STOP Calling Yourself ‘Local’ If You Don’t Do THIS with Taylor Speirs

Just because you pay taxes in a town doesn’t make you “local.”

In this episode, Taylor Speirs from Veterans Roofing breaks down what it really means to serve your community, and why too many roofing companies are getting it wrong.

Taylor reveals the hard truth: If you’re not showing up, giving back, and actually being a face in your town, then “local” is just a word on your truck. His “Mayor of Your Town” mindset flips the script on what it takes to stand out and dominate—especially when everyone’s racing to buy leads or out-market the next guy.

Learn how Veterans Roofing built a powerhouse brand by pouring back into their own backyard. From road cleanups to dugout roofs and breast cancer awareness drives, Taylor proves that doing good is the best marketing plan of all.

Whether you’re a rep or an owner, you’ll see why being truly local is your biggest sales advantage.

Listen to the episode on Spotify & Apple Podcasts (283) 👇
🎧 https://roofingpod.com/spotify
🍏 https://roofingpod.com/apple-podcasts

Links:
https://veteransroofingnj.com
https://www.facebook.com/VeteransRoofingNJ
https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@VeteransRoofing⁩  
https://www.instagram.com/veteransroofingnj

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0:00 – Why Being “Local” Doesn’t Mean What You Think
2:12 – Starting Veterans Roofing During COVID
5:25 – The Real Reason Homeowners Say “Roofers Are All the Same”
8:47 – From the Marines to Roofing: How Military Values Shaped His Business
12:35 – What Most Sales Reps Don’t Understand About Their Role
17:50 – Cross-Training Your Team: Sales, Production & Office Staff
22:10 – Real Marketing: Community Involvement That Actually Works
28:35 – The Shirt Strategy That Turned Customers Into Walking Billboards
36:40 – How to Become “The Mayor of Your Town” and Be Unforgettable

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
The backlash that I kept getting from from customers
was just it left a bad taste inmy mouth.
That seems like something that'sso difficult for people nowadays
is just following through withwhat you're gonna you're saying
you're going to do.
That backlash is on us to pickup the pieces and try to put it
all together and show them, hey,we're not all like that.

(00:20):
One of the things that I love todo and I started off doing and I
teach guys, especially my salesstaff, it's a little uh training
that we call mayor of your town.
So anytime we have a new salesguy or somebody that needs to be
out there and speaking topeople, is just being the mayor
of your town.
I've heard some funny things.
The the mayor of the town meansthat any store that you walk

(00:43):
into in your surrounding area,does the cashier light up when
you walk in the room?
You shouldn't be allowed to callyourself a local company just
because you pay taxes in thelocal community.
If you're not doing anything forthat community, what makes you
local other other than your zipcode?

SPEAKER_01 (00:58):
Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast.
I'm Jim Aline and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Taylor Spears, how are youtoday?
I'm doing good, Jim.
How are you?
Good, man.
Glad to have you on.
Uh I really enjoyed some of theconversations that we had and

(01:19):
that and that I I heard youhaving in the group out at the
RSRA annual event in October.
I was like, man, I'd love tohave Taylor on the on the show
and and just talk about hisbusiness.
You're doing such cool things.
Um let's talk about yourbusiness.
Veterans Roofing, South Jersey.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39):
Yeah, all over.

SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
How did you yeah, how did you get into roofing,
Taylor?

SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
Yeah, so like you said, we are in South Jersey.
Obviously, you are aware thatthere's a difference between the
North Jersey and the SouthJersey.
It's not just New Jersey, but tous here, I'm in southern New
Jersey and got into veteransroofing, started the company
about four and a half years ago.
It was back when COVID reallystarted hyping up and people

(02:05):
were losing their jobs.
And myself and my wife, uh, whenI was separating from the Marine
Corps, I had a couple jobs linedup.
And then in June of 2020, onceCOVID really started kicking
off, obviously all those jobopportunities and everything
that we thought that we hadavailable to us quickly
dissipated and went away, uh,adding on to the fact that my

(02:28):
wife was also seven monthspregnant at the time.
We kind of had to buckle downand really try to figure things
out.
So quickly we turned todifferent trades and different
opportunities that we used to bein before uh the military.
And one of those things wasconstruction.
Immediately started to get intoconstruction with a fellow

(02:49):
roofing company in the area.
And uh one of the people that Iwas uh good friends with, his
name is Paul.
He's actually my businesspartner, and he saw that I was
working for this other roofingcompany, and he was also working
for another construction companyhimself.
So, I mean, that was a goodrelatability point.
And we were speaking on thatfast forward a couple months.

(03:11):
The company that I was workingfor really wasn't upholding the
standard that here at part ofRSRA and part of the group that
we all stand on is that's takingcare of our homeowners and being
upfront and forward and honest,transparent communication and
making sure to put the homeownerfirst.

(03:32):
And unfortunately, when you'rein a role of sales for a roofing
company and something goes wrongwith the production side, that
homeowner, that customer thatyou built the trust with, that
you had those ties with, thoselong conversations, ate at their
dinner table, and they said yesto you because they believed

(03:52):
what you were showing them andhow you were going to take care
of them and take care of theirhome as if it's their own.
The backlash that I kept gettingfrom customers was just it left
a bad taste in my mouth.
So shortly after working withthat company, I I parted ways.
And then my business partner,Paul, he was experiencing some

(04:13):
simil similarities.
He was living on a in a beachtown brigantine, and there's a
lot of contractors that notright now, but when we got hit
by the storms uh over the years,there's all kinds of contractors
that just pop up and justdisappear after the work is
done.
And when they have an issue,there's nobody to call on.

(04:33):
And we were just kind of we gottired of just watching people
get taken advantage of and oursourselves get taken advantage
of.
So we wanted to make a change tothat.
And we got together and westarted Veterans Roofing.

SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
That's awesome, man.
And that it's a it's a verycommon, it's an it's
unfortunately a very commonstory, yeah.
Right?
That the the company you'reworking for just wasn't living
up to the promise to theircustomers.
Um and and and so what did youguys feel like we could do
different?

SPEAKER_00 (05:08):
Well, the main things was just staying true to
our word.
Like that seems like somethingthat's so difficult for people
nowadays is is just followingthrough with what you're gonna
you're saying you're going todo.
Some simple things like afterthe job is gonna is completed,
we're gonna come back and doanother cleanup.
If you say you're gonna do that,and you don't have to say that,
but if you do say it, justfollow through and just do it.

(05:31):
Otherwise, don't say it becausethat's what gives contractors
like us a bad reputation becausethey categorize us in the same
group.
So it's unfortunate when there'sso many people that are trying
to either fly under the radarand not be truthful and
straightforward, and it thatbacklash falls on us to pick up

(05:53):
the pieces and try to put it alltogether and show them, hey,
we're not all like that.
So we truly try to, everycommunication, every time we
come in contact with thehomeowner, we're trying to make
them feel that they are not justa number.
Because I was listening to oneof your podcasts earlier, and
what your guest had mentionedwas that for a homeowner that's

(06:14):
getting their roof done, thismight be the only time that they
ever get their roof done.
And only time.
Only time.
So to us, we just we play it offbecause some of us are doing one
roof a day, two roof a day,three, four, five.
When you're doing so many roofsa day, it's very repetitive.
And to us, there's nothing thatcan go wrong.

