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Owned and Operated #182 - Roofing Business Success: From Contractor to CEO in a Growing Industry
How to Scale a Roofing Business to $20M+ | Marketing, Leadership & Growth Strategies
Eddie Griffin, owner and president of Brown Roofing in Connecticut, shares his journey from starting in the roofing industry at just 13 years old to building a multi-million-dollar business. From hands-on experience to mastering business strategy, Eddie reveals how he scaled Brown Roofing to $20M+ in annual revenue with effective marketing, subcontracted crews, and a strong leadership structure.
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Episode Hosts: 🎤
John Wilson: @WilsonCompanies on X
Jack Carr: @TheHVACJack on X
🎧 Episode Guest:
Owned and Operated #182 - Roofing Business Success: From Contractor to CEO in a Growing Industry
Eddie Griffin: [00:00:00] Not every home has a basement, but every home's got a roof.
I realized very quick that I was really good at swinging a hammer, and I knew absolutely nothing about the inside of a functioning business. I need good freaking people to help me scale this business. The only way I see is to just keep your foot on the gas, man. If you're not there, you're definitely not gonna get the roof.
John Wilson: So the latest thing that we've been working on. Is maximizing our LSAs, which is local service ads, and also optimizing our Google My Business profiles. So what that means is we're making sure that all of our LSAs are on when we need them, and they're maximized to give us the best ROI. And then for GMBs, it's been partnering with service scalers to drive.
Way more traffic through our GMBs. GMBs are almost like the new SEO. The more you [00:01:00] put onto them, the better the performance. So our GMBs have been consistently getting better week after week after week, and it is our currently, our single most impactful. Organic lead channel. So we'll sell hundreds of thousands of dollars a week through our GMBs.
And I think last week we got 900 phone calls. So really impactful, awesome investment, and we've been able to partner with service scalers on both of those things. If you wanna hear a little bit more about service scalers, check out service scalers.com. Welcome back. To owned and operated. I beat Jack before he could even say it.
Ooh, so sucks. Suck, bro. Uh, today on the show we have Eddie Griffin from Brown Roofing. Welcome to the show.
Eddie Griffin: How you doing? Thank you for having me, man.
John Wilson: This is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. Uh, we're interested in roofing. This comes at a good time. Roofing's getting a lot of like really interesting attention and I have for some reason or another, I have a lot more roofing friends now than I [00:02:00] did six months ago.
So I don't know. I don't know if it's the sign of the times or what, but I'm excited to hear your story. Absolutely. So you're the owner and president of Brown Roofing in Connecticut. And you've been in the industry for a while, I, I'd love to hear about how you started in roofing and all the way up until you bought your current company in 2012.
Alright,
Eddie Griffin: very good. So I actually started in the roofing industry at the young age of 13 years old on my wow. Summer vacations, uh, from Gary Brown. I actually. Um, the company that I owned today was my, my first job. Oh, that's cool. That's
Jack Carr: so cool. Yeah. That's cool.
Eddie Griffin: Yeah. Literally worked from the ground, you know, to the top.
Mm-hmm. So I started at 13 on my summer, summer vacations. Um, you know, when I got outta school I was just looking for a job, so I, I hopped back in, um, and I never, I never left, you know, [00:03:00] I. I, I liked working for Gary. I liked working with the, with the guys in 2000. 12, uh, Gary Brown, um, he, he got sick. He had cancer.
Yeah. Um, he had a, you know, kids himself. But he reached out to me and said, Eddie, you know, you work for me your whole entire life. I'm gonna sell the company, but I'd like to, to sell it to you. You know, at that time I didn't have, I didn't have much money. Um. You know, I was able to move a few things around and I purchased Brown Roofing in 2012.
At this time, you know, we were maybe doing, you know, five, $600,000 in, in business. Um, we were not a, a big company by any means. And, uh, you know, I, I took the company over and I, I realized very quick that I was really good at swinging a hammer, and I knew absolutely nothing about the [00:04:00] inside of a functioning mm-hmm.
Business. Mm-hmm. So I really started to, to do my homework, and I started to, I actually landed at this time, uh, I found the School of Entrepreneurship, which was, um, a, a, a school that Larry Jansky offered right here in Seymour, Connecticut. And I reached out to them. I think at the time the class was like $20,000.
I, I, I didn't have that kind of money and I'm like, nah, nah, I just don't think I'm gonna be able to swing it, but. Um, I did and it was the greatest thing, you know, that ever, ever happened to me. It really helped me. Yeah. Build and scale. You know, the business that we have today, something that
John Wilson: I'm learning about roofing, the more roofers we talk to is the structure.
