Customer Data Evolution - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Kyle Branch of SRS Distribution, Laura Cunningham from Southern Roofing and Renovations and Moises Morales from Select Adjusters. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast here or watch the full webinar.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We are. Hello everybody, this is Heidi Ellsworth. I am with Roofers Coffee Shop and this is Coffee Conversations. Today is really cutting-edge information. We are going to have a great conversation, very excited for our guests who are here today to talk about customer data evolution.

We've all seen it coming. Every single day, we know that we're seeing ads on our internet, on our phone. We're like, "How did they know I was interested in those boots?" But today, we're going to talk about how that technology, that information is being used in a win-win scenario in the roofing industry.

First of all, let's get to a little bit of housekeeping. This is being recorded and it will be available within 24 hours. In that time, you should share it, get it out to your friends, get it out to everyone so that they can see this information, because this is the stuff that really helps to build your business and that we are so proud to bring to you.

We are very proud to have SRS as our sponsor for today's data information. A great company, totally on the cutting-edge, providing the tools and information that roofing contractors need to build their business and really bringing the experts to the forefront to be able to make that happen.

Today's conversation, customer data, let's go. First, I would like to welcome to our show Kyle. Kyle, welcome. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Kyle Branch: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to a good conversation with everyone.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I am really, really looking forward to this. Kyle, if you could start, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your company and what you do with it.

Kyle Branch: Yeah. My name's Kyle Branch. I work for ProFund. I'm the national accounts director. I've been with the company three years, basically, since its inception. It's been awesome just watching it grow into what it's become now. Excited to see where it's going to continue from here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. It is. I'm really excited about this conversation today, Kyle. Thank you for bringing all of your wisdom and information. This is going to be great. Then of course we always want to have the perspective of the roofing contractors, because this is what everyone really is looking for. I am so excited to have met and introduced Laura Cunningham to the show. Laura, please introduce yourself. Tell everybody about yourself and your business.

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. Thanks, Heidi. I am the general manager for Southern Roofing and Renovations here in North Florida. My family started the company eight years ago and we are just booming exponentially. We span over 22 locations now and growing with the help of ProFund and Kyle. Glad to be here guys.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Laura, I'm so excited. Actually, I have to say, I'm in North Florida right now, too, in the Tampa area. Today is one of those troubled days.

Laura Cunningham: We're just ...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. It's great. Very good. Well, thank you so much for being here and we're really excited to hear how you've been using this and how it's working for you. Then finally, Moises, thank you so much for joining us today. Hello, can you please introduce yourself and tell us about your company?

Moises Morales: Yeah. Of course. My name is Moises. I'm from Mexico originally. Right now, I currently live in Las Vegas. We started Select Adjusters and Advocacy Construction about eight years ago as well. Yes, Laura, we made it past that fifth year, right?

Laura Cunningham: Right.

Moises Morales: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Always exciting. Yeah. What we do is public adjusting as well as roofing contractor side of things. We are extremely excited to have this conversation just because it involves a lot of technology, which is what has helped us grow. Getting away from what it was to what it is now. Like Kyle say, it's extremely excited to know what it's going to be. That's where I'm so excited about this conversation.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. No. I know. I love these things. Cutting-edge, really bringing new things into the industry that maybe we just haven't thought about before. Let's start there. Kyle, if you could start us out with ... Oh. Sorry. You know what? Before we start there, I do want to remind everybody the chat is open. Please, comments, questions, thoughts, we want to hear it all. This is a conversation with all of us. Please share your thoughts and also let us know who you are and where you're from, what kind of business you have. It always makes it fun.

Kyle, let's start with customer data. We know about it in the real world, as I call it. Then when we come into our work world, it's a little bit different. Talk to us about how it's being used in roofing and really how ProFund, what you are providing for contractors to really use customer data in a great way.

Kyle Branch: Yeah. Customer data and just the definition of it because that's really what we do. It's the behavioral demographic and personal information about customers and that's what we collect that helps contractors better engage with their homeowners overall.

The data we collect is from a variety of different data points and platforms and everything. Some is public, some is private, some's proprietary to us. But we take all of these different data points and the information and we really just package it up and present it to a contractor or a salesperson or whoever it is within the company that's just going to allow them to better engage with their homeowners and just build that rapport with them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Talk about that report that you provide pulling this different data from all these sources. What's it look like and really what does it provide to the contractor and this contractor salesperson to be able to really create that great customer experience?

Kyle Branch: Yeah. The property report is specific to each individual profile that's running. A profile is just based off an address. It will give a breakdown of the ownership information of the home, just some property detail information, hail and wind information, storm history, all of that that just going to allow a contractor, "Here's why I'm recommending these products. Here's where I invested time and money in you and in this appointment. I want to work with you. Why wouldn't you want to work with me?" It allows a contractor just to be completely different than everyone else out there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We had a great question. It just came in. Is this available both commercial and residential?

