5-Minute Lead Rule | Close 40% More | Beyond the Bid

If you're paying for leads right now, eight out of 10 are dying in the first hour.

the worst part is you might be on a roof when it happens.

My guest, Mike Christie, has spent 15 years inside one niche residential roofing, and he's proving this isn't just a marketing problem, it's a response problem.

His sequence flips close rates from about 1 in 10 to 8 in 10, using leads roofers are already paying for.

But halfway through this convo, we Mike drops a stat that I wasn't really ready for.

Roofers with documented systems sell to private equity at 8 to 10 times their earnings, and the shops without the systems only three to five.

You stick around to about 44 minutes in.

That's where Mike walks through the $49 a month membership play.

They got his own business bought for 13 times earnings.

And if you're planning to exit your roofing company in the next five years, this is the difference between retiring rich and retiring exhausted.

If you're new here, hit subscribe.

We break down builder systems like this every week.

Mike welcome to beyond the Bid.

You're listening to beyond the Bid, the show by Go first, where we share the systems, strategies and practical AI for builders.

Keep listening to learn how to win more of the right projects, boost profitability and scale.

Beyond the Bid.

here.

Thanks so much for joining us, Mike.

Happy to be here, Grant.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Absolutely, yeah.

so for those who haven't met you yet, do you mind just giving a quick intro of who you are and what roofing revenue system is all about?

Trust.

Sure.

So, my name is Mike Christie.

I'm the owner of, the Roofing Revenue System.

And I've been around the home services business for quite a few years.

Actually started my first business back in 1982, which was a window cleaning service.

I expanded into gutter cleaning, gutter repair, house cleaning, as well as pressure washing.

So I've been around that space for a long time and was in it for about 15 years and then got bought out by a consolidator who was, rolling through that particular sector.

I basically got into the digital marketing business at that point, as a contractor, as a freelancer, and continued to work with a lot of home services companies, and also started working with roofers.

And what was interesting about the roofing, business is how desperately they needed my help in terms of the digital marketing space.

And my specialty, my expertise is in the area of, what we call direct response, copywriting and email marketing.

So everything that I do from the standpoint of messaging is designed to get somebody to take an action.

And so for the roofing community, what I found very interesting was that, they were busy, you know, taking calls, going out and doing estimates, you know, getting on roofs, doing repairs and things like that.

And they really had very, very little time to really focus on the business because they're always working in the business.

Right.

And so, when I decided to start my agency, the Roofing revenue System, I designed it around, getting the roofer to start to focus on kind of, plugging the leaks, the revenue leaks in their business.

And the biggest revenue leak is not responding to leads fast enough.

That's really the biggest problem.

So they get very busy.

They're out doing estimates, they're on roofs, call, call comes in, lead form comes in.

Some of them don't respond to those leads for hours or even days or weeks.

By the time they get to the homeowner, the homeowner's already had three estimates, already chosen the roofer to come in and do it.

So there's a huge, huge need for this in the roofing community.

And I know this just in terms of the number of contractors that I talk to when I ask them, what's your biggest problem?

And they say, well, my biggest problem is kind of the feast and famine side of my business, which is.

First storm until the next storm comes through.

So, that's really, you know, why I decided to, you know, start the business.

And so far I, you know, I have no lack of interest for, you know, contractors trying to figure out how to create a better system through automation.

by using AI and automation so that they can respond faster, earn more money on the jobs, get called back by the homeowner when they need repairs and things like that.

So that's how I got into it.

I love it.

I mean, that problem, the feast or famine that is rampant throughout all of the trades, you know, this not only seasonality, but just emergency calls.

And so I think it's so, so crucial to have workflows and systems that not only allow you as a contractor, as a roofer to be able to handle that, the flood of calls when they come in, but also to manage downturns as well.

Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing is the, these roofers have great businesses, right?

They do excellent work.

The homeowners, you know, love them, but they have no plan B when it comes to, you know, when things slow down, they, you know, they have to look at the weather and say, boy, I hope we get a windstorm or I hope we get some hail.

