Latest / Epic Entrepreneurs / Honest Estimates Beat Hard Sales Every Time with Alex Savely, Ridge Roofing

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Honest Estimates Beat Hard Sales Every Time with Alex Savely, Ridge Roofing · Epic Entrepreneurs

0:46
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: I am Clinton McCray with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm excited to be joined by Alex Tavley, co-owner of Rich Roofing in Western North Carolina.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Alex, how are you doing today?
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for having me, man.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very excited to have you.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you don't mind, let's go ahead and jump right into things.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: All right, perfect.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Alex, I kind of did a little bit of digging, kind of a little bit of research on you a little bit here.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So, you let me know if anything I I dug up was wrong, because, you know, hey, no, not everything online is it's always 100% true.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: But but but what I found was that uh, you know, that you grew up around the roofing business and later built ridge roofing with your wife just around local service, quality work, and direct owner involvement.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: So, Alex, is that exactly right?
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Kind of how you how you got started?
1:43
SPEAKER_00: That is right, yeah, for sure.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, perfect, perfect.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, obviously Ridge Roofing is a roofing company.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: So tell everybody kind of what you what you provide here in Western North Carolina.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Ridge Roofing, we are a mostly residential roofing company, and we provide all types of roofing you can think of for a residential roof.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: So we do anything from small repairs, changing a pipe boot out, changing one shingle, doing some maintenance stuff that you found on an inspection report when you're buying a house, all the way up to copper roofs, designer roofs, uh, synthetic material roofs.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: We do everything from high-end vacation homes all the way to simple repairs.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: And who is Alex Avery?
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Who are you as a person?
2:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I grew up in South Louisiana, and I'll get into a little bit of how my family and how I got introduced to the roofing industry way back when I was about 13 years old.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm originally from South Louisiana, and Lafayette is where I mainly grew up.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: And so being there, obviously we're in hurricane territory over there.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, we we are here now and the mountains here too.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, apparently.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: But we've been in Louisiana, it was a normal thing to have hurricanes come through.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: So I was about 13 years old, and actually Hurricane Lily came through and hit Lafayette.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a huge, devastating storm, but it was enough that a lot of roofs got damaged and needed to be replaced.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: All of my, well, my dad and my uncles, they were kind of all doing different things at the time.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: And one of my uncles saw the industry, you know, this hurricane came, a lot of roofs need to get replaced.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: He had talked to someone and said, hey, you know, this is a great opportunity right now.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: You should come work for this roofing company.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: So he did.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: And then my uncles also and my dad, they all did the same thing and they all went and worked with this company after this storm.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: And then that company, like a lot of companies do, left after the work was kind of starting to taper out for that storm.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: And so my dad and my uncles, they kind of looked around and they said, Well, we're not leaving.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: This is our hometown.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna start, you know, a home-based, like roofing office here that isn't a storm-chasing company.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: It's just like a local community-based roofing company that we're here to stay.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: So that's what they did.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I first got started to be introduced to roofing as a kid, just hearing them talk about it, going to job sites with my dad.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and that's what really kicked off this whole thing.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: And I've taken breaks growing up from roofing, but it's always drawn me back in the construction, and roofing has always pulled me back to it over the years.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh in 2018, me and my wife we moved up to North Carolina, and we came here.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: I had a feeling I was probably gonna open up a roofing company when we got here, but we didn't know anyone here.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: It was we were we were transplants, as they say here.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: And so, but we we we moved here, and we I just said, you know, if I don't try to start a roofing company for our ourselves, I feel like I'm gonna regret it.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I said, you know, there's other options if it doesn't work out, but let's try this, let's do it, and give it a while to see if everything works.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: And it did.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we took off.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: And I attribute that to a lot of how we run the business and how we deal with people in our community.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, ever since then it's just been just been an upward, upward trajectory.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Upward trajectory, guys, nice.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, what about you know, what about your personal life?
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any hobbies, anything like that?
5:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so didn't do this obviously in Louisiana, but since I've moved here, I love mountain biking now.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Mountain biking's a lot of fun.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: I love being terrible at golf.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: That is a lot of fun as well.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: I like playing golf, but it's more of just going hang out with my brothers and getting out on the golf course every once in a while is fun.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I have four kids, so taking them around to their practices and doing all that stuff too is takes up takes a lot of time, but we love it.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: We have four kids.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Our oldest is uh seven boy, and then we have a four-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, and almost nine-month-old boy.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, let's kind of get into the business side here.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I appreciate you kind of getting into that personal a little bit.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, you said you you came up in in 2018.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure those the you had to adjust to the winters a little bit.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure the winters are a lot more lot more rough here in the mountains than they are down south.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: They are, yes.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: So our first year in business, we actually decided that for about the two-week stretch, we just shut down for for Christmas break.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: So for Christmas and New Year's, we kind of take that time off during the winter.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: And then obviously it's not just cold during those two weeks.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: When it's when it's in that cold stretch, we try to do a lot more metal roofs.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: And that's what really got me into metal.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: When I was in Louisiana, we didn't do a whole lot of metal.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: I had never really done a whole lot of metal before moving up here, but I found it was a really good fit for those colder months.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: And now we do about 50% metal and 50% shingles, and we do standing seam and tough rib roofs.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: So that is kind of our strategy for the colder months.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: We kind of save some of those bigger metal roofs for then.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, you you kind of talked about this a little bit earlier.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump into it a little bit more.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: You you said that uh you've worked in other places, but roofing always brings you back.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: So, what made you and Jess decide in 2018 that it was time to build ridge roofing instead of continuing to work for someone else?
7:39
SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: So, and actually when we moved up here, I started working with another roofing company.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: Because again, it's just what I know.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: I've been doing it for a long time.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: And so I started working for another roofing company.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, when you start working for a company, it's the right spot to start.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying they did the wrong thing.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: They didn't it at all.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, you start out at the at the very bottom of the company.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: I was, I was back at having this chance, the same job I had when I was 16 years old, uh just picking up trash on the job site.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: And I had been doing roofing at that point for a long time.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: And so I knew that I was better equipped to handle more than what they were giving me.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: And so I told her, and actually, I was also an MP in the Marine Corps, and that that ties in because we moved up here and I started working for this company, and I said, you know, I think I'm gonna go be an Asheville, I'm gonna go join the Asheville Police Department because I had done that.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: I had already basically been through the police academy with other Marines.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, and I had done that, so I was like, okay, well, I'll go be a police officer.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: And then just it was it was a God thing, and it just started getting put on my heart that you need to try this first.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: And if it doesn't work, you can always go be a police officer.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: That's always there, it's always an option, but try this first, give it a year.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: And so I just knew that staying there, working my way back up from the bottom again with a brand new company just wasn't gonna work for us.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: We had a we had a baby on the way, and big moves needed to happen.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: So we said, hey, let's try this.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: And so it was kind of a it was kind of a trial by fire.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, and like I said, it's it's a lot to do with just how I deal with homeowners, deal with the people in our community.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: I I attribute a lot of our growth to the to that and just the honesty and part of our inspections and all that stuff.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, what did the earliest version of ridge roofing look like compared with the company today?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Would you say?
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Great question.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: Very different.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: So when I first started out, I had a guy who's still with me today, and um, his name's Mr.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Mr.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Anastasio, and I would go and go on leads, sell a job, and then me and Mr.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Tacho, his nickname, we would go and install the roofs together.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: Me and him.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Eventually his son started helping us too.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: But I would literally be on a job site with him installing roofs, and then around lunchtime, they'd go have lunch and I would go do an estimate for our next job.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: And I'd I'd so they'd go take their lunch break.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: I'd go do another estimate.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: And uh at night I was, you know, following up with our leads and doing all that.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: But uh during the day, it was me and him putting on roofs every day.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: And then it slowly grew into hiring a project manager to help him with the jobs and me focusing more on sales, and then that grew into sales teams and all that stuff.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: But yes, it looked very different in the beginning.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: It was a very small, just me and him.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's grown a lot since then.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, how has being a husband and wife ownership team kind of helped the business?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And where have you had to be intentional about separating the roles?
