Million-Dollar Rookie: How Capital City Roofing Tripled Their First-Year Goal

‍Pete: Welcome back to the Roofr Report, everyone. I am your host, Pete McKendrick, and I am excited to dive into yet another, episode of our Roofr of the Month. this has been just a fantastic, idea that our team came up with we've done a bunch of these Roofr of the month and we've talked to some really great roofers, all experience levels, a number of years in business, brand new businesses. we just did a couple recently. I recorded a few that were, fairly new businesses and some of the challenges they were facing was really, fantastic to hear how they'd overcome those. and some of the motivations are always great to hear. Love the back stories, right. Roofing is always a very colorful industry of, how people got into it. we're excited to be joined today by one of our newest Roofrs of the month, Brad Strawbridge with Capital City Roofing. Welcome Brad.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Thanks Pete. Glad to be here.

Pete: Yeah, excited to hear the story, man. So you guys are based out of where, out of Atlanta, correct.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah. Atlanta Metro, John's Creek, to be specific. It's a northeast suburb of Atlanta.

Pete: Okay. Nice. Yeah. And a great, very competitive market there. So this, this will be good.  

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah.  

Pete: yeah.  

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : super competitive. Yeah.

Pete: there. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, so, so interested to dive into it a bit today, but, give us a little background really quick on Capital City Roofing. You know, how big are you guys?

How long have you been in business? how many employees do you have? Things like that.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah, so this is a relatively new venture. I think we hit our one year mark later this month, the 28th. Of this month will be our one year mark. and you know, I tell you, whenever I was getting it going, I told my wife, she's my business partner, I said. If we do a million, you know, our first 12 months, I think that'd be okay.

well we tripled that and so it's growing quickly. we've brought on a partner, they're a husband and wife team also. and with that, they're licensed general contractors. So that's gonna be huge for us here in Georgia because. You don't even need a license to be a specialty contractor in Georgia.

it's like the wild, wild west, you know, you've got everybody with a pickup truck wants to start a roofing company. They can do it in like two days. and so, you know, being a GC will be a great key differentiator for us. and we're building custom timber homes, you know, kind of in the mountain areas of Georgia and things like that too.

we've got 10 employees now, and we're just really excited, to take some market share from the super competitive market.  

Pete: Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I worked with a contractor in, Atlanta Metro area a while back, a number of years ago when I was with another company, and they've gone a similar route. You know, they started out as strictly a roofing company. They grew very quickly and, you know, then they kind of switched gears and I think they've moved away from roofing and more into like the general contracting, side of the business.  

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah. And you know, and, and I'll tell you from a dollar per minute perspective. There's no other trade that's better than roofing, so we'll never get out of roofing. we're building homes because we're passionate about it. I mean, the lowest ticket build that we'll do is 2 million.

and they're completely custom log cabins. so it's, it's just as much as a hobby or a passion as it is. $2 million. It's a cost plus basis, right? so cost plus 20%, which on $2 million is pretty decent, but that project will take 12 to 18 months. so it's just, it's kind of something in the background  

That we're doing. But we will always be laser focused on roofing for sure.

Pete: Nice. So a year in business, right. Obviously you guys have grown very quickly and I'm sure that that's come with significant challenges. probably some unexpected stuff. So let's back up a second. Let's talk a little bit about your backstory and how did you get into roofing altogether?

how did you become a roofer?

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah, so I came from the corporate world, I guess is what people say. I started out with Lowe's, long time ago, as an hourly associate, in my early twenties, started off as a, delivery driver. I drove the box truck delivering appliances for a while.

I asked, my teammates who were driving the flatbeds, how much do you guys make? And they told me and I said, what I gotta do to get that job? And he says, get a CDL. So I went and got a CDL and I started driving the flatbed and delivering the building materials.

And then I had, actually my very first mentor ever, he was the general manager of the store I was in. He came up to me. I had just gotten back from my route and he said, Hey, what are you doing? And I said. I'm working, what are you doing? And, he was like, no, no, no, no, no. He's like, what are you doing?

