Roofing Success

Is Your Roofing Brand Forgettable? Here’s How It’s Costing You Millions with George Villegas

• Jim Ahlin • Episode 237

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Is Your Roofing Brand Forgettable? Here’s How It’s Costing You Millions

Is your roofing brand truly unforgettable, or are you getting lost in the crowd? In this episode, George Villegas of Marva Roofing reveals how a bold rebrand — featuring a French Bulldog as his company logo — transformed his business from a one-man operation to a thriving, family-run company. From memorable truck wraps to a new facility that strengthens team culture, George shares exactly how he leveraged branding, leadership, and technology to stand out in the crowded roofing market.

We dive deep into George's journey, the lessons he learned from rapid growth, and the systems he implemented to boost efficiency and profitability. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you build a standout roofing brand that attracts top talent and drives massive growth.

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Speaker 1:

Imagine transforming your roofing business from a one-man operation into a thriving family-run company that's not just profitable but also unforgettable in your community. That's exactly what George Villegas of Marva Roofing did From implementing a bold rebrand featuring a French bulldog as the logo to opening a new facility that's become the heart of his team culture. George has rewritten the playbook on creating a standout roofing brand. In today's episode, we dive deep into how George leveraged branding, leadership and technology to take Marva Roofing to the next level, growing his business while balancing family and work in the fast-growing Rio Grande Valley.

Speaker 1:

George Villegas is the owner of Marva Roofing and a proud member of the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. He has built a reputation not just for exceptional work, but also for fostering a team-oriented culture and mentoring the next generation of his family into leadership roles within the company. George's journey is inspiring, especially as he transitioned from storm work to retail roofing, involving his family in every step. His passion for empowering his team and building a legacy truly sets him apart. Whether you're a seasoned roofing pro or just starting out, this episode is packed with actionable insights, from creating a memorable brand to implementing systems that drive efficiency and profitability. Let's jump in and hear from George Villegas of Marva 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. Welcome back, george Villegas. Hey, glad to be here, man.

Speaker 2:

Been a long time.

Speaker 1:

Marvel Roofing Marvel Roofing in the house Rio Grande Valley. Yes sir, how are you brother Representing yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm doing good man Enjoying the family the holidays.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's awesome. Yep, we're in holiday season now. It's a crazy thing how fast time goes. Right, I know you have small children and older children. My boys are nine. They'll be 10 here in January. Boy, those kids put a clock on life, right, it's a weird thing, man. It is a weird thing Like, look what's happening, like, how you know, speaking of a clock man, it's been a while. It's been a while since we had you on.

Speaker 1:

You're part of the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, so I see you, I see you. You know, often, I guess, or at least on a you know pretty regular basis, and and and have seen you continue to grow. And I was like, let's talk to George again, because, because I think that there's always lessons along the way. There's lessons that you learn there's, there's the evolution of your business, and that's what you know. You've been doing a lot of cool things. You've rebranded, you got a new shop. You're starting to. You know you promoted some people to management positions. You brought, you built a whole marketing team. You've done all kinds of cool stuff. What do you think is the most impactful thing that you've done over the past couple of years? What's that?

Speaker 2:

one thing right now, that's on your mind that's like without a doubt I'd say rebranding, that was rebranding, that was the one thing that that I'd say. Rebranding, that was the branding, that was the one thing that that that I'd say really put us on the map. I mean, uh, since last we, we, we talked and and I was in the podcast I was very excited about the possibilities of the business and we were, we were growing, kicking off. We still didn't have a very good big team, but after going through through some of the training that we got involved with with the alliance and just taking everybody's recommendations in terms of what to read what, who to follow on social media, I mean we started implementing all these things and we've seen, we've seen some changes in our business for the better. Now there's been ups and downs, for sure. I mean we've implemented things that we had no business bringing into our business right, but we had to try and we learned by making mistakes, but we're at a very sweet spot right now.

Speaker 1:

Nice man mistakes, but we're in a very sweet spot right now, nice man. Let's talk about rebranding, because I don't. I've had a couple of people on the podcast. My friend Travis from Planet Roof is one that sticks out to me. They did this great rebrand and it was a similar kind of. He made similar statements. It was about like four to six months after the rebrand people were having different conversations with him. It was like people are seeing us everywhere, man.

Speaker 2:

That's the one thing we hear. I mean, when we rebranded, it seemed like we'd been around forever because we were now memorable for people. One of the things we talked about a few weeks ago you and I was about the truck wraps. People think we just have this whole fleet of vehicles, but it's not that. I mean, it's the wraps, it's the branding right and we're just. People think we're everywhere.

Speaker 1:

It is, and that's what it is. It's like all of a sudden, there's something memorable that sticks out Right. What? What inspired you to rebrand, and what were the key elements that you focused on during the transformation or transition?

