Winning Strategies for Roofers: A Chat with Ben Tiger

Pete: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Roofer Report. I'm your host Pete McKendrick, and once again we're back here with our Roofr of the Month, our new series. Heading into July here, we have our new Roofr of the Month, Ben Morrow. many of you guys know him as Ben Tiger from Rooftiger. So welcome Ben, happy to have you on.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah, happy to be here. And I'm really honored to be the Roofr of the Month. This is awesome. So I really appreciate it.

Pete: Yeah, it's been a great series. We've been able to showcase some great people and, uh, some of our, our power users, but also some people that are, have really done well in the industry and really excelled here. And, and one of the things that I've noticed, uh, with all of the Roofr of the Months that we've had so far I've been lucky enough to interview everybody.

And, and it's all been people that have found success In their own unique ways, but in a very short amount of time, we talked to Joe Andrews who, who has found success in like a year and a half in business, uh, Amanda Veinott who many people will know it was our May Roofr of the Month, John Tucker, who, who kind of has a different approach, but has found, success in a short amount of time.

And then obviously you, uh, who really has excelled here, uh, in a short amount of time, with your business. And, uh, so. I guess give a little bit of background if it just in case someone listening doesn't know Roof Tiger and doesn't know Ben, uh, what you guys have going on and, and how you guys kind of got to where you are.

And then we'll, we'll talk about some other stuff.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah, so I'm Ben Morrow, also known as Benjamin Tiger on social media. started Roof Tiger in 2020, uh, height of the pandemic. And basically grew to, we've done, uh, right around 20 million in sales, uh, since that inception. Ben. And started Solar Panther, our solar division in 2021, a year later. Really just running and gunning, man, uh, learning from the best and just constantly, uh, watching people and how they do business and trying to emulate that. wish I'd say it was something unique. I really feel like I've just watched the industry grow over the last four years. And I try to do things that people have found success in. Uh, I don't have to reinvent the wheel a hundred times. Uh, just do what people are doing successfully and copy it. In our own way and make it successful.

So wish I could say that I was unique, but I think that my story is one of just duplicating the best things that people do long before I've done it. Uh, and, and so, yeah, that's what we've done in the last four years. And we've done well over, uh, 700, 800 roofs and 150 solar systems. And this is us. That's what we do. Yes.

Pete: used to work in, uh, the manufacturing field and our boss, uh, the guy who ran our plant used to say the way to be successful is to figure out who did it best and shamelessly steal from them. And, uh, and he was, right, like you kind of take the best pieces of, of everybody and, and kind of figure out how you fit it into your process.

And, uh, like you said, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, somebody's probably done it before. So, uh, you just kind of figure out how you fit it to, to what you guys are doing.

Benjamin Tiger: You got it. Yeah, and I think that there's brilliant people in the roofing industry that, are not on camera. That I've met at conferences and stuff. But the people who do put their stuff out on, on, on video, I'm watching. Ha ha ha. Uh, and it's cool because it's created this community of like, I'm, I'm giving people props of, of where they're deserved.

And it's, it's, it's built this community of people that I can trust and text and. mentor me through this process of being an entrepreneur. So I love it. And the roofing industry is, is unique in a lot of different ways, but, uh, it's not unique in general business practice. And I think, uh, watching people who are really good over this timeframe has just helped me excel.

Pete: Yeah, I mean, I, one thing that I respect that you guys have done as good as anybody is, we often preach on a lot of our stuff, at RISE events and on our Masterclass about being that neighborhood roofer and really, like focusing on becoming well known in your local community.

And I think it's kind of a mistake that a lot of new roofers make is the, you think I need more leads, so I need to expand my territory. And now I'm, Covering a lot of ground or, hey, we found success. Let's immediately go look to expand maybe into the neighboring state or something like that.

And you guys have done a really good job of kind of playing in your own backyard, and continuing to find success by just strengthening that relationship with your community. And, uh, that's one thing that I really respect that you guys have done because,

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: you've proven you've essentially proven that model that, we kind of preach about all the time is, does your neighborhood know who you are?

Are you the neighborhood roofer?

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. I, there's a saying in real estate that real estate is national, but it's, it's, it's regional and local. And I think that's very true in the roofing industry that everybody has a roof in the United States, right, if you live in a house. But you're going to call somebody who's local to you and, uh, if you're known in the region and known in the locale, they'll call you first if you're trusted. And I think in creating content, my content is mostly focused on people here in Peoria, because that's where I sell roofs. Uh, so I think the opposite is true that don't focus on the national landscape in creating content for everybody. It's just not true. Uh, focus on restaurants, focus on people that live near you and become the beacon of trust for those people. And you'll see your business explode. And there's a lot more houses than you think. people always think like, Oh, I'm running out of houses to roof. Not necessarily true. You haven't roofed them all. And more pockets where you can find and, uh, yeah, there's hundreds of thousands of people in Peoria, a quarter million. I know people in markets of a million plus, man, you're blessed to have that. So. give up. Just tap into that network and stay there because it's, it will just continue to be a snowball effect.

Pete: Well, and like one of the things that I like, what you guys have done too, is you diversified. Right? So,

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: like, for instance, like, let's say you were in a very small town and the roofs are essentially drying up. Let's say, right? Which,

Benjamin Tiger: Yep.

Pete: like you said, isn't necessarily reality, but we can definitely see that picture, where I would say, like, oh, my leads are slowing down.

I'm in a small town. Maybe there aren't as many roofs as I would hope here. But But what you guys did is you diversified to where now you have the solar option as well. So it kind of gives you another avenue to continue to, to, excel in your own neighborhood, uh, and not have to expand into these other areas and travel further and open other offices and all these other things.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah. I knew, uh, I actually, I actually cut my teeth in the bathroom industry. And one thing that was very prominent in there is there's only two ways to expand your business. One, you can expand your location of where you install or two, you can install more products. And so we created a second brand in Solar Panther and that's been very profitable for us. I don't recommend everybody getting solar. You have to be very technical and very sound in your installation and, and how you do business. Because there's a lot of riffraff in the solar community. uh, that's the first thing I'll recommend is for people who do roofing, siding, gutters, windows, these things are all really, uh, profitable things you can do.

And it's the same business model as your roofing company. You just have to know how to market it. Again, don't go into things that you don't know anything about unless you're really skilled, you can get a lot of trouble there, uh, as long as you can, can uphold the same standard as your roofing company, I think that's a good idea.

Pete: Yeah, it's a good point. I think that, it's easy to say yes, it's easy to be there and then say, Hey, you're here looking at my roof. Can you look at this? Can you look at that? And, it's easy to say yes, but like you said, I think it's a really good point to make sure that you feel confident and comfortable, uh, delving into that stuff and not, agreeing to do some stuff or take on some, trades that potentially you aren't familiar with as a, as an owner or, uh, a staff and put yourself in a bad position.

Cause that could. In today's day and age, especially with the, uh, the Google review,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: Things can go downhill fast for you, right?

Benjamin Tiger: It all starts and ends with labor at the end. And so you have to have really skilled technicians. And as people know, watching this, the roofing roofers are relatively easy to find. And sound sighting, windows, gutters solar guys are not as easy to find. So, you either have to create that market yourself or you have to find those people. And that's not an easy thing to do. So, uh, be careful in opening new businesses, but also don't let it hold you back if you think it's profitable and it can expand your, your revenue. Mm hmm.

Pete: So I think a lot of people talk about you as a kind of like a branding guru, right? Like obviously the tiger stripes on everything, the solar Panther, and you guys sticking with that theme and that has evolved, like into your own, your own brand, right?

Your own personal brand there of, of Ben tiger. And you just have done a really good job with that, and I think that, you told that story and I know like even at rise, like you got up on that stage and we've talked about that. So, I, I love the way that you guys diversified yourself there, but, as you guys continue now to, to grow and kind of get more seasoned as a company, what are some of the things that you're doing to continue to stand out from the crowd?

