Brandon Wilson of Maxx Challenger

Welcome back, everyone. It’s Episode 254 of your favorite Podcast, and it’s a doozy. Were joined by Icon, legend, superstar and good Golf Buddy Brandon Wilson of Maxx Challenger to discuss Insurance Claim Supplements and some of the things Maxx Challenger does to help their Clients keep moving forward. From humble beginnings and a climb up the ranks of the Industry, to Co-founding a company and building a team of experts, this story covered it all. Enjoy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let me know.

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I do not need to go.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

All right. Well then, you heard it there first, ladies and gentlemen. Our guest today does not need to go, so we're gonna bring a fire. This is gonna be one of the best keeping it Rios of all time, and I know that for a fact. This is episode 254, and I believe that at the end of this next 45 to an hour, this is probably gonna be like one or one A in your heart. So, without any hesitation at all, folks, the way that I know this is gonna be a badass episode is because I've got a badass guest, and let me do a quick intro because it's my favorite thing to do. So, without any hesitation, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to welcome our guest today. He is an icon in the industry, a legendary character, a friend to millions. Um, he's got a fan base nationwide helping contractors making their lives much easier through the supplementing process with Max Challenger. And this guy's a dang good golfer, folks. I know this for a fact. Without any hesitation, after that amazing uh lead up, there is no pressure, but I'd like to welcome my friend Brandon Wilson with Max Challenger to the show. And I've got my Max Challenger hat right there, prominently featured today.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

I know I need you to first do one thing, please. Turn around and take the plastic wrapper off of that Max logo so it doesn't look like you've never not worn it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Damn, that's pretty good. I had never not worn that one. That's why it's over there. I have the gray one over here and it's got markings on it. I don't want to move right now because if I move right now, I'll divulge a secret about broadcasting, which is you know how you have the guys that wear the shirts and then like they're wearing a tie or whatever and it tucks, and then they got like underwear on shorts on and no shoes. Now you guys have a little bit of an insight into how keeping it real works. Yeah, I definitely have on pants today, but I do not have on shoes, and I'm quite comfortable. It doesn't look it from the camera, but I'm actually leaned way back in my lazy boy chair. I've got an ottoman out underneath here, and I'm like I'm like at the beach here. I'm kicked back. So, enough about me, folks. You guys know all about me. I'd like to learn more about our guest today, who, as I said, is a legend. So, Brandon, why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself to the millions and millions of keeping it real fans, and we'll probably get you some supplement clients like in Belize or you know, some of these other countries were unpopular. So you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, so uh my name is Brandon Wilson, obviously. Thank you for the introduction, Chuck. That was pretty nice. Uh, you said a lot of great things that I wouldn't say about myself, so that was cool. Uh, I am the director of business development and the co-founder of Max Challenger, and we are at Max Challenger an ethical white glove third-party supplementer, um, where we help roofing contractors maximize their profits, not their revenue. And we kind of take a different approach and mindset to the third-party supplementing world. Uh, so um, yeah, that's a little bit about me with Max Challenger. Uh, before I was at Max Challenger, I guess I could say I started out in the roofing industry in 2015. Uh, so I've been doing it now for about 11 years, and I've kind of unique because I have a little bit of experience with every part of the industry, with the exception of distribution.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Oh, I got you covered over there.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, you do, you do. Uh I uh roll it back. I'm an Oklahoma country bumpkin, uh, was uh athlete growing up, um, and uh joined the Navy right out of high school when I realized that I did not like school. Um, so I joined the military, was uh stationed in Mayport, Florida. I did three deployments to the Middle East in four years, uh, ended up in a relationship with someone in the military, uh, got out, had a kid, um, went to college, uh, attended University, uh, Florida State College of Jacksonville and the University of North Florida. Um, moved back over. We moved to back into Chicago, where uh my ex-wife is from, and uh finished my degree at a university, uh Aurora University.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. This guy's got a diverse background, as you can hear. And I do want to dig a little bit deeper into the roofing industry aspect of it. Tell us a little bit about, you know, you've been in 11 years, Max Challenger's been in existence for a couple years now, right? What about the uh the years leading up to the advent of Max Challenger? What kind of things were you doing in this industry when you realized to yourself, hey, maybe there's an opportunity for me to create something that's necessary that can help people? What led to this uh uh this amazing uh invention that you've uh come up with here with Max Challenger?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Truth be told, I graduated from Aurora University and I had only been out of the Navy for like two years, two and a half years, uh, and the sales slash business admin class that I was taking at Aurora University had some connections in the market. And when he found out that I had accelerated my degree and was taking 21 credit hours a semester, he said, I got somebody that is looking for a young, hungry athlete that's getting their degree, and he hooked me up with an opportunity and my first job right out of college. I was still technically a student. Uh, went to work for Suprema, uh high-end flat roofing manufacturer out of Wadsworth, Ohio. They manufacture uh PVC and uh SBS modified bitumen and polymethylmethacrylate acrylic, PMMA liquid applied products. And I did a really good job selling that product in the Chicagoland area. And there was a union roofing company, Joaquin Roofing, I was selling to Bruce Diedrich at the time as the owner. His son, I think Phil, owns the company now. They really liked my aggressiveness and said that they thought that I would be great on their staff, and they kind of recruited me to come work as a project manager estimator at the Union Roofing Company. So I had a little bit of experience in the commercial manufacturing world, and then I got a little bit of experience on what it's actually like to put a ladder on a roof, go up, check what kind of decking it is, do a core sample, take measurements, how tall are the parapet walls, what are the what is the substrate, so on and so forth. And it's kind of crazy to say it this way looking back at it, but I basically outsold what they could build. Unfortunately, in the in the union world, there's a limited amount of labor. And when you have five or six projects that you're trying to sell, and the rest of the company is also selling, they don't have enough crews to do the work in the summer because that's all summer work, school work, buildings when there's no kids inside is when they want the work to be done, and we don't have the labor to do the work for four people to be selling jobs that they can only build for four months out of the year. And luckily, the office manager at Waukegan Roofing's husband was a sales rep at Richards Building Supply, a distributor here in the Chicagoland area that I was aware of. Now I know uh coming in, you know, now I know 10 years later that it's, you know, they're a national player in the game. But he said, I know IKO is a shingle manufacturer and they need the aggressive, hungry salesman, and they're looking for somebody to fill the Chicago position. They're coming out with this new product, and they really need someone to help take it to market. And I interviewed and took the IKO job in Chicago and basically started to push Dynasty into this market for the first time in 2017.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

