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
7-Star Experience? Most Roofers Will Never Achieve This Standard with Terry Gwaltney
What does it take to offer a 7-star customer experience in roofing? Most roofing companies struggle to go beyond just "good enough," but Terry Gwaltney of Integrity Roofing has redefined the game. He shares how focusing on leadership, culture, and value creates an unforgettable customer journey that keeps clients coming back—for generations.
In this video, you’ll discover:
✅ What a 7-star experience means and how it impacts roofing sales.
✅ The secret to hiring the right team for long-term success.
✅ How focusing on emotional connections turns customers into raving fans.
✅ Strategies to build a culture that scales and sustains excellence.
Most roofers focus on price, but Terry shows how value is the real differentiator. Learn how to make customers for life with his proven strategies.
Terry's links:
- 📖 Get Culture-neer: Building A Team That Beats The Odds: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-neer-Building-Team-That-Beats/dp/B0CL5FZJC9/ref
- 👂https://www.audible.com/es_US/pd/Culture-neer-Audiolibro/B0DXQDJYJN
- 💻 www.Terrygwaltney.com
- 🍎 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-culture-neer-podcast/id1725507226?i=1000692283565.
- ▶️ https://youtu.be/j8uOeIpAhOA
🤖 Have a question? Ask this customized ChatGPT for the answer! Specifically designed for this episode, it’s here to help! https://roofingpod.com/chatgpt-245
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How do you transform a standard roofing business into a leadership development company that offers a seven-star experience for every homeowner? In this episode, we're diving deep with Terry Gwaltney, who's not just the founder of Integrity Roofing, but a pioneer in using culture and leadership to redefine customer service. Terry is operating across multiple states, and what makes Terry stand out is his philosophy of creating customers for life by focusing on value and unforgettable experiences, all while building a company culture where every employee is an ambassador. From rigorous hiring practices to encouraging his team to read leadership books, terry's innovative approach shows that roofing can be about much more than just shingles. It's about building relationships. Today, you'll discover how to craft a company culture that scales and delivers a seven-star roofing experience.
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. Terry, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good, good man. It's been about a, I think. Has it been about a year? I think it was about a year ago. We had a great conversation about leadership and team and culture. Conversation about leadership and team and culture really around the release of your book Culture Near For people who didn't get to listen to that episode.
Speaker 2:Give yourself a little introduction. Tell us about Terry. Yeah, well, you know co -founder here of Integrity Roofing Exteriors. We're located in Southern Illinois. Our footprint kind of stretches across three states. Yeah, we're primarily a retail business focusing on residential. We actually tell people, even though people ask you, what you do. Well, we're a leadership development company. We just happen to provide home improvement solutions and that really is kind of our approach. We're in a commodity business but what we're really selling is an experience and that's kind of what we focus on. We get to solve problems every day, help people, protect what matters most to them, and do it at a seven-star. Really experience is kind of what our goal is.
Speaker 1:Tell me more about that. What's the seven-star experience?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we firmly believe that most customers live almost in a false reality. They expect the average contractor to show up, do what they said they were going to do, clean up their mess, stay on the job until it's done and do exactly what they promised and then leave. And we know that's not reality in the world that we live in for most of our competitors anyway, and so if we only show up and do that, we're not very memorable, and so our focus has always been look for those moments of magic. How can we create those out there? What is the added value that the customer is going to get that they didn't expect? And then, at the end of the day, they soon forget what you did for them, but they never forget how you made them feel.
Speaker 2:So we're always looking for that emotional component, and our whole process of our sales model is more of a consulting. So nobody wakes up and wants to spend $15,000 on a roof. They would much rather spend that on a vacation or a hundred other things. And so that automatically tells us that we're either dealing with somebody that has anxiety from a problem they have they're trying to solve, or the anxiety, the fear of one they're about to have, and so because of that much like a doctor that approaches, we do more listening than we do talking and then, based on what's important to you, we come up with solutions that best fit your budget.
Speaker 2:But everybody's not our customer because we're taking that approach that we're going to sell generationally. We take the approach it's a customer for life, and so I may be able to do things to make you happy enough to choose us and get you to pay us, but you may never use us again and you would never refer us. So that's what I say Everybody's not our customer. We're selling on value, and price is really only an issue in the absence of value. So it really doesn't matter who we're bidding against and what their number is. We're going to do it different. There's going to be a different experience and we're selling to be able to sell to your grandkids. It's just a different approach and that's kind of where the seven star comes in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did you come to this philosophy? Behind that, I mean, a lot of it sounds like some of the traditional kind of you know what, what, the traditional cliches about what you should do, right, but it seems like you guys have put it together in a special way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I mean it really all starts. It really starts with our people, and I think the people you know, how do I pick the people that that represent that brand, that reputation, your name, that thing that you built, that takes you a long time to build and you can lose it in a transaction, starts with really knowing your culture. Your people are shared. Your culture is the shared voice and values of your entire team, and so how do I build the culture? I got to keep working it backwards.
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm an entrepreneur, early on I had to figure out what's important to me. How do I want to do business? Integrity is important to me. I want people to feel like they do business, but they don't have to have a contract although it's necessary in our day and age but they don't need to feel like they have to have that to make me honor my word. You know the customer experience was important, so we created our core values and then like, okay, if this, if it's going to require the ability for me to be able to serve more than one person, then I need to have a vision statement Like what does that look like on where I'm going, because I can't ask people to go with me if I can't communicate where I'm headed.