Kyle Branch: Yes. The information on the property report, it is available for both. The only thing that may just look a little different is when it's ... depending on the size of the commercial building, it may not be able to grab all of it in the photo to do the aerial views and the numbers on it for the base square footage and all of that.\

But the information as far as the hail and wind and all of that, the property ownership information, if it's under an LLC or a corporation, all of that can be used as well for commercial.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's excellent. Kyle, having been part of EagleView with the startup and all of that, I saw a lot of reports and I realized there are huge companies out there who do this data collection on history of the home, all of that. To me, that always did seem like a really important part of being able to go into the home or into the business, the commercial business and be able to have really strong data on the last time it was reroofed, if you can pull that from building permits, all of this different kind of information.

I know it's hail and wind, but just go down a little bit that information and why that's important to the contractors.

Kyle Branch: Yes. From the contractor's standpoint, it really gives the science backing up why you're recommending those products to the homeowner. Because most homeowners, their biggest investment is their home. They need to protect it, they want to protect it, they want to protect their family, everything like that.

When you're able to sit down and have this property report to give to a homeowner, again, it's meant to be a leave behind. It just shows them that, "Hey, when we were talking about this, yes, I just had these hail events, these wind events, we have climate factors that are pulled." In the industry everyone knows that the climate plays a huge factor in longevity of the roof and all of that.

It just allows them to present it in a professional way. But then also, like I said, have the science backing up, "Here's why we're recommending it." It's not just, "Hey, I want to recommend it to do it."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. Laura, can you give us a little bit of a history how you started getting involved using the ProFund data and really what that's done for your business?

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. It's really helped us with our conversion ratios from how many door knocks our guys are doing that we're having to do too inspections and sets. Instead of them working so hard to get that one inspection, having this data really helps them, again, with those conversion ratios.

Another thing that we're using it for prior to all of us going out in the field in the afternoon, we do what's called pre-work. We're going to be strategic. The days of transactional selling are done, guys. Especially in North Florida, it's an oversaturated market. We all know your brother's a roofer, this person's a roofer, everybody's a roofer.

Really having customer data, knowing who you're talking to, it's called situational fluency in sales. Who am I talking to? What are their pain points? What is important to them? Not what's important to us as we think as contractors, but to each individual buyer. You have that more of a better customer experience than just coming in trying to sell a ruse. "Hey Mr. Homeowner, we see this is important to you and this is why you should choose us."

It really gathers us and arms us with a lot of information to help with a better customer experience and higher closing ratio is what we're seeing from it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. How long have you been using it? How long ...

Laura Cunningham: About two years here in Florida. Now Kyle, I know you work with other branches. But we've been using it for two years here. Again, it's part of my training. When I onboard someone, we walk through profile. This is how you're going to use it. Not only for financing, but instead of having to go to five other different apps, HailTrace for the climate risk scores or the weather events, it's all in one place. That really helps you with your time. Time is money. We want to be more efficient. We really utilize it for that as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. Moises, tell us your history with ProFund. How long you've been using it and how you've incorporated it into your business?

Moises Morales: Yeah. Kind of like Laura. The way we started at first is after COVID, a lot of people were like, "I don't have the money," or "Because I'm out of work," or whatever the case was. We were trying to find a financing tool to be able to say, "Okay. Cool. If people don't have the money to do a roof, how can we help them?" That was always the focus is how can we help? How can we help?

Then ProFund fell into our lap and we were just like, "All right. Well, can we do financing with you guys?" They're like, "Yeah. Sure. On top of that, you're going to be able to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this." It was like, "Hold on. Hold on. You tell me that by the time I show up to the client, not only can I offer the financing side of things, but I can also know a little bit more about the client's behavior when they shop so I know exactly how to approach the client?" That's what sold us on it.

Where now, I have the capability to focus on what's important, which is the client. The client and their needs. Most of ourselves here are door-to-door. We do a lot of door knocking. You have to get through so much to be able to get to the pain points. The, "Hey, this customer, this is their necessities." Now with this tool, we don't have to do that. I mean obviously we still have to get to know the customer and build that relationship with them.

But at least now we show up and we know, "Okay. This person's main focus is going to be what's the best brand?" Something like that allows us to be able to focus on, again, building that relationship because people like to buy from people they like. If I get to build that relationship, they're going to like me right away. On top of that, if I show up with different financing options or if I already know how they're ... what their behavior is with shopping, it's just a tool that allows us to be able to say, "Great. This is how I'm going to the client and this is the benefits that I'm getting from it." That's [inaudible 00:14:31] ... with ProFund. Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That makes so much sense to me. I think one of the things I love what you're saying is really understanding the customer. Because I have to ... when I take myself out of working in the roofing industry and I take myself as a homeowner. The last thing I want to do is to have to spend a lot of time explaining things to my home improvement people or whoever might come.

In fact, I am to the point now just give me a Zoom. I think as a society and culture, we changed. We're a little bit more used to people having information and being able to really help us and not waste a lot of time. I mean, Laura, you said that, that whole wasting time that really doesn't need to happen.

Moises, as you're talking to some of the customers out there, what is the response? What have you seen since you've started using this customer data?

