Old School Roofer Turned New School Business

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 Roofer. Hosted by Pete McKendrick.

Pete: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Roofer Report. I'm your host Pete McKendrick, and I am joined today by Jeremy Simpson of Simpson Roofing. Really excited to have Jeremy on, excited to hear his story. This continues along the theme of our Roofr of the Month series. We've spent a long time this month or this year going through hearing some great stories from a lot of great roofers, some of that have been in the business for a number of years, some of them that are brand new to the business.

And, the stories have been really fascinating to hear how people have gotten into roofing and the successes that they found, the challenges that they faced along the way. So really excited to dive into that here today with Jeremy and welcome man. Appreciate you jumping on.

Jeremy Simpson: Thank you very much for having me. It's a super cool opportunity here. I love sharing the stories whenever we can.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It's a, this series has been fantastic. Like we've been able to really dive into a number of companies. And like I said, varying sizes, varying, years in business. And, it's been fun to hear everybody's story, their backstory, some, some really crazy ways that they ended up in the roofing industry.

And the successes and the challenges are always fun to hear and what the future holds for some of these companies. So, yes, I'm really looking forward to kind of diving into it with you and learn a little bit more about Simpson roofing and, and having our listeners learn a bit of a little bit about you guys.

So, tell us a little bit about your business, Jeremy, what, where are you guys located? How long have you guys been in business and how many people you have working there? Like kind of the lowdown on Simpson roofing.

Jeremy Simpson: It's a bit of a long story, but the short of it is we're a we're in New Jersey. We're a family business. I'm technically the 3rd generation. There's a 4th one. That's way back. That's a little hard to document, but definitely a solid 3rd generation. I'm representing now in northern New Jersey. We're commercially based.

We do residential as well. We have 2 different little divisions for that. I've literally been in it. So it's hard to find that little start point. And, and, and yeah, we have, it's been over the years, varying sizes of the company, the big heyday of my dad's day when there wasn't as many big commercial roofers and he was running a monster crew. And then to the slowdowns and ups, we basically kind of. Grown and shrunk, grown and shrunk with with kind of how like our market is over here. And right now we probably operate between 10 to 15 guys and then a couple other little smaller crews, but that's, that's about it. Nicely controlled and comfortable at the moment.

So,

Pete: I like it. Jersey guy. I didn't realize you guys were in New Jersey. I'm, I'm a Jersey guy born and raised in New Jersey,  

Central Jersey, right? Like right by Rutgers area. So, so familiar with that. You guys are more Northern Jersey. You said,

Jeremy Simpson: Our little slogan is a family built in Jersey strong says it on the shirts.

So,  

Pete: like it. I

Jeremy Simpson: yeah,

yeah, we're way up north, but we commercially we, we handle the state if needed, but residentially, we stay we stay up north.

Pete: I like it.  

Yeah. Very cool. Yeah.  

I mean, New Jersey, a lot of people don't realize there's some great companies in that area. And I've had the pleasure of visiting a bunch and yeah, it was, it's a, it's a great area for roofing for sure.

Jeremy Simpson: Yeah, no, it's, it's, it seems weird. It's a small state, but it's filled with commercial and residential, like, superpower kind of, kind of companies too. Like, they're very strong in, in their

market. I actually got introduced through Roofr through one of them. So it was

like I

liked it, I like the competition.

I like the competition kind of turned into a little bit more collaboration. Dad's day, it was kind of competition. Now, where

are you? And, and now I see a little change in the collaboration rather than so much competition. Like you're still my competitor, but, but here's, here's what I'm using, so helpful.

Each one of us have our own little niches in, so it's, it's, it's maybe competitive because we're roofing companies, but our niche is. All different, so we're able to sit at the same table together and and collaborate.

Pete: Yeah, I really, I agree with you. I think, looking back, I've been on the roofing side of things about seven years now. And when I first started, I mean, you would never talk to the roofer down the street from you, right? Like he  

was your competition, like, that was the last person you would ever go to for advice or, or, to find out what his best practices were.

