How to Add Recurring Revenue in Roofing With Service Contracts
In this 2026 interview, host Adam Bensman talks with commercial roofing expert Cody about why many residential roofers struggle to launch profitable commercial divisions and how to create recurring revenue through service contracts. Cody explains the many sub‑categories of commercial roofing (specified work, repairs, maintenance, restorations, etc.) and why misunderstanding them creates costly mistakes. He outlines a step‑by‑step roadmap for starting a preventative service department, beginning with choosing a niche that matches the roofer’s existing expertise (the KISS principle). The conversation then moves to lead generation, where Cody groups all tactics into four buckets—attraction, paid, pursuit, and earn‑and‑return—and recommends focusing on pursuit marketing (door‑to‑door, cold outreach, ugly‑roof hunting) for commercial prospects. He shares tactics for navigating gatekeepers, leveraging data platforms versus direct phone calls, and turning gatekeepers into allies. A novel outreach idea is presented: offering CE‑credit lunch‑and‑learn sessions to property managers and insurance agents, positioning the roofer as a “hero” while solving the audience’s education requirement. Cody introduces the LADDER framework (Lead generation, Appointment preparation, Discovery, Roof diagnosis, Estimates & proposals, Revenue/recurring) as a repeatable sales process, including a roof‑grading system (A‑F) to match service offers. He then details the structure of a service contract—regular roof cleaning, minor resealing, debris removal, reporting, and scoped additional work—plus pricing strategies such as discounted repair rates and priority service for contract holders. Finally, Cody reflects on the mindset shift needed to see recurring service as a universal growth engine, citing historical data from the 2008‑2010 downturn where companies with service contracts survived and thrived. The interview provides concrete, actionable guidance for roofing contractors seeking to add a commercial division and generate stable, recurring income.
Chapters
Cody, so everyone wants a commercial division in their roofing company, especially residential roofers, and they want to get into service contracts because service contracts mean recurring revenue. What's the gap to keep people— that's keeping people from like idea to execution?
I think the biggest gap is that when people think commercial roofing, they don't understand the nuanced differences between the different types of commercial roofing. So we have specified work, which is like, for the people that don't know the difference, it's like specified work is the bid opportunities that people get in their inbox, right? It's like, hey, do you want to bid this job? And, you know, those come from general contractors or municipalities or wherever. And so a lot of people jump right in that type of commercial roofing work. Which is where they run into most of the issues. You know, I, Adam, I had sent you a list I think we're going to share with everyone here today about like what are the biggest mistakes that people make in commercial roofing. And that's one of them is just not understanding the difference between, you know, repairs, maintenance, service work, re-roof work, restorations, and then specified work. It's just it all takes different skill sets. And a lot of times commercial is commercial to most roofing companies. And, um, I'd say that, that tops the charts if you had, if I had to give one answer.
Yeah. And, and you're like the guy, you're the go-to. I mean, I, you were recommended. That's why you're, why you're here by a couple people that were really close to me. I did my, my homework on you. I saw you, you've built a company, 16 employees, part of a 9-person roll-up, training hundreds of companies now on getting into commercial. Started doing some really cool stuff on YouTube, by the way. I love to like follow you around Home Depot showing this, this ugly roof hunting system. And, uh, you, for those that aren't familiar with you, what part of your background is important for folks to know? Like why listen to Cody that I didn't hit?
Yeah, I think a lot of the guys in the space, uh, the, uh, the space of helping other contractors, it's like a lot of it is theoretical, or maybe they worked for another roofing company or whatever their background is. Right. And so for me, I went from installing commercial roof systems to selling commercial roof systems to owning my own commercial roofing business, to getting acquired in 2021 and being a part of, you know, a company that did— we did $102 million in 2020 and I'm sorry, 2021. And then now since 2022, I went, you know, when commercialroofer.com was brought around, we've been inside of 260, 260, 207 commercial roofing businesses that we've helped in one way, shape, or another, either launch their lead generation, you know, like business development divisions, their sales plans, or sales processes, their service and maintenance departments, and, and everything in between, right? Metal divisions, things like that. And so it's just not that I have every answer, and there's multiple ways to skin the cat on no matter what part of the business you look at, but it's just, I've seen a lot of different things in the short 15, 16 years that, that I've been doing this. So I would say, um, I may not have the answer, but I have an answer. And I have an opinion that on a lot of things, you know, throughout the entire business.
