Lori Jerome - Find Your Distinctive Roof - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Lori Jerome of Pabco, and Zachary Sayles and Dylan Winmill of Omega Roofing. 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 long term 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. This is Heidi Ellsworth and I am road tripping up north today, virtually, to be with the folks from PABCO. I'm so excited. We are going to have some discussions about distinctive products, about marketing, and we're going to really kind of look at how contractors can bring that together. So in visiting with Lori Jerome, she recommended, hey, we need to bring some of our contractors in from Omega Roofing and they are here today to talk. So I want to introduce everybody, and welcome to the show. So first of all, Zach Sayles with Omega Roofing, welcome to the show.

Zachary Sayles:
Thank you, Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. Glad to have you on this podcast. And Dylan Winmill, also with Omega Roofing.

Dylan Winmill:
Yes, ma'am happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We love to get the contractors on this show and hear what's happening and you guys have some fun stuff to share with us today. So finally, I want to introduce Lori Jerome, I just mentioned, with PABCO. Lori is running the marketing initiative. She's just doing some great things. So Lori, we're so happy to have you here today. Welcome to the show.

Lori Jerome:
Thanks Heidi. It's great to be here for sure.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, it's fun. Okay. So before we get going, what I'd like you to do, even though I've kind of introduced you by name, I would love for each of you to introduce yourselves, what you do with your company, a little bit about your company. So Zach, let's start with you.

Zachary Sayles:
All right. So my name is Zach Sayles, one of the owners of Omega Roofing. And I mean, we kind of still take care of everything right now. We're a fairly small business still. So we handle the sales, the production, project management. We're off the roofs finally though. So we're no longer installing. So everything behind the scenes though, and handling the sales and marketing, we take care of all of it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great. Wow. Okay. Dylan?

Dylan Winmill:
I'm Dylan Winmill, the other owner of Omega Roofing. So we started together in 2020, October, kind of in the midst of the pandemic and we decided to bet on ourselves for once and start this journey. And it's been a good time and had a lot of ups and happy that we joined the PABCO family and been here.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great. Congratulations you two. That's a huge accomplishment, huge.

Zachary Sayles:
Thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Lori, can you introduce yourself and maybe, can you talk and give a little bit of the history about PABCO?

Lori Jerome:
Sure. My name's Lori Jerome and I'm the brand manager for PABCO Roofing. I manage the brand awareness and the marketing programs for PABCO roofing products, and I get to work with contractors and I really love my job. So a little bit about PABCO, PABCO's part of the PABCO building products division of the Pacific Coast family of companies. Pacific Coast is a family owned organization and it was founded almost 70 years ago. In our plant here, PABCO Roofing products is here in the port of Tacoma in the Grit City. And we've been here since 1984. And we sell shingles through distribution throughout the West Coast, Northern Canada and the Southwest.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Very cool. I have been watching and working with PABCO, I think since almost, maybe not 1984, but definitely since 1993 when I got into the roofing industry. So such a great company. And you know what, Lori, I really wanted to talk to just a little bit up front too about my favorite PABCO shingle, Cascade. I just love that shingle. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Lori Jerome:
Yeah. So Cascade is part of our signature line of shingles. That's our highest end line of shingles. It's an open tooth shingle and it has that unique diamond shape, which is a patented diamond shape that we sell here in, actually we sell mostly on the West Coast and the Southwest, but we sell Cascade all over North America. And so that unique diamond shape was actually inspired by the historical homes in the early 1900s, from 1700 to 1900. It's an asphalt shingle and it comes in four different colors. It comes in an Antique Black, which is a really pretty rich black and Oakwood, which is a brown color. Pewter Gray, which is a gray neutral color. But then we have this really pretty color called Cambrian Slate, which actually looks like slate, but it's asphalt. So it has that mottled blue, gray, red color. It's really pretty. And this shingle looks really great on historic homes, homes that have gables and seat pitches and dormers and those kind of architectural elements. So it's requested quite a bit for renovations of historic homes.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. It is beautiful. So Zach, talk a little bit about the PABCO products. Dylan had said you're in the PABCO family. But Zach, what products, which ones, shingles, are you using the most and any insights on the Cascade?

Zachary Sayles:
I wish I could speak more on Cascade. It is a beautiful shingle and I would love to be able to offer it more and more to our customers. As of now, we typically offer the Premier [inaudible 00:06:27] Prestige. Those are our two biggest offerings for our area, both fantastic shingles. It's kind of funny coming into this business, and I won't speak about our competitors, but we actually had our site set on a different company. And it was actually the representative that we met, his name is Drew, fantastic guy. We built a fantastic relationship with him and the manager over at Pacific Supply. Both of them kind of led us over to PABCO and we just fell in love with the company, their culture. And we trust them. We trust that if something does happen or anything goes wrong with those shingles, they're actually going to take care of that and own up to it. And so we just, everyone we've met has just been fantastic. The products are fantastic, the colors are great. We love it. The culture's fantastic.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so awesome. And Dylan, to what Zach is saying, and it's the age old thing, right, people like to buy from people they like. So talk a little bit about your experiences using PABCO and kind of bringing it into your culture.