Moises Morales: Great question. It's one of two responses usually. Okay. Thanks for noting that. Or how'd you get that information? That's usually what we get. The cool thing, I know Kyle explained a little bit earlier, but also one of the things that I remember that I'm not sure if you touched on Kyle was we use our credit cards all the time. Obviously, that's how they're able to get our buying points or what are they called?

Kyle Branch: It's called a buyer trend.

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. Buying trends. Yeah.

Moises Morales: Right. Buying trend. Because we use our credit cards all the time. Unless of course you want to buy cash and there's no way we know anything about you. But that's not the cases anymore. Now we even have the little tablets. It's cool to show up to clients' homes and if they ask that question is "Mr. Homeowner, you make purchases with your credit card, right?" "Yes."

"That's exactly how we are able to find out exactly what you like, what you don't like. At the end of the day, we are making sure that what we're doing goes alongside with your patterns. Because if you're not about buying the best of the best and the most expensive, why would I offer you the best of the best and the most expensive?"

Then that's when they start appreciating it. Because I know a little bit more about the client. I'm offering what's fair for them. It's not like if there's a client that it's all about value, I'm not going to try and upsell them the whole world. Now, I don't know if you did this, Laura. I know I did Kyle that as soon as I got it, I was like, "Let me see if it's true. Let me see if this" ...

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. I did it. Yeah. I did it.

Moises Morales: My score is a five. I'm like, "Ah. My goodness.

Laura Cunningham: Me too. It's okay.

Moises Morales: You offer me a better deal that it's going to a little bit more money, so I'm going to buy it. That's my upsell score. It's funny because it's true the way ... Actually, I pulled up my own personal report. I was just like, "It's all about quality." It says very probable." Yes. Conventional shopper, very probable. Yes. It's fun to see exactly how this actually portray ... When you run the reports on yourself, too, because you're going to do it no matter what.

You see exactly like, "Oh, wow. This is actually very, very close." It's fun to be able to show up with the client and already have that in our tool.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Laura, keep going on that thing because I think this is important. I think there's cynicism out there about customer data and privacy and how that works. Being able to get, like Moises is getting pat ... It sounds like with full transparency like, "Hey, this is what's happening. Now all of a sudden, I can make your life easier. I can make the journey in the sales call faster because of this information." What have you been finding that way, Laura?

Laura Cunningham: It's the same thing. It's a lot of averages. You're going to have buyers that appreciate that you come prepared, professional, know about them and are ready to provide that experience. Then you have the people that are like, "How did you get my information? It's my data." They slam the door in your face. I mean, we get that anyway.

But really how we're using it as part of territory management. When you look at your successful project managers, one thing you'll find with all of them is they work a territory properly. Now with the ProFund, this is incorporated into proper territory management where we say, "Okay. I have 12 viable buyers in my territory, I'm going to print out. They print out, like I said, and some use iPads, what kind of buyer is this person at this home?

They really learn and they're strategic when they go out versus just going to door knock wherever they go. Again, this is taking the transactional and making it more of a consultant approach in the industry, which I love. You make more money doing. If you can come in and provide a better experience, better value, people are going to pay for that. I know I do. It really has helped us a lot.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I have to tell you. I feel my time is valuable and I don't want to waste my time. If you feel like you're wasting your time during a sales call, you're going to be shooing them out the door. I don't want to do this. Whereas if someone gets it understands where I'm at, I'm much more engaged. You're right. Usually, you do it on you upsell. It makes sense because you want to value ...

Laura Cunningham: Then another ...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... that's going to last.

Laura Cunningham: Another thing we're using it for that's really good is, again, when we're out in the field, instead of having to toggle in between apps, "Okay. What's my storm date?" How many times have we been on a phone with a project manager when they're closing a deal? "What's your storm date?" "Oh, I don't know." I'm like, "Well, you might want to have that. It is important." With ProFund, you're able to get all that data in one spot prior to, again, being prepared for that sales interaction.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Awesome. Kyle, what are you seeing across the country with the use of customer data and really being able to ... I'm interested if you're seeing contractors using it in their marketing, how are they incorporating it into their culture, into their business?

Kyle Branch: It's a little different across the country because some areas there's stormers, some areas there's ... it's just specifically reroof and residential and that sort of thing. The beauty of our platform is it's really meant to be used however each contractor sees in their day-to-day business. There's different points that can be hit on for different aspects of each business.

Door knocking, it can be used one way to validate the lead and make sure I'm talking to the right person and qualify that lead before I send someone out there, help prioritize the leads of who we need to see today versus tomorrow. It just allows each individual contractor to really use it however they see fit. That really is the beauty of the platform.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Laura, Moises, Laura, start with you. How are you using this in your marketing?

Laura Cunningham: Really our marketing is door-to-door. That's what our business comprises up here in North Florida. If you mean as far as our go-to market, as far as mailers and stuff like that, I don't really use it for that part. I'm using ProFund for the financing and the data collection prior to going out in the field.

