Jairo - The Roof Store: Today we're talking to Cody with Integris Roofing, an amazing company. He's one of those that operates with profits as the first and highest priority. He's going to tell you all about it in his own words.
Cody - Integris Roofing: We work hard and have put many systems in place so we can be more efficient with our time.
Jairo - The Roof Store: After listening to all of the systems that he has in place, and also to some of the adjustments that he's made over time, and he could do it more efficiently by onboarding some more systems. Cody, founder of Integris Roofing, does the work of 10 or 12 people.
Cody - Integris Roofing: The major thing for any roofing company is the CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). From day one, I evaluated all the CRMs. The big three that came to mind were Acculynx, JobNimbus and JobProgress for starting. I think Acculynx was a bit pricier than what we were willing to pay, so it left us with JobNimbus and JobProgress. At the time JobNimbus looked a little outdated and a little clunky and it didn't seem like they're headed in the right direction.
So we chose JobProgress because their app was amazing. They had all the tools and features that we needed to be organized, but yet estimate and estimate profitable jobs. And it worked well for a few years. JobProgress, back in 2020 to early 2022, they got bought out by Leap. I'm not sure. Are you familiar with Leap?
Jairo - The Roof Store: Not at all. Never heard of Leap.
Cody - Integris Roofing: They're (JobProgress) were mainly window and Bath and Remodeling Proposal company. You could do proposals in real time and go over with the customers. So they bought out JobProgress. And when they came on they, they, they did this whole webinar explaining how they were going to update the system and do all these things that we wanted it to do because, you know, you know, things get outdated with time.
01:52 - 02:19 Well, eight months went by and not a single update was done and now it's been about a year and six months and we've been off of them for almost a year. And I still yet to see any updates from JobProgress. As a consequence, I'm glad Integris Roofing is no longer using JobProgress. We switched to JobNimbus, reason why is because they got some new investors and they're putting a lot of time and a lot of resources and effort to make their product the best CRM product.
And not only that, an evolving product because then and and the software the worst one is the one that doesn't stay up to date. And so the ones evolving, that's the ones you want to partner with to grow your company. Last year, we were utilizing JobNimbus and were able to seem like we're this large company because we have automated texts going out to the customers and they booked their appointment, you know, automated invoicing through text message, which is a new feature.
So there were a few jobs that we were a little past due on collections and all we did is we sent them a text message through JobNimbus about their past due invoice and that invoice was paid on the same day and a few of those invoices. So that was nice.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Another reason why Cody (Integris Roofing) is a top operator is because of how much he values his time and is able to optimize his actions. When you were integrating JobNimbus into your company, you mentioned that you didn't even take JobNimbus' free help. You actually hired somebody that was even more specialized on being able to customize the CRM for your systems on how you do business (workflow).
And so a lot of average operators will just take what's available and don't even think about optimizing to that degree. So tell us more about that process, because it's not just about having a great system is you're able to really squeeze the juice out of every potential feature that JobNimbus has. You're raising the bar in the way you operate.
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. That was a part of reason why we switched from JobProgress is because they only have one workflow. And as we know in roofing, there's many different workflows. You have a different workflow for a commercial as you do residential. But even within residential you have insurance and you have retail. And then if you're a company that does repairs and you also have repairs, and that's not all going to go in the same workflow.
So in JobProgress, they didn't have the capability of having different workflows and JobNimbus does. But once we were making the switch, me being the owner and running a lot of things, it would mean a lot of time for me to devote to build out JobNimbus. Honestly, it would have cost me more money in the long run if I were to try to build out the systems myself.
And that's why I think a lot of roofing company owners are guilty of sometimes trying to take on more more than they should in certain aspects. And so my dad, he has his own software company. So I had a little bit of background on that and knowing how you have to optimize that software for your specific business, not all roofing companies are the same.
