Summer Impact Series: A Vehicle for Generosity with Dos Roussow

Hey, everybody, it is Jim Johnson here, your host with Contractor Radio and the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro, where we help contractors get control of their business so they can grow their business and find that personal and financial freedom that they were chasing in their business. And so I wanted to do something special for the summer. And so this summer what I'm doing is I'm putting together a series of podcasts from the contractor contractors that are out there doing special things, doing something unique, different, that I believe would be helpful to you, either from a business perspective or from a human perspective, or maybe even both. My guest today is an amazing human being. I've gotten to know him over the last few years. They are one of our clients. But more than that, he's in a. In a small group with me. He's been a strong influence on me. I've liked to, I like helping him do what he does and I cannot wait to bring him in. But before we do that, we gotta keep the lights on around here and all that good, fun stuff. Here's a little word from our amazing Premier Atlas.

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Hey, everybody, welcome back. A little word from Atlas there. If you guys are in the roofing industry out there and you haven't checked out Atlas Atlas yet, get with your local rep. They have brought some new innovation to the game this year that will give you a proprietary advantage out there in the field. Worth you checking them out for sure. Now, today we're going to be talking, like I said, with a contractor that means a lot to me. One of those guys that is just more than a client. He's a great human being. And welcome to the show. Das Russo. How are you, man?

Thank you, Jim. I'm doing well. It's my honor to be with you.

Yeah. You are the founder of Clean Cut Roofing there in Tyler, Texas, Longview, Texas. Right. Like that's all kind of one city. Tyler, Longview, Kilgore, all that. Like the. If people don't know that are outside of Texas, that's where oil was a big thing. Like, it was originally discovered, I believe in southeast Texas. But Kilgore was like the central mecca for it. And so there's a lot of oil guys around there. Still a heavy influence on the, on the area, right, Das?

Very much so, yeah. When oil prices are high, we tend.

To do better around here. Everybody needs a new roof. It's perfect. So, Das, can you do us a favor? Just give us a little background. You've been running businesses here in the States for quite a while. But, like, tell us the story. Like, how did you get here to the States in the first place? And then why Texas?

Yeah. So I was born and lived my first 20 years of life in South Africa. My parents still live there, my siblings still live there. But after I finished high school and then finished my service in the military, we were. It was mandatory at that time. Two years. I. I came to the U.S. for an adventure, and I was 20 years old. And believe it or not, I'm still on that adventure today. So, yeah, you're only supposed to be.

There a year, right?

Yeah, one year. And turned into, you know, 35 later. But, yeah, the U.S. has been. This country has been extremely good to me. And I, I had no.

I decided to start vibrating, which. I'm going to take that thing off and we're just going to throw it across the room like that.

You're out of here. So, yeah, I lived in. In Connecticut my first 10 years, which is like a whole nother country, really. You know, if any of you guys have ever lived in the north or Northeast, more specifically, it's a very different culture. And for me, when I moved to Texas 10 years later in 1997, it was like, yes, I was still in the U.S. but it was coming to a different country altogether, really. And from then on, I always told my friends or anybody that would ask me, you know, do you like Connecticut or Texas better? I said, man, there's no comparison. Just come south. Don't venture up to the north unless you like growing hair on your teeth or something. You know, it's a rough place to start out, you know, But I used.

To like Connecticut listeners.

Sorry, if you live up there and you're doing well, more power to you. But, man, it was rough coming from Africa to, you know, New York, Connecticut. That was difficult. But, yeah, it caused me to have to grow up fast. And then yeah, I'm thankful I'm in Texas and thankful for, you know, the business that we have, the businesses we have, and the family and the friends. And this last year has been especially great because, you know, I was introduced to you and your work probably three, four, five years ago. But I'm thankful you guys have added a lot to my perception and my vision and moving forward. I treasure that relationship. So yeah, here we are, both of us in Texas. Are you allowed to tell people you live in Texas?