He's like, you got leadership potential, you know, blah, blah, blah. you know, I've got this position, I want you to come do it. And I was like, I've got no interest in that. I was like, I don't, I don't know anything about anything inside the building. You know, I'm, I'm good. And he was like, no, I'm telling you,  

And so I said, okay. So I ended up becoming the department manager of the plumbing department, which if you, if you've been to the plumbing department at Lowe's, there's, Thousands of skews, right?  

Pete: Yeah.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : I'm some guy that was just, you know, delivering bunks of lumber and now I'm in charge of inventory and a p and l for a department with all these skews.

anyway, long story short. Ended up having a knack for it. Moved up, through the ranks, was a general manager, and then got promoted to, it was actually what brought me to Atlanta. I was the district manager, of in-home services. So I did for Atlanta with Lowe's, what I'm doing for myself now, you know, kind of in charge of.

Training this, the in-home sales consultants, you know, hiring and firing the subcontractors, holding the licenses, that kind of thing, right? and fell in love with home services. And then I started thinking about, you know, obviously analyzing the different verticals that, that we, installed at Lowe's.

and I was like, you know, roofing and HVAC are fantastic. COVID proved that they were recession proof, especially roofing. for us, we, I mean almost five x through that time period. And so that made me pivot, right? So I pivoted into roofing specifically at the time, with a kind of a mid-size commercial, roofing company here in Atlanta.

Went from kind of doing, you know, maybe 20% of my book of business at Lowe's being residential roofing to now, you know, I'm the director of, service for a $8 million a year service department for a commercial roofing company.

Right. And so, but you know, whenever I, whenever I took that job, they told me, they said, Hey. You're never gonna get outta roofing. You're in it. Now. You're in it. And, and it was true, you know, because, you know, I saw not, not only the money, right, money's great, but like, that's not what I, that's not what makes me tick.

You know, like I'm about bigger picture things, right? Like helping people. which in roofing you can big time because a. It's the literal Roofr over your head. Right? It's kind of kind of important, but B, the amount of, I don't know, I hate to say it, but there's just contractors that don't have great customer service.

Right. It's like the home services industry. It's home services. Right. And like the main service in my mind. Is customer service. Right? And so like, I don't know, I just get a sense of fulfillment from it, right? Like personally and professionally. And the money's great, obviously. and you know, it got to the point with that one company when we were starting to plan, opening satellite branches in other states and that was my, I was captaining that initiative.

And, you know, I told my wife, I was like. I think we should do this. I think we should do this. I was like, at Lowe's, I did it at a very high level, you know, $481 million p and l. but with Lowe's, there's always that question mark, because you don't really have to think for yourself.  

Right. You know, SOPs, processes, unlimited resources. Like it's just like execute. But then whenever I did it for a small business. I delivered great results. I said, I can do this, and so we did, we just kind of took a step out in faith. My wife and I both, we cashed out our 4 0 1 Ks, invested it in the business and, and you know, full steam ahead.

Pete: Yeah. It's interesting that you said I think that the customer service part and being able to help people is a huge. Part of this. And I think, more and more people are recognizing that opportunity. we always say roofing is a grudge purchase. Right? It's not something you buy because you're like, Hey, let's go buy a roof this weekend.

Right? Like, it's something that you're probably buying in distress, you know, you've got an issue, you had a storm, whatever the case may be. So, yeah, it's interesting, you can really get in there and make a difference. And I think it's one of the few, right? Where you can truly make a difference.

Like you said, it's literally the roof over your head. So, and that's what Roofr been kind of a formed on the same idea as like, Hey, what can we do to help facilitate this for people and really ultimately help everyone get a roof over their head. So, yeah, I like that. So talk about a little bit, obviously, a year in business. Now, let's talk about a little bit of the challenges that you've met. Like you said, you grew really fast, probably faster than you expected, what are some of the hurdles that you guys had to get over, because of that?