So that's when I reached out to John Dye with https://americancontractorshow.com/, and I asked him, I said I saw that he was promoting job members. I asked him, say, who helped you build it out? And he gave me the referral individual. Right now his name is not come into my head, but they helped me build out the job numbers and everything that I wanted it to be specifically towards my business.
Jairo - The Roof Store: And how did you find out about John Dye (https://americancontractorshow.com)? Was it a referral from JobNimbus themselves?
Cody - Integris Roofing: No, from John Dye of American Contractors. Okay. Okay. So I watch the American contractor show they have a YouTube channel and they have a TikTok and they promote a lot of different things. And one of the things they promote is JobNimbus and John Dye is actually, I believe he was a marketer first and then he started a roofing company and his roofing company has done extremely well.
So I wanted to reach out to him since he's had some some good growth and success, to see who help them build out their their CRM. And he gave me that referral.
Jairo - The Roof Store: We were also talking about phone calls and you mentioned how you use software for that. You mentioned Grasshopper, right? Okay. Some people might say, Should I hire somebody to answer the phones or should I go into the third party? Well, Cody has done both.
Cody - Integris Roofing: That can be done by hiring a third party, but it'd be a rigorous process to find out the perfect fit. So we went through a few different phone answering services and none of them really got the job done. I didn't give that customer that warm feeling they get when I answer the phone, when they speak to someone like me or someone that's an employee of the roofing company.
So, I would, if you're a roofing company that can afford to have an employee answer the phones. I would definitely say to hire an employee to answer the phones. But, if you're an owner running a smaller operation, I would say just use a service like Grasshopper to filter out some of the calls and answer the phone on your own because your business would filter out higher quality leads going that way.
One of the things that I wasn't able to answer the phones before, because what's your if your business is ranking on Google and ranking high, you're going to get a lot of sales calls from marketing companies, from Angie's List, from all these different companies.
Jairo - The Roof Store: And this is from the Google Business Profile?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yes, from the Google Business Profile. Okay. And so it'll take up a lot of your day if you're just picking up the phone every time. So what I what I did is through grasshopper as a set up a call directory, all they have to do is press zero to get patched in and answer their call. And with that it gets rid of a lot of the spam and robo calls.
We still do get some telemarketers that call us, but a lot fewer than before. And that frees up a lot of time for me. Technology has come a long way from where it used to be. I've only been roofing for about four years back. Probably even ten years ago, people weren't really using www.Eagleview.com or www.Roofr.com for 3D Aerial Measurements.
You have to measure from the ground and use a little bit of geometry to figure out the roof area. So nowadays when we have software like Eagleview and roofer, it really speeds up the time for us to be able to make these estimates. But every company needs to have their own tech stack to be really efficient and be really professional.
So for us, we use a few different software for us to be efficient. Number one, we use www.Roofr.com for our measurement instead of paying, yeah. Instead of paying 60 to $70 a measurement, we're paying $10. And if and.
Jairo - The Roof Store: How detailed are those reports?
Cody - Integris Roofing: They’re very detailed
Jairo - The Roof Store: Like an Eagleview Premium Report equivalent?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yes they have all of the hips, ridges, rakes everything on there, the pitch as well. And they didn't have it before, but now they have waste percentage suggestion on each roof.
The price on the roof measurements increased from $10 to $15. But if you're one of their premium users, you get the report for $10 and you get the report guaranteed in 2 hours.
They don't provide weather related reports that can be used to find a Date of Loss at this time. I'm not sure if that's something that they're looking to add, but they have a few other different things that we utilize as well with them. One is their proposals. So as JobNimbus, we can create proposals or estimates there. But it's very “plain Jane”. It's just, you know, font on a paper or whatever I can write in there with my logo and the price and which is fine, but it doesn't give the customer a very good visual appearance. When a customer reads, only the words are present, so the customer skips straight to the price.
So we use Roofr proposals, which creates these beautiful proposals that shows them the shingle colors, brochures for the shingles, gives them better visuals so they can understand the roof system rather than just being, you know, words on the paper and a price.
