The Next-Generation Contractor with Sam Stilley

Foreign. Hey everybody, it's Jim Johnson here, the head coach at Contractor Coach Pro and your host on Contractor Radio where we are here to hopefully give you a little bit of entertainment, some education. We are here to help with strategy and tactics in your business. And we have an awesome guest here. I cannot wait to get to him. But. But one of the things we got to do to make sure that we can continue this high quality podcast and YouTube channel for you is we got to pay the bills. And we couldn't do a better job of getting those bills paid without our sponsors. And one of our sponsors today is Atlas. And I want to go ahead and get them queued up here so that you guys can find a little bit more about Atlas shingles and what they might be able to do for your business.

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We absolutely love having Atlas as one of our sponsors. They're so aligned with us on helping contractors grow their business and they really support their contractors very, very well with some of their programs and this, their whole way of interacting and their culture and their business is to help contractors grow. You may notice today that I'm coming to you from a bit of a different location. Funny thing is, I was visiting my daughter who is in Colorado. We got a snowstorm. It was a pretty significant one. Two feet of snow, five foot drifts, six foot drifts. And we got kind of stuck here. And so I am doing the podcast today from my future grandson Owen's nursery. He's not here yet, thank God, or we would not be able to do this. So it's kind of nice to be able to shoot one of these from here. Make maybe it'll be something I show him at some point in the future. So speak about the future. We talk about next generation today and contracting goes through growth and what it does used to be very old school. It was really kind of A chuck in the truck type business, where it was who was doing the work is also who was selling the work. Three, four days to get your work done, maybe a week sometimes, and a pretty slow progression. And then it's become a little bit more business influenced that next group of contractors that came in where there was owners and managers and salespeople. And now we got this new generation coming in. This new generation understands technology and the power of technology. They've invested in themselves to. They understand. They got Step Up a bar. And I have a guest today that has done that over the last two, three years better than just about anybody that I've seen out there. And I wanted to get him in on this conversation because it's going to be effective, enlightening conversation, educational, but it's also going to be a little bit of a tough conversation about what's coming in the future and what we need to understand as contractors to be prepared for it. So without further ado, I want to bring on our special guest today. He's from Amstel Roofing in Houston, Texas. His name is Sam Stilley. He is such a rock star. Welcome aboard, Sam. Good to have you, man.

Thanks for having me. Super excited.

Yeah, it's. I'm blue here today. I don't know if you notice, my camera is really kind of crappy. It's not the camera. It's literally the snow reflecting off about. So everything is covered in white. So I tried to fix it with lighting, but it is what it is. Sam, you know, we have the opportunity to work with you as one of our clients, but we won't. I'm not here to take all the credit. You. You've invested a lot of other time, money, energy, education into getting to where you are at this point. Can you kind of walk us through, kind of coming up through where you're at there at your business, what got you to here, and maybe some of those key things that helped you achieve where you're at. Right?

Sure. It's a good question. So I think where we first started off in the business, it was end of 2016. It was September when I had returned back from Houston working with another contractor, just to learn from a different perspective. And the first thing that I realized that had to be done was systemizing everything in the company, from how the phones were answered to how a job was ran to how a sales presentation was done. And once I could figure out all those things, then I could find the people to then do those jobs. I think the most important thing of the Whole process though, was finding the right people that fit the values of what we have as a company and our goals and finding people that are willing to adapt and learn. And with that being said, our biggest investment year to date outside of our marketing and advertisement budget is simply training. So I've heard from many people from different industries what you do to keep great talent around is by constantly training them. And contradictory to that, a lot of contractors believe if they teach someone too much, they're just going to leave and start their own company. Us, we believe knowledge is power and we try to educate every single one of our clients. So I think the training processes that we've had in place and constantly being open to learning, whether it be contractor, coach or be from other programs, or virtual or even in person, just having those build on top of one another and taking the best from each one of those, how they implement and they can be congruent with your company is I can get the most success from it.

So that's, that's awesome. I want to dig into more on that, on the training thing because I'm a big believer in that, you know that on me, like I think contractors should train every day if they could. I think it makes the biggest difference in your overall results of anything that you do. But there's more to the story with this whole Amstel roofing thing, right? Like you're not, you're not the first generation, you're the next generation. Your dad's. How long has Amstel been a business and when did you really kind of get involved?

Yeah, so we've been around since 1974. So we just approached our 47th year of business this year, which is pretty wild.

I was gonna say I was five.

Years old, I was not alive. And I've been in the business since I was old enough to remember. I actually found a photo of myself when I was four or five in front of one of our two ton dump trucks, which is pretty wild. But being really involved in the business was 2016, towards the end of that year until now, and we started stacking on growth and an accelerated rate. But we started off with humble beginnings. My dad started going door to door when everyone had wooden cedar shake roofs and he would offer repairs. And then from that he started offering roof replacements. And at that time there was the layovers that were allowed and then there was full removals, decking and coming back with your 300 pound shingles per square at the time. And he got really known for being a one day service guy, which was unheard of in the industry or at least in Houston at that time. And we had 20 to 25 installers per job. And we started job, this is before my time, obviously. Started a job at 7am and finished by 5 and people were like mind blown by it. And he grew that reputation of the one day service that was provided into a full replacement company. And ever since then we've been growing on a great path. And he grew really large at one point, but then didn't know if I'd have interest in the company. So he kind of dwindled the company down just to him and a key staff. And then when he realized I was interested back in maybe 2013, 14 when I was working part time, that's when he realized that he wanted to maintain the company so that when I graduated I could submerge myself into it.

