The roofing industry needs to stop competing and start collaborating.

Episode Transcript
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Ty Cobb Backer (00:00):
And we are live.
Welcome back everybody toBehind the Toolbelt, episode 291
.
I am your host, ty Cobb Backer.
Thank you for joining us onthis Wednesday edition.
We will be back after our shortintro from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Behind the Tool Belt, where the stories
are bold, the conversations arereal and the insights come to
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Every week, host Ty Cobb-Backersits down to bring you the
stories, the struggles, thelessons learned and the wins.
No filters, no scripts, justthe truth.

(00:52):
Please welcome your host ofBehind the Tool Belt, ty
Cobb-Backer.

All right, let's go.
Welcome back everybody toepisode 291, Behind the Tool
Belt.
Today we are diving deep withsomebody who's making serious
waves in the roofing world, ourguest, elijah.
Mama.
Did I say that?
Right?
You did, mom.
Okay, good, I didn't want tosound like a complete idiot.
So, hey, owner of romansroofing, a company built on

(01:20):
great excellence and amission-driven mindset.
But, but Elijah is not justswinging hammers you thought I
was going to say something else,didn't you?
Swinging hammers and buildingroofs.
He's also behind a mic with I'msorry, I just totally had a
brain fart there because I wasthinking about swinging
something but as the host of theRoof Trolls podcast, where he

(01:43):
dishes out raw, unfilteredinsight on the state of the
trades Trolls podcast, where hedishes out raw, unfiltered
insight on the state of thetrades, the roofing industry and
everything in between, todaywe're going to talk about
entrepreneurship, building abrand that actually means
something, calling out the BS inthe industry, and how Elijah is
bringing leadership andauthenticity back to the roofing
game.
Let's dig into this man, elijah, how you doing, buddy?

elijah Muhm (02:03):
Doing great man, super great.
I'm actually a fanboy of thispodcast as well, so I'm very
excited to be a part of it.

Man, thank you so much for coming on, man, and
being so enthusiastic aboutcoming on, and thank you, you're
doing good stuff over there too, being a fellow podcaster, we,
you know, we had a little briefconversation before we turned
the camera on here and you knowtalking about how you know it

(02:46):
can become, you know, a fulltime job, along with, you know,
being a parent and a full areactually behind the microphone,
running and operating a roofingbusiness, a sales team and and
trying to be a good parent.
Man, it's, it's a lot, itreally is a lot yeah, a hundred
percent.

Uh, so the podcast is like a full-time thing too,
so there's a lot of people thatwill jump in and start one, and
then that's why so many of themfizzle out, because I don't
think that people understand theamount of hours that go into
that.
So you got to, you got to findgas.
You got to, you got to vet themto make sure that they would be
of quality, and then puttingout something that that's
sustainable, that you cancontinue to talk about that
people are interested in, whilegrasping their attention, all

(03:19):
while still being a father,still running a roofing company,
still being involved in salesof that roofing company and
managing all those employees.
So, yeah, it's a full-time gig,for sure.

No doubt, dude, I got mad respect for you man.
I totally get it.
I totally, totally, totally getit.
So why don't we talk aboutstart out with the growth and
operations of Romans, roofingwhat you know what, what, what
separates, or let's, let's,let's get?
I guess let's get to thebeginning.
How did Romans come about?

So the original idea of Romans was created,
actually by a local attorney bythe name of Jeff Semko, right
over there in Cherville, indiana, and Jeff started Romans
Roofing named it after his son.
They had a really good mom andpop feel to it.
It was just a small, localroofing company and they were
mostly geared toward retail workas opposed to storm restoration

(04:13):
work.
And a buddy of mine actuallychildhood friend of mine, angelo
Sia me and him worked prior fora couple of companies.
We went to a corporate companyand at that corporate company
some changes were made thatdidn't align with what our
beliefs were.
He parted ways with them and hewent and partnered with Jeff

(04:33):
actually, and worked there forabout two years.
So they had this thing going.
When the time came that wedecided that I was going to go
and maybe try to open upsomething on my own at this
point in time I'd beencontemplating it for about three
or four years.
I'd been a sales rep for almostsix and a half years, team lead
, whatever and I was like, hey,man, it's time, you know, I want

(05:00):
to go, try to, I want to go,try to do something, you know.
So I had with Jeff he, you know, maybe, maybe we could do
something together.
And I'm like, hey, man, thedays of me wanting to work for
somebody, it's just that it'sover with man.
I don't really want to do that.
And he's like, well, you shouldat least hear him out.
And he's right, you shouldalways hear somebody else out.

(05:25):
So we went and sat down and wemet with each other.
It was like, I mean, it waslike fate.
He had everything we needed.
He already had the licenses, healready had the mom and pop
brand, he already had the localsetup.
He was lacking storm work andhe was lacking sales reps.
I had an abundance of those.
And then I had a reputationalready in this area where I was
at to where I knew that I couldhave an impact on recruiting.

(05:46):
I could potentially do somemarketing.
I had some good ideas.
So we got together.
It looked good on paper,Everything was a fit, and we
jumped into this about two and ahalf years ago.
So I've been with Romans forabout two and a half years now.

OK, yeah, ok, amazing.
Now that's a great story ofyears now.
Okay, yeah, okay, amazing.
No, that's a great story.
You know who we, I've tried topop open in in newer markets
from from grassroot bootstrapfrom the ground up, without
already having you know a name,name recognition and and all
that stuff.
So I I understand thedifference from both, both sides

(06:23):
of the spectrum, but withalready having you know the, the
name Romans in in the public'seye and and you know the small
town you know, or I don't knowhow large town it is that you're
in, but that that hometown feel, I guess, of of a locally
grassroots company, what, whatwould you say, separates today

(06:46):
you guys from a crowded marketthan any other roofing
contractor in the area?

So on a lot of our posts that we put up, we'll
actually say it too, that youcan get a roof anywhere.
Anybody can get a roof.
There are plenty of really goodquality companies around me
that could put the same roof,same style, same craftsmanship
almost that we can.
What's going to separate usfrom the rest of them is the
experience that you're going toget.
At Romans Roofing.
That's how we gauge who we areis through our experiences that

(07:13):
we deliver for our customers.
It's why we have a goodreputation.
We take that very seriously.
Our customers mean as much tous as our employees do, and as
long as we keep the mindset thatthese two are the most
important, romans will continueto thrive.
So our focus is always thecustomer over communication,
trying to go above and beyondany way we can.
We do a lot of giveaways, roofs.

(07:34):
We do a lot of things insidethe community to let them know
that we're part of it.
And then I think one of thebigger power plays that we did
recently was last year.
We purchased our buildingacross the street from the
mayor's office in the town thatwe work in.
So now it's no longer justwe're not renting an office here
and calling ourselves local.
Like I, live in NorthwestIndiana, most of my reps live in
Northwest Indiana, and now ourbuilding we pay taxes on in the

(07:57):
town we operate in, so we giveback to Northwest Indiana.

