March 31, 2025 • 37 mins
What happens when everything falls apart in your roofing business? Matt Dravis of Trinity Roofing and Restoration opens up about the gut-punch moments that have tested his resolve during one of his most challenging years as a business owner.
From a bounced check that left him $34,000 in the hole to a project gone wrong that damaged a five-year relationship with a valuable general contractor, Matt doesn't shy away from the brutal realities of entrepreneurship. Yet his perspective on these setbacks offers a masterclass in resilience: "Everything's a lesson, nothing's a failure. You're only a failure if you quit."
Matt shares his journey from reluctant industry participant to passionate business builder, detailing how he transitioned from the oil and gas sector to founding Trinity Roofing nearly a decade ago. The conversation takes a fascinating turn as Matt reveals how he's completely transforming his sales approach with an inside-outside sales model that's already delivering remarkable results just two months after implementation.
Perhaps most valuable is Matt's insight into maintaining mental toughness during business challenges. His morning routine combining physical training with prayer and positive self-talk provides a practical framework for other owners facing similar struggles. "If I tell myself that I'm strong and resolute... eventually it's going to be who I am, because I'm speaking it into existence."
Whether you're struggling with business challenges or looking to refine your systems, this conversation delivers actionable wisdom from someone in the trenches. As Matt reminds us, success isn't about natural talent or formal education—it's about determination and getting out of your own way. Ready to take your roofing business to the next level? This episode is your blueprint.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
all right, welcome to the limitless roofing show,
where we give you a seat at thetable as we talk with roofing
owners so that you can take yourbusiness to the next level.
And today I have the honor ofinterviewing one of the members
of the limitless roofing gpo, mrmatt dravis.
So, matt, thanks for being onthe show.
Man, thanks, man.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Appreciate it, dylan, always glad to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Two cool things about Matt Lives in Texas, like.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I do, and has a really healthy beard.
Yeah, never left.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Always been here.
Yeah, it's hard to leave Texasonce you get here.
Well, matt, thanks for being onthe show.
I we were going to get into,you know, your company journey
so far, some of the biggestchallenges you're facing, how
you're dealing with them, andwe're going to get into some
gold nuggets on from there.
But before we do that, justgive a little bit of background.
How long have you been in theindustry?
(00:59):
Uh, where's your company?
How'd you get into roofingstuff like that?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
sure, yes, I got in kind of by accident.
Um, my dad was doing it and Ithought I was going to be like
the smart kid and tell him thathe was crazy and that I wasn't
going to follow in his footsteps.
And I went off into the oil andgas realm, went off into that
world for about a decade and gottired of getting laid off.
(01:24):
Off into that world for about adecade and got tired of getting
laid off and, uh, startedselling part-time and very
quickly realized that man, likethe roofing that I was taught,
like the physical aspect of it,and selling two different worlds
.
Um, it turned me off.
I didn't want to be a roofer,right, I didn't want to be a
laborer and there, there'snothing wrong with that, but I
just, I just couldn't see myselfdoing that for 50 years.
(01:47):
But then, when I saw the salesside of it and was successful
there, I was making more parttime selling routes than I was
full time in the oil field, andthat's that's really what.
What brought me in and I forfor a couple other companies for
a while.
And, like everybody else's songand dance, you work for someone
(02:08):
long enough.
You eventually don't get paid.
Um, they something happens andthey don't pay you and you move
on and try something else.
Um, had that not happened, I'dprobably be working for that
other outfit still, cause Iliked it, it was a lot of fun,
it was a lot easier just to sellinstead of doing everything
else.
But we've been doing TrinityRoofing and Restoration for
(02:29):
about a decade that's nine yearsand we love it.
I have a lot of fun.
There's tough times, like wewere talking about earlier, but,
man, there's nothing I wouldwant to change.
I mean nothing about like Iwould not go back into the oil
and gas industry and go backoffshore or any of that kind of
(02:51):
stuff.
So we started out doingresidential roofing and we've
slowly started working our wayinto commercial.
We even do a lot of restorationand remodeling now too, so not
just on the roof roof, butinside the building or inside
the home, and that's keeping uspretty busy this year.
So it's been a lot of funthat's great.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So you guys were founded around 2015 uh late 2016
.
Yeah, late 2016.
Gotcha man, that's so cool.
So, looking back when you, youknow, when you weren't treated,
treated properly and you weren'tpaid at the time, I mean, what
was that like?
I assume you felt like, man,this is going great, now
Everything's just turning into anightmare.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, it was one of those where I was still working
my day job, so I still hadincome coming in, so it wasn't
like I was hurting.
But you know I had just starteda family, you know I.
At that point it had, uh yeah,my, my, my fourth kid, um, so
(03:55):
that extra supplemental incomemeant a lot and I wasn't.
I wasn't spending time awayfrom my family for nothing.
I wanted I wanted to be able toshow something for it.
I don't have any animositytowards those guys.
They were in a hard time, I getit.
It was just not the right thingto do.
It was a trial, for sure, butit taught me a lot of lessons.
(04:18):
That's one of the things Idon't do.
I don't mess around with otherpeople's money.
When I owe my subs, when I owemy team, they'll get paid before
I do for sure, 100%.
And there have been monthswhere I don't get paid to make
sure that they can.
I mean they're working just ashard and I'm the one that if it
goes well, great, great for allof us.
(04:39):
If it doesn't, you know I'm theone that's ultimately
responsible for that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, it's so interesting how those painful
moments or those trials orchallenges really affect the way
you operate down the road.
And I look at even companiesI've been with in a sales role
or account executive role andthe way I was treated as a
salesperson or an accountexecutive and the way I was
managed affected the way Imanage people now, because I
(05:07):
know what it's like to bemicromanaged, to be under a ton
of pressure to you, know stufflike that.
So where do you find thathealthy balance between
accountability but at the sametime, not micromanaging, and
that's a challenge.
But it's just cool to just coolhow to see how you're.
Part of the story involve younot getting paid, which is a
(05:28):
challenge.
But then that was the probablythe tipping point for you to say
you know what?
I think I can do this on my ownand I'm going to take care of
people financially and not thatthat's never going to happen to
my people.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, it's the same thing for training too, because
I came in and I got about threehours of training before I was
just told to go knock doors,right, and then literally I I
sell my first door knock, or thefirst door knock that I sold.
Um, I'm literally looking at acontract my dad had written and
I'm looking at a blank one andI'm copying and pasting, not
(06:04):
knowing anything about what I'mwriting.
I'm just doing a blank one andI'm copying and pasting, not
knowing anything about what I'mwriting.
I'm just doing a carbon copyand say, hey, sign this.
I don't know what I'm doing andI think I was just blessed with
the tenacity of wanting to know.
And so you can ask some of ourteam we probably train a lot too
much, if that's a thing,because I got none of it in the
(06:27):
beginning.
So I want people who come towork for Trinity to be like man
we train all the time.
We don't stop training, wereally don't.
You know, everybody has aone-on-one with me, and then
every Friday we train, everyMonday we train, and then we
also try to get together onweekends, if we're.
If we're not out door knockingor have jobs or whatnot, we're
(06:47):
training.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Man, that's great, yeah, it's.
It's interesting because a lotof you know a lot of guys have
different takes on leadershipand motivation.
And this came up some at somepoint earlier in the week with
guys in the limitless roofinggroup and it was on a mastermind
call and somebody said how areyou motivating your sales guys?
And I made the comment thatit's not your job to motivate
(07:11):
people.
That's a heart issue and amindset or a head space issue,
but it is your job to equip them.
Right Like that.
Servant leadership is that youequip people so that they can
achieve the goals that you'veset with them together.
So it's, there's a bigdifference between motivation
and equipping.
Motivation is like gettingpeople to believe that they can
(07:33):
do this thing or getting them towant it or whatever.
I just don't think that canhappen in a short burst at a
Tony Robbins event or whatever.
But within a few days you goback to just the normal world.
But if you're equipped to dosomething that the owner of the
company asks you to do andyou're trained, that's a whole
different world, and then youbecome motivated to keep doing
(07:57):
it because it's working.