I hope we get something that's going to disrupt, you know, the, the, the, the, the flow here and start getting some calls and lead forms coming in.

Yeah.

So, this is an interesting question.

What do you think is like the biggest hurdle or where do builders and roofers really get stuck when they're trying to grow their companies or scale their services out?

the biggest really is that the, you know, the most of these contractors, you know, are run by a single owner.

they're not franchised.

Most of them are not big chains.

So you've got an owner that is running the company, and that owner becomes the bottleneck.

So, you know, he or she is out doing estimates, follow up, managing crews, answering phones, lead forms and all that stuff.

And actually the reason that they do that is they want to make sure it's done right.

And I totally get that.

But in doing that, they really become the choke point.

And, so they, you know, they're not, they, they may have a CRM.

Most of them do but they don't use it because they're they're never set up for the contractor's actual workflow.

So they're.

I always call the CRM for a lot of, you know, my clients when I first meet them.

I call it the most expensive Rolodex I'll ever have.

Right.

yeah, they've got names in there, they've got phone numbers and they've got addresses.

But they're not utilizing any of the, any of the features that, that CRM has to help to automate their workflows.

And so for example, you know, leads going.

Leads are going to go cold in the pipeline because there's no automated follow up.

There's just a sticky note on the desk that says, you know, call Mr.

Smith about, you know, a question about his roof.

well, when, eventually when they get back to the office, they're able to do that.

so the I'll get to it after the job mentality of the, of the business owner, usually leads to the homeowner hiring someone else because they weren't there in time.

And so it's, it's really not, you know, it's not a lead problem, it's a response follow up problem.

And that really, it just falls on the shoulders of the owner because, you know, they're busy out there working, you know, in their business, not on their business.

And so they're, they're really the, the primary issue here and they just have to, they have to have a mindset shift.

You know, they just have to understand that in order to stay one, one step ahead, they have to automate systems, you know, repetitive systems that can be automated so that they can get out and see the homeowner the same day.

They send in a lead for form or they call in.

That makes sense, I think.

You know, having that goal of, hey, you know, lead response time is one of the most important metrics that we should be looking at.

So let's set a goal of within, you know, that same day that we get that lead form.

We want to have people, you know, boots on the ground, people actually visiting that home.

how do you even get started with that though?

How do you, is it, do you have a set number of metrics that really you should be looking at every day or every week?

Or is it more, you know, like focusing on a problem first?

You want to focus on the problem first before you really analyzing metrics aren't going to help you if you just, if you have a Problem.

Right.

So you really want to identify what's the problem.

And if the problem is that you are paying, you know, Facebook and Google for leads, and you're finding out that for every 10 leads that are coming in, you're really only closing one or two of them, that's the systems problem.

Right?

It's not a lead problem.

The problems are coming in.

So how do you close, 80% of them rather than 20% of them.

And that really, it basically just starts with the way that you build, the way you build your systems through developing pipelines.

And those pipelines are going to walk, create, a customer journey from start to finish.

And really, Grant, it all starts with the most important thing is that trigger.

The trigger is when they fill out a lead form or they call in.

So what happens?

They fill out a lead form.

and if you're not set up for this, that lead is going to hit, the form is going to come in, and on the homeowner side, there's just going to be silence, Nothing.

What we do is we set it up so that when a lead form hits, that lead immediately gets tagged, and I'm talking about instantly with a tag that identifies them.

Right.

That they completed a lead form or that, that.

That tag might say FB lead form.

Right.

For Facebook, sure.

And then immediately a text message will go out from the owner to that homeowner saying, hey, I'm on a roof.

Got your message or got, you know, got, got, your inquiry.

I'll call you within the hour.

Okay, so now what happens is the homeowner gets an immediate response from the roofer.

Okay.

And they go, okay, the guy's going to call me back in an hour.

I'm not going to go and fill out any more lead forms.

Does that make sense?

