EP 204. Reducing Sales Friction with the Roofing Business Partner | Featuring Adam Sand

What is up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the starbuild Grow show. We have another amazing guest that's going to share some knowledge with you here in just a minute. All right. I am here with the legend, the man, the myth, Adam Sand. You've been on before. Long time ago, right?

Yeah.

And we were just talking about. We're going to get into some of the details of our connection. Like, we've been in the industry quite a while. You're doing some amazing things in the industry. You're like an operational, like, implementation guru, own a roofing company, do a lot of consulting and coaching. Really cool story. My brother from. From the north. Welcome into the show, my friend.

Thank you very much. Glad to be here. Yeah, it's been kind of a weird journey. I was just. Before we got started the show, I was talking about how there was a time back and it was like 2017, I think, or 2018. IMG, Expos Insurance, Mastermind Group. And there was this conference and they had Gary Vee speak at it. And I remember Ad Zombies was the main sponsor. And there was. There was a guy named Cody Klein. He wanted to get our Facebook ad course, like back. It was funny at the beginning, Joseph Hughes was an agency and I was a Facebook ad school. And then almost without. Without talking to each other, he became a Facebook ad school and I became an agency for a while. And Cody wanted access to my Facebook ad journeyman's program. And he traded me a speaking spot at IMG because he knew some girl there. And so he said, if I get your speaking spot, can you let me in the class for free? And I was like, yeah, that makes. That's a totally good trade.

Yeah.

So I did that. And I remember Gary V. Was the keynote speaker and I didn't know anybody in the industry. And then I remember there was this guy behind me and. And he was like, this guy that I looked at that I was like, man, he was the reason I got into video in our roofing company. Name is Dimitri. We all know him.

Yep.

And he. I tried talking to him and he kind of big time me at the time, maybe he was just rushing and seemed mean, but he didn't talk to me. And then he stood up and he asked a question to Gary Vee. And I was trying to get a question, and he stood up and he got the microphone, he asked a question. They talked Russian for a second and I was like, damn it, that's that guy won't be nice to me. Right. And then there was this other Guy in the room, he stands up, he says, I just wrote a book of the roofing industry. It's called Start, Build, Grow. And it's like. And you're talking about how you're doing the stuff that you're doing. And then I was like, damn it. I didn't get to ask my question. And there was this competitiveness. I was like, oh, who are these guys? I was like this underdog from Canada that wasn't even allowed to come to the country all the time. And I felt that was a jealousy and a competitiveness. And now, you know, we've seen lots of people come and go through the years, like, I don't need to make. Made their names, but there's a lot of guys who have kind of come into this whole, like, let's help the roofing industry space, and then kind of, you know, whatever, round out of energy and left, let's say. And now, you know, there's a few of us that still stick around, trying to do good things. And it's just really cool to be. Have the opportunity, your friend and to be on your show and to have. Be able to, you know, offer value to your audience and, And. And to be collaborating with you on something like this.

I love it. And it's. I love that you bring that up, because I think that moment and that conference was pretty significant for a lot of us. Yeah, I mean, I. I had just. I hadn't even published a book yet. Right. That was. Was the end, like November, Amazon, Kindle, thing, a dollar. I think that, that that conference was November or something. Right. And my book was published, like, beginning of January. So it was perfect timing because I'd spent a year writing the book, getting it ready and trying to get it. Get it off to market, and that was the perfect timing to ask that question and. And get the interaction from Gary Vee. And then later on that night or that evening, we met him at the airport and just got to get to chat with him some more. We actually had some footage of that and. And it was cool. That was like a defining, inspirational moment in yours, but also my career.

Yeah.

Because this show stemmed from that moment really, when I got to meet with Gary Vee. And that's when I really started diving, like, man, who is this guy? What is he doing? Started following what he's doing. And what hit me the most was you have to turn your roofing company into a media company. You have to create a personal brand. And so. And that was the moment I was like, you know what? I'M going to go in and I'm going to become. Or start a personal brand and put. Start putting myself out there, which, as you probably know, maybe we can talk to the audience about that. It's uncomfortable.

