February 18, 2025 • 36 mins
What if you could transform your roofing business into a powerhouse of efficiency and customer satisfaction? Join us as we welcome John Deloria, co-founder of ProLine, to explore this possibility. John's journey from mission trips to becoming an industry innovator is filled with lessons on integrity, work-life balance, and the art of building a business that's both process-driven and profitable. His unique perspective, shaped by a background in landscape architecture, brings fresh insights into the critical role of robust processes in achieving business success.
Unlock the secrets to enhancing customer experience with CRM systems specifically designed for the roofing and HVAC industries. John's expertise shines through as he explains how ProLine, a CRM tailored for roofing, automates communication and streamlines follow-ups, ensuring no lead is overlooked. Discover the common pitfalls businesses face when underutilizing CRM tools and learn how to fully harness these resources to elevate your customer interactions and business efficiency. This episode is a goldmine of strategies to simplify and modernize your business practices to meet today's market demands.
Dive into the customer journey in the roofing industry and learn how to balance customer needs with team management to optimize service delivery. John shares his expertise on creating a seamless experience for customers by simplifying processes and setting clear expectations. We also highlight the importance of partnerships like ProLine and Lemon Seed Marketing in supporting businesses beyond just selling software. With John's guidance, learn how to leverage branding and media strategies to enhance customer acquisition and engagement. Tune in for an episode packed with valuable insights and actionable strategies for innovation and growth in the roofing industry.
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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
Today, I'm joined by someonenew, new to me.
I got to meet him a couple ofmonths ago, not even in person
yet, but Zoom meetings count.
Today, I'm excited to be joinedby John Deloria.
He's the co-founder of ProLineas of today, a former roofing
(00:30):
company owner.
We're celebrating with himtoday that, with over 11 years
of experience in theconstruction and roofing
industry, john has built areputation for innovation and
expertise.
You're going to want to listen.
You're going to want to jump in, so let's sip some lemonade.
Perfect.
Well, John, welcome to thevirtual lemonade stand.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Crystal, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Absolutely so.
I'm honored to have you.
I met you through.
I work with a local roofingcompany to me called Eminem
Roofing and she's been tellingme, like you've got to meet this
guy, john.
John does great things and so Igot to meet you in person.
We did a podcast together ornot in person, but we did that
podcast together and I did learnlike we kind of live the same
life and so it's been greatgetting to kind of know you and
(01:15):
your company.
But I say this all the time whyshould anyone care about what
you have to say today on thispodcast?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I don't know.
I've made a lot of mistakes.
Hopefully, hopefully, I canhelp someone avoid the mistakes
that I've made, but, as of lastnight, we did sell our roofing
business, so hopefully that'syour goal in mind.
It wasn't my goal from the verybeginning, but I think that
everyone should build theirbusiness that's possible to sell
(01:45):
, and I think, if you want toavoid mistakes and you want to
build your business, that itruns without you and that you
can actually sell, that'sprobably what a lot of what
we're going to be talking abouttoday is a lot of those types of
things of creating the lifethat you want for your business
and your personal life andeverything that the work life
(02:07):
balance is definitely a big partof of who I am.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, and listen, that is speaking to so many
people right now.
So you know, you do have thosediehard people.
They're like I don't reallywant to sell my business, I'm
not here to do that, you know.
And so like, even though youmay not ever sell it, build it
like you're going to.
Because I run into contractorsvery consistently that, just
because they don't have thatfive-year plan or whatever in
their mind, they tend to be laxon processes and things like
(02:34):
that.
That really do affect them whenit comes times for
profitability and things likethat.
So I think we should alwayskeep our eye on the ball of.
You know, if I wanted to sell,I'd dang near and I could.
I'm just choosing not to at themoment.
So I love that.
Well, you also have a littlebit of a unique career path,
right?
You came from, if I understandthis right like landscaping,
(02:55):
architecture type stuff into theroofing company.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour roofing company and like
how you got there.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Sure.
So I started roofing on amission trip when I was 13 years
old.
We were carrying shingles on aroof and child labor was there
and we were doing it, we werehand driving and then.
So throughout my middle schooland high school years, I was I
would get hired to, you know puta roof on somebody's barn or
(03:22):
somebody's rental house orsomething like that, and then I
worked for a couple of roofingcompanies as well.
I did go to University ofGeorgia.
The whole time I was there,though, I kept my landscape
maintenance company, so I had amaintenance company.
I also had two other jobs.
I just never stopped workingwhile I was at university, and
(03:45):
landscape architecture was justwhat I thought I wanted to do,
because it's design.
We're doing the maintenance.
We should learn the design aswell.
In hindsight, I think that Ishould have just kept chewing on
that entrepreneurial thought,because I probably would have
been a lot further along in mycareer if I had not gone to
(04:08):
university, but it was all partof the journey.
I learned a lot of things that Ineed to learn for business, and
I was an insurance agent for acouple different companies.
Like I said, I owned alandscape company, and so, at
the end of the day, um, I knew Iwanted to help people and I
didn't know what that lookedlike, and I saw roofing as an
(04:29):
opportunity to help people andmake a living at the same time
and I don't know where you knowfor the rest of the country, but
, uh, there's a lot of badplayers in the roofing space.
So I saw an opportunity to bethat that true voice of honesty
and integrity in my market.
I'm from Athens, georgia, andthere was a couple of good
(04:52):
companies and I worked for oneof them, but, by and large, most
of the homeowners were notbeing treated well, and so I
wanted to change that.
I wanted to change the waypeople viewed home services and
roofing specifically, and that'sreally where my passion comes
(05:12):
and my journey really startedand is today.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, good, well, okay.
So I love a good story, so Ilove a good mission trip story,
so I'm here for that.
A couple of key things that Ipicked up on is I don't know a
good mission trip story, so I'mhere for that.
A couple of key things that Ipicked up on is you know, we can
all, there's always these badyou know bad let's call it
owners, because it's not evenbad companies.
There's like bad leadershipsomewhere that's encouraging
companies you know to not to belike so sales driven that
(05:37):
they're forgetting to likeprovide the quality service up
front and then the dollars willcome, if you will.
So, especially when you've seenthis big pe push in a lot of
our industries, you know rightnow it's all about that bottom
daughter on a certain bottomdollar.
So they're starting to likeskimp out on the little fine
things and the little extrasteps that make the company good
, wholesome and honest.
(05:58):
And I see it a lot and I see itfrom the smaller companies that
are in these pe inundated areas, whether it's roofing, pest
control, hvac, plumbers.
They're in these markets wherePE is just dominating and one of
the things I want to tell themis man, just lean hard into the
brand messaging that you areloyal, dependable, honest and
(06:18):
just take extra steps because PEcan't do it.
They're not that nimble,they're not that quick and so
it's an easy thing for them tobe able to do.
Well, I know speaking of likeefficiencies and processes and
like how you got not efficiencyand processes but more how you
leaned into being more efficienton this roofing side and doing
cool things.
You also launched ProLine, whichor helped launch ProLine, which
(06:42):
is the CRM on the roofing side,which is another way I got
introduced to you.
But, um, you know I'm a bigadvocate of having a really
healthy CRM.
Good content in helps you putgood content out and in
marketing.
You know it's all about dataand how much you can trust your
data.
It's in your CRM.
Um, because I think thatroofing, especially that
(07:03):
industry especially, is kind ofbehind the curve a little bit.
Um, that's in your CRM BecauseI think that roofing, especially
that industry especially, iskind of behind the curve a
little bit.
So HVAC companies are likemining that existing database,
like there's no tomorrow.
But the more roofers that Iinteract with I'm like man,
we're really not going backafter like following up on leads
, and a lot of it stems from nothaving a good CRM.
So tell me, like how'd you getinto that?
(07:23):
Have you just fell into that,or what?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah.
So it kind of goes back to mydesire to help the homeowners.