I love that.
I love that Good story, man.
That is so good, that's so good.
So, values and principles, what?
What exactly you know?
Values and principles haveshaped how you lead Romans today
.

So number one is uh , I think culture over profits.
That was something that we hadto sit down with, uh, and it
took all all of us.
There's six owners in this, soit can get a little chaotic at
times, but all six of us havethe same end goal.
And what was really cool whenwe sat down is we all realized
that look man, this needs to bea destination spot for sales
reps.
This doesn't need to be a turnand burn company.

(08:35):
I don't want to go with theindustry standard of the two and
a half year turnover rate perreps.
I'm tired of that.
I want to give them 401k.
I want someone to retire withus.
I want someone to build afuture here and go buy their
first home, go buy the dream carthat they want.
I want lives to change, and theonly way that's going to do it
is if we actually prioritizewhat's more important right now

(08:56):
Is it profits or is it thegrowth of the company?
And then, with the growth ofthe company, comes with helping
people with their financials too, to helping to dive deep
personally so that we can we canfigure out what's bothering the
sales reps on a psychologicallevel, so that they could
perform better at their jobs andlearn the task.
If you take on sales reps andyou claim to care about them,
then you need to show that, notin just in how you pay them, but

(09:19):
in how you treat them, how theenvironment is around them and
are you putting them in aposition that they're able to
succeed in.
That's what's important.

Yeah, I love that, I love that we we call it.
You know, having your dream bigenough for everybody else's
dream to fit in.
So I, I totally understand, andI'm from that school of of of
culture, having a good culture.
You know a competitive spirit,you know culture, but also
holding people accountable, butalso being there for them when
shit gets rough and not not soapt to, you know, uh, you know,

(09:49):
fire somebody over a mistake,giving them enough room to make
mistakes so they can learn fromit, because unfortunately,
that's the only way that I'velearned is through a lot of
mistakes, trial and error andebbs and flows and things like
that.
So we're very patient, not not,I'm not so keen on the.
You know I've heard people talkabout, you know, hire slow, let
go quickly, like I understandthat to a certain extent, like

(10:12):
definitely should, should hirepeople slower and and you know,
but also give room becausethere's there's there's learning
curves, right, like where somepeople have, you know, a
learning disability, where theymay not came from the roofing
space necessarily, but they havethe, the good qualities that
actually fit like three quartersof the qualities that do fit

(10:32):
the culture.
But we just got to get them upto speed on like our crm, how to
pull roofing aerial measurementtool, or the technique of like
when they're at the door.
Just just things that areteachable, that are skills that
they can learn, but it mighttake them a little longer than
some people and I really feellike that's what separates a
good quality company that's init for the long haul is building

(10:54):
that family-like culture thatwe're all in this together.
So I guess my next question foryou would be is like how do you
find and train quality peopleto represent your brand in the
field?

So finding people has been a lot easier as of
lately.
We do do a lot of Indeed, butat one point in time we had a
fully staff squad here and, likeyou said, you know, due to a
magnitude of reasons, you knowyou lose some people along the
way.
That's just the way business is.
Even if you give them multipleopportunities, some people will

(11:26):
grow so big financially or arein a position They'll have a hot
few few months and you know howthat goes.
You know now they're ready tobe an owner and they know
everything about the industry,so you're going to lose people
on the way.
What we do is we do a lot ofrecruiting.
We do a lot of videos.
Our videos tend to drawattention locally because a lot
of companies aren't doing whatwe're doing online.

(11:47):
So we'll get people that willreach out to us.
Word of mouth is everything.
It's developing your reputationin the community, so people
will apply here randomlythroughout the year.
We'll get a lot of those, andthen I got a large sales team,
so those guys will.
You know, word of mouth getsout.
People start seeing the successthat they're having and then
you have other people that wantto go with us too at that point.

(12:07):
But once you get them in here,that's really what matters,
because anybody can learn how tosell, but we want them to do it
the Romans way and we holdourselves to a higher standard
as far as education goes andtraining.
So you're going to have tolearn how to do things and then
that's really when you get themin here.
It's so crucial that first twoweeks that they're in here,

(12:27):
because you need them to seeeverything and you don't have
much time to do it because yougot to see how they're going to
react to all of it.
So what we're doing now issending them out in the field
with different people so theycan see different aspects.
Maybe it's an ITEL pool one day.
Maybe it's an ITEL pool one day, Maybe it's an adjustment,
Maybe you know a signing, Maybeit's just door knocking,
whatever the case may be.
But they need to see all thestuff that they're going to be

(12:53):
doing and then working with themin the classroom equal amount
of time too.
So they understand that.
To me, real sales reps, yourperformance it matters on the
back end, not the front end.
It's very easy to convincesomebody that you can get the
roof covered through theinsurance company, somebody that
you can get the roof coveredthrough the insurance company.
It's a lot harder to maintainthem with 60 or 70 more clients.
And make sure that yourcommunication is being done
thoroughly.
Are you texting themappropriately?
Are you making sure they'reupdated throughout the process?

(13:14):
Are your notes clean?
Your paperwork signed thecorrect way?
Anything you do to halt theback end inevitably is going to
stretch out this claim a lotlonger for the homeowners.
Or even if you're doing retail,if you're not communicating
thoroughly, you're going to losethat job.
So we really try to drive homehow important the back end is as
opposed to the front end.
I'm going to teach how to sell,but that's not what makes a

(13:35):
sales rep.
What makes a sales rep is howhappy that customer is when
you're done with them.

Yeah, for sure, and that has a lot to do with
how happy the sales rep is too,because that energy is radiant,
it will radiate and homeownerscan pick up on stuff.
Whether it's incompet time.
It actually starts with a thequality of the human being that

(14:06):
you're bringing into yourorganization, right, and it
really comes down to and that'swhat I mean by like culture,
right, they they may not havecame from the roofing space when
we brought them in here, butthey are a good, genuine human
being.
That is very teachable and verycoachable, and we'll do
anything for you.
In turn, we'll do anything forthe homeowner too, because at

(14:27):
the end of the day, that's whatwe're doing.
We're serving homeowners Right,and, and the bonus is we're
actually getting paid to servepeople Right.
So that's like the tip, like ifI was a waiter and if I did a
good job, I'll get a big tip atthe end of the shift.
You know what I mean.
And that's kind of like ourpaycheck at the end of the week
is like you know, we're gettingpaid to serve other people, and
if you can get everybodylike-mindedly in an organization

(14:48):
, rowing in the same direction,with that same type of mentality
at least from my experience,you're going to freaking crush
it and and have not saying thatevery day's, you know, tiptoeing
through the freaking tulipsbecause, don't get me wrong, it
is trudging the road to a happyfucking destiny.
But having said all that, whatwould you say to this point?

(15:09):
Now would have been, or what isyour biggest challenge in
scaling your business and howhave you overcome it?