Speaker 2:And then you know we had to spend a lot of time on our mission statement. You know our mission statement is how we're going to do that. And so once we figured that out and knew that, you know this is going to go beyond two people. You know I don't want the experience to be different with employee number three, or no different than employee number 30.
Speaker 2:But I also can't expect them to make the same decisions with my customer, my brand, because everybody that we hire we look at like they're an ambassador, just like there's an ambassador the president's going to appoint to represent him. You know he wants to make sure that there's an alignment and we're on the same page with values and how we do things, how you conduct yourself, reflects on me, and so we had to take all of those things that identified our culture and figure out how do we scale that to where that's more than artwork on a wall, like it is in most corporate places, and the guy that is in the home is processing that decision with that homeowner through our core values. You can't do that if he doesn't even know what they are. And your average company, people working in the field. They know you have them, but they couldn't tell you what they were, so they're kind of useless.
Speaker 1:They do become useless. They become plaques on the wall right, Like a lot of times. They become plaques on the wall. How do you continue to? How do you keep them from just being?
Speaker 2:plaques on the wall. How do you continue to? How do you keep them from just being plaques on the wall? Yeah, I think a lot of intentionality and so kind of where I was going with that is. You know, there's three things we look for when we're inviting people to join our team. We don't call it a hiring process, we call it a selection process, and so for us it really is. I'll talk to a hundred people before we select one. That's the number and there's a. That doesn't mean those 99 people are bad people. There's a lot of great people, but they're not great fits, and so we're having the interview.
Speaker 2:We almost started backwards, like, does this person have the character to represent our brand? If they don't, I don't care how much they sold somewhere else, I don't care how competent they are, how highly recommended. That is the most important thing, because we're looking to add people to the team that's going to be here two years from now, minimum five years from now. They've got one guy that's been with us 16 years and so we're not looking. It's the difference between hired mercenaries and hired missionaries. Our guys are united more than around, more than just a paycheck, and so they're not just looking out for their self-interest. They understand that I'm doing something as a team, I'm representing a brand and I'm servicing a customer, and in the process of all that I get paid really, really well.
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit different approach. So it's character first, and then the second it's cultural fit. He's an honest guy, but does he fit with the team we've already built? I don't need a guy rowing in the opposite direction. I'm going to expend more energy If he can check those two boxes. Then the third one is he needs to be competent. But you also have to trust your process, and so I think a cake mix I don't have to be a baker, but if I can buy a Betty Crocker cake mix follow the instructions of add a little bit of oil, one egg and mix this up and put it for a certain temperature for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2:There's a predictable result, and so we also make sure those people are highly teachable, and so that whole mantra of we're a leadership development company that just happens to provide home improvement solutions. We start them out of the gate. They're reading a book every two weeks during a six-week onboarding for a salesperson In an industry where many times it's ride in the truck with Bill three times and if you think you can make it to the next paycheck, you know we'll just see who sticks. It's just a big different approach and a much higher, I think, investment on the front end. But when you gather those people, then the intentionality and the reward system and the recognition and the compensation all begin to build on. This is how I'm scaling this culture Like this. This is us, and the guy on the forklift knows what it is, just like the guy that's running CFO in the accounting department.
Speaker 1:I know what some people are going to ask is how do you get these people to read a book a week? I mean, a lot of us, a lot of us past school, right past high school or college. They, a lot of people, haven't read a book since then. Right, and now they're coming into usually a career track that is not related to formal education. A lot right. And so how do you do that?
Speaker 2:first, Right, well, so it's every two weeks. We're not so aggressive that it's every week, it's usually every two weeks. Okay, so it's more front loaded. So when you come in on the front end, you know there's a certain amount, as you're going through different parts of training, that you have to get initially and then we track other ones that we will give them, you know, through the course of their career, depending on the track they're choosing. And so if I came in as a consultant but I want to be a regional coach someday, you know I'm going to go through, you know, maybe upwards of 200 books Now, most of the books we have, 99% of those we've selected, where there's also an audio version.
Speaker 2:So in the truck the guys are going to be able to listen to it. Matter of fact, as of the time we're recording this, two days from now I'm taking the Colchonier book going to Nashville and we're converting it to an audio book. It's available on Kindle, but you know so many of the guys, based on what you just said, I mean you have a whole lot more time to listen and maybe you're not a great reader, but you can consume the content.
Speaker 1:I think everybody has their way of learning too. I'm an audible person, man, I'm going to, I'm running through audible books, like, like crazy, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's an easy, it's the, it's the easiest way to consume that for me, right, like, and that that's it's a great thing and that that's great. Windshield what do they call it? The windshield university, right, just, you know, get, get on the road and get that, and you guys cover a lot of area but not a lot of population.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in the three states that we're in, our biggest one is going to be probably our Illinois market. So we're in the southernmost tip. You know that market will cover north to south, 120 miles. It'll cover 70 miles east to west and you cover that whole population. In the biggest town you'll find in there will be 25,000 people and most of those are going to be far less than that. That's a metro area, which is why we're covering such a big footprint. So, yes, our guys have a lot of window time.
Speaker 2:But you know, back to that original question, one of the things that we're looking forward to that selection process is like we choose people that believe as much in themselves as we believe in them, and it's a very upfront conversation. We're interviewing you today not just for the position that's open, but for where we see our company five years from now and how you could fit. So potential is not what you are, it's what you can become, so we're going to require this out of you. So there's many of those guys like part of the interview process is tell us the last self-development book you read. That's okay. Some of those guys you know they just they'll take to it when they understand they get enough information and enough people believe in them and you give them enough opportunity, like I don't have to sit down and read it, I can listen to it, and I'm looking for a summer after that. So they're sitting in a group of peers in our meeting. It's like okay, you just finished the book on why. This week, give me 10 minutes. How, that? How are you going to apply that book to the position that you were hired for? Also, how do you feel like that's helping you, just not just professionally, but how is that going to help you personally? You know, like you set goals.
