April 14, 2025 • 55 mins
What happens when a football coach with 32 seasons of experience decides to tackle the roofing industry? Ken Blankenship's remarkable journey from coaching NFL players to building Superior Roofing offers powerful lessons for anyone struggling with sales teams, business growth, or finding meaning in their work.
Ken entered roofing in 2018 without knowing what drip edge or underlayment was—yet made nearly $400,000 in commissions his first year. His secret wasn't technical knowledge but a deeply human approach to sales. "Everything is about relationship building," Ken explains. "If you don't know how to handle that human interaction, it wears on you mentally and emotionally."
The conversation reveals why door-to-door sales feels so challenging despite being physically simple. Ken's coaching background shines through as he shares techniques for handling rejection, reading subtle client cues, and transforming confrontational moments into meaningful connections. His story about knocking on doors after they've been slammed in his face—offering compassion rather than sales pitches—illustrates the power of genuine human concern in business.
Having launched Superior Roofing's residential division just months before this conversation, Ken's fresh perspective on growth challenges resonates with both new and established business owners. His "five-minute rule" for handling disappointment and failure offers practical wisdom for anyone facing setbacks. The episode culminates with a fascinating story about eating off strangers' plates at a high-end restaurant that perfectly encapsulates Ken's philosophy: "What's the worst that can happen when you try?"
Whether you're in roofing, sales, leadership, or simply interested in building better relationships, this conversation offers rare insights into growing businesses through genuine human connection. As Ken puts it, "I'd rather try and fail than not try at all."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
all right, welcome to the limitless roofing show.
Today we have mr kenblankenship from superior and
we're going to just talk aboutwhat it's like to grow roofing
businesses.
Just the, the hard stuff, thegood stuff, the dream,
everything we learn along theway.
So, ken, thanks for joining theshow, man.
Hey, thank you, man, I reallydo appreciate the opportunity,
(00:27):
for sure.
All right.
So Mr Ken is involved in a fewdifferent things, does some
consulting for other roofingcompanies, loves to teach, loves
to serve, and you've done a lotof things over the years.
So let's just give a little bitof your background story.
How'd you get into roofing?
How long you been in roofingStuff like that Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So one of the things you know most people that know
me call me coach, right, so I'man old football coach.
I coach from every level, fromthe NFL all the way down to
seven, eight, nine-year-old kids, and so you know, in that
coaching and I've been coachingfor, you know, 30, I think I
(01:10):
coached 32 seasons, and so youknow, one of the things that I
was real big on is making bettermen for others.
That was kind of my mantra,right was we're going to build
better men for others and I hopeyou know people from the NFL
even all the way down in thatmindset and learning how to
(01:34):
become a better man, right, andthat is being a good servant,
being a better, you know,husband, father, son, you know,
boyfriend, whatever, you know,it's just being a better person.
And so you know, I've takenthat and I and I utilize that in
my business principles as well,and so everybody calls me coach
(01:56):
and and that's what I do, manis I coach, I coach people, you
know, I just try to try to teachthem to be, to be better today
than they were yesterday and andso that's kind of the, the, the
, the short introduction.
But but no, man, you know I gotinto roofing.
I was in the HVAC business for22 years, kind of did the same
(02:19):
thing there, right, a lot ofsales training, sales management
.
I did business development, alot of sales training, sales
management.
I did business development.
I did regional sales trainingfor the three major
manufacturers, which is Lenox,train and Carrier, and in those
trainings, you know, weconnected with a lot of
contractors and obviously, youknow, it kind of morphed into
(02:43):
now I'm doing consulting forthose guys as well.
And so I was in Billings,montana, living there.
I moved there in 2012.
I'm originally from Arizona, butin 2012, I moved to Montana
HVAC and in 2018, a big stormhit.
A big hailstorm hit and bighail storm, and I was, you know,
(03:03):
able to get a lot of the HVACbought just by understanding a
little bit about the insuranceand then also sitting down with
some adjusters and saying, hey,what do I got to do?
You know, I mean you guys don'tunderstand what dings in a
condenser does for an AC system.
You don't know what it does,what a ding on the refrigerant
(03:26):
line does, right, it reducescapacity.
And so, you know, with theirhelp, I was able to develop a
really nice letter that I wouldsend my estimates in these
letters and I was gettingeverything bought and so I had a
couple of roofing contractorsthat I was, you know, doing some
(03:46):
, some just as a subcontractorfor them.
You know I was handling alltheir HVC work and a buddy of
mine said, hey, man, this was inuh 2018, 2019 area.
He said, hey, you know, I'mlooking for somebody to help me
out with sales.
I know you do sales trainingand all this is a small one man
gig.
(04:06):
You know it was him, hisbrother and his father and um.
You know I think they they haddone two or two and a half, I
think 2.5 million.
Um was kind of their their bestyear, and but they hovered
right around that one and a halfmillion dollar mark.
And so he says, man, I've gotso many leads and I don't have
(04:27):
any salespeople.
And so he says, would you runsome leads for me?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I knew nothing about roofing.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
My first year in roofing I couldn't tell you what
drip edge was, I didn't knowwhat underlayment was, I had no
idea what any of this stuff was,but I had a sales process and
so I was able to utilize mysales experience, you know.
I mean, if you've got a processright.
I'm not a script guy, but I'm aprocess guy.
(04:56):
And so you know, when you havea process down, it doesn't
matter what you're selling, yousell anything.
And so started making realmoney, comparative.
You know, my first year I didalmost 400,000 in commissions in
this business and you know itwas, it was eyeopening.
(05:16):
You know.
I thought it's this easy tosell this much, you know, and
and and it was kind of a to behonest with you, because it just
happened that it was the righttime, right place, right storm,
and you know, so on and so forth.
So I thought, man, you knowwhat I might make, the jump out
of HVAC and do this, and that'swhat I did.
(05:38):
And so I worked with him for,you know, about a year, almost a
year, and you know money, moneychanges people and it's one of
the things that when I'm doingmy consulting with roofing
contractors, I let them know mandon't let the money change you,
because it will right.
Money and power does changepeople.
So long story short, man, Ijumped into that the business
(06:02):
and and I said, look, if I cando this for this guy, I can do
this for anybody.
And so I just started reachingout and I developed a sales team
of of about you know six, onaverage six to 10 guys at a time
, and I would go in and we woulddo sales for roofing
contractors.
I'd get a contract written upand say, hey, you know what are
(06:24):
your goals and all of that.
And then I found out that a lotof roofing contractors, they
want the sales part of itbecause they're not, they don't
know how to do it or they'revery, they don't really want to
(06:46):
deal with the sales person.
And so, you know, I just jumpedinto that man and started
realizing that they wanted thesales but they couldn't handle
on the back end, they couldn'thandle the production.
And so when you take a companythat's doing, let's say, 500,000
or a million a year in in roofs, maybe they're doing 40 or 50
(07:08):
roofs a year and all of a suddenyou put 200 roofs on them that
there becomes a bottleneck, itbecomes an issue if there's no
process there.
And so then I started realizingthat that was happening with
our guys, because our guys wouldgo out and sell, sell a lot of
product, but then all of asudden it's like I don't know
what to do so then.
(07:28):
So now it turned intoconsulting, like okay, now I'm
going to show you how to go fromfrom this turn from the you
know, sales turnover toproduction, to ar, you know, to
final closing out, doing theright things, and that.
So, uh, developed a system forthat and a process for that, and
(07:49):
and and that was kind of mystick man.
I would go in, we'd say, hey,can you handle this?
If you can't, I can help youwith that.
We can put together you know aprocess and let's go.
And so that's kind of where itstarted.
We started doing that and then,you know, I just kind of got
tired of working for otherpeople, you know, and and
(08:12):
there's, you know, I mean I hateto say, but there's a lot of
shady people in this industryand I got tired of, you know,
being ripped off and I got tiredof working with other people
and one of my really closefriends said Ken, you should
start your own thing, man.
And so, you know, I have a goodbuddy of mine that owns
(08:33):
Superior Commercial Contracting.
And he said look, man, I'mtrying to build a residential
division.
Let's build this thing together, you know.
And so he handles all thecommercial stuff.
You know, he's handling it.
Right now he's running fiveoffices in Atlanta, georgia, the
Georgia Florida area.
(08:53):
And he said, man, I really likethat Texas market and I was
already here.
And so I said, man, I'd like tobe in this area.
So we did, man, we'd like to bein this area.
So we, that's what we did, man.
We started it up and got afterit.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
So you guys teamed up.
He's keeping the commercial onits rails and you're growing the
residential side Right?
When did you officially come into start growing the
residential division?
Was that 2019 or 2020?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, so I did the consulting and sales side of
things up until 23.
And then in 23, november of 23,is when I jumped into this with
him.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Man.
That's great, and sorry foranybody listening to this.
If you hear my dog, I'm sittingin my backyard.
We have a year and a half oldLabrador retriever.
That's a very energetic.
He's rowdy, so so what are yourgoals for the residential Like?
Where are you, where are youguys hoping to land revenue wise
this year and where do you hopeto be within about three years?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So our first year we did right at a million.
You know I have a lot oftraveling sales guys that work
with me.
You know they've been workingwith me for quite some time and
when these storms hit closer totheir homes, you know obviously
they go home.
So you know one of thechallenges that I've been having
in the Central Texas market ishiring.
(10:30):
You know good people that livein the area, and so you know we
decided to plant a flag here andthen work from here, and so you
know when.
So we did right at a million ourfirst year in, and this year I
think we're going to do probablyclose to three.
That's kind of my goal.
(10:51):
I've got a really good teambehind us now.
So I think we're going to we'regoing to probably be right at
about about three million, andthen ultimately, what I'd like
to do now we are starting to getinto some more in this summer
may grow exponentially,depending on you know what we
find, but we're starting to getinto some multifamily
(11:15):
opportunities, and so we're.
You know who knows where it cango, but that's kind of my goal
is three3 million this year,maybe $5 million next year, and
then you know me personally.
I'm perfectly happy in thatfive.
It's kind of a sweet spot right, that $5 to $6 million a year.
(11:36):
A sweet spot where you're nothaving to work 100 hours a week
and, you know, have a little bitof flexibility and still make a
very good margin.
So it's kind of kind of whatwe're, what we're hoping for
that's great.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So so you guys are growing.
You're servicing differentareas in texas.
What's been the mostchallenging thing that you faced
since you came on board tostart growing the residential Is
it?
I mean, have you had anexperience as a business owner
that's been particularlychallenging, or a season or a
part of the business Like what'swhat's been the most
(12:14):
challenging?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
part so far.
So probably you know probablythat that that late winter is
always a challenge, right FromThanksgiving until you know
January.
That's kind of a slow part ofthis and so that's probably one
of the biggest, you know,challenges that we've had.
(12:37):
And then, of course, you knowjust weather.
You know not being able to getthe guys in the field when it's
really rainy or or really coldor ice on the roofs or you know
it's been, it's been that way inthis in this market a lot this
year already, and so that'sprobably one of the major
(12:58):
challenges as far as and againthe, I think personally the
biggest challenge is hiring andyou know, hiring local talent
that wants to work in the area.