So were you interested the whole time or did you ever have aspirations of maybe doing something else?

Well, I've always been an entrepreneur at heart. I've had several other small businesses prior to this that are not associated with any longer. And I always knew I never wanted to work for anyone else but myself. And I did not know that I was going to be stuck in the roofing industry. And I'm really glad that I am because I think it's a golden nugget of opportunity. I really realized that the roofing industry was for me back I think it was 2012 or 13, there was a hailstorm that had hit the Houston area and I remember calling my dad up from the fraternity house and saying, dad, there's been a hailstorm that hit. You need to get out there, you know, get some business coming in. And he tells me on the phone, well, Sam, it's just myself and Jose. And Jose has been our foreman for over 30 years now. And I remember at that exact moment there was kind of like a light bulb moment. And I said, well, what do I need to do to help them? And he said, well, if you'd like, you can just start knocking on doors and offer our services. And sure enough, the following Monday, a couple days later, I went to my fraternity meeting, asked a few fraternity brothers who would be interested in working with me. And I was going to give them 15 bucks an hour and 25 bucks for every lead they gave me. And we just started working and we started knocking on doors every evening we could, all day Saturdays. And we started really building up this workload. And the reason that actually made me believe in what I was doing was a few months into the storm, and we started having people just call us because they said, you know what? I've noticed your company do roofs compared to the other ones that are working in the neighborhood. And I want to work with you because your roofs look better and your jobs look cleaner. And I started realizing at that moment I could do this as an honest living, make an impact in the local community, and I could just be different by being better. And with that, people would always want to work with us. And that is really what touched me in, like, a really positive way.

Different. Oh, boy. Hitting all my hot buttons right there. If we. If we can figure out how to be different. And at that time, being different was just being a little cleaner, being a little neater, being better at what you do, that's almost starting to become a bit of standard practice. Would you agree from at least the upper group of contractors? So now you got to be different in other ways. Have you found any struggles in getting any of that in place? Like, hey, how do I continue to be different? Every time I'm different, somebody else tries to step up and be the same thing?

That's a good question. I've always been known in all my entrepreneurial endeavors to kind of push the gray area differences. I know that from the first few years of being involved in the business, being different was easy. And no one was being different. Everyone the same thing, Same sales process, you name it. It was like vanilla ice cream. Now, I have noticed that not all, but maybe 30% of contractors are actually trying to be different, whether it be with their sales process or their inspection process. And now there's so many technologies available on how to present a roof replacement or even how your estimate can look. So I see that there's that constant battle now with us. We're always willing to try new things so we can be on the front end instead of the back end of change and development. So I definitely commend the competition and those in other areas of the United States that are really kind of leading that charge. But I will say the landscape has definitely changed the past five years substantially from everyone just having a paper estimate with the same stuff to now how a job is pitched, how a job is done, protection systems, estimate templates, you name it.

Yeah, it's. Well, I think it's one of those things where you. You have to. You see other companies doing it, they're taking market share from you. You better adapt or you're gonna die. It's not even a choice, or you're gonna greatly reduce the amount of business you do. It's gonna just be you again. Right. Which isn't always a lot of fun, all those, you know, hey, it's to each his own. I know a lot of guys, they're just single operator type situations and they enjoy life and it's great. You're on another path. You're on this path of growing your business. You have accomplished some pretty cool things here in the last couple years. You want to enlighten us on some of your awards you've won in the last couple of years? And just to let everybody know, I don't know if we said it before, Sam is 28 years old. He's not like 35 or 37 like he sounds like he is, but he doesn't look like he is. He definitely is the age that he looks 28. So let us tell us a little bit about those awards.

Well, I definitely got some gray hairs to qualify to maybe older. But some of the awards we're most proud of, we have been in the America's top 5,000 fastest growing companies two years in a row. We were just recognized. We didn't even know it existed until I really, really found out about from HEB for Texas fastest growing companies as well, I believe we ranked 97 out of 5,000. And we'll get that publication tomorrow on the 16th, which we're really excited about. And then outside of that, we've received the Beacon Lighthouse Award multiple years now, which is something we hold dear to us just because it's given on a regional basis. It's very limited, it's very exclusive. And then we've received the top 500 roofing contractors or top 500 home improvement contractors award multiple years in a row based off US Database, as well as the top home improvement remodeler out of the top 200 for the past three years in a row. And then our favorite award is the top 150 roofing contractors in the US and we've been on that one the past two years in a row as well. So we're looking to crack the top 100 from last year's efforts. So those are some of the ones that I hold dear to myself.