(06:34):
And anything that could possiblygo wrong, we've experienced
before, and we know how to reactto that scenario or proactively
prevent that from happening.
But to every homeowner, this isall new to them.
So when they see that there's asheet of plywood that's all
black and covered in waterdamage, to them it might be the
end of the world thinking thattheir house is about to fall

(06:56):
apart.
But to us, it's like, noworries.
We're just gonna pull it off andchange it.
Give us five minutes, it'll be abrand new piece.
Don't even worry about that.
And but it's it's amazing howsomething so common like a sheet
of plywood, we replace plywoodon every roof.
And then you have times whereyou interact with a homeowner
and they think it's the end ofthe world.
But just relating to them andtelling them it'll be okay and

(07:19):
giving them that reassuranceevery step of the way has been
one of our tickets to success inour highways to be able to make
sure that we do separateourselves by just voicing
ourselves and following through.

SPEAKER_01 (07:32):
And it's it seems like the simplest thing to do.
It does.
It really does.
Right?
It's it seems like the simplestthing to do.
I I wonder why it's so hard forpeople.
It's just, it's a crazy thing.
Um, you know, you're a militaryveteran, a marine veteran.
Do you, you know, how did that,you know, how did the your your

(07:54):
time in the military maybeimpact your business life?

SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Sure.
So some of the things thatbrought on from prior military
experience was obviously thelevel of discipline and taking
care of to the brothers andsisters to our right and left.
And that's something that we dohere.
We our company is very tight.
We're not a company that is atthe end of the day, everybody
goes off and does their ownthing.
There's uh you see my productionstaff and sales staff hanging

(08:21):
out outside of work.
All of our kids get together.
Out of, I think it was a yearand a half ago, I had five of
the girls in the office, five orfive of the girls in the office
all get pregnant at the sametime.
So I had an office, yeah, I hadan office of six girls, four of
them got pregnant at within twomonths of each other.

(08:43):
So they and then they allthey're now they're all back
with their babies, and it's it'sgreat because everybody here is
growing their family,everybody's very family
oriented, just like the prior inthe military, everybody's very
family-oriented, everybody'stogether.
We're in this together, so mightas well make the most of it.
And one of the things in theMarines is like you just get

(09:03):
used to the suck and you justendure it, but it makes those
memories with your brothers andsisters to your right and left.
So that's the great part aboutwhat we do here, is we make sure
to include everybody.
And if something's not goingright, hey, by your side, we're
gonna get through this and we'regonna push each other.
And then also we've been able togive back to vets, prior

(09:26):
military, and people that are soactive, as well as bring on and
hire.
We've got a lot of prior army,marines, uh, navy, air force.
We have every branch except forSpace Force.
We know Space Force yet, but wehire world high.
So I get to employ.

SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
That's awesome.
Yeah, that's right.
I had uh a friend of mine in theagency space.
Um, he was an he was an armyveteran, and and he we we had a
conversation once, and he we hada conversation and he he talked
about um oh and uh hopefully Iget the lingo right, but an un

(10:05):
undetermined ruck march orsomething like that, where like
you don't know how far you'regoing.
It's like, hey, grab your stuff,you're carrying it with helping
your teammates out, getting likewe got to go.
And we don't know how far we'regoing, how long it's gonna take,
if there's a hill in front ofus, if there's a like we don't
know what's going on.
We're just going.
And I felt that that was anotherthing that was like, there's

(10:27):
something about that militarytraining that's like, we may not
know what the outcome is gonnabe.
We're just gonna keep goingforward.
Like, we're just gonna keep onmoving and making decisions.
Um, you know, what were some ofthose, what were some of the how
what are some of the lessonsthat you've learned in being in
business ownership now?
And and how have how has yourmindset shifted, you know,

(10:49):
pre-business owner to to nowbeing in business for a while?
Before we carry on with theepisode, let's give a shout out
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(11:12):
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You know, what were some ofthose, what were some of the how
what are some of the lessonsthat you've learned in be in

(11:33):
business ownership now and andhow have how has your mindset
shifted, you know, pre-businessowner to to now being in
business for a while?

SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
So one of the main things was the when you're not a
business owner, you don't fullyunderstand what goes into making
a company tick.
You don't fully understand thebackground of all the operations
and how every single piece ofthe puzzle actually does come
together to make the machine go.
And if everybody is not doingwhat they're supposed to be

(12:06):
doing, if everybody's notpitching in and helping out,
then it it could really hurt thecompany because that person's
there for a reason.
And when I used to work forother companies for even the
prior to the military, there wasplenty of jobs that when I was
there, I didn't ever reallyunderstand the bigger picture

(12:27):
when it came to hiring or raisesor what can justify a raise,
what can't justify a raise.
And I've seen now it's when wesit down and talk about raises
or money, it's typically I tryto have a more open conversation
with uh my staff.
And that's more just showingthem the the sales.
And I I show them off the sales,hey, are we doing more work

(12:49):
right now than we were prior toyour last when you were getting
paid uh a year ago and you'relooking for a raise now?
Are we doing more or less work?
What part did you contribute tothat?
How are you part of the success?
Because I'm all for everybodygetting a piece of the pie, but
how are you contributing?
And if you don't know how you'recontributing right now or you're

(13:09):
not contributing in your eyes,let's walk through it.
Let's sit down, let's talk aboutit.
And that's been one of thehardest things being a business
owner.
Uh, this is my first business.
So learning the ropes and trulymaking sure that everybody can
understand those the SOPs andall the literature that comes
along with it.
Because sometimes it's like withus as business owners, we just

(13:33):
do things.
There's no black and white.
We don't have the choice.
If something's broken, we fixit.
We don't have the option ofthat's not my job.
That's not even a word thatcomes across the that phrase
does not come out of a businessowner's mouth.
That's not my job.
If you own the company, it's allyour job.
Right, hire people to assist.
But at the end of the day, ifthey drop their pack or if

(13:55):
they're not doing what they'resupposed to be doing, somebody
needs to pick it up.
So making sure that staffunderstands how crucial their
role is, and they're important,no matter how big or small their
job is, from the person thatanswers the phone, the guys
selling the jobs, the guysinstalling the jobs, everybody
plays a part in how we areoverall successful or not

(14:18):
success, successful.

SPEAKER_01 (14:21):
So, in the in the realization of that and and and
in the execution of it now, andI'm sure there's been some ups
and downs in those conversationsover the, you know, over the
years and trying to figure thatout.
What have what what have yougotten to now?
Like these are the three to fivethings that have helped me be
successful in that communicationprocess and and and having that

(14:42):
open communication with the withthe team members so that they're
fully on board with us.

