Building Your Business with Retrofit Snow Guard Sales - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Rocky Mountain Snow Guards President Lars Walberg and Monarch Construction & Roofing Senior Project Manager Drew Greenlaw. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast!

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Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello, and welcome to Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth, and we are here today to talk about snow retention and snow retention that saves lives. That's what it's all about. How are we handling snow? How is it really that contractors can work with homeowners to make sure they understand how important it is? We have the experts from Rocky Mountain Snow Guards, with Lars Walberg and from Monarch Construction and Roofing, with Drew Greenlaw.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Lars Walberg: Thanks, Heidi.

Drew Greenlaw: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We are so excited to have you. This is such an important ... It's a critical topic that we need to be talking about, so I appreciate you so much being here on this podcast to talk through all of this.

But let's start with some introductions. Lars, let's go ahead and start with you. If you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company?

Lars Walberg: Yes, hi. My name is Lars Walberg, and I'm the president of Rocky Mountain Snow Guards. We're based in Englewood, Colorado. Rocky Mountain Snow Guards is a 14-year-old manufacturer and distributor of snow retention products for all different types of roofs. 70% of our business comes from snow retention for existing roofs. We'll get into the reason for that. Basically, it's because people don't get it when they're getting the new roof put on.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right, exactly. So important. Drew, if you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company?

Drew Greenlaw: Sure. My name is Drew Greenlaw. I work with Monarch Construction and Roofing. We're based out of Golden, Colorado. I've been in this industry for just under a decade, seven years. I took a position with Monarch in January, as a project manager, but I oversee another Alpine division. Fortunately, my entry into this industry was working with these high end systems up in the mountains. It's been a learning curve, but I'm excited. I love what I do. I'm excited to get into it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. We are so happy to have you here today. We love to have the contractors on here and really hear what's going on. Let's dive into it. Let's talk about snow retention and the basics because we know it's a benefit on high end roofing to prevent avalanching of snowfall. We know that. Why aren't property owners automatically getting snow guards when they get a new roof? Lars, I'd love to talk to you, have you start us out on that.

Lars Walberg: Sure, Heidi. There's a number of reasons that we don't see snow retention added on new roofs. I think we would see it all the time if the homeowners were educated upfront and during the sales process. We see a lot of synthetic roofing products and metal roofing products going on. I think actually, most roofing contractors understand that snow's going to slide on metal. But often times, roofing contractors and certainly homeowners just don't understand that it's going to slide on a composite roofing product, say a DaVinci or something like that. Through experience and over the years, what we understand is that snow will slide on those products, regardless of the pitch, eventually.

The reason people don't get them though, I think is because they don't think they need them. They're going back over a roof that maybe was asphalt shingles and the snow didn't really slide on asphalt shingles. Or they had wood shakes and the snow slides kind of on wood shakes, but not a whole lot. When they switch over to a composite product, they think that, "Well, we didn't have any problems before so we're not going to have problems now," so they don't want to do it.

They may not care for the appearance of them. We run into that on occasion. The other issue, and probably a big issue is that they cost money. People are always very conscious of how much a new roof costs. Drew can talk more to that, but that I think is probably the biggest reason that they try to get by without snow retention, then we're there a year later when they find out it was a problem.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's really interesting because it just feels like we're hearing more and more contractors who are understanding this and who understand the risk involved with not having good snow retention.

Drew, why do you think homeowners are not really making this part of their new roof?

Drew Greenlaw: I think Lars did a pretty good job of laying it out. I think the two biggest things are, A, the lack of education or understanding these roofing systems. People just assume that they're either going to be the exception to the rule or they look at it, "Hey, a roof is a roof. My existing roof didn't slide. Why am I going to add on this additional accessory?" With these new synthetic roofs, they are expensive. It's a high dollar system and then to add snow retention, it ups that price.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Because it's obviously dangerous for the occupants and for the pets, but it's also a bummer when you have your landscaping, all of a sudden, snow piled up on it, too. All of that, we really want to make different.

My question to you, Drew, is when the homeowners are saying, "No, we don't need snow guards," and then winter comes with that surprise of avalanching down, especially if it's a new, like you said, DaVinci or composite roof, so what happens? What's that call like that you're getting from the homeowners and how do you respond to that?

Drew Greenlaw: Well, I can pretty much set my watch to those phone calls based on our first big snow of the season. A great example. I had a gentleman that I worked with last spring. He thought, as some do, that snow retention was necessary for his property. I think it was probably around December 1st, he's in town with his friends and family and their cars are stuck in the garage because all that snow fell in front of it. He's like, "Hey, what's it going to take for me to get you up here to get some snow retention?" We see it with garage areas, hot tubs being just covered, entryways. Then like you said, even just the landscaping, protecting the gutters, et cetera. It's a really important thing.

The great thing about Rocky Mountain Snow Guards is they do have a retrofit application. It's trickier in the winter, obviously the labor prices go up, but it's something that we can offer to our clients.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. As you're looking at that too, we talked about the cars, people, the pets and stuff. I hadn't even thought about it, I was going through it, but solar panels.