And I would say the last couple of years, that's really changed. And I think it's bettering the industry as a whole that, now people, like you said, they're collaborating. Yeah, we're in the same market, but we are a little different, we got these niche things that we do, so we can talk a little bit about about our best practices and figure out, what you're doing, what you're using, what we could possibly be doing better and sharing stories and stuff like that.

I think it's, it's come a long way in the last couple of years for sure.

Jeremy Simpson: Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm approaching 30 something years in the industry. As like a mid teen, I kind of usually start myself at 15. So, I'm 40 mid forties. What am I 44 this year? So, a long time, right. But I've always been head down. I just call it like, that's why the blue collar hustle name that I was telling you earlier.

It's just been head down work mentality. I forget where I read it. One of the books where it just says, get. Get ish done. Go. And mentality. And I

wasn't doing any of the things that I'm starting now, like the technology and processes and things like that. It was just go and go. And I like how things are changing in, in our industry now to where there's things that are in place to help us.

And we don't always just have to keep our head down. We can

watch our business grow a little better.

Pete: yeah, absolutely. I think, being able now to, to better understand, like putting processes in place and the tools that are out there that could potentially help us, I think that these are things that before, I remember listening to Ty Bakker from TC Bakker and he said, he said, we've always had a process.

He goes, but in the beginning, our process was just figure shit out. Right. Like he just  

figured it out, but he said it was  

still a process. It wasn't a good one. He said, but it  

was what we did,  

Jeremy Simpson: yeah, just

get it done. Just get it done. Go get it done. However, you got to do it Get it done.

Pete: Yeah.  

So take us back a little bit. So you, obviously you grew up in this, right? Like you've been around roofers since you were born pretty much. Right. So, can I take us back to like, how did you get into the family business? Was it always kind of a given that this is what you would, you would kind of do or, did you think you'd do something else  

and then ended up here?

Jeremy Simpson: it was not. I probably had the stereotypical, dad, and as soon as summer break happened for school, I had the stereotypical dad, well, you're, you're gonna go to work now. And I had that throughout the teens, but it was never implied that I was going to be the next heir to the throne per se.

I was always not pressured to take over. I just kind of slowly was interested, interested. And then I started to go to the school. I take, I took a slightly different path. And then I realized I don't want to go this path and I came back to the family business and I just started to build off of that. Originally I was just one of the labor guys, I didn't really get the special, the father son special treatment, dad threw me right in. Go rip the roof off. Go be in the dirt. Go, go, go. And then, after a minute, he then did peel me off and started showing me, Hey, here, let's go on an inspection.

Let's go on a test cut. Let's go on a callback. And I'll show you, look, not everything's perfect. He would show me a lot of those ropes, and it, it helped. It helped. And then, years started to go by and I'm more and more involved in the company. Then I turned it to sales, residential sales, and then, that progressed even further.

And then, my uncle and my father, they just worked. That was their time was done and I was about to take over. And then it was right on that residential, like little crash in 06, 07, 08, that whole mess. And I got hit with my first I want to say that was not the first lesson, but that was the biggest one of owning a business on my own. Boom. It just crashed. It went from having all these, Mega accounts to nothing. So, I had to rebuild and I had to start and learn on my own. Nobody was there anymore. Family business or not, I was the only one that was running it and it was a little tough. And re navigating things, starting all the processes over, different.

It was it was and still is an awesome learning experience and I'm happy for it.

Pete: it's interesting, right? Cause you come from a very established business, right? But then you got put in a situation where you almost had to start from scratch. Right? So it's almost like you very similar to some of the stories that we've heard from some of the other roofers that we've talked to is like, Hey, I just went out and started my own business in roofing.

Right. And even though you can kind of. Inherited this business from the family. Like it, you still kind of had to start from scratch and go back to the beginning, back to the basics and kind of, rebuild the whole thing. So you kind of got to see both sides, which I think is a very unique experience.

Right.

