Mastering Roofing Success with ServiceTitan | Podcast Ep. 25 | Mastering ServiceTitan

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Hello, and welcome to Mastering Service Titan, where you get expert advice from power users. And today I'm joined by Kelly Masseris, the VP of Special operations at LV Capital. And today we're talking about roofing success on Service Titan. Kelly, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Josh. I'm really excited for today's episode.

Me too. It's a topic that we've been wanting to cover on our podcast for a while. And before we dive into some of the features and success that you all have had, can we go back in time and can you tell me the story about how Lance and LV Capital got into roofing?

Sure. So for anyone that knows Lance's story, he owned and grew one SEO over eight years and then sold it to private equity during that time of 1 SEO. So a lot of his clients were in the trade industry. So he worked with those, built relationships with the owners of those and saw the potential revenue in the trades. So before even leading up to the exit of one SEO, he had talked with partners, people. Some of his clients have asked him to partner with them. So at that time, one of his partners, they partnered, did Dilling Heating and Cooling in North Carolina, where they scaled and grow that quickly as marketing's a huge aspect of businesses. Exited out to private equity apex and then came to PA to replicate the model, the Dilling model. And then since then, he had a relationship with Cherry Roofing that was sold to private equity and a couple other companies that he's had is Painting pups and multiple companies that he's exited since then.

Can you talk about how initially Lance got shut down by Service Titan? And we were like, sorry, no, we don't do roofing.

Yeah. So it's a funny story with Cherry. So he started with the H Vac industry. And we all know that Service Titan has the image of catering to H Vac and plumbing. Right. A CRM for them. And this was again two years ago, so about was more. So sort of site wasn't in the roofing space as much. His good friends Aria and said, hey, I'm opening this roofing company, which the first one was Cherry. I was like, I'm sorry. Like we. Our engineering team doesn't support roofing companies. We don't have the capacity to do that. We're just focusing on H Vac plumbing this time. So with Lance being Lance and not taking a no for an answer, he had already had the tenant built out for service site for Dilling and replicated, you know, just put his roofing company under an H Vac company and replicate it the tenant, and then came into a relationship with Moroni, who's the partner in Titan Pro Technologies, which is our Service Titan platinum coaching group. That's a partnership that we have with Service Titan. At that time, it was just maronay on team and said, hey, I need help building out my tenant. And Service titan, it's a roofing company. And that's how that relationship started. And so him and Moron I and our team here built out the roofing tenant. And then once it was all built out, he came back to the service site and team and Ari and said, look, actually I've been running my roofing company for a month under an H Vac company as an H Vac company. So that was the start of the partnership and vision of service titan and roofing companies. So now they saw that it could be built out. They saw that we were able to, from A to Z, get a whole roofing company, every department, on Service Titan and built out. So that's kind of the story behind that.

Such an amazing story. I love the story of entrepreneurs like that who just don't take no for an answer and they just find a way. And we thought it was an H Vac company the whole time. And surprise, it's a roofing company story.

It's fun.

Yeah. And I think there is this misconception that service time is mainly for H vac and plumbing. Just because we have a ton of H Vac and plumbing customers. That is like the core of where we started. But like you said, a lot has changed in two years. Can you kind of share your experience, what you've seen in terms of roofing success on Service Titan?

