Cross-Training Crews to Survive Buffalo Winters (w. Chandler Pedini)

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:11:08
Chandler Pedini
I went to school for accounting but lasted a day and right back to roofing. It's kind of an archaic industry. You got a lot of the old dogs still using pen and paper. People know when you don't know what you're talking about.

00:00:11:09 - 00:00:26:26
Narrator
You're listening to The Roofer Report, the ultimate podcast for roofing professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs. Get insider access and hear about the highs, lows and tales of triumphs from thriving business owners. Brought to you by Roofr, hosted by Pete McKendrick.

00:00:26:28 - 00:00:43:03
Pete McKendrick
All right, everybody, welcome back to the Roofer Report. I am your host, Pete McKendrick, and we are back with another of our Roofr of the Month series. This has been an ongoing series for us for the last couple of years, and just a great series to be able to showcase some of the roofers that we have using our product.

00:00:43:03 - 00:01:00:24
Pete McKendrick
And, you know, a great combination of some of the newer folks in the industry, some of the more the veterans of the industry, if you want to call them that, that have been around a while. And so we get to hear some great stories, and I always like it when we get to feature someone who potentially is not the owner of the company.

00:01:00:27 - 00:01:24:06
Pete McKendrick
You know, obviously a different insight. It's always great to hear, you know, we we deal with a lot of folks using our product and, and on some of our webinars and things that are, you know, salespeople and production folks and all these kind of other operations managers and things. And, you know, it's not always the owner. And so excited to have this conversation today because we have a special guest like that and pumped to dive into it.

00:01:24:06 - 00:01:27:12
Pete McKendrick
So welcome to the show, Chandler Pedini. Thanks.

00:01:27:14 - 00:01:52:16
Chandler Pedini
Hey, Pete, thanks for having me on. Yeah. Not an owner. You know, right now I'm sending more of a sales and project manager role. Small business kind of have to jump into many roles, but those are my main ones. I'd say been in the industry for about 20 years at this point. My dad's claim to fame, as he had me up on roofs when I was ten years old, when he had his own business.

00:01:52:16 - 00:02:03:24
Chandler Pedini
So yeah, it's been fun, you know, I love it. I went to school for accounting, thinking that's what I wanted to do. I lasted a day and right back to roofing. You know, I can't get away from it, I love it.

00:02:03:25 - 00:02:22:09
Pete McKendrick
It's a it's always interesting, right? I always love to ask people like how they got into roofing because we always joke, you know, you don't find roofing roofing funds. You know, one grows up and says, I want to be a roofer when I grow up, right? So everyone, even even if the family, if it was the family business, tends to stray the other way and then end up back in it.

00:02:22:10 - 00:02:38:14
Pete McKendrick
Right. So yeah, you know, so it was interesting. Right. Like you grew up around it, obviously you said your dad had a business, you know pretty well you were pretty young. What made you decide that you wanted to go try something different outside of roofing?

00:02:38:16 - 00:02:53:12
Chandler Pedini
You know, I just seen a lot of my family's in construction. You know, it really takes a toll on your body. And I just see the way my dad's walking around, you know, he's 50, has had both of his hips replaced. You know, it's just really hard on the body, and I didn't want to do that to myself.

00:02:53:12 - 00:03:07:19
Chandler Pedini
I see how he's hurting. I didn't want to do that, you know? So I thought, yeah, let's in an office and look at numbers all day at a screen. And I just sounded good, but nope, could not make it work.

00:03:07:20 - 00:03:26:08
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. It's funny. I feel like once it's in your blood to be, like, out in the field, you know, it's very, very difficult to transition to a desk. You always want to be back out there. We talk about it all the time. I used to work in the field. Nick who? Who runs sales at Roofr. We talk quite often.

00:03:26:09 - 00:03:43:27
Pete McKendrick
He he his dad still owns a roofing company. He still gets out there on the weekends and stuff and helps when he can. And we talk about it quite often, how we kind of missed the field. Right. Like now that we're not there. So. So I totally get that. You know, it's definitely tough to to walk away from it.

00:03:43:27 - 00:03:45:21
Pete McKendrick
I think once you've been in it.

00:03:45:24 - 00:04:07:26
Chandler Pedini
And it was it was a really hard adjustment. You know, I was in the field for probably 15 years for the most part. In the last like five has been my office transition. And it was it's incredibly hard. You know, you're used to moving all the time and being on different job sites. And then I have to sit in front of a computer and a desk and I'm like, whoa, this sucks.