Speaker 2:

So I mean it came the inspiration came from from several, several places us following some people helped us. I mean some of the companies that we followed that really inspired us was Tiger Roofing. I mean we had them out at the conference last year at the. Was it the roofing conference with Dimitri, dimitri's conference?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the process conference process conference, correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, I was just so impressed with what they did and and and and then, um, when, back in the day, when we joined the roofer marketers, talking to you about branding all the time, and then afterwards we went, we, we joined the roofing and soillines, and again, you know everybody's talking about you know it's, it's. You know you gotta be the best known roofer, right? So how do we become the best known roofer? We got this little logo that it looks like everybody else's, right. So we were looking for to get inspiration. One of the things we have is we have a lot of French Bulldogs. I mean, it's our mascot. Then we had one of our older Patriot one pass, and we were like you know what? Why not? Why not use the Frenchies as our logo?

Speaker 2:

And then green has always been one of my favorite colors. One is I was in the military, as you already know, and then, yeah, and then, uh, the girls, they really like green, it's like renewal, it's life. It's sort of like, well, let's combine this and come up with a, with something right. So we go into work and and we develop the logo first, before we actually started putting all the story behind it, right? But uh, it's, it's been a, it's been a journey journey. I'd have to say that the only regret I have is not doing it sooner.

Speaker 1:

That's it.

Speaker 1:

It's a weird thing, right, but? But you don't know what you don't know, right? That's just business man. You just don't know what you don't know. And, and, when you're getting started, you're, you're, you, you, you, you're working off of the knowledge that you have. This is the knowledge that I have, and let's go from there. So, you guys, you had some ideas like, okay, we have these Frenchies, we love the color green. Like, how, how, how did you develop that brand story after you got the logo, in a way that that you felt would resonate with your, with, with your customers?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think it also has to do with my military background a little bit. We're always about the guys Right and we call them our. Now we call them our Marva dogs, right. And then these guys and they really take it serious, they're hungry about what they do. They, as far as we're concerned, we have the best crews in you know, in our area at least, and we made it all about them.

Speaker 2:

So, if you notice, on a lot of our postings it's really we don't showcase our offices, we don't showcase. We do showcase a little bit of the leadership, but it's always about the guys. You know them working, having fun, having lunch, so what that has caused and this is one of the things I learned from you particularly it's created this culture where man, there's guys knocking at my door every day for work. I do not have the problem of getting people, because they see what we're about right. They see the posts of our Christmas parties, us having lunch, us even going out as a group in civilian clothes or whatever, and we created that culture that now has has helped us attract a lot of talent a lot of talent, so that was an unexpected.

Speaker 1:

was that an unexpected result of the rebrand?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. One of the things that happened immediately, too, was not just the, the, the, the production team grew to a larger and higher quality team. Also, our sales team grew, and it grew because people just started calling us hey, I want to sell for you. Or what's your commission structure like? Or hey, do you pay your salespeople, your commission? You know all the problems salespeople go through, right, and that is one thing that in hindsight, I would have done it a little different.

Speaker 2:

We grew a little too fast in that area. We had more guys than we could actually train fast enough, so we were letting them down a little bit. So those are the ups and downs that I was telling you about. Those are the ups and downs that I was telling you about. We grew the infrastructure and the applications a whole nine yards as far as being able to handle the business. But we had all these people that we brought in and we gave them some training, but this was before the roofing and solar lines, and we basically set some of these guys up for failure. Right, and that was because we were too ambitious, growing a little too fast that area of our business, right, and now that's the one thing that I do regret not taking my time a little bit slower right to have grown that second area.

Speaker 1:

But I want to give you a little bit of grace there and grace to everyone. Like, is that we again back to that, we don't know what we don't know? Like, until you've run. This is what I tell people. Like, a lot of times people will go and work on their processes and they'll just work on their process and work on their process and work on their processes, but they won't go and sell, right, right. And so now when they do sell, they realize, oh man, we need to change this, we need to change that, because until it's a real life scenario, right, until it's real, until it's real, the process is just a theory, right. And so so I you know, for people listening, like this is a lesson that you should give yourself is, if you go out and start recruiting and you break it and you know, just have that self-awareness, like you have George, and say, man, this is where we messed up, how do we solve that problem? Now? Right, it's a way to find the problem.

Speaker 2:

Right, oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and sometimes you find a bigger problem than others.

Speaker 2:

And I think that I'd say we grew a little too fast. That area where we weren't able to train the people Right and where we suffer, there was in our conversions right, uh, taking a lead to a cell because we just didn't have the. Not that they weren't motivated people, they were motivated, it just that we hadn't given them the right training right.

Speaker 1:

We didn't have the skill set. Yeah, they didn't have the skill set. Yeah, and that it's an important thing, but so how did you overcome that?

Speaker 2:

So, after noticing that problem, then when the first thing we did is we went out and hired a sales manager that could help us put a training program together, we went out and looked for places that we could leverage and provide some of this training by joining joining the roofing and and solar alliance. They already had a program in place. Man, that changed everything for us. The it changed it in in good ways. I think it was all good. Now, in the end, we had to let go of some people because we realized, okay, part of the problem is that we hired some of the wrong people and now we see it, because we have a training program that they won't follow and they don't want to be accountable for certain things. Right. So now we understand.

