Creating an Authentic Connection in Sales

Pete (00:02.35)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Roofer Report. I am your host, Pete McKendrick here with Roofer and very excited today to move a little bit outside of our industry and bring in some special guests. Wanna give a little bit of backstory here as to how this came to be because I think it's a unique story a bit here on how this podcast came to happen. But I was traveling for our Rise Roofer Roadshow and we were on our way, I believe, to Houston at the time.

and had the pleasure of sitting next to our guests today, Mark and Melissa on the plane. We got to chatting, found out what they do and how pertinent it was to what we do in the roofing industry and where roofers are currently finding challenges. And just really got to talking about how they could potentially help the roofing industry. And this is gonna be their coming out party here for the.

the roofing industry. So, you know, so more than happy to make the introduction here, Mark and Melissa with Improv My Sales, correct? And so I will introduce them and let them tell you a little bit about what they do. Go ahead, guys. I'll let you take the floor here for a minute.

marc levine (00:58.364)
Everybody.

marc levine (01:14.94)
Yeah, thanks a lot, Pete. It was a great flight. And what happened after that is anyone we sat next to, it was always the bar was, do we have a conversation as good as we had with Pete? Unfortunately, there was one Pete and there's a lot of people who are not Pete. I'm Mark Levine, I'm the founder of Improv My Sales.

Pete (01:26.922)
I'm sorry.

Melissa Bradley (01:29.401)
It's true, it's true Pete.

Melissa Bradley (01:34.893)
Yes.

Pete (01:35.318)
I love it.

marc levine (01:39.584)
and with me is Melissa Bradley, who is the Managing Director of Improv My Sales. And we are a training and coaching company, really focused on collaborative communication. We work with all sorts of organizations.

They bring us in to work with their people, to work with their leaders, and everything from sales to emotional intelligence. And a little bit about me. I started in sales over 20 years ago. I was selling in manufacturing, and then later in technology and professional services. Along the way, I became a sales leader, but I found my calling as a sales trainer. The calling being I love to teach. I love to help people get better at what they do.

and anything I can do to help them feels good. It's my way of contributing in the world. When I was at a manufacturing company, I had a light bulb moment as the trainer introduced something called the customer buying cycle. I had heard of the sales cycle, which is the process salespeople go through. They said, think about what happens for the customer and they go through their own process. And it was then that it was that epiphany.

that we need to be more focused on the buyer's experience instead of the seller's experience.

Later, I went to work for a training and coaching company called the Mulvaney Group, and I was introduced to a conversation model called Courageous Conversations, teaching people to have those difficult conversations in the workplace, around feedback, around trust about what people need. In 2015, I started M5 of my sales. And the goal was not to teach sales or communication as manipulation, but instead to teach the

marc levine (03:32.926)
as connection. We like to say that you could use our work at work and at home.

because it's about building better relationships. And instead of, in fact, some of our favorite stories come when clients come in and tell us, I use this in an argument with my fiance about what food to serve at a party. She wanted to have vegan food. I didn't, but then I remembered you taught us about reflective listening and honoring the other person. In an instant, the conversation changed.

and I'm excited to introduce Melissa Bradley.

Melissa Bradley (04:12.905)
Thank you, Mark. And so good to see you again, Pete. And it was a joy to sit next to Pete on that ride. And I think we spoke for three hours straight and really entered each other's world. And that's what it is about. As Mark was saying, for us, it's about creating really miracles in communication and supporting people with entering each other's worlds, with validating their realities, with actively listening and having compassion and curiosity.

And my background briefly is I was in shipping. All of a sudden I was in the shipping industry for years and I thought, how did I get here? And it turns out my dad was in shipping and trucking and his father was in shipping and trucking. So I ran a communications agency for about 25 years and then I decided I wanted to become a coach and so I received my coaching training. And now we're in 2023, right?

And I'm with Mark in Improv My Sales and really enjoying bringing this communication style to all sorts of industries. We work in banking industries as well as healthcare. And when we were talking to Pete, we thought, wow, when he was describing the roofing industry to us, we thought, wow, maybe we can create some big magic and miracles there as well.

marc levine (05:38.192)
And I think we found the crossover with Pete because we don't come from the roofing industry. But what the crossover was, was people.

And if you have more than two people working in an organization, you have people communication problems. That's across the board in any relationship. And it's not because people are bad. It's just we see the world in different ways, which is fine. As long as we can communicate our needs, our fears, our concerns, our hopes, our dreams in a compassionate or kind way. But most of the time we don't remember to do that. And that's when we have conflict. That's when we butt heads.

Melissa Bradley (05:57.986)
Yep.

marc levine (06:18.315)
And that's when people bring in Improv My Sales to help with things like that. As a result of the work we do, we save people time, we save them stress, and we increase their profits.

Pete (06:30.006)
Yeah, and I think one of the things to really note about the roofing industry and construction in general is, you know, in a day and age, I think now where we're, we're dealing with a lot of, you know, kind of like remote buying, right? Like I think we buy our groceries now online and they get delivered to our house. Like there's literally no interaction with the human being whatsoever, unless the order's wrong potentially, you know? And so I think that what's unique about our industry, it's one of the few kind of like the last frontier.

Melissa Bradley (06:51.31)
you

Pete (06:59.07)
of industries where the sales process is still mostly face to face. You know, it's still me as a salesman in the home, making a presentation, you know, selling myself, selling my company, selling the products, but sitting at your kitchen table, right? Building that relationship and building that trust. One of the things that you touched on right away, Mark, is something that came up, you know, just last month when we were out on the road, a roofer told me.

He was explaining his process and he said, I don't sell roofs, I sell experiences. He said, I sell that experience of working with my company. I sell the experience of what it's going to be like to have your roof put on, to work with these products, to understand what we're doing here and what that entails when we re-roof your house or potentially install solar or something like that. It was a very, very smart comment.

marc levine (07:31.932)
Mm.

Pete (07:53.11)
that I, you know, it was one of the few things that I really took away from that and said like, wow, this is a really smart approach. And it's like you said, I think that, you know, we are essentially, you know, we're selling that experience, you know, and that's part of that customer, like you said, that customer's journey, you know, and we keep that in mind. I think it changes the whole aspect of how we sell.

marc levine (08:16.884)
Yeah, go ahead Melissa.

