Keepin It Rio Podcast: Ty Adams

On Episode 267 of the Keepin It Rio Podcast, we’re joined by Ty Adams, one of the most respected minds in the roofing and insurance restoration industry. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Ty has helped oversee more than $325 million in restoration sales, participated in 10,000+ adjuster meetings, helped complete 10,000+ projects across 14 states, and hired over 1,000 employees and subcontractors throughout his career.

Today, Ty is the Founder of Adams Business Results and an Operating Partner at Saltair Management, where he helps contractors build scalable businesses, create stronger systems, develop leaders, and prepare companies for long-term success—not just short-term growth.

In this conversation, we dive into:

• The biggest mistakes roofing companies make as they grow.
  
  
• Why systems and leadership matter more than hustle alone.
  
  
• Building sales teams that actually scale.
  
  
• The future of the roofing industry.
  
  
• Private equity, acquisitions, and what makes a company valuable.
  
  
• Lessons learned from decades in business—and the mindset required to win.
  
  

Whether you’re a contractor, business owner, entrepreneur, or just someone who loves hearing stories from people who’ve operated at the highest level, this is an episode packed with practical advice and real-world experience.

🎙️ Episode 267 of Keepin It Rio starts now.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh ladies and gentlemen, we are back once again. It's your favorite time of the week. It's keeping it Rio time. And this is the 267th edition of Keeping It Rio. I'm ecstatic because my guest today is someone that I'm really looking forward to chatting with. I think there's a lot of value that's going to be packed in today's episode. And we're going to change some people's lives. We're going to teach some people some things. And I think I'm probably going to learn more than anybody. So it is an absolute honor, without any hesitation, please let me welcome Ty Adams to the show. Ty, good morning, my friend. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Good morning. Good morning. Doing good. It's a beautiful morning here in Fort Myers, Florida. Oh, yeah. So I appreciate the uh invite and and and being on uh keeping it real, right? I mean, love, love that name. Um, I also love your name, Chuck. Uh I my boy Charlie. Um, uh when he was younger growing up, I you know, he I I always said to my wife, you know, when he gets older, he needs to be known as Chuck Adams. Like that's a that's a strong name, you know. You know, hey, I'm Chuck Adams, right? Well, now he's in college, he's he's he'll be 21 here in a couple of months, and uh everybody at college knows him as Chuck. And I'm just like, yes, you know, life, lifelong goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

That's what I'm talking about. I was a Charlie till I got into kindergarten, and I decided at that point that I needed to be the baddest kid in the entire kindergarten class. So I became Chuck early. And uh my parents were the only ones that kept calling me Charlie until they're you know, well into my adulthood, but uh I respect that. Chuck Adams is a strong dude and I'm sure he's a very good-looking guy too, because all Chuck seem to share that trait. So I love it, my friend. I tell you what, this is uh this is a really great episode. I'm very excited for. You sent me over a bio, and like I told you before we kick this off, I don't do a lot of research, I like it to be organic, but I couldn't help but read the bio. So I'm I'm absolutely giddy for our talk here. And I always start with the age old. It's not really a question because one time a guy corrected me and uh he he he set me straight. I said, I like to ask you the question, tell me a little bit about yourself. Technically, it's not a question, but why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Well, a little bit about myself before I get into it is that I tend to talk a lot. So, you know, people who are in sales, right? So I can uh definitely go off on a uh tangent. But uh yeah, for me, you know, grew up in a small town in Minnesota and um loved loved that experience, you know, graduated with 66 kids, and um, you know, after I graduated, moved to Minneapolis, St. Paul area and lived there pretty much until two years ago when I left. So born and raised Minnesota. Minnesota is a hotbed for um storm restoration for sure, right? There's there's a lot of you know influencers for sure, but just a lot of talent, um, you know, from from Dimitri to the guys at Rufal, uh, you know, just anywhere uh in between. Um, so definitely love uh being from Minnesota and that heritage. Um, but yeah, I got into this space back in 2002. Um, I was a database programmer. Before that, I was a I was a bartender at the Mall of America at Gator's Dance Club, dude.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

It's like right. That's when the Mall of America was really like, you know, oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

And it was it was a great place to be. And that's how I got into this industry. Um, oddly enough. We all have our funny little stories, how we got into what we're doing. I was bartending with a guy, uh, my uh my buddy uh Chad Hagen, who owns uh Fiji Restoration, um, out of Chicago now. Um, anyway, he grew up with a guy who started a roofing company, and they were doing door-to-door knocking, and it was all storm restoration. So, anyway, uh we we met each other at the Mall of America. We kept in kept in contact, and then in 2002, he's like, Ty, you gotta you gotta come check this out. I mean, I'm making ridiculous money. And I said, Okay, well, you know, um, Chad was always a great guy, but you know, he trust but verify is what I would say, right? So I was like, dude, um I love what you're saying, but I need to see your uh I need to see your bank statement. It's like what are you talking about? I'm like, I need to see the deposits. If I'm gonna if I'm gonna quit my database job um to go knock on doors, uh mind you, this is my first year of marriage. Yeah, right. I need to have right. Well, I would not recommend starting this job in your first year of marriage. Not not usually uh something that that goes well, but anyway, um, so yeah, he showed me his bank statements. It was true he made about 60 grand in three months, and I was like, Well, I was making 65 at the time for a year, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna go give this a shot. So I started out in 2002, and I knew nothing about uh construction. I you know the my first customer that I actually signed, um, she asked me the question. Um, you know, I was I was I had some kind of concerns about my face shouldn't soft it. And I was like, Yeah, let me uh let me check on that. Um, I think I know what you're talking about, but I'm gonna call my manager because I don't I don't want to BS you, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yep, I love it. So that's uh so so it's so charming, you know, when you realize how far we've come and how little we knew when we started, it's just oh yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it's that's just that's a gold nugget for anybody that's just getting into this industry.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

For sure. I mean, it's it's if you if you're coachable, if you're inquisitive, if you're willing to learn, um, this is obviously an industry that has changed both of our lives. Um, but it's there's just countless people that um have done amazing things in this industry, and a big part of it was because they came in and they learned something from somebody else, right? And that that's a uh big uh key. Obviously, you're talking about your uh two young bucks you just got on. Yeah, you know, if they're looking, you know, one of the biggest things is we're looking for people who are coachable, right? That they're they're like a sponge, like tell me more. If they're not bugging you and and calling you with questions, you know, they're probably not gonna last too long because when we got into this business, I mean, still to this day, I mean I mean, I was dreaming of roughs, I was dreaming of adjuster appointments. I would be watching a movie and be like, oh, I wonder where that where that house is. They need a new rouse.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, right. That skylight's not flashed properly. What's going on here? I don't believe anything in the movie now, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Exactly. Um, so anyway, uh that's that's how I got in in 2002. Did did did quite well. And after about a year and a half, I I figured, well, since I know now I know how to knock on doors, my life has changed. My my life, my mindset went from kind of that cubicle week to week, you know, check to check, kind of, you know, I'm gonna make some money, but really, if you're making 65 and you're married and if you have kids, I mean, yeah, it was different back in 2002, but still, that doesn't go very far, right? I mean, yeah, you can pay your bills and whatnot, but if you want to do any kind of bucket list things or anything really big, you're not you're not gonna be able to do that. So when I got in and knocking doors and understood my first six months, you know, sold 150 jobs, uh, 1.5 million. Um, that's that's that's moving. That's that's going. And and you're talking back when you know roofs were like 11, 12 grand.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Now back when a million was really a million, yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

I know those days.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I remember them well.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Right, exactly. And that in that first year, you know, it's really taught me a lot about myself. I mean, that's what you'll learn, especially if you're out on doors. I mean, sales in general is tough. I don't care if if you're being fed leads or whatever, but if you're going out and self-generating and you're knocking on those doors, um, I've always been a confident person all my life, you know, usually have done well and things that I've uh you know applied myself to. And I'll tell you what, man, like nine, 10, 11 times a day, you question your existence. Like, what the hell am I doing out here? Right? You you you're getting the crap kicked out of you. People are cussing and swearing. I finally developed the uh the uh saying that uh you're really not in this business till the cops have been called on you, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