So let's get into.
You've been about 10 years innow A lot of guys that are sales
guys think about it like man, Icould do this on my own.
What was it like going frombeing in sales to building a
company?
(08:17):
What was that gap like goingfrom that one role to, all of a
sudden, you're wearing all thehats, you're worried about
bookkeeping, all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So the two things I would say is I wouldn't wish
that on my worst enemy.
It's a tough job.
And the second thing I'll saywas I was lucky enough that when
I was young my dad never let mehave a job.
He always made me have my ownbusiness.
So from the time I was 10, I'venever really other than other
(08:49):
than going out to the oil field,I've never really worked for
anybody, um, so I've never had asteady paycheck.
I've never had, you know,benefits really, other than that
that time in the oil field.
Um, so I was used to kind ofthe rich dad, poor dad, of being
able to go out and work andwork and work and work and work
and not pay yourself.
Um, and because of the otherbusinesses that I've had I was
(09:12):
used to doing, you know, I wasthe laborer, the accountant, the
CPA, the tax filer, thepurchaser, I mean you name it.
I was wearing that hat and I'vehad to learn how to delegate and
I've had to learn how to hireright to bring people in so I
can delegate some of those tasksout, because as you grow you
(09:35):
just can't do everything.
I mean people try to hold on toit way too long I know I have.
It was tough in the beginninggoing from wearing one or two
hats to all of a sudden, becausein sales like the company I was
at before we started TrinityRoofing, we just sold.
(09:56):
That was it.
I didn't have to worry aboutproject managing and ordering
and all the back end officestuff that wasn't me.
I just went out and sold officestuff that wasn't me.
I just went out and sold.
So of course your sales sufferwhen you start taking on all
these other responsibilities,and then you quickly find out
like hey, it's you know it's notas
easy as it looks, and somepeople make it look flawlessly
(10:19):
easy.
I am not one of those.
You would not use me as a casestudy for someone who started a
business and it went really,really well and they had no
hiccups.
We have hiccups all the timehere today, but it's a.
It was a learning experience,something I wouldn't take back,
something I would do over andover and over again.
That's something I'm trying toteach my kids is learn to get
(10:44):
good at a lot of differentthings, cause you're going to
need all of them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's good.
Yeah, sales is like aone-on-one sport, like tennis or
wrestling or whatever.
But as soon as you go to beinga company owner, it immediately
flips to a team sport.
It's like you can't be thequarterback and the lineman and
the wide receiver and all thoseroles.
So what is your?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
what are your goals for Trinity in the next couple
of years?
Like revenue, wise businessmodel, wise stuff like that.
So we've completely flipped ourbusiness model.
We've gone to the insideoutside sales model.
We're still, I would say, 60,70% through that.
Implementation is going to takea little bit of time to get
there, but, having theinside-outside model, I'd like
to be this year between $4 and$5 million in revenue and over
(11:38):
the next, say, three to fiveyears, hitting that $10 to $15
mark, if not sooner.
We didn't do quite as well lastyear as I had hoped.
We had some uptick at the endof the year, but obviously no
one's where they want to be.
Most people want to continue togrow, but I think for us, the
(12:00):
biggest goal we have is hiringmore of the right people and
making sure they're in the rightseats on the right direction of
the bus and you and I havetalked about that in the past.
Of people are just so crucialand the right people are
tremendous.
If you stick the right personin the wrong seat or you just
(12:21):
have the wrong person in general, it can wreak havoc on an
organization, and that's mybiggest focus for 2025 is
getting the right people on thebus.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's so good.
Yeah, there's so much we couldsay about that.
So you want to land around 5million this year and then get
up to 15 in the next two orthree years.
So far you're 10 years in.
You're doing well.
Your company's growing.
It's on an upward growthtrajectory.
I know you've grown a lot as aleader.
(12:52):
You're learning about puttingthe right people in the right
place.
You're in our mastermind andwe're talking about things like
culture index excuse me,different tools that help make
that a lot easier.
But let's talk about challenges, because you and I know that it
really doesn't matter whatbusiness every business you're
in, especially if you're theowner.
(13:13):
The amount of challenges andthe intensity of the challenges
you face come and go, and I'veheard a preacher say one time
you're either going into a stormor coming out of a storm, or
you're about to go into one,like it's just hey, if
everything's great and you havezero challenges, you've either
plateaued or just give it alittle time, right?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
so so let's talk about some of the biggest
challenges you've been facing,maybe this year yeah, this, this
, uh, this year's been rough,man, I feel like every time I've
turned around this year I'vegotten kicked in the teeth.
We had a phenomenal project gooff towards the end of last year
(13:57):
.
The guy's first check bouncedand now he's refusing to pay
anything.
So $34,000 sitting out therethat I'll probably never collect
.
Ticking the teeth, right.
We've had guys underperforming.
We had someone undersell a joblike a really big job with a GC
(14:20):
that we've done a lot of workfor.
So not only did the project gosouth from the beginning because
there wasn't enough moneyallocated to even cover cost,
the person didn't go throughSOPs, I didn't even and this all
falls on me, man I didn't evenknow about the project until the
(14:41):
GC called me when there was anissue and I'm like what are you
talking about?
Right, the SOPs weren'tfollowed.
I didn't even know about it.
I'm not blaming the otherperson about Right, the SOPs
weren't followed, I didn't evenknow about it.
I'm not blaming the otherperson Again, it goes back to me
.
But we're in the hole on thatone and we ruined a relationship
(15:02):
with the GC that I've done alot of work for and spent the
last five years building arelationship.
So you know 20, 30, 40 projectsto build the reputation and
less than one project to ruin it.
So again, just kicking the teeth.
Cashflow this year has beenhard to manage, people have been
hard to manage, and then tryingto hire people, I've had to
(15:23):
stop what I'm doing, slow downand be able to go.
Okay, we've got to have atraining program, we've got to
have something written out.
So that takes me away from justrunning the business, just to
be able to go back and say if wewant to bring people on and
bring them on the right way,what do we have to have in place
to do that?
And so everything else has hadto take a back seat, which
doesn't help all that otherstuff.
(15:44):
So this year has definitelybeen challenging and every
business has that right.
Every business has thosegut-punched moments where you're
like okay, are we doing theright thing?
Are we on the right path?
You know, is it easier just tofold the whole thing up and go
get a job, or is it easier tolet somebody else run this thing
?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
What is?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
it we're doing?
Why are we here?
What's the purpose of this andto me that's a lot of it is.
What's kept me going is what isthe ultimate purpose.
You know, if I'm here just forthe money, I'm going to bail out
at some point.
Go find somebody that paysbetter.
But if you're in it for theright reasons and you got those
reasons and you know them we'rejust going to keep getting
(16:27):
kicked in the teeth until wefigure it out yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So when you talk about those chat like that's
that is a blow.
When you know you're not goingto get paid for a job and then
an issue with the team memberand then a relationship getting
damaged, stuff like that, youknow these challenges and
mistakes and whatever it startsto weigh on you as the owner and
your, your headspace, the kindsof things you're thinking about
(16:52):
saying.
You know you start waking up attwo in the morning thinking
about it, mulling over it andstuff like that.
But you know that's I thinkthat's the key to persevering
when things are hard is what isyourself talk like?
And they they found this out inthe Navy SEALs that they
developed a mental toughnessprogram because and I've shared
(17:12):
this analogy, I think, severaltimes over the last few years on
this podcast but they developeda mental toughness program
because they found out that theycould have two guys go through
buds and one of them was a farmboy from Kentucky who didn't
look like anything specialphysically and another guy, some
guy from Florida, that swam allthe time, did nothing but work
(17:32):
out, eat right, just physicality, was a powerhouse and that guy
would fail and the farm boy fromKentucky who'd almost never
swam before, would go throughand pass and become a SEAL, and
they found out it was because ofthe self-talk.
It was like most of it was theperson's self-talk as they were
going through buds, and so theydeveloped a mental toughness
(17:55):
program and the first thing wasto replace negative self-talk
for positive self-talk, likelittle stuff, like they would
tell.
