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
How This Roofer Built a Roofing Culture So Strong It Runs Without Him with Ronnie Lollar
Most owners are stuck working in the business…
Ronnie Lollar built one that runs without him.
In this episode, you’ll meet the roofer who knocked his first door at 11 years old. Who helped take AVCO Roofing from $1.7M to $5M in just one year. And who co-founded Roof Warrior to help others do the same.
But it wasn’t easy…
Ronnie’s been through the pain:
- Close friends leaving the company
- Watching reps start competing companies
- Wondering if it was even worth it
Instead of quitting, he doubled down on CULTURE.
And in this episode, you’ll discover:
✅ How to build a leadership team that doesn’t need you
✅ Why your reps NEED to fail (and how to let them)
✅ How to build a culture so strong, your company runs without you
✅ The savior complex that’s killing your growth—and how to fix it
This one’s raw. Real. And PACKED with what every owner needs to hear if you want to scale for real (and finally take a vacation without everything falling apart).
🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronnie-lollar-b06733182/ & https://avcoroofing.com/
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What if the secret to scaling your roofing company isn't another lead gen hack, but building a culture so strong it runs without you? Ronnie Lawler knows what it takes. He started knocking doors at 11 years old, built Avco Roofing into a multi-location powerhouse and co-founded Roof Warrior to help others do the same. But it wasn't always smooth. He's been through the hard stuff friendships falling apart, team members leaving to start their own companies, culture setbacks, even questioning if it was all worth it. But instead of pulling back, ronnie doubled down. In this episode, you'll learn how to create a leadership team that doesn't need you, the right way to let reps fail so they actually grow, and why you need to lose your savior complex if you ever want to scale. If you've ever felt stuck working in the business and not on it, ronnie's got the playbook to change that. This one's packed with truth, heart and systems that scale. Let's get into it with Ronnie Lawler of Avco Roofing.
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. You got Ronnie Lawler, avco Roofing and Roof Warrior. How are you today?
Speaker 3:bro. Yeah, Jim, I'm doing great. I really appreciate that Been a lot of fun. It starts of the year and you've got a lot of fun things, so I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's going to be fun. Man, you have been an integral part of the I would say of of of the Avco team for for some years now and you can explain that to people. And then you know you guys, you and he started Roof Warrior, or you know and so introduce yourself to anyone that you know, to the audience, and if, if they haven't heard of you or don't know you, yeah, yeah, my name is Ronnie Lawler.
Speaker 3:I am the visionary at Avco Roofing. I've been here for probably 10 years, which is kind of crazy. I've been in the industry for this is year 18, which also sounds kind of nuts, but when I say that out loud it's easy to kind of track, because my oldest son, my wife, is pregnant with our first kid whenever, so I can always know he's 17. He's 16. I think she was pregnant with him when I started. That makes it a little bit easier. But, yeah, it's something that I've really enjoyed over the years is just the roofing space and what it offers, the opportunity we were kind of talking about it earlier that it allows for so much opportunity for so many different people. Yeah, I've been in sales.
Speaker 3:I was in the fitness industry for a number of years as well. I was a personal trainer and fitness manager for a number of 24-hour fitnesses in Denver, colorado, greater Denver area for a number of years and I love doing that. You know I've been knocking doors since I was 11, which is kind of crazy. That's where a lot of my passion and decision to start Roof Warrior kind of came out of that. And so, yeah, heath and I we decided to create Roof Warrior because he and I, when we got into the industry, uh, you know, we got dropped off, probably like a lot of us on here that are listening right now. You get dropped off at the end of the driveway and said, okay, we'll uh see if you can go, uh talk to those people and convince them to let you get up on their roof and then, uh, even better, to see if you can sign a contract while you're at it, you know. And so, uh, since that was our training, uh, we decided like there's gotta be better, better options out there, and uh, so, uh, he and I's heart is just kind of that of a coach. I really enjoy helping people. That's kind of, um, part of who I am. It's just uh kind of what I enjoy doing. It's part of why I love what I get to do nowadays is that I'm not over any specific department at Avco. I get to be the visionary, I get to be the culture setter, I get to be the person that just checks in with people and I get to hear about how things are going and get to help troubleshoot different parts of what's going on.
Speaker 3:And yeah, so we decided to make Roof Warrior because we wanted to do something a little bit different. We wanted to. You know, there's a lot of great coaches. There's a lot of great training programs and platforms that are out there. There's tons of them. I'm great friends with Jim Johnson. I'm actually part of one of his mastermind groups. I love Jim and he does great stuff and we actually used him when we first started. He really helped expedite us and so, but we wanted to do something a little bit different. We had the perspective of, like, we're still operating a roofing company today, like in multiple different locations, and so we thought we might have a little bit of something different to offer and to say with Roof Warrior, and so that's why we created it, and we've had that for the last, I guess, three plus years. So we chose to partner with Sales Transformation Group and Ryan Groff and his team has been a great partnership over there, and so they house our product inside of their platform and our partnership, yeah, so that's kind of a little bit of that.
Speaker 3:Got three awesome boys. I got a 17 year old, a 14 year old and an 11 year old. Been married to my beautiful wife Lindsay for 18 years now then when they're for 20, which is kind of crazy to say and not only do I like, love my wife, but I actually like my wife, I enjoy her company. So very, very blessed and very grateful to have her, uh, been very supportive over the years of the craziness of uh, what it, what it was getting into roofing and you know knocking doors and you know 100 commission and all those different things right it's a, it's a journey, and you definitely have to have the family on board right there.
Speaker 1:That, that, that's for sure. You know, you from our past conversations. What was it? How many industries you've knocked doors in what like seven industries over the years?
Speaker 3:yeah, so six industries in seven states?
