Ethical sales
tl;dr: when do you stop signing new contracts and tell people you’re full?
Alright here’s an ethical question I have for you guys, gals, and non binary pals.
I’ve been in roofing and roofing sales and roofing ownership for a combined 16 years. I mostly deal with roofing, but also sub out siding, decks, blah blah blah, anything with storm damage I’ll do it.
I even contract interior work, but I scream and cry about it the whole way.
Most of the work I do is related to hail, and unless it’s a banger of a storm, there isn’t an immediate “oh my god fix my property today or I’m suffering more damage by the minute”. Gives me time to supplement with insurance, get approval, do the work, yada yada.
Recently there was a big wind storm in my neck of the woods. Whole buildings flat on the ground. Walls torn from homes, rafters, decking, roof completely missing. Decks in neighbors’ yard, tree limbs through siding poking into the living room.
When you’re in a storm environment like that do you only sign people that you can fulfill right away, or do you sign anyone that wants to put ink on paper? Do you tell people they are the 50th person in line and it might be two months before you can reframe their house and put new siding/deck/roof on it? Or do you hem and haw and say there are people ahead of you but we can do it!
Just trying to get my bearings of when to turn people away. I’ve never worked a storm quite like this, and definitely never had to worry about “if I sign another person we might be hurting them by putting them at the back of the line, maybe someone else should handle this”.
