Toolbox march 2015

TOOLBOX A P U B L I CAT I O N O F C E RT I F I E D CO N T RACTO R S N E TWO R K M A RC H 2015

FROM THE PRESIDENT

TAKE A LOOK

INSIDE

The Big Circle Suddenly every contracting company is looking for salespeople and installers. Ask yourself: why would they work for you?

B Y S COT T S I E G A L

HERE’S THE PROBLEM: PEOPLE ARE IN DEMAND but, depending on the market, there are fewer and fewer people available. In the Washington, DC area, for instance, we have low unemployment and everyone wants to work for the federal government. When it comes to personnel, every contractor is our competition. With so few in the labor pool we’re all scrambling. And you have to not only add people, you have to figure out a way to keep the ones who’ve been with you for a while satisfied and happy.

Scott Siegal President, Certified Contractors Network

START EARLY

One way to find them is to change the recruiting mindset.

Instead of waiting until we needed a person immediately, we began posting ads for positions we would eventually need to fill. The problem at many companies is that it’s March, and if the owner thinks he’s going to need salespeople or installers in May, he looks in May. The time to look is now, not then. If you look then, you may get lucky and find someone. But how good is your luck going to be when every company is looking at the same time?

Putting a process in place will yield predictable results. Put some feelers out.

Most of the time, we attract people who are dissatisfied with their current job situation and want to make a change.

But you can assume, if they’re experienced people who are looking, that yours is not the only company they contact. They have a choice. And if you’re paying as well or better than anyone else in the area, that doesn’t automatically make you the company they want to work for. A good compensation plan is important— you won’t be taken seriously without it—but it’s just one piece. Building your appeal around it, we learned, is not productive. Saying you pay better than anyone else is like saying you have the best warranty, continued on page 2or

F E AT U R E S

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By The Book

An essential management tool.

A preconstruction meeting clarifies mutual goals.

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M E M B E R P RO F I L E

What’s To Discuss?

Filling In The Blanks

CCN member’s path to success.

8 SALES MEETING On Track

How to manage the subject of competition.

10 P RO F I L E Perfect Fit

Translating installation experience into sales.

11 M A R K E T I N G S P OT L I G H T

Saturation Bombing

An inexpensive way to mail many prospects.

12 I N T H E N E W S The latest news and CCN event updates.

A PUBLICATION OF

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The Big Circle

continued from page 1 use the best materials. It’s a given. You can’t hang your hat on that.

MISSION STATEMENT To enhance the professionalism, performance, and perception of the construction industry. We promote ethics, education, leadership, and innovation, so that the construction industry and the community achieve mutual benefit.

Corporate Headquarters 6476 Sligo Mill Road Takoma Park, MD 20912 301.891.0999 800.396.1510 866.250.3270 fax www.contractors.net STAFF Scott Siegal, President scott@contractors.net Jamie Siegal, Vice President jamie@contractors.net Gail McNeill, COO gmcneill@contractors.net Catherine Honigsberg, GM catherine@contractors.net Sindy Wohl, Director of VIP sindy@contractors.net Denise Metheny, Accounting denise@contractors.net Troy Timmer, Account Representative troy@contractors.net Shawn Feurer, Account Representative sfeurer@contractors.net Derrick Love, Technology derrick@contractors.net Sydney Ledger, Events sydney@contractors.net Eleni Brenner, Events Assistant eleni@contractors.net Toolbox is a publication of the Certified Contractors Network. Toolbox is a member benefit. Non-members may subscribe for $75 annually.

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OFFER THE INTANGIBLES

What appeals to people is the part of the job that’s less visible. Take flexibility, for example. This will vary from department to department. (There’s not a lot of flexibility available in production.) Allowing people to adjust their working hours to their lives has great appeal. We even offer telecommuting on a limited basis. And we’re starting to toy with the idea of a four (vs. five) day workweek with longer days but one fewer of them. People would much rather work ten hours a day, four days a week and have almost half the week to do other things.

For people under 30 this is a big one. You need young people willing to get into the business. They are the future of your company. And they look at things differently.

And then, here at Maggio Roofing, there’s training, which comes with travel.

Our people like the fact that they get to go to CCN conferences around the country, enhance their skills and meet other, similar people. They know—and let me know that they know—that we invest in them. For instance, a new salesperson we hired, in his 20s, with a background in civil engineering, saw our ad and took the job because we have a training program.

BENEFITS ARE BACK

We left our benefits intact during the recession. In that we may have been in the minority. Scrambling to lower overhead, many contracting companies cut benefits, including health insurance. I understand why. Benefits are expensive.

We have a health care plan and like most companies today, we do not pay for all of it. When you’re hiring this is going to be the second question that serious job candidate will ask about your company (right after compensation).

