Roofer of the Month - Davco Roofing and Sheet Metal - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Dan Davis from Davco Roofing and Sheet Metal, a Roofing Corp of America company. You can Read the interview below or Listen to the podcast.

Megan Ellsworth: Welcome to the hottest podcast in the roofing industry. Get ready to meet the stars of the rooftops, the shingle sensations and the gutter gurus. Each month, we'll climb up to the top to shine the spotlight on one remarkable roofer whose nailing it. We'll dive deep into their stories, their triumphs and the secrets behind their sky-high success. Don't miss out on these industry insights, incredible tales of resilience and the passion that keeps these roofers at the top of their game. Tune in, subscribe and follow us on this incredible journey as we crown this month's Roofer of the Month.

Hello, everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth, here at rooferscoffeeshop.com. I'm back again for R-Club, Roofer of the Month. I'm here with Dan Davis, president of Davco Roofing and Sheet Metal. Hi, Dan.

Dan Davis: Hi, Megan. How are you today?

Megan Ellsworth: I'm doing great. I'm so excited to hear your story and everything you're about.

Dan Davis: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Let's just dive right in, and have you introduce yourself and tell us about Davco.

Dan Davis: All right, great. Well, I got to tell you, it's not very exciting so you won't be on the edge of your seat listening to my story. But, I'll try to spice it up.

I grew up in Michigan, a third-generation roofing contractor, actually. My grandfather owned a commercial roofing company, my father owned a large union roofing company. Which now, my brother is one of four partners at the roofing company, Royal Roofing Company in Michigan. My dad's retired. I've been in Charlotte since 2008, owning Davco Roofing. We purchased in 2008. Moved south and started from there.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, amazing. It's a real family affair. I love it.

Dan Davis: Oh, yeah. Lots of interesting Thanksgiving dinner discussions about roofing.

Megan Ellsworth: About the latest shingle. What type of services does Davco provide? Do you have any specialties, you would say?

Dan Davis: Yeah. We're strictly commercial.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay.

Dan Davis: We'll do an occasional residential project, and it's typically for someone we know or to help somebody out. But we focus on commercial and industrial, institutional, educational. Anything under that flat roof umbrella, we'll take care of.

Megan Ellsworth: Very cool. And you also do sheet metal?

Dan Davis: That's correct. Yeah. Actually, that's how we started growing our business initially in Charlotte, was we were doing a lot of new construction metal roofing. A lot of the schools at that time were ... The first thing that started to come back after the 2008 economic depression was educational stuff. So new construction schools were being built, and most of them were non-metal. We did quite a few of this initially, and we grew from there. We had a large sheet metal department, and that pushed into specialty metals. A lot of standing-seam metal projects. And also, service. Roofing and metal service commercial anything is what we do.

Megan Ellsworth: Very nice. Very cool. So what is something that Davco celebrates? It could be birthdays, holidays, it could be company culture. What do you all celebrate over there?

Dan Davis: One thing that is very special about Davco, I would say it's what separates us from most companies, and I believe this to be the case. If you asked 10 Davco team members what separates us, I think they would all say culture. It's critical for us. We have someone dedicated to letting everyone know when we have birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions. Whether someone has a baby or celebrates something special personally, that always gets funneled through our marketing coordinator, Autumn, who does a good job spreading that news.

We do fun stuff. Every year we vote on, we called them mock elections in high school, but Best Dressed, Most Likely to Miss a Meeting, Most Likely to Not Answer the Phone, just fun stuff like that.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, superlatives.

Dan Davis: Yeah, superlatives. Sorry.

Megan Ellsworth: Yes.

Dan Davis: I could not think of that word. Yes. Thank you.

And also, we work half-day Fridays.

Megan Ellsworth: Love.

Dan Davis: Every Friday, the office closes at noon. We instituted that right before COVID. We did not see ... It's funny how many people had something to do at 3:00 on a Friday. They had to get out early. We're like, all right.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dan Davis: Let's just close the office at noon. There was this handshake agreement that if the going gets tough and we see a drop in production, we're going to come back to work full-day Fridays. We didn't change anybody's compensation, everybody worked until noon on Friday and got a full weekend. It ended up being great for our morale. It was amazing how many people came back and said, "You know what? I get an extra four hours to myself before my family gets home," or whatever, just to take care of chores, household things they want to take care of. Appointments, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments. It was really critical for the health of our company.

That evolved into Friday morning breakfast. People would take turns coming in early and bringing stuff in. We have a kitchen in our office. We just remodeled the office about a couple years ago now. Every Friday morning, we'd do breakfast in the kitchen at 7:00 AM. Whoever wanted to come in that early to join in the fun would be there. That's something that we do.

Megan Ellsworth: That's so fun. I love that.

Dan Davis: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Oh my gosh, half-days on Fridays and breakfast?

Dan Davis: Oh, it's a game changer. It's good for recruiting, too. People love to hear that.

Megan Ellsworth: I bet.

Dan Davis: Because we pitched it, really if you take the full year, that's six weeks of PTO of total. Because you're working 90% of the week, so don't take that into account when we're hiring. But we'd say, "Hey, listen, this is a perk."

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dan Davis: Six weeks of PTO, so it works out.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. That's great. Oh my gosh, wow. Well, congratulations.

Dan Davis: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: That's very, very fun and something definitely you should celebrate. That's really cool.

Dan Davis: Yeah, it's fun.

Megan Ellsworth: How would you describe superior customer service?

