What It Takes to Get Into Commercial Roofing Sales | w/ Daniel Lakstins Commercial Roofing Expert

All right, everybody, welcome to today's episode. I am joined by Dan with roofing business builder. Dan, thanks for joining me today.

Hey, great to be here.

Awesome. So Dan and I connected on a serendipitous Instagram connection and saw his podcast, Roofing business builder podcast, where he focuses a large part on commercial, specifically commercial sales and commercial retail sales, of all things, which is a complement to what we do here through Strategist. And I've been getting a lot of questions specifically from salespeople and owners. I want to start selling commercial. I said, who better to bring on than Dan? So, Dan, welcome to the show. And would you mind just giving us a quick recap of who you are, your background in the roofing industry, and then we'll jump right into the goodies. I'm really excited for today.

Yeah, I'm Daniel Laxton's. I've been in the roofing industry for probably 32 years now, and I had a roofing business for 15 years. My grandfather was a roofer. He trained my brother. My brother started that business. I personally never wanted to be in the roofing industry because I was a little bit more of a prissy entrepreneur. Didn't want to get my fingers dirty. But I was willing to do what it takes to make a lot of money. And roofing is one of the. I'd say it's probably the American dream of businesses out there because you can make a lot of money. I mean, you can get into a million dollar range right away. Within the next, within about two to three years, you could be doing millions of dollars a year if you know what you're doing. And so. But yeah, I started several other businesses, had a filmmaking business. I mean, but I just went down, you know, I wrote a book on having 30 careers before 30, so finding your dream job faster than me. But the roofing industry has always been a good friend to me. And so we shifted and went into. We had a manufacturer's repping agency for 17 years, my wife and I, and made a huge impact, grew a territory from only 183,000 the first year to 8 million on our best year. So it was an incredible ride. But you learn a lot along the journey. People go through life and they go, oh, no, I messed up. Oh, this is terrible. No, that's great. You're learning. You're on a journey of total discovery. And as we go down this journey, we grow. And the more you learn, the more money you'll make. That's my introduction.

Yeah, I dig it. I love it and what we're going to be talking about today is going to answer that big question, how do you get into commercial? And what's funny. So I've got some notes pulled up that Dan sent me before the interview and the first one that we're going to touch on and by the way, everybody needs to stick around to the end because Dan's going to be sharing some insights for all free stuff and then obviously how you can get in touch with them. Just the things people need to be doing. And I get these questions all the time and in fact, I've sent a few folks over just to email with Dan. So number one, Dan, you sent me this. Commercial sales are easier than residential. Now I heard that and I'm like, no way. And I know retail and storm is different, but. But I want to hear what you have to say about this because this is going to open up a lot of people's mind because in their mind it's really difficult. And I know the relationship part, getting in the door is difficult, but flesh this out. What do you mean by that commercial sales are easier than residential?

Well, in commercial sales, it's just a whole different ball game. You know, if you're dealing with a residential person, you're spending a lot of time for a limited amount of income, limited amount of money. And what happens is on residential people have more questions, they'll have more concerns, they'll be calling you on the phone constantly. And when the job's done, you know, if there's a nail in the yard, they're going to be, hey, there's a nail on the yard. Or look, I looked at the shingle, it looks like it's curling. And so every time you have to touch that customer, previous customers, you already made the money. Well, a lot of times in the residential, you don't have a lot of money to do all this extra work. But so, but it's a lot of work, you know, and it's good work though, because we're helping, we're helping people. And it's very rewarding to your heart when this little old lady is dried in and she's happy and she loves you, but she wants you to come over and eat dinner with her. I'm just kidding though.

Hey, these things happen. This team, just to interject for you, humor sake, I was just running a training down with a team and I was explaining, like when people make these kind gestures, do you say yes because it develops a very deep connection and relationship. You know, if, if I had a friend Come over and say, hey, you want something to drink? I'm expecting them to say yes. Right. And we want that. So he says, I had this old lady literally pick out a piece of avocado with her fingers and try to feed it to me. Should I have said yes? And I laughed at him. I said, honestly, man, if it wasn't for Covid, I probably would have said yes. But anyway, sorry to interject.

Well, yeah, no, that's perfect. But the thing is, when we're looking at residential, that's relationships. Now, that relationship you have with that sweet little old lady in 15 years, she may call you back and you might get a roof, or she may talk to all of her friends. Or sometimes we found some situations where that little old lady also owns the commercial building or she owns 20 or maybe owns 150 commercial buildings. So you eat that avocado? Absolutely. So there's nothing wrong with that. But I always tell people that, you know, once you switch over to commercial, you know, sure, hold on to the customers, maybe take care of a few of those customers that, that have been a part of your family for so long. But you start telling everyone else that calls, especially if there's a storm in your town, you say, sorry, we're only commercial. We'd love to help you, but your dad helped do my first, okay, we'll come out. But you know what I'm saying? But you have to be wise about that, because commercial is so much more easy. Because for every 20 customers, every 20 residential customers, all you need is one commercial customer that loves you, that wants to feed you the avocado. Once you have that relationship with, with someone that owns 150 buildings, do you have any roofs that they'll send you per year? You know, and that's. So when you're in the residential industry, you're constantly looking for the next job because that last customer you just had, you're not going to see them for at least 15 years. And if you do see them, it's going to cost you money.

