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.
You can join our Limitless Roofing Group for FREE. www.limitlessroofinggroup.com
Limitless Roofing Show
Building Trust in Contracting
Ever wondered why there's no safety net for homeowners dealing with contractors? That gap is exactly what Randy Hurtado and John Stewart Hill are addressing with The Good Contractors List—a revolutionary concept changing how contractors and homeowners interact across America.
This compelling conversation reveals how a life-altering heart attack became the catalyst for creating the first contractor guarantee service backed by real financial commitment. "Do you want to stay or do you want to go?" That divine question in the ICU transformed John's life purpose, leading him to build a company that has now backed over $5 billion worth of contracting jobs.
Randy shares his remarkable journey from IT security specialist to roofing company partner, growing DT Roofing from under $2 million to over $30 million in annual revenue. His partnership with The Good Contractors List gave him such a competitive edge that he convinced John to take the concept nationwide—creating what they call "safe contractor communities" across the country.
What makes this concept truly revolutionary is the financial guarantee. Every contractor on their list is backed by a $25,000 guarantee on every job, giving homeowners unprecedented protection. Unlike other referral services that simply connect people without accountability, The Good Contractors List puts their money where their mouth is. When disputes arise, they become the "voice of reason," helping resolve conflicts and rebuild relationships between contractors and homeowners.
The vetting process ensures only quality contractors make the cut—requiring at least three years in business, five years of industry experience, positive online reviews, and comprehensive background checks. Surprisingly, about 60% of applicants don't meet these standards.
Want to experience the peace of mind that comes with hiring guaranteed contractors? Visit goodcontractorslist.com to find vetted professionals in your area. If you're a contractor looking to stand out from the competition, the entry fee is just $250 monthly outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with Limitless Roofing Group members receiving 10% off onboarding fees.
All right. Welcome to the Limitless Roofing Show, where we give you a seat at the table as we talk with industry leaders and owners so that you can learn from their journey and get the tips, the wisdom, the tactics you need to take your own company to the next level. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation today because I've got an old friend on the show, Randy Hurtado, and I've got a new friend, John Stewart Hill, that's doing, they're both doing some really interesting stuff in the industry. I think you guys are going to want to hear about. But before we get into all that, Randy and John, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's great to be here. Yeah, now Randy, Randy's been on before, and Randy's been a speaker at our event, which we have coming up for those of you listening on October 15th. Randy's been a speaker at the Limitless Roofing Summit. Uh, he's got a roofing company in the Dallas, Fort Worth, and Greater Area, commercial roofing, residential roofing. So before we get into all of that, Randy, why don't you give a little bit of background for those who haven't heard about you, just on what you're doing about your company?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So I have been uh a part of this great industry for now going on almost just under 10 years. Came into it in 16, uh, into an established company that was struggling because uh, much like many roofing companies, they know how to do their craft well. But the business side of things sometimes is a struggle for some. And uh that was the situation with uh the company that I came into, is they knew how to put a great roof on. They knew how to take care of the customer, but uh finding those customers, uh making sure that everybody knew they existed. So when they needed the service, uh they knew where to go. That was the biggest struggle of DT roofing uh back in 16. Uh we were established in 2009, and again, it was it was chugging along every year, but it just could not break that$2 million mark. Uh, I came on completely a god story. I was an IT security software specialist and I had an office next door to DT Roofing. You know, things happened where, you know, after 24 years of that job, uh, the company that I had my biggest contract with got bought out for from private equity, and they just didn't need anyone who wasn't on uh as an employee of that company. They weren't gonna carry those people on. And so I found myself uh changing careers. I was gonna go back just to LinkedIn and find another company that wanted to use the talents that I had in the IT security space, but I decided, you know, I think I'm gonna completely make a huge shift. Uh, it was an answered prayer by uh from God. And I came on as uh a salesperson for DT Roofing initially, and from there grew into management, managing the sales team, then going into operations, then proving that I was an adequate partner. I put plenty of sweat equity in. And uh ultimately my now partner, Derek, the the DT in DT Roofing, Derek Tanner, trusted me as a partner and gave me equity in the company. And uh from there, we've grown the company uh the last year, closing over$30 million in revenue. Uh, we've also started four other companies in the uh Granberry Hood County area. Uh, fortunate to be very successful in those companies as well. Um, in fact, just recently where it was announced that we won all of the best of Hood County categories for all of our companies, including our our gutter company. Those are our newest company. So yeah, we've just been really blessed. And uh as part of that journey, back in 19, we actually joined the good contractors list, which is the company that John founded as a contractor. And at first, honestly, it made complete sense to me right out of the gate. It just made sense to be able to get backed by a third party because look, everybody talks about themselves well. You're never gonna get a roofer to sit in front of a customer and say, I'm a mediocre roofer and I'll answer my phone most of the time. They're always gonna talk about we have this many five-star reviews and we've been in business this long, and we have this accolade, and we won that. And so they forget the other two companies the customer's talking to is talk saying the exact same thing. They're pointing out all the great things. And so what we're doing by being on the good contractors list is we're having a third party that is backing us that's saying, no, everything they just said about themselves, we back, and so much so that we put our money where our mouth is. And so, yeah, that's that's where we were. And so I had such a great success with the good contractors list after just one year being on it that I approached John and I said, Listen, this service is DFW based only. You need to go nationwide with this. This problem exists everywhere. Homeowners are being screwed by contractors everywhere, not just in DFW. And while obviously him being the visionary of the very first company in 2011 that had a guarantee-backed uh solution, he just he didn't know what that would look like, taking it nationwide. He knew how much time and effort it took just to build DFW out. And uh so at the time it wasn't a good fit. And I can let John talk a little bit about the the founding of the company and why he did it, and then we can kind of pick it up from there if that helps.