Speaker 3:yes, six industries in seven states and fell, and roofing became the one yeah, I had, um, I grew up in new jersey, um, so grew up, uh, that's when we still rode our bikes all across, uh, you know, and parents told you to be home kind of by dark, ish, right, uh, and uh, yeah, I kind of fell into the opportunity. Um, I was riding my, my bmx bike, you know, down some side road and a guy pulled up in a wood panel uh, station wagon and you know, these are crank windows for you younger folks that don't know what that is. Uh, crank the window down is like, hey, you want to make some money. You know, I was like, as a parent now I would have freaked out and I would have like, chased that guy out of the neighborhood, right. But but, uh, back then I was like, well, yeah, sure, I'd love to make money. You know, he's like you buy new BMX bike or comic books or whatever. And he just told me about, you know, offering newspaper subscriptions, uh, and selling them to adults. And I was like, well, how do you do that? He's like, well, you just knock on their door and, you know, ask him if they want to buy a subscription, okay, and I get paid for that. Yeah, yep, yep, they offered me some uh, you know, some competitions and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And the first competition at that time is, like 1991, keep in mind. So it was a, uh, it was a portable boom box CD player. So you remember, like the ones you know, like you had to put on your shoulder, and so I was like, well, how do I win one of those things? And yeah, I mean so we just got to show more than anybody else in the district and so my parents were like sure, this seems like a good idea. We'll let you, you know, go knock on a bunch of strangers doors and, uh, uh, offer newspaper subscriptions. So I did that and uh, yeah, I won the boombox cd player. And that was kind of the uh, the kickoff to my, uh, my door knocking uh, career over the years uh, I, I had the same, the same experience.
Speaker 1:So in that was 1987 for me, I was knocking doors delivering newspapers. I was the. I had a. My territory was phenomenal, ronnie. I had a, an apartment complex, oh wow. So I had just a great audience, right like I. I didn't have far to go for all of it, but I had some long throws up to the second level, uh, going through.
Speaker 1:But that door-to-door experience as a kid is important, man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a little proud dad moment, for, from myself, I have a. I have twin boys that are 11, and my son, james, likes to set up stands in front of the, in front of the house, and sell anything that he can, you know, from lemonade to origami, to artwork, to rocks, um, anything. And uh, and you know, not long ago, you know, living here in Minnesota, the weather is not so great to put stands in the front yard. There's just not as many people out and about. Right, I introduced him to the concept of door-to-door. There you go, and he went door-to-door and sold his drawings, uh, and, and made like I don't know, he made like 40, 50 bucks walk in the neighborhood knocking doors and I, I, you know.
Speaker 1:So he's getting that same experience. Right, get out, get out there. It's an amazing thing. So, from those news, that was your first kind of like, wow, this is people give me money for talking to them. Right, what's going on? This is crazy, yeah. And then, over the years, through multiple industries and then landed in roofing. Yeah, uh, over the years, through multiple industries and then landed in roofing. Yeah, you know, let's talk a little bit about Avco and the growth since you in, in the time that you've been there, right, um, and some of the maybe, maybe touch on some of the, you know, key moments that that, that that really were, were transformative along the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's uh, it's been just like anything else you could imagine in 10 years, kind of had its ups and down, uh, up and downs, uh, some difficulties, some very big wins, um, some really really challenging things. Um, and so you know, when we first, when keith bought avco and I was working at either roofing company here and he's like, hey, let's um, let's rebrand, let's relaunch this company that's been in our community for a number of years but they had never really done much. They were at a good reputation but they, they weren't really noteworthy. Uh, when it came to that, and really he and I collectively like we've been friends now for 22 plus years, which is awesome and we got honestly, uh, our, our relationship's better now than it's ever been and I really appreciate him as a friend, even more so than a partner. And so you know, we came together and we really thought, like what did we wish that all the different companies because we had both worked at multiple roofing companies of like what would we want to have had when we first started, you know, and a big part of that was like we wanted good culture, we wanted um to, you know, performance-based compensation, so like if the guys did really really well and they went and generated their own book of business, like we wanted to appropriately compensate you for that and then, um, to have freedom of schedule to where you could actually enjoy that money. Right, because, like some of my previous jobs working door to door I'd work 60, 70, 80 hours a week and I was hitting a ceiling, and so we really wanted to make it something to where the ceiling is a glass ceiling and it's because you set that ceiling for yourself.
Speaker 3:It's not what we did, and so initially a lot of it was we just saw all of our friends that had been working hard for a number of years and that they just didn't have the right kind of opportunity. They didn't. You know, the culture wasn't great, but they were hardworking people where they were good character. You know they were coachable. You know some of those key things that even initially, we kind of were like, well, we need to, you know, not hire everybody that we know, because that's probably going to be a terrible experience. And so we brought on initially it was just like seven of our buddies, if I'm being honest was how it kind of started, and the great thing is that several of them still work for us to this day, which is really, really cool, and so I think that's a testament to who we are, but also to who they are, of course, too.
Speaker 3:Um, and so that initial, like you know, first year, um, you know, I think we did five million our first year, um, which the best they had ever done was like 1.7 in eight years previous, and so we did like five million our first year, and so that was like, okay, we kind of have something here, um, you know, and then we really had to kind of start thinking through like well, like everybody else wants to tell everybody else about their experience working for this cool company and with a bunch of their friends and making really good money. And you know, whenever somebody's buying a new truck or buying a home, that you've been like you've always been broke man, like what in the world is going on, like how did this happen? Just like probably a lot of the people's stories that we have that are listening right now, and so they just kind of naturally started recruiting for us, and so then we were like, okay, well, we need to kind of maybe like come up with a plan here a little bit more. Maybe we should start like writing stuff down, like instead of just kind of winging it here a little bit. And so then we had to start, you know, building that out, building out the actual infrastructure of everything, and and so over the over the years, just seeing those kind of smaller milestones. That really it was. We wanted it to be a place that you wanted to come to work at and you would enjoy coming.