00:04:07:26 - 00:04:28:21
Chandler Pedini
What do I do now? Thankfully with what I do, I'm only at a desk half the time, probably. So I'm thankful for that. So it's kind of perfect. But yeah, you know, it's it's very hard seeing new people come into it. Like making the transition from working in the field and into it. It's just it's hard. You don't think it is because you're like, oh, it's going to be easy going to the office and it's it's not.

00:04:28:22 - 00:04:43:26
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. You think like, oh, it'll be great to not be in the field anymore. Like you said, it won't be as hard on my body and all that. And very shortly after that you're like, man, I wish I was back out there. So it does work out nice. So if you're in a position where you at least can get out sometimes into the field, you know, even if it's not every day.

00:04:43:26 - 00:04:57:28
Pete McKendrick
So how did you get going in roofing? Like what did you do first? Were you in sales. Were you obviously dad had you up on the roof, so it sounds like you had more of a production route of kind of coming into the industry. Has it always been more production ended for you?

00:04:58:02 - 00:05:12:24
Chandler Pedini
For the most part. So he had his own company and I started working on the ground, I think kind of where most people start cleaning up just garbage. And I remember when they got to the point where I was in high school and he's calling me, telling me I need to be "sick" so I can go out.

00:05:12:26 - 00:05:34:21
Chandler Pedini
And I love doing it, you know? And I got to spend time with my dad, and I got to be outside work and make great money as a 16 year old. Yeah. So was there for a probably on the ground for a good 3 or 4 years. And then finally I get up on the roof, grab a gun, and just start working and banging some shingles on, and it kind of just took off from there.

00:05:34:24 - 00:05:51:03
Chandler Pedini
And then after I went to college and tried accounting and realized, I don't want to do that, I still wanted to be around roofing, but that's kind of when I started transitioning to more of the office side of things. That's a little bit easier, which I'm so thankful for having the years in the field that I did.

00:05:51:03 - 00:06:06:15
Chandler Pedini
So it makes it easy to talk to homeowners about the product because I've installed it, I've done it, you know, get a lot of people that haven't done it that try talking about it. And people know when you don't know what you're talking about. So it's it's it's cool.

00:06:06:16 - 00:06:27:00
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. Definitely a competitive advantage when you have that knowledge. Right. And you even when you're dealing with not only the homeowners but also your internal folks, right? When you can say, like, hey, I've been in every aspect of this process, right? So I get it, you know? So tell us a little bit about where you're at now. You're at Five Star Roofing.

00:06:27:00 - 00:06:29:02
Pete McKendrick
You guys are located where Buffalo.

00:06:29:09 - 00:06:33:08
Chandler Pedini
Yeah, we're in Buffalo, New York where we get all the all the good weather.

00:06:33:10 - 00:06:36:08
Pete McKendrick
Nice. Yeah. Right. All that lake effect.

00:06:36:10 - 00:07:04:01
Chandler Pedini
Yep. So here we we do a lot of different stuff. You know, we do roofing, siding, kitchens, bath additions. We just built a 6200 square foot house, so we do quite a bit. But I would say roofing is our number one like sales factor or selling point. However, you want to say that, it's our moneymaker. I think last year we did 350 roofs.

00:07:04:01 - 00:07:30:24
Chandler Pedini
I believe the number was all residential. We really don't get into much insurance work. I think pretty much three crews busy all the time for roofing alone. Yeah. Last year I think we did just over 10 million in sales. This year. I think we're getting close to or being on track for about 12 million. So yeah, not too bad.

00:07:31:01 - 00:07:34:02
Pete McKendrick
Now, how big of an organization are you guys?

00:07:34:04 - 00:07:43:14
Chandler Pedini
So as far as actual Five Star employees, I think last I knew we were at about 42, 43 employees when if we're adding.

00:07:43:14 - 00:07:44:21
Pete McKendrick
In a good sized company.

00:07:44:22 - 00:08:06:08
Chandler Pedini
It's pretty good size. I think six of those are like main office staff, a couple salesmen. And we have we have a lot of good labor on our in-house team. If we're adding subcontractors into it, we're probably and that probably had 100 right there. So if quite a quite a bit of people that were keeping busy here.

