Transcription
Hey guys, so you clicked on this video because, well, you're excited about getting what I'd like to say, free leads. I'm going to teach you a great strategy to get almost free leads from real estate agents. Let's get started.
To our loyal subscribers, guys, thanks a lot for subscribing to the channel. The channel has grown way faster than I thought it would. I really appreciate you guys obviously subscribing and then continuing to come back and watching more videos. And if you're new to the channel, welcome. I just want to introduce myself really quick, just so you know you're getting your advice from. My name's Zach Blinkensoft. I'm the owner of a company called Digital Roofing Innovations. I'm a US military veteran and licensed general contractor and roofing contractor in over nine states. I just want you to feel comfortable that I'm someone that's qualified to give you advice on this.
All right, so let's hop straight into the video. So if you have not watched our video on how to get leads from insurance agents and it's almost free leads, I definitely recommend watching that video after you finish this one. Now, I do think getting leads directly from insurance agents are the top-dog leads you possibly could get as a roofing contractor, particularly a residential roofing contractor. But real estate agents is a close second. Okay, so we're going to talk about three steps on how to basically land. We're going to, we're going to refer to insurance agents basically as customers or brokerages as customers, and then how to maintain those relationships. So I'm going to show you the three steps on how we were able to bring on a ton of leads from building relationships with real estate agents.
Now, of course, it's not rocket science. Most people that get into the industry know that real estate agents can be a great way to get leads from roofs because there's plenty of people selling their house that had hail damage, they never got it fixed, or there's a leak in the roof, they just had, you know, a temporary repair, that's that and the other. A lot of times people just want an inspection done, and which is another great way to generate revenue. And I'll go over that at the very end of the video, just because I want you to focus on actually getting the relationship first, then we'll talk a little bit about, uh, different projects that you can land.
Okay, so step number one, uh, first off, you need to make sure that it's a real program that you're putting in place. Whether you're a one-man show, and there's nothing wrong with that, um, obviously a great way to make a lot of money is building relationships with insurance agents and real estate agents, especially if you're by yourself because it's just a lot less door-knocking that you're going to have to do. But the number one, the number one thing, guys, first is make sure that you put this into a program and then follow these steps to make it, make it successful. So whether you're one person by yourself, or you're going to introduce this to your entire company and your entire sales staff to start doing, you guys have to coordinate together so you're not calling the same people, you're not trying to set up meetings over the top of each other. It's a coordinated effort.
Okay, so step number one is cold calling. Now, what I always recommend doing is trying to call, cold call into the brokerages first. So you want to get, you want to be able to get in front of 20 real estate agents or five real estate agents versus trying to pick them them off one by one. So what you need to do is whether it's Merrimack or, um, ReMax or, uh, you know, whatever, whatever real estate agency it is that's out there, um, that you're wanting to, that you're wanting to sell to, find those brokerages and call them up. Don't do drop-ins on all these people because you're just going to burn a lot of gas and stuff like that because then today, you don't want to just talk to people, you want to set meetings.
Okay, so you want to cold call to set meetings. So all you do is go on Google and you look up your, all your brokerages in your area that you're operating in, and you're just going to start calling. And you can use the same kind of script every time. This is basically what I would say, um, like, "Hey, this is Zach Blinkensoft. I'm with Digital Roofing Innovations. Are you guys, uh, do you have any active roofing contractors that you guys recommend for your roofing work when you're going to sell houses or you're helping a homeowner purchase?" And they'll, most of the time, they will say yes, "Yeah, we have, we have a couple of, uh, roofing contractors that we work with." But if they don't, we'll say, "Hey, listen, I really think there's, uh, an opportunity for us to help your brokerage and help your agents out. Is there, when is the next time that you guys are having a team meeting?" And they say, "Well, you know, my is the 20th of January." Whenever the next team meeting is, what you want to do is talk to the person who owns the brokerage. And you want to be able to, again, you can do this before or after, but this is still during your cold call, you want to be able to set an appointment to be able to, if you can't talk to all the agents at once, at least talk to the owner of the brokerage. So that's the number one person you want to get. Because if you try to sell to, um, individual agents, it's kind of like going into a neighborhood and you can go sell to the HOA, and the HOA may recommend you to 50 different homeowners versus you going in door-knocking. It's a lot better off you to build a relationship with the HOA versus trying to just get one-off on different homeowners, right? So again, you're going for the big fish.
So what you want to try to do is again, is set up the meeting with the broker. And if you can, where all the agents are going to be there. And guys, sometimes these agent meetings, you know, you might get 20, 30, 40 people on there. And the fact that you know so many people are using Zoom now after COVID, it's easy for you to segue in. You get, you know, five or 10 minutes to pitch what you're wanting to do to, uh, the agents. Uh, but the point is, you wanna, you gotta get this meeting set up. Okay, so that's, that's number one. You gotta set the meeting with cold calling.