Each tell themselves I'm goingto make it through this next
thing, I'm going to make it tolunch.
I'm going to make it to launch,not like huge goals for the
year or for six weeks, or I'mgoing to make it through this
next thing.
I'm going to make it to lunch.
I'm going to make it to lunch,not like huge goals for the year
or for six weeks, or I'm goingto pass budgets.
I'm going to pass this.
This one exercise is not goingto keep me back.
(18:17):
I'm going to make it throughand I'm going to enjoy a nice
lunch.
So what's your, what's yourheadspace been like?
Or how have you encouragedyourself or how have you
reoriented your perspective tomake sure you do persevere and
you don't get weighed down by itall too much?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
well to two things.
Well, several things, I guess.
One, remembering who'sultimately in control and to
remembering who's in control ofme, like am I gonna let that guy
who's going to pay me ruin therest of my career or ruin the
rest of my company or ruin therest of my life?
Yeah, $34,000 and I gettingpaid?
(18:53):
That sucks, it hurts.
Am I going to let that stopeverything else or am I going to
figure out a way to persevereand overcome?
You know, same thing with allthose other scenarios Are those?
Am I going to allow those to bebig enough to take me over and
take me under, or am I going tojust figure it out and just keep
going?
And so the headspace sometimesis you're waking up at 2 am,
(19:16):
like two days ago it was 341, Ibeat my alarm by an hour and I'm
up and I'm like okay, I can.
I wake up and I'm alreadyvisualizing what went wrong
yesterday.
What are we going to do aboutit?
Those kind of nights can stinkif you let it get to you, but it
really just gets back to.
(19:36):
Am I going to let this overtakeme?
Am I going to let this controlme, or am I going to figure it
out and, thankfully, I've neverhad the opportunity to give up,
I've never given myself the out,and I don't ever want to be at
that point, and so it's justmaking sure that I say, okay,
(19:56):
everything's a lesson, nothing'sa failure.
You're only a failure if youquit and you give up and you
stop.
Just because you had somethinggo wrong doesn't mean you're a
failure.
It's a lesson.
Learn from it.
Don't make the same mistaketwice.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Move on.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I heard the quote one time sometimes you win
and sometimes you learn yeah,that's right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So how do you do that ?
How do you let go of control?
You're trusting that I'm goingto get through this.
This is just a season.
I'm season, gonna learn fromthis or whatever.
But how do you, how do you tapinto that?
Or how do you foster that foryou personally to let go of that
control?
I mean, do you journal?
Do you talk to other guys aboutit?
(20:37):
Do you pray?
Like what does that look likefor you?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I do something I can control.
So so I may not be able tocontrol that guy paying me, um,
but I do stuff I can control.
I hit the gym every morning andthat's something I can control,
if nothing else good happenstoday.
I know that I started my dayoff right, took care of my mind,
(21:01):
took care of my body.
And you know, normally for mewhen I'm, when I'm working out,
that is when I'm praying, that'stypically when I'm in my
headspace with God, with theLord, and saying, ok, here's
what I'm not liking, here's whatI am liking, what do we do
about this?
And it's.
I try to have that conversationwith them every morning while
I'm trying to lift heavy stuffand put it back down and just
(21:24):
having fun with that.
So it's.
I mean it's not much, butthat's what I do.
I've tried to journal.
Typically, what I end up doingis writing out my future.
You know I will be good at this, or I have done this, or I am
doing this.
And even if those things aren'ttrue or not true yet, I put
that down and it goes back tothat self-talk.
(21:45):
If I tell myself that I'mstrong and resolute, then if I
say it enough times, it's goingto happen because I'm going to
believe it, I'm going to thinkabout it and write it down every
day, and then eventually it'sgoing to be who I am, because
I'm speaking it into existence.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That's great, yeah.
Another thing that comes tomind is the whole gap versus the
gain concept, where you canlook at the gap between where
you are and where you want to be, which always leads to stress,
fear, depression, you know allkinds of stuff.
Or you can look at the gainfrom the period that you started
(22:24):
until now and all that you'vegained in knowledge and wisdom
and business development and andthat's you know.
I think that's such a healthierway to look at business, is you
?
You focus on the gain and lookat how far I've come, look how
far we've come, and that's areally powerful thing, cause
it's so easy to forget and justfocus on.
(22:45):
Well, once we get here, we'llbe in a better spot.
You know, once we get ouroperations here, once we get our
people, our team and there'salways, there's never, you never
arrive.
So if you're always focused onthe gap, it just increases the
pressure and the stress.
So now that's interesting tohear how you work through that.
(23:07):
I like to do that too at the gym.
A lot of people that work out.
I think their their number onefocus is working out, but for me
it's just down time, so I lovethat time to just reflect and
pray and talk to god and and um,listen to, listen to helpful
audio books and podcasts andstuff.
So so your fa, so the challengewith the job, the challenge
(23:31):
with the not getting paid andother stuff like that what's
what's been one of the biggestlessons you've learned as you
face some of these challenges,with this being one of your
hardest years?
What's, what do you think isthe biggest thing that is being
revealed to you?
Uh, for, in the midst of allthis, have a process and follow
it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Having the process doesn't mean anything if you
don't do it.
You know if you, if you knowhow to bench press, but you do
it exactly the opposite way thatyou know it should be done.
What good is that doing?
You're going to get hurt, killyourself or, at the very least,
not gain any muscle and bewasting your time.
So we've had to go back andrefine the processes that we do
(24:14):
have, and then I've had to getpretty strict on making sure the
team follows them and makingsure that we're.
If we've got it in writing andwe're not doing it that way, is
there a reason we need to changethe process or do we need to
get back to the basics offollowing that process?
I think a lot of the things, alot of the issues we've had,
(24:35):
could have been avoided by justfollowing the process we already
have.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's good stuff, man.
Well, I want to get into next.
I want to get a little bit intoyour inside outside sales thing
.
I think that's something mostguys do not know about and you
you're kind of overhauling thesales arm of your business.
But before we do that, I wantto thank one of our sponsors and
for those of you listening tothis, you may or may not know
(25:01):
what the Limitless Roofing GPOis, but we are essentially a
group purchasing organization,which means we pull 360 plus
companies together.
We go to suppliers and vendorsand we negotiate group deals and
discounts.
We pass those savings on to ourmembers, and Matt's one of
those.
And one of our partners is AtlasShingles and I think for a lot
(25:23):
of guys in roofing, everybody'sreally proud of the product they
use, and you should be right.
But a lot of guys make themistake and we all do this.
You make the mistake ofthinking other people understand
roofing, like you do, andhomeowners do not understand
roofing.
So I don't care if you're usingOC or GAF or any of them.
(25:44):
The homeowner doesn't know whatthat is.
Okay, I know this from being ahomeowner and getting into
roofing four years ago.
But with Atlas, one thing youcan do is say our shingles are
covered in Scotchgard.
Homeowners know what Scotchgardis, so Atlas has some amazing
products.
They have a great class three,a great class four and they've
(26:06):
teamed up with the companyScotchgard and that's something
where you can talk to thehomeowner and make it relatable.
So if you have any questionsabout our partnership with Atlas
and how you can save onproducts, just reach out to us
at our website,limitlessroofinggroupcom, and
you can learn more about thatpowerful partnership that we
have with Atlas.
All right, so getting back intoTrinity Roofing, you mentioned
(26:30):
early on inside outside sales.
So what is that and how is thatdifferent than whatever model
that you had prior to that?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
outside.
Everybody was going out.
If we had inbound leads, theywere taking that going out,
meeting the homeowner, meetingthe business owner, trying to
figure out a solution to theproblem and going from there.
So each one of those people,while they could get leads, they
were also ultimatelyresponsible for A to Z going out
(27:05):
, trying to generate their ownlead, take the lead and get it
all the way through to a signedcontract and then our operations
team can take it from there.
The inside-outside model reallykind of pairs an inside sales
coordinator with an outsideinspector or an outside
salesperson.
