"1-Page Business Plan" For Roofing Companies & Sales Reps w/ Dave Sullivan Host of The Roofer Show

Hey, everybody. Welcome to today's interview with Dave Sullivan from the Roofer Show. Dave, thanks for joining me today.

Adam, what's going on, man? Thanks for having me on your show.

Absolutely. And what we're going to talk about today is a very simple process and a simple plan for any new business owners or roofing companies kind of in their infancy, maybe between what, 0 and 3 million in sales to help them get their vision, set up and survive the critical period of the first two years in business. Because, Dave, you and I talked before this. How many businesses that start today in the roofing industry are going to be around in two years?

What percent statistically? I mean, it's kind of all over the place, but you're generally 50% of contractors starting off today will fail. And I've heard statistics as high as 80% don't make it through year five. So your chances are you're going to have a tough time. So you really want to have your act together.

And the good news is a lot of these mistakes are very easily avoidable. It's just a matter the classic saying, you don't know what you don't know. So in this episode, we're going to teach you those things you should know and how easy it is to avoid. But before we jump in, and Dave, I'm going to be handing this over for you to do most of the talking today. Dave and I connected because Castagra Building Products put up a blog, top 10 podcast for roofing companies. We were both on there. So I reached out to Dave. I've seen his stuff. You know, he's everywhere. He's got tons of reviews, his podcast, great. He's got great guests. So check that one out as well. And Dave, thanks for being here. So let's jump right in. You mentioned we're going to talk about the big idea in a minute. But before we do, you mentioned the three legged. Explain what you mean by why roofing companies need to approach their business like a three legged stool. What are the three legs and how does a company roll this out to have that stable foundation?

Well, as we talked about, you know, so many contractors come up to the trades and they're great. They know they have to sell roofs and they have to do roofs. But the part that they don't understand is that third leg. So we've got a cell work do work, but we also have to keep score and the accounting, the bookkeeping leg of our stool, that's just as important as the other two. And keeping that stool strong is really What's. What it's all about. And this is where too many contractors miss the boat on this, because what tends to happen is, you know, particularly now we've got the sales, so we did the sell work. That's not a problem. Well, doing work, we don't have the people, we don't have the qualified labor force, so we run into problems there. So selling is not our problem. But it's that second doing work leg that is weak. So let's say. Or we've got the work, we're able to get the work on because we've got great people, but we're doing so much business. And this is what's going on today is that you're just, I got more work than I can handle. Well, that means you're just scrambling on these jobs. And what might happen is that you can't get the bills out fast enough. So the next thing you know is that now we've got a cash crunch or we're not able to do job costing. So we really don't know if we're making money on our jobs. We could just be burning through this work and losing money faster than we would be otherwise.

Does that make sense in this same. It makes a ton of sense. And you and I talked before we started recording about how this applies to the individual sales rep as well. Do. What was it? Sell work, do work and keep score. Correct.

Right.

And this applies to every single person listening. And I have owners reaching out and say, adam, we're playing your videos to our sales team meetings. This applies to everybody, and it should apply as an organization. You got to sell it. You got to make sure you're fulfilling for owners. That doesn't mean just slapping the roof up. I know the growing pains of we sold too much. Now we got to find crews, and then you find a new crew, and they do a great job in the first couple, but then they bring in everyone else that doesn't. And then all of a sudden, you're getting these quality issues and customer complaints. Sales team loses faith. So, I mean, on the salesperson standpoint, that's follow through. That's taking care.

Exactly.

That's follow through, taking care of your customers, whether you're in charge of the install process or just the front end. And then keeping score. I just had a consulting session yesterday with a company, and we were talking about keeping score. But the financial metrics, all the key metrics in the sales process to monitor, because when you know your numbers, you can make strategic investments in high leverage assets or make the smart choice and grow. So let's talk about keeping score. What does that mean in your world, Dave, with the companies you work with?