Jeremy Simpson: Yes, it's, it's what do you got my blue collar battle scars, it's what it is the up and downs the the financial plummets and Rises, but yeah, I basically had to restart everything all over again And I actually say that a lot in my story, you know about i'm generational But yet i'm standing on my own and it's this last one because it was a pretty much start from scratch

So  

Pete: Yeah, it is. It's a different approach though, because like you said, you got to kind of see it at the high and at the low. And so you have a, I think you have a little bit of a unique insight, right. Coming into it and kind of. Building a business, you know what a business looks like when it's booming and what you guys were doing and how you were doing business, how your parents, your dad was doing business and your uncle was doing business, and then now you're on your own and like kind of starting from scratch and having to build that business back to that level.

Yeah, I think it's kind of unique in the fact that you got to see kind of really both sides of it, right? Like the super successful part. And then, The building of a business  

and all the  

Jeremy Simpson: super the super not so successful the super not so  

Pete: the struggle, the struggle  

Jeremy Simpson: Real, real bad. That was why. I only really got to see in my teens and early years, I really only got to see the good. I didn't go through any of the, I didn't even see the bad. And if there was any bad, my dad probably at that time just shielded

me from it. And then when I first got my own taste of that, that battle, I, to be honest with you, I failed. Failed in just one of those little building blocks that we had to just start from again. But I'm lucky enough to be able to still be here today. What is it, about 15 something years later? 16 years later after the, the little changing of the guard and pretty good.

Pete: very cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah. And it's cool that you got to the opportunity, like you said, he threw you in the trenches. You've kind of learned every facet of the business, right? It wasn't like. You just decided to  

start a business  

Jeremy Simpson: I'll be honest with you. I, I, I learned. Now that I'm older and I'm seeing these processes, I learned one facet in it. It was the operations. It was like production. I really didn't get as much of the back office stuff, the admin things, how the money flowed, how it should flow, which is really key. So, anybody out there listening to that, that is

key.

Gotta do both. I entered the race with only, one leg. I couldn't, I didn't know the other side yet. I didn't know what I was missing. And that's kind of in part why the, the, the down happened. I was ready to go to work and there was no work. So, like  

Pete: Well, this is, this is super interesting because this is something that at Roofer talking to lots of roofers, we often talk about, you have these guys who have built a business on the fact that they are incredible installers, right? They can manage every facet of a production end of, of a company in their sleep, right?

Like they just have it dialed. Perfectly, they understand every piece of it, but where they really struggle is like you said, they don't necessarily have the business background. Right. So they don't necessarily understand. Marketing and accounting and financials. And  

I  

mean, like we're, we're, yeah, like we're working right now on job costing and the, and the conversations that you have around costing your jobs.

Right. And what your profit margin really is and how do you figure out what you're actually making and all of these things. It's, it's amazing how not understood a lot of that stuff is right. Like you, they think you kind of think you understand it, but you don't really understand it. And I think that, like you said, you're kind of like, you're, you're got only one leg in the race.

Like, like, yeah, I understand this part. I could run production in my

sleep, but there's so much  

more that goes into running a business that we don't understand.  

Right. And I think what we found is there's kind of two sides to it. You have the guys who are really, really good production guys. That don't necessarily understand the rest.

And then you've got the guys who are the business sales guys who have that part down, but don't understand the production side. Right. And it's like, and that's where that kind of bites them in the ass to where they can't necessarily manage production well, and then there's a log jam there and it creates an issue for them.

So  

yeah, it's interesting, like kind of like two schools of thought there as to,  

approaching  

Jeremy Simpson: you're seeing, you're seeing the ones that are succeeding are the ones that are able to marry those two worlds together.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.  

Jeremy Simpson: what I'm trying to do myself right now. The old school mentality of let's just get it done to the younger generation that's filling in all the marketing blanks, the sales blanks, all those, those little processes that now, for the consumer centric companies, they need it. They need it and it's really helping out to really build up some of these companies. I'm hoping to be one of them as we keep growing, so it's been fun.

