Roofing Success

Why Your Roofing Company Needs a Hard Reset NOW with Martin Shepard

• Jim Ahlin • Episode 274

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When things aren’t working in your business…
You don’t need a tweak.
You need a HARD RESET.

In this episode, Martin Shepard (owner of Reset Roofing and host of the Hard Reset Podcast) reveals how he turned personal breakdowns into business breakthroughs.

✅ From building a values-driven company…
✅ To creating a culture of real teamwork (no more lone-wolf reps)…
✅ And treating every homeowner like they’re part of the project (literally blessing the roof on install day)...

Martin shares the behind-the-scenes of Reset Roofing — where former bartenders, missionaries, teachers, and even his wife (with no roofing experience) are helping him scale a company built on empathy, clarity, and customer obsession.

If you’re feeling burnout, culture issues, or like your roofing company is just off...
This episode is the RESET you need.

🎯 Real talk on:
- W2 vs. 1099 struggles
- Insurance audits and “dumb taxes”
- Balancing marriage & business (with therapy tools that WORK)
- Building an unshakable team culture
- And what to do when your business (or life) is at a breaking point

🚨 THIS IS A MUST-WATCH for any owner, leader, or sales rep who’s ready to reset, rebuild, and reignite their roofing company.

Links: 
https://linktr.ee/Resetroofing
https://www.instagram.com/reset.roofing/?hl=en
tiktok.com/@resetroofing
youtube.com/@resetroofing
https://www.facebook.com/resetroofing/

🤖 Have a question? Ask this customized ChatGPT for the answer! Specifically designed for this episode, it’s here to help! https://roofingpod.com/chatgpt-274

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Speaker 1:

How do you turn a personal breakdown into a business breakthrough, building a roofing company and podcast that thrive on resilience? In this episode, we sit down with Martin Shepard, founder of Reset Roofing and host of the Hard Reset podcast, to explore how transparency, empathy and a customer-first culture have shaped his approach to leadership and life. Martin built Reset Roofing after years as a top 1099 sales rep. He now runs a values-driven company where Friday lunches, handwritten underlayment blessings and a therapy-informed leadership are just part of the DNA. Martin's not afraid to go deep, from hiring former bartenders and missionaries to building in boundaries with his wife, who now helps run the business.

Speaker 1:

Reset isn't just a name, it's a daily mindset. So if you're struggling with culture, customer experience or just need a reminder of why you got into this business in the first place, this one's for you. Let's hit the reset button with Martin Shepard of Reset Roofing. 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. Martin Shepard welcome man.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you, jim. Super excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, it's good having you so Reset Roofing. Where are you guys?

Speaker 2:

out of. So we are out of a small town, believe it or not, called Cumming, georgia, which is spelled C-U-M-M-I-N-G, but it's about 30 minutes north of Midtown Atlanta, about 30 minutes north of uh midtown atlanta, so kind of handled the whole north atlanta, little bit of south atlanta stuff. Uh, here in georgia.

Speaker 1:

Cool, how did reset roofing get started? How'd you get into roofing?

Speaker 2:

man I uh, long story short in 2006 I dropped out of college or I I don't even know if I dropped. Well, they asked me not to come back and I had like $20,000, $25,000 worth of student loan debt and I just have always been in customer service and worked in food and beverage and I just was like I guess this is going to be my life now, where I'm going to work nights and weekends and holidays and I'm not going to be able to see my family and all that stuff. So in 2006, I married my high school sweetheart and at that time I saw an ad in the local paper. It was a town in Roswell, georgia, and they were looking for a sales and marketing position and that's kind of what I was studying Although I was still like learning about biology and history and all that stuff for a residential roofing company. So I got into it in 2006 as a 1099 self-employed subcontractor and then, fast forward to 2016, I started my own company called Reset Roofing and been kind of trying to grow it ever since.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what have been some of the early challenges that you faced?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I'm a sales guy at heart. I'm a sales guy at heart, so like I don't really understand all the nuances of like workers comp insurance and general liability and why I get an audit and all I know is like IRS audits are terrible but you have an insurance audit Like, so like all the things I just thought man, just go out and sell, you need to have insurance, so just go close deals. Luckily, when I first started in the industry, they really put me in this uh rigorous training where I was like on roofs. The first roof I got on was like a 14, 12, like I have no idea how I survived it. Um, but I think that for me has been uh kind of the learning curve is like it's not just about man sell everything you can. It's kind of the learning curve is like it's not just about man sell everything you can. It's there's a lot more to running and owning a business than I thought.

Speaker 2:

What were some of the hardest ones to learn? I think the hardest for me, jim, was the insurance thing, and it was only because no one ever sat down and like made it like a fourth grader could understand it. It was just like, hey, you need insurance and we audited your insurance and you don't have enough. So I know you think you made a lot of money last year, but you also owe another $25,000 in insurance. And no one sat down, jim, and said hey, martin, your insurance is based on your revenue. So if you tell them you're going to do a million dollars and you do $10 million, you're going to owe, at the next year, $9 million worth of insurance, because they insured a $9 million or a $10 million project.

