Accelerate Commercial Roofing Sales with Sales Intelligence Software

Introduction

The roofing industry is experiencing a bit of a crisis. According to the SBA, 80% of roofers will “close their doors” before they reach their second full year in business, and 96% will fail within five years.

This is due to many things, but in 2024, it’s mainly because of inflation, which has increased operating costs, and fluctuating sales, which have led to high employee turnover and low retention rates.

In short, running a business is hard if you can’t make money and keep employees (but I don’t need to tell you that).

A steady stream of new projects solves both problems- and today’s b2b sales intelligence tools make finding new deals far easier than you’d think.

Utilizing b2b sales intelligence software, particularly automated sales intelligence, can provide the accurate, verified contact data and insights needed to improve sales processes, enhance lead quality, and increase deal velocity. Automated sales intelligence enhances sales team efficiency by automating data collection and analysis, allowing sales representatives to focus more on engaging with high-value prospects rather than spending time on administrative tasks.

Modern sales intelligence tools give your sales reps access to qualified prospects who have already shown interest in a commercial roof. This means more accurate leads and more of them- leading to more closed sales, which can offset some other costs and help you keep talent growing.

In this article, we’ll cover how to use modern sales intelligence tools to identify prospects in your market who are already looking for your services and ready to buy.

Let’s get started.

What is Sales Intelligence?

Before we get into the details, here’s a quick overview of how sales intelligence tools work. You’ve probably seen a pop-up while browsing online that asks you to “Accept or Reject Cookies” on certain websites. Those cookies help Google and other websites understand your search intent—a.k.a., what you’re looking for—and help those sites provide better answers to your questions or recommend relevant products that meet your needs.

Sales intelligence takes this to another level.

Modern sales tools work like virtual sales assistants 24/7. They do research, collect and analyze a ton of data, and deliver actionable insights like search intent to your sales team so they can easily find decision-makers who have indicated they’re either researching or ready to start a project.

But they also help you better target prospects who are an excellent fit for your specific services, so you’re not chasing leads who won’t convert. These data points could include everything from aerial photos and permit data to information on equipment service history and warranties.

Additionally, incorporating buyer intelligence provides valuable insights that enhance sales strategies by offering a comprehensive data solution, including company information and engagement insights.

This saves hours of lead research and gives your team “talking points” to open a sales conversation relevant to the product or service that best fits their needs.

Sales Intelligence Benefits

How Sales Intelligence Can Help You

Let’s do an apples-to-apples comparison of both sales processes to illustrate the benefits of these tools. Here are the steps to do a lead research/prospecting workflow with traditional tools:

1. Find your ideal customer profile (ICP)

2. Make a prospect list

3. Research each account and contact looking for an “in.”

4. Find contact data for decision-makers

5. Write email or LinkedIn messages

6. Follow up with calls or texts

7. Cross your fingers and hope they reply

According to Salesforce, this sales process takes sales reps an average of 21% of their week or 2 hours per day, 4-5 days per week.

However, it takes four steps and 3-5 minutes with Convex.

How Convex Works:

1. Log in and Check Signals 👇

Log in to Convex and check the “Signals” category—our proprietary buyer intent data—to see who’s “in the market” and ready to buy. These signals have intent scores based on various factors, so you can prioritize the highest leads first, connecting with potential customers at the right time.

2. Search Properties, Accounts, and Contacts 👇

Then, search for properties or accounts that fit your products and services. This could be a specific property type (e.g., hospital, airport) to individual contacts, job titles, account names, or tenant information. Convex’s intelligence data includes permit histories, building age, square footage, ownership, transaction details, and equipment data so you can find and close new leads.

3. Leverage Generative AI for Personalized Outreach 👇

With two clicks, use Generative AI—trained on buyer signals, firmographic data, your company data, and your contact data—to send a personalized email or draft a phone script. The AI uses data like job titles, decision-maker information, and property history to craft messages that resonate with your best prospects.

4. Setup Follow-ups, Reminders to Better Engage Active Leads

After you send your outreach, set up follow-ups or reminders, do light CRM duties, or put the prospect in a nurture cadence in your CRM. Convex allows you to export lists of prospects, assign stages, tag coworkers and assign dollar values to leads so you can do light CRM functionality for lead management and integration with Salesforce or HubSpot so you can track your entire sales pipeline too.