We've all been there, unfortunately. I know exactly what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Right. So, you know, just getting that mentality and understanding that wow, I came in, I I I show up out of the blue, they don't know that I'm even coming and knocking on their door, and six months later I've I've generated this this much in sales. I can I'm I'm you start believing a little bit, but you need that, you need some confidence, you start believing, wow, I can I can do anything. So that's when I decided to uh start start my own company, Patriot Service Network. And um that was a that was a great great adventure. Um the first couple of years actually, um, I didn't really know the business well enough. So my first couple of years at Patriot was um was knocking on apartment complexes and property management companies, and um it wasn't even for storm work, it was I had a buddy who did painting for apartment complexes and a buddy who did carpet cleaning, and both of them made made six figures with their business. And I was like, well, I mean, if those guys can do it, then I know how to knock on doors. Um, so I just started knocking on doors. I didn't know enough about the storm restoration at that time. What I and what I mean by that is I thought we didn't have a big storm recently, so I'm gonna have to go sell something else until a storm comes along. Um, since then, I I I do understand that um marginal or or small hail um can damage some properties, right? Absolutely um, and then depending on what you know how old their their uh their uh roof is, obviously that's a big part of the equation. Um, so if I would have known that, I would have continued to have knocked storms during those first couple of years of Patriot. But um, so what I did is I just knocked on apartment complexes and property management companies, and really my my pitch was was this it was uh if you if you hire me on, um I'll take care of your painting and drywall and whatever, and then um and then your carpet cleaning, and that's one less call you have to make it. I'll take care of those two things when apartments are turned. And so I basically my my two promises were I will I will pick up my phone um or I will return my phone call within two hours. And that was one of my uh guarantees when I first started knocking doors for for stoners. And if you can execute on that, you become a rock star because you're working.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

I mean, who's ever who would have thunk, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Right, and timely communication is like they're not used to that from a contractor, so that was promise number one. Uh promise number two was I promise not to show up to work drunk or stoned, and they're like, dude, you're hired, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, you're better than everyone else, right out of the game.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Right, right. So it was that was an interesting time of getting Patriot off the ground. I also signed on to deliver uh the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper in North Minneapolis, which is not the best part of town. Um, and I did 350 papers uh Monday through Friday, and I did that because it was an extra like 1200 bucks a month that I didn't have to take out of my company. And so, you know, it's just those founder moments, you know, when somebody says, Hey, I just started a business, it's like, congratulations, man, that's awesome. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. However, you're probably not going to get much sleep over the next couple of years if you're really serious about getting this off the ground, and your stress is gonna be way up here, right? Yes, sir. Yeah, so I I got that going, and then in 2005, um, I I joined up, did a joint venture with some some guys that I um came up with a business with, and they were down in Chicago, and that company was called Hometown Restoration, and they were Minnesota boys, so I called them and said, Hey, we just got a storm. I went up and signed signed up, signed up 30 in my own neighborhood. And as a one-man show, I mean, if you do 30 to 50 jobs, you're it's a good year. You're doing okay, absolutely, right? Yeah, you're not starving. Right, no, you're not. So I was like, called these guys and said, Hey, I know you want to come back to Minnesota. Let's uh let's, you know, if you want to do a joint venture. Um, they didn't really like the sales part. And I said, I'll take care of the sales, I'll I'll train the salespeople, I'll invoice, I'll do the supplements, I'll go to the adjuster appointments, you guys build it and we'll and we'll be a team. So that's what we did, and that that really was a pivotal year um uh for for my career is because I met a guy named Scott Mullins. And Scott Mullins, you need to get get on this podcast. This dude is amazing. Um, he's got a ton of different connections as well to the industry. So I started training this guy, Scott Mullins, in 2005, um, at the end of October, beginning of November, which is not the ideal time to be doing that in Minnesota. Definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

That's that's tough. That's that's definitely believing in yourself, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:54

For sure. So I didn't have anybody else to train, and so I was like, yep, let's go ahead and do it. And he this guy came in and and worked his butt off and and proved to me that you can knock doors during the winter in Minnesota. So if you can knock doors in the winter in Minnesota, you you can knock all of the time, and and that was a key lesson for me in my development, is in that you know, a lot of northern contractors think you know, you've got your season, and and that's true, you've got your build season, you're not going to be building much during the winter. Um, you can still do siding, you can still do gutters and windows, but primarily your building, if especially if you're doing you know 80-90% roofing, that that kind of goes dormant during the winter, but your sales does not have to go dormant. And during that time from November to March, you know, Scott signed up like 200 contracts. And I was like, okay, this is amazing. We started we started March with having to do all these adjuster appointments. In fact, we had about 75 alone with American Family. So back at that day, it was faxing. You would fax into you know, old catfax11 at anfam.com. You know, you would uh so you'd fax that in, and I gave him all of our um uh all of our claim numbers and said, Hey, can we just can you just assign me one or two adjusters so we can knock out all of these claims together? It'll be good for American family, it would be good for hometown restoration. Um, and I got a got got a call back uh from the uh claims manager. He said, Okay, I'll I'll I'll give you two adjusters. And that was such a beautiful thing. In fact, another lesson for those that are new to this industry, um, one of those we I mean, we got I'd say 95% of those claims bought, um, which is amazing because that was not that was some that was a 0.75 to one inch storm that we were working. And uh Minnesota, um, they have what is they don't have the match law. Um, they they they had a court ruling on on a match, so it was it was more like you know, case law that was that was um that was in place, but uh the the uh match matching was a big part of getting those those jobs bought. Well the first adjuster appointment on one of these that we had like 30 um clear damage. The damage is it's about as good a damage that I was gonna be working that storm. And the adjuster's like, nope, nope, not nope, that's that's old, nope, that's mechanical, um, nope, that's you know, whatever, you know, fill in the blank with why it's not real hail damage. And my mentality has always been I'm working with these adjusters. Um I have empathy, I have empathy for the adjusters, first of all, because they're kind of caught in the middle. Um, they they get the pressure from the carrier side, um, you know, with their buy-loss ratios, they're trying to make a living too, they're trying to take care of their family. And so I have empathy in in that regard. So if I'm gonna disagree, I'm gonna keep it professional. I'm just gonna like, okay, hey, I completely respect what you're saying. Here's my position. You know, we don't we can agree to disagree, kind of a thing, and we get off that rough and talk to the homeowner. And I let the homeown anytime I'm gonna disagree with an adjuster, I let them know before we talk to the homeowner. That's just being respectful.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Absolutely. Nobody likes to get blindsided and it does not make anything better, right? In spite of popular belief, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:47

So, anyway, he gets down and talks, talks to the homeowner, and I'd say, just so you know, I'm not I'm not in agreement. I do believe that that you not only did you have cause to make a claim, but I do believe that that your roof is in a worse condition because of this storm. So we're packing up our stuff, and the adjuster and I are chatting. He's like, It's like, dude, because I really, really appreciate that, man. Like you were a professional. He said, I don't see that this, you know, too often. I I get into a lot of arguments and fights, and um every single every single roof that we looked at was bought after that, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And so that what a novel concept again. And I would like anybody that's new to the industry that complains about how adjusters treat you in modern times, just know these these arguments and these things have been going on for over 20 years, and we've both seen it. So, but it was a lot nicer before when that wasn't the norm, and we weren't out there trying to fight everybody. And I had the same thing when I was in college station, Texas. I knew the adjusters by name, and you go to the job, and it's like, oh, well, you're legit, Chuck. You know, we'll go up there and take some pictures and I'll look at what you've got. And you know, my buy rate was quite quite nice there as well. And uh somehow along the way, it was confrontation wins, and whoever came up with that idea, you saw anyways it's it's crazy, actually.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

My my first year in the business, and I was when I was I went to my first adjuster appointment just to watch, and that's what I saw. There was there was two adjusters, it was State Farm, and it was uh a an adjuster and their manager. The manager was doing a ride-along.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

And it was and it was a woman manager. And the the damage on this house was just blatant. Um, but they also this house had been receiving damage for 30 years. I mean, there was a lot of old damage too. And the guy who was showing me, you know, how to do adjuster appointments blew up on them and actually called the man, he actually said to the adjuster who was a man, uh, are you gonna let that bitch wear wear the pants at this relationship? I was like, Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

That's gonna end well for the homeowner, you know. Like, there you go, bud. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

