Roofing Success
The Roofing Success Podcast is a show created to inspire roofing contractors to achieve optimal success in their roofing businesses. The host, Jim Ahlin, is the co-author of the book, "Internet Marketing For Roofing Contractors, How to TRIPLE Your Sales and Turn Your Roofing Website Into an Online Lead Generation Machine", and Co-Founder of Roofer Marketers, the Digital Marketing Agency for the roofing industry. On each episode, Jim will be sitting down with industry leaders to talk about their processes, the lessons they learned, and how to find success in roofing.
Roofing Success
When Success Turns Toxic: The Downside of Hitting Your Goals with Nathan Tebedo
What happens when you finally hit your biggest goals? Nathan Tebedo of Contractor Coach Pro shares the surprising truth about what comes next—and it’s not all champagne and celebrations. In this insightful episode, Nathan reveals how success can sometimes create new challenges for roofing company owners and contractors alike.
We dive into:
👉 The power of aligning your personal dreams with your business vision.
👉 Why reaching your goals can trigger a “mid-entrepreneurial crisis.”
👉 How to reset and redefine your vision after achieving success.
Whether you’re just starting out or scaling your business, Nathan’s actionable advice will help you grow without losing sight of what matters most.
🔗 https://contractorcoachpro.com
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What happens when your personal dreams finally align with your business vision? Nathan Tebido has spent years helping contractors make that connection, and now he's seeing the results. In today's episode, we talk about the power of defining your dreams and vision and how they dictate the size and structure of your business. Nathan Tebedo from Contractor Coach Pro has been coaching contractors for over seven years, helping them turn dreams into reality while building sustainable businesses. As a new father, nathan brings a fresh perspective on balancing personal and professional aspirations and shares why clarity is the key to it all. Get inspired by stories of transformation and learn how to set a vision that leads to real results. Let's dive into this insightful conversation. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Nathan Tebedo, contractor Coach Pro. How?
Speaker 2:are you, brother? I am doing fantastic. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 1:Good man, Life with young kids that's your life now, huh.
Speaker 2:It is. It is. I know that many of your viewers I probably know and know me and I see when I'm out about doing things, and if you haven't seen me for a while, um, it is because I've kind of moved into kids zone a little bit. So my wife and I just had a baby boy a little over two months ago and then, uh, almost two years ago, we had a little girl, and so she's about to turn two and he's just over two months, and so last couple of years I haven't been out and about quite as much, but I've been no less busy.
Speaker 1:That's right, no less busy. What's your favorite thing about being the dad? Oh man.
Speaker 2:So playing with them is just an absolute gas, and with the little boy it's kind of tricky because he's still just so tiny and so making him smile is awesome. But just being around them and watch them develop and then watching these little personality ticks start to emerge, that's a lot of fun. Like my daughter she did it just this morning and my wife and I noticed it.
Speaker 2:The baby gate to the stairs was open, which normally it's closed. She navigates the stairs very, very well, so it's not like that's just up just to kind of keep track of where she is at this point, but she can navigate the stairs just fine. But she ran over and closed the baby gate, which you which for her being a tenacious little kid, you might think she wants it open because then she can go downstairs if she wants. She went over and closed it. My wife kind of looked at me and in my mind I thought well, something was out of order. As long as she's been alive, that gate's been closed and that gate was open. So she made it right and so now my brain.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking, oh my gosh, that might be a little component of her. That's like me. They're like. I'm thinking that doesn't go there, it goes here, and so it's just. That kind of stuff is just just an absolute blast.
Speaker 1:So cool, right, it's so cool. It's a. It's a lot of fun. My boys will turn 10 here soon and it's just like every year, it just gets it's I don't know better and better Like. It's so such a fun journey.
Speaker 1:We've talked in the past about developing your dreams for your roofing business or for yourself personally that tie into your business vision, and how to connect the two, and how sometimes we, we have this vision of our company that doesn't align with our dream of our personal life, and we've we've gone through that. If people haven't go back and listen to some of those conversations um, today, man, we were talking earlier it's like having those conversations now with people you've been coaching for what? Seven years now, and your contractor, coach pro, has been around for a decade or so. Right Like, yeah, it's a. Now there's. It's not just how do we build these dreams anymore, it's what to do when you actually realize them. Right Like, isn't it? It's so cool to see people who have executed on the coaching that you've provided and now they've fulfilled that dream that they wrote down in the beginning. It's there Like, they're living it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 1:some of those dreams that you, that, that you've seen written down on those papers over the years.
