John Kenney - Mastering Roof Estimating - 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, we'll 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.

Karen Edwards: Hello and welcome to another episode of Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. I'm your host, Karen Edwards and today I am sitting down with John Kenney, one of my favorite people. Hi, John. Welcome.

John Kenney: Hi, Karen. Thank you. It was always a pleasure to talk to you always. So I'm glad to be here today.

Karen Edwards: Well, we are going to do a deep dive into your in-person roofing estimating training courses. And I know you've been doing this for a while now, both in your location and at different distributors, manufacturers that are bringing you in. So first of all, I don't imagine there's many people out there that don't know who John Kenney is, but please introduce yourself.

John Kenney: Oh, sure. Well, my name is John Kenney and I have Cotney Consulting Group and I focus on working directly with roofing contractors and people in the roofing industry. And one of the things that I offer, what we're going to talk about today is training. Where I get my background is I always like to say that this is really walk your walk time when I do these trainings because I spent 45 years as a contractor in the industry. So that's where all the knowledge really comes from, that real world experience of actually doing it and training people throughout the years.

Karen Edwards: So if there is a mistake to be made or something to watch out for, you no doubt have experienced it, been through that and it's really cool that you are now sharing that knowledge and giving back to the industry.

John Kenney: Yeah, that's what makes it so great. You've allowed me to make the mistakes so that I get to transfer that information over to you so you don't make the mistakes. That's the great thing about it.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, yeah, true. And one of the most important things for any contractor is really estimating because that's where you're going to either lose money or make money, right?

John Kenney: Yeah, absolutely. And anyone that's ever come to in any of my classes or have seen me speak on estimating, that's why I always say it is absolutely the foundation of your company. Everything else cannot even be near correct if you don't have the skills and the necessity to put proper pricing together, that's where you start.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Now, you recently held a two-day training just a couple months ago in Florida and that was your first time where you were bringing people to you, correct?

John Kenney: Yeah, that's correct. It was back in July. Yeah, a little over a month ago now. We decided to have that little bit deeper dive workshop than what I go around the country and teach, so we decided to do it locally here and bring people in and it was a great success.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. So tell me, if I'm thinking about going to the two-day estimating training, what does it look like? What is it the first day, second day, what happens?

John Kenney: Yeah, so what I've done is I've taken both day one and day two and set them up similarly on a classroom style. So that's the first thing to understand. You're going to come in on a classroom style. You've got your own desk, you've got your own area that you're going to work off of. And I split the day each day into what I consider two parts. I like to do the first part of the day as instructional. What I do in instructional is where we go and learn estimating sequences. We go over profit margins, we talk about the real nuts and bolts education part that you need to understand before we get into the afternoon session. The afternoon session is what I really enjoy the most. That's hands-on.

I've set up different exercises and actual takeoffs and different scenarios of commercial low slope and steep slope roofing, and we work on those together each afternoon. So you're not only getting instructional, you're actually getting to put what you're learning into practice.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Hands-on is really important. Curious, what level of experience does someone need to have in order to benefit from this training?

John Kenney: Well, that's a great question, because I really set this out to be more of what I want to call that advanced level workshop. But what I found out is I've had people that have taken my basic online training. When I say basic, you're not working with me one-on-one. And also people that have just been exposed or they understand roofing, but they're new into it. So I can no longer say that it's limited that you've got to have experience of estimating for a year, even six months. But what you're going to get out of it is regardless of what position that you're in, in our industry, as long as you understand what roofing is and what we do and you understand the makeup of putting an estimate together, you're going to have labor and all the different things. You're able to take this workshop and you're able to get knowledge out of it to take back and work.

Karen Edwards: What do you think are some of the common challenges that estimators are dealing with on a daily basis, and how do you help them overcome those challenges?

John Kenney: I think the first section of challenges that they face is not understanding proper estimating sequencing, and that's what I teach in this. And what I mean by that is making sure you're covering all your basics, the materials, the equipment, the subcontractors, the others, et cetera and what goes into that and how do you do this uniformly and meticulously the same way each and every time so it becomes a habit?

And I teach them how to do that because why do we want it to be a habit? Because then you don't have to put a lot of thought process into doing it. It becomes what you're doing each and every way that you're doing it. So that's part one. Then in part two, what we get into, I think the biggest problem that faces them is understanding of labor. So the skill set and the science is part one.

Part two is the labor understanding, which is really the art. What I like to go into when we get into the art of estimating is how labor is the most guessing part of it, but we want to be able to limit that with the most data. And I actually teach them how to estimate off of a historical database that I've put together for this class to get them used to that and understand how to develop that in their own company when they go back.

Because without that, you're never going to estimate correctly. And one of the things we talk about is if you're working for company A and now you're working for company, if you even have all the basics down, the labor's still the big factor because A and B will not produce the same exact way. No two roofing companies are exactly the same in this industry. So I teach them that knowledge to go back and use what I've taught them to put it right into their own company.

