Roofing By The Numbers: Industry Report Takeaway

‍Pete: Alright. Hey, welcome back everybody. I am your host Pete McKendrick with my co-host Nick. And we are back with another great masterclass and we have a special guest star here today, uh, with us. Mr. Ben Tiger, AKA Ben Marrow, AKA, the roof tiger. And what other, other name he goes by on Facebook.

So welcome Ben.

Ben is driving to his destination. Here's my, I'm  

Ben: gonna in my office here.  

Pete: Yes. So welcome Ben. So for having, yeah. Excited to have you on, man. I'm glad you could join us today. Uh, a really interesting topic here. You know, we. Um, to give you guys some background on this, and Nick, and we'll run through it here in a second, but, you know, we decided we were gonna run a little survey, uh, just kinda get a, a little temperature gauge on the industry itself and, uh, kind of figure out where we're, where everybody stands and, um, you know, figured we present you the numbers, right?

And we got Ben here to give us some really cool, um, you know, industry insight from, from an actual roofer, um, you know, an everyday roofer. So excited to have, uh, all, everybody together here to kinda run through this.  

Nic: Super pumped for this. This is gonna be great, Ben. Thanks for joining. You know, when we think marketing and roofing, we think Ben Tiger.

Um, but uh, honestly, when, when we like, uh, joking aside, like when you look at what you've done, going back to one of those first podcasts you did with Pete on the, uh, roofer report back then and everything, talking about how to build that stuff up, Pete, he knows how to market. He knows how to stand out from the crowd and tying him into this is, is, is a great addition to it.

Pete: Yeah, I mean, I've seen Ben actually, uh, you know, speak in person a couple of times and he just does a great job of, uh, you know, kind of explaining his path to how he's got to where he is and, and what he's done from a marketing and branding standpoint. And, uh, you know, so I think, uh, glad to have him on here today.

I think Ben, your insights are gonna be great. Uh, you know, as far as, uh, talking about some of these numbers and the way, you know, people are leveraging some of the technology that we're seeing in the industry. Can you guys hear me okay? We can, we can.  

Ben: Okay, perfect. Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. I heard your first intro, Pete, you said something like, I'm super handsome, and, um, it's something along those lines.

I really appreciate the intro. That was exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. Just to give like a brief 32nd about myself, guys, I come from a marketing background. That's what my, um, my degree was in a college. I studied marketing and communication and so I really brought my, um, just my education in that sector to the roofing space, which I knew very little about.

But marketing principles are very broad based and so I hope to give you a couple things today you could use instantly, like today or tomorrow in your roofing business that will help you guys get more customers, more leads, and ultimately more success. Awesome man.  

Pete: Do we have, uh, Nick, do we have some housekeeping slides to go through or I.

Nic: Yeah, let's dive into it. So, okay, the host here is nor, uh, normally, uh, you got the host with the most, which is Pete McKendrick there, PR process. Pete, uh, you could reach him if you have any questions or anything additional at [email protected]. Then you have me, the host with the least doesn't rhyme, so it's just not as good.

Damn it. Uh, but, uh, you could reach me for any complaints about my, my rhyme there, uh, at [email protected]. We make it nice and easy there. So, um, but, uh, keep in mind, stick around the whole time. Uh, we are giving away some of the, uh, masterclass socks again today. Um, and, uh, we do have a, if you wanna learn more about the roofer account and how to use it and your specific business needs, our implementation team is free.

Unlike a lot of the other tools out there, we wanna make sure that you're successful with the tool if you're actually using it. And what better way than not charging and to get everything set up there. Um, you can check out the Roofer Academy and our education sessions with that as well. And last week we gave away with Jerome and that was awesome.

This week we got some really cool shoes that I wish I had, um, but do not. Um, so follow us on Facebook and Instagram like, and comment on our shoe giveaway posts and, uh, we're giving away two pairs and I was told very explicitly that none of them go to me. Um, so those are all up for you guys. Yeah. And uh,  

Pete: would go great with some limited edition socks there, wouldn't they, Nick?

Nic: It'd be pretty sweet combo. I, uh, I do have a wedding coming up very soon and, uh. I might throw on those socks. So we'll see if I'm still married after the wedding, uh, with those socks on. But, uh, it will be definitely fun to try this out. So, um, and then la lastly, it's always asked, uh, this is always recorded.

So we put this on roofer.com/masterclass. It's on our YouTube channel as well. And in the chat we have the great and powerful Jennifer. So if you can, uh, need to have any feedback or anything, email [email protected]. Uh, and there'll be a survey after. Let us know how we're doing, how things are going, and, uh, we're looking forward to it.

So why don't we get into it, Pete?  

Pete: Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, you know, let's, let's dive into this, uh, into the numbers a bit here. So we, um, you know, we, we ran a little survey or had a survey run, right? Uh. We didn't specifically run it, but we had a survey done. Um, just kind of gauge, you know, where the industry's at, you know, where, where's the industry at in the use of technology?

Where's the industry at in their, their thoughts on it? And, uh, you know, what are they looking for? What are they after? Um, I think we'll have some numbers here. There is a copy of this report available in the handout section if you guys wanna download it and go through the actual industry report that we, uh, put together.

Uh, if you do get the chance to jump on there and read through it, it is, uh, got some fantastic information, gives you some really good insights into what everybody's doing as far as the industry goes. Um, you know, kind of a litmus test of, of where everybody's at. So, um, I guess let's dive into it, Nick, and then let's see what we got here.

Nic: Uh, yeah. So the data sources are based on proprietary market research commissioned by us, as Pete said by, uh, my Clear Opinion Insights hub. Uh, so we did the set back in January, and so it includes data sets and responses, uh, and market analysis specific to American Roofing. Uh, so sorry for the Canadians, Cameron goco, not go Oilers, but, uh, this data is not publicly available, so we wanted to create a report so we can, uh, share it with everyone there.

So,  

Pete: yeah, and we, you know, we jumped on it with a, a number of different types of roofers, right? I think they try to capture a nice little subset of roofers, you know, that really kind of explain the, the industry as a whole. So you'll see here the median animal revenue of, of the ones that we were interviewed were $5 million average user in business, 15, average age of the actual owner, 49.

And, uh, you know, some of the locations you see there, California, Georgia, Florida, some of the bigger markets. So, um, you know, tried to talk to a wide range of decision makers, owners, uh, all over the US to really get a, a clear picture of what the industry as a whole looks like's. Awesome. Ben's in the Tiger Den.

Look  

Nic: at that. Yeah. Look at that.  

Ben: Made it  

Nic: made, it made it safe and sound. Um, one of the, the quotes here that like, I, we, I really liked and I know that we really liked throughout this process is technology frees us from repetitive tasks so we can focus on the work that truly matters. That's huge. And like when I'm showing roofers, uh, roofer.com through demos and stuff like that, that's what I always start talking about is that automation thing.

Because there's repeatable tasks that you do every day that is just kind of monotonous. And when I was roofing, it was just going through the, the, the, the, the steps. Doing the normal things, you know, printing off the work order. Marking it up and stuff like that. If you can automate a lot of that stuff, you save a bunch of time.

And like the cheesy line is, what are you gonna do with all that time? Like how are you gonna put it back in your business? But it's cheesy, but it's true. Like with that stuff, you could be working more on your business, building out more things, thinking about marketing, thinking about expanding, thinking about Gutter Lion for example.

I'm sure Ben was able to come up with these amazing ideas like Solar Panther and Gutter Lion because he freed himself up from the monotonous task that he does day to day. So that's a big part of building out this process, I think.  

Pete: Yeah, for sure. I mean, the technology, obviously, like we always say, you know, it, it gives you back time, but time is money, right?

