Bob Moretti, Patrick Evans and Vincent Paladino - Importance of Manufacturer Certification - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Bob Moretti, Patrick Evans and Vincent Paladino of Tremco. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to roofing road trips the podcast thrill Journey across the of roofing from fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on thero Adventures will uncover the stories innovation so road trip 

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another roofing road trip from roofer's coffee shop my name is Heidi Ellsworth and today we're here with an age old question how do you get certified by manufacturers and how what's the process why should you get certified so we went to the experts out there our friends at Tremco to ask them all about their certified contractor program and overall in the industry why is it so important to contractors so gentlemen Patrick Vance Bob welcome to the show 

Vincent Paladino: Good 

Heidi Ellsworth: Morning good morning good morning this is gonna be a great i you know I've been in roofing for over thirty years and this is always one of the top questions for contractors of how do i get certified what's the process why should i so i just think this is just such a an important ongoing Conversation but let's start out with some in um introductions so first of all Vince can you introduce yourself tell us what you do with Tremco 

Vincent Paladino: Yes thanks Heidi my names Vince Paladino i been with Tremco vid let's see start in Twenty eight years in June and vice president of sales for the Eastern division of us and Canada. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow congratulations Twenty eight years Awesome Patrick can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do with truco 

Patrick Evans: Absolutely im Patrick Evans I've only been with traco for I'm the vice president of sales for the central and western divisions of the us and Canada 

Heidi Ellsworth: Awesome only Twenty years cómo on and Bob can you introduce yourself yeah 

Bob Moretti: My name is Bob Moretti as director of sales apps and training I'm responsible for our sales associate training program as well as just caught everyday training program which includes training contractors what we're talking about today i am the baby of the group apparently thirteen years for me that un lucky number will come to a a fourteen here en August 

Heidi Ellsworth: Well i tell you we Bob thirteen has un very lucky number for me. So sounds like es pretty lucky for you this year too 

Bob Moretti: You shared that with me yeah youre making me feel better there's a reason you know the at 

Heidi Ellsworth: Today st. Patrick's day so i just say thirteen is a lucky number we just go with that okay, gentleman let's start out with la question that i you know started this all out for this podcast what does it mean to be certified by a manufacturer overall lets let's start out the big picture like why is that important for a contractor's business and then let's bring it back down you know really to truco and how important that is so Vince let's start with you why you know why should contractors be even beginning certified 

Vincent Paladino: Well every manufacturer has a process they they want the contractor to adhere to based on a standard quality so every manufacturer has their standard quality and based on that standard quality the contractor needs to understand you know what is the expectation you know will there be monitoring are they requiring to do that or is a third party doing that uh, so a lot of those issues related to ultimately at the end what we want is a quality product for the the customer so the contractor should be working in lockstep with the manufacturer that the customer gets the end result that he expects 

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, Patrick can you kind add to that just why it's so important you know everything you're seeing in your territory on why contractors should take the time to really build that relationship with the manufacturer and then work through the certifications as you know how help their business 

Patrick Evans: So ultimately at the end of the day we are trying to deliver roofing peace of mind to our customers end users we're trying to give them a Leak free building and our roofing contractor partners our truly our partners in delivering that peace of mind and so there there's everyone has their own process for doing it some of it's based on your Financial credibility some of it's based on what work you've done in the past but at truco we have a process where we review financials and then we review a body of a contractor's work to make sure that what you do matches what we do and then we're gonna provide training and Skill assessment with our products to help you meet our customers needs que that's really all we're trying to do so we're creating a partnership with you contractors to deliver the best in class roofing results to our customers 

Heidi Ellsworth: I think you know that when as you're talking about that too that is so important because for a contractor's business they want to also be backed by a really highly reputable manufacturer and so as you're looking at that and you know you gotta put yourself as a contractor they had to put themselves out there financials looking at their body of work but also contractors should be taking the time to really understand culturally the fit with the manufacturer too don't you think 

Patrick Evans: Y to be we to speed through and cut corners it's all about doing everything in the best possible way and of course effectively and efficiently so that everyone can make money and be able to to win from from the process if we don't at the end of the day we don't deliver a quality le free environment for a customer we all lose 