Speaker 2:So, um, just to define some terms a little bit, at least the way contractor coach pro does it, cause you can you can walk down and get go down a rabbit hole on YouTube over what, how to develop your business identity and dream and all that kind of stuff. So, just to be clear, like for Contractor Coach Pro, we kind of try to work with our clients to create two different structures. The first one is your dream. That's a very personal one. In other words, I started this business and I own this business and I want this business to do something so that my life can be a thing. That's almost always why we start business. We're looking for freedom, we're looking for financial gain, we're looking for being our own boss or any number of different things. And so your personal, your dream, from our perspective, is really about what you want personally, how much you want to work, where you want to invest, what you want your life to look like, the kind of travel you want to do or who you want to help If you're married, what you and your spouse want your daily routines to look like and where you want to spend your time. All this kind of stuff. That stuff is all kind of wrapped around this concept of your dream, okay, and so we also talk about this concept of a vision. Okay, the vision tends to be very company oriented. In other words, this is what I want my business to look like. Okay, now, the timeframes around these things can vary. You could have dreams that you want to try and accomplish in the next year, the next few years, or they could be five, 10 years down the road. Your vision needs to be a little more specific because, as it pertains to what you're trying to do with your business, you want to be able to communicate that to your people, because your people are directly involved with this. Okay. So dream is very personal, okay, and your hope is that your business basically fuels your ability to accomplish this dream. So some owners share some of their dreams with their people. Oftentimes, their dream isn't necessarily shared with their people, it's just very personal. So, in other words, if the company is successful, we kind of know we're going to get this thing over here. That's what we're after, right? So the vision, though? Vision is generally your value proposition to your current people or the people you're trying to hire. Why would you come work at this company? Well, because we're going to this place. We're taking the company here. Okay, that's where we're headed.
Speaker 2:I like to advise people to try and put that in a very realistic timeframe. So what I mean is most people barely know what they're going to eat for dinner tonight, let alone where they're going to be in five years or even 10 years. So saying I've got this seven year plan or seven year vision for the company, that's hard for your team to get the brain wrapped around because they're like seven years, I don't. I mean, I don't even I don't know where I'm going to be in seven years. So let's create visions that are much more tangible. Three years seems to be a really good number, okay, so I'm just defining terms here. So, three years from now. So if you're setting your vision right now, you're trying to paint a picture of what you want your company to look like at the end of 2027. Okay, 2027. Okay. So having and the other reason why this is important too and I think we were saying this and I think it's worth mentioning is a lot of books and a lot of gurus, coaches, whatever, like this idea of setting goals is important. So you have something to point to or point at right, like I'm charging towards this thing, which is 100% true. You should have goals, you should write those goals down, you should have them in front of you so that you can constantly know, kind of, where you're headed.
Speaker 2:Okay, but the second thing, especially for entrepreneurs, the reason why establishing these dreams that you have is because those are the things that will decide how big of a business you need to build. So that's one thing I don't hear people talk about very often. It's like how big should your business be? How many people do you need to hire? How many projects do you need to do? What is the velocity of your work need to look like? What kind of profitabilities do you need? All of that kind of stuff? How do you decide all of that? Well, you decide all that by knowing what your. If you know what your dream is and how to fund that dream, that'll help tell you what, how, what, what size business you need to build and that'll help tell you what your vision needs to look like. Okay, so just trying to kind of mold those pieces together a little bit, those pieces together a little bit, yeah for sure. But, as you were saying, lately I've started to see people coming full circle, which is so cool. And what I mean by full circle is people that I started working with in the first couple of years of having started with Contractor Coach Pro are now hitting that two, three, four year timeframe from having set their dreams and visions. And some of those people, they're coming back around and they're going.
Speaker 2:We did it Like we did it. I just had this conversation with somebody a few weeks ago and it lit a fire under me. He said, nathan, he said we've accomplished all of it. And I said what do you mean? All of it? He says everything, our dream and the vision for the company. We've done it all. And he says, as a matter of fact, the last component of my wife and I's dream was to buy a large piece of property like a ranch or something like that, and we want to build a house on a big piece of property because we close on that property this Saturday. And it was just, it was so incredible, it was like so cool, because you always hear about people accomplishing that in their business.