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah. Uh, construction excellence. So this year we've devoted a more resources towards construction management versus marketing. marketing continues to hum along. just being extra careful, we have a foreman on site throughout the entire job process now. That's something I took from Cornerstone Construction down in in I think it's South Carolina or

Pete: South Carolina. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: and they're really good at construction management. Just making sure the customer experience is top tier. Uh, Monarch Roofing, I think, does the same thing. And so, just devoting extra resources towards making sure the customer experience when actually roofing is just like top tier. it's easy in the roofing industry, if you're watching this as a roofing contractor, to kind of just believe that your guys are doing the right thing. And most of the time, that is the case. But just devoting extra resources to make sure exactly what you said in the sales process is being carried on construction, that's one of the biggest bridges to gap. And so the, uh, the roofing industry is, is a lot of money. You make a lot of money per job, but making sure to allocate enough dollars to make sure that it's like a premium experience, uh, it costs money to do so...

Pete: So let's get into that a little bit because I like exactly what you said, right? Like this is something that we've recently talked about and I know it was a big part of our last RISE tour.

And I think that, at the end of the day, the Everything kind of evolves from that customer experience. Like if you go into building your process around, how do we offer the best customer experience in this world class elite customer experience to set ourself apart, it makes it easier to develop a process around that.

Right. And I think, I know from experience, a lot of guys in this industry are very knowledgeable when it comes to the production end of things. Right. A lot of them have started as, as nail, we're nailing on shingles. So, production is their bread and butter. So it's very easy, like you said, it's very easy for them to kind of like run a crew and, get guys up there and make sure that everything's being installed correctly, but at the same time, like there's other pieces to that.

There's other facets to that, to make sure that the customer understands what's happening, like you said, to make sure that you're doing exactly what you sold them on. Uh, and, and, and build that customer relationship, uh, and, and build that world class experience. And I think, so that's really interesting that you touched on that because it's something that has been big on my mind.

And it's something that we talked about a little bit of rises, maybe if you start to make that the focus, right. It changes how you look at your process in general.

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. I think that everybody comes in the roofing industry from different angles, right? Uh, some people come in as a world class installer, some people come in as a salesperson, some people come in as an entrepreneur. You have different skill sets naturally that you build over time. And for me, it was always marketing and sales, which I continued to just get better at. But, some people might come in on the construction background when they know exactly how, where everything's supposed to go. That was not me. So I had to learn over time how to get better at that and how to put people in positions to be better at that. And then naturally focus on my marketing efforts to continue to grow our brand.

So everybody comes in at a certain angle. You have to know the different facets of how to build a business and then hire people to follow that process or to create the process to make that that better. So a lot of the feedback we got last year was we were great in sales, we're great in marketing, But some of our install process was not as clean as what we hoped. So in 2024, it's like heavy assets towards making this the best let's kind of slow down our construction process and really pick it apart and make every, even from before install to the day before, to the day of, to the day after, we want to make sure that that's seamless and consistently. I mean, one word that everybody should focus on is just communication. communication is so valuable in making sure that customer experience is good. And I think that in using, uh, roofers tools, uh, and using, uh, like company cam to take pictures. These things are really important and, uh, just whatever tool you use, use it to its fullest ability because, uh, customers want that. want to know what the heck is going on with their, with their roof. And so however you can communicate that forward is like very valuable.

Pete: Yeah, I think that's key. And it is a good point. I think in today's day and age, it's probably easier than it's ever been to keep that line of, to be proactive in that communication, uh, with the automations and, all of these products that are built now to facilitate that communicating with the customer and internally to with your own, with your own team.

I think that, it's, Now's the time to really kind of master that and, and, and make that a huge part of your business because it is easier than it's ever been before. We don't, we're not in a situation where my salesman has to be on the phone all day. Uh, putting out fires with customers, we can be much more proactive than we've ever been.

Uh, Through these systems. So, one of the things I liked that you touched on is he kind of said in a roundabout way, you said that you more or less like higher to your weaknesses, right? Like you, you identify the areas that you're the strongest that like for you, it was sales and marketing, you weren't, you didn't come from the construction side of it.

So, you're, you're kind of filling the gaps with people that can, that are smarter than you in those areas. And I think that's a big part, especially for someone who's, Newer, right? Recognizing like, Hey, I, maybe this is a weakness for me. And instead of me trying to just wing it, maybe I should go get somebody, right.

That actually knows this a little bit better than me for you. What was probably the most significant hire early on? Ooh,

Benjamin Tiger: in short order, a CFO. So I know enough to be dangerous in finances. I've studied finance, I've studied numbers, but I'm not the guy to crunch spreadsheets, uh, month over month. So I think that, uh, my, our CFO here is a friend of mine. He's been in finance for, uh, all of his life. Hiring that person to really know our backend numbers, to know where we're losing money and where we're gaining money is really important. so having him give a very vivid view of this is where we should go. Very simply, we're in business to make money. We're not in business for free. So knowing where to allocate your dollars to get your [00:15:00] best return is really valuable. And then he's also in, in, in, in team with our production manager. So the production manager and the CFO working together to, uh, to find out materials, the best costs. Uh, install it the right way is like really key for our sales people on the front. I've heard many stories of people selling a lot of dollars and then losing money. That's a common story.

Pete: It is super smart. I mean, I remember when I first started in this industry and I worked, uh, at the CRM and I would talk to contractors, one of the things that we would hear the most was them struggling to understand finances, like we would ask things like, what is your profit margin, uh, and things of that, of that nature, and, and, uh, you, you get all kinds of answers all over the board, like, Hey, whatever's left over at the end of the job, that's my profit.

Or, like, oh, I don't really invoice customers. I just ask them for a check at the end of the job. Like it was very kind of, like you said, enough to be dangerous, but not enough to really like know what was going on and, uh, and I think that that's even more prevalent nowadays now that, you have.

PE firms kind of entering the picture and potentially making offers. And if you're, uh, a roofing contractor that's looking to, exit, maybe in the future that becomes of the utmost importance of, of having all of that financial stuff in line and, and understanding where you're at on your numbers and understanding, what your profitability is and, and, Uh, that's going to be the, one of the first things that they look at, so, uh, so very, yeah, that's a smart, smart take for sure.

Benjamin Tiger: With knowing your weaknesses is huge and in the entrepreneur game, since you're starting a business from scratch, there's a lot of pride involved of being like, this is my baby and I don't want to, want to think you know it all and the quicker you get to the point where you don't know it all and that you can hire people that are better than you in certain areas, the faster you'll go.

So hiring your weaknesses is a huge takeaway from running a business.

Pete: Yeah. One of the other things that you mentioned there, which I thought was key is the feedback piece. Like you said, based on our feedback, we realized that we were lacking, talk about a little bit, like how you guys are doing that. How are you getting feedback from customers? And then how are you kind of, how, how are you guys utilizing that internally?

And then, making those adjustments.

Benjamin Tiger: Sure. I think that Roof Tiger's success has been a constant reinvention process of the main core tenets of marketing and sales has not changed. It's like we want to be the best, we want to present ourselves as professionals, but also like talking to customers every day and saying, did this go well?

Shaking somebody's hand. Was this up to your standard? And the more concrete feedback of yes, this has been great or no, this has been not, Whatever feedback you get that was like, Hey Ben, I get a lot of feedback like this. 90 percent great. But X, Y, and Z did not go exactly how you said. Okay, cool. How did it actually go and how can we fix it? a process to solve that specific problem. and so constantly reinventing yourself of knowing your weakness, seeing the problems, and then changing. changing. Not just saying you're going to change. Uh, but actually doing something to mitigate the problem is, is, is everything.

Pete: Yeah, I love that because I think that, so many times people think like, well, I, I'm figuring out a process, we'll write this process down on paper, or we'll put it in, we'll build this process in our CRM and then that's it. We'll just live by the process and, it's great advice, like that process should be constantly being tweaked and improved and changed and modified, to find, there's always opportunities and any process that you look at, no matter how efficient a company is, you I can guarantee you that there's holes or weaknesses or opportunities in that process that they could do better.

And, and they probably know it. And so like, what are you doing to, to find those opportunities and then to make those improvements? I love it.

Benjamin Tiger: And then going back to what we said when we first opened this, Pete, it's, it's uh, finding people who do it better than you. Right?

Pete: Yeah, I

Benjamin Tiger: pretty friendly. If you just, I've reached out to many people on Facebook that do things really well, and I'm like, hey man, Can I steal 15 minutes of your time and can I just ask you a bunch of questions and then most of the time people will be like, yeah, heck yeah, I'll be willing to talk to you. a lot of people don't let their pride down enough to do that. And so I think that's, that's just staying nimble and knowing that people do things really well, that they're ahead of you 10 years. So you can take that knowledge and implement it. what we do in our wintertime, Pete, is we ask people a bunch of questions and then reinvent our process based on what they do better.

