March 11, 2025 • 60 mins
What’s it really like to run a roofing business in sunny California? Spoiler alert: it’s not all clear skies and easy days. In this episode, we dive into the challenges of roofing in the Golden State with David Reyes, owner of Green Ladder Roofing. From dealing with perfect weather that reduces demand to navigating tough labor and compliance regulations, David shares what sets California roofing apart—and why it’s one of the most challenging markets to thrive in.
You’ll hear how David’s unique journey, from working in local government to growing a top-tier roofing company in Pasadena, has shaped his approach to branding, social media, and scaling operations. Plus, learn the surprising strategies he used to transition from subcontracting to building a scalable, trusted brand that wins customers’ hearts (and reviews).
👉 Tune in for tips on:
- Overcoming the toughest roofing market challenges.
- How to navigate the backend of business, from insurance to Google verification.
- Building a collaborative network to grow faster and smarter.
🔗 https://greenladderroofinginc.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What does it take to go from being a
second-generation rooferhesitant to join the roofing
industry to building a companyranked as one of the top roofing
businesses in Pasadena,california, all in just three
years?
In this episode of the RoofingSuccess Podcast, we sit down
with David Reyes, owner of GreenLadder Roofing, to uncover the
(00:20):
secrets behind his rapid success.
From leveraging grassrootsbranding to mastering social
media and streamliningoperations, david shares how he
turned every challenge into athriving business model.
David's journey is one ofresilience and ingenuity.
A former political sciencemajor turned roofing
entrepreneur, he's combined hisdeep understanding of community
(00:43):
engagement with a fresh take onmodern branding strategies to
carve out a niche in acompetitive California roofing
market.
What sets David apart isn't justhis results.
It's his relentless focus oncollaboration and his ability to
adopt to rapidly changingdemands of the roofing industry.
Whether it's building trustwith homeowners through glowing
(01:05):
reviews or navigating the leapfrom residential to commercial
projects, david's insights areboth inspiring and actionable.
In today's episode, you'lllearn how to brand yourself
effectively, overcome commonpitfalls from the subcontracting
side and create a scalablebusiness model.
Let's dive into this dynamicconversation with David Reyes of
(01:25):
Green Ladder Roofing.
Welcome to the Roofing SuccessPodcast.
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.
David Reyes, with Green LadderRoofing how are you doing today,
man?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Good, good sir.
How about yourself?
How's everything Good man.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I don't get a lot of roofing contractors out of
California on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you know, you're my people, right.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'm from there, you know what I mean, but there's, I
don't know what it is.
You know, I guess it's.
You know there's.
Maybe there's more roofers inthe store markets than there are
in the retail markets inCalifornia and things like that.
But man, how's life in CaliLife?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
is good, life is good , I can't complain.
Weather is always perfect inthe way, but as a roofer, you
always want that rain.
As a roofer.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's right.
Yeah, well, we should talkabout that man Like being a
roofing contractor in the, youknow, greater Los Angeles area.
You know, with good weathermost of the time, that must be,
you know, a challenge atdifferent periods.
How did you let's start with alittle bit about how you got
(02:43):
into roofing, your company andthings like that.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Sure, yeah.
So I've been in the industryabout 12 years now.
I'm a second generation roofer.
My dad was a roofer and draggedme into the industry, like
everybody gets dragged into it.
I worked my way through highschool and college and, you know
, honestly, I didn't want to bein the industry at all, like
(03:08):
everybody.
It's just something that you andout of necessity, out of
opportunity the roofing industrydoes have a lot of opportunity
uh, eventually I learned to loveit and once, once that just
snapped in my head where I likeI'm working these summers, I'm
working these uh, uh years, Imight as well take something out
of this and I started beingcurious and I think that
(03:29):
curiosity opened the doors tolistening to podcasts, like
roofing podcasts or listening topodcasts like this.
That kind of was the gateway tothe behind the scenes.
Because when you're like sofocused on just the roof work,
you you get sort of like I don'tknow, you feel claustrophobic
seeing like you feel like you'relike so focused on just the
roof work, you get sort of likeI don't know, you feel
claustrophobic, you feel likeyou're not going to go anywhere,
that you're just another guyworking on the roof and so
(03:53):
seeing the back end of theindustry made me fall in love
with the industry.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, the business side right, Like there's the
roofing and then there's thebusiness, right.
It really is a much different.
And and the business side iswhere the where I, you know,
that opportunity is like, or alot, you know, the greater
opportunity is.
So, is that, is that what madeyou fall in love with it?
(04:17):
What'd you go to school for?
What'd you go to college for?
And things like that.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I went to school.
That's funny.
I went to school for businessschool and I got dropped from
business school.
Wasn't fit to do business.
It was just because it's a testbased system.
So I tell people like you don't, you don't need to go to
college to be successful ownerand anything business owner.
(04:42):
So I went to school forbusiness business, ended up
settling for political sciencemajor.
Um, I graduated and I and Iactually ended up working in
local government.
So I ended up, uh, helping aCongress Congressman, um,
working in.
I eventually went to my localgovernment and started doing
(05:02):
like a council member work,working for council members like
kind of like liaison work.
But I ended up back into theroofing industry, my, my dad's
boss.
My dad still works for adifferent company right now and
he's a good man.
He's been treating my dad andmy family good for years and he
(05:22):
gave me an opportunity to workin the office once I graduated.
I did that for a little bit andI ended up parting ways because
I had an opportunity to becomea project manager somewhere else
closer to home.
I was tired of that two-hourcommute to their office.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Isn't that like three exits down the down, down down
the?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
10.
And I've been in the industryever since.
Uh, meeting people like youcontinues to to tell me I'm in
the right place.
Um, yeah, man.
And so, yeah, I've been tryingto get more, more involved in
(06:05):
the industry as possible eversince then.
Ever, like 10 years ago, Istarted going to to expos and
and all that.
Before they were cool and Ifeel like now it's like if
you're not going to these thingsand you're not part of the,
you're not, you're not part ofthe movement.
Like you got to get involved,you got to get, uh, you know,
have a collaboration like this.
And it's funny you mentionedthat you haven't talked to a lot
(06:26):
of California roofers.
For some reason, I feel likeCalifornia roofers a little bit
more distant from each other.
They don't like to talk toanybody.
I ended up going to a couple ofother expos and conferences
near Florida, near, like closerto your guys' end over there and
they're so open tocollaboration.
(06:46):
They're so open to sitting downand like talking shop or
talking about softwares they'reusing, and I was like roofers on
that end are much more techsavvy and they're more willing
to collaborate.
So I can see why it's such abig difference in in business
structure, are you?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
why do you?
Why do you think that is what'sthe?
Because cali's the, like youknow that's the tech hub, right,
like I mean especially northerncalifornia, like what's the?
What do you think thedisconnect is?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I think it might be the out here it's the scarcity
of work.
Scarcity of work, so peopledon't want to talk their their,
their tips and trades secrets,because out here it's like you
have to brand yourself beforeyou can even get work.
I feel like I don't know thestore model too much, but out
(07:39):
there it's like there's so muchwork.
You, you, it's whoever getsthere first and makes that first
connection.
So I felt like it might be alittle different.
Out there you guys have to massproduce, track it and then
properly collect.
Out here it's like you have tobrand yourself first, like
you're not going to compete Ifyou're not Googleable, if you're
(07:59):
not on Google, if you're notrated at least you know four
stars or above, if you don'thave an Instagram.
It becomes that mindset of likecontractors are sketchy, so you
need to be, have a presence,have that pulse in the internet,
and so Cali roofing is like youhave to have brand behind it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
How do you, how did you go about going about
branding first, what was yourphilosophy, what were the steps
you took along that route?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So, we definitely focused on our local city first,
like we grassrooted in our citywe got involved with like
chamber of commerce, we gotinvolved with like community
service.
We connected with a lot ofother business owners, different
industries, but also maybe somepeople that can be service
partners to us.
So like storm restorationpeople that need to do the
(08:53):
interior work they need the roofdone first because that was the
first cause.
So they need us as much as weneed them and we kind of
repurpose clients, we shareclients, we make sure they're
all taken care of.
So it was that word of mouththat was the beginning base for
us.
I think as of last year it waslike 65% referral base.
(09:15):
All our leads were 65%referrals.
It gets to a certain pointwhere you do have to start
advertising a little bit more,but it was only after the brand
was cemented.
Uh, I have like a theory waslike if you spend money on ads,
um, without a backing of brands,they're gonna go back to your
profile and be like, okay, thisperson has one post.
(09:35):
No, I think it might be scammy.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So you still have to run first before you start
scaling with ads and marketingyeah, yeah, there's your online
visibility and the things thatthe way that you look online has
a big impact.
Hey, you should use thiscompany.
Okay, cool, so let me search upGreen Ladder online, yeah, and
(10:00):
if I, oh man, that website lookslike it was built in you know
1983.
Like, what's going on here?
How come there's no phonenumber on it?
Like, what are you doing?
Or maybe they don't even existonline.
And so that's a great advicefor people is to build that
(10:21):
foundation.
The other thing I love there isthat where I think there's a gap
for a lot of contractorsstarting out in building
relationships first, and it'slike people want to rely on.
I don't know what it is, Maybeit's a fear thing where you
(10:43):
don't want to tell you're notsure about your business or what
you can.
You know how, how well you can,you know what well you can
execute on your business.
That's why you don't tell yourfriends, your family, your
neighbors, your, your, you knowthe go to these business
meetings, go to these meetups.
But, man, I think that's a corefoundation that anyone can use.
(11:09):
And and how much did it costyou startup?
Yeah, like, well, like all that, all those like meeting people
and telling people.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The branding was it's free, like you can go out there
and talk, and that's that'sfree.
You can stand at the corner ofthe street and yell like, babe,
this is who I, who I am, it'sfree, like that's free
advertising, you're not spendingmoney somewhere, um, before
your brand is cemented, so it'sjust going out there and just
meeting people, making thatconnection.
Um, I used to say that, uh, Iwas like I'm not a salesperson,
(11:37):
I'm just, I'm just a roofer andI'm just, uh, and so like every
time when I would go out and doroofs, like I would just talk
about our story and like I wouldget so in detail with like
information, like justinformation to the client and
that would ultimately sell thejob, it wasn't, it wasn't
because I was a pushysalesperson, it was just I was
(11:57):
genuine about the information Iwanted to teach them and they
kind of resorted to that.
Eventually, I realized that Iwas never asking for the clothes
sometimes, so that's why I waslosing some jobs.
So I had to realize, like, as anowner or as anybody, you're a
salesperson, regardless.
There's different connotationsto sales people but you, as a
(12:19):
person branding yourself, you'rea salesperson.
You need to sell your brand.
There's no other alternative tothat Branding yourself.
You're a salesperson.
You need to sell your brand.
There's no other alternative tothat.
And so when I quickly realizedI have to.
This is selling, like you and Iwe're talking, we're convincing
each other that we're goodpeople, our brand behind is also
(12:39):
good.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, and that's, but you got to ask for the close.
But what, what?
I think there's a, there's a.
The part of it is that peopledon't don't go into it as a
learning experience.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Like, if you, you know and go, man, I went on.
I went on 10 appointments and Iand I sat down with 10
homeowners and now what?
How come I didn't close as manyas I thought I should?
That's right.
Yeah, what happened there?
Like, oh, I forgot to even askthem if they would do business
(13:17):
with me.
Right, like you can analyze thegame tape.
Right, like you can figure outwhat you've been doing, what you
did wrong.
The game tape.
Right, like you can figure outwhat you've been doing, what you
did wrong, and and it's thecontinuous iteration of that and
getting better over and over,day after day that that really
leads to success and with people, man, and I think that's where
people get lost because, um,like you said, that was a
(13:40):
keyword the gate, the game tapebut the thing is that people
don't know how to monitor thegame tape.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
They don't know how to get the game tape even
captured.
And when I first started off, Iwas just going based off
feeling like, oh, this is how Ifelt at this employment, maybe I
should do this next time.
But if you start monitoringwith like KPIs and just
monitoring with conversions,you're like, okay, this is what
worked, let's stick to this.
Besides emotions Like this iswhat's working.
(14:09):
But some people first startingoff it's so hard to measure,
because you're just you're justthrowing darts and blindly
trying to hit something up untilyou get and you don't know what
to measure a lot of times.