Again, I want to bring this up to you guys. The average project manager is going out, "Hey, let me open up a claim with your insurance company." I don't know about you guys, but there's a stink around roofers in Florida and insurance companies. People are very sensitive as they should be. There's been some unethical roofers.

Being able to go in, go to market saying, "Hey, you and I both know you need a new roof." That is the first line of defense on your biggest asset. With that being said, we're going to go ahead and finance it for 2.99 a month, zero down, no out of pocket to you. People aren't going to ask for financing guys, at least the ones that can finance.
It's our jobs as consultants to come in and start off with financing. Then maybe if they don't want to finance, then you go to insurance. But you're not pushing that same rhetoric of let me open a claim. Let's go through your insurance. It really separates you from everyone else, utilizing the funding tool of ProFund.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, Laura, I just want to follow up on that because we know there's a lot going on in Florida, let's just put it that way. We know there's a lot of changes with insurance companies that are coming up. How do you see ... I know a little sidebar here, but I think this is important because what you just said really hits on it that you are looking at doing things different because the market is changing and regulations.

Laura Cunningham: The market has changed. We're here guys. You're here. Either we're going to get on board with these type of solutions or an approach or you're not going to make it. It's just the way of the world, the industry in itself and this is a great tool, again, to really separate yourself, to be professional and to provide a great experience and less frustration for your project managers who are outdoor knocking and don't even know who they're going to talk to. I really implore everyone on this to really look into ProFund using it as a prospecting tool as well as financing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's a thing. Moises, how are you using this in your business? Give us a view day-to-day how you're using it.

Moises Morales: I want to point out, I love how Kyle talked about how each contractor uses it completely different. We have Laura, who's in Florida, I'm here in Vegas. Yeah. It's a little bit different. For marketing, that's how we offer our financing. But we use it a lot for more inside work. What does that mean is we use ProFund to train our guys. Where, "Hey, guys. This is the type of people you're going to run into."

When you hear these specific things from the client, that means they're a value shopper. They're a comparison shopper. What's the other ones? All about quality. When you hear specific things, make sure that you're paying attention to those. Then we use ProFund. The cool thing about it is that it gives you, "Hey, this is how you should interact with this one specific client." You offer good, better, best options.

We use it a lot for training because it allows us to be able to, "Hey, this is actually" ... They've already utilized all that information to compile into behaviors of the client. In reality, and I know you've probably seen this, Laura, how many doors have you knocked over the course of a year?

Laura Cunningham: My heels go flat. I literally have walked the heel, stub off my heels. Yeah.

Moises Morales: I've had to buy shoes because of the bottom of the shoes that ...

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah.

Moises Morales: I guess I need walking shoes. What does that mean? But if you notice, a lot of the people don't really change. When you're knocking on those doors, you're going to get ... At this point, I've knocked doors for over 12 years and there isn't a surprise anymore. Which means people's behavior are the exact same.

The fact that ProFund took their time to say, "Hey, these are the specific behaviors that you're going to encounter in the field," it gives you the opportunity to know, "Okay. These are the behaviors that I'm going to encounter. How can I make it so that I know the most of those behaviors?" I look for the specific little things that they say.

Because Mary right down the street might say something. For her, she's the only one that's ever said that. But then you go to John five doors down the same street and he says the exact same thing. It's kind of like, "Well, all right. Well, nothing really changed." The way we use it is we use it a lot for those training opportunities where we see, "Okay. Cool." On top of being like a canvas in an app where I already know who I'm talking with.

We've been in Vegas for eight years now. We've knocked all of Vegas already. If I show up to the homeowners and I'm like, "Oh, hey. How's it going Mr. Kyle?" "How do you know my name?" "Well, knock on the door many, many times and your roof's still messed up. Hence, I'm here." That's what we do specifically.

Then obviously on top of that, it allows us to be able to have those profiles on the home, understand a little bit more about the housing, come a lot more prepared than people that aren't using this kind of tools. Because at this point, it's like, "Yeah. No. Seems your house was built in '88."

The one thing that I don't think we've touched on is it already comes with measurements. I could quote like that. If you already have your preset charge per square, "Oh, okay. Well, let me see, this much as square times 23 squares. Perfect. That's what your report would be miss. We can run a quick credit to see exactly what you would qualify for."

Laura Cunningham: I'm going to hire you, Moises.

Moises Morales: That's why it is beneficial to separate yourself like Laura was saying earlier. How are you separating yourself, especially in a market like Florida, dude.

Laura Cunningham: It's hard. [inaudible 00:29:27].

Moises Morales: I understand that the weather is a little bit better over there than it is up here.

Laura Cunningham: It is. It is. We're a little spoiled with the weather.

Moises Morales: Hey. We're about to hit the hundreds already.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Moises Morales: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Moises Morales: That's why I'm a little tan already.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay. I have a question that I'm guessing some people have this. Please, the chat is open. If you have questions about how this is working and how it can work. I also want to get back a little bit into on talking, Kyle, a little bit about commercial. But before we do that. Moises, I have a question.