Ultimately, at the end of the day, time equates to dollar signs, whether that it means more sales, whether that means, you know, streamlining the process so that you know, your costs are down, whatever it may be, you know, that time can equate to dollar signs ultimately at the bottom line. And that's a huge, uh, you know, a huge advantage.

Like, it's a huge way kind of to boost profits and, and, and definitely help your company along the way and, and help your employees to be, uh, more streamlined in their operations. So, uh, you know, it's, it's definitely a, a great quote here for sure. So we had to add this thing,  

Nic: pat. We have, we have where you at man?

We have process Pete, and if, uh, you guys heard the, uh, podcast I did with, uh, Ben on the Tiger Den a couple months ago? Project Pat is Pete's cousin. Uh, we didn't know that, but, uh, it is, you can see the similarities here. He has a hat on so you can't see the hair similarities, but, uh, yeah, just had to add that in there.

Pete: Process, Pete and Project Pat. I think we're gonna collaborate on an album later.  

Nic: It's a dynamic duo that, uh, we didn't know we needed, but we did.  

Pete: Yeah.  

Nic: Let's dive into the spend, Pete, and how people normally spend what they're doing.  

Pete: Yeah, this is a really interesting one, right? Like, uh, when you start to get into what are people spending on technology And Ben, um, before we even dive into the numbers, I'm gonna talk to you really quick about.

This, like how do you guys handle technology spend? Do you set aside a budget for it? Is it just what it is? Is what it is? You know, how are you guys planning on what you need to spend on technology over the course of the year?  

Ben: Um, can you guys hear me okay? We can, yes. Okay, good. I'm so sorry. First of all, just for my, I like you guys who are listening, run a roofing company sometimes very, um, you don't know where you're gonna be day to day at times.

So as they alluded to our technology spend, um, we try to spend, um, as little as possible if more efficient products that solve problems. So that's what roofer really solve for us, is we don't really want to give it to sales reps to measure roofs and be inconsistent. So that's when we found roofer started using their improvement tools onto their CRM.

It's far less expensive than most of the offers out in the industry. And so to answer your question directly, like roof roofing companies, especially if you're under 1 million or into one in 2 million. You don't wanna be spending a hundred, $200,000 in technology, it's just not advisable. Use that money to really drive your revenue, which is most like marketing spend or profits for, or hiring other people to take on some of those repetitive tasks as well.

So to answer your question directly, like as little as possible, because technology's so good now that we can find products that fit those solutions for cheaper.  

Pete: Yeah, and I think that's an important factor, right? Back in, let's say five, six years ago, in order to accomplish the same thing, I would've probably needed five or six pieces of software, right?

So I would've been spending significantly more than I am now because the platforms are so dialed and they're, they're offering so many more features that I can reduce my spend considerably and still get the same amount of. Bang for my buck more or less, right? I'm still getting the same feature set.

What really surprised me here in these numbers was you see right there at the top some highlights, 56% of roofing companies saying they spend between five and $50,000 a year on technology, right? Like, that's a pretty substantial number or, uh, you know, for half the industry to spending that much money on, on tech.

And you mentioned that too,  

Nic: like the fact that like back in the day you have these fragmented systems with a bunch of single source solutions. It's, it's true. Because now you can kind of amalgamate a lot of them. Nice plug to roofer.com. Wow.  

Pete: But that was an SAT word too. Ooh. Well I'm gonna have chat. JBT what that means.

Nic: It's not getting there guys. I'm getting there. The more I do these masterclass, the smarter I become. I think that's what  

Pete: it is. Yeah.  

Nic: Less about banging on shingles. It's more about this. So, but you, you, you actually see that still today. Like today we talked, or yesterday I talked to a contractor who has, uh, QuickBooks.

He has a incident estimator, he has a proposal tool. He has a CRM and he is got a bunch of other stuff kind of pieced together. And I asked him like, what do you, what are you spending with all of this? And, 'cause I, our price is very, very cheap. But he was spending around $15,000 a month and he wasn't a big company.

He was like a mid-size company, probably doing around six, $7 million in revenue a year. And I was like, that's a huge portion of that. Like, do, how much money do you allocate to marketing? I don't have a lot. So his instant estimator's not working that well. Well, it's not the instant estimator tool's fault.

It's because you're wasting all your money on everything here and not being able to allocate the money elsewhere. So he is focusing on door knocking, he's focusing on organic roads, which is great to do, but that's still a big problem. And you could see it here that 56% is a huge number there.  

Ben: Yeah, I think those are real dollars.

Right? Yeah. We talk about, uh, how, how hard roofers and how, how much you have to save to get through the wintertime and keep employees retained. Uh, as you guys know, if you've been in the roofing space and you're in cold climate, you essentially lose money for three outta 12 of the months. You've gotta really get your acorns in those first nine to make sure you're saving through the wintertime and not failing.

When I first started, guys, I almost failed in that first winter because I didn't realize how much I'd spent, how much I would spend in that downtime. And when you don't have cash flow, big problems come up. And so the less you can spend on this technology, the better, especially if it's as efficient as the other products in the market.

Pete: Well, and I think one thing to speak to here, Ben, is like, how easy as a roofer is it to fall prey to loading up on software technology here? Like, uh, you know, on, on buying too many subscriptions, you know, just seeing things and being like, Hey, let's try that. You know? And then next thing you know, you're two years down the road and you're still paying for something that potentially your team's not even using.

I mean, we see it a lot. And so how easy is it for that to happen, you know, in the business, obviously when you get busy and stuff.  

Ben: Easy. And I'll tell you one of the reasons why when you go to roofing conferences, if anybody in this, uh, in this chat has seen, um, W's in the chat, if you've been to a roofing conference, um, but if you've been to it, you, you, you go to these tables sometimes and you'll see people be like, you need this product for your business to do X, Y, and Z.

And so it's not their fault that they're selling their products, but you almost buy into while other roofers are doing it, therefore I must. Mm-hmm. And that's just not true. Um, there are other options in the market that cost less, that are more effective and um, roofer is a great example of that, that, um, yeah, it just saves you a ton of money that you don't have to spend on a product that's not better, right?

Um, so don't fall prey to what people are doing. Start to start to educate yourself on what other options are there. And I think that's one of the reasons why this masterclass will be successful is people can see the real difference of roofer versus everyone else. That's a huge  

Nic: thing too, Pete, like. Back when we first started releasing all of our tools and stuff like that, I would talk, and this is just a couple years ago when we released proposals and everything else, I would talk to contractors that were just starting out and they had no tech stack.

And nowadays, like I would say in the last, especially the last three months, kind of going maybe back into the buying season in October and stuff like that, you talk to roofers that are just starting their company. And a lot of these guys and girls are coming from an a bigger company that they were at before.

So they're familiar with the tools, they understand the importance of tech. So it's like that that buying mindset has changed and that startup is, they're like, I need these tools to be successful. But where I see a lot of people fall prey is in that 56% mark is, they worked at these big companies and they had a fragmented kind of Frankenstein situation and they're like, I need every one of those tools to be successful.

So you're going in, like you said, not having a lot of acorns sort away, uh, Ben. And you're going in, you're buying all these things that you see there at, at, at the shows that you see on Instagram, you see in the Facebook groups and stuff like that. And now you have a bloated tech stack with a huge amount of overhead and you're just trying to get to that next paycheck.

Mm-hmm. That's difficult to do. So kind of taking that process and understanding and looking around is important. But I mentioned to you on your podcast, uh, Ben, we at Roofer, 'cause we did it live at IRE at Roofer. We try to do anything in our power to convince you not to buy our product at the show, I don't care how much you like it, I'm saying let's take a beat.

Let's meet when you get home. Simply because those shiny lights and stuff like that is very easy to make a decision on that because you're fired up, you're excited, you're around a bunch of like-minded individuals and you're ready to go take a beat. When you're at a a show, set the appointments for when you get back home and take a look at it so you don't fall prey to that five to $50,000 when you don't have that bankroll to run it.