Melissa Bradley (08:18.945)
Well, I love that Pete. And then I think that's what we were talking about on the plane ride as well. And that we help our clients to become more client centered. That's what we call it. And collaborative communication, really entering their world and meeting them where they're at. So the client feels seen, they feel heard, they feel even held. And as Mark said, you know, every human being on this planet, and especially when it comes to their home, right? This is their home,

business, you know, which is all near and dear to our heart. I mean, as we speak right now, I have friends on Maui, they just have gone through a disaster of fire there, right? And all these people are gonna need new homes being built, right? And so I was thinking of the roofing industry. Gosh, you know, without a roof, where are we, right? So it's near and dear to all of our hearts, but truly having, meeting that client where they are and having a whole

Pete (09:09.334)
Yeah.

Melissa Bradley (09:18.779)
client experience for them. It's not as the roofers know, I'm sure, it's not just about the roof that you're putting on. But is that person that you're working with, whether it's the owner of the company or a salesperson or somebody that works for that company, are they really entering their world? Are they actively listening? Are they reflecting to them? Are they having curiosity and compassion in the conversation? So, yeah.

Pete (09:46.038)
Yeah, you know, it's one of the things that we often talk about too, is that roofing is not a sexy purchase, right? It's not your kitchen that you're walking into and you're remodeling it because you just want it to look better or you want a new oven or whatever the case may be. You know, it's one of those things that most of the time when you're replacing your roof, it's a stressful situation because it's got something wrong with it. Either you just experienced damage or...

Melissa Bradley (10:07.105)
us.

Pete (10:10.55)
you know, you have a leak or the age of the roof has gotten to the point where you're having issues, right? So it's not something that you're excited about doing as a customer, right? You're probably in, not in the most, uh, you know, the best emotional state when you're, you know, buying a roof. And it's also something that we don't think about until we have to do it. So we are very uneducated as a buyer, uh, you know, around what our roof is, what's up there, how, you know, the products that exist.

Melissa Bradley (10:33.346)
Yeah.

Pete (10:38.39)
those type of things because we don't think about it. You know, even though like we always say it protects your investment, it's something that we don't think about until we absolutely have to, you know, so it makes for a very unique buying experience, I think, uh, for the buyer as well as the person who's selling it on, on that side.

marc levine (10:56.796)
Yeah, it's a great point. And when a roofer goes into someone's home, what's the level of excitement on a scale of one to 10 that the buyer has for meeting this roofer, Pete? Is it a 10? Probably very low, maybe a three. And what's their level of fear or concern on a scale of one to 10?

Pete (11:09.574)
Yeah, probably very low, right? Exactly.

Melissa Bradley (11:12.585)
Like going to the dentist or?

Pete (11:22.878)
Yeah, I would say that their fear is probably high from a lack of knowledge, right? Like it from coming from a lack of trust and because they have they don't understand what they're buying. So therefore they're already skeptical and they're already, you know, probably defensive potentially because they don't have a good understanding of what they're purchasing. So they're very skeptical of the person who's selling it and the products, you know, and like we often talk about.

using our product specifically for transparency and education, right? Like don't go in there with that sales mentality. Go in there with a mentality of like, hey, I'm going to educate this person. I'm going to explain what we're doing. I'm going to be very transparent about the process because it's all about building that trust. You know, like ultimately at the end of the day, they can buy a roof from just about anyone, right? Like they get tons of companies that can put roofs on, you know, so what makes them choose me over the other guy?

Melissa Bradley (12:02.393)
and I'll see you next time.

Pete (12:19.587)
It's because they trust me, right? And so that's a, it's a huge part. We're really selling ourselves as much as we're selling the roof.

Melissa Bradley (12:26.486)
Yeah, that.

marc levine (12:26.512)
Yeah, you're so right. And you just kept saying trust and trust, and that's what we teach people to do, is to create that trust. And doing it by not coming in and focusing on the roof. We were just working with business bankers.

And in that industry, it's commoditized. You know, most of them have the same services. Some have a lower rate, some have a higher rate. Well, we told them, before you even offer your solution, before you even talk to them about their rate, step into their world, hear their story, find out where they came from, their entrepreneurs, find out about their journey, find out about their dreams. So, and if you do that, you can differentiate yourself. And if you do that and you listen, and it's the same thing in the roofing world,

We could imagine a roofer walking in and not talking to them about the product, how long it's going to take, but saying, this is a difficult time for you, isn't it? You probably didn't expect to see me. You didn't want to see me. You didn't want to spend time on this. There's other things you like to do. We understand.

We know that this is challenging. We know there's probably a lot of concerns. And what if they say something like that right up front? What will that do for the potential customer?

Pete (13:51.114)
Yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity there to kind of have them let their guard down potentially, right? And I think, you know, we think of sales as being this, like I often refer to it as the dog and pony show, right? Like we're going in there to make this big presentation and, you know, we have this set presentation already, potentially even set up ahead of time, you know, maybe with a PowerPoint or maybe with, you know, our contract and everything. We don't go in there to just.

Melissa Bradley (13:56.589)
I know.

Pete (14:19.922)
necessarily have that conversation or even listen first, right? Like I think that nine times out of 10, the roofing salesman is knocking on that door and instantly goes into selling mode, right? And I think that's where a lot of times, you know, especially for like the guys that are knocking doors, you know, that's a tough, a tough one, obviously, right? Because I know as soon as someone knocks on my door nowadays, you're like, well, who's knocking on my door, right? Like, what do they want? And I'm immediately like defensive, right? Like, what are they doing at my house? Why are they here? What do they need?

Melissa Bradley (14:30.87)
Yeah.

Melissa Bradley (14:45.005)
That's perfect.

Pete (14:50.014)
You know, and most of the time, the first thing out of my mouth is going to be, I'm not interested, right? So it's, you're already meeting objections, you know, rather than potentially having, like you said, maybe asking some questions, getting to know a little bit about them and where they're at, what the, you know, what, yeah, you know, the, what you're dealing with there as a, as a customer before you start to go into what your solution is.

Melissa Bradley (14:50.089)
Yep.

