Sheldon Murphy – From Teenage Roofer to Building a $10 Million Roofing Company

It was literally like, hey, you're missing shingles or tiles.

Like I could figure

And I've started doing a lot of those little repairs like pretty much

for free and I'd ask for Google reviews in return.

I would install with the crew f most of that year.

I was still installing and trying to like hire guys like hourly and like

do the whole thing and it was man,

I can't believe I made it through that time.

this year we'll do ten ten to probably eleven million,

maybe depends on how the year finish finishes,

maybe a little bit more,

that's awesome for ten years go from zero doing it by yourself

to ten million dollars this year.

Welcome to From the Ground Up Show.

Honest conversations with people who have built their lives,

careers, and businesses with heart,

hands, and hustle. Your host, Erick Loden,

acquired and scaled his family's roofing company,

growing annual revenue more than eightfold and operating profit about

15 fold before choosing an internal sale and retiring from the business at 37.

Join Erick and his guests for the hard-earned lessons behind real success.

Today should be a fun show. Today's guest is Sheldon Murphy.

The founder and owner of TSM Roofing,

an Arizona residential roofing company servicing homeowners across

the Greater Phoenix and Prescott areas.

Sheldon began working on roofs at just 14 years old,

tearing off shingles during the summer to earn money for sports equipment.

After an injury ended his promising baseball career,

he pursued the trades, completed a union carpenter apprenticeship,

and earned journeyman status before returning to roofing.

In twenty sixteen, after a planned business acquisition fell apart,

Sheldon and his wife invested their savings and started TSM roofing from

the ground up, taking every small job they could find and building

the company around quality workmanship and uncompromising integrity.

Today we'll hear what that journey taught him about the trades,

entrepreneurship, leadership, and building a roofing company with

a reputation people can trust.

Sheldon, welcome to From the Ground Up Show.

Erick, man, that's quite quite the intro.

I appreciate it, man. Excited to be on here with ya.

Yeah, I'm excited as well. It sounds like you have a great story and we like

to show start every show, ~ learning a little bit about you and where you came from.

So we're gonna go clear back to the beginning.

can you tell us what life was like growing up?

Yeah. I was a a middle child, so I family I had older brother,

younger sister, middle child, definitely wild card.

sports was like everything growing up.

and you know, having that older brother had constantly competing with

him and his friends and it was just like always a thing.

you know.

Spent a lot of time outdoors, like hunting,

fishing, did a lot of that growing up and you know,

my dad was in the trades, grew up around the trades and yeah.

It was

Okay.

definitely probably the wild card out of the family for sure.

Black sheep maybe.

All right. And did you grow up there in Arizona?

Yep, so I'm actually from a small town kinda northwest of the Phoenix area,

Wickenburg, roping capital

Okay.

of the world for those that know where that's at,

but very small town.

you mentioned that your dad was in the trade.

S was he a roofer as well, or what did he do?

No, he was a carpenter, so he's structural carpenter.

They did like a lot of, you know,

concrete forming, things of that nature,

erecting bridges, like piers, all that.

he's been doing that for thirty something years.

Okay. I know you said you started roofing when you were fourteen years old.

it sounds like that probably wasn't the plan.

What did you think you were gonna do when you were younger?

~ honestly, I p probably was just living in the moment at the time.

I don't think I really had like a big plan.

When I started roofing during the summer,

it was really just like I came from a family.

We didn't ha I didn't have we didn't have a lot.

We had to work for what what we needed.

So family friend of ours or my dad's owned a roofing company and they're Yeah,

you guys are gonna go tear off roofs during the summer.

So that it yeah, it was not necessarily a choice.

I was kind of

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a

part of your story is a early baseball career and pursuing that pretty heavily.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah. so I played a little bit of junior college baseball.

I had actually

When growing up like sports was everything.

So I had signed a football scholarship in high school early in my senior year.

I was just misguided. I thought that I would somehow play college football.

I didn't have the size, like I w probably had the speed,

but you know, ~ I ended up having a knee surgery my senior year after football

season and I was like, Man, I just this is not gonna work out and I ended

up backing out of my football scholarship and at the last so it was like last minute

All the schools that were looking at me for baseball had kinda moved

on and last minute got a try out at a local community college and walked on there,

played for two two years there,

had had some success, played played really well,

and then you know, ended up having an injury that kinda cut that a little bit short,

but yeah. I was definitely a

Okay.

better baseball player than football for sure.

All right.

Mm-hmm.

Can

you tell us a little bit about that injury?

What what happened and what did you learn through that?

learned patience for sure. I've had a few injuries like in my high school career,

like knee and then in in college it kind of extended to like

a stress fracture basically in my foot.

And

Mm.

I had a surgery in between my freshman and sophomore season and I should have just

taken more time. I was I didn't wanna like have a medical red shirt,

so I kinda probably rushed back and didn't have the season that I

had my freshman year and kind of just lingered all

year and then ultimately what ended the baseball ambitions and and put

me into the trades.

you mentioned small community college there.

~ did you end up finishing your degree or what did education look like?

when I was in yeah, when I was in school,

like I said, I was just focused on sports and ~ probably messing around too much,

you know, deal and then did not pay attention to the school side of things as much.

That was not my strength growing up.

and really after my baseball season was over I mean that was pretty much it.

I played the two years and then I didn't no,

I didn't get a degree or anything like that.

I

Went to went to trade school.

Okay. Well

what having done some college,

and trade school and starting your own business in the trades,

what is your opinion of a formal education now?

Do you you wish you would have continued that?

If you had to do it again, would you skip college altogether?

No, I think ~ college for me was definitely I needed it.

I needed to grow up. I needed to face that adversity there at the end,

like with my f with my injury and then just having to it was like real life,

time to time to figure things out,

like no more messing around. ~ so like I needed that.

As far as like the formal education goes,

I mean I'm not I don't think that it's a bad thing.

I do think that trade schools are

a really, really good option for a lot of guys,

~ especially like a person like myself.

very good like with my hands, working with my hands.

And there's a lot of guys out there like that that just don't do real great

in the classroom setting. And,

you know, it's like you see a lot of the business owners nowadays and entrepreneurs,

they're a lot of the guys that were like A D D in class and probably didn't have

the best grades. So, you know,

I I like trade schools. I think it's valuable.

and probably not talked about as much as it should be,

to be honest.

I agree. I think that's either going into the trades or a trade school

is a fantastic option for, like you said,

the guys that ~ it it's not that they're dumb or they can't do it,

but school just isn't they don't work in that environment.

They're not gonna be

Yeah.

cubicle people in their career.

That that's not where they're headed,

that's not what they wanna do.

and there's a lot of great options other than college for those guys that

~ wanna work with their hands,

wanna get out and move and struggle in a classroom.

So

Yeah,

and there's definitely value that could be picked up,

you know, and there's things that I wish I would have taken when I was in school,

but you know, the nice thing about this day and age is there's tons

of information that's available online that you can find,

YouTube university.

Well y

you went through a union carpenter program and and got your journeyman card.

and now you hire roofers and I think roofing,

at least as far as I'm aware and in my area,

there isn't the the structure,

the trade schools that there are for a lot of other trades for roofing.

what are your view of the

that union program and and going through a program like that,

do you think that would be beneficial in the roofing industry?