Speaker 3:Milestones that were hard Sorry, my automatic light just went out over here, so give me a second and there were some milestones that were really hard because some of those people, over time, they didn't want to be apart any longer and they were friends and so we had to sever some of those relationships and some of them were really, really messy. And you know, like I'm not gonna lie and say that it's, oh, it's all those people's fault or they chose to to leave, like, yeah, I'm a person too, like I'm human and, um, you know I, I actually, you know I, I wish for those people to to be successful. I don't wish ill of any of them, like I don't want them to, you know, have a rough life because they might have, you know, caused some hardship for for us, uh, in, in leaving, or anything like that. So we've had some hard times, for sure, we took a pretty big dip a few years back.
Speaker 3:But the really cool thing, jim, has been seeing the transformation in the company in the last three or four years and seeing the culture. I am so proud. I was literally on a date with my wife on Tuesday in those you know last three or four years and seeing the culture like I am so proud, like I was literally on my on a date with my wife on tuesday and she was like have you really just kind of taken a moment and paused to see, like, what you have done with the team? Of course, like this is not like a me thing, but you've set the culture the way that it is and like because when I come to work, I am like actually very excited to come to work. I'm so excited to come to work and I always say it like this like life is too short to not enjoy the people you work with and to hate what you do, like it's just it's too short. We get one of these, so why, why not find a place where you fit in? Why not make that place for you to create that for somebody else? And so it's been a beautiful thing to see the people that were able to stick it out with us to see the change. And now I can honestly say I've never been more proud and more excited for the opportunity that we're giving so many other people. And so, yeah, now you know we're coming up on our 10 years at the end of October, so I'm really really really very thankful, very thankful, for the folks that honestly, like even in their maybe leaving, and I learned a lot from that.
Speaker 3:I learned a lot about myself. Um, I learned that instead of you know, like, if we're, if we're loving people well, if we're coaching people well, if we're training people well, like you're going to have people spin off from you, it's just going to happen. And initially I got really hurt, if I'm being 100% honest, like, and it hurt because some of them were close friends, and it really hurt and I kind of like pulled in a little bit and I got kind of hardened a little bit, I guess you could say, and I was like you know what, I'm just not gonna, I'm just not gonna put myself out there, I'm not gonna allow myself to get hurt like that again. I don't want to feel that feeling again and I was talking to somebody and they said well, are you hurting them or are you hurting really yourself? Because you're not really being true to who God's created you to be?
Speaker 3:If you go down this path right and I hadn't really thought about it in that, because I was I was very raw at that time and I really had to think through you know, like you're, you're right, and then, instead of like pulling back, I like jumped in both feet head first, like you know what, right into the deep end, and it was like, if this is going to cause potential what-if scenarios or pain in the future, then so be it. But I'm going to be who I'm supposed to be and I'm going to love people and I'm going to care deeply and I'm going to continue to pour into people because that's who I am, that's who I was made to be, and I don't want to shrink back from that. So if other things come from that that's out of my control, I can only can do what I can do, and so for me, that's, you know, being being who I am and who God's called me to be and to hopefully, you know, be a safe container for other folks as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it gets. I can see the challenge in that and I've heard it from a lot of contractors who have had. You know, sales reps and team members leave to start their own thing is what I'm hearing. And team members leave to start their own thing is what I'm hearing. And, my goodness, if you look over time, um, if you like, 10, 15 years from now, if you watch that, those seeds that were planted at your company and then they grew in like the different perspective on it Right, like right If you get to look at it.
Speaker 1:We it. We're starting to experience that from our from Roofer Marketers, from our digital marketing agency, and some of our team members that were with us have gone to other places and and I'm like, oh, there's some of us over there.
Speaker 3:And there's some of us over there.
Speaker 1:There's some of us over there and it's like it's a. It's a it can be a really cool thing. It doesn't feel good up front, up front.
Speaker 3:I'm sure.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, I had a question for you, because you talked about culture and creating a good culture. Culture is a. Culture is one of those big words, right, with big meaning. What is it? What does it mean to you? What does it, what is good culture, mean to you?
Speaker 3:yeah, so when I really think about culture, I think culture feels like the blood of the company. To me it's like the lifeblood, it's the source, if you will. If that's bad, everything else is going to be bad. You got to kind of start there, and if you don't set the culture as the owner, as the leader, as the group of leadership, somebody is going to set the culture in your company. So if you are removed, if you you are not involved, if you're not engaged, somebody else is going to set the culture for you. Okay, and you probably won't like what it looks like, more than likely.
Speaker 3:Um and so for me, really good culture looks like being a great minded company, and not just from a professional perspective. Right, people think that they can compartmentalize professional and personal for forever and I just don't believe, like I hope, that I'm the same person at work, that I am at home. I don't try to be a different person. You know I don't have a preacher's voice at work and then know at home it sounds different. Right, with how I engage with my family, and I think, for for us it's. You know, people are coming from all different walks of life, people have all kinds of years of experience all kinds of baggage, if you will. I have baggage, you got bags, we've all got baggage. And to just just to be okay that sometimes they're also gonna mess up, right, like, and that's okay. Um, one of our core values is that we learn, we improve and we refuse to quit, not fail. Failure is actually a part of the learning process. I want my people to fail. I give them the room to fail and I verbalize that to them. And if they mess up, I don't want to be the first one to reach in and like have a savior complex which I have had before and be like well, let me fix that, because then I just undermined everything that they did. And so we really try to foster a group, collective of like. We're here for one another, right Like, like. Our vision is like to make Avco the best place to work, like. That's literally our vision statement, not our mission statement. Our vision statement is for us to make Avco the best place to work and we're not for everybody Like.