Yes, I am. I'm born and raised here. I grew up in north side of Houston, Texas. Then I met a girl from Wisconsin who tricked me into moving to Wisconsin. She took me up there in July and said, hey, this is Wisconsin green, beautiful, rolling hills, rivers everywhere. I'm like, what kind of fish you got in the rivers? And there's trout, which is my favorite thing in the world, fly fishing. I'm like, I could live here. This is beautiful. I love the pace and everything. I love the people. It was awesome. And so we decided to move. We moved up on December 1, her birthday. It was six degrees outside. I had never ever been anywhere where it was a single digit temperature in my life. Up until that point. The lowest I had ever seen was 90 degrees. And I was like, this is not a temperature. This is a score in a baseball game. This is not good. I don't know if I want to do this. Three weeks later it was 44 degrees below zero. Actual temperature, not wind chill or any of that kind of stuff. Actual temperature. I can remember coming downstairs because we were staying with my in laws and I go, it's cold outside. He goes, yeah, it's pretty cold. I said, what's temperature? He goes, negative 44. I go, that's no, that, that's wrong. Why does anybody live here? This is terrible. How do you even do I freeze to death if I just walk outside? Am I like a statue? He's like, no, no, it doesn't work like that because hasn't been this cold in 50 years. You got it out in the very first year. Like you're good from this point forward. So two years later, it's wintertime again. I walk down the stairs at my house now and I look at the thermometer that has the like indoor outdoor thing because you don't want to be outside actually looking at a thermometer.

Yeah.

And it was negative 55, 5:30 in the morning. I called him and I said, you're a damn liar. Like again, that thing happened and so that, that's my, that's my story about being in Wisconsin. I was there 18 years. The I can remember being out in March and shoveling snow over my head off of the driveway. And I walked inside and went, honey, I'm done. I did 18 years. I can't do this anymore. I gotta get back where there's sun, grass, you know, songbirds and stuff like that. We can come visit the snow, but we gotta get out of here. So move back to Texas. Ten years ago back to Houston, went, holy cow, I forgot how hot and sweaty it is here. I don't like that either. And so we were going to move to Colorado and we went, wait, that's too far from the kids. There's going to be grandkids. So we will stay close, we'll just go west, see a cactus. And we found that in New Braunfels, Texas, much drier, much better. And then my oldest daughter decides to up and move to Colorado and take my grandkid there. So now we go to Colorado all the time anyway. So I know they had nothing to do about rooting. But a good story about our Texas experience. Now Das, you started your own business in Connecticut, is that correct?

I was self employed, you know, like solopreneur type deal.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just what'd you do?

Yeah, you know, when I first came to the US as many immigrants, you know, you don't have too many choices. Well, one of the choices is construction. Right. And so I was always happy and able to work with my hands. And so I got right, right into construction, did handyman work for probably six months or so until it led me into more complex work, remodeling and quickly built up, you know, a little clientele and when I needed help, I'd hire temporary help. And that's what I did for, for quite a while until I discovered roofing. And now did you discover that in.

Connecticut or down here in Connecticut?

In Connecticut, what happened is I had a deck to build for somebody and under that deck there had to be a flat roof. It was over a room. So I had to figure out how to do that. Couldn't find any contractor to do that. And, and so I just learned, you know, I went to the roofing supply place and they were kind enough to walk me through the steps of doing a torch down roof. And I discovered that there just wasn't too many guys doing, you know, able skill to do that. And so I learned and, and I began to move in that direction and made that A niche for me. But I still. I still didn't want to pursue a business structure big because I was also very involved in the ministry. And so I split my time between doing ministry work and working enough to provide for my family. And it was a good living. Coming to Texas. Ten years, you know, into my United States experience, my family grew, you know, and when your family grows, your needs grow. And so in 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that. By the way, they say when your kids move out, you know, you all like empty nester, and then it'll cost you less. That's not true. That's not true.

No big lie. Used to be that way. Not that way anymore.

No, it's not that way at all. But anyway, so coming to Texas, family grows and so forth, and. And 2005, I said, you know what? I need to develop this thing. And had some guys that I had known up in Connecticut that skilled. I landed a couple of large apartment jobs, flat roofs and said, hey, why don't you guys come down here and help me with this project? Which they did. And that was early 2008, I believe. You know, crash had just happened and so up in that area.

Yeah. Wow.

There was nothing for them. And so these guys just moved their families down here, and we started the company Clean cut and. Yeah, and the rest is kind of history.

Tell me. Tell me about that a little bit. So you started the company in 2008?

Well, 2005, officially, with name and registration and all of that. But 2008, you know, at the bottom of the economy, is when I decided, okay, I'm gonna hire permanent employees, which was kind of different. And it's still different today. You know, guys who will work for me as technicians, and I'll keep them busy. They called me their agent, and they were the guys who got it done. You know, I still did the physical work sometimes when needed, but that's how we started. And from there, you know, I hired more, I built the crew, and from there, you know, hired a salesman probably about a year later, really first administrative. That was a huge step for me to hire somebody that would do my work. But, yeah, from there, it just grew.