I'll tell you what, man, that's a background right there, and that's industry experience all the way around, which leads me to the next thing. Okay, you you get in. I love the fact that you start selling and and just outsold what the capabilities were. There's nothing wrong with that. That's terrific, you know. You're able to leave on amicable terms and say, hey, you know, it just I need to do more, I've got more capability to go to a national manufacturer, international manufacturer at that with IKO, and take on a uh you know a role in a city where I don't suppose IKO probably had a huge footprint when you got started there. What's it like when you have to go into a market with a new product like that? And then we're gonna start talking about supplements, but I'm always fascinated by this because I've done this uh once myself, where you have to go into a brand new market and you have to kind of forge your territory and and find your clients and you know get your yourself in. So, what's it like as an IKO rep? Brand new, a little bit of experience on commercial, a little bit of experience in the industry, but you know, brand new to this role, brand new to this company, brand new to this product, going out into the market and making it happen. Because I don't really encourage anybody to check the stats when I say these things, but I believe Brandon's market in Chicago was probably number one in the United States when he was the rep there, probably by a huge margin. He was probably, you know, the pride and joy of IKO in Chicago. So, what's it like getting started with that and getting your way into the door?

SPEAKER_02 10:02

So, whenever I started at IKO in 2017, I would say I don't really want to put revenue dollars out, but I will put market share numbers out. I can say they had a 0% market share on the uh premium uh and performance, what IKO calls a performance product. They sold a shit ton of Cambridge in this market simply because uh at the time IKO was running a rebate where you got paid dollars as long as you were putting the accessories on the job. So they called it like the Pro 4 rebate. If you had three accessories in the shingle, you had four IKO products on the project every time, you would get a back-end rebate. And that's really attractive. Um, but what I was really hired to do was to launch their performance line, which was brand new at the time, Dynasty, which has a reinforced nailing strip, one and a quarter inch nail zone. And it was basically the direct competitor competitor to Owen's corning duration with the sure nail strip. And at the time we sold zero bundles in Chicago, and when we left, it was about 40% of the IKO product mix. And I left when IKO had 22% market share of Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

That's tremendous development, tremendous growth. And I think that's awesome. Just adds credibility to you as a person, as a professional. So this begs the question now. After this IKO, you have success, you're no longer doing that. You've obviously had an epiphany that said, Hey, there's something else that I've been called to do in this world. Let's talk a little bit about the decision, you know, because that uh is probably a pretty stable job. You've probably got a nice, you know, steady income, you've got a good company back in you, and you're gonna go out and basically have none of that. So, what's the thought process when you decide, okay, I'm maybe at the end of what I what I want to do, what I need to do, where I am in life, what I want to be. What led to the decision to leave that opportunity and and move on to something different?

SPEAKER_02 12:17

What happened in 2020?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

We had a disease, uh, whatever they want to call it, a virus that hit and kind of messed everything up a little bit, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Divorce.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Families had to stay in houses together. I ended up going through, unfortunately, a divorce with my ex-wife, and I was uh basically figuring out how I was gonna make in meets as a single dad in Chicago with two kids that were that uh, and one of them was in competitive gymnastics at the time, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it work at IKO. And um, I asked if there was any opportunity for additional funds or front portion of uh any type of bonus, and there was um there was conversations. I was a two-time gold shield winner, which at IKO means uh it's like the president's club. I was back to back. Um, and then it came 2020 and they didn't have it, should have been a three-peat, uh, but uh they didn't put an award out in 2020. That's what the team that I was on, uh, Matt Ibach and Mike Melito and I were the Chicago crew, and we should have had a three-peat. Hashtag bulls, um, but uh we uh we didn't, and I was um put in between a rock and a hard place and really had a great conversation. Love IKO, still see them all the time. Um, I've always been a guy that's been a networker. So I've always had good relationship with the Owens Corning guys in the market, the Certainty guys in the market, the uh Atlas guys in the market. Um we all get along well, we compete well. This is kind of a unique market where they say it's cutthroat, but like everyone's friends with everyone. That's kind of weird in this market, right? There's not a lot of head button on the manufacturing side. At least there wasn't in 2020 when I was in. We would all go to an ABC kickoff at a new branch or whatever the case may be, and we're all getting around and it's all friendly. And I would get a text sometimes from, I don't want to name certain people, but I would get a text like, heard you were just in my contractor's office, haha sucker, or something like that, because I'm trying to go after business that's not mine, vice versa. There would be contractors like, I can't believe you're you were just in here and Joe was in here 30 minutes ago. And the last time I saw you a month ago, you were in here 30 minutes after Joe was in here again. Are you guys just like following each other around? That's when you know there's good competition going on in the market, you know? And um there wasn't an opportunity where I was gonna be able to stay at IKO and continue to do what I've been doing as a father and as a uh human, right? So I put my fillers out and I uh ended up going to work at Eagleview as a regional manager in the Midwest. So I have a little bit of the commercial manufacturing, a little bit of the commercial contractor, shingle manufacturer, tech manufacturer, Eagle View, and then left Eagle View and partnered with uh Doug Cooper from Advocate and kind of basically immediately went to work with Skyler, my business partner at Max Challenger, of taking Advocate's supplement department that I knew by selling Eagle View and IKO to Doug at Advocate. I knew he had a supplement department that basically was able to help him scale his business the way it did. When we really launched Max Challenger, it took about nine months. There was a lot going on because I knew that if we were gonna launch Max Challenger the right way, it had to be done ethically and people had to trust us. If I'm gonna go and take an internal supplement department from one of the largest roofing contractors in the country and branch it off and build a system around being able to help other people, I knew I was gonna need to have a lot of trust and do it the right way. So it took us a while, nine months before I ever even took it to market and try to sell it to our first client.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

