Bravo.....Sears?

Twil, was that the stone coated metal roof you install on that 2/12 pitch roof?

Do you do whatever it takes to have a satisfied customer?

That's what I give, an unconditional warranty? I assume that to mean if they do not like the roofing job FOR ANY REASON, I'll replace it, or buy I back. Correct?

Do you tell your customers that you have an unconditional warranty?

Since you obviously give one, tell them you give one. Might as well make it a selling point. There are very few people that will take advantage of this type of warrnaty.

We are starting to tell our customers that if there is a manufacturers warranty issue we will make it good and deal with the manufacturer. We will put aside 1% of each job to prepare for an issue. I use GAF and have not had warranty issues on my roofs in 35 years. We have had a couple of color issues and GAF has stood behind us and paid us to replaced the shingles we installed. We have done warranty work for GAF on other roofs that we did not install.

I met a man who was a die hard (get it?) Sears buyer when I worked for Sears. they screwed up the order on the roof. Wrong color, I think ( this was almost 30 yrs. ago).

"they screw everything up" he says "they screwed up the fence, they screwed this up and they screwed that up" (blah blah blah)

So I asked the obvious question then "WHY do you buy from Sears then?"

"Because they always fix it and make it right"

Important words to me. I thought about them last year as I dumped $4,000 into replacing a metal roof I should not have installed.

Twill59, All I can tell you is the questions I ask myself. I do not ask myself the questions you are asking.

I am not here to defend that one salesman's selling practices. Those selling practices are not why Sears has become a household name for over a hundred years. I ask myself how and why they got to be where they are. They got there by offering good products at a fair price, with a no question asked warranty's as their customer service model, and financing. You can not do that by trying to be the cheapest price. You may be able to offer some of these things if you are in the middle of the price spectrum, but you can not offer all of them.

I agree with you Lefty....except how Sears can be the correct price when it changes with every objection? And from what I hear, it is never by a little bit, but by a wide margin.

"OF course we can lower our price. We can substitute 15-lb felt for the 30-lb. I figured in. That will save you $1,500 ma'am"

REALLY? :silly:

#1I do not want to be Sears either. I am not going to pick the low price bidder and use them as a model to improve my company's selling point.

#2When we give a price we do not lower it. We will adjust the price if we change the scope of work.

#3We do not tell them that we are the only one that can do the job correctly. We do tell them we will be here to do any warranty work that needs to be done. We have the track record to prove that. This is important.

#4 I have to remember that I am not my customer. I have to think like my customer. My customer want to be offered financing with a payment plan. They may still pay for it in cash, but they do like the option.

I need to remember that I am not my customer.

#1 I don't want to be Sears. #2 How can $17,000 be the correct price when if you wait 5 minutes and tell them no, they will drop it to $15,000? Wait another five and it becomes $13,000?

See #1.

#3 I don't think that people here trust that Tin Man Selling. If you do it, don't make it obvious. Don't be so desperate. DO NOT be such a rank amateur and say "no one else can do this job correctly" FOOLISHNESS

#4 People do buy financing from Sears. Just like Home Depot and many other places. I would just go to my bank and get the frickin' loan....with much better terms

I look at it as the correct price is Sears. The real question for me is how do I get my price to the price Sears is getting?

So I list the reasons Sears prices the roof at $17,000. First thing is everyone gets paid with Sears. I do a lot of the work for free on my jobs.

Sears will fix anything. They will always answer the phone and be there for any warranty issues for the length of the warranty. They have a history of being in business through every economic situation for over a hundred years. I have been standing behind my warranty's for 35 years.

Sears offers financing. I offer financing.

Sears offers one stop shopping for the exterior of your home. I offer one stop shopping for the exterior of your home. You can wrap all these impovements into one easy payment.

There are others.

I have to get this one thing into my head. 10% of the people buy on price. Yet 90% of the contractors fight for the 10% of the public that buy on price. If the only thing that is presented to buyer is price. Then the customer will choose price. If I believe that the customer is buying on price. That is the main point that I will be making.

That would be the reasons I did just one whole roof last year and only one so far this year. Both began as repair leads but were in such bad condition they couldn't be repaired. I get very few calls about replacing entire roofs anymore and just tell them I only do repairs unless it's a referral or someone I've worked for before doing repairs.