Dylan Winmill:
Well, so Zach and I are both from a small town, Burley, Rupert area of Idaho. And so it's not the biggest. And so we kind of just felt like with the PABCO, it kind of was a just perfect fit for it because it was a small town kind of thing that started. It's family owned, it's original. And they really just take care of their people. I mean, we went to the International Roofing Expo and they took us out to dinner, talked to us about the products, making sure that all of our needs were taken care of, just everything. I mean, from Drew to the other regional managers, to everybody. Just, they're so likable and caring and it really reflects on their products too. Because you can tell they really care about the shingles that they're producing and what they're putting out.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. And you know, the thing is is that has to make it easy. Not easy Dylan, but it doesn't that become a really strong part of your sales to your homeowners too, right? You want to be able to truly believe in the products and the manufacturer who's standing behind it.

Dylan Winmill:
Oh, it makes it so much easier to sell because when you believe in the product, you know what I mean, you speak from the heart and people can tell that you're saying that and that you have the trust there and you know what I mean, people can read off your body language.

Zachary Sayles:
We have so much more conviction.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That is so cool. Well you two have some great marketing. And so that's what we kind of want to talk about a little bit. And so before we get into the overall marketing, I really would love for you to tell this story. I think everyone's just going to find this great. So maybe Lori, let's start with you and how you heard from Zach and Dylan about this really cool marketing thing that happened to them and how you heard about it. And then we'll have them tell the story.

Lori Jerome:
Well, they were just talking about Drew. So Drew actually sent me an email. I saw this email and it was like, check out Omega Roofing, look at this. And Matthew McConaughey is my favorite. I love him. I was so excited for you guys.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So Zach, why don't you tell us a little bit about the story. Laurie's just primed it perfect.

Zachary Sayles:
Sure. So it all started from one of the companies we use to keep track of our employee time sheets called Homebase. They'd sent out an email and I'm sure they sent it out to a large group of their users. And they just said, hey, we're interviewing some of our users. We're going to select four of these interviews to go on further and interview with a special guest/movie star. And in my head I'm thinking, okay, it's going to be some B list or Homebase, you know, they're not a huge company. They're a good size company, but I'm just thinking it's a small guy. But I still entertained it. I'm like, it'll still be good publicity. So I jump back and I email them back and I let them know I'd like to go forward with this interview.

Zachary Sayles:
And we get on there and my first question to them is, who's this special guest/movie star? And they say Matthew McConaughey. And so, I put my game face on. I'm like, okay, I got to get this. We got to win this interview. And we go through this interview and two days later I'm sitting with Dylan at one of our suppliers and I get a call from the marketing director over there and she goes, Zach, I've good news for you. And I go, I'm going to be interviewing Matthew McConaughy, right? And she goes, you are. And from there, I mean, they just, the really cool experience with it is they kind of let Dylan and I have free reign with it. It wasn't a rehearsal. It wasn't something that they said, okay, say this, say that. They let us have free reign and kind of go over. They did kind of go over questions that Matthew would be asking us. But when we got on that interview, Matthew was so down to earth, he was so relaxed and it just made that interview very smooth. And it was just an awesome experience.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so cool.

Zachary Sayles:
In addition to that, after that interview, we actually had some of our local newspapers pick up that story and they just made it go, it was wildfire. And everybody was talking about it. We were getting tons of calls. It was fantastic. It was an awesome experience.

Dylan Winmill:
Every house we'd go in, they had the newspaper on the counter or something and they're like, it's you guys? And we're like, yeah, that's us. They actually sent out a videographer team and they were super cool guys, super professional, really good. And they just said, take us in your life, show us what you do. And so, I mean, we took them knocking doors. We took them to a tear off. We took them all over. And we had a barbecue at my house and it was just a super cool experience all the way around.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So Dylan, tell us a little bit, since we didn't really say, what's the name of the show? What is it based upon? Tell everybody a little bit about that.

Dylan Winmill:
It's the Grit & Greenlights series. So with Matthew, and it's just about companies who either started during COVID or made changes to adapt and work through the pandemic that happened. And so it was about four different companies, and we were one that started in the pandemic. And so they just wanted a feature on that of betting on ourselves, kind of what a thing that me and Zach have always kind of said to ourselves is that we've always come from a commission based type of background ever since we graduated high school. And Zach kind of talked about it, that he had talked to his parents and they said, you can either work for an hourly wage for somebody else or you can work a commission based job, or you can own the company yourself. And obviously that's going to make you the most money, but it's also going to be the most amount of work. And so we sat down one day and we were deciding, hey, let's bet on ourselves. And we threw our money in together and started it. Away we went.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. And the show is called Grit & Greenlights. Is that right?