So, yeah, that's it.

Pete: Yeah. It's interesting. We did a Masterclass with Ty Meredith from MHI and he, and he. Yeah, and they recently, uh, went through the whole P E acquisition thing. And one of the things that he talked about was the, the power of the conglomerate that they're building there with the other roofing companies is that they can capitalize off of, I do this best and you do this piece best.

And now we can put this together and build this mammoth process that's really sound because we're, we're taking the best of all these companies. And,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: I think that's super smart advice. I think, 10 years ago, I don't know that you would have been able to pick up the phone and call a competitor and be like, Hey, what are you guys doing good, but

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: know, the roofing, the roofing industry has definitely changed, guys like Ty and Ty backer and Mary, Monarch, you mentioned in cornerstone, like all of those guys are doing a lot of work to, you Kind of make it more of a community and, and realize like, Hey, we're competitors, but we're all in this together and we can help each other out.

And I think that, as we move forward, it's helping the industry as a whole to become, better, more advanced and just, uh, do a better job altogether because. Like I think you even said it in, in your rise speech, people don't trust contractors. Right. So we got to change that image and it's going to take a long time to do that.

And, uh, so it's, it's interesting to see how the evolution of the industry for sure. And how people are now working together to, to help each other out.

Benjamin Tiger: If you go to McDonald's and you have a bad meal there, you still will probably go back to McDonald's at some point in

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: right?

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: and you have a bad experience, What's the likelihood of that person calling you back for the second roof, or more importantly, recommending you to your neighbors? So, we've got one shot, in Eminem's words, one shot, one opportunity, to make it

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: deploy assets toward that project to make sure that's perfect, or close to perfect as possible. So that they'll recommend you to your friends, they'll write a Google review, they'll rant about you on Facebook. Uh, these things are all snowball effects, and if you have the opposite, where you have a bad experience, they'll probably shout you out even more. To their neighbors to say, don't use this guy. So there's this risk reward. If you have a bad meal at McDonald's, the chances of you going to Facebook is slim.

Pete: Yeah,

Benjamin Tiger: just will

Pete: you're right.

Benjamin Tiger: time. And then when you get

Pete: Go back.

Benjamin Tiger: on the road. Right.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: in recent times, it doesn't work that way. We've got one chance to make it right. And so you better be ready to, to harness the responsibility of that. Yes.

Pete: just asked some other contractors that I knew like, Hey, do you have a plumber? Got some names called the first guy goes to voicemail. He a day later, he doesn't return the voicemail. So I just essentially wrote him off, went to the next guy.

His voicemail was full. Right. So I couldn't even leave him a message. And then the third guy was the winner. I, I actually, he sent him a message, texted him a message and he responded within like five minutes. And I was like, this guy got the job. Like, I didn't even ask how much it was going to cost.

I just said like, Hey, this guy responded to me in five minutes. He's willing to come right over and do the work, in a reasonable amount of time. I think the next day or something like that. And, he won the job just on being the one person who communicated, uh, like never even asked what, what it was going to cost me for him to do it.

Uh, he just came over and did it. And, uh, and the other two guys probably would have been the same thing if they would have picked up the phone, so it's, and it kind of played and I've, it's funny as it was happening. I was thinking about you saying, people don't trust contractors and I'm like, this is why, right?

Benjamin Tiger: Well, dude, just, just, I mean, Pete, it's, it's almost laughable, but how low has the bar been set in contracting?

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: has it been

Pete: It's a shame. Right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So think about that when you're starting a business, or if you're trying to build a strong business, the first thing you should apply assets towards is answering the damn phone. and if you can't do that, why are you, Putting yourself out there as, as a reliable option. So the first thing, the first contact they have with you is everything. I remember watching a video, Pete, maybe you've seen it online, of John Taffer. He's the famous restaurateur. He does that one show where he goes in and reinvents a restaurant.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: When he talked about how, I think if, if somebody has a good experience at your restaurant, the the chances they're gonna visit you a second time is 80%.

Pete: Hmm.

Benjamin Tiger: But if they have a bad experience, it's like near zero.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: the first time you interact with somebody on your product is like, is everything. And if you're starting a restaurant right now, the first week or two, you should be training for months on that first week.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So I don't know why we think in roofing where if we open up a business and we put ourself out there that all of a sudden that, you don't deploy assets towards, uh, answering your phones, making sure it's a seamless sales process, man, you should be doing everything in your, in your power. To train your people, to answer it correctly, to, to, represent the company well, and to sell your product. is 90 percent of the battle.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: it really is, before they write a check to you. Steve.

Pete: he had in his first year, he had this just exceptional year in real estate. And I said to him, like, what's the secret? Like, how did you, I mean, I know you like to talk, but damn, you don't know anything about real estate. And here you are having this banner year.

And he said to me, he said, the key to my success Is answering the phone. He's like, whenever it rings, whether it's, seven o'clock in the morning or seven o'clock at night with the phone rings, he said, I answer it. He goes, and nine times outta 10, I win the job because I'm the only person who answered their phone.

And he said, that's what people tell me time and time again is I can't believe you actually answered your phone. And it's, so it's not unique to, to contracting, uh, but, but it's huge, but it's a huge part of it. I mean, like you said, like, if it's not part of your process right up front, like you're in trouble already,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. And, and yeah, that's where everything flows is, is, is the first time they contact your company, that the sales process, are you building the trust? Obviously we have ridiculous, you can see the tiger logo behind us for those not familiar, but our trucks are wrapped in tiger stripes. So we're very forward in our marketing.

So imagine if you saw all these trucks driving around and then you call us and we don't answer.

Pete: right.

Benjamin Tiger: What happens the next time you see a tiger truck?

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: Negativity.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: And then you're like, and then somebody brings a name up at a party. Oh, who is, who has talked with Roof Tiger? And somebody says, yeah, I called him last week.

They didn't answer the phone. All of a sudden it's the, it's a backwards trend.

Pete: Right.

Benjamin Tiger: taking a big risk in putting ourselves out there. And that's why we have to be so sharp. Uh, because when you put yourself out there and you're, and you're flamboyant, you're marketing, you've got to back it up. Uh, so it puts a, a, a amount of pressure on your company to perform, which I like the pressure.

I want our guys to feel pressure to be the best.

Pete: Yeah. But, and it, well, and it goes back to that, like we talked about that world class experience, right? From the, right from the initial phone call, you need to have that mindset. Like, Hey, we're going to answer the phone and this is going to be world class from the very beginning. Uh, and, and I think that's where, some people falter.

It's like, Oh yeah, like I, I know what I'm doing. I'm a world class installer. I've been doing it for 20 years, whatever the case may be, but there's a lot more to that than just being great at, uh, physically doing the job, or, or running that crew. So, a

Benjamin Tiger: if somebody is out there watching this and you're, uh, you're doing 30 roofs in a year or 50 roofs in a year, and you want to stay that size, by all means be,

Pete: hundred percent.

Benjamin Tiger: and be the, be, be that person that, that is a one man show that's, that's no, no big deal. But if you're looking to scale and you're looking to something bigger than yourself, you have to think about these things to start with. You can't be naive in the sense of saying, Oh, I can just do it how I did last year. That's not going to cut it. have to think bigger than yourself.

Pete: Yeah, I like that. And I like, that you guys now are focusing on production. Cause that's something that I've preached for a long time is like, I think it's one of the most overlooked things. Like you go to all these conferences and then everybody that gets up on stage is telling you, this is how your team needs to sell.

And, this is things you can do better in your sales process and all of this stuff. And no one really talks about,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: end of things and how integral it is. Like you could. Sell it. I can produce a ton of leads and close a bunch of sales, but if they bottleneck at my production, we're in trouble, right?

Like we're going to have a lot of bad reviews on Google. So, uh, so it's interesting that you guys now are focusing on that and, and making that a main piece, in that world class experience. Cause I think it is a huge overlooked in general, in the industry. I think we overlook it,

Benjamin Tiger: At the same time, I totally agree with you. You can't have a production problem until you have a sales problem first.

