Leaning In & Standing Out with Ben Tiger

Pete (00:16)
what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Roofr Masterclass. I'm your host, Pete McKendrick, back with another one. I think this will be the last one that I fly solo on without my sidekick, Nic. got a special guest here today.

You've been on a couple of times, I think, Ben, haven't you?

Ben (00:30)
Yeah, I think so.

Pete (00:31)
it's been a while. So really excited to kind of get into this. And I think the timing is good. I think it's been a a very interesting time in our industry as far as you know, the lack of storms. I was at an event yesterday talking to some roofers about how things are going for them and

I think it's kind of the same consensus you hear over and over again as it's just been kind of slow and very challenging lately. And so you know, you gotta get creative. And I think this is a a good way of doing it. So excited to dive into it and introduce my co-host for today,

Ben (01:02)
The

Pete (01:02)
Apex Predator of the roofing industry, Ben Tiger.

Ben (01:07)
What's

up, y'all? Thanks for having me, Pete. Excited to be here.

Pete (01:10)
Yeah, man. I'll let you give you a give you a quick second to introduce yourself in case people don't know you or know the business at all.

Ben (01:15)
Yeah, so I am not a generational roofer. My dad was not a construction guy. He was a factory guy. I grew up and when I was one year old, no, just kidding. so but my career starts really in sales in my early twenties and I discovered construction, started doing interior remodels back in twenty fifteen ish, and completed a bunch of bathroom and kitchen remodels.

Inter was introduced to a roofer through a string of jobs and worked for him for 30 days and saw how bad it was. And I was like, this is really bad. And I started Googling companies in my area for roofing. And I could not find a company who was like they didn't stand out at all. They had really, really poor Google reviews, no branding. And so I was like, I just I think I can do this better. I knew nothing about drip edge. I knew nothing what ice and water meant. I knew nothing. And I started a company. Call me foolish.

but what I really discovered through research is that we're kind of a sales marketing company wrapped with a construction company around it. So the real core of what I believe is that marketing is like everything in this business. Construction excellence, I've come to respect and really there's like it's it's my job now is construction excellence. but the real beginning to my company really started with branding, marketing, and then sales, obviously, that turned into a multi million dollar organization. So

Here we are today, six years later. Started in 2020. I started a solar company in 2021. so I just thought roofing and solar went together like peanut butter and jelly. So I'm one of the only contractors that I know that does both. they are distinctly different, but they do go well together. really good. We'll get into that later, but a good revenue adder. but yeah, so that's what we do. Roof Tiger is the company name, Solar Panther is the solar company name.

Pete (02:53)
And you guys added gutters too, did you not?

Ben (02:54)
We did add gutters, yes. what I've discovered, Pete, is I don't like gutters as much as I thought I did.

Pete (02:59)
Not as much fun as it looked on paper.

Ben (03:01)
Man, you know, you get you get used to fifteen thousand dollar tickets or forty thousand dollar tickets and then you you have calls for gutter repair and you're like, I don't want to do that. And so I think I might I I may pull back the gutter brand here this end of this year, retire it and just wrap gut I obviously we'll do gutters, but just keep that in the roof tiger name.

Pete (03:19)
It yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously it's really interesting to me. Like, I've been in this now nine years, and over my time, I've seen it evolve significantly from you know, really what were production driven companies, right? Like they were production was their bread and butter, that was their strong suit. And it's you've seen an evolution over time to where the sales and marketing piece, like you said, we're we're more or less sales and marketing orgs.

wrapped in construction. And obviously a big part of it is, like you said, that customer experience and nailing that quality production. But, you know, in the the overall picture, like it's mostly sales and marketing, right? It's a lot of sales and marketing focus to be successful. And we're seeing more and more organizations that are focusing on that, right? Are focusing on that piece. And I think it's it's drawing a lot of people from outside of roofing, you know, that don't have roofing backgrounds into it because they're like, well, I know sales or I know marketing, right? So I can

start a roofing company and take off. And I mean, I've I've interviewed some people on our roofer of the month podcast that, you know, it's crazy how much money they're making in the short amount of time that they've been doing it because they understand the sales and marketing piece.

Ben (04:23)
That's exactly right. Yeah. I I've actually come full circle on that, Pete. and I totally agree. Sales marketing is number one and two. It's it's it's by far your most important asset. But I think what's left in the dust sometimes is people forget how important construction is in feeding the sales cycle. Because if you do not do a good job, guess what? They're not calling you back, not referring their friends. So yeah, if you have leaks and you have callbacks, it's just not a good sales experience at the end of the day. So

I've come to love construction side this year specifically more than ever, along with obviously adopting the same sales and marketing techniques that I've that I've driven. So yeah, but we we ultimately you are a roofing company, you need to understand roofing. and so in my first early years in my my naivete, I thought it was the only thing because like the the subcontracted labor.

Would do a good enough job to continue to cycle those jobs. But you have to stay on top of your crews and you've got to know what you're talking about to give them instruction in difficult jobs. So we just did a job, for instance, Pete's one of our biggest tickets we've ever sold. It was a a certaintyed grand manor job, which is a very expensive shingle and it's a different, it's a shorter, wider shingle. It's a different depth. And so the crew actually didn't know what they were doing. And so I didn't instruct them based on the, you know, the codes of the manufacturer.

But if I didn't have that language to speak through a translator app to communicate this stuff, like they would have been kinda lost. And so being that resource for them and being the construction professional that I sell myself as is like I'm obsessed with it now. So

Pete (05:51)
Yeah, well it's really interesting. I often use or often talk to other contractors about something that you said on one of the other things we did, a podcast or webinar, who knows? Back in the, you know, and you said like early on in your company, what you guys discovered was a bit of a disconnect between what was being sold and what was being produced.

Ben (06:09)
Yes.