Yeah, well, not just in service time, but also in the private equity space, really. Ten, 12 years ago, private equity started coming into the H Vac plumbing space and really consuming up those companies. And now that they've consumed them, now they're onto the next division. And that's really roofing is what they're eyeing on. And service titan is a key component that the private equities are looking for because they've seen it, the model built out with our H Vac and plumbing companies. They know the CRM. So for them to now know in the roofing company what they're looking for with that relationships with multiple private equity companies that they really don't want a company unless so much one of the requirements are on a CRM such as service titan and really push for service titan. Especially now that we've been able to prove the model tenet of hell and roofing from A to Z, it can be done on Service Titan. So with our Service Titan build out, we have all of our KPIs tracked in the roofing aspect. We have our call center all built out on the Service Titan. So the book, the incoming calls and the centralized enterprise as we have eight roofing companies so we have a centralized call center for that. We have the chats, the bookings all integrated. We have Dispatch Pro that we utilize to build out the AI data on our sales team and their conversions. So that was adaptability too because usually in H vac and plumbing the Dispatch Pro picks up the AI data on the technician from their actual performance where roofing is a little bit different because our salespeople go out, create an estimate and that like how can Dispatch Pro pick that up because the revenue is not attached to the original job. So that were like things that we built out. And then we utilize the accounting. So all of our accounting is through there. Even as far as we have all of our subs listed as technicians on our service team. And what this allows us to do is to treat them like an employee and we are able to process the payroll for the subs all through the accounting and payroll of Service Titan. So again we've built out every single thing needed and we don't use any outside services other than Service Titan is our centralized hub. So again to accounting to all of our purchase orders earn Service Titan. All of our rehash team, they work 100% off the follow up tab. So it's a one spot that every department or company can work out reports. We have multiple reports sent to us via email at 6 o' clock daily or we can at any time go in and pull our reporting Marketing Pro. We fully utilize that with sms, email campaigns, invoice follow ups and then our most recent rollout feature that we have here in a model tenant is the good better, best pricing. So that was built out and now when the salespeople go out on the job, it's triggered and they are presented with the better best option. And that's really where we've been able to take the efficiency leave out the mistakes right of error that our sales team can make by doing that good better, best. With all of our pricing built out into our price book, all of our subs know what they're getting paid when they dispatch to the job. Again we have subs. So the whole entire job is managed through the projects tab. That's where we pull our pos that's where the dumpster is. All attached, noted. Permits, all the material. We have forms within there. That's trigger and we know what we need to pull. So it's a really great program. And again, Service Titan has been able to utilize them to run. Our entire budgeted number for 2025 is about $30 million. Roofing company. And that's a two year old roofing company.

Yeah. Is that the one that started off 2023? Around 7 million and then 24 grew to what was it? 24 million?

Yes. So we currently have eight roofing companies on their umbrella. Muns is our largest one right now and oldest one and meaning like a year and a half. So that's right middle of 2023. 2023 closed out at 7.5 million roughly. And then in 2024 we were about 700 shy of hitting our 25 million dollar budget. And then the budget set for 2025 this year is roughly 30, 31 million.

That's insane.

And again, we don't hold any of our companies. So the division here at LB Capital is to build it, to sell it. So we don't hold any of our companies longer than 16 months. So we usually partner with a smaller roofing company doing roughly 1.53 million with all of our Service site and build out all of our SOPs. All of our relationships with the vendors, the suppliers are pricing. We bring in that partner, we know what it takes to get that growth at 200% plus growth. So we come in, we execute on that with our leadership team at LB Capital, grow the organizations and then we sell to private equity with one of the multiple relationships we have and do it all over again. And with Service Site, we've now been able to build out a model of tenant that allows us to replicate and continue to do that. And again, all of our eight plus roofing companies are in Enterprise Hub. Anyone that has multiple roofing companies or multiple divisions and it's separated out. Enterprise Hub allows you to manage those companies efficiently, but also in one spot.

What I'm so impressed by is how much you have taken advantage of service, like how much you guys utilize and really maximize versus I feel like some people may think, oh, roofing, it's like a different trade service, not focused on that. Maybe they're just using like a little piece of it. But as you're speaking, it's obvious that you guys have maximized the system fully.

Everything that we use and it either integrates into Service Titan or again, it's just not something that is there for us to utilize in Service Titan. But there's no workarounds, there's no other programs that we used to create a crutch per se of something that service site we execute. We figure it out in Service Titan. And that is too with one of our company being Titan Perfectologies. They do help us fully maximize that. But Service Titan has everything that we could possibly need to again run a $30 million roofing company efficiently and track all of our KPIs, track our marketing attribution to make sure that we're making the right decisions in that department. Again, from a to say, when it.