Melissa Bradley (15:14.309)
Yeah, I love that, Pete. Again, most of us were not taught collaborative communications growing up. I wasn't in my household. I don't know about each of you. And then what happens is that when people feel like their needs aren't being met, whether it's on the client end or on the roofer end or whether it's the bank or on the clients or whatever industry you're in, it doesn't matter, because we're all human beings, right? So that when people feel like they're

needs are not being met, then they go into they feel threatens, right? They, they all of a sudden they get triggered. Somebody gets triggered on either end and then we can become defensive, you know? And then we're in that, when they're in that mode, we're oftentimes, we're going to go into fighting, somebody's going to try and get their way, going to wrestle. I'm just going to wrestle this client to the ground. I'm going to get this contract signed before I leave, right? I have an agenda. I have a quota here that I need to meet and I'm going to make it happen.

Pete (16:01.378)
That's a cut.

Melissa Bradley (16:14.183)
So somebody's fight, they're gonna wrestle with the whole thing. And it's gonna be very stressful, right? That's hard on our nervous system to live in that fight mode. Or we run away. We shut, we slept a door, right? I don't wanna deal with this. Just go away, leave me alone. Or we completely shut down and we hide and we wanna maybe go in the closet or go underneath the bed. This is often what's modeled to us in our home environments.

passion for us as human beings and as you said Pete, you know, and as we talk about, it is, it's now, it needs to be a client-centered world. It really must be if we want to, if we want to be thriving in our businesses and for us too at ImprovMySales. For us, it's all about our clients. It's all about entering their worlds and discovering their needs and their hopes and their fears and their dreams.

Pete (17:11.254)
So let's talk a little bit, you guys mentioned about emotional intelligence, right? So I guess explain that and how that comes into play in the sale.

Melissa Bradley (17:21.181)
Yeah, so tell me, Pete, with emotional intelligence. I mean, it is as it sounds, if people haven't heard of it or if they have. It is as it sounds. It's emotional intelligence. But tell me, in the roofing industry, do emotions ever run high?

Pete (17:41.058)
Yeah, I think that, you know, quite often, I think it's a very competitive market. So you have a couple of things. I think you're going to have emotions on job sites often run high. It's a high stress, high performance job. You know, like these guys are pumping these jobs out very quickly. So you know, they're on a very strict deadline a lot of times, especially the more the busier companies, you know, so because of that, it could be a high stress work environment.

you know, so tempers are definitely gonna flare at times. Also, you know, I think it's a very competitive market, you know, in some of the larger cities, you have a lot of roofers competing. So it becomes high stress as far as, you know, competing against other roofing companies, but also for the buyer, right? So when you're a buyer in those markets, you know, tensions can run high because it's like, oh, another person's knocking at my door. Like I've actually seen pictures.

Melissa Bradley (18:11.05)
right?

Pete (18:36.53)
where people will hang a sign on their front fence that says, you know, no more roofers. And because they are so tired of people knocking on their door and stressing them out more or less, you know, because they're dealing with so many people coming there trying to sell them the same roof. And so, yeah, I would say overall, it tends to be high pressure on both sides of the fence.

Melissa Bradley (18:46.183)
Wow.

Melissa Bradley (18:58.569)
Right, right. I was talking to my cousin not too long ago and he lives in Texas and there's lots of hailstorms there. And so he's had to put on a number of new roofs and he said that he was taking a nap one day and somebody from a roofing company came and knocked on his door and my cousin's emotions tend to run hot and angry anyways and he just like flared out at this person and just told him off and then all of a sudden he settled in and he thought that was really not kind of me.

Pete (19:04.738)
gas.

Pete (19:18.135)
Yeah

Melissa Bradley (19:28.283)
He got in his car and he followed him and said, I'm just so sorry for that, which I was happy to hear that from my cousin. But whether it's the customer, the person at the door, or it's the roofer, and again, whatever industry you're in, when somebody's defensive or running hot and heavy, are we not then cleaning? We're creating more to clean up, right? When we're running with the emotions, there's more to clean up.

Pete (19:34.434)
Yeah.

Melissa Bradley (19:58.343)
what we do at Improv My Sales is saving people time, right? And lowering their stress, helping them to manage those emotions.

And yeah, and it's not to get too sciency, but it's there's this something called a reptilian, you know, part of our brain, right? That's there. It was there to protect us from the dinosaurs. And we still have it. And now we tend to gear it more towards our emotions. And yeah, there's three there's three primary F words. Have you heard of the three F words, Pete? You don't know the three F words.

Pete (20:09.238)
Yeah, I love it.

Pete (20:21.966)
I'm going to go to bed.

Pete (20:34.919)
No, I don't think I know that one No

Melissa Bradley (20:41.051)
Okay. So there's three F words. Maybe on job sites, there's one primary F word. I can only imagine. Again, I came from a trucking industry background, so I know F words pretty well. Yeah, yeah. But it's fight. Again, it goes back into that fighting. We're going to fight with each other. Are we going to flee? Are we going to run away? Are we going to freeze? Which is the shutting down.

Pete (20:44.67)
Yeah.

Pete (20:52.513)
Similar, right?

Melissa Bradley (21:07.553)
all of which again takes a lot of energy to clean up. So something that's...

marc levine (21:15.752)
What we do with emotional intelligence is we help our clients become aware of their emotions. And if they're starting to get into that fight, so what does fight look like? I'm going to try to talk more. I'm going to try to talk over you. I'm going to tell you why I'm better. Then everyone else is a roofing company or flight is like, oh, it's okay. Don't worry about it. We'll just come back another day. We teach our clients to be aware of their emotions and to pause.

Melissa Bradley (21:21.985)
Yes.

Melissa Bradley (21:34.157)
Thank you.

marc levine (21:44.72)
and sue themselves before they communicate because if you communicate from defensiveness, nine times out of ten, you're not going to be at your best.

You're not going to get the sale. Or think about if the client is upset with you. You already have the job, and you're doing the work, and the client's upset with you. And you try to prove to them why you're doing a good job. Has it ever worked out for anyone? Has it ever strengthened a relationship to try to prove to someone why you're right and to make the client wrong?

Melissa Bradley (22:09.974)
I'm sorry.

