From Startup to Success: Kody Landals on Scaling & Culture Building | RT3 Podcast

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the RT3 Think Tank podcast. I'm your host, Karen Edwards, and I'm really excited to welcome Cody to the program today. Cody, your company is Reimagine Roofing. And I've just recently met you and learned a little bit about what you've done and the, the way that you have really leveraged technology as a way to help you get your business to where you are. But I want to just stop and ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners and just tell us a little bit about you.

Yeah, my name is Cody. You know, I'm also a mentor in the Roofing and Solar Reform alliance with Adam Binsman, where we help other roofers, you know, really implement new technology. So technology has always been at the forefront for me as a company. I got into roofing from the solar industry, which I'll talk a little bit more about here in a second. And before that I was in the Marine Corps, so that's been kind of my journey. Joined Marine Corps right out of high school, then went to ASU for college, got in the solar industry, and then saw there was a big market inefficiency where there wasn't a roofing company dedicated to the solar industry. And so that was kind of our first business model here at Reimagine. And then after, you know, that industry changed a little bit. We switched to more of a direct to consumer model where we really leveraged technology to give a world class experience for our homeowners.

Wow. Thank you for your service. It's great to, you know, we have a lot of veterans in the roofing industry and it's great to meet you and see what you're doing. So it's interesting that you started in solar because that's a technology that, you know, it's been around for a while, it's been talked about for a while in the roofing industry, but I feel like it just hasn't quite taken off. But what's your perspective on that?

Yeah, I actually started in solar when I was in the Marine Corps. Part of what I was doing in the Marine Corps was deploying solar powered satellite communication in rural areas, you know, where troops were so they could communicate back with headquarters. Then I went to ASU and studied solar. I got a degree in sustainability and then I got into the solar industry. To kind of answer your question. I, I think we're still at the very forefront of the industry as a whole. What we just saw over the last two years was a kind of the shaking of the tree as interest rates rose, there was a lot of kind of bad actors that weren't doing good work that, you know, were, were forced out of the industry. I think it was really similar to kind of what happened in two the, the real estate crash then. Now we're going to have a much more resilient industry. We're going to have an industry where people are doing things the right way. And I think it's a huge opportunity for roofers in particular to add solar to their business, not as the, the core part of their business, but as an addition similar to how you might do siding or you might do windows or you might do gutters. If you can be more of a home service contractor, not just a roofer, it really helps increase the value of your business, but also gives you a lot of resiliency. If we face future economic trials, you know, if maybe the roofing industry pulls back or you don't have a storm that hits your market that year, you have more resiliency as a business if you are offering more products to your customers.

So I want to talk a little bit more about that because there's been a lot of conversation over solar and roofing contractors and electricians have to be involved. Or do you get an electrician on your staff? You know, what's, who owns the roof has been that conversation. So how do you handle that?

Yeah, so there's, there's definitely multiple business models and what we encourage and what we coach, you know, in our program is to start off with the, the kind of partnership model similar how you might do Windows. If you're not doing Windows to start, you might sub it out to maybe like Pella or a trusted partner. Same kind of thing in solar. If you can find a trusted, they're called EPCs or installers. And what I encourage because a lot of people struggle with how do I find a trusted partner in that. And I say just act like a homeowner, get on Google, look at reviews. And the real key that, that I really try to stress everybody is sort by new because you'll see what this company has done over the last three months, last six months last year, and you'll see the health of the business. You'll visit the office, meet the people and then find the company that you can truly trust. But for me, that's a stepping stone because I want to control the customer experience and I want the buck to stop with me. So we are a licensed solar installer in the locations where we also do solar. And that's why I would encourage for other roofing companies as well. And I think there's a really great opportunity right now because of the fact that so many of the larger solar companies did go out of business over the last couple of years. There's a lot of talent out there that is good talent that just happened to be out of bad business. And so right now, there's a lot of great opportunity to hire some really high quality people to come in and be maybe a director of ops or your head electrician or your head installer. And then they would be the person that would get you licensed or certified, depending on your location, and they would be the person in charge of, you know, running the quality control underneath your larger brand.

Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about your business. How long have you had this reimagine roofing?

Four years now. We just completed our fourth year.

Okay. And you've done really well. I know. When Maddie, your marketing person, reached out about potentially bringing you on the podcast, she sent some quick highlights of your success and you've won awards. You speak nationally for major brands. Owens Corning, ABC Supply. What is the key, you know, what's helped you in just four years to really make that mark on the industry?

I think just a dedication to evaluating every part of the process. It's in the name. I wanted to reimagine the roofing industry from the inside out. So I came with fresh eyes and I looked at this is how people are doing quotes. Is that the best way? Is that the most effective way to do quotes? Or can we leverage technology to make it faster, to make it more accurate? And what we. What I saw when I got into roofing originally is I was in solar. We were. We were selling solar in multiple locations and I was dealing with a ton of different roofers that all seemed largely unorganized and didn't have. They weren't using a CRM. They weren't. They had. They had very limited organization. And I wanted to fix that. And I think by bringing in a new point of view and really leveraging the technology that we use, you know, having a CRM from day one, you know, asking for reviews from day one, and building up that social proof in a digital way has allowed us to scale the way that we've scaled over the course of four years, which has actually also led to us just 30 days ago actually being acquired. So within our fourth year, we went through an acquisition and we're now part of a larger elite family of brands, which has been awesome for us as well. And we're in the process of taking this model and this vision nationwide now.

Oh, wow. That is so cool. I mean, that's hot.