Speaker 3:If you don't like, you know, you know being encouraged, challenge, held accountable, um, you know, uh, you're you're probably going to kind of hate it here, um, but those people that like are open to that. Um, you know, like they really enjoy it. Like I had just yesterday, I had, you know, three people as I moved my furniture around. We did breath work together on my carpet in my office, you know. And, uh, and people are like you would ask me if I would have ever done this three months ago. Uh, you know I would have. Or three years ago I would have told you you were crazy, right? But, um, you know different, just little things.
Speaker 3:And we want to see people thrive, like I want to see. I love when I hear they bought their first home, I, you know. Or putting our kids in private school. We paid off debt. Uh, we got to go on a family vacation for the first time. Like that is way more satisfying than any amount of money. Like, well, you can only buy so much stuff before you like, you're like, okay, like I, what else can I buy? I'll buy another truck, another vehicle, another car, another house, sure, or seeing all this other cool stuff happen to so many other people, man, that just gets me. It gets me so excited. So, yeah, I think culture is the lifeblood.
Speaker 3:Um, healthy culture is also being willing to, to know and have people be okay, as the leader, for people to call you out on your stuff just because I happen to be the boss doesn't mean that I'm above reproach. Like I, I want to be able to, to welcome that. Um, you know, in our leadership team meetings, like you know, I'm just one of the other people. I might be the visionary, like when it comes to the you know, the uh, organizational chart, but they're like we're we're peers, um, and if they see that I've been doing something wrong, like call me out on my bs. You know, like I, I want to be open towards those kind of things and so, I think, you know, being open, being transparent, being vulnerable, being authentic, um, I, I think that all of those things really helped lend well to a healthy culture.
Speaker 3:For a while, I kind of thought that we needed to not be 100% forthright with certain information and withhold and not talk about certain things, and it just led to where people thought you were being dishonest and you were like, well, I don't want to share this with you and, honestly, it's just like, okay, here's, here's, here's behind the curtain, like whatever, I don't really even care. Like you can look behind the curtain, it's fine, and so, um, it's been, it's been great. Honestly, it's kind of a relief and kind of like a weight off the shoulders to be like okay, cool, yeah, you can ask whatever.
Speaker 1:That's all right. That's a great answer. What is it? What does it really look like to build a team you can trust and step back from the day to day?
Speaker 3:Um, you know, there was plenty of years where I wore like multiple hats, like, yeah, I was the COO for a while, I was a sales manager for a while, I was, you know, out in the field docking and selling for quite a long time. I mean, uh, you know, I had, I've had to run payroll before. I've had to, you know, get in QuickBooks and cut checks. You know, kind of like a lot of us had to wear multiple different hats at different parts of the business. And seeing to where you allow those people right Well, you kind of alluded to it earlier in that core value that I mentioned learn, improve and refuse to quit, not to fail, like we said, but giving them the space and really seeing something. And I feel like this is kind of like maybe one of my superpowers is I see something in somebody that they might not even recognize, that they have in themselves, and then learning to how to ask the right questions to help kind of unlock that mechanism that's kind of in there, to get them to almost get unstuck in their own brain, sometimes to be like, oh no, no, I could, I couldn't do that, or that's, that's too big, or that's too scary, or I've never done that before or whatever it might be. That's keeping them back and then just asking good questions to help them, kind of like, relieve that weight, relieve that pressure, to start believing in themselves because I can speak to that and which I should, in which we should, and kind of almost kind of helping draw that out of them. But they've got to eventually start to believe that for themselves. It doesn't come fast, you know. Relationship equals time spent, and that's what you have to do. There is no shortcut here. There's no quick, easy button when it's like well, I don't want to be over this department, this department or anything, and I want to be able to back out and you know, go do whatever I want to do, like, okay, you might be able to do that in 18 months, two years, three years, but if you're in that and you're in the you know the thick of it right now you can't just pull the chute and eject like're comfortable. You will fall apart. You can't do that. You've got to do practical things right now.
Speaker 3:And so just seeing, uh, seeing the different folks, uh, I'm just smiling because I'm like literally like recalling stories and uh, in my, in my mind, of my leadership team specifically and seeing them, uh, step into to those roles in the last you know, three, four, five years or whatever it has been, or even, for some of them, even like the last six months. But it was an awesome thing to see them execute that job, execute that role, and then say, okay, I see that, and then offer them that opportunity if they would want it. Right, like you got to make sure that they actually want that opportunity. You don't want to just drop it on their lap and be like, well, here you go, you're the top salesperson, so you should be the sales manager. Probably not. Probably shouldn't do that. If I'm being honest, that usually doesn't bode very well for your top guy being your, your your sales manager. But making sure that they have that desire there and then start to help build that inside of them and then just kind of step back Right, like one of the things that really really helped me.
Speaker 3:Um, I kind of always liked to be the guy and have all the answers, but I realized that I couldn't be the guy and have all the answers and have the quality of home life that I really wanted. I couldn't have both, and so something had to give. And so one of the things from like a practical standpoint, that really helped me to help them also was when they would call, didn't matter what day, what time it was. I used to answer every single time Somebody called me for work. Didn't matter if it was date night, didn't matter if my what time it was. I used to answer every single time somebody called me for work, didn't matter if it was date night, didn't matter if my kids were talking to me, didn't matter, I just answered the phone. Could be 9 pm on a Sunday night and I'm answering the phone. You can only imagine how great that went over at home.
Speaker 3:Very understanding wife. She was still very, very understanding for all the years that I did do that and, babe, I'm sorry, my that you know, hopefully, hopefully forgiving me over this time, but just stopped answering when they would call and then I would just text back 45 minutes later. Hey, just check and see if you're okay, if you need me to call you back. I mean, jim, you could probably guess like what, what transpired? Nope, we got to, got it figured out the collaboration of them working together with somebody else in a different department, them really believing in themselves and then taking that next step. Um, it was a, a beautiful thing. Um to where now? Yeah, I don't. I don't actually oversee any of the operations on a on a day-to-day basis. The team is doing it.