Pete (22:17.695)
Well, it's funny that you bring that up because I think that there's some key phrases even, right? I think knowing your customer and watching what you see, you know, being aware of what you're saying. You know, I've seen sales just in on my side of watching other people sell. I've seen sales lost because people say things that the client they're talking to may potentially find offensive or it may turn them off or they just, you know, they just...

feel like hey, this person's just not my type of person, so I'm just not interested in buying from them. So I think, like you said, taking a step back, taking a breath, and realizing what you're actually about to say before you say it can drastically affect the course of that sale.

Melissa Bradley (23:00.481)
Yeah, absolutely peaked.

marc levine (23:00.88)
Yeah. One of the things-

Melissa Bradley (23:03.265)
When people are again are running on defensiveness or like Mark said, if they're trying to prove something, it's never going to get them what they truly want. And so you just the secret sauce, so to speak, is what you just said, Pete. You know, it's really it's being aware. OK, I'm upset right now. I'm triggered. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I'm pissed off. Whatever it is, acknowledging that within yourself and taking a breath, right. Taking and it's the simplest thing. And yet it's what do we forget to do?

all hopped up on the emotions is we forget to breathe. So it's like take a deep breath, soothe yourself. Something we share too is even just wiggling, even just rubbing your fingertips together or wiggling your toes, just bringing your back into this moment is always going to be helpful. Did you wanna share something, Mark?

marc levine (24:01.128)
Yeah, it's so interesting. I love those techniques. When you're emotionally triggered, the only thing you can do is soothe yourself. Because the cognitive part of the brain is cut off. So Melissa talking about taking breaths, it's almost like you need to, you know how you swaddle a baby? When a baby's upset, you need to do that to yourself. You need to do a self-swaddle. And it's a self-swaddle. So taking some deep breaths.

Pete (24:18.542)
Yep.

Pete (24:24.244)
I like it.

marc levine (24:30.976)
Wiggling your toes, putting your feet on the ground. The other thing you could do, and this is counterintuitive, is you could, we call it name it to tame it. And that looks something like, you know, the customer's upset with you and it's actually saying, you know, this is a difficult situation. I can see that you have a lot of frustration with how we're doing this. And most people think that's gonna make it worse. It won't. You're actually...

acknowledging what's happening. Shrek, you know the guru Shrek, the communication guru Shrek? You have kids, you know Shrek. Shrek after tooting a burping one said better out than in. And we think it's the same thing with acknowledging emotions. Even saying something like, hey this is a tense situation, I'm going to take a breath right now. I want to be thoughtful on how I respond to what you just shared. Let me take a moment.

Pete (25:07.688)
Yes, I've seen that one.

Pete (25:12.427)
Yeah.

marc levine (25:26.6)
let's just calm down a little. I'm gonna calm down. I wouldn't ask the customer to calm down. I'm saying, I'm gonna calm down because I wanna be thoughtful and I wanna take good care of you. I know there's a lot of frustration on your end and there's probably something I've done to contribute to that. So I wanna hear what you have to say. What do you need right now? And that's being client-centered. That's taking the focus off yourself to enter the client's world and hear what they care about.

to ten unless the person's a real jerk. I didn't get that. Could you try again? That was my ass. Siri thinking I was talking to her. Nine times out of ten unless the person's a real jerk. And there are. The other person's going to say, oh, you know what? I'm sorry. Because you're not trying to defend anymore. You're not trying to prove that you're right. You're trying to make them right. You're saying, hey, you know, you have a real concern here. Let's find out what it is.

Pete (26:00.67)
I'm going to go.

Hahaha

marc levine (26:23.092)
And that may take a few more minutes, but it'll save you a lot of time and clean up afterwards. It'll strengthen your relationship with the client. And they'll start to give you grace. They'll start to give you grace when you make mistakes. They'll say, oh, that's Pete. Pete cares about my needs. If it's a little mistake, I can talk to him about it. That's what we're talking about.

Pete (26:45.93)
Yeah. And I think, you know, that's a big, you know, that goes a lot further than that, you know, because this obviously we're going to meet a lot of objections, you know, especially if we're, let's say, you know, a guy who's cold calling, knocking on doors. I like to use those guys as an example, because they probably meet the most rejection, right? Like they just are randomly knocking doors after a storm and saying, Hey, can I take a look at your roof? Or, you know, maybe we know you've got some damage. Odds are they're going to meet a lot of objection and being able to kind of take that step back and not.

Melissa Bradley (27:02.562)
Yeah.

Pete (27:15.71)
you know, just go full sales mode or go on the defensive because the person at the door is like trying to shut the door in your face, you know, could change the whole nature of that conversation, you know? And, uh, you know, I think that that's a part that gets overlooked quite often. So, um, you know, I like that. That's great advice.

I have one for you guys here.

Melissa Bradley (27:36.939)
I love that Pete. We have all. What was that?

marc levine (27:39.485)
You have what?

Pete (27:39.542)
Go ahead, bro. No, go ahead, go ahead.

Melissa Bradley (27:43.553)
Well, we have a whole program that's dedicated. It's called From Objections to Connections, right? So it's taking the objections that are thrown at us and actually creating gifts from them and building the bridge and creating the connection. And it's, again, it creates a lot of, in my book, magic and miracles. And as Mark and you have both said, for us, the value inherent in this is not creating any further messes to clean up, right?

and helping people stress level. People are already stressed out and overwhelmed. Like what keeps you up? What keeps roofers up at night, right? I would imagine sometimes it is the jobs or it's the client that was upset at them that day. But if there is, and there is a way in to connect with that client and to soothe the situation, it really helps people's nervous systems. And it overall helps them to have a better quality and a happier life, right?

Thank you.

Pete (28:44.426)
Well, and one of the things that I really like, Mark, what you said is, you know, it helps you down the road as you go on, right? They're going to be a bit more forgiving as that job goes through, because, I mean, let's be honest, you know, when you're dealing with, you know, subcontractors and material deliveries and all of these things, you know, and we're ripping your roof off, like there's going to be bumps in the road potentially. And there's going to be things that happen that maybe we didn't foresee when we originally were sitting down at your kitchen table and talking to you. And, you know, if we've.

Melissa Bradley (29:03.778)
Yeah.

Pete (29:14.354)
already got you on edge, when those things happen, the odds are you're going to go over the top as the customer. And I've actually seen that happen as opposed to, like you said, if you build that trust and hey, this guy really cares about me and cares about my feelings and what we're having done here. He genuinely has concern for us as a family and trying to give us the best products possible. When you hit that bump in the road, they're much more likely to be forgiving and be.

you know a bit more understanding with you as the contractor.

marc levine (29:48.104)
Yeah, I love what you just said, Pete, about...

