of right Like they did. They couldn't. But once they saw it and met the people there and had conversations, they were wow.

Speaker 1:

Before we carry on with the episode, let's give a shout out to one of our sponsors. I talk to contractors every day that feel stuck, not because they're not working hard, but because they're missing the structure to grow without chaos or their culture's falling apart, because their team's unclear, unaligned or just burned out. And when change hits, they're reacting instead of leading because time and priorities aren't under their control. Day 41 Thrive helps to fix that, with proven strategies for growth, culture and leadership that actually work, Ready to thrive beyond the storm. Visit the link in the description or visit the Roofing Success Podcast website on the sponsors page to start your journey today. But once they saw it and met the people there and had conversations, they were wow, this is a true possibility. Yes, it's a powerful, powerful thing.

Speaker 2:

Um we have another real quick story. We had another organization in Columbus Ohio and he's a franchisee and he came to me wondering if maybe he should go work for somebody else or go back into a different trade. And I, I I'm right here in Dayton Ohio. So I was like, hey, you know what I want to. I want to come out and take a look at what you've got, and it didn't take me long at all. I says, look, you know, for you I'm going to make a suggestion, and the suggestion is going to be hard to take. And I says I think you just need to fire.

Speaker 2:

He's like fire who? I says all of them, because inside of his organization and I will tell you that's the very first organization I ever told an owner fire everybody. That's the only time I've ever said this, but it was inevitable that they were all taking advantage of him. He knew numbers inside and out, but how to run an organization he just wasn't quite there yet and so he did exactly what I asked him to do. We brought in somebody that was really made up any of his weaknesses and just so you know, any owner out there and every owner out there has weaknesses, and whether you're a good business owner and you just don't know how to sell or market or maybe you're not a sell but you suck at running a business go out and find somebody, and it doesn't mean you have to partner with them, but bring them in to do the things that you're not good at. And so he is uh, he was named franchise of the year last year. He's, uh, about to start another location, um, but again, they're the fastest growing uh franchise inside of that, inside that, the entire franchise.

Speaker 2:

So I mean it is it's a limiting belief, and so you have to identify those limiting beliefs. You have to challenge them ruthlessly and then replace them with empowering thoughts and then reinforce that through action and repetition. And that's what's tough. It's tough to challenge your limiting beliefs as ruthlessly as you need to, and some of these you really need to pay attention to what your environment is. I'm sure that Jim, you've heard of you're the average of your five closest friends, or something like that, and I can't tell you how important that is. So you look at these business owners and then ask them who do you hang out with? And these other business owners that they hang out with are right in line with them.

Speaker 1:

It is, and and they're all at the at the table talking about how they all can't grow, and it's just not possible, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Is that. I will tell you, if they had a bunch of three and $4 million businesses that you know surrounded them, they would get really tired about hearing about. You know, woe is me and I'm not saying that all three and $4 million businesses do this, but those of those businesses that are stagnant and not moving past there most of them are they're trying to figure out like, oh man, I can't get leads at. You know, they're the same ones that just won't do the follow-up. Yeah, that's right, they like to complain about it.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of funny. We had some stats that we pulled, some data that we pulled from lead generation that we did with our clients, and 40% of all leads were unanswered. Yeah, it's 40 percent. They left almost nearly half of the opportunity on the table.

Speaker 2:

It makes no sense.

Speaker 1:

It just makes no sense. But that's so. I've had a couple of good conversations with this. Our friend John Brose and we had a great conversation around this and for around day 30, day 41 thrive. And Jonathan Cronston I had on recently who um wrote the billion dollar bullseye. He was the president of Kajabi, which is a very, very large uh marketing software platform, and he some of your thoughts on this. I love the way that Jonathan is J Cron put these things in play or kind of in theory. He has seven principles and people's.

Speaker 1:

The last and the first things were more around, you know, around building a product and an experience for your customers that's exceptional. Then you can focus on your marketing, because then you can. Because sales and marketing will show you the holes in your business real quick, I guarantee, chuck, you know you go out to one of your events. There's some good sales reps there. If you're a bad business and you hire those sales reps and you can't produce, if you're a bad business and you hire those sales reps and you can't produce, they're not going to sell. Those sales reps become they're not sold people anymore. Right? Your sales people will hesitate to make a sale if they feel they're going to get a call from the homeowner? Yes, right.

