Career Coaching & Leadership in Blue-Collar Industries, with James Hatfield

Pete: All right. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Roofr report. I am your host, Pete McKendrick. And, excited to be back here. A little bit different, than we have been doing. We've done a lot of these Roofr of the month showcases where we've been showcasing a lot of our Roofr customers who have really done some great things in their business, a lot of new businesses starting out, and some of the great things that they've been able to accomplish in a short time and how they've gotten there.

Some great backstories. Always a colorful backstory of how people got into the roofing industry.

Today we're gonna pivot a little bit, slightly different guest here, than what you guys have been accustomed to hearing over the last couple of podcasts. Excited to be joined today by James Hatfield, CRO of Live Switch.

And James, I'll give you a second here to introduce yourself for the folks at home that don't know who you are or don't know anything about Live [00:01:00] Switch.

James: Hey, thanks Pete for having me on here. As Pete said James Hatfield. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer here at Live Switch. And prior to this, couple decades ago, I'm dating myself. I used to live on a ladder. I used to run painting and power washing companies, have multiple crews, and I found my way off the ladder and into technology and I've been in technology for the last 20 years.

Excited to talk about the current state of roofing, future state of roofing. And maybe we'll get a little nerdy and, you know, you can take my lunch money later, Pete.

Pete: No, I like it. You know, I started in the field myself, with the nail gun and all that, and kind of worked my way just by chance. Kind of worked my way out of the field into the tech side. I've been in it eight years now on the tech side, so not quite as long as you, a similar path to getting here.

Excited to jump into it today and walk through a little bit of the lessons you've learned here along the way. You said you started out in power washing and painting. Give us some background, like how did you get into the whole home improvement space and is that something you were looking to get into?

Is it something you just kind of fell into? How did that all happen?

James: So, apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My grandfather, never got to graduate high [00:02:00] school 'cause his dad died young and he had to step outta high school at 16 and get a job at a tire store to feed the family. Imagine that. Wow, I can't, we can't even get to our 16 year olds to like, go to school, you know, let alone, like, take over a family.

And his dream for me was James, I want you to be a painter. Just humble dreams and come from humble beginning and, knew when I graduated high school I needed to, make sure I paid for, myself and others. And so I learned and I knew how to paint a house and power wash the house head to toe and do it the right way.

And so back then, you know, we didn't have. All the fancy stuff we got now. I just went door to door and knocked, put on a polo and had my clipboard and three sheets of paper and did my bidding and had my crews and sent 'em out. On the weekends I would, I'd knock on doors and during the week we'd do the work.

That was, the name of the game. And I, as most guys find themselves, you're good at. Paint or power washing in my case, but you find yourself an accidental business owner. So I'd go to the bookkeeper and they would be speaking English to me, and I'm nodding and I'm like, I don't understand a word this person's saying.

I'm like, that is not good. [00:03:00] So I'm like, I guess I need to be a business owner too. So I decided, hey, let me go to state school, which was affordable back in the day, and let me learn business and accounting so I will understand what my bookkeeper's saying while I'm running my companies. So it was just outta necessity, that I started to do that.

And it just so happened that I have a partner. He was running the landscaping company doing the same thing, and he built. To fix the problem we had, he built this system where you could put an income statement and balance sheet in from your bookkeeper, and he would tell you in plain language how you were doing.

Like this is how it, how it is, this is what it means. So we were fixing the problem that we had and he says to me, can you sell this? I'm like, I don't know, but I'll, I could try if it gets me off the ladder. So we started from an incubator and nothing, and that company took off. We actually became Inc 500, meaning we were one of the fastest growing companies in America for three years.

And then it ended up becoming a billion dollar company, and we sold it, and it worked out pretty well. That was a good first move. It was an incredible company. Still stands today, guys that I hired 20 years ago are still there and it's thriving. Very much a thriving [00:04:00] business.

Pete: Wow. So quite a transition from the field into the tech side of things.

James: Completely. But still, I felt like I was virtually knocking on doors still. I'd pick up the phone, make calls, reach out, and try to make it happen. It's not that much different except for I'm just in a stuffy office all day rather than out in the sunshine.

Pete: Well, and I think, you know, in reality it's how a lot of the businesses in the roofing space have started. A lot of the tech companies that we look at today were started by someone who was on a ladder and said, Hey, I think there's just a better way of doing this. Or, maybe we can be a little bit more effective in the way we're doing stuff.

They created a piece of software or got with someone who could create something that they had in their mind. And that's how a lot of these softwares have emerged to be where they are today. So, a very similar path, I think for a lot of folks, and even for Roofr, our owner started when he was 13 on the roof and, learned the trade from his family and saw an opportunity to fix some things that he felt were broken in the industry. And that's kind of where Roofr emerged from, and we've grown to what we are today. So, yeah, an interesting [00:05:00] approach, there.

