Chris Zimmerman – Building an Empire From Roofing to AI

And in my head, I, I went, I think you're going to really

regret saying that. And, and as soon as I stopped

thinking about the money and I started thinking about serving,

you know, customer service and serving and, and, and living out

the mission of my why. And money became the by product.

That's the day the money really came.

I would never enter a 5050 partnership again.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show

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So today I'm pretty excited. I have Mr. Chris Zimmerman

joining me. He runs a number of businesses,

starting with a very successful roofing company that has spun

off into a few different things, including a testing laboratory

and a new AI company called Gladstone.

As well as being a successful businessman, Chris is a husband,

a father and a follower of Jesus.

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incentive program so that you can start earning points towards

your next vacation. So, Chris, thanks for joining

me. Yeah, absolutely, man.

I'm, I'm excited. I'm happy to be here.

Awesome. Well, we will dive right in.

The first thing we like to do with every show is just learn a

little bit about you. So can you tell us a little bit

about your life growing up and you know what got you to where

you are today? Yeah, I, I often have said that

I'm, I'm like the most blessed person that's, that's ever been.

I had a really good upbringing. My dad and I were very, very

close. He's passed away, unfortunately.

But, you know, I grew up in a pretty standard Midwest

household. I'm, I'm born in Michigan, but

we moved when I was about four years old to Cincinnati, OH.

And that's where I've been ever since.

I have a brother and sister that are older, took very good care

of me. So a really good strong family

unit when I being the youngest and I was the youngest by a

decent bit. You know, my dad had a lot more

money, you know, that then my brother got to come up with.

And so my brother went to public school.

My sister went to public school until high school and then she

went to like a Catholic, all girls school and I got sent to

private school in the 4th grade. And you know, life's been

honestly pretty easy. There's, there's a lot of guys,

especially in roofing that have trauma and difficult backgrounds

and things like that. And I'm very sympathetic to

that. But you know, I was a fortunate

1 and I had a really good, like I said, family unit and not

bringing a good education. I, I did go to college.

I was not the most studious guy out there.

I missed a lot of classes. I had a lot of fun in college,

but I did get a degree and bounced around a bit in my 20s,

came back to the trade, so to speak.

And I opened at your service really as a remodeling company

in 2005 and was doing more kitchens, baths, basements,

things like that. And then it was really around

somewhere in the 2010 to 2012 range where I kind of came back

to the business and it transitioned in the roofing.

And I've had a lot of different businesses over my life.

My first one, I think I was about 13 and currently still

have quite a few businesses. And, but I've been in and really

kind of dedicated to the roofing industry since, you know,

roughly 2010, 2011 somewhere in there.

And I've kind of found a home here in the roofing industry.

Well, you mentioned there, you said you came back to the

trades. Is that something that you grew

up with? Was your dad in the trades as

well? So my dad was really a pioneer

in the single family real estate investor realm.

And back then, this is the 1980's, the 1990s, there were

things called assumable mortgages where if somebody was

didn't want their home anymore, a buyer didn't have to go get

their own financing and buy the house.

They could assume that person's mortgage just take over the

payments. And so he was a very early

adopter in that and did pretty darn well.

But he always had, you know, houses that as a tenant moved

out, needed to be fixed up. And so he had a crew of guys

that were with him for about 15 years doing all of those rehabs.

And when he retired from the real estate game, he really kind

of felt bad. What am I going to do with this

crew? They've been relying on me for

15 years for work. So he opened up a roofing and

remodeling company really as a side hustle.

It wasn't a really an income driver for him.

It was really just to keep that crew busy.

So at that point, I was in, you know, high school and college.

And so I would work there in the my winter breaks and summer

breaks and things like that. So I grew up in around those.

I'm a real estate investor myself and for my early years

and that I was doing my own rehabs and so I've been in and

around the trades a long time, but that was never something I

wanted to do. I went to, you know, like I

said, I had a good education, went to a good school and really

saw myself more in the world of, of finance and investing and

things like that. So I had the company in 2005.

I stepped away for a year or two just to try my hand at some

different things. Most of those were failures or,

or mild successes at best. And really then what brought me

back in and, and I get this question a lot like what brought

you to roofing? And I, I, I say jokingly, but

it's true, you know, desperation, which is probably

what brings a lot of guys into the roofing space.

So, you know, I don't think there's a lot of little boys

dreaming about one day being a, a roofer.

And so when I came back to it, I had really good success and the

money was honestly just too good to really draw my attention

anywhere else. And then I really fell in love

with it and have enjoyed a career in the roofing industry

and all of the different things that I've been able to do.

But that's kind of what what brought me back.

OK. And you mentioned a college

education and kind of having your eye elsewhere.

What kind of a degree did you get?

What did you go to school? For, So I went to Denison

University, which is a, a small liberal arts school about 1/2

hour east of Columbus, OH. And it's a, it's a good school.

I graduated with a degree in economics.

And a lot of people asked like, oh, well that did that translate

well to running a business and things like that?

And, and it, it probably could have to be quite honest.

I, I wanted to go to school for, you know, business

administration or some of these types of things and then got

there and they didn't really have that major, which shows you

how much research I did. And I remember sitting down at

like orientation with like a, a counselor and they said, well,

the closest thing we have to that would be economics.

And I said, OK, well, what are the, the, the credit

requirements? And they said, Oh, it's actually

got the fewest credit requirements of any major

offered. And I went, sign me up.

That's, I'm done. That, that's the one for me.

And so, you know, I did OK in school.

I was always AAB student. I did just enough work to keep

my parents off my back to graduate, get my piece of paper,

my diploma and have a, you know, put as little effort as I could

into it. And so, but yeah, but, you know,

I, I do have a very good education.

Went to a really good private school here in Cincinnati.

And then and then Dennis. Well, I know we talked about it

a little bit in your intro. You alluded to it there.

You run a number of different businesses.

Could you run us through the list real quick?

What all do you have your fingers in?

So let's see. So I've had at your service

roofing for for 20 years or 21 now.

We're headquartered in Cincinnati, OH.

We have a branch in Cleveland, OH that we just opened.

It's about a year and a half ago and that's going very well.

And because of how well that's gone, I think we have the

opportunity to launch branches and I think that we're going to

start expanding. We're not committed to that

plan, but I, I envision adding one or two locations probably a

year for the next couple of years here.

And so that's really the been the primary driver.

But about 3 years ago, a guy by the name of John Cenac, who if

you're in the roofing industry, especially on the restoration

side, I would imagine, you know that name.

He reached out to me and we met and he asked me to speak at one

of his events and that went really well.

So he asked me to speak in a few more.

And the next thing you know, over the course of a winter, I

probably did 10 or 15 events with him.

And on the way home from one of those, I said, you know, John,

this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.

But I'm, I'm, this will be my last one.

And he said, well, what, what are you going to do?

What about all these people that you've met that want more

content from you? They want more information.

They're asking you to consult for them or mentor them.

And I said, well, I'm going to put together, I'm, I'll probably

just do a thing by zoom and charge, you know, I'm a pretty

light fee and I'll just do a training or two a month and, and

I'll do it kind of that way. And John got real quiet and I, I

thought that I kind of pissed him off, to be quite honest.

And he said, well, you know, that's a pretty good idea.

Do you want to do it together? And I said, sure.

And that conversation that, that, that bore a company called

Master your Craft. And so Master Your Craft is a

consulting company and we do a lot of different things, but at

the core it's an online community of roofers and our

mission is to create a a community of like minded

contractors committed to protecting homeowners and

running a good clean business. So we do 3 trainings every

month. In fact, we just, I just got off

of 1 about an hour ago. Then we have a unit 5, which is

another company that John and I started, which is an ice impact

testing laboratory. And that is something that I'm

really excited about. We have, we are collecting just

a mountain of data about products and how they survive

impacts the age of the shingle, its relevancy, the decking where

you're learning so much that's never been really discovered or

looked at before. And actually, you know,

originally we were going to market this product to

contractors where they could take a shingle off the roof that

they felt was hail damage and maybe the insurance company said

it wasn't send it to us, we could perform testing and then

give some pretty good evidence back.

And we do actually do that. But we've really found a lot

more in the testing on the manufacturer side.

So there are very well known shingle manufacturers that have

us testing their products. We actually have a couple of

kind of proprietary things that nobody really else has that

we're able to look at. So that's been really cool.

Another one that we just really launched, we, we just did our

soft launch about a month ago, is an AI platform and AI

software. The easiest way I can describe

it is that John and I and a couple other core people have

downloaded our brains into a closed AI and it's streamlines

communications for roofing, you know, contractors out there.

We spent a tremendous amount of time writing emails to our

customers, maybe to an insurance adjuster, to whoever.

And John and I've been training and teaching guys for a long

time and a lot of those guys understand the content.

They they grasp it, but they still have trouble communicating

it. And so now that software is able

to the basically, I say, imagine if John and I wrote every single

e-mail for your company, how much quicker you could on board

new sales reps, get them up to speed, how much time you would

save. So that's one that I'm really

spearheading. And so it took us about a year,

year and a half to develop that. We went through beta testing for

about four months, which is great because we can take it

right to the master aircraft community of contractors and get

great feedback. And then we did a soft launch

about a month ago. We've got about 100 active

users. We've got a wait list of about

300. That might be more like 400 now

and we are planning a target of a full launch on July 1 where

anybody will be able to go in and register an account, get on

boarded and start using that product.

I also own True North Solutions, which the the, the best way to

describe that as a, a standard kind of supplement company,

which I've not pushed. It was more of a test market, a

test run and we learned a lot and it's there, but it's not

really fully functional. I have my real estate investing

and then I the last thing I have is kind of my own consulting

brand. I'm a part of the Owens Corning

University and so I signed with Owens Corning last year.

They have me in about 30 to 40 different cities over that year

teaching roofers to do what I do.

I teach 5 different classes for them currently.

And so I also do a lot of private trainings where a

another roofing company will will have me in.

I'll come on site. We do a couple on boarding

calls. I come in on site, spend a day

and that's on a wide variety of different things that could be

on retail sales, restoration, sales culture, hiring,

recruiting, all kinds of different things.

And so that keeps me all pretty busy.

I also try to stay married, raise my four boys, coach

football and do some other, you know, try to, you know, actually

have a hobby or two, which is pretty tough these days.

Yeah, it sounds like maybe the only thing you don't do is

sleep. Luckily, I, I really don't

require a ton of sleep. You know, there are these guys

out there, these anomalies that they only need like an hour to a

sleep and I, I wish that was me, but I can function pretty good

on about 5 hours. OK, so you know, I, I will say

that, you know, there's some, there's some Gray in this facial

hair now and hitting before 40, it was unlimited energy.

I, I, I said this to a friend of mine.

He was, we were all hanging out and he goes, man, I'm going to,

I'm going to call it the night and, and head home.

And I said, well, you don't want to hang out.

He goes, oh, I'm really tired. And I remember thinking, no, you

just, you'd rather you're choosing to go home and like go

to bed. And it hit me after I turned 40,

I, I didn't really understand what the word tired meant.

I just had this, like, unlimited energy.

And so now I'm 45 and for the last, you know, 4-5 years, I've

had to be a little bit more measured.

I have to really think about where I'm putting my energy and

where I'm spending it. But I also find that the more

that I do, the more energized I am, and I get bored very easily.

So it's working so far. OK.

Well, you mentioned that you had a few other businesses or

careers that you tried before coming back to roofing.

Can you tell us about some of those?

