Door to door roofing sales that does not waste your reps' afternoons

Pick the doors before you pick the street

Most canvassing wastes time on homes with a five-year-old roof. A rep can knock about 30 to 50 doors in a good afternoon. The list decides how many of those are worth the walk.

Homes worth knocking usually show more than one of these:

• A roof about 15 to 25 years old. Old enough that the homeowner has started wondering.
• Recent hail or high wind nearby. Storm exposure is a reason to look, not proof of damage.
• Neighbors reroofing. Same builder, same age, same storms.
• Just listed or just sold. Sellers want a clean inspection. Buyers want to know what they bought.
• No roofing work on record in years.

One signal is a maybe. Three on the same house is a door worth knocking first.

When to knock

Weekdays, 4 to 7 pm

Most people are home from work by then. The best three hours of the day.

Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm

The most homeowners at home all week. Skip early morning.

Within days of a storm

Homeowners are already looking up. So is every other roofer, so be on the right streets early.

Avoid

Dinner time, after dark, and anything outside your town's solicitation hours.

A door script that opens a conversation

The opener has one job: explain why you are at this door and not just any door. "We're in the area" is what every canvasser says. A specific reason is what makes the homeowner keep listening.

Hi, I'm Dan with Smith Roofing. We just finished a roof for the Garcias two doors down.

A lot of the homes on this street were built around the same time, so the roofs are hitting the age where small problems start. We're doing free inspections while the crew is here this week.

Would it be all right if we took a look, or is there a better day?

Swap the reason for the one that fits the home: the hail that came through last month, the house going on the market, the roof's age. Keep it to three sentences. Then stop talking.

When they say "my roof is fine"

Agree with them. "It may well be. Most of the ones we check are. The inspection just tells you for sure, and you get photos either way." No pressure lands better than any rebuttal.

Log every door

Most inspections booked by canvassing come on a second or third visit. That only happens if someone wrote down the first one.

• Record the result of every knock: no answer, not interested, call back, inspection booked.
• Come back to "no answer" doors on a different day and time.
• Leave a door hanger with your name and a reason, not a generic flyer. Worth a Knock roofers can get hangers designed and printed in-house, written for the homes on their list. See roofing door hangers.
• Check your town's rules. Some require a solicitor permit, and "no soliciting" signs mean move on.

The part reps skip: research

Reps would rather knock than research. That is the right instinct and the reason the list is usually thin. Somebody still has to find which homes have the older roof, the storm exposure, and the neighbor activity.

There is a second problem. When the list is a ZIP code everyone can buy, your rep may be the third roofer at that door this month. The homeowner has heard the pitch already.

That is the job Worth a Knock takes off your plate. Every month we find the homes in your territory worth a knock, score them from 0 to 100, explain why each one made the list, and write the opener your rep can use at the door. No other Worth a Knock roofer gets the address for at least 12 months. Want to see what that looks like on your streets? Get five free sample opportunities from your ZIP code.