So how do you. These are all great, great points. And especially knowing that people, you know, investors, business owners, these are the entrepreneurial spirit. And you're right, they do have multiple properties. And I know for us, we did, we at one point added a water fire mold restoration division to our company. She landed this one commercial deal and we took great care of it. Was huge project. They loved us. And it's funny because something happened on there that's going to lead us to another point. We're going to touch on the nwitches protecting the legal side for when things go wrong. Because it's not if, it's when. But even with that little thing going wrong, they had a pipe burst in the winter in three other buildings that we didn't even know they owned on the fourth floor. So when that burst, that's floor 4, 3, 2, 1, basement. These are massive water losses. Who's first on call? We are. We end up with, I mean, that one deal was a few million work between all the relationships. So this begs the question, what when we talk commercial. Because I had a guy Instagram message me yesterday, I should pull this up. And he basically, he's asking me how do I start pitching to Walmart? And I think it's great. Like, thinking big is absolutely awesome. Oh, it was a Facebook message. I think thinking big is great.

And at the same time, if you ask that question, you're not ready.

Yeah.

And you can't ask the question. You're not ready.

You got to walk before you run. So let's talk commercial. Everyone just thinks like, and this is a big misconception I hear because I actually was, was helping this company I did this, this training with last week. You know, they were saying, hey, we need some commercial sales. And it was specific to storm. But commercial encompasses, you know, massive industrial facilities, storage facilities, manufacturing facilities. Then there's the, the privately owned dental practice. That's just a, you know, essentially just a large single roof. And then there's specialty roofings and roofs and there's churches and there's strip centers. So let's talk where do you start? Do you go to the, to the Walmart of the world or do you find like a man PA owners? But let's talk on where that, that quote unquote, sweet spot of getting in your foot in the door in commercial. What's that? Ideal customer?

Well, you don't start with any of that. Where you start is what product are you planning on using? So the thing is you have to in the commercial realm, I mean, you can use shingles all day long. And I mean, a lot of residential roofers don't even know that they have to fill out paperwork for that warranty. So if you're doing those jobs, a lot of roofers, I mean, for years, one day they'll go, you mean I have to send this person's information into the manufacturer to get them a personal warranty for this, the roof that I put on? And yes, that's what you're supposed to do. So when it comes to commercial roofs. What sort of warranty can you offer? You know, I had a roofer call me one time and says, oh yeah, I'm licensed, JF And I'm like, no you're not. And the reason why is because I know who's licensed, I know who's licensed and anyone in the commercial industry, especially because I had a repping agency. So I have contracts with multiple components of commercial roofs, roofing materials. And so I represented several manufacturers. And all of us know, we know if you're a roofer and you're a residential roofer with a good reputation and you're thinking about crossing over, we know you before you even think about it because we know all the commercial roofers and we know their skill sets, we know how much, we know who's paying their bills. We keep track of all that stuff because we need the best of the best. So if you want to get in the commercial roof and before you think about what kind of customers or the big dollar signs, choose what product you want to use, do you have a passion for a specific product? Do you like ppc? Do you like epdm? Do you like built up? There's different relationships, different customers within each of those manufacturing groups. People. If you're in the restaurant industry, you're going to be more likely to have better results with a PVC membrane. Because built ups, built up roofs and TPOs, they interact with the oils that come out of the top of the roof. You know, they have the ventilation and all these oils come on the roof. Well, they can break down a roof within about, you know, three years sometimes. I mean, so you're all around the area. If there's animal fats, it's interacting with the components within the membrane. So question is, which niche do you want to be in? And then you have to go and do your research on all manufacturers. There's not that many of them. So find out what, what you feel passionate about. But with this membrane, do your homework. Because the whole secret to commercial roofing is your material that you're going to, you're going to start with, you know, you have to find a manufacturer that's willing to license you. That's a lot of risk because we don't, you know, if you've never done this before, then you can give the manufacturer a black eye. If that happens, then all the manufacturers hear about you.

It's a small world out there.