Mm-hmm.  

Pete: Yeah. And I think a big point here is, especially if you're a new roofer, is to have a process and then find pieces of software that fit your process, that, that fill opportunities, that help you streamline that process instead of allowing the software to build the process for you.  

Nic: Yeah.  

Pete: Right.

Because I think that's what we see a lot of, we see a lot of people who have essentially bought tools and then built a process around the tool, so now they're kind of stuck with it, right? Mm-hmm. Because they've incorporated it so much that, you know, they don't have the ability to just say, okay, this tool's not right for us.

It doesn't really fit our system, you know, we can cut it loose. And I think that's a, that's a common mistake that I see is like the, you know, we buy the tools first. You know, like Nick said, we're seeing more and more roofers that are getting on technology from day one, but we're buying the tools and then trying to build the process around them instead of the opposite way around.

Mm-hmm.  

Nic: I would expect nothing less of that amazing advice from anyone else than processed beer. Like the process, it's in your  

Pete: name.  

Nic: It's like it's,  

Pete: I had to, I had to come up with some kind of process there. You can't teach that. So let's talk about this one. Right? Current technology usage, right? So what, what are people using from technology standpoint?

So, um, surprised honestly by the first one, but not so surprised by the other ones. Uh, payments and invoicing. 82% of people using something now to process payments. I think that's something that has really exploded. I would say Ben, maybe you could speak to that in the last couple years, right? I don't, I mean I know up until a couple years ago it was pretty common to just go manually collect checks, right?

Ben: Yeah. Quick. QuickBooks is the obvious answer here. 'cause it's so huge, um, by Intuit. And that's what I would say the pervasive, um. The, the pervasive use of technology for that is, is QuickBooks. But then, um, yeah, the other ones, like you were mentioning earlier, you have to kind of stack these technologies and use a bunch of different ones.

And that's why I believe that roofer is the future because you guys are doing all this in-house and having all of these things in one platform. Sorry if I'm sound salesy here, but I just believe that you guys are building a product worthwhile and the payments and invoicing obviously is gonna go along with it.

QuickBooks will probably never die, let's be honest. And for, for taxes and stuff, you're always gonna need something specific to finances. But the other things listed, I believe that roofer can find a solution for.  

Nic: Yeah, the the QuickBooks thing you hear on every single call, if it's not QuickBooks, it's zero.

If it's not zero, it's wave. But like QuickBooks is the big one there. I think it's important. There's a lot of people that we talk to that are still doing that check and you're wasting time driving around and all that stuff too. But it's easy. But a big thing is, and a lot of people, uh, need to understand.

I'm victim to this and I'm doing it right now. I collect, I try to pay everything I can on my credit card because I get, I have a good card with good points and I pay it off right away. And then just keep on moving through it. And when you're looking at big purchases and a lot of these good credit cards that are out there now, you can get almost like a one-to-one or 1.5 to one point ratio to dollar.

So having payments and invoicing, uh, uh, uh, part of your tool stack. Shameless plug to roofer payments, 2.8% on credit card, 0.5% on Aach H. But you having something like that to pass along to that customer to allow them to pay through that. Number one, separate yourself from the competition. But number two, allows them to get something back for what they're doing.

They don't wanna do the roof. It's not a sexy purchase. We've talked about it before. It's, it's just something over their house and they're not really thinking about it. But if you can give them something back for that, say, Hey, do you got a good Points card on there? We can process your credit card through that.

It's gonna really open up that door. Um, so it's a big, big option that, that I'm seeing more and more, more and more feedback on it with, with a lot of the customers.  

Pete: Yeah. And I think the one big stat here that stands out, and our team kind of noted it there at the top, is that 75% of roofers say that they're asking for some type of feedback or review or, or, uh, a referral.

But you see only 35% of them have a formalized platform to manage it. Right. So, uh, if you don't necessarily have a process built around that, you know, I think we'll see later. I'm not sure if the slide is in here, but there's a slide that actually shows how some people say, I think the majority of roofers say, yeah, we sometimes ask for them.

Right. And so there, you know that this is a huge opportunity for you. You know, 'cause we'll see later on, referrals are still the number one source of leads for the roofing contractor. So why not have a formalized process that helps you get those referrals, right? And you see here, only 35% of the people who answered this say that they have something in place that helps them manage their reviews, their referrals, and their feedback.

Nic: That's a big part there. The, the fact that you can build that into the automation. Going back to that first slide, stopping having to do those repeatable tasks day to day and using technology to do that, that's a huge thing. Just have that automation kick out. Every time that you move something, a job completed allows you to capture a lot.

We have John Tucker as one of our, uh, former roofers of the month. He said within a one week period he got four reviews from old leads by just putting that automation in and moving them to job completed because it just prompts them and it's easy to do, right? So you can open that up very nicely. Diving into agent tech, uh, versus technology spend.

Um, gen X is all in one, all in on tech, and it's paying off, which is good. I will, uh, second that it's pretty obvious that, uh, us millennials here are pretty all in on, on on tech as well. But as you can see here, um, the heat tack, uh, map with tech profit impact by generation, you can see this, uh, the amount of that's significantly impacted by all these different options there.

So among roofing pros, gen X is the most bullish on technology, seeing it as a major driver of growth. So you can see that bottom graph there and millennials are right behind them. And baby boomers, they seem a little bit more reserved, but acknowledge that tech says it as benefits. You, you talk to 'em all the time, they're like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's not a bad. Mindset to have. But I always argue, I go, well, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm taking, I'm updating it. So you got that wheel that's working fine with wood spokes, let's update it to steel rims and that, that's what Project Pat would want anyways. So, uh, you can have that all lined in there and just be able to roll across a lot easier.

So no matter what your age group, there's like a near universal agreement that tech has a real impact on the bottom line. And these, this data really, really shows it.  

Pete: Yeah, and I think the one thing, and maybe you can speak a little bit to this, Ben, is that to me, what I saw when I saw this graph is this is a direct indicator of what you're dealing with from a customer base now too, right?

Like your customer base, your, your homeowner nowadays is a millennial person, right? And you look at what the millennials are doing, they're embracing tech, right? The tech is a huge part of their everyday life. And so when you are selling. Utilizing tech, leveraging tech, making it a very streamlined process is gonna give you a huge advantage because that's what your customer's now looking for.

Right. Ben, what are you guys seeing out there now nowadays with customers in comparison to say even a couple years ago when you guys started the company?  

Ben: Yeah, I'd say it's getting more and more common to have technology and, and bids that are done same day. We still run into contractors that don't give bids for a week 'cause they have to measure the roof, go back, talk to their team, like it's a very arduous and difficult process.

So I just say with the Amazon age of things where people can purchase something with one click, why are we taking a week or two to price something out? And so the faster, this is a common thing that I say, it's speed to lead, and if you can get there fast and give a price, you have a far higher chance to close before those other contractors get in the door.

Technology allows you to do that with measurements, with proposals, uh, with making sure to tracking your numbers, tracking your margins. Uh, I would imagine that outta the people in this room. That not everybody knows their exact numbers of profitability per job. It's a very common to just kind of go in blind and think, you know, and then come November, December time, you look back and say, okay, what jobs were the most profitable W's in the chat if you've ever done that.

Um, but the faster you can get information, the faster you can change and update your stuff so you can make more money ultimately and stop wasting money on small jobs that don't make make profit. So that's my suggestion is you, you leverage technology to go faster to customer and then track your data so you can make changes.

Nic: That's huge.  

Ben: Yeah, it, it makes a lot of sense how these, um, you know, these  

Nic: graphs are shaping up. So I, I, I saw this and I'm gonna give a plug to the person I saw this from, but, uh, I'm gonna, I'll talk about what I knew before I saw this, uh, quote online. So the average first time home buyer now, uh, days is 36 years old, and that's across Canada and us.