So along the way, I kind of read a little bit of the backstory here, right? And, I know that you are a big process guy, right?

James: Absolutely.

Pete: Yeah. And so myself too, I'm kind of processes obsessed. I came over about eight years ago to the tech side of the world to start working with roofers and, fell in love with the whole idea of the process and how these guys were getting to where they were.

Finding the successes, finding the mistakes, and, what we're making those guys successful in their process. So talk a little bit about how you kind of fell in love with that side of it and some of the things that you do on a daily basis as far as the processing, even in the business you guys are in today.

James: Yeah, so process can probably put a lot of us to sleep. Even the word like, you know, oh my goodness. But the good thing about documenting your process is that it's able to be handed off, okay? Like I always believe, I've always worked for very fast growing tech companies and I always try to make myself redundant as fast as possible.

I know a lot of us owners like to be the person in charge, right? The head honcho. Everything flows to us, which I totally understand [00:06:00] and I get that. But if you can find a way to document what you do and hand it off for someone else to own and update and make better, and document it, then it can be replicated, handed off.

And the fact is it makes your business more valuable. If you ever wanna have an exit in the future, if you have your documented processes in place, your business is more valuable, but more importantly, that it gives you freedom, right? There's a book I'm gonna ask everyone to check out. Making Money is Killing Your Business.

And they talk you through how to make these freedom maps through documentation to process. And then it's following the customer. Following customer is the next step. And I call it the customer buying experience. After we sold the last tech company, we got into nonprofit work. We have some nonprofits that we do, but we felt, Hey, I'm too young to kind of hang up my cleats.

Let's build another billion dollar tech company. But instead of starting from scratch, let's build a company. So we found a company out of Vancouver, Canada and we looked for hundred and hundreds of companies. And this company happened to be doing a lot in the live video space and [00:07:00] communication space.

And so I was running product. I also like to build products. I'm a builder at heart. I never left the ladder. I just do it in code now with different kind of techs and engineers. And we do all kinds of interesting things here. Like we did the Super Bowl this year, last year we did the if you're at an MLB ballpark and scan a QR code, they put you on the jumbotron.

That's our stuff. And we do all kinds of video. Like if you remember during the NBA, when they had the bubble, and WW wrestling, we powered all of that when you saw the fans in the stands. And so it just so happened that I got a knock on the door. From the Chief of police in Washington DC to reinvent the nine one one phone call. And the reason was is that now we've got all these cameras in our pocket. We're carrying around three or four cameras in our pocket every day. Well, let's use these things. And the first step was to figure out how do we reinvent that nine one one call when a citizen is compromised? How do we get into those cameras where that camera stream can be sent right to the police car firetruck or emergency medical?

It's called situational awareness. And so came up with the idea of oh, I know what to do. And so no [00:08:00] app. Let's get in through sending a text message. You tap it and then I'm into your camera. I'm also on the phone. That's a point of redundancy, and then we can stream that video anywhere.

Pete: Wow.

James: This is where it was born from, right? And it's like, well, the question is as a product guy, like who else could use this stuff? So I started talking to guys in the NFL, and I met a guy who had 20 years in the FBI. He takes care of the Nashville, Tennessee Titans. So he takes care of the big arena in Nashville.

I'm showing him my emergency response stuff, and he is like, James, this all looks great. He's like, I got the stupidest question ever. I'm like, what is it man? He is like. This arena is huge. Sometimes the trash cans just fall over and my guy is on the other end of the arena. Can I just text him and he can just show me what's going on?

And that was the big aha. I was like, oh, this is like next to walkie talkies. Like what I had with my painting power washing company, but now with my eyes. I wonder if anyone in home services would benefit from this. So I met this really thoughtful, forward thinking guy in the moving industry of all industries, like moving boxes.

Right, and I'm showing him [00:09:00] stuff. He's like, James, you are sitting on a pot of gold. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, the most expensive thing I do as a business owner is I put with one of my hourly wage guys in a truck just to drive out to a bid in the hopes of winning it, and we don't win every bid.

I'm gonna use this to do virtual selling, virtual estimates, or at least get my eyes on the situation. 'cause there's guys that call in that have no business calling me after I get over there and we tell 'em how much it is, they're like, Nope, I'm just gonna get two pizza boxes and all my friends and move it.

Right. he was right. Oh my goodness. He was right. And we have thousands and thousands and thousands of users now, and we're under the hood of tons of different software. 'cause we do video communication platform. It's crazy.

Pete: Yeah, it's actually, you know, it's funny that we're having this conversation 'cause right now we're in the midst of walking through the subcontractor, part of our business. 70% of work that's done in the residential roofing business is done by subcontracted companies, right? So it, it's a huge, huge part of our business.