You don't think of Las Vegas as really having a lot of weather besides 120-degree days. We know that roofs aren't going to last as long either because of the heat. Your model of really going door-to-door to talk to homeowners, you aren't dependent on a storm date, you're not dependent too much on that, right?

Moises Morales: Well, obviously, we're not going to have hailstorms. The last time it hailed here in Vegas was probably a decade ago. We do have wind. Wind does help us and obviously it's a lot different than a hailstorm where the hail you can ... gutters and windows, inside and the mailbox and the dog's doggy house. We don't have that.

But that's where ProFund comes in place. Because for instance, let's say the insurance company is only going to pay for half the roof. Mr. Homeowner, Kyle, we did it. We negotiate as much as we possibly could. The insurance company, it's not going to pay for that half of the roof because X, Y or Z.

But the cool thing is we got the one half of the roof done, we can go ahead and finance the second half of the roof. Instead of you having to pay $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 for that roof, you only have to finance $5,000. We have these different financing options, what works best for you, A or B?

That's why something like ProFund helped us get to that next level. Raise the bar and separate ourselves from a lot of other people where, again, the focus after COVID was how can we help people not have to spend so much money out of their pocket? Especially right now, I feel like right now we're on it again where people are like, "Well, everything's so much more expensive. Grocery is expensive. Gas is expensive. This is expensive. That is expensive."

A roof is a necessity, something that somebody needs. It's a need not a want. In the Vegas market, not a lot of people are going to have that. Here's 10 grand for a roof. That's why to be able to have these kinds of tools have helped us to get to the next level.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. Okay. Kyle, let's go back to, because I want to make sure we are talking a lot about residential and door-to-door. But this customer data can help contractors no matter what their model, if they are more of a traditional roofing company where they are advertising and maybe on referrals or maybe negotiated work.

Talk a little bit about how the contractors you have around the country who are really using this in more traditional ... I don't even want to say traditional ... but in different ways, different marketing business ways around commercial, around maybe custom homes, high-end, all of those things.

Kyle Branch: The commercial piece is ... I mean for someone who does majority commercial, there's only really a certain amount of information that is useful for them. It's mainly meant for more of the residential reroof insurance, door knocking, all of that. One thing that they both have mentioned with the door knocking, people who do that with how we have the buyer personas, what most people do is when you walk up what cars in the driveway, is the lawn manicured, look at their shoes, their earrings, their belt, whatever the case is, that's what our personas do, just way more in depth.

Then Moises was mentioning, "Oh, well, Mary says one thing and Joe says the same thing." It's like, "Well, where's the difference?" But that's where we tell you what the difference is. For people that go off of referrals and word of mouth and that sort of business, what we've seen from that is the ability for them to really prioritize their leads.

If they have 10 people they're going to see, well, we're going to focus on these six because it's a better opportunity overall for us. We give an opportunity value for each lead that's put in and then we'll just bump these back to tomorrow or later in the day. But we want to prioritize the ones that are going to bring us more revenue.

Then the other aspect of word of mouth or anything like that is a lot of people we heard would round robin leads. I have five salespeople. Well, we got 10 leads. Everyone gets two. It's not always the best way. What we started to hear from that is they would use different features of the report and of the personas and everything like that.

Hey, well I'm going to specifically assign these to you, or here's a 7,000 square foot roof. Do I want to give it to the person I hired a week ago? Because they're not going out to those leads beforehand. They don't know any of that information. All you do is put in an address and that's where we give you that. That's where it's helped from that side of things. Then from the door knocking and the other piece, hopefully that explained it a little bit better for the different avenues.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because Tom just said ... Thank you, Tom, so much. It says, seems like it would be easier to pre-qualify a business for a loan than an individual. The idea of bringing financing to our client is very attractive. I'm thinking in every town we tend to get caught up in the big national companies or the chains and all of that. But every town has these small bowling alleys or pizza, private building owners who to Tom's point probably need help with financing and qualifying.

Kyle Branch: If we're talking about the financing aspect, the financing is more of a fit for residential. The commercial financing is a fine line to walk before it turns into more of a traditional loan or something like that. We have had certain things get ... We've had a church get done. But the only reason that one got done is because the owner of the church actually did everything under their own personal residential information.

Then there's a section in the loan application where you can put where is the work being done at? That's how they were able to get approved. But commercial loans we're not really in that field. Right now, I don't know what the future holds for it. But I know it is a fine line to walk where how many people are going to give out $3, $4 million to repair my facility just for the roof? I don't know. I'm not a finance expert. But again, it's a very different type of lending that we're just not involved in right now.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, Tom, I think that's a great ... I mean, this is what this is all about. Taking this information and saying, "Wait a minute. This should be able to be used over here for other things." This may be one of those things that we want to be looking at the Coffee Shop and researching and bringing some of that information back. I think that's a great point.

Yeah. Lots to consider. When I really look at contractors who are doing both residential and light commercial, which are in every town across the country, one of the things and I think this is really something that people might want to consider, is there are a number of contractors out there who are doing only metal roofing. Maybe metal roofing is their ... That's their thing.

