Keepin It Rio Podcast: Joseph "JoJo" Kozel

Tonight, we welcome our buddy JoJo back to the show after a couple of years away. I always enjoy catching up with my pals, and this is that. From our time together as Partners to purchasing Rio Blanco from him, what it’s like to run multiple ventures and still make time for what’s really important, to a story of  a potential course record from golf, this one covers it all. This guy definitely helped  shape my life and made me a better version of myself along the way. I hope you all enjoy.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Um thought we were bushying it out.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

We are absol freaking ludely. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It is another wonderful episode of the world's greatest podcast, your favorite, the one that everybody keeps telling me is the best of all time, and that Joe Rogan needs to be looking over his shoulder. It is keeping it real. And this, folks, is the 270th edition of this little podcast. I don't even know what the hell is going on over here, but I know one thing. I bring some powerful guests to the table. I've had some of the most legendary individuals on the face of the earth as guests on Keeping It Rio. None more legendary than today, folks. And I am ecstatic because it's been a little while since we've chatted, but we've got a wonderful friend, uh someone that I absolutely love to death on the program today. And I can't wait to catch up. So no hesitation whatsoever. Straight out of Tyler, Texas, the metropolis, my friend, your friend, everybody's friend, the one and only Joseph Jojo Kozell. What's up, buddy? How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Let's do it. Yeah, it's been far too long. Like you, you know, we're talking about a second ago. We used to do these weekly and just shoot the shit about everything and anything. So I'm excited. I like that it's not scripted. No, no preset questions. I was we did the sponsorship for a magazine, and they sent me these pre-scripted questions, and I answered about half of them. I'm like, I don't like this. I like to just answer stuff on the fly. You ask me, I'll answer it here and then. I don't like these pre-script scripted questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Well, you've been in the room with me when we've done many personality assessments, and you realize I'm not very well prepared at anything in life. So shooting from the hip is my thing. It seems to work sometimes. Sometimes it blows up miserably, but it's what I've decided to go with. And here we are, 270 episodes in. I've only had one or two that have sucked. So I don't plan on today being that. I think this is going to be a top five of all time, and I'm ready to rock. So let's let's start. You know, for those that don't know, tell me a little bit about yourself, my friend. Because there are probably one or two people somewhere in Nigeria or you know, Uganda that are watching today that may not have heard of you yet, but you're gonna probably get a statue put up in their communities after this. So tell them what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I'm sure on your analytics, you do have a few guests from across the pond over there who watching you.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

It's crazy. Very popular in Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I don't very popular. Um, yes, sir. Joseph Kozell. Um, obviously, we've known each other for I don't know, what, nine, ten years now?

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Um at least a good decade at this point.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

You know, met through the legendary Mike Kodet, of course, and his his groups, which is, you know, if you're a roofing company owner, one of the the best groups on Facebook for owners to gather, ask questions, get opinions, advice. Um that's not just a public group, but you know, that's where we met. Started, we didn't start Rio, but um acquired. We did start Rio.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

We started Rio 2.0.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Basically, right? You know, acquired Rio from a gentleman that was uh retiring and worked it together, and then you officially acquired it from me a few years ago and have been rocking and rolling with it, you know, on the side of that. We've got ASAP roofing here in Tyler. Um and I've diversified a little bit on my end over the last couple years since we've split off and started building homes and doing GC stuff. And um this year we're doing our first commercial GC project, which is really cool to be a part of and kind of spearhead and learn that process. It's a whole different beast and a different animal, but it uh something I enjoy taking taking a blank canvas and watching something come to life from it. So it's pretty cool to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Absolutely, and I'm proud of that diversification and the growth because that was always the number one thing is personal development. We're a growth-oriented company that does roofs or whatever we're doing at the time. And I've carried that with me my entire life. That was probably the biggest, biggest thing that I got from my time working with you guys. And just like I showed you earlier, I do always make sure that people know I've got my little ASAP football right here. And for the folks that may not know, 2019, this dude right here was branch manager of the year for ASAP roofing through Rio Blanco. So we have a definite, awesome history. And I was mentioning that uh I've actually got a golf club in my bag that's named JoJo. So that's how highly I think of this man. It's actually the club that I don't throw or cuss at very much. So that's the that's the level of respect we've got. So let's let's chat a little bit on what we got here with our you know our immediate surroundings, which is the roofing industry. I know over at ASAP, I just I was looking at a video the other day that I made when I was over at the office maybe five years ago and I was all fat and everything. And that doesn't exist anymore. That dude is Gonzo, man. He is done for life and he's never coming back. But when I was part of the organization over there, we had a really large-scale team. I think at one point between the two of us, we had like close to 100 employees or something going on. It was pretty insane. Offices all over the country, everything was going great. Roofing has kind of changed a little bit over the last couple of years. I think that everybody's been kind of looking at it saying, well, wait a minute, what are we supposed to be doing here? I want to get some direct input from you because you've got a large-scale company that's diversified, that's done some other things. But when we were working together, we were, you know, mostly a residential roofing company focusing on insurance claims. So let's chat a little bit about that and kind of the transformation from you know, being dependent upon someone else to actually being able to go out and predict our own results because we create them. So, what's it been like over there for you guys the last couple of years with this insurance stuff, the way that it's changing, the way that coverages are changing and deductibles and all that? How's the uh adjustment been on your end?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, it's uh I mean, since you were part of the organization and lots of other people, we've had that conversation for years that the change is coming, insurance deductibles are gonna keep going up, coverages are gonna decrease, and the industry is gonna go to a retail industry. Maybe not completely, but I mean in Texas, not every state. I remember when we were in Indiana and people had $500 deductibles, and it was like something we'd never seen before. Like, how are people how do you have $500 deductibles? We're used to $2,000, $2,500. I mean, now we're seeing $10,000, $15,000, $16,000. I was just looking at one yesterday that a $14,000 deductible, and the reality is most people can't afford those high deductibles, so we're moving into a retail market. So we've, you know, we still do a lot of insurance claims, but a lot of our guys have pivoted into you know retail estimates, even if they have an insurance claim, and we we do the work at a retail price, we'll give them our invoice, we'll give them a certificate of completion, but collecting you know the depreciation and everything is on the customer and they get to deal with their insurance company, which in most cases ends up being a lot easier for them and for us because the insurance company there, they're insured, so they're more incentivized to keep that person happy than to keep us happy. So they normally get reimbursed quicker, we get paid quicker, cash flow is better. Um, so it's it's definitely more prevalent in our in our world, and with that comes financing. Financing's been a lot more prevalent, and just talking about how we met in Mike's group, and I think yesterday I posted how if you're not offering financing, you're leaving money on the table, and it's because there's a lot of people that are in the situation where they want the work done, they need the work done, but they can't afford to get the work done. And so, you know, when you can offer them an option there, then you have a chance to capture that revenue, help the homeowner, get them out of that tight spot, and usually get them in a pretty manageable payment to pay for that roof. Now, you know, I always recommend to our customers because it is crazy to me to think that you know someone might be taking on a 15-year, you know, loan for a roof that might get demolished by hail in six months and need to be redone. Like I always reiterate to my customers, you know, if you get tax returns, you get anything, there's no prepayment penalty on the loan, try to pay them off as quick as possible because no one wants to be paying for a roof for 10 years. But some people need that option. And the reality is if you're not the one offering it, somebody else is going to, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So spot on with that, and I we've done the exact same thing. I think we ran 30 claims, and none of them have actually been the conventional way that we were used to doing it. We did the same thing. We give a retail bid on the front end, we're gonna do the job for that. That's our number, it's locked in, which is pretty much the exact opposite of the way that it was for you know 15 years prior. But to me, it's been great. And you know, we've been able to collect, like you said, not having any issues with any of that stuff. We ran across a job in Dallas last year with a $28,000 deductible. And I mean, when you start thinking about percentages, you know, if you got a percentage deductible and it's $28,000, you're doing okay. You're living in a pretty nice little house, you know. It was definitely not a cardboard shack, but same thing. People don't usually have $28,000 just laying around, you know, chilling. I guess if you live in a multi-million dollar abode, you might. But I think that the aspect of financing has been something that we've been working with for several years and it's just been more and more prominent as we've gotten a little more mature here and as we've seen things uh evolve and develop. I think we both got a great mindset as far as that goes. And it keeps things moving, keeps the lights on, right? You guys have big overhead over there. You got a beautiful facility, um, plenty of opportunities out there to go out and make some good money. And one thing that I've really been paying close attention to the last couple of years was transformation from residential into commercial for you guys. So let's talk a bit about this, Jojo. What percentage of your business now in 2026 on August 19th, would you say is commercial versus retail? And then we're going to compare what that was just maybe three, four years ago.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