Speaker 2:

And it wasn't until I just had it out with this. It just felt like they were robbing me and somebody. Literally I was having a drink or something with somebody and he's like you know, and what I just told you, it's based on your revenue. So if you're going to do 5 million, you should tell them you're going to do 5 million. If you're going to do 3 million, you should tell them you're going to do 5 million. If you're going to do 3 million, you should tell them you're going to do 3 million. And I was like oh, that makes sense, but it still frustrates me Every time I get an audit. We had a really great year last year and we grew a lot, and all of a sudden they're like hey, uh, your audits do and you owe this and here we are.

Speaker 1:

So that was the hardest thing for me to really understand is like I know we need insurance. I've unfortunately had to been sued and all those other things, but really understanding like the money end of it has been the biggest learning curve for me and everyone's trying to avoid those costs at all costs, right, and so now I'm up to a million this year. This sounds good, right Like, and then whoa, what just happened? Other things I see people doing is making themselves general contractors. That you know they're trying to, you know, you know get around the roofing aspect of insurance and things like that, where you just you're I don't know. I think one of the things I've learned over the years is there are certain things you have to pay for Yep and it's and as a roofer.

Speaker 2:

yep Insurance is one of them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely. What was the moment you knew you wanted to start your own company?

Speaker 2:

Great question. I probably wanted to start it when I was a 1099. And I wouldn't throw any shade on the company that I'm forever grateful to the man that started this company. But that model was a 1099 model and so and he ran it like a 1099 model, right. So he was like if you want to drive a truck, you got to rent the truck. If you want shirts, you got to buy the shirts. If you want insurance, you got to pay for insurance on your own. If you want workers comp and general life, like all the things.

Speaker 2:

So I was my own company per se, but I, you know it, it it never had any sort of like culture. In my opinion. It was all always like everyone is out for themselves. And that is a 1099 model. Like it sounds great, like, oh, we're going to go a 10, 50, 50 split on a commission scale and like the, you know, we'll get 10% to manage the job, and then, um, you know, we'll split the commission 50 50. And but, hey, if you want to drive this billboard around, you need to rent that for 75 bucks. And I just, I don't know. I just I had some ideas and I also had some people in my ear, just saying hey, man, you should start your own. Like you're a subcontractor, like you're allowed to go and show income from other people. They probably want that and a couple things, kind of they didn't want to do a new construction job. I was approached with a new construction job and I told myself, man, if I land this deal, I'm going all in with an EIN and start this thing.

Speaker 2:

And it happened in 2016, kind of October of 2016. And it was probably for the first year, year and a half. It was just me and everything was in my head, which is not a great business model, and I'm sure there's lots of guys out there that's doing the same right now. And that's a good model, until you get, get hurt or something happens and you know you drop the ball and and all that.

Speaker 2:

So I asked my wife to help me a little bit as I went on out of town on a golf trip, and then I was like, hey, she never wanted to talk to a homeowner. She was deathly afraid of talking to homeowners, but she didn't mind talking to anyone else. So she was like, okay, I'll come on board. We hired a part-time customer experience manager is what we call them, but like a site superintendent and she made it very much a point to say, hey, this is a part-time job, uh, this is not a full-time job and we just kind of slowly grew from that. So it's been a it's been a heck of a run. Uh, we're nine years into it and, um, we have an awesome team right now and I'm just trying to learn every day and all that fun stuff that goes along with owning a business that goes along with owning a business.

Speaker 1:

So what I heard from you is that you saw the 1099 model subcontractor model. There was no life to it, it was very transactional and it just didn't feel good. So you started off on your own. Wife came in to help. How have you developed the team to be much different or different from that model?

Speaker 2:

What has been the vision there and how have you implemented that vision? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think it's. You know, we start every day to go simply, how can we obsess over the customer experience? And then who can we pull in from the customer service world that not necessarily have any ties to roofing but have ties to, like, serving people? And so the the culture of a 1099, like it's just like, theoretically, you're on your own and so it. It makes it feel, just like you said, very transactional, and so, from this model that that we have, it's just different. Um, that's, you know, I would say that it's better, but it is. It's. It's more of a hey, we're a team environment where we're we're selling as a team, we're doing operations as a team, we're kind of getting together as a team, versus like, hey, you're going to go over here and do this and you're going to do this, it. It really feels more like a team oriented event.

Speaker 1:

Now people hear that a lot. What does that mean on a day to day in your business?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say that it means that we all have each other's back, and I know you probably know the guys out of Top Rep. We run on a very specific hero sales culture here at Reset and so we like to just put others first, right. So, from setting our operations team up for our operations team, setting up our invoicing team, like all of those things, so what it means to us is like, hey, we just all have each other's back and at the end of the day, the buck stops with the sales team, and so if they're not performing like the, the, the company and the team is feeling it. And so what can we do as a sales team out in the field to make sure that the phone's always ringing, that we have operations things to do, and then, outside of it, culturally, we like to do fun things when we can, when the, when the schedule permits, right, uh, getting out. We have a Friday lunch, um, every Friday here where we buy lunch and we want everyone to come in from all over, you know, cause we're driving all over Atlanta all week and we're installing roofs and gutters and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

So like bringing everyone together and then we try. I mean, I can't say that we do this all the time, but like we try to do at least quarterly a get together where it's two options, like we just had to get together with our team where, um, it just so happened that all the girls wanted to go make perfume and go to lunch and all the guys, and plus one of my girls, wanted to go race go-karts and eat Brazilian steakhouse. So we just try to do those fun things, because anytime that there's any sort of tension, my role at the office is, when we have tension amongst our group, we need to break bread together. Right, it's just the old-fashioned like keyboard warriors online. It's like everyone's just you know out to get you and everyone's you know we're all hiding behind an email, sending in an email.

