Roofing Success

Automate & Dominate: How Smart Roofers Are Winning the AI Revolution

• Jim Ahlin • Episode 278

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AI is taking over. Fast.
Some roofers are getting scared. Others are getting rich.

In this video, I sit down with Rosalynn Verges (Roz), the founder of the AI Roofing Revolution, to show you how smart roofers are using AI to win more jobs, build better teams, and grow like crazy.

Roz shares the exact tools, workflows, and use cases she’s teaching roofing companies to automate their day-to-day…

So they can do more with less.
And dominate their markets.

From streamlining production schedules… to automating sales training… to using AI as a personal data analyst - this isn’t a “someday” thing. It’s happening now. And if you wait, you’ll be left behind.

This episode is a wake-up call to every roofing company owner, GM, and sales leader out there.

Links: 
https://www.airoofingrevolution.com/
https://www.instagram.com/airoofingrevolution/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ai-roofing-revolution/
https://www.facebook.com/airoofingrevolution

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SPEAKER_00:

The companies that are training their employees right now on how to use these AI tools to their specific roles are the ones that are going to win. And that's like the point of an ARP revolution in the first place. And you're thinking about where you can get AI lift in your organization. I think understanding what AI really can do is a great starting point. What would you do if you didn't have to do that thing that's slowing you down? What's that thing that you've been itching to get to and that you want to get done? But every day you just feel like I don't have time to get it done in my job. Inviting employees into that conversation and into the narrative of like what the future of the organization is going to look like is a really important step to helping them feel comfortable and confident.

SPEAKER_05:

Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Aline and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Rosalind Burgess, how are you?

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, Jim. I'm doing great. How are you?

SPEAKER_05:

Back again to talk about AI this time.

SPEAKER_00:

Whoa, little twist, some new letters from HR.

SPEAKER_05:

From HR to AI.

SPEAKER_00:

Here we are.

SPEAKER_05:

The AI roofing revolution.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_05:

Tell it, tell, tell the audience about your new project or the new the new the new project business.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean it really started as a passion project, you know. Um so yes. Uh well, as you know, and for anybody who knows me or doesn't know me, I guess, uh I really have been spending my career in the roofing industry focusing on helping people with uh or companies with their people and processes. And so I'm always kind of looking at our organizational design, our org charts, our roles, our responsibilities, how do we make the engine that is a roofing company run effectively, right? Um and so in 2025, the start of the year, you and I sat down and had some fun conversations about AI and just how much it was really changing, how far it had come. Um, and that was a huge moment for me of just kind of like, oh my goodness, if I don't pay attention to how this technology is reshaping our world, uh our my clients are gonna be left behind. And it just has major implications, I think, uh, in regards to our org structures and like how we will work in the future. Uh and so for me, as somebody who has a passion for and studies and understands like how things work together, how organizations work together, how people work, how our employees uh get their work done, it just felt like such a great uh fit to dig into. And then it just became so fun. Um, you know, like we love we're we're nerding out at my house. I mean, we're using it to create chicken lookalike websites and, you know, everything from like helping Anna, my daughter who swims, uh, design her workouts and fixing our new car. I mean, just anything. I feel like anything. And so it's it's been honestly just a passion that really turned into how do I take this thing that I'm really enjoying and help my clients and our industry learn how to use AI in their businesses.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, and that that's a there's there's a big gap, not just in the roofing industry, but across all across all industries right now. The AI wave is coming really fast and really slow at the same time. Right. It's like, okay, we see this tidal wave coming, we know it's coming, we have to prepare for it because it if you don't, I really feel like you you're gonna get left behind quickly. And there's some risks in in the in the roofing industry where maybe some of the private equity companies have a a little bit better uh focus on implementing AI than the small guy or the bigger companies, we don't even they don't even have to be PE backed, right? The the larger companies may have more resources to bring in to understand and how to implement AI in their businesses versus the smaller companies. And um people's buying habits are gonna change, work habits are gonna change, and and and if you're not, if you don't have this implemented in your business, it it's gonna be crazy. This this episode will probably air after the Roofing and Solar Reform Alliance uh um annual event at the beginning of October. But at that event, we're talking about future proofing your roofing company. And there's a there's an analogy that I like to that I like from the like from entrepreneurship, and that is the wolf is always chasing you. And right now that wolf is AI. Yeah, and and so we we have to stay ahead of it, we have to stay above, uh, you know, uh implement, learn how to begin using it and implementing in our business. So for people who uh have maybe dabbled in it, for what what are the steps? Like if you had to walk through like the steps that someone would take in their business to like first, I guess the first thing they would probably need to do is understand AI. And then how do they how do they start to integrate and use it and and then optimize their business using AI?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I think you nailed it on the head with first just starting to understand some of the uses for applied AI. Um, so how do you apply AI into your business? Um, I think as a leader, uh, you know, really we should be thinking beyond just kind of some tactical quick fixes, right? Sometimes we're thinking about like what are AI solutions that we could adopt or like let's hurry up and bring somebody in and you know, we're gonna rework this whole thing and let's get all of our employees out, right? That's kind of like uh how do I hurry up and and do this? Um, and I think it actually starts with first understanding like what are the best uses for AI? Like, what is AI really good at in uh the world and in your business? Where is it going to have the biggest impact? So that as you're kind of thinking about that overall org structure uh and you're thinking about where you can get AI lift in your organization, I think understanding what AI really can do is a great starting point because I think um, you know, as people who are are starting to dabble in it, and I mean, maybe it's just that we're in this industry now and we're talking about it all the time. But I I think even outside of just uh, you know, my circle, I constantly hear whether it's like at a baseball game or you know, out at dinner or some something, uh, there are people talking about AI right now, right? So I think it's it's piqued people's interest, it's piquing people's attention for sure right now. Um, but I think a lot of people are still using AI tools like Chat GPT um or Gemini or Grok or whatever your preferred LLM is. They're really just using it more as like a search engine function. Um, that often is kind of how I see people get started with it, which is great. Like we have to start somewhere. And then I see people kind of move into the bucket of like content creation. So it's like, okay, I want to dive in and make this email better for me, or like, oh, my employee really frustrated with me, or that client that I just worked with uh sent me a nasty email and now I need to respond. How can I do that professionally? And so I see that kind of be like the next uh step that people start to take in their organizations is like, okay, how can we say things better, which is great because it's a large language model, it's good at language, so it's a good use case. Um, and then I see kind of as the doors uh open more and our minds start to expand a little bit more, I think I tend to see people move into more of that deep research, strategic thinking, utilizing AI to be almost like a creative partner. Um, but even then, still, like we're still leaving a lot on the table because there's so much more we could be doing in our organizations. And so we like to kind of help organizations and leaders go beyond and start to think about AI for data analysis, AI for training their teams, AI for documenting their SOPs. And uh, there's just so many fantastic ways that we can be strategically using AI in our businesses that we can get beyond just like, okay, let's let's try a cool prompt and see what happens. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, definitely. How are you, you know, I mean, you come from the HR side of things. How are you seeing like the what is the the the the impact with with within organizations with the people in the implementation of AI? Are you what are some things that that that an owner should understand around that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, Workday did a global study uh and it showed that employers tend to think that they're doing a better job implementing than employees do. Um so I think the stat is like 65% of employers would say that they're implementing AI and that it's going well. And then of that group, like 45% of their employees would say, like, yeah, it's going great. Um, so there is some dissonance often, which is so normal, just again, uh, in our organizations where we as leaders tend to think things are going a little bit better than our employees experience it. So that's something to be mindful of is that um there is truly an AI trust gap. So there's a gap with how well your employees think you're doing it, but then also how trusting they are of using those AI tools, um, trusting them to perform accurately, trusting in the result, and for sure, trusting that their job is going to be secure. Um, so I think there is some resistance uh depending on the organization, but I also see that organizations that are really coming at it from more of a strategic mindset and they're seeing this as a tool that's going to enhance their businesses and they're thinking about how that fits in with their employee experience. I see them really taking a more thoughtful approach of let's train our employees, let's equip them, let's empower them, let's help them uh really start to access and utilize these tools. Um, and then because of that, because it's like in their hands and they get to be a part of bringing AI into their organizations, I tend to find those organizations be the employees are much more receptive and they're happy and often excited uh to get to use AI in their roles.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, definitely. What I've heard you talk about it before, we've done another session on this for the RSRA, but like you don't you brought up like the security of data and like in understanding AI, what are some of the secure the the the things that a company owner should understand about the security of these LLMs and the AI systems? Before we carry on with the episode, let's give a shout out to one of our sponsors. Roofers, let's get real. You're great at building roofs, but are you great at building a steady stream of leads? That's where Job Nimbus Marketing comes in. They know the roofing industry inside and out, and they'll help you dominate Google, Facebook, reputation management, and everything in between. If you want more quality leads, more book jobs, and more growth, visit the link in the description or the sponsors page on the Roofing Success Podcast website. Things that a company owner should understand about the security of these LLMs and the AI systems.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the things I think about is you really have to be mindful and aware of any AI tools that you're using and consider what their kind of goal or aim might be. Um, so something to consider if you're somebody who's just kind of exploring or dabbling with any of the free AI tools, a lot of those free options are kind of requiring you to allow uh them to train their AI models on your information, on your inputs. Um, and so if you're not uh checking those settings and checking into the security of uh those tools that you're using, you could be potentially exposing your organization, your data to some risk because they can take that information and turn around and use it to train their models. You know, all of a sudden one day they're, you know, you're putting in information about your customers, and now that customer detail is showing up for someone else, some other roofing company down the street that's looking at uh that kind of same context, same problem. And so it's really important to protect any personal identifiable information. Um I would also consider again, like uh what is the aim of the model? So if you think about open AI, right, they really have built their model from the standpoint of they want all of this interaction. And that's they've they've been an AI company first, right? Setting up that LLM. Whereas if you think about a company like Microsoft that has Copilot or uh Google that has Gemini, those were started as enterprise software companies first, right? And so they're often thinking about our enterprise security and kind of making that first stock. Um, now that said, you can still get that security level and you can choose to not have your data shared through tools like Chat GPT, but you want to make sure that you go through and you change your data settings so that it's not sharing and learning. And I believe that's really only available if it's in a paid plan. Um Claude even just made this change where Claude used to be one where it was secure, your data was just kept for you. Um, and now they recently announced that if you're not on one of their paid models, they're going to use your interactions to train their models.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, there's a there's a there's a saying it came from social media, but if you're not paying for it, you're the product.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

It's like you you're the product, you think you're going on Facebook for this, but it's really because they're gonna they're selling you ad space, right? They're selling ad space.