And managing it obviously is a [00:10:00] big part at the heart of everything that these guys do. It came to mind right away. You have this real time communication with these guys out in the field. I have a friend who runs a roofing business and he said, I know it's not scalable, but I had to put a project manager that literally goes on a job from cradle to grave so that I have someone there to oversee things, to communicate with the homeowner, to make sure if things go wrong, that someone can react and fix it really quickly, to just keep that customer experience intact. Could you use something like this to where, hey, now my subcontractor, instead of just calling me from the job now I can literally see what he's talking about in real time.

It's very interesting. I can already see applications of it

James: Yeah, you got it. Your wheels are spinning and this is exactly what happens. And whether it's a project manager in the roofing industry, we're also really big in restoration where project managers live where they need to take care of these subcontractors, keep everyone informed, keeping insurance informed.

Sometimes talking about when there's a delay or a change order, like when a guy goes on a roof, it changes things. The [00:11:00] homeowners don't go on the roof, but when your guy's up on the roof, he's like, uh oh, we gotta change the boot around the chimney or around certain things.

And that wasn't in the bid. Okay, well now Mr. Project manager, I can send you a text 'cause you're on the Roofr with your cell phone in your pocket. Just show me what you're looking at. I'll record and take remote photos and then I'll get the customer on the call, forward 'em the video to watch.

What our project managers are trying to do is be on more jobs. Spend less time behind the windshield and still see what they see and communicate with whoever they need to communicate, whether it's subcontractor, insurance or customer. you can do other very unique things with the use of QR codes on property for anyone to scan, and go into your video Dropbox, progress reports, punch lists. So not just selling operations, project management, customer testimonials before and afters. You've got live video in your pocket.

Now you've got the NFL instant replay.

Pete: I love it. Yeah, it's super smart. I think back to when I was in the field, and that's a lot of what we did, right? We spent a lot of days just driving from job to job. Sometimes it was for a 10 minute conversation with a homeowner. Sometimes it was [00:12:00] because one of the crew guys called and said, Hey, I need you to come look at this, right?

And like all the time that we could have saved. Now granted that was like whatever, 10 or 12 years ago, we didn't have this stuff, but, the time that it would've saved us back then would've been tremendous. Probably days of the week, of driving around. So, very cool product and, very cool idea and the way that you guys have utilized it.

Let's talk a little bit about, obviously now you've built a couple of companies. Building teams. Right. Let's talk about building teams. 'cause I think what we're seeing is a bit of a transition in the roofing space. I think back to like eight years ago when I first started working with roofers.

The biggest thing was like, if we want to get stuff done, we gotta throw more people at it. We gotta, hire a bunch of sales guys and now we got this huge staff of salespeople. The debate was constantly, do we use subcontracted crews? Do we have guys in house? What I'm seeing now, I mentioned the Roofr, the month at the beginning of the show here.

Talking to these Roofr of the month guys that are new in business, let's say two years or less. They're running extremely lean, right? They're running very, very lean. They are using subs, [00:13:00] they're managing a lot themselves and a lot of that has to do with their use of technology.

But a lot of that is just a better process. They're more organized, they're a little bit more streamlined. And I guess talk a little bit about it, the building of a team as you see it now, and how do we approach that? One of the questions I always like to ask on the podcast to these guys that are two, three years in business is, who was your most important hire to date?

And the answers are always interesting, right? They're always all over the place. Some will say my accountant, some will say my project manager, some will say my office manager, whether that was their wife or somebody, because they're like, well that was the person that filled that void of what I couldn't handle on my own or what I was not good at,

and when I realized I could bring somebody else in, it made a huge difference. There's a business transition, I think, to not necessarily just throw people at it like we used to do. And so what is your take on all that?

James: I think, and what I'm seeing across all different industries is now the opportunity to hire outside of your serviceable area and hire people anywhere in the [00:14:00] country, especially if you're in the high rent district, or if you're in an area where you're just banging your head against the wall, you can't find good help these days.

As an example, I was hosting a virtual conference. This guy runs an eight figure home service business, and he gets on stage and him and I are up there and I'm asking questions. He's like, James, I have 37 salespeople in South Africa. Guy runs an eight figure business and my sales manager's in Poland and people's minds like, what, how, why, where?

Right. And so he was also just talking about speed to lead, making sure getting race to the face like he's looking for talent all across the country. Doesn't have to be overseas, and combining these virtual teams now that you can be in more places at once. So it's the addition, right? So you've got your core team.

You're gonna have to have boots on the ground in the area that you're servicing. But now you can start to supplement. And some of these folks cost orders of magnitude less. You're watching your bottom line. And some of these folks are hungrier than you've ever seen.

Countless business owners who have been like, you know what? My best employee is in the Philippines. [00:15:00] 'cause they show up, they're hungry, they want more. And whether they're doing their bookkeeping, whether they're doing customer success and service project managing incredible you stuff you can't even believe.