Speaker 2:

So our the. We went from a 19 closing rates, which was horrible, to now over a 30% closing rate, right. So before the year when we did the, a couple of years ago that we did the podcast, it was just myself and one other one of my children selling. Then we went to from that to like 10 guys, 12 guys. We grew ourselves team and now we're back to half of that, but we're selling the same amount. I mean we're selling just over the $5 million mark with half the people right, but now our rate, our closing rates, are much higher.

Speaker 1:

Now we can always get better for sure that's right, but it's the right people a lot of times. I have a question for you, because I think this is where, especially how, what were you or what do you hold those sales reps to from an accountability standpoint that lets you know if they're going to work out or not? So like what metrics? What is it in intangibles? Is it the tangible stuff? Like they're? They're, uh, you know, not knocking enough doors. What are the? What are the things?

Speaker 2:

what are the metrics that you're measuring or looking at in that new or new sales person as you're training them and you go, yeah, that person was, or you know what I mean like they're not going to do it, man well, I mean, if they're not willing to knock a door, at least the doors where we're giving them leads at work that neighborhood you know they're, they're not good because we're losing so so much potential sales, so many potential sales by not working the neighborhood that we're already got to install in right. So if not willing to do that, but then the the main thing is if they're not willing to train. We found some people that they just think they know it all right. They've come from other companies that they were selling a certain way and we want them to adjust to the methods that we want and the program that we've had. They just won't do it. So you can't fight with somebody, it doesn't mean that they're wrong.

Speaker 2:

I mean, maybe their numbers are good wherever they were Right and they're doing well for themselves. But if it doesn't, if that person doesn't align with your culture and the way you want to run your business, then you can't force it, right? So we realize that, right, we understood that a little too late, but we understood it.

Speaker 1:

And then that's when we had to make adjustments. What were some?

Speaker 2:

of the red flags that came up, that you, looking back, like, oh, these were the red flags, that they were not a cultural fit. The first thing is not coming to training. I mean, I mean, that's the first first thing, right, they, they don't come to training. Or, or, uh, you would, you would tell them and you could tell whether they're in the game or not. There's a lead for same day, uh, within the next few hours, and you're like, hey, can you handle this lead? Oh, I don't have a ladder, I don't have a uniform, it's all at the house. I'm like, man, you're in, you're in roofing sales. You should be ready to go, man, whenever right, because you never know, that could be your next.

Speaker 2:

You know $100,000 sale or whatever, and they're like no, I need like at least a couple of days in advance. Yeah, we can't do that, we can't do all that. So it's commitment. Some people just didn't have the commitment right and and either committing to, to training or to availability, that sort of thing and that's another thing too. We were accepting people part-time, so they had some other gig going on, right, they did this or that or whatever. And we accepted people part-time. And people that are part-time for you, they just don't commit. They have to be all in. If they're not all in, it's tough. It's really, really tough, because you really don't even know when you can count on them, right? So those were the red flags.

Speaker 1:

And I know we've been talking you went from 1099 to W-2. How has that changed? That accountability?

Speaker 2:

do and what to wear, right, I mean, and, and that that has gone a long way, but not only that. It has helped, uh, our guys um, be more, more, uh, secure about their paycheck at the end of the week. Right now we give bonuses depending on your performance, so there's a way to still help people out and make this business a very lucrative business, either for a manager or a salesperson, even as a W-2 employee. But the biggest thing for us as a business is that we can hold people accountable right, and we can help them become a better salesperson, a better manager. How? By providing them all the training and the tools that now before they didn't want to look at now they have to, so they then they start seeing the benefit.

Speaker 2:

And then, all of a sudden, you start seeing everybody coming into training, showing up on the weekend, you know uh, calling in to see if they can pick up a lead that you know for the weekend or that evening, or even on a sunday, right. So commitment was, was the biggest thing, uh, in accountability, which, again, at the beginning, we were so eager to give these people business, uh and give them a job that we would hire anybody it's like and and that you and that you know that was a problem, right, as long as they could sell.

Speaker 1:

I think every business starts off that way. We, we need bodies. We need bodies in the seats, right Like we. Just it's like we. We want to give everyone a chance because we don't understand how to execute, right, we're just, you know, I don't know a good analogy for it, man, but that's what we do early on in business, and there's a term that gets thrown around that the people that got you here may not be the people to get you there, and there's all this different stuff, right Like things like that. And the reason that happens is because, early on, here's what I think it is, george, Maybe we don't have the hiring skill set, right? Maybe that's it Right that we don't have a skill set of hiring.

Speaker 2:

We didn't come from HR, exactly you know exactly, so that's why, you leverage a lot of the organizations that you join by attending specific classes about what they've done in work and what they've done in didn't work, so you don't make the same mistakes, right. So you, you leverage your peer group, you leverage the industry and, in all analysis, you can acquire from people that already been there, done it, screwed up or were successful at it. But you're exactly right. I mean, there were people in the business. They were perfect for what I did.