Well, again, it's not only getting the information from the field because we want to be able to control our jobs, and that comes through job costing. So here's we've got the handoff from sales, we hand it off to production, and now how does production know if they're on target or not? And this is the information that comes from that third, third leg from accounting through the keeping score, because they've got to turn in their time cards, we've got to get purchase orders for materials, we've got to keep track of all of that and make sure we're on target. Because our worst case scenario is that we've used up 80% of our labor and we're only 30% done with the job. Right. You see that all the time. But what tends to happen is that too many contractors say, well, it's going to be what it's going to be. Well, that's not the way to manage your projects. Because if we are running into problems, we want to be able to determine that quickly, early in the project, because then we've got something we can do about it. Let's take a timeout, say, hey, you know, maybe we need to do this differently, or maybe we can come up with some ideas. But once that job's done, it's done. And so it really comes down to having the control. And. But if you're not getting your time in from your field, for instance, they can't turn that around and get. Get the information back. The job, the costing, here's where you are. Here's, you know, are we on target or not? And be able to manage our projects.

Yeah. And that is. Would you agree with this, that that becomes the number one growing pain for most businesses, those new roofing companies?

It generally does. Because what tends to happen is that contractors don't like the numbers or salespeople. Nobody likes the numbers.

Right.

So we tend to pass it off onto somebody that's generally unqualified or potentially downright dishonest, which is why contractors get embezzled so often. It's a huge problem in this industry because they just push it off. They don't know their numbers. I don't like the numbers. All I want to do is sell roofs, do roofs, and they forget about that. And I come into businesses and see that, you know, they. They've hired, you know, somebody's brother's uncle's Cousin to do the accounting, you know, that's had a little bit of bookkeeping experience. And it's, it's just you don't put the effort, you don't put the investment in there and that comes back and can really kill you. Because I come into so many contractors, businesses and it just catches them by surprise. Hey, we're doing all this work and so forth. Well, sorry to tell you, you're not making any money and they don't realize that it's kind of more. Well, I got enough money in the bank this week, so I'm going to take a little out and everything must be okay. Well, that's not how to manage a business. And particularly when we're talking about growing a business, you know, if you're going to start off, if you're just going to go out and you know, pick up jobs here and there and you're going to do friends and family and, you know, that's fine, you know, but that's not a business, that's a job. So if you're going to run a business, you have to learn the business skills. You have to learn how to run your business by the numbers. And the thing is, it's not that complicated. We're not talking and this is where too many contracts, contractors get scared of this. You know, they're afraid because it doesn't have to be that complicated. We simplify this by just, you know, there's certain, you know, KPIs that we want to follow, be aware of. We're not talking about going back to school to become an accountant, but to run a business, you've got to be able to see those numbers and you've got to be able to see them quickly and understand what's going on. And that's running your business by the numbers.

Yep. And salespeople. Oh my gosh. This is such a valuable lesson for everybody. I know. We'll touch on this in a minute. And I'm going to be asking a question. If I look down, I've taken some notes here. The if you don't know your numbers, you have no idea if you're going to arrive at your destination. And I use the quote from Zig Ziglar all the time. You cannot hit a target you can't see. And so many people get into roofing to start their own business or in sales because of the earning potential. And, and what's their goal? I want to earn a lot of money. They don't know what they focus on top line revenue. And I Talked to a $10 million year company the other day that lost money that year. They were more profitable when they scaled down. You never hear scale down, do you? They scaled down to four and a half million and we're more profitable. Yeah. So you got to know to be able to track your progress. And these can be simple things. Let's talk about it. By the way, I'd love to hear. Let's talk from a salesperson's vantage point and a company vantage point. What are the main things that people should be monitoring to know? Are you on target to actually hit your goals? Are you on target to stay afloat and are you going to make it through the critical point of year two? So what are those items to keep score of?