We're creeping up on about 30 to 35 percent commercial versus residential. Um, you know, we'll never stop doing residential. Like I've heard, you know, there's always rumors going around. Someone came to me and they're like, I heard you guys aren't doing residential anymore, you're only doing commercial. And it's like, no, like we'll never stop doing residential. We have, I mean, we were redoing our website recently, and they're trying to like look at how many jobs we've done. And I'm like, if you're looking at new construction, repairs, re-roofs, I mean, we've probably hitting the 10,000 mark in terms of projects completed in this area with new storms coming through. You I mean, those roofs hit now that we're, you know, this is our 11th year in business. I mean, some of those roofs are gonna need to be re-roofed in five, six years, you know, if they don't get hit by hell. And why would we why would we say no to helping customer roofs help in the past, helping repeat clients? Like it doesn't make sense to turn that off. So the way I kind of look like look at it is residential pays the bills, and commercial is where you actually make you know your good margins or your profit. I mean, even though technically, normally in commercial, it's a lot more competitive, at least in East Texas, so the margins are usually lower, but the jobs are so much bigger, and it's you know, I was explaining it to people is you're usually dealing with someone and they're not spending their own money, you know, when you're dealing with the humble own money, so it's normally more of a headache, not that we don't want to do their job right, but like they're more picky about every little thing. Normally, when you're doing commercial, you're dealing with the property manager or the the maintenance manager of the building, and he's not normally the one cutting the check, so it's a little bit easier. Normally, like, yes, they want the job done because it makes their life easier as a maintenance manager of the building, they want it done right, but at the same time, he's not the one personally signing a hundred thousand dollar check, a two hundred thousand dollar check, so it doesn't there's not that kind of pain level of oh man, this is coming out of my bank account and I'm writing it, so there's that that benefit there. But um, we really enjoy doing commercial. It's you know, the the scale of the job is bigger, but you know, I always have people that are like worried about getting into commercial, and it's like if you can lay down one square, why can't you lay down a thousand squares? You just do one square a thousand times, you know, like a roll of TBO covers ten squares, so it's you know, it's not yes, there are a lot of intricacies, so don't take that the wrong way. And people say, Oh, well, it's easy because I've seen a lot of bad commercial roof jobs, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Oh yeah, trust me.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

San Antonio, especially being in East Texas, I know we've seen a lot of bad commercial roof jobs, so it's not easy and it can be done wrong, but the mentality that it's too big of a jump to get into, it's it's in my mind is like as long as you can do one square or ten squares, you just do that more times to do a thousand square project, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

There's less moving around, that's the best part. You can stay in the same location for multiple days and take care of the uh the business. I think it's a great way to go. And we're actually focusing a lot of attention on that right now here as well in San Antonio. I hired a young guy that's uh he's kind of a badass, I'm not gonna lie. 21, he's had a landscape company for seven or for four years. He started when he was 17, and he's got multiple assisted living facilities all over town. We've already done multiple work, you know, multiple jobs on the properties. And I told him, dude, you don't need to worry about doing residential. If you can just maintain this and kind of keep this relational stuff going, he's already doing the landscaping for it, and it's like, you know, we all know the second sales way easier than the first. And if you're a trusted uh confidant right out of the bat, then hey, why not? Right? Take advantage of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

And I mean, it's the same for any sales, whether it's roofing, I don't care what you're selling, windows, cars, everything's about relationships, right? But in commercial, when you get a client that owns multiple properties, it all comes down to relationships. I mean, we do a lot of work for schools and hospitals around here. Um, we've gotten into you know cooperatives that you have to use someone and different different options. So we've been in with a couple cities around here, and you get in with the the city manager, the maintenance manager of that hospital, and all of a sudden they're not getting bids from anyone else because they trust you. We have several hospitals around here where they won't call anyone else for a bid. We had another one in Louisiana, and you know, actually on the last project, they did call somebody else for a bid, and it was a buddy of a board member, and he was fifty thousand dollars than us. And the guy had never touched a commercial roof in his life, and he told him that, but he was fifty thousand dollars, and he was a buddy of someone on the board, and they're like, we're gonna use him. It was a relationship, right? They used him because of the relationship. Well, guess what? He completely flooded that building because he didn't make it watertight at the end of one night, and because it showed no rain in the schedule, he thought he didn't need to make it watertight. Well, pop-up storm happens as they are to do in Texas and Louisiana, where we're at, and flooded the building, and now that company has called us and said, Yeah, we will never use anyone else again. And we just actually, Aaron and Brian were in Louisiana yesterday looking at two projects for them that they have are budgeting for re-roofs when their fiscal year starts over in October. And it's a relationship. They're never gonna after that experience, they're like, Yeah, we're not going anywhere else again. You've you know, we've done four or five roofs for them, and like they've never leaked during the project. If we've ever had a leak after, you guys have been out within 24 hours, fix a problem, we never have problems again, like we're not going anywhere else. It's obviously the quality of the work, but also the relationship our guys formed with those people over time. It's just it's repeat business if you find someone like that. Now, there's a lot of one-off commercial jobs too, but then it comes down to a lot of you know, people hang out, know, like, trust people that are like them, right? So if you do a roof for a business owner, more than likely he's in some sort of networking circles with other business owners, so that probably have commercial properties as well, and that that also is gonna lead to more work, more work, all three relationships.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Funny how that works. Do the right thing, keep your word, show up when you say will, right? And you're gonna be the go-to guy. And that's that's the only secret to this, folks. A lot of people do think it way too much, and they're like, Oh my gosh, so much to do, so so daunting and confusing. But at the end of the day, it's all simple, it's just on a scale. And I've watched you guys grow from basically doing none to now being, you know, a big badass commercial roofing contractor that's known throughout the state as well as in other areas. So, shout out to ASAP for that. You guys are awesome. I know how hard the the process has been, I know how hard you guys have worked and the people that you put in place. You got some some legit badasses.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

And we've brought in a couple other folks that you know, one guy that works the Louisiana market and he's grown and maintained relationships there. So it's all about you know, people. We have good people that can can run that show and kind of keep it rolling along.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

That's it. And I love that because you're good people, that's what you deserve. So let's move into something completely different from commercial roofing. And this is something that's near and dear to my heart because I have a partnership with another gentleman who's also gone down a similar path. Successful contracting business over in Ohio, gets into distribution, material distribution. And I know this is something that you guys have uh you know gotten into as well. And I kind of love to get feedback on. I was around the first time when we started doing it at ASAP, and then you know, everything's kind of changed in the world and it's gotten kind of different. You've come back and and done another version of the supply company. So tell me a bit about this, tell me a little bit about the experience that you've had as an independent, and then I'm gonna also ask what it's like being a contractor that sells materials to his competition. So, what's that been like?

