TikTok to Get FREE Roofing Leads? How "Worlds Greatest Roofer" (TJ McCormack) Does It

So, tj, World's greatest roofer. Thanks for being here, Adam.

It's good to be here with you today, man.

All right, well, thanks for being here. Quick intro. We're sitting, by the way, on TJ McCormick, his customers, front step, as we discussed. We just had a great conversation with bobby.

Yeah.

And TJ and I are here today to chat all things TikTok.

All things TikTok, man.

Yeah.

Besides the tile roof, that's really important. But us talking.

Tile roof here, working on getting approved. I've never even opened TikTok. I've looked at your TikTok. I've been on TikTok lives with you over dinner at a steakhouse in Denver. There's a lot of people here who want to start using social media to grow their brand, generate business. You're the guy to talk to this. And I want to get into a story. We're gonna tease this story.

Okay.

TikTok lands, TJ, 26 units, 26 roofs from HUD. HUD Development. Housing and Urban Development in another state. Because of TikTok.

Yeah.

So we're gonna get into all that. But let's start at the beginning. How do you get started in this whole TikTok journey?

Yeah. So 2020, last year, you know, the COVID Covid capital of our lifetime. Right. Sitting in my bedroom, I got coronavirus for the second time. Fucking coronavirus. Sorry about that, guys. I had coronavirus. And I was worried about sales. I was worried, you know, seeing Colorado in the wintertime. We don't have a lot of sales. We didn't have a hailstorm last year.

That was dry year.

Yeah. And so I was trying to find methods of. To learn to sell new things. I use Matthew Danskin's restoration referral system. I like to go to talk to agents. But that had dried up because there was no hail. And here in Denver, at least. And. And so I'm watching Tick Tock. I'm watching best damn roofer, Josh Bigger. Everybody knows Josh Bigger. What's up?

Big time.

And. And I'm looking to seeing that he's got millions of views. He's got lots and lots of followers. And it dawned on me. I started searching around, and I realized that there was nobody else in that space actually using TikTok yet.

To sell, to make. To get jobs, to get customers.

Right. To get customers. When I first started TikTok. Right. The biggest notion on Facebook, you know, I know people all over the United States and the world on Facebook in the roofing space. Oh, my God. You're messing with a bunch of little kids. Right.

That's what I thought when we were on the live, which, by the way, it was at. Matthew Danskin took us to dinner. Thank you.

Yeah, Matthew.

His system is great, by the way.

Yeah, it is.

So we're there. You're doing this live, and I'm like, why am I live? Streaming teenage girls in, like, another place.

Yeah.

How does this help?

Yeah.

Yet you call me up a few months later to set this up. You're like, we got to do some videos, and you tell me the story. So what are the things that you do right to generate the business versus the things that unfortunately many people do wrong?

Yeah.

So why don't we jump into what's wrong first?

Is that cool? Yeah, let's jump into things that are wrong. The things that I see. And marketers will probably beat me up over the.

That's okay. There's the comment section. If you're a marketer and you have bad things to say, just put them right there.

Hey. I'll just say that Joseph Hughes is one of my. I love talking to Joseph Hughes. He's a great dude. But marketers will tell you, you have to focus on business. Right. Let's focus on business. Let's focus on Facebook, Instagram, let's do sponsored ads. Let's do content every day. Right. But a lot of the times those people won't tell you you need to do video. And video is the way to get to people I agree with. They say, oh, write an article. But you literally, in the United States, have less than eight seconds to capture somebody's attention there. With that being said, the way I go about my TikTok is I make it personal, but I also make it professional. I talk about my personal life, but then when I'm on a roof, I might joke around or I might say, you know, use a weird sound or something. But I'm including my life into my work life because I'm trying to reach those little strings that pull on hearts instead of those strings that pull on back pockets. Because I want to talk to somebody and I want to be their friend. I want to be just like what you might teach. What other people teach in sales is, I don't want just this sale. I want every sale from here on.

Out, from this customer, their friends, their families, the next time they need another.

Yeah. And the easiest way to get a bad review from somebody is not being friendly with them, not communicating with them, not showing them who you really are. They just get you to go, you Come knock on their door, you sign a contract, you put a roof on, and then you're out of their life. You never got the chance to say hello to their kids or pet their.

