Roofing Business Conditions Are the Toughest in 10+ Years w/ John Senac

We want our homeowners to be raving fans of our company. Raving fans. And you know how they do it? By relationships, not by transactions. They understand that every homeowner they're trying to sustain a relationship with where they sell them a roof today, whether they put them on an annual service program to when you're done with the roof, what's the relationship look like when you're done, when do you follow up with them? When you give them their notification, when do you let them know? At the year mark, when do you talk to them? You know, six months before their workmanship warranty expires. Just remind you I'm still here and in business. We'd love to come back out and make sure you're still aware of that. You have six months left in this workmanship warranty. When you move you as an owner and your upper management team to relationships, it'll move into your sales team, it'll move into your homeowner's experience. And this is a big difference that's going to take place because you're moving your business from transactional relationship and you are going to see the ability to conquer Those thresholds from 3 to 5, from 5 to 10, from 10 to 20, because you are relationship focused, not transactional focus.

The roofing industry is getting a shake up. It's been divided and it's growing worse. And that's exactly what John Cenac and I talk about in this video. What you're about to watch is a conversation that John and I had. And if you don't know John, let me introduce you. He is known as the discontinued Shingle guy and one of the most sought after speakers and trainers in our industry. The dude is a walking encyclopedia. Not only is John Cenac a great friend of mine, but I've hand selected him as a mentor to join us in the trenches inside the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. And in this video, John and I discuss this growing divide. Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. We're discussing why it's there and what companies can do to protect themselves. Next, we talk about the challenges that many roofing salespeople face, specifically new people, and how companies cultures can grow to support growth of their new people. Because no one likes seeing the turnover that we have in this industry.

We also talk about what we both.

Predict as the inevitable changes to the insurance landscape when it comes to roofing sales. Now, John is very in the know and I would take what he has.

To say to heart so you can.

Be Prepared, we talk about a whole bunch more which we will get into in just a moment. Thank you again for joining me in this video. If you are new here, welcome, welcome. My name is Adam Bensman and everything that I do on this channel is designed to help you and your team outsell, outgrow and out compete the rest so we can stomp the scum out. And I'm so excited to be working alongside a like minded, value driven leader like John Cenac to do that. Now let's jump into this video.

Roofing sales is personal development in disguise and the reward for growth is life changing. I hope my content helps you create a richer life and bank account. Dude. First John, thanks for doing this man. Like I am. One, this is overdue. Two, you're one of my favorite people in the industry, which is why we work together and get to, to help each other grow. I, I just really appreciate the like the friendship and the ability to have a sounding board who gets it. And the reason that I wanted to get this set up is I, I don't know if you've been seeing this, but I'm seeing a stronger divide in the roofing industry now on a few different LA is emotionally, I'm seeing on specifically like the Facebook groups which I, I just feel like is a whirlwind of high school girl drama. It is sickening to me. I am peeling back from that in a huge way. But there's like, it is, it's. So that's one place on this divide. The second divide I'm seeing is, I'm seeing this deeper separation between companies. You know how when they talk about like the wealth gap in America, I see the same thing happening in the industry. The companies that are accelerating are continuing to accelerate and they almost seem like they have this advantage that others and then the little guys are like stuck being little. And the final thing that I'm seeing on the divide kind of correlates to this financial divide is the, the failure rate that again, people are either doing phenomenal or like absolutely struggling. Again, a large part of us, I'm seeing in the Facebook group some pretty elementary questions coming up and people that quite frankly are just flexing and being complete buttheads. I'm like, dude, you're not even helping people out, you're just beating them down. But those folks just seem to continually struggle despite the fact that there's a lot of resources there. So I'm curious, are you seeing this divide in the industry now or not? And no is an okay answer.

I am, I Hesitate to use the word divide. Just. It sounds like very confrontational, but I don't know that there's another word for it. There's definitely a gap that exists there that seems to be taking place where, yeah, like you said, the strong keep getting stronger. And then I don't want to say the word weak, but, you know, the few. The. The ones that are lower revenue marks tend to kind of linger at that mark. And I think we've always known there's like, thresholds to hit. You know, I think once you clear a certain threshold and revenue, there's like this threshold you hit, then there's the next threshold. I think you and I have kind of talked about that before, the different thresholds, but. And I run a Facebook group. I actually run one, and I'm part of a couple others.

So by the way, your group, just to plug it for those. Since you don't have to shamelessly plug it. I'm going to. Is the single most valuable Facebook group in the industry, in my opinion. And is it Name that surface. Now, I know it changed from name that shingle.

It's name that roofing siding and more, but it's obviously based off of the name that shingle brand.

Yep. And you police it. There's value there. Anyway, go ahead, continue.

