Roofer MBA — 128 plays for the business side of a roofing company. Free to read, no account, nothing for sale. What this is →
One Price, Sent Today
Module 9 · Sales & Leads · Play 4 of 14
The problem in one breath
You looked at the roof Tuesday and the price goes out Friday night, in a text, as a number with nothing around it. By then they have two written estimates on the counter and yours is the one that came late and said the least.
Why it happens
Pricing feels like the hard part, so it gets pushed to the end of the day, and that keeps sliding. Meanwhile the estimate itself never got designed — it is whatever the software prints, or a number in a message. So the shop that took the most care on the roof looks the least serious on paper, and the homeowner does the only comparison a bare number allows.
The play
- Get it to them the same day, while they can still hear your voice saying it. They watched the video that morning (Play 3, "Show Them the Roof They Can't See"). The price landing the same afternoon is still part of that conversation. Three days later it is a cold number from a company they have half forgotten.
- Send one price, not a menu. Good, better and best hands a homeowner a job they are not qualified to do — choosing a roof system — and it quietly tells them your real price is the small one. You inspected the roof. You know what it needs. Quote that.
- Price it off your own math, not your gut. The squares off the takeoff, your own cost per square, your own overhead and the margin you decided to run (Module 10, Play 1, "Count the Squares Before You Price the Roof"; Module 6, Play 6, "Price Every Job to Keep the Profit You Meant To"). A number you cannot rebuild a week later is a number you will discount under pressure, because you do not know what it was holding.
- Do not itemize it for them. A lump sum for a finished roof, not a shopping list of materials and labor. Line-item it and you have invited a negotiation over each line, against a competitor whose lines are made up. What the page owes them is the scope in plain roofing words — what comes off, what goes on, what you are not doing — which is a different thing than a parts list (Module 6, Play 18, "Before Anybody Tears Off, It's All on the Page"). Insurance work is the exception and it is a real one: there you are matched line for line against the carrier's estimate (Play 12, "Taking On an Insurance Job").
- Put the terms on the same page as the number. What the deposit is and when it is due, that nothing gets ordered or scheduled until it clears, and how long the price holds. Terms that arrive later read as conditions you added once they were interested — and the deposit is one of the three things they push back on (Play 6, "The Three Things They Push Back On").
- Send it where you can see it landed. A portal or an email you can check, not a text thread that dies in a group chat. Every follow-up you make after this runs off knowing whether they opened it (Play 7, "Six Touches, Then Stop").
Do this this week
Pull the last estimate you sent and read it as the homeowner. Can they tell what comes off the roof, what goes on it, what it costs, what you need from them, and by when? If any of those five is missing, that is the fix, and it is one afternoon of work on the template.
The tool
The estimate page — five things, every time, on one page.
WHAT GOES OUT THE SAME DAY
1. THE SCOPE, IN ROOFING WORDS
What comes off. What goes on, by name.
What we are NOT doing.
2. THE PRICE
One number for the finished roof. No line items.
No good / better / best.
3. WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU
Deposit amount, when it's due.
Nothing is ordered or scheduled until it clears.
4. HOW LONG THIS PRICE HOLDS
[ ] days from today. Material moves; the number moves with it.
5. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Who calls, when. No start date promised here.
Sent through: [portal / email you can check] — never a text thread.
If your crew is 1099
The sub crew never sees your price and never quotes off it. What goes to them is scope and their own agreed rate for that job (Module 12, Play 2, "Two Papers Between You and a Sub Crew"). A crew that knows the homeowner's number is a crew doing arithmetic on your margin in the driveway, and sooner or later doing it out loud in front of the customer.
M9-04 · One Price, Sent Today — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/sales-leads/one-price-sent-today
Take it with you
One email unlocks this and every other sheet and card on the site. The plays stay free.
Same fire
The phone rings but the jobs don't close
- M9-02the same visit every time
- M9-03show them the roof
- M9-04one price, sent today — you’re here
- M9-06the three things they push back on
Fixed this?
A visit that goes well and then goes quiet is not a closing problem — it is a follow-up problem, and it has its own play.
The fire right behind it is usually You sent the price and never heard back.