Hish Rahman

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Hello there, listeners. Bob Houchin here. When we began this pod more than 5 weeks ago, it focused so much on contractors' response to COVID-19. That's not what the show is really all about. Today, I'm going to share a conversation, a success story I had with a longtime SGI member more than 5 months ago. And this member has been a true mentor to so many other contractors. He's a great business person and man. I hope you enjoy and look for more and more stories just like these in the near future. Welcome to the Successful Contractor Podcast. Powered by Success Group International, a show for residential contractors about residential contractors. We chronicle business journeys, share insights, and celebrate successes in this wonderful industry. I'm your host, Bob Houchin. On today's show, you'll be listening to a conversation I had with a longtime SGI member, Ish Rahman, owner of Precision Roof Crafters in Houston, Texas. Ish joined the organization way back in 2007. He's built an incredible company and has been an incredible friend to so many SGI members, always happy to offer help and guidance. In particular, today we'll talk a bit about how Hish ended up in the roofing industry, but we'll mostly talk about the nuts and bolts of how he runs Precision RoofCrafters. You'll hear how he structures both their technical and communication training. Hish shares advice on what successful contractors must do to enjoy continued success year after year, and he talks about how he stresses a work-life balance in his business. Let's take a listen. I hope you enjoy. Hish, I really want to thank you for your time.

I really appreciate it. For those who, who don't know you and know your story, could you share with everyone how you got into the roofing industry and why you ultimately decided to start your own business?

Not coming from the industry, I was introduced to the construction business Roofing specifically, and made aware of the opportunity that exists. Looked into it, did my research, started the business, started selling, knocking on doors, talking to people, and offering our services to, to do their roofs. And needed to support the family after prior business Failure that didn't come through. So that's how we got here.

And if you could share with everyone, how did business progress, the good and the bad, on your journey to ultimately finding SGI?

I was very fortunate. Business did go well when we first started, and we grew and we grew exponentially, exponentially. And we got to a point to where we just couldn't grow it anymore. There was a lot of things that I didn't understand about the business because I had no mentors, no one to— no point of reference. So we went out looking for help. We used business consultants, management consulting companies that didn't do a lot for us after we spent a lot of money. And one day we received a mailer from SGI for RSI. We— I was open. You know, they say the mind works like a parachute. Works best when it's open. So we went to the Profit Day, listened to what they had to say, liked what we heard, and became members.

In those early days when you joined, Executive Perspective was still wrapped into Expo. So did you have much of a lag time from Profit Day to Expo?

It was actually about 5 and a half, 6 weeks. We were very excited. We couldn't wait. It just didn't come soon enough.

Hitch, if you would share, what was your experience at that first expo meeting all these other like-minded, success-minded roofing contractors? You know, everyone's looking to get better, everyone's looking to network. What was that like?

It was amazing. It was exciting. It was great to be able to talk to somebody, uh, in the language that we now know, that I've learned since I got in the business, and understand. It was sort of comforting to know that they were going through the same challenges that we were. There were some companies that were much bigger than we were. There were many that were much smaller than we were. But I found the— just everybody had something to offer and everybody was very open and very willing to share what's going on.

You know, you had a strong business. You were generating sales. I know you weren't making the profit you wanted, but, you know, it wasn't like you had a complete makeover. So, Hish, what are maybe 2 or 3 main things that you knew you needed to do as soon as you got back home from Expo?

Well, we were mostly a predominantly commercial business, and we really wanted to become more of a residential. Our bottom line was never very stable, even though our sales were pretty consistent with commercial. We didn't know what we were doing right, quite honestly, what we were doing wrong, other than just the bottom line. And I know it's about the bottom line, but how do you keep that consistent? That's what we couldn't figure out. So, So, when we came back, understanding being properly priced for residential market, how to reach a residential market, how to take clients off the market, you know, which is my favorite term now, is everybody that we go see, the goal for our people is to take that homeowner off the market from other roofing companies. And just all the systems in place to help you do that. Our branding, we jumped in with both feet. We took a lot of what we learned at that first expo and just made the commitment that, hey, we're going to do this and we're going to find out pretty quick. It's either going to work or it's not. But we're going to— it's not— if it doesn't work, it's not going to be because we didn't commit to it. It's going to be because the system doesn't work. But we're so happy that the system did work. And it, it did. It, it took off. And within a few weeks, uh, people that we've done business with in the past, friends, uh, of ours and employees, vendors, uh, people just started to call and say, hey, well, you guys sure have grown quite a bit. And we were no bigger that day than we were the day before, but A lot of the things that we implemented with the branding and, and the ways to get our name out there that we took away from that expo made an immediate impact.

