Jon Abernathy and Della Croft - The Five-Year Hurdle - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jon Abernathy and Della Croft of TAMKO. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to roofing road trips the podcast you on Journey across the of roofing from fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on thero Adventures will uncover the stories innovations c. Roof so 

Heidi Ellsworth: And welcome to another roofing road trips from roofer's coffee shop my name is Heidi Ellsworth and we are here today on this Awesome road trip podcast to really kind of talk about some scary moments and that is the first five years of business for any roofing contractor and we have so many entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses and really wondering how do i get over that hurdle of the five year mark and really showing profitability and taking care of my folks so we asked the experts from TAMKO to join us today to talk about that and to kind of share some of their experiences and advice for contractors so let's start out with some introductions first of all welcome John and della I'm so happy to have you both here 

Della Croft: Thank you Heidi it's wonderful be here 

Heidi Ellsworth: And let's start out with some introduction so John if you could introduce yourself and tell us what you do with TAMKO 

Jon Abernathy: Yeah so i am the director contractor engagement here at TAMKO building fraud products so basically nationally kinda help oversee the contractor program and work with my team focus on like helping contractors grow engaging them helping them be more successful with our product and programs and just all kinds of d things across the industry as far as education 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it i told you we were bringing experts in exactly John and tell can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do with TAMKO yes 

Della Croft: I'm Della and I'm director of communications and community relations my background in academics is in communication and marketing and sales so as far manufacture from entrepreneur standpoint i understand the daunting Tasks of entrepreneurship and own my own businesses in the past as well and I'm just looking forward to sharing any type of insights that would help entrepreneurs scale their business 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love that della we have that in common a little bit of entrepreneurship our own businesses but let's jump in right let's just jump right in and really kind of talk about what are some of the and John I'm gonna send this your way what are some of the common mistakes that new roofing contractors make um around Managing their business and especially in those first few years 

Jon Abernathy: Ive seen all kinds of things you know one of 'em es a lot of Guys jump in head first maybe they're in the market they a lot of Storms and they're su de first year instead de taking that money and setting it back and understand there's a process of getting paid they have a lot of cash flow issues i seen a lot of Guys go out, la first thing buy a brand truck Fancy you've seen the roof truck just positioned money in places they shouldn't and then the next year slows down a bit business is up and down and they end up in a major cashflow problem or you know sometimes it's over hiring right we hired too many people too fast cause we have a great year we end up in this year next year not we have too many people take your time with Growth build some capital you know you needed you know a hundred thousand dollars every rep you hired just because you gotta go cash flow what they sell right a times you're paying for paying for your labor way before you ever paid on the job so la big thing scalability having cash to build a scale with able you know get in good distributors help you sometimes so time understanding you know with the process takes lo longer distributor and work close with them build a relationship kind of helps you business over time you know on the flip side of it you know when you first start out no a so customer experience every job you a plus i i always believe in making advocates at homeowner so when you do a really really good job always call a chick-fil-a model you know you know how you talk to the job site que being very transparent with what you do company cam a one to take a lot of photos show the homeowner the project everything the transparent a great job and its crazy how fast travel your best adverti know advocacy means experience have with you and it's crazy how fast you can build a business in roofing just off doing a great job using a great product 

Heidi Ellsworth: You know i agree so much know sometimes people don't think about thing ok, i can roof im i have my pickup truck I'm going out and I'm going to start my business they don't think about things like creating budgets creating really relationships with manufacturers and their distributors and kind of putting a business plan together ahead of time to really kind of cover the ups and downs of the market cuz we know there's there's the cold season and then there's the season that's coming in right now in the spring. Um dela with your experience how important is that relationship for new contractors to take the time to build with their sales reps whether it's distribution or manufacturing 

Della Croft: Right as far as the relationship can work both ways right as far as as an entrepreneur wearing so many hats you have to have those relationships with so many different attributes of your company that then your life behind as far as whos taking care of you so a that distribution to take also take care of you because you are you are the important one here as as the business owner and then 11 you are taken care of then you can translate that onto your clients it's just a revolving door at that point en 

