Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
“We Made Every Mistake Possible” – Joe Ayler on the Hard Truths of Growing a $13M Roofing Business
Starting from cleaning shingle trash to building a $13 million roofing business, Joe Ayler of Tar Heel Construction Group shares the brutally honest truths behind his journey. From overcoming financial setbacks to creating a community-first brand, Joe dives into the lessons learned from making mistakes—and how they shaped his business.
This video is packed with insights, including:
✔️ Why embracing mistakes and "making it right" is the foundation of trust.
✔️ How to evolve your business through different growth stages.
✔️ The critical role of customer experience and team empowerment.
✔️ Key challenges (and solutions) every roofing company faces as they scale.
💡 If you’re ready to learn what it really takes to build a successful roofing business, watch this video now.
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How do you go from cleaning up shingled trash to building a $13 million roofing business? For Joe Ehler, it started with a leap of faith and a relentless focus on customer experience. In this episode, we dive deep into the journey of Tar Heel Construction Group, from its bootstrap beginnings to its transformation into a trusted community brand. Joe Ehler, founder of Tar Heel Construction Group, took his background in medical research and turned it into a thriving roofing business that's synonymous with quality and trust in Maryland. What makes Joe stand out is his commitment to doing the right thing even when mistakes happen. His mantra we don't always get it right, but we always make it right has shaped his company's culture. Get ready to learn how focusing on customer experience and team empowerment can take your business to the next level. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1: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. Joe Ehler, it's good to see you, brother. Tar Heel Roofing and Construction, or Construction Services what do you guys? What's the subheading there? It started as construction right Construction Group.
Speaker 2:That's right Construction group.
Speaker 1:You got it Awesome, brother. I remember our conversation in 2021 and you said something what I felt was prolific, and you pointed up at that same yard sign that's behind you right now and you said this is what I'm doing, like, this is what I do it for, man, this is what it's all about. I'm protecting this at all costs, and I see that you got the new hat on with the night with the super cool like a better superhero style logo going and, and you know, things have, things change and businesses progress, so I really wanted to get you back on here. Uh, for people that haven't listened back to those early, early episodes, you know, tell us a little bit about Tar Heel and your story, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, so we're celebrating 10 years in business. Um, so, we're celebrating 10 years in business. But the 10 years prior to the inception of Tar Heel, we were a subcontractor. For many years Switched industries.
Speaker 2:I used to be in the medical research kind of space right out of college, spent some time at Johns Hopkins University in a medical research facility and it wasn't my calling moved back up to my hometown, reached out to a buddy of mine and said hey, man, I'm broke, I need some work. He said you can start Monday with a roofing company I'm working for and you'll be cleaning up shingle trash. So, uh, left, um, left Johns Hopkins to clean, uh, clean shingle trash up. And my family was scratching their head, um, but uh, now they're. They're singing a little bit of a different tune now. So, um, no, but we worked as a subcontractor for for many, many years and eventually, like I, like I told you before here, before we hit record, you know, wanted to, you know, make a name for ourselves and, you know, eventually got tired of other contractors taking credit for the work that we were performing and started Tar Heel Construction Group in 2014.
Speaker 2:And um, and yeah, you know, started out you know, with, you know my sister-in-law in a little office in her house and was doing most of the selling and purchasing of materials, managing of projects, invoicing, kind of quality assurance and all that stuff. And back then, you know, obviously we started out from nothing and have grown 10 years from zero to about 13 million revenue and yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, man. One of the things that I wanted to discuss with you, because I think you have great perspective on it, coming from the subcontractor side, starting the business, bootstrapping right, like just grinding it out to now, to a third, now a $13 million businesses is what advice can you give people on adapting to the changes of business at at throughout those stages?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you know that's. I don't know if that's an acquired skill or not. I mean it's a little bit of awareness, right, it's a little bit of confidence and not to be fearful of making decisions. Right, you've got to be decisive, you've got to kind of listen to your business and be aware of the needs of your business as you grow. Right, if you're starting to, you know one person can only sell. You know, in the residential space, you know $3 million a year.
Speaker 2:So you know, if you start to, if your calendar becomes overwhelmed and you can't get back to your customers in a timely fashion, then hey, maybe you should hire a salesperson.
Speaker 2:You know, if you can't get your proposals out in time or you can't balance your books or your bank account's a mess, maybe you need to hire another. You know office admin. So I think awareness and always keeping you know, the customer experience kind of at the forefront of kind of like your mission, right, you know, if your customers aren't experiencing, you know, positivity, you know, from lead generation to, you know, to job execution, to invoicing, you got to be able to be aware of the things that are lacking in your business and then not be fearful of making those hires. You know, and not being fearful of making a hire means you've got to manage your money properly because you know if you do have proper lines of credit and you are profitable and you are good at managing cash flow right, you shouldn't be afraid of making that hire and delegating off some of those responsibilities as you recognize some growth.
Speaker 1:I think that's an aha moment. I love the way you frame that in terms, maybe just to paraphrase it a little bit of like, if you can look through the lens of customer experience and build your business through that lens, that's a powerful way to build your business customer experience on, you know, through the cleanup process or you know anything that you can. Everything can be looked at, maybe through that lens of customer experience. In those early days maybe you didn't have that strategic aspect of it right, Like a lot of this stuff comes with, comes with time and you know 10 years of reflecting and you know, like you know that, the evolution of your, of yourself, through those years. But in those early days, what were, what were, what were some of the milestone times of your business and what, what were the, the difficulties, that that you found at those stages?