Comes to that model tenant, I'd love to dive into that a little bit of how you guys set that up because it's clearly very successful. Are there some big differences of how Service 10 came out of the box versus how you guys have to shift it to create that model tenant?

Our model tenant is a service site and tenant that muns is our longest at a year and a half old, longest roofing company that we haven't exited yet. And we with that we built out anything that we do in months. Right? Because that's our model. We go and put into this model tenants through that as we bring on additional partners like all of our pups, we worked out all the kinks and all the gaps and figured out all the build outs in that month's tenant. So then as these partners come on, whether it be our Planet tenant or all our five PUPs locations, we can simply within three months have them completely live and service Titan by having that model tenant built out. So that's something. If there's other companies out there that are looking to do the same model, they create that model tenant, then that can save so much time at signup to just basically have this tenant, you perfect it and then execute on it each time that you start up a new company.

Right? Such a well oiled machine, you can just rinse and repeat and get set up. I'd love to dive into projects this feature within ServiceTitan for those who are not on ServiceTign at all. Like what are projects within Service Titan and how do you all use this?

If you're not on Service Titan, you have to realize how much inefficiency you have. Right? The pen and paper method. It's like how are you, you know, if someone got hit by a bus and that pen and paper sitting on their desk, well now how does it pick it up? How can someone step in and know what this pen and paper notes or schedule, whatever you may have. And again we're full transparency. We're not a perfect organization. Up until about five months ago, you would go over to our production department and they would have pen and paper of the schedule laid out for like a week and moving subs because some of our subs have multiple crews under them and that's where it's like sometimes we have to just dig in and say like we're getting rid of paper and this is how we have to figure it out. Right. So everything was on service site and besides the scheduling of the subs and we were able to. That's when we made all of our subs technicians. So now they can dispatch, upload their photos, they know what they're getting paid on the job. They can submit any change orders, any notes, they can collect payment in conjunction with our project managers out in the field. And now we Service Titan because of all the feedback they're getting actually service comes into our office, sees what we're doing to help execute for the other roofing companies on Service Titan and all the other future companies to come of what are we doing, how are we utilizing this? And now the most recent feature, I'm not in that department but I saw come out was like a five day schedule. So that helps. And then as far as our subs being technicians, we were able to create even if they had multiple subs underneath them like crew. If this was called the Star Crew, well we'd have Star 1, Star 2, Star 3. So any gaps that we come across, we made it a non negotiable to figure out how to execute that and Service Titan. So if you come to our shop and we have free shop tours the first Wednesday of every month, you'll see that there is no paper allow because again one is inefficient, two, it allows, you know, if God forbid someone from your organization left or you know something happened, where would the data be and how would you pick it up? Again, everything that we do is 100% out of service.

Yeah, you also set it up to really not only maximize but to have it set up for scalability and repeatability is what it sounds like. If someone were to come over to a shop tour, can you walk us through that SOP or the workflow you have in terms of estimating projects, billing, just that whole workflow and kind of paint a picture on what they'd see?

Yeah, absolutely. So we have our centralized call center here, CSR department. So if you came in envisioned it would be our CSRs, they're exclusively responsible for booking the call, so they don't get wrapped up in capacity planning any other things other than booking the call. So once they book the call, again, we're on Dispatch Pro. Dispatch Pro picks that call up. Based on the AI data and history that we have in Service Titan of our sales team, it determines who is the best salesperson for that project, that job, that estimate, and that could be based on, okay, we have one of our sales reps that's really good at signing or we have one of our other sales reps that's really seeds and roofing and then again determines based on that AI data what to put them on. So if a salesperson goes out, executes and sells on that job, the production team gets a text alert immediately and that goes into in the projects tab or follow up their sold estimates so they can always view them there. But they are set up to get alerts within Service Titan via text and email. And immediately the production process starts and that is pulling the permit, ordering the dumpster, looking over the pictures and notes that have been uploaded in servicetitan, ordering the material and then scheduling the sub. With our process and efficiencies that we've been able to utilize in Service Titan, we are getting roofs on Homes within 48 hours of sale and everything we don't have inventory here. So everything's drop shipped to the site and that's how quickly from the time of the CSR getting the call and booking it to the time that production gets that sold alert and gets the materials ordered and drop shipped to the site and sub scheduled, their dispatch arriving, getting that roof on, all within 48 hours.