Dan Davis: Superior? Okay. Okay, what I'm going to say, I think will sound like it's obvious or common sense, but I think it's not focused on enough. That's answering the phone. Replying to emails in a timely manner. A timely manner being the same day or the next morning. Returning phone calls, responding to text messages. Being available. And doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it.

Another example that we talk about, we call it common sense customer service, but it's funny because it's not. But if you have a meeting at 9:00 somewhere that you're meeting a customer, or anybody for that matter, on the way there, you know by about 8:30 if you're going to be late. Don't show up at 9:15 and say, "Sorry I'm late." Let that person know at 8:30, "Hey, I'm going to be late." Just let them know. They'll be thankful, we think, because that person now gets 10 more minutes at their desk, or 10 more minutes to do whatever they were doing.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dan Davis: They're not going to have to wait on you. They just know that. It's very subtle. I'm not promoting to be late for meetings. But it's just hey, those are things you can do proactively, they'll go a long way and that's something that people remember.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dan Davis: We're big on that. And I also think it's important to get feedback from your customers. In order to provide better service, you need to know how they perceive your service to be. Superior customer service is all about getting feedback from the customer, and being up-front when you're communicating to the best of your ability.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. So true. Like you said, it really does leave a lasting impression on customers and people.

Dan Davis: It started to click when people would say, "Hey, thanks for calling me back." I'm like, "Wow, you called."

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dan Davis: It's really not something that people do enough. It's return phone calls in a timely manner. Everybody's busy. Let's be honest, everyone's got a full plate. We all have things we want to get done. Somebody called you for a reason, they want to check this off their list so let's just help them out.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. It's a good reminder for everyone, even non-roofers out there listening to this.

Dan Davis: Yeah, it's a separator. It really is. It's how you differentiate yourself.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Why should building owners or some homeowners work with Davco?

Dan Davis: Because our core values and our culture, it's a direct translation into how we operate, and how we treat our customers and how we perform on a daily basis. We hire, fire, promote, train, recruit off of our core values because they were built on values that translate into superior customer service. And translate into being a place that's people-centric, that you want to be at because we know that's just going to mean our people showing up to projects, or to visit a customer site, in a good mood, in a good place, ready to serve. When you hire us, you're going to get that consistently. We make sure of it. It's talked about, it's elevated, it's focused on and it's pointed out.

Every month, we nominate someone who represented our core values that month. It's not just, "This person operated with urgency," or, "This person showed team first." We have specific examples that we highlight. We share it with the team, we broadcast it. "This is what this person did this month to represent us the right way and our core values." We celebrate that with, A, there's a bonus associated with it. It's every month, someone else is nominated. And again, it's things that directly reflect how we operate and contribute to our customer service. That's why you should hire us.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. That's great. Everything we've talked about, it just makes so much sense why you all are Roofer of the Month. So congratulations.

Dan Davis: Thank you, Megan.

Megan Ellsworth: We love having you. To go with that, two last questions. Why are you an R-Club member?

Dan Davis: Oh. We're part of the RCA family, Roofing Corporate America.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, yeah.

Dan Davis: It's a great way for us to communicate, as far as sharing information. We get to see what's going on in the industry, new products. We get to learn about other companies. We get to network. There's the Roofer's Coffee Shop publication is awesome. It's full of good information. It exposes us to new opportunities to meet people, to network and to expand our whole, I just call it a phone book of people, but it's our whole network.

It's just another tool we can use to learn. We can learn about roofing, too. It's a small industry but there's so many things going on and there's different avenues to get that information. But Roofer's Coffee Shop is one of them that's phenomenal, so we enjoy it.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay! We're so glad to be a resource, and to have you all a part of our family and our club.

Dan Davis: Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: Thank you for saying that. Lastly, if you could choose a walkup song, you're walking up onto a field, what would it be?

Dan Davis: Onto a field, is that what-

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, like for a game or something.

Dan Davis: Oh my gosh. All right. It's just because it's going to show my age, but 50 Cent's In Da Club. Come on, that's so hype.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. I was not expecting that. I love it.

Dan Davis: I mean, we're going to have a good time.

Megan Ellsworth: I love that.

Dan Davis: I want to get this party started.

Megan Ellsworth: That is so good. That's my favorite one so far that anyone has ever said.

Dan Davis: Okay, [inaudible 00:13:35]. Yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Dan, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for being a part of the R-Club. Congratulations on being Roofer of the Month. Woo!

Dan Davis: Woo! All right, I'm going to go play some 50 Cent and celebrate right now.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, you should.

Dan Davis: Hey, thank you so much, Megan. This is really, Roofer of the Month, this is the ultimate team nomination.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay!

Dan Davis: This is for everybody, I'm just a small part of what we do every day. I'm so thankful for our people.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay, pizza party for everyone, hopefully. Maybe.

Dan Davis: Breakfast on Friday, how about that?

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, Friday breakfast. See you then.

Dan Davis: All right.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome. Well, everyone out there listening, if you're an R-Club member, you can go and watch this month's Coffee Break. Dan will be on it, talking more about Davco. Then, you can also learn more about Davco on the Roofer's Coffee Shop website, on their directory. Thank you so much for listening to this month's Roofer of the Month podcast and we'll see you next month.

That's a wrap on this month's episode of Roofer of the Month. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We'll catch you next time for more rooftop celebrations. Make sure to subscribe and follow the rooferscoffeeshop.com podcast page for more. Go to rooferscoffeeshop.com or askaroofer.com for more information.