S3:E6 Stories From the Roof - Greta Bajrami - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview with Greta Bajrami, CEO and founder of Golden Group Roofing.You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast here.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to Stories From the Roof with Roofers Coffee Shop. I'm Heidi Ellsworth, and I am a partner with Roofers Coffee Shop. And I am here today with one of the outstanding roofing professionals in the industry today, Greta Bajrami. Good morning, Greta.

Greta Bajrami:
Good morning. Thank you for having me. Very excited.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We're very excited to have you on the show, and this isn't the first time. If anybody has been listening out there, which I know you have been, you have already probably listened to Greta on Roofing Road Trips and our coffee conversations. We thought we need to talk to Greta about the 12 questions, because this is just such a fun way to get to know people and to really kind of ask questions that maybe you don't have come up in conversation every day.

Greta Bajrami:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Greta, are you ready to answer the 12 questions?

Greta Bajrami:
I am ready. Bring them.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay. Okay. What we are going to do before my first question is I would love it, Greta, if you would just introduce yourself again, talk about your company a little bit, and just a little bit about you, so they have a little bit more knowledge about you before we start on the questions.

Greta Bajrami:
Absolutely. Well, my name is Greta Bajrami. I am the proud owner of Golden Group Roofing. We're a female and minority found roofing company in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts area. My story started a little bit ways from here. I was actually born and raised in Tirana, Albania in Europe. And into the year 2000, my family migrated to the United States and all was well, trying to capture our very own American Dream. I went through all of that here in the United States, and I really embodied the culture and I wanted to go to law school.
That was my dream. And maybe I think looking back, the reason that was my dream was because I really wanted to always make my way back to Europe somehow and help others. As I'm getting ready for my first year in college, life took a little bit of an unexpected turn for me. I was actually pregnant with my daughter Chiara. If you're going to learn anything in this podcast is that I rise up to the challenge. I knew that this was another challenge in my life, and it came in an untraditional time, but no less, I was going to rise and accept it and continue forward.
I decided at that time that the best thing for me was to unenroll out of law school and go to business school simply because the numbers made more sense financially and be there for my daughter and raise my daughter. And that's exactly what I did for four years. I was a young mom dedicated to raising my daughter and dedicated to completing my degree on time like my friends. Except that senior year in college, not many were getting hired. We were post recession. It was kind of hard out there, and nobody was really getting jobs.
So craigslist.org was popular during that time and people would always go there to like buy goods and also see jobless things. I was there one day and I saw this listing to become a construction supervisor/foreman, but the pay was really good, so I decided to answer it. I didn't know much about construction, but the requirements didn't look too bad. At the end of the day, I was very proud of myself, college educated individual. I replied to the ad.
I went in and I was super prepared thinking it was going to be like what they teach you in the workshops in college, but it wasn't. It was very untraditional. It was very laid back, and I got the job. Go me! I am cool. I'm senior and I have a job, and this guy doesn't really need me to do much. That's how I stumbled into roofing. My first shift, I'll never forget, I had to get more ice and water shield in roofing, at least my team. Nobody really even told me what I was doing. They were just like show up and let's get started.
No one has time. You'll learn. Don't worry. You'll learn. And when they asked for ice and water shield, I started to look for ice and water. And that's when I knew I was in trouble because somebody said, "It's that material over there," and I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." Fast forward from ice and water, but really it was ice and water leak barrier, I fell in love with the industry and I decided to stay. It was supposed to be a summer job, but I decided to stay because I saw opportunity. I saw an industry that could use a different approach.
And at the end of the day, I was going to business school and this was a business. And why not apply the business plan that I had prepared all my senior year thesis to this industry? That's exactly what I did. My senior year paper was called Tiramisu Cafe. It was supposed to be a cafe in the Greater Boston. So I took Tiramisu Cafe. I scratched out the tiramisu part and the cafe part and I put Golden Group Roofing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it.