Pete: right.

Benjamin Tiger: If you're

Pete: Very true.

Benjamin Tiger: roofs, if you're doing six roofs in a year, you don't have problems. You have,

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So, uh, you can't really have a, a product of scale or issues in your production.

You can't even know about it until you've got so many that you don't even know. Some people are like, yeah, we did this install for you. And I don't even know the customer anymore. That's great. That means somebody else sold the job and I don't know the customer's name, but I want to make sure that on the back end that we're giving enough support to these install pieces to make sure that, Even if I don't even know if an install is happening, I know I can trust my team to take care of it.

Pete: Yeah. I like that. Now, do you guys do any kind of like a final walkthrough or, or meeting with the customer after? Cause that's something that I think was, as when I would work with contractors and we would see their process very hit and miss, uh, some guys would say like, we have it, as a very integral piece of our of our process.

And other guys were like, not, not unless we have an issue, then, obviously we're going back out there. But other than that, it's kind of like hammer it out, pack up and get out there, so.

Benjamin Tiger: it depends. I think that, uh, we have a foreman on site 100 percent of the time when the job is being done. So they're

Pete: That makes a big difference.

Benjamin Tiger: taking a bunch of pictures. We're sharing those pictures with the customer as we go so they can see the project. But then we, we pick up materials usually the next morning after the job is finished.

Sometimes we get finished late at night as you guys know. uh, the next day is really that time to, to cool everything over with the customer and make sure everything went well. But really, I think that the, the, the, the key to a strong finish is everything in the middle.

Pete: Yep.

Benjamin Tiger: long as the customer is staying in touch and they trust the foreman, that's the key to, if an issue pops up of three nails they found on the ground, you can easily smooth that over. But if you're not having that attention to detail in the middle part, the end, if they don't trust you is much harder. when you have a lot more issues where people are like, oh my gosh, this didn't get to you, this didn't get to you. You should be doing those things as you go.

Pete: Yeah, I like it. I like it.

Benjamin Tiger: So to [00:30:00] answer your question directly, Pete, we don't have a specific process to do an end walkthrough.

I think that's maybe next year's thing. Our middle part is getting way, way better. Yes.

Pete: guys are, like you said, I think there are some companies that are doing it, but I think it is fairly unique to have a foreman. That's there. The entire job, the job is going over like we, I know I was in general contracting, where we're doing kitchens and baths, the projects that were taking us months.

Yeah. And we didn't have a foreman that was there full time. No, he would come, he would be on the job, check in with the homeowner, make sure everybody was doing what they need to do and that we had everything we needed. And then he's off to another job site. Right. And so I think it is a bit unique, uh, in that aspect, but like you said, I think it makes a huge difference in building that relationship and that trust and makes it a lot easier if you do have a, something go wrong to, to kind of fix it with the homeowner really quickly.

Benjamin Tiger: You bet. And as people know, the installers in the roofing industry are 95%, probably Hispanic. so you have a language barrier there where you can't really talk to the people that install the roofs. And so, having that person on site who can speak and who can vouch for both the install team and for the, the homeowner. Uh, this is somebody's home where they have their kids there to protect. And so, we have to be conscious of that. This is not just a, a dollar revenue game. This is somebody's home. being very, uh, meticulous in your, in your construction practices and how you talk to people, it's, I can't, I can't stress that enough.

But again, I think that takes, uh, to some people, uh, hiring a foreman just to do that. It's, it's a costly thing. It costs tens of

Pete: Sure.

Benjamin Tiger: dollars a year. So, very conscious of, uh, of your money as well. You have to make it make sense.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. And I probably, I would imagine that it makes you guys much more responsive on the production end of things too, by having a foreman there. Like I, like I said, going back to my experience, like if, as the crew lead and those guys on, on, Uh, on a job site, let's say we run into an issue and we need an answer or something, we could be, on the phone and waiting for someone to come for our like job, maybe at a standstill, waiting on materials or waiting on, someone to come make a executive decision there, so I'm sure that that, that actually helps with your customer experience as well, that you guys have someone there that can make that call and it be very responsive.

Benjamin Tiger: You got it. That's something we learned from Cornerstone and, uh, big ups to those guys. They taught us a lot of these, a lot of these concepts and, uh, they took a lot of time with us in the wintertime. And, and yeah, I'm very thankful for that team for allowing us to see into their company and how they do things.

Pete: Pretty cool.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: So what is, uh, so what does the future look like for, uh, for Roof Tiger? Maybe over the next couple of years here.

Benjamin Tiger: That's a great point, Pete. I, I, I've, I've considered many things. Again, only two ways to expand your company's revenue. Uh, you expand to a different city or you, uh, do new product lines. We're looking into both very seriously right now. I'm not going to share too many details, but you can be, uh, pretty sure that it's a, a big cat but yeah, expanding territory and expanding product lines is going to be in our future.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: man, it's been great talking to you. I don't want to keep you too long today. I know this busy time of the season for everybody. So, uh, it's been great. I'm honored to have you guys as the, the Roofr of the Month here for July. Always respect what you guys are doing over there.

And, uh,

Benjamin Tiger: Thank

Pete: and you and I have become friends. So it's been, uh, fun to watch the journey of Rooftiger and what you guys have going on. And,

Benjamin Tiger: Thank

Pete: so, uh, I know all of us here at Roofer, you guys are Roofer users and all of us here at Roofer are big fans of Roof Tiger. So, uh, excited to have you guys as the July Roofr of the Month.

And, uh, I want to thank everyone for. For, uh, watching and, and thank Ben for joining us here today to give us some insight into Roof Tiger. And, uh, any last words, Ben, anything, uh, any, any golden nuggets here?

Benjamin Tiger: Yes, big ups to Roofr. I don't say this just as a, a company shill. say this as somebody who's an avid user of the product. I love not only the product that they have, but the people that they have. Pete is just one of many who's incredible. And I'd say that what Roofr is building actually influences the roofing industry in a positive way. You can't say that about every company who joins, and I say that Roofr has been a tremendous partner to us, and I'm very thankful for the relationship we have. We use them multiple times a day for roof measurements and for their tools, so I can't stress enough that if you're somebody looking for a CRM, for measurement tools, or for all the products they offer, I know you guys have a lot more than just that, Give this company their props because they're building something that roofers will actually use and, and understand.

So, thank you guys so much for having me and, and, uh, I can't be thankful enough of our relationship here for RoofTiger to Roofr.

Pete: I appreciate that, man. And I think that, going back to like what you said, Roofr, we have the same mentality, like it's all about that customer experience and, doing a lot of the same things that you're doing in your business, customer feedback and constantly tweaking the process.

We do that every single day here at Roofr. Uh, we've been lucky enough to hire some incredible people who, you You know, are constantly giving some great insight and doing tons of research and figuring out better ways to do things. So, we're just like you guys were constantly evolving every day.

And, uh,

Benjamin Tiger: Love

Pete: know, we, we appreciate the, the props there because it's a lot of hard work to, to do what we're doing. And, uh, and we enjoy it, we enjoy being able to, to help you guys out and give you guys that great customer experience that we, uh, have been come to get, you've been known for here recently, so, so it's good.

Benjamin Tiger: Uh, one last question, Pete. Are you going to be at RoofCon or roofing process this year?

Pete: Yes, we will be at RoofCon. I assume we'll be at roofing process as well. So

Benjamin Tiger: going to be

Pete: personally, I will definitely be at RoofCon for sure.

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: I will be at RoofCon. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: We'll be there as well. I'm bringing like four people with me this time. And Baby's coming as well. Baby's due in August. So, he'll

Pete: Yes.

Benjamin Tiger: well.

Pete: Oh, we'll actually have the baby as well. So,

Benjamin Tiger: Nice.

Pete: so that the babies can meet.

Benjamin Tiger: Love it, dude.

Pete: Awesome. All right, Ben, thank you for joining us and thank you for everybody for watching. And, uh, congrats to Roof Tiger on the, uh, July Roofr of the Month. And we will see you guys next time on the roofer report.

Benjamin Tiger: Thanks, guys.

​

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.

ROTM - Ben Morrow - July
===

[00:00:00] You're listening to The Roofer Report. Tune in for exclusive interviews with roofing experts and insights from leaders who walk the walk. Grow with Roofer, and your host, Pete McKendrick.