48 hours, that's crazy. So on a Tuesday you could call and then by the end of the week the roof is on?

Yes.

That's amazing. Do you have any tips for people? Maybe they just joined Service Titan, they're just understanding some of the basics. But when it comes to projects and estimating and invoicing and billing and all that, do you have any advice on how to take advantage of those features better?

So again, projects is where your whole project's going to be managed. But like what starts first is getting that phone to ring, right? So making sure that the speed the lead process is perfected. Meaning that whether you use Angie Ads, Angeles Networks, Homebody, that Yelp, all that your integrations are fed into your other setup so that the speedily process, meaning like when you get on a call or one of those leads or chat, that the speedily process is being followed by your csrs as soon as it pings. So that's the first step, getting the phone to ring and then booking that lead. And that's where Marketing Pro is a huge asset too. Because Marketing Pro helps us, we utilize it to track the attribution of our revenue, what's working, what's not, so that we can make decisions quickly. You know, if this isn't working, then we take our funds and put it to this. So that's how we grow so quickly is by taking the data that service time provides as so much data and analyzing that data on a daily basis to make quick decisions so that we're not a month out and spent all of our marketing dollars for that month in the wrong place. So we surely utilize that and then projects again to get the project done at the speed we're getting them done and the efficiency and without excess of material or excess of change orders or payroll of subs utilizing projects has a one stop shop of everything that we need. Dumpsters, permits. At any given time I could go into my projects tab and know where a project is because everyone in the organization has their notes in there. Waiting on permit, waiting on dumpster, waiting on the salesperson to get me the details or color of the siding. So at any given point, again, if you. And it really stress off our team, right? Because now when that person goes on their well deserved vacation, they're not having someone text them, what's this note on your desk? Or what's the status of this job Projects. You go in, it has a timeline and you can see at any given time where that project stands.

That's awesome. As I'm listening to this, I'm like, wow, you're the perfect spokesperson for both roofing and also service titan. And it's the success of roofing on service titan. I know you're very generous with your time and you do some reference calls for those who are interested in service time where they're unsure. How do most of those conversations go? I'm curious, like what concerns do they have or hesitations and what do you usually say to those folks?

The first one that I had, the main concern was whatever CRM they were looking at was much watered down. Right. And there was a lot more work they could do to get it. But again, it was all workarounds. It was very much like a build up that they had to do to even get it close to what service site was doing. So we all know time is money and again it's what is your goal? If your goal is to Scale and exit. You don't have time to sit there and build out a CRM and do what you're good at. Like we're not engineers, right. We're not good at building out CRM platforms nor do most of us have the budget or resources to do that. So if you have a system, a software that is constantly innovating, again, service site team members are always in our office looking to see how we execute and roll this out for all of our tenants. And you have a CRM that's committed to you, making you succeed, rolling out new features. Why waste any time to start straight from service site, especially if you know you're going to exit the private equity? Because they don't want anything on their service site. So why waste your time with a startup CRM and then have to transition? We all know what it's like to onboard and off board from a CRM. I think the, the first one that they were kind of on the fence with, they pushed her because just marketing Pro alone, yes, it was 30% more. But I said the CRM did not track any of their marketing attribution. So I don't know what your marketing budget is. Quickly do the math. It's the average in the market is 10%. So $30,000 in a grand scheme of things, if you make a wrong marketing decision because you don't have the data to make those correct decisions off of $30,000 could be your one month's marketing budget. In the grand scheme of things, $30,000 is nothing because you can make that in marketing mistakes in one month by not having the proper data to analyze and make the right decisions on that. And like his jaw job and was like that's so right. And then other ones have just been like going from no CRM to service site and it's overwhelming. But we're going to be. And I try to tell you work at it every day. So whether you're working at it on pen and paper and improving within organization or you're trying to figure it out service site and you're trying to figure it out either way. So again, it's just really people that are on the fence about two different CRMs and you kind of get what you pay for, right?

