Craftsmanship and service matter—but without a repeatable system for lead generation, growth stalls.
As Adam explains, the key isn’t just generating more leads. It’s understanding the metrics behind qualified leads, conversions, and scalable marketing performance. When you define and measure these numbers correctly, your business can grow faster, more predictably—and more profitably.
What is a lead, really?
Adam warns against lumping every contact into one bucket. For example, you might collect hundreds of names at a home show by offering a free roof giveaway—but how many are homeowners in your service area? How many are even interested in roofing?
✅ Key Point:
A lead must match your criteria for opportunity.
If you're paying $150 per lead, you can't afford to waste time on irrelevant contacts.
Picture this: A roofer sets up a booth at a home show, offering a free roof giveaway. They collect over 500 names—sounds like a win, right? But when they start calling, they realize half the entries are renters, and a chunk of the rest live outside their service area. Weeks of follow-up, and barely a handful of leads turn into actual jobs. Why? Because they didn’t qualify their leads upfront. A lead isn’t just a name on a list—it’s someone who fits your criteria for opportunity. If you’re paying $150 per lead, you can’t afford to waste time on people who’ll never convert. The takeaway? Define what a lead really means for your business before you start chasing volume.
Adam breaks down the lead journey into two critical stages:
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead): Someone you can contact, but who hasn’t shown strong intent or fit yet.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead): A verified prospect who matches your target customer profile and has expressed interest.
✅ Why it matters:
Marketing should filter and warm up MQLs. Sales should focus only on SQLs.
Here’s a story that hits home. I worked with a roofing company drowning in “leads” but struggling to close deals. Turns out, their marketing team was passing every form fill to sales as if it was gold. But most of these were MQLs—people who downloaded a free guide or signed up for storm alerts—not folks ready to buy. Once we defined MQLs and SQLs properly, everything changed. Marketing started nurturing the MQLs with email campaigns, warming them up until they were ready for sales. Meanwhile, sales focused only on SQLs—qualified prospects who matched their target customer profile and had shown real intent. The result? Sales doubled their close rate because they weren’t wasting time on unqualified leads. The lesson? Align your teams and let each focus on what they do best.
→ Related: Build this alignment into your workflows with LucidChart visual systems.
Once leads are defined, start measuring your conversion engine.
Lead Volume: How many MQLs and SQLs are you generating each week?
Conversion Rate: What % of MQLs become SQLs—and how many of those close?
Time Delta: How long does it take to move from MQL → SQL → Sale?
Let me tell you about a roofing company that went from $2M to $4M in three years—all because they tracked their metrics like hawks. They knew exactly how many MQLs they needed to generate to hit their SQL targets, and they optimized their follow-up speed to close deals faster. For example, they realized Facebook leads required immediate follow-up—like within minutes—while Google leads could wait a bit longer but closed faster. By tracking lead volume, conversion rates, and time deltas, they turned their sales process into a well-oiled machine. Meanwhile, their competitors were stuck guessing why their leads weren’t converting. Data wins every time.
⏱ Speed is critical.
Facebook leads may require faster follow-up and nurturing, while Google leads often close faster but cost more.
Most roofing companies obsess over Cost Per Lead (CPL).
But Adam reframes the conversation:
“Don’t ask how cheap can I get a lead. Ask how much can I afford to pay—profitably.”
This one’s personal. Back when I was running my own roofing business, I used to obsess over getting the cheapest leads possible. I’d brag about getting leads for $50 while my competitors were paying $150. But here’s the thing: if a $150 lead turns into a $15,000 roof job that pays for itself in 30 days, why am I sweating the cost? Once I shifted my mindset, I started scaling faster by investing more in quality leads. It’s like buying a money machine that prints $10 bills for every $1 you put in. The key is knowing your numbers—if you can afford to pay more profitably, do it. That’s how you grow.
If a $150 lead funds your next job and pays for itself in 30 days, why hold back?
✅ Top performers scale faster by paying more for quality leads—because they know the math.
→ Related: Want to close more leads? Learn to script and structure your closes like pros do in car sales.
If you want to control and reduce CPL, look upstream.
There are 3 levers that impact your ad spend:
CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions): Are you targeting the right audience?
CTR (Click-Through Rate): Is your creative actually stopping the scroll?
CPC (Cost Per Click): What are you paying to get someone on your page?
Here’s a story about a roofer frustrated with their high CPL. They blamed Facebook, but when we looked closer, the problem wasn’t the platform—it was their creative. Their ads were generic, their targeting was too broad, and their landing page was a mess. We tightened up their audience, rewrote their ad copy to focus on urgency (“Storm Damage? Book Your Free Inspection Today!”), and simplified their landing page to make it easy for prospects to take action. The result? CTR doubled, CPC dropped by 30%, and their CPL came down without sacrificing quality. The takeaway? Don’t just blame cost—fix your message, timing, and offer. The right tweaks can transform your results.
✅ Don’t just blame cost—fix your message, timing, and offer.
→ Related: Create scroll-stopping ads using urgency and timing.
To wrap it up, let’s talk about a roofing company that built a lead-gen machine. When we started working together, they had no system—just random ads and a lot of hope. We helped them define what a lead really meant, separate MQLs from SQLs, and track their conversion rates and time delays. They went from spending $10,000 a month on ads with no ROI to generating $500,000 in revenue from the same budget. The difference? They stopped chasing volume and started building a system. That’s how you scale predictably and profitably.
To scale lead generation, stop chasing volume and start building a system.
Here’s the roadmap:
Define what a lead really means for your business
Separate MQLs from SQLs to align sales and marketing
Track conversion rates and time delays between stages
Know your CPL—and learn when to increase it
Optimize CPM, CTR, and CPC to control results
This is how a roofing company becomes a lead-generating machine—not just a contractor with a big ad budget.
MQLs are early-stage contacts (e.g., form fills or downloads), while SQLs are qualified prospects ready for sales conversations.
If your CPL leads to a profitable closed sale within your cash flow window (e.g., 30 days), it’s likely worth increasing—not decreasing.
Lead volume, conversion rate (MQL → SQL → Sale), and time between stages are key for tracking and optimizing your funnel.
Facebook targets cold audiences. These leads require faster follow-up and nurturing to move from curiosity to commitment.
Improve your CPM, CTR, and CPC by targeting better, writing stronger ads, and refining your landing page offers.