¶ Introduction and Background
What does it take to go from being a second-generation roofer hesitant to join the roofing industry to building a company ranked as one of the top roofing businesses in Pasadena , california , all in just three years ?
In this episode of the Roofing Success Podcast , we sit down with David Reyes , owner of Green Ladder Roofing , to uncover the secrets behind his rapid success . From leveraging grassroots branding to mastering social media and streamlining operations , david shares how he turned every challenge into a thriving business model . David's journey is one of resilience and ingenuity .
A former political science major turned roofing entrepreneur , he's combined his deep understanding of community engagement with a fresh take on modern branding strategies to carve out a niche in a competitive California roofing market . What sets David apart isn't just his results .
It's his relentless focus on collaboration and his ability to adopt to rapidly changing demands of the roofing industry . Whether it's building trust with homeowners through glowing reviews or navigating the leap from residential to commercial projects , david's insights are both inspiring and actionable .
In today's episode , you'll learn how to brand yourself effectively , overcome common pitfalls from the subcontracting side and create a scalable business model . Let's dive into this dynamic conversation with David Reyes of Green Ladder Roofing . Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast .
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business . David Reyes , with Green Ladder Roofing how are you doing today , man ?
Good , good sir . How about yourself ? How's everything Good man .
I don't get a lot of roofing contractors out of California on the show .
So you know , you're my people , right .
I'm from there , you know what I mean , but there's , I don't know what it is . You know , I guess it's . You know there's . Maybe there's more roofers in the store markets than there are in the retail markets in California and things like that . But man , how's life in Cali Life ?
is good , life is good , I can't complain . Weather is always perfect in the way , but as a roofer , you always want that rain . As a roofer .
That's right . Yeah , well , we should talk about that man Like being a roofing contractor in the , you know , greater Los Angeles area . You know , with good weather most of the time , that must be , you know , a challenge at different periods . How did you let's start with a little bit about how you got into roofing , your company and things like that .
Sure , yeah . So I've been in the industry about 12 years now . I'm a second generation roofer . My dad was a roofer and dragged me into the industry , like everybody gets dragged into it . I worked my way through high school and college and , you know , honestly , I didn't want to be in the industry at all , like everybody .
It's just something that you and out of necessity , out of opportunity the roofing industry does have a lot of opportunity uh , eventually I learned to love it and once , once that just snapped in my head where I like I'm working these summers , I'm working these uh , uh years , I might as well take something out of this and I started being curious and I think
that curiosity opened the doors to listening to podcasts , like roofing podcasts or listening to podcasts like this . That kind of was the gateway to the behind the scenes .
Because when you're like so focused on just the roof work , you you get sort of like I don't know , you feel claustrophobic seeing like you feel like you're like so focused on just the roof work , you get sort of like I don't know , you feel claustrophobic , you feel like you're not going to go anywhere , that you're just another guy working on the roof and so
seeing the back end of the industry made me fall in love with the industry .
Yeah , the business side right , Like there's the roofing and then there's the business , right . It really is a much different . And and the business side is where the where I , you know , that opportunity is like , or a lot , you know , the greater opportunity is . So , is that , is that what made you fall in love with it ? What'd you go to school for ?
What'd you go to college for ? And things like that .
I went to school . That's funny . I went to school for business school and I got dropped from business school . Wasn't fit to do business . It was just because it's a test based system . So I tell people like you don't , you don't need to go to college to be successful owner and anything business owner .
So I went to school for business business , ended up settling for political science major . Um , I graduated and I and I actually ended up working in local government . So I ended up , uh , helping a Congress Congressman , um , working in .
I eventually went to my local government and started doing like a council member work , working for council members like kind of like liaison work . But I ended up back into the roofing industry , my , my dad's boss . My dad still works for a different company right now and he's a good man .
He's been treating my dad and my family good for years and he gave me an opportunity to work in the office once I graduated . I did that for a little bit and I ended up parting ways because I had an opportunity to become a project manager somewhere else closer to home . I was tired of that two-hour commute to their office .
Isn't that like three exits down the down , down down the ?
10 . And I've been in the industry ever since . Uh , meeting people like you continues to to tell me I'm in the right place . Um , yeah , man . And so , yeah , I've been trying to get more , more involved in the industry as possible ever since then . Ever , like 10 years ago , I started going to to expos and and all that .
Before they were cool and I feel like now it's like if you're not going to these things and you're not part of the , you're not , you're not part of the movement . Like you got to get involved , you got to get , uh , you know , have a collaboration like this . And it's funny you mentioned that you haven't talked to a lot of California roofers .
For some reason , I feel like California roofers a little bit more distant from each other . They don't like to talk to anybody . I ended up going to a couple of other expos and conferences near Florida , near , like closer to your guys' end over there and they're so open to collaboration .
They're so open to sitting down and like talking shop or talking about softwares they're using , and I was like roofers on that end are much more tech savvy and they're more willing to collaborate . So I can see why it's such a big difference in in business structure , are you ?
why do you ? Why do you think that is what's the ? Because cali's the , like you know that's the tech hub , right , like I mean especially northern california , like what's the ? What do you think the disconnect is ?
I think it might be the out here it's the scarcity of work . Scarcity of work , so people don't want to talk their their , their tips and trades secrets , because out here it's like you have to brand yourself before you can even get work . I feel like I don't know the store model too much , but out there it's like there's so much work .