Because the homeowner doesn't fill out one form, they fill out five.

So if you are, if you're getting back, if that text message goes out within seconds after they, they, they, you know, complete the form, that homeowner is going to say, this guy's on it.

You know, I'm just going to wait for him to call.

Right.

Rather than have go through the hassle of filling out more forms.

But what happens too, is that simultaneously that text message goes out and we also fire an email with the same.

All right, so if they aren't, if they don't have their phone, but they get an email, show that an email message came in.

It's not the same exact language, but it is, Language that says, we got your inquiry.

you know, someone will be calling you within the hour, but in the meantime, if you want to learn more about our roofing services, here's a link for you to click and go check out our website, right?

So that's going to send them over.

And now what you've done is you've engaged them, okay?

Now the key is in this workflow, you have to have notifications set up so that you know that that is not an empty promise.

Somebody is going to call them in an hour, right?

So you have, you have a task that's assigned, okay, to a particular person and that, that, that task has to be completed by a certain time and that hits their calendar.

You also create an opportunity, that shows that that lead, you know, coming in is an opportunity that will go into the pipeline.

So that's going to, that's something that's going to show up on your dashboard.

And then, you're also going to, set up an autumn, you know, a notification that is going to notify the person that's responsible for doing the estimates.

Right?

So in this case, if it's not the owner, maybe it's the estimator, right?

So the estimator is going to get a notification on the, on his phone saying, hey, Lee just came in.

He knows, text message went out, email went out.

You have to call them by 8 o' clock or you have to call them by 9 o'.

Clock.

Right, Cool.

So that is.

And by the way, that's all automated.

There's not a single human hand in that particular process.

And so, you know, what, what we try to do in that, that whole sequence is to try to fill all the holes where that lead is going to fall through, right?

And then, you know, what happens is that continues down, down the sequence where, if the homeowner replies or doesn't reply, there are two separate branches for that.

So we make sure that if the, if the homeowner replies and they're contacted, they don't keep getting messages, you know, from, you know, from the contractor.

So, and that's just, you know, part of structuring, you know, the, the outbound communication side of it.

But, you know, we try to do, you know, what is, whatever is possible to plug all of the potential holes that a lead can go, you know, can go through.

Okay.

And so this system, in this scenario where, you know, lead fills out the form, they get that text message, they get that email, they get a call back from that Estimator within an hour, and then we'll say an appointment is booked, ideally that same afternoon.

Is that also part of your system where it kind of creates a route of new leads and their locations and project types and whatnot?

Yeah, because, if the owner or the estimator or somebody in the office calls them and has a conversation and books the estimate, they're booking the estimate within the CRM on the calendar.

That automatically fires, that automatically fires notifications, tasks, everything associated with getting that estimate done.

And it moves them through the pipeline.

The first stage of the pipeline is something called, inquiry or interest.

Then they're going to move into the estimate phase where that estimate has been booked.

Then they're going to get into what we call the pitched phase where the estimate is done.

But now that estimate goes out and they're pitching their service so it moves.

That's the journey that that homeowner is going to go through within the CRM.

and all, you know, every, every step and stage along that journey, Grant, is happening automatically.

And it's all done by triggering, right?

So when someone makes that appointment and puts it on the calendar, this, that's a trigger, right?

And the trigger is, you know, the trigger is designed to go ahead and fire the next automation, you know, that's going out.

So yeah, that all, that all comes together, you know, with with the trigger.

So we don't want to leave it up to the human, I should say, you know, to basically just say, that's right, I forgot I scheduled that estimate.

I've got to tell Mike that he's got to run out and do it.

No, when you schedule the estimate on Mike's calendar, Mike gets a notification on his phone that says you have an appointment at 11 o' clock and Mr.

Smith's house to look at his roof.

Okay.

And in, in.

And when that happens, Mr.

Smith will get a notification saying, you know, a text message, an email saying, hey, just to confirm the appointment for today at 11 o', clock, prior to, prior to the meeting, is there anything you, you know, is there anything, information you can provide for us about the roof?