We have a 401(k) with matching funds.

We give someone who starts at our company paid time off the first year. That could be sick days, personal days or vacation. We offer paid holidays. All this is now part of the hiring conversation.

WHERE THEY WORK

The best new employees will be attracted to your company because of its culture. That’s defined in large measure by what it’s like to actually work there. You know and I know that when employees leave the office for the bar they’re talking about work. And if they’re saying that it’s an awesome place, that it’s fun, that they like coming in every day, then whoever else is in on that conversation will wonder: is that company a good fit for me?

You want your people talking about the company. That’s how you’re going to get your best new employees because they’re the most credible information source on the subject. If I tell a job candidate that we have a great company, what else would they expect me to say?

A final point. You can only offer top compensation, excellent benefits and a great place to work if you can pay for it. And you can’t pay for it if you don’t charge enough. All this is one big circle.

Putting It Together

MEMBER P RO F I L E

A combination of hands-on construction and corporate management skills shaped the company that became Holmes Custom Renovations.

B Y J I M CO RY

IN THE HOME RENOVATION business, owners of design/build remodeling companies tend to have started as installers in the field, and owners of home improvement companies—roofing, siding, windows— often worked in sales before launching their own operation.

Ian Holmes bucks the trend. Before he and his wife Lori started Holmes Custom Renovations in 2003, he had put in 12 years managing a Mercedes Benz repair facility in Connecticut, and before that worked in construction. Chance landed the couple in Cincinnati. The idea of a remodeling company “was always a dream of mine,” Ian Holmes says.

EVER MORE FOCUSED

Holmes Custom Renovations initially did kitchens, baths, additions, roofing… everything. But tracking profitability by job type made the advantages of exterior projects clear. “You move through them relatively quickly,” Holmes says, “and there are bigger margins there.”

Fiber cement siding—a product demanding considerable installation skills—became their forte. At the time, Holmes says, “no one was taking it on.”

Along with product specialization came the decision to invest in employee crews, as opposed to using subcontractors.

Holmes says he realized that the “financial risk” of installing with employees— no small addition to overhead—was outweighed by a level of quality that was a constant, and saleable. Also, employee skills could be steadily enhanced through training. With subcontractors, on the other hand, “you have very little control over them if you don’t give them a ton of work.” And “when you get them to the

level where they’re working great, they realize they can go out and do a little better on their own. Or you lose them to competition.”

QUALIT Y, TEAM BUILDING, TR AINING

Holmes says he simply applied much of what worked when he ran the Mercedes facility—quality control, team building, and education—to their home improvement company. That resulted in a reputation as a first-rate installer of fiber cement, and from there Holmes Custom Renovations took on products of similar quality, such as Marvin’s Infinity fiberglass window line, and Trex composite decking.

Here, too, ongoing training enabled the company to sell itself as a quality installer. And Holmes says explaining that employees rather than subcontractors install the (siding, windows, roofing, decks) can overcome as much as a 20% price difference, along with pointing out that faulty installation is the “number one disclaimer” by manufacturers when homeowners raise warranty issues.

BREAKTHROUGH VIA CCN

Companies sometimes reach a sales threshold they can’t get past. Holmes says that that’s what happened to Holmes Custom Renovations in the years immediately prior to joining CCN in 2011. “We fluctuated between $500,000 and $800,000,” he says, which is “not a bad number for a three or four person company.” Holmes did the selling and built his presentation around “honesty and a big smile.”

In the first full year after becoming a CCN member, sales leaped from $800k to $1.3 million. The next year, to $1.8

Ian and Lori Holmes, owners of Holmes Custom Renovations, in Cincinnati, OH.

million. Then: to $2.5 million. Holmes credits “good ideas from other CCN members” and the decision to hire marketing and sales manager Jim Gehm (from Hardie) for much of that. All the CCN processes—open book management, 4P selling, regular TQM meetings—and an emphasis on teamwork have helped propel the company to steadily escalating sales. Last fall Gehm attended the CCN lead generation boot camp and from that experience put together the company’s first canvassing operation, which is steadily creating leads. Now, with Gehm running sales and Lori Holmes managing events marketing and mailings, Holmes Custom Renovations is wrestling with the challenges that face successful companies.

Number one is finding good people to do the work, especially installation. To that end Holmes is looking not in Cincinnati— where there’s lots of work for qualified installers—but in states where work is not yet so plentiful and where a relocation package might persuade someone skilled to move. Holmes Custom Renovations continually advertises for new people.

“We’re looking for three good people now and it’s a continuing struggle.”

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By The Book

An employee handbook is an invaluable management tool.