That's exactly my age. And what we have grown up with is we grew up pre-technology and during technology. So we got like that weird in-between spot, which makes us all very socially awkward. But what it really does is it opens up the door to what we want is experience. So when you're selling to people and you're talking about the Amazon and everything else, Mike Goldstein is who I'm gonna credit this, this quote to where I saw him write it online.

Uh, I dunno where he got it from but it was a good quote. Buyers today are buying things more often based on experience and they are spending more dollars to get that experience. And they know, and like the baby boomers of the past, that good work is not cheap. They want to be kind of credited for their work, so they expect the same thing back to them.

So they want that experience. So being able to implement technology in your flow, whether it's through, uh, CRM, whether it's through your proposals, whether it's through an instant estimator, really takes you up to that next level. And you will close bigger jobs. You will get paid for your work and not have to scrape around for the bottom, uh, uh, there, and, and fight with the fly by nighters on there and really own your pricing.

So it's a really important thing to kind of open up there and understand that technology is your friend and it's actually gonna make you more money while costing you less throughout that process.  

Pete: Yeah. Another think one thing that I want to touch on too, and, and Ben you made me think of it when you said, you know, make sure you know your numbers and how profitable you are, is that we often see people that struggle to really understand all of the costs associated with the job.

Mm-hmm. Right? They think costs, material, costs, labor, and that's it. Right. And there's so many other overhead factors that are involved. You know, like, did you drive a truck out there to do an inspection? You know, there's, there's a cost, right? Like there's a cost to all this stuff. And I think a lot of times we overlook a lot of those operating costs, or we're not absorbing them correctly, you know, into the jobs, and therefore they're affecting how profitable these jobs are on the bottom line.

Nic: Mm-hmm. Adding in your overhead is super important. So Super Pete, CRM features used versus most loved.  

Pete: This is an interesting one, right? Yeah. Um. Yeah, so let's talk about this. What does it say roofers know what matters most in A CRM when it comes to value? User points. The big three, job tracking, project management proposal and estimate generation invoicing and billing.

It takes me back to one of the first podcasts I did with, uh, Latif, right? Latif said, you know, he is talking about being a brand new roofer. And he said, you know, you don't have to invest in a ton of software right off the bat, right? Like, you have very little money, you have very little customers coming in.

You can manage that pretty easily. But the one thing that you should invest your money in from day one is a proposal tool. So that you stand out and you have, uh, your professional looking from day one, even if you're a one man show.  

Nic: Mm-hmm. Uh, you  

Pete: know, so, uh, I found it very interesting that that was one of the top ones here as well, uh, for most loved.

Right. Uh, because I think it, it speaks highly to the fact that that is a very, very crucial piece and it, it's one that you can implement, you know, pretty cost effectively from day one. Uh, you know, and be able to, to really stand out from your local market right away without having to have a bunch of sophisticated tools.

Mm-hmm.  

Nic: Yeah. It's a big one there. I talk to customers all the time that they're like, yeah, I'm just starting out. I'm like, what's your competition like in your market? Who are the big guys and what do you know about them? How are you going to get above the riff, RAF at the bottom, like the fly by nighters and everybody else, I'll tell you one way not to get ahead is having your quota look exactly like those fly by nighters.

Mm-hmm. 'cause they're gonna be lower in price than you because they don't have overhead, they don't care about overhead. They will be cutting corners. So own your price and leave value behind. And that's what you can do with a good proposal software. And that, like, if you're doing that from the beginning, you can leapfrog a lot right off the bat and win jobs off of bigger people.

Um, and that way you can kind of implement, you know, that communication aspect, that presentation, access a, a access to it and open up that door to more sophisticated customers that are willing to, going back to the last point, pay more for experience. And that's like, not even if you're just a new company coming in.

Prime example is, and I was super pumped to see this, my dad won a a hundred thousand dollars, uh, new work job. From a builder that always used the same guy. And the reason he won it was because of the, honestly, it was, I read the email was because of the detail and the accuracy and the transparency of your estimate.

He wasn't the most expensive. He, by far wasn't the cheapest and he won over that person. And probably their f future work because of the ability to show them what's going on, what we're doing with line item them out, show the quantities and show a little bit of description of what the current work is and everything else.

He included the measurement report from the, from the, uh, um, the, uh, blueprints that he drew out in roofer as well. And that was what, what wanted for him was being able to show like, here's my work. Here's what I'm gonna be doing for you. Here's how much roof you have based on the numbers, so pull that in.

So having that aspect's huge and then being able to track everything throughout that process and project manage is like a nice cherry on top.  

Ben: Does anybody know what the trust factor of roofing companies is by chance? I know these guys have probably heard me speak about this, but if somebody's listening out there who, who knows the percentage, go ahead and type it in the chat.

Um, the distrust percentage of roofing companies is 80%, so that means the general public does not trust 80% of roofing companies or has an 80% distrust mark. And that's because it's very difficult work. You think of people drinking on jobs not having insurance. You've all heard people ripping somebody off, and roofing is such a high ticket item that people would wanna rip off a 20,000 job versus a, a sink, you know, uh, not being fixed for 200 bucks, right?

We, we live in a very, um, high dollar per, per per job cost. So, um, my point is, is by standing out with customers from that 80% and having professional proposals that are branded to your business. That's gonna help you stand out from those roofers who don't put enough time in and ultimately, um, don't win jobs as much as you do.

That's Yeah. Big.  

Pete: Yeah. No, uh, there is one thing here that I want to get your take on, Ben, and that's analytics and reporting. And only 20% of people saying that it was a valuable feature, uh, for them inside of their CRM, because I know I'm a numbers guy. I think you guys do a pretty good job of keeping track of your data and, you know, and being able to utilize it to, to modify and, and tweak your process.

So what are your thoughts on that, that only 21% are saying that that's valuable?  

Ben: Uh, I, I would say that probably most roofing companies are less than a million dollars, I would say most or maybe less than 2 million. It's just by law of averages and so you don't have that many jobs to take care of, and they're probably self proprietary, like.

Like individuals who run their business and are also salespeople and also run jobs, they have multiple different positions. And so, um, they probably don't know the benefit of tracking your numbers down to each penny or like care as much because they're just like, they make good money, it's enough for them.

So I'll just move on. Uh, the minute that I started hiring people who knew finances and could tell me specific data was the minute my business changed because I had somebody backing me up on those opinions and actually coaching me through this is the most valuable spend for your dollar. You know, I'm a creative guy.

If you can't tell, um, I, I love freaking anything creative. I'm the left brain or right brain guy, whatever that one is, it's very creative for me, not not to know which one. Uh, I would go to my CFO and be like, Hey, like we could do this, we could do that. We could do X, Y, and Z. And he is like, yeah, we could do that.

He's like, or we could just reinvest into what's making us a lot of money right now. Which is just more roof jobs and more solar jobs, right? So like, I'm an idea guy. I'm like, what if we got into, you know, um, floor coatings or into this business? And he is like, sure, but that average ticket's lower. He would back it up by numbers.

So having the numbers to say, we make X amount of dollars on each roofing job, therefore just concentrate and focus your scattered brain into doing what's most cost effective and profitable.  

Pete: Yeah. If you guys didn't get a chance to see the masterclass, we did what Nick, just last, the last masterclass was with, was with Amanda.

Two, two master classes ago, I lose track. Right. So two master classes ago we did one with Amanda for Maven, and it was literally about her numbers specifically, mostly geared around the s instant estimator, but just how well she understands her numbers and uh, how effectively she's able to manipulate the business based on those numbers.

