Home improvement sales teams face a common problem. A rep can walk into a home with more technology than ever and still reach a point where the conversation stops. The measurement may be unclear. The price may not be ready. The rep may need to call someone else. The homeowner may be left waiting for an answer. That gap matters because every pause can slow trust and weaken the chance to move the project forward. HOVER has focused on making property data useful across more of that journey, helping contractors move from information about the home toward measurements, design, estimating, and a clearer sales conversation.
That challenge became an important part of a recent PowerChat conversation between Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, and Ali Azhar, Chief Business Development Officer at HOVER. Their discussion looked beyond what technology can do and focused on what the person inside the home needs from it. For a sales rep, one lead can mean far more than a number on a screen. It can mean a commission, income for their family, and the chance to build a better career.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Through conversations like PowerChat, the platform brings forward ideas that can help home improvement leaders build better sales systems, support their people, and create a clearer experience for homeowners.
For a home improvement company, a new lead may first appear as a name, a phone number, and an appointment in a system.
For the salesperson walking through the homeowner’s door, that same lead can mean much more.
It may be the commission that helps pay the rent.
It may help put food on the table.
It may support a family.
For someone new to home improvement sales, it may also be the opportunity that proves they can build a career in an industry that can change what they are able to earn.
Ali Azhar, Chief Business Development Officer at HOVER
Ali Azhar brought that human side of the sales process directly into his conversation with Greg Cummings.
“When you think about the experience of a seller in the home, the only thing they’re thinking about is can I close this lead? To get a commission to pay my bills and feed myself and my family. That’s it,” Azhar said.
That view changes the question leaders should ask when they invest in sales technology.
The question is not only how many features the system has.
It is whether that system can help the salesperson keep moving when the opportunity is sitting right in front of them.
A rep needs a clear starting point.
They need project information they can trust.
They need to know that the measurements behind the job are strong enough to build from.
They need a path toward an estimate.
They need a way to explain the actual amount to the homeowner.
And they need enough confidence in those numbers to know the job can make sense for the company after the contract is signed.
Azhar explained that this is where trusted data becomes much more than a measurement.
“When we can provide the comfort that whether they know how to measure for a siding project or measure for a roofing project, that they can count on our accuracy being there all the time, every time, it allows them to feel confident in everything else that happens in the workflow,” Azhar said.
The key word is confidence.
When a rep trusts the information underneath the sale, they can move forward instead of stopping to question every next step.
They can get closer to an estimate.
They can answer the homeowner.
They can talk about what the project will cost.
They can spend more time building a connection with the person sitting across from them.
That is why Azhar described the goal in such a simple and memorable way.
“Never throw a gutter ball, always get to an estimate,” he said.
That does not mean every homeowner will buy.
Technology cannot guarantee a close.
It does mean the company should give the rep a fair path to the answer.
The salesperson should not lose momentum because the information needed to continue the conversation is missing. They should not have to leave a homeowner without a clear next step because the company’s own process could not carry them far enough.
The same idea matters to the homeowner.
A homeowner wants to know what they are considering, what it may cost, and whether the person in front of them can answer their questions with confidence. They may not know every detail of roofing, siding, windows, or exterior remodeling. They should not have to.
They need the contractor to make the project easier to understand.
For the sales rep, this is where trusted property information can connect the technical side of the job with the human side of the sale.
The measurement gives them something to build from.
The estimate gives them something real to discuss.
The conversation helps the homeowner understand what that number means.
And the margin behind the project helps make sure the job still works for the business and the person who sold it.
Azhar connected all of those pieces during the PowerChat.
He spoke about giving the rep a way to reach an estimate, give the homeowner an answer, create an emotional connection, discuss the real amount being quoted, and have confidence that the margin is still there.
That creates a much higher standard for sales technology.
The strongest tools should not only collect information.
They should help turn that information into action.
For the salesperson standing in the home, that can mean the difference between reaching a dead end and reaching the moment where the homeowner finally has enough information to make a decision.
And when one lead may help a salesperson pay their bills, support their family, or build a new career, giving them a clear path to that moment matters.
During his PowerChat conversation with Greg Cummings, Ali Azhar, Chief Business Development Officer at HOVER, brought the sales process down to one simple idea. When a rep enters a home, they need a clear path forward. The measurement has to lead somewhere. The project details have to become useful. The estimate has to help answer real questions. And the salesperson needs to know that the job they are presenting can still work for the company after the homeowner says yes.