So I realized that and goingback to selling your roofing
business or your business ingeneral, or not.
So if you build a business thathas all these processes in
place and you have a good CRM,yes, it's sellable, but what is
also happening at the same timeis that your customer base is
(07:49):
benefiting from a betterexperience.
So I cared about my homeownersand I wanted to communicate
better.
So we were using a major roofingspecific CRM for almost five
years and there's just a lot ofdefic know, deficiencies, things
that they just weren't doing,and it was all surrounded
communication, really, um.
(08:09):
And so I just knew that Iwasn't capturing the leads on
whatever lead source it was thewebsite form, whatever.
I needed an automated text andemail to go to a homeowner if
they reached out on our website.
We were getting through thesales process.
There's all kinds of thingsthat ProLine does between the
initial appointment and theproposal itself.
(08:31):
Then we'd get to the proposaland then I would have too many
of them out there and I wasn'table to follow up with everyone
efficiently.
So ProLine does that too.
I'm calling from my phone, I'mtexting for my phone and it's a
Proline phone number, and thenthe automations also help me
(08:52):
keep that communication, sowe're top of mind.
So, again, I'm thinking as aroofing business owner.
I want my customers, myhomeowners, to have a better
experience.
Obviously, we want to make moresales, but over and over and
over for the past three and ahalf years I've been through all
.
I've been the guinea pig.
My roofing business has beenthe guinea pig for how Proline
(09:14):
has been built, yeah, and so wegot to test all these things to
make sure that we're actuallyusing automations well and we're
being respectful, but we'realso being effective and we want
to sell more roofs, right,whatever services that we offer.
And then, finally, we all knowGoogle reviews, or just reviews
(09:35):
in general, are super important.
So I wanted another way.
Proline does that directly fromthe proline phone number that
I've been calling and textingalso sends a review request.
It's not a company number thatcomes through that.
They don't understand who thatis.
It's John.
It's the sales rep they've beentalking to the whole time.
Hey, you had a five-starexperience.
Click the link.
(09:56):
We'd love to hear your feedback.
So that's ProLine in a nutshell.
There's a whole lot more, butit's all surrounded by the fact
that I want to help contractors,yes, but I want to empower
contractors to give theirhomeowners a better experience
and actually do the things thatthey say they're going to do,
(10:16):
which is communicate from thevery beginning all the way to
the very end.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, and let me tell you, look.
So there's nothing moreimpactful to your marketing than
having the ability to setthings up in an automated way
and thinking about with thecustomer in mind.
So let me see, I say you knowyou need to lead brand forward,
so how do you want your customerexperience to be with your
company?
And so you want there to beease, you want there to be
(10:43):
comfort, you want there to be noway that they get lost in the
process, and so when you havethose automation tools and you
have those good CRMs on yourside, it just makes that.
It makes it easier for peopleto do business.
I have to tell people all thetime it is so hard to do
business with you.
It has been made like just theway their processes are set up
or whatever, and then also likedon't forget that people are
(11:05):
busy.
So when people are busy, whathappens is they don't.
Who did I call?
What did they say?
Was I supposed to signsomething?
And so those text automationsand things like that really are
impactful to helping close thatloop of the customer interaction
and the customer journey withall those pieces, and so it
really has been a learning spinfor me just more and more.
(11:31):
I've worked in this industry tounderstand the importance of a
good, you know, customerrelationship management software
.
I mean.
So what do you think some ofthe mistakes are that people
make.
Like now you've got tons ofpeople on ProLine, what do you
think?
Do you think they're not maybeusing it to its full
capabilities?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What do you think is hindering people from really
utilizing their resources there?
So, in general, it doesn'treally have to be ProLine, but
any software.
There's no silver bullet.
People know of CompanyCamthroughout the industries.
It's a really great tool, butif you don't use it, it doesn't
really help you or doesn't helpthe customer.
Same with ProLine or any otherCRM.
If you think that you're goingto buy something and pay for a
(12:16):
subscription and it's going tosolve your problems, it's just
not true.
This is the foundation.
It should be the foundation forhow your team operates and
communicates and it should bethe tool and the platform how
your company communicates topotential homeowners or existing
customers in general, and youneed to have that mindset that
(12:41):
it should help your company andit should help your customers,
whatever tool it is.
So you need to invest timelearning about that system.
We make it really easy atProLine.
If you go through our processand you have committed to doing
this for two or three weeks andyour whole team is on.
We do three differentonboarding calls.
(13:02):
We offer third parties to helpcustomize your ProLine.
This is with any CRM.
You need to invest in thisplatform, whatever it is, and if
you do that and you get pastthe first month and your team
has adopted it.
It will help your team and itwill help your customers.
As long as you put the effortin, you put the effort in.
(13:23):
We don't really have anyoneleave ProLine if they do that
for the first 30 days, becausethey've invested their time,
effort, energy in making surethat their company runs well,
their team is communicated withand their customer base has a
way better experience.
It was one of my favorite thingsin the world when a new
(13:44):
customer and I don't I'm not onthe sales team at ProLine, but a
lot of contractors know who Iam and they'll message me.
And they'll.
It'll be like a week after theysigned up and I had no idea,
but they'll send me a message oflike this is amazing, my
customers and it'll be like ascreenshot of a signed contract
and the customer's super happy.
Or or maybe it's a couple weeksdown the road and there's a
(14:04):
five-star review and like Ican't get reviews and now I can.
That's what drives me to spreadthe ProLine love, because I
believe in what we're doing andit's actually helping
contractors and homeowners allat the same time.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I'm going to tell you too again, I see it so
much.
Well, I'm going to tell you too, again, I see it so much to
(14:52):
where they blame the CRM.
The contractors blame the CRM.
So that's why, like sometimes,I'll be like, hey, contractor,
you ain't yet like you are.
You need to hire a facilitatoror you need to point someone on
your company to become the crmliaison, because we need to work
hard to have um connectionswith our team and the software
itself.
So how do we make the most outof this software system and not
overwhelm people, all whileprotecting our customer's
(15:14):
journey and our brandexpectations that we have?
So you know, we want everyone'sjourney through that to be good
and again to tie that back tomarketing like garbage, garbage
out.
We need to be able to makedecisions on whether we keep or
whether we stop, pause, keep,push more money into different
advertising tactics, and to dothat, we've got to have
(15:36):
visibility into what arecustomers responding to, when
are they responding to it?
Are they engaging with things?
And so you really need, I mean,one of the things that limits
it.
We can't even take you ifyou're not on a crm.
And a crm is not quickbooks,right, like that's not a crm
right.
People say, well, I'll justkeep it in google calendar,
absolutely not because you'resitting on a gold mine right of
(16:01):
of so much.
And then I don't care how goodof a salesman you are, you're
not closing every deal.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so there's all these people If you are closing,
if you have a, basically in theroofing space, it's between 33,
so one out of three or maybe inthe 45% close rate.
So you're not quite selling oneout of two.
If you're selling more thanthat, then your prices are too
low and then your profitabilityis not where it should be for
(16:29):
your market.
So I totally agree you need tounderstand all those numbers in
your CRM and then you need to behonest.
They need to be like real.
Oh, my close rates X.
Well, is it?
Where's the data that backsthat up?
Like how how many leads haveyou gone through this month and
how many sales have you made?
I couldn't agree more.
(16:49):
Knowing your numbers is a hugepart of what any good CRM should
be doing for you.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yes, for sure.
I think that we haveexpectations that people cannot
hit, and when I say that, it'snot that they can't do it for
any other reason other than justlack of trying.
So, you know, I lean into a lotof that a lot of times.
There's so much content thereof like how you have to do this,
(17:20):
so it sounds like ProLine's areally like a game changer.
So, you know, I think it's agreat way for roofing companies
to really get in line with a CRMthat truly comes from the
trades itself, like you guyscome from it, so you know what's
needed, and so I think that's agreat place for us to.