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I'd love to talk a little bit about it. I know that uh it was not because I had this genius idea and had all the skills in the world to do it. Um Frankly, uh, if you don't mind me telling a little bit about my story, uh I had just had a heart attack in 2011, in February of 2011, that left me with congestive heart failure and quite quite weak. And uh when it happened, uh I really felt like God was trying to get a message across to me. And uh, one of the things I felt like when I was heading to ICU, I didn't even know it was a heart attack. They originally thought it was pneumonia because my lungs were filling with fluid and it was during a big freeze. And on the way to ICU, I felt like God said, Well, do you want to stay or do you want to go? It was so powerful in my spirit that he was giving me the chance to stay or go. And frankly, in the where I was in life at that point, I I didn't have much I didn't have much hope. I was pretty uh pretty deep depression and had been praying that God would kill me for the last two months. And here was my chance. I mean, so this is where my mindset was, and so if if when people look back at how did this thing start, it did not start because I'm a genius of some sort, you know, or that uh or I have any kind of skill. It literally started with God saying, I'll be with you. And you know, in that hospital, I was I was really close. I said, you know, if this is dying, it really isn't that bad. I'll probably just fade off. I can uh I can repent for all the sins that I've ever had, and I can just I'm gonna go spend eternity in heaven. But I was really lost at the time. But whenever he said, make up your decision, and it and so it took me about an hour before the cardiologist could come in. It was like three o'clock in the morning during like the biggest freeze DFW had ever had. So they had no hope for me living. I'd had a massive heart attack. And as I was laying there, I I just started thinking about, you know, who's gonna remember me if I'm around? You know, I what have I done in this earth at all that that people would remember me for? And so I I came back to God and I said, you know, I'd like to stay if that's okay with you. But I want to be remembered for doing something good. I want to live every day, not just be alive. And I want to touch as many people as I can while I'm on this planet. And all I can say is I I mean, I'm prepared for surgery, they they didn't know what was gonna happen, but I felt like I was laying on that bed and I felt like God was dancing around my bed. If I could see into the spirit room, it was like that's my boy. Yes, and I'll be with you. And that's all I knew coming out of there. I had no idea what was about to happen. And so after I I got out of the hospital, me and my wife, or my girlfriend at the time, got married the next week, and we said, Our lives is for God now. We're just gonna we're gonna do what he tells us to do. And so I just started listening every day. And within six months, I had this idea that just popped in my head. What happened, what would happen if I could find contractors that I could guarantee did a good job. You know, I used to do yellow pages in the back in the day, and and I I ran into so many contractors that made themselves look really good on the in the yellow pages, but I wouldn't send them to my parents, I wouldn't send them to my friends. And I was like, man, there's just nobody protecting anybody. And so this was my chance. And so I went uh to my boss, I was selling uh coupons at Money Mailer at that time, and uh I said, man, I'm gonna have to quit because I don't want to use your time to test this idea, but I think I have something I'm supposed to do. And I quit my job with no back I I had one paycheck coming to me, we had nothing in the bank, and I just went out and started talking to contractors about being a part of a list that was just good, that they all knew each other, that they could be a team and they could take care of customers and all those things. And it just resonated. It was like the favor of God was on it from day one. I was sitting down with a yellow notepad, I didn't have a website, and contractors was like, I want to be a part of that, you know, and so uh I just did everything I was supposed to every day, made up my paperwork on Word, like I had no business background whatsoever, had no management background. And so God used somebody with a really weak resume to start this job. That's all I can say is is whenever I started it, it wasn't to get rich, it was this is what I have to do, this is what's in my spirit to do, and I and I've done it every day. And I can say, you know, what's funny is whenever I looked at my logo and you see that good with a halo over it, I didn't I never I didn't intentionally do that. It was I put a halo there because of the way it was spaced whenever I first did it, and I was like, oh, there's an empty space right there between thee and good and all that. And so I said, let's put a halo there, and it you know, it kind of morphed into good contractors with a halo over the top. I mean, one day I was just like sitting there and I felt like what what was the thing that you asked me, John? And I I looked at that thing as like if I that I want to be remembered for doing something good, and I'm like, if this actually becomes something, I'll be remembered for the word good with a halo over it. You know, and so it it became more of a mission, it was more of a movement to me that that God was creating to to really protect homeowners and to give contractors a really safe place to join together where they can say, you know, because homeowners are always asking, who do you know? Who do you know that does this? If they like you, they're gonna ask. And now, hey, listen, the good contractors list, they vetted them, they you know, they've done everything, they're backing with a guarantee. This is a safe place for you. And so creating a safe place in contracting, I think was like I said, it was God. It was a miracle.
