John Rogers - Ep. 5 - The Wealthy Contractor

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.

Are you one of those home improvement business owners who are convinced they have to put in more hours to make more money? Are you afraid to raise your prices for fear of losing work to your competitors? If you answered yes to these questions, you could be stuck in the same place that many home improvement business owners and entrepreneurs find themselves at some point. To prove that you can successfully be a premium-priced, in-demand service provider, charge the right amount for each job and increase your profits, I've invited my friend and longtime client, John Rogers, owner of Rogers Roofing, to this episode of the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. This is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing, and on this episode, we'll discuss his start in the business with his father nearly 30 years ago and how he's grown that small family business to one of the most respected, in-demand home improvement companies in the Chicagoland area. Today, Rogers Roofing is a full-time staff of over 50 people and completes over 1,000 projects each year. You're gonna love this episode, so listen up. I promise you'll learn a lot from John. So let's get to it.

All right, John, so let's talk about— I want to know kind of where your, where your business started, but before we get into that, let's talk real quickly about where you are today. Tell us a little bit about Rogers Roofing.

Well, you know, today, Brian, we've kind of expanded our line over the years to do, you know, siding, windows, gutters, a lot of the exterior on the house. You know, we service the Chicagoland market, Northwest Indiana. We go into Southwest Michigan. We've got about 50 to 60 full-time field people. We probably complete anywhere from 900 to 1,100 projects a year. Again, in those roofing, siding, windows. Lucky enough to have family working for me. My uncle is my vice president. My aunt is an office manager. I've got some of my— some of the guys have been with me here. My production manager has been with me for 20+ years and have been friends of mine for even longer. So real fortunate in that end, that's for sure. Cool.

And you got that cool new office.

Yeah, yeah, we demolished our old office and we put up a brand new like 3,800 square foot, I'd say modern office where before it was where I probably didn't want customers to come. Well, now we're proud to bring customers here. It is really, it's a palace compared to what it was and, you know, it's a testament to all the hard work and effort that everybody here at Rogers Roofing has put in over the years.

Yeah, that's good. And it's your— I think, you know, one of the important things about, about being in business for yourself is really thinking about the future and thinking about, you know, building wealth for yourself and for your family. And so I think one of the things that, that you've done, and I— and a lot of my clients do, and a lot of, you know, the entrepreneurs do, is they, they own the buildings where their businesses are. And And you own the property, you own the building where you're at? Yes, correct. Yeah.

And how long ago did you, did you move to that location? We purchased this facility back in 1991.

Oh wow, it's been a while.

Yeah, it's been a while. We've been in this location for many years. Before that, we worked out of our house. My dad was Chicago fireman. And, uh, you know, it was me and my dad, my uncle, and he ran everything out of the house.

Yeah. So tell us about— so tell us kind of where, where it started. So you, your dad, and your uncle— how old were you when you got into the business with your dad and your uncle?

I started, uh, cleaning up on my dad's tear-offs. Again, being a fireman where he would work 24 hours and he'd be off 48, The days he was off, he'd go put roofs on for usually other firemen or policemen here in Chicago. And so during the summer, I would labor. And by the time I was 16, you know, my uncle and my dad taught me how to put a roof on, and, you know, I became pretty good at it. And every summer through high school and college, you know, that's what I did. You know, and it was— at the time, it was something that almost taught me, like, well, maybe this is something I really do I don't want to do because this is hard. And by the time I graduated college, I really had every intention of going maybe into banking or some sort of, you know, white-collar job. And you know what I found looking for jobs the time I got out of college? This is 1987. I really found out that, you know, I do like— I like being outside. I like working with my hands. I liked taking something that was really kind of crappy looking in the morning and by the afternoon we'd get done, you know, turn it into something pretty nice. Put a nice roof on somebody's house and working with guys, you know, some of my friends and kind of like teamwork, you know, a lot of teamwork and we'd make things fun on the roof. We'd sing. We'd quiz each other. We would just, you know, we'd race putting shingles on and it was a lot of— it was a good time. Instead of going down that white-collar path, over the years I decided I like working outside and I want to be part of Rogers Roofing and try to expand what my dad had started. That's kind of led us to where we are today.

