A roofing company founder explains why he shifted from B2B to direct-to-consumer and how he's working with the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance to raise industry standards through technology and professionalism.
I wanted to build a roofing company to solve the issues that I was experiencing. A lot of the roofing and solar companies aren't ran like a business, they're ran kind of like a group of friends out there making some money and which is good when the times are good. But then once you hit some troubling times, that's why you see so many of these companies go out of business which then the end result is the homeowner has a roof or a solar system that has no warranty on it anymore and they're kind of left out to dry. So I think that's one of the biggest things is not having good structure, not having good vision of both the good times and the bad times. What I saw a lot, especially in the solar and I see a lot now in roofing because one of the things that I do as a side as well as I'm a mentor in the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance, which actually helps roofing and solar contractors elevate their level of professionalism and deliver amazing experiences through training and coaching. So not only are we out here helping homeowners, we're also helping other contractors help homeowners as well. We're the easiest way to buy a roof in America. We're the only roofing company that you can buy a roof 100% over the phone. And we've eliminated the in person at the kitchen table, hard closes where the husband and the wife has to be there and, and I'm not leaving until you sign. We've really streamlined the process utilizing things like satellite measurements to quote a roof. We have a very, very comprehensive YouTube channel where homeowners can learn about the roofing process, learn about the company and come to the buying process already informed. And we're finding more and more homeowners want to do their own research, want to learn on their own time, and, and once they made a decision, they don't need us sitting there pounding them over the head for an hour saying buy my product. It's, you know, we do amazing things, we build amazing roofs, we tell the world about it, and if you want to do business with us, we make it extremely easy. So when I was in the solar industry, one of the biggest problems as a solar sales rep was getting roof quotes. You do the presentation to the homeowner, the homeowner says, hey, I'd love to do solar, but I have a 20 year old roof. And so then you'd have to go try to get a roof quote from a roofer. And it would Take a week or two weeks. And in all sales, time kills sales. That level of excitement you have when you're ready to go buy something. And then now two weeks go by, maybe grandma comes into town, the dog runs away. Whatever happens in life and it's impossible to get back on the phone with that person or the other side of it is because it's so hard to work with roofers. A lot of solar companies were putting solar on very questionable roofs because it was just like, hey, I don't want to deal with the roofer. And so with seeing that, I knew that there was an opportunity if we could deliver real time quotes, we could completely reimagine the industry. And so that, that's what I set out to do is I wanted to develop a system. Because our original business model was strictly B2B. I built a roofing company for what I wanted as a solar sales manager, which was fast quotes. So before AI, before the satellite measurements, before all of that, I developed a way to go onto Google Earth, measure the perimeter of a house, drop yourself onto street view, measure the pitch of a roof, and I was able to deliver quotes in 15 minutes or less to sales reps that were sitting at the kitchen table with homeowners. So now when homeowners said, hey, I know I need a new roof, they'll go, great, I'll text reimagine roofing. They would text us. We'd get them a quote back in 15 minutes. They would then be able to present that to the homeowner. And now the homeowner got a high quality quote from a high quality contractor right at the point of sale. And everybody won in that scenario. What we made sure to do is we made sure we leverage technology. And so when we go do a project, we're taking photos and that uploads to a live link that the homeowner can follow along with as well. And then also once the solar install is done, then we would go back out and do a final inspection. And that was kind of our core business model for a long time. And then as the solar industry started to have some troubles, as interest rates began to rise, we had to pivot as a company. And over the last two years, we went from a B2B model to a direct to consumer model. So now we're, you know, 95% of our business comes from direct to consumer because we saw some of the headwinds that solar was going to begin to face. And because of the fact that a lot of those companies were not ran like a business, we understood that we couldn't tie our future to their future anymore. And so that's when in late 2022, we decided to make a pivot as a company. And we still work with some of the larger solar companies, but we really had to kind of change our product offering and our business model because we were able to see what was coming around the corner, which is what happened in the solar industry. So right now in the Roofing, Solar and Reform alliance, we have over 350 contractors nationwide. Every state in the nation is represented. We actually have some roofers from Canada as well, I think even one from Sweden. And we're really changing what it means to be a roofing and solar contractor. Historically, people have been very, very guarded. They think everything's a trade secret. They don't want to share any ideas. And instead what we've done is we brought together, you know, over 300 contractors that just want to strive to be great and they want to give an amazing service. And we're sharing inside secrets, we're learning from each other. You know, I'm sharing what we're doing here at Reimagine Roofing. And as a whole, we're elevating the industry because I really believe that if we can elevate the industry, that becomes the new standard. So now it' I'm not competing against these other 349 contractors. I'm competing against anybody that's not elevating the industry. And that's a really powerful place to be in versus thinking that I'm competing against elements.
