How He Did It: From DoorDash To $180k in Roofing Sales In Bryce's First Year

Uh, hey, welcome to the Roof Strategist podcast. Bryce is joining us today with one heck of a story that was inspired by the email that's pulled up with me. I'm not even going to into it. First I just want to say Bryce, thank you for being willing to share your story and inspire others and welcome to the channel.

Thanks for having me, man. Super stoked.

Yeah. The story that you guys are about to hear, let's just jump in. So you sent me a thank you email 13 days ago. I want to turn it over to you. Can you just share the contents of this story that led to this and then we'll get into some tactical fun stuff.

Yeah, for sure. So pretty much out of college I was set up to go straight down an operations management supply chain path. Had a job secured before I graduated college, was already prepared to move to Ohio and begin that job. And then Covid struck. Covid obviously affected the job market like crazy. A lot of places stopped their new hiring. The company that I was going to work for was one of those places. So they kept pushing me back, pushing me back, pushing me back. Then eventually said we don't have a place for you anymore. So I moved into my parents guest bedroom as a 22 year old guy which is not super fun but super blessed to be able to do that for sure and just hit the grindstone of applying to jobs. Every day I would wake up, apply to jobs, apply to jobs, apply to jobs and then go doordash at night to try and pay for the little bills that I had and then rinse and repeat the next morning. So I applied to 296 different jobs in about a three month time period and I got one phone call returned.

To me from 296.

296 jobs. Yeah, so it was, it was interesting.

And you said you were door dashing for up to 14 hours a day.

Yeah, so I some days like if I went on the job boards early in the morning and didn't see anything new or anything that was like super interesting or that I was able to apply for, I would go doordash for breakfast. Now I doordash all day long. So sometimes I DoorDash from like 7am to 9pm Just trying to, trying to figure out how to get out of my parents guest bedroom. Also right before my job got officially canceled, I proposed to my then girlfriend and so I was having to think of like okay, I obviously don't want to be living in my parents guest room when I get married. So trying to Plan ahead and get all that stuff taken care of too.

Gotcha. Just since we shared this right before, what was the salary of the job that you had lined up that fell out from underneath you?

Yeah, so I was going to be making $44,000 a year and for 75 hours a week.

I'm sorry, did you say 44K for 75 hours?

Yeah, yep.

That part we didn't touch on. So 44K, 75 hours. This slips away. 296 jobs applied for. Tell me the story. Roofing, sales. How'd this happen?

So out of those 296, I finally got a phone call back. It was the company that I work for now, Fiesel, the manager, my boss Mike gave me a phone call and said, hey man, I saw your application, saw your resume. I think you might be a good fit. We'd love to have you come in. Went in for the interview, got hired on the spot. And I'm a 1099, so I had to set up some LLC stuff. All that taken care of, started two weeks later and never looked back from there.

So let's skip ahead just for a second for fun, so we can look at this comparison. If you're comfortable, and I know we talked about this before, if you're not, I totally respect that. The earnings that you're projected to earn from the work you've put in from you started. If I have this pulled up, you started in October, which by the way, was. That was 12 months ago, correct?

Yep.

Okay, so just so we all are aware, the sales to date, what you expect to earn on that?

Yeah. So including all of my sales, like in the first calendar year of doing this, I should be somewhere around like 180,000.

180,000 from 44. While being in the dumps, living in your parents guest room. This transformation is huge. And one thing, I've gotten some pushback. In some of these interviews, people say, hey, we don't want to hear just people succeeding. We want some tactics and we're going to get there. And tactics come in a variety of ways from technical execution of some sales things and personal breakthroughs. But the part that is so unique about your position, Bryce, is like, you went from job security, which by the way, out of college. Most people, I mean, that's, that's right in line with what you'd expect to earn with a college degree and be owned at a 75 hour work week.

Yeah, I was not stoked about that, but it was who would be.

And then coming into this industry on accident after 296 jobs. So this is just this, the teaser alert for what's coming. 296job applications led to roofing sales serendipity. Things happen on accident. Right. So now talk to me a little bit about how you got started. Like, you fall into this. You said on here, if I'm, if I'm going to read just a line or two, I had zero ideas about sales or the roofing industry at all. You had an amazing boss who taught you tons about roofing and damages and all that. And, and then you, you jumped online to talk a little bit about your journey into it, getting yourself ramped up and what kind of results you had.

