Imagine a neighborhood where 2,000 homes were built within the same three-year period.
Each one has a shingle roof.
And those roofs are now approaching their fifteenth birthday.
If a new roof costs $15,000, you’re looking at a $30 million pool of business that will inevitably happen over the next few years.
The homeowners may not know exactly when they’ll replace their roofs.
The roofing companies may not know who will go first.
But the outcome is already marching toward them.
Those roofs will need to be replaced.
This is one of my favorite ways to think about visible prospects:
What group of people can you see moving toward an inevitable outcome?
Most roofing companies wait until someone discovers a leak, sees missing shingles, or gets a frightening inspection report.
At that point, the homeowner calls three roofers for estimates.
Now everyone is competing for the same visible opportunity at exactly the same moment.
But what if you started three or four years earlier?
You could identify homes built eleven or twelve years ago and begin helping those homeowners extend the useful life of their roofs.
Perhaps you offer an annual inspection.
A small repair and maintenance program.
Or a treatment that can add another year or two before replacement.
This may seem counterintuitive.
Why would a roofer help someone postpone buying a new roof?
Because nobody wants a new roof.
They don’t dream about shingles.
They don’t look forward to spending $15,000 on something that looks almost exactly like what they already had.
So the roofer who helps them safely delay that expense becomes an ally.
Now, instead of chasing the homeowner at the moment of crisis, you’ve created a relationship years in advance.
You’ve effectively put that roof under management.
And when the day inevitably comes that it needs to be replaced, who are they going to call?
The stranger whose ad appeared when they searched for “roofer near me”…
Or the person who has been looking after their roof for the last three years?
There are inevitable outcomes marching toward every business.
Roofs wear out.
Air conditioners need replacing.
People retire.
Children go to college.
Business owners eventually exit.
The opportunity is to identify the people already on that path…and become useful long before everybody else sees them coming.
The best time to become someone’s trusted roofer isn’t when water is coming through the ceiling.
It’s while the roof is still keeping them dry.