That's I was like, We uh so at that time we were supposed to tell our managers when the adjuster appointment was happening so that they would go to it. I stopped telling them because even though I didn't really know much at that point in time, had only been in the industry for I don't know, probably five, six weeks at that point in time, I knew that's not how you treat people, right? And so how I really learned, you know, what damage was and what what adjusters are looking for is for the next two, three weeks, um, I didn't tell them when the adjuster claims were. I went there on my own and I would tell them, hey, I'm new, can you I know it's not your job, but you know, can you tell me what you're looking for? You know, when I inspect properties, I want to be able to look at this roof, um, you know, or siding or whatever the case is, uh, from the mindset, like is this something that that would be considered, you know, functional hail damage or functional storm damage, wind damage, whatever the case is. And they were appreciative of that, and they would take their time and they would, you know, they would point point some things out and get give me some tips. And in fact, the funny thing is I had the adjusters show me on siding. So if you haven't worked siding much, uh the best way to see damage on aluminum or steel siding is you is you spray it down with water, and then you get a flashlight. Yep, and those suckers just sink, they just pop out. And so I started using that, and adjusters would get pissed off at me. And I was like, Well, don't blame me, you blame the guy at Farmers, he's the one who showed me that. Right.

unknown 21:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So I that's how I learned how to. interact and just kind of you know gauge on on on the uh degrees of what damage is and of course I you know down the road I I went to Haig and all that just uh again just get more educated about it um but I got I got a call from the uh from the manager he's like dude what's what what's going on why where where's all your adjuster appointments and I said yeah I'm I'm going to them uh I'm well you're not supposed to do that I'm like well I'm getting them bought and I'm also learning a lot so um just you know treat treat treat people well you you're not gonna always agree with them um and again if you have empathy if you know that they're kind of stuck in that spot I would not envy I would not want to be in that position the amount of paperwork the amount of pressure that they have on their side and then if they are getting pressure we all know that you know insurance companies you know when a storm hits they kind of set that okay the actuary will say this is how many policy holders we have um this is this is where the uh you know we're we're gonna spend 30 million on this storm kind of thing and we know when you get towards that it it it tightens up okay it's just it's just part of the business right um so again have having that empathy so anyway back to 2005 met with scott mullins the guy built 272 jobs in one year and um I was was the first guy that I really met that he he not only kept up with my work ethic I'll say that he he he probably even surpassed it which is you know from a prideful standpoint is hard to say but I mean it is what it is I mean this guy will outwork anybody and at that time I had young kids so um I needed to be home in the evening to help out my wife because we had two two kids our first two kids were born within 18 months of each other so nice so you know being out and and so at that time I was doing more of the sales management and not necessarily of course I was still knocking on my on my own but most of my stuff I could handle before you know be home by six six thirty but in order to do that since I was supplementing and invoicing I was getting into the office at three o'clock in the morning and uh so one day I show up and and um while I'm there working working on you know an exactimate pumping out supplements and uh I hear the door open and I it it's Scott I'm like dude what are you doing man and Scott had young girls at the time and he had gone through a divorce so he was he actually did most of his sales uh from like you know early morning till till five o'clock he had some friends in the in the apartment complex that he lived in that that were able to watch the girls in the morning and then take them to child care but then he had to pick them up so I'm in the office three four o'clock in the morning and so is he and in fact one time was gosh it was like 4 30 and I heard him on the phone and I'm like who are you talking to he's oh I'm gonna go get uh get a check and and do a a colors meeting I'm like dude it's 4 30 it's like yeah but this guy's up at four so I he knew that so I mean he's out opportunities right exactly so anyway um really fell in love with the guy um from the standpoint that just you know somebody who was in in intense and and then the other aspect about Scott Mullins is his father is Roger Mullins. Roger Mullins was um one of the owners of ITEL laboratories and he and his and his and really his brother Mark started ITL laboratories and originally they were just um carpet fire fibers and flooring that's that's what they were and then they ended up buying up a bunch of companies that did um siding match that was siding match.com and they bought up a bunch of companies that did the the Ashhingo match and they really became the matching capital right and so as contractors we use ITEL for trying to prove something or there's other services out there of course but itel really kind of started that that whole thing and itel had um they had sold the private equity and and so and when they did that they the Mullins brothers kept a portion of of itel and then they went for the second bite so it they were resold again so that was the footprint that that you know that Scott saw um but at the time um you know Scott was just he wasn't in the business because of that he was just in the business because he needed to make some money and his dad Roger never never you know he was always very um very well to do and and and wealthy but he never you know gave scott well here's your money here's here's a way to get out of the hole in fact that first week that I met right that first week that I that I met Scott he was on the phone so much I was like man this guy's pretty popular and um over time over time I heard one of the conversations well the phone conversations were bill collectors I was going to say yes sometimes you don't want to be very popular when it comes to phone calls I get it we've all been there at one point in life exactly but he he had he had the got to so this is what I talk about uh plenty of times about um any sales rep but especially younger guys when you when you look at everybody wants to everybody wants to succeed that doesn't make you special but do you got to do do you have that got to do you do you have to make this work do you there is no plan B. This is your plan A, B, and C, and you go all in those are the guys men and women that I want to work with the ones that are just like you know burn the ships we're doing this we're all in and and and that's the way that that his mentality was he he found it and he went for it um he could have easily begged his dad for money and his dad could have easily given him the money but um that's what I so um respect about Roger not doing that not spoiling Scott right and so what Scott ended up ended up doing was starting a company called legacy restoration became one of the companies that first I mean there was private equity stuff happening but they they ended up selling in 21 and they went and and had a platform and they bought southern out of out of um Memphis um and and Jani out of Orlando and and so um none of that would have happened if uh if Scott if his dad would have basically given him the money and you know then he would have been you know one of those you know uh slush fled babies you know kind of a deal.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah no need to go out and and change anything at that point because life is probably pretty good. Right. Pain is good sometimes though when you need to be successful right sometimes you just a little bit of fear a little bit of pain.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