~

Absolutely. Looking back on it now at the time when I was going through it again,

I was still young and it's like a lot of young guys in there and you

get in there and it's kinda like competitive,

but like looking back on it now,

it was it was so valuable. We covered all types of different

~ you know trades, installation methods from you know,

wood framing, metal stud framing,

sheetrock, you know, all of it,

decking, and I think it give gave me

me

like a very well-rounded knowledge base that I think you know definitely lacks

probably in the roofing industry.

It's tough

Okay.

and and I yeah, I get it. You know,

it's hard to fund those things.

We were fortunate to have an awesome facility that we'd go there for like

a full week and full full days,

~ 40 hours a week and learn a bunch of different stuff.

It was definitely impactful for me.

Yeah, that'd be it'd be quite interesting to see what that would look like

in a roofing program, a a little bit different probably than a carpentry program,

but

Yeah.

so you ~ finished up baseball kinda on a sour note with an injury

and went into carpentry. How do you get from carpentry into roofing?

Well, it's a good question. Yeah.

When I was in high school I was obviously doing t you know,

tear offs working for a friend of my dad's and then after I left college

I kind of bounced back and forth there for a little bit between the union work

and then like roofing on the side or on the weekends and at the time

it just wasn't super consistent work,

so pushed me into the union. ~ but

I kinda found myself always like falling back to that and and then it kind

of just it got to the point where the guy that I was working for

was thinking about selling and it sparked a whole nother idea

and thought process and down that road we went.

So

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

~ or as as much as you can or feel

Yeah.

comfortable. you know, what what was the proposed deal?

What did it look like and and what ended up happening?

Yeah, so like I s it was in my hometown where I grew up in Wickenberg

and the plan was like the

And very old school contractor,

so a lot different than like how we operate today.

I mean like probably writing addresses on a envelope type stuff,

you know. And I always knew that he he had a success like he ran the town.

He had all the business in town and was very well known and I'm like he

sh he showed signs of like wanting to get out.

He brought it up a couple of times and then approached him about a deal.

We came to a deal. I went through the process of getting licensed

and everything and ~

once I passed my test, received the license and everything,

went back to him, and then he just like totally changed his tune,

was had recently gotten divorced and is like,

~ I gotta keep working. And at that point,

I was like, I was so dialed in on that,

there was like no way I was gonna go back doing what I was doing.

And I'm like, you know what? Screw like I started for a fraction of the cost and

probably wanted to prove some people wrong too with all of it.

So that's what kinda led to the the forming of ~ T S roofing and yeah,

that's where we started pretty much.

Was there any consideration into buying another established business?

or were you just kinda dead set on well that didn't work,

I'm gonna do my own thing?

Yeah, and really like at the time I just wasn't you know,

I just didn't know a whole lot about like what other companies did and,

you know, just like roofing in general.

All I knew was like his company and what I did working and what I saw with him.

So I was probably naive to things at the time but yeah,

it it paid off in the end I guess.

Yeah.

It's it looks like it's worked out wonderfully for ya.

can you tell us a little bit about what that deal looked like?

I know there's a lot of movement in the roofing space right now,

a lot of companies being bought and sold,

and I'm guessing

Yeah.

things look a little bit differently kinda in that private equity world than maybe

the deal you guys were working out.

~ how did you come to a valuation of the company?

What did that deal look like? as much as you can tell us.

Yeah, I I'm have no problem telling you.

~ it was ~ almost a decade ago now,

so

Yeah.

twenty sixteen, b little bit different.

And again, I think that he wasn't totally aware of things.

He probably at the time I'm thinking was doing ~ about like a maybe like

a million to two million in revenue.

You know, pretty

Okay.

much like one man ban and

We he had trucks, he had a couple trucks,

a couple of trailers, a crew, and like his phone number was the biggest thing

to me was like the phone number.

And we came t he proposed the figure of at the time was

a hundred and seventy-five thousand I think or thereabouts.

A hundred and fifty somewhere right there.

and I didn't you know, it was I thought fair at the time,

so

I looked at the value of the vehicles and like you know,

he didn't have a online presence or anything,

just totally different way of doing business than we do now.

and I just, you know, it seemed like a decent deal to me.

I didn't have no legal counsel,

like totally yeah, small town shit right there.

So that deal fell through. He kind of changed his mind,

and that's when you went ~ all in on doing your own thing.

Tell me about that that process.

I mean that you're starting from scratch with virtually nothing.

how do you get up and going? What what did that look like?

Yeah.

again I like at the time I was probably naive to a lot of the way the indust

how the industry worked and like the sell side of things,

but like I literally just started

Doing the smallest stuff. Like I would go out,

and I was literally the chuck in the truck,

bro. I'd go out and I would just drive around,

I'd see houses, maybe they had like a tile fell off of them,

like small, small stuff, like one tile,

two tiles. And I would go to those people and be like,

hey, you know, you I can repair that tile and it was very like basic at the time.

It wasn't like I had a big sh pitch like strategy when I went to the door.

It was literally like, hey, you're missing shingles or tiles.

Like I could figure

And I've started doing a lot of those little repairs like pretty much

for free and I'd ask for Google reviews in return.

Because at the time I'm like, man,

everybody goes to restaurants,

you look at reviews, and I just like

I'm like, these big contractors don't have that many reviews.

So I started getting a bunch, and when I was really small like that,

there was a point in time where I had more five star reviews than like some

of the biggest roofing contractors in Phoenix at the time.

And that really like started to propel things and I started to

see how Google worked. And then it was just it was ground and pound,

man. I would go sell jobs during the during the day during the day

I'd be working with the crew after they s I sent them home.

I'd go try to sell a couple.

couple jobs and you know I was a definitely a owner operator

in the most literal way. But

Ha ha

yeah. It was what I knew like again I like I said it was just what I knew,

what I saw growing up with with that other owner.

And you know I came to find that there was a lot more efficient ways

of doing things and selling jobs and running crews and

Yeah, it was a learning curve,

but the thing that it definitely taught me at the time was like

the biggest issue was showing,

you know, other contractors not doing what they said they were gonna do,

you know, showing up on time and doing good work.

And I'm like, you know, like if I just do these three things,

I probably can make it. And people like really appreciated that then,

you know, referrals, it just yeah.

Really, really grew kinda quick after that.

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So wha what was that first year like numbers wise?

do you remember what your revenue was or even what your net was?

How how do you survive driving around town just doing little jobs or even doing jobs

for free just for the review? that that had to be a struggle just to

get by that first year.

Yeah, I it was it was definitely a grind.

as far as like what I did in revenue,

and I couldn't even tell you, maybe the first full year would have been twenty

s sev sixteen. Maybe did three,

four hundred thousand and that was

I would install with the crew f most of that year.

I was still installing and trying to like hire guys like hourly and like

do the whole thing and it was man,

I can't believe I made it through that time.

But

I couldn't tell you what my net was.

No, there's n I just at the time it was like I was always very good with

my money and it wasn't like I overextended myself on anything.

Like I bought one thing at a time,

trailer, dump trailer, another truck,

and then it was like I paid cash for everything very early on.

Never really got into like debt or anything like that,

never took any loans, still haven't to this day.

And w I think probably just being disciplined with my money at the time,

not overspending. and then once I started doing,

you know, getting full roof replacements and I was doing like one or two a week,

definitely a little bit more breathing room,

but yeah, initially it was yeah,

a little bit of a grind. Well luckily my wife was still working at the time.