That makes trusted data more than a technical tool. It becomes part of the support system behind the person trying to win the job. Azhar explained that when the rep can trust what sits underneath the sale, they can focus on the homeowner, move with more confidence, and reach the point where a real decision can be made.
His message also gives leaders another way to look at sales performance. The goal is not only to ask whether the rep closed. It is to ask whether the company gave that rep a strong enough path to reach the answer in the first place.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100
Sales leaders spend a lot of time looking at numbers.
Close rate matters.
Average ticket matters.
Revenue matters.
Margin matters.
But Azhar brought attention to the person behind those numbers.
“When you think about the experience of a seller in the home, the only thing they’re thinking about is can I close this lead? To get a commission to pay my bills and feed myself and my family. That’s it,” Azhar said.
That changes what a missed opportunity can mean.
To the company, one lost lead may become part of a monthly report.
To the salesperson, that same lead may have helped cover a bill or support their family.
That does not mean every lead should close. It means leaders should look closely at the things inside their control that may stop a good rep from reaching the decision.
If the measurement is not ready, the rep loses time.
If the project information is hard to use, the rep loses focus.
If the estimate cannot be reached, the homeowner may be left without the answer they need.
Those problems may appear small inside a large company, but they become very real when someone is sitting across from a homeowner trying to earn their living.
Azhar also pointed to something larger about the home improvement industry. Sales can create a level of earning power that some people may never have had before entering the field.
He spoke about helping reps take home the money they hoped to earn through “the promise of what this industry can deliver to that person who may have never had an opportunity to make that kind of money before.”
That makes sales enablement a people issue as much as a business issue.
A leader cannot promise that every salesperson will succeed.
But leaders can ask whether the systems around that person are helping them perform at their best.
That is a different way to look at sales technology.
Instead of asking only whether the company bought the newest tool, the better question may be whether that tool gives the person carrying the lead a fair chance to turn the opportunity into a career.
Once the rep enters the home, confidence has to start somewhere.
For Azhar, trusted property information is part of that foundation.
He described HOVER at its core as a 3D and spatial data company, with measurements coming from that underlying property data.
But the value of the measurement is not only the measurement itself.
The real value shows up in what the rep can do next.
“When we can provide the comfort that whether they know how to measure for a siding project or measure for a roofing project, that they can count on our accuracy being there all the time, every time, it allows them to feel confident in everything else that happens in the workflow,” Azhar said.
That point matters as contractors bring people into sales from many different backgrounds.
One rep may have years of roofing experience.
Another may be strong at building relationships but still be learning the technical side of exterior remodeling.
Both need information they can trust.
That is where 3D home measurement software for roofing and siding contractors can become part of a stronger sales foundation. The goal is not to remove the need for training. It is to make sure the rep has dependable project information while that training and experience continue to grow.
Good information should also create movement.
A measurement that stays trapped in a report does not do enough.
It should help the rep understand the project.
It should support what the homeowner sees.
It should feed the pricing conversation.
It should help the team reach the next step without having to rebuild the same project information again and again.
In that sense, trusted data works best when it becomes a starting point rather than a stopping point.
The rep gets something solid to build from.
The homeowner gets clearer answers.
And the company gets a more consistent path through the early parts of the project.
This is where Azhar gave the conversation one of its clearest phrases.
“Never throw a gutter ball, always get to an estimate,” he said.
The line sounds simple, but it describes a major problem inside home improvement sales.
A rep can have a strong conversation and still hit a dead end.
They may understand what the homeowner wants.
They may have built trust.
They may have created excitement around the project.
Then the conversation reaches price, and everything stops.
The measurement needs more work.
Someone else has to calculate the job.
The rep cannot build the estimate.
The homeowner has to wait.
Every extra handoff creates another chance for the energy of the appointment to fall.
Azhar’s point is not that technology should force the homeowner into a fast decision.
It is that the company’s own process should not be the reason the conversation cannot continue.
The salesperson should have a path.
From the property information to the project scope.
From the scope to the estimate.
From the estimate to a clear answer.
That is also why speed has value beyond saving a few minutes.
When the homeowner is engaged, asking questions, and thinking seriously about the project, the sales conversation has momentum.