00:08:06:08 - 00:08:33:23
Pete McKendrick
And yeah, it's interesting. Right. Because I think in today's day and age, the, you know, we're dealing we deal with a lot of companies that are fairly new. Right. At Roofr, you have a lot of small companies just getting started maybe in their first year or two of business. And you guys are becoming I feel like companies like yours, where you obviously have a pretty substantial staff in-house that's doing the labor work, is becoming a rarity, it seems like in this industry.

00:08:33:25 - 00:08:54:22
Pete McKendrick
Right. Like I, I seem like more and more companies that I talk to and folks that I have that I deal with are subbing out everything. Right. And they're becoming more like sales orgs that just sub out all the work. So it is refreshing to hear that you guys have a bunch of that, you know, labor staff in-house, because it doesn't seem like that's the way to go anymore.

00:08:54:23 - 00:08:57:06
Pete McKendrick
Right? So a bit unique.

00:08:57:07 - 00:09:18:02
Chandler Pedini
It is. You know, most people even in this area go the subcontractor route. But we have a an incredible labor pool. You know, I tell the guys all the time that we I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you guys. You know, I'm very thankful for them. And I know the work is hard. So our labor is gold, you know, and we try to treat them like that.

00:09:18:02 - 00:09:41:14
Chandler Pedini
The the culture we have here is just amazing and definitely field focused, I guess I would say, because they're the ones keeping the wheels turning. But labor definitely been one of our biggest struggles because we do try to have that in-house experience. We do have a couple of subcontractors, the ones we use, we vetted. We've worked with them for years, but no in-house is our main driver there.

00:09:41:15 - 00:09:46:04
Chandler Pedini
And it's a great selling point because like you said, most people do have the subcontractors.

00:09:46:07 - 00:10:01:08
Pete McKendrick
What would you say is the biggest advantage to having the in-house team? Is it is it the sales advantage to to be able to say like, hey, these are all our guys? Or are there other advantages from like a quality standpoint and things like that to having your own staff?

00:10:01:09 - 00:10:20:01
Chandler Pedini
That's quality does play into it. I think a big thing of it too, is more control. You know, what you're getting every day. Like if we're subbing somebody out, they could have one crew here one day, another crew here the next day. So we know what we're getting. We know our crew strengths, good roofs that we can send them on, roofs that we probably shouldn't set them on.

00:10:20:03 - 00:10:37:10
Chandler Pedini
We know they're good at talking with homeowners. It is a great selling point when we're talking to homeowners to, and I think it's right. Control, I think really that sounds horrible. It's the same. But that's the biggest the best part.

00:10:37:12 - 00:11:00:10
Pete McKendrick
Well, no. And I think that's, you know, obviously one of the biggest challenges that we hear from roofers is the more or less the handoff, right, is like, oh, I'm sold this. And then this is what was built. And maybe they don't always align. So having a staff that you guys have that control over and that you have those, you know, everyone's on the same page more or less.

00:11:00:12 - 00:11:16:04
Pete McKendrick
Right. Like we said like you're not it's not a subcontractor. You know what you're getting. You know who's out there in the field. You know you can trust them. It probably makes for a much seamless, much more seamless transition from sales to production when you have everybody under the same roof, I would think.

00:11:16:07 - 00:11:34:02
Chandler Pedini
Yeah, it definitely does. We have some pretty good processes set up where we let the homeowners know kind of exactly how the project's going to go, and then our in-house guys get handed even our subs to get handed a like a field sheet for each job that has everything detail what your project is, what the roof color is, drip edge, color, everything.

00:11:34:02 - 00:11:44:13
Chandler Pedini
So like you said, that handoff is where a lot of things get lost in translation. But that's one thing we really try to keep as tight as we can. Yeah, but yeah.

00:11:44:14 - 00:11:52:24
Pete McKendrick
No. That's cool. What would you say is probably the biggest challenge with having your own crews internally? Just finding them.

00:11:52:26 - 00:12:12:27
Chandler Pedini
Definitely finding them. Finding good labor is definitely hard because, you know, we're look at ourselves as kind of a more premium company. You know we've been around for 15 years where we're not the cheapest. Right. We pay our guys well. We want to have that good labor. But finding that good labor is extremely difficult, especially when you have guys saying, oh yeah, I know how to do this, I can do this, I can do everything.

00:12:12:28 - 00:12:37:12
Chandler Pedini
Then they come in and really have no clue what they're doing, or they're terrified of heights, or they just are clueless, you know? So finding them is hard. They're also very expensive, I would say, compared to a subcontractor, you have to give them a truck, trailer, insurance, everything. So they're definitely have a higher, higher back end cost than using a subcontractor, which is probably why most companies just use subcontractors.

