Bone Dry Roofing Company - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Travis Webb from Bone Dry Roofing Company. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to the hottest podcast in the roofing industry. Get ready to meet the stars of the rooftops, the shingle sensations and the gutter gurus. Each month we'll climb up to the top to shine the spotlight on one remarkable roofer who's nailing it. We'll dive deep into their stories, their triumphs and the secrets behind their sky-high success. Don't miss out on these industry insights, incredible tales of resilience and the passion that keeps these roofers at the top of their game. Tune in, subscribe and follow us on this incredible journey as we crown this month roofer over the month.

Megan Ellsworth: Hello everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com, and I am so excited. I am back for a roofer of the Month podcast and it's the roofer of the month for March. And I'm here with Travis Webb of Bone Dry Roofing. So, hi Travis.

Travis Webb: Hello, Megan. Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Yes, so glad to have you here and really honored to bestow the roofer of the month onto Bone Dry and everything y'all do. So congratulations.

Travis Webb: Yeah, thank you. We're happy for the whole team.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. Okay, so let's just dive right in and I'll have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Bone Dry.

Travis Webb: Okay. My name is Travis Webb. We started Bone Dry Roofing Company back in 2003 and quickly after, well I say quickly, about five years later we opened our main office in Athens, Georgia. Did a lot of work with the university. We both, Chad Collins, who was my business partner for 20 years, we were both alumni at University of Georgia. So it just made sense. Did a lot of work with them, primarily low slope commercial work and then integrated into other avenues as well, both steep slope and really all types of roofing. So we went down and opened the St. Simon's Island office down in the Golden Isles down there and do a lot of tile work down there as well on the coast. And then we opened Charleston about nine years ago. So Charleston, South Carolina. So those are the kind of triangle I run between and we've got offices in each of those locations.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's amazing. Three locations. That's incredible. So you talked about low slope, you talked about tile. What would you say are your primary services that you provide? What would you say is your specialty?

Travis Webb: It's funny we talk about that. As far as a specialty, one of the biggest things we saw is that we were a big resource for people with a multi scope, multi roof scope. When we were doing work with different educational and institutional and a lot of work with universities across the southeast and colleges and that we were able to provide instead of just, "Hey, we'll handle your low slope." We got involved and used industry contacts, et cetera to find professionals in each of the different facets of roofing so that we could be a one-stop shop for some of the general contractors for our end users. And it really has been kind of a niche for us to be able to provide that service.

As well as in our three locations, we do have a lot of differences in the type of roofing we do. Down on our St. Simon's and Sea Island office it's a lot of tile work that we just don't see that much of in the Atlanta market. And then slate and copper and some of the historic restoration in the Charleston market. So we kind of had to build a team that was capable of handling just about anything from metal to slate, tile, shake, low slope of all kinds from modified TPOs, so we've really built a team to fill in each of those components. So to say we have a specialty is that we're able to handle just about any of their needs, including even residential shingles.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, wow. I mean that's a great specialty to have, to be able to pivot and just help your customers. That's great.

Travis Webb: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: So, share something special that your company celebrates. It can be actual holidays, birthdays, or it could be a certain company culture. What does Bone Dry celebrate?

Travis Webb: I think the biggest thing we celebrate is our people and among each other. We do take family very serious. We do have a very lucrative, I should say, holiday schedule. We give people time off for their families at quite a few celebrated holidays. Some that others may not even take, but I think we celebrate each other a lot and the fact we have traction meetings we hold every week. And a big part of that is a shout out. Shout outs to the different people. Always doing shout outs for our guys in the field because we say we're all there to support them.\

For myself all the way across the company that really where the guys on the roof, our technicians are the ones that really create the experience and we are all there to support them. So we have lunches and things like that to celebrate them and of course at holidays, but even amongst back and forth between whether it's estimators or production or techs in the field or administrative help in the office, all of that team is important. Every piece of it has to be doing their job right for us to have a successful project for our customers. And so we shout out a lot. We celebrate those wins, whether it's a win on a job or it was just that we got some good feedback from a customer, or we just put on a job that when we stepped back we were really proud of it, we celebrate within the company every single week. During our meetings we do headlines and that's where we like to celebrate that.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. And that makes work so fun. And people want to show up to work and do a good job. I know just being an employee myself, it's nice to be appreciated and it's nice to have fun at work and really be able to show up and be in a happy good spirit.