So the biggest challenge was making sure that
we were set for this, so it wascreating a process, a rigorous
process, and one that we stillfull disclosure are working on
right now.
I mean lot of owners it'sreally bad in the industry.
They have a really warped wayof thinking because they feel as

(15:49):
though, if they're not at $20million, they're not successful,
and I think that if you justtook a step back and just relax
for a minute and look back likeman, look how far I've come in
these two years.
You are growing and you may noteven know you're growing, but
you're holding yourself to sucha high standard of growth that's
unrealistic for most companiesto even meet.
You know, I sat down, I did apodcast with Tony Flattom over

(16:12):
at Build Strong in Minnesota andTony's awesome, awesome guy If
you don't know him, I'm sure youdo, though but Tony told me he
said he broke it down inplateaus and he was like it's
like seven million, 10 million,12 million, 15, 20.
He broke it down in plateaus andhe was like it's like 7 million
, 10 million, 12 million, 15, 20.
I've been chasing 15 for thelast five years.
That's like my dream, and we'reon pace to break that this year
, but until we do.
You know, that's like my dreamand I was explaining to him how

(16:34):
hard it is to get from 12 to 15.
And he, he had a year that washe had 64 and a half million
dollars in one year and he wasexplaining to me that his goal
that year was like 20 or 25.
And that just goes to show youreally don't know where this is
going to go.
So it's important to hold on toyour principles and then be
thankful and also look back andgive yourself kudos sometimes

(16:55):
along the journey.
But as far as the growth goes,you got to be ready to do it.
So make sure that yourprocesses are perfected, because
if you're not perfect at 8million, why in the hell would
you even try to go for 16million?
That doesn't even make sense.
We felt that 7.5 million, thatwe were primed.
We're like, hey, man, we'regoing to do this.
And last year we went and did14.5 million.

(17:16):
We felt really good about it.
But now we're at anotherlearning curve.
So we hit that.
We're on pace to exceed that.
Not by much.
We were originally on pace toexceed it by a lot more, but now
it's like all right, what arewe doing wrong?
Like, where are we at?
And I think the thing thatwe're starting to realize is
that we're not doing anythingwrong.
It's just not going to go asfast as you want it to go.

(17:37):
That's.
That's where we're at with it.

Yeah, no, isn't that the God's honest truth?
You know, if you think it'sgoing to take a year, you might
as well add another year to that, because it's going to take at
least 24 months.
You know, and you said a lot ofgood things there too, and my
advice for somebody that is ingrowth mode, you know not to
grow too fast, you know tooquick, and I've gone through
many different seasons where youknow we, we, we kind of went
stagnant, but fortunately whatI've seen over the years is like

(18:08):
you, you have like a year ortwo of growth.
But I also suggest that likehaving a year of where you kind
of I call it the correction year.
Okay, because in growth modeall finances are are going back
into the business, whether it'smarketing, sales reps, training
sales rep, all these things thatcost money.
So about every three or fouryears we've had like a

(18:29):
correction year where we'vestayed at revenue but we focus
more on the net, on the bottomline, raising the bottom line at
that same revenue we had didpreviously, the past 24 months.
Then we build the foundation togrow another know grow another
10, 15, 20, 25%, and we'veactually have grown 50% in a

(18:50):
four year period of time, which,which you know there's there's
a lot of things that break alongthe way.
So you need to give yourself atleast a 12 to 24 month of what
I call correction or correctionyears.
You know, fix what got broken,find the gaps, find the
deficiencies and then from therethen scale back up.
And if you can keep it strategiclike that and just know that

(19:13):
there's going to be whetherwhether it's organic or if it's
intentional, there has to be acorrection year in between those
big bumps in revenue and growthand recruiting and training and
SOPs, because the thing that Ifound out about SOPs is once you
start down that rabbit hole ofsystems, operational procedures
and things, then that createseven more.

(19:35):
You have to literally have anSOP on how to design an SOP.
I mean, it gets so granular andyou can go so far down in that
rabbit hole that it's never andjust so.
If anybody's listening, that iseither starting out in business
or wondering whether they'restagnant.
You know, I'm saying this toyou because it never changes.
If it doesn't change thenyou're not growing.

(19:57):
But it is very fluid.
Your SOPs, your systems, yourprocesses, your KPIs, that will
always change.
It's never set it and forget itand think you're going to grow
from five to 15, from 15 to 25million, without having change
and things being broken alongthe way that are going to need
to be repaired, fixed, replaced,whatever the case might be,

(20:20):
it's always going to happen Ifyou're, if you plan, and this is
the thing.
It's not about the profits, likeyou talked about earlier.
It's not about chasing thatgrowth, but it's about creating
more opportunities of bringingpeople into your organization to
give them a career, not just astepping stone into a different
career, or to go work forsomebody else or even go work
for themselves If they're happyenough and if they're getting by

(20:42):
half of it's not even whatthey're making, it's the
atmosphere in which they'reworking in is what keeps people
around, like in the purpose, andgiving them a purpose, a sense
of purpose, and empowering themto solidify that purpose with
you.
Whether it's company, you knowculture, community, involvement,
you know doing food drives,food runs, raising money for the

(21:05):
less fortunate, putting a newroof on somebody that couldn't
afford a new roof, getting thewhole entire company out there,
who's never held a fricking tearoff, shovel up on the roof,
tearing Like that's whatcamaraderie, true fellowship and
camaraderie and culture isbuilt on a mission of impact,
not just those of us within theorganization, but in our local

(21:29):
communities and people peopleare attracted to that shit, like
it's given me effing goof bumpsright now.

It's real.
It's real.
So that's what we try to do isyou?
You hit it right on the head.
We want our culture, our peopleand our community to be part of
a broader picture so they cansee that this is.
We're in this together.
When people feel like they'reconnected to your journey, they
invest in it, they want to bepart of it.
They want to give you money,they want you to do their builds

(21:57):
because they feel like theyknow you're chasing toward a
greater, bigger goal and nowthey get to be a part of that
goal no-transcript, absolutely.

It attracts so many good, positive momentum
it's ridiculous.
And then your network starts togrow.
Other companies want to be apart of it too.
So then, like you werementioning, then they're feeding
you leads and you're justattracting good people and doing
quality work for quality peoplewho are referring you to other

(22:48):
quality leads and networks.
And it's like our network hasbecome our net worth literally
just because of trying to do thenext right thing, even when it
hurts and even when it costs usmoney, and especially when
nobody's watching and eventuallysomebody does watch.
Somebody is watching, you know,whether you know it or not, even

(23:08):
when you think somebody isn'tand you continuously do the next
right thing suit up, show up,you know, and and just put forth
your best effort, especiallywhen you don't want to or you
can't, and you don't have togive run it until that freaking
gas tank is empty and somebodyis going to pick you up along
the way.
And I, I'm, I'm living proof ofthat.

(23:28):
I mean, over the years, man, Ithought how are we going to get
out of this?
And there was that phone call,you know, or here was this
person that showed up.
It just seems like bycontinuously doing the next
right thing for your fellow man,your community, your
organization.
Good and great things.
Just just it.
It just.
I can't explain it.