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Well, I tell you the first thing is. I mean customer acquisition, right? I mean, just getting in front of customers, especially if you're in a competitive market. and the digital marketing space is a lot like the roofing space. It's oversaturated

Pete: Yeah.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : And so that was the first challenge was deciphering. what marketing to use, what lead aggregators to use, what agencies to use, What kind of ad spend do I want to run? Do I run it on Facebook? Do I want to run it on Google? Do I wanna run it on both? and figuring that out.

I was kind of just, throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping that it would stick probably the first 90 days. Right.

Pete: Sure.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : luckily I didn't hemorrhage. Too much cash before I figured out, about three to four different channels that I wanted to allocate my marketing budget to.

And that's helped. the second hurdle is just the hiring piece. I don't know what it is. I think ever since COVID when people were working from home or not working at all, I don't think the workforce has really recovered after that.

You know, it's hard for me to find really good people that want to do a good job and have any type of ambition to want to be anything more than mediocre. Right. And when you're trying to build a business and when you're trying to build a brand and you have high expectations. You know, I'm not just gonna hire a warm body just to have a warm body.

I need to find great people to deliver great customer service. and it's just, harder to do, right? But anything worth doing isn't easy. And so, I would say those are the two biggest things. the rest of it is simple, right? At the end of the day, if you keep the customer in the middle of it all.

And you don't take things personally. That's the, that's a big takeaway for a lot of people that are watching this right now. Don't take things too personally. Right. When you've got that customer and you put a Roofr on and you put their gutters on and their face, there's 10 feet of facia that's rotten and you know, do you try to nickel and dime 'em for $12 a foot?

Or do you say, you know what, I'm gonna take care of it. I've, I've got you. You know, a perfect job now. Right. You take care of it. And I'll just tell you, losing a little bit of margin there, it's gonna pay dividends down the road. and again, don't take things personally. 'cause people, they nitpick and they, they have opinions and that's just the way it is.

They get so frustrated about these little things homeowners do, and I'm like, man, listen, like that's their house. Like, that's their sanctuary. Like that's everything to them. So don't take it personally. They would respond that way, whether it was you or anybody else.

Pete: It's very true. I was a contractor in Florida and we dealt with, you know, sometimes it's the most. I would say the most unlikely people. Right? It's the people that you wouldn't think some of the biggest headaches

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah,

Pete: it's just, you just gotta kind of move on and

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : I.

Pete: take it to heart and, happen, right?

You just move on to the next job. I always ask this question, especially when people bring up hiring, right? Hiring, who would you say has been, what position would you say has been the most integral hire for you, in the first year of business?

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : A bookkeeper. Yeah, yeah. You know, because if you're doing it for real, right, like if you want to, start a roofing company and put on a roof a week and, you know, pay the bills and just kind of do that, then maybe you don't need a bookkeeper. But if you're gonna do it for real and you want to do anything over $500,000 a year in revenue, hire a bookkeeper because you know you're not gonna want to do it.

it's tedious, it's boring. It takes up way too much time. That's not a revenue producing activity, right? So anything that you can do and bookkeeping is the main time. anything that you're doing that's not pointed at generating more revenue. Is a waste for you to do, for the owner of the company to do.

Like you either need to be working on the business strategically thinking about how you're going to grow it, but if you're working in the business, it better be something that's revenue producing.

Pete: Yeah, I think it's something that new business owners fall prey to so easily, right? you're working in the business, you're putting out fires, you are running all the appointments, you're wearing 15 different hats instead of, you're essentially not working on the business. I ran a landscaping company when I was younger and I was totally guilty of that, right? the day-to-day operations, managing the crews and being on site and dealing with the customers left me very little time to get out there and actually grow the business and, you know, strategically figure out how to business. Needed to grow and, and what we needed to do long term. obviously I was young and making mistakes and looking back on it now, it's very obvious that we did that. but you get stuck, right? It is very easy to get stuck being that owner that's, in the business more than you're working on the business.

And, you know, it's a bad place to get caught because it can be tough to get yourself back out of that, you know.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Oh yeah. and everybody's guilty of it, right? I mean, I think for me, like I like being customer facing. Like, I like engaging with customers. Like I enjoy that. And so it doesn't take much for me to make an excuse to be like, you know, see a lead come in and be like. I got it. I'm free.

