September 30, 2025 • 57 mins
Jimmy Fazekas went from broke, divorced, and making $13/hour… to running one of the most respected home exterior companies in the Gulf Coast.
In this raw and inspiring episode, Jimmy shares how he:
- Lost everything in 2010…
- Bounced back in 2017 with Bluewater Exteriors…
- Built a 600+ 5-star review company with ALL in-house W2 employees
- Used AI, automation, and leadership to scale smart
- And created a winning culture that puts people first
If you’ve ever felt stuck… or wondered if you can truly rebuild from the bottom — this episode is for you.
Because Jimmy proves it’s possible to:
✅ Come back stronger
✅ Build a company the right way
✅ And become someone worth following — in business and in life
Links:
https://bluewaterexteriors.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bluewaterexteriors/
https://www.instagram.com/bluewaterexteriors/?hl=en
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How do you go from bankruptcy and a $13 an hour?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
police job to running an award-winning exterior
company with 600 plus five-starreviews.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In this episode, jimmy Fazeka shares his raw
journey from failure toredemption and how mastering the
numbers, building a team-firstculture and leveraging AI and
automation helped him scale BlueWater Exteriors.
Ai and automation helped himscale Blue Water Exteriors.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Jimmy's a second generation contractor who bought
his dad's business at 20, lostit all in 2010 and came back
swinging in 2017 with Blue WaterExteriors.
Today he runs a company within-house employees and a
relentless focus onprofitability.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Known for his humility and resilience, jimmy
leads with values, putting histeam first, pricing for
long-term stability andmentoring younger contractors on
how to avoid dumb taxes and badhires.
Whether you're in a rut orready to scale, the right way,
this episode deliversbattle-tested advice from
(01:04):
someone who's been through itall.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let's go all in with Jimmy Fazekas of Blue Water
Exteriors.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast.
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Jimmy Fazekas, blue Water Exteriors.
How are you man?
Hey brother, how are you doingtoday?
I am doing wonderful.
This is awesome.
Glad to have you on.
(01:42):
You have a great story inroofing um.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So my dad, uh, pretty much started in the new jersey
area back in the early 70sactually late 60s, early 70s uh,
roofing and siding um, and thenuh bought a gutter machine, of
course, and um ended up movingit down to Alabama in the 70s.
(02:07):
I was born in 76.
And so he moved to Alabama in76 and he met my mom here and so
in 76, the company was born,called Bob and Bob B&B, and when
I was 13 I started helping himin the summertime.
(02:29):
I needed money to buy my AirJordans.
Back then they were popular.
I think in 89 they were like$125 those Air Jordans.
So I bought my Air Jordans withmy own money and love making
money.
And then he said if you want toget your car, you got to work.
I worked at a school co-op, gotout at 11, helped him paint
(02:53):
some gutters or whatnot.
Then we ended up in 1996.
He said I'm retiring.
You can either buy the businessor somebody else can buy it.
I had to grow up.
At 20 years old I bought thecompany from him.
My granddad had already passedand started running the company
at 20, got married at 20, andhad a child at 20.
(03:16):
So I had to grow up real fastat 20 years old in 19.
That's a big year.
That was a big year, big year Ilearned a lot, got in the growth
of.
He was only doing like $110,000a year.
He was kind of burning out,ready to retire and I took him
to Scott in about five years,roughly.
(03:38):
We started getting moreemployees Never subcontractors,
always employees, w-2s and sostarted growing from there.
Economy got rough in 08.
I was leveraged on newconstruction.
A lot of contractors couldn'thold.
On 2010, I filed bankruptcy,ended up losing my house,
(04:04):
foreclosure, divorce and had tochange gears for a couple of
years and get into lawenforcement.
For five years I realized I wastired of being broke making
$13.25 an hour, so I jumped backinto the home improvement
industry in 2017.
It blew our ears.
So we're eight years old thisyear and just rocking and
(04:25):
rolling.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And there's no linear path up right.
There's always the bumps andbruises that come along with it.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
A lot of bumps and bruises, and that's what makes
you stronger really.
It really runs what you wantout of life and how you're
really going to treat yourbusiness and teammates at work
too what were?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
what were some of those?
What were some of the?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
the the best lessons that you've, that you received
from those bumps and bruises um,the number one lesson really in
business for anybody, no matterwhat kind of business you're in
, is you have to know yournumbers.
You have to be dialed in onknowing your gross profit, your
net profit, your marketingdollar spend and track all that.
(05:17):
If you don't know that, you'rejust running blind.
It's like flying blind withoutgas or without gauges you don't
know if you're going to run outof gas or where you get.
So anybody that doesn't run abusiness without looking at
their numbers really is scary.
It's scary.
So that's number one.
Two you know, don't overspend.
You know I overspent my wholelife.
(05:38):
I'd buy, you know, just becauseI made a little bit of money.
I'd start buying big houses andboats and living in a better
neighborhood and all of this totry to keep up with the
jealousies, and that's totallybackwards.
Put that money back in yourbusiness and invest and grow
your business, because you'regoing to get more money in
return from growing yourbusiness than you are from
having to own that house.
(05:59):
So that's the top two things Iwould think would be the best
for you.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So that's the top two things I would think would be
the best for you yeah, man, thatdon't overspend really came
into play there in 2008 for metoo.
We were both born in thewonderful year of 1976.
So you know, it was a greattime, a lot of great people born
that year.
But we also, maybe when we wereborn, there was a little bit of
(06:27):
hardheadedness and we're like,oh, let's just spend all this
money.
And then the you know,everything was nice going
through the nineties and intothecom, boom and then.
And then, bam boy, that wentaway quick.
So that if, with the lessonthat you learned then, if you
had reallocated your funds fromthat boat into into, into
(06:50):
something else, into thebusiness, it probably would have
been a smoother ride.
What were some of the otherlessons that you learned in that
crash?
I'll tell you.
Like, for me, boy, labor gotcheap and and widely available.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh yeah it did.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It was crazy and you know there's.
I don't know how you feel, butyou know, if that ever happened
again, how would you be betterprepared for a crisis like that?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, labor was definitely.
You could find anybody to workand it was definitely cheaper.
It was good times to start abusiness, right after the crash,
you know, there was a guy Iknow, nick Conley.
He owns A1 Girls and he startedabout that time right after he
just started just taking offwith his company.
(07:43):
Of course he's doing greattoday, uh.
But uh, I think one of thebiggest things with labor is
it's not getting any cheapertoday, you know, especially if
you got w-2 employees comparedto subcontractors, uh, it's not
getting any cheaper.
And the cost of having somebodyemployed, with the benefits
(08:05):
going up for less, with healthinsurance and matching the 401k
and taxes and all that.
You just got to plan for it andmake sure that your prices are
dialed in right, that you'remaking money, you're not just
people employed and you're nottrying to grow your business or
get ahead in business.
It can be scary times if youdon't know your numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Back to the beginning of what I said Back to the know
your numbers.
Yeah, and that's a great point.
I feel like a lot of companieswhen they start off they price
their jobs arbitrarily.
They say, well, so-and-so downthe street selling at this.
(08:48):
What kind of advice would yougive to that person?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
You know, that's exactly what normally happens in
the market.
You know and my sales team willsay that to me some days
They'll say, hey, so-and-so'spriced this job for this amount,
but so-and-so works out oftheir house.
We have actually an operation,we have benefits, we have our
rat trucks, we have insurancefor everything.
(09:15):
So if you compare yourself tosomebody else, then you're
definitely going to be in a holein it.
You're going to be racing tothe bottom.
You're going to run out of cash.
In a hole in it.
You're going to be racing tothe bottom.
You're going to run out of cash.
It's going to be where youcan't pay your material bill one
day because you don't haveenough cash in the bank, and
then you're not going to be ableto pay your payroll, and then
you're going to have everybodymad at you.
And then what else you do?
(09:35):
You just close the door.
So you definitely have to notfall.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
You have to have your numbers and follow up what's
making you profit where you needto be with your margins for
sure.
That's something that I love tohear, because I mean, it's the
same thing that I talk about alot also, and you kind of have
to price your jobs backwards.
Right, you're going in, you gotto go in with your cost first
and not just what's the minimalcost to do this?
(10:09):
No-transcript, you know, reallyunderstanding your numbers.
(10:32):
Where should someone start?
Like man, I don't know mynumbers.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Where should I start?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
When you reverse that .
You definitely have to.
Anytime you design something,you got to have end game in mind
, like for me.
I have my end game.
I have my five 10 year planwhere I want to be at five and
10 years and I know that's a bigdreamers.
But you have to have that bigdream and say, hey, in 10 years,
this is what I want toaccomplish, and work backwards
(11:00):
and say, hey, I want to make ahundred grand a year, two
hundred grand a year.
Got to figure out how many jobsdo I have to do, how much is it
going to cost me to get that jobper job, how much does that
lead cost?
You know, and your conversionratio, and just work backwards.
You know you're going to haveyour average ticket, your
conversion ratio, you know yourbooking rate and then you know
(11:21):
you need to make sure that whatyou're spending on your ads is
enough to get you to that number.
So you kind of got to reverseit by that.
And it's really not that hardonce you do it.
Know it enough times, you'vegot it out.
It's just somebody at thebeginning though I mean it's.
It's difficult.
You know, years ago when Ilearned that I was like wow, I
(11:42):
wish somebody would have told methat years ago, in 1996.
I wish I would have knew that.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We don't get all those lessons right away.
Some of them are harder learned.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And some people don't get them at all because they're
never around the right people.
And that goes back to beingaround the right people.
That's another big thing.
I was just at Tommy Bell'sconference last week at Home
Service Freedom Spent time therewith some quality people.
It was just great.
Being around the right peoplemakes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I know you talked about that.
I've had Tommy on the podcast acouple times.
He's a phenomenal businessowner, but it's not like you
were even in the room with him.
It wasn't that he was yourmentor, but he was a mentor from
afar.
We're in this wonderful age ofYouTube and podcasts and all
(12:44):
these things and people aresharing so much information.
You know it's it seems like howare you don't even have to be
in the same room, but you couldstill find good mentors out
there.
How, how has that journey beenfor you?
Where did you find you know,how'd you come across Tommy and
how'd you come across otherpeople that you're?
Who else do you follow thatthat you've gotten some good uh
(13:05):
know, good good advice from, orgood, good business?
You know coach, essentiallycoaching from afar.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I needed to network and that's where I really
learned it and I was good atnetworking.
I'd go to conferences and youknow the builder international
builder show, and then I'd get agroup of people and I learned
(13:32):
from them, whatever industrywe're doing.
But in 21, I went to aconference called Gutter Cod.
It was a gutter convention, thefirst in Denver.
That's where I met Tommy.
I actually met my other buddyfrom Minnesota, corey.
