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Roof Geek
Estimate Software
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Simplicity, Speed, and Ease were the objectives
maintained by the developer of Roof Geek, a roofing
salesman himself and a day to day user of the software.
Sitting in your truck in front of a customer’s home with
the customer waiting inside (or worse, standing beside
your truck) for you to complete his estimate is no time
for fumbling around or searching for the right screens
or functions. Likewise, it’s no time for a “hunt and
peck” typist to be required to labor over his keyboard
while pecking out line after line of text. Following is
an overview of how Roof Geek accomplishes these
objectives. |
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The Setup |
After installing
your new Roof Geek Estimate Software, you’ll be instructed to
spend a substantial amount of time setting it up. First, you
will enter the “Preferences” screen and tell Roof Geek
exactly how your company installs a new roof. You’ll do this
by selecting various options and de-selecting others. These
options include such things as where on the roof to install
Ice and Water Shield (Along Eaves With Gutters, Around
Chimneys and Skylights, and so on) and how much “waste” to
add to the shingle order.
Next, you’ll
tell Roof Geek how you pay your
“Labor” crews, how much you add to their pay for
various pitches or stories above ground, how much for
cutting new ridge vent holes and so on. The options listed
in the labor setup are quite thorough.
Then you will enter the “Materials”
and “Shingles”
setup and tell Roof Geek which materials to link to each type
of shingle. For instance, Roof Geek needs to know that you
prefer using W-Valley and 1 ½” nails with certain heavier
shingle types. You’ll also need to check the prices of each
shingle and material item to insure that they accurately
reflect the prices in your area. You’ll also tell Roof Geek
which materials to use as “defaults” so that when you are
doing an estimate, Roof Geek will know that you prefer using
Shingle Vent II instead of aluminum ridge vents on most
jobs, and so on.
 Roof
Geek provides you with 10 “Standard
Letters” that you can click, print and mail to
your customers. You will need to word them to suit your
needs so that they will be readily available for later use.
Finally, you will enter the Estimate Generator and customize
the many available “Drop-Down
Menus” Once you have done this, adding lines to a
customer’s estimate that says something like
“Inspect the decking and replace
where needed at an additional $75.00 per sheet.”
is as simple as 2 clicks of the mouse. You may include as
many such sentences as you like, with any wording you
choose. Roof Geek will help you group these sentences into
categories such as “removal” or “decking” for ease of
locating and using them in the heat of battle.
Roof Geek is now
fully customized to your way of doing business and ready to
use.
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Lead Tracking
and Statistics |
Roof Geek will
display your leads on the main screen where you can update
the information and current status of the lead. On the
bottom of the screen, Roof Geek displays a set of statistics
for you, including: Number of Leads
in the system, number of Sales,
number of Estimates that
are active, the number of
Presentations you have made, your current
Closing Ratio on
presentations given, and several other stats to keep you
constantly appraised on how you are doing. You can use this
information to see if you are being out run to a customer
and those leads sold before you got there, or if you are
loosing sales after making presentations. Perhaps you need
to adjust your price or improve your presentation.
Knowledge is power and Roof
Geek gives you that knowledge.
When you enter
your measurements and details on a particular job into Roof
Geek and tell it what kind of shingle you want to use, Roof
Geek gathers information on how you prefer to do a roofing
job, the specific criteria you have established for that
type of shingle, and how you pay your roofing crews. Roof
Geek then generates a detailed
Material Order and Labor
Order for you. After you have reviewed those
orders and made any changes you feel necessary, Roof Geek
calculates the cost of doing that job and offers you a wide
range of suggested prices, based on the
Gross Profit that you
prefer (profit after materials and labor have been deducted
from the contract price). Simply scroll down the list until
you see the profit percentage you want and click on that
price. Roof Geek does the math for you including sales tax on
the materials and any applicable delivery charges.
 If you’ve told
Roof Geek that you’ll be doing
Siding, Gutters, or Misc
work on this job as well, Roof Geek calculates them into the
price, even if you’ve chosen to give Roof Geek only a generic
price guideline of what you’d like to charge the customer
for that additional work. For example: while sitting in the
customer’s driveway, you may choose not to price out all of
the siding accessories required to complete the siding job.
So, to save time, you can tell Roof Geek to add $350 per
square for 20 square of siding to the price. Roof Geek will
then do a detailed cost analysis of the roofing job and give
you a chance to pick your profit margin. Then, Roof Geek will
add the generic siding price (in this case, $7,000 to the
price that you choose for the roof. Roof Geek will know not
to include additional profit on the siding job, because you
have already built your profit into the $350 per square.