Speaker 2:You know that you're going to sell this. Why. Why is that? You just want to make. Why do you want to make more money? I want to have more security. Well, why do you want to have more security? Well, I don't. Why do you want to have more security? Well, I don't. I don't want my wife to have to work. Well, why is that important to you? Because I want her to be around for my kids and I want them. And so you just keep digging into it. You know what I'm saying, and so initially, what happens is it's like yeah, I'm, I'm a better version of me, I'm not taking the class because I'm forced to now to pass the test I'm I'm taking the class to learn something from it because it's going to give me opportunity. So it's a different mindset. You change the perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that creates a filter, right, that creates the filter. It builds walls around the team to not let in the culture killers, right, and I would assume that if someone did not read that book that was on the list for this couple of weeks and everybody's sitting around at that table, I would assume that there would be a social. It would be uncomfortable for them socially, right, like it's not that somebody's going to be mean to them, maybe, but wait, you didn't read the book. You know we're all rowing in this direction, you know. So I could see how that can be a powerful filter along the way.
Speaker 1:Speaking of, like, the territory you cover and we were talking a little bit off camera about the goals going forward you cover a lot of ground, a lot of small towns, medium-sized towns across that region, and you'd mentioned to me that the goal for 2025 was essentially, if I can paraphrase it was to go deeper, not wider, to get even more traction in those markets than to expand the market. What's the goal? I mean you could clarify I may not have said it perfectly, but clarify what you're thinking and what steps you feel that that will entail.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, we've spent a lot of time since COVID working on what we'd call our bench, and we like to take our circles of influence, and the growth model would be is go just a little bit outside of that circle, where we already have some brand equity, and then just stretch that market. But because we're so widespread, one of the things that we're seeing is, you know, every medium of advertisement doesn't overlap, even in these small areas. I mean, you're talking about 120 miles. You may be in a DMA of two. You know some places, two or three different television stations and different things. You know, I've got one part of my market where one of our top salesmen live. Well, all the television involvement in that area and influence is all coming out of another state. So the two states that we buy in, they don't even reach there, and so you've got to be a little bit more creative. So it leaves all these great pockets of opportunity.
Speaker 2:And so for us, we've seen that the process will work. If the process of our excuse me selection has worked, we can turn around and match that with our training process and it's pretty predictable what that's going to do to the top line. And so, like we know, next year? Apologize, we've got two great people coming through our training right now. Well, we already know what that means in an average of numbers, that that's going to add to our bottom line In the market that they're in. You know it's going to add 35%, you know, to the top line and so it's kind of foolish to go out and struggle a little bit further when we haven't maximized.
Speaker 2:You know what we've got and every time we think like how much more can we do in this one market, our eyes are open to how much more opportunity there is there, how many opportunities we didn't even get to be in front of a customer and all those different things. So just going deeper with that it also buys us more time because we want to promote from within. We made a decision early on like we're not going to take advantage of an opportunity for expansion at the expense of our culture. So the longer our guys that we keep them closer and we're growing deeper, the further we can push them out and feel like we have the confidence to continue to replicate that culture over and over again. So it's kind of a win. We're not forced to do it. So you know it's more cost effective to do it where we're at, causes our people to grow, you know, more mature, and then, when it's time to maybe go two different ways we'd be in a position to do it instead of just being able to do it.
Speaker 1:you know, once a year you made a statement that you have the two additional team members and you know it was very certain language that you know the outcome of these new team members. How do you know?
Speaker 2:that We've really got a process dialed in on our training where, if we go through the process of really selecting that person, we are committed to that person. And so there's a full-time trainer that his sole job is to onboard that guy through a bootcamp for six weeks. They're passed off for another 90 days as they're selling to a training coach. That's a mentor, where they're riding in the truck with that guy who's a high performer, one day a week, it doesn't matter what their schedule is. They're going to do that for the next 90 days. We know if they follow that process we can go back through like last year run the averages of every guy that sold for a full calendar year come up with the average of what's going to be sold, and it's considerably more than what our minimum is to onboard a guy, and so we can base numbers and projections on next year, not really do anything different. It's going to be pretty safe to bet. This is what that's going to add to the line Now.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, like we're talking now, the economy is looking better. You know mindset of people. There's a lot more buyer's confidence. Money's getting released already. A little bit earlier, just even on the other side of this election. It had a big bearing where we were at, in people's minds, and so we see lots of opportunities on the runway that's ahead. It will really come down to the matter of people that we can continue to hire. It's the same thing. You don't want to select man. I was able to add six more of these great consultants to sell. If I can't match that with my production, we're going to live up to our reputation and our promise. It's the selection of the entire team, not just certain aspects of it, and some are harder to find than others.
Speaker 1:For sure. What stage or phase of your business do you think that this really kind of aligned like? You really got to a point where it was like, yeah, we're, we're there, or this is, or this is the we know. This is exactly what we have to do. Like was it early on? Was it in the middle stages, has it been more recently?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I think there was. There was different milestones for that. Yeah, we started out with knowing we wanted to in the early days, 16 years ago. We want to provide a different experience and we want a different type of people generally to represent us. So we did that from the beginning. But a lot of the other stuff we were doing, what we knew and what we had seen other people do.