Speaker 1:

So the working on that customer experience and getting really focused on that customer experience and your processes, your product and I'm not saying spend your life doing this and then go hire salespeople, because I also believe that iteration is the way right. So, without having a customer, you don't know how good or bad your processes are. You have to run people through right, but you have to learn along the way that customer experience built out and your salespeople now are, are, are really confident that you are the best option for their, for the people that they're speaking to. Magically, close rates will get better, right. Magically, your marketing gets better. Magically, your marketing gets better. Magically, you attract people to work for you that are better. It's pretty magical. What's your experience around this?

Speaker 2:

Well, there is a saying out there that is untrue and that is that people buy from people they know like and trust. That is untrue. People buy from people they know like and trust. That is untrue. And here's the truth behind it is people buy from people they trust and believe. Well, if you have a sales rep that doesn't even believe in their product, that they're just there to try to sell it, to get a paycheck and run because they know that they wouldn't even put this product on their house or have these installers installed, you know, you know, install anything on their homes, let alone a roof, again it's going to come out, the facial expressions, the way that the tonality comes across. I mean that homeowner, they may not know exactly what's wrong, but they know something's wrong. Something did not adding up.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. It's crazy how we don't think about this. How many companies do you see that try to just throw sales reps at the process or at the problem? They have a revenue problem. That's.

Speaker 2:

All we need is more sales reps I'll say probably about 80, 85 percent will do this. Yeah, it's crazy. You know, money, money is the cure for everything. Right? You know sales cures everything. And I'm like no, and I'm a sales guy and I'm going to tell you, no, that's not the problem, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So what's the solution for those guys that are trying to just throw salespeople at the problem?

Speaker 2:

They need to look at, just like you mentioned. They need to look at what it is that they're, what experience, what, what product, everything that they're providing to a homeowner, what's the protection? You know everybody's like. Well, we need to lower our price, we need to to cheapen our products. We can lower our price like why would you do this? I would raise the price of my quality product enough that I can sell a certain amount and make more than those people that are out selling. They might be out selling 50, 60%, but they're selling it at so much less that they have to keep selling just to keep food on the table. When you know a lot of our clients, you know they're selling way up here and, yeah, they may be closing at 45, 50%, uh, instead of the 50 to 60%, but their profit is so much more.

Speaker 2:

We had a, a very large client down South and they're like Chuck, we were trying to figure this out, our, uh, our job size went down, uh, leads kind of lightened up and uh, we're also doing a lot more repairs than we have. And I says well, what do you think the solution? I knew what the solution was, but I asked him what do you think the solution is he goes. I really don't know. What do we? You know? Do we push our sales reps harder? And I'm like, well, I mean you should train them a little bit more. But what you need to do is raise the pricing enough that the profit people look at revenue. Oh, my gosh, my revenue is going down. Well, how do you keep the profit from going down? Cause I can care less about the revenue. How do I? What do I need to do so that my profit doesn't go down? And uh, that's one reason why I do like, uh, like service.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to roofing, I do like service. If you do it right, it's very profitable. And you know you're the one standing in front of the homeowner. Very seldomly does a homeowner get three bids for, well, I need a new pipe boot. I have sold more $2,500 pipe boots than I care to admit, because that's our lowest, that's our minimum, and if that's all they need now, I'm going to do a full roof tune-up because I feel bad. That's right. You know I'm going to do whatever I can, but that's my minimum is $2,500. And so I'm also there to perform a service and to sell a job.

Speaker 1:

And that goes back to mindset, though, too Like a company that I spoke with many, many years ago called in about marketing services and and they were in a smaller market, not a not I'll even say more of a small town 50, I'll even say more of a small town 50, 80,000 person kind of area, and and he was like man, it was like him and two other guys in the market for a long time, and they, they almost set their price. They you know what I mean Like we're, we're all like right around here, and one of the big names came to town and was double, double and ate them. A lot was eating them alive, yeah, and this guy was blown away. He couldn't believe that they were selling price per square than he was, and they and and people, people were paying it. What's going on here? That's another mindset shift. What do you, how, how do you have that conversation with an owner about the mindset of price? Because I truly believe that that's like that's, that's something that we don't look at.