Speaker 2:

You can't understand tone. It's like, hey, man, when you have conflict with people on our team, let's go to coffee, let's go to lunch, let's go to dinner and get together. So you can see the human part of it. And we've done a really good job of emphasizing that I feel like here. So when there is tension, it's like, hey, what's the rule? Let's, let's go grab some breakfast together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. I love that. The other side of it you mentioned is from the customer experience. The sales team sets up the production team. Who sets up the invoicing team? Maybe marketing sets up the sales team? Maybe you know right what are some of the things that you've implemented in that customer experience and the handoffs between people that that you've seen the most value out of?

Speaker 2:

I think well, one we're. We're brand new into switching CRMs, Um, and we're we're actually leaving one CRM to go with pro line, and I'm super excited, holistically, that what ProLine is going to do for us as a company, because it's going to be able for us to pass the baton in a more efficient way, like right now. It's like okay, martin comes out to Jim's house, Martin sells Jim a roof and then I get your color choice, you sign the contract and then the contract gets notified in our CRM and then it passes on to the next person and next person it doesn't feel like super flowy from a homeowner standpoint or a property owner standpoint, it's very fluid, but the back end does not feel that way, does not feel that way. So what we do as a company is we try to get every roof that we sell on and installed within two weeks, weather permitting, of course and then we have a 48-hour repair guarantee where we'll install a repair within 48 hours, because obviously in today's day and age, everyone wants it done really quick and right now and yesterday, and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 2:

So, um, from a sales perspective, we drive home that hero sales culture to say like hey guys, you, you can't we like we can't operationally be super on point if your material purchase order sucks and it doesn't, you know, flow right or you you miss a color or you didn't you know, tag this thing right in company cam. So we have someone on the backend that kind of make sure that everything is is good, so that when we switch it to production, production knows hey, this is exactly what we do from a repair standpoint. Obviously a little easier with a new roof, but we really try to obsess over the customer experience so that that they don't feel like they're getting left. The homeowner doesn't feel, and then operations doesn't feel like, hey guys, just go put this roof on or here's a repair.

Speaker 1:

Go figure it out. Yeah, the sales rep is like here.

Speaker 2:

Best of luck, go figure it out yeah, the sales rep was like here, best of luck, yeah. And my operations, my operations team, is like man. It's sometimes it feels as like hey, here's the roof, black shingles, and it's like, yeah, so coaching everyone up that way and uh, it's really helpful, definitely so.

Speaker 1:

The your your wife has, you know, came on board. You said that she played kind of a certain role in the beginning. Has her role expanded over time? Before we carry on with the episode, let's give a shout out to one of our sponsors. I talk to contractors every day that feel stuck, not because they're not working hard, but because they're missing the structure to growth, without chaos or their culture's falling apart, because their team's unclear, unaligned or just burned out and when change hits, they're reacting instead of leading because time and priorities aren't under their control. Day 41 Thrive helps to fix that with proven strategies for growth, culture and leadership that actually work, ready to thrive beyond the storm. Visit the link in the description or visit the Roofing Success Podcast website on the sponsors page to start your journey. Today your wife came on board. Um, well, you know, you said that she played the kind of a certain role in the beginning, as her role expanded over time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So she, um, she's awesome man, she and we've, we work together well, because of lots of therapy. And I emphasize that, right, because I the first company that I ever work for in the roofing space. It was a husband and wife and they would just holler at each other from across the hallway. Right, it was just like so bad for culture, but it was a really good company. I mean all those things. But I was like man, if I ever work with my wife, I'm never going to yell at her across the hallway. So, yeah, she's been part of the company from the early on. She's now our office manager.

Speaker 2:

So what she does is she's in charge of what I would consider the back of the house, so the customer service reps, the profit losses, she handles marketing, um, kind of she. She probably has, I would say, like five or six people on her team that she's serving, and then she is the like greatest advice giver. Uh, that I could like. I'm a very much a dreamer. You were like hey, man, you want to do a podcast. I'm like absolutely, let's do it. What are the questions? I don't even care what the questions are, to free flow it. That way she is very much like so I'll come to her just like that and be like hey, I think we should do this. And she's like maybe you should think more about that. And also people, my staff come to her and they're like hey, what do you think about this? Uh, so she really gives great advice and she's a early childhood education major from Auburn and, um, she's so.

Speaker 1:

She's got that kind of teachable spirit about her so she can help explain systems and processes a whole lot better than the dropout and teaching two-year-olds or three-year-olds or you know one-year-olds, so you know it kind of fits right, like it kind of fits into business. You said that everyone's a two and a three-year-old in the wrestling game. She knows how to speak our language, mark.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, it's anytime I bring someone on, that's brand new. At this. I'm like guys, we're just doing roofing. I mean it's like a box of step flashing and coil nails and like we can figure this out together. It's not difficult. We make it more difficult than it needs to be.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. You said it took a lot of therapy. You know, for those people who who do work with their spouses or partners and, like you know, potential future spouses or you know what whath years of running a business together, I would assume you know some of the home conversations become just about roofing and what you know. How do you keep? How do you keep that? How do you keep that balance going with the relationship and the uh in the business?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I um.

