Jon Abernathy and Della Croft - The Five-Year Hurdle - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jon Abernathy and Della Croft of TAMKO. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts, to on the road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. Fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting Roofing Road Trip. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofer's Coffee Shop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and we are here today on this awesome road trip podcast to really talk about some scary moments and  that is the first five years of business for any roofing contractor and  we have so many entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses and really wondering, "How do I get over that hurdle of the five-year mark and really showing profitability and taking care of my folks?" We ask the experts from TAMKO to join us today to talk about that and to share some of their experiences and advice for contractors. Let's start out with some introductions. First of all, welcome John and Della, I'm so happy to have you both here. 

Della Croft: Thank you, Heidi. It's wonderful to be here. 

Heidi Ellsworth: And let's start out with some introductions. John, if you could introduce yourself and tell us what you do with TAMKO. 

Jon Abernathy: I am the director of contractor engagement here at TAMKO Building Products. I basically nationally have helped oversee the contractor program and work with my team on helping contractors grow, engaging them, helping them be more successful with our product and programs and just all kinds of different things across the industry as far as education. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. I told you we were bringing experts in. That's exactly it, John. And Della, can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do with TAMKO? 

Della Croft: Yes. I'm Della Croft and I'm director of communications and community relations for TAMKO. My background in academics is in communication and marketing and sales. As far as from the manufacturer, from an entrepreneur standpoint, I understand the daunting tasks of entrepreneurship and owning my own businesses in the past as well and  I'm just looking forward to sharing any type of insights that would help entrepreneurs scale their business. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love that, Della, we have that in common, a little bit of entrepreneurship and our own businesses, but let's jump in. Let's just jump right in and really talk about what are some of the... And John, I'm going to send this your way. What are some of the common mistakes that new roofing contractors make around managing their business and especially in those first few years? 

Jon Abernathy: I've seen all kinds of things. One of them is I see a lot of guys jump in head first. Maybe they're in a market where they get a lot of storms and they're successful the first year and instead of taking that money and setting it back and understanding there's a process of getting paid, they have a lot of cashflow issues. I've seen a lot of guys go out and the first thing you do is go buy a new truck. The fancy one, you've seen the Rookers? The jacked up trucks and they just position money in places they shouldn't and  then the next year it slows down a bit because business is up and down and they end up in a major cash flow problem or sometimes it's over hiring. We hire too many people too fast, we have a great year then we end up in an issue next year where we're not profitable because we have too many people and you got to learn how to take your time with growth, build some capital. 

Jon Abernathy: I always said you needed a hundred thousand dollars for every sales rep you hired just because you got to build to cash flow what they sell. A lot of times you're paying for products and paying for your labor way before you ever get paid on the job. A big thing is scalability is having cash to be able to scale with and then being able to get in with good distributors that will help you sometimes give you a little better terms on paying, so that you have a little time understanding even especially with the insurance process takes a little longer to get paid now. Being able to dive in with a good distributor and work close with them, build a relationship, helps you scale your business over time. On the flip side of it, when you first start out, you typically don't know a lot of people, customer experience of every job you do is a plus. 

Jon Abernathy: I've always believed in making advocates out of homeowners, when you do a really, really good job, I always call it the Chick-fil-A model. How you talk to them, keeping the job sites clean, being very transparent with what you do. There's a company cam is a good one to take a lot of photos, show the homeowner how the project's done, everything you've done on the roofs, it is very transparent, they're not wondering if you've done a great job. And it's crazy how fast word of mouth travels. That's your best advertisement. Advocacy means they run across with their neighbor how good of an experience they have with you and it's crazy how fast you can build a business in roofing just off of that customer experience model. Just doing a great job, using a great product. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I agree so much and sometimes people don't think about, "I can roof, I have my pickup truck, I'm going out and I'm going to start my business." They don't think about things like creating budgets, creating really relationships with manufacturers and their distributors and putting a business plan together ahead of time to really cover the ups and downs of the market. We know there's the cold season and then there's the season this coming in right now in the spring. Della, with your experience, how important is that relationship for new contractors to take the time to build with their sales reps, whether it's distribution or manufacturing? 

Della Croft: As far as the relationship can work both ways. As far as an entrepreneur wearing so many hats, you have to have those relationships with so many different attributes of your company then you are left behind as far as who's taking care of you. Allow that salesperson, that rep, that distribution to also take care of you because you are the important one here as the business owner. And then once you are taken care of, then you can translate that onto your clients. It's just a revolving door at that point. 

