Adam Sand, CEO of The Roofing Business Partner, argues roofing companies need a clear purpose to stand out. He's made 2,600 videos following the principle "teach first, sell second" and aligns hiring and operations around his mission to engineer better customer experiences. Great companies like Apple start with why, then work outward to what and how.
What if your roofing company vanished tomorrow? Would anyone truly miss it? I'm Adam Sand, CEO of The Roofing Business Partner. In this video, we're diving deep into the core of what makes a business matter. Because in a business where everyone uses the same tools and charges the same price, it's not what you do, it's why you do it. Let's define that purpose and build a company that truly stands out.
When I look at businesses like Henry Ford, how did Henry Ford become Henry Ford? Or how did Jeff Bezos figure out how to become the infrastructure of the entire internet? Like, how did that happen? They had something more motivating than just selling selling fancy horse-drawn carts, because that's really what a car was. Amazon was just a way to sell books, but there was something deeper behind what they were doing. A lot of businesses start out by saying, hey, this is what we do. So they start the conversation about who their business is by explaining what they do. So we install roofs, and how we do it is by being a certified roofing contractor with subcontractors, and we're GAF Master Elite certified. Why we do it is because we want to put good roofs on people's homes. Now there's a story from Simon Sinek's book where he talks about from Apple, and Apple is different in that instead of going from what to how to why, which is like we build great computers by making them beautiful and user-friendly and we do it because we want to make the world a better place and to make money. They start from the outside in where they say we aim to think differently and our products are user-friendly and beautifully designed and easy to use. We just happen to make good computers. Want to buy one? It's more compelling. The greatest companies in the world start with why and they work their way out from there because people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. Now operationalizing this means you need to get clear on your mission and vision and values, because it's really hard to talk about your roofing company through a lens of like, why do I do this? Why do we do this? And it's a good question to answer because in a world where you're selling the same shingles installed the same way by the same people using the same tools in more or less the same amount of time for more or less the same price, why do you deserve to exist? So when we went through this, we had to figure out like, what is RBP's mission? Why do we exist? We try to make work more rewarding through engineering better customer experiences. If we cease to exist, our customers would cease to create better customer experiences. They wouldn't find ways to make their employees' lives more rewarding, to create more economic mobility for their teams. I'm really happy when I hear things about a certain client's inside salesperson. She was an office manager for a long time, and then she gets to be in inside sales, and then through this position she bought a house. So that makes me feel good. In our roofing company, it was about teaching first and selling second. Prioritize and execute. And this teach first, sell second thing was something that I really took seriously, and that's why I was able to record 2,600 videos, was because I recognized that it wasn't about roofing, it was about teaching homeowners how to buy a roof, and we would sell them second. Now it's just how we did it. This becomes your North Star. It's because you're answering the question: why does your roofing company deserve to exist? What unique value do you bring to your customers? And what change do you want to see as a result of your roofing company being aligned to that mission? But you want to keep it clear and simple because you want clarity and brevity. That's what's teach first, sell second. I don't even mention the prioritize and execute part. I just like to teach first, sell second even more. And our mission statement used to be way longer too, and we made it simpler to make work to make more rewarding through engineering better customer experiences. I even want to drop customer experiences and just do to make life more rewarding through engineering better experiences. Like, I even want to simplify it further as we grow. But it doesn't have to be forever, but it should be for a while. So you want to reflect on this if you're going to create it, because if you're going to create KPIs, if you're going to create accountability numbers, you have to make sure that your mission and your vision and your values aligns with your daily operations. So this isn't something you can ChatGPT and be like, what's my vision? This has to be something you stare at the wall and think, and it should be aligned with your values, because your values dictate your vision for the business, because the values determine how decisions are made. And if you get aligned around that, everything about your business becomes consistent, and there's authenticity from us as leaders, and we get engagement from our employees. And it's all because we use it in our talent acquisition. They came to an interview where we talked about mission, vision, values. We had a core value and a culture fit interview that made it so that our talent acquisition funnel was fed mostly by trying to find people who align with our mission, our vision, and our values. And then we don't compromise on those principles to make money, which which is really, really, really, really hard because it would be so easy for RBP to make money selling some kind of info product. We're aspiring to maintain our values. And so once you've got mission, vision, and values, that's the first step. It's what's gonna allow you to start to visualize the win.