Probably making

Yeah.

minimum wage to herself, so

W w

what did she think about this venture?

Was she on board from the beginning or did it take some convincing?

my wife is the most supportive person in my life by far.

never gave me any pushback on it.

Like still to this day, I mean never never any pushback from her on

any of this stuff. I mean she's totally supportive.

Looking back on it and I've asked her too,

I'm like, you know, why didn't you you never really like said anything.

Were you not concerned? And she's like,

Yeah, I was like scared shitless but I mean,

I could tell you weren't gonna you know,

you were set on it and I know,

you know, she was just supportive and

Yeah, she's and she still works with me today in the company,

so yeah, I think that that makes it's a make or break.

And the nice thing too is she we were together before all this.

She was with me when I was still pounding nails as a carpenter,

you know, physically working. So definitely good per perspective there

for both of us, I think, and we grew together with it.

y you said you grew the company with cash and it sounds like you

did grow pretty quickly. do you have any idea what your capital reinvestment rate

was or you know, how much were you pouring back into the company versus

how much were you able to take home?

those I mean, early on I was honestly I kept probably too much money

in the c like I just I would take enough that I could,

you know, survive on, pay my bills,

and then everything else, I just kinda like hung on to.

Like I was a f I don't know if I was afraid that I was like gonna totally

run out of work or what, but

Once I once I initially got like a couple dump trailers,

couple trucks and stuff that were fully paid for,

I'm like I was able to build a a decent savings up to where we could go

out and like move into our first office.

But man, I could I could not tell you what my at that time,

I could not tell you what my capital investment rate was or anything like that.

And I think also too back in in that

time it was just like the industry was a lot different too and it was as

far as like insurance stuff goes it was little bit I felt like I don't want

to say easier but you could make money quicker.

You weren't waiting the long time in between checks and stuff like that.

And you know for the biggest thing for me early on was like

when it came to paying people,

like never never missed or delayed a payment to any of my crew like those guys

always got paid on time. My supplier always got paid on time or early.

Like I'd never and to this day haven't missed a,

you know,

A B C invoice or paying crews or trying to like cut crews,

you know, short on stuff like that was just not how I did business.

And relationships were a big thing to me and and I think what really helped grow

the company was my relationship with my crews.

and some of those guys have been with me for like eight years,

so we've had strong relationships and yeah,

I mean, just being smart with the money I guess.

that's ~ a big deal. That was kinda my philosophy as well,

was very similar to yours and I think ~ there may have been opportunity

to do more or grow faster, but the the peace of mind knowing that

~ you didn't answer to a bank or you know,

have somebody collecting when there there was a short time or a hard time,

that was it was worth it for me anyway.

Yeah, f

no, I completely agree. There's times now where it's like,

yeah, you know, I could probably use something to help me grow and I see

it a little bit differently now,

but back then, yeah, it was nice not to have any debt.

Great.

So you said you started ~ you kind of had one crew,

you were still running the crew,

still on the roof with them during the day,

trying to sell jobs and kind of run the business in the afternoons or the evenings.

w w what does your company look like now?

I imagine you're not on the roof and you probably have more than one crew.

so we'll do this year we'll do ten ten to probably eleven million,

maybe depends on how the year finish finishes,

maybe a little bit more,

that's awesome for ten years go from zero doing it by yourself

to ten million dollars this year.

W what had what was the most difficult part of growing

From zero to ten million.

The hiring of employees, retaining people,

recruiting people, uh's definitely the biggest challenge I would say.

~ roofings to me it's like roofing's roofing,

you know. ~ it's not that hard.

You just you know, you gotta monitor your crews,

whatever, but the finding

salespeople, hiring office staff,

retaining those people, training those people,

it is to me by far the the most amount of work and was the biggest challenge too.

Have you learned any tips or secrets or i it I mean,

with ten years doing that, are you still struggling with that like you were

in the beginning, or have you figured out some systems?

~

figured out some systems. it definitely,

you know, like most things, you gotta you gotta lead from the front and I s

I I set the tone for everything.

you know, from the beginning, whether it's with the salespeople,

with office, even if I'm not involved with them,

I still like to have an interaction like early on where I can set the tone

and the energy and really like kinda help establish that culture.

I think that that's the biggest thing and yeah,

it definitely makes a difference with the salespeople for sure.

I know i in the beginning, you said you you had a crew,

you were on the roof with the crew.

I'm assuming that's a in house W two employees,

not subcontractors. Is that still your model or have you moved

to using subcontract labor?

Yeah. no, that was a short model.

most mostly subcontract labor.

I have as far as like our f foam truck goes,

few W two employees there, but like steep slope crews,

yeah. Mostly subcontracted.

what led to that shift or that change?

again, you know, I think it was just at the time when I had the W two employees,

I mean it was you're never gonna get the same performance I think.

And what happened was I was introduced

threw couple people to ~ a guy that had a crew.

he was close in age to me. He had some older brothers that had some

big crew like established crews in the in the city and like they were getting it.

It was like little brother. He had started a cr crew,

was trying to like do what they were doing.

Him and I linked up and really at the time we were probably one

of the early companies to really run like large crews on our jobs.

you were still seeing like a lot of jobs.

You have like three, maybe four guys.

guys on a roof and we're like,

hey, let's put like eight to ten guys up there and bang this stuff out.

And people were really like it really helped grow us too.

People were really impressed by it at the time.

And then that same guy he still works with me today.

A nice thing too was like just having guys you know.

~ I know a lot of companies that will just like sub work out

to whoever's available and it's like there's no consistency with us.

We have a really good relationship.

I've never like shorted them on pay,

like we're always very transparent with each other,

get paid on time, and we're not he's not nickel and diamond me over stuff,

like I'm not nickel and it because it does kind of transfer to your customers

and it does affect

affect the customer experience I think and they're one of the few crews that

I have worked with that really understood that like hey we gotta do good

for that homeowner so they get more work and then we get more work and it's kind

of a snowball effect but performance obviously is the big one when it comes

to the ten ninety nine verse W two thing and then you know it's just tough with

workers comp and insurances and all that so I don't know.

you said you're trying to venture into kind of the more commercial space

and some of that stuff is in house.

what does

Yeah.

that look like? What are you finding the differences between commercial

and residential and why try to keep the commercial in house?

~ I think with the with what we do,

we do a lot of polyurethane foam and the guys that can actually spray foam

and do a good job like in our 'cause it's a talent man,

I just feel like it's more you you almost have to have those guys in house.

because they're in your tr like we have our phone,

we built the truck, like it's all of our equipment in there and I'm not gonna

d hire somebody just to drive the truck out there.

It makes sense for him to be in there with and probably two helpers most cases.

With the way a foam and coating job works where you're having to go back

to houses a lot for like second coats and things of that nature,

you almost I feel like you almost have to.

It's it's difficult to do the same style of like subcontractor work on those jobs.

that makes a lot

of sense. So

And

we like for us it's like when I set and our sales guys,

like we want them to show up to houses like in company trucks,

like branded like branding's really big for us and I w same thing with

my foam truck. I when it shows up it's it's a driving billboard so I want

it to you know, look legit.

Gotta get that advertising out there and you want it to look good while you're doing

it. So y you said finding and hiring people has been the hardest thing over

the last ten years and growing the way that you have.