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Um you know, it's been good. When we originally started it with ASAP in like 2019, it was like kind of like more of a revolutionary idea. Not a lot of contractors were doing it, and it got to the point where I mean, back then we've scaled back quite a bit, and we can talk about that a little bit. But you know, back that was when we were here and you said we had close to 100 people, and that's true, and we were doing 10 roofs a day, and no matter what you do, there was just mess ups on all of our own all of our deliveries, not every single one, but you know, if you're doing 10 a day and two of them have problems, that that becomes a nightmare because then you're talking about 10 to 12 roofs a week that have issues with the delivery, so we wanted to control that a little more. So we went out and bought a truck, hired a driver, got a warehouse, and started stocking materials. And then, you know, seven months later, guess what happens? COVID hits, and everybody goes on allocation. And guess who gets cut off first when everybody goes on allocation?

SPEAKER_00 19:13

I was in North Carolina in 2011. We got the biggest hail storm in Charlotte history, and I was the branch manager of a small independent roofing supply company at the time. And I tell people to this day, there are manufacturers that I'm very loyal to because they were the only ones that had my back. I got put on allocation and I was basically kind of, you know, whatever, bro. If you live or die, we don't really care because we got our big boys, and that's that's tough. And when you're in a situation where you're you are the distribution channel and you can't get the materials, it doesn't work very well. So getting through that process and understanding that is huge. And I know that sometimes we have to take a step back to take two steps forward. Appears that that's what's happened here. You've kind of come up with a different plan and put something back into place. So tell me a little bit about this new rendition of the supply house and how that's taken how it's taken shape and how it's different from what happened the first time.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah, so you know, everybody kind of got off allocation a couple years ago, and suppliers have, you know, enough product now. And we, you know, it's just always been in the back of my mind why, you know, we want it, we need to restart that, we need to do it again. But back then we only sold to ASAP. It was we were just supplying for ourselves, and it was more about maintaining control of the deliveries, less errors on our deliveries, and if there are errors, it's our own fault, and we'll own up to that and we'll fix it quickly. And now it's uh we kind of wanted to even out the playing field, you know, for the smaller guys that can't compete on price because there's a lot of smaller companies that do good work, you know. There's a lot of those guys that want to do right by their homeowners, they're you know, they're not doing bad work, and they just can't compete because you know they go into a big boy and their their price per square on shingles is $120 a square, and the big companies in town are getting it for $99, and you just can't compete when your material costs are 20% higher than everybody else, because then even with a smaller margin, you're still more expensive. So the goal was to try to help more people get affordable materials. Um, obviously, it still helps you know the ASAP side as well, but to try to get other people affordable materials when everybody in this industry knows the last five not well, yeah, really since COVID, and it has been five years. How many price increases have we gotten per year over the last five years? It's been price increase after price increase after price increase after price increase. Yet there's never been a decrease. It doesn't matter if oil goes down, it doesn't matter if You know, it doesn't matter what comes and goes, you your price is never going down. It's just going up and up and up and up. And eventually you just get sick of the increases. And we were just looking for a way to hedge that and see what we could do to control the pricing a little bit more rather than an every other month increase and how much that increase was. And so we still had the truck from before. We never we never sold the truck. We kept the truck from the original time. Um, and then you know, good buddy Aaron, who you know well, you know, I was throwing around the idea of doing it again, and he, you know, he he came to me and asked if I would take a partner on it, investor in it, and you know, I trust Aaron and only want to do business with people I like and trust. And so, of course, that was already there, and it made sense. So we kind of relaunched, and instead of just being an ASAP, we relaunched it as Tyler Roofing Supply. Um and so that's been it's been about almost two years now that we've been doing it, really close, coming up on two years. Um first year was absolutely fantastic because we did it in 2024. Tyler got the biggest hailstorm that we've gotten in 12 years in 2024, so you know, flew out the gates, dude did really well in about six months. Um you know, and then 2025 happened, and it was probably the slowest year that we've experienced in 10 years for most roofing contractors uh across the nation, from what I've heard, other than you know, select few that have grown. But from everybody I know, 2025 was a very, very down year for most people. And so, with like most people, it was a slower year for us at Tyler Roofing Supply. But obviously, with uh ASAP as a main account, it always helps having having something like that in the bag. And then we we just again we really target smaller companies, smaller builders, um, you know, the guys that are building five houses a year, ten houses a year, um, the guys that are doing three or four roofs a month, you know, it's an owner and maybe one sales guy or just an owner, and we can offer them good pricing. We show up when we're gonna show up or deliver, you know, like it seems to work out well for them. And so we're still growing and learning. We're definitely not in the bucket or category as you know, your buddy Jason over there, because he's done it before and he has the experience and knowledge, and he's definitely a lot uh he's already gone through and made all the mistakes that we're making now, I'm sure. You know, so he's a bit ahead of the curve, but it all takes time, right? So it's just one of those things we're learning. And it's uh the other thing you said, you know, about selling to your competition, like it definitely is a sticking point for a lot of people because it they there's no getting around that people know that it's tied to ASAP. I mean, right now we share an office. I mean, we have the yard out here, so we stock all our shingles here, and so there's no getting around it, but there's some people that see that as a a non-starter, and then there's the people that are like us where I don't really care about competition. Like there's a lot of work out there, we all do our own thing. As long as you're not screwing homeowners over and you know, taking their money and not doing the work or waiv deductibles and cut, you know, committing insurance fraud, like I get along with anyone. You know, like there's plenty of roofers in Tyler that I talk to regularly. We get along, we go to lunch, we hang out. Like, I don't have a problem with with other roofers like a lot of people do, but unfortunately, a lot of people don't see it that way. But usually our target kind of niche with the smaller people, they're less, they care about it less because they understand that by buying through us they can compete better on pricing, and that gives them a better shot of getting more jobs. So um, what I have noticed is whether it's buying through us or not, it seems like we're at least trying to um we're at least helping kind of maybe slow down the increases or the the amount of the increases because there's another smaller independent supplier in in East Texas as well, and their pricing is very similar to ours, and there's no doubt that companies will come to us and get a price and then take it to one of the big three and say, hey, if you don't match this, I'm gonna go buy it there. And they're they're kind of twisting their arm and forcing them to match it, and then they do, and then it kind of helps bring that pricing down for everybody, regardless. Um so I think one way or the other, hopefully we're helping the local industry by doing that, even if they're not.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