(23:49):
Even when I think it's theworst thing that's ever happened
to me, usually turns out to bethe best thing that's ever
happened for me.

Yeah, and share them to share the losses.
That's that, and that's whereyou get the followers, and
that's where you get thecommunity behind you.
The network is going to bethere.
You know you're a strong, goodcompany, quality work.
Your network is going to bethere.
As long as you don't you knowshit on other contractors and
stuff, they're going to supportyou.
The thing is, though, is youneed followers too.
You need, you need thecommunity to stand by you, and
how they stand by you is by youowning your mistakes.

(24:16):
You need to make them publicand let them know.
We are all human beings in this, but I'm doing the best
experience possible, and if youcan deliver on that, every
single time you're good.

Yeah, no, I agree, man.
I agree, you know, and and and,of course it takes.
It takes a village, you know,it takes your team.
You know eating, breathing andliving the same passion that
that you have, and and, like Isaid, it's contagious.
It really is contagious where,down to the point, it's like
I'll see you know a lot of ourcoworkers, you know, posting

(24:48):
family photos and and and itwherever they are on vacations,
and everybody, it seems likeeither has one of our hats on
one of their, like they they'reat the grocery store on the
weekend shopping wearing one ofour hats.
Like they they're, they'rebought in.
It's almost caught Like I hateto use that word, but it's like.
It's almost like we've createdsuch a culture around here that

(25:09):
this is, like, this is ourlifestyle.
It's become a lifestyle.
The TC backer brand is is alifestyle that we just this is
what we do, this is who we are.
It's not even work anymore,because we're all not
necessarily enjoying it every 12hours of the day, but you know,
it's where we have a purposeand we're purpose driven and
it's impact the, the localcommunities that in, in which we

(25:32):
, you know, we live in, and andit's just it's.
It is a beautiful thing and, uh, you know some, and I'm glad
we're talking about this becausesometimes, I'll be honest with
you, I forget the why behindwhat it is that we're doing, and
I haven't had this good of aconversation with somebody about
our why, our mission, our corevalues and why we suit up and
show up every single day.

(25:53):
So thank you for bringing thisup about culture and the people
and all that stuff, so you haveto have a why too, so you have
to have it.
Isn't that the truth?
So anyhow, let's talk about theroof trolls.
Actually, brian had a question.
Somebody had a question in thecomments over here.
What is this here, what do youthink leads to an individual's

(26:15):
success, and what does this looklike?
So I think he's talking aboutsales reps.

Oh, okay, first you'd have to define, in my
opinion, what success is to you.
So you'll find in this industrythat not everybody is driven by
money.
So you know, if you have one ofthose situations someone such
as myself when you're in sales,that you know the money isn't
the end all be all, it's alittle bit tougher of a
conversation.
So I'd say, start with findingout what success is to you, um,

(26:45):
and then you literally, uh, as asales rep, you, your success
should be your, your five-starreviews, your referrals, not
your signs.
So you know you got 40 signs,but how many referrals came off
those 40?
You know how many good reviewscame off those 40 that you did?
How many conversations are youhaving every day?
If you're chasing, you knownumbers.
Uh, I always tell reps don'tchase doors, chase conversations

(27:08):
, try to talk to people.
That's what's going to equateto signs anyway.
That's what our job is.
The gift of gab.
We're taught and trained tomanipulate conversations to find
out what's bothering people, sothat we can gauge on that and
work it from there.
So that's your job.
So you want to hone in on yourcraft, take the time to work on

(27:31):
that and work it from there.
So that's your job, you know.
So you want to hone in on yourcraft.
Take the time to to to work onthat away from just the company.
Don't rely on the company toeducate you on where you need to
be at.
You need to take that furtherthan the company, because the
company can only teach you whatit knows.
But there's so many othercompanies out there doing so
much more money than the companyyou work at.
So you need to start pickingbrains from people company you
work at.
So you need to start pickingbrains from people.
Attend events.
Do that.

(27:52):
Oh, I'm sorry, my whole screenjust went black.
You need to attend events.
You need to make sure that youare focusing on your craft and
honing in on your job to do thebest that you possibly can.
Success to me is defined by areyou happy every day?
Do you look forward to going towork and are you being paid
correctly by doing the job thatyou're doing?
And if you have all those threethings lined in in place and
you feel good about yourself,then you are successful.

Amen, amen, great, great response to his
question.
That was good.
That was super good.
So hopefully Brian gotsomething out of that.
Brian, if you got any otherquestions, man, please put them
in the comments.
Okay, so let's talk about thepodcast.
Okay, what made?

you decide to start Roof Trolls.
So Roof Trolls, I always wanteda podcast anyway.
For about five years I wantedto have one anyway, just because
they're fun.
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
And what happened was I talkedto Deshaun Bryant about you know
, I really wanted to get out andspeak to people.
And Deshaun said, you know, hetold me the last time I had him

(28:52):
out here, about a year and ahalf ago, he said hey, man, if
you're going to do it, you needto go all in and just do it.
And he said you know, Imentioned to him a few times
about how I wanted to speak atevents and I just didn't feel
like I was ever going to be ableto, because whatever excuses I
came up with in my head at thattime and the reality of it was
that that's what it was, it wasexcuses, he told me.
He said, bro, if nobody'swatching you anyway, what do you

(29:13):
care about what you post?
Why do you care about thatstuff?
He's like just get out thereand put your story out there,
and if somebody can connect withit, they will, and if they
don't, you know.
But what are you losing anywayby not doing it?
And he was absolutely right.
So we got with our owners andlike, hey, why don't we create a
platform for ourselves and forother people that don't have the
notoriety that they should,that are doing amazing things in

(29:33):
the industry and let's havesome fun with it?
But then I was like but I wantto twist to it.
I want I did trolls because Iwanted it to be open.
I wanted people to you know ifthey had grievances to air out,
feel comfortable to do it.
Obviously, viewers love that.
Also, I want to talk aboutstuff outside of roofing.
It's not all just roofing,because no one cares in the
public eye about roofing.

(29:54):
You know what I'm saying.
I've been doing roofing for 10years and I still don't.
Most of my conversations aren'troofing, you know.
So I was like all right, let'sappease to both parties.
And what was really cool waswhen we first started it we had
we had a strong network in theindustry anyway, and people were
really receptive to it.
So then local people wanted tostart being part of it.
And then I just feel like itgets better as it goes along and

(30:17):
all the hosts you know Angelawill be on there with me, or
Mike or Malice, and we've justbeen just learning how to chop
it up and really read off, feedoff each other and like we know
what type of guests we'relooking for and stuff.
So we're just having a lot offun on that podcast, man.
So now it's just become aboutjust having a good time and kind
of like when we have our guestson there, we get them to drop
their guards a little bit andopen up to who they really are.

(30:38):
Like Deshaun was freestyling onthere, we've opened Pokemon on
there.
It's just it's the roof trolls,man.
It's just about having a goodtime and and and bringing fun
back into the roofing industry.
I love it.
I love it, man.
What has been your favorite partof it?
Uh, I mean, it's going to be.