Pete (06:10)
You know, where con where customers were saying, like, if the process was great, but we didn't we don't necessarily feel like the two things matched. And and then you guys did some stuff to solve that, but

I often bring that up because we talk a lot about customer experience. And I thought that was one of the best like examples of how important the customer experience is throughout the whole process. Yes. And how you guys, you know, you guys obviously found ways to manage it. But you know, like I I always thought that was like a really, really great way to like, you know, make that a paint paint that really clear picture of like how important that is. Like you said, the construction end of things that does sometimes get forgotten, right? Like I always say

productions like the redheaded stepchild of the roofing space. Like nobody wants to talk about production. It's not sexy like sales, right? So but it's like you said, it's as important, sometimes if not more important than sales because it feeds the fauna.

Ben (07:00)
Yeah, that's exactly right. There's, I mean, let's be really clear here. Ninety-five, I'd say maybe even higher than that, is Hispanic roofing crews. That's what we deal with, right? That is the industry at large. With the added pressure of ICE the past two years and people's perceptions of Hispanic like roofers, we have to walk this line very carefully. And we have to be like, we have to communicate well. If you just for instance, if some people might send a crew.

That speaks no English to a job and they can't communicate with the customer, the customer will start being like, How much was this job? Right? Like, is this just is this the perception might be, is this just unprofessional labor they found on the street somewhere? Like I'm not saying that crews are this way, but that could be the perception from the customer. So no if you're selling yourself as a professional, high priced, high high amount of

a knowledge construction job, you better back it up with that result at the end. and so thankfully our crews are are fantastic. but when you first start and you don't have the reputation as a company for these hit crews to find you, you might be dealing with a crew who says they can do a job and really can't. I bet if I were to ask a poll here, they might people would would concur with me here. I've hired crews before that did not know what they were doing in certain jobs and they said they did. It's like, and then I build myself as the professional.

Again, these are things that will hurt your reputation in the long term that you have to solve very quickly when you start. So when I when I find new roofing companies that pop up doing a bunch of jobs, you have to have massive trust in the organizations you're putting these roofs on with because you can get into trouble real quick. the average lifespan of roofing company, Pete, what is it? Like five years is the is the

Pete (08:39)
Yeah, I think that something like ninety five percent of review companies go out of business in the first two years and I think it goes the number goes actually goes up by like year five. Very few make it past year five. So

Ben (08:51)
Very few. And there's there's so many reasons for that. Part of it's marketing and sales and figuring out that beast, but also the construction side. Like if you go to conferences, Pete, you've probably had this conversation with contractors. Well they'll say, like, my labor will speak for itself. It's fantastic. That's all fine and great. Those guys probably haven't figured out the sales side, right? And so those guys who are kind of like heavy set on my construction's the absolute best, they probably have had a blind spot in sales. The opposite is true for pure salespeople like myself.

That are pure sales and don't know construction. And so you have to really figure out these two things. I would say the bedrock of every of every organization has to be sales because you can't survive without it. But finding out construction knowledge and having that confidence in yourself to do a job correctly is equal of importance there.

Pete (09:35)
Yeah. I always remember you telling the story about how in the beginning how you were paying your crew you know, by the piece and they were cutting up the shingles on you. You

Ben (09:45)
Yeah.

Pete (09:46)
know what I mean? Like lesson learned, right? But like that's a perfect example of like not necessarily understanding the production side of it enough, you know, and then obviously having a crew that took advantage of that situation, right?

Ben (09:57)
Yes. Yeah. It it's the the larger you get as an organization, the more trustworthy you are to the community, to the to the roofing construction crews, the more in adept crews will find you and they'll say, You have work. We want to come work for you. So it's kind of this great beast that if you build a sales organization, these crews come out of nowhere and they'll be like, Hey, I want to work for you. So you find these super talented crews from your sales organization. That's a huge part of it. really talented crews with with 10, 12, 15 guys are not going to go to really low mama.

Shops, they're not going to find those people. They don't really care, right? They want to find the high volume, one job, two jobs a day, cruise. So yeah, it's it's a it's a thing that feeds upon itself.

Pete (10:33)
it yeah well let let's get into the well i think we have a poll question right joel we wanted to ask the poll question we made you type it up so we might as well use it right

Ben (10:42)
Yes.

Pete (10:44)
so just want to get a cut an idea here guys like what what is something that you guys are currently struggling with obviously you know that we know this has been a challenging year or two in the roofing space I saw actually saw a post on Facebook 30 minutes ago by somebody that said like where are all the storms been right like what is going on with like worse weather

related activity we've had in a very long time. And so you know, obviously it's been slow, leads have been slow, I think all the way around. And which has caused, you know, people to, you know, throttle back a little bit on a number of things and in their company. And so we see even even on the software side, right? You know, people just being a little bit more selective about what software they're using and and things like that. So because the, you know, money's not rolling like it has in the past. And so

just interested to get everybody's opinion here as to what they're struggling with.

Ben (11:31)
So lead lead gen how how I see lead gen is from a long term perspective. I want to build a business for 10 years, not one year. But a lot of you are probably dealing with lead gen in terms of like, I need I need cash now. Like that's a very valuable, like that's a very prescient issue. If you are in a storm market and you're not door knocking, you have to be because that's a very quick, I mean that's an obvious thing. Okay.

The second part of this is what I started with was no sales, no reputation, no nothing. I built a logo that works for me. So if you can look at your logo and it's not identifiable or memorable from somebody looking at it one time, you do not have something that people are going to remember or be able to even put a positive connotation toward. If it's, for instance, let's put up a poll real quick, Joel.

Does your logo have a triangle in it? Where am I

Pete (12:22)
You mean like this? Does your logo look like

Ben (12:26)
trying? The difference with between Roofr and you is probably like, I don't know, fifty million dollars or something, right? It doesn't matter anymore.

Pete (12:34)
Right.

Yeah, this doesn't matter as much anymore. Yeah.