I mean life is not about shortcuts. If if there's a shortcut everybody would would be doing it and and and unfortunately the way life works or fortunately is the way that we learn best is is going through failures and and going through pain. Anyone who goes to the gym knows if if you're gonna develop you you you've got to put yourself through some painful stuff right so you're not grown if you're not shaking right that's right 100% and it you don't want to do it all the time it's just hey look if you don't do it you're you're not gonna ultimately get to where you are and I love that that's a great mindset to have yeah so so anyway just to kind of skip forward here because I could go on and on and on but um ended up Patriot um we ended up growing when I when I left hometown um again did it did it respectfully let them know hey I'm gonna I'm gonna split off we were doing a joint venture um but uh pay so Patriot was kind of behind that hometown um it was two corporations were working together but under the hometown brand and that in two 2007 I was like okay I'm gonna I'm gonna split off on my own um we done some great work together and when I left um you know you always have that conversation and this is part of our industry well are you gonna pay me I you know all right I've got I've got a lot of work that that we did together you know what how how are we gonna do this and again we did it right so we had the conversation in December if you're gonna if you're gonna separate from a an opportunity or a company the best time to do it is you know when you're at your low peak right that's respectful to the owner but then communicate people there's so many people that you know if you want to start your own company great that's what we all did right um just communicate in fact if you do communicate and we and we end this business relationship well we can continue to be friends and guess what I'll probably help you I'll probably give you tips right instead of being secretive and you know kind of blind side blindsiding somebody or trying to steal customers or in this case trying to trying to steal reps you know um I've I can't tell you how many times I've seen that companies get started by taking you know two thirds or half of the staff with them now there's many sides to to those equations of well as well but uh when I left hometown I just said look let's agree on on on on what you're gonna on on the compensation you know we can come to an agreement on that and if we come to an agreement on that I agree not to take anybody even though I hired all of the sales staff I hired and trained them and and they said okay that sounds good we shook hands we signed some papers and when I left they for whatever reason they they didn't tell the rest of the staff so on on December 31st of 2006 I said hey guys it's been real I'll see you out in the field you know and they're like where are you going? They they wanted they wanted to come with me especially Scott he's like dude you're the one who taught me this business i'm I'm going with you and I said well first of all Scott um you need to stay where you're at you have a ton of money I mean he had like probably a hundred and half of his job for still yet to cap and I was like you have a real financial interest to stay here and then from the ethical side and legal side for me I I agreed not to take anybody so I and and so that's what I did I broke off and um did what I did at at hometown or any other place. I I put ads out I started talking to people I recruited I I trained them so I got got that going 2008 Scott calls me and he's leaving hometown he's like I'm like well come on aboard I mean I didn't recruit you you you you quit so come on over so we we uh ended up blowing that up so 2000 from 2000 uh well I'll say this in June of 2009 we had one location minneapolis in July of 2010 and this is kind of the uh the the tragic love story of you know building building a business uh we had uh minneapolis denver cleveland eau clair wisconsin cedar falls iowa omaha and wichita you got them about as close to each other as you possibly could i i respect that no stress involved in this scenario i can assure you okay so so it was one of those things being a a younger owner at the time and and not as well versed in in business you know you can you can if you're great at sales if you can produce sales you think you can do anything but that's one side of the coin right it's like you see the companies that have you know 40 signs in a neighborhood but no jobs built that's not uncommon in this business right because very much so you can go out and and sell it so what happened to us in um july of 2009 we opened up Denver and in in one month we had 400 signed contingencies um and we didn't even have an office yet in fact our office on the contract was the UPS store in Englewood right so so that kind of like oh boy we can boy we can take over the world and so we ex we expanded beyond our management capacity turns out you need people right you you need managers happens to the best of right so it was a real painful lesson and then on top of that we had the um the industry uh you know construction as a whole was um in the on the downturn from the mortgage crisis you know people had were in their homes they had five six hundred thousand dollar uh loans and now the properties were worth two three hundred thousand dollars so I had a million dollars stolen from me that second check from the from the insurance company across the entire country um they just took that second check and said go ahead put a lien on my property what are you gonna do okay a lien's gonna give you nothing to do they're they're they're there until the day they die so get committed to it there's no equity to go after what are you gonna hire a lawyer and sue them well they probably you know even and I've gone through this even if you sue somebody and you win if they don't have the money the only people getting paid it's a true state only people getting paid in those situations are the lawyers right so so anyway I had to uh take a big slice or maybe the whole pie humble a slice of humble pie and um I had to shut it down in 2011 during that process um Scott had you know part of Patriot's demise was I had to get rid of a lot of talented people and Scott was one of them. So Scott went off and he he was president at a company called Connect Point. Connect Point was a competitor to Eagleview um and um gosh I can't remember some of the other players uh earlier on but Eagleview uh oh pictometry pictometry owned all of the images right and then I think eagle view ended up you know buying them out and they kind of collapsed the space for a little bit and connect point was uh owned by a um a in an adjusting company called paysetter they're out of out of Oklahoma and uh so anyway he was CEO president of that of that brand uh kind of from the time that Patriot shut down and then now we're 2011 and he gives me a call and says hey I'm I'm thinking about starting a company and I want you to be the president I'm like well dude there's there's nobody else that I've um have appreciated respect in this business up to this point other you know besides you um or above you so yeah let's let's do it so 2012 we got we got legacy rolling he was still working at connect point and I was uh president door knocker garbage man uh you know title is is impressive isn't it right baby you go watch you don't want to know who's just touching no exactly so I go out and knock doors and it's a really interesting situation to knock doors and to say uh when people ask you well how long has your company been around since so I had to I had to develop my thought process was this and uh this is the way I sold it it's like listen if you if you had some guys that worked at Microsoft for 15 years and they decided to split off and start a different computer company do you think they would know what they're doing they're like yeah that that makes sense well that's what legacy is right been in the business for for 10 plus years myself uh know the ins and outs um we've just started a new a new company and then people would sign on and so we we we built that up so built that up for like six years and um we started expanding you know we had Shreveport um Shreveport is a very interesting uh market um a lot of a lot of great damage but they don't really care much about building codes there yeah and I and I was gonna say you had an interesting story about not getting the second checks I'm sure that uh that experience may have have trickled down into the Louisiana market. Yeah for sure and that's you know a lot of legacy legacy was born off of two guys working their butts off no doubt because Scott ended up joining about six months later leaving connect point and then being full time legacy but you know a lot of our learning lessons from Patriot that's was the foundation to legacy restoration so that I always thought that was kind of cool as well you know a lot of the same forms a lot of the same processes um you know some things that changed for sure and then that's what you do as a business you just tweak and get better over time um but yeah so 20 2018 we you know expand Shreep Denver we're about to open up Chicago and my oldest daughter at the time um so she would have been 14 she says to me one day um what are you doing home I was like what do you mean I'm I'm home all the time she's like you're hardly ever here and that was the truth I was on the road a lot you know just getting things set up and and getting things rolling so at that point in time it it it made it made sense for me to start my consulting business which is the Adams Business results and a big part of that was um legacy had um hired Jim Johnson to come in um and do some uh sales coaching that's kind of when jim john um first started it back in the day it was it was roof roof coach pro absolutely right shout out to jim he's my golf buddy he's awesome jim is a great dude and so he i mean he was at acculinks and obviously jim was a contractor before he was at acculinks and so having seen you know jim come in and and and work with legacy that kind of gave me the inspiration like well i i could i could do that too right i mean this is a this is a big industry right and and so between my daughter and me not being home and you know wondering you know i i want to have relationships with my kids i was lucky enough to have a great relationship with my father he was a pastor and so he was around a lot he went to all my sporting events and um i wanted to be uh similar uh to that to uh my kids so um so that's when i branched off and and and started adam's business results and just started working with uh contractors and helping them grow their business in in any capacity you know it and when you start in doing that it's it's a whole different it's a whole different ball game even though I know that the uh contractor side from the inside and out um it's like how do you how do you gain clients well a lot of a lot of it's word of mouth or reputation for sure um but what they will tell you is you should concentrate on just one or two areas right be laser focused and really you know you can do sales or you can do like you know financial or whatever and so I started doing that but what happened is I would get into an organization and okay I'm here to help you develop your your sales team but you don't you don't even have a business plan you you don't have any budgets you don't have you know so I know how to do that so can I can I help you do that because we can sell all the stuff but if you don't know what your margins are you know yeah that's very dangerous very dangerous very dangerous so um I had you know uh that first uh couple of years had an interesting conversation with a contractor out in Colorado who never became a client but he took the meeting because we had a mutual friend and that mutual friend um was one of my clients and so I sat down with him and I and I asked him you know the first two questions I ask when I'm talking to a contractor is number one what is your what is your greatest predictor of success most contractors can't answer that or they if they do answer it it's um sign contracts or deals right um which is not a a bad a bad metric but there's a whole lot of stuff that comes before the signed contract right so if you're if you're if your greatest predictor of success is a result you're focusing on the wrong thing because if you're just like you know go back to the workout analogy if your success is you know I've got 17 inch biceps and a and a 34 inch waist well how did you get there and you didn't just get there by going to the gym you also had to have a a a a dietary regimen right you had You had to measure measure your macros, you had to do all these other things. So that was you know one of one of the first questions. And then the second question was what are your gross margins? And most of the time you get a blank stare. Um, what do you what do you mean by do you mean profit? Do you mean and so then you kind of break it down? Okay, your gross margin, okay, that's where you're talking about your bills, you're talking about your cost of goods sold, you're talking about your revenue, right? We're we're we're not we're not talking about overhead, we're just talking about what where are you at on your gross margins? And so this particular contractor, we started off the meeting before I even asked one question. And he basically said, uh, Ty, just so you know, I made half a million dollars last year. I'm good. The only reason was was as a favor, right? And I was like, dude, first of all, congratulations. You I mean, you obviously were you worked hard, and half a million dollars doesn't just fall into your bank, right? So good job, congratulations. Um, but then I asked those questions and he didn't know the answers. And so I said, Hey, I understand we're not gonna be doing any work. You already already told me that, but I'm here. It's kind of like when you're knocking on a door. Hey, I'm here, I can do the free inspection, right?

