Work-Life Balance in Roofing Sales? 9 Ways to Get Control Back!

Work-life balance seems like this never-ending game of counterbalance.

And the reality is the roofing industry somehow takes over our lives in many ways. It becomes an addiction, and it’s tempting.

Sometimes, we do it by choice. Other times, it feels like we’re reacting. You wake up in the morning, and one of the first things you do is grab your cellphone. Then:

• You see notifications blowing your phone up.
• You look at them, with eyes barely open, and boom, you are in work mode. You’re reacting. You’re putting out fires.
• You try to get out the door, but suddenly, you were distracted by your email notifications that you’re behind schedule.
• You race out the door, and you don’t eat a good breakfast.
• Your entire day feels like you’re in reaction mode.

Suddenly, the end of the day comes, and you find yourself wishing you had a few more hours to get caught up. That’s what happened to me, and if it’s happened to you too, you’re in the right place (and if it hasn’t happened yet, I’m sure you can relate).

With all that, we begin to sacrifice our quality of our life. And that can mean that:

• We give up on the things that are healthy for us, like exercise or eating healthy.
• The consequences begin to lean on us, our families, and our important relationships, the people we love the most.
• We don’t have time for our personal lives and relationships.

And before you know it, it feels like everything outside of work is just second to this whole work thing.

So, I want to share 9 different strategies that can help you find a true work-life balance in roofing sales.

After all, this industry’s addicting because the more we work, the more we earn. That’s not the same as a cubicle job or a salary job — you’re not going to be busting your butt or burning the candle at both ends in those jobs because you get paid the same amount no matter what. Essentially, we write our own paychecks in roofing sales.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it nine different ways for you to achieve a better work-life balance.

Quick Disclaimer

Before we dive in, I want to share a quick disclaimer with you — I need to work on work-life balance myself. It’s important to me, and I find myself constantly going from this state of balance to working too much. So, I’m no saint here, and I’m not preaching as though I’ve this mastered. Still, I want to share what’s been working for me and the people I work with.

Welcome or welcome back, by the way. My name is Adam Bensman, The Roof Strategist. Everything I do here — and on my YouTube channel, Instagram, my podcast (on Apple and Spotify), and in my all-in-one sales training and sales system currently used by thousands — is designed to help you and your team smash your income goals and give every customer an amazing experience.

And if you like what you see here and you want more, subscribe to get notifications about my latest roofing sales videos.

Now, let’s get to it.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #1: Audit Your Time

You have to audit your time, so you can figure out where are your time “leaks.”

A lot of people say, “Oh, I don’t have time for that.”

Well, let’s say you had screen time on your phone, showing how much time you spend on Facebook, Instagram, or social media.

Or think about what you do at night. Maybe you’ve binged through “Ozark” and watched 17 episodes in 2 days.

The point is that you just need to give yourself an honest assessment of where you spend your time.

Previously, I’ve shared my journal, which is where I literally log my time and document what I do when.

So, audit your time and give yourself a true and honest assessment of:

1. Where you’re spending your time
2. Where your time is leaking

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #2: Turn Off Cell Notifications

The next strategy has to do with your cell phone and turning off all notifications. This includes email and text notifications. I’ve found is that:

• Text messages are seldom.
• When people need you, they’re usually going to call.

So, I don’t have text message notifications or email notifications anywhere on my phone.

Why?

Because they’re nonstop, and I get trained like a Pavlovian dog.

Instead, I have dedicated times that I’ll check my inbox. Sometimes, those are scheduled. Other times, they’re just batched throughout the project time or working with customers, and you need to do the same thing.

So, get all those notifications off your phone.

I’ve watched people that I’ve been in meetings with who are paying for my time. They have an Apple Watch on, and when it dings, they stop our conversation and turn to read their message. Then, they say, “Where were we again?” And I realized this is a truly dysfunctional way to operate.

So, again, turn off those cellphone notifications.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #3: Get an Alarm Clock

We’re going old school with this strategy, and it’s simply to get an alarm clock.

Now, the reason I say this is because my wife Sheena and I have a rule that there’s no “contraband” allowed in the bedroom. Contraband means cellphones (we even keep our phone charges out of the bedroom, charging our phones in the laundry room).

Why?

Because cellphones are a distraction. We end up finding that:

• We’re sitting here looking at our phones, instead of talking to each other.
• The entire night can just slip away when we’re reading or scrolling through Reddit, Facebook, or whatever.

So, getting that phone out of your room is going to:

• Break the habit of falling asleep with a cellphone
• Help you sleep better
• Break the habit of grabbing your phone first thing in the morning when you wake up to your alarm clock

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #4: Set a Good Morning Routine

Generally, if something’s important to you, the only time it’s going to get done is in the morning. In fact, those important things tend to become our daily routines and habits, making them very simple to do.

For me, one of those things is working out. Before I had an established morning routine, I would always wait to work out. I’d plan on doing it at the end of the day, so I could blow off some steam.

But I kept running into the same issue — the end of the day was 6:00 p.m., bleeding into 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. By that time, I was starving. So, I’d prioritize cooking a good meal. When I’m done by 9:00 p.m., I don’t want to work out at all because now, I have a full belly.

So, instead of building the important things around the rest of your life, build the rest of your life around those things that are most important to you.

That’s going to be a pretty substantial shift.