When I was, my dad was a very sharp guy and he and I were

very, very close. And when he sent me to private

school, he would drive me there. So it was 1/2 hour there and 1/2

hour home every single day. And he was really teaching me

and grooming me for business and entrepreneurship.

And so I went to him at 13. I was a freshman in high school

and I was always very young for my, I'm a September birthday.

So I was always very young for my, my grade.

And I said, Dad, everybody's playing paintball.

I wanna play paintball. And he goes, great, yeah, that

sounds awesome. And I said, OK, well, a set up a

gun, a a mask, an air tank. It's, it's like $1500.

And this is back in like the early 90s.

Yeah. And he goes, well, I'm not

paying for that, but I'll show you how you can pay for that.

And so we got a wholesaler license and which which I could

buy direct from a wholesaler at at about 40% off retail.

And then I would go and sell all of that to my buddies at, you

know, kind of split the mark up and very quickly earned enough

money. And so that was my first

business. When I was 16, he bought me a

little Ford Ranger, a trailer and some lawn equipment.

And, you know, I had to pay him back for those things, but I was

knocking doors at 16, you know, can I cut your lawn?

Had some other cheese trying to even think of all of them.

I had one that was on dealing with travel agents.

And basically LendingTree had come out years ago where if you

needed a mortgage, you filled out the thing on LendingTree and

they sent that to four different lenders who competed.

And so I did something similar using travel agents to book, you

know, vacations. I've been in digital

advertising, just a lot of different things.

And like I said, mild success to epic failures.

But I learned a lot and then was able to really apply a lot of

those lessons to help me avoid those future mistakes when it

got, you know, into roofing. OK, Well, tell us a little bit

about building your roofing business.

How how did you get started? What did that look like?

You know, I said in 2005, I started at your service, but it

was more remodeling and things like that.

Yeah. And then I stepped away for a

few years. And what brought me really back

was I'd come out of a a failure and had pretty much blown

through my savings and my I was married.

I think my third son was on the way and I was really at a

crossroads. And I'm wondering maybe I'm not

really cut out for entrepreneurship or business.

You know, I was feeling pretty deflated and I met with a guy, a

business consultant that my dad knew who's still my business

consultant today. And he said, Chris, you got to

get a sales job. You can sell, get a sales job.

You can meet your quota in 20 to 30 hours that most guys take 40

hours. And you can use the the rest of

the time to kind of plot your next move.

And so my brother-in-law had been telling me about this guy

who had a, a roofing company in the door to door sales and that

I would be good at it. And it had been encouraging.

And I didn't want anything to do with that.

But with enough desperation, I thought, OK, like if that's what

I got to do. And so my first year in that

doing door to door sales, I sold about 1.2 mil somewhere right

around there. And this is again, this is back

in, in, you know, pricing per square was like 260 a square or

now it's more like 600 a square. And so that 1.2 is more like 2.4

or or two, you know, somewhere between 2.5 probably and three

mil. And so I was desperate enough

that I was grinding, I was hustling, but I was good at it.

And that offseason. I went to the owner and I said,

Hey, I can build a sales team. I can, I can, I think I can do

more here. I can blow this thing up a

little bit. And I just need a percentage of

my team or some type of a small percentage of ownership.

We got to work out some type of compensation plan.

And he said, well, Chris, if you, you know, I don't want to

do those things. And if you have a better

opportunity, I suggest you take it.

And I remember very clearly where I was and him saying that.

And in my head, I, I went, I, I think you're gonna really regret

saying that. And he and I are actually

friends to this day. And we've had this conversation

and joked about it. And he's like, yes, I do

actually regret saying that. So my business is, is I think a,

a bit larger than his is now. And, but he's a great guy.

And I'm, I'm glad to say that he and I are still friends.

And we, we talk quite often and you know, I had increased his

business so much in that year that he needed additional

cruise. And so he actually hired my

brother-in-law to run cruise. And so when he didn't want to

kind of grow or pursue that opportunity with me, I went to

my brother-in-law and I said, well, I'm selling them and

you're installing them. So why don't we just go out on

our own? So I reopened at your service,

partnered with my brother-in-law and we were off and running.

And we did that for about 8 years.

I think it was somewhere around there and then.

And my brother-in-law and I were 5050 partners.

We did, we, we got along very well.

There was very little friction. But after 8 years, I really

wanted to grow. I saw more opportunity.

I wanted to keep pushing and I he wasn't, that's not what he

wanted to do. He was, you know, I think he,

you know, he said something along the lines of Chris, we

both make really good money. We're really comfortable.

Like, I don't understand why we're trying to do more.

And he and I were able to find compromise in in virtually every

situation for eight years. But when one wants to grow and

the other one wants to stay where they are, it's not that

one's right, one's wrong. But how do you, how do you

compromise with that? I mean, those are at direct

conflict. And so we went through a year of

meeting with a, we, we created a board of advisors who had no

authority, but they would help us communicate and problem

solve. And after a year of that, it was

clear that there really wasn't much in the way of a, a

solution. And so I ended up, we decided I,

I ended up buying him out and, and then at that point, I mean,

just within a couple of months, I bought a building, I bought a

fleet of vehicles and we started kind of pushing and the company

did well. It didn't explode, but it did

well for a number of years. And then I go, of course, last

year we expanded into the Cleveland market and we now have

the opportunity to expand into a lot of different markets.

And that's something that we're we're hopeful to accomplish.

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So what was it that gave you the big push to want to grow?

I, I know you mentioned you and your brother-in-law kind of just

saw things different ways, but what what was your perspective?

Why not just sit back and be comfortable like he was

advocating for? Yeah, that's a great question.

There, there. I think there's two major

reasons. You know, I mentioned earlier, I

get bored very easily. And if I'm not solving problems,

if I'm not producing something, I get very bored.

I get restless. It's not good for me.

So that's one answer. The other is there's a, there's

a verse in the Bible. It's Luke 1247 and 48, I

believe. And it says to those who've been

given much, much more will be demanded to those who've been

trusted with little will be entrusted with much.

And I've always, you know, I'm not a believer in like life

verses or putting more weight on certain scripture than others,

but that, that always spoke to me because, you know, I was

given a good family. I, I raised in the Midwest,

which is a good, safe part of town.

We were middle class, upper middle class, you know, I, I had

a good education. I had all of these things.

And I felt that I had been given much and therefore much more was

demanded of me. And for me to stop there and

just say, well, it's a good income, a good life that I'm

providing for my children, it just felt like a waste of the

God-given talents and gifts that I had.

And I just, I couldn't, I could not live that way.

I would have been very miserable.

And that's why you see today, you know, I've grown the

business and you know, a lot of people on the roofing space

these days, you know, private equities here and there's a lot

of companies, you know, the exiting is, you know, scale and

exit is this big push in the industry.

And I get asked that question all the time is that you're

playing. And I say absolutely not, I

would be bored. I don't, you know, I don't have

necessarily my next plans. I, I, I have no interest in

doing that. I'm having a lot of fun running

the business. I actually don't have to run the

business per say anymore. I'm, I'm really at the point

where I finally work my way out of the business and most of my

time is spent on other companies, other businesses.

And so, yeah, and that's just kind of where we ended up.

But I, I have no interest, you know, even if I were to exit,

you know, I could sell all of my companies and have what I still,

I'm going to go work somewhere. Like I can't just, I have no

interest in golfing, you know, five days a week at this point

in my life. So I'm going to be putting that

time and effort somewhere. I it might as might as well be

here in the industry that I've kind of grown to to love.

Awesome. So I know you mentioned you came

in somewhat reluctantly. You tried to do almost anything

else and wound up roofing kind of out of desperation.

What was the turning point where you really decided to go all in

and say, OK, I'm I'm committed here.

This is what I'm going to make my career about.

So I stayed in roofing for a long time, like I said, because

the money was just too good to go anywhere else.

But it was really about 2021 and you know, we were doing, we

were, we were mostly on the residential restoration space.

So most of our volume was, was home owners that had an

insurance claim, primarily wind damage in, in the Cincinnati,

maybe the occasional hailstorm. And I had gotten really bored.

It was, it was actually, you know, it was easy back then

before 2020 that that business model was easy and it was just

on autopilot and kind of rinse and repeat.

And I just didn't have much joy. I didn't have problems to solve.

But but when COVID hit, the, the insurance companies really

pivoted and it's a whole other world now than it used to be.

And that's actually when I got the greatest satisfaction and

joy. I had a lot of problems to

solve. I had just, there's constantly

tweaking systems and processes, innovating new strategies and

techniques, reinventing the business.

I actually kind of burned the business to the ground last year

and, and rebuilt it under a new model.

And so all of those things really keep my attention and

provide a lot of joy for me. And so when I really decided

I'm, you know, it was 2021 when I was like, I, I, I love this

now. And then really it was when John

Cena called me up randomly. I think it was 21, it may have

been 22. And I remember him calling me

and I had his number in my phone because we had had a random call

some other time. And so John called and, you

know, I see it on my phone, John Cenac.

And so he starts, you know, introducing himself and I go,

John, John, I, I know who you are.

You know, you're, you're the goat.

In my mind. John Cenac and Adam Benzeman are

the two goats of, of that side of the roofing industry.

Those are the two guys that I followed and I said, John, I

know who you are. I the question is why are you

calling me? And it turns out that at that

time, I, my company was the largest user of his product.

NTS name that shingle where you publish shingle off the roof.

You send it to him and they identify the shingle and give

you a bunch of information about it, somewhat similar to Itel,

except it's accurate and actually good, solid

information. And he said, I want to come in

and, and take you out to dinner and I want to get to understand

what you're doing, how you're using my product, because

obviously you're doing it very effectively.

And I want to learn from you so that I can teach other roofers

and they'll buy my product more. And at that time, in my mind, I

was an above average contractor in roof in, in, in, in Ohio.

Like I'm, I'm just another guy and and you know, and as John

and I got to know each other and I started speaking in his

events, what really did it is I said, John, I just figured out

this one thing and that's cool and I'm glad to help, but that's

really it. And he goes, Chris, I consult

for hundreds of companies all across the country.

I see the back end of these other companies.

I see their systems and processes.

I, I meet with them. He was, I am telling you, you

are way beyond, you know, you're in the top 1% or you're way

beyond. And, and that actually hit me.

That was evidence. It was like, OK, this guy

actually travels the industry. He knows so much.

That made sense to me. And that's when the really, the

light bulb went off for me and I kind of believed in myself and

my abilities. And then really from there, John

and I have been on just a tear for the last three years.

You know, we built Master your craft, which is probably my, my

favorite thing that I've done in the industry so far.

But now we have Unit 5, we have Gladstone, I'm speaking for

Owens Corning, I'm doing private trainings and consulting.

And really, you know, John and I are, are really close and good

friends at this point. But I said to I go, you know,

you never pick up that phone. You never come in town and go

out to dinner. None of these things ever

happened, and it's crazy what has resulted out of him just

kind of having that quick thought of like, hey, let me

look at my customer list and see what stands out.

He's like, oh, there's this company in Cincinnati that OK,

like let me just reach out to them.

And what that's done for both of us has been pretty incredible.

That is a great story. That's that's really

interesting. You know, John and I talk about

this thing called enemies or I'm sorry, allies, not enemies,

because in the roofing space you get a lot of, there's a lot of

ego, there's a lot of pride, a lot of machismo.

And so most roofing companies, you know, it's like West Side

Story type stuff. You run into another roofing

company and it's like, are we about to throw down?

