Supplementing Roofs: WORST vs BEST Practices w/ Drew Suttle

Drew with Total Scope here to talk about the never ending discussion in the ever changing landscape of the challenge of supplementing our jobs when we're dealing with insurance claims. Drew, thanks for joining, man.

Hey, thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

I'm, I'm super excited to have you here. Quick background and then I want to share a story. So I met Drew at an Owens Corning event. We were both speaking at an OC event. And I never met you before. You took the mic, you got up there talking about supplementing. I'm sitting there being like, not another supplement thing. And I'm ready to like fall asleep and you start presenting and I'm like glued to the screen with a notepad. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. This is like, this is gold. And I came up to you after I said, drew, I got to bring you to the Pitch Pro Movement and, and do a presentation for those people. Specifically, the one thing that we're going to mention at the end of this video that blew my mind on what most people try to supplement. Excuse me, they don't try to, they run into it. They don't supplement for it. The homeowner pays for it. It's like the, the grenade into, into deals. And you, like, presented a solution that I had no idea even existed. And after the Pitch Pro Movement folks loved you. Now we're working in a deeper way. We're going to talk more about that in a minute. But Drew, thanks for being here, man. Can you give everyone your just super quick background now that I introduced you, who you are, where you came from and what you do?

Yeah. So my name is Drew Suttle. I'm a co owner, co founder of both Total Scope and Total Claim. Total Scope is our supplement writing company. We've got a mobile app and a web portal that helps your team in the field properly scope projects in order to fully maximize your claim value by allowing you to get better field data, which allows for better estimates. I'm a certified level 3 xactimate professional, which last I checked, there was only about 500 of those in all of North America, which equates to something like 1/10 of 1% of Xactimate users are certified level 3. So that's just another little arrow in my quiver when I'm dealing with adjusters saying, I have a piece of paper that says, I know this software better than you. I'm also a licensed public adjuster. I'm currently licensed in eight states, but we're expanding on that front as well, and Total Claim, our public adjusting arm, works with Total Scope. It allows a seamless transfer of data and information. So if you're using Total Claim for PA services, you can just log into your Total Scope account and see exactly what's going on with your file. And I've also been lucky enough to get to be a speaker trainer for Owens Corning University. So I get to travel around the country speaking to contractors, teaching them how to deal with adjusters and carriers and make more money. And like Adam said, that's where I met Adam. And, yeah, I've been off to the races ever since.

That's awesome. We got some events coming up, too. And, Drew, you forgot one important note about your background, that you've walked a million miles in our shoes because you're a former contractor.

That is true. Thank you for reminding me. Yes.

And that's the missing link, because so many public adjusters and folks who haven't been, and I'll say it, haven't been on our side. There's. There's knowledge gaps that exist due to experience of knowing how to, like you, bridge this gap just so well, which is why I love working with you. So I hope it was okay to share those details. I think it's important.

No, absolutely.

Yeah.

Thanks.

For us to know.

Thanks for bringing that up. That's exactly right.

Yeah.

I owned my own roofing company, so I've done it all. I've dealt with homeowners, you know, I've dealt with sales guys under you, staff, employees, offices, everything that. All the challenges that come as you as a contractor, I've been there, I've dealt with all those. I've been the guy on the roof actually tearing off the shingles. So I've kind of seen every side of the equation here, and that's why I like to be on the side I'm on now, helping contractors and helping homeowners fight the good fight.

So, yeah, I love it, man. And on that note, what we're going to be covering today is what I'll call like, the essentials of supplementing. And everyone, if you're turning, tuning in, you're going to leave with, with, with, with insight, action and plans to start making money doing this stuff. We're going to build up to get there because there's some background and groundwork that we got to lay. One of the, One of the things that, that I'd like to start off with, Drew, is, you know, when. When it comes to contractors, roofing companies, dealing with insurance claims, there are a million options out there. And one of the things that I've been starting to hear is carriers are wising up because they, they're tired of the like. We're going to get into this xactimate. We need to know the minutia of it policies change, how carriers use it changes. And without a deep understanding, we can't, we can't get in the ring and get, get it done. But the, the pitfall in many of.

The.