The rep has learned what matters.
The homeowner understands more than they did at the start.
That is often the best time to keep building clarity.
A tool should help the rep move closer to that answer, not send them backward through another process.
This is where all-in-one pre-construction software to measure, design, estimate, and create proposals for exterior contractors can support a more connected path. Each part of the project can build on what came before instead of forcing the salesperson to start again every time they reach a new step.
“Always get to an estimate” is therefore about more than generating a price.
It is about making sure useful information keeps moving until the homeowner has something real to consider.
The rep may still hear no.
The homeowner may still want more time.
They may still compare other contractors.
But the company has done its job when the rep is able to reach the point where the customer can make that choice with a clear answer in front of them.
A major home project has two sides.
There is the part the homeowner feels.
Then there is the part the numbers have to support.
Azhar spoke about both.
He described giving the salesperson the ability to “create the emotional connection to the homeowner” and then move into “the pragmatic side of things with the actual amounts that they are going to try to quote.”
That connection matters because homeowners are rarely buying measurements.
They are buying what the finished work can do for their home.
They may be thinking about curb appeal.
They may want to protect the house.
They may want a roof they can stop worrying about.
They may be imagining a new siding color or a different look for the exterior.
That emotional part of the decision is real.
But it eventually has to meet another question.
What will it cost?
A strong sales process helps those two sides meet.
This is where 3D home visualization software for home improvement contractors can help the homeowner see the idea being discussed instead of trying to picture it from words alone.
The homeowner can better understand what the rep is presenting.
Then the estimate gives that vision a real number.
One helps answer, “What could my home look like?”
The other helps answer, “What will it take to make that happen?”
Neither side should stand alone.
A powerful visual without clear pricing can leave the homeowner excited but unsure.
A price without enough context can feel like just another number.
When the rep can connect the two, the homeowner gets a more complete picture of the decision.
That is also where the human skill of the salesperson remains important.
Technology can provide the visual.
Technology can provide the data.
Technology can help build the estimate.
But the rep still has to listen.
They still have to understand what matters to the homeowner.
They still have to explain the choices in a way that makes sense.
The strongest technology gives them better material for that conversation without taking over the conversation itself.
The final part of Azhar’s point moves beyond the close.
A signed agreement may look like the finish line for the salesperson.
For the company, it is the start of the work.
The project still has to be ordered.
It still has to be produced.
Labor has to be paid.
Materials have to be covered.
The homeowner has to receive what was promised.
And the business still needs enough margin for the job to make sense.
Azhar tied that reality directly into the confidence a rep needs during the sales process.
He spoke about reaching the actual amount being quoted and having “the confidence to know that that margin is going to be there so that their commission is not negatively impacted.”
That is an important part of the “never throw a gutter ball” idea.
Reaching an estimate is not enough if that estimate leads the company into a bad job.
The rep does not win when the business loses.
The company does not win when the sale creates problems for production.
And the homeowner does not win when mistakes made during the sale create trouble later.
A healthy sale needs a clearer line between what was measured, what was shown, what was priced, and what the company agreed to deliver.
That is where connected systems can do more than make life convenient.
They can help create alignment.
What the rep talks about in the home should match what the estimate supports.
What the homeowner agrees to should match what the production team receives.
What the company sells should have a stronger chance of carrying the margin the business expects.
That kind of connection is part of what businesses look for in home improvement sales and proposal software to help contractors close more jobs.
But the goal cannot simply be more signed contracts.
The better goal is more jobs that make sense all the way through.
That protects the business.
It gives the sales rep greater confidence in the opportunity they are presenting.
And it creates a better handoff to the people responsible for delivering the work.
For leaders, that may be the bigger lesson inside Azhar’s comments.
A great sales system should not help a rep close any job at any cost.
It should help them close the right project with numbers the company can stand behind.
Ali Azhar’s message about giving a sales rep a clear path to the answer carries more weight when viewed beside his own career.
Long before his current role as Chief Business Development Officer at HOVER, Azhar had already spent years learning how technology companies grow. He built companies himself before moving into enterprise software sales, which gave him experience from both sides of the table. He has had to think like a founder trying to win customers and like a revenue leader trying to help a larger company reach thousands more of them.