Travis Webb: Yep. Support each other. We spend a lot of time at work, so see that family at work and when you see the family at home. So I'll make sure that everybody stays as happy as they can.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. How would you define superior customer service?

Travis Webb: I think something we talk about here all the time and how crucial it is, and it sounds cliche and everything, but the communication is all of it. And really having these relationships with our customers. And it is, we just mentioned you spend so much time at work that literally between the industry and our customers, those who have become my lifelong friends. And when you can do that, I think across a lot of our best customer relationships that we've had over 20 years, those are people that I've traveled with. Those are people that I know their families and it's just if you have that relationship that's that strong to where you don't want to let them down, and it's not just, "Hey, here. We do your roof, you give us money." And that's all the transaction is.

It's that communication is so vital to everything. Inter-office communication, especially with our customers, it's hard to over communicate. "Hey, we're on our way. We wanted to let you know we'll be there." "Hey, if you call us in the middle of the night and we have the ability to, at least we're going to communicate back to you. Send somebody out there just so that we're always a resource." I think that that's probably the biggest thing we try to focus on is just always stay in touch and have a relationship with everybody, both in the company and outside of it.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean that's a great answer. Well said.

Travis Webb: I'm doing all right so far.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, you're doing great. 10 out of 10.

Travis Webb: Thank you. It's about time.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. So why should home or building owners work with Bone Dry?

Travis Webb: I think it is kind of a two part. I mean, but they're really the same. But I always look at when we talk about homeowners, the homeowners is a totally different situation in some ways than a building.

Megan Ellsworth: So true.

Travis Webb: Even if I looked at, "Okay, if it's building that we own and we operate out of." It's very important to me and it needs to be safe and it needs to be a good environment. It's just not as personal as your house is. So there's different things that sometimes homeowners, they count on us and they know our reputation and they've done their research and we have the professionals to put on an excellent roof system. They don't know always if they're just standing there looking at it, if it looks good, then it probably is good. But if their grounds are kept up, their families, their kids, their wife, husband, whoever may be at home is how we keep the grounds and how we communicate with them and how clean we keep it, how neat we keep it, how much we protect their stuff.

So it's their possessions, their plants, their deck, everything is, that's a big thing that we try to instill. We're going to treat every one of those jobs like it was our house. How would we want our family to perceive that project? And it's a big deal. On a building, we look at it as, "Hey, we got to keep you doing exactly." We don't mess up your workday. You got to still be able to work." We realize that noise, anything we can do to can create safe entrance and exits to the building. And just keeping in mind that they've still got to operate their business while we're doing a pretty invasive project if we're re-roofing the whole building.

So it's just being aware of all that is a successful project as they notice you as little as you can and you make the experience one where they're just like, "Wow, we would recommend you to anybody, to our friends, our family." That's the goal when we leave there is that they're like, "That was such a good experience. It's not pleasant. It's not going to be like it is if we're not onsite, but that they would recommend us when it's done." And that whole experience is not just that the roof doesn't leak, obviously, but that the whole experience was really a good one.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, I mean, and going back to it, that's superior customer service. Absolutely. Making sure that you're treating the home as if it is your home. I love that. So we only have two questions left. Crazy. One question I have for you is why are you an Art club member and what is your favorite thing about being an Art club member?