00:12:37:12 - 00:12:46:04
Chandler Pedini
But I think the trade off is worth it. And I think our whole team is kind of seeing that the benefits outweigh the costs.

00:12:46:07 - 00:12:51:24
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. Interesting. Now, how long have you guys been? How long has Five Star been in business?

00:12:51:26 - 00:13:09:00
Chandler Pedini
I believe we've been around for 14 years, 14 or 15 years. Started off doing landscaping and I believe my boss asked my boss, hey, do you know anybody can do your roof and you don't want to turn people down? So you start doing the roofs and then it kind of snowballed into kitchens, beds and everything else.

00:13:09:01 - 00:13:26:24
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. So you guys are taking on a little bit of everything, which how how is that to manage from a production standpoint? Because I think, you know, obviously a lot of roofers especially like right now. Right. A lot of places roofing has been fairly slow. And so roofers are looking for other ways, other alternative ways to potentially generate some revenue.

00:13:26:24 - 00:13:38:06
Pete McKendrick
So you're seeing more and more roofers start to take on additional trades. And what are some of the challenges that you guys have run into with doing essentially becoming a general contractor?

00:13:38:08 - 00:14:03:08
Chandler Pedini
You know, it is hard because there's a lot of like multi trade training you have to do right. Like so our if we don't have roofs, we want our guys to go to the framing crew or go install tile for the day. So I think the hardest part is training, you know, and keeping everybody educated on everything. Because like you said, if we don't have a roof for a day or it's slow or we want to keep our guys busy, we need to keep them paid and eating.

00:14:03:08 - 00:14:12:02
Chandler Pedini
So cross trade training, it's kind of a twist, but probably the hardest part there now.

00:14:12:03 - 00:14:25:19
Pete McKendrick
Yeah, that's a good point. What I'm really interesting too, is that you guys have in-house guys now that you are full time, right. Like they're working 12 months a year for you guys, and you guys are in an area where weather is a major factor.

00:14:25:22 - 00:14:50:10
Chandler Pedini
Yeah. Buffalo is we're known for our harsh winters. Yeah. Which, you know, we try to keep our guys busy as much as we can. We have a lot of people that call in and we're like, oh, that's perfect winter work, your kitchen or framing or whatever. So we try to keep as much as we can. You know, I think we shut down our roofing probably right around from Christmas to March 1st.

00:14:50:13 - 00:14:58:13
Chandler Pedini
Some of the guys want to hop on unemployment and just keep their time off. Some people want to keep working, so we kind of keep it open to whatever they want to do.

00:14:58:15 - 00:15:16:18
Pete McKendrick
Yeah, but the versatility probably gives you guys some flexibility there that, you know, a lot of other companies don't have in a situation like that. Like I know a lot of companies just flat out pretty much closed the doors, you know. So you know, you guys diversifying into those other trades allows those guys to continue working if they want to.

00:15:16:20 - 00:15:21:03
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. You said at least you have some other projects that are winter projects, right?

00:15:21:09 - 00:15:34:20
Chandler Pedini
Yeah. It is nice because you know, these people going on employment or you don't have work for them, chances are they're going to try to find some work elsewhere and they're not going to be back in the spring. So it's a it's a, it's a it's a hard struggle keeping everybody happy.

00:15:34:22 - 00:15:35:01
Pete McKendrick
Yeah.

00:15:35:02 - 00:15:57:26
Chandler Pedini
But you know, it's it's cool. Something else I was just thinking about is when we have our roofing guys on our framing crew, for example, it helps them when it comes to roofing. They know how the house codes together. It really helps them. We always say think like a raindrop, like how was water going to flow? So when they're looking at a roof, they're able to understand the inside of it a little bit better, help them diagnose issues and figure it out.

00:15:58:02 - 00:16:17:27
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. That's interesting. Right. Because you would think like when you said like you had crews and stuff like that and you guys did all this work. My first thought was, okay, a lot of these guys are probably specialists, right? Like, you probably have a roofing crew and you probably have a siding crew and you have a, you know, but you don't you guys are cross-training these guys to at least have a fairly good understanding and be able to move from one crew to the other if need be.

