Jeff Williams - Elevate your Roofer Brand - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Jeff Williams, director of marketing and branding IKO North America. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a longterm professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I'm a partner with RoofersCoffeeShop and I am here today with Jeff Williams, director of marketing and branding IKO North America. And I have to tell you, I am very excited about this day because I don't get a chance to visit with Jeff like this very often. Someone who I totally looked up to in the industry, has done amazing things in marketing and branding with IKO, I think you're going to really love this podcast. I know I'm going to learn a lot and hopefully everybody who's listening will too so Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Williams:
Oh Heidi, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for that glowing introduction.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, I have to tell you and some people could say I've stocked the IKO booth a couple of times, visiting with everybody in the booth and looking at all your marketing and at the trade shows. And so I've missed that this last year and there's such a change in our industry, in our overall market and how we're going to market post COVID. It's just going to be different and probably in some ways better. So we wanted to talk about that today a little bit, and really talk about the importance of branding and how things are changing. But before we get to that, would you mind sharing a little bit about you, your role at IKO and just kind of maybe IKO a little bit overall for our listeners?

Jeff Williams:
Okay. So I lead the marketing effort for North America for IKO which is becoming more and more every day a global entity. Obviously we have distribution in all 50 states as well as 10 provinces and we export to 40 countries, and that's just from our North American operation. We also have a substantial presence in Europe and beyond. So the company was founded in 1951 by Israel Koschitzky. It's still privately held, family owned and this is an important distinction, family owned and operated. So now we have fourth generation family members that are moving into key positions in the company and it's interesting. We're a company that's run by values and my colleague, Carol Perkins spoke at length about our values previously but we really live this every day. The company is run by values that are there guidepost. So it's interesting as much as the next generation brings new ideas, we still cling to and hold dear the same values that have guided the family now for four generations. So.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And those values really set the tone, I believe for marketing and branding, it all goes together. When you really live and breathe your core values and the values of what the family established up front that continues throughout all the employees, through everybody who's involved, that really is part of creating the overall brand.

Jeff Williams:
Oh, absolutely. And we'll get into this a little bit later but there's an old maxim that a brand is a third what you say and two thirds what you do, this family has lived it. Our positioning statement is roofing elevated and what that really means is, over four generations we've learned a thing or two. Okay. So when it comes to roofing innovation we have learned from experience. We control most of the aspects of our product development, we're heavily vertically integrated which has been a huge advantage during this pandemic that we've all had to suffer through. But because we control our supply lines, we have extraordinary control of our finished product which we're very proud of but more than that the family has generations of relationships and look, roofing is a small big family, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

Jeff Williams:
So they've made some wonderful connections and we're very fortunate to be in a great position in the marketplace today based largely on the two thirds of what they've done. My job is a small part, my job is a third of what we say, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Get it out there.

Jeff Williams:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So, you know what, I really am excited to kind of get into this. And I think there's a lot of people who are listening to this podcast who are kind of thinking, yeah, advertising, marketing, branding, it's all the same, but really it's not, there's definite ways of thinking about all of these things. So I would love for you to share your view on what is branding and how is it different from marketing and or advertising.

Jeff Williams:
Okay. It can get very technical and the definitions are very broad. So we're dealing with a somewhat subjective realm when you move into the branding and advertising world, right? But marketing, let's just take it to a high level, marketing is the umbrella, okay. So marketing is the science of promoting and selling a product, okay. And it consists of the five Ps which are product, price, promotion, place, and people. So you have to have those ingredients nailed down. Obviously if you're in retail, you have to have a great place in a prominent area. If you're selling anything, you have to have prominent promotion, it always comes down to people, right? Price is certainly a part of the mix and we'll talk about price later, right? But within the marketing umbrella you have different tools.
One of those tools is certainly advertising. When you have a product that needs to be promoted and sold, advertising is a great way to create awareness and then these days, engagement pull through, right? But branding is a whole different animal. And I'm going to read you a definition and I've read this definition in several places and I think it's lacking because I think there's an essence to branding that makes it come alive, that is missing in the flat words. Okay. So branding by definition is a marketing practice in which companies create a name, symbol or design is easily identifiable as belonging to the company. Okay. So what this says is I need a logo and a unique name, let's go get it, okay?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

