Residential –vs– Commercial Roofing Customers

daviddeschaine

Which customer would you rather have - a residential customer or a commercial customer.

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David J. Deschaine
http://www.startmyroofingbusiness.com

http://www.roofingbusinessblueprint.com

Grumpy

I am primarilya residential roofer however I have spent the last few years spinning my wheels trying hard to get into the commercial market. It just has not happened they way I have wanted. I really do enjoy the residential work, and don't want to sacrifice the quality minded customers I have however I do find my selling style is better suited to a commercial audience. I am not a closer, and in residential I find a good bulk of the work gets eaten up by low ballers and high pressure salesmen. I am a high quality, median priced guy.

My style of selling is to build trust through education. This works well, I find, with educated consumers who understand the value of a dollar spent. However those whow ant to buy cheap, not my customer and those that are easily maipulated with deception and "too good to be true" promises, usually not my customer. I do spend a tremendous ammount of time with my customers discussion their needs, educating them on their options, sometimes making revisions, getting the job started to ensure the crew knows all the little details the customer and I may have discussed, performing final inspections with the customer and making sure overall their satisfaction was met 100%.

For that time spent, I feel I would be better off chasing larger jobs. Instad of running 10 estimates a week in residential where the average job may be 25 squares and knocked out in a day or two TOPS, I could run 4 or 5 estimates in a week and have the crew busy for a full week with a 100 square job. That means less time wasted running estimates, and more time spent ensureing customer satisfaction. In other words, for the time spent I expect to see a much larger return in commercial.

One other thing nice about commercial, my daily overhead doesn't matter if I am commercial or residential. I need to earn the same ammount per day. I find that while I am not trying to be, I am much more competitive on the commercial than on the residential where guys workign for beer and cheeseburgers are common place. I also find that in most, not all, cases the commercial buyers are more sophistacted than the average joe home owner that just wants a deal. Regardless of residential or commercial, an educated customer is my best customer.

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-Grumpy
Chicago Gutters Chicago Roofing

Joyfully

Hi,
One of the most important points of difference between commercial and residential roofing is that though they are ultimately meant to serve the same purpose at the end of the day, they are still meant to serve on different kinds of roofs. In other words the design structures of the roofs they are expected to be constructed upon vary greatly.

Roof Ventilator

gtp1003

me i always was a residential guy, would imo use a residential guy for that. commercial form commercial. Thats my 2 cents.

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gograiley

God bless you guys who work with the house wives in residential

whitcoroofing

Well in my case it would be commercial, considering less than 2% of my company’s revenue comes from residential jobs. I'm not going to talk negatively about either client, but we target clients seeking quality solutions. If everybody chose the cheapest bid, then we would be out of business. In the case of commercial clients, they are usually more incline to pay a premium, because they usually know what they want, and they want the best. I guess what I'm trying to say is when you have a warehouse full of millions of dollars of inventory you are going to do whatever you have to, to make sure that roof doesn't leak.

GA commercial roof contractors

shazapple

I'm not a roofer, but I deal with a lot of commercial buildings. Every once and a while I'll have to deal with a residential style roof (aka shingle) and they are the hardest to ensure quality workmanship because most residential roofers in my area are not part of any association or programs which ensure some level of skill.

RooferJim

There both good. Commercial is better margins and can be repeat business . Residential is great for cash flow and quick turn around. Grumpy my friend, give me a call sometime. I got some advise for you on commercial work but will not put it on a public forum.

Billy Luttrell

Grumpy, I can tell you some of the reason why your closing on residential vs commercial is the way it is. I had the unfortunate experience of working for a large storm chasing company for a short while. Even though I was in production, they still had me attend sales meetings on occasion and the salesmen are pretty much trained like you said...high pressure...something for nothing...to good to be true.

The top dogs and sales managers told me I would not make a good salesman because I know to much about roofing and installations and that I would end up talking more technical terms and roofer jargon and explaining how roofs are applied etc, etc, which in turn "over complicates" the conversation and the sale and makes the customers think to much thus making them want wait before they sign a contract and weigh options.

I still do some residential but I do not market towards it, just when someone else refers them to me. I did learn a lot about sales from that company and to be honest, I just do not have it in me to sell that way...call it ethics and morals.

I just sold a commercial job on Wed. and the customer told me he was going with me based on my explanation of the job process and application of the materials to be used...pretty much all the technical terms and roofer jargon that residential customers to not want to hear.

Grumpy

Billy, You do not need to, nor do I, sell the way the "closers" do. Yes I do talk technical jargon, but I back it up with photographs because a picture speaks 1,000 words. I would agree with you 100% it's very ez to confuse people when you get into the technical, but at the same time I want people to understand the differences between the other bidders and myself. I am proud to say we are usually offering a superior roofing system and if I can convince the customer of that, the sale should be mine... assuming the customer gives a chit about quality vs low price.

This too goes against what the sales gurus say. They say sell on emotion, don't focus on their logical side. I think if you can do both you are, or shoudl be, a juggernaut. Simply focusing on the emotional side without having the logical side to back it up is a recipe for disaster on the back end. Production may be left with a mess to clean up, but hey the "sales" man is happy, he got his commission.

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-Grumpy
Chicago Gutters Chicago Roofing