So an inside sales coordinatorwill do a lot of the admin work,
(27:29):
a lot of the background workmeasuring the roof, taking down
all the information, gettingeverything that they need from
the client before someone evergoes out there, so that inside
person possibly could close thedeal over the phone, over Zoom,
over email, without ever havingto send somebody out to the
(27:49):
property.
But they're just, they're adetective, they're trying to get
all the information possible.
What are they looking for?
What are their problems?
What are their pain points?
Are they looking for financing?
Are they looking for just arepair?
Are they trying to just sellthat, the property?
And so they need someone fast,right, the outside person.
Once they get all theinformation, they pass it on to
(28:11):
the outside person.
They've already got theappointment scheduled.
They go out there and run theappointment.
They're essentially thephysical detective, you know.
The inside person wants to knowall the information.
The outside person wants toknow everything about the roof
or everything about the projectthe size, the scope, the
measurements, how many pipejacks, what colors are they
(28:32):
looking for?
What colors are going to work?
What shingle do they want?
Do they want tile versus metalversus asphalt?
What is it that they need?
There's a lot of that stuffthat the inside person is
getting gathering too.
But sometimes you can get afeel for that more when you're
in front of the person.
But essentially the insideperson builds out the whole
program and then the outsideperson goes there, does a couple
(28:54):
touch-ups, presents a proposaland typically can close it on
the spot if everything goeswrong.
Right.
So it breaks up the roles andthe responsibilities where that
outside person's not having todo as much except go out and
make sure that everything isperfect on the measurements and
(29:14):
tell you know, run them through,what it looks like to do the
job and hopefully close the deal.
If they don't close it, that'sokay.
Both people are still going totag team that follow-up.
So now the biggest problem inour industry is that the sales
guy has a hundred differentpeople every month they're
supposed to follow up with fromthe month before and the month
before that, and we all knowthey don't do a very good job of
(29:35):
that.
You know, that's not to knockanybody out.
I'm not the best at it either.
But now we have someone who'sdedicated in the office, who has
it on their calendar.
Hey, I need to follow up withMrs Smith, mrs Jones and whoever
else today.
Hey, I need to follow up withMrs Smith, mrs Jones and whoever
else today.
And that way if the outsideperson doesn't have time for it
or doesn't remember or justisn't good at time management,
(29:56):
that person sitting in theoffice can do that.
And if that person needs to seesomeone more face-to-face, they
can send the outside personback over there to talk to them
again.
So it really kind of dividesthe roles and responsibilities
up.
But the inside person is alsogoing to be the same person who
follows up with him aboutscheduling the project,
collecting a check or sendingthe wire transfer or however it
(30:20):
is, we're doing that and thencontinuing that relationship in
the future.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Man, that's so good and I think it freezes somebody
who's really wired for sales andinto that part of the business
and interacting with homeownersand leading people to an
educated decision.
I'm making a broad, sweepingstatement here, but most of the
time people that are great atthat are not great at
organizational skills andstaying organized and following
(30:48):
a process and following throughwith, like you mentioned, like
if it's a hundred differentleads.
I mean, that's that's so hardto juggle that many balls.
I don't think anybody can dothat really well.
So but why did you?
What was your?
What was the impetus for you tochange your model?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Man, in a word, john Abernathy.
The way he described it and theway he taught us how they're
doing it, joplin was like, assoon as he said it, a light bulb
went off.
I'm like why have I neverthought of this before?
How come no one else isteaching this?
Everybody in the roofingindustry is doing it.
(31:26):
Completely the opposite.
Our industry, while it can belucrative, is extremely tough.
And if all these guys arefailing, maybe it's because
we're doing something wrong.
And as he was teaching anddescribing it, I was like that's
exactly what we need, becausemy guys are so swamped with
everything.
They need this back end officesupport from someone who's
(31:46):
dedicated.
And the way he teaches it isthat you know it's not like
willy nilly, free for all.
You've got a dedicated insidesales coordinator, or whatever
you want to call them, dedicatedto two or three outside folks.
So it's not like one persondoes everybody or one person
does whoever calls in that day.
You know you've got.
(32:08):
You know person A is onlyresponsible for A outside people
and person B is responsible forthe B outside people and
they're on a team, essentially,and so they help each other,
they want each other to win andit's not a.
It's competitive, but it's I'mgoing to compete with you, not
(32:28):
against you you get more of thatcamaraderie and that team and
just the way he described it,and I'm still asking him
questions on it.
I'm still learning from him,but the more I get out of out of
how they do it, the more I'mlike man.
This is, this is where we needto do it and I think I shared
with you a while ago.
We hired our first insidesalesperson about a month ago,
(32:50):
probably about two months agonow.
Game changer, game changer.
I've been able to delegatestuff.
The team has been able todelegate stuff.
They're knocking it out of thepark for us and we've had
tremendous growth because ofthat.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Man, that's killer.
We need to give that person aculture index survey and see
what type they were, and you canjust keep hiring types that are
similar to that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Actually, yeah, we, we sent her the index.
I need to get with Adam and getthat back.
I think she took it already but, yeah, if I could duplicate
that, that'd be phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
So what?
How do you incentivize theinside sales person if they do
tag team?
Well, first two questions.
One is does the inside salesperson ever lead it across the
finish line?
From the sales standpoint, they.
She has the opportunity, theycan yes okay, so they can, but
the outside person could tooright so but at yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well so so the way I've instructed that position is
if we we go through what wecall the roof discovery
questions.
It's just a list of questionswe go through to learn
everything we can about you andyour roof or you and whatever
project that you're looking at.
So if she can get through allof that and she can create the
measurements and send it over toyou and you're ready to go, the
(34:11):
outside team doesn't even getinvolved.
If, however, they still havequestions or they want someone
to come take a look, or theythink, hey, there's hail damage
or wind damage or whatever, or Ithink something's wrong with my
roof and I just need to repair,she'll go through the same
questions, get all the sameinformation and pass it off to
one of the outside team membersand they'll they'll try to go in
and close it.
(34:32):
In either case.
You know she she's incentivizedto help close that deal, so the
more, the more we close, themore she's making.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
That's cool.
Yeah, that's.
I just love that model and, forthose of you listening to this,
if you want to learn more aboutthis, you know it's worth
scheduling a call andconsidering joining our
mastermind.
We go deep on this stuff forhours at a time and it's pivotal
.
It can be pivotal in yourbusiness, but I think you're
finding out, matt it's.
You know it takes a while tobuild that out, get the right
(35:05):
people to get the SOPs in place,but once you do by the end of
this year, you're probably goingto be good with that for the
next five to 10 years.
You're just going to build onto that solid foundation and
framework.
So that's awesome, man.
There's just very few roofingcompanies that I know that are
(35:25):
operating that way and it justmakes so much more sense to me
yeah, and you know we've.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm doing what I've always done, because I've always
done it, because that's what Ilearned, right.
Well, that doesn't make it theright way.
So thankfully, guys like Johnare out there and he's teaching
teaching a better way.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yep, yep, john's a solid dude, so, um.
So, matt, we're coming up kindof to the top of the hour here,
knowing what you know now, up tothis point in your journey.
What's a parting piece ofadvice you would give to
encourage any other ownerslistening to this that may be
going through similar challenges, or maybe not yet, but maybe
(36:08):
they may have had kind of alight bulb moment today, I think
.
Wait, what the heck was hetalking about inside, outside?
What's a parting piece ofadvice you have?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I would say that if a guy like me that can't see, my
best asset is that I can growfacial hair.
If a guy like me can do this,if you put your mind to it, you
can be successful in thisindustry or anything else you
want to do.
You know, it's, it's, it's allup here.
Right, you could have verylittle smarts, very little
(36:39):
talents, but if you really wantto do something, if you really
want to learn about it,everything's inside these
devices that we're looking at.
Everything you ever wanted tolearn, you know you don't have
to go sit in front of a lectureand learn it for four or five
years or whatever.
So I would just say that if youreally want something, find a
way and go get it.