Heidi Ellsworth: Dos customer building i mean John you said it building those relationships with your customers and really having them love you so that they refer you to their friends and family and neighbors es so important and i know you are working with contractors every day for customer success what do you see you know with the contractors really take the time to build that to take the time to build that relationship with you you 

Jon Abernathy: Know a questions so like you know part of our contractor engagement team is obviously you know the first question always es what keeps you up at night right there's all kinds of topics always every you different what keeps the contractor up late at night you know you live in a place as entrepreneur with a of what if we don't get a hell storm what if you there a lot going on with immigration you know with crew and stuff that's been a big hot topic right we don know we gonna have shingles this year shing a a major problem over the course the last several years manufacturing COVID had a hard time kinda catching up and the industry continue to grow it never slowed down sos a big thing so you know as far as aligning you know one thing is kind cool with us with our top tier program especially like we really when those contracts align and we we kind of coexist and we believe in mutually beneficial relationships we've actually val with our top tier contractors to make sure we get the material if no ahead of time this year they're not gonna run out you know we've kind of to work with their distributor and make sure they have enough product on the ground the questions are seriously endless when it comes to contractor what they like to see you know what we believe is you know we wanna do what we can to help build their brand you know give them tools and resources we've got a lot of things program discounts with what we call our tech technology stack it's much more than technology we align with these different partners help grow their business we the business up we wanna run be profitable we want grow at the same time and we also wanna give a great service and customer experience and that's where technology now. 

Jon Abernathy: Has become a big piece 

Heidi Ellsworth: I think thats so smart and you know understanding your supply chain is so important you know that next step of 11 you do have that relationship you have the products that are working really understanding how to estimate um to avoid underestimating to you know help that cashflow but also still winning the Jobs John what how what are you seeing some common mistakes when it comes to Estimating that contractors in those first five years might be making 

Jon Abernathy: I guess you say experiences everything so you're in the industry you get to learn some lessons right so you miss a lot of things especially on morning new sales reps you know if you're gonna bring on new people to represent your brand and so educated because make a lot of mistakes miss things you give a homeowner estimate they really don't like whenever you come back after you you know you get started realize that you missed a lot of things right i i think a big part of it when you're new is just you know being very educated on how to go scope a job spend the time getting the at Addict do a lot of documentation and make sure when you're writing those estimates that you're not missing things on the other side of it there's a lot of technology out there love technology you'll find that out really helps you and your team online all the way from sales production and it makes it super easy to build those estimates now you anybody within a couple of days you can have 'em Estimating roofs with technology like a good we have a partnership with the that's a great technology to break in and you can train somebody up on it in a few days and it really helps estimate quickly and 

Heidi Ellsworth: Ya you know what su coat what a great company and they're part of job nimbus i believe and so you have that like you said from the beginning to the end you bringing in all the software together to integrate i think that's so important and and you mentioned it earlier John about um, really the labor shortage and what we're seeing with immigration and such and so i really and dela i would love for you to kind of comment on this the importance of training and the importance of manufacturers and distributors but really manufacturers providing strong training programs that make sure these crewes understand that these new contractors understand how to properly install what are some of the things you see on that training front 

Della Croft: I'll jump in here first of all i think education always makes the experience better so we're talking about relationships and we're talking about our employees or we're talking about a job performance when we are educated on Estimating we're educated on installing the whole process es more seamless en the experience for the homeowner. Es so much better so as far as the manufacturers Offering o Offering you that training its such a valuable and insight piece for your everyone on your team 

Heidi Ellsworth: Ya it really es John tell us a little bit about how TAMKO goes about training on your contractors 

Jon Abernathy: So we have City at the chief Stadium it's gonna be fun 

Heidi Ellsworth: We're gonna be there with you I'm 

Jon Abernathy: Excited we're gonna have you know one of the things speaking on this on this topics we have workmanship training or you know we call maybe we call crafter workmanship training either one the contractor to come in they get to bring their team because. Si i believe all the way from the Cruise that are actually out there doing the install absolutely need to understand you know what we're looking for what proper install looks like you know obviously manufacturers don't like the warranty products that are not properly installed and you know I've seen over my Career a lot of people say we've been doing it like this for Twenty years had to say well you've been doing it wrong so we have to make sure people are on training all the way from the guy know the shingle down and honestly all the way up to the top even to the self team like if you don't understand what you're selling or how to install it you cannot educate a homeowner properly on what buying and what to expect so we believe that that alignment has to be from the owner all the way down to the guy picking up the shingles off the ground at end of the day they need to understand what they're doing so very very important we focus heavily on proper install and I've seen so many issues over the years withing changing where that has been a big pain point only for manufacturers companies and homeowners people showing up doing rough and they're wrong 