Travis Webb: I think we've talked so much. We've been involved in national within RCA and even local and served in roles. We've had a lot of us that have served in roles on state associations and both South Carolina and Georgia and the markets we're in. And through it all, and I'm getting back to Roofer's Coffee Shop, but it's one of the most valuable things. And one thing that one day when I hang up my hat long from now would be, I love the industry itself. It's a great industry. We just got back from the IRE and it's just the opportunity to interact with the people that are doing, they're out there doing the same thing we're doing, but when we have interaction like with Roofer's Coffee Shop, and you get to see how somebody does it, no matter how good you think you've tried to figure things out, you always learn something new.

And it's always great to hear somebody else's perspective and be able to cheer those victories and some of the trials of just, "How do we make ourselves better?" And even when you get on there and you use a resource like Roofer's Coffee Shop, it's, "What can I learn?" And also, "What can I leave?" I mean, I think it's only fair if you're going to try to take a good idea or take some interaction with the people in the industry that you hopefully leave something as well and that we can all learn from each other because good competition is great for all of us. And it's whereas poor as not. And I think the quality and level of people that care enough about their industry and care enough about what they're doing is what you see when you're involved in this. And kudos to y'all because you don't hear anything but positive.

Must be nice to be, you don't ever have to get anything but good feedback. But even as we talk amongst our industry, it's a great resource and it's just a good feeling to know that everybody's on the same page, that we just all want to get better and see the industry grow. And yeah, big thumbs up to that. And that's why we were honored that y'all asked us for this month because our whole team is part of this is just, I happen to be the one speaking, but as far as it's our whole group that really appreciates this. And once again, one more thing for us to cheer together.

Megan Ellsworth: Yes, absolutely. One more thing to celebrate. And I know for a fact everyone here at Roofer's Coffee Shop is so happy and honored that you are the roofer of the month for March 2024. So congratulations. It's very well deserved.

Travis Webb: Thank you. Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, so lastly, this is my favorite question. What would your walkup song be? So you're walking out onto a field, what would that song playing be?

Travis Webb: Wow, the other questions were actually fairly easy. It's what we do every day. So your favorite question may be my least, What would my walkup song be? Well, I got to give you some kind of cheesy answer. We were just talking about how this time period across the country, we were just on a national call and we were talking about how it was a very dry season. So service work had kind of dried up and now we've seen an influx of rain across the country and that helps service departments and reveals issues and stuff that we can help people with. So my cheesy answer is "Blame It on the Rain." How about that little Milli Vanilli?

Megan Ellsworth: I love that.

Travis Webb: Yeah, that's strong. I'll get a lot of great feedback for that one. But I'm a country fan. I like all sorts of classic music and I decided I'd pick Milli Vanilli. But 'Blame It on the Rain'.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. A lot of people's songs haven't been related to roofing at all, and that's great too. But I love that you chose that song. That's perfect.

Travis Webb: Feel free to edit that part of the interview out if you want to at the end.

Megan Ellsworth: No, we're keeping it. Awesome. Well, Travis, thank you so much for chatting with me.

Travis Webb: Yeah, thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: And congratulations.

Travis Webb: We appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome.

Travis Webb: Hope you have a good weekend and hope that somebody takes something away from what I said other than the final question.

Megan Ellsworth: I think absolutely someone will take some good nuggets away from this, and I hope everyone goes and listens to your walkup song.

Travis Webb: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: Thank you so much. And for everyone out there listening, you can go learn more about Bone Dry Roofing on their standard directory at rooferscoffeeshop.com. And make sure to check out The Art Club because Travis seems to be a big fan. So you should be too. Everyone out there listening, thanks and we'll see you on the next Roofer of the Month Podcast.

Travis Webb: Thank you.

Outro: That's a wrap on this month's episode of Roofer Over the Month. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'll catch you next time. For more rooftop celebrations, make sure to subscribe and follow the rooferscoffeeshop.com podcast page for more. And go to rooferscoffeeshop.com, or askaroofer.com for more information.