Speaker 1:It's pretty amazing when you give them the opportunity. You talked about the savior complex. How can an owner identify that in themselves and then break that cycle with their team? Before we carry on with the episode, let's give a shout out to one of our sponsors. I talk to contractors every day that feel stuck, Not because they're not working hard, but because they're missing the structure to grow without chaos or their culture's falling apart, because their team's unclear, unaligned or just burned out and when change hits they're reacting instead of leading because time and priorities aren't under their control. Day 41 Thrive helps to fix that with proven strategies for growth, culture and leadership that actually work, Ready to thrive beyond the storm. Visit the link in the description or visit the roofing success podcast website on the sponsors page to start your journey today. You talked about the savior complex. How can an owner identify that that in themselves and then break that cycle with their team? And you kind of mentioned one thing already, and that's what made me think about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of us that have that same beer complex. Probably a lot of them are salespeople. If I'm being honest, we think that we're the best and we're the greatest salespeople of all time and you kind of have to have a chip on your shoulder, especially if you're a door-to-door sales guy and especially if you're a DVD guy in one of the big markets Minnesota, dallas, denver you kind of have to have a little bit of a swagger about you to not get your teeth kicked in, especially if you do it for 10 plus years, right. And so I think that sometimes it comes down to allowing other people, first off to speak into your life and to call out those things right To realize and being open to that. Because if you're not willing to receive that because I can think of some guys that I've had conversations with and they just weren't ready for that conversation, because I would be like, well, what about this? And asking them questions not accusing, but asking questions and inviting to be part of that conversation and hearing their response I'm like, okay, there's no sense of me continuing this conversation there. We're not going to be able to get there right now, and that's okay, I don't need to push, there's no sense of doing that.
Speaker 3:But allowing people to speak into your life is important. Being coachable, no matter who you are. Being a lifelong learner like it doesn't matter if you're 80 years old, you have a million degrees, you own multiple companies, you're a billionaire, you know? Warren buffett talks about all the time like he learns every single day. He continues to learn. So why can't we continue to learn? And so, being those that, having the humility, um the self awareness, but also allowing to be coached, is an important part. To allow people to speak into your life in regards to those things that maybe you might not see at the time. But also if, from your own perspective, if you don't have that and right now you're listening and you're thinking like, well, I don't have a savior complex, well, okay, well, maybe let's pause and let that sink in and maybe let that reflect for a minute and then ask yourself some questions. Whenever something goes wrong, do I feel like I have to be the one that fixes it? That's a great start. The last something time that something broke production, sales, whatever department were you the person was like fine, just get out of the way, I'll just do it myself. It'd be easier if I just did it myself. You're not even getting it if. If you're saying those kind of things, you probably have a savior complex right.
Speaker 3:But then let's think about it from this context. How do you think that makes that person feel that you gave that authority and then then, all of a sudden, you're rushing into save them. Are you saving them? Are you sure? I don't think that they're wanting to be saved in that moment. I don't think so.
Speaker 3:So maybe, even if you're now thinking about one of those times that you've done that recently, in the last, you know, two to three weeks maybe go ask that person and ask them and hopefully they can be honest with you, cause some people might not feel like they can be honest with you but ask them, like, whenever I came in that and that happened, what did you actually feel in that moment when I jumped in and I actually took over and took the reins back? How did that make you actually feel? Not, what did you think? What did you feel? What did you feel in your body?
Speaker 3:And then just pause and, whatever they say, welcome that, Because there's going to be some semblance of truth, because their perception is going to be there, and you can either receive that and then then realize, like who's, is that how other people perceive me?
Speaker 3:Maybe the great thing is when you allow room for people to do that, like I know that my leadership team would like run through a, you know, a brick wall for me, right, it's also because I acknowledge who they are, not just like what they can do for us, right, but I acknowledge who they are as people and I regularly thanked them for what they're doing, right, like when's the last time that we took that extra moment to just kind of pause because of how hectic it is or whatever what's going on? Right, like we're in a big hiring crunch. Or, you know, like our Dallas location, we just got a big hail storm. Like go, go, go go. All of those things are all valid, but people that are operating our business are literally the most important part of the business. That's number one. We can make more profit, we can make more revenue, we can create new processes, but can we make new people when we burn those bridges? Kind of hard to come back from those things.
Speaker 1:And I think another thing to add to what you're saying is I think you'll find out who they are a little bit when you ask them that question.
Speaker 1:Because when we hire in the beginning of our businesses, I feel like we hire like someone to just help us with something Right, but they, but they rely on us for what to do and how to do it. But as your business grows or as you get certain, you know well the A player, the 10X or the whatever you want to call that person, the leadership type of roles in your company. They own that role, so they should feel a certain way that you jumped in and that may give you some indication into into. Is that the right person for a leadership style role, like if they're a point they're like yeah, my goodness, I'm so glad that you jumped in every time you jump in, just please jump in every time. That's going to give you some indication right, like about who that person is at their core and maybe how far that they can go in a leadership role with you. I want to talk to change a little bit, but still around team. What are the most common mistakes you see companies make in building their sales teams?
