Roofing Road Trip with Heidi- John DeRosa- PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview with John DeRosa with SRS Distribution. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast here.

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello. This is Heidi Ellsworth with RoofersCoffeeShop. And I am here today with our Roofing Road Trips with Heidi podcast. And I have to tell you, I am really excited today because the gentleman who is our guest, I have admired from afar for many years. He always has amazing webinars, amazing knowledge about sales and marketing, and really someone that I have learned so much from over the years. So I want to welcome John DeRosa, the director of contractor training and customer experience at SRS. Welcome, John.

John DeRosa: Thank you. Thank you so much. That was really nice. I appreciate being a buyer from afar.

Heidi Ellsworth: You have. Many times I'm like, "Oh, John has a podcast or a webinar. I'm going to go watch and see what he has to say." I've learned a lot from you over the years. So I'm really interested in learning today what you're up to. Maybe share with all of our listeners a little bit about you and kind of what you're doing with SRS because there's a lot of great stuff going on.

John DeRosa: Yeah. I mean, my job with SRS kind of involves a lot. I mean, the primary role that I serve is really trying to add value to the contractor community. I mean, one of our core values as a company is to be good stewards of the industry. And when I came on board with SRS, I mean, they saw it as an opportunity for me to really work with contractors and try to figure out ways that we might be able to help them elevate their performance to an even higher level. And it's just been a great group of people to work for and I'm happy to be here.

Heidi Ellsworth: That is great. That is great. And I know you. I mean, you and I have connected in the past with several... You and I both with different companies as our careers in roofing have gone along. I think both of us realize how important culture is. And culture, it's what makes us stay, what makes us proud. I mean, the culture of roofing industry and the culture of the companies. I would love for you to share a little bit more about the culture of SRS. Everybody sees them at the trade shows, the big parties and stuff, but what's the day-to-day like?

John DeRosa: Yeah. So it's kind of interesting, right? I mean, I've been with SRS now going on four years. And prior to that, I spent about nine years on the shingle manufacturing side and doing a similar role. And as I would travel around the country, I'd get the opportunity to work with contractors and distributors, many different distributors all across the industry. But what's amazing is every time I ever went into an SRS location, I always found that the people there were just incredibly inviting, very open to exploring any opportunities to add value for customers. I mean, if I was with Midwest Roofing Supply in Omaha, Nebraska or with our team up with Roofline up in the Northwest. Or even being a wholesale in Buffalo, there was just something really powerful about the people. And I got to be honest. I'm being totally truthful. At the time, I did not know that all of those companies were part of the SRS family. I just thought they were all just independent roofing distributors. And when I found out that they all worked for SRS or were all part of SRS, that was the time I made the decision that I really want to work for this organization. I just felt like if we were able to go in and purchase a company, an independent distributor, but allow that company to sort of maintain and harness its own unique brand identity and then still be able to compliment it with just an incredibly powerful customer centered culture, I just knew that the management team was doing something right. And I said, "That's an organization that I want to work for." And it was a great decision. I mean, from the very first day I started with the company, I was very impressed with just this sort of considerate mindset that courses through the veins of everybody who works in the organization. And I don't want to be like infomercial here, right? I mean, everything we do isn't perfect. And we certainly make decisions in some cases I'm sure aren't popular ones. But I could tell you at the end of the day or at the start of the day, our people wake up in the morning and they are all about, what can we do to add value for our contractor customers and make a difference? And I think the people that buy from us, that are loyal to us, I think they get that. And it's really special. I'm glad to be here.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's so good to hear too because... And thank you for the shout out for Roofline. My part of the world, the Pacific Northwest, I love the folks at Roofline, at Stoneway. I mean, just so many great independent distributors who have become part of SRS. And I hear the same things. I hear the exact same things. But I think one of the things that's strongest and what I see is that commitment to the contractors. And that's where it all begins and ends really. I mean, I think you and I have both seen that through everything we've done. Is if the contractors don't believe in you, you might as well just pack up and go home. I would love to hear something about some of those solutions that SRS is really bringing to the market with Roof Hub. I think that is so important for the contractors and I'm not sure if everybody really understands what it is. So can you kind of help us with that?