Speaker 2:Some of I. You know, I guess that one of the big milestones was, you know, when I didn't have to sell anymore, right? So you know one man or woman and you know a part-time kind of admin, whether it's a family member or a husband or a wife or you know, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I mean you can get to 3 million on your own.
Speaker 2:You know if you're good at sales and you know you got. You know, but I mean you're doing everything. I mean you're sourcing the leads, you're selling the work, you're ordering the materials, you're managing the job. You know you're running punch out, you know you're running quality assurance and then you know pretty much, you've got somebody in the office that's making sure that you know they're sending the invoice out, getting paid, collecting the money and getting it in a bank account. You know.
Speaker 2:But one of my first aha moments was, you know, when I was able to stop selling Right, and then one of the challenges around that was when I said, when I said to myself, well, hey, now that challenges around that was when I said when I said to myself, well, hey, now that you know I'm not selling anymore and I'm hiring people, now I've got to train these people. And that was kind of like a new challenge where I was like, oh my God, like you know, I'm going to hire somebody, but how do I teach them? You know my ways, right, you know, because some of the people that we've hired over the years have industry experience and others don't, right, and the ones that don't, you know, you've got to um, you've got a hot or you've got to train, right. So so I would say the first aha moment was when I, at the end of the year, I was like, look, we did whatever 7 million, whatever it was, you know and I didn't and my goal was to sell $0.
Speaker 2:So I could start to focus on working on the business and not in the business.
Speaker 1:That's a big, that's a big moment, like for a lot of kind of like to get to that point where because then it is. And it made me think when did you realize it was a business and not? You know what I mean. Like, if that's a good question, because it's like, there's a like in the beginning. To me, in the beginning of business, it's like it's your, you're doing this so you can have a job right and develop and have a source of income. You guys were subcontractors, you had, you know, you were making money that way. But then you're like, oh well, we could do the rest of it too. Like let's go and capture some of that aspect of the business. You know, when did you realize, man, this is a, this is a business like I can, man, this is, I got, I got something here. It's bigger than me yeah, well, that's funny.
Speaker 2:You ask that, jim, because there was a definitive moment where and I can't remember the scenario or the situation, but I can remember the conversation that I had with our controller, who's my sister-in-law, and it could have been a human resources issue or a quality assurance issue or a reputation issue Something was happening and I was walking down the hall and going into her office and she was coming out of the break room and we had a quick little conversation and she looks at me and she says, jay, this isn't just you and Scott horsing around on a roof and you're selling a couple of jobs here and there.
Speaker 2:This is a company and you're providing a service and you have a reputation. And that was kind of an aha moment for me, but it kind of develops over time, right. And you really made a point to, you know, really get involved in our community over the years and and and really just be an important part of this small little market here in Hartford County, maryland. And you know, and just through consistency and through transparency and servicing our work and putting you know, performing quality installations and staying involved with the community, and just steady, just steady as she goes, just steady, you know we've created a brand, a local brand, that people can trust. And now you know we're a representative of our community, right and and yeah it's, it happens slowly but definitely. That aha moment in the hallway right now, where we were, we were facing a human resources challenge and she stops me and says look, man, this is a company, you're running a company now.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. There's a it's like it from the beginning stages. It's like how did this happen? Sometimes, right like, how did this? This is, this was just a couple guys goofing around on the roof, right like what you're saying, right like, and now you're a part of the local community or you know, you have, you have, you have people that rely on you. It's it, it's a it's a really cool thing If you get to, if you get to accomplish it. In that, in that involvement in the local community, have you guys had any trouble, had any times where you faced challenges, like in maintaining your reputation, and what, how did you? You know, how did you, how did you solve those problems?
Speaker 2:did you? You know, how did you? How did you solve those problems? Um, yeah, I mean, I I think all, all roofing contractors kind of we've all made the same kind of mistakes. Right and and with in in the.
Speaker 2:The kind of mantra or core value that we kind of strive, you know, and has been ingrained into our team, is that we don't we don't get it right every single time, but we make it right every single time and we live by that shit, you know. Have we put the wrong call on the house? Yes, we have. Have we had guys fall through the roof into somebody's living room? Yes, we have. Have we been torn off, and, you know, down to bare plywood, and had a thunderstorm pop up right over top of a house and dump $25,000 worth of damage in somebody's million dollar house?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have, you know, and most companies do, because this is what happens in roofing, right, does this happen all the time? No, you know. But does stuff like this happen in the industry when you're in it for 20 years? Right, you know. But what I've learned is to stay calm and to make it right. You know, and it is what it is If you put the wrong roof, if you put the wrong color on, for whatever reason. Right, that happened many years ago in our early years.
Speaker 2:We've kind of figured out how not to make that happen nowadays, but do you make it right, and that's kind of what we live by.
Speaker 1:I think that how have? How do you plan? Not plan for it, but how do you protect your company against the inevitable issues that arise?
Speaker 2:protect, your company against the inevitable issues that arise. You know my processes and procedure right, predictability right Is kind of the by the book answer, but you know my intuitive answer is just, it's going to happen. Just make it right. You know now that your problem is is that you don't want to start to experience the same problem over and over again? Right, you're not fixing your problem, but you know that's why we do our. You know our quarterly leadership meetings. We, you know we, we have meeting structure right. We, we identify, discuss and solve issues as they pop up.
