Tech stack—it’s become somewhat of a buzzword in the roofing industry in recent years. What exactly is it? Simply put (in roofing), a tech stack is a collection of software systems that a roofing business can “stack” to standardize its processes.
If you’re visual, it could look like this (imagine pancakes, bricks, or basically anything that stacks).
It’s one thing to hear the term and know it’s powerful, but another to actually implement it. There are definitely pain points to consider:
- No tech does every little thing you want it to
- Not everyone will adopt the tech that you choose
- Not knowing what problem you’re trying to solve with the tech you’ve chosen
- Sunk costs and a feeling of obligation to stick to the tech you already have
But if you think your business should consider this, here are four key steps for building a roofing tech stack.
4 Core Pieces of Tech to Consider for Your Tech Stack
There are four core pieces of tech to consider when building a tech stack for a roofing business. These are:
- CRM (customer relationship management) - your source of truth where you can store client information and manage projects in one place
- Measurement tool - speed up your measuring process and leave measuring by hand behind. This tool is the key to ensuring you remain profitable
- Sales enablement - crucial for standardization, these proposal and quoting tools give you an edge over your competitors
- Accounting - gain visibility into your company profitability and remove double-entry
Later, we’ll share examples of what this could look like for different company sizes.
Tech Stack Pitfalls to Be Cautious of
When starting to build a tech stack for your businesses, it’s important to be aware of possible pitfalls so you can avoid them.
- CRM hopping - you test a bunch of CRM options but don’t give any of them enough time to really work for you
- Unrealistic expectations of what you need - it’s easy to be drawn to the shiny product without fully understanding what you need
- Implementing too many things at once - it’s much more effective to introduce one new tool at a time that solves your most frustrating problem, then work on the next one
Onboarding Your Tech Stack Successfully
We see it all the time: a business owner decides what tech to use but fails to onboard the team members who will most benefit from it. By identifying the problem with the team, the team agrees on the solution and is more likely to adopt it.
Examples of Tech Stacks from Different Company Sizes
When beginning to build a tech stack for your roofing business, two important factors to consider are the size/revenue of your business and the current problem you want to solve.
There is no cookie-cutter tech-stack answer because every business is a little different, and revenue or business goals differ. But here’s a basic example of what you might want to consider if you fit into the small, medium, or scaling roofing categories.
If you are a talented one-person show, keeping your books tidy is probably your biggest priority. Chances are that you can manage customers in an Excel spreadsheet and quotes in a Word document. (We totally respect what you’re doing so far but would love to show you what SumoQuote can do!)
If you’re growing your sales team or want to hit that $10M revenue goal, implementing a sales enablement tool is a no-brainer for closing deals, and a CRM will help streamline the process even more.
When you have a handful of salespeople and are scaling fast, don’t forget about a measurement tool to further automate a step in your process and provide continued accuracy for your quotes.
Deciding on the tech you’ll use to improve your roofing or siding business requires setting revenue goals, researching available tools, and learning more about how they can work for you.
If you want to start scaling your business and standardizing processes, a sales enablement or quoting tool like SumoQuote is a great place to start. Start a free trial.
If you want to keep scaling your business and need help managing clients, quotes, payments, and projects, a CRM will check those boxes. Try JobNimbus for free and see how you can reclaim your time and make more money.
.svg)