John DeRosa: Well, you're going to need to tell me where they don't know what it is so that I could have a conversation with the sales reps in those markets. At this point, we want to make sure everybody knows what it is. I really appreciate you asking the question because I am always excited to talk about Roof Hub. I would say maybe about two and a half years ago, we hired a guy, a pretty smart guy. His name's Patrick Garcia. He's our VP of innovation. And that is a really, really smart guy. Understands computers and technologies of all different shapes and sizes. And I got to be honest, sometimes he talks to me about technology. I don't have a clue what he's talking about, but I nod and smile and try to pretend that I'm smart. But I know at the end of the day, he's going to get it done. And the thing that's really cool about Patrick is when he first came on board, he was like a sponge. I mean, he came from the industry, but he just was really like a sponge asking a lot of questions. What do our customers want? What do they need? What are their problems? What kind of solutions could we provide? And there was no idea that was a bad idea from his perspective. And then once he heard from us, he then went out and spent a lot of time with key customers from all over the country to kind of get their perspective on it. And all the while he was having these conversations, he was building out this platform and demonstrating it and showing it and tweaking it. And then about two years ago with the IRE, we launched our Roof Hub mobile app. And I've got to be honest, when I first heard that we were coming out with a mobile app, I was thinking, "Oh, Jesus, a mobile app. Who really needed a mobile app?" But the response from the contractor, and I really think that this is where Patrick and his team deserve a tremendous amount of credit, the response has been overwhelming because people are not only happy with everything that it does, but they're happy with just how easy it is to use. And the biggest challenge that we have is that some of our customers, as I'm sure you know, are kind of technology averse. I'm not really tech savvy here. But if I open up the phone and I just show them how easy it is to track their deliveries or submit their vendor rebate promotions or even order more items on an existing order, I mean, guys look at that and they go, "Oh, I could do that." And I think that's the key to the success of the programming. The interface, it's just so user friendly that it's kind of hard to ignore.

Heidi Ellsworth: And it's changing. We have a generational shift in our industry. We know that. And believe it or not, 50% of RoofersCoffeeShop, folks who are coming onto our site are on some form of mobile device. So 50%. the days of us all sitting in our office behind a desktop, it's rapidly changing and it's up on the roof, in the subway, on a plane, whatever, that mobile. And so to have that app, to make that so simple for contractors I think has been crucial.

John DeRosa: Yeah. And I think the key too is we want to make sure that our customers understand, but that this is by no means an effort for us to separate the relationship from the experience. I mean, we still think that what makes us different and better is the fact that we have strong, sustainable, powerful relationships because we're intimately interested in the success of our customers. This technology is not designed to supplement or take away from that. All it's designed to do is to help kind of fill in the gaps and just add value to everything that our people are bringing to the table.

Heidi Ellsworth: I think that's so smart. It's a great point because for so long, it's been an either or situation. It's like either have a relationship or you have technology. And what we're learning is it's not either or. It's and. We can do both. Use technology and have great relationships together.

John DeRosa: Yeah. No doubt.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's important. And one of the places that you and I intersected through our career was when I was with EagleView. And love it. Love the fact that being part of bringing that technology into the industry. So what are some of the integrations because I'm pretty sure...? I know you're working with EagleView. What are some of the integrations that you have going in Roof Hub for the contractors?

John DeRosa: Yeah, that's a great question. And depending on how much time we have, I can probably take a few hours and talk about all the great things, but I will just mention a couple just to highlight some of the... At the same time, it'll highlight some of the real big advantages. First of all, many people might be surprised to learn the way that the mobile app actually works with Google. On our delivery tracking feature, we're actually communicating with Google and Google Maps throughout the entire delivery process to make sure that we can provide an accurate ETA of when the truck's going to get there. So it's not like we're getting up in the morning and saying, "Hey, we believe that we're going to be there at nine o'clock." Google and Roof Hub are talking I think every 30 seconds on, how fast is the truck going? What are the traffic patterns in that area based on other Google users on that route? And it's constantly evolving and changing to make a more accurate delivery time. And that's something that by the way is very different from some of the other products that are out there and we think it's a good advantage. Our customers like that peace of mind. A couple of the other integrations, we've teamed up with Predictive Sales AI to provide some of the industry's best hail maps. Roof Hub users have access to highly detailed maps to tell them the date of the event, the event location, number of homes affected, and the size of the hail. And as an added bonus, Roof Hub also gives contractors the ability to import and display a three-year history of their SRS delivery locations. So that feature really allows the contractor to easily identify past clients and all the order information for those clients who are actually affected by a particular storm.