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Like and, and I always like to say around my
household we know that feelingsaren't facts.
So we, we, we.
So we got to get to the factsright, like we got to get to the
facts.
And so what are some of thosekey metrics that that you've
learned to measure along the wayand it it could, it could be in
(14:45):
the sales process, throughproduction, anything like what?
What are some of the keymetrics that?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
you're like, man, I'm glad I I'm we're measuring this
now and it's helped us so Ithink some of the most important
stuff is on the front end,where it's like we get a phone
call, how long does that phonering for before someone picks up
?
And if, if someone does pick up, like what, what are they
saying and how?
From that call, how many getbooked for an inspection?
(15:11):
Because we were realizing we'respending so much money on ads.
Eventually we're like we're,we're not getting as many
appointments.
So what's going on?
Is it?
Is it the quality of the leads?
Or is it kind of answering thephone properly and asking them
like, hey, these are the days wehave available, cause sometimes
people are like, oh, we don'thave that available, I'll call
(15:32):
you back later.
So maybe you just gotta be alittle bit like, was there
anything else we can do?
Like how about Wednesday?
We can be flexible this day.
So measuring leads to bookinspections.
That was like a big gamechanger for us.
Then we got to go into like thebooked inspections to how many
proposals did we get out in time?
(15:53):
Because another rule of thumbnow is like there's so much
information out there, so manyroofers in Cali.
It's like if you wait two,three days, they're gone, like
they're they're with someoneelse already, and so it's like,
how fast did we get theseproposals out in the beginning?
And if we even got them outbecause everything happens when
I was first starting off, you'dbe so busy that man, I didn't.
(16:14):
I didn't send that proposal outlike I I completely forgot.
And I'll be serious, I'll behonest about it.
It's just a part of life andpart of scaling sometimes.
Sometimes things start to drop,but that's where you have to be
able to measure and be likeokay, this is where, this is
where the leaks happening as aroof, metaphorically, and then
as as a business owner like thisis where the leaks happen.
We have to patch this up or geta new roof, a new system on
(16:36):
there.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And that allows you, like just knowing, and sometimes
you don't know what the rightnumber should be, right, so
maybe, on that, how manyappointments got booked from
these phone calls?
Right, like, I encourage people, in the beginning you won't
know what that's supposed to be.
That's right.
Right, make a guess, and Ithink we should.
(16:58):
I think 50% of the people thatcall in, we, we book an
appointment on yeah, and andwe're.
And now and now you havesomething to measure against.
And all of a sudden you're like, oh man, it seems to be like
more like 70%.
Cool, we adjust our metric andnow we're measuring off of that.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
And with proposals out, that's agood, that's a very it's.
(17:22):
So you have speed to lead.
But then that speed to estimateis probably another very
important factor in thedecision-making process.
I could see that from ahomeowner perspective.
Man, if I'm sitting aroundwondering, you know, man, did
David send us that, yet Did weget that?
Hey, honey, did we get thatproposal from David yet?
(17:44):
Right, like, if that, if that'shappening, you know, like
you're, you're losing trust withthat homeowner, and so, and
then, as you start to not justbe the only salesperson in your
company.
Now you have something tomeasure against.
What, what, what are you guysshooting for in in time?
How fast are you trying to getthat in the hands of the are
(18:07):
like converters, so I'll evenstart from the call, so the call
.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
We try not to let the call, the phone, ring more than
twice.
So first you know respond,second ring uh.
From there on we try to.
We try to schedule aninspection within uh 72 hours.
Sometimes our busy schedulegets busy.
Okay, they can be a little bitflexible.
The proposals were what's themost important.
We try to get that out withinuh 48 hours, no more, because
(18:36):
after that they lose, they loseinterest or they go with someone
else like yeah, it's, it'sgetting, it's getting pretty.
There's a lot of technology outthere for software.
For software uh proposal youshould be able to get it out
faster.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Honestly, like to be honest with you with the, with
the new estimating software,depending on what crms you're
using, and things like that.
But that's right.
But uh, yeah, if you, if youproperly pre-load a lot of
things into your estimatingsoftware, you could get a man.
You could turn these things outreally really that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Like right now we were pushing hard on job numbers
and they were amazing.
Like with the sumo quoteintegration.
They can that's right turn themout like yeah, you can sumo
quote.
You're able to to do estimatesvery quickly you can turn them
out easily and I think that gapbetween the old school and the
new school is hurting a lot ofthe old school roofing.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
What do you think the difference is?
Because, like the company yourfather works for, it sounds like
they've been around for a longtime and your father's worked
for him for a long time.
What differences do you seebetween the old school?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
and the new school Huge difference.
So I very a lot of variables.
So they're, they have no, theyhave no crm, they it's just all,
just servers and files.
So drag and drop and it's stilllike uh, to make a picture
report you have to uh crop andputting into like a microsoft,
like copy paste kind of thing ittakes.
(20:05):
When I was there, man, it'sstill there, because I asked
some people that still workthere.
It took me like 30 minutes to anhour to make one inspection
report Like it was just.
It was ridiculous.
But the thing is that they'rehaving they have a different
clientele base.
They wouldn't enter in theresidential base clients.
They're very commercial,they're industrial.
(20:26):
They work with a lot ofconsultants.
So a lot of the work is veryold school work, where it's like
a close knit of like people whotrust each other already and
it's like very basic specs andit's just.
They focus on two manufacturersonly yeah, that's it, and it's
all flat roofs only.
So they specialize so much tothe point where they don't maybe
(20:47):
don't need all these fancyprocesses but they also don't
measure anything.
So they've been very successful, but it's solely based on just,
I think, specializing and beingjust focused in the in the
industry for such a long time.
Nowadays it's a little bitdifferent, and especially
residential residential.
You need speed, you needefficiency.
(21:08):
Every, every like.
If you miss a box of nails canslow down the whole project, so
little things need to beaddressed.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
How have you looked at specialization?
I think we talked about thiswhen we chatted, but I think,
like, how have you looked atspecializing from a residential
standpoint?
It sounds to me like it waskind of a location-based
specialization.
Was that?
Was that a thought process foryou?
Or like hey, I want to.
Like our specialization isPasadena Like we're going to,
(21:42):
we're going to, everyone inPasadena is going to.
They're going to know that weare the best roofing contractor
to use for residential.
Yeah, where, like the companyyour father works for, it's like
hey, if you own an industrialbuilding, this is who you should
call.
Did you put any thought intothat?
Or I did.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I put a lot of thought into it because, like I
didn't want to go against thecurrents, I didn't want to go
against like the big forcesagainst me.
So in my area it's near LA, sotraffic is horrible, so I didn't
want to take on jobs that aretwo hours away from me because
to do four inspections.
I wouldn't be able to get tofour inspections because all the
(22:21):
traffic if I was going to allthese different cities.
So in Pasadena we're able toknock out like four or five
inspections in one day and stillhave time to do other things
because we're so close to eachother.
So one thing was localization,like making sure we're local and
grassrooted there.
The other thing was like, arewe doing commercial, are we
doing residential?
And I came from a commercialbackground.
(22:41):
I've been doing that for mostof my career.
But as a small startup I'm like, okay, the cash flow is going
to be an issue.
Uh, I don't have, we don't havethe money for that big of an
insurance general liability withumbrella coverage yet.
Like, okay, so we have to startoff where we have something
that's turned around prettyquickly cash flowing.
(23:02):
So residential was a space forus.
We want to get into commercial,but I think there's levels to
it.
You can't just jump straightinto commercial even though you
know the work.
You have to forecast yourself alittle bit.
Like they have different netterms, like they have um, I
don't know much larger jobmaterials you need, so the
supplier might not give you allthat credit yet, things like
(23:25):
that.
It's, that's what we thought.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Traffic, I think.
And then traffic is like likethat's something to think about
a major metropolitan marketsanywhere, right, like it's like,
oh, how long does it take?
Like if you're, you know itdoesn't matter if you're in
Miami or in Dallas or or, or inthe LA area.
Like it's, it could be an hourto drive three miles.
(23:51):
Like we're talking about.
Right, like it's, it's crazy so.
So that's a good that thatlocal focus helps.
I love I want to explore thisconversation about residential
to commercial a little bit and Ilove what your mindset on it be
in in because it's it's like Idon't know what it feels like.
(24:11):
What you're saying is you,you're, you're trying to earn
your stripes going down thatroute, right, like it's.
Like you're not trying to justsay we're, we're pros, we could
take it on.
It's more.
Hey, I know we got to do this.
Then we have to take on alittle more than we could take
on.
A little more than we couldtake on a little more.
It's like you're, you're,you're proving yourself.
(24:33):
You know you could do the work,you've done the work in the
past, but it's like you'reproving yourself to the
suppliers.
You're proving yourself to themarket.
You're proving there's probablyinfrastructure and people that
you need on your team.
That's right to to be doingthose projects.
How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
yeah, so it this commercial structure and
residential structure verydifferent.
So, like when I, when I firststarted, I mean the only thing
when you're thinking about isjust money, like cat, like being
being having money to survive.
It's not even money to spend,it's money to survive, like
money to pay your guys, money topay the bills, keep the lights
(25:12):
on.
So the the focus was like cashflow, that's the biggest thing.
But then, once I startedlooking at the structure of it,
I was like we don't have all themachinery for commercial.
Uh, we don't have anyprofessional looking trucks for
commercial, we don't have logos,and so I didn't.
I didn't want to take onclients and then let them down.
(25:33):
So I wanted to.
I wanted to focus on, you know,chewing a little bit at a time,
like you said, like building upthat kind of like that muscle
memory, like making sure we'rewe're strong enough to to focus
on these big jobs.
Because, yeah, if you stretchtoo fast you're going to snap
like a rubber band.
And I didn't want.
(25:53):
It's like you said.
You said it perfectly.
I wanted to earn my stripes,even though if you ask a
commercial person, hey, wouldyou do residential?
They would say no, that's toohard and then because the
aesthetics of it dealing with acustomer, that customer service
very different, different,commercial.
But if you ask a residential,hey, can you?
Commercial it'd be like mightbe too hard, it's too big, and
(26:14):
so it's like there's this gapwhere like, oh, we just don't
know how to do the other.
That's why it seems hard.
But when I really look at it,when, when I structure
everything, commercial is easierto produce, but it's, yeah,
residential is easier to sell,but each one has its own, you
(26:39):
know, cons to it which isresidential, your customer
service has to be on point orelse your brand will burn out.
So it goes back to branding andcustomer service needs to be
everyone's always answering thephone calls, answering any minor
thing that a customer wantsfixed.
You got to go do it.
It's not, it's no, no, fightingback on it.
Like at the end of the day,it's their house and they look
(27:00):
at it every day.
And but commercial?
I definitely want to get backinto more of the commercial
realm.
I like, I like that environment.
It's a B2B environment whereyou're talking to professionals
that know what you're talkingabout already and they're able
to understand why the systemyou're using is a system that's
the best for them, opposed tothinking emotionally.
(27:23):
Again.
It goes back to presidential,is very emotional, like this is
my first house ever and I wantthis color and they're like but
this is my budget and I'm like,okay, we'll see what we can do
here.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
That's right.
There is much more emotion inuh, in residential, for sure, Uh
versus commercial, Um, you saidthat.
I remember when we were talkingI think it was last week or
whatever you said that youstarted off your first work,
your first year, and you're like, man, I'm going to go after sub
work Because, again, and it'sof that mindset, and I think
(27:58):
this is every startup mindset iswe need money.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Right, we need cash in the door.
Talk about that experience alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, we need cash in the door.
Talk about that experience alittle bit.
Yeah.
So the first year we ended updoing a big amount.
I think for a first year weended up doing about $2.8
million the first year.
And every conference I would goto people would be like that's
amazing, you're killing it.
But I was like, am I really?
And it wasn't until the end ofthe year that I realized that
(28:28):
was not a good year.
It was good on paper but ourfocus was on getting revenue in
and we decided to go down thesubcontracting route for big
commercial buildings again.
So we kind of were getting someat bat, which was good, but the
margins weren't the best.
There's not the best margins asa subcontractor in California
(28:52):
if you don't properly negotiateit right Like if you do
negotiate it right, there'sdefinitely win-wins for
everybody.
But we were just taking on.
