Contractor Showcase – Cochran Exteriors – Indianapolis, Indiana

Visibility is a growth strategy - Cochran chose a highway-facing facility that 155,000 cars pass daily (about 52 million impressions a year), keeping them top of mind so homeowners already know them at the first appointment.

A physical showroom beats a kitchen-table sample - a life-size 'neighborhood' wall lets homeowners see real materials side by side and make confident decisions on a big home investment.

Design the showroom good-to-best - materials graduate from standard board and aluminum wraps up to Hardie trims, shakes, board-and-batten, and stone, paired with 3D Hover renderings to visualize the finished project.

The showroom doubles as a training tool - the same product displays become classroom-and-hands-on training moments for new sales and installer staff.

Train everyone, every role - from phone staff to field reps, everyone learns basic roofing and siding components so the whole company can speak to the product.

Dedicate someone to installer development - Cochran employs a person focused solely on building up the installer team and correcting work in the field.

Train on a real roof, not a customer's house - an in-warehouse training roof gets re-roofed every week and a half; installers work a real work order (7 a.m., full tools) and QC tears it up afterward to inspect nail patterns, nailing zones, skylight waterproofing, and roof-to-wall transitions.

Use the off-season to level people up - in winter, crews ask to use the training roof, letting a laborer who picked up trash last year graduate to installing shingles - and Cochran features the training facility in its digital sales presentation.