Instructions out there are for people to, to it's greed. Right? They're going to bill for things that aren't there. Oh, I can bill for a porta Potty, but there's no port on the job. So this everything we're going to be covering today. Just want to get on one level playing field. What we're covering today, it's not a cheat code, it's not a hack, this is not a manipulation. This is not something that's going to get you blacklisted. This is about doing one simple thing, doing an amazing job for your customers and getting paid for all of the work that you do. It's that simple. If you do it, you get paid for it. And in order to scope a roof appropriately, it's objective. I scoped it. This is what's done. I should get paid for it. And that, like when you said fight the good fight, it is. And at the same time, I believe, and I didn't always think this, that when the carrier and the contractor and the homeowners, all interests align around this unified vision of just get the project done for what's what's deserved and doing what it should be done. If, if you're putting drip edge on, get paid for the drip edge. That's fair, right? So I just wanted to get that other. Is that, is that a fair intro of what we're about to jump into, Drew?

Oh, absolutely. That's kind of our mantra at Total Scope. I want every legitimate penny accounted for on our estimates, but not a penny more. We thrive on accuracy. That's why we have our mobile app and our web portal is, so we can collect more accurate field data, which also protects contractors from accidentally committing insurance fraud. So accuracy is the name of the game. That's what we do. I can't recommend it highly enough. Absolutely. I agree with every sentiment you just mentioned. It's all about accuracy and getting paid for what you do. You also hit the nail on the head. Another kind of mantra of ours is if you, your team, someone, a supervisor, someone on your crew, if you have to touch something on site in order to complete repairs. You should get paid for it. There's no free rides but. So everything needs to be accounted for. That should be, but not a penny more.

And if you think of it, look at your last medical bill. They don't take anything out. I went into the ER once and I got billed $650 for an ankle boot because I broke my ankle last year on my mountain bike. I looked up that boot, the cost of that boot, wholesale, $16 they charged me, 650 bucks they charged me for the band aid. I mean absolutely everything. So just remember the way that the insurance billing works. If you touch it, if you do it, you get paid. So now we got that groundwork out of the way which to me is really important because we have, we have to work with these carriers whether we like them or not. There's names that, that come up more frequently than others. But I also know from being in this for, for a long time and I know you have as well over. How long have you been doing this? Over a decade. Been in the roofing space?

Yeah, over a decade. I think we're at about 13 years at this point.

Yeah, you got in the year before me. I think I'm at about 12 now. I want to say. Yeah, something like that. I was starting in 2011 but. Or yeah, I guess almost 13. But at any rate the, over the time some carriers, I remember seeing their claims and like they're amazing to work with. And then a year later I'm like oh man, we got to deal with them again. So, so anyway, let's get to it, shall we? We are going to go through. Just so you all know where it's coming, we're going to talk about the top three things. The top three pain points struggles that roofing companies are going through that indicate you gotta get your stuff together on the supplement front. Then we're gonna hit the top three supplementing mistakes that folks make followed by what you can expect in growth in your organization from a top line revenue amount from, from supplementing. So I'm jumping between my notes from our prep here and then the, the top three low hanging fruit opportunities. So anyone who's tuning in, you'll be able to say okay, grab this. Here's the top three things for me to just pound out on every single scope that are low hanging fruit opportunities just to get you going. And then we're going to, we're going to end with the top three supplement items. The three things that pretty much every single project will require so without further ado. Anyone? Welcome, welcome back. Adam Benzeman here, the roof strategist Delayed intro Everything we do here in the channel is designed to help you and your team smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. And supplementing is one of the key components of giving them an amazing experience and of course, smashing your income goal. So to get started, Drew, let's talk top three grueling pain points that you see on the day to day. Why contractors like the symptoms as contractor needs to fine tune the supplementing. First one, what do you got?

First one definitely by far is documentation and collecting accurate and thorough field data. It's actually the entire reason we created Total Scope. Before we had Total Scope, we still did supplementing, but we were relying on clients to send us paper scope sheets and it was like pulling teeth trying to get the guy that's actually on the roof to write down anything about that roof and take the photos that are actually going to make you money as well. So that, that's probably my number one in the industry is documentation. Adjusters and carriers live and die by documentation. You're only as good as the documentation you have if you're writing that estimate and sending it off to the carrier. If you say something is existing and have no proof behind it, there's 0% chance that it's getting paid for. So just taking that little extra time, really only 5 to 10 minutes per roof that you're on and getting all those photos, taking notes or using Total Scope, filling out a scope sheet, collecting all of the accurate field data is going to increase your bottom line substantially. So I would say that's one of the biggest problems in the industry is that data gets overlooked by everyone, by roofers, certainly by carriers and adjusters. That gets missed all of the time in the industry.

