Selling roof restoration

By Jenny Yu. 

Industry experts discuss how education, financial considerations and specification strategies are shaping the coatings market. 

As interest in roof restoration continues to grow, contractors and manufacturers are finding new ways to explain the value of coatings to building owners and design professionals. 

In this CoatingsCast™ episode, Megan Ellsworth spoke with Chris McDonald of Multi Roof Maintenance along with Chris Huettig and John McDermott of KARNAK about trends shaping the coatings market and how contractors can position restoration solutions for more sales. 

Educating property owners 

One of the biggest challenges contractors face is helping building owners understand that roof coatings aren’t just temporary fixes but long-term investments when a roof is in fair condition.  

“You’ve got to have the right attitude. It's not a ‘have to.’ It's actually an investment; an enhancement,” Chris Huettig said, adding that coming prepared with mockups and samples can help illustrate coating’s benefits. “At the end of the day, you’re problem solving for the building owner. So, think about all the problems the building owner may have and have answers for each of those related to what you're doing by putting on a coating restoration system.” 

Chris McDonald noted that another effective way to explain the value of coatings is through financial considerations, particularly when it comes to how restoration projects may be classified for taxes. “Coating the roof could be considered a CAM, a common area maintenance, during tax season rather than a capital expense, like a full re-roofing would be,” Chris explained. “With a CAM, it's considered maintenance work, and it gets billed back to the tenant.” 

Partnering with specifiers 

Beyond selling to building owners, the panelists emphasized the importance of establishing positive relationships with specifiers.  

“It's been rather impactful for us to get our product specified first. You always have a better chance of landing a job if you are the basis of design, of course,” John McDermott shared. “And sometimes they have a monitor there all the time, which is wonderful. It reduces our liability and ensures that we get the job done properly.” 

Chris McDonald agreed, saying, “Everybody wants a smooth job. My job is to make the specifier’s life easy.” Chris Huettig added, “Relationships like that go tenfold, because once you teach them the value of your coating, they're branching out and hitting all their projects throughout the country.” 

Read the first article in this series or Listen to the podcast episode to learn more about how educating property owners and specifiers can help expand your coatings business.