Speaker 1:Right, and you know so, it's big man. It really is. It is so cool To see, I don't know, maybe the sports analogy just see the championship being won, right, the trophy's being held above the head, right, like we did it. But then there's the next season, right. And I think that's where a lot of times people get lost, sometimes in that is that now they've won the championship or what you know, they've accomplished that big goal and, like they made it there. Now, what, like you know, did that person say well, now we want to reset this, we want to dream bigger, or is it man? This is it. I'm cool, let's retire. What happens when the adrenaline wears off? Shaking the trophy in the air, right, when, the, when, the when, when the parade is over and you're, you're just back to. Well, we got to get back to work here. Like there's still stuff, like work is still going on. What? What are you seeing there? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Well, this is a this is a very cool time of year to talk about this, because for most, I mean, I'm in Colorado here, so I'm looking outside and it's actually snowing. So I've got about two inches worth of snow kind of built up right there. It's beautiful, it's awesome. But we're in that time of year where a lot of that analysis of your business should be happening. A lot of that analysis of your business should be happening, okay. So, no matter where you are in chasing your dreams and the visions you have for your business, this is the time of year where we need to sit down and go okay, what did we do? Like, where are we at? Okay, pick your head up a little bit. Especially, like, what are we at? We're on the 6th of December, so we're Christmas is like I, christmas is a snap of the fingers and it's here.
Speaker 2:For a lot of us, especially in the trades, this is when we see people. They don't want their roof being done on December 20th. They don't want their fence getting ripped down on the 15th and then built back up. They don't want their kitchen torn apart, because Christmas they tend to start going okay, well, if we can't get it done before the 10th or the 15th of the month. Let's just push till next year, right? So for us, as business owners in these trades, this is a perfect time to start going. Okay, let's start winding everything down a little bit and start thinking about where are we as it pertains to these things? Okay.
Speaker 2:And if you've accomplished those things, okay, then I think the questions well, first of all, you need to acknowledge that, right, I know that some business owners, especially if you bootstrapped it like right from the start, it's almost like you almost have a work mental disorder, because you're like if I'm not working 80 hours a week, then my business is sinking, right. And it's kind of funny Cause at some point you realize like I don't actually have to work 80 hours a week right now. Like my business is, it's going like wow, okay. And so you got to realize that part first Okay, and then the second part is to just take some take a victory lap on that.
Speaker 2:I mean it's you know, you've heard the stats about how many businesses fail, but the stats around businesses, where people have kind of worked themselves out of that day to day that they really want to do, those stats are even lower. Okay, even lower. So, whatever it is, 80, 90% of businesses that fail within two years or four years or five years. Right Now you're talking about somebody who built a business that they own and they don't have to be there every day to run it. I don't even know what the metrics are on that. It's got to be that's the 0.1% right.
Speaker 2:And that's the Holy grail, that's what everybody's after. Okay, so if you got there like man, like I said, take a victory lap, whatever that looks like for you, and then the next thing you got to figure out is okay and like, so, like what I'm doing with some of these guys that I'm having these conversations with is now we got to revisit, not the vision, we're going to revisit your dreams. Okay, we got to visit, revisit your dreams. Did you hit your dreams? In other words, if you got what you were after on the dream side, then that means your company's probably the size that you need it to be in order to support the dreams that you wrote down.
Speaker 2:Okay, so are those dreams still valid? Are they still pertinent? Okay, for most of you aggressive entrepreneurs, like they're not enough. They never are Right. So it's now, it's time for the next level, whatever that means for you. So, yeah, so there's layers of analysis that need to happen. Where are we in pertinent Now? You might not. You might not have hit your dreams. You might've hit your vision, but you might not have hit your dreams.
Speaker 1:You might have hit your vision, but you might not have hit your dreams.
Speaker 2:Okay, your vision might have been something set for eight years down the road. Your vision was three years out and you hit your three-year vision. Sweet, okay, still go back to your dream. Okay, so we're three years closer to this eight-year dream. Okay, so what do we need to do next, right, dream Okay, so what do we need to do next? Right. And so then that usually will translate into okay, writing your next three-year vision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a continuous loop, right, and it's the reevaluation of where you're at. I think that a lot of times, going through the journey of entrepreneurship, I really, truly believe that it changes a person right Like.
Speaker 1:I think that the that you become you know battle tested and you know your your mindset becomes different when it, when, when, when your, when, your business becomes more than just you. How, how much of a mindset when you're responsible for people and their livelihood and you get to know their families and their children and like that's a different. You may not have been able to incorporate that in your dream or your vision in the beginning, right? How often should people maybe revisit this?