You know we're real big ontaking care of our people and so
you know, once we get somebodyon board, then they stay, but
(13:20):
it's probably one of the biggestchallenges that we've had.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So why is that?
Is it because there's just atransient group of people coming
in and out of the area forother businesses like oil and
gas and stuff like that or what?
I guess what makes it sochallenging?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You know, I mean this is a hard business.
You know anybody that doesdoor-to-door sales, I mean we do
have our own call center, wehave our own division for
calling and we've got a reallygood marketing side of what
(13:58):
we're doing and we're growingthat part of it.
But it's all more directmarketing and we're growing that
part of it.
But truthfully, man, this is ahard business on that part of it
.
But truthfully, man, this is ahard business.
And you know, and as I tell myguys, man, when you get your
rear end kicked in a few timesand people slamming the doors
and all of those things, youknow, it kind of wears on people
(14:19):
and so I think that's probablyone of the biggest issues.
You know, people don't have tohave that much experience.
I came into this business.
You know people don't have tohave that much experience.
(14:53):
I came into this business, knewnothing about ropes.
The whole first year I workedand go to work.
That's the the hard part, andand I I feel like, with
everything going remote, youknow, after I started seeing the
trend happen after, uh, youknow, the whole covid thing is
people were wanting to work moreremote and not really wanting
to be in the field.
And so you know, I'm sure I'mnot the only one you know that
(15:14):
has this challenge.
But you know, and then you know, and I have tried these, you
know, staffing type agencies andthings like that, or these guys
that will, you know, bring inworkers for you, but you spend a
lot of money and those peopleend up leaving or they end up,
you know, going on to the nextbest thing.
(15:36):
The problem is is that when youget people and you teach them
how to do any kind of storm workand they build a value to
themselves, if they're not fromthis area and they're not
planning on staying here,they'll bounce to the next best
thing.
You know that's next storm orwhatever.
So, and like I said, I've gotpeople that will travel in and
(15:58):
out.
It's kind of a challenge.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So you said something about the business being hard
and knocking door to door.
You said something about thebusiness being hard and knocking
door to door, but the firstthing that comes to my mind is
well, there's nothing physicallydifficult about going to a door
Like a 10-year-old my10-year-old daughter.
She's about to turn 10.
They've been playing this gamecalled Bigger and Better and
(16:23):
they've been going door to doorin my neighborhood.
And they start with a penny andthey go.
I never heard about this.
This is like we didn't havethis when I was a kid.
They go to the door of the pennyand they say do you have
anything bigger or better thanthis that you're willing to
trade for a penny?
And then the personal you know,it's usually a grownup and
they'll go get something thatthey don't need and that they're
(16:46):
willing to give away, andthey'll give it to them, whether
it's a deck of cards or a pairof new socks or something like
that.
And then they go to the nextdoor and they say do you have
anything bigger or better thatyou're willing to trade for this
?
We're playing, we're doing agame called bigger and better.
We're going across theneighborhood.
Anyway, after an hour of doingthis last week my daughter came
home with a brand new Alexa.
(17:07):
She started out with a pennyand came home with a hundred
dollar piece of electronics, andit's just crazy.
So it's not physically hard,right so, but you're a coach,
you've coached people.
What is it that makes doorknocking so hard?
From a mindset standpoint?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So you know, I think, you know, I think rejection is
one of the biggest issues, right, when you know if you knock,
you know, like everybody says,knock 100 doors and you're going
to make a million dollars.
You're going to make all thismoney if you knock 100 doors a
(17:48):
day and this and that we don't.
We don't really preach thatpart of it.
What we preach is set yourgoals for what you want, right.
So we take their personal goal,we take their financial goal,
we take these and we will printthis stuff out and say here you
want to put this on your mirrorevery day and look at it right,
so you never lose sight of thegoal.
(18:09):
And so, but when you, you know,when these guys go out and they
get their rear ends kicked, youknow, get the again, you know
door slammed in their face, getthat rejection.
A lot of these guys, ladies,men, whatever, they get kind of
down on themselves about it, youknow so.
It's a constant.
It's a constant reaffirmingthat we have to do in order to
(18:33):
to get them out of that mind,you know, to keep them out of
the mindset.
You know, one of the thingsthat I do in door knocking and
people kind of freak out aboutit's a little different, but
when I knock a door, the firstthing is is there's nothing
personal, right?
If somebody slams the door inyour face and it's not personal,
they don't know you, they don'tknow who you are, they're
slamming the door at thesituation or whatever.
(18:55):
They may curse you out, theymay, you know whatever, but and
so and also, and the thing tonot forget is we don't know what
that person is going through intheir life.
You know, they could have justfound some horrible, found out
some horrible news.
They could be at the end oftheir rope and wanting to end
(19:18):
everything, and you justinterrupted that you know, or we
just don't know, what they'regoing through at that time, and
so you know.
To humanize it, if somebodyslams a door in my face, I knock
the door immediately.
I mean the minute it hits thejam, I'm knocking the door
immediately back.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And when, and then they're going to they and they
open the door like they'repissed off, right, they're upset
.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Open the door, you know, and say, hey, listen, I
don't know what you're goingthrough, but I promise you it's
going to get better.
Right, and I'm a believer.
I'm not a preacher, but I'm abeliever and I just say the Lord
puts all the weight on theshoulders of his heaviest
soldiers, the ones that canhandle it right.
(20:04):
And so, with all of that beingsaid, I just want you to know I
care about you.
There's people that love you,there's people that care about
you, and if you need a hug,bring it in.
Do you know how many people hugme after they've slammed the
door in my face?
It's more than you think,because that's wild, because a
(20:24):
lot of times again, right?
People forget that that personon the other side of the door is
a human Right.
They're pissed off at whateveris going on.
They might have had a fightwith their wife, whatever, right
.
They're pissed off at the world.
And all of a sudden, here'sthis dude that knocks on their
door, and maybe they've had 25guys that knocked on their door,
right, but again when you andthen I don't sell them anything.
(20:50):
I don't even try to sell themanything After they give me that
hug.
I just tell them listen, I'mgoing to come back in a week or
so and I'm going to come checkon you.
And then I make sure I go backto that house in a week and I'm
knocking on the door and I say,hey, remember me, listen, man, I
hope things are better for you.
How are you doing today?
Right, and then I'll try tosell them something.
(21:14):
But you know, at the end of theday it just it's all about that
human interaction and if youdon't know how to handle that
interaction, you know it wearson you mentally.
You know mentally andemotionally.
You know it wears on youmentally.
You know mentally andemotionally.
You know, and these days Ithink people aren't as mentally
(21:36):
tough as they were.
You know, when I was a youngman, when I was a young man, we
didn't care, sign the door inour face.
I used to sell avocadosdoor-to-door when I was like 8,
10, 12 years old years old.
I'd make 10 cents.
I'd sell them for a dollar abag and it'd be like 10 in there
and I'd make 10 cents for everybag that I sold.
I'd go in streets, I'd knock ondoors.
(21:58):
I mean, I've been door knockingsince I was a little kid myself
, you know, and I love thebigger, better thing.
You know.
That's an awesome thing, man.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
But maybe I'll try that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Maybe we'll incorporate that into our
roofing training.
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Man, that's awesome, yes, and I'm a believer too, and
I think it really does changethe way you see people, and I
figured you were, because whenwe first started talking before
this, you were asking mequestions about me, how I was
doing, what was I up to?
Most people don't have agenuine interest in you.
Most people are just busysharing their own biography with
(22:40):
everybody, what they're goingthrough, who they are, what
they're doing.
But it's rare to find somebodythat's genuinely interested in
you, and I had a Bible professorsay it one time.
I took a biblical counselingclass at a Bible college in
Houston and he said when peoplesin against you, it's not about
you.
They're not thinking about you.
(23:01):
That's why they're being sinful, that's why they're being rude,
impatient, harsh.
They're only thinking aboutthemselves.
And that really changed the wayI looked at people being ugly
is.
They're not.
It's not like they're comingpersonally at me.
It has nothing to do with me.
Actually, it could have beenanybody that came to the door
that day or came across thatperson that day.
(23:22):
Um, so that's a really coolconcept.
So so, as you do that andyou're willing, you're willing
to just be a blessing to them.
You know you're trying to be ablessing to them, regardless of
how they respond to you.
How do you teach your guys toembrace that, to embrace the
(23:42):
expectation that you're going tohear no over and over again,
you're going to go for no,you're going to you know, and
eventually it's going to workout.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So I mean, it's a great point, right.
One of the things that I'm gladyou actually brought that up
because of your course, becauseyou know, one of the things that
I teach in my sales training isyou know, just imagine if we
have a voice, activated light,if that light is shining on you
(24:13):
more than shining on your client, you lose.
And so the only way to keepengagement with, with people is
by asking questions and themanswering.
The problem that I see withsalespeople is that they just
want to spew right, like yousaid, it's how great we are.
(24:33):
People don't give it.
They don't give a rip aboutyour, your triple a rating, it
with bbb, right.
They don't give a a rip abouthow great you are and who you've
done.
You know how many times I'vesold roofs and we never even
talked about the roof Becauseit's almost secondary at that
(24:56):
point, right.
And one of the problems that wehave is that and this is why I
said earlier, I'm not a scriptguy, I'm a process guy and so
scripts.
You know, I just got donetraining some insurance sales
guys um, two weeks ago and theirtheir script everything is
scripted say this, say this, saythis, say this, say this and so
.
And then I tell them to pitch meright, so tell me what you do.
(25:17):
They didn't ask me one question, and so at the end of it.
I said, you know, when they,when they said, okay, that's
kind of what we do, and I said,okay, how many questions did you
ask me?
You made this all about you.
You can't do that, not in sales, right?
And so everything is aboutrelationship building in sales.
(25:41):
In my opinion Strictly myopinion there's a lot of guys
that can do that, can do that,that script stuff, and it works
for them, right.
But for me personally, you know, it's about relationship
building, it's about developingrapport.
It's about, you know, trulycaring about people, right,
(26:02):
that's the first thing.
The first thing that a personwill see is if you're full of
crap or not, right, if you'renot genuine, like you said,
we're genuinely care aboutpeople.
We like people.
That's who I like to hire.
If you care about people and youlove helping people then I want
to hire you, right, because Ican teach all the other stuff,
(26:25):
but that's the stuff that Ican't really teach you.
I could, but if you don't buyinto it, you're never going to
learn it right.
And so that is the trick.
Right Is, how do we make itabout the client or about that
person, more so than it's aboutus?
I don't want to talk aboutshingles if that client doesn't
give a rip about shingles.
(26:45):
I don't want to talk aboutunderlayment and iso water
shingles and drip edge and youknow all the things that go into
a roof.
I don't want to talk about thatif that's not important to that
client.
And how do we identify that?
Right, you got to talk to them.
You got to ask questions.
Right, we have in my training Ihave five major questions that
(27:07):
we ask.
I won't get into what they are,but I have five major questions
and those five major questionswill dig out a lot of
information.
