Business Innovators Radio - Episode 48: How to Deliver a Disney-Level Client Experience with Chris Hunter

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Part of the Construction Executives Live Series In this episode of Construction Executives Live, Jeremy Owens gets the opportunity to chat with Chris Hunter, founder and CEO of Marketing Heroes. Chris shares how to turn every client interaction into a Disney-level experience—from the first call with personalized responses, to seamless project updates and surprise delights, and years later with follow-up campaigns that build loyalty and referrals. Discover simple, proven ways to make clients feel like VIPs and turn one-time jobs into lifelong fans.In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-48-how-to-deliver-a-disney-level-client-experience-with-chris-hunter

Welcome to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to Construction Executives Live. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations of, improvements out in sunny Northern California. First of all, happy belated Veterans Day to so many of you, including our guest today, Chris Hunter. So first of all, happy belated Veterans Day, freedom. I recognize it every day.

We're able to do something like this, which is really cool to be able to share knowledge and help each other out in our lives and businesses. So I don't take that for granted at all. So thank you again. We are sponsored today by two companies. one is build12.com automate your construction business into a revenue-generating machine with the build-12 system visit build12.com speak to both chris and i's friend less over there at build 12 he'll hook you up and make sure to say hi for us as well we're also sponsored by the team at builder paypro

com this is an app that i um helped create it's a payments platform for the construction and and remodeling business, pay 0% credit card processing fees, accept ACH payments, integrate with QuickBooks, invoicing tool, everything that you need to get paid quick and stop paying those credit card fees. We need that 3.5% margin. So thinking about today's show, a center around creating a Disney-level experience for our clients,

you know, this is going to be eye-opening for many of us. Chris and I were just talking a little bit that kind of to go through this process, it'll help you visualize where you have holes in your business and don't look at as a slight. Look at it as an opportunity for growth and make sure to reach out to Chris because he can help you create that Disney level experience. The show today is called How to Deliver a Disney Level client experience. In this episode of Construction Executives Live, I'm going to get the opportunity to chat with Chris Hunter. He's founder and CEO of Marketing Heroes. Chris shares.

how to turn every client interaction into a Disney-level experience from the first call with personalized responses to seamless project updates and surprise delights, and years later with follow-up campaigns that build loyalty and referrals. Discover simple, proven ways to make clients feel like DAPs and turn one-time jobs into raving fans. Chris Hunter is founder and chief marketing officer of riffing sites.com and co-owner of marketing heroes. member, I'm sure this is probably your favorite part, proud member of the Fighting Texas Aggie Class of 1998 and former U.S. Air Force crew chief of the F-117A Nighthawk. Again, thank you for your service. I appreciate it. Absolutely. He discovered his passion for web design and

marketing while serving. And after returning to college station, probably your favorite place with his wife, Tara, in 1999, Chris built two successful agencies helping businesses, especially roofing companies grow through digital marketing. He's also the author of The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing for Roofers. Outside of work, Chris enjoys brewing beer. I'd like to talk you more about that. Barbecue, backpacking, woodworking, and spending time with his three children. Please help me welcome Chris Hunter.

Chris, thank you for being here. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, yeah, this is going to be fun. So tell us a little bit about your career. How did you get to where you're at right now? Well, like you said, it started in the Air Force. I was taking classes in the Air Force, learning programming and all sorts of really cool things back in the late 90s, right?

And that's just because it turned into kind of like, oh, this is kind of interesting. Let me learn how to, you know, code in visual C++, right? And let me, you know, just geeky stuff that a lot of people just didn't, you know, wouldn't interest a lot of people. but it was interesting me at that time. Right, right. I learned how to do HTML and PHP and MySQL and just all of these things that were new technologies way back then. And really fell in love with web design, specifically the process. So I started doing web design for nonprofits on the base there that I was stationed at at Holloman Air Force Base.

And really kind of fine-tune that process. got called into the general's office one day, you know, as a lowly airman, right? You know, you're like, oh, my God, what's going on here? You know, and he asked me to do the base website. He had seen some of the things around, you know, and so he's like, you know, I don't have anyone on staff that knows how to do this kind of stuff and the stuff that they're producing is horrible. Can you do this, you know?

And I was working on Jets and it was the middle of the summer and I'm like, yes, absolutely. I'll take air conditioning. You know, so, you know, he asked me how long it's going to take on it. I was like, honestly, I have no idea, sir. This might take 30 days. It might take 60 days. I have no earthly idea.

Yeah. He said, well, how about we take you off the flight line for the next 120 days, right? So I'm like, all right, let's do it. And so it kind of grew from there. And when I got out of the Air Force and came back to college station, that's when I started my web design agency. and that's what it really started as just doing websites for local businesses here in College Station. Right on. So what, tell me a little bit about your connection to the roughing industry because, you know, a lot of your services are geared for them.

Tell us a little bit why, but also we need to make the caveat, too, that everything that we're going to talk about today is for all kind of general home service businesses. This is not exclusive to roughing industry. 100%. So it started, I guess. around 2005, I had a roofer here in college station that contacted us. He had found us on Google, right? And I knew at that time when I got out of the Air Force that Google was going to be it, right? That's how we were going to get in front of people. And so that was my first, really what I want, my first focus when I first started my business was to, you know, I rank my competition. So I kind of went back and kind of reverse engineered what they did. Okay. After I did that, it took about six months to outrank them on Google at that time. I was like, well, I could do this again, right? Why don't I build out another website?

