Limitless Roofing Show
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Limitless Roofing Show
From Ministry to Roofing: Juan Curling's Entrepreneurial Journey
What does it take to build a thriving retail roofing business in America's most impoverished region? Juan Curling's remarkable journey from missionary kid to successful entrepreneur offers a masterclass in process-driven sales, faith-based leadership, and the power of perseverance.
Born in Mexico to missionary parents, Juan's life took a dramatic turn when his father abandoned the family while his mother battled cancer. At just 16, he stepped into the role of man of the house, developing leadership skills that would later serve him in business. Through a series of divine appointments and strategic decisions, Juan eventually founded Frontline, a roofing company that achieves what most would consider impossible: a 70% close rate with 50% profit margins in retail sales.
Unlike most roofing companies that rely heavily on storm insurance work, Juan's business generates 98% of its revenue from retail customers in South Texas—an area with three counties ranking among the nation's 17 poorest. His secret? A meticulously structured sales process where every lead receives 27 contact attempts in three days, coupled with specialized departments handling everything from lead generation to final closing. "Getting the lead is the easiest part," Juan explains. "The money is made on how you handle that lead."
The conversation offers invaluable insights into effective sales techniques, including what Juan calls a "spiral close" where objections are systematically addressed throughout the presentation rather than at the end. He also shares his unique compensation structure featuring salary advances with quarterly "true-ups" that keeps his team motivated year-round despite seasonal fluctuations.
Beyond business strategies, Juan's story is fundamentally about faith and priorities. He recounts a pivotal moment when he nearly sacrificed his marriage for career success, only to discover that honoring God and family first mysteriously eliminated the business obstacles he couldn't control. "Put God first, put your family second, and work fits into there," he advises. "Don't grow if you're not ready to do that."
Whether you're looking to strengthen your retail sales approach or seeking a more balanced path to entrepreneurial success, this episode offers both practical tactics and profound wisdom from someone who's built something extraordinary against all odds.
all right, we've got a special guest on the limitless roofing show today, mr juan curling. Juan, thanks for joining us, man thank you, dylan, for the invite.
Speaker 2:Looking forward to talking a little bit about uh roofing and business and just sharing a little bit yeah, for sure I.
Speaker 1:it's one of my favorite things to just sit down with with members of group the Limitless Roofing Group and Talk Shop. And you've got an interesting background as a minister, you know, preaching in churches, doing ministry work and also being an entrepreneur. And you've got a unique thing about your business that I think a lot of the companies in our group don't have, which is such a strong retail sales presence. So we're just going to get into all of it, but before we do that, just share a little bit about your background. Who is Juan Curling and what's your company?
Speaker 2:Juan, I was born at a very young age in Mexico. My parents were missionaries down there and I was born in Monterey, which is about two and a half hours south of McAllen or south southwest. And yeah well, I moved to the border. When I was five or six, my mother got cancer and was passing kidney stones and having all kinds of health issues. We lived on the side of a mountain, no running water. No, you know, we did have electricity but no running water. We drank at a well, had an outhouse type thing, and so we moved up to America, had air conditioning and my parents never left, you know. They got there, started. My mother started tutoring some children who were their parents, are church planters in Mexico and they're coming back and they're falling behind on their education. And they said you know, hermana Maria, would you, would you tutor my daughter, can you help her get caught up in physics or whatever? And before we knew it, she had 18 kids coming over to the house in the evenings being tutored. And my mom said, maybe this is what the Lord brought us out of Mexico was to start a school to help disciple and train young Christian kids. And so in 1987, they started a little school, macedonian Christian Academy, primarily underprivileged kids. That ran for 10 years.
Speaker 2:My mother got diagnosed with cancer in 1994. It went into remission and came back again in 1996. My dad missionary he was a cardiovascular surgeon, a general practitioner, a dentist, a pilot, he's just a brainiac kind of guy and came in the room and said, hey, your mom's got cancer. The doctor said it's not going to get better and this isn't what I signed up for. I'm heading out. Please don't try to look for me, don't try to find me, I'm just starting over and you guys aren't involved.
Speaker 2:And he left and so I was 16. My brother, santiago, was 18 and he had just gone to college and I became the man of the home, you know, all of a sudden. And so I started taking on service responsibilities, leadership at the ministry, and coached and cleaned and cut the grass and all the stuff that all of us guys used to do. There's seven children. There's Deborah Sarah, sergio, david, santiago, guillermo, juan. That's Deborah Sarah, sergio, david Chago, we call him Billy, and then me, juan. And yeah, we went from all of us being in the home within a matter of a couple of weeks. My dad left, two brothers went to college, went to the army, went to the oil rigs and all of a sudden it was just me and my mom.
Speaker 2:But God used that time. He just started allowing me to step into a leadership role that I probably was too young, that normally wouldn't have had the opportunity to, and just got to be the man of the home. Take my mom to chemotherapy and take my mom to MD Anderson in Houston, and my mom would always say leaders don't need to be asked, leaders don't need to be reminded, and she'd say, hey, there's your. Can you pick up your cereal bowl? Oh yeah, I got it, mom. Yeah, but leaders don't need to be reminded. So she was really good at discipling and developing leaders and it's what she did masterfully for many years, to the point that the very first group of people in a little village in Mexico called Rancho Juarez. She led five people to Jesus Christ. They put their faith in him and now those those five have had children, and those children have had children and they have started churches, and now it's 37 churches throughout Mexico and even here, one in Dallas. I'm going to go visit him tomorrow. One of my aunts has moved to Dallas and see the impact of what good leadership development, good discipleship, good in mentorship does, and so yeah, so started early on.
Speaker 2:My mother starts to go downhill physically. We have a little school. All the teachers leave, you know, kind of resigned at the end of that year because you know Dr Bill's gone, mary Jane's about to die. Then you find something new. Dr Bill's gone, mary Jane's about to die. Then he finds something new and the man doing my mom's funeral said what are you guys doing with the school? So I'm 18. I'm going back to college and he goes. Why don't you guys take it over? Why don't you run it until God provides a new leader?
Speaker 2:My brother Chago and I, who we don't know anything about running a school we were just students in the school, we played sports and took tests agreed that if God provided teachers that would work for free, then that would be a sign that we were supposed to keep the school open. And, just within God's humor and his sovereign providence, he provided people that came and said hey, we're here for a while, we want to teach and you don't even have to pay us, we just want to teach and we want to. You know we have five years here. Let me. I want to disciple kids and I've been the administrator of three schools for 15 years. You know, can you guys use me? My husband makes some money, you don't have to pay me. It was just one thing after the other. And so the school stayed open and I devoted the early part of my life to that, to that ministry and working with orphanages in Mexico, that we had relationships with, establishing schools in those orphanages, working with church planters. That's what he did and my wife and I right in the middle of this it's funny because we're talking about home services, roofing I was able to go back and forth to school in Greenville, south Carolina, and met my wife there, got my degree there.
Speaker 2:I was there off and on for seven years and housekeeping is literally knocking on my door and will not stop. They're just no, thank you. They kept knocking. I'm like they'll figure it out. They're not figuring it out, but yeah, so I was able to go back and forth to school. I'd come back and stay a semester. We had mission teams. I would come down and I would take the mission teams into Mexico to do ministry work and then the next semester I'd go to school and then I'd sit out a semester back and forth and I had accumulated school debt. My mom had hospital debt and we were responsible for this hospital debt as a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old and I wanted to be a missionary but our supporting churches were like man with all this debt, you really should take care of that. And so I started. I was working at a telemarketing company selling Christian books and gifts to Christian bookstores and then I started my own company with the blessing of my previous owner, kind of partnering with him and selling a different product.
Speaker 2:And then an opportunity came up to work with a company called Dixie Home Crafters out of Greenville, south Carolina. They're on the East Coast. They were spawned off of Sears the Sears sales model in home services vinyl siding windows. These guys worked there, their management and they spawned off and they started Dixie Home Crafters. I sold gutters, k-guard gutters. Got there, they hired me, trained me, 27-page presentation pitch. That was the only training I'd ever had for sales and the only training I think I needed. It was so refined and, as they would say, you haven't sold as much as we have. You don't understand psychology as much as we do. Do not change the pitch, just pitch the pitch. And it was true, an average closer. There was closing at 55% with that presentation selling, giving a six-month estimate, an estimate good for six months. Then of course we would try to deal with all the objections in the presentation, present the problem, give the solution, offer financing and we would close the deal.