00:16:18:01 - 00:16:39:27
Pete McKendrick
And I think that's great. Like that's really good. I mean, that's super beneficial. I mean, that's when I was out in the field. That's how we did it. You know, like we did something similar. We you know, we built houses from scratch. We renovated houses, we did all kinds of stuff. And you kind of, you know, one day you're framing in the next day, you know, you might be nailing trim on somewhere, you know, so you had to be able to understand every facet of it.

00:16:39:27 - 00:16:59:00
Pete McKendrick
And I think it made us more well-rounded collectively as a team. Right. Because people had their strengths and weaknesses. But at least you had an understanding of what the other guys were doing, and you could go to a job and pitch in if you needed to, or help manage a subcontractor if that was the case, you know. And so it is a cool approach.

00:16:59:00 - 00:17:08:03
Pete McKendrick
I like what that you guys are doing that with the team and getting everyone involved, kind of making a multifaceted so and it makes them more valuable as a as an employee. Right.

00:17:08:08 - 00:17:25:10
Chandler Pedini
Yep. And you know it keeps things interesting. You know, you're doing something different every day. That's when I was roofing actually, I got so sick of it, you know, just banging shingles on, every day, repetitive. It is. So you know it's exciting getting into do something new every day or almost every day or being on a different trade.

00:17:25:10 - 00:17:41:24
Chandler Pedini
And it was cool for me too, because I came from mainly roofing with some siding knowledge. And then when I came to Five Star, I'm like, oh well, I got a lot more. I have to learn which again, it all ties together and it helps with everything. Knowing framing helps with roofing, siding and just everything.

00:17:41:26 - 00:18:07:24
Pete McKendrick
Now I like this. You guys are a 14 year old company, so obviously you come from a the company comes from a time when technology was probably not widely used. Right? Probably it was a lot of manual stuff going on. Obviously now you guys are using Roofr. What are some of the advantages that you guys have seen to implementing tech, and what are some of the things that you guys are doing on a tech, on the tech side that you think are helping the company?

00:18:07:26 - 00:18:34:26
Chandler Pedini
So, you know, I, I'm very technology focused, which most roofing companies aren't, or most people in roofing aren't. I think it's kind of an archaic industry where a lot of you got a lot of the old dogs still using pen and paper, like you said. But, you know, customers now are so online and using everything online. First thing, like, I know, even when I want to buy something, I'm going on Google and typing in looking for reviews.

00:18:34:28 - 00:18:57:16
Chandler Pedini
So that's what people are doing. And you know, when it comes to roofing, you have to keep up with the technology that people are using. And Roofr's been awesome with that. You know, I think the biggest thing we've used is the Instant Estimator, which has been huge for us, we've got on our website and we in the first month, I think we had 35 leads off of it or something, which I thought was great.

00:18:57:18 - 00:19:19:19
Chandler Pedini
And, you know, it's just awesome to be able to send a customer to our website and they can have a price for their roof within five minutes at the most. And it's pretty accurate. And they understand it's not a perfect science. But in the Amazon age, I like to call it everybody wants their price immediately. So that's been a huge value add for us.

00:19:19:21 - 00:19:28:10
Pete McKendrick
Now, are you guys you guys just funneling your marketing to send them to the website to the Instant Estimator, or do you have the Instant Estimator? Other places or so.

00:19:28:10 - 00:19:42:13
Chandler Pedini
Right now we own the Instant Estimator just on our website, and it's all we're not doing really any marketing for. It's just people going on our website and seeing it and they're like, oh that's cool. Yeah. And filling it out. And if they're interested in a roof and they're going to fill it out and we get the information and call them.

00:19:42:13 - 00:19:58:03
Chandler Pedini
And you know, it's a really cool tool. And honestly, when I first I seen it on one of our competitors websites, honestly, and I was looking at it and I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that existed. And then I had to do my research and it was it's just amazing. It's incredible what technology can do nowadays.

00:19:58:10 - 00:20:15:20
Pete McKendrick
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, of how is it working for you as far as like because I think one of the things, one of the questions we always get is like around like, oh, how do I put my pricing on the Instant Estimator? Oh, my competitors are going to be able to see my pricing, you know.

00:20:15:21 - 00:20:31:15
Pete McKendrick
Oh, are the leads actually good leads coming in. So how has that been? You said you got you guys got a bunch of leads right in the very beginning of using it, you know, what was the quality of the leads coming through the Instant Estimator. Had they been good leads? I mean, are you guys able to close off of those leads?