Heidi Ellsworth: Ya 

Jon Abernathy: Nobodys covered right a bad thing so like we have a we a hard focus on that we think it's one of the most important things 

Heidi Ellsworth: So important and i think you're right it contributes the success of the company really is the success of the customer experience as we're going through that and dela you're sitting there nodding going yeah yeah how do you see that how that correlates to that customer experience and to the customers right 

Della Croft: At the end of the day it Gives them peace of mind if you are educated if your team is educated they are going your homeowner is going to be more happy their experience will be better they're gonna be happier longer because their product is Performing better en longer en theyre getting what they paid for 

Heidi Ellsworth: Right ya es so true tell us a little bit about this training that you're going to do in the Stadium what es that yes 

Della Croft: Arrowhead will have some demonstrations and John really knows more than i do about all that we have John cinna there as well will have Bill Smith there giving us some insightful information about insurance claims and filing what else John tell so 

Jon Abernathy: So John c. Be taken of you know how to properly document a claim so de the big button been on across América with you know everybody knows insurance comes kind of changing their strategy of how they claims it's taken approved johnna did a great job of have a document professional on the front end to we need more professional wisdom in the in the ruing industry and John is one of those Guys that's that to the industry at a high level really working alongside contractors to make to help even help insurance companies get the information they need the process these claims a faster rate to and then help 'em the approval of the claim you everything anymore is is about do you know they want to documented the right photos you know how do we do that at a high level make it easier for insurance companies to say no put that way one value selling approach so like you know the new program weed back in January we're super excited abouts a ton of exclusivity in it contractors so everybody likes to be exclusive at different levels it's a very exclusive program and we wanna make sure these contractors are trained to go out and sell products high quality products on value you know we feel like industry to the bottom people go out and it's all about the cheapest price i seen it my whole life and we believe that there a better way we wanna we want to bring that perceived value to the homeowner with these enhanced warranties we actually with the certified contractors that are craft train we actually do Twenty up to Twenty five years Workman so so actually backing Workman in these programs and so its a lot of value to the home Gives a lot of peace of mind right so we're excited about the war we have to offer we're excited about our program we'll be hosting several events this year so we're excited about that we're just a different direction and you know understanding contractors you know very very what the word is we wanna make sure that we can give them every bit of resource that we can to help them make more money their business professional 

Della Croft: Ya en vez veces de dos no it goes back to what we said earlier is let us take care of you let come y come enjoy the day e youll gets a tour of arr as well thats. Has a lot of fun and also enhances the happiness of your own team being able to be educated on this information and trained but then also have a good time and be taken care of 

Heidi Ellsworth: I tell you the roofers coffee shop team is gonna be there we're very excited about it and i am always so impressed with all of your roadshow and the events that you do across the country people can find those all on roofers coffee shop in the TAMKO Directory so so important and really when i you know as you think about that and you think about contractors getting over that five year hurdle this is what it's about going to those kind of events every year learning new products building relationships and networking with other contractors who i love watching contractors help contractors 

Jon Abernathy: We when i started in business we think about were talking Twenty years ago this stuff didn't exist theno right we had to figure it out probably tell you more what not to do the what because we make a lot of mistakes so like you can come to an event and learn something that would save you five years would hit you five years ahead just by learning from our experts of what not to do right that's the other side of it you know we wanna teach you what to do and what not to do and it's gonna help you really streamline and grow your business away fast if you just try to figure it out on your own so i would encourage anybody that can come to an event and come and be part of you know the Collaboration. Um, you're gonna learn something you're gonna take something back and it's gonna help you grow streamline processes run more efficiently sell a higher level 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it i love it speaking of things that weren't around five or ten years ago maybe Twenty years i should say John 