Speaker 2:Now, one of the things I think we did really right in the very beginning is like OK, we identified if someone will keep their word and provide an amazing customer experience in an industry that lacks professionalism, lacks integrity and is selling a commodity, quite honestly, anybody could go sell it how can you stand out and be different? We went and studied Nordstrom, disney, chick-fil-a Nordstrom, disney, chick-fil-a I'm leaving one out, but that's where we went to the high Ritz-Carlton. We went to the high service industry None of them in our industry, but there were principles in that that we knew that we could apply. We're hiring people, they hire people. They're serving people. We're serving people. Matter of fact, even some of our language began to change. We take a craftsman that comes in and, like you guys are notoriously great with your hands. You're not good communicating with people? Okay, and you know, we take a consultant that comes in and you're great with people. Sometimes you're not great with your hands. So what we want to do is we want to marry the two. You guys need to understand we are, we are craftsmen and professionals and every day we're going out serving ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2:You take that mindset and that approach. It elevates the game for everybody. It elevates the expectation you know all the way back to like this is why I need to read a book. This is why I can be better. You know, for us you can make excuses or progress, but you can't do both. And as quick as you can come to the point that excuses are really nothing more than a reason stuffed into a lie. Then you start owning where you're at and quit complaining about where you're not, and then that empowers people to really begin to move.
Speaker 2:I believe the perspective thing is one of the most powerful things, because how you view things determines how you do things, and so we start early on, change the perspective. You're not in the roofing industry, you're not just a roofing salesman, you're not just a craftsman Salespeople generally. You view sales from the standpoint of what people are doing to other people. We're viewing, and I want you to view salespeople as what you're doing for people. It's not what I'm taking, it's what I'm adding. When those perspectives start changing, they come out in your language, come out in your body language.
Speaker 2:Customers pick up on that quickly and you've heard the stories. I mean you know somebody's just leaving. They've called for three appointments. The other guy's getting in the truck. He's like do I need to come back a little bit later? No, I've hated that guy. I knew you didn't like him as soon as he stepped out the truck. I hadn't even spoke to him yet. You know people, customers can just read that. So you change the perspective of your team. That's kind of been one of our approaches. I'm sorry, I'm kind of rambling here. No, you're good, but man, there were just milestones. That was the first thing that we kind of did, right, and then. But I got so consumed in the business it tapped out really quick and then I knew what I needed to do. I needed to quit working in the business so much and work on it. That was the next big turning point. And but where was? That was the next big turning point.
Speaker 1:Where was that? Where was that around Revenue size or team size? What was that pivot point where you went? Oh, there's something that needs to change here, and it's what I'm doing every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really wanted to scale the business. So I guess there was two things, and they happened in fairly close proximity. The first big one for us was when we started. You know it was all about the insurance world. That's what we did. There really wasn't a marketing budget Different people but we were drumming up word of mouth. You know we were door knocking. You know, when you looked at that it looked like a traditional model you might see in just the roofing industry as a whole Realized. You know, that's not really what we want to do. We want to turn this into a retail model and we want to do it in a concentrated area. That was a big move. And so then the next big move is, once we begin to do that, it's like okay, you know, if we want to be able to scale this now, I've got to spend more time working on the business. But you know I don't get paid a commission and I'm selling the most in the business. So how many people am I going to have to hire to replace that, to break even again? And when you're not huge at that point, you know some people are just not willing to take that risk. That was a big juncture for us.
Speaker 2:Once we did that, though, I think the next big thing is we really started to understand culture on a deeper level, so I really began to research and study that. It's like, yeah, it's more about people and you know you want to care about them and it's where you work and you want them to have fun. It's like, no, we went deep on that, and then we started having a real conviction, like we're fortunate we've gotten this far, because what we should have done is identified all of this culture stuff, because it's foundational everything, and we would be 10 years ahead, and so that was probably about six years ago that we really started seeing the benefit of that, and so retaining people and getting this high, high engagement in the customer service we always had good reviews. Now we start getting great reviews, a lot of reviews and then the last one has been within the last two years, when we focused on we're going to set aside our best salesman is how we pilot the program. Another kind of gutsy move for us Like we want you to be a full-time trainer, and so we begin to pilot that program.
Speaker 2:Then we added another program to that, called like Rilla. You may be familiar with that. It's like how do we, how do we take that guy across three states and not just onboard people, but make our guys better? How can he be a coach to them? The only way you can be a really good coach is you have to be able to review the game tape. And so what we identified was we were trying to figure out a way how can we get you sitting at the table without being a distraction to the homeowner and the project consultant, not changing their pitch because you're there and being intimidated and help them the most. And so when we found this process and begin to use that, then we could really begin to coach guys up. I mean, you did great on this, but right here is where we can help you, and we started moving the needle on close rates.
Speaker 1:Not all of the best, all of the best players, become the best coaches. How did you overcome that? Or how did you measure that Not all of the best players become the best coaches? How did you overcome that? Or how did you measure that? How did you make those adjustments if you needed to?
Speaker 2:Well, it's really funny in that particular role that we're talking about, because you're absolutely right, you know, success in one area doesn't guarantee success in another, and a lot of times it's almost a competing strength, and our culture worked in our favor in that arena too. The guy that we asked to step into that role we could have never asked to step into that role five years ago when he came on board. But he's not the same guy five years later as he was, and he trusted us and we had enough relationship. We're going to pioneer some and we think this is what this is going to look like. Here's what you know you'll make, here's what we think you can make.