Speaker 2:

I always thought, like back before I was in therapy. It was like man, like if you're in an argument, you're meant to win it, right, like if you and I, it's like a fight. Like if we're getting in a fight, like you want to win the fight. Same thing with an argument, right, and actually that's the polar opposite of like there's no winning and losing in an argument, right? So it's like. So what I've learned through all these years of therapy is, like my wife is way smarter than me. Um and uh, women are made different, right? Uh, they have great intuition and, um, they have a great gut feeling about it. And ask, hey, what do you think about this? Instead of telling someone and I think I do a good job here not saying, hey, this is my company, you know, this is the way it has to be it's like, hey, what do you think? Cause I, our team, is so diverse of, like, all different walks of life, and so we have an early childhood education. You know, major, who's our office manager? Right, so it's like. You know my operations director is a food and beverage manager. Right, my sales manager is a golf bro. It's like. So we try to bring on people that really help us and compliment us very, very much. But from my wife perspective, I would just say ask a lot of questions and then have really good boundaries.

Speaker 2:

My therapist once told me he was like, as business owners, you know this, we can work all day long and then there's still more work to do tomorrow. Right, so we have the boundary. Before you know, when we first started growing, we were not at an office. Now we have an office, um, but we were working out of our basement, in our home. So, like every second we would talk about this business. Oh, listen to this, what this customer did, listen to what you know. This happened today with this supplier and it was just like, oh, my gosh. So we, we put in the boundary of like, we're not going to talk about work, especially like the hard conversations, and, uh, about six o'clock we basically turn it all off and we go straight to mom and dad mode instead of, you know, business owner mode. That's been really, really helpful.

Speaker 1:

I bet that's hard.

Speaker 2:

It is hard and it's so good, cause we remind each other, uh, especially when, like, she's worn out and doesn't want to talk about it, or I'm worn out, she'll always say it's like, hey, let's not talk about this here, and I'm like, so good, yeah, because it's still going to be there tomorrow. It's like it doesn't matter, but I'm an outward, so I just want to talk about everything that happened and all the things and all of that, and it's. It is very difficult, but it's also really great, um, to be able to be like, yeah, we're not going to talk. We have that boundary, that guardrail in our relationship where we're not going to talk about roofing all the time. We're more than roofing, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yep, what other lessons have you learned in therapy that have helped you in business?

Speaker 2:

Man, you can't make everyone happy. I had this customer man I can't even tell her name because I'm under a non-disclosure agreement, but if this wasn't recorded I would tell you her name and I literally it was like I was right when I started in this industry and it was a referral from my metal sub and he's like this lady's great, you're going to love her. And I was like awesome. So I sold her a roof and she never provided plans and she was like hey, so we kind of hand measured everything. We're just trying to figure out how to, uh, you know, get the right materials. So I just ordered like a whole bunch of extra materials, just cause, as you know, like it's the worst thing, it's five o'clock and you're out of you know timber techs or you know sealer ridge or whatever. And so I ordered a whole bunch of materials. Everything went great. We, uh we installed a full system. So this was a GAF job. So we use felt buster, sealer Ridge, uh, timberline ultra storm guard, like everything. Like it should have been a golden pledge, but we weren't a master elite contractor at the time. So we showed up to get all the extra materials and she was like, oh, I thought I got to keep those. I was like, no, we're, you know, taking them back.

Speaker 2:

I ordered extra because, you know, five o'clock, the normal spiel. Well, she didn't like that. Well, she sent me a video the next day saying, hey, you didn't put flashing on this roof. And I'm like, no, there's flashing there. And so I, of course, ran right over to her house to, you know, double check and make sure that there's flashing there. And of course, I sent her this video. This is before company cam and you can like hear me tinking with a pencil like ting, ting, ting, ting, the metal behind the hearty blank. And I sent it to her and she's just like, nope, it's not there. I'm like it is a hundred percent there. And what I found out is that her husband's an attorney and this is what their stick was is just to stick it to people. And they would just see if they could, you know, win the argument or get away with not having to pay the contractor.

Speaker 2:

And man, I was in this crazy tailspin because I took everything so personally, like this is my baby, you know, I care so much about the homeowner. I want to make it right, like I don't understand why they would ever think that I didn't do it. And then I would just run over there and my therapist, ed he's a great guy, he goes, he goes. Martin, like you can't make everyone happy Like, let me ask you a question Did you put the roof on to the best of your knowledge?

Speaker 2:

And I said, yes, there's no way that this roof will ever leak. We did everything perfect, I personally inspected it and I had my top crew do it. He's like some people are just like that, some people are a-holes, and I'm like, yep, some people are a-holes. And so I learned that valuable lesson is like man, you can't take it personally. Like some people just want to sue you and it sucks and it's messy and I would never live my life that way or treat people that way. But some people, that's just their MO, they think every contractor's out to get them and yeah, so you know, being able to take a deep breath and be like, hey, that's what we have an attorney for. The attorney can handle all that stuff. I did everything right, um, but it took a lot. Um, you could see my passion beginning to talk about this late?