Pete: It's, we talk often internally about like I always ask everybody, this question is what do you think along the way, what do you think was the most integral hire that you made? Like, what was, what do you think was the most important person or important position potentially that you brought onto your staff, as you, as you guys were, have been growing.

Jeremy Simpson: So, two, two times it happened in, after the, the, the big down dip two things happened. One, I decided, I always I had to take the pride and the ego, put it to the side, cause I, I, I'm the best roofer I can do, and no one can do it better than, better than me. Until, like, I was getting older, just getting slower, I was wearing too many clothes.

Many hats and now I brought somebody in that they were superior to me actually putting the roof on. I'm like, but we partnered. That was a hire per se that now took that whole hat away from me. They're all doing production. They're faster. They're better. They're more talented. They're. Only day is to put the roof on. And then the second hire was another hat was taking the client relations part of things away from me, not having to do all the, the, the, the little, how are you doing? What color should you pick? Kind of helping the customer get down the road because I wasn't able to do it efficiently enough to really provide a good experience. So now having that higher on has been almost as important as the production person, because they're on both ends. One's getting the job done. One's making sure the job gets there to, to get done. So, those, those two hires production and in house client relations, biggest ones.

Pete: I really liked that. Cause it's a, it's a conversation that we've had with a number of roofers. About managing that customer relationship and managing that expectation of the customer. And that that's one of the things that they felt like early on, they struggled with because they weren't effectively, there was, they weren't effectively translating what they were selling to what they were actually producing, like what they were producing, like what was happening, right.

When they were putting the roof on and like there, there was no one managing that expectation with the customer. And so it's really interesting. Like we stress. A lot. When we talk to roofers here about the customer experience and, like I always say, like, if you can, if at the center of the business, your goal is to offer this world class customer experience, the other stuff will fall in line, the tools, the people, like all these things, you'll, you'll have that in the back of your mind.

When you hire, you'll have that in the back of your mind. When you pick a technology tool. How is this going to help us better offer a world class experience? Maybe it's, we getting through the customer faster. Maybe we can produce a better looking proposal, whatever the case may be. Right. It's, it's just, we're, we've got that in the back of our mind as we're moving through our billing, our process and stuff.

So you're really interesting that that's one of the most crucial hires for you guys, because I think it's a piece that's drastically overlooked. Like I know I talked to a. A roofer a couple of months ago, and he said, I had to hire production managers that literally live on the jet, stay on the job so that they can manage the, I have someone there full time managing the expectation of the customer dealing with change orders, answering questions  

and just managing, making sure that We're doing it the way we sold it to them.

Right. So, yeah, so pretty, pretty interesting that you guys have essentially built a team of people or a person that does that.  

Jeremy Simpson: And it's not what I grew up with, like there wasn't a customer service person at my dad's

office back then, it was, it was different. They just do the job, pay me. And that was

it.  

Pete: Yeah.  

Jeremy Simpson: So, it's, it's very cool to have that, those, those puzzle pieces put in place throughout the process of when somebody first calls you to when, you're finishing up.

So it's, it's very important, but the only reason I was able to do that, or even think about doing that was to drop the the notion that I could, Could do it all or that I don't need it and things like that. And it's going to cost too much. I just had to drop that because essentially, yeah, it costs more money going out, but it's saved so much more of my money and time to do other things.

So.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's something that, especially with River Roofers that are starting out, right. I think that there's this idea that they're almost short sighted, right? Like not looking at that long term picture of like, okay, if I put this person in place now, Over the next five years, the amount of time and effort and, and money that I'm potentially going to save by having this person on staff.

They're just thinking like, Oh, if I hire this person, next week I got to pay them. And it's going to cost me X that's too expensive. I don't want to use it. Right. We used to have the same thing when I used to sell CRM software, when I first started in this business, contractors would say to me, Oh, a couple hundred dollars a month.