Yeah, I love it. By the way, I love when you differentiate between I may not have an answer, but I'll have an opinion. I feel that same way. Yeah. You know, inside our community, the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance, we have a lot of folks that want to get into commercial. I find the same thing. It's like, I want to get into commercial. Well, what kind? You know, if you're a small operator doing, let's say, small, medium-sized operator, even $3 to $10 million, you may not be equipped to go take on a monumental manufacturing facility as a client, you know, that's commercial. Same time, so is the strip center in town, so is the dental office in town, and so is the local restaurant. And there's so many different components. But if we were to dial today and, and, and say, hey, if, if our goal is that everybody who's spending their valuable time with us would leave with one thing, which is a clear path to starting a division on maintenance contracts or service contracts, let's walk folks through a, just a, a, like a milestone stepping stone path to make that happen while letting them know what landmines to not step on that you've seen people step on. So let's start at the top, like step 1 to getting a preventative service department going in your company. What do we gotta do?
If we're starting from scratch, I like to look at each company individually. And so I would look at, and by the way, Adam, a lot of the companies that we've dealt with are actually inside of your, your program as well, like a part of your nationwide group. And so I've actually had the, you know, I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the guys that have those types of standards and like want to do good business. I feel like that's what you attract. That seems to be your guys' whole mantra. And you know, people that do right by the industry. And so if that's the way you think and that's the way you see the world and you're like, hey, we want to do things the right way, we want to do right by our customers, I would always just lean into what you're already doing. So like if you're already doing steep slope work, you're doing residential shingle roofs or tile or whatever, you know, metal, whatever your specialty is, It's like, let's just do more of that. And so I, the same type of roof systems that you'll find in the residential world, we can also find in the commercial space. You are, you already mentioned all the different type, you know, a, a good portion of the different types of work, but I push a lot of residential guys into the HOA world, into the multifamily world, you know, the apartment complexes, the condo association, things like that. Because you already, you're two steps ahead. You already understand the roof systems, which is a, a large part portion of it. And so the step one, I know it sounds rudimentary or very like base level, uh, but it's like just figure out what kind of work you want to do and, and, and become a specialist in, in doing that type of work because where things get very complicated and start to become complex is when you start to do these steep slope systems and low slope systems and you're starting to learn about the different decking types on these, you know, multiple different types of buildings. And it's like, oh my gosh, there's just so much to learn. So it's like, keep it simple, stupid. And the old KISS method, it's like, let's just focus on what you've already done. And that's usually where I would start.
Cody, it's funny you say it's like simple and it's not. People get in over their skis and it happened to me. I remember when I— this is many, many years ago, but I got so excited. We're like, we're getting into commercial. And I ended up getting this lead, uh, like downtown, downtown Madison where you can't park, you know, it's like, and then like buildings are touching, there's a gravel aggregate, like access issues. And I was like, I don't even know where to start, you know?
Yes.
And anything I've ever done, and I, I like that reality check of like dollar signs, right? This is a, this is a great business path to go in. And I, I love what you said. Keep it simple and do what you're great at, cuz it's easier to add to those, add to what you're already good at. And then what many people, and I think this is a landmine I've watched people step on, is we're really good at this, but let's go try to do something completely new that we've never done before and, and try to figure, and it's like, man, uh, the easiest way to get there is just doing more of the same.
So do more of the same. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And then the next part, do you want to talk about, I think this, the thing I would say is like step 2 is like, how do we get in front of those people or how do we actually land those inspections? Are you cool if I transition into that?
Yeah, I'd love to.