Speaker 1:

No, it's. It's the truth, though, and and that's a, that's a good lesson to learn because, like, first of all, not everyone is your customer, right, as the first thing I think of there and not that you knew, right, you didn't know think of there and not that you knew, right, you didn't know. But that's a great lesson that hey, don't we really did everything, like, if you feel, maybe the lesson there is that, if you know that you did everything that you could have done, hey, man, that's about as far as we could go with this, because there are, you know, there are one or two crazy people out there. Um did a podcast. There might be more than one or two there, maybe three or four, maybe three or four per square inch of the earth surface or something. But you know, um, I want to write a book.

Speaker 2:

I want to get together with a bunch of uh of roofers and just write a book about everyone's favorite customer right, Like the good one or the bad one.

Speaker 1:

I think that would be a heck of a reason the show every now and then, and Dimitri does that show where they do like horror, horror, horror stories about a contractor, but then also horror stories about a uh, a homeowner or a property owner, and it's uh. I love the premise of it because it's not always. It's not always you, even though it may, even though the world may feel it to you. I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors.

Speaker 1:

As a roofing marketing agency owner and coach, I've seen it all Great marketing wasted because no one follows up fast enough. That's why I built Power Up Agents, Not just a receptionist. Our AI handles the entire customer journey, from answering the first call to booking the job, to post job surveys and reviews 24-7, inbound, outbound, even multilingual. If you want leads followed up instantly and customers nurtured automatically, visit the link in the description or visit the sponsors page on the roofing success podcast website. Your full AI team is ready. It's not always you, even though it may, even though the world may feel it to you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it, it definitely does. And we, we have some awesome customers too. Man, I mean, some of my favorite customers are like like, what color would you want? And I'm like, well, I would do the landmark pro more way, like that's what I put on my house. They're like that's what I want, like those are our favorite customers. And then we have the customers that are like hey, we're gonna videotape this whole thing. And we're like, well, how do you videotape? Where do you get the tape? Like you could just record it, like. But it's like, you know, that's what I love about this job is that there's. You just meet all the different types of people the people in the c-suites and the people that, like man, are hard up on their luck and they just need, you know, somebody to fix their roof and, uh, you know, do it quick do it quick.

Speaker 1:

Yeah it, it there's. There's a wide variety of people that you'll come across from a customer standpoint and from a team perspective. What are some of the, the, the, the, the, some of the ups and downs you've had building your, your team, over the years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's probably one of the things I'm most proud of. Is is the team, and it all stems from when I was first hired by this roofing company. Um, they hired me. I did tile, like floor tile one summer and that's the extent of my, like trade knowledge. Uh, and they hired me and they're like, we love hiring you because you don't know it any other way, so we're going to teach you our way and that's the way, and so that is the way that I love it here.

Speaker 2:

As much as I would love to bring in, you know, a sales guy from another company like there's all those bad habits. It's like, at least how I feel in Atlanta, jim, is that, like, people just want to be nurtured and cared for and not be sold to. So if I can find people that are just customer focused, where they can just, um, not feel like they're being sold to, they feel like they're being taken care of, if I can teach that and hire that, then, uh, you're going to be a great fit. So, you know, my sales team currently consists of two bartenders uh, an ex special ed teacher, a missionary in Africa and, uh, a golf pro like, and then this college dropout I consider myself sometimes a sales guy. Um, and no one has any sales experience and I have to remind myself that, oh, like you don't know about follow-up and like all those things. So I have to remind them of those things. But it's like I love it because the people that we hire are like they. They, they are customer service people that happen to sell roofs. Right, because, especially in the homeowner uh sphere, if, um, if you can obsess over the customer experience and you feel like you're like over communicated with, you're going to continue to flourish and have many, many appointments. So if you're in customer service and you're a bartender, you know how to deal with the angry people. You know how to deal with the couple that's in an argument. You know how to deal with the old man that's just lonely and as you know what like. So you know all those things. So we just take that and then throw it into the homeowner space and we teach them a little bit about roofing and roof repairs and then we're constantly kind of teaching our team that way. So that's kind of our sales team operations man.

Speaker 2:

I. I have another bartender and he's uh, he's a colombian dude. He's awesome. My food and beverage guy, uh, my operations manager is a food and beverage like uh, I, I I smoked him out of my uh, my country club because I just watched how he obsessed over taking care of the members.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we have another educator here that worked with my wife 20 years ago and we post a lot of fun content on our thing. And she saw our content and she's like, man, I want to come work there. And, um, I just found out that my media manager she's in charge of all of our marketing actually has a marketing degree, uh, which is just like blew my mind. I was like, wait, what? You have a marketing degree? That's crazy. I just thought she was this like division one soccer star.

