Training that is all About Profitability!

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

Training to sell roofing at a profit with systematic processes is what Frank Farmer and MRC does best. 

In an upcoming episode of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth sits down with Frank Farmer of Metal Roofing Consultants (MRC) to discuss how roofing contractors can get the necessary tools and training they need to add metal roofing to their company and increase their overall profitability. In this podcast, Frank shares a proven sales system that has made his business the country’s leading residential metal roof company.  

Frank Farmer was trained originally as a physician, and now uses his medical knowledge to analyze the health of a home. He is also the president of American Metal Roofs (AMR) and on the Board of Governors for the Home Improvement Professional Executive Council (HIPEC) and the Board for the Metal Roof Alliance (MRA). 

After completing medical school, Frank decided he did not want to pursue practicing as a physician. He started a small Apartment Locator service shortly after and began learning the ins and outs of business and salesmanship. 

“I was broke. People that worked for me made more money than I did,” said Frank. 

After spending some time learning the ropes of this operation, a friend of Frank’s reached out to him, recommending he take up sales and marketing.  

“My perception of a salesperson was that they were slime balls,” Frank said. 

Frank’s friend then showed him how much money he made with professional selling, which ended up being twice what Frank was making at the time. Fortunately, the company his friend worked for had room for one more good salesperson and Frank got the job. 

“I got involved selling windows. Six months later I closed my company,” said Frank. “I have to tell everybody that when I first started, I didn’t understand there were any systems. I thought you [could just] pull it out of the air and say whatever you wanted. I was mimicking what I thought a salesperson was.” 

In his third year as a salesperson, Frank started combining what he was learning in sales with what he learned in medical school and soon found a system that garnered exceptional results.  

“I didn’t think it was anything special for quite some time,” said Frank. After his sales performance continued to impress, his employer began asking if Frank would train the other salespeople. This also sparked Frank to start his own business, AMR. 

“The first thing I did was I wrote an in-home sales presentation that we could use to close on the first night,” said Frank. “Then I designed marketing pieces, a website, I wrote scripting and I started putting systems in place that I had learned and built in the window businesses. First year in sales, in metal back in 2000, we sold $1.06 million, and it was only a couple of years after that, we're recognized [as one] of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.” 

Listen to the entire podcast to hear more from Frank Farmer and how MRC is changing the way contractors conduct the in-home sales process.