Whatever that is, there'snothing that's stopping any of
(37:02):
us.
We just got to get out of ourown way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
So good man.
Well, matt, thank you so muchfor being on the show and just
kind of giving us a peek behindthe curtain at your business and
your journey and yourleadership, and, for those of
you listening, I hope you got alot out of this.
I love what Matt said aboutfollow the process, focus on
your mindset and make sure yougot the right people in the
(37:27):
right seats.
I think there's just some realvalue that we discussed today
and for any of you that want tojoin our roofing GPO, our group
purchasing organization, it isfree to join.
You just go to our website atlimitlessroofinggroupcom.
So, matt, thanks again forbeing on the show, man.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Thanks, dylan, I appreciate you having me.
all right, welcome to the limitless roofing show,
where we give you a seat at thetable as we talk with roofing
owners so that you can take yourbusiness to the next level.
And today I have the honor ofinterviewing one of the members
of the limitless roofing gpo, mrmatt dravis.
So, matt, thanks for being onthe show.
Man, thanks, man.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Appreciate it, dylan, always glad to talk with you.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Two cool things about Matt Lives in Texas, like.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I do, and has a really healthy beard.
Yeah, never left.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Always been here.
Yeah, it's hard to leave Texasonce you get here.
Well, matt, thanks for being onthe show.
I we were going to get into,you know, your company journey
so far, some of the biggestchallenges you're facing, how
you're dealing with them, andwe're going to get into some
gold nuggets on from there.
But before we do that, justgive a little bit of background.
How long have you been in theindustry?
(00:59):
Uh, where's your company?
How'd you get into roofingstuff like that?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
sure, yes, I got in kind of by accident.
Um, my dad was doing it and Ithought I was going to be like
the smart kid and tell him thathe was crazy and that I wasn't
going to follow in his footsteps.
And I went off into the oil andgas realm, went off into that
world for about a decade and gottired of getting laid off.
(01:24):
Off into that world for about adecade and got tired of getting
laid off and, uh, startedselling part-time and very
quickly realized that man, likethe roofing that I was taught,
like the physical aspect of it,and selling two different worlds
.
Um, it turned me off.
I didn't want to be a roofer,right, I didn't want to be a
laborer and there, there'snothing wrong with that, but I
just, I just couldn't see myselfdoing that for 50 years.
(01:47):
But then, when I saw the salesside of it and was successful
there, I was making more parttime selling routes than I was
full time in the oil field, andthat's that's really what.
What brought me in and I forfor a couple other companies for
a while.
And, like everybody else's songand dance, you work for someone
(02:08):
long enough.
You eventually don't get paid.
Um, they something happens andthey don't pay you and you move
on and try something else.
Um, had that not happened, I'dprobably be working for that
other outfit still, cause Iliked it, it was a lot of fun,
it was a lot easier just to sellinstead of doing everything
else.
But we've been doing TrinityRoofing and Restoration for
(02:29):
about a decade that's nine yearsand we love it.
I have a lot of fun.
There's tough times, like wewere talking about earlier, but,
man, there's nothing I wouldwant to change.
I mean nothing about like Iwould not go back into the oil
and gas industry and go backoffshore or any of that kind of
(02:51):
stuff.
So we started out doingresidential roofing and we've
slowly started working our wayinto commercial.
We even do a lot of restorationand remodeling now too, so not
just on the roof roof, butinside the building or inside
the home, and that's keeping uspretty busy this year.
So it's been a lot of funthat's great.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So you guys were founded around 2015 uh late 2016
.
Yeah, late 2016.
Gotcha man, that's so cool.
So, looking back when you, youknow, when you weren't treated,
treated properly and you weren'tpaid at the time, I mean, what
was that like?
I assume you felt like, man,this is going great, now
Everything's just turning into anightmare.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, it was one of those where I was still working
my day job, so I still hadincome coming in, so it wasn't
like I was hurting.
But you know I had just starteda family, you know I.
At that point it had, uh yeah,my, my, my fourth kid, um, so
(03:55):
that extra supplemental incomemeant a lot and I wasn't.
I wasn't spending time awayfrom my family for nothing.
I wanted I wanted to be able toshow something for it.
I don't have any animositytowards those guys.
They were in a hard time, I getit.
It was just not the right thingto do.
It was a trial, for sure, butit taught me a lot of lessons.
(04:18):
That's one of the things Idon't do.
I don't mess around with otherpeople's money.
When I owe my subs, when I owemy team, they'll get paid before
I do for sure, 100%.
And there have been monthswhere I don't get paid to make
sure that they can.
I mean they're working just ashard and I'm the one that if it
goes well, great, great for allof us.
(04:39):
If it doesn't, you know I'm theone that's ultimately
responsible for that.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, it's so interesting how those painful
moments or those trials orchallenges really affect the way
you operate down the road.
And I look at even companiesI've been with in a sales role
or account executive role andthe way I was treated as a
salesperson or an accountexecutive and the way I was
managed affected the way Imanage people now, because I
(05:07):
know what it's like to bemicromanaged, to be under a ton
of pressure to you, know stufflike that.
So where do you find thathealthy balance between
accountability but at the sametime, not micromanaging, and
that's a challenge.
But it's just cool to just coolhow to see how you're.
Part of the story involve younot getting paid, which is a
(05:28):
challenge.
But then that was the probablythe tipping point for you to say
you know what?
I think I can do this on my ownand I'm going to take care of
people financially and not thatthat's never going to happen to
my people.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, it's the same thing for training too, because
I came in and I got about threehours of training before I was
just told to go knock doors,right, and then literally I I
sell my first door knock, or thefirst door knock that I sold.
Um, I'm literally looking at acontract my dad had written and
I'm looking at a blank one andI'm copying and pasting, not
(06:04):
knowing anything about what I'mwriting.
I'm just doing a blank one andI'm copying and pasting, not
knowing anything about what I'mwriting.
I'm just doing a carbon copyand say, hey, sign this.
I don't know what I'm doing andI think I was just blessed with
the tenacity of wanting to know.
And so you can ask some of ourteam we probably train a lot too
much, if that's a thing,because I got none of it in the
(06:27):
beginning.
So I want people who come towork for Trinity to be like man
we train all the time.
We don't stop training, wereally don't.
You know, everybody has aone-on-one with me, and then
every Friday we train, everyMonday we train, and then we
also try to get together onweekends, if we're.
If we're not out door knockingor have jobs or whatnot, we're
(06:47):
training.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Man, that's great, yeah, it's.
It's interesting because a lotof you know a lot of guys have
different takes on leadershipand motivation.
And this came up some at somepoint earlier in the week with
guys in the limitless roofinggroup and it was on a mastermind
call and somebody said how areyou motivating your sales guys?
And I made the comment thatit's not your job to motivate
(07:11):
people.
That's a heart issue and amindset or a head space issue,
but it is your job to equip them.
Right Like that.
Servant leadership is that youequip people so that they can
achieve the goals that you'veset with them together.
So it's, there's a bigdifference between motivation
and equipping.
Motivation is like gettingpeople to believe that they can
(07:33):
do this thing or getting them towant it or whatever.
I just don't think that canhappen in a short burst at a
Tony Robbins event or whatever.
But within a few days you goback to just the normal world.
But if you're equipped to dosomething that the owner of the
company asks you to do andyou're trained, that's a whole
different world, and then youbecome motivated to keep doing
(07:57):
it because it's working.
So let's get into.
You've been about 10 years innow A lot of guys that are sales
guys think about it like man, Icould do this on my own.
What was it like going frombeing in sales to building a
company?
(08:17):
What was that gap like goingfrom that one role to, all of a
sudden, you're wearing all thehats, you're worried about
bookkeeping, all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So the two things I would say is I wouldn't wish
that on my worst enemy.
It's a tough job.
And the second thing I'll saywas I was lucky enough that when
I was young my dad never let mehave a job.
He always made me have my ownbusiness.
So from the time I was 10, I'venever really other than other
(08:49):
than going out to the oil field,I've never really worked for
anybody, um, so I've never had asteady paycheck.