Speaker 1:

I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors. As a roofing marketing agency owner and coach, I've seen it all Great marketing wasted because no one follows up fast enough. That's why I built Power Up Agents, not just a receptionist. Our AI handles the entire customer journey, from answering the first call to booking the job, to post job surveys and reviews 24-7 inbound, outbound, even multilingual. Instantly and customers nurtured automatically. Visit the link in the description or visit the sponsors page on the Roofing Success Podcast website. Your full AI team is ready. And then there's another thing that I think we don't. I believe a lot of times we arbitrarily set our pricing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we had a concrete coating company out of Chicago and he was frustrated. He says, man, these concrete coating companies that just sell for four and $5 a square foot that you know. We just can't compete with them. I'm like, oh yeah, you can. He goes how do we compete with them? I says higher pricing. So I asked him. I says I want you to raise your pricing to $10 per square foot. And he stared at me. He goes we'd go out of business. I said you might be shocked.

Speaker 2:

And I says now, don't just raise your prices and start running out the door. I says let me work with your sales team. I just need an hour with them. And so we got in with the sales team, we let them know what we were going to do and even the sales team was like all right. And I says here, here's the deal that I'm going to make you. I says I just want you to do this for a week. I just want you to do it for a week. If it doesn't work in the next week, we'll train you to do whatever you want to do. And uh, so he calls me up. It wasn't even a week, it only about three days. He says we haven't missed a deal yet and we've never done that.

Speaker 2:

He says I don't understand. We, we double our price and this is what now. Granted, we put in a lot more value and protection and all that. But he says, I don't understand. I says here's the thing. His name was Bill. I says here's the thing, bill, is that when you're way up here and you give a price and everybody else is way down here, then what's wrong with them? There has to be something wrong. You know, when you go out and buy something and there is something else sitting next to it and it's so much higher price, which one do you buy it? He smiles, he goes I'm gonna buy the higher price one that's his that fight lower pricing with higher prices. Yeah it's.

Speaker 1:

It's a crazy thing to think about, but it it it really works. Now you did mention you're building in the value of that price. You can't at the same time to raise the price there has.

Speaker 2:

you did mention, you're building in the value of that price at the same time. You can't just raise the price. There has to be something you're going to put in, and sometimes it's protection, some sort of warranty, a worry-free guarantee, any of that type of stuff that we show you how to do during our coaching.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's probably something you'd do anyway. Yeah, and that's probably something you'd do anyway. Yeah, I talked to contract. I've been preaching this for years, man, I'm like you don't have a lifetime workmanship 12, year 15, year 23,. If it was your fault you wouldn't fix it. Oh, I'd fix it if it was my fault. Would it be your fault at that point in time? Probably not Right. But what is the? How does the homeowner feel about that? Yes, wow, really.

Speaker 1:

This guy, well, these other companies are saying five years. You're telling me lifetime and what they mean in that five years is like. Because you know, I think that most, I think that most contractors are trying to do the bright thing right, the ones on the news you hear all the time. It gets a little filtered that way. But but I truly believe I I talk to a lot of people. I'm sure you do too man there's a lot of good people trying to do the right thing, and they would do the right thing at every point in the way. So why not express it, and express it in a way that allows you to be in business 23 years from now?

Speaker 2:

Right, you mentioned something big there. I was in a big, big bath franchise and I was sitting down with the owner and one of the production managers comes in. He says hey, we've got this customer. It's right outside of our warranty time. What do you want me to do? And he says fix it. He goes, but it's outside of our warranty time. He goes, it's got my name on it and he says fix it. He goes, but it's outside of our warranty time. He goes, it's got my name on it. Yeah, he says fix it. And the guy left. I'm like so let me ask you, I don't care if it's another 20 years down the road. What we do is I'm going to fix it. I'm like then take advantage of that, stop this 10 year warranty crap. Express it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a the. There is a pricing psychology. I don't know. Do you ever coach on on like multiple options, good, better, best kind of style of pricing? We get deeper, let's, let's go into that a little bit. If it's, if it's good, better, best, where does the middle go and why?