(30:59):
It's going to sound cliche, buttruthfully it's.
It's learning about people.
It really is.
Uh, because we've been, we havebeen blown away by some people.
So, gosh, I don't even knowwhere to begin.
You know we went to Minnesotaand Reed Asher is the sales
manager for BuildStrong.
Never even knew the guy, neverhad a conversation with him, and

(31:20):
this is a day.
By the way, we shot it at TimBrown's office in Hook and we
shot it with big people Tiffanyand Dan Walrack, tony Flatham,
ty Adams.
We had Aaron Bethke.
We had a whole bunch of peopleon there and I was blown away by
Reed.
I never connected with somebodyon that level before and saw
somebody who was thatcompassionate about what they're

(31:41):
doing, so that was one thatreally stuck out.
And then we just had SelahBrooks is a local entrepreneur,
reached out to me and I broughthim on for marketing and that
guy's a genius.
Just simply put, give him fiveyears and watch what happens
with him Like just a genius andjust hearing other people's
stories and entrepreneurship.
And John Scenic is another one.

(32:01):
I didn't know much about John.
I love John, by the way, but Ididn't know much about him.
Dude, that guy is hilarious andhe has such a cool like side of
him that that unfortunately andI hope he opens up even more to
the camera that people don'tget to see with him.
And I really enjoyed ourconversation.
I mean we went two and a halfhours on that podcast.
I really enjoyed my time withhim.

(32:23):
Uh and's so many amazing people,like Goldstein, who I know you
guys know really well.
He's another one man.
I just I hope that he turnsthat camera on and really puts
his face out there, because thatguy is so caring and genuinely
is about helping people.
Reggie Brock's, another one,jay Bradley, like there's some.
The roofing industry is such abeautiful community beautiful
community and as we startgetting guests on the podcast

(32:45):
now, it's just like man, yourealize how, how cool everybody
really is and how many goodhearted people there are.
Like the roofing industry is ingood hands right now.
That's why it's so important totalk to the youth and try to
move them up and get them tounderstand it, because there are
so many good souls right now.
We need to keep that momentumgoing.

Yeah, no, I love that and I would say that's
probably one of my favoritethings too is the how we were
able to connect with people thatyou know we probably wouldn't
have met any other way outsideof the podcast and we've I've
made personally like good, liketrue friendships Eric, oh, mike,
mike Goldenstein, I mean thethe the Sean Bryant was one of

(33:25):
our very first guests five and ahalf years ago when we started
this and he opened up so muchand and still to this day is one
of my favorite episodes and Ilove it every time he comes on
and I got to see some sides ofhim too that, like you said,
that most people don't get tosee.
You know, be outside, you knowbeside outside the camera, Um,

(33:45):
and and the personal connectionsthat we've made and the things
that I've learned from people tolike I, we don't have to pay
for their services, we justbring them on the podcast and
start asking them questions andmy team's writing notes down.
No, I'm just kidding, but Imean, you could?

no, you could.
I'm all for that.
I believe that the roofingindustry should be stealing
content from each other.
We should be bouncing ideas offof each other, because that's
how they get better, that's howwe all get better is by working
together to do this.
I'm OK with that.
If somebody I tell people whenI speak, if you want to go on my
social media and take my ideasand spin them off on your own,
I'll send you the videos.
I'll send them to you.

(34:20):
I'll send you the script that Imade when I wrote the video.
I don't care, it's only goingto make us all better.
You, stepping your game up toget to my level means that I got
to step mine up to stay aboveyou.
So let's do it, man.
Let's work together to getbetter.

I a hundred percent agree with that.
I mean, it is that's why we'redoing this.
I'm hoping somebody getssomething from this that they
can apply to their personal lifeor their professional life,
like that's.
That's the whole point of this,not just to listen to myself.
And and this is the thing too,it's held me accountable too,
cause I'm not going to saysomething on this when I know,

(34:52):
if not all of my team, at leasthalf of my team is either
watching right this second orthey're going to catch it on a
replay.
So I can't look like a fraud ora phony either.
I'm not saying sometimesthey're not rolling their eyes
at me like Jesus Christ, I'm sotired of hearing him say that.
But you know, this is where,you know, we get to.
You know, educate people.
This is where we get to reachother people.
This is where we get to bringpeople in our space, on our

(35:15):
stage, so they can get theirmessage out to the public, to,
you know, to our industry.
And honestly, you know westarted the podcast to promote a
charitable event, like,literally, we didn't know any
other way to market what wewanted to do for our community.
So it was like screw it.
We had an iPhone eight but wewent live back then.
You could host what was calleda watch party and I mean it

(35:38):
would spread like wildfire, likewe'd have 5,000 people watching
it at one time.
Nowadays you got to pay to getthat shit, but I mean it was
crazy and it was like you knowwhat?
Like after that home show, wedid it at a home show, a local
home show here.
After the home show, we're likeare we like what are we going to
do?
Like this has been like our.
It was tuesday nights back then.

(35:59):
Like I've carved out my mytuesday nights for four months.
So it's kind of like what arewe gonna do?
Is going to do?
It was like screw it, let's,let's keep doing it.
And we were trying to promoteTC backer.
We were going through likewindow month siding month, all
these things, and we wererunning out of content.
And that's when, I think, theSean reached out to us and was
like hey, man, can I come onyour podcast?

(36:20):
We love what you're doing.
And we were like and we werelike shit, somebody wants to
come on our podcast and I trynot to act super excited, but I
mean I was thrilled to death andit was so much easier having a
guest on and listening to theirexperiences, their strength,
their hope and how they gotthrough something, and it just
made for really good content forpeople to grab valuable

(36:43):
information from and then canapply it to their businesses or
their personal life.
And we keep it real too.
This is things like we.
We talk about our, our failures, like I have failed so many
fricking times to do that.
I can't.
I've I've lost my mind over it,but fortunately there's been
enough successes in there andwins to outweigh the failures.

(37:04):
And I'm not afraid because Ihate getting wrapped up in the
hype of the glam shots Like youknow the million dollar deal
that I closed, well, you didn'ttalk about.
You know how much you lost onthat job, right, because you you
missed, or the insurancecompany didn't give you any
supplements or whatever the casemight be, because if that's not
happening to you, you're lying.
You've lost money, thank you,thank you.

I want the roofing industry to at least take this
from the stop telling peoplethat it's easy when they go
through you.
Stop doing it.
We have people locally that arelike, oh, they said they
couldn't do State Farm.
Well, we do State Farm.
No, you don't.
No, you don't.
It's across the board.
That's why there's lawsuits andeverything else going on right
now.
No, you don't.
We need to be real and just behonest with people too.
Also, it deflates our industrywhen you do that.

(37:51):
If you get on there and youconstantly tell people how easy
it is, then why in the hellwould they use you?
They won't anymore guys.
They're not going to.
You need to be real withhomeowners and tell them hey,
our business owners, when we dothis, it when we do this.
It's a daunting task.
It involves an expert, which iswhat I am, and I'm going to
help you aid your claim along toget it done the right way.
But you need to be patient withme and this is a process.