Yeah, yeah. So my, my two brothers do roofing sales, which is also kind of a weird tidbit. So I knew like that they could sell a lot and. But I didn't know how, didn't know what really they were doing. So I started off with my boss for a week, rode around with him, got up on like four or five roofs a day, took a look at what was damaged, what wasn't damaged, difference between hail, wind, different things like that. And then the second week, my boss actually went on vacation. So I was kind of left alone and just decided to spend all of my days just looking up and researching as much as I possibly could. So I would spend probably from like 6am until 3pm just researching sales tactics, what specific parts of a roof are so that I could be more knowledgeable. Talking to homeowners, to just gain that trust with the homeowners. And then at 3:00, I would go bang doors until it got dark at like 9 o'. Clock. So I was knocking doors six hours a day for the first week and just trying to hit it as hard as I possibly could. And then in that first week, I filed 10 claims on my own in a week. Yeah. And was able to just like continue to roll through that. And then fall in, winter came pretty quickly in Indiana. So it obviously hits a pause button for us a little bit, but then was able to just kind of pick up where I left off and keep it rolling.

So what's interesting, Bryce, when we look at this, so many people don't hold gratitude for, for the difficult things in our lives. You would have the job security. Job security goes away all of a sudden, leads you to this other path. Most people are frustrated when things don't go well. Your boss, your, your boss and manager leaps, you're left on your own. If it weren't for that, you Wouldn't have invested the time to do what you needed to do to learn the things needed to learn in, in a different light. You have an amazing boss. You said it yourself. Yeah, but taking ownership then the other thing I want to put for everyone is the structure in how you plan your day. You said, what was it? Was it 6am to 3pm, did you say? So 6am to 3pm was self study. And then you said you went out slamming doors from 3:00pm Till what, dark, like nine?

Yeah, yeah.

Till, till nine at night. Brilliant takeaways here on structuring the time. So you started in October. How much did you sell by Christmas? I'm looking at it, but it's more fun.

By Christmas I sold roughly 400,000.

October, November. That's huge. Absolutely huge. So we'll get to the other big, the big stuff in a minute, but I want to slide into some of the questions that I had sent you. When you, when you get into roofing sales beforehand, you had just graduated, obviously you had this job lined up. But what was your biggest struggle?

The hardest part of roofing sales was just, just getting over the fear of getting on some roofs for sure. And then also the fear of knocking on somebody's million dollar house who, you know when they answer the door is not going to want to talk to you.

Fear of getting on roofs and knocking on doors. How do you, how do you overcome those? What helped? There's a lot of people that are going to relate to that one.

Yeah. So the fear of knocking doors was just, I had to hit it with other people. So I had to either go out with my boss, go out with the canvasser, go out with other people that I worked with, and it's super motivating to say, hey, you got this side of the street, I'll take that one. And then you see them get up on a roof and you're like, oh, shoot, I need to, it's like it's my turn. I need to get, get after this, I need to get on this roof next. And then just knocking, knocking doors more and more and more to where you don't even think about it anymore. You just, you walk up to the door, you knock on the door, you ring the doorbell and there's no fear anymore because you know what they're going to say, you know how they're going to say it, you know what their objections are going to be, what their reaction is going to be. And you learn super quickly how to read people and know like, okay, I don't have A chance with this person. So I'm just going to leave. I'm not going to waste my time doing that and I'll just go to the next one. Another thing was learning to laugh off the people that are rude to you. You're gonna get the door slammed in your face. You're gonna have people yell at you, chase you off their property. You just have to laugh about it. I mean, you're trying to do them a solid. You're trying to get them a new roof that they need. A majority of what we do is insurance work. So you're trying to help them out. You're trying to get them something that they need and use your knowledge that they don't have to do that. So you're. You're really doing something that's for their betterment. You're not. You're not being somebody that they don't want to talk to.

Yeah, I love that. The laughing part, bringing joy to the process. You know, you mentioned something that was really interesting to me. When you first said knock with a friend, I immediately thought you meant like, you know, you and me are going to go out, we're going to just like, tag team at the door. You can learn. But what you had said is that you're each going to take a side of the street and one goes this way, one goes this way. So now you've got some camaraderie, you've got accountability for being there, but you also spark a little bit of competition in this sense of security that if someone answers the door, they see, you know, the company on the other side. Yeah, I love that. Was that your idea or was it one of the ideas of the management?