You mentioned, uh, before we started recording the interview that, you know, uh, repairs have always been an important part of your business, even before you met SGI RSI and understood, um, how much we valued them. Can you speak to why repairs were such a big deal even from day one for you guys?

Well, keep in mind, we don't— neither myself nor my partner that at the time came from a background of roofing. We didn't have the full confidence of going out and getting the big jobs. We wanted just to get a foot in the door and get cash flow. That was what was important to us, and that's what we did. You know, we, we sort of Didn't overextend ourselves. We didn't have insurance. We had to take baby steps. We were learning as we went, but we found that with repairs that there weren't a lot of companies that were doing them, so the competition wasn't very great. We didn't know it, but we found out as time went on. So we ended up carving out a niche for ourselves as being a service company, and it became part of who we are. the fabric of who Precision RoofCrafters is.

Speaking of service, I know you come from a service background. You know, you were in the restaurant industry before getting into roofing. Can you talk about how you adopted training into your business after meeting SGI? And in fact, I think you have your own training facility now, right?

Correct. We have— we built a training, a 1,500-square-foot training facility for technical training and to make sure that our people When they hit the ground, they hit it running. They have the knowledge. And, you know, I don't want anybody to ever think that they're calling a professional out to help them with their problems only to be, you know, left hanging and feeling that this person doesn't really know what they're talking about. So we invest a lot of time in the technical training as well as the classroom training on how to talk to people, how to communicate, how to keep them in the loop. We use many forms of communication from text to email to follow-up calls, you know, just person to person. Some of these tools we had before. Quite a few of them came through the membership and vendors that we met here and actually ideas that we've—

were—

we picked up from other members.

So if you're focusing so much on technical training, I'm assuming that means you're bringing a lot of people from outside of the industry into your company and training them up.

Yeah, we, we don't like to bring people, hire people from within the industry because they bring in their bad habits. Now, on the administrative and the, the sales side, the service, they're from outside the industry. Now, in the technical side, the guys, the technicians actually do work, they do have experience, but it's retraining them to do it the way we want it done, right? The most common thing that we hear from from guys that are actually in the field doing the physical work is, hey, nobody else does it that way. Well, to us, that's, that's what we want to hear. We want to hear that nobody else does it that way because that's how we're different and that we can speak to our potential clients with confidence that, hey, we are different and here's how we're different.

What's the training schedule look like for your team? What do you guys do?

We have them come in. We have an onboarding period of 2 weeks and then field training. We put them on a training schedule of anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks. Some guys are a little bit quicker at picking up and they can, they can go on on their own pretty quick. Some guys, it's a little bit slower. I mean, training to me is very important. It's, it's important. I come from a training background. It's important that it's an ongoing thing, not just a one-time thing. So it's, it's weekly, monthly, annually, uh, wherever we can get it, whether it's through, uh, Manufacturers or online training or come into Learning Alliance classes.

What kind of training do you do for your salespeople? How do you help them grow and, and keep them focused on hitting the numbers they need to hit?

We partner with them. They set their goals. Part of our job as management is to help them achieve their professional and personal goals. They figure out what they need to do, and now we know where we need to be as a company. If they— we have them set the goals and we reverse engineer it of how do you attain these goals, and we help them attain it. Now, if somebody was to come to us and say— of course, this is something we, uh, we weed out in the hiring process— if we ask them, what is your goal, and they're telling us, well, I need to do this much to have the lifestyle or support my family, have the lifestyle that I want to support my family, Then if it doesn't match up with what we're trying to do, then it's not a good fit because their ambitions are not where ours are. But if it is, then we help them work, break it down, reverse engineer it, and then we have goal boards. We check, we have training, video training, online training. We have quick meetings every morning. And we just follow up. And just constant motivation.

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Welcome back to the show. Moments ago, Hish was explaining his robust training program. Now he's going to share some insights on how to stay successful in this industry for many years, and Hish is going to shine some light on how he's managed to create a culture that's kept employees tied to Precision RoofCrafters for 20 years and longer. So let's jump back into the conversation.

Hish, you've been a member a long time, I think over 12 years now. Once you got those, those core changes in place and got the business strengthened, what, you know, what have you been doing the last 7 or 8 years to keep the company profitable, keep it growing? You know, what advice would you have to other roofing contractors who, who want to continue to see success over a long period of time?