Well, it really start. Let's start at the beginning. And this is why I came up with this one page business plan. It's a simple business plan that just really gets you started more on the process of planning. And this would be where you can't skip this step, which is start at the end. You mentioned destination. Well, what are our goals? What are those goals? And you've got to be clear on that because generally it's, I just want to be the biggest guy in town. You know, I want to do all this work and I want to. It's all about, you know, top line growth. And I really believe that, you know, do you really want to do that? Because the biggest complaints the contractors have is I'm working my butt off, I'm working 14 hours a day, I'm not getting anywhere and so forth. And so the last thing you really want to do, do you really want to grow your top line? Which means I've got to go get more people. I've got bigger cash flow problems. I've got more trucks and equipment going down. The risk. How about if we take a step back and be sure that we're focused on the right market, the right ideal customer that we want to go after? Because we're talking about margin. How do we do less work? As you said, we can do less work and make more money because I work with contractors of all various sizes. And as you said, here's a $10 million company and they're losing money. I can work with, you know, $1 million companies and they're just making huge margins. And the owner is sitting back on the beach, you know, and still, you know, making it, making a ton of money, but he's keeping life simple. And you just work on that margin. And generally that's in the repair and maintenance field. You know, that's, I love that area of the business, but this is really getting an idea of where you're going or perhaps more what you're talking about, which is, how do you define success? What is that end goal? That's different to a lot of people, as we talked before, and it's different at different stages of our career also, because if we're starting off a new business, I, they're, they're generally too quick to jump into. I want to be a $10 million company and go, well, your, your, your main goal should be staying in business for year one and year two because the odds are stacked against you. So you have to really focus on that. Let's, let's not get ahead of ourselves. If we can build, build our systems and processes at this lower level and get to be profitable quickly, then we can reinvest, we can have, then we've got a solid foundation that we can grow upon. Does that make sense?

It makes a ton of sense. It makes a ton of sense. And with everybody. I want to share a story because you and I actually talked about this last time we connected. When I was in your podcast, which, by the way, you can jump on the Roofer show podcast and listen to that one. I had two younger guys who are running a roofing company come out for a consulting session and they said, adam, we're doing just shy of 2 million with two of us. We want to get to the next level. And I said, what is that next level? And they said, 5 million, which is, that's great growth. I mean, from, from 1 or 2 to 5, it's a, it's a tough push. The big, the big problem areas are always the ones, threes and fives. So 1 million, 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, and then repeat. That's just always those growth struggles where you're running into operational issues, scaling, personnel, cash flow. So I said, great. And they came out with every intention of growing a sales team. And before we got into it, I said, hey, let's spend just a little bit. I want to learn about your goals, what you want to do for them. It was getting into real estate investing. And I said, you guys shouldn't hire a dang person yet. I mean, from a sales standpoint, here's what you can do. You're a two man team. Divide and conquer. What are your strengths? They worked as partners, true partners, you know, not just two co owners. We're talking true partners. One guy's in charge of sales and cash flow, the other Guy's in charge terms of operations and installation and all that. And I just got a phone call from them a few weeks ago. Two guys, they took my advice, hired an admin, very inexpensive hire to offload and delegate a ton. And a production person. Between the two of them, they're on track this year to hit 6 million in sales. Two guys, basically two helpers for layman's terms. And that's a very different way to. I hate the expression, but I say it skin the cat. You know, you can get to 5 million or 6 million with a sales team of 10, or you can get to it on your own. And they're different. Everyone's got different needs. And you got to have that end in mind. As Stephen Covey says. I love that book. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is that title. I didn't butcher it, did I?

No, you got that right. I stole that from him also.

Good, good. He's an influential man, that's for dang sure. So awesome. So we talked about the basics of this plan. And by the way, anyone listening, even salespeople, you see that every personal development in Teacher Leader, everybody talks about. There's two common themes. Write things down. This is my journal that's organized into different categories. I write everything down, I print it out. I've got my own whiteboard behind me. I've got another whiteboard on this side. That one's got stuff all over it and you got to write it down. So let's jump into this one page plan. What are the bones of the plan? And before we get into it, let me interrupt myself for a minute. What's the main, the biggest benefit of someone taking the time out of their already busy day as a contractor, as a roofer, and actually putting this stuff on paper? What's the benefit to them?