By Marilyn Macfarlane

Must Haves

Here are some questions to ask yourself when preparing to put together an employee handbook: • Has your manual (handbook) been reviewed by an attorney?

• Does the manual contain a disclaimer stating that it is not intended to be a contract and that employment is at will?

• Does the manual contain a provision that indicates that policies or practices may be modified at any time?

• Does the organization always comply with its written personnel policies and procedures?

• Does the handbook require an employee signature, including updates?

• If the organization has more than 15 employees, is there an alcohol and drug abuse policy?

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I

f you’re like the owners of most contracting companies, you probably don’t have an employee handbook and it’s not a top priority.

Maybe it should be.

One central purpose of a handbook is to outline company policy in key areas of operations, stating the behavior that’s expected, behavior that’s unacceptable, and what will be done about infractions.

A problem for many owners when it comes to creating one is that they don’t know what their policies are. Company policies may exist only in their head and change all the time, depending on who and what they’re dealing with. So putting anything in writing creates some angst.

What if they change their minds? What if they want to selectively apply policy to different employees?

Some employers hesitate to put anything in writing because they don’t practice what they preach. Some just don’t want to pay an employment attorney in addition to their business attorney.

And then there’s the fact that organizing an employee handbook takes time, research, and work.

WRIT TEN POLICY

Your policies are about the way you want your company run, the processes and procedures you want followed. They document the expectations you’re setting for employees. A handbook containing those

policies says you’re a serious employer. It’s the piece that makes your company real.

I’ve created employee handbooks for several CCN companies, ranging in size from five to 25 employees. If you’re planning to create an employee manual, understand that it takes at least 60 days, and your personal involvement is needed.

You have to know, first of all, what your policies are. You also have to address and acknowledge state and federal regulations (for example, the Americans with Disabilities Act), to indicate that you’re in compliance.

One huge benefit is that, if you have several managers with different styles, the handbook standardizes managerial behavior. Say, for instance, sales manager Bob lets employees have flex time when it comes to being at the office but warehouse manager Jerry insists everyone be there at five minutes before the shift.

They have two different sets of policies.

That inconsistency can create problems, or legal issues. When you write down what your policy is and put it in your employee handbook, it’s no longer a matter of Jerry’s vs. Bob’s style but of what the company expects. You, the owner, don’t have to make up your mind about who’s right and who isn’t. It’s what’s in the book.

WHAT TO AVOID

If you put it together the right way your employees will welcome having written

BY THE BOOK

guidelines and standards.

Employees will read it if: 1) it tells them what’s in it for them (i.e., policy concerning time off, vacation, benefits, etc.), 2) how they can get into disciplinary trouble with you and what the possible consequences are.

What’s in it for them means they now know, for instance, the holidays you observe and what your vacation policy is, when you pay overtime, etc.

It also tells them what’s expected of them. For instance, when they should be at work or that horseplay on the job is not tolerated. This protects you in several ways. Say that, in the latter instance, after a warning, you fire someone for pushing and shoving. The former employee files for unemployment, claiming not to have been aware that that behavior could result in termination. You can point to the place in your handbook where it’s spelled out.

The handbook, in effect, proves you treat everyone the same and that you’ve made your policies and expectations known.

Your employee handbook should treat

How It Works

general guidelines rather than specifics.

You can, for instance, set forth your company’s safety policy (“Employees are responsible for job site safety”) without going into OSHA regulations. And don’t make it a description of each person’s job duties (that belongs somewhere else) or an operations manual. Those should be separate documents.

MA XIMIZE EFFECTIVENESS

Once you have your handbook prepared, and printed, distribute it to everyone, then schedule a company meeting to discuss it.

Ask employees to bring their copy so they can sign the acknowledgement pages at the end of the meeting. Explain what’s in it for them in a general sense, review individual sections that you feel particularly relevant, and be available to answer employee questions. Have each person sign his or her particular handbook.

One other thing is that once in place, your handbook will need to be updated.

Some of your policies are fairly consistent but then there are those that are apt to

need review by virtue of what they are and how your company changes over time.

Take the “Benefits” section, for example.

You may offer medical insurance through Aetna, with the company paying 50% of the premium and the employee paying the rest, and the next year you change carriers and only pay 30%. Your book should be general enough to simply state that you offer health care and pay a portion of the premium, eliminating the need for changes to the book when you change carriers.

But let’s say your company is growing and you want a policy defining Paid Time Off. In this situation, you would issue an addendum. Get that out to everybody along with an acknowledgement sheet that’s signed, indicating that they received it. But every 18 months to 24 months you will need a thorough review of your handbook to determine if it meets all your needs. It may be time for a new employee handbook.