Yeah, but it starts with the membrane. First you know what material you want to use. And people will call me and says, I Want to get licensed with your product? And I go, you're not ready. They go, what do I do? And I say, well, go to your local distributor. Most distributors have their own product, and they're willing to let you guys use that product. Get your feet wet. Start out with 25 squares, maybe 80 squares. You can make some money off of that. But if you make some mistakes, if you're going to make a mistake, don't you want to make it on something that is only a $30,000 roof, then a $300,000 roof? If you lose 20% of your money, it's easier to lose 20% of $30,000 than 20% of $300,000.

A lot easier. A lot easier.

And you will make mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable if you don't know what you're doing, you're learning. And there's nothing wrong with mistakes. Mistakes are expected. Life is that way. And I don't really look at them as mistakes. I look at them as discoveries. You discover, you discovered. So everyone says, well, fail. Fail fast. Go forward. And I'm like, nah, that's negative, because it brings up fear and negative emotion. Why not say I'm discovering, I'm learning? And when you do make a mistake, just say, that's great. Your employees look at you like this.

That's interesting, because I'll be the first to admit my product knowledge is not super great. You know, I did some residential epdm. I did some commercial epdm, but they were just large industrial facilities, warehouses. I worked on a gym, like a fitness gym, things like this. And I knew enough to be dangerous and I could sell the job, but I knew when I got in over my head. And I also know that when you're selling residential and you're. And I'll just say it just for grins, but when you're slinging shingles, like, your product, knowledge is not a huge factor when it comes to selling. As long as you know the basics and you can walk someone through the process, you're good to go. You know, nine out of 10 roofers can install shingle roof, and they're gonna do a great job. You know, of course there's issues.

I know they forget what they're doing. They just have to flip the bag over and read the instructions. The instructions are on every bag.

Yeah. And it's just. It's a different animal. And for the most part. And I know I'll probably get comments. Well, no, this. Designer shingles a little different. I know that there's all subtle nuances between them. But from the, from the core fundamentals there, you know, there's an underlayment. Your flashing is pretty much the same. And you nail the shingle on the nail strip. Okay. Like.

Yeah, how many? Four to six nails.

All that stuff is a side. Then you get into this. And you brought up a good point, because I was sharing this story the other day. I got in way over my head on this, on this project once and just we weren't set up for it. We were a residential company with a little bit of commercial sprinkled in. And again, the commercial was. Was usually multifamily, so it was large shingle projects or epdm. And I get this call, and it was in downtown Madison, like right on the square. And if you don't know downtown Madison, I mean, it's as metro as a metro, right? And I'm up there and I'm like, I had to bid this project and I'm trying to find crane operators to rent by the hour. We had to set up a garbage chute to not hurt any. And then the permits and then shutting down a street.

At least you knew that legally you had to do that.

Yeah, I did.

At least you did your homework. You did your homework.

I did my homework. It was a learning lesson. And I was like, man, like, I'm over my head and a big mistake people make, especially new sales people, because this is when I was newer and I. I spent all this time on this project. Oh, if I could just land this deal. And I'm like, man, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And I know there's a time in it, right? Like something falls in your plate, but at the same time, know your sweet spot. So I like that when you said those manufacturing groups and to have your niche. And this is super important because again, I work with this company on the storm side to get into commercial. And we were focusing on. On a different type of commercial, but they were saying, you know, well, what kind of commercial do we go after? I'm like, man, if you're going to find like a manufacturing facility or an airport, it's very different. And I didn't even know about the restaurants and the, the grease breaking down membranes. That's boom, that's new to me maybe. Like, who's this adaptation Jack? Well, I know my stuff, but I'm a sales and marketing guy, you know, I'm not a professional.

Chemicals like to equalize. So even if you're using a specific PVC membrane and say you're licensed with this one. And you get up on a roof and the product that's put down is pvc. But it's by this manufacturer that you're not licensed with. You cannot put down your membrane. Say if you're repairing a pipe flashing. So it's PVC and PVC alike, they should be compatible. They're not. Every manufacturer has a different formula. What happens, you put down a pipe flashing and yay, the customer's happy, it's not leaking. And then within six months it interacts and the seams just melt away. And next thing you know, you went from hero to zero with your reputation with that customer. And so a lot of people do this. They don't know that every. In shingles, most shingles are exactly. You can always put a shingle up there, it's not going to matter. It's not going to interact in most cases. But when it comes to commercial roofing, EPDM is the most you can, like you can go over EPDM with TPO or pvc. It's, it's, it's almost a slip sheet. So it's a separator. So that's the only thing. You can go over the top of wood, you can go over metal with any membrane, but you cannot go over TPO with pvc, PVC with PVC or TPO with tpo. And then the worst part is that you void the warranty for that for your customer. So if your customer's got a 15, 20, 30 year warranty, you just, that's a lot of money they paid for that and you just totally voided their warranty. So what they'll have to do is call up the manufacturer and then get a list of licensed contractors. They'll come out and cut all of your work out that you charge that customer and they'll have to repair it to get back into warranty.