Oh, yeah.

I remember the first time I had my phone out and I went live.

Yeah.

I was like, trembling. I was like, what am I going to say? What are they going to think? What are we going to do? And, you know, four years later, we've done over 200 episodes of this show alone. We've done almost all of them live.

Yeah.

And. And you've just learned to get more comfortable. And now then I built an online course. And I remember, like, after that show is when we prepped, we got the book launched, and that's when I decided, hey, I'm going to build an online course. I'm going to start filming YouTube videos, and I'm going to start doing all the things to build this personal brand. And I remember my man trying to. My first attempt at building the course had this little camera I'd set up. I'd press the button, I'd run around. I'd get in there and try to, you know, get in and try to fill my course. I had my whiteboard in the background with notes and. Or in the background here. And I had another thing with notes trying to. It was awful. I could not speak in front of a camera. I could not do any of that. And we've just evolved. And I know you. You and I kind of started in the same time.

Like, I had the. I started the podcast.

Yeah.

Around that same time.

I remember going on your show. Those were my first. Yeah, those are the first shows I was ever a guest on. Was your roofing business partner.

We did. Had you on the show. And back then, I mean, with the podcast, they. They talked about needing a pop filter on a microphone. And I was so poor at that time that I was like, I didn't want it. Like, it was like the idea of spending 200 on the arm with the thing. So I actually took a microphone for the Bluetooth yeti and I found a guy online who said, cut a sock and put it over the yeti microphone. And then I took a fish thing that you would dig the fish out of a thing, and I put a leotard over it, and that was my pop filter. So I still have a picture of it somewhere. But I was so, like, I did. I was like, just kind of bootstrapping this whole thing. And I. We were building a roofing company doing this and I was just like, I don't know, I just didn't want to spend the money on anything. I wanted to like do it super cheap. And so I was like, nope, I'm not going to spend money on that expensive tool 200 pop filter. But you know, we started talking about different things and, and all of us kind of got started at that time. It's just really cool. Like take us back there and just think how long we've been crossing paths. Because I remember I came on your episode once. It was big for us. Like we, you like you had the most, you were like the most viewed episode on our podcast for the longest time and still up there. And it's how many years old now and it's like start run your company. Like a real business I think was your founding brothers was your episode. And it's just been really awesome watching the growth of everything kind of come to be.

Yeah, it's cool, it's cool that we're connecting and reconnecting here. We're, you know, on tour together, sharing and trying to, you know, share what we know and teach others. So let's, let's dive in a little bit. Like, let's reconnect. And it's been a while since you've been on, we've been on each other's shows. How did you get here? How did you get in the roofing business? And, and how did you get to where you are now as, as a highly sought after, you know, consultant in the space?

Well, okay, so yeah, it's, it's kind of a wild journey. But I mean the background is, is that before I got into this roofing game, I had a, I made an app and sold it when I was really young. And it was for the tanning industry, just making it so you could book appointments online.

Right.

And it was kind of a different, it's kind of something different for us. Right. Like I, I was in open to owned a tanning salon and then I made this app and then I sold it and then I didn't know what I want to do. It's my first billion dollar mistake because they actually took that app and it like sold and sold and then eventually became like a billion dollar company. Yeah. So then anyways we, we sold that app and then from there I went and I was kind of in the car industry. Didn't know what to do with my life. I was kind of just, I had some money and I was making great money in the car industry. But my best friend was a roofer and he didn't. He wasn't. He wasn't making much money, you know, like, I was getting to do cool things and renting, went to Vegas, rented a cool car. You know, stuff like that. And I was like, hey, you want to do something? It was always, nah, I can't. Kids, no, I can't. Kids, No, I can't. Money. I was just like, oh, like, it just sucks.

Like, it was.

He was always behind.

Yeah.

Just. I was just watching my best friend and, like, our lives kind of going. And I started to feel like, you know, they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time around.