So I built out college stationwebdesign.com and got that ranked. And then did that process over and over and over again until I drove my competition completely off the first page. Nice. Okay, I had a roofer here in call station, you know, contact me and said, hey, you know, how much does it cost for a web design, right? And we talked about it over the phone and all that kind of stuff. Hung up the phone, get another call. Same dude. And I'm like, hello, this Chris.

How can I help you? You know, it's like, didn't I just talk with you? I said, yes. Yes, you sure did. And he kept doing that over and over and over again. And he's like, how did you do this? Right. Every single one of these websites are coming to you. How did you do that? And so that was, and he talked me into basically formalizing our process for a search engine optimization and how do we systemize it to where we can do the same results for clients over and over and over again.

Now, none of my clients since then have ever done the true domination thing of buying out a whole bunch of different websites and building all because it's expensive. You know, SEO is expensive. But that was our first journey, really working with a roofer. After that, we had some good results, went out and got another roofer, had some more results from that, went out and got another roofer and so forth. We just kind of kept doing that process. And it wasn't until 2018 that my business coach said, hey, why don't you just focus on roofers, you know, just specifically on roofers?

I'm like, okay. And so that's when I first started writing my book, the ultimate guide to digital marketing for roofers. Yeah. Writing a book on marketing is ridiculous because the second that you've finished something, something else is going to change. And that's what kept happening to me for the past,

well, for several years until my business coach said, just take this quarter, finish it and get it done with. Right. So I do. Well, it's true. I think I like that advice because so many of us we get kind of,

we think that we need to add this product or this service instead of really just specializing in what you're good at. And especially when you're getting the feedback from clients that, dude, you're good at this. Yeah. Like we still have a tendency and maybe it's our ego that's like, oh, we need to do, we need to do more, expand here or there. But that makes a lot of sense to just know your niche. 100%. Absolutely. Cool. So, you know, kind of, you know, what you've done a little bit over the years, you know, generated over $216 million in roofing sales. But now we kind of talked about this that you went to a conference and they were really talking about this Disney experience. And you're kind of developing this. You're going to roll this out to your clients here soon.

But what does Disney teach contractors about, you know, turning a one-time transaction into a lifelong relationship? Yeah. So it really starts with what kind of experience are you wanting to create for your your customers right um and it first honestly started with a book that i read probably three or four years ago called um never lose a customer again right and in it it talks about how to build that customer journey well we did that for ourselves okay um and it wasn't until i was sitting in our and it was really a mastermind meeting with with uh you know that in a mastermind group that I'm in 400 plus other agency owners from around the world that are honestly the best agencies out there.

And they were talking about building this Disney experience and how a lot of us had done that already. That's part of our thing. But the Disney experiences is simply the fact that, you know, there's Bush Gardens. Everyone's been to Bush Gardens, right? Or to Six Flags. Sure. There's that kind of experience.

And there's nothing wrong with the Six Flags experience or from a Bush Gardens experience is great, right? But when you go to Disney, there's a, there's a big wow of, right? So it's, it's, when you ask your kids, would you rather go to Bush or Bush Gardens or Disney World, or in your case, probably Disneyland, right? Yeah. Which one do you prefer almost always? They're going to say Disney World or Disneyland, right?

Because there's something about their experience and Walt Disney really focused on that, you know, on getting down to the very tiniest little details of how do I build the absolute best experience for my customers that it's going to make them raving fans. Right. Yeah, and difficult. That raving fan thing, I mean, we've always struggled with that. I mean, people are that busy lives. How do you really make that level of impact?

I mean, we've created a lot of satisfied customers, but that's different. Like when the, when the job's done, everyone's happy, we'll get a good review, that tends to be it for us, you know. And I think that that's similar to a lot of folks is that creating that raving fan is different. Those are the people who are like commenting on your social posts and sharing it and, you know, going to your events. And, you know, like, that's a different, that's a different thing. Yeah, 100%. Right. And really, it starts from the owners, you know, mind is really.

where it all, it has to, there has to be a mindset shift of I'm going to sharpen the sword as much as I possibly can. Right. And in order to say, okay, well, this area of the business isn't as great, how do I fix that? How do I prove it? How do I make it better? You know, and not just better, but the best. You want to be world class in what you do. Right. And that's how we get referrals. That's how we get, you know, good reviews. That's how we get all of the things. that make a business outstanding and grow. And ultimately, that's what we want to do is grow our business. Right.

Yeah, totally. And you already have kind of a framework in place for your clients. You call it the 4R marketing system, reputation, reach, resale, and referral. You know, it's clearly already working, but how does this Disney experience going to fit into that framework? Is it going to be part of the result? Like, where are you putting this new thing that you're? You're still trying to figure it out, maybe.

I think it fits into every single one of those pillars, right? Totally. Yeah. Because if you build a world-class experience, you're going to have a great reputation. If you build a world-class experience, it's going to make it easier to reach out to people, right? If you build a world-class experience, it's going to make it easier for getting referrals and to resell to people because they're going to want to come back to you time and time and time and time again. Right.