He's got Bainage Home Pros inMinnesota.
(13:54):
He's a great guy.
Anyway, I met him first.
He said come over to the tableand sit with me and Tommy.
I went over and sat down andthe first thing I thought of
Tommy I was like this guy'scocky.
Who is this guy?
I didn't know what kind ofnumbers he was doing or I didn't
know anything about him.
I was like he's kind ofannoying.
(14:14):
At first I was like this guy's,he's probably making all this
crap up.
That's what I first thought.
And then, after I got to knowhim and got to be around him
more, I was like this guy knowsthis stuff.
He's not cocky, he's justconfident, he understands
business and he's actually got apretty good heart.
So anyway, I started followinghim.
(14:35):
But Corey kind of got me intothat realm and, believe it or
not, with our business to growthin the last couple of years.
It has to do with me listeninga lot of what Tommy does and
following his principles andpractices.
And listening to Al Levy it gothim kicked off and then
listening to Ryan at Chirp,because we're on Chirp and just
(14:56):
some different things.
And I'll actually follow mostof what Tommy does, just because
I know it works and it doeswork.
It works for us as well.
So, why not event a wheel?
Why not just copy?
So we follow that.
But you got to get around theright people and you got to get
around the right podcast andlisten to the right podcast to
get the right information.
There's a lot of podcasts thatgive you stuff that's really way
(15:20):
off in the left field that youdon't need to know about.
Quality podcasts are veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, definitely.
I'll say that I think we're oneof those quality podcasts.
Jimmy, Thanks for the plug youare.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You're 100% on.
That makes a difference,because there's so much
information now that you canlisten to anything and then
you'll just get confused.
So you've got to pick maybethree to five different people
and just stick with them all,and that's what's most important
.
I follow Tommy.
I follow Bradley.
(15:57):
I was actually on Bradley'spodcast Friday, so that's going
to be coming out.
So he really hammered me.
He got me a little differentthan what I expected he was more
like a therapist in this part.
That's not what I wanted,brother, but I'll turn that way
off, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You have all in-house employees.
I want to talk about that for alittle bit.
You know this business is builton subcontracting, right?
What was did you ever do someyou know have did in the early
days?
Did you have subcontractors?
Has it always been in-house andwhat's the mindset about that
(16:43):
that keeps you focused on thein-house?
Team I talk to contractorsevery day that feel stuck Not
because they're not working hard, but because they're missing
the structure to growth withoutchaos or their culture's falling
(17:04):
apart because their team'sunclear, unaligned or just
burned out and when change hits,they're reacting instead of
leading, because time andpriorities aren't under their
control.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Day 41 Thrive helps to fix that with proven
strategies for growth, cultureand leadership that actually
work, Ready to thrive beyond thestorm.
Visit the link in thedescription or visit the Roofing
Success Podcast website on thesponsors page to start your
journey today, and what's themindset about that that keeps
you focused on the in-house team?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
The in-house team.
To me you can manage betterbecause you can handle training.
You know training is a big parttoday.
You know, the youngergenerations growing up.
They need all the training.
You know, maybe the mom and daddidn't teach them how to do
carpentry or construction orwhatnot.
So training is huge.
(18:05):
You can get better training.
You just seem to get betteremployees, but it takes longer.
You got to be more patient Subs.
You can say I'm going to sellthis job, I'll make this money,
here's my subcontract pay,here's my material on the job,
and then the leftover belongs tome and that's just simple like
that.
But to get a good name and keepyour Google reviews up and to,
(18:27):
really and a lot of people mightdisagree with me on this
subject, but I just think theW-2 way is the right way to go
For me personally.
Just and it is harder and Iwould love to when we're super
busy and our capacity is way out, I would love to be able to sub
(18:49):
that out and go ahead and getthose customers closed out
faster to give them a bettercustomer experience ahead and
get those customers closed outfaster to give them a better
customer experience.
But then again you go hiresomebody and you got this guy
that leaves.
Either you know the projectundone, or there's leaks or
there's problems, or or theymess my yard up or tore
something up and our guys arejust.
(19:10):
They're dialed in.
They're out for the snakesuccesses.
As everybody in blue water,they want to see what's best for
the company.
They're not just getting acheck and that's got it.
That's what makes a differencewhen you get that mindset where
they're all going rowing theboat the same way, it makes a
difference so that doesn'talways happen with employees too
(19:31):
right like so you've had.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
You've had to put some work into that, I assume.
What have the things thatyou've done along the way been
that?
Have that have gotten the rightpeople rowing in the same
direction?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
yeah, that's actually the number one thing for
culture and business is you wantto get the right people.
That's the secret.
We're not in the productsbusiness, whatever we install or
put on, we're in the peoplebusiness.
If you've got w2 approach, yougot to be able to be a good
leader to them.
You got to be able to make surethat they're taken care of as
(20:08):
far as financially, that youknow that they're you know, you
know they're making, they'regetting their bills paid,
they're you, you know they'reworking to get extra like, hey,
buy a boat, small boat, or buy,you know, this motorcycle if
they really want it.
Don't just hey, I'm weeklypaycheck, that's all I got just
to pay my house payment and mysuit.
(20:29):
So you got to kind of make surethat your people are succeeding
, because if your people aren'tsucceeding then your company and
your customers are not going tosucceed.
So we really strive to makesure that we pay better than
anybody else in our area.
That's one thing.
We offer benefits, that'sanother thing we do.
We have employee and companyget-togethers and cookouts and
(20:53):
you know we do Christmas stufftogether and it's all that
different things.
You got to keep the culturetogether when you have w-2
employees, but you just got toreally be a good leader to them
and make sure you know ifthey're not doing good, you got
to.
You got to talk to them inprivate about that, but if
you're, they're doing the phrasein public.
(21:14):
You know so public.
So there's just so much more tothat.
Most people don't want to dothat because it's a lot harder.
It's just easy to go and sayclose that job, hire that sub,
get done.
But you're not building acompany, you're building a
lifestyle business that can goout and get right out,
(21:35):
especially in the roofingindustry.
You know it's what p company isso strong on that.
Right now I got a bunch offriends that just started up
just to sell to the p, you know,and they're like years on out
and so that's a whole anotherwhole topic that could go
awesome, that for sure we coulddefinitely talk about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What's uh?
Tell me a story of uh, of ofone of the most challenging
times you had with with a teammember or what you.
You know, what you know as youwere building the team out,
because that there it goeseither way, right, you can have
the subs that tear up the yardand things like that, but then
(22:22):
you also, you know, with theinternal team and then how'd you
, how'd you overcome that orwhat did you learn from that?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
uh, challenging team members.
Um, it can happen at times,anybody, anybody.
You know in life what I think alot of people no matter if
you're the business owner or ifyou're the managers or whatever.
But you can go through life andhave your ups and downs.
I mean you might be moremotivated I might be more
motivated in spring and fall andless in summer and everybody
(22:52):
does it.
There's nobody that's 100%motivated all the time.
They all have their own storyover and everybody does it.
There's nobody that's 100%motivated all the time.
You got to find out when you seesome of your team members
struggling, you got to step inand say, hey, man, is there
something I can help you with?
Is there something going on?
What do you need from me?
If you've got that managementteam in place that can do that,
(23:13):
you can help slow that down.
But there's still going to besome teammates that'll get off
on the deep end and they're toofar gone and you can't bring
them back.
I mean our turnover rate issmall but it's under probably
15%.
But we still have some.
You know some.
Some industry averages are 30,40 percent.
(23:35):
We try our best to try to keepit down pretty low and that
comes in to really caring aboutthe people and making sure that
you're giving them everything asfar as the training, as far as
everything possible you can do.
But I've had some odd things.
I've had over 200 and somethingemployees 250 in my lifetime of
(23:57):
my company and I'll tell youI've had them steal from me, lie
to you, I've had some bad stuffgo on.
I've had them break stuff.
I've had them, you know, doside jobs.
I've had anything you can thinkof I've actually had done to me
.
And the biggest thing with thatI would say for any business
(24:18):
owner, entrepreneur, is youcan't let that get you down.
You just got to keep going.
That's just that one person.
If they act up and that's onthem, that has nothing to do
with you.
You just keep moving on andlooking down the road because
there is quality people outthere that really want to give
their all and want to work forsomebody that's that really
appreciates them.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So that's what I said there's two.
There's two stories that youcould tell yourself there.
Right, when you have somebodysteal from you, you could be
like man, it's all over, I'mnever hiring anyone again, I'm
never going to allow myself tohave that happen.
Or you hire the next person whodoesn't steal from you, and you
(25:02):
know, and you keep this thinggoing and you keep moving
forward.
But you could it's very easy totell either of those stories,
right, and that was just oneperson.
You know, I made a bad decision.
I was trying to help someoneout and they, you know, they got
me.
Or, you know, this, is it thateveryone is like that?
(25:23):
The whole world is like that,the whole world is against me
and I'm going to just do thismyself and I'm going to struggle
even more because of that.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Uh, you know, and I'll have the struggles that
come with that, right, yeah,that's what are some of yeah,
that's your mindset and that'smaking sure you know if you're
staying in that negative mindsetall the time and you're going
to off something that's alwaysgoing to happen to you, you can
get out of that and get in thatpositive mindset.
You're going to have bad stuffthat say, hey, that happened
(25:53):
because it opened the door forso-and-so to come to work here
or this and that, so you got tokeep in a business mindset.
You got to keep it positive orit'll ruin you.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's for sure.
The you know it's toughsometimes, though.
You know that homeowner, youknow, is unhappy, someone
screwed up.
You know money's coming out ofyour pocket for this.
You know reputation is on theline over there.
It was a referral from someoneimportant to you, it's.
(26:26):
You know.
Well, this isn't an easy thing,you know.
But you, but why do you keepdoing it, jimmy?
You just keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
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(26:59):
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Speaker 2 (27:22):
Your full AI team is ready.
Boy, this isn't an easy thing,you know, but why do you keep
doing it, jimmy?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
you just keep doing it you know, once, once you do
it enough, you kind of get alittle numb of the smaller stuff
and you and you reallyappreciate the good stuff that
happens and and you get to seeyour team, the succeeding and
all your people that work withyou.
You see them succeed and you seethem grow and you see somebody
(27:59):
that used to be in this position, that really grow in this
position, and that's somethingcool and that, and you're
building your economy of yourpeople inside your company and
you're, and everybody's, makinga living off the vision that
somebody had, and that's cooltoo.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's really what it is.
That is definitely.
When did that realization cometo you?
Because I talk about this a lotor often and it's just my
thought that when we start off,we're just starting off to pay
our bills right, to make a goodliving.
