Winning Marketing Strategy

 

When you consider your winning marketing strategy, it's no longer enough (actually, never was) to tell your prospects they should do business with you because you have the best crews and install quality products.

 

Neither can you expect the fact that you're licensed, insured, bonded, and certified to be enough to win the work. Even your perfect BBB® rating or Angie's List® awards aren't enough to make your phone ring full time.

 

I don't know anybody out there pitching their bad crews or inferior work, do you?

 

There's more than a few of your competitors who are licensed and certified. They've all got a few awards on their wall. Those things are all good, and maybe even important, but they're just your ticket to get in the game -- they don't win the game for you.

 

You're going to need something much more valuable: a winning marketing strategy.

 

 

A winning marketing strategy starts with identifying the points about your product you can exploit ("make full use of and derive benefit from") in order to get some of your prospects to buy it from you. 

 

At their core, most shingles (the product you're selling) are nothing more than fiberglass mats, smeared with asphalt, and generously sprinkled with granules wrapped in paper or plastic. Nobody wakes up in the morning wishing they could buy a couple pallets of loaded-down fiberglass mats. 

 

 

Your product represents something (e.g. safety, power, influence, patriotism, style, fashion, investment, etc., etc., etc.) to your prospect. Every shingle brand has a position that can be exploited to attract some of your prospects to buy from you.

 

Your product is more than the shingles you install, isn't it?

 

Wouldn't your product also be you and your company? Again, your product (you and your company) holds a position that represents something to your prospect. What it represents often comes down to the salesperson selling that positioning. The salesperson is vital to the interpretation of the product.

 

For instance, a good salesperson can work for a bad company, and the company becomes good in the mind of that prospect (until proven otherwise). Similarly, a bad salesperson can position a good company poorly. 

 

 

A winning marketing strategy will exploit your prospect to dominate the market.

 

Product is a far easier marketing strategy to implement because product doesn't change.

 

A GAF® shingle will be a GAF® shingle until the day GAF® is no longer in business. The same for any other shingle manufacturer. Once you understand how to exploit the advantages of your product, those benefits are going to stay fairly static, not easily changed.

 

Product marketing is the easy part of this business. That's why all the manufacturers insist on talking about product. They know it, backwards and forwards; it's the one thing they can control, teach, train, and manipulate in their best interest.

 

Once you get past product marketing, you're wading into deep waters, but it's in those deep waters where the best winning marketing strategies are found.

 

Your prospect is continually changing. Sure, prospects can be generally categorized and labeled, but people strongly resist being put in a box and stereotyped. You need to establish a framework to identify your best prospects, but the minute they figure out they're not being recognized for their individuality, that's the minute they start making things very difficult on the salesperson.

 

 

Prospects change from one home to the next. They are not static or unchanging. One neighbor is not identical to the next. They're all different and they expect to be recognized for their differences.

 

The better the salesperson is at recognizing and rewarding these differences, the more likely they are to have a winning marketing strategy.

 

✌ Mike

 

P.S. This is something we consult on inside the Roofing Salesman University. It's good stuff!

 

 

P.S. This is why there's not a one size fits all for success in roofing...or any other kind of business. In fact, any time two or more roofing companies implement the same strategy, that strategies effectiveness gets cut in half, or more. I can't tell you how to effectively differentiate yourself or position your product in a quick newsletter or even an hour-long conversation. 

P.P.S. I'm 100% booked for private sales & marketing training events in the month of May and June. My next openings will be in July after the 4th holiday. If you want to bring me out to train with your sales team or help you develop a winning marketing strategy, reach out to me by replying to any of your Platinum Newsletter emails.