Steve Little - Secrets of a Successful Roofing Company - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Steve Little from KPost Roofing and Waterproofing. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth and I am very, very excited about this Roofing Road Trip today from one of my dearest, and I'm not going to say oldest, but dearest friends in the roofing industry. I am here today with Steve Little from KPost Roofing and Waterproofing. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Little: Hi, Heidi. Nice to be with you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh my gosh, this is great. I'm so excited to hear about all the new stuff you have going on and especially you're presenting at the International Roofing Expo. But before we start that, why don't you go ahead, I would love for the few people out there who don't know you, to have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your history.

Steve Little: Well, thanks. First of all, glad to have the opportunity to be with you today. Thank you. My partner, Keith Post, and Jayne Williams and I started KPost Roofing and Waterproofing back in, geez, January of 2004. We're coming up on our 20th year. Very excited.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Congratulations. Wow.

Steve Little: Thank you. We wanted that company to be a $6, $8 and $10 million company a year and have 100 employees and just kind of make our way in the industry and go out a little bit under the radar. Unfortunately or fortunately, we've had great employees and great leaders in the group, and this year we will close out 2023 with 430 employees on the commercial side and a little under $92 million as a company. And we started a residential division six years ago, and that will close out this year around $16 million and just picked up the Tesla Solar Roof program.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh my gosh. Congratulations on all of that, that's amazing.

Steve Little: Yeah, it's really exciting. And then our national brand that you've been involved in helping us was National Roofing Partners and they're having a spectacular year, exceeded all of their revenue at EBITA, and they're really poised to blow it out of the water in 2024. So we continue to be blessed beyond measure and are just very fortunate to have the success we've had. Find good employees, give them the tools they need and get out of their way and we've done a good job of that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, excellent. I mean, you were the leader. You, Keith, Jayne, KPost, leaders in the roofing industry and it shows. You had a vision and look where you're at 20 years later. That's so impressive.

Steve Little: Took lots of friends, lots of strategic partners. A lot of people put their trust in us when we shouldn't have been trusted in our early years and we've been able to build a great reputation.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is great. Well, and you know what, I just want to kind of share, Steve, a little bit. Share with everyone where you came from before roofing because I always find this so interesting.

Steve Little: Well, it's no surprise that we're the roofing and waterproofing company of the Dallas Cowboys because I came from a sports background. I spent 25 years in the sports licensed product industry, Super Bowls, World Series, Olympics, that kind of stuff, on the merchandising end and on the manufacturer's rep end for a number of years, then went to work for one of the manufacturers during the Olympics. So I was able to bring a fresh branding perspective to the building envelope industry that had not really taken off with that kind of branding yet. And now we have companies like Rackley who's out here being the Titans' company and Beldon who just became the San Antonio Spur company. And there's a number of folks that have jumped on the bandwagon to recognize that this co-branding in the sports world is meaningful. It's not just meaningful for you and your company because you're getting this co-branding, but you're also establishing a standard for your employees and you have to live up to that kind of service and that kind of culture to make that happen. So yeah, I came from the sports industry, it's been fun.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's so good. And to be the official roofing, and say it for us again, with the Cowboys. What's the official term?

Steve Little: The official term is we are the official roofing and waterproofing company of the Dallas Cowboys and are renewing our contract here in March where we will be the roofing, waterproofing and solar company of the Dallas Cowboys.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. Congratulations on solar.

Steve Little: Thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Very exciting.

Steve Little: Very interesting business, solar. We could have a whole Road show about solar.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think we will because I'm hearing so much about it, I want to hear what's all going. But today we wanted to talk about, and what I was hoping or what I wanted to talk with you about was what you're doing at the International Roofing Expo and you have a great new business toolkit that you've been working on. So let's start with that. What is that, Steve?

Steve Little: Well, with all the technology that's in place, all of the subcontracting that's transpiring, all of the third party world has come to the building envelope world. My talk at IRE in Las Vegas this year is going to be you don't have to be a roofer to be in the roofing business. And it's so apropos with everything that's changing in our world, so we're very excited about that. I think it will be a shock to people on some of the things that we'll talk about. Being that I'm in the fourth quarter of my career and the third quarter of my life, I've kind of not worried about the politics anymore of our industry. I just say it like it is and people can subscribe to it or not and there is a whole lot going on in our world that's changing in the building envelope industry.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is. It's changing a lot. And you are working to put a toolkit together and information to help navigate all of that?