So I have a question about that.

Yeah, yeah.

So your labor, that's one thing, right? Like, you know, that work, you're. You're. You're doing that work, your skill set sounds to me, especially if they called you their agent, you were the guy that procured the work. You were the one that was able to go out and meet clients, convince them that you Were the. Or persuade them that you were the. The right choice for them. And. And so that was how it went. And probably stayed that way for a little while, I would imagine.

Yep.

And then you went, okay, let's see if I can get somebody to do what I'm doing. Is that your first step of really having somebody outside of crew working for you?

No, my first hire was an office lady, kind of an admin that did my books.

Yes.

And I had this one room office. You know, it was kind of strange in a way. It was a room and I still actually rent this particular property as well. It's so strange. If I could show you on camera, your whole audience would be laughing. But it was this one room and it had a bathroom in the middle. And my desk was on this side and Maria's desk was on the other side. And then, you know, it was just strange, you know, I mean, she was like, I'm going down the road to get me a coffee, but she really was going to the bathroom. You know, she would wait till I leave, you know. Yeah.

Uncomfortable situation right there.

Yeah. But it was a really small office, so. But yeah, that was my first hire. The second hire then was. Was a salesman that. Yeah, I mean, I was just. I think I just read the book. Good to Great was one of the first business books I read. And from there it was just learning, you know.

So that's kind of the thing like this. Back in the day, there wasn't anybody that coached or did any of that kind of stuff. So you kind of just learn and it's a little bit of guesswork. Do I hire the admin person first or do I hire a salesperson that I can afford? The admin type of situation, we tend to, like, coach that. It has everything to do with your skill set. Like, if you are a salesperson, hire your admin first. If you're more an administrative person, then hire your salesperson first. It really has a lot to do with that would hire your weakness.

Right, I agree.

What made you decide that? You were like, was it that book Good to Great? You read the book and went, okay, I'm going to go ahead and scale this thing up and like make a real business out of this. Because there's so many contractors out there. I mean, so many. We've actually been doing a bit of a study on this. And 10% of contractors are over a million dollars. So 90% are less than a million dollars.

Really?

Well, but of those 90%, 90% of them. So 80% of the overall are under $200,000 a year in revenue. And a lot of that is because of those first decisions. Like what do I do to take my first step? Do I hire an admin? Do I hire a salesperson? Do I have the crew? Can I procure the work? There's all these first decisions. And a lot of times we make those decisions. We bring a bunch of extra stuff on us. Now we're out of time. How did you manage that? Struggle?

Yeah. You know, as far as books that I read, I'm thankful I read that book. I don't know how I came upon it. Somebody must have recommended. And then from there I read the book Traction. And that book helped me a lot because I decided I wanted to run my business in a certain way. You know, I want to have some structure to our business and just, you know, discovering. Yes, a business is about sales. You know, a business is about production and a business is about finances. Just laying those foundations was very important. So then I realized, well, if it's about those three things, I've got the production down, I've got the sales, you know, as much as I can do. But on the financial side and the admin side, I realized that's where the. That's where I need good support. And so that's what I did. I hired a bookkeeper person that would answer the phone when they're in the office. But it was part time. Right. And then just increased their time, became a full time position. And then the salesperson. And then, you know, today we have five ladies and you know, it could have been men, but we have five ladies that handle phones and admin work. And really that's a huge backbone for our business.

Yeah, I think a lot of people underestimate the value of that. And the way you approach is like, okay, part time first, because that's all I can afford, probably. But because of that time that you now gain to go out and procure more work, you got more work, you needed more admin help, more financial help. And so that turned it into a full time job for them. Yeah, I wish more contractors follow that path. Like, okay, that's the thing that frees me up, the thing I'm not good at.

Yeah. I also decided, you know, I'll put my trust in a cba, I'll hire a cpa, and that'll be my CPA from now on. And that's the person that stole my cpa. And I don't always like, I don't always like what they tell me, you know, or how they handle things. But it's kept me, you know, I'm not worried about getting audited or anything like that. I've done my best.