Dog or get invited in for dinner.

Yeah. Back in the old day, Obama used to say, kiss babies. Right.

Yeah, that's too funny.

But, yeah, but it really, it's a. It's just my way of what I call digital door knocking. I put my life out there in front of people and. And I get results that way.

And so you're. You're vault. You're being real and you're being vulnerable.

Yeah.

So what are the things that you've seen on. Because Facebook and Instagram are like the big platforms that people turn to because they're easy, they're fast. It's what people on.

Yeah.

What are the top things that people shouldn't do on TikTok?

Don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics, and don't talk about anything dramatic.

No politics, no religion, no drama, no harassment and bullying. Yeah.

The Facebook trolls, the Instagram trolls.

Yeah.

They're real. I mean, it happens on TikTok. But you will get banned from TikTok if you're not a good person or you. You're not promoting something positive.

Bravo to Tick Tock. Yeah, you know, that's, that's, that's huge. Yeah.

They said this past. Was it this past week, for the first quarter of 2021, they deleted over a hundred million videos of people being trolls or being. Doing those things.

That's crazy. I know we're going to Tangent, but it borders that line of censorship to also like creating. You know, that's the beautiful private business. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. You know, need to be our. It's like this is our policy. You want to play in our world, you got to do it. Same with YouTube. You want to play in YouTube's world, here's the game.

Right.

You want to play in Facebook's world, here's the game.

It's something that I want roofers to know is that I'm not out there trying to be the best roofer in the world. As a matter of fact, I'm the first person to say that to everybody. You know, there's a lot of great roofers out there in this world.

But.

But what I am trying to do is just be personable and make connections with people.

So you're doing this on TikTok. You're up at odd hours. Why the international audience? Because you so let's TJ does lives three times a day. One's at 10 o' clock or something.

Nine. 10 in the morning.

Nine or 10 in the morning.

Yep.

What other time?

Four or five in the afternoon.

Four or five. And what's the late one?

Anywhere from eight to 11 at night.

Eight to 11 at night. I'm in bed.

Yeah.

So how. Why the. I mean you share this. Me? This is for the international audience. For an independent sales rep who wants to be using TikTok to start generating business. Do they need to be doing this or should they be focused more on the. The audience at large that they can really engage with?

Yeah. So TikTok metrics. In order for me to get views and likes and new followers, right. I have to go live. There are other people out there that can just go on TikTok today. They can get millions of views and they don't ever have to go live. Right. But in order for me to get my millions of views and to be on what's called the FYP or the. For your page, there's. There's two different feeds. There's a following feed of people that I'm following and then there's the. For your page which gets broadcast to everybody. In order for me to be on that, I have to interact with my followers and the only way I can interact is through live, live broadcast streams. So if I don't go live, for example, I might only get a hundred thousand views this week. If I go live, my chances are 10 times higher that I'll get more than a million views just by. Because I went live.

So you almost need to play the game, the game of the algorithm to get that traction globally to then say alright, I've got X million views. So. And if you can't answer this on the spot, I totally understand. Roughly how many paid jobs Roofer solar have you gotten from TikTok?

47.

47. I love that you know that number. And just for grin. So 47 will be a good metrics to metric to compare that against views, engagements. Like how would someone.

So I mean I've had 17 million views in 60 days. Okay, so I mean that's 47 jobs. But. But here's the thing, that metric is skewed because I'm not always asking for jobs.

This I know, right? Yes, true. I guess what I wanted to share with people is like realistic expectations that in order to start getting so out of. Here's what I meant by realistic expectations. You hear the people, especially newer, newer salespeople they're like, why not to this neighborhood? And no one was home. So I'm on to the next one. Right. Like this. So TikTok, it's a game to get the whole audience. But you'll know. I don't know if I'm on camera here. Here we go. Like, if the audience is this big, your true market potential might be this bullseye. But in order to get in front of this bullseye, we got to capture this global audience to then play the game and get in on the for you page and all that. Am I interpreting this?

You're interpreting exactly right.

So fast forward. Unless. Did I miss anything that we shouldn't? No, there's a few things that I think people shouldn't be doing.

Yeah.