Was there ever a point that you considered giving up?

Mm.

I mean I probably said that like a couple times,

but I ~ also at the same time,

like I really I I love the roofing industry.

I love the people in it, I love what we do.

I have never really considered giving up or even ~ f selling,

you know, at that it's just I don't know what I would really go do.

but

You know, as time goes on and my son's getting older and things like that,

it's like, okay, we've been in business for ten years,

like we're pretty well established,

like, do I I've heard some of the private equity deals,

like some of them obviously don't go great,

some of go good, but I'm like,

if I can get people in place that can run it,

pretty much run it without me,

what's the r what's the point of getting rid of it?

You know what mean? but

Yeah, I probably never I never really thought about just like completely throwing

in the towel. No.

Ha ha.

I I like I like beating my head against the wall,

I guess.

Yeah. Did

did you notice kind of different stages or or different levels of

the business that were barriers you had to break through as you were building

Yeah. ~

the business?

yeah, for sure. ~

W what

were the most significant kind of stages or barriers that you had to fight through?

I think the most difficult level to get past for me was that maybe like that

five to seven million range. I don't know why that that particular range

is just like it felt like almost impossible to get past that because you're you're

getting bigger but you really like your you're

gonna have to you're gonna have to pay to play and it's gonna hurt

the profits there for a little bit to g I felt like to get into that next tier.

And we're we're now finally starting to pop out of that.

And like I see there Simon it's like,

okay, we're gonna be off to the races here.

but it felt like an impossible thing to get over,

at least for me. I mean I know there's other,

you know, guys have done it quicker and skilled quicker,

but that particular range was a difficult one for me.

that's a a different number than I've heard before,

but that's something I've heard,

experienced, seen is that you hit a level there where to grow through it,

your margins do drop a little bit.

You you have to grow your overhead,

you lose some efficiency, you lose some control.

And so you're gonna do more work while making less money for a period

of time until you can kind of grow through that that barrier.

Is that what you're describing?

W

yeah, what's that threshold that you hear mostly?

~ i i I feel like I saw it more around three million.

~ a lot of the statistics I've heard are kind of like three to five.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

~ so

five to seven isn't far off.

Yeah. And I don't know if that was pre or post COVID and stuff.

when Yeah.

Yeah, a lot of those numbers might be a little dated,

so yeah,

some inflation in there and

One

thing you know, one thing that did kinda help us get through that early,

like that like two or three million to five million,

early on we had a lot of property management work and there's some companies

that owned ten thousand plus homes like in the Valley Rentals and

and fortunately we were able to get in with them like many years ago.

And while I was when I was growing,

that definitely helped supplement that work,

while I was, you know, selling other jobs.

Not the most profitable stuff,

but it kept my crews busy, which was a really big big deal and still is

a big deal for me. It's like you gotta keep those guys working every

day if you wanna keep around. So,

That definitely helped get past that threshold I think for me.

Yeah. man, that's good stuff. And it yeah,

I I remember doing jobs basically at cost just to have something for the guys

Yeah.

to do 'cause if if they don't have work,

they're gonna go somewhere else.

And like you said, finding staff,

keeping people busy, that's the the hardest part,

I think. ~ the

Yeah. Can't let

the competition get a hold of if they're good.

Yeah. Yeah. And i that can be pretty

frustrating to be taking on liability,

doing work with very little profit,

but ~ sometimes

Yeah.

that's what you gotta do to keep good people and keep going.

Yeah, for sure. And you know, I think at the end of the day too,

the they the guys that have been around and like they're actually in the you know,

they understand how the industry works,

like they appreciate that stuff too.

Those guys that have worked for us that long,

every year it happens, storms come in,

like everybody's super busy, guys are getting poached and it's like we have

a core group of guys, they know ~ and we don't really like I'm not saying

we don't worry about it, but like

They don't go anywhere and it's because they know it's consistent.

All those guys that leave and try to go start their own thing,

they're all calling within two or three months looking for work and it's like could

just could just hang hang tight,

you know, don't get don't get greedy or overzealous.

Well.

absolutely.

do you feel like there was ever a point where the company was outgrowing you?

I it it was growing faster than you were growing as a leader?

~ for sure. Yeah. ~ and I've still at times like I do feel like that too.

You you don't wanna be the bottleneck,

right? And I think at least I've gotten better about,

you know, delegating things and

'Cause as f as a ground up type owner you you wanna naturally keep your finger

on the pulse of everything. And when I really started to see the growth

I think was when I actually truly started to let go of things and

and let other people handle ~ And it's one it's tough,

I get it. You you think that nobody else can do it,

but they can do it for sure.

Yeah.

And

I and I realize how good some of the people are that have worked for

us and are still with us and it's like,

yeah, let do their thing. They know how to do it.

Yeah,

I've heard a ~ the eighty twenty rule.

If if someone

Yeah.

can do it eighty percent as well as you can,

you should let do it and turn your attention elsewhere.

And

Yeah.

it it seems like almost every company that's successful as it grows,

you hit a point where working harder is not the answer to your questions

or your problems. You know, when you first start out

You need more hustle, more work.

You just gotta do more, work harder,

put in more hours, more grind to get there.

And then you grow to a point where you working harder doesn't return the same.

You're you're kinda diminishing returns on your effort and the business comes down

to making better decisions, putting people in place,

kind of moving into a different stage of business.

At at what stage or what point do you think you hit that turning point?

Mm, it was pr like ~ it was probably like in that five to seven probably closer

to like seven. and that was like

That was definitely when we started to see the growth too and and

the biggest thing that I noticed too with that when I tried to

you think that exactly like you said,

working harder is gonna be the answer.

And honestly, a lot of times it ends up running people off and you

end up losing talent and you end up losing like those good employees because,

you know, you can't you're blinded by it and ~ I've definitely

had that happen before, but

It's probably like around that s yeah,

seven seven million range. And

Okay.

it's it's very relieving too knowing that like there's other people that

can do those things and once they actually start doing it,

it's just like a a burden.

Yeah.

I think it helps the culture a lot too,

you know, like when you have for me,

my front office, the girls that are in our front office,

like I tell hey, you're like you're the quarterback,

you're taking calls, like you're dishing out stuff,

like everything comes, you know,

through you to start with. Like so you set the tone for a lot of things

and if like she is not on point or like

ne is she's negative like any of those things.

It just it affects the entire flow of things.

And so like that's really my front office is important to me because they're

the first interaction with most people.

So

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a vital role and ~ one they have to have it dialed in

and know what they're doing in that spot.

So

Yeah.

as you're handing things off and ~ have kind of grown through that point where

you can't just work harder and have to work smarter and make better decisions,

what are the things that you still really hold on to that you think

are important for you as the the owner,

the founder to be responsible for and and kind of hold instead of delegating?

the marketing. I I enj I enjoy the marketing side of things.

I like working with ~ our marketing agencies pretty closely and I'm in tune with

our market. I you know

Still like having having a touch on that and seeing where like my

big thing right now is like I'm like kind of managing,

I want to see where leads are coming in at,

where we're closing at, like what the closing rates are on certain leads,

customer acquisition, those type of things.

And fine-tuning it. ~ you know,

there's so many different ways for us to take a lead in,

and then it's also like having the process for it to be a easy,

smooth

experience for the customer. So the tools and things that we use,

I try to very big on like being on the leading edge of stuff.

