How To Sell More Commercial Roofing Jobs With A Loss Leader Offer

Let's be honest, as a commercial roofing contractor, you're fishing in a big pond with limited fish.
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That's just the nature of the business. Mainly because not many people own or manage a commercial property.

A commercial roofing contractor may only have 20,000 buildings to work with in a city where a residential roofer may have 1,000,000+ homes.
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This is why it is incredibly important that you get good at capturing the attention of building owners, and it's getting harder and harder to get attention with a “Free Commercial Roofing Estimate”.

Studies have revealed that only about 3% of any given market is ready to buy what you're selling at any given time. That means 97% of your target market, local building owners and managers in this case, are simply not interested in getting a free estimate.
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Can anything be done about this?

Yes. The solution is to become more relevant. How do you become more relevant? You have to bring more value to the table than your competition. It's really as simple as that.
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What do you think is more likely to get the attention of a building owner?
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A "Free Commercial Roofing Estimate"
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Or...

A "7-Point Commercial Roof Tune-Up"
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By offering something more valuable than a free commercial roofing estimate you are able to be relevant and of service to more building owners.
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This gets you a lot more attention and traction which ultimately will get you on more commercial roofs.

Here is how you go about doing it...

Step 1: How To Come Up With Your Loss-Leader Offer

You start by creating something known as a "Loss Leader". A Loss Leader is a highly valuable and desirable offer with little to no downside that you make at the beginning of a business relationship to secure business for your main offer. The Loss Leader establishes the trust needed for you to sell them a full roof replacement as the next step.
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Your goal is to create an offer so good that a building owners would feel crazy saying "No" to.
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The goal here is not for you to make lots of money, or even any money, upfront. At this point, you're just trying to get your foot in the door. That's it. Nothing more.
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An example would be a “7-Point Commercial Roof Tune-Up”, "Infrared Drone Roof Analysis", or a "Pre-Winter Flat Roof Inspection".
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Then you will want to explain, line by line, exactly what you will be doing.The more specific you are, the higher perceived value of your offer

Here is an example of one of our best performing Loss Leaders

"The Big 7 Commercial Roof Tune-Up"

-Decrease your risk by addressing concerns before the emergency!
-Prevent repair-related disruptions and shutdowns
-Add years of life to your existing roof with proper maintenance
-Detect minor problems before they become major problems
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1. Full roof inspection and report with life-cycle analysis
2. Repair 20 linear feet of seams
3. Repair 1 pipe boot or penetration
4. Repair 5 linear feet of curbs or parapet walls
5. Clean 2 roof drains and surrounding radius to prevent clogging
6. Clean 10 square feet of roof surface to avoid degradation and swelling
7. Clean 50 linear feet of gutters and downspouts‍

As you can see, the Tune-Up angle works well because it doesn't take much to understand that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as the old saying goes.

Next, let's discuss pricing your Loss Leader offer...

Step 2 - How To Price Your Loss-Leader Offer‍

When choosing a price for your Loss Leader Offer, it's important to remember that this is totally different from pricing a typical repair or tune-up.

The Loss Leader Offer is meant to be presented to only the most qualified prospects. Usually this would be property management companies with millions of square feet under management, building owners with large portfolios, or owners of very large buildings in your market.

Again, the goal of a Loss Leader Offer is to make it very easy for your prospect to say "Yes"... So it's critical that you price it low enough to where they don't have to think about it too hard.

You want to create a "No Brainer" scenario. If they accept your Loss Leader Offer, that very likely could be the first step to you gaining their trust and possible 6 or 7 figures of commercial projects thereafter.
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I recommend pricing your offer anyway between $97 to $497 for three reasons:
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1 - It's a very affordable price range and easier to say "Yes" to
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2 - It allows you to at least cover some of your materials, costs, and your time
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3 - It leaves the prospect feeling like they're getting a bargain

That's really what's at the core of a great Loss Leader Offer. It's an offer that feels like a bargain, makes sense, and is very hard to say no to. When properly executed, it's the key that opens all doors.

Step 3 - How To Get Your Loss-Leader Offer In Front Of The RIGHT Prospects

This step is very important. I'm willing to bet that the last thing you're willing to do is spend your time, energy, and money driving to and performing thorough roof inspections for $95 to $495 on 20sq roofs 3.5 hours away.

A Loss Leader Offer is only meant for a very few, special, high-value prospects. It's not for everyone, and you must treat it with discernment. So how do you get the RIGHT eyeballs on your new irresistible Loss Leader Offer?

Well, you have quite a few options.

Any 1-on-1 marketing channel can work. That includes cold calling, direct mail, email, or LinkedIn outreach. They key is to make the offer only to pre-selected prospects. This is easier to do with a well curated list of buildings and their owners' info in your market.

You can get a list like this using Reonomy.
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Any building owner database will do the trick however. When compiling your prospecting list, you want to aim high. Target the cream of the crop in your market. After all, the Loss Leader Offer is meant to open doors for you. There's no point in using it to open doors of buildings and relationships that won't have a high long-term payout for you.

After you've compiled your list, it's time to get your offer in front of them. I recommend a 3-step campaign for best results. That may look something like this:

Day 1: Send a letter

Day 5: Send an email

Day 9: Follow-up with a phone call

The order and timing in between steps is ultimately up to you, but ideally you'd want to complete the 3-step campaign within 14 days. For best results, you'd run the campaign 2 or maybe 3 times per year. Each time you run the Loss Leader marketing campaign, you're building up more and more familiarity and trust with your list.

This is a tried & true strategy that's worked for businesses in any industry. It's not a tactic, it's a principle rooted in psychology. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
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Want some help growing your commercial roofing business?

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‍Hopefully you've found this article informative and valuable. The reality is a marketing strategy is only as good as the implementation behind it.

If you're serious about selling more commercial roofs and want some 1-on-1 help to ensure your success, I invite you to book a Free 45 Minute Commercial Strategy Session with me.

You can also get access to more strategies like this one in Commercial Roofing Marketing Mastery, a completely free mini-course that shows you 3 ways of generating your own commercial roofing leads.

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To your growth and success,
Max Reznich
RoofEngine Founder