The proof is in the pudding

That is the motto of a local roofer, and it's a good one. All the talk, hype, and salesmanship aside, you know a roofer's skill and dedication to his trade by his roofs.

Period.

One of my local competitors motto is "Integrity starts at the top".

I created my own very detailed proposal forms years ago and had them professionally printed off. I was doing an estimate one day while the home owner was at work and noticed a proposal on their door. Curiosity got the best of me and I took a peek at it.

It was MY exact proposal that I created from scratch but at the top it was his letter head. Even though I didn't have a copyright on it, I decided to call him up and ask him to please come up with his own material as copying mine was taking the originality away from my proposals.

He said that he had just gotten 1,000 printed off and wouldn't stop until those were used up.

I GUESS INTEGRITY WENT TO THE BOTTOM!

The few times a roofer gets to see another roofer's work, that roofer then knows the quality of the work in question.

However, they are not advertising to other roofers but to the home owners. 99.9% of the time these home owners will not see a roof previously installed by them and even if they did, they would not have a clue as to the quality of it.

I finished a job yesterday, rang the bell and got the lady to come out and look at the work and she just looked up there and said " Well, I don't really know what to look for but it looks good to me ".

Zzzzz.