Dylan Winmill:
Yeah, there's two videos on YouTube that you can watch.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Perfect. And we're going to, Lori also sent that over so you can find this on RoofersCoffeeShop too. I believe we had an article that went out on that. So we like to, I mean, that's pretty cool. So Zach, talk a little bit more about the marketing side of it. You know, I love what you're saying is that once it got into the newspapers, now you had people with newspapers on their counters. What did that mean to you guys to have that kind of experience, that kind of publicity, and then what did that mean for yourselves in marketing?

Zachary Sayles:
So we talk about this in the series as well. We both grew up in this community and we love our community. We want to give back to our community as much as possible. So when we walk in and we see papers on tables or people just saying, hey, we recognize you from that. It means the world to us. It's a fantastic experience. And again, we want to treat every homeowner as if they're our own parents. We want to make sure that experience is awesome from the beginning of that process, to the end of that process. And so we try to do that in our marketing as well. For us, on the sales side, it's definitely increased. I mean, from the day that initial YouTube video came out to the newspapers publishing it, we've gotten tons and tons of calls.

Zachary Sayles:
A lot of them being commercial and repair work. And now that summer's starting to hit, we're starting to see that translate into more full roof replacements. So it's just been an awesome journey from the start of that video to this point in time now. And even when we're out knocking doors, as Dylan had mentioned, we'll run into homeowners and they'll say you look familiar. I think I seen you in like the paper, or I seen you in a video or something. Then it just starts a whole conversation in and of itself. And it's just, it's so awesome to be able to kind of build that rapport with homeowners through that video and start our journey with that homeowner through that video.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's so cool. That's so cool. So what are some of the things, I mean, obviously when you had this opportunity, you jumped at it, you understood that's what you needed to do. What other kinds of marketing trends are you seeing that's really working for your company?

Zachary Sayles:
I think one of the biggest things that we're actually just starting to implement and really put a lot of effort and energy towards is not so much the paid advertising, we do a little bit on Google local services, which is great, and it does produce some instant gratification. But what we want to do is build a long term strategy, I guess, a growth strategy. And so we're putting a lot into SEO. We want something that, we don't just click a button and it shuts off, we want something that's super long term. We put a ton of time and energy into the forefront of it. That's going to translate into years and years of business down the road. So SEO for us is super, super important. And that's something that we are putting a lot of energy and time into as we speak actually.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great. And Dylan, some of the things, marketing community wise, as Zach was talking about, you guys are so entrenched in the community. What are some of the things you're doing in the community to continue to raise the exposure of your company?

Dylan Winmill:
Well, it's a lot about word of mouth. That's good. And so, like Zach said, just trying to treat everybody like our parents house, as if it was theirs. And then another thing that we're doing is, we're actually, Zach and I ran across a situation where there was this lady that she was trying to get approved by the insurance company for her roof. And we were trying to help assist with that. And she actually got denied for the roof, but during that time, her son got sick and he ended up in the hospital and he ended up passing away.

Dylan Winmill:
And so we kind of got together and we're kind of in a religious area. And so Zach went and talked to his pastor and I spoke with my church and seen what we could do to come together to take care of this family. And so we actually got with Pacific Supply, they helped a lot too with that and stuff. And so we got the products and got everything taken care of so that we can actually donate a roof to this family. And so we kind of wanted to start that, maybe call it the Omega Project or something, and then maybe do that for once a year to help out and give back to the community who gives so much to us.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. There's nothing better than cause marketing, giving back.

Zachary Sayles:
And it's funny too, because this is something we've wanted to do for a long time. And we never anticipated that coming into our first year of business that we're going to start this donation. And so it was really, I mean really to kind of come back to our community, this was a huge community project. We reached out to one of our other commercial roofing partners. They're jumping on board with us to help lay the roofing material, because it's a TPO type of product. It's a commercial roof type of product. Our church donated the funds to buy the products. A local dumpster company is donating the dumpster. Another gentleman's paying for the permit. I mean, it's cool to see the entire community come together to make sure this lady can get a brand new roof.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. That is so cool. Lori, I know you are so committed to this too. We've talked about what PABCO does, giving back and being involved with these kind of projects. Talk a little bit about the importance of having these relationships and working together and marketing between the manufacturer and the contractor.

Lori Jerome:
Well, that's a cool story you guys, for sure. And PABCO, we're also committed to that here locally as a manufacturer, helping people. We're involved in this project called She Builds where we're going to be helping someone locally here in Tacoma with a new roof. And actually the community National Women in Roofing is a big part of it, and PABCO is part of that. So PABCO really supports women in roofing and these organizations. And back to like how PABCO works with the roofing contractors, these are the kind of people that PABCO likes to work with. Our preferred contractor program is people like Omega Roofing that give back and that care. It's all in line with what we do here at PABCO and what we believe in and what our values are all about truly.