Well, as I talked about, it's really the process of planning that we're talking about. It's not necessarily the plan itself, but by taking a step back and talking about these things, just like, what are your goals? What is the meaning of success to you? What are we trying to accomplish? Because once we know that destination, we can come back, reverse engineer a roadmap to get us there, to get us there. The idea is to get us there in the quickest, most direction method. Because too many of us, we're all over the place, right? So I like to say, you know, the. You can learn through experience, but the smart guy learns from other people's experience and other people's mistakes. Why go through them yourself? You know, and this is where, you know, getting a plan down and really discussing this can get you there, you know, a little less nicked up, perhaps. So that's really the first thing identifying where you're going. But to get there, we always start off with what I call the customer. And it's. It's the what, who, where, and why. Now the who is really identifying. Well, let's start off with the what, the what. And this is a common problem that I see with so many contractors. And you ask, you know, what are they going to get out of this? Just this one step is just going to give you clarity. And what we find is that so many contractors, they want to be everything to everybody. So maybe I'm doing some windows, maybe I'm doing gutters, maybe I'm doing residential work. I'm doing commercial. I'll do anything right. Well, that's no way to run a business. As they say, the riches are in the niches. I believe in really niching down and doing, you know, one or two things and doing them really well and being the best at it. And this is what. Where I've seen the most successful contractors. Like I say, you could be doing a million dollars in the gutter business and be extremely successful, and that's what you do. But you're the best gutter guy in town, and everybody knows it. So it's really identifying the what. What is it that you do? What do you build? And being clear on that. Because in my experience, and I was a con, I was a roofing contractor for 30 years and recently retired, sold my business. But when I started off, I was. I came into a family business and my father had health issues. So I was kind of thrown into this, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I went to business school, you know, but once you get into the. You're thrown into this thing and there's fires everywhere. You don't know what you're doing. So the first thing I did was bring in a coach to help me. And that was the smartest thing that I've ever done. And this is why we, you know, we both. We both do coaching, and we both know the benefits of it. It's just going to streamline again, getting you to that mountaintop or that destination so much quicker with less of a beating.

But.

He came in, and in my business, we were doing residential roofing and commercial roofing. And the problem we would have is that here we'd go, our crew would be on some little job, and then we put them out on this huge warehouse. Just it's a different type of business. You've got different customers also. So as it turned out, we were losing money in the residential area and it was holding us back from our real profit center, which was commercial. So once we dropped that residential, I mean 90% of our problems went away. The growth of our business just took off. So that's really identifying what it is that you do and focus down. You don't have to be everything to everybody. So we start with this, okay, what we do well, the who is who do we do it for? And that's really identifying our ideal customer, our ideal prospect. Who is that? Who's that avatar? And I like to say take your number one customer. Who's your best customer? And what if you had 100 customers just like it? You know, that's what we're looking for. And what makes it that ideal customer? Well, it's somebody that doesn't beat you up on price, somebody that pays their bill, somebody that perhaps has, you know, is a multiple building owner, that's an investor, not a property flipper, you know, not a general contractor. So that was our avatar and we made it clear. And those, that's who we wanted to go with. So that's the who, who do we want to do it for? And you need to identify that person because here are the qualities that we want in our customers. And also they're going to refer you to like minded prospects where if you're doing cheap work for people, well, they're going to refer you to people that want cheap work. And it really snowballs on itself. So this is critical that you do that. And then we've got the where, where do they hang out? Are we going to get in touch with them? And that becomes a whole marketing play, you know, and we know about that.