His work at MongoDB and GoodData helped build that record. Public profiles of Azhar’s career credit him with driving major revenue growth and adding thousands of customers across his enterprise sales leadership roles. At MongoDB, he was also recognized as both a top individual contributor and a top global sales leader.
That history matters to this PowerChat because Azhar’s view of sales technology comes from more than watching people use software.
He has spent much of his career asking a harder question.
How do you take something powerful and make it useful enough that more people can adopt it, trust it, and build growth around it?
That same question has followed Azhar into HOVER.
In a 2024 conversation about the company’s growth, Azhar discussed HOVER’s move from its early construction focus into home improvement, insurance, and new market opportunities. He also described insurance as one of the company’s fastest-growing areas and spoke about the role of artificial intelligence in HOVER’s future.
That expansion is now visible in the company HOVER has become.
HOVER says more than 12 million homes have been scanned through its technology. More than 300,000 construction professionals use the platform, and more than 49 billion square feet have been measured and modeled. Its tools now support construction professionals, homeowners, and insurance teams across property measurement, design, estimating, project planning, and claims work.
Those numbers show something important.
HOVER did not stay locked into one early use case.
The company kept asking where the same property data could remove friction in another part of the journey.
For a contractor, that may mean helping a rep move from a property scan toward an estimate.
For an insurance professional, it may mean helping create a faster and clearer property assessment.
For a homeowner, it may mean making a project easier to see and understand before making a decision.
The market changes, but the basic goal remains similar.
Make the information useful enough that the person can reach the next answer.
Artificial intelligence is also becoming a larger part of that next chapter.
Hover team at the 2025 International Roofing Expo and Design & Construction Week
Azhar has spoken publicly about how AI has shaped HOVER and how emerging technology may help the company grow beyond its current markets. More recent discussions have focused on how HOVER combines AI with 3D spatial data to support property assessments and insurance claims with greater speed, accuracy, and transparency.
That work gives this press release angle a useful proof point.
AI can make a system more advanced.
But advancement only matters when it makes the next action clearer.
HOVER’s impact is not only found in how much data the company can process or how many properties it can model. It can also be seen in how that information moves into real work across construction, home improvement, and insurance.
That is why Azhar’s “never throw a gutter ball” message fits the larger story of his career.
Whether he is helping a software company find new customers, helping HOVER enter a new market, or thinking about how AI can support the next generation of property technology, the pattern is similar.
Start with strong information.
Turn it into something people can use.
Then give them a clear path to the next result.
For the salesperson standing in the home, that result may be an estimate.
For HOVER, it has helped become a path into entirely new industries.
Every home improvement appointment begins with a person walking through a front door and trying to earn trust.
Hover hosting top leaders from the technology, insurance, and construction industries at Southall in Tennessee
That person may have years of experience. They may be new to the industry. They may be one of the strongest communicators on the team.
But once the conversation starts, experience alone cannot answer every question.
The rep still needs a way to understand the project. They need information they can trust. They need a way to turn that information into a price the homeowner can understand. And they need to know that what they are presenting makes sense for both the customer and the company.
That is where Ali Azhar’s message becomes larger than one piece of software or one sales process.
“Never throw a gutter ball, always get to an estimate,” Azhar said.
The point is not that every appointment should end with a signed contract.
Some homeowners will want more time.
Some will compare other companies.
Some will decide the project is not right for them yet.
Those choices are part of selling.
What should not happen is a good opportunity falling apart because the company’s own process could not help the rep reach the answer.
A salesperson should not leave the home thinking the conversation could have gone further if only the measurement had been ready, the estimate had been easier to build, or the project information had been clearer.
The homeowner deserves better too.
They should be able to understand what they are considering, what the project may cost, and what they will receive if they move forward.
A clear answer does not pressure someone to buy.
It gives them something they can make a decision from.
That creates a better outcome for everyone involved.
For the homeowner, better information can bring greater confidence.
For the salesperson, it creates a real chance to turn their work into income.
For the contractor, it creates a stronger chance of selling a project with numbers the business can stand behind.
Those goals do not have to work against each other.
The right sales process can bring them together.
That is why the next chapter of home improvement sales should not be measured only by how many deals a company closes.
It should also be measured by how well the company prepares its people to guide each opportunity from the first look at the home to a project they can confidently explain, price, and stand behind.
Technology will continue to change.
Measurements will become faster.
Data will become richer.
AI will create new ways to understand homes and build projects.