Moving forward, number two is go to the meeting. And this is, we're going to say, go to the meeting and then close. Everybody knows, uh, if you're a contractor or salesman out there, you know what closing is. And you gotta close in this business to get, get sales. But the biggest thing is, guys, this is even though we're doing business to consumer, because, um, yeah, we are, you know, selling in this, in this model, we're mainly going to be selling, uh, you know, roofs to residential, residential customers, you have to approach this to as sales because you are selling to a brokerage, and they're going to be your customer. Of course, the homeowner will eventually be your customer. But these, you have to approach these people like your customers.
Now, in my opinion, the best way to close these people is when you get the opportunity to get in the bro, in front of the brokerage or the agents. Do not brag about your company. I don't care if you do $20 million a year, okay? If you do $50 million a year, I don't care if you do the best job out of anybody in your town and everybody knows who you are. Don't talk about yourself. Allow them to tell you because most of these agents have roofer buddies or people they know that go out now. And some of these agents may have a friend that does, but he's awful doing the inspections, he never shows up on time, um, you know, maybe he's done a bad job on an install. There's always opportunities with, with real estate agents. So listen to what they have to say. And that's the biggest thing. They're going to tell you exactly what they need. One of the problems they may be bad customer service, maybe that the roofing contractors they've used are a little rough around the edges, and they want a little bit more, you know, a cleaner look for the people that show up to, to do the inspections or to re-roof a house right before the, um, you know, right where they sell it. Or there's an insurance claim, they don't know how to navigate the waters of the insurance claim, and they need help with that.
But the point is, you need to go to that meeting and you need to go with the intent that, and I used to use it, I used to use this all the time. This was just a, uh, once I would listen to everything, I would say, "You know, guys, um, I really do think there's an opportunity for us to work together. I know that, you know, we can deliver on this, this, and this. I've got the staff in place to be able to get out and do inspections a lot of times the same day, particularly if you call us in the morning, but we, we can, we can all these pressure points that you have, we can relieve that." And I would always say this, this was my line that I, I still use this line a lot, um, and I say, "Listen, I know you're just going to give us a shot at first, but make no mistake, I met, I, I set this meeting up because I didn't want a couple of jobs. I want your whole book of business." And most of the time, people were going to laugh, but I would not laugh back. And I was still dead in their face and I would say, "I'm not kidding. I really want your whole book of business." And all it is, it's not, again, you don't want to say it like you're cocky and hubris, but let them know that you're hungry and you're ready to work hard, and so is your staff. You know, and if this is a meeting you do get, and there's other people, some of your top salesmen and stuff like that, they can go. I mean, these, these guys, this could be, I mean, non-stop leads if this is a big brokerage.
Okay, so in this scenario, let's say, um, if you guys have watched my video on, uh, insurance agents, it's very similar, right? You set up the cold call, set up the meeting, get the sale. And now it's maintaining the relationship. Now, one of the things that we did different with our insurance agents versus our real estate agents is with insurance agents, uh, putting like a cash referral program together and stuff like that, it's a little tricky. What you don't want is obviously get into insurance fraud. You don't want to get into, into bed with an insurance agent that wants to do things dirty. I'm not going to tell you, I'm not going to be Mr. Morality Police on this, but I would strongly recommend staying away from any, any type of stuff. And if you're, we already have enough problems in roofing, as you guys know, with our reputation, try to be the shining light and doing the right thing.
So anyway, one of the things that, again, that we did different is we had actually a real estate agent referral program. And so we basically would get, you know, names of all the people in the brokerage. If we could mate with the, with the insurance agents themselves, we'd get all their emails and we would send a flyer. And I'll, uh, attach below our flyer that we actually use. Tell them we sent it electronically, and then we would drop some of them off in the office. And it was a 100% referral fee for any time that we did a roof replacement. And obviously, you're, if you're in an area like we're in North Alabama, so the profit margins were not just, they're not good enough to offer a lot more than that. But if you're in an area like, uh, you know, Miami or Denver or Dallas, where you guys are getting larger profit margins, make it juicy to where people are going to want to use you. And guys, I mean, I know it sucks, like if you get 10 leads, if you get 10 leads that close, you got to make it where it's got to be a full roof replacement. You're like, "Man, that sucks. You know, I paid out $250, you know, on these leads." But I guarantee you, every single one of you would pay out $250 to do a full insurance, insurance job, roof replacement. Now, again, you don't have to do that. It's just an idea. We did, we did $100, and it was enough money for the agents to catch their eye because most other contractors weren't offering anything. So that was just another way that we were able to, uh, work out deals.
Now, sometimes the brokerage, we had a couple of brokers that said, "We're going to push you and we want basically you to write that check to us every time, but we're going to push our agents to use you." And either way, as long as I was getting leads, I was fine with it. So that's how you, you maintain that relationship. And then of course, the, the one thing about real estate, it's a little bit different than, than insurance agents, is real estate, they're rarely all in the office at the same time. Versus insurance agents, you know, most everybody works in the office. The agent may not be there every day, but most everybody, his staff, his or her staff, is in the office most every day. So you, so doing the, the schmoozing on, you know, bringing in doughnuts and stationery, you can still do all that, and watch our other video on what I talk about making care packages. But what you, what you really want to do is again, maintain that relationship with the broker and then maintain a relationship with all the agents that are actively using you.