SPEAKER_02:Man, thanks for for sharing that story. That's that's powerful. That's wild.
SPEAKER_00:And I've heard that story probably three or four dozen times, and every time it gets me because of the mission behind it.
SPEAKER_02:So now that's powerful, man. When you have a choice, it's fine. I just finished reading the book for the second time, Imagine Heaven by John Burke, and he takes thousands of near-death experiences and compiles them in this book, and it's just incredible. And uh, you know, it's incredible what what people go through, and some of the some of the people in the book do have that. It's kind of the same thing.
SPEAKER_00:Like, do you well the interesting part about I've I've actually read a summary on that, and the interesting part is that people from all walks of life and every uh religious uh disposition uh ex uh described a very similar encounter, which is very interesting. Like that kind of shows you, you know, whether they're in the Middle East. Yeah, and they're whether they're in a Middle East where they're in a in an Asian uh population where Buddhas, you know, it didn't matter. They all were describing like the exact same thing, which was pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, they're describing what the New Testament describes. So it's like, okay, whether you take the Bible out of it. If you you got these Hindus and atheists and atheist professors who have a lot on the line to say, I went to heaven and saw Jesus and to look like the laughing stock in front of all their colleagues. I mean, the book's phenomenal. If you're a skeptic listening to this, I highly recommend it. But man, I yeah, that's that's just really so when you did that and you decided, okay, I want to I want to give my life to God, I want to walk with the Lord, I want to do something good. You you dropped everything and started this. What's the what is it? Like, what is the good contractors list? Because I think a lot of guys haven't heard of it, and I know it's extremely valuable, especially in a place like Texas where there's no licensing, and it is hard to differentiate who's solid and who's not. So what what is it?
SPEAKER_01:It really is, I mean, the name is just explains it all. Like we we truly only want the good guys on here, and because we put our money where our mouth is, we ha we have responsibility, which is something that is not in marketing. Like there's no responsibility, you know. They're they're gonna get as much money from as many people as they can. They don't, you know, at the end, the homeowner can go write a bad review, it doesn't really matter to them. The marketing company has zero skin in the game, and so that was the the first thing is that if I'm going to put together a team and I kind of look at it like like it's like like just think of it as like a football team. You're gonna want the best players, you're gonna want to want players that work together, and you want to be able to coach them in a way knowing that your same goal is to make that customer happy. That's the goal line, you know, is let's make sure that that customer is happy, and if they're not, they have they have somebody else that they can go to. And like Randy was saying, since the beginning of time, as long as we've been around contracting, there's really only been that two-way agreement between a homeowner and a contractor. And we've heard all the horror stories, you know, every one of those started with a two-way agreement. There's never been a third party that takes financial responsibility for anything. So here was a big thing, is like, and and I got laughed at a lot in the beginning. They're like, Oh, that's the worst business model I've ever heard, because I actually have limited positions available. You know, it's not like every roofer can be on this thing, or every, you know, every player can be on there. So I limited how much money I can make, and I put myself at greater liability on every job they do. So they were like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You're not gonna be able to make it a year before you go bankrupt, but you'll be paying out all the time. But you know what what I found is that there's a lot of really good contractors out there, and they're you know, there's not there's gonna be great contractors who are never on my list. But what I figured is that if I can pull the guys in that really care about their reputation, that care about their customers, that want to leave a legacy, then those those guys have the heart to do the right things. And you know, so I've I've not had to be stuck with a whole lot because the guys that I guess we pick, they've they've been in business long enough, so we have to we have to have them in business for at least three years uh with a minimum of five years experience because anything can happen and they they may they may be good at putting on a roof, but they may not be great at running a company. So we we've taken all those things in consideration. Uh we do a deep background check. We have we spend quite a bit of money every month on FBI level software that does background checks, and we can see who their friends are, we can see where they ran, what other companies, um, because there are some people who will start a new company and their old one went bankrupt because they did all the wrong things. So we want to know what's happening. So it's pretty is a pretty safe bet, and and then we follow up. So it's like every customer that gets called through the good contractors list gets a call back from our our staff. We have a staff of people who who handle disputes and all those types of things and calls back every homeowner to make sure that we've picked the right guys. But what I found in the beginning especially was that the contractors were saying, if so and so is on this list, I don't want to be on there. And I was like, Wow, that's different. You know, I mean, because I sold yellow pages, it didn't matter who was on there, they they figured everybody was gonna be on there. But I was saying this is the good contractors list, and so they were real adamant about hey, there's some guys, there's some crooks in the in town that have a lot more money than than I do that could buy a spot on here, and are you gonna let those guys on? No. You know, so so there we we like to say that we kind of target the honest guy in the middle. You know, it's like we don't have the the buck in a truck that doesn't have insurance and just barely makes his car payment every month, you know. That that guy's very dangerous to a homeowner because he if he if something bad happens, he doesn't have any way to fix it. Then you have the mega contractors who are so big on upselling and and really trying to manipulate situations because they have sales texts that are instead of regular text, they have sales techs that are out there, you know, trying to upsell the the person more than they are r really caring about their problems. So they're we kind of found that happy medium where we try to find guys that just do the honest work and that uh really want to take care of that customer. And so we've we're the first that I know of to separate the good guys from the bad guys. That's the simplest way we can put it, is we've managed to do that, and we know we have because we backed every job and we run radio and TV ads out in DFW. And believe me, if we've done something wrong, the people will make a big fuss about it. So I'm accountable, I'm I'm responsible, and so are and and so are all the contractors on our list, and that's the type of people that we look for.
