Latest / RoofersCoffeeShop / Helping Contractors Build Businesses Freedom
Transcript
- Adam Cabrera: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on-the-road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations, and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip. Hello and welcome to Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth, and today we're here to talk about yes, your business. Aren't we always? We're talking about the roofing business out there and what you need to continually improve. We are in ⁓ the fourth quarter of 2026 and we're looking at 2027. And this is the time for all contractors out there to be getting that continuing education to really move to that next space in your business. And I am so honored today to have Jim Leslie here with Home Service Freedom to give you great ideas and an opportunity to take your business to the next level. So we're going to learn all about that today from someone who has the experience to really help you grow. Jim, I am so happy to have you today. Welcome to Roofing Road Trips. Thanks for having me, Heidi. Glad to be here. I am so glad to have you. I you know, I like to learn and I like to hear what's going on. So I'm really excited for this conversation. ⁓ let's start out with an introduction. If you could introduce yourself and tell us about your company. Sure. I'm the CEO of a company called Home Service Freedom. And the ⁓ short version is we were in the garage door business. ⁓ me and my partner Tommy, ⁓ we grew a company called A1 Garage to mean it's it's currently about three hundred and fifty million dollars, but wow got to a point where we had an exit with private equity and ⁓ I was sort of looking for, hey, what's the the next act of what to do? And I thought all the years of of struggling and and things that we learned in building a great business, how do we share that with other other folks, right? And so initially we just started an event. We're like, hey, let's get a bunch of contractors together, network and and, you know, just kind of share some of the things that we're doing. And that that quickly exploded and people asking for more help. And so we formed a group called Home Service Freedom where we help our members with, you know, training, best practices, ⁓ just tons of tons of stuff to help them grow their business. So that's the that's the short answer. Yeah. But but but there's a real big there's such a huge ne huge need for that and that continue education and how to take your business, especially With you having been through private equity, there's a lot of contractors out there going talk to us about that. How does that work? What how do we get our business ready? Yeah. And one of the ⁓ one of the things that we learned is, you know, when when you get to that stage, a lot of people don't prepare. ⁓ you know, we we had an eye for that over the long ⁓ haul, right? But a lot of a lot of people just they're running their business heads down. And then one day they're like, know, ⁓ I need I need to retire or I need growth capital or all all the different reasons that you might do that. ⁓ and and they they rush towards that, but they they don't have their business prepared in the way that it that it should be. And so what happens is ⁓ you know, the valuation is different, right? Because somebody has to come in and fix something versus like, hey, this is a great business that we can invest in and scale. And so that's that's a big part of what we do, right? The the other thing I think interesting for a roofing. audience, you know, we have we have a lot of members that are roofers, right? And a lot of them come in, you know, they've they've been doing a lot of, you know, storm chasing or door knocking or things like that, which, you know, we're we're more about how to build a retail business, how to build a brand that, you know, nice people know, like and and trust and recognize. So these folks come in and they're like, ⁓ okay, there's a much different value placed on a on a business that's, you know, branded and repeatable. You know, versus one that's like kind of riding, you know, the the ⁓ the tales of the storm season. So Yeah. I mean, just to have that consistency in your business is because there's going to be storms and everybody's gonna be working them, but then there's years there's no storms and we've been it's been so up and down ⁓ the last couple of years. Well, ⁓ maybe forever, let's just say. ⁓ so as And and and I did skip over my my position in the company, ⁓ as we scaled was chief marketing officer, right? So responsible for all of the you know, the the the branded marketing TV, radio, billboards, you know, all the performance marketing, Google lead aggregators, everything else we were doing. And I was I was probably at one point spending, you know, twenty, twenty five million dollars a year in just marketing budget. So ⁓ that you know, that was across, you know, I don't know. twenty five, thirty locations in twenty different states, right? But yeah. ⁓ that's that's a lot of what people end up wanting to talk to me about. Yeah. Well, and and ⁓ that's one of the things I was gonna ask you about is you know, what challenges are you seeing out there with contractors and and really business owners ⁓ of roofing companies and exterior companies. There's just so much going on that you just you brought it up and that's a big one for me is marketing And online marketing, Google, AI, everything is changing so fast. ⁓ I I would think that would be one of the top challenges and