What’s funny (to me, at least) is that it probably took longer to read this section on prospecting with Convex than to actually do it. That’s how efficient these modern tools are at finding qualified leads.

In this way, sales intelligence:

• Saves Time: Eliminate hours of manual research and have your sales reps find the right people to contact—the right decision makers—at the right time.
• Improves Accuracy: Because these tools are based on data not guesswork they provide more accurate information about potential prospects. No guesswork or “shots in the dark”. Your team can target their efforts towards those most likely to convert into customers improving lead qualification and overall sales performance.
• Increases Efficiency: With key insights at their disposal, your sales reps can personalize sales conversations to match the prospect’s needs. Sales intelligence software helps you streamline your tech stack, track company buying signals, and engage with decision-makers.
• Personalizes Outreach: By knowing a prospect’s search intent and online behavior—like how cookies track your browsing to serve you relevant ads—sales intelligence tools give your team “talking points” to open a sales conversation that’s re

All of this makes outbound lead generation and sales significantly easier.

Sales Intelligence Data Sources

Where Does Sales Intelligence Data Come From?

Sales intelligence solutions collect and analyze data from many online sources, including company websites, social media platforms, downloads from your website visitors, and the cookies we mentioned earlier.

Here’s a breakdown of the data sources:

• Company Websites and Online Content: These provide company data such as firmographic information—company size, industry, location—and information about their products or services.
• Social Media Platforms: Platforms like LinkedIn are a treasure trove of contact data and professional information including job titles, career moves and connections to key decision makers.
• Site Usage Data and Browser Cookies: These track online behavior, capturing buyer intent signals based on the content viewed, time spent on pages and interaction patterns. This helps you understand the buying signals and buyer intent of potential customers.
• Public Records and News Releases: Information about recent company developments like mergers, acquisitions, or hiring data can signal growth and a potential need for your services.

The data collected isn’t just basic firmographic information. It’s also includes less obvious traits such as:

• Professional Interests and Online Behavior: What content are potential customers engaging with? What are their pain points or areas of interest?
• Technology Usage: What’s a company’s tech stack? This is known as technographic data, and it can help you tailor your sales strategy and identify opportunities for sales displacement campaigns.
• Recent Buy Signals: Downloading a whitepaper, commenting on company social media profiles, or attending a webinar can mean they are ready to engage.

There are many sales intelligence tools, each collecting various types of data to provide different insights to sales professionals. Some specialize in intent data to assess a prospect’s likelihood to buy, while others focus on property intelligence or aggregating firmographic, technographic, and demographic data. Some identify website prospects through lead identification and contact data enrichment.

Before choosing a solution, ensure it provides the tools and data your sales team needs to reach your target market and perform at their best.

Choosing the Right Sales Intelligence Software

7 Factors to Consider When Selecting a Sales Intelligence Platform

Choosing the right sales intelligence tool or platform can be overwhelming, with over 200 options. But there’s a way to help you find the best sales intelligence software for you- consider these seven factors:

1. Data Quality: Go for a platform that provides accurate and up-to-date data from reliable sources. High-quality data is critical in commercial services where service requirements can be very specific. Good data means your team is always working with the best information available.

2. Ease of Use: The sales intelligence software you choose should be user-friendly and require minimal training for your sales team to get up and running- otherwise, it won’t be used. Change is hard. Your sales team doesn’t want some new tool to learn- they want something that will help them close more deals and make more money. Good sales intelligence software is intuitive and easy to adopt, so your team can focus on closing deals and not on learning new systems.

3. Scalability: Choose a solution that can grow with your business and adapt to changing needs. As your company expands its service offerings or enters new markets, your sales intelligence platform should scale with you, providing continuous support for your sales efforts without missing a beat.

4. Integration Capabilities: Ensure the sales intelligence software integrates seamlessly with your existing CRM and other sales tools. Your sales intelligence solution must work well with systems tracking building management, tenant information, and service histories for commercial services. This integration reduces friction and increases efficiency.

5. Customer Support & Training: Choose a provider that offers robust customer support and training resources. In commercial services where downtime can impact customer satisfaction, having access to quick and effective support is critical to resolve any issues quickly.