Yeah, that's something. And I'm going to skip one of our points to go into the next one, which is the liability side.

Let's mention niche. Just barely though.

Yeah, let's do that.

The most important thing when I was saying that you choose a manufacturer, then it's niche. So the thing is, when a manufacturer or the rep of that manufacturer is looking at, you see, there's so many roofs out there, right. To get. And if you're say, you know, I had 63 licensed dealers, I had over 120 license. But you know, you get rid of some that aren't doing, performing.

Yep. Yeah.

So but if you, if you're not in a specific Niche. So here's how a rep makes money. Rep makes money is like, I got my guys that do hotels, I got my guys that do industrial. I got my guys that do restaurants. And I get a phone call, hey, I want to get licensed. Well, what are you going to do with it? It's like, oh, nothing. It's like, no, you're going after one of my jobs. I specced and it's like, okay, I want a bid and this. And I'm like, well, look, I got four guys that actually advertise my product. Advertise the manufacturer. They, they're bringing me business. If I license, you have to train you, train your employees. And I won't make any money. I'm not making extra money because I already have the guys that are doing that specific work. So if you want to get a get licensed, what you do is you find a niche that no one else is doing and then you're bringing extra money to the table. So then I can make more money because this guy's not going to go after my guys that are doing this job. See? And if they license you and you go after all of their guys, then they may stop selling their product. They may switch to a different manufacturer. So it can totally destroy a repping organization. So anyways, that's, it's really important. Your niche is everything to focus in.

And then like you mentioned, and I know some people are still probably commercial sales easier than residential. It's a higher value relationship. Is that basically the main takeaway? So you sell one roof. Yes. You're going to get the roof. Could you get referrals? Yes, but it's usually one roof and nine out of 10 customers. You do the roof ones you're never going to hear from again, you did something wrong. But with commercial, and this happens a lot, these commercial owners, they usually play in the same business world. You have a restaurant owner, he generally isn't going to have a restaurant and a manufacturing facility. He's going to have a restaurant and other restaurants or he's going to invest in a strip center and own other strip centers or he's going to invest.

Most of my restaurant owners, they owned 150 restaurants. And that's not just one. I mean there's multiple people that were my customers that own franchise after franchise. And not just even just one franchise, they'll have sometimes have three different restaurant types that they're so. But the thing is, if you develop that relationship with that person and they love you and they're putting the avocado in your mouth, that kind of relationship. If you have that and you go to a rep and say, I've been studying your product tonight and I'm really impressed with it. And you do your homework because you want to tell them the story. You want to say, oh, you know, the founder of the company was this way or this happened this way. And they'll say, damn, this guy or girl is amazing. I think I'd like to have them and they're doing something, they have customers I don't even know about, then you're a value, sorry, less dexia. A value add to their company. And that's how you do it. But it's first you gotta find, develop well, choose your product. Find just one or two customers that love you and then start small. And then that way when you approach the manufacturer, you can get a license.

Yep, that's excellent. And it's important because your expertise, you know, like product knowledge. What we're doing here in Storm work retail, excuse me, storm. Even retail shingles, your product knowledge is less important and there's less to learn. You know, you could spend a week on the job and know enough. Commercials did totally different animal.

And when you study two hours a night, you know, so when you're doing this and you find that product, get the spec data manual and start reading it.

That's a great piece of advice that I was going to ask you. Beat me to it and think of it like this. Like when I drove by a church install the other day and I did a video for it on the channel and we said the other day, man, Covid makes things all time stands still. It was actually like two months, three months ago probably. But I used it as an opportunity to teach. Like, this is what's important to sell a job, especially on a commercial or larger scale, because people want to know that you're familiar with how their business operates to solve the unique problems that they have. If all restaurants have the same equipment mounted on the roof and you know how to flash it, you know the safest way to detach it and reset it and make sure it's connected again so there's not downtime. And to protect the customers or residents or patrons of that business for their safety and your liability. And if you become that subject matter expert to be like, I am the restaurant roof guy, I will make sure that, you know, our crew comes in for any repairs off peak hours. I'll make sure your equipment is set back up. I'll make sure that, you know, the fish fry on Friday isn't going to put a hole in the roof because the other guy might not have known that. And that's, it's. I love what you've said about choosing that niche. So find, you know, let me ask you, how do you start. That's going to be someone's question. How do I start finding a niche? What's some good advice to help at least channel people in the right direction?

If you've done one, commercial roof, two, three. Once you, @ first people are throwing out a net, you know, it's like there's so many different segments of the. That even commercial roofers that have been doing commercial roofing for 10, 20 years don't know. But like if you're, if you're throwing, when you're advertising or marketing, people are just throwing a big net everywhere. Well, that's not a niche net.

No. It's like fishing with a worm.

Yes.

What are you fishing for?