Jeff Williams:
That definition falls short, branding truly is a reflection of the personality of the company. It is that thing, that it factor that makes you different and unique and it gives you a unique selling proposition. But I can tell you from experience, and I've been doing this for a little while, that you can have the nicest looking logo and you can have some fancy slogans but if your company doesn't live what it says, if you make a commitment that always on time and then you show up late, guess what? That's a reflection on your brand and again it goes back to the behavior. So that's what a brand is, it's more than a logo, it's more than a fancy name. It is a unique differentiator, it's the thing that makes you unique in your marketplace. And we'll talk a little bit about how you can find that because it's not easy, it's really not easy, especially in a crowded marketplace.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It isn't. And I love what you're saying there because one of the things that I think you're saying exactly what that definition is missing is the brand promise. That brand promise which is that core values and what you are bringing with that brand because you're right, anybody can do a pretty logo and a lot of people could think of really cool names too but to be able to live it and put it out there and really stay true to that, I think is so important.

Jeff Williams:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And so let's keep going on that because I think there's a lot of times that there's small companies, a lot of small roofing companies, but overall small companies out there that just think that branding is kind of that big thing out there that corporations, that Nike does or different folks do but it's important for every small business. Can you talk about that for those small roofing businesses out there, why it's so important to think about their brand?

Jeff Williams:
Okay. So if you can't differentiate from the crowd then what do you have to sell on? And it really comes down to price. Okay. So what a lot of companies haven't equated is the connection from brand to margin. Okay. If you're able to provide a differentiated service, okay, whether it's professionalism, whether it's on-time delivery, whether it's after sales service, whether it's upfront service, whether it's something that your competition doesn't do. If you're able to provide that extra layer of whatever it is that makes you, you, you should be able to charge for that in a marketplace. And you can look at all kinds of brands, you talked about Nike, let's talk about one of Nike's competitors, Under Armour. Under Armour came out of nowhere, they were late to the dance. You had an established Nike and Adidas and Reebok, Puma, some other companies, and here comes Under Armour out of nowhere.
They really took sportswear to a performance level, right? And they differentiated in the marketplace. But there's a company that they pretty much came out of nowhere and really defined a niche in the marketplace and exploited it. But what's interesting is over time, I can guarantee what Under Armour charges today is very different for what Under Armour charged when they were just getting into the marketplace, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

Jeff Williams:
So now that's just one strategy, I can also tell you, some brands grow into their pricing strategy. Some brands come out and differentiate on price. Hey look, you get what you pay for, we are going to cost you a little bit more, but let me tell you, if you come out with that strategy, you better back it up because if you leave that homeowner short on value then that's a hollow promise and then there's no brand equity in that. So those are some real high-level examples.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. And I know that what really will happen is if you don't live that, if you don't really put the time into thinking about what is that brand promise, what does your brand represent, you'll lose people faster than you'll gain them. I mean-

Jeff Williams:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
... it can cause all kinds of problems. And so let's kind of take that one step further, so as we're talking about with roofing contractors and really looking at their things, you talked about price, but what are some of the other elements of the business that make up their brand? What are some of the things they should be thinking about as they're putting their brand together?