Mm-hmm. Really speaks to how, like you said, like once you really understand the data and you can really see how it's affecting the bottom line, you can make much more educated decisions about the path of the business  

Ben: and roofing materials. If anybody's in here that manages the materials or goes to jobs in Nesta, pick up materials after jobs is over, or whatever the case, like so much money is lost in materials that you bought, an original cost for materials and you have to go back and buy $500 more of additional supplies to finish the job.

That's stuff that's just not tracked at times. Or you're carrying materials from one job into the next and it's not tracked. That's money saved. And so if you don't know these things and you get my fir my first or second year, I got my, my bill from a, b, c in total. And it was like 40% of my jobs money was going towards materials.

I was like, there's something way off here that we're not tracking. It's 'cause we were buying additional materials and throwing away other stuff. We did a bunch of goofy stuff. So it dialed us into like project managers, you have to pick up materials, you have to return to A, B, C, you have to do these things to make sure make us profitable.

And the numbers came down, came down, came down, got more profitable. But even 5% on materials, guys think $5 for every a hundred is a lot of money when you're buying 500,000 or a million dollars in materials. So, uh, those things can all add up to vacations for your family and, and more investment into more employees.

Right? It's huge, huge, huge  

Nic: difference. And that's what, like my dad was so crazy growing up that, uh, I, I got that drilled into my head when we were doing cutoffs. If we were doing cutoffs on a hip. He would lose his mind if there was a factory edge on the other side and we didn't use it on the other hip.

Uh, so he is just like, he's like, don't waste that shingle, just use it on the other side. His waist went like damn near zero on a hip roof. We would just cut that one side, go to the other side of the hip and Dutch it in and it would just fit in and it made difference. And you can see like how that can open up this, those returns, not only the returns and stuff like that are going to get them more material.

How much time is that taking? How much gas? That stuff there? Being able to record it in a CRM through your material takeoffs getting accurate, me measurements and all that stuff, but also. Any change orders and stuff like that is gonna make you more profitable throughout that, uh, flow as well.  

Pete: Yeah. I remember working with a, a contractor who, um, they hired a guy to come in, a younger guy, savvy guy, and kind of like Ben said, like, you hire a guy that kind of understands the numbers.

And he started looking at their material orders and what they were ordering for roofs and figured out that they were essentially ordering flashing and shingles for like the same parts of the roof and like over ordering on every single job. And it worked out to be, I think he said somewhere around like $70,000 in extra materials that they were just eating over the course of a year.

Uh, just in something simple, you know, just looking at, they were just going off of a measurement report and not making any adjustments and just ordering and, and they go up with all this surplus material. So, uh, knowing your numbers and understanding the process, you know, can really, really affect the bottom line.

Like Ben said, $5 on every a hundred, you know, over the course of the year, that's gonna add up very, very quickly.  

Nic: Yeah.  

Pete: All right. So roofer usage versus time saved, right? So roofer users winning back their time. So what do we got here, Nick?  

Nic: Yeah, when you're looking at everything here, roofer users are going to kind of win back their times big time here.

Um, but most roof and businesses are saying that around they save around five to 10 hours per week with many saving 10 over, but the average, you're looking at eight hours back in a single week. So let's take like the over side of that there too. 'cause if you're looking at 10 hours a week that you're saving on that and that breaking down to a month, that's 40 hours a month, that's an extra day that you got back into your system to be able to do stuff, to grow your company.

If you make that into the whole year, that's 20 fold days that you're saving. That's almost a month's worth of time that you're getting back with you. And that's just, I. Five to 10 hours, you can see people are saving over 10 hours. So that's why I'm so big on these automations and setting up those successes and making things like building a proposal that much quicker.

'cause you just have to click it a couple times. Those things make a big difference. Ben, you, you threw, uh, couple of the, the, the skits that you did? Skits, professional commercials. I devalue it for some reason. I dunno why I think it was 'cause I was laughing at them 'cause they were so funny too. But you were like, like I'm thinking about the guy who was on the roof using the measuring tape using IC and Newton's law.

Like that's true. Like all these people are like, yeah, but that's how I do things. It's like, cool, what's your time worth? Like, let's not think about an hourly amount, but like what do you do with that time? Would you rather do other stuff? Like, I'd much rather. Teach something, some to someone or spend time with my nephew or whatever, then doing stuff that I have to do over and over again.

And also what gets boring in your life is the shit that you have to do over and over and over again. It's, it's, you wanna keep it fresh. So why don't you get that boring stuff out of the way and automate that and save five to 10 thou hours a week? It makes such a big difference.  

Ben: And a time with professionalism and branding and standing up from the composition guys, what's more powerful?

Having a hand drawn roof on a piece of paper or showing up at a proposal ready and then showing it to the customer and saying, this is what I'm quoting for. This is a sketch of your house done professionally by this company called Roofer. And they're like, oh, wow. Most people have never seen something like this at their home.

Yeah. So I'm like, Hey, this is what it looks like. Does this look like it's, it's right to, yeah, this looks like my house. P perfect. This is what we quote off of, and this is why it's accurate. And if my price is different from other people, maybe it's because I have accurate measurements, and they might maybe not.

And so, um, you can speak to that professionalism and again, put yourself above the competition. In, in a faster, more time efficient way.  

Nic: There we are. This is crazy here. 0% percent of all the people survey is no time saved. So that, that's crazy.  

Pete: Yeah. And I think back to, um, you know, I think back to, uh, an interview I did with Hannah from Smith Rock, you know, and she said it very profoundly.

She said, you know, coming over to roofer has saved us hours in the day and days in a week, which equates to weeks over the years. And she said, and when I think of that in the lifetime of my business, she said, you could potentially be saving me years of my life. Right. And she said, and what could I potentially do with that, you know, over the lifetime of, of our business.

And so, you know, very, when you think about it like that, it's pretty profound to think like you could potentially save years, uh, you know, off of it by, by just implementing some software and, and streamlining that process through it, you know? So, uh, loved that quote from her and it really stuck with me as, as like the main thing coming out of that, that conversation with her.

Um, you know, of the, how much the time saved is impacting them, not only as a business, but also their personal life and, uh, you know, it's her and her husband running that company and how much time they're getting back, you know?  

Nic: Mm-hmm.  

Pete: Hundred percent.  

Nic: I'm looking into the tool usage and profitability.

Pete.  

Pete: Yeah, I mean, I think that this is, uh. Something that we talk about quite often, right? Obviously if you're leaning out the process and you're streamlining the process and you're more organized, it almost by default, I mean, unless you're just a train wreck, you know, like almost by default you're gonna make more money, right?

Like, you're gonna have more time, you're gonna be more efficient, you, you know, you're chances of being more profitable because now you understand your numbers. You know, all these things that we've talked about on these previous slides kind of all come together as a perfect storm to push your profitability up, right?

So, um, and don't get me wrong, I have seen train wrecks where the, you know, the software has not helped, but, um, but if it's implemented properly, you know, it, it can make a huge difference to your bottom line, for sure. And you can  

Nic: see that there just in the data, right? Lead capture tools like instant estimators.

52.2 said it made a big impact there. Measurement softwares, uh, like roofer. Uh, you got 47.2, saw strong results and customer review review tools came in close behind at 45.3. The, the big thing here that I, I really think is important when you're looking at like the project management, this entire flow, CRM software, automations and stuff like that to me is communication.

'cause it all kind of ties in. So you have that communication piece at the front with that lead capture tool. You have that measurement that's educating them on exactly the size of the roof down to the nearest inch. The proposals are gonna be educational and transparency, and you got automations going along, keeping that person up to date when you look at reviews online.

I challenge people here to just go look at any roofing company's reviews and see if it just says, all they say is the, the roof looked nice. They, they installed it professionally nine times outta 10. You're gonna see they were really easy to deal with. They had great communication and all that stuff there.

That's the secret sauce that so many people miss. And when you're running a big roofing company, and e even if, if you're a mid-size roofing company, or small to medium sized businesses, like Ben said, when he came in here, you got so much stuff going on, on, on in your day, you can't possibly be there and communicate with that customer every lo part of the way.