Speaker 2:Meaning like kind of who they are A good amount of time.
Speaker 1:Like is it? Hey, let's set our vision, our three-year vision, and, and and just plow to that vision Right. Like and if, if, on year two and a half were like like is there a? Do you feel like it should be evaluated, maybe on a yearly basis? Is this still the vision that we see? How are you going about that?
Speaker 2:So it's a really good question. My recommendation on this is essentially that you should probably there's a few mile markers for taking a look at your vision. Okay, if you have a one-year, and so we'll go back to kind of how Contractor, coach, pro terms things. Okay, we consider a mission as something you're doing over the next 12 months. That's your mission, okay, not like mission statement and mission objective. It's like our mission is okay. What are we going to do in the next 12 months? That's your mission, okay, not like mission statement and mission objective. It's like our mission is okay. What are we going to do in the next 12 months? Let's set an intention, let's set a name of this thing, let's set objectives for our mission.
Speaker 2:Okay, so your mission is something that you probably are going to engage with at least on a weekly basis, hopefully with your leadership team, on a weekly basis. You're like, okay, we are tracking towards these objectives and towards these metrics. Are we doing that? Okay, your vision should probably be engaged with at least once a quarter, okay. And or when you've got a major decision or opportunity in front of you, okay, we all love opportunities, we all love shiny things, okay, and sometimes those shiny things are good for us and sometimes they're not. And so you know, the once a quarter thing's pretty straightforward is like I should just engage with my vision and be like, okay, this is the mission that we have.
Speaker 2:Why were we doing? Okay? Okay, got my vision here. I know why we're doing this mission. I got it. But when somebody comes along to you with an opportunity like buying a spray foam machine or doing blown-in insulation or getting into solar, or somebody's coming at you with some PE money or gosh, all the different methodologies like the closed cell foam insulation, movement there for a while, or you're thinking about getting into low slope commercial, or you're just all of the different things that can come your way, and those things will take time and investment from you. You should look at your vision in order to weigh whether or not that's a decision, whether or not you should move forward with that or not. To weigh whether or not that's a decision, whether or not you should move forward with that or not, because if it doesn't fit in that vision and it takes away from that vision, you're in murky waters at that point.
Speaker 1:How do you use your vision to be the lens that you evaluate things through?
Speaker 2:Well, the clearer your vision okay, the clearer your vision, the easier it is to figure out whether or not something fits in that picture or not, and so the murkier your vision. So, for example, if you're like your vision is like we just want to make as much money as we can in the next three years, well, that's a really murky vision, because there's a lot of ways to make a lot of money, so how do you know which one is the right one? Well, if you haven't set that intention, you don't, in which case you should. I mean, your vision, basically, would require you to just chase anything that makes money. So the more clear that vision is then, the easier it is to use it as a standard against a decision that you make.
Speaker 2:Now I'll be honest with you writing a vision isn't easy, and I mean for entrepreneurs, like. So if you're listening to this as an entrepreneur and you're going, you know I don't know if I can do that. It is hard, so don't, don't make any mistakes. Like, or don't mistake what I'm saying. It is difficult, and even though you might be sitting there going, I'm a visionary. It's like okay, cool, I want you to sit down and paint a picture with words of what your business looks like in three years. You're a visionary, great. Write it down, okay.
Speaker 2:So I think clarity is what helps to keep that from happening. And I mean, like I tell people I'm like literally describe the building that your offices are going to be in, describe what your office looks like, describe the dress code, describe the kind of music you have, describe your bullpen for your salespeople, or describe your shop area. Or like literally line that out. Like I've had people say you know, we're going to outfit, we're going to fully stock a gym in the unit next to us so that our people can have a place to go work out and burn some calories and get their mind right. You know, like that's, that's pretty cool. So, yeah, I think clarity to your vision is really the thing that allows you to make good decisions.
Speaker 1:Does the same apply to your dreams? Are you really getting as detailed as possible, or is it? I want financial freedom. I want to have a freedom of time.