It seems to me, and Laura, you're kind of shaking your head, that these reports would help you then qualify the types of customers. Like you said earlier, Kyle, you have these reports and you're able to now qualify them as they come in and say, "These guys would be perfect for metal. These guys would be perfect for composite." Laura, what's your thoughts on that?

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. I love that. That's again, coming to the table with options, A, B and C. Option A, we can finance stone-coated steel or tile or you can do shingles or metal. You know that that buyer likes to have options. Coming to the table, "Hey, Mr. Homeowner, I know you're looking to get a reroof. Not only do we offer shingles, but we can offer metal and different options as well."

Knowing that's going to be a conversation, having that ready for that appointment would be beneficial, is beneficial.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Put them out there.

Kyle Branch: One of the things that's actually on the property report as we talked about it earlier, there's one of the pages or pieces of the report is a property overview. We'll have an overview picture of the roof and it'll actually tell you what's already on there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay.

Kyle Branch: If you see metal, you can walk up and you know exactly what to do there or do you want to keep something similar? Do you want something different? Then you can adjust your pitch from there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Exactly. We do have a question, Kyle, and I think this is more towards you. Thank you, Scott, so much for putting this in. Said, regardless of commercial jobs, is SRS utilizing this product to finance direct-to-consumer projects or contractors that bring them projects to supply or both?

Kyle Branch: I can't speak on behalf of SRS. SRS is our largest partner. The financing piece of it is because we're not even the lender, we have nothing to do with that. We are the pro-side, the sales and closing tool, the information, all of that. The fund side is just the partner lenders that we have and they use our platform in order to connect with homeowners. Then everything's between the homeowner and the lender.

We have nothing to do with the applications or whether or not someone gets approved or denied or whatever the case is for that. From SRS's side of it, I guess just with the partnership, it's able to be directly from the lender using our platform to the homeowner. I hope that answers your question, Scott.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, Kyle, part of that I see is you're the technology that links it all together. Getting the customer data into the contractor's hands so they can make a good customer experience. Correct me if I'm wrong. Then from there, connecting the consumer with the financing options.

Kyle Branch: Yeah. [inaudible 00:41:33] All they do is click a button and then it's between the homeowner and the lender and they do all of that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. It makes it easy. There're all in one technology.

Kyle Branch: Yes. It's probably a one-minute application. It's a soft pool to their credit. Then the homeowner gets an instant decision.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Moises, technology, let's talk ... You and Laura both brought this up earlier. But it used to be you would have several different apps that you needed to look at. This solution for you and for your company seems to have brought that into a simpler one-stop kind of shop. How has that been working for you?

Moises Morales: Oh, my goodness. Well, before I move on to that question, which great question by the way. I want to point back something that Kyle mentioned earlier. I don't know if people get the importance of this. When it comes to the leads that you get, we do utilize other tools to get leads. People that call in not just the door-to-door.

Those leads are a little bit more interested already because they're the ones calling you. When we do the reports on those and we see the upsell score where it's like, "Ooh, this person is a five." Kyle mentioned it, "Should I give it to the guy that just started two weeks ago, or should I give it to my most experienced sales rep?"

The reason why I'm bringing that up again is because that's so important in the training. The cool thing, too, is the higher somebody gets within my company, "Hey, you're going to start getting more leads that come in instead of you having to go knock looking for those leads, you're going to start getting those leads.

But obviously the better you get, the more of those leads you get. That's super, super, super, super important because it allows you to categorize. In someone's like myself where my up-score sale is a five and you're telling me that, "Hey, on top of the roof you can get the fascia, you can get the gutters, you can get this, this and that." You might want to give that to a sales rep that has that experience. Not somebody that's just, [inaudible 00:43:52]. I think you can change the entire roof.

But to go back to your technology question, if people ... Back in the day when I started knocking doors, I remember I used to have a tracking sheet where it was just a paper.

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. The printed paper that you ...

Moises Morales: Yeah.

Laura Cunningham: Hell, yeah. You had to turn it in every day.

Moises Morales: Yeah. Yes. Laura, did you work for a company that did door-to-door and then all these things and the fours, fives and eight on?

Laura Cunningham: Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Moises Morales: Did you really?

Laura Cunningham: That copier sales. Yeah.

Moises Morales: Okay. Yeah. Before this I was in an opponent TV. Yes. Exactly that. But it was like a tracking sheet of, "Okay. I talked to this many people. I did this many routes. I did this many loops. I've talked to this many decisionmakers." Even your presentations, right? Like, "All right. Mrs. Homeowner this is what you currently got right now. This is exactly how we're going to do it for you moving forward."

Now with this technology is all that is in my fingerprints. I can utilize this little thing and just, "Okay. Cool. Who am I talking to today? Perfect. I'm talking to Kyle Branch." Yeah. What do I know about Kyle? It's all right here. Unfortunately, a lot, and I throw myself in there too, is we use this for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, things and entertainment. But a lot of times we forget that this is actually a tool to grow if you are using it correctly.