Ben (12:37)
It doesn't matter anymore. We get away with it. If you're a local local roofing company, does your logo have a triangle in it? Let's go ahead and answer that poll. Answer the poll. Yes, yes, no, no. 67%, 33%. Okay. 50%. Joel,

Pete (12:50)
It they change about that.

Ben (12:52)
put up another logo. Put up another question. Does your logo does your name, does your brand name have your last name or a name in it? The name of your last name. Your last name in it.

Or your dad or somebody else's Jones.

Pete (13:05)
Somebody's name again.

Ben (13:08)
Right.

Please answer that. Okay. Okay. Got a couple good. Some good notes. Okay. Very good. Is your roofing company named Apex Roofing Comp no, just kidding. Is it called Summit Apex or yeah, no, I'm just kidding.

Pete (13:20)
Got gutter done.

Ben (13:21)
Yeah, exactly. So what I'm trying to paint to you guys is if you use terminology that nobody remembers, if you introduce yourself at a party and somebody within 15 seconds of meeting you forgets your business name, do you actually have a brand? The answer is probably no. You have a logo, you have a you have a name that you know, but do your does your customer base know you? So Joel, if you could pull up a roof tiger truck somewhere, put up my logo or put up my truck, I think that'd be a helpful visual for people.

Pete (13:46)
Yeah. I mean, even down to the fact like something that I always joke about when you go to like to these events and these shows and you see all these guys in their shirts, it's like everyone's blue.

Ben (13:56)
Yep. Blue.

Pete (13:57)
Right. Blue, red. Yeah. Right. Blue, red are are the are the main colors, right? Yep. you know, maybe some black. And that's probably about the extent of what you're gonna get, you know.

Ben (14:08)
Yeah, so the re the what I want what I'm getting to, there's a really a guy I met several years ago that I follow. His name's Dan Antonelli. He owns a company called Kick Charge Creative, and they create brands for a ton. there's my daughters, and there's my truck. Okay, everybody see that. So basically, guys, this this truck is what I created to start with, and it's very memorable. I I get people that take pictures of this all the time. Still, this is our first truck from six years ago, but this is something that's memorable.

It's something that catches people's eyes. People take pictures of it. What I'm doing is having my marketing work for me. I don't have to introduce myself to people because they're like, the tiger stripes. It's a visual thing that that's embedded in their brain from the first minute. So if they meet with three companies and they can't remember the first two after they walk out, they'll remember the tiger guy for good or for bad. They'll remember me, right? I introduce myself. I am the roof tiger.

Benjamin Tiger what I name myself on Facebook. And so I've really dove into this to really create these, these, these little hooks, these little hooks that get inside your brain and they don't let you go. And so what that does is when I'm driving around town, even if I'm not even driving to a job site, if I'm driving on a Saturday to the coffee shop, I'm I'm actively marketing my business. Can you say the same about yourself? And so I'm gonna challenge each and every one of you to look at your logo.

And look around and see is it memorable? Is it something that people can latch on to? Is it something that is working for me? Or do I have to say it six times for people to remember? I can't tell you how many times that I'll go to a job site and people will replace the roof three years ago. And I'll say, who did the roof? And they'll be like, I don't remember. And it's only been three years. It's like, you should remember. You should know what that company is. So back to what I was saying, Dan Antonelli, kick charge creative. High write it down. Go look at his website, go look him up.

He creates a ton, a ton. 90 plus percent of his logos have mascots in them. You can call them foolish, you can call them a cartoonish, but he has done this for 40 years, and this is what he's found out is his principle for making marketing stick. It's something like a lizard, an owl, some kind of animal, or or it's not just animals, it's other people. You'll see what I'm talking about when you look at his website. He also created, I think the largest Pete, you probably knew about this.

The largest sale that I've seen in home home services in quite some time, two billion dollars for for A1 garage doors. Tommy Mello. Is it A one? Is it one yeah,

Pete (16:22)
I think it is A one, yeah. Pretty sure that's what it's called, yeah.

Ben (16:26)
A1. Okay, so yeah, so Tommy Mello just sold his business for two billion dollars. And so Tommy it's hit himself holding a wrench is is the logo, but it's really slick. Dan Antonelli created that. so

You need to look into this and because I think that the the reason why I'm diving so deep into this, guys, is it's the most important thing to build a bedrock of your organization for the future. But it also helps you in the now because people actually know you exist. The problem that most people fight in the roofing industry is people do not know you exist. So if they're calling you, they're calling three different contractors. Are you one of the top three in their area that they even know exist? There's like a hundred roofing companies in my area, but I'm one of the top three three.

In most every bid situation. Do I win every bid? No. Do we try? Most of the time. But I'm in the conversation. And most of these companies that I'm dealing with, guys, are 25, 30, 40 years old. one company that I'm with, this is kind of funny. Okay. In the state of Illinois, you have to have a roofing license. My roofing license is seven digits long. Okay. So there's that means that over the past hundred years, there's there's seven, there's a million companies that have had licenses over the years.

I compete with a company that has three digits. It's 086. They're in 86. They're 120 years old. Isn't that crazy? So that's my competition. And so I have to do something different in order to stand out. I can't be Morrow Roofing. That's my last name. I can't be that company because it doesn't, it doesn't hook the customer like Roof Tiger does. And so I'm going to challenge you guys to look at your logo and see if it actually sticks out and hooks that customer's brain where they know you exist.

the second thing is just choosing a color pattern that actually stands out. Tiger stripes is obviously mine, but not having triangles on the side of your roofs, not having your last name in the side of your roofs, having something that stands out bright colors. Joel, if you could type honey bee roofing, it's in northern Illinois. Yeah,

Pete (18:12)
Yeah.

Ben (18:14)
Adam, he's a good dude. I met him years ago at a roofing conference and he was challenging me in these ideas. He was I spoke on stage and he was like, dude, I I just don't, I don't know if I buy this. And I was like, What's your logo?