Yeah. Can I ask you a question on the avatar piece? So on the avatar side, which for everyone that I know, a lot of people know what an avatar is. For those that don't, it's basically a definition of who your ideal customer is that's just shortened to avatar. And I get a lot of guys because we have people that do retail, we have people that do storm. A lot of guys working insurance claims, a lot of people doing mostly residential. You know, you with your, your commercial experience, you're going to get a lot of inquiries after this because that's like the hot thing everyone wants to go after is commercial. And the big question I get, especially from salespeople, even from owners lately Is, well, every house is a potential customer, especially when we're out canvassing. But, and I see that there's some merit to that approach. However, it's knowing who's the right customer to know when you're wasting your time. And if you're sitting there and you have. We always called it. There was a guy in our company, his name was Brad and he called Walmart mentality. He goes, the minute I encounter someone with the Walmart mentality, I just let them go. I'm not going to try. And they're not going to sit there and say, no, let me overcome your price objection. Which of course you should try. But when you see those telltale signs, the seasoned person with experience goes, I just know you're not a good fit. There's someone else. And I always, my line to reject those people is, listen, if you're looking for a cut rate price that comes with cut rate work. And I'm simply not willing to cut rates to win your business, to cut corners to win your business, good luck finding somebody. And then I'll just turn and leave. And then the people that realize that they might have just been looking for a deal, they'll be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And they'll call you back in, they'll call you back in, but it's good to walk away. How would you handle that if someone says, hey, well, I do residential. So every residential home is a customer. How do you coach your clients around that? Objection.

Well, one of the problems that most all contractors will tell you is that I don't have time. I mean, I'm putting out quotes, I'm just jamming these things in. I mean, I'm lucky if I can go out to put it in their mailbox, let alone, you know, make a presentation or I'm going to email it, this type of thing. Well, the reason that you're in that position is because you're trying to be everything to everybody. Somebody calls in on the phone, hey, here's a potential lead. Rather than qualifying them to see if they're a good fit, they drop everything, run out there and get jerked around, right. Turns out it's just a tire kicker. And by focusing, being clear on who it is that you want to work for. And also, as you know, in sales, it starts off with that pre qualifying that prospect, you know, and asking questions, is this somebody that you want to work for? Do they fit in to that? You know, that, that space that we want to, the people that we want to work for. And I tell Them, you know, you could put out half the quotes and sell more work because now rather than running around bitching about how you don't have any free time, you're able to spend the time to talk with the customers, to ask the questions, to go through your sales process and your close rates are just going to go through the roof and you're going to spend less time doing it. You're going to have more of those profitable customers, you're going to make more money. And it's really a typical problem that you see. It's not a matter I don't have the time. It's focusing down on how do you spend that time. Make it worthwhile.

Yeah, very good. I appreciate you touching on that because I think a lot of folks will say, hey, well, it's just, you know, everybody's a customer of mine. But the answer is no. To learn when to say no. And I got to say, it's just for the folks that are out there canvassing or running canvassing teams in that respect, without a doubt, every home, especially if there's a severe weather event, is a potential customer. It's your job. Because I've got your one page plan pulled up here on my, on my end. Which by the way, anyone listening, you can download yours@the roofershow.com Is that correct, Dave? Did I get that right?

It's a free download. Just take you a minute, go down and check it out.

Yeah, go download your copy salespeople too. Like you can fill this out for your own vision and to print out and hang on your wall we covered. Or excuse me, let me go back to that avatar piece with canvassing and door knocking. Yes, everybody is the right customer, but it's your job to get your team in the right neighborhoods that have a higher likelihood. Everyone's like, oh, maybe I'll specialize in, in, you know, specialty roofing. Awesome. Then go find the neighborhoods that are higher end. Or you want to specialize in white collar communities because you find that your team is more relatable, go find that one. If you work really well in working class and blue collar communities, go put your team in that neighborhood and learn when to say no. If they get a lead, it's not the right person. It's okay, you know, it's okay to say no.

And that really, that starts with first we've got to identify that ideal customer. And once we've identified them, then their next question is just like, what you're saying is, well, where do they hang out? Where are they what neighborhoods are they? And focusing our efforts on those.

Yeah.