Speaker 2:

so you know, like your, your middle option is typically the option that you will sell the most, and so that's the one that that you want to have priced correctly. Now, you're bigger, you're best. What you do with that is you set the bar. That's where you set the standard when you're giving price. That's why we call it best, better, good, not good. Better, best, better, good, okay, yeah, and there's two ways of thinking about this. So if you're going to, if you're going to give the price in person, it's got to be best, better, good, and so I'm going to set the price with that. And then I'm going to jump over to the good and I'm going to trash all the Chuck and the trucks.

Speaker 2:

Okay, bob and Mary, this is how we compete with all the contractors. You know the Chuck and the trucks, vincent of vans, you know Dale from jail, you know all those guys. You know that's how we compete with them. And uh, but then what we found with a lot of the research that we've done, is everybody wants the durability and protection of the best, but they want it for the financial comfort of the good. Thus the better was born, and so we make, and we actually hired a lady that does a lot of this stuff for Kohl's. We paid her stupid money to tell us what we already know, but we raised the price of the best to really bring it up here. I mean, knock them out of their seats. And then what we did with the good was we put it within $500 of the better, and everybody that looks is like well, this is just a no brainer, I know. Well, yeah, it's designed that way.

Speaker 1:

It's designed that way. So this is where I was going and I thought this would be good is like designing your pricing right. Like I mentioned before, I think a lot of times we arbitrarily price our products, and not only. There's a couple of things that you could do there price our products and not only. There's a couple of things that you could do there. Like.

Speaker 1:

The first thing is you're not actually looking at your numbers when you're price. When you're building out your pricing right, you're not actually building in what your marketing budget will be, what your recruiting budget is, what your, what your, what your, what your. Yeah, yeah, you're kind of well, well, joe down the streets at this and Bob over there is at this and Sally's at that. So we're going to kind of we're going to be in there somewhere, but now the? So the first thing I think a lot of contractors should do is go back and price price based on real numbers and what they're trying to achieve in their business, on the profit that they're trying to make and all of that and then using sale pricing psychology, like you're talking about, to actually achieve that more often in there, in the, in the yeses is is fantastic, like that's my goodness. If, if you do that, I promise you, you're going to win, my goodness if you do that, I promise you're going to win.

Speaker 2:

We call this price engineering, but it does several things here. It's one thing to kind of push them into that middle package, but for the business, because on the good you might do felt paper and on the better you do synthetic, and on the best you do breathable synthetic Well, I want to do the same material as often as possible. I might not be able to do the same colors, but if I have all this synthetic at some point I could probably do a whole house of synthetic underlayment with the, the leftovers from the last 10 jobs. So again you're now you're a good steward with your money and again, if you're always doing that same, 80% of the time you're doing that same system, you can actually save a lot of money.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, inventory management there I know some great contractors who've gotten really good at that and then they have the ability to start to buy in bulk and they get to really create some competitive advantages in their marketplace where, like I know, I know a couple of contractors now that if they want the job, they get it and they'll be profitable because they've really dialed that, that in and they they know what they have in their inventory and they know what they can do with it and still be profitable and that's very, very powerful. It's very, very powerful. Yes, I think the market's changing on us. Chuck, what are you seeing out there? I know, from a digital marketing perspective, search volumes down, there's less calls coming in, there's more people that Google went to zero, a lot of zero click searches. People are talking in the chat GPT instead of going to Google from a marketing standpoint. But I feel like, are you having economic or just conversations of people who are saying you know, it's just not as good as last year?

Speaker 2:

It's. The market is changing and you can take, because there's a lot of companies out there that are dominating, and they'll tell you that they are still having record months that aren't in and they're not in the storm areas, but they're still having record months. We have a client in Syracuse, new York, that has tripled his business yet again. I mean, pes are chasing him down because he's this guy's good um and I'm fighting myself from saying the name but very, very good at what he does. And again, you know it's his mindset, it's the way he thinks, it's the way he goes to market, it's the way that he trains his sales staff and his production crews. That's why they're doing as well.

Speaker 2:

But then there are a lot of organizations that are what we like to call the red ocean organizations, which, if you look at blue ocean, red ocean, you know the red ocean organizations. They're playing in the bloodbath, they're the ones that are on social media and they're just waiting for someone to come up with a great idea. Well, just so you know, your competitor just saw that too, and they're out there doing the digital door knocking or whatever the shiny nickel is, and everybody's running towards it. This is why I love David Carroll so much because the one thing that not too many people are running towards is mail, and that's why David Carroll is making millionaires out of roofers and many other trades. But these folks are like, hey, if everybody else is running digital, I'm going to put my foot in the ring over there, but I'm going to put a lot of money in this because I know nobody is outside of a few window companies.