So as you know, there's a ton of noise in the marketing lead generation space, right? I, you're on all the social platforms. I'm, I'm on the social platforms. I see it every day, especially on like the Facebook groups, it's like everyone, uh, when I say everyone, all the marketers and lead generation companies and call centers, they all have the newest, biggest, sexiest opportunity, uh, for lead generation. And so in order to distill a lot of that noise down into something that my brain could actually comprehend, we kind of created 4 main buckets that we lump all the different types of lead generation into. And so we look at it and we're like, okay, we can attract leads, which would be things like SEO, content creation, now AEO with AI. And so that's attraction marketing. That's what, that's what we refer to that as. Uh, the next one is paid, like you paid, you put dollars in, in exchange for leads. So it'd be like lead aggregators. Um, we also lump like ads, like Facebook ads, YouTube ads, things like that into paid marketing. So at this point we have two buckets. We have attraction marketing, which is what I explained. Then we have paid marketing, which is the second thing I explained. And the third one is what we call pursuit marketing. And pursuit marketing is like, well, you're definitely familiar with door-to-door in the residential, you know, in the residential world. Pursuit marketing or pursuit business development is door-to-door, but in the commercial space. It's, you know, either making the calls, walking into the buildings, sending the LinkedIn messages, whatever, right? Outreach. The fourth bucket is what we call earn and return. So we want to earn referrals and get return customers like recurring business or reoccurring business. And so if all lead generation and all marketing kind of can fall into those four buckets, I like to stay away no matter what kind of commercial work we want to do, I like to stay away from attraction marketing and paid marketing. Consumers like home, uh, homeowners and, uh, you know, people that buy on the residential side, uh, they are looking for a roofer, right? They might go to Google looking for a roofer or, you know, whatever search engine these days. But in the commercial space, uh, business or, uh, Property managers, business owners, building managers, facility managers, a lot of those people are professionals and they have a network. So they typically, I'll put quotes around this, like they have a guy. And so you're not going to find, they're not going to find, not to say that it's impossible to get commercial work from Google pay-per-click ads or LSA or anything like that, but it's just not the most efficient way. And so we push everybody to the door-to-door of commercial, which is pursuit marketing. And so it's getting into the networking groups, it's hunting for ugly roofs from satellite imagery, and then walking into those buildings or calling on those buildings. And, and that's our, that's our big thing. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And it's so, what's really interesting in the way you described, by the way, you have 4 buckets, the way I, the way my brain thinks, which I love. By the way, as you'll see, I love having a healthy conversation even if there's not full agreement. I love the buckets. This is the names I've done. You go to them, they come to you, or they're introduced to you. But like all marketing fits into that, right? Yeah. But you go to them is door-to-door, direct sales, direct mail letters, stopping in, cold calling, et cetera. Uh, they come to you is a catch-all for all of your paid media and organic media together because it's an inbound lead and that just takes a different type of treatment and sales process. And then they're introduced to you as a referral or a center of influence who can continue to refer business. And I couldn't agree more. A lot of roofers, one of my friends said this to me and he's not a roofer. And he goes, Adam, the problem with roofers is that they think like roofers. And I agree. I think when you look at the stats, you know, 80-some percent, depending on who you, whose information you trust, 80, 85% of roofing companies fail in their first 2 years with near 90% in 5 years. And it's because they think like a roofer. And it's so easy. It's like, you know, the Facebook groups, who has got the best lead source? You know, where, how can I just hand money away and magically have customers so I can do my craft of roofing?
And big red, big red easy button. We just want to see. Right.
Exactly. And it's like the companies that are killing it, they find the, the, their, when everyone zigs, they zag. So I love it. Now when it, when, When it comes to getting, and you may be touching on this, but gatekeepers, that's like a, people are like, great, so I can hunt, I can find the properties, I can get in front of people, gatekeepers. How do you get past them? How do you deal with them?