11:17
SPEAKER_02: That is another great question.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: So we complement each other very well, me and Jess.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: I am very much the face of the company.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm the I'm the people solving pro I'm the people problem solver.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh any, you know, anything out in the field, that all is on me.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: And that was very apparent from the beginning.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: I love, not that she doesn't love dealing with people.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: She's uh that can come across wrong, but I I love dealing with you know things happening at people's houses, being out in the field, being that side of the business.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: And Jess loves working on the back end of stuff.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: So very complimentary there.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it helped us out tremendously from the beginning that she just took over the the back end stuff, pretty much everything, and I was able to focus on growth and creating more jobs and just growing the company uh in the community.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: All right.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So, what has been kind of the biggest milestone uh milestone or project that made you feel rich roofing had become an established company rather than just a roofing startup?
12:31
SPEAKER_02: That's so I it was when we first started doing metal, I I I would think, is because we we started at first I was kind of shy about doing it again because I I didn't know a whole lot, but luckily Mr.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: Tacho he he had been doing metal a lot, so we were able to land some metal jobs, and then he I learned very fast about all things metal.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: And after doing that, we started getting some really bigger metal jobs, and then we met one builder.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: I met one builder just by chance, and he it was a custom builder, and they were building very nice high-end houses up here in the mountains.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: And I started working with him, and we did some amazing roofs with him, some stuff that we're still very proud of today.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: And that really kicked off our relationships with all these builders.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: And so when we started having relationships with custom home builders in the area and started doing more high-end designer roofs, as we call them, that really felt like that was a big jump in in Ridge Roofing's life.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: We went from being just, you know, not really separating ourselves from other people in town to, hey, you know, we can do really delicate jobs, we can do really high-end work, but we're also not gonna get away from doing, from just serving the community and helping regular, you know, repairs, pipe boot replacements.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: I I never wanted to get away from that because that's a big need in the community, but also it gave us the confidence and the yeah, I just I guess just confidence to go after some really bigger projects.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: And so now that's kind of one of our specialties is these designer roofs, standing seam.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: We do Brava, synthetic slate and shake, and some some really, really cool roofs.
14:38
SPEAKER_02: Some houses that have been in magazines and some some really nice ones.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's really cool.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, you were talking about magazines.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Were were they local magazines or were they national?
14:50
SPEAKER_02: No, like local, like uh magazines, like the home of parades.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: We had some houses in that.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, some some stuff that uh is very unique for sure.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Some some very unique materials, very unique looking roofs that we were able to advertise with, and that really you know kicked off a whole nother a whole nother branch of ridge roofing for for that kind of work.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Now what has been the hardest lesson you have learned about estimating margins, crews, or customer expectations in roofing?
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: So the hardest lesson I've learned is probably just that dealing with the people in your company is just as important as dealing with the jobs.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: So we've had the same crews since I've started.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: We've had to we've had to let a couple go, but you know, other crews that want to be here stay here.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Or I'm sorry, no, the the crews that we want here want to be here.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Like we've never had a crew or a person voluntarily leave a bridge roofing.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: And we've had the same crews for eight years, and I I I I think it's really because of how you deal with them and how you deal with the people in your company and treat them.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: That was a big not, I want to say learning curve, but that was a big part of me not expecting I I when I first started this, I thought the biggest issues that we were gonna run into were just jobs.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: I never even considered the fact that you know dealing with the people in your company is gonna be just as important as dealing with the jobs that your company's doing.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: As far as jobs go, I'd say the biggest learning curve for us would have been just to expect the unexpected, especially when you're working outside.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, you always have to be ready for any situation to pop up up here in the mountains.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: We can have rains pop up out of nowhere.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: So just being prepared for things on the job site is a huge thing.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, definitely, definitely is.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, Western North Carolina has seen major weather events.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: We were just kind of talking about that and a lot of home repair demand.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: How has the market changed over the last couple of years, especially since Helene?
17:17
SPEAKER_02: So Helene changed the market completely for a while.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: It's it's getting back to our normal, but immediately after Helene, the market changed a lot of different ways.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: So the first way is that obviously a lot of houses got devastated, a lot of work needed to be done as soon as possible.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: That that brought in a lot of people from outside of our area, which we needed.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we couldn't have handled the amount of work uh if if if no one had come here.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: So uh but a lot of those roofs or a lot of those houses, well, I'm in roofing, so I'll just talk about the roofs, a lot of those roofs that would have been this trickle of roofs over the years, all got done at one time.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: So that now we are seeing the ripple effects of that because you know, and we're still doing more than we were before Halloween, but we do see uh the potential of you know a not as rapid growth because so many roofs got done that would have gotten done over the next 10 years, they all got done in one year, and a lot of other people were in town doing a lot of work.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: So we're I I I think we've yet to see all of the effects from Helene.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: I think it's gonna be many, many years that this is all gonna be transpiring in.
