A few weeks back, the Roofing Insights private Facebook group was made aware of an aspiring roof salesman who approached a company with a resume that had a list of requirements the company would have to fulfill in order for the aspiring salesman to work there.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the list of demands was extensive and, in many contexts, unreasonable.
As a result, many roofing contractors in the Roofing Insights community chimed in online with their opinions regarding the laundry list of demands.
Soon after, Roofing Insights co-host Brent Simmons set out to talk with a few of those roofers to hear their opinions on the matter.
“There was a lot of controversy surrounding this resume, so what I wanted to do was get a genuine reaction from two other business owners,”
Simmons said.
The two other business owners Simmons is referencing include Jason Harley from Eagle Eye Roofing in Spring, Texas, and Adam Hines from JAG Renovations in Canton, Georgia.
Together, the three sat down to discuss the issue at hand.
While the trio acknowledged that a few of the aspiring salesman’s requests were reasonable, some of the requests were beyond what salespeople are normally compensated.
The following is an edited transcript of their conversation that touches on the nine demands the aspiring salesman had listed in his resume.
Please note: parts of this conversation have been edited for readability.
1. 10% of all sales and change orders
Jason Harley: “That’s pretty common.”
Adam Hines: “We can go from there.”
2. Company credit card for gas, oil changes, tires and maintenance
Harley: “Pretty standard.”
Hines: “That’s asking for a little bit extra on our side. You are lucky to get that with a company.”
Brent Simmons: “It sounds like he wants to use his personal vehicle. I’m okay with gas and maybe oil changes, but tires are a stretch.”
3. Company logo on golf shirts, hoodies, jackets, and business cards
Harley: “We dress our guys in our shirts.”
Hines: “All our guys get that.”
4. 3% of all sales of additional salespeople brought into the company and trained
Harley: “No. That’s a fail. I would want people that want to help others succeed and train them. If we brought somebody new in, I’m going to have my team show them what to do.”
Hines: “We already have processes set up for leadership positions. We want people to come in and grow with us; not tell us how we are going to grow.”
Simmons: “This smells of a lot of entitlement.”
5. Dedicated assistant to set appointments for the sales team
Harley: “The job does not come with your personal assistant.”
Hines: “That’s a no-go.”
Simmons: “This is confusing because I don’t know if he’s talking about having someone in the office in general, or if he wants his own person.”
6. Marketing budget of about 8-10% of targeted annual sales goal
Harley: “No. Get out of my office.”
Hines: “The interview is over at that point.”
7. Follow recommended procedures for providing clients with a professional experience that will lead to feedback, reviews, recommendations and a reputation that the company must have
Hines: “Sounds like a lot of that has to be on his plate, rather than just relying on my company.”
Simmons: “That’s not a requirement for us. He is required to follow the procedures.”
8. 4 to 5 appointments per day
Harley: “I provide leads, but to guarantee four or five per day is not feasible. I can see that he wants to make sure the opportunities are there, but to get the guarantee is ridiculous. If anything, go to the jobsite and knock on the neighbors’ doors.”
“It might turn into something where I want to give him more leads. If he’s a great sales guy and a good closer, then maybe I want to give him 3-5 leads, but there is no way he’s going to get that up front.”
Hines: “If he wants to. It depends on how many he sets up.”
“We don’t hand out leads in that way. We like to generate our own through referrals and good customer interactions.”
Simmons: “That can be hard even for bigger companies to do, and why does he want that many? It sounds like he’s a volume guy because he has a low close rate and needs to hit 100 homes in order to sell 20 or less.”
9. Biweekly company meetings to review all aspects of business plans, goals, etc
Harley: “I would probably have my own response with demands, meaning he could have all those things, but then here are my requirements, and he probably wouldn’t like them.”
Hines: “Am I interviewing for his company? I mean, there simply isn’t time for that.”
“I generally feel that once people are to the point that they’ve been treated one way or another by other business owners, then you can have a talk to try to curb those issues, but demands are not the way to go about it.”
Simmons: “There are so many red flags with this guy. There is not just one. There are like five or six. I want to be respectful, but I would not even entertain this. There are a lot of attitude and entitlement issues here.”
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What are your opinions on this subject?
Can aspiring salespeople have lists of demands for roofing companies?
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