Speaker 2:

So you know, but we just hire, like just great people and, uh, we, we have a. We kind of let everyone be involved in the hiring process where we, uh, we want everyone to, you know, meet that person and see if they're going to work with the flow. I don't like the whole we're a family thing, cause I don't, I just don't believe in like, hey, we're a family, uh, cause you can't fire your mom. Um, I just, I don't know, I just I've never liked that. Hey, we're a family, but we're a we're a really great unit and team and um it works really well for us, especially if we give everyone the opportunity. Hey, we're thinking about bringing this person on board. We would love you to set up a time to have coffee with them, or vice versa.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that. I like the concept of, or what you're doing. They're bringing people with who have already maybe they haven't been formally trained in customer experience, but but they have had to, but they were thrown in the fire of customer experience, right and, and had to deal with a lot of challenging situations. Um, I think that's that's something I've heard from a few different contractors around the country and and I've heard it other ways where you know they like if you're recruiting people for your team, you may recruit from, you know, like, a company that has a really in helping people and doing the right thing and creating that customer experience. And then you find out they have a marketing degree and you're like, wow, this is awesome. Who would have thought that's cool? That's so cool. I want to shift gears a little bit real quick. I want to shift gears a little bit real quick and you, you know, with the new sign behind you the hard reset podcast um, have ventured into my world. Martin, you've come to, you've come, you've come over to to the good side.

Speaker 2:

Finally, yeah, I love um, I love the podcast space. It's like this is my new passion project space. It's like this is my new passion project. Um, and uh, yeah, it's funny if you, if you, were to get on our socials and see our tiktok or whatever it's like. I don't feel like, if I was a homeowner, that I care about the drone, the epic drone videos with, like, uh, the unbelievable music and all those things like what I think is like how do we entertain these, these people that want to follow our channel? And, um, we do have some good education stuff on our YouTube channel.

Speaker 2:

But, uh, the hard reset kind of podcast came out of, like, long story short, in 2021, I got COVID and, um, about 10 days after my COVID, I went into mania and my mania wasn't treated, so that I went into psychosis. The psychosis wasn't treated and so it came to this moment in 2021 where my therapist, my wife and my big brother were in this room and they were like you need to get him to a psychiatric hospital and he needs to go, like right now, today, and so no mental health history or anything in my family, anything like that. So, fast forward, like I spent five and a half months in 2021, you know, by the way, I had a company at the time and so that was, just, you know, awful. But what I learned in that moment and I can, you know, tell that story another day but what I learned in that moment is like when it's hitting the fan and you're going through it, or now that I've been through it, other people are going to go and be faced with that same thing Maybe not the same story, but they're going to be faced with a similar thing, where it's like my wife just went a little crazy. She's in the psychiatric ward. Like what do we do? Now? I'm the guy that gets the call, and so I love getting the call because I feel like, you know, not just in roofing but in life like we're out here to help each other.

Speaker 2:

So the hard reset podcast literally came from like the more people that know my story or the more people that know your story of your hard reset. That's what this podcast is about. It's like hey, man, this is what I went through. We've we've had a widower on. We've had people that you know left uh, you know the corporate world to go into ministry. We've had alcoholics people lying to their wife. We've had adulterer. Uh, we've just had. We had my best friend's ex wife on, who's now married to another person with three kids. It's wild. But all these stories kind of add up to just this Hard Reset podcast and we're just having a lot of fun and we're just having conversations with life change people, right? Because again, who wants to see a drone video of a Landmark Pro? It sounds boring. Let me tell you about the time the guy drove north in the southbound lane of Interstate 75. I can listen to that. I got that guy coming on.

Speaker 1:

A little bit more attention there. What does having a hard reset mean to you?

Speaker 2:

You broke up on me on that question.

Speaker 1:

What does having a hard reset mean to you?

Speaker 2:

Man, hard reset is starting from scratch and really thinking about everything needs to be redone. Um, a hard reset is like, hey, man, it's, it's like a 180 like you're. You're going down this, this road and all of a sudden you gotta hit that reset, unplug the the cord, plug it back in and start over from scratch. Um, so that's what hard reset means to me. The, the name reset roofing came like in 2015, 2016, where I was going to name my company, like every roofer does after themselves, and, uh, someone else had already.

Speaker 2:

My last name is shepherd and someone already had shepherd in in in Atlanta, believe it or not and my wife called. She's like I can't get the Wi-Fi to work. I'm like just hit the reset button. Like reset it, hit it. She called me back. She's like everything's working and I'm like reset roofing. If we ever own a business, one day, that'd be really cool to have reset roofing. It a business. One day that'd be really cool to have reset roofing. It's got that double R, so that's where it came from. And now there's like a reset everything.

Speaker 1:

I should have trademarked this a long time ago but so, yeah, that's what reset means to me Awesome, and so, like I think this could be in life and business. It applies in a lot of ways. What can someone? What are some, some things that you know from from the conversations that you've had with people on the podcast now and from your own life. What are things, what are some things that people can do if they need to reset. I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors.

Speaker 4:

Stop going at it alone, because growing a roofing company today is not what it was like even three years ago. Not with the economy, not with private equity, not with AI taking over the world. Let's not forget insurance, rewriting the rules. Join the community of roofers who don't really like roofers. We share our winning secrets to help each other dominate in today's fast changing and unpredictable times. Click the link in the description to apply to join.