So there's like a demystification of, can I really have a centralized and decentralized team working together? And I think we've figured that out with subcontractors where we got more comfortable with that. And that it might look a little different. You might have to step out a little bit. So my approach to finding good people is I'm gonna find a good person wherever they are in the world.

If they can do the job and they can do it better than anybody else. And my customers, none the wiser, and they're happy. It's a home run, right? Why wouldn't I do that? So there's a lot of current, practices of hiring and growing those teams and building them out that I recommend and highly suggest.

It's where I wanna make you a little bit nervous. I wanna shake you a little bit and be like, have you thought about that? Your project manager doesn't even need to be in the same state as you.

Pete: It's really interesting because I think like it is the future kind of a business. I can [00:16:00] tell you here at Roofr, I think one of the smartest decisions we made when I first started, I was one of the first people probably that was one of like truly like a remote hire, for the company.

And now we're fully remote and we have people, like you said, everywhere, but it's allowed us to go find the best talent because if the best talent's in Brazil, we go get it. One of the guys that I know that owns a roofing company said one of the best hires he made was a guy to answer his phones who is in the Philippines and answers his phone from the time their normal business hours end until the time their normal business hours start in the morning. So if you call his company 24 hours a day, you're getting a person on the phone.

James: That's right.

Pete: Right, because this guy's answering the phone and the off time and he said it, and he's super detailed.

He's in the CRM, just like every other employee. He's filling everything out the way he should, just very, very efficient. And it has been a huge addition to the team because now, like you talked about speed to lead, that's something that we always preach about. Now you're getting a live [00:17:00] person.

If I call even at nine o'clock at night, like that's a game changer. Especially in an industry where we traditionally have this mindset of I'm probably gonna get a voicemail that's full or not set up right. Now this guy's answering the phone at nine o'clock at night, like, totally unexpected, right?

James: Yeah. I mean, I was at a conference in Orlando speaking at a lighting and cleaning conference, and I had my script. I was gonna go up there and talk about, you know, the next generation technology. I just ripped the script up. I said, you know what we're gonna do today? We're gonna cold call Orlando live on stage, and we're gonna see how people do it.

So I went and I said, all right, let's set up a scenario. Let's say I live in Orlando and I've got a beautiful house. I'm gonna have a house party tomorrow, a pool party, and I want them to come and power wash the pool deck. And I'm willing to even pay double. So what am I gonna do?

I'm gonna go to Google, say power washers near me, Orlando. Then what am I gonna do? This is what natural customers do, right, guys . I'm gonna find the one with the most stars and we're gonna call it, and I put 'em on speaker. Seven hundred sixty six, five star reviews I [00:18:00] call middle of the day. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

Nine rings. Went to voicemail, well that kind of sucks. Let's go to the next one. Went to the next one. 533 stars. Ringing ring. Hi. Welcome to so-and-so's Power Washing. Please let us know what we can help you with. I'm having a pool party tomorrow. I'm willing to pay double. I need someone out here now like, oh, that's great to hear.

But before I transfer you to an agent, I need a few quick pieces of information. I have lots of money. That's all the information you need.

Pete: That's all you need to know.

James: Well, thank you for that. The next day there's another speaker at the conference and they were saying, Hey, did you hear about the guy who was cold calling out live on stage?

And one of the guys was in my session. He was like, yeah, and the guy that didn't pick up is right here. Well, of course the guy is like six seven, built like a tank. He starts to hunt me down and he brings another one of his guys who's built like a tank, and I'm like, I'm, I'm gonna die.

I'm gonna die right now how it goes. Like, I knew it was gonna happen, but I didn't see this. And he gets up, he's like, did you call me yesterday? I'm like, yeah, called you live on stage. He's like, what time? And the marketing guy's like, but he was outstate, he was making every [00:19:00] excuse in the book, and the owner's just like scrolling through.

He is like, what time? What's your number? Oh, yeah, we just didn't pick up.

Pete: Huh?

James: I pay thousands of dollars for marketing and we can't pick up the phone. And this is exactly what you're saying, Pete. And we always think about the nine to five, and I love how you're challenging people to think about five to nine. 'cause there's extra business to be one from five to nine when your guys are sleeping in their beds.

Pete: I mean if you think about it, if I'm a homeowner who's probably at work all day, right? I'm not necessarily thinking about it, then I get home, and I call you at quarter after five and I don't get an answer 'cause I'm 15 minutes too late, right? That guy that picks up the phone wins.

I mean, I tell a story about plumbing work I had on my house and I did the same thing. I called the first guy that was recommended to me, straight to voicemail, called the second guy that was recommended to me. Voicemail wasn't set up, called the third guy. He didn't answer the phone, but he texted me literally while I was still leaving him a message and said, Hey, I'm in another homeowner's house.