Can look really different. Yeah. Uh, there's storm chasing roofing there, which is like, seems to be insurance driven. Mm-hmm. There's like retail replacements, which is, I'm parked here and we're gonna do [00:05:00] roofs here. Uh, there's contracted labor. There's W2, there's 10 99. Like, where do you fall with all, what's your model look like?
Eddie Griffin: So we, um. You know, obviously we're, uh, we're, uh, um, we have, you know, nine different, uh, roofing crews. Um, but we use, um, subcontractors, you know, the, the model that we use, we have project managers that are our in-house, so. Um, you sell a job, we go out to build the job. We have inside project managers that meet with our subcontractors.
Um, and their job, their sole job is to make sure that the roof is being installed exactly to our specs and our standards that the liaison for the homeowner. And, you know, our, our subcontracted crews, they don't work for anybody else. They, you know, I think our newest guy's been with us for over six years.
Uh, we [00:06:00] train them, you know, we educate 'em, we pay a, a, a, uh, commission to our PMs. We pay a commission to our sales representatives. But the model inside of the company, I mean, it's a, it's a full functioning business to marketing team gm, CFOs, mm-hmm. Appointment centers. Collections service department, we, we even have, uh, an auto body mechanic.
As you can imagine, once your fleet gets up to a certain amount, it's very important that you keep those vehicles rolling.
John Wilson: Yeah, so I would say, so the, the nine crews are all subcontracted? Correct. Okay. And how much revenue is Brown Roof doing today? 18 five.
Eddie Griffin: All right. You know, this year we'll probably come right around 20 million.
That's a lot of roofs. Is that, is that one How much of this is,
Jack Carr: yeah. Is that one location? 'cause we, you talked about it's Connecticut, but how, how big does that area span out? Or is it storm chasing? Like, like John said. [00:07:00]
Eddie Griffin: So I was, I was about to tap back into that. So our, our main Yeah. Focus is retail. Um, we are not storm chasers.
I would call us. Mm-hmm. Maybe a storm catcher. 'cause I don't want the chasers coming in. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, so, uh, but we're, we're retail. You know, we, we sell to, to homeowners that either we, we've done roofs for 'em in the past or they found us online. Um, and that's, that's really, I. The business that we like to do, you know, the, yeah.
Storm industry's getting, getting a little squirrely with deductibles and um, now, you know, deductibles went from 5,000 to a two or 500 to a thousand to now they're a percentage of the properties value, you know, so we're finding that. Being a, a struggle now where, say out your way, right? In Ohio, you're in a, you're in a a you probably see hail every, every four years or so.[00:08:00]
Um, people are spending five, 6,000 bucks a every few years to put a new roof on. Um, mm-hmm. You know, I think people today are gonna start steering more towards, you know, local roofing contractors and people that are putting on a premium lifetime service with a company, you know, that's gonna be there when they need 'em the most I.
I'm not saying storm is ever gonna go away, you know, uh, that, that model, but it's, it's, it's getting a lot harder for, for a storm chaser to get paid to, yeah. To run a good business. 'cause the insurance companies, you know, holding on to a massive chunk of their money at all times. Yeah.
Jack Carr: And so when you're looking at service area, how big does your service area expand to be able to, to generate that kind of revenue?
Eddie Griffin: So the 20, the, the 20,000,018 five that we did last year, we are. Uh, Litchfield, Fairfield, new Haven Counties. So I have Klaus Larson Roofing, [00:09:00] who is one of my partners, and we kinda separate on the, the Connecticut River, you know, but that, that money was generated here, you know, in Connecticut. Nothing to do with, uh, Klaus Roofing Systems.
Jack Carr: Wow. Very cool. Very
John Wilson: cool. Yeah. That's awesome. What, what's a, like you gave counties, how far is that from your headquarters? Like hour and a half? Is that how far you're willing to
Eddie Griffin: go? Yeah. Hour. Yeah. Hour and a half. Yeah. Right in there. If we can't service you, you know, honestly, if you got a problem, if you got an emergency with a roof, um, if you can't get there asap, it could be a catastrophic problem.
Commercial flat roof. Um, you know, they could take on a lot of water really quick.
John Wilson: Yeah, that was one that was gonna be one of my next questions is, uh, how much of this is residential versus commercial?
Eddie Griffin: We're probably 85% residential. Okay. Yep. And the, and the, the commercial jobs that we're doing are like long term, [00:10:00] uh, customers of ours that we've had for a really long time.
Condos, um mm-hmm. Property management companies.
John Wilson: Yeah. What makes, what makes residential attractive? Well, yeah, what makes it attractive to you?
