Lending Pro Tips for Burgeoning Roofers

By Cayden Wemple. 

Listen to the insightful recounting of roofing pro, Lori Swanson’s, experience in the roofing industry on a new episode of Stories from the Roof. 

Getting a roofing business off the ground is a tall order. There’s most likely already established competition in your area and maintaining a steady flow of business can be tough at first. Lori Swanson of Guardian Roofing remembers the beginning stages of her business well. After all the hard work of going to trade shows and marketing and putting the blood, sweat and tears in, you need to be able to have the business maintain itself. That’s what Lori wished she thought about when she was first starting out. .  

During a Stories from the Roof podcast, she tells the hosts what’s important in the beginning is, “Building systems and a team and the value in your business so that it can continue on without you. I think as owners or entrepreneurs, we are like, ‘Oh, we're going to start this business and we're just going to kill it and we're going to make it grow.’"  

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks as you’re starting and building a business. Lori continues, “Initially in the beginning, we're not thinking about how it’s going to succeed without us? Or how is it going to take care of the people that helped us build it to what it is today? Or if we should want to exit, how are we making sure that we're building it with the right type of value that's attractive to another buyer? We just didn't really begin with the end in mind.” 

As challenges arise, Lori shares that it’s important to reach out to your network within the industry to help you navigate through them successfully. And one of the best things she did in her career was get an executive coach. An executive coach helps you navigate specific obstacles your company is facing and helps you set goals. For Lori, this person could, “help build a playbook and help extract the stuff that's in your brain that not everybody can read your mind and get that down and document it in systems.” 

You can listen to the rest of Lori’s fascinating roofing journey here. 

Learn more about Guardian Roofing in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.guardianhome.com. 

About Cayden  

Cayden is a reporter for RoofersCoffeeShop, MetalCoffeeShop and AskARoofer. When he isn’t writing about roofs, he’s usually playing guitar or writing songs for his musical endeavors.