Well, and the thing is, you have to know your skill set. So if you're switching over to commercial, you're going to be using subs in the beginning because there's no way you're going to be able to keep your own employees employed if you don't have work lined up for three months. So then it's going to cost you or you're going to lose a good employee because they're not going to want to, they're not going to want to stick around while they're not making money. So you'll start out using a sub. And so when you're using a sub, what's their niche? What are they good at? So you might have to ask questions to them, find out what they're good at. Because if you know most people are not good at new construction, if you go and try to bid something. And by the way, we didn't mention that, did we? Do not bid. Do not bid. Do not go down to the, the room and look at blueprints and stuff. That's not your. You have to, even if you do do that, you won't make any money because the lowest bid is that win. So are you willing to, you know, make the least amount of money on a job? If you win that bid, that means that you chose to make the least amount of money. That's the way I see it. So instead of go for specific customers, what do you feel comfortable with? There's so many things we could talk about on that aspect, but ye, um, that's probably the easiest one. Find out what the niches of your sub crew.

Yeah. And what's around you, I mean some, some markets are going to be more saturated with restaurants. The old town that we moved out of I think had like the highest restaurants per capita in the entire state. So that would have been a really great niche to jump into.

But restaurants aren't easy to make money at though. There's especially more pipes flashings if you don't know how to. If you don't know how long it's going to take for each of your guys to do pipes and, and got your air. Sometimes you'll have like a ton of air conditioning units up there and it's all cut up and then there's tie ins and then there's angle iron. How do you do an angle iron that looks like this? You know, how are you going to.

Right.

So you have to. There's a lot to learn. So I wouldn't suggest starting with restaurants. There are people that are really good with that. But that's a. It's a very hard one. Start with something like, like a. Oh a storage unit place or.

There it is. Storage unit facilities.

Pop in, talk to whoever's in the office and ask them about the owner. What's. What are they like and stuff. Hey, can I. Yeah. And then they'll feed you if wherever you go you can cold call and just ask questions. Become be nice and friendly and people will feed you all. Who they are, what school they went to, what their children's names are. They'll tell you everything.

Yeah.

As long as I trust you. And so that's cold calling is probably the best way. And then find. But find small buildings in the beginning, privately owned. Privately owned family. I would always tell people, you know like in my book is it's better to go to work for a small family business because you can walk right in and say hello to the owners and they'll fall in love with you and then boom, you got plenty, you know, you got plenty of work.

Yep. And I'm glad you brought that up about finding the niche because think about it. I like to not everyone niche is a marketing word and not everyone has a marketing mind. So a niche is a subset of needs. If I'm the church guy, all the churches have the same need. They have services on certain days. They have the similar type decision making structure. They often have similar types of roofs or similar desires of cosmetic appeal. And you can be like hey, I'll make sure X, Y and Z is handled. You're good. Whereas a commercial facility that has high volume of customers coming in that's a different set of needs. And you're right, getting in with an individual family owned business is phenomenal.

Church is a great niche though. And again, churches sometimes talk to other churches. So you may talk to one church that is a part of a group of churches where there's like 40 churches in your town. And next thing you know, that is your niche. But trade shows are the other thing. So if you don't have a niche yet, you may find something that seems good. I use the illustration of self storage. Then you can do a self storage show. You have to pay like $3,000, set up your booth and get to know some people. All you need is a couple people. Just two, three. Once you get to about six, you'll never have to advertise again.

Huge. Yeah.

Because I mean.

Yeah. And just know what you're fishing with. I mean, you got to know your bait. So many, so many people. So many people. Especially roofing salespeople. I just want to get into commercial and it's like, man, that's like saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go hunting today and I'm gonna run into the woods. Well, what's your game? What season? What's your query? What do you know? Do you have a blind? Do you not? Are you carrying a 622 or.

I have a six shooter.

Yeah. It's like I've got a 22 old single action revolver and I'm gonna go for a triple trophy buck.

No, man, no, it's not gonna work.

So match what you can do. Which includes.

It's like, yeah, my son made it. It's little, it's rubber band for a slingshot.

And the crew, that's the part, like you can sell shingles all day and then figure out a crew. You can bring crews in, they're. They're dime a dozen to some respect. And I know, I don't mean to insult anybody. I know that there's different quality of work. I get it. But my point is it is much easier to have one guy on the job that really knows what's going on, who can kind of spearhead a team of newbies. Meanwhile, on a. All these unique applications of manufacturers and roof types and flashing and unique things that you're going to encounter. You can't sell it and figure it out in the same way. You can. Like when you land your first 18 unit apartment complex with a shingled roof, like, cool. You can, you can figure those crews out, right? You can pause production, everything else, bring them over. But if all Of a sudden you sell PVC job. Never done one before. And you're like, who can install this for me? I sold it. So which brings me to now what? Yeah, let's touch on this. You and I kind of talked liability and commercial opens up liability on steroids. We both agree it's if not when, I mean, you are.