I've never had, you know,benefits really, other than that
that time in the oil field.
Um, so I was used to kind ofthe rich dad, poor dad, of being
able to go out and work andwork and work and work and work
and not pay yourself.
Um, and because of the otherbusinesses that I've had I was
(09:12):
used to doing, you know, I wasthe laborer, the accountant, the
CPA, the tax filer, thepurchaser, I mean you name it.
I was wearing that hat and I'vehad to learn how to delegate and
I've had to learn how to hireright to bring people in so I
can delegate some of those tasksout, because as you grow you
(09:35):
just can't do everything.
I mean people try to hold on toit way too long I know I have.
It was tough in the beginninggoing from wearing one or two
hats to all of a sudden, becausein sales like the company I was
at before we started TrinityRoofing, we just sold.
(09:56):
That was it.
I didn't have to worry aboutproject managing and ordering
and all the back end officestuff that wasn't me.
I just went out and sold officestuff that wasn't me.
I just went out and sold.
So of course your sales sufferwhen you start taking on all
these other responsibilities,and then you quickly find out
like hey, it's you know it's notas
easy as it looks, and somepeople make it look flawlessly
(10:19):
easy.
I am not one of those.
You would not use me as a casestudy for someone who started a
business and it went really,really well and they had no
hiccups.
We have hiccups all the timehere today, but it's a.
It was a learning experience,something I wouldn't take back,
something I would do over andover and over again.
That's something I'm trying toteach my kids is learn to get
(10:44):
good at a lot of differentthings, cause you're going to
need all of them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's good.
Yeah, sales is like aone-on-one sport, like tennis or
wrestling or whatever.
But as soon as you go to beinga company owner, it immediately
flips to a team sport.
It's like you can't be thequarterback and the lineman and
the wide receiver and all thoseroles.
So what is your?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
what are your goals for Trinity in the next couple
of years?
Like revenue, wise businessmodel, wise stuff like that.
So we've completely flipped ourbusiness model.
We've gone to the insideoutside sales model.
We're still, I would say, 60,70% through that.
Implementation is going to takea little bit of time to get
there, but, having theinside-outside model, I'd like
to be this year between $4 and$5 million in revenue and over
(11:38):
the next, say, three to fiveyears, hitting that $10 to $15
mark, if not sooner.
We didn't do quite as well lastyear as I had hoped.
We had some uptick at the endof the year, but obviously no
one's where they want to be.
Most people want to continue togrow, but I think for us, the
(12:00):
biggest goal we have is hiringmore of the right people and
making sure they're in the rightseats on the right direction of
the bus and you and I havetalked about that in the past.
Of people are just so crucialand the right people are
tremendous.
If you stick the right personin the wrong seat or you just
(12:21):
have the wrong person in general, it can wreak havoc on an
organization, and that's mybiggest focus for 2025 is
getting the right people on thebus.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's so good.
Yeah, there's so much we couldsay about that.
So you want to land around 5million this year and then get
up to 15 in the next two orthree years.
So far you're 10 years in.
You're doing well.
Your company's growing.
It's on an upward growthtrajectory.
I know you've grown a lot as aleader.
(12:52):
You're learning about puttingthe right people in the right
place.
You're in our mastermind andwe're talking about things like
culture index excuse me,different tools that help make
that a lot easier.
But let's talk about challenges, because you and I know that it
really doesn't matter whatbusiness every business you're
in, especially if you're theowner.
(13:13):
The amount of challenges andthe intensity of the challenges
you face come and go, and I'veheard a preacher say one time
you're either going into a stormor coming out of a storm, or
you're about to go into one,like it's just hey, if
everything's great and you havezero challenges, you've either
plateaued or just give it alittle time, right?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
so so let's talk about some of the biggest
challenges you've been facing,maybe this year yeah, this, this
, uh, this year's been rough,man, I feel like every time I've
turned around this year I'vegotten kicked in the teeth.
We had a phenomenal project gooff towards the end of last year
(13:57):
.
The guy's first check bouncedand now he's refusing to pay
anything.
So $34,000 sitting out therethat I'll probably never collect
.
Ticking the teeth, right.
We've had guys underperforming.
We had someone undersell a joblike a really big job with a GC
(14:20):
that we've done a lot of workfor.
So not only did the project gosouth from the beginning because
there wasn't enough moneyallocated to even cover cost,
the person didn't go throughSOPs, I didn't even and this all
falls on me, man I didn't evenknow about the project until the
(14:41):
GC called me when there was anissue and I'm like what are you
talking about?
Right, the SOPs weren'tfollowed.
I didn't even know about it.
I'm not blaming the otherperson about Right, the SOPs
weren't followed, I didn't evenknow about it.
I'm not blaming the otherperson Again, it goes back to me
.
But we're in the hole on thatone and we ruined a relationship
(15:02):
with the GC that I've done alot of work for and spent the
last five years building arelationship.
So you know 20, 30, 40 projectsto build the reputation and
less than one project to ruin it.
So again, just kicking the teeth.
Cashflow this year has beenhard to manage, people have been
hard to manage, and then tryingto hire people, I've had to
(15:23):
stop what I'm doing, slow downand be able to go.
Okay, we've got to have atraining program, we've got to
have something written out.
So that takes me away from justrunning the business, just to
be able to go back and say if wewant to bring people on and
bring them on the right way,what do we have to have in place
to do that?
And so everything else has hadto take a back seat, which
doesn't help all that otherstuff.
(15:44):
So this year has definitelybeen challenging and every
business has that right.
Every business has thosegut-punched moments where you're
like okay, are we doing theright thing?
Are we on the right path?
You know, is it easier just tofold the whole thing up and go
get a job, or is it easier tolet somebody else run this thing
?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
What is?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
it we're doing?
Why are we here?
What's the purpose of this andto me that's a lot of it is.
What's kept me going is what isthe ultimate purpose.
You know, if I'm here just forthe money, I'm going to bail out
at some point.
Go find somebody that paysbetter.
But if you're in it for theright reasons and you got those
reasons and you know them we'rejust going to keep getting
(16:27):
kicked in the teeth until wefigure it out yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
So when you talk about those chat like that's
that is a blow.
When you know you're not goingto get paid for a job and then
an issue with the team memberand then a relationship getting
damaged, stuff like that, youknow these challenges and
mistakes and whatever it startsto weigh on you as the owner and
your, your headspace, the kindsof things you're thinking about
(16:52):
saying.
You know you start waking up attwo in the morning thinking
about it, mulling over it andstuff like that.
But you know that's I thinkthat's the key to persevering
when things are hard is what isyourself talk like?
And they they found this out inthe Navy SEALs that they
developed a mental toughnessprogram because and I've shared
(17:12):
this analogy, I think, severaltimes over the last few years on
this podcast but they developeda mental toughness program
because they found out that theycould have two guys go through
buds and one of them was a farmboy from Kentucky who didn't
look like anything specialphysically and another guy, some
guy from Florida, that swam allthe time, did nothing but work
(17:32):
out, eat right, just physicality, was a powerhouse and that guy
would fail and the farm boy fromKentucky who'd almost never
swam before, would go throughand pass and become a SEAL, and
they found out it was because ofthe self-talk.
It was like most of it was theperson's self-talk as they were
going through buds, and so theydeveloped a mental toughness
(17:55):
program and the first thing wasto replace negative self-talk
for positive self-talk, likelittle stuff, like they would
tell.
Each tell themselves I'm goingto make it through this next
thing, I'm going to make it tolunch.
I'm going to make it to launch,not like huge goals for the
year or for six weeks, or I'mgoing to make it through this
next thing.
I'm going to make it to lunch.
I'm going to make it to lunch,not like huge goals for the year
or for six weeks, or I'm goingto pass budgets.
I'm going to pass this.
This one exercise is not goingto keep me back.
(18:17):
I'm going to make it throughand I'm going to enjoy a nice
lunch.
So what's your, what's yourheadspace been like?
Or how have you encouragedyourself or how have you
reoriented your perspective tomake sure you do persevere and
you don't get weighed down by itall too much?