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow. That's great.

John DeRosa: Yeah, it's actually pretty cool. And there's some distinct advantages to that as well even from like a social selling perspective. But one of the other integrations, and this is really cool, is the way that Roof Hub speaks with our business and accounting software that we use at SRS. And we do this to make online ordering easier than anybody ever imagined. One of the things that our contractors told us is they don't want to actually have to comb through 80,000 SKUs to build an order. And Roof Hub fixed that because we're literally using artificial intelligence. Who would have ever thought that a roofing distributor would say, "We're using artificial intelligence?" But we use AI to dive into the customer's order history. And then based on that order history, we will build for them a smart template based on the items that they order most. So contractors have the ability just based on without doing anything, they can just click on smart templates. And if they're a GAF user, it will be grouped under a GAF logo. If they're an Owens Corning user, it will be grouped under an Owens Corning logo. And then if they want, any order that they place... I mean, with as easy as this push of a button, they can turn that order into a template and edit it as needed. So it really has taken the pain and the time out of placing orders and it's made it just a real easy push of a button. It's even so smart, Heidi, that if the contractor decides, "Hey, instead of using a 15-pound felt as an underlayment, I want to use a synthetic felt." When they click on synthetic felt, it will populate into the top three synthetic felt items that that contractors has purchased from us. So it'll say, "Roof Hub recommends," and those recommendations are based on what the contractor has purchased. So again, they don't have to scroll through 20 different SKUs of felts to find theirs. We're basically going to say, "This is the one that you order most from us." And then they can click on that as a choice. So real simple. And again, I keep tipping my hat to our innovation team because they really dotted the I's and crossed the T's. And other thing I should mention is the amazing relationships that we have with companies like JobProgress and CutterCroix. I mean, both of these companies, they provide an easy to use business productivity solution that contractors use to grow their business. And the integrations with Roof Hub have really created some really powerful synergies. And I think it's important that your listeners understand that our goal is to be brand agnostic. We're eager to partner with whomever the contractor feels is the best fit for their business, even if it's something that they created on their own. I mean, if a contractor's currently working with a different platform, they should reach out to us and I'd encourage them to reach out to that service provider to let them know that they want to integrate with Roof Hub. Because again, we just want to add value for the contractor.

Heidi Ellsworth: That is great because really being able to have it contractor driven like that or what we used to call contractor driven development with the open source, open APIs, being able to kind of fit, that's really important. And a lot of times, it's something contractors don't know to ask for.

John DeRosa: Yeah, it's true. And you did also, by the way, mention EagleView. And we will have some great news coming about EagleView but we may need to schedule another podcast in the next couple of months to talk about it.

Heidi Ellsworth: Well, that's good. I'm good with that. I like talking to you. So I'll do as many podcasts as we want to keep everybody up to date. That is cool. What are you hearing back from the contractors? What are they saying about using the app and kind of what it's doing to help their business?

John DeRosa: Yeah. So it's kind of funny, right? That's an interesting question. And I think the thing that... This is odd, right? When I give you this answer, it's going to seem sort of like silly, but one thing that contractors love about the app is the fact that it works. And I hate to seem like in today's day and age, we want information instantly. But there's a lot of sizzle, but we also think that there's a big juicy steak in there too. And guys are happy with the fact that when we tell them that this is what it does, that they can very easily get that information. But a couple of distinct benefits that I've heard from some industry friends and contractors who are using it, contractors tell me that that feature that we have where they can populate past clients onto the map, a lot of guys are starting to use that to show their prospect that they've been the contractor of choice for hundreds of their neighbors.  And this becomes a very powerful persuasion tool. I call it social selling because some people have a tendency to conform to the actions of others because they assume that those actions were in fact the best actions. So guys are using that to kind of illustrate why you should choose me for the project. We're also seeing too that the delivery photos that actually you can view on the mobile app, contractors are having a proactive conversation with the homeowner stating that, "Hey, we believe that the contractors that we align with or the distributors we align with say a lot about who we are. Let's talk about why we use Midwest Roofing Supply." And they talk about the fact that Midwest is responsible for taking before, during, and after pictures of the project, verifying that they treated the property with respect. And then the contractor will say, "You'd be surprised at how many times a homeowner finds that their driveway's damaged." What contractors are telling me is that by having that conversation upfront, it's really reduced the fraudulent claims, the frivolous claims that some homeowners like to make about how you damaged my driveway or you destroyed my landscaping. Because now they can say, "Well, remember we talked about those photos?" And at that point, usually, the conversation just goes away. So that's kind of just some different ways. A funny one, wasn't so great for us as the distributor, but I guess it was a good say for the contractors. We had one case where the contractor had rescheduled the project. Had put it out a week for the homeowner due to weather, but they never told us. So we went out and we ground-dropped the material at the job site. The contractor wound up getting a push notification on their mobile app that said, "Hey, this was just delivered to the job site." And the contractor had that "oh crap" moment and said, "Oh my gosh, that job's been moved." So he was literally able to call us and say, "Guys, I screwed up. Can you get back out there and pick it up? We don't need that material for another week." And we were able to do all that before the homeowner even knew that the material was on the job site. So obviously, not a great situation for anybody, but that push notification really helped this particular contractor avoid some embarrassment by... He didn't want to deny his homeowner access to the driveway for a week and obviously risk theft or damage or any other stuff out there.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. That is important because you really think about those mistakes are going to happen one way or the other. It's just human nature. But to be able to have those fail-safes with the push notifications, that's cool. That kind of is going to save a lot, I think, of different people at different times because it comes from all sides.