Speaker 2:

I mean I was a one man shop with some help here, using a bunch of subs, and I had a production guy that well, he didn't have to really do anything except make sure that the material got delivered. That was his job and we were running you you know perfect installations doing that. But when we grew to w2s a team that we had to train he just you know, oh, too many hours, oh the weekend, oh, these guys are staying late. Now I gotta supervise them because they're employees and so he's the first one that jumped ship. It just, he was a great guy, hard workingworking guy. He didn't fit anymore with our growth so we ended up getting a new production manager that would so what were some of the challenges?

Speaker 1:

That sounds like it was one of the challenges of switching over. What were some of the other challenges that you faced moving the whole team to W2?

Speaker 2:

are challenges that you faced. Moving the whole team to W2?. So, and one of the things was the attrition rate. Like if you have a sub that you use to do installations, well, I mean they worry about whether they have enough guys to do the roof or not. Right, when you have W2s, if two guys out of one crew don't show up, I mean that's a problem right. Or if your production manager is out sick for three or four days, that's a problem right. So that is one of the things that I've seen that has affected us a little bit. But we do cross-train, so we cross-train managers to overlap a little bit in terms of the training or even the duties a little bit Right.

Speaker 2:

But but that that was one of the challenges at the beginning. We just we didn't know how to do it Right, and people were like, well, that's not my job, Right, he's the one that's supposed to order that material or he's the one that was supposed to make that call. So we started putting systems in place to get rid of those issues, and one of the things that we did do is talking about job nimbuses. We integrated job nimbuses to the core of our business and now we have dozens of automations that make sure we don't forget anything, make sure the customer is always informed. We have dozens and we document every single thing we do.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if a guy passes, does a drive by, he'll put a note hey, I drove by the house and it looks like the sign's still up or whatever. You know. So that that made a big difference. And before, before JobNimbus, I don't even know how I did it. To be honest with you, I got to go back and think of how I did it without our CRM and I'm like, really, we were doing all that work. You know, it was crazy.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy. It's crazy what good technology will do to your business, right, but what I'm hearing, too, is that the team bought into using the technology.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Because there's sometimes where you could have the best software in the world. But if your team doesn't have buy-in and doesn't use it like if your sales rep is out and it's like making a note yeah, there's still a sign in the yard like that's using it on a high level, right, like that's using the software on a high level. There's, you know, in software there's garbage in, garbage out is what we call it right From a programming standpoint. And it's like if you're not getting good data in, you're not going to get good data out of the other side. So if people aren't moving the job through the boards properly, if they're not making notes, if they're not completing the tasks and you know what I mean and also looking for ways to create efficiencies and the automations and things like that, like if your team isn't bought into doing that and and and and using that technology and seeing the value of using that technology on a day-to-day basis, it's not going to work out for you either.

Speaker 2:

You know, and one of the things that we were able to gain from that, when you say garbage in, garbage out, we were putting good information into the system so we're able to pull out all these KPIs right. So now we got all these indicators that tell us where us, where we're at. Before we were just like we're think we're making money.

Speaker 2:

We think he's working, we think they're knocking enough doors, we think they're going to finish on time. Uh, we, you know, we think we're averaging good. You know good, good times for these jobs or whatever. Now we know, and now we can make adjustments on the fly, right now, now we know. So I mean, this is one of the things that I specifically learned from you and Adam about tracking KPIs. I mean, how else will you know if you're growing, if you're profitable? I mean, how else, if you don't have these numbers that you can look at right?

Speaker 1:

What are some key KPIs that you're like, man, if I just had these, I could, I could, I'm, I'm 80 of the way there, like I know, I, I'm, I got it, I have, you know, there's, there's that pareto's rule, right? 80, 20, like if I had, if I just knew these key, key numbers and maybe think about it in terms of sales and production, right, because it's different, right? So if you're looking at it like if you said, man, I only wanted these five or these 10 KPIs, like I would know, I would be able to know what my business is doing. Which ones would you look?

Speaker 2:

at. Well, I mean definitely, how many leads we come in right, how many of those leads were actually going in front of a customer and presenting ourselves right, how many of those leads were actually going in front of a customer and presenting ourselves right, how many of those are converting to an estimate and how many of those are converting to a close. And I also want to track the ones we lost because I want to know why, right. So not only do I track the ones we're closing, I also track the ones we lost, because I want to see, you know, I look at the number and I'm like, okay, why did this week we have, you know, three losses, five losses, 10 losses. Why did we lose that? So I track that as well. And then I track from from we, we, we got it and it's a retail, because it's a little different with insurance. But if it's a retail, why did it take so long for production to get started? You know why? Why I want to know that. I mean, between we closed it, what metric?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what specific things are you tracking there? Is it materials ordered? Is it like jobs started from signed contract? What are those From?