And it was an American flag with like it was an American flag with like all America roofing. I was like, dude, nobody, nobody American flag is like that's a billion companies. Plus, you're can be with Donald Trump. Like, good luck. so he rebranded to honeybee roofing, it's yellow in like there it is on the so he rebranded, he's had crazy success afterward. and so yeah, that logo.

stands out and is super memorable versus the one that you previously had.

Pete (18:49)
Yeah. And I think you you said it in one of we spoke at I maybe RoofCon or something like that. And I remember you talking about, you know, not only is it like you want memorable branding, but you talked about the trust factor that we're up against, right? In the reputation, the past reputation that contractors have in general and how homeowners really don't trust contractors a lot of times. Right. And so

They don't really like contractors, you know, like roofing's a grudge purchase. We always say that. It's not something it's not like buying sexy cook kitchen cabinets, you know, so they're already not happy about it. And if all of if all of our companies look the same, right, then you're essentially lumping yourself in with all these companies that don't have trust and all this stuff. And so, you know, and I'm paraphrasing here not well from what you said, but yeah, you know, but standing apart from the group.

You know, helps you in that situation as well with your street cred, more or less.

Ben (19:42)
Yeah.

Let's compare it to a restaurant, Pete. If you're the best chef in the world and I hire Pete, processed Pete is my head chef, I can market that all day because that's a standalone factor that makes me better than other restaurants. Yeah. Right. In the roofing industry, we sell the same products with the same crews with similar logos. All the same. It's sold.

Pete (20:00)
Yeah, installed the same way.

Ben (20:03)
So what's your differentiator? If I truly have subbed labor and most other companies have subbor and we're using the same pool of sub labor.

And it's the same materials with the same warranties from the national manufacturer manufacturers. What is the difference? I will tell you, it's nothing. It's nothing. So you have to differentiate yourself on the front side sales marketing and your sales process when you get to the table. and so obviously I come from a sales background. I worked in in-home sales for a number of years, and so I have that part dialed in. and so that the next part that I would say is your your key differentiator is how you sell at the kitchen table.

I talk to contractors who still drop off bids in the mailbox. That is not a sales process. That is not a sales process. Do you have a sales process that you follow every single time when you sit down with the customer and have a process of walking through why you do certain things? when I ask my questions at the kitchen table, I'm asking things that I know that other contractors probably didn't ask. When I ask those questions, they'll say things like, I've never been asked that before. I suppose this. When I point out what drip edge is on the roof, and I'm

pointing out these things and I'm educating them about the process that gives me street cred in the construction space for them to say, I trust this guy. I trust this guy. Right.

Pete (21:09)
Yeah. Well, and I think it's you make a great point because I've had some conversations recently with some contractors where it's not only like do you have a process, but is your process standardized? Like if Ben goes out in quotes or if one of Ben's sales reps go out in quotes, is it going to be the same experience, right? Is the contractor, is the customer, is am I is the customer gonna have the same experience, or is it gonna be totally different based on the sales rep that I get? But a lot of the companies that I've talked to recently, it's kind of like

A free not don't want to say a free-for-all, but there isn't really like a standardized process. It's like, well, my guy kind of knows what he's doing, or you know, he's been in the industry for years. He he's been selling roofs for years, and you know, we kind of like defer to these guys and we don't necessarily have an SOP in place that says, like, hey, we need to make sure that we're all doing this the same and the customer experiences the same every time. And so you know

I just wanted to kind of piggyback off what you said, but 'cause I have noticed it recently that it's you know, l a lot of companies, smaller companies specifically that I talked to, it's just like, yeah, we kind of just let our guys go do it the you know, however they they figure it out. You know. Yes.

Ben (22:13)
Yeah, another thing I'll say is people, I know the the largest poll that we put out was was lead generation. I would challenge you to look at this from a different question. When I first started the company, I started out with the presupposition that I wanted to last for 10 plus years, right? Like 10 years is the minimum. I wanted to I actually wanted to build a business for my son or like for my daughters. I wanted to have a long-term vision. The reason why I talk so much about brand is because people oftentimes are very short-sighted. They say like, how can I make a million dollars right now?

If that's your goal, man, go out and door knock and do that, do that storm chasing thing. I really don't have interest in doing building a door knocking business just for the sake of waiting for a storm to fall. That's not a that's not a business plan. Why why is it that plumbers, electricians, carpenters, other people in the trades, they have to do it the hard way because they're not they're not waiting for storms. The successful construction companies build the base first. They always do. It's like talented labor, great brand, good marketing.

And then everything goes up from there. Roofing industry, for every reason, we we think that we can just get rich quick off a storm and then and then live off of it. How many people go bankrupt after a big storm because they set no foundation and they're waiting for the storm to hit? And guess what? Storm doesn't come. Yeah. That's kind of like praying for a business model, in my opinion. It's like that's not a long-term vision at all, right?

Pete (23:26)
Well, and you see the companies right now that are still doing well in our current situation, you know, we haven't had a good storm season. Yeah, what? Probably two years now, right? Like obviously this is like the second year that it's kind of been a crappy storm season. And so, you know, the companies that you still see thriving are the ones who have, like you said, have built a good foundation and and can survive, you know, have done some things to make sure that their people are taken care of, that they still have work coming in, you know, that their reputation allows them to continue to work.

through this situation. And so yeah, it's it's interesting. It's a good point. Like, you know, you can't just rely on the next storm because what happens like now when it's not coming. So

Ben (24:04)
That's exactly right. So build a foundation. It doesn't have to be expensive, by the way. You don't have to pay $100,000 for a good logo. You can you can use ChatGPT to your advantage and really create something. It's not going to be perfect. Mine was created by a local designer that I worked with for like two days and created it. And, you know, but the name is important, the logo is important, the color grading is important. The truck wrap's important. By the way, guys, if you haven't wrapped your trucks in full wrap, it is the most effective way of marketing that I've seen to date in six years. Buy

A mile by a mile. So wrap your trucks, it'll cost you five grand, but it'll last you for six, seven, eight years. Truck wraps are awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Joel. Please wrap your trucks. I've had people challenge me on this, like, it doesn't really matter. No, no, no. Truck wraps are super important because again, make your marketing work for you. Yard signs, make them match your logo. Same stuff. Your clothing, make sure it has the logo, you know, present.