Yeah, so I think most people, that is their objective. They want to get past them. We like to leverage them. We want to make them feel important, like We want to actually have conversations with them because it's one step closer than we were prior to getting to the, the influencers of the decisions and the decision makers. And so for us, think about it this way, Adam. So I'm sure you've heard of platforms like CoStar, Rionami, Convex, all of these different data platforms that you can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for access to building owners on, you know, a monthly basis. Are you familiar?
Mm-hmm. Yes.
So a lot of guys that come into our world, they are into MyContainer. They're like, hey Cody, look, we already paid for this subscription or that, that, you know, we have a subscription to this platform and we've tried calling some numbers off of there, but we never, you know, we can't get people to answer the phone or they don't want to talk to us. And what I always tell them is like, look, we have less than a 10% answer rate when we're calling through CoStar. We have a subscription to CoStar. And so that means, you know, roofer math, we have to call 100 people to talk. We get to talk to less than 10 of them, right? And so what we do differently is like when we hunt for ugly roofs, Through satellite imagery, number one, we don't need a paid software to do this, right? We can go to Google Maps or Apple Maps or Bing or whatever, you know, pick your poison. And we call the number directly off of their Google listing because our answer rate is actually 80 to 90% because they, you know, they expect their customers to be calling or potential customers to be calling those numbers. So somebody's going to answer the phone. And for us, we would much rather talk to 80 people and have 80 opportunities to get our foot in the door rather than talking to 8 people and them not even, you know, 8 business owners or building owners that don't want to speak to us anyway. A lot of times they have property management companies or, you know, they might be in a different state and somebody else is handling the building for them, whatever the case might be. And so we would take that 80 over the 8 and have a 10x higher likelihood of being able to do something with that lead versus having the owner's information. And so that's just a, I would say that is a kind of a backwards way of thinking versus most people in the industry. They're like, we don't want to deal with these gatekeepers when, like I said, in our case, we're like, hell yeah, let's get in touch with the gatekeeper because we can ask one simple question. We could say, Adam, Hey, look, I know if you were to answer the phone when, when I called this building, Adam, look, I, I know you don't care about this roof, or this might not be your headache or, or issue to solve, but we are seeing some issues, uh, on the roof, uh, from the satellite imagery we're looking at. And look, it totally could be nothing, or it might be a small issue that could turn into a big issue. And if, if you don't care about it there, I'm sure there's somebody there that does care about it. Who would that be for you guys? And then sometimes we get the answer and sometimes we don't. And we play the, we play the business development game. So anyways, that's my thoughts around gatekeepers and it's just treating them with respect and dignity and leaning into them saying like, hey, you know, wouldn't you like to be the person that brought this to someone's attention inside your organization?
Yeah, that's wonderful.
And at the end of the day, I think I'm guessing you'd agree.
And if you don't, please disagree with me. When you make it about helping the person look like a hero and making their life easier, like if it's not, if this is a problem and it's either going to be your problem or you can pass it off to the next person, they're like, oh, I don't want to deal with this. It's going to make my life easier. Talk to that guy or that gal at the office.
Do agree with that. And so we actually, that the approach that you just said, like in doing that with gatekeepers, we do that with property managers too. So property managers. Think about who their client is. Their client is the building owner. And if they miss something or they don't give the building owner some sort of heads up on these expensive, you know, issues that could be happening on the roof, well, they could be fired, right? And the owner can hire another property manager. And so we do. Are you familiar with the term lunch and learns?
Yes, very familiar. Cool.