(38:11):
Stop telling people.
Stop downplaying what you do,because when you downplay that,
it downplays the wholecredibility of the industry
across the board and it's just.
It's so bad for us, man.
Start being real about it.

I agree with you .
I'd be honest yeah, no doubt,no doubt.
It's just so much simpler thatway too, you know, and I don't
mind being an open book, youknow, anybody can ask me at any
time.
I mean, I've coached localpeople in in, in our space, in
our industry, you know to, andhelp them and mentor them Shit.
There was a guy that worked forus that called me up and left us
and went and started his ownbusiness and he had some
questions.
I didn't mind, you know,answering his questions about
Google.
He had Google questions Likehow do I, you know, start a

(38:51):
website?
How do I get this?
I, I didn't care.
I've ran into people thataren't so local and have helped
them out, like they're, they'rea town or two over that actually
watched the podcast, and I haveno problem when they reach out
and ask me how I got throughsomething or if I had any
experience with something.
I don't have any issues orqualms about answering any

(39:14):
question or being, you know,totally upfront or vulnerable
with anybody.
So, yeah, I love that topic.
That's great.
I think more people need to stopBS and homeowners, the industry
themselves that's great.
I think more people need tostop BS and homeowners, the
industry themselves mostly it'sprobably themselves or
bullshitting themselves in thison on real reality that they
live in and they are tellingeverybody that this shit's easy,

(39:35):
because it's not easy.
There's ebbs and flows.
The longer you end the game,the harder it gets.
More money, more problems, man,there is no doubt about that
and more headaches.
More people get involved, andyou know, keeping that culture
strong, the larger you get, isprobably one of the most
difficult things.
And making sure that thatmessage is still getting and
reaching homeowners, the largerwe get, and that it's not

(39:56):
getting watered down.

Yeah, it gets more complicated.
You hit it on the head, though.
It gets more complicated.
There's a reason that you seenew people come in this industry
that do so well that first yearbecause they don't know
anything, guys.
They don't know how to havethat back-end conversation or
how to put their foot in theirmouth and talk about things that
the homeowner doesn't careabout.
All they know is get on theroof, get the job done and get
out of here.
That's why they're so efficient, and somewhere along the way,

(40:20):
we've lost that too, 10 yearsinto this and we want to talk to
everybody about what couldhappen in three years for them.
Well, you know, just so youknow.
This is coming.
Who cares about that, dude?
Why don't we try to go back toenjoying what we're doing and
having fun and let's take thestress and put it off to the
side?
We know stress is going to bethere.
Life is going to life, nomatter what happens.
But what do you do in themeantime?
That's that's what's important.

Amen to that brother.
It's important.
Amen to that brother, amen,cool, all right, so the podcast.
Back to the podcast.
I love our conversation, by theway.

Well, how has the podcast impacted Romans, so
we're starting to see that now.
Originally and this is where wejust had a recent like epiphany
One of our one of our ownersdid bring up like we need to, we
need to try to get basicallylike an ROI.
How do you do?
How do you turn an ROI?

off of a podcast .

It's very hard.
So what not?
What we're doing now is we'regetting out locally.
We shot a couple of them in alocal bar right down the street
from here.
I got a UFC gym that wants usto come and shoot one.
We got a guy who's doing like abasketball league that's going
to be on our podcast here, andgot a guy who's doing like a
basketball league that's goingto be on our podcast here, and
I've had just a ton of differententrepreneurs that are local

(41:30):
here.
So we're trying to branch outlocally now, but what we're
seeing, though, is thereputation off of it, the
roofing industry for one.
I've been to a couple of eventssince we started this, and I've
been stopped a few times and waslike hey man, you know, I
really like your podcast, reallyfunny.
Yesterday I was just telling myowners this I was at the gas
station with my daughter and Iwas standing there and a guy

(41:51):
walked up from a landscapingcompany and I was like hey man,
I I watch your clips like on onyou, uh, on YouTube, and I'm
like oh, that's crazy.
And he and I don't even have Ihave like 110 followers on
YouTube, not even a lot and he'slike, he's like yeah, he's like
when I'm in my break I justscroll through and he's like I
see it a lot.
He's like I follow you guys andeverything.
I'm like man, that's great,like I just really cool that

(42:11):
that happened.
But it's starting to.
We're starting to get get areputation for it.
I get probably two or threeemails a week now of people that
are like want to be on it.
A lot of them are out of townso they don't understand that.
I don't do virtual right now,but just the fact that we're
starting to gain a reputation.
I get a lot of followers thatwe've been recently.
People scroll through and watchthe videos and stuff and right

(42:34):
now it's the beginning stages.
Man, it's only been 11 monthsfor us.
So we're just going to try tokeep consistently putting out
episodes every Monday and reallyjust driving home the podcast,
promoting it, putting theepisodes out there, making them
easily accessible, and then wedon't really turn down guests.
You know, unless you're, unlessyou really just aren't it.

(42:54):
You know, and there's a coupleof people that just aren't it
for the camera.
Outside of that, I mean, it'sall guns blazing man.
We'd love to have anybody whowants to be on it be on it.

Right on, man.
No, I love that.
I love that it has, you knowand I asked you that question
because it has done a lot forour roofing company as well over
the years but like it didn't,it didn't take off right away,
you know what I mean.
The longer it seemed like that,we did it and we, we too, still
don't have a lot of followerson YouTube, but that doesn't
mean it's not reaching a lot ofpeople.

(43:24):
And unfortunately, you know, toget a million followers that
means, technically, probably 2million people have watched, you
know, at some point in time,one of their video clips,
because most people just don'tsubscribe, so you never know
who's watching.
That's the thing I think I'velearned the most, because I too
have ran into people like at thesupermarket, the grocery store

(43:46):
or just out and about runningerrands, and they'll approach me
and they're like man, I reallylike what you said the other
night and this goes back to.
I do a challenge every now andthen.
It's called the fearless 44.
And these people aren't evenfriends of mine on social media.
They don't even follow me onsocial media, but somehow my
little two minute video showedup on their algorithm and they

(44:10):
listened to what I had to say,and it's like you never know the
impact or who needed to hearthat or who's watching it, and
it's amazing to me the theamount of people that that are
watching that we think aren'twatching.

Oh yeah, yeah, I have a lot of friends that will.
That will say something to meabout it and be like, oh yeah,
they're like that one guy youguys had on the episode.
I'm like, oh oh, somebodylistens.
Okay, somebody's listening.
All right, it sounds good.
And we'll get a comment everyonce in a while where another
roofer will say something andwe'll look them up and there'll
be in Montana or there'll besomebody off in California or
something doing solar andthey're watching the roof trolls

(44:45):
.
I'm like man, this is so cool.
I love stuff like that.
I think it's awesome, even whenpeople come on and they and
they talk shit.
I enjoy that too.
Like I'm a big fan of that aswell, because that means that my
video at least popped up inyour network, so like you saw it
.
So that's great yeah.