You , you , it's whoever gets there first and makes that first connection . So I felt like it might be a little different . Out there you guys have to mass produce , track it and then properly collect .
Out here it's like you have to brand yourself first , like you're not going to compete If you're not Googleable , if you're not on Google , if you're not rated at least you know four stars or above , if you don't have an Instagram .
It becomes that mindset of like contractors are sketchy , so you need to be , have a presence , have that pulse in the internet , and so Cali roofing is like you have to have brand behind it .
How do you , how did you go about going about branding first , what was your philosophy , what were the steps you took along that route ?
So , we definitely focused on our local city first , like we grassrooted in our city we got involved with like chamber of commerce , we got involved with like community service . We connected with a lot of other business owners , different industries , but also maybe some people that can be service partners to us .
So like storm restoration people that need to do the interior work they need the roof done first because that was the first cause . So they need us as much as we need them and we kind of repurpose clients , we share clients , we make sure they're all taken care of . So it was that word of mouth that was the beginning base for us .
I think as of last year it was like 65% referral base . All our leads were 65% referrals . It gets to a certain point where you do have to start advertising a little bit more , but it was only after the brand was cemented .
Uh , I have like a theory was like if you spend money on ads , um , without a backing of brands , they're gonna go back to your profile and be like , okay , this person has one post . No , I think it might be scammy .
So you still have to run first before you start scaling with ads and marketing yeah , yeah , there's your online visibility and the things that the way that you look online has a big impact . Hey , you should use this company .
Okay , cool , so let me search up Green Ladder online , yeah , and if I , oh man , that website looks like it was built in you know 1983 . Like , what's going on here ? How come there's no phone number on it ? Like , what are you doing ? Or maybe they don't even exist online . And so that's a great advice for people is to build that foundation .
The other thing I love there is that where I think there's a gap for a lot of contractors starting out in building relationships first , and it's like people want to rely on . I don't know what it is , Maybe it's a fear thing where you don't want to tell you're not sure about your business or what you can .
You know how , how well you can , you know what well you can execute on your business . That's why you don't tell your friends , your family , your neighbors , your , your , you know the go to these business meetings , go to these meetups . But , man , I think that's a core foundation that anyone can use . And and how much did it cost you startup ?
Yeah , like , well , like all that , all those like meeting people and telling people .
The branding was it's free , like you can go out there and talk , and that's that's free .
You can stand at the corner of the street and yell like , babe , this is who I , who I am , it's free , like that's free advertising , you're not spending money somewhere , um , before your brand is cemented , so it's just going out there and just meeting people , making that connection .
Um , I used to say that , uh , I was like I'm not a salesperson , I'm just , I'm just a roofer and I'm just , uh , and so like every time when I would go out and do roofs , like I would just talk about our story and like I would get so in detail with like information , like just information to the client and that would ultimately sell the job , it wasn't ,
it wasn't because I was a pushy salesperson , it was just I was genuine about the information I wanted to teach them and they kind of resorted to that . Eventually , I realized that I was never asking for the clothes sometimes , so that's why I was losing some jobs . So I had to realize , like , as an owner or as anybody , you're a salesperson , regardless .
There's different connotations to sales people but you , as a person branding yourself , you're a salesperson . You need to sell your brand . There's no other alternative to that Branding yourself . You're a salesperson . You need to sell your brand . There's no other alternative to that . And so when I quickly realized I have to .
This is selling , like you and I we're talking , we're convincing each other that we're good people , our brand behind is also good .
Yeah , and that's , but you got to ask for the close . But what , what ? I think there's a , there's a . The part of it is that people don't don't go into it as a learning experience .
Yeah .
Like , if you , you know and go , man , I went on . I went on 10 appointments and I and I sat down with 10 homeowners and now what ? How come I didn't close as many as I thought I should ? That's right . Yeah , what happened there ? Like , oh , I forgot to even ask them if they would do business with me . Right , like you can analyze the game tape .
Right , like you can figure out what you've been doing , what you did wrong . The game tape . Right , like you can figure out what you've been doing , what you did wrong , and
¶ David Reyes: A Second
and it's the continuous iteration of that and getting better over and over , day after day that that really leads to success and with people , man , and I think that's where people get lost because , um , like you said , that was a keyword the gate , the game tape but the thing is that people don't know how to monitor the game tape .
They don't know how to get the game tape even captured . And when I first started off , I was just going based off feeling like , oh , this is how I felt at this employment , maybe I should do this next time . But if you start monitoring with like KPIs and just monitoring with conversions , you're like , okay , this is what worked , let's stick to this .
Besides emotions Like this is what's working . But some people first starting off it's so hard to measure , because you're just you're just throwing darts and blindly trying to hit something up until you get and you don't know what to measure a lot of times . Right .
Like and , and I always like to say around my household we know that feelings aren't facts . So we , we , we . So we got to get to the facts right , like we got to get to the facts .
And so what are some of those key metrics that that you've learned to measure along the way and it it could , it could be in the sales process , through production , anything like what ? What are some of the key metrics that ?
you're like , man , I'm glad I I'm we're measuring this now and it's helped us so I think some of the most important stuff is on the front end , where it's like we get a phone call , how long does that phone ring for before someone picks up ? And if , if someone does pick up , like what , what are they saying and how ?
From that call , how many get booked for an inspection ? Because we were realizing we're spending so much money on ads . Eventually we're like we're , we're not getting as many appointments . So what's going on ? Is it ? Is it the quality of the leads ?