SPEAKER_00:

Especially risky, Jim, if we're not educating our team members on this and they're out there just trying things and they don't know that, and they're not thinking about uh not just your company data, but also your customers' data. And as partners and leaders, we have a responsibility to protect that information. Um, and so I think having good security protocols and policies in place, having an AI policy is a really important step in getting started and your organization's AI journey.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, definitely. Now let's talk a little bit about some of the use cases and then adding it into, you know, into the day-to-day of the company. What are some of the what are some of the best use cases you've seen so far?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, I mean, we break it down by role, right? Like what it what is your organization uh should have job descriptions, probably, right? Or some type of different kind of org structure that you're looking at. Um, and so we like to go roll by role, but I'm often thinking about those. We we kind of coach around four core buckets. Um, like I said, that's gonna be kind of your personal efficiency. So, how can AI help you just in your day-to-day checklists, uh you know, looking ahead at your calendar, summarizing your emails, things like that, where, you know, I just show up to work and I've got some things to do and I have to run through that manual checklist. AI is so good at helping you kind of go from where do I start today to boom, here's your checklist, here's your priority list, here's your summary, here are your meetings this week, etc. So I would say personal organization is one that we or personal efficiency is a bucket that we talk a lot about. Um, content creation, obviously in that marketing uh vein, which I'm excited we're gonna do is be doing a little some uh some work together and some marketing training there. So that'll be cool. Um but the marketing vein, content creation, and I always kind of lump in uh communication. Like how do I talk to my employees? How do I talk to my customers? How do I say this better, more effectively, more efficiently, more uh, you know, sometimes a little harsher, right? If you're minimum like me and we need to put a little uh a little more heat on that accounts receivable uh message, you might use AI for that, right? Um, so I think of that uh communication piece in that content creation bucket, but that's another uh bucket that's really strong. And so again, if I were to walk that through then in my organization, I might look at AR and say, okay, um, yeah, I wanna not only do I want to make this email more stern, I might actually use uh my LLM to help me draft the entire sequence of my AR process. I might use it to get suggestions on like, should I reach out again after two days, or is it better to reach out at the five day mark? And so I can be using it to help problem solve some of my challenges that within my role, but I can also be using it to help actually draft like what's the sequence uh that we're gonna be doing some of that outreach. So that would be like the content creation bucket. Um, another bucket, like I said, is that deep research. Um sometimes I kind of lump that in with strategic planning and strategic thinking or uh ideation and creation. I kind of tend to lump them all together because I think good strategic plans and good creation comes from research first. Uh so maybe that's the nerd and me. Uh you start there if you want to have really good ideas, but um, they are separate. So I I guess you don't you don't need to have them separated or together in that lump. But uh deep research is such a huge opportunity that we have to be utilizing AI technology. So like I have clients where we're using uh the deep research feature to do market analysis and to do competitive analysis and to assess like, is our market saturated or is it just um you know, is it something that we're experiencing from other factors? So almost kind of doing like a SWOT analysis uh with the the AI tools, I think is really can be really powerful. Um and then another bucket that I just really love too, uh, is probably one of my favorites is data analysis. Um I'm a big believer as much as I can get into the touchy feely and all the soft experience and culture pieces, which I think are so important. I also really believe in data-driven decisions. And so utilizing AI for data analysis, like a personal business analyst in your pocket, uh, is such a great way to utilize AI. Um, another bucket that I don't, I would say we don't really talk about it in our foundations course as much is coding. Um AI is so good at coding. Uh, and I think as people get a little further in their AI journey and they get beyond some of these kind of general business uh buckets, that's kind of the next the level up is using ad code too.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, there I like how you frame that in the bucket. So the first one is content creation. That was it was one of our realizations early on. It was wow, really you heard it, and I've said this before, like I I remember the news was all about how truck drivers were gonna be out of work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_05:

Like that was the big news. It was like truck drivers are gonna be out of work with this, the way that things are going. And that was kind of the the advent of AI in in terms of driving and things like that. But like from a technology perspective, LLMs are the only thing they do is predict the next word. So anything that needs to be written, man, that's gone, right? Like, so you know, writing an email, writing a you know, writing a job description, writing anything like that, it's going to it's going to I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors. I talk to contractors every day that feels stuck. Not because they're not working hard, but because they're missing the structure to grow 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. Anything like that, it's going to it's going to to perform well at because that's what it's that's what it's what it is set to do is kind of create content. That is that is a new functionality.