I love that For sure, and you will have them.
Unfortunately, the longer youdo this, the more people will
talk shit.
I mean little, do people know?
I always say be careful on whoyou talk shit on or piss off,
because they may just end upbuilding an empire off of that
fuel by you talking shit on them.
You know, and that's true story, man, that's real shit right

(45:22):
there.
So be careful on who you pissoff.
Cool.
So what would you say is one ofthe biggest mistakes that
roofing companies still getwrong today?

Competing against each other.
I would say that's probablynumber one.
Besides training, trainingsucks.
The training has sucked in theroofing industry since I've been
in it.
I can only imagine, due to thetraining that I received when I
got into it, that it suckedbefore I got into it.
And if I can leave my mark atall in the roofing industry, I
hope to gain a reputation thatmy training didn't suck when I
got out of it.
I don't know.

(45:56):
I mean, it still sucks now,even my training.
So I hope that we can increasethat, because that's really bad.
But outside of that, it'scompeting against each other.
Man, we really need to honestlyhone in on working together.
We all have the same commonenemies.
We all get upset whenout-of-town roofers come into
our areas and they do bad, bad,shitty work and they leave the

(46:16):
homeowners unhappy or takeadvantage of them.
We all battle with theinsurance companies.
So why are we stepping on eachother's throats?
That's the part I don'tunderstand.
Why can't we ever just get fouror five of us locally that have
good reputations sit down oncea month with each other, maybe
even brand a couple videostogether and say, hey, we stand
united on the front here inNorthwest Indiana.

(46:37):
We're not going to let out oftown competitors come in here,
or not even competitors out oftown Bad companies come in here
and take advantage of ourhomeowners.
If you guys are looking forquality work, use the four or
five of us.
We stand by.
You know we're residents here.
We make a commitment to thecommunity.
Then you brand those videostogether and then the catch to
it is when you knock on a doorand they're being used by

(46:57):
somebody.
You can't bash them.
You got to say, hey, that's agreat company to use.
I'm glad you're being takencare of.
Is there anybody else in yournetwork that could benefit from
my services?
That's the approach that wetake, and in doing that, you all
will watch your revenue gomassively higher than what it
has been, because you're puttinga stranglehold on your market,
which means that you'reliterally eliminating all your
competitors, and even though thecompany that you were competing

(47:19):
against competing does $20million.
If they go to 25 million, butyou go from 10 to 15, then did
you lose in that situation?
No, so who cares?
If they get better, that'sgreat.
Why don't you pick their brainover the course of the next two
years, while you guys arepartners and find out what's
working for them in the industrythat you work in, in your
market.
Why are they at the successlevel that they are and you're

(47:41):
not?
Why don't you work together andteam up to do that?
I'm not saying share bread youguys can still compete against
each other the right way, butthat's the thing.
Do it the right way.
But once you can take themarket and limit it to three or
four companies, and you guys do,and you brand together and you
contribute to the communitytogether.
Instead of one roof giveaway,you're doing four roof giveaways
.
Instead of one booth at a fair,you got four of them at the

(48:04):
fair and you're giving away aton of free stuff to the people.
Like that's what we need to bedoing.
We need to start thinking ofeach other as allies, as opposed
to opponents, and once thathappens, the customers are going
to have the best experiencepossible, because we're working
together to clean the image ofdoor to door sales.
Because right now we're gettingcompared to used car salesmen
and it's a direct result of theway that we act and the actions

(48:26):
that we do on a day in and dayout basis Stepping on throats,
mentioning other companies inmeetings, honor rewarding.
There's a company locally hereReward sales reps from flipping
contracts.
A company locally here rewardsales reps from flipping
contracts.
That's the most insane thingI've ever heard in my life,
because all you're doing isreiterating to that homeowner
what a piece of shit you are.
That's literally all you did.
They already thought you were ascumbag, and now they know for
sure that all you cared aboutwas that commission.

(48:49):
That's all you had on your mind.
If you want the homeowner to behelped, then you should want
them to be helped.
It's not their fault that theymade it to the door before you
did.
If you cared, you'd have beenout at seven o'clock in the
morning banging doors down, soyou could assure that that went
to you instead of them.
So be so.
Be mindful of that, and theonly competition we really have
is ourselves.
It's cliche, but it's the truth.
Look in the mirror.

(49:09):
That's who you compete against.
As long as you keep thatmindset, you'll be fine.

Yeah, no, I agree, I a hundred percent agree
that you know and you'll evensee other companies talk shit
about other companies on social.
You know, like, like on a reallike, they'll be up on a roof
nitpicking somebody else's work,and this is the way that I see
it.
I've been in the industry longenough to know that there's good
days, bad days, and you neverknow what that individual was
going through the day that theymay have like flashed that

(49:35):
chimney, that his wife couldhave left him, His children
could have died, like, whateverthe case might be.
So anytime that we go out on aninspection and all of our team
knows this like we are not goingto get off that roof and get
down there and be like who thehell did you have do your roof?
Because he was an idiot.
You know, first and foremost,you nailed it you look like the
idiot by bashing somebody else.
Nobody actually wants to do workwith a snake.

(49:56):
So you're coming in here,you're going to talk trash.
Nobody wants to be a part oflike that conflict or that
confrontation.
Do you know what I mean?
Honestly, at the end of the day, they want to go with an
ethical person that'll come downand I've been put on the spot
already with homeowners whereit's like they're drilling me,
Like did they do it right or didthey not do it right?
And it's kind of like you know,there's multiple ways of doing
this thing, so I can'tnecessarily say that they did it

(50:18):
wrong, but it's not necessarilythe way that I think I would do
it Right.
There's a way to speak to ahomeowner about other
contractors work or how theyoperate, you know, because your
actions speak louder than words.
So if I'm sitting here justrunning my mouth right now, none
of that really matters.
It's my performance and I kindof talked about this a little

(50:38):
bit last night.
It's kind of like, you know, byme saying I'm going to lose
weight doesn't mean I'm going tolose weight.
I have to put the action inright.
I have to go to the gym, I haveto lift the dumbbells up.
The dumbbells will not lift upfor me, the book will not open
up and read itself for me.
I have to read the book If Iwant to be educated.
It's no different than I cansay I'm the greatest, I'm the

(51:01):
cheapest, I'm whatever out there, but if I'm not cashing that,
check that my ass just wrotewords are shallow or hollow and
they're falling on deaf ears.

I agree, I agree a hundred percent.
And and also with the shot heworked to, you know, you don't
know what the homeowner said youknow, I've been out there a
million times and a homeowner islike, hey, I can't afford that
way.
Is there anything else you cando?
And then you know you, youprovide them with something.
You tell them hey, I don'trecommend you do this, but this
is how you can save a couplehundred bucks and it'll stop the
league.
You're going to have to comeback and do this later.