Speaker 2:He took almost an equal risk, but because of that it allowed us to kind of maneuver through that, and then he went on and you know we really train our guys to. You know, it's almost like have your own life mission statement, and so you know I want everybody we hire to retire from here, will they no? Everybody we hire to retire from here, will they no? But what we do want is that you can turn around. So you know what I'm a better person because I work there. I'm a better father, I'm a better husband. I'm just a better citizen, a better man, because I worked at integrity, and so that's exactly what happened to him and during the course of this, financially his life just really got changed through a variety of things. He made a lot of money here.
Speaker 2:One of our guys here really taught some principles of budgeting and he connected with him early on and it changed not just his life but generationally and he's seen that, and so part of his life mission statement was if I ever get an opportunity to be able to go help other people in their finances, to learn and benefit from what I've learned, I want to do that. That literally happened. That transition happened about two months ago and he went to work for Edward Jones and that's what he's doing every day. But because the culture was strong, there was another guy excuse me that had been being mentored for four years. He had our heart, he had our culture, he had benefited already from the experience of the former leader and he was able to step right into that road different skillset. So he's approaching it, you know the same way, but he's building onto. So it will only become better because of that, and again, I attribute most of that to culture and the kind of people that were selected through the culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that selection process has to be the key of it. Right Like that, that's the key piece. It's the, you know to the, to the old adage higher slow, fire fast, or something like that right, like you're, you're living that, you're not just saying it, you're living it.
Speaker 1:During those times, like there has to be, especially during those shifts in the business where you're starting to take, you know, step out of certain roles you're not selling as much, maybe, or as an owner, you're not selling as much, or when you're transitioning your you know, some of your top salespeople into trainers, there's a, there has to be a trade off in that time. I think that there's a fear with, with business owners in that trade like cause, there's a gap in profitability. That happens there, right, and you gotta make that leap. And were there? The question that I wanna ask is more what personal sacrifices did you make in that timeframe so that the business could do what it needed to do? Were there any of those moments where you said, well, I'll just not take a set. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was, I think, for every good business owner. It's a calculated risk. Yes, believe in the direction, strong enough to do it. You know there's a risk, but you think the predictability and the odds of success are greater and it's just worth it. And so I think that's what you know.
Speaker 2:Some people get paralyzed, I think, in the analysis of paralysis, with all the whatever. Well, you know, change all of that and, just, you know, take a little bit of risk. No, no, go stupid. But I think the cost for that was the answer that would be different at different junctures. The biggest cost, when we decided, you know what, we're going local, we're going with a total retail model, we went backwards in revenue as a company and you know it didn't necessarily set the world on fire a year later. But then we started, you know, three years ago we had a three-year period where we doubled in size. So what happens is much like compound interest, if you believe in it and you hold on to it and you survive with it. It may be incremental in the beginning but it becomes exponential and compounding and, like now, we're riding the wave of a lot of that compounding. But you're right, the selection process is so deeply connected to the culture component and I don't think most business owners connect the two. You can have these conversations and they will mentally assent that. I know that's important and that's a good idea and depending on where they're at in their growth and how much they've stepped away to really work on it.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest, most of us had the dream to go in business for ourselves and say we're in business for ourselves, to be our own boss, to to have the flexibility, and what we did is we created a job where we work more. There's some people that work for us, that we that make more than what we do and we have more responsibility, all the liability. And it's like is this really what you signed up for? And yet you've just created this job and you're afraid to give up your job, to go back and reclaim your company and work on it. Sometimes I think there just needs to be a reset. This is why I got into this and so, if not, I need to go work for somebody else. This is why I got into it. I need to. How do I get that back on course?
Speaker 2:My point was is you know, I'm worried about making payroll, dealing with the IRS and this work, comp audit. I've got that all sounds great, but I don't have time for the culture. Well, that's like saying you know I got a wall to build here, yeah, but you forgot to do the foundation. You don't understand. I've got to finish the wall Like for what reason it's not going to matter. The first time we have a storm is you're not building it on a firm foundation, and so I don't think you can select and build your team until you know what I want my culture to look like and I figured out a way to communicate that to you. That drives your behavior on a daily basis. Otherwise, I'm trying to manage 10 different companies. We're already managing 10 different personalities. You know it needs to be one company, one voice, rowing one direction, with a shared valued system.
Speaker 1:You're doing the events now around a lot of this, the Culture Near events. Explain those a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's something that we're developing. We do a little bit of speaking, you know, in some mastermind groups, stuff like that. We're hosting our second group. We have one of these coming up in February. It's called the Ripple Effect Experience, and that whole event is focused on culture, and so there will be six speakers. We hosted our Culture Near podcast hosted, so I'll be one of the speakers, and then I'll bring in five different speakers and, like, one of them will come from the nonprofit world, and the other four, though, are going to come from various backgrounds.
Speaker 2:One of the speakers used to be the president of Kentucky Fried Chicken, you know.
Speaker 2:One owns a home health care company, you know one is, you know, owns a couple of Chick-fil-A's, and he's an executive coach, and so they kind of cover the gamut.
Speaker 2:But what we have in common is everybody understands the importance of culture, and they have a track record of proving how they've been able to use that and be able to scale that, and so it's the principle of culture and people across any industry that can be applied, and so we're looking for additional ways to do that.