Think about it. On top of getting the property details, I use other different apps that allow us to be able to just even create reports like this. Where let's say one of the big ones on top of ProFund that I use is CompanyCam. I take a screenshot of the property details and then add it into the CompanyCam like a little report and then send that to a homeowner.

That takes me literally a minute, maybe two. It takes me longer to go up there and take the pictures than it is to create that actual report. Something that back in the day, it was like, "Oh, my goodness. Here it goes. Let me type it up and let me grab that one picture and then put it into the other picture."

As we talked about earlier, and if you guys notice this is a little topic, it's constant in the conversation today is time, importance of time and how are we spending that time? With this, again, it gets me the opportunity to spend the correct time with what matters the most. That is with the customer.

Laura Cunningham: Yeah, the customer.

Moises Morales: I get the opportunity to spend the time with the customer, getting to know them, getting to know their needs, getting to know ... building that relationship. That's what matters the most. Because at the end of the day, as I mentioned earlier, people are going to buy from people they like. How do I get somebody to like me? Just build a relationship with them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Laura, how have you brought all these technologies? This is a huge challenge for contractors and for every company, I don't care who you are, to really incorporate the right technologies, the ones that are going to save time, that are going to make things happen. Talk to a little bit how you're doing that with your business.

Laura Cunningham: Again, really when everybody on boards and as they go on, instead of having 15 different apps for tracking weather or going to the county appraiser to see when the last reroof was. People are really still doing it the old way. To your point, Moises, maybe they don't have the call log sheets. I've seen a project manager do that, which was amazing. But people are still doing it the old-fashioned way and we have to break habits.

A lot of people coming in that you'll hire that I've hired, they don't want to do it. For some reason, getting them to pull up ProFund ... It's a struggle. But once you get them there, I had one guy look at me and said, "This has saved me so much time in my closing ratio." I was able to help him to be better, to get more deals. Again, we want to be intentful. Right, guys. Our time is money.

When you go out in the field, the hardest part is opening the door. Let's plan, let's be ready, utilize what we have, make it work smarter, not harder. The old saying goes. It's still true today. That's really what this tool has done for us here in North Florida.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think, I love your point about culture because I think it is a changing culture. When I flip to the others, I think it's having technology adoption in the older generations is tougher. But not having technology is almost death for a company with young generations, you have to be using technology. Go ahead, Moises.

Moises Morales: I'll give you a quick one. It is something that still baffles me. I've had people that decide to go with me just because of the fact that I use a drone. There's times that I don't even have to get up on a roof. The fact that we using for us ... His name is Droney. But the fact that we are using a drone to be able to take those awesome aerial pictures and the pictures all around the roof, and I get the drone as close as here and take the picture there.

But again, that's part of technology. Then you create a report in CompanyCam, and then on top of that you create a property report for the homeowner and all this within minutes. This is not something that back in the day used to take forever. Where it's like, "Oh, yeah, I'll get to your estimate, Mr. Homeowner, in about two or three days." I can get an estimate done. Again, it's going to take me a lot longer to just take the pictures than it is to create the entire report and estimate for the roof. But yeah, what was that question?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No. It's good. We do have a question here. It says, "I like what Moises was saying about the reports after you get off the roof, we use an application called ..." Okay. Then James, you said it two different ways. It's either Riet or Tiet.

Laura Cunningham: It's Riet. Yeah. It's Riet.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's Riet. Okay. It actually won innovation of the year last year with Owens Corning. It creates a report and give the roof a score, which helps then when using it hand in hand with ProFund for financing. Have you both used Riet?

Laura Cunningham: Yes. Riet was actually is ... Talking about technology. Riet is an application that our founder and president JT created. What it is, it's an inspection. Yeah. Moises has heard of it. He created Riet. We use Riet in conjunction with ProFund. Again, we're taking all of those other apps and we've put them together with ProFund Riet and it's really streamlined everything we're doing. That's what James is referring to, I think.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Very cool, Laura. That's it.

Laura Cunningham: Good stuff.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: There we go. I also love the fact that as we talk about this all the time, but that incorporation of technology is really what is defining the next generation of roofing companies.

Moises Morales: You know what's crazy, I want to jump in on this one real quick. I read a report recently that for every 10 contractors that are retiring, they're only getting replaced by three.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Moises Morales: Three come in. What does that mean? Is if we are going to have to find a way to be better, be quicker, faster.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Do more.

Moises Morales: Correct. Do more. Be smarter. Hopefully out of those 10 that are leaving, those three that are coming in, have the tools and understand that they are tools now that what used to be back in the day, it's not anymore. I think that's why a lot of companies do separate themselves because the fact that they're utilizing those type of tools.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Kyle Branch: I think technology's just become the way of the world. Just about everything is digital now. If you're not being able to keep up with the times, then I mean you'll fall behind others.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. It is so true. Okay. Kyle, how do contractors get involved? How do they start using this customer data? We've already talked about how to use it once they get it. But how do they get it?