We got a lot of people that police it, which is helpful. You know, you have to have good people helping police it. And from that, we pulled off the master your craft Facebook group as a smaller group to kind of get more high level, because we found that there was just too much conversation going on. It was like a lot to keep track of. So we wanted to consolidate some of the conversations in one group and the other. That way you know where to go for each one. So. But that kind of lends to my point. At some point, you have a Facebook group and you just can't get everything in. I mean, you start getting 5, then 10,000, then 20,000. You know, name that roofing siding more as over 30,000 members. And, you know, not all of them are active. And that's fine. I understand that. But not all of them are active. But you get in there and you questions everything from a guy pointing to a gable asking what fascia metal is, what's the name for that metal. All the way up to someone asking a super complex question about a contingency and how and when it's legally binding and what steps you use and when to introduce it. You're just like, okay, like, we have two very different people. And then you go in the comments and you can see the divide. You can see the people that are arrogant. You can see the people that have been doing it for a long time. You can see the people that want to be helpful. You can see just at a basic level, you know, you find out that the person who's asking the question's been in there two weeks. Okay. It's a reasonable question, man. I would hope your company has training programs for this stuff, but it's a reasonable. You're young. Then you go in the comments on another one, you see the guy's been in this for six months or something like that, and he's asking a question that, you know, you see the divide and all the answers. And then this is the biggest part I just don't get, like, who has the time to spend any emotional energy just to bicker back and forth in the comments too? Like, do you really need to be right in that comment session so bad that you had to throw your name in the hat just to be right, just to say this thing, just to go back and forth on it? It is a difficult thing to manage, to handle, to protect, because there's an element for me who owns the group that wants to protect those that are just genuinely in there trying to learn and gain information. Yeah, you could really deter from a quality person seeking information ever commenting again if you don't protect it. So there is a lot that goes on in there and then that kind of lends to the point you made about the emotion part of it, man. I mean, you just see such a. A big gap there. I love sitting. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. And well, take the last four years in general. We've seen the industry change. We have seen the claims world change. We've seen private equity really start to make a bigger mark in the roofing space. That's kind of helped what we call, you know, the upper end ones accelerate and some of the ones that just get unnoticed because they're below that 5 million in revenue or whatever the mark may be. And it's been a lot of change. And if you aren't proactive in this industry, especially when it comes to the insurance claim side of things, you kind of. You die. You write like it's. You got to adapt or die. And it's unfortunate. And that kind of goes back to that failure rate. So, yeah, tough. It's the toughest I've seen it in over a decade of being in this. It's the toughest I've seen it for roofing contractors in that like, zero to about $10 million range.

Yeah.

That have, that are starting or have been in it for a few years and just can't break whatever the threshold is. It's tough.

Yeah. You know, when you talked about those thresholds, I want to come back to that and then I want to go a little deeper. I don't know about you, I, I've seen those thresholds on the ones, threes and fives. When you're brand new, it's getting your first million, then it's your first 3 million. And usually for the first three you have different growing pains to your first one. Cuz the first one, some companies, the one man band will blow that out of the water. Others I taught, I've heard, you know, will reach out to us. They aren't a good fit for working with RSRA generally but the ones that haven't done that yet at all, you know. And so then from your 1 to 3, usually you're starting to get a team together in some respect. The one man guy I know you'll get, we'll probably see it in the comments, someone boasting, well I did three and a half million my first year, great. But if you're an owner and you're doing that and running the whole show like man, hire some people, you know, get someone to run production. You need an administrative assistant or someone to answer the phones, someone to do production. So usually at the 3 million mark you're doing that 5. Now you're adding salespeople. And these are the folks that generally don't have systems and processes quite yet. They're just like I did it, so can you. So they'll slap a few salespeople in. Then they realize, wait a minute, at 5 million like I'm starting to get the bones of a real business now. And then at 10 million to go again, 1, 3 and then the fives and then we're at 10 now it's okay. I need systems, I need processes, I need job descriptions, a team. I need to legitimize my business, button up all my legal affairs and insurance affairs that I just kind of winged it through there. At this point it might be looking at expanding into just different markets or product lines. And then again we get to the 15 to the 20. So I see those thresholds at the ones, threes, fives and then they seem to repeat 1, 3, 5, 10. Excuse me, 1, 3, 5, 10 million mark. But what I wanted to dive into is, is why do you think that it is, you know, you said it's harder now than ever for contractors to win and to compete. And obviously, as you said, this divide or this gap is really hampering things. Why do you think that is?

