Ep 63 – How Smart Contractors Are Selling Roofs In A Click

If you’ve ever wished quoting a roof could be as quick and painless as ordering takeout, you’re going to love this episode. We sat down with Roofle’s Matthew McDaniel and Chris Morris to talk about the tech that’s reshaping how contractors sell, market, and scale—and yes, it all starts with instant roof quotes.

We dig into a lot during this episode including:

• The shift toward “I want answers now” buyer behavior
• Why transparent pricing actually reduces friction instead of creating it
• How agencies like Elevation Marketing are using Roofle’s reseller program to give smaller contractors the same competitive edge as the big guys.

If you’re a contractor ready to modernize your sales process, boost conversions, and meet customers exactly where they are, this conversation is loaded with insight, real-world examples, and practical takeaways.

Amanda (00:03):
Alright. Well guys, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we hop in, we would love to, um, just kind of give both of you the floor so you can kind of, um, give us a little bit of background about, um, your, how you found yourself at Ruel and what, um, what role you play, um, on the roof, full team. Do you wanna take that, that first, Matthew?

Matthew (00:25):
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Thank you so much, Amanda, Evan, for having us. It’s very exciting to be here, uh, and celebrate our resellers program with you all. And, uh, so I actually wanted the founders of Roof Hope been here since the inception, uh, since it was just an idea on, uh, a napkin and, um, wow. You know, seeing it through, uh, I, I lead the, the product and the marketing side of things. Uh, so mainly focus on growth and, uh, product development

Devon (00:53):
Out there, killing it. I can’t, you can’t find a roofing website without ruel on it these days. So, good work.

Matthew (01:00):
, you got more ground to cover, but definitely appreciate that.

Devon (01:05):
Yeah. And Chris, how about you? How’d you, how’d you find yourself at Rual and what, uh, what do you do on the Rual side of life?

Chris (01:12):
Yeah, not much on, on what I do. You can ask others, , uh, uh, but, uh, I’ll follow the journey almost since the inception, since it was B2C and then moved to, to B2B. Uh, familiar with, uh, the founders, uh, both in, in other lives, both for myself as well as for them. And, uh, been around the space. Uh, uh, let’s just say that, uh, my career in the industry can legally purchase alcohol . Um, and, uh, so just, just been around and just love, love what software is doing for small and medium and even large sized businesses and, and the way the ones that have really chosen to embrace it, the way that they’ve found efficiencies, um, and, uh, new strategy. So, and that, and I help on, on the strategy side as well.

Devon (01:58):
Awesome. Awesome. I have so many questions that I wanna ask Matthew. Like, how did, so you, you were there. You, you’re one of the founders. How did you even get this idea? Did you work in the roofing space and then saw like a need or did you work in the tech space? ’cause it’s pretty, it’s pretty awesome. And for anyone who doesn’t know roof will is like a satellite based kind of instant roof quote system, but I think most people are familiar.

Matthew (02:23):
Yeah. Uh, so it is quite a long story. I’ll try to keep it short though. Uh, but yeah, essentially come from the contracting space. Uh, for more than a decade I was really working as a marketing director for a national contractor, uh, and just saw the technology evolving really rapidly and also saw the opportunity that the buyer had really shifted, uh, to more online. And there was very little, uh, actual sales, uh, enablement being done online. And that’s when we really saw the opportunity, um, to go after sort of a, a, a software that would bring e-commerce to the roofing space is kind of what, what the initial, uh, idea was. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job getting pretty close to that again, still some ground to go. Uh, but yeah, met, met with, uh, Joe Hoffman, uh, was the, the owner of that construction company.

Uh, him and I and a few others, Travis Arvigo, our CEO also worked for that same company. So a bunch of contractors. We knew Chris, we worked Chris as well, uh, Mike Goldstein. Uh, we had a pretty tight network of, uh, individuals that are now leading the roofer team. Uh, and, and Brad at one of our, our, our CTO, who’s our, our big tech engineer, uh, that can actually make sure that we weren’t crazy that this could be possible. So, uh, he was in charge of our initial prototyping and RD and, uh, so yeah, 2020 we actually formed the, the corporation and we took it to market. We built our, uh, first product as a B2C web application, uh, website, essentially, where homeowners could go online and essentially buy the roof online. Uh, we wanted to test the market. We wanted to see if, if, for one, if consumers were ready for this experience and also fine tune that experience so we can actually have the, the highest impact and, uh, the lowest drop rate. smart. So we’re all about conversion optimization.

Devon (04:20):
Yeah. And,

Matthew (04:21):
Uh,

Devon (04:21):
It’s smart.

Matthew (04:22):
Yeah.

Devon (04:24):
Did a bunch of testing up front too. That’s, I mean, that’s, that’s critical. You weren’t like, Hey guys, I think this is gonna work. Uh, roll it out and sell it. It sounds like there was a lot of thought behind it and a lot of probably fun conversations around the boardroom with some, uh, AB testing and everyone trying to break things, I’m sure. And figuring out, like, kind of like, yeah, where this fits in a in a market that hadn’t seen it or seen it done well anyway,

Matthew (04:50):
We were definitely, uh, lost in Blue Ocean for a while. I’ll just say . And, uh, we finally found some ground. And, um, from there, you know, we really developed quite a lot and, uh, a lot of it’s been a great feedback loop from actual users and, and users of the experience. And whether that’s now contractors who are our clients are, or homeowners. Uh, so it’s really been built around that, uh, user experience and, and you know, what people, uh, and, and also, you know, what’s out there for other e-commerce style experiences, we want it to be as familiar as possible with what the, the gold standard is for online buying. And, and that’s what we’ve tried to do.

Amanda (05:31):
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (05:34):
Um, well, I, I, I’ve got something just to, to dovetail off what Matthew was saying. I mean, it’s interesting because I think real, the real story is, is that, uh, one is that the appetite from the consumer has been there and we continue to be there. It’s just who can harness that demand. Um, and our chief revenue officer, I, I, I stole it from him. He is like, we’re not creating home owner demand. We’re just simply creating the best to, to harness it because folks wanna buy this way. Let’s be honest. I mean, it, there, there’s been very few people that we’ve, uh, you know, spoke to as like, uh, in, in, you know, opposed to, to that notion, but moreover is, is hey, going to the, the B2C and then realizing that other contractors that were involved in that program or like, Hey, can I do this on my own? Like, I wanna do this in my local area. And that really lit the fire under that, that conversion. Now what Matthew, this month has been three, four years.