Would it be safe to say that everyone needs a scope system that all the like that way it's not up to the rep to remember what to do. It's this is, I need pipe jack size, I need number of layers, pitch, I need how many, how many kitchen exhaust vents, bathroom exhaust vents, box vents, like everything getting that dialed early and like in a, in a systematic approach on a takeoff sheet, would you agree that that's mission critical if you're going to have any success whatsoever on the supplement side?

100%. Yeah. Literally you no stone left unturned. Going back to what we mentioned earlier, anything you, your crew, your team has to touch to complete repairs, even if it's not storm damaged, if you have to touch it you should be paid for it. So even if that exhaust cap isn't damaged, you're gonna, you know, your crew is gonna have to detach and reset it. You need to be paid for that. But if you don't write down that there's an exhaust cap on that roof, then you. Or if you're sending it to someone else to estimate for it, they're not going to know it exists. They can't include it, can't get it paid for. And there's 100 different examples of stuff like that on the roof that gets missed all the time, that should be accounted for. They get paid for frequently. If you document it and ask for it. And again, all of that goes straight to your bottom line, increases your margins, increases your profitability. So, yes, have a physical scope sheet. Make sure it's incredibly thorough, including all of those items, or use a system like Total Scope or others that has a digital format of that for you and your team to use.

Awesome.

And you will win more supplements doing that. Absolutely.

So we bounced orders for a minute, which is totally fine. I want to. I want to rewind. We hit the first mistake. The biggest mistake is not having a documentation in place. I'm going to just quick hit the highlights of the three, because Drew and I have been working. Teaser alert. You'll hear more about this, but Drew. I'm proud to announce Drew's supplement strategy, hosted on the Roostrators platform, as our very first guest program to fill a much needed hole. And there's a link in the description. We'll be sharing more about that and including a scope sheet that's in there. And when Drew and I met, I'm trying to get my mind into what I went through learning, supplementing, and the three big things. Because I asked you, I said, hey, Drew, what are the three big things that people reach out to you? Like, why does someone need scope help? Number one, I have down not hitting the margins that they hear other people are hitting. And how often do you hear what margins? And everyone's like, whispering. It's a quiet question, right? Are you hitting the right moment? What profit margin yet? What profit margin are you at? What are you getting per job? What's your average root size? And I see this at the. At the OC events as I'm speaking, like, what's an average roof? And everyone kind of wants to play their cards close. They're like, well, is my number too low? So everyone's always wondering. Number two is bad experience with public adjusters or supplement companies. I'VE had plenty of those under promise over deliver. Excuse me. It works the other way around. We're supposed to under promise over deliver. They over promise and under deliver. And not all, of course. There's good folks out there, but most everyone has a horror story with one, just like marketing companies. Third one was wanting more money and more control because without it, you're just kind of at the mercy of being an order taker. So did I miss any of kind of the top three, what I'll call like symptoms that you need to get your button gear on the summoning front?

No, that nailed it.

Yeah.

That's kind of the top three symptoms. I see. As to why people come to total scope, those are exactly the things they're. They're looking for. They want more control. They may have had bad experiences with PAs or another supplementing firm. You know, communication's not always great. Maybe they don't do as good as a job as you think they should be doing. So that's a big reason people come to totalscope. They use our estimates. That allows them to have a more streamlined process dealing with the carrier, but they still have the control of dealing with the carrier and adjuster themselves and they see the actual arguments happening. So they have more control over that front and yeah, it gives them more control over their profitability and their margins. Brings it more in house and yeah, allows them to be more successful. That's why they come to us, is that those are the things they're looking for. Absolutely, yeah.

Which is important. So if any of those resonate with you, this, this episode is especially for you. So let's get back on track. We covered the next. The next area we want to focus on is the top three mistakes in the supplementing world. Mistake number one, just as a reminder, as we want to touch out of order, was not getting proper documentation on the roo. And I was so guilty that, like, I was the sales guy at heart. Hop up on the roof, grab a couple pictures, and then I'm down later and I'm like putting them in my material order and I don't know what size pipe jacks to order because I never measured anything. And this was, you know, in my early days. Drive back to the house, climb up on the roof, go figure it out. So mistake number two. What would you say is the top second mistake?

Let's see. Second mistake.