Eddie Griffin: Um, well, you can, one, you can control the pricing. Two, you could get paid every day. Um, you know, I, mm-hmm. And I love, I love, I love dealing with homeowners. I love dealing with local people.
I like being on a different job. Every day there's some excitement to that opposed to commercial, you're there for six months or a few months, um, and there's all always somebody else that you have to talk to or beg to get your money. Yeah.
Jack Carr: Yeah,
Eddie Griffin: very true.
John Wilson: When, when you were, you know, you, you bought the business 13 years ago now a little bit, uh, what, what were some of the big milestones that [00:11:00] you can think of?
You know, as I think about my growth in our business, there's a couple big ones. We had some acquisitions, we moved headquarters. What, what were the big ones that helped you get to the next level?
Eddie Griffin: Well, you know, I. I was working out of a garage. Um, you know, when I first purchased the company, I had a, a, a building that I owned.
So I, I moved everything over there and then I realized, you know, in order to, to start hiring good people, I. I wasn't gonna be able to do it outta my garage, you know? Yeah. So I had to scale to a larger, uh, facility. Um, and then I realized, you know, once I got to a million, I said, all right, man, I can, I can scale this, but I need, I need good freaking people to help me scale this business.
Um, so I would say when I made the move, you know, the light turned on. I still was grounding out by myself. You know, we got to that million dollar [00:12:00] mark and I said, all right, now we gotta start bringing in some really great people. Build an amazing foundation and start to scale, scale the business. Probably three years into that move, I ended up moving into, uh, Seymour Connecticut, into the industrial park.
Mm-hmm. Um, brands started, you know, taking off more. Um, the marketing was really, really working, and that was when the company really just started to scale. It was like, all right, if we could do this, you know, at 1 million, one crew, one salesman, you know, we, we got a system, we got a process that works. Now let's start to, you know, scale it.
Yeah. Yeah. And obviously it wasn't as easy as that. There's a lot of bumps and humps in the road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, what were some of the bumps and humps? I think really understanding business, right? In order to set things straight, you gotta seize things straight. And if you can't see [00:13:00] financials or understand financials, you'll never really understand mm-hmm The whole picture of the business.
Um, so I think really understanding. You know, where we were. Um, one of the biggest bumps was not knowing where I was going, what I was seeing, um, because I didn't have my financials, uh, where I needed them, or the person that I needed to in my office. Mm-hmm. You know, but I started to, um. With hiring these great people, right?
I needed insurance, I needed benefits, I needed all these things. So I'm like, okay, that's easy. Move a pen, right? We'll just mm-hmm. Uh, start it. But then I started to notice, right? My margin started to, to dip. Actually, I didn't know this because I didn't have A-A-C-F-O time.
John Wilson: You know? You noticed cash wasn't there.
I noticed cash wasn't
Eddie Griffin: there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So a few times throughout this process. You know, I've hit those, I've hit those speed bumps [00:14:00]
Jack Carr: and yeah. Was that clarity driven by the school of entrepreneurship or where did you get that clarity from that you decided, hey, I need these things. It was the School of
Eddie Griffin: Entrepreneurship.
It really was. And I think for any entrepreneur, right, or anybody that's new at a business, it's scary when you're looking at these, um, you know, high dollar amount people.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Eddie Griffin: And I just, I, you know, if I could remember when I hired the first person in the office, I said, I don't even know how I'm gonna be able to afford this.
You know? Um, but it, it, it, it worked. But the school of Entrepreneurship definitely opened my doors to how to run a successful business. How to hire a CFO train, a CFO questions to ask the onboarding process. Um, things I did not know about. So if it wasn't for the School of Entrepreneurship, I definitely would've.
Um, been looking a lot of other places, you know, to try and figure out, you know, how the [00:15:00] inside of an operating business worked when you scaled the marketing side of the business.
John Wilson: Like how did that start?
Eddie Griffin: So, um, I actually, I. Joined the Treehouse Internet Group, which is a marketing, uh, marketing group that kind of builds websites, you know, understanding ROI and return on investment and, you know, watching Lead flow and, and trying to run a business.
It just got to the point where I'm like, I, I can't. I, I can't do all this stuff and like, really? Mm-hmm. Uh, be good at it. So I realized, you know, between maybe allocating money towards lead sources that really weren't, um, uh, producing like we needed them to, I. Um, I said to myself, you know what, like we need somebody in-house that can start to manage and, and, uh, really keep an eye on that whole process.
And then over time it's turned into, you know, social media, all of our [00:16:00] different, uh, platforms for leads. Yeah. Conversion rates. Um, we wouldn't be where we are if we didn't have, you know, Kevin in the marketing department, Kevin's, uh, an amazing individual. For our, mm-hmm. For our
Jack Carr: listeners, when at what size business were you when you hired this?