All right. Well, that's what I was looking at right here is is we got a foundation, we've got an idea, we've got a spark, and we understand, okay, this is something we want to do. But true to form, with all entrepreneurial ventures, it doesn't just take off and it doesn't just start magically making bazillions of dollars and having bazillions of clients. So let's talk a little bit about the nine months, and then we're gonna get into the you know the actual launch and the building of the clientele. But nine months, okay, you're putting systems together. I'm sure you're you know putting the right people in the right places, doing what you need to do. Let's talk a little bit about what that framework looks like. You're starting a supplement company, this is something you've you've not done before, but I have a general idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Never called an insurance company, have no idea what Xactimant looks like. I just know that I know there's a need for a good one of these people in the industry. There is a need for somebody to do it on behalf of the contractor and not on behalf of themselves. And I knew that we had to be able to do it ethically and actually build it off of relationships, not off of transactions.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

That's the move right there. And I will say this on record, you guys have handled multiple claims for Rio Blanco Roofing in San Antonio. Y'all have done awesome for us. That's why you're on the podcast today. I wouldn't have you on the show if it was not a great experience. So I definitely give you five stars for that since I have you here on the program. But okay, we go through this process, we're building the foundation, we're putting everything together. Learning on the fly, obviously, is that's everyone's number one rule. We figure it out as we go, jump off the high dive and hope to God there's water when we get to the bottom. And you start to see some things happen, you start to see some positive movements, I'm sure. But uh, conversely to that, there's also gonna be moments, I'm sure, where you've probably questioned your sanity. You've probably thought, what the hell am I doing? Why the hell am I doing this? What's gonna happen? And should I be even doing this? Tell me a little bit about some of the trepidation you had in the early days, thinking about it, worrying about it, not sleeping, doing all those fun things that we do before we finally get this thing up and running.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

You know, I I uh am fortunate because um whenever I was at IKO, my main focus was to sell not the cheapest product. And as you know, Eagle View is also not the cheapest product. And I want to come out on record and say that Max Challenger is not the cheapest product. We I wanted to make sure we built value in what we were doing. So at the very beginning, when we rolled this out, I had to figure out what is the pain points that my customers have. I just knew by being the IKO guy and the Eagle View guy that contractors were not getting compensated on the job the way they should be paid, according to what the paperwork says. And I and I knew that there were um at Max Challenger, we call them dimers. Dimers. Anyone that'll do anything for a dime, meaning they'll they'll hop around, they'll do a variety of different things to try to uh get paid for providing any type of service or value at all. And I knew that that was not gonna be what we wanted to be. We wanted to be an actual organization that is a partner to every roofer and not I'm just trying to make money off of every roofer. Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

I think you have accomplished that, my friend. And this is something that we'll definitely talk about here shortly when we get into the the modern times and what we're doing. So you go through the process, you've got these moments, you realize this is exactly what I need to do. This is my calling. I'm gonna make it happen, changing the world. You get to the end of the ninth month, and now it's time to unveil this project to the world, and you've spent all this time and you've put your heart and soul and your money and everything that you've got into it, including your sanity, I'm sure. Time to unveil this bad boy to the world. Let's talk a little bit about the unveiling, the grand release of Max Challenger to the world. What was the feeling like for you when you got to this point and uh, you know, realized that this is going to be a tangible thing and this is gonna be your foreseeable future as a human being and as a professional, and uh this is gonna be the way that you're gonna support your family moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Uh yeah, so when we got to Well, first at the four month mark, I that was my scariest moment. We had put in four months worth of dedication into building out a separate CRM, separate banking, go-to-market apparel, all the stuff needed, the logo, building an actual company from nothing. Then telling employees at a company, hey, by the way, starting tomorrow, you're no longer employed at this company. You're now employed at this new company that we're starting, and your job is not going to change. You're just going to actually have the ability to do more work than what you've been able to do before because there's going to be more than one roofer providing you the jobs. And the fact that we had it divided, where I was handling, as the co-founder with Skyler, all of the marketing and all of the business development. And he was handling everything else. And that's still how our business model is positioned today. Skylar is the president of the company, rightfully so. He's way smarter than me. He handles all the HR, all the accounting, all the building, all the operations, all the information regarding Xactimant, all of the training for the team. We have 15 in-house W-2 supplementers, three managers, a quality performance department that all report to Skylar. I manage business development, the account manager, and our silo of marketing that we're really only just now breaking into after three years of this business.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I love it. So let's talk a little bit about this silo of marketing because you and I met at an event last year. We played golf together here in uh Austin, Texas for the RCAT golf outing. Yep. That was awesome. Great time. Yeah, one thing I know for a fact, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go on record with this right now because you were there. They were only showing the top 10 team scores at the final deal, where it was the scoreboard, you know, of whatever. I believe that we finished in 11th. I think there were 76 teams that day. I believe that our team finished in 11th. I don't think there's any way that anybody can actually dispute that because they only ranked the top 10. So, congrats, Mark Brown. We finished 11th in golf this past uh past year, and it kind of brings me to the next question as you get going here. Like you say, man, you've got a good background in the industry, which is huge. Starting a venture where you need to have contractors as your client base and having a history where you've worked with contractors, that's like you know, you're you're 20 miles ahead of the competition, but uh you start this thing off, you don't have any actual clients, you don't have anything. It's an idea, it's a concept. We're good on it, we're gonna do this, it's gonna be awesome. But let's talk a little bit about how you go about finding some of the people that are gonna buy into this initial vision, that see what you're gonna do, that understand what kind of a guy you are, what kind of a team you put together, and then are therefore willing to put their faith in your team, sight unseen from the very beginning without any proven results. What kind of methods did you use to get these people on board?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

