S2:E44 Kyle Ziebarth – Walk More Roofs in 2021

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter.  

Learn about Astec’s interesting family history and the online marketing event designed to set your business up for success in the new year.  

RoofersCoffeeShop® partner, Heidi J. Ellsworth, welcomed Kyle Ziebarth of Astec for another episode of Roofing Road Trips. The two discuss Kyle’s role as the lead generation manager, some interesting Ziebarth family history and their upcoming webinar taking place on December 10, 2020, where the Coffee Shop and Astec will partner to talk about how contractors can Walk More Roofs in 2021. 

As the family who developed a leading fluid-applied roofing solutions company, there was a lot of family and company history to share.  

“Some of this is almost the thing of lore and legend now,” said Kyle speaking about the Ziebarth family business that for many years has provided instrumental marketing, product and warranty support to contractors. 

Most intriguing was Richard Ziebarth’s (Kyle’s grandfather) interest with NASA. “It really starts with my grandfather in the 60s in South Florida. . . [he] was a little bit of a tinkerer and he was always looking for new opportunities. He had a really entrepreneurial spirit and got sort of fascinated by NASA, of all things, right? The space race space shuttles.” 

Richard started to research the ceramic insulation that NASA used on their space shuttles at the time. The insulation that this ceramic technology provided helped the shuttle remain cool as it reentered the atmosphere, where it was met with soaring temperatures.  

Richard decided this ceramic development could be translated into his business to provide insulation for people living under the hot Florida sun. He began implementing these ideas immediately, “[He] started doing some real science, hired some people, talked to some people, really understood the chemistry and asked, ‘Hey, is this something that we can really take to a larger scale and professionalize?’”  

Soon after, Richard and Astec began to revolutionize fluid-applied roofing systems and Kyle, a kid at the time, would brag on the schoolyard that his family was in the business of selling space-age technology.  

Now, as the year 2020 rolls to a close, Astec and RoofersCoffeeShop are coming together to host a webinar on generating leads in the digital and currently contactless world. This webinar will focus on how to keep everyone – contractors, salespeople, estimators – safe and able to walk more roofs and close more deals in 2021.  

“Walking more roofs, that's the goal, right? You could use any various number of metaphors for this, more swings at the bat, more shots at the goal. However, you want to think about it, the more chances you get to inspect a roof, to propose a solution to a customer, the more opportunities you're going to have to sell more work,” said Kyle.  

Listen to the full podcast here for more information on Astec and Walk More Roofs 2021.