Can I add one? So I'll watch people posting, sales reps posting on their Instagram, filming their friends and then being like, closed another deal, you know, but they're also using their Instagram. That's like client forward. And it's basically like, there. You're my bullseye. You're my target. I just made a bunch of money, like flashing commission checks, and I feel like you have to know your audience. Like, maybe don't put. I mean, to me, I'll be honest. If I was your potential customer and I saw you posting that, I'd be like, no way.

Yep.

You are not my roofer.

But if I never said that.

Yeah, and I know you haven't. I've looked. I do. I do my homework. I look through all your top stuff that you're posting. The lawn mowing thing, the. The little spoof one of your Ed like, did the edible hit yet? That's a funny one. So I've watched. But. Yeah, but so many people. Like, you need to know your audience, right. You want to put in information that the person would be entertained by or want to move.

You have to beat the algorithm. You have to be there. Like, you can't just go do roofing videos and expect that the roofing video is going to catch the algorithm because no one cares. Nobody cares about if it's just. They're just looking at a shingle or they're all amount of roof inspection today. Yeah, well, what is the roofing inspect what in turn happened because of the roofing inspection?

So how do you get in the mode then? Because, you know, your life is with a camera. So right off this camera, there's your setup, you know, and yourself my ring light. So you're used to being on camera and, you know, now I'm walking Up to a house I can capture. You have no idea what I just saw on the way here or what I ate for breakfast.

Yep.

How does someone, like, rewire their mind to go from, I'm here at this house doing a roof inspection. Peggy referred me. Let's go. Here's a downspout. Like, how do you go from that mindset to just like, I'm going to capture my life?

I watched a lot of videos on. On camera, right. On TikTok, on YouTube, on Instagram, study. Just the same thing. Yeah, I studied, and it's just like what we were talking about before metrics, right. I would see that, okay, this video has a hundred thousand likes. This video has two likes. You know the. What's different about these two videos? Okay. The lighting is better. Somebody standing a little bit further away from the camera. And I'm watching those things, and I could see that this video is getting 20 million views. This video is getting 20 views. And so I started making changes because I was doing the same thing. I didn't start TikTok in December and say, okay, I got a million views today. Right. No, I had the worst videos, and they're all hidden. So the good thing about TikTok is, is that after 60 days, you can hide any of your old videos.

So they give you, like, a starter period, like, we know you messed up. You can hide.

And then they still let you keep your metrics, but because you hit.

Because then they're. They're hidden. It's funny, I get. I get a little embarrassed looking back at my first YouTube video.

I do, too.

I was like, oh, man. Yeah, they're there still.

So, yeah, so let's go to the 26th roof. So, yeah, fast forward.

Yeah, fast forward. So you get this. You. This person reaches out to you. TikTok direct message, right?

Yep.

You land this deal. 26 roofs. Tell me a story.

All right, so let's go back just a little bit. December to April. I was horrible at TikTok. I was horrible at content creation. And then April 1st, I ended up getting my first viral video. And it was for an act of kindness, something I was doing. I gave my neighbor some flowers. She's an elderly woman. And an act of kindness got me a million views. And it got me just roughly around 25,000 new followers. So I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm doing this. And then the next viral video came in. The next viral video came in, the next five video. Fast forward to June. I'm doing my live broadcast, and I say to Everybody, hey, I'm looking to be your roofer. Does anybody know anybody that is looking for roofing? And one of my people in my live broadcast says, hey, we're looking for a roofer for our 26 property HUD development here in Louisiana, and we can get you out here to bid as soon as possible. And so I had a friend. I'm not gonna say his name.

Right.

Well, I'll say his name is River. Right. River owns a company that works together with other roofers. Right. And I said, river, can you be at this property to go have a look and meet with the executive director? So he went out, he met with them, gave him a bid, and there was some wishy washy stuff going on with an architect there trying to take some extra money, but we were able to work around that, and we were able to get them a deal, and they signed right away.

So 26 units. How many square?

4,500 square.

4,500. 4,500 square. So it'll be a sizable win financially.

Yep.

Very sizable.

Yeah.

And also really rewarding.

Yeah.

And super fun. So this. This woman that reached out, this is. Is this gonna be the only deal?