Yeah. To follow up there, actually one piece is, you know, service titan is kind of viewed as a more premium software. It's definitely not cheap. How do you address those who are worried about just that switching costs, not the time and the effort, but really just at the end of the day how much it Costs.

Yeah. I attribute it back to what is it costing you to not have server site. What is it costing you when your CSR is managing three different portals Andy as Angie Lee's networks and loses a call because the inefficiencies of doing that right versus just having it centralized in one spot. The average lead is 300 to $700 depending on what market you're at for a roofing lead. What are you losing by not getting that call or not you know being the fastest one to get a call. What are you losing by having more people in your payroll to manage your production department, your projects versus analyzing all the data?

Yeah. I think a lot of times people don't change until they're it's too painful not to change and they're realizing how much something is costing them. I feel like we are more motivated by the negative sometimes or the pain sometimes than the opportunity or yeah again.

All of the features Dispatch pro there's so many in every department. It's like what are you use losing by not having service time Dispatch Pro by making the right decision of what salesperson put on that if you make the wrong decision how much money did you lose? You could lose 30,000 on one roof. The data is where it's at for to drive your machine and if you don't have the data to make those right decisions, you're losing money every day.

Yeah. If all your data is on pieces of paper and none of them talk to each other and no one knows where any of them are and how do you update them or save them. It sounds like a mess. Another note you mentioned and kind of just glossed over really quick. But I want to go over it seems really important you said private equity. They don't want to acquire any companies that are not on service titan.

That's the feedback we've gotten is because we all know how long it takes to get set up on a CRM and the time and the value and time is money and there's valuable resources and they don't want to buy a headache. And so when you don't have a CRM or your CRM is messy they can't during the due diligence they can't even look at the proper data without having a good CRM in place. And again they don't know they want a machine. They're buying machine that's going to run itself right and have those marketing dollars and report it and know what their next move is.

What kind of owners are good fits for that kind of Build and sell model versus those who maybe don't want to do that.

So the partners that we look for is Lance's huge on being like a family man, being a loyal family man, having the drive. Right? We're all on a mission. If you ever come into the LB Capital office, you can tell that we're all on a mission here. We're all the same driving force. And how Lance takes care of on that is that he gives. All the partners obviously have 50% equity in the company and then within the teams, in a leadership team, he does profit sharing with them so that we're all rolling the same direction. Each department gets commission, so there's incentives in every department to make sure that this bus is moving forward. We have free shop tours at LB Capital, which is located here in Bristol, Pennsylvania. That's the first Wednesday of every month. We also have quarterly masterminds. So we just wrapped up our two day first quarter one yesterday. Had some amazing speakers. JT Fox, an Eagles leader in here. And then our leadership team helps you. It's more of an intimate study than our annual conference. Bring your PNLs, your marketing logins. We'll dive into them and say, hey, here's how private equity wants their P and L structure. They can pick my brain for anything. Service, site and operations. They have our production team here, our canvassing team, every team sales leader. So we kind of go through, help them build out so they can go back and execute. And then we have our annual roofing process conference every December. Marco Island.

Oh, yes, I remember that one. It just passed a month ago.

All of those can be found on LB Capital website. The next mastermind is April. I think it's close to being sold out. And then the briefing conference tickets just went live like two days ago for December. Marco Island. So no coaching groups yet, but most of the people come in for that free shop tour and that's just a half day. And they're like, man, I want more. So then they come back for the masterminds for more in depth. That's two days.

Perfect. Yeah. LB Capital, check out the website. Sounds like tickets are selling fast. And so I'll put the, put a link in the description so you all can access that and get in touch with you all. We appreciate just how generous you are with your time and thanks again for coming on the show.

All right, thank you so much, Josh.