At that point you will likely have seen what a valuable management tool it is and has become. — Marilyn Macfarlane can be reached at marilyndmacf@gmail.com

in the jury process and state that in the handbook. Nonregulatory topics covered in Six must-have topics in an example, your policy on jury an employee manual would employee handbook are: duty. Do you pay non tax-exinclude: empt employees for the time Employment: nature of the 1. employee privacy (i.e., you can search anything that spent away from the business employment relationship (i.e., belongs to the company), serving on a jury? That would defining employment at will), fall under the heading “Time employee relations, orienta2. employment at will statement, Spent Away From Work.” To tion, anti-harassment, confiinclude it, you’d need to be dential information, drug free 3. Equal Opportunity familiar with the requireworkplace, workplace violence, Employment statement, outside employment.

4. Americans with Disability Act ments in your state, which vary. In Colorado you would Compensation: overtime, statement of compliance, pay 50 dollars a day for the timesheets, paydays, paycheck 5. anti-harassment policy, first three days. In New Jersey, deductions, direct deposit, 6. substance abuse. you’d pay nothing. You would inclement weather policy.

These and other policy need to indicate some proof The Workplace: communicaareas will generally fall under that the employee had served tion of company information, several broad topics. For on a jury or been involved personnel files/access to

files, progressive discipline, performance reviews, safety, attendance and punctuality, smoke-free workplace, electronic communication devices and the internet, social media, cell phones/wireless handheld devices, inspections of company property.

Time Away From Work: paid time off (PTO), holidays, jury duty, military leave, medical leave of absence, workers’ compensation insurance.

Benefits: company required benefits, health insurance benefits, 401(k) savings plan, COBRA (medical benefits continuation).

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What’s To Discuss?

Does your company’s process include a preconstruction meeting with customers? If not, why not?

By Jim Cory

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he job involved a roof, and it was newly hired roofing crew leader Doug’s first day.

The crew arrived at 7:30, and knocked. When there was no answer, ladders went up and the tear-off began.

The roof was about three-fourths off when the office received a call from the customer, wondering where the crew was. Company owner Charlie Gindele hopped in his car and went to the job site.

As a result of a salesperson’s typo, the crew, it turns out, had stripped the wood shakes off a house at the wrong address and thrown them all in the dump truck.

That was before Gindele’s company did preconstruction meetings.

HOW IT WORKS

Preconstruction meetings are a standard practice in design/build remodeling.

Before actually undertaking a complex renovation, design/build contractors assume that all parties need to know and agree on what the job will look like and the logistics involved in putting it together. Multiple trades—plumbing, electrical, drywall, foundations, HVAC, etc.—will work on that jobsite. Schedules need to be agreed on and the homeowner made aware. Knowing who does what, and when, keeps the job moving.

In exterior contracting, the preconstruction meeting is far from

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standard issue. In fact, outside of CCN, this extra step between sales and production is rare. Roofing, siding and window replacement jobs are usually completed in less than a week, with standardized specifications. Jobs don’t vary greatly one from the next. Your salesperson has already spent substantial time with the customer, and at many companies a tech person will re-measure.

Why add one more meeting to go over the job and review the contract with the customer? Especially when there are four or five jobs a week going in?

Here’s why. To: 1. Obtain clarity. You “make sure you’re on the same page as the homeowner,” says Steve Rennekamp, president of CCN member Energy Swing Windows, in Murraysville, PA. Just because a window or roof replacement job is simple compared with a kitchen or an addition doesn’t mean there aren’t options for homeowners to choose from and decisions for them to make.

Those decisions—color, grids, etc.—will be contained in any well-prepared contract. The preconstruction meeting verifies them.

2. Reassure customers. At many exterior companies, homeowners get a phone call at some point after signing telling them when they might expect the crew. The next thing the homeowner knows the crew is there. Arranging to

W H AT ’S T O D I S C U S S? meet in person to go over the contract and installation procedures “gives us a whole lot of trust and credibility,” Rennekamp says.

3. Make the job yours. Homeowners typically talk to more than one contractor. All those contractors will suggest a different scope of work, present different product suggestions, and describe different procedures.

Likely enough your homeowner is not taking notes and even if he/she were, it’d be difficult to sort through the myriad suggestions. So in the preconstruction meeting you establish what it is your company will do for this homeowner.

4. Ensure access to the property. You may not ever enter the house on a roofing or siding job. On the other hand, there may be shrubbery or other landscaping blocking ladders or scaffolding. With windows, of course, you are working inside the house. That doesn’t automatically ensure crews can get to the windows once they’re there. Gindele recalls having to have a waterbed with a headboard blocking window access drained in order for the window to be replaced. Suppose you didn’t know that that was there before someone arrived to install? “Access is a big issue,” he says. “More people have a home office, and those computers and monitors have to be moved.”

