John Kenney - Elevating Roofing Project Managers - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with John Kenney of Cotney Consulting Group. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts, to on-the-road adventures will uncover the stories, innovations and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seatbelts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip.

Alex Tolle: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle and I'm here for another Roofing Road Trips. Today I am joined by John Kenney. How are you doing, John?

John Kenney: Doing great. Coming off of the holidays and ready to go back to work.

Alex Tolle: Yes. I know. It's been a crazy couple of weeks and it's back to the grind.

John Kenney: Yeah. We got a busy year coming up. I know everybody does.

Alex Tolle: Yeah. Definitely. So I know everybody already knows who you are, but give yourself a little introduction, who you are, what you do.

John Kenney: Sure. I'm John Kenney. I'm CEO of Cotney Consulting Group. I work with roofing contractors in different areas such as operations and business matters and training in different areas such as estimating, project management, superintendent, foreman and then specialized training on top of that. And I gain that from the 45 years knowledge of being a roofing contractor myself. So always look forward to having someone new to work with and get the information out there so that somebody's able to gain knowledge and move forward.

Alex Tolle: Amazing. Yeah. And we're going to be talking about project managing today and why it's so important to train and you're definitely a great resource for that. You have so many educational opportunities through your website and it's so important for contractors to be staying on top of training and education.

John Kenney: Absolutely. It's a very important position in any roofing company.

Alex Tolle: So tell us what is a project manager in roofing?

John Kenney: So project manager can be filled as its own separate position or it's also filled by the estimator/project manager. That happens especially in the growth cycle of a roofing company. But regardless if you're wearing one hat or two hats as a project management role, you're responsible to oversee every aspect of the roofing project, ensuring it to be completed on time, within budget, maintaining quality standards. Some of your key responsibilities definitely include planning and scheduling the work, managing your resources, which include materials, labor, equipment, et cetera. You have to coordinate with your outside clients, your stakeholders on the project, which include internal stakeholders and external. And you have to ensure compliance with safety regulations and then you get that excitement of resolving issues on the spot as they arise on the project because they do. There's no way that they don't. That's just a crazy part of the job.

Alex Tolle: That's one of my favorite things is when a problem comes up and you're able to work it through and solve it and then you get a satisfaction from solving those problems.

John Kenney: You would make a fantastic project manager. That's what they do.

Alex Tolle: So that might lead into what some of the biggest challenges are for project managers and how formal training can address those.

John Kenney: Putting them in simple bullet points, the basic challenges you're going to face of course are labor shortages. You never have enough people or crews to do the work that you need. Scheduling gets more and more complex in this role. You have to balance weather disruptions and also multiple project timelines. One of the things that people forget about is that when one project changes or you have weather in one area, it knocks your whole schedule off because you have to juggle it to get it back on. So it's multiple timeline management. You have safety compliance. You have to ensure your crews follow the protocols within your company and the OSHA guidelines and et cetera. Now you're not that hands-on person like your foreman or maybe your superintendent are, but you're still responsible for managing it.

John Kenney: And then of course cost management. That is one of the single most important items other than hands-on, is you're responsible for taking the budget that was prepared and accept it during the estimating and contracting process. And you're responsible for limiting or no cost overruns and also project delays. And then the other thing is definitely coming into our industry, and I know we're going to be talking more and more about this throughout the year, is technology adoption. We're having new and new tools out there and systems into workflows and the way our workforce is going to evolve over the upcoming years.

Alex Tolle: Yeah. So it seems like it's really important for project managers to stay in touch with what's going on in the industry because regulations are changing all the time. Politics are changing all the time. Technology, like you mentioned. There's so much to have to stay on top of to make sure that you're keeping your projects all on track.

John Kenney: Absolutely.

Alex Tolle: So what kind of trainings are available for ... We're going to talk about some of your training that you offer. But what kind of training should those project managers be looking out for?

John Kenney: So this is what I offer, but this is the type of training you want to develop regardless. So there's two types of project managers. They're the formally untrained project manager that has learned the tricks of the trade throughout. It's still great to have some formal training because there's always things you're going to miss or you want to get some good tips on how to do it. Then I've also found that completely untrained that needs to be trained to get into the position to do it. And then thirdly, believe it or not, there's a lot of crossover. People have had other project management training from other fields and you still need to be trained in what is important in the roofing industry. Just because you may be a great project manager even in other areas of construction ... You say that, how hard can it be? I've been managing crews in another trade. It's still not the same. There's still certain aspects.