When did you kind of start to get more involved in the running of the business rather than being out putting on roofs?

You know, it started in probably like the mid-'90s, late '90s, and it really became evident to me when I started going to seminars here in Chicago. And there was a gentleman named Richard Kaler, and Richard Kaler was from Philadelphia, and CertainTeed would hire him to come in and do these conferences, and he would talk about sales or marketing and production. Richard was a visionary. He was a guy that was doing $10 million in business back in the day. He had all these processes. He had all these plans and everything ran like a fine-oiled machine. I was just taken aback by how amazing he sounded. I thought to myself, my goodness, if I can be half the guy that this is, that he is, then, you know, maybe I could get to that point. So Richard started an organization back in the late '90s called Certified Contractors Network, which back in the day was Contractors Network of America. And I was invited to a conference there in Deerfield Beach, and Richard was basically, he was the conference. He was running everything. So instead of having speakers come in, he did the whole thing. There were probably 25 people in the room. At the end of the conference, he asked people to join his network. They were going to have quarterly meetings and we were going to talk about production, sales, administration things. Man, I thought, you know, I have to do this. Well, the problem was at the time my dad was still kind of running the company and taking care of all the bills and things. At the time, I think it was probably like $1,000 to join. It was going to be $250 a month and I'm like, there's just no way I'm going to be able to get this past my dad. He says, are you crazy? So I knew how important it was and so I decided to pay it myself. And because I knew that it was going to take us places that nothing else could. The information I would learn and the people I was going to be around, the like-minded people that wanted to help share their thoughts and all their ideas. They were going to get me to where I wanted to go. So I paid for it myself for about a year, and I finally told my dad. He's kind of seen things were going a little bit better. He said, "Well, maybe this is a good investment, so we'll just have the company pay for it then." So let me ask you something. Best decisions I ever made.

Yeah, so let me ask you something though, because obviously you saw the value in investing in yourself. Yeah, you invested in Richard's program, but really you were investing in yourself. Why do you think, or maybe you know, why do you think your dad would have freaked out at the beginning?

Well, I think, you know, he was just— he was old school, you know. He was, um, it was just, you know, my dad was, uh, you know, the price— what, there wasn't any overhead, there was no profit, there was, you basically just him making some maybe cash on the side that would help his family and help him a little bit. He probably just couldn't understand because he really wasn't a businessman. He was a really good roofer and people liked him and they hired him because of that, but he wasn't a true businessman at that point. I just think that the financial investment, maybe he just couldn't understand it because it was never something he was exposed to.

It's interesting because, you know, in order to make that investment in yourself, you had to believe that there was something bigger, better for you.

Yeah, yes, absolutely.

So you made the investment and You made the investment and you started to go to work on the business. Like you said, in a year there were things that were starting to change. What were some of those things that were starting to change where your dad looked at it and said, "Whoa, wait a minute. Maybe there's something to this"?

I think there was a sales process that you learn through the network. We learned about how to price the job properly and what direct costs are and what your gross profit is. Before that, it was a matter of how we checked our financial stability was what was in the checkbook. And so he started to see that. He started to see that we needed to hire and train crews to go out and do the work and represent our company, what our values are and how we do things. And bring that around, which in turn allowed for us to do more work, to hire a full-time production manager to focus on scheduling jobs and taking care of the customer and setting up the crews and allowing myself and my uncle to go out and sell jobs and show people why we are, what we do and how we do things. We're able to obviously charge a lot more based on the fact that we bring so much more to the table. So just again, being part of that network got the ball rolling and it continues to roll today in terms of investing in yourself. You can't put a price on that. It's the things that you learn and you invest in that get you to where you want to go. And that's what it's been for, you know, 20-plus years for me.