So it kind of fits into all of those. Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So you also have a mission that you kind of discussed about helping 100 ruffers double by 2028. So if a roofer or any contractor wants to stand out in a sea of, you know, same-day estimates, free estimates, free inspections, low-price later, all this crap that we hear, you know, what's the first non-negotiable step in creating that Disney-level experience even before the marketing begins? Man, I have, and this comes from experience because I've called thousands. of roofing companies, right? Answer your phone. I can't tell you how many,

I'd say probably easily 95% of roofing companies don't even answer their own phones. And even worse, it goes to a voicemail or a voicemail box is full. Yeah. Right? Or it hasn't even been set up. I've run across that too.

you know right and you're like what are you doing right these homeowners they made the choice to call you and it just destroys your reputation destroys it yeah i i hear that often right you know when people get a hold of us and they're like oh i'm just glad to talk to somebody and you know it's weird it's like it's this feeling and i don't know why this is but when we get busy and i think ruffers are definitely part of this industry where, you know, they get their, their backlog is three months. They're feeling good. You know, the phone's been ringing. They don't feel the need to pick up, but it's weird. When you're slow, right? When you're slow, you're picking up everyone and you're like, you know, I need some leads here. So it's, it's just strange that it's based on that. And

honestly, we sell that way too. Like when we have the backlog, you sell different. You, you are you're more confident, you don't need the business, you maybe will weed out people that may not be a good client for you. So it's a strange psychological thing that we go through, but what's your advice for those ruffers and maybe smaller contractors who don't have staff answering phones and it does come to your personal cell phone? What is your guidance there? So I would say set up, I mean, this technology is out there.

now, right? And it's been out there for the past year. So we've been setting it up for our clients, but voice AI. It's basically a modern day voicemail, right? Except you can, you can have it, qualify that homeowner, whether you can work with them or not, or they're in your service area, that they even have the job, you know, type that qualify that person and then set the appointment. The voice AI technology out there can do all of that. And there's zero reason not to have that set up, honestly, in my mind. Right. I mean, it seems simple, but yeah, I mean, that's an easy one to do.

I know there's also things like virtual answering people that you can get. I think it's the difficult part. I think what a lot of us struggle with is trusting someone or now technology to, A, qualify, B, like set appointments, you know, so, you know, for those of us in that camp, you know, obviously you've got to get over that because, like you said, if you're just letting it go to voicemail that's full or not set up yet, that's not helping anything. No, 100%. Yeah. Got it. So, you know, first impressions, you know, obviously picking up the phone is a first impression.

what else can you do in that in that initial touch point to to make that a really good first impression because I think that's the other thing is a lot of guys I'm not speaking from my experience that maybe not have great bedside manner or may not be really great on the phone maybe you're on a drop site you're on a freaking roof at that time you know you're going to be kind of short, you know, so how, how would you kind of help with that first impression piece? So my, my wife worked for Disney, right? Yeah. She actually works, worked for Disney World, an internship, you know, for Texas A&M.

She got an internship. She almost didn't go back to A&M, okay, because it was set that level of a, wow, kind of a thing for her. That's cool. And she only had like a semester left. I mean, she did her internship. You know, anyway, so she was taught there to always answer the phone with a smile. Okay. Because if you're answering the phone with a smile, it's really hard to be short.

It's really hard to be negative. It's really hard to. And if you're smiling, there's a different tone that that actually comes out as you're talking. Strange. Yes. Yes. And it comes across that phone line. Okay.

So I would say answer the phone with a smile. That's the very first step of that whole Disney experience there is to actually just smile. Okay. Right. Yeah. No, that's a good point. And then you also kind of talked about chatbots as well in the AI space. So let's just think through that initial lead going to a website.

And now they're kind of figuring out, oh, do I go ahead and sign up for, you know, an appointment or maybe they're not quite there. yet, maybe they have a couple of questions. Tell us a little bit about the chatbot experience that you've had and how that's helping just grab that lead. Yeah. So I think it's important to get back with leads as fast as you possibly can, right? And, you know, that's something that we coach our clients on is that, and Harvard Business Review actually released this study maybe about a year ago at this point.

could have been maybe a year and a half ago that the businesses that were more successful were ones that got back with leads within five minutes or less. Yeah. Okay. And so that's where I think that a chat bot comes in, right? A sales bot because it's not just about the channel of chatting, right? It could be a text message. It could be an email.

It could be any which way. that they come in, whether it's a DM on Instagram or anything like that, if someone raises their hand, it's important that you respond and don't let it go for an hour, even, because by that hour, they've already contacted four or five other contractors to get someone to fix their problem. Right. Yeah, I kind of meet them where they are. I think a lot of us have struggled with the text thing, you know, I'm one of them where it's like I get annoyed by the amount of text messages I get. So I think that, you know, I think a lot of the struggle with do I want to be that, do I want to be that level of follow up? But if they're meeting you at a text or getting you via text,

and you got to meet them right there. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So let's, okay, so we get someone to call. we actually answer with a smile and then we set the appointment is there a step here and I think that a lot of us are missing this step I mean typically when we're setting appointments

I think probably the average is a weekish you know most of us are not setting it for tomorrow just because we do book up so let's say we're a week out what can we do here to be Disney yeah so there's several things that you can do here

Right. Let's say that it is a week out. You can easily put them into an automated nurture sequence, right? Just an email sequence or a text message sequence even, or maybe both, right? That educates your homeowner on what the process is going to be. Okay. This is where we're at in the process. And these are the things to consider. Start educating your homeowners. because a more educated homeowner is most likely going to be a better fit for you, okay? Right, right. And most likely is going to buy at a level that an uneducated homeowner that is possibly just looking at the bottom line prices of the estimates that you provide and going, well, you know, this one's cheaper. So let's go with this one, right? But they might not not understand the differences in between those two estimates. Well, if you educate them from the get-go, these are the things to look for, then they will become a much better lead, much better sale for you in the end.