Speaker 3:so that they see the opportunity or they see a person's numbers or their charisma and they allow character and culture fit to not be acknowledged first and foremost, that it's like, oh, this guy's a he's a two million dollar producer leaving this other company, he wants to come work for us, but are we having core value interviews? Are we having culture fit interviews? Um, just because you see numbers doesn't mean that that's going to be a good decision for the long haul, and so generally that's like the first one, that's usually pretty like okay, or they sold cars or they came from some other sales industry or whatever it is, but they were not looking at their character first and foremost, because character is going to come out at some point in time. There is going to be friction in that business relationship and how that person is and in their character is how they're going to respond in those difficult moments and what they're going to do inside of your company in those moments matters. And so I would say core value and culture fit like for some reason people don't do like one of our whole interview process, like a whole section of our multi-tier interview process that we have for salespeople the first or second interview part is literally core value and culture fit and it's over an hour long and it's only around core value and culture and culture fit, and it's over an hour long and it's only around core value and culture fit. Don't bypass that. That is such an important part, because people are either an ad or they're a detractor in your culture. There is no neutral. They're adding to your culture or they're subtracting from your culture, that's it, and so that would be the primary um.
Speaker 3:The second I would say is the the lack of learning how to get what they have up here or somebody else in their company has the it factor right, like you know, and we were kind of initially bad at the beginning of this like, well, if their figure out factor is not very high, then you know they're just not going to be cut out for this job. No, it's because I didn't know how to put what I had up here onto paper or onto video and actually properly trained somebody. So it's not those people's fault, that's my fault, that's my um. Lack of leadership is what that is, that's my lack of leadership is what that is. And so you might be sitting there and being like, yeah, I'm, you know my retention rates 22%, okay. Well, if your retention rates below 50% at all in any market retail insurance, whatever part of the region of the country you're in, that that should be a red flag to like, or at least like a caution flag.
Speaker 3:To be like, okay, what in our processes are not correct here, right Is it? We're not interviewing properly. Our ads are really, uh, properly phrased. So we're like our, our net's too big. Our onboarding's bad, our, you know, two weeks of initial training's bad. Our continued education's bad.
Speaker 3:Like what, what is it? Where's the disconnect? Because it's got to be somewhere. If you're dropping that many people and so, from from that perspective of you know, not knowing how to get what's in their brain and and and into a form that other people can, can understand, you can't just have everybody ride around with Johnny and and be like, well, just, you know, ride around with johnny and you know johnny's got it figured out like that's not, that's not a training method, that's not a training modality, that's not. You don't have a training system. Johnny can't be your training system like that's, that's not a great idea. And so just the uh, the, the hope and prayer of like, let's see if we just throw it against the wall and see if it sticks. Mentality Like we got to get past that. Especially if you want to grow a successful sales organization that's going to be able to continue to turn and generate revenue in any type of market, you've got to have those kinds of things in place. You've got to have those kinds of things in place.
Speaker 1:Then how do you find those reps? What is the, you know? How do you find good people for your sales team?
Speaker 3:So our our first and foremost and has been this way for the whole 10 years is personal networks. We, we love to offer incentives to all the people in our company. Like, hey, if we bring in somebody uh, and then they uh started selling and they, after their first roof, I will give you, uh, some money for uh helping recruit that person, cause guess what, you're paying somebody else to recruit or you're creating ad spend or whatever Like. Why not incentivize our people um, tap into their personal networks, right, um? So that's kind of number one, Some of the other ones that have been helpful for us military job fairs, just saying, just saying, because what are military guys really good at?
Speaker 3:They're really good at following instructions. You tell them what to do, okay, if that's what the mission is, okay, I can execute that, no-transcript. If you're not, then you're doing the exact same thing everybody else is doing in your market. You're getting, you know like we.
Speaker 3:We personally don't hire guys from other companies, like you know, just because I'd rather have a blank canvas to work with. Just start, it's a whole lot easier for somebody to learn something the first time than to unlearn all of those things Not saying that they're all bad behaviors, but then to then relearn. You're like having a blank canvas and then having to paint over the existing portrait that was painted by the other company and then be like I think I got it all covered. And then it starts to bleed through and you're like crap, like why is it? Why is it bleeding through? And it's like no, no, no, no, like we got to put some more code on top of that. So yeah, being comfortable with not just hiring other reps Like that's not a, that's not a hiring strategy is hiring other reps from other companies and offering them a couple more points to leave that company.
Speaker 1:That's not a hiring strategy. That that, yeah, that that now, on the other side of that, you have to be able to paint that canvas, so, so you have to have a training process in place that you can bring someone through and and and help to make them successful in that role. How would you go about? You know, how would a roofing contractor go about setting up a really solid training process that's replicatable, so that they don't have to rely on just paying a little more commission to the other rep across town?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think there's a few different ways you can go about it. Right, you can shorten the time by, like, like I said initially, like we hired Jim Johnson and that shortened a number of years off of the learning curve because we didn't know what we didn't know at the time, right, so, paying a coach, paying a training program to allow that to happen, because more than likely you might not also have sorry, I have light in you Uh, you might not have the time to be able to do that, right, and so with that, uh, that light off this time, there we go. Uh, sorry about that, um, that will shorten that learning curve. Um, if, even if you think it's like an investment, well, how much is your time worth and how many more years do you want to put into that? So there's, there's that side. But say that, say that you want to create your own.
Speaker 3:Okay, first step is you, you got to start documenting somewhere. So the easiest step here, I believe, is to think through if you're thinking about, if we're talking about sales people here, specifically think through your biggest issue in your sales process. Well, maybe I should take a step back. First off, do you have a sales process that's written down. If you don't have a sales process that's written down, you need to start there, okay? So if you don't have that and you're like sales process, what does that even mean? Like, just step by step, the from you know new lead intake till the job closes out. It needs to be documented. Every single step, every small task that has to be done by somebody in that sales process, it needs to be documented so you have your full sales process. So after you have that, then it is out of all of these things here.
Speaker 3:What is the thing that is causing us the most heartburn in our company right now? Are you not getting enough leads? Okay, let's build out our process of how do we generate new leads. Let's get this part built out. So just start where the most egregious thing, the thing that's keeping you up at night, the thing that's causing you stress in your life look at that and then build that SOP. Just to start that part of the training modality right. There's great things now, like Loom. You can get on Loom and just shoot a video, just start talking, and Loom's AI will then create and realize oh, this is like a checklist that we're creating and it'll create the checklist for you and it's even free for some of that stuff. But start somewhere.