And you know what? I think that's the part that's overlooked, what you just said at the end. It's like you're actually helping across the board, even the people that are pissed off about it are getting the benefit of, well, wait a minute, you know, we're able to kind of regulate to a small degree how these increases are going to affect the market. And like I told Jason, um, my partner Jason Shumway with Bradford Roofing Products, Roofing Supply over in Ohio, he's the same way. He's got a very successful contracting business, sells materials to himself. And it's like, you know, some of these guys are really pissed off. But what I've always said is, dude, we all have the same opportunity. All you have to do is take millions of dollars out of your own bank account, invest it into your own stuff, pay all your bills, take care of all of that, and put millions and millions of dollars, you know, into inventory that uh, you know, you're gonna sell it at some point, but you're making a huge, huge, huge front-end investment on. If you're willing to do that, then you can do that. And the people that aren't willing to do that or can't do that, they're the ones that are pissed. We always say nobody hates on someone that's doing less than they are. So to me, it's the ultimate compliment when someone's like, you know, screw those guys, man. They're they're taking advantage of the situation. Well, it was hard work, it was years of dedication, it was years of sacrifice, and I've I've started a roofing supply company from scratch with other people's money. I never had to do it with my own, but I've done it with other people's, and I know how stressful it can be. I know that when I was in North Carolina at one point, we made enough of an impact that a major, I will I'll even say it was ABC because I buy from them, they came down to my office and hired all the people out of my warehouse one day because we were putting so much of a a strain on their bottom line. So I understand how that can happen. And in a community like Tyler, you guys have, you know, a couple of the big boys are relatively close by. You're you're focusing on a specific group and a demographic for your own company. Have you had any any blowback from any of the big dogs being like, hey, look, Tyler, if you don't stop screwing around, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have to take you out back and beat you with a sock with batteries in it. Anything like that happened for you guys over there in East Texas?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

No, I mean, not we're I mean, I still have good relationships with the branch managers of a lot of those big companies, you know. Like we shit, we had all the guys from QXO now at our office of I mean, now it's probably been like two months, but we all had a poker night here and they all came and we played poker together. Like there's not again, like there's not an animosity there, and a lot of times they we have to figure out ways to work together. Like, like, you know, there's times where I have to go buy something from them to fulfill an order, you know, or you know, like not very often, but we have access to some weird colored stuff, and sometimes they'll call us and say, hey, do you have two bundles of Atlas, you know, oyster ridge? Because I don't have it, nobody stocks oyster very often anymore. And it's like, well, yeah, actually we have gonna have five bundles of that. So if you you know, like you can send your customer here, like we have to work together at some point, you know. So I like to keep those those avenues, you know, healthy and not, and it may not, you know, who knows? Towerism supply doesn't work out. Why would I want to create an enemy now? You know, like there's there's no need for me. I'm not one to burn bridges. I know a lot of people that let's say ASAP. I mean, I was actually talking to Steven the other day, you know, Stephen Hughes, and we were talking about you know how many people have left this company and started companies of their own, and we were kind of doing the math, and it was like 35 different companies have been branched off of ASAP and started, and they're not all roofing companies. We got guys that do power washing and solar, and Jared does energy audit stuff, which is completely different than anything. We've got guys that started, you know, just all different companies, not everyone started a roofing company. Um so it's just like I and you know, most of those guys I I still have a relationship with. There's not animosity there. I mean, some of them buy shingles from us, like Peyton with Lumley Roofing here in East Texas. They buy shingles from us. Eric works for them, and they they they buy their shingles from us, you know. Larry buys the shingles from us. Um and that's because we kept a good relationship. I'm not and they didn't burn a bridge and I didn't burn a bridge. There are now there are certain individuals who've left who have burned bridges and sucks to suck, you know. I don't care, it doesn't hurt my feelings. Like at the end of the day, my thing is we've always said this here, it's like as long as I know that somebody came in in some form or fashion is better now than when they came in, and if they leave, then I think I've done my job. And I think I can confidently look in the mirror and say, for 99% of people, that's the truth, you know, and the 1% that it's not, they didn't apply themselves because not everybody wants to learn, not everybody wants to be better, not everybody, some people just like to be comfortable or feel comfortable and don't want to be challenged. And what what can you do for those people? You can't do much for for the people that don't want to be challenged, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Right there, someone that's trying to buy at least a thousand squares of shingles from Tyler. This isn't even being broadcast yet, and you're already getting calls, so I can I can approach it. There you go. Yeah. But you're right, and I look at the same thing. I was down here the other day and I've got some really amazing people. I partnered up with a guy, Chris Hale, over in um Bartlett, Texas, and he's got a huge background in commercial insurance. And he and I have really, really gotten ourselves into a place where we're completely on the same page. We communicate really well about what we're doing. We've got Jason as a consulting member of our company, you know, since he's way out in Ohio. But having those relationships is amazing. And we were talking about this the other day, and I was like, you know, just in Rio Blanco terms, the people that came through the doors at Rio Blanco, there are several here in San Antonio that now own their own companies. Some have, you know, even merged with each other and they work together outside of what we built. And I never disparage that. I mean, some of the people I don't really care for that much, just being honest. But that is not the point. The point is I'm proud of everybody that came in, that learned, that went out on their own and took the initiative and tried to do something to better themselves. Because I've always been under the same impression. If we can be a little bit better today than we were yesterday, and if we can help somebody else be a little bit better, then the world is a better place. The industry is a better place. Everybody can have a better time, a better life. And my big thing has always been about no competition because I look outside and there's like, I don't know, several million houses I see here just in San Antonio. There's no possible way if I started right now that I could roof everybody's house before I'm dead. So I'm gonna need some people to step up and help me out here, you know. Let's do this the right way, let's be reputable, let's not screw people, let's not shortcut our industry and give the rest of us a bad name. But there's more than enough for quality people to go out there and do it. And I take it as a badge of honor, you know. I take I taught people enough to where they felt confident about themselves and the abilities that they were given to go out and do their own thing. So wish everybody well that's been part of the organizations over the years because y'all are great. And everybody that you mentioned in that that little deal there, great people, amazing people that I know personally, and I've gotten an opportunity to work around and be with. And we've done our part, I think, to help our industry improve. And at the end of the day, that's going to be the legacy for me. I mean, you still got a long way to go, man. I'm like, I'm starting to get broken down and old, and you know, my back hurts now. And oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I think I'm creeping up on that already.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

I've like completely age you, won't it? Do you believe this? I mean, I'm only 27 years old. Look at me. I'm looking like absolute haggard. I don't even drink or smoke or anything, but I think I might start. But that's a completely that's a completely different conversation for a different day. But I love that mindset, and that's what's always been so appealing with with you guys. When I started working with ASAP back in 2019, and then when we built into Rio, it was always that same mentality. You know, we're gonna do what's right. If we bring people into the company, we're gonna teach them to be the best they can possibly be. Because, like they always say, the worst thing that could happen is you don't teach someone to be the best, they stick around. So, yeah, if I teach someone to be good and they want to go out and be my competition, cool. The reality is I don't view anybody as competition. And I know that if I go in a situation where I'm, you know, competing for something against one of them, probably beat them anyway. So it's all good. But uh that's that's amazing and I love that mindset, and that's something that I've carried with me for many years. And through the time that I was with you guys, we had some of the most incredible development, you know, opportunities. Some of the people that I got to work with and learn from throughout those years was just so beneficial to me. I tell people to this day, you know, and you know this as well as me. Anytime you go to the airport, anytime you go get an oil change, anytime you're doing anything, there's one magic phrase. And I don't even just I don't even give the phrase out to people. It's like that's paid content, but you know what I'm talking about. And it's just basic stuff that you don't really think until someone says, hey, what about this? And then you put it in there. And, you know, at that point in time, we were doing classes that, you know, those those were like Harvard business classes that we were in and we were we were learning from. And I think that a lot of the guys that have gone out and done their own thing really took a lot from that. So it speaks volumes to the mindset, to the mentality of everybody be better as a group, and we're not gonna try to disparage people for trying to do something on their own. Because, hey, dude, if that happened, I know what it was like to have someone disparage me for trying to do something on my own and yeah, whatever. It makes them look petty. So congrats on that, my man. We've we've we've done our part for this industry, I think, and we're just getting started. So let's uh let's move on to something else that's got nothing to do with the roofing company. So you mentioned diversification. I know that when we were working together, you were just kind of getting into building houses and doing that kind of you know, one or two of them was were were on the board, but since since that's all developed, you've you've taken this on full head on as well. Let's chat a little bit about it. Custom home building. Number one, JoJo, what got you into that? And number two, how has that uh has that uh transformation worked for you? And what are some of the key lessons you've taken from your experience thus far?

