How to Hire a Roofing Salesman: Complete Guide [2025]

If you've worked with a great (or not-so-great) roofing salesman, you know just how much your business’s success depends on hiring the right person. 

The right hire will help you generate leads, close sales, and bring in revenue to grow your business. 

However, an unskilled salesman can cost you money, damage your company’s reputation, and reinforce customers' mistrust toward the roofing industry due to high-pressure tactics, overpromising, and inconsistent workmanship. 

To help you make the right hire, we packaged valuable recruiting insights from roofing experts into this guide to help you find, evaluate, and build a high-performing roofing sales team.

Ready to learn how to hire a roofing salesman the right way? Let’s dive in.

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Why Is Hiring the Right Roofing Salesperson Important?

A great hire uses their understanding of the roofing industry to communicate the value of your services. They leverage their roofing knowledge to explain projects and address prospects' concerns about hiring your company, which leads to higher conversion rates.

Beyond closing deals, a great salesperson builds strong customer relationships. They go above and beyond to provide customers with an unforgettable experience by taking time to:

• Educate the customer.

• Follow up after the job is done.

• Handling objections with honesty and transparency, not just sales scripts they’ve rehearsed.

This leads to more closed deals, repeat business, and referrals. 

Conversely, the wrong salesperson can be expensive and detrimental. Not only do they struggle to generate leads, but they can also cause long-term reputational damage.

For example, instead of listening to the homeowner’s needs, a subpar salesperson might recommend a top-tier roofing package that doesn’t suit the property. This frustrates the homeowner, causing them to spread word of a bad experience. 

To avoid this, hire the right salesman for your business and give them the tools they need to succeed. 

An example of such tools is ServiceTitan’s Roofing Sales Toolkit. It includes a suite of tools that automate key tasks and help sales teams succeed. 

All new users enroll in a four-week training program to learn how to create estimates and close jobs.

After the program, trainees gain access to the sales tool, created with the help of roofing experts and contractors, containing:

• Spec-based estimate templates

• Integration with GAF measure and supplier catalogs

• A drag-and-drop proposal builder

Here’s what Andrew Zackoff, Head of Residential Exteriors at ServiceTitan, says about the Roofing Sales Toolkit:

“If you can get more jobs, build great estimates more easily, convert at a higher clip, get the materials, perform the work, and do it all with as little administrative burden as possible, that’s how we drive business outcomes for you and your families,” Zackoff says.

What Qualities Make a Great Roofing Salesman?

Tools are great, but they can’t replace the essential qualities you need in a great salesperson. 

For example, they must understand how to listen intently to the customer and offer the best solution, not just present a memorized sales pitch at every interaction with a customer. According to Steven Altman, VP of Sales at Cooper Heating and Cooling, “People expect perspective and insight, not a sales pitch.

“What brings value within the home has nothing to do with how tactically sound you are. It has to do with being genuine and authentic while offering insight that the customer maybe hasn’t heard before,” he says.  

Here are some qualities you'll find in a great salesman:

• Strong communication and sales skills: Sales is simply convincing prospects to pay for a product or service. That’s why the best salespeople know how to build rapport with customers, actively listen to their concerns, and ask the right questions.

• Knowledge of the roofing industry: While a roofing salesperson may not need to be a roofing expert, they should have a solid understanding of roofing materials and processes. This ensures they can answer technical questions, recommend solutions, and address concerns confidently. 

• Self-motivation and resilience: A salesperson must be persistent to generate leads, follow up with prospects, and close deals. This is particularly important because rejection is a regular part of the job.

• Experience with CRM and sales tools: A sales professional should know how to use sales tools to increase efficiency and close more deals. This includes lead tracking, digital quoting, and estimating tools to help automate repetitive tasks and track the follow-up process.

Now you know what to look for in a salesperson, where can you find them?

Where Can You Find Qualified Roofing Salespeople?

There are different ways to find qualified roofing salespeople. Here are top platforms and methods to leverage.

Online job boards and career websites

Job boards are among the best places to find qualified roofing sales professionals. Platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn, and industry-specific job boards offer different advantages. 

• Indeed provides a large talent pool where you can reach candidates with different levels of experience.

• LinkedIn allows you to contact prospective hires directly and get industry professionals' referrals.

• Roofing job boards provide a pool of sales professionals with in-depth roofing knowledge.

Referrals and networking

Another great option is to tap into your industry connections. 

Contractors, suppliers, and industry groups often provide the best recommendations. Trade events and roofing associations are also great places to find experienced sales reps.

You can also encourage your employees to refer skilled candidates in their network and offer rewards for successful hires.