Jeff Williams:
This is the part that's overwhelming, it's everything. It's all the little things you don't think about. It's, yes of course it's your logo and it's your tagline or your slogan, but it's also your letterhead. It's how your people dress and present in the field. It's your process, do you have a process for X, Y, and Z, or you just kind of show up and wing it? It's your scheduling, it's your before and after sales service so it's a little bit everything. But what it really is, is what differentiates you. And we've talked about unique selling proposition, but how do you find that out? Especially if you're a new company, how do you figure that out? You don't know what your brand personalizes, you haven't hired even most of your people yet, you're still a sole proprietor, right?
So a lot of sole proprietors really do some soul searching and they really understand who they are, right? As a business owner. And of course then the brand takes on the personality of its founder, which there's nothing wrong with that at all. But then it's the challenge of teaching that to everybody else and then bringing that to life in a graphical way. And what do you stand for, right? That becomes your tagline. But a couple of exercises that can help people get to that, I'm going to use an example from our business, okay? We could sell on, let's say we could say we're the easiest product to use. Okay. We could market on, well, where the heaviest product, we can market on, we have the best service, we can market on, we have the highest performing product. Okay.
But at the end of the day, I have to look and see, is that really unique? I have to do a little bit of analysis on what my competition is doing and understand where's my opportunity. So what's kind of tough is if as a business owner, I stand for a certain standard of business and I want to promote under that and there's three other companies in my zip code area that are already in that space and are established, then I better think quickly about how do I pivot to something related but different. Okay. So a couple of exercises that help people get to that, one is, what's your vision for your company? And so you got to understand, when you hear about mission statements and vision... I like vision statements because they really are a marker in time of where am I at now and where do I want to go.
And so if you're really trying to evolve to something, it helps you kind of think about that and map it out. And there's no reason why you can't set a futuristic brand promise or tagline. Okay. There's no reason that you can't grow into your positioning. Okay. I think the couple of other things is, what is your brand promise? What is the thing that you're going to offer somebody that they absolutely connect with, they're compelled by it to purchase from you and then when you leave that job site they feel like that was delivered? Okay. So brand promise is another one. And by the way, if you want to know how to write any of these you can Google it in five seconds and there's a little tutorial, it's simple. But the definition and how to approach it's simple, the actual work of going through that it's challenging and it takes time.
I think finally, the thing you got to look at is a position statement, how do you want to be positioned in the marketplace? And a position comes down to three things, okay, it's a differentiator, it's a definer and it's a deliverable. So when you want to position your brand in the marketplace you need to be talking about those three things really in one concise elevator pitch like, one to two sentences, that's it, right? And all of that will help you determine, okay, out of all that, how do I sum that in a tagline? Like for us it's roofing elevated, IKO is roofing elevate. And I've told you really kind of the ethos for that, where that comes from, right? Everything we do, we do it a little bit better because of our experience. Okay. So and that's something we'll continue to grow into as we continue to bring generations of owner-operators into our business which is exciting. So.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so exciting. Really ours is roofing respect, and so for RoofersCoffeeShop it's all about respect. We have respect-

Jeff Williams:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
... for the industry, for the craftsmanship, for the business, small businesses, large businesses, all the people who are involved in it. And so I think what you just said is so perfect. And the one thing I would add to that for any contractors out there is to also look for your passion. If you can add some passion into that brand, maybe I know we have a great contractor who's an influencer we're working with right now who is just passionate about solar and passionate about green and the craftsmanship of the beautiful homes or however you do that, I think that also kind of brings that final frosting over that brand because I've met a lot of people with brands and in sales and when they don't believe in it, it just doesn't happen.

Jeff Williams:
It rings hollow if you don't believe in it, you're absolutely right. It rings hollow if they don't believe in it and that's absolutely true. You have to arrive at something that everybody can buy into, right? Everybody in your company has to buy into it. I'll give another high level example, If you follow football, you see in the NFL all the time. You see a new coach come in, he has a different vision, a different path, he's passionate about it and if you're not on board with that, pretty soon, you see coaches moving to other teams, you see players moving to other teams, it's getting everybody aligned on that vision, right? And then really understanding what the brand is.
And if you're not passionate about what you're doing then this industry is not for you. But boy, I tell you, and I know you meet them too Heidi, I love the people in this industry. They wake up every day with some fire in their belly and they want to go get it and they don't stop. And they just go and they love this and they eat, drink and breathe it and so do we, which is what's so compelling about it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It's just great. Because when you're driving down the road and your kids, and you're like, okay, what kind of roof is that? I remember when I first started in it, I would be tested. I would try to test myself on, can I tell the different asphalt shingles? I don't think I'm as good today as I was then but you probably still are. You can say, oh, I know yeah, this [inaudible 00:18:10]. As you're looking at our contractors out there, kind of getting a little bit down tactical, but once they have that brand and once they have that passion and even saying it right now, I'm making it sound way easier than it is. It takes time to find that and it takes your whole company like we talked about. But then how do they incorporate that? Once they establish that and they're like, this is our vision, this is our brand, how do they incorporate that into their business?

Jeff Williams:
I'm going to tell you, the number one rule in branding once you have your unique selling proposition set, once you've differentiated your company, once you've created your identity, then number two on the list is consistency. You cannot compromise the integrity of what that brand looks like, how it's expressed verbally, how it's expressed in writing, it has to be consistent. So first and foremost, when you establish what that identity is and you really arrive at it you need to put brand standards in place and you have to make sure that everyone in your organization sticks to that. But again, it's not just a graphic standard, it's also a training standard. You have to train everyone in your company to walk the walk and talk the talk. And it comes down to the delivery of that, it cannot be a false promise, it has to ring true with your homeowners. So I would say it's about having a standard whether it's the written word or the graphic word or the training word so that's where it comes down to.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And I don't think that's, again, as everything we're talking about, it's not as easy as it sounds. I know having been in marketing like you for most of my career, but I also was on the sales side. And when I was really looking just mostly at marketing, I would hold that brand, you can't do it, you can't do different PowerPoints. The salespeople are just like they just want to get their stuff, however, and go and I would be just like, oh no, you can't do that. And then when I got into sales and I was doing sales full time, I found myself doing it like, oh, I'll just grab this stuff because I want to get to that sell. So I think there's really bringing your, and I'd love for you to kind of talk about that for just a second about bringing your whole team together, your sales and marketing team. That's not the easiest thing to do but it's so important for the brand.