Or is it kind of answering the phone properly and asking them like , hey , these are the days we have available , cause sometimes people are like , oh , we don't have that available , I'll call you back later . So maybe you just gotta be a little bit like , was there anything else we can do ? Like how about Wednesday ? We can be flexible this day .
So measuring leads to book inspections . That was like a big game changer for us . Then we got to go into like the booked inspections to how many proposals did we get out in time ? Because another rule of thumb now is like there's so much information out there , so many roofers in Cali .
It's like if you wait two , three days , they're gone , like they're they're with someone else already , and so it's like , how fast did we get these proposals out in the beginning ? And if we even got them out because everything happens when I was first starting off , you'd be so busy that man , I didn't .
I didn't send that proposal out like I I completely forgot . And I'll be serious , I'll be honest about it . It's just a part of life and part of scaling sometimes .
Sometimes things start to drop , but that's where you have to be able to measure and be like okay , this is where , this is where the leaks happening as a roof , metaphorically , and then as as a business owner like this is where the leaks happen . We have to patch this up or get a new roof , a new system on there .
And that allows you , like just knowing , and sometimes you don't know what the right number should be , right , so maybe , on that , how many appointments got booked from these phone calls ? Right , like , I encourage people , in the beginning you won't know what that's supposed to be . That's right . Right , make a guess , and I think we should .
I think 50% of the people that call in , we , we book an appointment on yeah , and and we're . And now and now you have something to measure against . And all of a sudden you're like , oh man , it seems to be like more like 70% . Cool , we adjust our metric and now we're measuring off of that . Right , that's right , that's right .
And with proposals out , that's a good , that's a very it's . So you have speed to lead . But then that speed to estimate is probably another very important factor in the decision-making process . I could see that from a homeowner perspective . Man , if I'm sitting around wondering , you know , man , did David send us that , yet Did we get that ?
Hey , honey , did we get that proposal from David yet ? Right , like , if that , if that's happening , you know , like you're , you're losing trust with that homeowner , and so , and then , as you start to not just be the only salesperson in your company . Now you have something to measure against . What , what , what are you guys shooting for in in time ?
How fast are you trying to get that in the hands of the are like converters , so I'll even start from the call , so the call .
We try not to let the call , the phone , ring more than twice . So first you know respond , second ring uh . From there on we try to . We try to schedule an inspection within uh 72 hours . Sometimes our busy schedule gets busy . Okay , they can be a little bit flexible . The proposals were what's the most important .
We try to get that out within uh 48 hours , no more , because after that they lose , they lose interest or they go with someone else like yeah , it's , it's getting , it's getting pretty . There's a lot of technology out there for software . For software uh proposal you should be able to get it out faster .
Honestly , like to be honest with you with the , with the new estimating software , depending on what crms you're using , and things like that . But that's right . But uh , yeah , if you , if you properly pre-load a lot of things into your estimating software , you could get a man . You could turn these things out really really that's right .
Like right now we were pushing hard on job numbers and they were amazing . Like with the sumo quote integration . They can that's right turn them out like yeah , you can sumo quote .
You're able to to do estimates very quickly you can turn them out easily and I think that gap between the old school and the new school is hurting a lot of the old school roofing .
What do you think the difference is ? Because , like the company your father works for , it sounds like they've been around for a long time and your father's worked for him for a long time . What differences do you see between the old school ?
and the new school Huge difference . So I very a lot of variables . So they're , they have no , they have no crm , they it's just all , just servers and files . So drag and drop and it's still like uh , to make a picture report you have to uh crop and putting into like a microsoft , like copy paste kind of thing it takes .
When I was there , man , it's still there , because I asked some people that still work there . It took me like 30 minutes to an hour to make one inspection report Like it was just . It was ridiculous . But the thing is that they're having they have a different clientele base . They wouldn't enter in the residential base clients .
They're very commercial , they're industrial . They work with a lot of consultants . So a lot of the work is very old school work , where it's like a close knit of like people who trust each other already and it's like very basic specs and it's just . They focus on two manufacturers only yeah , that's it , and it's all flat roofs only .
So they specialize so much to the point where they don't maybe don't need all these fancy processes but they also don't measure anything . So they've been very successful , but it's solely based on just , I think , specializing and being just focused in the in the industry for such a long time . Nowadays it's a little bit different , and especially residential residential .
You need speed , you need efficiency . Every , every like . If you miss a box of nails can slow down the whole project , so little things need to be addressed .
How have you looked at specialization ? I think we talked about this when we chatted , but I think , like , how have you looked at specializing from a residential standpoint ? It sounds to me like it was kind of a location-based specialization . Was that ? Was that a thought process for you ? Or like hey , I want to .
Like our specialization is Pasadena Like we're going to , we're going to , everyone in Pasadena is going to . They're going to know that we are the best roofing contractor to use for residential . Yeah , where , like the company your father works for , it's like hey , if you own an industrial building , this is who you should call . Did you put any thought into that ?
Or I did .
I put a lot of thought into it because , like I didn't want to go against the currents , I didn't want to go against like the big forces against me . So in my area it's near LA , so traffic is horrible , so I didn't want to take on jobs that are two hours away from me because to do four inspections .
I wouldn't be able to get to four inspections because all the traffic if I was going to all these different cities . So in Pasadena we're able to knock out like four or five inspections in one day and still have time to do other things because we're so close to each other . So one thing was localization , like making sure we're local and grassrooted there .
