Limitless Roofing Show
We give you a seat at the table as we interview Owners, CEO's, and key executives in roofing companies. Our goal is to equip you with key insights gleaned from these conversations so you can achieve mastery in your roofing business.
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Limitless Roofing Show
"Knocking on Doors: The Real Story Behind Tejas Roofworks' Success!"
Dive deep into the inspiring journey of Jared and Nathan, co-founders of Tejas Roofworks, who bravely transitioned from their corporate jobs into the world of entrepreneurship. Driven by their values of faith, family, and community, they transformed their dreams into a booming roofing business, earning $4 million annually while maintaining a focus on integrity and service. In this episode, we explore their candid reflections on the challenges of balancing business growth with family life, the importance of mentorship, and the effective sales strategies that helped them flourish. From their early days of knocking on doors to the establishment of a robust office culture, discover how these two friends navigated pitfalls, overcame obstacles, and learned to appreciate the power of a supportive community. Listeners will be encouraged to reflect on their own journeys and consider how embracing faith and purpose can lead to fulfillment both personally and professionally. As Jared and Nathan continue to set ambitious goals for scaling their business, their story serves as a beacon of inspiration. Join us in celebrating their success and gleaning practical wisdom for your own endeavors. If you resonate with their mission, subscribe, share the episode, and join the conversation!
- Transition from corporate jobs to roofing business
- The role of faith and community in their journey
- Balancing work and family life
- Sales strategies: the effectiveness of door knocking
- The value of mentorship and continual learning
- Future aspirations for scaling the business
- Key challenges faced in establishing Tejas Roofworks
- Work-life balance strategies adopted
- Their company mission of community service and honor
Welcome to the Limitless Roofing Show, where we give you a seat at the table as we talk with roofing owners so that you can learn from their challenges, their mistakes, the things they've done to overcome, and you can go to the next level. And today we have in the office. I really wish we had a great camera set up, but in the office we've got Jared and Nathan from Tejas Roofworks. So thanks for joining the show. And we have Miller too. Say hi, miller.
Speaker 2:Howdy, and together we are.
Speaker 1:Together. We're between me and Miller. We're one solid businessman aka Diller.
Speaker 3:Hey, we coined that phrase. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1:So the cool thing about having you guys here is we met you guys when we first started Limitless CEO Groups and the buying group. The GPO wasn't even really a solid idea yet. We had the podcast going and you guys were in corporate America and now you're growing a successful roofing company. So let's just give some background about how you guys got into roofing and how you were led to us and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Nathan's better at telling the story than I am, but I'll give it a shot and he can fill in the cracks. I was in medical device sales. Fill in the cracks. I was in medical device sales. Nathan was in commercial real estate.
Speaker 3:We're just family friends back then and my wife was family friends with his wife's family and we kind of met that way and just kind of I don't know, just talking. One time I think we went to your new house and we were talking in your garage about how we can't stay in our corporate America lives and we just wanted to do something different. And then I think I saw you at a Jimmy John's one day when I was in Dallas and we just kept talking about it, kept talking about it. And then I don't really know specifically what it was, but we just decided to jump in um and try something different. So, um, roofing came up.
Speaker 3:I think it was through uh, another mutual friend, um guy named Jimmy, and um, he kind of coined like, hey, why don't you try roofing out? So then we took a bunch of roofing companies out to lunch to kind of just pick their brains and see what the business was like. And I mean, we're two well-educated guys so we kind of looked at the business and their own research and that kind of stuff and eventually came across y'all's podcast and then noticed you guys were local and then there's a lot of history from there.
Speaker 4:But you know, I think, uh, the running joke between me and miller is he sprung us out of corporate, he helped spring us out of corporate america, um, which is a lot of fun. But yeah, I mean, god just opened so many doors, um, that we were able to walk through. And one of them was you guys. And you know, dylan, you were in a small group with my brother-in-law at Northwest Bible, and that's right. We ended up, you know, putting two and two together. I don't think we found that out until after we met with y'all, but, yeah, just through a lot of due diligence and a lot of prayer, like multiple sources were just saying, hey, if I could do it all over again, I'd start a roofing company. So we're like, ok, well, let's, let's go down this rabbit trail. And then we started listening to podcasts this one here and and that's how we connected with you guys, I remember our first meeting at the mall, uh, maybe at cheesecake factory or something like that. Oh, was it bj's? That's right, is that bj's?