SPEAKER_02:So what's the crit what's the criteria, Randy, for joining this list? He mentioned five years of experience, three years in business. What else?
SPEAKER_00:So you also have to have a good online presence. So when we say that, we mean when we're checking out your Google My Business profile, when we're checking Yelp, when we're checking all the places, Facebook, that the majority of the content that people are feeding back is positive. You know, yeah, you're you we all know as contractors, you can't please everyone. We've all dealt with the Karen out there that it doesn't matter what you do, they're not going to be happy. But, you know, a good online rating generally will say, you know, it's not an exact requirement, but a 4.5 or higher is going to be a minimum requirement. Uh that's been the case from the beginning. And then of course, you have to have a professional website. Well, why does that matter? Well, because most homeowners, we have to look at it from a homeowner's lens. And most homeowners consider a company established and professional if they have an online presence. And so a website that's professional that can be navigated so that I can understand as a homeowner who this company is about, what you know, what services they offer, what guarantees they offer, things of that nature. And then the company and then the owners have to pass a background check, as John mentioned. And so going through that background check, yeah, we're checking for criminal. Look, at the end of the day, we're not looking, we always ask our contractors, tell us anything we're gonna come across. Cause this is an FBI uh level background check. So tell us what we're gonna come across. But just know that, you know, if you did something stupid when you were 17 years old, it's not necessarily gonna keep you from the list. We just are trying to, as John mentioned, we're trying to make sure that the contractor we're gonna put in front of our customers, we would send to our grandma's house.
SPEAKER_01:And so one other thing to add there is, you know, if a lot of people said, Well, what happens if if I mess up? Well, it then you're human. You know, we we we get involved in every situation, and you know there's a lot more homeowners out there than there are our contractors. So the fact that there are more unscrupulous homeowners out there that'll try to take advantage of the contractor, manipulate them through reviews, we've seen it all. Yeah. But what we'll be is we like to call ourselves the voice of truth going into this because we don't want to keep a contractor on our list that's gonna cost us money. So we're looking to see if this guy's quality is bad. We're looking to see is this guy is this the guy we want? We're gonna pay for it once, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, John's used examples in the past where we went out and you know, we we get to the point where we have to go on site to look at and then we'll get out there with the owner of the company and we'll and he it's his first time on the job as well, and we'll go, is is that your quality? And he'll, oh my gosh, no. I'm sorry they even got to this point. Apparently, the crew we had out here did not sleep well the night before. This is not our quality, ma'am. I apologize, we will make this right immediately. And then other times you'll get out there and it's well, ma'am, what's the concern? Well, I hired this painting company to paint my house this a color gray, and I'm not happy with the color. Okay, well, let's look at the contract. Contract says they're gonna use uh Sherman Williams SW3245, and according to the paint cans, that's exactly what they used, ma'am. They've done nothing wrong here. They they did exactly what you asked them to do. The fact that you don't like the end result has nothing to do with them. They're the their their art is putting the product on the house. They don't get to choose what you like. That's why there's an initial next to the color you chose. You have a responsibility too in look going online and seeing that a color applied to a house and seeing if you actually like it, you know, not just a color sloth from Home Depot. Um, so oftentimes we'll come to the contractor's aid and say, no, ma'am, they've done nothing wrong here. There is no claim, and yeah, you need to pay them for their services. They could lean your property. We're, as John said, the voice of reason. And uh this has worked so well in the last uh 11 or 14 years now, coming up on 14 years, that um we've backed just over five billion dollars worth of jobs just in DFW alone. And um, and so taking this nationwide is a no-brainer. It really is a no-brainer because it's it's a grand experiment, a proof of concept that has been proven. And so we're taking that blueprint and we're taking it into every state in the union. And uh, yeah, it's been it's been a great experience just in the last month that we've announced national uh or taking it with nationwide. We've already broken into 18 new states and and we're growing daily. Today we just announced our first Floridian uh contractor. And and what happened tends to happen is once a few contractors get into that area, then we'll start advertising in that area as well. And that's where our marketing dollars start to trickle in, and then contractors from all the walks start to reach out and say, Hey, I want to know more about this, because they're realizing that I'm one of the good guys. I want to be able to separate because think about it. The good guys really don't have a voice in the industry, right? We turn on the news every day and we find a new contractor who ripped off an old lady for$11,000,000, walked away from a project, never to be heard from again, or he got halfway through the job, left the house, you know, the roof completely in the roofing uh space, left the roof completely uh exposed, and stopped answering this phone, walked off with their money. You don't get the guy that said, you know, I showed up to their house, I did exactly what I said I was gonna do, they love the end product. Maybe they got a good Google review, but the news isn't picking it up. And so the masses, the homeowners, they hear about all the good or about about