SPEAKER_00 (14:48):
So I sit down and I do have that conversation with
them, and we try to really putit into perspective.
Uh, just for example, the otherday, uh, we brought on a new
sales manager and I was runningthrough some numbers with him,
and I broke down the projectsfor most recent projects that we
were selling.
And I wanted to show him howmuch difference it makes when a

(15:12):
salesperson does their jobproperly or doesn't do their job
properly.
And what we did was we ranthrough a couple of different
projects and anything that waswrong, anything from just a
simple pipe boot, because a pipeboot, for example, is so over
like underrated and overrated atthe same time.
Granted, our guys have stock onthe trucks, so all of our rigs

(15:34):
got extra pipe boots and uhwe've got tubes on top for extra
drip edge.
We have all kinds ofpreventative measures to ensure
that we're properly equippedwhen we go to a project.
But if you don't have that pipeboot, yes, it might be five,
ten, fifteen dollar pipe boot oran ultimate for obviously more,
but it's not just that pipeboot, it's also you have to

(15:55):
drive to the supply house andget another pipe boot if you're
missing it.
Like it's not just the cost ofthe pipe boot.
I have my guy needs to drive, heneeds to go get it, needs to
drive back.
That's fuel, that's it's offsite, that's all kinds of
different things that can gowrong at the job site.
When my if somebody's off site,that's supposed to be on site
because the estimate and thesale is supposed to be accurate.

(16:17):
So we plan for everybody to bethere.
And obviously, that was notreally something that is really
stands out to people when theythink about just a simple pipe
boot.
It's just a pipe boot, just gograb another one.
But it's not just a pipe boot,it's so much more than that.
And you really don't understandthat unless you have the
background and the extra stepsthat are required in order to

(16:39):
get that pipe boot.
So that's one thing is beingvery open and transparent is a
big one that's been helpful.

SPEAKER_01 (16:47):
I think that another thing that I heard there is that
it's understanding what impactsthings have down the ripple
effect of things, right?
Like it's not just that we don'thave the pipe boot, like the
crew doesn't have the pipe bootto install, but then someone has
to do this.
Then it has to, like, then thathas to go to invoicing for

(17:07):
something, and it has to gothrough accounting for, you
know, like there's a rippleeffect to all of that, right?
Added to the work order, workorder gets changed.
All the it's two minutes here,five minutes there, 10 minutes
there, 15 minutes there, a halfhour drive to Home Depot and
back or wherever you're going,or to the you know, ABC and back
or whatever, right?
Like it's it's it's the it justit there's a huge ripple effect.

(17:29):
And I I I I want I I thought ofthat as you were saying that,
like that's it, that that's animpactful lesson from a
communication standpoint foryour team, is helping them
understand where the ripples go.
Um, you know, I I'm a I'm a I'ma visionary business owner, if
you in EOS terms, visionary andintegrator.

(17:50):
So I just go fast and break abunch of stuff.
And like that's like I I needsomeone that helps me slow down
and and categorize things andsay, okay, hey Jim, let's wait
until next quarter to to trythat, right?
Like let's do that.
That's too much or that, or tothat to that point.
Hey, if we execute this, we'regonna break all of these things,

(18:12):
right?
Just by doing that.
And so it's very impactful tohave that that vision of that,
but then also what I'm hearing,it's the communication of that.
Anything else that you've doneteam-wide, do you do it to it
from a training perspective,maybe from a uh meeting
perspective?
Like what are other things thathelp with that communication

(18:34):
rhythm between between teammembers and and and to try to
minimize all of those rippleeffects?

SPEAKER_00 (18:41):
So one of the things that we found pretty productive
and effective is that we haveour sales staff run projects.
So our company is we are retailand primarily in the residential
market.
So the way that our setup is, isI've got a sales team, got
production team, and I've got anoffice team.

(19:01):
And the production team does allthe installs, they handle all
the materials, they doeverything.
Sales staff, they find leads,they're running leads, they're
selling jobs, following up, andthey're helping with
advertisement and differentcommunity events.
And obviously, Office handlesall the back end.
So for us, typically a sales guyis not running a project, and

(19:22):
because they're appointment,appointment, appointment,
appointment, and they're justgo, go, go.
So typically what we do to putit in perspective for them to
appreciate the efforts and thelong hours and the work that
production staff does is we docross-training.
So we'll take sales staff andwe'll put them on a roof and
have them run the job, have themshow up at the yard at 6 a.m.

(19:43):
And normally I'm a prior salesguy, I get it.
Uh, usually I'm going to the gymat 6 a.m., but I know there's
plenty of sales guys that aresleeping until 9 a.m.
or they don't have anappointment till noon, so
they'll sleep till 11, orthey'll just mess around.
And but obviously, what we tryto do is show them a different
life and the life that they'realso supporting and why their

(20:05):
role is not just their paycheck.
Your paycheck is as asalesperson, it's easy to look
at it as, well, if I sell it,then I get paid.
If I don't, I don't get paid.
But also back to that rippleeffect that you were pointing
out.
If they don't sell that roof orthat repair or that shed or a
piece of fascia or gutterproject, you name it, it might

(20:28):
be small and minuscule to asalesperson that gets paid a
percentage.
And it's a small percentage atthat, it's a small payday at
that point for the smaller job,but same amount of work when it
comes to the contract and theinspection and the communication
and pushing everything through,still a lot of the same amount
of work, but different payday.
But that that payday only reallyaffects the salesperson at that

(20:51):
point, and they forget that thatjob also employs somebody on the
production side.
It puts somebody to work, itkeeps the the supply house
moving materials, even if it'ssmall to small to you with your
pay, it's it's the ripple effectmakes it continuingly to it
continues to grow as it uhexpands.

(21:12):
So cross-training is has beensuper beneficial.
I had production staff wasworking with the office
yesterday.
Had one of my office girls go toa job site and work with the
with a crew for a day.
So yeah, we we do some some oddthings with our staff just
moving around just to seedifferent perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 (21:32):
They they need to, it's it's great to have people
see other perspectives becauseespecially like sales and
operations or sales andfulfillment in any business is
like they there's always aconflict between sales and up
sales and ops sales sales andand fulfillment.
And uh, you know, and so butwhen they when people get to

(21:52):
walk in each other's shoes, it'sthat you get to understand, oh
these are the this, these arethe phone calls that you're
getting from the homeowner,right?
Like, oh no, oh, this is whatyou're dealing with on the uh on
this side of things.
Oh that okay, yeah.
I it it it it yeah, it makessense and it and it takes away

(22:15):
the the the that's easy.
Just why don't you just just gosell?
Like, or why don't you just go,you know, just build the job.
What are you doing?
Just go build the roof.
How hard is it?
You know, like you're you'vebuilt 150 this month or
whatever, right?
Like, let's go.
Like, go build another roof.
Um, but boy, they things can getscrewed up really quickly.

(22:38):
Um, that same kind of along thesame vein of that, that I I I
from getting to know you alittle bit, it's like um that's
your internal team and andhelping them work together and
can and connect more and thefamily aspect and bringing
people together.
One of the things that I lovedabout your story and what you
guys are doing is also uh youroutreach into the community.

(23:02):
So you're you're you're buildingthe kind of the family uh
network inside of the business,and and you're also, you know,
just from a businessperspective, that cross-training
and things like that, gettingpeople to understand each other.
You're doing a lot of things inthe community.
Uh, we talked about marketing atthe RSRA event, and everyone's

(23:23):
like, oh, what's the next newshiny thing?
And you're like, yeah, we go outin the community.
Like we we we serve ourcommunity, and that goodwill in
the community has generated agood amount of business for us.
Um isn't it crazy?
Like, and so I think this is oneof the most overlooked things.