Speaker 1:yeah yeah so um, I think I ordered the peanut thai noodle dish.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we're the only ones in there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah so and you guys were super gracious to take a meeting with us. You know, and you guys, uh, were operating, still operate, a roofing company and you know we're willing to share uh, a, you guys and um, you guys were, you know, very instrumental in in helping us get started and where we're at today we still call you guys for advice and to you know, kick around ideas and you know things like that. So it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an awesome story for us too. I mean, it's just really cool how God has worked all that out. And Jared was in medical device sales, nathan was in commercial real estate and it's just like you're you know. So how many years ago was that? That was three years ago for 2020.
Speaker 4:That must've been. I think that was honestly. I think it was, yeah, about four years ago, like this time, because we didn't incorporate until, uh, the very beginning of 21 but now let's fast forward to today.
Speaker 1:You guys have a roofing business in the rockwall area in texas. Kind of give people listening to this the high level of your company today.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're based out of Rockwall, we primarily do residential insurance and we are about a $4 million a year company and this has been a big year for us.
Speaker 4:We got our own office, we hired an office manager, we hired a project manager, um, we outsource our supplementing and our um, what we call fractional CFO. Those have been great additions to the team and I feel like this year I feel like we've kind of reached our capacity for our small team, um, but we've also put a lot of the building blocks in place to scale. So next year we are going to be focused on scaling and I think that we've been real thoughtful in how we've built the platform and put the necessary pieces of the puzzle together to hopefully create an environment that people can come in and be successful. So you know, our mission statement is to honor God, serve the community and build families, and we want the people that that come into Tejas. We want to, you know, help them build their families, whether it's through their goals or meeting their financial goals or their family's goals, et cetera. We wanted to be a place that they enjoy to work, that they're proud to work at and they can be successful at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome and I mean it's a success story. You guys jumped ship from corporate, you got some consulting from Miller and I. You started learning, you started investing in trainings and all kinds of stuff and it's a success story. I mean it's, and you guys are just going to keep growing from here. You know, it's just awesome to see.
Speaker 4:You guys provided us with everything except Miller. Wouldn't go knock doors with us.
Speaker 1:So what's been one of the biggest? I want to talk about a couple of things. One is what's one of the best decisions you made or resources you used, or whatever. But before we get into that, what's what's been one of the biggest challenges? Because we all know, like we're all business owners here, running a business is hard. What's been one of the biggest challenges for you guys, growing a roofing company that you, and then let's get some wisdom from that, lessons learned and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'd say for me the biggest challenge is, um, wanting to be successful and creating a successful business, but also, same time, being wanting to be a good husband and a good father and like balancing those two. You know, and, uh, I'm not successful at it, uh, and still struggle with it. You know, from time to time, uh, I think I have made some ground, but knowing when to shut it off, when it's appropriate to shut it off and go be present with your wife and kids, and and then, you know, getting up the next day to get after it again. I think that internally for me is that may be something that I always kind of deal with, but I'm glad I'm aware of it and have people that can kind of help hold me accountable in that.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I mean, I would definitely agree with that. That's been, especially when starting a business. I mean, our first gosh. We went to Louisiana for eight months, the first year we started, and that was pretty stressful. We weren't making any money at Tejas yet, we still were writing off our savings accounts from our corporate America jobs and hadn't done too many roofs. We started a roofing company and we actually started doing restoration work because of Snowmageddon back in 2021. And here we are with a roofing company doing interior mitigation work, which is a curve ball. But yeah, there's that.
Speaker 3:And then, you know, I think, kind of I think confidence is a big one, like it's like it's hard to gain confidence, it's hard to to to like when you don't, when you haven't done it. You know, and it could be just starting a roofing company, it could be getting into a new section, like you know, to do tile roofs, like right now we're you know we're still learning on on tile and and other. You know synthetics and that kind of thing and coatings, and you know we're still learning on on tile and and uh other. You know synthetics and that kind of thing and coatings, and you know we have to, um, get consultants to help us do that as well. I think that's kind of you know you kind of you just trust the people that you are bringing on, that they're they're going to do the work as they say. They're going to do it, and you know, if you mess up you just got to you pay for it. So I think that's probably a difficult.
Speaker 4:Another thing, too, is like, when you start a business, you're wearing all the hats, right, you're doing everything, and it's good, it's a learning experience. It's a season that's right, you're doing everything and it's good, it's a learning experience. It's a season that's necessary, you know. I think so we're look, you know we're looking into 2025 and um, we're. Our focus is to work more uh on the business and not in the business, and you know, I know we all talk about that uh in this industry a lot, um, and that's a uh that has proven to be a difficult, you know transition for us. You know, um finding the right people, um, taking all of our SOPs that are in our head and putting them down on paper, and um, that takes time. Uh, when you can just go out and sell another roof, you know. So you got to learn, um, I think, make that transition and I think it's different for everybody, but I think, like, when you know your company's there, like you'll know, you'll know it's time to try and make that jump.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and let's go back to the you mentioned. One of the challenges is just work life, family life, balance, stuff like that. What are some things you do to put some healthy boundaries in place? Or, I mean, what have you done to navigate that?