WHO AND WHAT

At most companies, at least exterior companies, setting up and managing the preconstruction meeting is the responsibility of whoever is in charge of production. (See sidebar.) This is a process taught at CCN’s Blue Collar Management boot camps. Six months ago, new CCN member Bill Chase, owner of High Tech Windows, in Haverhill, MA, began holding preconstruction meetings on his company’s siding jobs, which typically last two to three weeks. It’s a simple procedure, Chase says. “My production manager and the homeowner meet up and go over the details of the job,” he says. On the agenda is a stock list for the job and the scope of work. “Sometimes the sales rep might not

have put some details on his paperwork,” Chase says. “And in the siding world, you can’t miss an important detail.”

It was only when Chase hired a production manager for his company’s siding jobs, he says, that he was able to schedule preconstruction meetings. Before that he was his own production manager and time was limited.

WHAT’S TO DISCUSS

Use a checklist to ensure that you

Follow Through

CCN member Energy Swing Windows, in Murraysville, PA, combines a final measurement of the job with a preconstruction meeting. That meeting, which typically takes an hour, happens no more than two weeks after contract signing.

Installation manager Jeff Blank says he moves through “a checklist of everything sold” to verify specifics such as color, grid patterns, hardware, how windows will be finished inside and outside. In addition, “I lay out what the typical day is going to be like during installation.” On the night of the sale homeowners aren’t always mindful of what it is, exactly, they’re getting, Blank says. Better to verify that information ahead of time than, say, to catch a discrepancy on the day of the installation. What’s also important, he says, is that Energy Swing’s message to homeowners—that the company seeks to earn their trust and confidence—is consistently followed through, from first phone call to final walk-through, so that the company is in a position to ask for referrals.

get what you want and need from a preconstruction meeting. Review: Contract specifications: What items, in what quantity, are needed to complete the work. This is as much to ensure you have exactly what you need to do the job as to reassure homeowners. It’s about efficiency.

Scope of work: As complete and detailed a description as possible, and one that aligns with what the homeowner believes he/she was sold.

Homeowner responsibilities: Homeowners may need to remove pictures from walls or furniture from around a window. Look over the work area and visualize whatever might slow a crew.

Start date: When you’ll get started, making provisions of course for weather events that might cause you to have to postpone.

Logistical and staging issues: Where the dumpster and porta-potty go, where crews can park, where materials are stored.

Protective measures and clean-up: Indicate ways in which you’ll keep the job site clean and safe, both while working and when through for the day, as well as when the job is closed out (for example, by dragging magnets through the grass to pick up stray nails).

SET TING EXPECTATIONS

In making a point of discussing these at a separate meeting before the job begins, you, in effect, take credit for them.

Otherwise, why would the homeowner even notice? Their idea of how your company performs and how that might be different from the competitor they could’ve hired will be based on assumptions.

Checking in with the homeowner on these items sets the expectation for what your company will do. It then becomes possible to go beyond what homeowners now expect, creating the feeling that they’re getting super service and have found a company they would not only use again but recommend to everyone they know. “Certainly in the day of social media you want the customer experience to be a great experience,” Gindele says. “We do it for the customers’ sake and for our sake.

Yes, it’s an extra step. But if it’s done well it more than pays for itself.”

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SALES MEETING BEFORE OR AFTER

On Track

No, you’re not the only game in town. But you certainly want your prospect to believe that you are.

B Y TO M CA P I Z Z I

SOME SALES TRAINERS TEACH, and some companies practice, asking homeowners whether or not they’re considering a competitor.

Some will even ask that as a qualifying question on the phone when they’re setting up the appointment. Or, the salesperson will ask that question shortly after arriving at the house.

My suggestion is: don’t.

When it comes to the subject of competition, I’ve never seen the benefit of bringing it up unless the prospect does or unless they somehow let me know that there’s a competitor waiting in the wings.

Other than that, bringing it up carries a risk. A good percentage of people will call only one home improvement company.

They’re looking to see how it goes. If that’s the case, you can close them and end of story. If you bring up competitors and they’d never thought about the idea, you’re putting them in a position where they have to say something. And they feel obligated to get more proposals.

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T WO STR ATEGIES

If they mention or hint that there’s another company involved—that they’ve talked to someone already or they’re seeing someone later in the week—I need a strategy.

To figure that out, I have to be completely contained. The prospect is pressuring me by mentioning this.