Matthew (06:26):
Yeah, three years since we, uh, switched over to a B2B platform, a SaaS product.

Chris (06:32):
Oh, but, which, which is great. And, and two, I think it was interesting, Devin, what, what you mentioned, but like, um, you know, and I, when I say recovering, I mean former, uh, but, but all of us are, are recovering contractors in some way or fashion. Um, and so I think understanding what Matthew said, that full loop and getting voice of the customer, we had a pretty good idea of what that voice sounded like. Uh mm-hmm . The inception. And so we were able to go kind of look in the mirror at times and say, would we have done this, uh, in different seats? And then, then go and, and, and get that, that full feedback from the consumer. So like, we’re really quick to change and pivot based on, uh, on field feedback.

Amanda (07:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna ask too, Matthew, from the very beginning to now, like, is there anything that really sticks out to you about kind of the way the buyer journey has changed or the way folks use the tool? Because I feel like when you first launched, it was still so new and now, like people almost ex, you know, expect this in all in other areas of their lives. So they’re probably more apps to interact with the tool and more apt to use it.

Matthew (07:37):
Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s just interesting where I think the website journey is, is going in general, you know mm-hmm . Uh, it’s more important than ever to create an experience on a website and not just be straight information. And, uh, so I think the engaging nature of being able to shop around, get information, build, build the education on this very expensive product that you probably only deal with once in, in a lifetime if you’re lucky. And so it’s, it should be a good experience for them. It shouldn’t be painstaking, it shouldn’t be an anxious, lot of anxiety there. You know, we wanna relieve as much pain and pressure as possible, and if the contractor’s doing that, it’s, it’s gonna reward them immensely. And, you know, people are, are are, that, that’s one thing that we have seen change is the price transparency was one very big objection from contractors. And, uh, yeah. You know, now obviously we’ve proven that, uh, as a very, um, accommodating experience that is very rewarding for the contractor. Uh, if they can give homeowners what they really want, uh, then they’re gonna love ’em for it. And they’re, they’re gonna actually give them those five star reviews. They’re gonna not shop around. You know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna trust you because you’re, you’re being transparent right up front.

Amanda (08:56):
Yeah. One of the things, we talked to a lot of our contractors that are already using roof full, they say how much they enjoy knowing that when the sales guy steps in that living room, that there, if the price objection, you’re already, you’ve at least got a foot in that door if they’ve already seen the, you know, their different options and they’re, they’ve invited you into their home and they’re ready to keep that conversation alive.

Matthew (09:16):
Yeah, absolutely. We, um, I mean, it’s yours to lose at at that point. You almost have to, uh, turn in the bedazzled jeans if you can’t, you can’t close that one. . Just kidding on that. That’s always a, an ongoing inside joke there. But, um, but yeah, it is true. We see a lot of, a lot of, uh, uh, close rates go up after implementing this system. And, you know, it’s not just the, the lead count and the trickling down of all that comes from more lead volume, uh, but it’s all these other levers that we’re able to optimize, uh, the close rate being one.

Devon (09:53):
Yeah. And I think you’ve touched on like two really, like critical points and is that, uh, you talked about like the ease of use for the homeowner and the expectation that they kind of anticipate when they interact with an instant roof quote tool, right? That’s building trust there. But you also touched on the contractor side too, and that they’re providing what the homeowner wants, but it’s easier on them, it’s easier on their sales guys. It’s, it’s, it lightens the load for kind of both, both sides of the fence. Um, and so I think, I think, and years ago, I guess three, maybe three, four years ago, like, we had clients using it and they just thought they could, they would put it on their website and turn it on, and the leads would just come in. And I think they didn’t realize, number one, I think buyer behavior has shifted so much with AI that, like you, you have to have, you have to have rueful, you have to have an, an experience, an instant roof quote.

We as human now, we expect it. We can get instant answers anywhere we go on anything. So it’s like you, we’ve seen the data we have, um, is nuts com, like how people interacted with websites before, how they’re got their, even three years ago is different than just this past year. It’s completely different people, they’ve already vetted you out before they get on your website. When they get on there, they probably are going straight to the contact page. We’ve seen some other interesting data there. But my my point is that it’s, I I think a contractor would be remiss not to have this on their site because that pricing transparency, like you said, and we, the buyer behavior expecting and anticipating those instant answers. And then as a contractor where you’re trying to keep your sales guys busy, I mean, there’s a million ways you can use Rufo say that somebody, they just, they don’t, they skip the part where they wanna give their contact info, but you have their address.

Like if you’re, if you, if you guys are hungry, send ’em door knocking, send ’em to the address. Uh, some people have like, you know, a direct mail campaign going that they could do that, but still, if you’re hungry, like, here’s an address, go get it, buddy. There’s just all kinds of ways that, that Ruel, I think is giving homeowners a better experience and giving contractors a way to keep like their sales guys busy and provide a better experience and to build trust before they even like meet the homeowner. Like, again, obviously you guys know all this, but I’m just saying it out loud because I think it’s

Matthew (12:13):
For sure.

Devon (12:14):
Yeah, and I was, I think, um, and I talked about it openly. It was kind of like a skeptic at the beginning when Ruel first came out. Um, my husband’s a roofing contractor, and so like, I had so many questions, I’m like, well, what if it needs to be redact? Like how do you know and how is the pricing accurate? And how do you know about like, this thing and that thing? And so, um, but when we set it up for his company, it was like, the pricing is so locked in, he barely had to adjust anything. Like, you guys have really, really done like great things with this. Like there is not inter in that part is one, I think one piece with contractors, they’re like, oh God, I have to set up this tool. I, where do I even begin? What, you know, I’m gonna be the bottleneck.