Speaker 4:The most helpful thing for me was getting in, getting our office.
Speaker 4:That was that has completely, uh, positively helped my work life balance, because working from home, you know, you can get up at six and, uh, work until eight and and hang out with the family for breakfast and then work from nine to five and then, uh, go have dinner with the family and then put the kids down to bed you know I've got young kids and and then work from seven until nine or 10, you know that was especially when you're getting started. That was very easy for me to do. There's always something to do, you know, there's always that next thing. So that's when the line kind of really got, you know, blurred for me and, um, I could cut into family time, but I was working from home and when we got an office, that like, uh, that like completely changed it. It created boundaries of when, uh, it was appropriate to work and not work and then when it was time to go home and hang out with the family. So that was probably one of the best things for me from my work-life balance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. Uh, it was a physical, uh, boundary. You know you literally have to get in your truck to go to your office. And if you tell yourself, hey, I mean, the brunt of my work is going to be done at the office, and you know that. And then also, just like you know, at five o'clock, like both of us are typically not there, like there's some days, obviously, some days we're there, but I remember the same thing, like if I'm at home before we have the office.
Speaker 3:My office is the room right next to the living room, next to the kitchen, so it's like right there. So it's, it's, it's almost like there's not enough of a boundary. So I'm in my office, I find myself in there. You know, my wife is, is cooking dinner at, like you know, five thirties. Oh well, I got 30 more minutes for her to cook the dinner. I'm just going to sit in here until she's done and then I'll go out there, and then I didn't finish the thing I wanted to. So we'll eat dinner and I'll go back into the office and spend another 30 minutes to finish that, and by that time it's like seven o'clock. So, being having to drive home at a certain time, um, and then when I get home, it's pretty much I'm there. I'm there for just interaction with my family. And yeah, I think also another thing that helps, especially in the infancy of the business. You know it's going to be long hours, you know it's going to be a lot. It's actually just creating those expectations A lot of times with my wife at least she is.
Speaker 3:If I tell her ahead of time how much time I'm going to be spending on something, it's a lot better than me. Just, you know, well, it's just a busy day. I've got to stay here until you know seven o'clock tonight. I'm telling her this at five o'clock. Well, if I told her the day before, like, hey, tomorrow's gonna be a busy day, I'm probably gonna get home till seven o'clock, you know she's not gonna expect me until then, it's not gonna be like a last minute thing. I think, setting the expectations up front, hey, we're gonna go to louisiana, we don't have any. This is we're starting a roofing company. Um, I don't know how long it's gonna take, but I know we can get roofs down there because my family lives down there. How do you feel about this? Are you on board? Um, just want to make sure, before we do this, that you're like, you're in it with us, and I think that's a lot better to do that than to just, you know, spring it up on on your own wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, communication the cure all. Yeah, that's, that's a big thing for me too. I meet guys. Um, uh, we have. I mean, we had a mutual friend over here at the office. He offices at home and he was here today talking to us and man, I couldn't do that Like I need to.
Speaker 1:Well, two things. You get two things. You get alone time in the car which you can pray, you can listen to music, like, but it's just you which, when you've got multiple kids, that's a precious little time there, it's just peaceful and you got clear headspace. And then having the office, like you said, that you get to and then you leave.
Speaker 1:And for me, when I get home, a lot of people just have a tendency to be on their phones a lot, and I think it's just a terrible cultural habit that a lot of Americans have. So when I get home, to avoid that, I take my phone and put it on vibrate and put it face down on the kitchen counter and kind of back against the backsplash where I won't look at it, and then I take my Apple watch off and turn it off and put it in the bedroom and so it's like I'm not connected to anything. Now I can go check like once every hour or two to see if I possibly got some emergency text from somebody, which has never happened in the last ever in my whole life. But it's just nice to be free and untethered from that and be fully present at the dinner table, fully present with my wife, fully present with my girls, fully. You know, it's just great, it's just a boundary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean how it used to be. You know, back when we didn't have cell phones. You know people would call it a ring, but you know, you, when we didn't have cell phones, you know people would call it, it would ring, but you know you're not, you don't have. You know the whole internet at your fingertips. And what are you showing your kids when you do that too? That they're more important than the phone that you're? You know having your pocket or having the dinner table. I mean, there's nothing worse than sitting at the dinner table with your kids and having your phone out face up, and then, if something comes up, you're like oh well, what is that? You know, it's just not. It's just it's not. It's not good. You know it's not good to teach your kids that way.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But um yeah.