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Um, I mean, it started about five or six years ago. Um you know, it always again, everything comes back to relationships, but um we had one of the guys we used for, you know, one of our commercial roofing crews, Alfredo. Um, he's you know, over the now 11 years we've worked together. He's become a really, really good friend of mine, super close friend. Um and about five years ago, he, you know, I was out in Marshall, Texas, which about an hour and 20 minutes from Tyler, and uh shot him a call because it's where he's he's from and lives, and he's like, hey, I'm actually over here, I'm building a house right now. He's like, come check it out. And so I drove by and I stopped and we walked through and we're talking, and he's like, they're they're sheetrocking the walls and and doing some stuff, and he's like, Yeah, I started this about six weeks ago, and a couple days ago, a guy was driving by. My guys were here, he stopped and he asked for my number, and we started talking, and the guy made me an offer, he's gonna buy the house as soon as we're done. He's like, We're like four weeks from being done, or something crazy, and I'm like, What? Like, how does like what is going on here? You're like six weeks in, you're a few, you're like two months away maybe from being done. You've already got the house sold. Like, I wanna I wanna do this, and so I kind of like you know, I'm like, how do I get in on this with you? Like, I want to try this. I'm I'm already, you know, we've already done tornado restoration and and you know, all this stuff where we've already done framing and electrical and plumbing work and sheetrock, like we've already got a network of contractors that do all this stuff, and so it's like actually I own an acre down the street, and as soon as this one's done, my plan was to build there. You want to you want to invest in it with me, and you pay for half, I pay for half, and we do it. And I was like, absolutely. And so we built that one, it sold in about two months, and then while we were building that one, another another opportunity came to us for a fix and flip. So we we bought that one in between and did that, and that one sold in like two weeks, and then it just kind of kept snowballing, and we were doing mainly spec houses at that time because my main thing is always kind of wanting to do right by people and do the project right. And if I'm gonna learn a lesson, it's gonna be on a house I'm building with my own money, not with someone else's money. So I wasn't comfortable doing custom homes yet because I wasn't building with someone else's money, I was building with my own money, and I did make mistakes, lots of them in those first few years. Your first few houses, things that you know, nothing catastrophic or anything, just things that you learn as you begin to build, the way the schedule goes, how to how to schedule things properly, you know, which things need to be done, and so did that for about five years, and then you know, built and sold several houses that were all just spec houses, and uh about a little over a little less than a year ago. A buddy of mine that I work with um said he had an opportunity. He knew that I built houses and he's a remodeler, but he, you know, he really would just did remodels, he had never built anything from the ground up and asked if I would partner with him on it. Like he knew the people, again, relationships, he knew the people, knew their family. Um, they knew he did construction, so they asked him if he would build a house for them, and he said, maybe I won't do it by myself, but I'll see if uh one of my friends will partner with me on it. And at that point, I had been doing it for five years, and I'm like, okay, I'm ready to jump in the saddle. I think I'm comfortable enough knowing, you know, what I've learned over the last five years to build a house with someone else's money now, basically, is what I tell myself in my head, because I take that as a that's a serious thing, you know. This is someone that's trying to build their dream home, you know. This is a over a half a million dollar home, which in Texas is a pretty sizable home. It's not like it's in California, half a million dollars like a shack, but here in East Texas, half a million dollar home is a is a very nice scale, large home. And I take that that very seriously because I see way too many articles about a builder that spent the people's money and didn't build a house and did this. So like I take it very seriously as a responsibility when I'm I'm the one in charge of someone else's money. So we kind of agreed to do it. We we got our bid together. I I know that I'm newer to the custom home building, so my pricing's very, very competitive. We ended up being, I think like sixty thousand dollars less than their next estimate estimate. Um, and they went with us, and we just actually finished that house about a week ago, and it took us 18 weeks from start to finish. Um, that's fully inspected, slab, um, pre-drive, pre-installation inspections, post inspections, so everything's done, you know, to a proper standard, but you know, 18 weeks from start to finish. And then during that time, I was also building another custom home, which just happened to be my own personal home. Um, and so we are about we're very, very close to being finished with ours as well. And I've got another one on the books, um, these plans sitting right behind me that were set to start in about October. Um, and then that also led to doing commercial GC work. Again, that same guy that I partnered with on the custom home. Again, had a relationship with someone. He had done some smaller scale work for them out at a camp that they owned, and uh they were looking to have a new program center, um, 9,000 square foot program center with you know about 3,000 square foot of patios and porches, so like total 12,000 square foot on the roof, and definitely a big jump from a custom home. A lot different. Um, but I'm always of the belief if you're not challenging yourself and doing things that make you, you know, a little uncomfortable, kind of scare the shit out of you a little bit, to be honest, because you know, if that's then you're not growing, and so we we bid it and we went through like three rounds of you know redesigning stuff because everything was over budget, every bid they got was over budget, and so we had to redesign stuff, try to figure out how to get it in their budget. We did, and you know, about two weeks after our final presentation, we found out we got the job and it was real exciting for like 24 hours, you know. It's uh you know, over a two million dollar build, well over two million, and uh then like the next day everyone's like, You don't seem very excited. I'm like, No, because now I gotta build the fucking thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

You know, right? The the charm wears off really quick when it's like, oh.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

I've never built anything in this skill. So yeah, I was excited for 24 hours. Now I gotta I gotta figure out how to build the thing, not figure it out, because I've built, you know, there's there's a lot of similarities between building a custom home and a building, but the scale is just a lot different, and there's certain items I'd never done before. Like I've never done a floating ceiling with ceiling tiles, which you know I've we've I could call Aaron to replace them. I know how much he loves that. Um, but not actually installing the cloud feature for them, and just there's just a lot of features like movable partition walls, there's just certain things I've never dealt with, so it's like, well, yeah, I'm excited we got the job, but now comes the real work, right? Like we we got a you know, told we got the job in late April, officially got the contract in May, and they're like, Well, um, I know you told us in March that you can finish in December, and we have the contract now in May, but we still want you to finish in December. I'm like, okay. Of course. So now that's like the real work begins, and so it's it's going great right now. We've we've uh we're actually 10 days ahead of schedule, my final schedule that I gave them, which was finishing in December, have got us 10 days ahead of schedule. Not I, but you know, me and the guy working with me on it. Um, and that's with about 10 days of rain delays. So really we we're about 25 days, uh, you know, close to 20, 25 days ahead of schedule right now. Just uh, so they're they're very happy with everything. I'm I'm you know happy with everything, but it's uh it's a process, and it just goes with that same kind of concept that if you're not doing things that make you a little bit uncomfortable, you're never gonna grow and you're never gonna be able to do them. Because I know plenty of people that would have got those plans, looked at them. You know, I'm used to residential plans that are eight, ten pages long. All these and these commercial plans aren't even that crazy, they were like 35 pages long, and it's like there's a lot more intricacies about it. I know a lot of people that built houses might have opened those and been like, yeah, I'm not bidding this. There's just no way, there's just way too much intricacies. But I buried myself in those plans for like six weeks straight. So when we went to that presentation, they were answered, asking questions, and I could answer everyone off the top of my head, and they're like, Wow, you really studied these plans. I'm like, Yeah, I haven't, I've been in them for two to three hours a day for six weeks straight. Like, I know these plans pretty much back and forward at this point, and uh I think that went a long way to kind of helping land the job, but also where we're able to build it, you know, it is a learning curve, but it's a fun one. I I enjoy it, and again, it's a great diversification because I can be GCing buildings, I've got a fantastic team at ASAP, you know, pretty much everyone, because unlike a lot of roofing companies where there's a ton of turnover, most of my people have been here for five, six, seven, ten years. You know, like almost my entire office staff has been here for that long now. Nancy just moved on to uh fulfill her dream of you know being a full-time nail, you know, technician. So we just replaced her and our new auditions are fantastic, fits the culture well. But you know, other than that, like we've maintained the the same staff for a long time. So I know that I can rely on them to get the roofing work done, and I personally can focus more on the GC stuff and try to get us more of those opportunities. Um, so it's it's been a fun transition for me. And it it I like the challenge. I just like it's a little bit of a change of pace and it's a challenge, but at the end of the day, I also know that my team is gonna handle everything on the roofing side and make sure everything gets done. Our customers are taken care of, our quality is not gonna drop, but I'm still here if they need anything from me. But they uh they take care of everything really, really well.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

