Get ready to grow with SERVICECON - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Will Riley and of Centerpoint Connect. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

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Hello, everyone. My name's Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com. Welcome back to another Roofing Road Trip podcast. I'm so excited. Today, I'm here with Will Riley from Centerpoint Connect and we're going to be talking about this new conference that you all have taken over, ServiceCon. So hi, Will, how are you?

Will Riley: I'm doing well. How are you? Happy to talk about the event.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, I'm super excited to learn more and how you guys took it over and all this great stuff. So let's just dive right in and have you introduce yourself.

Will Riley: Sounds good. Yeah, Will Riley, I've been a part of the roofing industry since 2010. It's been 14-plus years. I started on the software side actually, and everything I knew for the first seven years in the industry was what I've derived just by working with roofing contractors. I implemented software in a lot of these companies and that exposed me to all the different shapes and sizes of these companies. And what I picked apart that interested me the most was the service side of these businesses that seemed to feed this larger machine, this larger client pool, so to speak. Again, I didn't have the actual working experience at that point, but in 2017, I went to go work for a commercial roofing contractor out of Fort Worth who did about 12 million a year, a decent-sized outfit, all roof replacement type work.

And the full focus was, "All right, let's create a service-leading company instead of relying on these roof replacements." And we did just that. So I had to learn. I was immediately doing work orders and invoicing these work orders. I had no idea what materials were correct, what repairs were correct, so I had to learn that in a very short period of time. So for the next three years, we did. We grew through service and we ended up going to 28 million total revenue plus. We created a three and a half million dollars service division. I had a lot of fun doing that. But the shift from roofing back to software, so software, roofing, now back to software was all a derivative from what we learned at that roofing company. So we created Centerpoint, launched that in 2020 and had some really good relationships in the industry in partnering with some of the other service leading, I'll call it, think-tank contributors, consultants and coaches.

And that's really what turned into wanting to acquire ServiceCon is it was already started. Ryan was doing a good job at running it over at STG. We were a part of it for the first year. And I'm like, "Man, there's something special here. These contractors that are together that are all thirsty for all things service-related, how do we make this bigger?" And he's on a venture with other goals and things and I'm just like, "Hey, what are you going to do with ServiceCon?" He's like, "I don't know. Do you want it?" I'm like, "Yeah, we do." So we ended up making a deal.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. When did that happen?

Will Riley: I don't know, eight, 10 months ago or so. We were supposed to do it this year, but you know how things go with timing of all of the different agendas of what I'll call the event contributors. My whole goal is to take the service-leading knowledge that's available in the industry to be able to get them in a room, dissect that and then have contractors take pieces or larger chunks and implement that into their business. So it's not the traditional show up and listen to someone talk, it's, "How can it be more than that where there's an agenda, there's action items that you could take home with you and then the event almost lives on?" So we'll take all of that content and put it into the site and have it be digestible even after the fact.

Megan Ellsworth: So what's the history of ServiceCon? How long has it been around? You said you first attended in 2020?

Will Riley: Actually, no, that's when Centerpoint launched. 2022 was the first year and it had a decent audience. I think it only happened one year, actually. 2022 was the first year and after that, it was, "Okay, when's it happening again?" And it got delayed, got delayed and that's where I came in. So now we're going to put it on '24. So it'll be March 12th through the 14th. We booked a very nice venue here in The Woodlands, Texas, The Woodlands Resort. Awesome place to have it at, so we're excited for it.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome. Very cool. You kind of touched on this. What would you say the main purpose of ServiceCon is and how does it differ from other industry trade shows?

Will Riley: Absolutely. The main intent is to put together a non-traditional conference based on like-minded commercial and residential briefing contractors that all either have a passion to start a service department or grow a service department and to hear from local and national contributors. We're going to have some sessions specific towards starting a service department, sessions specific towards expanding within a territory all the way up to 20-plus trucks in a single territory and anywhere in between that. And also succession planning. We're going to have facility managers be able to speak on behalf of what they like. We have some really great contributors that I'm excited to unveil as we firm this schedule up. We have the schedule, we have the agenda, we have everybody, but we need to firm that up before we release too many details on it.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, keep some secrets. So what can attendees expect from the conference? Who is the main audience that should be attending?

Will Riley: The main audience? We want it to be family-friendly. A lot of these events, it's like, "Do I just go? Does a business owner go, sales manager, service manager? Does one individual go or do I bring my wife and kids?" It will be family-friendly, not in the event itself, but outside and in between. So what you can expect, day one, you show up, check in and get familiar with the territory. There's a great strip to walk, great restaurants nearby, there's a waterway nearby, a reception that everyone will get to meet each other. We'll have that sponsored. We'll have some really good conversations at the reception. And then day one, we're going to get right into it. So we've already got the agenda baked in. And it'll be a progressive agenda where everything will be cohesive. Some of these other shows you go to, it's kind of dictated based on what the speakers want to bring to the table.