(23:46):
Relationships and community.
Everyone is going, what leadsource, what lead aggregator can
you buy the best leads from?
What you know, what digitalmarketing effort is the best?
Do you put does direct mailwork?
Does cold, does telemarketingwork?
Does you know, all the like whatwhat works the best?

(24:07):
And and you're over here going,I just go hang out in my
community.
Right?
Like, and it's more than that,but but it's like, man, I'm just
gonna go take care of mycommunity, and they're gonna
take care of me and and uh talkabout that a little bit.
What's your guys' pro like whathow did you how did this become
kind of your core marketingeffort?

(24:29):
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(24:52):
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(25:13):
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What's your guys' pro like whathow did you how did this become
kind of your core marketingeffort?

SPEAKER_00 (25:28):
Yeah, so it really started off uh when I was
younger.
I would always see soccer teamswith a pizza place on the back.
And that would be the jersey,and that's what I wore.
I wore a jersey and we would goget pizza after a game or after
a practice, and it would besponsored by the the pizza

(25:49):
place.
And every team had some type ofsponsor on the back, and that's
what I saw.
Like, I didn't at that time Iwas really young, I didn't
really understand the whole insand outs.
Like, I'm like, why are theypaying for this?
Maybe their kids on it, andmaybe they get something back.
I I didn't really know the insand outs back then, but
something became apparent as theyears went on, and now that I
have kids, it around here atleast, there's not teams with

(26:14):
letters on their jerseys anymorethat belong to different
organizations.
And so I started diving deeperinto it, and one of the things
that we started to realize wasthere's not a lot of companies
in our area that are givingback.
Our area is a very tough areafor any industry.
So we are right outside ofAtlantic City and Atlantic City

(26:35):
with the casinos and everythingelse, and all the beach towns,
and that already brings adifferent type of culture
because we are not year-round uhflourishing when it comes to the
amount of workload that's comingin, because you could have a
seasonal business that's on theboardwalk, and unless it's
summertime, you don't have anybusiness.

(26:57):
So there's a lot of differentcompanies that they're they're
prioritizing the time that theyare getting paid and they're
they're using it for themselvesmore than others.
And one of the things that Iwanted to make a difference, and
as well as my partner, Paul, wewanted to make sure that we were
taking care of our homecommunities.
As I mentioned, he grew up in ashort town.

(27:17):
I grew up right off thecoastline, and both of us
realized in our different typesof area, I was on land, he was
on the shore.
Uh, we noticed it was asimilarity where there wasn't a
lot of companies that weregiving back.
Maybe they just weren't openabout it, maybe they just
weren't doing it.
But we see a lot of companiesthat were claiming to be local
companies.
One of the things I love to sayis you shouldn't be allowed to

(27:40):
call yourself a local companyjust because you pay taxes in
the local community.
If you're not doing anything forthat community, what makes you
local other other than your zipcode?
So we define local as you areinvolved, you're participating,
you're showing up.
Uh just last weekend, I wentwith one of our sales staff

(28:00):
members and we did a cleanup atfor uh a road cleanup for his
town.
Something simple like that.
And we've been doing that foryears.
When we first started doingthat, and that's for years we've
been doing that, and that's fourtimes a year.
And we just separate, we splitup, and a couple of us will go
each time.
And it takes an hour becausethey have a good group there.

(28:23):
In the beginning, nobody knewus, knew us at that point.
And just this past Saturday,when I was there, every single
person at that group either usedus for their roof or one of
their family members used us fortheir roof.
And now when we show up, we gethugs, we get greeted with love.

(28:44):
And it's because we're involvedin doing something so simple to
us to volunteer an hour of time.
If you could it's an hour oftime.
So that was something that Irealized this past Saturday that
was really impactful becauseeverybody that was there was
just they're like, Oh, like getin our picture, take a picture
with us.
And things like that really go along way.

(29:04):
And continuing off of that, wewe we go across all kinds of
different areas when it comes tocommunity involvement.
It's not just the road cleanups,and I I I mentioned to you
earlier before we got into this,was uh the parades.
So we've got three Christmasparades that we're involved in
this coming uh December.

(29:25):
Uh we've got Toys for Tots boxright out front of our office,
and we're doing collections anddonations.
We've got uh we we do a littlebit of everything just because
we, I mean, we have fun with it.
And I'd rather spend that moneyon being part of the community
rather than sending it toFacebook or any of these other

(29:47):
paid lead sources.
And that for us, when we realizethat we can just reinvest that
same money back in the communityand get a much better return on
investment.
Granted, you don't get that hardlead right in your hand.
Immediately, but it comes aftersome time.
Something as simple as thisshirt that I'm wearing right
here.
This shirt is I don't know ifyou can even see it.

(30:08):
Yep.
There you go.
Fight hard.
Kick ass.

SPEAKER_01 (30:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (30:13):
So this is our breast cancer awareness shirt.
And one of the things that wehave sweatshirts with these
logos, and we do a push where wechoose somebody in the area
that's a local survivor orfighter.
And we go ahead and exchangethese for free on our end.
We don't charge anything forthem.
We do a lot of in-houseprinting.

(30:34):
And what we do is we do adonation exchange.
So if you can afford a dollar inexchange for a shirt, you get a
shirt.
If you can afford$100 for ashirt, if you want to give that
as a donation, here's yourshirt.
And we don't print anyregulation on it.
You have to donate something.
And what that has done for us isit gives a higher sense of

(30:55):
meaning for these people thatare wearing our logos and our
lettering because they realizethat it's not just us that
they're supporting.
They realize that it's moreimpactful and it's got meaning.
And those types of interactions,those are going to be with us
for a lifetime.
And we have billboards walkingaround.

(31:16):
When you go into the localshopping center, you you go
anywhere in this area, you'llsee veterans roofing, and they
have nothing to do with uswhatsoever.
Like you just we get calls allthe time and we ask.
And our we have uh an automatedbot that asks, we have our
online form if you want to signup for an appointment.
It asks everything.

(31:36):
We always try to find out howpeople heard about us or how why
are you calling us?
Like what led you to us?
And one of our number oneresponses overall is we just see
you guys everywhere.
Can you like and we try to likecan you like tell me a little
bit more about that?
What does that mean?
Well, we see like your trucks,we see shirts, we see you

(31:57):
supported my son's baseballteam, like all kinds of stuff.
Uh, and that's just continuous.

SPEAKER_01 (32:03):
And I wrote a book about that, Taylor.
Like, this is it's it's morefrom a digital marketing
perspective, but it's aboutbeing the best known roofer,
right?
Like, it's that's the name ofthe book, and it's like best
known will be best, right?
But then, but that I see youeverywhere, when you hear that

(32:25):
from someone, how does that makeyou feel?
It feels great, and you know itfeels great, right?
Like, it's fantastic.
Like, wow, that's we're doingsomething here, and and I love
the creative ways that you'vegotten to that.
I promise you that in thefuture, if you ever do choose to
invest in in other forms ofmarketing, all of that work that

(32:48):
you've put in now, all of thecommunity involvement, all of
the shirts, all of the trucks,all of the all of the
relationships and hugs thatyou've had, all of your
marketing will perform any othermarketing you do will perform
better.
Because that's your those arestill the same people that you
would be marketing to.
It would just be another touchpoint to them.