So combination of a lot of things. Number one, roofing has always been an easy barrier to entry in most states. It's not that you need to have a license or any trade, schooling or education and things like that in most states. So yes, there are some states that strictly require licensing. Okay, that does make it a little tougher. But there's a good majority of states that if it's under a certain price ticket, but it's under a certain value, if it's roof only, you don't have to have that license, you don't have to have the GC license. So you have a low barrier to entry. And while that is great for the, you know, stories that this change people's life, it's also unfortunate because it lets in a lot of people that frankly shouldn't be in it. And not that they couldn't do it, but they enter too early, they don't know what it really takes. They open a business and they can't follow through with it. They're not good at their business acumen. They're only good at sales or something like that. Right. And they don't adjust quickly enough to add the support or help they need. So low barrier to entry is one of the issues. We went from limited education information to what I would call a high saturation of education or we'll say a lot of noise is sometimes it's hard to tell what's the right thing that you need. So now you've got a low barrier to entry and then a lot of noise out there. Get this buy. This will change. This will move you here. This will bump your numbers. This will. Right, we've got a lot of noise. So some people end up investing in things that may not be the right thing. I'm not saying they're bad programs, they just may not be what's actually going to move the needle for them then. If you're largely insurance claims, the insurance game has changed. There's been a lot of changes to policies, which I'm not a policy person, so I'm not going to sit here and go through that. I'm not a public adjuster or anything, but there's a lot of changes to policies, timelines as to when you can actually have full depreciation recovered on claims, Insurance companies pulling out of states, then being asked to go back into states, state regulations and requirements changing overall I mean, the stat, the stats just don't lie. The number of claims that we went out to that were full approvals on site versus the number of claims that are full approvals now has changed. I can go back and look at my own numbers from my sales history and know that. All right, similar storm, but we were, you know, 80% full approval and now we're like 20, 25% full approval for the last storm that I work similar now. I had a groundbreaking storm in my market last year that moved the needle back up in percentage, but still had similar issues. It never brought it all the way back up to what my old percentage was. And I'm only getting better at seeing it, identifying it, teaching it, coaching it, training it. So I don't believe it's a misassessment of damage. And then when I look at other markets, same thing. So you put all those pieces together, low barrier to entry. So what it requires actually get into the market, a lot of noise as far as the training and skills that you need. Constantly changing the insurance restoration game as to what's required and what's going to get approved, what's relevant, damage, how much is enough for repairs, how to move from repair to replace all those pieces in there. You can fatigue a roofing company very quickly. And then the ones, threes and fives going back to that reference, you know, if you're a $1 million guy and you move from a million to 1.5 back down to a million, but you didn't have a bunch of overhead, it may not be a big deal, but like you said, when you start getting to three, then to five and you start adding overhead, you start adding salary, positions, you have office and things like that, and you move the needle a half million to a million, you're recovering that by getting rid of assets, removing positions, taking things away. And then you stop investing in training, you stop investing in improvement, you stop investing in other things. And it just, you kind of live in purgatory almost because you don't know how to adapt to the changes or you weren't proactive enough to be able to still have, you know, maybe you were closing 80% and instead of falling from 80 to 75 or 70, you fell from 80 to 50. And we're seeing drastic changes like that out there, especially when it relates to insurance claims. To put all that together, man, that's a concoction that is going to create a very like hard barrier to breakthrough for those companies in that 1 to 5 million mark, specifically those companies maybe some of the 1 to tens. Right. Some of the 5 to tens. I mean, but there's a lot going on there, man. It's just tough.

Yeah, I really appreciate what you just said. I want to go deeper into one thing that you had mentioned, which is a plethora resources. You referred to it as noise. And it's very interesting that you say that because when you and I both got into this industry over a decade ago, there was no YouTube channels, there was no free resources, there was no Facebook group. It was a dog eat dog world. It was very private. You could barely get anyone to open up about anything. Even at conferences, like the few conferences that were there. My experience of them is that like it was just gated enough. It was like the speakers were up there to say, here's just enough for you to want to buy what I have. Right. They weren't. It wasn't as value forward as we see now. Now with that extra noise. The thing that I've noticed is now everybody has access to the same resources. So in the past when, if you got into it a decade ago, information was power and if you had a leg up and these other people couldn't find it, you would win. But now that now you pair the low barrier to entry, how many? I mean, dude, every single week I hear from a roofing salesman, got screwed, didn't get paid. I can do this on my own. What do you think if I start? And like half of the Minneapolis market is a spin off of two companies. The Dallas market is a spin off of a handful of companies like it because someone worked for them. They're disgruntled, they're frustrated. Whatever else they say, I can go do it on my own. But now again, we have Facebook groups, we have YouTube channels like the one people are watching now that everyone has access to. So I have noticed that the competition has increased because the overall education of folks has gone up. Which leads me to this. And I wanted to get your opinion. These two theories. I have one, and I spoke about this at the Owens Corning Platinum Conference. Yeah, not this last one, but the one previous that the roofing industry is kind of like the NFL, where the NFL is a fixed game with a fixed set of rules and a fixed number of players. Right. And all NFL teams have access virtually to the same pool of talent to recruit from. They have access to the same game, tape to study. They have access to the same physiological research, the same psychological research, all of the same. The tools, the technology, everything but the difference between the team that Wins the Super bowl and the team that's dead last is two things. The relationships that they have and how they execute on that information. And I am seeing now more than ever that information is. It used to be the most important thing. Now it's one of the least because it's readily available to everybody. But people that are finding the information, once you solve the first problem, and I'll just give an example, just because people that are watching this, usually our knocking doors are in sales. If you don't know what to say at the door, you solve the first problem knowing what to say at the door. Boom, bingo, problem solved, move on. And then we create the next problem, which is usually I'm struggling getting to the kitchen table. Then the next problem, I have a hard time overcoming objections and closing. Then the next problem which leads them to you. I can't get my claims approved. I got a partial payment. Is this repairable? Right. So what people don't realize in the business of roofing, whether you're in sales and owner or manager, is that so many people get shortsighted on solving today's problem, knowing that by solving today's problem, you create 10 more later, by the way, which is a good thing. If you're not doing that, then you're not growing. But the relationships that people have, again on the NFL analogy, the relationship with the head coach, the relationship with the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, the relationship with the physical therapist and the massage therapist and the nutritionist. To be able to understand the intricacies of each person and help coach that person through the decisions they need to make as they unfold is why I say the relationships now are what make people successful versus everyone else. I mean, dude, you could not spend a penny on yourself and be and make it in this business. But those that do you look at, we both speak for Owens Corning. We've been with their. Some of their. Shouldn't say some. We've been with their largest contractors. And what do they have? They have deep relationships with the people that they need. So I'm really curious where, if you agree with this analogy of the NFL and that the relationship side of things is really what separates the stunted companies to the companies who are accelerating.

Yes, for the most part. I'm going to give you a no to part of it here. So I love it through it. All right. First of all, I love the whole concept of a fixed game versus an infinite game. All right? I mean, that's a big thing that I'm passionate about right now.