So I do a lot of research and you know development.

All the AI stuff, I mean, gotta be in tune with that and automating systems,

like I feel like that's stuff that's useful for me to do.

And then I still like to be out in the field a little bit and have the guys

see me out there. I think that that makes a really big impact.

~ and I like climbing roofs, so yeah.

yeah. Yeah, that

makes a huge difference when the guys see the boss out on the roof in the

sun and ~ you're you're not asking them to do something you can't do.

Yeah. Especially when it's a hundred and twenty outside.

my goodness. Yeah. ~

Yeah.

it gets too hot for me here in Wyoming.

I could not do roofing in Arizona.

Yeah, we had like a hundred and nineteen,

eighteen or nineteen the other day,

so yeah, yeah. It it it's

my gosh. That's brutal. That is brutal.

it's brutal. We try to go usually we try to go up north.

we have a office, a northern location in Prescott Valley,

so at this time of year we try to go up there,

get out of the heat a little bit,

so

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, you have to when it gets that hot.

~ what task or ~ what sector did you delegate that made

the most difference? That that cook took weight off your shoulder

and really fueled growth? what did you let go of that made that happen?

f

for me was ~ supplementing was a big one.

as we were growing and ~ you know we did a lot of and we still do do

a fair bit amount of claims. I mean things are are changing for sure.

but I know you know John and Chris and as I was kind of putting some

of those systems in years ago,

I was

kinda working through them, putting the processes together and then it ended

up I was like doing a lot of our supplementing 'cause I was good at it

and it was like, Man, this is like I'm starting to slow these guys down.

Gotta get somebody else in here and I and I was able to find somebody that

was capable of doing it at a high level.

that was a really big one for me.

And ~ like they fully he and my production manager,

they handle all that build stuff,

like callbacks, orders, production.

Don't have to worry about any of it.

Makes it s

Super super easy. How we I

Yeah. man, good stuff.

Yeah, focus on the I feel like this sales side of things is like

the the challenging part right now.

It's very challenging to find quality sales reps.

~ you know, sales reps that have any background in the industry.

I mean we pretty much don't even hire we won't even hire anymore.

It's just it's such it's gotten so bad.

~ and there's so many bad habits out there.

So it that's taking, you know,

my attention a little bit more now.

Yeah, seems like

Yeah, we found that not necessarily with sales,

but on the job leadership. I I'd way rather train somebody in house than hire

somebody 'cause y you get to teach to do it your way and you can head

off some of the bad habits and ~

Yeah.

there's i i I guess i I never wanted to be just another one of

the roofing companies out there.

I wanted to have my own

Right.

culture and my own standards and that can be difficult to do when

you have people moving from company to company all the time.

So

Yeah,

and I don't know, you know, how it is where you're at,

but we have a couple of like really big what I'd consider like sales organizations.

You know, they're doing

Mm.

and I the thing is like I don't have a problem with it,

the door to door stuff, but it the claim all of the claim stuff

has really just gotten super diluted,

oversaturated. Contractors, you know,

they go work for a company for a couple of months and then they go start their

own thing and it's like they're filing claims on everything they get on.

And it really just dilutes things very badly.

And for us it's like our reputation's really important to us and what we're starting

to see now with that and over time we've built that reputation.

Those guys are going and knocking doors and getting inspections and stuff

and the people are calling us and we're going out there and we're we're

Ha ha.

you know. So I don't know. It's it's a moving target though when it comes

to that stuff I feel like.

man, that's a great place to be i if you got other people knocking doors

and ~ initiating a claim and then they call you instead.

Yeah yeah, yeah, for sure.

~ you you've done something

right with your reputation and especially like you said,

in an industry that can be pretty cutthroat and drive margins to the bottom

and and is pretty saturated to be the guy with that reputation,

that really says something.

Yeah, ~ it's a lot I know

And I don't think it's talked about a whole lot.

I've had the I've been very fortunate to be around guys like Chris Zimmerman who's

ran an excellent business and you know,

he's he's mentored me. I've seen what he's done and it's like his reputation,

the way he runs his company. it's it can be a long play.

It doesn't feel like ~ at the time you're like,

Man, this is just gonna take forever and it's it'll pay in the end for sure,

and like we're definitely seeing that right now.

So

congratulations. That's awesome.

in my background I did a lot more commercial than residential and and that

was why was

Yeah.

the the residential market is so saturated and it you kind of touched on

it a couple of times with the guys that go start their own thing and then

run out of work and come back and they work with somebody for a couple months

and then go do their own thing and I

Yeah.

think

roofing's one of those that ~ everybody that's ever banged on a couple

of shingles thinks they can start a roofing company.

And they don't understand the business side of it.

So they they drive the prices down to razor thin margins and they don't have

the margins to replace equipment,

to cover overhead costs. it can be a race to the bottom if you're

not distinguished as the quality guy.

For sure. And I think kinda to that point too,

a lot of the guys nowadays, I mean,

when I got back when I got licensed,

we had to I had to have the previous company owner go through and like sign

off on like t I think it was ten projects,

like what they were, like what I did the value of them.

Like I had to get that guy to sign that paper.

Like now I don't think you even have to do that.

Most of these guys that start companies,

they have zero background on a roof.

let alone any type of trade. So it's like all they come from a sales,

you know, organization and it's just yeah,

it's it's definitely gotten saturated to say the least.

Well in the the ten years that you've been doing this,

what was the moment you were most afraid and specifically what were you afraid of?

Hm, you know, I guess initially with the COVID stuff,

there was probably there was just a lot of questioning at the time.

It ended up at the end of COVID,

like we were we didn't really stop.

We kept working, we stayed super busy,

but

initially with that, with the price increases,

there was a there was a time there where it was like,

man, like there's no way these people are gonna buy these roofs and then,

you know, as time time went on it ended up being fine.

And then you know, I think the pr you know,

pri honestly within the last year

There was a couple of moments like with some of the pricing s where

we were seeing customers like that were ready to buy and like

the buying cycle really slowed and just I felt like the the price increases that

were happening were so like

it seemed like every other day like I was getting something from the suppliers

and I was like I can't even keep up with it to keep our prices like accurate.

And I felt like customers really started to stall ~ much

Mm.

longer than normal and it was like,

man, like hopefully hopefully we get past it.

And for us, like we're seasonal with weather and it had been dry for quite

a few months and as soon as it starts raining,

I guess it reminds people that their roofs are leaking and it kinda starts to

pop off again, but I definitely think,

you know, with some of the act the things that are going on overseas,

like prices of oil, fuel, definitely see people buying cycles slowing a little bit.

So

Yeah.

and somehow there's just more contractors popping up.

It's crazy to me.

Yeah. man.

do you guys run much of a backlog where the the price increases?

Was that a problem with selling a job at one point at one price and having

to pay a different price when you actually went to get the materials?

~ for the most part, like it we don't run into it.

We we usually will be, you know,

three about three weeks out, give or take.

~ it's kinda like where we like to stay too.

And then our supplier, like we've built really good relationships with ~ like

our my branch manager. we've been

He pretty much opened his location when I opened my shop so we kinda grew side

by side and they're like right down the road.

So he keeps me in tune on things and if something does get out of line they

usu usually give us some some grace there.

so it makes it makes it nice, but man,

there's a there's a minute there where it like,

dude, I can't even keep up just

man, yeah, that

that's fantastic that he works with you that way.