Heidi Ellsworth: And those customers, John, you said it, building those relationships with your customers and really having them love you so that they refer you to their friends and family and neighbors is so important. And I know you are working with contractors every day for customer success. What do you see with the contractors who really to take the time to build that relationship with you? 

Jon Abernathy: I get a lot of questions. Part of our contractor engagement team is obviously the first question I always ask, "Is what keeps you up at night?" And there's all kinds of topics. Always, every year it's a little different what keeps the contractor up late at night? You live in a place as an entrepreneur with a lot of fear, "What if we don't get a hail storm? What if there's been a lot going on with immigration, with crews and stuff?" That's been a big hot topic, "Are they got to take all of our crews?" We don't know are we're going to have enough shingles this year, shingle shortage has been a major problem over the course of the last several years, right? Manufacturing since COVID had a hard time catching up and the industry has continued to grow, it never slowed down, that's a big thing. 

Jon Abernathy: As far as aligning, one thing that's kind of cool with us with our top tier program especially, when those contract align and we coexist and we believe in mutually beneficial relationships, we've actually vowed with our top tier contractors to make sure we get them material. If we know ahead of time this year they're not going to run out, we've vowed to work with their distributor and make sure they have enough product on the ground. But man, the questions are seriously endless when it comes to contractors and then what they like to see. 

Jon Abernathy: What we believe is we want to do what we can to help them build their brand, give them tools and resources. We've got a lot of things programmed with our discounts with what we call our technology stack and it's much more than technology that we align with these different partners to help them grow their business, lean the business up. We want to run lean, want to be profitable, we want to grow at the same time and we also want to give a great service and customer experience and that's where technology now is becoming a big piece in customer experience and be able to run lean. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I think that's so smart and understanding your supply chain, it is so important, but that next step of once you do have that relationship, you have the products that are working, really understanding how to estimate to avoid underestimating to help that cash flow, but also still winning the jobs. John, what are you seeing some common mistakes when it comes to estimating that contractors in those first five years might be making? 

Jon Abernathy: I guess you would say experience is everything. The longer you're in the industry you get to learn some lessons, you miss a lot of things, especially on-boarding new sales reps. If you're going to bring on new people to represent your brand and sell, they need to be very, very educated because they make a lot of mistakes. They miss things. When you give a homeowner an estimate they really don't like whenever you come back after you get started and realize that you've missed a lot of things. I think a big part of it when you're new is just being very, very educated on how to go scope a job, spend the time, get in the attics, do a lot of documentation and make sure when you're writing those estimates that you're not missing things. And the other side of it, there's a lot of technology out there. 

Jon Abernathy: I love technology. You'll find that out, that really helps you and your team align all the way from sales production and it makes it super easy to build those estimates. Now you got to where about anybody within a couple of days you can have them estimating roofs with technology like a good call out that we have a partnership with is SumoQuote. That's a great technology to come in and you can train somebody up on it in a few days and it really helps them estimate quickly and effective and very efficiently, makes the business run more efficient. 

Heidi Ellsworth: You know what? SumoQuote, what a great company and they're part of JobNimbus I believe. And like you said, from the beginning to the end, you're bringing all the software together to integrate. I think that's so important. And you mentioned it earlier, John, about really the labor shortage and what we're seeing with immigration and such. And Della, I would love for you to comment on this, the importance of training and the importance of manufacturers and distributors, but really manufacturers providing strong training programs that make sure these crews understand, that these new contractors understand how to properly install. What are some of the things you see on that training front? 

Della Croft: I'll jump in here. First of all, I think education always makes the experience better. If we're talking about relationships and we're talking about our employees or we're talking about a job performance, when we are educated on estimating or we're educated on installing, the whole process is more seamless and the experience for the homeowner is so much better. As far as the manufacturers offering you that training, it's such a valuable and insightful piece for everyone on your team. 

Heidi Ellsworth: It really is. John, tell us a little bit about how TAMKO goes about training on new contractors. 

Jon Abernathy: First, I'll say April 15th, we have our first major event of the year in Kansas City at the Chief Stadium. It's going to be fun. 

Heidi Ellsworth: We're going to be there with you. 

Jon Abernathy: I'm excited. We're going to have, one of the things, speaking on this topic is we have our workmanship training or we call maybe you call craft or workmanship training, either one, where the contractors get to come in, they get to bring their team because see, I believe that all the way from the crews that are actually out there doing the install absolutely need to understand what we're looking for, what proper install looks like. Obviously manufacturers don't like the warranty products that are not properly installed. And I've seen over my career, a lot of people say, "We've been doing it like this for 20 years," and I've had to say, "You've been doing it wrong." We have to make sure people are aligned on training all the way from the guy mowing the shingle down and honestly all the way up to the top, even through the sales team, if you don't understand what you're selling or how to install it, you cannot educate a homeowner properly on what they're buying and what to expect. 