So, dude, that's. That's amazing. All those happened in the last two or three years, right?

Yes. Past three years is when I really started stacking on.

Yeah. And that's kind of when we met each other. And I'm not here to take credit. It's just when you decided, hey, I'm really going to go after this thing. And we were just a Little piece of it. What was that? What was that tipping point that said, you know what, I'm not just going to like do this thing and do the work. I'm going to do this thing in a way that's growth, business, professional, organized and system. Like you talked about systems and stuff whenever we first got on there. What was that? Because you were, I mean, three years ago is 2017 and 2012, 13 is kind of where you made a decision. Roofing was pretty cool. So there's this time span in between there of about five years where it sounds like you guys were maybe growing, but not really fast, or maybe as fast as you wanted, or maybe it was still dad running business and you were kind of helping. What, what was the. In 2017, everything changed and you guys started growing like crazy?

Well, for those few years before 2016, when I graduated college, I was working part time weekends, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, just selling. So I'd be given leads from the office or go out and get leads. And my job was just to sell as much as I could in a short few days. When I really made the decision to submerge myself and say, you know what, I'm all in, was when I decided to go move to Dallas. I worked for another roofing company for three and a half months, living out of a hotel room. I was paying per month in advance and I was learning from them just how to run on a larger, more corporate scale and how things could be done because I was coming from a very mom and pop based company. When I came back to Houston, it was September 1st, I believe it was, which was my dad's birthday, is when I came back, is when I realized I had to really get into the business to get all these things ironed out. Because although we'd been around for 40 something years at the time, we didn't have the systems and procedures down. We really didn't have scripts down either for how the phone was supposed to be answered. And I knew all those things had to be done. So it took me two years of time and about 80 to 100 hours a week is. I think I clocked in about 80 hours a week on average for two years, Monday through Friday and a lot of Saturdays to really get where we needed to be to have that concrete foundation. And the number one thing I see a lot of contractors do is they build this massive empire, but on a sand foundation and just crumbles away really quickly. So I wanted to build as good of a structure as possible and it's nowhere near perfect. There's a lot of times we're tweaking and working on it, but I had to have that foothold to grow in. For me, the reason why we decided that was simple. Just like any other company out there that's some of the largest or best or most profitable in America. Typically it's not one person doing everything, and it's completely fine to do one person to do everything. But the key problem with that is, in my opinion, is if you get injured, sick, or want to go on vacation, your business stops and money doesn't generate unless you're working at that point. So I knew I had to figure out a plug and play system for every piece of the pie that was required so that we could constantly be generating money if I wanted to go on vacation or I was sick for two weeks. So we'd never have to worry about the business relying on one person to be successful. And that's what we've become as a business to where anyone can come in and have success here. And they're not treated as a corporate level, just a number in a book, but they're treated as an individual. But they have that corporate guideline of success of, hey, you can follow these steps to create these results.

That's awesome. It is so cool to bring people on board and be able to go, hey, here's your job description. Here's the steps you're going to take. This is the training path you're going to go on and have this confidence that, you know that thing is going to give this proven result as long as the person invests the time. And they feel it too. That's the big thing. They feel it too. Because if they've gone to interview with anybody else, everybody else sounds completely different from that, right? Everybody else, like, oh, you're gonna make a hundred thousand dollars your first year visit and it's gonna be so easy. And all you gotta do is knock a bunch of doors, which isn't hard. It's actually pretty easy. And the funny thing is they're not honest with them. So that first week or two isn't what it sounded like. And they lose. A lot of people have a lot of turnover, and even if they make it past that, they actually do well, then there's this drama and all this other stuff that happens down the road because there was no expectation, so foundation. That's. That's a key one. I want to ask you what a couple of other things are, but I want to ask you in just a second because I got to get One more of our sponsors in here and we'll come right back. You cool with that?

Yes.

All right, great. Let's. Let's have a little word here from Hail Trace, because we all want to have some hail here as soon as possible, right? You're not using Hail Trace. It's definitely worth the money. That money invested was one sale was already bought. We've got from deny or declined 2x of DM just because of Helltrace and the storm reports that they give us. Not only do I know where the storm's at, sometimes as they're happening and I can already head right there to the storm, but also after the fact, when I'm out knocking on doors, I can show homeowners the map and what kind of hail was in their area.

We've seen a huge return in our.

Investment, and I have no doubt that you will, too. So that's a message from Hill Trace there. This is been one of our sponsors and really good friends for a long time. They've got some new software out. And just as a little personal endorsement, if you haven't checked it out, even to you, Sam, like, because I haven't talked to you since, they got some new software where they can tell you the wind speeds and the hail size by location of that house, which is nuts. Like, I don't know how they do it. They have some kind of science that proves it. When I was just talking to an attorney the other day and they were having a struggle because the other attorney was saying, well, those wind speeds are at this airport, right? Airport's like two miles away. And I said, well, what if I could tell you the wind speed at that actual house? And they go, what? I got the report. That is crazy. I didn't even know this thing existed.