Heidi Ellsworth: Vince you were gonna say something too no 

Vincent Paladino: No. I was just going to you know Patrick hit it right there at the end i mean essentially at the end of the day it's about a partnership it really is and to your point heidi culturally what we do and how we observe and what we're doing for the customer as part of that process that i was talking about and and understanding that and a lot of the contractors when they first start if we don't do a good job of explaining look you know this is our customer and meaning both of ours on this particular situation and there's gonna be an expectation level that we because most of the time our sales Guys are bringing this opportunity to the contractor unlike a lot of other manufacturers that rely on them to sell the Jobs I'm gonna say Patrick and i embellishing eighty five ninety percent of the time or more our team is bringing the opportunity to the contractors that become part of our team 

Patrick Evans: Absolutely 

Vincent Paladino: And that's a different approach they're used to running and controlling because they're they brought the customer where in this case they are participating in something that we brought to them and so it's a different it's a different cultural mindset and some can adapt and do it well and others it just you know you try it and it doesn't quite work and they don't want to they don't wanna play so it it's that's what we that's what we're trying to vet that's what we're looking for in true partners 

Heidi Ellsworth: And you know that's really interesting i think you know if we take it up to that higher level again that says a lot on the research that the contractor should do when really deciding who they wanna be certified with with the manufacturer because first of all i mean that's pretty Awesome that you're bringing these Jobs to the contractors but it is a different way of going and so contractors need to do a little bit of that research ahead of time to make sure that they're really a good fit both directions as they're going through Bob what do you see as you are training and working with some of the contractors on who are trying to make these decisions on really who to be certified with and who to build these relationships with 

Bob Moretti: Yeah i think Patrick heidi it's all about that team so generally speaking the process starts by you know contractors reaching out to someone on our local team that would be a chuo field advisor our sales reps we north today and they gonna say you know hey based on work i you Guys market I'm interested en bid this type of work like how do i start how do i get involved so on on my side of it you know from a training Perspective and also the person who is to technical department what i see is being really vital in that partnership I'll just grab a couple things es de technical support at the local level so if there is ever an issue at a job site or some kind of challenge the contractors not gonna have to wait for somebody to come fly into the job site our headquarters is in Cleveland it's not like all of our technical people are sitting in Cleveland and we dispatch ' we have our reps en local markets most of them have technical Advisors what we call roof Advisors in market we have our Twenty plus contractor support specialists that are scattered all throughout north America so locally there's a challenge on a job site that great partnership is providing service quickly because what Patrick and Vince we're talking about its all about servicing the owner that's partnership is so bien act solve challenges another thing usually doesn't get talked about es probably often should es we do have our own Laboratory so when we're talking about maybe product complaints or pcas as we call like let's say contractors installing material for whatever it's noting properly having someone locally on site who could grab the batch number call the plant and or the lab all the retains put a bit of z overnighted to our lab in Cleveland to do the analytics on it it provides us with a tremend 

Heidi Ellsworth: I mean dos things like what we were talking about as you're researching understanding the kind of support that the manufacturer is going to give to you es i mean that kind you know hear about that too often Patrick it looks like you were gonna share something on that also 

Patrick Evans: Well the interesting part about roofing es like all construction is complicated and messy and we there's unintended consequences there's undiscover cons when you tear off an existing roof or when you're diving into construction there there's a lot of things that can go wrong its very high risk business and we know that for us and for the for the contractors there's a lot at risk every day we go to work and being partners means that not only will we support you but we expect you to support us some for whatever reason things can can happen and we and we really need the mutual support of each other to make sure that we mitigate any expensive or challenging issues and then at the end of the day we can figure out a path forward to getting things done i always tell customers when we start a project look we're gonna make this as smooth and seamless as possible but this is construction and it will be something will happen that we don't know 

Heidi Ellsworth: Just how it how handle it and the partnership. Ok, so as a contractor they're out there i think there's many contractors who are probably thinking. Okay, what do i need to do to really when we do start this relationship and start looking at qualifications and looking at different things what do we need what should we how should we have our house cleaned i guess is what I'm trying to kind of put out there so i know one of the things that we're looking out there right now in the industry is the NCA pro certification there is a lot of power behind having pro-cert installers on a construction team in in a roofing company what are some of the and Vincent will go back to you what are some of the other things that that contractors can actually be doing with their company to make them even more make them ready to become a partner and a certified contractor with you 