Well, what happened to us at one point is as we kept on evolving, some of the early things that we adopted started to fall by the wayside. And that's something that you've got to be careful. You can't forget the basics, right? That's your foundation, and you have to build on that. And it has to be— growth is different for different people. People have different goals, as you know, owners and companies. For us, it's to provide opportunities for everybody. And, and help them. As I said, it goes back to those achieve their, their dreams, uh, and I think we've been able to do that with quite a few of our people. We have people that have been with us for 20-plus years, and they wouldn't go anywhere else. They would do anything for the company.

Uh, but is there anything in particular over the last 7 or 8 years you've really learned is hugely valuable to a company's long-term success? The people, the focus on people.

I mean, we knew that. We knew that people are the most— one of the most critical aspects. We're a service company. You know, we're, we're there to serve the customers, but we're also as a company there to serve our team members. They have— I want them to have balance. They have to have balance. They have to be healthy. They have to have a good home life. They have to be mentally, you know, in a place where work is not taxing their their family, and the family is well served by what they do for us. So focusing on them and, and making sure that they have the tools they need to succeed, which is something the organization really does a good job of continually reminding us and training us and providing tools to help us achieve those goals.

Here's something I admire of you is Um, you've always been a person who's kept good balance in their life. You haven't let the business overwhelm you. So when did you learn that balance was something that you valued, and how did you get that into place?

That happened early, early before I got into this business, finding, finding balance. I think I shared with you my father, you know, because I'm the baby of the family and there's a big age gap, my father was always working, so we never had that chance to, to really bond. I mean, he was always there for us, but the relationship as far as creating memories, and it was something that I wanted to do with my kids as I had kids, to create memories and spend time with them. It was important to make sure that we had, we had a business that afforded us that opportunity. So working in, in the corporate world, it is, it is having lived that life It is important that the business runs. Everybody's expendable because the organization has to be bigger than any one person. And that was a goal from day one for the sake of my family, for the sake of everybody there. Because if, if having one cog in the machine break down shuts down the whole machine, then nobody wins.

Right.

We have a lot of people that depend on us. To continue moving forward and finding that success. So everybody understands it's something that, you know, we preach from day one. Everybody has to be expendable, not because your job is threatened, but because it's security for everybody else. You know, you have to think of other people, not just yourself. And that's what we do. So we do have processes. We do have job descriptions. One of the things that we need to work more on is SOPs. We have some, but not nearly to cover everything that we do. And I have been very fortunate. I have people around me that understand and get it, and I make people take vacations and they know the value of that. So— Their job, when they come back, they're refreshed and they don't have a stack of work waiting for them when they get back. Somebody picked up the ball and ran with it so they can come back and just ease right back into work without any stress. I want the same for myself, and it works. And, and it's not easy to find those people, but they are out there, you know.

Yes.

So yes, we get, we get, uh, I can leave for extended periods of time and come back And everything is okay.

So, uh, what does the future look like for, for Hish and for Precision RoofCrafters over the next 5 to 10 years? I know your son's in the business. Um, where do you see, uh, everything going?

I'm not a— retirement hasn't really crept into my thinking. I'm one of those people that always has to have something to do. Uh, I want to find, uh, well, not find, actually a BHAG. that I've— that I have, uh, that's been in the background laying there for quite some time is to create a business model that will allow other people to benefit from having been a part of our family, which is to— and I'm sharing this for the first time, but to— You know, I almost don't want to— I don't want to say it out loud, but here it is— to, uh, open up locations in other parts where they own it, almost like a franchise, but not really. It's just a satellite office, but they have majority ownership in it, right?

Yeah.

And, and let them, you know, let them create the life that they want for themselves, but on the back of a com— of something that's already established. And a name that's recognized and is doing well. So that's, that's one of the things that I have looking forward to.

And these are key people that have been working for you for some time that, that you want to give this opportunity to?

Correct. And, and you know what, here's the thing, a lot of people have that entrepreneurial spirit about them, they just don't know how to get these things done. They'll come and work with us. I want them to have what they want. There's no— the pie is big enough for everybody. There's no reason why Everybody can't do this. You know, it does. You don't. Your your gain does is it's not necessarily my loss, right? We can all win together, right? The win-win-win, right? So so that's that's that's one of those b hacks that we have and and my team members know about and something that they're they really like and I've noticed they're motivated about some of the long-term. People. How that's going to be structured is still in the works.

That's Hish Raman, owner and president of Precision Roof Crafters in Houston, Texas. Thanks for listening to the show. If you feel like you have a great story worth sharing that would also help other contractors, email me at bhouchin@yoursgi.com. Also, if you enjoyed today's episode, Please give us a rating. Remember, friends give fives. You've been listening to the Successful Contractor Podcast powered by Success Group International.

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