In this video Adam Bensman announces the merger of his Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance (RSRA) with Tamko Building Products, rebranding the community as the Roofing Strong Alliance by TAMKO. He recounts his personal journey from founding RSRA in 2015, the evolution of his training system, and the challenges of aligning with industry values. Adam describes how he vetted Tamko, highlighting a pivotal meeting with John Abernathy that convinced him of shared values and humility. He outlines the new structure: his role as founder within Tamko, the addition of mentors John Abernathy and John Bros, and the benefits for existing members—including a transition period until Dec 31 2027 and free access for Tamko EDGE Gold/Platinum/Diamond contractors. The announcement also includes a channel rebrand to “The Strong Roofer,” shifting focus to developing strong people rather than just a brand. Adam emphasizes the dream of providing free, high‑value resources through sponsorships, the curated membership process, and his commitment to delivering ongoing content and support for contractors.
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This is some big news and I wanted you to hear it from me directly. And that is that RSRA has officially merged with Tamko Building Products to create something even more powerful for the community. And I know just by saying that, I have keyboard commandos ready to tear into it and blow me up with angry hate comments. And then I have others that are so excited to see the value alignment and the creation of something beautiful, new, and even better than ever before. So in this video, I'm going to share with you why, how it happened, the story, and most importantly, what this means moving forward. But first, as we get started, I just want to say welcome or welcome back. My name is Adam Bensman. I've been here serving the roofing community in my podcast and YouTube through consulting and training services and building a community in the roofing industry known as the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance since 2015. I've written a bestselling book and my commitment has been to providing the highest value, sales, marketing, and business education in the roofing industry. Now, I've done that over the last 15 years without one single sponsored video on this channel. If I'm here and you're spending time with me, it is to deliver value. Even this announcement is a departure from the norm, but it's very important that I do that. So I just want to share this story with you. Over the years since 2015, I have felt like I didn't really fit into the roofing industry. I felt like I was always on this journey to find my people. And my whole YouTube channel started because I was doing one-on-one work with owners, and I just wanted to provide more resources to help impact their sales teams because owners got busy and weren't able to deliver all of the training and messaging the way I would. So I started making videos. Now I got burned out, left the industry, decided, hey, I'm going to make these videos public. That's when you all started finding them and making comments saying, make more. And now I don't fit into like the typical, uh, roofing, like, I don't know, archetype, I guess, of, of, of the past. At least I didn't feel like I did. And I, and I started to discover my people, the people that resonated with my values started to find the videos. And then I made, uh, built my training system, the Roof Strategist sales training system, which ended up being used by folks in all 50 states by thousands and thousands of people and became one of the most followed and one of the most widely used training systems in the industry. And those were all my people. And I ended up finding or discovering, which did not come at a surprise, sadly, that there were some folks that were using it with bad intent and I would hear about it. And that's when one day I decided I'm going all in. I'm shifting from anyone can buy my system to I'm running an application-only training group. But wait a minute, training is just one piece. Forget training group. Let's build a community where folks can train, learn, collaborate, and share what's working, what's not. And create a safe space for a level of collaboration and peer support that, that hasn't been done before. And that's what led to creating the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. And at that moment, with each of these shifts, people were upset and I get it. Change is not easy for everybody to adopt. But through each of those changes, I found that my ability to go even deeper with the people I serve, I found my people. We went deeper, the value creation. Grew even more and the breakthroughs became even more profound. So it was during these mid-days of the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance when I was just like so fulfilled working with my people in my community that I started to realize this dream that first came to me, by the way, in 2021. I said, my dream is that I can partner with someone who's willing to give away everything that I am creating. So the contractor doesn't have to pay for it because that's often the limiting factor. So imagine the impact that I could make if they don't have to pay for it and not have to think about like, oh, we got to bring people in because it's business. And I had this dream in 2021. So in about early 2025-ish, I'm like, wait a minute. What if I encourage our members to go to their manufacturer and distributors and ask for them to cover their sponsorship? Hey, invest in me. I'm going to grow and You know, it'll be great for everybody. And I started to have some members come back and be like, it worked. So I was like, all right, how can I do this even bigger? How can I help people even more? And I came up with this idea for this sponsorship package that I could go to a manufacturer or distributor or somebody and say, hey, you know, uh, this is the offer. And if you wish to sponsor your contractors inside, they will be able to have access to all this amazing resources on you. And the very first person I called was my buddy John Abernathy at Tamco. Now what's interesting, there's some backstory here because Tamco had been pursuing me for some time. I did not even entertain a phone call, even though John Abernathy is a very, very dear friend of mine. I was just like, you know what? Because I was holding them in the light that many people have in the past. And I was like, I'm just, I'm just not interested. They're not my people. And I jumped to this conclusion, by the way, that they weren't my people. Now I said, listen, there's this new package available. Um, I'm gonna give this a go. John's been wanting to do something with me. Let me just give him a buzz. Uh, I'm gonna feel things out on my side. I'm gonna get to know them a