I know I need this. Like, I don’t kind of know where to begin, and that’s gonna lead me into my next, my next, like part of the podcast here . But, but like the pri because we tried, um, we tried another pri like a price price guide.ai, but this setup time and his time trying to like, refine the pricing and get it right, and it wasn’t like satellite based imagery. So it was a different, it was a different, it was a different idea behind pricing and trying to do that. But, um, compared to what you guys have already kind of figured out on the pricing side, um, was crazy. But my, now Amanda, this leads into this next question that you’ve got, you’ve got teed up here. Um, no, I don’t know how to transition this that smoothly, but pretty much the, the objections we heard from contractors were kind of like, I, I know I need to do this. I know I need it on my site. I, I don’t know how to get the most out of it. And I think you guys maybe took that feedback, I’m not sure, but like, where we find ourselves now is that Elevation Marketing has become an official reseller of Ruel. How did you guys come up with the idea to have a roof full reseller program? Can you kind of tell us more about how, how this baby was born?

Chris (14:10):
You

Matthew (14:10):
Want, you want me to Matthew? Yeah, Chris, please. Uh, definitely this is your,

Chris (14:15):
So, um, it, it was being in software before this that, that, um, sold and, and provided solutions in, into the home improvement space be before. So, um, second go and the software and, and, and learned a lot. The first one is following the HubSpot model and just learning a little bit about how that they were against reseller and, and one of their, their lead sales folks were like, Hey, I’ll just take it. And it soon became their, their biggest one because they were doing so many things outside of just what the platform offered. And so whether that’s solution architecture in different parts of the business or what have you, and they’re really able to go tailor fit the, the solution to those businesses that HubSpot just couldn’t do out, out of the box, if you will, or without a ton of customization, which is, that is now putting onus on that user.

And as we know in the roofing space is that someone says, yes, they can afford it, but they just can’t implement it. They don’t have the staff, the bandwidth, uh, the knowledge base to be able to do that. So what we did at the beginning is we doubled down on the, uh, the, the customer success, the onboarding folks, because the, the, the little attrition that we got, most of it could be attributed to failure to launch. It’s not just another Matthew McConaughey movie. Um, but, but they, they weren’t able to launch. And so why weren’t they able to launch? Because they never put it on their site. They never did the things that they intended to do or why they bought didn’t come to fruition. So they said, okay, cool, now we gotta go one-to-one, which is anti sas, right? So you should say, Hey, here’s how you do it.

Soon as you sign up, you get your JavaScript, you’re able to do this. It’s all guided tours, what have you. And, and we just knew for, for the, the, the lovely people that we service, right? Us coming from that world, we just know that that probably was a fool’s errand to think that that would just be getting done. Fast forward to, okay, what makes roof roll successful, it is not putting it on a site that doesn’t get any traffic expecting it to, to do miracles, right? That that’s not what it is. It’s efficiency and it’s gonna be a complimentary to your current marketing endeavors, whether that be on or offline. So they said, okay, cool. Who handles that? A lot of times it’s agencies. Well, and sometimes it was averse with roof full and agencies because they thought, well, are they trying to take, you know, attribution of leads?

And that’s not what we’re doing at all. And not where the, the pricing model or anything is, is built to be, we’re supposed to be complimentary to that. It’s built in modular fashion, it’s built to be white labeled, right? So the homeowner’s not seeing roof full anywhere. It’s all one-to-one to that contractor giving that authentic buying experience, which it is for that homeowner. And so we said, wow, who could do that better? So Matthew and I put our brains together and said, well, we really want to test and try this, resell the program. Uh, we did the numbers and looked at a lot of agencies and saw that, that their, um, conversion rates were going up significantly, sometimes exponentially, uh, based on the way that they were leveraging the product. So we said, wow, great. People like Elevation, they’re doing really good stuff already with their, uh, their contractors and customers. How can we we go help them? And so that’s really where, where it came, uh, to be. And, uh, quite frankly, we’re really excited a a about it because, you know, we, we are a, a SaaS platform. We can’t help in so many other ways in which an agency can

Devon (17:32):
Beautiful answer. Yeah. That’s, and that’s what I think early on our experience, these guys, um, some of ’em that we had, they were like, well, I put it on my site. We’re like, well, how is it, how are the leaves? Like, how’s it going? They’re like, I don’t know, I just have tire kickers. Like, it hasn’t, it hasn’t worked. And you hit the nail on the head, like, you can, if the site’s not getting any traffic anyway, then I mean, you’re, what, what was your expected outcome? You know, that you just, people would magically know that you have, uh, this beautiful, amazing, highly accurate satellite based image, roof, instant roof quote available. They wouldn’t know. So yeah, that’s, um, yeah, that’s, that’s, yeah. Brilliant. One

Amanda (18:10):
Of the questions we were gonna ask you guys about too was just, you know, what you see, I feel like this is a, this is gonna be tangential to what you just said,
Chris. Um, you know, the contractors out there that you see having the most success with it. Obviously a lot of times they’re hiring brilliant agencies, but are there other things that really stick out to you guys that you see that they’re doing that are really making them leaps and bounds ahead of the next guy?

Chris (18:30):
A thousand percent. And I would tell you this, uh, I’m, I love this space and this industry. It’s been really great for myself and my family and I, and I just, I just love the type of people, uh, in inside the home improvement space. So, um, they’ve shocked us in a, in a very positive way and their creativity to, to be able to use it. I mean, I, I would say Matthew, again, three years ago we solely talked online ish, I mean, 95% of the time online. Online. Now we’re seeing folks that almost have zero online footprint that are having success

Devon (19:01):
With. That’s awesome.

Chris (19:03):
We’re seeing folks that are putting, you know, landing pages for realtors and inspectors to be able to go get a general idea of what the cost of the roof would be for a, a resell or selling activity. Uh, we’ve seen folks, uh, hard to guess at being Wisconsin, but seen folks put it on, uh, coasters at the, at the local establishments. Uh, we’ve seen, uh, yard signs and truck wraps. We’ve seen, uh, uh, news, uh, sponsorships on, uh, cable stations and local news. We’ve seen billboards and, and all that. And so it’s been awesome to watch how it, again, it’s compliment complimented their, their marketing, uh, portfolio. And I think that was interesting to us because if you imagine you put, you know, most roofing contract, if we’re just talking roofing, most roofing contractors have yard signs and door hangers, right? And if you’re not, you’re listeners, you should probably do that.