And then you get to this placeand you may have been there a
(28:42):
couple of times becausepre-crash and post-crash where
all of a sudden it's like, man,I have enough, I'm doing well,
and then for a lot of people, alot of guests that I've had on
this podcast, that changes andit's like, well, how can I pass
this on?
When did that change for you?
Or what changed that made youthink, man, this isn't just me
(29:05):
anymore.
Changed for you, or whatchanged that made you think, man
, this isn't just me anymore?
My day-to-day is more centeredaround what I could do for my
team or the community, orhowever that is for you.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, it's a lot easier mindset to have when
you've got this team and we'vegot a good leadership team that
enter me and we all go in ourmeetings week to week and we
figure stuff out together.
If you're the only one and youdon't know the difference and
you're just fighting the firesday to day and you're trying to
(29:35):
do everything, be the, you know,wear all these different hats
it's not as fun, honestly, andyou can't think.
You can't get out of yourbusiness enough to think how can
I make this better foreverybody?
Because you're buying hires andyou're picking up checks and
you're somebody's not payingyour material bills or whatever.
But so I think you have to getto a certain level to really
(29:59):
understand what that means.
And is that something you wantto go to?
Do you really want to grow acompany that's going?
to bigger, have more people,have more options for stress.
You know, you might lose yourhair faster with more people.
If you got 50 people comparedif you got five people, that's a
big difference.
But I say, mine happened aboutthree to five years ago, when I
(30:21):
started really building my teamout and really saying, hey, this
is what I want to do, here's myexit plan, here's my end game,
here's my 10-year plan, and Ireversed engineering and I
started working backwards andthat's kind of you can't just go
in there blind.
If you want a lifestylebusiness, it'll eventually get
(30:42):
you.
I mean, you might get by with10 or 20 years maybe, if you're
lucky, if you're good at being atechnician and being able to
install your products.
But as far as a lifestylebusiness, really, it's just not
without, especially to come inwith AI the coming years.
You better know everything,because AI is coming in fast.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, and I think, with the lifestyle business
aspect, another challenge tothat and you'd mentioned it
earlier is the PE PE firms are,you know.
I mean, they're coming in hardto, they're coming in to take
market share, you know, and soyour lifestyle business may be
not as good of a lifestyle asyou were hoping for it to be
(31:27):
right, yeah, that's tough too,you know.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
it is sad because America's built on the American
dream and everybody's startingto want to be able to.
Hey, I just want to support myfamily, and this is where my dad
and my granddad started.
Hey, I just want to have alifestyle business and support
my family.
And my granddad started is hey,I just want to have a lifestyle
business and support my family.
I kind of know it's going theother direction, so I definitely
(31:53):
want to make sure I'm followingsuit and trying to grow it and
build as much technology in ourcompany as we can, because
that's going to help us succeed.
I mean, you still could have amom and pop five, ten years from
now and do some jobs, but it'sgoing to get harder.
I'm afraid it's going to getharder for everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
What technology are you focused on adding?
What technology has created themost impact?
Let's start there.
What technology have you addedto Blue Water that has added the
most value?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
So our CRM number one is in the vents.
We added that three years agoSurfstat and that's something I
got from Tommy and Corey up inBrandon Yep Up in Minnesota.
We used Surfstat.
We used a service tag.
We jumped on that.
First year everybody here wantedto kill me because they're like
this is too hard and we were asmaller company so to jump on a
(32:56):
product like service tag for oursize company was a little hard.
But now we're getting it dialedin and it does pretty much
everything we want.
But now we're getting it dialedin and it does pretty much
everything.
So CRM was number one and thathelps efficiency reporting all
the good stuff that you need toknow when you're running a
company.
And then we're working withChirp to do some automated
(33:22):
different messages when we getour material in.
It keeps in contact with thecustomer.
So our biggest downfall was ourcommunication with our customer
in the last five years.
So I said we've got to fix ourcustomer communication problem.
So you know we might go sixweeks and not be able to do an
install for a customer, so theyneed to know what's going on in
that six weeks since they get a50% deposit.
(33:45):
They need to know where's ourmoney gone.
Has Jimmy left the country?
So we started this campaign ofkind of letting them know the
materials in.
We're getting closer toscheduling.
You know, our materials ordered, our materials measured,
whatever it is.
We've got these differentprograms tied in so it's
automated now.
So it helps dial that customerin, just like when you go to
(34:05):
Domino's and you order a pizzaand it tells you when it's
coming to your house.
You can follow the whole thingon the cloud.
So that's been real big AI.
We have answering service AIafter hours and we use AI
answers to try to catch thatlead, just so they don't just
hang up and go somewhere else.
Instead of a voicemail, nobodyleaves a message.
(34:26):
You know we've got some newthings.
I'm really trying to build ourwebsite out so we can quote
everything possible online, youknow.
So we can go ahead.
If the customer's at 10 o'clockat night on a Saturday night
and they're wanting to buy aproduct like gutters or whatever
, they can go on there and theycan fill this out.
(34:47):
Oh, here's the price.
Oh, it's gonna cost thirty fivehundred dollars.
I can think what options I want.
Here it is.
Let me go ahead and pay mydeposit, get on schedule.
We can have it done.
In a way, you got the measuretick, comes out, checks color,
blah blah.
So that's where I thinkeverybody's mindset is going to,
that amazon mentality.
Amazon, you can just get itright away.
Nobody wants to wait two monthson anything anymore.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Boy, amazon changed things right, like, oh my
goodness, and they worked reallyhard on that.
It's amazing.
You could get anything you want.
There's reviews on everything.
The pricing is right there.
Marcus Sheridan talks about thisa lot.
If you follow Marcus Sheridan,I had him on the podcast not
(35:33):
long ago with his book.
They Ask you Answer, and thenEndless Customers is more what
he talks about.
It's the transparent pricingand, uh, and so it's, that's
where the puck is going.
So start skating there, boy,because that that's going to
change really fast.
Uh, the thing that I heard in alot of the implementation of
(35:56):
technology that you have iscustomer communication has, has
been a big impact.
Huge, huge, right, what, what,what, what would you?
How did you design, or how haveyou been designing your
communication with yourcustomers over the years?
(36:16):
Like, what have you found to bekind of a the best cadence or
rhythm?
When should customers becommunicated with?
You know from, even you know asthey're, you know on that
appointment set all the waythrough?
Like when, how have you guysthought about that?
What are, what are some of themost impactful conversations?
(36:38):
Or even if it's a text messageor whatever it is like, where,
where are you finding the mostvalue in that in in the customer
journey there so the programchurch.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Uh, that ties into our service.
Titan does most all that.
I don't know all the backbonesof that, but yep, the director
handles that.
But, um, I think the journey,the customer journey, is so
important these days that youhave to stay in contact with
them.
If you take their money on thesales guy getting out there
(37:12):
closing that deal and take theirmoney and then they don't hear
from you until the day beforethe install, it's the worst
customer experience possible andwe used to be those guys years
ago.
And so I think you know youstart with.
You start with hey, you know,we've got your deposit, thank
you for being a customer.
We're working on sending avideo out on that.
(37:32):
We haven't got that dialed inyet.
We're chirping video and it'llbe me talking explaining.
If you ever got any problemsyou need me pick up on call.
Here's my cell number.
I'll give you my cell number.
I'm the owner, but I'm notscared to talk to you.
Start out with that, go aheadand build some more trust before
and then say hey, our, ouroperations manager is going to
be ordering the material.
(37:53):
We'll let you know when it getsthe an or we're coming to
measure or whatever the process.
So I honestly think you knowprobably five to seven times in
that whole journey is I don'tthink anybody's going to
complain that you're you'reletting them know what's going
on in the process.
If somebody complains, they'reprobably not a good customer.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You probably want to kick them out and don't do any
more business with them,probably that's right,
especially there's there'spre-sale and post-sale
communication, right, and and Ithink I don't know if you can
communicate over communicate inpost-sale right, pre-sale
communication, right, and Ithink I don't know if you can
over-communicate in post-saleright Pre-sale you might be able
(38:32):
to over-communicate, right,like there may be an opportunity
to over-communicate there, youknow.
But I have a friend that is inthe real estate investing
industry and he sends ginormousamounts of emails and I had
lunch with him.
This was back in like 2009.
I had lunch with him, 2010.
(38:53):
I was like my goodness, I getlike four or five emails a day
from you.
And he was like I'm like youdon't think that's too much.
You're not, you know.
He said if people aren'tunsubscribing, I'm not sending
enough emails.
That's right, yeah, and so wealways take this mindset of well
, we don't want to bother people.
(39:13):
I promise you you don't havedata on if you're bothering
people until they're saying stop, stop.
Yeah, yeah, right, like peopleare telling you on a regular
basis please stop.
You know, and not just thatoutlier, right, not just that
one noisy person out of 100 or athousand that you know that
(39:37):
that's telling you that's toomuch.
When, when, when.
10, 15 out of that hundred,start telling you, all right, ok
, maybe we'll dial it back alittle bit.
15 out of that 100 starttelling you all right, okay,
maybe we'll dial it back alittle bit.
But I would personally go tothe point of communication that
when people say, stop right onthe front end, and then once I
mean, how good does it feel toget communicated with when you
(39:59):
are a customer?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Oh yeah, that's amazing, you know we get a lot
of Google reviews where they'llsay they communicate the whole
process to us, google.
That's great for Google to seethat and our future customers
that are looking to purchase ourproducts see that.
So that's a good thing.
You know, and everybody getsbuyer's remorse a grand on a
(40:22):
product and you know you paid50% down.
You paid 10 grand down.
I could have paid off collegeor whatever, and they're like
maybe I shouldn't do that.
So the quicker you respond andlet them feel comfortable that
they made the right decision tothe better chance that you're
going to have somebody win theirmoney back as well.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I have.
If you have done any amount ofcontract or hired any amount of
contractors for your personalhome or maybe you have some
rental properties or somethinglike that you have written that
deposit check and sat therewondering what the heck is going
on.
That's a scary time it's ascary time.
(41:12):
You write a ten thousand dollarcheck to someone and most
people you know that's, that's aalmost.
For anyone, that's a lot ofmoney.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
You know, I know you're enjoying the episode, but
let's give a shout out toanother one of our sponsors.
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for anyone, that's a lot ofmoney, you know yeah, so so the
more you can stay in contactwith them, I think that's's
better for your company.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
So I mean, that's something that a lot of people
you can't do that if you're aone-man show and you're out
giving quotes, I mean you can,but it's going to be a lot
harder.
So, automations anybody needsto figure out these automations
and get down, yeah, automationsand get it down, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Automations for the small as you're getting started
to, until you're in the eightfigures and above, like a lot of
this can be automated.
The technology is there.
When did you implement the AIanswering?
How long have you had thatimplemented for?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I think it's almost not a year now.