unknown 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Um, so I'm sitting there, I'm like, so I'm here. Would you allow me to at least look in your aculinks and your QuickBooks to try to piece together where your margins are at? He said, Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. So, you know, there was a lot of missing stuff, but what I could what I could uh gather was that he was probably in that 36-37 gross margin range. Well, if you're in Colorado and you're working in insurance and you're working off Xactimate, and I know that's a whole nother that's an entire episode to itself, for sure. Right, exactly. Um, but if you if you are going off of those rates and and you should be in that 43 to 45 percent gross margin in Denver. And so when I piece that together, I'm like, okay, I got good news and bad news. It's like okay, give it to me. I said, what do you want first? He says, Give me the good news. I said, good news is you made half a million dollars last year. Well, it's the bad news. The bad news is you left 250k on the table. That's either in your suppliers' pockets, it's in your subcontractor's pockets. You're not controlling your margins. You don't, you don't if you don't know what your margins are going into a job, how what are you measuring against? Right?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

So how do you price a job like that anyway and expect it to be you know even remotely close to what it should be? I people guess about stuff all the time, and it it drives me nutty sometimes when I hear people say, you know, like how much you charge per square. And yeah, sure, you get it, but there are a lot of different variables involved in everything. And oh yeah, I I couldn't imagine, you know, we we have all of our stuff specific, you know. We just had a uh coaching call yesterday, and our numbers look good, so I'm happy about numbers right now, dude.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Well, that's and that's the thing, you always gotta pay attention to the numbers, and and you get different owners that I mean you have you have the spreadsheet metrics owners or managers that were they're just looking at the numbers, and then you've got the ones that are they're more about culture and you know, kind of gut feel. You need both, right? And so I'll go back to ITE laboratories. So um Mark and Roger Mullins. Mark, who started ITEL, his office was lined with spreadsheets taped up on the wall, right? This guy was always in the numbers, he was on top of that, and not that Roger didn't know numbers, but but Roger, he was he was the development guy, he was the relationship guy. How itel became so uh so much of a powerhouse is Roger's um uh relationships with the key uh individuals at the carriers, right? And so and and his and his the way that he sold was I mean, he didn't. Basically, at the end of a conversation or a meal, he'd say, How can we help you out? But he was all about building those relationships. So ITL had that combination, right, of of the numbers and the culture. But you can't you can't just have one or the other, right? You get you got you gotta have both because if you know your numbers, but you can't if people aren't gonna stick around because your culture sucks or you don't really care about your people or their development, people know that and they'll they'll learn what they can and then they'll leave. Yeah, um, so anyway, that was that was a uh I and I just told that guy back in back in Denver, I just said, look, I understand you already told me we're not working together. I would be cool if you wanted to, but you don't necessarily need me, but you need somebody like me to to show you. And and and by the way, most owners they have the acumen, they just have never been taught, right? They've they've never been shown the way. So it's not like if you bring in a a uh a coach or a consultant or whatever you want to, you know, and what in what other regard that they come in, come in, bring bring somebody in for three months, bring somebody in for six months. That that investment that collapses time. Sure, you can learn it, and it might take you five years, but you pay a little bit of money and collapse that time and learn it in three months versus five years and all and all the mistakes and profit that go out the door in that process. Um, so anyway, that was you know a big part of Adam's business results getting getting rolling, and then um really had a uh just kind of uh had a uh a chance meeting at a uh at a uh marketing get together and met up with uh Tony Tony Flatham from Built Strong Exteriors. And um he and I both started at the same time at the same company back in 2002, but he was a uh job supervisor, and um uh in 2003 he decided to uh get into sales. And there's another guy you should have on a on your podcast. Yes, Tony Tony Flatham. Tony Flatham is like an amazing dude, and he's about as humble as they as they come, and you know our industry, right? I mean it's very rare. If you if you don't even need to watch uh uh Housewives of Atlanta, you all you gotta do is go onto Facebook and watch the storm restoration industry, right?

SPEAKER_00 50:51

No, I love it. It's it's professional wrestling come to life, so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

So there's there's so much stuff out there, and and and Tony uh out of anybody has probably the the most right to be breaky, you know, to hey, look what I got, but that's that's not who he is. And and he's really branched out and and from a tremendous standpoint in the real estate, and where he you know he owns a ton of properties, like a thousand doors, right? I mean, and so he actually has a thing, and another reason why you should have him on is uh it's uh knock doors to own doors. That's that's kind of his his thing, is uh get in and work, make some money knocking doors, and then diversify, right? Absolutely. And uh it's it just one of the what what one of the smartest guys combined with most humble that you'll ever ever run into. Um, so anyway, he and I got together in 2018 and he said, uh, hey, we've been kind of watching each other's careers uh in in parallel. And he said, I know what you've been doing over at Legacy. I I want to get built strong so that we can so that we can raise up and and and become bigger and better. And uh so we started working together, and um um I I still work with them to this day. So they're they're my my longest standing client. And um, so we're coming up, it'll be eight years in in November. And you know, we started off just you know working a couple hours a week and and eventually we we did a whole reorganization. They're they're a sales department, and and this is this is the backdrop of of a huge success that we had in about a two-year span. Um, your typical storm restoration contractor with a door knocker, the door, the the sales rep door knocker is is doing A to Z, except for the build, right? I mean, they're they're doing the inspection. Um and of course, you do have the setter closure model for sure, too. But even in that scenario, the closer is signing the contract, going to the adjuster appointment, going to the product selection meeting, probably involved with you know collecting the money. Um, some might be pulling permits, but you know, a lot of them aren't. You know, they're they they should visit the build and whatnot. But it's really it's really tough for a sales rep in this industry when they do have all of these responsibilities um that kind of go up and down, right? They you build up your pipeline and then you can't you have to stop selling because you've got to do all these other things.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah, you don't have time anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:35

I mean, you know, hey the adjuster appointments at 11 o'clock, so you show up at 10:30 and the adjuster doesn't show up till two.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

Yeah, and you've got to reschedule your two appointments you had after that because you're so shoehorned together that you don't have time for anything to go wrong, and it's usually when things go wrong, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Exactly. And then likewise, you know, when are you um scheduling your product selection meetings? Well, when people are home. Well, when people are home, it is your best door knocking time. So, you know, that that that eats up into that, and depending on how good you are at conducting a product selection meeting. I mean, you could be there for three hours if if you're a talker and if you let them dictate the conversation, or you can get in and out in 45 minutes, of course, depending on the complexity of the job. Um, but that eats into your time. So, what we did um at Build Strong is we segregated out those responsibilities. So sales reps, they knock doors, okay. Then we have uh then we had people who just met with the adjusters, and then we had people who just met with the customers, so it's kind of like an assembly line, a team aspect. So we had a huge storm in in two in um 2022, um, billion dollar plus storm Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and a lot of that happened in the backyard of of Build Strong. So, what's common is you see a company that maybe they're at 10 million, 12 million, and they they blown up another three to five million because they had a great storm. Well, build strong went from 21 million to 65 million in one year in one market.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

That's impressive, but I also know as you continue to scale, the stress goes with it, and so does the the money. You know, the collections at that point are triple, folks. 60 million sounds awesome until you're yeah in the 60 million range in that scenario.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

And that's a big part of it, is is that you again going back to the Patriot store, you gotta have the people in place to manage that, right? So so anyway, that was you know a a uh again, a big part of my big part of the what I do, especially in the in the sales regard, is I try to get companies to focus on keeping their sales people selling. All right. And so what happened, um, and this goes back to when I when I first started, is is all about the data. Okay, so um I came from the database background, I was a Java programmer, I worked with several different, you know, Fortune 500 companies, you know, in in Minnesota that you've you've got 3M, you've got Lando Lakes, you got Best Buy, you got all these big, bigger companies that everybody knows nationally and internationally. And I was able to get exposure to those uh to those companies and to their systems. And so when I got first got knocking on doors, we didn't have a spotty or a sales rabbit or a canvassing tool. Uh in fact, I didn't even have a marketing packet, I had a clipboard and a contract.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Right. I was gonna say you had a notebook and you had a pen. Remember the addresses by writing them down, and we hope we don't cover them in sweat so they all disappear by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Exactly. So what I was so what I did is I took a digital tape recorder, and at that time I had those carpenter jeans with that little side pocket, that's where that's where I kept my digital tape recorder.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

