Do I Need To Choose A Niche
Many roofing companies are somewhat general in terms of the services that they provide. You do not need to choose a niche for your new business, but it could help you with your marketing and branding since it will allow you to focus on a very specific audience.
Generally, roofing companies go either the route of residential and commercial, and what specific services you offer from there is really up to you.
Market And Promote Your New Roofing Business
Why should a property owner select you to install or replace their roof?
Thats a significant question if you want to build a successful roofing business. And the answer lies in your roofing marketing. But if you are just starting your roofing business, it can be daunting to know where to start. Fortunately, this post will discuss crucial roofing marketing strategies that will help your business nurture trust, generate referrals and earn more clients
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Invest In The Proper Equipment
Youre going to need to invest in the proper equipment before you render any services. Here are some things that youll need:
- Ladders
- Cutting tools
- Pry bar and shingle removal gear
Please note that these tools will vary depending on what specific type of roofing company youre starting. This list is based on roofers who offer shingle-related services.
Other Ways Of Advertising
Your local paper may run a regular ‘contact the experts’ advertising feature. Remember that your vehicle can be a very effective means of advertising if you have it sign-written and keep it clean and presentable. You might consider having a large sign made that you can display outside places where you are working and/or on scaffolding – but make sure your customer and other contactors have no objections before putting it up. Also be sure that it does not cause an obstruction or hazard.
Think about other ways of marketing and promoting your business. You could sponsor a local sports club or event, for example.
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Create A Business Plan
The term business plan may sound overwhelming to an aspiring business owner. But realistically, it is a document that puts together all of the ideas you have for your new project, and helps you realize where you need to fill in the gaps to bring your business to life.
Unless youre presenting your business plan to investors, or including it as part of an application for state funding, your business plan can be quite simple.
Youll want to include information on the exact service youre providing and who youre helping. This is where you can hash out what type of roofing services youre going to offer in your business.
Identify the geographic limits of the community that youre going to serve, and where the most central location is for your storage and office space. Do a deep dive into any information on direct and indirect competitors in the area. Take a look at other successful roofing companies, and make note of what they are doing right.
At this stage, youll want to work out some administrative aspects and processes, such as employee onboarding, client onboarding, invoicing, bookkeeping and budgeting for your business.
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Cost Of The Materials Procured
Coming to the direct expenses, there will be a huge difference in the profits you make if the direct expenses are wisely planned. This is the place where nearly 60% of the investment is used. It is indeed an important thing to be taken care of. Of all the direct expenses, the cost of materials that are brought into the business for roofing purpose can be altered to increase the profits.
It is a known fact that as quantity increases, the cost of the product goes down. Procuring the necessary raw materials in a considerable quantity will give you opportunities to enjoy discounts. But, this does not rule out the fact of maintain the stock of raw materials at an optimum level.
Step : Create Your Business Website
After defining your brand and creating your logo the next step is to create a website for your business.
While creating a website is an essential step, some may fear that its out of their reach because they dont have any website-building experience. While this may have been a reasonable fear back in 2015, web technology has seen huge advancements in the past few years that makes the lives of small business owners much simpler.
Here are the main reasons why you shouldnt delay building your website:
- All legitimate businesses have websites – full stop. The size or industry of your business does not matter when it comes to getting your business online.
- Social media accounts like Facebook pages or LinkedIn business profiles are not a replacement for a business website that you own.
- Website builder tools like the GoDaddy Website Builder have made creating a basic website extremely simple. You dont need to hire a web developer or designer to create a website that you can be proud of.
Using our website building guides, the process will be simple and painless and shouldnt take you any longer than 2-3 hours to complete.
Recommended: Get started today using our recommended website builder or check out our review of the Best Website Builders.
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What Are Some Skills And Experiences That Will Help You Build A Successful Roofing Company
If you plan on performing some of the roofing work yourself when first starting out, you must be comfortable working with your hands at high elevations. You should have a mechanical aptitude, be in good physical shape and willing to use your body as well as your mind to complete challenging roofing projects of all varieties. Roofing business owners who elect to remain in a comfortable climate-controlled office must have solid managerial skills. They handle important duties ranging from ordering roofing materials to coordinating logistics, managing work crews and hiring/terminating employees.
Register Your Business With The Government
While most roofing businesses dont need to register with the federal government, you will likely need to register with the state government in order to conduct business activities within a given state. The type of registration you need to file will depend on your business structure , as well as on the laws of the state.
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Create A Stunning Roofing Website To Market Your Business 24/7
Your roofing website should act as your virtual sales representative 24/7/365 and generate a stream of qualified leads. How you create and use your site will influence your roofing marketing activities-but just building one will not skyrocket your roofing sales automatically. If you want your roofing website to market your business online, it needs to have these four main things:
- It needs to be super-fast: The average client expects your web page to load in less than three seconds.
- It must be Functional: Roofing websites should be appropriately coded for SEO, which implies adding structure to the site with metadata like optimized images, schema, Meta, and title tags.
- Your roofing website needs to be mobile-friendly: Over 50% of overall U.S. traffic comes from tablets and smartphones.
- It must be secure: More than 40% of all roofing websites that appear on the first page of Google are HTTPS, which is why Google has confirmed that it favors secure sites over unsecured ones.
- It needs to provide helpful Quality Content: A significant ranking factor lies in the quality over your websites quantity.
If your website is missing any of the above features, you need to partner with a reputable roofing website design agency like Blackstorm Roofing Marketing.