That's from my boss. He's been in door to door sales for about 20 years. And he was just like, yeah, man, there's no better pitch to saying, hey, I'm here with Fiesel. My buddy who works for us too is over there inspecting your neighbor's house. Look, you can see them up on their roof. Like, if I took a look at your roof immediately, it makes them feel left out and it makes them want what their neighbors are getting, too.

So it's a win for everybody. It makes the homeowners more comfortable because there's credibility and safety in numbers, as they say, and it provides that security for you. So I love that. So the biggest struggle was fear. And you said knocking the doors. And what about the rejection piece? What helped you deal with, you know, knocking on people? You said, knocking on a million dollar home and you know, that people know but don't necessarily want there. What helped you break through that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that one was mainly by just talking to the people that are at my company that have been doing it for longer than me and just having confidence in our industry. There's a lot of Joe Schmo companies that may not be doing things the right way, may not stand behind their products the correct way. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people that can scam very easily in this industry. So we kind of get a bad rep, especially being a door knocker, by doing that. So just kind of having the confidence in my management team that they're going to stand behind the product that I sell, they're going to stand behind me, and they're going to be there to back me if something happens. And really just being confident in our product and knowing that we provide one of the best products in the market and that I'm truly there to provide them a service instead of being a burden to them. And then just talking to my boss, talking to some of the senior salespeople that are in our office, and just. I mean, really, it was just them telling me, like, dude, you're not. You're not a burden to these people. They don't know yet that how useful you can be to them, but they're gonna know when you put a new roof on their Neighbor's house for $1,000, which is their insurance deductible, and they're gonna know then, oh, shoot, I should have listened to that guy when he talked to me.

Yeah. Wow. So it sounds like some pretty significant rewiring of your internal dialogue about what it means. Am I interpreting that accurately? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, before this job, people used to ring the door, and I was like, oh, go away. This sucks. I don't want to talk to you. But now it's definitely. Yeah. The rewire of changing the way that I view salespeople in general. Never thought I would be a salesman at all. And then specifically, door to door sales. How do people. I mean, door to door sales, I think are some of the biggest hustlers that are out there getting it cold, calling hours after hours after hours, sometimes to no avail.

Yeah, yeah. It's wild. You know, I had no intention of bringing this up, but it's interesting. When you had said that, you know, you're in this industry, you weren't in sales. Now you're in sales, you learn to approach the door with this new mindset rewiring, which is just crazy, man. Every person I interview shares the story about changing their own internal dialogue from I'm a burden in that dang person at the door to I'm here as a servant. I believe in what I'm doing and I'm going to help the right people. And I'm curious if you can relate. I just dropped my pen. If you can relate. Um, do you think that, that it is an act of falling in love with this line of work? Cause it ain't easy. You have to like try to love it and then have success.

Yeah.

Was that, was that your experience?

Yeah, I mean, I, I think that that's a huge part of it, is that I'm very expert and I love talking to people in general. If you would have asked me 15 months ago whether I would have loved to knock, walk up to someone's door and knock on and talk to a stranger, I probably would have said no. But now I definitely, like, I get excited when I knock on the door. I'm like, who is going to be behind that door? Who do I have the chance to talk to today? So, I mean, just in like the last month, I've talked to two NBA players in Indianapolis just knocking on their door. And so it's super cool. Like the people, you never know who's going to answer the doors. You meet some super cool people for sure.

That's awesome. So how do you keep yourself excited? I know some people are going to hear that and be like, I wish I could get myself excited. How has that become part of your daily ritual or habit?

Yeah, I think that's a huge part of the culture of the business that I work with. Fiesel. I mean, they're amazing at keeping everybody in a super tight knit community while also pushing people to be the best at whatever their job is that they can be. Our production staff is pushed to be the best producers that they can. Our sales managers are pushed to be the best sales managers that we can. And then our salesmen are pushed to sell as much as we possibly can. And it's kind of just this like a friendly rivalry of whether it's meeting sales goals, hitting your numbers for this month, comparing to what other people are doing, or whether it's like we were talking about earlier, the camaraderie of going and knocking doors together. So like me and my team go knock doors, try to do it once or twice a week so that we can be there and push each other. So it's like, okay, if this guy got three claims yesterday, we're going to go knock tomorrow, and I'm going to get three claims and I'm going to show it to him, even though I hope he gets more claims as well. But it's just the rivalry of it, of wanting to be the best that we can. For sure.