Well, and, and, you know, and I know that you still do that because what, what I found, what I found very interesting and surprising— I'll kind of go, I'll take people into kind of a behind-the-scenes moment here— but last year, I think, or no, the year before, 2015, I think it was, I did an event with a very successful roofer in the Tampa Bay area. We promoted the event, and of course I promoted it to my clients. Just in full disclosure, John and I— John's been a client of G-Force for, I don't know, 5, 6 years, and we've become friends over the years. One of the last people I expected to show up was John, just because— This is a smart guy that runs a really, really good business, and this was not a cheap event. And sure enough, John ends up on the list. He comes to the event, and I was a little shocked. I think I even asked him, I said, well, why are you coming? You know, why are you coming? He says, well, because, you know, there's something to learn. There's something to learn from these people. So this is not something that has stopped With your success, this is something that continues, and I think that's really important.

I do too. I think it's so important. It's one of the most important things because when you start thinking that you know it all and you got it all figured out, boy, you're going to usually get a pretty good slap in the face from that. And when I can be around guys, really it's just being around Good, smart people that take care of their customers. They take care of their employees. You know, they do things the right way. And listen, we don't do, you know, we don't do everything right. Nobody does. But if I could pick up, if I could pick up just a few things from Ari and his children who are part of the business and are wonderful people, his wife, and they opened the doors to their business and we took a tour and we seen their processes and they said just take any piece of literature you want. "and duplicate it, whatever you want." I mean, how special and wonderful is that? When people like that who are very successful, they're opening their doors and they want to share everything because they want to see you be successful.

Well, and the thing with that too is that you have to get your ego out of the way. In order for you to be able to acknowledge that and say, hey, there is something for me to learn. The most successful guys that I know, guys and ladies, put their egos aside and say, no matter how much I think I know, there's others that know stuff I don't. And they're always going and always looking for That's, you know, that next thing, that something. What else can I learn? How can I be better? Yeah, you know, and that's one of the things— I mean, quite frankly, I mean, that's one of the things that I want to do with this, with all of the things that we're doing with the Wealthy Contractors, not only bring smart people like you and inspiring stories like yours, but, you know, it's like, how can we constantly be getting better? You know, one of the things that I want to ask you about it, and it's— this is a big issue, and I know it has not been an issue for you for a very, very long time, and that is the issue of price and getting the right price for the job so that it creates a real business rather than just— like you were saying, your dad would go out and he would just want it to make enough money to just some extra money. But when you started looking at the business, you started looking at it in a very different way. Can you talk a little bit about how you made that decision that, hey, we're not— we're going to price stuff the right way so that we make the right money in order to build this business the right way.

Well, that, that kind of process kind of started for me back in, in 2000, and I was at a Certified Contractors Network conference in San Diego, and I was I didn't bring any of my team members with. It was just me. And I listened to a person who recently did a podcast, you know, Charlie Gindel, who both you and I have a tremendous amount of respect for. And I listened to Charlie talk about, you know, empowering his employees and being an open book company, talking about, you know, how well the company is doing. And some months, you know, maybe it's not doing so well. And this is our goals. And this is my plan. Here's my vision for the company. Here's my vision for my employees. And it really, it opened my eyes to the possibility of just how great is it when you get your employees to see your vision and you tell them your vision. You get them to buy into it. And really what's more important is telling them what's in it for them. 'Cause that's what they want. They want to know what's in it for them. And so who wouldn't want to work for a company like that? And the other thing was there was a financial mastermind group led by a gentleman named Tom Capizzi, again, a guy I have tremendous respect for. And Tom would talk about things like gross profit, direct costs, and how to price jobs to get what you need to cover your costs and also make a profit. And like what I said before is that we used to look at the checkbook and say, "How much is in our checking account?" So basically what I did is on the way home with all this information, as I'm flying back to Chicago, going through my head, I pull out my laptop and I wrote myself a letter. And it was a letter saying that this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go home and I'm going to raise the prices. I'm going to double my salary because I'm not making what I should be making at this point. We're going to do it and we're going to provide all this training and everything for our salespeople and it's going to work. It was almost like they say we're going to burn the boats. Well, we burned the boats. We raised the prices probably almost 30 or 40%, which was absurd at the time for people in my company. But you know what? It worked because they bought into it. So it's been a good run.