Speaker 1:So what do you guys? The business the way you've got it. Now let's talk a little bit about your sales, the sales arm of your business. How do you guys do sales? What do you look for in a sales rep? What's the strategy? Do you door knock, do you not? Let's get into that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll start. It's progressed over, you know, from the beginning. I mean, when we first started hiring it was like hey, man, like just go knock. I mean we didn't really have a set plan. We actually failed at hiring the first time we did it.
Speaker 3:This was probably two years ago year and a half two years ago and we hired a bunch of people and it just we weren't ready to do that. But yeah, we're looking for people that kind of meet our core values. I think we'd like to make sure upfront that they know what our core values are, cause if they don't, if they don't like them, then they're really not a good fit. And yeah, we, we, we expect that they, you know, door knock a certain number. There's a lot that goes into and we were kind of just going over what our, our two week orientation is going to look like this next year.
Speaker 3:And a lot of this is to do with them as a person, you know, finding out what their goals are and their ambitions are for their family and for themselves, and aligning their schedule based on that.
Speaker 3:Like, hey, like, how much money do you want to make this year? What do you want to do for your family that you've never been able to do before? And let's see, like, how we could get there, like let's work on this together and back into a number of how many doors you've got to knock to potentially achieve that. So, uh, we try to create, um, a why behind all the things that they do, um, and then we set up a schedule with them and hold them accountable. They come in every Monday and and go through their week and their previous week and, um, yeah, I mean we're, unapologetically, a door knocking company. Um, there's 10,000 roofing companies in DFW and we want to be the one to knock on the door so that another roofing company that's, you know, chucking a truck who's going to take your deductible is not going to be the one knocking on it, you know.
Speaker 4:So, um, yeah, Um, yeah, I just, I agree with Jared, we're looking for cultural fits. No roofing or sales experience needed. We can take care of that. You know, and um, you know we are. We are door knocking company, like Jared said. We've Jared and I have both, uh, done that and um, what I've learned is like door knocking is like getting a spaceship into orbit.
Speaker 4:You know, it's not as your career as a roofing salesman grows. It's always going to be there, but it's not going to be like it was at the beginning. You know, getting a spaceship into orbit, you've got to build it, you've got to put it together, you've got to fire the rocket off and it's going to take everything you've got to get it into orbit. But once it gets into orbit, things get a little easier. I don't know, did you give me this analogy? Okay, I get most of my analogies from Miller, from Miller. So, um, maybe I came up with this one on my own, I don't know. But, uh, but um, so, yeah, once, once you get that experience in doing that.
Speaker 4:And you know, jared and I started, we knocked, we knocked doors for 18 months and, um, we got after it and but we were building, we're building something. You know we're investing in something, and, but we're building, we're building something. You know we're investing in something and, um, you know, we, we haven't. We've. We've built a company that's now known in the community and and, uh, we don't. We have more organic leads and we don't have to knock as much. But um, I think that's what I, what we're going to teach, you know, our sales guys is hey, this will always be there. This is always a way you can go. There's always a way that you can go out and make money, and that's that's through through door knocking. But also, as you mature as a salesman, you know that'll that'll change a little bit. You'll have referrals, you'll have adjuster or, I'm sorry, insurance. You know agent and broker relationships. You'll have relationships with new construction builders, you have relationships with realtors and you know things like that. So that layers in after, kind of after you've put your time in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you get those referral relationships. So let's camp out on that for a minute, because some people hate door knocking. And then you meet some roofing owners that are freaks that love it and they they do it themselves all day long, if they can. What is your strategy with door knocking? Like, how do you get a sale? If you have a new salesperson join the team? You're going to tell them listen, door knocking is a part of it. What do you do from there? Like, what does the training look like? What is there a method to it? Yeah, look like what's. Is there a method to it? Yeah, how does all that work?
Speaker 4:Well, first off, we'll, we will teach them by doing, by showing them.
Speaker 4:We'll lead from the front, teach them by showing them. Well, also, you know, there's there's a lot, there's a lot of objections out there, and not all of them, a lot of them, are just like to get you off the front door. They don't necessarily, you know, speak to that individual's need. So I think what we teach our sales guys is hey, like, you have to always have the customer's best interest in mind and, um, and you can't put the sale or trying to get the sale or the commission above, above that, you know, and I think that creates a genuineness and some authenticity and things like that that come through during your conversations. Um, and then, hey, there's just some, there's just some doors. You're never going to win, you know, and that's okay, just move on. And there are some people that will answer the door and immediately try and dismiss you. But sometimes, if you uh, listen and ask good questions and lean in a little bit, you know you can really understand if there's a need there and if the services that we provide can help them with their need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a need there and if the services that we provide can help them with their need. Yeah, it's also. I think you have to think of it as a process. Without thinking of knocking doors as a process, it can get very, very demotivating If you're going out there not thinking of a process. What I mean by that is like hey, every 66 doors that you knock on, you should get one lead, and you got to follow the numbers. So, if you knock 100 doors, you don't get a lead, and you can't get down on yourself, because the next 100 doors you knock, you could get two leads, which you probably will, because the numbers say, you know, every 66 doors, you get an inspection.