We were eager, we were hungryand we were taking on.
We were eating a little bit toomuch that we needed to and then
had a little bit of arepercussion, you know.
Uh, so it was just thateagerness and I realized this
(29:13):
model is not going to work.
We have to brand ourselves themore.
The more you sub for somebody,the less you.
You buy from suppliers becausethey're buying on their account
so you're not building thatreputation with supplier.
The more you work for somebodyelse, the less you can wear your
logo and be around people thatcan see you.
You can't put a wrap on yourtruck.
(29:35):
If you're being a sub, you haveto respect the brand of the
person you're working with.
So you have to understand thatgame too.
You can't be a sub that wantsto like oh, I want to, I want to
brand myself within this likethis community, no, like you're
working for somebody, berespectful for that person.
And that's what we were.
But I realized like eventuallywe want to stand on our own two
(29:55):
feet and, uh, we, we startedshifting a little bit more back
into the again to residential,because we saw the barrier to
entry there was easier, it'sharder to maintain because it's
constant selling constant, youknow, without rain and it's
constant selling somehow.
But yeah, that's where we wereat.
(30:16):
Now I think we've cementedourselves.
I think we're ranked number oneor two in Pasadena now, and
that in just in just a yeartechnically, because a year
before it was just all subbingout for commercial.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I think and that's a great filter, Like some
things that I heard there islike that.
The first thing is, it's theold adage what is it?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Revenue is vanity profit is sanity right Like
that's the first thing that mademe think of man is like you
know you go and you, you knowyou.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Like you said, you went to this show and you're
chatting with someone andthey're like oh yeah, how much.
Where are you at?
Oh, we're in our first year.
We did 2.8.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And they're like oh wow man great job.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And then you get you know, and then you look at your
bank account at the end of theyear and you're like, oh well,
there's nothing left, right it'sthe those top line numbers
don't matter, they don't.
There's people out there doingyou know, you know 100 million
and not making any money.
You know, like you know.
(31:20):
So that that that's the, thepath there, that's the path
there.
Other things I heard were aroundwhat I would think of as
opportunity cost.
For people that don'tunderstand the concept of
(31:45):
opportunity cost, it's likeyou're trading something you're
doing today for something thatcould have been done, and so
what you had said was like well,we weren't wearing our brand,
our brand, I didn't have mywrapped truck in front of that
house, so you're sacrificingyeah, in a way, right, you're
sacrificing future business.
You're sacrificing your, yourcompany, or for for that quick
(32:06):
buck now and and there's alwaysan opportunity cost when you,
you know, in everything that youdo, there's an opportunity cost
in hiring.
There's an opportunity cost inmarketing.
There's an opportunity cost inin in an office or not getting
an office.
There's an opportunity cost ofgetting some new equipment or
(32:27):
buying an equipped.
That that you said.
Man, I can't sacrifice the, the, the long term vision that I
(32:48):
have for the for the short termmoney.
Yeah, and you know that thatsounds like what is what
happened.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Absolutely.
And it's scary because you'relike how can I let go of this
without the unknown not knowinghere?
You're like how can I let go ofthis without the unknown not
knowing here?
And the real answer is youdon't.
The real answer is you workboth at the same time.
Yeah, you're working commercialand you have your guys working.
Okay, cool, they're gettingpaid, we're good.
Now I'm out here after hourstrying to work on my website.
(33:19):
Now I'm after hours trying towork on my Google page.
I'm after hours collectingpictures, after hours making
sumo quote, uh templates.
Like the real answer is youdon't just magically stop one
thing and do the other thing.
And the answer is you, you graband you put in the work to do
both.
For now you know like there's alike.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I know this is roofing isn't a nine-to-five job
specifically, but there's thislike.
I heard someone talk about thisrecently.
I think it was Dan Antonelliwho wrote Buy Back your Time a
great book.
If anyone wants, I highlyrecommend reading that.
But he talked about you have.
Most people have they worknine-to-five.
(33:59):
Most people work nine-to-fivebut they forget that they have
five to nine and five to nine,so you can get up at five and
work until nine.
On the other things you workyour eight hours on your thing
and then you have another fiveto nine that you have an
(34:20):
opportunity to work on.
That's right and of course,challenges if you have family
and kids and other obligationsand things like that.
But if it's how you spend those, the five to nine, that could
determine and and I think a lotof times, man, when you're
starting out, you need that.
You do like man you.
(34:40):
You have to out.
You need that.
You do Like man you have to be.
You can't.
It takes a lot.
Like you know, I'm here inMinnesota, so you know we're a.
You know it's cold and snowyoutside and you could go out and
build a snowman but like to getthat thing right, you got to
get some, you got to roll thatsnowball, you got to get it and
(35:07):
then you get some momentum andthen you get this thing rolling
and that's right.
But to build that momentum, toget that momentum going, it
takes a lot more effort up front.
What do you?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
you know yeah, and they it's.
It's funny you say that becauseI have heard that where it's
like the hardest thing to aprocess is to start, like that
takes like 75 of process is tostart, like that takes like 75%
of your energy to start, andthen little sacrifices that you
don't want to do or that seem alittle weird.
That I would do when I firststarted off was like at the gym,
instead of listening to music,I put on a podcast.
(35:34):
So like I would encouragepeople to listen to your podcast
.
Like at a gym or on a long rideLA, there was so much traffic
Instead of me listening to musicall the time, those two hours
of commute there and back that Iused to do, I would put on a
podcast.
And back then it was, you know,dade sullivan back then, uh, it
was the only person back then.
But now it's like people likeyou and uh I, I highly encourage
(35:56):
people to listen podcasts ontheir on this time in between
their time.
It's not.
It's not like you can't work onyour side or your business
because you're eight to five no,like you.
Or nine to five you.
You can work in between yourlunch break, uh, while driving
to work and driving back.
That's right, but some peoplerather pick the comfort of like
(36:17):
no, rather, I want to listen tomusic, or it's my time to rest
right now.
Well, okay, but okay, but, um,that's.
That's the edge you're going toget over, getting out of the
slump or getting out of the.
I don't call it asubcontracting trap, because, no
, really good work forsubcontracting can make a really
good living, and they do.
It's just for us, um, it wasn't, it wasn't the route for us, um
(36:45):
, and so, uh, yeah, that that'swhat I encourage people to do,
like, just listen to podcastswhen you can, yeah little by
little momentum builds.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I've heard it put as windshield university right,
like you, just go it on podcast,books, yeah, um, all of that
type of stuff.
Another thing that I've said toa lot of people is what phone
calls are you making Whileyou're on that drive, if you
(37:12):
have 45 minutes or an hour orwhatever you're on that drive?
Do you have a list of insuranceagents that you could call?
Do you have a list of realtors,maybe, that you're trying to
develop relationships withAnyone else?
Right, like, spend your.
It's how you spend your time.
Yeah, that's more important.
Absolutely Cool stuff, man, andit really is impactful.
(37:38):
Like you have to put inadditional effort in the
beginning.
Yeah, no one knows you, right?
Like, no one knows you.
No one.
People don't know what you do.
People don't know that you cansolve a problem for them.
You said one of the things youfocused on was getting found
(37:58):
online.
Let's talk about that a littlebit.
Um, yeah, you know, I mean, tome, it's a no brainer, right?
Like, yeah, get found online.
Like, if you don't, if you, tome, if you are not online, you
don't exist in the world to me,like you, like, it doesn't even
make sense to me that you don'thave a website, that you
(38:20):
wouldn't have a Google businessprofile, like that you didn't,
that you don't have social mediaaccounts Like to me.
It blows my mind and maybe andI'm not young, I'm not super
young, right Like, I'm not, I'mnot a millennial, you know, I'm
not a Gen Z, right Like, butit's crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So that was one of the things that that it sounds
like you focused on yeah, Ithink it was the single most
important thing was getting beable to be found online.
It was so hard at the beginning, for me too, because, um, we're
engraved in into the in ourheads by our parents and by the
industry, where it's likedon't't be the loud, don't don't
(39:01):
be talking loud about what youwant to do.
Like, just just put your headdown and work and just do it.
And so a lot of them, a lot ofmy mindset was like why am I
going to advertise what I do?
Like I know I'm good, like I'mjust going to focus on my work
and people will just know me.
That's such you know like that'slike the old way of thinking
(39:23):
and it keeps you small,unfortunately, like I get where
the I get, there's, there'spositivity in a good place that
it comes from.
But no, you have to be outthere and telling people how
good, like by your action, howgood you are, but you have to
showcase it.
No one's going to come up toyour door and knock on your door
and be like hey you're, I thinkyou're great at roofing, right,
can you do my roof Doesn'thappen unless they know you.
And so I had to switch thatmindset of like I do have to
(39:45):
start posting little by little,instagram, start with posting on
Google, linkedin, facebook, andlittle by little it started
kind of flowing it.
And like multiplying, like thepower of like, multiple like, is
it the power of?
I forget what it's called.
It's like from one referral youcan get up to three and from
(40:05):
that you can get up to nine.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's like that, that right there it's an exponential
growth curve to it right, likeit's it, it, it, it multiplies.
It's not one plus one equalstwo, right's a different.
It continues to increase andincrease.
And that's why I feel likecompanies that have been around
(40:27):
for a long time they don't likea lot of times, they don't feel
like they have to market as muchbecause they have that.
They have that referralbusiness.
But you only have referralbusiness who, I always say this
man, david, is who refers youright, and it's always it's
people who you've done good workfor.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
In most cases, right.
Of course your cousin's going torefer you and you're, even if
you haven't done their houselike you know what I mean, but
but in most cases, it's peoplethat you've done good work for,
so you just need to find morepeople to do good work for.
And then, and that that startsto that starts to build and
starts to build.
What were some of the keylearnings?
(41:11):
I, I, we were I was talkingabout this recently with with
Joseph Hughes, with contractordynamics, and we were talking
about skill sets.
Right, a lot of times, as acontractor, you probably didn't
have a skill set to build awebsite or to do SEO or to be a
content creator on social media.
(41:32):
You know what.
What did you do to kind ofbuild some of that skill set, to
know what, even what to do?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, I think you hit it on the on the head when,
like when should university withpodcasts, youtube university
with videos of how to?
But I quickly realized, likeyou can spend as much time
learning at it from from it asmuch as possible, but you have
to actually start doing it.
And then you have to startreaching out to help for people
(42:03):
who have done it already, thatthat you you close the gap on
time right there.
Like you can spend maybe 10years trying to master it and
maybe you will, but what?
At what cost?
Like you spend so much timelearning it yourself instead of
finding a professional, maybegetting some consulting work,
maybe hiring them to do it.
(42:25):
I always encourage people ifyou're hiring someone to do a
service, learn the service withthem.
You don't have to master it,but learn to ask the right
questions from them.
That way you guys can make sureyou guys address it properly,
because there's people thatmight not know the industry as
much as you do, but that's whereyou guys have to team up.
They know the back end of howto plug in things here and there
(42:46):
, but you can tell them like,hey, this is what I think most
people or homeowners would likehere, so definitely reaching out
to someone who's done it before.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Were there specific.
Did you reach out to like othercontent creators?
Did you reach out to like anagency agencies?
Did you reach out like who didyou reach out to to get more,
more knowledge?
Like did you say, oh man, I gota friend from high school that
like crushes it, like who was itthat you kind of you know,
(43:17):
found those, those connectionswith?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
So I started off with just my local friends, like
something free, like who knowsin my circle, immediate circle,
how to make a website or whoknows about Google pages, and I
started asking questions and wegot, we got somewhere, we got
the momentum going and as soonas I knew a little bit about
like, oh, I need a domain first.
I need to buy a domain beforeyou even make a website, then I
(43:42):
started asking and I startedgravitating towards more of like
the website space, and then Iwas in that space for a little
bit and then I learned, like, oh, this guy does really good
websites.
And then I started moving tohim and then I started learning
about a guy making website, noteven in the roofing industry,
just in general making websites.
Yeah, so you start off withyour immediate circle and then
you get pulled into moreinformation and you go down a
(44:03):
little rabbit hole of like, oh,wow, this, these are the
questions I need.
And then you go down to anotherrabbit hole of like finding,
wow, this is the guy in thespace that's really good at it.
Let me, let me start listeningto him and you and you do you
start listening to him as muchas possible.
