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All right, welcome to List Roofing Show where we give you a seat at the table as we talk with other roofing owners so that you can get the insight and the weight that you need, iron stuff desire, so that you can go to the next level and maybe get past some major obstacles in your business.
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And today we got Jason Reisman on the show.
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Jason's a personal friend of mine.
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He's a owner of Eustace Roofing in Florida.
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And so we're going to get into some major challenges, private equity production, different things like that.
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But uh before we get into all that, Jason, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be on the show.
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Yeah, happy to be here, Dylan.
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I've seen all the stuff that you made, the progress in roofing, and so happy to be on your podcast.
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I can, man.
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So before we dive into Eustace, which is a huge company for guys that don't know about Eustace, why don't we just give a little bit of background on Eustace and then get into some challenges you faced as a business owner?
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Yeah, so Eustace has always been a family company.
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Um I took over uh probably 18 years ago, somewhere like that, with my father.
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And um at the time he had like six employees, your typical normal roofing company.
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And then when I joined Private Equity, we had over 200 roofing installers.
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And that was probably my favorite part about Eustace is um we celebrated the installers the most.
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Um, they were all W-2 employees, and I love that fact about us.
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We were very um wrapped our arms around the roofers because we knew that made the biggest difference.
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Um, still to this day, it's it's a big part of my priority is going to the job sites because ultimately that's what homeowners are paying for.
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So nothing's changed there.
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Um, just on a bigger level, um, there's a huge support group here from private equity, and um we work throughout this entire state with other roofing companies that are part of the equity group, and I really enjoy that.
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Um my passion anymore is metal roofing.
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But starting from the beginning, I worked in NASCAR um for many years and then moved from there um back into roofing, into the family business, and like I said, grew it a lot.
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Took kind of the steps that we took in NASCAR to grow the roofing business, like put a lot of effort into that team atmosphere, stuff like that, and here we are, you know, 18 years later.
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I think one of the biggest things, too, at the time is like diving in, getting a CRM set up right away, and that was not heard of 18 years ago, and so um there's a lot that that did for the business, too, that we don't usually talk about those little details, you know.
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Yeah, and when you say taking some of the aspects from NASCAR, like what are some specifics there?
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Yeah, so like my competitors usually said, like, if you drive by a Eustace Ripping job site, it looks like a NASCAR team.
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Um, so I would have like the vans wrapped, all the equipment very clean, neat.
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Um, perception is everything when you're in NASCAR.
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Like, you want to make the driver think his car is the fastest.
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Like, make sure it's clean and neat.
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Um but the job sites were very similar.
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You had like what we call the crew chief, the guy on the job site that kind of ran it, that was in touch with the roofers on the roof, kind of drove the job.
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And then we had project managers that would show up, communicate with the homeowner and the crew chief.
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Um, but everybody had the team uniforms, the team hats.
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Um, we made everybody part of Eustace Roofing, whether you're an installer or you work in the office, and we just saw a lot of good effects from that.
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Um, training was a big one for us.
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And if you can imagine, 18 years ago, there wasn't much training and roofing.
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So we were training roofers how we wanted the roof installed, how we wanted our details done.
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And a lot of the roofers, you know, been doing it for 15 years, and no one's ever stopped and actually trained them on how to put the roof on.
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So I was always surprised by that.
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Because NASCAR, you don't touch anything unless you're qualified.
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And so we kind of made our roofing business the same.
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That's interesting.
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And so, Eustace, we're can you talk about where you think you guys will land revenue-wise by the end of this year?
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You know, our big goals are always uh 60 million um is where we'd like to be.
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Uh, last year we we came pretty close to that.
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Um we we feel like there's some struggles this year.
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Um, so we're really watching the bottom line now.
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Um, that's really where we put our mind at is like how do we have a great bottom line because that's really what feeds the people that work here.
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Um, and then we can reinvest back into the job sites to give the homeowner a good product.