I got this jacket created years ago. It was like 10,000 stitches for this tiger on the back. Right. So like I'm fitted out in Roof Tiger everything every time I leave the door. And it brings up conversations wherever I go. Roof Tiger. Yeah. I now have radio and TV commercials. I have billboards up. Our new tagline is put a tiger on your roof. Okay. So I created that with a guy a year and a half ago. I have a jingle that I sing on the radio. It's on TV. And

Again, going back to the basis of it, guys, you cannot, you cannot mold. If you imagine a pinwheel, I don't know, I don't know if anybody's heard about the pinwheel, but it's a center, like like the center of it is let's pretend it's your logo or your name. And then around it are these different spokes of different marketing channels you can do. So one of them might be truck wraps, yard signs, TV commercial, radio commercial, you name it, right? You get the you get the you get the point. And so

Having something that is moldable to those different things is super valuable because I can I can say put a tiger on your roof and that's now something that I own. It's like a very simple phrase that people can remember. You can't do the same with put a Jones roof on your roof. You can't do

Pete (26:00)
Right? Doesn't work. It doesn't have the same jingle, right?

Ben (26:03)
No, like I suppose you could create a jingle with Jones roofing, but it's just not the same, not the same flair and again that hook, the hooks in the brain. I went out today and and my my jingle, if you can look it up on YouTube, Joel. You can link the put put a tiger on the roof into YouTube. You can find the video. It's a really dumb commercial. I'm just singing out of tune. but I walked into a jewelry shop today and the guy counted me. Hey, put a tiger roof. He knew the jingle. He goes, I s I said it right when we walked in.

like, yes, that that's the point. I'm hooking the brain so that that guy when he needs a roof in five years will call me back. I'm marketing for the long term. And also for the short term, again, getting those early reps in those in those in those houses that you normally wouldn't get to because you're your your jingle's planned. So

Pete (26:47)
Yeah. And I mean, I and I think the the key to that too is like referrals obviously a huge, huge part of our business still to this day. Yes. And like because of how recognizable you guys are, you're not only relying on the referral from the past customer. You guys are probably getting referrals from people that just have seen the brand.

Ben (27:06)
Hundred percent.

Pete (27:07)
Right. And so it doesn't even necessarily have to be someone that you've done work for now because you guys are so recognizable and

You know, we often talk about like being that neighborhood roofer and you guys have really like taken that to the max, right? Like around where you guys are located. I mean, you guys obviously, you know, I like I know you even did the thing where you went around to other local businesses and kind of showcased them and stuff. Cause you guys really you know, make a big deal out of being like that community roofer.

Ben (27:32)
Yes, a hundred percent Pete. And I'll I'll say this as well. Like I I'm really happy I started a business in twenty twenty. It's still relevant, but it's just so much more challenging now in twenty twenty-six. But Google obviously I'm preaching from the pulpit here, but Google is the apex predator of digital it is, man. It just is. We have four hundred and twenty-something reviews on Roof Tiger, we have like eighty something in Solar Panther, and so

we've accumulated those over time. We have a process to get more reviews. Google is king. It is now much more difficult in 2026 because all companies know that now. The cat's out of the bag. Yeah. Six years ago, my my lead competitor was at 42 reviews. So it was like this is easy pickings. I can get to 42 within a year, you know? Yeah. people find us through Google most of the time. And so having your Google Pro profile updated, have your website updated to format with Google. yeah, that's the key.

Pete (28:24)
Yeah, and having a formalized process to get those reviews, right? And I think that's a piece that's so overlooked. It's like a lot of times, you know, I'll ask contractors when I'm at events and stuff like that, like, do you guys have a process around getting reviews? You know, and it's like, Well, we ask for them sometimes, you know, if our people remember, like you've heard all these things. And there's not really like a standard process to say, like, Okay, yeah, we're gonna make sure we ask pretty much every person we do work for for a review, right? So

I think that's a huge missed opportunity, right? Because like you said, having that large number of reviews and and sizable amount of good reviews can make or break your business.

Ben (29:00)
referrals. Okay. Yeah. I would say also from a short term perspective, anybody's in here want more about short term, short term marketing, short term lead lead generation, local groups. we have B and I, I'm not sure if that's an I think it's a national thing. Business networking international. Are you guys familiar with that, Pete?

Pete (29:15)
Yeah, I've heard the name before, yeah.

Ben (29:16)
B

and I is it's like local business owners who who get together. Let's say there's 20 people in a room. One of them is a roofer, one of them is a plumber, one of them's a real estate agent, one of them's insurance. And so you have 20 people from different organizations that are in one group. You can't have two roofers in one group, for instance. And so local groups are a really good way to get known really quick. And oftentimes you'll start getting momentum there too. So I'd say lead generation through that, wrapping your truck. If you don't do it, do it.

buy 50 yard signs from from a market, dope marketing or any of the yard sign companies out there, plant them in different places across the city. if you can afford a billboard, they are effective, they do take time. but truck wraps, I'm telling you guys, if you don't have a good brand and a good truck wrap, you are behind the eight ball.

Pete (29:57)
Yeah, it's funny that you say the the yard sign thing. We have a a guy locally here. It's two brothers, and their company is called Brothers That Do Gutters. And the sign, the sign is literally the logo is the mascot. It's two brothers, right? It's yeah, it's both these cartoon looking guys holding wrenches, you know, with like a gutter in the background and stuff like that. But they put yard signs all over the all over the town and ones at the corner of my street. And every day when I take my boys to school.

They make a comment about the brothers that do gutter sign. Like they they know that sign with those guys on it. I mean, you if you ask them who does gutters, they probably would know those guys. Yeah, like and they're nine and ten years old, right? But they've they've now that's their guys. They

Ben (30:37)
Yeah.