Speaker 2:Eventually, that's going to end up into what we call these three-day, two-night summits, where we bring people to our properties and we take a smaller group and we do a much deeper dive on some of these topics. But that's some of the things we're doing on a bigger level and that event is geared towards three audiences. If you're the entrepreneur, the mid-level manager or you're the aspiring leader, all day Saturday you're going to get eight hours of stuff that will really help propel you forward. You know, taking people's life experience. There's a Friday night component to that kind of a VIP and you have to be the head of the organization to be at that and we're just going to spend time with all of those speakers, kind of picking their brain, networking you know that kind of thing During that time and if you do it, with the events they do and the training that you do internally, what type of exercises can a business owner do to start moving in this direction?
Speaker 1:What are the exercises that a that a business owner can do to start to pour that foundation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the first thing is is not necessarily this order, but you need to do an assessment of where you're at and you can't completely do that on your own, so you have to create a mechanism and a value to assess. You know where I can tell you my culture at may be different than what the accounting department saying and the guy swinging the hammer in the field, and their opinion is really what counts because that's the reality. It's kind of like the customer reviews oh, we're great, you know we have all these people that, yeah, let's read your reviews. That's the report card that really matters. And so I would say, do an honest assessment. Matter of fact, if you go to terrygwaldingcom that's where our culture and your stuff pops up is a free assessment and you can take that and there's like 10 questions on there and it's designed for you to take it as the owner, but then turn around and you circulate that form to all of your, all your team and then compare notes how far were you off, and I thought we were good in this and make it anonymous so you get really good feedback. So there's a lot of ways to do it and you know that's kind of a surface level, but you need to do an assessment Like, where am I at Really, where are we really at? And then I think you need to go back and revisit.
Speaker 2:You know I met this gentleman the other day and you know he's taken over a third generation business. You know we started talking. You know I want to be able to select people the right way and he'd been at one of these events. And so now we're. Do you have a mission statement, a vision statement? Yeah, yeah, we have that. I said, well, is it yours? Well, actually, no, I'm working on tweaking that right now.
Speaker 2:I said, well, that's where you need to focus your time. You're asking how to select and who. You first got to figure out who you want. This is as important as a job description. You need to be able to tell them where you're going, because part of your leading and recruiting and selecting is vision. People will come on board many times for less money if they believe in where you're going and that's where they want to arrive. So you need to know what that is. You need to be able to really communicate with them how you're going to do that, what makes you different. That's the mission part of that.
Speaker 2:And then man, put your core values on. What is important to you Don't make it super hard. What is important to you? Don't don't make it super hard. What is important to you, that are the essentials when you're going to do business. That's what you want, all those people.
Speaker 2:When you figure that out, then you craft your questions in your selection process. That's what you're looking for, because your resume is going to be a highlight reel from their friends. It's almost going to be worthless. So spend the time to invest in that process, because what I want to know is I don't want to verify your information in the interview I want to know what's made you up to this point in your life and then I'm going to ask real specific questions that too deep, are telling me what I really want to know. I think assessing where you're at, figuring out exactly where you're going and then getting those down and how I'm going to do it and what's important.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I can go back in who's willing to go in the direction we're going, because if you didn't start this from the beginning, there's going to be some of your team you're going to have to promote to customers. You're going to spend more time trying to clean up their mess than you are going out and looking for somebody else and unfortunately, I think, many of us we get so busy and we don't manage our time properly and we don't have the right perspective. We're a firefighter in our business and so our hiring becomes reactive, so we're not selecting for where we're going. We're hiring for a job that happens to be open for whatever reason, to put out a fire, and I'm going to be putting out the same fire six months from now and a year from now. I would rather go a year and leave that open. You know, and select the right person.
Speaker 1:I've been talking about this, terry, a lot. It's like, especially in the beginning, you're just hiring a body, right, like you just need somebody you need a body to do. Like it doesn. You don't know who you need, what, you just need help, and it's man. It becomes very, very challenging. I think that another thing that I've talked about a little bit recently is is I think, like entrepreneurship will change you, entrepreneurship will change you. It is a school of leadership, it is a school of personal development. To really go through years and years and years of entrepreneurship and all the ups and downs that come along with it and the skill sets that you need to learn at different places in your business, at different stages of your business. My goodness, it becomes like it becomes the. You know you get your master's degree in personal development in some ways right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you have to have a commitment to be a lifetime leader. Yes, you know. Otherwise, you know two things will happen You're too insecure to tell somebody what you know, or you'll tell your people everything you know other. Otherwise, you know two things will happen You're too insecure to tell somebody what you know, or you'll tell ever. You'll tell your people everything you know, and then you have no place to take them and so much like how do you get people to read? You know a book every two weeks is because you know I'm going to read two or three books a month. You know I've already read all the books I'm asking them to read and so you know I can't give them what I don't have. So, yes, there is a lifetime commitment. You know that leader casts a tall shadow and unfortunately, we lead more by what we do and what we model than what we say. And yeah, it's a great. So how do we? You know?
Speaker 1:there's the old phrase fake it till you make it. I don't like that very much, right, but but in a way you all you know, in in a way you are right, like in a. In a way you are maybe, maybe you haven't made it, maybe you are not the person that that that casts that great shadow, the leader that casts that great shadow. Yet how do you give yourself the grace to go from those early years with the intention of getting to that leadership level?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think you have to be appreciative and look backwards and we're very forward looking. You know, people can get in a ditch either way. They spend all their time living their life in the rearview mirror. Or you know it's all pie in the sky and what's in front of them, and I think it's a healthy mix of both. Or you know it's all pie in the sky and what's in front of them, and I think it's a healthy mix of both.
