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Financing Makes You the Bank
On the list of fires: “financing without becoming the bank”
Module 9 · Sales & Leads · Play 10 of 14
The problem in one breath
Financing gets sold to roofers as a closing tool. What it actually is, on the day it works, is a job you pay for out of your own pocket and collect on weeks later.
Why it happens
The pitch is all upside — bigger jobs, fewer price objections, monthly payments instead of a scary number. Nobody in that conversation mentions that a financed job usually has no deposit behind it, so the material and the crew come out of your account and the lender pays you after the roof is finished. A shop can sell three of them in one week and be unable to make payroll in the third.
The play
Offer it three times, before price ever comes up, then leave it alone. In the inspection confirmation, with a link they can prequalify through privately. Once out loud during the inspection. And as example monthly payments at the bottom of the estimate. Three quiet touches beat one hard push at a table, and most people who intend to finance have already decided by then.
Do the float math before you turn it on. Take your biggest realistic financed job. Multiply by what material and subs actually cost you — in one shop that runs near half the job — and that is the cash leaving your account before a dollar comes back. That shop's lender caps a customer at sixty-five thousand, which pencils out to roughly thirty-two thousand of their money on a maxed job. Those are their numbers on their margins; run yours.
Then schedule the money, not just the crews. Cash jobs, financed jobs and insurance jobs are three different collection timelines, and stacking the slow ones into one month is how a busy shop goes broke. Spread them on purpose, the same way you spread crews across roofs (Module 6, Play 5, "When Payroll's on the Line, Meet on Cash Every Day"; Module 14, Play 1, "One Board, and Nobody Has to Call You").
Decide the fee question deliberately, and only once. The lender takes a cut. One shop absorbs it and prices financed jobs the same as cash, on the grounds that adding it prices them out of the work the financing was supposed to win — their words: it might not be the best way to do it. The alternative is carrying it inside your per-square price for everybody. What you may and may not charge a customer for paying one way instead of another is set by your lender's agreement and by the law where you work, and how you book the fee is a question for your accountant.
Do not become the lender yourself. Carrying a customer on your own paper is the one money tool this shop tried and backed away from — it goes wrong, and you are a roofer, not a finance company. Keep it for the rare case where you are genuinely helping somebody, and never offer it as a product.
Know whether you are the shop that should turn this on at all. Savings or steady cash flow: yes, it is a real tool and even one extra job a month compounds over years. Living week to week on deposits: fix that first (Module 6, Play 1, "Fifteen Minutes a Week on the Money You're Owed"). Financing does not create cash, it moves your cash later.
Do this this week
Work out the one number this play turns on: your biggest likely financed job times your material and sub cost. Then look at your bank account and ask whether that could sit out for three weeks without anything else stopping.
The tool
Before you turn financing on — the float check and the three touches.
THE FLOAT CHECK — do this first
Biggest job a customer could finance ....... $________
Your material + sub cost, as a share ....... _____%
CASH YOU FUND BEFORE YOU GET PAID .......... $________
Could that sit out 2-3 weeks? [ ] yes [ ] no
Two of them at once? [ ] yes [ ] no
If no: fix cash flow first. Financing moves money later,
it doesn't create any.
HOW THE MONEY MOVES (confirm with YOUR lender)
Deposit on a financed job ........ usually none
You pay material + subs .......... up front, your cash
Lender funds you ................. after completion
Customer approval to release? .... sometimes; adds days
THE THREE TOUCHES — all before price
1. Inspection confirmation: prequalify link
2. Estimator mentions it on site, once
3. Example monthly payments on the estimate
Then drop it. Nobody gets pushed.
DECIDE ONCE, WRITE IT DOWN
[ ] We absorb the lender fee
[ ] We carry it in our per-square price
Ask your lender what you're allowed to charge, and your
accountant how to book it.
NEVER: carry the customer on your own paper as an offer.
If your crew is 1099
The float lands hardest on a shop that runs subs, because the crew's money is due on your terms while the lender's money is weeks out (Module 12, Play 5, "Pay the Day You Said and You Get First Call After the Storm"). Before you sell a financed job, know what that crew's draw is and when it hits. That is the payment you cannot renegotiate.
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.
M9-10 · Financing Makes You the Bank — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/sales-leads/financing-makes-you-the-bank
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Same fire
She wants the roof but says she can't pay for it
- M9-10financing without becoming the bank — you’re here
Fixed this?
A lender's fee comes off the same job. Price for it up front or it comes out of your margin one roof at a time.
The fire right behind it is usually Jobs sell but the profit isn't there.