And then let me just throw the last piece of our customer is the why. And it's so important. It's, why would I buy from you and not your competitor? And this is, we're talking about what makes you different? What's the differentiator? What makes you better? Because if they can't tell the difference, you're just a commodity. And why wouldn't they go with the lower price? You haven't given them a reason to pay the higher price for your business. And we can all see what, you know, are differentiators. Maybe we've, you know, got 355 star reviews. We've got, we've been in business 30 years. We've got all of these various things. And if you're just. If they don't understand the difference, and not only the difference, but why it matters, why should they care? Well, these are things that, you know, we want to explain and you've got to be clear. And that's, you know, as you know about sales, obviously, you know, if it doesn't matter to them, you know, it's not important, but we need to show them why it matters, why this is better. You know, because, you know, I like to say just go to the Better Business Bureau and check out, you know, where the complaints are. And the number one complaint area is roofing contractors. And you can see all the, the problems they have. And this is why you want to make sure that you go with a qualified customer, I mean, a contractor, and you're probably going to have to pay a little more, but you're not going to be one of those people complaining about the problems that you're having. So that's the why. So that really wraps up the customers first, really understanding who that is. And, and we talk about another. We talked about, what are we going to get out of this? You know, why are we doing this? Well, if you're running a team, if you have employees, you can print this plan out, you can present it. You know, they probably don't know who your ideal customer is. They don't understand these things. But by having a plan that you can roll out, it gives your team the confidence that, hey, this guy knows what he's doing, he's a winner, he's a leader. And I like to say, all right, guys, you see that mountain over there? I'm going to lead you to the top and follow me. And this is the plan we've got, okay? And you're going to get Everybody to buy into this because generally they don't know what's going, you know, where you're going or what the plan is. There is no plan.

Yeah. Yep. You got. You need to have that focus. A book that I recommend that people read. I always mess up this guy's last name. It's Richard Koch. K O C H. It's called the Star Principle. And it's a fantastic book that dives completely into the why behind what you do. How to find the little hole in the market for you to fill. Every roofing company thinks they're competing against every other roofing company. I personally, and I know, I'm sure I'm gonna get flack for saying this. I think that's a bunch of hooky. That is not true. One, there's enough business to go around. Two, with most businesses going under, it's gonna change things. And three, when you find your hole in the market and you can penetrate that and you know your differentiator and you strengthen your position, you're gonna do great. It's the people that don't have that clarity and direction and say, I do roofing. Well, what kind? Anything. I take it off, you know, and then they're spending all this time bidding. I just got an email from a guy, and I wanted to encourage him to work smarter. You know, he's putting time together to bid at like a six square shed. I'm like, man, you know, maybe not the best use of time. He's like, well, it might lead to the house. I said, it might. But these are often mistakes of just having that lack of vision to say, this is my customer. This is my why. This is why we're different and it's okay. And I think it's extra important actually to know who you are, but most importantly, who you're not. Would you agree with that?

I totally agree with that. And one of the big mistakes that particularly salespeople have, and I had a pretty sizable sales team in my business, and it's the same complaint everywhere. And I'm sure you've heard this, Adam. We're just too expensive. We can't compete. You know, we've got to get our prices down. So they'd come to me and say, you know, how am I supposed to sell anything with these prices? First off, you know, when you look at what's important to buyers of home services, price is not up at the top. You know, it's a few down and there's more important things, and you've got to pull those things Out. And this is why, you know, I know that you cover this constantly with your salespeople is you have to ask questions, you have to find out what's important. And again, if we don't have the time to do that because we're spending so much time screwing around with unqualified prospects, right? This is going to give us the time to ask the questions and, you know, get to, get to know who this is. And maybe the biggest issue that they have is she's got these prized rose bushes, you know, that's the only thing that's important, right? And. Okay, well, this is how we're gonna protect them. We're gonna build a shed over this or whatever you're gonna do, and we're gonna take care of this. And I guarantee that we're gonna, this is gonna be the first thing we're gonna do every day, is make sure there's a rose bushes to protect it. You know, something as simple as that. And, but if you're not asking questions and as, you know, as salespeople, you know, I call it watch your talk, listen ratio. You know, they go in there, they're nervous, they start flapping their gums too much and they're just going off immediately telling the homeowner how great we are. You know, let me tell you, let's talk about me some more, right? We have all these awards, we're the biggest guys in town where this or that, they don't care. It's what's in it for me? You know, why do I care about that? Because you haven't taken the time to find out what's important, you know, because they'll give you a roadmap of how to sell them a job.

