137. Being Radically Intentional | Sherri Miles-Foley

if you're so bogged down in the day-to-day of the business, of getting, of running around town, getting supplies and making sure every, everybody's, you know, tied off and making sure there's gas, whatever it is, you can't do that big picture thinking. And so with that, you can't, I don't believe you can grow like you want to, whether that's in volume or whether that's in profit margin, whatever it means to you, you you have to work on your business at a global scale.

This is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast brought to you by G4 Marketing. Interviews with today's top home improvement entrepreneurs about marketing, sales, money, mindset, and lifestyle. Now here's your host, Brian Kaskavalciyan. Hello everybody, and welcome to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan. Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group. And today I have with me Sherri Miles Foley from Miles Roofing out of Virginia. Welcome, Sherri. Thanks for being here.

Hey, thank you so much.

So we met— actually, Addie met Sherri first a few weeks ago at the National Women in Roofing Conference. And then I got to chat with you for a couple of minutes after that. We bumped into each other after the event, and she is very, very cool, runs a very successful roofing company in Virginia that's been around for a really, really long time, by the way, which is fascinating. So we'll dig into that a little bit. And she does a lot. So I'm gonna stop talking and let her give us a little bit of her backstory, and then we are going to dig in and ask her some questions about her company and how she does it all.

Sure.

Sherri.

Hey, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. I, like you said, I am a fourth-generation roofing contractor. My great-grandfather started our company in 1910, And so we're 111 years old. My path was not, you know, straight into the company. I, after graduation, I worked up in DC for a law firm, was at this pivotal point in my life. And my dad said, why don't you come home and figure it out and work for a little bit, save some money. My grandfather was ill at the time. My grandmother needed my help. My dad needed my help. And I came home and worked in the company. I had worked there during summers as a younger teenager, but, you know, that was my, my first experience in the company. I was an American Studies and Theology major, had no idea what I was doing in the business world. And in a roofing company and construction did not go well at first. I will say my dad was very wise and sent me away. He said, why don't you figure out if it's here you don't like or the roofing industry in general? So I went and worked for Ellie Schwartz and Son in Macon, Georgia for about 6 months. Similar types of companies. They were a little bit bigger than us. I learned a ton. They put me through an internship, worked in each of their divisions. I came back with a lot more confidence. I like to say, you know, everyone's chip on their shoulder was gone, but it was really my chip. On my shoulder. I just had imposter complex a little bit, and I was young and didn't know what I was doing. Learned a ton. So grateful for my time down there and was able to start implementing some of the things that I knew were possible to grow.

Cool. Now, when you first came into the company, can you give us an idea of— well, first off, let's talk about today. What does the company look like today? How many people do you have? How many jobs do you complete a year?

Well, you know, we have gone through many iterations in my almost 30 years. One of the first things I did, we did as a company when I came back was we split commercial and residential. You know, they just are different profit centers and different clients, you know, different beast, right? So we had not really dabbled in the residential market that much except for some owners that would call us or friends or You know, little old ladies who would say, your grandfather put my roof on. And, you know, is it still under warranty 50 years later? But anyway, we got back into that, to that side. And then through the years brought on different products. So now we do all exteriors of residential, roofing, doors, windows, siding. We install sunrooms and we build some houses every now and then. And we have a separate company that's just our property management division. And we've expanded that from just residential into commercial. So we have the residential roofing, we have the property management, and then we have the commercial roofing, which is JD Miles and Sons. And then through all of that, you know, being a family business, wanting to make my mark and not figuring out how to do that best, the stars aligned. And through a lot of journaling and work on clarity and being really intentional, helped co-found a woman-owned, national woman-owned roofing company that caters to Fortune 500 companies who have diversity mandates in their spend. So just another avenue of work and possibilities, and super excited about that endeavor. We started that right before COVID hit in January 2020, so it's not taken off like we wanted it, but you know what, Again, being very intentional, stepping back, making sure we have all our policies and processes in place so that when we start selling, we're good to go. Nice roundabout way of saying all the things that we're doing right now.

Okay, so on the resident— in the residential business, let's just maybe focus on that. In the residential business, can you give me an idea of like how many people, how many jobs do you do?

So it depends. We are not for everyone. We typically are re-roofing and high, you know, high-income homeowners. We do a few new builds, but it's for very select contractors who we know. We've been burnt too many times, let me tell you. I am not interested in paying to do someone's roof, you know, I'm just not. So we're very selective. We don't have as much volume as we used to. We used to probably do 3 to 4 times the volume in dollars. But it's bigger houses, smaller numbers of quantity, but the quality and the pricing is much greater.