Speaker 2:You know, and we're constantly refining our processes and and working towards just getting better every day. I mean, when you've been in business, you know as as long as we have and we haven't been in business a super long time, but kind of long enough where it's like you know, if you're in 10 years in business, you're doing something right. Like you know, if you're in 10 years in business, you're doing something right. And you know, as long as you're continually improving. And you know those are the two main boxes that you got to check, because you can do one without the other. You can have a wonderful customer experience and put on a shitty roof and you can put on a great roof and have a terrible customer experience. You know, but that's the you know. Those are the two main boxes that you got to check, and then there's a whole list of other boxes that you got to check as as you kind of get more mature and grown in business.
Speaker 1:It's so great, like, it's so crazy that, like the, the list never get, like, never goes away. Right, it's just a new. It's a new list and you get to solve different problems versus the problems that you solved before. It's I don't know, I think you do. Do you think that you have to fall in love with the problem solving? Is that part of you know?
Speaker 2:or, in a way, yeah, I mean, you know, like we said earlier before we started recording, I mean, the problems and challenges and enjoyment and and and just just all the.
Speaker 2:It changes from from when you're zero to 3 million, from when you're three to six, from when you're six to nine, from your, you know, whatever 10 million and up. You know, your, your business experiences new challenges, right, and and you're always going to have something to work on. But the good thing is is that as you start to, you know, become more trusting and more mature in business and understand how to delegate responsibility and and refine processes and procedure and departmental management and kind of all the things. As your business gets bigger, it does get a little easier, yeah, but you, you have a lot more to lose, right, and, like I said before, if, if you're, if you're focused on the customer experience and you keep that kind of in mind where you're only as good as your last roof, you know, I think that those are kind of some of the little tidbits that I keep in my mind as we continue to grow. And you know, you just stay humble and no matter how long you're doing it, you're out there to put good roofs on, you know.
Speaker 2:And to create a good experience for the customer and you know you can. A company that's 10 years in business, 15 million in revenue, they can put on a bad roof. You know, and I look at bad experiences like a cancer cell, right, you don't you want to eradicate immediately. Right, you want to mitigate and you want to fix right away because you don't want a bad community sentiment, you know to to kind of grow. Right, because that's what we've learned over the years is that our customer referrals, you know, in our, in our positive customer experiences, compound into more, into more opportunities. Um, but you know, like they say, you know good news travels fast but bad news travels much faster. And, um, you know you can do, you can spend years building a reputation of honesty and dependability and quality workmanship, you know. But your reputation can get torn down exponentially quicker than it took you to build up the reputation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of mispayments to suppliers and jobs not getting done, and pretty soon it goes. It's pretty soon you're on the evening news. You know, like, and it's unfortunate that it happens in that way for people, how do you, how do you, how do you look at profitability in through that lens, because you know that mistakes are going to happen? Like, do you, do you make sure that you're priced in a that that you're, that you're pricing jobs in a way that that you can manage those, those issues as they come along?
Speaker 2:Um, you mean, do do we budget for mistakes?
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, like do you do, you do? I guess an easier way to put it is do you make sure that you have enough margin in your jobs to screw up, like not? That you want to screw up, but for the you know, for the times that you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, early on, when we were a smaller contractor. You know, I think a lot of these guys don't track profitability because I mean you're spinning all the plates, you know. But you know to have proper expense reporting on jobs is very, very valuable, right, because you want to know, you know, how much money you're making on each job, you want to know what your operating expenses are, and and and what your, what your job expenses are, and it's hard for a lot of small, smaller contractors to track. You know, to have that kind of financial clarity and that financial kind of acumen, you know. So one one thing we did early was, you know, we made sure that, you know, we managed our cash flow well, you know, and, and, on the very early days. Hey man, if, if, if, If, I have more income than I do expenses at the end of the month, then we're, we're, we're living another month, right. But I remember one year you know this was very early on yeah, where you know I'm literally going up to the supply house, I'm, I'm, I have a checkbook in my pocket, I'm cutting the check, you know. And and we got to the end of the year, you know, and we had a balance with the supply house and you know we had completed all of our jobs and we didn't have enough money, right, because we just weren't that sophisticated, right, you know?
Speaker 2:And if some of these younger contractors can learn to just track their revenue, even if you're just writing it on a piece of paper, right, if you're not in the position to get QuickBooks or you know, have a bookkeeper and all that stuff, just write it down. But that was the one saving grace for us early is we always made sure we managed our cash flow well and that also it gave me courage right to hire and to continue to grow, because I never had to worry about us not having money. And then when you manage your your money the right way early on and then you hire your first bookkeeper, and then you you get quick books going and you know you get a crm and then you're starting to track stuff and starting to make a little bit of sense and you can show a local bank, you know some historical revenue. And then you get your little bit of sense and you can show a local bank, you know some historical revenue, and then you get your first line of credit and then you know and I'm talking about a line of credit with a local bank, right, some working capital, um, and then it kind of starts to come together and then you start drilling down and sanding down the rough edges and and um, and we're still sanding, you know, after all these years, and still getting better. So it's it's, it's a wild ride.