Jeff Williams:
That's a challenging question answer because it really comes down to scale. Okay. In a sole proprietorship you kind of lock everything down, you have that opportunity. But as smaller businesses begin to grow and branch out you have to delegate, right? And sales, let's face it, sales is a profession where people are, they take their own lead, they have typically a Maverick personality to go out and win at all costs. Okay. So look, I don't need a fancy thing, I just need this to get to the objective and win the sale, right? And so it's easy as a business is growing to kind of lose sight of that structure and consistency but it does break down your brand equity at a certain point. Remember brand leads to margin so you don't ever want to let that happen as a business owner. You want to lock that down because at the end of the day, a brand becomes your personality but it also becomes the thing that someone trusts, a known brand equals trust.
And it's the most interesting thing, if you're shopping for anything today and let's say everybody shops online, you go online and you find a widget that you want to buy, and three of the widgets listed look fantastic but you don't recognize any of the names. And you see this one widget and it might not rate as high, the reviews might not be as great, but you know that brand has been around for 30 years, you know where it's made, you trust it, and all of a sudden even though it didn't have quite the highest reviews, all of a sudden it flips to the top because of the trust factor, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Jeff Williams:
It's the psychology behind that is intriguing but it's the same thing here, if you water down a brand, if you break it down then you're really starting to toy with trust. And so coming into an organization like IKO that's global in scale and really trying to tackling what our North American brand is and what it stands for, we've really worked hand in glove with our sales group. They've been fantastic, they've been good stewards, they want to support and structure. But I'll tell you this, if you're in a large enough company, have a marketing department, if marketing is doing their job right and I think we are, I hope we are, then you're working hand in glove with sales to create your marketing strategy and you're anticipating their needs because you're keeping those communication lines open.
And if they're not willing then you're forcing the conversation, but that allows you to get into sync with their needs, anticipate them and stay ahead. And that way you don't have people trying to create something on the fly, you've anticipated it and you've moved into position to provide it before, it's the unmet need, right? And so I don't know that that's necessarily a small business concern, that's more of a medium to large business concern but it's essential that sales and marketing are synced and working together and driving consistency.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's what I see. And having worked with several large, medium, and small companies, it becomes an issue no matter what and I love the part that you can dilute your brand and you really can and sometimes it's so subconscious. The homeowner doesn't know why they're feeling weird but they feel weird. They thought they were having this kind of company come out and this person is delivering something different to them, whether that's through the sales process, through the production, whatever that may be. So that is so important because sometimes we don't even know why we feel the way we do.

Jeff Williams:
Well, so that goes back to, you asked about the disciplines, the difference between marketing and branding, and then specifically advertising. Now you see where advertising comes in. You've established a brand but it's not very well known, it's not familiar. There's not a lot of comfort for a consumer when they narrow down their purchase selection to maybe two to three different options and you're the outlier, you're the brand that they don't recognize. And so the way you can try to break that down is through effective advertising. Which today there's a lot of affordable choices to do that especially in the digital world between search engine marketing and trying to optimize your content to be at the top of search and if you're not, you buy the ad there and the pay-per-click ad or with Google Display Network or any type of programmatic advertising, there are a lot of very affordable choices. But it's really important that if you have a brand identity, if it's something you believe in, that you're promoting it in a healthy way into the marketplace so there's some level of familiarity with you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I agree. That is such great advice. And we talked about this a little bit but let's kind of just maybe break it down a little bit more for the contractors who are listening, but what are some of the steps roofing businesses and the owners can start to take to develop and really understand, kind of create that company brand? What's the first thing you would tell them to do?