So that's swallowed.

Yeah. So that's. That's the thing, right? Like, this technology moves so fast and so quick and can like, Sam, we're friends and you don't even know. And you may not have heard it from the Hell Trace guys and putting it out there. And so it's keeping our ear to the ground all the time thing in our business isn't always the easiest thing to do. So would you say foundation was a big part of this? Like, is that. Would that be in a top three? Like, I needed to get that thing done huge.

I don't think that there's any business. I mean, look at the largest businesses that there are. In my opinion, the first one that comes to mind is Amazon. There's no way Amazon as an institution could operate without the foundation they have. I mean, I'm telling you, they could probably hire anyone for any position and hand them a book. And this is, hey, this is what you follow. This is what you do at these times and you'll have these results. And that's what we try to create here. But by keeping that same individual level of you bring your personality to the mix as well so that you're not just lost as a number in the company.

Those guys aren't going, hey, why don't you stand right there, these boxes are going to come in and you just pick, it'll be okay, come down.

Then you just figure out what man they go into. It's no big deal, you know.

Yeah, it's, it's so odd too to me. And I wonder why. Right? So we all know like if we just look around us and we have a ounce of ability to observe, we see things like Amaz, McDonald's, Walmart, all these big huge companies, Microsoft. And we, we, if we just think for a second why they've gotten so big. The reason they have is because of structure, foundation, processes, systems. And if we know that, why don't we do that? And, and I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear why. Why do you, why do you think? Don't. It's obvious.

Yeah, I, I think it's. This is probably going to rub some shoulders. I think it's because people think, well, we're just contractors and we're in a restoration business and we don't need those things. And I think that I would encourage others to think differently. And the reason why I say that is the most successful armies in the world and businesses in the world always had a great structure, great foundation. And running a roofing company, or restoration business for that matter, is no different. It's essentially just building a proper playbook so that you can win more times than not. Not saying you're going to win every time, but it's just increasing those success odds by having those fail triggers and safe in case something does go wrong, someone can know what to do more often than not. Instead of calling, oh well, I need to call Sam every two hours or every three hours. So I think that's a rude awakening sometimes for contractors. At the end of the day, we are a business and we're just like any other business. And what allows us to be successful is by following the basic principles of how to be successful. And it's by creating repetition so that you can find the deficiencies in that repetition, improve upon them, lessen your margin of error and increase your success rate, which then in turn increases your net profitability of the business.

Now everybody knows why I loved coaching you. Like, you get this stuff, you understand it. You were a lot nicer than I'm going to be. You said you thought you were going to rub a few people the wrong way. It's just this idea that we're contractors. I'm going to call them flat out lazy. It's hard work. It is, it's a lot of work. You said two years of 80 hours to 100 hours a week. You knew that you had to put that time into the equation to get what you wanted later. And we started looking at it as a coach and we're, hey, what's going on here? What's really happening with these businesses? And it's this investment up front. We've got to invest some time, energy, knowledge gathering and getting things in place. And it does get us out of balance. This work life balance isn't a 50, 50 teeter totter. It's like, hey, I'm going to put 80% over here now so I can start to tip that thing the other way later. And so we started to see that people needed to get control of their business first with these processes, systems, HR training, that kind of stuff. And if they did that, their business would grow. They just grow crazy. And if they grow, they get what they want whenever they're an entrepreneur, they want personal and financial freedom, want to be able to do those two things. And so I have a question. Could you go on vacation right now if you wanted to?

Yes, I actually, I got to test this theory. I think it was two years ago. It was so unfortunate because I was out of town, but I was in Scotland, hiking the West Highland way. And right before I was there, I was in France and I remember getting a phone call. It was May 9th and this crazy hailstorm, which is unprecedented for Houston, was like 2 inch hail. Like a hundred thousand homes got just destroyed. And I get a call and I'm in the city of France and they're like this massive hailstorm just hit. Like, you know, send me pictures and I'm sitting here like the one time I'm out of town, you know, I'm on a two week long vacation and I'm about to be backpacking in Scotland with no cell phone reception for like six or seven days, living out in a tent. And they were able to run the business, no problems, no headache, which was a huge blessing. And of course, that being said, I'm very blessed because my business partner is also my dad and he runs the production side. So it was really great for him to be able to be on that side of the business. But it was a great feeling knowing that I had the right people in place so that when a storm like this did hit, obviously I would love to have been there in the trenches with the guys because I get rush out of it. But being away in a different continent, the company was able to thrive without being here.

Okay, so you're, you're a next generation contractor, you're taking over for dad. We understand the foundation is important. Training systems, processes, that kind of stuff. What's, what's the other thing? You know, if we're going to go after three things, if you're gonna like coach somebody out there that's stepping into this world and going, hey, I'm a next generation contractor, I want to grow my business too. I think they get the processes and systems foundation. What other two things should they really like? Hey, you should be on top of those two things, people.