Speaker 2:But to what you said, to your point earlier, you get to this point and some you know I'll meet somebody or talk to somebody and they'll say, well, how'd you, how'd you get to the point where you're at right now? And then you look and you're just like I don't know man.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I just continued to work on it. That's a lot of times, man. I think that we don't give ourselves enough grace. Over time, we want things to happen a lot faster than they do, and maybe we just haven't. We don't, we didn't learn the personal lessons that we needed to get to that next level In those early days. Were there ever times that you had to sacrifice personal cash flow for business cash flow?
Speaker 2:Well in that, yeah. So in that instance, jim, when I got to the end of the year and we didn't have, we weren't able to cover our position with our local supply house, I had to take out an uh, an SBA loan, you know, for $75,000. Right, so I took out an SBA loan for 75,000. And, luckily, I had my shit together on my personal side where I was able to, you know, produce some uh, collateral and show them, you know, the proper documentation in order to get an SBA loan. So I think at that point, I mean, we we might've owed the supply house 30,000, right, or something like that.
Speaker 2:So I took out a loan for 75,000,. I had $40,000 worth of working capital and then we had a great year that year. Right, we did a couple of million that year and and, uh, you know, at that point we were maybe I don't know, maybe a two, $3 dollar a year contractor and we were able to pay off that SBA loan and then learn a lesson, right, you know, a valuable lesson learned. You know that we're going to have to do a better job at, you know, managing our cash flow and understanding our profitability as a company. But like they say, man, you know the youth is wasted on the young, say man, you know the youth is wasted on the young. You can tell a lot of this stuff to a young contractor and you're just not going to get it until you're a couple of years older.
Speaker 1:It takes time. You have a certain vision at a different. You have blinders up in certain ways, and I'm sure that there's blinders up at 13 million right when you just you don't. There's things that you don't see. But I love that's what I love doing this show for is because I've heard so many times that that, like that, this opened my eyes to that right, like, oh man, I never thought of something that way and and so it's awesome that you come on here and share that type of stuff and the and the struggles too, because that's what you know, we're in a.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a little bit of ego in this business sometimes and it's like, look man, we're at 13 million, we got our. You know like we did it, we did it right and it was like, well, yeah, but boy, there's no one that hasn't had struggles along the way. You know what I mean Like there's, it's not a part of business. So how do you, how have you developed your key people? And how do you look at it now, looking back of how maybe you would have done something different, like how you developed your team at these different stages and where were like, maybe, maybe a man, I wish I, I wish I hired in this capacity sooner, or or maybe I should have waited for that production manager. I didn't really need them at this stage, but I you know how, how did, how did your hiring of those key people along the way to create, you know, to make it a business, not just Joe and uh, and and your and your partner.
Speaker 2:You know, jim I don't know if I have a good answer for that you know we, we, you know, in the 10 years in business I've only had one person leave me and obviously we've had to fire a couple people over the way or over the years, but I've only had one person voluntarily come to me with a resignation letter and leave me in 10 years and we're around, you know, 20 W-2 employees, so, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just I don't know. Jim, that's a tough one, man. I mean, we, we, we aren't a corporation, right? So we don't. We don't hire and manage and have a human resources department. You know we don't have a training department, right? This is kind of like. You know.
Speaker 2:One thing we have done over department right, this is kind of like you know, one thing we have done over the years is we've always hired from within. You know, everybody that we've hired over the years is a, is a friend of the family, is a guy we went to high school with, is a guy from around the way that we knew as a, you know a subcontractor's cousin's wife or something like that, where you know we've done a good job of establishing a good reputation in our local market of being a good place to work with good people right, and when you establish a good reputation then you become magnetic, right, and we've just been fortunate over the years to just attract just good talent right, good people right and that want to work for a good company, and we've placed them in positions and then give them autonomy to make it their own right. And we've been lucky for that not to backfire on us, because do we have all the right people in the right places?
Speaker 2:Probably not we're not 100% hitting the bullseye there, but we're always striving to get better and we're empowering our people to, you know, to make the position their own. We give them autonomy, we let them self-govern the position. We just provide a job description, we provide core values in our mission, you know, and standard operating procedures on how to execute the position, place trust and then you know and then execute right and the proof is always in the pudding. If we hire a new project manager, you know, then the feedback is going to come back from the crews and come back from the operations side. You know, if we hire a new office staff, Right, and there's some challenges, they all get some feedback there.
Speaker 1:So, you know, maybe not the best saying if you brought in the wrong person, it would be felt right away If that makes sense, and maybe that's happened or not happened too often, which is fortunate that it doesn't happen too often, but but I bet that it gets. I bet that it would be felt right away Like yeah, this isn't one of us, you know what I mean. Like they're not, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we've gotten better at hiring over the years. I mean that's another thing, you know, that's another thing that I've learned. I mean I do a lot, I did a lot of the hiring early on, but now what I'm learning is is that I'm delegating the hiring out because you know Jamie and Michael, you know who's on our sales side. You know he's our sales, our leader, right, our sales leader. He's been with me for, you know, 16, 17 years. You know I missed on two hires, you know. So they came to me and said, look, joe, you know, the last two guys that you hired, you know haven't, haven't worked out. Why don't you let us do the hiring? That was the music to my ears. I said, look, that's great. I said I'd love for you to take on that responsibility, you know, because I'm not good at doing everything. You know that's right. You know.
Speaker 1:But that's self realization, right? That like understanding, like man, I don't. I think a lot of, I think a lot of business owners find it challenging to not be the everything in their business and it's really healthy when you, when you're able to, to, to, to give your people that autonomy and to give them the control.