And then we have our subquestions, right, and then we're
asking these questions as itgoes.
So now what we're doing is nowthat person is telling us
(27:28):
everything that's important tothem, everything that they want,
all of their expectations andall that, and then all we got to
do is find the solution, offerthe solution and when you're
done, there's no closing.
The client closes themselves,right.
All we're doing is saying, okay, with your permission, closes
(27:49):
themselves, right.
All we're doing is saying, okay, with your permission, we're
you know, we'll get this thinggoing.
That's it, and so we make itreally easy in that part of it.
But a lot of it is that initialdoor-to-door interaction is what
kicks their hand right.
Or they'll walk and they'll goknock a hundred doors and
they're knocking in the wrongarea at the wrong time.
(28:10):
That's the other issue that wehave too right, it's like do you
not see?
It's a family area, they'reprobably working 8 to 5.
You got to go there at adifferent time.
Oh, this is an older area, thisis a good one to go.
You know, 10 to 1 or 10 to 2.
Perfect, right.
So that's the other part of itis identifying where to knock
(28:33):
and then how to overcomeadversity.
So my favorite quote and I hangthis banner.
I got a banner and I hang thisbanner in all my locker rooms
and I should hang one in myoffice.
It's just too big for in here,but it's Martin Luther King Jr's
ultimate measure of a man, theultimate measure of a man is not
(28:56):
where you stand in moments ofcomfort and convenience, but
where you stand duringtribulation and controversy.
Right, and so that is to iswhat defines character of a man.
And so you know if you're thetype of person that, when it's
(29:18):
easy to be happy and joyful, andall of that when things are
going great for you but how doyou handle adversity?
How do you handle getting yourteeth kicked in, right?
So it's either fire or flight,you know at that point.
But there's only one or twoways it's going to go.
You're either going to pushthrough it and be successful or
(29:38):
you're going to fold up and be aquitter.
That's the truth, right?
So what type?
And this is my question to allmy people, right?
So what?
What type?
And this is my question all mymy people, whether they're
football players, people oncoaching, in life, um, my, my
sales team, what kind of personare you?
You a quitter?
Because if you're a quitter,you might as well quit now.
Well, I've gotten out the door,right?
(30:00):
Or are you a winner?
That's it, you either win.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You.
Either win, or quit.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
You know, um, in football we have the wins and
loss columns.
I don't have wins and losses, Ihave wins and learns, and as
long as you're learning fromyour, from getting your teeth
kicked in, that's what that's.
You got to go through the stormto see the sunshine, right?
Yes, I love that.
So that's the whole thing, man.
You got to weather the storm.
(30:27):
If you can weather the storm,the sun's going to shine and
it's going to be nice andbeautiful Birds, chirping dogs,
running sun shining on your onyour head, you know, or on your
face and you're going to win,right.
And so that's kind of how I tryto try to coach it Right.
It's like listen, yes, you'regoing to get your rear end kick,
but tomorrow, you may not.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Tomorrow you may learn from today right.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Learn from today and go out tomorrow and win.
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
That's it, yeah.
And what other business can yougo and just earn money from
your efforts that week?
It's really, yes, it suckshearing no a hundred times in a
row, or however many, but, man,there's just not a lot of
businesses out there where youcan go earn thousands of dollars
off of your efforts from two orthree days, and that's what
(31:21):
makes roofing amazing to me.
Plus, you're helping people.
You're literally putting a roofover their head and there's so
many opportunities there, likeyou said, for ministry and
helping people and responding ina way that you probably never
dreamed of.
So that's really neat, man.
That's really neat to hear that.
(31:42):
What would you say?
What would be some advice thatyou would have for other owners?
You've really, I think, figuredout the mentality for door
knocking in that process.
What's some advice you'd havefor other owners who are just
really having a hard time withthat Hard time keeping sales
guys, hard time making that work.
(32:02):
But they've heard a milliontimes you've got a door knock.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, you know it's, it's, it is a mindset, you know
it is.
I would say reach out tosomebody.
A mentor me, they can reach outto me.
You know, I don't I'm not aboutthe money, right, I'm about the
helping of people.
You know, if I would just say,if you're having a challenge
(32:30):
with salespeople, right, it's amentality thing, right?
So most of the time when peopleare having those kind of
challenges is because they don'tunderstand the way that
salespeople think.
I've been a salesperson my wholelife.
In essence, right, I've soldeverything from avocados when I
(32:50):
was, you know, 8, 10 years old.
I've sold rainbow vacuumcleaners.
I've sold HVAC systems.
You know I sold boats.
I mean, I've sold a lot ofthings, and so I've been a
salesman my whole life.
So the mentality of sales is inme.
I've been a salesman my wholelife, so the mentality of sales
is in me, and so I know how todeal with salespeople.
(33:11):
Where somebody who came up andmost of these roof this is what
I learned in my consultingno-transcript.
But what they're not good at ismanaging people, and they're
not good at managing their money, right, making sure that their
(33:35):
jobs are being profitable enough, and things like that.
That's the number one thingthat I see.
Their AR is really really highand so learning that part of it,
being able to separatethemselves from the day-to-day
grind of physical out in thefield, that type of stuff, and
focusing on their business right, and learning how to deal with
(33:59):
people or, if you can't do it,find somebody that is good at
that part of it but that youknow that's the best advice is
just learn how to haveinterpersonal skills to deal
with.
You know differentpersonalities.
I have a challenge, even tothis day still with it.
You know, sometimes I'm notmuch of a babysitter, you know I
(34:21):
don't.
I'm also not the rah-rah guy.
Right, I've been a part oforganizations that and been in
organizations that they have agreat sales manager.
That is just rah, rah, rah.
Everything is.
You know, go win one for theGipper.
Even when I'm coaching football, it's not my thing.
I prefer the calm silence andthen go to work, right, and so
(34:47):
I'm not the rah-rah guy, butwhat I am is I'm able to connect
, or what I can do is connectwith people on a different level
.
Just because you know, I had areally good class that taught me
a lot.
It was an NLP class NeuroLinguistic Programming class
that I went through when I wasin HVC, class that I went
(35:14):
through when I was in HVC, andit taught me an unbelievable
amount of reading peopleunderstanding.
That's one of the things, toothat I teach people is, you know
, when I'm sitting and talkingto somebody, I watch everything
about them.
I watch everything from the topof their head to as far down as
I can see, right to their toes,if I can see them, and I look
at every movement, I look atevery facial expression, I look
(35:37):
at every the way they breathe.
If their breathing changes, Iknow instantly I'm evoking an
emotion.
So, and I can evoke differentemotions based off of how I talk
, whether I'm getting excited myfacial expressions, my hand
movements.
You know I can evoke emotion inpeople, so that's what I've
(35:59):
learned.
And if I notice that somethingis wrong, I don't keep talking.
I stop immediately and saylisten, you know, maybe it's the
deep sigh and the sit back orthe facial expression change,
Say, hey, you know, I noticedthat I might have said something
(36:19):
that didn't sit well with you.
I'll stop it right now.
Notice you know, maybe I saidsomething didn't sit well with
you.
Mind sharing with me what itthat that just evoked that
emotion, right?
Or?
Or maybe you're thinking aboutsomething.
Let's get that, because if youdon't do that, you can't move on
to the next phase.
(36:39):
They're gone, it's, it's goneyeah, you've lost them yeah yep,
and so if you can't, so that'sone of the things that I teach
in sales is like this is whatyou're looking for.
These are the keys.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
But this.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
NLP class taught me that I didn't know that stuff
before.
I was doing some of it justnaturally, just because it's
just a natural thing for me, butit really elevated my game to
being able to do that.
And so, you know, I close at avery high rate, but it's only
because I understand.
You know I can't sell to everyclient the same way.
(37:14):
You know there's some clientsthat want to know everything
about the roof.
There's some that don't careabout that.
What are you going to do?
How are you going to help me?
How much money am I spending?
That's all they want to know.
They don't care about nothingelse.
And so you got to know how tosell to that person versus the
person that's an engineer thatwants to know how the shingles
(37:34):
are made, what are they using,what's the impact rating, what's
you know?
So on and so forth.
And so you got to learn how toidentify the type of person
you're selling to.
And then obviously we'relooking for cues, you know, and
then learning how to evokeemotion just in our tonalities
and our movement and the way weexpress ourselves, and things
(37:58):
like that.
You can, you can change all ofthose.
You know those emotions.
You can evoke all thoseemotions the way you want them
to go.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So, man, that's good stuff.
It's very empathetic.
It's an empathetic method ofselling.
They're asking questions.
I love that question.
You know, did I say somethingthat maybe didn't sit well with
you?
It's a very disarming question.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, and you know what happens is a lot of times
on the surface, right?
They'll say no and.
I'll say yeah, listen, you knowwe, we can't.
And I tell them, right Again,sometimes you have to have and a
lot of people can't do this.
(38:47):
It's funny to me.
I watched those people.
They're like I can't say thatto them.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Like.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I know something.
I know I said something right.
So we can't move on to the nextsteps if you don't share with
me what you're feeling right now.
So people can't ask those kindof questions.
It's funny to me, but I can,and I do because I need to know
(39:16):
what's going on with that personbefore we can go any further
because I've lost them anyway.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Right, I'm not right, they're not going to.
They may not tell you in themoment, but what they're going
to do is go with somebody elseafter you leave, right?
Speaker 2 (39:25):
And so so, if I get it out of them at that point,
right.
So I'm just going to ask acouple, you know, key questions
and I'm going to get theinformation.
I'm going to say listen, I wantto make sure that we're doing
the right thing for you.
This isn't about me, this isabout you, and this is your home
, this is your project, right?
All I'm going to do is offersolutions to help you.
(39:51):
You know, take care of yourissue, and so if you don't share
with me what you're feeling, Ican't move forward.
So are we done?
Or are you going to share withme what the issue is?
Right?
And so I'm not that blunt, butyou know you get what I'm saying
, and so it's, it's part of thegame, right?
(40:12):
It's to me, that's the fun partto me, that interaction in that
evoking emotion.
And I, I tell, I tell my guys,if a guy shadows me, I'll be
like, listen, this is what we'regoing to do, right, and I'll
tell them exactly how I'm goingto, how I'm going to where I'm
going to raise the emotion andwhen I'm going to lower the
emotion.
And they'll sit through it andbe like, damn, oh, excuse me, I
(40:37):
didn't mean to curse, but dang,you know, that's, that's true,
it works, and so that's what wetry to try to train.
But again, you know, the biggestthing is is, you know, and
we're kind of a young company.
I mean we've only been, youknow, we're looking at a year
and I don't see it'd be a yearin four months that we've been
(41:00):
in existence here and so we'rebuilding.
I mean I've got, you know, I'vegot six guys here right now and
, uh, and we're doing okay,we're doing okay, but it's a
tough one man I'd like to have30.
If I had 30 guys here right now,I mean we'd be killing it right
now, but it's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Man, that's good stuff.
Well, it'll be.
