Why Most Roofers Fail After Storm Peaks: Lessons From The Drop After A $21M Peak w/ George Boudreaux
February 18, 2025 • 50 mins
Why Do Roofers Struggle After Storm Peaks?
Many roofing companies ride the storm wave to massive growth, only to crash when the storm-driven demand fades. In this episode, George Boudreaux of Pelican Roofing shares his real-life lessons from scaling to $21M and navigating the steep decline that followed.
Discover how George turned setbacks into comebacks by reinventing his leadership, rebuilding culture, and focusing on long-term stability.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- The hidden risks of storm-driven growth.
- Why great systems and teams are your safety net.
- How self-awareness and leadership growth fuel success.
- The steps to redefine company culture and build lasting resilience.
If you’ve felt stuck in a revenue dip or lost clarity in your business, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you bounce back stronger.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How do you weather the storm when a hurricane fuels
your growth but leaves arevenue vacuum in its wake?
In this episode, we exploreresilience and reinvention with
George Boudreau, owner ofPelican Roofing, who has
navigated peaks, valleys andeverything in between.
George is the driving forcebehind Pelican Roofing in
Louisiana, with years ofexperience managing both growth
(00:22):
and setbacks.
George's story is a testamentto entrepreneurial grit From
scaling up after hurricanes toredefining his company's vision.
George's journey reveals how tostay motivated, adapt and build
a sustainable business thatthrives under pressure.
Today, we'll uncover strategiesto turn challenges into
(00:44):
opportunities.
Today, we'll uncover strategiesto turn challenges into
opportunities.
Let's dive in with GeorgeBoudreaux.
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.
Welcome back, george Boudreaux.
Man, you got the name of aSouthern gentleman.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Good pronunciation, little French.
And actually is Alain French?
It's not no Okay, because wewould say that looks like a
French name and we wouldn't sayAlain, or however you say it.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Honestly it could be.
Honestly it could be.
My birth father or my adoptivefather is Slovenian, the name is
from Slovenia and one of thethings to know about Slovenia is
, if you've, if yougeographically, if you look at
the boot of Italy, it's touchingthe upper right hand part of
the boot.
So in that region betweenFrance, italy and Turkey that
(01:42):
people have crossed throughthere many, many times Napoleon
came down that way, the RomanEmpire, the Ottoman Empire, the
you know there was a lot of, sothe names probably traveled
through those areas, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, awesome man, good to have you back on.
It's been a while.
Are you on Pelican Roofing downin Lafayette, louisiana?
So you are a Southern gentleman, you don't just have the name
of a Southern gentleman.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You are a Southern gentleman.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
We live it Awesome, man.
Well, we wanted to talk, Iwanted to have you back on,
because last time we were here,I mean we talked a lot about the
ups and downs of the roofingindustry and you guys really
went through this revenue peakand then you came down and of
course didn't come back down tozero, but kind of came back and
(02:34):
hit another level on the waydown in your restructuring and
now have grown it back up and Iwanted to talk a lot about that
with you.
What is it like it back up?
And I wanted to talk a lotabout that with you.
What is it like?
What is the?
What is that journey of thosepeaks and valleys of the
business?
How do you make it through?
How do you reinvent yourbusiness many times along the
(02:55):
way?
So you know, maybe from a kindof from a macro perspective, how
do you, how did you guysreinvent your business?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah well, the short, quick answer is you get forced
to, unless you're going to justdecide to give up.
You know, pain is the teacher,necessity is the mother of
invention.
These quotes stay around for areason.
So you know, most entrepreneursare very resilient people Like
(03:25):
it starts off small and we get.
We get a little.
We develop those calluses anddevelop pain points along the
way.
Just before we went on air, youand I are talking about how
entrepreneurship is one of thequickest and guaranteed paths to
self-development, along withhaving kids.
You're just kind of forced intobecoming better.
(03:45):
So, yeah, it's almost like itwas forced in a way, but yeah,
so it certainly required a lotof resilience.
But I think the reason we'reable to be resilient and climb
back up is because we havesomething that we're chasing.
We all have some reason.
We started the business.
(04:06):
Some of us it's money, some ofus it's freedom of time or
financial freedom, or we need toprove something to somebody.
For a lot of us, a lot of us,our fathers may be still trying
to do that.
So that thing is what kind ofdrives us, I think in the darker
times kind of drives us, Ithink, in the darker times.
(04:28):
And so, yeah, we went.
You know, we had a pretty rapidclimb up from 2017-ish up
through 21, where we weredoubling revenue every year,
from two and a half to five to10, to 21 in 2021.
And on the tail end of thatcycle were some large hurricanes
that aided us in that increasedrevenue.
(04:50):
But then after that, we learnedthe really hard lesson that
many other roofers have learnedabout the vacuum that occurs
post-storm, and I had no ideahow much of a vacuum was going
to be there, but it essentiallysucked out half of our revenue.
But we had built so much, somany good systems and brought in
(05:10):
so many great people that I wasjust holding on for dear life
because I believed every daywell, it's about to change, it's
about to get better, we'regoing to start selling more, and
we worked our butts off andwere able to hang on.
But we had a couple of yearsthere where we were either
losing money or just barelyprofitable and we could have
scaled down and let go of a lotof people and been profitable.
(05:33):
And I knew that every day and Iwrestled with it every day.
I know I've got this manager,this manager and this manager,
and they just don't have a wholelot to manage right now and I
probably should let them go.
But I just kept hanging onthinking, man, the dream is
bigger, we want to do otherthings and these are special
people.
So basically we just put ourheads down and went to work
(05:57):
predominantly in sales, likefiguring out sales, how to sell,
how to develop the bestpresentation, how to have the
right systems, daily systems inplace so that we could start to
generate that revenue again.
But that was that was quite along path.
I mean, that was over a year ofstruggling through that and you
(06:18):
know, in that process posthurricanes 21 going into 22, I
was burnt out and a lot of ourstaff was too from all of that
work and I started reallyreconsidering what I wanted for
the company.
Just personally, like for myday-to-day life, I really wanted
about a $5 million companybecause I knew I could reduce
(06:42):
overhead, be highly profitableand not have a lot of headaches
and then I could go off and dosome other things I was
interested in because I waslosing interest, very frankly,
in the day to day operations ofa roofing company.
I liked what it provided for me, but didn't want to do that
every day, and and so, as I wasapproaching that crossroads, I
(07:04):
knew that our team and our greatpeople needed growth.
Otherwise they were going tobecome apathetic, stagnant, and
the thing would eventually fallapart.
So I was like what am I goingto do?
The company needs to grow.
I don't want to.
I don't have the energy toactually grow this company again
and get it to the next level,and so I started to consider
(07:27):
bringing on a partner as apotential solution for that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's interesting.
I want to go back to a coupleof things.
First and I think this is acommon challenge that a lot of
entrepreneurs face in theirbusiness is you get to a point
and you kind of lose interest ina lot of things, and it could
happen in a couple of ways.
It could happen from getting toa place of success that you
(07:55):
that path.
I feel like it's like oh well,I got this down, I learned how
to do this.
My mind is I need to move on toanother challenge or something
like that.
But then on the other side ofit is that grind wheel of, like
man, you just can't get thisthing to work the way you want
it to work and it eats away atyou, and it eats away at you,
and it eats away at you.
(08:15):
Which, which losing interestwas?
Was it for you?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, the former, the first you mentioned more.
So, yeah, it was okay.
So I kind of conquered that andI think there was also a part
of me that much of my businesswas built on the back of
insecurity.
I came to realize, you know,kind of on the tail end of those
years I realized that I wastrying to prove to my father
(08:40):
that I was worthy enough and gethis approval, and I was trying
to prove to some of my peerfriends who were successful that
I also could be successful.
And I was trying to also proveto the guy in middle school who
made fun of me, or the person onFacebook who I think may be
doubting my intelligence orsomething, that I could in fact
(09:03):
do it.
So that was.
I was unaware of that for a longtime and then, whenever I
achieved the success, it startedto occur to me.
It was like man, my dadactually always loved me and
didn't need me to be.
You know, my friends don't care, you know, and it doesn't
really matter what anyone elsethinks, so you know.
So I was like so I don't, Idon't, even so, i't have that
(09:23):
driver anymore and it didn'tmatter.
That didn't matter, and I movedinto more of a place of what do
I want to do.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Life is short, yeah crazy man, like it's crazy.
Those, those early think thestories that we make up in our
mind.
But a lot of entrepreneurs havethose stories right.
They have that narrative of.
I'm going to prove that I canright like, I'll show you that's
a man, that's a, that's astrong motivate, that is, it is
(09:51):
fuel yeah I.
I actually actually even heardit one time, george, when we
talked about, you know, kids andkids in business or what bill
you know, kind of create thatpersonal development in yourself
.
That it's that the young adultswho are more motivated a lot of
(10:12):
times come from environmentswhere they need.
They are making up for that orthey're trying to prove that and
it's like, man, do I need toscrew my kids up a little bit?
Do I need right, like, what doI need to do here, george?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And not the same questions over here.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Wow, how can I give them that motivation?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, but I would, I would.
I would add this, jim Like yes,that that works and it's very
effective, yes, that that worksand it's very effective, like
you can really move the needlebecause that that motivation is
so strong and that fire isburning.
But it's, it's one way and I'vealso discovered that there is
(10:57):
another way.
That's right.
Look, I think we're all on ourown journeys and we all have to
go through whatever the things,whatever lessons life is
teaching us, like we all haveour.
As one of my coaches that tellsme, like, when I'm going through
something difficult, like thisis in your curriculum, this is,
this is kind of destined for.
You have to pass this test, youknow like and.
(11:19):
And so I had, I had to gothrough that, that journey.
So I had to go through thatjourney.