(33:10):
It's fantastic, man.
Like it it gets skipped so oftenin business is the relationship
and just just the brandrecognition in the community.
Like, there's nothing it it'svery challenging to compare to.
And I I think I've I had aconversation with another RSRA

(33:32):
member who they have a smallercompany, and we were talking and
and uh we're talking aboutmarketing, and I was like, no,
no, just go build relationships.
Like that they were at anearlier stage of their business
or uh, you know, and didn't havea lot of extra time money to
spend to invest in marketing.

(33:53):
It's like, man, relationshipsare where the money is.
Like, that's where the money is.
Uh you ever heard of that book,never, never eat alone?
Like, there's a book called likenever right, like it's that type
of concept.
Like, man, just just be there,be in the community.
I've had I've had so many peopleon the podcast that have done
similar things.
And some people get more more uhcreative with it than others.

(34:17):
Like, I think I feel like youguys are doing some really
creative stuff, but the creativethings that you're doing are
also feel like you.
They don't feel like it doesn'tfeel like you're trying to make
these shirts to get awareness,right?
Like it feels it's authentic toyou and your team and your and

(34:38):
and the heart of the company,the culture of the company.
Um, uh the guys down at blackand white roofing down in
Missouri, like they're you know,they're wearing crazy clothes
and one black shoe, one whiteshoe, and driving around in a
big you know, excursion limothat's half black, half white,
and everyone's like, who arethese guys, right?
Like, but that's theirpersonality, right?

(34:59):
Like, there's a but it and it'sso that brand is important.
Uh, the community involvement isis extremely important.
So parades, charity, uh, charitywork, uh, things like that.
What other things are uh havebeen some some some other
things?
And then yeah, let's startthere.

(35:20):
What other kind of campaigns doyou have going or or what other
involvement do you have that'sbeen impactful?

SPEAKER_00 (35:27):
Yeah, so one of the ones that I mentioned at this
year's RSRA event was one of thethings that helped us out a lot
and gained endless recognitionbecause we get uh a great thank
you from the community.
And that's we replace roofs ondifferent types of baseball and

(35:48):
football, the baseball dugouts,football field, where they keep
their equipment at.
We'll go ahead and tackle those.
We'll replace those for free.
And the reason why we do that isbecause if it's a baseball team,
the baseball team loves it,gives us a shout out.
The community that that baseballteam plays for loves it, gives

(36:08):
us a shout out.
We get to get that recognitionon the spot of us in that
feel-good.
Like that's a boost.
That that that energy that youget from doing something good
versus something bad.
Like doing something bad andlike it's not you know, feel
good afterwards, but doing likea good deed just it's
overpowering and it makes youwant to do more, especially when

(36:30):
you can put a smile onsomebody's face.
And what that has done for usadditionally is one of the best
thank yous that we've beencontinuously getting now is we
get either a plaque or a bannerthat is a permanent fixture that
gets placed on the field or onthe building.
Most recently, we did a footballequipment building, and they per

(36:52):
a massive thank you veteransroofing banner.
And it's it, they it wasnothing, there's no
advertisement whatsoever at thisplace.
And you're pulling into thisnice long street that leads up
to the football fields, and allyou see is this big concrete
wall, and they anchored it inand they did job and beyond.

(37:15):
And at first, we we weren'texpecting anything like that.
We just thought, like, maybe forthat one, maybe a banner on the
field because everything was soclean and like pristine.
There was no nothing.
So, with that, as like just asbig as it is, and we've gotten
countless calls from that areasince then, just pointing out,
and they acknowledge us helpingtheir their their kids' football

(37:38):
team, they acknowledge us givingback to their community.
That building is somethingsomething that they played in
years ago, and it justcontinues.
And we do that for the schools,we do that for teams, we do that
whenever we see one anopportunity, we we go for it.

SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
There's a another company that uh that I've had on
the on the podcast before, Jeffand Matt with True North
Construction.
Um Matt was really uh uh reallyis a big proponent of Little
League in in general.
He came up through Little Leagueand feels like it's it's a
really valuable thing for kidsto play.
And so he coaches little leagueand he does other, but they like

(38:17):
rebuilt the snack shacks and didstuff like that too.
That like and just similarstuff.
And the it's it's fantastic.
Like there is no Google leadthat will that that that will
turn out better than that,right?
Like the whatever you spent onthat roof, whatever you invested
in that roof, it's it's it's ait's an ex exceptional marketing

(38:41):
expense, right?
Like, and it'll it'll you know,and it's just good to do.
You know, like it's just it'sgreat for the community that
you're able to get out there anddo that and make these things
nice and you know, make surethat the the the team has a
great facility or a storage, youknow, all of that stuff.
It it's um so I think that'sthat's fantastic, man.

(39:05):
Um uh anything else?
What else what else are youworking on?
What else are you guys doing?
And then let's throw some ideasaround for the future.
What are you thinking?
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(39:27):
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(39:49):
What else are you guys doing?
And then let's throw some ideasaround for the future.
What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 (39:54):
Yeah, so I mean, we've always got oh my gosh, I
can tell you about it.
Yeah, where's I got an idearight now that is going to be
taking place tomorrow, and itmight be like the wildest one
yet, but we'll we'll see.
So one of the one of theorganizations in the local area
that we work with, it's calledLast Salute Military Funeral

(40:15):
Honor Guard.
And what they do is they performhonor uh ceremonies, military
ceremonies for those that passaway either while in service or
after doing their service.
So they have a couple Humveesand they do a transport, they
they do everything.
They do colors, taps, they gettogether with a few local VFWs,

(40:39):
and they've been down or inJersey again.
They've been down to DC, they'vegone all across the different
states in the area, and they tryto say yes to as many people as
they can, but they're they'rebusy every day here, and that's
one of the things that we helpout with.
We well shave every now and thenand we put in our uniforms and
we go help out.

(41:00):
And that's a company that weit's not even, it's a not it's a
not it's a charity company, it'snot nonprofit.
But with them is one of thethings that they do is they
donate so much time andresources.
So rather than just giving backuh by supporting them, one of
the things that we're they havea uh a newspaper that they

(41:20):
deliver, and they have agentleman that takes care of all
the photography and he's avolunteer, he's a prior Navy,
and he does all the photos, hedoes uh all the delivery for the
newspaper.
The newspaper is just to raiseawareness.
It shows the different eventsthat they're working on, the
things that they have going on,whether it's a school talk,
because they go to the localschools and they'll just do
education, they'll bring in whena Marine gets back from boot

(41:43):
camp in the area, they'll go uhmeet up with him and hang out
with him or her and the AirForce and all these other
branches, they all they're soreceptive of what this group
does.
And it's such a great like pridethat I have.
And so one of the things thatwe're actually gonna be doing is
I have a Chevy tracks that's alllettered up, and we were using

(42:07):
it for like the PR side of thecompany, where if we have an
event going on, it would getloaded up with everything, and
that would go.
So the gentleman that does thephotography for Last Salute, who
volunteers all this time, and hereally dedicates his life to
this.
We're giving it to him to havethe only thing is he just needs

(42:30):
to leave it lettered.
So he's going to be using thatnow because his truck the other
day he was delivering anewspaper to us, and his truck
when he was pulling away, and hedoes it all for Vaughn, he's not
making money, so he's it'sfalling apart, like exhaust
barely just about fell off.
And not nothing wrong with thatfor him, but I was like, Man,

(42:51):
what can we do?