Speaker 2:It's empowerment big time.
Speaker 2:If you go to somebody and say, look man, I trust you to get this done. You know, and I'm depending on you and this is important People love that man, people, they said, people in our, in our company, they love it, right, they love it. They absolutely eat it up. You know to to to depend on somebody and to place trust in them. I depend on you and I trust you to get this done Right, you know, and there's some times where you know there's some challenges with execution, right, you know, and then you've got to be a good kind of leader and and manager and all that stuff. But but it's worked out in our favor to kind of operate the company this way.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, and I think hiring is a skill set that a lot of like entrepreneurial business owners, small business owners don't even think of. Like they I didn't personally I was like I thought HR was dumb because I was never a corporate person, right. So I'm like why are we asking questions about strengths and weaknesses? And I'm reading resumes or like how you should write your resume, and I'm like this is, this is fluff, this isn't real, it's not, you know. So to me it didn't connect. But then if you actually kind of get into more of the science side of it, you're like wow, oh, okay, that's why you asked that question, that's what? Oh, now I get the process there. But it's just the lack of skillset in yourself that you know. You just don't understand.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of times I don't know if you had this happen, but I've been talking about this a lot lately Sometimes, early on you just need a body, you just need somebody. It's like, well, that person's there and they need work, so I'll put them on the payroll, and it's more challenging there. Them on the payroll and and, and it's more challenging there how, like now that they have turned over hiring, I think that, that I think that they're a little bit closer to the role I would assume also, right? So if he's your sales leader and he's hiring a sales person man, that's more that that's probably a really cool relationship for him because he gets to, he gets to be more involved in that in in in fill, involved in that filtering process, and that's empowerment because he has to work with them, right? If Joe hands this guy over to him, you know it's different.
Speaker 2:And Jamie and Mike, you know the two individuals I was mentioning. They're part of my leadership team, right? So so you know they've. They've helped me grow the business from very early on and I agree with you about the science behind. You know personality profiling and stuff like that. I thought it was a bunch of horseshit. You know, a couple of years ago, and, and you know Red's, surrounded by idiots and and, and you know some other people. You know a good friend of mine, kyle Hoffman. You know we always chat on the, on the disc profile stuff and you know it does provide a little bit of clarity when hiring, for sure. You know, do we, do we live and die on that disc sword, that disc sword? No, because I still believe, you know that a lot of these people, kind of a lot of the candidates, will tell you what they want, what you want to hear. But you're, I still firmly believe you're never really going to understand how somebody operates within your company until about six months.
Speaker 2:You know, then you're really going to get the true colors. But the, the, the, the surrounded by idiots is a great book. You know, I love the title, I love the play on words there and, um, you know, I've learned about myself reading that book. You know, I'm I'm definitely a high yellow um with with a splash of red, you know, and all the, all the book lovers out there will know exactly what I'm talking about. But, um, and then you start to read the different profiles and you're like, oh well, that's Jim, that's my mother or that's, you know, my friend, wayne, you know, or whoever it is. But the, but the hiring was tough. And and um, and you're right, we've been in situations where we just needed a body and we've hired quick and uh, and we got. We got burned a couple of times, you know, but that's a tough one.
Speaker 2:And to your point earlier, you know, as you, as you grow in business, and especially when you start to get up to some higher revenue numbers and you start to experience the needs of the business, like, hey, we need to be really careful hiring people. Or hey, now we need a chief marketing officer because our marketing budget is over $700,000 and I don't have the time to manage that anymore properly. Or, hey, we've been on cash basis for whatever the first six years up to 7 million, and now I'm realizing, through the growth and maturity that I've experienced in business, that, hey, we really need to be on full crawl to be able to understand the true operational profitability of the company at any time during the year and these things that you learn. And one thing I've gotten pretty good at over the years is just being able to release responsibility, and I'm not good at everything. I don't want to be good at over the years is just being able to release responsibility, and I'm not good at everything.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be good at everything.
Speaker 2:What I want to be good at is leading the company and providing a safe, sustainable and respectable workplace for my employees and establishing a reputation of being proud of who we are and the services and products we provide. And that's kind of what our mission and what services and products we provide, you know. And that's kind of what our mission right and what my role is right as we've grown.
Speaker 1:What has helped you get there?
Speaker 2:I think you know I have another saying on my board healthy, healthy leader, healthy, team Right. And I've and I've really focused on being, you know, a good father. You know a good husband. You know being trustworthy, accountable. You know my word is my bond. You know these kind of core values that you know not only make me a make me good professionally, but they make me good personally.
Speaker 2:You know being a good person and being a good friend and being financially responsible and taking care of your employees and just all the things right. You know I mean there's a lot of things that have helped me, you know, get to the point where I am today. But you know really. You know keeping a close circle of friends, making sure that I'm financially. You know, responsible to my family and my company right. You know making sure that I'm. You know, staying in tune with my faith. You know making sure that I'm in shape and I'm eating right. You know all those things help me be the best person that I can be personally. And if I'm the best person that I can be personally, then I'm going to lead my company better.