So thanks. Simon Sinek. Great book. If you haven't read it yet, Infinite.

Game by Simon Sinek, read the book. It's phenomenal. It'll change your perspective on this. If. Remember that nobody, nobody won the Roof bowl last year. Nobody did. Okay. Because there's no such thing as the Roof Bowl, Right?

Yeah.

No such thing as the roofing championship. Yes, There's a top 100 list that's produced every year, but it's a top 100 list. Okay. You could do the same thing. You could produce the top five lists in the NFL. It's just the top five list. What those guys are after is a trophy. There's no trophy to be after here. But we treat it that way and there are some aspects to it. Yes, we do have access to a lot of the same resources. Yes, we do have. Right. There's kind of a set system and a lot of normal things that a roofing company is going to go through and how they progress and how they grow. And what does it take to learn? What does it take to go knock a door? What does it take to meet an insurance company? There's a lot things like that out there that are consistent. So. But I agree that it's treated like a fixed game. A lot. I disagree that it's a fixed game. And I don't think you were trying to say it was right.

Yeah, I, I agree. It is for sure not a fixed game. There's creative people out there. My point was that with the NFL and the analogy is that they have access to the same things and they are very set parameters on how they can perform. So.

I'll regurgitate it this way. When you're trying to yield a result in any company, specifically in roofing, when you're trying to yield a result you're trying to. You want. This is the result that I want.

Right.

It doesn't matter what it is. Like you said, first problem to solve, knock the door. How do I get the conversation? How do I get on the roof? Whatever the issue is, when you're trying to get to the result, you're trying to solve the problem, whatever it may be, it really is going to come down to two core things that exist there. There's either a system to solve that problem or it's a skill to solve that problem. That's at its base level. What it comes down to. Okay, system. Right. And again, both of these do tie back to relationships. System, okay, system is something you're going to make that gets repeated over and over again. The example at the door. Or the example when it comes to communication with insurance companies, whatever it may be is scripts. That's the system, right? A checklist on how to inspect the roof, That's a system, right? So these are all systems. Now one system is low skill. Long term, like a roof inspection checklist, it's low skill. It doesn't matter how many times you do it. You may get 5, 10 minutes faster than the next guy, you may be more perfect than the next girl. Like it doesn't matter. Like you're. It's about, did you get all the right photos? Did you make sure you didn't miss anything? And how efficient were you with that? Right. There's low movement in skill development for that checklist. The system of scripts is different though, and this is just another example. But like you learn the door knocking script, what to say when you get that objection to overcome the problem. You have a script to overcome the problem, right? You learn the script. But then when you get better, higher skilled, you practice it over again, you make it more your own, you create your version of that script or two or three versions of way to say that thing to overcome that objection, whatever it may be. Now we're moving into the skill world. That takes time, that takes repetition, that takes practice. Okay. But at the end of the day, there's relationships centered around all of that. Right? I can go and I can buy a checklist. You can go to CompanyCam right now and you can download my checklist. Right. I'm sorry. If you don't have a relationship with anybody that uses that checklist, if you don't have relationships with me or people in my system or anything like that, it's still just a checklist to you. Your ability to apply that from a skill standpoint isn't going to be quite as good as the people that have a relationship. Same thing on the side when it comes to the higher skilled stuff, right. If you have the direct relationship with those people, if you have people coaching you through those things, right. Really moving through those things. Scripts, you're in your program, right? You're watching, you're an RSRA, you're in your YouTube channels, things like that, right. There's a big difference in the people that watch your YouTube channel versus the people that are actually developing relationships with everybody in our network and you and me and everything on how they're applying those systems. The skill is moving faster. The skill is increasing at a different rate than just looking at that system. Because the relationship exists as well. Yeah. So that relationship is a crucial part of actually executing that system and how that system moves you to a skill set faster, better, stronger, whatever it may be. So your analogy of the coaches is a good analogy there because again, you're trying to yield a result, you're trying to solve the problem. And too many people solve a problem. Short sighted. When Chris and I look at how to solve a problem, we're always looking at what's the cause and effect, what is this going to do in the long run? Like what's actually going to happen in the long run of this? So I solve this problem now, but how long is this problem going to be solved this way before then there's a new problem, there's backlash to this problem, it changes again. Right. This is the effect of it. And I need to start planning for when that takes place.

Yeah.

So yes, look at it from a system versus skill standpoint. And when you create the system, is it something that's quick? Is it something that we need to develop skill over time? Perfect example. In the insurance world, writing an exactimate estimate only takes so much training. Right. To teach them how many line items go on a roof. Okay, I'm sorry, Exactimate, it's not the best software. Once you learn it, it's a tool and you learn how to use that tool. Great. Learning how to explain to a homeowner why those line items are needed, that's a different development of skill. Right. I can give you scripts for that, but that's a different. Learning how to explain that to an adjuster, that's a different development of skill. I can give you scripts for that. What to say in an email to send that in for your supplements. But actually negotiating through it takes time, effort, energy, training, coaching. Right. We all have access to. Here's how to supplement. We can go in Facebook groups and ask for these line items. That's great. All you really learned was basic entry level systemized stuff. Not how that's going to convert into skills that will actually train your business, actually get you higher results than what you're seeking. Yeah, that's what you need to be looking at is system versus skill. Most things are going to start with a system, but how long does it take to develop the skill? What's the relationship I need, what's the program I need, what's the training I need? And then when do I bring that all in house to continue to increase that skill, develop that skills? We hire and train new people, man. It's just a very simple thing. That goes back to that entry question I have a result I need to achieve. Can I build a system for this? Is it purely a skill or is it a mix of both?