I mean, I don't know if it was Kevin originally, but the marketing person. 'cause I know that's a big question we get a lot is all time. When time do you bring that person on?
Eddie Griffin: I'd say I was probably at like that one. 1.5, one point or 2 million area when I started to really look out into other avenues of marketing, right around that time is when I, I realized I needed to get somebody in-house because I was actually losing money because I was just spending money on leads and had no real way of, of tracking 'em.
Rehashing 'em. Yeah. Cross selling. And right at the end of the day, you know, I think for all of us, I'm, I'm really good at roofing, [00:17:00] man. You know, Uhhuh, you bring in a professional CFO, they're gonna uncover ways to save, ways to find, you bring in a professional marketing guy. He, he knows things, you know, that, that I really didn't know at that time, you know, that really helped us.
Um, making sure we were, we had an allowable cost per lead. Um, what that was a marketing budget, you know, all these things to really focus on. And now in the beginning of the year, we kind of just make our, our business machine and our model and I can almost predict exactly, you know, where I'm gonna be.
Based on leads, based on average dollar per sale, based on closing ratio. I could paint the path to 20 million. I could paint the path to 50 million.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Eddie Griffin: You know, it's just how
John Wilson: much is, how much is spent on marketing today?
Eddie Griffin: 1.4 millions, our marketing budget for this year.
John Wilson: Mm-hmm.
Eddie Griffin: [00:18:00] But we're,
John Wilson: what's the, what's the breakdown of that?
Like how much of it's branded versus, uh. You know, direct lead gen or probably, what does it look like?
Eddie Griffin: 40, 40% of that is, is branding and probably another 60% is, is lead gen. And our branding is, you know, we're on just about, um, seven different radio channels. Tv, yeah. Mailbox. You know, I'm, I'm wrapped. We wrap I think eight city buses, you know, fully, 100% wrapped Google.
Um. You name it. You know, I don't think there's a platform, um, we're not really on, so
John Wilson: Yeah.
Eddie Griffin: But branding is huge. Do you
John Wilson: feel? Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel, um, do you feel like a constraint yet on leads? I mean, 1.4 is a lot to put into a market, so I would assume that you are running out of places to spend on leads.
Eddie Griffin: Yeah, so I [00:19:00] mean. Traditionally when we're selling, right, like the percentage of marketing spend might not be that much, but when you're in a slow time, right? Like my marketing spend right now might be 13% on our, on our, uh, balance sheet. Um, but that's due to not a lot of leads, right? We're not, yeah, we're not getting a lot of leads, so the sales volume isn't up.
Um, but typically we spend like from anywhere from six to 8%, you know, of Yeah. Of our, of our money on the, of the marketing.
John Wilson: But, but you feel like you could, uh, you know, one, one of your goals was to grow to 50. Do you feel like you can do 50, like the market can take more dollars into advertising? Oh, because for us, like that's a real concern.
Our marketing budget this year is 2.2, and we haven't hit our cap yet, but we're not far off. A lot of our, there are only so many active leads in [00:20:00] a market at a time, and at 1.4. You're gonna be close. I mean, there's only so many roofs a year in Seymour, Connecticut that are gonna get replaced.
Eddie Griffin: Yeah, we do a lot of, I mean, so our website, like we have people in here right now, widget masters, we call 'em, but they're constantly going to city pages.
So like Cosco, right? Um, how many roofs do we do in Cosco? But I could guarantee you if you went to Cosco, you could read 50 blogs because we're constantly updating city pages. So organically. Uh, yeah, more ranking. So, you know, if you're, if you're looking for a local roofer, I'm gonna pop up on every page in my area.
You could go canvassing there. There's so many, so many ways, um, you know, to mm-hmm. To create leads, but yeah, you're, you're, you're right. You know, when the market's down, um, you could eat through stuff. If you're, I'm spending as much money now in marketing as I will in August. You know, because I don't, I just don't [00:21:00] take my foot off the gas.
My GM will tell you a different story. He's like, next year I'm not doing this, bro. You know, next year we're, we're slowing back in the, in the slower months. Um, but I was always just taught, you know, when, when things are, are slow, unless you own 90% of your market share, right. Then I don't, you know, at 20 million.
Yeah. Believe it or not, I don't have 10% of my market share. So the, the, the, the only way I see is to just keep your foot on the gas, man. If you're not there, you're definitely not gonna get the roof. If you're there, at least you have a, an opportunity and a chance. Yeah. And that's why the branding, I think right now is so big is because.