My relationships.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I figured that that's a good answer.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

You know, I I have uh quite a bit of relationships, whether um I've worked with contractors in the past, or I've just continued to be a relentless follow-up pest. Um, some would say, and some would say friend, right? Some would say they like that I follow up, they like that I'm trying to hold them accountable. We had a conversation about possibly trying me out. You've had problems with whatever you were working with before. I see those problems. I found a way where I can fit in and help you, and in return, it will help me. So I've built a lot of relationships across the entire country with people, whether we've worked together or not, but I am a networker. That's what I do. I like to network, I like to uh bring a smile, make a laugh, um, be in the room where it happens. And, you know, I'm young in this industry, and I am um experienced in this industry, and I've been very fortunate to be in the room where it happens without being one of the main players in the room quite a bit. And that's kind of where I was able to basically differentiate myself because one thing that no one will ever say is that I'm I'm a I'm gonna bullshit you. Like I am a salesman and it does sound like I'm bullshitting, but what I actually say, I believe in. It's not like I'm trying to sell some make-believe life to people in regards to the product. I stand by what I say when I talk about product, uh organizations, uh my relationships with people, it's not like I'm somebody that's just gonna blow smoke to try to make somebody feel good. That that's not who I am, and I think a lot of people know that. So whenever I come to a meeting and I say, hey, I'm running a supplement company now. I understand I don't know anything about supplementing, but here's what I do know I know the facts, I know the stats. Last year, Advocate, this was, you know, whenever I was pitching this three years ago. So I guess that would be 2022 numbers. 2022 Advocate did 85 million in revenue, and of that 85 million, 22 million came from their supplement department, Max Challenger. So one fourth of their company revenue came from supplementing. So I go to market and I say, hey, how much did you do in revenue? How much did you do in supplementing? If it's not one fourth, give me a shot. People are like, one fourth, and I'm like, yeah. I'm looking at the data, like they've been supplementing for years. They've had the same CRM from the beginning, which, you know, is possibly good or bad, but they have years worth of data saved, and I can go and look at every dollar amount that the supplement department added, and then figure out what percentage of revenue are they actually doing. And as advocate got bigger over the last three years, I've been able to track that and use the clients that I've had from Max, integrate it all in. And like last year, for example, Chuck, we did over 8,000 files in the year and averaged over$4,000 a file in 31 days.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

That's pretty gangster, I'm not gonna lie, and I do vouch for that because it's happened on my end as well. So, like Brandon says, he's not here to bullshit anybody, he's here to get results, and his team is very good at getting results promptly, which I think that's really one of the biggest complaints that people have. And I think it's by design, obviously, to you know, drag the process out as long as you can and you know, kind of beat the homeowner until they finally just say, All right, whatever, I quit. Like, I'll just take whatever it is you say I I deserve and and I'll do the best I can. But you and I both know this is you know, this is a very common thing. And now that we're at the 30-minute and one second mark, we can transfer our our attention over to supplementing itself and the need for it. And I want to kind of use this next segment as a educational tool for homeowners, for contractors, for anybody. So let's talk a little bit about the the overall need for supplementing in general. So, Brandon, we let's just use a solid number. We use a hundred, there's a hundred percent. And I tell homeowners, you know, this is this is kind of a back and forth type thing. I'm not licensed to do it, but I've got professionals that do. When you get these claims, you know, you guys get to review them. It's a service we provide to our clients as well as hey, let us have the the professionals take a look at this, let them assess and see what they've got going on. Uh, you do this on a hundred different occasions, a hundred different uh cases, you know, maybe two in each of the 50 states. We'll be as as uh diplomatic and neutral as we can. Out of that hundred claims, how many would you estimate are very likely going to be either underestimated, underpaid, or just in need of something that's not there, whatever that may be? Out of a hundred, what do you think? A hundred. There you go. That's a pretty bold statement right there. And basically, what you're saying is every single claim that comes across has something that was maybe omitted, maybe is not complete, maybe needs something additional, maybe the pricing's not correct. So, what are some of these common omissions that you guys typically see? You know, maybe your top 10 list of things that it's like, hey, this is our go-to because these seem to be fairly common, and once we bring them to the attention, they they have a tendency to get taken care of. What are some of those common issues that homeowners have to deal with there?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah, so to dive into that, and I only say a hundred out of a hundred because that's been uh you know my experience, is what I basically say is State Farm could not possibly afford to pay Patrick Mahomes to be in their commercials and uh Aflac to have a duck that's worth$14.1 million dollars for their advertisement, and what's the uh mayhem guy may uh driving around?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