John DeRosa: Yeah. And that's one of the cool things too about some of these industry integrations that we have with companies like JobProgress or CutterCroix's GiddyUp. I mean, their CRMs speak to Roof Hub. So if they go in and they reschedule the project date, that's actually going to send a notification to us that allows us to proactively reach out to the contractor and say, "Hey, would you like to reschedule this delivery?" Again, it allows us all to... I made a joke. I recorded some videos recently to promote this stuff and I said, "Let Roof Hub sweat the small stuff so that you guys can focus on your business." That's really what we're doing. I mean, some of this stuff is just the little things that create big headaches. And if we can help to take some of those headaches away, we think that we're adding some value for the contractor and we think it's good for everybody.

Heidi Ellsworth: And John, I really want to kind of dive in a tad bit too on just having faith in our contractors. One of our big pushes at The RoofersCoffeeShop is roofing respect. And I think there's been times in the past where roofing contractors, roofing companies have not really... People say, "Oh, they can't do technology. They will never get on. They'll never have a computer. They'll never be able to work their phone." And that's just kind of crazy because they're ordering from Amazon every day. And it really sounds like you've made it that simple like that and are really being able to lift the industry and the contractors with this technology.

John DeRosa: Yeah. So the biggest challenge we have to getting guys signed up on Roof Hub is the contractor who forgets his Apple ID password and can't download the darn app because he doesn't know what his password is. And I would be honest if I... Or I'd be lying if I said that never happened to me because we forget. Getting that password out of Apple, I mean, you're better off getting blood from a stone. But really, I think that the big opportunity we have to get people comfortable with the technology is just by showing them how easy it is to operate. I mean, even getting guys signed up for it, when we created the app, we wanted to spare the contractor the burden of having to actually pull out an invoice and enter in the invoice number and all these different verifications. So we created an opportunity for the actual sales rep or our branch manager [inaudible 00:21:55] salesperson, they can log into the app as if they're the contractor. They can set the contractor up as the owner of the business and then send the contractor a notification, an email notification. And all the contractor has to do at that point is just open it up. It opens up the Roof Hub app that's already on their phone and then they just change their password. We've just tried to make it so simple because we know that the harder it is to get on, the harder it is to operate, the less patience... All of us are like this. I mean, there's only so much time I'll invest before I just say, "Ah, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I'll go back the old way."

Heidi Ellsworth: Move on.

John DeRosa: Yeah, no doubt.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. I'm the same way. How are you seeing that this is facilitating communications within the roofing companies too? From the office, to the field, to estimators and purchasing. How's the app helping with all that?