Speaker 2:You know we have this statement, you know. You know I might not be where I want to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be, and so it's a reminder that I have a long way to go and I'm not perfect. I also need to remind myself I made a lot of progress. You know, I'm not the level of transparency that he's willing to have with the team that he's leading. You know, they already know most of your weaknesses anyway, and so I don't believe you need to go share everything, but I do think there's a certain connection and empathy that comes with. Like.
Speaker 2:You know, guys, I really feel like this is the move we need to make. It may not be the right move, but I really believe in enough that we're going to risk it and try it. And you know we're going to commit to this six months and we're all in. This is what is costing us. But if it doesn't work, pride is not going to be the reason we continue it. We're going to say this has been a costly learning lesson and we're going to be better because of it and it's kept our innovation. It's caused people to buy in. It's allowed the leader to take a risk and fail because they're not a failure. We teach the people all the time. You know failure is when you fall down and you refuse to get up. Failing is a learning process. That's experience we can build off of that.
Speaker 1:I think that's the mindset right, like that's the mindset shift, no-transcript. And we started walking through the things that they had built out and what I realized was that there was just a lot of loose ends, a lot of unfinished projects, and they had so much of the structure there, but they just didn't connect this to that yet. They didn't plug it in right, like they have the. But it was that they didn't see the results of their actions yet. They had not seen the results of their actions. They have not seen the fruit of their labor yet. They just were toiling in their labor right, right, the hooks are on the wheel, that's right. And sometimes it's just that it's a little thing right that can take, that that can move the needle from here to there. How do you, how would you, what advice would you give someone to to continuously grow in there as a business owner, in their personal life, as a leader?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think a couple of things I think. First, you know you need to adopt the mindset of I'm a lifetime learner, number one. I think there's some key things you need to understand. Potential is not what you are, it's what you need to become, and you're not competing against the guy across the street, across town or in the next state Every day when you get up. You're competing against the guy in the mirror. So what I need to be tomorrow is a better version of the guy that I'm looking at today. How do I do that? And then, I think, a firm, healthy understanding of like a.
Speaker 2:You know, I always question people's motivation to be a leader. If you're a good leader, you understand there's a whole lot. There's a whole lot of that that, like nobody in their right mind would sign up for it, you know. And so if the motives are right and you're a more servant oriented leader, I think that drives you too, because the better leader I am, the more influence I have Now. Do I want the influence because it gives me more privilege and money and all the other things maybe that come with that, or do I want that because I really want my life to count? I want to make a difference, I want to pour into somebody else and see that investment, and I think that fuels a lot of that. You have to get the right mindset on the right definition. What's your motive to even be a leader? It's like if your only motive to be in business I want to make as much money as I can. Well, that's going to be a short run. It's going to be pretty unfulfilling, to be quite honest. So how you measure success, when you achieve it, you're probably going to be bankrupt in a whole lot of other areas of your life, and so we're working on a course right now. It's something that we're really passionate about, and so we use this process. We go through with all of our team, we use it in the hiring, we use it every three months in an evaluation and kind of job sculpting. We call it like a life 360. And we'll take their life and we have it divided in six major categories that represent their whole life, and it becomes an assessment tool. Like we really want to know how are you doing in your finances right now and how are you doing in the area with your family, like your immediate family? And so we break all those areas down, and one of the new things that I'm rolling out for next year is we're going to take that to another level and we're going to teach them how to create a 360 life plan for the whole year.
Speaker 2:So, if you think about your business, what's the vision statement you have for your life this year? You know kind of what's the mission statement for that. You know what are your goals. And I started it yesterday with our group and we started. I started by teaching them your, our challenge this week and our exercises. You're going to write your eulogy. I said, just like anything in business, we're going to begin with the end in mind. And I said I want you to think about this for a minute. And I said I know that sounds a little bit morbid. I said I know that sounds a little bit morbid, but I'm going to teach you all these other components because I want you to have a vision for all six of these areas of your life, because I don't believe there's such thing as work life balance. I think there's a work life integration, and so they're intricately tied.
Speaker 2:You think about if you have a heart attack. That doesn't just affect your health, that affects how you interact with your family. Now it also affects how you're interacting at work. So every portion of your life doesn't get an equal amount of time, but it needs to get the proper amount of time. And I think we have these hard charging business owners and we end up in two ditches. We figure out where we get recognition, where we get fulfillment and what we think success is, and then we turn around and it's like man, we've made a lot of money but we're bankrupt. In our relationship with our wife she feels like you know, that we're just a roommate. We're bankrupt. Our kids don't like us and they're going through stuff as teenagers and we're not even able to connect with them.
Speaker 2:And so some people will say you know what? I'm going to give all that up and go be an employee because I got to go back and try to save my family. You know, or you'll have other people. You know, it's just the opposite, and I personally believe we can teach people how to win at work and win at home, you know, but you have to start it with like where do I want to end up? And so that whole eulogy thing.
Speaker 2:It's like think about a vacation, the first thing I have to decide before I go on vacation is the destination, once I figure out where I'm going and I can figure out how long it's going to take me, what's my transportation, where am I going to stay, what's my activities, and so let's, let's take this long view of your life that you're heading on. You can make more money, but you'll never spend more time. You'll never be able to reclaim the time that we spent together today. And so see yourself in a movie at your funeral and and list out who's going to be there, like who's alive. Now that would still be alive. Okay, you know, start with your family, start with your colleagues, start with your friends, start with the people you go to church with. Okay, now let's break that down, prioritize that list. Okay, now just give me one statement out of that list.