Yeah, man. I really. I love the way you separated systems and skills, that the system is something that you can make and repeat and. And usually doesn't require skill to follow. And then the skills allow you to move faster and have a deep understanding of those. And I think it kind of enveloping this. And this is new for me. It's one of the reasons why, you know, you and I work together in the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance. I hand selected who I know is the best in the industry and all of the mentors, you and Daeshawn Bryant and Jim Alleen and Cody Landles. We all have relationships and going from a transaction business. And I had someone that reached out recently that had my sales training, and they want to join rsra, and they're like, why'd you make this switch? And one of the reasons I got really tired of being in the transaction business, where I spent my time just selling my program, and then people would buy it. Problem two, I just found out again, I had a sales rep come up, work for a company using your program. The Guy owes me $200,000. I'm like, Jesus. Next one. Guy owes 50. Next one. Homeowners getting liens placed on their house. Next one. I just found out something that many people have seen in the news. Guy bought my system. I can't do anything about that. So making that switch to rsra, I went from. From a transaction business to a relationship business. Now, being in the trenches with you, being in the trenches with Daeshun, being in the trenches with Jim and Cody and our members, we now have less people working more intimately together in the growth trajectory in this. It has been really awesome and quite frankly, the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my career. But onto this relationship side, the reason that I. That I kind of shared that backstory is I believe that systems and skills are accelerated via relationship. And I know that there's people watching me, like, dude, you're just shamelessly plugging in rsra. No, because I want to talk internal relationships. There's team relationships, there's internal relationships, which are more important than anything else. And if you don't have those first, your external relationships are garbage. The external relationships will hit second. But on the regular, I've been getting messages from sales reps. My team's not supporting me. The owner sold me on doing this. They're not providing what they Told me they're basically a lone wolf. And I'm like, why in the world, dude, you spend more time with the people you work with than your own fricking family. Why would you settle for a garbage culture with a garbage company with no support? By the way, if this is you, there's a link in the description. We'll connect you with a member of rsra. If you're looking for a new company to call home, fill out the application. It'll post into our private app. And if companies that are in there think you're a good fit, they'll reach out to you direct. But anyway, those internal relationships, those are the companies that we see have high turnover, high failure rate, and owners run them into the ground. And meanwhile, you've seen an RSRA in our app and share the wins. You know, folks like Russ posting his team outings. We had another gentleman, and I'm so sorry, the name's slipping me. I think it was Mike. Mike ended up posting, like, how proud he was of the culture. Like, the. The people show up loving what they're doing, the activities they do together, the families that they involve in those internal relationships within your organization is what will accelerate growth. So you guys can rely and lean on each other as opposed to this. Like, oh, but I hate it when people. The roofing is still a sexist industry. I love when I hear owners say, I hired an office girl. I'm like, okay, it's not 1950 anymore, but maybe if you refer to them as that, they're not going to stick around. That's a different role. An office manager or an administrative assistant. And I don't know about you, but if someone referred to me as the office girl, I'd quit personally, I'd be like, dude, why am I working here? So again, those relationships where there's mutual respect, where there's understanding where the people are in the right seat and challenging each other. So those are the internal relationships and then the external relationships you plug in to fill the gaps. Like my external relationships I talk to you about. Actually, the main thing I talk to you about is relationships. When I call, we're talking about relationships. The people that we're serving, the contractors we're serving. You and I both sit on the board of roofing companies who are wanting to sell. It's also another thing we add to RSRA members. If you guys want to sell your business and you want some board members on, John and I are happy to sit on your board and support you. And then Jim, I talk to on like business navigation, like John or Jim gets like Jim's like my business mentor. Like I brainstorm like development growth ideas. Daeshawn's my mindset dude. Like I call him to get my head right. And Cody's my sales mentor. Cody is like audited our process. Like dude, you should do this and this should be moved here. And I was like, holy smokes, you're dead. Right? And having that third party perspective so everyone kind of fills a different role and it's really enriching to see in it. Daeshun's like the most raved about in the group. I love it like, like people love our attendant our sessions and we have like great attendance. And then people like man, Deshaun brought the fire today. It was so awesome hanging with him. So the relationships that we form together are really fun and it's cool seeing people connecting one on one. The external relationships isn't just folks like us, but other member members. You know, you see the posts in rsra, hey, can someone talk through. I'm running this. Okay. I'd want to run this by someone. Hey, who's done this? I'm looking to expand in next market. I'm looking to someone who's doing around 10 million to brainstorm. And those relationships I think are what kind of become the backbone of or the foundation of driving systems and skills.

I would agree with that. So, you know, God, there's so many analogies I can make here. Let me start with the fact that, you know, we've talked about a handful of things. I remember at one point you and I talked about doing like a big co branded event for you and I. Right. And it just never took. It never got any traction. We never followed through that idea and it wasn't really who you and I are. And I'm a guy who does in person events. Like that's the thing I do is like large classes. Okay. Yeah, but that's like, that's my brand, right? The when we all got together and I think that we've had a group of people who just love the industry. Desean, you, me, Cody, Jim, right? Like everybody in there who just love the industry, who's been in the same group, no quorums, no bickers. We group text each other like fun stuff. We group text each other our wits, right? Like here we are on like talking about what needs to change, what needs to better, what else we want to do. And like you said, we all have each other to go to for different things. I mean desean guest Spoke on.