He called me back in 10 minutes, told him what was going on. He said, I'll be out there in the morning to take [00:20:00] a look and get it fixed. And that was it. And he was hired. I never asked him how much it was gonna cost. Never asked him anything about his credibility.

He was the guy that was responsive and he won the job just because of that.

James: And the question is how do I beat that guy? Because we've all had it happen where the next day you're like, I'm headed out. And they're like, oh, actually I found somebody. As fast as he was and as responsive as he was, you can beat him.

You know how to beat him. If you made one more call or I returned the call and you're like, oh, I got a guy coming tomorrow. He's like, well, can I just send you a text and you show me? 'cause I can actually give you a bid right now and when I come out tomorrow, I'm gonna fix it. Because now he can see the face of that owner, see your problem and take it one level up from a text, from a, I don't really wanna wait around for you.

I've got four kids. I just want my pipe fixed. Right? And so now what we're also training people to do, whether you're in roofing, if you're in plumbing, electrical, if with your leave behinds, when you actually do the work, you need to be leaving up a sticker on property somewhere where it makes [00:21:00] sense.

Okay. With the name of your company, your phone number, and now a QR code, which you can scan and take a video of the work you need done. And you can even charge for these premium memberships. I got my roof done two years ago. I don't even know the name of the roofing company. If someone asked me and I'm like, oh, nice roof, where'd you get it?

I got no idea. They didn't leave any kind of leave behind.

Pete: Yeah.

James: now some folks are even finding neighborhoods they want or commercial areas they want, and they're proactively sending mailers that says, Hey, if you ever need any roofing done, here's our phone number. Or just scan this QR code, take a video and tell us like what you need done.

I'm trying to box Google out, right? If I have that plumbing problem like you're talking about and I go to the water heater, I don't want someone googling plumbers near me. I want them to see, oh, I guess that's my plumber. That's Pete's Plumbing, and there's his phone number.

You need more roofing done. If I need to do your shed, if you know your neighbor, you know, like I want to own that. And recurring revenue is a liquid gold of any business, so we really start to even get faster. Then as fast as Pete said that was, which is great. Still slow. [00:22:00] Welcome to Agent Amazon Prime.

You are still, I get my packages overnight now. I get my packages same day, same day. That's how people, people want their home services same day. Not everybody, but enough of them to where you need to get your face. Because I always ask, Hey, who's number one salesperson is their AI agent? Nobody raises their hand.

I like AI. It can answer simple questions, but the last I checked a human face is what is needed to get the money every time.

Pete: Yeah. I agree. We often preach like speed to lead, but speed to lead is, it's changed. We always thought speed to lead as like, oh, I just wanna be the first guy in there so that I can schedule an appointment. But really it's more like speed to work, right? Like it's not necessarily how can I get to that first touch? It's how quickly can I actually get to the work? I remember back when I first started having conversations with roofers that were like, well, our lead time is three, four months, I'm selling business now that I'm not gonna complete until September.

As a homeowner, I can't even [00:23:00] imagine. Hey, my roof's leaking. Okay, great sign here. It will be with you in three months. That's not gonna work. The age of Amazon is definitely changing that mindset a bit. And it's gonna have to change the way we do business or traditionally have done business.

Because like you said, even the next day is not gonna be quick enough for a lot of people anymore.

James: Yeah, we're evolving from speed to lead to race to the face.

Pete: race to the face,

James: That's what is next. 'cause the face closes no matter what anyone says when you're spending, on a roof, five figures usually. You have a certain demand and that's a lot for especially a homeowner to shell out if insurance isn't doing it.

So they still want that white glove experience, even though you don't have the bandwidth to give the white glove experience because you're three months booked out, that actually kind of sucks for you. A lot of people take as pride. I'm like, you're about to lose a lot of business. 'cause if one other roofer comes along, you know how many people I'm gonna swipe from you and be like, why don't you just cancel that contract and do mine and in fact, I'll even give you a discount on it and I'll do it now.

Pete: yeah. Absolutely. I imagine the frustration from the [00:24:00] customer and that's the case, we preach to be proactive in your communication because. If I get somebody and I sign them up and I've got a two month lead time, the odds that I'm gonna communicate with them in those two months is probably slim.

So now they're left wondering where I'm at, what's going on with their job, all these things, if you're the guy that can swoop in and say, Hey, I'll throw you a discount and I'll do it two days from now, you're gonna win that job, you're gonna take that job

James: Especially if something's leaking or there it is a real problem or they're nervous about it, you might even go make more just 'cause of your speed. We're gonna be a little more expensive, but I can do it tomorrow.

Pete: but I can be here. Yeah. Like I didn't even question it right When the guy said, Hey, I can be there tomorrow. Never even asked them the price. Like I just said, okay, I'll see you in the morning. You come get it done. Right.