When you focus on solving likereal solutions, you really can
(17:40):
create tools that empower peopleto thrive, and so it's an
experience that I think peopleall need to go through.
And so tell me a little bitabout Roofvana.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so Roofvana.
It evolved.
It had many names.
For the most of its life it wasDeloria Roofing.
That's hard to say, it's hardto spell.
I genuinely believe that whatyou guys do, understanding the,
the holistic approach to homeservices is the way that
(18:15):
marketing companies shouldoperate, not just the marketing
piece, and so I've told manypeople that, that you guys
actually are different than whatI've seen for most marketing
companies.
There's's some good ones outthere, but for the most part
they're just focused onmarketing, and if you don't
understand the sales part, ifyou're not in somebody's CRM,
you can't actually give goodrecommendations for the
(18:38):
marketing piece.
So, in general, kudos to youguys for that, because that's a
huge, huge, huge accomplishmentto get people to understand hey,
this is what's important, it'snot just the marketing piece.
I want to be on your team.
I think that's.
Again, I didn't answer yourquestion, but that's what the
(19:00):
tangent I just went on.
I really think that that'simportant is that you need to
understand the whole part of thebusiness to be able to market
correctly well.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
so you know, let me see, like you're saying.
Thank you so much, number oneum, let me see was built on the
fact that I'm not a digitalagency, I'm not a mass media
direct mail agency, like.
My job is to be like afractional chief marketing
officer for people that are like, hey, I'm tired of not knowing
what's going on like, help mebuild my brand.
We want to help you build yourbrand.
I'm not trying to make theseother vendors rich.
(19:33):
I I want to help you grow yourcompany.
And Ruth Vana, to speak onbranding a little bit there, the
company that I have some partin is Eminem Roofing, based in
Lufkin, texas.
Emily May, so my partner atLemon Seeds also names Emily,
and then my partner at EminemRoofing her name's Emily.
So all the Emmys in my life arevery, though, entrepreneurially
(19:56):
driven and they think outsidethe box and they want to be
successful in their own right.
Like my Emily on the lemon seedside, she's a fantastic graphic
designer, she's passionateabout it and about branding
these home service companies,and so she played a really big
part in our vision for the RufusArmadillo mascot that we
created for Emily, for EminemRoofing, and you know it.
(20:19):
Really I feel like it launchedher business.
She just flew right into themix with these companies that
had been around a long time andwe just expedited her brand
awareness of it.
She had to buy in.
She had to agree to jump inwith both feet on not being
scared Homegirl's not scared ofanything.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
No, emily's made it.
She's very, very, very smart,very, like you said, innovative
and already just ready to go allthe way in.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, by the time she's told me about it, I'm
already two days behind, so I'mtrying to keep up with her.
But I'm telling you and I justgot off of a call before this
podcast where I had this companythat was really debating
rebranding their company, and Isaid, listen, I'm not lying to
you here that I think it's notan investment.
It's definitely an investment,but I think you're going to look
up in five years from now andbe like dang, I should have done
(21:08):
this five years ago.
And so, trust me, I'm going totell you 80% of people, if you
started your company and somerandom graphic designer made you
a logo and you're calling thatyour brand, you don't have a
brand.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
We need to help you create a brand, and so you know
I can get really passionateabout that.
I love it, though.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I love it because that's a mistake podcast to talk
about my mistakes.
That would be one of thebiggest mistakes that I made is
not focusing so much on my brand, not just the logo, so many
parts of the brand.
I mean.
We developed a greatrelationship with all of our
customers and they wrote a bunchof reviews for us.
That was good.
We had a good reputation, butnothing about our logo and our
name was memorable.
It was not unique.
It was the same color palette.
It was part of the in theroofing space called the
triangle club, so it had somesome home roof on on the logo
(22:03):
somewhere, roof line yeah so, soliterally people would say for
years, oh who are you again?
and that's, that's not what youwant.
You want to work with somebodywho understands.
I mean, Rufus is great.
You take Eminem Roofing youcould take Eminem Roofing that
name and put it in a millionother states.
(22:24):
But if you have Rufus on top ofthat, along with the color
palette and the way that Emilyis actually marketing that to
that market, it's so muchdifferent.
It is phenomenal because she'sbeen in my mastermind for
probably a year now and I'vewatched it grow and it's just
like you're doing what now?
(22:44):
You're doing what now and it'sall.
Because, again, your brand andyour marketing is not a silver
bullet, but it should be a goodfoundation for how you want to
communicate to your potentialcustomer base and you need to be
unique and memorable andprobably have a mascot.
We haven't really touched onthis that much, but all of our
(23:09):
potential customers, our idealcustomers, they have a much
higher expectation for theirhome services.
Now it can be.
HVAC it can be anything atanything at all.
Roofing doesn't matter.
They're expecting automations.
They're expecting an amazingbrand.
They're expecting wrappedtrucks.
They're expecting polo shirtsand super professional people.
(23:31):
They're expecting all thosethings, and if you don't think
that they are, you're going toget left.
It won't take that long.
In the next three to five yearsyou won't be around or you
won't be as profitable as youcould be.
You really need to understandthat.
If you're banging your headagainst the wall on maybe a
sales close rate or maybeaccounts receivable reviews, all
(23:54):
those things, it's because youhaven't stepped up to the plate
with the expectations thathomeowners really have for the
home services that you offer1000% and this goes without
saying.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Like you know, things are going to pop into your head
.
But you know, we all know thosecompanies that I mean I'm in my
forties, so I mean when I wasgrowing up, there were tons of
companies around that are notaround now because they failed
to innovate, because they dugtheir heels in that.
You know, I've been this way.
And word of mouth and, andlisten, if you're saying things
like word of mouth is all I needand all my business is from
(24:28):
referral it is.
But look how it could be.
But look how good your businesscould be If you actually worked
on new customer acquisition.
You actually worked on newcustomer acquisition.
If you actually built a brand,that's great.
What got you here won't get youthere.
So eventually you're going tohit a brick wall where you've
used everybody that knows youand now you've got to move past
that to really grow your company.
And so when you think back tothose of us, to our younger
(24:50):
years, there were tons ofcompanies that just failed to
innovate.
They failed to think likepeople don't want to deal with
paper invoices, people don'twant to have to just call you.
I have two opinions.
I think people want the ease ofbooking online, but if I have
an issue, I need to be able tocall Sure, and so I think that
that's a healthy way to look atthings like can I book online
(25:10):
from your website?
Is there a direct link fromyour social media channels?
Do I know who you are by justinteracting with your brand
throughout the day?
And so much, so many people onthe marketing funnel.
They focus on the very tip ofthe funnel, the very bottom,
where there's the least amountof people.
All the meanwhile, at the top,there's all this opportunity to
just be making waves with thesepeople so that when they do need
(25:33):
your service, you are top ofmind to them.
But if you never stay up there,if you never venture to the top
of the funnel, then when peopleto the bottom all those people
that worked hard at the topthey're going to be who gets
chosen.
And it's just hard to tellpeople those things, because you
got to innovate, you got tochange what you've done for 20
years a lot of times, or atleast modernize it.
(25:57):
And it can be daunting a littlebit, but you eat a cookie and
an elephant the same way, onebite at a time.
So just start making simplechanges to your business that
make you more innovative, makeyou more modern, and it really
does change everything.
I was talking to a roofing plantthe other day and he said yeah,
he said well, I hardly evenhave to go out to the home
anymore.
I can just pull it up on Google, look at the layout of the roof
(26:18):
, look at the square footage andbe able to give a quote pretty
instantly.
And he said I have gained somany new, I have closed so many
more deals because I can do that.
Well, of course, I can hear allthe naysayers in the background
like what if you missedsomething?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
And at the end of the day, I'mlike so he might cost himself a
little bit of money here andthere, but it's probably
negligible in the amount ofpeople, just like the quickness
(26:42):
People like the immediacy.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So since 2019, our business was selling online and
we had a lot of naysayers Likehow are you doing this?