Steve Little: Yes, we are working on... We've been fortunate to have acquired connections with the consultants that we have hired in growing KPost in NRP. We've realized that we are very good at certain skills and very good at actually the execution of the product that we're representing. But there are so many things in today's world that you have to be subject matter experts on for you to grow and be successful, and we don't possess a lot of those skills. So we built that network of professionals, SMEs, subject matter experts, and we are now promoting that through the market to help other contractors be able to overcome these obstacles that they're dealing with. And it is amazing the success that we've had at KPost and at National Energy Partners using these consultants.

As part of my presentation, you or I could go into business today without a lick of experience, not an ounce of reputation and not one truck except maybe the one you drive to and from work. And we would be able to present ourselves as a fantastic roofing and waterproofing company instantaneously. And that's one of the big obstacles that all the brick and mortar contractors are dealing with.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Very much so. It's a huge change, and you know, Steve, you and I kind of saw it coming. We've talked about this before, that we saw the technology and how people use technology, obviously sub crews, that all that culture is changing the industry now and companies really need to figure out how do they navigate that when they're more traditional with their own employees, their own space, their reputation of many years. But you're right, technology is changing all that for everyone.

Steve Little: It is. I think the technology, I think regulations, I think that the immigration issues that the world has, not just the United States, and I think the barrier to business has changed with the single ply world that's out there and the coding worlds that are out there. The biggest mistake that I think any contractor makes that goes in this business is not to get over their skis. This taking on a project like the AT&T Stadium or the American Airlines Center or even the world headquarters for the Dallas Cowboys like we have is very complicated projects. They demand a lot of capacity, both internally and externally, a lot of project management, a lot of professionalism, the dollars are huge and people sometimes chase the dollars and get way over their skis. They understand there's sweet spot.

But now that these third-party groups are out there, you can get somebody to help you run your business. You can get somebody to do your estimate. You can hire third-party project managers and superintendents to work with the third-party crews that are out there. And there are some very good suppliers in all the areas I've just talked about.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. So I'm really interested about these SMEs, and am I reading this right, that that is part of the business toolkit is really getting to know the consultants and to helping them? Tell us a little bit more about that and can you mention who some of them are?

Steve Little: I can. I'm not going to get too much details about it because it's really going to break in 2024, but it's understanding your limitations. And I think that's the egos really need to be left in the closet when you're dealing with your business. And I think that's why we've had such a great success with Keith and Jayne and myself, is that we get in there, we roll our sleeves up, we duke it out, we build the plan, we hired well, so now we have seven vice presidents or directors that are working on our management team. We follow the EOS process with a true book traction and we brought in a third party consultant to help us navigate that world and built a foundation. So the first thing is Stephen Covey's "begin with the end in mind." You have to determine where you want to end up before you can begin to execute any kind of business.

I don't care if it's a lemonade stand, and I use lemonade stands all the time in teaching people accounting and the cost of sales and the cost of marketing and the cost of the labor of building the ingredients and all the way to the paper cups and sugar that are involved in it now, or in some lemonade stands might have Splenda or Sweet'N Low, whatever it might be for the sweetener. But the reality is that you have to know where you want to go before you can begin. And most subcontractors, I don't care what division it comes from, whether it be drywall, painting, landscaping, roofing, it's a ticked off estimator and a ticked off superintendent that grab their shingle and they leave the company they're working for and they go across the street, they're going to beat those guys' butts that they just left. And that's how they start their business. And they trudge through all of the difficulties it is to build a business without going out and seeking help. Not investing in themselves to make the business work.

And so that's really the first ingredient to this toolbox is to understand who you are, what your skills are and where you're going. And then once you begin with the end in mind for the first year, you build a three-year plan and a five-year plan. Because if you're going into business, Harvard studies say that 60% of the businesses fail the first year and 20% get to the fifth year. So if you don't stop for a second and build a business plan, you're already swimming upstream to success. So once you get that established, then you start understanding who you are. It's not just your skill sets, but who you are personality wise. And as you start to bring in employees, you need to build core values and decide how you're going to manage your business. What's going to be the litmus test for every decision you make?