John Kenney: So what do you want to do? You want to develop with this training, advanced problem solving and resource management skills because that's something you just can't learn on your own. You have to learn these techniques. You want to use technology like project management software and understand how to use it to your advantage, not just for the sake of saying I have it and I'm entering a lot of data in, but how to actually get it.

John Kenney: Training's going to give you some best practices and safety management and regulatory compliance because that's definitely part of the duties of a good PM and roofing. And you want to be able to learn. Which I teach the techniques of cost control and risk mitigation. And I know a lot of people that'll be listening to this know me and other aspects of the industry, risk mitigation, I teach all the way from the estimating side all the way up to ownership. That's all we do. That's how you become successful in roofing is managing risk and mitigating it. That's one of the keys.

Alex Tolle: Got it. And that leads into the ongoing education certification. How can it improve their careers throughout roofing?

John Kenney: Yeah. So one thing is once you take some training and you get a certificate or a certification, you've got something to show. For example, the training that I do for certification, you have to take a test at the end. So it's not just sitting and either taking a live course with me or taking a online course and when you're done, you get a certificate. No. This is a little bit different. You got to take a test to show that you have acquired 78% or more of the knowledge, which I think is extremely important. So that gives you qualifications that other people won't have. You also, outside of that type of training, you need to focus on OSHA training and understanding all of that. You want to get yourself certified in different areas. Some of the things is behavioral techniques of how to deal with people, motivate people. Risk assessment. Work on like what we do in our training, especially live training, we work on practical scenarios. We actually put a scenario together that in the roofing industry, you you're going to face at some point and we work through that. So the best way to gain experience without being thrown in the fire is to practice.

Alex Tolle: Do you see that a lot of roofing companies invest into their project managers and pay for programs like this for the project managers on their team?

John Kenney: Alex, that's a great question and I want to just answer that in two parts. One thing that I'm noticing is estimating training is where a lot of them are starting, which I think is fantastic. And then once they realize that we're pricing work correctly, then I'm seeing this movement into really ongoing more spending money. And really the money that you spend is so minimal for the return on investment in training that I'm seeing that move into project management. So in the last six to eight months, I've seen a huge move into project management training in a lot of companies for people to improve themselves and improve the way they go to business.

Alex Tolle: That's one of the things that actually came up on our 2024 trend survey was for training that's needed. And project management is really high up on that list.

John Kenney: Yeah. For sure. Because it's not something that you can go just take a course on pure project management because you're learning on things like software project development and other project management duties within companies that have nothing to do with what we do. That's why this detailed project management training for roofing contractors and roofing professionals is so important because I've cut through all the stuff that you don't need that doesn't pertain to anything you're ever going to do, and we concentrate on what is important. So if you're out there looking for that, that's what you want to look for. You want to look for something that is specifically to what we do.

Alex Tolle: And I think it's important to note too about investing into education for your crew. A lot of people are worried about investing money into education and then losing that person that they've trained. But a lot of times people want to stick with a company that's willing to invest with them. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

John Kenney: Yeah. Look, this is almost as old as the age of time where people are afraid to invest in employees because what if they leave? I'm training them for my competition. Well, one thing ... And I'm a huge data analytic person. And even getting beyond data analytics, I could tell you from my personal experience running roofing companies and being in my own business when I first start out in this industry, when you invest in your employees, they don't leave. People are still going to leave. It's going to happen because of other reasons. Maybe their spouse has a job offer in another state. Maybe something's happened with their family, they got to move back and take care of elderly parents. Those things, no matter what you do, you can't prevent.

John Kenney: But I will tell you, nobody is going to work with a company that provides training and career advancement and mentorship within a company and decide that I'm going to leave and go to a company that doesn't care about that. It's not going to happen. It really isn't. They don't leave for that. People stay with companies that care about them and are willing to invest in their careers. And guess what? By doing this, if somebody does leave, you've got your whole team trained. Now you're ready to put someone new into that position and continue the cycle. So you're not going to lose any ground by having a training program in place and bringing people in the fill seats as needed.

Alex Tolle: Right. And you're always going to be doing that continuing education for your team anyways because you're going to be bringing in the new generation and they're going to need the training. So whether it's somebody who's got experience or it's somebody brand new to the industry young, you're still going to have to do that training at some point again.

John Kenney: For sure. I get a lot of repeat training.