Karen Edwards: And it's platform-agnostic, right? You don't care what tool they're currently using. You are teaching the skills that go and help them just be better and understand it, right?

John Kenney: Yeah. I think the biggest shocks that I get is there's no Excel spreadsheets we work off of. There's no computer estimating. We're doing it by hand, and I've set them up and they're like, "Well, why are we doing it by hand?" I say, "Because if you can estimate manually and understand what you're doing, then you can use the software for what it's really meant for a tool. A tool to make you more efficient and more accurate and use it to your advantage." Estimating software is not an estimator and it never will be.

Karen Edwards: Wow. That's a really powerful point. The software is a tool. I like that you refer to it that way. It is not going to know your data, it's not going to know your numbers. You have to put that in there, and that's how you're going to produce your estimates, right?

John Kenney: Correct. And like I said, certain things are more scientific, like materials and equipment. Should be very accurate, almost should be near 100%. Labor at best, you're going to be 95 somewhere in that range because there's always something that's going to contribute to labor being different, whether it's weather conditions or whatever it may be. But the point is to get you to understand how to get to that accuracy level and know what to do with it, and then you use these things as a tool to basically make you more efficient at what you do. And then I teach them how you use that tool to get that information more efficiently out to the field. So yes, there is advantages to it. Anyone listening about; well, I like using software. Sure, you keep using it, but the point is, get the skills down, use the software to the next level. That's what we teach you to do.

Karen Edwards: So what should someone coming to your class be prepared to bring with them, or what knowledge and information should they make sure that they have there so that they can benefit the most?

John Kenney: I mean, honestly, as far as what to bring with them, a lot of people use their phone for their calculators or you bring their calculator. Other than that, I supply everything. I supply you with the jobs. I supply you with the takeoff information, the actual roof plan, everything you need is there. The only thing I would not recommend if you're not in the roofing industry, this is probably not the course you should start with.

You need to go back and definitely do my online training, which I've had some people do before the last one. They did the online, then they came to this and they had that basic knowledge of how to estimate in our industry. But if you've been in the industry, and even if you haven't dabbled in the estimating part, but maybe you're coming in awful operations, which I had a few in my class that were going from operations into estimating, they have that knowledge of roofing to be able to understand what we're covering in the class.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So I'm curious, you've got people come to your class, you train them and then your job, you send them back to their companies. Do you get feedback like, "Oh my gosh, you wouldn't believe..." Share some of the feedback that you've gotten from participants.

John Kenney: Yeah, I mean, the feedback that I've gotten has been really positive. And what I mean by that is I have between the online workshops that we just started here locally and bringing people in and the ones that I've traveled around the country to do, which are a little bit different, but I've never had anybody say to me, "This was a waste of my time." So that's important. That's what I stand for. Even people that I've had some of my classes where people have been in there with 20, 30 years of estimating experience and they said to me two things. One, "I wish I would've known this earlier. It would've made my mistake level less and I'm taking stuff back," or "It was a fantastic refresher," or, "Wow, these are things that I didn't even know." So that's the good thing, right? Regardless of where you're at, you're going to learn and I'm going to make sure that you're going to learn because I engage you as we go through this.

I want to make sure you're engaged and you're getting the most out of it. I also follow up and encourage any of the students that take this, the class participants to let me know if they have any issues after, that they didn't understand something. I even will review an estimate with anybody that takes one of my classes. So there's a lot of opportunity more than just sitting in these workshops. You have access to me to take what I'm teaching you when you put it into action to get back with me to look at and make sure you're doing it correctly.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that's a biggie, because it's basically two days. It's immersive. You're in there for two full days, and that's a lot of knowledge and information to put in somebody's brain, so much so it could be a little bit of overload. So it's nice that after they leave, they can still reach out and get that help.

John Kenney: The only thing I can say, when you come to any of these, you got to be prepared to work. You got to be prepared. You're going to be tired at the end of the day because it's a lot. It's a lot of information, but I'm giving it to you in steps that you can digest and I give you stuff to take with you back and you take back with you. So it's not just worried about taking all kinds of notes. You don't even really have to take notes. You have to pay attention, digest it and I'm going to actually give you the notes and the important parts to take back with you to review.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. And you've shared that this was such a success that people were getting on waiting lists, right?

John Kenney: Yeah. After the July one, I had a waiting list for another one and I just scheduled that one coming up in October. And just from the waiting list, as soon as I booked the dates, I was automatically 50% sold out. So by now I just started advertising that you're going to start to see it come out. We just started it for the 22nd and 23rd of October. I've already had people that have replied back, "I can't make that one. Put me on the waiting list for the next one." So it is starting to get steam, and I really enjoy doing these because our industry has to continue to grow and gain knowledge to continue that growth through the professionalism that we all want to get to and be at.

Karen Edwards: Well, yeah, that's the goal is, in everything we do at RoofersCoffeeShop, our associations, we're all working to elevate the professionalism of the industry. And by learning and gaining that knowledge, it really changes the game and really elevates the company and the industry overall. And John, you're a great proponent of that.