Speaker 2:

signed contract to job complete. I want to know how I want to make those times because we already have the money. I mean mean, now we just it's just about getting it done right. So and then I track also, uh, one of the biggest things I track how much, how many uh squares, or how much work we're doing per the guys we have, because I want to make sure we're we're profitable and and if these guys like this, this this week, oh we, instead of producing 300 squares, this week we produced 250. Why is the difference? Is it not enough sales? Did we not have enough guys Did the material? What was going on? Why? Why the change? Right? So I tracked that as well.

Speaker 2:

And then, and then once we get the job done, I mean we also track how many people gave us a review. We track how many of those gave us a referral. So we have about 10 things that I keep in my mind. Now the girls they're tracking all kinds of other things. Right, that's right Conversions now on our ads and things like that, because they have to right. So there's a bunch of back end of KPIs to track there. But for me, as the manager for the business, I track these specific things, which is about 10 of them. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's a key point for people to understand is that each level in your business is going to have its own KPIs. Every role is going to have their own KPIs that they're tracking. So you don't need to know all of those KPIs. As the owner, you don't need to know. Your production manager may have another 10 just that they're tracking five or 10 that they're tracking and you don't need to know all of them. You need to know two or three of those, maybe, or one of them, right, you may only need to know one of them, you may need to know three of them. So, but everyone has to have those metrics, man, it's. If you don't, you're flying blind. If you don't, you're flying blind.

Speaker 2:

And last time we did the podcast, one of the things that I was very excited about and I remember talking to you about this was all the automation. Coming from a computer science background, yeah, I used technology in my business to help us, but it was still noise. It wasn't until the last year, two years, that we really turned it into systems, the KPIs.

Speaker 1:

What changed? What changed in the business? I think I'm the one that changed.

Speaker 2:

I understood that I couldn't wear all the hats. Too much information can be a problem sometimes, for sure, yeah, I mean, it just overwhelms you, right? You don't know where to go, what to do with it, right? So, having one of the things, the main thing that changed was I learned to delegate, so I got the right people in the right spots to take a bunch of stuff off my plate. Now I can go golfing on the weekend, when, when I don't have zero time, uh, but uh, that that's the main thing to change. I think my mentality, my like I have. I gotta get my eyes on that. I gotta call this guy I got you know you can't run a business like that because it's just, that's just a job, right?

Speaker 1:

Were you, were you enlisted when you were in the military?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so now you move to an officer role.

Speaker 2:

It was tough for me. It was tough for me to let go, but as owners, there comes a point that you either let go or you will have a job for the you know, for the rest of your life, Right, and unless you want a business, then you got to learn how to let go and delegate. And and as long as you have what we're talking about all these KPIs where you can hold people accountable, you have the right training and you can look at your numbers on a daily basis not not monthly, not weekly on a daily basis, not not monthly, not weekly on a daily basis you got to be looking at these numbers, Right. And as long as you have those numbers in front of you and you know what to do with them, then then the business will work Right and then I imagine myself retiring sometime soon. So somebody is going to have to do what I'm doing Right, and it's just a matter of who's going to be that somebody, Right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how? How is your approach to leadership evolved through this process? Like how, how's everything evolved for you?

Speaker 2:

So so one of the things that I was very, very keen of was making sure that all my and I've always done that, we continue to do this was was a hands-on training, right for for everybody. We did ride-alongs for for sales people, we did, uh, we did real hands-on training on the job site. For for production guys, um, we, we went through training, classroom training for for the uh, the office, uh, administration, all that. But one of the things that we have that has evolved and changed since has been that now we've got systems in place that help us do that training. So it's not me, you know half the training that an admin person needs, the office manager can just point them to hey, watch these videos, fill out these, take these courses online, read these SOPs, and if you have any questions, now we're going to the, you know. So now we're not wasting so much time training and you can train multiple people with the same approach. Right, one of the businesses or one of the suppliers that we use is Owens Corning, right, so they have Owens Corning University and we leverage that to the max, right? They? You know it talks about measurements, insulation, product knowledge. So we, we put them through those courses as well.

Speaker 2:

And so now what has changed is that I understand that it doesn't have to come from my mouth, right? I don't have to sit in a classroom and say, oh, you're going to do this, this, and let me show you how to do this. I mean, now we put them through, training that everybody. And the biggest thing is that some people can't say, oh well, yeah, I didn't learn because your system's flawed. The other 10 people that came before you learned that's right. So it's not the system, it's you. So now you know we understand these things. Right, the system, it's you.

Speaker 1:

So now you know we understand these things right, and that's what you. When you have these things in place, when you have an established training process, when you have metrics that you're measuring against, it's easier to see who is the right, fit or not Right, or if they're the right fit for that role versus another role, and it goes beyond people.