And so you're going to start getting some back and forth, you know, with the homeowner as well.

So the whole purpose of this grant is to establish, a level of trust right off the bat where the homeowner sees the contractor as being responsive, courteous, trustworthy, you know, and, and right on it, like this is the person I want to work with.

I don't need to talk to anybody else.

This, you know, this team is totally on, you know, totally on what I need.

So, yeah, so they're not gonna, they're not gonna fill out more forms and talk to more roofers.

Yeah.

I mean, coming from a homeowner perspective, that is also such a pain.

Having to go out and fill just forms for an hour and not really know what the experience is going to be like too.

Yeah.

And you know, you're not, you're just not going to do business with someone who calls you back in a week and says, you know what, I got your lead, but I've been super busy.

You know, they're like, well, I've already, the job's already done, you know, so, yeah, that's the biggest frustration.

You know, that brings up a pretty good point too, which, you know, the top of funnel, it seems like it's ripe for opportunity with roof roofing.

but in terms of referrals, recommendations and just reviews, do you, do you also help build in any level of automation to kind of secure those and create a system around reviewing?

Yeah, because when a job is done, when it's finished, we, there are, review automations that, you know, that'll, that'll go out both in a text and in email asking them to leave a review on trustpilot, on Google, you know, on, you know, any of the platforms, you know that, you know that, you know, they're, they're using or used to in their area.

Okay.

but you know, Google's the primary one.

Trustpilot is another one that will send a link on that's really up to the roofer in terms of which review platform they want to be featured, on.

That makes sense.

same with referrals too, is that they're going to get referral, communications as well.

Cool.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That's, that's probably such a big win for most contractors nowadays just to have that.

Yeah.

And also I always, you know, this is not an automated system, but I always tell my, my, you know, customers, my clients is that when they're doing a roofing job, there are a couple of things that they want to make sure.

They want to make sure that their brand is highly visible so that their truck is wrapped.

They've got, you know, a lawn sign out there saying this work is being done by XYZ roofing company.

Here's the phone number and a QR code.

as they're finishing up the job, send one of the you know, one of the workers on the crew to go and work the neighborhood with door hangers and just hang a notification on the door just saying, hey, we just got done with a roof in your neighborhood.

and, you know, people driving by will see the truck, they'll see the door hanger, they'll see the lawn sign.

That's all part of that referral system, right?

It's not just the homeowner saying, you know, you.

You definitely want to use these guys.

They were awesome.

But you want to make sure that when you're in a neighborhood that, everybody in that neighborhood knows what a great job you did without the home.

Because a lot of homeowners, you know, they.

They feel funny recommending just because they don't want to be responsible, you know.

but, you know, if somebody would ask them and say, who.

Who did your roof?

They'll.

They'll tell them, but they're not necessarily outwardly going to say, you need to go see all these people.

When you're over at somebody at a friend's house for a dinner party, saying your roof is in pretty bad condition might not be the best topic.

First thing you want to talk about, yeah, your gutter's hanging off.

but I notice it all the time because here in Bozeman, we.

We just have so many new homes and so much work going on.

I always question when I walk by a house where the roof is being installed or worked on and is there's, you know, there's a pickup truck, you know, with some ladders on it, but there's no branding on that pickup truck.

There's.

There's nothing that identifies who's doing the work, where they're from.

You know, the guys are not wearing T shirts or caps or something.

And it's such an easy fix.

It's such an easy thing to do.

because if you have your truck or your van totally wrapped, you have a rolling billboard, like literally a rolling billboard, and phone number, QR codes, website, URLs, everything.

Just make it so that someone sitting at a stoplight sees you and is able to dial you up.

So that's another, just on that topic too, I think it was Tommy Mello or somebody had this idea, which is, you know, oftentimes you need.

If you don't own a dumpster, you need to rent a dumpster if you're a roofer.

And, you know, if you.