We talked about the minutia of Xactimate ever changing landscape.

Yes, yes, yes. Thank you.

Yeah.

Xactimate is a changing landscape. I'm sure most everyone that uses Xactimate probably knows that new price lists come out every month. But what you don't know is more than just the price changes. They can add new line items in, they can remove line items, they can change what's actually included within your line items. So your line item for starter this month is accounting for different things than it was last month. So you got to kind of stay on the forefront of industry, industry trends and exactimate and estimating trends because they do change carrier behavior changes. You know, carriers can switch what estimating platforms they use, which changes the approach you're going to have to take to get to the dollar amount you need to be at. So that's a big one. I think it's joining organizations like the pitch pro movement. Staying on top on the forefront of the trends in the industry is huge because it is constantly changing. And meeting with other like minds and other pros in the industry helps you stay ahead of that and make sure you keep hitting your, your margins and improving along the way.

Yeah, you know, one thing that really blew my mind, we were in Nashville together, if I remember right, and in the Nashville event you had talked about roof loading. Can you, can you just unpack that for a minute? Because that to me, like I was looking around that event, I'm like, if every single person wrote that down and followed through on what you're about to share, this one golden nugget will make everybody listening money, period. So roof loading, unpack that one.

Yeah. So in Xactimate, any asphalt shingle, if you look at the line item details, it will tell you that it is accounting for a roof stock price. And it even further states that additional consideration is needed for other delivery circumstances. And so I've met so many roofers that are in a ground drop market, meaning the suppliers there don't have boom trucks. They do not roof load materials. They probably have no idea that this entire time they've been getting shortchanged on their claims because Xactimate's only accounting for a roof stock price. Meanwhile, you're paying your crew extra to hand load materials on every job. And that's. And it's harder for contractors to even find out about that because there isn't even an actual line item in Xactimate to account for that for hand loading materials. So I know when I, when I teach people, I teach them to create their own line items and use it. But you can use roofer hours as well. But I mean, that's a huge pain point. I know in the Denver market where I Was working with my own roofing company. We were having to pay our crew quite a bit to hand load materials and circumstances where the supplier couldn't get up there. And yeah, if you're not getting reimbursed and profiting on top of that extra expense, that really starts cutting into your margins. And yeah, a lot of contractors have no clue that they're, they're even losing out on that.

Yeah, if you didn't catch that rewind and re watch that or re listen because this golden nugget right there I'd never done. But I'll be the first to tell you, I'm a total idiot when it comes to supplementing. So there's other folks I'm tuning. If that's you, by the way, drop a comment and share it with us. Like, hey, doing that, not doing that, taking that away. I'd love to, we both would love to hear from you. Do drop a comment and share. But getting back to top three mistakes again, number one is not getting proper documentation. Number two is not understanding the minutiae of xactimate roof loading. If you're not getting roof loaded, you got to use those alternate line items, roof or labor hours and so forth to accommodate for such things. Number three, what we have on here, not having a good macro setup because it takes a bunch of time. So for folks who are newer in this world, because I know that I'm guessing there's a few folks that are retail contractors learning this game. On the insurance side, by the way, when I say the game, I say this tongue in cheek, being playful, the game of the insurance process. It's like there's so much to learn, there's so many rules to learn that I call it a game and not about taking advantage or gimmicking and just need to get that way. The game of insurance claims is a very different game than the game of retail roofing sales. So for those folks coming in or the brand new folks break down, what is a macro and what is a macro system and maybe what should be in it? I know it is drilled three questions. What's macro, what's in it and what? Let's just start there.

So a macro in Xactimate you can program in macros that are going to decrease the amount of time it takes you to write an estimate dramatically. I have a ton of macros programmed in on my, in my system. So I know if I have a three tab roof that I need to estimate for, I click a couple buttons and it pre populates almost my entire Estimate it throws all the line items in there. It'll even throw in line item notes that I have saved in there to where basically all at that point I need to do is enter quantities which there's even a better way to do that. If you have your account linked with Eagle View, you can import your sketch and then it takes that burden away from you as well. You don't even have to do that. But basically after applying a macro, you're just fine tuning and further documenting. So it's going to really speed up the amount of time you have to spend on estimating, which is going to free up a ton of your time to make more calls to adjusters, more follow up calls, or run the rest of your business depending on your actual job description. But yeah, it will free up a ton of time utilizing those. And same thing with building a note library, which you can do in Xactimate as well because you'll notice you're having the same argument over and over and over again. So you can save those notes that you use on every estimate within xactimate and with a couple clicks of the button you can have them applied to the line items they need to go to. And then your report looks nice and professional, fully documented, didn't take any more time, actually saved you time setting those things up. So you got to spend a little bit of time up front setting all that up. But it will save you a ton of time moving forward.