6. Industry-Specific Insights: Make sure the platform provides insights specific to the commercial services industry. This might include data on building maintenance schedules, tenant turnover rates,

7. Generative AI: Generative AI is the “new kid on the block,” but don’t let that deter you from using it. Convex’s Generative AI is helping teams at Koorsen Fire & Security close more deals by using AI to write outreach emails, automate processes, and shorten the sales cycle.

Here’s what Jeff Scalise, Sales Manager at Koorsen, has to say about his experience with Convex:

“Work life has improved for me and my team because it’s cut down the time it takes to research customers and actually send our emails. I would recommend Convex’s Generative AI email product to other companies because it’s a great product that solves a real problem for our industry.”

You can watch the full testimonial here if you’d like to see more.

Before you choose a platform, consider these seven things to find one that fits your business and your customer relationship management sales team’s challenges. Make the smart choice, boost your sales and marketing efforts, and have your team work more efficiently and effectively!

Top Sales Intelligence Tools for Commercial Roofing

Best Sales Intelligence Tools for Your Business

• Convex: Convex is the only one on our list that offers tools specifically for commercial roofing sales, including property intelligence, sales intelligence, buying signals, and sales route planning software. Convex is also the only one on this list that provides sales intelligence and lead gen services tailored to commercial properties, which is great for roofing companies.
• Cognism: Cognism has a full sales intelligence platform with data on over 400 million contacts and 10 million companies.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator has advanced search and lead gen capabilities, which are great for finding potential customers and building relationships.
• 6sense: 6sense has a predictive sales intelligence platform that uses AI and machine learning to identify and prioritize leads for sales teams.
• Seamless: Seamless offers sales intelligence and CRM tools for managing customer relationships and tracking sales performance.
• Lusha: a B2B prospecting tool with low entry prices for smaller sales and marketing teams.
• Demandbase: a B2B targeting and personalization platform that uses AI and real-time data to help sales teams find and engage with potential customers.

As you can see, many great sales intelligence tools exist, but not all of them were specifically built for commercial services businesses. When evaluating these options, consider the specific needs and use cases that will benefit your sales operations and team most.

Getting Started with Sales Intelligence Software

How to Implement Sales Intelligence in Your Business

Implementing these tools in your commercial roofing business can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s a simple path to get started:

1. Define Your Business Goals and Requirements

Start by defining your business objectives. Are you looking for revenue growth, shorter sales cycles, or more leads? Knowing your goals will help you determine the type of actionable data and insights you need. These actionable insights could be buyer intent signals, company data, or contact details of key decision-makers.

2. Pick the Right Sales Intelligence Tools for Your Needs

Choose a powerful sales intelligence platform or solution that fits your goals and integrates with your existing sales tech stack (e.g., your CRM). Look for tools with many integrations, accurate data, and features like predictive analytics and sales automation. Options like HubSpot Sales Hub or other top three sales intelligence platforms and tools are great for small and large sales teams.

3. Build Your Ideal Customer Profile

Use the sales intelligence platform to analyze the data and build ICPs to identify high quality leads. By knowing your best customers’ firmographic, technographic, and behavioral traits, you can find high-quality leads and target relevant target companies much more effectively. This will boost your lead generation and streamline your sales funnel.

4. Clean and Manage Data

Make sure the data you’re using is accurate and up to date. Sales intelligence tools can help you keep data clean by providing real-time updates on contact and company data. This will make your outreach efforts, sales, and marketing efforts more effective and lead to more qualified leads.

5. Train Your Sales Team

Take the time to train your salespeople on how to use the new sales intelligence software. Get them familiar with features like sales automation, buying signals, and predictive analytics. A trained sales team can use sales engagement tools and insights to close more deals and generate high quality leads that drive revenue growth.

Conclusion: Using Insights to Close More Deals

Using the right sales intelligence tools gives you a competitive edge in the commercial roofing industry. This isn’t a nice thing to have in today’s fast-paced sales environment – it’s a must. Using accurate data and insights, your sales teams can reach decision-makers at the right time with the right message. This data-driven approach will enhance your sales strategies, shorten the sales cycle, and drive business growth.

Ready to see how sales intelligence software can revolutionize your team? Schedule a demo of Convex today to learn how our platform can accelerate sales for your business!