something that you're probably addressing. Yeah, there's there's two or three big things going on now, right? And it's it's kind of a convergence, right? It's like, yeah, you you have this disruption in online marketing just from the change of technology, right? So before where people went to Google, clicked on the first link, you know. 10, 15 years ago. Now that first link is buried under a ton of ads and AI summaries and everything else. Now you have all these other options, chat GPT, Siri, you know, voice search, places where people are going. And so e even over the last six months, you know, traditional digital marketing has kind of gotten scrambled in in how it works. And what worked, you know, two, five years ago doesn't necessarily work today, right? So all all all of that disruption is going on in terms of how consumers are finding businesses, right? Also what what all of the AI kind of stuff has done, right, is dropped consumer confidence, right? And there's there's a ton of research on this that that I that I point to, but you know, the the the ⁓ short answer is people are more skeptical, you know, there there's a lack of confidence. ⁓ You know, they're getting more estimates, you know, and all all of that sort of thing. Yeah. And ⁓ I I call it the trust recession, right? So it's like trust recession, marketing scrambled, and then there's just a flood of money kind of ent entering home services. It kind of happened after COVID, right? Where, you know, big investment companies saw, you know, home service companies deemed essential and they're like, ⁓ you know, ⁓ plus It doesn't seem, you know, there's a clear way to disrupt it with AI. So there's all this money flowing in. Right. So now, you know, most local businesses are like, hey, there's all these new competitors popping up. There's people buying, you know, companies in my area. ⁓ Yeah. You know. How how do I compete against the that money? ⁓ as a small business. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's the intersection of those three things that's kind of made for wild, you know, wild times in the trades right now. I agree. And I'm seeing it, you know, just being an online platform. ⁓ I mean, Jim, we're gonna be celebrating our twenty-fifth year next year. And when I look back over the twenty five years, how much has changed? I mean when we started, contractors didn't even have computers on their desk. And now that everything is happening is happening within it it's no longer like last year, it's six months ago, three months ago, everything changed again. So I think that is one of the one of the things I think a lot of people think was, well, why do I need to keep doing continuing education? You know, I I know, I know roofing. I've been running my business, it's been pretty good. But I think this is really one of the reasons, one of the many reasons, all of those things that you brought up of why continuing education is so important and working with someone like you who and home service freedom who really understands this. So talk a little bit about your program about your upcoming ⁓ conference and really how contractors can use this to their advantage in these wild times. Yeah, that's a that's a great question, Heidi. And the the thing that I forgot to mention is I ⁓ got I got my start in roofing, right? And ⁓ love it. As we started building out this program, obviously we came from garage doors, right? But I I I said, hey Ninety five percent of what we learned as a business to grow and scale in multiple markets, it it could apply to any trade company, right? And I I used roofing as the example. And so a ton of roofing companies that that we work with. I think I think the issue is a I call it a force for the trees problem, right? ⁓ most companies get stuck in the way of like, hey, this is the way that we've always done it. Right. ⁓ you know, and they they don't have broader visibility into what's working. You know, I I work with, you know, five hundred plus members, ⁓ you know, through through our group and and different things and you see what's working and not working. But if you're just kinda in your city or in your little box, it's kind of hard to understand what's you know, what's going on, you know, more broadly ⁓ You you have companies kind of doing things the way that they always always did it, right? Well, ⁓ what we realized is that there's, you know, two, three, four key things that people need to have in place, right? So you you hear this all the time, right? What are the most common complaints, right? You know, I can't find good people. You know, I can't I can't find, you know, leads ⁓ or jobs or You know, ⁓ you know, they're going to the cheapest competitor or, you know, e everybody's getting more estimates, right? So I I have trouble getting work or I do get the work, right? But I'm not completing it profitably, right? ⁓ don't know your numbers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we don't you know, and it it it's a combination of not knowing the numbers but not knowing what the drivers are in the business, right? How you know, how do we optimize for profit, how do we complete jobs effectively? You know, I'm I'm thinking of a big roofing company that was in, you know, ⁓ a few years ago where, you know, like, hey, what's your gross margin? They're like, ⁓ yeah, we price everything at forty percent. But it's like when we looked at what was actually happening in the field, so many discounts were being applied. There's not enough gross margin, gross profit to, you know, sustain