So tool usage and profitability go hand in hand. 'cause this is gonna lead to reviews, which Pete's always said, your lowest cost per acquisition, your highest converting leads are referrals. So it ties everything together in one spot for you. And that's the importance of using tools like this, is that communication piece.

That's the underlying thing around all this here.  

Ben: Yeah, we have to understand what kind of business we're in here, guys. Um, the roofing business is a very interesting niche, uh, in the industry of business because the labor pool is essentially most of the time already available to you. So the labor pool in your area, most likely is like mine, where you have groups of roofers who travel together but work for you if you have jobs.

That's how most of the industry works on. There's a small minority who hires in-house roofing staff. Uh, I would assume very large companies or very small companies. It's kind of a polarization, but I would say 80 plus percent of people use subcontracted Hispanic labor crews to do the roofing. If therefore, if the labor, if I had a, a bunch of guys making pizza out in the ether that I could hire at any time, and they were all fairly good at making pizza, the real difference maker is your brand.

How fast you communicate, how efficient you are with your pricing and how, how good you are at making sure your timelines are good, your project management essentially, and then making sure to capture reviews so you can generate more of those same situations. So your actual business in the roofing industry is not roofing in a lot of ways.

It's marketing, sales, project management, and money collection. The actual labor is most likely, well, it's recruiting of those same people, right? But the, the labor crews are already out there in the ether. You have to find them. But the main blocks of a roofing business are not roofing, which is bizarre.

'cause every other business, if you're a, a tremendous carpenter, carpenters don't exist in mass like roofers do. So you have to go find those people that work on wood. This is a very specific niche in the American, you know, um, way of business. And, um, you have to understand what your job is, which is do those four things efficiently.

Pete: Yeah, it's interesting. I was on behind the tool belt one time and Chris Baker was on there. He works on behind the tool belt and for TC Backer, and he said something very similar. He's like, if you think about it, in reality, we're all very similar in the fact that we're all kind of installing the same way.

We're all pretty much installing the same product. So really, what is the differentiator for you? Like you said, it's those things, right? It's your brand, it's how efficient you are, it's how quick you are, right? Those are the things that are gonna set you apart from the competition. Not you, you're not gonna outro someone else like it.

It's just not a, a thing that's gonna happen, right? Like it's just not a deciding factor for a customer on whether they work with you or not. Right? Whether your guys can put shingles on faster is not gonna make me pick you as the roofer, right? So, um, yeah, so it's interesting, you know, and, and I think that one of the things that, like I noticed about this too is that with this graph specifically is more and more I'm talking to roofers who are.

Concentrating on staying lean, right? And keeping the business lean as it scales. Like they're doing everything they can to scale the business without scaling the workforce and scaling the responsibilities of people. And so they're really leveraging the tools to maximize the profitability, right? And so, um, so it's inter, this graph is very interesting.

Uh, 'cause I think it plays right into that, you know?  

Nic: Yeah. You got the up and to the right there. That's always a good one. Up in Canada, Ben, we call that a hockey stick graph. Hockey stick a good one there. So, but yeah, you're seeing that all the time and it's making such a big difference. And you're seeing the more technology that you're using in your business to make it easier, the more profitable you're getting.

And integration matters. Uh, most of the roofers are connecting the dots now. So two thirds of CRM users say their software integrates with accounting or billing tools while 60% have the hooked up to their estimation and proposal software. So like we're saying, less headaches, less double entry, being more efficient, saving those five to 10 hours that we're saying there.

And that's huge. And what we were talking about before, making sure whether like, whether or not roofer is the tool for you or someone other tools are, uh, the one for you out there, making sure that you are getting the most out of it for that. So to, like Pete said, matching your process to the tool, not the tool to your process or vice versa, tool to your process.

Not that your process to the tool. So you wanna make sure that everything's dialed in there properly. And, and you can see here, like in the 60 percentile on, on the top three there, making sure that these all flow within it. And that's important. You don't wanna be wasting time by using one tool and jump into another.

And then having, when you're, the, the thing I I see all the time is. Companies trying to train your new hires on four freaking different tools that are completely disjointed when you're looking to hire. And Pete always talks about like the best hires probably aren't from the roofing industry. They might be from Chick-fil-A, they might be from a car dealership or your favorite sushi restaurant.

That way you wanna be able to use their customer service and get them ramped quicker. 'cause if they're ramped quicker, they're gonna make money faster and be happier. They're gonna make you money ha uh, faster. And you're gonna be happy and you're not go, you're, you're gonna be able to repeat that process.

So what's a replicability that of hiring process and training and everything. And if you don't have it all in together and you have it disjointed, it's gonna be a much harder thing to follow.  

Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I find this graph really interesting 'cause I'll be, I would be very interested to revisit this graph two or three years from now.

Yeah. 'cause I think traditionally the way we built CRMs was through integrations. That's how, it was essentially a hub foundational product that had a ton of integrations attached to it to make it more robust to make it function the way we want it to. And I think the tide is changing a bit, right? Like I see things here, like estimation software, job tracking, email and calendar tools.

Like all these things are being absorbed in as part of the overall platform now. And I would expect that outside of potentially the first accounting and billing software, the rest of these things drastically reducing in the number of people using integrations to do them. And I think that's a, a change in the market as a whole.

Uh, you know, I think that these all-in-one solutions or, you know, operating systems that do the majority of this stuff will, will start to emerge. You know, similar to like what we're doing here at Roofer, to where I would say two years from now, this graph would look very, very different.  

Nic: Yeah.  

Pete: Mm-hmm.  

Nic: What time are you wasting on integrations instead of saving on integrations?

Yeah. Start to see that there. And Pete, this is your favorite topic.  

Pete: Yeah. And Ben's too, uh, he just brought this up, right? Speed, delete. And I think this is, this is a really interesting one, right? Like, how much is your technology helping your speed to lead? And obviously, you know, like you talked about it earlier, Ben, how, you know, leveraging tech is obviously improving that process considerably.

And you see here, it's a matter of days, uh, quicker that I'm able to close based on, uh, you know, based on the tech involved versus the ones that are not using tech.  

Ben: Have you ever heard someone say they love buying a car? Now the car market is changing in the same way. Um, and it's because it's such an arduous, difficult process and they almost force it that way.

You might spend an entire day at a dealership when you're just like, no, you have a price. I agreed to the price. Just get the paperwork done, let me drive home. But they wanna upsell you all these things. And it's just this complex process that everybody kind of naturally hates. So we can buy anything pretty much anything on the internet nowadays.

And if I contact a company and the process is difficult and weird and hard, I'm just like, I'm not buying it, man. It's just maybe 30 years ago that was normal, but I'm not doing that anymore. If there's another company who makes it easier, the price is transparent. They have a reason for their price, the reviews are good.

I'm gonna purchase that thing faster than anyone else in the market. And again, that is your business. This is the business guys, sales, marketing, and converting clients from potential customers to real customers is how we make money. The construction and labor side is essentially already built for us. We just need to feed that through that conveyor belt line.

Make it fast, and then repeat, repeat, repeat. So if I were to, if I were to talk to a company who's just starting up, like first conversations, I'd say, guys, the faster you can get to customers, the more, the more pleasant you can treat them, and the easier you can make the experience, the more sales you'll have, period.

That's what you need.  

Nic: Yeah. We can talk about those numbers that you always talk about, Pete, like that 40% more likely to close if you're the first person in the door, seven times more likely to win a job if you answer them in the first hour of their inquiry. But instead of talking about this. When you guys are done with this, go to masterclass.

Back to what Pete was talking about with our call with Amanda. And Amanda was using an instant estimator. And if you saw me Feverously shuffling through my papers, just 'cause I remember I wrote this down and I wanted the actual numbers. She was closing leads 12.67 days faster that were sourced from the instant estimator than that were not there.