Like listening to you.
I know you know you were, uh,marketing, marketing.
Oh man, I remember listening toyour, some of your stuff, and
(44:24):
I'm like this is the person Ineed to listen to.
Uh, eventually, you know,sometimes maybe they might not
be able to get ahold of youbecause you're so busy or
something, but at least theyhear you and they make terms of
it Like they, they know thewords that are used in that
space, so one day they, theymight reach out to hire a coach
or hire agency, but they knowenough not to get screwed over,
(44:47):
because there's always that'swhat I feel man is is get to
know enough, and that's whatjoseph and I were talking about
the wood joe and I were talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
man is like.
Like I used I did a lot ofresidential fix and flips
between 2008 and 2013.
And, like, every time I did aproject or not every time, but
on all of my beginning projects,I GC'd all my own projects.
So, on every project, like tostart off with, like, I was
(45:14):
doing tile work on one, I wasdoing plumbing on another, but I
only did it because not tobecome an expert at it, but I
just wanted to know what wentinto it.
Man and like, like, how is thismade?
Do I?
How do I know when I hire thisdrywaller, if they're like, if
they're giving, if the bid is iswithin reason, a reasonable
(45:36):
limit, right, like, and then ifit's outside of that, I get to
ask why.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Right, because I know of that.
I get to ask why?
Because I know something I know.
Oh man, it doesn't seem likethat.
Man, really, that's what youwant to charge per sheet.
That's crazy.
You know what I mean.
What does that include?
Is that board through textureor is that just hanging the
board?
I get to have a conversation, Iget to have an intelligent
(46:02):
conversation, so I, you know,always encourage people to do
that, one of the things that youalso focused on.
I want to actually let's start,let's go, let's let's talk
about social media a little bit,because you've developed some
traction on social media, sure,yeah, what have been some of the
key learnings that you've hadin building your social media
(46:23):
presence?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I've learned that you kind of sometimes have to be
surface level with things,unfortunately, and kind of have
to know your audience.
Like you would have to be alittle bit clickbaity to get
traction.
Unfortunately, you have to knowthe generation.
Nowadays it's like, it's verylike.
I only have this amount of timein your face and before they
(46:48):
swipe you, so you have tocapture that hook.
Obviously, the hook isimportant in an email, in a
sales pitch, in a social mediapost.
So I've learned that you dohave to change the way you
appear sometimes just to makesure you get their attention and
then you can give them somegood information.
And even then you can't go toodetailed.
Like I love these conversations, we can go into detail about
(47:11):
things.
But social media, if we dothings like I, have to do very
surface level stuff because Iwant the majority of people to
just know enough.
I don't want to lose anybodyyet.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Explain that a little bit more, like when you're
creating a video so I hear hookand surface level, those are the
two things.
Explain that a little bit more.
What's a what's a what like?
Maybe an example of a videoyou've done recently or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Well, let me, let me explain a little bit more with
the hook.
The hook is usually a story andthe stories are all true.
That's happened to me and thesestories I always say are very
true and so when I say a story,it kind of gravitates people
more because there's astatistics where stories
resonate with people.
It's like I heard this this islike if you're, if you're
speaking, making a speech, ifyou make a story within the
(47:57):
speech, it's like a 50% or 55%more likely to be remembered,
remembered, yeah, wow, yeah.
So when I when I like this talk, I like to talk about my
experiences, very genuine place,because I've lived through them
and I don't want people to livethrough those dark times.
So it's definitely so.
You need a hook, you want astory.
(48:19):
You also don't want to loseyour audience.
Don't, don't, I don't want tothrow around terms of roofing
and and make it so people, they,they're like I don't know that
word, so they, they skip.
It's so weird, like that's justthe perception.
I do that sometimes too, whenI'm reading a book and I'm like,
oh, big word, skip, just, yeah,just my brain.
Sometimes I don't know, it'sjust like.
(48:40):
I'm like I have too much in myhead already.
I don't want to get moreinformation that I don't need,
and I just so I I think it'sbeen really important to have
all those components, the hook,the story being digestible
information.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Keeping it simple, it sounds like, is a good good
idea.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
The other one that's been helping us a lot is
collaboration.
I think collaboration is a newgood idea.
Yeah, the other one that's beenhelping us a lot is
collaboration.
I think collaboration is a newcurrency and that a lot of the
coaches try to teach us.
This collaboration You'reintroduced to different markets.
You're you're using otherpeople's traffic.
At that point You're notspending money on ads, you're
not spending money on payingFacebook and Google, although
(49:19):
they're amazing.
You're.
You're you're working withanother person who has another
list already and you're you'reboth growing the brand together.
You get.
You get some clients that arethat that might be attracted to
that guy, and then you get someback on some audiences.
So using other people's trafficvery, very important.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I love that man.
Like the collaboration issomething that people don't
think about a lot.
That's a good one.
Yeah, what social mediachannels have you focused on?
Like?
What social, what, what?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
So right now we're doing Instagram, tiktok, youtube
, okay, oh, and Facebook.
Instagram has been the most, Ithink, better conversations with
people.
A little bit professional thanmore professional than Tik TOK.
Uh, less professional thanLinkedIn, but right, that's the
sweet spot, because people arestill able to be free and
(50:09):
express themselves withoutfeeling like they're going to be
judged as too much, like onLinkedIn.
Um, so Instagram has been avery, very good sweet spot for
for branding purposes, likepersonal branding and then
company branding.
Um, we want to lean into thelinkedin world more once we get
more into the propertymanagement, commercial hoa stuff
(50:30):
.
So we're still posting, butonly on the company side there.
I don't post on my personalbrand.
Uh, there too much.
Uh.
But instagram has been good.
Tiktok has been good for justgetting known, but definitely
not to make the best connections.
Like, I think we met throughInstagram and I was like, yeah,
awesome, like branding.
I don't know how to describe it, but branding has changed the
(50:54):
trajectory of our life so, sofast, like in a good way, where
people are reaching out, theywant to collaborate.
People say, hey, I've seen youthis and doing this, like, thank
you for sharing thisinformation and I just take it,
for I've taken it for grantedthat the information that I have
, that we've been doing for somany years I think other people
know it Like it's just a thing,but so it's been a really good
(51:18):
experience.
People have came and try topartner up with us.
If you can spend some money onsomething, I would say on
branding.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Branding and marketing is the fuel to the
business.
It's amazing what happens I sayit this way, david it's amazing
what happens when you putyourself out there.
It's just amazing because sofew people do so few people take
that risk.
Risking their, just risking,you know, people talking funny
about them online or somethingyou know, risking having a video
(51:56):
that that that people think youknow what I mean.
Risking other people's opinionsof yourself.
Another thing that you guyshave done really well and I
remember you telling me that youguys really focused on and, man
, it's something that I feeleveryone needs to focus on and
that's reviews.
What was your thought processon reviews initially, and then
(52:17):
what was the execution?
How did you get to, you know,200 plus reviews as quickly as
you did?
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah.
So the mindset was you have tobe Googleable, you have to be
found, you have to be able to.
Someone can go into Google, putyour name in.
You get to be found.
If not, then you're alreadysketchy, you're already you're
thrown into the bin where allthe people that they're they're
constantly filtering.
I think we're in a day and agewhere people have so much power
(52:47):
at their fingertips, so muchknowledge, that in the
fingertips that they can, theycan quickly go and try to learn
the shingles themselves or learnwho the roofer is or what the
roofing company is, and so youneed to be able to be found and
you can.
So you and so you have to stophiding.
At first I wanted to hide who Iwas, my company, I wanted to
work, and so when I firststarted doing the branding side,
(53:08):
you're right, people just talk,they're going to post some
stuff out there and people arejust going to talk, and that's
part of it.
You need to be comfortableenough to be found on Google.
The next step was how can Ishowcase how good we are?
And so there's differentmetrics on Google that can help
(53:28):
you rank higher.
Of course, like SEO, constantlyposting on Google updates, so
posting pictures, posting statusupdates.
So we do that daily, twice aday, post pictures, do statuses.
We also started asking ofclients that we worked with in
(53:49):
the past that didn't leave us areview.
We're like what's the list here?
Like let's go through our CRM,let's print out a list of people
that we might not have asked.
We didn't ask for the review,so let's print it out and let's
go ask them again and,regardless if they left the
review or not, we would sendthem a gift basket or like an
(54:11):
Amazon gift card, just to saythank you for taking time to
even consider reading the email,or like reading the postcard.
And then that is weird becauseeven though they wouldn't leave
it, they would referrals out.
So at least we got somethingout of it, you know.
And so we try to make it as easyas possible to get a Google
(54:32):
review and a Yelp review bydoing hyperlinks and and putting
into an email campaign orputting it into like a text
message easy for them to justclick and open.
So it's that removing thefriction to being able to do it
that allows us to scale so fast,because the execution is one
(54:54):
thing which I think a lot ofroofers have, but it's like the
follow-up.
And then how do you follow up,making it easy for them?
If you tell them, hey, can youjust go give, give me a google
review, and then they have to golook for your exact name on
google.
They have to figure out wherethe google link thing is.
Sometimes it's very hidden, tobe honest.
Sometimes it's hard to find agoogle review clicking button.
So you have to make it easy forthem to just be like yeah, of
(55:16):
course, thank you, like, let medo it right now.
Um, that's what helped us scaleso fast the frictionless
ability to get a Google review.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
And then, how has that?
Have you felt that change?
Has that changed theconversations that you have with
people, like at the kitchentable?
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Absolutely.
That's like our primary sellingpoint, because at that point
you're not, it's's always,there's always going to be a
price objection anywhere.
But now we have some, some sortof backing, like we're not,
we're not going to be thecheapest, but we do.
We do good work, and here's,here's, the amount of people
backing us up.
Here are the testimonials justthat's apart from the reviews.
(55:56):
Here's the testimonials, videotestimonials of everybody that's
been happy.
And on top of that we usesomething called uh project map.
It tells you exactly all thelocations you've done in their
area.
So I set them a map and theysee all their neighbors have
done the roots of this.
And then they're like, oh, wow,like kind of like a you don't
want to miss out kind of thing.
(56:17):
Like, oh, everyone's doing it,so maybe, maybe, this is the
route.
So the conversation has shiftedfrom oh, I don't know, I can
trust you.
That used to be an objection atfirst.
We're like I don't know, we gota beer company here kind of
wanting to bid.
It might be a little tooexpensive, but we love your
(56:38):
guys' work.
We've seen you on Instagram,we've seen your reviews, but now
it's just a price objection,right, which we can work with.
We can see where we can come upto either payment plans or
figure out middle ground somehowwhere we can bring in more
value to justify.
But that objection is easier tohandle than the oh, we don't
know if we can trust you Like,we don't know your type of work
(57:01):
or where you're located, and allthis so it's helped us scale in
a healthy way.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
What do you think the bestadvice you can give to overcome
the challenges that you facedover these?
Speaker 2 (57:23):
that kind of through this, this journey to the
audience yeah, um, it all dependon what part of the journey
they're on, but I think thebiggest hurdle for us were, um,
um, behind the scenes, ongetting your workers comp in
order, getting your insurance inorder, getting being able to, I
(57:48):
guess, properly submit all thedocuments you need to be vetted
on, like Google.
Even Google verified, you needto submit a couple of documents,
and so all that backend stufftook me away from the work
itself, and I was a roofer bytrade, so, like I was, I was in
deep water with no one to talkto.
So my biggest takeaway was findsomeone who's done it before
(58:11):
and find people like you thatyou're speaking to all these
people and you're teaching thesepeople to, to kind of grow with
it.
Grow.
You're definitely not alone.
That was like one of themindsets that was kind of
holding me back, saying like whyam I?
Why did I even start my ownbusiness to begin with?
Like, did I?
Did I make a mistake?
Should I just be, you know,going back and do be project
(58:33):
managers or something?
It was that feeling of like I'mgoing alone through this, but
no, like if you zoom out, yousee hundreds of other people
going through this exact samething.
All you need to do is cometogether and talk to them and
collaborate with them and you'llfind the answer way quicker.
It's.
It goes back to close that gapfrom information to not knowing,
and you'll be able to executeand create that momentum to go
(58:57):
forward.
It goes back to just how much,how much activity can you do?