Vincent Paladino: Well as Patrick kind of alluded too early on right we look at history so we're interested in what your you know what what projects have you taken on in the past bonding capacity is a big one that we run into a lot where they don't quite have the bonding capacity there's some issues related to that uh, so we want you know can they handle a sizable job or it is this the first time they've ever gone after a multi-million dollar contract so that's part of that vetting process that we try to go through and we we look at you know the Jobs we look at their Financial history have they defaulted on on vendors before i mean that's that's a big one right so you don't wanna have that little black market against your name and then the bonding capacity is one a lot of times we think they're really good contractors and then realize they they don't have enough bonding to handle the size of project that we're gonna be working with so that's probably the biggest one make sure they have the bonding make sure their people are you know OSHA trained and and safety is a key there's a lot of them you know we'll go out with a safety plan and they look at it like we got three eyes so so you know that's something that you know is very important to us i mean we you know we want our people coming home every every night safely and we would hope they would want the same so you know safety is a big one past history Financial capabilities and bonding capacity are probably the four that I'd look at 

Patrick Evans: That do you have appropriate field leadership 

Vincent Paladino: What 

Patrick Evans: Are crew sizes what do they look like how are they handled a good Foreman can make up for a lot of problems superintendents and Foreman really really set the stage for success with the contractor 

Vincent Paladino: And communication of that to us to the team that we mean by partnership right being able to to communicate the issues and try to work it out you know try to work it out before it elevates that's the key 

Heidi Ellsworth: Bob you were gonna say something along with that too 

Bob Moretti: Yeah just te one more right so of course we have contractors approaching us and again we'll pick on Restoration so if you're interested en partnering us if you don't have the right equipment the right pump to specifications of that material that's gonna be a pretty tough Conversation early back we need to make sure the people that are there to at the are go through the 

Heidi Ellsworth: Equipment so true thinking about what you're gonna be doing and where you're going. Okey, so 11 11 the contractor has connected with their local team they've gone through the vetting and everything they become a certified contractor i think there's a lot de people out there who'd be interested in whats then what happens you know whats are those next steps so Bob 11 you're approved what is the process to bring a contractor in as a fully certified trimco contractor 

Bob Moretti: No great question so for a minute that the new contractor is recognize wise person who had this post before methodology de training was tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em tell them tell'em you told them so taking that methodology we can have local cs team go to the contractor shop and say. Hey before this project kicks off I'm here to go through these Materials with you so here's the specification here are the conditions of the project we can build mock. Ups we can basically get them train before they ever step on the roof at their shop or if they're interested in a more formalized program like a tour or three day program whether it's in roofing or our peer air business they can come to Cleveland where my team will host them at our training center in Beachwood we do plant tours you know stuff that we do we so they get trained by cs representatives and or somebody on the sales rep team now the project started and back this is something i feel is truly Unique about traco en majority of our Salesforce have technical inspectors that work on team these are sales professionals who like have time away from selling that go to inspections they are dedicated representatives technico es important en a de different specifications so la person es there its a little bit more involved en registered roof Observer. 

Bob Moretti: Observe its that just take it to the other level because we're gonna carry the warranty Twenty thirty so if we see the ribbon patterns on the insulation let's on a te replace not a twelve inches on center that person only is gonna document that they're gonna say something and they're gonna say. Hey trusted partner we need to make this adjustment now before it ends up being costly later right so there's a whole QC process involved during the project and then to debrief if you will as the project is near complet. Has together we send out separate individuals to do our finals so these are employees of Trump o WTI that are different from the inspectors during the job that's really important so punch list has together punch is completed inspector comes out looks at everything and says yep we're good to issue this warranty again Twenty five thirty maybe even longer so i think that process en having contractors who take pride in their work come to us and say. Hey you know looking at these reports i see we here how do we improve is it more training point do we need to run through this again or something that i used to see a lot you know maybe contractor. Has their primary crew whatever reason that day crew members were ill couldn make it to the job they substituted in other members. Nada those members need to be trained so its this constant game of checkers i feel like and even 11 you do get everybody trained of course there's improvements there's changes in Materials training constant 

Patrick Evans: Bob i think the big win es that we catch it early because we're inspecting and we don't allow the contractor to finish a job wrong and then expect them to go back and have to clean it all up i mean if we've got inspection the of it is as a partnership we're gonna stop that now so nobody is wasting time effort money we're gonna fix it and do it right so then end we can walk away feeling confident and comfortable that we've taken care of the customer 

Heidi Ellsworth: I mean that's peace of mind for the contractor and also reduction of risk so across the board so ok i love this and then that's ongoing right so this isn't a one and done Bob every new project that comes up you are working with the contractors to make sure that everybody's on the same page with that specific job i mean do you see contractors coming in yearly for trainings and to really make sure that they're staying on top of their game so 

