Jack Gottesman, Quentan Tobolka & Michael Mooney - Multi-family Roofing Tips

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

How to generate a more profitable business through creating strong relationships and working on multi-family projects.  

In Season 3, Episode 35 of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth discusses multi-family roofing with Quentan Tobolka, Jack Gottesman and Michael Mooney. This podcast dives into the best practices for working with multi-family projects and listeners will gain useful ideas that can be incorporated in their business today.  

Quentan is the president at Paragon Multi Family Roofing Inc., which is a company currently in partnership with Paragon Roofing. With Paragon, Quentan is the vice president of the residential and multi-family divisions. 

“I wear a lot of hats,” said Quentan. “I manage project managers, manage a residential sales team [and] an office staff while maintaining key relationships specifically in the multi-family realm." 

Michael Mooney is the regional sales manager for the north region of the U.S. at IKO Roofing and has been in the building products industry for over 21 years, the last 10 of those being with IKO.  

"It's been a wonderful 10 years,” said Michael. “It's a pleasure working for a family owned company like IKO.” 

Jack Gottesman is the marketing services manager for IKO in the U.S. He ensures that all the sales reps throughout the country have what they need to best sell IKO residential products. 

“It's an exciting time to be in roofing. The industry is booming and from sea to shining sea, IKO is here growing and thriving,” said Jack. 

Quentan’s drive to find a better, more efficient way to generate business is what led him to explore the multi-family side of housing. He found that these buildings offer an exciting way to put down a lot of shingles and complete large, profitable projects quickly and simply.  

“I treated [multi-family property owners] like I would treat my own family. [I was] not trying to necessarily sell to them, but to solve their problems. And through that, you end up developing relationships where you get opportunities [for] bigger work and you become trusted,” said Quenten. “Since then, I know I wouldn't change it. I love the multi-family game.” 

Helping the customer understand the value they’re getting with a particular product or service is a great way to build your reputation and is the simple and effective strategy Quentan has used to build his business.  

When Michael first started at IKO he began developing a system to show contractors how much they could be saving by using the IKO shingle. He even came up with the term IKOnomics, which defines the cost, time, labor and material savings a roofing contractor could see if they switched to IKO. 

“That was all spawned from IKO's True Square advantage, which means when you buy three bundles of IKO's product, it covers a full square roof, 100 square feet. Competitive products can cover anywhere from 97 to 98 and a half square feet when you purchase three bundles,” said Micheal. "I'm a mathematical guy. My brain is always thinking numbers. I just sat down one day, and I started to think about this and how this would lead to savings because all contractors want to make more money and save money. That's just the way business is done.”  

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about how to generate a more profitable business with residential multi-family properties.