Jairo - The Roof Store: And is it embedded on your website? So that way the customer feels like they haven't left your website.
Cody - Integris Roofing: So the proposals, that's always going to be something that we're going to either do in person, but on our website we do have an instant estimator by Roofr. If you're networking with a bunch of realtors, this is a good offering to have them. A lot of them, they're just needing an estimate for negotiation and it's not sometimes they're not even looking to get the roof work done, so no one wants to waste your time going out there and do an inspection and create an estimate knowing that you're not going to get any work out of it, especially if you're doing it for free.
So what I tell all the realtors is, Hey, you can go on our website and go for an instant roof estimate. It's going to take an aerial image of that home. It's going to get an about it's going to get the square footage you put in there. If the roof is low, pitch, moderate pitch or steep. And then based off that, it's going to it's going to punch out a roof estimate, which is, from what I found, very, very accurate, within 1 to 5% of our actual roof costs and gives the range.
So for those people we have that if they're looking to get something really quick within a minute. Otherwise we do suggest for them to have us come out there and take a look at the property in person. Roofl is a bit more high tech than Roofr, but it essentially does the same thing. It gets an estimate for the roof.
So from what I understand, Roofl is a significantly more expensive investment than Roofr. Okay. And on the pricings, I don't have that memorized, but I know it's it's thousands more than Roofr. So once they get their instant estimate, you know what's enough? Within 24 hours, I can give them a call and ask them, hey, want more information about the roof project?
Looking to get the project done soon. When are you looking to get started? Is this for an insurance claim or is this something you're looking to get done out of pocket. That way, while that lead is warm, we can hit the lead and possibly make a cell. Those of you that are just starting out or on a smaller scale, even larger companies are someone dedicated to draw out measurements.
When I do have time, when I'm not super busy, when a customer wants a roof replacement, I'll draw it out on my computer. So when you draw on a computer, if you can use the stock image they have there of the house, you can draw it out for free. No charge. I can do that on a lot of the homes in the inner city.
Once you get to the outer city, the images aren't a very good resolution, but you can still buy the premium images (that are high resolution images). And those are $2 an image. So if you want to to estimate someone's house, you can do it as little as free or $2 an image as opposed to $10 or $15 or perhaps an Eagleview, which is $60 to $76.
So I know a lot of companies, they don't want to do retail because they don't want to spend all the money on Eagleview Premium Reports. So that gives you a way to get it done a little bit cheaper and start a retail side to your roofing business.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Cody also focuses on servicing his customers by helping them out with roof repairs. A lot of companies don't do roof repairs, Cody does repairs. How important to your sales funnel is it for you to be able to do repairs?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Oh, I know it's super important. You know, if I was a homeowner and I call out a roofing company and I heard they don't do repairs, well, I can pretty much guarantee you that they're not going to get my roof what I need to get done. And I got one when I call a roofing company, That's my roofing guy.
He comes out here and he takes care of everything. So that's what we want to be. What they have a flat roof pitched roof, tile roof, metal roof where they need a repair replace. We want to be able to take care of it. We weren't that in the beginning, but took a lot of hard work and effort to finding the right guys and learning, learning the different types of roofs and styles. But now I can confidently say that we can repair any type of roof.
Jairo - The Roof Store: And how quickly can you respond once they call you?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Usually we can get out there within 24 to 48 hours.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Is there a dedicated person or do you pull talent from the ones that you send out to do roof installations.
Cody - Integris Roofing: I do all of the roof inspections myself. We have dedicated people for roof repairs. So it took me a while to find the individuals or I can get it done at a cost effective rate for us to be profitable on repairs. But it can be done. I would say 99% of the time your subcontractor isn't going to be the person that you want to use for repairs.
Typically, they're probably going to be more expensive. So you want to find an individual that wants to take on contract work specifically for repairs. And that's what they do is they go out and they do repairs for roofing companies, all the big HVAC, all the big plumbing companies, they do the same thing. Typically. It's not their employees that are doing the repairs.