Yeah, master your craft.

Yeah, master your craft. And my private thing. And again, the feedback was the same thing. Because that's always the feedback he's going to get. That's what.

He's an all star man.

But I'm telling you what, when I'm having a slump day, I'll be driving, I'll call them up, like, dude, get my head right. Like, like. And it'll just run me through something, that situation. But those relationships, that's a great example. But let me cater to you guys into the roofing space here. Let's go back to a problem, right? We may go to another roofing company and I have people reach out to me this, hey, do you know a roofing owner who's been through this? Or they're switching a W2? Or they've already done this. Or they've done this, they've done this, they've done this. And a lot of times I see the question and I'm like, man, you asked a very transactional question. You have a problem, you want to go to W2 and you want to know somebody else that's done that because you want to solve that problem. You want to switch from a contingency agreement to a service agreement. So you want to be introduced to a contractor that solved that problem before. But I got a good guy up in Minnesota, very good friend of mine, and he always looks for the relationship from the first class I ever did. He picked me up. He understood the value of a relationship, picked me up, drove me around, was my personal chauffeur. The first time I did a class up there, he wanted the relationship. That's it. He was willing. I didn't ask for it. He just insisted about it. I was like, great. Told me his life story. I told him mine. Great relationship. To this day, he comes to me and he asked me for a relationship. He doesn't ask me for someone to solve this one problem. So when you are looking for those things and just listen to that question, hey, I'm looking to go W2. Do you know somebody who's been done this, who's done this before? That's a lot different than the question of, like, we've got a lot of growth over the past year and we need to make some company changes. Who do you know that has gone from the 3 to 5 million mark and is their entire staff is now W2? I'd like to start interacting with that owner. That's a much different question than I'm looking to go W2. Do you know, somebody who's recently done this, I can talk to. Right. It's a completely different approach to things. And I can hear in the question the person who's relationship focused and looking to move into that relationship world. And this transcends down into your sales team. This goes all the way to your homeowner's experience. If you think it doesn't, you are dead wrong. What you are doing to the sales team and to the company is moving into your homeowners. And I was just in front of an owner who said that we want our homeowners to be raving fans of our company. Raving fans. And you know how they do it? By relationships, not by transactions. They understand that every homeowner they're trying to sustain a relationship with, whether they sell them a roof today, whether they put them on an annual service program, which I love, man, that that's one of the biggest things I bring into training. For companies that don't understand how to stop making a transaction will start. Just make it a permanent lifetime lead. You've got them whenever it is right? Move to relationship to when you're done with the roof, what's the relationship look like when you're done? When do you follow up with them? When do you give them their notification? When do you let them know at the year mark when you talk to them, you know, six months before their workmanship warranty expires. Just remind you I'm still here and in business. We'd love to come back out and make sure you're still aware of that. You have six left in this workmanship warranty. When you move you as an owner and your upper management team to relationships, it'll move into your sales team, it'll move into your homeowner's experience. And this is a big difference that's going to take place because you're moving your business from transactional relationship and you are going to see the ability to conquer Those thresholds from 3 to 5, from 5 to 10, from 10 to 20, because you are relationship focused, not transactional focus. The old game of just let me stuff as many salespersons in as possible, let me conquer as many transactions as possible and get me over these thresholds is an old game at this point. And the more that you move to a relationship status with things, you're going to see success. We're in a very holistic time frame of, of sales and home services and things like that. And that relationship is becoming more valuable. And there's a little bit of this that's counterproductive. People we see, you know, oh, my phone's up there. You know, my phone's not anywhere I can reach it. That's fantastic. Right? We are constantly in front of screens and phone and fast and quick information. So it feels like it needs to be like this at times, but it doesn't. Deep down inside, there's still a person who wants to be listened, heard, to have a relationship engage with that way. And that's everybody from owner to managers to C suites to salespersons to homeowners that are buying the services. That reigns. True. And that's where this moves from a fixed game to an infinite. Because the relationship is infinite. Right. You want that relationship be as long as possible. Not transactional, not fixed. This is the same thing we do every time we capture the business high five, put the roof up, slap them on their ass and move on. Like, that's not how this game is run anymore. Because your employees will feel that that's how you treat your customer. That's how you treat your employees, that's how you treat your staff. That's how you treat the office girl. Right? Like they feel that.

Yeah. For those that are on the podcast, there was air quotes around office girl. Just throwing that out there.

Oh yeah, sorry. Because a part of this is podcast again, I'm saying that that not to be negative, I'm saying that to say that's just not how we should treat our people.