18:57
SPEAKER_02: But yes, there was a huge, huge influx of work for a long time.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: And but we're tapering off of that, it feels like, and and and we're getting back to what the new normal will be.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know Alex, you emphasize direct owner involvement, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_00: You're involved in everything, kind of sorta, but what does that look like in practice and where does that create both an advantage and a challenge?
19:26
SPEAKER_02: So in the beginning, it was easy because I was at every job.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: As I just said, I was literally up on the roofs installing shingles on every single job that we did.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: So owner involvement is almost necessary in every job.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: As we've grown, I don't necessarily make it to every job.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I don't make it to, you know, some of the repairs or things like that.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: But I do love being in the field and I love being on job sites and I love talking to homeowners at their house.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: And so it's a it's a tricky balancing act because as you grow, you definitely need more time in the office.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: You need more time on focusing on working on the business instead of in the business.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: But there is that special touch that you give to jobs when the owner shows up or when you know that, you know, the owner is very involved in every project and knows what's going on in every project.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: So you you hit it on the head.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: It is very much a balancing act as you grow to balance how much time you need in the office versus how much time you need out in the field.
20:38
SPEAKER_02: But it is still a core tenet of mine to try to be as involved as I possibly can be with each and every job, whether it's going to their house and meeting them in person and helping manage that job for a day, or it even if it's calling them after a job is done.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: And if I wasn't able to make it out to that job, a lot of times I will reach out to that homeowner and just touch base with them.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: Hey, this is Alex, the owner of Ridge Roofing.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: We just finished up your project.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: How'd everything go?
21:08
SPEAKER_02: So that's another big way that I have found to still put that touch on there without physically having to be there.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: If I can't make it out, I usually really try to at least give them a call, touch base with them after we're done, give them a platform to voice any concerns they may have had, or usually it's just bragging on us about how great we did and all this.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: But I feel like that's a good last touch that you can do for every job if if you can't be there.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And now we're gonna get into the kind of the what really what people really want to hear, because I I don't know if I told you this, but we have a pretty nice size audio sectional audience that are small entrepreneurs themselves.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: So you know, and this this will cause you, you don't need you'll need to be a little bit vulnerable in this nice question.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: But what is the biggest challenge you think Ridge Roofing is facing today?
22:00
SPEAKER_02: The biggest challenge Ridge Roofing is facing right now, uh it may be uh uh the project managing side of things.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: We have great project managers, but uh the amount of jobs we are doing right now, I I I always try to think of ridge roofing as a wheel with spokes.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: And each if if one spoke grows larger than the other spokes, the wheel won't roll right.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: It won't roll correctly.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: So right now we are doing a lot of jobs every day.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like so our our estimators are playing a big part in managing their projects, which is good, which is something I don't necessarily want to get away from.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: But if they could be more of just not managing the projects, but managing the homeowner throughout the project.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: So just touching base with them, but they are on site a lot still.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: And it and it eats into their sales time.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: So that eats into their, you know, their follow-up times with the estimates that they have out.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: That eats into just building out their estimates that they couldn't make on site.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: It kind of puts them backtracked a little bit.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: And they have to play catch up some because we are busy and they are maybe a little too busy with project managing, and they should be more focused on just the sales part of their job.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: So that is something that we've been working on, trying to work out the kinks there.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's that's probably the most pressing thing right now in redroofing is trying to get the sales guys more focused on sales.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Damn.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, how many hours are you personally working in and on the business each week, would you say?
23:49
SPEAKER_02: I would say probably about 60, 50 to 60 hours a week.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: 50 to 60 hours.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, and let's say, you know, this is kind of hypothetical, or maybe it's not, maybe you've done this before, but let's say we took your, you know, your some of your people, your people from your crew, let's say that that gentleman you were talking about that's been working with you since 2018 since you started.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Let's say we pulled him to the side and anonymously asked him, you know, hey, what's what's something about Alex?
24:15
SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you think Alex's strongest quality as a leader is?