Speaker 2:How detailed are you getting on your dreams? So here's what I would say for the dream thing Okay, the reason why the vision has to be so clear, right is because you have to be able to communicate it to people. Okay, in your dream that's kind of just you, or you and your spouse, and so you need to be as clear as is necessary for you to know whether or not you've got there. For some people it's just a feeling, like I've had people just have it, put it, put a dream down. It's like they're just looking for a particular feeling inside of them. It's like, okay, well, will you know when you get that feeling? If you do, then then this describes it well enough. And so more people like the more some people.
Speaker 2:I like detailed dreams because, because I like having metrics. So as a coach, I'm like I like knowing that we are 50% of our way there or we're 75% of the way there. But, that being said, like, as far as your dream goes, it just needs to be enough that you understand it and you can tell whether or not you got there.
Speaker 1:That's great advice, but I like what you're saying about the vision for the company. That has to be really detailed because you have to be able to articulate it. Yes, and any misalignment in your communication will lead away from being able to achieve that vision right.
Speaker 2:It's also an accountability component for yourself. So when you tell your people this is what we're doing and this is where we're going, okay, but then all of a sudden you start getting distracted with a bunch of other things and you're veering over here and they're going hey, you know, we like we don't know where Jim is, is he's supposed to be helping us do this thing, but Jim's over here buying a rental property and he doesn't have time now he's got to fix up this rent. And they're going Jim, you set this vision. Are we still going for this thing? Are you now buying properties? What are we doing here? And so that's a huge component for that accountability back to you, so that your people can be like, hey, like is that? I mean, do you have time for that? And you gotta be careful with those things.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think accountability is challenging as an owner, especially the owner that started from and bootstrapped the thing we started because we didn't want any right. Right, like it's a very challenging thing. What advice do you have for that entrepreneur? Because, man, they never have to. You really don't have to answer to anyone. You really are not accountable to anyone. It's a very strange existence, but how do you, how do you make yourself accountable to your team?
Speaker 2:So if your dream and your vision are truly a reflection of what you're after and what you want, then your people, any help you have in accountability, is essentially just holding you accountable to yourself. That's all it is. It's like I want this, this is what I'm after, and when somebody goes, hey, that looks an awful lot like a distraction from what you want. Okay, that, so that component. You just have to keep that part in mind. And so if, if you, if you write your vision and you find it super easy to get distracted from that thing, then it may be that that isn't really truly your vision. You're not necessarily after that thing. If you're like I don't really want to do that, that doesn't sound fun, that doesn't like there's no, okay, well then sounds like you need a new vision, like what do you really want to do? Let's write that down and then let's chase that thing. Why?
Speaker 1:do you think people? Let's chase that thing. Why do you think people? Is it just a lack of understanding of their vision or of their dreams? Are they sometimes? Do you think sometimes people chase other people's dreams and and and vision? Where, like, what's the? What is the most frequent disconnect that you see, using somebody else's definition?
Speaker 2:of success. Like you go into the social media right and the competitor in your area or the guy, the guy who gets all the attention on on the Facebook roofing groups or whatever it is his he has a certain look or a certain thing about his company that you think is is what makes him seem what he is, and so then we start chasing that thing because we think that's what arriving looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see it I've had it with some of my coaching clients on the agency side for the digital marketing agency owners that I coach is the top line dreams, not bottom line dreams. What does that mean? Like they chase the top line revenue and not the actual net profit of their business. Oh, gotcha, and it's this. Well, these guys are doing millions and millions and millions of dollars and I should be doing that, but because I get to and I'm sure you get to have a little bit more of an intimate viewpoint into their businesses like, do you know, you make more money than that person.
Speaker 1:Right, like you certainly can be, I've had this conversation multiple times where, where, where, where, people are looking at a top line dream and and or or or or vision, right, and? And? They're chasing this, this, this, this, this, chasing this vision of how much revenue we can generate versus how much profit does the business generate, right? Do you see that at all? Do you see that anytime? I?