The other thing was like , are we doing commercial , are we doing residential ? And I came from a commercial background . I've been doing that for most of my career . But
¶ Grassroots Branding and Community Engagement
as a small startup I'm like , okay , the cash flow is going to be an issue . Uh , I don't have , we don't have the money for that big of an insurance general liability with umbrella coverage yet . Like , okay , so we have to start off where we have something that's turned around pretty quickly cash flowing . So residential was a space for us .
We want to get into commercial , but I think there's levels to it . You can't just jump straight into commercial even though you know the work . You have to forecast yourself a little bit .
Like they have different net terms , like they have um , I don't know much larger job materials you need , so the supplier might not give you all that credit yet , things like that . It's , that's what we thought .
Traffic , I think . And then traffic is like like that's something to think about a major metropolitan markets anywhere , right , like it's like , oh , how long does it take ? Like if you're , you know it doesn't matter if you're in Miami or in Dallas or or , or in the LA area . Like it's , it could be an hour to drive three miles . Like we're talking about .
Right , like it's , it's crazy so . So that's a good that that local focus helps . I love I want to explore this conversation about residential to commercial a little bit and I love what your mindset on it be in in because it's it's like I don't know what it feels like .
What you're saying is you , you're , you're trying to earn your stripes going down that route , right , like it's . Like you're not trying to just say we're , we're pros , we could take it on . It's more . Hey , I know we got to do this . Then we have to take on a little more than we could take on . A little more than we could take on a little more .
It's like you're , you're , you're proving yourself . You know you could do the work , you've done the work in the past , but it's like you're proving yourself to the suppliers . You're proving yourself to the market . You're proving there's probably infrastructure and people that you need on your team . That's right to to be doing those projects .
How are you thinking about that ?
yeah , so it this commercial structure and residential structure very different . So , like when I , when I first started , I mean the only thing when you're thinking about is just money , like cat , like being being having money to survive .
It's not even money to spend , it's money to survive , like money to pay your guys , money to pay the bills , keep the lights on . So the the focus was like cash flow , that's the biggest thing . But then , once I started looking at the structure of it , I was like we don't have all the machinery for commercial .
Uh , we don't have any professional looking trucks for commercial , we don't have logos , and so I didn't . I didn't want to take on clients and then let them down . So I wanted to .
I wanted to focus on , you know , chewing a little bit at a time , like you said , like building up that kind of like that muscle memory , like making sure we're we're strong enough to to focus on these big jobs . Because , yeah , if you stretch too fast you're going to snap like a rubber band . And I didn't want . It's like you said . You said it perfectly .
I wanted to earn my stripes , even though if you ask a commercial person , hey , would you do residential ? They would say no , that's too hard and then because the aesthetics of it dealing with a customer , that customer service very different , different , commercial . But if you ask a residential , hey , can you ?
Commercial it'd be like might be too hard , it's too big , and so it's like there's this gap where like , oh , we just don't know how to do the other . That's why it seems hard .
But when I really look at it , when , when I structure everything , commercial is easier to produce , but it's , yeah , residential is easier to sell , but each one has its own , you know , cons to it which is residential , your customer service has to be on point or else your brand will burn out .
So it goes back to branding and customer service needs to be everyone's always answering the phone calls , answering any minor thing that a customer wants fixed . You got to go do it . It's not , it's no , no , fighting back on it . Like at the end of the day , it's their house and they look at it every day . And but commercial ?
I definitely want to get back into more of the commercial realm . I like , I like that environment . It's a B2B environment where you're talking to professionals that know what you're talking about already and they're able to understand why the system you're using is a system that's the best for them , opposed to thinking emotionally . Again .
It goes back to presidential , is very emotional , like this is my first house ever and I want this color and they're like but this is my budget and I'm like , okay , we'll see what we can do here .
That's right . There is much more emotion in uh , in residential , for sure , Uh versus commercial , Um , you said that .
I remember when we were talking I think it was last week or whatever you said that you started off your first work , your first year , and you're like , man , I'm going to go after sub work Because , again , and it's of that mindset , and I think this is every startup mindset is we need money .
Yeah .
Right , we need cash in the door . Talk about that experience a little bit .
Yeah , we need cash in the door . Talk about that experience a little bit . Yeah . So the first year we ended up doing a big amount . I think for a first year we ended up doing about $2.8 million the first year . And every conference I would go to people would be like that's amazing , you're killing it . But I was like , am I really ?
And it wasn't until the end of the year that I realized that was not a good year . It was good on paper but our focus was on getting revenue in and we decided to go down the subcontracting route for big commercial buildings again . So we kind of were getting some at bat , which was good , but the margins weren't the best .
There's not the best margins as a subcontractor in California if you don't properly negotiate it right Like if you do negotiate it right , there's definitely win-wins for everybody . But we were just taking on . We were eager , we were hungry and we were taking on .
We were eating a little bit too much that we needed to and then had a little bit of a repercussion , you know . Uh , so it was just that eagerness and I realized this model is not going to work . We have to brand ourselves the more . The more you sub for somebody , the less you .
You buy from suppliers because they're buying on their account so you're not building that reputation with supplier . The more you work for somebody else , the less you can wear your logo and be around people that can see you . You can't put a wrap on your truck . If you're being a sub , you have to respect the brand of the person you're working with .