I'm gonna go run this appointment when I could just give it to one of my guys and I could be doing things that would, generate 10 more leads maybe, or something, so you gotta navigate that too though.  

Take that away from me, then I won't be happy. and then that's important because your team needs to see you happy. so there's definitely a fine line to work in the business. You know, lead from the front, teach coach, and train in the field, right. Then be able to delegate those things and be okay with them not doing it as good as you're gonna do it.

'cause they're not gonna do it as good as you're gonna do it. They're just not right. But you gotta be okay with it.

Pete: Yeah, for sure. what have you guys done now? We talked, we hit it on it earlier. you are in the Atlanta market, which is a very competitive market. There's some incredibly large companies operating there, specifically in the roofing space. What have you guys done to differentiate yourself and to stand out as a brand, and be able to grab some of that market share?

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Well, I tell you one of the things, Roofr helps us do, and it's speed to lead. I guarantee you, I respond to my customers faster than anybody with a real deal, beautifully written proposal. I can be driving and get a lead through my instant estimator and get a notification. I've done this several times.

I can pull off on the shoulder of the road. I can log in, I can do a DIY measurement, I can build my proposal and I can have that customer a really close. the only variable in price would be when we go there in person if they need some decking, I can give them a really good estimate in two minutes.

I mean, I'm good at it, obviously now,  

Pete: You get it honed.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Right. It's kind of like, you know, these results are not typical kind of, disclaimer, but, 'cause I'm pretty much an expert at Roofr, in the product they get like, because with Roofr you're gonna get out of it what you put in it.

I've spent hours designing my proposals and they're beautiful. I'd put 'em up against anybody out there. So that customer, they get that because I send it to 'em before I even. schedule the appointment. I say, Hey, I want to get this in front of you so you have time to review it and think about any questions that you might have.

So when we do the consultation, it makes it easier for 'em. and they get it. And when I tell you I close 75% of the time. If it's a qualified appointment and I can present to that customer, I'm closing 75% of the time.

And a lot of it has to do with how I use Roofr. the other thing is just being honest. My key differentiator when I talk to a homeowner is, listen, there's three things that matter. It's the quality of the material and the quality of the workmanship. It is the warranty and it's the price. Now, because of my certifications I hold with my manufacturers, I offer the best product there is with the best warranty there is.

And my price, because I don't have the overhead, is typically better if it's comparable, right? And when I explain that to a homeowner and they're an intelligent person, they realize. This is the same exact stuff, same warranty. This guy's price is significantly lower. I'm gonna buy it from him, right?

and so that's, you know, I have a very high close rate, but obviously I don't get in front of as many customers because I don't have the marketing spend. I've got a competitor around me that spends a $1 million a month, 1 million a month.

Pete: That's crazy.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : I spend 30,000 a month. There's a big discrepancy there.

Right.

Pete: Yeah.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : but Rome wasn't built in a day, you know, and I'll say this for, new roofing companies or maybe people that are, salesmen watching this, if you're going to get into it and you just, want to be a millionaire, immediately, don't get into it.

If you don't enjoy the journey, just don't do it because you have to be built for this. you really do. I regret I didn't do it sooner. I like it when people are like, oh, it's Atlanta. Oh my gosh. it's so competitive.

I love it. I love that competition

Pete: Yeah.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : at the end of the day, like I'm a confident person and I think I'm halfway intelligent and I think that I've got, you know, I can kind of communicate those things pretty well to homeowners. And so for me now it's just about awareness. You know, how can I get.

My brand both, you know, my company's brand and my personal brand in front of people. and that's all we have to do. And then, I know that we'll end up taking some type of a significant market share.

Pete: I love it. No, it's it is interesting. We talk often, about how some of the numbers, and how you're seven times more likely to win a job if you're the first person in the door, you know? and I think you win 40% more jobs if you contact that person within an hour.

So It's just like incredible numbers when you are quick, right? Like when you have that speed to lead, especially if you have that speed to lead combined with, like you said, a quality product, like you're putting forth, a professional look and you're coming in there, polished and ready to go.