Like, I don't want to spend that, and I would say like over the course of the year, you're going to make way more profits off of using this than what it's going to cost you. Right. And it's like, it's just short sightedness a  

Jeremy Simpson: I had to figure that out. I had to, I had to figure that out as like an old school mentality, little, little, pencil and pad kind of person growing up meant to only just a few years ago where I dropped the pencil and pad. It was that to know that, that, that tech or that. Quick text or the quick automation made that customer feel better about doing business with you.

And it wasn't me, I didn't, it was them feeling better with building the trust, the efficiency, and it just turned that, that's the revenue. I didn't, I didn't look at it that way, to be honest with you. I didn't until I

saw it actually happening, winning jobs on the fact that somebody gave us a comment when, we went to start day one, by the way, it's awesome how your, your, your office is able to stay and stay in touch with me.

I was able to see the report, like.

Pete: Yeah.

Jeremy Simpson: know, I

don't know.  

Pete: Well, and I think, well, I think in a huge piece of that too, is a difference in the buyer, right? The buyer has changed so drastically over, say let's say the last 10 years, right? Probably from when, your dad and uncle were selling to people versus now is two completely different buyers and their,

Jeremy Simpson: A hundred

Pete: The way they buy and, the age of the buyer and their tech savviness, all of that stuff is completely different now.

Jeremy Simpson: A hundred percent. I mean, we have people that just sort of only will text and only communicate through our CRM now. That's all we talk to them. That's it

Some people they're busy. They don't want to hear it and Just go and do and they're able like that and then the others are so into it They're they're calling they're texting they're emailing and it's all being captured in one place in their job And we're not searching whoever's phone has that email

or that text from that person with that color

So it's really it's it's very good That that it is changing because it's helping, it's helping people, that's why some of the smaller companies that are automatically ready to go with tech and they're ready to go with business that they're succeeding. You'd find people to put the roof on, but they're succeeding because they're presenting themselves as an trustworthy customer and a communicative communicative contractor. That's what, that's, what's winning.

Pete: Yeah. I was on a podcast last year at a roof con and one of the guys on the podcast said he said, at the end of the day, there's lots of us that can install a roof really well. So what sets you apart from the other guys? Right. And it's, it's these things, right? It's the little things like being able to be proactive in your communication and  

being a little bit more.

Yeah.  

Jeremy Simpson: phone.

Pete: Yeah,  

that's a huge one.  

Yeah. That's probably the most overlooked one, right?

Jeremy Simpson: Yeah, I still, in my rural northern New Jersey residential market, I still get the, Wow, thank you for coming. You're the first one answered the phone and called back. I'm like, oh my goodness.

So,  

Pete: Yeah. I tell  

a story about, I had some, I had some plumbing work done on my house and I called, it took me three three people before the first person even picked up the phone. Yeah.  

It's get crazy.

Jeremy Simpson: I don't, I don't understand that that still exists, but it does, but it

won't for long. It can't for long, you

know,  

Pete: no, it'll, I think we're in a, in a time now where it will, those type of people will get weeded out because it just won't be competitive. Right. Cause I know personally when I called and I got the guy's voicemail and his voicemail was full and I couldn't even leave a message, I just moved on to the next contractor and he essentially lost the job at that point.

Right. So, and really the guy who got the job from me. Was just the one who communicated back immediately. Right. And it was, it was more so his attentiveness and the fact that he was proactive in contacting me. That's what won him the job. It was, it had nothing to do with price. It had nothing to do with the quality of his work.

Not, I mean, it was literally the fact that he was the one that communicated well.

Jeremy Simpson: I'm the same way. I had the same thing happen in my house with an electrician. I mean, you call six or seven of them, the buddies, the friend, a card that you can,

Pete: Yeah, yeah, exactly.  

Jeremy Simpson: that everybody thinks

we have, like we can get everything done. I needed electric done. And I had to go with a random person because they answered the phone.

They had an office staff. They scheduled me, they came on time. They were done the day they said they were going to be done. Bam. So. Go. Yeah.

Pete: Funny how that makes a difference now, right? Like that, that's really the deciding factor now. It's, it's how well do you communicate and how comfortable do I feel with the relationship that we have?  