And we had all differentmeasurement tools.
We had proposal tools andthings like that.
To your point, there'snaysayers of oh you can miss.
In roofing, there's two thingsreally Multiple layers of
(27:05):
shingles and then rotten decking.
So those are two change ordersthat we commonly have.
Well, if you put that in yourcontract again, we just sold the
business, but more than fiveyears, homeowners never
complained that we had a changeorder because of those two
things.
It was very clear.
(27:26):
We verbalized it and we had itin writing in multiple places.
These are two ways it changes.
This is the price per squarefoot If this happens.
This is the price per squarefoot If you just communicate.
Again to your point they wantthe simplicity.
We sold so many roofs that way.
We had some of the best.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
They want the simplicity and they want the
immediacy.
They're already pissed off.
Okay, listen, no one wakes upand goes.
You know what I want to spendmoney on today?
A new roof.
People want to go on a cruise.
They want to buy a car.
They want to go on a vacation.
They do not want to buy a newcondenser, a new water heater,
they really don't want at leastlandscaping.
(28:05):
Y'all can look pretty.
Test control.
Nobody's excited to spend moneyon termite abatement, right?
So no, no, we do not get thatluxury.
But what they do appreciate isthe speed and accuracy and
setting the expectations.
Clearly, that all goes back tothat customer journey that we
talked about earlier.
Setting expectations.
I see people all the time theybuild a whole process around one
(28:28):
outlier, so the one person outof the 50 things that happen.
You cannot build your lifearound the one person that's
going to complain or find aloophole that cuts your losses
and move on from thosecomplainers.
But definitely for sure, likeman, don't skip out on good
stuff and selling stuff becauseyou get so down in the weeds.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yep, and I love what you said about making it easy.
So if they want to call you,fine, they should be able to
call you.
Set up an appointment, but youshould, I talk.
I call them mental hurdles.
So you want to.
You want to take all thesehurdles that people have to jump
through to get to your serviceor to and I complain about this
a lot about payment.
Make it easy for people to payyou too.
(29:10):
But as far as the first part ofthe process, the sales process,
the getting to know you part ofthe process, take away all
those barriers.
The mental hurdles need to goaway so people can just stroll
on in.
They get the services that theyneed.
Probably don't want, but theyneed those services.
They want them as soon aspossible.
They want it to be easy, clear.
There's excellent communication.
(29:32):
You need to do that.
Your website is a good place tostart with that.
It doesn't have to be just yourwebsite, but you need to make
it easy for homeowners to notjust find you and be top of that
funnel, like you said, but also, once they find you and they
know who you are, it's supereasy and just a phenomenal
(29:52):
experience when they want tomove forward with some services
just a phenomenal experiencewhen they want to move forward
with some services.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well, I'm telling you , this is what gets right in my
headspace here, because limitingspends a lot of time of helping
people understand the fullimpact of the customer journey
and when you're not in it andwhen you don't care about it and
you're only focused on one orthe other.
So some people can lean hardthe other way, like they don't,
they forget about their team andthey lean real heavy on the
customer and then vice versa.
But one of the best things Ihad was this guy was like man,
we're just not getting any leadsand I was like, well, I can see
(30:25):
leads coming in and I said hegoes well, yeah, they're coming
in between 11 and me to do aboutmy team not having lunch.
I thought can they do it inshifts, can we?
yeah, that's an easy one but tohim he was like he was just
(30:46):
bum-fuzzled over the idea thatwhy would anyone think they
would answer the phone?
And I was like sir, no onetakes two hour lunches even if
it's 30 minutes.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I mean you.
If you get down to the, wewon't.
There's a whole nother podcastabout acquisition costs, but it
costs a lot of money for you toacquire a customer.
If you don't think that's true,you're not doing your numbers
correctly.
So just a real easy thing Ilove the going to lunch and
shifts.
Just pay 250 bucks $300 a monthto have an answering service.
(31:21):
We use Ruby Receptionist.
They were amazing.
They know your company's name.
They know how to scheduleappointments.
It's going to be anotherextension of your team and if
you don't want to send yourstaff in shifts and they want to
all go eat together, fine,forward it to Ruby.
They answer the phone.
It's super affordable and yourcustomer still has a good
(31:42):
experience reaching out to yourcompany.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, yes, ruby, receptionist is a great one.
Again, it's about not buildingprocesses around, outlying
things, but really get focusedon those things.
Well, john, this is the lastquestion that I ask everybody
else.
You know, you've been here,you've been in the boat where
many contractors, many listenersare.
What is the one thing that youwould tell somebody that's a
brand new owner just starting toget going?
(32:05):
What is the one thing likemaybe you wish you would have
done different, or just a goodpiece of advice.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Oh, there's so many.
I just did five.
The other most people thatstart businesses like this are
kind of forced into it.
I was one of those people.
So I you know old employer owedme money.
I had to do something toprovide for my family.
Even if that happens and you'reforced into it or you, you it's
(32:34):
not part of your life plan.
You really need to think aboutbrand.
I go back to that again of youneed to be unique.
You need to be different.
You do not need to think aboutbrand.
I go back to that again of youneed to be unique.
You need to be different.
You do not need to be I mean,in our markets, blue and white
or red and black.
You've got to be different.
You also have to not think foryourself.
(32:56):
Don't think about yourself as acustomer.
Think about your ideal customer.
Oh yes, If you're just startingout, you probably don't have
the million dollar house.
Whatever your ideal customerlooks like, you need to base
your entire brand on that marketand your ideal customer for
that market, because that'swhere the 80-20 rule really
(33:17):
matters.
The 20% of your customer baseis going to make you the most
money, get you the mostreferrals, get you the most
five-star reviews.
You need to focus on the idealcustomers.
So I'd say I wish that I haddone that.
I wish I had really focused onmy brand.
I really wish that I had takentime to I mean, literally just
typed it out Deloria RoofingTriangle Club.
(33:39):
Blue logo, white background.
That was it.
That's just.
You can't do that.
You've got to think.
You got to think about it waydeeper than that.
You really you don't have towrite all your mission statement
down and all that stuff.
You need to think about who isyour ideal customer in the most
ideal situation, whateverservice you offer, who's your
ideal customer and what brandare they looking to do business
(34:02):
with?
That's what I'd say.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
The best thing.
Another great thing.
You said thank you for that.
And the best thing another goodhighlight there is odds are you
need to.
A lot of my contractors are nottheir own target market.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's right, Me, me Therefore you have to know that.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You have to know that , because what you like and what
you're exposed to is not thesame.
One of my HVAC contractors onetime I was like hey, let's give
away a big TV online around theSuper Bowl.
And they're like people don'tjust go out and buy their own
TVs.
I'm like, no, the averageAmerican needs to spend some
(34:39):
time.
I'd love to win an 80 inch TV.
You, sir, have expendableincome, and so I know that we're
still going after that customer.
But, at the end of the day, whodoesn't want to win a free TV
by engaging?
So get out of the way, you know.
Get out of the way.
So, but no, I love that.
Thank you so much.
So, hey, real quick, if anybodywanted to know more information
about ProLine or talk to youabout Ruth Bonner or anything
(35:03):
like that, what's the best wayfor them to get in touch with
you?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, so use ProLinecom is the easiest way
you find us on the website.
But I'm all over social media.
I'm changing all my handles tothe ProLine guy, so you'll find
me ProLine guy all over Facebook, instagram, all that stuff.
But use ProLinecom is theeasiest way to check us out.
We have a free version of theCRM.
(35:26):
You can just check it out forfree today and there's no kind
of trial.
You just sign up and you'regood to go.
So we make it easy.
We want to make sure thatProline is a good fit for your
company and we don't want tojust sell a software and send
you on your way.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
We want you to be successful, great.