Right. No, I love that. So let's talk about expectations. So in this certain nurturing, you know, whatever automation, and maybe for us, what we try to do is we ask them what their preferred contact method is. So even if they're calling us, a lot of times they're calling, because they're kind of desperate. They're like,

I need to freaking get a warm body here. But that's not typically how they like to be communicated with. So if they say email, then we try to really work with them on email. They say text and then that way. But expectation. So a lot of people don't know what's going on in remodeling. A lot of people,

this is their first thing. So they really don't know what they don't know, right? So they're, they kind of struggle with, you know, what's going to happen? Are you going to be here for three hours? Like for us, I'm inciting Windows decking. We have sales guys, I'm sure, that are there for one to two hours.

Most people don't want that. So, like, what kind of expectations are you giving them before you even get, meet them? Yeah. And I think that's a really important thing to do, is setting expectations on what, you know, it's going to look like, right? Am I going to be there an hour? Am I going to be there three hours? Right. But with roofing, it's, you're never, I don't think they're all that long, you know.

And what I tell our roofers is that when you do show up to the appointment, make sure you have a roofal estimate or a roof our estimate in hand, right? Already, ready to go with a good, better, best scenario. Right. But yeah, those expectations, just letting them know, hey, I'm going to be there 15 minutes early or I'm, I might be. running behind you know you never want a homeowner to sit there in or even worse call you and be like hey where are you you know you said you were going to be here an hour ago right right so if you set the proper expectations of hey you know i'm i'm on my way or i might be running 15 minutes late is that okay via text message i think that's that's an important step there right yeah i think if you

let them know it's different than just not saying anything I think that's a big strike against you already. I think if you're making a habit of that, just know that you're already selling from a place of weakness. And that's tough. I mean, a lot of clients there, I had one, which is a, this is a great story. And I think all contractors can relate.

But I had an appointment with somebody, let's say it was 1 o'clock. I show up at 1 o'clock on the dot. He opens the door and says, you're late. And I'm like, look down on my clipboard. I'm like, I have it for one. I set an email reminder. he's like no it was actually it was actually new even though i said i sent the reminder and he said

um well that's one strike literally he said that yeah so i went i'm gonna i'm gonna stop you right there we're not a good fit and he's like what do you mean i'm like i you know i don't you know there's a misunderstanding on the time but i don't start from a place of weakness like that so i'm not you know we're just not going to be a good fit so i just turned and walked away and it was just like I felt like I made a sale. I was like, yeah. But like it's interesting how just the time, a lot of people are literally like looking at their clock. And if you're constantly late, there are some folks that are kind of type A like that.

And they have busy schedules, but B, they're kind of using it as a test. Like, are they going to show up for the job late, you know, all that? So it's kind of a big one. Yeah. And I mean, that's something that I've taught my kids. And so I've, I've been there baseball and softball coach for the past, you know, 10, 15 years, whatever it's been. And we go by the Lombardi rule, right? If you're on time, you're late.

Right. Right. If you're late, you're really late. Or on 15 minutes early is on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, you're gone, right? Yeah. Kind of thing.

Right. Yeah. So I think that we should. follow that rule in our in our own businesses as well right the other component to this expectations piece that I've heard and I you know again I've not rolled this one out but I think it would be a good one is you know we have a Q&A page on our site basically it's basically just a list of common questions we get and like if you getting if you're getting questions from clients on the phone or whatever they're saying hey what do I expect here

or there, then put that on your list. And in your nurturing, you can actually send them, hey, here are some common questions we get. And that way, it's like, you don't have to, you're not reinventing the wheel. It's just questions that you get over and over again. And that would be a good piece, right? Yeah. And one thing to make note of on this step is that, you know, in marketing, it's all about

repetition, right? And do you want to hear that same message over and over? over and over and over again because people need to hear things over and over and over again. Right. Right. This is a prime example of something that you can do in every stage of your funnel, whether it's from the first part of your sales funnel, whether it's before you come out for the job,

whether if it's after the job, repeating these steps of frequently asked questions is a prime example of what you can do. And it's a very easy thing to automate these days. Right. Yeah, definitely. So for those of us, and they're not, we're not a lot of us in this pace, but not the low price leader, a little bit more high end, you know, whether that is products or services or whatnot, should you have a different level of expectation, should you qualify differently? You know, sometimes if you get the client that's like, hey, I'm looking for the best price, you know, they'll pretty much tell you what they're looking for. If that's not you, do you bail right away? Absolutely. I mean, why not? I mean, kind of like what you're talking about earlier, you know, you want to sell from a position of strength anyways.

Right. If you know you're not going to be a fit, why even? Yeah, waste your time. Why? Yeah, just set that expectation right away. Hey, I don't think there's going to be a fit. You know, we're not the low price leader out there. We're not going to sell a roof for $5,000.