Pete: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Roofer Report. I'm your host Pete McKendrick, and once again we're back here with our Roofr of the Month, our new series. Heading into July here, we have our new Roofr of the Month, Ben Morrow. many of you guys know him as Ben Tiger from Rooftiger. So welcome Ben, happy to have you on.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah, happy to be here. And I'm really honored to be the Roofr of the Month. This is awesome. So I really appreciate it.

Pete: Yeah, it's been a great series. We've been able to showcase some great people and, uh, some of our, our power users, but also some people that are, have really done well in the industry and really excelled here. And, and one of the things that I've noticed, uh, with all of the Roofr of the Months that we've had so far I've been lucky enough to interview everybody.

And, and it's all been people that have found success In their own unique ways, but in a very short amount of time, we talked to Joe Andrews who, who has found success in like a year and a half in business, uh, Amanda Veinott who many people will know it was our May Roofr of the Month, John Tucker, who, who kind of has a different approach, but has found, success in a short amount of time.

And then obviously you, uh, who really has excelled here, uh, in a short amount of time, with your business. And, uh, so. I guess give a little bit of background if it just in case someone listening doesn't know Roof Tiger and doesn't know Ben, uh, what you guys have going on and, and how you guys kind of got to where you are.

And then we'll, we'll talk about some other stuff.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah, so I'm Ben Morrow, also known as Benjamin Tiger on social media. started Roof Tiger in 2020, uh, height of the pandemic. And basically grew to, we've done, uh, right around 20 million in sales, uh, since that inception. Ben. And started Solar Panther, our solar division in 2021, a year later. Really just running and gunning, man, uh, learning from the best and just constantly, uh, watching people and how they do business and trying to emulate that. wish I'd say it was something unique. I really feel like I've just watched the industry grow over the last four years. And I try to do things that people have found success in. Uh, I don't have to reinvent the wheel a hundred times. Uh, just do what people are doing successfully and copy it. In our own way and make it successful.

So wish I could say that I was unique, but I think that my story is one of just duplicating the best things that people do long before I've done it. Uh, and, and so, yeah, that's what we've done in the last four years. And we've done well over, uh, 700, 800 roofs and 150 solar systems. And this is us. That's what we do. Yes.

Pete: used to work in, uh, the manufacturing field and our boss, uh, the guy who ran our plant used to say the way to be successful is to figure out who did it best and shamelessly steal from them. And, uh, and he was, right, like you kind of take the best pieces of, of everybody and, and kind of figure out how you fit it into your process.

And, uh, like you said, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, somebody's probably done it before. So, uh, you just kind of figure out how you fit it to, to what you guys are doing.

Benjamin Tiger: You got it. Yeah, and I think that there's brilliant people in the roofing industry that, are not on camera. That I've met at conferences and stuff. But the people who do put their stuff out on, on, on video, I'm watching. Ha ha ha. Uh, and it's cool because it's created this community of like, I'm, I'm giving people props of, of where they're deserved.

And it's, it's, it's built this community of people that I can trust and text and. mentor me through this process of being an entrepreneur. So I love it. And the roofing industry is, is unique in a lot of different ways, but, uh, it's not unique in general business practice. And I think, uh, watching people who are really good over this timeframe has just helped me excel.

Pete: Yeah, I mean, I, one thing that I respect that you guys have done as good as anybody is, we often preach on a lot of our stuff, at RISE events and on our Masterclass about being that neighborhood roofer and really, like focusing on becoming well known in your local community.

And I think it's kind of a mistake that a lot of new roofers make is the, you think I need more leads, so I need to expand my territory. And now I'm, Covering a lot of ground or, hey, we found success. Let's immediately go look to expand maybe into the neighboring state or something like that.

And you guys have done a really good job of kind of playing in your own backyard, and continuing to find success by just strengthening that relationship with your community. And, uh, that's one thing that I really respect that you guys have done because,

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: you've proven you've essentially proven that model that, we kind of preach about all the time is, does your neighborhood know who you are?

Are you the neighborhood roofer?

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. I, there's a saying in real estate that real estate is national, but it's, it's, it's regional and local. And I think that's very true in the roofing industry that everybody has a roof in the United States, right, if you live in a house. But you're going to call somebody who's local to you and, uh, if you're known in the region and known in the locale, they'll call you first if you're trusted. And I think in creating content, my content is mostly focused on people here in Peoria, because that's where I sell roofs. Uh, so I think the opposite is true that don't focus on the national landscape in creating content for everybody. It's just not true. Uh, focus on restaurants, focus on people that live near you and become the beacon of trust for those people. And you'll see your business explode. And there's a lot more houses than you think. people always think like, Oh, I'm running out of houses to roof. Not necessarily true. You haven't roofed them all. And more pockets where you can find and, uh, yeah, there's hundreds of thousands of people in Peoria, a quarter million. I know people in markets of a million plus, man, you're blessed to have that. So. give up. Just tap into that network and stay there because it's, it will just continue to be a snowball effect.

Pete: Well, and like one of the things that I like, what you guys have done too, is you diversified. Right? So,

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: like, for instance, like, let's say you were in a very small town and the roofs are essentially drying up. Let's say, right? Which,

Benjamin Tiger: Yep.

Pete: like you said, isn't necessarily reality, but we can definitely see that picture, where I would say, like, oh, my leads are slowing down.

I'm in a small town. Maybe there aren't as many roofs as I would hope here. But But what you guys did is you diversified to where now you have the solar option as well. So it kind of gives you another avenue to continue to, to, excel in your own neighborhood, uh, and not have to expand into these other areas and travel further and open other offices and all these other things.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah. I knew, uh, I actually, I actually cut my teeth in the bathroom industry. And one thing that was very prominent in there is there's only two ways to expand your business. One, you can expand your location of where you install or two, you can install more products. And so we created a second brand in Solar Panther and that's been very profitable for us. I don't recommend everybody getting solar. You have to be very technical and very sound in your installation and, and how you do business. Because there's a lot of riffraff in the solar community. uh, that's the first thing I'll recommend is for people who do roofing, siding, gutters, windows, these things are all really, uh, profitable things you can do.

And it's the same business model as your roofing company. You just have to know how to market it. Again, don't go into things that you don't know anything about unless you're really skilled, you can get a lot of trouble there, uh, as long as you can, can uphold the same standard as your roofing company, I think that's a good idea.

Pete: Yeah, it's a good point. I think that, it's easy to say yes, it's easy to be there and then say, Hey, you're here looking at my roof. Can you look at this? Can you look at that? And, it's easy to say yes, but like you said, I think it's a really good point to make sure that you feel confident and comfortable, uh, delving into that stuff and not, agreeing to do some stuff or take on some, trades that potentially you aren't familiar with as a, as an owner or, uh, a staff and put yourself in a bad position.

Cause that could. In today's day and age, especially with the, uh, the Google review,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: Things can go downhill fast for you, right?

Benjamin Tiger: It all starts and ends with labor at the end. And so you have to have really skilled technicians. And as people know, watching this, the roofing roofers are relatively easy to find. And sound sighting, windows, gutters solar guys are not as easy to find. So, you either have to create that market yourself or you have to find those people. And that's not an easy thing to do. So, uh, be careful in opening new businesses, but also don't let it hold you back if you think it's profitable and it can expand your, your revenue. Mm hmm.

Pete: So I think a lot of people talk about you as a kind of like a branding guru, right? Like obviously the tiger stripes on everything, the solar Panther, and you guys sticking with that theme and that has evolved, like into your own, your own brand, right?

Your own personal brand there of, of Ben tiger. And you just have done a really good job with that, and I think that, you told that story and I know like even at rise, like you got up on that stage and we've talked about that. So, I, I love the way that you guys diversified yourself there, but, as you guys continue now to, to grow and kind of get more seasoned as a company, what are some of the things that you're doing to continue to stand out from the crowd?

