Sales and Pricing

Willie, as you guys know, I only do repairs, I have been only doing repairs for about 2-3 years now. Michigan was one of the first states that the economy went bad in, lowballers everywhere. I was being underbid by half my price. I let all my employees quit when they wanted too and when I had nobody left, I pushed all repairs.

Years ago, I laid awake at night hoping I sealed everything up when it rained. Work would be at a standstill when the weather was bad.

Now adays, I love when it rains. I get a call, check the job out, temp it if I can, go back and make the repair onn a good day. Rains alot? just go out and investigate leaks until its finished, then go back and make the repairs when its nice out. More rain, more repairs. If the weather is nice for a long time, I may do the inside repair work also, or turn to maintenance on the roofs.

Now this didn't happen over night like lots of people would like to think, it has been 20+ years of roofing on my own to have the referrals, contact and previous customers.

30 years of roofing has given me the education of the physics of water penetration and movement. I can almost tell what is leaking just from talking to the customer on the phone.

so would I rather work 10,11,12 hours a day tearing off roofs for pennies, or 4-5 hours a day making a good living........

I'll let all the other roofing companies fight for the reroofs, I'll go back and fix the lowball roofs when they leave....and thats quite a lot of them. most of my residential repairs are on roofs less than 4 years old.

I'll stickk to repairs !!

Pgriz: It's great to see you back on here! :) I always respected your posts. This is what i remember about you. Even the picture you use beside your name tells me what kind of person you are. Welcome Back! :side:

Ole Willie: same issues here. I've got about 40 estimates out this spring, so far sold 4 jobs. I'm using a broken business model - you know, the one where you do an good job for an educated homeowner who knows what they are needing and getting. Lately, I've been looking at a different presentation approach - which is to focus on the prep work needed to get the roof "roofable". Seems my competition is a little weak in that area, so it creates an opening for me, at least for those who care about having a good roof in the end. The real issue for me is to figure out who are the prospects who actually care about the details - with them I have a decent chance of coming to an agreement, and I'd say of the 40 that I estimated, probably only 10 cared about that.

I started this new company doing ONLY repairs for the first 6 months. I am one of only a few life long roofers that can handle repairs efficiently and profitably.

Unlike my previous larger business where I used subs to do the work, I now do all of my own work (again) and when it rains now days and my phone rings. It is a call for an estimate NOT a warranty issue.

I was able to survive on doing repairs only but just barely!

I only need like 1 or 2 re-roofs a week to thrive with this small business model.

The sob's do most all of the reroofing here. They have created a huge market for repairs over the last 10 years or so.

O.W Things have changed quite a bit here in the Sunshine state, since I was active. We to had a going rate, whih I never followed, if we had used the rate we would haved closed up way back when. When our market went to hell back in 2006 we closed up there was no way we could survive on a going rate unless we took short cuts on W/C and other items, its also why we got out of the residential market. We were working mainly commercial repairs and reroofing then that market became saturated with lowballers, so adios now I just sit around lol my son is working out of state on commercial special installations maintenance and NDL roofing systems, I had always said the reason for the collapse of our market was due to the contractors trying to make a ub standard living.You have to be competitive if you want to surivive, but how cheap do you want to go B)