Speaker 2:do I do, but for whatever reason, though I think that, for whatever reason, kind of who and what I am and who and what Contractor Coach Pro is, tends to attract a certain kind of person.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the ones who are really seeking to be flashy. I just don't seem to click with those folks. So, yes, I see what you're saying, but as far as, like the people I work with, I generally don't work with a lot of folks who are just like they're chasing the, they're chasing the, the, the, the, whatever, right, like they're mostly concerned with like being fulfilled. Um, now, don't get me wrong, I'm a car guy, okay, and I love cars and you know, I would love, you know, like that stuff can be a by-product of having done things really well and been blessed. Um, that being said, though, if you just chase that thing, like you can get that thing and you can sacrifice a lot to get that thing and not truly be like fulfilled and prosperous or, as Jim might put it, prosperous or healthy, you know, but you can get a Lamborghini, like, at the end of the day, they're like you think about it, a few hundred grand is a lot of money, but it's also kind of not that much money. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So what is it that you're after? Yeah, you know what I mean. So what is it that you're after?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you could make a choice to buy the Lamborghini and not invest that back in your business, or invest that in your retirement, or invested in a rental property, and you can have the Lamborghini.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not to say that's wrong, but that investment in your business might inhibit the next phase, or you know so, and so here's what's interesting is you talk about, like you were saying earlier, that the journey of entrepreneurship doesn't just impact your pocketbook and your time and all that, but it changes who you are. No-transcript I don't want to be the same person I am now. Three years from now, I hope to be better, stronger, wiser, more in tune. I hope to be a better dad than I am now. And so, that being said, I can only imagine that some of my goals and dreams and desires are going to change as I get older and as I accomplish different things. And I realized I thought I wanted this and then I got it. It turns out it didn't actually do for me what I thought it was going to do, and so maybe that isn't a thing I'm interested in. I'm more interested in this or more interested in that, and so those things do change.
Speaker 2:And so, with some of these guys I'm talking to, they're going well, what's next? And I'm going well. How are you different? Like what else is on your mind? What else is on your heart? Yeah, like what else is on your mind, what else is on your heart, you know, and I think I told one of my, one of my clients. You know he was saying the business can grow and get bigger, and he's. But what he did say is he said and I want I want everybody to hear this correctly as something that is real and happens, not as like a, not as like a brag or a well good for them. I'm just letting you know that this person has grown and matured over time and they've realized that, in realizing their dreams and loving the life they had, what he said to me was, if I make another $100,000 or $200,000 a year, he says, probably not going to change my life that much. So think about that. And that's because the awareness of who they are and what they love and what makes them happy allows them to figure out how to achieve those things. And once they achieve those things, sure, a little extra cheddar doesn't hurt, okay. But unless they change who they are, they're going to be happy with what they have. So and I'm not saying that you should change who you are, okay. So I know this is it's a convoluted, it's a tricky little message, but human beings are not easy. We're not simple things Right.
Speaker 2:And so you know, I think that there's, there are layers and levels to, to need and purpose and identity and desire there's, there's levels to all of it. And so, man, you start your business and you're like dude, I don't want a boss anymore. Check, I get that, but I got to pay. Growing in your career, moving up the ladder, so your bills start getting paid. You've just achieved like this kind of this layer or level of maturity, of ability, and you probably removed a little load off your shoulders and some stress. And so then, like that next one is okay, well, maybe getting a little further into the future, just in case, you know, let's get a little savings built up, right. Then we start saying, okay, now, now I feel like if I didn't make any money for the next six months, you know I'll probably be okay. Oh, that feels pretty good, you know.
Speaker 2:Then you start thinking about the future. Then, then the longer future and, like you know, getting out of debt or, um, starting to save for retirement or the investments or all of those different things, and you just start to see these different changes in you as you kind of move through life. And then, all of a sudden, you start to understand your own identity too, what truly feeds your soul, yeah. And so, like I think, like, as you work through those different stages and levels. Your business can rise with that thing too. And it's just a different way for accomplishing that Because at some point your retirement's kind of you keep putting into it and you're taking care of it right and you're investing and trying to be smart, and then at some point you might end up with a little money you can play with and throw at something risky.
Speaker 2:You see those guys like if I lost this 10 grand it wouldn't kill me, so I'm going to throw it in something a little who knows right? And then they start investing in different things, different. Their time, their wisdom, their experience start getting poured into other people or start getting poured into organizations or start getting. So that's part of that progression as your business kind of grows and you accomplish some of these things and you start seeking almost more higher levels of you. Some of you might know this, I think, maslow's hierarchy of need, which is actually it's pretty cool. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's in there, but I think there's some pretty powerful truth to that thing and you can just Google it. It's not like it's some hidden and you can just google it. It's not like it's some hidden.