00:20:31:15 - 00:20:44:12
Pete McKendrick
Because obviously if someone's going to your website, they're going there with a purpose, right? It's not like they're just browsing. They obviously are interested. So how has the how do you think the Instant Estimator has helped as far as your closing.

00:20:44:14 - 00:21:09:04
Chandler Pedini
Closing an Instant Estimator lead, I'd call it, is a lot easier than closing a regular lead because, you know, they're going on there, they're filling out their information, giving us their phone number, email, everything. They're there. A lot more likely to be there. Or they're definitely more interested than just like a window shopper. Right. So those leads are they already know the price that they're going to get or close to it before we even get there.

00:21:09:04 - 00:21:30:02
Chandler Pedini
So if they don't like the price, they're really not going to call us or they're not going to waste our time. But most of the people that use it know where we're going to be at. Our prices are always real close to them. You know, the leads are awesome. From there, I think our average close rate on a, just on a regular lead is anywhere from 30 to 40%.

00:21:30:03 - 00:21:35:24
Chandler Pedini
Our Instant Estimator leads, if I had to guess, probably 50 to 65%. Yeah.

00:21:35:25 - 00:21:37:22
Pete McKendrick
That's a pretty good job. Yeah.

00:21:37:24 - 00:21:51:00
Chandler Pedini
Yes they are. They're great leads. Gets rid of the tire kickers like I was saying. And yeah yeah they're lot lot better leads. I honestly I had a feeling it was going to do well. I didn't realize it was going to work as good as it does well.

00:21:51:00 - 00:22:21:06
Pete McKendrick
And I think that's a huge point that you made there that a lot of people miss, right? Is that not only does it produce lead, does it help you, you know, to funnel those leads in, but it gets rid, you know, it leads out a lot of the other things that would be very time consuming, right? If you're just, you know, if these people were just filling out, let's say, like a, you know, an interest form or, you know, clicking on a button on a Facebook ad or something like that, there's still a lot of chance that, you know, the price is not going to be right for them.

00:22:21:08 - 00:22:37:10
Pete McKendrick
They're going to be out of your service area, all these all these other things that could be happening. But the fact that they're filling out that Instant Estimator, getting that price, it's qualifying them as well. Right. And like you said, it's weeding out a lot of the bad apples. And so it's really saving you guys a bunch of time as well.

00:22:37:13 - 00:22:54:24
Chandler Pedini
It definitely is. And you know, it's I think it's also almost qualifying us even more that we have a tool like that on our website. It just makes us look like we're that next level company that has the new technology, which I mean, we are, but it makes it look like that makes it look a little bit better.

00:22:54:27 - 00:23:09:28
Pete McKendrick
I like it. What? So what is what is the future here the next couple of years look like for Five Star. Like, what are you guys looking to do? Are you guys looking to expand out of the territory where you guys are now or or what is what's the actual plan for the company?

00:23:10:01 - 00:23:38:12
Chandler Pedini
So our 2027 goal is to do less work and make more money. So just be more efficient, you know, use technology. AI is been coming into play a lot, even playing around with a lot of that and seeing where we can just have better processes, having process in place for everything and not just implementing good technology and yeah, try and keep profits high.

00:23:38:14 - 00:23:57:12
Pete McKendrick
Yeah, I like that. I think that, you know, so many times when you ask that question, you get like, oh yeah, we want to, you know, expand the next town over or open more offices or tackle new trades and stuff like that. I like that. That's probably one of the best answers I had, is may do less work to make more money and just make ourselves more efficient.

00:23:57:13 - 00:24:20:20
Pete McKendrick
I mean, that's a great a great way to look at it. You know, we we had one of our older Roofr of the Months out of Texas, he owns a company out of Texas, and he talked a lot in the last podcast I did with him about controlling costs. And I think that's such an overlooked piece. Right. It's like if you get really dial in those costs and get a good handle on them, you can make yourself pretty profitable.

00:24:20:27 - 00:24:44:10
Pete McKendrick
You know, it had a good hit to the bottom line. And I think that that just gets overlooked, especially if the money is flowing in. We don't necessarily, hey, we're making money. Don't necessarily worry about the cost column as much, you know, and in these times, you know, where I know a lot of companies are slow. It's a great opportunity to kind of revisit that and be like, hey, where can we maybe be a little leaner and a little bit more efficient to, you know, squeeze a little bit more out of the bottom line?