Jeff Williams:
First thing I'd tell you to do is create that competitive matrix. Really take the time, go on to Google, Google the keywords for your industry. So roofing contractors in my area, bring up their websites, look at what they're doing, look at how they're positioning, look at their language, look at their tone of voice, how they're speaking to their audience on the website, okay, and if they make a unique promise either hey, I've got the lowest price or hey, I've got the best service then really note that next to their name. Okay. But you want to really kind of plot those folks on where they are in terms of price to service to whatever you want to make up in your quadrant analysis, but really understand and plot on a chart where everybody is positioned, okay? And draw a circle around the area where they're not, okay?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Jeff Williams:
And then see if that's an option for you. I would suggest it's not about price, it's too much work and look, any of the training courses you go to, if you're driving a low price or you're discounting heavily, you have to work so much harder to make it up in volume, right? If you have the luxury of a well-known brand it gives you the opportunity to really sell on higher margin. But let me get back to your question, so I think start with the competitive matrix. I think the second thing is, you've got to look inward, okay, and this is an exercise that has to begin with the owner. Okay. And the owner cannot delegate this, they can't give it away and the marketing people can't make this up.
There has to be some DNA in this, there has to be some of that operational I own this in the brand composition. So it starts with the owner, what do I stand for? What do I want to make sure my customers have every time that my company arrives at their home? And what's the takeaway when we leave? Right? And I think I'd start there and identify it and then I would go through the exercise and write that vision statement, really project on who am I today? Where am I going? And along that spectrum, I think that opens a lot of doors to what your brand promise is, what your positioning is, again, identifying the differentiator, the definer and the deliverable, those are really key things. And I think from there you can write your own story, which by the way is called a brand story, but you can write your own story.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And I want to kind of, for the contractors who are listening out there, this doesn't matter if you're a brand new contractor, if you've been around just for a couple of years, or if you've been around for 50 years. Now, obviously if you've been around for 50 years you probably have a stronger brand but is that brand still right? So Jeff, as they're looking at no matter how old a company or how established it is, these are the things that you just said about watching the competition, checking in on whether it's developing one or checking on one you've developed before, that's important to do all the time. I mean, at least once a year, right?

Jeff Williams:
Well, I would say, let's call it a brand report card. Yeah, I think absolutely because when you do the exercises we just talked about, that's a snapshot in time, right? But, especially if you're in business for 10 years, think of all the people that encroach on your space and coming into that space during that time period, right? And I think it is appropriate to say, okay, has anybody encroached on my brand, on my unique selling proposition? And are we still able to defend that in the marketplace effectively? If the answer is no, you need to make some changes pretty quickly to your business. Okay. I think the other thing that's really interesting and this goes more back to the graphics and man, it's taken a career to really kind of come up with this but a lot of companies, once they have a logo, they don't mess with it, they wind it up and let it go. Okay.
And it's a tough consideration of do I change my logo? Do I change my slogan? And I think the thing that I've arrived at is just like kitchens come in and out of style, right? Think of the color palette back in the 1960s and '70s, right? Look at all movies, I mean, look, avocado green kitchens, if you got one, God love you, but they're just not in style right now. Everything is kind of bright and white and airy and that type of thing. Well, logos are contemporary to design as well and so what I'm going to tell you is you don't want to let your company be viewed as a relic. If it's not contemporary to your audience, your customer base today, if it's not hip to them then you probably need to update it. Okay. Because it may have been relevant 20 years ago because it was cool, it was in Vogue, it was a style but styles change. Bell bottom jeans have come and gone but right now they're gone, okay?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Jeff Williams:
So you got to think about it that way, styles come and go and if you've got a stylized logo for your business you need to evolve that with the time so that it remains contemporary to your audience. And I think that's something I've learned just over time and experience.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I agree a 100% with that. In fact, we did that five years ago when I joined RoofersCoffeeShop, we had a very retro logo and we made a full change. I mean, a full change. And so it's a little scary when you do that but it's really held to the brand and to where our vision was going. And so, yeah, that's really great advice.

Jeff Williams:
Yeah, there are a lot of considerations there. Now, our logo has not changed much in a long, long time. And you think of the number of trucks, buildings, interior, exterior signs, we've propagated that logo worldwide and it has a ton of equity in this market and others so for us, that's a very delicate decision. But I think you understand where I stand on it and as advice to business owners out there it's something to keep your eye on. There you go.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. And yeah, because I'm kind of the same way, I'm like, you don't want to make huge changes but you want to look at the vision of where you're going and sometimes you need to. Sometimes I've worked with a number of people who have made that change and it's been a really good change for them moving it for other people. It's much easier to change it digitally than on office buildings and trucks.