Someone new to sales can easily be thrown. Instead, take it in stride. I might nod and say: I understand. Then I get back on track with my presentation. If I’ve only been in the house five minutes and suddenly start demanding to know who the competitor is and when they’re coming, it would be like suddenly bringing up the deposit check, or asking how they plan to pay. We’re not there yet. I haven’t earned their confidence to the point where I can ask that question without it appearing awkward, or tactless. We have no rapport yet, no comfort level that would make that question okay to ask.

To be a successful salesperson, you have to be indifferent toward the competition.

Think of it this way: I work for a great company and I’m presenting this homeowner with the best value he or she can get, so they will choose me.

If you believe that, then you literally could care less about the competition.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be aware of competitors. I should know who they are, what they do and what they’re pricing structure is. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know if they’ve talked to another company or that they’re planning to. I do need to know that. Because depending on whether that competitor’s 1) already been there and left a price, or 2) coming tomorrow, I will put a certain strategy in place.

So if the prospect mentions competitors in such a way as to put pressure on you, there’s an effective rejoinder. Say: Well, we don’t get every job. But we do get our share.

Sometimes you can walk in the door and they want to let you know they’re running the show, that they’ve got three or four contractors lined up to submit proposals and the lowest price gets it.

Amateur Hour salespeople get emotionally hijacked by that language and respond poorly. They may be so flummoxed that they say something ridiculous or leave without bothering to quote the job.

My initial response would be to nod my head and say: No problem.

Then get back on track.

Suppose in the middle of that sales call they bring up the competition and say that they’ve got another bid, or will get one tomorrow night.

What you don’t want to do is suddenly begin to reiterate everything you’ve already said about licensing, insurances, quality materials, etc., overselling all that stuff all over again. Hearing you repeat it will sound awkward, if not desperate.

Stay focused and keep on track. Note

it and move on. But if another company or companies are scheduled to present, your goal, by the end of the appointment, is to convince homeowners that that’s unnecessary.

WE HAVE OTHER BIDS

What if your prospect has already talked to those competitors and received proposals? How do you respond?

Stay cool. Again, let them know that your company doesn’t get every job. How could it? Say that with a smile.

By now, if you’ve developed some trust and confidence, and your prospect truly does have one or more proposals from competitors, you need to do one thing: get them to show those to you, so you can make an apples-to-apples comparison.

Suppose you say something like: can I have a look at their proposal? You’re liable to put them on guard. Approach it instead from the standpoint of what you, the expert on roofing/siding/windows, can do for them in this situation. Say something like: You know, I’m okay with not getting this job. I don’t get’em all. But while I’m here I’d really like to help you make an informed decision. Let’s just look at the different proposals and compare them.

We had a situation in December where we bid on the construction of a home. We were there, waiting to sign the papers, when the client showed up alone. He said he was there to give us the courtesy of explaining that he was going with another builder because there was too big a price difference.

We were able to persuade him to pull out the proposal, then went through it with him to point out, line for line, the differences.

We then attached a dollar figure to those to show him that the proposals were, in fact, in the same price range. He said: “I can’t believe this. I’m calling my wife right now and we’re going to go with you.”

COMPETITION AT CLOSING

Let’s say the prospect has let it slip, early on in our appointment, that they will be

seeing one or several other contractors. I take care not to say anything. It doesn’t mean you have to respond. Step back and imagine you’re them, and they mention a competitor and the next thing you know you’re talking about the competitor’s

Everything else—you, company, and proposal—is a home run. But your price “seems high.”

You then put your consultant’s hat on and offer to compare the proposals, as there is almost always a difference in the

If another company or companies are scheduled to present, your goal, by the end of the appointment, is to convince homeowners that that’s unnecessary. lousy reviews, bad workmanship, etc. How transparent is that?

Another way of managing this subject is to deal with it at the close. You’re going to need to, because you can’t close if the prospect is planning to meet with your competitor later on, right?

If after you’ve presented, and the prospects seem ready to buy, ask them: Is there a reason why you feel you need another quote?

Then be quiet and see what they say.

Whatever they say will give you the information you need to close. Price is the likely stumbling block, but it might not be. Ask them how they feel about the company, about working with you as a consultant, and about your proposal.

How do you feel about the scope of work I’ve outlined?

Let’s say your prospect suddenly says: “I’ve never had a ridge vent and my father never had a ridge vent and I don’t see where I really need one!”

People ordinarily won’t tell you something like that when you’re going through the normal mode of proposing and presenting. But if you hang in there and keep asking questions in a sincere way, you can identify what’s holding them back and overcome it.

But say they have a competitor’s proposal in hand and the issue is price.

scope of work.

If they don’t have any estimates yet, you could ask them: If you went to two legitimate car dealers and compared the same exact make and model of car, with options, what would you expect the price differences to be?

If they can’t come up with an answer, ask if a 5% to 10% variance in price makes sense, given all the different options and features available.