They'll hire individual subcontractors for repairs only, so you'll have different subcontractors for your repairs as you do for your full roofs. I would say when we get a call for repair, two thirds of those calls are legitimate repairs and about a third of those calls are replacements. They just think there needs to be a repair. Okay. 300 square apartment building calls up just to fix one roof leak. Well, it turned out their whole roof needed to get done. So, I mean, you don't.
Yeah, you don't want to turn away repairs. You do want to make repairs profitable. You want to have repair business because it's going to lead into more replacement sales. And anything and in any business is you want to have as many contacts as possible. So by repairs, we're able to double the amount of people that we we talk to.
So not only the repair people won't be waiting for them to replace, but those repair people. When you do a good job and you tell them about a referral program that you have now, you have a whole other pool of people that are going to refer you. Business have done business with you before. So that's why repair is super, super crucial, because if you just narrow and go to roofer roof replacements only, you're going to be dealing with half or less of the customers that you would get if you added on repairs.
Jairo - The Roof Store: How long did it take for you to stabilize to the point where you could reasonably predict that you would be profitable in the month to month basis, year to year basis? And that's how we would define something as your business has stabilized. So from when you started, how long did it take to stabilize?
Cody - Integris Roofing: We've been in business just over three years. We're in our fourth year. In our fourth year, but we started in June and June to December. We were already profitable. But when we went to the following year, from January to December, we were profitable and we're confident to the next year that we will maintain at minimum that level. Now it's taken more effort to take it up a notch and go into another year and take it up. But we've been pretty stabilize after the first full calendar year in business. I would say.
Jairo - The Roof Store: You've had a very profitable business model. So after year one, you're very profitable and then the other six months you started going a lot higher in sales. Now at this point, what was it that led you to want to go to that extra jump which was then to not have, I should say, not have the convenience or perhaps not valuing the convenience premium that the current model has for distribution to deliver roofing accessories to each jobsite in the one(sies) and two(sies). But now take on the responsibility of being responsible to take those few extra accessories to each jobsite. When you do go there. What made you take that leap?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yeah, I mean, it just any time that you're spending money, you're looking for ways that you can reduce certain expenses. So, you know, naturally when I saw your podcast with Dmitri and I checked out your website, I instantly saw here's, you know, the savings that we could have by switching to some of your products and ordering them in bulk.
The troublesome part was in the beginning because we thought about it before is this wouldn't we didn't have the office space. I did have an office, but it was separated from our storage. But now we have a flex space where we have office in the front and a storage in the back. So that's made it super easy for us.
And we do have a project manager that is employed and so it's very easy for him to take the Coil Nails to each job site. The project manager will already go to the jobsite in the mornings. It's pretty simple for us. I'd say the only thing that we had to add into it was making sure that the project manager has that materials list well before the job.
That way he knows the day before or the morning of this is how many boxes I need to pick up for that certain job. I would say with any business you should be focused on your numbers, your profitability and everything and don't be shy when it comes to talking with certain suppliers about pricing, because I would say it hit me in the butt early on. I had no idea how much more I was paying compared to my competitors and how much money that I was losing early on in my roofing business. And it wasn't until, I would, say maybe 6 to 8 months in, I realized that I was overpaying for all the roofing materials. Thankfully, I had a lot of insurance jobs where that model can hide a lot of unprofitable things in the roofing company doing insurance jobs.
But once I started getting into retail, it really fine tuned me into my numbers where I need to be. When I saw https://www.TheRoof.Store selling the nails at $28.95 a box and when right now when we're paying around $55, which is almost almost in half, pretty much like 40% Off, it was a no brainer for me to get that.
And then also the pipe jacks, too. That was super nice. We got the IPS 3N1 Galvanized Base pipe jacks that are pre-painted that look amazing. You don't have to buy cans of paint and you don't have to worry about painting on the shingle. We recently did a big commercial HOA job and I caught one of the guys spray painting the already painted Pipe Jack.