Speaker 3:I'm just using round numbers that we've kind of seen in this area, but, like, if the focus is on a single day, then you're not going to, you're going to get demoralized every day you go out there. So if your focus, though, is the process, which is, hey, this whole week, I'm going to knock 250 doors, and in doing so, I should get about this many leads, Some weeks you'll get the exact amount, some less, some more, but again, keeping your eye on a bigger picture and, you know, knowing what those numbers should be uh, should help quite a bit. And if you're, if they're, if the rep is lacking and they're consistently getting under what we feel is an average, then we'll. You know, we talk about that. It's not like a hey, you're not working hard enough. It's more of like hey, what's, what do you think is going on here?
Speaker 3:Let's, let's talk about this, like okay, so where do you what, what, what happens? Like why are you getting? Like the you know the nose at the door, and then we'll role play. You know, like hey, well, let's role play a minute and see how you do on this objection or this objection, and we might see something like oh well, yeah, I think if you said this, I think you may get a little bit better traction out of some people and more acceptance. So that's just another thought is the process.
Speaker 1:So that's just another thought is the process. So if they're doing, if you said, about 250 doors a week, so they're getting about four roof inspections out of that a week, on average Six to 12. Oh, six to 12.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, out of the six to 12, what is your hope for as far as like, actual business? Two, contracts.
Speaker 3:Two contracts out of that.
Speaker 1:One to two. Yeah Well, I mean, if a sales guy could do that consistently to a week, I mean that's yeah, that's probably a full tenured rep.
Speaker 3:I mean, when you're first come in, you're not doing that, obviously, but, um, I mean, you can get really good. Um, yeah, you can get really good at it.
Speaker 1:Miller, how many? How many doors have you knocked over since you were 18 years old? Do you have any comments on door knocking or questions about that? I want to get your take. You're the most seasoned roofer in this room.
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of wanted to just ask a different question. You know, as I think about you guys starting off and and it's like really a scary thing to do I'm thinking about maybe there's other guys listening that are in y'all, y'all shoes a few years ago, corporate America, because I've seen y'all overcome a lot of fears. That's been like the cool thing for me. You know, I've told y'all before that like y'all's success it does something in me. You know it's like the it's shake and bake and I helped thing. I feel like you know I helped with y'all shake and bake. And anyway, I think there's one of the biggest things.
Speaker 2:I think, nathan, you said it, it was after the hurricane, so y'all got in the roofing business. Y'all are still kind of doing your job, your corporate jobs. Winter storm Uri hit. We did water mitt, built backs, and then you're like well, now what? How are we going to survive now? And then all of a sudden, this hurricane comes up in Louisiana.
Speaker 2:And then I remember distinctly, after that hurricane, work was done the following January and Nathan was distressed and he was like, well, I don't know where our next thing's going to come from. And I had to remind you. I'm like, do you know this? Like winter storm came out of nowhere and provided for you guys, and this hurricane came through and provided for you guys too, and so I've seen like a tremendous like growth in y'all about that and I just wonder where your head is at on like the security of the future, because to me, being in this industry for 20 years, it's been very cyclical and that's been like the big problem has been the ups and the downs of it and the great, amazing years and then the awful years, you know. And so I just wonder where y'all are at and how you think about the future and future business and future provision for you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, that's it's. It's difficult, it can be difficult, um, but, um, I can't tell you how many times that you know we've prayed, you know, for, uh, it's a general prayer, just over any meal or any, any. It's just a lot of times my mind always goes to thanking God for provision and just entrusting him with the next step, and I think it might be one of the harder things as a Christian to do, right, you know it's it's kind of like you want to control the situation, you want to go out and do this and do that, and you know I'm going to just make sure it happens. I'm going to knock, you know, 500 doors a week and I think, just trusting the Lord that he will provide for what we need.
Speaker 3:And I think another thing that probably helps, and you can just see God's hand throughout our four years bringing people in front of us. He is bringing people in front of us that are also followers and it's just crazy how it's worked out. I mean it's you guys initially and then countless other people. I feel like almost everybody that has come through Tejas either worked for Tejas or helped Tejas in some way or provided counsel or consulting and that kind of thing has been a follower and has has just come out of almost nowhere. It's just been really cool to see that happen. And after it happens as many times as it did it did I mean it's just kind of like, hey, what, I know, he's got this right. Um, I mean, you bring up the hurricane but that december afterwards. So we had that whole hurricane event and then the december after the hurricane stuff was done. It was december 12th 2022 yeah there was.