But I'm also hoping that mykids can learn some other ways,
with a little more flow and alittle less resistance, to get
to where they want to go.
So I don't know that it'snecessary, but it's certainly a
(11:39):
lot of fuel and I think it wasthe only path for me to get up
to this point.
But I'm no longer trying toleverage those things, although
it is still tempting, like angeris powerful.
Anger is a powerful force thatcan really get some things done,
(11:59):
good or bad.
But I'm in a process in my liferight now where I'm learning a
lot more about releasing that sothat I can be in in complete
flow and I can be an open vesselfor all of the, all of the good
things that you could insertlife, god, the universe,
whatever you like there wants tobestow on me, and so I think
(12:22):
that's the most powerful way toprogress is to be open, because
there's this all loving, allpowerful energy not to get too
spiritual on you guys here, butthat's just my belief, but I
actually believe it is thesharpest tool on the tool belt
to get where we're all trying togo.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, I like that.
You said it's your curriculum.
I was just earlier this morningI was flipping through some
motivational kind of clips andthere was a story.
It was Kenny Smith, the NBAstar.
He was in the NBA.
Now he's a commentator.
I think it was him who wastelling the story that in the
(13:04):
summers one of his roommates wasone of the children in the
Kohler family, as in the likeevery toilet in America, right,
Like you know, plumbing fixturesand things like that, and and
and, if I remember right, heasked him something like well,
why, why are you, what are youdoing here, sleeping on our you
(13:24):
know, in our couch and our youknow what I mean?
Like well, his dad said well,you have to be a plumber first
to work here.
Why didn't your dad just giveyou an executive job?
Well, because you got to youoff camera about leadership and
(13:46):
building that leadership muscleis you can maybe create some of
that curriculum for someoneRight, Like that they don't have
to just be forced into thatcurriculum, like so that's right
.
This.
This person's father said allright, you're going to become a
plumber.
Then you go on and your nextyou know your next class is this
know, your next class is this,then your next class is this,
(14:07):
then your next class is this.
And then you can come into thecompany and be part of the
company and that's the.
You know you will get thecurriculum one way or another.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, you know, what I like about that is, yeah, like
there are people who have beenable to skip through parts of
the curriculum and they havebeen handed that executive job
or whatever it is and, look,things may be easier on them and
they didn't have to strugglethrough it and all of that.
But I also believe that thereis a corresponding sacrifice in
(14:39):
joy as a result of that, and sothe lower you go or the harder a
thing is, the better theexperience on the other side,
the more joy and appreciationand gratitude that we have on
the other side.
So one of my digital mentorsuses this framework of a one to
10 scale, where one being theworst of days or the hardest
(15:02):
experiences and 10 being themost joyful and joyful
experiences and how most peoplelive in the fours, fives and
sixes, and he runs that cycledown.
So one is at the top and 10 isat the top, but in the pit is
four, five and six, which islike mediocrity.
So whenever you're experiencingthe pain or the hardship of a
(15:24):
one, two or three, it allows foryou to have the eights, nines
and tens.
Because we're all comparisonmaking machines.
That's what we do.
We don't know how to not dothat.
We only enjoy the sunlightbecause it rains.
You enjoy the warmth of thefire because you were cold.
You don't go to the fire afteryou've been hot outside.
So that that is a.
That's a framework I like touse, also when I'm going through
(15:48):
something that's hard ordifficult is okay.
Well, I'm going to reallyappreciate this on the other
side so you can skip the test,but you're going to live without
all of like that guy at the topthat skipped the test.
He, he ain't having as much funman no.
He's not going to be as light.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
And they.
Always there's that kind ofstory of, like that second third
generation, let's say, abusiness gets handed down and
that second third generation,they don't execute as well.
In a lot of cases and it's alot of, they didn't get those
ones and twos right, like theydidn't get and and and.
So there's a gap in.
(16:27):
There's a gap not only inknowledge.
There's a gap in that, in the,in the, in the drive.
There's a gap in the, theresilience.
There's a gap in right there.
So the, you know, we and thisis a great conversation to have
for people you know we're goinginto the new year I don't know
if this is going to air in thein queue, probably in quarter
(16:50):
one of 2025.
But coming into the new year,the new year is that
regenerative kind of refresh inyour mind and it's like man,
it's the perspective, right, allof those things that are in
front of you, all of thoseproblems that you're facing,
that's, and if you can look atthem as as part of the
(17:11):
curriculum, like man, I didn'tlike, I man, I really didn't
like.
You know, uh, algebra three inin in college or whatever it was
, or in school, I, I mean, Ireally man, geometry was the
worst, or you know thatliterature class was man, I
hated writing those papers butyou had to get through it, right
, like you had to get through itand get to the other side of it
(17:32):
and looking at those tests.
So in that loss of interest andkind of reevaluation and you
know you guys had peaked, youcame down.
You came down into a valley andyou're like all right, where do
we go from here?
Do we go?
Does this thing go down evenfurther, right?
Do we go back to sea level, orare we going to go up the next
(17:54):
mountain, like which and in thatit sounds like you're you
started or you considered apartnership and now have taken
on a partner in the business.
Let's talk about that a littlebit, because I think that a lot
of times people look atpartnerships as something that
start from the beginning.
It's not something that getsadded into a business.
So how did that come about as apathway to you?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah.
So you know, frankly, I spentthe first year as we went from
$21 million down to $10 millionand did not decrease operational
costs a whole lot.
So that was a painful year andduring that year was one of
these tests for me.
I had no way out and I didn'thave a sales manager for much of
that year.
So I had to step back into thatrole and I had to do a good job
(18:41):
, which meant I had to learn itfrom scratch.
And I had to do a good job,which meant I had to learn it
from scratch.
So I studied and did all I wastaking in everything I could to
try to learn how to be a salesmanager and just learn about
sales.
So that was a test I wanted toskip.
I really, really didn't want todo that, but I just didn't have
optionality.
But during that process it woreme out even more and forced me
(19:04):
to start thinking of other waysout.
And so, you know, eventuallyfound a sales manager.
But I was like dude, what am Ilike?
How am I going to take care ofthis company and take care of
myself?
And you know, I thought aboutselling to private equity at
that point, but they typicallywant you to stay on for a few
(19:24):
years and I was like I don'teven have three years in my.
I can't fathom doing this forthree more years.
And some people may notunderstand how do you run a
company for eight, nine yearsand all of a sudden you just
can't do it anymore?
But my dad raised me and I grewup with this mentality of life
is short.
Let's do the things we reallywant to do.
(19:46):
So after feeling that way for along time and not being able to
explore it, I was veryuncomfortable and agitated.
And you know, actually I spent.
I spent a few days with afriend of mine at his ranch in
Texas and he made a comment andhe said you just need to get a
(20:06):
few smarter people around you.
And so I was like you know what?
I'm just going to go find apartner and I know that I'll
probably leave millions ofdollars on the table by doing
this, by giving up 50% of thecompany.
But you know what?
I may not even get it therewith my energy where it's at
right now.
(20:27):
So I had an ad out for a salesmanager, had just hired a guy
and some guy in my communitycalls and says hey man, I see
you have this.
I'm in oil and gas.
I'm kind of itchy for somethingto invest in and some new
venture, I don't know.
I'm just curious about what youhave going on.
We had done his roof in 2015.
Nightmare of a roof, the wayeverything just drained into the
(20:51):
center of the dang thing but,and so it leaked.
Of course should have nevertaken the job, but did.
And then we went out three,four, five times until we got it
right.
So there was a good impressionleft on him and he saw us in the
community and thought we had agood outfit.
And so he called, we startedtalking and you know I had three
(21:13):
main check boxes.
I had determined, like Iidentified exactly who I needed
in a partner, and that was anumber one.
They had to be intelligent,because I could not, I didn't
have an appetite to teachsomeone for two years.
Number two I wanted to makesure that they cared a lot Like
they.
They would really care for theemployees and the customer, so
(21:33):
that I didn't have to lose sleepat night worrying about that.
And then number three was likea high level of motivation, like
something that was going todrive them during those, if
another dark time comes, likehow are they going to get
through it?
So this guy, nathan, he checkedall those boxes really well.
We spent seven months vettingeach other and then signed
papers in August of 23 for himto buy in at 50% of the company
(21:58):
and since that point he's takenon the role of CEO, basically,
and I've been able to step back.
I initially took a break fromthe company for a few months.
I initially took a break fromthe company for a few months.
First I trained him for aboutsix months and stayed in, but
then after that, in July, I tooka few months and really stepped
out for the most part and thatgave me a nice breather and
(22:21):
refresher.
And then it occurred to me, aswe're moving forward into our
next phase and with our nextgoals, that oh wait, the company
actually needs to step back inand kind of a different role.
This company can use some of my, my talents and energy and
actually have it again to givein another way.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So it definitely allowed that.
Refresh, right, like, and whatdid you look for in term?
Did like?
I always think of greatpartnerships and having
complimenting skill sets.
Not not not the same skill set.
A lot of times, two sales repswill start a company and they
both know how to sell, but noone knows how to do the rest of
(23:03):
the work.
Right, I always think thatgreat partnerships have have man
, I'm really good at this andyou're really good at that.
Have you guys.
Was that part of the vettingprocess where you're like oh,
man.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, I'm a visionary , you know, and he's an
integrator.
So, yeah, he likes getting intothe legal fine print on things
he can't stand to do it Like canI just go run a marathon
instead of reading those eightpages today?
Yeah, instead of reading that,those eight pages today, yeah,
(23:36):
so, so yeah, he gets into thedetails and likes all of that
stuff, which is which isimportant.
As a CEO, you do have to startto to gain that high level.
But he got in, came tounderstand the details very well
and now he's starting to kindof raise up to that higher level
of just managing KPIs for ourmanagers and letting them run
their divisions.
But we certainly do complimenteach other well there.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, that's awesome.