It would be cool to do acheck-in, like a year from now,
and see how superior has grown,how the sales team has grown,
what processes you'veimplemented and stuff like that.
So well, before we, before wewrap up, I love that we've
talked about relationships.
I love that we've talked aboutmindset.
You know, I I've got a degreein leadership from a Bible
(41:45):
college in Houston and theybroke leadership down to four
key areas in Houston.
And they broke leadership downto four key areas character,
vision, skills and relationships.
But the true North, that alwayscame back to his character.
Because it doesn't matter, ifyou have a solid vision, if your
character's jacked up, nobody'sgoing to follow you.
You can have amazing skills butnot have character and
(42:07):
everything could crumble.
But then the second thing isrelationships.
You can have great skills but,like you said, if you don't know
how to relate to people, you'regoing to be the most skilled
isolated person on earth.
And so, yeah, we've justcovered a lot of really good
ground in this conversation.
But and we could go on foranother hour, I'm sure.
But before we wrap up, what's?
What's one parting piece ofadvice?
(42:28):
If there's just one thing, justa nugget of wisdom that you
could share with other roofingowners.
What?
What would it be today?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Um, man, don't be afraid to try something new.
You know if, if what you'redoing is not working, don't be
afraid to do something different.
You know it's it's, it's vital,I think, to our psyche as
(42:58):
people, right to make sure thatwe are, you know, doing
everything.
Uh, you know doing everythingthat we can in order to push our
teams, push our business,whatever forward.
And a lot of times, whathappens?
People get comfortable.
So I call it, you know.
I say control the controllables.
(43:19):
That's our big thing, right,control the controllables and
make sure that you know you'redoing everything in your power
to be better tomorrow than youwere today, period, and so
trying something new.
Sometimes you get out of yourcomfort zone and it's really
hard.
I've got one thing that I'lltell you.
(43:40):
In my NLP class, one of thethings that they made us do I
was the first one to evercomplete this task, and it was
seven years at that point.
I don't know that it's everbeen this task, and it was in
seven years at that point.
I don't know that it's everbeen completed after.
But we had to go to arestaurant and you know, in our
class we did like eight hours orseven and a half hours of
(44:02):
training and then we had thislittle after class homework
assignments, and they put us ingroups of six.
I'm just kind of laying thefoundation here.
And so I go into this.
You know they're telling usokay, here's what you're going
to do.
You got to go to thisrestaurant, they pay for it all,
and you got to eat off ofsomebody else's plate.
(44:24):
You got to find somebody togive you food.
And I'm like I'll go toMcDonald's and get a kid to give
me a chicken mcnugget.
No problem, right, I'll justI'll get fries from somebody.
I'm not gonna take a bite ofthe burger, but I'll get them to
give me a fry, right.
And so I'm like, no problem, Ican do this.
And then they told us whatwe're going to eat.
Nothing on the menu, less than125.
(44:49):
That is a different class ofpeople.
I'd never been in a restaurantlike that before, had to wear a
tie, shirt and tie.
They had a closet full of themand so because they knew we
weren't coming there you knowwe're HVAC sales guys, but so-
what they did is they put us inthis restaurant and you know I'm
(45:11):
going to shorten the storybecause I know we got to go.
But so, basically, what I did isI went to the first person that
I thought, ok, maybe, andabsolutely bombed, bombed.
The guy wouldn't even talk tome, he just, and I go back to my
group and they're laughing andI'm a very competitive person
and I'm like, no, I'm going todo this.
(45:31):
So I met this couple and Ilearned two things.
Number one if you get somebodyto teach you about something
that they're passionate about,something happens in the
relationship, right, and so Imake it a point to make sure
that every client I see teachesme something that they're
(45:52):
passionate about.
And how do we identify that?
Right, you got to ask questionsand, see, figure out what they
like.
Maybe it's the bass on the wall, or the deer head on the wall,
or the elk on the wall, whatever, right, maybe it's their sports
team.
Hey, tell me about it.
I've been football a long time.
We've had a lot of footballcoaches talk to me and I'm
(46:18):
always a little beneath themwhen it comes to football or
fishing.
I'm a big fisherman, I hunt,you know, I live in Montana, and
so, you know, I do a lot ofhunting and I've got my trophies
too right.
But if I see a nice buck on thewall, I don't tell them I got a
bigger buck right.
It's about them telling me whatthey're passionate about.
And so so what happened is I Imet this couple, you know, sat
(46:39):
down with them and they startyou know I'm asking them about
their wine I don't know anythingabout.
At that point I didn't evenknow wine came in a bottle, I
thought it came in a box, right,and so, you know, so this guy
happens to be he was an engineerand he happens to be a wine
connoisseur.
And so I started asking himabout the wine and he's like oh
(47:01):
yeah, you know, this with this,food pairs with this, and this
is this, and whoop, whoop.
And so he hands me his wineglass and he says take sip of
that.
So I take a sip of his wine outof his wine glass now, this is
in the 90s, you know and so Itake a sip of it and I was like,
oh, you don't like that, no.
(47:22):
And so then the wife says here,taste mine, but before you do
rinse your, you know, clear yourpalate.
I I thought palate was colors.
I had no idea it was somethingin your mouth, right?
So wash, wash it down.
Take a sip of hers.
I like hers a little better.
He had a really dry wine.
Hers was a white wine.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
When their food came right.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
So I'm, I'm asking about all this wine.
When their food came, you know,were like we're talking about
the wine.
I was like, oh, you know whatyour food's here, I'm gonna go,
no, no, no.
They ended up buying me dinner,but what the guy did was he
actually cuts a piece of hissteak with his fork and he hands
me the fork with the steak onit and he says, take a bite of
(48:07):
that and then take a sip of thiswine.
And it changed the whole thing.
And I was like, oh, you know,oh, my God, this is crazy.
And so, and then, of course,the wife, is like here try mine,
you know.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
So I ate off of both of their plates right.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
So I accomplished the goal, but really what I
accomplished was one.
What's the worst thing that canhappen?
What I accomplished was one.
What's the worst thing that canhappen?
When the president of CuraCorporation found out that he
comes down, that was in theirIndianapolis office and that's
where his office is.
He came down and he introducedhimself to me.
He says, ken, how did you do it?
(48:42):
And I said, well, number one, Itried.
So they asked the class howmany people tried?
36 of us in a class.
Nobody else even tried itbecause they were so afraid to
get out of their comfort zone.
That's a very uncomfortablesituation to be in.
When, when you're, when youfeel like and I felt this when
(49:04):
you feel like these people areso much above you, it's really
tough to break, to get out ofyour comfort zone and just have
a great conversation withsomebody.
And so that taught me.
And then the second thing wasget them to teach you about
something that they'repassionate in and then utilize
(49:26):
that to build that relationship.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
But how did you get a seat at the table in the first
place?
So door knocking.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right Door knocking, I walked up and I introduced
myself.
I said, hey, my name is Ken and, truthfully, I had a menu with
me.
Now, I couldn't pronounce halfthe stuff that was on the menu.
I had no idea what any of itwas.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
I mean it's all foreign to me.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I went to this French kind of restaurant and then for
me, applebee's was like ahigh-end restaurant at that time
, right, and so you know, thetwo for 25, I'm in, right, and
here I am looking at a menu thatI can't read.
I don't know nothing about it.
So I had a menu in my hand andwhen I knock the door, hey,
(50:17):
don't mean to interrupt you,right, but I'm having a problem.
Can you help me out?
You know people as just anatural thing.
We want to help people.
Most people are that way.
I think there's all.
There's something in, you know.
That's why people stop whensomebody has a flat tire on the
(50:38):
side of the road.
It's why we hold the door openfor people.
Right, they got an arm full ofstuff.
You don't just you always openthe door for them, right?
Most people feel that way.
And so that was it.
Like hey, I got a problem, canyou help me with this?
And they were like sure, wecome here a lot.
And I'm like she was anattorney, he was an engineer,
(51:02):
they're married.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Younger couple.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I mean I ended up drinking their wine, eating
their food, dancing with thewife.
I mean, I could have probablyclosed the deal and went home
with them, but I was married atthe time.
I am married, been married for31 years, thank God, but you
know what I'm saying.
You develop those relationships, but that's how I did it.
Hey, can you help?
(51:25):
Of course I can.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Man, that's so cool.
That's such a cool story.
I think the lesson there ispretty powerful too.
I thought about making a socialmedia post this morning and I
didn't do it.
I need to be a lot better aboutsocial media, but my thought
was I'd rather try and fail thannot try at all.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, here's the deal you lose 100% of the time when
you don't try.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Right, right, it's guaranteed at that point and I
mean you need to have a rightrisk to reward ratio, kind of
like you know trading stocks orwhatever.
You don't want to try with 100%of your account, but at least
try a little bit and if you failthat's okay, you can fail
forward.
That's one of my favorite booksever by John Maxwell is failing
(52:18):
forward, but that's just thenormal way of things, that you
stumble along and you learn andyou keep going.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yep, and that's the whole thing about the ultimate
measure of a man, right?
Is that?
How do you react when you fail?
You know it's not easy to fail,it's not.
You're not happy when you fail,right, but you have to.
You got to have very thin skin,or thick skin, rather, you got
(52:47):
to have very thick skin.
And I have a time limit and Ido this with everything in my
life.
I have a time limit.
I'm only going to be mad, sad,disappointed or whatever for
five minutes, that's it.
That's all I get.
I get five minutes.
I'll throw my tantrum, I'll beupset as a football coach.
(53:09):
Throw my tantrum, I'll be upset.
As a football coach, I have a24 hour rule for people talking
to me after a game.
If I lost, right, we're notgoing to talk about anything
that we did until 24 hours later.
To where we, so we're notemotional about it, right?
But I have five minutes, that'sit.
That's all I get.
If I'm pissed off, five minutes, I'll be pissed off.
(53:29):
Five minutes and one second.
I'm done.
Now we're on to the next thing,right?
And so that's what we do.
So failure it's okay to beupset when you fail.
It's okay to be upset when youlose.
It's okay to be upset when shitdoesn't go, stuff doesn't go.
I'm sorry, man, stuff doesn'tgo, stuff doesn't go.
I'm sorry, man, stuff doesn'tgo your way.
(53:50):
But but keep that very short.
It's okay to grieve, it's okayto do those things, but you got
to go.
The world doesn't stop rightfive minutes and after that
you're on to the next, andthat's, that's the, that's my
rule, that's what I live by andwhat I live by, and so I don't
hold grudges.
(54:11):
I don't you know, it's just notwhat we do.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
It's good stuff, Good stuff, man.
Well, Ken was superior roofingman.
Thanks for joining us.
Great conversation.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Absolutely, man.
I'm really happy and thankfulthat you gave me this
opportunity and, you know,hopefully, you know, hopefully
this gets to some people thatthat that they get a little
something out of it.
You know, and and people can,can look me up and, and you know
, don't hesitate to give me aring if, if they have something.
And, like you said, man, Idon't, I don't charge for
(54:44):
everything.