Let's do these littleincrements to grow Awesome.
That's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Awesome.
David Mann, thanks for yourtime today.
This has been another episodeof the Roofing Success Podcast.
Thank you for tuning into theRoofing Success Podcast.
For more valuable content,visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom
While there, check out oursponsors for exclusive offers,
shop for merchandise and sign upfor our newsletter for industry
updates and tips.
(59:30):
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Your support helps us continueto bring you top industry
insights.
The website link is in thedescription.
Thanks for listening.
What does it take to go from being a
second-generation rooferhesitant to join the roofing
industry to building a companyranked as one of the top roofing
businesses in Pasadena,california, all in just three
years?
In this episode of the RoofingSuccess Podcast, we sit down
with David Reyes, owner of GreenLadder Roofing, to uncover the
(00:20):
secrets behind his rapid success.
From leveraging grassrootsbranding to mastering social
media and streamliningoperations, david shares how he
turned every challenge into athriving business model.
David's journey is one ofresilience and ingenuity.
A former political sciencemajor turned roofing
entrepreneur, he's combined hisdeep understanding of community
(00:43):
engagement with a fresh take onmodern branding strategies to
carve out a niche in acompetitive California roofing
market.
What sets David apart isn't justhis results.
It's his relentless focus oncollaboration and his ability to
adopt to rapidly changingdemands of the roofing industry.
Whether it's building trustwith homeowners through glowing
(01:05):
reviews or navigating the leapfrom residential to commercial
projects, david's insights areboth inspiring and actionable.
In today's episode, you'lllearn how to brand yourself
effectively, overcome commonpitfalls from the subcontracting
side and create a scalablebusiness model.
Let's dive into this dynamicconversation with David Reyes of
(01:25):
Green Ladder Roofing.
Welcome to the Roofing SuccessPodcast.
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.
David Reyes, with Green LadderRoofing how are you doing today,
man?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Good, good sir.
How about yourself?
How's everything Good man.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I don't get a lot of roofing contractors out of
California on the show.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So you know, you're my people, right.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'm from there, you know what I mean, but there's, I
don't know what it is.
You know, I guess it's.
You know there's.
Maybe there's more roofers inthe store markets than there are
in the retail markets inCalifornia and things like that.
But man, how's life in CaliLife?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
is good, life is good , I can't complain.
Weather is always perfect inthe way, but as a roofer, you
always want that rain.
As a roofer.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That's right.
Yeah, well, we should talkabout that man Like being a
roofing contractor in the, youknow, greater Los Angeles area.
You know, with good weathermost of the time, that must be,
you know, a challenge atdifferent periods.
How did you let's start with alittle bit about how you got
(02:43):
into roofing, your company andthings like that.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Sure, yeah.
So I've been in the industryabout 12 years now.
I'm a second generation roofer.
My dad was a roofer and draggedme into the industry, like
everybody gets dragged into it.
I worked my way through highschool and college and, you know
, honestly, I didn't want to bein the industry at all, like
(03:08):
everybody.
It's just something that you andout of necessity, out of
opportunity the roofing industrydoes have a lot of opportunity
uh, eventually I learned to loveit and once, once that just
snapped in my head where I likeI'm working these summers, I'm
working these uh, uh years, Imight as well take something out
of this and I started beingcurious and I think that
(03:29):
curiosity opened the doors tolistening to podcasts, like
roofing podcasts or listening topodcasts like this.
That kind of was the gateway tothe behind the scenes.
Because when you're like sofocused on just the roof work,
you you get sort of like I don'tknow, you feel claustrophobic
seeing like you feel like you'relike so focused on just the
roof work, you get sort of likeI don't know, you feel
claustrophobic, you feel likeyou're not going to go anywhere,
that you're just another guyworking on the roof and so
(03:53):
seeing the back end of theindustry made me fall in love
with the industry.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, the business side right, Like there's the
roofing and then there's thebusiness, right.
It really is a much different.
And and the business side iswhere the where I, you know,
that opportunity is like, or alot, you know, the greater
opportunity is.
So, is that, is that what madeyou fall in love with it?
(04:17):
What'd you go to school for?
What'd you go to college for?
And things like that.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I went to school.
That's funny.
I went to school for businessschool and I got dropped from
business school.
Wasn't fit to do business.
It was just because it's a testbased system.
So I tell people like you don't, you don't need to go to
college to be successful ownerand anything business owner.
(04:42):
So I went to school forbusiness business, ended up
settling for political sciencemajor.
Um, I graduated and I and Iactually ended up working in
local government.
So I ended up, uh, helping aCongress Congressman, um,
working in.
I eventually went to my localgovernment and started doing
(05:02):
like a council member work,working for council members like
kind of like liaison work.
But I ended up back into theroofing industry, my, my dad's
boss.
My dad still works for adifferent company right now and
he's a good man.
He's been treating my dad andmy family good for years and he
(05:22):
gave me an opportunity to workin the office once I graduated.
I did that for a little bit andI ended up parting ways because
I had an opportunity to becomea project manager somewhere else
closer to home.
I was tired of that two-hourcommute to their office.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Isn't that like three exits down the down, down down
the?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
10.
And I've been in the industryever since.
Uh, meeting people like youcontinues to to tell me I'm in
the right place.
Um, yeah, man.
And so, yeah, I've been tryingto get more, more involved in
(06:05):
the industry as possible eversince then.
Ever, like 10 years ago, Istarted going to to expos and
and all that.
Before they were cool and Ifeel like now it's like if
you're not going to these thingsand you're not part of the,
you're not, you're not part ofthe movement.
Like you got to get involved,you got to get, uh, you know,
have a collaboration like this.
And it's funny you mentionedthat you haven't talked to a lot
(06:26):
of California roofers.
For some reason, I feel likeCalifornia roofers a little bit
more distant from each other.
They don't like to talk toanybody.
I ended up going to a couple ofother expos and conferences
near Florida, near, like closerto your guys' end over there and
they're so open tocollaboration.
(06:46):
They're so open to sitting downand like talking shop or
talking about softwares they'reusing, and I was like roofers on
that end are much more techsavvy and they're more willing
to collaborate.
So I can see why it's such abig difference in in business
structure, are you?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
why do you?
Why do you think that is what'sthe?
Because cali's the, like youknow that's the tech hub, right,
like I mean especially northerncalifornia, like what's the?
What do you think thedisconnect is?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I think it might be the out here it's the scarcity
of work.
Scarcity of work, so peopledon't want to talk their their,
their tips and trades secrets,because out here it's like you
have to brand yourself beforeyou can even get work.
I feel like I don't know thestore model too much, but out
(07:39):
there it's like there's so muchwork.
You, you, it's whoever getsthere first and makes that first
connection.
So I felt like it might be alittle different.
Out there you guys have to massproduce, track it and then
properly collect.
Out here it's like you have tobrand yourself first, like
you're not going to compete Ifyou're not Googleable, if you're
(07:59):
not on Google, if you're notrated at least you know four
stars or above, if you don'thave an Instagram.
It becomes that mindset of likecontractors are sketchy, so you
need to be, have a presence,have that pulse in the internet,
and so Cali roofing is like youhave to have brand behind it.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
How do you, how did you go about going about
branding first, what was yourphilosophy, what were the steps
you took along that route?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So, we definitely focused on our local city first,
like we grassrooted in our citywe got involved with like
chamber of commerce, we gotinvolved with like community
service.
We connected with a lot ofother business owners, different
industries, but also maybe somepeople that can be service
partners to us.
So like storm restorationpeople that need to do the
(08:53):
interior work they need the roofdone first because that was the
first cause.
So they need us as much as weneed them and we kind of
repurpose clients, we shareclients, we make sure they're
all taken care of.
So it was that word of mouththat was the beginning base for
us.
I think as of last year it waslike 65% referral base.
(09:15):
All our leads were 65%referrals.
It gets to a certain pointwhere you do have to start
advertising a little bit more,but it was only after the brand
was cemented.
Uh, I have like a theory waslike if you spend money on ads,
um, without a backing of brands,they're gonna go back to your
profile and be like, okay, thisperson has one post.
(09:35):
No, I think it might be scammy.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So you still have to run first before you start
scaling with ads and marketingyeah, yeah, there's your online
visibility and the things thatthe way that you look online has
a big impact.
Hey, you should use thiscompany.
Okay, cool, so let me search upGreen Ladder online, yeah, and
(10:00):
if I, oh man, that website lookslike it was built in you know
1983.
Like, what's going on here?
How come there's no phonenumber on it?
Like, what are you doing?
Or maybe they don't even existonline.
And so that's a great advicefor people is to build that
(10:21):
foundation.
The other thing I love there isthat where I think there's a gap
for a lot of contractorsstarting out in building
relationships first, and it'slike people want to rely on.
I don't know what it is, Maybeit's a fear thing where you
(10:43):
don't want to tell you're notsure about your business or what
you can.
You know how, how well you can,you know what well you can
execute on your business.
That's why you don't tell yourfriends, your family, your
neighbors, your, your, you knowthe go to these business
meetings, go to these meetups.
But, man, I think that's a corefoundation that anyone can use.
(11:09):
And and how much did it costyou startup?
Yeah, like, well, like all that, all those like meeting people
and telling people.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The branding was it's free, like you can go out there
and talk, and that's that'sfree.
You can stand at the corner ofthe street and yell like, babe,
this is who I, who I am, it'sfree, like that's free
advertising, you're not spendingmoney somewhere, um, before
your brand is cemented, so it'sjust going out there and just
meeting people, making thatconnection.
Um, I used to say that, uh, Iwas like I'm not a salesperson,
(11:37):
I'm just, I'm just a roofer andI'm just, uh, and so like every
time when I would go out and doroofs, like I would just talk
about our story and like I wouldget so in detail with like
information, like justinformation to the client and
that would ultimately sell thejob, it wasn't, it wasn't
because I was a pushysalesperson, it was just I was
(11:57):
genuine about the information Iwanted to teach them and they
kind of resorted to that.
Eventually, I realized that Iwas never asking for the clothes
sometimes, so that's why I waslosing some jobs.
So I had to realize, like, as anowner or as anybody, you're a
salesperson, regardless.
There's different connotationsto sales people but you, as a
(12:19):
person branding yourself, you'rea salesperson.
You need to sell your brand.
There's no other alternative tothat Branding yourself.
You're a salesperson.
You need to sell your brand.
There's no other alternative tothat.
And so when I quickly realizedI have to.
This is selling, like you and Iwe're talking, we're convincing
each other that we're goodpeople, our brand behind is also
(12:39):
good.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, and that's, but you got to ask for the close.
But what, what?
I think there's a, there's a.
The part of it is that peopledon't don't go into it as a
learning experience.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Like, if you, you know and go, man, I went on.
I went on 10 appointments and Iand I sat down with 10
homeowners and now what?
How come I didn't close as manyas I thought I should?
That's right.
Yeah, what happened there?
Like, oh, I forgot to even askthem if they would do business
(13:17):
with me.
Right, like you can analyze thegame tape.
Right, like you can figure outwhat you've been doing, what you
did wrong.
The game tape.
Right, like you can figure outwhat you've been doing, what you
did wrong, and and it's thecontinuous iteration of that and
getting better over and over,day after day that that really
leads to success and with people, man, and I think that's where
people get lost because, um,like you said, that was a
(13:40):
keyword the gate, the game tapebut the thing is that people
don't know how to monitor thegame tape.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
They don't know how to get the game tape even
captured.
And when I first started off, Iwas just going based off
feeling like, oh, this is how Ifelt at this employment, maybe I
should do this next time.
But if you start monitoringwith like KPIs and just
monitoring with conversions,you're like, okay, this is what
worked, let's stick to this.
Besides emotions Like this iswhat's working.
(14:09):
But some people first startingoff it's so hard to measure,
because you're just you're justthrowing darts and blindly
trying to hit something up untilyou get and you don't know what
to measure a lot of times.
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Like and, and I always like to say around my
household we know that feelingsaren't facts.
So we, we, we.
So we got to get to the factsright, like we got to get to the
facts.
And so what are some of thosekey metrics that that you've
learned to measure along the wayand it it could, it could be in
(14:45):
the sales process, throughproduction, anything like what?