It's going to happen.

Yeah. So what kind of things can happen? How do you avoid it?

Well, I've seen this several times, especially on sometimes a new construction type of job that was put out to bid by an architect, but the owner had no intention of paying the tradesmen. And so there's a little trick that you got to watch out in some of these towns people do this is they'll sue everyone. So if all of the trades are under $50,000, that's between 30 and $50,000. Most lawyers of manufacturers will just pay it off. They're not gonna, they're not gonna mess with that because it's too much of a liability lawsuit. So that's not. 30 to $50,000 is not much money. So these guys figured that out and so they'll just sue you and sue your manufacturer and then you'll never get paid on that job. So that's one area that's kind of a weird thing you can run into. Some people will sit there and say, well, you did the job wrong. And the reason why is their idea is they can get out of paying you the rest of the money. So they'll hire an engineer to come out and find something. Just like in shingles or storm chasing. You're going to find an engineer to come out and look and say, oh, I see these indentions, you know. Well, they'll do that just so they don't pay you. Then you're going to be in a lawsuit. And so there's, that's. We could do a whole, a whole episode on that. But it's going to happen. But here's the thing is don't go out and get a lawyer. Make sure you have your insurance. A lot of people say, well, the insurance is really expensive in roofing. Yeah, but you have to have it because it's going to happen. You're going to leave a roof open. One of your guys, you just like, did you do a night sale? Yeah, I did a night seal. Then you're like, nope, didn't do a night seal. They lied. They didn't want to do it because it takes an hour to do a night seal. Maybe, you know, and most people don't even know. How do you do a night seal? Let's ask the manufacturer. They're not going to tell you how to do a night seal. Why? Because you say, well, I did it just the way you said, and it leaked in on that roof. Well, then they've accepted the liability. So manufacturers won't tell you how to do a night seal. They'll just tell you you have to do one. So. Because that. Because it's all about liability and risk.

So, yeah, it's crazy who points who the finger. This is what people don't get with insurance. Because I would say that most roofing companies are underinsured, and fingers point in every direction. So even though you're gonna be like, it was my subs fault, well, then your subs insurance is gonna subrogate against you because you're the one that hired and put him on the job. And guess what? This happened to us. I've told this story a few times on the channel, commercial project, multifamily unit. We had a ladder set up. Everything was clearly marked, but it was an older. It was a facility for retirees. And this woman wasn't paying attention, and she walked into our ladder. She split her head open. And I get a call. First thing I do, I am on there outside, paid for any medical issues. Thankfully, it was resolved until six months later when she wanted to move out. And she had an early termination fee on her lease that she couldn't afford. So she goes and talks to an attorney because she needs money. The attorney says, hey, remember that time you hit your head? You can sue the roofing company, you can sue the subs, and you can sue the facility because it was on their property. So she calls me up, she goes, hey, I want to move out of here. Adam, remember six months ago, I hit my head? Yeah, you mentioned you were fine. How you feeling? Oh, I'm good. I just need some money, and they want to charge me $2,200 to move out early, so I'm hoping you can pay for it. Otherwise, I'm gonna sue you, the company, and the sub. And I was like, did you literally just call me and blackmail me and what do we do? I called up Art and I said, listen, and out of. I was. So I killed her with kindness. And I was gritting my teeth like you total scumbag. Because that's a something for nothing attitude, as I call it. You know, she just took it. We took care of her with the highest level of integrity, and she was fine.

It's a bump, but you didn't get a signature from her. So as soon as you take care of them, you have to have them to sign a release. That way they can't keep coming after you.

Yeah. So we ended up getting the attorney to draft it up. We ended up paying the facility on her behalf, so that way she didn't pocket the cash. But it was a nightmare. My point is, it can be something as stupid as that, and every time there's other people, the finger will always point and it can go through you, to them, to someone else. And this is how I had a client who was an attorney way back when in my marketing days. And I know how this works. They peel back the onion. They're like, hey, they're connected to there. So we can see them. We shall then see them. Because it's all. It's a game. So let's leave with some tips. What's the best way to cover some liability, obviously, besides getting an attorney?

The thing is, you don't necessarily have to have an attorney. Your first phone call is not to your attorney. Pay your insurance. Always have insurance. Because an insurance company doesn't want to pay out claims and they have their own lawyers. So look at your insurance. Don't think of that as just that you have liability insurance. Think of that as you have prepaid legal. Because they're going to. They're going to take care. It's in their best interest to save money, and so they're going to help you out there. But then you may have to have an attorney down. I always had an attorney on. Also on retainer. But that's one thing. The second thing is join the nrca. And people say, but that's so expensive. Yes, it is. And guess what?