So you have to understand that game too . You can't be a sub that wants to like oh , I want to , I want to brand myself within this like this community , no , like you're working for somebody , be respectful for that person . And that's what we were .
But I realized like eventually we want to stand on our own two feet and , uh , we , we started shifting a little bit more back into the again to residential , because we saw the barrier to entry there was easier , it's harder to maintain because it's constant selling constant , you know , without rain and it's constant selling somehow .
But yeah , that's where we were at . Now I think we've cemented ourselves . I think we're ranked number one or two in Pasadena now , and that in just in just a year technically , because a year before it was just all subbing out for commercial .
Yeah , I think and that's a great filter , Like some things that I heard there is like that . The first thing is , it's the old adage what is it ?
Revenue is vanity profit is sanity right Like that's the first thing that made me think of man is like you know you go and you , you know you .
Like you said , you went to this show and you're chatting with someone and they're like oh yeah , how much . Where are you at ? Oh , we're in our first year . We did 2.8 .
And they're like oh wow man great job .
And then you get you know , and then you look at your bank account at the end of the year and you're like , oh well , there's nothing left , right it's the those top line numbers don't matter , they don't . There's people out there doing you know , you know 100 million and not making any money . You know , like you know .
So that that that's the , the path there , that's the path there . Other things I heard were around what I would think of as opportunity cost .
For people that don't understand the concept of opportunity cost , it's like you're trading something you're doing today for something that could have been done , and so what you had said was like well , we weren't wearing our brand , our brand , I didn't have my wrapped truck in front of that house , so you're sacrificing yeah , in a way , right , you're sacrificing future
business . You're sacrificing your , your company , or for for that quick buck now and and there's always an opportunity cost when you , you know , in everything that you do , there's an opportunity cost in hiring . There's an opportunity cost in marketing . There's an opportunity cost in in in an office or not getting an office .
There's an opportunity cost of getting some new equipment or buying an equipped . That that you said . Man , I can't sacrifice the , the , the long term vision that I have for the for the short term money . Yeah , and you know that that sounds like what is what happened .
Absolutely . And it's scary because you're like how can I let go of this without
¶ Transitioning from Residential to Commercial
the unknown not knowing here ? You're like how can I let go of this without the unknown not knowing here ? And the real answer is you don't . The real answer is you work both at the same time . Yeah , you're working commercial and you have your guys working . Okay , cool , they're getting paid , we're good .
Now I'm out here after hours trying to work on my website . Now I'm after hours trying to work on my Google page . I'm after hours collecting pictures , after hours making sumo quote , uh templates . Like the real answer is you don't just magically stop one thing and do the other thing . And the answer is you , you grab and you put in the work to do both .
For now you know like there's a like .
I know this is roofing isn't a nine-to-five job specifically , but there's this like . I heard someone talk about this recently . I think it was Dan Antonelli who wrote Buy Back your Time a great book . If anyone wants , I highly recommend reading that . But he talked about you have . Most people have they work nine-to-five .
Most people work nine-to-five but they forget that they have five to nine and five to nine , so you can get up at five and work until nine . On the other things you work your eight hours on your thing and then you have another five to nine that you have an opportunity to work on .
That's right and of course , challenges if you have family and kids and other obligations and things like that . But if it's how you spend those , the five to nine , that could determine and and I think a lot of times , man , when you're starting out , you need that . You do like man you . You have to out . You need that . You do Like man you have to be .
You can't . It takes a lot . Like you know , I'm here in Minnesota , so you know we're a .
You know it's cold and snowy outside and you could go out and build a snowman but like to get that thing right , you got to get some , you got to roll that snowball , you got to get it and then you get some momentum and then you get this thing rolling and that's right .
But to build that momentum , to get that momentum going , it takes a lot more effort up front . What do you ?
you know yeah , and they it's . It's funny you say that because I have heard that where it's like the hardest thing to a process is to start , like that takes like 75 of process is to start , like that takes like 75% of your energy to start , and then little sacrifices that you don't want to do or that seem a little weird .
That I would do when I first started off was like at the gym , instead of listening to music , I put on a podcast . So like I would encourage people to listen to your podcast .
Like at a gym or on a long ride LA , there was so much traffic Instead of me listening to music all the time , those two hours of commute there and back that I used to do , I would put on a podcast . And back then it was , you know , dade sullivan back then , uh , it was the only person back then .
But now it's like people like you and uh I , I highly encourage people to listen podcasts on their on this time in between their time . It's not . It's not like you can't work on your side or your business because you're eight to five no , like you . Or nine to five you .
You can work in between your lunch break , uh , while driving to work and driving back . That's right , but some people rather pick the comfort of like no , rather , I want to listen to music , or it's my time to rest right now . Well , okay , but okay , but , um , that's .
That's the edge you're going to get over , getting out of the slump or getting out of the . I don't call it a subcontracting trap , because , no , really good work for subcontracting can make a really good living , and they do .
It's just for us , um , it wasn't , it wasn't the route for us , um , and so , uh , yeah , that that's what I encourage people to do , like , just listen to podcasts when you can , yeah little by little momentum builds .
I've heard it put as windshield university right , like you , just go it on podcast , books , yeah , um , all of that type of stuff . Another thing that I've said to a lot of people is what phone calls are you making While you're on that drive , if you have 45 minutes or an hour or whatever you're on that drive ?