SPEAKER_01 (42:53):
So, what an opportunity for you guys to help
him out, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 (42:56):
And yeah, so we're gonna be giving him that letter
truck, and we're also gonna inturn, he's gonna be using it for
all of his runs for thenewspaper, all of his events
that they do, and we have abunch of literature in place for
him to be signing off forresponsibilities and and then
just hold harmless andeverything else and everything
that goes into that aspect.

(43:17):
But he's going to also now be inexchange for him getting the
vehicle, is uh he's always beena good word of mouth for us, but
he's also going to be droppingoff different little displays
for us, or if we want to runsome type of promotion or have
uh the VR news, he's gonnainclude it with the papers as
well because everybody he'sdelivering those papers for with

(43:39):
it, it ties right in.
They're doing things with thecommunity, they're at the
schools, they're at differentevents, they're at the doing all
kinds of things.
They do weddings, they're helphelping people get married
because they got a cannon thatthey fire off.
And even my wife, oh wow, whenwe got married, we got married
on a golf course, and here wewere with Last Salute, and we
had their cannon right up on thethe front of the T box for the

(44:03):
first hole.
And she pulled the pulled thecord and fired the cannon on the
golf course.
We got a little backlash fromthe golf course, but the golfers
called the golf course was finewith it.
But some of the golfers werekind of confused why we were
firing cannons on the golden.
Some of the golfers, yeah.
But that that's one of thethat's one of the biggest things
that we have uh that's about tokick off.

(44:23):
And uh additionally to that, wealso the Eagles are doing pretty
good right now, and there's alot of Eagles sponsor, uh a lot
of people that support theEagles in our area.
So one of the things that we didlast Super Bowl is we did a
tie-in of the Eagles andVeterans Roofing on the back of

(44:45):
the shirt, and so we gave thatto a bunch of Eagles fans, and
now to uh that was a while ago,and we still have we still see
people wearing them.
And countless amounts of timegoes by, and we still see people
wearing our original stuff fromyears ago.
So we have an order that we'reabout to complete, and we're

(45:05):
about to start handing outthose, and those are all going
to be free in exchange for themtaking a picture, posting it
online, tag us and say goEagles.
And not everybody's an Eaglesfan, but it it's the fun, it's
it's so fun.
So that's one of the big thingswe have coming up.

SPEAKER_01 (45:23):
That makes me think of like uh I've talked about it
for years, and a lot of otherpeople from a marketing
perspective have talked havetalked about it for years, and
it's that companies today needto be a media company in some
way, right?
And and and uh, you know,essentially the when you when
you talk about the veteransroofing brand, it's your you

(45:46):
know, the the gear, the all ofthe all the stuff that you're
doing is so fantastic.
My friend Dave Carroll that ownsdope marketing, also like just
fantastic branding.
And he would go to a trade show.
I remember the first trade showI went with with uh that they
were at and we were at, and hewas handing out these dope
marketing sweatshirts, and itjust says dope really big across

(46:09):
the chest and marketing smallacross, you know, below it.
And um man, I saw people walkingthrough the airport with those
afterward herds, like you'llpeople be it's just stuff
creating things that and we tryto do that too when we would go
to trade shows.
It was like first we had likelike different types of swag,
and we're like, man, no one, youknow, let's make other things uh

(46:33):
that are that are that that areimpactful.
We had a best known roofer shirtum that we gave away, some other
creative ones that I've seen inthe industry.
Um there was a a law firm thatdid some had a had a really
great uh marketing team.
Uh shout out to Alex and uhthose guys.

(46:53):
They like they had like ifyou've ever seen them in the in
the industry uh of John C neckwhere like it's a it's a shing
it's a Pringles logo that saysshingles on it, right?
Like instead of instead ofPringles, it says shingles,
right?
Um there's a I remember someonemade, I think they made one year
they made like a Hooters logoand it said roofers or something

(47:15):
like that, right?
Like, but it's just takingthings and then they just giving
it away, right?
And it had their otherinformation on it, maybe like a
small logo in the back orsomething like that, kind of
what you're kind of thinking ofor talking about doing.
They reminded me of that, right?
With the Eagles stuff.
Like, man, how many, how can youincorporate your brand in a fun

(47:36):
way and and and get that outinto the community through
merchandise, like throughmerchandise.
And and it sounds like you guysare doing some printing
in-house, so it's not it'sprobably pretty affordable to
you to do that.
And even if you do have to go toa shop, it's not that bad.
Like, it's really not that badto get stuff done.
And um, I love that, man.

(47:56):
That that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 (47:58):
Yeah, and it's we've had a lot of people try to, and
we've seen people do giveawaysfor clothing and everything
else.
And one of the things youpointed out was having that
funny aspect on the front, butthey still had their branding on
the back.
And a lot of people fail torealize that a lot of people
don't want to just wear a branda lot of times.

(48:18):
It's not just the brand, youhave to incorporate some other
deeper level of meaning in orderfor them to wear it.
Like, I'm not gonna go wear uhlike a Nike or Adidas or like
ooh, I gotta wear those.
I'm not like a brand sponsor.
I'm not, I'm not, I don't needto wear that type of a

(48:39):
sweatshirt.
But if it had somethingincorporated in it, like a joke
or something funny or somethingrelatable or something that I
was proud of, then absolutely Iwould wear it.
And that's where a lot of peoplethey fall short because they're
like, oh, I want to give awaystuff too.
I can give away my shirts andthey'll just start wearing them,
also.
Like, no, your shirt's going inthe trash can.
And that's the brutal truth,right there, is they don't

(49:00):
realize that cool, you you triedto do the same thing, you
printed off all these shirts.
All those shirts are gonna beone use.
They're gonna wear it today andit's going in the trash
tomorrow.
Or they might put it in theirdrawer and never wear it.
Uh, how do I know this?
Because I have a drawer filledwith these and I've been meaning
to throw them away.

SPEAKER_01 (49:16):
So like whenever I'm out painting or doing something
that I'm like, I'm gonna getthis is gonna be ruined, right?
Like, oh, grab one of those,right?
Um, and it's always the what isit, the glidian, itchy, like
terrible, you know, it's theyyou know, because people go
cheap on them.
You know, we always went with, Ithink it was Next Level was the

(49:37):
one of the brands I reallyenjoyed.
We've been doing Gildan.
We love the the Gildan's good,yeah.
Yeah, like, but like nice stuff,right?
Also, not not just with yourlogo and with some cool like
mark or or like some cool coolconnecting message with it, but
also stuff that people wouldwear and that it's comfortable

(49:57):
and it's nice and it's you know,um, might cost you a couple
extra bucks per shirt, but thatcouple extra bucks, that couple
of extra bucks makes people wearit around town and not while
they're just doing theirlandscaping, you know.
Um, so that's fun stuff, man.