Melissa Bradley (29:49.271)
Amen.

marc levine (29:51.048)
That roofer cares about us. He doesn't just care about our roof. He doesn't care about himself and making the sale or getting into, he cares about us. And when we feel people care about us, every conversation changes. It changes after that. And there's things you can do too, to let people know about what's going to happen. There's probably an opportunity to over communicate. We just had a water heater put in to our condo and the company did a great job. They were excellent at everything except one.

They're putting in the water heater, it's going well, they're ahead of schedule, and all of a sudden I smell something. Next thing you know, an alarm goes off. Now this is a new condo, so I don't know if it's a carbon dioxide, I don't know if it's a fire alarm, I just know it's going off. Our installer is in the closet welding. It's got...

You know, his ear buds in, the alarm's going off. I'm concerned, Melissa's concerned, by the way, we're a romantic couple. I should tell you that. The installer doesn't say anything. I finally ask him, hey, what's going on? I'm opening the front doors. I'm wondering, do we have to run out? Is this dangerous? There's a smell. No, what he could have done is said, hey, Mark.

Pete (30:48.159)
It is.

Pete (30:54.658)
Hehehehe

Pete (31:08.308)
Yeah.

marc levine (31:14.656)
We're going great. We're ahead of schedule. I think I'm gonna finish even earlier than I expected. There is gonna be a moment, I'm gonna need to weld something for about five minutes. When I do that, you're gonna smell something. Don't worry, it's safe. The alarm may even go off. It'll be a little annoying for a little bit, but it's not no pun intended alarming. You don't have to worry about your safety. Instead of me saying, hey, hey buddy.

The alarm, is that okay? Should we be running out? He goes, oh, no problem. Happens all the time. Tell me that upfront. Dude, and if you do that, I'll think, wow, this person is different.

Pete (31:51.583)
Yeah.

marc levine (31:57.268)
He's thinking ahead and I will have a level of trust in him and I'll recommend him. I'll tell that story to other people about what a great roofer, what a great installer for my water heater. I'll talk you up because you did something better. You communicated better. You showed concern for my world better than anyone else.

Pete (32:21.898)
Yeah, we often talk about in the roofing industry, you know, we come in and install a roof and then you never see us again. And you know, and kind of changing that narrative to be calm. This guy become what we call the neighborhood roofer, right, and become the guy that these people recommend long after you're gone from their property. And how you do that is exactly like you said, like when you're that guy that they feel cares more about them than the actual product.

you know, they're much more likely to become a champion for you and recommend you to their friends and family and things like that. And that just helps. It's only going to help your business in the long run, you know? And I think that portion is something that for years has been drastically overlooked in this industry. You know, I always use my neighbor as an example. A roofer came, did his roof in and out in a day, completely finished with the roof in a day, uh, left his sign in the front yard for like a week, came back and got his sign.

Melissa Bradley (32:54.349)
Yeah.

Pete (33:18.646)
without anyone even knowing just scooped the sign up and left and I've never seen him again. Right. And no, I couldn't even tell you who he was at this point. He was there for, you know, an entire day. His trucks were parked out front. I couldn't even remember his name, right. Cause he didn't really, he didn't do anything to stay top of mind or stay pertinent at all. You know, he just knocked that roof out and moved on to the next one. And I think that that's something, you know, like I always use the example of, you know, like if my car breaks down, I have a mechanic. It's the same guy. I go to the same guy every time.

Cause I trust him, you know, I feel like he's looking out for my best interest. I know that I'm getting a decent, you know, job done every time, you know, or same thing, like I take my kids to the same pediatrician, right? Cause that's the person I feel most comfortable with in roofing. We don't necessarily go that route. And I think we should more often, uh, you know, of developing ourself as being this neighborhood roofer or being that guy for them. You know, like maybe it's not just roofing, you know, maybe you put my roof on.

Melissa Bradley (34:06.486)
Yeah.

Pete (34:15.446)
this year, but next year I'm gonna need siding or I'm gonna need gutters or something like that, you're gonna be the first person I think of if we've had a good relationship and my experience has been good as the customer.

Melissa Bradley (34:24.054)
Yep.

Melissa Bradley (34:28.013)
Yeah, I love that, Pete. It's all about relationship. It's all about building the relationship and that way into the relationship.

marc levine (34:35.444)
And that's a set of skills too. We can teach you how to do that.

We can, as Melissa said before, most people aren't born with these communication skills, but we can teach you, in not a lot of time, how to differentiate yourself from everyone else who's knocking on your door. We can teach you how to listen. We can teach you how to speak back what the customer says. We can teach you how to keep, build that sense of caring, that I have your best interest at heart in a very sincere way, without ever having to say those two words which we hate, I understand.

Pete (35:10.07)
Yeah.

marc levine (35:11.919)
Those are two words never say to someone that you understand. Show them through your listening, show them through your curiosity, show them through your authenticity that you care and they will know that you have their back.

Pete (35:25.386)
So why do we not say the words I understand?

Pete (35:31.195)
Hehehehe.

marc levine (35:32.084)
You want me to take this one? Let's say, do you want to take it?

Melissa Bradley (35:34.505)
Yeah, yeah, you're very passionate about this one. So yes, please take it away.

Pete (35:38.83)
Yeah.

marc levine (35:44.052)
Melissa and I have been together for 10 years. She probably knows me as well as anyone that I see on a regular basis. She understands me pretty well, but there's time she doesn't. And we live together. Most of the time, we don't know someone else's experience. And often, when we say, I understand, we make it about ourselves, we become me-centered instead of client-centered. There are better ways.

Would you like to learn one of the better ways to show that you understand? Demonstrate that? You wanna do a role play? How about this? Pete, you'll play a client and let's assume we're, let's make it a little bit easier, not too angry. Cause you're a pretty nice guy, Pete, so we don't have you play against type. Let's say it's in the middle. I can't either. I can't.

Pete (36:16.01)
Yeah. Let's do it.

Pete (36:33.681)
Hahaha

Melissa Bradley (36:36.306)
I can't even imagine Pete angry, so.