Jeff Williams:
Well, and the other thing I'll tell you is you really have to weigh it carefully, if you have a lot of equity in your brand then you don't want to make radical changes. They need to be in increments, they need to be subtle over time because you don't want to get carried away and you create something that people then don't recognize and associate with you so-

Heidi Ellsworth:
You've lost that trust again.

Jeff Williams:
... you got to be careful with it. So, right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. And we're getting close to the end of our wonderful conversation here, but I do want to talk about, one of the steps that contractors and when I'm doing speaking engagements and different things, I talk about this all the time. Roofing contractors need to work with their manufacturers because manufacturers have these amazing loyalty programs and these amazing business builder programs that I think can offer them the steps that we're talking about. So I would love it if you would talk a little bit about ROOFPRO and how ROOFPRO is helping your contractors elevate their brands.

Jeff Williams:
Oh, you bet. Thank you. So the ROOFPRO loyalty program for IKO it's built on a simple premise, a rising tide raises all ships. Okay. Our approach is if we can help a contractor, especially in an up and coming contractor, invest in their business, build their business. If we can provide the tools to help them be more efficient and certainly more profitable as they grow, we grow, so it's a pretty simple approach. There not a lot of strings attached, we're not asking you to sell warranties, we're not asking you to do all that. What we are asking you to do is be loyal. We are asking for certain volume thresholds of product to qualify because obviously look, if you're a business person you know, okay, they're not giving me this investment in my business just because they liked me, we certainly do, we like you, but it's got to pay for itself somewhere. And the way that happens is if before investing and you're gaining growth and those are sales that come to us then that's where a rising tide raises all ships.
But we can bring really, a lot of advantages to your business with our experience, with some of our partnerships in the industry. One of the things that we try to do is we establish relationships with a lot of companies that specialize in different aspects of your business. And we, on your behalf, try to broker better discounts or some type of special feature or attribute that makes it unique to your business and helps you grow. So we're doing that every day and bringing some unique partnerships, elements tools, we've got a world-class Salesforce CRM that comes in the box or out of the box benefit, right? As soon as you sign up we've got a lead program that's connected to our website listing, our website now generates several million visits a year. We have co-op advertising dollars, which is unique I think, in this business where we'll give you a percentage of your purchases back to support your advertising marketing activities. And we'll help you, we've got consultants lined up that can help you make the decisions on how to spend that money the most effectively so it's that type of thing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. It is so important. I've been involved in a lot and from a contractor standpoint, I've done all the paperwork to apply for the loyalty programs and you just all make it so easy. You make it easy using technology and really helping your contractors get that support so that's what I love. We can talk about branding and marketing and advertising everything all day long, but really taking that next step of saying, "Hey, we're going to help you, we'll hold your hand." And it creates, like you said, I love the win-win win. I think that was one of my core values, everybody should win. And so when you're supporting each other and helping build up each other's businesses, of course, everybody's going to rise so everybody is going to elevate.

Jeff Williams:
Yeah. Well, that's our goal. So thank you for that. I think, the other thing that we try to drive is a sense of community. So we are trying to connect roofers with similar interests in non competitive spaces together. We're creating peer groups, we've got a world-class portal and is designed beautifully. We have a monthly blog, we've got a newsletter that comes out trying to connect this audience and then we've got some useful tools, invoice upload tools and that type of thing so a lot of technology. It's becoming a crowded field, a lot of manufacturers offering some great programs we're not the only ones, ours is a bit unique. But we really want to partner with our loyal contractor base and help them grow and that's always been our mission. I think we've really kind of put the dot on the exclamation point with this new program.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's great. And you have some great people running it who really work with the contractors, which again, it's all about those relationships. We know that that's what it's about and roofing is building relationships and trust.

Jeff Williams:
Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, Jeff, thank you. This has been an amazing podcast. I've learned and it's also fun just to be able to share having worked together often throughout the industry together for so many years and thank you so much for being here today.

Jeff Williams:
It's absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It's just been a joy. And I want to thank everyone for listening. Thank you so much for being a part of these podcast, so much great information that you can take back into your business. You can see here, all of our podcasts under the read, listen, watch section of RoofersCoffeeShop, where you can read it, listen to it, or watch it anytime, anywhere, what fits your best way of learning. So join us, please visit, listen to all the podcasts and please be sure to check out IKO and everything they're doing to help you build your business. So have a great day and thank you very much.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.