Speaker 3:I mean, we were literally in our storage unit, um, and we were saying to ourselves, hey, let's organize, we don't have anything to do, let's organize the storage unit. So we bought these shelves and we went to the storage unit, started organizing it, and we didn't get halfway through building them and it starts hailing on us, yeah, and so we look at the the, we look at hail transfer, the radar, and we're like, oh gosh, there's a hailstorm. Oh, it's in McClendon, chisholm. Well, we drive over there and there's two and a half inch hailstones in the ground still frozen, like it's just, it's insane, like so.
Speaker 2:And that storm came out of nowhere.
Speaker 3:It came out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:That was the only place it hailed in DFW. It was a super dry hail year.
Speaker 3:About a neighborhood and a half, and then that pretty much fed us for the next six months for work. So yeah, I mean, I think, I mean I'm convinced you know he's, he's got his hand in this company.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that was like two weeks after you and I had that discussion.
Speaker 2:It might've been actually.
Speaker 4:Like that's, that's our first.
Speaker 4:Our first part of our mission statement is honor God.
Speaker 4:And like that's what we're going to do with this company and we're going to and I have to do this daily but like I'm going to lay this company at God's feet and trust in him for provision, you know, and trust in him with the ability to help people out in times of need.
Speaker 4:And, um, you know, and trusting him with the ability to help people out in times of need and um, you know, that's been, that was, that was, uh, something that has grown in me a lot, um, and I I think now, uh, where I'm at now, like, um, I'm not looking to the future and worrying about it and trying to control it, because I trust, I trusted that God, whatever he has planned for me, is his best, you know, and whether that's uh, the, the company continues to grow and be able to serve people, or or, if it, or if it doesn't, and you know, um, for whatever reason, you know, I'm going to trust that that's that's what's best.
Speaker 4:And you got to remind yourself, I have to remind myself of that daily. You know, and I was, um, there's a verse here that says it's a Psalm 37, verse 25. This is uh David speaking, and he says I've been young and now I'm old, yet I've never seen the righteous forsaken or children begging for bread. So like we're just going to trust the Lord that he's got us and whatever that path may be. But that's been a tough learning exercise for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the way that my dad used to just marvel about the roofing business is he would say you can be sitting around not doing anything and then next thing you know you've got five roofs to do. And one of the ways my dad used to talk about it was stirring around. He's like you just get up and go stir around and something will happen. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? And so I would observe my dad this was before I was in the roofing business and you'd have some little piddly call and he'd go out and look at that and then he'd just go knock on the neighbor's doors and start doing things, showing that he wanted that to work. You know, and years later I heard Dr Phil and it was one of his life lessons and he said that life rewards action. And that's one of the ways that I kind of interpreted or saw that what my dad was doing and what you guys were doing, when you're messing around in your storage unit and then it hails, it's like y'all aren't at the house worrying, Y'all are out there saying, OK, I'm getting ready to go and do something, and somehow life has a way of rewarding us for that. God does, I think he for that God does. I think you know he sees that.
Speaker 2:I remember one time I was in Pensacola years ago and just driving, you know, some industrial area, and there was this hungry dog walking. You tell it was a mama dog, she had puppies somewhere and she was just prowling around, you know, and I had like a half of a granola bar and I threw it out to her and she went and gobbled it up and like that dog's looking for food, and so I think that's what happens with us sometimes too, is that we're that hungry dog. We can go and be that hungry dog. Sometimes stuff comes to us like that you know, and um.
Speaker 2:So anyway, whenever you do, I think also you have to not go too far into the future, like don't spend too much of your time like worrying about too many tomorrows at once, and you know I have to do that sometimes. Sometimes I'll start over worrying about things and then I'll have to break out the calculator and go okay, well, how long am I good for? You know, I'm afraid that money's going to run out or whatever. Okay, well, how long am I good for? You know, I'm afraid that money is going to run out or whatever. Like, is it really this urgent of a problem? Is what my mind tries to make it. So it's reminding myself of that sometimes too.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's really good advice and kind of along the same lines that you were saying, but like applying it to what we were previously discussing in door knocking, like there've been multiple situations or instances where Jared and I have been out knocking, got no, no and no. And then we knocked a door and somebody was like wow, thank you for knocking my door. I have been meaning to call a roofer, get on up there and check it out and let me know what you think you know and those are. I think that's kind of like me know what you think you know and, uh, those are. I think that's kind of like out there stirring it up, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think too. I've uh, you know, I've found that sometimes you can make a decision on where you you want to work, what you want to do. Then, my first year in the roofing business, full-time 2003, my dad called me and my brother from our jobs and we started selling a roof storm and he was giving us every one of the leads that came in and I'm like, why aren't you taking these leads? You know, he's like because I know where I want to work. I want to work right here in this neighborhood in carrollton. They're all 50 square redecks comp over wood shingles. I'm going to go and sell these roofs. I don't know if that's a 15 square three tab I'm giving you, but I know what this is. And so he would rather be there working where he wants to work, getting the kind of jobs he wants to get. And I kind of developed that attitude.