Jon Abernathy: We believe that that alignment has to be from the owner all the way down to the guy picking up the shingles off the ground at the end of the day of install, they need to understand what they're doing. It's very, very important to us that we focus heavily on proper install. And I've seen so many issues over the years with ripping changing to where that it's been a big pain point, not only for manufacturers, but companies and homeowners is people showing up doing roofs and they're done wrong. Nobody's covered and it's a bad thing. We are in a hard focus on that. We think it's one of the most important things in the industry. 

Heidi Ellsworth: That is so important. And I think you're right, it contributes to the success of the company. 

Jon Abernathy: A hundred percent. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Because it really is the success of the customer experience as we're going through that and Della, you're sitting there nodding and going, "Yeah." How do you see that, how that correlates to that customer experience and to the customers? 

Della Croft: At the end of the day, it gives them peace of mind. If you are educated, if your team is educated, your homeowner is going to be more happy, their experience will be better, they're going to be happier longer because their product is performing better and longer and they're getting what they paid for. 

Heidi Ellsworth: It is so true. Della, tell us a little bit about this training that you're going to do in the stadium. What is that? 

Della Croft: Yes, at Arrowhead will have some demonstrations and John really knows more than I do about all of that. We'll have John John Senac there as well and  we'll have Bill Schmidt there giving us some insightful information about insurance claims and filing. And what else John, tell us? 

Jon Abernathy: John Senac will be taking care of how to properly document a claim. One of the big hot buttons that's been going on across America with, as everybody knows insurance comes, they changing their strategy of how they pay claims. It's taken longer to get things approved. John Senac did a great job of coming and training contractors how to document professional on the front end to get these things pushed through faster. More professional, we need more professionalism in the roofing industry. And John is one of those guys that's bringing that to the industry at a high level and really working alongside contractors to even help insurance companies get the information they need to process these claims at a faster rate and then help them with the approval of the claim. Everything anymore is about they want it document the right photos, how do we do that at a high level and make it easier for insurance companies or harder for them to say no, let's just put it that way. 

Jon Abernathy: That's one piece of it. The other side we're going to be doing are value selling approach. With TAMKO, the new program we launched here back in January that we're super excited about, that puts a ton of exclusivity in it for contractors. Everybody likes to be exclusive at our different levels. It's a very exclusive program and we want to make sure these contractors are trained to go out and sell products, high quality products on value. We feel like an industry, it's been a race to the bottom and people go out and it's all about the cheapest price. I've seen it my whole life and we believe that there's a better way and we want to bring that perceived value to the homeowner with these enhanced warranties. We actually, with the certified contractors that are craft trained, we actually do up to 25 years workmanship coverage. 

Jon Abernathy: TAMKO is actually backing the contractors workmanship in these programs. And it's a lot of value to the homeowner. It really gives them a lot of peace of mind. We're excited about the warranties we have to offer. We're excited about our program. We'll be hosting several events this year, we're excited about that and we're just going a different direction and understanding contractors are very, very... I don't know what the word is, close to our heart. They're our customer. We want to make sure that we can give them every bit of resource that we can to help them make more money and grow their business and be as professional as they can be. 

Della Croft: And this is one of those things, it goes back to what we said earlier is let us take care of you. Come enjoy the day. You'll get a tour of Arrowhead as well. As a contractor, that's a lot of fun. And it also enhances the happiness of your own team, being able to be educated on this information and trained, but then also have a good time and be taken care of. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I tell you, the Roofers Coffee Shop team is going to be there. We're very excited about it and I am always so impressed with all of your road shows and the events that you do across the country. People can find those all on Roofers Coffee Shop in the TAMKO directory. So, so important. And really as you think about that and you think about contractors getting over that five-year hurdle, this is what it's about, going to those kind of events every year, learning new products, building relationships and  networking with other contractors because I love watching contractors help contractors. 

Jon Abernathy: When I started in business, I was thinking about this as you were talking, 20 years ago, this stuff didn't exist. It was the school of hard knocks. We had to figure it out. I always said I could probably tell you more of what not to do than what to do because we make a lot of mistakes. You could come to an event and learn something that would save you five years, it would get you five years ahead just by learning from our experts of what not to do. That's the other side of it. We want to teach you what to do and what not to do and  it's going to help you really streamline and grow your business way faster than if you just try to figure it out on your own. I would encourage anybody that can come to an event and come and be part of the collaboration, you're going to learn something, you're going to take something back and it's going to help you grow and streamline processes, run more efficiently, sell at a higher level. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. That is so true. Speaking of things that weren't around 10 years ago, maybe 20 years, I should say John. 