They spend hopefully that dude's making minimum wage, but yes, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Yeah, so he so they're spending millions of dollars just on the commercials. How can they afford to do that if they're actually paying out the claims that they should be paying out?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

That's the million-dollar question, and I love to ask homeowners that all the time. That's the exact example I use, you know. If you see them at the Super Bowl, if you see them, you know, with Arnold Schwarzenegger on their Super Bowl commercial, that's probably your grandma's claim, or you know, thousands of grandma's claims who have been, you know, potentially denied or underpaid in order to achieve the wondrous Super Bowl commercials that we have. But we're not paying for Super Bowl commercials, we're paying for coverage on our homes. So let's talk a little bit about what happens when you get these claims sent in. You guys look at them and you say, Well, wait a minute, this isn't right. We need to do some work on it. What's the process look like as you start to attack these kinds of things? And I don't mean to use the word attack, that's not a confrontational scenario, but I mean, you know, you sit down, you dig into the paperwork, you start really looking into it. What's the process look like as far as finding out how to maximize these things?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

So for us, uh, we take every claim on as if we're just a contractor, uh, an a division within your department. Currently, right now, Max Challenger, like I stated, has 15 full-time W-2 supplementers on staff, and they are who work every file that we receive. We do not outsource any work to any 1099 employees. We do not have any virtual assistants doing any type of work on any file we get from any customer, and that makes us unique. And how we look at that is we approach every single file and we look for manufacturer specification recommendations, general code line items, and general common knowledge. We approach it without utilizing the adjuster point of view, the public adjuster, the policy language. However, at Max Challenger, here's a little carrot for you, Chuck, that you might not even know about. But there are states in the United States that it is illegal to supplement without having a public adjuster license.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

How many states are there?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

You know, I want to say seven. That's a shoot from the hip. Six, seven.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

There you go. Six, seven. There you go. We just created a trend. All these kids are gonna be saying that annoying shit for the next 10 years now, and we created it here, folks. This is the first time you've heard six, seven.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah, roll it back a couple months. Say we launched this last year, uh, six or seven. Um, we currently work with Pelican Roofing out of Louisiana, and they are a state that we had to get public adjusters certified in. Um, a couple other states on that list. Actually, I can pull this up on the side right now and give you my entire list right now, and that'll make things really easy for you, won't it? Uh, Arkansas is a state, you need a public adjuster license. Arizona is a state, you need a public adjuster license. Um, however, uh, we have our public adjuster license in Kentucky, Louisiana, um, and Nebraska. Those are the three. Iowa, those are the ones that are required to have a public adjuster license. And the terminology is weird. Every state uses it differently. We partnered with our attorney to try to figure it out. And basically it says if you're going to affect the homeowner's claim, you need a public adjuster license. In those states, we have to have a license. Other than that, we're able to affect the claim without one. So we had to get a public adjuster license, but all of our go-to-market and trying to figure out what's missing on these jobs is normally done, and everyone can do the same thing we do. We work as a supplement or not as a public adjuster. You just have to have the license in a few states. So sorry to go on a little tangent there to give a little education, but to answer your question the right way, I think I had to do that. We use general scope-related thought process and building the roof out from if you were looking at it on Xactamint to put your quote instead of looking at it from just the Eagle View square count and saying this is a dollar amount attached to it. Right. I think that's a great way to do it. Or what the whatever measurement report you're using, it'll say 30 squares and they'll say, okay, 600. Yep. Jeremiah, hashtag Jeremiah boy, used to be a Max, took a roofer job to better his life. Super happy for him. Um, but um, we are uh approaching every claim as if we're just the general contractor supplement or not a public adjuster. And we break it down, and some of the things that we look at that are often missed is obviously you know this, but it's the additional roll of ice and water because they don't pay enough. It's detach and reset of gutters if there's a nail through the gutter into the drip into the drip edge. Um, it is uh waste not being added. And a lot of times, believe it or not, it's a little bit, I don't want to say dishonesty, but a little bit of trickery by the insurance company of providing the wrong price list on your measure on your exact amateur from when the storm really was. So we got a job in yesterday from a new client that we onboarded, and it was from the March 10th storm in Chicago, and the price list was from 2024.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

There you go. No big differences between 24 and 26 as far as material pricing, right? I mean, it that's something that never goes up in our world, or labor, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Labor never goes up either.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

That's so that's a great point, and I've seen that quite a bit with in previous ventures that I've been in, where it's like, wait a minute, you know, how are y'all giving me a price list from before the storm? And we're a month and a half after the storm, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

So it was an accident, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

My bad. I just hit the wrong button, and now I can hit the right button and everything's fixed, and you know, thanks for your attention to detail. So I love that, okay. And I love the common sense approach because I think in a lot of cases, one of the issues that people have with supplementing is it becomes very confrontational. I think if you're not really using a common sense approach and you're just throwing stuff at the wall, you can kind of get yourself labeled as well as kind of being a pain in the ass. And I don't know this to be a fact, but I know in everything, there's always a little pain in the ass list. And if you're on that list, it's probably not going to be as easy to get this done. So you guys go through, you're very professional, you're courteous, you lay everything out in a manner that makes sense and says, Hey, look, do you agree? Is this something that that you guys would agree that that needs to be done? And this begs the question for me, though, now as well, what happens in the event that the insurance company says, Well, Brandon, you're not a public adjuster. You're you're you're clearly saying you're not a public adjuster, you're just a supplement guy. You don't really have any kind of negotiation skills at this point legally in in certain aspects. What happens if the insurance company tells you to you know kick rocks? We're not gonna, we're not gonna do anything for your supplement. Does that ever happen?