Oh, yeah.

And I started to feel like, is he dragging down my average? And that felt really crappy to say to a friend. Right. Like, someone who had been there for me when I was at my worst. I didn't really want to say that about him, but at the same time, I was kind of like, this is kind of lame. I said, you know, your boss just sold their roofing company. Why don't you start a roofing company? Like, like, you know, like, you don't like your new. Your new boss, why don't you go start your own roofing company? Seems like a pretty good, like, exit strategy.

Yeah.

Worked out for them. And he said, yeah, I don't know. Let's. Let's try like. Or he's like, I don't know. I don't know. I said, why don't we try it? I loaned him some money, and I realized pretty quickly that I was never going to get my money back if I didn't help him along with it. Right. I kind of had to help him a bit. And through that process, we were like, you know, trying to find the right place to advertise, trying to find the right place to get customers. And we thought, like, Facebook, there has to be something about this. And to try and get a Facebook ad person back then in 2016 was impossible. Like, we couldn't find one. We were like, we went to agencies, and the agency we were using for Google, they said, no, you can't do Facebook. That's for, like, dog toys and weight loss. And I said, well, what about like, like, like, can't you just, like, do them anyway? Like, we want to try it. Nope. No, it wouldn't make sense. Yeah. So we fired them. And I said, well, we hired the new company, said they would do Facebook ads. And I was like, can you do it? They said, yep, no problem. So we hired them. And then month one went By. And I said, hey, can we do the Facebook ads now? And, like, no, that's for people who dog toys and weight loss. I'm like, why won't you run Facebook ads for me? So I was like, I gotta try and find somebody else who will do this. So I started finding an agency. Couldn't find one. I tried finding a guru. Like, you know how today you can't throw a shingle off a roof without hitting three Facebook ad guys in the head? Yeah, I couldn't find anybody like that. Yeah. And so then I tried home services. Couldn't find it. Eventually, I found this guy, Rick Mulready. He had a podcast called the Art of Online Traffic. And he said, you know, all you online advertising guys talk about is selling money on making money online. Nobody knows how to sell and make money on in a real business. And he kind of, like, was like, well, I don't know. You're right. I don't know. It worked for a roofer. But I can show you the Facebook ad platform. You can try it. So we did, and it worked. We got really busy. And so then I was, like, kind of sharing in the private groups about what the results that we had. And back. They do, like, all these, like, private groups for Facebook people, right?

Yeah.

And we started getting all these interviews because back then it was all, like, person runs $1,000 worth of ads and sells, you know, $4,500 in oil changes. Or, you know, or like, person runs $500 in Facebook ads and sells $7,000 in dog toys. And then it was like, sky runs $5,000 in Facebook ads and sells $420,000 in roofing. It was like, you have a podcast, you know, that, like, that kind of. Those kind of things is like, it's a clickbaity headline.

Oh, yeah. And people latched on to that.

So we.

I remember seeing you post all about that.

So we were getting interviewed by all these people in, like, the Facebook marketing space. And then all these roofers started reaching out and being like, hey, like, what is this that you're doing? And at the time, I was just this dude from Canada that was partnered in a roofing company. And I thought, man, this feels good. So I said, okay. Some guy said, well, can you teach me? And I said, yeah, I can teach you. How about 500 bucks a month? And they're like, okay. And they're like, how do we send you the money? And at that time, I didn't. Like, I was from Canada. We can't do E transfer. Like, there's like PayPal. And then I basically, they asked me what my business was called and I said, well, I'm a roofing business partner, so I'll be your roofing business partner too, and I'll help you with your Facebook. It was like, that was basically how the name came to be. I had all kinds of stuff, stupid names that I came up with, but that was the name that stuck. And so then we got the opportunity to do the IMG thing. And over the years we would just get people really busy with Facebook ads. Back when it was like shooting fish in a barrel, it was super easy. Cost per a thousand impressions was like a dollar. Right now it's like 14.

