By Emma Peterson. 

How upselling your customers with premium products can help them spend their money smarter. 

When we hear the term upselling, often it conjures an image of a salesperson who pressures you and won’t take no for an answer. But this negative connotation does not fully encapsulate what upselling is. To learn more about upselling and how it can help customers get higher-quality and longer-lasting solutions, Heidi J. Ellsworth hosted Mike Vaughn of Westlake Royal Roofing Solutions’ DaVinci Roofscapes, Jake Daniels of Classic Construction & Consulting, Cody Raymond of Westlake’s Unified Steel and Austin Davis of The Roofing Center for an episode of Roofing Road Trips®. 

Upselling at its core is the process of selling a customer a higher-value, more premium product than they walked in thinking they were going to purchase. A big reason those car salespeople try to upsell their customers through pressure is because it can lead to more revenue. But there are other reasons salespeople upsell their customers that are not tied to profits. Austin shared his team’s philosophy on upselling:  

My team, we view our role as an educator. We enter every customer conversation with the goal of finding out what the homeowner needs out of their roof. And a lot of the times we see people looking for durability and savings. And from there, we try to educate them on how investing in premium products, like DaVinci and Unified Steel can help them get to those goals.  

Cody added, “The perspective of being an educator is huge, because homeowners don’t know all the details. They don’t realize that premium products like DaVinci and Unified Steel might be more expensive now, but over the course of the roof’s lifespan they’ll actually save them money.” 

How does investing more in a premium roof save you money? Mike explained:  

When we're talking about Unified Steel and DaVinci, aesthetics really stands out. These products make buildings look really fantastic, which raises property values. And they are also really durable and quite low maintenance... So not only does this mean you get peace of mind with these products, a lot of homeowners get savings related to their insurance premiums. Further, these roofs last longer than asphalt’s typical 20-year lifespan, meaning you have to pay for fewer roof replacements overall. 

At the end of the day, Jake put it best when he said: “Unified Steel and DaVinci products create beautiful, long-lasting, bulletproof roofs.” 

Want to learn more about the value of selling premium products? Listen to the whole episode or Watch the recording!

This year’s winners comprise five residential projects and two commercial projects from across the U.S.

Westlake Royal Building Products™ (Westlake Royal), a Westlake company (NYSE: WLK), has honored seven standout roofing projects with the 2025 DaVinci® Masterpiece Contractor Project of the Year Awards. The annual award recognizes projects built with DaVinci Roofscapes composite roofing while demonstrating excellence in installation, outstanding visual impact and the ability to transform the look of a home or commercial space. This year’s winners comprise five residential projects and two commercial projects from across the U.S.

The residential projects receiving top honors:

• Classic Construction & Consulting, Stillwater, Minnesota, for the replacement of an aging, hail-damaged cedar roof on a lakefront home with a DaVinci Multi-Width Shake roof in Aged Cedar. Homeowners’ insurance rates decreased 50% after receiving the new composite roof.
• Final Touch Construction & Design, Fontana, California, for the intricate job of adding DaVinci Multi-Width Slate tiles alongside new solar panels on an expansive roofing system. The mixture of Castle Gray- and European-colored tiles adds beauty plus low maintenance to the coastal waterfront home.
• Nitro Roofing and Construction, Columbus, Ohio, for an eye-catching replacement roof for a 1890 Victorian-style home. It features nearly 5,000 custom Inspire® Slate by DaVinci tiles in fish-scale and square-edge slate patterns and Cool Mist and Olive colors.
• Preferred Exterior, New Hyde Park, New York, for the roof on a newly constructed showplace home featuring DaVinci Single-Width Slate in the Smokey Gray color. Several structures, including a pool house, make up the sprawling home compound.
• Washington Roofing & Construction, Washington, Missouri, for the re-roof of a home using DaVinci Select Shake in Aged Cedar, following a hailstorm. The spacious property includes both a four- and eight-car garage plus various A-frame-style buildings with roofing pitches of 26/12.

The commercial projects receiving top honors:

• Burns & Scalo, Pittsburgh, for the replacement of a deteriorating roof on the administration building at Mount Aloysius College in Cresson, Pennsylvania, with DaVinci Single-Width Slate in the European color. The historic 1897 landmark building at the private college houses classrooms and offices.
• Weatherguard, Inc. (THE ROOFEREES), Omaha, Nebraska, for the re-roof of the storm-damaged Peter Kiewit Lodge at Eugene T. Mahoney State Park with DaVinci Single-Width Shake in a custom Forest Green color. Hosting 40 guest rooms, a restaurant and meeting rooms, the lodge features the largest pitched roof state building in Nebraska.

About DaVinci®Roofscapes

Industry-leading DaVinci® Roofscapes captures the authentic look of real cedar shake and natural slate in each of their composite roofing tiles. Made of virgin resins, UV and thermal stabilizer, plus a fire retardant, each tile resists impact, fire and severe weather. They also defy insects, rotting, fading and splitting. Available in dozens of colors, the composite tiles are backed by a Lifetime Limited Material Warranty. DaVinci Roofscapes is a division of Westlake Royal Building Products™.

About Westlake Royal Building Products

Westlake Royal Building Products™ USA Inc., a Westlake company (NYSE:WLK), is a leader throughout North America in the innovation, design and production of a broad and diverse range of exterior and interior building products, including siding and accessories, trim and mouldings, roofing, stone, windows and outdoor living. For more than 50 years, Westlake Royal Building Products has manufactured high quality, low maintenance products to meet the specifications and needs of building professionals, homeowners, architects, engineers and distributors, while providing stunning curb appeal with an unmatched array of colors, styles and accessories.