Pete (36:38.672)
I'm sorry.

Melissa Bradley (36:41.657)
I feel like I've known Pete my whole life, so funny, you know? We just met on a plane, so yeah. Built the relationship quickly.

Pete (36:44.351)
Yeah. Yeah, right? Yeah.

marc levine (36:49.578)
We can't, yeah. Well, let's have you play a client in the middle of a job and something goes wrong. And Melissa is the person who is your roofer.

person who's running the crew and you're talking to her about the problem and she's going to do some, show off some tools about how to help you feel understood. What I may do is I may pause the role play in the middle just to point something out that either went really well or if Melissa isn't perfect and she's not, could be done better and we'll demonstrate that. How's that sound? Okay.

Pete (37:25.642)
I like it. Let's do it.

Melissa Bradley (37:27.257)
Thanks.

marc levine (37:28.664)
So you start, you bring a complaint to Melissa as the head of the crew, and we'll see how she handles it.

Pete (37:39.729)
Hey Melissa, how are you doing?

Melissa Bradley (37:41.825)
I'm doing great, Pete. How about you?

Pete (37:43.842)
Not too bad. A little bit of a concern though. I have the crews up on the roof right now and I noticed that after they pulled off the shingles that were up there that they started to rip off some wood. Now we didn't originally talk about that so I'm not exactly sure what's happening up there and why they're ripping wood off of my roof but obviously they're exposing my attic and you know we didn't really plan on that. I wasn't really sure what was happening up there like is there extra cost now that I'm going to incur that I didn't know about so

Melissa Bradley (37:49.301)
Mm.

Pete (38:12.778)
little frustrating I wasn't really told what was going on so just trying to figure out what's happening.

Melissa Bradley (38:15.865)
Hmm.

Melissa Bradley (38:19.065)
Well, thank you so much, Pete, for letting me know. I really appreciate that. I sense that this is stressful. You weren't expecting this at all. Is that accurate?

Pete (38:31.658)
Yeah, you know, I just, you know, I kind of figured that you guys would be done today. Now it looks like maybe not because the project looks like it's more than maybe what we bargained for. And then also, of course, you know, it looks like maybe we're getting into something that could be more expensive as well.

Melissa Bradley (38:47.345)
Yeah, well again, thank you. Thank you for letting me know. We certainly did not want to inconvenience you at all. And I can see where you would think because it's going on longer and we took the pieces off of the addict that it's going to cost more. But I can tell you that is included in the contract.

marc levine (39:09.024)
Let's pause right there. So Pete, you just came to Melissa with a complaint. Something unexpected happened, right? This happens all the time. Is this common and constructive?

Pete (39:17.566)
Yeah, yeah, fairly common. Yeah, fairly common that you run into stuff that you didn't, you know, obviously as the roofer, I can't necessarily see everything that's happening up there. So it's fairly common that once we start to dig into a project, things come up that we didn't originally, you know, foresee.

marc levine (39:36.848)
Exactly. And when that happens, it's almost like the water heater situation where instead of the roofer coming to you and saying, hey, we encountered something we didn't expect. Let's talk about it. So there's an opportunity to be proactive first before the customer, because once the customer catches it, we're already, you're already frustrated, right? You might be in fight, flight or fear. So instead of saying, I understand, what did you notice that Melissa did?

How did she communicate?

Pete (40:08.319)
Yeah, she was very more compassionate about what my concern was and kind of eased into it and said, hey, no, it's okay. We're aware of it. We've already dealt with it and was very solution-based, I felt like.

marc levine (40:26.056)
Yeah, what we call that is she did two things. One, she validated your experience. She didn't make you wrong for feeling that way. She understood, she empathized with the fact that you have a right to be upset. You have a right to be concerned. And that's the first part of it. Validate your experience. And usually that looks like, Melissa, do you remember the things you said to Pete? Or Pete, do you remember what Melissa said to you to do that?

Pete (40:53.35)
Yeah, I mean, I think right away she said like, oh, thank you for bringing that to me. You know, she made it very, she was very like proactive and saying like, oh, hey, thanks for drawing attention to that. You know, she didn't say like, oh yeah, we already know about that. You know?

marc levine (41:06.708)
How amazing is that, that she thanked you for bringing frustration forward? That alone can help diffuse some of the energy. Thank you, Pete. Glad you brought that up. That completely changes the conversation. And then what else? Go ahead.

Pete (41:12.066)
Yeah.

Pete (41:25.546)
Yeah, I think well and I think it's like you going back to your water heater situation, you know, because I think that if she would have said to me, you know, hey, we are Yeah, we knew about that. Or Oh, yeah, we realized that was happening. So we're just gonna go ahead and do it. I would have been like, well, you know, why didn't anybody come to me and tell me right? Or why didn't anybody tell me ahead of time? You know, and kind of like you said, you know, I think back, I had an experience one time with a mechanic on a car, who I brought my car in for service. And he called me and said,

hey, this is what I found, I just went ahead and fixed it. I said, you went ahead and fixed it? And he's like, yeah, I just went ahead and did it. I said, you didn't call me and ask me if it was even okay to make that change or how much it was gonna be, or like you didn't even bring me up to speed on what was happening. And even though it was fine, it had to be fixed. And I knew it had to be fixed. And whatever it costs, it costs, I was gonna have to pay for it. There was that frustration level of, he just took it upon himself without even involving me.

Melissa Bradley (42:22.133)
here.

Pete (42:23.306)
You know, and I think it's interesting. We just had a reefer do a case study with us And she said that one of the things she likes to do is empower her customers Right and by empowering the customers it makes closing the deal much easier And I think that it's a situation just like that, right? Like it wasn't necessarily the fact that the work needed to be done I knew it needed to be done But the fact that you took the power away from me to make the decision to tell you yes go ahead and do it

Melissa Bradley (42:32.766)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Bradley (42:37.699)
Yeah.