So those three things I think in the very beginning is figuring out where you want to go, build a plan that you can measure by and have smart goals by, and then start to understand what you can and can't do, what your skills are and how to surround yourself with the right people that are there. To accomplish this, we've had a number of different coaches that have helped us from about our third year in business going forward. You know many of them that are in the industry that are subject matter experts for specific areas of your business, but to build the foundation of your business, you have to go outside the roofing industry. You have to go to people that understand mind performance management as well as figuring out who the personalities are, the people that are working with you and how you can mesh those. It's much better to have somebody that has the chemistry that can work within your company than to have somebody that has the skillset that won't.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly. So true. Yeah, we do EOS. I'm a huge fan and I think that is so smart in bringing in the right people to help you with the communication. So we're on that here at RoofersCoffeeShop, we're on the same journey. I'm always like, we're not too far behind the roofing companies out there.

Steve Little: But you're a business, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It's a business, exactly.

Steve Little: You're a business and you're running your business like a business. And a lot of times we run our businesses like subcontractors and we get terrible reputations. The stormers that come into our different industries or our different cities, they're not bad people. Their business plan is to go in and capture the opportunity that's there. It's a supply chain situation. The supply of houses to be able to secure or businesses to conserve... I might get a little tongue-tied here, Heidi. With the storms to secure the businesses that have had damage. And then they are subject matter experts when it comes to the insurance process and they get in town and they get out of town and they travel to different places. That's their business model and they're successful with it. We as brick and mortars that are established in a business, we get upset about those darn stormers and them, but they got a business model they're executing and good for them.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So what is your business model? That's the key, is checking it.

Steve Little: Yeah. Our business model is pretty simple. It's exceed the client's expectation. The client is the boss. Take care of your employees. You're nothing without your employees. Have strategic partners and make sure that you do exactly what you say you're going to do or even exceed the expectations from your strategic partners. And then get involved in your industry. If you get involved in your industry, you'll find out that your industry will get involved with you and you never know when you need to help each other, but you've built relationships and you're already there to help. And that's pretty simple though, those four ingredients that have worked for KPost.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, I love it. Well, as you already know, I agree with all of that. And I think it's going to be really interesting for you to be able to present this to a number of contractors who maybe are just starting out or who have been in business a long time but have never incorporated this. I mean, we were in business a long time before we sat down and said we need to do something and we read Traction and we got to EOS and we talked to experts out there, figuring things out.

So one of the things that I think is really interesting, Steve, and you and I were the original founders, members of Roofing Technology Think Tank, but I really see the technology side of it continuing to change the industry and change, like you said, a lot of the insurance renovation contractors were very much very strong with technology. They know how to work the Google, they know how to work all of the different things that make their businesses look so much bigger and get them the leads that they need. What do you see that way in the industry, and as you're kind of talking about these SMEs and your toolkit, how is technology playing a part of that?

Steve Little: Well, a company that you're very familiar with in the photo imagery business. Told I was at a Alliance for Progress, or I keep going Alliance for Progress instead of Roofing Alliance.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes, Roofing Alliance.

Steve Little: Just coming from the old school. I was at a meeting in Nashville where I saw you and your team were there, it was great. And I was told that in the next three years that if you need help in your house for roofing, as an example, you'll say, hey, Google, hey Siri, and I need a roofer. I've had a hailstorm, find me a roofer. And I am now talking and Siri's about to answer me on my phone to my question. And within 24 hours, your house ought be imaged, pricing will be put together, and the top three contractors based on Google Reviews will be contacting you for the opportunity within 24 hours.