If someone has a $15,000 estimate, that person might think they can go to another contractor and save thousands. We want them to understand that it’s not the same job, or the same type of company.

Final Note: Your product knowledge and presentation can count for a lot, but you can only leverage those if you’re someone the prospect holds in high esteem. Who you are, how you conduct yourself, is what builds the credibility and trust. Think of a doctor. To you, his pronouncements on your health have the ring of authority and truth. Without credibility and trust you can come off as a cheesy salesman running through a script. But if they see you as someone who upholds a higher standard, if they believe who you are, they won’t see the need for another quote.

— Longtime CCN member Tom Capizzi is owner of Capizzi Home Improvement in Cotuit, MA.

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Perfect Fit P RO F I L E

He spent long years on the roof, moved into sales, and found his calling.

B Y J I M CO RY

Jody Keefer Sales Consultant Brothers Services, Inc. Baltimore, MD

IF JODY KEEFER, CCN’S SALESPERSON of the Year, runs into a tricky situation on the roof, chances are excellent he can explain it all in detail to the homeowner. That’s because Keefer spent twenty-five years in the field before he ran leads.

Hired at CCN member Brothers Services Co. in Baltimore five years ago to handle service calls (i.e., diagnose and make necessary roof repairs), Keefer says his ambition to sell developed from interacting with Brothers Services sales guys. The sales guys would come out on jobs to see how production was going.

They told Keefer he should try sales.

“I’d always been a roofer,” Keefer says.

“I didn’t know if I could sell.”

C AN I MAKE IT?

Field experience can be particularly convincing when a roof is at the stage where repairs might give it a year or two more of life.

Many roofing salespeople have no field experience, and Keefer notes that there are homeowners eager to hear about how a roof system functions, and what can be done to ensure its long-term life.

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Keefer says bigger than the fear that he wouldn’t be able to sell was replacing his guaranteed salary as a Brothers Services installer with the uncertainty of living completely on sales commissions. He applied and after one week of training, began selling, typically from leads that involved homeowners with roofs in need of repair.

Keefer quickly obliterated the stereotype of the installer as uncommunicative. “I spend about 20 minutes chatting with [homeowners],” he says. “Then I’ll tell them: ‘I’m going up on the roof now to see what’s going on and take some pictures.’” If the situation requires replacing the roof, he’ll explain in detail why and how. He also explains, in the course of his presentation, that “I’ve been in the field for a long time.” That can be particularly convincing when a roof is at the stage where repairs might give it a year or two more of life, but that’s it.

Many roofing salespeople have no field experience, and Keefer notes that there are homeowners eager to hear about how a roof system functions, and what can be done to ensure its long-term life.

GUILDQUALIT Y R AVE That knowledge is convincing when it comes to closing. No bluff, no bull. “From tear-off to the last shingle cap, I walk them through it,” he says. For instance, his second re-roof involved a home where Keefer spotted frost on the sheathing during his attic inspection, something he’d never seen. The roof was only five years old, and looked to be properly ventilated, with ridge and soffit venting. But moisture on the plywood was a sure sign the roof system was failing. “If I’d never been in the field, I wouldn’t have known what to do,” Keefer says. What he did do was pull some shingles, at which point he came to the conclusion that the soffit vents were blocked. The attic had venting but no ventilation. “I sat down with them for three hours,” he says. “I said: the roofing company you used didn’t do it right.”

But field experience isn’t the only thing that reassures customers. Keefer’s first sale was a $36,000 roof, whose owners knew of Brothers Services, and its reputation for cleanliness, service and efficiency. They were sufficiently impressed with their salesperson to rave about their experience with him and the company on customer survey site GuildQuality. That posting, which Brothers vice president/sales Dave MacLean printed and distributed company-wide, “boosted my confidence,” Keefer says.

“In my first year, I didn’t sell a lot of big jobs,” he says. In the second year, though, he learned “how to take some of these repair jobs and turn them into re-roofs” by combining the 4P sales process with his knowledge of roofing. That enabled Keefer to double his sales. Though, he says, he was surprised when at the CCN Wizard Awards in Tampa he was named Salesperson of the Year. “I was really shocked,” he says, attributing his success in part to “telling myself: you can do this, and I am going to do it.”

Saturation Bombing If you’re marketing on a tight budget, there’s a post office program that might enable you to do direct mail inexpensively.

MARKETING S P OT L I G H T

B Y J I M CO RY

IT USED TO BE THAT IF YOU wanted to send direct mail advertising, you had to buy a mailing list and then pay first class postage or post card rates on each piece. Add to that the cost involved in designing and producing a quality four-color mailing piece, and a response rate from the consumer public trending downward and it’s no wonder that direct mail soon became a far less popular advertising medium than it once was.