And so just last week, it was last Friday, there's a roofing

company from Dayton, OH, Columbus, OH, and my roofing

company, a handful of guys from each one.

And then Chuck Toki, who is a, a rock star in the industry and

really in just retail sales in general and, and everywhere in

home services, as well as John Cater and, and a number of other

guys. And we all got together and had

cigars and bourbon and just chatting.

And I really try to encourage guys like I've started to

realize that your, your net worth.

You know, there's, there's a saying your, your network is

your net worth. And I think that that's, that

that's become a lot more true to me.

But it's really might your reputation is your net worth.

And what I mean by that is because of the, the, the network

and the people that I know and making allies and not enemies.

If my roofing company goes under, something happens and I

lose everything tomorrow. There's a lot of guys out there

that are very successful that I have a good relationship with,

that I have a good reputation and are going to be like, Chris,

I'll pay you really good money to come here and run my roofing

company or let's form a business and do this.

And so that's been a lesson that I've learned and I try to

encourage other guys that I consult and, and master your

craft. Like, sure, there are companies

out there that you don't align with your vision and values are

not the same. And I would keep them at at

arm's length. But there's a lot of roofing

companies out there. Like if you're listening to this

and you're a roofing company owner, there's roofing companies

in your market that share your vision and values and, and do

things the way you do them for the most part.

And you need to know those guys like go out to lunch, get

coffee, have conversations because they're going to spark

light bulbs, you know, for you that are really going to help

and you're going to do the same for them.

And it's really been a big lesson that I've learned and and

I really try to preach as much as I can over these last few

years. That's some great advice and

yeah, I can appreciate that. When I was in business, most of

my competitors, we still got along well.

We'd, we'd go out to lunch, we'd spend time together.

It's way more fun to do business that way than when you're at

each other's throats and, and threatened by each other as

well. So I know you mentioned you've

kind of worked yourself out of the business and, and you don't

have to be involved as much as we're really at all.

What did that process look like? What were the?

What were the key components and and how long did that take?

It, it took longer than I wanted it to.

I can tell you that. And it's not my first attempt.

There's a, there's a guy named Dan Walrack who is a, you know,

industry leader in the roofing industry when it comes to door

to door sales. And he and I had this discussion

at the IRA, the International roofing Expo about, you know, he

and I are old guys now. We've been in the industry for

1520 years. That's pretty abnormal.

Old to be an old guy in roofing. That's right.

I mean, if you've been doing it for like 3-4 years, you're

already at like the top of that. Yeah, that chart, yeah.

But there's not a lot of guys that have been in it for 20.

Two years and when the young guys started looking to me, even

my competitors talking about how long I've been there and like,

oh, wow, yeah, I guess I've been here longer than everybody else,

but I'm not old yet. What do you?

Well, I mean, at 45, I'm, I'm starting to feel a bit old.

But yeah, you're exactly right. It didn't take long.

I mean, at at one point I'm in my like late 30s and I'm

technically an old guy. I'm seasoned, I'm a vet.

And so we're talking about, you know, is it easier back then or

easier now? And again, I kind of forgot

where I'm going with this. Sorry, the the question was how

did you work yourself out of the business work?

Yourself out? Sure.

Interrupted you there pretty bad.

No, no, you're good. You're good.

And so I, I had tried a couple of times and failed.

And when, when see Dan and I didn't have mass year craft when

we were coming up, we didn't have Adam Benzeman and John

Cenac really out there. That was kind of later in our

career. At our time there wasn't all the

social media networking and podcasts and you just had to

figure stuff out. And so when it comes to working

myself out of the business, I just had to figure it out.

And now there's a lot of resources out there.

I mean, me for one now, but there's a lot of guys out there

that can consult you and help you accomplish that.

And so if I had to do it all over again, I could do it much,

much faster. But it took me 5 years roughly,

I would say, to really get to that point.

Now that wasn't my main focus, but it wasn't really until last

year. I, I, I, I don't want to say I

built the team. In a lot of ways the team was

built even without me. But I, it's really about having

good people. And so I've got a guy named

Nolan Snyder who's an absolute monster.

I mean, he's 23 years old and he's already kind of a legend in

the industry, but he's my general manager.

I've got guys like Frederick Heberling and Jeff Earhart, who

are my like point people in the two different branches.

And Greg Snyder, who it's funny is, is in Cleveland.

That's Nolan's dad. But he's actually, I'm looking

at him through my my door in my office.

He's in town. And so because of what I was

doing, putting stuff on social media, doing the speaking events

and different things, it was able to attract talent and they

kind of came to me. I was able to recognize that

talent and that team is what's what's really helped me.

And so that's kind of an unfair advantage.

A lot of guys can't do that, but there are certainly other ways

that you can do that. You need to be able to 1 be

open. You got to be willing to

delegate so many roofing owners. There's a book called the E

Myth. And, and if you haven't read

that book and you're in the, the trades, you should read the E

Myth revisited. And it talks about the, the

three levels. There's the, the technician, the

manager and the entrepreneur. And that's really what it's

about. Like if you want to progress

from a technician to a manager, you have to let go of the

technician responsibilities. You can't do both.

If you want to transition from the manager to the, to the

operator, the business owner, the the entrepreneur, you got to

let go of those other things. And that's probably the hardest

thing is the, the, the owner's mindset of no one else can do

these things. No one else can do that as well

as me. If I let other people do it,

it's going to harm my business. And you've got to really put

trust in good people. And I mean, you still have to

measure and monitor and hold them accountable, but you got to

be willing to trust those people to delegate some of those tasks.

Let them operate, let them make some mistakes as well.

And I think you're going to find that people are more capable

than maybe you thought. And your ego is going to be hurt

because you're going to realize that you weren't quite as

critical as you thought you were.

Yeah. But if you can do those things,

you can get out of the business. And now you know the old saying,

right, I work on the business, not in the business, but what I

do honestly at this point is mostly working on other

businesses. Now those other businesses are

also aligned to the roofing space.

They, my team has a, we have a vision and they understand that

I'm accomplishing that vision in these other things that I'm

doing. And so it's not that I'm

choosing these things over them or I'm no longer interested.

It's that we have, we know exactly where we want to go.

And we know the fastest way for that to happen is for them to

run at your service roofing and for me to be doing the, the

classes and the speaking and the consulting and those types of

things. And so there's really good

alignment there. And that that's another really

key piece like you cannot get out of the business if you don't

have a vision for what the business needs to look like.

And if you don't communicate that vision and reinforce that

vision. I don't want to say constantly,

but repeatedly, I know one of the ways that we do that night

your services, we have a State of the Union address quarterly.

So once 1/4, I either do it from the Cincinnati branch or I go up

to the Cleveland branch and the other branch zooms in.

And it's not about our numbers and revenue and goals.

It's about our core values, our vision for the company, our

mission. Are we accomplishing them, You

know, celebrating things and making sure that we're all on

the same page and, you know, reinforcing that vision.

Because a pastor that I used to meet with for close to 10 years,

we had breakfast every Monday morning.

And one of the biggest influences in my life.

But he had a saying that vision leaks.

And as an owner, it's very tempting to be like, well, I, we

had that conversation. I told you guys this, you know,

and like, it's two years later, nothing else has been said about

that. And so that will leak from the,

your people's minds. You have to be constantly

reinforcing the really important things, which I believe is the

vision, the mission, the core. Values.

Man, that's some good advice. And yeah, yeah, that's hard to

do. I've heard it say that your job

is the CEO, is to be the CRO, the chief repeating officer.

You got to repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.

So it's not that's yeah, that's that's pretty good.

I would tell you that at my right now, my job here is to

keep an eye on culture and communicate.

Really, if I were to boil it down, I need to be communicating

with my general manager Nolan and be a resource for him and be

kind of grooming him and, and teaching him because he's a

young man. And then I need to have my eye

on culture and just recognize patterns and, and catch things

before they're a problem. Bring them to the attention of

Nolan and the leadership team. But outside of that, that's

really my primary functions now as far as that your service

goes, which gives me the bandwidth to do all the other

things that we we kind of talked about earlier.

Yeah, that's really cool. What was the most difficult step

from when you started out to where you are today?

One like kind of repeating a little bit of what I said was

getting out of my own way. I was sitting, my business

consultant has a, a networking group, kind of like a mastermind

group. And so these are all either

owners or CEO's and there's maybe 10-15 guys in there at any

one point in time. We meet once a month and the

guys were talking about something and the light bulb

went off and I realized that the number one, the biggest

constriction, the biggest choke point bottleneck in my company

was my my mindset. And I would say things or I

would think things like, well, I don't, you know, there's,

there's a limit to what we can do here.

We couldn't possibly do this, that wouldn't.

I just don't see that. And that mindset, that limiting

belief was killing opportunity, was killing a lot of things.

And when that mindset switched to a mindset of we can do

anything, it's just a matter of how much money and how much time

we want to spend, the, the world opened up.

And it really was kind of that. I mean, don't get me wrong, it

wasn't easy to switch the mindset, but once that switch

was flipped, that was really it. I mean, now opportunities opened

up, the team bought in more, we started growing.

There was upward mobility for the team.

So that was certainly a, a big, big part of it.

My willingness to delegate and trust in my people.

When I first took that step and I, you know, for, for many

years, I sold probably half to 2/3 of the, the volume of my

company. And I thought, well, I'll never

be able to get out of it. How could I replace that?

I'd have to, you know, and when I finally just bit the bullet

and said, you know what, I'm going to do it.

I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm out from selling.

I'm going to get out of the field and I'm going to be in the

office, which was not fun for me.

I don't, I like being outside. I like talking with people and

interacting with my customers. And so it wasn't really what I

wanted. It was what I felt was going to

be best for the business. We had plateaued.

We're never going to grow past here if we don't.

And I just bit the bullet and I the whole time I'm waiting for

like the bad reviews, the botched jobs, the unhappy

customers, and it just never came.

And what I realized is, you know, perfection it what's it

saying? Perfection is the enemy of good

or I'm not saying that right. But, you know, I was always

searching for perfection. And what I had to realize was

good enough is good enough. There's not, you know, name a

company that's of any size or influence that that's perfect or

like, you know, just really flawless and excellent.

Like they don't really exist. And so if you want to have that

mindset of a perfectionist and everything's got to be done

perfect, that that's admirable, but you're never going to be

able to to grow. You're you're you're, you're

really limiting yourself. And so when I bit that bullet, I

realized like, hey, my sales guys are out there.

They're closing Mike, I'm not getting bad reviews.

I'm not putting out fires, man. I guess.

Is it as good as what I would have done?

Probably not, but it's good enough.

Yeah. And getting getting OK with that

took some time mindset wise, but once I did that was that was

kind of it. Yeah, I like, oh gosh, I know.

I've heard Craig Rochelle say it.

I don't know if he's the one that came up with it, but if

somebody can do it 80% as well as you can, you need to let him

have it so. 100% I agree with that very much.

I will take I was on the phone yesterday.

There's a guy who's in Mastercraft and he calls me and

he his production, his two two of his production guys are came

to him and said I got another job offer.

I might be leaving. And he mentioned that he goes

well, I was actually going to have like a performance review

with him anyway because I don't feel like they were doing as

good a job. You know, they would I'd give

him like AB plus and I was like, oh, hold up.

I was like, I, I I'll take B pluses, like if they're doing AB

plus, that's, that's good. I would try to retain those guys

if I were you. Like you're never going to find

employees, especially salary employees that care about your

business the way that you do that have the same drive, the

same ambition. And you know, if you can get,

you know, these are people that are saying, Hey, I, I just want

a job, maybe a career, but I want to put in my time, make my

money and then go back to my family.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

But don't ever expect those guys to then innovate and, you know,

create new systems and processes.