It's, there's no secret. We all go to restaurants, stores, and we run across people that are either incredible, they're contagious to be around, or people that just suck the life out of you. And I think that the most important thing is when you're really growing your company, especially if you're in your infancy stages, where I was back in 20, 15, 16, you've got to surround yourself with the right people. At that time, we had very little to no money, so I had to bootstrap. We had to bootstrap a lot of things. And I was the only one really developing these systems I didn't have. I remember my first hire I ever hired is still with me today. She's our office manager now. Fantastic person and super happy to be with us. But I remember her interviewing and I was afraid that would be able to pay her enough for her to be able to work with us. And looking back, you know, she makes more than double what she did then. Perks, you name it. But the dollar is so tough in the very beginning. If you have the capital and you have the resources, you can bring the people in and help build the systems with those people. And what I recommend is grabbing people from not the roofing industry, but other industries that are successful in their space, whether it be the hrm, which is hotel, restaurant management, or just be from General American or capital, like Business America, you know, and have them come in with their management or their executive level experience and have your plan and make sure your plan is big enough to where they can fit into it and building those systems with them. And if the systems are already built in your business and you're a mid range company, utilizing them because people are the most important piece of your business and it's so overlooked. And that's why I was making the comment that we are creating that foundation like an Amazon, but we're not treating our people like a number. And that's where people really get lost. They don't feel like they hold value in a business, they get remorse and they leave. Or they're constantly looking for the next best thing. What's really cool about working with Amstel is we treat everyone like family and everyone is part of the team. We're all part of that success. But that being said, we want to hire people that want to come in knowing that we're constantly building the plane as we're flying. People that are willing to adapt on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis, which is scary for some people. So finding the right candidates that fit your culture, which Jim really taught me about was culture, which is probably the biggest takeaway that I got from that program, I didn't even think about it, was really building that culture and aligning people that feel in line with your culture and your core values and taking them with you along that journey. So you'll never be, in my opinion, I don't want to say you'll never, but it's highly unlikely you'll be successful if you surround yourself with people that don't believe they can be successful on their own or they think too small. So it's kind of like the thought of the eagles and the chickens. If an eagle is raised by chickens, it will never fly. It will believe it is a chicken, but if a chicken is raised by eagles, the chicken will believe it is an eagle. And that's really how you need to approach your business, is finding those people that really want to come in and not just punch the clock, but they want to build value for the company every day.

Man, spouting that wisdom. Good stuff. So we got foundation, we got people, really people and wrapped in culture, right? Like this culture of who you're going to be. And I, I get Amstel's culture very much like you guys are a growth pattern, willing to change, not scared of it. We love challenge. I love the building the plane as we're flying. I love that analogy. And if you can say all that stuff before people come to work for you, it's not a surprise. It's actually, like, looked at as this challenge because it's going to attract the right kind of people to go, I like building an airplane while I'm flying it. Right. Some people hate that stuff. They might be perfect. They might be a perfect person for the role that you want, but they don't like that feel, man. They're not going to work out with you. All right, so we got two. Two Young gun wisdom pieces there. Foundation, focus on people. And we've heard that kind of stuff before. Right. And it's another. That's another one of those things where I go, I think people don't do it because it's hard. It's work. It takes effort. Yeah. Culture is not easy. Everybody thinks, oh, I gotta. I got a culture. We have people that fill out these assessments on our website all the time about the answers about their business. What they don't realize is we have them answer these questions about these 12 different components of the DNA of their business. And I love the one where I say, do you feel like your company has a culture? And they say, yes, which every company does. Right. Do you feel like you could define your culture? And they're like, maybe we left maybe on there as well. The answers on purpose. Because what it does, it tells you that if you didn't define it, if you don't say, this is what it is. This is what we're chasing. This is how we expect people to behave. This is what we're going to be doing this year and how it all wraps up into everything else. If you don't do that stuff, there's no, like, North Star. You're all chasing together. When there's no notion, everybody's making decision their own path and different directions, and things get weird.

Yep.

And you've created a place where people come in and they see this opportunity to grow. I think that's a great thing. Not every company does that as a culture. That's not their thing. But this is how you guys have really done what you've done very well, I think.

Yeah. People, they've got to see that big picture, you know, and it's a lot of our staff and team that work here. I don't know our median age, but if I was to guess, it's probably 29 to 32 years old. And I think that what really attracts that age and that group category seemed like, hey, I can be here for a long time. I don't have to fit this millennial or average trend of Being in a place for two or three years and then jump into another company, I can come here and I can build the future of the growth I want. And if they don't, it's because chances are they didn't want to put in the work that's required to get to the next level what they could be. So I think that it's important that if you're a growth minded CEO or entrepreneur, you share that vision with people and you'd be surprised how contagious it can be for your staff.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I 100% agree. All right, so that's two things. Foundation people. What's thing number three? That next generation contractors, they need to have their heads on right about this thing because it's coming that you would give some advice on?