Speaker 1:That's what I think. That's a lesson to be learned for a lot of people, and you'll see it in a lot of great leaders in the in not just in the roofing industry, but in a lot of places that that it starts with you. Um boy, your habits will travel fast. You're like, if you are, you know, if, uh, yeah, if you have bad habits, they're gonna be your team's gonna have those bad habits too, and that. And maybe you want that culture, right, like some people want that culture, you know, but I don't know if that culture is something that lasts through time, right?
Speaker 1:What about building your brand? I want to, like we talked about that in the first episode to a point, and now you know you got full time. Did you say CMO, like a chief marketing officer for the company? Like you're really like the levels that you've attained in marketing, like having a seven hundred thousand dollar marketing budget, like having a $700,000 marketing budget. You know, what are your thoughts around making sure that Tar Heel is represented in the marketplace properly from a marketing perspective, that you're in front of enough people to get enough business? What are your?
Speaker 2:how do you guys think about your marketing efforts? Well, I mean, you know, and we've just gone through, you know all of this the last month or two with our, with our planning and all that stuff, you know. So you've got your. You've got your paid channels right. You've got your Google ads, you've got your Facebook ads, you've got your print media and you know, you know other paid avenues in which you receive leads, right. You know some other less than reputable ones. Well, you're paying for leads, right. And then you've got your. You we've got a budget where we spend money on local activities Right, whether it's a local golf tournament or youth sports programs or local parades or local events or supporting another business at a local, you know, bull and oyster roast and just all these marketing and advertising channels and strategies that aren't necessarily quantifiable. And strategies that aren't necessarily quantifiable, right, if you put a billboard on the side, because we kind of straddle the 95 corridor, right.
Speaker 2:One of the busiest roads in America, if not the world, you know, and we'll run billboards on that busy road and do we expect people to call and say, hey, I need a roof? I saw your billboard on 95, you know. So that's some local branding, right. And then, being intentional and aware of the content that you put out, right, um, and, and where you put it out, um, you know, we've got some local guys that get on roofs and they're in capes and screaming around and you get a roof and, oh, and you know, with their WWE beltswe belts, and you know, and look, that that's their strategy, right, we, that's not a, we are very brand conscious and um, and just aware, you know, now, we, we put out some, some fun pieces, right, you know, but, but we always try to protect our reputation that this is a serious company and we're in the business of putting good roofs on. Now, do we have good people and do we have fun? Yes, but you know, our reputation is always, you know, top of mind and maybe running on a little bit here, but I mean, you know there's two kind of categories of our budget and that's what we call branding. And then you know, paid sources, right, and, and that community involvement, you know, the parades, the sports teams, the bull and oyster roast, the local chamber you know giving away a roost to the nonprofits. You know steady, steady drip on your social media feeds. And you know sitting on a couple of local boards, right, yes, I sit on, you know, the Greater Maryland Better Business Bureau Board of Directors, right, so I've sat on that board for a couple of years. I sit on two foundation boards here in Hartford County, maryland.
Speaker 2:You know get involved in your community. You know when you go into the shopping, when you go into the local shopping or the local grocery stores here, you know we've got branding on there, we've got billboards, we've got trucks going around town, we've got jobs being done, we've got Facebook ads and Google ads. And you know we have networks and know a lot of people around the community. And then when you see people, you say man, I see Tar Heel everywhere. It's because we are everywhere and you have to be everywhere. You know you have to be everywhere to build a brand. And you have to be everywhere consistently for years and years and years to build a brand. Because when you build a brand, you know it's based on consistency, right, and I don't know if there's bad brands out there, because I don't know if you can build a bad brand Like I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of just talking no, that's a good no that's a good, a good thought process, because it's hard Like it won't. It won't be lasting. I've had, I had, a branding expert on one time and he and he he made a great comment, though. He said you have a brand, whether you know it or not. So if you pull up in front of that house and a rusty F-150 with a magnet slapped on the side, your brand says you can negotiate with me. Right Like, so there are, there could be, not just from a lead generation perspective.
Speaker 1:From a lead generation perspective, I think you're right on point there. You can't build a bad brand because that brand you won't, you won't be around long enough, but but the but. Your brand is even more than that, right Like just. It's more than just them seeing the billboard, seeing you at the events, seeing you there. It's the, it's like you said, it's the professional, is I think you mentioned it earlier like the professionalism and the. You know that you, your, your, your team is, you have high quality people, that you're, that there's a quality conversation happening. If you have a conversation with someone. All of that is brand. How about you guys? I know you're just getting into this.
Speaker 2:That's why they say you know, reputation is currency, that's right, and your network is your net worth. That's why you know as many people in your market as possible when you build that reputation up. Because what will happen is when you build a brand with a quality reputation, then your people are proud to work there and then that's how you establish culture and you establish employee retention and pride and all that stuff starts to bubble and compound. And then you come into the Baltimore market and you say who's the most reputable roofing contractor in the Baltimore metropolitan? And we'd be in the conversation, for sure. In the conversation, yeah. And then there's this is a big market. Yeah, and then there's this is a big market. So there's a couple of very, you know, you know, generationally present businesses, right, that have great reputations, but but for sure, yeah, and that that's all part of it Like it is.