I wish that would come back.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Yeah, that's what contractors look like, contractors, right? So, anyway, after every door knock, I would take out my digital tape recorder and I would just record a little five to ten second note. And and at the end of the day, I'd sit down at my computer and I'd play that digital tape recorder in on a spreadsheet, which you know, I'd print them out, we call them street sheets, and you would just have the odd and even, and uh, and for each tab, I had the different streets. So I would and I would record anything that was pertinent, you know. Okay, not home, of course, that that's easy. Um, but I would record if I had a conversation and if I was able to learn something like um the guy the guy loves trucks or he's a Vikings fan, which you know, pray for us because we've got a lot of you know pain that we've had to deal with over the years. Um, you know, but landscaping, whatever it is, I would write that, I would I would, you know, dictate it, and then I would write, type it down into the spreadsheet, and then I would take that spreadsheet into my neighborhood and I could see, okay, I talked to these people. Um, they they they said they weren't interested, but they also weren't jerks. So I'm gonna I'm gonna stop back, right? The reason I did this is because I had to um develop some sort of system for myself to have predictability because what would happen is, and we've all experienced this man, you go out and sign three contracts and you're on top of the world, and you are, you know, man, I am awesome. And then the the next you know week and a half, you you get your ass kicked, and you're down in the dumps, and why am I here? Why am I doing this? And so I had to kind of develop a system for myself to where I could get that predictability, you know, back to that question, you know, what's your greatest predictor of success? Well, for me, I started noticing uh the number of the number of no's that I was getting, and my number of no's was it was like 22 point something. So between 22 and 23 no's, I got my yes. So before I knew that, my knocking on doors and being rejected and told to get the hell out of here and whatnot, at 1415 of those, before I knew it was 22, I would I'd want to go home. I'd I'd I'd you know throw myself a pity party, I'd I'd go to the gas station, get myself uh, you know, a Snickers and a Diet Coke, you know, feel sorry for myself, right? And not until I knew that it was at 20 between 22 and 23, did I did I it changed for me like okay, 15 no's all right, we're getting close, but let's just keep going, right? And so I think that's a big part of this in helping sales reps, sales managers, and owners understand that you know we've all seen the the meme of of the guy with the pickaxe who's you know he's he's digging this this tunnel and the gold is right there, and but he decides to quit. But he's just he's just so far awake and he and he doesn't know it. So regarding that, over time, um I would work with the the canvassing uh app uh material and I would go through and I would get the downloads. My thing has been time on door. I want to know how much time on door a rep is is is performing. Um, not so much. I mean, yes, as a byproduct, you can know how much work they're doing or not doing, but if a rep can't answer, and if a and an owner can't answer, how much time does it take for you to get a contract? Most people can't tell you that. They can guess, they can theorize. Most people are if they build budgets, they're gonna build budgets off of an average revenue number for a sales rep. So until you know the truth, until you know the reality of the situation, it's really hard for you to give proper coaching. Um, and you can't be with a rep all the time. Obviously, if you've got one rep, you can go out there, but I mean, that's that kind of is self-defeating if you can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

It defeats the whole purpose of having the rep.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

Right, exactly. So you you gotta have tools and processes and and and and different things to be able to understand how to support that sales rep. So what I had had done when we first, you know, at Legacy, when we first started using the canvasing tool was spotio, and I would download the CSV or the Excel spreadsheet, and I would I would look at their their their times. Okay, they started knocking 1201. Okay, next door 1202, uh, 1203, 12, 12.07, 12, you know, and you go up and and then you would see oh, there's a gap. Oh, there's an hour gap. Right? They knocked for half an hour and then they took an hour break. So in that hour and a half, their time on door is half an hour, it's not an hour and a half. So, what a lot of companies they you they only use their their canvassing tool to understand the what doors have been hit. They look at their at their app, they're like, okay, that was a jerk, not you know, no rude customer, that was the pen they dropped, or not home, or follow-up, and they look at that, and that's good. That's that's that's great. So we you know can get rid of the the paper sheets that we had, right? Well, there's so much good data in there that um is so powerful that you can use to help coach your companies and your your sales reps. So over time, I I I would do that. That's it's that's tough at scale. I mean, you can do that for one or two sales reps, but that takes time, right? So now we go back, we go back to to time, the great equalizer. Um, how do you spend your time throughout your day? Um, you know, how much time are you knocking on on your doors? So uh when when business owners hire and train, like you got two young bucks right now, right? Um I presume you've hired them full-time or are they part-time workers?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Well, it's kind of an interesting scenario. One of them already owns a successful business, even at 21. He's got an established landscaping company with four years of history. So the the learning curve on that's a little bit less than it would normally be. And he's got a lot of commercial clients, so that's a no-brainer right there. The other guy has no experience whatsoever. So we're gonna kind of mold him. And my vision, oh my keeping it real, logo just disappeared there in the background. Sorry about that. Get it back up there, man. Yeah, I will. But they uh, you know, the other guy is brand new. This is his first job, and I'm going to kind of develop him into a hybrid type deal. Uh, because we're a retail-based organization. I think that that's the way of the future with the way that insurance is going right now. And uh we want to make sure that we can provide these guys the opportunity for success. And uh, you know, that's kind of the game plan with them, and it's gonna it's gonna pay huge dividends for sure. There we go. Oh, there we go. Yeah, go back, baby. But yeah, it's uh it's a very interesting scenario, and I love that because, like you say, there's a lot of things that I'm learning here as we're going. And with 28 years of experience, I love the fact that I can still learn things from people and can help ourselves get better and continue to develop and grow and and come up with even better systems than we've had. So it's cool, but yeah, it's it's it's a very interesting scenario to say the least.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

So even in that situation, and again, it it comes back to time. I don't care if if if you're door knocking or if your guys are going out on leads, okay. Again, if you once you can answer the question, how much time it takes for a rep to sign a deal, you can coach around that. I don't care if it's three hours or 12 hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Yep. Well, of course I care, but I like it for three would be nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

Right. But but but but 12 also, if they're if they're out selling for 36 hours, they're gonna get me three deals a week. Okay, that's not bad, right? It's not setting the world on fire, but it It it's not bad. And if I am a good coach, I'm gonna help them get that to 10, to 8, to seven, right? So I'll find out why it's taking them 12. But so many people, and this is this is where I geek out a little bit from the standpoint that if I love helping people and making money at the same time, right? So it's like if you can do both, that's that's the stuff, right? If you're just making money and you're not making any impact in people's lives, if you're only if it's just a me, you know, me kind of a thing, there's so many, so many things you can do. It's and to me that's kind of hollow and shallow. So it's I like to be able to have impact. Like if I can help a business owner um increase their sales, um, lower their lower their cost of goods sold percentage, uh, greater profitability. Um, it doesn't just help that owner, it helps their whole company, it helps all their people, it helps uh stabilize that that they can, you know, not guarantee, but you know, provide a pretty good possibility that those jobs are available for for the people that are in the organization. You're supporting subcontractors and their families, you're supporting suppliers and the sales reps. I mean, it's it's a whole impact, right? So the better a contractor gets, um, they they have this ripple effect. That that's number one. Number two, um, the more that you know about your business as an owner, then you know where to go to fix things quick. It doesn't mean it's things are going to be perfect. This is life. So yeah, do your best. Right. So there was going back to the days of when I was knocking on doors, I didn't know much about construction. Um, I gave my my homeowners uh two promises. It wasn't the drunker stone because you know, whatever that didn't that didn't make sense in that regard. Um, but the my two promises were this again. Number one, um, I promise to pick up my phone or or return the phone call within two hours. Number two, I promise there's gonna be problems. People look at me like, what are you talking about? There's gonna be problems. Why would I want us? Why would I want to sign up with you or go with you? Those are gonna be problems, and that would introduce uh the uh conversation. So when there are problems, not if, but when, because we're building on other on other people's construction, you know, there's the earth can settle, there's all different things that can happen, right? Um, when something wrong happens, um, don't judge me on that, judge me how I respond. And refer to number one if you've got a problem, I'm gonna get back to you within two hours if I don't pick up my phone. Um, and when I get back to you and I help, you know, get us to the solution, uh, that's how I want you to judge me. And so the just uh you you you get a couple of things in that. Uh number one, you're saying I'm a great communicator, but number two, there's gonna be problems and I'm gonna help you solve them. And that's what people want to know, but it's also kind of a uh a uh comedic effect. I promise you there's gonna be problems. Or it's like, what? That doesn't seem like a way to sell something, but it is right. It's magic.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