the bad guys. Nobody's talking about the good guys. And so what the good contractors list does is it gives homeowners a chance. And as we build this out nationwide, it'll be it'll model what we've done in DFW. Where in DFW homeowners know to go to go to the good contractors list to find all of their contractors because we don't just cover roofers. We have 49 other trades that we cover: modelers, plumbers, electricians, HVAC. Don't go anywhere else. Stop going to Google and playing contractor roulette. Go to the list, find the category that you're uh you need, put in your zip code, and the list of contractors that have been vetted by us, that every single job they do is backed by a$25,000 guarantee is right there. Now it's just a matter of you going in and choosing the contractor that missed best fits, you know, you. You know, maybe there's some little, you know, maybe at that point, maybe the the accolades that they always lead with make a difference. You know, I like that this company has 35 years experience, this one has five. I'm gonna go with the guy with 35 years. That's fine. But at least the playing field is level. You know, going as a homeowner going into the list that no matter who I choose, if I just cover my eyes and and point, I'm going to get somebody who's backed by somebody else. So I'm not taking the risk. Because when a homeowner that gets ripped off for$11,000 goes to the Better Business Bureau, all the Better Business Bureau is going to do is lower their grade and maybe put a bad review on the site. They're not going to give the customer their$11,000 back. Right. We're the only we're the originator of the guarantee to put our money where our mouth is. And we've been pretty good at it. Like I said,$5 billion. If we were really bad at it, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. And so taking it nationwide was just a natural solution to fixing this problem. You know, you're not just buying lead from a contractor standpoint, you're not just buying leads and then hoping that something comes of them. You're using our guarantee to take those leads you're buying and close them. Because, like I tell contractors all the time, I've never paid my electric bill with a lead. I pay it with money. And so being able to close more deals because you give a customer, a homeowner, a peace of mind that you've chosen the right contractor is how you close business so that you can actually increase your revenue and grow your company.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was my strongest things about what we have to offer here is what we're calling collective authority. Is like here in Dallas Fort Worth, our contractors network together, they know each other, not not all of them, obviously, but but we interact as a as a family, like we're a team. And so everybody's trying to say the same thing. Listen, if you have a problem, go to the try try the good contractors list first. Obviously, we won't have 50 different services immediately in all the different cities that we're reaching outside of DFW, but we can. And what I'm looking for, uh what we're really hoping to find is contractors who see the benefit of working with all the other services, and they start coming together and they start they start building this amazing strong team of contractors that they're all referring each other. And what's great about this is uh they will register at the good contractors list uh for the guarantee. And every homeowner that the roofer signs up will become the plumber's customer later. You know, every every customer, the plumber signs up, and the AC guys, and you know, it cross-pollinates, as Randy likes to say. I like I I love that that that's kind of how he says it, is that when we all work together to make it better, eventually homeowners start catching wind about the good contractors less. We throw a little bit of marketing in that in each market as they start growing out. But we're trying to develop uh what I call safe contractor communities. So if we have a safe contractor community in San Antonio that there's enough services that can handle just about anything for your home, we're gonna we're gonna start putting marketing money into that into that place and try to get homeowners going there and getting that buzz created because the truth of the matter is they're not gonna find anything safer than this. And we are gonna really try our best to make sure that they have everything they need when they go to the good contractors list.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I was when I when Randy first told me about this, you know, the Limitless Roofing Group, our group has almost 700 companies in it for collective buying power to save money on materials and services and stuff. And so my first question was, is this nationwide? Because we have members all over the US. I mean, it's it's heavy in Texas. So I think we've got about 200 companies in Texas alone, but they're spread out all over the place. So, so how does how does a contractor join the list? Like what does that look like?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the first thing they do is they reach out to us. There's an option on the good contractors list to become a contractor. And you you click on that and you just fill out the basic form that reaches our uh sales team, which then we'll reach out to you and explain exactly they'll basically explain everything that we just did in regards to the requirements. And what we like to tell our contractors is in the DFW market, in established markets, leads are a positive byproduct of being on the list, but we are not a lead company. As I mentioned earlier, our contractors are using our guarantee to close leads that they get from other resources, you know, whether it be their Facebook ads, whether it be their home advisor or their Angie or wherever they're getting their leads, they use our guarantee to put them over the top and close those deals. So they would reach out to our sales staff, they'll go they'll go over this very the truth is is when I tell people what the requirements are, that a lot of them will go, that's it. I'm like, I know. What's weird is that a lot of people don't fit those requirements.