Greta Bajrami:
I decided that I decided that I would embark on this journey.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so cool. To me, I can hear your story over and over again, and every single time I am so inspired by it because it's just... You're right. It's like I am going to conquer no matter what. I want to hear... Let's go into the 12 questions because this is going to feed perfect into that introduction. This is awesome. So number one, first question, who taught you to roof?

Greta Bajrami:
Great question. The person who taught me to roof is my first employee, Fabian. He was the first employee I ever hired who took a leap of faith in me because I pitched myself to him. He had been roofing already for 15 years. And to this day, he's still with the team. And to this day, I think I annoy him a little bit because I love to ride in his van and have a notebook and ask him like a million questions. I love to harness up and sit on the ridge of the roof when he's roofing and ask him a million questions.
Whenever he'd have a hard wall and he knew he's going to be there roofing for like six hours and he knew I was going to sit on the ridge, he'd be like, "Uh, oh no. Oh, here she comes. Here comes her questions." He taught me everything I know about roofing, and we spent three years together on the van. It was me and him sitting in the front and we would go to job sites together. I would sit always on the ridge, and he knew it. I think he accepted it at that point.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Maybe he liked it a little bit too. Some nice company.

Greta Bajrami:
Maybe. Maybe.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay. Well, then, going to that, what was the most valuable lesson you learned about roofing?

Greta Bajrami:
The most valuable lesson I learned about roofing is that it's so much more than what people think, and that has really become the message of Golden Group. It's so much more than tiles. It's so much more than... It's just the culture and the mindset of roofing, once you're in it, you realize that we're part of such a big picture. And what we do is a need, it's not a want. Sometimes we're there when people don't want us there, but we have to be there because they need to protect their home.
They might be going through something so challenging in their life and we just happened to be there. I realized I was so much more like I never realized. I've been there at people's homes in the toughest times of their life, whether they're dealing with a death or divorce or just a struggling financial time. And I've been there as the roofer because they needed a roof. They couldn't hold it off. And those are the times that I realized that, I'm so much more than shingles.
People can say I'm just asphalt shingles or tiles or slate or rubber, but I'm so much more than that. I am this individual who has to be in this home because I'm a need, and I'm a need because they can't let the house continue to absorb water as they're dealing with these difficult times.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Wow. That's excellent. I love that. I love that. Okay. What was the most valuable lesson or lessons you have learned about being in business?

Greta Bajrami:
The most valuable lesson I've learned being in business is that it's about 10 years from now. I wouldn't even say it's about next year. It's about where you see yourself five, 10 years from now. It's about investing, investing, investing, investing in your brand every day for the long picture. And that's the most valuable lesson I've learned, and it's something that I always speak about and advocate for, is if you can be patient and give back to your brand every year, give back to it, there's going to come a time where it's going to reward you.
If not financially, maybe financial always be the same, but it's going to reward you so much in your soul, in your purpose, in what you do because people are going to know you. They're going to know your brand, and they're going to identify with it in so many different ways. The most valuable lesson I've learned is to always give back, and give back to Golden Group because it's essentially Golden Group who gives back to me.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. That's awesome. Give back to your people. That's cool. I love that. What is the best thing you ever did for your business?

Greta Bajrami:
The best thing I've ever done for my business is open the doors to let others see my business. I think in roofing, we're very concerned that our competitors are going to see what we're doing and copy it. We're very concerned that our information is going to fall into the wrong hands. But although that's always a concern, there's so much more pros than there is cons when I've opened the door to the company. I've opened the door to the company not only through social media, but also documenting on YouTube us being silly.
Maybe video footage that somebody could try to use against this. But again, I challenge that because I'm opening the doors to show people that I'm a real person. We are real people. We have ups and downs just like everybody else, but we love what we do. And I think that message comes through in everything that we touch, whether it's podcasts such as these, whether it's Instagram, whether it's Facebook. The biggest thing is opening the door and really showing transparency.
But not just transparency that's there because your PR team or your marketing team told you, but just authentic transparency, just you drinking coffee, just you making a story on the roof, or just you talking about something that frustrated you today, because maybe there's somebody on the other end that had something just as frustrating that they can relate to. So that's I think the biggest thing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That transparency, customers love that. Everybody wants real. They don't want fake. I love that. Number five, what are your biggest concerns about being in business today?

