What did you do today not on your truck...

[special-K]

We had hail damage that got about 5,000 house back in '95. I was recruited by a salesman who could tell by my truck I was a siding contractor. A agreed to do some house for that company. Then I started getting calls from references. I suddenly had more work than I could wish for. and this was after I got beat out of big bucks by a builder declaring bankruptcy, so I was leery about taking on another builder. This salesman was a friend of the owner of a home improvement company and he came down from MI to help sell these insurance jobs. We had a lot of contactors flock in from other areas. Salesmen were knocking on doors telling homeowners their aluminum siding needed replaced just because the hail buffed spots in the oxidized paint. All this led to the state insurance commissioner changing the guidelines for damaged siding replacement. The new rule was only replace the affected wall and only if more than two walls were affected would you get the whole house re-sided. Pretty screwed up when you had aluminum siding and the replacement siding was vinyl.

I didn't have to knock on any doors to get work. I'd be in a neighborhood with (sub) contractors replacing siding up and down the street. People would see the job I was doing, how we kept the job cleaned up, how well we worked together, no loud music, cigarette butts, good looking trucks, good equipment, Offered upgrades, and we gotter done. I had homeowners walking past the other crews to ask me for a quote. Once we were in the neighborhood we got all the work. That's the only way I know how to sell a job.