Pay to play.

Yeah. And read, read, read. Spend two hours a day of your life reading the NRCA books. And the reason why is because if you get sued, guess what? Guess what is the bible. Is the NRCA's hand. The guidelines written by the NRCA. That's what the judge. That's what everything comes down to, is that Bible. So know that Bible, because you can sit there and say, well, the manufacturer says this. Yeah, but manufacturer says. Or whatever is.

Is it the NRCA roofing manual?

Mm, that's it.

Yeah. I just pulled it up on NRCA's website here, and it's thick.

But study that thing. Just spend a couple hours a day. And the reason why is that's going to save you so much. Manufacturers will allow different things that aren't written in there and that's okay until you get sued. And it's true the manufacturer will give a warranty based upon specific things in their spec book. But when it comes to legal things, this is what we found. You want to do whatever that book says because when it comes to legality of things, it's different than what the manufacturer says. The judge is going to be looking at the NRCA's handbook.

Yeah, you know, liability. So when you said insurance, there's different types of insurance. Can we just quickly cover the types of insurance that people should have besides a proper limit of general liability that exceeds the value of the projects you're doing. Otherwise you can go bankrupt in a hurry. If you carry, like many residential roofers, million dollar coverage.

Yeah, it's hard to get a policy under a million. You know, some manufacturers still have in their books that you only need 300, $500,000 of insurance. But get someone to write that. It's not easy to find. Most are up to 2 million now. And if you get the million, that's fine. But it's usually not that much money to get $2 million worth of coverage. Might as well. And that's general liability. But then you also have your workman's comp. If you're going to be doing government types of jobs, you may have to pay prevailing wage and you may have to have workman's comp. Depends on the state you're in too. Like here in Texas, they don't require workman's comp. But if someone falls off that roof, man, that's on your conscience. Because if you don't have workman's comp, you know.

Yep, it's a scary place to be and that stuff again, it's just a matter of time. I get emails every single day with things that surprised me and I thought I saw it all. And I just talked to someone who fell off roof. Won't be getting back on one is in grave spot. And you know, I remember not, not too long ago there's a. There was a. An insurance adjuster that was climbing a roof low access on a residential home from a driveway. And I forget what happened. The ladder kicked out from under him or something but he was halfway up the ladder, but it fell backwards, hit his head as concrete, died on the spot. The customer's driveway.

I've seen it many times. I've been on roofs where someone was walking backwards, fell through a skylight. But that person lived.

I didn't adjust her fall through the roof with me.

I caught him, I fell through A roof before on a residential. And I caught myself because we're redecking and I caught myself. I'm like, I look at my brother, I go, hey, I caught myself. He goes, no, you didn't. I looked down, my butt had busted the drywall. But the thing is, mistakes will happen. So you have to have your ducks in a row if you're going to play with the big boys. And guess what? You can play with the big boys. We can do this. I'm telling you, it's much better to be in the commercial realm than the residential. It's night and day. It's a relief of stress. Less stress, in my opinion.

I don't know if I've showed you this to you, Dan, but I use, there's a lot of different apps like Sales Rabbit and Spotio and different real estate apps that give you private property owner data. So however you guys.

There you go.

Yeah, guys and gals use it. This is on X Hunt and I just use it because I started hunting recently and I want to know private versus public land. Well, I just found this commercial facility. Look, small, right?

Oh, it's beautiful.

Maybe office buildings or something.

And I can click on, look how many units are on there. You can very little air conditioning units, very little pipes.

Yeah, it looks good job. Well, I can do this. Check this out and bring it up. Private land, there's tax address. Tax address is different than property address. Tax address links to the owner, which means you can show up at their house, you can send direct mailers to their home, which I include by the way, in my battle pack and in your complete sales strategy to target these.

Love it.

But yeah, all of them. Like this whole area is like a sweet spot. You know, this is a commercial zone district and obviously you can see this roof's got a little more complexity to it. But boom, there's the tax address. And now I know, hey, you can go right to that tax address and you know the property owner because that's the hardest part of locating these, these family owned people. So if you guys are ever sitting around and you're looking to, as we say, hunt for whales or fish for whales, use, use technology and do it. But you know, you can, you can.

Spend a couple thousand dollars and sell mailers to the big net. It's not specifically targeted like the worm that you're talking about or you can use that. What you're just showing everyone you can use something like that and send a beer to them. My brother always call it a beer because I'd be, you know, I had some full color back when color was brand new brochures. And he's like, how would you spend all that? He says, man, you could just be getting out beers. So the point is you can literally send someone an overnight envelope for spend the seven bucks, say a two day overnight or whatever, one of those. But something big that has a. They open it up and it says hey, I want to get to know you, so to speak. You know, I'm saying yeah, and you can get. You can but you're targeting. You want to target a specific customer within your niche and develop that relationship. So that's a great. What's that thing called again?