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So I think the year started out pretty slow in Florida.
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I know our market from the ARMA data is down like 50%.
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Um, we're feeling that.
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Uh and what we've chosen to do is really dive into some more higher-end roofing stuff like metal and uh metal tiles and stuff like that, and we're seeing that that pay off heavily.
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So um just more toning in at our craft, getting better at what we do, and finding the areas in our business that we're bleeding from, we got to fix those areas.
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And um we've been very successful um so far this year because of that.
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Man, that's great.
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So, for guys listening to this, look, Jason's been in the industry for a long time.
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He's got a very successful roofing company aiming for 60 million in top line revenue this year.
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Some of the guys listening to this may think, man, I'm hovering at 5 million or I'm hovering at 10 million.
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What would it take for me to scale to 50 or 60 million?
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How is that possible without working 80 hours a week?
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What would you say are two or three key principles that you've learned over the years as you've as you've done this?
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Honestly, like I think you got to have a really good vision and how you want to get there.
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That's the first step, and like letting everybody know what your vision is and what are the steps to get there.
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So, like my first goal and vision would be like if I'm at five, how do we get to 10?
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And then kind of lay out the next five years and how we get there.
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And for us, what are the measurable things that we know?
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Um, and for instance, recently, like we ran some numbers back, and like 50% of our leads were returning customers or recommendations.
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And so, like, if you don't have good data to read, it's gonna be very hard to tell what your future is.
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So, all right, so we're getting people that want us to do their works.
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So, what do we got to do to continue that path?
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Like, better craftsmanship has always been what I found excels in roofing, and a lot of people miss.
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Um, when you you know, for Florida, it's unique.
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Um, every homeowner's home, they're not working, they're retired.
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So you gotta show up really well uh on the job site.
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And so I've I've been in other markets recently with some of the other groups that we've uh acquired, and their industries are totally different, their areas are totally different than mine.
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And so, you know, I was at one in Miami not too long ago that we work with, and it took me like I could only make two stops a day to job sites where our guys can make six to eight as a project manager.
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And so if I was to say on your your podcast that every project manager should go to touch like six different jobs a day or go to them, it wouldn't apply to somebody in Miami because in Miami the traffic and the regulations and getting back and forth is so difficult.
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That that one can only go to two.
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So um I think um, and I've always said this making content was what changed our business directly right away when nobody was doing it back in the day.
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You know, that would be 10 years ago where I started making content when it wasn't cool.
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Um, but the content was geared towards gaining employees and customers at the same time, but like technical things that we're doing on the roof that make a big difference.
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And so homeowners saw that as like you're the expert and really propelled our business.
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So I'm still a big component of that.
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And I know we talk about a lot of people are doing content, but is it content that makes you the expert?
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Like, is it driving people that want to work for you and is it driving customers that want to buy from you?
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And so I think we do that really well, and and that kind of bridges the gap that gets us from that five to sixty million, and then the process in between in between.
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Nice.
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So I'm sure there's been challenges along the way because you're a business owner, and I don't care what kind of business you've got, it you know, you've got challenges.
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So, what's one of the biggest challenges you faced?
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Like if you can think of a specific story or season that was incredibly difficult, what did that look like?
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And let's just walk through that.
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How did you navigate it?
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How did you come out on the other side?
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What are some lessons learned, stuff like that?
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But let's just go into if you can think of one specific story or season that was extremely difficult, what would that be?
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I think for me, COVID was really hard.
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Um, I know a lot of people came out the other side of COVID better, but during it, we didn't know we were gonna come out better.
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And so during COVID, we couldn't get, you know, materials and stuff like that.
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So we took a lot of risk, um, pre-ordered materials, put them on the ground.
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I think at one time we had over$2 million in materials here.
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Um, and so the risk became how do you keep it from getting stolen?
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Um, how do you maintain it?
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Can you can you sell those jobs to pay for that?
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Um, and we were able to do that and came out really strong.