I told our sales force in our KPost residential side of the business, I told our sales force about that the minute I got back in the office and we were holding a sales meeting there. And they freaked. They absolutely freaked out because there are so many buyers that are so used to getting technology through picking up Siri and saying, order from Amazon this or Google order me this or whatever, and it comes the next day. You just get used to buying this way. So the ability to be able to image your house, do the pricing, have three contractors contract you by just speaking into your phone will change, it'll be a paradigm shift in the residential roofing business, both retail and stormer.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I agree 100% with that. And we're already seeing it where consumers can go onto a website and get immediate quotes. Now, it may not be perfect, but it starts the process much faster, you get an idea, and that's already starting to change the whole everything that's happening in the industry. You can't just leave a business card with a quote on the back of it under the door.

Steve Little: Right. Yeah, those days are over. Our Tesla solar roof business and Powerwalls is very much built that way, is consumer can go on the website, put in their house information and boom, all of a sudden they have this idea of a quote and then they're connected to us in north Texas and we're way down the road because of that trust that's been built up between that connection and all from a technology play.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it is amazing. Okay, so next question I have for you is why should people attend the International Roofing Expo?

Steve Little: [inaudible 00:19:44] is one of the best events that I attend each year. I'm going to tell folks that only attend if you're going to apply yourself at the show. There are so many great seminars that are put on, so many great speakers. Work the show, go in and actually go into a booth and tell people what your needs are or inquire about something that you might think about for your business and you'll be surprised how much you can get out of it. If you're just going to the show to go to Vegas, see a show in Vegas, have some drinks, eat a good meal and walk the aisles, don't go. Stay away, stay at home, get on your internet, follow RoofersCoffeeShop.

You'll learn everything that's happening in the show from that, but you won't get out of it what you needed. You'll learn from an information standpoint, but you're not going to get that interaction. You're not going to get that what's going to help you business. Just like your regional shows, whether it be the Florida Show or the Midwest Roofing or Worcester States, those shows are very important to get engaged. And if you don't go to those, send some of your leadership to those and let them get an opportunity to be able to learn and become familiar with our industry and do something better for their business. But specifically to your question for IRE, one of the best shows in any industry I've ever attended.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, I agree. I think it's in the educational classes, the events, the networking is just off the charts and is so important. And so one of the things I am encouraging everyone is to first of all get registered, get your hotels. It is the week before Super Bowl, but we have great blocks of rooms. Informa, who manages the IRE show, has done a great job for us. And when you're going through your registration, you get to pick your educational classes, and you need to do that and you need to go every morning, even though it's a 7:30. So, Steve, when people are going through and they pick your class, what exactly, I know we talked about the business toolkit, but give us a little bit of an overview of what they're going to get out of your class.

Steve Little: Well, they're going to learn how they can be a roofer without being a roofer, number one. And they're going to learn names of people that they need to contact with. They're going to learn websites that they can go to to pull that information. This is going to be a conversational class. This is not going to be me staying at the pony and barking to the folks that are there. If you've ever attended any of my seminars or any industry events that I've been involved in, it's always interactional. You get more out of people contributing than you need to be the talking head at the front of the room. So contacts in the industry to help them with specific subjects, information that will be left for them, they'll have access to the presentation that'll have this information as well, and they're going to be able to interact with other folks talking about these same issues.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. So IRE, for everybody who's out there, first week of February. You can go on to RoofersCoffeeShop and you can go to the IRE pages at the top of every page on RoofersCoffeeShop. And you can find this, we're going to have a write up, we're going to have information about your seminar on there, Steve, and it'll also have where you can register, and be sure to pick this class. Because I'm telling you, I've worked with Steve so long and I know this is going to be exactly the information you'll need for 2024 for your business. I guess the last thing, Steve, that I wanted to kind of touch on too is just overall 2024, when you're looking at going into the next year between technology and ROI and the economics and everything like that, what's some of your advice? I think we said a lot of it, but just some of your overall advice for contractors looking at 2024.

Steve Little: Well, it depends on what part of the country you're in, candidly. We're so blessed to be in north Texas and Texas is such a hub for corporations moving to that area and we're a very tax friendly state and good weather state. And so it depends really on the areas that you're in. My fellow roofers that are in Florida, California, Texas and the Southeast are all projecting to have a banner year in '24 as they've had in '23. They're carrying over great backlog, supply chain is good and the business is good across the board. There's a lot of pent-up dollars that are out there. With the Energy Act and the different government programs that are out there, there's going to be a lot of money that's going to be available on vertical, not just roads and bridges, but vertical buildings. There's a percentage of it that's pulled aside.