00:24:44:13 - 00:25:04:14
Chandler Pedini
Yeah. You know, we've definitely spent a lot of time this year in the last like meeting with different suppliers, just trying to kind of leverage our buying power even to get better pricing because like you said, that we spend millions of dollars a year on roofing materials and materials in general. So that is a big item. And like you said, just tracking the real numbers.

00:25:04:14 - 00:25:19:27
Chandler Pedini
So you're making enough money. You really don't need to worry about what you're spending. But when it comes down to it, you do. It's a lot of money. And you know, that's something that I'd like to look at to, especially. So I did go to school for accounting. I love numbers, love just talking about money and math and all that.

00:25:19:27 - 00:25:24:26
Chandler Pedini
So it's it is cool to look at. It's not the fun part of roofing, but it's definitely needed.

00:25:24:28 - 00:25:40:03
Pete McKendrick
Well, and I think it's one of those things that like like we just said, right, if the money's coming in. We don't really worry about it. We don't really look at it, you know? But there's a lot to be said for it to really understand. Like, do you really understand your costs and how they're affecting your company? Right.

00:25:40:04 - 00:25:59:06
Pete McKendrick
You know, like a lot of times we used to find out, like I used to help companies get set up and you get into the conversation of profit margin and talking about their profit margins. And when they really came down to it, their profit margins weren't necessarily what they thought they were or what they had listed. You know, what they were selling the jobs for.

00:25:59:06 - 00:26:06:26
Pete McKendrick
And a lot of that was just because they just didn't understand or didn't have the control over the job costing like they thought they did.

00:26:06:28 - 00:26:24:21
Chandler Pedini
Yeah, we've seen it. We do. We track most of our invoices because, you know, we have these prices set up with people and they could change just all of a sudden changes. So we do we check all of we check everything making sure we're getting charged what we should be getting charged, making sure we're selling jobs where we should be selling jobs.

00:26:24:21 - 00:26:34:26
Chandler Pedini
And like you said, just trekking those profit margins because you could you're making money, you're doing good, but leaving a lot on the table if you're not checking on those numbers.

00:26:34:28 - 00:26:54:15
Pete McKendrick
Yeah well awesome man. Well, this has been a great conversation. I love that you guys have some really cool stuff going on. Like I said, definitely some things that you guys are doing that are a bit unique. You know, especially in today's day and age, kind of a more traditional way. Like back in the day, I used to see a lot more companies that had in-house employees and much bigger staffs.

00:26:54:15 - 00:27:11:04
Pete McKendrick
And so cool to see you guys still doing that and and still able to make it profitable and still able to dial in the costing with, with all that. So very cool man, and congrats on being Roofr of the Month. We're excited to have you guys. And I know you guys have been great users of the product.

00:27:11:04 - 00:27:36:14
Pete McKendrick
So, man, I look forward to seeing what you guys do here in 2027. Always like to see when someone says, hey, I'm just looking to be more efficient. I can't wait to see. As a process guy, I love process stuff. I love to see people getting more efficient and figuring out ways to do that. So it's always amazes me how creative people can be when they're trying to figure out how to, you know, make dial the process in a little bit more and get a little leaner.

00:27:36:14 - 00:27:43:02
Pete McKendrick
So definitely be interested to see what you guys come up with there. So but thank you man for jumping on. This has been fantastic.

00:27:43:04 - 00:27:50:02
Chandler Pedini
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah I was definitely excited to come on and talk and it's been great. Glad to. Glad to be a part of it.

00:27:50:03 - 00:28:10:01
Pete McKendrick
Yeah. Thank you everybody for listening. We hope you guys got some good stuff out of this. You know, obviously what Chandler and his team are doing a bit, like I said, a bit different than than what we've heard out of a lot of our other guests here lately. So, you know, excited for you guys to to dive into what he's doing a little bit more and see if you can apply some of it in your business.

00:28:10:01 - 00:28:31:06
Pete McKendrick
And definitely the Instant Estimator stuff. That's fantastic. Glad that we were able to make such an impact with that tool for you guys. And you know, hopefully for others out there. And so yeah, really appreciate everybody jumping on. Really appreciate Chandler and the Five Star team for Roofr of the Month this month. And we will see you guys all next time on the Roofer report.

00:28:31:07 - 00:28:32:00
Pete McKendrick
Thanks everybody.

00:28:32:01 - 00:28:43:07
Speaker 4
Hey everybody. Thank you for listening. Check us out next time on the roofer podcast. But until then be sure to like us, subscribe to us and check out all our other episodes on YouTube and Spotify.

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