Uh, but, but they’re, they’re putting on magnets instead of replacing time, they’re putting magnets with the QR code that says, you know, get your roof quote before you get home. Get your roof quote before you’re done walking the dog, you know, home of the incident roof quote, see, see how much you know your roof. Uh, you know, your claim could be door hands. And so you can just imagine how, how much more disruptive that is than just a piece of mail or a yard sign that you’re in the neighborhood. And so those have been great sort of case studies and testimonials that, that we’ve seen. Is that it, it’s really an efficiency tool. You’ve already paid for these things. So to Devin’s, when it’s not coming outta nowhere, you can’t just say, Hey, I got roof full. I’m gonna get a bunch of leads. Right? And you say, wow, my yard signs are converting higher. Wow. My, my door hangers, uh, have never gone so far while we’re digital door knocking from a social space with, with an ad. Uh, so, so it’s more, more, again, more of that complimentary type, uh, type platform.

Amanda (20:57):
It was fun for Devin and I, when we talk to our clients that are using it and they come back to us and are like, oh, like the sales guys are loving it. Like, just hearing how they’re just boots on the ground, like leaving, printed out quotes on people’s doorsteps, you know, like just really making sure that they’re, they’re, you know, chasing those leads down. We actually had a story, this is kind of crazy. We have a, a roofer who followed up on a lead and he figured out that the name that had been entered through their roofer tool was the name of a sales guy from another roofing company in town. And he went and knocked the door of the home. ’cause the guy, you know, he didn’t have the proper contact information for the homeowner. And he went and he was like, I will get this lead. And he, it was, it came through his roof full, he knew the address. He went down there and he made sure they closed it. And we were all like, it was, it was pretty funny.

Devon (21:44):
. That’s awesome. Yeah. Let, let that be a lesson. Uh, contractors, if you don’t have it, your guys are using it on your competitor site and you’re losing a leap. So ,

Chris (21:53):
Well, you could

Devon (21:54):
Imagine from,

Chris (21:55):
From like, just what, what we found is the ones that have been, I would say ultra successful have been using it with elbow grease. So they’ve been going and knocking a door instead of saying, you know, Hey, I’m, I’m Chris from, you know, Hayes Roofing and, you know, looking to get it to see if you, you had any damage from the storm that came by October 15, what? Right. They’re saying, Hey, skip the line right here you go, here I’m hi, hiring a high school kid. Just gonna give you a flyer and say, Hey, in less than 30 seconds you can see what your claim could be worth. Schedule your inspection today. I mean, like, which one’s gonna go further?

Amanda (22:34):
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (22:35):
It’s, it’s, it’s quite, quite obvious. It goes back to kind of the origination of, of this, this thought or these questioning would be that the homeowners are not the tripping point. So they want that. They don’t want a stranger coming, knocking the door and coming to their house for 30 minutes. Uh, that’s my guess. Mm-hmm . Or they don’t want a stranger to come to their house for 90 minutes and try to build enough value to equate to a price where you’re both sitting on pins and needles. ’cause he knows, or she knows that it’s gonna be three times as much as what the homeowner’s thinking and all they’re gonna know is if they can afford to get a need-based project done.

Devon (23:13):
Yeah. Can you guys get something going for siding too? Because, uh,

Matthew (23:20):
Siding might be, uh, in the works, but we’ll see.

Devon (23:23):
Oh my gosh, that would be amazing. . It would be. We’ve got, yeah, a lot of citing contractors too. Um, yeah, it, it is true if you can do mix some of your, even like your relational marketing tactics with, like you said, putting some elbow grease behind it and not just, it’s not a set it and forget it type of tool. Um, which because of how easy it is to use, like that could be a pretty common misconception about it. Mm-hmm . I would imagine. What, what do you think in your like, kind of the feedback and everything you guys have heard as you continue refining the product and continue re improving it, like, what’s some of the feedback or pushback that you’ve gotten about Ruel or maybe if there, if there is any common pushback? I mean, I think, like I said, consumer behavior has changed, so it’s probably not as much, but maybe, maybe in the beginning or things that you considered as you refine and improved the product. Um, what are, I guess just yeah, some common pushback on it, um, in, in your sales cycle with it?

Matthew (24:29):
Yeah, it’s less and less, actually. We’ve definitely solved a lot of the, like, say lack of features or feature requests that, you know, over time you just kind of say, all right, let’s get this like weather data for instance. You know, we added weather data.

Devon (24:42):
Oh yeah.

Matthew (24:42):
Just kind of consolidating some of these like lighter tools that they’re already using. And it might be a, you know, the other thing, integrations, you know, and that, I think that’s where resellers also come in so strong is, you know, DIY is cool, you know, but ROI is a lot cooler and, you know, you can get a good ROI just by coming in and, and like letting it do its thing. But if you really wanna maximize that, you know, you’re gonna wanna work with professional that can integrate it into your funnel, that can integrate it into your offline. It’s, it’s all about that unification of your brand and your sales process with the tool. And it’s good to bring in people that have already done it dozens of times and are power users. And it just kind of shortens the, the learning curve there. So that’s why we we’re so excited about resellers.

’cause you, you know, it works, you know how to make it work and you know how to maximize the ROI for these contractors. So they’ve become believers a lot faster. And, you know, we’ve, we’ve definitely focused on our onboarding process, um, as part of the, the, you know, the failure to launch Chris mentioned is the, the number one reason that we’ve had any, uh, any resistance or, or churn from, from the product. It’s just, you know, not using it. And I, I think Mike came up with this, uh, analogy. It’s kind of like having this awesome brand new, uh, uh, power, uh, nail gun. And you don’t hook it up to a compressor. So you’re just like, oh, this thing’s great. And yeah, but you don’t actually have the power behind it, uh, working. So I think that’s the, having that integration with your system and with your sales process, uh, driven by your agency and driven by your internal team is, is where you’re gonna see the biggest, biggest impact.