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Um, but inventory became a big deal.
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Um, you know, you you were tearing roofs off, and and if ABC supply or QXO didn't have the ISO board, how do you put it back?
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You know, in the middle of the job site when you're when you're fighting off rain here in Florida.
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So I don't think the challenges get any more difficult than um in Florida, like tearing a roof off and having to worry about rain is probably the biggest challenge you're gonna have as a roofer.
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But when you're doing as much volume as us, um that's probably the biggest risk and biggest challenge is making sure that these houses are are watertight.
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And so just coming up with rules and and way that we we regulate those rules, which is you can't go to lunch unless the roof's completely dried in, right?
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Like who knows if something happened on the way back and then you get a rainstorm pops up.
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So for me, the biggest challenge has always been the weather and making sure that we we um come through on our promise to the homeowner and and also the employee.
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Did we do what we said we're gonna do for either of those?
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And I think when you get those scenarios right, everything else kind of like moves in the right direction.
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But COVID was the hardest for us.
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Um again, content was really big at that time, like everybody was on social media, and so that really helped get to the customer, but we had the material so we could do the jobs, and at that time, we were able to pull a lot more talent into Eustace from other roofing companies because we had to work, and so I think like looking at the seasons in roofing, knowing that you're gonna have slow seasons, like we would time that so that we'd have a backlog in those seasons, and then we could pull those A players and then keep them forever.
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And so I always wanted to know who the A player installers are out there, and how do I get those people?
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And so um seasonal, we would plan on making sure we had backlogs to get through the season and and how do we acquire those talented people?
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So, how did you face that?
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I mean, as you guys are going through that, how how did that affect you as far as your work, family life balance, your headspace, your stress level?
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I mean, how did you navigate that if you're you're dealing with that many jobs going on with all the details connected to that, the things that can go wrong, the moving parts.
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I'm sure it was a logistical nightmare.
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Yeah, I think like everybody talks about this, and you really have to live by, which is the trust but verify.
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So what I started doing is moving the right people in the right spots.
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For instance, um, project managers became a big deal here in Florida to manage a job, to manage the weather, and putting the right person in that place really mattered.
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Do you want somebody that's extremely good at talking to the homeowner, or do you want somebody that's extremely good at making sure that the roof's installed right and that the roofers have everything they need and you can communicate well with them?
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And at some times you had to pick.
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And for me, at the end of the day, um, my number one priority was to put the best roof on possible.
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And so in some situations, I would pull team members from the crews and make them project managers because they understood roofing better.
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And we would work on the communication from the office staff to the homeowner because ultimately, like, even if you don't communicate well, which is the goal, the homeowner cares the most about getting a quality roof because that's what they're paying for.
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So that became the priority.
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Um, and then over time, when we were able to teach or acquire people that could do both, we did, but putting the right people in the spot, trusting them, letting them do their job and learn from their mistakes and clean up their mess seemed to be the best way forward because it took a little stress off of me where we could figure out how we're gonna get into the future with COVID and what we needed.
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Oh, that's good.
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And with your it's you talk about production like a lot of guys talk about their sales team.
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Like most guys emphasize sales, sales.
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We scaled sales, we scaled sales, but you mentioned production.
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I mean, I haven't heard you mention sales once.
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Yeah, and I won't.
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I think um production is you know, a lot of people look at sales and collection, and I say this all the time, but like what matters the most is the production, putting the roof on.
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That matters the most to the employee, um, and it matters the most to the customer.
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And I really truly believe it's missed.
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If if you do a really good job at the production side of it, you put a good roof on and you show up really well, that it feeds sales and it feeds collections, like where you can collect the income because you did a great job.
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It's not difficult.
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You know, a lot of roofing companies, when you look at um their collections department and it's a huge number and they're not collecting the revenue, it's because they have an issue in production.
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90% of the time, right?
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They didn't install the roof right, customers got complaints.
