In this interview, Adam Bensman talks with the founder of MHI, a roofing company that grew from $3 M to $17 M with a 58.7% close rate before being sold. The founder reflects on what he would change, emphasizing that the only regret is not partnering with his business associate earlier. He explains the operational playbook that drove growth: a "dollars‑per‑day" metric that measures net profit per crew, a capacity‑first scaling approach where production capacity is defined before sales targets, and a focus on earned/produced revenue rather than vanity top‑line numbers. He also discusses the strategic decision to stay narrowly focused on roofing (plus limited soffit, fascia, and gutters) instead of diversifying into siding, windows, or heat‑pumps, arguing that mastering one trade simplifies sales and production processes. Throughout, he highlights the importance of culture, hiring the right people, and avoiding the "shiny‑object" syndrome that distracts many contractors.
Chapters
John, you exited 4 years. You took MHI from $3 million to $17 million.
Yes, sir.
And a 58.7% close rate. And I just got to say, as TAM Closers, I verify these numbers. That being said, I get to say these things. Um, I'm sure on the other side there's things that you're like, this went really well, and things that you wish that you did different. And I know with so many roofing companies being sought after by private equity, some to become a platform, others to join their strategy, Small groups, big groups, and everything in between. If you could go back in time, what would you do differently this go around that you didn't on the first one?
Man, that's a tough question. It's a good question. There's not a whole lot that I think I would do differently because I think we did a really good job at establishing the right culture, the right hiring techniques and things. The only thing I might have done differently is done it sooner. My partner, Kyle, is a phenomenal guy. I'd worked with I'd worked at a place called Shield Roofing, and we scaled it to almost $30 million too before I left there as a managing partner. And then when I went to MHI, I went over there and invested in and had some fun. I think that's the only regret I would have is just not doing it sooner with a really good partner.
When you say sooner, what part do you wish you did sooner? The actual exit or preparing for it?
No, getting to MHI sooner.
Got it. Yeah.
I wish I would have been with my business partner Ty a couple more years ahead of that. I think that we could have had a lot more fun too, though. I mean, we had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. That's the only thing I would say that I wish that we could have done a little bit sooner, at least me personally. Inside the business, I would say, because we already had the playbooks, we already knew how to execute. We already had a great team to start with. Like, it was the first time I'd walked into a roofing company like, I don't have to fire everybody to get started. You know what I mean? Like, you know, like some other places are like, hey, like, this is a, this is a hot mess. Yeah. You know, the 2 places prior were hot messes when you walk in and there's a lot of restructure. So we had a really good base foundation, you know, and the first thing that we really did was strip it down too, was we were doing a bunch of Hardie siding and a bunch of vinyl siding and those types of things. And we came up with a new concept of dollars per day. Right. How much, how much actual net profit can you make per day per crew?
Yeah.
And when we stripped it down that way, it's like, sure, we're selling these $100,000 Hardie jobs, but it's taken us 46 days to get them done. And then if you get one board that needs to be painted, like you wait another 3 weeks because they don't want to let you paint it. And so we're making like $200, $300 a day on Hardie jobs profit, which roofs you're making $2,000 a day.
Yeah.
And then when we got over to the repairs and rejuvenation side, we were then making $3,000 to $4,000 a day, you know, net profit. And so we stripped it down and looked at it that way, and that was like the first thing that we did. So I think that we could have done that a little sooner, but we did that within 6 months of being there.
Yeah. So, so some people refer to the dollars per day as sales velocity, and you can take a look at— and I don't have the equation in the top of my head right now. For those that have tuned in, they'll know that I'm not great at math. I got, I got a reference guide where you can look at your deal flow, uh, the number of leads timeline to, um, uh, the sale closing, to production, to cash received. And then you can run a calculation to find out deal velocity. How much are we making on a daily basis? So were you looking at deal velocity from a sales pipeline health, or were you analyzing dollars per day as a benchmark for each trade?
Yeah, that's a great question. So it, it was per trade, but we, but we started at the end and worked our way back. So we started at the customer and worked our way back. So how many jobs can we actually produce? Most guys start on the other end, right? And they say, how many jobs can I sell? How many jobs can I sell? So we started on how many can I produce? And when I produce those jobs, what are the net profits on those jobs? And so we, we found our capacity on the back end first and then worked your way backwards to, to the velocity of sales. It worked to, in, in my mind, it works better because I know what I can actually go sell in revenue.
Mm-hmm.
What I need to recruit as far as crews go. Repair techs, whatever it is you build now. Like, yeah, we started with the end in mind. Like, what is the customer experience first? You know, how do we get to that point? What is the actual, you know, revenue that we can generate backwards based on the production rate?