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah. Uh, construction excellence. So this year we've devoted a more resources towards construction management versus marketing. marketing continues to hum along. just being extra careful, we have a foreman on site throughout the entire job process now. That's something I took from Cornerstone Construction down in in I think it's South Carolina or

Pete: South Carolina. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: and they're really good at construction management. Just making sure the customer experience is top tier. Uh, Monarch Roofing, I think, does the same thing. And so, just devoting extra resources towards making sure the customer experience when actually roofing is just like top tier. it's easy in the roofing industry, if you're watching this as a roofing contractor, to kind of just believe that your guys are doing the right thing. And most of the time, that is the case. But just devoting extra resources to make sure exactly what you said in the sales process is being carried on construction, that's one of the biggest bridges to gap. And so the, uh, the roofing industry is, is a lot of money. You make a lot of money per job, but making sure to allocate enough dollars to make sure that it's like a premium experience, uh, it costs money to do so...

Pete: So let's get into that a little bit because I like exactly what you said, right? Like this is something that we've recently talked about and I know it was a big part of our last RISE tour.

And I think that, at the end of the day, the Everything kind of evolves from that customer experience. Like if you go into building your process around, how do we offer the best customer experience in this world class elite customer experience to set ourself apart, it makes it easier to develop a process around that.

Right. And I think, I know from experience, a lot of guys in this industry are very knowledgeable when it comes to the production end of things. Right. A lot of them have started as, as nail, we're nailing on shingles. So, production is their bread and butter. So it's very easy, like you said, it's very easy for them to kind of like run a crew and, get guys up there and make sure that everything's being installed correctly, but at the same time, like there's other pieces to that.

There's other facets to that, to make sure that the customer understands what's happening, like you said, to make sure that you're doing exactly what you sold them on. Uh, and, and, and build that customer relationship, uh, and, and build that world class experience. And I think, so that's really interesting that you touched on that because it's something that has been big on my mind.

And it's something that we talked about a little bit of rises, maybe if you start to make that the focus, right. It changes how you look at your process in general.

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. I think that everybody comes in the roofing industry from different angles, right? Uh, some people come in as a world class installer, some people come in as a salesperson, some people come in as an entrepreneur. You have different skill sets naturally that you build over time. And for me, it was always marketing and sales, which I continued to just get better at. But, some people might come in on the construction background when they know exactly how, where everything's supposed to go. That was not me. So I had to learn over time how to get better at that and how to put people in positions to be better at that. And then naturally focus on my marketing efforts to continue to grow our brand.

So everybody comes in at a certain angle. You have to know the different facets of how to build a business and then hire people to follow that process or to create the process to make that that better. So a lot of the feedback we got last year was we were great in sales, we're great in marketing, But some of our install process was not as clean as what we hoped. So in 2024, it's like heavy assets towards making this the best let's kind of slow down our construction process and really pick it apart and make every, even from before install to the day before, to the day of, to the day after, we want to make sure that that's seamless and consistently. I mean, one word that everybody should focus on is just communication. communication is so valuable in making sure that customer experience is good. And I think that in using, uh, roofers tools, uh, and using, uh, like company cam to take pictures. These things are really important and, uh, just whatever tool you use, use it to its fullest ability because, uh, customers want that. want to know what the heck is going on with their, with their roof. And so however you can communicate that forward is like very valuable.

Pete: Yeah, I think that's key. And it is a good point. I think in today's day and age, it's probably easier than it's ever been to keep that line of, to be proactive in that communication, uh, with the automations and, all of these products that are built now to facilitate that communicating with the customer and internally to with your own, with your own team.

I think that, it's, Now's the time to really kind of master that and, and, and make that a huge part of your business because it is easier than it's ever been before. We don't, we're not in a situation where my salesman has to be on the phone all day. Uh, putting out fires with customers, we can be much more proactive than we've ever been.

Uh, Through these systems. So, one of the things I liked that you touched on is he kind of said in a roundabout way, you said that you more or less like higher to your weaknesses, right? Like you, you identify the areas that you're the strongest that like for you, it was sales and marketing, you weren't, you didn't come from the construction side of it.

So, you're, you're kind of filling the gaps with people that can, that are smarter than you in those areas. And I think that's a big part, especially for someone who's, Newer, right? Recognizing like, Hey, I, maybe this is a weakness for me. And instead of me trying to just wing it, maybe I should go get somebody, right.

That actually knows this a little bit better than me for you. What was probably the most significant hire early on? Ooh,

Benjamin Tiger: in short order, a CFO. So I know enough to be dangerous in finances. I've studied finance, I've studied numbers, but I'm not the guy to crunch spreadsheets, uh, month over month. So I think that, uh, my, our CFO here is a friend of mine. He's been in finance for, uh, all of his life. Hiring that person to really know our backend numbers, to know where we're losing money and where we're gaining money is really important. so having him give a very vivid view of this is where we should go. Very simply, we're in business to make money. We're not in business for free. So knowing where to allocate your dollars to get your [00:15:00] best return is really valuable. And then he's also in, in, in, in team with our production manager. So the production manager and the CFO working together to, uh, to find out materials, the best costs. Uh, install it the right way is like really key for our sales people on the front. I've heard many stories of people selling a lot of dollars and then losing money. That's a common story.

Pete: It is super smart. I mean, I remember when I first started in this industry and I worked, uh, at the CRM and I would talk to contractors, one of the things that we would hear the most was them struggling to understand finances, like we would ask things like, what is your profit margin, uh, and things of that, of that nature, and, and, uh, you, you get all kinds of answers all over the board, like, Hey, whatever's left over at the end of the job, that's my profit.

Or, like, oh, I don't really invoice customers. I just ask them for a check at the end of the job. Like it was very kind of, like you said, enough to be dangerous, but not enough to really like know what was going on and, uh, and I think that that's even more prevalent nowadays now that, you have.

PE firms kind of entering the picture and potentially making offers. And if you're, uh, a roofing contractor that's looking to, exit, maybe in the future that becomes of the utmost importance of, of having all of that financial stuff in line and, and understanding where you're at on your numbers and understanding, what your profitability is and, and, Uh, that's going to be the, one of the first things that they look at, so, uh, so very, yeah, that's a smart, smart take for sure.

Benjamin Tiger: With knowing your weaknesses is huge and in the entrepreneur game, since you're starting a business from scratch, there's a lot of pride involved of being like, this is my baby and I don't want to, want to think you know it all and the quicker you get to the point where you don't know it all and that you can hire people that are better than you in certain areas, the faster you'll go.

So hiring your weaknesses is a huge takeaway from running a business.

Pete: Yeah. One of the other things that you mentioned there, which I thought was key is the feedback piece. Like you said, based on our feedback, we realized that we were lacking, talk about a little bit, like how you guys are doing that. How are you getting feedback from customers? And then how are you kind of, how, how are you guys utilizing that internally?

And then, making those adjustments.

Benjamin Tiger: Sure. I think that Roof Tiger's success has been a constant reinvention process of the main core tenets of marketing and sales has not changed. It's like we want to be the best, we want to present ourselves as professionals, but also like talking to customers every day and saying, did this go well?

Shaking somebody's hand. Was this up to your standard? And the more concrete feedback of yes, this has been great or no, this has been not, Whatever feedback you get that was like, Hey Ben, I get a lot of feedback like this. 90 percent great. But X, Y, and Z did not go exactly how you said. Okay, cool. How did it actually go and how can we fix it? a process to solve that specific problem. and so constantly reinventing yourself of knowing your weakness, seeing the problems, and then changing. changing. Not just saying you're going to change. Uh, but actually doing something to mitigate the problem is, is, is everything.

Pete: Yeah, I love that because I think that, so many times people think like, well, I, I'm figuring out a process, we'll write this process down on paper, or we'll put it in, we'll build this process in our CRM and then that's it. We'll just live by the process and, it's great advice, like that process should be constantly being tweaked and improved and changed and modified, to find, there's always opportunities and any process that you look at, no matter how efficient a company is, you I can guarantee you that there's holes or weaknesses or opportunities in that process that they could do better.

And, and they probably know it. And so like, what are you doing to, to find those opportunities and then to make those improvements? I love it.

Benjamin Tiger: And then going back to what we said when we first opened this, Pete, it's, it's uh, finding people who do it better than you. Right?