little bit. So I pick up the phone, John answers and he's like, yes, let's have a phone call. Let's chat. So we set up the meeting. I have that meeting. I was blown away. I did not expect to see the level of humility, the insatiable desire to create value, the, the desire to not be the biggest, but be the best, the desire to move really quickly, the desire to stick to their values by deciding, like not allowing bad actors in as one of their contractors. And the part that surprised me the most actually was in the meeting, they were beginning to share with me the moves they were making and say, tell me what you like and what you don't like. And I was like, how honest do you want me to be? They're like, tear it apart. And I started to just be in a place to like give feedback, but not only was the feedback received, They were willing and wanting to pivot to be the best they could. And it was like, I left that meeting. I walked over to my wife's office. I said, Sheena, I feel like I found our people. Now in the background of all of this, by the way, I had had companies beginning to get interested in RSRA as a merger and acquisition to the point that I assembled a team of experts to help me vet these partners. And I was in no rush. I wanted to make sure that they were value aligned. They could, again, add more value to the community. I wanted to make sure that they would maintain the spirit of the community being a highly vetted, curated group. Not everyone could get in. And, uh, we had the value alignment and could help provide even more resources than I would be able to do on my own. So all this was going on in the background. I'm telling my wife, like, we found our people. So of course, Tamco said yes, you saw the press release and things went really, really well. So I decided on my dime to book a flight to corporate. and I went down there for two reasons. One was to double-check that what my gut told me was true. Newsflash, it was. And then number two was to share with them the idea of the, um, the amazing value that we could create together by taking our SRA, our team, our community, our mentors, and merging with Tamco and their team and their incredible people and their resources to relaunch something even more valuable, which I'm announcing today. I'm so proud to announce that I joined the TAMKO team personally. Our team did, uh, everyone on my team came through, everyone of our mentors came through, and we're coming together to relaunch RSRA as the Roofing Strong Alliance by TAMKO. And I'm gonna be continuing to support you in this role as the founder of the Roofing Strong Alliance by TAMKO, and I couldn't be more thrilled because now I I know some people might be saying, hey Adam, you sold out. I couldn't disagree even more. In fact, I would use the words, I don't even know what it would mean. I sold in, like I didn't, selling out is like, like, oh, here's a, here's a check and then you're gonna sail off into the sunset. That's not what happened. I sold in where I'm like doubling down even more because I am being put in a position with my new role here at Tamko to continue leading what is now RSA, the Roofing Strong Alliance by Tamko, as the founder, bringing in two new mentors, John Abernathy and John Bros, both very successful former contractors and sales experts and business ops experts to fill in what I saw some gaps in, in the community on the ops side, especially. Uh, but I'm now in a position to not only be in the value creation role with even more resources and even more time to focus, but also to help steer the future of where Tamko is going and how they're growing and how they're serving contractors. I am over the moon. And I know that some folks might be saying, well, I don't want to join TAMKO. Hey, listen, that's okay. And those that do, this is part of the, the part that like, I feel like my dream finally came true. All of the Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, uh, the TAMKO EDGE contractors that are in Gold, Platinum, or Diamond will be receiving the benefits of the Roofing Strong Alliance at no additional cost. And that entire process, by the way, is highly vetted and curated. There's conversations and vetting and, uh, insurance checks and all that jazz to make sure that the right, the people that are inside are the right people. But now the dream has come true. Folks don't need to pay for it anymore. Like, I'm so over the moon. Now, in addition to this, I know there's questions like, what happens with existing members? And what about past members or future members? I'm going to hit that real quick. Existing members, you will continue as an existing member until December 31st, 2027, which is a long ways away, to decide if you'd like to become the Tamco EDGE contractor or if you want to part ways. And there's no wrong answer. You'll see in the community we're making a, a special offer for our, our existing members inside. But any new folks that maybe you were a member in the past, or maybe you've been considering RSA, maybe you weren't and now you are. You can apply to join. There's a link beneath this video and you can go to the website and learn more and apply to join. You'll go through our process. You'll meet with Matt for a tour. You'll meet with the Tamco team to figure out your status. You'll go through all that. It's super easy. We got a beautiful process mapped out to support you in a really big way and get you plugged into this community. Now, what you can expect from me moving forward is a new wave of creation. This channel is being rebranded as not The Roof Strategist, because that was all about me. It's been rebranded as The Strong Roofer because this, this, I, this name came to me because it's all about you. And that's what you're going to be seeing here is the shift with the Roofing Strong Alliance and The Strong Roofer is bringing in resources and guests and experts. And you'll see more of me as well focused on one thing, and that is developing strong people because your company is only as strong as you are. And this is the gap that I keep seeing in our industry. It's not about growing great companies as much, in my opinion, as it is about growing great people. Because great companies are led by great people and great teams. And the Roofing Strong Alliance is where forward-thinking contractors turn to get help building strong marketing, strong sales, strong leaders, strong sales teams, strong financial, strong systems, strong operations. And it all starts with developing strong people. So I am so thrilled and grateful for you to be joining me on this journey, for my team, for all the mentors, for Tamco, because now together we get to create something even stronger. And you, my friend, are an essential part of that. Thanks for being here. Much more to come. I appreciate you. And I'll be seeing you inside very soon. Bye.