I use that same thing. I tell people if you love what your your yard looks like, don't be here, shut the blinds, don't look out the window because you are not gonna be happy. But let us go to the process that when it's all said and done, you're gonna be ecstatic, and that's how it always works, but it's expectations. And I try so hard to teach this, you know, don't set unrealistic expectations and don't expect out of others what you expect out of yourself because yeah, you'll get pissed off every single time. So there's a huge lesson there, folks.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

Yeah, for sure. So anyway, you know, you kind of get back to getting back honing in on that that how much time it takes to secure a contract. How do you how do you get that information? Well, you can go through your through your stats. Um, I know some, you know, there's all these different canvassing apps, and and some of them will kind of give you that, some will gamify things, um, but to get the reality of the situation, and the reason I use that is because I'm going to tell you about this product that I just developed, which wasn't the wasn't the reason for coming on the podcast. Uh, I hadn't even developed it when we when we nice when we got connected. Um, so until you get to the reality of the situation, you you don't know um uh how how to help that rep. You also don't know as an owner whether you should keep them or or terminate them, right? I mean, it's when you bring somebody in and you're drawing them out or you're giving them salary or you're giving them training pay, you want to make sure that you that's your biggest risk of your money when you bring somebody in and you're you're you're literally betting on them that that my dollars going out are gonna come back in in multiples, right? If I spend a dollar on on a sales rep, I'd really like to see four or five dollars coming back, right? And just like anything else, your marketing, uh anything else that you would uh you want to see your ROI for sure. Um, but many times you don't know that till you get down the road and you've already spent six grand, ten grand, twelve grand, maybe twenty grand, because they're a good guy, right? How many good guys? Um, how many how many owners have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on good guys that didn't produce much in sales? Has that ever happened to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

Right, yeah, a couple times, you know, guilty as charged, and everybody I know. I mean, that's just human nature, too. You just sometimes you just get one of those, and it's like, damn, I know he's not like really gonna ever make it, but right, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna I'm gonna give it my best, and right ultimately it's a huge disservice to that person. So I quit doing that a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:21

Yeah, it it it it it is. I mean, that's and that's part of it, is like if that uh guy or gal, man or woman, um, are in this business and they're learning, but it's just not for them, that sucks for them and it sucks sucks for the company. So the sooner that we know that and that we can make a decision, um that's that's best for everybody. That's so I've fired well over 200 people in my life, not as a as a prideful thing. It's it it was really tough for me when I first had to get get into the firing, um, because I think of myself as a good guy, sure. Right, like you know, um I've grew up as a people pleaser and I wanted everybody to be happy around me, and I learned that lesson. But um, when I when I finally understood um what a good guy does is they they tell the truth, okay. And the truth of the situation is this job isn't for you, and I can't continue to pay you money. Um, it's not good for the company, it's not good for you. It doesn't make you a bad person, because by the way, I I contend 10% or less is this position for, you know, like as for the general population. Yes, most people could do it. Uh, there there's there's a difference between uh being able to do it and and and having the fortitude to do it, right? And and wanting to do it. So um it doesn't make you a bad person, it's just this isn't the right fit for you. Now you go to your three T's, okay, train, transfer, or terminate. Okay, so if you if things are not working out, you're like, okay, is this on me? Have I not provided the training? Have I not given the material? If it's on me, then I I I got I gotta I gotta pour into them.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:15

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:16

But if I've trained them, um, and they're not right for that position, but I they're a good person and they they have the uh qualities that seems like they'd be a good employee. Do I have a position? I'm not gonna make a position for somebody, but do I have a position somewhere in the company that they could fit? Like they're they're they're a good culture fit and and they've shown that they communicate well and they do all the things that we want from a good employee, um, then I'll transfer them if I need to. But if I check the box on the train and I and I and I don't have the ability to transfer them, then I then I then I go to termination. And so you kind of go through that through that paradigm. And really what you're doing is helping them get to a position or a job that they're better fit for. And and there's nothing worse than to having somebody that is unreconciled. We've all been in jobs, we know what'sn't right for us, and we stuck it up just to keep the paycheck coming, right? That sucks, that sucks internally, right? It sucks for the owner who's spending money on that, and you know, that's a a dead end proposition. So to be able to help people um know the reality of the situation. So that's that's what I did. I I created this application. Um, it's called Door Reality. Uh, it's a door dooreality.com. I literally just filed the trademark on Tuesday, right? So it's the the filing is in. So we we've got that. Um, I've got my first initial customers in that are that are working with it. And um basically what it does is it it takes your data from your canvassing app and it goes into the door reality application and it and it tells you things. Uh, number one is gonna tell you how much time does it take to sign a contract. All right, it's gonna give you your your uh utility percentage. What does that mean? Well, how do you have an expectation for your sales reps? Like how much time should they be working uh trying to gain sales?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

I guess it kind of does vary depending on the scenario, but you know, if you're a standard residential roofing representative, I you know, I think at least half your time should be spent trying to do that. But I honestly 80, 85% of your day should be spent on focused on creating revenue opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:44

Okay, so that's that's that's that's the key part to be able to answer that question. Okay, well, if it's let's just say you let's just take 50, right? So is this a 40-hour week position? Is this a 60-hour week?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

You know, what yeah, what what is yeah, in in relation to what? That's like the lifetime warranty. Whose life we talking about here?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Right. You you said it earlier about about expectation, you know, it much of life uh dissatisfaction or problems focuses around two things on expectations. Uh, number one, um, it's either undefined expectations, right? So if you have undefined expectations, you're you're setting yourself up for issues. I don't care if it's a marriage, if it's playing with your buddies in softball. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:37

No room for interpretation, is that's the key.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:40

Right, exactly. So then once you define the expectation, then it's unmet expectation. Well, if you define it but you can't measure it, how do you know? You don't know the reality of the situation. So let's just say, let's just say it's a 40-hour work week, and we always joke um that when somebody says, Oh, I worked my 40 hours, we always say, Yeah, I remember my first part-time job, right? So, but let's just say it's 40. That that means you're expecting them to be selling a minimum of 20 hours a week. Okay, now you said 80 to 85, so that that's more, but we're just kind of going a low-case scenario. So 20 hours a week, but how would you know that?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:30

That's a terrific question. And again, I mean, it we live in a time where you can get these these kind of details and you can understand this information. Most of us still don't do it though, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

Well, that's the other aspect. The the information is there. So when I would back in the day when I would download and I would do that counting, you know, I would go go through that that day. What is that? Well, that takes time to do that. Now, if you've got five reps, okay, that that takes time. Um, and so it just kind of becomes like, okay, you're you're looking at this and you're spot checking it, but here's another thing I found out. When I was counting, I which again most people don't do, but I'm counting the minutes, okay. I've got I've got a pretty good situation. When when I wrote this program, I stopped checking the minutes and I was checking the seconds. What I found out is that if you don't include the seconds in your in your time measurement, you will be off by 18. Absolutely. 18 that's critical.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:44

That is very critical. I guarantee that's overlooked 99 of the time for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

So so again, what this application does, what door reality does, is again makes the reality of the situation. So you understand how much time now. If you expect them to work 20 hours on door or on sale, right? And this works for whether you're you're you're uh door knocking or whether you have leads. Like if if you provide leads to your sales rep, wouldn't you still want to know how much time it takes them to either do an estimate or sign a deal? I mean, you it still comes down, yeah, it still comes down to allocation of time. So what I the way that I'm positioning this application, of course, I'm appealing and attracted to the door knockers. That's my life, that's where I've lived for the last 25 years. But it's any field sales. If you have sales that are outside of the office, I don't care if you're a rep or a manufacturer or a distributor, uh, for a contractor, I don't care what it is. If you're out in the field, you're you're out of view. You're you know, you're you're not able to really understand. Um, so what happens is okay, yep, I'm gonna be out 20 hours and they schedule on their calendar. Uh, five days a week, I'm gonna be out from four 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Whatever that gets you 20 hours. We're not counting Saturday. Saturdays is gold day, they should be working. It seems to be a a chronic thing in the industry where a lot of people aren't working Saturdays. It's just like I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

I encourage you all not to work Saturdays because it is a very looking for Thursday. That's been my best day ever. I I always tell people I take off Monday. Monday is my Saturday because I am not missing a Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:39

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that that's huge. So you got your 20 hours, they go off from from four to eight, five, five days a week. Well, what happens when they take a break?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:53