the business, right? And I I think that, you know Broadly in roofing, people have become accustomed to like, ⁓ here's a forty percent GP and we hope to make ten percent net, right? I see a lot of companies that think that's a great, you know, and our our target is like, hey, how do you get that to a twenty percent net, twenty five percent net? And it's possible, right? So we really build a program around those three things, right? and you know, continuing education, yeah, but don't don't think boring classes, right? It's like So I hear that and I'm like, ⁓ am I gonna have to sit in the lecture? And Yeah. We've we've kinda we've kind of built a program ⁓ with our team kind of working side by side saying, Okay, here's here's the four, five, six levers that you need to pull in your business and what you need to get in place, you know, whether that's operating systems and manuals where we've done a ton of the work and like pre built that stuff and you just have to customize it to your business, or you know, is it is it marketing and you need to turn on two or three things or get with the right person. ⁓ you know, or or is it recruiting, right? I think the ⁓ I think the the the biggest thing is ⁓ just getting around a group of companies that are scaling rapidly and seeing what's possible opens a whole you know a whole new dimension. You know, we have tons of members that have gone from, you know, 10 million to 20 million you know, twenty to thirty. ⁓ you know, we have companies in our group that are, you know, fifty, sixty, eighty million dollars, right? And, you know, no matter where you're at on the spectrum, you know, if you're a two, three million dollar company, you suddenly get in a room with people that have just solved all of the problems that you're kind of, you know, dealing with, y you now see it's possible, right? And ⁓ for a lot of folks that's that's a big unlock. Yeah, it is it it is. And I think I love what you're saying about having some templates, right? Even having the playbooks to be able to kind of start customizing that towards your company where you want to go. ⁓ one of the things, Jim, that I'm seeing a lot of here, I I'm hearing two things that I'm kind of really interested to see what you're hearing with your folks. And that is one with contractors ⁓ diversification, right? They're realizing that they want to have that. owner as a lifelong customer. Whereas when I first started in the roofing industry, it was like, well, we do a roof and we never see them again. Now they're like, you know, we'd like to do their siding. We'd like to maybe do their doors and windows. We want to get we and we want to and then the that the big follow up to that is yearly maintenance, cleaning their gutters, making sure the roof is looking good, all those kind of things. I'm starting to hear a lot of this buzz in the ⁓ contracting space. I'm curious what you're hearing because ⁓ It seems like it's it's more of a need and people understanding that the value of that customer. Yeah, I think I think there's definitely a a case for, you know, how do we ⁓ improve the the the lifetime value of the customer, right? How do we create repeat work? You know, I I work with a lot of HVAC companies too, right? And there's a natural just recurring, you know, maintenance component there. And there's there's a couple of ways you can go about it, right? I think Some some folks in roofing have said, ⁓ we need to try and get a maintenance plan, you know, that we sell. And it's it's kind of contrived, right? Where you're like, you know, the the most of the time the residential homeowner isn't isn't buying it right. Now commercial works works great, right? Because, you know, they they they understand and and they're more apt to wanna like, you know, perform maintenance ⁓ over time. But that's that's one direction to solve that. And I'm I'm kinda, you know, largely it doesn't work 'cause, you know, the homeowner hadn't thought about their roof for twenty five years till they saw a shingle blow off, called you, you know, you show ⁓ that it's the, you know, ⁓ some pictures and it needs replaced and they're like, Great, I'm good I'm good for another twenty five years. And you're like, ⁓ we gotta come back and but services like gutter gutter cleaning, you know, or other projects that are that are adjacent, ⁓ They make a lot of sense. I think operationally where you have to be careful is, you know, how how that's structured, right? Some some things make, you know, sense, you know, siding gutters, stuff like that. But I I've seen companies like, well, yeah, we can do bathrooms too. Yeah. You know, because it's it's cold in the winter. And and you can't you can, right? But it's like it it tends to turn into a scaling problem, right? And also Down the road when they're like, okay, you know, maybe we want to sell the business or or whatever. It's kind of this conglomerate of like, well, we, you know, we do bathrooms and porch awnings and roofing and, you know, ⁓ private equity or investors or such are looking at it and going, okay, what what is this? How do we scale that? It doesn't tie in with what we're we're doing, you know. Doesn't fit the formula. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So ⁓ okay. Well, to that point then, I'd love to talk a little bit about the speakers that you're bringing in to your conference and kind of what, you know, we we've talked about marketing, we've talked about production and scalability and stuff. Who are some of your speakers that are gonna really be able to help the contractors with their playbooks? Yeah, the ⁓ the freedom event, which is October twenty fifth through twenty eighth this year. ⁓ it's it's kind of grown into one of the largest, ⁓ I think most exciting ones in in the home service space. And we we kind of bring in two flavors of speakers, right? ⁓ you know, I'm I'm sure you've been to like some industry conferences where there's a ton of like, you know, vendor folks and they're going over specifications of the product and and it's kind of like boring. Right. Like you're like, okay, snooze fest. No no offense to to any of those folks out there, right? But ⁓ You're like, ⁓ man, this isn't exciting, right? So on on one half, we'll bring in celebrity speakers. We've got, you know, Robert Hershevik from Shark Tank, ⁓ Don Donald ⁓ Trump Jr., Eric Trump. ⁓ the the big names that we bring in, you know, ⁓ they're always business people that have built, you know, something significant. And we have them talk about what lessons did you learn, you know, scaling your business that'll apply to what we're doing, right? Usually we do those like a fireside chat too, is just like, you know, okay, what you know, what did you learn in in real estate or, you know, Robert in technology or what have you seen on Shark Tank, right? ⁓ I some people might say, ⁓ well, what does that have to do with me in home service? But what we've gotten really excited about is, you know, when when we were in garage doors, there were there were a couple small associations. You'd you'd go to the events, they were good, but E everybody kind of sits around talking about the same things. You know, did you hear about this price increase from this manufacturer? Did you hear about you get in that that little box, right? And what what we realized is when you kind of expand your horizons and start looking at other industries and seeing what up you know, what you can take, ⁓ you know, ⁓ you you ⁓ just kind of open your mind to all these other possibilities, right? And that's that's what we did years ago in garage doors, right? Like, hey, we don't wanna copy other garage door guys, like we wanna copy HVAC companies that are super successful. And how do we take what they're doing, bring that into our company, right? So we we carried that idea through our event, right? How do we bring in some big, you know, business leaders to share what's going on in the market, what they've done. And that's that's, you know, half of the speakers, right, or or a third of them. The next third is like, you know, we've been really focused on technology, right? So ⁓ let's bring the brightest minds in ⁓ home service AI right now. And we have three of the top CEOs from three of the the biggest AI companies working in the home service space. They're they're all talking about what's going on with technology and and changing, right? And then the third is ⁓ you know, industry folks that that we like, ⁓ you know, just have a ton of value to add, right? So you know, we have we have panels, we have some of the folks from A One Garage, ⁓ you know, that that ⁓ you know, just in operations and finance and marketing. ⁓ you know, we have a a a ton of different industry leaders. And so we try to get a good cross section of, you know, ⁓ folks that you just wouldn't be exposed to at any other sort of event. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean, I think this is kind of what contractors I mean, I know here We're constantly talking to economists, we're talking to folks from ⁓ other ⁓ trades ⁓ and across the board because ideas that I I was always like, we can bring a lot of ideas into roofing. There's or into the trades overall. There's just consumer ways of marketing. I mean, with everything you've done with marketing, there's different ways of looking at it and thinking about it and what homeowners plus how much homeowners and how they buy. is has changed in the last five years. Massively. Massively. And with what is coming on to eMarket and everything like that. So when you look back, you know, in in starting the Freedom Conference, ⁓ I I would just love kind of your excitement about this, about Freedom 2026 and and really as a past contractor and give us a little bit of history of starting it and What why people should really get excited and attend and register? Yeah, like like I said, our first our first one was like, Hey, let's let's just ⁓ you know, put the word out on Facebook, book a book a hotel conference room, get a get a few speakers, you know, was was thrown together in in, you know, short order, maybe maybe ninety days or so. ⁓ but the people that came to that first event, it was just like tons and tons of value and were like, Okay, let's Let's go bigger. Let's go bigger. Yeah. That t that tends to be how how we think, right? It's like, okay, what's the what's the next level? And over the last two or three years, you know, I mean, we've had we've had speakers like ⁓ you know, Jocko Will Inc., we had ⁓ Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank last year. but then tons and tons of just folks from the industry ⁓ that most people wouldn't be exposed to. One one of the cool things that we like to do is like bring actual operators up to just kind of tell tell their story that are like super successful people that aren't on social media, that aren't on you know, that that aren't out there. ⁓ just bring them up on on panels or different things and say how you know, how did you do what what you did, right? And And call them the real influencers. Yeah. And ⁓ that that's just