Pete: Yeah, I

Benjamin Tiger: pretty friendly. If you just, I've reached out to many people on Facebook that do things really well, and I'm like, hey man, Can I steal 15 minutes of your time and can I just ask you a bunch of questions and then most of the time people will be like, yeah, heck yeah, I'll be willing to talk to you. a lot of people don't let their pride down enough to do that. And so I think that's, that's just staying nimble and knowing that people do things really well, that they're ahead of you 10 years. So you can take that knowledge and implement it. what we do in our wintertime, Pete, is we ask people a bunch of questions and then reinvent our process based on what they do better.

So, yeah, that's it.

Pete: Yeah. It's interesting. We did a Masterclass with Ty Meredith from MHI and he, and he. Yeah, and they recently, uh, went through the whole P E acquisition thing. And one of the things that he talked about was the, the power of the conglomerate that they're building there with the other roofing companies is that they can capitalize off of, I do this best and you do this piece best.

And now we can put this together and build this mammoth process that's really sound because we're, we're taking the best of all these companies. And,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: I think that's super smart advice. I think, 10 years ago, I don't know that you would have been able to pick up the phone and call a competitor and be like, Hey, what are you guys doing good, but

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: know, the roofing, the roofing industry has definitely changed, guys like Ty and Ty backer and Mary, Monarch, you mentioned in cornerstone, like all of those guys are doing a lot of work to, you Kind of make it more of a community and, and realize like, Hey, we're competitors, but we're all in this together and we can help each other out.

And I think that, as we move forward, it's helping the industry as a whole to become, better, more advanced and just, uh, do a better job altogether because. Like I think you even said it in, in your rise speech, people don't trust contractors. Right. So we got to change that image and it's going to take a long time to do that.

And, uh, so it's, it's interesting to see how the evolution of the industry for sure. And how people are now working together to, to help each other out.

Benjamin Tiger: If you go to McDonald's and you have a bad meal there, you still will probably go back to McDonald's at some point in

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: right?

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: and you have a bad experience, What's the likelihood of that person calling you back for the second roof, or more importantly, recommending you to your neighbors? So, we've got one shot, in Eminem's words, one shot, one opportunity, to make it

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: deploy assets toward that project to make sure that's perfect, or close to perfect as possible. So that they'll recommend you to your friends, they'll write a Google review, they'll rant about you on Facebook. Uh, these things are all snowball effects, and if you have the opposite, where you have a bad experience, they'll probably shout you out even more. To their neighbors to say, don't use this guy. So there's this risk reward. If you have a bad meal at McDonald's, the chances of you going to Facebook is slim.

Pete: Yeah,

Benjamin Tiger: just will

Pete: you're right.

Benjamin Tiger: time. And then when you get

Pete: Go back.

Benjamin Tiger: on the road. Right.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: in recent times, it doesn't work that way. We've got one chance to make it right. And so you better be ready to, to harness the responsibility of that. Yes.

Pete: just asked some other contractors that I knew like, Hey, do you have a plumber? Got some names called the first guy goes to voicemail. He a day later, he doesn't return the voicemail. So I just essentially wrote him off, went to the next guy.

His voicemail was full. Right. So I couldn't even leave him a message. And then the third guy was the winner. I, I actually, he sent him a message, texted him a message and he responded within like five minutes. And I was like, this guy got the job. Like, I didn't even ask how much it was going to cost.

I just said like, Hey, this guy responded to me in five minutes. He's willing to come right over and do the work, in a reasonable amount of time. I think the next day or something like that. And, he won the job just on being the one person who communicated, uh, like never even asked what, what it was going to cost me for him to do it.

Uh, he just came over and did it. And, uh, and the other two guys probably would have been the same thing if they would have picked up the phone, so it's, and it kind of played and I've, it's funny as it was happening. I was thinking about you saying, people don't trust contractors and I'm like, this is why, right?

Benjamin Tiger: Well, dude, just, just, I mean, Pete, it's, it's almost laughable, but how low has the bar been set in contracting?

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: has it been

Pete: It's a shame. Right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So think about that when you're starting a business, or if you're trying to build a strong business, the first thing you should apply assets towards is answering the damn phone. and if you can't do that, why are you, Putting yourself out there as, as a reliable option. So the first thing, the first contact they have with you is everything. I remember watching a video, Pete, maybe you've seen it online, of John Taffer. He's the famous restaurateur. He does that one show where he goes in and reinvents a restaurant.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: When he talked about how, I think if, if somebody has a good experience at your restaurant, the the chances they're gonna visit you a second time is 80%.

Pete: Hmm.

Benjamin Tiger: But if they have a bad experience, it's like near zero.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: the first time you interact with somebody on your product is like, is everything. And if you're starting a restaurant right now, the first week or two, you should be training for months on that first week.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So I don't know why we think in roofing where if we open up a business and we put ourself out there that all of a sudden that, you don't deploy assets towards, uh, answering your phones, making sure it's a seamless sales process, man, you should be doing everything in your, in your power. To train your people, to answer it correctly, to, to, represent the company well, and to sell your product. is 90 percent of the battle.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: it really is, before they write a check to you. Steve.

Pete: he had in his first year, he had this just exceptional year in real estate. And I said to him, like, what's the secret? Like, how did you, I mean, I know you like to talk, but damn, you don't know anything about real estate. And here you are having this banner year.

And he said to me, he said, the key to my success Is answering the phone. He's like, whenever it rings, whether it's, seven o'clock in the morning or seven o'clock at night with the phone rings, he said, I answer it. He goes, and nine times outta 10, I win the job because I'm the only person who answered their phone.

And he said, that's what people tell me time and time again is I can't believe you actually answered your phone. And it's, so it's not unique to, to contracting, uh, but, but it's huge, but it's a huge part of it. I mean, like you said, like, if it's not part of your process right up front, like you're in trouble already,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes. And, and yeah, that's where everything flows is, is, is the first time they contact your company, that the sales process, are you building the trust? Obviously we have ridiculous, you can see the tiger logo behind us for those not familiar, but our trucks are wrapped in tiger stripes. So we're very forward in our marketing.

So imagine if you saw all these trucks driving around and then you call us and we don't answer.

Pete: right.

Benjamin Tiger: What happens the next time you see a tiger truck?

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: Negativity.

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: And then you're like, and then somebody brings a name up at a party. Oh, who is, who has talked with Roof Tiger? And somebody says, yeah, I called him last week.

They didn't answer the phone. All of a sudden it's the, it's a backwards trend.

Pete: Right.

Benjamin Tiger: taking a big risk in putting ourselves out there. And that's why we have to be so sharp. Uh, because when you put yourself out there and you're, and you're flamboyant, you're marketing, you've got to back it up. Uh, so it puts a, a, a amount of pressure on your company to perform, which I like the pressure.

I want our guys to feel pressure to be the best.

Pete: Yeah. But, and it, well, and it goes back to that, like we talked about that world class experience, right? From the, right from the initial phone call, you need to have that mindset. Like, Hey, we're going to answer the phone and this is going to be world class from the very beginning. Uh, and, and I think that's where, some people falter.

It's like, Oh yeah, like I, I know what I'm doing. I'm a world class installer. I've been doing it for 20 years, whatever the case may be, but there's a lot more to that than just being great at, uh, physically doing the job, or, or running that crew. So, a

Benjamin Tiger: if somebody is out there watching this and you're, uh, you're doing 30 roofs in a year or 50 roofs in a year, and you want to stay that size, by all means be,

Pete: hundred percent.

Benjamin Tiger: and be the, be, be that person that, that is a one man show that's, that's no, no big deal. But if you're looking to scale and you're looking to something bigger than yourself, you have to think about these things to start with. You can't be naive in the sense of saying, Oh, I can just do it how I did last year. That's not going to cut it. have to think bigger than yourself.

Pete: Yeah, I like that. And I like, that you guys now are focusing on production. Cause that's something that I've preached for a long time is like, I think it's one of the most overlooked things. Like you go to all these conferences and then everybody that gets up on stage is telling you, this is how your team needs to sell.

And, this is things you can do better in your sales process and all of this stuff. And no one really talks about,

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: end of things and how integral it is. Like you could. Sell it. I can produce a ton of leads and close a bunch of sales, but if they bottleneck at my production, we're in trouble, right?

Like we're going to have a lot of bad reviews on Google. So, uh, so it's interesting that you guys now are focusing on that and, and making that a main piece, in that world class experience. Cause I think it is a huge overlooked in general, in the industry. I think we overlook it,

Benjamin Tiger: At the same time, I totally agree with you. You can't have a production problem until you have a sales problem first.