The price necessarily isn't, I mean, obviously price plays some part in it, but it's not the deciding factor anymore.

Like it probably was at one point.

Jeremy Simpson: Yes. Definitely not. Definitely not.

Pete: What do you think, obviously, a very unique situation here. Cause you, you guys had an established business and you took it over and you had this. Kind of crash and you had to build back up. Well, what would you say was probably the biggest challenge that you faced along the way? Or maybe continue to face today, right?

Jeremy Simpson: For me in particular, because I'm in a dual market, I am a commercial and a residential guy. I believe just for me, my, my, my biggest challenge was identifying which 1 is going to give me or where I'm going to see myself. In 10 years, I know I can do commercial roofing. I know I can do residential roofing, but which 1 in our smaller size company is going to be the 1 that I want to stick with and it's it's commercial. But then I started thinking the problem. Like, I want to grow. I want to be able to expand myself. And so the problem then became not commercial residential is what kind of team am I going to build? Because. What we said earlier, anybody can put the roof on. Labor is plentiful, but the skilled and trustworthy people that you can build a team with, not as much. And that is where I ended up going. That is where I'm in my state right now is current team building for the future, for the ability to us to really represent ourselves out there as a, not only generational company, that's fine, but somebody that can be there today with all the things that today's customer wants.

And it's tough. It's hard. We're not, we're not perfect by any means on it. We're still building, but that, that right there is a challenge is growing the right team for today's market and today's customers.

Pete: Yeah, it's, it's definitely unique, right? I think it's a different subset of people that we're looking to find now. I think traditionally you just were like, Hey, let me find somebody that's got a ton of roofing experience and we're good. Right. That's not the case anymore.  

Jeremy Simpson: Now I'm looking for somebody with social media prowess. How do I navigate LinkedIn and its ads and Facebook and its ads? I'm looking for somebody that maybe doesn't, maybe it's a salesperson, but doesn't necessarily know Roofing, but has the charisma and the methods on how to speak to a person and gain their trust.

It's different than where my dad sold Not on that trait. He sold on education. He just, this is what we're doing and he explained it well, but like today you're getting very sales savvy people to ask the right questions and say the right things and it's convincing them and it's taking the tradesman that's just there to, this is what we're going to do. They're losing.

So, yeah, that.

Pete: Yeah, it, that's really interesting. Cause we talked, I just did a speech at RCAT. I did a presentation at RCAT and it was literally about this. It was literally about like how the approach to the buyer has changed significantly and how we had, like you said, we had kind of this very short marketing and sales process.

Maybe they came to us as a referral. We went out there, we explained what we were going to do. This is the price sign here. We're going to work. Right. And now there's this much more long drawn out process of like, they're really getting to know your company. They're looking at your reviews, they know more about you and what you do now before they've even picked up the phone and called you than ever before.

Right. And so,  

Jeremy Simpson: meeting. I was in a meeting yesterday or a class that somebody was saying that like 70 percent of the people know that they're going to buy from you before you even get the first phone call, just based on how you are presented out there in the market. Are you around? Are people giving reviews for you are mentioned on social media groups?

Are you at the community events? And they already see you before their first inkling of calling you happens

Pete: it's just saying, yeah, they're essentially selling themselves at this point, right. Based on  

just the research that they're doing. Yeah, it  

was interesting. We,  

Jeremy Simpson: Needless to say, needless to say, we have ourselves sponsored now and all the teams in, in the, in the county. I like

sports, right? So now it gives me an excuse to go to the games and, and, and hang out at the golf outings because we're sponsoring a whole, but yeah, it's a double win win there,  

Pete: absolutely. Yeah. I think that community involvement and community exposure is very, very underrated by a lot of roofers, and I think  

being that neighborhood guy and  

Jeremy Simpson: I was one of them. I would laugh at it. I'm like, what are you doing? I don't want to go to today's town fair. What am I going to do with that until we started to do it? And then we started to build off little referral groups off just those community events I mean, it's it's small if you have a small town feel but

The community, once they start talking and once they start knowing, it's, they're selling for you, just on their, trips to the dog park, or going to get a dunk of donuts, and they're talking about it, so it's it's, it's real and it works.