Our great ROOFPAC and what the work that Reid Ribble did when he was the chair of the NRCA, and then coming from being in the roofing business, how he made roofers essential during COVID and now how they've navigated this world of the available federal dollars that are out there. There's going to be a lot of opportunity in '24 for people to have that. I would challenge our Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northwest friends to be looking for that type of business. Their normal business seems to be soft right now from what I'm hearing. When you talk to the distributors and the manufacturers, and it's kind of like the smiley face is where the business is coming from and the sad face is where across the United States is where the business is soft, but there are lots of opportunities from the federal dollars that are out there.

You may need to change and have a little paradigm shift in your business that you don't normally go after that business, but there are a lot of contractors, federal contractors, that do that business now and you can become a supplier of theirs instead of you having to set up your own federal program. So very easy to go in and look on the internet and just say federal contractors, construction contractors, and you'll get a list of 20 names and there are people that are in your area, I promise you that.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And they're looking for labor. They're looking for skilled labor. They're looking for good companies to work with.

Steve Little: Yeah, I think that they're looking for people to exceed their expectations. And there's so much business out there that you could pick a pocket, that you could kind of narrow that pocket. Don't try to be all things to all people. Don't get over your skis. Understand your business and focus on that opportunity that's there. I would challenge people to batten down the hatches as we've got to figure out what this inflation, how it's affecting us. It's not, our employees are getting hit with 7, 8, 9% inflation and we can't give them 7, 8 and 10% increases in compensation because we can't get that from our clients on the backside and it's all a trickle-down effect. During the supply chain issue, there was no supply. So if you were going to put a roof on and you used to pay $1 for materials and now you're paying $2, everybody paid $2 because across the board, everybody dealt with it.

This inflation thing and this workforce development thing is a real issue. And so I think you just need to tighten your belt a little bit in that unhappy face area, and in that smiley face area, maybe you need to spend a few more dollars and then take advantage of the opportunity while you have it. There are some upgrades to technology that's happening across the board. Go to IRE, visit the technology section, work the section, tell the people that are there about what your currently technology is doing and they'll give you a solution. And it may not be in that booth. This is a very close family in the roofing industry. So if you're in the Roofle booth and they say, so we can't do this, but the Dataform people could do it, then, you know, boom. Somebody's trying to help you be successful because we're networked that way.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. Well, Steve, this is just delightful. Thank you so much. And I want to thank you for, one, being an RCS influencer, and we'll be talking about that at IRE, also. Being an influencer, all your wisdom, the articles that you send us, thank you so much. And for everybody out there listening, we have a full directory just on Steve Little that you can go check out. KPost is also an R-Club member and they have a full directory on the site. And as I said, we have a full IRE page. So you can get everything you need right on RoofersCoffeeShop about Steve Little. So that's kind of scary, Steve.

Steve Little: That's very scary. And I hope that you had the same information about you and what an influencer you have been in our industry from way back when you were with Carlisle and how you changed the way some people did things all the way through RT3 and Women in Roofing and RoofersCoffeeShop and all the stuff you've been involved in. Heidi, you are a superwoman.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, thank you. And one of the highlights was working with you at National Roofing Partners, which is still doing great and I love working with those folks and we're a partner there too. So thank you, thank you. And we'll be seeing you at IRE. Everyone, please sign up. Please sign up for Steve's class. You will not regret it, it's going to be great. So, Steve, thank you and have a great day. We'll be talking again.

Steve Little: Looking forward to it, Heidi. You don't have to be a roofer to be in the roofing business, that's for sure.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No, you don't. You don't. I love it. And thank all of you for listening to this podcast. This is the kind of stuff you need for your business and we're bringing it to you with every podcast, every webinar and of course, you can find all this information on the directories in the IRE page that I just mentioned. Also, be sure to go check out all of our podcasts under the Read Listen Watch navigation under Roofing Road Trips, and be sure to subscribe and set those notifications on your favorite podcast channel so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the RoofersCoffeeShop.com.