Speaker 2:

It's also systems associations. You belong to software. You're using right After you use it and you understand and you know how you want to run your business. You know what your KPIs are, and then you look at the systems that you're using. You're like, okay, this is really not making a big impact in my business yet I'm spending this or whatever right. The biggest best thing we could ever do was was uh, crm. The second biggest thing was uh, uh, hiring a marketing company to help us um. And then the third was hiring somebody to help us train. So we went to all those three outside and help, but then we took all of that and turn it into something in-house that we can you know, but.

Speaker 2:

But first we had to get help, you know we just didn't know how to do it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it wasn't that we were, we were lazy or dumb, you know, we just didn't know how to do it. Yeah, I mean I didn't do a roof, but that was it and it's a lot like.

Speaker 1:

It's a lot like to build this, all of this stuff from scratch and all these training programs and all these sops and everything. Oh yeah, if you're trying to build all all of this stuff from scratch and all these training programs and all these SOPs and everything, oh yeah, if you're trying to build all that from scratch, man, like it's been done. There are other roofing companies I don't know if anyone knows this. There's a couple of them out there. There's a few, there's even a couple that have been successful. Right, it's amazing, like they may have done something in the past, that you could replicate.

Speaker 2:

Right, absolutely, I want to put people that I follow uh, is uh reno apparently roofing? I mean that guy, he's amazing, that's the stuff he's done. This journey, uh, uh, he inspires me to. I mean I, I, we, definitely. I don't think we we're at his level yet, but that's one of the things we strive for. I don't want to be a hundred million dollar company, but I definitely still think there's room for us to grow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's, you know. So there's a couple of things there that you just said. I don't want to be a hundred million dollar company. That's a not every, not everyone has to have the same goals. A lot of times I've talked about this a little bit recently that, like there, there's a lot of vanity and growth, right, and a lot of ego and growth. You don't have to have a hundred million dollar company to be successful. It's a whole different thing. It's what you actually want in your life. If you have a five million dollar company and you're optimizing for profitability, right, my goodness man, that makes for a heck of a life. Yeah, like that's a. You know you, that's a heck of a life no, and in, in.

Speaker 2:

And I'm at a point in my life and this is other companies may not, because I see a lot of young bucks coming up and starting their businesses but I'm in a stage of my life where I the the most precious commodity for me is time. That's what I want to buy. I want to buy back time. I'm not, I don't want to get to 50 million, I don't, I probably don't even want to get to 30 million, but it'd be nice if we could get to 10 million. I mean yeah.

Speaker 1:

Has your why changed over time?

Speaker 2:

I think my children have always been my motivation, always. But you still got to look out for number one, right your retirement right. So I don't want to retire in a home and be on a budget, I want to retire comfortably. I've traveled plenty, so it's not about travel for me. I think it's quality of life, and with my small children I mean, I still got some responsibilities where they want to go to college, other things, right. So to me it's more. It's more about about buying back my time and having that, that, that family time now.

Speaker 1:

I read that book.

Speaker 2:

I like the new trucks too, like everybody else, but they're not my motivation anymore now when I talk to a lot of guys that come up to me for advice, they're like always talking oh, I just got that new f-250. I'm like, damn, I wish I could tell you that you're making a mistake. But it's you know, do your thing that doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

yeah, that's not the stuff that matters, other things that you've done. So you know, as I guess we're kind of still on, the team concept here is like you've, you've, I don't know, either hired, I don't know if you hired or if you promoted people into more managerial positions.

Speaker 2:

So what it is is, I've always had a goal in my business. Since we talked last, I mentioned that I used to do storm work, right, so I didn't have a retail shop, right. I used to go out and just sub. I'd take five, six crews and find a company that would hire us and give us a bunch of roofs and we'd just work for six months, come back home. So that was a model and I did it forever and it worked. I mean it was profitable. It's just very taxing on the family, taxing on the body, always, you know, traveling, whatever. So after I finished doing that part of the business, of my business, I decided that I wanted to open a retail, but a retail shop where I could actually get my children involved, cause at this point now they're all grown Right and, and after talking to all of them, they were all very excited. I mean, they saw the kind of the, the living that the roofing industry can give you and and they, they saw the, the potential. So when I told them, hey, you want to join the business, let's, let's open a retail shop, right, let's, let's stay local, let's. And they all bought into it, right. So when they bought into it, I personally trained every one of them for the role they were going to take in the company, right, so I? So I trained one of my kids to be the production manager. So everything I know this is how you do it right, and obviously he knows I'm a phone call away if anything goes awry, right.

Speaker 2:

Same thing with my daughter. She's the office manager, the oldest, so I mean she took a lot of the responsibilities I had. Then my other daughter she's the marketing manager. So now she came out of college and started taking courses and working on that. Then my other son he's all like a YouTube kind of guy and technology oriented, so he started doing all the videography. And then my wife she does all the financials, so she took over everything.