No. No. So this woman happens to be the executive director. She works for the president. And then they're like, tj, this isn't gonna be your only deal. Every commercial roof that the city owns, moving forward, we're gonna call you first.

So 10x customer. Yeah.

10X.

Had you been messaging prior to her reaching out at all? She reach out to ask this.

It was just. This is how it started. First just with the roofs, and then. Yeah. Then she started giving. Well, I mean, you know what my followers do? They give gifts. They send. They send gifts in the mail. Right. The things that I get the fan mail. Right.

That's crazy. I'm bold of you to have your address there.

Well, no, I put it. My office address.

There you go. That's. That's amazing. I mean, it truly is. So of those 47, how many were local versus. Because you've flown around like, you've served, like, California.

Yep. You've done California. We've done New York. We've done Kentucky. Louisiana's big. Florida is big for us right now. And then. Oh, Georgia. There's one in Georgia. Yeah. I actually just talked to the girl the other day. Yeah. So they just finished her roof.

So you're set up to be able to fold this?

Yeah. And really, what all I'm doing is I'm working together. I don't want to be A lead generation.

Yeah.

I want to actually be the guy that goes out and signs the deal. Right, right. But all of these people, once I made that video, who can I help? Yeah, I just started calling buddies. Hey, Matt. Matthew Danskin, whatever. Do you got here? Yeah, I was like, river, who do you have here? Oh, we can work there. All right, cool. I got this. Can. Can you have your guy go over here? And. And it's also turning solar, dude.

So what about the rep? Which we'll get into that. What about, like, a rep who's local? If you're. Let's say Denver Metro. Does. Does the strategy for TikTok change? If I'm a Denver Metro roofer, Dallas metro roofer, Minneapolis roofer.

So I have 10 moderators that help me that moderate my content, that moderate my live broadcast, that make sure that they share my videos to other people, and they live all over place, the world. And those people are my eyes and ears on the ground. Like, I have somebody in Dallas that actually is one of my moderators. She works for a flooring company, but anytime that we have a roof, she's giving it to somebody else now in Dallas, directly from me.

Oh, wow.

And because she's going out with the business owner for the floors. Oh, you had your roof checked. And yeah, I worked out a deal where she gets a little bit of that money. And then we have people in California like Eric Richardson. You know, I'm working with him, and I'm like, hey, Eric, I got this roof. What can you do? I'm sure you know, Eric, I correspondent.

I don't know if Eric knows me, but I posted in one of the Facebook groups asking about some solar questions, and he engaged. And what's funny, I'm glad you mentioned that because of all the answers. I was like, I never even met Eric. So, Eric, this is positive feedback for you. Ethical sales approach, total transparency. Love that he laid everything out in the line, answering the questions. Way cool.

Eric Richardson is actually the one who created my Facebook group, Tick Tock with tj.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He's like, tj, you need a Facebook group. And I was like, I do. He's like, yeah, here it is. He signs me. I was like, all right, go ahead. And in the past month and a half, we have just over 1300.

I just joined after you reached out. That's way cool.

Yeah.

So what would you say, like, if I gave you 30 seconds and I said, top five tips for roofer roofing sales reps wanting to start using TikTok. What are those five.

Be yourself.

Okay.

Don't lie. Don't inflate yourself to be somebody you're not. Be positive. Don't be dramatic. Don't bully somebody else on camera and just be humble.

I like that. Yeah.

Because the people who aren't humble, they get weeded out quick. I'm excited when I have a big video. I'm excited when I get a good gift or people give me money. Right. For doing something or if I'm just helping somebody grow.

Yeah.

Like, I just want roofers to come to me and say, hey, how'd you do this TikTok thing? I just want people. I want to be able to say, hey, this is how I did it.

Yeah. So I like it. Does any other tips in terms of tick tock setup or using it? Like, when we first met, I remember I was like, tick tock. And then we're talking. You're, like, all about the neon and the colors. I notice your glasses. I can't. I mean, that's on purpose, right?

Yeah. Well, I mean, well, my son's name is Oakley. Yeah. Yeah. Color Orange. I wear orange. I wear neon colors. That's also my personal. Because I'm, you know, completely tattooed.

Yeah.