So you know, I I just like tohelp people, man, in general,
that's great yeah For those ofyou listening.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
If you want to learn more about the Limitless Roofing
Group and how we save ourmembers money Ken is a member of
our group as well you can go tolimitlessroofinggroupcom.
It's as of the time of therecording of this podcast.
It's free to join, but we'regoing to be charging for
membership pretty soon and ifyou want to get connect with Ken
, feel free to reach out.
We, our members, connect withone another.
Our members share bestpractices with one another, so
feel free to reach out and ourhour you guys have is pretty
(55:19):
good too, man.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I'd like to plug that too, cause I know you guys are
just getting that going, butevery other Wednesday, man, that
power hour is is is good stuff,if, if people join in there,
you know, because we get to havethese kind of conversations,
man, and it's awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
That's great Sweet.
All right, well, ken, untilnext time.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you, have a great day.
all right, welcome to the limitless roofing show.
Today we have mr kenblankenship from superior and
we're going to just talk aboutwhat it's like to grow roofing
businesses.
Just the, the hard stuff, thegood stuff, the dream,
everything we learn along theway.
So, ken, thanks for joining theshow, man.
Hey, thank you, man, I reallydo appreciate the opportunity,
(00:27):
for sure.
All right.
So Mr Ken is involved in a fewdifferent things, does some
consulting for other roofingcompanies, loves to teach, loves
to serve, and you've done a lotof things over the years.
So let's just give a little bitof your background story.
How'd you get into roofing?
How long you been in roofingStuff like that Sure.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So one of the things you know most people that know
me call me coach, right, so I'man old football coach.
I coach from every level, fromthe NFL all the way down to
seven, eight, nine-year-old kids, and so you know, in that
coaching and I've been coachingfor, you know, 30, I think I
(01:10):
coached 32 seasons, and so youknow, one of the things that I
was real big on is making bettermen for others.
That was kind of my mantra,right was we're going to build
better men for others and I hopeyou know people from the NFL
even all the way down in thatmindset and learning how to
(01:34):
become a better man, right, andthat is being a good servant,
being a better, you know,husband, father, son, you know,
boyfriend, whatever, you know,it's just being a better person.
And so you know, I've takenthat and I and I utilize that in
my business principles as well,and so everybody calls me coach
(01:56):
and and that's what I do, manis I coach, I coach people, you
know, I just try to try to teachthem to be, to be better today
than they were yesterday and andso that's kind of the, the, the
, the short introduction.
But but no, man, you know I gotinto roofing.
I was in the HVAC business for22 years, kind of did the same
(02:19):
thing there, right, a lot ofsales training, sales management
.
I did business development, alot of sales training, sales
management.
I did business development.
I did regional sales trainingfor the three major
manufacturers, which is Lenox,train and Carrier, and in those
trainings, you know, weconnected with a lot of
contractors and obviously, youknow, it kind of morphed into
(02:43):
now I'm doing consulting forthose guys as well.
And so I was in Billings,montana, living there.
I moved there in 2012.
I'm originally from Arizona, butin 2012, I moved to Montana
HVAC and in 2018, a big stormhit.
A big hailstorm hit and bighail storm, and I was, you know,
(03:03):
able to get a lot of the HVACbought just by understanding a
little bit about the insuranceand then also sitting down with
some adjusters and saying, hey,what do I got to do?
You know, I mean you guys don'tunderstand what dings in a
condenser does for an AC system.
You don't know what it does,what a ding on the refrigerant
(03:26):
line does, right, it reducescapacity.
And so, you know, with theirhelp, I was able to develop a
really nice letter that I wouldsend my estimates in these
letters and I was gettingeverything bought and so I had a
couple of roofing contractorsthat I was, you know, doing some
(03:46):
, some just as a subcontractorfor them.
You know I was handling alltheir HVC work and a buddy of
mine said, hey, man, this was inuh 2018, 2019 area.
He said, hey, you know, I'mlooking for somebody to help me
out with sales.
I know you do sales trainingand all this is a small one man
gig.
(04:06):
You know it was him, hisbrother and his father and um.
You know I think they they haddone two or two and a half, I
think 2.5 million.
Um was kind of their their bestyear, and but they hovered
right around that one and a halfmillion dollar mark.
And so he says, man, I've gotso many leads and I don't have
(04:27):
any salespeople.
And so he says, would you runsome leads for me?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I knew nothing about roofing.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
My first year in roofing I couldn't tell you what
drip edge was, I didn't knowwhat underlayment was, I had no
idea what any of this stuff was,but I had a sales process and
so I was able to utilize mysales experience, you know.
I mean, if you've got a processright.
I'm not a script guy, but I'm aprocess guy.
(04:56):
And so you know, when you havea process down, it doesn't
matter what you're selling, yousell anything.
And so started making realmoney, comparative.
You know, my first year I didalmost 400,000 in commissions in
this business and you know itwas, it was eyeopening.
(05:16):
You know.
I thought it's this easy tosell this much, you know, and
and and it was kind of a to behonest with you, because it just
happened that it was the righttime, right place, right storm,
and you know, so on and so forth.
So I thought, man, you knowwhat I might make, the jump out
of HVAC and do this, and that'swhat I did.
(05:38):
And so I worked with him for,you know, about a year, almost a
year, and you know money, moneychanges people and it's one of
the things that when I'm doingmy consulting with roofing
contractors, I let them know mandon't let the money change you,
because it will right.
Money and power does changepeople.
So long story short, man, Ijumped into that the business
(06:02):
and and I said, look, if I cando this for this guy, I can do
this for anybody.
And so I just started reachingout and I developed a sales team
of of about you know six, onaverage six to 10 guys at a time
, and I would go in and we woulddo sales for roofing
contractors.
I'd get a contract written upand say, hey, you know what are
(06:24):
your goals and all of that.
And then I found out that a lotof roofing contractors, they
want the sales part of itbecause they're not, they don't
know how to do it or they'revery, they don't really want to
(06:46):
deal with the sales person.
And so, you know, I just jumpedinto that man and started
realizing that they wanted thesales but they couldn't handle
on the back end, they couldn'thandle the production.
And so when you take a companythat's doing, let's say, 500,000
or a million a year in in roofs, maybe they're doing 40 or 50
(07:08):
roofs a year and all of a suddenyou put 200 roofs on them that
there becomes a bottleneck, itbecomes an issue if there's no
process there.
And so then I started realizingthat that was happening with
our guys, because our guys wouldgo out and sell, sell a lot of
product, but then all of asudden it's like I don't know
what to do so then.
(07:28):
So now it turned intoconsulting, like okay, now I'm
going to show you how to go fromfrom this turn from the you
know, sales turnover toproduction, to ar, you know, to
final closing out, doing theright things, and that.
So, uh, developed a system forthat and a process for that, and
(07:49):
and and that was kind of mystick man.
I would go in, we'd say, hey,can you handle this?
If you can't, I can help youwith that.
We can put together you know aprocess and let's go.
And so that's kind of where itstarted.
We started doing that and then,you know, I just kind of got
tired of working for otherpeople, you know, and and
(08:12):
there's, you know, I mean I hateto say, but there's a lot of
shady people in this industryand I got tired of, you know,
being ripped off and I got tiredof working with other people
and one of my really closefriends said Ken, you should
start your own thing, man.
And so, you know, I have a goodbuddy of mine that owns
(08:33):
Superior Commercial Contracting.
And he said look, man, I'mtrying to build a residential
division.
Let's build this thing together, you know.
And so he handles all thecommercial stuff.
You know, he's handling it.
Right now he's running fiveoffices in Atlanta, georgia, the
Georgia Florida area.
(08:53):
And he said, man, I really likethat Texas market and I was
already here.
And so I said, man, I'd like tobe in this area.
So we did, man, we'd like to bein this area.
So we, that's what we did, man.
We started it up and got afterit.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
So you guys teamed up.
He's keeping the commercial onits rails and you're growing the
residential side Right?
When did you officially come into start growing the
residential division?
Was that 2019 or 2020?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, so I did the consulting and sales side of
things up until 23.
And then in 23, november of 23,is when I jumped into this with
him.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Man.
That's great, and sorry foranybody listening to this.
If you hear my dog, I'm sittingin my backyard.
We have a year and a half oldLabrador retriever.
That's a very energetic.
He's rowdy, so so what are yourgoals for the residential Like?
Where are you, where are youguys hoping to land revenue wise
this year and where do you hopeto be within about three years?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So our first year we did right at a million.
You know I have a lot oftraveling sales guys that work
with me.
You know they've been workingwith me for quite some time and
when these storms hit closer totheir homes, you know obviously
they go home.
So you know one of thechallenges that I've been having
in the Central Texas market ishiring.
(10:30):
You know good people that livein the area, and so you know we
decided to plant a flag here andthen work from here, and so you
know when.
So we did right at a million ourfirst year in, and this year I
think we're going to do probablyclose to three.
That's kind of my goal.
(10:51):
I've got a really good teambehind us now.
So I think we're going to we'regoing to probably be right at
about about three million, andthen ultimately, what I'd like
to do now we are starting to getinto some more in this summer
may grow exponentially,depending on you know what we
find, but we're starting to getinto some multifamily
(11:15):
opportunities, and so we're.
You know who knows where it cango, but that's kind of my goal
is three3 million this year,maybe $5 million next year, and
then you know me personally.
I'm perfectly happy in thatfive.
It's kind of a sweet spot right, that $5 to $6 million a year.
(11:36):
A sweet spot where you're nothaving to work 100 hours a week
and, you know, have a little bitof flexibility and still make a
very good margin.
So it's kind of kind of whatwe're, what we're hoping for
that's great.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
So so you guys are growing.
You're servicing differentareas in texas.
What's been the mostchallenging thing that you faced
since you came on board tostart growing the residential Is
it?
I mean, have you had anexperience as a business owner
that's been particularlychallenging, or a season or a
part of the business Like what'swhat's been the most
(12:14):
challenging?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
part so far.
So probably you know probablythat that that late winter is
always a challenge, right FromThanksgiving until you know
January.
That's kind of a slow part ofthis and so that's probably one
of the biggest, you know,challenges that we've had.
(12:37):
And then, of course, you knowjust weather.
You know not being able to getthe guys in the field when it's
really rainy or or really coldor ice on the roofs or you know
it's been, it's been that way inthis in this market a lot this
year already, and so that'sprobably one of the major
(12:58):
challenges as far as and againthe, I think personally the
biggest challenge is hiring andyou know, hiring local talent
that wants to work in the area.
You know we're real big ontaking care of our people and so
you know, once we get somebodyon board, then they stay, but
(13:20):
it's probably one of the biggestchallenges that we've had.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So why is that?
Is it because there's just atransient group of people coming
in and out of the area forother businesses like oil and
gas and stuff like that or what?
I guess what makes it sochallenging?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You know, I mean this is a hard business.
You know anybody that doesdoor-to-door sales, I mean we do
have our own call center, wehave our own division for
calling and we've got a reallygood marketing side of what
(13:58):
we're doing and we're growingthat part of it.
But it's all more directmarketing and we're growing that
part of it.
But truthfully, man, this is ahard business on that part of it
.