And then, of course, you guysall know that are listening now
from the yellow chairs,sponsored by Lemon Seed
Marketing, and Lemon Seed ishere to help with all that
branding stuff that John wasmentioning today, along with
organizing all of your mediaapproaches to gaining new
customer acquisition andcultivating the the customers
that you already have in yourdatabase.
So, guys, thank you so much,john, you were amazing.
(36:07):
Congratulations again andwishing you the best of luck
with pro line.
I know that's going to continueto just be a great, a great
program.
So, guys, thank you so much forlistening to another episode of
from the yellow chair.
If you enjoyed it, I'd love to
What's up, lemonheads ?
Welcome to another episode ofFrom the Yellow Chair.
Today, I'm joined by someonenew, new to me.
I got to meet him a couple ofmonths ago, not even in person
yet, but Zoom meetings count.
Today, I'm excited to be joinedby John Deloria.
He's the co-founder of ProLineas of today, a former roofing
(00:30):
company owner.
We're celebrating with himtoday that, with over 11 years
of experience in theconstruction and roofing
industry, john has built areputation for innovation and
expertise.
You're going to want to listen.
You're going to want to jump in, so let's sip some lemonade.
Perfect.
Well, John, welcome to thevirtual lemonade stand.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Crystal, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Absolutely so.
I'm honored to have you.
I met you through.
I work with a local roofingcompany to me called Eminem
Roofing and she's been tellingme, like you've got to meet this
guy, john.
John does great things and so Igot to meet you in person.
We did a podcast together ornot in person, but we did that
podcast together and I did learnlike we kind of live the same
life and so it's been greatgetting to kind of know you and
(01:15):
your company.
But I say this all the time whyshould anyone care about what
you have to say today on thispodcast?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I don't know.
I've made a lot of mistakes.
Hopefully, hopefully, I canhelp someone avoid the mistakes
that I've made, but, as of lastnight, we did sell our roofing
business, so hopefully that'syour goal in mind.
It wasn't my goal from the verybeginning, but I think that
everyone should build theirbusiness that's possible to sell
(01:45):
, and I think, if you want toavoid mistakes and you want to
build your business, that itruns without you and that you
can actually sell, that'sprobably what a lot of what
we're going to be talking abouttoday is a lot of those types of
things of creating the lifethat you want for your business
and your personal life andeverything that the work life
(02:07):
balance is definitely a big partof of who I am.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, and listen, that is speaking to so many
people right now.
So you know, you do have thosediehard people.
They're like I don't reallywant to sell my business, I'm
not here to do that, you know.
And so like, even though youmay not ever sell it, build it
like you're going to.
Because I run into contractorsvery consistently that, just
because they don't have thatfive-year plan or whatever in
their mind, they tend to be laxon processes and things like
(02:34):
that.
That really do affect them whenit comes times for
profitability and things likethat.
So I think we should alwayskeep our eye on the ball of.
You know, if I wanted to sell,I'd dang near and I could.
I'm just choosing not to at themoment.
So I love that.
Well, you also have a littlebit of a unique career path,
right?
You came from, if I understandthis right like landscaping,
(02:55):
architecture type stuff into theroofing company.
So tell us a little bit aboutyour roofing company and like
how you got there.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Sure.
So I started roofing on amission trip when I was 13 years
old.
We were carrying shingles on aroof and child labor was there
and we were doing it, we werehand driving and then.
So throughout my middle schooland high school years, I was I
would get hired to, you know puta roof on somebody's barn or
(03:22):
somebody's rental house orsomething like that, and then I
worked for a couple of roofingcompanies as well.
I did go to University ofGeorgia.
The whole time I was there,though, I kept my landscape
maintenance company, so I had amaintenance company.
I also had two other jobs.
I just never stopped workingwhile I was at university, and
(03:45):
landscape architecture was justwhat I thought I wanted to do,
because it's design.
We're doing the maintenance.
We should learn the design aswell.
In hindsight, I think that Ishould have just kept chewing on
that entrepreneurial thought,because I probably would have
been a lot further along in mycareer if I had not gone to
(04:08):
university, but it was all partof the journey.
I learned a lot of things that Ineed to learn for business, and
I was an insurance agent for acouple different companies.
Like I said, I owned alandscape company, and so, at
the end of the day, um, I knew Iwanted to help people and I
didn't know what that lookedlike, and I saw roofing as an
(04:29):
opportunity to help people andmake a living at the same time
and I don't know where you knowfor the rest of the country, but
, uh, there's a lot of badplayers in the roofing space.
So I saw an opportunity to bethat that true voice of honesty
and integrity in my market.
I'm from Athens, georgia, andthere was a couple of good
(04:52):
companies and I worked for oneof them, but, by and large, most
of the homeowners were notbeing treated well, and so I
wanted to change that.
I wanted to change the waypeople viewed home services and
roofing specifically, and that'sreally where my passion comes
(05:12):
and my journey really startedand is today.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, good, well, okay.
So I love a good story, so Ilove a good mission trip story,
so I'm here for that.
A couple of key things that Ipicked up on is I don't know a
good mission trip story, so I'mhere for that.
A couple of key things that Ipicked up on is you know, we can
all, there's always these badyou know bad let's call it
owners, because it's not evenbad companies.
There's like bad leadershipsomewhere that's encouraging
companies you know to not to belike so sales driven that
(05:37):
they're forgetting to likeprovide the quality service up
front and then the dollars willcome, if you will.
So, especially when you've seenthis big pe push in a lot of
our industries, you know rightnow it's all about that bottom
daughter on a certain bottomdollar.
So they're starting to likeskimp out on the little fine
things and the little extrasteps that make the company good
, wholesome and honest.
(05:58):
And I see it a lot and I see itfrom the smaller companies that
are in these pe inundated areas, whether it's roofing, pest
control, hvac, plumbers.
They're in these markets wherePE is just dominating and one of
the things I want to tell themis man, just lean hard into the
brand messaging that you areloyal, dependable, honest and
(06:18):
just take extra steps because PEcan't do it.
They're not that nimble,they're not that quick and so
it's an easy thing for them tobe able to do.
Well, I know speaking of likeefficiencies and processes and
like how you got not efficiencyand processes but more how you
leaned into being more efficienton this roofing side and doing
cool things.
You also launched ProLine, whichor helped launch ProLine, which
(06:42):
is the CRM on the roofing side,which is another way I got
introduced to you.
But, um, you know I'm a bigadvocate of having a really
healthy CRM.
Good content in helps you putgood content out and in
marketing.
You know it's all about dataand how much you can trust your
data.
It's in your CRM.
Um, because I think thatroofing, especially that
(07:03):
industry especially, is kind ofbehind the curve a little bit.
Um, that's in your CRM BecauseI think that roofing, especially
that industry especially, iskind of behind the curve a
little bit.
So HVAC companies are likemining that existing database,
like there's no tomorrow.
But the more roofers that Iinteract with I'm like man,
we're really not going backafter like following up on leads
, and a lot of it stems from nothaving a good CRM.
So tell me, like how'd you getinto that?
(07:23):
Have you just fell into that,or what?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah.
So it kind of goes back to mydesire to help the homeowners.
So I realized that and goingback to selling your roofing
business or your business ingeneral, or not.
So if you build a business thathas all these processes in
place and you have a good CRM,yes, it's sellable, but what is
also happening at the same timeis that your customer base is
(07:49):
benefiting from a betterexperience.
So I cared about my homeownersand I wanted to communicate
better.
So we were using a major roofingspecific CRM for almost five
years and there's just a lot ofdefic know, deficiencies, things
that they just weren't doing,and it was all surrounded
communication, really, um.
(08:09):
And so I just knew that Iwasn't capturing the leads on
whatever lead source it was thewebsite form, whatever.
I needed an automated text andemail to go to a homeowner if
they reached out on our website.