So for the layperson who's brand new to this, and I know folks, if you're, if you've been doing this for a hot minute, hang with us. A macro is like a template. So if you got a three tab roof, you have like a template of pre populate everything, two story roof templates, steep roof template and then whatever, you know, oh, dimensional shingle on a walker template. And then that way everything comes in, you have to enter each individual thing and it just becomes a wireframe to make things lightning fast. Common roofs. Just do it for what's in your market. Drew teaches all that inside the supplement strategy. Again, we'll share more on that. There's a link in the description below. So Drew folks that are the beginning, let's just talk about using Total Scope or supplementing what kind of growth like should someone expect on average on a claim?

So, so our, our average claim increase for our Total Scope clients is somewhere around 35%. By using total Scope they see their claim value increase by 35%. And yeah, it's crazy. We've had some clients that Started with us in the beginning. I know a guy, started just him in a van and now he has commercials on tv, he has a fleet of wrapped trucks, he has employees, an office. It's been really cool to see him grow. And that's just over the last two and a half years since he started working with us. But yeah, using a system like Total Scope. So it, it allows us to create super detailed estimate reports for you and then you can hit the ground running when you're dealing with insurance with that report. So it's going to free up a ton of time. You don't have to estimate at all anymore. Your time spent, you know, going back and forth with the adjuster is dramatically decreased because our estimates are so thorough. Every argument's already made for you. So it gives you more time to be an actual business owner, you know, run and grow your company rather than fight on the phone all day is the goal. And that's what a lot of our clients experience. And yeah, improve their profitability, free up more time, decrease headaches. That's, that's the main symptoms of using Total scope, I suppose.

35. But I know that there's folks listening, they want to do this on their own. And for those people, there's two. There's a couple options. And by the way, this we'll get right back on course. If you want to learn how to do this, jump into the supplement strategy. There's a link below. Drew. Drew lays it all out there. We actually just met with Matt, my right hand guy who went through the course already and he's, he's like this, he raved about it. I loved the presentation format, the visuals. Like you took a topic that's so, so tough for salespeople to like pay attention to because it's like details and numbers. It's just not how we're wired. And I'm going to guess I speak for most salespeople on here. We have the attention span of the net. Of a net. I want it fast, I want it easy, and I want it visually stimulating. And you nailed all three of them. You just crushed it. So if you want to learn how to do this in house, you guys have options, right? Learn how to do this anywhere you want. Learn it through the supplement strategy below. Fumble your way through it and figure it out in the trenches. Higher Total scope to do it for you however you wish to proceed. The key takeaway, 35% growth is what I really wanted to focus on per claim. I mean that is when I was getting started. I didn't supplement because I didn't know that I needed to. I didn't understand the process. And once I started supplementing, like every single deal, there's stuff missing. And I was leaving so much money on the table, and it didn't. It didn't really start clicking to me till my pocket felt it. And I'm like, why was my commission garbage on this $18,000 roof? But on that one, I made three times as much commission. And I'm like, oh, that's because this one was written properly and this one I never should have built. And I just didn't know the wiser. So speaking of knowing the wiser, Tom, we're going to wrap up with a few more pieces here of action items. Top three low hanging fruit opportunities. So when you're reviewing a scope, here are the top three things. Low hanging fruit. Easiest way to just look for those big items that are going to make a big difference. Number one, access issues. Hit it.

So access issues are actually a huge profit center. And I go through that in our course that Adam's been talking about too. So huge profit center. And we already talked a little bit about hand loading materials. Most contractors don't even know about that. But the exact same thing can be said for hand carrying debris. If there's not easy dumpster access where your crew can't throw debris from the roof into the dumpster, you know, if they have to throw it to the ground, maybe onto a tarp, drag it around the property, you're paying your crew more for that, so you need to be paid more for that. And it's again, that's another one where there is no real xactimate line item for that. So you either have to do labor hours or create your own line item in xactimate for that. But yeah, huge profit center. Ton of contractors don't know about it, don't know they can ask for it, and they 100% should, as long as you can document it with photos and explaining why this is an issue that results in additional labor, it gets paid for all of the time. So I'd say that's probably number one right there to be aware of is access issues.