Kyle Branch: I go to profund.net. Our website is profund.net. Everyone starts with a free 14-day trial. The one thing with SRS being our largest partner is that if you have an account with them, you get a discount on the monthly subscription per month. But yep, there it is on the screen. It's very quick and easy to start. It takes about a minute to sign up and start your free trial.

Then once you start the free trial, someone from our team will actually reach out one of our regional managers and help set up a demo, a training, make sure everyone understands the platform and then off and running from there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. I think that's really ... To the comments we had earlier, this is about the research and really talking to other contractors to see how it's worked for them. I started this whole conversation even before we went and started streaming. I was like, "Okay. People are scared of their customer data, their privacy and everything.

But Laura and Moises, you have really ... I love the transparency. I love the transparency of, "Hey, this makes the customer experience better in the long run and we're able to do more. I mean, so many different things have come in just being able to get more done and take care of the customer, especially after a hurricane or a wind event or those different types of things.

Laura, last thoughts on why contractors should look at changing how they're looking at things.

Laura Cunningham: Again guys, it's no longer the days of transactional selling. You really are going to have to separate yourself from your competition. Part of that is preparing your team and your reps. Again, the success of our project managers is on us at the end of the day. That's another element. It's our job to bring this technology to our people to better them in the field.

It really has done that for us. I highly recommend it for you guys to at least try and utilize it for prospecting. I love what Moises said, training, training your guys to know about situational fluency, what kind of buyer they're dealing with, use it in your training. But this has really helped us. I'm glad to be a part of this conversation. It's done ...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. I love it. I love it. Moises, last thoughts.

Moises Morales: Oh, goodness. I mean, the conversation itself has gone so well because of the fact that what we're trying to do here, it's educate all the other contractors. Where, "Hey, we understand that there were ways of doing things, but there are better ways now." Now is it the best way? I'm not going to say that. Not one way is the best way. But someone like Laura, someone like myself, it's a way that has helped us grow.

It's a way that has helped us develop our team to be better, develop ourselves to be better. It's a way that has allowed us to be able to, as we continue to mention, create that customer experience to be so different, so different than the norm. On that same study that I read, it's talked about how the roofer contractor, unfortunately is the least trusted contractor.

That's 100% true. That sucks because if you really think about it, what's the roof? The roof covers everything that's important in a home, from the family to the possessions of home or whatever you want to call it. The fact that the roofer contractor is the least trusted, it hurts. It hurts a little bit.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It does. Yes.

Moises Morales: These kind of tools are helping us change that. Go from the very bottom because unfortunately that's where we are as contractors and continue to make our way up to the top to where eventually, hopefully, there's going to be a time where nationwide like, "Hey, I trust that roofer. I like that person."

I know there's a lot of contractors out there that, "No. No. My clients trust me." Good for every single one of us that are in that position. Because we have worked and utilized tools like ProFund gotten the opportunity to listen to conversations like this that are helping us get a little higher than the norm, a little bit higher than the norm. We continue to push that bar up.

Eventually, it's just going to be great all the way around. That way we don't have the things that happen in Florida, the things that happen here in Nevada all the time. That's how with little tools ... not little ... with tools like this are going to allow us to take those little steps to separate ourselves from everybody around.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. So true. So well said. Thank you. Thank you all so much for being on today. What a great conversation. I loved it. I just want to say, Laura, Moises, Kyle, thank you.

Kyle Branch: Thank you.

Laura Cunningham: Thank you.

Kyle Branch: I appreciate you having us on.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Well, thank SRS too. Thank you SRS for sponsoring this, bringing this conversation to the forefront, really taking it on. I think these are conversations that aren't always easy. But boy, after this hour, it's definitely a conversation that we all are like, "Yes. We got to make it." There you go. Okay. What is that?

Moises Morales: Kyle, you want to explain real quick what it is, brother?

Kyle Branch: I didn't know he was going to pull that out. That is for the ... SRS has a group, it's the Para Latinos.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it.

Kyle Branch: That is the wrestling belt that goes out to the top Para Latino contractor in the country.

Laura Cunningham: There you go.

Kyle Branch: There's Moises.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Moises, congratulations.

Laura Cunningham: Wonderful. Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Okay. We're going to have a story on that, too. Moises ...

Laura Cunningham: Yeah. That's good.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: ... stay tuned. We'll be coming back to talk to you about that. That is awesome. Thank you so much for bringing that out. Thank you all again. For everyone out there, please know you can get more information on ProFund in the SRS directory on Roofers Coffee Shop. Of course, you can email us if you want more information.

I'm Heidi at rooferscoffeeshop.com. Try that again. Heidi at rooferscoffeeshop.com. Please check it out. We will be having another Coffee Conversations in two weeks and it is going to be very cool. We are going to be the starting of celebrating Mental Health Month for May. So important for the roofing industry. We will be having all kinds, all kinds of great information for you throughout the month. Take care. Thank you all for being here and have a great day.