But at the same time, the very first video I ever had do well was like 70,000 views, and it was because I was wearing a bright orange shirt. And then I started noticing, okay, in some of my videos, I'd be wearing a black shirt. I have 10 views. And then I'd wear a green shirt tomorrow, and I'd have a thousand views. So it's just all in how you edit the videos.

How?

Brightness. The brightness of the video. Because people want to see visual stimulation and they want to hear audio stimulation.

And they want to be entertained.

They want to be entertained.

Visual, Auditory.

Yep.

Entertainment.

Right.

Bu. Don't be a butt head. Don't bully people. Sounds like pretty simple practices to follow.

It is, but it's also hard.

I know. What's the thing? There's the difference between easy and simple.

Yeah.

There's simple practice. I think roofing sales is stupid. Simple.

Right.

It's not easy. Right, Right. There's plenty of people who don't do it. Don't last doing it, but yeah. So fundamentally simple.

Right.

Execution tough. Similar to cooking.

Yep.

You could, you know, Master chef is going to take a while to, you know, you have too much on the salt. One mint dish. It's ruined. Too little. It's bland.

We're getting ready to get a big airplane coming. So one of the things That I want people to realize and to understand is that social media is ever changing. One of the things that I've studied, talking about studying is the movement from Facebook, Instagram, you know, all of those other little things that have come up. But TikTok is a movement. Right now there's 800 million people that use TikTok. So that's between China and the United States. It's the number one most downloaded app for over a year. So when people, people are now using it for advertising. You can do sponsored ads on TikTok now. People are actually using it for job resumes now. Yeah, if you go to LinkedIn, TikTok is huge on LinkedIn now. They're doing a huge marketing push. But I have a feeling one day that all platforms are going to be similar to TikTok. I mean, look at the YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels.

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some trends moving in that direction. Tj, as we, as we call it a wrap year, that's TJ's son, who's by the way, a TikTok star.

Just off camera, I'm pointing at him trying to be a dad right now.

Thank you for being here. He looks like he's all set. So tj, is there any other advice that you'd leave with someone to manage their time using? Like do they go all in on one platform? Do you go TikTok? Do you go Facebook? Do you go Instagram? Do you do all three?

Yeah.

Pretend I'm a rookie because I am. Where do I start?

So a lot of people always know Facebook. They grew up Facebook. Right. They grew up in a lot of the younger generation group Instagram and I sucked at Instagram for 10 years. I thought I was banned from Instagram, right. I had an Instagram but I realized that my settings were off. Right. So but anyways, I'm good on Instagram now. But, but here's the thing. I was forward focused on Facebook only for many years. Just like every roofer out there. Since I've started doing TikTok, I'm TikTok focused, but I'm pushing content from TikTok to Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Gotcha. So that just becomes your central hub of creation, your creator dashboard, so to speak, to go through.

And then also because people click on my links in Facebook or Instagram, I'm getting those, those back on the TikTok.

That's awesome. Yeah, way cool. So if people wanted to learn more, how should they get in touch?

You can follow my world's greatest roofer Facebook page or my tick tock with tj.

You can.

And you're able to find me there.

Right at the top that Facebook group, Right?

Facebook group. Talk with tj. T. I K. Talk with tj.

How do you spell teach? How do you spell TJ Goes T. J. Yeah.

So one of the coolest things out there. So tell this quick story. One of the coolest things that Adam and I got to do right before we got on camera was we got to give a little kid an autograph.

Oh, yeah, we sure did. Bobby's son.

This is one of my customers that's gonna in turn turn into many other roofs in this neighborhood that are all 50 year.

Yeah. Bobby comes out, he goes, these two guys are famous.

But you know what? People always say that you're famous, but really. And this is what I tell my followers. You're famous if you have one follower. It doesn't matter if you have 200,000 followers like I do or whatever. I don't. I'm not sure how many you have.

I don't have 200,000. This guy's bigger and smarter than me.

It doesn't matter if you have one. You're an influencer to that person.

It's true.

So just remember your audience and remember what you're telling them.

Yeah.

And stop caring what other fucking people think.

I'm gonna end on that.

Yeah.

That was gold. Tj. Thanks for being here, love.

I think.