Speaker 2:A few years later we had a storm in Weatherford and the tail end of it came into northwest Fort Worth and nobody knew about it. We found this neighborhood of about 400 homes they're all 50, 60 square dimensionals, 712 pitch, just all in an acre lot. Most of them got little metal buildings out back, 1200 square foot shops and the hail just came in sideways. I had a new sales rep I was training and I started getting excited. I'm like man, I can't believe. This is amazing that we found it. We drove around. There was about five signs in the neighborhood. I'm like this is where we're going to work, we're going to do all these roofs. And Jody, my guy with me, was like how do you know we're going to sell?
Speaker 4:any and I'm like watch.
Speaker 2:So I get out and we start knocking Nothing. The first day, nobody would hardly talk to me. Second day, nothing. Third day, nothing. Finally, on the fifth day, somebody signs up. I get home and I get a call on my cell phone yeah, I need to cancel this.
Speaker 2:My wife said I shouldn't assign a certain amount of like bulldoggedness, that you have to make a decision, that this is where I'm going to work, this is what I'm going to do, and when you can do that and be consistent enough with that. And also, I would always box areas off. I would take big streets, you know, maybe a square mile, something like that, or this one big neighborhood of 400 homes. I'm like this is where I'm pouring all of my energy. Yeah, and we had a storm in grand Prairie that year too, and I I started taking all the leads down there, uh, because I wanted my sales guy focusing all his energy on these homes. They were all, back then, $30,000 claims, which was huge, um, but I think that there's, yeah, there's something to being a bulldog as far as um is is going after the jobs that you want, and that's the thing that you get with door knocking, that you don't get with advertising.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you have that ability to choose. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's good yeah to choose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good, good question. What do you guys what? I know we don't want to get too far into the future, but have you guys thought about the? I mean, are you thinking this is going to be, you know, insofar as it pleases the lord right? Of course you guys are believers, we're believers, but do you think this is going to be the kind of thing that you build up and hand off to family members one day? Or do you would you think you would like to grow this and sell it in five to 10 years? What are your thoughts around that?
Speaker 4:That's a good question, my and we. I don't even know if we align on this or not. I think we do, but I think what we originally started, what wanted to start to create, is something that blesses others, and yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, we've never talked about like we want to sell this thing Honestly, just doesn't make. We've done some numbers. Just doesn't make sense. Uh, um, we know plenty of of owners that, um, they know so much about the business that they can train anybody and they'll train them to do the the laborious sides of the business and they'll sit back and you know they're there, um, but they're more just managing everything.
Speaker 3:That's kind of, I think, how we see it. Uh, we want to want to be in it, but we don't really want to be working in it, we want to kind of be working on it. Everybody says you don't want to work in the business, you want to work on it, and we're always kind of trying to get there. That's the goal really, I think, for us is to be able to not have to do the day in, day out you know, nathan, doing inspections, me, you know, doing production stuff like it. That is a a job that we've done for a long time, both of us, and we know it really well and we're ready to start passing those duties on to other people and then us going into different markets or different business ventures or you know whatever that is. But yeah, I think from the beginning we kind of like almost, almost even said like, hey, this is kind of like for our kids to like. We want, we want this to be for the kids and the community and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. Just see what it turns into over the years. Yeah, what is there any one thing or one strategy or one resource that's been a turning point for you guys to make your business stronger and smoother?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say. I would say that it's. I wouldn't want to be a company that only looks internally. I think you really need to be looking externally at other companies and other people and creating relationships with others. I think that's probably one of our biggest influential points of the company, our, our, our biggest uh influential points of the company.
Speaker 3:People like you um, you know, I remember when we first started, we in the mastermind uh groups in the beginning, with Joel Johnson, pat ski and DOS Russo, and I mean all those guys just sitting in those meetings in the beginning, was just, I mean it was gold and it was essentially free, like for a couple of thousand dollars of limitless like.
Speaker 3:You get these groups like this and you know you get it back with the materials alone.