She was also closing them at, uh, $14,000 higher on average for, uh, no, that's a lot. 21 K versus 14 k, uh, uh, was how much she was selling them on. So they're hiring, uh, uh, hiring her at a higher amount as well. So her average deal size increase, so you can see it in the data and that's just one person using an estimator.

Ben sees it, all these other ones see it as well. And, and it's changing and people want things quicker. And I, I have a line that I say in, in all my demos is we know that most roofing, uh, homeowners looking for roofers are not planning ahead. Something bad just happened. They got a leak, they got missing shingles or whatever.

So they're calling you at a time of urgency.  

Ben: Yeah.  

Nic: Do themselves a favor. Do yourselves a favor and do them the courtesy of matching their urgency with your urgency. If you are not kind of being urgent back to them in a professional and educational manner, they're gonna move on. 'cause they're not just calling you.

They're calling three other roofers. Pete, you talked about that time you called a plumber and you ended up going with the first guy who answered the phone because just nobody was answering. So yeah,  

Pete: it was literally sense of urgency. He was the first, he was the only one that showed any sense of urgency to get back to me and to, uh, you know, to show any sense of urgency about doing the job itself.

And so he won, you know, and, and actually twice I had two contractors come do work on my house. Another one, also a plumbing issue, but it was the same idea. It was like, you know, uh, one guy said, yeah, I'll get back to you with a price, you know, a week later still hadn't heard from him. And another guy came and said, I can be here this weekend to do it.

I'll come on Saturday and do it. And, you know, that's who won the job. You know what I mean? Like, let's just get it done. Right. So, you know, and, and it's, you know, like you said, the match, obviously I have an issue that I need taken care of. You match my sense of urgency. Like, you're gonna get the job, even if you're not the, you know, you might not be the lowest price.

And I don't necessarily care, you know, at that point, I, I. I'm in a situation where I need this done right. I'm willing to pay to get it finished, uh, you know, in a timely manner. So, you know, if you can match that sense of urgency, you're gonna win out. Like Nick said, you know, 40% of the time you're winning if you're the first person in the door.

Nic: Yeah. You're paying for experience, like we said earlier, right? Like that experience of getting your urgency helped and, and a a a tended to, in a timely manner is you're going to pay that extra buck. 'cause then you don't have to think about it. Like if you have an issue. I had a, I, I bought this place, it's a condo corp, and as soon as I got in, they were like, Hey, we're just doing a mold check.

Would you want to volunteer for it? I was like, yeah, sure. You gonna patch it up after they said, yeah. I had a hole in my ceiling for two years, and every time I messaged 'em, I'm like, I'm a contractor, I'm just gonna patch it up. They're like, no, we need to wait back for the test results and all that stuff.

And finally I was just like, guys, I'm done with this. I, I just patched it up and they came back and they're like, we're gonna, uh, take a look and open. I'm like, you're not touching anything in house again. Like, you did not match my urgency with urgency. I went, and thankfully I could do it myself, but I would've hired someone to get that done.

'cause I don't wanna see, uh, like a tuck tape line on my wall. Like it just not happen anymore. So it's a big, big difference that, that, that you can help somebody out and win those jobs just by matching urgency.

Average time to closing roofing jobs. And this is another thing too, like we're talking about the car dealership world. We're talking about all that stuff. You're seeing that they're not just working harder, but they're working faster with everything. So 65.8% of high tech roofing businesses, close jobs in under a week, 27.6, close them up in less than three days.

And with this, the speed to lead is super important, but speed equals satisfaction here and it gives you a serious edge there. You do not wanna leave that stuff out. So it just ties to everything else that you see there. Less than a week, 38.2% of them closing and less, uh, than when you see that big drop, that 27.8 with people that are low tech.

People don't wanna spend months shopping around when they need something done. So it just goes to what we're talking about. The faster you get to them, the faster you solve their problems. It makes a big difference.  

Ben: Yeah. I'd also say, um. Speed. I would say three days is, is like we try to schedule appointments in less than three days to make sure and get somebody within 72 hours.

'cause that's the highest propensity of like, I need something right now. And if you can do that time and time and time again with your process, two things. Do you answer your phone yourself or who's answering your phones? Um, I have a personal assistant from, um, from the Philippines who's been with us for five years.

Second thing, I have a twenty four seven call answering service going from 5:00 PM to 8:00 AM or 7:00 AM in the morning. So somebody calls us at 10:00 AM 10:00 PM with a, with a roof leak. Somebody is answering the phone at all times, twenty four seven, three sixty five. If somebody, uh, gets your voicemail, generally they'll hang up, the phone data says, and they'll call somebody else.

Those are two very low cost cheap options that you can have, so you can actually be ahead of your competition. So don't neglect the phones. That helps speed the lead as well.

Nic: I. The phone thing is so big. Yeah, dude, I'm just thinking, I just had like a, that just came back of me trying to call someone and just getting a call tree every time. And I'm like, I am never working with your company, dude. It just reminds me of, in Canada we have, uh, like big, like at and t and stuff like that, but we have two big ones.

It's Rogers and Bell, and they are both the worst service ever because they're basically a monopoly. Uh, they're smaller ones, but they're just not as good. And anytime you call in, they're like, and now it's like AI voice. So like you have to talk to it, but it never understands you and just like, it, it just drives me nuts.

So as soon as I hear Call Tree from a service based industry, I'm just like, hang.

Um, we're, uh, running out the time here, so I guess we could power through some of these here. So the main benefits of adopting technology. You had Todd Hauser here from, uh, native Suns Roofing, that you had the roofer of the month there, which talked about how trans switching to roofer transformed his business because of the automations the efficiently brought and allowed 'em to streamline the process, save money, and serve our customers better.

This is huge here, right, Pete?  

Pete: Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, if you can leverage the technology in the business throughout the process, it's gonna make you more efficient. Mm-hmm. Right? It's gonna set you up to, to run leaner, run more organized, be more streamlined, be more efficient in your communication, be quicker to the customer, like, just all around, throughout the entire, uh, process.

You know, you're gonna be a much more efficient, uh, business. So, you know, I, and I think, you know, Todd was, spoke to that pretty heavily in his, uh, roof of the Month podcast.  

Nic: And like, what if you could run your two man, three man company, like someone running a 25 man company? If you could let that technology and everybody else be that extra person, that extra legwork and work more efficiently, you're gonna be more profitable.

You're gonna be making more money, you're going to be hap helping out more customers, and you're gonna be able to grow a lot faster than somebody who's bogged down by all the bureaucracy and all the stuff there. So it's a big part about increasing the efficiency there. Obviously the increased accuracy and profitability is super important, but I think it all starts on that increased efficiency part.

Agreed. All right. Marketing tactics. This is Ben's favorite stuff. Hey, yo. There we go. Your guys'  

Ben: logos. That's it. If they look like this. Put an L in the chat, dude.  

Pete: What is it? What is it? If you have a roof in your logo or your name, right, Ben?  

Ben: Yeah. If, if your name, if your company, if your company name is your last name and you have a roofing logo, it looks like this just l in, you're already in trouble, right?

Pete: And you drive a white truck  

Ben: fall, you fall into the perceived value of the 80% of roofers who people don't trust. So you have to stand out, be bold, and um, that's why I have tigers. My dad called me Tiger when I was a kid. It's part of my DNA, but also the whole reason I started with roof tiger, as opposed to like moral roofing or tiger.

Even tiger roofing is, I want it to be way different than the standard, the standard whatever I had in my area. And so you have to stand out, and you can do that in a number of different ways, but use Facebook, leverage Google. Leverage these tools and make sure your brand stands out in those places, and you'll do just fine with network awareness.