They will walk themselves to the purchase when you let them to. And I love what you said about asking questions. I have a. What I teach is to ask the homeowner what's the most important thing for you when it comes to selecting a roofer. You just ask. You never know. When someone says price, you can spend some time overcoming it. But I just go straight into, you know, cut rate work requires cutting corners and cut rate installations, period. I'm just not willing to do that. And then you can overcome it. But some people, like you said, it's the rose bushes, it's the pool, it's the dog that freaks out with noises, it's the war veteran with PTSD who doesn't want the hammering noises on the roof. And when you just find what that is, you look at the pitch and you're like, okay, this is the one thing I can skip all this stuff. They don't care that I'm JF Master Elite and that we have the. Because everyone's saying the same thing. We're accredited by this and this installer, which I think frankly is just such a funny game, that's a conversation for another day. But you know, we're a better installer or a better company with a better warranty doing better products. That's like the canned best service and the best service. So just show them, show them, don't tell them. I love that. So we've only got a few more minutes here and I've got this one page plan up. I don't think we need to hit all of it because people can go there and download their own copy and go through this part. But what do you feel on here is probably the most important part for us to focus on for the rest of the time here. And I might have said the word.

Well, yeah, we talk about the focus. But one thing I want to throw in here, which I think think is really what's important, and I call it the process. And it's another way to look at it is the two week vacation.

I like that.

One of the problems that contractors have is that they're just working, you know, their complaint. I just work all the time. I mean, I'm having trouble at home, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I say, well, when's the last time you took a vacation? I can't take a vacation. My business would fall apart. So I like to say, okay, you just won a two week vacation to Hawaii, all expenses paid. The only catch is that you've got to leave tomorrow. You got to leave in a couple of days. I could never do it. You know, business would fall apart. That's no way to run your business. And we also talked about, you know, being at the end and having an excellent strategy and being able to build value and have something that's worth selling. This is what we're talking about. How do you get that two week vacation? And that's something that we'll set as a goal. Say, okay, this next summer, where do you want to go? It's two weeks. Okay, we're going to get you to be able to in a position where you can take that time off. And here are the steps that we need to take to do that. We've got to have the right positions. Starting with. Then we've got to have the right people in those positions that's going to take training, it's going to take oversight. We're going to have to track important numbers or KPIs. We're going to have to actually have this organized. And that's what the planning process does. Does. Is it okay? Do I feel comfortable leading? Can I manage this business from the beach? Because I've got all of my numbers that I can see right now tracking my KPIs, my sales people, okay, I know what they're doing. I can see their numbers, I can see the amount of leads coming in or whatever in the flow, where we are on our pipeline, all of these things, the cash flow, you know, the production. So this is really what I think we all want. And in my business, that was my goal. What was important to me in the meaning of success, my definition was being able to take off time and have this company run by itself. And I like to say, you know, you hire the right people, make sure they're clear on what that job is, make sure they understand how they're going to be held accountable, and then get the hell out of the way and let them do their job. And that to me, is what it's all about. So I was able to take time off and I took a lot of time off to spend with my family and travel. But I knew what was going on that business, you know, every day because I had my set of reports and my plans and my KPIs that I could take half hour, an hour every morning and really see what's going on and how to run that business. And that's, to me, the meaning of success.