POST OFFICE GETS COMPETITIVE

Which may have been why, in 2011, the U.S. Postal Service introduced Every Door Direct Mail. EDDM makes it far easier and more affordable for businesses to use direct mail advertising. First of all, there’s no mailing list to buy. You buy every address in a specific postal route.

Starting at a rate of 15.7 cents, the USPS will drop your marketing piece addressed to HOMEOWNER at each house on the route. Drew Barto, director of marketing at Energy Swing Windows, in Murraysville, PA, started using the EDDM system to send out direct mail pieces not long after the USPS introduced it. He first tested it with 5,000 mailed flyers. Energy Swing now sends out 60,000 flyers a month via EDDM.

PICK AND CHOOSE ONLINE

It’s easy enough to send marketing pieces via EDDM. Go to the USPS website at www.usps.com and click, over on the left, on Advertise with Mail. Enter, for instance, a zip code. The site features a mapping utility and will take you to a map with the boundaries of any zip code you enter drawn around it. Click on any street and a particular postal route will be illuminated in color. So clicking on one route in downtown Philadelphia, for example, shows 1,371 total delivery addresses at a cost to you of $239.93. Now the site

Energy Swing’s February EDDM flier.

The post office has different rules for size that apply to fliers distributed via EDDM. will ask you to create an account, with a password. Pay for your purchase, and deliver your print pieces to the local post office for mailing.

Yes, there are restrictions. The program applies to pieces the USPS defines as a “flat,” so standard envelope and post card sizes do not apply. The website www. printplexusa.com says an item delivered in this way “needs to either exceed 6-1/8” tall OR exceed 11-1/2” long, but must be less than 12” high and less than 15” long (height is always considered the short dimension, and length the long dimension, regardless of the text orientation of the mail piece).” Each piece can weigh up to 3.3 ounces and must contain approved postage indicia and a “simplified” address format.

GOOD MARKETING RETURN

Barto says he was looking for a new lead source because “home shows are a rat race” of 30 or 40 competitors vying for the attentions of the same consumer. This way he can select those neighborhoods where the company’s sold jobs or those that are new to Energy Swing but which contain the houses 20 to 30 years old— prime candidates for new windows, siding or roofing—that fit its marketing

Drew Barto, Director of Marketing Energy Swing Windows Murraysville, PA

In “the middle of busy season,” Energy Swing typically generates 20 or 30 leads, and ultimately five or six sales from an EDDM mailing. That’s roughly a 10% marketing cost. demographic. With EDDM mailings homeowners in a particular neighborhood can be reached with marketing messages.

And the company is often in an exclusive selling position, i.e., the homeowner isn’t also talking to five other window companies.

In “the middle of busy season,” Energy Swing typically generates 20 or 30 leads, and ultimately five or six sales (“anywhere from $35,000 to $60,000, depending on job size”), from an EDDM mailing. That’s roughly a 10% marketing cost. Barto says the mailings also resonate. Homeowners have contacted the company for an appointment and referenced fliers that were a year old or older, meaning they had kept them.

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TOOLBOX A P U B L I CAT I O N O F C E RT I F I E D CO N T RACTO R S N E TWO R K M A RC H 2015

IN THE NEWS

Have a party!

If you’re doing a fair number of jobs, scrap metal—copper, aluminum—is worth something when it’s sold for recycling. Selling it generates enough cash to throw a party, or a few of them, at CCN member Maggio Roofing. General manager Catherine Honigsberg says these informal cookouts “where the guys marinate the beef and grill it,” include everybody at the company. They are usually on a Friday afternoon. “We put up some tarps for shade and grill in our yard (at Maggio Roofing).”

Guacamole, beans and tortillas are served as well..“The office personnel also love it,” Honigsberg says. “They bring their own chairs from home and we make up benches. We even have some of the kids come by.”

Alaska CCN Member Cited as Best Rural Dealer Renewal by Andersen of Alaska, AKA Integrity Roofing and Windows, once known mostly as a roofing company, is selling so many Renewal by Andersen replacement windows that the company was cited by RBA corporate as “City and Rural Company of the Year.” RBA noted the fast-growing Anchorage operation’s 150% surge in sales and its 96% customer satisfaction rate. From left to right: Paul Delahunt, president of Renewal by Andersen, Jason Boesl, production manager for RBA/Alaska, Chris Dunn, co-owner of RBA/Alaska, Audrey Dunn, co-owner of RBA/Alaska and Jay Lund, president of the Andersen Corporation.

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About CCN Mission Statement The Mission of CCN is to make its independent contractor members more successful and profitable, while assisting them to provide better and more professional services and products for their customers.

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