But truthfully, man, this is ahard business.
And you know, and as I tell myguys, man, when you get your
rear end kicked in a few timesand people slamming the doors
and all of those things, youknow, it kind of wears on people
(14:19):
and so I think that's probablyone of the biggest issues.
You know, people don't have tohave that much experience.
I came into this business.
You know people don't have tohave that much experience.
(14:53):
I came into this business, knewnothing about ropes.
The whole first year I workedand go to work.
That's the the hard part, andand I I feel like, with
everything going remote, youknow, after I started seeing the
trend happen after, uh, youknow, the whole covid thing is
people were wanting to work moreremote and not really wanting
to be in the field.
And so you know, I'm sure I'mnot the only one you know that
(15:14):
has this challenge.
But you know, and then you know, and I have tried these, you
know, staffing type agencies andthings like that, or these guys
that will, you know, bring inworkers for you, but you spend a
lot of money and those peopleend up leaving or they end up,
you know, going on to the nextbest thing.
(15:36):
The problem is is that when youget people and you teach them
how to do any kind of storm workand they build a value to
themselves, if they're not fromthis area and they're not
planning on staying here,they'll bounce to the next best
thing.
You know that's next storm orwhatever.
So, and like I said, I've gotpeople that will travel in and
(15:58):
out.
It's kind of a challenge.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So you said something about the business being hard
and knocking door to door.
You said something about thebusiness being hard and knocking
door to door, but the firstthing that comes to my mind is
well, there's nothing physicallydifficult about going to a door
Like a 10-year-old my10-year-old daughter.
She's about to turn 10.
They've been playing this gamecalled Bigger and Better and
(16:23):
they've been going door to doorin my neighborhood.
And they start with a penny andthey go.
I never heard about this.
This is like we didn't havethis when I was a kid.
They go to the door of the pennyand they say do you have
anything bigger or better thanthis that you're willing to
trade for a penny?
And then the personal you know,it's usually a grownup and
they'll go get something thatthey don't need and that they're
(16:46):
willing to give away, andthey'll give it to them, whether
it's a deck of cards or a pairof new socks or something like
that.
And then they go to the nextdoor and they say do you have
anything bigger or better thatyou're willing to trade for this
?
We're playing, we're doing agame called bigger and better.
We're going across theneighborhood.
Anyway, after an hour of doingthis last week my daughter came
home with a brand new Alexa.
(17:07):
She started out with a pennyand came home with a hundred
dollar piece of electronics, andit's just crazy.
So it's not physically hard,right so, but you're a coach,
you've coached people.
What is it that makes doorknocking so hard?
From a mindset standpoint?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So you know, I think, you know, I think rejection is
one of the biggest issues, right, when you know if you knock,
you know, like everybody says,knock 100 doors and you're going
to make a million dollars.
You're going to make all thismoney if you knock 100 doors a
(17:48):
day and this and that we don't.
We don't really preach thatpart of it.
What we preach is set yourgoals for what you want, right.
So we take their personal goal,we take their financial goal,
we take these and we will printthis stuff out and say here you
want to put this on your mirrorevery day and look at it right,
so you never lose sight of thegoal.
(18:09):
And so, but when you, you know,when these guys go out and they
get their rear ends kicked, youknow, get the again, you know
door slammed in their face, getthat rejection.
A lot of these guys, ladies,men, whatever, they get kind of
down on themselves about it, youknow so.
It's a constant.
It's a constant reaffirmingthat we have to do in order to
(18:33):
to get them out of that mind,you know, to keep them out of
the mindset.
You know, one of the thingsthat I do in door knocking and
people kind of freak out aboutit's a little different, but
when I knock a door, the firstthing is is there's nothing
personal, right?
If somebody slams the door inyour face and it's not personal,
they don't know you, they don'tknow who you are, they're
slamming the door at thesituation or whatever.
(18:55):
They may curse you out, theymay, you know whatever, but and
so and also, and the thing tonot forget is we don't know what
that person is going through intheir life.
You know, they could have justfound some horrible, found out
some horrible news.
They could be at the end oftheir rope and wanting to end
(19:18):
everything, and you justinterrupted that you know, or we
just don't know, what they'regoing through at that time, and
so you know.
To humanize it, if somebodyslams a door in my face, I knock
the door immediately.
I mean the minute it hits thejam, I'm knocking the door
immediately back.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And when, and then they're going to they and they
open the door like they'repissed off, right, they're upset
.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Open the door, you know, and say, hey, listen, I
don't know what you're goingthrough, but I promise you it's
going to get better.
Right, and I'm a believer.
I'm not a preacher, but I'm abeliever and I just say the Lord
puts all the weight on theshoulders of his heaviest
soldiers, the ones that canhandle it right.
(20:04):
And so, with all of that beingsaid, I just want you to know I
care about you.
There's people that love you,there's people that care about
you, and if you need a hug,bring it in.
Do you know how many people hugme after they've slammed the
door in my face?
It's more than you think,because that's wild, because a
(20:24):
lot of times again, right?
People forget that that personon the other side of the door is
a human Right.
They're pissed off at whateveris going on.
They might have had a fightwith their wife, whatever, right
.
They're pissed off at the world.
And all of a sudden, here'sthis dude that knocks on their
door, and maybe they've had 25guys that knocked on their door,
right, but again when you andthen I don't sell them anything.
(20:50):
I don't even try to sell themanything After they give me that
hug.
I just tell them listen, I'mgoing to come back in a week or
so and I'm going to come checkon you.
And then I make sure I go backto that house in a week and I'm
knocking on the door and I say,hey, remember me, listen, man, I
hope things are better for you.
How are you doing today?
Right, and then I'll try tosell them something.
(21:14):
But you know, at the end of theday it just it's all about that
human interaction and if youdon't know how to handle that
interaction, you know it wearson you mentally.
You know mentally andemotionally.
You know it wears on youmentally.
You know mentally andemotionally.
You know, and these days Ithink people aren't as mentally
(21:36):
tough as they were.
You know, when I was a youngman, when I was a young man, we
didn't care, sign the door inour face.
I used to sell avocadosdoor-to-door when I was like 8,
10, 12 years old years old.
I'd make 10 cents.
I'd sell them for a dollar abag and it'd be like 10 in there
and I'd make 10 cents for everybag that I sold.
I'd go in streets, I'd knock ondoors.
(21:58):
I mean, I've been door knockingsince I was a little kid myself
, you know, and I love thebigger, better thing.
You know.
That's an awesome thing, man.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
But maybe I'll try that.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Maybe we'll incorporate that into our
roofing training.
It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Man, that's awesome, yes, and I'm a believer too, and
I think it really does changethe way you see people, and I
figured you were, because whenwe first started talking before
this, you were asking mequestions about me, how I was
doing, what was I up to?
Most people don't have agenuine interest in you.
Most people are just busysharing their own biography with
(22:40):
everybody, what they're goingthrough, who they are, what
they're doing.
But it's rare to find somebodythat's genuinely interested in
you, and I had a Bible professorsay it one time.
I took a biblical counselingclass at a Bible college in
Houston and he said when peoplesin against you, it's not about
you.
They're not thinking about you.
(23:01):
That's why they're being sinful, that's why they're being rude,
impatient, harsh.
They're only thinking aboutthemselves.
And that really changed the wayI looked at people being ugly
is.
They're not.
It's not like they're comingpersonally at me.
It has nothing to do with me.
Actually, it could have beenanybody that came to the door
that day or came across thatperson that day.
(23:22):
Um, so that's a really coolconcept.
So so, as you do that andyou're willing, you're willing
to just be a blessing to them.
You know you're trying to be ablessing to them, regardless of
how they respond to you.
How do you teach your guys toembrace that, to embrace the
(23:42):
expectation that you're going tohear no over and over again,
you're going to go for no,you're going to you know, and
eventually it's going to workout.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So I mean, it's a great point, right.
One of the things that I'm gladyou actually brought that up
because of your course, becauseyou know, one of the things that
I teach in my sales training isyou know, just imagine if we
have a voice, activated light,if that light is shining on you
(24:13):
more than shining on your client, you lose.
And so the only way to keepengagement with, with people is
by asking questions and themanswering.
The problem that I see withsalespeople is that they just
want to spew right, like yousaid, it's how great we are.
(24:33):
People don't give it.
They don't give a rip aboutyour, your triple a rating, it
with bbb, right.
They don't give a a rip abouthow great you are and who you've
done.
You know how many times I'vesold roofs and we never even
talked about the roof Becauseit's almost secondary at that
(24:56):
point, right.
And one of the problems that wehave is that and this is why I
said earlier, I'm not a scriptguy, I'm a process guy and so
scripts.
You know, I just got donetraining some insurance sales
guys um, two weeks ago and theirtheir script everything is
scripted say this, say this, saythis, say this, say this and so
.
And then I tell them to pitch meright, so tell me what you do.
(25:17):
They didn't ask me one question, and so at the end of it.
I said, you know, when they,when they said, okay, that's
kind of what we do, and I said,okay, how many questions did you
ask me?
You made this all about you.
You can't do that, not in sales, right?
And so everything is aboutrelationship building in sales.
(25:41):
In my opinion Strictly myopinion there's a lot of guys
that can do that, can do that,that script stuff, and it works
for them, right.
But for me personally, you know, it's about relationship
building, it's about developingrapport.
It's about, you know, trulycaring about people, right,
(26:02):
that's the first thing.
The first thing that a personwill see is if you're full of
crap or not, right, if you'renot genuine, like you said,
we're genuinely care aboutpeople.
We like people.
That's who I like to hire.
If you care about people and youlove helping people then I want
to hire you, right, because Ican teach all the other stuff,
(26:25):
but that's the stuff that Ican't really teach you.
I could, but if you don't buyinto it, you're never going to
learn it right.
And so that is the trick.
Right Is, how do we make itabout the client or about that
person, more so than it's aboutus?
I don't want to talk aboutshingles if that client doesn't
give a rip about shingles.
(26:45):
I don't want to talk aboutunderlayment and iso water
shingles and drip edge and youknow all the things that go into
a roof.
I don't want to talk about thatif that's not important to that
client.
And how do we identify that?
Right, you got to talk to them.
You got to ask questions.
Right, we have in my training Ihave five major questions that
(27:07):
we ask.
I won't get into what they are,but I have five major questions
and those five major questionswill dig out a lot of
information.
And then we have our subquestions, right, and then we're
asking these questions as itgoes.
So now what we're doing is nowthat person is telling us
(27:28):
everything that's important tothem, everything that they want,
all of their expectations andall that, and then all we got to
do is find the solution, offerthe solution and when you're
done, there's no closing.
The client closes themselves,right.
All we're doing is saying, okay, with your permission, closes
(27:49):
themselves, right.
All we're doing is saying, okay, with your permission, we're
you know, we'll get this thinggoing.
That's it, and so we make itreally easy in that part of it.
But a lot of it is that initialdoor-to-door interaction is what
kicks their hand right.
Or they'll walk and they'll goknock a hundred doors and
they're knocking in the wrongarea at the wrong time.