We had we brought it down abouta year and we thought it was
going to be a little early.
We just wanted to try it outand see what kind of response
and I think the first couplemonths we were getting leads on
weekends.
Thankfully we were locking themdown instead of them calling and
(43:01):
us trying to talk Mondaymorning and then they've already
got somebody else and they'relike oh, we don't need you now,
thank you.
So I think that was about ayear ago.
It's worked pretty well.
It's not perfect AI is notperfect, no, but it's better
than nothing.
So if your leads cost $100,$125 a lead and you can get $4,
(43:23):
$ five on a weekend for thatinstrument, service, that AI,
it's a no-brainer, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So, and then it ties into and I don't know about all
of this, I'm a marketingdirector but it ties into Google
.
If you're open 24-7, and if youdon't, google will shut you
down or they'll put you lower.
All that because you've got toask your following with AI to
automatically answer to what I'mgoing to miss.
That's right.
Google's going to bump you up alittle bit more.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, that's in the Google local services ad.
So you know, your response timein the Google local services
ads is something that they areusing as a ranking factor.
So making that phone's answered, that's a big, big, big deal.
We covered a lot here.
What other things do you see onthe horizon for PE?
(44:14):
You said you're starting to seepeople now that are just hey,
I'm starting this company tobuild, to exit.
That's a different thing, right?
You know all these things comein waves.
So all these PE cycles andthings like that come in waves.
That you know we may be in thepeak of it now, we may be in the
(44:35):
middle of it, we may be at thebeginning of it.
We don't really know exactly.
But what other thoughts or whatelse are you seeing around that
side of things?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Yeah, you know, being at Tommy's a bit uh uh,
Christiano through Rhino they doour marketing.
They've got a human jacksbusiness Redbird Yep, and I
think that's Indiana.
Redbird yep, and I think that'sIllinois, Indiana, Indiana.
And then so these guys, theirmain goal is to get three to
(45:11):
five years build it up and, youknow, with your average ticket
being 15 or 20 grand, and then aPE company coming in and giving
you a multiple of seven oreight for roofing, and then it's
just a short-term money grab,kind of like investing in a
stock market, but a littledifferent ways in business.
But I think that's going toprobably be here for the next 20
(45:33):
years.
You know, especially in the bluecollar era.
I think we've got it made inthe blue collar guys because a
lot of ai's taking a lot of likethe lawyers and a lot of these
jobs they're taking.
They can't take our jobsbecause we need to.
You know they need labor guysto go and install these products
(45:53):
on these homes.
So we're actually going to bethe new white collar and they're
going to the other.
Some of these other guys aregoing to go down to the blue and
we're going to be the ones thatare going to be making the
books.
You know, the labor guys likeus.
But I think it's here to stay.
I think it's just going to getmore sophisticated and I just
(46:14):
think people are just going tohave to jump on and learn how to
learn technology.
And I'm going to be 50 inJanuary and I'm having to learn
more technology than I everthought I'd have to learn.
You know I want it to simplifymore technology than I ever
thought I'd have to learn.
I wanted to just simplify.
I know how to use my phone andall that.
I was like I just want to usemy phone.
I don't even want a phone Fiveyears from now.
I was going to give it, my life.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I don't know, I don't know yeah that's one of the
things is you got to keep upwith the technology.
If you're not, if you're notdoing things with AI that you
know, some of the first thingplaces you could start is just
start with chat, gpt and learnhow to write a prompt.
I have a great episode withJonathan Mast, who we talk about
(47:00):
that in the perfect prompt.
Jonathan's an AI expert andjust and and just learning how
to communicate with it right,Learning how to use it, learning
where it can be used.
Can it be used in voice, can itbe used in?
You know how?
How are we doing this?
We're, you know, we're having alot of conversations around that
in the RSRA, you know, becausethere's what it can do and what
(47:25):
it can't do yet, right, andthere's there's a lot of things
it can't do yet.
But, but, boy, you better learnwhat it can do now so that when
it can do the other things,you're already there.
Uh, you know leading the pack alittle bit.
Uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's a,it's a lot of, it's moving fast
(47:46):
.
Yeah, yeah, moving really,really fast.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
You know, at this conference last week, kevin
Leary was there speaking and Ithink it was Thursday morning
and he was talking about AI andhe's actually using it a lot.
He says that he can build acommercial in Dubai cheaper than
they could produce one here andit's all AI related.
(48:10):
I got the green screens on theback and all that.
So he flies to Dubai and hesaid it's $20,000, $30,000,
which here costs $80,000 or$150,000 after he flies people
and everything.
So anyway, he had this onevideo he showed us on the
screening where him and AI andAI is so close to his voice now
that now the video looks fine,the video's been fine on AI, but
(48:33):
the voice is where it's been aproblem.
So he's got this.
He had this video where thevoice was so close and he said
he's flying back to Dubai in twoweeks and he's going to record
a whole 3,000 word script and hesaid AI's voice is going to be
exact to mine and then I canpost constantly on social media
(48:55):
or whatever I want to do and Idon't have to, and then it's
going to be a whole lot cheaperand more efficient and that's
what everybody's doing as welland I'm actually trying to learn
that too, so we can get thatgoing.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, it's like a, it's almost a.
It's an arbitrage of your time,right, it's pretty crazy.
I have a.
You know, I coach in a digitalmarketing agency group and so
I'm around a lot of digitalmarketing agency owners and you
know, one of them just did afull commercial in Google's
(49:28):
video AI and it was phenomenaland I was like, boy, this is
crazy.
That was one of the.
I heard a comment on somepodcast recently.
They're like, yeah, hollywood'sin trouble.
It's like Hollywood's introuble, yeah, hollywood's in
trouble because a lot of thesethings that AI is getting so
(49:49):
good at video and voice andthings like that that it's going
to be a big challenge.
A big, big challenge.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
He showed me a movie that they'd already made an
all-AI movie.
He put it on the screen I don'tremember the name of it.
He showed me this band, or heshowed everybody this band, and
this band made it to the topfive.
They were an all-AI band.
It wasn't even real.
There's nobody they have to paythese royalties to.
(50:20):
Besides whoever designed it.
One day we're going to belistening to bands that are not
even real, because we like thatkind of music, whether it's ZZ
Talk or whether it's Metallicaor whoever we get because
they're going to build AI bandsto match what we like.
That's right.
It's getting wild.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Yeah, google Flow is the platform that he built.
That on it's a.
Google Flow is the is theplatform that that he built that
.
That on it's in Google Labs.
To AI filmmaking tool.
But yeah, I've seen that toowith the music to the same thing
, like whoa, that's a, that'ssomething.
So there's a lot of thingscoming.
(51:01):
But then, you know what, whatimpact does that have on our
businesses?
How can we utilize it?
Right?
If it took, you know, a lot ofpeople have a lot of companies
struggle with making socialmedia content.
Boy, a lot of them, right.
But if you could, you know,create a more efficient process
for that through using ai, likeif it can use your voice and do
(51:23):
voiceovers and do it in your, inyour tone and it.
But but you have to feed it theright information for it to
feed it.
You know, for habit to have agood output.
I come from the softwaredevelopment side of things.
I'm a terrible, terribleprogrammer, but I did it years
and years and years ago and, um,you know, it's still garbage in
, garbage out, you know.
(51:44):
So you got to learn that thegoal is to learn how to.
What the right input is right,what the right inputs that you
can have.
What are, what are?
What are some of the, some ofthe things you you're most proud
of in blue waters journey sofar, or your own personal
(52:05):
journey?
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Oh, wow, probably the top things I'm proud of is my
team Just just proud of my team.
And it's hard to have a goodteam these days.
I hear other friends that it'shard to have good people on your
team.
But I'm proud of my team.
(52:27):
I'm proud that we have a goodname and our Google reviews are
strong at 625-ish right now oneight years.
That's pretty good.
We started the last three orfour years really trying to get
to Google reviews.
The first couple of years wedidn't really know, we didn't
try.
So I'm proud that we've gotgreat customers.
(52:48):
We've got a 10,000 base roughly10,000, I guess, customer base.
That's pretty strong too.
We've won some awards the lastyou know five years.
We've won the best gutterservice here in our area.
We've won the best screenservice service here in our area
.
We've won the best screenservice last four years or three
(53:08):
years.
Uh, we won the best windowinstallation team this last year
.
Uh, proud of that.
Um years ago when I had theother company called b b my dad
gray, that's the company Ifought, company I follow from.
I saw the magazine QualifiedRemodeler, top 500, and I used
(53:30):
to look for it and I'm like man.
This is in 2004 I rememberexact year and I said I want to
get in the magazine, I want tobe the top 500.
I want to get there.
And a couple years ago I saw mywall here.
I think, I think it was twoyears ago we were 492.
So we made it in the top 500.
(53:51):
You made it.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
You made it.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
That was a big thing for me.
For other people in the companythey could care less, but I
remember looking at thatmagazine in 2004 saying I'm
going to be in there one day andto be able to get that and get
that plaque and be in thatmagazine and see blue arc steers
.
That was a proud moment for me.
Uh, that, probably to otherpeople it wasn't a big deal, but
(54:16):
to me it was huge.
And knowing that, hey, I said Iwanted to do something and I
made it happen.
And, uh, everybody here made ithappen to what they that was
cool.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Man.
What, uh, if you could giveadvice to a contractor, you know
, starting out, or trying to tryto build something sustainable
and and and you know, but youknow, uh, really trying to build
a really great company, what,uh, what would that advice be?
Speaker 3 (54:48):
uh, dream big, you got to dream big.
If you just say, hey, I want tostart a business just to have
some extra money, a little side,dream big.
You know you got to give 110percent to.
You know, after you dream bigand build your plan and reverse
engineer what you want to do,you have to give 110 percent.
(55:10):
Everybody thinks that all thesepeople are overnight successes.
I mean, I've been doing this.
If you take the, even if youtook the five years of law
enforcement out and 13, 35, 37,so 32 years I've been doing this
for 35, 37, so 32 years.
I've been doing this and I'mstill just growing every day and
trying to get better at what Ido.
(55:30):
I mean 32 years of it.
You'd think I'd be retired bynow, but I'm not.
I'm going to retire, so youjust got to get to work.
I mean, if you look at peopleon social media and you'll see
all these people that act likethey're making all this money,
don't believe that.
Just put your head down, workhard, stay committed and just be
(55:53):
honest and have integrity.
I mean that's what it's about,especially in our line of work.
You know, construction peopletrust the contractors less than
the homeowners do, so have thatintegrity If you did something
wrong, fix it, just keep afterit.
I mean, there's so manydifferent things I could say I
could talk for two hours, butreally and truly, you know you
(56:18):
got to dream big.
If you dream small, that'swhere you're going to land.