Alex Tolle: That's nothing to be scared of.

John Kenney: Great example of training is when I do groups. Online training I get them at different levels and a lot of times you get questions, but when you do the groups, whether it's over Zoom training with companies or live groups come in from multiple companies, whatever it may be, you find the experience level that's showing up is zero, six months, one year, honestly all the way up to 30 plus. I've seen that. So what I've gotten as response to these trainings ... Because really important to me to get feedback so I know where to take training, especially on live. No one's ever left there and said, "This was a waste of my two or three days," or whatever it is. They said, "You know what, I got some really valuable either refresher," if you've been in it long enough or, "I picked up some tips." And then the younger ones that have that lower end experience are like, "Wow. I feel like I've drank from a fire hose." And that's great because now you're ready to really work on your career and expand out from there.

Alex Tolle: Right. Can you discuss a little bit about the impact of the well-trained project managers on the overall team morale and productivity?

John Kenney: Yeah. So a well-trained project manager will have respect because they're going to be able to lead. There's a big difference between being a manager ... Managing a roofing project, we get focused on that. You have to lead a roofing project. If you're just managing it, all you're doing is trying to juggle it and keep it moving forward. And everybody's like, "Well, you don't know any more than I know." But when you're trained, not only do you have that respect from your in-people, in-house people, the people you're working for gain confidence in you because they know that what they've just ... Especially in the commercial world, which I talk to contractors all the time. There's a different mindset of a buyer between residential and commercial and absolutely there. Usually commercial jobs last a lot longer and they're spending a lot more money per se on a roofing project. And they want to know they have the confidence. They'll know right away if you're well-trained and they have confidence in you and it's going to show.Your job will be easier, your company's going to be able to get more work.

John Kenney: I'll tell you one thing that I've always said, when I was a contractor, that's why I wanted my operations teams as well-trained as any other teams in my company. They were my best sales people. People go what do you mean they don't sell? Yes, they do. Because if the project comes in as it's supposed to, the client will either hire you then the next job because they want that crew and team back or they're going to recommend you to someone else that they know and that's based on your operational performance. And that starts with a well-trained project manager.

Alex Tolle: Absolutely. So we talked a little bit about your project management training that you offer. Are there any other resources or certifications that project managers should consider to stay competitive in this industry?

John Kenney: What I offer is a certified roofing project manager. Strictly wood roofing. There are project management professionals, PMP certifications, which is, you are going to have to learn the other aspects of it. But hey, there's nothing wrong with becoming a certified general project manager. So you can do that. OSHA certifications. You have to keep up with OSHA. Other resources. Of all companies ... And we've talked about this a lot on other aspects here on Roofer's Coffee Shop and on our affinity webinars that we do. You want to look at this, why? Because industry resources, NRCA, Western States, Florida Roofing, FRSA, Midwest, Texas, you name it. They were great resources to be able to network and actually be able to talk to people that are in positions like yourself to figure out what goes well and what may not go well.

Alex Tolle: Yeah. Absolutely. And certifications get updated all the time, and there's always new training that goes with those. You may be certified, but then they add something to it and you can learn more from it, right?

John Kenney: Yeah. And you keep up with it. Part of it, with the certifications that I give out, you have to every five years what we call recertify. And that's simply by keeping up with educational training. So it's like, oh my God, that sounds really complicated. No, it's not. You can gather that from watching webinars. We have it all listed out of what you get to gather the new information as it comes out. Attending IRE, for example, taking some of the educational courses there absolutely count and that's what you need to do to stay ahead.

Alex Tolle: Absolutely. Can you share a success story or feedback from one of your participants who completed your program and what they took away from it?

John Kenney: Yeah. Recently I worked with a company with a group of project managers and afterwards I always like to follow back up and find out what their thoughts were. And one of the project managers said that after they went through the program and really started to embrace what we learned, that they really were able to reduce their project delays by improving client satisfaction. You got a satisfied client, that is great. What that means for you is a person handling a project is less paperwork, less delays. And then after they completed the training, they talked about implementing a digital project management tool and they learned about scheduling conflicts because we spent a lot of time on how to deal. Especially a lot of my clients and people that deal with the new construction and dealing with general contractors can become a little overwhelming if you don't have the tools to work with them. And they said they were much better off at learning how to get change orders in and actually work with general contractors on a regular basis. So that I consider a success. If anybody could tell me that their job has improved and they enjoy it a little bit more, then I think that's a success.