Speaker 2:It's like what do you want your wife to say about you at your funeral? What do you want your kids to say about you at your funeral? What do you want your kids to say about you? Okay, so you start going through that. I said now let's take that, because you're not just going to drift there and end up there.
Speaker 2:Hope's not a strategy. And so now let's break that down one year at a time, and where do you want to be in your finances next year? Where do you want to be in your relationships next year? Now, let's create a vision statement for that, and let's hold ourself accountable that let's look at that every quarter, let's look at it every week, and let's create this giant page. This is what I want my life to look like, in other words, order that life, and so we're really going to use that this year, too, because we're so invested in our people, which again ties back into your culture. I add enough value to our people. They'll go into hell with a water pistol for me, and when they know I've got their back and they know they're going to be a better person because they're here and they're much more than a number, and so I think a lot of those smaller things taking the time to do that, they just reinforce that. There's so many of those elements, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like the way you put it. There's not a's, not a there's. I'm a big. I don't believe in work life balance either. Right, there's like nothing is balanced in your life at any. You know the six core things that are that make up that life. It's not an equal pie chart All right, something to think about, but it but. But the things that you focus on will grow, but the things that you focus on will grow. So if you take your eye off of your work to focus on relationships, you have to have your eyes on a lot of places at the same time in your life. How would you feel people should balance that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it goes back to a little bit of that exercise. But they need know, they need to understand their priority. And then to what you said. You know they're not equal pie charts. You know I'm not going to be able to go home and spend eight hours with my wife tonight when I'm going to spend 10 hours of work today. You know what. But she probably doesn't want eight hours anyway. But what she does want is she wants quality, not quantity. So she doesn't need me sitting there while I'm on the phone. She needs me to be engaged in listening to what she has to say.
Speaker 2:If she got an hour of that, that's worth more than eight hours. I need to be in the gym and taking care of my health, but an hour is about all I'm probably going to be able to do, you know, even though I may have worked 10 hours. So again, it's not equal. But if I rob that one hour, there may be days I'm never at work Cause I haven't taken care of, I've taken for granted, I've taken for that aren't always going to be there through these false assumptions. Well, I'm always going to have this energy level and I'm always going to have this certain amount of strength and I'm always going to know you're not. And so if you don't have a plan for that, and so I think the assessments and how often you do that keeps that in front of you. And for us, we have like a coach on our team that will sit with them and, like you know, you said on a scale of one to 10, you were at an eight last time in your finances and you know your relationships were, you know, out of two this, your finances and, and you know your relationships were, you know, out of two. This time you're at five at your finances and you're at an eight in your relationship. So you know what's what's going on, and so you kind of help them self-diagnose. That, yeah, but we'll do crazy things, you know that, because we believe that we, we, for us, it's more than an exercise, we really believe in it.
Speaker 2:And so, like I'll take our key level, guys, and part of an eval is I want you to tell me how often are you dating your wife? Well, you know no. Is she on your calendar? Do you have a shared calendar? And are you taking her out? Because what you did to get her, the same thing that you're going to need to keep her and she needs to have something to look forward to all week. She's important enough to still be on your calendar, and so this is not all about dollars and cents, but I can tell you you start having problems in your marriage. The guy that I hired that was my top performer for six months won't be till you get divorced, and you won't be the same guy six months afterwards. And so trying to get business owners to look at this, I'm like man. I don't have the time for that and that's just an extra expense in my company. No, it's an investment. What's?
Speaker 2:it going to cost you to replace that person? What's it going to cost when they're not engaged? What's it going to cost not taking care of your culture and they're telling you one thing, but as soon as you leave the room they're doing something else. It's an investment. All this is about a long-term picture. So if you're in this thing for get rich quick and overnight, you know it's a race to the bottom, but, man, if you've got a vision of where you want to end up and it's long term, you'll make an investment.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, terry, there's a lot to think about there. There's a lot to. There's always something to work on, right, we always have stuff to work on. Right, we always have stuff to work on. I hear you talking about measurement of things. Right, and then that is that using those measurements to make, to make those adjustments that you need. It's not just in the time from signed contract to materials order.
Speaker 2:No, no, because you can't really. You can't effectively manage what you can't measure. You know, I think a lot of times, just like people try to use hope as a strategy. I hope I make more money next year, I hope my marriage gets better, I hope my close rate goes up. But again, not a strategy. So measure something, that's a plan.
Speaker 2:So what's your close rate now? Okay, what do you want it to be 90 days from now? Okay, how often are we going to look at that? We're not going to wake up and be surprised Well, 90 days, I didn't move at all. You should have known that 60 days ago. And so you just kind of start working all that backwards. And I think that's the power of the measurements and the constant check-in. We're big on too. I think most of us, if we have any kind of success, we're committed to working on our weaknesses. The problem is not necessarily our weaknesses, it's our blind spots, and so if you don't create a culture that can speak into your blind spots, you're never working on the things that everybody else already knows is your biggest weakness, and we'll do some exercises even around that. But you know, it takes again a certain level of vulnerability with a certain level of trust, which really only comes out of a certain level of relationship.
Speaker 1:How do you differentiate a blind spot from a weakness?
Speaker 2:The weakness. I think you're aware of the blind spot others are aware of and you're clueless, and so I got to figure out a way to get that information, to be able to measure that, so I can go to work on that. It's kind of like that whole perception Our perception is our reality, but our reality doesn't mean it's really reality.
Speaker 1:That's right. Eliminate your blind spots, Terry. It's been a pleasure. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. You, you, you, you, you. 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.