Chris (26:23):
Yep.

Yeah. With Matthew though, like, so what we would’ve heard, um, about every call a couple years ago was, uh, I don’t feel comfortable showing my price. My competitors will see my price. Uh, we also at that time didn’t have, um, what, what, and kudos to Matthew and product teams, but, uh, we didn’t have range pricing. So now the contractor had this internal dilemma, am I gonna show a, the lowest price and feel a little bit like a bait and switch? Or am I gonna show the highest price and put myself out of the contention of getting that, that customer? And so the range pricing solved that almost immediately. I’m not sure how many people, I mean, most our customers would use range pricing, and I would argue that I would too in their instead. Um, but the, but the other one is, is, I mean, it was, it was a little bit easier to overcome. It’s like you don’t know your competitor’s pricing. I mean,

Devon (27:22):
Yeah, yeah. Come on. And, and nobody wants a race to the bottom, you know, like, yeah. You know, most of, uh, the contractors we work with that are like interested. And then once we kind of saw behind, behind the curtain with Ruel and we saw everything it could do, ’cause we just, it was either SEO or PPC for the most part. We weren’t really fully integrated on everything else they had going on. Um, in terms of, you know, all their marketing. We have an idea, but we don’t manage it. Um, it’s either kind of service based or we, we have a couple people where we do manage everything. So we, with them, we were able to kind of see behind the curtain with Ruel and we’re like, oh my gosh, you guys can do this. Oh my gosh, this has web hooks. Like, let’s connect this to, you know, with a zap to calling leads.

So you have that instant, like, speed to lead, but the way your sales guy talks. So then they get the whisper text that says they filled out an instant roof quote. So they know immediately the way they talk to that person versus just someone who did like a form submission is completely different. So we, like, once we could see what was available to us in there, we’re like, oh my gosh, let’s juice this thing up. And we like geeked out, set up all these zaps and like different calling, like all kinds of stuff. And, um, to your point, Chris, about like the kind of the range for pricing with that we saw on the back end of Roof Hole that there was a way to like upload a customized video. So anything that, like where the price might change, like if it needed to be redact or whatever, you know, whatever it might be.

We had, um, we have our clients shoot a video that says, um, you know, as with any online quote, once we come out there and take the best ways for us to come out and take a look to give you the most accurate price, we don’t know if you might need a, B and C. And they just address it in that thank you video. And while that video is playing, like they’re getting the call from the webhook that you have from ruple so that that person staying on page until you’re calling them about the roof quote, they like, just like received, you know, so

Amanda (29:18):
Mm-hmm

Devon (29:18):
. Um, once we were able to like, get into the backend, it was like, oh my gosh, yeah. Like these a lot. And how would a roofer know to even connect that or ask that question or peek at the tab that says webhooks. And if they’ve got like a dedicated like marketing person or IT person or agency, then it just, it’s a game changer. So for us, um, we just, we’d like, we’d love that you guys did this reseller program because it does open the door for, you don’t have to be like, you know, a $4 million roofing contractor to juice this thing up. So I think that’s where we developed our program where we’re like, let’s get those guys that maybe they haven’t even hit a million yet, but if we could set this up for them and set them up for success in a meaningful way, we hope to of course build that trust and that credibility with them.

But I mean, this could really help these small businesses if, if they’d like knew how to get it going. And, you know, I think to Matthew’s point, or you guys both said this about the biggest problem was that people didn’t get, um, it was like a non-starter. They signed up for it and didn’t get it on their site. Mm-hmm . As an agency, we know half the battle is access. I swear they probably just didn’t know how to get into the website to like get on there. ’cause you guys do make it really, really easy. You don’t have to have like, you know, a tech degree from MIT or something to like get it on a website. I swear it’s access. People are just like, I don’t know how to get on my website. And we spend, uh, that’s a big bottleneck when you person onboard someone has access to all this stuff and things, so, yeah.

Chris (30:50):
Oh, when you say things like DNS and they’re like, say who?

Amanda (30:53):
Yeah.

Chris (30:54):
Like

Amanda (30:55):
They just, they get real uncomfortable and it’s just these guys are so busy, like the last thing they wanna do is sit down and be like, and I have to learn all this new vocabulary. And that’s, that’s, that’s why we, we need to swim in our lane and let them swim in theirs and go close the deals as long as we can keep ’em coming in through the, through roof to begin with.

Chris (31:11):
Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. And I think too, like one of the things I always pr probably give Matthew and, and our CTO Brad just, just so much credit for is knowing and running and being around roofing, uh, businesses to know that it’s not always the best tech that gets implemented. It’s a lot of times the one that’s easiest to use. And I would ask anyone to look at their, their phones and see what apps they use and know that they’re probably ones that are better than the ones you’re using, but you know how to do it. You know exactly what you’re gonna get and you feel comfortable with it. Yeah. Um, those integrations, whether Deep Link or through webhook and Zapp, as you mentioned, Devin are so big because we know that, uh, they’re getting leads in, in many other ways.

And to man be able to go manage that from one screen and not have a million platforms open or try to go and, and sort of calibrate where everything’s going from nice and neat. And that’s where you get the pass through analytics, right? And you have the UTM right? Meaning staying on site. So that way you’re able to go calculate that as a global look into it as a marketer and not just parse it out and then try to attribute this for that. And then try to have that, that small and medium business owner once a month try to understand what you’re saying and try to say, are you really doing this? Are you really not doing that? And I think it’s really, again, like I, I keep using, it’s more complimentary to, uh, that marketing portfolio. So that’s, that’s a big thing for me. Uh, and, and what we harp on is being able to communicate to the other pieces of tech, so being that hub and that tech stack, so that way they can be able to, to, to use the other parts and pieces, uh, more effectively based on their affiliation with this platform.