If you're renting, putting your brand is very difficult.

without some type of Temporary thing.

And so the idea was to basically get a big printout of your, your logo and all of your information as a magnet that you can just throw on the dumpster and then take off when you.

Big banner.

Yeah, exactly.

A banner with bungee cords.

You know, I see that.

I mean that is such a brilliant.

No cost or low cost.

I mean the banner is going to cost something, but if you're using it every day, you know, it amortizes down to pennies.

You know, the other thing too.

And I used to do this when I, Because when I, after I got out of the home services business, I had a number of car washes.

And what we did was the car, we had a, back in the day, I don't remember, but they, they had the massive size Hummers, right?

I mean just monster size.

We had one wrapped and it was.

The name of my car wash was Splash Car Wash.

And we would park it in the busiest parking lot in town.

So it was a parking lot that had.

All of.

It was kind of a strip mall type thing where there was the supermarket, Starbucks, there was a cvs, there was a Verizon store.

So there's like, there was so much traffic.

Cool.

In this, you know, in this, parking lot.

And what we would do is if we were running a special, we would put a banner on, you know, on the on the Hummer.

and if we weren't promoting anything, it was just, you know, we would, you know, basically people would know it was the Splash Hummer.

You know, the address was on there and we might have, you know, put a promotion or something, you know, on there as well.

that we could put on and take off.

But the point was it was basically free advertising.

And we had so many eyeballs on it, it was, you know, it was crazy.

So we would drive it all around town.

It would, you know, we would park it someplace in the morning, park it someplace in, you know, in the afternoon, you know, it was always out so people could see it.

Wow, that's super smart.

Did you guys.

You know, I'm not sure if the tech existed at that time, but nowadays I imagine you could toss a custom QR code on there and then track how many people are actually engaging with that so you can start to see the ROI of parking at different places.

Yeah, this is pre QR code.

so yeah, it's but yeah, absolutely.

I think QR codes, every, everything should have a QR code on it.

You Know, I, I saw one, one of, a roofing, client who his, his crew had the name of the roofing company on the front and a massive QR code on the back.

And so, you know, every single worker was branded.

You know, that if somebody, you know, stopped by and said, hey, you know, where are you guys from?

He just turn around and, you know, the QR code would connect.

So, yeah, you can get really super creative with that stuff.

But my point is, if you're out in the community, I guess the takeaway is if you're out in the community, make sure that everybody that sees you knows exactly where you're from and knows exactly how to contact you.

And you may not have to do a lot of advertising.

That could be your advertising.

I love it.

Yeah.

So, this is, I think, applicable for, you know, roofers of all sizes.

But when you were just starting out with your car wash before you, you guys had the Hummer, what were, what was like one or two ways that you like, really started to systematize that company and make sure that you weren't, like you said earlier, the bottleneck in it.

Well, for the car wash, believe it or not, the car wash and the roofing business are very, very similar in that in the old days, car washing is a weather business, right?

So when it's sunny, people wash their cars.

When it's cloudy or rainy, people don't wash their cars.

So when I, started my first wash back in 2004, for the first six years that we were in business, we were 100% weather dependent.

That was crazy because you'd have a week of rain or cloudy days and you would do very, very few cars.

And then all of a sudden the sun would come out and you'd get swamped with business at that point in time.

And again, the systems of running a car wash, it's a production.

It's, you know, it's a production line.

It's like a factory.

So all the systems associated with, greeting the customer, finding, out what they want, getting paid, going through, vacuuming the car, going into the tunnel, washing the car, finishing the car and sending them off, all systematized and it's all, you know, computerized.

But really, I think where, you know, where the transition came for my wash is when we introduced the unlimited wash plan.

And so the unlimited wash plan was, you know, you pay $49.95 a month and you can wash your car every day.

Right.

My, my customers thought that I was Going to go out of business.

Sure.

You know, by doing that.

Because they all said, well, I'm going to come every day.

well, we immediately signed up, I think, you know, about 300, you know, of our customers immediately signed up at $50, you know, a month.