SPEAKER_00:

So of course, like their their native language is speaking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

That's right. Yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. And so what are so what are some like what are some things in in your first cohort of companies that have gone through and and done all the courses and things like that? What was what was one of those ideas that you're like, oh, that was a good one? Or like when you guys discovered, man, that that was such a great place to implement this.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's it's hard to pinpoint just one, but I feel like there's so many that we have use cases for each week. Um, but one that I love is like uh uh thinking about our production schedulers, right? And what do they often have to do? Uh, they often have to check the weather and then reschedule everyone. And so one of the strategies might be utilizing uh, you know, an agent or kind of a workflow that allows you to do a weather analysis, look at what's coming, figure out which crews are impacted by that, and then send out the communication. And you can even go a step further of then looking ahead and seeing, like, okay, well, based on uh the weather now, you know, what what does that mean for a reschedule and going through that process and kind of predicting like, okay, well, these are going to be our next best days to get that crew back out. Um, and then thinking about kind of that next step of okay, and then how do we communicate to our customers to let them know? So I think it's really like kind of in the the workflow area to me is where you get the most power where you're thinking about how do I string these instances together in order to get the outcome that I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_05:

That makes a lot of that like that's crazy because uh when I think about it, I'm like, oh, that's kind of I mean, it's a simple task, right? But it's it's it's something that's replicated over and over again. It's like, okay, get in, go to the weather, see what's impacted. Okay, uh yeah, looks like there's a storm coming through the north side, the northern suburbs of the twin cities. Okay, we're gonna have to, all right, we have some jobs up up there, we'll have to reschedule. Like you that's time on someone's plate. What if that time was here are the jobs that are impacted, go reschedule them, right? Or here are the times that we're here are the jobs that are that may be impacted by the weather that's coming through today, and we have already reached out with an email and a text message to reschedule with possible dates to reschedule for the customer. Like now all of that's off there, off of that uh scheduler or production manager's plate and it and and they they come in, okay, cool. All right, everything got moved there, everything got moved there. That's an awesome one. I like that.

SPEAKER_00:

What another favorite. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, what's another one? No, what's another favorite?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like let's see some of the different departments, right? So uh sales, right? One that I love is thinking about training our sales professionals, right? And how could we uh take our product knowledge, our product information, and be using that to set up training that is specific to that sales rep and helps them grow as they go along. It'll change and adjust uh to those sales reps needs and kind of be responsive. Um, so basically, like having your own personal AI coach uh that comes alongside you and helps you learn the product for your new reps or your sales process. Um, so uh using your uh LLMs for kind of as a repository of your information is a great approach as well on the sales side. I mean, I guess that kind of dips into my HR world a little bit with some of the training pieces, but uh training is just such a huge area that you can get a lot of lift from AI on to.

SPEAKER_05:

Um and that's it's crazy uh again because it's predicting the next words, like you could roll like I've built things where you can role play with with with the with with an agent, right? Like you could do sales practice with an agent. Like there's so many so many cool things. What what about like everyone struggles in hiring and recruiting? What what have what have you seen from that aspect of it, from the people aspect of like uh you know, using AI, uh I know you said job description, so I I I assume that's part of the part of it, but has anyone implemented some things in AI around like the recruiting side of things that you've that you've seen that have been effective?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. I think targeted search is a huge one and then personalization. And so again, that the concept of personalization can be used across the board, but I think going and utilizing personalization in order to do your outreach to uh candidates that you're trying to actually recruit. Um, I'm a big believer, I I'm sure we've talked about this on a past podcast, right? But when I am looking to hire, I want to actually go out and scout, right? And so when you're thinking about that scouting process, utilizing AI in order to automate the scouting process in order to personalize those emails and outreach, just like we would for clients. Uh, you know, we can use the AI to personalize our client outreach. We can be utilizing AI to personalize our uh applicant outreach as well and try to draw in applicants to our pool.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, that's awesome. And that there's going to be so many more applications as things go. What are what are some of the tools like that you've seen people using? You know, I mean, Chat GPT is of course kind of the like the biggest LLM. What other tools are you seeing people using that are that are helpful in getting these workflows set up, getting this all of these things in in place for their businesses?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, I I think actually the more you get to know some of the different AI tools, it's a lot like uh building a building, right? Or it's a lot like having the tools in our own garages or our own sheds, right? That you want to have a variety of tools and you want to know what they're good at and what to kind of lift them up for and when to apply them. So even though I would say like I probably gravitate for toward ChatGPT most of the time, but we use the Google Suite products uh in our organizations in both refinery and air. And because of that, we really take advantage of the Gemini suite a lot because it's so great to have it integrated right within uh without having to do that. Like I can do that, I can integrate in Chat GPT, but to already have it set up in uh Gemini, like that's one of my favorite things to teach our clients how to do is like, look, you can just do at Gmail and now you're you know, you're referencing and sending right from your Gmail. Like they've done a really great job of integrating their products Google has into the Gemini suite. And so I think even just kind of thinking about that one, like that's if you use Google or you use Microsoft, um, then use Copilot and think about that as almost being like your Swiss Army knife, right? Like, I'm just gonna go, I've got a lot of tools here. Um, are they they're they're not a full machete, right? It's just that little saw that's on the Swiss Army knife. And so understanding the capabilities, um, but sometimes it's great to have that like multi-tool that's just right there and you're ready to grab it. Um, I probably gravitate toward Chat GPT more when I really want to do that deep thinking, deep research when we're doing coding. Um, our team is coding, we're utilizing N8N for workflows. That's a huge one. I know a lot of people really love Zapier. That's great for the integrations as well. Um, there's just so many, but uh for me, I use gamma a ton too. I can actually even share my code for anybody who wants it to get a little discount after this. But uh Gamma is one that I use for presentations all the time. It's just so slick. Uh, it's one of my favorites. And you know, if you're a leader or an owner and you're going to present to your teams, I can't tell you, Jim, how many just like ugly PowerPoint presentations I have seen over my years as a coach, so many ugly PowerPoint presentations. And it just takes so much time, right? Like it seems like we spend more time formatting our slides and trying to get them to look a certain way that like by the time we actually get to present the content, we haven't gotten to give it enough thought. And so to be utilize, utilize gamma um or even canvas AI. Uh features are really great too to be able to create those PowerPoints or those presentations. Gosh, now you can actually put your brain power into the content and the quality of what you're talking about. So that's one that I love for owners and leaders too.