Speaker 3:A lot of people it's kind of that um, you know, paralysis by analysis. They're like well then, like then I'm gonna have to get it built out. Just do the first thing. Right, just do the first thing and, like I said, the easiest is maybe not the easiest, but the one is. Whatever's like the thing that's most on fire in your sales process. Build that part out and then everything from there starts to involve the other people on the sales team. Okay, could you do me a favor? Could you know, johnny, would you mind go ahead and document, like what you do on a day in and day out basis as a salesperson and just invite them to be part of the process. You don't even have to do it all by yourself. Let them help, ask for their help. A lot of the times they get really excited. They're like oh, wow, I can help with documenting this stuff. Yeah, I'm super excited. I'd be more than happy to add your feedback and your input.
Speaker 1:I'll go a step further now, because I'm deep down the AI rabbit hole AI rabbit hole and so, my goodness, you could ask ChatGPT to interview you about it and develop the SOP, and it will do it. You can give all your input. It will continue to ask you questions until it has enough data and it'll create this stuff for you. So there's really no reason to not have this documented anymore. You know you can't. It's very hard to say I don't have the time anymore. Yeah, no, I did it and that's like I had an answer. Right, it is, it is. I had. I had chat GPT interview me on a podcast last last fall. That's cool, and, and it interviewed me, wow, like. And it interviewed me, wow, like, it actually interviewed me and it was. It was pretty crazy to uh. So if you haven't listened to that one anyone listening go back and listen to the chat gpt one. That was crazy and uh. And so you have the the chat gpt app on your phone you can have a conversation with and you can make it conversational. If you're not a, you know, if you're not someone that wants to sit down and type, right like, you can actually have a voice conversation with it now, um and so lots of easy things to do. Um, in terms of the, the build out of those systems are easier than they ever have been. Right, we'll just put it that way. They are easier than they have ever been. Now it's having the right messaging, the right conversations, and when we were talking I think it was last week you talked about an emotionally intelligent sales process.
Speaker 1:Like what does that actually look like? I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors. As a roofing marketing agency owner and coach, I've seen it all Great marketing wasted because no one follows up fast enough. That's why I built Power Up Agents, not just a receptionist. Our AI handles the entire customer journey, from answering the first call to booking the job, to post job surveys and reviews 24-7, inbound, outbound, even multilingual. If you want leads followed up instantly and customers nurtured automatically, visit the link in the description or visit the sponsors page on the roofing success podcast website. Your full AI team is ready. You talked about an emotionally intelligent sales process. Like what does that? What does that actually look like?
Speaker 3:Right, right, so early on in my sales career I was very much a transactional salesperson. It's, you know here, here's my pitch, here's my presentation. I need you to sign on the dotted line. Obviously it was a lot smoother sounding than that, but you know that that was it. It was no building of rapport, there was no building value there was. You know that was it. There was no building of rapport, there was no building value there was.
Speaker 3:You know I wasn't getting as many referrals as I was kind of hoping, because when I would ask for referrals, you know like they weren't really interesting because there was no connection there where it spoke about that people trusted leaders that had a higher EQ, so their emotional intelligence score than their IQ, by like twice as much. No-transcript neuroplasticity and all those kind of things that we can actually like rewire our brain. I love that stuff and so learning how to become an emotionally intelligent person, like we can do that, we can do that. It's taking a pause in that. You know part of that sales process, if you will, to learn how to ask good questions, right, and so we do a lot more of a consultative sales approach is kind of how I phrase it. Um, it's not us pitching the customer, it's us asking good questions. Um, you know I loved the app, uh, zero, um, because I love to see how, how, what's the percentage of time that our sales guys are speaking versus the percentage of time that they're listening Right, like, like those are some really key statistics. Where time that they're listening Right, like, like those are some really key statistics where it reads, reads your tonality, uh, your total words per minute. You know I'm a fast talker, as we've kind of learned in this conversation today, um, but also just learning how to read the room right To, to read that situation with that customer, right Like before they were just kind of like leaning in, and then you said something and all of a sudden, you see that, you know, that guy leaned back.
Speaker 3:Now he's pulling away from you, he's crossed his arms, he's not any longer open. An emotionally intelligent person should pick up on that pause and then try to politely dive into what's going on what, what, what happened where we had a little bit of a disconnect. Maybe I miscommunicated and I want to make sure that we're on the same page, you know. And so that emotionally intelligent, uh, part of the process, um, I don't think it can be really overstated, to be honest, and I don't really hear a ton of people talking about that. They talk a lot about you know the really overstated, to be honest, and I don't really hear a ton of people talking about that.
Speaker 3:They talk a lot about, you know, the sales guy gotta be charismatic and he's gotta be a super extrovert and you know, and he's be good looking and like ripped and you know, and if they're a girl they need to be super attractive and, you know, be this tall, like no, they actually don't.
Speaker 3:That just means that we have this preconceived idea that this is what a salesperson looks like. But maybe it's because we've actually just kind of done a piss poor job on training other people that can fit into this larger bucket that we call sales and their personality and who they are can actually be very vast and who they are can actually be very vast. But it's because we are only isolating this. You know person's, you know how gregarious this guy is and like he's going to be a good salesperson, but maybe he doesn't actually like pay attention to detail and he doesn't follow the sales process and he's like you know, like you know, a dog chasing a squirrel and he's like can't move the job along in the process. You're going to be really frustrated with that overly charismatic guy.
Speaker 3:But somebody else that you know kind of ticked all the boxes in all the different areas that might not have been overly, you know, uh extroverted uh. Maybe they're actually a better person uh for your sales organization. So, um, our sales organization, we I actually really enjoy seeing the diversity that we have uh between all of our different folks. It's, it's really pretty cool that's awesome.