Oh yeah, it's a lot.

14 times more expensive than it used to be. And back then everybody thought it was stupid. You know, like a lot of people like Facebook. That's dumb. Best words were best referral source, word of mouth and, and all this kind of stuff. And nobody believed it. And then, then all of a sudden there was a thousand people in the space. Like everybody was a Facebook ad guy. Like the guy that Rick Mulready that taught me, he created a course called. He had the FB Advantage, which is the course I took. Then he created the FB Advantage Local, which was of course based on our success story. He interviewed us for it.

Yeah.

And then like click funnels taught on that same course material. And the next thing you know, there's like roofers, lawyers, dentists, chiropractors, like, became like the target industry of every Facebook ad course. So all of a sudden it's like 22 year old kids coming out of the woodwork every day, like Facebook ad guys. And we started getting lumped in with them and it was also getting harder and I wasn't in love with it, but because of what we were doing with the Facebook ads, people would get busy. I remember the first time someone called us and said they wanted to fire us for getting too many leads. Imagine a roofer saying that today, but they're like, no, it's too many leads.

I'm like, well, they bad can't handle the leads, Right?

Yeah.

And then that's where we come into play because we're going to try to help build, you know, systems and processes to where you can handle the leads and have the right team and have the sales process. But a lot of roofers just think, all I need is leads. Leads that'll save everything. I'll grow my. But be careful. Yeah, right.

So that was the issue is that they were getting too many leads. I said, well, what do you mean too many leads? I said, well, can you show me what you're doing? And in Sargent's, my company back home, we tried all these different CRMs. We built Zoho, we built one page CRM. We built Pipedrive, we built Prosperworks. I tried all these different CRMs. I didn't like a lot of them. And so I built. We built our own custom CRM on this tool called Podio. And so I was like, familiar with how we did it and I didn't know how other roofing companies did it at that point. We just ran ads and got them leads to their inbox, right?

Yeah.

And so when they showed me that first time, I want to fire me. And they showed me how they did their business, those folders on walls and there was spreadsheets and there was like baskets all over the place and post it notes and whiteboards. I was like, that's how you run your business. You're doing like that much money in revenue and that's how you run your business. That's crazy. Like, it's no wonder you're so. It's so hard to do. And because they've made an app in the past and I'd sold it to other businesses, it just felt like, oh, well, I know what to do. Like, instead of, like, instead of paying me to do the monthly Facebook ad stuff, we can stop that. Pay me monthly and I'll just fix that. Like, I'll just make you a CRM.

Yeah.

And so then we just started doing that. Like our Facebook ad clients became our CRM clients.

Yeah.

And eventually I got so sick of Facebook ads that we just stopped doing it. And then because we stopped doing it, we stopped getting new leads for our CRMs. And so that's when we, when we added Sumoquote, it kind of became our new, like, entry level thing. It gets people kind of selling more and then creating a need for the CRMs. But I mean, it all kind of just came together in the last, say, two years as some of the clients that we've been working with for a few years started to have this, like, really disproportionate growth to the market. And then as we were starting to like, do what any influencer or person that sells stuff online does. As we start posting screenshots and videos of what we do, people are like, what's that? And then we started to get in some pretty innovative rooms and people started asking us to solve more and more complex problems. And so we just kind of became consultant, right? Just like come in, solve a very specific problem with a very, you know, with a limited or set scope, make this better thing and then leave and maybe support it or maybe just leave and let them support it themselves. And just it though it was just a. A bunch of unintended consequences. It was like freakonomics. It's just a bunch of stuff happened by accident. My roofing company back home, I don't spend much time in it. You know, my business partner runs it. It's not that I'm some super successful absentee owner. It's just that that's his business. That was always intended to be his business. We're still best friends. We have our days where we. Where I agree with way he does things and don't I show up for four traction meetings a month and that's it, you know, but. And he runs it ride or die. And however it works out, works out. But I love what I'm doing now. And I've been on the road, been to 28 states in eight months. I've been home three days this year. Living out of a backpack and out of hotels, me and my fiance and my dog. Just going from roofing coming to roofing company.