We've already got the outline and we are leaning on experts within each of these segments to fulfill that outline. So the whole show should feel like it's connected. Breakout sessions and chances for service managers to talk to other service managers and business owners to talk to other business owners. We want to be able to bring like-rolled individuals together as well outside of taking the content. So take the content and then go talk about it with your peers and then come back, take the next topic and then talk about it with your peers. And then maybe some other unrelated topics all about bettering the industry. If anything, this thing's going to cost a lot of money. We're not looking to profit anything. It's strictly to give back and raise the floor within the industry. That's the sole purpose.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. That's great. It's huge to be able to connect with other business owners and people that have full-fledged service departments in that manner and just bounce ideas off of one another. That's great.

Will Riley: Yeah, absolutely. And everyone's welcome too. It's not just Centerpoint, right? We really have nothing to do with the event, although there will be Centerpoint customers, but this is open to all. And one thing that I hear a lot is, "Hey, I'm a service manager. Can you connect me with another service manager so I can just pick their brain?" I get a lot of that type of feedback. Sales managers that want to talk to other sales managers or directors or whoever.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. So are there any specific speakers, or people you can tell us that are going to be there?

Will Riley: What I can tell you is Greg Hayne will be a big part of it. Chad Westbrook.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, huge.

Will Riley: Chad Westbrook will be a big part of it. Bryan Mitchell will be a big part of it. That's what I'll say for now.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great. I love it. Those are some great people and they have a lot to share wisdom-wise, so that's great. How do you see ServiceCon impacting the roofing industry, both short-term, maybe right after and long-term? How do you see this going into the future?

Will Riley: Yeah, I see an acclimation period because to be real, we skipped a year doing the event. I think there'll be an acclimation period, but my goal would be to connect the audience of all these contractors that are posting these questions on Facebook that are asking, "Where do I find coaches? Or how do I find this?" I don't want to reinvent the wheel kind of thing where people are starting to dabble in starting a service department, connecting with them and saying, "Look, this is an event where you belong." All the way up to the large contractors that are already doing this. The $200-plus-million contractors that are already doing this could even gain from it and contribute too. And that's what it's about. It's about sharing.

So I think I would expect contractors will pick up a lot of best practices from this event. And then shortly after, word will spread and say, "Man, that was really beneficial. I enjoyed that type of interaction. How do I get more?" So living on afterward. So being able to take all of that information and put it onto the site so that it's digestible beyond the event and then hopefully it grows. I'm expecting there'll be 200-300 people at this event. And I think even 150 would be a success, but I do really believe it will grow. Plus it's right after IRE, so we can actually be face-to-face with a lot of contractors and let them know about this event and then we'll see where it goes from there. Hopefully, it just keeps growing.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. That's great that it's right after IRE as well because people can take things that they've learned at IRE and implement them here at ServiceCon and really just meld the two learning opportunities together to come back to their office with a lot of great brainstorming.

Will Riley: No question.

Megan Ellsworth: So, how can people sign up and attend?

Will Riley: Servicecon.com and tickets will be on sale starting, I don't want to say this week, but certainly, by next week, the full agenda will be published and it'll be an early bird. It won't be as much as it was before, I'll say that. So it'll be super affordable to get here. We're going to float as much of the cost as possible and really make it not expensive to show up. And hopefully, the value far outweighs any cost. The biggest cost on the contractor or people that are going to attend are just traveling to get here.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've heard it here first, folks, please attend ServiceCon. Will, I'd love to know just what are you most excited for for ServiceCon 2025?

Will Riley: I'm excited to take the information that a lot of these successful service divisions have and watch that exchange into the people and then almost be a fly on the wall and hear some of those conversations and be able to extract from that because that's what fuels me to continue to give back to the industry. We need to stay current and relevant each and every day. So I'm most excited for that and to see the content as it relates to small, medium and large and being able to straddle all three at the same time.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. And cater to all three. Absolutely. Well, Will, thank you so much for chatting with me and sharing everything about ServiceCon with us. Everyone out there listening, you can also go to the Centerpoint Connect directory on rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Go to servicecon.com to sign up and get your tickets. Book before it sells out. And, Will, thank you again. This has been amazing.

Will Riley: Yeah, thanks for having me. Anytime.

Outro: Absolutely. So March 12th to the 14th, 2025. We'll see you at ServiceCon and thanks for listening to Roofing Road Trips. If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you on the next Roofing Road Trip.