Roofing Company Owner | AZ, CA, & UT. Commercial & Residential | Posting the lessons I learn along the way
Phoenix, AZ
Joined June 2014
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Ryan Larue retweeted
this OpenClaw agent SELLS roof inspections on autopilot.
it watches hail radar 24/7, finds every $1M+ home in the storm path, and mails them a postcard with a satellite shot of their actual roof + a QR to a personalized video pitch by the next day
reply "HAIL" + RT and I'll send you the full guide so you can build this too (must be following so I can DM)
How is it, that when you have a G MB profile and make almost any change to it, your account gets suspended. But when a scammer blasts you with 1 star reviews, magically they don’t automatically get removed. @Google I speak for all the SMB world, can you please makes these issues stop?
October was a record revenue month for us. But revenue per lead was the worst I’ve experienced. We left 7 figures on the table. Here’s some context:
July - $8793/lead
Aug - $7384/lead
Sept - $6401/lead
Oct. - $3466/lead
We had the almost double the leads of our highest lead month, closing ratio dropped dramatically. I recommend tracking revenue per lead and training your team to understand this KPI so they can understand not all revenue is equal
6208
That’s how many minutes I spent talking on my phone last month.
That’s 4.31 days of being on the phone or over 14% of my life. An unhealthy amount. Not all business, but I’d say 85-90% is business related.
Ryan Larue retweeted
Much, much harder to be a quarterback than an armchair quarterback
Just read that Starbucks lost $30B after hiring a McKinsey consultant as CEO.
Guy spent his career advising founders how to build companies, but never built one himself.
17 months later, he’s gone.
They bring in the Taco Bell CEO…
and the market cap jumps $20B overnight.
Turns out running a company is harder than advising one.
If people spent as much time working on the “thing” that they spend on: coaching zoom calls, seminars, meetup after meetup, brain pick after brain pick; they would be in substantially better position and further along in the journey.
You don’t need another zoom call, YouTube video, brain pick session, or seminar. You need action. Learn, then do. Don’t get stuck learning.
There’s nothing more enticing than a customer telling you “if you take good care of me on this project, I know a lot of people I can refer you to”. These types of people will never refer you.
Found out today a former employee that scammed us, was also working for another company while simultaneously he started his own competing company. All while doing it from our internal office. Stolen leads, tried to recruit members of our staff and crews. We had a contract in place, I’m heavily considering dropping the hammer on this guy.
I never trusted this person from about 2 weeks in. I knew for months he should be fired (for multiple reasons), but kept making excuses for keeping him around hoping things would turn around for the better. Fire fast, hire strategically slow. People are snakes and if they show even the slightest sign of distrust, they’re not meant to be in your organization.
Partnerships are one of, if not the biggest, mistakes I’ve made in business. I can’t think of a single partner that didn’t screw me over in one way or another. It’s unusually money related, but a close second is lack of responsibility.
You don’t need a partner to have a successful business. Money changes people. Anyone who is married to the money will most likely be the worst partner 🚩
Day 900+ where I still can’t find a use for ai in my business. I get these messages multiple times per day. At this point, I’m pretty sure everyone feels like ai services like this feel scammy. I’ll check back later, but so far I haven’t been left behind like every other person on social media keeps parroting
I refuse to answer or do business with anyone who double calls me back to back. I think that is one of the most annoying sales tactics anyone could ever adopt. If I didn’t answer the first time, why would I answer the second time?
In the SMB home serve world, clients expect perfection. Or even better than perfection sometimes. They’re usually paying a high ticket price, so expectations are high. They most often expect zero mistakes to happen, especially in roofing.
Roofing is not a fun purchase and a lot of people seek the highest value for the cheapest price. And when a mistake does happen, it’s usually full blown panic mode.
It’s usually “how could this possibly happen?” And my answer is always the same: stuff happens in any industry, but we will fix it no matter what.
Yesterday one of our suppliers hit us with a gut punch after they told us that all of our California material orders for the past 2-3 months, hasn’t been applied to our credit account and that we owed $160k. Multibillion company, with seemingly endless resources, systems, processes and people; and they made the mistake of not apply months worth of material orders to our account. And then ask us to pay it all right there on the spot.