No, it's not. It's not at all. Because we live in the feeling economy. That was actually the title of the presentation, Eva Platinum that emotion buying decisions are based on the emotional experience and how you compare to the other contractor. So if you create a strong emotional experience by way of relationship and when you are compared against them, a large part of that comparison is the emotional experience in the home and it throughout the process. Which brings me, I want to share a story that I know I texted to the mentors in the group chat, but I haven't shared this publicly yet because we haven't made the video public. But I had an opportunity to interview Ryan Irwin with Accurate America. He's a member of rsra, his customer. And I drove down, it was almost two hour drive to go meet with his customer. And I interviewed him on why he chose Accurate America as an RSRA member despite the fact that there were countless roofers knocking on his door saying, we'll pay you money, we'll give you your deductible back. All this. And I walked in the house, dude, I swear I was walking into his family's house. Like we opened the door. The wife answers, oh, hey Ryan, one sec, let me. And she goes and grabs her husband and they start talking about when they're going to go golfing and like the how tight knit they were and setting up this interview in his living room. Like I felt like I was with family and it made me so proud and so happy to see that's the type of company that's a, that's that we work with an rsra, which is why and I also shared this in our group chat that we had our first company apply yesterday or not yesterday, it was I believe two weeks ago. That said the reason I'm applying is I was knocking doors and I was behind a member of RSRA and the homeowner was dead set on working with an RSRA contractor. And I was like, wow, it's happening. You know, we're two and a half months. No, we launched March 1st. It's May 27th after this filming. March, April. Yeah, two months in and already I don't remember the exact company count. I think we're around 280 companies strong. But that's the influence that's having on the market and that's again boiling down to one thing, which is relationships. The one thing that I think is important that I want to leave everyone with and then I'm going to ask you this question for us to wrap, John, is when people, when you talked about, I'm looking down on my notes, transaction versus relationship. That's the old way that this business ran, right. It was the churn and burn model. No one cared about the sales rep. It was like, can you make me money? I don't care if you go broke doing this. I don't care if you, if I over promise you all this stuff and you rake up ten grand of credit card debt because you tried to make this thing work and you weren't a good fit. And I knew it, but I don't care. You know, are you the per the company that just says which you've seen. You know, Dimitri's covered some of these companies that are struggling or their reputation's kind of on the fritz. And it's largely companies that are more volume for the sake of volume driven. And those are the people when you're asking for advice. Hey, I need to talk to someone who has gone from the 1099 to W2, which by the way, we've covered at length. I know you brought someone in and master your craft as well. We've done multiple sessions on that in rsra. But the leeches, it's like the kid that asks, mom, hey, mom, can I have a cookie? No, they go to dad, dad, can I have a cookie? Sure. Right. Like it's the it. They're the naggy kid that is there for one thing, and it's to get the answer they want and they're not providing anything of value back. And what I. What we don't accept in RSRA is that type of attitude of, hey, I just need to talk to someone. Solves problem. Thanks, man. You can help me out now. I got to go finish growing my business versus what can I do to help you? And when you. I want to leave this as my number one piece of advice on relationship building. Whether it's internal within your organization, whether you're a sales rep and owner, manager, or external is how. What can you bring to the table? How can you help the other person win? Because the right team people sometimes challenge me when I say sales is a team sport. They're like, no, it's not. It's individual. It's like, no, because when your job is to help everybody win, everybody wins. And if you're the top sales guy, but you're helping other. Other people win, that's really winning. You're not winning if you're just out there, you know, with your head to the ground, thinking about you all the time. That's a narcissist. So don't be a leech and just start to find people who can help you, because that's selfish. Be selfless and think about how you can help other people grow. So, John, what would you give if you said, hey, here's my number one advice to build better relationships in your business? What would you tell people?

Took the main one I would give. I truly believe that there's two tiers of. Okay, let me. I don't want to get all the backlash for it in the comments. Right. So I'll say it this way. As I see it, as I see it, there's kind of two tiers of success, right? Yeah. There's success. Right. Like what we define as success. Right. And, you know, whether that's money, a certain benchmark, revenues, thresholds, whatever it may be, and then there's the ability to create success in others. And I think tier one is great. Kudos to you for getting there. Right. That's awesome. But when you understand how to create success in others, you exponentially change how successful you are. So to your point, I do think the. What Can I do for you is a powerful thing to do. So let me give this advice we talked about. You want to yield a result, you have to figure out if it's system, if it's skill, this, that and the other. When you guys talk in your company, talk about good and bad. Bad. Don't ignore the bad. Okay? You have to be brutally honest with this. Success in a roofing company comes from not repeating the same mistake multiple times. And just because you, whether it's a production manager, salesperson, supplement or you've just added whoever it is, if somebody else has learned that mistake, this would be an opens discussions. Your meeting should include what went right this week and what went wrong this week. What'd you do? Well, where'd you get kicked in the teeth? And if you're not having those kind of discussions, you're not having relationship style discussions. You're only showing good by talking about win. And you're talking, you're again, you're in that fixed game mindset looking for the win, right? You're not understanding everything that goes into the entire process that is going to start moving more towards relationship. When you have a team of people who's actually talking about wins and losses issues and they're like, you know what? This week, for the first time ever, I had a, I had a homeowner say this to me and I didn't know what to do. And someone goes, oh man, I'm glad you brought that up. I, that happened to me in like my first two weeks. Here's what I did, here's now, what I do now, here's right. But if all we talk about is success, if all we talk about is good, if all we talk about is win, we are using a model that isn't truly open in a relationship, isn't open to discussion, isn't open to what the realities are out there. And I think that's part of the noise of the industry right now is all the flash of get better. But we truly learn from mistakes. This is where experience is driven from. This is where we find ourselves on the edge of our comfort zone. And whether we address that mistake, learn from that mistake and move past that discomfort or not. So you have to talk about good and bad in your meetings, in your culture, in your office, in your teams, in your companies. If you are not promoting openly discussing I messed up, you do not have a relationship driven culture. So back to the fact that it's what can I do for others? I think you're going to open your team up to the concept of how can I help others if they're talking about good and bad. Bad. Because when they hear bad, if you have someone on your team who pipes up and goes, oh, man, wait, I went through this. And let me tell you how I do it now. Let me tell you how I got better. Let me get you over this hurdle faster than I got over this hurdle. That's somebody who's looking to help somebody else. Which leads to what Adam's point was of lend yourself right, be helpful, be resourceful. Breed success in others. That comes way faster if your team is openly discussing challenges, issues and. And failures. And as an owner and manager, I'm listening for the person in the team who steps up and goes, hey, look, let me help you through this. Let me give you my advice on this. Let me share what got me over this hump. That's the people that you want to stay on your team. If they. All they ever talk about are wins, that's great. They're contributing some. If they never talk at all, they're contributing none. If they talk about their wins and their losses and they're supporting those things. This person's actually engaged in your company and giving every bit of resource they have, good and bad sides to help the next person succeed. That's who you want. Your company.

