Miles Roofing inc. - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Sherri Miles of Miles Roofing Inc. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Alice Reynolds:
Hello everyone. My name is Alice Reynolds, back again from RoofersCoffeeShop, here with the Roofer of the Month Interview. We are so excited to be celebrating our June Roofer of the Month, Miles Roofing. Thank you so much for being here, Sherri.

Sherri Miles:
Hey, thanks for having us.

Alice Reynolds:
Yeah. Can you please introduce yourself, and then tell us about your company?

Sherri Miles:
Absolutely, I am Sherri Miles. I am a fourth-generation roofing contractor. We are located in the state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and my great-grandfather started our companies in 1910, so we just celebrated 112 years, if I do the math right. Yeah, and that's us. On the residential side, we do a lot of historic work. Slate, tile, some wood shakes, a lot of standing seam metal, and of course, asphalt shingles and mostly re-roofing of larger homes.

Sherri Miles:
We don't do any track building or any new homes, unless it's for special clients. Oh, and sorry in the residential side, we still do windows, doors, sunrooms, exteriors. We just got into that business a little bit ago, maybe about 10, 12 years ago, and it's a nice compliment to do an entire exterior for someone, and then we are commercial roofing as well.

Sherri Miles:
Mostly re-roofing, we do some new, but our specialty is really big, complicated projects, re-roofing, and we like to have do the general on the job with different trainees underneath us.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. I love that the traditional roofing, like the slate and the tile and the wood shakes, all that kind of roofing is so fun to learn about for me.

Sherri Miles:
Yeah, for sure.

Alice Reynolds:
Very cool.

Sherri Miles:
And it's really cool, especially because we've been around for so long, a lot of people, we put their roofs on. My great grandfather put their roofs on nearly a hundred years ago, and they've lasted, these traditional materials, the slate and the metal last, multiple lifetimes.

Alice Reynolds:
Yeah, That is so incredible, generations.

Sherri Miles:
Right, exactly.

Alice Reynolds:
Wow. Well, cool. So you kind of, actually already went through what kind of services your company provides, and what's your specialty, but if you want to add to that at all.

Sherri Miles:
No. Well, and I think something interesting about us is that we're looking at technology, and trying to make a difference in our environment, being good stewards of the environment, and one of the big things for us is solar, rooftop solar. We are completely off the grid here, my office and our sheet-metal fabrication and auto mechanic shop. we have installed new roofing on re-roofing projects, and then new rooftop solar goes on. We are big proponents of rooftop solar. We would like to see it more in residential side, so that's our next hurdle to cross, I guess, to make it more affordable for more people to get rooftop solar in residential.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice, well thank you for that, that's always good to hear. Any kind of attention to the environment is-

Sherri Miles:
Well, I know, and I'm looking. Because we've been on site for so long, we have old tankers and kettles out of here, and here we are digging into the earth to get the materials to put on a roof that we tear off later, to throw back into the roof, I mean to throw back into the earth, and we've got to do a better job of finding new ways to stop that, whether it's recycling or making roofs longer use. We have to figure out better ways to be stewards of this planet, because this is all we got.

Alice Reynolds:
Right. Yeah, totally agree. Well, what about something, is there something special that your company celebrates?

Sherri Miles:
Well, we do a lot of work on our mission, vision and values, and we're huge believers in values-based leadership, and so we celebrate our core values every day. We hire to those, we celebrate to those, we have meetings, are geared around those, and our four core values are safety, quality, family and leadership, and so, we strive to be the safest company we can possibly be.

Sherri Miles:
We want to be a leader in safety. We drill that in, we practice it every day, we believe in it, we live into it, we want our people safe, and we want them to go home at night. Quality, we want the best. We want to install the best roofs. Our technicians are amazing at what they do, so we've been in the process of getting them pro certified to show and to say, "Hey, these are guys and gals that really know what they're doing."

Sherri Miles:
Family, we talk about succession planning. Often we talk about, not just our core family that owns and runs this company, but our extended family of our company, and then leadership. We want to develop, from the guys picking up trash and driving the trucks, and installing on the roof, and the service technicians, everyone has a real potential for being a leader, even if it's of that day, of themselves or their crew. We want to make sure that they're living into their fullness of being a human and being a leader, and we really try to instill we have a belief in purposeful lives. You know, I believe that each one of us have gifts, and we bring those gifts every day to the work, to our work, and it shows. Right?

Sherri Miles:
It's pride in the craftsmanship. When you fly, I know I take a lot of pride when I fly into town, and I've seen all the roofs that we've done, and that keep businesses running and churches in, and kids in schools, and people safe in their homes, and dry, and we have a big purpose, and like I said, from the guys picking up the trash, and picking up the nails, to installing the roofs, we all live into the best leaders we can be and living into our purpose-filled lives.

Alice Reynolds:
Nice. Yeah, I love that. Every day, it's kind of, a great day to celebrate, and uphold those people who are doing that, and those who aren't, it's like try to support them, so they are able to, it sounds like. That's great.

Alice Reynolds:
So how do you and Miles Roofing find superior customer service?

Sherri Miles:
Well, I think it's always an evolving and changing thing. The expectations of a customer, five, 10 years ago are different now. I mean, they still want a quality job for a good price, but the amount of communication we have to do is totally different than it was previously, and so we have to change our mind-set. We have to do things differently, or they're not going to be customers for long.

Sherri Miles:
And when I say communication, nobody wants to talk on the phone. They want a text, or they want an email, and that's it. They don't need you to call them all the time. It's just different. You know, I'm the same way. I want to schedule stuff, something online at 11 o'clock at night when I remember it.

Alice Reynolds:
Absolutely.

Sherri Miles:
We have to change our technology, and we have to change our thought process that we're not open, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day, we're open all the time. We need to be accessible, and people need to be able to hear from us, and contact us, and all those things. It's exhausting, but it's also... That's the way it is.

Alice Reynolds:
Right, sounds like you're staying current with-

Sherri Miles:
We're trying, we're trying, and just when you think you got current, you're like, "Oh, but there's something better."

Alice Reynolds:
Right.

Sherri Miles:
Something easier. Anyway.

Alice Reynolds:
And then, so finally, why should homeowners and building owners work with Miles Roofing?

Sherri Miles:
Well, I think that's the easiest question of all. We're here, the warranty doesn't stop when you don't see the taillights anymore. We've been here, we're not going anywhere, we've cultivated an amazing company here, and that is concerned about our people, we're concerned about our customers, we're concerned about our community, we are big into volunteerism.

Sherri Miles:
Everyone in our office is involved in some kind of nonprofit, some of us more than others, but we know from data that our customers really like that, and they want to do business with companies who are family owned, who give back to the community, who they're going to see in the store. You know, I tell my kids, when they, ask me, "Why does it take you two hours to go get a gallon of milk when the store is not a half a mile away?"

Sherri Miles:
We don't live in the middle of nowhere. It's because I see people, and it's cultivating relationships, and so there's that trust when they need a roof, or when their business needs a roof, they can call us, because they're trusting, and they trust that we'll do it right, and they'll trust that... We want our community to succeed as a whole, and, so anyway, there's lots of reasons to use us. We've got great people, we're really safe, and we're a part of the community.

Alice Reynolds:
Yeah, well that's great. That's really fun to hear. Thank you so much for being a RoofersCoffeeShop, our club member, and again, congrats on being the Roofer of the Month for June. We love Miles Roofing.

Sherri Miles:
Thanks for the conversation. I appreciate it.