Do you have a list of insurance agents that you could call ? Do you have a list of realtors , maybe , that you're trying to develop relationships with Anyone else ? Right , like , spend your . It's how you spend your time . Yeah , that's more important . Absolutely Cool stuff , man , and it really is impactful .
Like you have to put in additional effort in the beginning . Yeah , no one knows you , right ? Like , no one knows you . No one . People don't know what you do . People don't know that you can solve a problem for them . You said one of the things you focused on was getting found online . Let's talk about that a little bit .
Um , yeah , you know , I mean , to me , it's a no brainer , right ? Like , yeah , get found online .
Like , if you don't , if you , to me , if you are not online , you don't exist in the world to me , like you , like , it doesn't even make sense to me that you don't have a website , that you wouldn't have a Google business profile , like that you didn't , that you don't have social media accounts Like to me .
It blows my mind and maybe and I'm not young , I'm not super young , right Like , I'm not , I'm not a millennial , you know , I'm not a Gen Z , right Like , but it's crazy to me .
So that was one of the things that that it sounds like you focused on yeah , I think it was the single most important thing was getting be able to be found online .
It was so hard at the beginning , for me too , because , um , we're engraved in into the in our heads by our parents and by the industry , where it's like don't't be the loud , don't don't be talking loud about what you want to do . Like , just just put your head down and work and just do it .
And so a lot of them , a lot of my mindset was like why am I going to advertise what I do ? Like I know I'm good , like I'm just going to focus on my work and people will just know me .
That's such you know like that's like the old way of thinking and it keeps you small , unfortunately , like I get where the I get , there's , there's positivity in a good place that it comes from . But no , you have to be out there and telling people how good , like by your action , how good you are , but you have to showcase it .
No one's going to come up to your door and knock on your door and be like hey you're , I think you're great at roofing , right , can you do my roof Doesn't happen unless they know you .
And so I had to switch that mindset of like I do have to start posting little by little , instagram , start with posting on Google , linkedin , facebook , and little by little it started kind of flowing it . And like multiplying , like the power of like , multiple like , is it the power of ? I forget what it's called .
It's like from one referral you can get up to three and from that you can get up to nine .
It's like that , that right there it's an exponential growth curve to it right , like it's it , it , it , it multiplies . It's not one plus one equals two , right's a different . It continues to increase and increase .
And that's why I feel like companies that have been around for a long time they don't like a lot of times , they don't feel like they have to market as much because they have that . They have that referral business .
But you only have referral business who , I always say this man , david , is who refers you right , and it's always it's people who you've done good work for .
That's right yeah .
In most cases , right . Of course your cousin's going to refer you and you're , even if you haven't done their house like you know what I mean , but but in most cases , it's people that you've done good work for , so you just need to find more people to do good work for . And then , and that that starts to that starts to build and starts to build .
What were some of the key learnings ? I , I , we were I was talking about this recently with with Joseph Hughes , with contractor dynamics , and we were talking about skill sets . Right , a lot of times , as a contractor , you probably didn't have a skill set to build a website or to do SEO or to be a content creator on social media . You know what .
What did you do to kind of build some of that skill set , to know what , even what to do ?
Yeah , I think you hit it on the on the head when , like when should university with podcasts , youtube university with videos of how to ? But I quickly realized , like you can spend as much time learning at it from from it as much as possible , but you have to actually start doing it .
And then you have to start reaching out to help for people who have done it already , that that you you close the gap on time right there . Like you can spend maybe 10 years trying to master it and maybe you will , but what ? At what cost ?
Like you spend so much time learning it yourself instead of finding a professional , maybe getting some consulting work , maybe hiring them to do it . I always encourage people if you're hiring someone to do a service , learn the service with them . You don't have to master it , but learn to ask the right questions from them .
That way you guys can make sure you guys address it properly , because there's people that might not know the industry as much as you do , but that's where you guys have to team up .
They know the back end of how to plug in things here and there , but you can tell them like , hey , this is what I think most people or homeowners would like here , so definitely reaching out to someone who's done it before .
Were there specific . Did you reach out to like other content creators ? Did you reach out to like an agency agencies ? Did you reach out like who did you reach out to to get more , more knowledge ?
Like did you say , oh man , I got a friend from high school that like crushes it , like who was it that you kind of you know , found those , those connections with ?
So I started off with just my local friends , like something free , like who knows in my circle , immediate circle , how to make a website or who knows about Google pages , and I started asking questions and we got , we got somewhere , we got the momentum going and as soon as I knew a little bit about like , oh , I need a domain first .
I need to buy a domain before you even make a website , then I started asking and I started gravitating towards more of like the website space , and then I was in that space for a little bit and then I learned , like , oh , this guy does really good websites .
And then I started moving to him and then I started learning about a guy making website , not even in the roofing industry , just in general making websites . Yeah , so you start off with your immediate circle and then you get pulled into more information and you go down a little rabbit hole of like , oh , wow , this , these are the questions I need .
And then you go down to another rabbit hole of like finding , wow , this is the guy in the space that's really good at it . Let me , let me start listening to him and you and you do you start listening to him as much as possible . Like listening to you . I know you know you were , uh , marketing , marketing .
Oh man , I remember listening to your , some of your stuff , and I'm like this is the person I need to listen to .