Speaker 2:

That you might compete with Mail is just weird. You might compete with mail is just weird. If you've looked at the mail that's coming to your house, how many pieces of mail are you getting for roofing, siding? Well, windows you do.

Speaker 1:

But windows yeah, um you know, gutters I don't you don't?

Speaker 1:

it's very strange and and it's like that, that's a. I. I love a good marketing mix. I'm the. I love omnipresence, I love being everywhere and in in their mailbox, like everywhere, that you can be at the same time, because when one has a little dip, you have other poles in the water, right, like there's um, and I think that, uh, you know, I, I know some people in the remodeling industry too, and I'm sure you do, and it's like, man, that the COVID money's gone. You know, like there's a, there's a lot of that that's gone away. And there's that old analogy of all time the tide lifts all boats Right, and now the tide is coming out a little bit, and so I've had conversations with many companies recently who they rode the tide and they got. They didn't execute, as if it was. They didn't know that it was, that they were in high tide, right, right, yeah, and so they executed that's the way they learned how to do business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and now, as things are moving away, I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 1:

That's the way they learned how to do business, yeah, and now, as things are moving away, they don't understand how to do business in a more scarcer environment. What would be your advice to those types of companies? So here's the again we're going to go back to COVID.

Speaker 2:

Everybody got lazy in.

Speaker 2:

COVID. I love the organizations. They're like, oh man, we went from zero to 10 million. Yeah, so did everybody else, you know. And but now that we're past coven, like you said, we're past the co-good money, um, you know the uh we, we go back to bc and people are like, oh, before christ, like no, before covet. You know, we actually had to sell before covet came along. We actually had to learn how to sell and even the sales based organizations have lost their minds. And now they're like oh, chuck, I don't know how to get back to this, I don't know what.

Speaker 2:

And it's like it's not as hard as you think, but the way that you do it is either going to sink you or make you very, very wealthy. You know, just like anybody else will tell you, when things get tough, that's when millionaires are made, because the majority of people will sink because they're not prepared and they don't know. And but yet those folks that are either willing to reach out and grab the proper help and be shown a better way of doing certain things, or that they're just smarter and they remember what it was like before COVID, those are the people that are going to make it very, very well. And again. We see these every day. We see the owners that have the right mindset and they're either willing to go out and get the help that they need or they already know. They already know how this is going to work and they're just smart people.

Speaker 2:

But then there's those other folks that you know. They don't know where to go, they don't know where to turn and they don't have the right mindset. All of a sudden, it's woe. Is me, oh my gosh. The economy, oh my gosh. The tariffs, oh my God. Like that doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Speaker 1:

No, but it's. You know both, both you and I were in the mortgage business. You know, back in the back in the heyday, right, and we watched it go up and down. That was one of my favorite lessons in life, looking back, because it was a. It was the tide, right, like I boy, it was it. It was a tide that I rode, and now I know when the tide is rising I could see it a little better, right Like I realize where I'm at. So, you know, get better is really the. You know, get better, adjust your pricing, get more profitable. Some of the other parts of the conversation that we have are really applicable to that right, like, if you're not, if you're running thin margins, oh, you're going to have some trouble, right?

Speaker 2:

So we have to train our sales reps on how to have the sales conversation too. You know, these sales reps are so they. They just don't know they. So many of these organizations are going out and say, hey, I just need somebody that knows how to get on a roof, do an inspection, come down and give a price. Yeah, I can hire somebody for 15 an hour to do that. I don't need a sales rep for that, that's right. I need a sales rep for is understanding how to give price and then how to talk to the homeowners so that we can fix their problems. And the problem is not their roof, their problem is trying to figure out who to use and how can I afford it. So, but they most sales reps won't go beyond the price.

Speaker 1:

No, what do you think? How do you feel that, the sale, that the kind of the AI technology? I know you I don't know if you still do, but you were working a lot with Rilla and things like that where you know some of the AI focused technology, whether through something like a Rilla or Ciro or one of those type of applications, or just in general. How do you feel? Where do you what, what? What does Chuck see the future around around this technology and the sales process?