Pete (42:50.41)
you know, by just choosing to do it yourself, like, hey, that's my vehicle. Like you just took it upon yourself, you know? So I think it's all in just, it's very minute, you know, are very subtle ways of wording things that make a huge difference in the direction of the conversation.

marc levine (43:06.152)
These are exponentially powerful in building trust or destroying trust. Giving people what you're talking about, giving people the autonomy to say yes or no. Letting them know what's going on. You're still gonna do it. But if he called, the mechanic calls you up and says, hey, we found this, we didn't expect it. What would you like us to do? Here are your options. You're probably gonna choose to fix it and spend the money, but now you have trust. In a situation where the roofer didn't tell you, they should have told, they could have said something.

but to say, you know, I'm sorry, you're right. We could have done a better job of communicating this to you and we'll do better in the future. And I understand that you're frustrated. That's what Melissa was doing. Her tone dropped. She got a little softer instead of like defending. She didn't say, oh no, it's fine. Don't worry. We got it. You're like, she got softer. She understood you. She said, thank you. Those are the type of things that help to change the conversation.

Pete (43:56.388)
Yeah.

Melissa Bradley (44:04.801)
Right. Yeah, and what we love to do, Pete, as well, is empower our clients.

who then empower the customer. And we like to help them to really be the heroes of the story, whether we're working in the banking industry or whether we're working in healthcare or the roofing industry, helping our clients really be the heroes for their clients. And then in that, they're pretty much guaranteed that when that client needs another new roof, maybe another hailstorm like my cousin, he's like, oh my God, I've had six roofs put on.

I put on in the last 20 years and you know so he's going to call if you know if this roofer is his hero oh my gosh or I need sighting or whatever and same thing with our banking clients so that's what it's really about

Pete (44:43.915)
Yeah.

Pete (45:00.034)
So I have one question for you that may be a bit different, but talking about communication and the frequency of communication, because I think you walk a fine line a lot of times, I've seen it go both ways where obviously in our industry, we tend to have, we err on the side of lack of communication, right? I think that too many times we leave the homeowner in the dark, even internally, things are not communicated inside of their own companies very well.

But sometimes you'll see people who go the complete opposite way. And I feel as though they almost over communicate to the point of creating friction, right? Creating frustration. So is there a way to kind of gauge like what is the appropriate amount or frequency of communication that is like the best, you know, it's going to create the best situation with my customer or in even internally.

Melissa Bradley (45:54.769)
I would love to hear what Mark wants to say on this. I'm gonna quote Mark. I'm actually gonna quote Mark. And here's Melissa quoting Mark.

Pete (45:56.558)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

There you go.

marc levine (46:00.768)
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So I'm curious. My first curiosity, and then I have a thought on that. The question, Pete, is what did the person say? How did they over communicate where they created friction? Do you remember?

Pete (46:03.536)
Hehehehe

Pete (46:17.078)
Well, and I think a lot of times, you know, you, you walk a fine line in the follow up portion, right? Like let's say I've, I've come to your house and I've, as a contractor, I've sat down at your kitchen table and at the end of that, I've given you, uh, you know, a contract to sign and you say, you know, Hey, let me, Melissa's not home, but once she gets here, I'll review that with her, you know? And so then I start, you know, following up with you, you know, and I think at some point, you know, if I'm

Melissa Bradley (46:42.484)
Hmm.

Pete (46:45.174)
continuously following up with you, right? I think it's gonna create some frustration on your part of like, man, this guy's just driving me nuts, right? Like, as opposed to the opposite side of it, I think which happens probably more so than that side of it is that, you know, hey, this guy gave me a contract and then it's been two weeks and I haven't heard from them at all. You know, and then you feel like, and now you've started with friction before you've even, you know, they still may end up signing the contract.

But now you've got this friction of like, where did this guy go for two weeks? Right. And am I going to be able to rely on him? You know, so I think there's like a fine line in between. And I think sometimes we have a hard time as roofers finding it, you know, finding that sweet spot of like, okay, like we're communicating and this is what the customer wants, but you know, we're not under communicating. We're not completely, you know, flooding them with emails and texts to the point that we're overdoing it and we're just making them mad, right.

Melissa Bradley (47:41.217)
Right.

marc levine (47:41.484)
Thanks for that clarification. And by the way, one of the techniques we teach is to ask that question when you're not, when you don't understand someone's situation. I could have given you an answer. I wouldn't have even been close to what you were thinking about because you were talking about during the buying process, how do I follow up when I'm close to the customer signing the deal, which was very different from you're already a client and let's talk about communicating about what's gonna happen.

Pete (47:54.475)
Yeah.

marc levine (48:11.104)
So ask that extra question, number one. Number two, in this situation, what I would probably do is try to empower the customer. And they say, hey, I need my other person to look at this. Great. Cause I don't wanna keep pestering you, and you don't want me to do that. Let's agree on when I should get back in communication with you. Let's.

If you're really interested, and if they're not going to agree, then they're probably not really interested. They're just blowing me off. But if you're really interested, let's talk about when's a good time to get back to you. And then I might offer some choices. Usually what I find with my customers is they need 24 to 48 hours. Does that feel like that's going to be enough time for you?

So what are we doing? We're giving them autonomy, we're putting them in charge, we're getting an agreement about when we're gonna talk again. I'm showing that I care, I'm showing that I'm on your side, that if you say we're gonna talk in 40 hours, great, I'll get back to you. I'll give you a call then, or I'll give you a text. So now we're working together. We have an agreement, and as a salesperson, I don't have to wonder when I walk outta there, when should I get back to them? I don't know, what's gonna be too much, what's gonna be too soon?

Pete (49:33.142)
I like that. That's great. And I think you brought up something important too, is that there's two different types of communication, right? There's that communication like that where we're trying to close the sale. But then once we actually sign the deal, then it changes completely because now we're, you know, now there's an expectation like, okay, I signed a deal. These guys are coming, you know, and so I think this is where potentially the communication can increase.

marc levine (49:33.317)
How does NASA now feed?

Pete (49:59.798)
because I think that having that transparency is important. And I think this is where sometimes we lack even more in roofing. You know, quite often I've heard, you know, people say like, oh, I signed a contract with this guy a month ago. I have no idea where he's at. He's never gotten back to me as to like, when he's coming to do my job or, and it could be something easy like, you know, hey, we fell behind on a job. Hey, we're having trouble getting material. Hey, it's been raining every day, right? But not communicating those things, you know, it creates a lot of friction, I think.

Melissa Bradley (50:25.069)
Yeah.

Pete (50:29.634)
before you've even gotten to the house and started the job. You know, and then that conversation between myself and Melissa may go a completely different way because I'm frustrated that it took you two weeks to get there and now you're ripping pieces of my roof off. You know, now I'm probably gonna be way more upset.