And, you know, that's just not the way that they're wired.

And so, yeah, as far as like employees, B plus is A is a

sweet spot. Like I'll take anywhere in the B

range. That's great.

Yeah, yeah. If they were, if they had the

same attitude, the same mindset that you do, they probably

wouldn't be working for you. They'd be.

No, they're going to leave and start their own company, which

is fine. Again, a lot of people in the

industry complain about that. And I go, I don't want to ever

stand in someone's way of making more money, of improving

themselves. Now granted, there's a lot of

guys that leave and go start a company that are not really kind

of qualified to. I don't think it might be going

to be successful there. You know, I've had conversations

with guys and I said, listen, if you want to go and start your

own thing, that's great. You can do that.

I I see some holes. I think if you put in another

year, maybe 2 here and I'll specifically try to teach you

and, and fill in those gaps and help you there.

And I think you're going to be better off.

But if you want to leave, you know you can, that's your call.

But yeah, exactly. If someone's an A player,

they're probably not going to stick around very long.

And that's why I think B is like the sweet spot, like AB minus

guy is like really the sweet spot.

I can probably level him up to ABB Plus he's probably not going

to leave, you know, he's going to be content and happy.

So no problem with B players. So I know you mentioned you love

being out in the field, you love interact, interacting with

customers. What is your favorite part of

your job? And then what is your least

favorite? Well, now I would say that my

favorite part of my job is teaching.

You know, when I'm doing these classes and consulting, you

know, if I'm doing an Owens courting class or master craft

class, I'm in a room full of 75 to 150 roofers and I'm teaching.

And that's a lot different than speaking, which I didn't quite

understand those two until I was asked to do a keynote at

Roofcon, which is a big national roofing conference.

Yeah. And that wasn't teaching.

That was a speaking. And I realized that I don't, I

mean, I'm appreciative of the opportunity and I enjoy doing

it, but speaking is not, it doesn't like fulfill me or bring

me energy, but teaching does. So that is certainly one.

And then the other is innovation.

Like I'm constantly looking to become more efficient, to solve

problems, create new things. And so that's probably right

now, you know, and you see that with, with John, we've got

master your craft. We've had it for three years,

but we're actually in the process.

Maybe by the time this comes out, we've already made the

transition. We're going to completely

reshape how master your craft works.

Like I love the brainstorming and hey, where are we failing?

Where can we improve? Where, where can we be better?

What if we did it this way? And so now you know, when we've,

we've got the, the AI program that I've been working on, the

impact testing laboratory. And so those are, those are

probably my favorite things, you know, teaching because I see

direct results. I see guys who are hungry for

the information that are, that are going to implement the, the

content. And I get the feedback from

them. They send me, I get a text every

day from somebody in the industry that's like, Hey, you

know, you spent this time with me or I learned this or

whatever, I did this, here's the result.

Like that's incredibly rewarding.

I feel like we're raising the standard in the industry.

I feel like I'm having a positive impact on those people,

their lives, their customers. And then now I get the chance to

really like innovate and, and, and do things in a, in a really

kind of creative different way. My least favorite thing, I, I

struggle with this because I, I would say managing people,

there's a big difference between leadership and management and

I'm fine. The lead.

I, I, I, I can embrace that. I like that.

I'm used to that. But managing is, is really just

sucks the, the life and the energy out of me.

So luckily that's something that I've been able to delegate and

hire people and, and trust in people to do.

And I don't have to do that too much, but I still do have to get

back in some of those. And, you know, dealing with

people's emotions is difficult for me and I'm I'm sympathetic,

I'm empathetic to them, but when they're harming the mission,

that's difficult for me. And so whenever I have to get

back into management and again, it's that that E myth, right?

You got the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur.

Like I'm meant to live in that third realm.

That's just the way that I my God-given gifts and talents.

And when I have to step back into the manager role, I hate

it. I mean, I, I am trying to get

out of there. So I'd rather be the technician

than the manager, you know what I mean?

I'd rather just go back in the field and sell and, and inspect

roofs and, and do all that stuff.

So that's probably my least favorite thing.

What has been the scariest thing that you faced in building your

business? When were you most afraid?

There, I mean, there's a few that come to mind.

You know, 1 is once we, we grew the business, I mean, I think

that we're, we're at around 30 W 2 employees.

And so there's, there's fear there like 1 misstep of mine, 1

miscalculation, 1 bad decision will have real impact on, on

other people's, you know, families and ability to provide

for their, for their families. So that's scary.

You know, I can get out of that space pretty quickly by going,

listen, I trust myself more than than I trust most other people.

And so I, I, I think they're in better hands being an employee

at your service than them being an employee at at most other

places. So it is what it is.

You just got to accept that responsibility and, and keep

plowing ahead. You know, I had some fears early

in the career that, you know, there's always been this fear on

the restoration side of the business that like, oh, these

insurance companies are going to do these things.

They're not going to keep paying for roofs.

They're not going to whatever the sky is falling.

And there were many times in my career where I was like, OK, I

just got to grab opportunity as best I can because it's going to

go away. And and that was always a bit

scary. I tend to early in my career.

August is tough. There's there's a cycle where

when you get to the end of like summer break for, for students,

I think there's a lot of people, homeowners that don't want to

deal with anything because they're just trying to get their

kids back to school, get back into their normal rhythm and

they, they don't want to make any decisions.

They don't want to take on anything right now.

And the pipeline gets low. Every August it starts getting

pretty thin. And then without fail, it it

runs back up in the fall. Can you get people that you

know? Oh, I know I got to get it done

before winter. I waited, you know what I mean?

And and there goes the pipeline again.

And early in my career, man, I would wake up in a cold sweat

many times going, you know what's going to happen?

What if we run out of jobs? What if this happens?

What if that happens? And really through being in the,

the mastermind group and under my business consultant and the,

and what he had done to shift my mindset as well as my

relationship with John and what, what I had learned and where we

were going, those fears eventually kind of went away.

But man, there were times where I would wake up, you know,

having a nightmare about we ran out of work, the business went

under, this happened and just freaking out.

And so there's there's a tremendous amount of stress in

this. You might see guys on Facebook

and they look like they got it all together.

I mean, I got a lot of guys that reach out to me and they go,

hey, man, I mean, you know, by the looks of it, it looks like

you're just killing it, you know, congratulations.

And and, you know, most of those guys are smart enough to be

like, it looks this way. I hope it's that way, you know,

and it's like, yeah, you know, it depends on what day you asked

me. There's days where I feel like

I'm on top of the world. There's days where I'm like, I

need to go to bed and, and, you know, not wake up for a couple

of days. So Elon Musk said, posted

something I saw and it said I my normal level of stress would

cripple most people. And that's a, that's a, you

know, paraphrasing there, obviously, but I do think about

that. I've got a lot of, of friends

and even people in the industry and, you know, they talk about

their day and things and I do, I'm like, man, if you lived one

day in my shoes, you might have a breakdown.

Like, you know, the amount of different payrolls and different

fires that are coming up and that need to be put out and, and

problems that need to be solved. And so you just learn to embrace

it. You, it just becomes your new

normal at some point and you, you just deal with it.

So, yeah, I, I don't have a much more advice than, you know, I, I

coach football and I told my son, he's he's 10 years old and

I'm giving him the speech from like the, the movie, the

program, which I don't know, back in the 90s.

But the coach is like, are you hurt or are you injured?

Like, if you're injured, that means you can't play.

If you're hurt, I don't care. Like suck it up and get back out

there. And that's kind of the same

thing when it comes to to owning a business or multiple

businesses and dealing with that stress.

Like are you hurt or are you injured?

Like if you're injured, if you're depleted, if you're

really struggling, yeah, you need to get with a business

consultant. You need to get with a coach or

a mentor. Like you need to be poured into.

You need some things. But like, if you're just hurt,

like I, yeah, that's, that's you.

You play this game and that's how it's going to be.

So you might as well just suck it up and just keep pushing

forward. Man, I had that chat with one of

my young nephews recently. He, he was, he's 5 and he was

whining that he needed a Band-Aid.

And I said, man, if a Band-Aid fixes your problem, you don't

have a problem. That's right.

That's right. Like what do you think this is

going to do, you know? If you're bleeding bad enough

that you need to worry about it, a Band-Aid ain't going to fix

it. So.

That's right. Love that.

Was there something that significantly delayed the growth

of your business? And if so, how would you handle

it differently? Yeah.

I mean, kind of touching on this, you know, which we we

talked about was my mindset. Like that's when I look back at

like the real harm, the real choke point, it was really just

my own mindset. I didn't believe that this

industry or in my market or whatever it was that I couldn't

really build. There was a time where I kind of

resigned myself to being like, I'm just going to run a small

roofing company. And I think that I can always

make pretty good money and support my family.

But, you know, some of these dreams that I had of exiting

businesses and having real like financial freedom, you know,

maybe I need to put those things out of my mind and just come to

terms with the fact that I'm just going to, you know, and

there's nothing obviously wrong with that like that.

You know that that's great if you're able to provide a

comfortable lifestyle for your family.

And so, yeah, that was that was by far the the thing that I

regret or I wish I could have solved that problem sooner.

There's a lot of guys that come to me and they're like Chris,

you know, and they're in their like late 20s and they're really

sharp guys. They're owners in the roofing

space. And they're like, you know, I

just, I want to get to where you are.

And I go, whoa, hold up. I'm like, do you know where I

was when I was 27? Like I was coming out of a

failure. I hadn't even had my next

failure yet. Like, here's how much money I

was making. Like, you're already way beyond

where I was at that age. And, you know, John Cena posted

just the other day a picture, I think it was he and I on stage,

if I remember right. But it was like, what's the one

thing that you've learned or what's your one piece of advice

that you would give to your younger self or something along

those lines? And my comment was, be patient.

You have time. And I've stolen that from Gary

Vee. That's a message that I've heard

him, you know, kind of preach. And it's so true.

Like, so we're, we're guys are in such a rush.

You know, our culture, instant gratification is, is a big thing

now. You see guys on on Facebook

flexing with their Lambo and their Rolex or this big

apartment complex job or whatever it is and you feel like

you're behind. You want to get there fast and I

go if you're able to get most likely if you, if you, if you

want to go fast, you're probably going to fail.

Even if you get there, I don't think it's going to be the

reward that you want and it's going to be like a House of

Cards. It won't have a firm foundation

and you're still going to be struggling to maintain it.

If you just slow down and you're patient and you build a solid

foundation, then you're going to get where you want to be.

You're probably going to get there pretty quickly anyway.

Might take you a little bit longer, but it'll be a lot more

rewarding. It'll be a lot more stable.

And and so I've watched so many companies here in my local

market, I've never heard of them.

They came out of nowhere. They blew up.

They were everywhere. And then 2-3 years later, poof,

they're gone. Yeah.

And, you know, it's, it's the the whole like slow and steady

wins the race. And that's very easy for a guy

20 years in the industry, you know, middle-aged to say, if I

would have said that to myself, I, you know, in my 20s that I've

been like, yeah, cool advice. I don't care.

I want to run fast. So I get that there.

It's, it's hard to actually, you know, implement and do that.

But the one that I just remind guys like slow down, be patient.

You've got time. Like don't be lazy.

Don't don't, you know, not do things, but you don't have to

like rush through them. You're going to learn so many

lessons along the way that once you get to your 30s or 40s or

whatever it is, you're going to be so much better off.