I'm lucky that I saw him do it. And I just thought, Hey, man, this thing's already painted. You haven't seen it? Yeah, I think it's systematic. Pilot. Yeah, I think it was muscle memory. I think that's what it was. We had paint because the water heater and the vents came in a galvanized color. But I should have put some of those cans of paint aside to prevent that mistake. But anyways, we got it all figured out. But yeah, it's super nice that The Roof Store can get us the painted IPS 3N1 pipe boots. I had no idea until I went to your website that we could get those pre-painted. All the Lowe's, all the Home Depot, all the major suppliers here, none of them carry the IPS 3N1’s in the different colors. I cannot figure out why they don't carry them. But to me it seems like a, you know pretty simple because I mean spray paint is just one more thing that we don’t have to order anymore. And, since we don’t have to order paint anymore, it just makes it more affordable and easier. Honestly, and not having to get paint on the shingles is big, especially when you're doing like this on million dollar houses. No one wants to see paint on their shingles.
We’re really happy and we're excited for The Roof Store to get some of the newer products in, the synthetics and the, the underlayment and stuff like that because we'd like to stock those as well and we order from all suppliers. But majorly ABC Supply, they had an integration with Job Progress. But what I found is that there's a lot of glitches and those integrations and sometimes they have their SKU numbers, they wouldn't match up or like or they were outdated in our system and want to send over some of the materials aren't getting sent over or say like their pricing on their was off.
So I don't know if that's been fixed. Now, JobNimbus unfortunately doesn't have integration yet with ABC Supply. I know that they're getting one soon, but we don't utilize that feature. We do do the material lists in JobNimbus and they have an automatic button where I can just press, send to my rep and it and sends it over to my rep what they see and then he gets the order and it has the date that I want it to be delivered and stuff like that as well. Then, I can put any special instructions on the bottom.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Due to human nature. I would say going to the website and ordering it yourself is the simplest, most, not only is it cost effective, but reduces the likelihood of an error occurring because it's not another person. Because see, when you email it to the rep, you still have to, he's going to have to input it.
Cody - Integris Roofing: Oh, I mean, anyone that has done enough orders knows that the suppliers are not perfect and there is human error. We've had the wrong color. We've had the wrong amounts. Anything you can think of, it's happened. So yeah, we have had to implement the project manager, you know, making sure that when they show up to the job site, that's the first thing that they do, they check the order by cross-referencing the delivery to the quantities and products ordered. The right colors are there, the right type of material and the right quantities. And I would say for you owners that are not doing that, you'd be surprised on how many times you're going to catch something wrong. And it's pretty often.
Most of it most of the time it's it's wrong quantities. So you may think the crew might tell you you order short on that job and you're like, Man, I swear I ordered the material. You did, but that material wasn't there. So the crew didn't use more. The roofing supply didn’t send the right quantity. And people aren't catching that. So we hear often we've caught it a lot and we've had to have ABC Supply credit us on certain things.
Most of it most of the time it's it's wrong quantities. So you may think the crew might tell you you order short on that job and you're like, Man, I swear I ordered the material. You did, but that material wasn't there. So the crew didn't use more. The roofing supply didn't send the right quantity. And people aren't catching that. So we hear often we've caught it a lot and we've had to have ABC Supply credit us on certain things.
And then sometimes there's also noticing damaged materials because of forklift neglect. They're going some new guy driving a forklift and he sticks the forks into the bundle of shingles near the bottom, damaging those first bundles of shingles.
Jairo - The Roof Store: That’s an entire couple of bundles gone.
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yeah, Yeah. It's not a big deal, but it's something that we catch.
Jairo - The Roof Store: It is a big deal because if it’s 6pm on a Friday on installation day and the roof installers are running short, they’ll be forced to find creative problem solving actions that don’t look good. Running low on shingles is bad and can be avoided by the roofing materials supplier being careful while driving the forklifts.