What are some of the keymetrics that?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
you're like, man, I'm glad I I'm we're measuring this
now and it's helped us so Ithink some of the most important
stuff is on the front end,where it's like we get a phone
call, how long does that phonering for before someone picks up
?
And if, if someone does pick up, like what, what are they
saying and how?
From that call, how many getbooked for an inspection?
(15:11):
Because we were realizing we'respending so much money on ads.
Eventually we're like we're,we're not getting as many
appointments.
So what's going on?
Is it?
Is it the quality of the leads?
Or is it kind of answering thephone properly and asking them
like, hey, these are the days wehave available, cause sometimes
people are like, oh, we don'thave that available, I'll call
(15:32):
you back later.
So maybe you just gotta be alittle bit like, was there
anything else we can do?
Like how about Wednesday?
We can be flexible this day.
So measuring leads to bookinspections.
That was like a big gamechanger for us.
Then we got to go into like thebooked inspections to how many
proposals did we get out in time?
(15:53):
Because another rule of thumbnow is like there's so much
information out there, so manyroofers in Cali.
It's like if you wait two,three days, they're gone, like
they're they're with someoneelse already, and so it's like,
how fast did we get theseproposals out in the beginning?
And if we even got them outbecause everything happens when
I was first starting off, you'dbe so busy that man, I didn't.
(16:14):
I didn't send that proposal outlike I I completely forgot.
And I'll be serious, I'll behonest about it.
It's just a part of life andpart of scaling sometimes.
Sometimes things start to drop,but that's where you have to be
able to measure and be likeokay, this is where, this is
where the leaks happening as aroof, metaphorically, and then
as as a business owner like thisis where the leaks happen.
We have to patch this up or geta new roof, a new system on
(16:36):
there.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And that allows you, like just knowing, and sometimes
you don't know what the rightnumber should be, right, so
maybe, on that, how manyappointments got booked from
these phone calls?
Right, like, I encourage people, in the beginning you won't
know what that's supposed to be.
That's right.
Right, make a guess, and Ithink we should.
(16:58):
I think 50% of the people thatcall in, we, we book an
appointment on yeah, and andwe're.
And now and now you havesomething to measure against.
And all of a sudden you're like, oh man, it seems to be like
more like 70%.
Cool, we adjust our metric andnow we're measuring off of that.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
And with proposals out, that's agood, that's a very it's.
(17:22):
So you have speed to lead.
But then that speed to estimateis probably another very
important factor in thedecision-making process.
I could see that from ahomeowner perspective.
Man, if I'm sitting aroundwondering, you know, man, did
David send us that, yet Did weget that?
Hey, honey, did we get thatproposal from David yet?
(17:44):
Right, like, if that, if that'shappening, you know, like
you're, you're losing trust withthat homeowner, and so, and
then, as you start to not justbe the only salesperson in your
company.
Now you have something tomeasure against.
What, what, what are you guysshooting for in in time?
How fast are you trying to getthat in the hands of the are
(18:07):
like converters, so I'll evenstart from the call, so the call
.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
We try not to let the call, the phone, ring more than
twice.
So first you know respond,second ring uh.
From there on we try to.
We try to schedule aninspection within uh 72 hours.
Sometimes our busy schedulegets busy.
Okay, they can be a little bitflexible.
The proposals were what's themost important.
We try to get that out withinuh 48 hours, no more, because
(18:36):
after that they lose, they loseinterest or they go with someone
else like yeah, it's, it'sgetting, it's getting pretty.
There's a lot of technology outthere for software.
For software uh proposal youshould be able to get it out
faster.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Honestly, like to be honest with you with the, with
the new estimating software,depending on what crms you're
using, and things like that.
But that's right.
But uh, yeah, if you, if youproperly pre-load a lot of
things into your estimatingsoftware, you could get a man.
You could turn these things outreally really that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Like right now we were pushing hard on job numbers
and they were amazing.
Like with the sumo quoteintegration.
They can that's right turn themout like yeah, you can sumo
quote.
You're able to to do estimatesvery quickly you can turn them
out easily and I think that gapbetween the old school and the
new school is hurting a lot ofthe old school roofing.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
What do you think the difference is?
Because, like the company yourfather works for, it sounds like
they've been around for a longtime and your father's worked
for him for a long time.
What differences do you seebetween the old school?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
and the new school Huge difference.
So I very a lot of variables.
So they're, they have no, theyhave no crm, they it's just all,
just servers and files.
So drag and drop and it's stilllike uh, to make a picture
report you have to uh crop andputting into like a microsoft,
like copy paste kind of thing ittakes.
(20:05):
When I was there, man, it'sstill there, because I asked
some people that still workthere.
It took me like 30 minutes to anhour to make one inspection
report Like it was just.
It was ridiculous.
But the thing is that they'rehaving they have a different
clientele base.
They wouldn't enter in theresidential base clients.
They're very commercial,they're industrial.
(20:26):
They work with a lot ofconsultants.
So a lot of the work is veryold school work, where it's like
a close knit of like people whotrust each other already and
it's like very basic specs andit's just.
They focus on two manufacturersonly yeah, that's it, and it's
all flat roofs only.
So they specialize so much tothe point where they don't maybe
(20:47):
don't need all these fancyprocesses but they also don't
measure anything.
So they've been very successful, but it's solely based on just,
I think, specializing and beingjust focused in the in the
industry for such a long time.
Nowadays it's a little bitdifferent, and especially
residential residential.
You need speed, you needefficiency.
(21:08):
Every, every like.
If you miss a box of nails canslow down the whole project, so
little things need to beaddressed.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
How have you looked at specialization?
I think we talked about thiswhen we chatted, but I think,
like, how have you looked atspecializing from a residential
standpoint?
It sounds to me like it waskind of a location-based
specialization.
Was that?
Was that a thought process foryou?
Or like hey, I want to.
Like our specialization isPasadena Like we're going to,
(21:42):
we're going to, everyone inPasadena is going to.
They're going to know that weare the best roofing contractor
to use for residential.
Yeah, where, like the companyyour father works for, it's like
hey, if you own an industrialbuilding, this is who you should
call.
Did you put any thought intothat?
Or I did.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
I put a lot of thought into it because, like I
didn't want to go against thecurrents, I didn't want to go
against like the big forcesagainst me.
So in my area it's near LA, sotraffic is horrible, so I didn't
want to take on jobs that aretwo hours away from me because
to do four inspections.
I wouldn't be able to get tofour inspections because all the
(22:21):
traffic if I was going to allthese different cities.
So in Pasadena we're able toknock out like four or five
inspections in one day and stillhave time to do other things
because we're so close to eachother.
So one thing was localization,like making sure we're local and
grassrooted there.
The other thing was like, arewe doing commercial, are we
doing residential?
And I came from a commercialbackground.
(22:41):
I've been doing that for mostof my career.
But as a small startup I'm like, okay, the cash flow is going
to be an issue.
Uh, I don't have, we don't havethe money for that big of an
insurance general liability withumbrella coverage yet.
Like, okay, so we have to startoff where we have something
that's turned around prettyquickly cash flowing.
(23:02):
So residential was a space forus.
We want to get into commercial,but I think there's levels to
it.
You can't just jump straightinto commercial even though you
know the work.
You have to forecast yourself alittle bit.
Like they have different netterms, like they have um, I
don't know much larger jobmaterials you need, so the
supplier might not give you allthat credit yet, things like
(23:25):
that.
It's, that's what we thought.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Traffic, I think.
And then traffic is like likethat's something to think about
a major metropolitan marketsanywhere, right, like it's like,
oh, how long does it take?
Like if you're, you know itdoesn't matter if you're in
Miami or in Dallas or or, or inthe LA area.
Like it's, it could be an hourto drive three miles.
(23:51):
Like we're talking about.
Right, like it's, it's crazy so.
So that's a good that thatlocal focus helps.
I love I want to explore thisconversation about residential
to commercial a little bit and Ilove what your mindset on it be
in in because it's it's like Idon't know what it feels like.
(24:11):
What you're saying is you,you're, you're trying to earn
your stripes going down thatroute, right, like it's.
Like you're not trying to justsay we're, we're pros, we could
take it on.
It's more.
Hey, I know we got to do this.
Then we have to take on alittle more than we could take
on.
A little more than we couldtake on a little more.
It's like you're, you're,you're proving yourself.
(24:33):
You know you could do the work,you've done the work in the
past, but it's like you'reproving yourself to the
suppliers.
You're proving yourself to themarket.
You're proving there's probablyinfrastructure and people that
you need on your team.
That's right to to be doingthose projects.
How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
yeah, so it this commercial structure and
residential structure verydifferent.
So, like when I, when I firststarted, I mean the only thing
when you're thinking about isjust money, like cat, like being
being having money to survive.
It's not even money to spend,it's money to survive, like
money to pay your guys, money topay the bills, keep the lights
(25:12):
on.
So the the focus was like cashflow, that's the biggest thing.
But then, once I startedlooking at the structure of it,
I was like we don't have all themachinery for commercial.
Uh, we don't have anyprofessional looking trucks for
commercial, we don't have logos,and so I didn't.
I didn't want to take onclients and then let them down.
(25:33):
So I wanted to.
I wanted to focus on, you know,chewing a little bit at a time,
like you said, like building upthat kind of like that muscle
memory, like making sure we'rewe're strong enough to to focus
on these big jobs.
Because, yeah, if you stretchtoo fast you're going to snap
like a rubber band.
And I didn't want.
(25:53):
It's like you said.
You said it perfectly.
I wanted to earn my stripes,even though if you ask a
commercial person, hey, wouldyou do residential?
They would say no, that's toohard and then because the
aesthetics of it dealing with acustomer, that customer service
very different, different,commercial.
But if you ask a residential,hey, can you?
Commercial it'd be like mightbe too hard, it's too big, and
(26:14):
so it's like there's this gapwhere like, oh, we just don't
know how to do the other.
That's why it seems hard.
But when I really look at it,when, when I structure
everything, commercial is easierto produce, but it's, yeah,
residential is easier to sell,but each one has its own, you
(26:39):
know, cons to it which isresidential, your customer
service has to be on point orelse your brand will burn out.
So it goes back to branding andcustomer service needs to be
everyone's always answering thephone calls, answering any minor
thing that a customer wantsfixed.
You got to go do it.
It's not, it's no, no, fightingback on it.
Like at the end of the day,it's their house and they look
(27:00):
at it every day.
And but commercial?
I definitely want to get backinto more of the commercial
realm.
I like, I like that environment.
It's a B2B environment whereyou're talking to professionals
that know what you're talkingabout already and they're able
to understand why the systemyou're using is a system that's
the best for them, opposed tothinking emotionally.
(27:23):
Again.
It goes back to presidential,is very emotional, like this is
my first house ever and I wantthis color and they're like but
this is my budget and I'm like,okay, we'll see what we can do
here.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
That's right.
There is much more emotion inuh, in residential, for sure, Uh
versus commercial, Um, you saidthat.
I remember when we were talkingI think it was last week or
whatever you said that youstarted off your first work,
your first year, and you're like, man, I'm going to go after sub
work Because, again, and it'sof that mindset, and I think
(27:58):
this is every startup mindset iswe need money.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Right, we need cash in the door.
Talk about that experience alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, we need cash in the door.
Talk about that experience alittle bit.
Yeah.
So the first year we ended updoing a big amount.
I think for a first year weended up doing about $2.8
million the first year.
And every conference I would goto people would be like that's
amazing, you're killing it.
But I was like, am I really?
And it wasn't until the end ofthe year that I realized that
(28:28):
was not a good year.
It was good on paper but ourfocus was on getting revenue in
and we decided to go down thesubcontracting route for big
commercial buildings again.
So we kind of were getting someat bat, which was good, but the
margins weren't the best.
There's not the best margins asa subcontractor in California
(28:52):
if you don't properly negotiateit right Like if you do
negotiate it right, there'sdefinitely win-wins for
everybody.
But we were just taking on.
We were eager, we were hungryand we were taking on.
We were eating a little bit toomuch that we needed to and then
had a little bit of arepercussion, you know.
Uh, so it was just thateagerness and I realized this
(29:13):
model is not going to work.
We have to brand ourselves themore.
The more you sub for somebody,the less you.
You buy from suppliers becausethey're buying on their account
so you're not building thatreputation with supplier.
The more you work for somebodyelse, the less you can wear your
logo and be around people thatcan see you.