SPEAKER_05:

Um Canva has a great visual AI, like it is a great image image builder for AI. It's crazy. If you want to redo your your your little roofing roof logo, you can just go into Canva and write a prompt and it'll it'll create a new logo for you.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. And I mean, while we're talking about image generation, um, I'll share this. This is kind of a fun uh we're really big on helping people find personal use cases because I think when you use AI in your personal life, it just opens up your mind so much more to how you might use it in your professional life. Um, but we were working on the shed and uh I had a little kind of test project uh utilizing Chat GPT versus uh what industry, uh industry fans call nano banana, which is Gemini's uh image 2.0 flash model. Um, it kind of hit the scene under this guise of nanobanana, made a ton of news. Um, and I'll share the two different generations for you because it is just phenomenal. So, what we did was we kind of I had some chairs that I was looking at buying for the shot. I was like, oh, how's this gonna look in the space? And so I took a picture of the wall that I wanted to put them on, and then I took a picture of the chairs that I was looking at and a rug that I was looking at, and I asked ChatGPT and Gemini Image 2.0 flash to generate for me like what would this look like? And it was wild to see. And to be fair to Chat GPT, I wasn't on the pro version, I was just using their, you know, my thinking model. Um but uh yeah, like one very clearly looked like AI, and one, it was like, I took a picture, Jim. I took a picture after the fact once I did buy the chairs, so they look great. Uh I bought the chairs, I took a picture after the fact, and it's like literally hard to tell which is the real picture and which is the picture that was generated by Neano Banana. It was really cool.

SPEAKER_05:

It's crazy. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Like so that I mean that's a favorite one for me. I think if you're doing uh image editing, I would direct you to that tool for sure. I think it's fantastic. Um, I know you're a big fan of Riverside, which has some great AI tools when it comes to Riverside has great AI.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, with content creation, we record all the podcasts in Riverside. Riverside will pull all the clips for us, it'll edit the podcast if we want. We still have a video editor that does a lot of it, but it's it's fantastic. It's crazy how how well it does. Before we carry on with the episode, let's give a shout out to one of our sponsors. If you and your team aren't trained on AI yet, you're already falling behind. Competitors using AI are generating more leads, closing jobs faster, and running leaner. The AI Roofing Revolution gives your team the training to implement AI so you stay ahead, not scramble to catch up. Don't wait until you're losing. Get trained now at the link in the description or the sponsors page of the Roofing Success Podcast website. When it comes to the Riverside has great AI. Yeah, with content creation, we record all the podcasts in Riverside. Riverside will pull all the clips for us, it'll edit the podcast if we want. We still have a video editor that does a lot of it, but it's it's fantastic. It's crazy how how well it does. Um, so that's another next one in video is is gonna be Google Flow.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_05:

I don't know if you've seen like this is crazy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Google Flow and VO. I would really like if if you're just trying, if you're somebody who loves the space and you want to play around, um, going into Google Labs is where I would tell you, go hang out, just go try all their tools.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean, it's really from a see what the future is gonna look like.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like from a from a multimodal standpoint, I mean, Google's really their Gemini suite is really uh pretty next level. Yeah. What I mean by multimodal for for those of us who are just getting started, um, is things like where you've got text, you've got content creation, like video, you've got image generation, you've got audio and sound generation. Uh, that's kind of that concept of multimodal.

SPEAKER_05:

All right, let's talk about the what's behind the scenes, and that's the data, right? Like data-driven decisions, good data-driven decisions, understanding how to make data driven decisions. I mean, using AI. I've had I've used AI to analyze financial statements of companies that that we were looking at from an acquisition standpoint. I've looked at like I've used it for so many things, like all kinds of like there are so many. I've I I I uploaded my my credit card statement into like a a version of like of last month's credit card bill, and I was like, how do I how do I read how do I make this less?

SPEAKER_01:

How do I make less perfect problems?

SPEAKER_05:

How do I save some money here? Yeah, um, but stuff like that, like but you know, I I started in in in in uh in server-side programming and comp in web in web development, yeah, and this was a long time ago, but it still rings true, and that is garbage in, garbage out. So what you feed, what you feed the machine determines the output of the machine. So if you're if you're not feeding it good information, you're not going to be able to get good information on the other side. But boy, if you have good data to feed it, you are probably going to come across some really cool things about your business. So how can how can an how can a company first, I think, if you haven't done like how do you prepare your data, maybe? And how do you then then what are some use cases around like using AI for data?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I would think about uh what are you trying, what like what's your end goal? What are you trying to uh get to? What answers would you like regarding your business? And then I would actually plug it into your LLM and work it backward. So I mean, that's kind of my pro trick, right? Anytime you're like, I don't know where to go or I don't know where to start, ask your LLM. It's the smartest entity you will ever interact with, right? So um I love taking that approach of saying, like, okay, well, uh, I want to get maybe I want to be able to be better at forecasting. So I could ask Chat GPT or Gemini, what kind of data sources would be helpful in order for me to have good forecasting results? And so that could direct me to like, okay, these are the areas, this is the type of information that I should be collecting and gathering and making sure that it's clean. And then you can again be asking uh your LLM to like help me create the spreadsheet to house that or help me create the repository. How should I store that information? What's the best approach? Um, another thing to consider is that a lot of us have a lot of data. It's just kind of all like uh, you know, housed in one major storage in our, you know, whether that be Acculinx or Job Nimbus or whatever, like in our CRM, it all kind of lives and exists there. And a lot of times we want to be able to see that information in a different format or a different output, right? Um, but because LLMs are so good at digesting large amounts of information, again, you can be taking, you could take a report that uh Aculinx or Job Nimbus or whatever CRM you use auto-generates, you could take that information, feed it back into your LLM and say, like, show this to me in a different way. Uh, and it will recreate and reformat that information. Or again, if you've had that conversation, you're like, I want it to uh I want it to look this certain way because I asked my LLM what kind of data sources I should have, how my data should be set up. Now that I have that template, I can be kind of feeding that information back in and say, I want it to come out and look like this template that you just told me I need. And then the level up for that, right, is having things like gems or agents or custom GPTs that are set up so that each time you can be just kind of providing that report and it will spit it out in the format that you need or that outcome that you need again and again. Um, so that's where I would go. The other thing that I would say is just starting by thinking about the spreadsheets that you're already looking at. What's the data and information that you already have, that you're already reviewing? Um, you know, generally I hope that you're looking at things like your um net sales per lead issued, you're looking at your GP, you're looking at your SGNA, right? So some of those just basic business numbers that you should be looking at, um, those ring true. And again, if you're like, I just haven't, you know, I'm really good at sales or I'm really good at roofing, and I don't really, I'm not that great at business, uh, what number should I be looking at? You can ask your LLM. Hey, uh, I've done some really great demos where um we live shared and live screened with uh with an LLM and we asked it, like, hey, here's the spreadsheet that's up. Look at the spreadsheet and tell me what questions I should be asking as a business owner to help drive my results. And I like it's it's just so fun to see what the LLMs will come up with. And I I feel like as you know, again, somebody who's been a business coach and consultant for a long time, um I'm always very pleased with the outcomes that it will share back. It's like, yep, those those check out. That sounds right. Yeah. Um, and then often it's like, oh yeah, that's so smart. We should definitely do that. So yeah, really good quality as somebody who's checking, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And it and it's it'll compound on itself as you start to learn how to utilize this and you start to start to play with it and start to analyze your data. You know, I would think that you could take, you know, all of your payroll data and say, look, this is where we're at. You know, here's our PL, here's our payroll data, you know, how could we improve our efficiency here or or our um accounts receivable or you know, all of these things. Like, how can we improve on this? How can, and then go back to that beginning, the content piece, and right? So develop some content around how, you know. I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors. 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. RAI 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. All of these things, like how can we improve on this? How can and then go back to that beginning, the content piece and right? So develop some content around how you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Um and I love too, Jim, to as we're kind of talking about that, uh, you know, inputs and outputs, I love to utilize AI to look for discrepancies, to look for anomalies, to look for errors. So one that, you know, clients run into a lot is like, oh, our pricing isn't accurate, right? The pricing changed and maybe it got updated in our system, maybe it didn't, you know, maybe we missed that flyer, whatever. Um, and so just being able to even do some data analysis or analysis around is this accurate? Is this quote accurate? Is this bid accurate? This estimate accurate, and does it match what we have in our system or are there anomalies here? Um contract updates, change orders, things like that are so great to run through your AI tools to be able to check and see like, are things like are what we producing consistent with what we would expect and what the LM would expect? Um, so it's great for quality control too.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, what what other use cases from a data analysis perspective do you think would would be impactful or kind of more maybe more advanced ones? I don't know, just like what are some other use cases you've seen being implemented?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, forecasting. I mean, if you think about it like AI right now, there are people who specialize in using AI to like predict the stock market, right? And so if you think about that, you have the exact same tool that you can be using to make predictions for your business. And so I just want to like lob that little softball out there for you that uh you should absolutely be running market analysis and uh be forecasting for your business. You can provide it history, right? Hey, here's how we've performed in the past. This is what it's looked like. Make some projections for me of what we can anticipate for in in 2026. Again, I think it's just such a game changer. I think about how we run our businesses for so long, and now all of a sudden it just it rewrites the script, right? So as you're coming into the or in September, I know a lot of you by the time this airs, right? Maybe it'll be the end of the year, Jim. And so a lot of us kind of in the fall, toward the end of the year, we start thinking about planning for our next year. And if you're not using AI to help you in your strategic planning process, you are missing out. You are missing out.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Go back and and and ask it to do a market analysis, a competitive analysis, and and and and provide ideas on how you can add additional market share or take additional market share into your business. And maybe it comes up with some ideas, like that those those those uh the the game planning sessions, right? Like just having conversations with it um are fantastic. What about getting into like complex industry knowledge and concepts? Like how you know how how how can it be used or how how do you see it being used for those types of situations?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, again, one of my favorite areas because I think so often as organizations, we're just not that great at communicating uh to the in the way that people want to hear it or the people need to hear it, right? We often think about like, well, I this is my focus. And so I'm gonna provide this information to you from my lens instead of taking the time to slow down and think about like, how would Jim want to hear this? How would my employees want to hear this? How would my customers want to hear this? How would my brand new employee want to hear this? Who is no industry experience, right? And so being able to take information, again, a huge amount of digestion and information. One of my um other favorite tools that we coach on and love to equip people with is Notebook LM. Um, and so utilizing notebook LM is such a great way to take a lot of just rich like context and information, almost like think about it, like your textbooks of your industry. What would the textbook of your company be? Maybe it's your playbooks, maybe it's your SOPs, maybe it's your product information, maybe it's your install, maybe it's your safety policies and information, right? Whatever your quote textbook would be, um, kind of providing all of that information and then being able to ask your LLM. Um, one, you can, you know, utilizing Notebook LM, you can now be chatting and engaging with that information and asking questions. And it's directed to just that one source. Um, you can also do this with uh Chat GBT via projects. So that's just kind of another feature in that uh in that resource. Um but now like you're kind of hyper focusing. So instead of, I always kind of joke, like, remember, you're engaging with the smartest entity in the path in the world. So if I go into the library and I'm like, I want to learn something, the librarian's like, okay, cool, like what? What do you want to learn? Right. And so that context all of a sudden becomes really important and helping steer uh the smartest entity into like where it's going to guide and direct me next. And so by utilizing tools and AI uh features that allow you to kind of hyperfocus the attention and the targeted information, it allows you to have a tighter, more concise response. Again, we don't always want that, but when we do, uh knowing how to use those AI tools to get that is really important, um, especially for you know new employees or your customers. So kind of doing that digestion, being able to chat back and forth with it, uh, creating summaries and uh study plans and things like that can be a great way. And then even just asking it to simplify.

