Settle It All Before You Say the Number

On the list of fires: “settle it before you say the number”

Module 4 · Hiring & Keeping Roofers · Play 3 of 13

The problem in one breath

You find a good hand, you like him, so you text him a rate and a start date. He texts back "let me think about it." Now you're waiting while he shops your number against the next guy's, and the offer that felt like a win Tuesday is dead by Friday. Or worse — he takes it, then three weeks in you find out he needed Fridays for his kid's ball games, and he's quietly sore about it already.

Why it happens

Making an offer feels like the finish line, so you sprint at it — name a number, send it, done. But an offer you spring on a man is a yes-or-no test he can fail. You never asked what he needed, so you're guessing, and a guess he has to swallow whole is easy to reject. And a number in a text is just a number — nothing in it makes him want to say yes and stay said.

The play

Pre-close the hire. Get everything he needs onto the table and settled BEFORE you make the real offer — so the offer itself is a formality he already agreed to.

Ask him straight what it would take. "What's it going to take for you to come run roofs for us and quit looking anywhere else?" Then shut up and let him talk. Rate, sure. But also: start date, his own truck or yours, Fridays off in the fall for his boy's home games, a week promised for deer season, weekly pay instead of every two. You can't settle what he won't name.
Settle every piece out loud, one at a time. Don't gather the whole list and go quiet on it. Take each thing as he says it and land it right there: "Weekly checks — yeah, we do weekly." "Home games off — during the season I can't promise every Friday, but I'll build the schedule around them, that's fair." The ones you can't give, say so now, not later: "The truck I can't do the first year; here's what I can." Every item closed out loud, nothing left dangling.
Read it all back and get the actual yes. "So — that rate, start Monday the 14th, weekly checks, home games off in the fall, and we look at the truck next year. If I put exactly that in front of you, you're in?" Make him say the word. Now the offer isn't a test he might flunk — it's a thing the two of you already built together.
Then hand him the offer in person, like it matters. Not a text. Sit down, look him in the eye, shake his hand, and give him the exact thing you both settled. A guy hired over a text starts as a name on a payroll. A guy you looked in the eye and handed the job to starts as somebody who belongs to a crew.
Back it in writing the same day. Everything you said out loud, on one page, before the day ends — so month six there's no "you told me weekly" fight in the driveway. Say it in person, then put it on paper. The handshake is the loyalty; the page is the peace.

Do this this week

Before your next offer, don't send a number. Call the man and ask one question — "what's it going to take for you to say yes and mean it?" — then just listen and write down every single thing he says. That list is your offer. You'll make it in person, and you'll already know it's a yes before you do.

The tool

Get the sheet Get the card file

Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice. Grab it on the phone now — it’ll be waiting on the computer at the shop.

Ask these four before you name a term:

BEFORE YOU MAKE THE OFFER — ASK, THEN SETTLE EACH ONE OUT LOUD:
  1. What's it going to take for you to say yes and quit looking?
  2. What has to be true about the pay — the number, and how often?
  3. What do you need outside the money? (start date, schedule, family days, a truck)
  4. If I put exactly what we just settled in front of you, are you in?

Then back it in writing: the-written-offer-sheet.xlsx, the written offer sheet — one printable page for every term: pay, start date, schedule, days off promised, the truck-and-gas deal, and anything to revisit with a date that flags REVIEW DUE. Yellow cells to fill, an example beside each, a line for both to sign. His copy, same day. For a sub it holds the deal, not his hours — see below. See the sheet notes below.

If your crew is 1099

The same move works for a sub, but you're settling a deal, not a job — scope, price, the pay schedule, who supplies what, when he starts and when he's done. Ask what it takes for him to take the work, and settle it before you shake on it. What you do NOT do is settle his hours, his crew, or how he runs the roof — start dictating a sub's daily schedule and conduct and you're directing him like an employee. Where that line sits is a call for your accountant or a labor attorney. Settle the deal. Leave the how to him.

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.

M4-03 · Settle It All Before You Say the Number — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/hiring-keeping/making-the-offer

The sheet notes

How the sheet works — the columns and the formulas

The columns, the formulas behind them, and the judgment calls — so you can rebuild it by hand if you ever need to.

What it is

A one-page, fill-in offer sheet — one per new hire. It holds every term the play tells you to settle out loud BEFORE you name the number, so the thing you hand him in person and the thing you both sign are the same thing. Say it to his face; this is the paper that keeps the month-six argument out of the driveway.

The sheet groups the terms the way the play does:

The pay — the rate (the number) and how he's paid (how often, how).
Beyond the money — start date, the schedule/hours you expect, the days off you promised (family days, the season week), and the truck/gas/who-supplies-what.
What we look at later — whatever you promised to revisit (a company truck next year) plus a Revisit on date, so a "we'll get to it" doesn't quietly die.

Every term has a yellow cell you fill and a grey example beside it so you can see the shape. An "Anything else we settled" line catches the odds and ends. Both of you sign at the bottom.

How to use it

Type the new hire's name and today's date at the top.
Fill the yellow cells with exactly what the two of you settled out loud. Write over the grey example — it's only there to show the shape, not a number you owe anybody.
If you promised to look at something later (the truck next year), name it and put a real date in the yellow Revisit on cell (type it like 9/1/2026 — a typed-out "next fall" won't flag). When that date passes, the sheet shows REVIEW DUE in red in the column past the example — your cue to keep the promise instead of forgetting it.
Both sign it, the same day you make the offer. He keeps a copy; you keep a copy.

The one formula (so you can rebuild it)

Revisit flag (cell D20): =IF(AND(B20<>"",B20<TODAY()),"REVIEW DUE",""). It stays blank until a date is entered in B20 and that date is in the past. TODAY() and IF work in old Excel, Numbers, and LibreOffice. If the flag looks blank, the revisit date is empty or still ahead — that's correct, not a bug. It sits in its own cell on purpose: the grey column C is examples you're meant to type over, and the one live formula on the sheet has no business sitting there.

Everything else on the sheet is plain fill-in — no other formulas.

The one thing

Do this this week

Take it with you

Get the sheet Get the card file

One email unlocks this and every other sheet and card on the site. The plays stay free.

Same fire

You're hiring

M4-13the bench you built in January
M4-01the hard-truth interview
M4-02real reference calls
M4-03settle it before you say the number — you’re here

All the fires →

Fixed this?

Hiring is only half the job. The first two weeks decide whether it took.

The fire right behind it is usually New guys don't stick — hired Friday, gone by week three.