Jon Abernathy: I 

Heidi Ellsworth: Mine too que i remember but you have redefined the TAMKO edge contractor program let's talk about that because talk about something that helps contractors get over that five year hurdle and really helps super grow their business early on. Um, so John can you maybe kind of go through what is TAMKO edge contractor program and how it help in that first five years 

Jon Abernathy: So you know joining edge like i said the first thing is joining edge you start you still enhanced warranty you can do so I'm excited about instead of just being a contractor if you put a product on getting a Limited lifetime warranty we're Offering we're partner with you and allowing you because you're pro doing enhances to the homeowner and you offer to a better warranty than your competitor homeowners tend to take that value to solve more Jobs thats one of the things the other thing inside of our program is the ability to network with what we call partners people that's gonna save you a lot of money when you first get the business you really wanna try to figure out how to be resourceful and save money so every one of our partners have to as a tam pro is designed to help you save money because you part of our network so all the way from job numbers to marketing to man. Oh my those things in that program think you Guys are in it coffee shop yes 

Heidi Ellsworth: We are you can get a discount for the our club and you can get free classified ads 

Jon Abernathy: CRM so i think it's important for contracts to start out with a good CRM as you grow youre gonna wish you have one if you didn't start with one it becomes and add those clients and then you can know kinda helps you track the clients so there's a lot of things in there that you wanna be able to do and then also it allows you to come to our events and you get exclusive trainings and stuff like that so in access to our team our engagement team so that kind value i mean there's a lot more values the top three things i would say tam team some tam done here is anybody can reach out to me of program Conversation 

Della Croft: Bottom line bottom line is together we win we can only grow if you also grow and we want to make you successful as a contractor to continue Growing right 

Heidi Ellsworth: Right i mean it is so important to reach out to enroll in these programs to take advantage of them to really understand them John you love this i can remember probably thirty years ago maybe not quite that long Twenty five years ago i was pulling receipts from everywhere i could find the contractors company that i worked for and trying to put 'em together did all this work and then i went in and said so what are we gonna do with these what kind of business Builders are we gonna get and they're like. Um we're thinking about a TV and so it's so funny nowadays everybody you know first of all all those receipts are electronic and it makes it so easy working with distribution and second of all contractors really understand the power of the business Builders the extended warranties the services the technologies that go along with it so but you have to as a contractor reach out register and start getting involved to find all this out 

Jon Abernathy: John do and so yeah you can you can reach out to you go to www doco com and learn more about our redfin edge program and you can you can go the edge program for com and sign up and you can start a team you can apply for the pro program you have a local out and take you further down the road get your onboarding 

Heidi Ellsworth: And you might find some fun things in there too it's not all business there's a lot of fun stuff also great dalla some of your last thoughts around just the importance of that customer experience you already said and how that really can help you get you know be super successful at five years and not still struggling yes 

Della Croft: As far as performance goes when when pacing yourself right just like Johnson in the very beginning sometimes y as a contractor you get into your own entrepreneurship and there there's a lot of things to to to manage but being success off the bat and being able to pace yourself and be sure of yourself you got this you got this we are here to help here to back you up and help well 

Heidi Ellsworth: That's Awesome thats Awesome i wanna say thank you to both of you i will say it's a true roofing road trip cuz dla did this from the airport so thank you so much thank you both for all this great information and wisdom i cant tell you how much i appreciate it 

Della Croft: Thank you heidi we appreciate being a part of your team as well. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Ah, we're looking forward to that event in Kansas City and we'll be reporting out on it so please check out the TAMKO Directory and watch for updates on your events that are gonna be happening all year long this is your chance to get involved and you can register right now just go to the  TAMKO Directory and you can register for TAMKO redefined edge contractor program and it doesn't cost you anything it's just gonna help you get your business to that next level so check it out on the Directory and then also please check out all of our podcasts under the read list and watch navigation of roofing road trips be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode we'll be seeing you next time on roofing road trips 

Outro: If you've enjoyed the ride don't forget every adventure coffee shop com to thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next roofing road trip.