Yeah, I can. I can relate to that a lot.

While while you're speaking, it brought to mind the the

gunfighters mantra, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

And I think I can relate to a lot of what you were saying,

that there are a long period of time where I was the biggest

bottleneck in my business. I maybe wasn't afraid of

growing, but didn't want to grow kind of like I had all these

opinions about, well, these big companies, they don't, they

don't have the control, they don't have the quality, they

don't take care of their customers, they don't take care

of their employees. And I intentionally kind of

bottlenecked it, but we built that solid foundation.

And so like you're talking about when I finally kind of broaden

my mind a little bit and well, OK, some, yeah, those companies

maybe don't maintain quality, don't take care of their guys,

don't care for their customers, but it doesn't mean we don't

have to. And started to grow, man that

the growth came fast and I, I, I got a lot further than I

expected to be because we had that solid foundation with.

Is that a similar to your experience?

Yeah, it's very well said. The The the keynote address that

I did at Roofcon that that was a big part of it, is that early in

my career I was chasing money. And what I at at some point in

my career, I realized that money isn't the goal, it's the

byproduct. And it was really when I read

the book start with Why by Simon Sinek.

And you know, what is my why? Why do I wake up and have energy

and want to go do this? And why do I, why do you love

roofing? I mean, if you love roofing, why

is a really good question to ask.

Like what are you crazy? And So what I realized was I

really loved helping people that were being preyed upon.

And, and there's many different factors that are praying on your

average home owner in, in the roofing space.

And I just didn't like that. And that was, that was, it just

didn't sit well. And so everything I was doing

was about protecting homeowners from that.

And, and as soon as I stopped thinking about the money and I

started thinking about serving, you know, customer service and

serving and, and, and living out the mission of my why.

And money became the by product. That's the day the money really

came. I mean, whenever I was focused

on money, I had some money, but it was OK when I stopped

thinking about money and and that was my driving force, the

the floodgates opened and there there came the money.

So yeah, no, what you said is, is at spot on in my opinion.

Yeah, it's good stuff and I know I always felt the same way.

There is a few competitors that I had that I had a lot of

respect for and if I lost a job to one of them, I usually didn't

worry about it. I knew the customer is going to

be taken care of. I knew they were going to do

good work. It's, you know, there's enough

work to go round friendly competition and then every once

in a while I'd lose a job and I, I wasn't upset that I lost the

job. I was upset that my customer is

going to be taken advantage of because. 100% right.

I knew who was doing the work and I knew how they were going

to treat him, and I knew that I would be back there fixing it in

a few years. And even with the promise of

more work on the horizon there, those were the ones that really

hurt because. Yeah, like that's great.

I mean, I appreciate they'll be fixing their mistakes.

Yeah. But yeah, that's just, it's not

right. There's a company here locally

that just went out of business and they've been around for a

while. And I, you know, if, if I told

you that there's three, you know, I'm in, there's a lot of

roofers in Cincinnati. It's a good sized town, but

there's hundreds, hundreds of roofing companies and this would

be in my top three, like worst as far as I mean, they at one

point I remember checking and they had over 45 complaints with

the Better Business Bureau. And, and I'm like, you know,

I've been in business for 20 years.

I've never had a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

Having one complaint would be like disgusting to me.

Like what, how did it get to that, that bad that they so to

have 40, you know, tells you a lot about the way that they were

operating, but they just went on a business and I don't want to,

you know, have joy in, in other people's failures or anything

like that. But the, the joy wasn't like, my

joy wasn't like, oh, now I'm going to have more market share.

Now I'm going to sell more, make more money.

And my thing is like, thank God, these people are not out there

still harming, you know, people that, that live here, because we

were, we were replacing roofs that were six months old, two

years old. It was, it was just really,

really bad. And, and finally, and again,

that's why I say like be patient, because there's guys

on, on the groups all the time that are like, I can't believe

these guys get away with this. I can't believe these guys.

Whatever. And it gets to the point where

these younger guys start thinking like, well, if they're

going to operate that way and they get to succeed and there's

no penalty for it, maybe, maybe I'll just do it that way.

And again, it's like they don't have that firm foundation.

It's a it's a House of Cards. And eventually it's going to

crumble. And, you know, this one took

longer than I expected it to, but it finally happened.

And so, you know, meanwhile, we're just kind of chugging

along doing our thing. Yeah.

I know, man. Well, I know we've talked about

a a few shifts that you've made in your mindset, in your

business, but is there a significant opinion that you

once held and because of your experience you've changed your

mind? About Oh, that's a good

question. Say that you repeat that

question again one more time. Is there a significant opinion

that you once held and due to your experience you've changed

your position on? Yeah, I mean, I one's coming to

mind. I mean, I remember thinking

like, I don't care what the broader industry is doing.

I don't even care what's going in my market.

I'm just going to be laser focused on me and my business.

And that's not a bad mindset. Honestly, I don't have that much

of a problem with it. But now that I do all this

consulting and, and I'm in, you know, travelling the country,

having a, a broader perspective on the industry allows me to see

a lot better. It allows me to forecast what's

coming, you know, that might affect the industry, my market,

my company. And so that, that that would be

one that I would think, you know, it's, it's good to have

it, you know it to me, it's it you got in the weeds, you've got

like the 10,000 foot view and then the 30,000 foot view.

And most guys don't ever get out of the weeds.

And that's the real problem. Once you learn these different

perspectives, it's really good, but you don't really want to

stay in in anyone perspective always.

If I'm always at 30,000 foot, then I'm going to lose a lot of

what's happening in the day-to-day and I'm going to lose

touch with, you know, my company and, and I don't get any boots

on the ground perspective. And so it's a discipline and it

really is a discipline to purposely shift your mindset

between those 3 layers. You know, also kind of going

back to the technician, the manager, the entrepreneur, It's,

it's basically the same concept. Is it like, yes, I know where

I'm best used is at the entrepreneur level, the 30,000

foot view. But in order to be really good

there, I have to get this, these other views from time to time.

And so purposely shifting the mindset between those views, it

would would probably be one of those.

But yeah, I don't have any. No, no other ones are really

coming to mind. That's a good question.

I'll have to. I'll have to think about that.

OK. Is there a significant mistake

that you can think of that if you could do it again you would

do something different? Well, I would I would never

enter a 5050 partnership again. And I want to be very clear that

that's not meant towards my former partner.

He is a great person. So my former partner I mentioned

is my brother-in-law and he's a a, a very good person.

He is a great husband to my sister, a great dad to my niece

and nephew. But 5050 partnerships are really

never a good idea. And I remember promising my wife

I'll never do this again. And then three years later or

how many years later, I'm like, so John Cenac wants to, you

know, master your craft. And we're we are 5050 and so,

you know, some lessons might be hard to learn.

Hopefully I don't ever have to regret that decision.

I don't think I will, but we'll see.

But that's a that's a decision that it took a lot of pain and

suffering to get out of that. It took on both my end and his

end. It also created pain and

suffering on our team and it really Hanford growth.

So I tend to advise guys like a company needs a leader.

There's got to be somebody that's the visionary, someone

that's steering the boat, even if it's 5149.

But but really, I try to not have partnerships.

I don't mind paying people as a partner.

Like you can get paid X percent of revenue or X percent of

profit. But when it comes to the actual

operating agreement, the control, it's very hard to be

nimble and pivot and adapt quickly if that's the case.

And that's, that's, that was a process that I don't want to

ever have to go through again. And, and you know, one of those

things that I don't really wish on my worst enemy type thing.

So yeah, that that's one that I that I look back on.

That was a big mistake. OK, that's interesting.

I, I interview a lot of people that at least thus far have had

successful partnerships. I've, I've had a few that said

they wish they would have brought in partners earlier, but

I've always kind of been in your camp.

I'm going to own it and I will pay you as a partner.

If, if you're providing adequate benefit, you, you know, we'll,

we'll pay you off the bottom line.

I don't mind sharing the winnings, but I'm going to own

it. And so I, I appreciate that

perspective and from somebody that's gone through the, the

pain of splitting something up that some valuable advice there.

Yeah, everybody overvalues themselves, right?

Like even me. Nobody ever I feel like leaves a

partnership feeling like they got all that they deserved or,

you know, and ultimately comes down to like decision making,

authority and ability. And it's gonna end up ruining

relationships as well. There's just, there's so much

that comes out of it. But like you said, if you, you

know, I don't mind sharing, splitting the pie.

No problem there whatsoever. But I do mind.

You're also basically saying that someone else is going to be

directly responsible in my destiny, in my outcomes.

If I don't know, if you don't trust yourself and maybe you

think, well, that person's smarter and better and whatever,

OK, maybe. But then again, you're not

equally yoked. And that's going to cause a riff

later on where someone's like, well, I'm the one, you know,

really doing everything and you're just riding my coattails.

So I don't want anybody having real authority or impact over me

and my family and my life. I, I, you know, So yeah, it's,

that's a dangerous game in my opinion, Yeah.

So you, you mentioned you'd still be open to partnerships,

but that you'd want them to be structured, you know, majority

minority, not a 5050. Is there any?

Yeah, AI company, sorry, we have, there's five, yeah,

there's 5 owners in that business.

I have the largest share, but I have in the operating agreement,

I have full authority decision making.

So as far as the, the direct, again, like if the other people

want to invest, if other people are doing roles and they get

vesting, great, 100%. But I want control.

I think that I've got a, a reputation and a history that

that says that I'm worthy of having that control.

And that's a big thing. Now there's other things in like

the Unit 5 with John. I would say that I don't have

that and I'm OK with that. Let me provide my value where I

can and hopefully I'm providing enough value to offset my

ownership and my, my, you know, interest in it.

But again, there's got to be somebody that's got the real

control. And again though, yeah, I also

always know that I have at your service as my primary driver and

that's 100% mine. And so on these other things

that I'm doing, I'm happy to have partners.

That's OK. Every one of them is crafted a

little differently. But I would never do that on my

primary source of income, my primary driver.

That's if I fail, it's going to be because I failed.

That's not because somebody else failed me.

Yeah. Oh, that's some good insight.

You you kind of got ahead of my next question there.

I was going to say, you know, as a business owner, would you ever

enter an agreement where you were that minority stake and and

someone else had the the say in what was going on?

Sure. I've invested in, you know, I

have very small ownership in a couple other companies just as

an investor and I have, no, I don't.

I mean, even if I had like shareholder voting it, my

percentage is so low it's irrelevant.

But yeah, there's one as I go. I believe in that leader that

the CEO like that's a safe bet to me or I believe in the

company, their product, their mission, whatever it is.

And so, yeah, and there's also like, I can't, I know how much I

can do. I know that I can't properly

lead and run and be the decision maker for seven different

companies. Not I can't do that.

Some people might. So again, I have my wheelhouse.

And so I have at your service, you know, and, and then

Gladstone, I'm the, the, the decision maker.

And in Mastercraft, it's 5050. But in some of these other ones,

I do have the minority share. And honestly, I love having the

minority share. I love not having the stress and

the pressure and being along for the ride.

And, you know, it's a lot easier.

So. But again, I would never be in

that situation as my primary. Yeah.

Yeah. I have consulted so many guys

through an exit, you know, and they're like, I feel like I'm

getting screwed. And I'm like, well, you are kind

of, but you're, you're the one that's responsible for it.

Like look at the deal that you made.