If you dream big and don't makeit to there and you only make
it half, you've done great.
So you got to drink to it.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Awesome man, jimmy.
Thanks for your time today.
This has been another episodeof the Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
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Thanks for listening.
How do you go from bankruptcy and a $13 an hour?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
police job to running an award-winning exterior
company with 600 plus five-starreviews.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In this episode, jimmy Fazeka shares his raw
journey from failure toredemption and how mastering the
numbers, building a team-firstculture and leveraging AI and
automation helped him scale BlueWater Exteriors.
Ai and automation helped himscale Blue Water Exteriors.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Jimmy's a second generation contractor who bought
his dad's business at 20, lostit all in 2010 and came back
swinging in 2017 with Blue WaterExteriors.
Today he runs a company within-house employees and a
relentless focus onprofitability.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Known for his humility and resilience, jimmy
leads with values, putting histeam first, pricing for
long-term stability andmentoring younger contractors on
how to avoid dumb taxes and badhires.
Whether you're in a rut orready to scale, the right way,
this episode deliversbattle-tested advice from
(01:04):
someone who's been through itall.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let's go all in with Jimmy Fazekas of Blue Water
Exteriors.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast.
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Jimmy Fazekas, blue Water Exteriors.
How are you man?
Hey brother, how are you doingtoday?
I am doing wonderful.
This is awesome.
Glad to have you on.
(01:42):
You have a great story inroofing um.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So my dad, uh, pretty much started in the new jersey
area back in the early 70sactually late 60s, early 70s uh,
roofing and siding um, and thenuh bought a gutter machine, of
course, and um ended up movingit down to Alabama in the 70s.
(02:07):
I was born in 76.
And so he moved to Alabama in76 and he met my mom here and so
in 76, the company was born,called Bob and Bob B&B, and when
I was 13 I started helping himin the summertime.
(02:29):
I needed money to buy my AirJordans.
Back then they were popular.
I think in 89 they were like$125 those Air Jordans.
So I bought my Air Jordans withmy own money and love making
money.
And then he said if you want toget your car, you got to work.
I worked at a school co-op, gotout at 11, helped him paint
(02:53):
some gutters or whatnot.
Then we ended up in 1996.
He said I'm retiring.
You can either buy the businessor somebody else can buy it.
I had to grow up.
At 20 years old I bought thecompany from him.
My granddad had already passedand started running the company
at 20, got married at 20, andhad a child at 20.
(03:16):
So I had to grow up real fastat 20 years old in 19.
That's a big year.
That was a big year, big year Ilearned a lot, got in the growth
of.
He was only doing like $110,000a year.
He was kind of burning out,ready to retire and I took him
to Scott in about five years,roughly.
(03:38):
We started getting moreemployees Never subcontractors,
always employees, w-2s and sostarted growing from there.
Economy got rough in 08.
I was leveraged on newconstruction.
A lot of contractors couldn'thold.
On 2010, I filed bankruptcy,ended up losing my house,
(04:04):
foreclosure, divorce and had tochange gears for a couple of
years and get into lawenforcement.
For five years I realized I wastired of being broke making
$13.25 an hour, so I jumped backinto the home improvement
industry in 2017.
It blew our ears.
So we're eight years old thisyear and just rocking and
(04:25):
rolling.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And there's no linear path up right.
There's always the bumps andbruises that come along with it.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
A lot of bumps and bruises, and that's what makes
you stronger really.
It really runs what you wantout of life and how you're
really going to treat yourbusiness and teammates at work
too what were?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
what were some of those?
What were some of the?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
the the best lessons that you've, that you received
from those bumps and bruises um,the number one lesson really in
business for anybody, no matterwhat kind of business you're in
, is you have to know yournumbers.
You have to be dialed in onknowing your gross profit, your
net profit, your marketingdollar spend and track all that.
(05:17):
If you don't know that, you'rejust running blind.
It's like flying blind withoutgas or without gauges you don't
know if you're going to run outof gas or where you get.
So anybody that doesn't run abusiness without looking at
their numbers really is scary.
It's scary.
So that's number one.
Two you know, don't overspend.
You know I overspent my wholelife.
(05:38):
I'd buy, you know, just becauseI made a little bit of money.
I'd start buying big houses andboats and living in a better
neighborhood and all of this totry to keep up with the
jealousies, and that's totallybackwards.
Put that money back in yourbusiness and invest and grow
your business, because you'regoing to get more money in
return from growing yourbusiness than you are from
having to own that house.
(05:59):
So that's the top two things Iwould think would be the best
for you.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So that's the top two things I would think would be
the best for you yeah, man, thatdon't overspend really came
into play there in 2008 for metoo.
We were both born in thewonderful year of 1976.
So you know, it was a greattime, a lot of great people born
that year.
But we also, maybe when we wereborn, there was a little bit of
(06:27):
hardheadedness and we're like,oh, let's just spend all this
money.
And then the you know,everything was nice going
through the nineties and intothecom, boom and then.
And then, bam boy, that wentaway quick.
So that if, with the lessonthat you learned then, if you
had reallocated your funds fromthat boat into into, into
(06:50):
something else, into thebusiness, it probably would have
been a smoother ride.
What were some of the otherlessons that you learned in that
crash?
I'll tell you.
Like, for me, boy, labor gotcheap and and widely available.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh yeah it did.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It was crazy and you know there's.
I don't know how you feel, butyou know, if that ever happened
again, how would you be betterprepared for a crisis like that?
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah, labor was definitely.
You could find anybody to workand it was definitely cheaper.
It was good times to start abusiness, right after the crash,
you know, there was a guy Iknow, nick Conley.
He owns A1 Girls and he startedabout that time right after he
just started just taking offwith his company.
(07:43):
Of course he's doing greattoday, uh.
But uh, I think one of thebiggest things with labor is
it's not getting any cheapertoday, you know, especially if
you got w-2 employees comparedto subcontractors, uh, it's not
getting any cheaper.
And the cost of having somebodyemployed, with the benefits
(08:05):
going up for less, with healthinsurance and matching the 401k
and taxes and all that.
You just got to plan for it andmake sure that your prices are
dialed in right, that you'remaking money, you're not just
people employed and you're nottrying to grow your business or
get ahead in business.
It can be scary times if youdon't know your numbers.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Back to the beginning of what I said Back to the know
your numbers.
Yeah, and that's a great point.
I feel like a lot of companieswhen they start off they price
their jobs arbitrarily.
They say, well, so-and-so downthe street selling at this.
(08:48):
What kind of advice would yougive to that person?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
You know, that's exactly what normally happens in
the market.
You know and my sales team willsay that to me some days
They'll say, hey, so-and-so'spriced this job for this amount,
but so-and-so works out oftheir house.
We have actually an operation,we have benefits, we have our
rat trucks, we have insurancefor everything.
(09:15):
So if you compare yourself tosomebody else, then you're
definitely going to be in a holein it.
You're going to be racing tothe bottom.
You're going to run out of cash.
In a hole in it.
You're going to be racing tothe bottom.
You're going to run out of cash.
It's going to be where youcan't pay your material bill one
day because you don't haveenough cash in the bank, and
then you're not going to be ableto pay your payroll, and then
you're going to have everybodymad at you.
And then what else you do?
(09:35):
You just close the door.
So you definitely have to notfall.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
You have to have your numbers and follow up what's
making you profit where you needto be with your margins for
sure.
That's something that I love tohear, because I mean, it's the
same thing that I talk about alot also, and you kind of have
to price your jobs backwards.
Right, you're going in, you gotto go in with your cost first
and not just what's the minimalcost to do this?
(10:09):
No-transcript, you know, reallyunderstanding your numbers.
(10:32):
Where should someone start?
Like man, I don't know mynumbers.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Where should I start?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
When you reverse that .
You definitely have to.
Anytime you design something,you got to have end game in mind
, like for me.
I have my end game.
I have my five 10 year planwhere I want to be at five and
10 years and I know that's a bigdreamers.
But you have to have that bigdream and say, hey, in 10 years,
this is what I want toaccomplish, and work backwards
(11:00):
and say, hey, I want to make ahundred grand a year, two
hundred grand a year.
Got to figure out how many jobsdo I have to do, how much is it
going to cost me to get that jobper job, how much does that
lead cost?
You know, and your conversionratio, and just work backwards.
You know you're going to haveyour average ticket, your
conversion ratio, you know yourbooking rate and then you know
(11:21):
you need to make sure that whatyou're spending on your ads is
enough to get you to that number.
So you kind of got to reverseit by that.
And it's really not that hardonce you do it.
Know it enough times, you'vegot it out.
It's just somebody at thebeginning though I mean it's.
It's difficult.
You know, years ago when Ilearned that I was like wow, I
(11:42):
wish somebody would have told methat years ago, in 1996.
I wish I would have knew that.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We don't get all those lessons right away.
Some of them are harder learned.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And some people don't get them at all because they're
never around the right people.
And that goes back to beingaround the right people.
That's another big thing.
I was just at Tommy Bell'sconference last week at Home
Service Freedom Spent time therewith some quality people.
It was just great.
Being around the right peoplemakes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I know you talked about that.
I've had Tommy on the podcast acouple times.
He's a phenomenal businessowner, but it's not like you
were even in the room with him.
It wasn't that he was yourmentor, but he was a mentor from
afar.
We're in this wonderful age ofYouTube and podcasts and all
(12:44):
these things and people aresharing so much information.
You know it's it seems like howare you don't even have to be
in the same room, but you couldstill find good mentors out
there.
How, how has that journey beenfor you?
Where did you find you know,how'd you come across Tommy and
how'd you come across otherpeople that you're?
Who else do you follow thatthat you've gotten some good uh
(13:05):
know, good good advice from, orgood, good business?
You know coach, essentiallycoaching from afar.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I needed to network and that's where I really
learned it and I was good atnetworking.
I'd go to conferences and youknow the builder international
builder show, and then I'd get agroup of people and I learned
(13:32):
from them, whatever industrywe're doing.
But in 21, I went to aconference called Gutter Cod.
It was a gutter convention, thefirst in Denver.
That's where I met Tommy.
I actually met my other buddyfrom Minnesota, corey.
He's got Bainage Home Pros inMinnesota.
(13:54):
He's a great guy.
Anyway, I met him first.
He said come over to the tableand sit with me and Tommy.
I went over and sat down andthe first thing I thought of
Tommy I was like this guy'scocky.
Who is this guy?
I didn't know what kind ofnumbers he was doing or I didn't
know anything about him.
I was like he's kind ofannoying.
(14:14):
At first I was like this guy's,he's probably making all this
crap up.
That's what I first thought.
And then, after I got to knowhim and got to be around him
more, I was like this guy knowsthis stuff.
He's not cocky, he's justconfident, he understands
business and he's actually got apretty good heart.