Well, we have foundation people and then training. So I would say the last one would be willing to adapt. And that can either be with an advertising or marketing or digital space. I think that it's so critical and vital for any company in any industry has to be willing to adapt and constantly change and openness of that adoption. And what I mean by that. And you would say, Jim, this is a good, good one for you.

Oh yeah.

Okay, cool. What I mean by that is more often than not businesses will find a groove and they'll say, okay, we're successful at this level, let's just keep it going, maintain it, it works, don't ever change it. Well, unfortunately, the only thing that constantly changes is time that we have no control over. And as time goes on, things become more advanced. Everyone has one of these now and we have to adapt to those processes. Otherwise your business will gradually decline over time because you believe to just set and forget, which is a crucial error that happens to too many business owners. Now there's some on the other side of the fence that are like myself. And we're constantly adapting, maybe sometimes too much, truthfully, always trying to find new things and will this work? Will this be beneficial? And chewing up some things and spinning them back out and other things we keep in our system that we have. But it's finding that adaption and willingness to change. And I remember a short story which will intrigue some of you that have been in the business for a long time was the simple concept of getting our trucks wrapped. And I remember it was 2016 when I had returned and I had told my dad, I said, dad, we need to get our trucks wrapped. And at the time we had one or two. I think we had One company truck at the time, and I had a personal truck. And he goes, well, Sam, the only way we're going to wrap the trucks is if you get your personal truck wrapped first and six months later we can talk about it. And, you know, at that time, I didn't have many results to prove other than sales, so I said, fine, let's do it. And I got my truck wrapped up and a couple months go by, and he goes, man, we're actually getting calls from this. And then we wrap the other truck. And then now it's. Whenever we buy a new truck, we're on our 8th or 9th fleet vehicle. It's like, when we get it, we never want to even think about not having it wrapped. Like it's just something that should be done. And it's funny, in the story I share with a lot of people is because Frank, who's now 68 years old, his willingness to adapt is much smaller now. It's huge because he sees the results, but he's been in that groove for so many years before. It works. Why change it? It works. Why change it? And I'm sure you've heard it. And if you say it, then you need to change your thinking. Because if you don't, unfortunately, you will be the change of your business dwindling or eventually sacrificing itself to others that are willing to change. You've got to be willing to change, because if you don't, other people are going to be changing and you're going to be left behind and your business will suffer.

100% agree. And I've had, like you said it, so I'll say it right back. I've had hundreds of contractors that we've coached go, hey, I've done it that way for years. It works. I'm not changing that thing. And I go, well, okay, it sounds fair. I get it. It works. But this door knocking thing, that worked for you so great. It was so wonderful. How did it work in the pandemic?

Yeah, I think that.

Quiet, right?

Yeah. I highly doubt a lot of them had a good response to you. And that's where this new virtual step is taking into place. And it's scary and it's not exciting, and people want to push it away, but that's the last thing we have to do is push things away. As business owners, we have to accept them. And at that point, if you decide, I'm never going to do it, I'm never going to do virtual, then you're essentially saying you are not going to Do a percentage of business every year, it will constantly grow because you're refusing to accept clientele that only want to work with someone through that portal or means.

Exactly. It's. I think it's coming, man. I think it's coming. It's coming really fast. I've talked about it a couple of different times is this idea of being able to buy a car online. If I could buy a car online, much more have an opportunity to sell me a roof online. Because roof, I'm not worried. I'm not worried if it's got a scratch on it or if the carpet smells or anything like that, or a car. I'm like, man, I kind of want to drive that thing first before I say yes. Roof's a little bit different. And I can see that there's these colors and I pick the color I want and actually see what it looks like on my own house, even. And to be honest with you, I really don't like. And Sam, you're a fine, nice guy and all that other good stuff. I really don't like the idea of you being in my house or me being inconvenienced, that I've got to be there at this time to meet you at my house. And here's. Here's what I worry about more than anything else. There's going to be a contractor that. It clicks for me and I go, okay, nobody else wants to do this. Nobody else likes this thing. I'm going to jump on it and I'm going to own it. And it's already happening. It's already happening. And all those people that pushed it away and it fall by the wayside and there's going to be one or two that just dominate the whole market with it. And that makes me. Makes me nervous with it. I think it should scare everybody.