Cody - Integris Roofing: My biggest advice, if you're getting into commercial or HOA, is making sure if you're going to roof load, roof load most of the materials and leave a good portion on the ground because, the roofs, they have a steep pitch to them. Roofing materials will fall off and go here and go there. So that's where your waste is going.
It's waste not actually caused by cut waste. It's waste that's falling on the ground. And then to the mist of all of the trash and all that stuff. Separate some of the roofing materials on a separate pile and I would say don't even keep it near the crew. Make sure that your project manager is asked for additional materials so the material ordered doesn’t get wasted, stolen, or lost. These tips will reduce much of the avoidable waste percentage.
As you know, if anything in life, if you just give stuff away and it's too abundant, a lot of it's going to get wasted. As opposed to having to go to someone to get something. They will value the materials more if they are given as they are needed.
Jairo - The Roof Store: How are you marketing to acquire those leads?
Cody - Integris Roofing: Most of the leads there that are coming in, they're coming in just because of reputation. So I would say if you're new, do not go after big jobs. Wait, be patient. Wait. Trust me, because you'll get yourself in more trouble trying to do the bigger jobs, build your reputation, build your experience, really know your production, and then all that stuff is going to come. Knowing how to properly bid is very important.
We've gone out and tried to focus on big jobs and we struck out a lot of times. But sometimes you just need to let things come to you and don't rush the process. But once you start getting your commercial portfolio together, then I would say market to those businesses and kind of build those relationships in person. I'd have to look it up, but there are some apps where you can look up which commercial buildings are older, and I would suggest try to find what app that is and then go to the specific owners and knock on their doors. Say, Hey, I noticed you had an older roof. We want to build a relationship with you. We want to be your repair guy.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Any county in the United States, you look up the appraisal district and you can do a reverse search by typing in the address and it'll tell you the owner of the property, whether it be an LLC or an actual human being, but you also get their mailing address. So that's another way to cross-reference your information and really you'll have to mail it to them. They're not going to give you a phone number, but at least that's another way of finding out who the owner is and contacting them directly via mail.
The reason why you have to charge more is because it requires more people. If you're dealing with a 12, 12, one person has to be standing down here nailing and then the other person has to actually feed it and hold it. So now you're requiring twice as many people. And that's just one example. You might even need three people for every one person that you would normally have on a less pitched roof.
So the reason why it costs more, not because the safety issue, that's what people say, but it's not. It's because it takes more people and it takes longer, something that would normally that they could do in a day. If you've got a 12/12 pitch, you can't do that. You can't do 30 squares in one day, right? Yeah, you can’t. The high pitched roofs are going to take longer and need more people to complete.
Cody - Integris Roofing: Yeah. They're saying the same goes for three stories. Those homes, same guys got to go up a three story ladder bringing up bundles, this and that and we had to charge more because it takes a lot more time. Even though the roofs are itty bitty that we see on Houston, you can have roofs $350 to $450 a square. We're more like $400 to $450 or I think our minimum right now is like a $410 if we don't apply any discount or anything like that.
Jairo - The Roof Store: Yeah. And here's another thing. When you guys are doing inspections for you guys that haven't figured this out yet, you need to make sure that you're that you're figuring out what kind of fasteners are being used on that roof. Are they using ring shank nails because that's going to take longer to take out the debris. Are there screws, through your inspection that you're making sure that you know what kind of fasteners are being used and all of that is going to affect your profitability?
Part of being successful, 99% of is going to be preparation when you're doing inspections. Add that to the checklist. What kind of fasteners are there?
Cody - Integris Roofing: And so one thing that 80 to 90% of companies do not do.. go in the attic, I'll tell you the number one thing we're looking for and it's not leaks, it's the decking. So it's been a handful of times that we've caught would shake underneath the shingles. Oh, can you imagine tearing.