So anyway, I started followinghim.
(14:35):
But Corey kind of got me intothat realm and, believe it or
not, with our business to growthin the last couple of years.
It has to do with me listeninga lot of what Tommy does and
following his principles andpractices.
And listening to Al Levy it gothim kicked off and then
listening to Ryan at Chirp,because we're on Chirp and just
(14:56):
some different things.
And I'll actually follow mostof what Tommy does, just because
I know it works and it doeswork.
It works for us as well.
So, why not event a wheel?
Why not just copy?
So we follow that.
But you got to get around theright people and you got to get
around the right podcast andlisten to the right podcast to
get the right information.
There's a lot of podcasts thatgive you stuff that's really way
(15:20):
off in the left field that youdon't need to know about.
Quality podcasts are veryimportant.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, definitely.
I'll say that I think we're oneof those quality podcasts.
Jimmy, Thanks for the plug youare.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You're 100% on.
That makes a difference,because there's so much
information now that you canlisten to anything and then
you'll just get confused.
So you've got to pick maybethree to five different people
and just stick with them all,and that's what's most important
.
I follow Tommy.
I follow Bradley.
(15:57):
I was actually on Bradley'spodcast Friday, so that's going
to be coming out.
So he really hammered me.
He got me a little differentthan what I expected he was more
like a therapist in this part.
That's not what I wanted,brother, but I'll turn that way
off, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You have all in-house employees.
I want to talk about that for alittle bit.
You know this business is builton subcontracting, right?
What was did you ever do someyou know have did in the early
days?
Did you have subcontractors?
Has it always been in-house andwhat's the mindset about that
(16:43):
that keeps you focused on thein-house?
Team I talk to contractorsevery day that feel stuck Not
because they're not working hard, but because they're missing
the structure to growth withoutchaos or their culture's falling
(17:04):
apart because their team'sunclear, unaligned or just
burned out and when change hits,they're reacting instead of
leading, because time andpriorities aren't under their
control.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Day 41 Thrive helps to fix that with proven
strategies for growth, cultureand leadership that actually
work, Ready to thrive beyond thestorm.
Visit the link in thedescription or visit the Roofing
Success Podcast website on thesponsors page to start your
journey today, and what's themindset about that that keeps
you focused on the in-house team?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
The in-house team.
To me you can manage betterbecause you can handle training.
You know training is a big parttoday.
You know, the youngergenerations growing up.
They need all the training.
You know, maybe the mom and daddidn't teach them how to do
carpentry or construction orwhatnot.
So training is huge.
(18:05):
You can get better training.
You just seem to get betteremployees, but it takes longer.
You got to be more patient Subs.
You can say I'm going to sellthis job, I'll make this money,
here's my subcontract pay,here's my material on the job,
and then the leftover belongs tome and that's just simple like
that.
But to get a good name and keepyour Google reviews up and to,
(18:27):
really and a lot of people mightdisagree with me on this
subject, but I just think theW-2 way is the right way to go
For me personally.
Just and it is harder and Iwould love to when we're super
busy and our capacity is way out, I would love to be able to sub
(18:49):
that out and go ahead and getthose customers closed out
faster to give them a bettercustomer experience ahead and
get those customers closed outfaster to give them a better
customer experience.
But then again you go hiresomebody and you got this guy
that leaves.
Either you know the projectundone, or there's leaks or
there's problems, or or theymess my yard up or tore
something up and our guys arejust.
(19:10):
They're dialed in.
They're out for the snakesuccesses.
As everybody in blue water,they want to see what's best for
the company.
They're not just getting acheck and that's got it.
That's what makes a differencewhen you get that mindset where
they're all going rowing theboat the same way, it makes a
difference so that doesn'talways happen with employees too
(19:31):
right like so you've had.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
You've had to put some work into that, I assume.
What have the things thatyou've done along the way been
that?
Have that have gotten the rightpeople rowing in the same
direction?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
yeah, that's actually the number one thing for
culture and business is you wantto get the right people.
That's the secret.
We're not in the productsbusiness, whatever we install or
put on, we're in the peoplebusiness.
If you've got w2 approach, yougot to be able to be a good
leader to them.
You got to be able to make surethat they're taken care of as
(20:08):
far as financially, that youknow that they're you know, you
know they're making, they'regetting their bills paid,
they're you, you know they'reworking to get extra like, hey,
buy a boat, small boat, or buy,you know, this motorcycle if
they really want it.
Don't just hey, I'm weeklypaycheck, that's all I got just
to pay my house payment and mysuit.
(20:29):
So you got to kind of make surethat your people are succeeding
, because if your people aren'tsucceeding then your company and
your customers are not going tosucceed.
So we really strive to makesure that we pay better than
anybody else in our area.
That's one thing.
We offer benefits, that'sanother thing we do.
We have employee and companyget-togethers and cookouts and
(20:53):
you know we do Christmas stufftogether and it's all that
different things.
You got to keep the culturetogether when you have w-2
employees, but you just got toreally be a good leader to them
and make sure you know ifthey're not doing good, you got
to.
You got to talk to them inprivate about that, but if
you're, they're doing the phrasein public.
(21:14):
You know so public.
So there's just so much more tothat.
Most people don't want to dothat because it's a lot harder.
It's just easy to go and sayclose that job, hire that sub,
get done.
But you're not building acompany, you're building a
lifestyle business that can goout and get right out,
(21:35):
especially in the roofingindustry.
You know it's what p company isso strong on that.
Right now I got a bunch offriends that just started up
just to sell to the p, you know,and they're like years on out
and so that's a whole anotherwhole topic that could go
awesome, that for sure we coulddefinitely talk about that.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
What's uh?
Tell me a story of uh, of ofone of the most challenging
times you had with with a teammember or what you.
You know, what you know as youwere building the team out,
because that there it goeseither way, right, you can have
the subs that tear up the yardand things like that, but then
(22:22):
you also, you know, with theinternal team and then how'd you
, how'd you overcome that orwhat did you learn from that?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
uh, challenging team members.
Um, it can happen at times,anybody, anybody.
You know in life what I think alot of people no matter if
you're the business owner or ifyou're the managers or whatever.
But you can go through life andhave your ups and downs.
I mean you might be moremotivated I might be more
motivated in spring and fall andless in summer and everybody
(22:52):
does it.
There's nobody that's 100%motivated all the time.
They all have their own storyover and everybody does it.
There's nobody that's 100%motivated all the time.
You got to find out when you seesome of your team members
struggling, you got to step inand say, hey, man, is there
something I can help you with?
Is there something going on?
What do you need from me?
If you've got that managementteam in place that can do that,
(23:13):
you can help slow that down.
But there's still going to besome teammates that'll get off
on the deep end and they're toofar gone and you can't bring
them back.
I mean our turnover rate issmall but it's under probably
15%.
But we still have some.
You know some.
Some industry averages are 30,40 percent.
(23:35):
We try our best to try to keepit down pretty low and that
comes in to really caring aboutthe people and making sure that
you're giving them everything asfar as the training, as far as
everything possible you can do.
But I've had some odd things.
I've had over 200 and somethingemployees 250 in my lifetime of
(23:57):
my company and I'll tell youI've had them steal from me, lie
to you, I've had some bad stuffgo on.
I've had them break stuff.
I've had them, you know, doside jobs.
I've had anything you can thinkof I've actually had done to me
.
And the biggest thing with thatI would say for any business
(24:18):
owner, entrepreneur, is youcan't let that get you down.
You just got to keep going.
That's just that one person.
If they act up and that's onthem, that has nothing to do
with you.
You just keep moving on andlooking down the road because
there is quality people outthere that really want to give
their all and want to work forsomebody that's that really
appreciates them.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So that's what I said there's two.
There's two stories that youcould tell yourself there.
Right, when you have somebodysteal from you, you could be
like man, it's all over, I'mnever hiring anyone again, I'm
never going to allow myself tohave that happen.
Or you hire the next person whodoesn't steal from you, and you
(25:02):
know, and you keep this thinggoing and you keep moving
forward.
But you could it's very easy totell either of those stories,
right, and that was just oneperson.
You know, I made a bad decision.
I was trying to help someoneout and they, you know, they got
me.
Or, you know, this, is it thateveryone is like that?
(25:23):
The whole world is like that,the whole world is against me
and I'm going to just do thismyself and I'm going to struggle
even more because of that.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Uh, you know, and I'll have the struggles that
come with that, right, yeah,that's what are some of yeah,
that's your mindset and that'smaking sure you know if you're
staying in that negative mindsetall the time and you're going
to off something that's alwaysgoing to happen to you, you can
get out of that and get in thatpositive mindset.
You're going to have bad stuffthat say, hey, that happened
(25:53):
because it opened the door forso-and-so to come to work here
or this and that, so you got tokeep in a business mindset.
You got to keep it positive orit'll ruin you.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's for sure.
The you know it's toughsometimes, though.
You know that homeowner, youknow, is unhappy, someone
screwed up.
You know money's coming out ofyour pocket for this.
You know reputation is on theline over there.
It was a referral from someoneimportant to you, it's.
(26:26):
You know.
Well, this isn't an easy thing,you know.
But you, but why do you keepdoing it, jimmy?
You just keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's
give a shout out to another oneof our sponsors.
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follows up fast enough.
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(26:59):
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Speaker 2 (27:22):
Your full AI team is ready.
Boy, this isn't an easy thing,you know, but why do you keep
doing it, jimmy?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
you just keep doing it you know, once, once you do
it enough, you kind of get alittle numb of the smaller stuff
and you and you reallyappreciate the good stuff that
happens and and you get to seeyour team, the succeeding and
all your people that work withyou.
You see them succeed and you seethem grow and you see somebody
(27:59):
that used to be in this position, that really grow in this
position, and that's somethingcool and that, and you're
building your economy of yourpeople inside your company and
you're, and everybody's, makinga living off the vision that
somebody had, and that's cooltoo.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
That's really what it is.
That is definitely.
When did that realization cometo you?
Because I talk about this a lotor often and it's just my
thought that when we start off,we're just starting off to pay
our bills right, to make a goodliving.
And then you get to this placeand you may have been there a
(28:42):
couple of times becausepre-crash and post-crash where
all of a sudden it's like, man,I have enough, I'm doing well,
and then for a lot of people, alot of guests that I've had on
this podcast, that changes andit's like, well, how can I pass
this on?
When did that change for you?
Or what changed that made youthink, man, this isn't just me
(29:05):
anymore.
Changed for you, or whatchanged that made you think, man
, this isn't just me anymore?
My day-to-day is more centeredaround what I could do for my
team or the community, orhowever that is for you.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well, it's a lot easier mindset to have when
you've got this team and we'vegot a good leadership team that
enter me and we all go in ourmeetings week to week and we
figure stuff out together.