John DeRosa: Yeah. I'm not going to say that. I haven't had any real feedback as far as how it's improving internal communication within the contractor's business. But I can also tell you that, and this is maybe a little side note, what's the funniest is if we're sitting in the office of a... Let's just say there's a large roofing firm and they've got many people. He's the owner of the business and he's delegated a series of tasks to a bunch of different people throughout his organization. If we're sitting in the owner's office and we're saying, "Hey, we got this great new app. Let's show you how it works." They can appreciate the value of it, but there's not a real sense of urgency in some cases to download it. But if I had a dollar for every time we left his office and the guy or gal who was sitting at the front desk who was eavesdropping on our conversation, who stops us and goes, "Hey, hey, can I ask you a question? What was that thing you were telling him about?" Because the person who's outside of his office or her office who's running the business, literally keeping all the glue that holds it all together, they're the ones who see the app and go, "I really want that." Because it's their job that's directly affected. So where Roof Hub adds value in that situation is as the owner of the business, we've created in such a way where the owner can limit the types of information that certain people in the organization see. So if you don't want your project managers to see your invoices with your pricing on it, you could just say, "I don't want them to see that information." Or if you don't want them to get push notifications for deliveries, if you don't want your accounts payable person to see that, then we can eliminate them having to get that information. So we have protected the contractors' information to the degree that they want it to be protected. So that's kind of one advantage that we can help from a communication standpoint. At least we're not providing too much information.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. And I really like the fact that you can delegate who gets what and who sees what because we're all overloaded when it comes to emails and push notifications and everything else. So being able to do that, that's golden. So talk a little bit about, how do contractors get on Roof Hub? I mean, I know you talked about downloading the app, but even before that, how do they reach out? How do they build that relationship with you and your sales team? Really kind of talk a little bit about... Give them a path to you for all those who are listening.

John DeRosa: So I would say the easiest thing for them to do is to try to get us involved. And that's not because they need to get us involved, but it's just because we think that from a relationship perspective, it's going to help if we can talk to them about, what are they interested in? And then we can kind of show them how to use that. Our reps as I've already described can login on behalf of the contractor, get them set up, set them up with all their permissions and then just send them an email via the app. We'll do that. All they got to do that is just login and it changed their password. If the contractor doesn't want to involve us for whatever reason, he can just go his app store or the Google Play Store, download the app. He's going to need an invoice because we want to make sure that we're not letting anyone and everyone just open up their... To get into their information. So he needs an invoice so that we can verify certain bits of information to determine that this is actually somebody who works at the location. And then he or she can sign up just with that. It's instantaneous.

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow, that's cool. So they can be up and running right away. Of course, they need to be a customer of SRS. So that's probably the first point.

John DeRosa: And thank you, Heidi. Yeah. We'd like to assume everybody is a customer of SRS. So you just pointed out that might not be the case. Yeah, they should be a customer. But I'll tell you, it's interesting because we've done demos at IRE and I do demos at seminars. And we'll have guys that'll come up to me afterwards and go, "Hey, I want that app." And I say, "You just need your account number and an invoice." And they go, "I don't have an account set up." And they're so compelled to want to use the application that they're saying, "Hey, have a rep come in and talk to me. We want to get set up." Because I think some guys, like you said, that second generation, third generation sees a real need for this tool and they like the way it works and they're going for it.

Heidi Ellsworth: And that's the ultimate sales and marketing right there. Is providing something that is solving problems and people are going to get on board and that's what they're going to want. So John, this is exciting stuff, and yes, we will do this again. We want to keep hearing what's happening, what's coming. And I love hearing the success stories too of really what the contractors are experiencing bringing this kind of technology into their business.

John DeRosa: Yeah. It's real exciting.

Heidi Ellsworth: So just so everyone who's listening knows, to get more information on Roof Hub and everything that SRS is doing, they are on RoofersCoffeeShop. You can find information in their directory. You can find their articles. You can find them throughout the site with educational materials. And I really recommend anybody listening to this, just Google John DeRosa and you will see all kinds of great articles on sales and marketing and really things that can help your business. So John, we need to get some of that on the RoofersCoffeeShop too. Maybe some of your old sales information so that people can really be learning what I learned from you.

John DeRosa: I don't know. I'm usually at a loss for words, so it might be hard to get me to come out of my shell a little bit for that, but we'd love to do it.

Heidi Ellsworth: I don't think so. So thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate it and we'll probably have you back here real soon, John.

John DeRosa: I look forward to it. Thanks so much.

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you. And for everybody out there, please, if you're listening to this podcast, be sure to check out all of our podcasts which are on RoofersCoffeeShop.com under our Read Listen Watch. That is the type of education that you can get when you want it, how you want it, and whether it's a podcast, a webinar, or articles and white papers. It is there to help your business. Thank you so much for listening today and we'll talk to you on the next Roofing Road Trip with Heidi podcast.