And that was gonna be my next question. Serial entrepreneur, I've known you for years. You're the most detail-oriented guy that I've ever known in my entire life. Like when it's time to look at details on paper, JoJo's the guy that's gonna go to because you just you you submerge yourself into it and you get to the point where you know everything back and forth. Like you said, and there's a lot of time that goes into this, right? And I know that there's only 24 hours in a day. I know you very well. And one of the things that I've always loved about you the most is your relationship with your own family. You know, I was at your wedding, and you always somehow find a way to do way more shit than anybody else is doing, or that I even think is humanly possible. And you don't let it sacrifice the time at home with your wife, with your kids. And I want to ask you about that dynamic a little bit because I know that's always been super important. And I know that that's something that you focused a lot of your energy toward while you're building a large company and you're you're diversifying and doing, you know, roofing supply, solar, GC, putting projects out all over the world and doing all this stuff. How do you find time to make all of this stuff fit together and not sacrifice any of the quality time that you have with the people that you care about?

SPEAKER_01 49:03

It's uh, you know, intentional. I'll be the first to admit I definitely have my downfalls. You know, this thing right here is uh time suck and uh an attention killer. Um, so you know, I know I could be better about some of those things, but I also know that um I'm never gonna get that time back. My kids are never getting younger, you know. Uh they're every day that passes is a day closer to the day they walk out her door and they they go on their own, right? So I need to absorb as many of those minutes as I can while I can. And my wife, uh, you know, Sam, you know, well, um, is a great, great rock for that. I mean, she does a fantastic job. We're lucky enough to be in a position where she gets to be a stay-at-home mom. Um, that was an intentional decision because when we met, she was working. Um, but we decided together that you know the cost of daycare and everything wasn't worth the difference of our children being raised by someone else. And so, and that's not for everyone, some people, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with your kids in daycare, just for us personally, that was that was the decision we made. Um, but her being in that position also allows her to help me keep our schedule grounded as well in terms of our family schedule and get me reminders of when things are going on. But you know, everyone's version of what they consider success is different, right? And I think the thing that I consider to be the most successful is I never have to miss an event with my kids when Jasper was in band, when he was in tennis, when Sailor has field days at school, when she's got performances that are during the day, I'm there. Like there's no negotiations, there's no, oh, I'm gonna miss this. Like, I'm I'm there for their events and I'm present, and that's just an intentional decision. And it all comes down to like with everything else going on, is knowing that I have a team here that will handle things. Like if I have to be gone for a day to be at something for my kids, I know Tina's gonna handle everything like a boss in the office, and Roy's gonna get job scheduled, and if there's warranties, he's gonna handle them, and Aaron and Brian are gonna take care of their commercial clients, and you know, all of our sales reps have you know their own things going on, and they're gonna go out and close deals and they're gonna do their follow-ups. Like, I just know at the end of the day, if I need a day for my family or if I have an event that things are gonna get handled, and if I didn't have that feeling, it wouldn't allow me to do the things that I do. But um, I think we have a good balance because my people also know that if they have something for their kids, it's it's not even a question if someone asks me it is like they'll come ask me, but it's not even uh in question whether I'm gonna say yes. If hey, my son's got baseball practice tonight at four. Can I leave at 3 30? Absolutely, as long as hey, as long as your work is done, and I'm gonna I'm not gonna go check, I'm gonna trust you saying yes, your work is done, leave early and go to your kids' event. It's not just for me, I want that for all of my people. I want them to be able to say the same thing that they got to go to their kids' events, they got to go to the school plays, the the band, you know, shows, whatever it is that their kids are into. I want them to be able to do that. And so I think it's it's just intentional and knowing that I can trust my people to get things done while I'm not there to take care of those things. Um, because I do have way too much going on and I take on way too much. I know I do. Like I've like just always been, I've just always been a hustler since I was a kid. Like I don't I don't care what it is, like if I see an opportunity, I'm I usually just jump on it. And again, it's because I know I have a good team that'll help with it and not expect anything in return. I still try to pay them extra if they do extra for me, but like, you know, we were talking about your Ohio State footballs back there. Like that was when we were, I was like, me and Eric got into all the sports card stuff in 2021 when there was a huge boom during COVID, and I was on auctions buying boxes of unopened sports cards or signed memorabilia, and then I was reselling it and like like did that for a couple years, and then now like I like did flooring. Like, we I started selling flooring because I was looking for ways to save on my spec houses and where can I do it? And I found a great source of flooring and was realizing like I would get to the end of a project and I'd have 500 square foot of it left over, and I post it on Facebook Marketplace and it would sell like that. I'm like, well, maybe there's something there. So the next time I went and bought flooring, I bought an extra 5,000 square foot and posted on Facebook Marketplace, and then two weeks it was all sold. I'm like, well, apparently there is something here, and so like for the last year, I've I've probably sold, and this is not even like I've probably sold 150,000 square foot of flooring in the last year, and it's just buying it in wholesale and selling it on Facebook Marketplace, and it's just like there's just crazy things. Like, I know I probably don't need to do that, and why take something else on? But it's like I've just always been that way since I was a kid. I mean, I remember in middle school, me and my friend Evan and really all my friends, Johnny, uh like me and Evan, his dad would take us to like off-road shows, and they'd be giving away like stickers and hats and stuff, and then we'd put them all in a binder and organize them, and then we'd take them to school and we'd sell them. Like, oh, here's a sticker, it's a dollar for this sticker, this hat is ten dollars, and then my mom would take me to Mexico and I'd buy all this Mexican candy, like Mexican lollipops for three dollars a bag, and I'd take them to school and sell them for a dollar a lollipop. And like, I've just always been that way. I don't know what it is. I've just always had a sales mentality, and I guess you kind of need that to do what we do, but it's literally been like for me since sixth grade and never stopped. If I see an opportunity and like, hey, there's a way for me to provide a better life for my family by buying these floors and selling them, then whatever. We'll we'll do it. I got the space here. I got you know, it's not that difficult to post a listing on Facebook. Let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Yeah, and it makes money. I love that. And you know, that's one thing where I've always been that same way. When I was a kid, my parents had a convenience store, and I tell the story all the time. I used to go into my dad's store and I would buy like a 12-pack of Coke. Back in the day, a 12-pack of Coke was like three bucks or something, you know. That's aging me a little bit because I don't know what it is now, but I know it's like 10, 12 bucks, you know. I would go out to the park across the street and I'd sell 12 cans for 50 cents a piece. I'd get six bucks, go back, buy two more for three, turn that into 12. And it's kind of always been my thing as well. So it's it's a lot of fun. And I think the challenge of being able to find people that can, you know, want what you're selling or or you know, finding your target demographic, that's part of the fun of it. It's the charm. And I've always known that about you, man. You have always been that dude that's like, yeah, let's try that. That sounds cool. Let's do this. That's awesome. And you're adventurous and fun to be around and just it's infectious, quite honestly. I used to always love seeing what was gonna be the next thing that we were gonna get into and how it was gonna work. And everything has always been just so well put together, and that's just a testament to you as a guy. And I guess this kind of brings me to we're gonna start winding it down a little bit, I guess. But my next question for you is as a guy that I've known for years, when I got into the organization in early 2019, it was, you know, still a budding, developing thing. You've had a lot of offshoots in the last several years, a lot of things that have kind of diversified you as a man, as a business owner. What do you think the next 10 years are gonna look like for you personally, for your businesses? What's the ultimate goal for you moving forward? Is this something you're gonna keep doing for the rest of your life? Are you just gonna one day say, you know what? I hit the target I was shooting for. We just got a house out in the middle of the country, and I'm gonna put a fence up and nobody's ever gonna see me again unless I decide to come out. What's it look like?