I wrote this down because of how much that hit home. You know what? People talk about competition, but it just makes us better. You see one guy get three, you want to get three, and you almost want him to beat you so you can go beat him. And that. Do you know what I mean? Like, that. That is. That is awesome. I got to tell you this. From talking with you, it sounds like the culture at Fiesel is incredible and we are all a product of our environment. I can already tell. I mean, I don't know you other than today, your bookcase in the background. Everything is in its place. Right. It seems that you care about your environment. And we are a product of the environment. Our home, our office, our vehicle, our company, the people we surround ourselves with. And not every roofing company is like Fiesel, investing and pushing and encouraging people to be their best. And how would. What kind of advice would you give someone to help them surround themselves with the right environment, whether it's physical environment or the relationship environment to grow.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's two things. It's looking for people that are similar to you so that you can bond with them, create a friendship with people you work with. Also looking for people who are going to push you. Look for people who are way better at what you want to be good at than you are. My boss is way better at knocking doors than I am. He could sell ice to an Eskimo. And there's no doubt in my mind that he could do that. I don't think I could. So it's finding people that make you want to be as good as they are. So I think it's creating that environment where that friendly rivalry is possible, where you can push each other to be the best that you can and always having your next goal in mind. So whether that's to go knock on four doors today and talk to four people, or whether that's to go file 100 claims this month, whatever your goal might be, finding that next goal so that you can constantly be pushing to something.

Love that that goal. Chasing. It's those little rewards we need. Do you treat yourself like when you hit those? Do you have any little, like, things you do for yourself or celebrations?

I Do. And my wife doesn't know this, but she's going to watch the video and find out.

She's going to know.

Now, my goal whenever I go knock doors is to file two claims. And if I file two claims, I buy myself an ice cream cone.

Dude, that's awesome. Yeah, I love it. It's such a small thing, too, by the way. My wife and I, we call them screamies. We joke. We were like, we look at you, like, want to go out for some screamies today? We love ice cream. Dude, that's such a fun one. And it just goes to show, you don't need to do, like, you don't need to do something crazy and grandiose like, get yourself. And then every. Every lick, you're like, yep.

Yeah. Some days it's like, oh, man, I really want to stop knocking doors, but I also really want an ice cream cone. So I'm going to keep pushing it so I can get my second claim so I could. I can go get an ice cream.

So now that we know that, what's your fit? What's the flavor of choice for the ice cream?

I'm a McDonald's soft serve guy. Clean and simple.

Look at that. Everyone's got to think my wife's a vanilla person, too. I'm like, give me the richest flavors you can. I want like the peanut butter or the fudge.

Just can't do that. Sweet.

I know. That's what she says, too. So. Dude, that's. That's awesome. So how if you were to look back from like a, uh. And then I do. I do want to hit some of the stuff that you have in the pipeline, which is really exciting. But how do you feel that roofing sales has changed your life beyond the professional side?

I mean, just the money alone is way different. My wife and I both drive brand new cars that would have never been in the books had I ended up in operations.

Sure.

And then just that the outlook, it's able to pay off student loans immediately in the first year. Just kind of setting our life up to be in the best point that we can be. We're only 22 years old, so with an income like this, just being able to kind of set up the future for our family when that happens, to kind of be able to do whatever we want to do at that point is just the opportunity is insane.

Insane is an understatement. 22:20. Dude, you have a jump. I'm so happy for you. You and your wife, the jumpstart on life and the outlook as you mentioned, you have the two things like the opportunities financially that come with earning this type of income, paired with the mindset, the confidence, the skillset, development is just massive. What advice would you give for someone who's brand new, who's fallen into the business?

He's got to keep hitting it. There's always more doors to knock. There's always more emails to send, there's always more people to talk to. Don't be afraid to knock on the door. Try to get as excited as you can find the people you're working with that can keep pushing you, pushing you forward, pushing you to hit a door, pushing you to talk to this person. Just keep banging out the doors, man. The more you knock on doors, the more you will sell. It's a proven thing. If you don't knock on doors, you won't sell. So keep knocking the doors.

I love that. That's awesome. So now let's get into some fun stuff before we wrap up the you've got. I'm scrolling up in the email you sent me here. You're averaging about 150,000 in sales per month, which is phenomenal. But you had another serendipitous relationship that built that led to some big things. You share about that.