You know, there's a guy that I told him he's about to enter

into this deal because this guy, you know, I know a guy, he's

going to be the money and he's got a successful other business

and he's going to be the investor.

And so I'm the minority, but I do everything and I'm like,

well, that's great for year one and year 2, but what are you

going to do in year 3 when maybe you don't need what, what's he,

what value does he bring long term?

Like nothing. You're going to grow very

resentful. He's not going to give you more

ownership later because he just thinks you've earned it.

Like that doesn't really happen. So and sure enough that that was

a a big failure. And yeah, I've just seen so many

times another one where there's three owners and I'm like that

blows my mind. What are you what why would you

need 3 owners? What what are what?

Yeah. If it's your primary, you know,

hear me on this guy's that are listening, if it is your primary

source of income, it is your primary driver, your primary

focus. You need to be in control of

that. Yeah.

Good advice, good advice. So what mistake has cost you the

most money? OK.

Broadly speaking, in my early in my career, I did not understand

something and that is that I currently believe that timing

and I don't, I don't in a lot of ways I don't believe in luck,

but like timing and luck are probably more important and more

relative to real success than strategy and execution and

everything else. There have been times where I

had a great plan, I had thought through things, I had what I

missed like one thing or, or my timing was just off.

There's a certain company that I had, and we don't have to go

into it, but my buddies will be like, holy crap.

They'll like, take a picture. And they're like, weren't you

doing that like, 15 years ago? Or weren't you doing that?

And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, man, like you

were just ahead of the head of the game or ahead of the time.

The timing just wasn't right. And so I've lost a lot of money

by putting all my eggs into a basket because I thought I had

it thought out. I thought I had it, you know, I

thought through all the scenarios and everything else.

And then things that I'm doing wrong, I've also harmed myself

through my own decision making plenty.

But there's times where there's things that I could never have

foreseen, that I could never have have predicted that, yeah,

that those things, those things hurt pretty good.

And so now I have a much longer term focus.

I'm always looking at least three to five years down the

road and looking at what if these random things, and I mean,

think about COVID, you know, the Black Swan event that COVID was,

you know, I've, I've got, I know a guy that started an insurance

company there. There's an insurance company

that, that began in 22. They were founded in 2020.

And if you know the insurance side of the industry, you know,

rates, rates stay the same. Like you, you, you have to go to

the state like it regulates pricing.

So you can't just like raise your rates.

Even if you could, you're selling in a 12 month policy.

So you got to wait for the renewal and because of COVID,

you know, materials and labor and the cost of construction

almost doubled in like a year. So insurance companies were

really, really harmed. So here's a company that like

had all everything ducks in a row and everything lined out and

like, here we go and boom, COVID hit and and you know, you can't

foresee that. So having backup plans, having

redundancies, having, you know, worst case scenarios, if this

fails, then what it it's something that you got to be

kind of thinking about as well. I, I appreciate the burn the

boats mentality of like, no, I'm all in on this.

It's going to be this or nothing.

And, and, you know, I don't want to be sidetracked.

I don't want to whatever. And then like, that's good.

I encourage you to be like laser focused, but just know that like

there's, there's factors outside of your control that can sync

you pretty quick. Yeah.

Well, and just in my own experience, I think there's a

different, like you said, when you're worried about money, you

made enough. When you started focusing on

something other than money, that's when the money came in.

And when you're operating from a place of relative security or

stability, you know you're OK even if this fails.

I have found, at least for me, it allows me to go all in on a

different level because you're not looking over your shoulder,

you're not looking out for what's behind you.

You can just focus on what's ahead.

You can get that laser focus and you really can go all in with

your your focus, your energy, your effort, because you know

you've got something to fall back on.

Yeah, you're not living and dying on the outcome of that one

thing. Yeah, and so I, I mean, I get, I

think there's value for going all in.

And man, if, if this doesn't work, I got nothing else.

I got to find a way to make it work.

But at least in my own life, have found that there's more

successful when I have a safety net.

Well, and one thing that I tell guys is try to never make

decisions under negative emotions, fear, anxiety, worry,

anger, you know, any of those things.

When you make decisions that under that emotional state of

mind, it it you're going to make a bad decision.

Yeah. And so, yeah, again, if you're

like, if you're all in on that one thing and don't be wrong,

like early in your career, you, you probably need to be like,

you got to build it and, and whatever.

But you're going to make decisions under emotional

stress. Oh my God, if this is wrong,

what happens? Oh, and you're weighing these

options and you get, you know, paralysis by analysis where when

you're not under that and you're not under operating and making

decisions under negative emotions, you see so much more

clearly and, and, and you're a lot better at taking risks,

calculated risks. And you're, yeah, you're, you're

operating again at that 30,000 foot view where you, where you

just have clarity and you know, the game is fun.

You're, you're moving pieces around on the chess board and

you're not standing on the chess board dueling.

And you know, yeah, it's going to take you a little while to

get there. But but once you do, it's it's a

good spot to be. Yeah.

And I think there's a lot of decisions that if you're looking

at the big picture, if there's a clear right decision, right, So,

you know, five years from now, this is going to be the best

decision. But when you're in a situation

where I got bills to pay this month.

You don't. I know this is the right

decision, but I can't do that, so I'll have.

To actually, yeah, you can't make the best five year

decision. You have to make the best this

month decision. And you know, there's things I

look back on my time running a business and I'm like, oh man,

if I knew where I was going to end up or if I was making that

decision again today, I would make it vastly differently.

But at the time, in this situation, that was the only

choice I had. And you know, again, though,

like you, I don't know if you can really understand that

unless you go through some some failures early on and learn some

lessons. Like you can listen to guys, you

know, like this podcast, you can read books, but experience is

the best teacher. And so again, that's where I'm

like, take your time. Like I've failed so many times,

like a bunch of times. And ultimately, like that's a

big part of the reason for whatever success I have had.

That's a big part of the reason why.

And so if you're just rushing trying to get there, yeah, you,

you, you haven't learned those lessons and you're gonna have a

much. My failures were small failures.

If I don't learn those lessons and I get to where I am now and

I have failures, they're gonna be big failures.

So, you know, take the, take the lumps, get your teeth kicked in

a little bit. It is what it is.

Pick yourself back up, move on, learn your lesson, and you're

going to be in much better shape.

Good stuff. What has been your biggest win

as a leader? What are you most proud of?

Well, I mean, I have four sons and what I'm most proud of is

the, the men that they've become and, or becoming.

My oldest is a senior in high school.

He's graduating here in a week or two.

Then I've got a, a current, you know, senior, sophomore, 8th

grader, 4th grader and watching them become leaders, watching

them, you know, become young men and grown men and seeing the way

they make decisions and hearing some of the things, you know, I,

I, I struggle a lot of times and I think, am I spending enough

time with my kids? Am I, am I pouring into them?

Am I dedicating enough? You know, I'm doing all these

other things, you know, but then I hear them say things and I'm

like, Oh my God, they are listening.

They do, you know what I mean? And so that's certainly

something that, you know, I'm going to go to as far as proud

of as far as, you know, in the business world, you know, the

team that I have it at your service roofing right now has a

lot of really high quality people, a lot of people that

would most roofing companies would kill for just one or two

of them. And you know, they have chosen

to come work for at your service.

I don't really recruit. I'm just not good at it for one.

And I've always kind of had a mindset of like, hey, like if I

have to convince them to come work here, then are, you know,

how committed are they, you know, And so when I look at like

our list of employees, our roster of who's that at your

service, I'm very, I feel very proud of that.

I feel very honored that these are high quality people and

they're choosing to work here and be under my leadership.

And it's, it's, that's really humbling and, and exciting.

So that would be up there. There's been a number of people

in the roofing industry that have asked me to mentor them.

And unfortunately, I'm just at this point, I have to turn down

any of those requests. I just don't feel like I can do

it. I can't dedicate the bandwidth

and the time to do it well, so I just can't do it.

But I do have a core group of guys that I mentor and lead and

watching their success gives, you know, a deep sense of

satisfaction. And it's pretty fun.

And then, you know, I, I, this term has been used.

I don't like it of an industry leader and I, you know, to some

degree, yes, maybe I would call myself an industry leader in

certain areas. I think you usually it's used a

little too generously, but probably the biggest currently

the biggest sense of like pride or accomplishment in my career

is that I believe that John and I are having a statistically

measurable impact on our industry.

Like it might be small right now, but it's relevant.

Like there is a number, it's statistically relevant.

And we have had a real impact on this industry on the way thing,

way that people operate, the way that the direction that the

industry is heading. And I don't think there's many

people that can say at the end of their career, at the end of

their life, like I had real influence on the direction and

shaping of an industry. And I'm starting to see that.

I mean, I think we've accomplished it in the on a very

small scale, but I think that we're set up to accomplish that

on a much larger scale. And that is, I mean, honestly,

that's really my definition of success.

Like if people, you know, what do you have to do to to consider

to for you to consider yourself successful or, you know,

something along that lines? It's not a certain dollar

amount, it's not a certain, you know, revenue number or employee

number necessarily. It's like, did I leave my

industry in a better place than I found it and actually shift

the industry a little bit? That's what I would I would view

as a a success. Man, yeah, there are not a lot

of people that can say that. So that's quite an.

Accomplishment, I mean, if you look at any industry and it's,

it's pretty hard to be like, you know, man, that this guy, that

guy really helped shape the industry or really change the

direction of it or something like that.

And I'm not saying that I've done that again, I, I think that

I've had a, a small impact, but I do think, and you know, we'll

see what the future holds. I don't know, but I do think

that it can be accomplished. And with any with any luck, we

will. Yeah, awesome, awesome.

Well, I know you mentioned earlier when you first started

out your brother-in-law kind of put the crews together that you

mentioned that you have about 30 employees now.

What is the mix of those 30 employees?

Do you guys use primarily in house crews?

Do you utilize subcontractors? How many sales guys do you have?

What does that look like? So our, our employees are W2

employees. Our, our labor is 1099

subcontractor. So the crews are not in that 30

number. You know, our gutter

subcontractors are not, our siding subcontractors are not.

And so each branch has an office admin, each branch has a

production manager and then each branch has as many, what we call

site supervisors as necessary. These are production guys who

are on site on every build that we do, interfacing with the home

owner, doing quality control, making sure things are done

right, running materials. And so that number is going to

fluctuate based on our pipeline and our volume.

Yeah. But generally speaking, I think

as a whole, we probably have five or six production people, 2

admins, one kind of back office admin that's handling a lot of

like the QuickBooks and accounting and accounts payable,

accounts receivable. We have a sales leader in each

location, the general manager, 1 estimator and then the rest is

sales. So there's probably, there's

probably 15 sales reps, what we call sales consultants and then

like I said, one estimator, 2 office admins, 1 back office AGM

and then 5-6 production. OK.

All right. Yeah, my attitude on production

is really different than most of the industry.

I don't, I think that production is is probably the easiest

problem to solve. Like it can be standardized

through checklist and standard operating procedures pretty

pretty quickly. And I don't want any of my

bandwidth being spent there. And so we've built a really

clean process. We hire good people.

I pay more than the average. I mean, one we hire, we have

more positions like my overhead in production is going to be a

lot higher percentage wise than than virtually any other

company. But I don't have any issues

there. We don't have bad reviews.

We don't have upset customers. We don't have sales reps that

are like, man, you're killing my ability to get referrals because

the crew didn't do their job right.

I don't lose any sleep wondering, am I going to get a

bunch of warranty claims? Like we put on really high

quality products, really high quality labor, good, good roofs.