Greta Bajrami:
My biggest concerns about being in business today, I've spoken about this before, so if you've heard me, but is labor. I do foresee a labor shortage in roofing, and I think it's just because a lot of people want to become marketing in roofing. They want to become sales and roofing. They want to be everything else but the actual roof themselves. And I think the reason being is that because the younger people, the younger people coming, the Gen Zs, I don't think they identify with the trade that much.
And I think it's up to people like myself or people that have been doing this for a lot longer than I that I mentor and look up to, it's up to us to shift that mindset to let people know that it's not shameful to be a roofer on the roof. It's prideful and here's why, and it's not as hard as it once used to be and here's why, and here's what we've done to make it safer and trendier and cooler and much easier and a very rewarding career.
I think that's the only thing that I fear is just that shortage of actual roofers on the roof as more and more millennials and Gen Z's decide to be in service or decide to be in marketing and media.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I agree. When you look at the roofing professionals out there on the roof who are installing those roofs every day, it's such a craft and it's such a high level of professionalism that we just got to be able, like you said, to be able to talk about that and to really share that story.

Greta Bajrami:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Because in other parts of the world, it is rock star status to be in roofing. We got to change that here in the U.S. In one word, describe the most important trait in an employee.

Greta Bajrami:
I mean, there's so many, but creativity, I guess. Because I know everybody else is going to say like respect, integrity, loyalty, but I think those are basis for anybody you hire. But creativity. I love creative people. I love to hire creative people. I don't want this to be because Greta said so, do it, because Greta wants it, Greta did it, Greta said it. No. I want this to be a place where you can input your own creativity in your own because that's the only way we're going to flourish.
That's the only way, if we're a tree metaphor [Inaudible 00:12:27] we're going to grow more branches. I may be the root of it all, but everybody who is here is an extension of me. And if they're creative, they can blossom and be even greater than me one day. So, creative.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Which makes the business even better. I love that. I think that's a perfect word. Do you belong to any associations related to your business? And if so, which I know you do, tell us which ones and kind of what that does for your business.

Greta Bajrami:
Yeah. I mean, I belong to a few. I'm a treasurer right now and on the board of directors for the New England Roofing Contractors Association, which I'm very proud to be there. And I'm also a part of the Massachusetts Council for the National Women in Roofing. Those are my two roofing affiliations. I also have some local ones that are not affiliated to roofing, but affiliated to academia, because I always want to be there to represent the trades for people that want to continue with the trades should they choose to.
So for those two boards, and the reason I am on the roofing boards is because I want to show to myself that I'm committed to the bigger picture. It's not so much about showing to the clients. It's not so much about showing to the roofing industry. Sometimes when I sit there in the room, it's about showing myself.
It's about letting myself know that I am part of something bigger, because the adrenaline after those meetings and the mindset after those meetings is exactly the type of fuel I need as an entrepreneur and as a business owner to take my company to the next level, because I realized that I am an extension of something so much bigger. And when you have that kind of faith and belief in business, it allows you to do incredible things for your own brand, for your own people. I encourage anybody out there to become affiliated not to maybe give back to the industry.
No. It's giving back to yourself and just connecting yourself to the bigger picture.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I feel the same way. And when I come up those meetings, it's the high. It's just like all these ideas, I can't get them down fast enough. Okay. We're on question number eight. The eighth question is, the best boss you ever had taught you what?