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Um, man. Well, over the last 10 years, things have drastically changed, scaled, scaled down, scaled back, whatever you want to call it. Um, and that's something I've been very intentional about the last few years is not chasing quantity and chasing quality and not chasing a revenue number because I know there's plenty of Ruben companies out there doing 20 million and keeping zero dollars at the end of it. And we were one of we were one of them. I'll be the first to admit, like as our numbers inflated, so did our revenue, and it became very hard to keep up with. Luckily, we were ones that were able to maintain it. We had great consultants, you know, people guiding us along the way. I've already mentioned Mike several times, but you know, we had him, we brought in other people, like you mentioned, that came in and did trainings. Um, so we were always able to maintain, but the margin was just not great, and it's just one of those things where I've stopped caring about the the top end number, you know. I don't care about revenue as much anymore. Obviously, I want to, you know, do revenue, but it's not like, oh my god, are we gonna be able to hit 20 million this year? I'm more worried about how much are we keeping at the end, right? Like I I'd rather be a five million dollar company that keeps a 20% margin than a $20 million company that keeps a 3% margin. You know, there's way more headache, way more liability, way more people you have to deal with, and you know, like just in terms of homeowners and everybody, more warranties that you're gonna have to honor, and you're keeping less of the you're keeping less of the pie at the end of the day for for a greater headache, you know. So really what we focused on is keeping better people, and not that we didn't have great people, but really keeping hold of the best people. We used to allow people to hang out for two or three months, and they only sold one or two roofs in that two or three months, and we'd let them hang around and and they'd be a time suck, you know, like a lot of great people in there, but maybe roof and sales just wasn't for them. But we let them stick around for a long time before we were like, you know, now we don't I don't do that anymore. Like I want to bring on great people. I haven't brought on a ton of people in the last few years. We brought on three or four, but the guy that you know I most recently brought on, he's he's on track to do like a one and a quarter million this year in a very, very tough East Texas market right now. Like it is not East Texas is not an easy market for residential. That's all residential, like no commercial. He's a producer, he's a great asset to the company. That's what I'm trying to bring in. It's like I told our people like I don't want I don't want uh a hundred army infantry people, I want 10 navy SEALs. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for the people that you know can come in, stick to a task, get the task done. You know, they're targeted killers. Like that's that's just where I'd rather be at this point, and it allows us to manage everything a little bit better. We we we manage our overhead better, we we manage our expenses all across the board. We I make calculated investments. Like, you know, a year ago I paid to have a CRM built, we're just about done, we're in like the final testing phases. Well, that allows me to get away from paying, you know, I think our our bill right now is eight thousand dollars a month, right? So it's like it allows me to get away from from that bill without sacrificing the quality of what we can provide, right? You know, it's it's comparable, you know, quality in terms of what we can provide in the CRM, same features, but if I can get you know get to saving eight thousand dollars a month, what does that do to my bottom line? Right, so like I'm looking at things like that that can help the bottom line, and then when you do that, it allow it allows us to invest more. So, like in in other things, like okay, well let's say ASAP now wants to invest in two spec houses this year with that, and we do a profit share on those. If a salesman, hey, if you sell a million dollars this year, you're gonna get profit share on the house builds as well because you helped generate the revenue that generated the profit that allowed us to do it, and so it allows me to get creative with other things. Um but with that being said, yeah, I don't I don't think I have you know the goal to have a hundred sales reps anymore. You know, I want the good ones, I want everyone to enjoy working here, enjoy working together, um be profitable. And you know, personally, I'm not I'm not sure I want to, you know, I'll continue to be in roofing in 10 years. I may, I may not. If I don't, then most likely the first option would go to people here and fig you know, continuing to run ASAP. Um really ultimately ultimately, like my goal is to travel. I love traveling, I love seeing. I mean, we've been on trips together.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Um yeah, we have fun, lots of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

We have fun. Um, I really just enjoy seeing different cultures, and I like showing my kids different cultures. Like we went to Costa Rica a couple years ago, and then I took my kids to Mexico for the first time last year, and those two trips they never stopped talking about. It's you know, the experiences they had, the culture they got to experience. Like that's what really, really excites me. It's just expensive to do that, right? So you got to get to a point where you can do that. Um, but I think ultimately, you know, that's that's the ultimate goal to have a home base, which I think we are pretty much done building. You know, we got a house on 20 acres now, um, no super close neighbors, um, still close to everything, and we have a good home base, but ultimately to be able to experience the world, like I said earlier, like time is passing, less summers, you know, like someone said, you know, you only get 18 summers with your kids. You gotta like one of them, Jasper, he's 16, he's about to be 17. I'm teaching him how to drive right now. You know, we were doing his permit driving. It's like, don't have many more summers that he's gonna want to be there with us now. We can offer, but he may not want to be there on those trips. So as much of that as we can do, you know, before they don't want to be part of it anymore, the better. And when they don't, then you know, me and my wife can enjoy those cultures together and go out and experience the world. But I think that's ultimately the the ultimate goal is to be able to just see different cultures, see the world, see I know so many people that's like, oh, I've never been outside East Texas. I'm like, what? Are you like even just go explore the US? Like, you know, the World Cup was just a great view of it. I think a lot of people saw like people from all over the world were good traveling to the US to follow their teams, and they're like, I didn't realize it was like this. Like, you guys have mountains, beaches, deserts. Like you have, like, there's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