We went through that it ~ in the commercial side,

you know, we're often pricing jobs six months or

Yeah.

a year out. And it used to be that when we got a price quote for a specific job,

the price was good for six months.

And then they started

Right.

say, Okay, no, it's only good for a quarter,

no, it's only good for a month,

no, it's only good for a week and it got down to they're at the the height

of the supply chain issues.

They'd send a price and say, This is market price today if it's delivered.

But if you order it today, you're not going to get it at this price.

You will pay my market price on the day that it is delivered.

So we we couldn't even get

Yeah.

accurate prices for materials if we ordered them that day.

~ and it Yeah.

Yeah. And it obviously makes that very difficult to ~ cost you know,

estimate and ~

it was a nightmare.

And ~ we were working with one primary supplier and a a secondary supplier

at the time and

one of really screwed us a couple of times,

our secondary supplier, but our primary supplier,

MacArthur, came through and honored their pricing and worked with us to make

it work every single time and and really won our business.

It sounds like you have a similar relationship there.

And I think those relationships can be key to the navigating those difficult

seasons.

Yeah, no doubt. ~ and I see a lot of these gu a lot of guys and you know,

I get it if you're starting up like you're trying to get you know,

materials best priced you can.

Like there's times, you know, you may have to bite the bullet and like

pay a little bit more, but to me it's like those relationships are

so important and in a time like that it pays off it pays dividends,

man. And you know, that's when you can call in the you know,

the favors for the years of, you know,

loyalty and relationship building.

It is very goes a long ways with guys and ~ I think a lot of the people around here

know us for that and

how we like to do business. I mean,

I get it, you know. We have people beating down our door trying to,

you know, get us to go purchase from them,

but at the end of the day it's like,

I'll give I'll give up a little bit to,

you know, keep

Mm-hmm.

this line of communication and yeah.

A

a long relationship, a good relationship and and being on the same team is worth

a a little bit of margin for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Peace of mind.

W what mistake have you made that cost you the most money?

~ probably putting the wrong color on a house.

Like just off the top of my head.

Yeah. ~ as far as jobs go. Yeah,

probably I there was like a fifty square house and I I don't even know.

I never like get colors off and stuff like that and the people they

had like a duration they wanted and

They were out of town when I riffed it and I'm like,

I know they said duration is a desert tan,

and they'd come home and they're like,

That's not the color we picked.

And I'm like, we'll we'll f don't worry about it.

I'll t and immediately like I went back and look at some of my notes.

I'm like, damn, I definitely messed that one up.

And hey, we'll t we'll t we'll take care of it.

~ give me just like a week or two and we'll take care of it.

So those yeah, that definitely hurts a little bit.

Did did

that become part of your workflow and your process to make sure that doesn't happen

again?

~ that was probably like owner error more than anything.

Like everybody else follows the process.

Like they have to have all

Mm.

their colors and stuff in and I think,

you know, I was traveling at the time and I like,

yeah, this color and yeah. It was me not following the processes.

But

Okay.

it

In turn it's like bad situations like that come up and you gotta try to find

a way to turn it around and like it ended up turning into like a five star review,

like they're giving you referrals and stuff.

So it's like you just gotta address the bad things when they come,

take head on, don't avoid and a lot of times they'll turn into some

of your best customers.

Yeah, it's ~ it's becoming readily evident why you have the reputation that

you do and I I can relate to that.

I think some of the jobs that were the most difficult or had the most issues,

they ended up being the raving customers because when when they see you struggling,

when they see you hurting and you do the right thing anyway,

or you come through for you help instead of giving up,

that that often is a bigger deal than just having a perfectly smooth project.

Yeah, and when you get those people to like put that in writing and put it like

in a Google review telling you I mean it's it goes a long ways and even

to like our content and stuff now,

I mean we try to be like my thing is transparency from our estimating and like,

you know, how we're showing line item pricing to like the content we put out there.

I like showing like the really just organic raw stuff and we show mistakes like

on our channel and like

just talk about it like be honest about it and I think people we're in we're

in that day and age where like that's the type of stuff you have to

do like people are so tired of having cells just crammed down their throat from

every angle. It's like yeah be transparent consultative approach works really really

well

I agree a hundred percent. I think ~ the the current generation,

we're tired of the polished sales pitch.

Like just somebody that's a real person that it's honest and transparent and open,

~ that's way more effective than the the super polished slick back hair salesman

of the past.

Yeah, yeah, lock myself in the bathroom,

sell you a vacuum cells rep.

And and for us out here, I mean we have so we have roofing,

you know, pest control obviously solar,

guys I was actually ran an appointment this morning with one of our new guys

and the homeowners telling us that like I mean concrete redoing like concrete

driveways, cracks in driveways,

like they're cold calling for that stuff too and it's just like,

man, I feel kind of you know, you feel bad for

I is there a belief or opinion that you once held strongly

and you've changed because of your experience?

yeah, the sales aspect of things,

like in the past I've when I got started,

I've really like held the position of like,

I'm I'm a I'm a roofer, like these guys aren't roofers,

like that was my thing. And as I've grown over time,

it's like, yes, there is an aspect to that,

but homeowners like you have to keep it simple with them and like they don't

understand the technical stuff I talk about.

You know, you do have to like you do have to polish those sales

skills but in a I think that consultative approach,

I think my perspective on the sales side of things has definitely shifted from when

I started for sure.

Was there a point in building your business where you really felt like

you you leveled up or turned a corner and you could kind of take a deep breath

and like, I've made it. Some some weight came off your shoulders or you

you you felt like you kinda hit a level where there was a a level of security

or ~ confidence.

no. You always gotta you always gotta

Ha ha.

be a little bit on I mean, I've I've felt like I don't know,

I mean, ~ and maybe that's like the driver for me,

but I've never felt like I've made it.

and I probably could have felt that way along the way,

but I think it's you don't want that complacency to set in and no,

I just I've never

I don't know, I've never felt like that.

It to me it's like it could all go tomorrow.

It takes w one guy falling off a roof and,

you know, getting severely hurt and it totally changes the game.

So I think you gotta, you know,

be be prepared and always be on and always be pushing.

I mean, I'm somebody that wants to try to grow and continue to grow

and do new things. I think I'd just get too bored like sitting around.

I don't know.

I is there something that you do today that ~ you wish you would have implemented

earlier that might have sped up your growth or improved things early on?

probably my recruiting s strategies for salespeople and and staff and stuff,

I think that I really ~ that was something I could have definitely improved

on a lot earlier and probably grown a lot,

you know, quicker. But I think it you know

Nothing like the school of hard knocks,

I guess. You know, you go through it,

you learn and then it's like now you figure it out.

You're like, Okay, like now I know how to do this,

I can teach somebody else how to do it and you know,

I don't have to outsource it I guess.

You you mentioned that that was probably the most difficult thing

is hiring people and and recruiting and that you have developed some systems

to help with that. ~ do you mind sharing with us kind of what you've learned,

what those systems are? How do you find and recruit quality people?

Yeah, so we at least on ~ this one thing that helps is like the

the reputation from a lot of people see us around town,

our branding is really good. We're very active on the social media,

like and one thing with all my s our salespeople or any other people in the company,

~ they're very connected in our communities.

they all attend like whether they're B and I's or chamber groups,

like those are very effective to get the the word out and then as far

as like our salespeople in the recruiting goes,

we start all just appointment setting.

and I think that that's the easier path for a salesperson.