Greta Bajrami:
Okay. I'm going to say the best boss I ever had was actually when I worked corporate a little bit in Nordstrom. I worked in retail, and it's because of Nordstrom philosophy is that everybody starts in the stock room. It doesn't matter if you're meant be a manager. It doesn't matter if you're meant to be like sitting in Seattle across the corporate table. Everybody has started in the stock room. I've taken that same philosophy to roofing. Everybody starts on the roof. And I'm not telling them to physically lay shingles.
But even if you are an office administrator or a secretary, your first week is on job sites. Your first week is seeing what we do, because how can you communicate passion on the phone, how can you be excited about managing a team if you're not there were the guys every day? So that's the best thing he taught me. I would see managers coming to train in the stock room and I'd be like, "Why are they putting shoes away when they're meant to be managers?"
And he's like, "Well, they can't manage if they don't know what we do. Everybody has to start in the stock room and on the floor, and then go to the corporate seat when they're meant to." So that's the best advice I think anybody... If there's anything you could take from this is, get your people to start on your end result to what your client sees and then work them back to where they're meant to be on that chain.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes, that is excellent. Exact same thing at the coffee shop. You got to start inputting stuff into the back end before you can go anywhere else. Love it. What makes you smile when you think about your job?

Greta Bajrami:
What makes me smile is that I love when I walk around and I see the roof that I've done. I don't know if that sounds... Maybe roofers can relate to this, but I just love my... I love my job because like the other day we were in Boston and we've done a lot of churches in Boston. And my kids are looking at and I'm looking at my work and I'm like, "Mom did that roof. Mom did that roof. Mom did that." And my kids say that too.
My kids when they go out with their friends and they're close into a building, especially if it's a commercial building, they'll be like, "My mom did that roof." That's the beautiful thing about... And then my daughter's friends will actually say, "Hey, Chiara, your mom literally did the roof you're under." [inaudible 00:16:43] I think that's the beauty of it all. That's the most beautiful thing about my job is that I get to drive around in blizzards and see my work.
I get to drive around in rains and see my work and see that what it's doing and what it's meant to do is protect people's homes. That's a big picture. Now, a little picture, I just love when I see people talking about me sometimes. I've been a couple occasions where people are talking about me in blogs. That is the best thing in the world. I am in a neighborhood group and people are like, "Oh, I had Golden Group. I like Golden Group too." And I'm like, oh, yes! Yes! Yes! I'm screaming in the background.
I'm watching this neighbor next door threads going on, and it's our company being mentioned. And that's like pinch me. I guess if I had a product that people are wearing it, it'd be like if somebody was wearing a shirt that you designed, but in this case, these people are talking about the roofs that we've put on. I don't think there's a greater feeling. I'm kind of like a stalker. I'm in those threads. I hope people don't know. Maybe I shouldn't have let that out.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I think that's a thing of beauty personally. I love it. My dad was a contractor, so we would always go around and point out all of his jobs that he did too. So yes, that is great. I love your kids seeing all of that. Okay. We are on question number 10 and 10 is, if you were going to do it all again, what would you do differently?

Greta Bajrami:
I would do a few things differently. I think I would educate myself more on how to be a better leader. I think it's a big misconception that a business owner and an entrepreneur automatically are leader. I don't think those are necessarily the traits. I think I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a visionary, but it doesn't mean that I am a great delegator to tell everybody what to do. I think if I could go back, I would redo it and I would focus a little bit more on that, because I had to play a lot of catch up.
I had to learn things as I went, and I'd be like, "Oh, that wasn't the right thing to say to a team, or well, that strategy didn't work." Because I was great on creative end, I was great on visionary, I was great on branding, but I wasn't so great in this other areas, and I wish somebody would have told me that. Maybe I would have spent some more time. I guess my message to you is, you might be a great entrepreneur, but it doesn't mean that you're a great delegator.
Sometimes understanding your weakness and investing in a coach or investing in yourself or even hiring somebody that can fill in that gap, it's probably the wisest thing to do, especially if you're thinking about hiring a lot of people. And again, it doesn't mean you're not great. You're actually great. That's exactly what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to be the leader and the visionary. You can always have somebody else delegate those things for you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Right. That is really wise. That's really wise Greta. It took me a long time to learn all that, and I'm still working on it. Still working on it.