Speaker 2:And you know, god blessed me and he allowed me to pay off all of our debt in 11 months working there at that company. And my deal with God was Lord, as soon as we're out of debt, we're not going to let money tempt us as soon as we're out of debt, we're going to the mission field. And so we thought we would need four years. We thought we needed about four years of paying off debt and that gave me time to raise support. So on Sunday, saturday nights, we would go travel to the next church, speak Sunday morning, sometimes even evening, and then come back to Greenville and be ready for work for my eight or nine o'clock appointment on Monday. Now, we did this consistently eight or nine o'clock appointment on Monday, and we did this consistently.
Speaker 2:But God didn't give me four years, he gave me 11 months and we paid off all the debt and we had only raised $17,500 a year in support. But what do you do? I mean? I told the church, I told God, if he paid, it's $187,000. That's a lot of money to pay off. It's clearly not me and I've got a really cool story I'll share in a minute proving that it's not me. But God did that and so if he wanted me to raise $30,000 a year, he would have given that to me too, like he's either over or he's not right. And so we paid off our last debt.
Speaker 2:I told my boss that, gave him two week notice and said he knew I was going to be a missionary and he tried to talk me out of it and, you know, said, hey, you can support them with money, why don't you stay here? But he let me work for two weeks and really grind. And they ran the same model I run now. We generate all the appointments and we departmentalize everything in our company, and so we departmentalize. You really good at one thing, you're a master at one thing. That may be cold calling, it may be handling a warm lead, it may be confirming scheduling, closing right. And then we have project managers that their job is to manage the project and give the customer an excellent experience, exceptional experience. And so they were in the same model.
Speaker 2:So I just kind of copied and pasted what I knew, the only thing I knew. You know, I just did what I learned there and it's, you know, it works out fine, it works out well. We're trying to get into a little bit more insurance, which is a completely different model than what I'm used to. But yeah, so here we are. As a missionary, I did that for 20 years and in 2015, I ended up starting a little security company on the side.
Speaker 2:At that point we had about $22,000 a year annual income as missionaries, but it wasn't enough to cover my. I didn't have health insurance. I didn't have. I couldn't take my wife on a date without going in debt on a credit card, like I. Just we didn't have the money. The money, the bank was always empty. All of our needs were being met. So God was so faithful and he continually showed us that. You know, whenever there was need, he always stepped in and he promises that. That's who he is. He's Jehovah Jireh. He's our great provider. So he always did.
Speaker 2:But selfish Juan felt like man. I just need a little more. I was like Lord. I just like I, want to be able to honor my wife. You know, ephesians talks about men honoring their wives, and so that our prayers will not be hindered and I know what my not be hindered and I know when my prayer is being hindered how do I honor my wife through this? And we don't have medical insurance.
Speaker 2:We had some trials when we first got down there as missionaries. We wanted to have a baby. We couldn't have children. Finally she got pregnant and then had her baby, jade and Emmanuel, and he died four hours after birth. No family to speak of, no help, no support, just her in a hot, dirty, mosquito infested environment, um by herself. And these look, these things add up on a woman and my wife's strong. My wife's a beast. Very few women can hold a candle to her. Uh, she's a ladies minister. She volunteers 20 to 40 hours a week. She builds houses. She builds 12 to 15 houses a year. There's her own business. She runs it. She's just a beast.
Speaker 2:But it was just a very difficult time in the beginning and so I was trying to balance 80 hours a week in ministry, being a supportive husband and meeting the needs of as a man. What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I missing? I was missing things. And so God once again, for the second time in my marriage, had to show me that it wasn't her fault. Well, it was her fault, but it wasn't her responsibility. It was my responsibility to deal with the struggles that we were having. Was it her responsibility? It was my responsibility to deal with the struggles that we were having.
Speaker 2:And you know, I believe as a Christian, as a Bible-believing Christian. I believe God saves people and he calls them their church. And he has this weird analogy that he uses as the husband and the bride and it represents a marriage, a husband and a wife. And you know the bride. And it represents a marriage, a husband and a wife. And you know, I lead my wife, I love my wife and she respects and submits to me. And there's this beautiful thing that happens because we want it to happen when you do life that way. And just as my sin was my fault, but Jesus took the responsibility of it, he took the responsibility of the sin of his bride, took the responsibility of it, he took the responsibility of the sin of his bride. So I'm to take the responsibility of my wife's sin and help her through that right.
Speaker 2:And we were struggling in a marriage, we were working hard and it was an exact reflection of what had happened in our marriage back when I was working at a home solutions company. When I was working there for 11 months making all that money, we went through the exact same thing, where she struggled because I was never around. I was always working, I was always on the phone, I was always. I mean, I'm probably like most of the guys in Limitless right. We're always working, we're trying to just get the head above water and then our wives are like hey, where's my husband? And so he had to teach me a hard lesson when I was 22. And if we have time, I'll share it. And then once again was teaching me a lesson that he has a certain way of doing things and we get to fit into his pattern and his plan and if we'll just submit to that, that all things really do work out for good to those who love him, who are called according to his purpose, and we just I just went after it hard, and one of the things was just I need three to 500 bucks a month to be able to get health insurance and take my wife out on a date every week.
Speaker 2:And so I started doing alarm monitoring, security alarm monitoring and working with a company called Vivint for the first couple of months, and then it changed and then started my own little company and didn't do much with it because I didn't need much out of it. I just needed, as I was doing my ministry in the flow, as I was raising money for the orphanage or for the school, I'd meet, meeting with business owners. I'd say, hey, and by the way, on the side, this has nothing to do with the ministry who does your alarm monitoring? And I just, you know people like, well, juan, I'd rather give it to you than somebody I don't know or some national company. And so it was picking up business like that. And eventually my desire came to train, teach people how to do it.
Speaker 2:I live in the most impoverished area of the United States. We are the most obese city McAllen, texas, you can Google it, and our two counties of all the counties in Texas, our two we've got three counties in the bottom 17 poorest counties in the country, and so we're just poor. We're on the river of Mexico down by SpaceX Brownsville, south Padre Island, reynosa, mexico, matamoros, Mexico and on this side we have McAllen, and so it's poor. People have bad credit, people have small houses and that's our market. But that's where God has called us to and that's where we faithfully serve in our ministry and our business ministry. So that's where we're at Growing a couple little businesses and still very involved in our ministries. It's Macedonian Christian Academy. If anybody wants to donate, go donate. We're developing Christian leaders every day.
Speaker 2:Biggest bang for your buck I believe you can get in ministry. Planted a church there, redeemer Bible Church. I'm an elder, I'm a worship pastor there Five pastors and I'm just one of them and vibrant ministry, vibrant church and growing business. Frontline is my. I used to be a full-time missionary just stopping kids raising money. Now I'm a missionary, but I do it by slinging roofs and doing electrical. We carry different licenses so we do different things, but roofs and spray foam, insulation and electrical is what we do specialize in. We still do the alarms as well and yeah, we're just. I can't believe we get to do it. We do some now.
Speaker 2:We do land development. My wife and I do that together, so that's the one thing we do together in business. We do have a development company. We buy a piece of land and subdivide it and then she'll build houses on it and she loves it. She thinks it's the funnest thing. She's better than crafting for her. She just loves it. She loves it, loves it. Well, yeah, that's I mean. In a nutshell, that's where we're at. We have four kids. Galilee is 17 or she'll be 17 this month, brayden is 16. Mary Jane is 11 and John Winston is 10. They all do music and sports.
Speaker 2:My daughter just graduated from her. It's called NIS or NSI, so she's going to A&M University and College Station on a scholarship with the Corps of Cadets. She signed up for the Navy. She just finished boot camp last week. She wants to be a helicopter pilot and not a military family. Never done it. We support our vets. We have a nonprofit Frontline Gives Back to Frontline Heroes. She just came one day and said hey, I think God wants me to serve a cause greater than myself. I want structure, I want to travel. I've always wanted to be a helicopter pilot. God wants me to go to the Navy and if we go to battle, people need to hear about Jesus and I need to be there. That's cool, crazy, to go to battle. People need to hear about Jesus and I need to be there.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Crazy, yeah, totally crazy man. That's great. Yeah, you know I haven't gotten to have the chance to hear a lot of your story and uh, by the way, if you see the video get pixelated, that's just part of the Riverside processing. It'll be crystal clear when we publish this after we're done. Throws people off, throws me off sometimes. Yeah, that's awesome man. It's interesting. When I hear your story about your dad leaving and stuff like that, I mean we've all, we all have things we've gone through that have shaped us the way who we are today and I always think about.