Speaker 1:

What are some things that people can do if they need to reset?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think probably the ringing kind of endorsement of all these things is you got to tell someone, um, and you also have to look at yourself and realize that, hey, I need this reset. Because if I told Jim, if you loved Chipotle, let's just say, and every day you're eating Chipotle. I'm like Jim, you need to stop eating Chipotle, you can't eat it every day. And it's like, well, I like Chipotle. Jim has to look at himself in the mirror and say, man, I can't eat Chipotle every day. It's not healthy for me, I can't take, I can't eat Chipotle every day. It's not healthy for me.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I, I've, I've learned that I am. Uh, you know, I have learned you can't tell people what they need. You can't tell someone, hey, you need a hard reset. It's like you need to look yourself in the mirror and be like, hey, man, I've got to stop doing this. I need to kind of move on with my life. I'm tired of waking up drunk every day or you know dealing, you know doing drugs, or like my life feels empty. Like that rock bottom moment is what most people have to do to get to the hard reset moment so that they can kind of start their life over.

Speaker 1:

What do you think a struggling roofing contractor can do to reset their business?

Speaker 2:

I would say hire a mentor, um, and just have someone come in and look at it. And just because so often it's like especially like for a, it's so hard for us to ask for help. Because we want to be the strong business guy, we want to be the guy that just knows everything, it's like I've got the answer to every question. And it's the humble guys, it's the guys filled with humility and the girls filled with humility that are like man, I don't know that answer. Let me find someone else that does it. That's what I love about your sweatshirt, man, is. There's so many things I love about RSRA, but one of the many things is like hey, man, I'm a $10 million company, I'm trying to be a $20 million company. Yeah, here's my phone number, call me. Hey, I'm a million dollar contractor, I'm trying to be a $3 million contractor. Hey, man, send me your, send me a couple things. Let me look at your SOP. What's an SOP? It's like man, if I'm like trying to grow as a human, you got to eat that humble pie and be humil. You know, humble and filled with humility, and say, man, I need some help.

Speaker 2:

Jim, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I just got an audit from my insurance. They say I owe him $25,000. I don't understand. I've paid a bunch of dumb taxes over the years and I want to give everyone all these dumb taxes that I've paid. So Jim and all of his friends don't have to follow and pay those dumb taxes, because it's going to be better for the industry. Which is why I love RSRA so much. It's like it's just an open place of hey man, I need some help, I need some feedback. Will you look at this for me? I, you know, I'm having problems hiring. I'm losing talent. Left and right, everyone's going and starting their own thing. It's like, well, hey, hey, let's look at the culture of your company. Hey, how do you pay your people? Like, what do you? How do you incentivize all those things? So, and the humble people? Um, those are the people that I think are just going to really excel it's people that are open.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, people that are open, right like you're open to, you're open to change, you're open to change, you're open to expressing your problems Like cause.

Speaker 1:

If you don't express your problems, especially to your peers, to you know, a lot of people don't have the abundance mindset.

Speaker 1:

But like within a group, like like, we have it's, you know, you're saying, oh yeah, I went through that or I did that and I tried it this way and it worked, or it didn't work, or it worked for me. It might not work for you, but I tried it this way, and more of those things that you can get into your, into your day to day is it's fantastic, what, what is one of the best kind of things that have come out of the like maybe a myth, or you in the mission control group, or or one of your things there, from from one of the other mentors, or not even from a mentor in there, but from one of the other business owners, uh, in the RSRA, like what? Or outside of the RSRA, what has another roofing business owner, what piece of advice or or or lesson did they give you? That is that you're like, like man, that one made just an amazing impact on what we're doing yeah, I think it would.

Speaker 2:

Um, I, you know, for me I've really been following reimagined roofing for a while and cody landles and a lot of the things that he talks about. It makes a lot of sense to me and I love his vulnerability of like hey, man, we used to do it this way and then all of a sudden, all these people left and they owed me tons of money and instead of me like filing bankruptcy and like I, you know, I found a way to get all these guys their money. And then I was like I'm going to make this roofing industry like so much better. And for for a guy like Cody to invite us out to Arizona to his office and just like say here's the playbook, like here's a playbook, this is what we do, this is how we do it I mean the guys in Arizona selling roofs in New Jersey I mean it blows me away.

Speaker 2:

So just watching Cody, you know, you know, reading the books that he had like the Zappos book like, which was an instrumental part for him like getting all those advice, I mean, shoot, man, adam Binsman, I mean that guy's a real deal. There's been so many good pieces, but I would say the biggest advice that I got was from Cody is like you just constantly got to be evolving. You have to change with the time. You can't do it the same way over and over and over, like yeah, it's going to work, but you're probably not going to grow.

Speaker 1:

So, with that, what are some of the evolutions that you are implementing, like what have? What are some of the things that have evolved at reset roofing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think, uh, the number one, uh, evolution. Was it Like? I have spent so much money protecting our brand with the customer that might be taking advantage of us At the end of obsessing so much over the customer experience that they feel like they are a part of the company as well? Anyone who watches this is welcome to steal this idea. I think it's great. So back in the day, like the Jewish tradition was to hang like prayer scriptures over your door jam, so, like anyone that would walk through the house, it would bless them. That was the theory.