What was the thing that youfelt you could bring back, Like
what was you know?
You kind of had this man, Ihave a skill set here that I can
bring back to the company, andwhat, what was that?
That?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
that and that energized you to come back to
the and execute on that came torealize that the company is only
going to grow based on, on thebelief systems of the people
growing it.
So we always have a ceiling weall have our ceilings in our
(24:38):
belief systems around what we'recapable of, and that influences
the company in a large way.
And I came to realize that wehad kind of been hitting our
head.
So we went back up to 15, about15 million this year and
revenue is where we'll be, andwe were trying to get to 20 this
year and it occurred to me likethe reason for that and I
(25:02):
realized that as a managementteam we were still limiting
ourselves a whole lot in termsof what we think we can do.
A lot of these managers werethere at two and a half million
and so the things we did to getto five and 10 and then operate
through the storms at 20 are notthe same things that grow a
(25:22):
company organically to 20 or 30million.
You have to step into a nextlevel.
So I have to become a differentperson myself first, and then
our managers do.
So it started occurring to mewhere these blocks were and I
was like man, we're really goingto have to have a shift in our
(25:43):
culture, and by culture I meanthe things that we believe, the
way that we interact with eachother yes, of course, but like
the way we do things, the way wework.
And so not only do we havegoals of getting next year $25
million as the goal in revenueone of our goals, but we have
(26:05):
goals beyond that.
We want to be the very bestroofing company in the United
States.
We want to be the very bestroofing company in the United
States.
The main defining factor thereis the way we do things, like
how the customer feels.
Is the customer experience thebest?
Are they in awe?
Are our employees like I wouldnever want to work anywhere else
(26:27):
?
Are our vendors saying, likedude, I will do anything for
Pelican Roofing because theymake my job easy and they're
pleasant to be around?
Like the community, like thesepeople are wonderful, they're
giving back, like we feel thecare from this company.
And that's our new culturalinitiative and that's what I
felt like needed to be injectedinto the company.
(26:47):
Is this new culture, this newenergy of like dude, we're going
to be the best, we're going tocare the most, we're going to be
so proud of what we're doing.
We know exactly where we'regoing.
It's not just a revenue chase,but we know what we're doing
every day and it matters to us,and so I felt the need to come
(27:09):
back in and drive thatinitiative in a very systematic
way too.
Like I know that I can't justcome in here and talk about that
stuff.
Like there has to be a systemfor how we give, when we give,
how I support our leadershipteam.
I'm a driver by nature.
I look more like probably afootball coach than a CEO in
(27:31):
just the way that I like to lead, the way that I am with my kids
.
I enjoy being coached that wayalso to a large extent.
So it's like hey look, we havethis agreement, go do this,
that's how I would lead.
That doesn't work.
That works at certain levels,you know, but there's like some
fear that's baked into thatstuff and so I'm learning also
(27:52):
as a leader.
Like I have to come in and Ihave to love my people.
I have to.
So they have to feel that Ireally want good stuff for them
and that I'm there from thatsupportive place, not so much
that driver like you got to, yougot to do this.
A lot of, a lot of these peoplehad dads that did it.
They they don't need anotherone, you know.
So so, uh, yeah, it's a.
(28:15):
That's that's the basics of it,jim.
Is is a different energy andculture.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Um, yeah, it makes me think of the analogy of the
thermostat.
Have you heard that Like, oryou know, like, everyone has a
thermostat, or or they're set toa certain level and you and you
have to do things to reset that, and it sounds like that's.
It sounds like that's what you,what, what you're, what
re-energized you as saying man,let's turn up the thermostat on
(28:45):
our business.
I I'm going to make anassumption here that that there
was a, there was a, that you hadto turn up your thermostat
yourself to realize that and tosee it and to be able to, like
you said, systematically executethat.
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
What has that journey been like?
Yeah, this is one of those.
Like we mentioned at the tophere, this is one of those
things that was kind of justbrought to me by life.
On a personal level, I wentthrough something difficult
about a year ago that just cameinto my world and jacked me up
real good and it was painfulenough to really bring me to my
knees in a lot of ways, bring meto my knees in a lot of ways,
(29:34):
and so through that process Istarted reaching out for aid,
really just to relieve myselffrom the pain of the ordeal, and
that looked like therapy and itlooked like I went on some
psychedelic assisted therapysessions.
That was very, very influentialand impactful in my journey, one
of the bigger forks in the road, because it opened me up in a
(29:55):
lot of ways to see thingsdifferently, to have more
compassion.
So, you know, I've also found afew other tools along the way,
breathwork being one of them,and all of these things have
helped me to relax a lot fromthat you know where I come from
of just driving and pushing andgrinding to a place of relaxing
(30:19):
and allowing and releasing a lotof resistance.
You know that it's, it's justlife's journey, life's life's
lesson brought to me and needingto overcome it past the test
personally, and then that stuffbleeds into the organization.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So did the personal experience happen first, and
then you went in and worked onyour healing from that, and then
you went now with these, withthese new tools that I have now
I could go back into thebusiness, or did you?
Is that, is that the path, thatit was?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, that was, that was the flow.
Yeah, yeah, because it providedan awakening, within my
business as well, on how I couldbe.
You know, like those thingsprovide a lot of humility too,
and I can look at myself andreally, really like I didn't
want to, I didn't want to hearthat I wasn't a great leader.
I wanted to.
I wanted it to be otherpeople's faults why they just
(31:18):
weren't doing what what I askedthem to do.
And you know, I brought, we had, we had someone, someone that
had some interest in our company, recently coming from out of
state, and they came to sit withus and talk to us and I watched
how this individual broke downthese personal relationships
with leaders, how they managedand all of that, and that
revealed to me also just some ofmy deficiencies there.
(31:41):
And so, yeah, the humility,openness and the relaxing of the
whole thing gave way to my ownevolution, which helps me to
bring that into the company.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
What?
What were some of theleadership deficiencies that you
realized, that I would assume alot of us encounter?
What were some of those ones?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, the first one is just how I issued directives,
that whole coaching thing thatworks really well on a football
field baseball diamond, and Iwas trying to make that work in
the business and I was trying tohave the world adapt to the one
skill set that I have, whichwas easy, and you could say that
I just didn't want to do thework to learn how to do it a
(32:30):
different way.
But the way that I, you know,like if a manager comes in to my
office and I want somethingdone, I would just say the thing
that I wanted done, I wouldprobably follow it up in writing
so that it was documented.
But then when it doesn't getdone, I get frustrated.
I'm like did we not discussthis?
Was I not clear enough in mydirective?
(32:53):
That was my whole approach.
Yeah, and after it just doesn'twork plenty of times.
Well, maybe I'm the problem.
For certain individuals it doeswork.
There are a couple managers Ihave and it's interesting that
these guys also played sportsfor very competitive
environments and that tends towork a little bit better there,
(33:16):
but not for everyone.
So now what I'm trying to do isthe whole frame changed for me
Now, instead of like how can Iget this done?
It's like how can I be on yourteam to help you move to where
you want to go personally?
We know that all is going tohelp the company, but coming
from that place of support andthen there's all of like the
(33:37):
science of this, like the waysto ask questions and to get
committal commitments frompeople, and all of that Like
there's a part of me that justdidn't enjoy that.
So I would just cut to the chase.
Like I have someone, someone inmy office, had someone in my
office like a year ago and I waslike look, dude, you know that
we shoot each other straight andand I don't beat around the
bush with things and look,you're just this.
(34:00):
This person's a salesperson.
I was like you're not good atsales, you're just not good at
sales.
I'm sorry if that doesn't landwell, but we need to.
We need to just we need to bereal, truthful here and although
people won't be able to saythat I was being dishonest, it's
just not going to get the thingdone.
As well as another approach,and there's probably a part of
(34:23):
me that was tired and didn'twant to spend the time to learn
how to do that.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That's one example Rosalind Vergeson, recently from
Refinery.
She's an HR coach.
If you're not familiar with her, she's in the industry here.
She said well, what if you tella batter you're not hitting the
ball?
Like yeah, I know I'm nothitting the ball.
Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Like I, know I'm striking out.
Yeah, you're not helping me.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You're not helping me , right, like you're not helping
me, you're not giving me that,you're not coming from a
coaching perspective.
It's that maybe it's thetransformation into a coach from
from a boss, Right, like yeah,yeah, you know if that's a good
way to put it.
Like, how did you learn how toask great questions?
(35:05):
Was it certain books?
Was it certain things that youstudied?
Because I think that Boy,that's a skill set right.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm at the beginning of that journey, James, I don't
know, but that is my approach islearning from other people and
finding other information.
So there's, there's a few, likethere's a few people on my
radar to start studying, likeJohn Maxwell is one older, older
guy and been around for a while, but just good principles
(35:35):
around that.
So I've got to go to schoolagain on that front.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
I've been looking at, paying attention a lot to Chris
Voss's stuff.
Never Split the Dipper a masternegotiator but it's amazing the
power in changing a few wordsaround or the order of words or
the question Like I changed thequestion from this to that and
the response that you get.
It's a fascinating.
(36:01):
It's fascinating and it'samazing the people that they say
that great CEO, great CEOs askgreat questions.
I think that's the same withsales people.
I think that's the same withevery position in your company.
If people learn how to askgreat questions, not just are we
providing a great customerexperience, but where are we
(36:23):
failing at the customerexperience and how do we get to
the root cause of that customerexperience?
That all starts with questions,right, Do we have a great
customer experience?
I mean, that's subjective,right?
Like yeah, yeah, we do we havea great customer experience, or
do we have a maybe?
it's do we have a great customerexperience every time.
(36:45):
Maybe not Right.
Then why don't we have a greatcustomer experience every time?
What were the issues that we'refacing in that customer journey
, during those bad customerexperiences, what can we like?
