Opportunity for small to medium sized businesses

Shed Media is currently casting a new groundbreaking documentary series for a major broadcast network (not cable), known for their family friendly and uplifting programming.

We are casting owners of companies with 50+ employees with multiple divisions or tiers ready to take their success to the next level.

Each hour-long episode will center on one medium sized company as it participates in a landmark experiment intended to motivate and inspire. Viewers will see how that particular company runs its business and will meet the hard-working people who make up its workforce. This series offers owners or other high level administrators the opportunity to gain a unique perspective on the inner workings of their companies, while celebrating some of the unsung heroes of their workforce and learning something about themselves in the process. This is an amazing opportunity for smaller companies to gain national exposure while participating in a new management experiment featured in an hour-long program for air in primetime. Ultimately, your company’s one-hour episode will provide unprecedented high profile exposure – a dream branding opportunity for any business.

Shed Media US is an established television production company known for its outstanding reality programming. Notable series produced include ABC’s Supernanny, Emmy nominated Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC, Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City, and many, many more. Based in Los Angeles with more than 200 employees, Shed Media US is a significant supplier of TV programming to many networks.

Please contact the Lauren for more details at 323-904-4680 x 2071 or email lwillems@shedmediaus.com as soon as possible.

I'm so excited that I read this conversation to my husband. He pretended to be interested! I'm not holding my breath either but it would be amazing. What am I gonna wear to the red carpet premier?

Purely as a courtesy to you, Miss Vic, I sent them an email. I won't hold my breath. ;) But again, thank you.

Mike just call - you could literally change what the public thinks of the roofing industry. That's why I want you to do it, not to expose your flaws but to show that roofing contractors can be business leaders and respectable business people. Besides isn't the roofing industry a lot like being on Survivor every day?

Thank you for the mention gents, and lady too.... now if this was an offer to be on Survivor, I'd jump so fast it would make my head spin. But editors give me the shivers. I think our story would do well in an undercover boss type show, or any show that would let me really tell what I think makes us different. There isn't anyone in the roofing biz that doesn't experience enough drama in a couple days to fill a 1 hour tv show. If they don't, they work by themselve.

But I honestly doubt anyone would really be that interested in our simple story. None the less, your mentions mean more to me than you know. Thank you, again.

Size works when the basic tasks of the business are relatively simple, and can be done in the same way thousands of times. Then the learning/training curve is not too great, and the quality control can be done by the numbers. This means that large commercial projects encourage the growth of large companies, as they tend to be "relatively" straightforward.

However, when the skill set required includes diagnostic skills, adaptability to unique circumstances, attention to detail that can't be boiled down to a set of statistics, then the smaller outfits are a better fit.

New construction, especially projects like whole subdivisions, can be effectively done by larger companies, whereas reroofing of existing residences often requires on-the-spot decisions based on the specific circumstances of a job. And that resilience and knowledge base doesn't translate easily to the training, staffing, and monitoring of large teams of workers, in my opinion.

If the roofing technology becomes more uniform in terms of the detailing, then it becomes feasible to consider a more standardized set of installation procedures. In the time I've been in the roofing business, I've spend much time thinking about which parts of the process we can simplify and make routine. But when doing a quality job involves diagnosing problems, and coming up with job-specific solutions, it is very difficult to make the process routine.

This relates to the inquiry by the media company in that the management of roofing companies that do residential reroofs will be usually focused on finding people who have a very generalist approach to the work. And we all know how easy it is to find such "generalists". So it ends up that we do the work ourselves. And there goes the dream of running a large company.

I'm with pgriz on this......We had 80+ employees 1995-2000.....Maybe the hail/storm/insurance chasers types, could benefit?

Mike would be a magnificent study in my opinion. He has a near-perfect balance of largeness, humility, corporate finesse, and artistry. Last I recall, he'd have to scrape just a teeny bit to get by the 50+ requirement.

Didn't think Lefty was near that number when he was posting regularly. Don't know about now.

Rockydog might be the one they're looking for. He was certainly priming things for such a leap.

There are probably a pretty fair number of medium sized companies that they would choose from that would consider the relative intimacy of the environment we have all created here either too frightening to engage in or "beneath" them. It takes all kinds of course. I won't deny that. But it would be nice to have someone featured who represents the absolute best and also the most human that the industry has to offer.

jmho/fwiw

Except for my loyalty to this forum, my interest in this particular subject, like my interest in television in general, is purely academic. Except where someone like Mike forces me to widen my lens, I subscribe to the 1960's belief that small is beautiful, even though limited. The last thing I want to see is a proliferation of mega roofing entities. Gives me hives just imagining it.

I think several could show well. MikeH, as you noted, Vicki, would show well, but perhaps there won't be enough drama there. Lefty gave me the impression he runs a very good shop - again, perhaps not enough drama... Now if they followed Tom Hay around, there would be entertainment plenty!

Anyone watch "Undercover Boss", I get that feeling about this. What about Mike Hicks? Although my impression is that he is already running a quality operation. Someone should step up because the roofing industry needs the positive publicity.

Lauren, many (maybe most) roofing companies are regionalized, and focus on serving a specific geographic area. While national exposure is nice, how does that exposure translate to better and more effective marketing for the company being profiled? Given the level of competition between companies, why would anyone tell other companies/competitors what allows them to be successful?

This approach may be more applicable to manufacturers or distributors who have a more national scope, and probably have more of a niche, so telling the competition how things are done doesn't immediately diminish the effectiveness of one's own organization.

How does your concept compare to the home renovation shows, or the real estate shows? Or is the focus more in the inner working of a company? If the idea is to give a one-hour uplifting message, then it would seem that the formula is going to follow the sequence of symptoms / problem identification / problem resolution / success! If so, is this one-hour show a pilot for a series, or is it a one-off?

:) Lets me out. :)

Very true! We're targeting all industries so 50+ is small for some and a BEAST for others. Thanks for pointing that out!

50 plus employees? Small Sized? Are you Nuts?

A roofing company with 50 + employees is a BEAST!