Awesome. Love it. Drew. Next one on here was Valley Liner.

So Valley Liner, this is my biggest pet peeve in the industry. I talk about this everywhere I go because there's only one scenario where the Valley Liner shouldn't be paid for, and that's if there is no liner existing and if there is no code coverage on the policy under every other scenario it is owed and should be paid for. And all you have to do to get paid for it is take one photo showing what's there. So don't be lazy. You might have to move your ladder over to a valley, lift up the shingles, get that photo and it's going to make you more money on every single claim with EVALI. And yeah, 99% of the time it's owed. And all you have to do is have that one photo to get paid for it.

But you're going to do it. So you're working for free if you don't.

Right?

You don't bill for that.

Absolutely, man.

Top three, low hanging fruit. Item number three, access issues, value liner number three, staying up to date with trends on xactimate rollouts and tactics changes. Explain that for us, would you?

So I think we already went over that.

We. You know, you're right. Let me hop back into this note. We hit that on the in. Yeah, in the beginning. I think we're understanding the minutiae of the top three mistakes so well. I think the important part to dial into and reel me in if I'm off course. Because the reason, guys and gals, why Drew is here and I'm not teaching supplementing is because I suck at it. And I've filled every role in the roofing space with the exception of install. Like I started in door to door. I've done everything in management, I've done everything in the admin side. I've done everything on production. I've filled all the roles to become chief operating officer. Five states, six cities. And I wasn't great at those. That's why I'm not there anymore. When I met you, I was like, Drew is like. The way that you communicate this message is why I was so excited to partner and work together. So anyway, the reason I'm giving that backstory is you and I have been in this for a while. Trends change all of a sudden. I'll remember there's one of the bigger, probably top 10 companies out there. And then just one year, they're like, yeah, we're no longer paying for the removal of roof accessories. And you're like, but, but what? Kind of unpack just for a minute, because we talked about understanding minutia, but talk about the volatility of how this stuff is used and, and manipulated by carriers.

Oh, yeah, it happens all the time. Yeah, I know there's some carriers out there. I just dealt with this the other day. They'll just tell you out of the blue we don't pay for the removal portion of a high roof charge. There's no additional labor or cost associated with tearing off shingles from 20ft in the air. Where, you know, so that's one carrier every other carrier. No other carrier does that. So then you try and have that fight up. That's not standard industry practice. There are in fact additional costs incurred when tearing off shingles from 20ft in the air. You know, are you going to walk? Would you walk faster on a balance beam or trying to tightrope the Grand Canyon? One's inherently more dangerous. You're probably going to go slower over the Grand Canyon. Right. So that's a loss of productivity. This leads to increased labor costs. And that's just one example. I mean, other carriers do the same thing. They won't pay for the removal of drip edge, kind of like you mentioned, Adam. And they'll try and tell you that's included in the tear off of shingles. But if you actually look in the exact line item description, you'll see that is not the case. That is not true. And every carrier is different too. So you kind of got to stay up to date with industry trends. But within carriers themselves, they change as well. You know, the state farm of last year is acting very differently than the state farm of this year, and that goes for most carriers. So it's an ever evolving battlefield that you got to stay up to date with how to combat some of those things.

Yeah, it's like watching the stock market. It could be one day, one way, this way, and then before you know it, everything just flipped on its head.

Right.

All right, let's move on. I want to close with the top three supplement items. The top three things that everyone should be checking out on their scopes to find that those opportunities supplement. We got number one starter in Ridge.

So start in Ridge. I listed that as number one because it's probably the most frequent supplement that should be had. Carriers always try and tell you starter or ridge or some combination of the two is included in their shingle waste. And under almost no circumstance does that ever mathematically ring true from either a pricing or material standpoint. If you actually do the math, it's shorting you every time. So I go around preaching to contractors, don't play their game. Always separate out your starter and ridge cap as their own line items and fight that battle because when you win, it will net you more money. Even. You know, Xactimate has an auto waste feature now which does allow you to include waste for starter and ridge in Your shingle waste. But even with that, if you do the math and compare it to separating out the line items for starter and ridge, even though it's the same software, you'll find it's still shorting you hundreds of dollars by including it in your shingle waste. So it's not the easiest battle to win. Carriers fight that a lot. But it's. It's a supplement that I include on almost 100% of my estimates. So that's why I put that as number one. Make sure you're always estimating for those on their own, not included in waste.