SPEAKER_01:Well, about 60% don't that come to us. Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:And so we have to tell them, like, you know what, you haven't been in business long enough for our standard, but I'm gonna put your birth date, which is three years old, on my calendar and we'll follow up with you. And at that time, if you fit all the other requirements beyond just being in business long enough, then we'll get you on the list. But we have a very specific formula that we use, and it's worked really well for our homeowners because our claim rate is extremely low because we pick the good guys.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And we have a great resolution process. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There, yes, there are plenty of limitless roofing contractors that are on the list already. Some of them are gonna watch this and go, yes, that's me. I'm already on the list. DT Roofing is obviously one of them. A Davis Roofing out in Weatherford is is on the list already. Vin Mark is in the middle of getting on the list right now. They're also in the Weatherford. They heard that DT roofing was on it and that Davis and and so they're now looking into it. That's what we want. We want to create a FOMO situation where the good guys go, I want to be on that list because I'm tired of competing against Riffraft that think that they're a roofing company the day after a hailstorm. They don't have any insurance, and now I'm on their customer's roof a year later, and their customers are saying, Yeah, I can't get a hold of the guy that did the roof, but it's leaking. And now they're paying my legitimate company that treats their customers like they matter to fix. Now they're paying me to fix that Riffraft's work. And so we're we're ultimately creating. Creating a like like John said, a safe uh contractor community where homeowners can go to and say, it doesn't matter if it's HVAC, if it's flooring or landscaping, I'm gonna go to the list and find the contractor in my area or within 50 miles of my area because sometimes you know you'll have a specialized service, like you know, where where you know, maybe there's not a guy in your zip code, but within 30, 40 miles, he's there, but he's on the list and his work's guaranteed. So heck, he'll drive out to you. And yeah, so that's that's essentially our mission is to protect homeowners. That's ultimately our mission. And through that, we're gonna find the contractors that truly understand that in order to do that, you have to be in an isolated community where homeowners can find you. And it's not on a lot of these lead generation services that are just they just care about selling leads. They don't care about the homeowner. That's the truth. They're about turning a huge profit on selling leads. They can care less that the contractor is successful on those leads that they sell them. And uh, so what we're saying is you know what? If that's the only way that you're getting your leads, use our guarantee to try to close them because you're spending a lot of money on leads. And our cost is really inexpensive. And wide, outside of DFW, it costs you$250 a month to be on our list. That's it.
SPEAKER_01:Every percentage back about every single job we're backing in. Every one.
SPEAKER_00:$35,000 guarantee on every single job that you do, and it costs you$250 a month total.
SPEAKER_02:But what does that mean? What is the guarantee?
SPEAKER_00:Like if I'm a roofing, yeah, if I'm a roofing, what that means is that means when you're sitting in front of the customer and you've got a$40,000 roofing uh bid in front of them, and you're explaining to them, you know, every little detail and everything, and we're this and we're that. And we're a member of the good contractors list. And what that means to you, sir or ma'am, is that every single job we do is backed by a$25,000 guarantee. Now, that the natural question would be well, Randy, you just mentioned that it's a$40,000 contract that you're signing. What's a$25,000 guarantee going to do? Well, in our in our history, what we've learned is one, when things do go awry and a contractor doesn't want to do the right thing and fix it, very few of those are the entire job. It's it's an aspect of the job. You know, they did my siding on my entire house, but the front looks like it was put on by a cross-eyed three-year-old, right? And I want that fixed. And if the contractor is not willing to fix it, we come in and we pay another good contractor to fix it. And it's not gonna cost$25,000, right? So an aspect of the job generally is what that goes wrong. Because we have remodelers on our that are doing$300,000 jobs that, you know, the good, but again, that oftentimes doesn't happen because we're doing a good job picking the good guys that they literally tell us, even upon application, you're never gonna have a claim with us. And our response is that's what we're banking on. We're banking on that we made the right decision to back every job you do. Because think about just take DT roofing for an example.$30 million worth of jobs last year was backed by the good contractors list. Now you can understand how it can get to five billion really quick over 14 years.
SPEAKER_02:And it doesn't cost the homeowner anything.
SPEAKER_00:It doesn't cost the homeowner a penny.
SPEAKER_02:See, I like that because if I'm I got into the industry four years ago selling roofs and think about that as a sales tool, Dylan. Yeah, just being able to go to the door and say, and by the way, anybody you talk to, and I would always do this like whether you work with us or not, here's all the things you need. And then I would put the burden of proof on any competition. Anyone else who comes to talk to you, they need to check this box, this box, this box, this box, all these boxes. And at the end of that, the homeowner's like, well, what do we need to do? Like, we don't that this is getting kind of scary to be able to go in and say, and and by the way, we're part of this list. Anyone you work with needs to be on this, this saves you in case this contractor's you understand it already.