It's the proper path for some of those guys.

We can get guys that are younger,

don't really have the background,

you can mold the way you want and

And I think we have a series of outreach and like interviews that we

do trying to kind of filter people out because you get a lot of people that just

apply that don't know even what they're applying for.

and then

It's just we're trying to eliminate people.

We do a couple calls prior to group style calls and then when we bring

~ in in person we'll do a group interview but it's we run through like what

we call the gauntlet and then it's like everybody we're interviewing together

and you can really start to tell who has it and who doesn't have it because

we don't you know that's what happens,

you end up wasting time on people that are never gonna be able to

do it and expediting that process of elimination I think is

paid off for us. So

man, yeah, lots of time saving tips in there and it sounds like a

Yeah.

big part of that one is filtering out the recruits a little bit better,

but also maybe more training rather than just recruiting is finding how

to form the people that you want instead of find the people that you want.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, and I think now too I have the people in place where it's like

in the past when I was growing,

I felt like I was the one that was responsible to have to like train and

do all this stuff. Well now I have a guy that I can I can bring candidates

in and then there's the handoff.

He takes them over, like he's training ~ you know,

setting appointments, doing that stuff.

Once they read a s reach a certain stage,

then they'll be handed off to like a more senior salesperson for

~ training and having

And that progression is definitely made a big difference for us where it's

I'm not so hands-on.

What has been your greatest resource to grow as a leader?

my greatest resource, I think probably I read a lot of books or listen to

a lot of books and you know, being I have people in the industry,

I wouldn't you know, I didn't really have like a mentor early on that

I learned how to do anything from.

I think I learned a lot a lot of self educating,

book reading, and then picking the right people in the industry to

get advice from too. I think is a there's so many people out there that

are claiming to be coaches and stuff and they just have nothing that's useful that

you can implement into your business.

you know, like I said, for me Chris has been a good resource for that.

And then, you know, you just pick up nuggets where you can pick up and

see not all not everything's gonna work for you.

Like you gotta see what

is applicable to you and your business.

What works for me may not work the same for you where you're at.

And I think you have to be open-minded about that stuff.

So

Yeah.

I like you said, the market's kind of flooded with ~ I think everybody that's

run a failed business in the last ten years is now a coach.

Is that guru? Yeah.

~ yeah. So ~

how how do you find the right mentors,

the people that really can be of benefit instead of wasting time on

all of these people that are not not great resources?

~ it's not easy. I mean you definitely have to do your you have to

do your due diligence too and you have to figure out who you're involved with.

I mean the nice thing nowadays with the AI and the technology,

it's not hard to like look into somebody and see who they are or who they were

or where they come from. a couple of quick searches should tell you pretty quick,

but there's you know, you get on any one of these Facebook pages

and there's a handful of people.

I think it's pretty easy to tell,

you know, who

probably runs a good business and who,

you know, has other strategies.

But I mean I try to give guys suggestions.

I'm not one that's I'm not like trying to coach.

I mean, if somebody came to me and they needed some help I'd absolutely help But ~

People ask me, I try to point them in the right direction.

I think, you know, Chris and John with their master your craft thing is really,

really good. Jay Bradley has a really good program that is actually actionable

and stuff you can implement. I think that's the the biggest thing with

a lot of these coaches is like there's it's just like keep you coming back,

trying to get a subscription from ya.

And, you know, we had so many people just trying to get that subscription

and everybody trying

Yeah.

to latch onto the industry.

I think it's hurt it a little bit.

It's like a lot of this stuff's just not necessary.

So when you're facing a a difficult decision or something you haven't dealt with

before, ~ do you seek outside advice looking for someone like Chris,

a mentor, like you said, the Facebook groups?

is that kind of a first go to or a last resort?

How how often do you look for that outside help and how helpful is it?

for me I you know, not that often.

Occasionally if it's a really like something I'm really like struggling with.

Fortunately for me, I have ~ some people within the business now that

I can go to and kinda bounce ideas off of.

See, you know, they're very in tune they're I feel like they're more

in tune with what we have going on here than,

you know, somebody else. But

You know, I discuss a lot of stuff with my wife.

I mean, she's been here since day one,

so she knows what the goal is and kinda gives me that objective perspective which

helps, but yeah.

what is her role in the company?

~ she does like all receivables payable type stuff,

so

Okay. I is there

~ is that ever a difficult dynamic working with your wife where y

you run the company and she's handling some of the technical money stuff?

is it hard to find the right balance and the right dynamic?

she ~ she's not a combative person.

She's not like she's not like me in that sense,

so she is very easygoing, makes it and she's really good at what she does,

so she doesn't really have any reason for me to be bothering her.

I pretty much just stay out of her lane.

And I think the

frustrations or like the pressures that build probably,

you know, she hears me vent about them,

but honestly, I mean, some of the stuff that we have been through

too has probably made our relationship stronger,

to be honest. yeah, we're very we've been in it so long together too,

I think she just kinda knows like how it goes and like we stay in our lanes.

As soon as I start messing with her stuff,

like it yeah, everyone's like,

dude

Get out of here.

Okay. All right. I

if you could go back to your senior year of high school and d'll do it all again,

w ~ would you choose to do it again or would you follow a different path?

I'd do it again. Yeah. Yep, I'd de definitely do it again.

There was a lot of

You know, opportunities do different things,

but where I'm at today I'm I'm a I'm very happy.

I'm happy with the people, the company that we have,

the impact we have in our community,

the homeowners that we help every every single day.

I got a great crew of guys. Are we the biggest company?

No, but we're we're definitely one of the the highest quality contractors that

are taking care of customers in a right way and hopefully making making

a difference with them. So

So for a young person out there,

~ looking to their future, do you think it's still possible to do what you've done?

Could could they follow in your footsteps and do it again?

Yeah, I I mean I you know, there's probably a little bit different path that

you could take now. I think the for the younger people where their

big their big advantages and it goes to like our hiring too,

I'm targeting like these young people because of the technology and

the way that they're able to adapt to that stuff just naturally.

I think that's the advantage that the young people have today.

I have that I felt like I had that advantage

over, you know, the older, you know,

the people that were in like their fifties,

sixties owning companies. some of the stuff they're just it's like I feel bad,

but they're just not gonna be able to keep up with what we're doing now.

But these younger kids they're even more dialed in and they're even more astute with

that stuff. So I think utilizing those tools,

you know, you could definitely still do it.

there's there's still opportunity for someone that wants to ~ pursue a career

in the trades rather than a traditional career track.

absolutely. I mean, the the demand for tradespeople is gonna continue to go up,

with that technology side of things.

You know, it's taken people out of the field,

it's taken, you know, knowledgeable tradespeople.

They're fewer and fewer and ~ if you're a good one you're gonna

be paid handsomely to to provide a service,

so

Well y you said that you would choose to do it again if you could go back,

but we've also talked a little bit about the market being saturated,

~

Mm-hmm.

the the long path to establish yourself as the trusted guy in roofing in your area.

if you lost it all today and had to start from scratch tomorrow,

what what would you do? How would you get started again?

Would you try a different trade?

Would you build another roofing company and what would that look like?