Yeah. Dude, I love how when you're in Nashville and you did this in the course, too, spelling out the math. Like, you can't just like. No, we don't do that. Like, when you break down. And was it 33ft per bundle is my math, is my memory. Right.

I think it's 87ft per.

That's right, 87. Sorry about that. You can see by the way, Same math class four years in a row. True story. My apologies, 87. Eights and threes look alike because they're the same shape. So anyway, you shake out the math of how many feet you get, and when Drew spells it out, it's like, okay, you can't. You can't argue that. It's about pleading a bulletproof case. And that's what I've loved.

You.

You. When you start presenting stuff like the thing, we're going to close this interview out, which I can't wait to get to. When you have that bulletproof case, it's like, that's it. That's all you need. It's. I don't know. I think that's just phenomenal. Top three supplement item number two, we've hit over and over and over again, which is access issues. So we're going to leave that one as it lies and we're going to roll on to number three code items. Specifically within the code items of the top three Low hanging fruit supplement for. We've got ice and water shield, drip edge and decking. Decking is where I'd like to dive into, because until I saw you, we met. What city? We were in Ohio together when we first met. And then we've done other events. And by the way, if you guys are an OC contractor, jump on. I forget the website, but OC has all the events listed. Drew's running a couple workshops, solo coming up, and then we've got a couple of events that we're doing together. Co hosting, I believe Coming up. So check that calendar and I'll try to put a link down beneath this video. But Drew, when you, when you. This is the. The most exciting thing to me. Everyone's dealing with decking issues. That's routed decking. So now who pays for the homeowner? Roofers include one or two sheets for free. Often. Sometimes it comes up. Homeowners are irate. They didn't expect it out of pocket. Expenses rise. And then you dropped this value bomb on me. And then I was like, we need to bring you the pitch pro movement now. It's in the course. It was supplement strategy. Can you just give the. Can you paint the picture of the. Of how you're able to get rotted decking paid for on a claim and disclaimer, Guys and gals, this is not a silver bullet on everything. Okay. I wish it were, but it just doesn't work that way. But when it. When it does work and how you link it, I would love for you to just share how that works.

Yeah. So well. So first, I do want to put a caveat out there. I would recommend as a contractor, having your homeowner make this argument to protect you from being accused of upper unlicensed practice of public adjusting. So when I use this argument, I am coming from the perspective of a public adjuster. But it comes down to the proximate cause doctrine, which if you don't know what that is, you should Google proximate cause doctrine. Insurance claim. And it's not policy, it's actually case law. And effectively what it says is what is the chain of events that caused the loss. So with decking specifically, I know a ton of times carriers are trying to say that decking is wear and tear. There's an exclusion for wear and tear on the policy. Therefore we don't owe for it. And that is not entirely true. The claim that the homeowner filed was not for wear and tear. If they filed a claim for wear and tear, it would be denied because there is an exclusion on the policy. But they filed a wind claim or a hail claim. Wind or hail. A covered peril is what damaged that roof. And removing that roof is what requires the decking replacement in order to provide a solid surface for your new materials to fasten to. So by citing the proximate cause doctrine and spelling out what the efficient cause is, I've had success getting what a carrier calls rotted or wear and tear deterioration on decking approved and help the homeowner get that paid for so they don't have to come out of pocket for it. So that's, that's a valuable tool and carriers are doing that more and more. They keep. Oh, that's wear and tear. We don't know for that. Well, this isn't a wear and tear claim guy. So let's talk about the hail and how that affects everything else.

But yeah, Drew, thank you for opening up with that disclaimer which is just so important, especially right now with, with how much we are. We as contractors are under a lot of pressure, both from the, from the insurance companies, from lobbyists and from legislation. And they're, they're buttoning up, they're, excuse me, tightening the ship. And it's just important that we all operate on the up and up and by avoiding UPPA issues, unlicensed practice of public adjusting. So in, in the, in the course. And I'm going to share my screen for a hot minute in the course. Can you see? Yeah, we got, we got the screen. So I just want to show like, Drew, your presentation style, man. Like to get these videos going and do your intro and have all this like animation is so engaging. So if you want to learn how to do your own supplements in house, Drew's going to walk you through the claim life cycle. All the basic things you need to know for if you're training your new team on how to, how to handle insurance claims. And they need to learn how to read the insurance paperwork and all of that stuff. That's all in here, down to reviewing the carrier's estimates, when to supplement the profit maximizers, how to even prepare your supplement. Like, look at all the cheat sheets and everything in here, supplementing, submitting it and what to do next to stay on top of everything. It is just such an engaging platform. And the part that I absolutely love the most, Drew, is there are.