Um, right. We've been in business for 53 years. People know of Brown Roofing. Um, but at the end of the day, if, if, if keyword searches and intent is down, the only way to to get in [00:22:00] front of people is to get in front of them. And that's, that's in the branding highway signs, radio mailers. Um, so we switch it up.
But really intent drives the bus.
Jack Carr: What does competition look like in, in your area? You said you only own 10% of the market share. Is is a lot of small, uh, small owners or is there some big, big private equity back? What does, what does that whole landscape look like? There's
Eddie Griffin: a, believe it or not, in my area, we're, we're right in the Waterbury area.
There's probably 20,000 roofing companies. I mean, I, I, we do have big competitors. Um, de Georgi Roofing is a, is a. Uh, competitor. It's been in business for 80 years, about three miles away from my building. Um, we probably have 10, 15 really competitive, uh, long-term roofing companies around us. You know, the, I would say out of the 20,000, probably 90% of them have been in business for two years.
Wow. Like ev, I, I, I [00:23:00] can't tell you how many, maybe it's the same in your area where it might have, you might have, uh, seen, um, uh, feal and able forever, right? And now you got 20,000 roofing companies because just like private acquisition is seeing it, you don't really. You could, you, you don't need to be licensed to install a roof.
You need to be licensed. Yeah. To sell a roof. You need to be licensed to be a company, but the people that work underneath you don't, you know, so anybody chucking a truck can just go and, and really open a roofing business and start knocking doors tomorrow.
Jack Carr: How has that changed the landscape of, of what you've been doing?
I mean, I would say over the last, you know, 36 years since you've started this, but really over the last, you know, five, two to five, as you've started to see all these, these pop up,
Eddie Griffin: I think it's all in the quality, man, people, people want. A quality roofing system. People want people that are trained. Um, [00:24:00] people want a company that that's gonna be there, you know, so, um, part, part of what we do is we're fortifying the roof decking, right?
We're, we're, anybody could put a shingle on. It's what's done to the other side of the, the roof decking and what's put on that decking that really separates. Um, good from bad, right? And we build a roofing system. Or even if the shingles got ripped off your roof, we're still protecting the inside of your home, you know?
And I think, you know, by offering quality products, um, I. It really opens the door for, for those people that are looking for quality, that are looking for, you know, a roofing system that's gonna last and not a company that's gonna be here today and gone tomorrow
John Wilson: for, for your vision to, to grow to 50 million, uh, of revenue.
Do, is that out of one location for you? Correct. Is that how Yeah, when, when do you think that happens? Like, what's your timeline? I mean, I could hit 50 within
Eddie Griffin: the next five [00:25:00] years. Easily, you know, we're, what's
John Wilson: the big, like barriers that you see between where you're at and 50?
Eddie Griffin: It's, it's training and educating the teams to go out and build a quality roof every day like that.
It's, it's, uh, very. Very difficult one on the, the project manager side. You know, they are the, the guardians of happiness for us to make sure that that homeowner is in, is in good spirits from start to finish. Um, you know, so training and, and getting the good crews too, you know, it's, uh, it's taken us a long time to get to nine.
Uh, we have amazing, amazing staff, uh, amazing employees. So to to to, to make that happen overnight is, is impossible. So, but in a five year period, we can definitely make it happen.
Jack Carr: With, with that current nine crew status, I'm, I'm assuming there's a, a [00:26:00] series of project managers that kind of go along with that.
What do you view as the top capacity for your current situation, though? Before we have to go and train a whole nother crew and bring on more project managers. Like, where are you at right now?
Eddie Griffin: So we're, we're in the training process. Um, we're constantly, so we're just coming out a winner. You know, we just, we just finished up a large sales training to, uh, add a couple more people onto our sales team, and as them new people start to generate.
You know, more sales and we come to a, a three to four week backlog. It is a key indicator to pull down another crew and, you know, get that process going. We are in the process of training another crew right now up in Wyndham. So really it's the, it's the, it's the systems and the processes that tell us, you know, when it's time.
So we go past that three week. To four week backlog, depending on the time of the year, um, it's time to add another crew. If we're [00:27:00] consistent to the three or four weeks and we can't get outta that, then we will, um, obviously go into marketing and see, see what's happening out there and the universe and if we can capture more or if we're intent is down.
You know, but we use all those things as gauges for when it's time to start that scale and process.
John Wilson: We're about eight months into using Avoca, and Avoca has been an awesome partner for us in our call center. So what Avoca does for us is they do two different things. One, they have their coach, product and coach.