SPEAKER_00 (50:14):
One of the easiest things that you can do,
especially to get your name outthere, your face out there for
if you're a new rep or an ownerthat's trying to start up a
company, being the mayor of yourtown and going through this
little training of being themost recognizable person when
you walk into a store, walk intoa restaurant, or anywheres that

(50:36):
you go, you want to be asrecognizable as the mayor of
your town, whether it's yourname or your face.
Ideally, both of those together,because that works out great.
But every time you walk into ashopping center or a Walmart and
you see somebody that at theend, and when you are getting
ready to leave and the old manis right there, he's checking on

(50:57):
receipts, and everybody's justflying by waving them off.
If you just take the time tospeak to that person and give
them the time of day and ask himhow his day is going and ask him
if what he's been up to.
Like, are you watching the gamethis weekend?
Who cares?
Just treat him like a human,treat him something different

(51:18):
than how everybody else isdoing, and you will get a result
from that because what you'redoing is you're not doing what
mainstream media is doing,you're not doing what everybody
else is doing, because then youand them get stuck in this
little robotic method ofcommunication.
Kind of like I always telleverybody, and I'm guilty of
doing it in the beginning ofthis conversation was how are

(51:39):
you doing?
I'm great, how are you doing?
I'm great, nice weather, yeah,nice weather.
Think it's gonna rain?
No, I think it'll hold off.
All right, have a nice day, andthen you leave.
Every time you go to a littlemarket and you're checking out
and you're just grabbing anenergy drink, that's the little
conversation that goes back andforth.
But instead, if you try to breakup that monotony and uh that

(52:01):
conversation, the robotic theme,and you just look at their name
tag and you say, Hey, goodmorning, Sally.
And you just use their name orthrow something else in there.
Give them a smile and you askthem about the drink that you're
getting.
Grab a random drink and say, HeySally, do you know anything
about this?
Like, is this a good flavor?
Because uh I've never seen itbefore.

(52:23):
And then who knows?
Maybe Sally ends up being acaffeine addict and she gives
you all the information when itcomes to that energy drink, or
she recommends another one.
And the recommendation hasalways bit me in the butt a
little bit whenever I go to arestaurant and I'm speaking with
the server, and we always havegreat conversations, and that's
actually how I pick up my wife.

(52:44):
Uh, she was the bartender.
It's always a great skill tohave.
And now every time we go, Ialways love to ask them like
what their favorite entree is,not a recommendation.
I like to ask what theirfavorite meal is, and typically
I ordered that meal and they'relike, Oh, really?
And the reaction that they getbecause when you go to a

(53:06):
restaurant, you see a server allthe time, or people are like, I
don't know what to get.
Like, what do you recommend?
And they're just like, I don'tknow what to recommend.
Because now, in their eyes,they're trying to pick something
for you specifically.
Yeah.
And they're thinking they theylook at a guy and they're like,
all right, he wants steak, orthey they have to already start

(53:29):
to have those snap judgmentsabout you, and they have to
start to figure it out.
And that actually, it's it's alot of times it's a negative for
people because now they'reputting in an uncomfortable
situation.
And to make it a more positive,ask them what they love to eat,
what their favorite entree is.
If you want to know what drinkto get, ask them what their

(53:49):
favorite drink is.
But then when they say it, ifyou say something along the
lines of, ah, that sounds nasty,I'm gonna get this.
You just have to suck it up.
If you order what they suggest,automatically their eyes light
up.
And that's a great way to keepthe conversation going and then
expand on that and keep itmoving in the right direction.
And you take away all thetension because everybody says,

(54:10):
What do you suggest?
Or do the robotic method ofgreat weather.
Yeah, great weather.
Have a great day.
So just break up that monotony.

SPEAKER_01 (54:19):
I see why you call it the mayor of the town because
it's a politician thing, right?
Like it's you know, the shakinghands and kissing babies type of
stuff, right?
Like it's it's getting out thereand having having conversations
and getting people having morememorable conversations, getting
people to know you, real, youknow, remember you.
Um so so do you train all yoursales reps on this?

(54:42):
It's like, hey, this is this isthis is what we expect of you.
Is this like, is that anexpectation of be working as a
rep at veterans?
Like, hey, this is how we'regonna help you to help yourself.

SPEAKER_00 (54:55):
Yeah, so it's it's a method to make sure that they
became a referral sourcethemselves.
We want to not just representthe the brand, but we also want
to make sure that you're a faceto the community as well.
If you're coming into thiscompany, the expectations are
you're involved with thecommunity.
If you are giving a pushback tothat or you're not willing to
donate some time throughout theyear or be involved, this isn't

(55:18):
the right company for you.
And we're pretty straightforwardwith that.
We let people know that ifyou're not going to participate
in any event, then you're notgoing to participate in this
company.
And that's something that hasbeen super beneficial for us
because we have a lot of people,and just like every company you
go through, you get good hiresand bad hires.
And we've really been able tohone in over the years of making

(55:40):
sure that we aren't just beatingaround the bushes.
We are we're trying to be asstraightforward and as
transparent with our hires aspossible, just to make sure that
they understand.
Because if we're like, ah, youknow, we're involved with the
community, you don't have to doanything.
Yeah, you'll fit in just fine.
We're setting ourselves up forfailure.

SPEAKER_01 (55:58):
So we try to be that expectation.

SPEAKER_00 (56:00):
Exactly.
And it's it's amazing what youcan learn by going on a uh a
mayor of the town if you want togo incorporate that.
And I love to take sales guys onthat.
And one of the things that Ilove to do is go to their town,
go into the Home Depot, and askthe gentleman that's in the

(56:21):
exterior section, hey, do yourecommend anybody for a roof
here?
And when they recommendsomebody, because think about
how many homeowners go to HomeDepot or Lowe's or any of those
types of stores.
And when they walk in there,they're looking, they're trying
to pick out the tile that theywant for their bathroom or the
shingle color that theypotentially want for their roof.

(56:42):
And and that's a lot more commonthan people realize.
There's a lot of random peoplethat go in there.
And just because you don't seethem when you're shopping,
because you might be shopping at6 a.m., there's people that are
there all day that do see thesepeople shopping, and that's the
employees.
And those employees are in theirdifferent areas.
And if you ask a question, it'snot their area, like, hold on

(57:04):
one sec, let me, and they goover the intercom and say, Hey,
clean up an aisle five.
They let you know they they callthe right person for it.
They don't do it, they don't tryto answer the questions.
They uh let me get somebodythat's better equipped to answer
these questions.
Talk to that person.
Who does that person recommend?
And also, how's their day going?
And what about this area do theyknow?

(57:27):
What kind of knowledge do theyhave in the roofing industry?
Like they called you over toanswer my questions.
What's your history?
What's your background?
And it might not be an initialtie, the first conversation, but
now as you go in there, look forthat guy.

SPEAKER_01 (57:42):
What I love about that style of relationship
selling is and what I think alot of people miss is it's the
one-to-many relationship, right?
Becoming memorable.
So you're becoming memorable toyour community, you're becoming
memorable to you know the personworking at Home Depot, you're

(58:03):
becoming memorable to the to thebartender, to the wait, waiter
or waitress.
You're becoming memorable topeople.
You're you're making friends,really.
Like it's it's you're makingfriends with people, and and
that that that is thatone-to-many relationship that
that gets built over time.
And there's a lot of good, Imean, fantastic sales reps that

(58:27):
will tell you that.
I mean, and companies that havegotten built on relationships
that when the phone, like whenfor a lot of storm restoration
contractors, when a storm comesthrough, people just know who to
call.
They just call their friend,right?
There's a there's a uh a salesguy in the in the Minneapolis

(58:48):
Twin Cities area, Dan Walrak,that got um a lot of attention a
couple years back, where he soldlike 18 million himself in a
storm.
Um but it was what what whathe's what I've heard him talk
about is it it's it's it's thework that he put up put in up

(59:08):
leading up to that, right?
Like it's the conversations thathe had and the relationships
that he built and the all ofthat over so much time that when
it was time they knew just callDan.
Dan will get it taken care of,right?
Um, and so that's the that's thetype of marketing that sticks.