24:19
SPEAKER_00: What do what do you think he would tell us?
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Put me on the spot again.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think Tacho would say that he trusts me.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: And he never has to worry about me trying to get one over on him, or he never has to be looking over his shoulder to make sure I'm not trying to stab him in the back or screw him over in any way.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: I treat everyone on our team as if they were in my family.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: And I wouldn't screw over a homeowner, an employee.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: I've never, you know, had to just with his pay and with everything like that, he he can trust me knowing that whatever hours he puts in, he'll be well competed.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh he'll be well competed for.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: And he's been screwed over by people in the past.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: And I I think that would be his biggest thing is that he he trusts me to not ever do that to him.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Fair.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: So now let's say if we went to the opposite end of that spectrum, right?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And we asked him, you know, what leadership or business skill does Alex still need to get better at?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: What do you think he would tell us then?
25:46
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: No one's perfect, right?
25:55
SPEAKER_02: I I'd say he maybe communication on some of the jobs.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes he'll show up to jobs and not necessarily know exactly you know what is expected of him.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: So he may say, you know, maybe clearer clearer job descriptions with our guys and better better relay of information to him with the jobs.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't happen often, but you know, there there are times when he and it's mostly with repairs, because repairs are obviously a lot more intricate than a full roof.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: A full roof is pretty straightforward.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: You show up, you tear off the roof, and you put a new one on.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: But but but but with repairs, knowing that every little thing that was promised to that homeowner that we're gonna do, he knows up front.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: I'd say that that may be one complaint that that he would have is that like not every single time on repairs, he knows before he shows up every little thing that was promised to that homeowner, which is a big deal, you know, because that homeowner was promised X, Y, and Z.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: And if Tato shows up and doesn't know that we're doing X, Y, and Z, he just knows about X and Y, it can look bad on him, it can look bad on us.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: So that may be one thing.
27:16
unknown: Okay.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, where do your best jobs come from today?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Is do you get a lot from referrals?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Is it from Google ads, uh insurance-related work, real estate relationship, builders, or something else entirely that I'm not thinking of?
27:29
SPEAKER_02: So our number one producer of jobs is referrals.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: So that is how we get the majority of our jobs is through word-of-mouth referrals.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Number two is Google.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: So people find us on Google.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: Number three is Angie.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: Number four, surprisingly, is becoming Chat GPT.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: So we have had a huge influx of people call the office and we ask every single person that calls, where'd you hear about ridge roofing?
27:57
SPEAKER_02: A huge influx of people lately have been saying, I typed in ChatGPT, I need a new roof.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: Who should I call?
28:05
SPEAKER_02: And they give them a breakdown of a couple roofers, and we're we're on, we're on that list.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: And so that was surprising when it first started happening, but it's been happening a lot more frequently.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Chat GPT, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't expect that.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty interesting.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: So, how closely do you kind of track your profitability by job, child job type?
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Do you guys kind of, you know, do you have a CRM for that, or how do you kind of we don't use our CRM for tracking our profitability per job, but we use Acculinks for our for our CRM, and that every file we have, every homeowner we work with, every time we go out to a house, every communication we have with that homeowner, that all is logged in Acculinx.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And Acculinks is a great tool.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: If there's any other roofers out there considering different CRMs, I would stand behind Aculinks.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: I would recommend Acculinx.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a great tool to have.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: As far as job profitability goes, we have different spreadsheets where we track each job and material cost and labor cost and overhead costs.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: And so that gets tracked as the job is happening.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: And then also if some invoices come in after, we can always go back into that spreadsheet and add things.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, okay.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: We also track on spreadsheets our all of our if we have any warranty issues on jobs, which happens even to the best of us.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: So we have separate job, we have separate spreadsheets for tracking warranties that gets tied back to the the original job to adjust how much, you know, how much we actually made after we had to go back out there, whether it's, you know, six months later or however much, you know, later it was, we also track that too.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to get into your competition a little bit here, you know, because competit competition is, you know, I mean, it's out there, right?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, why would you know, let's say I'm talking with a couple of different roofers, right?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to Carlos over here at this roofing company, I'm talking to Jose at another different company.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Why do homeowners choose ridge roofing when they may have five or ten roofers willing to quote the same project?
