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EPISODE NOTES RESOURCES MENTIONED: https://roofingthatpays.com/review https://www.conklin.com/product-catalog/roofing-products https://www.doublerroofing.com **Disclaimer: The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors ** As a contractor, you know commercial roofing is an amazing opportunity that rewards hard work, but you also see huge issues emerging like finding time to bid jobs, hiring motivated employees, rocketing insurance fees and rising lead costs. On Season One of the Roofing That Pays podcast experienced contractors will share their secrets to what's working in the exploding Commercial Roofing industry. Welcome to roofing that pays. Welcome back to the roofing that pays podcast. This is Episode two. And we're digging into the archives, visiting with Conrad Raber of Western Pennsylvania, a successful Commercial Roofing Contractor and roof coating contractor. Please enjoy. My brother and I own a company called Double R Roofing. Before that I was hauling barns, actually had a truck and trailer and was hauling portable sheds around then, five, six years ago, I got into the commercial roofing market and bright and I've been doing that ever since. What would you say were some of the biggest issues you were facing at that time? I would say lack of money and time, I was on the road a lot. At end of the year and look at the numbers. And it was like the only way I'm going to improve these is being on the road more and do more of what I do. And I was pretty much maxed out already with time away from home and just the numbers just didn't really add up in the year, I guess, pretty much what would happen is I was calling whatever the company sold, I had no option of going out and selling more sheds for them. So I have more work. And even if I did, it would have took a lot more time. And I got to the point to where it was like I'm pretty much maxed out. And in order for me to go any any further. There was not there was no further I guess, when I thought of getting into the commercial roofing industry that my brother and I we got in and we started hiring some guys, it really just opened it up because I was in total control at this point versus this depending on someone else to bring in the sales. So that was a huge step for me, I guess. My older brothers actually kind of introduced me to this, I saw their success that they were having in a roofing company. Eventually, my brother Brian, I actually ended up taking their company on when they kind of moved to bigger and better things. I saw my brothers working with other guys, residential guys that they were bringing into the commercial market, helping them be very successful, much more successful than then what I was being just on many barns. So it kind of gave me the hope in a little bit of belief in myself and knowing that they were there to help me through this, it really gave me hope that I could at some point have what I saw them doing for other guys, no doubt about their new their industry and how they were able to help people. Obviously, they knew knew that what they were talking about, once he about getting involved in the in the roofing industry, any industry for that matter is you have to know how to do the projects, you know how it happened to how to get the projects, you have to know there's so much involved, but the structure they were bringing into their guys, and the success I guess it brought a lot of resources to us. I remember in our early days of running the company, they kept telling us; You gotta spend more money marketing, you gotta you gotta push into any of the state after is in the able to help us if it wouldn't have been for that, we would have got comfortable early in the game and not moved to bigger and better projects and growing the company. So where we were comfortable for a little while was my brother and I. And we had one guy working for us. And we made a good living doing it. But it got to the point where we said, why not push into it more, we start hiring guys. And we were able to grow the company like that. One thing I really like about the team aspect of things is we get to do trips together, we get to do some fun things together, different times, meetings and stuff, we interact with each other. And it's helped me incredibly already just hanging around some of these guys and some of the big players, and seeing how they do business, how they structure things. Honestly, that's been huge for us, you know, bouncing ideas off of them. That's really where I got started catching the vision of hiring guys starting to delegate and growing the company. So that's a big deal for me. That training, it really helped me to a couple things. For one, we learned how to do the projects, you got to have some hands on experience, to the quality of the materials. But it also just gave me an idea of where I guess I open my eyes to the possibilities. And why these products and his company has to offer really got me excited to go out make it happen. So we got home, I wanted to spend some money and some marketing, dropping flyers to building owners. And honestly, I didn't have the money. So I talked to my brother kind of begged him a little bit and loaning me 2500 bucks, and we dropped 5000 flyers. And off of those fires, I got, I believe it was 13 calls off of those fires ended up selling four or five jobs off of it. It was totally different winner from what we'd be experiencing the previous winners because hey, loosen things that were able to pay some bills and have a little money left over. So that was a big deal for us right out the gate. The team has really helped us avoid a lot of failures. There's so many things when you're starting your own business and running your business. Things that you have to learn either on your own on your own, or you have to learn from other people. And that's what we've been able to do is really learn from other people. Sure, we've learned some lessons on our own. But enjoy, we've been able to bounce some things off of our brothers off of other guys in the industry. And in our team here that we interact with, that we're able to learn from them new ideas, things that they're doing implementing in their business. Maybe they've made failures that they were able to help us but it's really helped us to avoid a lot of those, which in the end keeps more money in our pockets. So as a business owner today, I look at life totally different. For one, I can dream I can I can set goals and make those things happen. Whereas because I'm not capped out, I don't have somebody telling me what I need to do, and how I need to plan my day. To be honest, I have a lot more self discipline. today. I get up every morning at five o'clock I go to the gym and workout. Some I would have never used to do if I could sleep in the nine o'clock in the morning. Absolutely, I would have done it today. Now, I have a different a different mindset. And it's helped me to grow personally, it's made me really step up my game as a leader, you know, the guys working for us our company, I believe it's really helped me to develop Personally, I would say if you're looking for something different in your life, or if you want something better, this is the deal. I mean, the support that you're going to get here is huge. Don't ever limit yourself. Because where you're at today doesn't mean you have to be there in five years from now. It's incredible. When I look back even five years, what we how we've grown in five years. It's a good shift to be on. in America today, looking at the roofing industry, there is no company out there that you will get near the support and have the structure the way things are structured with Conklin. There's no doubt in my mind, a young guy can go out and have way more success, way more success with this company than you will anywhere else. There's just a ton of support a ton of energy and you're covered on all on all areas. I'm super excited about what we're going to do in the next year and the next several years. Timing is great right now we're going to go out we're going to making things happen. We're going really up our sales this year in the next couple of years a little bro thing so I'm just super excited to see all that happen. Thanks for listening to Roofing That Pays! Before you go Can we ask a huge favor? The biggest thing that helps spread this message is when you rate and review us. That tells the platforms we're doing something right. Take a moment to rate and review us at roofingthatpays.com/review. That's roofingthatpays.com/review. Thanks so much. Until next time, do more Roofing That Pays.