Bob Moretti: Post COVID we don't see as many contractors coming to Cleveland as they did before COVID but what we're seeing instead es more engagement from our contractor support specialist so these are the Twenty plus people we have in markets throughout north America whose primary job as a salary employee of the training department to go there and again make sure before Crews get on site comfortable fast forward to when they're on the site you have the inspector and you have the CSAs person working hand in hand as kind that hand in Glove kind of approach ques more to Patrick you doing correctly how is it supposed to be done let's make the adjustment now let's Fixing with liquids obviously coverage rates is a big thing so working together people gauges their counting buckets you know coverage rates so som thinking i was in the audience right you might be thinking how in the world has so much control over the project we're talking about a of oversight a lot people i think the simple answer that because we don't sell distribution we sell direct that enables us to work that much closer with the contractors so we know you know when those Materials went out we know when the job is starting there's just a lot more of a team approach to i guess 

Heidi Ellsworth: And that seems that would be a great value Vince as as contractors are kind looking at this and looking at the value you know upfront you have why and then how but now 11 you're in there that value of being a certified contractor what have you seen with your contractors out in the field what value has it does it continue to bring to their businesses 

Vincent Paladino: Well i mean we've we've had long standing relationships with contractors that were smaller and they've become larger and they and they've grown as we've grown because they understood that it was a true partnership and so and there are some look there are some and and over the years I've had some great relationships and I'd have had some tenuous relationships and it had to do with the owner's attitude on what he thought, he needed to be in control with and at the end of the day this always Works if we're communicating i keep saying it but it's a fact and what ends up happening is as soon as things get tense to patrick's point it is construction things will go bad it's just normal but it's how how we react to those those issues and how we deal with it in front of the customer and how we take care of it at the end of the day i think that's where we're a little different we will take care of it now sometimes it's a hard Conversation because the coverage rate wasn't done right or they did it when it was too wet or you know the one day that we weren't there they they did something that made the whole thing kind of start to look bad and now we're like wait a minute minute and then we're gonna dig through the history we're gonna look at it and we're gonna have that hard Conversation our best contractors that continue to grow and and understand the partnership it's like any relationship sometimes you just gotta face the bad stuff head on and we both win in the end and that's what's happened it's it's it's made some small companies some very large companies because of those relationships with the local team building that relationship with a rep understanding the reps team understanding their capabilities the service part of the business the WTI side of our business understanding the players there what the expectation es and then just communicating and as we communicate then we continue to sell more they continue to apply more everybody wins 

Heidi Ellsworth: Patrick you to kind of play continue that you just had a Awesome Awards ceremony at during ire for your contractors and folks out there so you get a lot of like-minded contractors seeing each other understanding what's going on how does that continue to you know the kind of that brother and sisterhood Trump co certified contractors how does that look well 

Patrick Evans: The amazing thing es being a certified truco contractor you're joining an exclusive club and we're not trying to keep people out but we're trying to get the good people in and the beauty of you being a contractor partner is that you now have access to projects that nobody else is gonna get access to other than that small group so rather than bidding on public projects where there's fifteen or Twenty contractors bidding heaven knows what scope of work we're setting the table with a solid specification instead of drawings and details and every contractor that we invite has been trained the same way they're gonna do the job the same so you're bidding against people who are bidding the same project if you know what i mean so you have an absolutely fair chance and and it's gonna be four three or four or five contractors at most in most typical cases in private work obviously we bid some public work but you're coming as a select member of a team and you have a better than usual chance to be able to get a nice project that you know that you can make a little bit of money on and that you can perform well and it will go in your in your book as there's another quality project from x contractor a huge win and so as a team we like to Celebrate our contractors that are our partners at ire when we had that celebration it was exciting cuz each of them look at each other and they're like ya dos Guys are Awesome they're in California and look at this group out in Pennsylvania these Guys in Chicago we're all part of the same team es cada fun 

Heidi Ellsworth: Ya that es that es thats so cool i seen that I've seen that comraderie and I've also seen you know how the contractors not only i know you said eighty five ninety percent is brought by Tremco but i also no and I've worked with contractors out there who are bringing that back. Mm-hmm. They believe in the trimco products so much and they are also using it and bringing projects to you so it really become win win over overall. Okey, so let's go with Bob i wanna go to you how walk us through how contractor can become certified what is the actual Skill tactical here what's the process 