So We look at it as like, okay, we do like one-to-one lead generation, like where we, you know, it's us reaching out to the businesses or the people with the ugly roofs, but we also like one-to-many type sales. So we like going and putting on presentations for groups of property managers. And I learned something a few years ago from a really good friend of mine. And when he told me this, it was like, Why did I not think of this? It's really popular in some other industries, but I don't think it's really caught on in the roofing industry. So maybe it will be after your platform sees this. So what happens is the, if you want to do lunch and learns for property managers, they're very busy like the rest of us. But every year, depending on the state and depending on what the licensing criteria is for that state, they need education credits, right? They, they have to get CE, continuing education credits. And in some states you can submit slide decks, teachings, you know, educational type content that you want to go provide CE credits for them. So you can get either through CAM or, you know, there's a plethora of other platforms that you can go to get your certification and then you can reach out to these property managers and say, hey, "Look, I know you guys need CE credits. What if I not only, um, provide you lunch, but I come in and provide you with the CE credits and I teach you guys how to become the superhero to your clients?" Dude, it's like the trifecta and it's like, who's going to say no to that? You know what I mean?
It's beautiful.
Yeah. So it's just, just another, just another tool in the, in the, in the tool pouch. But, um, uh, to all to what you said is like, we want to make other people feel like the hero. And I'm, that's one way that we're able to do that.
And it's a relationship game, you know, for everyone who's listening, it's, it's interesting. You gave away what is in my, could be worth significant amounts of business from that one idea. Just say, get certified to give CE credits, reach out, make it about them, provide them lunch, teach them to be a superhero and solve the CE credit problem that they have and they don't have to pay for it. So it's like free, free, free, make you do a better job, make more money. Would you like to do this? By the way, you have no choice because you have to get CE credits and we're going to be here. We had— and I know we have a mutual connection, but one of the things that we did, mutual connection of mine, we had put together a space in our building for those CE courses because it's not just property managers. Insurance agents have CE credit requirements.
Oh, cool.
Yeah. And there's going to be the difference. You know, we'll have however many people watch or listen And there's only going to be a handful that will grab that nugget. And I hope that person is you because it will make you a bunch of money. So what I'd love to do, Cody, thank you by the way for sharing that wisdom. Oftentimes our biggest breakthroughs are just this one big idea. I think a big sticking point for folks, because I know that we could, you could do an 8-week, well, you do have an 8-week course called the Accelerator, if my memory is right. Uh, which folks can learn more about at commercialroofer.com. But you know, you could unpack all the elements cuz it's always one more question. What goes into the service contract? How do we close it? How do we fulfill it? How do we track billing? How do we do route planning? All the other questions. But just to, to like, to, to help folks wrap their mind around this idea, what is a service contract? What goes in it? And how in the world do you charge for it?
Totally. Okay. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna take one step back and then I'll, I'll segue directly to Adam Bensman's question. So, um, one of the biggest, like another issue or one of the biggest issues in commercial roofing is that a lot of times I see this with almost every company that we, that comes into our world that is from the residential world. And in what they're doing is like, they're doing good work on the residential side. They have a customer that says, hey, I also own a commercial building, can you go take a look at this? And they get on the roof without really understanding the— without doing any sort of discovery to figure out what are the pain points, what are we trying to solve, you know, what have they tried in the past, what is the timing, what is the decision-making framework, all of the things that you You should want to know, right? To know what, what type of offer to make them. And we get, as a roofer, we get on the roof and we're like, hey, you know, we start looking around, is there some hail damage here? Uh, and, and we don't really know what we're looking at. So we end up giving them a quote to replace the roof. And it's like, in my opinion, I don't think any building owner or board or HOA, you know, uh, group any, any group of decision makers really gets excited paying $1 million for a roof. And so what we do differently, and this is where I'll segue into to start answering your question, is like we have a structured strategy or process that we follow every time we get an opportunity. So every time we book an inspection and we use an acronym, since, you know, you and I, it seems like we both have an alignment, we like to simplify things. We have an acronym named LADDER, you know, kind of like our logo here. And so we have, and I know you have some acronyms too, right? Like SLAP. And so for ours, LADDER stands for lead generation, appointment preparation, discovery, roof diagnosis, estimates and proposals, and then revenue or recycling. And now let me explain what that actually means and how they can, you know, so what, how someone can take that and actually use it functionally in the real world. So in discovery, I already listed out all the types of questions that we want to be asking. We really want to be the roofer that understands what the problem is. Like, why are we at the roof? Like, what is the reason that we're here? And the analogy we use is like, hey, if you go to a doctor's office, they're never going to share their prognosis or the diagnosis with you. Until they answer all those questions on the clipboard first. Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you, you know, whatever the discovery questions are, the triage questions for a doctor. And so I see us as roofers the same way. We want to do that. And so we diagnose the prospect first and then we diagnose the roof. And for every roof that we get on, we do recognize that a roof has a lifecycle. Like you and me, right? One day we're a brand new baby, the other day, you know, 70 years, 80 years down the road, it's like we're old and dying. And like, roofs have that same sort of thing. And so in order to explain that to somebody that knows nothing about roofing, we use the old, like, a grade card, just like they used in elementary school. We have A, B, C, D, F. And so when we hop on this roof, the first thing that we want to do is just figure out where is that roof at in the lifecycle. Is it an A? Is it a B? Is it a C? So it's still like a newer, nicer roof. Then usually if it is an A, B, or a C, that tells our sales reps like, hey, we're going to sell a repair here. If we realize that that roof is getting really close to the end of its life and it's past just doing a small repair or, you know, touching up some, some pipe boots or some flashings or some penetrations or whatever, we might categorize that roof as a D, and a D roof would be a prime candidate for either like a recover or a restoration. Like some roofers do, uh, coatings, and some coatings are really good systems. If the F— I have a friend that says F stands for exactly what you think that roof is, right? It's, and it's a bad word. And so that's the first thing is like being able to understand and grade the roof. Once you get on there and teaching your sales team how to grade the roof and using that grade to explain where their roof is at in the lifecycle. But more importantly, teaching your sales reps on how we're going to monetize these opportunities. So if it's an A, B, or a C, we go left. If it's a D, we go this way. And if it's an F, we're going right. Does that make sense directionally?
Oh, I love it. It's great. Our brains think so similar because it's specifically like Here's the criteria to grade, and then it kicks it to the next phase in the process. It's, it's, it's gorgeous.
That's right. And so if I hopped on a roof today, the first thing I'm looking for is if I'm in a storm market, I'm saying, you know, is there an insurance claim here? Do I believe that if the policy was, you know, what it should be and there's no, like, crazy exclusions, would we hit a home run here? And if it is, then it's great. Let's pursue the insurance claim. But more than likely on a commercial, you know, unless you're in like Chicago right now, they got 5-inch hail and, you know, basically cantaloupes that fell out of the sky. Commercial roof systems are pretty durable. And so if there's no insurance claim, then we move to is this a D or an F? Is it going to be a large project? We call those capital projects. And we just do this like if-then or if yes, if no. Then we like move in whatever direction or whatever path that makes sense. But I will tell you, and this is, I think, probably the actual punchline that you were looking for, is no matter if we sell a repair or we sell a restoration like a coating, or we sell a full-blown replacement, every pathway basically lands at or connects to— gets piggybacked by a service agreement. And so we're a firm believer in the only way to grow your business being number one, we can get new customers, but on the other side of the teeter-totter, we also want to squeeze more juice out of every customer. So the two ways to grow a business, get new customers and get more money from every customer. And so, um, in order to do that, like I said, we put them on service agreements and our service agreements are very simple. You don't want to own the leaks on the roof. We're not responsible for doing the ongoing work. What we are responsible for is managing that roof and catching the small problems before they turn into big problems. And so in our service agreements, we keep the drains clean. We might do up to like 50 to 100 feet of resealing or caulking, if you know, a couple tubes of, of sealant. We will, uh, blow all the debris off the roof and we will provide a report showing you what, uh, what we found on the roof, what's critical, what's urgent, what's needing, uh, you know, what do we need to keep our eyes on? And we'll provide that to you. But any additional work is going to be built as a scope. So it's like, we'll take care, we'll clean it, we'll keep it dry, make sure the water keeps flowing on it. We'll give you a report. And then we'll give you a, an estimate to, to do any additional work. And that's kind of how we shape our service agreements, if that makes sense.