After making that shift, I now start my mornings everyday by:

1. Meditating
2. Doing a stretching routine
3. Working out
4. Reading or learning via YouTube videos, podcasts, or audio books
5. Journaling

Those are to the most important things for me to get done every day. So:

• I build my day around those activities.
• I wake up early, so I have three hours to myself to do all of this before things get crazy.

By the way, I realize three hours might not be possible for everybody. The truth is I used to commute an hour and 45 minutes one way, and cutting down that commute freed up the time for me to do things that I find more important and fulfilling.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #5: Schedule Your BIG Commitments

I’m going to give you an example of this work-life balance strategy to highlight what I mean here.

Sheena and I hadn’t taken a vacation in 2 years because we’ve just been really busy. Suddenly, I’m TOTALLY booked out. And we realize that if we want to get a vacation, we just need to schedule it.

So, we schedule vacations and time off. We put it on the calendar, and we’ve made that commitment.

Now, that decision fatigue and the anxiety about it are gone. The decision’s made.

That means that as the things come in now, we can say yes or no to the opportunities because we already have a schedule there.

When I was roofing, I found that if I was out of town or between offices and I knew there was a big event coming up, I just planned around it. Those big events could be graduations, birthdays, and anniversaries — whatever you have to be there for.

So, schedule those personal commitments EARLY. Don’t try to just “wing it.” Even if you’re a non-committal person, you just have to commit and schedule it. If you do, you’re going to feel a whole lot better.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #6: Set Office Hours

If you give yourself “office hours,” you also give yourself permission to “turn off.”

You can put your office hours in several places, so people know them, including in or on your:

• Email signature
• Email auto response
• Voicemail

For voicemail, here’s how you can shout out your office hours in the message:

Hey, this is [your name].

I respond to all emails, texts, and phone calls between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

By the way, that’s A LOT of hours.

No matter what office hours you do set, though, you’ll also be:

• Setting expectations
• Giving yourself permission to actually turn off your mind (outside of those office hours)

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #7: Reserve a Day for Rest

For some people, taking a full day is going to sound like a lot. For others, it won’t sound like enough.

However you think about it, your day of rest should be the day to turn OFF. That means that you don’t respond if text messages come in.

And this has nothing to do with how you feel about roofing sales — you can absolutely love it! In fact, I am deeply in love with what I do, more than anything that I’ve ever done.

At the same time, I find that it’s beneficial for me and I serve better when I have some grounding time.

That one day off for me, that’s usually a Sunday. Sometimes, it’s a Saturday if I have to travel on a Sunday because I know I’m usually working at the airport or that travel day is filled with some sort of work obligations.

It can be amazing how much just one day off can help recharge you.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #8: Have a Bedtime

This strategy’s my favorite one, and it’s actually helped me the most. And it’s simply to set a bedtime for yourself.

True story — I have a bedtime, and I’m in bed between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. That’s because I wake of up 5:30 a.m. These days, I’m actually up naturally at about 5:00 a.m., before the alarm goes off.

And it’s funny. I didn’t think that I’d just wake up naturally, eager to start the day, but it’s through routine that I ensure that I sleep enough.

By the way, Sheena and I got hooked on “Ozark,” so this bedtime isn’t always easy. When it’s 9:30 p.m., we’re thinking, Well, maybe just one episode. BUT I don’t want to start an episode at 9:30 p.m. because then I’m going to want to finish it. And then it’s going to be 10:30 p.m. by the time we get ready for bed — and then it’s 11:00 p.m., and I’ve just lost an hour asleep.

If that happens, then I wake up groggy, and I don’t do my workout. So, to me, the wind down is usually about 9:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in bed. That way, if I want to read a little bit, I’m still asleep by my bedtime. Then, I can be up at my waking time.

Again, you may laugh at me because you think I’m sleeping in too much. Some people may even think, How do you wake up that early?

My point here is NOT to preach. It’s simply to point out that you have to find what works for you.

Roofing Sales Work-Life Balance Strategy #9: Develop Daily Routines

These daily routines WILL become habit. There are a couple of really good books on habits. I really liked Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit.

By the way, if you download a free copy of my Pitch Like a Pro roofing sales training, you can get my recommended reading list, with all these books on there. And Charles Duhigg’s is a great one.

Related to habits are our daily initiatives and plans. And the big idea is that when we remove willpower, these routines become habit.

Now, it’s routine for me to:

• Naturally wake up at 5:00 a.m. before my alarm.
• Fall asleep either with no TV on or reading a book.
• Not have a cellphone in my bedroom room.

All of these little things you just don’t think about can become second nature.

We live life on autopilot, and we can control those autopilots by either being reactive or taking control. All we have to do is commit to that for 6 weeks and BOOM, before you know it, takes off autonomously. I absolutely LOVE it.

Bonus Tip: Build Relaxing Activities Into Your Routine

Here’s one more thing that’s helped me with work-life balance in roofing sales. I started to write a list, noting as many things as I could think of that relaxed me.

This included things like taking the dog for a walk or reading. I did this just to become more consciously aware, so I can build more time in my day for those daily routines.

So, there you have it nine different ways to improve work-life balance.

I hope this helps you achieve a better balance, so you can thrive both in and outside of roofing sales!

Get More Roofing Sales Strategies, Scripts, Tips & Videos

If you want more on any topic in roofing sales, check out my all-in-one sales training, sales strategy, and sales system, the Roofing Sales Success Formula & Complete Sales Strategy.

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Thanks for joining me, and I look forward to sharing more with you in the next blog.