Devon (32:46):
Yeah. Yeah. And that, you said something earlier too that I meant to comment on was that, uh, when Rueful first came out that people were worried about, like, you know, agencies are, I don’t know, taking credit for the leads that came in, but yeah, it’s any more, any lead you want, any lead from any channel for your client, like you want, I don’t care where it comes in from, like yes. Lead especially, you know, these days with like how big, um, and important your entity is. It doesn’t matter where the lead comes from you, it’s a lead and it’s engagement and everything that has to do with Rual is a signal that helps you float and be visible everywhere else. So truly like attribution is, is good. You know, you wanna see your ROI on any, on any investment, but truly, like if you’re looking at like organic visibility inside of any large language model, like in Google Chat, GBT, Gemini, whatever it is, engagement time on site, people filling out this roof quote, it helps you , so mm-hmm . It’s actually like wherever the, the submission comes from it, you know, it’s, it, it’s helping you. So

Matthew (33:53):
Yeah. And it’s so much, uh, hands off too, like with the, the ability to scale without being present at all places. Like, you know, having, uh, the user actually drive the process so that you don’t have to have the sales rep there at all times to educate, to, to get ’em across that, that finish line. Uh, it’s that the homeowner driving the process, I think is probably the most powerful part because it’s, you know, that’s, that’s where we came up with the line sell roofs in your sleep because you could literally be sleeping and, and homeowners are on there, uh, you know, getting themself closer and closer to signing that contract. And, uh, so yeah, I think, um, and having agencies that can create things like a explainer video or, or, or a a, a founder video that, that boost that landing page rate, you know, quite substantially if, if right before they get that quote, you’re explaining how it works and explaining what it, what the quote entails and, and you’re introducing your brand. And it’s like those kind of things that contractors are too busy for, they know they need. And it just makes all the difference, those little brand pieces and that, all that thoughtful marketing that goes across, uh, all of your sources and yeah, omnichannel is where it’s at too. You gotta be optimizing everywhere at all times and, you know, you get that halo effect that when you start doing that. Yeah. And everything kind of works better. Uh, yeah, definitely.

Chris (35:23):
Well,

Matthew (35:24):
I the right way.

Chris (35:25):
One other thing too, that’s interesting because I think there is a first mover, and even though I, I, and I appreciate the sentiments and, and from the elevation team, but you know, there’s, there’s still a mass majority of, of roofing contractors that, that aren’t utilizing us or any, any other sort of instant estimation tools. Is there still that first mover advantage we’ll be here for a little bit, um, from the SEO standpoint, right? Having it built into your top level navigation, uh, in your headers to be able to have it where it’s instant roof quote or, you know, Denver’s instant roof quote, or Cheyenne’s, you know, home of the incident, whatever it is, there’s still that because how can you tell, we’ll go in your local markets and look up instant roof quotes and see what comes up. Um, and so it’s, it’s really awesome to, to see that and to know that as consumers continue to go down the path that you described of getting answers or answer based, uh, uh, inquiry, uh, results, right?

Uh, so, so now you start saying, wow, this is where they’re going. And now you’re saying, Hey, in 30 seconds or less, you can see what your roof’s gonna cost. Like there’s, there’s just no doubt that that, and, and what I mean by that is the, the, the agency has the ability, especially when they’re hosting your site or, or building your site, is to have the correct architecture to go really utilize this to its fullest. And so, you know, we’re seeing an an an increase of, you know, a few percent, uh, based on that. And you think in the toll, the, the totality of your entire marketing portfolio, like that’s how you scale is getting one to 2% better in these parts. Because if there was a, you know, a magic, uh, lever to pull people that were smarter, no offense to anyone on this call than us, uh, and had more money than us right, would’ve already pulled that till the wheels fell off. So these are just the little things that, uh, and I believe that agencies, good agencies are the ones that are really able to maximize that spend.

Amanda (37:21):
Yeah. And one of the things I’ve loved too, in all this while we’re over here figuring out all the, um, the agency side of life and coming up with all the different levers we can pull is kind of back to what we were talking about earlier, how these guys are just using it out in the field and on top of all of this that’s meet, meeting the, the customer where they are, we’re hearing people say like, I’m closing the deal faster in that living room, even if I, if I came about them in a more traditional way and they let me in the living room, they haven’t seen a price yet, but I can give it to them that quickly. And I, you know, the, the, the trust that that builds and how, you know, we’re getting in there and having to parse out the leads we’re driving from marketing, which we totally can from the ones that we can tell, um, one of the, the sales guys used his own unique URL so that it’s going in there and getting immediately signed to him.

Matthew (38:03):
Yep.

Amanda (38:03):
So it’s just like, it’s a time that sale, we love this as marketers when sales and marketing are so cohesive, because there’s times that we feel like we’re at odds and talk about a time that we can be on the same team .

Matthew (38:15):
Yeah, yeah. Finally we can break, break bread, right? I mean, , yes. Yeah. The war is, the war is over . Yeah.

Chris (38:21):
Uh, yeah. But it is, it is interesting too because that wa was one of the, the feedbacks that we got was like, Hey, I, I feel like we have the, we got this great selling solution and, and I feel like people are banding. ’cause they, they’re, you know, they think it’s gonna be 10,000 and it’s 25,000 or, or what have you. And there there’s some merit to that. There is, if you’ve got that one closer that could talk folks into doing things, what? That, that, that’s terrific. But I, I tell you, just from my past experience, um, either running or, or, or coaching in, in this space, it, do you really want to drive across town for one Leger that’s just wanting to see, I mean WW now and now if you know that they’ve seen the price range and all that. Now I would ask you, what do you think the ether is of that sales person? They’re gonna come in with so much confidence, they’re gonna stop by their local distributor. They’re gonna get a new sample board. They’re gonna make sure their truck or car is clean and ready. They’re gonna show up prompt. Right? Not smelling bad. They’re gonna, they’re gonna be, you know, and they’re, they’re gonna really do a great job. And probably for those owners and managers that, that are with listeners, they’re probably gonna do exactly what you’ve been coaching and teaching.

Amanda (39:31):
Yeah.