I do like the fact that you guys are presenting a quote before you're even meeting with the customer. Kind of like, Hey, here it is. Take your time, review it, and then we'll talk more about it when I get there. 'cause I think that's, A different approach than what we're normally used to, like traditionally in the roofing space, right?

Like obviously most guys are, you know, the old school way of doing things, which was, let's go out and take a look and then I'll tell you what it's gonna be. I'm sure it's a bit shocking to customers to, you know, get a quote. say like, Hey, I haven't even met this guy, and he's already able to quote my roof.

And I'm sure that drums up, some good questions as to how you got to those numbers and stuff and allows you to explain it. So yeah, it's an interesting approach. I like it a very novel way of doing it. talk about where you guys are looking to go in the next, you know, let's say three to five years with Capital City.

Like what's the plan?

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Yeah, so I named it Capital City, roofing because I can at least have a branch in every capital city so I can have at least 50 locations. Right. well, we're gonna start in the southeast, but we wanna expand. we have our general contractor's license in seven states, so.

it just makes sense to do business there. and so for us it's just about, the working capital to do it, as soon as we accumulate enough working capital to open another branch and be smart about it too. 'cause I'm not trying to do something that's unsuccessful just for the sake of saying.

I have another branch somewhere. Right. and then obviously down the road if, if we can find some strategic partnerships or things like that and it evolves into, something different, then that'll be fine. but definitely the southeast, you know, my wife and I, we have. All of our family is in Florida.

and so, you know, we're definitely, and I'm from Tallahassee, so it's the capital of Florida. Matter of fact, funny story, the first business I ever, started, when I was 18 years old, I started a painting company. I worked for my uncle painting apartments for summer jobs when I was like 16,  

and I asked the guy. Who was there as a contractor. 'cause I was getting like $5 an hour to roll paint, you know, these apartments. and I was like, Hey man, how much do you get to paint this apartment? He was like, I get $250. And I was like, what? I get 10 bucks, you know?

And so I went and got, the day I turned 18, I got my LLC and I started a painting company. I called my uncle 'cause it was his, apartment complex. I said, Hey. I'm a painter now and I want to get paid like the other painters. But anyway, it was Capital City painting and now it's kind of full circle with Capital City Roofing.

But yeah, I mean, we want to grow, that's kind of the bottom line.

Pete: Very cool. Yeah, I think that's a great, great way to look at it. And I think it, it's smart. Like you said, you guys are gonna be smart about growing it, you know, not just try to dive in. 'cause I think, you found a good bit of success here early on and I think, people get. Excited, right? and try to go too fast and try to grow too fast and lose track of, the process starts to fall apart or, you know, things aren't easily, conveyed when you start to open other branches and things like that. So Brad, I really appreciate you jumping on.

This has been fantastic. lots of good information. you guys are very knowledgeable for someone who's only a year in business, right? Like you've already got a good, plan and a good process in place. And, it looks like you guys are, destined for some big things.

we're excited to be along for the ride here at Roofr. congrats on being a Roofr of the month and, excited to see where you guys go here in the next couple years and hopefully Roofr can stay along for the ride here and help you guys out and continue to be, an integral part of the business.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : Awesome. yeah, definitely. I tell my team all the time, I said, Hey, we will always use Roofr, right? Like even from the CRM perspective, if we end up having to get some type of enterprise, CRM system. I will always use Roofr as my estimating software there, and I've used them all.

there's nothing that's as fast and as, and again, if you put the work in the proposal templates, it's beautiful and it's seamless, and again, it's fast.

Pete: Yeah. it makes a huge difference. Well, thank you, man. I appreciate you jumping on and chatting with us today. And, I wish you the best of luck here in the upcoming years and, like I said, we'll keep an eye on it. And we wanna thank everybody else for joining us on, the Roofr Report and another Roofr of the month, we will see you guys next time.

Brad Strawbridge | Capital City Roofing | : All right. Thanks.  

Pete: Yeah.

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