Uh , eventually , you know , sometimes maybe they might not be able to get ahold of you because you're so busy or something , but at least they hear you and they make terms of it Like they , they know the words that are used in that space , so one day they , they might reach out to hire a coach or hire agency , but they know enough not to get screwed over ,
because there's always that's what I feel man is is get to know enough , and that's what joseph and I were talking about the wood joe and I were talking about .
man is like . Like I used I did a lot of residential fix and flips between 2008 and 2013 . And , like , every time I did a project or not every time , but on all of my beginning projects , I GC'd all my own projects .
So , on every project , like to start off with , like , I was doing tile work on one , I was doing plumbing on another , but I only did it because not to become an expert at it , but I just wanted to know what went into it . Man and like , like , how is this made ? Do I ?
How do I know when I hire this drywaller , if they're like , if they're giving , if the bid is is within reason , a reasonable limit , right , like , and then if it's outside of that , I get to ask why .
Yeah .
Right , because I know of that . I get to ask why ? Because I know something I know . Oh man , it doesn't seem like that . Man , really , that's what you want to charge per sheet . That's crazy . You know what I mean . What does that include ? Is that board through texture or is that just hanging the board ?
I get to have a conversation , I get to have an intelligent conversation , so I , you know , always encourage people to do that , one of the things that you also focused on .
I want to actually let's start , let's go , let's let's talk about social media a little bit , because you've developed some traction on social media , sure , yeah , what have been some of the key learnings that you've had in building your social media presence ?
I've learned that you kind of sometimes have to be surface level with things , unfortunately , and kind of have to know your audience . Like you would have to be a little bit clickbaity to get traction . Unfortunately , you have to know the generation . Nowadays it's like , it's very like .
I only have this amount of time in your face and before they swipe you , so you have to capture that hook . Obviously , the hook is important in an email , in a sales pitch , in a social media post .
So I've learned that you do have to change the way you appear sometimes just to make sure you get their attention and then you can give them some good information . And even then you can't go too detailed . Like I love these conversations , we can go into detail about things .
But social media , if we do things like I , have to do very surface level stuff because I want the majority of people to just know enough . I don't want to lose anybody yet .
Explain that a little bit more , like when you're creating a video so I hear hook and surface level , those are the two things . Explain that a little bit more . What's a what's a what like ? Maybe an example of a video you've done recently or something like that .
Well , let me , let me explain a little bit more with the hook . The hook is usually a story and the stories are all true . That's happened to me and these stories I always say are very true and so when I say a story , it kind of gravitates people more because there's a statistics where stories resonate with people .
It's like I heard this this is like if you're , if you're speaking , making a speech , if you make a story within the speech , it's like a 50% or 55% more likely to be remembered , remembered , yeah , wow , yeah .
So when I when I like this talk , I like to talk about my experiences , very genuine place , because I've lived through them and I don't want people to live through those dark times . So it's definitely so . You need a hook , you want a story . You also don't want to lose your audience .
Don't , don't , I don't want to throw around terms of roofing and and make it so people , they , they're like I don't know that word , so they , they skip . It's so weird , like that's just the perception . I do that sometimes too , when I'm reading a book and I'm like , oh , big word , skip , just , yeah , just my brain . Sometimes I don't know , it's just like .
I'm like I have too much in my head already . I don't want to get more information that I don't need , and I just so I I think it's been really important to have all those components , the hook , the story being digestible information .
Keeping it simple , it sounds like , is a good good idea . Yeah .
The other one that's been helping us a lot is collaboration . I think collaboration is a new good idea . Yeah , the other one that's been helping us a lot is collaboration . I think collaboration is a new currency and that a lot of the coaches try to teach us . This collaboration You're introduced to different markets . You're you're using other people's traffic .
At that point You're not spending money on ads , you're not spending money on paying Facebook and Google , although they're amazing . You're . You're you're working with another person who has another list already and you're you're both growing the brand together . You get .
You get some clients that are that that might be attracted to that guy , and then you get some back on some audiences . So using other people's traffic very , very important .
I love that man . Like the collaboration is something that people don't think about a lot . That's a good one . Yeah , what social media channels have you focused on ? Like ? What social , what , what ?
So right now we're doing Instagram , tiktok , youtube , okay , oh , and Facebook . Instagram has been the most , I think , better conversations with people . A little bit professional than more professional than Tik TOK .
Uh , less professional than LinkedIn , but right , that's the sweet spot , because people are still able to be free and express themselves without feeling like they're going to be judged as too much , like on LinkedIn . Um , so Instagram has been a very , very good sweet spot for for branding purposes , like personal branding and then company branding .
Um , we want to lean into the linkedin world more once we get more into the property management , commercial hoa stuff . So we're still posting , but only on the company side there . I don't post on my personal brand . Uh , there too much . Uh . But instagram has been good .
Tiktok has been good for just getting known , but definitely not to make the best connections . Like , I think we met through Instagram and I was like , yeah , awesome , like branding . I don't know how to describe it , but branding has changed the trajectory of our life so , so fast , like in a good way , where people are reaching out , they want to collaborate .
People say , hey , I've seen you this and doing this , like , thank you for sharing this information and I just take it , for I've taken it for granted that the information that I have , that we've been doing for so many years I think other people know it Like it's just a thing , but so it's been a really good experience .
People have came and try to partner up with us . If you can spend some money on something , I would say on branding .
Branding and marketing is the fuel to the business . It's amazing what happens I say it this way , david it's amazing what happens when you put yourself out there . It's just amazing because so few people do so few people take that risk .