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And then the same thing with sales, when we see low sales, a lot of times it can go back to production.
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You didn't treat the homeowner right, you're not popular in that neighborhood because of it, and now you lost it.
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And I think we all get caught up in we have to be careful with data too.
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We have to look at things logically.
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Like data would say that you had a loss of leads and that your close rates were down, but in reality, you weren't doing a good job on the jobs that you had.
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You weren't installing good roofs, and people weren't calling you.
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And so for me, it just drove production because I felt like it fed sales.
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And before equity, we were doing around 30 million and had five or six sales guys.
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I had one sales guy that did eight million in sales in one year.
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And so I wasn't never concerned about sales, I just was concerned about installing the best roof possible.
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And um, I felt like the close rate was like um from demo to sold was around 30% given, no matter who you hired.
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The last 20% or 15% depended on the sales rep.
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So, like the leads that they get were quality leads, so we didn't have to put a ton of training into it.
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Now, on the other side of it, now with private equity, I see the value in it, but we still have to have amazing production, or none of that matters.
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Well, let's talk about that.
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You you you partnered up with private equity.
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You said you were doing 30 million before that.
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This topic comes up constantly.
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I was talking to a couple of guys that are pretty well known in the industry just yesterday, and they were talking about how concerned they are about private equity and how it immediately went into stories about some uh roofing friends that they knew that had gotten the raw end of a deal and things didn't pan out the way they want.
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So tell us about your experience of private equity, and then I'll ask some questions about that for anybody listening to this.
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You know, I think I've had a great experience, but I chose a private equity company that had already acquired a few companies that looked like mine.
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You know, they were involved in the community, um, they were highly involved with the install process, and that's kind of like what drove me to the group that I joined.
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Um, I think that private equity gets a bad name because they jumped in the market when it was at the top.
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And then it was like the next year, the roofing industry changed dramatically.
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Like it was down like 30%.
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And, you know, they had clean data by that time where they could tell, like, hey, we might need to downsize to get through this.
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That um, and roofers probably didn't have clean data to understand that data.
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And we're seeing small roofing companies go out of business every day now.
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We're seeing I've seen a lot of competitors in my area that aren't private equity that were on, you know, making content saying how bad private equity is, and they're not even around anymore, those smaller companies.
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Um, because they didn't have clean data, they didn't have a way to to see where they were losing and and or make hard decisions.
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You know, sometimes we'd have to make hard decisions um because we had too many people at the time and the market has changed.
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Um, and so I think bad they get a bad name and they and and and some deserve it for sure.
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Um, but in reality, like with the company I'm with, we just move really fast.
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Make we move really fast, we have really clean data.
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Um, we put a lot of time and effort into that, and we're all in the same data.
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We all share the same data.
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So that really helps a lot.
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And if you look at a lot of private equity companies, they all have different CRMs, and so they're not getting the same data, it's not the same clean data.
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Where on ours, we all have the same CRM, which is probably the most painful thing to do, but it the the hard things we did, and it makes us really effective in the the tougher times.
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Um, but for me, it's been a good experience.
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Honestly, if I was a roofing company and I wasn't part of equity, it's a great opportunity for you because private equity has really driven the market and the prices up where they actually should be.
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For the risk that roofers take, um, there's there's never really been a huge reward.
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Um, it's just in blue collar, this is a great uh cash flow business.
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But the reality is you owe somebody else that money and a lot of roofers forget that.
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So, how did you do vetting on your side?
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I mean, they're gonna come in and they're gonna do their due diligence.
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What did that look like from your end to make sure you were picking the right partner?
00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:52.240
Yeah, so you know, obviously met with multiple people, but you you need to hire somebody that um can represent you well.
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:57.039
Um, and if anybody ever needs somebody, I have some great people that can come in.
00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:04.160
They know who these equity companies are, they know how they acted in the past, they can tell you their track record, they're gonna be able to put you in the right hands.
00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:05.440
I think that's a huge one.