SPEAKER_02:

So if I'm taking uh information, I know you're enjoying the episode, but let's give a shout out to another one of our sponsors. 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. And 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_00:

And then even just asking it to simplify. So if I'm taking uh information, here's an example of one that we did was we took uh an install manual and we said, write some uh training for around this install manual. And then we broke it up and we said, write the training for our production team. And then we said, no, write the training for our sales team because the information that my sales team needs and how they're gonna receive that product knowledge is very different than how my production team is going to receive and look at and want to, you know, absorb that information. And so now not only like right before you didn't even have a training tool at all on that product information. Now you do. And now not only do you have that training, you have it hyper focused toward the role. Um, and so I think that's just like a great way to take complex industry knowledge, refocus it uh toward, you know, your different team members and make it accessible and meaningful to them, right? Um, same thing. Okay, how how can I talk to my customers? How should I talk to my customers about this? How should I talk to my employees about this? How should I talk to my admins about this? What should they know? Um, I just love it for that uh that customization piece of it.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, the uh that makes me think of a podcast that I was or a YouTube, it was a YouTube video that I was watching recently with Tom Bilieu. Um and and uh I can't remember the the guest's name, but but it was uh all around AI and how fast AI is moving. And and the guest had to talk to him. So Tom Biliew's the the founder of Quest Nutrition. And he said, think about how how long it took you to start up Quest Nutrition. You had to like determine what you were gonna make, what nutritional information you wanted that to have, like what you had to sit and and and years and years of planning and determining what what supplier could you could get this from and and what what manufacturer that you could have uh you know process it and it and there's the and then who's gonna logistically send it and and and the person made a point, the guest made a point, like it maybe not right now, but as soon as the agents start interacting a little bit more, like which which will be coming very soon, and they already start they're already starting to N8N is already like the base of that where you can get things interacting and talking to each other and and creating these these really cool flows, workflows. But what if uh like what if that timeline of Quest Nutrition's launch went from two years to two months? Yeah, yeah, and was and and was just as or more effective. So I'll I talk to roofing contractors all the time. They're like, man, I want to do as I want to build up an SOP library, but I don't have time. I want to train salespeople, but I don't have time. I want to uh build an org chart accountability chart. I don't know how to job descriptions for everything, like all of those things that you don't have time for, this creates that, right? It shortens that window of time in such an amazing way that here's the thing that's gonna happen if you are not the person taking advantage of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Think of it from a like uh, you know, we we're talking to roofing business owners so that are listening here, a lot of roofing business owners. And so now what if uh you know, uh if you think about the the team that you're attracting, right? Like you some of the the the most efficient companies, a lot of times they'll attract the the better, better talent, better team members, because wow, this is so it's so easy to sell for this company. Yeah, they're processed, they have all the processes that like everything is perfect, like it it's and and so now you can you can become that quickly, like very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_00:

It's such a competitive advantage, Jim.

SPEAKER_05:

And I mean that's exactly now, but it won't be, yeah, but it won't be. Here's what like it will not be soon. So for everyone listening, future proof your business, right? Like by the time this airs, it might be something different, right? Like there may be some cool little tools, right?