Risking their , just risking , you know , people talking funny about them online or something you know , risking having a video that that that people think you know what I mean . Risking other
¶ The Importance of Collaboration and Trust
people's opinions of yourself . Another thing that you guys have done really well and I remember you telling me that you guys really focused on and , man , it's something that I feel everyone needs to focus on and that's reviews . What was your thought process on reviews initially , and then what was the execution ?
How did you get to , you know , 200 plus reviews as quickly as you did ?
Yeah . So the mindset was you have to be Googleable , you have to be found , you have to be able to . Someone can go into Google , put your name in . You get to be found . If not , then you're already sketchy , you're already you're thrown into the bin where all the people that they're they're constantly filtering .
I think we're in a day and age where people have so much power at their fingertips , so much knowledge , that in the fingertips that they can , they can quickly go and try to learn the shingles themselves or learn who the roofer is or what the roofing company is , and so you need to be able to be found and you can .
So you and so you have to stop hiding . At first I wanted to hide who I was , my company , I wanted to work , and so when I first started doing the branding side , you're right , people just talk , they're going to post some stuff out there and people are just going to talk , and that's part of it . You need to be comfortable enough to be found on Google .
The next step was how can I showcase how good we are ? And so there's different metrics on Google that can help you rank higher . Of course , like SEO , constantly posting on Google updates , so posting pictures , posting status updates . So we do that daily , twice a day , post pictures , do statuses .
We also started asking of clients that we worked with in the past that didn't leave us a review . We're like what's the list here ? Like let's go through our CRM , let's print out a list of people that we might not have asked .
We didn't ask for the review , so let's print it out and let's go ask them again and , regardless if they left the review or not , we would send them a gift basket or like an Amazon gift card , just to say thank you for taking time to even consider reading the email , or like reading the postcard .
And then that is weird because even though they wouldn't leave it , they would referrals out . So at least we got something out of it , you know .
And so we try to make it as easy as possible to get a Google review and a Yelp review by doing hyperlinks and and putting into an email campaign or putting it into like a text message easy for them to just click and open .
So it's that removing the friction to being able to do it that allows us to scale so fast , because the execution is one thing which I think a lot of roofers have , but it's like the follow-up . And then how do you follow up , making it easy for them ?
If you tell them , hey , can you just go give , give me a google review , and then they have to go look for your exact name on google . They have to figure out where the google link thing is . Sometimes it's very hidden , to be honest . Sometimes it's hard to find a google review clicking button .
So you have to make it easy for them to just be like yeah , of course , thank you , like , let me do it right now . Um , that's what helped us scale so fast the frictionless ability to get a Google review .
And then , how has that ? Have you felt that change ? Has that changed the conversations that you have with people , like at the kitchen table ?
Absolutely . That's like our primary selling point , because at that point you're not , it's's always , there's always going to be a price objection anywhere . But now we have some , some sort of backing , like we're not , we're not going to be the cheapest , but we do . We do good work , and here's , here's , the amount of people backing us up .
Here are the testimonials just that's apart from the reviews . Here's the testimonials , video testimonials of everybody that's been happy . And on top of that we use something called uh project map . It tells you exactly all the locations you've done in their area . So I set them a map and they see all their neighbors have done the roots of this .
And then they're like , oh , wow , like kind of like a you don't want to miss out kind of thing . Like , oh , everyone's doing it , so maybe , maybe , this is the route . So the conversation has shifted from oh , I don't know , I can trust you . That used to be an objection at first .
We're like I don't know , we got a beer company here kind of wanting to bid . It might be a little too expensive , but we love your guys' work . We've seen you on Instagram , we've seen your reviews , but now it's just a price objection , right , which we can work with .
We can see where we can come up to either payment plans or figure out middle ground somehow where we can bring in more value to justify . But that objection is easier to handle than the oh , we don't know if we can trust you Like , we don't know your type of work or where you're located , and all this so it's helped us scale in a healthy way .
Yeah , that's awesome . What do you think the best advice you can give to overcome the challenges that you faced over these ?
that kind of through this , this journey to the audience yeah , um , it all depend on what part of the journey they're on , but I think the biggest hurdle for us were , um , um , behind the scenes , on getting your workers comp in order , getting your insurance in order , getting being able to , I guess , properly submit all the documents you need to be vetted on ,
like Google . Even Google verified , you need to submit a couple of documents , and so all that backend stuff took me away from the work itself , and I was a roofer by trade , so , like I was , I was in deep water with no one to talk to .
So my biggest takeaway was find someone who's done it before and find people like you that you're speaking to all these people and you're teaching these people to , to kind of grow with it . Grow . You're definitely not alone . That was like one of the mindsets that was kind of holding me back , saying like why am I ?
Why did I even start my own business to begin with ? Like , did I ? Did I make a mistake ? Should I just be , you know , going back and do be project managers or something ? It was that feeling of like I'm going alone through this , but no , like if you zoom out , you see hundreds of other people going through this exact same thing .
All you need to do is come together and talk to them and collaborate with them and you'll find the answer way quicker . It's . It goes back to close that gap from information to not knowing , and you'll be able to execute and create that momentum to go forward . It goes back to just how much , how much activity can you do ?
Let's do these little increments to grow Awesome . That's what I would say .
Awesome . David Mann , thanks for your time today . This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast . Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast . For more valuable content , visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there , check out our sponsors for exclusive offers , shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips .
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