Speaker 1:I used to go to this Wednesday morning men's Bible study for about 10 years and something.
Speaker 1:The Bible teacher he was a, he was a DTS professor and then he pastored a church for a while and he was retired and this is all he did was lead this Bible story, the Bible study, and it was all businessmen and I was the youngest guy in there and most of the guys in there were in their fifties to seventies and uh, but he would say a phrase repeatedly and the phrase was God redeems what he allows.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, that's right. And he would. He unpacked the life of Moses, he unpacked the life of Joseph and it's like, yeah, look at, god allowed all this awful stuff to happen to Joseph, but it was all part of this crazy story to build him up to really rule over Egypt next to Pharaoh. That's right part of this crazy story to build him up to really rule over Egypt next to Pharaoh. And at the end, when his brothers came back, he had the power and the authority to really save their whole family. And anyway, it's just a really interesting way to look at. You know why did these things happen, god? Because you're loving, you're supposed to be there to, but that's the only way he knows.
Speaker 2:It's the only way he knows how to act, dylan. He doesn't know how to do anything other than loving right, and so whenever the circumstances don't look loving well, then we need to change our perspective of the circumstances, because there is no other way that God deals with Juan Curling than in a loving, caring, what's best for me way. There just isn't no-transcript opportunities to where our test, our faith, is tested, right we do. A wife that walks out on you, or a kid that rejects you and says you know, a business partner that lies, cheats, steals. I mean, goodness, if we've been in business long enough. We just celebrated 10 years, man enough, we just celebrated 10 years.
Speaker 2:Um, man, backstabbing, colluding to you know, all that stuff comes in business and somehow god is like it's not a surprise to me, juan, I had this worked out before you were born. This is just way too see the end result. And we just, I just trust him. So it's hard to shake. It's hard to get shook, you know I mean it's hard to shake. It's hard to get shook. You know I mean it's hard to get shook when it's you and God, you know, like it's it really is. He's just he's been so kind and so, so merciful to me to allow me to do the things and have the family and the relationships, the community that we have. I just I'm indebted, you know. I just I can't, I can't get over it. I'm indebted, you know. I just I can't, I can't get over it. That's good stuff.
Speaker 1:And so so getting into your roofing business today. I know you own a. You own a few different businesses, but the roofing is the primary one. Right that you spend the bulk of your time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's my baby, you know that's like the one I started from the beginning.
Speaker 1:So tell, so let's get into frontline, cause I know a little bit about it. One thing I know that has generated some chatter in our private chat with our members is how you guys do retail, the predominantly retail, and how you have a call. You know your call center tactics, your methods, all that, so so let's get into that. Like where, where are you guys hoping to land revenue wise this year and what percentage of your business is retail?
Speaker 2:Okay, so last year our percentage of was 98% retail. So we did almost no insurance. So we just don't have. We're not in a storm market where we're at and really haven't had a storm in a while. We did just have one June 12th, but it apparently didn't do that much. So, yeah, this year, because of the storm that we just had and some of my ignorance and not knowing how to handle insurance claims right, oh, I got denied. I used to just, oh, okay, it got denied. Sorry, you know, I've had to learn and then try to pass that on and try to get people to learn that process. So now we're increasing that.
Speaker 2:My goal was to be at 20% insurance this year without dipping into the retail. So I wanted to keep our retail up you know, 20% growth and then add a 20% top line insurance revenue. I don't know if we'll hit that. I think we're going to, I think we will. I think we will now because we just got these storms that you know, fresh storms, as they call it.
Speaker 2:I've taken all the classes, I've gone to seminars, I've learned, but there's nothing like doing it and hitting the wall and being like wait, what do I do now? I need to go research this? They didn't cover this topic repair everything in insurance. So I'm finding myself with dirty gloves and dirty shoes going in there and learning this. We just don't have the same number of people to pull from where I'm at of people who know insurance. It just doesn't, it doesn't exist. You come to Dallas, everybody knows it. You go to Missouri, everybody knows insurance. Like, that's just, that's there's, there are a dime, a dozen. We don't. You know, it's just not something that we've we've done. Also, it's a. It's a slower game. I don't think I had the freedom to. I don't think I could have done insurance earlier. I don't think I could have done it. I think the weight would have hurt me too much. It would have put me out of business to be able to sell an alarm today, install it tonight and be funded in the next 24 hours so I could eat. And so I got used to that model of like hey, how do we give the customer the exceptional experience? Well, one thing they would have done yesterday in almost all situations. Right, they don't want to wait. And so to the point where they'll even ask you during the presentation well, how soon can you get to it? Right, that buying question is a big question, I mean that's. And so being able to address that and say you know it depends, you know, if we can work out a deal today, how soon would you want it, you know, being able to tie it down and close it to be. So we just kind of taken that philosophy of we want to be.
Speaker 2:We're not the cheapest, we're absolutely the most expensive roofing company in our area by significant margin. We sell at 50% gross profit margin. That's what 100% of our quotes are across everything, except for our generacs, our electrical division. We can't seem to get up to 50% on sales, but we sell 50% gross profit margin. We run on a commission base. So we do pay a small salary, just a get by advance really, and then we do a true up at the end of three months. So, hey, this is what you're getting paid every week and we'll tally everything up in 90 days and then either you owe me or I owe you, and that's unique. I don't know anybody else that does that, but I have found that it's good for them. It keeps them hungry even in a good time.
Speaker 2:But when it slows down in November, october, for us November, october, december slows down significantly because we do retail sales. It's not a free roof that just happens to come ready in November. We're doing retail and people aren't interested in what I'm selling or buying roofs or spray foam at that time of the year. Their Facebook feeds are showing them necklaces and Christmas parties and events that they need to go to and kids functions. So the cost of that marketing goes up too high to make it worth it. So we change our appointment setting techniques for those three months and really give people a break.
Speaker 2:On my staff, we have 38. We have 30. I think we have 40 now, but 38 to 40 employees and we're we're pretty heavy, busy right now and then we will, lord willing, slow down and then give them a better quality life in November, december, january, while we work on operational things, institute new things. If we are going to start a new division, we're going to do something like that. All that's being implemented in the slow season, where we have a little more bandwidth, and then that's the plan. At least that's how it's worked in the past. But we stick with retail right now as our primary. That's our bread and butter. That's what I feel I can control. Whether somebody leaves me, it doesn't matter, I just give those appointments to my next rep, like it doesn't affect me when if all you do is self-gen which I love self-gen I wish I could get my people to do more self-gen. I've tried everything I can, but I've never been able to succeed at it.
Speaker 2:We attract people that want benefits. We attract people that want perks and they want longevity. They don't want to make half a million dollars this year hey, if I can make $100,000 to $200,000, that would be incredible and some security. And so we attract a different type of person down there. They don't typically have to be babysat as much. They don't have to be rah-rah, read, you know, motivated. We tell them where to be at what time, and we hold them accountable, very accountable, and so we measure and track everything, from how many times the amount of time a lead hits our system to the time we call them. It's called a speed to lead. We manage that, and let me go through the departments real quick, so it'll make sense. We have cold callers and their job is just to get people interested. That's their job. So they may be at a call center, it could be Facebook messaging, it could be. Whatever the case is, I have a marketing team that manages this. I own the marketing team, but it's a team that manages this, and so from the marketing, we go out there and we try to get people who are interested, and then that comes in to the appointment centers.
Speaker 2:These people are really good at dealing with objections pivoting. And these people are really good at dealing with objections pivoting. You know, when you offer different products, it can be tricky because people think, oh good, you have more to you lose focus, and focus is better. Having focus and more objection handling is better than having oh, you're not, okay, what about this? Oh, what about this? That never works out. And so you got to be able to focus.
Speaker 2:And so getting people trained so they know how to focus, deal with the objection, deal with the objection, and then one of the objection handling is a sneaky way of introducing another product. Um, you know so to pique interest of something like they don't, they're not interested in a roof, okay, well, when's the last time you had your attic inspected for your insulation? Because we'll do that within the roof inspection. Oh, you guys, do, guys do a spray foam? Oh yeah, that's one of the products and those would have to be really good at it or it doesn't work. And then they book appointments, but they get paid for booking appointments. So then you end up with a lot of appointments, but then you need somebody to clean those appointments and make sure, qualify them or disqualify them, and then so you have an appointment qualifier, and then those that get qualified, they go to a confirmer. Now, yes, one person could do all of that, but we've just departmentalized everything, and so you're you'd be good at your thing and we hold you accountable to that one thing, and it is at least, as of right now, it seems to have worked for us. And so then it goes to the confirmer. The confirmer is just hounding those people and confirming, making sure it's all set and teed up for the sales rep.