Has been helping us do what it says, coach our CSRs every single day. It listens to every call and uses AI technology to basically pick apart that call and tell us where we can improve. And for the last eight months, we've been consistently improving our scores, which has been awesome. The other product they have is just conventional booking, and it's an AI tool that books over the phone, a customer calls in and it either handles overflow as in our phones are full, or it does nights and weekends for us, and a customer will call in and actually deal with an [00:28:00] ai.
Agent all the way through booking and the savings inside Call Center has allowed us to ramp up our marketing to continue to grow even more. Thank you Avoca, and thank you Tyson for your partnership.
Jack Carr: I would imagine that, that the business is high. We've kind of. Dug in on seasonality a little bit. I don't know the weather in your specific part of Connecticut all that well, but I, I would guess that it's a, it's a snowy environment at, at points in time.
How seasonal does your business get, and then in the off season, do you just completely shut down or what does that look like?
Eddie Griffin: No. So unfortunately, right, to get good people, man, you gotta keep 'em going. Keep 'em going. Yeah, you gotta keep 'em going and. You know, this part of the model, I'm sure a lot of people would say, I, I could never be like that, but I make my money nine months out of the year I hang on to my team.
You know, we made it through this winter and it was probably the slowest winter I've had in five years, and I kept 98% of my force, you know. Um, so when we hit the ground running in March. You know, we're, [00:29:00] we're capitalizing right away, which, you know, has, has, um, hung true because, uh, leads opened up for us and we're out there, you know, kicking butts.
So that's good to hear. Yeah. How,
John Wilson: how much, so is it three months that tend to be the slow months? What is that? January through March?
Eddie Griffin: Yeah. And you know, the last five years though, honestly, it was like, I think ever since Covid, we really just, I. What was just got blown out of the waters, you know? So you weren't seeing traditional numbers, you know, we, shit, we were doing 1.4, 1.5 million in January, February, you know?
Yeah. So. Now, if I went back to 2019, that wa that that wasn't happening. You know, we were, you know, 600,000 consistently in them. Slow months.
John Wilson: So you're, and, and what's a peak month?
Eddie Griffin: Like 2 million. Oh yeah. We could sell 3 million. I mean, it's [00:30:00] a, yeah. Um. It's when the boom is on, it's on,
John Wilson: it's on. Yeah. That's a huge swing.
Like 600 to two and a half, 3 million is a crazy swing. Definitely. Yeah. That's gotta be a ride. I, I talked to, um, I talked to a guy, uh, he was interviewing for a position here and he helped build a, I think they're 30 or $40 million power washing company and they have like 15 locations and, uh. They, they're headquartered like 10 minutes away from here.
They, so they started here like 20 years ago and uh, their, theirs was similar, but it's like six, seven months outta the year. And so, like right now it's, you know, March 15th or whatever it is today, I. And they're onboarding like 300 people. Wow. Right now to train for the next 30 days, and then those 300 people are gonna start power washing houses, and then every single one of 'em is out of a job in like October.[00:31:00]
Yeah. And I think, I think they said they only expect like half of them to make it a month.
Eddie Griffin: Yeah, we see it's crazy. We actually, we, uh, Larry Jansky, one of my partners, um, actually bought a business called Bright Brothers. And Bright Brothers does, does roof cleaning or house cleaning. Uh, soft wash. Uh, but what they did, 'cause Larry once again, right, it's all in the people.
We need really great people. Um, they. They incorporated Christmas lights and like they, yeah, so from that time they go out, they, they hang Christmas lights and that's becoming a really big thing around here. You didn't see it before. It'd be me and you hanging lights on our own house. Now they come in.
Yeah, they cut 'em to size. They, they keep 'em and they come back and hang them up. Or you can even do it, you know, based off of holidays. You know, you could do green for St. Patty's Day, red for. Yeah. Valentine's. Some [00:32:00] people keep 'em all year.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. It seems to be a thing that's blown up in popularity.
I've, I've seen it a lot on like TikTok, Facebook.
Jack Carr: Yeah. You know, it feels better coming from a roofing company though, where you have the PPE and, and the know how to be on roofs much. Yeah, because I, I, I posted a while back I saw. I was taking pictures as I was driving through my neighborhood. It's a giant two story McMansion, and there's just some kids walking up on the roof with their, with their van out front and probably unlicensed, uninsured.
I'm going, that is an absolute nightmare as a, as a business owner.
Eddie Griffin: Oh yeah.
Jack Carr: So I, you know, I don't know how they're, they're running it without having kind of the insurance that you would need for being a roofing company.
Eddie Griffin: This is a dangerous trade. I think top three in the, in the world. Um. You know, and things could go wrong quick, man.