Yeah, I really like what you had mentioned on scaling capacity backwards. And I think many roofing companies will be like, I'm starting here and I want to get here. And then as they're progressing, they're building to catch up.
Right.
Right. Versus you started and reverse engineered the plan. This is what our capacity is. Let's scale the systems from the top back down.
Is that—
would that be like an accurate representation?
Yeah.
That kind of that mindset shift?
Yeah. The mindset was let's start with the end in mind.
Yeah.
And work your way backwards. Because that's why I always say that revenue is a vanity stat.
It's completely—
It's a vanity stat. Yeah. So I can go sell $20 million, but if I can only install $6 million, then guess what I just did? I just made a lot of people mad and my brand takes a big hit. Um, and I can't pay a bunch of sales reps and now I'm to blame because I can't get the production done. So that's why I say the revenue, like, or, or, or the revenue vanity stat, like the actual, like earned revenue and like the actual produced revenue is what really matters. So let's look at the P&L sheet. How, what can we actually put that, that goes through the bank account?
So, yeah.
So that's the way that we, we broke it down that way of like, hey, here's what siding looks like. Here's what doing soft fascia and gutters looks like. Here's what windows looks like, at least right now at that time. The capacity that we had was not to be able to take on all those trades and make money. So, so we, we wanted to get like roofing-centric and be kind of a niche in it and just say, sweet roof, roof repairs. Then we added in soffit and gutters later because it was kind of top of the roof and up. But we literally just stuck in the roofing space. So when we say that we went from 3 to 17, that was all roofing.
Yeah.
With some soffit, fascia, and gutters.
I want to dive into that. There's 2 things that I want to get back to, and this is one of them. You scaled back in so many— and by the way, when I When I was in the business, I was in a similar role as you. I was CEO of a company. And I remember we had our best year ever followed by our worst year ever. And I know some people call it like storm hangover.
Right.
And we were always a bit of a hybrid company. And of course, when storms come, you take advantage. And then when they don't, you're like, oh, crap, we got to figure out this, pushing more retail sales. And I remember we got so distracted and I was to blame. I'm leading this. I'm like, we're going to white label a window line and do windows, and then we're going to do siding. And then I can't believe I'm going to say it out loud, we started looking at geothermal heat pumps, right? And then you excavate people's yards, right?
Yeah.
And anyway, as you go through that, so many people think in order to grow, it means more people, more locations, more service offerings. Can you give me your philosophy on like, Why? What led you to the conclusion of— and I wrote down less but better, which is, uh, uh, kind of this mantra that's been in my head. But how did you get to that conclusion that roofs were the way as opposed to trying to do it all?
Well, it comes down to, well, one, what are you good at, right? So what do you know how, how to master now? But you can only have— you can't serve 2 masters, right? So, and when the, when the process and the sales processes are slightly different I now have two masters. I have two things I have to you know control. So windows to siding to roofing, the process is a little bit different in each of the sales process. Yeah, they are. Right, and the timelines and the the the design you have to do. It's like going from from doing bathrooms and going to doing kitchens. Right. Similar. There's still boxes. You still screw them to the wall. You still put a countertop on it. You still put a sink in it.
Yeah.
But it's a totally different way of getting there. And so. That was our concept of it. It was like, hey, how do we make this as streamlined as possible to straight-line revenue? So we just wanted a straight-line approach. I didn't want a whole lot of exit ramps on this roadmap. We literally just wanted to go straight down and say, hey, we do roofing. Let's be known for what it is that we do. Roofing everything, whether, hey, if you got a repair, we do repairs. If you don't need a new roof, we help you with that too, with a rejuvenation or something. Hey, when you need a roof, We're here to do the new roof. So we wanted to keep as narrow focus as what as well we could on at least the trade, the one trade. Of course, we had multiple products within the trade, but the process, the sales process was was exactly the same. It didn't matter you know what the product was if we were bringing in a high-end metal versus you know an asphalt product. The the sales process was still the same, and so we were able and and the production process was still pretty much the same because you would sell it, you hand it over, the production team would still order the materials. You might have some special order stuff. But it was way better than what we've experienced on the siding and the windows side. I'm not against the siding and windows either. I think you have some great companies that, that can do that. Our, our expertise, because when we looked inside the company, we didn't have that expertise ready to go.
Sure.
So sure, we could have scaled it to a certain point and then went and hired that person in that knew how to run the siding division. But I think then you separate the sales team out too, because I think it's a different process.
It's a totally different process and it's so tough. So many roofing company owners in, and it's not just roofing companies. I had the same level of distraction because us entrepreneurs, we have the shiny object syndrome. We want to change things.
Yes.
We want to fix things. We always want to be improving. And oftentimes without a filter of what to fix, um, we end up fixing things that don't need fixing.
