Selling customers on the world of metal

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says to not limit your customer or yourself when selling metal. 

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

Alex Tolle: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle with MetalCoffeeShop.com and I'm back with Randy for another Metal Influencer question. Randy, good to see you again. So, our August question is, “What unique aspects of metal should contractors be sharing with their customers to grow metal construction sales?” 

Randy Chaffee: Good to see you Alex, as always. Metal is, first place, you're leading edge, right? It's energy efficient, it's a cool roof, it lasts for, I like to say forever, that's probably a long time, but you can sell it as a forever roof in most cases, right? The warranties, like I said, I touched on the cool roof standpoint, and the big thing today, I think, is you can cover the full gamut from the very low-end entry point level from a price standpoint of an Ag panel, a rib panel of some type. We've got the concealed fastener or exposed fastener panels now that look like standing seams. So, you got the next upgrade.  

Then of course, you got all the standing seam options, and you got textured. And now we're moving into, or you should move into or have available to you, all the metal shingles too. The painted metal shingles, the stone coated metal shingles.  

So the bottom line is, we can take people from whatever price point they're comfortable with, whatever their budget looks like, and whatever the desire is, right? And I think if we, as salespeople in the world of metal, if we're always talking from the standpoint of let's talk metal, period. And if we do that, there's options for you depending on the look you want.  

For example, I like to talk to people a lot about this, and I don't sell metal directly. I sell components into the metal world. But if you're talking to customers, you get them sold on the world of metal and all the reasons, the warranties and so forth. All the issues we just talked about, but then it becomes, "I want metal. It's just what variety, what brand, what blend do I want? Do I want it to look like a traditional house in my neighborhood? Maybe I want a stone coat of shingles. I don't like that, but I want it to look like whatever the case may be. Why? Maybe it's a painted shingle. Maybe a standing seam. Maybe it's, I love metal, but I don't want to look like a commercial building. So no, I don't want standing seam, right?"  

But then once you're in those discussions, Alex, you're going to win. It's — I kind of call it the “I'm a Hilton guy,” right? I call it the Hilton mentality. Hilton wins when they got three Hilton properties from 149, 69 and 209 on the same corners. It really doesn't matter which Hilton you stay at, Hilton still wins, right? And I think it's the same way there. Get them into the world of metal and then sell them what they want.  

But you've got to believe in metal yourself. You got to believe it makes sense. You can't apologize for the price at times if it's a little higher than other traditional ways. If you lead them into the, "We're going to do a metal roof together here, folks, right? Which one do you want?" And I think even as roll formers, and I sell a lot of roll former customers, so maybe I'll get a couple of mad at me, but I've had people mad before. 

You know, you want to sell what you make. I get that. But you also want to get the roof. And if they're sold on metal, but they just don't want standing seam or they just don't want any kind of a rib panel, aren't you better off to get that metal and keep them in metal, expose metal to the world to one more customer and their friends than to let them go somewhere else? So, this is probably what they're going to do. 

Alex Tolle: Right. Yeah, think, yeah, it makes perfect sense. I think there's just so many benefits to metal. And then the extra benefit to that, there's so many options now. It used to be, you know, just a few options, but you can get a slate roof, but it's actually metal. Like there's just so many options of the types of metal roofing you can do now. So you could have any style you want, but it's metal. 

Randy Chaffee: They're making sense. Exactly, and I run into that. Most of my big part of my life is living in southern Florida and living along the coast. So you know, it's a clay and cement tile the barrel look very popular but you know, there's so many barrel tile looks out there in the Mediterranean tile looks that are metal that's lighter weight all the longevity all the warranties all the benefits of metal that we've talked about but if that's look you want in today's world is not to just choose your color. It’s choose your gauge, choose your substrate, choose your look and you can run the gamut of what you want.  

So, I think it's important as salespeople in the world of selling metal, builders, installers selling metal, is don't limit yourself because the homeowner is no longer limited because we've talked about these on other influencer segments. Today's world, the consumer is way smarter than they used to be. With the internet, they know what's available. And if you can't supply what's available, you're not going to, and I say jam, but you're not going to jam your one panel that you make and that's all you want to sell down their throat because they already know that this is available. If you can't handle it, I'll just get it from somebody else. Why would you let them do that? Why would you let them walk? 

Alex Tolle: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you as always, Randy. Appreciate your time. 

Randy Chaffee: Thank you.