30:23
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing better than your competitors?
30:26
SPEAKER_02: That goes back to our sales process.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: So when we go out to a house, we treat every estimate we do as a learning experience for the homeowner.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: So when we hear it all the time, roofers will go out, speak to homeowners, either tell them, hey, your roof is completely shot, you need a roof, ASAP, or they just give them a bid and without much, without much attached to it.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: It's just, you know, kind of a napkin estimate.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: That's one side of it.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: But we we really approach every estimate as if we are trying to teach that homeowner more about their roof, give them honest feedback about their roof, and just be that trustworthy face that they know that we we are there to help them at the end of the day.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: We're not even there to sell them a roof.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: We're there to do what's right by them and put the ball in their court and give them all the information we can, help them make a decision, but not try to push them towards a decision.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: So a perfect, a perfect example of that is even just this week.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: It's a great example.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we had two homeowners reach out to the office this week, and they each said, Hey, I had one of your estimators come out about a year ago.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: They were the only roofer that came out that told me honestly that I had probably about two or three more years left in this roof.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: At the time, I really wasn't prepared to replace my roof.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: I had three other roofers all come out.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: They told me my roof was totally shot and I needed to change it ASAP.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, they tried to hard close me in the house and it just turned me off.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: And then y'all came and said, No, I think you, you know, you, you know, you do have a leak right here.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: It's this pipe boot.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: We can fix this pipe boot for, you know, a couple hundred bucks.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: I'll give you a quilt for a full roof and let you start to prepare for that full roof down the road.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: If we fix this pipe boot, I think you'll have, you know, three, four, five more years left on this roof.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh, can't promise anything because I I don't I don't have a magic eight ball.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: I can't tell if your roof will leak next time it rains again.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: But it's not an emergency, you know, you can squeeze some more life out of this.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, they call us back a year down the road and say, we super appreciated that.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: You were very honest with us.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: We are now ready to do our roof.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: We're not even getting any more quotes.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: We trust y'all.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Come, you know, revise your quote you gave us from a year ago, and we're ready to do the roof.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: So meeting us in person, you you would you would get the sense that we are honestly there to help you gather as much information as you can to make a big decision for your house.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: It is a huge uh huge decision for your house.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: That roof will be up there for 30 years, and it it and roofs are not going down in price.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: They are getting more and more expensive.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I I really our honesty and just our presence there of letting the homeowners know, hey, we're not here to pressure you.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: We're not here to try to convince you of anything.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: We're just here to help give you information and help you make a decision.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, I do want to also, I'd be remiss if I didn't get into the the employment side of kind of being an entrepreneur these days, because I I hear for I hear about this a lot, especially from people in the trades where you know you can get you can put somebody in to fill a job, you can find techs, right?
34:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's very tough to find competent and quality employees to come fill roles, people that actually care about what they do, have pride in their work.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: What have you noticed in your in your roofing business?
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that at all?
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: And what I have what I've tried what I've done to try to bring out the most in everyone is I try to have people play to their strengths.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: So with going back to our estimating, for instance, with our with our estimators, we don't have like a script that we follow at a house.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: We don't have a sales pitch.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: We have things that we want to mention about our our materials, about Atlas.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: We sell Atlas shingles, so they're the best stain fighting shingle in the market.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: They have more copper and zinc in the shingle than any other brands do.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: They're a little larger, they have a larger common bond area for the nail line.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, there that there's things that are talking points that we definitely do, but I let the estimators play to their strengths, be themselves, not have to follow a script.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: And then as far as the crews go, I can pinpoint which crews, what their strengths are as well.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: So some crews they will knock out a shingle roof in a couple days.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: It'll look fantastic, cleanup's great, but I wouldn't give them a metal roof.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Other crews, they're my they're my metal guys.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: They can knock out a metal roof like crazy, but for some reason they just don't like doing shingles as much, or they they're not as good as it at it as my other crews.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: So really playing to people's strengths, I feel like helps bring out the best in people.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: And and that in turn obviously helps the company be the best it it can be as well, because the company is made up of all these people.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: So definitely playing to people's strengths is is a huge, huge advantage.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, if qualified demand, let's say doubled in the next month, what would break first?
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Would it be estimating materials, production crew, scheduling, inspections, or or cash or Alex's time?
36:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, let's say this podcast comes out and your your demand all of a sudden doubles next month.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: What will you know, what would break first?
36:21
SPEAKER_02: I would say project managing having more more more project managers, I'd say.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: The project managing side of things would probably be first, estimating probably next.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: And then and then office just just backend stuff would would be the tail end of that.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: So I and I want you to be as as you know candid and as honest as you can in the answer to this guy's question.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: But let's say if uh, you know, like I told you, we have a pretty good aud amount of the audience that are small entrepreneurs.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So let's say a small entrepreneur is listening to the podcast today, and let's say, you know, fortunately they had to lay off one of their techs, right?
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Because cost of materials is too much, you just don't have enough work, they had to lay off one of their good techs, unfortunately.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: One of the guys that they've had since the beginning.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Really hard for them to do, but they had to do it because the guy was making a little too much.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: So they feeling stuck or overwhelmed, just not having a great 2026.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: What's the piece of advice, Alex, that you would give to that small entrepreneur today?
37:32
SPEAKER_02: I would say that, well, first, I'm a Christian, I would say you need to pray about it.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: And then I would say you should constantly be self-reflecting on what is best for your company and what is best for the people in your company, including yourself.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Because if the company suffers and you keep someone and that and that allows the company to keep on a downward trajector uh on a downward trajectory, that will in turn eventually hurt that person that you're trying to help by keeping them.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: So whether it's having to let someone go or making changes that feel like a downsize, in the end, it it is going to help you grow more than if you try to white knuckle it through some of these situations.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: So I would say don't be afraid of taking a small step back with a plan to make up for that step.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: So don't take, I'd say be careful about taking a step backwards without a plan to remake that step.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: If you do have to take a step backwards, it is okay as long as you have a plan to say, hey, this is how I'm gonna get back to here and then continue forward from there.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: That's what I would tell someone going through something like that.
39:08
unknown: Okay.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing would be, you know, if there were one meaningful thing you could change in the next 90 days in your business, you know, we're recording this around Labor Day.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: So that would put us right into the ramp up, the kickoff to Christmas season, basically, in the beginning of December.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: So if there were one meaningful thing you could change in your business by Christmas season, what would it be and why would that matter personally to you?
39:32
SPEAKER_02: So we are, we actually are, I've been considering a big change in the business that will probably be implemented in the next 90 days, and that is venturing into siding work.
39:41
SPEAKER_02: So right now we are strictly, strictly doing roofing.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: We are moving into a new office soon, and we have a lot more space.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: And we're and I I've been considering moving into doing exterior sidings for residential houses for a while, but we are very close to implementing that, and that will probably be in the next 90 days.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: So that will be a huge change to ridge roofing, a huge branch to um to manage with ridge roofing.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: And for me personally, it would be great because we're still working on exteriors.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: I love working on exteriors of houses.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: And it would be a big stepping stone to growing the company into a whole nother avenue.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: So that is that is something that we have been going through how to implement it, and it's getting very close to putting that plan in action.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: All right, perfect.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, Alex, again, thank you for joining us and sharing your behind the scenes story of Ridge Roofing and what it takes to build a family-owned roofing company in Western North Carolina.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, any last words for the listening audience before we go ahead and sign off.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: No, I I really appreciate you taking the time as well to have me on and I enjoyed it.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, if anyone's in the western North Carolina area that needs a roof, definitely call Ridge Roofing.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll take care of you.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And to kind of get into that, what's the best way for someone to connect with you or a learn more about what you all do?
41:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we can visit our website, uh ridge-roofing.com, ridge-roofing.com.
41:21
SPEAKER_02: You can go to you, you know, check us out on Google.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: We have a Facebook page, Instagram, and then our office number is 828-335 Roof.
41:31
SPEAKER_02: So that would be the best number to call to set up an appointment with us is 828-335 Roof.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: If you want to see some of our work we've done, our website's probably the best place for that, or our Facebook page.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, go check out some of these monster roofs we've done.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: Awesome, awesome.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: All right, Alex.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, to everyone listening, connect with Alex and follow XP and Entrepreneurs for more conversations with the people building businesses and communities every day.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: This is Cliff McCray with Action Coach Business Growth Partners.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for calling on, Alex.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: All right.