Heidi Ellsworth:
What kind of resources are you offering for your contractors? What kind of things are you doing to help them?

Lori Jerome:
So we offer custom marketing. We offer job signs and we have a website that has a visualizer product on it, where our contractors can use that as well as a homeowner. You can go to our website and you can upload a picture of your home. Contractors can upload pictures of their projects. And you can see what PABCO roofing products look like on a house.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. So Zach, how important is it to have this kind of relationship and also the kind of resources that your manufacturer is backing your company with?

Zachary Sayles:
I mean, it's vital. That's the reason we chose going with PABCO. You know, like I kind of mentioned earlier, we didn't have our eyes on PABCO at all until we realized their values and what they stood for. And that's what sold us. That's what made us become PABCO contractors. Now the resources they offer are awesome. I actually just learned this from Lori on this conversation that they have this roof builder on their website. So this is fantastic news and it's something we will begin implementing immediately. They have provided signs. And we deal with a lot of insurance work. And so it's fantastic where if an adjuster needs some specific document, I've called corporate a number of times and every representative I spoke with is very, very nice. They're very accommodating and they get me documents that I'm asking and requesting for almost immediately. So it's just amazing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's so cool. Dylan-

Dylan Winmill:
When we met Drew, he was like, man, I'm excited for you guys. I can tell you guys are ready to go and what can I do to help you? I mean, he was like, can we get you yard signs? How's this look? I mean, he was just gung gung-ho for it. And so like-

Zachary Sayles:
Very eager.

Dylan Winmill:
Very eager to help us grow and help us get better, you know what I mean? And stand behind us and stand with us.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. So I kind of already know the answer, but I'm just going to ask it. And I want to ask both of you, so Dylan, I'll start with you. There's other young people out there who are thinking about doing what you two have done. What's some advice that you would have for them?

Dylan Winmill:
You got to dive all in. You got to put both feet in and go and trust who you're with. You know, Zach and I have been best friends for a while. And even before any of this. But I mean, I trust him like my brother, you know what I mean? I know he's got my back a hundred percent. And that's another thing like with what we feel with PABCO, is just get people that you trust in your circle and in your corner to back you and go full steam ahead.

Dylan Winmill:
And know that you're going to have to go through some struggles and it's not going to be easy. But it's like that little meme, I guess you can say. But it shows two people mining and they're digging, digging, digging, and there's a bunch of diamonds. And the guy's turning around, quitting. And he's right next to the diamonds. And if he would've just dug 10 more inches, he would've hit the diamonds. But then the other guy is just yelling and just going for it, I'm going to get this, I'm going to get this. And so that's just what we kind of strive to do is just keep outworking everybody and stay forward.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I love it. Zach, what would you add to that?

Zachary Sayles:
I mean, I'm totally in line with him. Persistence is key. I mean, just keep driving forward, never quit. Have your ducks in a row. Obviously you need that knowledge base of how that roofing structure works, how to sell the product. But then, like Dylan said, just build a strong team around you from the manufacturer to your CPA, to employees, workers, production managers, project managers, salesman, things of that nature. Build a very strong team that you trust fully to capitalize on their specific role within that company so you can continue driving growth and vision for the company.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Excellent. And Lori, what a great find. Congratulations to you and Drew and PABCO to have these two young men working as your partners and certified contractors. That's amazing. We're getting towards the end of the podcast, but I wanted to make sure Lori, I know you have some new initiatives, possibly a new website coming out. So since you've already shared the visualizer and now Zach and Dylan are going to be using it, is there anything else new coming out that they might want to know about?

Lori Jerome:
Yeah, so we do have a new website coming out. So it will still have the visualizer on it, but we started to redesign our website on a path where we were interviewing homeowners and doing a really intense user experience study on what a homeowner needs. Because we find that 90% of homeowners are doing product research online. So our new website is in the process of being designed so it makes it really easy for a homeowner to understand that journey to re-roof their home. So it also will be really great for Omega and all our preferred contractors to go there because it's going to be a really great resource for homeowners, so it should make your job easier as well.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's excellent. That's excellent. Well I have to tell you, like I said, PABCO is on RoofersCoffeeShop. Please go to their directory, check out their articles. Lori just did some amazing stuff. And of course, look for the article and the videos with Omega Roofing and that very special Matthew McConaughey. Thank you all. Thank you so much for being on this Roofing Road Trip. And I want to thank all of you for listening. You can find all of our podcasts on RoofersCoffeeShop under the read, listen, watch initiative. And of course you can find it on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe, hit the notifications, so you don't miss a single Roofing Road Trip. We'll see you next time. Have a great day.

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.