I would probably stay in roofing.

I'd I'd definitely have a different strategy to it.

The first thing I would do is probably just get involved in the community because

I think even with the the things being oversaturated,

those groups, those connections are they pay us so many referrals and like

you can really build a a network within those versus like the door knocking

and stuff, you're still gonna get leads like that,

but to really like get established and people know you,

you gotta be in those groups. So,

Okay. Good advice. Th

yep.

this is my favorite question I ask of every guest.

are you a person of a particular faith tradition?

And if so, how does that affect your leadership and how you run your business?

Yeah, you know, I grew up in a Christian household,

and most of the guys that are in my company,

like they're, you know, men of faith and the people I associate myself with,

the Chris is, like those type of people,

they're typically men of faith.

And I think my my wife is probably a little bit

more consistent with it than I am,

but it helps check me and it definitely helps with those decisions that come

and those, you know, the difficult ones.

I don't just go through it by myself.

I you know, have to have to pray.

I have to ask for, you know, some guidance sometimes,

you know. And it it definitely can can give you peace too in those chaotic times,

so

Am I the

Okay.

best at it? Probably ~ I'm probably not as consistent as I

Ha ha.

should be. but you know, I definitely believe so.

Yeah.

thank you for sharing that. so I know you guys have been growing like crazy,

growing pretty organically. You've gone from zero to ten million over ten years.

~ you did mention kind of reconsidering things with your kids getting

a little older and all the movement in the roofing industry with private equity.

~ what is next for T S What's c what do you kind of have your site set on?

Where are you headed? What do you have in mind?

I think for us it's ~ we want we're looking to expand into some other markets.

I think we're finally at the stage where I feel like we can do that

a little bit more ~ effectively.

I want to be able to like put guys in a position where it's like,

hey, here's the system in process to follow,

like plug and play, not just like throw some guys into a situation.

I think for us it's expanding into a couple other markets,

seeing how that you know, how those places perform and then

you know, maybe maybe looking into some other states,

we'll see.

And ~ if somebody is in your area and wants to get in touch with

you to take advantage of your services,

what's the best way to do that or what's the best way to find you?

you can

Reach us on online, tsmrus dot com,

our number six two three two one three eight two six seven.

If you want to talk to me, you know,

you're w welcome to call that number.

~ as far as customers, we make it as easy as you could possibly want.

Whether you want a text in book,

fill out a form online, whatever's easiest,

we can assist you with that. Check us out on Google,

over five hundred five star reviews.

yeah.

We'll help you however you however you need it.

I I know you've mentioned a couple of times that you love technology.

You think that's been a good advantage for you.

You kind of stay on the cutting edge.

how important has that been? How how significant do you think that is

to the the growth of your business?

significant. ~ I think it's you ha it's a must.

I think especially with the competitiveness of things and the cost,

like it's not that we're trying to eliminate people or positions,

but definitely make people more productive,

I think, more than anything. And just it's saves you a lot of time getting

not getting hung up with like the minute task.

I think

you know, with the way searches are working now,

you know, you gotta be in tune with the AI stuff,

so see with it?

well I'm I'm a little more removed in the market that I was in,

~ we tend to follow about five years behind.

But

Yeah.

yeah, I think ~ I think it's a key thing.

Mm kind of ~ my approach was I always wanted to stay one step ahead

of my competitors. And so in my market that didn't mean I had to be cutting edge.

~ I just had to be a little bit ahead of them.

I w I wanted to have

Yeah.

the best website of all my competitors.

I wanted to have more Google reviews than any of my competitors,

~ and just kind of be one step ahead.

But man, as as fast

Yeah.

as technology's moving, being one step ahead,

y you you have to be out in front.

So

Yeah,

yeah, it's it's moving very quickly.

but you know, it's once you get f kind of familiar with it and you're using those

tools a little bit more, it's not quite as difficult.

~ you're just trying to keep up with models and things like that.

~

I've been very fortunate to have somebody that I work pretty close with

~ who's really good with that AI and development and has taught me

a lot that's really helped expedite things.

But the one I'll g I'll I'll give guys one tip.

If if you're wanting to get in tune with things,

the book, The AI Driven Leader,

is a great one to read. ~

Mm.

really can help get you a start with doing that.

you mentioned that books were a great resource for you.

do you have any other favorites that you would recommend to any business leaders

or specifically somebody in the trades?

Yeah, ~ I mean Leaders Eat Last is a good one.

I I love, you know, Chris Voss's stuff.

We had we were fortunate to see him at the Platinum Con conference this last year.

got his book and then yeah, it never split the difference was a really,

really good one. I go back and read that one every now and then.

~ but yeah, any of those type of books I think can be

Again, you're gonna pick up different things,

but the communication skills and ultimately when it comes to like sales

and stuff too nowadays, like we can't force people into decisions.

They have to come to decisions on their own.

They need to you just need to be able to like guide them to that,

you know, decision. So

good stuff.

man. Well as we kinda wrap things up,

bring it to a close here. you're somebody that started in the trades very early.

at fourteen years old and roofing,

you've got experience in ~ various trades and a lot of construction.

if you have a job to do that requires a cordless tool,

which brands do you prefer?

probably Milwaukee. U ~ uses

Milwaukee.

a lot of Milwaukee stuff. Like the I really like their new cordless ~ coil nailer.

That's we've

yeah.

been using that. Works pretty well.

Works great for like quick repairs and things like that.

But yeah, probably Milwaukee. Yep.

Okay. All right. Well there

~ Milwaukee and DeWalt have kind of been neck and neck.

I think right now ~ DeWalt is pulling ahead,

but we'll we'll chalk another one up for Milwaukee.

Really? Why

is that the ~ the the cordless nailer?

It's gotta be.

I I'm not sure why.

but I think we've got I don't know thirty or forty responses now

and they're they were pretty evenly split split.

If DeWalt's ahead it's by like three or four max,

so. Yeah?

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. ~

put me on the the Milwaukee side.

We'll even it up a little bit.

So

awesome. Well, Sheldon, thank you so much for joining us.

I know we had a few technical difficulties there we had to work through.

It's all good. Yeah.

~ you've

given up a lot of time and man,

you have a ton of experience, a ton of knowledge,

and are just a real inspiration for those that want to do business the right

way and be successful. So thank you for joining us.

I really appreciate it.

Yep, thanks Erick And like those guys that are getting started man,

you can definitely do it. There's a need for good contractors out there,

so just just put your nose to the grindstone and you can do it too for sure.

is there anybody that you'd like to see on From the Ground Up Show?

Somebody you know that has a really cool business,

a really cool story, somebody that you'd like to learn more about.

you know, I think I mentioned ~ and I don't know if you've had him on,

but Jay Jay Bradley.

No.

he he's got a really interesting story.

He's runs the Roofnuts program now,

which kind of helps contractors recruit and retain salespeople.

He's got an interesting story and like his process with how they approach sales

has been really interesting for for me to hear.

and then

Yeah, I mean, as far as marketing companies go,

Send, Michael Stearns with Ascend,

like he's ~ super, super knowledgeable like with all your marketing stuff,

all the roofing marketing stuff.

I mean, he's your guy. Like I think he'd be a great guest too.

Okay. Yeah, I might reach

out, see if we can get in touch with them.

That would be fantastic. So awesome.

Yeah. All

Well, thanks, Sheldon.