(59:30):
It's not just hey, they clickedan ad and now they're calling
someone and it doesn't reallymatter.
Um, but all of this type ofstuff, it will make your
marketing better, as I mentionedin the past.
Like if you actually, if peopleknow you and then they go on
Google and it's like, oh,veterans roofing, I saw them at
the parade, I'll call them.
Right?
Like, and so all of it buildsupon it it itself.

(59:54):
Um, you can build a fantasticbusiness on relationship
marketing.
As we talked about, I think forI really believe that this is
this is the path for a if forbootstrapping.
Like if you if you arebootstrapping your company, man,
it's all about this.
Like it's it should be, thisshould be your main focus in

(01:00:18):
building relationships.
And maybe, you know, dependingon the market that you're in,
maybe you're buildingrelationships with insurance
agents, maybe you're buildingrelationships, maybe you have a
focus on who you're buildingthose relationships with.
It's not just going out to eatevery day and meeting all the
waiters and waitresses, right?
Like you can also be intentionalabout some of the, you know, the
like who you're who you'retrying to develop those

(01:00:40):
relationships with.
But being part of the community,it's it's fantastic.
So, you know, we talked about acouple, like when we talked a
few days ago, we talked aboutthe adapt and overcome mindset.
And I think that was probably ayou know something that that you
learned in the military.
How have you applied that tobusiness?

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:02):
Yeah, so obviously as a business owner, you any
problem that comes about, you'reultimately it's going to fall on
your plate if you don't have theproper procedures in place to
prevent it from doing so.
So you always, there's alwaysgonna be something that's gonna
pop up that's gonna bedifferent.
I saw somebody post on RSRA theother day where they had

(01:01:25):
multiple layers of shingles,then plywood, then tile, then
shingles, then wood, then tile,like an obnoxious amount of
layers.
And you can prepare as much asyou want for what's gonna
happen.
At the end of the day, there'salways gonna be some curveball
that comes at you and it's like,what do we do with this?
And that's the adapt andovercome methodology and the
mindset.

(01:01:45):
And that is essentially justmaking sure that no matter what
life throws at you, you've gotto figure it out, especially as
a business owner.
Who do we have to turn to?
Who do we have to ask?
My my junior sales staff, theyhave a sales manager, and then
my sales manager can ask me ifhe doesn't know.
And same thing with theproduction staff, they all have

(01:02:07):
their different levels that theycan turn to somebody, and
somebody can answer thatquestion for them.
But you don't always havesomebody to turn to.
Sometimes you just got to figureit out yourself.
And that happens more often thannot when you're trying to grow
or expand or start your companyor combat different types of
things that are out of ourcontrol.

(01:02:28):
Sometimes you can't controleverything.
So that's where the adapt andovercome.
You just need to figure it out.
You rather than worrying aboutall the negatives, everything
that's going wrong.
Okay, I'm going to get throughthis.
I will.
And you tell yourself that.
And now when you start totransition and you look at it on
that method of mindset and howyou immediately go to, I just

(01:02:52):
need to be solution oriented.
I just need to figure this out.
Doesn't matter everything that'sgone wrong at this point.
I need to figure it out.
I need to come up with asolution now.
And that's where the adapt andovercome uh it originated from
the military and it's continued.
And I try to teach everybodywithin the company that same
type of mindset where, yes,something goes wrong and I get

(01:03:14):
it.
Let's figure out a solution.
And then it's also now put insomething for future that will
prevent it from happening againbecause otherwise it's gonna
happen again.
This may have been a once in100, but now that we're on the
topic, it is that one time.
Let's just, if it takes an extracouple of minutes, let's just
implement so it never happensagain.
We'll never even see it again.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:36):
Yeah.
And that's that it's just acontinuous iteration.
It's a feedback loop that you'recreating.
You're always going to haveobstacles to overcome.
And that doesn't matter whatsize business you get to, what
like there's always anotherproblem.
And sometimes problems getamplified at through growth
stages, right?
Like it's it's crazy how thesethings happen.

(01:03:59):
You didn't from our previousconversations, you didn't plan
on, you didn't strive to be anentrepreneur.
You didn't strive to be abusiness owner.
It wasn't like something thatwas like, man, this is what I
want to, I want to do when Iwhen I'm when I, you know, if
you could go back to to thosedays when you were leaving the
Marines and you had the strugglein the in in finding the job and

(01:04:22):
all, you know, you had to adaptand overcome the challenge that
was in front of you.
You know, what what would whatadvice would you give yourself
now if you going back to thatthat guy that was like you know
going through it back then?

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:40):
So when you're in the military, you're so used to
that steady paycheck.
You get paid on the first and15th of every month, no matter
what.
You're used to the vacationallowance where you can go ahead
and take your days off, and yougot that guaranteed uh days off
that you're gonna get paid forno matter what, because
everything is salary.

(01:05:00):
You know that if you are livingoff a base and you're married,
you got kids, you got all thesedifferent housing allowances and
food allowance, you haveeverything taken care of.
And one of the struggle pointsis when you're transitioning
away from that, and so manypeople, especially in the
military, they get so used tothat steady paycheck that they
seek it afterwards.

(01:05:21):
And that's something that Ithat's the route that I was
taking.
I was going to go into lawenforcement.
I was that was my transition.
I was going to stay with thatsteady salary and that that
guaranteed pay at the uh what Ithought, uh guaranteed job.
But with COVID shuttingeverything down, I realized that

(01:05:43):
I can't just be comfortable.
I can't just look at it on inthat point of view to, hey, I
have all this lined up and I'mgood.
Uh, because sometimes plans arejust gonna get shaken up,
they're gonna go wrong, noteverything's gonna go your way.
And I, if I could say somethingto myself back then, it would

(01:06:03):
give myself a bigger boost ofconfidence to just do it, to
just stay consistent and justkeep doing it, because there was
a lot of hesitation going intostarting our own company, uh,
going into this industry.
It's very competitive,especially in this area.
There's a couple big names thathave been around for decades.
And those names, they've alwayscontrolled this area just

(01:06:26):
because everybody knows them.
They have the jingle on theradio that everybody I've heard
the jingle since I was in fifthgrade.
I know those companies, and theyjust establish themselves so
well, but they also getcomfortable.
And that complacency aspect thata lot of people get into, that's
what hurts them.
And just to stay hungry, don'tget comfortable, and you can do

(01:06:50):
it.
No matter what it is, just keeppushing and don't give up.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:53):
That's awesome, man.
Thanks for your time today.
This has been another episode ofthe Roofing Success Podcast.
Thank you for tuning into theRoofing Success Podcast.
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(01:07:14):
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(01:07:35):
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