Even billion dollar companies make big mistakes. We try to build within our sales process for clients to understand this and that we too can sometimes make mistakes. But we will fix them and stand firm in our quality of deliverables. You have to learn to control emotions during mistakes, including the client’s. When they escalate, that’s when things go bad. Emotions, trust in proper completion, and extreme communication are the things that matter most.
People on X / social media get very upset about the prices of roofing. You people do realize the roofers don’t set the prices right? Like literally everything else in the world, the prices have gone up significantly over the past 4-5 years. Don’t like the prices? Don’t be a property owner.
Let a good guy go today. It never gets easier firing/laying off a good person. Great guy, but slow work ethic and poor performance.
Everytime this happens, I learn more and more about team culture dynamics. Keeping someone like this around just because they’re a good person, ultimately kills team morale. We were doing him a disservice by allowing him to stay.
We get these messages in email, dm and text all day; everyday. Companies do not want a robot talking to their customers.
Do not allow this in your company. I’m sure people have had customers book an appointment from there AI service. I’m not saying that it’s not possible it won’t work, but I can guarantee there is a massive fall off rate because of this
Ryan Larue retweeted
10 reasons you should NOT buy a business:
You’ve seen the headlines: “Entrepreneur acquires a business, scales it, sells it, and retires rich.”
Here’s what you don’t see
1. The role of luck.
You can be doing everything right, and still lose. An exogenous shock can wipe you out overnight. Think about office building owners when COVID hit—punched square in the face. If you can’t stomach uncertainty, owning a business isn’t for you.
2. Personal guarantees.
If you’re a first-time buyer, chances are you’ll need to personally guarantee the debt you raise. That means your house—and everything you own—is on the line.
3. You are the “catch-all.”
The unsexy work, the gaps when someone quits, the customer emergency at 9:30 p.m.—they all land on your desk. Usually at the worst possible time.
4. Say goodbye to sleep.
Business ownership means 2 a.m. ceiling stares, running the numbers or replaying tough decisions in your head. The “off switch” doesn’t exist.
5. Litigation is inevitable.
We live in a litigious world. Frivolous lawsuits, real or imagined claims—it’s not if they come, but when. And each one burns time, money, and energy.
6. Bad actors find you.
Over the years, I’ve had employees I thought I could trust rob me blind and lie to my face. As an owner, you will encounter people whose ethics don’t match yours.
7. Tragedy strikes.
Few things are harder than navigating injuries, serious illness, or even suicides among team members. These moments leave permanent marks on an owner.
8. Difficult conversations are unavoidable.
Vendors who fail. Senior leaders who underperform. Team members who show up late again and again. Ownership means leaning into these conversations, not avoiding them.
9. Sometimes you lose money.
Hopefully it’s just for a month. But sometimes, losses stack up for multiple months in a row—and it’s scary.
10. You’ll make unpopular decisions.
Sometimes it’s layoffs. Sometimes it’s price increases. Sometimes it’s saying “no” when everyone else wants a “yes.” You carry the burden of those choices.
So why share all this?
Because business is hard. And too often, only the “highlight reel” makes it into the conversation.
If you crave certainty, easy work, and comfort—business ownership isn’t for you.
But if you embrace challenges, thrive in uncertainty, and (maybe) have a touch of gluttony for punishment…
then small business ownership might just be the most rewarding, meaningful path you’ll ever walk.
I get blasted daily with marketers trying to get me to use their ai calling systems. I can’t imagine any person actually wanting to speak to anything ai related. The very second I realize it’s ai, I hang up. I can only imagine most people do the same thing
Chronicles of California contracting: had my regional manager go to pull a permit in a city we’ve pulled many permits in, they tell him he needs a “california” notarized letter of authorization before he can pull permits and that all prior permits will now be investigated. They wouldn’t accept an out state AZ notary (where we’re based out of).
Had to send some on a quick round trip flight to simply sign a paper in front of a California notary. They purposely put up as many barriers as possible to prevent businesses from progressing
Make it easy for people to do business with you. Your internal processes shouldn’t be a barrier for people to transact with you.
Ex: renting equipment from a major provider on the west coast, the only way they will accept payment is if you have a credit account with them. No other form/path of payment is accepted. How dumb