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:09.359
And we all know that in what we do is like hiring people smarter than you.
00:18:09.440 --> 00:18:16.240
And I know that I'm not in that industry, so we definitely hired somebody that that can navigate that and put us in the right place.
00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:24.079
Um you know, you can look at like, you know, for like the equity company I'm at, they're one of the best in the space of the AC.
00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:27.440
Like they built two massive platforms for AC and they did really well.
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:33.920
So um I can I can look at their past experiences and what they've done and see if that's a good fit.
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:38.640
And they invest heavily in our community and probably more than we did in the past.
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:50.079
Um, and so you know, that's a big thing that competitors always say is like, you know, you're gonna see them not involved in the community as much, or or their money is going somewhere else, and and that's simply not true.
00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:54.559
Um, we've invested probably double of what I invested in the community.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:58.000
Um my biggest investment was always content, always content.
00:18:58.079 --> 00:19:01.359
And um, I still believe that because it drives people to work for you.
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:12.480
So my experience has been really well, and and I think that a lot of local roofing companies or or smaller companies need to get clean data, need to understand where their money's going.
00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:16.319
Job margins are not something that a lot of roofing companies are looking at.
00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:20.319
They're looking at we did 10 jobs and we made money, but like lost it on five.
00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:24.240
So we you need to know where you're making your mistakes at so you can clean it up.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:25.920
And that's what we've done really well.
00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.200
Yeah, there's you interesting you mentioned that.
00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:30.559
There's a guy named Matt Fruget.
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:33.759
He has a solution called Cap, I believe it's called Cap Out.
00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:44.960
And it it's uh it's a software tool, it uses AI and some other things to um look at the estimate, look at the job, and immediately determine the profit margins and everything.
00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:46.559
It's so slick.
00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:48.240
And most guys don't have a clue.
00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:54.240
It's just like, oh, we got another build going, and the roof's 18 grand or 20 grand, and they look at it as a win.
00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:59.119
But when you when you really crunch through those numbers, it may not be that big of a win.
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:01.759
Those were lessons learned for me.
00:20:01.920 --> 00:20:02.480
Same thing.
00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:07.440
Like, you know, you bid a job and it's like I remember this job I bid for like 280,000.
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:09.599
I'm like, well, we definitely have to be making money.
00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:11.200
This was like 10 years ago.
00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:15.599
And by the time I got job done with the job, we spent 300 grand on the job.
00:20:15.839 --> 00:20:19.200
And so yeah, it was just a learning experience.
00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:22.400
And so, you know, we look at every job before we bid it.
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:24.000
Is it in a line where we want to be?
00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:28.319
And then we go back and look at it again when we're done with it so that we can correct anything in the future.
00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:40.000
And you don't see that typically with roofing companies, they're moving so fast, they're in such a sales frenzy mode of trying to get the sale that they don't realize if it's actually good for you and the customer to do that job.
00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:49.200
Yeah, and I would just I would say going back to the PE relationship, for those of you guys listening, there are thousands of PE firms in America.
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:50.400
Thousands.
00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:52.720
So it's like picking a physician.
00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:54.160
Not all doctors are the same.
00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:59.839
Let me tell you right now, they didn't all graduate from medical school with the same grades, the same passion, the same aptitude.
00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:02.799
Like every doctor's not going to be the cream of the crop.
00:21:02.960 --> 00:21:05.680
Um, every financial advisor is not the cream of the crop.
00:21:05.759 --> 00:21:07.759
You you need to do your betting.
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:23.200
Um, we've talked to firms about my company, and um one of the things I like is when I hear things like, why don't you talk to some of our companies we've acquired, talk to the founders, the stuff around, ask them what it's been like to work with us.
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:29.599
And you should be able to do your betting and you should find out and and they should have a proven track record, kind of like what you're talking about.
00:21:29.759 --> 00:21:38.960
They already have a proven track record with HBAC, already working with other roofing companies, but you really need to do your betting because uh if you don't, that's on you.