With.

All of the supplement options out there and there's some good ones, you and I both know that. But there's a couple of key problems that you and I set out to solve. One, in person events. I love in person events. But here's the problem. When you leave, this is all you leave with. And, and if you didn't take those good notes, there's no refresher. So I always say when the trainer leaves, the training, leaves with it. Which is why we built the root strategist platform. The second thing is in person events require you to shut down your whole business and you got to travel with the team, you got to bring everyone out there and it's wildly expensive on travel, lodging, time and missed opportunity. And then the biggest thing that I am so excited to solve with you is it's like drinking from a fire hose because there's a million nuances. But what we did is said, what is the fastest path to go from zero to supplement hero on the I'll call them bread and butter rooster, what most people are doing all the time. This is the fastest path to go in there and learn how to take control of your supplementing in house while training your team on the insurance paperwork and getting some rock star folks out there to have more money, more control, and to help you take full ownership of driving your growth by 35% and not relying on someone else. So, of course, by the way, hire Drew. Higher total scope. If you guys don't want to do it on your own, that's also an option. But Drew, it's been a fricking pleasure. I'm so excited. What people don't know is that this is like the day before Christmas break. It's dark outside. You can't even see anything outside my office window. And we're in here just like jamming out on supplements. So, man, thank you for being so willing to just share and help and bridge the gap between contractor, carrier, homeowner, and just teaching people the platform of here's what you do to just do it right, get paid for what you do and give people an amazing experience. I love it, man.

No, absolutely. That's what I'm passionate about. I love helping contractors and homeowners. So anything I can do to help along the way, I'm all about that. So thanks for having me and allowing me to be a part of this. I'm excited.

Yeah, I'm pumped, man. Here we as I'm like, let's do for 20 minutes. We're well beyond. I want to wrap up with a summary for everybody. So by the way, if you're interested in the supplement strategy link below, we'll bring you all the details and if you're an existing customer, bars and you're on our training center with your team. If you do grab that, email us or text 303-222-7133. All the details are below. You'll be able to get access for every team member. We can configure it into your account, which is pretty rad. So I want to just do a quick summary. Key Pain points on when you know that you need supplement help. Number one, not having the margins you that you believe you should have or that you hear other people are having. Number two, Bad experiences with public adjusters or supplement companies who over promise and under deliver. And number three, you really just want more money and more control over your processes. Biggest mistakes, not getting proper documentation, not understand the minutiae of Xactimate and things changing on the fly and not having a good macro system set up to streamline ops because this stuff takes so long if you're slow. Top three Low hanging fruit access issues, Valley Liner and staying up to date on the trends of Xactimate. We do have some overlap I do know but they are important. And then the top three supplement items, Starter and Ridge access issues again. And code items specifically Ice and Water Shield, Drip Edge and Decking. I have to put one shameless plug out for one click Code is a great resource to find those code items. Uh, the team over there is awesome and I highly recommend everyone be using one click code as well. And by bringing these supplements in house, Drew has witnessed firsthand an average of 35% growth from scopes from supplementing properly and doing a great job for your customers and just getting paid for what you do. So if you're interested in learning more, click the link below and hopefully we'll see inside. Drew, any closing comments or anything before we call it a wrap.

No, I'm excited. Yeah, definitely. Feel free to check out the course. I'd love to hear feedback. If there's future content that you're struggling with that you need help on, let us know. But yeah, otherwise happy to be here. Feel free to reach out. Email is my easiest way of getting hold of me. I'm on the phone all day, but literally I'm happy to help. So anything I can do to help you guys, feel free to shoot me an email and we'll go from there.

Awesome Drew. Thanks a bunch man. My friends, supplement your projects. Ice and Water Shield, Drip Edge code items, Ridge Starter. Stay on it and you're going to watch. Your customers are the ones that are the true winners of doing this because that means we just get to do the best dang job for them. Appreciate all of you Drew. Thank you again and we will call it a wrap. We'll see you guys next time.