Speaker 2:

This underlayment project that we do with all of our homeowners to say, hey, we want we bring them this arts and crafts project that they can do with their family or their kids. Hey, we're going to put this underlayment underneath your roof so you'll never going to see it, except for this one time that we take a picture. What we want you to do is bless your house. You can bless it with a prayer, you can bless it with a song. You can just have your, your kids, like, do a draw whatever they want, like here's all the markers, you just do it. And so we bring the, the, the homeowners, into the project to make them feel like, hey, we want you to be a part of this, and the reception that we get from all of our homeowners and property owners is, like man, I really felt like I was part of this project.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't just you guys were putting a roof on. You welcomed me into that and I have learned that, man, if we can obsess over even the littlest things, where it's like we got to drive an hour to drop off this underlayment packet so that you know the kids can do it, like we're going to do it because it's worth it, um, so yeah, I mean we, we never balk at someone's like man, that nail pop was never there. Well, we told you on the contract that nail pops are going to happen. No, we're going to send the painter like it's not worth it to me, like we'll make money on the next one and hopefully she'll tell someone or he'll tell someone about man that they even said that they won't handle nail pops, but they do those little tiny things that just add up. Uh, you know tremendously, year after year after year the, the reputation things, the and again it's the.

Speaker 1:

The homeowner doesn't know, like, they just don't know. They don't know what, what, what this is process is going to be. Like they don't know that there's going to be nail pops or potentially could be nail pops. They don't know, like, they don't know any of it. They don't know at all. Uh, what are the other things that helped that? That that helped to bring that customer in or just create that great customer experience that you guys do or have focused on?

Speaker 2:

yeah, we, uh, we just try to throw everyone in that we go and see, like if this was my home, what would I do? So we have a huge repair department, we love doing repairs and so you know we'll go to Jim's house and we'll be like, hey, jim, like your roof's only 15 years old, you have some nail pops and you know we would recommend doing these three things and do it. Hey, jim, we had a storm in your area. Yeah, we definitely think that your insurance company should be involved in this. We would file a claim. So that's kind of how we treat every customer is.

Speaker 2:

Like if this was my house, what would I do and, to be honest, this is my favorite role that I always use is I like I cover the logo on my shirt and I just say, hey, let me consult you through this, right Cause, to be honest, like it doesn't matter if they don't buy a roof from me because someone else will I mean historically speaking, right? So, like, at the end of the day, let me just consult you through this. Like if this was my house, this is what I would do. Yeah, if you got this guy and you trust him and you feel safe using him like, use him.

Speaker 2:

Here's why we're different. Might cost you a little more, might cost you less, but that's what I would do, and so you know the golden rule of treating others the way you want to be treated. Man that's done a such wonders. You know, from an employee standpoint, from a homeowner standpoint, from a supplier standpoint, from a crew standpoint, that's really kind of how we like to operate is like man. If this was me, how would I want to be taken care of? And it's really helped our business flourish.

Speaker 1:

Like I know you're a visionary right. Like I have a lot of ideas and and and so in. Has there ever been anything that you've implemented in that in, in trying to to improve that customer experience where you're like, well, that didn't work. Yeah, all the dumb yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the things is is like we let used to let the customer, like we used to ask the question like, hey, does that work for you? Like, does that work for your schedule? And so that was a terrible design because now, all of a sudden, like nobody wanted a roof on a Monday and nobody wanted a roof on Friday, so we could only work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So instead of asking if it works, hey, we have you scheduled on this day has been really super helpful because, of course, if it doesn't work on a Monday, like, but you know who wants, who wants to cherry pick, you know their specific date and time that that wants to go. So taking, you know, maybe not giving full autonomy to the homeowner to say when the materials are being delivered and when we're actually coming to put the roof on. I mean we, we literally had a, uh, we had a builder call us.

Speaker 2:

It was a remodel. It was uh, 8, 30 at night. He calls, he said, oh, by the way, the hoa will not let anyone do any work until 8 am and the guys show up at six. I mean it's hot, like we're trying to get this thing done. I have a picture from my builder on my phone of the guys sitting on the ridge and it's like 7 45 in the morning and they all have their, their uh forks, just like ready to go and across the street there's a landscaper with a backpack blower going and I'm like, yep, we're those guys, man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're those guys that we're gonna wait till 8 am to make the customer happy. So you gotta do it. If, uh, if you had to start over, you know now, with all of the things that you've learned, look, you got to reset right now. What do you do?

Speaker 2:

what would my action plan be?

Speaker 2:

yeah probably wouldn't. Um, it was hard, man, it was really hard. Um, I think my action plan would be I would slow down because so much um, so much of like, even being a sales guy or being an owner is like man, time is so like important and I would slow down and I would get to my 10 o'clock appointment and just sit there until they had all their questions answered and I wouldn't rush to the 12 and rush to the two and the four and all that stuff I'd I'd go real slow. Um, I would hire the exact same team that I have now. Um, the exact same team. Um, it would be a really hard, uh recruitment. But, um, I, I challenge um my team against anyone's team right now. Uh, they're just uber talented and, uh, they care so much about the customer experience and I just love that so much. But yeah, I would probably go real, real slow and be selective and not take it personally.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, Martin. Thanks for your time today. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.

Speaker 3:

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.

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Jim Ahlin

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