Speaker 2:The sales rep's job is to be at that house 15 minutes early. That's all we ask. We don't care about it. It sounds mean because they know I love them. But I don't care about any excuses, I don't care. You can't have a flat tire, you can't have a family emergency like. Your job is to be at that appointment 15 minutes before. Why? Because you got first. You take extreme ownership. That's one of our core values. But take extreme ownership. There are people, a whole line of people behind you that are depending on you to do your job right, and showing up 15 minutes early is just part of it. Um, if you're late and now you, they have a bad taste and now you've broken trust. Or if you can't show up on time, now you're affecting everybody else's little bonuses and spiffs, and commission and their paycheck and their, and so everybody kind of holds each other accountable on that end.
Speaker 2:And it's public information and there's no nepotism. If you're an A rep, we have a metrics. So if you're an A rep, you get the best leads and you get the most leads. You get five appointments a day period and that's it, except for your day off. And if you're a B rep, you get any leftovers that may fit, and then you have a requirement to do certain self-ents. And if you're a C rep, don't plan on any appointments. You come in, you book your own appointments, you get on the dialer, you go project management, walk around projects and you book your own appointments and earn your way back up to a B rep and then we may give you some. But they understand. And so everybody, there's no nepotism. It's gross profit margin, closing percentage reviews, five-star reviews. So where are you at on that? That puts you up at the top. If you're not at the top, fix it, don't come to me. You know there's nothing I can do about it. At the end of the day, the process is what you're accountable to and not a person.
Speaker 2:And so I've been gifted with Ashton. I don't think anybody here has met Ashton Maybe Luis has but I have Ashton. He just happens to be my nephew, but he's absolutely phenomenal and he's our sales manager and call center manager and he holds people accountable relentlessly. But he loves them and they know it, and so he's just out for their good. He sets their goals, does their pips, does their one but he loves them and they know it, and so he's just out for their good. You know he sets their goals, does their pips, does their one-on-ones, and they set goals. He's like okay, I'm going to hold you accountable. Like, can I? Well, yeah, okay, you gave me permission, remember, all I'm doing is just saying why didn't you do this yesterday?
Speaker 2:And so I've been super blessed to have he's ugly, but he's got a great personality and a great spirit, so but he's good, that's great, but yeah, but, but we take it serious. I mean, we, we, we've we've just broken it down to a science and I stole I didn't make up anything, I stole. Ashton seems to make things up. Ashton seems to find new ways to improve things. That where he's creative, um, that's just how his brain works. He's always trying to fix and fix mine. I, you know, I've just taken from other people and learn, and so, happily, I give it away. It's not mine anyways. I just this is what we do and this is our six steps, and knowing it's one thing, implementing it's a very different thing. And, yeah, I think that's our retail side, so I'm hoping we'll.
Speaker 1:So for your Go ahead, but for your retail business? You said you have 38 employees. Are those all W2 employees?
Speaker 2:Yes, they are. Yeah, so we W2. There are, there's probably two. So when we bring in a new and I don't know if this is, I think this is legal I'm going to say it out loud and God, erase it from the computer. If it's not, and tell me about it.
Speaker 2:But when somebody first comes on, we are rather quick to hire. I'm not as quick to fire as I should be, but because our process says this is, we don't fire them until this, this, this, so we give them this pip and this chant, right. So the process fires them. We don't, unless they're drugs, passive drug, you know something like that. So, but we're quick to hire and our reason for that is our mission.
Speaker 2:So we have a mission statement that kind of drives our company. It's to improve the lives of our employees, our customers, our community, with one exceptional experience after the other, for the glory of God. That's our mission, that's how we, that's why we do, that's why we do with the products we sell. That's why we don't sell solar anymore, because it changed a couple of years back and I don't think it's good for people, or at least you can't run a business trying to sell it. I think people should buy it, but it's so far and few in between. How do you live on that? You know you just can't, in my opinion, in South Texas, anywhere else I don't know.
Speaker 2:So but that mission statement says, hey, I want to bring people in here and we do interview. We just have a constant interview process recruiting training on board, or recruiting onboarding, training and then retaining. And so by the time they get to the retaining their employees, and when they're in the training they're, they're 1099. And so we do that for a couple of different reasons. They're temporary, they haven't earned 90% of their income from me for the year, so that's one of the caveats. So they haven't, and so I can put them as a 1099. They get the majority, they get the most money they can from frontline by being a 1099, because I'm not withholding taxes. So some people come and they need money, like they need work. What can we do now? And so to improve their life, to best serve them, I want to give them the most money I can. So we put them in that 60 to 90 day window.
Speaker 2:Once they get past the training, onboarding or the onboarding training, and they enter the retaining phase, we're just like, hey, we're retaining and retraining. That's all we do. Then we make a choice based on their productivity, on their revenue, what they have earned the company and what they have earned themselves. Then we settle on a salary. So everyone's different, and so I've got one that gets a $2,500 a week salary. I have one that gets a $640 a week salary, week salary. There's two very different salaries, but one is earning that every week consistently and has been, and one is newer and now they're doing a lot better now, and so every quarter we just finished a quarter, so we'll do what we call a true up here in a couple of days, on the 15th, and says hey, this is the balance. You owe me 2,400 bucks, so instead of $2,500 a week, we're going to deduct that over the next 13 weeks. Now you're going to get $2,400 bucks. So instead of $2,500 a week, we're going to deduct that over the next 13 weeks. Now you're going to get $2,400 a week or whatever it comes up to, and we just simply, it just changes, the goalposts change a little bit, but it's good for them.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges I had being in the door-to-door world and now in roofing I think it's even worse. I don't know if if it's worse, but it's pretty bad. Um is, people are desperate for money, and desperate people that find money usually make bad choices, and you end up seeing people with drugs. Um, now, I'm not in the insurance world, so that's it's. I don't see it as much as you guys probably do, or, but people that have never made more than 30 40 thousand dollars a year and now they're making $100,000, $120,000, they don't know what to do with their money. And so everybody that comes in, we do through our interview process, we're talking about their goals and what their why is, and where do they see themselves five years from now.
Speaker 2:The majority of entrepreneurial salespeople minded they're like I want to have real estate. Everybody's like I want to be real estate, grant Cardone, and so we have a talk track that we can talk them through. Hey, then let me show you how the richest people do it. You're starting out right. You're doing sales. You have to be able to sell, and then you have to learn how to make a lot of money. You have to cash. You have to be able to sell, and then you have to learn how to make a lot of money. You have to cash, you have to make cash flow. So you need two years of strong cash flow, building your credit, showing character, that you're at the same company for a while, so you're credit worthy. That's the bank's looking for right.
Speaker 2:So, looking for character, credit credit worthiness, looking for capability, well, I'll help you be capable, you'll, you know you can help, we'll build a house together, or two, or you can, you know, anytime. So we always have that going on and so we kind of attract that group of people that their vision is to be in in real estate someday. And then most people, like like me, like you, we, we want to do everything in one day or one year. Like you know, a year from now I want to be building five more plexus, and I don't know who said it, but most people it's not original to me but most people overestimate what they can do in a year but they underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years. And so I just tell people say I like the whole Ed Milet, you know Grant Cordone set big, hairy, audacious goals, but but I prefer realistic goals. You know the smart method I said set a 10 year goal.
Speaker 2:What if 10 years from now, you have, you know, 24 doors? Would you be upset with yourself. Would you consider yourself a failure If you did that and you're like, no, let's set that goal. That's very realistic and and there's other ways of doing it faster? Right, there's, you can, but this one helps me at frontline and helps me help you, and it's very risk averse. It's very safe way to get there. But you have to be good at something and be good at sales and roofing. Know everything there is to know about roofing and sales and closing and qualifying and all that stuff. And, um, you know, I'm a salesman. I'm, I feel very salesman-y right now, cause I'm only talking about the pretty stuff, the good stuff that makes me look good. There's so much bad stuff, I promise you, there's so much that we're not going to talk about. Um, yeah, I'm trying to. I think I'm trying too hard to make my image look good. I'm just an idiot that that God is blessed and that we are. We're doing some things right. We're doing a lot of stuff wrong.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, there's a lot of stuff that we could do better a lot of the members in our group and are in, you know, texas, colorado, florida, etc. It's a lot of storm restoration work. So what do you guys do, I guess, like in retail, what do you do that's so effective? I mean, how are you able to set because and I don't think we covered it, but what do you, what do you want target to do as far as annual revenue this year?