Speaker 2 (18:33):
well to two things.
Well, several things, I guess.
One, remembering who'sultimately in control and to
remembering who's in control ofme, like am I gonna let that guy
who's going to pay me ruin therest of my career or ruin the
rest of my company or ruin therest of my life?
Yeah, $34,000 and I gettingpaid?
(18:53):
That sucks, it hurts.
Am I going to let that stopeverything else or am I going to
figure out a way to persevereand overcome?
You know, same thing with allthose other scenarios Are those?
Am I going to allow those to bebig enough to take me over and
take me under, or am I going tojust figure it out and just keep
going?
And so the headspace sometimesis you're waking up at 2 am,
(19:16):
like two days ago it was 341, Ibeat my alarm by an hour and I'm
up and I'm like okay, I can.
I wake up and I'm alreadyvisualizing what went wrong
yesterday.
What are we going to do aboutit?
Those kind of nights can stinkif you let it get to you, but it
really just gets back to.
(19:36):
Am I going to let this overtakeme?
Am I going to let this controlme, or am I going to figure it
out and, thankfully, I've neverhad the opportunity to give up,
I've never given myself the out,and I don't ever want to be at
that point, and so it's justmaking sure that I say, okay,
(19:56):
everything's a lesson, nothing'sa failure.
You're only a failure if youquit and you give up and you
stop.
Just because you had somethinggo wrong doesn't mean you're a
failure.
It's a lesson.
Learn from it.
Don't make the same mistaketwice.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Move on.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I heard the quote one time sometimes you win
and sometimes you learn yeah,that's right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
So how do you do that ?
How do you let go of control?
You're trusting that I'm goingto get through this.
This is just a season.
I'm season, gonna learn fromthis or whatever.
But how do you, how do you tapinto that?
Or how do you foster that foryou personally to let go of that
control?
I mean, do you journal?
Do you talk to other guys aboutit?
(20:37):
Do you pray?
Like what does that look likefor you?
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I do something I can control.
So so I may not be able tocontrol that guy paying me, um,
but I do stuff I can control.
I hit the gym every morning andthat's something I can control,
if nothing else good happenstoday.
I know that I started my dayoff right, took care of my mind,
(21:01):
took care of my body.
And you know, normally for mewhen I'm, when I'm working out,
that is when I'm praying, that'stypically when I'm in my
headspace with God, with theLord, and saying, ok, here's
what I'm not liking, here's whatI am liking, what do we do
about this?
And it's.
I try to have that conversationwith them every morning while
I'm trying to lift heavy stuffand put it back down and just
(21:24):
having fun with that.
So it's.
I mean it's not much, butthat's what I do.
I've tried to journal.
Typically, what I end up doingis writing out my future.
You know I will be good at this, or I have done this, or I am
doing this.
And even if those things aren'ttrue or not true yet, I put
that down and it goes back tothat self-talk.
(21:45):
If I tell myself that I'mstrong and resolute, then if I
say it enough times, it's goingto happen because I'm going to
believe it, I'm going to thinkabout it and write it down every
day, and then eventually it'sgoing to be who I am, because
I'm speaking it into existence.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That's great, yeah.
Another thing that comes tomind is the whole gap versus the
gain concept, where you canlook at the gap between where
you are and where you want to be, which always leads to stress,
fear, depression, you know allkinds of stuff.
Or you can look at the gainfrom the period that you started
(22:24):
until now and all that you'vegained in knowledge and wisdom
and business development and andthat's you know.
I think that's such a healthierway to look at business, is you
?
You focus on the gain and lookat how far I've come, look how
far we've come, and that's areally powerful thing, cause
it's so easy to forget and justfocus on.
(22:45):
Well, once we get here, we'llbe in a better spot.
You know, once we get ouroperations here, once we get our
people, our team and there'salways, there's never, you never
arrive.
So if you're always focused onthe gap, it just increases the
pressure and the stress.
So now that's interesting tohear how you work through that.
(23:07):
I like to do that too at the gym.
A lot of people that work out.
I think their their number onefocus is working out, but for me
it's just down time, so I lovethat time to just reflect and
pray and talk to god and and um,listen to, listen to helpful
audio books and podcasts andstuff.
So so your fa, so the challengewith the job, the challenge
(23:31):
with the not getting paid andother stuff like that what's
what's been one of the biggestlessons you've learned as you
face some of these challenges,with this being one of your
hardest years?
What's, what do you think isthe biggest thing that is being
revealed to you?
Uh, for, in the midst of allthis, have a process and follow
it.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Having the process doesn't mean anything if you
don't do it.
You know if you, if you knowhow to bench press, but you do
it exactly the opposite way thatyou know it should be done.
What good is that doing?
You're going to get hurt, killyourself or, at the very least,
not gain any muscle and bewasting your time.
So we've had to go back andrefine the processes that we do
(24:14):
have, and then I've had to getpretty strict on making sure the
team follows them and makingsure that we're.
If we've got it in writing andwe're not doing it that way, is
there a reason we need to changethe process or do we need to
get back to the basics offollowing that process?
I think a lot of the things, alot of the issues we've had,
(24:35):
could have been avoided by justfollowing the process we already
have.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's good stuff, man.
Well, I want to get into next.
I want to get a little bit intoyour inside outside sales thing
.
I think that's something mostguys do not know about and you
you're kind of overhauling thesales arm of your business.
But before we do that, I wantto thank one of our sponsors and
for those of you listening tothis, you may or may not know
(25:01):
what the Limitless Roofing GPOis, but we are essentially a
group purchasing organization,which means we pull 360 plus
companies together.
We go to suppliers and vendorsand we negotiate group deals and
discounts.
We pass those savings on to ourmembers, and Matt's one of
those.
And one of our partners is AtlasShingles and I think for a lot
(25:23):
of guys in roofing, everybody'sreally proud of the product they
use, and you should be right.
But a lot of guys make themistake and we all do this.
You make the mistake ofthinking other people understand
roofing, like you do, andhomeowners do not understand
roofing.
So I don't care if you're usingOC or GAF or any of them.
(25:44):
The homeowner doesn't know whatthat is.
Okay, I know this from being ahomeowner and getting into
roofing four years ago.
But with Atlas, one thing youcan do is say our shingles are
covered in Scotchgard.
Homeowners know what Scotchgardis, so Atlas has some amazing
products.
They have a great class three,a great class four and they've
(26:06):
teamed up with the companyScotchgard and that's something
where you can talk to thehomeowner and make it relatable.
So if you have any questionsabout our partnership with Atlas
and how you can save onproducts, just reach out to us
at our website,limitlessroofinggroupcom, and
you can learn more about thatpowerful partnership that we
have with Atlas.
All right, so getting back intoTrinity Roofing, you mentioned
(26:30):
early on inside outside sales.
So what is that and how is thatdifferent than whatever model
that you had prior to that?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
outside.
Everybody was going out.
If we had inbound leads, theywere taking that going out,
meeting the homeowner, meetingthe business owner, trying to
figure out a solution to theproblem and going from there.
So each one of those people,while they could get leads, they
were also ultimatelyresponsible for A to Z going out
(27:05):
, trying to generate their ownlead, take the lead and get it
all the way through to a signedcontract and then our operations
team can take it from there.
The inside-outside model reallykind of pairs an inside sales
coordinator with an outsideinspector or an outside
salesperson.
So an inside sales coordinatorwill do a lot of the admin work,
(27:29):
a lot of the background workmeasuring the roof, taking down
all the information, gettingeverything that they need from
the client before someone evergoes out there, so that inside
person possibly could close thedeal over the phone, over Zoom,
over email, without ever havingto send somebody out to the
(27:49):
property.
But they're just, they're adetective, they're trying to get
all the information possible.
What are they looking for?
What are their problems?
What are their pain points?
Are they looking for financing?
Are they looking for just arepair?
Are they trying to just sellthat, the property?
And so they need someone fast,right, the outside person.
Once they get all theinformation, they pass it on to
(28:11):
the outside person.
They've already got theappointment scheduled.
