Top 4 Things Leap Learned at IRE

By Leap.  

What is top of the mind of every roofing contractor after the tradeshow season? 

Tradeshow season has come and gone, and contractors are now looking to apply what they have learned during the slower season to their business. The Leap team was at IRE, attending sessions, presenting a few themselves and talking to hundreds of roofing contractors. Read on to learn about their takeaways from IRE.  

1 - How to hire and keep employees.  

“Technology alters your hiring pool. Drones allow you to hire successful sales professionals that have no interest in climbing a roof.” says Chief Revenue Officer of Loveland Innovations Kevin Wunder. “A roofing contractor in Texas hired a school principal as a Licensed drone pilot for their roofing company.”  

Director, Workforce Development at the Vinyl Rob Balfanz recommended connecting with trade schools and community colleges that have a Career Technical Education (CTE) program and give talks on why the industry is a good employer. He also said that other home improvement verticals may be hiring away the pool of contractors from roofing businesses, so an urgency is required. 

2 - Communicating timelines to customers.  

VP Marketing at Leap Shashi Bellamkonda’s takeaways are: 

• Keep the customers constantly informed about the supply chain delays  

• Educate the customer on the situation every business is facing with the supply chain issues  

• If you do not communicate appropriately with the customers, you run the risk of them thinking your company is delaying things and not supply chain issues   

3 - Creating good estimates and not losing money on them.  

COO Cotney Attorneys & Consultants John Kenney spoke about “Estimating the Right Way.” Estimating is a very key function that determines the profitability of the business. Top points from his talk:  

• Train your estimators well, wrong estimates can make you go out of business  

• Do not make estimating a multi-tasking function of another employee like a takeoff person  

• Create an estimating process and hand-off procedure to the project managers  

• Avoid mathematical errors and ask clarification questions  

• Be careful about bidding pricing in your contracts if the pricing is unknown. Use a resource to help you mitigate the risk of renegotiating pricing 

4 - Adding new products like windows and doors to your roofing business.  

Beacon Building Products’ Erik Zadrozny, Justin Powell, Greg Bloom lead a session for roofing contractors teaching roofing contractors to add windows and doors to their portfolios. 

Learn more about Leap in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.leaptodigital.com. 

Original article source: Leap