Speaker 2:where do you think you'll land our goal in in um south texas will be eight million, so that's our goal so um, in that market.
Speaker 1:That's a that's a lot of revenue.
Speaker 2:There's nobody there's nobody even close to it. There's not a single company. They're not even remotely close. I mean, we have 1.5 million people. 500,000 of them are illegal, don't have Social Security, they're temporarily, whatever, out of the million people we have 61% of the million people we have 61 of the million people are, are um, are renting. So we have 49 or, I'm sorry, 39, that are owner occupied. So of the 39 owner occupied, that's my market, like that's, that's the market um, so what?
Speaker 1:what is the pit? I mean, what does the sales process look like? I mean, you've obviously got to offer financing.
Speaker 2:So are you going to do like a?
Speaker 1:typical financing good, better, best. That's the only thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do good, better, best we do owns Corning I'm going to look at GAF, but I think we're sick with owns Corning. I've looked at a couple other ones ICO. I've looked up TAMCO, just for where we're at. It just seems that that may be the right fit for right now. Um, we are looking at, as you know, at Dallas and and doing something up there and that company are currently using GAF and um, so I'll be exposed to that, maybe a little better. Um, what are we doing? I mean, people need roofs, right, and so we, we, we, we try to figure out on the marketing side. Um, here's a plug, okay, or here's a here's free advice and no strings attached.
Speaker 2:You are not going to succeed in roofing by ever, and this and you may disagree. If you do, let's talk about it by buying roofing leads from anybody out there. Somebody may say and I'm talking as a company, an individual yes, the owner operator, yes, absolutely, buy leads, you'll pull it off, you will pull it off, but it's just not scalable. Absolutely, buy leads, you'll pull it off, you will pull it off, but it's just not scalable. Having marketing companies that will generate leads for you, run your ads for you, and that I have. I, we spent a million dollars nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars on Facebook leads in two years. I'm very familiar with how Facebook marketing works. That's the easy part Me giving Dylan McCabe a Facebook lead of someone who's interested who checked these boxes and says, yeah, they're qualified. That is so easy. That's not worth paying for. But people don't know how to do it. It's not worth paying for, but people don't know how to do it, just like we don't know how to walk. When you're crawling all the time as a baby, you're going to get bumps and bruises, but get up and walk and take care of that.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't do Google Ads by myself. Personally, I would not do Google Ads. I would hire somebody else to do that, professional who's very good at it. That's all they do. Google, lsa, local service ads you do it by yourself. Facebook you do it by yourself. Next door you do it by yourself. Yelp you do it by yourself. Tiktok by yourself. Youtube by yourself.
Speaker 2:But getting the lead is like the easiest part. Self, but getting the lead is like the easiest part. And so sometimes people think like man, I need to, I need, I need more business, I need more opportunities because the owner operator can sell if they get in front of a customer, wouldn't you agree? I mean, the owner's there, they can mess with the margins, they can make an adjustment, they're likable, trustworthy, they're the owner. But you? But you move that down two layers. Pass your sales manager to a sales rep. Do they have the credibility, the charisma, do they care about that lead? The same way, the owner who's spending the money, cares about that lead. Or will there just be another opportunity after it? And I have seen more people waste more money on leads. So getting the lead is easy. The money is made on how you handle that lead.
Speaker 2:So we contact every lead 27 times in three days until they answer. And if they have not not answered, we have a whole process that never, ever drops the ball. Right. We use go high level, use go high level. Um, it never drops the ball.
Speaker 2:We, we have a. I mean we send it back to the call center and it ends up in the dialer and now we're calling them. That way, we try, try. We do manually first. So three times in the morning, three times at lunch, three times in the evening, three times in the morning, three times at lunch, three times. We do that three times. And then it goes to day four. It goes to the dialer, goes to the dialer and now it's auto robo calling them and and would you believe that we never get anybody upset? Nobody ever says why are you calling Like? Nobody ever says why are you calling Like? We've never once had that. Now we've had somebody exasperated after. So what happens is you call them three times. I mean, I'm literally showing you under the hood, guys. So just shows you knowing it's one thing, go implement it, you'd be the rock star. But three times every time you contact that person. So that's a manual effort and needs to be managed because people take the path of least resistance. So now you need somebody managing that person to make sure they're doing their job right. So it's a whole system.
Speaker 2:It's not just how can I do better getting more facebook leads or more qualified. It's a lead coming into the funnel on the top of the funnel from Facebook or whatever. That's just the beginning, Getting them all the way down to becoming a customer through the different layers. That's intensive, it takes time and I don't believe there's anybody out there who's doing it well and selling that as a service. You got call center people. You got Jason Scholdeis, you got call center people, you got jason shoulder ice, you all these people that do.
Speaker 2:But when you, when I, when I dig into the nuts, I'm like I don't think I would be able to profitable with that, like I don't see how you guys, how you could do it, unless you do it in-house, um, but yeah, so we're contacting them, we're seeing text messages, they're getting email confirmations, um, if we have the address, that's going on, that's going on a drive-by list, like we're somebody's going to drive by that house. If we have your address, somebody's knocking on your door like period, multiple times this week, like I spent money on that, um, that money is, if I do nothing with it, that ends up being just an expense and lost opportunity cost. That's somebody's bonus, that's that's my family's future, that like that, means something and everybody has to understand that. And when you have sales reps and you give them leads, they do not understand that. The sales reps think you owe them everything you know. So you're lucky you have me and um, and so understanding the cost of that, without giving too much information as far as how much you're spending and all that to the sales rep, they have to understand that that appointment costs $300 or $400, $500. The appointment that you're sitting at there's a value to it. And so when you show up late, when you judge the home and say, oh, this guy's not going to, or when your wife's like, hey, or husband, my best reps are women. By the way, my top two reps by far are killing everybody. Women. They're not married, they're single moms.
Speaker 2:But if they make an excuse like, oh, somebody asked me to go out and I looked at the house, it was an hour away. I was like, ah, it's probably a one-legger. They look for a reason not to go, especially when their pockets are full. They look for a reason. They look for convenience, but convenience is expensive. And so our thing is if we book an appointment for you, we own you. You're a W-2.
Speaker 2:We do nine o'clock, 11 o'clock, one o'clock, 3 o'clock and 5 o'clock. I'm sorry, I lied. We do 10 o'clock. We do 10 o'clock, 12, 2, 4, 6. Those are the five slots that we put on the calendar and we expect everybody to be on call and we assign the appointments the night before for the confirmed and then throughout the day, so they don't really know where they're going to be that afternoon, or if they're going to have an appointment and if we need them for a same day appointment, because we try to always fill in the gaps with same day appointments like, oh well, there wasn't anything on the appointment, so I was going to like you can't, you're on the clock.
Speaker 2:We pay you weekly to be on the clock, and so we call a salary plus commission and it equals up to 8% on company leads, 10% on self-gens, and then we give incentives and bonuses on quarterly. So they keep plugging away. I don't have that figured out. There's people that do it better than me. That's just the way we have found. It seems to make sense. And remember, we give some benefits and perks to our employees In addition to that. They get a company vehicle, they get, you know, ipad and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But you basically have, you've got your sales team and then you've you've really got your own call center. Yes, you've got leads coming in and then you've got the call center confirming these leads, setting the appointments, following everything, getting everything teed up right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I separate them differently. So a call center is more like a Facebook ad. That's just, that's a cold call, that's a cold lead, that's top of funnel. Even though they are booking an appointment, it's still very low quality appointment. And then you have the BDC, the business development center. The B is getting off. Hey guys, just quit sending junk. So they, you know there's a, there's a give and take there. So yeah, the BDC handles rehashing. So any lead that comes in will eventually be rehashed in some way multiple times.
Speaker 2:And so that's in the BDC department and the call center is purely cold calling. They don't get to talk to somebody who's interested. Their job is to find that, uncover that stone and find the person that is interested and they should book. They would tell you eight to 10 a day, but by the time it makes it through our process it ends up with about 4 to 6 a day for the call center guys. So that's kind of the numbers that we're seeing, and then those are the least likely to show up when you show up to the home.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm looking forward to running my call center in the other markets. We haven't, just because we were really trying to dial things in and we already have enough data to know. You know, compare things to, but but if we book an appointment on any platform in any way, for every 10 appointments we book, we'll have nine of them cancel or no show and we'll have one show up. So one out of 10. Yeah, we have the worst. It's the worst ratio. It is the worst place to do business, I promise you.