We got Buckeys, man. Buckeys got famous because of the World Cup. Everybody was amazed by that stuff, and and I love that. And I that's always been you, and that's what's so cool, is you are genuine and you've never changed from that perspective. I know that growth and development and change is huge in in all of our lives, but you've always been the same guy as far as what's important to you and maintaining that and always making sure that that stuff was taken care of. And I can't say enough how much I respect and appreciate you for that. You've done a lot of amazing things for me over the years. We've had some amazing times together. And those are days that I'm gonna look back forever and I'm always gonna have a fondness and say, you know, oh, someone's getting their car broken into outside here, it sounds like. I don't know if y'all hear that, but uh, someone's alarm's going off. But that's uh that's something that I really admire and I appreciate. And as we get ready to wind this down, I got to do two quick things. Number one, got to give a shout out to my sponsors here on Keeping It Rio, ladies and gentlemen. Um I got a few sponsors here now. I got a couple of new ones that I'm unveiling today on episode 270. Uh, first and foremost, Roofer. You guys have been my my go-to for four years now. I love everybody at Roofer. I know you just said you're building a CRM, so I'm not gonna try to sell you one here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

I use Roofer for all my measurement reports, so they still get some of my money. Don't worry, I still use them for all of that. There you go. Honestly, I love it. I love doing my own, and it takes five minutes when you get good at it, and you can do your own measurement reports or like whatever they charge you for a credit is like three bucks or something. Like, you can't beat that. And then if it's a difficult one, you don't want to mess with, like I don't even know what the current price is, but it's still cheap no matter what it is. It's like 12 or 13 bucks or whatever it is, and they're fast, they get it back to you. I mean, it's fantastic. We definitely still use it for all of our measurement.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

Yep. So there you go, Roofer. You're y'all are worldwide loved by everybody, and I can't say enough about them. I gotta welcome two new sponsors to today's episode. Number one, my friends at Max Challenger. This now Jojo is known as the Max Challenger Studio. I literally given the rights to my studio to Max Challenger. They've been awesome. And I have a brand new one, day 41 Thrive. I don't know if you're familiar with John Bros. He's got a great platform that they're getting ready to unveil here very soon. Very honored to be a part of this. I was just talking with them on the phone yesterday. We literally just finalized this sponsorship deal yesterday. So that's why we got a whole new backdrop and all that stuff. Couldn't do this without the sponsors. And like you say, those relationships help with Rio Blanco more than anything. And uh that's part of the reason why I've been doing this podcast for five years because it does ultimately help our business, helps us with you know everything in the in the industry as far as our relationships and whatnot. So thank you to all those guys. And before we end this episode, I always have to go down a little personal journey here. I told you at the beginning, ladies and gentlemen, this man right here is so high, held in high regard by me that I actually named my golf putter Jojo. And there is a story behind it. It's because I bought it with you one day. There was a guy over in Tyler that was a uh retired Marine or Air Force, I don't remember. And he opened a little golf shop. We went in there. I bought this putter. So that day I christened it Little Jojo. This thing's been amazing, but I recall one time I've gone golfing with you several times. I remember one time it was just the two of us, though, and we weren't at Holly Tree, which is the wonderful country club over there. They've got some of the best food in the world, and their golfing facility is outstanding. But you and I went to a public course somewhere in Thailand. Pine Springs, Pine Springs. Yeah, Pine Springs, folks. I believe I saw this man break the course record that day. It was you even said the greatest round of golf ever. I was there, I saw it. I've been practicing for years now.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

My my record, it was the best day of golf I ever had. I think I shot like an 84 and 85. It was super impressive.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

I was just in awe. I didn't even know what to say that day. I was like, man, this guy, you know, he's good at everything. This is crazy. So let me tell you a little story about this, folks. We went golfing, JoJo broke the course record, everything was cool. I always love doing that stuff. And next time I'm in Tyler, we need to go golfing again because it was a great time. Um, as far as just fun things that you want to get done here, you know, we've covered a lot of stuff. We've covered a lot about the business, we've covered a lot about your family. Before we end this, I want to just take a moment to thank you because in 2018, you reached out to me and asked me if I would consider partnering up with you guys. It took a little bit of time before that developed. A couple months down the road, we decided to do it. From the day that I joined forces with you and everybody that was involved in the organization, you guys treated me so well. And I got to see so many cool things, meet so many amazing people. Some of the relationships that I take advantage of now are 100% because of you guys. And just personally here, I want to thank you on keeping it real for everything that you've done for me. I consider you to be one of my best friends in the world, and I would do anything for you, for your family, because you guys have treated me so well. Um, that that's pretty much how I want to end keeping it real. I just want to thank you for all that, Jojo. You're the man. I love you to death, bro. And I wish you nothing but the absolute best. Guys like you win, because that's what you are. You're not gonna, you're not gonna allow yourself to lose. So nothing but respect. Final parting shot for the industry, for anybody that might be getting into this industry right now. What would you give advice if someone's looking at this? They're maybe 18. I got a 21-year-old that's working with me right now. What advice would you give to a 21-year-old that's getting into the industry right now that could help them maybe not screw up something that you or I have maybe screwed up somewhere along the way?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

I mean, just for starters, just do right by people. There's so many people in this industry and every industry that they just try to take advantage of people. That they everything is about money, money, money. It's do right by people, and the money will follow. You'll get referrals, they'll tell you about, you know, they'll tell your friends about you. Like, just do right by people. That's why we've been in business for 11 years because we're not perfect. We've had stuff go wrong. Shit, last year I had to replace a roof that cost me $40,000. Didn't feel good writing those checks, but you know what it was the right thing to do at that time, and we did it, and it just is what it is, just do right by people. Uh and keep committed to whatever goals you set. Set a number, know your numbers, and track them. And if you track, if if Chuck, if you're a new guy for Chuck, or if you're in another business and the owner is successful and he says, hey, if you go out and do this, this, and this, I don't care what it is, go out and knock a hundred doors a day, or go out and go to five networking meetings a week, or do this, if they're telling you that and they're successful, if you do it and you actually track those numbers, you eventually will get there too. Don't expect instant success because a lot of the things take time. But if you continue to do those things, track your numbers, you will get there eventually. Um, and with that, I'll leave it with like an Ed Milet quote. I really, really like he says that confidence is just keeping the promises you make to yourself. So if you tell yourself you're gonna do something, you tell other people you're gonna do something, just do it and your confidence will build. It doesn't have to be big things, it can be little things, right? Little, little tiny promises you make yourself. Hey, tomorrow I'm not gonna snooze my alarm three times. I'm gonna wake up on the first alarm and I'm going to be in the office by 7.15 tomorrow. That's not that big of a promise, right? It's not saying I'm gonna go out and sign five contracts this week. It's I'm just gonna wake up a little bit earlier, okay? And then the next day, 15 minutes earlier, instead of I'm gonna go to the gym five days this week, I'm gonna do it twice this week. That's accomplishable, right? So just make little promises to yourself and keep them, and your confidence will build. And as your confidence builds, you'll get better and you'll sell more and you'll make more, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

So it's that simple, folks. All you got to do is take the action, and that's something that I learned from this man a long time ago, and I've been doing it ever since. So much appreciation, much respect to everyone for watching, keeping it real 270 times. I appreciate everybody. Jojo, thank you for your time today. I always end it with the corniest line in the history of the world, and definitely stick around after I hit this uh this ending ad for my favorite sponsor of all time. But you guys know the deal. Keep on keeping it real. We'll see you next week. Thank you guys for being here. And Jojo, thank you for your time. You, my friend, are a legend, and I'm honored to have you on the show. Yes, sir. Later on, everybody, we'll see you next week. Watch this. 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 because it's the number one CRM in the industry. Everything that you can get with Roofer is gonna help your business grow. I think that y'all should do it for sure.