It's a good check and balance. Whenever we throw all of our eggs in one basket, like, hey, I've got a bookkeeper. So my bookkeeper is going to do the thing for me. They're going to take care of my finances, run my QuickBooks, do all of that. If they don't have some kind of check and balance, you open up opportunity for all kinds of not great things to happen. You could get an audit and she's not doing it correctly. You open up this trust factor thing, like, is she doing things the right way with my books? I actually went through it. I had a person that I trusted as my bookkeeper, slash cpa and she ended up procuring a few dollars from us, let's just put it that way. And so having that balance of that CPA to keep you grounded financially and smart about your money, but also keeping your bookkeeping, a check and balance on that probably gave you a little bit of peace of mind.

Yeah, definitely. You know, definitely. There was always this, well, everything is getting checked by the cpa. I mean, the CPA is the one that double checks everything we do and takes full responsibility. So, you know, again, as much as that, in my very early years, I didn't do that. You know, I remember going a couple of years one time without a bookkeeper, without a. And this being self employed, you know, but my making good money and then all of a sudden discovering, oh, no, I owe the IRS a lot of money and that was not a good. I never want to have that feeling again, you know, that, that was not good.

So keep. Yeah, I can remember that one too.

Oh my God.

That check I got to write to the IRS is bigger than my wife's whole year. I remember her saying that, like, that's more than I make in a year and you gotta write a check for that. I go, yeah. And that like taps me, like, we gotta start over and figure this out. That was when I went o CPAs and all that other good stuff too. What was, what was the biggest challenge with bringing on a salesperson?

For me, it was, will I be able to, you know, this was a guy with a family, right? He just got married and it was and still is for me. Anytime I hire somebody, the challenge for me is, okay, I'm. They're putting their life in my hands and will I give them the opportunity to succeed and can Somebody actually succeed at this. Really? Back then, the model wasn't so well known. Right. We didn't know that a Salesman can make 100 grand in a year. So here you are thinking, oh, my goodness, this guy is going from a job where he knows his income. And here I just offered him a job, and I don't even know how I came upon it, but I decided he'll be paid commission. I think I gave him a small base, but it was mostly commission. And he said, yes, I want to do it. And I'm like, oh, man, he wants to do it.

He found the right guy. It sounds like he was hungry.

Yeah. And, you know, I very specifically remember, soon after he started with me, I took a trip with my family to South Africa to visit my parents. And I was so concerned. I'm in South Africa, he's over here. He's supposed to sell a few jobs while I'm gone. And, you know, well, it happened. You know, back then, communication wasn't so smooth as it is today as far.

As getting on, you know, text back and forth between South Africa and Texas.

Not those days. Those days, you probably paid $5 a text. Now it's $5 a day, I think, for everything. But communication was. Was more of a challenge. But, yeah, I remember, you know, me and my dad having some talks about that. You know, that was really. I considered my first high risk move in business. Everything else I had covered. But hiring a salesman for me was a big step because I felt like he needs to make good money and can I, you know, what did you.

Do to ensure that. That he made it or did he? I guess that's a.

He did.

He did. Okay, good.

He very much did. You know, what did I do to ensure that? I'd say, as I would say today, you know, when a salesman comes to work for us, he doesn't have to. He doesn't have to apologize for our company, so he doesn't have to worry about our reputation. I think that's a huge thing. If I'm gonna go sell for a company, I don't want to have to apologize for them on every turn. And so I say, what did I do for him? Well, I gave him a good company to sell, you know, a good name to sell. We were not, you know, we. The little bit of size we had was. We were reputable, you know, and we could. We could list our references and we could. He could walk into the supply houses and know that we pay our bill and so forth, you know, so I'd say I gave him a credible, you know, visible.

A brand with a reputation he could trust. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty awesome.

And he helped us build it, you know, then from there on, it's a snowball effect, you know, you work with that.

So he came in, he starts. Did you give supply some training of any kind? Did he already have some background in it? Like, what did that mean?

He did. He worked. Worked as a salesman, but it was a salaried position at the company called Tough Shed. They build sheds. Are you familiar with Tough Shed? Yeah, he worked with them for a year. Yeah. In fact, I think the way that it worked is he worked for them, we were friends and he said, man, I. This is what I do for Tough shit. I think I can do this for you. Ah, you know, I think, I believe that's kind of.

That was kind of the God's providence right there.

Yeah, yeah.

Most guys don't get that lucky. That's not usually the way it goes. It's like, hey, will you come to work for me? Yeah, you got some sales history? Yes, I do. But then there's this training. You got to get them all this, like, knowledge that they didn't have before and you hope they make something out of it. Yeah, I think that's a big struggle for a lot of guys. Whenever they first start is, yeah, you know how to sell it. Because you have all this experience. You've gone through the ringer on a lot of it. You've got a bit of a personal reputation. So now your word of mouth stuff is taking care of you. But this new guy doesn't have that. How do you. How do you get that to him quickly?