Alex Tolle: I think that's a great selling point right there on why to continue education is you're going to enjoy your job more and you feel confident when you know what you're doing and it makes your day-to-day a little bit more fun. When you know what you're doing, you feel good about it, you're not so scared of a problem coming up because you know can solve it.

John Kenney: For sure. Absolutely agree.

Alex Tolle: So finally, where do you see the future of education and training and roofing and how can these project managers stay ahead of all those changes?

John Kenney: I think it's a combination. Let's look at the training first. I think online training has got a big place out there. That's a big portion of what I see. But also in combination of still having live events and live training. I think both go hand in hand and they're both are worth doing. Moving forward I think where the education is going to need to move is we're going to have to now learn how to master artificial intelligence that's going to be coming in. Drones have been out there a while. I think most roofing companies or construction people are used to drones. It's not as scary in how we use them. But I think some of the other project management software, if you're not on it, you're going to have to get on it to keep ahead.

John Kenney: But the biggest thing that's coming out that's starting to move in is going to be how do we deal with robotics or cobotics? What cobotics is, our robots that work in conjunction with humans on the roof, which is what I think we're going to see. I'm seeing a lot of development out there in robotics working with in different other construction trades. So roofing's next. So now my point, we're going to have to develop training to teach our project managers and other people in the industry, how do we coexist with this? How do we start to do it? Because it will come in. Is it going to be here at the end of this year? Probably not. But is it going to be here within five years? You're going to start to deal with it. So I'm seeing it move forward. We're never going to go backwards. So training is going to need to be yearly refreshers to make sure you stay up with what the current trends are in our industry.

Alex Tolle: Absolutely. And with the robotics, you were talking about the with labor issues, it is just a given that that's something that we're going to need is to recreate labor and it could be a really great solution for it.

John Kenney: And you got to look at it this way in any career, it's a lifelong learning process. It's workshops, it's certifications, it's classes, it's webinars. Like I said, I've been in this for years and I still learn something new every day. It makes me excited to learn and that's where you want to be for yourself and your career.

Alex Tolle: It's important to think about when you're nervous about maybe some new technology coming out. Think about 20 years ago, maybe you were terrified of the internet coming out 20, 30 years ago. But think about how much we rely on it now and how you'd never want to go back from having it. It's going to be the same thing with a lot of these technologies. We're going to get used to it. We'll learn how to use it the right way, and then we're never going to want to go back.

John Kenney: It's the unknown right now. We're starting to learn more about it, but eventually it's going to be fitting in certain aspects of what we do and it'll be no different than picking up your phone, getting on it to search for something. It's like that's what we do. That was a great example that you gave about the internet. Scared a lot of people. I don't know of anyone ... My 84-year-old mother goes on the internet.

Alex Tolle: Yep. It's all about just trying to go into it with an open mind and not being so scared of it because it's probably going to help you out.

John Kenney: Yep.

Alex Tolle: Well, John, thank you so much. We will have linked to your Shopify so people can see the training that you have offered. There's a lot of great resources in there. I believe you have a discount for Roofers Coffee Shop as well. Is that right?

John Kenney: We do.

Alex Tolle: So you can find that on the Cotney Consulting directory on Roofers Coffee Shop to get that discount code. Take advantage of it, send your team. John Kenney has a lot of in-person trainings as well, so keep an eye out for those. This probably will come out after this happens, but you have an estimating training at the end of January in Florida and a great, great resource to send your estimating team too. So keep an eye out for those for future ones. John, again, thank you so much. Anything else you'd like to add?

John Kenney: No. It's always great to be here and if you're listening to this and you may be in a position of the company where you're responsible for training. Project management training works very, very well in Zoom online and groups. I've done many, many larger companies and medium-sized companies with that. We break them into groups and there's a lot of hands-on exercises. The reason why I'm saying that, a lot of companies cannot shut down an entire company for three or four days to do the training, but they can break the groups out over three or four weeks. So there's a lot of options. So don't be afraid to train.

Alex Tolle: Yeah. And just reach out When you find a program or you want to work with John. Just reach out and the person putting on the training, they'll figure it out for you. They'll help you figure out the best way to get that training for your team.

John Kenney: Yep. For sure.

Alex Tolle: All right. Well thank you so much John, and we'll see you on the next one.

John Kenney: All right. Thank you. Always great to be here.

Outro: 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.