James: Nobody has patience anymore. I don't wanna wait in line. I don't wanna wait for my package. We're not getting a pass as roofers. There is no pass. Speed is the name for the NFL, like the Olympics, like boxing, like nascar. It's no different. And that's gonna separate companies is the speed, not just their customer service, quality of [00:25:00] job, that has to happen. But now if you're in a competitive market, you gotta go. Gotta move.

Pete: Well, and I love what you said there, race to the face. Right. Our expertise is not what people are looking for anymore. They're not hiring you because you're an expert.

They're hiring you because they trust you, right? It's essentially they're hiring someone who they believe in to get the job done in a quality way. It's not that you have to come in and say, Hey, this is how I'm gonna do it because I've been doing this 25 years. I could have started a roofing company yesterday, but if I come into your house face to face, you feel comfortable with me and you trust me, you're probably gonna hire me over that guy that's been doing it 25 years, because that's more or less what you're looking for now, that relationship.

James: That's right. And then you also need to be thinking about your serviceable radius as well. Now you can go after neighborhoods that maybe you wouldn't drive out for the bid, but now with satellite photos, with a live video interaction, some of the things we have nowadays, you're able to be. Pretty armed and dangerous in a good way to give somewhat of a quote.

And you can also fish out the tire [00:26:00] kickers, right? The people you shouldn't have driven out that day. And then you're also gonna have more information to arm your team, right, that they can watch before they head out. They're like, oh crap, I didn't realize it was a three story house. I need to turn the truck around.

And now we go get the larger ladders. Or when they're on property and things are happening, crap, there's a cracked window, which the customer probably didn't see on the third story. Let me take the video of that. Here, project manager, we didn't do that damage.

It's covering your backside. It's communication tool, it's all these other things that, I mean, we're just scratching the surface. We've been carrying around these cameras in our pockets for so long. We just haven't had the ability to use 'em like we need to, and now we do. I talked to Chief of Police in Washington, DC. He's like, James, this seems so obvious.

Why didn't we have this before? Like Chief, we all didn't have these video cameras in our pocket. I think they issue you a cell phone now when you're born. So like, we've got the infrastructure, let's use it.

Pete: Yeah. And it is so smart, right? Like you said though, it seems so obvious now. First thing everybody thinks now is app. There's an app for that, right?

James: And nobody wants apps. We don't do apps on purpose. We don't wanna stop and have [00:27:00] someone do this, like, no, just tap a text. We're onto the races. I don't care what device you're on. I don't want you going and scrolling through pictures of your family to upload something to a Dropbox. Nobody likes doing that, and it's not safe for your business.

It's not safe to have your company data on an employee phone or a customer phone. You wanna get that in the cloud as fast as possible. You wanna have access to that, and it keeps everybody accountable. Make sure your salespeople aren't selling world peace and make sure your operations are in play and make sure your subcontractors are doing it right and when you start using these videos and pictures on your website.

Google, Chat GPT. Grok. Whatever you're using is actually going on your website and looking for real photos and real videos, and you get uplifted. If you're using stock photos, stock this, you get less, right? So there's a lot of tips and tricks.

Google and all these are looking for trust as well because they wanna be the trusted source. Google served me up the best roofer in my area. You gotta think about stuff. It's not always just paying Google.

It's actually, [00:28:00] are you transparent? What are your reviews looking like? What are your before and afters? How are you responding to these things? The game has changed. I still would knock on doors, but I no longer can just only knock on doors for new business like I could 20 years ago.

Pete: You know, we have a product at Roofr, I don't know how familiar you are with it, but the Instant Estimator, which is a wildly popular product for us, and along the same lines, right? It's allowing you to empower the homeowner, allow the homeowner to get kind of a ballpark quote, get the ball rolling.

Captures the lead information. It allows us to get to them faster, but it's like starting that whole trust building factor. It's got the picture of the salesman on there, it's got some gallery photos of the work that we've done. So it's building all that trust and. You can set it up based off of a QR code where they can scan it off your truck, your yard sign, something like that, and speeding into that stuff.

And, yeah, it's been a hugely popular product for us. Simply because like you said, people don't wanna wait. I don't want to call an office and say okay, yeah, I'll have a salesman call you back to set up an appointment. No, I wanna [00:29:00] know right now.

The most Googled phrase last year was, what is my roof gonna cost me?

Some crazy amount of times, hundreds of thousands of times, it's Googled over the course of a year. So here's an idea, here you go. Like you said, same idea. Weeds out the tire kickers, gets the people in your service area to know who you are and be able to get an idea of what it's gonna cost to

James: That. Of not having cart abandonment, right? They fill out all that stuff. They picked everything they want and then they abandoned. There is your moment for the face to show up.

Here's the quality. All right? Boom. Let's set your date. They're ready to buy. Why are they checking the price? Because, probably they need a roof. And so you need to be right there and insert yourself and give 'em that bid that's accurate, and then give 'em a face to get the money and you can marry all that right together, and really take advantage of the most prime time someone's gonna buy and not abandon that cart.