Speaker 1:But you've got the call and the bulk of your leads are coming in through Facebook ads, right?
Speaker 2:Facebook, Google, TikTok yeah, we do all platforms. Yeah, I don't think there's any sources that we don't tap into yard signs.
Speaker 1:So you've got a top of the funnel, you've got leads coming in, um, and you have your people calling confirming, setting the appointment, all that stuff. And then what does it look like when your salesperson goes to the door and they show up 15 minutes early? Is there something special about it? Is there, you know? Cause I know you mentioned your close rates almost 70%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 70, I think it's 71.9. Um, or last month's was 71.9. Um, and that's that's combining two different products with spray foam and spray foam, we actually close higher. We're at like 83% closing ratio. And then our roofing we're actually at like 62% or something like that, for just roofing, which is phenomenal, which is absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And yes, is there a secret sauce? Maybe, but it's all written down. We have a plan, we have the pre-check. Before you ever show up to the house, there's certain things you should have already done. You should know, right. So you're not showing up to the house and be like, oh wow, nice house, what's their name? Like that's sloppy, and you're failing the process, you're failing yourself if you do that. So even before that, right, we talk about preparedness. So preparation your appointments for the next day starts the night before. It does not start the day before, the day of. And so, well, I don't know where I'm going to be. You don't have to be, but you better have a fully charged phone, you better have a fully charged iPad, you better have a battery pack, you better have your business cards. You better be ready the night before. So when you leave in the morning, hey, you check the boxes. You have your morning appointment.
Speaker 2:Get on Google Earth or Google Streets and walk the streets, look down the street. What's in the neighborhood? Are they all the same age, new neighborhood, old neighborhood? Man, you may say, hey, I'm going to get there an hour early, I'm going to go put my sign. We have them put a sign in the subdivision. When they get there, go put the sign in the yard. Uh, and I'm sorry, at the at the stop sign, the entrance of the subdivision, put a sign and then they drive around and they're going to see people that need roofs. So, prospect, right, go. Prospect, get your 10, get your 10 leads. Um and so that happens starts the night before we no-transcript Preparing, going over your flashcards, like take a shower, go over your flashcards, go over all your objections.
Speaker 2:Never be not ready right. And then show up early to the home, do your inspection, make sure you're there on time. By getting there early you'll be on time. You'll see what are they driving? Are they just pulling in? Is nobody there yet?
Speaker 2:Get a feel, get comfortable, get your stuff in order, make sure it's on your lap, ready to get out when you park. You're not opening the door in the back seat, shuffling through your box to get your crap together first down the street. Pull up, slam your door so people can hear your door slam. You want neighbors looking at you? What the heck? Put your cone out. Let them know you're a roofer and you're here to do business with their neighbor.
Speaker 2:Grab your stuff off your lap, walk up to the door, smile. They're looking at you on these cameras. Right, they're looking at you. Somebody's looking at you. You're being recorded. So smile, look confident, walk up, knock. When they open the door, what do you say? Better say this this way. This is how we do it every time. Ask them if you're okay to be parked right there. Is that okay if I park there? Great, did Gian tell you what to expect and kind of set expectations for today? Excellent, so you're still going to available both to be for 45 minutes to an hour.
Speaker 2:I just want to make sure we have enough time to do everything thoroughly, get all these things done there. It sounds so simple and for the person that's never done it before, they're like oh, that's good, that's smart, but all we're doing is covering our butt because 30 minutes later someone's going to say oh, I'm sorry, I got to go be here an hour. You know what I'm saying. So all that's pre. We call it pre-framing. We're pre-framing them the whole time. We're letting them know what's up, yep, and I'll show you that.
Speaker 2:When I get inside to the kitchen table, I'll show you what I'm talking about, the different shingles. I'm letting them know we're going to be doing business at your kitchen table. I'm saying that over and over. I'm identifying problems, I'm introducing them to problems, I'm solving problems through my walk around. That's our step two. So we're doing an exterior inspection, asking the questions oh, have you guys gotten bids? Have you had anybody look at this yet? I'm trying to gather all this information out up front. I need to know this before I give you my presentation.
Speaker 2:And you throw that objection at the end oh well, we got other guys coming out to give us bids, right? So the sales process, I believe, is a masterful conglomeration of solving problems, tying them down so you can hold them accountable at the end. And if you do it right which something I don't like about chuck toki and I love chuck toki's training, that I like to him, but something I don't like about you get a lot of like. How do you handle objections at the end. That's kind of the selling point.
Speaker 2:My philosophy is don't get objections at the end. So we want to. We want to story, sell all the way through. When we get to the end, there is no objection. Like it's a very I call it a spiral close. I want to. I want to be so smooth.
Speaker 2:And so at the end, where they've already answered your questions, you've pre-closed them, you've tied them down, there's just nothing left for them to say but like, yeah, I mean we'd have to finance it. Great, $248 a month of work for you, or would you rather do the $500 plan? No, it'd have to be 248. Cool, let's see if we can get you approved and build your file up. Can you get me your business card or your driver's license real quick? And like, oh, yeah, well, we're kind of gonna do under her name. Okay, no problem, let me get both of them, just so I have it.
Speaker 2:And then you go into the, the warm down. So I think there's all kinds of ways and there's people out there that's so much better than me. Um, I just I think I'm always looking to improve and make things, you know I, but I think we've kind of dialed it in to our whole process. Everything's in writing. We've had a, we built it out, so our prospecting is in writing, our direct marketing is in writing. We have, you know, that was like 37 pages and all its objections that you're going to get. You have call center manuals, you have door to door manuals, appointment setting manuals, you have the closing and so the presentation manual, and then you have your closing rebuttals, right, all these things, and so it's taking a lot of time, right? I guess they call that I can just put, put any company into it, like I don't do this and and maybe one day God will allow me to partner all over the place, but using this method that that seems to work, at least in South Texas.
Speaker 1:So but yeah, I mean, you can't argue with a process driven business. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the process is. It's a six step process and we're going through it. It's a dog and pony show. We do not. We sell nothing on quotes, like nothing on quotes, nothing at all, in fact.
Speaker 2:For years I use a piece of paper, I mean literally. I wouldn't even use any type of presentation tool. That's me. But I learned that I was selling on personality. I learned that that wasn't a duplicatable process and I wanted to sell to the 40%. In the middle of the 100%, the average person needed to be able to be successful at 50%. So how do we get the average person closing at 50%?
Speaker 2:And because if you're going to spend, spend money on marketing, you can't sell it. No, 30, 40%, I mean 30, 35% gross profit margin. You can't do it or you won't have any money left over. You you're, you know, you gotta. You have to add that to the price and you have to give equal value. So you're going to. You can't just charge more, just to charge more, to charge more. Justify it by giving better value too, right. And so they're getting a lot more when they do business with you, and included in that is hey, you call, you have customer service, we answer our calls. Right, we have our core values and we go through those with them and talk about that. So, yeah, are we going to be more expensive than chucking a truck? Absolutely, yeah, for sure. I mean you can always find something cheaper, but why would you want to use them? They're going to be out of business in five years. I mean that's what the?
Speaker 2:SBA says, you know, 96% of roofing contractors go out of business, 96% within five years. And so, okay, that's an example for those that don't know what like a tie down is. So a tie down is, um, let me ask you a question do google reviews matter to you, and what do you think a homeowner is going to say? Of course, of course. How many of them do you think checked google reviews before you showed up to the house? If they're doing facebook, none if they're doing if you, if, if they came to you on Google, they came to you through Google, they saw your reviews. If they came to you through TikTok, youtube, those are reactionary ads. Those are like oh well, I like 10% off, or man, you know what I just got my electric bill. It's reactionary. They never even looked on Google, but they'll use that as an objection at the end, and then you're trying to fight at the end.