So we're, we're, you know, generating, we're generating that much money day one, you know, of the month.

Yeah.

Whether it was rainy or not, we put that money into the bank.

And the reality is that, the average unlimited, car, Customer only came 1.3 times a month.

So they weren't being said.

There were people, obviously that will come all the time.

But the point is, our business really transitioned when we went to a membership model.

Because now, I had the money flowing in every single month where I could make investments in the wash, I could expand what got me from one car wash to multiple car washes.

the other thing that it did was it increased the value of my car wash.

So typically car washes sell for three to five times earnings.

When I got bought out by a private equity firm, I think they paid 13, 14 times earnings for that wash.

And the only reason they did was because of my membership list.

Right.

It was two things, membership list and systems.

So, you know, and again, the way that this correlates, to the roofing business is that the roofing business right now is primarily weather related, right?

yeah.

So, you know, when you have high winds and storms and hail like this time of year, in most places, the roofers are very busy, you know, running around doing repairs, you know, fixing and replacing roofs.

Not every single day does a roofer get an inquiry saying, I need a new roof or that I'm building a house and I need a roof and I'm looking to hire, you know, a roofer.

So, what, what I developed was something called, roof guardian, which is a membership platform for the roofer.

And the membership platform basically is structured in that when a roofer gets done with a job, and it could be a repair, it could be a new roof, it could be anything.

But they go through the process that I spoke about in the beginning where they responded to the lead, they got hired by the homeowner, they did a great job before they leave the property and before they leave the homeowner, they pitch the homeowner on a membership program where they pay a small monthly fee.

And in that comes a whole host of, services that the roofer is going to provide without the homeowner having to call them or you know, schedule or do anything like that.

And so, what this, you know, and there are roofing contractors out there that have, you know, that do have, membership programs that they created themselves.

Right?

They built it themselves.

They went through that whole process.

What I've done is I've created a system that's built for the roofer.

All they have to do is install it and it's just.

And it.

And it runs automatically for them.

So if, for example, you know, the roofer, you know, sells the lowest level and they can determine the price, but let's just say it's $49 a month.

Well, they're going to, you know, they're going to generate monthly income, annual revenue from that particular membership.

Okay.

And that homeowner is not going to go to any other roofer when they have a need.

Right?

They're going to be like, no, I work with this company.

You know, I need something, they call.

But also the roofer has, through the system, has scheduled touch points with the homeowner.

Right.

During the course of the year.

And the coolest thing about it is most, you know, roofing contractors have, storm trackers, apps that they use.

For example, something like Hail Trace.

And so what happens is when their storm tracker sends them a notification based on their filtering saying, hey, when we get winds above, wind gusts above 70, and we have, you know, and, and we have verified hail of a certain size, that, that, contractor is going to get a notification.

And in our system, they can fire, you know, a storm message to all the people who are members saying, hey, you've, you know, storm is moving through the area.

Don't worry, we'll be out within 48 hours to assess if there's any damage.

Right.

Homeowner doesn't need to do a thing.

The roofer's going to show up, check out the roof, see if any shingles, you know, were torn up, see if there's any hail damage, see if, you know, anything is disturbed.

Like, we have hail storms here that rip the downspouts out of gutters, you know, because it's all going down through the gutter.

And, so there's almost always damage associated with it.

And if you're a member, you get a discount on labor and materials.

So what happens is every single time you have a weather event and, the contractor has to go out and inspect the roof, he's selling something, right?

yeah.

yeah.

You've got loose shingles, you've got shingles in your backyard.

So that has to be replaced.

this caulking has to be redone or this drip edge has got ripped out, or your gutters are damaged.

They're always going to get repair work from that.

But it's all built in.

So if they, you know, if they have 100 members, right, they have to hustle to get out to see all of those, you know, all of those roofs.

But the point is they're going to be really, really busy doing repair work, you know, from that.