John Kenney: Yeah, absolutely. I look at it this way. To boil it down in the most simplest of terms, what I'm doing is you can go... Let's talk about fishing. Everyone's heard this, that you either can give someone a fish or you can teach them how to fish and they can survive for life. Well, that's what this is about. I'm giving you the skills to take back to learn.

One thing I teach, there's no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts. There's no tricks. There's no white pixie dust. There's no pills you're going to take to get you there. You got to learn how to do this, and then you take it and adapt it to your style. That's the important thing. It's adaptable to where your industry is, what part of the country you're in, how your crews do, whether you're using subcontract labor or using in-house labor, whatever that may be, new construction, re-roof, it does not matter. These skills work for every aspect, even service repairs. I've had people that are not in the commercial side, they're in the repair side and they come in to learn how to put proper pricing together.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, service is an area that has a lot of opportunity, I think.

John Kenney: Yeah, it does.

Karen Edwards: And a lot of people... Not everybody's successful at it. So if someone is thinking about trying to get into the service business or you're in the service business and you're just struggling, this might be a good fit then.

John Kenney: Absolutely. You're going to go away with knowledge, and that's the key. That's the best thing you can hope for. Anything that you do is to come away with more than what you went into. And that is, I can say a guarantee that I give everyone that comes in, because if they can't get anything out of it, then I will continue to work with you till you do get something out of it.

But I have never had that happen because I'm giving you a lot. We could probably do this in a five-day session, but time is of the essence. So we're even thinking of doing that next advance level at some point in time, because I've had people take these and say, "Well, what's next? Where do we go?" Same way. Well, what about project management? I have to project manage as an estimator. So I'm working on putting that together for the beginning of next year, having another two day deep dive roofing project management sessions.

Karen Edwards: That's fantastic. You're going to be busy in 2025.

John Kenney: Yeah, well, I look forward to it.

Karen Edwards: Awesome. So tell me a little bit about... The training is in Lakeland, Florida?

John Kenney: Yeah, it's in Lakeland, Florida. It's right on 122, Main Street. Reason why I picked Lakeland is if you can't get a flight into Tampa and wherever you're coming from and Orlando fits, it's almost centrally between the two, but Tampa is the most convenient. And the other reason I picked it, well, hotels are a lot, there's a lot of hotels in Lakeland, because there's a lot of events. The Tigers do their winter training here in Lakeland, so it's already set up. So the hotels are easy. There's a great downtown. There's restaurants, there's places to go.

Even if you brought your family, you're not that far from Legoland or Disney, so there's things to do. The other reason is the Lakeland Regional Airport is starting to have flights now into Lakeland, and they're expanding out into other airports. Right now, there's nine flights coming in from different parts of the country. So not only are you going to be able to come into Tampa, I think by the time we get into next year, probably 30 cities around, you'd be able to get a direct flight right into the town that we're doing. So I think it made it pretty convenient for everybody. That's the key.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Make it easy to get there, and good point of if you want to bring your family, it's a two-day training. Well, just tack on a couple extra days and-

John Kenney: In the July training, I had two people come to it that were actually staying through the weekend. They brought their families and they were going off into Orlando to do other things. So again, there's many ways of... As long as you're getting out of it what you need, why not involve the family?

Karen Edwards: Sure. Yeah. That's fantastic. All right, so the next obvious question is how do you sign up?

John Kenney: Well, it's easy. You can go directly to my website, which is cotneyconsulting.com. I've actually put it right at the top of my landing page. I've had so many requests. I want to make it easy so you don't have to look around you. There's a video on there to show you what you're getting out of it, the brochure and it takes you right to the sign-up, where you can sign up. If you're a company and you want to get a group signed up, contact me directly because I do give discounts for five or more that come to the class. So reach out and you can get me at my email, jkenney@cotneyconsultinggroup or go to the website and give me a call. Whatever works for you.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Oh, that's great. I was going to ask about discounts if they have multiple, because a lot of companies do have more than one estimator, so it makes sense to do that.

John Kenney: There's different discount levels once you get above three people. So reach out, I'm happy to work with you. I know if you're willing to invest in your company and your people, then I'm willing to work along with you as well.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, and I'm sure the ROI on that is just going to be so worth it for companies.

John Kenney: I guarantee you, you will get a huge ROI.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Well, John, thank you so much. If you missed that contact information, please visit Cotney Consulting Group's directory on rooferscoffeeshop.com. We have links to John's website and his contact information, phone numbers, so you know how to get ahold of him. Thank you so much, John. This was great to talk about what happens during your estimating class, and I'm really happy that the people are learning so much and getting so much out of it and you're really helping the industry.

John Kenney: Yeah. Thank you for having me on today. It's always great to get together and have a good conversation, and I enjoyed talking about what we're doing in the industry.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Well, thank you everyone out there for listening to this episode of Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. Be sure to subscribe, follow us on social media. Follow John on social media. We want to keep you informed and keep you educated. So we'll see you on a future episode.

John Kenney: Thank you. Take care now.

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