And the net is much, much—

The net is much— Right. I mean, we were, you know, busting it for ridiculously small margins when we just changed, right? We just changed. And we did that with a lot of research and, you know, finding out what our most profitable customers are, who they are. We gave the addresses to a data company and said, find out who they are, what are they like, what do they want. They looked a lot like me and my brother, but they were focused on community and really cared about working with a company who was socially responsible, working with family-owned companies, working with people who had been around, who they see in the grocery store, that kind of thing. So That's what we target when we go to market our services. We find those people in those neighborhoods and we say, we are your people.

It's interesting because the, you know, the first thing you said when I asked you that was we're not for everyone. And in my experience, that is one of the best things that you can say. That is what the most successful and most profitable understand who their customer is. And you couple that with, well, we're in business to make money, as much money as we can. And when you can marry those two ideas together and, and implement, then you get that result of, hey, we have great clients, they love us, and they will pay a boatload of money to work with us.

But it took some time to figure out who we were too, like how we wanted to be. And so we've done a lot of work and we still are working on this, on our mission, vision, and values, and working with all of the people that, that work in my company. What are your specific individual values? What are our family's values? What are our values as a company? And, you know, again, we're not for everybody that, that could potentially work for us either. Like if your values don't fit in with ours, it's not going to be a fit. You're probably going to be best working somewhere else. You're not going to be caring about our clients like we want you to care, right? And that they want you to care. So it's, uh, it's taken some time, but you know, we figured out the sweet spot we are, and we are doing our best to both capture those customers, keep them, retain them, have them be our cheerleaders, have them being our raving fans. And that, you know, our work is done.

And that, that's awesome. There's— there you go, there's another great formula for success. You mentioned mission, vision, and values. Yeah, mission, vision, and values. How did you go about coming up with those, those things?

Yeah, so, you know, I, I've kind of divided my time at work kind of globally into 3 buckets. The first bucket is family business. I'm really interested in helping other business family businesses succeed. I will consult with them. I want to know how we're doing. I find the whole space fascinating. The second bucket is women, and that's— Meta Team has filled that for me. And, and being a woman business owner, it's tremendous. And helping other women entrepreneurs, and not just in the roofing world, but in business owners. And then the third is education, and we'll talk about that piece with my employees. But going back to the family business, So I really wanted to start a family business center in our location, in our region. And through a series of events, we didn't have anything and still working on it, but went up to Richmond, which is about an hour and a half, 2 hours away from here, through Virginia Commonwealth University. They have a family business center and met a consulting group called InnerWill. They were formed from the Luckstone Company, which is a family-owned Stone Company. They have quarries all over Virginia. Anyway, they're very focused on values-based leadership. And so they come and help us with our team, with us individually, as a family, like discern what the values are. We've made our mission to be, if I can get it correct here, we build great people to do extraordinary things. Has nothing to do with roofing, right? Yeah. People to do extraordinary things because our people are what make us money and make them money, right? And keep our customers safe and happy and warm. And then our vision is to keep families and businesses safe and dry. And then we can, we can dial it, you know, drill down some more, but safety is a big value for us, family, community. And there's one more, and I'm sorry, I can't remember. We have some, some banners being made, but you know, when we go to, to hire someone, Okay, does this fit for you? And our customers, does this fit for you? And then we can go from there. We can, we can talk price. We're not going to haggle over price. We're going to talk about the job that we do for you overall and how satisfied you're going to be with that.

Wow, that's really interesting. Very cool. And so family business, women, education, and those— based on those three things, you determined your— well, it helped to determine your mission, your vision, and your values. And then you have a process then for when new people come in and even existing people to see if they're a match. Do you have a process for determining that?

So yes, it is a process in process, as it were. Still formulating what that needs to be. You know, I think a lot of times as contractors And I'm sure many of your guests and your clients say the same thing. When the sun's shining, we got to make hay. And you don't think about the bigger picture items. Well, guess what? We're getting ready to have a little bit of free time because we can't get products like as readily as we need to. So now we have this amazing opportunity. What— let's train our people. Let's bring everybody in and work on the things that we've been saying that we're, we're going to work on for a long time. And We do that a couple of different ways using some modules from NRCA, the TRAC, and onboarding and making sure everybody speaks the same language as far as what's happening on the roof and in the office. And then getting people ProCertified in their different disciplines. It's a continuous process and, and working on the values-based leadership because, you know, from, from the guy who picks up the trash to, you know, my brother and myself and my dad, like we all need to live into those values. Yeah.