And if you just continue to godown that rabbit hole?
But the questions are man.
Questions are powerful, forsure.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, we just had our meetings with our leaders this
week on kind of a year end wrapup and some goal setting for
next year.
So myself and Nathan, our CEO,we'll meet with our managers and
then they'll do that with eachperson in their division, and
there was a few differentquestions I had this year.
Just from the little bit ofstudying I've done so far, like
you know, how do you feel thatthe year went?
(37:24):
This was one of our goals lastyear.
We didn't quite hit that.
What do you think was in theway of that?
Why do you think that thathappened?
Instead of me, I have all theseideas around why it happened.
What are we wanting to movetowards this next year?
What's in the way of that?
What can we predict that wouldbe in the way of that happening?
(37:44):
What's the biggest obstacle tous sitting here one year from
now saying that that happened?
What are you committed to do inorder to solve this problem?
That's a big one.
That's a new one for me.
Instead of like all right, youwilling to do this, like this is
what is gonna, it's likeletting them come up with the
(38:07):
answers for that.
Giving more autonomy in that isanother thing.
Yeah, yeah, the questions.
And like all of the therapyI've done, my God, I've done so
much therapy this year's unrealman they're, they're all such.
They never give me any answersto anything, but the answers
always come.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
they're always just asking questions answer yes
somehow you get to an answerright, like yeah, what, what?
What an art?
Right, what did you do?
Any like did?
Were you all focused onpersonal therapy around the
things that were happening inyour personal life, or did you
do business performance type ofcoaching in that regard?
(38:47):
What path did you go down there?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
So I've done a little bit of both.
The majority of it was on thepersonal side.
But, man, I'll share one storywith you of one of these
psychedelic assisted therapysessions that bled into business
for me.
So I'm doing psychedelic, mdma,blindfold headphones, seven
hour session.
I'm getting into the heavyearly parts of this thing.
(39:11):
And then I'm thinking about anemployee, a manager of mine, who
I was having some strife with.
We were kind of starting tobutt heads.
The energy wasn't, we were ondifferent wavelengths and I
could see it was becoming anissue.
And I had the previous fewweeks.
Every time I would think aboutthis I wanted to just be like
(39:33):
hey, dude, listen, this ain'tworking.
Like you're going to have tofix your attitude.
Like you're infecting theculture.
It's toxic man, I need you tofix this.
Like I've had enough Because Iwas aggravated by it.
I get into this session whereyou know the way this medicine
works.
The brain slows down, the heartopens up and I'm using the
heart intelligence.
(39:53):
I've been using brainintelligence my whole life, for
the most part, and I'm learningthat the heart, maybe it's even
smarter.
So I get into this session andall of a sudden all of this
compassion comes out for thisindividual, I was like he's in
so much pain and I happen toknow a little bit about this
individual for decades We'veknown each other for like, this
(40:16):
stuff's coming from pain, man,he's hurting, he's not trying to
be an ass, he's not trying tomess something up, he's just
he's dealing with his journey,man.
So it completely flipped.
Within days I'm sitting downwith him in the office and we
have a completely differentconversation, because I come
(40:36):
from a place of compassioninstead of driving him to some
new result, and he opened up andI'm teary eyed and he's teary
eyed.
And that's where progressoccurs, like emotional movement,
when the emotions are stirred.
That's the signature of likesome, some real change,
something that's impactful thatwe don't forget.
So anyway, so some of thispersonal stuff it all you know
(40:59):
it's the business, is a hugepart of who I am, and so all of
that stuff bleeds together.
So I went out to solve a lot ofpersonal problems.
The business stuff benefited aswell.
But then I recently hired acoach that I met at a roofing
conference and I actually hiredhim.
He's working with anotherroofing group to help them grow
(41:20):
and I just connected with thedude and uh, and I left this
conference I was like I don'teven know exactly what this dude
does, but I just got to workwith him Like we were just we
were just vibing together.
And so I reach out to him and hedoes coaching and all this kind
of stuff.
So I do this one-on-one thingpay you know 20 to him and he
does coaching and all this kindof stuff.
So I do this one-on-one thingpay you know 20 grand to pay the
guy to coach me and I think Ithink he's gonna help me not
(41:42):
only with, like pelican roofing,but also with some other have
other real estate endeavors anda few other business things
going on, and then he'sbasically it's basically
spiritual stuff, but it's likeit all, like the business stuff,
is just immediately impacted.
It's like everything just comesfrom within.
You want to change the world,change yourself.
(42:02):
That whole concept.
It's so much more just aboutdoing this stuff, and so that's
one of the cultural initiativesfor our team this next year is
we're leaning very heavy intothe self-development.
I used to stay away from thatbecause I didn't want to impose
my personal beliefs or habitstoo much on other people,
(42:24):
whether it's fitness, physicalfitness, or it's reading, or
it's centering yourself anddealing with the anger from
child or whatever the thing is.
It just felt too imposing.
So I would try to stay awayfrom that and just offer some
some little snippets fromYouTube and I'd give my my
opinions here and there.
But now I'm leaning in.
I'm like thinking about thePatriots.
(42:46):
You don't have.
If you're if you're an NFLplayer, you don't have to play
for them.
But if you do, you, you dothings a certain way.
You're not going to go run yourmouth to the media about your
coach or your other players.
You're going to do the smallthings right every time.
Now, if you don't want to dothat, you can go play for the
Browns or whoever lets you dowhatever you want to do.
But the way we're doing thisbecause we're building an elite
(43:08):
company, these are our standardsand we're going to move our
bodies You're going to feel realuncomfortable in our
organization if you're notmoving your body to make a
better, healthier you.
I don't care if you're 600pounds, but are you interested
in getting to 595?
That's what we're looking forlike progress in all areas of
(43:31):
our life, because I believe ifwe work on that part of us, on
that part of us, then everythingelse blossoms from that.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
It does, and I've had a lot of these conversations
lately.
Terry Gwaltney that wrote abook called Culture Near.
He owns Integrity Roofing andConstruction up in Illinois and
they're in that area integrityroofing and construction up in
(44:00):
illinois and they're in thatarea.
He, like his team, will, youknow, reads like they.
They have books that they haveto read, or you know what I mean
and like things like that, likeand and it's like.
It's that going into the likebeyond what's just showing up
for work and helping peoplebecome better people, right, and
he said one of them that theydo all kinds of stuff finance
and in different things and oneof the guys was like got into
(44:23):
like learning the financialaspects of his life, managing
personal finances, and ended upleaving the company to go work
for like edward jones orsomething like that, because it
they really found his passion init, like how cool, that's
awesome, right, like that youcould be a part of that.
But it's that helping?
(44:45):
We don't think about it, right,we don't think that that's like
something to do at work.
I know, you know, like MillerStorm down in Dallas, some
friends of mine, jay Miller and,and like boy, their team is in
the gym, like they are verycommitted to their personal
fitness and have that, that,that correlation that this is.
(45:06):
This is what leads to successin your, in your work life, is
is having that, you know, havingthis physical fitness in your,
you know in your personal life,and so it's you know you got to
make these, these, thesedecisions, and and boy you know
in your personal life, and soit's you know you got to make
these, these, these decisions,and and boy you'll I mean you'll
find out you know how far youshould go into people's lives,
and but then it also might bethe who should be in your
(45:27):
business, right, because somepeople may not make that that.
That that's a cultural filterto your business at a certain
point in time.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Right, yeah, and if we're going to do good in the
world and do good for our peoplethat work for us, that's one of
the greatest gifts that we canbestow upon them is the
introduction to ways for them tobecome more free and grow.
We were at the Best of SuccessRoofing Conference last week and
(45:57):
we had a free afternoon afterit was over, and so we brought
this guy in from Naples, florida, to come and do this breathwork
session for us, and I was likeman I know there's some people
on my management team like noone else had ever done
breathwork at all but I was likesome of these people are not
going to want to do this at all.
You know no-transcript If theyquit Pelican tomorrow and they
(46:51):
go somewhere else.
I can feel really good abouthelping in that way, and that's
that's important for all of us.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
So yeah, man, it's, it's a, it's a fun journey,
right, george, it's a, it's alike, and that's what it is.
I think you know the, the kindof back to the original kind of
part of the conversation is howdo you get through these ups and
downs?
How do you?
How do you restructure, how doyou reorganize, how do you
(47:19):
re-energize, how do youreinvigorate the team?
How do you do through?
Because, man, there's a lot,there's a, there's, there's a
lot of ups and downs in business.
Right, it's on a, on aday-to-day basis.
There's a lot of ups and downs,and it sounds like you're
stepping back into the businessand saying I'm going to help my
team, from a cultural aspect,really grow and develop.
(47:41):
That's awesome, I think youknow.
And so if you had to giveadvice to someone who was
earlier in their journey,they're starting to hit those,
the limits of their leadership.
They're starting to hit thelimits of their.
They're feeling the thermostat.
They're hitting the thermostatin their company.
(48:01):
What's some advice that youwould give to them?
Speaker 2 (48:05):
You know we're, we're all at different spots and the
only thing to focus on right nowis the thing in front of us.
And so you know you might havesomeone out there that just did
300 K their their first year andthey've got got a very specific
challenge and you've got topass the test that's in front of
you right now.
So you know, if we, if we avoidthose challenges and and try to
(48:27):
just not take that test rightnow, it will inevitably come
back in another form, typicallya little bit louder, maybe more
awkward and harder.
And so there's no escaping thething.
Entrepreneurship is verydifficult.
My words, not so much advice,would be like look man or girl,
(48:47):
I know this is difficult.
I hear you Anybody who tellsyou it's been easy, something's
off, something's missing there.
When me and other CEOs orowners get in the room, we can
go on and on for hours about thedifficulties and how we didn't
know if we were going to makepayroll one time and how we
thought the business was goingto crumble when a major manager
(49:10):
or something left.