SPEAKER_02 40:22

That happens, and uh it happens for everybody, and and some supplement organizations will tell you that it doesn't happen, but if it didn't, they wouldn't have a minimum.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

I gotcha. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Uh Max Challenger is aware that it happens, and more importantly, we are relationship focused. So if that happens, we don't charge the customer anything. Why would I want to charge uh Rio Blanco Roofing a hundred dollar minimum when I wasn't able to get you any funds, knowing that you're gonna be upset that you have to pay me for nothing? Yes, we're doing work for 30 days, 45 days, waiting for State Farm, Allstate, Progressive, Erie to review, check to tell us no, so we can then ask for a manager, work our way in, try to open up some type of coverage, get something done to where we can start to get the ball rolling to 45 days of you waiting to build this job for me to then tell you you need to pay me, and I haven't done shit for you. So, to answer your question, when that happens with us, we tell you there's no minimum, there's no charge. You give me a job at 20 grand and I give it back to you 30 days later at 20 grand, it costs you nothing, and we move on because the relationship isn't worth burning over a hundred dollar charge. And it happens more now than it's ever happened before. Let's not get it twisted. The insurance world is getting harder and more difficult to work with. They are putting up more roadblocks than ever. They are delaying because they know that contractors are reliant on the cash and they believe that a contractor will close the job out without getting full paid out what they deserve on the job. So the answer to your question is yes, sometimes zeros happen, and no, Max Challenger is not willing to burn a relationship on one file with the adjuster or with you. I'm not burning a relationship with you over that file, and I'm not gonna cuss out state farm because they're not gonna add an additional roll of ice and water, even though it's code. If they're clearly denying it, we're gonna have to move on from that line item and try to find something else to make sure that you can make your gross profit percentage you want to get. However, we are only gonna do that ethically. I start off every call. We're the most ethical supplement company in the industry. Why? Because we will not lie about line items. If you're not doing it, we are not putting it on the scope. Period. We're not padding insurance claims.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

I think that's the way to go. I mean, and to me, I have a public adjuster buddy that I go golfing with over here all the time, and we talk about this frequently. And it's like, man, you can get uh as much as you could possibly get. You can go out there and negotiate everything, get everything paid for. And at the end of the day, the contractors are like, Well, you know, can you get me another grand? Can you get me another 800 bucks? Can you get and it's like, dude, literally, you're getting paid way more than than what you could do as a retail sale at that point. Unless you're really good at retail, but you're you're kind of you know you're dealing with this, and I think that that's the best part of it is we're not gonna go out there and say, look, it's a 15-square job, we need y'all to deliver a portage on, we need you to deliver a guy to stand out here, we need a supervisor to supervise the supervisor, we need this, that, and the other. As long as it's reasonable and it's it's good, I would have a tendency to think that in spite of the fact that, like you said, it is getting more difficult, and I've been preaching this for a long time. When we sat down and and played golf last year, that was the first thing I said to you. You know, why don't I supplement? Well, because I don't want to deal with that crap, because it's it's drawn out, it's long, it's a huge arduous process. And at the end of the day, I think it's designed to put me out of business. So we we don't do that as much as we should, but you're in the you're in the mix, you're getting these things turned over in 31 days with an average um an average of what what was the number again of the average increase on your your claims overall? Do you even have an idea?

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Over the consistency of our our time has been all about the same. So to answer your question, um we are at just, I say$4,000 in 30 days. It's 31 days and it's just over$4,000. Um, the reason why I say$4,000 in 30 days, because the difference between 31 and 30 days is normally when our quality performance partner team will reach out to the contractor and say, hey, this is a job with, I don't want to say whatever manufacturer, whatever insurance company, but they're big and red. They want to wait 45 days so we can get it to a desk adjuster that has a little more flexibility than the field adjuster, as an example. So our time frame from 30-day average goes up to 31 because a good portion of our calls are gonna be a good portion of our files, are gonna be where the contractor and max decide together that we're going to wait to try to get paid on this job. So we average$4,000 in 30 days. We bill 15%, but it's 15% of the scope specific increase, meaning you know how the process goes. You open up your app, we have the custom build app, you new file submittal, you upload your four documents that you need, and 30 days later, we're gonna give you back$4,000. Those four documents are your contract with your homeowner. We don't want to increase a job and then the homeowner walk and you're not covered. We want to make sure you're gonna get paid. Um, we also need that signature from the homeowner so we can let them know that the homeowner is aware that we're working on their file, the original scope of loss, your photos, and your measurement report. Once you give us those four things, we give you updates every week on every file. And then after 30 days, we should be giving you back$4,000. Of that$4,000,$3,400 would be your average take home, which is a very good number to be consistently averaged over the course of a year on every file. And we do have zeros, and then we have the 7,000s, and then we have a 20,000, and we have a couple 3,000s. But when a contractor works with Max, every one of our contractors has and can testify that our numbers, depending on where you live, right? St. Louis, not a lot of code coverage. Minnesota, we crush. So, like the average over the course of all of our business is$4,000 in 30 days. You owe$300 or$600. We give you back$3,400.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