Well, that's cool. I mean, that's the life. I love that, love the story in a sense that it just. You just find a challenge and find a solution, identify a challenge, identify an issue, find a solution. And you just have evolved from that perspective as an entrepreneur and then also in the roofing space, just helping, serving others and solving problems. And it's great.

Yeah, yeah. It's a total. It's a total accidental career is what I say, like when people say, how did you do it? Like, I mean, maybe someday sometime I'll find a way to like box this all together and maybe show some other young consultant type work. Want people who want to do consulting how to do it, you know, now we're at the point where we had one of our clients sell his company, right. He was in Canada. We started with him Facebook ads, then Covid. We taught him how to do like video and sales, right? Like how to sell over remote, right. And then he started to want to sell his company. So then we did a process model notation like in lucidchart, mapping out all his processes in like a diagram. And then. And then helped him sell the company. And that was like. That wasn't even something that I was like offering as a service. He was just like, hey, you know, our business, you Know what we're doing. Do you think you could help with this? I just got to document what we do so I can package it up and sell it. And I was like, I was like, I didn't again, I didn't want to get fired because we weren't needed for marketing anymore. We weren't needed for what we were doing. The. So I was like, I was like, if you have a problem, I'll try and solve it. I think I know what to do. So we figured out he sold his company. Well, he moved to Des Moines, Iowa, not far from here. And I was like, so what are you gonna do now? He's like, honestly, what you do is kind of cool. I want to work for you. So now I have a guy that I help sells really good working for me and I don't know if that becomes a thing, right. If I start getting more consultants, like I don't know what where. That's what really where we're at. So right now we're just in loving being like homeless hubspotters running around doing like some high level CRM stuff and some sumo code stuff and just everywhere going where the wind blows us or where the Lord takes us. I don't know what that means, but we're just enjoying it and I'll see where we end up.

It's, you know, unintentional, but it's a great kind of segue because I mean, this show has been around almost four years now and it wouldn't be possible without our awesome sponsors.

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Those are two of our big sponsors and I'm so grateful for not only their technology and services, but the people behind it. Right. And. And I wouldn't even have a sponsor on here if I didn't believe in them and are my entire company is built off Sumoquote and or job Nimbus and Sumoquo. Combining those two things have been an absolute game changer in our business. And you can probably even speak more to that about helping companies integrate and implement those things and seeing what transformational things can happen to a company when you plug in software and build it out and make it customized and make it fit the way the company is wanting to operate.