We were getting through thesales process.
There's all kinds of thingsthat ProLine does between the
initial appointment and theproposal itself.
(08:31):
Then we'd get to the proposaland then I would have too many
of them out there and I wasn'table to follow up with everyone
efficiently.
So ProLine does that too.
I'm calling from my phone, I'mtexting for my phone and it's a
Proline phone number, and thenthe automations also help me
(08:52):
keep that communication, sowe're top of mind.
So, again, I'm thinking as aroofing business owner.
I want my customers, myhomeowners, to have a better
experience.
Obviously, we want to make moresales, but over and over and
over for the past three and ahalf years I've been through all
.
I've been the guinea pig.
My roofing business has beenthe guinea pig for how Proline
(09:14):
has been built, yeah, and so wegot to test all these things to
make sure that we're actuallyusing automations well and we're
being respectful, but we'realso being effective and we want
to sell more roofs, right,whatever services that we offer.
And then, finally, we all knowGoogle reviews, or just reviews
(09:35):
in general, are super important.
So I wanted another way.
Proline does that directly fromthe proline phone number that
I've been calling and textingalso sends a review request.
It's not a company number thatcomes through that.
They don't understand who thatis.
It's John.
It's the sales rep they've beentalking to the whole time.
Hey, you had a five-starexperience.
Click the link.
(09:56):
We'd love to hear your feedback.
So that's ProLine in a nutshell.
There's a whole lot more, butit's all surrounded by the fact
that I want to help contractors,yes, but I want to empower
contractors to give theirhomeowners a better experience
and actually do the things thatthey say they're going to do,
(10:16):
which is communicate from thevery beginning all the way to
the very end.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, and let me tell you, look.
So there's nothing moreimpactful to your marketing than
having the ability to setthings up in an automated way
and thinking about with thecustomer in mind.
So let me see, I say you knowyou need to lead brand forward,
so how do you want your customerexperience to be with your
company?
And so you want there to beease, you want there to be
(10:43):
comfort, you want there to be noway that they get lost in the
process, and so when you havethose automation tools and you
have those good CRMs on yourside, it just makes that.
It makes it easier for peopleto do business.
I have to tell people all thetime it is so hard to do
business with you.
It has been made like just theway their processes are set up
or whatever, and then also likedon't forget that people are
(11:05):
busy.
So when people are busy, whathappens is they don't.
Who did I call?
What did they say?
Was I supposed to signsomething?
And so those text automationsand things like that really are
impactful to helping close thatloop of the customer interaction
and the customer journey withall those pieces, and so it
really has been a learning spinfor me just more and more.
(11:31):
I've worked in this industry tounderstand the importance of a
good, you know, customerrelationship management software
.
I mean.
So what do you think some ofthe mistakes are that people
make.
Like now you've got tons ofpeople on ProLine, what do you
think?
Do you think they're not maybeusing it to its full
capabilities?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What do you think is hindering people from really
utilizing their resources there?
So, in general, it doesn'treally have to be ProLine, but
any software.
There's no silver bullet.
People know of CompanyCamthroughout the industries.
It's a really great tool, butif you don't use it, it doesn't
really help you or doesn't helpthe customer.
Same with ProLine or any otherCRM.
If you think that you're goingto buy something and pay for a
(12:16):
subscription and it's going tosolve your problems, it's just
not true.
This is the foundation.
It should be the foundation forhow your team operates and
communicates and it should bethe tool and the platform how
your company communicates topotential homeowners or existing
customers in general, and youneed to have that mindset that
(12:41):
it should help your company andit should help your customers,
whatever tool it is.
So you need to invest timelearning about that system.
We make it really easy atProLine.
If you go through our processand you have committed to doing
this for two or three weeks andyour whole team is on.
We do three differentonboarding calls.
(13:02):
We offer third parties to helpcustomize your ProLine.
This is with any CRM.
You need to invest in thisplatform, whatever it is, and if
you do that and you get pastthe first month and your team
has adopted it.
It will help your team and itwill help your customers.
As long as you put the effortin, you put the effort in.
(13:23):
We don't really have anyoneleave ProLine if they do that
for the first 30 days, becausethey've invested their time,
effort, energy in making surethat their company runs well,
their team is communicated withand their customer base has a
way better experience.
It was one of my favorite thingsin the world when a new
(13:44):
customer and I don't I'm not onthe sales team at ProLine, but a
lot of contractors know who Iam and they'll message me.
And they'll.
It'll be like a week after theysigned up and I had no idea,
but they'll send me a message oflike this is amazing, my
customers and it'll be like ascreenshot of a signed contract
and the customer's super happy.
Or or maybe it's a couple weeksdown the road and there's a
(14:04):
five-star review and like Ican't get reviews and now I can.
That's what drives me to spreadthe ProLine love, because I
believe in what we're doing andit's actually helping
contractors and homeowners allat the same time.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, I'm going to tell you too again, I see it so
much.
Well, I'm going to tell you too, again, I see it so much to
(14:52):
where they blame the CRM.
The contractors blame the CRM.
So that's why, like sometimes,I'll be like, hey, contractor,
you ain't yet like you are.
You need to hire a facilitatoror you need to point someone on
your company to become the crmliaison, because we need to work
hard to have um connectionswith our team and the software
itself.
So how do we make the most outof this software system and not
overwhelm people, all whileprotecting our customer's
(15:14):
journey and our brandexpectations that we have?
So you know, we want everyone'sjourney through that to be good
and again to tie that back tomarketing like garbage, garbage
out.
We need to be able to makedecisions on whether we keep or
whether we stop, pause, keep,push more money into different
advertising tactics, and to dothat, we've got to have
(15:36):
visibility into what arecustomers responding to, when
are they responding to it?
Are they engaging with things?
And so you really need, I mean,one of the things that limits
it.
We can't even take you ifyou're not on a crm.
And a crm is not quickbooks,right, like that's not a crm
right.
People say, well, I'll justkeep it in google calendar,
absolutely not because you'resitting on a gold mine right of
(16:01):
of so much.
And then I don't care how goodof a salesman you are, you're
not closing every deal.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so there's all these people If you are closing,
if you have a, basically in theroofing space, it's between 33,
so one out of three or maybe inthe 45% close rate.
So you're not quite selling oneout of two.
If you're selling more thanthat, then your prices are too
low and then your profitabilityis not where it should be for
(16:29):
your market.
So I totally agree you need tounderstand all those numbers in
your CRM and then you need to behonest.
They need to be like real.
Oh, my close rates X.
Well, is it?
Where's the data that backsthat up?
Like how how many leads haveyou gone through this month and
how many sales have you made?
I couldn't agree more.
(16:49):
Knowing your numbers is a hugepart of what any good CRM should
be doing for you.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yes, for sure.
I think that we haveexpectations that people cannot
hit, and when I say that, it'snot that they can't do it for
any other reason other than justlack of trying.
So, you know, I lean into a lotof that a lot of times.
There's so much content thereof like how you have to do this,
(17:20):
so it sounds like ProLine's areally like a game changer.
So, you know, I think it's agreat way for roofing companies
to really get in line with a CRMthat truly comes from the
trades itself, like you guyscome from it, so you know what's
needed, and so I think that's agreat place for us to.
When you focus on solving likereal solutions, you really can
(17:40):
create tools that empower peopleto thrive, and so it's an
experience that I think peopleall need to go through.
And so tell me a little bitabout Roofvana.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yeah, so Roofvana.
It evolved.
It had many names.
For the most of its life it wasDeloria Roofing.
That's hard to say, it's hardto spell.
I genuinely believe that whatyou guys do, understanding the,
the holistic approach to homeservices is the way that
(18:15):
marketing companies shouldoperate, not just the marketing
piece, and so I've told manypeople that, that you guys
actually are different than whatI've seen for most marketing
companies.