Or we didn't know how to hireand when to fire the sales guy
that's bringing in all of therevenue but he's toxic or like
we've all had so many problemsand that's a part of the thing.
But keeping our head down andjust dealing with the challenge
of the day and trying to passthat test is crucially important
.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Awesome man.
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,
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(49:54):
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The website link is in thedescription.
Thanks for listening you.
How do you weather the storm when a hurricane fuels
your growth but leaves arevenue vacuum in its wake?
In this episode, we exploreresilience and reinvention with
George Boudreau, owner ofPelican Roofing, who has
navigated peaks, valleys andeverything in between.
George is the driving forcebehind Pelican Roofing in
Louisiana, with years ofexperience managing both growth
(00:22):
and setbacks.
George's story is a testamentto entrepreneurial grit From
scaling up after hurricanes toredefining his company's vision.
George's journey reveals how tostay motivated, adapt and build
a sustainable business thatthrives under pressure.
Today, we'll uncover strategiesto turn challenges into
(00:44):
opportunities.
Today, we'll uncover strategiesto turn challenges into
opportunities.
Let's dive in with GeorgeBoudreaux.
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.
Welcome back, george Boudreaux.
Man, you got the name of aSouthern gentleman.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Good pronunciation, little French.
And actually is Alain French?
It's not no Okay, because wewould say that looks like a
French name and we wouldn't sayAlain, or however you say it.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Honestly it could be.
Honestly it could be.
My birth father or my adoptivefather is Slovenian, the name is
from Slovenia and one of thethings to know about Slovenia is
, if you've, if yougeographically, if you look at
the boot of Italy, it's touchingthe upper right hand part of
the boot.
So in that region betweenFrance, italy and Turkey that
(01:42):
people have crossed throughthere many, many times Napoleon
came down that way, the RomanEmpire, the Ottoman Empire, the
you know there was a lot of, sothe names probably traveled
through those areas, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, awesome man, good to have you back on.
It's been a while.
Are you on Pelican Roofing downin Lafayette, louisiana?
So you are a Southern gentleman, you don't just have the name
of a Southern gentleman.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You are a Southern gentleman.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
We live it Awesome, man.
Well, we wanted to talk, Iwanted to have you back on,
because last time we were here,I mean we talked a lot about the
ups and downs of the roofingindustry and you guys really
went through this revenue peakand then you came down and of
course didn't come back down tozero, but kind of came back and
(02:34):
hit another level on the waydown in your restructuring and
now have grown it back up and Iwanted to talk a lot about that
with you.
What is it like it back up?
And I wanted to talk a lotabout that with you.
What is it like?
What is the?
What is that journey of thosepeaks and valleys of the
business?
How do you make it through?
How do you reinvent yourbusiness many times along the
(02:55):
way?
So you know, maybe from a kindof from a macro perspective, how
do you, how did you guysreinvent your business?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah well, the short, quick answer is you get forced
to, unless you're going to justdecide to give up.
You know, pain is the teacher,necessity is the mother of
invention.
These quotes stay around for areason.
So you know, most entrepreneursare very resilient people Like
(03:25):
it starts off small and we get.
We get a little.
We develop those calluses anddevelop pain points along the
way.
Just before we went on air, youand I are talking about how
entrepreneurship is one of thequickest and guaranteed paths to
self-development, along withhaving kids.
You're just kind of forced intobecoming better.
(03:45):
So, yeah, it's almost like itwas forced in a way, but yeah,
so it certainly required a lotof resilience.
But I think the reason we'reable to be resilient and climb
back up is because we havesomething that we're chasing.
We all have some reason.
We started the business.
(04:06):
Some of us it's money, some ofus it's freedom of time or
financial freedom, or we need toprove something to somebody.
For a lot of us, a lot of us,our fathers may be still trying
to do that.
So that thing is what kind ofdrives us, I think in the darker
times kind of drives us, Ithink, in the darker times.
(04:28):
And so, yeah, we went.
You know, we had a pretty rapidclimb up from 2017-ish up
through 21, where we weredoubling revenue every year,
from two and a half to five to10, to 21 in 2021.
And on the tail end of thatcycle were some large hurricanes
that aided us in that increasedrevenue.
(04:50):
But then after that, we learnedthe really hard lesson that
many other roofers have learnedabout the vacuum that occurs
post-storm, and I had no ideahow much of a vacuum was going
to be there, but it essentiallysucked out half of our revenue.
But we had built so much, somany good systems and brought in
(05:10):
so many great people that I wasjust holding on for dear life
because I believed every daywell, it's about to change, it's
about to get better, we'regoing to start selling more, and
we worked our butts off andwere able to hang on.
But we had a couple of yearsthere where we were either
losing money or just barelyprofitable and we could have
scaled down and let go of a lotof people and been profitable.
(05:33):
And I knew that every day and Iwrestled with it every day.
I know I've got this manager,this manager and this manager,
and they just don't have a wholelot to manage right now and I
probably should let them go.
But I just kept hanging onthinking, man, the dream is
bigger, we want to do otherthings and these are special
people.
So basically we just put ourheads down and went to work
(05:57):
predominantly in sales, likefiguring out sales, how to sell,
how to develop the bestpresentation, how to have the
right systems, daily systems inplace so that we could start to
generate that revenue again.
But that was that was quite along path.
I mean, that was over a year ofstruggling through that and you
(06:18):
know, in that process posthurricanes 21 going into 22, I
was burnt out and a lot of ourstaff was too from all of that
work and I started reallyreconsidering what I wanted for
the company.
Just personally, like for myday-to-day life, I really wanted
about a $5 million companybecause I knew I could reduce
(06:42):
overhead, be highly profitableand not have a lot of headaches
and then I could go off and dosome other things I was
interested in because I waslosing interest, very frankly,
in the day to day operations ofa roofing company.
I liked what it provided for me, but didn't want to do that
every day, and and so, as I wasapproaching that crossroads, I
(07:04):
knew that our team and our greatpeople needed growth.
Otherwise they were going tobecome apathetic, stagnant, and
the thing would eventually fallapart.
So I was like what am I goingto do?
The company needs to grow.
I don't want to.
I don't have the energy toactually grow this company again
and get it to the next level,and so I started to consider
(07:27):
bringing on a partner as apotential solution for that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That's interesting.
I want to go back to a coupleof things.
First and I think this is acommon challenge that a lot of
entrepreneurs face in theirbusiness is you get to a point
and you kind of lose interest ina lot of things, and it could
happen in a couple of ways.
It could happen from getting toa place of success that you
(07:55):
that path.
I feel like it's like oh well,I got this down, I learned how
to do this.
My mind is I need to move on toanother challenge or something
like that.
But then on the other side ofit is that grind wheel of, like
man, you just can't get thisthing to work the way you want
it to work and it eats away atyou, and it eats away at you,
and it eats away at you.
(08:15):
Which, which losing interestwas?
Was it for you?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, the former, the first you mentioned more.
So, yeah, it was okay.
So I kind of conquered that andI think there was also a part
of me that much of my businesswas built on the back of
insecurity.
I came to realize, you know,kind of on the tail end of those
years I realized that I wastrying to prove to my father
(08:40):
that I was worthy enough and gethis approval, and I was trying
to prove to some of my peerfriends who were successful that
I also could be successful.
And I was trying to also proveto the guy in middle school who
made fun of me, or the person onFacebook who I think may be
doubting my intelligence orsomething, that I could in fact
(09:03):
do it.
So that was.
I was unaware of that for a longtime and then, whenever I
achieved the success, it startedto occur to me.
It was like man, my dadactually always loved me and
didn't need me to be.
You know, my friends don't care, you know, and it doesn't
really matter what anyone elsethinks, so you know.
So I was like so I don't, Idon't, even so, i't have that
(09:23):
driver anymore and it didn'tmatter.
That didn't matter, and I movedinto more of a place of what do
I want to do.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Life is short, yeah crazy man, like it's crazy.
Those, those early think thestories that we make up in our
mind.
But a lot of entrepreneurs havethose stories right.
They have that narrative of.
I'm going to prove that I canright like, I'll show you that's
a man, that's a, that's astrong motivate, that is, it is
(09:51):
fuel yeah I.
I actually actually even heardit one time, george, when we
talked about, you know, kids andkids in business or what bill
you know, kind of create thatpersonal development in yourself
.
That it's that the young adultswho are more motivated a lot of
(10:12):
times come from environmentswhere they need.
They are making up for that orthey're trying to prove that and
it's like, man, do I need toscrew my kids up a little bit?
Do I need right, like, what doI need to do here, george?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And not the same questions over here.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Wow, how can I give them that motivation?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, but I would, I would.
I would add this, jim Like yes,that that works and it's very
effective, yes, that that worksand it's very effective, like
you can really move the needlebecause that that motivation is
so strong and that fire isburning.
But it's, it's one way and I'vealso discovered that there is
(10:57):
another way.
That's right.
Look, I think we're all on ourown journeys and we all have to
go through whatever the things,whatever lessons life is
teaching us, like we all haveour.
As one of my coaches that tellsme, like, when I'm going through
something difficult, like thisis in your curriculum, this is,
this is kind of destined for.
You have to pass this test, youknow like and.
(11:19):
And so I had, I had to gothrough that, that journey.
So I had to go through thatjourney.
But I'm also hoping that mykids can learn some other ways,
with a little more flow and alittle less resistance, to get
to where they want to go.
So I don't know that it'snecessary, but it's certainly a
(11:39):
lot of fuel and I think it wasthe only path for me to get up
to this point.
But I'm no longer trying toleverage those things, although
it is still tempting, like angeris powerful.
Anger is a powerful force thatcan really get some things done,
(11:59):
good or bad.