SPEAKER_00:

You know what? I mean, that's an important part, Jim. And I think that's why, like in our training and our education, we focus so much on the use cases because the tools are going to change, right? And they are going to evolve and get better, which is fantastic. Like, we want that for our businesses, but we need to be able to have like the line of sight to say, oh, this is where I apply this in my organization. And like we go a step further and we're training the employees to be able to say, This is how I apply this in my personal individual role. And that empowerment is such a game changer because often we see kind of this, you know, AI hero at the organization that it's one person and they're super excited about it, whether that's the owner or just an individual employee, but they kind of lock in on that knowledge, right? They're your they're your bottleneck, honestly, because they're the keeper of the information and they're just one person. And maybe they can go around and they can help start to build some NAM workflows for you and you know, they can do some uh get some really cool integration going for you. And that's fantastic. Like I think it's a both and but you get the most power when your employees are equipped with understanding how they can be applying AI to their personal roles, and that's where like we just uh that I don't have time. The the companies that are training their employees right now on how to use these AI tools to their specific roles are the ones that are gonna win. And and that's like the fact we started AI Rafine Revolution in the first place is we wanted to teach the entire industry how to automate and dominate. Like that was that was it, you know? And so um it's and it's so fun, Jim. It's so fun, it's so fun to see owners and employees on the same call using these tools and being able to like have this collaborative, creative moment where it's like, oh, I'm doing this, and they get to share and they get to, you know, provide their insight on what they're doing. And then that sparks to somebody else, like, oh, I I'm gonna do that too here, or like, oh, maybe I could tweak that a little bit for my job. Um, and so just even creating this environment where people are trying and testing and experimenting with these tools together, um, it it just it lends to more organizational proficiency with the AI tools.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. There's is it it's like I think uh it might have been on the the session we did for the RSRA, but it's that multiplication.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Let's do talk about that for people. Like talk about the multiplication effect that this can have in their business.

SPEAKER_00:

100%. I and I talk about this, whether it's leadership or culture, anything that you are trying to move the needle on in your organization. We have one person that's the owner of that, and they're the leader on that, and that's the only leader. Uh, they all they can do is add, right? They can add to the numbers, they can do one more person and one more person and one more person. But if I train and equip my team to also be leaders, right? And now I have leaders of leaders, and those people are empowered and enabled to be able to go out and help train other people, we now move into the stage of multiplication. And multiplication means that we're getting adoption significantly faster than those who are doing addition.

SPEAKER_05:

And it and if you're and and that was true, that was true pre-AI.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, right. That was true pre-AI. But now if you take how it can amplify your time, yeah, like and now multiply that, it's an exponential multiplication, right? Like this is exponential quickly. This gets exponential very, very quickly. Let's talk a little bit like what are what else does a roofing company owner need to know? Or someone that's maybe a general manager, or or like how do you take, you know, I I I feel like people are gonna push back. They're you know, I I've talked to my my friend, you know, a lot of people in the roofing industry, both um um my friend Andrew Carney with with Kirkness Roofing, we've had these conversations. Um and he's worried he's worried. Like he's worried about the people, yeah. Right. And he's worried about you know what happens to this, what happens to to the people involved. And so what can an organization do not just to empower their people, but like how do we how do we how do we navigate this? How do we navigate this this this the tidal wave that's coming?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, in one of our past conversations, we talked about strategic uh planning for your teams, strategic talent management and looking ahead uh in your organization. And I think you as an owner have a responsibility to be thinking about how your org chart is going to look different and what that's going to mean for your teams, and then casting that vision for them. Like you have to write them into the narrative and help them see why these tools are going to be beneficial for them and what it's going to mean when they're doing different tasks, right? Um, one of the things I like to say or ask is like, what would you do if you didn't have to do that thing that's slowing you down? Like, what's that thing that you've been itching to get to and that you want to get done? But every day you just feel like I don't have time to get it done in my job. Inviting employees into that conversation and into the narrative of like what the future of the organization is going to look like is a really important step to helping them feel comfortable and confident. If you're out there talking about how, like, oh, I can't wait until this replaces everybody on my team, like, uh, what do you think that's gonna do for your employees? You know, I started my career gym in manufacturing and I was lean certified, lean six sigma certified. And the whole concept of in efficiency and improving your process is that you don't lean people out of a job or they won't adopt it, they'll be resistant, right? Why would I why would I do this thing that you're giving to me if it just is gonna mean that I don't have a job anymore? Right. Um, so it's a similar concept with AI tools is like you're bringing efficient efficiency into your organization. So they need to see what they're getting back. What could you offer? What could you be providing? And you know, maybe this is just like the eternal optimist in me in this like utopian society that we could live in. But maybe instead of just thinking about the profit and the, you know, what you're going to get in your organization, maybe you start thinking about what you're going to give back to your employees. What kind of culture are you going to have where it's like, oh, you know what? We actually did like we can move to a four-day work week because of all the efficiency that we gave. Or like, hey, we have more flexibility now in our in our practices to be able to offer you more time to go and see your kids' sports or do whatever is important to you, fishing or hiking, whatever it is, right? So starting to think about like you as an organization are going to have gains from this if you're implementing it. But if you really want to get the most out of it, you need to be thinking about how you're sharing those gains with your employees so that they can be attracted to this idea. And again, like write them into the narrative, write them into the future of this so they see what's in it for them.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, that's awesome. Roz, this has been awesome. Check out the AI Roofing Revolution, airoofingrevolution.com. This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast. For more valuable content, visit Roofing Podcast. Roofing SuccessPodcast.com. 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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