Speaker 1:And there's it's that, I guess, to this, to the market size thing, there's you have to have that abundance mentality to a point right, like there's going to be other competitors in the market. But I think you'll go through levels of competition, right. You know, like that company when you were getting started, that you know 30, 50, you know some like I don't know some of the who's in Baltimore that's maybe 100 million plus. Like you know those a lot of times aren't even your competition when you're a smaller. But then as you get through these stages, like you know the other smaller companies are your competition, right, and then there's these different phases of it. But that there's that other phrase best known beats best, right, and but if you can combine the two, man, and I think it all here's what I love about our conversation is that, like I always feel with you, it's just intention, Like you have a sincere intention to do the best thing for your customer, create a quality experience, and I feel that same intention with your team and when you have that intention, the contractors we're over episode 230 now.
Speaker 1:You were on like 30 something, 39 or something like that when we first spoke, but to me, it's the contractors that have that. To me, it's the contractors that have that that just take care of their people, their customers, to the highest level. That's that 80-20 rule. Right Like there's an 80, there's the Pareto's principle in everything, right Like where you're spending your Google ads dollars and all of that. That might be the 20%, but it's the 80% is that you're taking care of your customers and you're taking care of your people.
Speaker 2:And that's where you know it's the bullshit meter. You know it's it's. You know, and a lot of the times when you're selling these home improvements, a lot of the customers don't want to know about the elements of a roofing system of the customers don't want to know about the elements of a roofing system. They want to trust the company and the salesperson and they want to know hey, I'm not dealing with a bullshitter. This guy is honest, he's transparent, he's trustworthy, his company has a great reputation and I want to use this company Now if we're two thousand dollars higher than another company, starting out with trust is where we want to be, because we can negotiate to get work Right. You know we've got our profit margins, that we want to know all the paid channels and all that. Nobody's going to have a bigger impact on your brand than your happy customers and what makes a company like ours tough to beat. You know we've got over 15,000 satisfied customers in a very small, you know, 15 to 20 mile radius here in the Northeastern portion of Maryland. You know, and that compounds because the happy customers produce more happy customers that produce more happy customers. But you're right, you know when we're going in and selling work, you know the reason our team has such a high closing ratio is because of our reputation, because when they go into selling home improvement, the ball's already teed up. These guys just have to put a decent swing on it and it starts out just like you said, jim, with just having these core values and just customer experience focused, just telling the truth focused, just telling the truth, you know, and and just being a good person and just being you right. You know cause if cause.
Speaker 2:The one interesting thing about the surrounded by idiots was that if you get really good at reading people, then you're going to adjust who you are to adapt to the person that you think that they are, and then you'll never be your true self, right.
Speaker 2:So it's like, if I know Jim's a high yellow and I'm a blue and I know that he's a yellow, then I'm going to adjust how I deliver this conversation to Jim based on who I think he is, instead of just being myself. But but when I, the reason that I was so successful when I was selling was because I was just real, you know, and I wasn't real because it was a strategy. They just knew that, hey, this guy, joey, is a good dude, you know he, he seems transparent, right, it seems like he's telling the truth and I trust this guy. And then when you follow up on that, when that customer has that intention or that intuition, that hey, this guy's a good guy, and then you follow through on it, and then you get that kind of reassurance loop right there, then things compound and you're off to the races.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that it's doing the right thing, right, and and it there's going to be times in your business where you have to struggle with that. I think not not all the time, but like if you're in that position, like you were in years ago, where you were, you know, with the $75,000 to the supply house and things like that, there's there's, you know, you were in a position where you could go and get the loan and go after it, where there's a lot of other people that have to make decisions on skimping out on some things until they get that back or whatever it is. And so make the right choices right, make the right choices. They'll come out better in the end, for sure. And you get to sleep at night, which is nice, you know. Sleep is good, it's healthy.
Speaker 2:Like what I said earlier, some of the younger contractors I mean look, we're doing this to make money, right, that's right, you know. But, like I told you earlier, when you reach a level of success and you get comfortable, you know, then you realize it was never about the money and you know which is a lesson that unfortunately you won't learn until you get older. But you know another kind of mantra that we live by. You know, we don't deny the fact that we're in this to do what we are a for profit construction company trying to make money Right. But the more money we make, the more money we give back to make money right. But the more money we make, the more money we give back to our local community. And the more money that we give back to our local community, the more trust we create right.
Speaker 2:The more trust we create, the more roofs they buy and the more likable that we are, the more roofs that you know. You know. Or the more trust that we create, the more likable we are. The more roofs they buy, the more money we make, the more money we, or the more trust that we create, the more likable we are. The more roost they buy, the more money we make. The more money we make, the more money we give. The more money we give, the more trust and likable we are, the more roost they buy, and it's this kind of healthy kind of cycle, just based on being a good person and doing good work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and that's the cycle that you want to be on. What trends or shifts do you see? You know, we talked about it before we on camera, like the, you know a lot of shifts going on in the roofing industry and things like that. Like you know, what are you, what are you seeing in terms of shifts and how are you preparing for them?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think one of the well, there's a couple obvious ones right. I mean we've got the solar right. You know solar is happening right and it's going to happen. They've got the energy shingles right. The different manufacturers are, you know. I know CertainTeed's got a product, gaf's got an energy shingle product, right. So that's definitely changing and will continue to change over the next couple of years, changing and will continue to change over the next couple of years. You know, I know that the federal ITC tax credit is 30% but you know, let's say it goes up to 40%, goes up to 50%. You know that all of a sudden, if you're not doing solar and I was never a big solar fan and we do energy shingles through GAF, right, so we've gone through the GAF training to put on the Timberline Energy Shingle and you know so solar's, you know changing right, latinos, right, latinos are putting these roofs on.