Chris (39:31):
Because their experience prior would say, these people aren’t in the market for, and they would buy us the lead whether intentionally or unintentionally right now, it doesn’t matter. They’re going and saying, no, this person has seen that. It’s between 27 and $35,000. They were online looking at it for seven minutes and 38 seconds they were looking at this and they got returned. ’cause I got the same email they did. They were looking at the Owens Corning, GAF certainty, Tamco, IKO, what have you, shingle. And, and now, and now I’ve got the boards that they were looking at. I could tell the finance options that they were, they were ready for. So I’m gonna brush up or do maybe get some coaching from the sales manager before I go out to make sure that I don’t sell ’em like a buffoon when I’m talking about finance with the home.
(40:13):

So they’re doing all that. So now they’re just in a better posture of serving that, that lead that homeowner. And if they did that, even without the roof will, they would sell more . But again, history would tell them that, you know, one out of four are gonna be a buyer, not a liar. And so now they combine that, that’s why we do here. Now this is anecdotal, right? For the ones that show up, uh, we’re seeing somewhere north of 70% close rate. But again, we have no way to, to get, even though we do have a small disposition to that you could use and you could, but, but those would just be what, what what we’re hearing. But I think it’s more the environment in which I described that they’ve already deemed themselves as not tire kickers by seeing the price they’ve already scheduled through there. You’ve already seen what they’ve looked at. They’ve been in receipt of what, of what you’ve sent them, and they scheduled the appointment and they showed up.

Amanda (41:08):
Yeah.

Chris (41:08):
That’s that. I mean, it’s a good, that’s a good situation.

Amanda (41:12):
Absolutely. I think any business owner listening would love to put their sales guys in that position as often as possible.

Matthew (41:19):
Yeah.

Amanda (41:20):
Yeah, yeah.

Matthew (41:21):
Yeah. You could tell Chris came from the sales side of things, . I know, definitely. That’s, no, it’s nice to have, uh, also the, the trainability too. Um, especially with pricing, you know, being able to have every single rep pricing the exact same is like, I’m sure a huge relief for a lot of, uh, contracts and sales managers. Uh, you know, that they bring these guys in, they’re training ’em, and then it takes ’em a month to even figure out how to price a job. And then usually they’re coming in low and it’s like, you know, there’s this tension between production. And so just being able to like right outta the gate have the same pricing, whether it’s sales rep a, sales rep, B that’s coming out, um, you know, that saves. And plus just again, back to the, the, the trust side of things. You know, if, let’s say they do have a follow-up appointment, someone else comes out and now it’s like, give ’em a totally different estimate, you know, that happens.

So, uh, and price changes, you know, you can easily roll out that price change across your organization and it actually still logs that historical pricing, which is nice. So if you sent out that estimate at one price, and then the next day the price goes up, you have the ability to, uh, either serve that price that you showed, or you can with one click, update it to that new price, cross your quotes. And so it’s just that kind of power, uh, to save time and kind of keep that consistency across your sales team. That’s so important. And sorry, Chris, I didn’t mean to throw a jab at your sales side. You got three. I know you’re in marketing too, my friend. Don’t worry. I can

Chris (42:58):
Sell around you . Don’t worry. I know. Don’t worry about that. The, the other thing too that was really interesting that I never thought about was just the, um, so, so one is salespeople being creative or productions where they would call the six pack or 12 pack, where you’d have whoever’s sitting on the job, whether that be the sales person’s responsibility or production manager or whatever. And then being able just to go hand out those things that said, we’re doing your neighbor’s roof in less than 30 seconds. See what your roof might cost and just peppering around. But that’s at elbow grease. And the other big aha, I was at a, uh, a home and patio show, and there’s a roofing contractor, uh, using the technology. And all they had was a huge flat screen with a QR code. And they were like, f find out, you know, again, sort of like, skip the line find, find out what your roof could cost. And they got more leads than they ever had for a lower cost and all. And so the thing about it, so the folks put in their information, they got all that stuff, they combined that with an offer, a home show offer with a mailer based on the addresses, because you can, you can, uh, export all those addresses. And so they hooked that up and, and simply said is that they were able to go put that quote that the homeowner already had and go follow up with them, and they just absolutely murdered it. Uh,

Devon (44:15):
Yeah.

Chris (44:16):
That, so that, again, that wasn’t our idea. So that was just another contractor being smart with it,

Devon (44:22):
Tying it together. I know. Well, and one, the another piece I like about it as a marketer is kind of that unique data set. You kind of have a whole different avatar you could create based off of like the zip codes and the types of houses and how big they are from the data that you’re storing and getting from roof holes specifically. I, I like that. ’cause it’s like, all right, who are the people filling this out? Where do they live? Can we guess their demographic? Like based on the price of their roof and their homes and the shingles, they like, you can build out a whole avatar based on that. So like, I’m liking geeking out about that. And then even the people that don’t wanna share their contact info, that’s like a kind of a separate, uh, another separate avatar there. Like they don’t wanna share.
(45:03):

So, you know, already they don’t wanna, they didn’t wanna give their info away, but you’ve got their address, so how you approach ’em is different. Mm-hmm . But yeah, there’s so many, there’s so many, I don’t know, pieces to this that are, I mean, it’s just such, it’s a great tool. And another like early objection we had was our exteriors contractors. They’re like, I want siding, siding, siding. I don’t want ruel on my entire site, but you guys, you guys already had a solution. You don’t have to have that tab sitewide, you can have it just on your roofing page, create just an instant roof quote page. So, um, we’ve actually had a lot of our, just our exteriors guys that are heavy in siding, but like do roofing because, you know, why not GC all of it on the exteriors? Um, and they’re, and now they’re adapting it and they, they weren’t early adapters because they didn’t realize that the, and I know the tools had that capability for a long time, but they just didn’t know that.
(45:52):

So, um, yeah. So more and more it isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t just roofing specific in terms of like the type of services a contractor offers. If you do exteriors and roofing is one of those exterior services, like there’s a place for you, you know, you don’t have to alienate your other buyers and making ’em think you’re super heavy into roofing by having that tab on the whole homepage. Yeah. So that was, I was, I wanted to like, um, make a point of calling that out because it’s just, it’s the tools evolved and, um, are there any other new, I don’t know, updates to, to the technology on the horizon? Is there anything we should, uh, be looking forward to while we have you here, , give us the, give us the goods, Matthew, tease it,

Matthew:
Get me in trouble. . Um, we have definitely, we’re, we’re in development on, uh, our next big release is actually gonna come, uh, the end of this year at the beginning of, of next year. So we’re in a, a very long dev cycle, which is much longer. Usually we have a release once every month or maybe a month and a half. But, um, so it’s big. Um, it has to do with another component of roofing, but it’s not exactly roofing. Um, Ooh, I’ll just put a little clue out there.