Pete (30:37)
they know those are the gutter guys. They see their signs and they recognize that sign every day and and comment on it. It's like ingrained in them already, you know, 'cause it's catchy, like catchy logo, catchy sign. And

Like you said, the the mascot thing worked really well on them, you know, being kids. And so I'm sure tiger stripes do something similar, right? you know, I I could probably drive past forty roofers in my town and my kids wouldn't recognize a single one of them.

Ben (31:02)
Behind the psychology behind that Pete, I studied this years ago, but your brain is actually taking in the information when you drive when you drive home and you're seeing billboards and stuff, your brain actually sees the thing. It does see the thing, but it's basically like a spam filter. So it basically says, remember, don't remember. Remember, don't remember. And so if it's not something that's actually necessary for the brain to remember, it will kick it out. And so

There's a a video that I always point to, Joel. I'm putting you to work today, bro. it's a movie called Patch Adams. Has anyone seen this film? Okay.

Pete (31:33)
yeah, yeah.

Ben (31:34)
It's a story about a guy who basically becomes a doctor and starts treating people, but he's not a real doctor. That's kind of the concept. But in the movie, there's a clip, I think you can find it on YouTube, Joel, where he says hi to people in different ways. Have you seen this?

Pete (31:49)
I I mean I know the movie, but it's been a long time. Okay.

Ben (31:53)
So basically, so like let's pretend we're walking down the street and we pass each other. And in the movie, it's an older woman. She's like an older woman walking with a with a with a with a

Pete (32:01)
Yeah.

Ben (32:01)
and he like waves past her, he like says hello. It's it's over several days, he approaches the same like the same direction each time because she goes the same way each day. And he like walks by, says hello, she doesn't really respond. Finally, he gets to the point where he hangs on a sign, flips down.

Bat upside down and says hello. And then ten steps later, she looks back and says and she starts to laugh. That was the thing that made her respond. And so he was testing response with this woman of what made her respond to things. In the movie, he makes medicine funny by being kind of a clown and being like over the top, and people really love him for that. But that's a a good mental mental thing. Nice, Joel. Nice.

Pete (32:41)
Dang Jill's all over it. Yeah.

Ben (32:43)
Yeah.

Can we yeah, we won't show it. It's a longer clip, but if you take if you if you have some time, look at it probably 30 seconds, 45 seconds long. But again, being being comfortable enough to do ridiculous things to get people's attention is really a skill and it's it's really like a a currency. Because if you can acquire attention, you can then acquire leads. And if you can acquire leads, you can get in the door. If you can get in the door, you can make some sales. And so that real that first plug is attention. So if your logo stinks.

And you don't stand out, nobody pays attention because they their brain spam filters it out of their brain. Even though they see it, they spam filter out. So what my point is if you spend fifty thousand dollars on billboards, but your logo stinks and your messaging stinks, nobody cares. You're like Patch Adams walking by waving and he just walks on by.

Pete (33:28)
Funny, I was driving home from the airport today, and at one point on the highway, there were two billboards for one was for a roofing contractor, one was for a remodeling company, opposite sides of the highway. The roofing contractor had a really nice polished billboard. It was red and black, though. I will say that. But but it was nicely done, and and it was really like I wouldn't say it was super memorable, but at least it was really clear and easy to read. The remodeling company on the other side had their last name in it, like

something Smith remodeling or something. But the billboard was literally a white billboard that said Smith remodeling and a phone number. Right? And I thought and that's exactly what I thought to myself.

Ben (34:05)
What was the second three digits of the phone number? Tell me.

Pete (34:07)
Yeah,

exactly. Well and that's it, that was exactly my thought. I was like, That is the least memorable billboard I think I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah, and and

Ben (34:14)
Yes. Make

people care. You have to make people care. I I would not put a phone number on a billboard ever. I have a billboard up right now. It's me in a tiger suit. Okay. And it says put a tiger on your roof. Put a tiger on your roof. Six words. Why did I do that? I don't even have the company. No, I have the company name. I have the I have logo. But it's so simple, it's ridiculous. I'm just trying to get this thing hooked in somebody's brain so that when they see the billboard, they're like, That's ridiculous.

I have people messaging me weekly saying, I saw your billboard, I saw billboard. And then I have the jingle playing on the radio and on the TV. So that it's again, it's that simple, stupid song that I'm trying to embed in somebody's brain so that when they see a leak in the drywall, they say, put a tiger on your roof. That's what I'm trying to get to. It's a basis of my marketing. And so again, does your marketing, does your logo have the pinwheel effect where you can take it many different directions? Or are you Smith remodeling where you have to remember a phone number to call them?

No.

Pete (35:09)
I got a question for you. We were talking about like the long-term play versus, you know, maybe I'm a company right now who's small or something like that. And I'm thinking like, I need like this is great, but I need leads like right now. Yeah. How long did it take for the Tiger branding to like take effect?

Ben (35:23)
Yeah, good question, Pete. So I was actually, so in the first year of my business, I was posting every single day on social media. I was in business networking groups. There was a storm, a very small storm that we could knock. And so we were after that. and then the Tigers, I wrapped a truck on day zero. I wrapped two trucks on day zero. And so I had trucks from day one. It probably took me a good 90 days.

To see a solid start. I think I had a hundred thousand dollars in my first ninety days of sales. And so that was mostly connections, mostly local people that wanted to support me, but some people that there were connections of other people. and then the storm helped out with kind of starting me on on the jet set. But I actually, so the first storm that I traveled to, Pete, was three and a half hours away.

Pete (36:08)
wow.

Ben (36:09)
So I had to travel and I knew from working that storm that I was like, I don't want to do this forever. Means to an end.

Pete (36:14)
Just not for me. Yeah.