Roof Geek will do the same for Gutters and Misc work if you
choose to do so. What could possibly be easier?
Of course, if you choose, Roof Geek will let you complete a
detailed siding material and labor order, gutter order, or
Misc work order right there on the spot. In which case, Roof
Geek will know to add the cost of these items into its
calculations prior to giving you the price suggestions to
choose from. With Roof Geek,
Flexibility is the order of the day.
Roof Geek allows
you to generate 3 separate scopes of work for each customer,
without typing his information again, (or the measurements
either, if you are simply changing the type of shingle).
With no more than a click of your mouse you can tell Roof
Geek to use the information supplied in Scope “A” to generate
a price for Scope “B” or “C”. Or, if you want to mix it up,
you can tell Roof Geek to use the roof information from Scope
“A” and the siding information from Scope “B” and the gutter
information from Scope “A” all to arrive at a price for
Scope “C” or any such combination you choose. Whew! That’s a
lot of flexibility!
The Estimate
Generator
You now know
what price to charge the customer for the job, but you don’t
yet have anything to hand him. The Estimate Generator in
Roof Geek is quick and easy. You can generate a professional
looking estimate by pointing and clicking the various
sentences you have setup in the drop-down menus. Each time
you click on a sentence, it is added to the estimate.
If this job happens to fall within the guidelines of one of
the 3 Standard Jobs that
you have previously customized into the Estimate Generator,
generating the entire estimate can be accomplished with
2 clicks of your mouse.
To make it any easier, Roof Geek would have to measure the
roof for you!
Roof Geek will
use the information you’ve generated in the Estimate to
print a Contract on your command so that you don’t have to
go through it all again.
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Material, Labor
and Cost Analysis Reports |
After the sale,
you’ll probably need some information to turn in to your
office with the signed contract. At minimum, you need a list
of the materials you
need them to order for the job and some instructions for the
labor crews. It would
also be a great idea to hand in a
Cost Analysis Report with the job so that the
boss will know that you’ve charged the customer a good
price. Actually, Roof Geek has already generated those
reports for you. All you have to do is add the colors of
various materials to order (if you haven’t already done so)
and any special delivery or installation instructions that
you feel are necessary. Then simply print the reports. In
case you forget to add the required colors to your material
order, Roof Geek will remind you, and even pop up a list of
colors which each of those materials is available in. Just
pick a color for each item from the list. It really is that
simple.
Professional
salespeople use follow-up letters to thank customers for
their business, ask for referrals, or stay in touch with a
potential customer after giving them an estimate. Roof Geek
allows you to type such letters and print them with ease.
However, if you have customized your 10 available Standard
Letters, you won’t have to re-type them each time. Simply
tell Roof Geek which standard letter you wish to use in a
particular instance and Roof Geek will copy the text of the
letter for you. Then simply print it out and mail it.
Over the course
of a year, your list of leads can get quite long and
cumbersome. To help you keep the list manageable and prevent
you from having to scroll through 200 leads to locate the
one you’re looking for, Roof Geek allows you to
“Hide” older leads, or even
“Delete” leads which
were canceled prior to your contacting the customer or
practice leads which you entered and played around with in
your attempt to become more familiar with the workings of
the software. Hidden leads will continue to be used in Roof
Geek’s calculations of your Closing
Ratio and other statistics. Deleted leads will
not. You may “UnHide” or
“UnDelete” a lead at any
time. Once entered into Roof Geek, a lead is never truly
deleted.
To help you
locate leads faster, Roof Geek also provides you with buttons
that you can use to sort your list by any criteria on the
main screen. You may sort them alphabetically by last name,
order in which they were entered, by city, by current
status, by status date, and so on.
I designed and
developed Roof Geek for my personal use as well as for my
sales force to use. We have been using previous versions of
this software for years, refining and improving it all along
the way. I am totally convinced that any roofing salesman
who has the desire to enter the 21st century by using a
laptop and printer in the field can greatly improve their
closing ratios and thus their income by using Roof Geek
Estimate Software. If I had even the slightest doubt of
this, the software would not be for sale at any price. If
you have any doubt, I invite you to read the
Testimonials portion of
this website, then take Roof Geek for a no-obligation test
drive by downloading the fully-functional trial version. If
that doesn’t convince you, then I sincerely apologize for
wasting your time.
Sincerely
Neal Middleton
President
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