Speaker 1:You can just google maslow's hierarchy of need and you'll see this pyramid and and really it, it at the, at the foundation, is you got to have food and shelter right, and then when you, after you have food and shelter, then you, you're, just you get the, the different levels you need. You know relationships and love, and you know, and just it continues to move up. I've seen, I've seen some dreams change. I've seen some people hit these levels in the roofing space, outside of the roofing space, and a couple of things that I've seen happen and what made me think you talked about, like buying some rental properties in this, like I've, I've seen people shift their dream or their vision of the company to oh, this is where I can produce income to go and do something else that I enjoy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of those people have maybe scaled their business down. They they're, they're like I don't want to have a whole bunch of salespeople and a whole bunch of this or a whole bunch, I'm just going to have this little thing, but it aligns with what they're trying to accomplish. And I think that's what you're talking about really at the core of it. We want to make sure that there's an alignment between what the company is doing and what the dream that you're chasing. Other people I've seen struggle when they reach this level, and then they found that their people became their why.
Speaker 2:And they.
Speaker 1:They just decided that every single person that works for me or that I that I come in contact with I want to make better. Like that's my whole, like that's just all that I want in life is. I want to see that every sales rep that we hire, I want to just do my best to help them create a life for themselves. Every, every, every office person, every, everyone in the company that becomes their why office person, everyone in the company that becomes their why. And then I've seen a few not as often, not as frequent, but I've seen a few look towards philanthropic efforts as their new dream, because now their money's good, the team is solid. Like going outside of your, of outside of your sphere, right Outside of your, your things that you control, into you know a more philanthropic aspect of business and that becomes a whole nother thing.
Speaker 1:I believe that, like there's what's there was a quote from a movie that's the worst thing in the world is wasted talent. So even if you don't have the that in you, that you want the Ferrari and the private jet and the this, what if your dream turned into a philanthropic effort and that's a bigger, like, a bigger way to chase it. But I think, do you think people get stuck there once they hit that? Is that a? Is that a midlife crisis to? You know to? Or like? Is that like a mid entrepreneur crisis? Like, is there, you know what's what's there?
Speaker 2:What are the mid entrepreneurial crisis? Right, yeah? So instead of, instead of wearing their shirts halfway unbuttoned and the gold chain and a new Corvette, they, they go out and they go out and start a whole new, a whole, nother business, or that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it can happen. I think it can happen. That's right. Yeah, I think it can happen. I think it can happen. One of the one of the I have it it. It isn't that it just can happen, it's that it does happen, and it happens a lot.
Speaker 2:Somebody, somebody's business is doing well. They don't necessarily have to be there on the day to day and they start to feel like they've kind of made it or they've arrived and in some ways they have, in some ways they have, but it's kind of like as soon as you, it's almost like as soon as you think you know it all, like you can't know anything anymore, you know. So the realization, or the this idea that we kind of made it or we got there has led people to try to run with different groups whom they don't belong with. It leads to them thinking they have more money than they do. It leads to taking for granted what their presence in the business does for it, and so they start to become more absent and more absent and more absent. In the meantime they'll pat themselves on the back because for a little while it works. We've hired really great leaders. We're all about leadership. Our culture is number one right. Meanwhile, there are people that work in that company now who've never met them before and so they don't know necessarily where this company came from, and so they don't have that same feeling about this business as the people who they hired do, because they're lucky. It's slow.
Speaker 2:Okay happens inside of your business, where your absenteeism is allowing your company to just kind of run without you and more often than not okay, more often than not that leads to destruction of the company. More often than not, destruction of the company. More often than not. Every now and then. Every now and then it doesn't. But once again, I think the times that it doesn't lead to the destruction is because it wasn't a slide into obscurity for the owners. It was a purposeful, planned exit with people who care almost as much as possible about that business than the original owners do, probably because they have a similar incentive to being the leader of that company. But if you just think, man, my company is running great without me and you just start to let that slide happen, a lot of people have lost a lot in doing that, and we've had those calls as well, people that have come back around and said my business is on the brink of destruction. We're like well, what happened?
Speaker 1:right, that's a pretty common story yeah, I've had that conversation a couple times recently, um one, with a really successful roofing contractor who, who, who, who did just that and and got got a little away and uh, and then woke up one morning and said, oh, my goodness, what do I have here? This is not the culture, this is not the, these are not the standards that that we put in place. These are not the standards that that we put in place. This is not, these are not the right people. They are acting out of a character that I would not accept Like. But it's because they they were, they allowed themselves to, to, to get that far away.