It's interesting because when you come up with that mission, vision, values, and, and by the way, to the listener, you could come up with, you can give it your own names. I'm, you know, mission is great. This is what we want to do in the world. Vision, in your case, could be this is where we're going. You know, this is what we accomplish. The values piece is really important because the values piece is really kind of, it goes along with this word that Everybody uses company culture. And company culture really is, who are we as a company? What are our values? What's our personality? You know, who do we want to be out in the world and with each other? And it's kind of interesting because when you have all of those pieces, then it fits back up with the we're not for everyone, right? Because it helps you with your marketing, right? So when you've defined your mission, vision and values. Now you've also got a marketing message that you could take out of that. Is that— am I right?

Absolutely. Because we know our worth. Yeah, we know that we are worth more in the marketplace than others who are just, you know, looking to get— do the cheapest, fastest job. Yeah, we just are. And I really think it gives two things to our employees: a sense of responsibility of what their mission is, to do every day and accountability. And we all desire both, right? Really at our core, want to be held accountable for, and, you know, given props for what we do right. So anyway, that all ties it in to be better employees and better stewards of what we have here.

So that sounds like a lot of work. So a lot of owners will say, a lot of people will say, well, God, Sheri, that sounds like so much work. I don't have time for all of that. I gotta go. I gotta go make sure I got material. I gotta go make sure my crews are doing what they're doing. I gotta make sure we have work for next week. How do you respond to that?

Give that to your general, your top general. You work on the business and not in the business.

What if I don't have a top general?

Then get one.

What if I can't afford them?

If you can't afford them, you'll have to, to grow to get one. It's really, it's so super important. It really is. Then take your lead guy because you're going to do— you're, you're helping develop that next, next in line too. Right? So if you've got a great foreman and they're hesitant or whatever, you, you know, you start developing them to think bigger term, like think all of the different projects, not just the one that they're on and help groom them and develop their skills.

Yeah. That's, that's interesting. I like how you refer to it as your general. And everybody, you're absolutely right, you need to go get that person because that person is then going to free you up so you don't have to be there 24/7. And then it'll allow you to go, like you said, work on your business rather than in your business. But, and by the way, what does that mean to you?

So I used to think like doing equals being good or great, you know, like not just being.

Me too.

Right? And it's really hard to get past that mindset. And so it's okay to just be, to just think. And so during COVID I think it's been a huge blessing to make me slow down. I've seen it in others as well, where we have done some amazing, we have visualized and intentionally manifested. I know those are crazy hippie dippy words, but seriously, by writing down our goals, and are being grateful. We start with being grateful every day. What are we grateful for? And sometimes literally it's this pen. Like, that's the only thing I can think to be grateful for if I'm having a bad day. Oh yeah. You know, I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful that I have a house. I'm great. All of those things. And then you start thinking about, let's dream. Let's talk about what we want. Where do we wanna be? Very specific goals. I wanna be a $10 million company. I wanna be a $50 million company, whatever it is. And then how are you going to get there? What do you need to put in place? I need a general. I need a superintendent. I need somebody who speaks Spanish and can get our troops together. I need a new CFO. And like literally keep writing it down. Be more as exact as you can. My brother and I call it being radically intentional. And they show up. I mean, It's really cool stuff. But if you're so bogged down in the day-to-day of the business of getting, of running around town and getting supplies and making sure every, everybody's tied off and making sure there's gas, whatever it is, you can't do that big picture thinking. And so with that, you can't, I don't believe you can grow like you want to, whether that's in volume or whether that's in profit margin. Whatever it means to you, you have to work on your business and at a global scale.

So as I'm listening to you talk, it is so cool to hear you talk in the terms of— so I talk a lot about mindset over skill set. We were talking about the Seven Secrets book before we, before we turned on the recording. And I said that this is— it's kind of like a mental framework. And people don't realize how much of the work is mental. And it's so interesting that just in that one, a few sentences that you put together where you started with grateful, how you hit secret 1, 5, and you hit 6. So 1 is clarity, being very clear and intentional about what you want. I love that you called it Radically intentional. The better you know, and the clearer you are about what they want, you said they show up.

Yeah.

But they don't magically show up.

Right.