You have to be, people have to be aware of you to hate or love you. That's what they say. Like, uh, well what's the saying? Um, all, all press is good press. That's because you're being pushed to the forefront of, of people who don't know you, knowing you. So I'm not saying be hated, that's not a good thing either.

But what I'm saying is people, most of the time roofing companies, it's not that they have a negative connotation towards the public or the public hates them, it's that nobody knows them. Yeah. Nobody knows them. And so you have to be able to, uh, risk being hated by people or being like, that guy's weird or goofy or whatever, uh, in order to make progress into people's homes.

Pete: Yeah. And I think the biggest thing to note with social media nowadays is that the social media platforms, like you said, Facebook, Google, they are the new referral, right? Yes. Like they are the new referral platform. So yes, you know, you, you want to make sure that you, you have a presence in all these places because of that reason.

Nic: Everyone  

Pete: in this. So we're gonna have  

Nic: to do a part two 'cause we got a lot more, and this is good. So we'll get up to the, the sock giveaway. But I think this is an important slide to kind of start wrapping things up. Number one piece of homework for everybody watching now and later on this is go find Ben Tiger on Facebook and follow him.

I'm not trying to plug him so he gets his numbers up so he starts monetizing his account. Uh, but the one big thing that Pete's always talked about, and Pete just alluded to there and Ben alluded to it as well, look at these big words coming outta my mouth today. I feel so amalgamate, amalgamate for us.

Nick amalgamate all these ideas. I don't even know how to use them now, but the big thing is be that neighborhood roofer, be that person that everybody thinks about roofing that's there. Ben does that because of his, his, his, his branding, his tiger, all that stuff too. One thing that Ben's been doing recently and I'm in love with it and I also think that you need a, uh, a show on the food channel.

You're going to local restaurants in Peoria where you're from, talking about them, talking about the experience, talking about your favorite meal, trying it on there, just like your, uh, uh, uh, Anthony Bourdain, just going in there and just figuring all this stuff out. Yeah. A little bit less, just you and a little bit less heroine.

So it's building that all in. Uh, but what you're doing is becoming that neighborhood roofer. So now when people might go to that, that see, see you and see that Facebook, they might go to that coffee shop that you're at last week. Yeah. And they might just be in there instead talking like, oh, I need a roof done.

Guess who they're going to refer? Yeah, they're gonna refer Ben. So do yourself a favor. Everybody watches his, his, his content, his stuff. Your podcast is not just with people in the roofing industry, it's people local in your town to talk about their wins, their life, their changes and everything else. And that kind of stuff makes you into that neighborhood roofer that you could repurpose on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all that stuff there.

And you build that customer loyalty and you stand out against the competition. It's just like an easy formula that you just need reps at. Yeah, it just makes a huge,  

Ben: huge difference. It's a big commitment. Guys. You have to start somewhere, I would assume outta the people on this chat. There's a lot of people who are embarrassed or don't wanna get on camera.

That's the most common thing. People call me monthly and will ask like, how do you start? What do you do? And I'm just like, turn the camera on and talk. Uh, it's very difficult to start putting yourself out there 'cause you will be judged by people you don't know. Uh, there's a video that roofer I filmed for roofer maybe three years ago.

It's got 1.7 million views 'cause they used it in their advertisements. And from time to time, I'll go into that video when it's shown to me and read the comments. 'cause there's like thousands of comments and the people are just hammering me in some of the things. Okay? Five years ago I used to be like, man, do I wanna be, I was like very particular.

Nowadays I'm like, man, pe Some people are very angry, but there's also some other people that are like, Hey Ben Tiger spotted, this is cool. You just have to lean into the uncomfortable. I'd say that's the one thing that I've done in the past five years to set me apart, is just everything in these slides, if we dial it down, boil it down.

If you're using technology for the first time, if you've never marketed your company, if you've never considered going on Facebook, if you've never considered doing all these things, we're suggesting it's uncomfortable. If you're a business owner, get used to it, bro. Like, dude, I'm talking about the pressure cooker.

Man. I have had like the first five months this year has been just one of the hardest five months in my five years. But I'm getting pressure cooked, but I'm learning more than ever. So get used to it and the more you become comfortable with it, the more you'll succeed. Because guess what people do that fail, they quit when it gets hard.

Yeah. So just don't quit, don't give up on yourself. If it gets hard, g guess what, Ben Tiger, your boy is having just as hard of a time, I'm telling you. So, uh, and please call me if anybody's on here and wants to connect with me and talk offline. Um, I'm, I'm always available. I talk to people all the time on from Facebook connections, so please reach out and Ben  

Pete: doing.

Ben: Yeah, dude, maybe don't sleep. Maybe don't sleep, maybe don't sleep. Two, he's got tiger blood. The boys  

Nic: just awake. Yeah, but that's a big thing is being comfortable with the uncomfortable Pete, how like scared was I when we first started doing these? Yeah, yeah. I mean,  

Pete: oh, I mean, and even like this, you know, even getting on this and camera or you know, Nick, like now you've done it a bunch.

I get up on stage, you get up on stage, Ben gets up on stage, right? Like I remember the first couple times doing that. It's like, you know, it's a nerve wracking, right? It gonna get up there and speak in front of people and, and it takes a while. You know, I tell people all the time, you know, the people that are speaking for the first time, like.

It's not something that, it's an acquired skill, right? Like it's something that you have to work out, like you said, but you just gotta do it. Just turn the camera around and do it. And it's not gonna be great in the beginning. Like your, your first videos are probably gonna suck. Yeah. But guess what? You're just gonna get better at it as time goes on.

You know? And that's, I think it speaks to anything that like, that, you know, presenting and all these things that we do, you know, it just gets smoother as you do it. You get more comfortable with it. And, uh, like you said, you start to embrace all of the craziness that that goes on outside of it. And, uh, you know, and it makes you better for it.

Nic: Guys, I still suck at this masterclass. Pete threatens to fire me every day, but Jen, not me,

sock away. So I know we got still 20 people in there and stuff. Um, this Mother's Day, uh, two days ago I was putting up this new, my dad does a lot of like, carpentry as well with, uh, roofing. And so we're putting up these new posts that holds up the dormer in front of the house. It's like nice farm boards that, uh, uh, um, that he built.

And I was putting it up and I, I went to move the forklift and I went, turned around and I heard my dad talking 61 years old. And I told this to you guys last year that he started doing social media and all I hear is it's Mother's Day and, uh, I've made this for my wife and this is my son and we're doing this.

And I was like, what the hell is happening? I've never in my life seen him pull out a camera and start filming and talking for him. Good for him, man. More comfortable with him. Good. Putting him onto onto his socials and stuff like that. And it's awesome to see. And that's it. It's gotta, you gotta suck a little bit and you'll get better and it gets more comfortable and better each time.

So this is like, we're all in life  

Ben: right now. We're, we are the main characters in our stories, y'all right? No NPC.

Nic: All right, Jen, who do we got for the sock giveaway? Sock giveaway yelling at us in the background being like, you guys, that's like a sock spinner. There we go. There it's,

oh, whoa, whoa. Molly Lamb won. Audrey got uh, stolen from her there.  

Pete: The slow, slow spin.  

Nic: Bob Barker would be rolling. I was gonna say  

Pete: that looked like something straight off the prices rate. Right over the dollar  

Nic: Lo land. We've got those socks set and we'll reach out and get that all dialed in for you. But, uh, thanks so much Matt, everyone.

Pete: Yeah, thanks for having me guys. Yeah, thank you everybody. Yeah, thank you Ben for jumping on and we will see you all. We'll have to do a part two 'cause we still have a ton of stuff to cover on this. Um, but thank you guys for jumping on. Hopefully you got some good stuff out of it and we will see you next time on the Roofer Masterclass.

Well crush guys. Thanks  

Nic: everyone.

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