Many roofing companies have been using the same sales processes for years. They figure that as long as they keep selling, the process must be working. But even the most effective process can always be better, and a sales process that has been in place for several years may not reflect changes in the market, new technology, or the challenges your roofing business is currently facing. In addition, making consistent improvements to your sales process is vital to growing your profits and outcompeting other contractors in your area. Here are a few issues that you might be experiencing with your roofing sales process—and how to keep them from holding your company back.
3 Ways Your Roofing Sales Process Could Be Holding You Back
#1: It’s Taking Too Long
It takes time to complete every part of a roofing job, from the initial lead follow-up to the receipt of the final invoice. But many roofing contractors are spending more time on an individual sale than they need to, often without realizing it. An inefficient sales process can impede your productivity, limit the number of leads you can follow up with, and even turn away potential customers.
To increase your efficiency, take a look at each step of your sales process and identify areas where your business could save some time. For instance, you might be able to shorten the time it takes to produce an estimate. Or you might be able to reduce the number of times you meet with a homeowner before they sign a contract. It could even be as simple as finding a faster way to measure a roof.
Business management software like AccuLynx is designed to improve the efficiency of all your processes, including sales. One way AccuLynx can speed up your sales process is through streamlining the steps involved in creating an estimate. AccuLynx integrates with aerial measurement providers EagleView and GAF QuickMeasure, so you can order accurate measurements directly from our platform and save yourself the hassle of climbing on a roof. Once these measurement reports are delivered directly to your AccuLynx account, you can automatically populate a digital estimate with the measurements. Our Smart(er) Docs feature allows you to pull in details from the job file automatically as well, such as the homeowner’s name and address. And the completed estimate can be emailed directly to the homeowner. AccuLynx can help you turn estimating from a long, complicated process to a matter of a few clicks of your mouse, allowing you to deliver efficient, accurate estimates to as many homeowners as possible.
Read: Boosting Friendly Competition Among Your Roofing Sales Team
#2: It’s Hard to Scale
Every roofing business starts small, sometimes with only one or two team members. But if you base your sales process around the assumption that you’ll stay small forever, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. For instance, if you have only one salesperson, you might be fine with having them handle all the lead information on their own. But as soon as you have multiple people on your sales team, they will all need the ability to access lead information at any time—and if you don’t plan for this in advance, it could inhibit your ability to grow your team. The most successful roofing businesses have processes that make it easy to add new team members so they can keep growing sustainably and reach more homeowners.
Roofing business management software can help you make your sales process more scalable. With a cloud-based roofing software like AccuLynx, you can keep your business information safe and secure while allowing everyone on your teams to access it at any time. Within our digital job files, you can see all the information related to a given customer or prospect, including photos, documents, invoices, notes, and even a full record of messages sent and received through AccuLynx. Team members can make real-time updates to this information so everyone is on the same page. This means that if you add a new member to your sales team, the only thing they need to get up to speed on what’s happening at your business is an AccuLynx login. And whether your sales representatives are in the field, in the office, or at home, you can have confidence that they have all the tools and information to sell successfully.
#3: It’s Not Based on Recent Results
When was the last time you checked the numbers to see how well your sales process was really working? Some roofing companies believe that as long as they’re not losing money, their sales process is effective. But if you’re not regularly diving into the data around your business performance, you might miss potential growth opportunities and areas for improvement. Keeping an eye on your business results—and adapting your process based on those results—will help you maximize your profits and improve your effectiveness.
Business management software like AccuLynx tracks a wide range of metrics to give you the most complete data on your roofing business. In AccuLynx, our pre-built reporting dashboards allow you to see a snapshot of your key performance indicators (KPIs) at a glance. This includes some of the most essential results for evaluating sales performance, such as the number of leads in your pipeline; total sales revenue; closing percentage; and lead source reports. Many of these reports allow you to drill down even further and get a more detailed picture of your year end reporting. For instance, you can sort your sales revenue report to see which salespeople are responsible for the most revenue or which lead sources produced the highest-revenue jobs. You can even have these reports emailed to you on a weekly or monthly basis so you have a regular reminder to review your business performance.
When you look at your results regularly, patterns will start to emerge that can help you improve and refine your sales process. For instance, you might notice that one of your salespeople is falling behind, and needs more training to improve their performance. Or you might discover that your highest-revenue jobs come from a specific neighborhood, so you should spend more time canvassing that neighborhood. Whatever you learn from reviewing your business performance on a consistent basis, incorporating it into your sales process will help you see sustainable growth.
Reach Your Growth Potential With Better Roofing Sales Processes
Don’t let an outdated or ineffective roofing sales process hold you back. You can improve your current sales performance by increasing your efficiency, implementing technology to help you scale, and regularly reviewing your business data. And with a more effective sales process, you’ll see new levels of success.