You know, and so you used a few words, manifest, that people will think, oh, it's, that's out there a little bit. And when I talk about mindset, I say that to people. I said, yeah, it can sound a little bit like that, but You know, I've been at this for years and I don't know how else to say it. I mean, the crap actually, like, that's how it kind of works. Then you talked about, you know, freeing up your time to be able to work on your business, not in your business. That's secret 5, taking control of your time. And then again, with the mindset stuff about gratitude and, and belief, and that's secret number 6, which is You know, wealthy contractor controls their, their, their mind. And I love how you said that because it's harder. I've had many other guests that I have tried to get to say these things, or maybe admit these things, but it's difficult for a lot of people to even understand maybe what they're doing. But I love how you, how you put that out there. That's, that's Fantastic. But that— yeah, so much of success is wrapped in that, isn't it?

Right. And I think your joy and your happiness, right? What you think about is what you bring about. And if you're going to think about, you know, all the things that could potentially happen that go wrong, that's what's going to happen, and that's what your mind's going to go to. If you think about all the joys and riches in life and success that you're going to have, that's where you're going to go to. You know, I, I've I do a lot of yoga work. And so I've been doing this for a while. And it's taken me a while to get to this point where I can talk freely about it, because I really believe it.

Me too.

Yeah. If you, if you think about a yellow car, and you put that in your mind, all of a sudden you start seeing yellow cars. They're already there. You just put it in your mind to think about it. And you notice them, right? So Our minds are amazing. We human beings are just amazing creatures, and we have to harness our power for good, I like to say. And you know what, success is a lot of the work you do with yourself and how you perceive yourself and, and think about yourself. And when I talk about our— I could talk about me personally, but when I talk about our guys and, and the next generation of roofers that are coming up, we have a lot of work to do. First of all, we don't speak about ourselves very well. They don't honor themselves and the work that they do. And if they don't, then their children won't and society won't. And that is a huge problem that we have to overcome. They do really good work. And so my job, I feel, is to make sure that they are living into their purpose-filled life, right? I can do work for myself, but I want to make sure that the people who work for me and with me feel like they are a part of a bigger mission, that they are— what they do matters. And it does. They are keeping people warm and dry, safe and dry, and they're able to provide for their families a wonderful life here in this amazing country. So it's a— sometimes I get pretty emotional about it because It hasn't always been— I have not seen it this bad in a very long time or ever in my career where we have been, whether it's education, you know, the kids that don't go on to college and then so they feel less than, or the kids that don't even graduate high school, they're less than. No, you're not. You are worthy and you have gifts I don't have, right? And that help others with those skills and talents. So anyway, it's, it's a big lift, but We have to do it to be able to address our workforce shortage.

Wow, that was really powerful actually, because you're really right that the, that person has been put down for so long, looked at as a, just a blue collar, just a roofer, just a window installer, whatever.

Right.

Wow, that's really good. Yeah, when you said that, I'm like, oh my God, This is a message that people need to hear. People in the industry need to hear this message. And they need to make their people feel better about themselves so that when they represent themselves out in the community and to their children and to their children's friends and all that, hey, I'm a professional. Yeah, I work on a roof, yes. And you may look at me as the dirty dad or the dirty mom, that's out working on the roof. But you know what? I have a profession, and that's awesome.

Right. And so that leads— goes back to our mission as a company. Our mission, my mission is, you know, we build great people, do extraordinary things, right? This happens to be roofing. People are great. They can do amazing things. You just have to let them believe that they can.

Yeah. Fantastic. So as I look at your bio, so just for everybody that is listening, I am looking at Sherri's bio on her website. You can go to miles-roofing.com and go to the About section, and there's Sherri. How do you do all of this stuff? Junior Achievement, CHKD Health Foundation, Virginia Aquarium, Old Point National Bank Advisory, Builders and Contractors Exchange. You're on the executive board of the National Roofing Contractors Association. You're a past president of the Virginia Association of Roofing Professionals. Sheesh, how do you do all of this stuff?

And I have 4 kids.

And you have 4 kids.

Yeah. You know, my grandmother instilled this upon all of us when we were little: to those who have been given much, much is required. It's a verse from the Bible, and I really believe that I've been given so many gifts and that I'm required to do something with them. When we go back to talk about our customers or our clients, who our focus is, they really care about the community. So I'm— I tell my children, I'm always selling. It's not a heavy sell, but I'm going to make sure that people know that I'm professional. I care about my people. I care about them. And that they will want to use us when they need a roof. You know, you don't need a roof every year, but when they need one, we're going to be there. And we're going to be top of mind because they know what kind of person I am. And, you know, my brother's the same way. He, he has his nonprofits and other work outside of our office that he does. And it was really instilled by my father and our father and our grandparents. That you, you give back, you care, you treat people with respect and dignity, and you know, you're blessed with great riches.