Yeah, today it's easy. I send them to you.

I did not pay you to say that, but that was nice.

No, no, but I mean, I look. Nothing like that existed 15 years ago. Not that I knew of. I mean, not that I knew of. You were in the industry. Was there anything like that?

Only in my. Only in my building. Yeah. We had created it, we put it, you know, we had a whole sales training manual put together, videos to go with it, like that kind of stuff. Like, I knew I was going to scale. I had to get salespeople making quickly. And so it wasn't about teach them everything all at one time. It was teach them what they needed to do to get to the point of making money. So we call that concept Time to Money. How fast can I get somebody up to speed on something that may not have any kind of at least construction background? Maybe Some sales ability, but not some construction background. So they got to learn, you know, what's the difference between a flat roof and a pitched roof or steep slope and what does slope even mean? And what are asphalt shingles vs. EPDM vs. Built up and those type of. And rafter systems and truss systems and you got all this knowledge that you just go, everybody should know that, right? Well, they don't and take some time. And that's what I think most small contractors run into whenever they're trying to go from solopreneur to like scaling their business is they think this guy's gonna come in and do really well right from the get go. They don't all get lucky and get some guy that has some construction background. And so they do this ride along training, like watch what I do and mimic me and then you start doing that yourself. But that takes a long time to learn that.

You know, I was fortunate this guy was a self learner, you know, but. And then ride alongs and just getting introduced to the industry. But man, today it's so much easier. I mean you guys do this and I guess there's a few others, but so nice you have platform. I just, you know, they log in, they go through the courses.

Yeah, it's.

Man, if you can't do it with all this info, then yeah, might not.

Be the industry for you. So, okay, we get our first. Yo, sky, we've got our admin gal. But now today, if I, if I read things, yeah, 52 employees you guys do about them?

Yeah, we've actually, we've actually cut back a little bit over the last couple of years. Maybe Covid has something to do with that. But really our revenue hasn't dropped, just our model has changed a little bit. But yeah, we have 52 employees today. The majority of those are sales and admin. We still employ quite a few technicians. I would say total of about 20. But you know, the world has changed a lot. In fact, we dealt with that a little bit today in our business. You know, we have to adapt. I like the old fashioned way of business where everything is under one roof. You know, we've got, you know, finances, the sales and the production, it's all there. You know, everything happens there. We've got all the equipment, all this. We put our guys through, you know, certified trainings and on and on. But I have discovered and I've had to come to the model today where, you know, we have to rely on subcontractors. There's such a shortage, you know, the technicians are not knocking out doors down. You know that.

Yeah, it has changed a little bit.

Yeah.

And I see it done both ways. You know, people that want to stick with having technicians, we got to build a pretty strong training program. We got to go recruit pretty hard at the high schools and technical schools and really almost build like an old, their own education thing. The thing I've noticed is that for doing the trades, the money has gotten a lot better. And so there, there's been a shift in the last two years of people getting. It was always going down, down, down, people getting into the trades. The last two years, the first been 17 years that it has gone up getting into the trades. So what that tells me is that the income is validating what the effort is. So it's good to see. I hope it continues. It's not this big, huge shift, but it's at least going the right direction. So if you were to go back and do it all over again, or you are a mentor to another person that's getting into it today, what would be the two or three things of advice that you would, you would give them when they're first starting up?

Yeah, probably some of the things we've already discussed like, you know, what are you good at? And you keep doing that, then hire people to do what you cannot do. I think if I was to restart a company today, I wouldn't be so heavy on trying to build my own in house crews because there are plenty of crews out there that you can get to skilled people and then just learn how to oversee them. But yeah, I would, I would tell a young entrepreneur, you know, you yourself need to understand finance as much as you possibly can. You know what a P and L looks like and what a balance sheet is all about. You should know those things. But then hire people to take care of that for you as quickly as you possibly can and then be as much as a people person as you could possibly be. Build as many relationships in your community as you could possibly build. I think I lacked in that some, you know, not going out as much as I should, I do now. But I think one should in your early years, you know, join the chamber, join every networking group you possibly can. Visit with every insurance agent in town, visit with all the realtors in town, Go to all of those things and make yourself visible and be confident about that. I think that's a big, big part of landing the right kind of work.

I couldn't agree with you more. Building that strong network.