Yeah, for sure. So I was knocking doors, had one claim filed, was just about to wrap up for the night, didn't think I had enough daylight to do anymore. Said, okay, I'm just going to hit this one. It was the last house in a cul de sac. Then I was going to come back the next day, knocked on the door, talked to the homeowner. He let me up on his roof to take a look. Smashed with hail damage, completely totaled. We've gotten it approved already. I'm actually signing his contract tomorrow. So knocked on his door, showed him all the damages, filed the claim with him on the spot. And then he looks at me, he goes, do you guys roof churches too? I was like, oh, well, if it's shingled, yeah, we can roof it. Why do you own a church? He ends up being the senior pastor over a church group that has five churches in the Indianapolis area and they had an active leak at one of the churches, got denied by their insurance company for the leak. So I went and took a look at the roof and it is smashed with hail damage and has wind damage to the ridge cap, totally missing. Ridgecap just blown off into the backyard. So that one is about 400 squares roughly. And then the total of the four other churches is about another 4,000 squares. So there's roughly 4,300 squares. 4,400 squares total in shingles. Of all the roofs, one of them is outside of the storm, so that one doesn't have any damage, but the others have damage, and we'll start working on those ones soon.

And if the other ones get hit.

Who'S the first call exactly? Yep, that's Bryce.

Bryce will be the first call. Man, that is. I just want to say I'm really happy for you. And the biggest lessons that I'd love to recap for folks before I turn it back to you is you never know what opportunity stands behind the door unless you knock. You met a pastor that led to the churches. You faced adversity when the job was pulled out from under you. And I can imagine you weren't thinking, oh, I'm so grateful that my job disappeared, and I'm door dashing 14 hours a day, living with my mom and dad. And then it led to finding this career that changed your life to your boss leaving temporarily and allowing you to jump in and stumble into your own sales strategies and things that you learn on your own, structuring your schedule. I mean, we. It's so difficult when we're in the thick of things to be like, you know, at the. At the bottom of this darkness, there's a light. I just have to find it. And when you do, you end up with 4300 square church opportunities. Awesome, man. Hey, is there. Let me see if there's anything else in here that I should have touched on and. Yeah, is there. Is there anything that I didn't touch on that you wanted to share before we. Before we wrap up?

I don't really think so. I. I would say just keep hitting the doors. I mean, the key to success in this industry is talking to the most customers that you can. The more people you talk to, the more comfortable you'll get. The less fear you'll have, the better at it you'll get, and the more opportunities you got.

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. And I'm so glad to have you here. And I love that you put in here that you watched every single video of mine within a week, which must have taken some time.

That first week, man, all I would do, I'd get home, get in bed, and roof strategist. It was.

That's great. That is awesome, awesome, awesome. So I want to close on this. This one is something I wanted to do new because a lot of the folks. And I wouldn't be surprised if you're one of them, at some point, start in sales. They. They start selling one, two, three years later. They're leading a team. They're growing. We have owners and managers tuning in. What advice would you give to an owner or sales manager? And it could even be an affirmation. You said you have an amazing boss, but if you knew that there are other people that say, hey, I respect this guy, Bryce is killing it. He's got great culture and a great leader. What advice would you give to a sales manager or to an owner that says, you know, this would be really helpful to help your people succeed?

Yeah. I mean, I would say my biggest piece of advice is what my boss gave me when I started to lead a little team, is that you need to be there no matter what, Always answer your phone when the people are contacting you. And then also just setting up that environment for success. So giving them all the tools that they need to succeed, whether that be going over trainings, teaching them about what damages, giving them different pitch opportunities, setting up that culture and the competitive culture for us was super successful. So just getting that environment and that company culture or your team culture inside of the company to where you set up everybody in their best possible way to succeed, and whether that's to succeed by selling $2 million a year, or whether that, for them, is to succeed by selling $350,000 a year, just getting everybody to where they want to be and understanding that everyone might not have the same goals, but everyone's goals are just as important as everyone else's. Yeah.

I absolutely love it. Bryce, thank you for being here and sharing your story. And I hope everyone listening or watching had an opportunity to grab a little golden nugget. Thank you. To keep them fired up and fueled up, pushing through the tough times, because you're a testament to it. So I just want to say congratulations for everything you've accomplished. You deserve it, and I'm super happy for you. And thank you so much for being here.

Thanks, man. Wouldn't be possible without you.

You were the one that put in the work, man. Thank you so much.

Yep.