Take a break. Enthusiasm, everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:55

Right, and it also reduces the time you're actually on door. So if you just look at the first spin and the last spin and you and you see four to eight, okay, great, they're they're out there. Well, if you have the analysis done either yourself painstakingly manually every day, or you put that information into door reality, you'll know that they were out of the field from four to eight, but they only worked an hour and a half. Okay, if you want them to work 20 hours on sale for that week and they and they only do 10, that's 50% utility. Wouldn't you want to know that?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:35

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

Right? Your expectation is that they're gonna be working 20. But you've defined the expectation, now you're not measuring it, and now you're not holding them accountable. And so you get into all of these things. There's so much sales intelligence around these dispositions and these canvassing apps. So, what Do Reality does is it takes it even a step further. So you've got a section where you can put your goals in for the company, for a location, for a sales rep, for a team, whatever, it doesn't matter. But let's just bring it down to the granular sales rep. Okay, the sales rep has a goal of let's just put that number 100,000. Everybody says 100,000, even though 100,000 is a much these days, but 100,000 is more to somebody that's never made a hundred thousand, right? So you put a hundred thousand in there, and now that you have the data that you understand how much time it takes them to sign a deal, now you can really provide coaching. Okay. If if you understand it takes them 10 hours to sign a deal, you plug it into the door reality system, the sales manager types it in, and that's that's the uh key to this is the sales manager is going over these numbers. We want our sales managers um getting together with their sales reps. That's that's very important. Um, but they type it in, okay, 100,000, and then it looks at the system and it says, okay, this is how much their their hours per contract, and it tells them, okay, for the rest of the year, this this person has to average 27 hours on door to get to their goal. There's not the the system does the math, right? And then every week that you get together with your rep, you you would then obviously the the things that change, what have you paid them in draw or or salary, and what what commissions have they brought in? You know, they've got commissions that they've earned and they've got commissions that are pending, you know, commissions that are in the system, but they haven't realized yet because the job isn't done, right? It takes all this information and gives you uh the sales rep on the granular level, um, understanding what it's going to take for them to get to their goal. But up to your position as an owner, you can take a look at the whole company and say, okay, my budget for this year was 10 million in revenue, it doesn't whatever the number is, it'll tell you what your company has to do that week to get there, right? And and are you gonna have a shortfall? Um, so when you know people who budget and plan, that's great, but rarely is it gonna happen you're gonna hit that budget. What is life about? Life is and business is about, okay. Here's our plan, here's where we're at, what kind of pivots, what kind of you know, right? What kind of things do we get? The the earlier you have that information, the more powerful and potent you're going to be as a business, as a coach, right? And then we go back to the sales rep. This is the support that they need. They they need to understand what's the reality of the situation. Are they able to go out and produce enough work to get to their goals? Can I coach them and help them? So this is a whole system. I don't believe this exists currently in the industry. Um, and if it does, that's awesome. But the way that I look at it is, well, there's 20 different spottiums out there. You got Lead Scout, you got Sales Rabbit, you got all these different canvassing apps, right? Um, if there's other sales intelligence systems out there, great. There's there's there's enough room, right? There, there's enough work. And so the way that I've rolled this out is everybody hates everybody hates the um the per seat. Like um I'm yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:41

The more the more the merrier, of course, if you're the developer. Right. That's how that works.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:47

So the way that I've developed this is I've I've attacked that particular strategy, and I've got my I got my pricing so that it's per location. So I don't care if you if you got one location and 30 reps, the same price for one location and two reps, right? Um, if you have two locations, same same price. It doesn't the price doesn't go up until you're at three locations, right? And so it's most companies, 98% of them are not gonna have three locations, right? And so that's why I've tried to position this for the majority of the market, and it it doesn't, you know, the thing that sucks is when you're like, Oh, if I buy one more seat, then I go up to this next level, right? It's like, no man, you want you want your people in, you don't want to have to get the scarcity mindset out of here, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

There it's gonna be all right, it's gonna be okay. If you add two more people and you have to spend a little bit more money just to accommodate, believe me, it will be worth it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:51

So, what I would encourage folks to do is to go to doorreality.com. Whether you spell it with one R or two R's, doesn't matter, it goes to the same. to the to the same place. But um there's there's two tools on that site. All right. One is uh it's it's got 11 questions that take you less than two minutes to answer. And it will tell you um where where you're at as far as understanding um your uh sales and and the time that is spent okay um and time that your sales managers spend with your sales rents, right? So it'll it'll give you kind of a predictability of of how well you have your arms around the time that is being uh put in um to to to selling whatever you're selling. And then then there's an ROI calculator. And one of the things that I that I love about that is it it shows you that you don't have to to increase your revenue and if you if you have the if you have the data that's the important piece if you know how much time it takes to sign a contract in the calculator um I think one of my examples is uh 10 reps and and the uh and and and you just increase the amount of time of selling by by one hour per rep per week. If you do that and depending you you plug in what what your average deal is it'll tell you so I think I had 10 reps average deal 20 grand and increase one hour is minimal.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:31

If they're six days a week that's 10 minutes a day that'll increase your revenue by one million dollars there you go you know and when you think about those numbers like that it sounds crazy but it's it's legit and that's how much is kind of being left off the table that's or left on the table and that's how important it is to understand those metrics and not just assume and not just believe that you know well you know Steve said he was out there for four hours so kick and butt Steve go get him buddy and you know Steve's sitting at the gas station eating hot dogs so I really like that and I think that some of the stuff that you've brought in here is is it's mind blowing to me because of stuff that I have never thought of really and I've been around a lot of really high level people in our industry and I can say no a lot of people haven't been thinking like that. So I think you've come up with something that could be very groundbreaking for our industry not just roofing but I think you know right service businesses across the globe. And uh man what an exciting what an exciting opportunity and I think right now is the best time to get in with something like that because things are shifting around things are moving and I think now we're going to be at a point where efficiency is going to be much more important than actual volume when it comes to reps when it comes to everything that we're doing you don't want to waste a bunch of time you don't want to waste a bunch of resources so dialing it in as perfectly as you can and having a resource that can help you do that have a strong feeling my friend you are about to be on to something big so I love it and I'll tell you what Ty we've been on here for an hour and a half my friend this has been an amazing conversation you've really enlightened me quite frankly and I thank you for that thank you for taking the time to be here on keeping it real episode 267 and what I'd like to do I'd like to set an at uh an appointment right now for one year from today or one year from whenever right to come back and and review how the progress has been made throughout today until a year from now and it's always amazing to see how far people go in such a short period of time I have a feeling that yours is going to be exponential growth and I I want the open invitation to be out there right now because I I sincerely think you got something big my friend so that is awesome thank you for sharing your story you know thank you for being here like I said this has really been a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it I got to get bouncing here in a minute because I've got an appointment about 30 minutes but uh this has been so cool and I want to thank all the people that watch keeping it real for sure I love you guys 267 episodes that's amazing my goal's 2500 so I mean hey I'm on the second 10 now and uh we're gonna we're gonna get there eventually and if we don't we don't you know but it's good to have a big audacious stupid goal like that and I've got one for sure you got everybody that's been a part of it has been awesome and before I bid adieu to the audience y'all know what I'm gonna do because I do it every week I have to give glory to my sponsors at Roofer. These guys have been amazing to me they take care of our roofing business they take care of the podcast been my sponsors now for four years and it's been an amazing relationship. I absolutely love everybody at Roofer thank you guys for that and um before we say final goodbyes Ty there's one thing that I love to do on every podcast and it is the corniest tagline in the history of the world and I created it myself therefore I know it's corny and nobody can make fun of me because I make fun of it myself keep on keeping it real everybody we'll see you guys next week and Ty stick around we've got promotional consideration by my sponsor here you and I will finish our conversation on the other end of that but thank you guys until next week keep on keeping it real we'll see y'all later I found Roofer online about seven years ago used it one time and it's been the only thing I've used ever since it's basically a program that makes your life a lot easier to measuring roofs putting together proposals things of that nature roofer fulfills every need that we have our homeowners are always impressed by the presentation they're able to kind of look at things differently and learn at their own pace. They sign the documentation online it's the number one CRM in the industry. Everything that you can get with Roofer is going to help your business grow. I think that y'all should do it for sure