Speaker 2:So a tie-down would be you know google reviews matter. Oh, yeah, they matter great. Did you notice how high? You know how many reviews? We have over 400 five-star google reviews.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're picking a company and you have five people coming out, would you rather have a company that's 500 of your neighbors, not people, not 500 of your neighbors that have said these guys are five-star, use them, don't use anybody else. Or would you rather have the guy over here that has 15 five-star reviews, his sister, cousin, his employee, or the guy that has three-star review? Well, of course that, excellent. So now you use that as a tie down at the end. Well, we're going to get reviews. Well, of course that, excellent. So now you use that as a tie down at the end.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to get reviews. Well, who are you going to go with? Nobody else has 400 five-star reviews, and you already said the company you're going to choose to do business with the reviews matter. You also said that you don't want to do business with somebody who's been in business longer than five years Frontline's 10 years and so you're tying them down. So at the end, they've already answered that and they can't bring that up to you. There was a book called Torching Objections that taught me that's an old book, I don't even know who wrote it, but get rid of the objections before they ever come up, and that you do that with what's called a tie down. I'm sure chat GPT can explain what a tie down is, but, um, you know, google review would be a tie down. Um, you know anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. We were, you know, I was in um healthcare sales before getting into roofing and we were selling inner. I was selling enterprise level healthcare software, you know. So think like CRM for the business, but for health care. So, yeah, yep, a lot more moving parts, hippocompliant, and everybody from the doctor to the nurse to the scheduler, all using the same platform. And so our sales process was just like that, where you're dealing with objections the entire way, you know. Hey, tell me about how you do this in your office. Now, okay, this is how you would do it here, and this is what we found.
Speaker 1:We were, you know, in constantly exposing pain points. How are you, you know? So when I got into roofing sales, that's just what I knew, right. And so so, miller, let me loose. I mean, he drove around with me for a couple of weeks and then kind of let me loose.
Speaker 1:And so I'm talking to homeowners and saying you know, have you worked with a roofer before? Okay, what, what did they do for you? What did you expect? Well, did they do this, did they do this, did they do this, did they do this? And I, you know, not trying to, but creating this scenario where they start to freak out like well, like right, you know what are we supposed to experience? What is the roof? We're supposed to tell us. What does a good roof system look like? You know, I didn't even know to ask how long the crews had been with the company, or how long anyway. So my whole process was very consultative, but also kind of saying, hey, whoever you use, make sure these 25 boxes are checked in your mind so that you're at ease and you know you made a wonderful decision, you're in great hands. Well, of course, by the end of that they're like we want to go with you, that's right. That's right.
Speaker 2:Bring it down to nothing but price or payment Price payment or terms, price payment or terms's.
Speaker 2:That's my sales reps jobs. They're closers. We train close. We have studs, I'm not gonna lie, we have absolute studs that that can close um, but it's not because they're really good at one little part. They've. They've gone through the training. I mean we role play every. I mean every sales meeting. We have role playing every. We only do two sales meetings a week now. We used to do three In the off season. We do one every other week. Give them a break. But right now the training it's all role playing. It's all.
Speaker 2:Like you have to know how to do this comfortably. You can do it in your sleep. If you're not waking up your wife because you're talking in your sleep, going over rebuttals, then you're not doing it. Right, man, like they got to do it, they got to jump in, they got to jump in and believe and it works and it does help. You come and you see everyone's stats right. You know, like people just can't believe it, especially another company or they come from like you know it just doesn't make sense and I would say, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be as helpful as possible. But also, you know, but nobody's coming to my market.
Speaker 2:But you know we do manager calls you we're building. That homeowner is already been interacted with by at least two other people before the sales rep gets there. So think about that. So somebody booked the appointment, they talked to David, the appointment's booked, and then Gian is calling them and saying hi, this is Gian, and'm going to. And then the sales rep goes out and while the sales rep is there, before they leave, whether it's a no-sale or it's never a no-sale until after the manager call. But if they're like, hey, mr Curling, I'm just calling, I'm here with Ms Smith and we train on third-party affirmation and three-party closings, like and then we do it and we train on three third party affirmation and and three party closings, like there's training for that and there's role playing for that. So when they do the call, they know how to go through the process to identify, you know, recreate the problem, make the solution, get on their side and then ask for help.
Speaker 2:But all of that comes down to training and you can't do that unless you're you have a sales manager who's dedicated to training, you know. And the sales manager you're not going to get until you build it, so you have to have it. You know everyone wants to have a sales manager like here, come put it together for me and I'm like you're not gonna, no, sales manager's gonna figure it out for you. You get you guys, you gotta put on the dirty shoes and gloves and go figure it out and put it down on paper with chat gpt. We just have no excuse anymore. You know, you can just say so much of it. I drove nine hours yesterday and I just had a. I had a probably seven hour conversation with chat gpt. You know, I'm just no kidding yeah, I mean, I'm just I'm.
Speaker 2:I. I have different. I have a degree in computer programming, and so that's what I went to school for. And database information systems management is honestly a passion of mine I guess CRMs and so I've built different counselors, different coaches, business coaches in this, and so I can have conversations and do what-if scenarios and looking at buying a few businesses or partnering with some different business owners, and it's really helpful to have that conversation. But ChatGPT would do so much for you man, so much and creating the SOPs, even if they're not totally accurate. They're really close, though, to your process.
Speaker 2:Get an SOP out, put it into Google Drive. A lot of people don't know how to do it, but my recommendation for anyone listening is just get a Google, just get an Excel sheet. Go make a folder in your Google Drive, call it your SOPs. Go inside the folder, create an Excel, a Google sheet, and then create another folder that has documents and make these little SOPs within. I mean, I honestly haven't used ChatGPT for that. Make an SOP.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is what we do. We unlock the door in the morning at 8 o'clock. We use the key that's in the lockbox. In the lockbox, the code is this. Make that into an SOP. Boom, there it is. And then you get that, download it, put it in that folder, name it the right thing, and then get the hyperlink. Copy that link, copy the name of it, go into the Google Sheet document one, paste that name of that document and hyperlink it back to that document. Does that make sense? You know, hyperlink the Google sheet to the actual document. So all your SOPs are, you know, categorized, and then you can start putting categories.
Speaker 2:Hey, for this document, this is for, you know, manager, it's also for, you know, a production manager, it's also for janitor. So who needs it? You know, filter for janitor. Here's everything they need. And so simple, easy, ugly.
Speaker 2:I had a business coach once say hey, body bag, ugly is fine, like just, but you got to get them out there. You can't not do it. You have to have your SOPs. And if you're scaling too fast, we ran into a problem the SOPs are changing too fast, because we were growing so fast. We went from six employees to 65 employees in nine months, and so it was like how do you keep up? How do you keep up? Every time we create something, it was obsolete. Three days later we were coming up to new problems. But I think if you're at a steady pace, you already know what you're doing. Start creating those SOPs. Do the same thing with your sales process record. We're in the middle right now doing frontline university by just recording everything so we can um have this huge sop library, essentially um of everything. But I've been saying I've do that for a year and we're just now actually doing it.
Speaker 1:So shows you how bad I yeah, but you've got your processes down, you've got a training program, you've got the marketing funnel dialed in and we're. You know we're surpassing an hour, so I want to wrap it up.
Speaker 1:I want to ask one question, which is what would be some parting and a parting piece of advice you have for a lot of the like I said. A lot of our listeners are in Texas, like Dallas, fort Worth, florida, colorado. It's storm markets. Their revenue is a roller coaster so they do hiring, then they do layoffs. They have a big year, then a smaller year, then a big year. It's really hard. So what's a parting piece of advice you have for guys that want to beef up the retail side of their business?
Speaker 2:piece of advice you have for guys that want to beef up the retail side of their business. So if I could go back to the very beginning, I would have kept more accurate data. I think people get into it because they're just trying to survive. They get a customer but you're two years in business and you can't give me a customer list from last year I mean no-transcript, and not even customers, a lead list. Every single person you do a home show, every name and that is on. They need to opt in to your communication platform. That is huge, because when things slow down, you've got this 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 name list that you can say hey guys, we're doing a call party, everybody's coming in and we're going to call and recycle through these people. We gave a quote to somebody two years ago. We did an inspection on this house, but now calling him and let's pick. Hey, let's call for repairs.
Speaker 2:But having that source of data was somebody that already had an experience with you. They've already met some nature company. Hopefully it was a positive experience. Every experience should be a positive experience. Um, every experience should be a positive experience, whether they buy from you or not. You should leave there with them saying, man. I wish I could do business with them Like I wish they could be my roofer. Um, maybe they're too expensive. Um, and gross profit margin, bro Dylan, no-transcript, everybody else like go go work for somebody. Encourage them to go work for somebody and go be a sales rep. You'll make so much more money than doing what all of us did and be broke for the first four or five years. You know barely barely making it. So yeah, I think that do your jobs with integrity.