This. So there's some. And I've shared this on the channel before. Onx onx hunt and it's 30 bucks for the year. And the reason I went to these hunting apps is I wanted. I live out in Colorado. The national forests border these private lands. You need to know the boundaries. Like I'll give you an example. Like this is if I was out hunting in this area, I got to be mindful of public first. Private land. You can see it here. But then I started using this for the direct mail strategy that I teach because I'm always looking for fun tools and even on this like residential this is how we mainly use it. I can click on this address and the tax address matches the. The property address. You know, it's owner occupied and boom, there it is. There's like I can just. I know the owner's name is Davies, Christine Davies for example on this house and their address and I can then put together my direct mail letter, address it to her and show up. Or better yet, if I'm installing her house, I can click around on the neighboring homes and I know the homeowner's name so I can just go introduce. Hey, are you Peggy? Hey Peggy. We're just doing the Davies over here. The roof and just wanted to give you my card in case any.

And if you guys would like to see how we're doing, you know, I mean if you feel safe, come up and take a look at us installing the roof. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes.

Yeah. Come watch us work.

Oh yeah. And they'll. I've had that happen a lot. It's brilliant. By the way, everyone, Adam is not using a shotgun and his marketing. When he's hunting with the Onx Hunt hunting app, he's not using a shotgun. He is using a sniper. He's targeting a specific target.

Yeah, that's a Good, I like that. That is true. So on. Thank you for that. Onyx Hunt is one. Another one that I. That I teach to use is called Hunt Stand. H u n t S T A n d that one's like 30 for the year for the whole country. So they're cheaper than the. Even these real estate laps apps like Land Glide, I think it's 10 bucks a month.

And how much do you pay for a welder? How much do you pay for a welder?

A welder?

Yeah. If you're using a nice hot air welder for your roofing membrane, you know, you got the tools that you may have to buy a walker welder that costs you 10. A walker welder will cost you $10,000. Right. But what I find these roofers don't do is they, they don't realize that paying 30 bucks a month or you know, it's for the year. Yeah, for the. There you go. So some of these things, a tank of gas, you know, I mean, some rippers would pay Eagle Eye or Eagle View, you know, like 300 bucks just for one.

One report. And it's not.

They don't have the job yet. They don't have the job. But the thing is, is invest in your company. Spend money like join Adam's program or join my program. And we're going to help you grow your business.

Yeah, I love it. And on that note, Dan, thanks for being here. I'm gonna. I wanna do one quick summary, short summary, and then direct people where they can connect with you. So find your niche. Figure out who in your area you should serve. Start with something simple. Start with privately owned, individually owned properties. You can use tools like Onyx or Hunt stand or Spotty or Sales rabbit to get in touch with the owners and tax addresses. That's what we covered. We talked about making sure you have crews to do the work and that are going to do it. Well, you want to make sure you're well insured for when things go wrong. Not if, ideally, if you can set up an attorney and then obviously getting licensed with a manufacturer. And then the last thing that we talked about was joining the nrca. Start reading those books and doing your homework. Did I miss anything?

I don't think so. I think that's. And if they did, they could just rewind.

That's true. Rewind, replay. Share with your team.

If they're wanting to get into this industry, they need to maybe watch this a couple of times because there will be things that we said that you may have missed and then when you re listen to, like, yeah, I do that a lot.

I actually just listened to Rework, which is a great book. No one's ever done it, like I think two times around and I'll do it a third. So, Dan, thanks for being here. How can people find you?

They can go to roofing business builder. We're on, I think Facebook, Spotify. Oh, we have the roofing business builder podcast. If you know how to spell my last name, L, A, K, S, T, I, N, S, you can go. You can find me at daniellaxons. I do more than just roofing. I've invested in other businesses too. But my heart is with all of you guys out there that are in the roofing industry because that's where I came from too. And I want to give back to my community. So. But yeah, you can find me Daniel Laxton's. I do a lot of mental stuff. So a lot of my work that I do is to help you to believe and to create what you want in life. So if you just, you know, I have like two minute videos, six minute videos that help to inspire you and get you your juices flowing and to learn how to control this thing.

Ah, it's funny today, this morning I started listening to Napoleon Hill's book, how to own your own mind.

Yes.

Funny enough. True story. It's right. Yeah.

Think and grow rich was my first book, you know, back when I was younger.

That's a good one. I didn't even know this one until it showed up in my.

Once you get control of your mind, your whole world will change.

You and I geeked out on that. We both have a little bit of some hippie backgrounds, so. Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us today. If you liked the video, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe. Everything on the channel is designed to help you have personal. Get personal sales strategies for you and your team to make more money. We'll see you guys soon. Thanks a lot.

Thanks, Evan.