Yeah, like I just said on stage a while ago, like technology democratizes consumption and commoditizes production. So if you're best in the, if you're the best in the world, you get to do it for everyone. And that's kind of something that's really permeating the industry right now. And you know these two sponsors that you've aligned with, you've aligned with smart people. And I say that because I'll say that my favorite CRM and your sponsor might not like it until I get to my point. But my favorite CRM is Acculux only because it's a great all in one system that ends up being very restrictive and then people have to get off of it and it's a real nuisance to get off of it. It's like a hostage situation. So they really need a lot of help getting out of there. And so we have to help Job Nimbus. What I do like about them, you have the CEO on and they use HubSpot as their CRM to sell their software. And you see a lot of that inspiration coming to jobnimbus. Like you interview the CEO and you're talking about what's next. And he, you guys are trying to verbatim for a new feature, right? He was kind of playing, he wasn't getting too loose lipped about it. But you guys have talked about the material supply issues and he said, well, I think that's going to cycle its way out of the market and I think there's going to be more customer scarcity as the market changes. And so they're looking at doing some marketing stuff. And when I hear that and I think I know you're in HubSpot. HubSpot has this like marketing hub and I'm excited to see what features they do because I see that inspiration. Now, if you're a roofing company that's looking to get your company systemized, would you not want to work with a roofing specific software that has a niche focus but has a really great inspiration from an enterprise grade tool? If you're starting out and you're at 700,000 a year, 1.2 million a year. And you're trying to democratize the consumption of your business and commoditize the production of what you're doing. How did you do that? If you can find a way to link like Job Nimbus and do a great proposal in Sumoquote that demonstrates your value and then keep yourself organized because you can sell the piss out of yourself with Sumoquote. We could, I mean, we could get, I mean, I don't like to reduce the value of salespeople, but we could get a monkey to use Sumo Quote and sell if they could just learn a point at everything. Right. Like, and you could use something like Sumo Quote's proposal to sell a company. Yeah, you can. You know, you could even sell it through the Internet. Right. But when it comes to actually delivering the product, you got to stay organized. Right. And getting yourself into a CRM is key. Now the tool doesn't matter as much as the process and the process doesn't matter as much as adoption. And so the biggest thing is that when you get a tool, you have to understand what is going to be your process or your approach to the market and where I think that everybody, you know, I, we just recently did an interview with someone else that's kind of in the coaching space and they were talking and it was really interesting when I was asking questions to hear the answers. And they mostly cater to 500,000 to one and a half million dollar contractors of all industries. It was really interesting. Like I just, it was like going back to grade one and learning how to sound out vowels again. I was like, yeah, these back to the basics things. Like it's important. All the clients that we're working with, they figured that out years ago. And it's important that you get these things figured out. And there's no better way than to do it than to get some kind of coach that can extract the best from you and help you get set up. And that's a good thing that you're doing for the industry is making sure that like. And now you guys talking about some super high level stuff like fiduciaries and amazing things that you and Connor are talking about. But it's like, but to know that these guys have a Runway from, from figuring out systems and processes all the way to fiduciary to Visa. That's a pretty wide Runway. Right? Right. Like some of the other coaches in the industry I see are like, let's get you from 0 to 5 million. But I don't know what to do after that.

Yeah.

And then other people are like, we're going to help you liquidate your company. But you guys offer like a really wide breadth of like what you guys are doing. And it seems I haven't been inside your program, but I've seen you guys talk, I watch your episodes, I know what you guys are talking about. I keep my eye on it.

Well, that's what we're trying to do and I don't want to turn this into a sales pitch, but that's like what we're trying to do is there's, there's different phases of growing a roofing business, of any business really. I mean, you know, start all the way inception to, you know, start to implementation to all the different phases to full on scale if you're going to exit the business. And there's different challenges and nuances all the way across the board. And as someone who's kind of been there and done that for number of years, I wanted to create a platform, create a space where someone who's just getting started can get some great resources to help them get to that next level. I also wanted to create something where I can work with somebody eye to eye at a similar level or sometimes even a greater level than me and I just give them a different perspective to help them go to a whole nother level, you know. So we have contractors that are literally just getting started, you know, using pieces of our platform, kind of a done for you plug and play resource model all the way up to where we kind of become like a fractionalized COO, CFO for their company doing 10, $20 million. So it's fun. I mean it's cool to, to try to. That's the objective is to try to become and support someone throughout the whole spectrum. So when someone reaches out to me and says, hey, I need some help in this area, this area. We want to try to have a way to help that person.

So like what is the end game? Because I, I struggle with that and I think that a lot of people struggle with that. I know some, I know some guys in the roofing industry who are, or who are like you. They've built some successful companies, but they haven't found a. Some of them want to be like you or, or some of the other people in the industry. They want to have like they were like, they wish they could get their voice out there and then some are just like can't. Those who can do, those who can't teach. You know what I mean? Like they got that attitude right and Then some people, like, really think that it would be fun to do what you do. Some people feel it'd be, like, redeeming, you know what I mean, to give back. Right. Like, you see, like, stuff like Martin's doing, and some other guys, they just want to grow and dominate. Like, some of these dudes in Florida, they're just, 200 million isn't enough. We're going for 400 million. I mean, and they're not doing anything other than give back to their people. And I struggle with it, too. Like, I don't know. I don't necessarily know what my end game is. I sometimes think I'm just going to be CTO for one of these companies that wants to build the cooler thing. And I just have a bit of a head start than some of some people, but I don't know that for sure. You know what I mean? But I'm curious, like, what is your. What is your end game? Because there's a lot of people out there who look at what you're doing and they think it's exciting. They'd want to be a part of it, or they want to do it, too, or they don't necessarily know why you would do it. Like, why would a roofing company guy teach stuff that his local Colorado market people could use and use it to chip away and steal from your salespeople?