But I'm in a process in my liferight now where I'm learning a
lot more about releasing that sothat I can be in in complete
flow and I can be an open vesselfor all of the, all of the good
things that you could insertlife, god, the universe,
whatever you like there wants tobestow on me, and so I think
(12:22):
that's the most powerful way toprogress is to be open, because
there's this all loving, allpowerful energy not to get too
spiritual on you guys here, butthat's just my belief, but I
actually believe it is thesharpest tool on the tool belt
to get where we're all trying togo.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, I like that.
You said it's your curriculum.
I was just earlier this morningI was flipping through some
motivational kind of clips andthere was a story.
It was Kenny Smith, the NBAstar.
He was in the NBA.
Now he's a commentator.
I think it was him who wastelling the story that in the
(13:04):
summers one of his roommates wasone of the children in the
Kohler family, as in the likeevery toilet in America, right,
Like you know, plumbing fixturesand things like that, and and
and, if I remember right, heasked him something like well,
why, why are you, what are youdoing here, sleeping on our you
(13:24):
know, in our couch and our youknow what I mean?
Like well, his dad said well,you have to be a plumber first
to work here.
Why didn't your dad just giveyou an executive job?
Well, because you got to youoff camera about leadership and
(13:46):
building that leadership muscleis you can maybe create some of
that curriculum for someoneRight, Like that they don't have
to just be forced into thatcurriculum, like so that's right
.
This.
This person's father said allright, you're going to become a
plumber.
Then you go on and your nextyou know your next class is this
know, your next class is this,then your next class is this,
(14:07):
then your next class is this.
And then you can come into thecompany and be part of the
company and that's the.
You know you will get thecurriculum one way or another.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, you know, what I like about that is, yeah, like
there are people who have beenable to skip through parts of
the curriculum and they havebeen handed that executive job
or whatever it is and, look,things may be easier on them and
they didn't have to strugglethrough it and all of that.
But I also believe that thereis a corresponding sacrifice in
(14:39):
joy as a result of that, and sothe lower you go or the harder a
thing is, the better theexperience on the other side,
the more joy and appreciationand gratitude that we have on
the other side.
So one of my digital mentorsuses this framework of a one to
10 scale, where one being theworst of days or the hardest
(15:02):
experiences and 10 being themost joyful and joyful
experiences and how most peoplelive in the fours, fives and
sixes, and he runs that cycledown.
So one is at the top and 10 isat the top, but in the pit is
four, five and six, which islike mediocrity.
So whenever you're experiencingthe pain or the hardship of a
(15:24):
one, two or three, it allows foryou to have the eights, nines
and tens.
Because we're all comparisonmaking machines.
That's what we do.
We don't know how to not dothat.
We only enjoy the sunlightbecause it rains.
You enjoy the warmth of thefire because you were cold.
You don't go to the fire afteryou've been hot outside.
So that that is a.
That's a framework I like touse, also when I'm going through
(15:48):
something that's hard ordifficult is okay.
Well, I'm going to reallyappreciate this on the other
side so you can skip the test,but you're going to live without
all of like that guy at the topthat skipped the test.
He, he ain't having as much funman no.
He's not going to be as light.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
And they.
Always there's that kind ofstory of, like that second third
generation, let's say, abusiness gets handed down and
that second third generation,they don't execute as well.
In a lot of cases and it's alot of, they didn't get those
ones and twos right, like theydidn't get and and and.
So there's a gap in.
(16:27):
There's a gap not only inknowledge.
There's a gap in that, in the,in the, in the drive.
There's a gap in the, theresilience.
There's a gap in right there.
So the, you know, we and thisis a great conversation to have
for people you know we're goinginto the new year I don't know
if this is going to air in thein queue, probably in quarter
(16:50):
one of 2025.
But coming into the new year,the new year is that
regenerative kind of refresh inyour mind and it's like man,
it's the perspective, right, allof those things that are in
front of you, all of thoseproblems that you're facing,
that's, and if you can look atthem as as part of the
(17:11):
curriculum, like man, I didn'tlike, I man, I really didn't
like.
You know, uh, algebra three inin in college or whatever it was
, or in school, I, I mean, Ireally man, geometry was the
worst, or you know thatliterature class was man, I
hated writing those papers butyou had to get through it, right
, like you had to get through itand get to the other side of it
(17:32):
and looking at those tests.
So in that loss of interest andkind of reevaluation and you
know you guys had peaked, youcame down.
You came down into a valley andyou're like all right, where do
we go from here?
Do we go?
Does this thing go down evenfurther, right?
Do we go back to sea level, orare we going to go up the next
(17:54):
mountain, like which and in thatit sounds like you're you
started or you considered apartnership and now have taken
on a partner in the business.
Let's talk about that a littlebit, because I think that a lot
of times people look atpartnerships as something that
start from the beginning.
It's not something that getsadded into a business.
So how did that come about as apathway to you?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah.
So you know, frankly, I spentthe first year as we went from
$21 million down to $10 millionand did not decrease operational
costs a whole lot.
So that was a painful year andduring that year was one of
these tests for me.
I had no way out and I didn'thave a sales manager for much of
that year.
So I had to step back into thatrole and I had to do a good job
(18:41):
, which meant I had to learn itfrom scratch.
And I had to do a good job,which meant I had to learn it
from scratch.
So I studied and did all I wastaking in everything I could to
try to learn how to be a salesmanager and just learn about
sales.
So that was a test I wanted toskip.
I really, really didn't want todo that, but I just didn't have
optionality.
But during that process it woreme out even more and forced me
(19:04):
to start thinking of other waysout.
And so, you know, eventuallyfound a sales manager.
But I was like dude, what am Ilike?
How am I going to take care ofthis company and take care of
myself?
And you know, I thought aboutselling to private equity at
that point, but they typicallywant you to stay on for a few
(19:24):
years and I was like I don'teven have three years in my.
I can't fathom doing this forthree more years.
And some people may notunderstand how do you run a
company for eight, nine yearsand all of a sudden you just
can't do it anymore?
But my dad raised me and I grewup with this mentality of life
is short.
Let's do the things we reallywant to do.
(19:46):
So after feeling that way for along time and not being able to
explore it, I was veryuncomfortable and agitated.
And you know, actually I spent.
I spent a few days with afriend of mine at his ranch in
Texas and he made a comment andhe said you just need to get a
(20:06):
few smarter people around you.
And so I was like you know what?
I'm just going to go find apartner and I know that I'll
probably leave millions ofdollars on the table by doing
this, by giving up 50% of thecompany.
But you know what?
I may not even get it therewith my energy where it's at
right now.
(20:27):
So I had an ad out for a salesmanager, had just hired a guy
and some guy in my communitycalls and says hey man, I see
you have this.
I'm in oil and gas.
I'm kind of itchy for somethingto invest in and some new
venture, I don't know.
I'm just curious about what youhave going on.
We had done his roof in 2015.
Nightmare of a roof, the wayeverything just drained into the
(20:51):
center of the dang thing but,and so it leaked.
Of course should have nevertaken the job, but did.
And then we went out three,four, five times until we got it
right.
So there was a good impressionleft on him and he saw us in the
community and thought we had agood outfit.
And so he called, we startedtalking and you know I had three
(21:13):
main check boxes.
I had determined, like Iidentified exactly who I needed
in a partner, and that was anumber one.
They had to be intelligent,because I could not, I didn't
have an appetite to teachsomeone for two years.
Number two I wanted to makesure that they cared a lot Like
they.
They would really care for theemployees and the customer, so
(21:33):
that I didn't have to lose sleepat night worrying about that.
And then number three was likea high level of motivation, like
something that was going todrive them during those, if
another dark time comes, likehow are they going to get
through it?
So this guy, nathan, he checkedall those boxes really well.
We spent seven months vettingeach other and then signed
papers in August of 23 for himto buy in at 50% of the company
(21:58):
and since that point he's takenon the role of CEO, basically,
and I've been able to step back.
I initially took a break fromthe company for a few months.
I initially took a break fromthe company for a few months.
First I trained him for aboutsix months and stayed in, but
then after that, in July, I tooka few months and really stepped
out for the most part and thatgave me a nice breather and
(22:21):
refresher.
And then it occurred to me, aswe're moving forward into our
next phase and with our nextgoals, that oh wait, the company
actually needs to step back inand kind of a different role.
This company can use some of my, my talents and energy and
actually have it again to givein another way.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
So it definitely allowed that.
Refresh, right, like, and whatdid you look for in term?
Did like?
I always think of greatpartnerships and having
complimenting skill sets.
Not not not the same skill set.
A lot of times, two sales repswill start a company and they
both know how to sell, but noone knows how to do the rest of
(23:03):
the work.
Right, I always think thatgreat partnerships have have man
, I'm really good at this andyou're really good at that.
Have you guys.
Was that part of the vettingprocess where you're like oh,
man.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, I'm a visionary , you know, and he's an
integrator.
So, yeah, he likes getting intothe legal fine print on things
he can't stand to do it Like canI just go run a marathon
instead of reading those eightpages today?
Yeah, instead of reading that,those eight pages today, yeah,
(23:36):
so, so yeah, he gets into thedetails and likes all of that
stuff, which is which isimportant.
As a CEO, you do have to startto to gain that high level.
But he got in, came tounderstand the details very well
and now he's starting to kindof raise up to that higher level
of just managing KPIs for ourmanagers and letting them run
their divisions.
But we certainly do complimenteach other well there.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, that's awesome.
What was the thing that youfelt you could bring back, Like
what was you know?
You kind of had this man, Ihave a skill set here that I can
bring back to the company, andwhat, what was that?
That?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
that and that energized you to come back to
the and execute on that came torealize that the company is only
going to grow based on, on thebelief systems of the people
growing it.
So we always have a ceiling weall have our ceilings in our
(24:38):
belief systems around what we'recapable of, and that influences
the company in a large way.