Pete: Yeah, no, that's really cool. Yeah. It's it's funny because we see, referrers that really take advantage of it and leverage it. And it's done amazing things for their business. Like you said. Cause I think it is something that people don't necessarily. Absolutely. First, right. They think like, oh, that's a waste of money.

Yeah. Like, oh, it's too much money. I don't want to sponsor teams. Right. I was just flushing money down the toilet. Right. Like,  

but yeah,  

it's, it's interesting stuff. I mean, it worked, it seems to be very effective. Like I know we actually had a contractor who put, he sponsored a little league team and he put a QR code on the jerseys, like in the name of the team.

So that you could, if you took a picture of your kid, it picked up the QR code and you, it would take you to his website.

Jeremy Simpson: That's smart. That's smart.

That's very good. Well, there's a difference, too. Like, I didn't know this growing up. There was a difference between advertising and branding yourself, so, all these

branding opportunities, it's just building up, and it's, it's money maybe you might think is being wasted, but when you say that stat that people are, are, are, 70 percent of the people are going to buy from you before they even make their first call based on how they, how frequently they saw you, Well, then your branding money is super important, you

know, and I just learned that recently, so it's been pretty pretty cool to watch grow.

Pete: Yeah. No, that's gold. I mean, that's, that's huge. What do you what do you see for the future of Simpson? What is the goal for you guys? Like, what are you looking at in the next three to five years? What's, what's the plan?

Jeremy Simpson: Three to five years is a little short. I'll say go a little bit longer, maybe

like five, a five to ten, a five to ten thing. And I'm, I'm, this is a little bit Almost an emotional response that I'm going to give because we're generational and I'm able to still see my, my uncle has passed, but my, my my father's still with us. And I hope he actually sees this. I'm going to send it to him if whenever we see this, because it's this statement. My dad worked his ass off the entire time and. If I'm being completely honest, it's not a, he's not, there's not as much to show for it. You work that, that stereotypical thing you work for what, 50 years to retire for 15 before you can, so, so in watching my father. In his retirement age, not be able to do certain things. It's triggered me to plan for myself and share it with some of my other guys because a lot of my other friends, they're stuck in only head down mentality. I'm going to work, work, work, work, work, work, work. Well, when you're done working, something's got to be there for, for you at the end of it.

Like some kind of team, something to maybe sell your business or grow people up the ranks to take it over for you. So that is what in 10 years, I'm going to be able to grow a nice little business. We don't need to be monstrous. I just need to be steady in my market and have something that, hey, if I want to, if I want to go and take the kids on a month vacation that the business runs completely flawlessly behind me, and I'm checking it in, it's not fully relying on me.

So, in that 5 to 10 year mark is where I want to be able to sail that boat and be able to have a team. Like to be there. It's a culture building atmosphere that they enjoy going to work because we got a little fun vibe going on or, or, or it's just something that they like to do. And that is the ultimate goal.

Because I know that's what dad didn't have and it's why it kind of came to be. died in the transition. There was no team being handed off when I got to transition. It was just one, the same 17 hats that my dad was wearing. He just gave me all 17 and it felt good at the moment, but in the long term, long run, it was, is, was not. So

I want to be able to get I want to be able to pass the hats around and have a nice little team behind me.

Pete: Yeah. That's great advice. I think, especially for anyone who's potentially starting a business or very new in their business, right? Because you do in the beginning, you have to almost have to out of necessity, wear a lot of hats, but. I think I love that. I mean, I love that your goal is to essentially kind of work your way out of the business in  

a way, right?  

Jeremy Simpson: of my dad. My dad just worked himself so much into the business that that's where he ended. And I don't

want that. So,

Yeah.