Now let me ask you something. You raised prices 30-40%. Did you give your customers more value?

Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to. You know, I mean, you've got to bring more to the table if you're going to be, you know, sometimes double the price of what some other contractors are. You have to bring more value to the table, of course.

The reason I asked you that, and it's kind of a trick question, right? Because I knew the way you would answer it. But a lot of people will think that, a lot of people in business, it's such an emotional topic. And when I do the presentations and we talk about price, I do my best to take it from an emotional argument to a logical argument. And the first thing you've got to do is recognize that you're not really going to lose a whole lot of jobs. By raising your price. But I think the other thing that's really critical and really important is that it allows you to provide your customer with the experience that they deserve and expect. Right? So you guys right now, Rogers Roofing, is not— I mean, you're way up there, right? I mean, you're one of the— if you're going in a house and they're looking at you and a couple other people, You're going to be the most expensive, if not pretty damn close, right? We are. We absolutely are. Now, here's the interesting thing though, and we had this same conversation with Ari. It's like, and when we were there, it was funny, when we were there, when we were doing that, they were backed up for 6 weeks. They had however many salespeople they have, a bunch. They were backed up for 6 weeks. And it's common knowledge in that market that they are the most expensive company to do business with. And yet people were backed up for 6 weeks. And that blows a lot of people's minds because they really think it's all about the price, but it's not. It's about the value that the company provides.

Well, and I'll share a quick story with you. It's a Richard Kehler story. Many years ago, Richard and I were on a call and he said to me, "So how busy are you?" I said, "Oh my gosh, we've probably got 8 weeks' worth of work sitting right now." He's like, "8 weeks. You're not charging enough money." I said, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "Just listen to me now." I said, "Okay, Richard. What's that?" "If you raise your price 10%, are you going to lose some jobs?" "Oh, yeah. Of course we probably would." "I mean, so, okay, you got 6 weeks' worth of work. Okay, now let's say you raise it another 10%. Will you lose some more jobs?" "Well, probably. I'm 20% more than everybody else." Okay, so now you're 4 weeks out. John, you see where I'm going with this? You're gonna, you're gonna make more and you're gonna work less, right? I'm like, wow, what a great philosophy.

And have a lot less liability.

Yeah, a lot less liability. And you know, how about the other thing of just being able to really focus on the customer experience because you're, you're not chasing to get done and get to the next job.

Yeah, yeah, you're actually— by pricing jobs low, you're actually doing a disservice to your customer.

Sure.

Because you can't provide them— because, you know, in the business you're in, in the roofing business— well, in any home improvement, and really any business— in a home improvement business, in order to be the lowest price, you got to cut something from somewhere. Sure. Right? So you got to cut something from somewhere. Well, who's getting impacted by that? You're essentially ripping off the customer just so that you can get the job so you don't make any money. Right? So you turn money.

Right. Yeah.

And it's such a bad philosophy, but so many people have such an emotional reaction to it. And it's really like, how do you do it? I mean, how do you prepare your head to do that? For the people that are listening that know they're not charging enough, that want to charge more, that aren't making the profit, How do you do it?

Well, I mean, you know, for me it's, it's, it's, it's not about, you know, it's not about the price. It's showing the customer the value in what we bring to the table and what type of experience that we're going to give them from the time the job starts to the job, the time's finished, that we're always going to be there to service them, take care of them, but more importantly We're going to give them a great experience. If you believe that in your mind before price, because price shouldn't even matter, they're buying you. That's right. They like you, they trust you, and they know that you're going to do the best job. Listen, survey and data and all these things show that most people don't look at price as being the number one reason why they choose a contractor. They look at value. They look at what they bring to the table.

That's what it boils down to.