Yeah, that's awesome. I love it.
Uh, yes.
Do you offer, I know I, I helped a, uh, very large commercial roofing company put together their, their maintenance plan and, and their presentation process and how to package it. And the, the, the whole value stack we created was awesome. We ended up on the, the first set, just hitting a grand slam. One thing that, that we did, and I'm curious if you're doing this, is to offer discounts because obviously it's all perceived. You can have whatever price and then discount it.
Yes.
Because, yeah, so you have like discounted rates for repairs, priority service lines if they're in-network, as opposed to, you know, if they just call you up, you're like, you've got people in the service agreement plan if there's ever large-scale needs. Are there any other value adders that you stack in there to make the client feel like they're getting this white glove, super special service?
Yeah. So I'll tell you, most of my world, it revolves around commercial roofing or multifamily roofing. Mm-hmm. We have had companies come in, take our exact model from commercial and inject it into our sales process, basically where we, hey, sales team, we look for an insurance claim, then we look to see, does the roof need to be replaced? If not, we sell repairs and a maintenance agreement. They've taken that theory or that ideology and they've applied that to the residential side. And so I've continued to help these, you know, there's probably at least 6 or 7 just off the top of my head companies that are running that play on the residential side. And for those guys, yes, we have basically crafted a consumer homeowner-friendly, like adding a ton of value, like to make it an absolute no-brainer for them to, um, be able to sell maintenance to on, on homes. On, in the commercial world, uh, it's more of like just making sure they know they have somebody in their back pocket more so than having to sell them on like, hey, we'll discount these, uh, repairs. Mm-hmm. I know that there are companies that are doing that and there are companies in our container that have probably added that in as, as another value add. Mm-hmm. But we don't see it pretty, like I don't see it very widespread on the commercial side. I would very highly encourage that on the residential side though.
Yeah. Beautiful. Cody, what's one thing if you could go back in time and give yourself advice for when you just got started, what's the one piece of advice you would've given yourself that you wish you knew now?
If we're talking business, On the business side of things, I was very, I told myself stories that my clients would never pay for a recurring service, that it's just not how they see the, the roofing business. But I've been proven wrong multiple times over and over again. There's no special markets. There's no, you know, nobody is a special snowflake. No one has a business that this won't work inside of. And if you really want to create enterprise value to either have a scalable business where you're not starting over at January, you know, starting resetting the sales scoreboard every year in January, or you want a sellable business that is intrinsically more valuable because you have that recurring income and you have a database of reoccurring customers, I wish I could have seen the picture a little bit clearer on the front end. And, um, that's what I beat into my head, I think, is, uh, that, that I'm not special. My market's not special. My business isn't special. Uh, we do the, we do the same thing and we put our pants on the same way as the big guys. Like, uh, all the guys at the top of the, you know, Roofing Contractor, Roofing Contractor Magazine Top 100 list. It's like, the, if you look at the top 10 companies there, Adam, all of those companies, especially on the commercial side, the Centimarks, Tectas, Garlands, uh, Tremcos of the world, the Greenwood Industries, they're all built on service and maintenance. And so if all of those companies, and if we look all the way back to like 2008, which was like, you know, a couple years before I even got into this industry, but I'm a ner— I'm a super roofing nerd and, and like to look back historically at how things work. So biggest dip for roofers of, of our lifetime was 2008, 2009, 2010 timeframe. And the companies that grew in that time were the companies that had service and maintenance. Building owners, property managers, facility operators are never gonna let their equipment, people, or assets get leaked on. They might not replace the roof because, you know, some unknowns in the economy or, you know, economic shifts, but they will never stop repairing roofs. And so if, yeah, if I had to say one thing that I think is the ultimate heartbeat or foundation of building a really strong company built on longevity, it's having the service department, the repairs, and the maintenance programs.
Cody, that's gold. Thank you for bringing so much value to me here and our community. I really appreciate you, man.
All right, man.