SPEAKER_00:If you were a roofing company that we were trying to onboard, you already understand the messaging is ma'am. Even if you don't go with us, get choose from the list because there's no reason to take unnecessary risk. My guys use this not only for closing deals, they close, they use it for door knocking because oftentimes a homeowner's had a bad experience with a roofing contractor, and they're like, no, no, no, the last guy I worked with totally screwed me, walked away with whatever. No, ma'am. No, we understand that's actually the reason why we've partnered with the good contractors list and we've met their requirements so much so that they back every job we do with a$25,000 guarantee. So you have no risk working with our company. I just want to get up there and tell you if you have a potential for a leaky roof in the next six months. And they'll get on the roof because the customer goes, Oh, that's different. Okay, yeah, tell me what you find.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know what's funny too is you know, for 14 years I've been talking about this. We're backed, you're you're backed by a thousand dollar guarantee, and that word guarantee is so common that I think people sometimes glaze over it. You know, the way I like to explain it to a homeowner is is just simply saying there's a third party that takes financial responsibility for this job up to$25,000. It's like insurance for the homeowner. It's like, wait a second. No, no, yeah, there's a there's an actual responsible party, in addition to me, that will pay money if this isn't done right.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Wait a second. That it blows your mind. It's like that's never it's never been that way. You know, it's always been just one person against the other, and having that third party there to be able to not only do we cover the the cost of it if they leave or do something like that, but we're a guarantee on quality. That is not like general liability insurance. People have general liability insurance just in case there's a catastrophic event, but they have no quality insurance and there's no way to even prove it because who's gonna come out to their house? Well, the good contractors list will. You know, we do. And we've and if it gets to that point, but you know what I found it why there are so many horror stories isn't always necessarily because there were bad contractors involved. Fear of the unknown is by far the worst enemy a contractor has. I mean, I've watched it for all the all these years, and as soon as a third party's inserted into an escalated situation, it gets de-escalated. Because they feel so alone, they don't know who to call, and as soon as they call us and we actually do something, they're like, Oh, y'all really y'all really do get involved? Yes, we're real people, we care about your job, and we care about whether or not we have the right contractor on here. Of course we're getting involved. You know, and so all a homeowner has to do is register for free. It costs nothing. And so we but that's but that's what we're finding is that a lot of the horror stories that you hear about is homeowners who got scared, they start nitpicking, they start cussing out the contractor, running them out of their house, says they can't come back, and we have a halfway done job because the homeowner said they couldn't come back. Not necessarily because the contractor wouldn't have come back. They're trying their best to get the thing done, but they're thinking, oh, this is a crazy person. You know, but as soon as that third party gets in there and reason happens, you we I I think we do more counseling than anything else. It's like we rebuild relationships, is what the good contractors list is great at. That's that's the reason our process works so well is that we get two people who are being unreasonable or being angry, we de-escalate it and we rebuild the relationship and say, Listen, you're gonna have to let this contractor get to the end of the job. And at the end, if it isn't everything you dreamed of, then we will come out to your house and finish the job and get the job. And be the voice of reason.
SPEAKER_00:And be the voice of reason because again, we know that there are some people that you will never please. And if we get out there and that's another benefit of working with us, is a lot of our staff are contractors that they understand what they're looking at. And if we don't know what we're looking at, we will engage another contractor from the list to consult on the project. This is the deal, though. This conversation almost doesn't happen, like it's so infrequent that almost sometimes we have to look at our own process and go, okay, what do we have to do next? Because we just don't deal with it a whole lot. Most of the time, it's solved with a phone phone call or an email. It's like, no, ma'am. What he just told you, I 99% of the time, that's all it is.
SPEAKER_01:Just one other person inserted. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Here's a prime example. I'll give a real life example, and it deals with the roofing industry. And that is we had a customer last week that wrote in about a contractor who literally just signed with us a month ago. And her and the contractor told, and every roofer on here will understand this is the contractor told the customer, ma'am, the insurance company denied your roof, but we believe that you have a case here. So you need to hire an appraiser to come out. Now, you and I, and all of us know in the roofing industry, that is the proper process. We, as the roofer, are not allowed to hire an appraisal or get a PA involved. That's illegal. They're not representing us, they're representing the homeowner. Well, this customer called in and said, Well, my roofer told me, you know, the roofer I got off of your list told me that I had to go and hire my own appraiser. And I have other roofers telling me that they take care of the entire process if I went with them. So the reason why I'm calling you is because your roofer is being unreasonable. Well, guess what who they got a call from? Another roofer. And I said, ma'am, this is Randy with the good contractors list. I read your complaint. I want to verify a couple of things and make sure you understand what you said. And then I want to educate you a little bit. Davis Roofing, and I'm going to call them out because they were the good guy in this case. They were right. Those other people that whether the customer made it up or they were actually told incorrectly by other roofers, she was just ignorant to the process. And Davis Roofing was following the law. And so we stood on their side and said, no, everything that they said was accurate. In the state of Texas, you're not allowed to represent that you're going to fix the problem with an appraiser or a PA. You they can point you to some resources, but that's all. If we do anything more, the law gets involved. The Texas Department of Insurance gets involved, and we can hurt our business. And she understood ultimately. And so um, that is a real life example of when we get involved and we educate