I think it's a rude awakening to the people that don't want to change. And that's in our industry. A lot of people are super stubborn and what they do now is perfect and it never needs to be changed. And I think that's where some of the biggest giants, even in our industry, will be taken down from because they're going to be stuck on a certain mindset and it has to be that way and nothing else works. And I think for us as a company, and I agree with most contractors, if not all, nothing will ever beat in person sales ever, in my opinion. However, after the pandemic happened, a lot of people adapted to virtual online zoom meetings, you name it, virtual businesses. Now people are Used to these transactions with almost no relationship built into them. Think about what everyone has downloaded on their phone. Majority of Americans and majority of people watching this probably have the Amazon app on your phone. You and I both know that every time we buy from Amazon, we're putting a small business out of business, essentially. But we decide to do it. Why? Because it's convenient, it's easy, there's no hassle. I don't have to leave my home, I don't have to leave my car or my office. I can just order it and it comes the next day. And that's why we decide to continue to buy from what is now the biggest business there is when it comes to transactions with consumers. In my opinion, that model is going to be no different from what will eventually happen to the roofing industry. I personally believe, Jim, that the storm restoration side will take a longer path to adapt to it. Because of course, when a storm hits, nothing beats someone being at your door the next day. However, I think slowly people will want to be pushed away from that. It will never phase out entirely. But I believe the retail space will be affected the greatest portion, because homeowners will want to have this ability to go online. Choose 1 or 2, 3, 4, who knows how many they want. But let's say the average consumer wants two or three options and they're going to want to have the conveniency of it sent over to them. Why? Well, everything else is being sent to them. It's becoming part of their mindset as a consumer. It's the psychology of the sale is now changing. So you can either adapt and you can gain those clients or you can say, no, we don't offer that. And you never even have the chance of even putting your name in the hat. So this is something we looked at two years ago, even before the pandemic happened, because we felt like virtual is really something that will take off. And I believe it is, more now than ever. And this is a big rude awakening. So if you're a sales guy in this call, this is really something you.

Should be aware of.

I tell my staff to always make yourself irreplaceable, but because I think the sales position could be changed drastically in the next three to five years. And what I mean by that is for retail guys, big time, think about how many appointments a retail professional can run on a daily basis. Some guys say, oh, I can run 10 appointments today. That's not a professional. That's just someone who's taken volume. Real qualified appointment, maybe three or four Appointments a day max. If you're spending two hours from start to finish, from inspection to close, the difference between that and a person sitting behind a desk, that person behind a Desk can run 15 to 20 little 30 minute Zoom calls at most. They can order the electronic measurements, aerial measurements ahead of time. They can have the proposals built and emailed out. Some people might not even opt in for a zoom call. So you might wonder, well Sam, how am I going to present value? How am I going to sell these jobs? How am I going to maintain? Well, the reality of the situation is your value will be hit because you won't be able to provide as much since you're not in person. So your proposal has to look one of a kind. You're going to start having contractors making their own videos, their own production videos to share to clients to at least say, hey, watch this five minute video. As to why you should choose us. Now, here's where this becomes interesting. To obtain those clients, more often than not, they're going to be more price conscious than a regular retail sit down appointment. And you already know why they're not meeting with your sales rep. They're not giving you an hour and a half of their day. So if they're more price conscious, what do you do as a business owner? Well, the wrong answer is to lower your price because that means it affects your margin, etc. If you keep the equation the same, you're going to hurt your bottom line. However the equation gets changed. And what I do believe what will happen is in this space from a retail standpoint, is that sales rep will be eventually dissolved out of this position. Someone can go online, they can request a roof replacement. There's an in house sales reps, who's an employee, maybe a salaried base with a small commission. And that person is in charge of now 10, 15, 20 virtual appointments a day, just building estimates as tight as possible, sending them out now, the margin can be reduced, the gross margin, net profitability can stay the same because now you've attracted the actual sales rep from the process and in turn you can actually sell more projects now than you could with a sales rep associated. And the last thing which becomes really unique about it is the whole process becomes streamlined. When you have salespeople associated with an organization, if they're not all trained the same, they don't all look the same. Not like a, I mean like aesthetically look the same, they don't all present the same, there's errors and there's opportunity for jobs to be sold. Or lost, depending on how good that person is. Now you're tightening that funnel to one person instead of it being five sales reps from an efficiency standpoint. So you might actually increase your sales substantially. Your net profit will then increase because your gross margin, your overhead is actually being reduced and your output could be stronger. So I think that it's going to be really eye opening and I think that it's, it's coming, it's here. Some companies are already adapting to it, but it's only going to take a big Amazon type company to flip the switch and then you're forced to compete as a smaller guy. Otherwise you just won't be chosen. So it's something to be aware of.

Yeah, I don't want to be. I don't want to be in that position of being forced. I want to be thinking ahead. Like, said you'd be on this for a couple years. We were saying, like, I started seeing cars being sold through Carvana and I went, all right, we need to probably think about that because our guys are going to need to know that kind of stuff. And we started working on it in 2018 and 19. We were like, all right, we're, we're almost there. We're ready for this thing to come out. Got about 20% more work. We'll release it in 2021. Well, pandemic hit. And then we went, well, okay, get to work hard. So we got this evolved thing put together and we helped 47 contractors through that. All 47 killed it. They did great. They had to learn how to start giving a presentation online. They had to learn how to engage a client and create value in a whole different way. They had to learn how to market online. They had to learn all this stuff that if they would have just invested a couple years of time into a little piece here and there, it could have really made things amazing. We've got something new that we're going to be talking about on our podcast here in a couple of weeks that helps with that and it's super exciting. We don't own it or anything like that. It's just a tool we found that we want to share with contractors out there. So I'm going to leave that as a teaser for the future. Sam, I've kept you for 45 minutes here. That's, that's good bit of time for a guy in your position. You've helped us with three major things. Tell me if I got them right or not. Foundation, including processes and systems for training. And not just systems. Right. Then we have people investing in people, culture, time, getting them on board with your vision, understanding that their vision can be a part of that. And then the last one being that we need to be agile, we need to be willing to adjust. We need to be willing to take on challenge, encourage challenge, be aware of technology and what it can do to our industry. Because if we're not, we're going to be the ones sit sitting there, left holding the bag, being forced to do something we don't want to do at a time that we're too late to do it in. So does that get it right?