grown so massively. This is gonna be our biggest one yet. ⁓ I think, you know, we're we'll we'll top two thousand ⁓ contractors at this one. What's what's the coolest thing for me is, you know, the stories that people share, right? And I I remember one guy ⁓ you know, who who attended last year's event who was telling me he's like, Hey, I'm I'm sitting in my seat and I'm talking to the guy next to me about this problem that I have and and he had like a two or three million dollar business and ⁓ you know He's he's explaining his problem and the other guys, Well, yeah, you just need to do this, do this, do that. And he's like, the guy solved the problem in like two minutes. He's like, I didn't realize the guy was the owner of a five hundred million dollar company just sitting in the next seat to me. I'm like, Well, we we attract a pretty, you know, a pretty unique audience, right? And there's a cross section, but there's a ton of big companies that come to the event because of, you know, the the bigger speakers and and the You know, just the networking and the environment and so you you never know who you're kind of bumping you know, bumping into in the audience. That networking is so important and what you bring I I always say contractors want to hear from contractors, right? They wanna they wanna know what what's working for them, what's not working. ⁓ I always tell people go go ask ⁓ what what software they're using, how how's it working best for them? ⁓ so There's a lot and there's about two thousand contractors who can tell you Freedom twenty twenty six is a great is a great event. Yeah. And ⁓ events like to me have always tended to fall into like, you know, a few categories, right? Either either it's like, you know, rah, rah, motivational and you go and you have a good time, but then you leave and you're like, Okay, what do I do next? Right. Right. Or or it's like a training, but it's like a snooze fest. You go and and you're like, Okay, I learned a ton of stuff, but that was that was boring, right? You know, or it's a more networking ⁓ based thing and you're like, hey, I met a I met a ton of people and I got some questions answered, but you know, I'm not sure where to go next. And our our vision was like, how do we combine the best elements of all of those things, you know, into into one event? And you know, I think that's I think that's what we've ended up with. You know, most people go, you know, meet some amazing people, recognize what's what's possible, understand that they can They can do it, you know, get get a few questions unlocked and understand what the roadmap is to to go forward. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. so how do contractors ⁓ sign up? What what's the process and where are we in the time frame? We I know this podcast is coming out here very quickly, right here at the end of September. What should they ⁓ be doing, Jim? Yeah, there's there's two or three weeks left. There's still ⁓ You know, there's still time, there's still ⁓ plenty of hotel rooms as of this ⁓ recording. So the easiest thing to do is go to freedom event dot com. Freedomevent dot com. That has all of the information. You'll see the speakers, the schedule, all the logistics, questions about the hotel, everything is on there. And then you can you can purchase a ticket through there. And then once you do you get the email to to book a hotel room. So Perfect. And you can find all of this information on Riffers Coffee Shop also in the Freedom Event and Home Services Freedom Directory. So be sure to check that out because it's not just the conference, right, Jim? This is a year-round opportunity to be involved and really grow your business. Talk to us just a little bit about that. Yeah, we we offer a ton of stuff beyond ⁓ the event. You know, the the biggest thing that we learned is you have to train your people, right? ⁓ and I you know, some owners always say, Well what what if I train them and they they leave me, right? What if I pay this money to invest in them and and they leave? And it's like, Well, what if you don't train them and they stay? Right. Right. Exactly. And so a lot of what we do is workshops for your folks. We have sales training, ⁓ you know, inside sales training, frontline training for people on the on the phones and and ⁓ you know, dispatching ⁓ you know, crews and ⁓ you know, operations training for your op ⁓ you know, your ops team and your leadership and how to build out your org chart and systems, manuals and processes. And so there's a ton of stuff that we do throughout the year through smaller events, workshops, hands on training. There's a lot of virtual stuff too, ⁓ which is all on home servicefreedom.com. I love it. I love it. Thank you for all you're doing for the industry, for all the industries out there. And Good luck. I know it's going to be an amazing event. ⁓ and thank you so much. Yep. Appreciate you having me. I do it's great being here. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for listening. Wow. Okay, you gotta sign up. Go check this out. Get involved. ⁓ home service freedom, freedome event.com. And of course, you can find it all on Roofers Coffee Shop on where you can get all of this information. So I look forward to hearing all about this conference, Jim. Thank you again. And thank you. all for being here today. Be sure to check out all of our podcasts under the RLW Navigation. We be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips. If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next roofing road trip.