Pete: I love it. Let's talk a little bit, let's shift gears a little tiny bit here just so I want to talk to you. 'cause you've built a couple of businesses here. Obviously you ran a successful power [00:30:00] washing and painting business. Let's talk a little bit about leadership. When people get into the business, they come from all different kinds of backgrounds.

A lot of them from the roof, a lot of them were sales guys for a short time in the industry. But being a leader obviously changes the game. I interview these guys and we talk about it, it's like, managing people obviously is a huge thing that I wasn't ready for.

And probably one of the hardest parts of my business. Talk a little bit about your take on leadership and, what you see successful leaders doing in this type of a home improvement space.

James: Yep. So just like your customers buy because of trust. Like Pete said, your employees stay because they trust, right? And they become empowered, right? We're always racking our brains. And how do we change employees to owners, right? Like an employee will walk through the office and see trash on the ground, say, ah, that's not my job, right?

An owner will see trash and pick it up and throw it away because they care. Like, have you ever washed a rental car? No. Never. 'cause it's not yours, right? You wash what you own. So if we can [00:31:00] help elevate ownership and give ownership of things. One book I mentioned earlier, Making Money is Killing Your Business, right around process.

So now you have a one page of your entire process. Get into your process map and each process you can double click into and give that ownership to the person closest to the data. They're the ones that can improve upon it, and they're empowered to do so. Make this process even better, please, and put your fingerprints all over it.

Again, this is gonna help you with redundancy. So that's layer one, empowerment, ownership, layer two being an example. Staying on the button. Like if you're listening to this podcast, you're already putting yourself two steps down the chessboard. We're talking a lot about tech and future. he's really thinking about where we're going. He's thinking about the customer experience. He's elevating that. Some people like things to never change. I get that. But a lot of folks that wanna stay with you are showing that you're building the business, you're progressing their careers, you're empowering them, and you have a plan for [00:32:00] them.

I always challenge employees, go to the person you're working with and ask 'em what their five year plan for you is. 10 year plan. If they ain't got one, that means you're probably not in the plan, you know? I always tell people, you gotta take ownership of your own career.

I'm not here to babysit, but I am here to challenge you. And it is my job to think about where you're going to be and how I'm growing you, as a professional. And then connecting with people, having those one-on-one times, building that through excellence, right? It's not just about sharing our lives and all the soft stuff, but superstars like to be challenged.

I wanna work with the Tiger Woods, the LeBron James, the Michael Jordans. I wanna coach them into leaders. And investing and replicating myself. Every job I've had, I work hard to make myself redundant. And as an owner, whatever role that you find yourself in, the faster you can make yourself redundant.

I know it might terrify you because you're the only one, and you're so special. Just like we think about our service, I'm like, no, you're not. You're selfish. You're selfish 'cause you're not willing to hand off. You're a dead end, right? Well, what if they leave me? [00:33:00] Well, make 'em an owner.

How about some profit sharing? How about putting 'em in the bonus pool? How about making it where it counts? Hey, you guys wanna make more money? I wanna make more money. Here's the things we gotta do to make it so, and you can do predictable bonusing. Set aside that money. You can attach it to KPIs, key performance indicators.

Hey boss. I wanna make more per hour. All right, well, I incentivize if you do these things and we'll have a leaderboard. There's a lot of creative things you can do and some of this stuff, if you're super small, you can do it in unique ways. I talk to business owners that are so creative, don't lose that creativity.

So the team can see creativity, they can see empowerment. They can see next level thinking. They can see this guy really cares about my future. You're gonna have fierce loyalty. You still need to practice three things in your business, hiring, firing, and promoting.

If those three things are absent in your business, you have atrophy. Even if one of those things is missing. So when's the last time you fired somebody? When's the last time you promoted somebody? When's the last time you hired somebody? Working in tandem also help energize the organization because when people see you telling that person who's not carrying [00:34:00] their weight.

They couldn't be lifted up. Some people don't wanna be lifted up, they don't even wanna come to work in the morning. I don't want them on my court. They ask Wooden like, how do you have such motivated players? Well, I only let motivated players on the court.

Pete: I had an interesting conversation with a roofer. He said, I hire fast, but I fire faster. If I see someone who's not gonna work, why drag it out and punish the rest of the team, and allow that person to just get strung along knowing that the end result is gonna be the same.

He said, I just go to them and say it's not working and we part ways. And then I hire somebody else. And I thought that was a smart way to look at it. I think we have a tendency to give too much leniency there sometimes, and it ends up hurting the team as a whole.