You know, if you want that, go somewhere else. Right, right. Yeah, totally. and then are you a fan of the text reminder or is that built into every lead what what you're using there i think a lot of us are you know dabbling with different tools and you know i think some of us i've heard this from some of my peers that they don't like to use it because they get a lot of cancellations yeah um you know so they get sent a reminder oh shit yeah i can't make it you know whereas before if you just show up right right even if they forgot they're like

Ah, yeah, yeah, you're already here. So talk through that a little bit. So I think over-communicating is part of that Disney experience. Okay. Not communicating enough is just the opposite, right? And so we want to build an experience. If we're wanting that world-class experience, we have to over-communicate versus under-communicate.

And I say to do it in three different. for mediums, right, text message, because that's, that can be done now. And most people are sitting on that $1,000 machine sitting in their pocket anyways, right? And on their watch and now on, on glasses, right? Coming through, right? So, you know, so I might as well communicate with them there. If they've opted out, of course, you don't want to do that.

But, you know, it's just a simple thing to do. Email, of course, right? And last, and this is something that. nobody does is call, call that morning to ensure that that person's going to be there when you're going to be there. Right. So to me, I typically tell my clients to have your admin staff do this, right? Have them call out every morning for all of the appointments that are going, that are going to happen.

And make sure you're setting those expectations that Joe is going to be out there, you know, between one and, and 130, okay? We'll do our best to get there as fast as we possibly can and to be on time. You know, if he is running late, he's going to call me and I'm going to call you, okay? Or he'll call you directly or text you directly. I think just, again, just over communicating, you know, is, is key. Right. Yeah, and do you have, is this typically, you know, a lot of people have it in their CRMs.

Do you have you found a great tool for this, you know, because we're all looking for the best, most efficient thing to do so that we're not creating a much extra work for our staff. Yeah. And so because they're a sponsor, I'm going to say build 12, right, is, has all of this stuff built into that CRM, right? You can text, you can call from the CRM. You can email, you can direct message. There's all sorts of things that you can do inside of that CRM.

So they're right there at your fingertips. Your staff should be in there already anyway, setting appointments. you know, looking at their appointments, putting notes in, setting tasks for themselves. All of those things are super important things to do. So if they're there, have them do all of these, you know. Yeah. Yeah, that makes total sense. Okay.

So we got the lead. We're reminded them. We over communicated. Now we're given a proposal. So some are, you know, in the home, you know, a lot of ruffers will probably be right there on the spot, right? because it's something pretty easy to price out, good, better, best, all those things. For those of us that are not one call closed in that more complex, you know, email type proposals, details.

So what, how do we, how do we deliver this and follow up properly? So, and let's take in the case of citing, right? What you guys do is you go out, right? you don't have an estimate in hand. You've got to do all the measurements. You've got to figure everything out, right? But set those expectations that I'm going to do this and I'm going to make it a priority and I'm going to get this estimate to you as soon as I possibly can.

I would say, and this is just for me, I've been doing sales for the past 20 plus years, don't just send an estimate out and then call it a day. I say set the appointment to meet with them to go over the estimate and any questions that they might have right then and there and answer any objections, overcome any objections, right, in the sales process. But you're also one-on-one with them versus just coldly sending out an email, right? And this is something that I've been coached on from my own sales coach of, hey, don't just do that.

Set the next appointment before you leave that appointment. Right. Yeah. No, I think that's a great, that's a great habit to get into. I think a lot of us get into the habit of sending an email and just getting on to the next. And then so the follow-up part, let's say either you did email it or you did meet with them and they're not ready to move forward. The most common thing you're going to hear is I'm getting a couple more, you know, that kind of thing. So how can we create that Disney level follow-up?

Yeah. So it really, after that, to me, anytime you meet with a customer, that salesperson should be sending out a thank you cart. right nobody else is doing that right and really the Disney experience starts with doing things that no one else is doing right and so every touch that they get from you should get a special something right from them and a thank you card is such an easy low cost thing that you can do right at any stage honestly you know be grateful for anything is I mean that's no contractors are grateful for for meeting with people. But if you're in charge of sales,

make that a habit of every time that you meet with the homeowner and you didn't close the sale, go ahead and send out a thank you. Thank you for your time today. I just wanted to, you know, thank you so much for meeting with me and allowing us to come into your home and talk about your project,

you know, right. Yeah. Whatever that the project is. Yeah. No, I think that's, obviously,

that's going above and bound. That would be, that would be very different. I've heard some, and it's very rare, but I've heard some give away like a Starbucks gift card, you know, and I think that that would be for those people who are, you know, your tickets maybe not small, maybe it's a little bit bigger size project that would kind of give that extra oomph of like, oh, wow, that is way different. And usually they just fucking put it on their phone, right? They don't have to keep the card. They may not remember you when they order that try, whatever they're ordering, but. Still, that's going above and beyond.

100%. Yeah. Okay. So let's say they, let's say they don't move forward. You send to get the thank you card. And we're out a couple weeks now. I think that at that point, they probably do have their other estimates in hand. And you feel like they're getting close to making that decision.

Now what do we do? Well, hopefully in between all of those steps, you've got a nurture sequence that's going out that's educating them, right? The difference is between the estimates that they're most likely getting in your estimate. Okay. And this is something that, that again, on that nurture sequence from before could be the same thing of educating your homeowners on what they should be looking for when they are getting other estimates. So you can have different types of automations that happen depending on specific actions, right? And in Bill 12 is just a matter of setting up the automation and then it's setting up the tag for that trigger.