Melissa Bradley (50:46.485)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, contractors do have a certain level of reputation, right? All different kinds of contractors. I have a friend here in South Florida, and she's putting together, they're constantly doing something to the home. And she's hired probably dozens and dozens and dozens of contractors. She has some crazy stories. And a lot of it is like what you were saying, Pete. And to quote Marcus, I was going to quote, in the absence of information, do we always

Pete (50:53.021)
Yeah.

Sure.

Melissa Bradley (51:16.699)
the positive, do we always assume the best? We call it, do we assume rainbows and unicorns? No, we assume the worst, right? As human beings, we just tend to assume the worst. So, it is, once you've already signed that contract and you're going into fulfillment mode, that's, there's another level of communication that needs to take place.

Pete (51:22.71)
Yeah.

Pete (51:42.922)
Yeah, and I think a big portion of it too is just, it's keeping that customer educated as to where you're at in the process. I think that, going back to what we were talking about, empowering the customer, if they feel like they're still in the driver's seat a bit, right? Like, okay, I know what's happening, I know what the next step in the process is, like, oh, he's ordering permits, or whatever the case may be, right? It's gonna change my whole outlook on dealing with you because I feel like I'm still, we're in this together.

Melissa Bradley (52:01.121)
Yeah.

Pete (52:11.07)
Obviously, right and we're working together to get this job done as opposed to you know Hey, I'm just writing you a check and I have no, you know input whatsoever on what happens to my own house

Melissa Bradley (52:21.881)
Right, right.

marc levine (52:22.888)
Yeah, what a vulnerable situation to be in, Pete. I don't have, you just said it. I don't know what's happening to my own house, my home, my place of safety. So the bad news is, as Melissa said, contractors, salespeople start out with a low level of trust. That's assumed.

The good news is if you just do a little bit more than everyone else, it's gonna be a big difference. If you're the roofer who communicates, who says, hey, Pete, I got some bad news, I'm sorry. I know we're gonna start on Saturday, but I'm having trouble getting supplies. Here's what they're telling me. It's frustrating on my end, I'm sure it's frustrating on your end. We have a couple choices, let's talk about that.

I build trust with you. If I say, here's the process that's gonna happen. It's gonna get a little loud. We're gonna have to tear something up. Or sometimes things go that we don't expect, but I'll let you know when that happens. Does that sound okay? Then you feel empowered in your own home. And you don't have to be the best communicator in the world in the roofing industry. If you do some of these things we talk about,

Pete (53:21.59)
Yeah, makes a big difference.

marc levine (53:34.676)
You're going to be better than others and you will have that trust. And your profits will go up, your stress will go down. You can do this with your people, you can do this with your family. Everything we teach is safe for humans, Pete.

Pete (53:50.702)
I like that. That's great. No, and I think that it's important to note. I think everything that we've talked about today, I think we've kind of geared it more towards working with the customer, but it very easily could work with your own internal employees and defusing situations there. Obviously when these guys right now are in their busy season, July, August, the end of the summer here, this is when they're the busiest and they're pumping out jobs.

There's a lot going on, you know, like a lot of fires to be put out on a daily basis and, you know, your whole crew is helping to try to get through the day. And obviously like Melissa said earlier, tempers are going to flare and the pressure is on for everybody to, to perform. And, um, you know, and I think traditionally, you know, roofers probably don't always, I'm just contractors in general, you know, because of that, we don't necessarily always handle it the best, right? Like.

We have a tendency to just be very aggressive about how we handle those situations instead of maybe taking a breath and saying, okay, I get it, we're all stressing out here, let's work together to figure this out. So it works both ways, it works customer-facing as well as internally.

marc levine (55:02.58)
Yeah. Let's.

Melissa Bradley (55:04.057)
I love it. If we were building an improv scene together.

the three of us, right? We would each be saying yes to each other in the scene and building the scene. When somebody says, no, you can't do that, then the scene dies, right? So as we're saying yes to each other in this collaboration, in this collaborative communication and conversation, the through line really, the through line is when we are client-centered, when we do put the focus on the client. And if you are a business owner or the CEO of the company,

Pete (55:19.392)
Right.

Melissa Bradley (55:38.195)
in the top leadership position, you know, where you are communicating in such a way that's client-centered to the client that is signing the contract and contributing the financial resources or to your staff, to your employees, to your workers. And those are your internal clients, right? And having that same consistent through line of client-centered communication, I think you're going to sleep a lot better at night.

Pete (56:06.13)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, I think this is a topic that we could probably talk about all day, right? Yeah, and there's tons of opportunity, obviously, in this industry. So I'm glad that we were able to introduce you guys to the roofing industry. You know, I think I look forward to lots of other conversations like this. You know, I think that there's gonna be lots of opportunity for you guys to get in front of some roofers.

Melissa Bradley (56:13.117)
We could! We could eat. We love this.

Pete (56:34.862)
you know with us at Roofer and maybe even some other opportunities along the way and I think it'll definitely help these guys you know from just the conversations we've had and knowing you know the challenges that Roofer's face on a regular basis you know with staff and with you know customers you know all of this is great information and will be very helpful to them so I really appreciate you both getting on the podcast today and making your roofing debut.

Melissa Bradley (57:04.078)
Thank you Pete. Thanks for letting us enter your world today and we truly look forward to more of these conversations.

marc levine (57:11.848)
Mark it down August 9th, 2023, when Melissa Mark entered formally the roofing industry. The beginning. Someday we'll look back when we write the book, when they make the movie. This was the beginning. It started.

Pete (57:15.478)
Hahaha!

Pete (57:24.078)
That's right. This was the day, right? On the Rufor Report, right? I love it. Well, thank you guys for coming on and I appreciate everyone for listening in. Hopefully you guys grabbed some great information from Mark and Melissa today. And I really look forward to everyone listening in next time and joining us every time we have the Rufor Report. Thank you Mark and Melissa one more time and I look forward to working with you guys again soon.

marc levine (57:30.08)
and I'll do it for every flight.

Melissa Bradley (57:30.221)
Yeah.

Melissa Bradley (57:54.241)
Thank you, Pete.

marc levine (57:55.412)
Thanks, Pete.

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