If you're the only one and youdon't know the difference and
you're just fighting the firesday to day and you're trying to
(29:35):
do everything, be the, you know,wear all these different hats
it's not as fun, honestly, andyou can't think.
You can't get out of yourbusiness enough to think how can
I make this better foreverybody?
Because you're buying hires andyou're picking up checks and
you're somebody's not payingyour material bills or whatever.
But so I think you have to getto a certain level to really
(29:59):
understand what that means.
And is that something you wantto go to?
Do you really want to grow acompany that's going?
to bigger, have more people,have more options for stress.
You know, you might lose yourhair faster with more people.
If you got 50 people comparedif you got five people, that's a
big difference.
But I say, mine happened aboutthree to five years ago, when I
(30:21):
started really building my teamout and really saying, hey, this
is what I want to do, here's myexit plan, here's my end game,
here's my 10-year plan, and Ireversed engineering and I
started working backwards andthat's kind of you can't just go
in there blind.
If you want a lifestylebusiness, it'll eventually get
(30:42):
you.
I mean, you might get by with10 or 20 years maybe, if you're
lucky, if you're good at being atechnician and being able to
install your products.
But as far as a lifestylebusiness, really, it's just not
without, especially to come inwith AI the coming years.
You better know everything,because AI is coming in fast.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, and I think, with the lifestyle business
aspect, another challenge tothat and you'd mentioned it
earlier is the PE PE firms are,you know.
I mean, they're coming in hardto, they're coming in to take
market share, you know, and soyour lifestyle business may be
not as good of a lifestyle asyou were hoping for it to be
(31:27):
right, yeah, that's tough too,you know.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
it is sad because America's built on the American
dream and everybody's startingto want to be able to.
Hey, I just want to support myfamily, and this is where my dad
and my granddad started.
Hey, I just want to have alifestyle business and support
my family.
And my granddad started is hey,I just want to have a lifestyle
business and support my family.
I kind of know it's going theother direction, so I definitely
(31:53):
want to make sure I'm followingsuit and trying to grow it and
build as much technology in ourcompany as we can, because
that's going to help us succeed.
I mean, you still could have amom and pop five, ten years from
now and do some jobs, but it'sgoing to get harder.
I'm afraid it's going to getharder for everybody.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
What technology are you focused on adding?
What technology has created themost impact?
Let's start there.
What technology have you addedto Blue Water that has added the
most value?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
So our CRM number one is in the vents.
We added that three years agoSurfstat and that's something I
got from Tommy and Corey up inBrandon Yep Up in Minnesota.
We used Surfstat.
We used a service tag.
We jumped on that.
First year everybody here wantedto kill me because they're like
this is too hard and we were asmaller company so to jump on a
(32:56):
product like service tag for oursize company was a little hard.
But now we're getting it dialedin and it does pretty much
everything we want.
But now we're getting it dialedin and it does pretty much
everything.
So CRM was number one and thathelps efficiency reporting all
the good stuff that you need toknow when you're running a
company.
And then we're working withChirp to do some automated
(33:22):
different messages when we getour material in.
It keeps in contact with thecustomer.
So our biggest downfall was ourcommunication with our customer
in the last five years.
So I said we've got to fix ourcustomer communication problem.
So you know we might go sixweeks and not be able to do an
install for a customer, so theyneed to know what's going on in
that six weeks since they get a50% deposit.
(33:45):
They need to know where's ourmoney gone.
Has Jimmy left the country?
So we started this campaign ofkind of letting them know the
materials in.
We're getting closer toscheduling.
You know, our materials ordered, our materials measured,
whatever it is.
We've got these differentprograms tied in so it's
automated now.
So it helps dial that customerin, just like when you go to
(34:05):
Domino's and you order a pizzaand it tells you when it's
coming to your house.
You can follow the whole thingon the cloud.
So that's been real big AI.
We have answering service AIafter hours and we use AI
answers to try to catch thatlead, just so they don't just
hang up and go somewhere else.
Instead of a voicemail, nobodyleaves a message.
(34:26):
You know we've got some newthings.
I'm really trying to build ourwebsite out so we can quote
everything possible online, youknow.
So we can go ahead.
If the customer's at 10 o'clockat night on a Saturday night
and they're wanting to buy aproduct like gutters or whatever
, they can go on there and theycan fill this out.
(34:47):
Oh, here's the price.
Oh, it's gonna cost thirty fivehundred dollars.
I can think what options I want.
Here it is.
Let me go ahead and pay mydeposit, get on schedule.
We can have it done.
In a way, you got the measuretick, comes out, checks color,
blah blah.
So that's where I thinkeverybody's mindset is going to,
that amazon mentality.
Amazon, you can just get itright away.
Nobody wants to wait two monthson anything anymore.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Boy, amazon changed things right, like, oh my
goodness, and they worked reallyhard on that.
It's amazing.
You could get anything you want.
There's reviews on everything.
The pricing is right there.
Marcus Sheridan talks about thisa lot.
If you follow Marcus Sheridan,I had him on the podcast not
(35:33):
long ago with his book.
They Ask you Answer, and thenEndless Customers is more what
he talks about.
It's the transparent pricingand, uh, and so it's, that's
where the puck is going.
So start skating there, boy,because that that's going to
change really fast.
Uh, the thing that I heard in alot of the implementation of
(35:56):
technology that you have iscustomer communication has, has
been a big impact.
Huge, huge, right, what, what,what, what would you?
How did you design, or how haveyou been designing your
communication with yourcustomers over the years?
(36:16):
Like, what have you found to bekind of a the best cadence or
rhythm?
When should customers becommunicated with?
You know from, even you know asthey're, you know on that
appointment set all the waythrough?
Like when, how have you guysthought about that?
What are, what are some of themost impactful conversations?
(36:38):
Or even if it's a text messageor whatever it is like, where,
where are you finding the mostvalue in that in in the customer
journey there so the programchurch.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Uh, that ties into our service.
Titan does most all that.
I don't know all the backbonesof that, but yep, the director
handles that.
But, um, I think the journey,the customer journey, is so
important these days that youhave to stay in contact with
them.
If you take their money on thesales guy getting out there
(37:12):
closing that deal and take theirmoney and then they don't hear
from you until the day beforethe install, it's the worst
customer experience possible andwe used to be those guys years
ago.
And so I think you know youstart with.
You start with hey, you know,we've got your deposit, thank
you for being a customer.
We're working on sending avideo out on that.
(37:32):
We haven't got that dialed inyet.
We're chirping video and it'llbe me talking explaining.
If you ever got any problemsyou need me pick up on call.
Here's my cell number.
I'll give you my cell number.
I'm the owner, but I'm notscared to talk to you.
Start out with that, go aheadand build some more trust before
and then say hey, our, ouroperations manager is going to
be ordering the material.
(37:53):
We'll let you know when it getsthe an or we're coming to
measure or whatever the process.
So I honestly think you knowprobably five to seven times in
that whole journey is I don'tthink anybody's going to
complain that you're you'reletting them know what's going
on in the process.
If somebody complains, they'reprobably not a good customer.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
You probably want to kick them out and don't do any
more business with them,probably that's right,
especially there's there'spre-sale and post-sale
communication, right, and and Ithink I don't know if you can
communicate over communicate inpost-sale right, pre-sale
communication, right, and Ithink I don't know if you can
over-communicate in post-saleright Pre-sale you might be able
(38:32):
to over-communicate, right,like there may be an opportunity
to over-communicate there, youknow.
But I have a friend that is inthe real estate investing
industry and he sends ginormousamounts of emails and I had
lunch with him.
This was back in like 2009.
I had lunch with him, 2010.
(38:53):
I was like my goodness, I getlike four or five emails a day
from you.
And he was like I'm like youdon't think that's too much.
You're not, you know.
He said if people aren'tunsubscribing, I'm not sending
enough emails.
That's right, yeah, and so wealways take this mindset of well
, we don't want to bother people.
(39:13):
I promise you you don't havedata on if you're bothering
people until they're saying stop, stop.
Yeah, yeah, right, like peopleare telling you on a regular
basis please stop.
You know, and not just thatoutlier, right, not just that
one noisy person out of 100 or athousand that you know that
(39:37):
that's telling you that's toomuch.
When, when, when.
10, 15 out of that hundred,start telling you, all right, ok
, maybe we'll dial it back alittle bit.
15 out of that 100 starttelling you all right, okay,
maybe we'll dial it back alittle bit.
But I would personally go tothe point of communication that
when people say, stop right onthe front end, and then once I
mean, how good does it feel toget communicated with when you
(39:59):
are a customer?
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Oh yeah, that's amazing, you know we get a lot
of Google reviews where they'llsay they communicate the whole
process to us, google.
That's great for Google to seethat and our future customers
that are looking to purchase ourproducts see that.
So that's a good thing.
You know, and everybody getsbuyer's remorse a grand on a
(40:22):
product and you know you paid50% down.
You paid 10 grand down.
I could have paid off collegeor whatever, and they're like
maybe I shouldn't do that.
So the quicker you respond andlet them feel comfortable that
they made the right decision tothe better chance that you're
going to have somebody win theirmoney back as well.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I have.
If you have done any amount ofcontract or hired any amount of
contractors for your personalhome or maybe you have some
rental properties or somethinglike that you have written that
deposit check and sat therewondering what the heck is going
on.
That's a scary time it's ascary time.
(41:12):
You write a ten thousand dollarcheck to someone and most
people you know that's, that's aalmost.
For anyone, that's a lot ofmoney.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
You know, I know you're enjoying the episode, but
let's give a shout out toanother one of our sponsors.
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for anyone, that's a lot ofmoney, you know yeah, so so the
more you can stay in contactwith them, I think that's's
better for your company.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
So I mean, that's something that a lot of people
you can't do that if you're aone-man show and you're out
giving quotes, I mean you can,but it's going to be a lot
harder.
So, automations anybody needsto figure out these automations
and get down, yeah, automationsand get it down, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Automations for the small as you're getting started
to, until you're in the eightfigures and above, like a lot of
this can be automated.
The technology is there.
When did you implement the AIanswering?
How long have you had thatimplemented for?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
I think it's almost not a year now.
We had we brought it down abouta year and we thought it was
going to be a little early.
We just wanted to try it outand see what kind of response
and I think the first couplemonths we were getting leads on
weekends.
Thankfully we were locking themdown instead of them calling and
(43:01):
us trying to talk Mondaymorning and then they've already
got somebody else and they'relike oh, we don't need you now,
thank you.
So I think that was about ayear ago.
It's worked pretty well.
It's not perfect AI is notperfect, no, but it's better
than nothing.
