In the past

I was browsing through some old files this morning and will attempt to load a copy of a fairly short thread from eight years ago before the database was lost. Daddybob was always one of my favorite people on here.

Oh, Miss Vickie, you are too kind.

As an Equal Opportunity Offender, I was just watchin' out for my own butt. LOL

But I agreed with RK on most stuff, even if his ultimate business model wasn't anything I was interested in.

MikeH you were always in everyone's corner no matter how offensive they were. You were against banning anyone. Kinda shows an admirable quality about you.

by "didn't matter much", I was referring to the fact that Vickie still banned him.

I agree with your statement.

Everything matters in my opinion. Everybody makes an impact. I think in the end he made a major impact which continues to effect change. (And I'm not even a disciple of his.)

RK took a lot of heat, but if I recall correctly, I was always in his corner. I think a lot of people didn't like their status quo being challenged by his ways. Some thought he was just advertising his services and Duck Key, but I think he was genuinely trying to help the whole industry by helping anyone that would listen. oh well.... in the end, it didn't much matter.

Still around, mostly reading the post, but I do remember some of the old threads.

I'm going to find them all.

I posted something similar to the post from Richard Kaller, though nowhere near so eloquently, I re-posted it, read on.

unfortunately I dont think we are going to get many white, american guys to do roofing anymore, unless we change our ways. I believe this for a few reasons. First the invasion from the south and the willingness of the employers to hire them at a much lower rate has driven the average white guy to the couch or walmart to find a job. Low wages, a position that offers no self esteem and many, many willful health violations leaves the roofing industry with little to choose from in the empolyment line. That is why I am an advocate for paying fair wages. If we are to retain any young, white people in the industry we have to clean-up our industry and retrain ourselves to raise our prices, offer a better service and a cleaner appearance. I know most of you might be saying "well I do That Already". It's not you I m talking. It's the industry as a whole. Many of the white employees I see working for other companies look like they just woke up, didnt brush their teeth, smell like urine, scraggly beard(nothing wrong with facial hair) and they wear shorts with their left nut hanging out. Come on, what kind of image is that. We,ve all seen it. It has to stop. With the types of roofs being installed today, with the technolgy used to install and the safety feature everyone should be using we should be attracting our share of clean cut kids to take over Not every kid coming out of high school is going to go to college and become a doctor, lawyer, accountant, politician or some other white collar employees. 70-80% arne't even going to go or finish college. So where arte they going? I'll tell this. They have no direction and you know MOM and DAD are not saying "Son, roofing is a good profession". But we can change that. Might take 20 years. We need to attend the high school job fairs and show them the advancements in the industry. The diversity of jobs from front office, sales, PMs, supers,foremen, journeymen, trainees, distribution, manufacturing , marketing and adversting. Its a whole industry. we need to lead them back to roofing and show them that it is a worhty profession or careerpath to take. I know for the past 15- 20 years we have dumped and blamed many of our problems on our neighbors to the south. I m all for some type of immagration bill, but let me tell you this. Most of the Mexicans that I've hired(legally of course) are the epitome of what kind of employee I would be looking for. Unless I've been extremely lucky, I've had self respcting ,hardworking, trainable employees that have moved thru my system from trainnees to supers. Infortunately most of them have moved on to the other trades and if we hire any hispanics they are guatamalans, hondurans,venezuelans, and such mostly peons and farmers with out the same ethics as the mexicans. What to do.....

Someone replied "the industry has been crying that song for the past 20 years." You know, you're right and it's time to put an end to that song. I see many steps that he mentions, that even small companies can take, that would help clean up the roofing image portayed all too frequently. This nation was built on immigrants and we will always allow them in. I will hire them whether they be Candians, Finlanders,Chinese, Mexican, Irish or Italian. As long as they pass the criteria required to work here. And they will be presentable and capable of doing what I employ them to do, and that is to represent ME and my company.

Richard Kaller (RIP) was always pontificating and while he brought out good conversations I always accused him of trying to sell his services. I think I may have banished him but I can't remember. Feel free to post of course but I am going to think of away to resurrect. We probably have that era still.

Egg: Is this a great opening or what: (!!)

Richard Kaller's opening post: Dec. '03

Thread Title: Low Overhead...Good or Bad?

"Low Overhead Good or Bad

There are many posts that recommend keeping the overhead low.

Low overhead should not be a business objective.

Having the right amount of overhead should be the objective. The overhead is paid for by the clients of the company, and in my opinion needs to be whatever it needs to be in order to achieve 100% client satisfaction. We have two clients our external clients and our internal clients (employees/subs).

The following is a long post because I have tried to include detail that explains my experience with overhead. This is really written for the small contractor that has the vision and passion to build a significant roofing company. I am not at all suggesting this should be anyone’s goal, and certainly not knocking anyone that has a different goal.

We see a lot of posts on this BB complaining about the quality of people or the lack of quality people that can be hired into the roofing business. Is the lack of proper overhead a key reason why some roofing contractors have such a labor challenge? Is the lack of proper overhead what is holding us back from achieving our original reasons why we went into the roofing business?

What does our office and warehouse look like compared to our competition? Does it present an image that attracts the “Best of the Best” to work for us, or is it a garage or dumpy building because we are trying to keep the overhead low?

What do our trucks look like? Are they clean lettered and present a professional image or are they beat because we are trying to keep the overhead low?

If you were looking to work for a quality roofing company would these physical attributes attract you if you had the choice to work for many different roofing companies?

Most quality people looking for career opportunities give physical appearance a high consideration because a quality image represents success and business staying power. If we try to keep the overhead low at the expense of a professional image in most cases we will not attract the “Best of the Best.”

When I worked out of a dumpy building I would always have people coming in for interview appointments not show up? Did they show up, but the image we presented drives them away? There is no way to measure that loss.

What about fringe benefits that contribute so much to the cost of overhead? Are we providing equal or better benefits for our employees than our competition, or are we trying to keep overhead low?

It has been my experience that the pirates don’t care much about fringe benefits they just want the money. In contrast the long-term quality people with families and homes care very much about fringe benefits. Which do we want working for our roofing companies? Whom do we want to be associated with, have lunch with, or have as friends?

What about uniforms, or career apparel for our field crews and sales personnel. These add to the overhead of a company. Are we including that cost in our overhead or are we skipping it in order to keep low overhead? Again, if you were looking for work would seeing the personnel in uniforms or career apparel positively impact your thinking?

We need to remember we have only one chance to make a good first impression. What impression is our equipment and personnel making on the neighbors of our residential or commercial clients? Do our trucks attract calls on a steady regular basis because they look professional, or do we get only occasional calls because we are keeping overhead low? We found rolling billboards (trucks) paid for themselves just in branding and advertising value.

My experience in this business ranges from being insolvent as a business, working out of a dumpy location, and buying used trucks in order to keep overhead low because I simply did not have any money.

See the turnaround in the next post"

My brother in law states that the one good thing about failing eyesight is that when you look in the mirror you can say, "Hey, I still look pretty good."

(If the little bit you read is worth it, I will transcribe it. There is another one of a discussion between Richard Kaller and some of us that is probably worth resurrecting. Quite a few, actually.)

I can actually read it but I might need new glasses if i read ALL of it.

That kind of worked. :dry:

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