Jon Abernathy: I've given my age away. 

Heidi Ellsworth: I know, mine too. I remember. But you have redefined the TAMKO's Edge Contractor program. Let's talk about that because talk about something that helps contractors get over that five-year hurdle and really helps super grow their business early on. John, can you maybe go through what is TAMKO's Edge Contractor program and how does it help in that first five years? 

Jon Abernathy: Like I said, the first thing is joining Edge, you start out probably at if you're a new contractor or lowest pro level, but you still get enhanced warranties you can do. That's something I'm excited about, instead of just being a contractor, if you put a product on getting a limited lifetime warranty, we're partnering with you and allowing you, because you're a pro, do enhanced warranties. When you come up to the homeowner and you are able to offer a better warranty than your competitor, homeowners tend to take that perceived value and it helps you to sell more jobs at a higher level. 

Jon Abernathy: That's one of the things. The other thing inside of our program is the ability to network with, like I said, our what we call Infinity partners or people in our tech stack. That's going to save you a lot of money. When you first get into business, you really want to try to figure out how to be resourceful and save money. Every one of our partners that you have access to as a TAMKO pro is designed to help you save money because you're part of our network. All the way from JobNimbus to marketing to man, oh my gosh, there's endless things in that program. I think you guys are in it, Roofer's Coffee Shop. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, we are. You can get a discount for our club and you can get free classified ads. 

Jon Abernathy: CRM. I think it's important for contractors to start out with a good CRM. As you grow, you're going to wish you have one if you didn't start with one, it becomes a nightmare to go back and add all those clients and then it helps you track the clients. There's a lot of things in there that you want to be able to do. And then also it allows you to come to our events and you get exclusive trainings and stuff like that, in access to our team, our engagement team. All that value, there's a lot more value but that's the top three things I would say is just being able to call up access the TAMKO team. That's something TAMKO has done here is anybody can reach out to me anytime they want. They're part of our pro program and I would love to have a conversation with them and help them any way I can. 

Della Croft: Bottom line is together we all win and we can only grow if you also grow and we want to make you successful as a contractor to continue growing. 

Heidi Ellsworth: It is so important to reach out, to enroll in these programs, to take advantage of them, to really understand them. John, you'll love this. I can remember probably 30 years ago, maybe not quite that long, 25 years ago I was pulling receipts from everywhere I could find the contractor's company that I worked for and trying to put them together, did all this work. And then I went in and said, "What are we going to do with these? What business builders are we going to get?" And they're like, "We're thinking about a TV." And it's so funny nowadays, everybody, first of all, all those receipts are electronic and it makes it so easy working with distribution. And second of all, contractors really understand the power of the business builders, the extended warranties, the services, the technologies that go along with it. But you have to, as a contractor, reach out, register and start getting involved to find all this out, John. 

Jon Abernathy: You do. And you can reach out, you can go to www.TAMKO.com and learn more about our Redefined Edge program and you can go to the Edge program from TAMKO.com and sign up and you can start a team TAMKO or you can apply for the pro contractor program and you'll have a local rep reach out to you and take you further down the road, get you on boarded. 

Heidi Ellsworth: And you might find some fun things in there too. It's not all business, but there's a lot of fun stuff also. Great. Della, some of your last thoughts around just the importance of that customer experience you already said and how that really can help you get be super successful at five years and not still struggling. 

Della Croft: As far as performance goes, pacing yourself, just like John said in the very beginning, sometimes as a contractor you get into your own entrepreneurship and there's a lot of things to manage, but you're being successful right off the bat and being able to pace yourself and be sure of yourself that you've got this, you've got this, we are here to help. TAMKO is here to back you up and to help as well. 

Heidi Ellsworth: That's awesome. I want to say thank you to both of you. I will say it's a true Roofing Road Trip because Della did this from the airport. Thank you so much and thank you both for all this great information and wisdom. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. 

Della Croft: Thank you, Heidi. We appreciate being a part of your team as well. 

Heidi Ellsworth: We're looking forward to that event in Kansas City and we'll be reporting out on it. Please check out the TAMKO directory and watch for updates on your events that are going to be happening all year long. This is your chance to get involved and you can register right now. Just go to the TAMKO directory and you can register for TAMKO's Redefined Edge Contractor program. And it doesn't cost you anything, it's just going to help you get your business to that next level. Check it out on the directory. And then also please check out all of our podcasts under the read list and watch navigation of Roofing Road Trips. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips. 

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