That's a hell of a deal. I'll take that every day of the week, and it's been that easy. I'm not the smartest guy in the world, I'll admit. And I can upload all the stuff that I need into the little Max Challenger portal that's on my laptop, and I just like hit a couple buttons, I send it over. Next thing you know, you're getting these approvals, and everything's good. And I love everything about it, it's been simple. So I've got two other uh questions here. We're coming up relatively close on the hour, but two final questions before we kind of wind this down. Number one, okay, I've been doing uh contracting, sales, roofing sales for about 12, 13 years. I've been in hundreds of homes, I've talked to hundreds and thousands of homeowners at this point. And the question I have for you now, as an expert in this field, if I'm in the house and I'm looking at this insurance scope and I'm like, man, you know, there's there's a little bit of stuff here that probably could use a little bit of work. Homeowners can become skeptical because they've also been conditioned to believe that we're the bad guys, they've been conditioned by the TV ads and all that stuff, that they're good neighbors and their good hands and all that stuff are going to take care of them. What is a good way to talk to a homeowner to sit down with them and kind of go through it and say, Look, this is why we recommend going through the supplement process. It's not us trying to be greedy, it's not us trying to get more, it's us trying to help you. If you're talking to a homeowner, Brandon, what what kind of key points do you use to lead them down the direction and get them to feel comfortable in understanding what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 49:40

I'm gonna start off by saying I've never knocked a door a day in my life. But if I did, well, I have, but if I did, I would knock the door, I would do my pitch that I was trained to do, whether it's hey, I'm Brandon, I'm with Max Challenger, um, we're working on the street, you've been affected by damage, whether you do the turn and burn and you say, I'm gonna check out your roof and I'll be back and let you know the damage, or whether you ask permission or however you've been trained to go about doing that, right? Once you get to the stage of where it's like, hey, you have damage, I want to let you know right now, here's how insurance has been. They're gonna deny you. I'm showing you the damage, they're gonna tell you there's not any. We're gonna call for a second inspection. If they don't deny you, I can assure you they're not gonna pay enough to where you don't have to come out of pocket. So here's how it works. We're gonna call the insurance, get them to come out. I'm gonna let you know if they deny it, we're gonna request a second inspection because I'm only gonna file this claim if we really have damage, right, Chuck? Exactly. So we're filing it if we only have damage, and you're aware we have the damage. Yes, I'm aware. I can see the photos, right? I see my gutters, whatever. I was here. I have the videos of the hail. Whatever the homeowner says, at that point you let them know. If it's denied, we're going to a second inspection. If it's approved, I can tell you they're not gonna pay enough. There's a reason why they have these commercials with these celebrities, and it's because they're using your money to pay for those to get more of you. So, how this works is you sign this contingency agreement. I'm gonna be your contractor, I'm gonna do all the work for whatever the insurance pays, but I'm gonna have to supplement or you're gonna have to come out of pocket because they're not even gonna give you enough ice and water. They're not gonna give us enough waste. So, as long as you let me do my thing, you're only responsible for your deductible. And at that point, they have to be aware, like, okay, I understand now. If it's denied, we have a second inspection. And if they do pay right off the rip, it's gonna be$520 a square,$580 a square. Wherever market you're in, that's where you're gonna start. Then when you follow up and you're there at the claim, you have to reiterate that to the homeowner. That's where the contractor normally has the disconnection. They sell it the right way the first time, but there's so much going on inside of the contractor's head that they don't remember that you're not gonna get paid enough. And to come homeowners, a$15,000 check seems like holy shit, this is a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Yeah, less coming in the roof, it only cost eight grand back in the 87. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Yeah, but in reality, it's not a lot of money. They get shell shocked by the price that the insurance says it is without understanding what the price really is. So what I tell and what I think is best is tell the homeowner right off the rip, I'm only filing this claim because you have damage. You agree that these are photos from your house and these are damaged. Okay, we're gonna file. And if they say no, we're gonna ask for a reinspect because that's the standard process now. And if they do say yes, I can assure you it's not gonna be enough. Here's how it goes when they get the paperwork, you give it to me. I give it to my admin team, Max Challenger. That's all they do is work with insurance companies and they do it ethically. So whatever you and I decide off of this scope that we're gonna actually do, they're gonna make sure we're paid in full on that portion, no cost to you at all. That's only to protect me and my business, making sure I can put on the best roof for you without you coming out of pocket for anything more than your deductible. And when you say, I'm only here to use this team to make sure you don't have to pay anything, every homeowner is on board with that. No homeowner is going to be like, actually, don't go after State Farm for that extra$4,000. I'll pay you for it.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

So as long as it's known from the beginning, you have damage, and our goal is to get you paid and make sure I get paid enough money out of that to put the best roof on possible. And you say it over and over and over every time you meet with them. When you do the inspection, you let them know hey, if this goes bad, we're gonna ask for a reinspect right off the rip. If it goes good, we're gonna send it to the insurance and let them know that they didn't pay what they were supposed to pay. And then again, hey, want you to know I just sent this off to my supplement department. If you get anything back, please let me know. They're gonna reach out to the insurance company and figure out when they send the revised scope. Most likely it's probably gonna come to you. They do send it to the uh supplement company sometimes, but they don't have to. So I might have to get this from you and get it to them and make sure you don't have any out-of-pocket cost. Make sure you don't have any out-of-pocket cost, make sure you don't have any out-of-pocket cost, obviously, other than the deductible. It has to be reiterated the steps in the process over and over, or you run into homeowners who think you're trying to screw them. In reality, they're getting the raw end of the deal from the beginning, and they think it's from someone they can trust because they've been paying them for 15 years for that trust.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

That right there was absolute fire. And anybody that's watching this that does what we do for a living, you need to start using that immediately. Like that was gold right there, and I appreciate that. We're here to bring value to the people, and dude, that was gangster right there. So let's uh let's transition a little bit towards the end of the show. Here, we've got people that are watching this. It's gonna be a great educational tool for homeowners, for contractors alike. Some of my buddies here are pretty big contractors, they do a lot of insurance claims, they do a lot of stuff. Maybe are not happy with their supplement company, maybe they're not working with one, maybe they see this right here, and they're like, Man, this guy Brandon seems pretty cool, which he is, I will say 100%. Great dude to play golf with, too. Hopefully, we can do that again sometime down the road, not too far. And these guys want to work with Max Challenger. So, what are the channels that contractor buddies would need to do or need to take? Who would they need to reach out to? What would they need to do to become affiliates with Max Challenger to work with you guys and to be part of the average four thousand dollar increase on claims back in 31 days or less?