Speaker 2:Above all, have integrity, reputation matters. We get I can't tell you how many, how much business we get now, just because people in my little area neck of the woods wouldn't do business with somebody else. You know, like, yes, we're doing roof, or yes, maybe we did their generac. But then when they went spray foam and they see an ad from us like oh, we've. You know, I just had a guy tell me he took a video. He was like we had people. I got people knocking my doors all the time for roofing. But I remember that you guys said you did roofing and so I told myself if frontline can do it, I'm not having anybody else do it. You know, and that isn't great, do right, when no one's looking, I'll. I send you my core values. That's the core value. That's what I'll tell everybody to live by.
Speaker 2:Like take extreme ownership, even it costs losing money. You know, under promise over deliver. Do right when no one's looking. Do things with integrity. Like all those things right Under promise over deliver.
Speaker 2:It's easy to say. When you have the opportunity to prove it, prove it. Do it right at all costs. Do it right and ask for reviews right. If you did it, nice for one person but nobody knows about it, you're doing yourself an injustice. Your future customers deserve to know that you'll do the right thing. And so ask the customer for a review. Hey, I know you don't have to do this. We put a foot through your ceiling and we did that. We dropped the ball and I don't mind, but don't give me anything less than a five-star review. But can you please tell that we messed up, but we made it right, because nobody expects it to be perfect, but they just want to know that we're going to do the right thing and ask for those reviews and get that documented. Um, that's probably more than one thing, dylan, but that's at least those things. Do those things and then, no, that's good stuff. Serve your wife if you're married. Don't probably don't put your business before your wife. Dylan, do we have three minutes? Can I steal three? Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:When I was at dixie home crafters my first month, I made employee of the month. They just meant meant to have the highest closing percentage. I'm doing this only to get out of debt, so I can be a missionary. I have no other, no other desires, no other plans. I just want to be a missionary and I'm coming in because I'm the highest closing. They started giving me more appointments. One day I made the best day I've ever had. I made $7,500, four for four. I was the highest closer. I was closing, um, I was closing at 75% and I don't remember what my gross profit was, but I was doing great. And I called my wife and like babe, and this is, you remember weekends, I'm speaking at churches. Okay, we're like the example here. Okay, uh, to to churches, like look at these missionaries, great people. Um, so I'm raising money. And I call my wife and she's like great, I don't care for it, good night. And she hung up the phone and this was two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:I was driving back from Columbia, south Carolina to Greenville, south Carolina, on a four hour window appointment that started at eight o'clock and then I was in the clothes for a long time and I'm like, lord, what is going to happen? Like how is she going to be a missionary if she doesn't see when you're providing? Lord, the woman you gave me right, that's what I was thinking and I was like how are we supposed to be missionaries? Lord? Maybe and forgive me everybody, but this is truth I said maybe, lord, you should just take her in a car accident, because if you want me to be a missionary, how can I have a wife like that? And she would be better in heaven with you than on earth hurting the ministry. That's how messed up our hearts can get and our flesh can get and we think stupid things.
Speaker 2:Well, on my way home, I listened to a sermon that night and it was about choosing to cheat. Men choose to cheat all the time, and oftentimes it may not be with another woman, but it's with our work or our ministries. We put our ministry first, we put our work first, we put our promotion first and we tell them just hold on. Once we hire the sales manager, it'll be better. Once we get the new step once we get the new associate pastor, assistant pastor, then my life will ease up then and we just keep doing that to our wives assistant pastor, then my life will ease up then and we just keep doing that to our wives. And because our wives love us and our children love us, they'll hold on. We give them this big heavy pot it's not their burden to bear. So extend your arms and just hold it, and they hold it as long as they can and we, being men, keep doing the things that we think are necessary. We're getting pats on the back Great job, juan, and you're doing great Guys. Look at him, look what he's doing, do as he does. Right, we're moving forward. But then eventually they can't hold on and that pot slips through their hands and their relationship shatters.
Speaker 2:And I've seen men and women husbands and pastors married 25 years wife come in and say I'm done, done, I'm done, I want a divorce. And and we tell them, oh, we'll change now, I promise you. You said that 10 times. Nothing ever changes. And so I went and I went home that night and I repented. I repented before god and I repented to my wife. So I'm sorry, I'm not honoring you with this schedule. I know it. I had to reintroduce myself to her every two or three days. I went and gave my two week notice the next day to my boss and he asked me why. I said I'm working six days a week. I love it, I know I'm doing well, but I don't. I haven't been on a date with my wife since I've been here six weeks. I I haven't had a Saturday to go hiking with her once and I just we're going to get a divorce if I stay and it's not worth it. I'm not honoring God because I'm not honoring my wife. And he made an exception that he didn't make for other people. He gave me every Thursday evening off and every other Saturday off, so Thursday night so I can take my wife out on a date. And he agreed to only give me two appointments a day, so that way, some point I would be with my wife, even if it's between appointments. I'll drive 30 minutes, you drive 20, we'll hang out for 45 minutes and then I'll go back.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you why I wanted to share this, because sometimes we, as business owners, try to figure it all out. We use a paper and pen and a calculator and we're doing profit margin and we're doing closing percentages and failed credit rates. We had an average of a 37% closing a failed credit rate in Greenville, south Carolina. 37%, 10 pitches 3.7 failed credit. No sales rep can control that. No sales rep can control the credit of the customer that from that day. So I my two-week notice. He told me to stay. I agreed. I went on a two-week Christmas vacation that was pre-planned came back December 2nd or January 2nd. From January 2nd to August 5th my last day at the company I had zero failed credits. Not one customer ever failed credit again.
Speaker 2:Now, god didn't have to do that, but he did. That's out of my control, no matter how good I thought I was, no matter what an example my boss was like look at Juan, I had a 93% close ratio from the day I got back to August 5th and if God just left it at that closing ratio, the people would say, juan, you're doing something that we're not doing. You know, teach us. But God in his humor said, yeah, but look at this, nobody's going to fail credit and there's no controlling that. I mean, there's just there's nothing you can do. We tried our darndest to ask the question do you have credit and like, yeah, we're good, we get there. And they still felt credit Like we do everything we can. Zero percent, not one.
Speaker 2:And that was an example in a testament that God said Juan, I want you to do things my way, like I want you to do your part, but honor me, do it my way, be honest, have integrity. Don't lie to the customer. Don't mislead the customer. Don't answer correctly is that the best price you can give? Don't say yes if it's not. Say it a different way. Say it's not, but I want to make, I want to make profit on it too. Like there you know, like, do it the god's way and he controls all the uncontrollables, the things that are out of reach, that you can never scheme up a plan big enough, clear enough, robust enough. God can't. And I just I share that, because it's not Juan. Obviously that doesn't talk about a talented. I was an idiot, but God's not.
Speaker 2:And God took my effort. He took my two fish and my bread and he fed the five. He's like let me show you how we're going to still make more money. We made, we made so much money. It was crazy and paid off all this debt, and it was.
Speaker 2:God made it real clear what his role was in the matter and he was in control of everything. Like I was going to be for people who were previous customers and we didn't have it documented. He was in control of everything. Like I was going to be for people who were previous customers and we didn't have it documented. That never happened. Like oh no, I already know you're expensive. Just give me a quote. And I was like OK, those are the easy customers. They already know we're the most expensive gunner out there. You know, I mean.
Speaker 2:And so all that to say guys, you're going to beat yourself up. You're going to work too hours, you're going to put your wife on the back burner. You're going to tell your kids to hold on. You're going to show up and just stop it. You just got to stop. You got to commit. I'm not going to do that. Don't build your business at sacrifice of that. Put your, put God first, put your family second, and and work fits into there and and don't grow if you're not ready to do that. If you can't do that, then you're not ready for growth. Then you're not ready for growth. You're not ready to take the next step. Just raise your rates and make more money per sale and and stay devoted to God and your and your and your wife first. He'll control it, he'll bless it, I promise. He doesn't know how not to bless it. He has to. So that's that. We can end on that, dylan, unless there's something else.
Speaker 1:I love it, man. Keep the priorities straight God first, then family. I live by that as well. I think it's a wonderful way to end. So, man, thanks for being on the show and for those of you listening. If you want to interact with Juan, he's part of our mastermind and we've created a group to where we want to cultivate some interaction between our members. You're welcome to join our community. So if you want to learn more about that, just go to limitlessroofinggroupcom. You can join our buying group for free and get access to national rebate programs and discounts and all that stuff. But our community is a paid community. But if you want to learn more about that, just check out our website and you can connect with guys like Juan. So, man, thanks again for being on the show. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:My pleasure connect with guys like Juan. So man, thanks again for being on the show. Really appreciate it, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thanks, dylan, god bless you, god bless you guys. Bye-bye you too, man. Awesome, that's it, yeah, cool.