And I came to realize that wehad kind of been hitting our
head.
So we went back up to 15, about15 million this year and
revenue is where we'll be, andwe were trying to get to 20 this
year and it occurred to me likethe reason for that and I
(25:02):
realized that as a managementteam we were still limiting
ourselves a whole lot in termsof what we think we can do.
A lot of these managers werethere at two and a half million
and so the things we did to getto five and 10 and then operate
through the storms at 20 are notthe same things that grow a
(25:22):
company organically to 20 or 30million.
You have to step into a nextlevel.
So I have to become a differentperson myself first, and then
our managers do.
So it started occurring to mewhere these blocks were and I
was like man, we're really goingto have to have a shift in our
(25:43):
culture, and by culture I meanthe things that we believe, the
way that we interact with eachother yes, of course, but like
the way we do things, the way wework.
And so not only do we havegoals of getting next year $25
million as the goal in revenueone of our goals, but we have
(26:05):
goals beyond that.
We want to be the very bestroofing company in the United
States.
We want to be the very bestroofing company in the United
States.
The main defining factor thereis the way we do things, like
how the customer feels.
Is the customer experience thebest?
Are they in awe?
Are our employees like I wouldnever want to work anywhere else
(26:27):
?
Are our vendors saying, likedude, I will do anything for
Pelican Roofing because theymake my job easy and they're
pleasant to be around?
Like the community, like thesepeople are wonderful, they're
giving back, like we feel thecare from this company.
And that's our new culturalinitiative and that's what I
felt like needed to be injectedinto the company.
(26:47):
Is this new culture, this newenergy of like dude, we're going
to be the best, we're going tocare the most, we're going to be
so proud of what we're doing.
We know exactly where we'regoing.
It's not just a revenue chase,but we know what we're doing
every day and it matters to us,and so I felt the need to come
(27:09):
back in and drive thatinitiative in a very systematic
way too.
Like I know that I can't justcome in here and talk about that
stuff.
Like there has to be a systemfor how we give, when we give,
how I support our leadershipteam.
I'm a driver by nature.
I look more like probably afootball coach than a CEO in
(27:31):
just the way that I like to lead, the way that I am with my kids
.
I enjoy being coached that wayalso to a large extent.
So it's like hey look, we havethis agreement, go do this,
that's how I would lead.
That doesn't work.
That works at certain levels,you know, but there's like some
fear that's baked into thatstuff and so I'm learning also
(27:52):
as a leader.
Like I have to come in and Ihave to love my people.
I have to.
So they have to feel that Ireally want good stuff for them
and that I'm there from thatsupportive place, not so much
that driver like you got to, yougot to do this.
A lot of, a lot of these peoplehad dads that did it.
They they don't need anotherone, you know.
So so, uh, yeah, it's a.
(28:15):
That's that's the basics of it,jim.
Is is a different energy andculture.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Um, yeah, it makes me think of the analogy of the
thermostat.
Have you heard that Like, oryou know, like, everyone has a
thermostat, or or they're set toa certain level and you and you
have to do things to reset that, and it sounds like that's.
It sounds like that's what you,what, what you're, what
re-energized you as saying man,let's turn up the thermostat on
(28:45):
our business.
I I'm going to make anassumption here that that there
was a, there was a, that you hadto turn up your thermostat
yourself to realize that and tosee it and to be able to, like
you said, systematically executethat.
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
What has that journey been like?
Yeah, this is one of those.
Like we mentioned at the tophere, this is one of those
things that was kind of justbrought to me by life.
On a personal level, I wentthrough something difficult
about a year ago that just cameinto my world and jacked me up
real good and it was painfulenough to really bring me to my
knees in a lot of ways, bring meto my knees in a lot of ways,
(29:34):
and so through that process Istarted reaching out for aid,
really just to relieve myselffrom the pain of the ordeal, and
that looked like therapy and itlooked like I went on some
psychedelic assisted therapysessions.
That was very, very influentialand impactful in my journey, one
of the bigger forks in the road, because it opened me up in a
(29:55):
lot of ways to see thingsdifferently, to have more
compassion.
So, you know, I've also found afew other tools along the way,
breathwork being one of them,and all of these things have
helped me to relax a lot fromthat you know where I come from
of just driving and pushing andgrinding to a place of relaxing
(30:19):
and allowing and releasing a lotof resistance.
You know that it's, it's justlife's journey, life's life's
lesson brought to me and needingto overcome it past the test
personally, and then that stuffbleeds into the organization.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So did the personal experience happen first, and
then you went in and worked onyour healing from that, and then
you went now with these, withthese new tools that I have now
I could go back into thebusiness, or did you?
Is that, is that the path, thatit was?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, that was, that was the flow.
Yeah, yeah, because it providedan awakening, within my
business as well, on how I couldbe.
You know, like those thingsprovide a lot of humility too,
and I can look at myself andreally, really like I didn't
want to, I didn't want to hearthat I wasn't a great leader.
I wanted to.
I wanted it to be otherpeople's faults why they just
(31:18):
weren't doing what what I askedthem to do.
And you know, I brought, we had, we had someone, someone that
had some interest in our company, recently coming from out of
state, and they came to sit withus and talk to us and I watched
how this individual broke downthese personal relationships
with leaders, how they managedand all of that, and that
revealed to me also just some ofmy deficiencies there.
(31:41):
And so, yeah, the humility,openness and the relaxing of the
whole thing gave way to my ownevolution, which helps me to
bring that into the company.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
What?
What were some of theleadership deficiencies that you
realized, that I would assume alot of us encounter?
What were some of those ones?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, the first one is just how I issued directives,
that whole coaching thing thatworks really well on a football
field baseball diamond, and Iwas trying to make that work in
the business and I was trying tohave the world adapt to the one
skill set that I have, whichwas easy, and you could say that
I just didn't want to do thework to learn how to do it a
(32:30):
different way.
But the way that I, you know,like if a manager comes in to my
office and I want somethingdone, I would just say the thing
that I wanted done, I wouldprobably follow it up in writing
so that it was documented.
But then when it doesn't getdone, I get frustrated.
I'm like did we not discussthis?
Was I not clear enough in mydirective?
(32:53):
That was my whole approach.
Yeah, and after it just doesn'twork plenty of times.
Well, maybe I'm the problem.
For certain individuals it doeswork.
There are a couple managers Ihave and it's interesting that
these guys also played sportsfor very competitive
environments and that tends towork a little bit better there,
(33:16):
but not for everyone.
So now what I'm trying to do isthe whole frame changed for me
Now, instead of like how can Iget this done?
It's like how can I be on yourteam to help you move to where
you want to go personally?
We know that all is going tohelp the company, but coming
from that place of support andthen there's all of like the
(33:37):
science of this, like the waysto ask questions and to get
committal commitments frompeople, and all of that Like
there's a part of me that justdidn't enjoy that.
So I would just cut to the chase.
Like I have someone, someone inmy office, had someone in my
office like a year ago and I waslike look, dude, you know that
we shoot each other straight andand I don't beat around the
bush with things and look,you're just this.
(34:00):
This person's a salesperson.
I was like you're not good atsales, you're just not good at
sales.
I'm sorry if that doesn't landwell, but we need to.
We need to just we need to bereal, truthful here and although
people won't be able to saythat I was being dishonest, it's
just not going to get the thingdone.
As well as another approach,and there's probably a part of
(34:23):
me that was tired and didn'twant to spend the time to learn
how to do that.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That's one example Rosalind Vergeson, recently from
Refinery.
She's an HR coach.
If you're not familiar with her, she's in the industry here.
She said well, what if you tella batter you're not hitting the
ball?
Like yeah, I know I'm nothitting the ball.
Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Like I, know I'm striking out.
Yeah, you're not helping me.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You're not helping me , right, like you're not helping
me, you're not giving me that,you're not coming from a
coaching perspective.
It's that maybe it's thetransformation into a coach from
from a boss, Right, like yeah,yeah, you know if that's a good
way to put it.
Like, how did you learn how toask great questions?
(35:05):
Was it certain books?
Was it certain things that youstudied?
Because I think that Boy,that's a skill set right.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
I'm at the beginning of that journey, James, I don't
know, but that is my approach islearning from other people and
finding other information.
So there's, there's a few, likethere's a few people on my
radar to start studying, likeJohn Maxwell is one older, older
guy and been around for a while, but just good principles
(35:35):
around that.
So I've got to go to schoolagain on that front.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
I've been looking at, paying attention a lot to Chris
Voss's stuff.
Never Split the Dipper a masternegotiator but it's amazing the
power in changing a few wordsaround or the order of words or
the question Like I changed thequestion from this to that and
the response that you get.
It's a fascinating.
(36:01):
It's fascinating and it'samazing the people that they say
that great CEO, great CEOs askgreat questions.
I think that's the same withsales people.
I think that's the same withevery position in your company.
If people learn how to askgreat questions, not just are we
providing a great customerexperience, but where are we
(36:23):
failing at the customerexperience and how do we get to
the root cause of that customerexperience?
That all starts with questions,right, Do we have a great
customer experience?
I mean, that's subjective,right?
Like yeah, yeah, we do we havea great customer experience, or
do we have a maybe?
it's do we have a great customerexperience every time.
(36:45):
Maybe not Right.
Then why don't we have a greatcustomer experience every time?
What were the issues that we'refacing in that customer journey
, during those bad customerexperiences, what can we like?
And if you just continue to godown that rabbit hole?
But the questions are man.
Questions are powerful, forsure.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, we just had our meetings with our leaders this
week on kind of a year end wrapup and some goal setting for
next year.
So myself and Nathan, our CEO,we'll meet with our managers and
then they'll do that with eachperson in their division, and
there was a few differentquestions I had this year.