Right. So that should be a minimum of what you could be doing, right? And just to think through that whole process of, okay, well, on day one, they're going to get an email and or a text message that says, thank you so much for meeting with me. Day two, they're going to get an email that says, hey, you're probably getting estimates from other people. Let me educate you a little bit about this. Right.

Day three, you know, is, hey, these are the common. questions that I get can going back to those frequently asked questions right right make it conversational make it seem like like you actually sat down and are thinking about them that day and you can even say that hey I was thinking about you today right contact name right and and make sure you test those out by the way before you send them out right make sure that it doesn't say just contact name in there okay I've gotten those before too you didn't test out your workflows did you yeah so Yeah, I know. That's a good point. And one thing to kind of maybe step back one step is the sales process in general. Like, obviously, this varies wildly. And I don't know. What's your take on this? I mean, obviously a lot of people are, you know, iPad, maybe not as many ruffers, but a lot of home services are like iPad. It tends to, I think, look and feel very similar. So what do you feel where we had it with this? Because.

again, I don't feel like a lot of homeowners are wanting two, three hours. I think a lot of homeowners are wanting, you know, pretty quick process here. But at the same time, you know, we have this technology. Is it too much? Are we giving them too much screen? Are we not giving them enough personal? Like, what are your feelings there? I, what I tell my roofers is always go out with a roofal estimate in hand, right?

If it changes, you can change it right there. they want to see you getting up on the roof they want to see that you're inspecting things and of course take pictures so you can educate them of this is what I'm seeing up there because they might not even gone up there to even inspect they just know that they've got a leak right?

iPads to me are it's I've had a lot of people come to me and at first they're running their entire business out of a notebook okay And it just the professionalism of someone coming in with an iPad, right, that that has that estimate that is branded towards your brand, that is professional looking, you're looking professional because you're, of course, in a branded shirt and a branded truck, right?

Clean cut. All that kind of stuff goes into that. But yes, use technology, right? And don't be the contractor that leaves behind a hand-scrut. scratched out estimate, you know, just, again, that hurts your reputation. They're going to go with someone who looks professional and is professional. Right. Agreed.

Okay. Next step, they, let's say they do end up going with you. How do you reduce the buyer's remorse? Again, get back to those expectations. Yep. You know, so let's talk through that. If you're getting a lot of cancellations, then you need to kind of re-figure out your process.

something's wrong, right? If it's very rare, sometimes, you know, it's going to happen every once in a while, but how do we reduce that part? Yeah, so buyer's remorse is a real thing. And in that book, Never Lose a Customer Again, it talks through this whole thing. And that's the whole part of really mapping out this journey here. The second that someone buys from you, and especially on a bigger ticket item, a roof, siding job, windows, remodel.

the very first thing that's going to go through their mind is, did I just do the right thing? Are they going to screw me over? Right. Can I trust them? Okay, that they're going to either do the job or even just show up to do the job. Okay. So that's a little bit of that.

So the way to combat that is really immediately, they have to have something in hand that reinforces their decision. Okay. What we have done for years and years and years for my agency is that the second that somebody buys, we send out a thing of cookies from edible arrangements. Okay. Okay. I chose edible arrangements because it can be done the same day. The second that they sign an agreement, we are setting up that order to go that same day. Okay. And if it can't be done that same day, then it's a lot of times that very next day. Right. Okay. And that's simply to combat that decision of, did I just do the right thing?

Right. Okay. We're rolling this out with our clients because it's an easy thing to do. Mm-hmm. And it helps reinforce that decision. Now, the second step after that is to send that thank you card out. Okay. I say for roofers and for roofing sales, and really all contracts can do this.

if you've got a sales staff, someone who's other than the owner doing the sales, right, is to have that thank you card also go out that same day. So they're going to get in the sequence, basically, in most markets, they're going to get the etymal arrangement that day, next day. Right after that, they're going to get a thank you card. Right. So you're having these steps of reinforcement that they made the right decision. Right.

of choosing you versus Joe Schmo's roofing company down the street, right? That was $5,000 cheaper. Right. Yeah, totally. Okay, so they get maybe this is helping them with their decision. Now we have that time between, you know, the sale and the actual install, which if you want had different lead times, I would say at least around a monthish is probably kind of an average type of thing. What are you doing in the meantime between those two things?

Educate, educate, educate, educate. Nurture sequences with education in every step of the way, okay? And calling to confirm things and letting them be in the process. Okay. My neighbor, he and I were just talking about this the other day. He's got, he's building a new office. He's a dentist. He's building a new office. He's a dentist. He's building a new office. office. And he was complaining about the contractor that he used because they are not communicating with him enough. And he's one of those types that that is an over communicator. He wants to be communicated. And that's because he's built in his dentist practice. He's built this Disney experience. Right. And so his expectations are way up here. Right. But when they're laying

foundations and not even calling him telling it's going to happen or putting plumbing things in the wrong way and not telling him or or making changes. That's what he was complaining about the other day, making changes without getting with him to be in on that decision process. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And a lot of us are sending out a project manager maybe to do another measure, confirming things.