You know, you got, yeah. 20 tons of asphalt coming off of a roof. You could destroy properties, you know, and, and, and then, like I said, some people, you know, [00:33:00] they're just, there's so many roofers out there. This price is 20,000, this price is 10,000, this one's 5,000. And we run around all day long and. Clean up other people's messes.
So it's, you know, they definitely gotta be careful who they're, who they're looking for and who they get. And then once you do get 'em, you gotta pray that, you know, they're a, a good enough company to care about safety and protecting, you know, the people I. Because I'm sure you could drive around your area, you'll see those, those roofs going off, people aren't even harnessed up, you know?
Yeah. Just running around and at the end of the day, somebody comes tumbling off that roof and, and, and dies, God forbid it's coming back to the homeowner, typically. Yeah. Right. Uh, smaller companies only got so much coverage
John Wilson: when you were, um, probably. You know, a couple years ago, when, when did you break? 5 million?
Do you remember what year that was? Oof, I, that was [00:34:00] probably 2019 ish. Somewhere in there. When, when was it you felt like you got a really good handle on like the systems and processes to scale? I knew I had it
Eddie Griffin: at a million, you know, I knew, I knew I was there now confidently today. I mean, I, you know, I don't even have to, there's not really too much work for me other than telling somebody it's time to bring on another team, another sales person.
Um. That probably the, the real confidence that I, that I got this, um, you know, probably 2000, 2018, 2017, I really started to find my groove. You know, like I said, those bumps. I, I, man, I tell you, I had times where I'm like, all right, I just need somebody, if they smile, if they, if they look somewhat good, put 'em in the seat, you know?
Um, yeah, that, that wasn't a winning strategy, you know, so a lot of bumps, a lot, a lot of bumps along, along this journey. [00:35:00] Um, but I'm very confident. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's very hard. It's hard, you know, I don't think anybody, yeah, it's hard. Anybody understands the life of an entrepreneur? You know, you, I leave here.
The, the, you're always working. Your brain's always spinning. I don't think anybody feels the lows quite like you, or nobody really rides the highs quite like you either. But I still wouldn't have it any other way. I love what I do. Um, I love the business. I love the people. I love scaling. You know, I love being able to, to have the ability to do that.
John Wilson: Can you help, uh, you know, I don't know that we brought it up, but, but you brought up Klaus Roofing Systems and I think how they've, uh, helped you and you become a partner in that. Can you walk us through what that is and, and how it's helped?
Eddie Griffin: Yeah, so really this all. Stemmed from the School of Entrepreneurship.
Uh, me and Klaus Larson were actually involved with the School of Entrepreneurship. And the School of [00:36:00] Entrepreneurship was really designed for. Uh, basement Systems. Uh, Larry Zinski's, uh, main Baby is, uh, basement Systems, which, you know, you, they're in probably every state throughout the country. We both graduated and we both went out and were were, uh, doing really well in our, in our businesses.
And I got a call one day from Larry and he is like, Hey man, you mind if I come down and check you guys out? You know, I wanna see how you're doing and what your business looks like and how the model's going. So I invited him and his team down to my facility in Waterbury at that time, and I. You know, he was, he was just very interested in roofing, you know, it kind of got a little personal.
He's like, Hey, you mind if I like open up your checkbook? I'm like, nah, Larry, I, I don't care. You know? He is just a good man, and I trusted him. We hung out for that day. The next day he called me back and he is like, Hey, let me ask you a question, Eddie. Would you, would you partner with me? And [00:37:00] I'm like, partner with you.
I'm like, Larry, what? Why? Why would you want anything to do with roofing? He's like, you know Eddie? He's like, not every home has a basement. He's like. But every home's got a roof. He said.
That's a good point.
John Wilson: I like this guy. I do. I
Jack Carr: every
John Wilson: also has a sewer. I'm just throwing out there everybody
Eddie Griffin: shits. Absolutely man. But uh, you know, I think what happened there was we, we all connected and we realized that there was such a void in the roofing industry between quality, um, and crap work, you know, and the products and the materials.
John Wilson: Yeah,
Eddie Griffin: so we went through really all of our competitors and the best products that they had. Uh, we went into manufacturing. We had our own ice and water shield, made our own synthetic felts made, [00:38:00] um, to a higher standard. And, you know, that's really where, where it all started. Larry obviously had the national presence.
Um, so it was very easy for us to, you know, reach out to, um, I'm trying to think of one of our basement companies in, in Ohio. But we reached out to them and, and basically, um, started to build companies right outside of these other companies that. Already knew the, the, the systems between marketing and advertising and it just really helped us scale.
And now what we do is we reach out to like, uh, roofing companies that are kind of having that hard time getting above that 1 million area. And we really show them a system and help them scale just like we did.