But the standard that matters most may remain very simple.
When the rep is sitting across from a homeowner, does the technology help them move forward with confidence?
Does it help them answer the next question?
Does it help the homeowner understand what comes next?
If it does, the technology is doing more than making a process faster.
It is helping create a better sales experience for the person selling, the person buying, and the company responsible for delivering the work.
That is the larger lesson inside Azhar’s words.
The future of home improvement sales is not only about helping more people close.
It is about giving more people a reliable way to reach the answer.
And when the rep is standing in front of the homeowner, the technology should never leave them searching for what comes next.
It should help them keep moving.
Never throw a gutter ball. Always get to an estimate.
Power100 goes beyond publishing national rankings. The company also uses programs such as the Inner Circle Show and Inner Circle AI to turn what it learns from CEOs, contractors, sales leaders, events, and industry partners into practical business guidance. Inner Circle AI focuses on topics such as sales, leadership, technology, GEO visibility, customer experience, and company growth. Power100 says it builds the platform around vetted industry information rather than broad advice pulled from unrelated markets.
Power100 built Inner Circle AI specifically for contractors and home improvement sales teams. The platform draws from Power100 ranked leaders, industry interviews, field coverage, training content, case studies, and information from the home improvement market. Power100 designed it to answer questions contractors actually face, including how to generate leads, improve sales, strengthen leadership, manage technology, build culture, and improve GEO visibility.
HOVER designed its estimating workflow to reduce those extra steps. A rep can scan the exterior with a phone, receive property measurements, and use that data to build an estimate inside the platform. HOVER says contractors can move from measurement to estimate without spreadsheets or a second property visit in supported workflows. This supports Ali Azhar’s point that technology should keep the rep moving toward an answer instead of creating another stop in the sales process.
HOVER builds estimates from property measurement data rather than asking the rep to start with a blank price sheet. Contractors can review quantities and apply their own pricing, labor costs, templates, and project rules before they finalize the estimate. HOVER also lets teams create estimates from photo-based scans, blueprint uploads, or saved 3D designs. Faster access to an estimate does not remove the contractor’s responsibility to review the job, but it can reduce manual steps between the property data and the price.
HOVER supports more than simple roof measurements. Its Construction Workspace says its roof and siding data averages 285 individual measurements per property and can support mixed materials, multiple trades, and complex exterior shapes. Contractors can also draw custom measurement lines when a project requires information beyond the standard measurement set. That makes HOVER useful as roof and siding measurement software for exterior contractors working on a wide range of residential projects.
HOVER gives the rep project information that can support the conversation, but the salesperson still has to understand the homeowner, explain the choices, and guide the decision. The platform can connect measurements, design, estimates, and proposals so the rep spends less time rebuilding project information between steps. This supports Ali Azhar’s larger point that technology should help the salesperson reach the answer while the salesperson keeps the relationship with the homeowner at the center.
HOVER describes its contractor platform as a connected workflow that moves from property scanning through design, measurements, estimates, and agreements.
HOVER supports more than the close. Its estimating tools allow contractors to build prices from measured quantities and company pricing rules, while its proposal tools carry information from the estimate into homeowner-facing options without asking teams to enter the same data again. HOVER says its proposal workflow can help contractors offer different packages while protecting margins. Better information cannot guarantee profit on every job, but a connected exterior remodeling estimating and proposal platform can give sales and production teams a clearer view of what the company priced and sold.
Azhar does not mean technology should force every lead into a sale. A homeowner can still compare contractors, wait, ask more questions, or decide not to move forward. His point is that the contractor’s own workflow should not stop the salesperson before the homeowner has enough information to make that choice.
The rep should have a path from understanding the property to discussing a real project and a real price. HOVER supports that path by connecting measurements with estimating and proposals. The goal is not to guarantee a yes. The goal is to make sure the salesperson can reach a clear answer instead of losing the opportunity because the company’s own tools created a dead end.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Led by Greg Cummings, Power100 helps contractors, CEOs, sales leaders, and industry partners learn from proven leadership, real business experience, and the ideas shaping the future of home improvement. Through national rankings, PowerChat interviews, industry research, events, and leadership content, Power100 gives strong leaders a trusted place to share what is working, helps contractors discover better ways to grow, and brings greater visibility to the people and companies making a positive impact across the industry.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