And not to say like certain levels, you can wear all 17 hats and it's manageable. It's when you get to a certain like revenue size or a certain kind of customer or a certain market, it requires certain things that you cannot do on your own efficiently.

And I had to learn that the hard way. And now I want to be able to build something that, that whoever is going to take over or is involved with the company isn't carrying 17 hats. They're, they're able to see a bigger picture.

Pete: Yeah. And I love that you mentioned the culture piece, right? Because I think that's something that in recent years has become. A huge, huge selling point to like hiring people and keeping people longterm is how much do they want to go to work there? Like how much do they enjoy working there? Right? I think  

people are much more likely nowadays, I think before you just worked for a paycheck, right?

Like you just went to work. It didn't matter if you hated it, you hated it. You had to make money, right? And now I think like we work with, I have a lot of younger people that work with me at Roofr and, seeing them, it's, it's about their quality of life. Right. And what quality of life does it offer me?

Not only they're at work, and how much do I enjoy working with the people I work with and doing what I do, but then outside of work, what is it offering me as well? Like, do I still have a quality of life? Is there a good work life balance? And it, it builds this culture of just being. A great team atmosphere and a great company to work for.

And, everybody wants to come work for it. And so that's one thing that I'll applaud Richie and, and the team here at Roofr. They've done a fantastic job of building and maintaining that culture as we've grown. I mean, we've, gotten considerably larger in the last couple of years and they've still maintained that incredible culture.

So, but that's something, like you said, like in all of my previous jobs prior to being at Roofr. Never had that. We  

never had that kind of team  

Jeremy Simpson: it done. And if you, the work life balance was non existent

in my dad's day.  

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It was work and then more work.

Jeremy Simpson: Yeah. That's it.

Pete: Yeah.  

Jeremy Simpson: it.

Pete: Well, awesome, man. I really want to appreciate you. I really appreciate you jumping on and I really want to say thank you for you coming on. I think this has been. Really insightful, some really, really great information. And I think there's, you definitely dropped some gold nuggets in there, especially for, the people listening, just the lessons that you've learned along the way and the things that you've been able to experience, I think are going to be fantastic advice for somebody that maybe is, A smaller roofer, someone starting out, don't make the same mistakes, right?

Like, there's these  

Jeremy Simpson: yeah. Keep learning Keep learning. Like I'm, I'm

like almost relearning the last few years. It's almost been a version of a rebuild and I've been just opening to learning more. Just trying my best. Have I been able to execute all of it? No, but I'm watching and like I'm being able to be open to the new techniques, the new ways of the businesses moving and it's been super helpful. It's the ego thing. Yeah, push the ego and the pride aside sometimes if you're got a little old school vibe about yourself. But that was, that was that was the biggest eye opener. It's just keep learning.

Pete: Yeah. And that's great advice. And I think that we're in a situation right now, like you stated earlier, this industry now is in the best spot ever to learn, right? You have more collaboration. You have more of these great conferences where people are, are getting up and talking about the things you need to hear.

It's not just rah, rah, sales stuff. And we do, everyone needs to sell more, right? Like it's  

definitely more about like the whole experience and the things that you can do to better run your business. So I think the information is there. Definitely take advantage of it, right?

Definitely leverage it.

Jeremy Simpson: I love it. It's there.

Pete: Well, awesome, man. I appreciate you taking the time with us today and jumping on. And like I said, some great stuff. And thank you for everybody for listening and look forward to big things. See you in the. Jersey strong there, seeing the, seeing the Jersey guy succeed. So excited to keep an eye on Simpson and see what you guys do over the next couple of years.

And hopefully you you make it to your work life balance there. You can take some of the look on Facebook for some good vacations that you're on. Right.

Jeremy Simpson: Yeah keep an eye out, if you see me there.

Pete: Yeah, I love it, man. Well, awesome. Thank you very much for coming on and everybody for listening. and  

Jeremy Simpson: you having me.  

Pete: yeah, man, anytime. And I will see everybody next time on the Roofer Report. Thanks everybody.