And like you said, it's not necessarily a great look for you as a leader. So I have a question for you this, posed to everybody when we talk about leadership. Now I'm a sports guy. I'm a youth coach. I've been a coach at a lot of levels and so I equate a lot of what I see when I coach kids to [00:35:00] business owners, to running a business and being able to see attributes in players and similar to seeing attributes in employees, seeing their strengths and weaknesses. So my question to you is, do you think a leader is someone who's born to be a leader, or is it something that we can teach somebody to be.

James: Both, both. But you definitely can teach someone to be a leader. And the way I like to do it is the wounds from a friend can be trusted. So telling people the truth can help them rise up. As an example, I did used to work for a Fortune 500 company. I was building out offices in Brazil as well as across the country.

And I got a guy, MBA, smart guy. And he came onto my team and I always get the backdrop of who's coming on. And there's all these things in his record, in his reviews and documentation. So I read through them and on our first time meeting, I said, Hey, brace yourself. I'm about to tell you everything everyone's saying behind your back, all your previous [00:36:00] managers. I'm gonna tell you everything. One of two things. You're gonna quit on me right now. Or we're gonna do something about this. So I read him everything. I could just see him breaking, right?

Because I was wounding him. Did you know all this? No. No one ever told me, wow, well I told you the truth. What do you wanna do? Do you wanna quit? He's like, no, I don't wanna quit. I wanna give it one more college try. I'm gonna try and work on it. From then on, he went on to have an incredible career.

I only saw him remotely. He was one of my remote team members. You can't make this stuff up. About three years ago, I'm on a golf course in Scotland . And I'm on a golf hole and I hear in the middle of Scotland. My name James Hatfield. James Hatfield.

Like I'm in the middle of Scotland. I don't know anyone. I've never been here before.

It was him. And he ran up to me, gave me the biggest hug, gave me an update, and he's like, dude, you changed my whole career. 'cause I started with the truth and he rose up and now he's a leader. He's leading other folks.

But you gotta be [00:37:00] able to tell yourself the truth, let other people tell you the truth, and then have the courage to tell people the truth. And they are gonna kill you for it. But the leaders will love it. The star players can't get enough of it. I would really say you can coach up and train leaders, but you better give them the truth or you're not gonna get the best out of them.

Pete: That's really interesting, right? Like I said, I'm a youth coach and you see it where when you are sometimes blatantly honest. You see two things. You see the player who completely shuts down and essentially says like, I'm done. And you see the player who it completely lights a fire in. Almost gets angry at you for it.

It's a motivator. I'm gonna show you that I can do better or I can do it differently.

James: Don't you want a bunch of those on your team? Don't you want a team full of Rudy's? I mean, it's Rudy, right? Like you

Pete: Yeah,

James: root for him. Now, he's never gonna be a star football player, so you have to, there's also a time where you gotta tell some of the truth. Hey man, you got the most hustle out here, but you're never gonna be on my starting line.

Uh, we're [00:38:00] gonna need to get you suited up for some other careers. Or maybe you need to be on my sidelines as a coach.

Pete: Yeah. But, if you think about it, like he's a perfect example. Even though it was behind the scenes, he played a part for that program. Like you said, sometimes you just gotta be honest and be like, Hey, your part's not gonna be in the starting lineup.

James: That's it. And it doesn't make you a bad person. I've had to let many people go. I'm just like, I just don't think this is your job, like the job for you. As long as I've documented process, told 'em what success looks like, I've done my part, that's on me.

But other than that, the right thing to do is to tell people that we don't have a fit or find somewhere else in my organization where they can thrive.

Pete: Yeah. Very cool man. Well, I appreciate you coming on. I could probably talk to you all day about this stuff, but I know you're a busy guy, so I really appreciate you coming on James. This has been some fantastic stuff. For the listeners to kind of consider and think about in their business, lots for them to think about.

Maybe we can have you back on another time and we can dive into it even more. But, I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much. I'm sure that our listeners will be super excited to hear this one.

James: Yeah, I love it. And if [00:39:00] anybody wants to get ahold of me, I'm easy to get anyone who listens to this, I'm committing to you that you will get me. I will not farm you off to anybody else. You can hit me on LinkedIn, James Hatfield, look for Live Switch, or just go to my website, Live Switch, LIVESWITCH.com.

Click demo and say I wanna talk to James. I'll make any time for someone listening to this podcast. In fact, if you come and find me, I'll even give you a discount code and we don't discount. Just say I listened to you on Roofr with Pete and I'll have a special discount code you can use just because you found me on the podcast.

So a little extra, little extra hustle, you know?

Pete: I like it. I think that what you guys are doing there at Live Switch, it conveys so well, like my wheels were turning just when you were explaining some of the other use cases, just thinking of all the ways that I could use it if I was a roofer.

Definitely go check out Live Switch and check out James and his team and what they've got going on over there if you guys are listening. 

Alright, James. Well thank you very much and for everybody listening, thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on the Roofr report.

Until next time. Thank you everybody.