(51:34):
And they go okay, that's, thatfits my budget.
And then the next guy comes andhe's like, oh, look at that,
they should have never done this.
I don't know why they did this.
You know, you don't know.
Like you said, you don't knowwhat they were going through,
what was set up or anything likethat.
Plus, it's not really yourbusiness to do that.
Anyway, that's not what you'reout there for now.
Ask, because we need to stopthat in our industry.

(51:54):
But, uh, the repairs thing,yeah, I agree with you and we.
We see it all the time peoplegetting ripped up, uh, with no
defense to themselves, likethat's why I try to stay out of
those forums too.
In facebook, I'll occasionallygo in there and I'll ask about a
crm or I'll ask something likethat.
But what with the whole?
Is this hail damage or how?
How much do we pay your reps?
And all that stuff.
All it does is infuriate mewhen I read the comments coming

(52:17):
in because it's so, so wrong andit's the same thing even out
here.
Someone will put up a post andthey'll say does anybody have an
opinion of Roman's roofing?
They came by my house and I'mthinking about using them.
All it is is a bunch ofcomments about oh, don't use
them, use us, use this company,or they'll start putting their
business on.
They're like bro, that's notwhat they asked.
They asked if anybody had anexperience with us.

(52:37):
You know our 4.9 Google rating.
Did anybody have an experience?
You know that's what they'reasking not to use you, you know,
but a lot of companies, that'sall they care about.
It's commission, commission,commission and eventually you're
going to get exposed.
You really are Like eventuallysomeone's going to stop and be
like dude.
Isn't it weird that every postthat guy attacks the companies?
Like isn't it weird that he'ssitting with a 3.9 Google rating

(53:01):
but he's telling you about howshoddy everybody else's work is?
Like eventually, that catchesup to you guys.
Like it just does.

Isn't that the truth?
No shit, no.
Good stuff, good stuff.
Okay, so we're cut.
We're getting down to our onehour mark here.
So what what's?
I got a couple more questionsfor you, so what's?
What's next for you?
Any big projects coming up atRomans Roofing, or your next big
moves with the Roof Trolls?

So so, both Okay.
So so, coming up for RomansRoofing is the possibility of
expansion to Michigan.
We've been pretty open aboutthat.
I don't know that it's going tohappen right away, but we're
within the next calendar year itis happening.
Uh, we will expand to themichigan area because we're
we're in a blessed part of themarket.
So, northwest indiana I'm onlya half hour outside of

(53:46):
chicagoland and I'm a half hour45 minutes away from michigan.
So, uh, I have.
I have the aurora illinoisoffice now that we all have
together, and then the hobertindiana office, so then we're
going to hopefully branch out toMichigan, which will put us
across the Midwest.
The big moves for the RoofTrolls is that we are hoping to
eventually have a mascot, andthen my goal is to start

(54:09):
attending events.
I'd like to.
I'd like to set up a booth,like Eric does, like you guys do
.
I'd like to be at IRE.
I'd like to be at Door-to-DoorCon.
I'd like to be at some of theseother bigger events going on
Roof Con or whatever, so I couldsit down with some guests that
I don't have access to all thetime.
Becca Switzer is one of the onesI'd really love to have on here

(54:30):
.
Eric I would love to have onhere.
I think me and him would meshreally well together actually.
But yeah, I would like to get alot of people on here and I
think that setting up in anevent would be very, very big.
And then for myself, it's justcontinuing to grow.
Continuing to speak, I'm very,very thankful for the
opportunity Jay Bradley put infront of me to be able to help

(54:53):
out with Roof Camp and him andReggie Brock doing amazing
things, and then Deshaun to takehis time out to help me work on
my speeching and stuff likethat, and that's something he's
doing free of charge.
Guys off on the side uh,deshaun is just man about as
real as they get in thisindustry.

Uh, so great heart on that guy yeah, no, I
agree, I agree, man, that thatyeah good, good stuff, man, a
mascot, okay, I'm I'm excited tosee what that's going to be.

Yeah, jeff's idea actually, but I like it.

Cool, cool.
No, that's good.
That's good stuff, man.
And and you know, good luck on,uh, you know I, I wish you well
on the expansion and stuff.
I know that stuff's not easy.

(55:44):
You know hours, you know andand making sure you have the
right team around you to toperform at that high level and
that way the standards don't getlowered.
You know, the bigger you get.
That's probably my biggest, ourbiggest struggle moving forward
.
So if there's anything we cando to help you, you know what
like in terms of like, what'sthe easiest way that somebody
could follow you, connect withyou or learn more about you know

(56:06):
what it is that you're doing.
What would you say?

You could follow Roman's roofings page.
It's very fun.
We try to create fun content,educational content.
You can also add me on Facebook.
I'll be glad to add somebody.
Pick through the videos andstuff Again.
I've only been posting now onsocial media for about a year
straight, so I'm still gettingmy feet wet too.
You could also find the RoofTrolls on Facebook or Instagram.

(56:31):
On the Instagram page for theRoof Trolls, that's with a Z at
the end of it.
We just do a lot of clips.
That's all it is on Instagram.
Facebook is more like a littlebit more in depth, but a lot of
clips too.
And then you could follow usanywhere podcasts are played we
also.
You can watch our episodes onYouTube as well.

Awesome Good stuff, and Vic will go ahead and
post a link or two in thecomments.
So if anybody that's watchingor catch us on the replay, make
sure you check out the commentsto catch his links.
Is there any final piece of?

advice you'd give to a roofer just starting out
Don't forget to have fun, man.
Get out there, put your storyout there, make sure that you
take marketing very seriously.
And then the best advice for anew roofing company or for
someone getting into thisunderstand that you are your own
entity too outside of yourcompany.
So there is a differencebetween marketing and branding.

(57:25):
Marketing is what you tellpeople you are.
Branding is what they say whenyou're not around.
You are your brand.
Whatever people say about you,that's who you are, and it's up
to you to clean that image or tocontinue to make it as strong
as what it is, Whatever way yousway on it, right now you are
and it's up to you to clean thatimage or to continue to make it
as strong as what it is,whatever.
Whatever way you sway on itright now, you can save it or
you can continue to go down theroad where it's at right now,

(57:47):
but inevitably, that's on you100% to do that.

Amen, amen, way to way to way to complete that.
Yeah, always, continuously workon yourself, and I agree with
the marketing and the brandpiece of that.
So thank you for that advice.
And if I agree with themarketing and the brand piece of
that, so thank you for thatadvice.
And if anybody wants to learnmore or find out, you know, or
have any questions, please checkus out at
wwwbeyondthetoolbeltcom ortcbackercom any of those or my

(58:10):
personal page.
And, elijah, thank you so muchfor coming on the show.
We appreciate you carving outtime.
I know you're a busy dude andif there's anything that we can
do to give you a hand, you haveany questions, please feel free
to reach out to us.

Right on, man.
I appreciate it and thank youguys for having me.
I've been watching it for awhile and I'm so pumped to have
been on it, so thank you.

Thank you so much.
Till next week, we'll see you.
Guys, and take care of yourselfand stay dry or stay cool,
wherever you're at in the world.
We'll see you next week.

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