That is. And it's crazy how many people get into this industry in sales or as an owner for the purpose of freedom. They want to earn a really healthy income. And before you know it, I talked to one owner. He says, Adam. And they were doing 10 plus in a year. When I talk him, he had almost a $13 million a year. And he says, I feel like I built my prison cell. That's what he told me. He wouldn't share it with his team. And so I'm leaving him his name anonymous for a reason. Because we'll often pursue this for the grand vision. But when we don't have that grounding why we're doing this, the end goal, you will build yourself into a inescapable job. And I love what you just said on that. And I want to close with this. I want to send folks your way. I do want to share with the audience some, some fun stuff. You Know this, this roofing space is super competitive. You and I have some overlap. We both do one on one work with roofers. Here we are on the shows collaborating and for, for good reason. And you and I, Dave talked about this.

When?

Before the interview I did on your channel with everybody out there, everybody has a different angle, different experience, different style. And it's up to everybody listening to filter with one thing. Work with the people you believe in and can help you out if you're confident in what they're doing and you can, you like what they have to say and you can mirror it and you're like, you know what? Dave brought me a bunch of value. I don't do a one page business plan with my clients. Dave does. If you need that plan, you should go talk to him, not me. And you should say, hey, I need some help and go download a free copy. Dave up provides some one on one consulting with growing companies. In fact, I just sent someone that emailed me over his way because I felt like it'd be a good fit. And I think that's the beauty of learning how to, how to just realize there's enough, there's enough abundance in this world to feed us all. And it's about providing value. So I, I really appreciate, it was a real honor to bring you on the channel and to have your level of expertise. Makes me look like a teenage boy. I got a decade.

Well, I've been doing it for, well, I got pretty beat up by doing it. But it was a great journey. I've been there and done it.

Yeah. So I love it. Dave, thanks for joining me. I'd like for you to close with just letting folks know where they can get in touch with you and who's a good fit to work with you. That'd be another great thing if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Sure. Well, what I do, I like to think is you take your general practitioner doctor, okay. And you go see your doctor and he keeps you going, he keeps your body going and so forth. But when you need a brain surgeon, he's not going to do it. And so what I like to look at is I build businesses, I know how to do this, I know what's important. And again, it really comes down to this three legged stool. But that's what I do. But when it comes to marketing or sales or maybe some other production issues, I have the people that I work with that I refer that out. It's the specialists like yourself, Hey, I have clients that they have problems selling well. They need Some sales training, so I would send them over to you. It's like the whole idea of sending people back and forth because we all really have our specialties and this is where we should be. You know, you've been in this. What I do is, hey, I ran a business, but, you know, I don't know how to really motivate sales teams and so forth. I had somebody like yourself come in and do it, you know, in my business. So that's what I do, really. And it's, you know, and I really like the idea of building this business plan because it sets your business up. It's the foundation that you need to be successful. But. And so as I mentioned, I retired here recently, so I wanted to stay connected to the industry. So I started a podcast. And this is going way back. I. This next week I'm having my 200th episode. I've been doing this for 200 weeks, so that's a long time. And when I started, I was the first one into the roofing space specifically, you know, we had general contracting and everything else, but. And now we've got some great shows, yours included, you know, and more specialty type of things. And so I put a show out every week, every Friday. It's called the Roofer Show. Pretty clean, pretty clear, simple, easy. And I interview experts that I think contractors would be interested in in the way that I choose my guests. I look at myself. I'm the avatar really for this show is when I started off, let's say I was 10 years into the business, who would I want to hear about what, what, what things can I learn about? And that's what I try to do. And that's why, you know, I brought you onto the show. And this is what contractors need to know. So that's what I do. The show's been going great. I've recently spun off. I've had more and more requests for one on one coaching. So I'm doing a lot more than that and spinning off the Roofer Show. I've got the roofer coach, so you can go to the roofercoach.com and see what's going on there. And as you said, click the big button, make an appointment, and let's talk for an hour and a free call and see if I can help you.

Awesome, Dave, thank you so much for being here. And everybody. Again, that's the roofershow.com or the roofercoach.com and Dave, thanks again. Super appreciate you sharing these insights and helping people survive the critical two year Mark, avoiding some of these big mistakes and setting themselves up to actually have some freedom. So thank you, Adam.

Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Really enjoyed it.

Awesome. Till next time, everybody. Bye.