So again, and the other thing too, by having that recurring revenue, it gives the roofer confidence to go out and hire more people.

It's like, no, I can, I can increase my staff because I've got this coming in.

I can buy a new truck because I have this money coming in, right?

I can upgrade my systems.

I can get a bigger, you know, a bigger space, a warehouse, whatever.

So recurring revenue solves, you know, a myriad of problems in running a roofing company.

But as important is that if, and I know this because there are a lot of roofers that are getting to the point where they don't want to be on the roof anymore, right?

They've been in the business for 30 years and they're like, you know what?

I need to transition out of this business.

I don't have anybody in my family that wants to be a roofer, right?

I don't have anybody to sell it to.

Well, if they have systems in place, Grant, and they've got recurring revenue through memberships, it's no different than my car wash.

They're going to get probably twice the, you know, twice the, earnings number, that they would pay out, that they would have gotten originally.

So with most roofing companies, they're three to five times earnings.

With roofing companies that have systems and recurring revenue, they're up around 8 to 10 times earnings.

Okay?

And I heard this from a friend of mine who's an investment banker and I'll never forget what he said because this is when I owned a car wash.

He said, mike, when people buy a car wash, they're not buying the car wash or notice it.

Where?

He said when.

When a, when a, when a P.E.

firm, when a private equity firm buys a car wash, you know, or a roofing company, they're not buying the company, they're buying the systems.

Of the company.

Because when, and I've done a lot of transactions, when that transaction occurs and that money hits my bank account, the person that bought the company wants to Be able to basically pick up where I left off without a glitch.

the only way that can happen is with systems.

Right?

So the business is not dependent on Mike.

The business is dependent on how well the system was set up.

And so people who are smart, who are acquiring companies, the first thing they look at, show me your system, show me your CRMs, show me your pipelines, show me your workflows, show me how, what happens to a lead when it comes in, right?

How does it get processed?

How does the estimate get done, how does the work get done, how does the follow up get done?

And if that isn't all systematized and automated, then they're going to basically say, we really like your company, but you need to fix these things if you want, if you want us to make an offer.

Right.

and then on top of it, if you've got 250, 300, 500 members that are paying a monthly fee and generating $250,000 a year in additional revenue, that's huge.

I mean, that's, that makes it a very attractive.

absolutely.

Would you say that's kind of like your, your ideal audience is, you know, roofers who not only are looking to increase their cash flow and through, you know, repeatable revenue, but also who have, may even have this idea of building enough systems so that it might gather the attention of a PE firm and give them the ability to sell for a, you know, 10x EBITDA.

And you know, a number of years I haven't met anybody that says they love the roofing so much that they will turn down a big fat check if somebody wants to write it.

the people that don't like the PE firms in the roofing industry are the people that work for roofers, not the roofing owners.

And I see this all the time.

the roofing owners are like, yeah, I mean, if someone wants to write me a check for 10 times earnings versus 3 times earnings, I am probably going to say yes to that because guess what?

I can either A, retire or I can b, go out and start another company.

Now, I may not be able to start another roofing company in my town, but I could start some other company.

So yeah, we, you know, I don't think that there are really too many operators out there that would, you know, say, yeah, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna turn down that opportunity.

you know what I'm, what my mission is in the roofing industry is to educate the roofers on the value of having, Revenue producing systems that plug the leaks.

And also the value of having membership, membership programs in place where they can, you know, they can capture a homeowner, you know, basically do all of their roofing work and on top of it provide, protection.

And that's the other thing I'll say grant about the membership program because I get pushback on this.

you know, an operator will say, I tried a membership program, it didn't work.

I'll say, well, you know, how did you sell it?

They're saying, well, I sold it as maintenance, right?

So, you know, pay me this much money a month or, this much money a year and I will watch your roof for you.

And people are like, okay, well, I don't really think I need that.

Right.

So the way I position it with the operators is you have to sell it as protection, not maintenance.

Right?

So what you're doing is you're paying $49 a month to protect your new roof, okay?