I think the other thing that we could over communicate is things like colors, you know, product type, just so that there's, There's no wishy washing. Sometimes people put it on the contract, they are thinking of something else or whatever, having that second check of, hey, just to confirm, you're doing country bay, you know, all the, whatever it may be. We run a sample by out there just to make sure. Just to make sure you're doing block frame windows with no grids, you know, like I think that catches us because we've all had a landline there where it's like we're looking at the contract. And they're like, that's not what we talked about. And you're like, oh, my God.

Yeah. So I think that over-communicating that is very important. And wrapping in, now you're starting to wrap in the operations and the install team into this. Now we've communicated that, hey, we have Joe that's going to come to the formal measure tomorrow. And then now he's wrapped into this. And now there's communication of colors and details. So I think that that those are. steps that I almost guarantee is like very rarely happening.

Right, right. Yeah. And the other parts also is like when you're going to do the job, you know, letting the customer know when that's actually going to happen, right? And just call them the day before, hey, just, right? We're going to be out there tomorrow. Here's what to expect, you know. Yeah.

We'll be at 8 o'clock in the morning. Right. Make sure you have your pets put away, whatever, you know, any of those kinds of things. I think back to those, that nurture sequence, those are when you're saying things like, hey, remove pictures from your wall, you know, we're going to cut your shrevery back, you know, things for them, homework for them. This is the only things you need to worry about before we get there. And that way there's not those questions.

You're basically getting in front of all the questions that you get asked. Yes. Okay. So now we started the job. We have a cruise on site. You know, we have a job site sign out. what are some steps here one secret that we've had in our business

is that you have to over communicate here and this is where I think a lot of contractors fail is when it starts to get installed if you have a sales guy and he never shows up and he's basically, he gets the sale and then he picks up the final check, you got a big problem because that gap is huge and what the salesman could have told the homeowner

Is it getting done? I don't know. So, like, how do we invite the over-communicating in this stage? Because the worst-case scenario is a homeowner stews about something, sleeps on it multiple days, it turns into a nightmare. So how do we do that? Yeah, so it starts, like you said, with the salesperson, right? And coming out and making sure everything's going okay.

Sometimes you might have a foreman that's doing that, But I think having the handover from sales to operations, i.e. sales to foreman, right? And introducing the foreman and he's going to be your main point of contact. But you can, of course, always call me, text me. You know, I will get it figured out if anything is ever going to happen, whatever, right? Right. But having that smooth handover is really important than just being there on site. Right. I mean, I hit, I can't tell you how many.

just even my own neighborhood as I'm walking around, seeing all these roofing crews out here and nobody's out there. You go talk to whoever's in charge. They don't even speak English, right? In Texas, so, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. But have someone there that if the homeowner is there,

then they do have concerns about something, right? They can go talk to actually communicate to somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important. Yeah. Yeah. And then anything else around the job, are you recommending, you know, door hangers, what other things, you know, pictures, drone, like all the things that you can do?

What are some things that you really like here for Disney? So here's something that's pretty easy to do. I'm reaching over here because I have this sitting on my whiteboard is a little mailer that goes out to the neighborhood. Okay. I mean, it's just a simple message. I hope this message finds you well. My name is so-and-so. I'm the owner of whatever.

You know, I'm just reaching out to inform you that one of your neighbors has hired us. We're going to be in the neighborhood. It might be loud. We're going to do our best to get in and out. Those kinds of, you know, I think that's something. Door hangers are important. You should always be canvassing the neighborhood around any job. Okay.

Always. always, especially roofers, but you know, this also applies to you, siding and windows and so forth, you know, is that when you're in a neighborhood, you're getting permission to be in that neighborhood. Some of the times, you know, they're gated, okay? Utilize that time. Have your salespeople go out in canvas and introduce and, hey, if, if you have any issues, here's my card, right?

A nail comes flying into your backyard, let me know. Right. Yeah, no, I think it's so. I mean, you're saying it in a way of, like, being non-threatening, but you're actually asking, you know, can I come on buy? And I, what we typically have done is, you know, offer like some sort of neighborhood discount. Like, why we're in the area, hey, you know, the sales guys are already there. It's really easy for us to stop by. You know, we're passing on that efficiency to you, which it really is efficient.

You're already there. Yeah. I mean, shit. And you didn't communicate with any of those homeowners. It's such a lost opportunity. Again, I've been. in there. We all just get swamped. So I understand that this is easier said than done, but what an easy kind of like gold mine right there, right? Yeah, and especially in roofing,

right? I mean, you've got hailstorms here in Texas that come through and you get into a neighborhood, and especially gated community neighborhood. You want to utilize it as best as you can. Offering that free inspection, whether they use you or not, just so that they know is my roof okay or not. Right. Right. And that's the way it should be, I'm not here to sell you anything. Right. I'm here. I'm here to help you and let you know if there's something wrong. Yeah. Yep. That makes sense. All right. So photos, there's one thing that you kind of talked about, the 100% satisfied sign with the homeowners. Talk me a little bit through that, but this is a powerful piece right here. Yeah. So this came from a buddy mine from the Air Force. He and I worked on this

jet back behind me together. He went out. out to Wichita, Kansas went back home after he was done and started a basement repair company. Okay. And one of the things that he implemented in his company was this 100% satisfied sign. Right. Okay. After every job, they would take a photo of the homeowner in their basement, right,

with 100% satisfied sign on it or out in front of their house, you know, right, where a little yard sign that was literally such of the easy thing. to do, right? These days, you can get it printed at Canva, you know, and design the sign, have your logo on it, 100% satisfied customer, whatever, 100% satisfied homeowner, whatever that you're, you know, whether it's a client, whether it's whatever that your terminology is, use that, okay? Right. And then have your domain name down there and a big phone number that they can call and you're going to answer it, right? But it's something that can be used in all of your marketing.