Speaker 2:You know there's not American people putting roofs on anymore. So once we start to see second and third generation Latinos starting to own roofing companies, you know American, american owned roofing companies could be in trouble because first generation Latinos maybe not super sophisticated with American culture but second generation Latinos are understanding how to run businesses. They're understanding, obviously, you know the advantages of being bilingual. They're paying their taxes, they're owning homes. That could start to, you know, change. You know the cultural shift inside of roofing as well, you know. So. We've got solar, we've got Latinos. You know operating businesses. Obviously we've got private equity right entering the roofing industry.
Speaker 2:What is that going to look like as they start to roll up companies and create efficiencies in purchasing and 401k group, health benefits, technology, software. Is that going to increase the price point in local markets? Is it going to decrease the price point in local markets? Is it going to decrease the price point in local markets? Are Americans going to still want to buy locally owned right? You know, locally owned. I'm not owned by a corporation, I'm not owned by private equity. Tar Heel Construction Group is a private, locally owned business. You know what does that look like, right, as things start to change and the wealth gap and the disparity between the haves and the have nots start to change, where all the roofing companies in America, all the profits go up to Morgan Stanley or BlackRock or Goldman Sachs, you know, and all the roofing company owners is where you know. They're still, they still retain their names, but they're not keeping any of the profits, you know, because they sold out, you know, to whoever you know, whatever you want to call them, right.
Speaker 2:So solar Latinos, pe, and I mean those are the big three that kind of come to mind. I mean, there's, you know, and I would say, the introduction and the maturation of technology and software and roofing, right, I think that with the generational changes, you know, with instant quoting tools and you know a lot of the advances in technology that they're trying to get rid of us. You know, salespeople, you know, but I still do think people want to connect with people and people want to be a part of a community of people, right, I don't think that's ever going to go away. You know people in a discord channel sitting behind computers. You can call that a community, right, but I've seen a lot of relations, relationships, get compromised because they built the relationship over, you know, online behind a computer screen, but never got a chance to really talk to the person. So, but I don't want to digress, right, you know. So, solar Latinos, pe, and the progression and exponential maturation of technology and software and roofing.
Speaker 1:So what happens, Joe? What happens to Tar Heel through that maturation? Do you just continue to look at the next problem and try to solve it? Or is there a like? Okay, we know, we have solar. You know, let's see where PE lands. We like, where are you feeling about these things?
Speaker 2:I mean the solar. I mean we're there, right, you know, we're trained up and we understand solar, so so we want to. We'd rather be in the party, you know, than the night on the door trying to get in with the solar. So we're there and we're kind of you know, and there's still a lot of federal and bureaucratic involvement with solar, and that's kind of you know, and that kind of as soon as the government gets involved, they kind of mess everything up. So as soon as that kind of and look, you know fossil, the fossil fuels, and you know and the and the and renewable energy, you know global, you know conglomerates, they're going to fight for a while, right, for a while.
Speaker 1:None of this stuff is going to come fast or as fast as we think right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're on the solar thing, the PE thing, I mean we're keeping our head on a swivel. You know we're going to remain aware, right, and kind of let this kind of happen for a little bit. You know, just like a lot of these, you know R&D, you know we don't want to be first to market, we want to be best to market, right to market. We want to be best to market right. So we don't want to be the first one to, you know, sell our soul to the devil and jump in with pe before we've had a chance to see what these roll-ups really do and the challenges that you know they're inevitably going to experience. Um, because, they're right, roofing.
Speaker 2:The only guys that know roofing are the guys that run roofing companies right or market for them. Jim, right. But and the Latinos? I mean, we'll wait and see, look. I mean, you know, I think in the beginning a lot of Latinos were thought that Americans didn't want them here. But it's like, look, we don't care that Latinos are here in America, just push all the same bullshit that we got to push. You know, pay your taxes. You know, get your insurance. You know, be a be a good member of the community, right.
Speaker 1:And you were, and you came from the subcontracting side. So it's like that is a, it's a, it's always been a natural progression, like if you came from subcontracting to move into the retail side of things. Like it's a, it's a natural progression and some people will make it and some people won't. You know there's not. You know there's always a problem to solve. It seems like you've been solving them for years. Last piece of advice that you would give to a roofing contractor whether they're at 2 million or 20 million, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Know your numbers. You know, know your numbers. You know, like I said before, whether it's. You know whether it's an Excel spreadsheet or whether it's. You know a loose leaf. You know a loose leaf book or whatever it is. Know your numbers.
Speaker 2:Don't get too hung up on goals, right? I think reaching a goal is a side effect of your behavior. You know, I think if you show up on time and you do a good job and you make sure that you manage your cash flow the right way and you know, treat people the right way and put on good roofs, don't ever lose sight of your roofing contractors. It is our responsibility to put on good roofs.
Speaker 2:I've heard a lot of people say oh well, you're not a roofing company, you're a personal development company that just happens to do roofing. That's bullshit. We are a roofing company and just happens to do roofing that's bullshit. We are a roofing company and we put on roofs. Now can we help our people grow personally and professionally? Absolutely. But we are a roofing company first. And if you take care of people and you're honest and you're transparent and you take care of yourself and your team and you put on good roofs at the same time, you know and you're a good marketer. There's a lot of things, but I think it starts out with put on good roofs and knowing your numbers and really sticking to some core values.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into 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. 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.