00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:40.880
And it doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing.
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:47.200
Hire somebody that does, hire a consultant, hire somebody that's smarter than you, that's that's been doing this for 10 years.
00:21:48.079 --> 00:21:54.240
Um and then when when they do come in and you partner up, what does that look like?
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:59.680
What do you go through, Jason, going from being an owner with a lot of freedom and effort?
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:04.799
Now you've got this business partner that I assume owns a majority of the company.
00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:06.240
How does that look?
00:22:06.319 --> 00:22:10.480
How did that evolve with a role change in day-to-day operations?
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:16.079
You know, honestly, it's a it's a huge change, and a lot of owners aren't aren't up for that, right?
00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:22.240
Like you, you know, a lot of times, like if you look at private equity, they've heard that you can't do this, you can't do that.
00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:24.960
And in previous industries, they've proven that you can.
00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:32.880
Um, and so like they don't just stop because the the owner or the CEO is saying, hey, we've done this, it doesn't work, they push through it.
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:34.720
Uh let and then they learn lessons.
00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:40.400
You know, when I when I got involved in this business with my my father at the beginning, he kept telling me I tried that, it didn't work.
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:42.240
I tried that, I heard that all the time.
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:52.000
And I think that was preparing me for equity down the road, to be honest with you, because I got so tired of hearing that because I you couldn't do anything because they said I tried that.
00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:56.960
And so eventually you would just push through and do it, and then you would learn the lessons and find a better way to do it.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:00.880
And now you have this new setup or process that's working.
00:23:01.119 --> 00:23:03.599
But you first had to go through that to learn it.
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:11.359
And so I almost feel like when I got in this industry at the beginning, um, I was set up to hear that all the time so that I didn't do that when private equity joined.
00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:14.640
I was like, we can try that, and um love to guide you through that.
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:21.440
And honestly, we get to the other side and we've got something much better, even though I said, Hey, I've already done that, it doesn't work.
00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:26.880
Um, we end up finding something better out of it, and we do make progress.
00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:32.880
And so a lot of uh owners or previous CEOs, they have a really hard time with that.
00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:42.640
And so your job is to guide um in the best way possible or help clean up the little bit of a mess that was made to get you to the next place.
00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:46.480
Because if you're just stagnant, you're not gonna go anywhere and you're not gonna exist.
00:23:46.559 --> 00:23:53.359
And we've seen a lot of equity companies where they came in, they bought these roofing companies, and they just kept them stagnant as they bought more.
00:23:53.519 --> 00:23:57.359
Those are the ones that we're seeing go out of business because they weren't advancing.
00:23:57.440 --> 00:24:04.079
And so those are the ones where maybe the previous owners or CEOs kind of got in the way and just kept saying, No, we try that, we can't do that.
00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:11.039
So for me, um, there's it's it's there's very few previous owners that are used to change or used to somebody else running the show.
00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:16.240
And, you know, I can promise you in in my area, they put some of the best people I've ever seen in my life.
00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:26.240
Like, um, you know, we hired a lot of retired or or people in the military that are really smart-minded, do really great jobs at what they do, probably better than I could ever do.
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.279
I just have that knowledge and experience now to help.
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:33.279
Um, but the people they hire are incredible people.
00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:39.759
And so um owners have to understand that that that can happen, and there's people out there that can be better at you in many areas.
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.400
And it's hard for previous people that had all that freedom to understand that.
00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:59.759
So if you're the kind of person that that doesn't do well, that the best thing to do is sell and then do an exit, you know, a six-month exit, help them get get to that point and let it go and maybe do something else, because they're gonna put people in the right seats, at least in my experience.
00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:07.039
Yeah, that's that's what I think is uh key from what I hear you saying is what what do you want as the owner?
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:19.519
Do you want somebody to come alongside and support and grow and take your business to a place where you probably never would have taken it on your own, or it would have taken you another 20 years versus maybe five to six, seven with them?