Yeah, I know that hit. That hit it right on the head. And I think that if any of those either resonate with you, where you think that that's right, or you're like, man, that sounds really tough, I don't want to hear that, then that's directly a message to you and you should really take it wholeheartedly and adopt to it, you know, And I have a ton of respect for Jim and I think that at the end of the day, we're here just to help other contractors, and I'm not here. I don't want to see anyone suffer from change. I want to see us all grow as an industry and it'll only make us all better at the end of the day. And that's what the number one goal is.

Our whole thing is to show you it's not all that scary. It's just, let's take a little step at a time, Take a little bite out of the elephant. That elephant.

That's right.

While it is hard, it's not impossible. It's just, it takes time. The hardness is time, not intelligence. Awesome. I really appreciate it. I really do. You were one of the most enjoyable clients I've had coaching, great intelligence, college educated business school from Houston. So that gave you a little bit of a leg up, right? Like you kind of had some knowledge that maybe some of the other guys out there don't have. But that's why they get coaches and stuff like that to hopefully help bridge that gap a little bit. What's the goal? Like, can you give us, like, I think you said you've made your changes 2016, like, what was revenue? 16, 70, 18, 19, 20. And now what are you gonna do in 2018?

If I remember correctly, so don't quote me, I'm sure you could dig it up somewhere online, but I think we were just under 2 million 16 and then we went to like 4.4 and then I think it was 7 and some change, I think 7 and a half. And then it was 10 2. And then last year was 13 5. And then this year we're on pace to do 16 1. So it's a. It's been a great, great path. The goal is to get to 100 a year. 100 million a year in Texas.

In just Texas.

Just Texas.

Yeah. You don't need the whole country to do it in.

No, I've done the math. The obtainable market that we could acquire at like a 2% of work in Houston would be $15 million a year. And I do believe that we can actually do that. There's no question.

That's why I love this guy. So, hey, our big thing we coach all the time is belief. We got to believe, absolutely believe we're capable of doing it. Because if we don't, we won't take the action we need to take to do it. And there's no doubt in my mind I'm gonna see you up there. You'll be in that top 10 contractors in the nation in no time.

Thanks, Jim. I appreciate our friendship and all the support.

Yeah, of course, man. Anytime. Thanks for being on today. We'll let you go. I know you got things to do. I'm gonna run with another sponsors commercial here and then I'll do a quick wrap up.

All right, sounds good.

Thanks, brother. Good to have you.

Thank you, Jim.

Yeah, bye. All right, everybody. That was Sam Stille with Amstill in Houston, Texas. You saw, I heard that growth thing like just under 2 million to like 16.1 or so in just the last four or five years. That's is pretty amazing, especially from, you know, a kid. Really? He's just a kid. I mean, he's like, quit calling me a kid. Probably. But no, it's cool to see Sam do his thing and understand, like, understand the value of those things. Because what we see is most contractors tend to put the cart in front of the horse. They want to get all the leads, all the sales, recruit a whole bunch of people, but they keep putting them into a crappy system with no foundation. They don't care about those people. They're just another person, another dollar sign. And then finally, they're not putting in the time and effort to challenge those people to grow their business, to give them the opportunity that they need. Hold on for just one second. We'll be right back. Another word from one of our amazing sponsors. Signpost is here. They are rock stars at getting you more referrals.

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Yeah, get a hold of Signposts. Those guys are amazing. With customer engagement ramping up that technology there in your business, very cost effective too. So worth taking some time out to check Signpost out for your business. And so just a final wrap up. If you're out there and you're trying to get control of your business so you can grow your business and find that personal and financial freedom that you've been chasing, check us out@contractorcoachpro.com if you're looking at some of those things that Sam was talking about. Foundational stuff. We talk about it all the time, foundational and operational. Most of us focus on the operational when we really need to spend some time on foundational. The one thing about working with a coach is you get there faster. It's not like we're the know it alls and end all and be all, but we help you get there faster through two things. We've got the experience. We've been down that road before, so we're a guy that can literally walk with you hand in hand. And number two is we hold you accountable. It's one of those things you wanted to do. So let's get to work and get it done. So check us out@contractorcoachpro.com click on the free Assessment button. Take an assessment and we'll do a free coaching call with you. And if everything works out and you're a good fit for us and we're a good fit for you, we hope to help you achieve great things. Just like Amstel Roofing and so many of the other contractors on the top 150 thank you for joining us for Contractor Radio today and we will see you in our next episode. It.