Listen, we're not going to get every job, and we know that. That's okay. We're good with it. I'd rather get 40% of our opportunities at my price than get 70% and be down with everybody else.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. I believe the same thing. Do less work at the right price, make your profit, make the right profit. I think a lot of business owners either forget or they don't realize that there's a formula to profit. The whole reason why we're doing this is the business has to exist in order to make a profit. What you do with the money is up to you, but if you're going to have a business, the thing's got to be profitable. It's got to make money.

Well, it has to be profitable. And just think about things that you can do, you know, for your most important asset to your employees.

Your employees, yeah.

You can provide them with, with health insurance, with paid vacations, with very, very competitive, you know, rates and compensation. And then you're able to attract the best people, you're able to keep the best people, which in turn, they're going to be your ambassadors. So if we're looking for installers, salespeople, production managers. If you're taking care of your employees and your people, don't you think that they're gonna go out and spread the good word? It's like, hey, if you're gonna do this, you're gonna be a roofer, you're gonna be a siding guy, you're gonna be, you know, a production manager, sales rep— this is the company you want to work for. You want it. You want to be part of this. And you can only do that by getting the right price.

Yeah, well, that is That's awesome, John. So, um, we're, uh, you know, we're getting close to the, to the end of this episode of, uh, the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. And, and thank you for, for being on. I know, you know, one of the things that I really wanted to ask you about, maybe we could, we can kind of wrap up with this in the, in the last couple minutes here, is Working with family. Now I know that some years ago you, you actually purchased the company from your father.

Correct. Yeah.

How long has that been?

9 years now. 9 years. Okay.

And so, but here's, here's the, the thing. He's got, for those of you listening, his Uncle Ed works for him who's an awesome guy. Everybody loves Ed. And then his Aunt Terry who runs the office. And she's a fantastic— I mean, these are fantastic people. But the thing that blows me away is I'm trying to picture like having my aunt and uncle work with me and like me being the boss. And it's like, how do you pull that off? And your son works with you. I mean, I guess we can understand that a little bit.

Bit more.

But how is that working with your family, with your aunt and uncle?

I mean, you know, I think it's challenging at points, you know, and there are very few points only because sometimes, you know, you almost revert back to my uncle being, you know, my uncle and, you know, he's 10, 12 years older than me. I guess, you know, just kind of like the respect. You know, I have such tremendous respect for him and Terry both. Sometimes it can be hard because it's harder to maybe ask them or tell them to do something because they are my aunt and uncle. But here's the other, I think even, but this is the better thing, is that it's trust, it's family, and you can always depend on trust and family. So I can be gone for 2 weeks. I can be gone for 3 weeks and I know the company is just going to basically run by itself because with Terry and Ed and my other key employees, they take care of the customer. They take care of things. They do their job and they do it so well. I don't have to be there every single day to micromanage. I can go do things that maybe I like to do.

That's awesome. Ultimately, look, I mean when we talk about wealthy contractor. For me, you know, everybody associates wealthy with money, but that's, that's only part of it. There's also time, freedom. You know, you get to— if you want to leave the office today or you want to be gone for a couple of weeks, you have to have the ability to do that. That's part of the reason why we go into business. You know, in relationship, you know, who you hang out with and who you do work with and who you do work for. And, you know, we talk a lot about that— and time, money, relationship. And, and, and so being the wealthy contractor To me, it's really all about having the ability to have the freedom of time and money and who you hang out with and, and all of that. And, and so I'm very grateful for you for sharing your story. And I think I'm pretty certain those listening will get a lot of value out of, out of, out of the story. I hope so. I will say to everybody, if If you are listening to these podcasts, please subscribe to the podcast so that every new one, you'll just automatically end up in your podcast feed wherever that is. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes for the Wealthy Contractor Podcast. And this is Brian Kaskavalciyan with G4 Marketing Group and the Wealthy Contractor. Thank you for joining us on this episode. With my good friend John Rogers, and we will see you next time. Thank you, John.

Thank you.