You can't put a wrap on yourtruck.
(29:35):
If you're being a sub, you haveto respect the brand of the
person you're working with.
So you have to understand thatgame too.
You can't be a sub that wantsto like oh, I want to, I want to
brand myself within this likethis community, no, like you're
working for somebody, berespectful for that person.
And that's what we were.
But I realized like eventuallywe want to stand on our own two
(29:55):
feet and, uh, we, we startedshifting a little bit more back
into the again to residential,because we saw the barrier to
entry there was easier, it'sharder to maintain because it's
constant selling constant, youknow, without rain and it's
constant selling somehow.
But yeah, that's where we wereat.
(30:16):
Now I think we've cementedourselves.
I think we're ranked number oneor two in Pasadena now, and
that in just in just a yeartechnically, because a year
before it was just all subbingout for commercial.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yeah, I think and that's a great filter, Like some
things that I heard there islike that.
The first thing is, it's theold adage what is it?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Revenue is vanity profit is sanity right Like
that's the first thing that mademe think of man is like you
know you go and you, you knowyou.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Like you said, you went to this show and you're
chatting with someone andthey're like oh yeah, how much.
Where are you at?
Oh, we're in our first year.
We did 2.8.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And they're like oh wow man great job.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And then you get you know, and then you look at your
bank account at the end of theyear and you're like, oh well,
there's nothing left, right it'sthe those top line numbers
don't matter, they don't.
There's people out there doingyou know, you know 100 million
and not making any money.
You know, like you know.
(31:20):
So that that that's the, thepath there, that's the path
there.
Other things I heard were aroundwhat I would think of as
opportunity cost.
For people that don'tunderstand the concept of
(31:45):
opportunity cost, it's likeyou're trading something you're
doing today for something thatcould have been done, and so
what you had said was like well,we weren't wearing our brand,
our brand, I didn't have mywrapped truck in front of that
house, so you're sacrificingyeah, in a way, right, you're
sacrificing future business.
You're sacrificing your, yourcompany, or for for that quick
(32:06):
buck now and and there's alwaysan opportunity cost when you,
you know, in everything that youdo, there's an opportunity cost
in hiring.
There's an opportunity cost inmarketing.
There's an opportunity cost inin in an office or not getting
an office.
There's an opportunity cost ofgetting some new equipment or
(32:27):
buying an equipped.
That that you said.
Man, I can't sacrifice the, the, the long term vision that I
(32:48):
have for the for the short termmoney.
Yeah, and you know that thatsounds like what is what
happened.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Absolutely.
And it's scary because you'relike how can I let go of this
without the unknown not knowinghere?
You're like how can I let go ofthis without the unknown not
knowing here?
And the real answer is youdon't.
The real answer is you workboth at the same time.
Yeah, you're working commercialand you have your guys working.
Okay, cool, they're gettingpaid, we're good.
Now I'm out here after hourstrying to work on my website.
(33:19):
Now I'm after hours trying towork on my Google page.
I'm after hours collectingpictures, after hours making
sumo quote, uh templates.
Like the real answer is youdon't just magically stop one
thing and do the other thing.
And the answer is you, you graband you put in the work to do
both.
For now you know like there's alike.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I know this is roofing isn't a nine-to-five job
specifically, but there's thislike.
I heard someone talk about thisrecently.
I think it was Dan Antonelliwho wrote Buy Back your Time a
great book.
If anyone wants, I highlyrecommend reading that.
But he talked about you have.
Most people have they worknine-to-five.
(33:59):
Most people work nine-to-fivebut they forget that they have
five to nine and five to nine,so you can get up at five and
work until nine.
On the other things you workyour eight hours on your thing
and then you have another fiveto nine that you have an
(34:20):
opportunity to work on.
That's right and of course,challenges if you have family
and kids and other obligationsand things like that.
But if it's how you spend those, the five to nine, that could
determine and and I think a lotof times, man, when you're
starting out, you need that.
You do like man you.
(34:40):
You have to out.
You need that.
You do Like man you have to be.
You can't.
It takes a lot.
Like you know, I'm here inMinnesota, so you know we're a.
You know it's cold and snowyoutside and you could go out and
build a snowman but like to getthat thing right, you got to
get some, you got to roll thatsnowball, you got to get it and
(35:07):
then you get some momentum andthen you get this thing rolling
and that's right.
But to build that momentum, toget that momentum going, it
takes a lot more effort up front.
What do you?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
you know yeah, and they it's.
It's funny you say that becauseI have heard that where it's
like the hardest thing to aprocess is to start, like that
takes like 75 of process is tostart, like that takes like 75%
of your energy to start, andthen little sacrifices that you
don't want to do or that seem alittle weird.
That I would do when I firststarted off was like at the gym,
instead of listening to music,I put on a podcast.
(35:34):
So like I would encouragepeople to listen to your podcast
.
Like at a gym or on a long rideLA, there was so much traffic
Instead of me listening to musicall the time, those two hours
of commute there and back that Iused to do, I would put on a
podcast.
And back then it was, you know,dade sullivan back then, uh, it
was the only person back then.
But now it's like people likeyou and uh I, I highly encourage
(35:56):
people to listen podcasts ontheir on this time in between
their time.
It's not.
It's not like you can't work onyour side or your business
because you're eight to five no,like you.
Or nine to five you.
You can work in between yourlunch break, uh, while driving
to work and driving back.
That's right, but some peoplerather pick the comfort of like
(36:17):
no, rather, I want to listen tomusic, or it's my time to rest
right now.
Well, okay, but okay, but, um,that's.
That's the edge you're going toget over, getting out of the
slump or getting out of the.
I don't call it asubcontracting trap, because, no
, really good work forsubcontracting can make a really
good living, and they do.
It's just for us, um, it wasn't, it wasn't the route for us, um
(36:45):
, and so, uh, yeah, that that'swhat I encourage people to do,
like, just listen to podcastswhen you can, yeah little by
little momentum builds.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I've heard it put as windshield university right,
like you, just go it on podcast,books, yeah, um, all of that
type of stuff.
Another thing that I've said toa lot of people is what phone
calls are you making Whileyou're on that drive, if you
(37:12):
have 45 minutes or an hour orwhatever you're on that drive?
Do you have a list of insuranceagents that you could call?
Do you have a list of realtors,maybe, that you're trying to
develop relationships withAnyone else?
Right, like, spend your.
It's how you spend your time.
Yeah, that's more important.
Absolutely Cool stuff, man, andit really is impactful.
(37:38):
Like you have to put inadditional effort in the
beginning.
Yeah, no one knows you, right?
Like, no one knows you.
No one.
People don't know what you do.
People don't know that you cansolve a problem for them.
You said one of the things youfocused on was getting found
(37:58):
online.
Let's talk about that a littlebit.
Um, yeah, you know, I mean, tome, it's a no brainer, right?
Like, yeah, get found online.
Like, if you don't, if you, tome, if you are not online, you
don't exist in the world to me,like you, like, it doesn't even
make sense to me that you don'thave a website, that you
(38:20):
wouldn't have a Google businessprofile, like that you didn't,
that you don't have social mediaaccounts Like to me.
It blows my mind and maybe andI'm not young, I'm not super
young, right Like, I'm not, I'mnot a millennial, you know, I'm
not a Gen Z, right Like, butit's crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So that was one of the things that that it sounds
like you focused on yeah, Ithink it was the single most
important thing was getting beable to be found online.
It was so hard at the beginning, for me too, because, um, we're
engraved in into the in ourheads by our parents and by the
industry, where it's likedon't't be the loud, don't don't
(39:01):
be talking loud about what youwant to do.
Like, just just put your headdown and work and just do it.
And so a lot of them, a lot ofmy mindset was like why am I
going to advertise what I do?
Like I know I'm good, like I'mjust going to focus on my work
and people will just know me.
That's such you know like that'slike the old way of thinking
(39:23):
and it keeps you small,unfortunately, like I get where
the I get, there's, there'spositivity in a good place that
it comes from.
But no, you have to be outthere and telling people how
good, like by your action, howgood you are, but you have to
showcase it.
No one's going to come up toyour door and knock on your door
and be like hey you're, I thinkyou're great at roofing, right,
can you do my roof Doesn'thappen unless they know you.
And so I had to switch thatmindset of like I do have to
(39:45):
start posting little by little,instagram, start with posting on
Google, linkedin, facebook, andlittle by little it started
kind of flowing it.
And like multiplying, like thepower of like, multiple like, is
it the power of?
I forget what it's called.
It's like from one referral youcan get up to three and from
(40:05):
that you can get up to nine.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's like that, that right there it's an exponential
growth curve to it right, likeit's it, it, it, it multiplies.
It's not one plus one equalstwo, right's a different.
It continues to increase andincrease.
And that's why I feel likecompanies that have been around
(40:27):
for a long time they don't likea lot of times, they don't feel
like they have to market as muchbecause they have that.
They have that referralbusiness.
But you only have referralbusiness who, I always say this
man, david, is who refers youright, and it's always it's
people who you've done good workfor.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
In most cases, right.
Of course your cousin's going torefer you and you're, even if
you haven't done their houselike you know what I mean, but
but in most cases, it's peoplethat you've done good work for,
so you just need to find morepeople to do good work for.
And then, and that that startsto that starts to build and
starts to build.
What were some of the keylearnings?
(41:11):
I, I, we were I was talkingabout this recently with with
Joseph Hughes, with contractordynamics, and we were talking
about skill sets.
Right, a lot of times, as acontractor, you probably didn't
have a skill set to build awebsite or to do SEO or to be a
content creator on social media.
(41:32):
You know what.
What did you do to kind ofbuild some of that skill set, to
know what, even what to do?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, I think you hit it on the on the head when,
like when should university withpodcasts, youtube university
with videos of how to?
But I quickly realized, likeyou can spend as much time
learning at it from from it asmuch as possible, but you have
to actually start doing it.
And then you have to startreaching out to help for people
(42:03):
who have done it already, thatthat you you close the gap on
time right there.
Like you can spend maybe 10years trying to master it and
maybe you will, but what?
At what cost?
Like you spend so much timelearning it yourself instead of
finding a professional, maybegetting some consulting work,
maybe hiring them to do it.
(42:25):
I always encourage people ifyou're hiring someone to do a
service, learn the service withthem.
You don't have to master it,but learn to ask the right
questions from them.
That way you guys can make sureyou guys address it properly,
because there's people thatmight not know the industry as
much as you do, but that's whereyou guys have to team up.
They know the back end of howto plug in things here and there
(42:46):
, but you can tell them like,hey, this is what I think most
people or homeowners would likehere, so definitely reaching out
to someone who's done it before.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Were there specific.
Did you reach out to like othercontent creators?
Did you reach out to like anagency agencies?
Did you reach out like who didyou reach out to to get more,
more knowledge?
Like did you say, oh man, I gota friend from high school that
like crushes it, like who was itthat you kind of you know,
(43:17):
found those, those connectionswith?
Speaker 2 (43:19):
So I started off with just my local friends, like
something free, like who knowsin my circle, immediate circle,
how to make a website or whoknows about Google pages, and I
started asking questions and wegot, we got somewhere, we got
the momentum going and as soonas I knew a little bit about
like, oh, I need a domain first.
I need to buy a domain beforeyou even make a website, then I
(43:42):
started asking and I startedgravitating towards more of like
the website space, and then Iwas in that space for a little
bit and then I learned, like, oh, this guy does really good
websites.
And then I started moving tohim and then I started learning
about a guy making website, noteven in the roofing industry,
just in general making websites.
Yeah, so you start off withyour immediate circle and then
you get pulled into moreinformation and you go down a
(44:03):
little rabbit hole of like, oh,wow, this, these are the
questions I need.
And then you go down to anotherrabbit hole of like finding,
wow, this is the guy in thespace that's really good at it.
Let me, let me start listeningto him and you and you do you
start listening to him as muchas possible.
Like listening to you.
I know you know you were, uh,marketing, marketing.
Oh man, I remember listening toyour, some of your stuff, and
(44:24):
I'm like this is the person Ineed to listen to.