So if your leads cost $100,$125 a lead and you can get $4,
(43:23):
$ five on a weekend for thatinstrument, service, that AI,
it's a no-brainer, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So, and then it ties into and I don't know about all
of this, I'm a marketingdirector but it ties into Google
.
If you're open 24-7, and if youdon't, google will shut you
down or they'll put you lower.
All that because you've got toask your following with AI to
automatically answer to what I'mgoing to miss.
That's right.
Google's going to bump you up alittle bit more.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, that's in the Google local services ad.
So you know, your response timein the Google local services
ads is something that they areusing as a ranking factor.
So making that phone's answered, that's a big, big, big deal.
We covered a lot here.
What other things do you see onthe horizon for PE?
(44:14):
You said you're starting to seepeople now that are just hey,
I'm starting this company tobuild, to exit.
That's a different thing, right?
You know all these things comein waves.
So all these PE cycles andthings like that come in waves.
That you know we may be in thepeak of it now, we may be in the
(44:35):
middle of it, we may be at thebeginning of it.
We don't really know exactly.
But what other thoughts or whatelse are you seeing around that
side of things?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Yeah, you know, being at Tommy's a bit uh uh,
Christiano through Rhino they doour marketing.
They've got a human jacksbusiness Redbird Yep, and I
think that's Indiana.
Redbird yep, and I think that'sIllinois, Indiana, Indiana.
And then so these guys, theirmain goal is to get three to
(45:11):
five years build it up and, youknow, with your average ticket
being 15 or 20 grand, and then aPE company coming in and giving
you a multiple of seven oreight for roofing, and then it's
just a short-term money grab,kind of like investing in a
stock market, but a littledifferent ways in business.
But I think that's going toprobably be here for the next 20
(45:33):
years.
You know, especially in the bluecollar era.
I think we've got it made inthe blue collar guys because a
lot of ai's taking a lot of likethe lawyers and a lot of these
jobs they're taking.
They can't take our jobsbecause we need to.
You know they need labor guysto go and install these products
(45:53):
on these homes.
So we're actually going to bethe new white collar and they're
going to the other.
Some of these other guys aregoing to go down to the blue and
we're going to be the ones thatare going to be making the
books.
You know, the labor guys likeus.
But I think it's here to stay.
I think it's just going to getmore sophisticated and I just
(46:14):
think people are just going tohave to jump on and learn how to
learn technology.
And I'm going to be 50 inJanuary and I'm having to learn
more technology than I everthought I'd have to learn.
You know I want it to simplifymore technology than I ever
thought I'd have to learn.
I wanted to just simplify.
I know how to use my phone andall that.
I was like I just want to usemy phone.
I don't even want a phone Fiveyears from now.
I was going to give it, my life.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I don't know, I don't know yeah that's one of the
things is you got to keep upwith the technology.
If you're not, if you're notdoing things with AI that you
know, some of the first thingplaces you could start is just
start with chat, gpt and learnhow to write a prompt.
I have a great episode withJonathan Mast, who we talk about
(47:00):
that in the perfect prompt.
Jonathan's an AI expert andjust and and just learning how
to communicate with it right,Learning how to use it, learning
where it can be used.
Can it be used in voice, can itbe used in?
You know how?
How are we doing this?
We're, you know, we're having alot of conversations around that
in the RSRA, you know, becausethere's what it can do and what
(47:25):
it can't do yet, right, andthere's there's a lot of things
it can't do yet.
But, but, boy, you better learnwhat it can do now so that when
it can do the other things,you're already there.
Uh, you know leading the pack alittle bit.
Uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's a,it's a lot of, it's moving fast
(47:46):
.
Yeah, yeah, moving really,really fast.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
You know, at this conference last week, kevin
Leary was there speaking and Ithink it was Thursday morning
and he was talking about AI andhe's actually using it a lot.
He says that he can build acommercial in Dubai cheaper than
they could produce one here andit's all AI related.
(48:10):
I got the green screens on theback and all that.
So he flies to Dubai and hesaid it's $20,000, $30,000,
which here costs $80,000 or$150,000 after he flies people
and everything.
So anyway, he had this onevideo he showed us on the
screening where him and AI andAI is so close to his voice now
that now the video looks fine,the video's been fine on AI, but
(48:33):
the voice is where it's been aproblem.
So he's got this.
He had this video where thevoice was so close and he said
he's flying back to Dubai in twoweeks and he's going to record
a whole 3,000 word script and hesaid AI's voice is going to be
exact to mine and then I canpost constantly on social media
(48:55):
or whatever I want to do and Idon't have to, and then it's
going to be a whole lot cheaperand more efficient and that's
what everybody's doing as welland I'm actually trying to learn
that too, so we can get thatgoing.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, it's like a, it's almost a.
It's an arbitrage of your time,right, it's pretty crazy.
I have a.
You know, I coach in a digitalmarketing agency group and so
I'm around a lot of digitalmarketing agency owners and you
know, one of them just did afull commercial in Google's
(49:28):
video AI and it was phenomenaland I was like, boy, this is
crazy.
That was one of the.
I heard a comment on somepodcast recently.
They're like, yeah, hollywood'sin trouble.
It's like Hollywood's introuble, yeah, hollywood's in
trouble because a lot of thesethings that AI is getting so
(49:49):
good at video and voice andthings like that that it's going
to be a big challenge.
A big, big challenge.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
He showed me a movie that they'd already made an
all-AI movie.
He put it on the screen I don'tremember the name of it.
He showed me this band, or heshowed everybody this band, and
this band made it to the topfive.
They were an all-AI band.
It wasn't even real.
There's nobody they have to paythese royalties to.
(50:20):
Besides whoever designed it.
One day we're going to belistening to bands that are not
even real, because we like thatkind of music, whether it's ZZ
Talk or whether it's Metallicaor whoever we get because
they're going to build AI bandsto match what we like.
That's right.
It's getting wild.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Yeah, google Flow is the platform that he built.
That on it's a.
Google Flow is the is theplatform that that he built that
.
That on it's in Google Labs.
To AI filmmaking tool.
But yeah, I've seen that toowith the music to the same thing
, like whoa, that's a, that'ssomething.
So there's a lot of thingscoming.
(51:01):
But then, you know what, whatimpact does that have on our
businesses?
How can we utilize it?
Right?
If it took, you know, a lot ofpeople have a lot of companies
struggle with making socialmedia content.
Boy, a lot of them, right.
But if you could, you know,create a more efficient process
for that through using ai, likeif it can use your voice and do
(51:23):
voiceovers and do it in your, inyour tone and it.
But but you have to feed it theright information for it to
feed it.
You know, for habit to have agood output.
I come from the softwaredevelopment side of things.
I'm a terrible, terribleprogrammer, but I did it years
and years and years ago and, um,you know, it's still garbage in
, garbage out, you know.
(51:44):
So you got to learn that thegoal is to learn how to.
What the right input is right,what the right inputs that you
can have.
What are, what are?
What are some of the, some ofthe things you you're most proud
of in blue waters journey sofar, or your own personal
(52:05):
journey?
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Oh, wow, probably the top things I'm proud of is my
team Just just proud of my team.
And it's hard to have a goodteam these days.
I hear other friends that it'shard to have good people on your
team.
But I'm proud of my team.
(52:27):
I'm proud that we have a goodname and our Google reviews are
strong at 625-ish right now oneight years.
That's pretty good.
We started the last three orfour years really trying to get
to Google reviews.
The first couple of years wedidn't really know, we didn't
try.
So I'm proud that we've gotgreat customers.
(52:48):
We've got a 10,000 base roughly10,000, I guess, customer base.
That's pretty strong too.
We've won some awards the lastyou know five years.
We've won the best gutterservice here in our area.
We've won the best screenservice service here in our area
.
We've won the best screenservice last four years or three
(53:08):
years.
Uh, we won the best windowinstallation team this last year
.
Uh, proud of that.
Um years ago when I had theother company called b b my dad
gray, that's the company Ifought, company I follow from.
I saw the magazine QualifiedRemodeler, top 500, and I used
(53:30):
to look for it and I'm like man.
This is in 2004 I rememberexact year and I said I want to
get in the magazine, I want tobe the top 500.
I want to get there.
And a couple years ago I saw mywall here.
I think, I think it was twoyears ago we were 492.
So we made it in the top 500.
(53:51):
You made it.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
You made it.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
That was a big thing for me.
For other people in the companythey could care less, but I
remember looking at thatmagazine in 2004 saying I'm
going to be in there one day andto be able to get that and get
that plaque and be in thatmagazine and see blue arc steers
.
That was a proud moment for me.
Uh, that, probably to otherpeople it wasn't a big deal, but
(54:16):
to me it was huge.
And knowing that, hey, I said Iwanted to do something and I
made it happen.
And, uh, everybody here made ithappen to what they that was
cool.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Man.
What, uh, if you could giveadvice to a contractor, you know
, starting out, or trying to tryto build something sustainable
and and and you know, but youknow, uh, really trying to build
a really great company, what,uh, what would that advice be?
Speaker 3 (54:48):
uh, dream big, you got to dream big.
If you just say, hey, I want tostart a business just to have
some extra money, a little side,dream big.
You know you got to give 110percent to.
You know, after you dream bigand build your plan and reverse
engineer what you want to do,you have to give 110 percent.
(55:10):
Everybody thinks that all thesepeople are overnight successes.
I mean, I've been doing this.
If you take the, even if youtook the five years of law
enforcement out and 13, 35, 37,so 32 years I've been doing this
for 35, 37, so 32 years.
I've been doing this and I'mstill just growing every day and
trying to get better at what Ido.
(55:30):
I mean 32 years of it.
You'd think I'd be retired bynow, but I'm not.
I'm going to retire, so youjust got to get to work.
I mean, if you look at peopleon social media and you'll see
all these people that act likethey're making all this money,
don't believe that.
Just put your head down, workhard, stay committed and just be
(55:53):
honest and have integrity.
I mean that's what it's about,especially in our line of work.
You know, construction peopletrust the contractors less than
the homeowners do, so have thatintegrity If you did something
wrong, fix it, just keep afterit.
I mean, there's so manydifferent things I could say I
could talk for two hours, butreally and truly, you know you
(56:18):
got to dream big.
If you dream small, that'swhere you're going to land.
If you dream big and don't makeit to there and you only make
it half, you've done great.
So you got to drink to it.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Awesome man, jimmy.
Thanks for your time today.
This has been another episodeof the Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast
For more valuable content.
Visit roofingsuccesspodcastcomWhile there.
Check out our sponsors forexclusive offers, shop for
merchandise and sign up for ournewsletter for industry updates
and tips.
Also join the Roofing SuccessFacebook group to connect with
other professionals and stayupdated on the latest trends.
(56:56):
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe, like, share
and leave a comment.
Your support helps us continueto bring you top industry
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
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