Ben (36:16)
That was it. And so I was like, I need a product that I need to build my base. And so I continued working in social media. I continued to work, got more trucks. I started the Solar Panther the year following because solar is a distinctly different product you can sell to pretty much anybody with a high electric bill. It's more of a a a fun, fun purchase because their electric bill goes down.

Where roofing is a need-based purchase where they just have to have it. And so I started adding other products to build revenue over time. And so to answer your question directly, my first year in business, my very first year was $2.5 million. but that was largely largely storm. And then the second year, we start, I think we hit we hit five million our second year, and that was less storm, more retail, more solar.

third year was eight million and that was mostly more retail. So it took a a good again, that process kind of builds up 'cause that retail starts to take place, more referrals, more Google reviews, you start to get more calls.

Pete (37:09)
Yeah. I love the I love the fact that you guys added the solar so early on. You know, like I don't one, I don't think a lot of people add solar, right? I think it's something that over time has come a little closer together, but still there's kind of a more or less like a line in the sand between those two industries. And then the fact that you guys diversified, you like you said, you kind of like added another source of income that early on in the business, which a lot of people I don't think really do.

Ben (37:32)
I've heard a lot of people Pete the the successful companies right now are doing multiple trades and not just relying on roofing. They're doing siding, they're doing gutters, they're doing windows, they're doing decks, they're doing solar.

Pete (37:41)
Sixty five percent. Sixty five percent of roofing companies now do multiple trades. Yeah. Regardless of size.

Ben (37:46)
I would recommend it. I

I would recommend obviously getting once you get introduced to good good good crews, you can find other crews that kind of are adjacent to that. that's a valuable skill to have is finding those contractors who can do good work and then you can build the sales funnels off of those people. I basically build my businesses based on the talent of my crews. And so the more talented crews, the better stuff we can do, the more I'll sell from different trades.

Pete (38:07)
I love it.

Ben (38:08)
What I'd say, guys, marketing is a long term play, in my opinion. A number one thing I would recommend to a contractor for getting more sales is taking a sales course. Either top rep with Chuck Toki or something of that equivalent. I built my business based on my sales acumen, which was through Bath Planet. Bath Planet has a 12 step process for sales.

It's very corporate, but it's very good with telling the company story, asking good questions, explaining why you're different, nailing down the actual product you're selling and then closing. And so sales process, I think is something that kind of gets left. Everybody thinks they're a good salesperson until you meet a good salesperson. And they're like, Okay, man, that's good. So taking a sales course, I if I did not, if I've never been trained by a professional, I would

Absolutely encourage you to do that, no matter how much the money. I think a lot of conferences can be good for certain things, but a sales like a top rep or something of that is really valuable. Hannah, speaking about direct marketing, what is your experience with using direct mail to roofing sales? I think it's a longer term play. it it can work. I have run a few direct mail campaigns through dope marketing. they didn't they didn't do great. I think my targeting could have been better.

I think what you can do is target old neighborhoods or hail red neighborhoods for if there's any hail in your neighborhood in your market. But if you have old neighborhoods that you know with roofs those early 2000s homes, right? Those 2005, 2010 builds, those roofs are getting to those points. So if you can drive a direct marketing campaign that's very targeted towards those neighborhoods, that would be good. Do you use community paper? What is community paper? Pete, do you know?

Pete (39:43)
Maybe like a newspaper, like a local newspaper?

Ben (39:45)
no. No. Never have, never will.

Pete (39:47)
I think you can use community groups a lot on Facebook. I think are a more effective way to go. Like I don't we often talk about Amanda Veinott, she leveraged groups better than anybody, but I like I know even where I'm at, we have there's a group where dang near everybody in town is in that group, right? And so I often see companies post things in there.

Ben (40:05)
Next door. Are you guys familiar with Next Door?

Pete (40:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Ben (40:10)
Next door is a big one too. Next door and the Ring app. The Ring app, the Ring. My my wife is on Ring all the time. You know what the Ring app

Pete (40:18)
Yeah, yeah.

Ben (40:19)
like community stuff in there? Ring is like huge for that. Small company has been open for almost 10 years. We need to step up some internal practices for sales teams. Any ideas? I am talking about things like the servants' handshake where they park. That's a really good question, Kyle. I I would say

Look into Top Rep by Chuck Chuck Toki. I am not sponsored. I do know Chuck personally, met him a couple times. He's tremendous. Yeah. I have I've never been to a top rep conference, but it'd be the first one to go. I might even take my team this winter time. Top rep is formal training for sales process. And Chuck is a roofing type guy. So definitely recommend you doing that for your small company, small team. it wouldn't cost you too much if it prize probably less than five thousand dollars all in. It'd be worth it.

Bath Planet, like I said, what when I started learning that I was a little bit apprehensive because I thought I was a good salesperson. Until that formal training really takes over, it's really valuable. Do you advertise in next door? No, I do not, but I have had many people say it's successful. Do you recommend sponsoring community events, happy hours, high school sports? Courtney, yes, we do.

we sponsor one of the biggest soccer teams in the area. Soccer's huge in our community. So we pay ten thousand dollars per year just to have our name on the jersey. and we have a big banner outside of their stadium as well. So yes, those things are really valuable, typically cheap as well.

Pete (41:38)
Yeah, I know I can comment on that too. I think that I've seen companies that even host their own community events. The T C Backer comes to mind. I actually attended one of his. He does like a big like charity turkey drive every year where they fry a bunch of turkeys in the middle of the street and like they almost have like a block party. They give away food for a day. you know, they get a lot of stuff donated and and do that. But it's a great like community exposure branding thing for them. you know, they're really

Ben (42:03)
I'd

say also fa Facebook is free, guys. Look go to your settings, look at your screen time. Mine's ridiculous. So I'm sure every one of you is ridiculous as well if you're if you're a roofing company owner or sales manager. It's just something you're on your phone all the time. It's part of our job and you do jump out of social media throughout the day. So if you're not posting on social media to get attention,

I've fallen a bit behind in that category recently, but it's how I started the business. It's how I really started my mainstay in the in the area is being the social media guy who showed up. And again, going back to that brand level, I will beat this into your head until you understand it. The reason why people remember me is because I'm memorable with the logo, with how all the the pinwheel ties together. I have multiple different notches that people can latch on to. And so it's not just one thing.