Yeah. So are they involved still in the company, your father and your brother?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my dad is a past president of NRCA back in the early '90s. I can't remember what year. And he still comes in. And then my brother is there every day. And I talked a little bit, I did a little Roofers Coffee Shop podcast yesterday about family businesses. And I did some work at Loyola University in Chicago with their Family Business Center and Next Generation Leadership Institute. And I really encourage other businesses who are family owned or not, but to really get like a 360 and, and, and do the personality test because you really figure out how to best work with people, there was a little bit of strain between my brother and I, and we figured it out. Like, I was coming into work every day and I was like, oh my God, we need to build this building and we should buy this and we should start this company. And, you know, he was like, oh my God, like, from a— drinking from a fire hose. And he's operational and he goes straight to like, how are we going to get all this done? And I'm like, oh no, we're not going to do any of that. I was just thinking about it. I've learned to like chill out, come to him with one thing and talk it through in a civilized manner and manner and stop, you know, stressing him out. Because he really couldn't enunciate why he was getting stressed out when I'd come in the office. But that was fine. So anyway, it's great.

But you're— so you're the— but you're the president of the company?

Yeah, of Miles Roofing. Uh-huh.

Yeah. So everybody kind of works for you?

Well, and he's president of the JD Miles and Sons, but we both work in both companies.

Oh, got it.

Okay. Yeah.

Oh, so you have a division, he's got a division. And kind of, kind of all work together. Got it. Okay. Family business. Everything is everything. It's like me and Addie. Everything is everything.

That's right.

That's right.

Cool.

Well, wow. This has been awesome, Sherri. Thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing. Wow. Any advice, any like last piece of advice for, you know, someone that right now is You know, we're dealing with material backlogs, we're dealing with, you know, people issue and struggling to get work installed and collect money. It's amazing that business is just booming if we had material and if we had people, right? Any advice on how to deal with that, like, emotionally and how to keep it together?

Yeah. So, As we, we talk each other off the ledge daily, like, you know, it's so it's just don't have a bad day altogether. Right. One of my project managers is like, you know, roofing used to be fun. It's not fun today. It's really, today is not a good day because he couldn't get material. He, you know, whatever, all the problems. But if you have somebody, I'm not Pollyanna, but I am very optimistic. And I'm saying, hey, there's some opportunities here we're missing. How can we do things differently? How can we differentiate ourselves? Is there another product line we need, like, that doesn't— isn't affected by the material shortages? Are there new ways to get employees and to retain them and to keep them? Like, we're, we're constantly looking for, for new and better ways to do things. So if you have that mindset of, like, it's, it's not, it's not competitive, but like, I'm going to win at whatever is given me, given to me, like, I'm going to figure out a way out of here with great joy and with tenaciousness. But, you know, stick with it, be committed, be all in, and surround yourself with people who can listen to you and give you grace, right? You know, I think we're, we're the hardest critics on ourselves as business owners, especially, and we feel such pressure to make sure that, you know, everybody gets paid and we're doing well. And we, you We do it, you know, we don't flood a house or we don't flood a building. And there can be great satisfaction and joy in it. And I'd say find all that, find the joy, keep looking for it and find and look for new opportunities and different ways of doing things.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Hey, thank you.

Appreciate you coming on and joining us. Wow. Great episode. This is another one of those that you want to go back and listen to a couple of times because there's a lot of golden nuggets in it. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group, and this is the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. Let me ask you, did it help you look at your business in a different way? Did it spark an idea or ideas that you hadn't thought of before? Do you have a list of action items that you can take and implement into your business or your life today? I really hope so. If it did, I'd like to ask you a favor. Would you leave a 5-star review of the podcast? By doing so, you'll help other contractors find the podcast more easily so that we can help them achieve more success, wealth, and freedom. And before you go, make sure you subscribe to the Wealthy Contractor Podcast so you get access to the latest episodes as soon as they're available. We're always striving to provide you with great content, so you don't want to miss what's coming up. In fact, if you haven't already, make sure you go to thewealthycontractor.com and get your free copy of my latest book, The 7 Secrets to Becoming a Wealthy Contractor. Just pay shipping and handling, and I'll take care of the cost of the book. So until next time, this is Brian Kaskavalciyan.