Speaker 2:

So I don't have to worry about numbers. I'm like, don't come to me about numbers anymore, about money actually. So I took all those hat socks I used to wear and I created those positions, trained them. And then with all the organizations we belong to, from Roofer Marketers to Roofing Soil Alliance we're still part of the of the roofing insights with with dimitri, uh, so now everybody takes the training from there. So like, okay, you're going to take that and you're going to take that and you're going to take that and you're going to be part of that training and take it right. So so now we I'm left to oversee just the overall health of the company, right, and I'm here to answer any questions until there's no more.

Speaker 1:

How, how do you balance that family and business, the family and business relationship? It gets tough sometimes, especially because, I mean, some of my kids are young.

Speaker 2:

Right, especially because I mean some of my kids are young, right. I mean I got a 19-year-old in charge of production. You know we're producing 300, 350 squares a week with the teams that we have and he goes out and party on the weekend and then Monday he's a little sluggish. Yeah, he gets in trouble, right, and they do feel that. For sure, you go through that. I mean it's family. They feel like, hey, you know what, nobody's going to say anything, but we don't. As a matter of fact, we had just had a sit down because I started seeing some of the numbers go down a little bit. And now I know it's winter and it does affect, but I'm like okay, I don't like the way this is going.

Speaker 2:

Get on them early, george, I managed to keep it level. We wouldn't grow in December, but I kept it at a level. I don't want this going downhill, right? So we sat everybody down and was like what can you do? And I always ask them tell me what you can do to help us. Tell me, well, I could do this or I could do that. And then I come back and say, all right, well, let's have a plan, let's, let's do this, let's make more phone calls, let's do more posts, let's call more customers, let's request more reviews, let's talk more to the homeowner on site so they're happy and we get those referrals. So you know so. But every everybody does and we get those referrals. So you know so. But every everybody does.

Speaker 2:

All my children they do. They definitely do at times want to invoke the family card, but but we, we. So I mean my, I have a two year old, a four year old, and then my daughter has a four, five year old, a four year old, I'm sorry. And then my, my has a five-year-old, a four-year-old, I'm sorry. And then my teenage granddaughter. So we have like a daycare at the shops. But I wouldn't have it any other way, man.

Speaker 2:

I think to me that's one of the rewards of having established a business.

Speaker 1:

Even if I have to deal with the family card.

Speaker 2:

Thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, it's awesome, it's beautiful. If, uh, is that the plan, then, as as george moves into into retirement, that now the fan it's the family business. Still, oh, you're not exiting the business to to out to it to someone else. You're, you're, you're passing it along. There's a succession to actually you know how everybody's trying to buy out business.

Speaker 2:

I had a company come call me and said they were interested in our business and they've seen our growth and this and that and they want to look at our numbers. And I was like you know why not, I'm not going to sell. I mean, I didn't say that, Right, but I say you know why not. So they came in and they did an audit last year and they put a $3 million offer on the table for the business and I'm like, OK, that's good to know. Thank you, that's right. But no, we're not.

Speaker 2:

So now you know how much to sell it to your kids for?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I told them.

Speaker 2:

I said I don't have to sell it to you. I'll never leave this business. I just want to live my cut. But no for sure I think that the goal is to exit but continue to provide it, maybe at a consultation level. Advice'd like to to to my children so they continue being profitable in the business. I mean, I think they still have something to learn from me every day. I mean they, I can come up with with good ideas still. I mean, I've got that, I got that mindset of growth. But again, you know I don't want to reach for the stars. You know, sometimes I think you get lost in your goals If you don't have your feet firmly planted on the ground. Sometimes, with the Internet and all these millionaires overnight thing, people get a little crazy in their thoughts. You know they're like oh yeah, I'm going to take this business, turn it to 100 million. Well, do you really need to?

Speaker 1:

or do you? I mean, yeah, you don't really need to not to have a good life, you don't?

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know, even a three million dollar business is is. It's a good life, man, it's a good life, and it's a good life, right, like that's what?

Speaker 1:

uh, I've seen that. What did I see recently, I think over the last couple of years? I saw a post I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk that had the post, if I'm not mistaken and he was like do you know what a 1% income is? And I think in Minnesota, here, if I'm not mistaken, it was like $400,000, $500,000, somewhere in there. Right, like for a household income, right, you know you could do that in roofing.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if people know that, but like you know, I know Dimitri keeps getting hate because people tell him hey, stop giving away the secret, Everybody wants to be a roofer now. People tell them, hey, stop giving away the secret, Everybody wants to be a roofer now. But hey, that's happening. Here in my area of the country we most definitely have seen an influx of new upcoming companies In the last year. I guarantee you, 50 companies popped up that they're roofing companies at least, because I didn't used to see this many companies now. But if you go look, if you do a search for metal roofing and McAllen metal roofing and Brownsville metal roofing and Farr, guess who pops up first?

Speaker 2:

Because we've been doing it for a while right, and we've got all the right systems in place. Right, right.