They go out there and run theappointment.
They're essentially thephysical detective, you know.
The inside person wants to knowall the information.
The outside person wants toknow everything about the roof
or everything about the projectthe size, the scope, the
measurements, how many pipejacks, what colors are they
(28:32):
looking for?
What colors are going to work?
What shingle do they want?
Do they want tile versus metalversus asphalt?
What is it that they need?
There's a lot of that stuffthat the inside person is
getting gathering too.
But sometimes you can get afeel for that more when you're
in front of the person.
But essentially the insideperson builds out the whole
program and then the outsideperson goes there, does a couple
(28:54):
touch-ups, presents a proposaland typically can close it on
the spot if everything goeswrong.
Right.
So it breaks up the roles andthe responsibilities where that
outside person's not having todo as much except go out and
make sure that everything isperfect on the measurements and
(29:14):
tell you know, run them through,what it looks like to do the
job and hopefully close the deal.
If they don't close it, that'sokay.
Both people are still going totag team that follow-up.
So now the biggest problem inour industry is that the sales
guy has a hundred differentpeople every month they're
supposed to follow up with fromthe month before and the month
before that, and we all knowthey don't do a very good job of
(29:35):
that.
You know, that's not to knockanybody out.
I'm not the best at it either.
But now we have someone who'sdedicated in the office, who has
it on their calendar.
Hey, I need to follow up withMrs Smith, mrs Jones and whoever
else today.
Hey, I need to follow up withMrs Smith, mrs Jones and whoever
else today.
And that way if the outsideperson doesn't have time for it
or doesn't remember or justisn't good at time management,
(29:56):
that person sitting in theoffice can do that.
And if that person needs to seesomeone more face-to-face, they
can send the outside personback over there to talk to them
again.
So it really kind of dividesthe roles and responsibilities
up.
But the inside person is alsogoing to be the same person who
follows up with him aboutscheduling the project,
collecting a check or sendingthe wire transfer or however it
(30:20):
is, we're doing that and thencontinuing that relationship in
the future.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Man, that's so good and I think it freezes somebody
who's really wired for sales andinto that part of the business
and interacting with homeownersand leading people to an
educated decision.
I'm making a broad, sweepingstatement here, but most of the
time people that are great atthat are not great at
organizational skills andstaying organized and following
(30:48):
a process and following throughwith, like you mentioned, like
if it's a hundred differentleads.
I mean, that's that's so hardto juggle that many balls.
I don't think anybody can dothat really well.
So but why did you?
What was your?
What was the impetus for you tochange your model?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Man, in a word, john Abernathy.
The way he described it and theway he taught us how they're
doing it, joplin was like, assoon as he said it, a light bulb
went off.
I'm like why have I neverthought of this before?
How come no one else isteaching this?
Everybody in the roofingindustry is doing it.
(31:26):
Completely the opposite.
Our industry, while it can belucrative, is extremely tough.
And if all these guys arefailing, maybe it's because
we're doing something wrong.
And as he was teaching anddescribing it, I was like that's
exactly what we need, becausemy guys are so swamped with
everything.
They need this back end officesupport from someone who's
(31:46):
dedicated.
And the way he teaches it isthat you know it's not like
willy nilly, free for all.
You've got a dedicated insidesales coordinator, or whatever
you want to call them, dedicatedto two or three outside folks.
So it's not like one persondoes everybody or one person
does whoever calls in that day.
You know you've got.
(32:08):
You know person A is onlyresponsible for A outside people
and person B is responsible forthe B outside people and
they're on a team, essentially,and so they help each other,
they want each other to win andit's not a.
It's competitive, but it's I'mgoing to compete with you, not
(32:28):
against you you get more of thatcamaraderie and that team and
just the way he described it,and I'm still asking him
questions on it.
I'm still learning from him,but the more I get out of out of
how they do it, the more I'mlike man.
This is, this is where we needto do it and I think I shared
with you a while ago.
We hired our first insidesalesperson about a month ago,
(32:50):
probably about two months agonow.
Game changer, game changer.
I've been able to delegatestuff.
The team has been able todelegate stuff.
They're knocking it out of thepark for us and we've had
tremendous growth because ofthat.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Man, that's killer.
We need to give that person aculture index survey and see
what type they were, and you canjust keep hiring types that are
similar to that.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Actually, yeah, we, we sent her the index.
I need to get with Adam and getthat back.
I think she took it already but, yeah, if I could duplicate
that, that'd be phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
So what?
How do you incentivize theinside sales person if they do
tag team?
Well, first two questions.
One is does the inside salesperson ever lead it across the
finish line?
From the sales standpoint, they.
She has the opportunity, theycan yes okay, so they can, but
the outside person could tooright so but at yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well so so the way I've instructed that position is
if we we go through what wecall the roof discovery
questions.
It's just a list of questionswe go through to learn
everything we can about you andyour roof or you and whatever
project that you're looking at.
So if she can get through allof that and she can create the
measurements and send it over toyou and you're ready to go, the
(34:11):
outside team doesn't even getinvolved.
If, however, they still havequestions or they want someone
to come take a look, or theythink, hey, there's hail damage
or wind damage or whatever, or Ithink something's wrong with my
roof and I just need to repair,she'll go through the same
questions, get all the sameinformation and pass it off to
one of the outside team membersand they'll they'll try to go in
and close it.
(34:32):
In either case.
You know she she's incentivizedto help close that deal, so the
more, the more we close, themore she's making.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
That's cool.
Yeah, that's.
I just love that model and, forthose of you listening to this,
if you want to learn more aboutthis, you know it's worth
scheduling a call andconsidering joining our
mastermind.
We go deep on this stuff forhours at a time and it's pivotal
.
It can be pivotal in yourbusiness, but I think you're
finding out, matt it's.
You know it takes a while tobuild that out, get the right
(35:05):
people to get the SOPs in place,but once you do by the end of
this year, you're probably goingto be good with that for the
next five to 10 years.
You're just going to build onto that solid foundation and
framework.
So that's awesome, man.
There's just very few roofingcompanies that I know that are
(35:25):
operating that way and it justmakes so much more sense to me
yeah, and you know we've.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm doing what I've always done, because I've always
done it, because that's what Ilearned, right.
Well, that doesn't make it theright way.
So thankfully, guys like Johnare out there and he's teaching
teaching a better way.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yep, yep, john's a solid dude, so, um.
So, matt, we're coming up kindof to the top of the hour here,
knowing what you know now, up tothis point in your journey.
What's a parting piece ofadvice you would give to
encourage any other ownerslistening to this that may be
going through similar challenges, or maybe not yet, but maybe
(36:08):
they may have had kind of alight bulb moment today, I think
.
Wait, what the heck was hetalking about inside, outside?
What's a parting piece ofadvice you have?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I would say that if a guy like me that can't see, my
best asset is that I can growfacial hair.
If a guy like me can do this,if you put your mind to it, you
can be successful in thisindustry or anything else you
want to do.
You know, it's, it's, it's allup here.
Right, you could have verylittle smarts, very little
(36:39):
talents, but if you really wantto do something, if you really
want to learn about it,everything's inside these
devices that we're looking at.
Everything you ever wanted tolearn, you know you don't have
to go sit in front of a lectureand learn it for four or five
years or whatever.
So I would just say that if youreally want something, find a
way and go get it.
Whatever that is, there'snothing that's stopping any of
(37:02):
us.
We just got to get out of ourown way.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
So good man.
Well, matt, thank you so muchfor being on the show and just
kind of giving us a peek behindthe curtain at your business and
your journey and yourleadership, and, for those of
you listening, I hope you got alot out of this.
I love what Matt said aboutfollow the process, focus on
your mindset and make sure yougot the right people in the
(37:27):
right seats.
I think there's just some realvalue that we discussed today
and for any of you that want tojoin our roofing GPO, our group
purchasing organization, it isfree to join.
You just go to our website atlimitlessroofinggroupcom.
So, matt, thanks again forbeing on the show, man.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Thanks, dylan, I appreciate you having me.
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