You can post it on your website. You can post it to your social media channels, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever to Google business profile. You can send it out via your monthly newsletter.

You've got that right, where you're keeping your, your former customers top of mind. Right. And so that's, here's here's our newest job site photos right so it's it's a really um easily leverageable thing to do and it takes hardly anything for a homeowner to be able to do that right got it we have a couple more to get through here so obviously after the job's done we're going to do we need to get reviews

what is freaking that's a whole other topic yeah this is a must we got to have them yeah um so we need to create up that automation right to make sure that we're asking for it, not only personally, but via email and text and call. So all those things need to happen. I know that a lot of homeowners are getting kind of annoyed with us. Is there any tricks to kind of break that down, that barrier? Because it's a pretty big barrier right now. It is. But if you've done your job up until this point, it should be pretty easy for that homeowner to say, yes, absolutely. I'll give you a review. But have a QR code ready on your phone. Right, and that's easily, you can do that on Canva, get a QR code, and everything that goes, links directly to your GBP, your Google Business profile.

Yeah, right. If you have designed and you do have a Disney level experience up to this point, then this should be a no-brainer for that customer. Right. Yep. Nope. Yeah, you're right. You're right. If it's different, this is going to be, a little easier sale here. Okay, so referrals. Obviously, the job's done. It's been a little minute. Now we're going to start the process of sending out quarterly-ish.

How often are we reminding people of our referral program, making sure that we're staying top of mind? Yeah, so referrals always start, it work better when you ask for them in person. Most people are afraid to do that, right? Whether your salesperson or an owner, just simply asking, hey, who else do you know? Right. That can use our services. Right. It starts there.

But definitely you should have some sort of something built in your business, a workflow built in your business that stays top of mind with your customers over time. Okay. Asking for referrals, asking for reviews on a regular basis, i.e. quarterly is important. Yeah. I also think that it's important to have that human element involved in the call. anyone who hasn't given you a review, for sure, call someone for a referral. So the way to do this, in my opinion, is to call as a customer service call.

Hey, how's that roof doing? Right. You have any issues? Do we need to come out there and look at it? Make sure that you've got to lift a shingle or, hey, we just had a storm that came through. Do you want us to come out and inspect and make sure that everything is still okay? Right. Hey, while I have you on the phone, Mr. Homeowner, I noticed that you haven't left me a review, right?

I thought that we provided five-level, you know, five-star level service to you, our Disney experience, right? Sure. But I noticed that you haven't left a review. Would you mind doing that? I'll send you the link right now and we can do it right now. Also, while I have you, who else do you know that we can help out? We would love to help out any of your friends. if you do and they go in a roofers case.

If they use us for a new roof, we'll send you a $250 gift card to Texas Roadhouse to have dinner on us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I kind of introduced that referral program again. And then also on the just the nurturing process, you know, newsletter communicating about what you're doing, events, you know,

what you're doing as a team. how often are you you recommend doing this? Again, we want to make sure that people are properly opted in and you're not, you know, getting spammed and everything. So that's kind of an important step there. Yeah. So if they've done business with you or even if they didn't do business with you, keep them in their database, right?

But you have to have all the opt out information ways for them to opt out, okay, just to stay legal on that side of things. But a newsletter that sent out, I like the monthly newsletter. that packages everything that your marketing team is doing. So blogs, job site photos, those 100% satisfied customer photos, your reviews that you've got in the past month.

Hopefully you've gotten at least four reviews in the past month. And, you know, anything like that, put that all into that monthly newsletter package, everything that you're doing up, right, and send that out once a month.

No roof. company is doing this. And I know this because I have interviewed thousands of roofing companies gone through their marketing and asked them, do you do this one piece? Nobody does it. Right. Because it's hard to stay consistent with it, right? Well, that's where you put either a marketing team on it and build that as part of the process or you hire someone like us to do that. Right. But it's the ultimate leverage tool, in my opinion, that encompasses all four pillars in the four our marketing system. Right. Right. And again, Again, that's reputation, reach, resell, and referral.

Right. Yeah. No, that makes total sense. All of this has been really great. What is it? How do we get it? Our listeners get in touch with you. What does it look like to work with you guys?

So go through that process with us a little bit. Yeah, sure. So you can always email me directly at chris. Atroofing sites.com. More than happy to look at your marketing, see what you're doing. See what you're doing on the customer service side of things. Right. to build this Disney experience.

I'm happy to help you with any of any of these things that we've talked about here today, which, by the way, isn't really marketing, right? But it is because the better that your customer experience is, the easier that the marketing is going to be. Yeah, totally. It all is all hand in hand. So thank you so much for being here, Chris. This has been a wealth of knowledge.

And hopefully it's a lot to digest, I know. But like if you can start chipping away at these things, it'll come back to you tenfold. So thank you so much. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on it. Yep. All right. Thanks again for being here.

Another episode of Construction Executives Live. We will see you next month. Bye. You've been listening to In the Zone and Construction Executives Live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In the Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in the construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction.

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