And so what that means is you're going to get two inspections a year.

Anytime, there's a storm, somebody's going to show up to see if there's any damage without you having to make a call.

they're going to, in inspecting the roof, look for loose shingles, wet spots, all these other things, because if something happens that they can spot early, it won't turn into a big problem.

So before the water starts coming through the living room chandelier, right, Due to a, you know, due to a leak, if you're, if you have somebody that's looking at your roof twice a year, they're going to spot something that could be a problem, right?

Absolutely.

So it really is, it really is protecting the investment that you made in the roof, which means that the roof will last longer.

And, it means also that the homeowner doesn't have to worry about it.

So that's kind of what you're kind of selling, peace of mind, protection.

And this is very, very big, when you buy any type of a product like an automobile or an appliance or something, if you're an Amazon buyer, you know that you can buy a $5 item and they want to sell you a warranty for it, which to me doesn't make any sense, but, but you know, when you buy a new car, you know you're going to sit in front of the person that's going to pitch you on an extended warranty, right?

and so that business is very big for a reason.

It's because People want to know that their investment is protected and so reason why we buy insurance.

Right.

So, you know, I think that, you know, as I said, you know, my mission, you know, with the roofing community is to educate them on, you know, these, these things and help to maybe break old patterns, you know, of, thinking, reframe it a bit with the, with the homeowner so that they understand that it's not just come in, fix my roof and leave.

It's, you know, come in, fix my roof, establish a relationship and provide protection against anything that could, you know, go wrong with my roof.

And so, you know, there, there is a lot of interest in it from the roofing community.

I think it just, it requires, you know, a lot of education, you know, in order for them to know what it is and how to sell it.

So for those who essentially want to take that next step and want to learn more about, you know, where to get started with memberships and increasing their cash flow, where can they start to, do that?

Well, you know, I'm active on Facebook, so I, you know, they can, they can look me up on Facebook.

Michael Christie.

therevenueroofingsystem.com is my website.

They can go there and they can, check that out, send me a message.

My email is miketheroofingrevenuesystem.com Send me an email or message me on Facebook.

Excellent.

and yeah, I'm, I'm available if anybody, you know, wants to chat.

I, I do find what's interesting is I was really kind of surprised by this, but, you know, the roofing community really is very active on Facebook.

yeah.

there are a lot of groups, there are a lot of, roofing contractors that are, you know, always looking for, always looking for information, asking questions.

I mean, I really find it refreshing that somebody who's in the roofing business, or wants to get into the roofing business can use, you know, the Facebook groups to, you know, start making connections.

So, yeah, for some reason I find that's just commonplace in construction and residential construction.

Like, there are so many valuable, groups for all the trades.

my gosh.

Yeah, it really is.

And, you know, the, some of these groups are very large, they're nationwide.

So you could be in Texas asking a question and someone, you know, from Toronto is going to give you an answer, and they're going to do it in real, in real time.

So it's a huge benefit, I think, for the roofing community.

Any of the traits know, really benefit from it as well.

And I, think that's really, you know, the go to the go to place, you know, for people right now.

absolutely.

Well, Mike, this was a killer conversation.

I really appreciate you coming on and sharing some knowledge with us.

No, my pleasure.

I'm hoping that, maybe, you know, people that are listening can get a few little nuggets from it.

But, yeah, I enjoy the.

I enjoy working with the operators and, you know, love to help them out in any way that I can.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Well, hey, we'll, hope, to bring you on soon and, Or bring you on back again and, But you enjoy the rest of your day.

Okay?

Thanks, Grant.

Grant.

I appreciate it.

Yep.

Bye.

Look, my entire mission with this series is to see talented builders and business owners stop getting run over by operational chaos and to actually start building the business they deserve.

If this episode gave you even one tool or 1% of a tool to fight back, please share it with a fellow builder.

Help me spread the word.

That is all I ask, so make sure you subscribe so you're ready for the next one.

Until then, systems scale your success.