Yeah. I love it, man. John, this has been the longest form content I've done. I don't want to edit a single thing out. We're going to put this whole thing up.

So I should drop an F bomb. So you have to edit it, right?

Yeah, Drop just a few of those. The man. Thank you. I absolutely. You know, one thing that, that I mean, from the bottom of my heart, and I remember specifically we sat down in Ohio. I don't remember where we were in Ohio. As usual. I was landing. You're leaving. Since we so happen so frequently are crossing paths. We went out to the steakhouse together and shared some big goals and life visions. And every time that I connect with you, I leave, like feeling excited and fueled to do better and bring my best and to continually perform. And I really appreciate that. And I know that you do the same thing for other people. I mean, you have a contagious energy, which is a good contagion, by the way. And so obviously, folks can work with both of us inside the roofing and Solar Reform alliance, along with Daeshun and Cody Landles and Jim Aline for sales training, daily support in our community app, ongoing training sessions with each of us that are live and interactive and the ultimate endorsement to join the mission to reform the corrupt and greedy practices of the industry. But you also run, of course, your own thing. Can you spend a little bit just sharing about where folks can tune in if they're crawling out from under a rock and have never heard of John Cenac and then how they might be able to work with you on a more intimate level in, in your program?

Sure. So I'd say just follow me on Facebook. I'm a Facebook guy. I'm in that age group where I'm a Facebook guy. Follow John Cenac on Facebook, you'll see a lot of stuff if you're on Facebook, go to name that roofing sighting and more. That's the group I run. The other group that I co run with Chris is the master your craft group as well. Now that group is specifically designed to be kind of a catalyst for. Are you really interested in the monthly group that I have? Because Chris and I do some monthly calls. Really where we work. It's a very insurance focused program. You know, do talk a little sales. We do talk like you said, we talked about W2, stuff like that. But it's very insurance focused and that's master your mastercraftgroup.com very simple. Go to the website, you fill out the application, you could do the monthly calls. Otherwise I do a lot of in person classes. We're getting ready to launch another set. A couple over the summer, a couple in fall. And those group classes are a great way to like get your team in person and, and see it. But I promise you that in person is fun, but it's very short term. It's in the moment, it's great, it's energizing. Your team gets so much out of that. But you want to start looking at long term programs that as you go through adding, growing, hiring, retention, you know, people that are, that come and go, great long term programs like rsra, master your craft. The online programs are really valuable to be part of those relationships. And Chris and I say it in our group too. Like if you're in that and you reach out to us. Look, we put our time into our members before we put our time into the outside groups because there's only so much time.

You can't answer them all.

Yeah, it's not mean. I mean I have people that answer the questions predominantly and name that roofing site anymore because it got so big. There's only so much time I have in a day and I want to be in the relationship status. I want to be working with people that are focused on that topic or in that category. So I, you know, great. I want to be in that category. And it's Chris and I are very open in how we try and help. We usually try and answer one question and try and solve one problem. Something like that we want them to experience. And even that's going to become limited as that model continues to grow. Yeah. So. But those are really the platforms. John Cenac on Facebook, you can go To John the roofpro.com it's you can see my upcoming classes link on there. If you want to schedule a private training that's available through there as well. But master your craft group. If you're really looking to engage in that group. Great. I promise you, like there's no tension there. You know, Adam and I have worked well together since the day we met on a 15 minute call.

Yeah.

RSRA now to the guests that we bring in on different groups and things like that. Yeah, everybody's a little unique and different in where they're at now, what they need to solve their problem now, what they can afford now. There's so many reasons and again, there's a lot of noise. But yeah, the biggest thing about what you have, what we have here in rsra, what Chris and I have in master your craft, is it's very relationship driven.

Yeah. You work alongside people in the trenches and for those who've not gone to one of John's classes, get your tickets now. He sells out every single one. And I know we've been, we've talked about like the problems that you run into. Like, man, we're trying to find a bigger venue. So if you're dragging your feet, don't get there. I have, I still have never heard one person have anything but freaking raving, raving reviews about it. So, John, dude, thank you so much for being here. I'll put links to all of these resources in the show, notes in the description below. And John, just thanks again, man. Excited to see you again. Coming up soon at a session and at our annual members event, which I should have mentioned, but we do have our members only event October 10th and 11th in Colorado with limited availability for members only for RSRs. Good time to hang with us. So John, appreciate you, man.

Thanks, man. Always fun.