Speaker 1:What are some of the top characteristics of your best sales people?
Speaker 3:yeah. So, um, I I prefer people that are disciplined over people that are motivated. Motivation Motivation is it wanes. You know, like this morning, when I got up for working out, you know what I didn't feel? I didn't feel motivated because I didn't sleep well last night and so I wasn't motivated to work out. But you know what I did? I worked out because I chose discipline, because I know, in the grand scheme of things, it's going to be better.
Speaker 3:So we really try to look for people that like have some form of, or some semblance of, discipline in their life. That's really important. People that are coachable. You could be all the best salesperson on the face of the planet, but you're like yeah, yeah, I got it man, like it's fine. And like I don't care who you are If you're not coachable, I'm not here for it. Like I'm just going to let you do your thing, but we're not interested in any capacity. Those are two of the really big ones, of course, like high character, I want to ask some.
Speaker 3:In our interview process we really ask a lot of situational based questions, really ask a lot of situational based questions because I want them to recall a memory that's going to pull on that, to let me know if they fit this characteristic like you're talking about, um, so I want to ask certain questions. Um, you know those are some of the other things. Um, like they do, they still do need to be kind of money motivated to a degree. Money does not need to be their top motivator, but it still needs to be top three. If it's not, and they're like, yeah, I'm cool with making like 40K this year, it's like, well, yeah, that's not gonna really work for us. You know, it's like they do need to be money motivated.
Speaker 3:Some of the other things are you know that they really do enjoy helping other people. Know that they they really do enjoy helping other people. Um, that, like our, our group, is very much a team atmosphere. Somebody else is struggling and, you know, maybe one of the guys is having a hard time knocking doors. He's just not landing inspections. A lot of the veterans like or other people will see that and they'll be like hey, man, like why don't, why don't we go not together today, this afternoon? I don't even have to be like hey, johnny, johnny, I need you to take out Timmy to go do this like they do it on their own, and so making sure that people like want to be bought into that team atmosphere is really a crucial part for us as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, that's great advice. What you know, it sounds like you, you you'll agree with me on this, but I believe that your business journey is a journey of personal development, right Like I can hear it in you. And so what are kind of some of the biggest mindset shifts that helped you go from you know a door knocker to a visionary leader?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I 100% do agree with you. I always say that personal, you know, professional problems are actually personal problems. Just wearing a fancy sport coat, right, like that's like the reality of it, it's just a little bit better looking attire. Yeah, as far as you know, there was some really important breakthrough that I had to have in my personal life to get to the next level, right. Whenever it was me just out knocking doors, it was, you know I, you know I basically burnt the ships, right. It was like there is no going back to where I just left from, not because I left bad, but because that was. I knew what that life looked like and I was not interested in continuing those my future years, right, so that the fear of my life staying the same was greater than the unknown of taking that leap to that next opportunity. And so for me, it was really realizing there is no plan B, like I have to figure this part out, and I was.
Speaker 3:You know, I played a bunch of sports in high school. I love competition, but I had also had to realize like there was a part of me that didn't like failing, like I actually like didn't like failing, so like there were certain things I wouldn't do, because if I didn't know if I would be successful at it, I didn't want to try it. And so I was okay with like not doing something because the fear of failure, right, and because of that, the fear of failure really was like a fear of man too. Like what are people going to see? What are they going to think about me if I, you know, can't do X, y and Z? And so I had to be okay with failing on a daily basis. When you're knocking doors, right, like, like that's the reality of it, like you're going to have your teeth kicked it several times in a day. And so that was a part of me that had to be okay with.
Speaker 3:Like to get to this next level in my life. Then I can see the future, I can see the opportunity that I have to be willing to let that part of me die right, like we can't hold on to who we are currently, what we, what got us here, isn't going to get us there, right, and so having those little milestone moments of okay, this has been, okay, I'm, I'm not really like a past, I don't really like looking over my shoulder, I don't like looking. I'm thankful, I'm very blessed and I'm excited, but I want to be in the present moment and then I want to be in the future. I want to enjoy where I'm at, but I also want to be goal oriented and vision uh focused. And so, you know, the the next stage was, um, you know different things. Like I want to buy a home for our family and so, like I've got to, like I got to do something, you know, I didn't want to pay pmi, you know, and so I like I'd eat 20 down and all those kind of things.
Speaker 3:And there was different milestones where, um, I had to become a different person, I had to become the next version. And what really kind of helped me there was seeing other people, maybe not in the same industry, maybe not even, but I had seen that like they had a different life than I had currently and they were maybe, you know, a little bit farther ahead, and so I had really good mentors throughout different parts of my life. That's something that's really really pivotal, I believe, is I'm always having, I'm always being mentored and I always am mentoring somebody else, including people like outside of the industry. Like I've got several guys that live locally that I meet with that are. You know young, 20 year old guys that you know, um, that I want to invest my time in um because you know somebody else did the same and I want to uh be a blessing to other folks. And so you know there's going to be different things that is going to come up, that you're going to be faced with.
Speaker 3:Um, you know you're going to have to make a decision and you're going to have to choose what version of yourself you want to become. And so you know there was plenty of other opportunities, like from a financial perspective, but I didn't want to trade my values for money, and so, like, there was things that I also had to make the decision of. I'm not, I'm not willing to sell my character for any, any amount of money. That's just not who I am. Um, you know I mentioned that I have three wonderful boys and a wife, and at the end of the day, like when I go home, I want to be able to look them in the eyes and know that I did right, uh, by them out in the world that day, and that I feel good about saying, well, your dad, your husband, um, your husband, your friend, did right today. So those kinds of things are really, really important.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. I appreciate your time today. This has been a great conversation. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.
Speaker 2: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.