Recruiting from similar industries

Sales-driven industries like real estate, insurance, and direct sales are a great source of sales talent.

Many professionals in these fields already know how to build relationships, negotiate deals, and work on commission-based sales – all key skills in roofing sales. 

However, it’s advisable to focus on candidates with experience in door-to-door sales, as it shows they can close sales in the field.

Training new talent

While it may be easier to hire already qualified sales professionals with roofing knowledge, you can consider people with little or no experience, especially those with soft skills and personal drive.

After you’ve hired them, train them on roofing products, sales techniques, and customer relations.

Pro tip: Hire roofers looking to transition to sales. Since they already have roofing knowledge, you can help them become great salespeople with proper mentorship and training.

How to Create a Roofing Sales Job Description That Attracts Top Talent

With a well-written roofing sales job description, you can attract qualified candidates to apply for your job post. 

Below are some key points to include in your job listing:

• Highlight the role’s responsibilities: Clearly state responsibilities in the job description to set expectations. This ensures you attract highly qualified candidates with the skills to succeed in the role.

• List the required and preferred qualifications: This should include sales experience, a specific level of communication skills, prior experience in roofing, and familiarity with digital tools.

• Emphasize company culture and earning potential: By all means, mention the starting salary, including commission and benefit structures.

However, top sales talents look beyond financial packages; they value a supportive work culture. Highlight what makes your company a great place to work: career advancement opportunities, a positive team environment, mentorship programs, etc.

• Include clear expectations and performance metrics: Outline key performance indicators (KPIs), such as target revenue, monthly lead generation goals, and closing rates, so applicants know how their performance will be measured.

What Does the Hiring Process for a Roofing Salesman Look Like?

A typical hiring process for a roofing salesman involves reviewing applications, conducting interviews, role-playing scenarios, and checking references to verify past performance.

Reviewing applications and resumes

In this stage, you want to review all resumes you receive to identify top candidates. This helps you shortlist candidates to consider in the next step.

The best candidates will have a proven track record of constantly hitting or exceeding targets, customer empathy, and essential soft skills like communication.

Conducting initial interviews

After selecting strong candidates, ask questions to assess their skills, motivation, and resilience. 

Start by exploring their sales strategies and past successes. Ask how they generate and close leads. Then, pay attention to how they explain their approach.

Next, have them describe a time when a deal fell through and how they handled it. Did they stay persistent and adapt their strategy? Or did they give up?

Their response will reveal their problem-solving abilities and resilience.

Role-playing sales scenarios

At this stage, the goal is to evaluate how well candidates handle real-life scenarios.

You can present them with a typical customer objection and assess their ability to persuade the client and close the sale.

Checking references and past performance

Before making the final decision, the hiring manager should cross-check the candidate’s references. Then, contact former employers to verify their achievements and attitude to work. 

How Do You Onboard and Train a Roofing Salesperson for Success?

Regardless of how great your new hire is, they’re probably not familiar with your company’s culture and mode of operation. That’s why training and onboarding are crucial when hiring a salesperson. 

The effort you put into this stage impacts how effective they'll be at their jobs.

Here are some onboarding practices to implement:

Provide product and service training

Roofing sales is more than just closing deals; it involves educating customers about roofing solutions. That's why new hires need to understand your services, processes, and pricing structures.

You can pair new salespeople with experienced ones so they can experience real-world scenarios and learn how to communicate effectively with customers, handle objections, and close sales.

Teach sales scripts and objection handling

Provide your sales team with well-structured sales scripts that mirror their conversations with potential clients. These scripts should include techniques and strategies to handle objections.

The scripts should also be tailored to the various scenarios your team faces in the field. You should update it monthly as you and your team discover ways to handle new or old objections.

Use technology to streamline training

Tools like CRMs and digital estimate solutions simplify the sales process, making it easier for new hires to adapt quickly.

For example, ServiceTitan’s Sales Pro software provides automated recordings of every on-site interaction between your roofing sales reps and customers, boosting productivity and helping you identify areas for improvement.

Set clear goals and provide ongoing coaching

Setting clear goals helps salespeople track progress. It also helps you identify each individual’s strengths and areas for improvement, enabling personalized training.  

The goals you set for salespeople include:

• Monthly sales targets

• Lead conversion rates

• Closed deals

• Proposals submitted

• Average sales value

How to Motivate and Retain Your Roofing Sales Team

Sales is a tough role. People sometimes quit due to the number of rejections and negative feedback they face daily. So, it's important for managers and business owners to find ways to motivate sales reps.