Uh, eventually, you know,sometimes maybe they might not
be able to get ahold of youbecause you're so busy or
something, but at least theyhear you and they make terms of
it Like they, they know thewords that are used in that
space, so one day they, theymight reach out to hire a coach
or hire agency, but they knowenough not to get screwed over,
(44:47):
because there's always that'swhat I feel man is is get to
know enough, and that's whatjoseph and I were talking about
the wood joe and I were talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
man is like.
Like I used I did a lot ofresidential fix and flips
between 2008 and 2013.
And, like, every time I did aproject or not every time, but
on all of my beginning projects,I GC'd all my own projects.
So, on every project, like tostart off with, like, I was
(45:14):
doing tile work on one, I wasdoing plumbing on another, but I
only did it because not tobecome an expert at it, but I
just wanted to know what wentinto it.
Man and like, like, how is thismade?
Do I?
How do I know when I hire thisdrywaller, if they're like, if
they're giving, if the bid is iswithin reason, a reasonable
(45:36):
limit, right, like, and then ifit's outside of that, I get to
ask why.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Right, because I know of that.
I get to ask why?
Because I know something I know.
Oh man, it doesn't seem likethat.
Man, really, that's what youwant to charge per sheet.
That's crazy.
You know what I mean.
What does that include?
Is that board through textureor is that just hanging the
board?
I get to have a conversation, Iget to have an intelligent
(46:02):
conversation, so I, you know,always encourage people to do
that, one of the things that youalso focused on.
I want to actually let's start,let's go, let's let's talk
about social media a little bit,because you've developed some
traction on social media, sure,yeah, what have been some of the
key learnings that you've hadin building your social media
(46:23):
presence?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I've learned that you kind of sometimes have to be
surface level with things,unfortunately, and kind of have
to know your audience.
Like you would have to be alittle bit clickbaity to get
traction.
Unfortunately, you have to knowthe generation.
Nowadays it's like, it's verylike.
I only have this amount of timein your face and before they
(46:48):
swipe you, so you have tocapture that hook.
Obviously, the hook isimportant in an email, in a
sales pitch, in a social mediapost.
So I've learned that you dohave to change the way you
appear sometimes just to makesure you get their attention and
then you can give them somegood information.
And even then you can't go toodetailed.
Like I love these conversations, we can go into detail about
(47:11):
things.
But social media, if we dothings like I, have to do very
surface level stuff because Iwant the majority of people to
just know enough.
I don't want to lose anybodyyet.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Explain that a little bit more, like when you're
creating a video so I hear hookand surface level, those are the
two things.
Explain that a little bit more.
What's a what's a what like?
Maybe an example of a videoyou've done recently or
something like that.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Well, let me, let me explain a little bit more with
the hook.
The hook is usually a story andthe stories are all true.
That's happened to me and thesestories I always say are very
true and so when I say a story,it kind of gravitates people
more because there's astatistics where stories
resonate with people.
It's like I heard this this islike if you're, if you're
speaking, making a speech, ifyou make a story within the
(47:57):
speech, it's like a 50% or 55%more likely to be remembered,
remembered, yeah, wow, yeah.
So when I when I like this talk, I like to talk about my
experiences, very genuine place,because I've lived through them
and I don't want people to livethrough those dark times.
So it's definitely so.
You need a hook, you want astory.
(48:19):
You also don't want to loseyour audience.
Don't, don't, I don't want tothrow around terms of roofing
and and make it so people, they,they're like I don't know that
word, so they, they skip.
It's so weird, like that's justthe perception.
I do that sometimes too, whenI'm reading a book and I'm like,
oh, big word, skip, just, yeah,just my brain.
Sometimes I don't know, it'sjust like.
(48:40):
I'm like I have too much in myhead already.
I don't want to get moreinformation that I don't need,
and I just so I I think it'sbeen really important to have
all those components, the hook,the story being digestible
information.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Keeping it simple, it sounds like, is a good good
idea.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
The other one that's been helping us a lot is
collaboration.
I think collaboration is a newgood idea.
Yeah, the other one that's beenhelping us a lot is
collaboration.
I think collaboration is a newcurrency and that a lot of the
coaches try to teach us.
This collaboration You'reintroduced to different markets.
You're you're using otherpeople's traffic.
At that point You're notspending money on ads, you're
not spending money on payingFacebook and Google, although
(49:19):
they're amazing.
You're.
You're you're working withanother person who has another
list already and you're you'reboth growing the brand together.
You get.
You get some clients that arethat that might be attracted to
that guy, and then you get someback on some audiences.
So using other people's trafficvery, very important.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
I love that man.
Like the collaboration issomething that people don't
think about a lot.
That's a good one.
Yeah, what social mediachannels have you focused on?
Like?
What social, what, what?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
So right now we're doing Instagram, tiktok, youtube
, okay, oh, and Facebook.
Instagram has been the most, Ithink, better conversations with
people.
A little bit professional thanmore professional than Tik TOK.
Uh, less professional thanLinkedIn, but right, that's the
sweet spot, because people arestill able to be free and
(50:09):
express themselves withoutfeeling like they're going to be
judged as too much, like onLinkedIn.
Um, so Instagram has been avery, very good sweet spot for
for branding purposes, likepersonal branding and then
company branding.
Um, we want to lean into thelinkedin world more once we get
more into the propertymanagement, commercial hoa stuff
(50:30):
.
So we're still posting, butonly on the company side there.
I don't post on my personalbrand.
Uh, there too much.
Uh.
But instagram has been good.
Tiktok has been good for justgetting known, but definitely
not to make the best connections.
Like, I think we met throughInstagram and I was like, yeah,
awesome, like branding.
I don't know how to describe it, but branding has changed the
(50:54):
trajectory of our life so, sofast, like in a good way, where
people are reaching out, theywant to collaborate.
People say, hey, I've seen youthis and doing this, like, thank
you for sharing thisinformation and I just take it,
for I've taken it for grantedthat the information that I have
, that we've been doing for somany years I think other people
know it Like it's just a thing,but so it's been a really good
(51:18):
experience.
People have came and try topartner up with us.
If you can spend some money onsomething, I would say on
branding.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Branding and marketing is the fuel to the
business.
It's amazing what happens I sayit this way, david it's amazing
what happens when you putyourself out there.
It's just amazing because sofew people do so few people take
that risk.
Risking their, just risking,you know, people talking funny
about them online or somethingyou know, risking having a video
(51:56):
that that that people think youknow what I mean.
Risking other people's opinionsof yourself.
Another thing that you guyshave done really well and I
remember you telling me that youguys really focused on and, man
, it's something that I feeleveryone needs to focus on and
that's reviews.
What was your thought processon reviews initially, and then
(52:17):
what was the execution?
How did you get to, you know,200 plus reviews as quickly as
you did?
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah.
So the mindset was you have tobe Googleable, you have to be
found, you have to be able to.
Someone can go into Google, putyour name in.
You get to be found.
If not, then you're alreadysketchy, you're already you're
thrown into the bin where allthe people that they're they're
constantly filtering.
I think we're in a day and agewhere people have so much power
(52:47):
at their fingertips, so muchknowledge, that in the
fingertips that they can, theycan quickly go and try to learn
the shingles themselves or learnwho the roofer is or what the
roofing company is, and so youneed to be able to be found and
you can.
So you and so you have to stophiding.
At first I wanted to hide who Iwas, my company, I wanted to
work, and so when I firststarted doing the branding side,
(53:08):
you're right, people just talk,they're going to post some
stuff out there and people arejust going to talk, and that's
part of it.
You need to be comfortableenough to be found on Google.
The next step was how can Ishowcase how good we are?
And so there's differentmetrics on Google that can help
(53:28):
you rank higher.
Of course, like SEO, constantlyposting on Google updates, so
posting pictures, posting statusupdates.
So we do that daily, twice aday, post pictures, do statuses.
We also started asking ofclients that we worked with in
(53:49):
the past that didn't leave us areview.
We're like what's the list here?
Like let's go through our CRM,let's print out a list of people
that we might not have asked.
We didn't ask for the review,so let's print it out and let's
go ask them again and,regardless if they left the
review or not, we would sendthem a gift basket or like an
(54:11):
Amazon gift card, just to saythank you for taking time to
even consider reading the email,or like reading the postcard.
And then that is weird becauseeven though they wouldn't leave
it, they would referrals out.
So at least we got somethingout of it, you know.
And so we try to make it as easyas possible to get a Google
(54:32):
review and a Yelp review bydoing hyperlinks and and putting
into an email campaign orputting it into like a text
message easy for them to justclick and open.
So it's that removing thefriction to being able to do it
that allows us to scale so fast,because the execution is one
(54:54):
thing which I think a lot ofroofers have, but it's like the
follow-up.
And then how do you follow up,making it easy for them?
If you tell them, hey, can youjust go give, give me a google
review, and then they have to golook for your exact name on
google.
They have to figure out wherethe google link thing is.
Sometimes it's very hidden, tobe honest.
Sometimes it's hard to find agoogle review clicking button.
So you have to make it easy forthem to just be like yeah, of
(55:16):
course, thank you, like, let medo it right now.
Um, that's what helped us scaleso fast the frictionless
ability to get a Google review.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
And then, how has that?
Have you felt that change?
Has that changed theconversations that you have with
people, like at the kitchentable?
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Absolutely.
That's like our primary sellingpoint, because at that point
you're not, it's's always,there's always going to be a
price objection anywhere.
But now we have some, some sortof backing, like we're not,
we're not going to be thecheapest, but we do.
We do good work, and here's,here's, the amount of people
backing us up.
Here are the testimonials justthat's apart from the reviews.
(55:56):
Here's the testimonials, videotestimonials of everybody that's
been happy.
And on top of that we usesomething called uh project map.
It tells you exactly all thelocations you've done in their
area.
So I set them a map and theysee all their neighbors have
done the roots of this.
And then they're like, oh, wow,like kind of like a you don't
want to miss out kind of thing.
(56:17):
Like, oh, everyone's doing it,so maybe, maybe, this is the
route.
So the conversation has shiftedfrom oh, I don't know, I can
trust you.
That used to be an objection atfirst.
We're like I don't know, we gota beer company here kind of
wanting to bid.
It might be a little tooexpensive, but we love your
(56:38):
guys' work.
We've seen you on Instagram,we've seen your reviews, but now
it's just a price objection,right, which we can work with.
We can see where we can come upto either payment plans or
figure out middle ground somehowwhere we can bring in more
value to justify.
But that objection is easier tohandle than the oh, we don't
know if we can trust you Like,we don't know your type of work
(57:01):
or where you're located, and allthis so it's helped us scale in
a healthy way.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah, that's awesome.
What do you think the bestadvice you can give to overcome
the challenges that you facedover these?
Speaker 2 (57:23):
that kind of through this, this journey to the
audience yeah, um, it all dependon what part of the journey
they're on, but I think thebiggest hurdle for us were, um,
um, behind the scenes, ongetting your workers comp in
order, getting your insurance inorder, getting being able to, I
(57:48):
guess, properly submit all thedocuments you need to be vetted
on, like Google.
Even Google verified, you needto submit a couple of documents,
and so all that backend stufftook me away from the work
itself, and I was a roofer bytrade, so, like I was, I was in
deep water with no one to talkto.
So my biggest takeaway was findsomeone who's done it before
(58:11):
and find people like you thatyou're speaking to all these
people and you're teaching thesepeople to, to kind of grow with
it.
Grow.
You're definitely not alone.
That was like one of themindsets that was kind of
holding me back, saying like whyam I?
Why did I even start my ownbusiness to begin with?
Like, did I?
Did I make a mistake?
Should I just be, you know,going back and do be project
(58:33):
managers or something?
It was that feeling of like I'mgoing alone through this, but
no, like if you zoom out, yousee hundreds of other people
going through this exact samething.
All you need to do is cometogether and talk to them and
collaborate with them and you'llfind the answer way quicker.
It's.
It goes back to close that gapfrom information to not knowing,
and you'll be able to executeand create that momentum to go
(58:57):
forward.
It goes back to just how much,how much activity can you do?
Let's do these littleincrements to grow Awesome.
That's what I would say.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Awesome.
David Mann, thanks for yourtime today.
This has been another episodeof the Roofing Success Podcast.
Thank you for tuning into theRoofing Success Podcast.
For more valuable content,visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom
While there, check out oursponsors for exclusive offers,
shop for merchandise and sign upfor our newsletter for industry
updates and tips.
(59:30):
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