Now, there are obviously other agents, but some people you're just not going to flip. Just like homeowners, some people are just not going to like you. Somebody's going to have a buddy that they use all the time or whatever, and you're not going to flip them right away. But the people who are using you, concentrate on keeping them and getting all of their work. And and every single one of you have bukus of agents that live in your area. So there's no shortage of brokerage and brokerages and agents that you can sell to.
Well, guys, listen, I, I know that I may have been a little, a little too thorough with this, but it's important. These programs will absolutely revolutionize your business if you just give it a chance. Now, again, you have to have a strategy in place and you have to stick to it. If you have a bad meeting with one, uh, real estate brokerage, you can't think this is the last one. It's just like you door-knocking and you getting one bad homeowner that says no. But guys, look at me. I promise you, I know there's a lot of people who make a lot of money just going out door-knocking. But if you want to learn how to bring in leads that are almost free, because you're not really paying for these, right? You may pay your $100 for your fee or whatever that you work out, but it is so much smarter to work like this than you going out knocking doors every day. Okay? I know there's gonna be some guys that hate on me for that, and you've been knocking doors and you've made a lot of money, more power to you. But I promise you, if you at least split your time, if you're a roofing salesman out there, and you split your time between knocking doors and doing this, I promise you your phone is going to start ringing off the hook. And there's going to be less and less times that you have to actually go and cold, uh, door knock. As you know, if you're going to lead into a neighborhood first, and then you door knock around, the odds of you getting a lead, of getting more sales are substantially higher. But anyway, that's my two cents on it.
So last thing I want to talk about is the different type of projects that you're going to get from working with real estate agents. Now, of course, you're going to get roof replacements. Now, you also are going to get a lot of roof repairs on people just wanting to get their roof done. So if you're, if you're a salesman, now, of course, it's going to be up to your owner, to the company, on how you guys handle business. But I gave my, my salesmen had, uh, they could do some minor repairs, like changing out a shingle, changing out a boot. But, you know, guys, you know, you're still making a lot of times, you're making $250, you know, $300 bucks on changing out some of this stuff. I don't know what your minimum prices on your repairs are, but you can, you know, as even as a salesman, you can make quite a bit of money because a lot of times you're out there anyway, and you could say, "Hey, the reason it's leaking is this boot. I know you're trying to get it sold, you're not going to get this covered by insurance, but, you know, we can get this fixed for you really quick." That's a great way to get a lot of additional income, and you're already out there anyway, and this is going to get you referral business in the future.
But then also, what we did is we put together a, I want to say we were charging $250. Yeah, we were charging $250 for a full roof report. And so you're basically doing is obviously there's an appraiser that comes out, and then they have an inspector before they sell a property and sell a house. But a lot of times these people obviously aren't experts on roofing. So we would, you know, put together a, like a, we'd pull like an EagleView, um, or, you know, one of the other, uh, roofing reports. We would talk about, you know, how many years, the ages were on the roof, and we just basically built out basically like a roof report for them. And then we charged like $250 bucks, you know, take, you know, pictures and stuff like that. But it was another, again, we're going out there anyway. Instead of offering free inspections for this, we would just charge for, um, you know, roof report. And you can start off at a lower number, whatever fits in your market. $125 may work, $150, but it's, you know, you do 10 up a month, it's extra, you know, $1,500. And it's pretty much all profit, particularly if you find some of these lower-end measurement systems versus pulling, you know, spending $50, $60 bucks in EagleView all the time. That was a lot of talking.
Listen, I know this video ran a little long, but, you know, guys, I really want to see some of you start working a lot smarter than harder. I, listen, I know that going out and beating doors is, you can make a really great living. But I promise you, there are there are easier ways to get leads out there. And there's, and there's better ways of getting leads for your company than paying these lead generation rates and services. Guys, and if you don't know about my background, before I started the company, I actually was the number one digital marketing consultant for the Hearst Corporation, which was the largest digital marketing agency in the United States prior to me starting my roofing company. So I've been on the lead generation side and built out websites and SEO and pay-per-click and all that stuff works. But in my opinion, the number one way to get leads at a low cost in this game is real estate agents and insurance agents.
So if you haven't watched my video on insurance agents and how to build a referral program for that, please watch that video. If you do these two things together, I promise you, I promise you, it'll transform your business. But you have to stick to it. You got to put a plan in place and just follow the steps that I took. It's not that I know everything, but with the background I've had on business to business, and the fact that it works significantly well for us, it will work for your company too.
Well, guys, if you enjoyed the video, please give me a thumbs up. It really helps out a lot. If you haven't subscribed to our channel yet, I highly recommend doing it, particularly if you are a contractor or a salesman or roofer out there. We have a lot of great content coming out, and I share everything. There's no secrets that I keep. So if you have questions about anything, uh, please let us know here on the channel. And please check us out, check out our website as well at digitalroofingcompany.com and our blog section. We've got a ton of free articles for you guys. Anyway, let's close up. As always, at Digital Roofing Innovations, we believe and use a modern approach with traditional values. Have a great day.
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