the customer, everything's relaxed. Now now that's all resolving itself on the back end, and she's not happy because she was wrong, but at the end of the day, we can't control that, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And think about what a homeowner does. They're gonna that homeowner is gonna go, uh, you know, your uncle, isn't he a roofer, or doesn't he work for a roofing company? Let's talk to him. And then, you know, if they try to talk to another contractor, that contractor is gonna try to win their business. They're not there to to really go, oh, you know what, he was doing it right. So they that's exactly what happened is she talked to somebody else in the industry, and they're they're like, Oh, yeah, I wouldn't use him, and it would only take me two weeks to do this, and I you know, I mean, and so so as soon as they hear that, they think, Oh man, I got ripped off. And they he's been on our list a m not even a month yet, and she made sure to call us. She like I'm telling you, people do not like to get but with Randy there being able to give the truth to her, she's like, Oh, okay, well, what can I do about that? Um it's it's it's the reality.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I like it. I mean, as a as somebody who came into the industry from the outside, you know, as a homeowner, if you would have if a roofer would have approached me before I got into roofing, you don't know what to believe or not believe. And then you've got an insurance adjuster, you know, telling you stuff too, and it's it's extremely confusing. And then you're dealing with a language barrier too, because roofers use language homeowners don't understand, and they talk about that is a big problem in our industry, by the way. Decking and all this crap. And I'm like, before I got into roofing, I would have called decking plywood because that's what it is. It's plywood, but in roofing, it's decking. Drip edge, what the heck is you know, it's just well, not only the roofing terminology normal language.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not only the roofing terminology, but they jump in with all of the insurance terminology with depreciation and and you know, uh deductible and all these all the D words. They're like, I don't even know what all that means. That's one of the things when I'm mentoring other roofing company owners and their sales team. I always say, like, listen, you need to speak the customer's language and not use your roofies because you're used to speaking that all day long, every single, but they don't understand. This is their first time ever filing a claim. They don't understand this entire process. You need to dumb it down, and not from a standpoint of, you know, the customer's not smart. It's just they don't know this process. You deal with it on a daily basis. You have to treat them like they've never done this before and put it in layman terms. And so, yeah, that is that is uh definitely something that we could do a lot better in the roofing industry to communicate better.
SPEAKER_02:But you guys are a buffer because that that communication gap creates a lot of trouble. And you guys are a buffer when that does occur, and it's going to. And I think, but I think part of that's the the sales process too. You know, you should be doing an excellent job communicating, setting expectations. And if you start to see yellow flags or or red flags with a homeowner as a sales guy, you have the right to not work with that person. I mean, I I've talked to a couple of people over the years that I said, you know what? The more we talked, like, you know what, I'm already starting to see how this is gonna go. Yeah, it's not gonna be good, no matter how good of a job we do. I I've told a couple of people, you know, I just don't think we're the best fit for you. And that's smart. That's good. Well, no, no, wait a second, wait a second. No, it's okay. I uh we're really not the best because I've been through those too. I had one guy that was uh worked for a bank and had the mind of an engineer, and I mean, he was asking me questions about why is the drip edge that wide and the this and the that? And I'm just like, oh my gosh. And it was questions and texts and emails and phone calls, and it's just like, man, it's not worth it at the end of the day. So, how do guys what's the we're kind of coming up on the end of our time here? What's the best next step for a contractor to take if they want to talk to y'all?
SPEAKER_00:So, based on this, you know, you you've heard you've heard our requirements. If you believe that you fit those requirements, you reach out to us, go to the goodcontractorslist.com. In the top right corner, you'll see become a contractor. Click on that, fill out the form. We'll follow up with you. If you're in the roofing industry, you're gonna hear from me directly because I I told them I said, I want to deal with my brother, and you know, and then all the other trades will be handled by the rest of our sales team. For limitless members, if you are currently a limitless member, uh you will receive 10% off of your onboarding fee. So that's important for you to mention that you heard about us from Limitless. If you're not a limitless member and you are watching this podcast, it is free to join. It's the easiest membership that you can get into. It's a group buy. I've been a member at DT Roofing for since its inception. And that's the reason why I believe in it so much that I'm willing to fly out on my dime last year in Kansas City to speak in front of a bunch of other roofers about the importance of various things in the roofing industry, is because I believe in what Dylan and Miller are doing with this company and organization. They have amazing, if you don't know about it, they have amazing group buy uh discounts already pre-negotiated with a lot of vendors, including distributors. And so there's a lot of benefits to being part of Limitless. And with the good contractors list, if you're a member, uh you'll get that 10% off the onboarding fee. If you're not a member, join and then and then get that 10% off. Uh but yeah, that's that's the next step that uh that folks can do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's great. No, thanks for the shout out. Yeah, for those of you guys listening, if you haven't heard of the Limitless Roofing Group, we're a buying group. We save roofers money on materials and services. So, step one, if you're not on the good contractor list, is join Limitless for free. Go to the limitlessroofing group.com, sign up for free. We're gonna give you access to national programs and discounts. Then go to the good contractor list and get 10% off your your uh guys. Thanks a lot. I I just love what you're doing, and I love that you're leading with your relationship with God at the center of it. And I think you know, it's gonna be really cool to see what happens over the next few years and how big this thing gets.
SPEAKER_01:We're very excited. He's got plenty of thank you for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:All right, guys, thanks a lot. Talk soon.
SPEAKER_01:Appreciate it.