And yes, like I want to be able to say that, but ultimately I

don't want my bandwidth. That's not a good use of my, my

time and talents and energy. So I'm willing to overspend

there so that I don't ever have to deal with it.

My production manager, you know, when I split with my partner, he

was handling production. And so I hired my production

manager and it was probably about two years that he was with

me and he came in and he goes, Chris, you know, we've never

done like a performance review or, you know, how do I know if

I'm doing my job well? And I said, Brent, when we talk,

why do we talk? And he goes, well, usually

there's a problem. And I go, that's right.

Like virtually every time we're talking, it's because there's an

issue. I go, how many times did we talk

last year? And he goes, Chris, we probably

only spoke 3 or 4 times all year.

And I said, then you're doing a hell of a job and the

performance review is over. You know what I mean?

So I tell them, like, the less that we talk, the better job

that you're doing. And so, you know, and I say that

obviously a little tongue in cheek, but it is true.

Like I, that's not, that sucks energy out of me.

It doesn't bring me energy. So I don't want to do it.

So I, I overstaff it, I pay it well, we have clean systems and

processes there. And I mean it really, it really

runs smooth. It doesn't mean we don't have

any issues, but I see hundreds of other roofing companies and I

know what theirs look like and I know what's normal for the

industry. I know that there's usually

tremendous amount of friction between the sales team and the

production team. And we do not have that problem.

Thank, thank the Lord. And you know, that's a problem

that that can be solved relatively easily.

So that's what we do. Awesome.

Well, I know you've been at this 20 years.

We talked a little bit about you're kind of becoming the old

guy in the industry, the veteran.

Do you think it's still possible today?

Can a young guy starting out today, can he do what you've

done? Oh, 100%, yeah, without

question. There's not a lot of secret

sauce. You know, the roofing industry,

there's no barrier to entry, so anybody can can get in

relatively easily. Yeah, it, it these days you can

find a mentor, you can find a mastermind group, you can follow

the, the gurus or the coaches or the what.

There's so much free information available on on YouTube and

Facebook. And so, yeah, 100% you can do

that. I, I think in some regards it's

actually easier. We're we're going into a season

in the industry, what I would call like the thinning of the

herd. There's a lot of companies going

out of business right now that we've not really seen.

And so I think that the opportunity is there.

I see no reason why I'm not a single reason why somebody

coming up and in the industry couldn't repeat it and and get

to where I am. What took me 15 years to do, I

think could be done in in five years.

Man, yeah, that's good to hear. There's there's opportunity

abound so. Absolutely.

And you find, you know, there are those mentors out there that

share your line of thinking, that share your values.

And there's a lot of guys out there like me that are happy to

help the next generation come up.

And most of us are willing to do it for free, or at least free in

the beginning, you know, and then, hey, you're established,

you've got money coming in. If you want to continue this, I

need to be paid, I need to be compensated.

But in those early, you know, that first year or two, you're

going to find guys that are, are happy to help you and do it for

free. Yeah, I'm like literally trying

to think of a single reason would that would prevent

somebody. And, and I can't think of 1.

And I can think of plenty of guys who have come up, you know,

and it really it's going to come down to mindset.

Like if, if you're, if you're trying to flash the Lambo and

the Rolex and whatever, you're going to be a flash in the pan.

Like those guys just don't win. Like there's very, very few

examples of those guys really winning.

But if you come up and you actually want to do things the

right way, you want to take care of your customers, you want to

take care of your employees, you want to build a strong

foundation, super easy to do. Honestly, I, I don't even know

what industry you could do it better or faster in.

Like it's there's a lot of opportunity.

Here, man, that's good to hear. Well, this is my favorite

question I ask every guest. You've kind of alluded to it

already, but are you a person of a particular faith tradition?

And if so, how has that shaped building your business, your

leadership, your journey? Yeah, this is something that I

really don't talk about much and that's somewhat purposeful.

I usually if someone asks, I'm happy to have the conversation,

but I really don't like push it or, or promote that.

Yeah, you know, I would call myself a Christian.

And, you know, what does that mean?

That, that could mean a lot of different things.

Generally speaking, I, I just believe the Bible.

Like I believe that Jesus was who he says he was.

I believe that he did die on a cross.

He was resurrected. And I believe that scripture is,

you know, God breathed, God inspired.

And as far as, you know, denominations and everything

else, I don't even know my church, I think is a non

denominational church, which is in its own way a denomination.

So, but I, as long as you're teaching the Bible, I'm, I'm

good to go. I don't interject that into the

business. I, I just believe that people

should know that you're a Christian by your, your actions

and the way that you behave and, and the things that you do and

not because you told them. Most people that I've seen that

are very forward with their faith are, are, it's a, it's a

mask, it's a shield. And they're doing some pretty

thing, you know, behind the scenes that they, they know

that, you know, they shouldn't be doing.

And those things are going to come to light eventually.

I also had a, you know, a number of experiences when I was young

were like in high school, like it maybe I was a freshman and

there's a senior who like said, I'm this Christian, I'm this

blah, blah, blah. I'm leading the Bible study.

I'm and then you see them do things and that really harmed,

you know, they took me a while to, to, to reconcile that and,

and understand that, you know, everyone's fallible.

People make mistakes. Both of those things can be

true. You can be a Christian and still

have some, you know, weaknesses and still have sin in your life.

But I also don't want to be that stumbling block for somebody

else. And so I don't want to sit there

and preach and proclaim and, and everything else.

And then, you know, another aspect of my life that I

haven't, you know, kind of flushed out or defeated yet and

be that stumbling block for them.

And, and ultimately I just rather them know because of my

actions and, and character and what I do.

And so I'm also not an an evangelist.

Like that's just not my gifting. And so, you know, the Bible

talks about, you know, some people sow the seeds, some

people, you know, water it, some people harvest.

And I believe, you know, I've actually been involved in a

number of different ministries. I've, I actually LED a young

men's ministry in my early 20s and then again in my like late

20s, early 30s and really enjoy that.

There's really nothing more rewarding than doing that.

But again, I'm not an evangelist.

And so I'm not the, you know, the harvester really.

I'm more the guy planting the seeds and watering and

cultivating. You know, we, we talked about

this before. We kind of jumped on that.

You know, the Great Commission is to make more and better

disciples. And I'm, I'm a guy that's more

gifted making a better disciple than making more disciples.

And that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be focusing on both

or, or I'm not going to shrink back from that other

responsibility. But that's just where my I feel

like my giftings and talents are.

And so that's kind of where I put them.

OK, awesome. Well, thank you for that.

And I know earlier you mentioned you're not kind of in the camp

of scale and sell and looking for the the big exit to private

equity. You also mentioned that you're

looking to launch a few new branches, going to launch a

couple every year for the next few years.

What is the end goal? What's kind of the next step?

Where are you taking your business?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. Unfortunately, I'm going to have

to duck it. I do have, I, I, I don't have

like a, a set in stone plan. I do have a vision, but I, I, I

just don't want to share that vision.

I will say that I have no, I don't have any interest in, in

growing and scaling and exiting. I'm not saying that I would

never do that. It's just that's not on my

radar. And I will say that I have no

interest in the legacy business, right.

Like people ask all the time, You got four sons.

Like, are you hoping that one of them takes over the business?

Like absolutely not. I generally feel like I want my

kids to be operating things not in roofing, but even if they

wanted to be in roofing, I would tell them like, this is mine, go

start your own. Like if you want to work here,

you can work here and then go start your own.

You know, if if you worked all day and got $100 and then the

next day I just gave you $100, you would spend that money much

differently. 1 of this took my, my time, my effort, my sweat.

I'm going to be very careful on how I spend this.

The other one is just given to me.

It's free, it has no value and I'm going to go spend it

frivolously. It's the same thing with my

business. If they don't put in the blood,

sweat and the tears, they're going to destroy the business.

Like there's not a lot of really good multi generational

succession plans and businesses that I've seen that they are out

there. But you know that that's not on

my radar either. I do want to exit and take chips

off the table, but I don't want that exit to be from my roofing

company. OK, so in a perfect world, you

know, end game. Yeah, in a perfect world I would

have an exit or two under my belt over the next few years and

I could be more generous in my other businesses.

I do have a plan for at your service.

And then ultimately, you know, I would love to be consulting,

mentoring, investing in other companies, maybe sitting on a, a

board seat and helping, you know, guide the vision and

direction of companies. But I really don't have like a

full end game plan. Like I said, there's so much

things that are outside of my control that I know I'm not in

control. And so I have a general idea of

where I want to get to and I know that all the things that

I'm doing are generally pointing in that direction.

And the actual path that it's, it is going to be much, much

different than I would plan it to be or expect it to be.

But as long as I keep going in this general direction, I'm

going to get to the end that I am envisioned and, and want.

And so that's kind of my my plan currently.

OK. All right.

Kind of going back to the growth and scale like that.

I don't, that's not inherently wrong or bad.

I don't have a problem with that.

It's just not my passion. I don't get a lot of joy from

growth and scale. However, we are in a mode right

now where we're looking to grow and scale.

And so I look at that more as providing, you know, my mission,

my why is to protect home owners.

Now what I used to say is I can only protect so many home owners

in Cincinnati or Cincinnati and Cleveland.

And a lot of why I do the consulting and the, and the,

the, the coaching and the teaching is because now through

those contractors, I can help protect 10s of thousands of

homeowners all across the country.

And so when we're looking to expand, it's to now we have a

greater influence protecting homeowners in that market.

We're providing better opportunity to the roofers in

that market because this industry is full of, I mean,

there's not a sales guy in the industry that's been in the

industry for more than a few years that doesn't feel like

there's an owner out there that owes them a lot of money.

There's a lot of Labor crews that feel like they are owed a

lot of money. And so again, it's I, I think

that I can provide a better work environment, a better career

path, a better culture than most roofing companies.

And so the, the expansion and the growth is really, those are

the drivers. That's why we're doing it.

But you know, it will increase the net worth, it will increase

the value of the business, it will increase our revenue and

hopefully our profit. And, but again, those are all by

products and it doesn't mean that those aren't worth

something like that's worth a lot.

Like I'm we need money. Like we we're going to make a

profit, but it's not the driver. As always, it needs to be the

byproduct. Yeah, I like that.

I think Rabbi Lappin says the profit is thank you notes from

your customers. Yeah, that's that's well said.

I don't know if I'm in 100% agreement with that, but I think

that that's a really good way to look at it, a really good way to

kind of shift the mindset. Yeah, yeah.

I would say referrals are a really good thank you note from

your customers for sure. But yeah.

Yeah, if you do a good job, if you care for your customer and

if you look out for their best interest, they will pay you.

That's that's the result of doing good work.

So. That's right.

Are you solving their problems? Is that your focus?

Right? Yeah, love.

It that's awesome. My mission statement that I had

for my roofing company had nothing to do with roofing and

about half of it had to do with solving problems because that's

what we do. We we primarily do it through

roofing, but we solve our customers problems even if it

isn't roofing, if it's in our capacity to help them with our

problem. That's what we're going to do

today. We're going to help people solve

problems. So that's right.

Love it. Awesome.

Well, I know you guys have your new AI platform, Gladstone,

that's going to be coming live here in the next month or two.

You do some mentoring, some coaching, you're with Owens

Corning. If somebody's looking to take

advantage of the various resources that you have

available, what's the best way to access those resources or get

in touch with you? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I do a

poor job. I'm, we mentioned recruiting

earlier I'm not good at and marketing is something that I'm

really not good at either. I would tell you that if you

want more information from me, the best thing to do is just

find me on Facebook. Facebook forced me into being a

creator, a digital creator, which I did not ask for.