SPEAKER_02 56:33

Yeah, so um, we are currently uh have our website, www.maxchallenger.com, currently in a revamp of that, trying to make it more personal. We talk about being personal, we talk about being relationship focused. Our website was built the first day we opened up shop, and since then I haven't really thought much about it up until this year. So it was a bunch of AI bogus photos that we used right off the rip, and it wasn't something we actually ever really dug into. So don't judge me on my website, but www.maxchallenger.com. You can see every supplementer we have, every manager is on there. You have our story, you have the ability to request information. Uh, Taylor Myers is my business development rep that works your market that you're in now. She covers Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri. Uh, Iowa. She's an Iowa girl too. Um, she is extremely great with follow-up, extremely great with communicating. Um, she can help you get onboarded. She's all over social media. I'm all over social media. You can reach directly out to us. Um, we are a relationship-focused business. It's not like you're gonna go and put in your info and not get a call from us. Like we have never onboarded someone we haven't had a Google meet with or met face to face or met at a show. We are focused on making sure we're doing work with the right people. And that is the best way. Uh, I will provide you a link that you can put attached to this on your comments of the uh of the podcast. So if anyone wants to reach out to Max Challenger, I'll make sure I paste the link into the description of this podcast. Um, and we would love to talk with everybody. I'm not saying everyone's a good fit for us, right? Uh most of the time we work with contractors that do about 100 to 500 jobs a year, is our prime spot of a majority of our business. We have 130 plus contractors that are part of the Max Challenger family. Um, I'm excited because we're having a great month of March. We've had more contractors working with us this month than any other month in the past, uh, as in the number of contractors submitting work to us. Um, so that's great. We're seeing continuous growth. Uh, but our target audience is contractors that have somebody that can be a point guard, tell us what you're actually doing on the job. Max isn't the contractor that's in your CRM, adding the notes in, taking jobs out, and basically being your employee. We need to know what you're actually planning to do on the job or what we do doesn't work because we're only focused on your profit, not your revenue. We only care about how much money you're actually making. Why would I add garage doors if you don't even have a garage door guy? Why would I add a Portajo if you're not putting one in the driveway and can't get paid for it? That's doing me no good to charge you Chuck for a Portageon if you're not putting a Portageon there and can't bill the insurance company for it. So we do have contractors that do that. That's obvious, right? You and I both know, let's be real, there's people that are not technically ethical along their line of work. That's not the guy for me. If you are ethical, you are a good roofer, and you want to maximize your profit, you think you deserve to get paid for the work you're doing. I'm your guy. If you think you deserve to get paid because you're the contractor, that is I'm not your guy. I'm only your guy if you think you only deserve to get paid for what you're doing on the job. And if that's you, I can provide a link. Taylor Myers and I are probably your go-to contacts in the markets that you have relationships with.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, I highly recommend it. Great team to work with. I say it from personal experience, and I can't thank you enough, Brandon, for taking the time to be here. I'm keeping it real. This was kind of a weird one. It was a short notice uh podcast episode where my other guest had a crazy uh occurrence where she had to reschedule because she was under missile attack. So thank you for coming in and the pinch there. I appreciate that. I do believe this has gone straight to the top. This is one or one A all time, and uh that's before anybody's even seen it. So thank you for that. I appreciate everybody at Roofer, my sponsor. I always got to give a shout-out to Roofer four years, they've been the absolute best. I just got done sending a proposal that was literally signed within seconds, and I just received a payment about 10 minutes ago while I was doing a podcast. So Roofer's awesome. You guys love Roofer, we love Max Challenger, and like I always say, till next Thursday, 7 p.m. Central, ladies and gentlemen, do yourself a huge favor, keep on keeping it Rio, and I will see you all next week. Brandon, stick around for just a minute after we end this. We'll do a little ad for our sponsor, and then we'll see you all next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

I want to chime in one more here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Go for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

Don't forget, Chuck, everybody, keeping it Rio podcast is gonna be live at RoofCon November 10th and 11, Oklahoma City, RoofCon 8, I think. Uh, we have a 20 by 20 booth. We're sponsoring Chuck and keeping it Rio in the booth. If you have any questions, you want to get on the camera, you want to get on the mic, you want to talk with Chuck, you want to talk with Brandon, Skyler's gonna be in. We're bringing some of our supplementers in for that event. It's gonna be big time. If you have any questions, you want to be on the podcast, reach out to Chuck. Chuck will coordinate all of the podcast setups for Keeping It Rio. But Max is excited to sponsor Chuck in the Keep It Rio podcast in the booth, live at RoofCon in November. Get your tickets.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

There you go, folks. That is breaking news right there that I was not even gonna break today, but now I'm all fired up. So I'll see you guys at RoofCon. It's gonna be badass. I've always wanted to do a live event, and my buddies here are giving me the opportunity. So couldn't be more proud of that. I know we're gonna pack the house, we're gonna bring a lot of cool people to the Max Challenger booth, and you guys are gonna love everything that you see. So thank you guys for that. I appreciate it. I love y'all to death. And uh yeah, there you go. November. It's gonna be awesome. So stick around for that, ladies and gentlemen. Until next week, keep on keeping it real and check this out from Roof.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

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