Greta Bajrami:
I as well. I as well.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay. Any tips for the new guy or gal starting out?

Greta Bajrami:
Yeah. My biggest tip is do it right and do it authentically and don't try to be corporate overnight. It comes off as like pulling stickers and putting them all together and hoping that they look okay and appear nice. I say make your own canvas. It's going to take time, but it's going to be your own and it's going to be authentic. All too often, I see new companies starting out and I see that they're trying to copy things from different sources or websites or branding or messaging on Instagram. You can do that, but it looks thrown together and it doesn't have that cohesion.
It's busy, and it's overwhelming to your clients. So if you have a target client in mind, you have to really cater to that person. And the only way to do that is to be authentic, to be yourself, and take time and build. It's like that art piece, right? You got to start with the sketch and then go from there to the final results of the final painting. You can only do it yourself. You can't do it by looking at my paper, and you got to be authentic and listen to your voice.
But the great thing about this industry, there's so many mentors that are willing to help you. All you have to do is voice your wants, right? It took me a long time to understand that, and it took me a long time to get over that pride factor. But once I got over it, I realized that as long as I voiced what I want, there's so many people that are willing to even give me one hour of their time for me to give me an opinion and something that I was too prideful before to ask. So if you're new, ask somebody. Ask a person like me.
"Hey, Greta, can I do a 30 minute Zoom? I have five questions to ask you." Chances are, I might not say yes right away, but I'll tell you when I can do it, right? I'll give you a couple options. That is the silver lining of it all, is that be authentic. Be yourself. Build slow. Don't look at what other people are doing. It's going to look put together and rushed, and it's not going to be yours. It's going to be pieces of somebody else's art, which essentially will damage your brand and not allow proper growth.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. That's great. That's excellent. Okay. This is question number 12. Here we go. How do you stay motivated to keep moving forward?

Greta Bajrami:
That's a great question because I ask myself that every day, and the reason I stay motivated is I have a big plan in my mind, and I've linked myself to a bigger picture, such as working with you. I don't want to be remembered just as Golden Group. I want to be remembered as Greta, woman, roofer, owner, who changed things up and did some changes that people loved and it changed the face of the industry, right? We're changing the way this industry looks every day.
That's the thing that motivates me when I wake up every morning, it's because I'm doing this for something so much bigger than myself. And I want to look back on it one day and write a book about it, or maybe not even write a book. Maybe I don't get there, but at least sit around a table with people I love and share them this story that started out as a summer job when I really needed the money because I was a young college student with a daughter, and it turned into this passion, and it turned into this brand, and it turned into this legacy of me being part of boards, such as NERCA.
So that's what motivates me every morning. But what motivates you could be very different. But again, if I believe that if our motivation is a little bit bigger than ourself, then we always keep going forward.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Exactly. Exactly. Oh, that's great. I love these questions because I learned so much, and I've learned so much about you today, Greta. And I have to really say, I am so excited to be working with you. I need to tell everybody out there who's listening that in 2021, you need to watch for Greta because she's going to be doing a whole lot more on the coffee shop with us. That's a little sneak peek, but yes, we are so excited. I just love this. Thank you, Greta. Thank you for sharing your story and sharing your wisdom through these questions.

Greta Bajrami:
Thank you for having me. I'm always excited for podcasts such as these, especially on the Roofers Coffee Shop, and I'm always excited to see more and more people become owners or just become any part of the roofing industry because it's an incredible. industry to be a part of that's not only rewarding financially, but rewarding in these things that we're talking about, these hidden messages of the bigger picture.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes, and the friendships. Thank you.

Greta Bajrami:
Absolutely that.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. Well, great. Thank you, and thank you everybody for listening. You can hear Greta's other podcast, the Coffee Conversations Podcast, all under Read Listen Watch, along with all of our podcasts and live events. So please be sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com. Check out the podcast. Subscribe to us on your favorite channel. And we are going to be seeing a lot of Greta this next year. Greta, thank you again.

Greta Bajrami:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone for listening and have a wonderful day.