Yeah. I guess the secret or the takeaway there is I'm always learning myself. Right. Doing a podcast, interviewing guys like you. Like, working with contractors. Yeah. I'm always sharing and trying to, you know, give and give and serve others and give back and help others. But I'm. I'm learning almost more than I'm teaching. And that's. I think, what. What the underlying value is in being a coach or consultant and. And helping others is my knowledge is growing exponentially. At the same time, I'm teaching and helping other people at a faster pace. So I think that's. That's something that probably doesn't get talked about enough. But I just feel like I'm called and led to serve the industry that took me from the pit of despair. And I was in a really tough spot. I mean, a lot of, you know my story. You can read the book. And I shared a little bit more earlier when I was talking is I feel like it's my responsibility to give back to the industry that has blessed me so much and to really help good entrepreneurs that really want to do things right and really want to make an impact and give them tools. And if I can help them accelerate their growth and help them succeed. Like, I get a lot of intrinsic value from that. You know, it's not about the money. You can make great money in this industry, but when you can impact people's lives to where it impacts others lives because of something you did, I just, I really appreciate that. Like, that's a big part of why.

I do what I do and see that. And so a lot of people, when they hear that and I talk like I talk to people, they don't necessarily understand it. So you think just some people just don't understand what it might feel like to be. Get that higher calling like that you're not seeing it as much competition or as much as like hurting your, you don't see it as hurting your roofing company at all that other people in your room, because you were speaking in Denver quite openly to people who are literally could come in there and be like, oh, that's what he does. I'm going to try and do some of that. That I'm going to try and up. Like that would force your guys to have to up the game of what they're doing because you're leveling the playing field.

I'm a big believer and I think that's a nuance of old school versus new school entrepreneurship. I'm a big believer that, you know, all ships rise and if I can help someone else, even if they're a competitor of mine, not only is my learning am I growing, but it's raising the standards of the industry. And in the grand scheme of things, look how many roofers in each market there are. If I'm working with half a dozen or a dozen in, in a, in a market that has 5,000 roofers, we can work together to all grow and all get better together. And that's the results that I've seen. Yeah, you know, collaborating with people that I've been coaching, I've been able to collaborate with some of them and, and help them with solve different problems. And my business has grown because of it. And that's the ancillary benefit you get by just having a servant heart. I just want to help and serve and help others. Good people help good people become successful. And in doing so, it's helped my ship rise as well and my team and my company grow and gain more market share also. So for those who question like, oh my gosh, I don't want to help my, you know, help my competitors, change your mindset a little bit because I think that those who collaborate win well.

There'S 108,000 roofing contractors. You know, the number is always hard to peg, but that seems to be the widely accepted number right now. And there's certainly more than enough roofing contractors to go around. I, I personally feel like there's so many elements of froth in the industry. Right. Like we were talking at the table earlier about, you know, how even the supplementing industry I think is ripe for some AI and automation to, you know, basically take a smart contract, that is the insurance policy, the building code which is written in stone more or less, and the, and say like a, a damage report from something like a roof hawk, combining them all together with an AI and spitting out a claim and reducing the need for all the supplementing, the back and forth, forth, the legal fights, the time delays, the risk that comes to contractors like the, the and in the end it would be designing for the customer. Right. The customer should just be able to say maroo's damaged. Here's my policy. This is building code. That's my answer. And you either learn from your mistakes and what policy you bought or you don't and you, you either buy a better policy. Consumers would have to do a little more self education when they buy policy. But I, I think that there's a lot of froth in the market for sure and that not everybody deserves to be a roofing contractor just because they wanna, and maybe at least they don't deserve to be successful. Right. But I do think that collaborating and, and combining your intelligence with other like minded people can set some fair game. Because before we have smart contracts and NFTs and all this take over the world, you know, we have to have some smart ground rules like associations and collaborating with local people. And I think that just a lot of people are missing the mark on that because I see a lot of this stuff in the Facebook groups. I'm so active in there and I see a lot of, a lot of people that just don't get it or they don't feel like it's genuine. And with like a lot of you, I, I feel like it's completely genuine. Have you ever like fired a customer or not taken a customer? Yeah, yeah.