Just from the little bit ofstudying I've done so far, like
you know, how do you feel thatthe year went?
(37:24):
This was one of our goals lastyear.
We didn't quite hit that.
What do you think was in theway of that?
Why do you think that thathappened?
Instead of me, I have all theseideas around why it happened.
What are we wanting to movetowards this next year?
What's in the way of that?
What can we predict that wouldbe in the way of that happening?
(37:44):
What's the biggest obstacle tous sitting here one year from
now saying that that happened?
What are you committed to do inorder to solve this problem?
That's a big one.
That's a new one for me.
Instead of like all right, youwilling to do this, like this is
what is gonna, it's likeletting them come up with the
(38:07):
answers for that.
Giving more autonomy in that isanother thing.
Yeah, yeah, the questions.
And like all of the therapyI've done, my God, I've done so
much therapy this year's unrealman they're, they're all such.
They never give me any answersto anything, but the answers
always come.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
they're always just asking questions answer yes
somehow you get to an answerright, like yeah, what, what?
What an art?
Right, what did you do?
Any like did?
Were you all focused onpersonal therapy around the
things that were happening inyour personal life, or did you
do business performance type ofcoaching in that regard?
(38:47):
What path did you go down there?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
So I've done a little bit of both.
The majority of it was on thepersonal side.
But, man, I'll share one storywith you of one of these
psychedelic assisted therapysessions that bled into business
for me.
So I'm doing psychedelic, mdma,blindfold headphones, seven
hour session.
I'm getting into the heavyearly parts of this thing.
(39:11):
And then I'm thinking about anemployee, a manager of mine, who
I was having some strife with.
We were kind of starting tobutt heads.
The energy wasn't, we were ondifferent wavelengths and I
could see it was becoming anissue.
And I had the previous fewweeks.
Every time I would think aboutthis I wanted to just be like
(39:33):
hey, dude, listen, this ain'tworking.
Like you're going to have tofix your attitude.
Like you're infecting theculture.
It's toxic man, I need you tofix this.
Like I've had enough Because Iwas aggravated by it.
I get into this session whereyou know the way this medicine
works.
The brain slows down, the heartopens up and I'm using the
heart intelligence.
(39:53):
I've been using brainintelligence my whole life, for
the most part, and I'm learningthat the heart, maybe it's even
smarter.
So I get into this session andall of a sudden all of this
compassion comes out for thisindividual, I was like he's in
so much pain and I happen toknow a little bit about this
individual for decades We'veknown each other for like, this
(40:16):
stuff's coming from pain, man,he's hurting, he's not trying to
be an ass, he's not trying tomess something up, he's just
he's dealing with his journey,man.
So it completely flipped.
Within days I'm sitting downwith him in the office and we
have a completely differentconversation, because I come
(40:36):
from a place of compassioninstead of driving him to some
new result, and he opened up andI'm teary eyed and he's teary
eyed.
And that's where progressoccurs, like emotional movement,
when the emotions are stirred.
That's the signature of likesome, some real change,
something that's impactful thatwe don't forget.
So anyway, so some of thispersonal stuff it all you know
(40:59):
it's the business, is a hugepart of who I am, and so all of
that stuff bleeds together.
So I went out to solve a lot ofpersonal problems.
The business stuff benefited aswell.
But then I recently hired acoach that I met at a roofing
conference and I actually hiredhim.
He's working with anotherroofing group to help them grow
(41:20):
and I just connected with thedude and uh, and I left this
conference I was like I don'teven know exactly what this dude
does, but I just got to workwith him Like we were just we
were just vibing together.
And so I reach out to him and hedoes coaching and all this kind
of stuff.
So I do this one-on-one thingpay you know 20 to him and he
does coaching and all this kindof stuff.
So I do this one-on-one thingpay you know 20 grand to pay the
guy to coach me and I think Ithink he's gonna help me not
(41:42):
only with, like pelican roofing,but also with some other have
other real estate endeavors anda few other business things
going on, and then he'sbasically it's basically
spiritual stuff, but it's likeit all, like the business stuff,
is just immediately impacted.
It's like everything just comesfrom within.
You want to change the world,change yourself.
(42:02):
That whole concept.
It's so much more just aboutdoing this stuff, and so that's
one of the cultural initiativesfor our team this next year is
we're leaning very heavy intothe self-development.
I used to stay away from thatbecause I didn't want to impose
my personal beliefs or habitstoo much on other people,
(42:24):
whether it's fitness, physicalfitness, or it's reading, or
it's centering yourself anddealing with the anger from
child or whatever the thing is.
It just felt too imposing.
So I would try to stay awayfrom that and just offer some
some little snippets fromYouTube and I'd give my my
opinions here and there.
But now I'm leaning in.
I'm like thinking about thePatriots.
(42:46):
You don't have.
If you're if you're an NFLplayer, you don't have to play
for them.
But if you do, you, you dothings a certain way.
You're not going to go run yourmouth to the media about your
coach or your other players.
You're going to do the smallthings right every time.
Now, if you don't want to dothat, you can go play for the
Browns or whoever lets you dowhatever you want to do.
But the way we're doing thisbecause we're building an elite
(43:08):
company, these are our standardsand we're going to move our
bodies You're going to feel realuncomfortable in our
organization if you're notmoving your body to make a
better, healthier you.
I don't care if you're 600pounds, but are you interested
in getting to 595?
That's what we're looking forlike progress in all areas of
(43:31):
our life, because I believe ifwe work on that part of us, on
that part of us, then everythingelse blossoms from that.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
It does, and I've had a lot of these conversations
lately.
Terry Gwaltney that wrote abook called Culture Near.
He owns Integrity Roofing andConstruction up in Illinois and
they're in that area integrityroofing and construction up in
(44:00):
illinois and they're in thatarea.
He, like his team, will, youknow, reads like they.
They have books that they haveto read, or you know what I mean
and like things like that, likeand and it's like.
It's that going into the likebeyond what's just showing up
for work and helping peoplebecome better people, right, and
he said one of them that theydo all kinds of stuff finance
and in different things and oneof the guys was like got into
(44:23):
like learning the financialaspects of his life, managing
personal finances, and ended upleaving the company to go work
for like edward jones orsomething like that, because it
they really found his passion init, like how cool, that's
awesome, right, like that youcould be a part of that.
But it's that helping?
(44:45):
We don't think about it, right,we don't think that that's like
something to do at work.
I know, you know, like MillerStorm down in Dallas, some
friends of mine, jay Miller and,and like boy, their team is in
the gym, like they are verycommitted to their personal
fitness and have that, that,that correlation that this is.
(45:06):
This is what leads to successin your, in your work life, is
is having that, you know, havingthis physical fitness in your,
you know in your personal life,and so it's you know you got to
make these, these, thesedecisions, and and boy you know
in your personal life, and soit's you know you got to make
these, these, these decisions,and and boy you'll I mean you'll
find out you know how far youshould go into people's lives,
and but then it also might bethe who should be in your
(45:27):
business, right, because somepeople may not make that that.
That that's a cultural filterto your business at a certain
point in time.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Right, yeah, and if we're going to do good in the
world and do good for our peoplethat work for us, that's one of
the greatest gifts that we canbestow upon them is the
introduction to ways for them tobecome more free and grow.
We were at the Best of SuccessRoofing Conference last week and
(45:57):
we had a free afternoon afterit was over, and so we brought
this guy in from Naples, florida, to come and do this breathwork
session for us, and I was likeman I know there's some people
on my management team like noone else had ever done
breathwork at all but I was likesome of these people are not
going to want to do this at all.
You know no-transcript If theyquit Pelican tomorrow and they
(46:51):
go somewhere else.
I can feel really good abouthelping in that way, and that's
that's important for all of us.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
So yeah, man, it's, it's a, it's a fun journey,
right, george, it's a, it's alike, and that's what it is.
I think you know the, the kindof back to the original kind of
part of the conversation is howdo you get through these ups and
downs?
How do you?
How do you restructure, how doyou reorganize, how do you
(47:19):
re-energize, how do youreinvigorate the team?
How do you do through?
Because, man, there's a lot,there's a, there's, there's a
lot of ups and downs in business.
Right, it's on a, on aday-to-day basis.
There's a lot of ups and downs,and it sounds like you're
stepping back into the businessand saying I'm going to help my
team, from a cultural aspect,really grow and develop.
(47:41):
That's awesome, I think youknow.
And so if you had to giveadvice to someone who was
earlier in their journey,they're starting to hit those,
the limits of their leadership.
They're starting to hit thelimits of their.
They're feeling the thermostat.
They're hitting the thermostatin their company.
(48:01):
What's some advice that youwould give to them?
Speaker 2 (48:05):
You know we're, we're all at different spots and the
only thing to focus on right nowis the thing in front of us.
And so you know you might havesomeone out there that just did
300 K their their first year andthey've got got a very specific
challenge and you've got topass the test that's in front of
you right now.
So you know, if we, if we avoidthose challenges and and try to
(48:27):
just not take that test rightnow, it will inevitably come
back in another form, typicallya little bit louder, maybe more
awkward and harder.
And so there's no escaping thething.
Entrepreneurship is verydifficult.
My words, not so much advice,would be like look man or girl,
(48:47):
I know this is difficult.
I hear you Anybody who tellsyou it's been easy, something's
off, something's missing there.
When me and other CEOs orowners get in the room, we can
go on and on for hours about thedifficulties and how we didn't
know if we were going to makepayroll one time and how we
thought the business was goingto crumble when a major manager
(49:10):
or something left.
Or we didn't know how to hireand when to fire the sales guy
that's bringing in all of therevenue but he's toxic or like
we've all had so many problemsand that's a part of the thing.
But keeping our head down andjust dealing with the challenge
of the day and trying to passthat test is crucially important
.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Awesome man.
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,
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(49:54):
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