Now Youre Ready To Start A Successful Roofing Company
Starting a new business is no easy task, but if you have a solid business and marketing plan, along with the knowledge and expertise, you can run a successful roofing company in no time.
Owning a business is the easy part. The challenge is to grow it, make it profitable, and get the word out. Head over to our blog to find more useful business tips and articles thatll help you become a better salesman.
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Business Planning And Financing
Business planning for your roofing company is vital to your success, and will help lead you through the startup, financing and operational procedures of your new business. Business plans are detailed reports that outline every detail of your business. Often included in a business plan are a mission statement, a statement detailing the business’s structure, a pricing list, financial information, marketing and advertising strategies, and other information.
If you plan to obtain a loan to finance all or part of your roofing business, you will need a formal business plan. Hire a business consultant or seek free advice from the U.S. Small Business Administration or the Service Corps of Retired Executives websites to help you with this process.
Hire Or Outsource The Roofing Work
Hiring or outsourcing some roofing work can ease some of the time constraints and stress that may be caused by working alone. Even though you might prefer these services yourself, outsourcing some tasks to companies that specialize in particular aspects of your roofing business will provide relief, particularly when working with fixed time frames.
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Sharpen Your Sales Skills
Your future depends on how well you sell.
Youll be wearing every hat from director to driver when you first start your roofing business. But your most important role is going to be sales. Honing your sales skills at every opportunity will be time well spent. The better you are, the bigger youll be.
Build Trust In The Community
Like in any service-based business, trust is everything. Thats why it is important to show up and deliver as promised, every single time. Approaching your work like that will help you build a reliable network of referrals that will provide you with clients for years to come.
A tangible way to build this trustand make it easier to sell to new clients who are not referralsis by collecting reviews and testimonials.
You can create a Facebook Page and Google My Business Profile to provide a space for happy clients to leave reviews for your roofing business. Any time you finish a roof, ask your client to post their feedback.
Furthermore, transformation videos and photosets can also be valuable here. This exemplifies your work in action. These things may be posted on your social media pages and used in proposals for clients.
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Dont Be Afraid Of Small Ticket Items
Small-ticket items are amazing. Everybody thinks about competition and I agree that roofing very competitive, but whats happening is in the roofing business and almost in any business, big players, they start being picky very soon. So once people start doing really big jobs, commercial jobs, they dont care about small-tickets, especially repairs. But guess what? Thats where you come in and you save the day because for you right now, you just started and the more small jobs youll have, the more clientele youre going to have, the faster youre going to build your clientele. The more referrals youre going to get, the more you reviews youre going to have and also its less competitive. Nobody wants a goal where you dont have a lot of competition. You dont have to be the cheapest guy, you still can charge a good rate.
I would not recommend doing anything for a hundred or 200 bucks. Charge $300, or $400. Its going to be enough for you to support your family and your business because if you are going to be doing the repairs too cheap, youre just going to have a lot of risk and a lot of liabilities. But if you charge 400 or 500 bucks and you do something every day and nobody else wants it, people are going to love you. Theyre going to promote you. Its going to start snowballing and big jobs are going to start coming in. Taking a lot of small jobs, in the beginning, is going to set you apart if youre going to follow my tip number four.
Return Phone Calls And Emails Quickly
You have to produce everything super fast. And when I mean to produce, I dont just mean production like installation. Im talking about returning your phone calls and emails. Guys, you will be amazed at how bad contractors are at returning phone calls. Recently I was trying to reach a concrete guy. I found four companies on the internet, all with great reviews. Only one out of four returned my phone call the same day because the other three didnt want my business.
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We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our homepage.
License Permits And Becoming Legit
One of those upfront expenses youll be dealing with is getting licensed as a business and as a roofing contractor. While there is no blanket requirement for the entire U.S., some states have licensing and bonding requirements in order to operate as a roofing specialist. Most states and in Canada contractors are required to have a general contractors license. Different types of general contractors often need special licensing. This normally is gauged on the value of the jobs which fall under a specialty. Since roofing projects are generally high-ticket items, many states have requisite roofing licensing and certification rules. At the same time, many states dont require any license, no matter what type of work you do. You only need to register with the State Contractors Board or the local Department of Labor. License boards set rules and requirements aimed at protecting consumers, and preventing unscrupulous individuals from exploiting legitimate, compliant roofing companies by offering substandard services and/or materials.
- Research How-Tos on getting licensed
In some places permits vary by locality, right down to counties and towns. Most of the information you need can be searched and found online.
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How To Start A Successful Roofing Business
The first thing that anyone needs before starting any company is extensive understanding and experience in that profession. The same principle holds true for starting a roofing company. This means that you should have worked in roofing for many years and in a variety of different roles. From the new guy apprentice to seasoned veteran, all are necessary in order to garner a full understanding of this field. It also ensures that you have a deep appreciation for why all the roles are necessary and how they work together to complete the task at hand.
Years spent in this line of work are also incredibly valuable. The experience has allowed you to come across different obstacles that can inform future issues. Not to mention there is a better chance that those who have worked in it longer have installed more types of roofs. Experience with different roofing materials and on different kinds of roofs is important to have so that you can better meet the needs of your customers, and even attract more to your roofing company. A range of options will draw people in, even though they will ultimately only select one.
The First Steps
Stocking Up
Hiring the Right Workers
This is common sense. The most important thing you can do is hire people who are reliable and hard-workers. The majority should have experience in this line of work when the company is young, and you can take on new people as the company grows.
Finding Customers