There's's some good ones outthere, but for the most part
they're just focused onmarketing, and if you don't
understand the sales part, ifyou're not in somebody's CRM,
you can't actually give goodrecommendations for the
(18:38):
marketing piece.
So, in general, kudos to youguys for that, because that's a
huge, huge, huge accomplishmentto get people to understand hey,
this is what's important, it'snot just the marketing piece.
I want to be on your team.
I think that's.
Again, I didn't answer yourquestion, but that's what the
(19:00):
tangent I just went on.
I really think that that'simportant is that you need to
understand the whole part of thebusiness to be able to market
correctly well.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
so you know, let me see, like you're saying.
Thank you so much, number oneum, let me see was built on the
fact that I'm not a digitalagency, I'm not a mass media
direct mail agency, like.
My job is to be like afractional chief marketing
officer for people that are like, hey, I'm tired of not knowing
what's going on like, help mebuild my brand.
We want to help you build yourbrand.
I'm not trying to make theseother vendors rich.
(19:33):
I I want to help you grow yourcompany.
And Ruth Vana, to speak onbranding a little bit there, the
company that I have some partin is Eminem Roofing, based in
Lufkin, texas.
Emily May, so my partner atLemon Seeds also names Emily,
and then my partner at EminemRoofing her name's Emily.
So all the Emmys in my life arevery, though, entrepreneurially
(19:56):
driven and they think outsidethe box and they want to be
successful in their own right.
Like my Emily on the lemon seedside, she's a fantastic graphic
designer, she's passionateabout it and about branding
these home service companies,and so she played a really big
part in our vision for the RufusArmadillo mascot that we
created for Emily, for EminemRoofing, and you know it.
(20:19):
Really I feel like it launchedher business.
She just flew right into themix with these companies that
had been around a long time andwe just expedited her brand
awareness of it.
She had to buy in.
She had to agree to jump inwith both feet on not being
scared Homegirl's not scared ofanything.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
No, emily's made it.
She's very, very, very smart,very, like you said, innovative
and already just ready to go allthe way in.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, by the time she's told me about it, I'm
already two days behind, so I'mtrying to keep up with her.
But I'm telling you and I justgot off of a call before this
podcast where I had this companythat was really debating
rebranding their company, and Isaid, listen, I'm not lying to
you here that I think it's notan investment.
It's definitely an investment,but I think you're going to look
up in five years from now andbe like dang, I should have done
(21:08):
this five years ago.
And so, trust me, I'm going totell you 80% of people, if you
started your company and somerandom graphic designer made you
a logo and you're calling thatyour brand, you don't have a
brand.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
We need to help you create a brand, and so you know
I can get really passionateabout that.
I love it, though.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I love it because that's a mistake podcast to talk
about my mistakes.
That would be one of thebiggest mistakes that I made is
not focusing so much on my brand, not just the logo, so many
parts of the brand.
I mean.
We developed a greatrelationship with all of our
customers and they wrote a bunchof reviews for us.
That was good.
We had a good reputation, butnothing about our logo and our
name was memorable.
It was not unique.
It was the same color palette.
It was part of the in theroofing space called the
triangle club, so it had somesome home roof on on the logo
(22:03):
somewhere, roof line yeah so, soliterally people would say for
years, oh who are you again?
and that's, that's not what youwant.
You want to work with somebodywho understands.
I mean, Rufus is great.
You take Eminem Roofing youcould take Eminem Roofing that
name and put it in a millionother states.
(22:24):
But if you have Rufus on top ofthat, along with the color
palette and the way that Emilyis actually marketing that to
that market, it's so muchdifferent.
It is phenomenal because she'sbeen in my mastermind for
probably a year now and I'vewatched it grow and it's just
like you're doing what now?
(22:44):
You're doing what now and it'sall.
Because, again, your brand andyour marketing is not a silver
bullet, but it should be a goodfoundation for how you want to
communicate to your potentialcustomer base and you need to be
unique and memorable andprobably have a mascot.
We haven't really touched onthis that much, but all of our
(23:09):
potential customers, our idealcustomers, they have a much
higher expectation for theirhome services.
Now it can be.
HVAC it can be anything atanything at all.
Roofing doesn't matter.
They're expecting automations.
They're expecting an amazingbrand.
They're expecting wrappedtrucks.
They're expecting polo shirtsand super professional people.
(23:31):
They're expecting all thosethings, and if you don't think
that they are, you're going toget left.
It won't take that long.
In the next three to five yearsyou won't be around or you
won't be as profitable as youcould be.
You really need to understandthat.
If you're banging your headagainst the wall on maybe a
sales close rate or maybeaccounts receivable reviews, all
(23:54):
those things, it's because youhaven't stepped up to the plate
with the expectations thathomeowners really have for the
home services that you offer1000% and this goes without
saying.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Like you know, things are going to pop into your head
.
But you know, we all know thosecompanies that I mean I'm in my
forties, so I mean when I wasgrowing up, there were tons of
companies around that are notaround now because they failed
to innovate, because they dugtheir heels in that.
You know, I've been this way.
And word of mouth and, andlisten, if you're saying things
like word of mouth is all I needand all my business is from
(24:28):
referral it is.
But look how it could be.
But look how good your businesscould be If you actually worked
on new customer acquisition.
You actually worked on newcustomer acquisition.
If you actually built a brand,that's great.
What got you here won't get youthere.
So eventually you're going tohit a brick wall where you've
used everybody that knows youand now you've got to move past
that to really grow your company.
And so when you think back tothose of us, to our younger
(24:50):
years, there were tons ofcompanies that just failed to
innovate.
They failed to think likepeople don't want to deal with
paper invoices, people don'twant to have to just call you.
I have two opinions.
I think people want the ease ofbooking online, but if I have
an issue, I need to be able tocall Sure, and so I think that
that's a healthy way to look atthings like can I book online
(25:10):
from your website?
Is there a direct link fromyour social media channels?
Do I know who you are by justinteracting with your brand
throughout the day?
And so much, so many people onthe marketing funnel.
They focus on the very tip ofthe funnel, the very bottom,
where there's the least amountof people.
All the meanwhile, at the top,there's all this opportunity to
just be making waves with thesepeople so that when they do need
(25:33):
your service, you are top ofmind to them.
But if you never stay up there,if you never venture to the top
of the funnel, then when peopleto the bottom all those people
that worked hard at the topthey're going to be who gets
chosen.
And it's just hard to tellpeople those things, because you
got to innovate, you got tochange what you've done for 20
years a lot of times, or atleast modernize it.
(25:57):
And it can be daunting a littlebit, but you eat a cookie and
an elephant the same way, onebite at a time.
So just start making simplechanges to your business that
make you more innovative, makeyou more modern, and it really
does change everything.
I was talking to a roofing plantthe other day and he said yeah,
he said well, I hardly evenhave to go out to the home
anymore.
I can just pull it up on Google, look at the layout of the roof
(26:18):
, look at the square footage andbe able to give a quote pretty
instantly.
And he said I have gained somany new, I have closed so many
more deals because I can do that.
Well, of course, I can hear allthe naysayers in the background
like what if you missedsomething?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
And at the end of the day, I'mlike so he might cost himself a
little bit of money here andthere, but it's probably
negligible in the amount ofpeople, just like the quickness
(26:42):
People like the immediacy.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So since 2019, our business was selling online and
we had a lot of naysayers Likehow are you doing this?
And we had all differentmeasurement tools.
We had proposal tools andthings like that.
To your point, there'snaysayers of oh you can miss.
In roofing, there's two thingsreally Multiple layers of
(27:05):
shingles and then rotten decking.
So those are two change ordersthat we commonly have.
Well, if you put that in yourcontract again, we just sold the
business, but more than fiveyears, homeowners never
complained that we had a changeorder because of those two
things.
It was very clear.
(27:26):
We verbalized it and we had itin writing in multiple places.