(28:10):
That's the other issue that wehave too right, it's like do you
not see?
It's a family area, they'reprobably working 8 to 5.
You got to go there at adifferent time.
Oh, this is an older area, thisis a good one to go.
You know, 10 to 1 or 10 to 2.
Perfect, right.
So that's the other part of itis identifying where to knock
(28:33):
and then how to overcomeadversity.
So my favorite quote and I hangthis banner.
I got a banner and I hang thisbanner in all my locker rooms
and I should hang one in myoffice.
It's just too big for in here,but it's Martin Luther King Jr's
ultimate measure of a man, theultimate measure of a man is not
(28:56):
where you stand in moments ofcomfort and convenience, but
where you stand duringtribulation and controversy.
Right, and so that is to iswhat defines character of a man.
And so you know if you're thetype of person that, when it's
(29:18):
easy to be happy and joyful, andall of that when things are
going great for you but how doyou handle adversity?
How do you handle getting yourteeth kicked in, right?
So it's either fire or flight,you know at that point.
But there's only one or twoways it's going to go.
You're either going to pushthrough it and be successful or
(29:38):
you're going to fold up and be aquitter.
That's the truth, right?
So what type?
And this is my question to allmy people, right?
So what?
What type?
And this is my question all mymy people, whether they're
football players, people oncoaching, in life, um, my, my
sales team, what kind of personare you?
You a quitter?
Because if you're a quitter,you might as well quit now.
Well, I've gotten out the door,right?
(30:00):
Or are you a winner?
That's it, you either win.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You.
Either win, or quit.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
You know, um, in football we have the wins and
loss columns.
I don't have wins and losses, Ihave wins and learns, and as
long as you're learning fromyour, from getting your teeth
kicked in, that's what that's.
You got to go through the stormto see the sunshine, right?
Yes, I love that.
So that's the whole thing, man.
You got to weather the storm.
(30:27):
If you can weather the storm,the sun's going to shine and
it's going to be nice andbeautiful Birds, chirping dogs,
running sun shining on your onyour head, you know, or on your
face and you're going to win,right.
And so that's kind of how I tryto try to coach it Right.
It's like listen, yes, you'regoing to get your rear end kick,
but tomorrow, you may not.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Tomorrow you may learn from today right.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Learn from today and go out tomorrow and win.
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
That's it, yeah.
And what other business can yougo and just earn money from
your efforts that week?
It's really, yes, it suckshearing no a hundred times in a
row, or however many, but, man,there's just not a lot of
businesses out there where youcan go earn thousands of dollars
off of your efforts from two orthree days, and that's what
(31:21):
makes roofing amazing to me.
Plus, you're helping people.
You're literally putting a roofover their head and there's so
many opportunities there, likeyou said, for ministry and
helping people and responding ina way that you probably never
dreamed of.
So that's really neat, man.
That's really neat to hear that.
(31:42):
What would you say?
What would be some advice thatyou would have for other owners?
You've really, I think, figuredout the mentality for door
knocking in that process.
What's some advice you'd havefor other owners who are just
really having a hard time withthat Hard time keeping sales
guys, hard time making that work.
(32:02):
But they've heard a milliontimes you've got a door knock.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, you know it's, it's, it is a mindset, you know
it is.
I would say reach out tosomebody.
A mentor me, they can reach outto me.
You know, I don't I'm not aboutthe money, right, I'm about the
helping of people.
You know, if I would just say,if you're having a challenge
(32:30):
with salespeople, right, it's amentality thing, right?
So most of the time when peopleare having those kind of
challenges is because they don'tunderstand the way that
salespeople think.
I've been a salesperson my wholelife.
In essence, right, I've soldeverything from avocados when I
(32:50):
was, you know, 8, 10 years old.
I've sold rainbow vacuumcleaners.
I've sold HVAC systems.
You know I sold boats.
I mean, I've sold a lot ofthings, and so I've been a
salesman my whole life.
So the mentality of sales is inme.
I've been a salesman my wholelife, so the mentality of sales
is in me, and so I know how todeal with salespeople.
(33:11):
Where somebody who came up andmost of these roof this is what
I learned in my consultingno-transcript.
But what they're not good at ismanaging people, and they're
not good at managing their money, right, making sure that their
(33:35):
jobs are being profitable enough, and things like that.
That's the number one thingthat I see.
Their AR is really really highand so learning that part of it,
being able to separatethemselves from the day-to-day
grind of physical out in thefield, that type of stuff, and
focusing on their business right, and learning how to deal with
(33:59):
people or, if you can't do it,find somebody that is good at
that part of it but that youknow that's the best advice is
just learn how to haveinterpersonal skills to deal
with.
You know differentpersonalities.
I have a challenge, even tothis day still with it.
You know, sometimes I'm notmuch of a babysitter, you know I
(34:21):
don't.
I'm also not the rah-rah guy.
Right, I've been a part oforganizations that and been in
organizations that they have agreat sales manager.
That is just rah, rah, rah.
Everything is.
You know, go win one for theGipper.
Even when I'm coaching football, it's not my thing.
I prefer the calm silence andthen go to work, right, and so
(34:47):
I'm not the rah-rah guy, butwhat I am is I'm able to connect
, or what I can do is connectwith people on a different level
.
Just because you know, I had areally good class that taught me
a lot.
It was an NLP class NeuroLinguistic Programming class
that I went through when I wasin HVC, class that I went
(35:14):
through when I was in HVC, andit taught me an unbelievable
amount of reading peopleunderstanding.
That's one of the things, toothat I teach people is, you know
, when I'm sitting and talkingto somebody, I watch everything
about them.
I watch everything from the topof their head to as far down as
I can see, right to their toes,if I can see them, and I look
at every movement, I look atevery facial expression, I look
(35:37):
at every the way they breathe.
If their breathing changes, Iknow instantly I'm evoking an
emotion.
So, and I can evoke differentemotions based off of how I talk
, whether I'm getting excited myfacial expressions, my hand
movements.
You know I can evoke emotion inpeople, so that's what I've
(35:59):
learned.
And if I notice that somethingis wrong, I don't keep talking.
I stop immediately and saylisten, you know, maybe it's the
deep sigh and the sit back orthe facial expression change,
Say, hey, you know, I noticedthat I might have said something
(36:19):
that didn't sit well with you.
I'll stop it right now.
Notice you know, maybe I saidsomething didn't sit well with
you.
Mind sharing with me what itthat that just evoked that
emotion, right?
Or?
Or maybe you're thinking aboutsomething.
Let's get that, because if youdon't do that, you can't move on
to the next phase.
(36:39):
They're gone, it's, it's goneyeah, you've lost them yeah yep,
and so if you can't, so that'sone of the things that I teach
in sales is like this is whatyou're looking for.
These are the keys.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
But this.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
NLP class taught me that I didn't know that stuff
before.
I was doing some of it justnaturally, just because it's
just a natural thing for me, butit really elevated my game to
being able to do that.
And so, you know, I close at avery high rate, but it's only
because I understand.
You know I can't sell to everyclient the same way.
(37:14):
You know there's some clientsthat want to know everything
about the roof.
There's some that don't careabout that.
What are you going to do?
How are you going to help me?
How much money am I spending?
That's all they want to know.
They don't care about nothingelse.
And so you got to know how tosell to that person versus the
person that's an engineer thatwants to know how the shingles
(37:34):
are made, what are they using,what's the impact rating, what's
you know?
So on and so forth.
And so you got to learn how toidentify the type of person
you're selling to.
And then obviously we'relooking for cues, you know, and
then learning how to evokeemotion just in our tonalities
and our movement and the way weexpress ourselves, and things
(37:58):
like that.
You can, you can change all ofthose.
You know those emotions.
You can evoke all thoseemotions the way you want them
to go.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
So, man, that's good stuff.
It's very empathetic.
It's an empathetic method ofselling.
They're asking questions.
I love that question.
You know, did I say somethingthat maybe didn't sit well with
you?
It's a very disarming question.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, and you know what happens is a lot of times
on the surface, right?
They'll say no and.
I'll say yeah, listen, you knowwe, we can't.
And I tell them, right Again,sometimes you have to have and a
lot of people can't do this.
(38:47):
It's funny to me.
I watched those people.
They're like I can't say thatto them.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Like.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I know something.
I know I said something right.
So we can't move on to the nextsteps if you don't share with
me what you're feeling right now.
So people can't ask those kindof questions.
It's funny to me, but I can,and I do because I need to know
(39:16):
what's going on with that personbefore we can go any further
because I've lost them anyway.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Right, I'm not right, they're not going to.
They may not tell you in themoment, but what they're going
to do is go with somebody elseafter you leave, right?
Speaker 2 (39:25):
And so so, if I get it out of them at that point,
right.
So I'm just going to ask acouple, you know, key questions
and I'm going to get theinformation.
I'm going to say listen, I wantto make sure that we're doing
the right thing for you.
This isn't about me, this isabout you, and this is your home
, this is your project, right?
All I'm going to do is offersolutions to help you.
(39:51):
You know, take care of yourissue, and so if you don't share
with me what you're feeling, Ican't move forward.
So are we done?
Or are you going to share withme what the issue is?
Right?
And so I'm not that blunt, butyou know you get what I'm saying
, and so it's, it's part of thegame, right?
(40:12):
It's to me, that's the fun partto me, that interaction in that
evoking emotion.
And I, I tell, I tell my guys,if a guy shadows me, I'll be
like, listen, this is what we'regoing to do, right, and I'll
tell them exactly how I'm goingto, how I'm going to where I'm
going to raise the emotion andwhen I'm going to lower the
emotion.
And they'll sit through it andbe like, damn, oh, excuse me, I
(40:37):
didn't mean to curse, but dang,you know, that's, that's true,
it works, and so that's what wetry to try to train.
But again, you know, the biggestthing is is, you know, and
we're kind of a young company.
I mean we've only been, youknow, we're looking at a year
and I don't see it'd be a yearin four months that we've been
(41:00):
in existence here and so we'rebuilding.
I mean I've got, you know, I'vegot six guys here right now and
, uh, and we're doing okay,we're doing okay, but it's a
tough one man I'd like to have30.
If I had 30 guys here right now,I mean we'd be killing it right
now, but it's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Man, that's good stuff.
Well, it'll be.
It would be cool to do acheck-in, like a year from now,
and see how superior has grown,how the sales team has grown,
what processes you'veimplemented and stuff like that.
So well, before we, before wewrap up, I love that we've
talked about relationships.
I love that we've talked aboutmindset.
You know, I I've got a degreein leadership from a Bible
(41:45):
college in Houston and theybroke leadership down to four
key areas in Houston.
And they broke leadership downto four key areas character,
vision, skills and relationships.
But the true North, that alwayscame back to his character.
Because it doesn't matter, ifyou have a solid vision, if your
character's jacked up, nobody'sgoing to follow you.
You can have amazing skills butnot have character and
(42:07):
everything could crumble.
But then the second thing isrelationships.
You can have great skills but,like you said, if you don't know
how to relate to people, you'regoing to be the most skilled
isolated person on earth.