Speaker 1:

And we've got all the right systems in place, right, and it's. It's to me it's good that there's that, like there's people able to do it and you're down in Texas, so there's no, there's not a lot of barriers to entry, right, right, and so you know. But, but will they execute Right? Will they have? You know, most people don't make it, unfortunately, you know and and you know. But but conversations like this, hopefully they help, it helps other people, right, it gives other people because, my goodness, there's room oh yeah, like if, if there were 60 new companies and you still did five million, like what's's the?

Speaker 1:

you know what I mean. Like how how crazy is that? From an like, from a like, from an abundance mind like, or just looking at how big is the market truly? Do you really you know what I mean? Do any of us really know how many like what is real, what our market really has in terms of you know like what? How many dollars are being you know spent on roofing services in our market?

Speaker 2:

You can tell right away, if you, if you just are somebody that watches their environment and what's going on around them. We're growing, the Valley is becoming such a big hub around them. We're growing, the valley is becoming such a big hub. There's a there was an article years ago on the well on, I want to say, forbes is either wall street journal, forbes that uh valley, uh, real grand valley, was going to be the next metropolis, something like dallas fordworth area. Uh, it's getting there, man, it's getting there. Uh, and I see it. I mean there's new subdivisions coming up. Guess what? Those 300 homes in that subdivision are going to need a new roof and then at some point, if there's a storm, they're going to need it again, Right so?

Speaker 2:

and they're popping up everywhere. There's actually a shortage of homes here in the Valley. I mean, builders can't keep up All over.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all over there's a shortage of homes, it's like, and so you know that that's it's. It's like the, the, the pie is growing at the same time, right, and, and you know, everyone has to get better and the better you are, the better you'll do, and you know. But there's levels to it and there's learnings along the way. But there's levels to it and there's learnings along the way. I wanted to just kind of finish off with one thing you guys, you opened a new shop, so you bought a shop. You have your own building. Now, what have been some of the impacts of that?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's changed the game completely, because, having had the production team and the sales and admin team separated before, whether you want it or not, with all the technology accessible to you, there is still a gap in communication. Right, having the entire process all in one building changed completely our game, cut back on our times, cut back on our losses, cut back on mistakes. So that was the main thing we saw, but then, the biggest thing that it created, it reinforced our culture even more. We got lockers for the guys when they and we got showers for the guys when they come in, showers for the guys when they come in. Uh, we, we got, uh, um, areas where they can, where they can hang out in the afternoon if they want watch some tv. I mean, we create a culture where people want to come to work and that's a big, that's a big difference. Everybody's smiling, uh, everybody's happy.

Speaker 2:

We, I'd say we're very fair with what we pay. Maybe we're not the best paying company, but we're very fair in what we offer. And having a team that that has come together with, with the help of this shop and the way we're doing business now, is this changed our game completely. Right, and we're in a we're in a permanent spot now where people can find us right and there's a big difference when a homeowner that's a high-detail-oriented homeowner that goes to a sales office versus show up to our shop. They see the trailers, they see the trucks, they see the material and stock. They see everybody in and out coming in and out. There's a big difference. You get a lot of buy-in.

Speaker 2:

You gain credibility.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that authority and credibility, that trust, yep, right, wow, you're going to be here, even if it's just subconscious to them, right?

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

You're going to be there Like you're going to be. It's that you're going to be there Like you're going to be, and then, as you told me, that has allowed you also to buy some things in bulk and, and and and have some. You know there's some. I'm sure there's been challenges in learning how to do inventory management and what's buying how much, and things like that.

Speaker 2:

We didn't have a warehouse manager at the beginning, so you can imagine the chaos, right? Everybody, just like they were at the flea market just grabbing stuff, right? So then we had we realized okay, if we're going to do this full thing, it works because it saves us time, productivity and money, but somebody has got to manage it, right.

Speaker 2:

So we got a warehouse manager, and now we even sell to some other, to crews, right Crews. They do their own thing, like they'll call me at night or they'll call the girls and say, hey, I'm going to do a roof, I need a package. So we'll put a package together. We have a forklift which is loaded up to their truck and then they go about their way and we make a little money. And the biggest thing for me is I like to sell it because I can continue to buy bulk. Yes, so even if I don't use it, they're buying it from me.

Speaker 2:

I'm making a little bit more money on it and now I can continue to buy those truckloads, right. So it's helped us immensely in our but also it's helped us save a little bit of money. On the average we were looking at a couple of weeks ago, it's a 500 per ticket on average. We're saving. I mean, it's a big difference, man and and we're not neglecting quality. This is all approved material we're buying. We're not buying anything from china, anything that's not been well, even if it's been, it's been uh, approved and tested right. But we don't uh, we don't buy like leftover material or secondary class nothing. It's all you know, new stuff and uh, and we were able to do uh, and in some cases, what has helped us is maybe we get that one deal that the person's like oh there's this one guy, one guy, you'll give it to me. All right, I'll give you a couple hundred dollars and I'm not losing, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1:

Well, george man, it's been an awesome, awesome conversation. I think it's going to be helpful to people. 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. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening you.

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Jim Ahlin

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