Drew Greenlaw: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And all the things that are going on with that, too. That is a huge, growing market to have solar panels. How does that work?

Drew Greenlaw: Sure. That's a little bit tricky because we do butt heads with the solar guys. Another example. I had another client that we re-roofed and the solar company talked them out of installing snow retention around their panels because they wanted the snow to slide off the panel so they could maximize it. But it turns out, it just complicated our homeowner. Again, it slid onto his porch, it covered his hot tub. It actually damaged his porch. It's a fine line, when you bring both of those components into a roofing system. Ultimately, it's like what's more important, safety in your property or maximizing your energy during [inaudible 00:09:39]?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Drew Greenlaw: They called. They also called and we retrofit snow guards for them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: When that happens, they need it right now, right?

Drew Greenlaw: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Drew Greenlaw: They need it yesterday.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I see. There's opportunity here contractors. Obviously, Drew, Monarch is there, they're already recommending it upfront, but they're also coming in and taking care of it once people decide not to do it and change their mind that first snow.

But, Lars, what are some of the things ... You work with contractors all over. What are some of the opportunities for roofing companies to really build their business with retrofit snow guard sales? But also, you have the retrofit, but you also have just doing it when you do the new roof.

Lars Walberg: One of the things that we recommend and have always recommended to contractors when they're installing a new roof that's a slippery type of product, like metal or synthetic, is that they include a waiver on their roofing contract. They can talk to the homeowner about snow retention. If they homeowner decides they don't want it for whatever reason, then they can sign this waiver that basically says, "We discussed snow retention for this roof and we declined."

In the past, we've run into a number of situations where contractors didn't do that and then they were in trouble with the homeowners because it wasn't covered or maybe they covered it but they didn't write it down. The homeowner says, "Gosh, you never told me this." If a homeowner refuses, I think that signed waiver for the contractor is just a good business move. It's huge.

Drew Greenlaw: I've learned that the hard way and I wish I had consulted Lars prior to it. I guess, it's part of the learning curve. We had a homeowner whose BMW was pretty smashed up. We did have a discussion about snow retention, he turned it down but we didn't have any legal recourse to protect us. A liability waiver was put into our contracts real quick.

Lars Walberg: Always a good idea.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Now every contract goes out, they have to say, "No, thank you."

Drew Greenlaw: Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Also, Lars, as contractors are looking at this, service maintenance, big deal. I'm hearing about this from contractors all over who are the springtime, autumn, it used to be just commercial but now it's also residential. Drew, I'm guessing up in your area, that's really, with all the homeowners, second homes and stuff, making sure everything is clean and ready to go, great time for people to really look at do you need snow retention? On your current roof. Not just a new roof, but on your current roof.

How is that working for contractors that you're talking to, Lars?

Lars Walberg: Well, contractors, we have a number of contractors that we refer. We get calls regularly from people that say, "Gosh, we have this problem. Do you know somebody that can come out and install snow retention for us?" We get those calls regularly. As we already touched on, we get them in the spring, especially here in Colorado on the Front Range, we get big spring snowstorms sometimes. Several feet, all at once. Those really are very damaging. Once there's an event like that, we get people calling us asking if we know somebody that can take care of it. Of course, we're there with a snow retention plan and a recommendation. That happens often in the spring. Sometimes we see that stuff in the fall, but on the Front Range, we're just not used to seeing those kind of events in the fall, those kind of snow events.

In the mountains, it's a whole different story, as Drew mentioned. We start hearing from people in mountain communities in the wintertime. After the first couple of snowstorms, we'll start getting some calls. It's tougher, particularly in those resort areas where they get a whole lot of snow, it could be almost impossible to get it done in the middle of winter in the heat of battle. It's a dangerous thing. But, maybe sunny days, they can get it done.

We also, the contractors that are out there doing these retrofit jobs, they've targeted areas that have new solar panels and put out flyers and things like that, to addresses that have solar panels. Especially where they can observe that the solar panels will be dropping onto a sidewalk or a driveway or something like that. They've approached that opportunity that way.

It pays well for the contractor, that's an important thing. It follows most other pricing rules when it comes to roofing contracting, in that the cost of the product is typically a third of the cost of the installed product. That can be a very profitable business for a contractor to pursue. And they can pursue it sometimes in off-seasons, when they wouldn't be putting on new roofs. It's something that can supplement their repair and maintenance work in those off-seasons.

I would encourage any contractor that's installed a composite or synthetic or metal roof to audit the roofs that they've put on and see if there's opportunity to go back and put on snow retention. Then, contact those clients. I think that works a lot. Then there are just the one-offs, where a roofer is driving down the road and he notices a hotel property or something that has a metal roof and doesn't have any snow retention. We know of one here in Denver that the roofer just knocked on the door and said, "Hey, you guys have problems with snow coming off your roof?" Sure enough, they had lots of problems with snow coming off the roof and that was a great sale for him.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Lars Walberg: He was able to come in with a great solution for that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It seems to me too, that your own past customers, but also there's going to be other contractors out there who maybe are not thinking this way or maybe they just don't think this way, who knows, so that means opportunity too, to go in and fix some mistakes.

