Metal roofing and HOA misconceptions

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says to always start with the elephant in the room when it comes to talking about metal roofs with HOAs.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Lauren White: Hello everyone, my name is Lauren White. I'm here with MetalCoffeeShop.com for our July Influencer, and I'm here with Randy Chafee. Randy, so good to see you.

Randy Chaffee: Lauren, good to see you.

Lauren White: Today for our July Influencer question, we are talking about navigating HOAs. So what do you have to share with people out there about metal roofing and navigating HOAs?

Randy Chaffee: Well, we all join in one thing. We pretty much all hate them, right? But we have to live with them. They can be a pain, and we all understand that. And I think we go into it, understanding that sometimes they're your friends, sometimes they're not, sometimes they have the right meaning or they're trying to do the job for the community and sometimes they're not. But at the end of the day, I think we understand that most of these people don't understand roofing and they don't understand metal roofing.

And I think the first thing we have to do, besides all of the things we can talk about in a second, is helping them to get away from the fear of metal. See, a lot of people think of metal roofing as I don't want a hog building roof on my my house. I don't want it to look like Taco Bell or the doctor's office or whatever you know ideas they get in their head. And I think the first thing we have to do if you're a metal salesperson working in that area is to take in lots of samples, lots of products and pictures and testimonials from other HOAs to let them know that it's not your take from an Oldsmobile ad years ago, you know, there used to be that's not your father's Oldsmobile. It's not your father's metal roofing anymore. With the colors that we have and with the panel designs we have with the stamp shingles the stone coated shingles the standing seams all the rib panels we can offer something today that's not what a lot of people think of as metal roofing. And I think that's the very first thing we have to get by if we're going to work with HOAs is get them to understand that this is not that ugly barn roof. And I say ugly, I do a lot in the agricultural world, but in their mind it's an ugly barn roof, I don't want that in our HOA. That's crazy. Once we get past that, we have to get them past the misperceptions. And we do that with fact. We do that with testimony.

And I think we hit them head on earlier in the process, so we can get these people to understand the problems or the objections they may have. You want them first, not last in the deal, right? Sometimes these things take months. Let's get them out of the way up front. Everybody thinks the lightning strikes, metal roof, it doesn't strike a metal roof anymore than it strikes anywhere else. They think that it's going to be noisy when it rains. Well, that's because they're going back to that hog building or that backyard building. Or if you have open purlins or open trusses, open attic, and you just got metal over purlins, of course it's noisy. It's loud, loud, loud. But we're putting a metal roof over a a substrate, a plywood or OSB substrate. We're putting down either some type of insulation board sometimes. We're putting down underlayments. So we have to dispel the fact that it's not noisy. Lightning's not going to strike it any sooner. It's not going to particularly interfere with your Wi-Fi or your cell phone service. I think we get past that right out of the gates.

And I would suggest to people selling metal roofs to HOAs or starting down that road, is hit those up front from the very start. Here's some things you've heard. There's probably some misconceptions. Let's show you some of these beautiful roofs. Let's show you some other HOAs that use metal. And let's get past some of these things that you're concerned about and get down to the pluses, which is one and done, right? A metal roof's going to last your homeowners the rest of their life. It's going to help uphold the resale value because the new owner's not going to have to put a new roof on 15 years after they buy the house. There's all those pluses.

But I've always felt like in the world of sales, if you know there's a proverbial elephant in the room, then let's talk about the elephant right off the get-go. Because we don't want to do that at the end after we've done all these things, and that's the last thing and they run out of time, and they don't have time for anymore. Maybe we'll invite you back to the next meeting, and then they leave with all the negative connotations that you're having discussed. So I I say get those out of the way first. Let's end the meeting with the pluses and the positives. So that's it in a nutshell. And that comes from a guy that's installed a million years ago, but I'm in the components world now and selling products into the industry. I'm coming a little bit more from a from a sales background. I think that, from my perspective, is the most important thing.

Lauren White: Yeah, absolutely. I think that education is key because people don't know what they don't know, right? And there are so many benefits to metal.

Randy Chaffee: They don't. And let's face it, depending on where you are in the country, I live in an area where clay and cement tile roofs are very popular. But if somebody is in the clay tile, metal, cement tile world, or somebody that's in the asphalt shingle world, and they know that HOA is talking to some metal people too, yeah, they're going to certainly plant reasons why you shouldn't go metal, right? So let's understand those negatives they're going to plant, and let's take them off the table first. And then all of a sudden we're back on equal footing. And I think at the end of the day, if we're on equal footing and getting those negatives out of the way, we're in a great position to sell metal.

Lauren White: Definitely. Yeah, I know I would love my HOA to do a metal roof the next time we re-roof. So fingers crossed it works out. Well, Randy, as always, thank you so much for all of your insights. And for those of you listening, make sure that you check out his directory on MetalCoffeeShop.com. And we will see you for the August question, Randy.

Randy Chaffee: Sounds good. I'm ready. Appreciate you, Lauren. Cheers.