I mean there's just certain people you just, you know, we, we're pretty particular about who we want to work with. I want to work with like minded people that see sync up and, and that I feel like our values are aligned. You know, that's really important. It's like we've got it in my own business and in my consulting like the value alignment is vitally important. Associations like even, even working with other influencers or other people in the space, like I want to surround myself with people that align with my values point blank. I apply that to my business when I'm hiring salespeople or staff or, or partnering with people or working with, you know, our vendor partners. That's vitally important in how I operate and how I look at, you know, the growth and sustainability of my businesses.

So would you say that's one of the first things that companies need to work on when they, like whenever you take them on? Like, do you want to know their core values and help them develop them if they haven't?

Yeah, that's definitely one of the things we're definitely. We always do early. Early on we have an assessment we're going to put somebody through when they first onboard with us. And one of those things is what are your core values? And we're going to work on establishing that and getting, making sure that foundation is great. Values, culture, vision, goals, organizational chart, job descriptions, and make sure the company is structured soundly. And we're going to dive into some of the like, tools and software. What are you using to be software? And then we're going to work on implementing a sales system and all the these things. I mean, you could their sales system right away. You can plug and play. We always got to have sales. But you need to be working parallel with the other areas of your business. And, and I think a lot of people kind of forget that. And they're like, all I want sales. All I want sales. There's a whole lot more to building a roofing company. My opinion than doing sales. Exactly. But this has been an amazing chat, dude. We could probably go for hours on this. Appreciate you guys tuning in as we start to wrap this up up. We always, we always want to end, you know, with a gold nugget, man. Our listeners are oftentimes entrepreneurs, roofing contractors, and we bring on guest experts and highly intellectual individuals such as yourself. If you were to leave us with one golden nugget piece of advice, a quote or something that has really inspired you, what would that be?

Oh, that's. It's tough to put on the spot like that because I feel like there's a ton. But I really think that going forward we have to recognize that in the industry, the easy is is over and you have to get a clear understanding of what is your value in the marketplace. I personally and professionally have been exposed to things that tell me that there's a Lot of people spending a lot of money trying to consolidate the industry. And it's not just some thing that happened with Home Depot a long time ago. Like everybody's saying, like, I believe this is real this time. Right? Because they've, they've duplicated this in many other disrupted markets. And if you're serious about staying in business and you have to be focused on these impending threats and innovating in your business and really understanding what is your value to the market and how can you build a moat around your company? Because it's, it's good. You're gonna see the industry evolve and, and if you're not cut out for it, then there's a lot of great companies that are looking for really good people and you might want to find yourself there instead. But I don't want that to be depressing for people. I want it to be empowering for people because they understand that all they have to do is design for the customer and they will find a way to succeed if they just become relentless about that. But I wonder how many people are really set up for it when they've been living in a state of easy for so long.

Yeah, that's good. It's not hard. It's getting, it's getting harder. And protect your business. Pay attention to the market, pay attention to the industry. Go to events, talk to guys like Adam, and you're definitely going to help prevent bad things from happening. And you can really protect this amazing industry, protect your business, protect your families.

Yeah.

Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Make sure to hit that like subscribe comments, ask us questions. We'll be interacting with you. And take care. God bless.

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