Speaker 3:Then you get the discounts from the vendors and you know just the meetups and stuff like that. And I think having other people, if it's not even, if it's not to gain knowledge, it's to give knowledge and in doing so, you're first of all, you're affirming yourself in what you're doing Because you know, even if you think you know it all, when you're teaching someone else, you're just continuing to affirm what you know and not only does. It makes you feel good because you're helping somebody else, but it just affirms what you're doing and really, you know, the people are very willing in the roofing industry. A lot of people are to give knowledge and to help you out, to to provide support, you know, if it's accountability, if it's you questions to to things that you're not familiar with or comfortable with. Like I said before, like we've, you know, sought out people in um, you know, slate tile business to to come alongside us and help us out with that. So, yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing that's helped, in my opinion.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, I think that's good and, additionally, I think, too is like you need to be focused on the finances of your company and that's really important in this, in our industry and you can either do that yourself or outsource it. We got to the point where we couldn't do it ourselves effectively anymore or got over our heads and we outsourced it, and that's been a tremendous uh value, uh, to organizing our company this year. Um, you know, managing cash flow, um projections, uh your budget, what's your monthly burn all those things are things that you should, um, you know, have have your finger on, because you know, like, like we've all discussed, was we all know this.
Speaker 4:this can ebb and flow and um, but it's okay if you, if you have been thoughtful and plan, you know for the future, and we all know that just cause you have half a million dollars in the bank doesn't mean you have half a million dollars, you know. So, anyways, I think having a financial acumen and knowing when to, or bringing somebody in to help organize and manage that for you, has been really, really great for us and help us make business decisions and and um, where to invest in the future, etc yeah, ask, uh, ask a group of roofers what their net profit is and you're gonna get a lot of different answers.
Speaker 3:Or just ask them what their profit is. What's your? What is your profit? Yeah, or your overhead, I mean, and in the no, we didn't know. I, we had no idea. We had some idea, but it's probably wrong it's probably wrong actually was wrong. We went back and looked it was wrong. But I mean, the other day we had a, a text on the limit list you know what's your net profit and I, literally I was so proud that we knew within five minutes I I clicked a button and I was like 17.77%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was impressive. You guys were one of the first answers, but it was so helpful because we'd had a mastermind meeting earlier that day and we were doing EOS type planning using a platform called 90. You guys are using 90.io.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you fill out your vision section on your three-year plan, all this stuff, it's like what's the revenue, what's the gross profit, what's the net profit, All that stuff. And one of the guys in the group was like, man, I'm going to go with 10%. And I was like I think that's pretty low. Well, what are other guys in the group doing? Well, let's ask. And so that's why I you know, it's a massive increase from 10%.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, so, what are you guys most, most excited about for the next few years with Tejas Roofworks?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. Um, I mean growth. Uh, so I'll have to kind of backtrack a little bit and tell you that like we but like I said before, we hired when we probably shouldn't have. We weren't ready for it, we weren't prepared for it. We had some sops, we got help you know doing that kind of stuff and we thought we were ready, but but we were not organized enough to do that. I can confidently say now.
Speaker 3:The beginning of this year we invested in a custom CRM, we invested in a fractional CFO who's doing great, and we built this whole thing with the intent of this coming year hiring people and having a company that is ready to accept as many reps as we need or want to have. So we've been doing that the whole year. So I guess my biggest assignment would be to start that next year. We're going to start throwing ads out there January 2nd and start the hiring process and we're just going to see where all of this is going to land at the end of next year. So, yeah, we're super, super excited to expand the company and grow the company, and what that means really is like also helping the community. You're bringing people in to have a great job and to make potentially more money than they've ever made in their life, and maybe it changed their lives or their families. So that's what I'm excited about.
Speaker 4:Part of that process, too, is we're in the process of bringing on an operating partner that specializes in who's best in class in recruitment, onboarding, training and sales, in recruitment, onboarding, training and sales. And you know, I'm excited to have another teammate that specializes in those things, because we've never wanted to just grow to grow. It's more important for us to grow the right way, and we feel like this is an investment in that and I think it's going to be sustainable.
Speaker 1:You know, as we move forward, Well, we're coming up on almost an hour. Time flies when you're having fun. What's a parting piece of advice you would give to any other roofing company owner? Listening to this? Just over what you've learned over the last few years.
Speaker 4:Man? That's a great question. Um, I think, uh, you know, both of our faiths have played a huge role in this. Um, trusting, trusting in God, whatever his path for us may be. Um, you know, don't tie, don't tie your the value of who you are to your success or failures of your company. You know, to enjoy the moment with your, to be in the moment and enjoy the moment with your family and your wife and your kids and not let, like we discussed earlier, the future overwhelm you. Um and uh and yeah, manage your cashflow.