Speaker 1:Right that, I have another, another friend in a business not in a roofing business, but outside of roofing that the best way that she described it was a coup. She had almost a coup in her business where she had hired someone that was a high level manager, operational manager and director or whatever it was, and they started hiring people and pretty soon there was a cancer spreading throughout their organization, only because she stepped far enough away to not have a pulse, to not have a true pulse, and the people that were in her organization, that that were still, they didn't say anything because they they weren't sure if she was if she was behind that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, like it was a and so it. It was a crazy thing. And she, you know she had to gut the place and go back in and you know, and get back to you know 12 plus hour days and get this thing put back the way. And the same with the roofing company owner that I spoke with. It had to jump back. You know, jump back in, like we got to jump back. You know, jump back in, like we got to jump back in. But in that the roofing company owner said that he found a new purpose, like it was. It was. Everything in life has lessons, right, like they're not like, and so for him it was a, a great lesson in his business. Yeah, like you know, um, but boy, it could go the wrong way. That's there's dangers in it. There's dangers of what are, what are the dangers of working yourself out of your business?
Speaker 2:Well, first, I mean, if that's what you want see, that's once again it kind of comes back to that's what you want. If that's what you want, then you can build and plan toward that thing and you can make it happen. It's just happening unintentionally is the thing you want to avoid, because generally that doesn't work out very well, and so there's lots of different. You know there's that component and then there's asking yourself, like, do I still want to be involved in this business? Because I also have seen homeowners or homeowners, business owners who get bored and they just start tinkering things that don't need tinkering with. Right, they start messing with this thing and then messing with that thing, and they don't need to mess with that. Like, what do you do? It's like, you know, it's like having one of those super hyperactive dogs and if that dog doesn't have a job to do, it's just going to start tearing up your backyard. That's some business owners. It's like a super hyperactive creature that just it needs work to do. So what does it look like when you start to hit these zones? What do you do with yourself? Some folks they like being in their business and they want to stay in their business. So now, all of a sudden they've done a good enough job that they work themselves out of their job. Well, now it's time to create a new job for yourself.
Speaker 2:You have to be careful in doing this, because almost everything that an entrepreneur produces has to be supported by other people. Other people oftentimes have to come in and you just got done doing it with this business. So just realize that you can't cannibalize your current business to run off and do something else. Now there might be some capacity there, but be strategic about it. So I've got owners that like selling. They like selling. So I'm just like go sell. I like super complicated projects, super specialty materials. I like, okay, go do that. I want to build out a service department, go build your service department. I want to get deeper into commercial or I want to get deeper into niche type products. So go do that.
Speaker 2:Just be aware that the thing that's affording you the time to do that, okay. If you start relying on that thing to do this thing, then you're cannibalizing your business, okay. So you kind of have to approach it a very similar way as you did before Start doing everything yourself, right, Start doing everything yourself, and then, and then, as you notice, like you're running out of time because it's beginning to work, then we can begin to build that angle, the same way we did the last one. Yeah, so be aware of that, right, some people want to go start something else. They're like I just, I want to. I want to go start a new thing, I want to open a brewery, or I want to start a bed and breakfast, or, you know, I want to go do Amway, I don't know whatever. Whatever's on your mind and your heart, okay, cool, chase it. Okay, chase it.
Speaker 2:Just be, just be cognizant of a couple of things. Number one if you want somebody to run your business as efficiently and effectively as you did, your business will need to be of a certain size, because those people are very expensive, and they should be. If somebody is affording you the ability to not spend any time inside this successful business and you're making money, you got to pay them, okay, and so finding that right person and then training them up in order to create that additional layer of capacity. Now, if you're running and managing your business, then whatever that money is, whatever that piece of the pie is, goes to you. So be aware of that. But, once again, it always comes back to this question what do you want? Plan and aim for that. If you're just out there floating in the breeze, you're probably going to knock some things over For sure. Know what you want.
Speaker 1:Thanks, nathan, it's been awesome man. Everyone has to know what they want. Build that dream, build that vision, work towards it and find the next thing that you want and the next thing that you want and the next thing that you want and go thing that you want and the next thing that you want and go and accomplish it. It's been awesome, man. Thanks for your time. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast. Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit roofingsuccesspodcastcom While there, check out our sponsors for exclusive offers, shop for merchandise and sign up for our newsletter for industry updates and tips. Also join the Roofing Success Facebook group to connect with other professionals and stay updated on the latest trends. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like, share and leave a comment. Your support helps us continue to bring you top industry insights. The website link is in the description. Thanks for listening.