Drew, obviously the retrofit snow guard sales is a great thing for roofing companies, whether you're fixing someone else's problem or people who just realized now they need it when they didn't. How does retrofit snow guard sales work for you at Monarch?

Drew Greenlaw: It's been a great point of contact for us to stay relevant during the off-season. It's allowed me to, as Lars mentioned, not only reach back out to previous customers, but it's a referral business. Primarily, it's helped us supplement our crews during the winter when it's a little bit slower. It keeps them fed, it keeps them happy. It keeps Monarch relevant throughout the season for potential clients, for possibly spring new re-roofs. It's tricky but it can be done. It's also led us to other business opportunities, like snow removal for example, which is a great business for our crews during these winter months. It's just been a great way to stay relevant through the winter.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that. Branding, staying in front of your customers, that is so important. And solving their problems, so that when they're ready for more, you're there.

Okay. With retrofit snow guard sales or even just going in and doing retrofit snow guards, Drew, it's probably not the easiest, like you just said. You said, "It's not the easiest." But is it worth it for companies to really look at this? How does it work for profitability?

Drew Greenlaw: It's 100% worth it to go after this. The margins, they're set. It's really hard to walk away and not make some money. It's been very profitable for Monarch, for myself, for my crews. Obviously, when we're doing the retros in the winter, the labor prices are going to be higher than they would be normally. But the costs are generally fixed. It's a real fail safe way to generate business in a territory that's closed for re-roofing production until spring. It's been awesome for us.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It makes sense. I love these add-ons and it really helps contractors. Obviously, a lot of snow in Colorado during the winter so now you have something that keeps your crew busy, keeps them year-round, so critical.

Lars, have really done things to try to make this retrofit process easier and more profitable, which we've already heard. How do you support these programs and how are you supporting the contractors to really look at retrofit sales and really taking care of their customers?

Lars Walberg: Rocky Mountain Snow Guards has a strong quote team and design team. When a contractor has an opportunity like this, they can bring us an EagleView Report or even just a drawn roof diagram. With that, we'd need to know obviously slopes and other pertinent information. We'd need addresses to make sure that we have the right snow loads that we're designing to. Then we'll provide a complete snow retention plan on a PDF, along with a quote for all the different parts and pieces that are necessary for the job. Our quote packets include installation instructions and those are very specific also to the product that's going on the roof as well as the snow guard that's being specified.

Across the country, and this is something that many of our contractors don't realize and we are alone in this, is that our pricing includes freight. The price that is quoted includes freight. There's no surprise for additional freight charges. What you pay is what you get.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well-

Lars Walberg: I said that wrong.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No, no.

Lars Walberg: What you pay is what you were quoted. That definitely sets us apart from the other snow guard companies.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love that. When you really are looking at that, the free layout, the engineering, the quotes, free freight and the installation training. But the other thing you said earlier, that I just want to add to that little list, is leads.

Lars Walberg: Oh.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You have people who are calling you all the time and you're sending those out to your top contractors.

Lars Walberg: Yes. Yes. All the time, following a snow event typically. Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Lars Walberg: Yes, we do have contractors that we refer those jobs to regularly.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Get involved, you get all the things you need.

Drew, that list we just talked about, and all the engineering, the layouts, the quotes, installation, free freight. How does that help Monarch and how has that helped your business?

Drew Greenlaw: Oh, it just simplifies the process for me. The layouts, the presentations that they provide are awesome. It really helps break it out to the homeowner, the maps that they provide. I think that just even the science behind the snow retention that Rocky Mountain Snow Guards has taken. They look at snow loads, the average snowfalls, pounds per square inch, so it's a really engineered, scientific system that we're installing to these people. They do a great job of providing me with the tools to create that value, which really helps sell it overall. The whole crew in there is great, they turn those around. The whole staff is awesome. If I have a question, it's answered within minutes often times. It's that's extra customer service that makes my life easier because I'm confident in them knowing that they're going to provide the entire package for my clients. It's an easy turnover, it's an easy partnership for me.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That was great. Wow. Yeah! Thumbs up. I really love that. Drew, we're in May right now so for people who are listening to this, we're in May. You're going into the season so I am sure there's going to be a lot of snow guard talk coming up.

Drew Greenlaw: Yeah. These are conversations I hope to have daily from now until Halloween, and then December 1st for the people that don't listen to me.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, there you go. I really hope they listen to you because it is, it's a safety issue. Thank you for all your tips. Making sure it's in the contracts, making sure you're having the good communications, really using the support of such a great company as Rocky Mountain. Both of you, thank you so much. What a great podcast, I've learned a lot.
Drew Greenlaw: Thank you.

Lars Walberg: Thanks, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you so much. Thank you all for listening. This is the kind of information that can really make a difference in your business. Wherever you're at, make sure you're checking out what's going on with snow retention, how's it working with your high end roofing. I can tell you, here in Central Oregon, on May 2nd it snowed. Snow is everywhere and this could be a great opportunity for you as you move into the roofing season.

Thank you again, gentlemen, and thank you, everyone, for listening. Please check out all of our podcasts under the RLW, Read Listen Watch initiative under Roofing Road Trips or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

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