And so, yeah, we've justcovered a lot of really good
ground in this conversation.
But and we could go on foranother hour, I'm sure.
But before we wrap up, what's?
What's one parting piece ofadvice?
(42:28):
If there's just one thing, justa nugget of wisdom that you
could share with other roofingowners.
What?
What would it be today?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Um, man, don't be afraid to try something new.
You know if, if what you'redoing is not working, don't be
afraid to do something different.
You know it's it's, it's vital,I think, to our psyche as
(42:58):
people, right to make sure thatwe are, you know, doing
everything.
Uh, you know doing everythingthat we can in order to push our
teams, push our business,whatever forward.
And a lot of times, whathappens?
People get comfortable.
So I call it, you know.
I say control the controllables.
(43:19):
That's our big thing, right,control the controllables and
make sure that you know you'redoing everything in your power
to be better tomorrow than youwere today, period, and so
trying something new.
Sometimes you get out of yourcomfort zone and it's really
hard.
I've got one thing that I'lltell you.
(43:40):
In my NLP class, one of thethings that they made us do I
was the first one to evercomplete this task, and it was
seven years at that point.
I don't know that it's everbeen this task, and it was in
seven years at that point.
I don't know that it's everbeen completed after.
But we had to go to arestaurant and you know, in our
class we did like eight hours orseven and a half hours of
(44:02):
training and then we had thislittle after class homework
assignments, and they put us ingroups of six.
I'm just kind of laying thefoundation here.
And so I go into this.
You know they're telling usokay, here's what you're going
to do.
You got to go to thisrestaurant, they pay for it all,
and you got to eat off ofsomebody else's plate.
(44:24):
You got to find somebody togive you food.
And I'm like I'll go toMcDonald's and get a kid to give
me a chicken mcnugget.
No problem, right, I'll justI'll get fries from somebody.
I'm not gonna take a bite ofthe burger, but I'll get them to
give me a fry, right.
And so I'm like, no problem, Ican do this.
And then they told us whatwe're going to eat.
Nothing on the menu, less than125.
(44:49):
That is a different class ofpeople.
I'd never been in a restaurantlike that before, had to wear a
tie, shirt and tie.
They had a closet full of themand so because they knew we
weren't coming there you knowwe're HVAC sales guys, but so-
what they did is they put us inthis restaurant and you know I'm
(45:11):
going to shorten the storybecause I know we got to go.
But so, basically, what I did isI went to the first person that
I thought, ok, maybe, andabsolutely bombed, bombed.
The guy wouldn't even talk tome, he just, and I go back to my
group and they're laughing andI'm a very competitive person
and I'm like, no, I'm going todo this.
(45:31):
So I met this couple and Ilearned two things.
Number one if you get somebodyto teach you about something
that they're passionate about,something happens in the
relationship, right, and so Imake it a point to make sure
that every client I see teachesme something that they're
(45:52):
passionate about.
And how do we identify that?
Right, you got to ask questionsand, see, figure out what they
like.
Maybe it's the bass on the wall, or the deer head on the wall,
or the elk on the wall, whatever, right, maybe it's their sports
team.
Hey, tell me about it.
I've been football a long time.
We've had a lot of footballcoaches talk to me and I'm
(46:18):
always a little beneath themwhen it comes to football or
fishing.
I'm a big fisherman, I hunt,you know, I live in Montana, and
so, you know, I do a lot ofhunting and I've got my trophies
too right.
But if I see a nice buck on thewall, I don't tell them I got a
bigger buck right.
It's about them telling me whatthey're passionate about.
And so so what happened is I Imet this couple, you know, sat
(46:39):
down with them and they startyou know I'm asking them about
their wine I don't know anythingabout.
At that point I didn't evenknow wine came in a bottle, I
thought it came in a box, right,and so, you know, so this guy
happens to be he was an engineerand he happens to be a wine
connoisseur.
And so I started asking himabout the wine and he's like oh
(47:01):
yeah, you know, this with this,food pairs with this, and this
is this, and whoop, whoop.
And so he hands me his wineglass and he says take sip of
that.
So I take a sip of his wine outof his wine glass now, this is
in the 90s, you know and so Itake a sip of it and I was like,
oh, you don't like that, no.
(47:22):
And so then the wife says here,taste mine, but before you do
rinse your, you know, clear yourpalate.
I I thought palate was colors.
I had no idea it was somethingin your mouth, right?
So wash, wash it down.
Take a sip of hers.
I like hers a little better.
He had a really dry wine.
Hers was a white wine.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
When their food came right.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
So I'm, I'm asking about all this wine.
When their food came, you know,were like we're talking about
the wine.
I was like, oh, you know whatyour food's here, I'm gonna go,
no, no, no.
They ended up buying me dinner,but what the guy did was he
actually cuts a piece of hissteak with his fork and he hands
me the fork with the steak onit and he says, take a bite of
(48:07):
that and then take a sip of thiswine.
And it changed the whole thing.
And I was like, oh, you know,oh, my God, this is crazy.
And so, and then, of course,the wife, is like here try mine,
you know.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
So I ate off of both of their plates right.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
So I accomplished the goal, but really what I
accomplished was one.
What's the worst thing that canhappen?
What I accomplished was one.
What's the worst thing that canhappen?
When the president of CuraCorporation found out that he
comes down, that was in theirIndianapolis office and that's
where his office is.
He came down and he introducedhimself to me.
He says, ken, how did you do it?
(48:42):
And I said, well, number one, Itried.
So they asked the class howmany people tried?
36 of us in a class.
Nobody else even tried itbecause they were so afraid to
get out of their comfort zone.
That's a very uncomfortablesituation to be in.
When, when you're, when youfeel like and I felt this when
(49:04):
you feel like these people areso much above you, it's really
tough to break, to get out ofyour comfort zone and just have
a great conversation withsomebody.
And so that taught me.
And then the second thing wasget them to teach you about
something that they'repassionate in and then utilize
(49:26):
that to build that relationship.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
But how did you get a seat at the table in the first
place?
So door knocking.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Right Door knocking, I walked up and I introduced
myself.
I said, hey, my name is Ken and, truthfully, I had a menu with
me.
Now, I couldn't pronounce halfthe stuff that was on the menu.
I had no idea what any of itwas.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
I mean it's all foreign to me.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I went to this French kind of restaurant and then for
me, applebee's was like ahigh-end restaurant at that time
, right, and so you know, thetwo for 25, I'm in, right, and
here I am looking at a menu thatI can't read.
I don't know nothing about it.
So I had a menu in my hand andwhen I knock the door, hey,
(50:17):
don't mean to interrupt you,right, but I'm having a problem.
Can you help me out?
You know people as just anatural thing.
We want to help people.
Most people are that way.
I think there's all.
There's something in, you know.
That's why people stop whensomebody has a flat tire on the
(50:38):
side of the road.
It's why we hold the door openfor people.
Right, they got an arm full ofstuff.
You don't just you always openthe door for them, right?
Most people feel that way.
And so that was it.
Like hey, I got a problem, canyou help me with this?
And they were like sure, wecome here a lot.
And I'm like she was anattorney, he was an engineer,
(51:02):
they're married.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Younger couple.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I mean I ended up drinking their wine, eating
their food, dancing with thewife.
I mean, I could have probablyclosed the deal and went home
with them, but I was married atthe time.
I am married, been married for31 years, thank God, but you
know what I'm saying.
You develop those relationships, but that's how I did it.
Hey, can you help?
(51:25):
Of course I can.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Man, that's so cool.
That's such a cool story.
I think the lesson there ispretty powerful too.
I thought about making a socialmedia post this morning and I
didn't do it.
I need to be a lot better aboutsocial media, but my thought
was I'd rather try and fail thannot try at all.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, here's the deal you lose 100% of the time when
you don't try.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Right, right, it's guaranteed at that point and I
mean you need to have a rightrisk to reward ratio, kind of
like you know trading stocks orwhatever.
You don't want to try with 100%of your account, but at least
try a little bit and if you failthat's okay, you can fail
forward.
That's one of my favorite booksever by John Maxwell is failing
(52:18):
forward, but that's just thenormal way of things, that you
stumble along and you learn andyou keep going.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yep, and that's the whole thing about the ultimate
measure of a man, right?
Is that?
How do you react when you fail?
You know it's not easy to fail,it's not.
You're not happy when you fail,right, but you have to.
You got to have very thin skin,or thick skin, rather, you got
(52:47):
to have very thick skin.
And I have a time limit and Ido this with everything in my
life.
I have a time limit.
I'm only going to be mad, sad,disappointed or whatever for
five minutes, that's it.
That's all I get.
I get five minutes.
I'll throw my tantrum, I'll beupset as a football coach.
(53:09):
Throw my tantrum, I'll be upset.
As a football coach, I have a24 hour rule for people talking
to me after a game.
If I lost, right, we're notgoing to talk about anything
that we did until 24 hours later.
To where we, so we're notemotional about it, right?
But I have five minutes, that'sit.
That's all I get.
If I'm pissed off, five minutes, I'll be pissed off.
(53:29):
Five minutes and one second.
I'm done.
Now we're on to the next thing,right?
And so that's what we do.
So failure it's okay to beupset when you fail.
It's okay to be upset when youlose.
It's okay to be upset when shitdoesn't go, stuff doesn't go.
I'm sorry, man, stuff doesn'tgo, stuff doesn't go.
I'm sorry, man, stuff doesn'tgo your way.
(53:50):
But but keep that very short.
It's okay to grieve, it's okayto do those things, but you got
to go.
The world doesn't stop rightfive minutes and after that
you're on to the next, andthat's, that's the, that's my
rule, that's what I live by andwhat I live by, and so I don't
hold grudges.
(54:11):
I don't you know, it's just notwhat we do.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
It's good stuff, Good stuff, man.
Well, Ken was superior roofingman.
Thanks for joining us.
Great conversation.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Absolutely, man.
I'm really happy and thankfulthat you gave me this
opportunity and, you know,hopefully, you know, hopefully
this gets to some people thatthat that they get a little
something out of it.
You know, and and people can,can look me up and, and you know
, don't hesitate to give me aring if, if they have something.
And, like you said, man, Idon't, I don't charge for
(54:44):
everything.
So you know, I I just like tohelp people, man, in general,
that's great yeah For those ofyou listening.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
If you want to learn more about the Limitless Roofing
Group and how we save ourmembers money Ken is a member of
our group as well you can go tolimitlessroofinggroupcom.
It's as of the time of therecording of this podcast.
It's free to join, but we'regoing to be charging for
membership pretty soon and ifyou want to get connect with Ken
, feel free to reach out.
We, our members, connect withone another.
Our members share bestpractices with one another, so
feel free to reach out and ourhour you guys have is pretty
(55:19):
good too, man.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I'd like to plug that too, cause I know you guys are
just getting that going, butevery other Wednesday, man, that
power hour is is is good stuff,if, if people join in there,
you know, because we get to havethese kind of conversations,
man, and it's awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
That's great Sweet.
All right, well, ken, untilnext time.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you, have a great day.
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