Bob Moretti: Yeah so can make this up contractor called me this morning she's been calling me for a few months now because they completed some work for us in certain markets small projects but they're looking to get on the board so to speak for some larger projects so how does that whole thing start to me it starts with intent so if you go to our website truco roofing dot com your contractor listing right now you can see all the truco field Advisors o sales reps in your area distinguish we doco commercial CE and waterproofing that is a separate division of truco separate contractor so truco roofing do com define local representatives so after meeting with those representatives here's my portfolio work here's what we're the qualifications we meet back you Guys put out we feel like we meet these qualifications typically our reps are gonna gather as a local team to review that and if they feel like it could be a great partnership they're gonna reach out to their regional manager and then the paperwork process is gonna start and then 11 that person is technically signed up and on board that's when we'll start talking about training and the training Conversation is gonna be dictated by hey we're bi on this project right now here's that specification versus here's the work we kind of wanna do in the future because to the alignment piece we do have contractors who are only interested in doing certain liquids por contractors that only wanna do tarra don't wanna do Restoration for whatever sos just making sure everyone's on the same page with the type of work they wanna go after i think tu just sprinkle some Science and data on top of this and also a cool fact about how we go to market so we are partnered with a company called simpler who through Arizona state University we survey every single owner after every project that we do so i pulled up the data here while we were having that last Conversation so en last few years we over two hundred and Twenty million total square feet of surveys that we founded out and right now we're running at a ninety four percent rate of customers who would hire that same applicator again so to me why that's important and Vincent Patrick already said it in a partnership we are viewed as one the truco rap like vi said creates the project brings it to fruition then brings the contractors to the table so if there's an issue the contractor at a site that owner is gonna go to the truco rap and say what the Heck is going and i think these numbers speak for themselves a hack of a great job by all of our trusted partners de ninety four ya. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow. That's excellent Patrick building those relationships 11 they not every contractor is ready right now to create this partnership to become a certified contractor which we already talked about what they should do but i do wanna get your opinion on like don't give up right 

Patrick Evans: Ya don't give up there are so many markets that I'm aware of contractors who at one time kind of came to tramco came to the local rep and for whatever reason they weren't really delivering at the level that we wanted or they weren't quite trained up weren't or we weren't really ready to add another contractor to the mix in in a market but I've seen those over and over again where they stay persistent and they're like i want a part of your team and they and they come back and in future years they they are able to demonstrate to us that hey here's where we are now we were a different company five years ago here's what we can do today will please talk to us review our our our work come and sit down with us and talk about what we can do and we've added we are constantly adding contractors to our pool of really qualified contractors it's not like a really small members only kind of a thing we're we're we're Growing our business we've expanded our capacity significantly and we need more contractor partners so but we need good contractor partners yeah 

Patrick Evans: Not just anybody 

Heidi Ellsworth: Vince bring us home last thoughts well 

Vincent Paladino: I would say you know to patrick's point there are some that you know maybe tried too early and weren't ready and it kind of went sideways and another way to to try to start that again is you know i know at times we'll use, uh contractors for smaller Jobs even though they're not certified to do the big stuff they could they could start in the patching Repair realm with us you know and help us solve some problems you know figure out we got a persistent Leak on something where you know we're we're we're building the relationship with the client we're figuring out what's going on it may not you know a lot of times it's not our roof we're trying to why am i gonna buy from truco you know the customer doesn't know us so that's a good opportunity to to work with the local rep and kind of you know see see how you work together you know can you can you dance together on the small stuff before you go somewhere big and and there's a lot of that that goes on where we either give them a second chance on a small patching Repair job or something not of the scale that most people want right they want the multi-million dollar deals where they're staging and they're there for the summer well that that comes with a lot of trust so i think it's really starts small and sometimes if you went sideways. 

Vincent Paladino: Hey can we sit down and talk and maybe we can try this again i think you never say never and as long as we're continuing to talk and work together i think you can you can get their their chance 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it i love it that is a great way to end this podcast gentlemen thank you so much thank you for sharing your knowledge your encouragement to contractors out there and i would say to the contractors out there whichever manufacturer you are looking at partnering with this information from this podcast today will help you build those relationships with them and it is very important for your business to find those right connections and those right partnerships for success so again Patrick Vince Bob thank you so much for your time today thank you 

Vincent Paladino: Welcome you have a good one 

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you bye and thank you all for listening please check out the trimco and wt directories on roofer's coffee shop you can find all kinds of information some amazing projects and information on how you can get ahold of these gentlemen and your local reps to become a certified contractor also please check out all of our podcasts under the rlw navigation be sure be sure to subscribe and set those notifications you don't miss episode we'll be seeing you next time on roofing road trips 

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