Introduction

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Introduction

Business owners looking to grow their roofing business need the right resources in hand. Our book was written with that premise in mind to provide you the resources to grow! We make every effort to explain, in detail, the steps you will need and core business practices you’ll have to implement, which will lead to a great deal of success. Some steps are simpler than others; but, don’t overlook the small steps as these can help you increase profit margins over time when implemented alongside our more detailed strategic plans. If you’re already in the process of growing your roofing company, utilize the chapters like a checklist to see what you’re missing, and integrate it into your development.

Owners… The Key to Success is Working on, not in, your Business

You’re the owner, not an employee. Think of it this way; you hire employees to work in the business. They do the day to day tasks that keep your organization running. You, the business owner, are the boss. Don’t take that title lightly, not everyone is born to be that kind of leader, and you worked your way up to get there. You’re the one who is in charge of making sure the work is getting done.

Every boss is going to have different duties, which are often self-appointed. And, these come in the normal course of business. We look at it as trying to put out fires or handling priorities. Many bosses/owners try to put out the fires and serve as crisis managers. This isn’t your job; you hired a person (managers and supervisors) to put out the fires. You should be taking steps to run the business. As a boss, the last thing you should be doing is sitting at your desk waiting for someone to come through the door and ask you to resolve a problem. That’s not your job.

Mistake of Micro-Managing

A major mistake many owners make is that they train new employees to bring all concerns back to them. This is the wrong approach; you’re taking the onus off your employees. Your managers and supervisors should be where employees go when there’s a problem, not to you. There’s a big problem when this becomes a normal routine within your business. What happens is that there’s no leverage within your business. When you’re running the day to day tasks, there’s nobody at the top, who is projecting for future growth. So, what can happen in the next six months, 12 months, 0r 24 months? If you’re not planning for future growth.

What You are not Doing Hurts the Business More than What you are Doing

When you take this style of owning/managing, you don’t get the necessary training in the field. You’re not learning what other business owners in your niche are learning or doing the training they’re doing. So, you don’t have the tools you need to develop your business any further. If you’re handling tasks within the four walls of the business, who’s

• Going out to meet with clients
• Setting up meetings for prospective business partnerships
• Planning marketing or social media campaigns, and so forth?

The answer is no one! When you spend all your time focusing on what’s happening in the business, you’re doing more harm than good. The reason is you’re not doing the above-stated tasks, and other tasks, which could help grow your company.

I often travel and speak to roofing business owners, only to learn many of them telling me they don’t have time to do everything they need to get done. They don’t have time to work on the business, and eventually, they get burnt out because they are doing too much. As a business owner in the roofing industry, you’re not alone. Burning out and feeling overwhelmed with things, is just a part of the business. And, as an owner, you have to shoulder this weight if you want to see your company grow. And, the longer you stay in this roofing industry, as the company grows, and as you gain new clients, you are going to feel the effects of burnout even more. It’s just the normal course of being a business owner and having to shoulder the good and the bad, which comes along with ownership.

Why do so many business owners experience burnout so often? Why do they always feel as if they do not have enough time to get things they need to do, done? The primary reason is the example we just laid out for you. The simple fact is that you are spending too much time micro-managing. You are allowing your employees to walk into your office each time a small problem arises and putting the burden on you to resolve it. They’re not taking the right steps to try to figure it out themselves. Instead, they just come to you when any little thing goes wrong. This is the key to failure in the long run, and it is the key to you prematurely burning out and feeling overwhelmed with trying to take on too many duties at the same time.

It does not have to be this way, nor should it be this way! As the owner of a roofing company, you need to take a step back and look at what you want to become. You don’t want to remain stagnant. You don’t want to limit your growth, and you shouldn’t want to limit your potential to take over new local markets in the roofing industry. So, the first thing you’re going to have to do, is figure out a way to reassess how employees are working, where they are going when a problem arises and figuring out ways in which managers and supervisors are going to take the reigns to resolve them, rather than you having to do so much work to run your business. Remember, you shouldn’t be working in the business, at least not if you want it to succeed and grow over time. Instead, as the owner of the roofing company, you need to work on the business and find ways in which you can improve, develop, brand yourself as a leader, and grow within the local market you’re serving.

The Domino Effect

I often played with dominoes as a kid, even as an adult. Something is alluring about watching that row of dominoes push one after the other down the line, until the very end. What I learned is that if one domino is out of line, and doesn’t hit the next one in the exact location it should, the effect I want to see isn’t going to occur. Often, it’s the primary dominoes, the first few that you lineup, which is going to be the most important ones. These are the ones that will give momentum in the row to push the remaining dominoes down.

The earlier dominoes in the series, or the first few I would line up, were always the most important to the remainder of the dominoes falling accordingly and taking on the path I wanted them to take.

I frequently think about how business works like dominoes. Everything has to be perfectly lined up for the processes to work themselves out accordingly. Think of it as drawing out your business from the very beginning. So, you would write down your plans and proposal. You’d write all your steps in development, invoicing for a new job, and finally getting paid for that roofing job you complete for a client. When you look at the final picture, you see that all the steps in the process are important. You need to create a proposal, a plan; you need to get the right supplies, do the work properly, and ensure customers are satisfied, to invoice them, and ultimately get paid. But, the domino effect comes into this as well. The earlier stages are the most important. If your proposal falls flat, you’re not moving forward, right? Or, if you don’t have supplies lined up, your roofing project can’t go forward. If the earlier stages of the process don’t “fall” into the plan, the rest of the project is going to fall apart fairly quickly.

Our approach in formatting and writing this book is to mimic the roles of dominoes in the game you played as a child. We want you to think of your roofing business like the game of dominoes. If you don’t get the first few dominoes right, what’s going to happen? Things are going to fall apart and crumble in front of you; you’re not going to grow a long line of dominoes (or a bigger/better business). We’ll help you focus on making sure you get the initial dominoes right and properly lined up. From there, you can start focusing on what follows and what you’ll have to do to continually grow the business.

You can see a simple domino flow chart in the link below. This is the approach we are going to take in presenting this book to you, to help you run and grow your roofing business over time.

[Lead Flow] > [Booking The Lead] > [Closing The Sale] > [Client Value] > [Profit]