Pete: right.

Benjamin Tiger: If you're

Pete: Very true.

Benjamin Tiger: roofs, if you're doing six roofs in a year, you don't have problems. You have,

Pete: Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: So, uh, you can't really have a, a product of scale or issues in your production.

You can't even know about it until you've got so many that you don't even know. Some people are like, yeah, we did this install for you. And I don't even know the customer anymore. That's great. That means somebody else sold the job and I don't know the customer's name, but I want to make sure that on the back end that we're giving enough support to these install pieces to make sure that, Even if I don't even know if an install is happening, I know I can trust my team to take care of it.

Pete: Yeah. I like that. Now, do you guys do any kind of like a final walkthrough or, or meeting with the customer after? Cause that's something that I think was, as when I would work with contractors and we would see their process very hit and miss, uh, some guys would say like, we have it, as a very integral piece of our of our process.

And other guys were like, not, not unless we have an issue, then, obviously we're going back out there. But other than that, it's kind of like hammer it out, pack up and get out there, so.

Benjamin Tiger: it depends. I think that, uh, we have a foreman on site 100 percent of the time when the job is being done. So they're

Pete: That makes a big difference.

Benjamin Tiger: taking a bunch of pictures. We're sharing those pictures with the customer as we go so they can see the project. But then we, we pick up materials usually the next morning after the job is finished.

Sometimes we get finished late at night as you guys know. uh, the next day is really that time to, to cool everything over with the customer and make sure everything went well. But really, I think that the, the, the, the key to a strong finish is everything in the middle.

Pete: Yep.

Benjamin Tiger: long as the customer is staying in touch and they trust the foreman, that's the key to, if an issue pops up of three nails they found on the ground, you can easily smooth that over. But if you're not having that attention to detail in the middle part, the end, if they don't trust you is much harder. when you have a lot more issues where people are like, oh my gosh, this didn't get to you, this didn't get to you. You should be doing those things as you go.

Pete: Yeah, I like it. I like it.

Benjamin Tiger: So to [00:30:00] answer your question directly, Pete, we don't have a specific process to do an end walkthrough.

I think that's maybe next year's thing. Our middle part is getting way, way better. Yes.

Pete: guys are, like you said, I think there are some companies that are doing it, but I think it is fairly unique to have a foreman. That's there. The entire job, the job is going over like we, I know I was in general contracting, where we're doing kitchens and baths, the projects that were taking us months.

Yeah. And we didn't have a foreman that was there full time. No, he would come, he would be on the job, check in with the homeowner, make sure everybody was doing what they need to do and that we had everything we needed. And then he's off to another job site. Right. And so I think it is a bit unique, uh, in that aspect, but like you said, I think it makes a huge difference in building that relationship and that trust and makes it a lot easier if you do have a, something go wrong to, to kind of fix it with the homeowner really quickly.

Benjamin Tiger: You bet. And as people know, the installers in the roofing industry are 95%, probably Hispanic. so you have a language barrier there where you can't really talk to the people that install the roofs. And so, having that person on site who can speak and who can vouch for both the install team and for the, the homeowner. Uh, this is somebody's home where they have their kids there to protect. And so, we have to be conscious of that. This is not just a, a dollar revenue game. This is somebody's home. being very, uh, meticulous in your, in your construction practices and how you talk to people, it's, I can't, I can't stress that enough.

But again, I think that takes, uh, to some people, uh, hiring a foreman just to do that. It's, it's a costly thing. It costs tens of

Pete: Sure.

Benjamin Tiger: dollars a year. So, very conscious of, uh, of your money as well. You have to make it make sense.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. And I probably, I would imagine that it makes you guys much more responsive on the production end of things too, by having a foreman there. Like I, like I said, going back to my experience, like if, as the crew lead and those guys on, on, Uh, on a job site, let's say we run into an issue and we need an answer or something, we could be, on the phone and waiting for someone to come for our like job, maybe at a standstill, waiting on materials or waiting on, someone to come make a executive decision there, so I'm sure that that, that actually helps with your customer experience as well, that you guys have someone there that can make that call and it be very responsive.

Benjamin Tiger: You got it. That's something we learned from Cornerstone and, uh, big ups to those guys. They taught us a lot of these, a lot of these concepts and, uh, they took a lot of time with us in the wintertime. And, and yeah, I'm very thankful for that team for allowing us to see into their company and how they do things.

Pete: Pretty cool.

Benjamin Tiger: Yeah.

Pete: So what is, uh, so what does the future look like for, uh, for Roof Tiger? Maybe over the next couple of years here.

Benjamin Tiger: That's a great point, Pete. I, I, I've, I've considered many things. Again, only two ways to expand your company's revenue. Uh, you expand to a different city or you, uh, do new product lines. We're looking into both very seriously right now. I'm not going to share too many details, but you can be, uh, pretty sure that it's a, a big cat but yeah, expanding territory and expanding product lines is going to be in our future.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: man, it's been great talking to you. I don't want to keep you too long today. I know this busy time of the season for everybody. So, uh, it's been great. I'm honored to have you guys as the, the Roofr of the Month here for July. Always respect what you guys are doing over there.

And, uh,

Benjamin Tiger: Thank

Pete: and you and I have become friends. So it's been, uh, fun to watch the journey of Rooftiger and what you guys have going on. And,

Benjamin Tiger: Thank

Pete: so, uh, I know all of us here at Roofer, you guys are Roofer users and all of us here at Roofer are big fans of Roof Tiger. So, uh, excited to have you guys as the July Roofr of the Month.

And, uh, I want to thank everyone for. For, uh, watching and, and thank Ben for joining us here today to give us some insight into Roof Tiger. And, uh, any last words, Ben, anything, uh, any, any golden nuggets here?

Benjamin Tiger: Yes, big ups to Roofr. I don't say this just as a, a company shill. say this as somebody who's an avid user of the product. I love not only the product that they have, but the people that they have. Pete is just one of many who's incredible. And I'd say that what Roofr is building actually influences the roofing industry in a positive way. You can't say that about every company who joins, and I say that Roofr has been a tremendous partner to us, and I'm very thankful for the relationship we have. We use them multiple times a day for roof measurements and for their tools, so I can't stress enough that if you're somebody looking for a CRM, for measurement tools, or for all the products they offer, I know you guys have a lot more than just that, Give this company their props because they're building something that roofers will actually use and, and understand.

So, thank you guys so much for having me and, and, uh, I can't be thankful enough of our relationship here for RoofTiger to Roofr.

Pete: I appreciate that, man. And I think that, going back to like what you said, Roofr, we have the same mentality, like it's all about that customer experience and, doing a lot of the same things that you're doing in your business, customer feedback and constantly tweaking the process.

We do that every single day here at Roofr. Uh, we've been lucky enough to hire some incredible people who, you You know, are constantly giving some great insight and doing tons of research and figuring out better ways to do things. So, we're just like you guys were constantly evolving every day.

And, uh,

Benjamin Tiger: Love

Pete: know, we, we appreciate the, the props there because it's a lot of hard work to, to do what we're doing. And, uh, and we enjoy it, we enjoy being able to, to help you guys out and give you guys that great customer experience that we, uh, have been come to get, you've been known for here recently, so, so it's good.

Benjamin Tiger: Uh, one last question, Pete. Are you going to be at RoofCon or roofing process this year?

Pete: Yes, we will be at RoofCon. I assume we'll be at roofing process as well. So

Benjamin Tiger: going to be

Pete: personally, I will definitely be at RoofCon for sure.

Benjamin Tiger: Yes.

Pete: I will be at RoofCon. Yeah.

Benjamin Tiger: We'll be there as well. I'm bringing like four people with me this time. And Baby's coming as well. Baby's due in August. So, he'll

Pete: Yes.

Benjamin Tiger: well.

Pete: Oh, we'll actually have the baby as well. So,

Benjamin Tiger: Nice.

Pete: so that the babies can meet.

Benjamin Tiger: Love it, dude.

Pete: Awesome. All right, Ben, thank you for joining us and thank you for everybody for watching. And, uh, congrats to Roof Tiger on the, uh, July Roofr of the Month. And we will see you guys next time on the roofer report.

Benjamin Tiger: Thanks, guys.