I actually got this stupid blue check mark thing today.

I have been resisting that and Facebook's been pushing it and

pushing it and pushing it and I had something happen and where I

was like, all right, I, I, I have to do this now.

So, but I, it kills me that, that there's a little blue check

mark by my name now. I, I really don't like that.

But if you go to my, if you can follow me on Facebook and you're

going to see all the things that I do there.

The other thing is as far as in the roofing space, Master Your

Craft is the private, it's a closed Facebook group you can

ask to join. And as long as you can answer 4

very simple questions, we're going to let you in.

And you're going to see a lot of things there.

You can go to the website which is Master your craftgroup.com.

So all one word master your craftgroup.com and there's going

to be a list there of our like the application process for

Master Your Craft, a list of our upcoming classes and, and stuff

like that. But most of the things that I do

get communicated on Facebook. And so that's probably the the

best way to to find me and what I'm doing.

OK, Well, I will make sure we get those links and link to your

Facebook, put in the show notes and I know you guys are working

really hard on Gladstone. You told us a little bit that

that's kind of you and John all downloaded into an easily

accessible resource. Is there anything more you want

to tell us about that, about the the potential customer base base

or what that can do for them? Yeah, I would love to because I

am incredibly excited. You know, we've been working on

this for about a year and a half.

But like my work on it has been more about shaping from the

30,000 foot view, like shaping what we're doing while tweaking

this, but it's not really been in the nitty gritty.

But now we're at a point where we're ready to launch where it's

my job to now promote it and to show how to use it and to really

take this thing where it needs to go because the foundation's

been built. So I'm really passionate about

this project. It's focused on.

It's focus is, is everything that John and I do it.

It's going to go back to two things.

First and foremost is service and then second is truth.

And there is a both of those things tend to be pretty lacking

in the restoration space of the roofing industry.

And so first and foremost, it's a, it's a training tool, but

it's really a communication tool.

And so this is not, you know, there's, there's other programs

out there like it. There are a lot of people that

are building their own ChatGPT models, but it's all based on

other information, information that's just out in the ether.

And ours is not that way. Most of these other products,

you have to prompt it. You have to say, you know,

here's my situation. I want you to talk about these

things and it's really an, a tool to help you like speed up.

It's not really giving you the right information.

It's just writing maybe that e-mail first version for you and

kind of helping you speed the process up a little bit, but you

still have to prompt it. And if you don't give it the

right prompts, if you don't know to ask about compatibility, if

you don't know, hey, building code R9 O 4.1, you know, lean

into this building code. And then you got to do that

every single time. And so ours is a closed source.

And usually what I tell people is when when when I teach a

class or John and I teach a class or John, we ask the

question a lot of times, how much is it fair to say that you,

you want to retain? You were happy that you came

here today and what you learned and you, you hope to retain

everything. And you know, most of the rooms

like, you know, yes. And I go being honest, what

percent do you think you'll actually be able to retain?

And they go the the most common answer is 20%.

And I said now are are you guys gonna now go home and try to

take that 20% and train your team?

And they're like, yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely.

And I go, what percent of that are they going to retain?

And they go probably 20%. That's 4%.

Not real good. And so the way to look at this

is what if there was, you know, some a person who listened to

every training that John and I ever did, fully understood it,

fully downloaded it, you know, comprehended it.

And then that person was able to write every e-mail in your

company, whether that's to the home owner, maybe to an

insurance adjuster, to whoever is is in the process and have a

deep understanding of all of these things and and ChatGPT

cannot right now do that. It might get to the point, but

even then, a lot of this our information is not being it's

not open AI, it's not going back into like the the hive mind.

And so I don't think other the AIS are going to be able to

replicate. They'll be able to do a decent

bit, but they they're not really going to be able to replicate

what we're doing because it's all built on ours.

And it's not asking you to prompt it.

It's very user friendly. It's going to read emails and

write your responses for you. Now you can then obviously

prompt it and tweak it. You can.

There's a lot of settings that you can play with, but I think

most people are going to go, that's a damn good e-mail, I'm

going to breed it. Yeah, it looks good send.

And so the amount of time and bandwidth, not to mention the

improved results and all of the things that you would get from

it are, are pretty strong. And again, we've already, it's

been through beta, it's already been through like early access

and we're not really getting any complaints.

We are getting, you know, feedback of like this would be

nice to have or this could be better.

But the, the real world data is been way beyond my expectations

on the effectiveness of it and the amount of time it's saving

people. And then when you compound that

and you go, well, what are you going to do with all that extra

time? Well, I'm going to sell more,

OK, good idea. Or hey, I'm going to spend more

time with my family and I'm going to have a better, you

know, mental state and bandwidth, which is going to

make me a better employee or better leader and, and all of

these things. And so, and, and generally when

I ask people and, and if you're watching this right now and

you're maybe in the industry and you're like, oh, this sounds

pretty good. You know, I'd like a demo or

man, if that's what he's saying it is, that would be awesome.

I want to ask you like, what do you think you would want to pay

for something like that? Like if it did what I what I'm

suggesting it does, what would that be worth to you and how?

And you know, think about that number.

You got that number in your head.

And I've done this many times. I'm going to go ahead and guess

that that number is probably around $200 a month.

And then I ask, OK, if you're in the restoration side and you're

working a number of files, do you think having this, that you

would have files that go to completion that otherwise

wouldn't? And most guys are like, yeah,

there's going to be some. And I go, OK, well, and then

what about the files that you were going to complete anyway?

But is it fair to say that these would be using this tool of

Gladstone, you're going to complete them faster?

And they go, Oh, yeah, but certainly they would get done,

yes, faster. OK.

And then with the amount of how many hours a week are you

spending writing emails, thinking about how to write that

e-mail, maybe jumping on a Facebook page and, you know,

asking the hivemind out there, like, what should I say here?

So I asked you, you know, how many hours a week do you spend

doing that? And, and generally people say,

you know, around 5 to 10 hours a week.

Well, that's, you know, 10 to 25% of your work week maybe that

you're now getting back. Where do you put that time?

What about, you know, I go, how hard is it to recruit in the in

the in the space these days? Like, hey, if you want to be

successful here, you're going to have to learn all these things

and take all this training and understand all this stuff.

And it's very difficult to take somebody from outside the

industry and get them to where they're really effective.

But if you have this tool, how fast are you going to And then I

say, now that we've kind of thought through that, now, what

would it be worth paying to have access to this?

And so again, I ask you like think about that number and I'm

not going to know that number, you know, but now usually the

number that I hear is like $1000 a month and I go great, we're

charging $100 a month. So it's $100 per month per user.

It is incredibly cost effective. The ROI is insane.

And should you know around July 1, you should have the

opportunity to do that. Right now, the, our biggest

choke point is actually onboarding people like we don't

have, we're, we're training up a team right now to do that.

Our website isn't even up really.

I mean, you can go to the website, but there's, it's under

construction, right? It's gladstone-ai.com.

Again, that website isgladstone-ai.com, but we don't

have the manpower to onboard people fast enough.

And that's why we've got this wait list that's that's there.

But yeah, I, I think that this is going to give a tremendous

amount of of freedom back to people of time, back to people

of success that otherwise maybe wasn't going to be there for

owners and sales managers. I think that it allows you to

grow and scale much easier. And ultimately it's all about

the homeowner. And I think that there is going

to be, you know, I, I mentioned my job, my mission is to protect

homeowners and I can't think of a better way, a more efficient,

more effective way to to accomplish that.

Eventually this tool will we want to get into the hands of

the actual homeowner and let them be doing it directly.

It's just that John and I, we don't have access.

The only way we're going to get in the hands of homeowners is to

spend a tremendous amount of money in marketing.

But we because we have access and influence in the, in the

roofing space, we can bring it to the contractor first.

So that's kind of a little update on Gladstone and what

we're doing there. But you can probably tell by my

tone of my voice, I'm pretty excited about that project.

And I've been waiting on this and sitting on it for a while

now and it's finally there. And so I'm just incredibly

excited to to roll this out and get.

Going that's awesome. That does sound like an exciting

product and man is somebody that most of my business was direct

to customer business to business.

I didn't do a lot of insurance or especially the supplemental

stuff. A tool like that could be huge

for somebody that isn't well versed in that that realm.

So I didn't even mention that by the way, you know, supplements,

I don't like the word supplement.

I don't. I've got some other thoughts on

that, but one another thing that the software can already do is

you upload your estimate and then you upload the insurance

company's estimate and it will immediately tell you what line

items are missing. Maybe this line item is the

same, but the, the, the, the quantity, the linear feet or the

squares are off or this is the wrong price list.

And so not only will it instantly identify what's

missing from the estimate, but it will then say, you know, the

justification of why that's necessary, the building code

that enforces that. And then we'll, you know,

ultimately write the e-mail describing why these things are

required and necessary. And so there's a tremendous,

most roofing companies in that space are hiring a third party

supplement company or they brought it in house and they

have staff overhead salaries to do those things.

And now this tool instantly allows your, even your like low

skilled, newer Rep to handle it on their own.

And I mean, the, the amount of time savings, the, the, the

amount of profit from having a properly written scope that that

reflects the work that's actually being done.

And that's, and that's an afterthought on this product.

To me that's like 1 I didn't even remember to mention, but

that's something that's already built and we're very excited

about that as well. Man, that's great.

Yeah, that sounds like a a great product, a great benefit.

Our last question I ask of most of our guests to either fuel or

settle the debate. If you have a job to do that

requires A cordless tool, which brands do you?

Prefer, you know, it used to be DeWalt, but that's that, you

know, ended many years ago. I would tell you, OK, there's a

guy who's been one of my best friends for a long time, right?

He worked with me for 20 years. I would trust him in this.

His tools are Makita. And so I'm going to give you

that That's the answer because I trust Joby to answer that

question. If I'm going to go buy a set

today, it's going to be probably either Milwaukee or Makita,

right? Aren't the other like the main

ones are going to be DeWalt, which was bought by, you know,

Black and Decker and and I wouldn't be there anymore.

Ryobi is like a great starter set.

Like if I'm going to get my my oldest son is going off to

college and if I'm going to get him, you know, here's you know,

I'm going to get him some Ryobi. But yeah, that if if I've if

I've got them all right, I'm going to say, yeah, Milwaukee or

Makita, but I'm going to go with my trusted source, which is my

buddy Joby and say Makita would be the way to go.

What are what are the other common responses?

What's the Milwaukee? And Milwaukee and DeWalt are the

two most popular. They've kind of been vying for

the top spot. We've had a few guests.

That kind of said for a homeowner level Craftsman, yeah,

it had somebody else vote for Makita, so.

A Craftsman, I think, yeah, they used to have like a lifetime

guarantee and I don't know if they still do that, but I mean

that that is pretty strong. DeWalt, like I said, would have

been my my choice 10 years ago. But yeah, I don't, I don't think

I could stand behind that decision any longer.

So yeah, good. Well, Chris, thank you so much

for joining us. I know you gave up a significant

amount of time to be with us here today.

You're a busy guy. You got your fingers and all

kinds of things. And your wisdom, your knowledge,

your experience is extremely valuable.

So I really appreciate the time. Love it.

I appreciate having me on. I had a lot of fun and yeah, I

appreciate the invite and and the time as well.

Awesome and thank you guys for joining us here on From the

Ground Up Show again, pause the episode, send it to a friend,

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