These are two ways it changes.
This is the price per squarefoot If this happens.
This is the price per squarefoot If you just communicate.
Again to your point they wantthe simplicity.
We sold so many roofs that way.
We had some of the best.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
They want the simplicity and they want the
immediacy.
They're already pissed off.
Okay, listen, no one wakes upand goes.
You know what I want to spendmoney on today?
A new roof.
People want to go on a cruise.
They want to buy a car.
They want to go on a vacation.
They do not want to buy a newcondenser, a new water heater,
they really don't want at leastlandscaping.
(28:05):
Y'all can look pretty.
Test control.
Nobody's excited to spend moneyon termite abatement, right?
So no, no, we do not get thatluxury.
But what they do appreciate isthe speed and accuracy and
setting the expectations.
Clearly, that all goes back tothat customer journey that we
talked about earlier.
Setting expectations.
I see people all the time theybuild a whole process around one
(28:28):
outlier, so the one person outof the 50 things that happen.
You cannot build your lifearound the one person that's
going to complain or find aloophole that cuts your losses
and move on from thosecomplainers.
But definitely for sure, likeman, don't skip out on good
stuff and selling stuff becauseyou get so down in the weeds.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yep, and I love what you said about making it easy.
So if they want to call you,fine, they should be able to
call you.
Set up an appointment, but youshould, I talk.
I call them mental hurdles.
So you want to.
You want to take all thesehurdles that people have to jump
through to get to your serviceor to and I complain about this
a lot about payment.
Make it easy for people to payyou too.
(29:10):
But as far as the first part ofthe process, the sales process,
the getting to know you part ofthe process, take away all
those barriers.
The mental hurdles need to goaway so people can just stroll
on in.
They get the services that theyneed.
Probably don't want, but theyneed those services.
They want them as soon aspossible.
They want it to be easy, clear.
There's excellent communication.
(29:32):
You need to do that.
Your website is a good place tostart with that.
It doesn't have to be just yourwebsite, but you need to make
it easy for homeowners to notjust find you and be top of that
funnel, like you said, but also, once they find you and they
know who you are, it's supereasy and just a phenomenal
(29:52):
experience when they want tomove forward with some services
just a phenomenal experiencewhen they want to move forward
with some services.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well, I'm telling you , this is what gets right in my
headspace here, because limitingspends a lot of time of helping
people understand the fullimpact of the customer journey
and when you're not in it andwhen you don't care about it and
you're only focused on one orthe other.
So some people can lean hardthe other way, like they don't,
they forget about their team andthey lean real heavy on the
customer and then vice versa.
But one of the best things Ihad was this guy was like man,
we're just not getting any leadsand I was like, well, I can see
(30:25):
leads coming in and I said hegoes well, yeah, they're coming
in between 11 and me to do aboutmy team not having lunch.
I thought can they do it inshifts, can we?
yeah, that's an easy one but tohim he was like he was just
(30:46):
bum-fuzzled over the idea thatwhy would anyone think they
would answer the phone?
And I was like sir, no onetakes two hour lunches even if
it's 30 minutes.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I mean you.
If you get down to the, wewon't.
There's a whole nother podcastabout acquisition costs, but it
costs a lot of money for you toacquire a customer.
If you don't think that's true,you're not doing your numbers
correctly.
So just a real easy thing Ilove the going to lunch and
shifts.
Just pay 250 bucks $300 a monthto have an answering service.
(31:21):
We use Ruby Receptionist.
They were amazing.
They know your company's name.
They know how to scheduleappointments.
It's going to be anotherextension of your team and if
you don't want to send yourstaff in shifts and they want to
all go eat together, fine,forward it to Ruby.
They answer the phone.
It's super affordable and yourcustomer still has a good
(31:42):
experience reaching out to yourcompany.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, yes, ruby, receptionist is a great one.
Again, it's about not buildingprocesses around, outlying
things, but really get focusedon those things.
Well, john, this is the lastquestion that I ask everybody
else.
You know, you've been here,you've been in the boat where
many contractors, many listenersare.
What is the one thing that youwould tell somebody that's a
brand new owner just starting toget going?
(32:05):
What is the one thing likemaybe you wish you would have
done different, or just a goodpiece of advice.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Oh, there's so many.
I just did five.
The other most people thatstart businesses like this are
kind of forced into it.
I was one of those people.
So I you know old employer owedme money.
I had to do something toprovide for my family.
Even if that happens and you'reforced into it or you, you it's
(32:34):
not part of your life plan.
You really need to think aboutbrand.
I go back to that again of youneed to be unique.
You need to be different.
You do not need to think aboutbrand.
I go back to that again of youneed to be unique.
You need to be different.
You do not need to be I mean,in our markets, blue and white
or red and black.
You've got to be different.
You also have to not think foryourself.
(32:56):
Don't think about yourself as acustomer.
Think about your ideal customer.
Oh yes, If you're just startingout, you probably don't have
the million dollar house.
Whatever your ideal customerlooks like, you need to base
your entire brand on that marketand your ideal customer for
that market, because that'swhere the 80-20 rule really
(33:17):
matters.
The 20% of your customer baseis going to make you the most
money, get you the mostreferrals, get you the most
five-star reviews.
You need to focus on the idealcustomers.
So I'd say I wish that I haddone that.
I wish I had really focused onmy brand.
I really wish that I had takentime to I mean, literally just
typed it out Deloria RoofingTriangle Club.
(33:39):
Blue logo, white background.
That was it.
That's just.
You can't do that.
You've got to think.
You got to think about it waydeeper than that.
You really you don't have towrite all your mission statement
down and all that stuff.
You need to think about who isyour ideal customer in the most
ideal situation, whateverservice you offer, who's your
ideal customer and what brandare they looking to do business
(34:02):
with?
That's what I'd say.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
The best thing.
Another great thing.
You said thank you for that.
And the best thing another goodhighlight there is odds are you
need to.
A lot of my contractors are nottheir own target market.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's right, Me, me Therefore you have to know that.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
You have to know that , because what you like and what
you're exposed to is not thesame.
One of my HVAC contractors onetime I was like hey, let's give
away a big TV online around theSuper Bowl.
And they're like people don'tjust go out and buy their own
TVs.
I'm like, no, the averageAmerican needs to spend some
(34:39):
time.
I'd love to win an 80 inch TV.
You, sir, have expendableincome, and so I know that we're
still going after that customer.
But, at the end of the day, whodoesn't want to win a free TV
by engaging?
So get out of the way, you know.
Get out of the way.
So, but no, I love that.
Thank you so much.
So, hey, real quick, if anybodywanted to know more information
about ProLine or talk to youabout Ruth Bonner or anything
(35:03):
like that, what's the best wayfor them to get in touch with
you?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, so use ProLinecom is the easiest way
you find us on the website.
But I'm all over social media.
I'm changing all my handles tothe ProLine guy, so you'll find
me ProLine guy all over Facebook, instagram, all that stuff.
But use ProLinecom is theeasiest way to check us out.
We have a free version of theCRM.
(35:26):
You can just check it out forfree today and there's no kind
of trial.
You just sign up and you'regood to go.
So we make it easy.
We want to make sure thatProline is a good fit for your
company and we don't want tojust sell a software and send
you on your way.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
We want you to be successful, great.
And then, of course, you guysall know that are listening now
from the yellow chairs,sponsored by Lemon Seed
Marketing, and Lemon Seed ishere to help with all that
branding stuff that John wasmentioning today, along with
organizing all of your mediaapproaches to gaining new
customer acquisition andcultivating the the customers
that you already have in yourdatabase.
So, guys, thank you so much,john, you were amazing.
(36:07):
Congratulations again andwishing you the best of luck
with pro line.
I know that's going to continueto just be a great, a great
program.
So, guys, thank you so much forlistening to another episode of
from the yellow chair.
If you enjoyed it, I'd love to
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