Below are some strategies:

• Offer competitive commission structures: Implement a fair and transparent profit-sharing commission structure.  This encourages your sales team to close more deals while maintaining long-term customer relationships.

• Provide career growth opportunities: Provide clear paths for career advancement by offering mentorship programs, leadership training, and promotion opportunities. This can increase your employee retention rate.

• Recognize and reward high achievers: Identify top performers and reward them. You can celebrate milestones like the highest deals closed in the month with bonuses or gifts. As you publicly celebrate and reward your best employees, you'll motivate others to put in more work.

• Foster a positive sales culture: Encourage team members to work together to produce the best results rather than competing with each other. 

How ServiceTitan Boosts the Effectiveness of Your Roofing Sales Team

Sales reps perform better when equipped with the right tools to automate tasks like lead generation, engagement tracking, follow-up messages, and pipeline management.

Plus, they’re more productive when they don't have to switch between tools whenever they're trying to close sales.

To help them stay organized and deliver good results, they need the right platform to manage their sales activities. 

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one roofing software with countless in-built tools for spotting sales opportunities, closing them, and training sales reps.

Here's how ServiceTitan can impact your sales team:

Empower sales reps with Sales Pro

The best way to train salespersons is to use recordings of real-world scenarios, from simple to complex customer objections.

Traditional sales tools are limited in that respect, as they allow salespersons to cherry-pick the sales interactions to record. This produces audio recordings that only cover some real-world situations, leaving your techs without training materials to handle tough objections.

ServiceTitan Sales Pro solves this by automatically recording customer interactions as soon as a sales rep arrives at the job location and clicks “Arrive” on their tablet.

Recordings from top performers can be used to train new hires or other salespersons. They can listen to them while they’re driving to job sites and discuss what they've learned at team meetings. 

That’s not all.

Sales Pro’s AI assistant analyzes each call recording and timestamps key mistakes. This way, reps can go straight to specific sections of each recording instead of listening to the entire audio, which saves time and increases productivity.

After timestamping the recordings, ServiceTitan automatically consolidates top mistakes into a dashboard. 

Team leads and managers can use this dashboard to develop training materials for new hires and current team members.

Lastly, to enhance collaboration, ServiceTitan has developed a social feed where team members can find clips of how top performers:

• Handle objections

• Suggest services

• Offer financing

• Upsell memberships

Salespeople can learn from each other and develop skills to close high-ticket offers.

Generate more roofing leads with Marketing Pro

Calling or messaging each prospect individually takes time. Isn’t it better to just target everyone stuck in the same stage of the conversion funnel? That’s exactly what ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro helps you do.

ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro enables sales teams to create audiences of customers they wish to follow-up with and send them bulk SMS texts or emails.

It’s simple. All you need to do is:

• Pick a template from our library and use it to create a sequence of up to four messages in case the recipient doesn’t take the desired action after the first one.

• Then, generate unique tracking numbers and attach them to each email or SMS text, so ServiceTitan can track the source of each lead.

• Finally, use the ROI dashboard to track the conversions generated by each message. This way, you know which copy to use when resolving customer objections in the future.

This feature allows sales teams to send up to four follow-up emails, helping re-engage prospects and convert missed opportunities into sales.

Optimize pricing and increase close rates with Pricebook Pro

Closing sales is one thing. But it’s another thing to sell a service at the right price and offer discounts that don’t eat into your profit margin.

That’s why ServiceTitan's Pricebook Pro integrates with top-supplier catalogs and collates their prices into your pricebook. Whenever suppliers change the prices of their products, the prices in your pricebook change simultaneously.

By eliminating the time lag between when suppliers update their prices and when it reflects in your pricebook, ServiceTitan helps salespersons charge the right prices, every time.

Additionally, Pricebook Pro lets salespersons build proposals with high-quality visuals that make it easier to showcase your services in a professional manner.

This helps sales reps to communicate value effectively and close more deals.

Take the Next Step Toward Building a Winning Sales Team

To build a successful roofing sales team, you need to carefully select people who can consistently bring in qualified leads and convert them to loyal clients. While hiring top talent is important, investing in training and development helps new hires grow into valuable members.

A well-trained sales rep can consistently close more deals and generate repeat business and referrals. To maximize your sales team’s success, equip them with the right tools and training. 

ServiceTitan provides your sales team with the technology they need to streamline the sales process, enhance customer interactions, and close more deals. 

With the right solutions in place, your salespeople will be ready to seize sales opportunities and build lasting client relationships.

ServiceTitan is an extensive software that helps roofing companies effectively manage their business. The platform provides different solutions to help roofing sales teams generate more leads, close deals, and boost revenue.