It's not just one thing. If I can recommend one thing, it's not just one thing. It's your brand amplified to many different things. Truck wrap, yard sign, next door. It's all the stuff, but they all have the same color combinations. It's memorable. It's the same tagline, right? These things are super basic, but I'm telling you, the amount of companies that I see that do that that do this is rare. It's rare, but the ones that do are successful.

Pete (43:10)
It's funny, you know, we had a I had Dave Carroll from Dope Marketing on a podcast and he dropped a gold nugget, which I don't think is talked about enough. And that is allotting a budget for branding and marketing as two separate things. Instead of lumping it all together as marketing, like you should be dedicating stuff to your branding.

Ben (43:31)
Yes.

Pete (43:32)
And and then and you know, and and thinking about it in that way. Like think about your branding as a separate piece that then feeds your marketing instead of it all just being part of marketing, right? Yeah.

Ben (43:41)
If you're sitting here right now and you're saying, I need nice. I need I need thirty thousand dollars or I need a hundred thousand dollars a month for the next four months to keep this thing active. If you're in like emergency mode, these things are like you might be hearing this like this. I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. That's why I believe so much in effortless marketing to have your marketing work for you. When I drive my car to the grocery store, people stop and they I just today.

I'm driving through a parking lot. People, somebody pulled out their phone, taking a picture just today. This is like two hours ago. I stopped. I rolled down the window. I said, Do you want me to be in the picture too? Right? She goes, Yeah, my you know, my son loves your trucks and just wanted to I gotta send this to him. Right. So again, I'm making impact, I'm making my marketing work for me as opposed to doing 50 things. My marketing's doing the heavy lifting, and then I can add other things like doing the effort play. Effort play is gonna be social media videos.

putting yard signs out, going into social media and and and tapping into those f local Facebook groups, right? Those things are all valuable, but it's effort you have to put out. If you create a brand that works for you, it's less effort for you. You're doing it automatically.

Pete (44:47)
That's right. Make it memorable, right?

Ben (44:49)
That's that's exactly right. Memorable colors.

Pete (44:51)
How do you track lead sources?

Ben (44:53)
It's tough. It's tough when I'm doing so many different pieces of marketing. it sounds really rudimentary when I'm asking people at the sales table, how did you hear about us? Oftentimes they don't really remember how they heard about us, but they found us on Google. Again, going back to Google, that's how they found us. And so we're popping up. Google, Google ads is probably your best amount of money spent to get lead source traffic, is advertising on Google, putting a good offer out, especially if it's winter time.

Coming up on wintertime and you can you can advertise winter checkups for $299 or something to make sure the roof is good and then you can sell repairs or replacements off of that. How many people out there have gone to a repair lead and sold a replacement from it? Right. So don't turn down repairs if you hear that call come through, you're like, go to the appointment, run your sales process like normal and tell them the truth. Hey, this roof's not gonna last through the wintertime. You need to replace it. And if you're confident and ask for the sale, you'll get it a lot of those times.

Pete (45:49)
one thing to note here too is that in a situation like that, like when you sit down and say to them, you know, hey, how did you hear about us? It's probably from multiple things you're doing. Yes. It's probably not one thing. And so yeah, so to track a lead source maybe maybe not the most accurate way to track it, right? Like as it's it could have been your truck, it could have been a truck and a yard sign, it could have been a truck and a commercial, right? So

You know, it's like all these multifaceted things that you're doing kind of combining to to drive these people to call you. So you know, rather than, you know, worrying about whether it was one Facebook ad or something like that that drove them to you.

Ben (46:22)
Yes, from an action item perspective, Pete, many of your heads are probably spinning to like, I need to do all these things. Again, I want remind you if your base is not good, the vertical marketing you attach to it will also be watered down. So again, Pete's example about the billboard, you can buy fifty thousand dollars worth of billboards. You can do that. I have seven vehicles on the road now. Five Roof Tiger, two Solar Panther.

Pete (46:45)
All right.

Ben (46:46)
I'm competing with companies that have 30 trucks on the road.

How do I stand out? Tiger stripes, right? Rid being ridiculous. People say they see me everywhere. Why? It's a memorable truck wrap. It's a memorable logo. So you have to start with that basis. If you're going out and spending $100,000, $300,000 in marketing, you better make sure the base is good to attach it to, or people will see it and their brain will spam filter it out and you spent that money for nothing. So again, create that base. I would assume, you know, if you want to, please do this.

If you want to send me your logo, I'll be happy to give you free advice tonight when I'm at home, chilling on the couch. send it to me. Benjamin Tiger on Facebook. Find me and just message me. Message Roofr. I'll be happy to give you free pointers and kind of give you some feedback about how you can maybe shift it or change it.

I've done that many times over the years. It's one of my favorite conversations because I think it's the basis of your understanding of what an actual brand is, is having that base layer taken care of and then you can build layers on top.

Pete (47:45)
Cool.

Ben, wanna again, man, appreciate it. This was awesome, as always. Jumping

Ben (47:49)
Pete, you're the man. Always good.

Pete (47:51)
on. Yeah, man. It's always fun. So thank you guys for listening. I really appreciate everybody jumping on. Thank you guys for the questions. Some really good stuff there. you know, as always, if you want to get in touch with us.

You have Joel.Castelli at Roofr. we can get you in touch with Ben. you know, Pete at Roofr, super easy to remember. And so you know, you guys can always reach out to us if you have any any additional questions But again, thanks, Ben, and thank you everybody for listening. I really appreciate it.

Ben (48:17)
Thank you guys, go get

Pete (48:18)
All right.