Devon (47:06):
Okay. Story. I have ideas. Yeah. A nice,

Chris (47:09):
Okay. What about, what about the last release, Matthew? With the emails?

Matthew (47:12):
Yeah, yeah, I’ll go through. Um, yeah, so we did a full customization to all of your automated emails. So, uh, the email that goes out, right when they get their instant quote, you can customize the messaging, uh, you can add project images, like you can really customize exactly how that looks and feels, um, that one as well as the product detailed request. So anytime they may on a specific product and they say, Hey, I want more info about this, um, they, they can, uh, you can customize that, that email as well. So that, that was just released last week. Uh, we still have to do an update to the community on that one, so you guys can maybe help us with that. Awesome. Yeah. That’s

Devon (47:52):
Ready to hear first. Yeah, that’s, yeah. That’s fantastic. Yeah. You know, you guys, you guys got the memo, you know, it, that personalization, that’s, we wanna feel like you’re talking to us and it’s, it’s not just a 50,000 email spam going out to everyone. So, um, yeah, kudos. That’s great. That’s great.

Matthew (48:10):
Yeah, definitely. Um, have a lot, lot on our, in our backlog. A lot of improvements come in as well. Um, we did release our finance calculator, so, uh, you do have to be using Contract and Loan Pro, which is our built in financing. Uh, so you have to essentially apply to become a merchant in order to use that fi built in financing. You can also use your own custom financing as well. Um, but this kind of gives you a little bit more robust experience with, uh, instant AI powered pre-quals. And, uh, so the, this financing calculator is a beautiful upselling tool. And you called out, you know, having roofing leads by your GC and you know, just being, by getting in the home, you know, you got, and then now you can price up the siding, now you can price up these other, uh

Devon (48:55):
Mm-hmm. Exactly

Matthew (48:56):
Upselling opportunities. And, um, so we’re really excited to, uh, to be bringing in, um, this financing calculator where you can actually see monthly pricing and different rates and different loan options even before the pre-qual. So you can set it and say, okay, how, how much, uh, how much are you willing to pay per month? And now we can see how much they can actually get as a loan. And so now it’s not just anchored by the price of the roof, you’re anchored by their, uh, credit potential so they can tackle those other projects at the same time.

Chris (49:28):
And, and what it, and what it ultimately does, it’s a billboard of you, the roofing contractor, letting the homeowner know that there are different ways to be able to afford the services and products in which you provide. That is so big because if you’re relying upon a sales rep right now, they have to take that in. There’s so many other stimuli hitting them at the same time, and they got this and the baby’s crying, dogs barking. They’re trying to do all this other stuff, and it’s 24,000 and Oh, I forgot to tell ’em that we have a promotion. Well, now you can be able to do that. And now that if the, if the roofing salesperson understands that they, uh, that the homeowner has the potential of already finding that information on their own, then they don’t wanna look the fool. And so now they’re gonna become, again, more prepared for that call based on the actions of the buyer.

So it’s really awesome ’cause I actually think it makes them a better salesperson. It makes ’em more prepared, makes ’em understand the persona of that, that person a little bit better by, in which they’ve searched right in, in the, in the path in which they’ve, they’ve taken to get there. So it’s, it’s a really cool thing. So, so let me just tell you, say any of the listeners, if you’re not offering financing, you need to, you need to do it now. We know that the average ticket goes up around 17% for those that, that utilize opium or other people’s money. And so being able to offer that is really, really, really good. And being able to have that on your site and have tools in which you can interact with, um, is, is nothing but good for that contractor.

Devon (50:56):
Yeah, it’s, it’s good for the, their conversion rate right there, having it on there. But it’s also good for, um, their visibility. It’s that transparency and authority and, um, gets you, helps with your authority on Google LLMs all around financing, pricing, that kind of transparency. It gives you credit, you know, they just wanna see, are you, who you say you are, who you are, what you do, and where you do it. But do you have authority in the space that you say you do the thing, you know? Mm-hmm . Um, . Yeah. Building trust is huge. So finance calculators, pricing, all that stuff is huge.

Chris (51:31):
Well, it’s hilarious ’cause when we, when we started developing and put that in and people are like, oh, they already know I own finance, or we offer financing. I’m like, go to any car dealership. You know that they have financing, but what is put on their windows? What is in their ads? What is all that? Right. It’s, it’s finance offer, it’s all that. So, yeah.

Amanda (51:48):
Mm-hmm . Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well guys, we cannot thank you enough for taking the time to be with us today. This has been awesome. There’s so many good sound bites in here. I can’t wait for us to, to chop it up and make shorts and just really start sharing all the awesome tidbits you guys gave us. It’s, we’re so excited to be kind of an, a part of the broader family now as part of the reseller program.

Chris (52:12):
Well, thank you.

Devon (52:12):
No. So yeah. Hundred percent. Yeah. Thank you so much. And let us know if we can help you try to break your, uh, new launch before it rolls out.

Matthew (52:19):
. Yeah, absolutely. And if you ever wanna

Amanda (52:23):
Announce anything new, this is you, you’re welcome to come on here anytime when we’re happy to Anytime. Yeah.

Matthew (52:30):
Absolutely, definitely will take you up on that. All right. Awesome. Cool. Appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Devon (52:34):
Thanks guys.

Matthew (52:35):
All cheers. Great day Care everyone.

Devon (52:39):
Thank you so much.

Amanda (52:46):
Oh my gosh. Your internet cut out right at the right time. Perfect timing.