Speaker 2:

So we do work very closely with Rilla and because of our partnership we get the opportunity to see the trends. We get the opportunity to see what works and what was nothing more than a myth. I can I can cover that all day long, but the where that technology is going, it's going to be part of your CRM. Just wait for it to happen. When your sales rep because we used to yell and scream ourselves put your notes in the system, put your notes in the system anymore, you don't have to really do it for you. They will break everything that happened in that house down and put it into your, your CRM for you. You know, I will say that AI currently is not going to take over sales. It's not going to. People still want to deal with people. Whether you want to believe that or not, they still want to deal with people. But how AI? I mean I could. It seems like every podcast right now.

Speaker 2:

We were talking about AI and what it's doing, what it can do for you. You know, one of the things that you're going to see at top rep is an organization that will completely moneyball your organization, and I do mean your marketing, your sales and your production. It literally tells you how to operate, to grow. And when I, when I was introduced to it, I was flabbergasted. I, okay, I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was here and uh, so I mean it's, it's growing, ai is growing fast inside of the, the industry. Um, and this is why diversification is not bad. I mean, the biggest industry that's going to be taken on not over, but taken on by AI is roofing, because you can do everything from a satellite.

Speaker 1:

I mean years ago, early on in my podcast I had a group on who was, who was working off of this, off of that type of imaging and doing damage detection and different things and the drone flyovers. I know Eagle View has applications and there's multiple applications in the marketplace now for for for AI. You know from that, but now you know from a satellite image now as now as the AI gets better. My goodness, to kind of summarize all that, what does a company do? Because I heard it but I'm not going to summarize it for you.

Speaker 2:

So I can cover this in different ways and I don't know if this is what you're thinking of but ways that you combat, like, the companies that are going to lose are the companies that are going to go into the fight with a manufacturer. What I mean by this is I've got GIF, I've got Owens Corning, so does everybody else, but when you go into this, this fight, to say our, our, uh techs install better, we protect it better, we, you know, and so the, what they need to put forward to the customer is your organization. How can your organization provide better service than everybody else that has the same products?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a differentiation in brand, essentially right, a differentiation in value in your marketing messaging, in your sales messaging, in your sales messaging helping that the same way that that you can increase your pricing and have a value conversation. You're, it's going to be like what? What I was hearing was that's going to be the impactful thing, moving forward. Yeah, and it, it, it's awesome, what? Okay, so we talked about a lot. We started off, started off with like you know, really you have to have the mindset of scaling and and it. You know, for a contractor out there, what you know, where do they? You know, I know, coaching is where you start and there there's a lot of great resources, but just individual to individual, what can they do to survive and thrive and actually scale to where they want to take their business.

Speaker 2:

So, first and foremost, they need to know their numbers, and I don't care how big or small these organizations are, we ask them about you know, okay, where do you want to go, what, what is your next move, and do you know what the numbers look like to do that? And I'll tell you, many of them don't know. They've never actually taken the time to see what, how many jobs that takes, and how do you break that down based on your bell curve? That's, that's one of the first things. The other thing is is take a look at your product. You mentioned it. Take a look at your product, your service and the experience that you provide. Well, would you want to sell it? Because, if not, maybe you need to take a look at it and start to change it so that your team actually feels comfortable providing it and selling it.

Speaker 2:

You know, that's one of the things that we just got done, talking about and then the mindset part of this is go out and find somebody that has been there and that is willing to bring you in and show you, and what you're going to find is somebody with processes, procedures, that they are unnegotiable. You're going to find a lot of people out there with processes and procedures. See the ones that are growing. They do not negotiate their process. Well, bobby doesn't like to sell like that, then bobby needs to go find another job, you know. Uh, well, tammy, you know that's just not her, that's not her thing, and so we had to kind of move her position in a way. Tammy needs to go find another job. You know your processes, your procedures. You do not negotiate it, because these are your values, your core values. This is the way that you're going to operate your business, and the moment that you decide that you're going to go differently, it's not going to go well, it's not going to go well, chuck.

Speaker 1:

It's always a pleasure man. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there, check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.

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Jim Ahlin

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