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:22.480
Um or do you want to just get out?
00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:25.599
You know, that's that's a question everybody's got to answer.
00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:34.880
So yeah, that's um I think if it's a really good firm, they're they're looking to do something great and hopefully pay you a lot of money in the end.
00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:37.200
Pay you way more than you would have made on your own.
00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:42.559
And so um, yeah, those are any anything else you would want to share.
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:49.759
If there's one thing that you would want a listener that's another roofing owner to take away from this when thinking about private equity, what would that be?
00:25:50.559 --> 00:26:00.319
Um I mean, I honestly the one thing is surrounding yourself with a team that's that's been in that area down that road that can guide you is probably the number one thing.
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:09.680
Um, that can also guide you afterwards, too, to make sure that you're doing the right things after the sale and progressing your future also.
00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:23.359
Um, you know, for me though, the one thing at all of roofing is just if you do a really good job, no matter if you're uh private equity or individual on the job site, you're gonna drive business in most scenarios.
00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:32.079
If you make that your priority, I don't care if you're private equity or an individual business, it's gonna drive your for you forward because your people believe in what they're doing.
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:41.680
And that's the big thing here is like with private equity and sales, um, lately we've seen a huge progress in like connecting sales and production.
00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:51.599
So, like if we have a sales meeting, we actually bring production into that meeting and production managers and show them, hey, here's the steps that we're taking on the job sites and here's why.
00:26:51.839 --> 00:26:59.119
So this is what you're selling, and that connection is something that we've seen change the sales side where people believe in what they're selling.
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:03.279
Because if you have a sales team, they don't believe in what they're selling, you're not moving forward at all.
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:04.400
It's not gonna work.
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:13.279
So I would not get caught up in the sales side without involving production and so that everybody's uh in the same agreement.
00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:16.079
Yeah, it's so good.
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:19.200
Well, man, we're kind of rounding up our time here.
00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:27.680
What's a what's a parting piece of advice you have for any other roofing owners who are just in the trenches and would love to they love to get to a situation like you are?
00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:36.799
I mean, I think that's the goal for a lot of guys is kind of scale, get bigger, and get to the point to where you can have an exit and you or you can team up with PE and go a little further.
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:40.799
What's what's one parting piece of advice that you'd want them to catch from all this?
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:48.880
I would uh this still goes back to the to everything that I say, um, but this is a little bit more detailed.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:28:08.720
The installer, like the unique person on the job site that you know that you can trust, I would put a lot of time and effort into finding those people so that while you're out building the business, you know they're building great roofs, like and be a big part of their lives where they're gonna text you and say, hey, this isn't right, I'm not happy with this, so you don't lose them.
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:18.079
Like be extremely connected as an owner to a lot of these quality grade installers because they are your business, they represent you.
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:24.480
Like if you're in the office, like me right now in the office, they're out there installing roofs that give me the opportunity to do this.
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:32.480
Do not lose sight of those people that take the extra step to make sure that roof is unique and um represents your brand.
00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:37.359
And I think that's the key to everything because they are your brand when they represent you out there.
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.119
So pay attention to those people that that do the work.
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:42.640
So good.
00:28:43.119 --> 00:28:46.720
Emphasize production, focus on quality and customer service.
00:28:46.960 --> 00:28:49.920
Pretty pretty simple stuff, hard, hard to pull off, but pretty simple.
00:28:50.160 --> 00:28:51.200
Yeah, very simple.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:53.839
Well, Jason, thanks for joining the show, man.
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:54.720
Really appreciate you.
00:28:54.799 --> 00:28:59.759
And um, I know that guys listening to this definitely get challenged in some different ways by what we talked about.
00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:01.039
So thanks again for being on.
00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:02.480
Yeah, happy to be on here.
00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:03.920
Thank you for for the podcast.
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:05.039
Appreciate it.
00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:05.920
Yeah.