Hello! This is my first post here. I’ll try to be to the point.
I was working a deadend job for awhile when I reconnected from someone from my past. He offered me a job working sales for his roofing company that he started a few years ago. I said sure, let’s try it out. Started me off at 7%. I didn’t know anything about roofing. I had to buy a little truck to get started.
I’ve since come into my own pretty well, outselling/matching the other estimators in the company. I’ve been raised to 8%, and only just last week was given a $50 a week gas card.
Went out for a drink with the owner recently, talk of another raise came up. He said very firmly that 8% is the highest he’ll ever pay me, no 8.5% and certainly never going to be no 10% (what I was asking for). Believes 10% is a ripoff for him. Said that all other roofing companies are at about 6-7% and that I’m being very well taken care of. Floated the idea that for any 6 digit commercial jobs I sell should be 5%, but he’ll keep it at 8% for now… Told me to call around if I didn’t believe him.
Today I finally got around to googling what roof estimators make on average. Learned about profit split, such as the 10/50/50 and other similar systems. All news to me! But makes sense. Hard to be motivated to sell small jobs, especially as those are the ones that typically require a lot of my time. I’ve sold 2k repairs that only took the guys two hours to do. But I’d rather go after the big jobs, obviously.
- Company provides almost all leads. They’ve wrapped my truck at their cost, so now I’m a mobile billboard. It looks very nice, but I am not being paid for it. “You’re paid by looking more professional, you’ll close more jobs.”
- Write my own proposals.
- Order materials for delivery if necessary. Not often
- Deal with the insurance companies. Still a lot to learn there.
- Run materials to the jobs from time to time.
- Inspect roof once completed from time to time. Usually roofers take a ton of photos and that suffices.
- Collect payment from homeowner sometimes. Usually receptionist takes payment over the phone.
Like I said, my own truck which means constant repairs, until just now my own gas, company provides almost all leads (if I create one, no separate pay plan in place) and sets appointments for me (almost always have me doing back-and-forth driving routes). No insurance or anything like that.
Is this about normal? Any thoughts? Thanks for reading!
edited to tidy up the post a bit