John Wilson: I think before we got on air, you talked a little bit about the training facility. Mm-hmm. That you guys have.
We should, uh, whoever's editing this should like add some photos 'cause it sounds cool as hell. It sounds
Jack Carr: really
Eddie Griffin: awesome. Oh, it's a, it is wild. [00:39:00] We have a 450 person arena. Um, you know, where we do live trainings, um, yeah. We have the, the warehouse facility where we have buildings actually built inside of the building.
Low slope, steep slope, uh, turrets, you name it, it's there. Yeah.
John Wilson: And that, that's the train roofing. So, you know, before on camera you were describing how they were waist high roofs to bring people in to help train installers and Yep. It was 65,000 square feet, was that right? Six,
Eddie Griffin: yep. 65,000 square feet. And we, you know, it, it's, it's super safe, you know, to, to just go in with a service guy and Yeah.
You know, uh, see how he puts on. You know, shingles or metal, um, when you're getting into chimneys and, and really technical, detailed flashing. Um, yeah. But at the end of the day, right, this is the stuff that truly separates us from everybody else. You could be a GAF master elite. I'd love to see their training facility that they're taking you to and teaching you, you [00:40:00] know, how to, how to become, you know, who you wanna be.
What do you think, uh, what do you think the next couple years holds for you? Ah, you know, I think it, it, it. It holds a lot for me and my company and my, my people. You know, we're, we're focused on being the leader in the industry. You know, we're focused on our people. You know, I think if you help enough people in this life get what they want, in the end, you'll get what you want.
Um, so just a lot of fun, man. A lot of fun, you know, living the dream. Um, I'm a big hiker, you know, so hiking is, uh, is, is a big part of my life. Um, but scaling, man, it's what we do. It's what we're gonna do, it's what we're gonna continue to do. Um, monitor the numbers and make sure we're healthy and just, just keep going for,
Jack Carr: for, uh, either people getting new, getting into this industry that are new.
Or maybe someone that's thinking about starting up just like all the other ones in the last two years, do you [00:41:00] have any advice for them? What, what should they do right now that will help them be successful in the next,
Eddie Griffin: if I could have did one thing in the beginning, it would've been hired a CFO to keep their eyes on the books.
And you know, like I said, in order to set things straight, you gotta see things straight. And if I could have seen things straight from the beginning, I, man, I would've steered clear from a lot of negative waters. I would've, uh, made sound decisions because I had the evidence to back 'em up. So hiring somebody on the financial side is gonna keep you out of a lot of trouble, uh, right away.
Yeah. That's a lesson
John Wilson: that I've learned too many times too. I think I'm on five times now. So you, you learned it faster than me?
Eddie Griffin: Uh, well, I hope it was, I hope it wasn't as painful.
John Wilson: It probably was.
Jack Carr: I was gonna say no. It definitely was. We've just rounded that corner in it. The last six months have [00:42:00] been absolutely full of pain.
Eddie Griffin: Yeah. I'll tell you what, man. When you got it dialed in and you got your margins dialed in, um, there's nothing better. There really isn't.
John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Uh, you know, you brought up, uh, you brought up training being one of the big barriers between now and 50 million. Do you, do you feel like the, you know, investments that Klaus has made and you guys have made, uh, in the training facility, do you think that solves it or is there additional investment that you're gonna be thinking about?
Eddie Griffin: Oh, there's always, there's, I mean, technology is changing so much. Ai, I mean, you name it. I can tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep up with the times we're gonna, we're gonna, mm-hmm. We're gonna keep up with all these new things that are coming in and the training, um, we'll never stop. It's something that we believe in wholeheartedly.
Building codes are constantly changing. You need to, you need to be, you need to be out there in the forefront. A send a trendsetter and training and educating is something that, you know, we hold [00:43:00] close to the heart and it's what will help us get to that 50 million. Kinda beyond,
John Wilson: what is the big misconception about roofing that people outside of it just don't understand,
Eddie Griffin: uh, the difference between, you know, um, chucking a truck and a legitimate company?
You know, I think a lot of people, uh, stickered shot are, are, are sticker shocked with the, with the price tag of a roof and a lot of people that are just starting out. I really don't know how to price 'em properly. Know how to, yeah. To, to bid 'em. Right. Um, so just really understanding the difference between a reputable company and somebody that's just starting up and not saying that people that are just starting up aren't, aren't, aren't good or reputable.
There's just a lot more risk.
John Wilson: Yeah.
Eddie Griffin: You know? Yeah. And a roof isn't something that you really want to do twice.
Jack Carr: I think that transcends to most home service businesses actually. [00:44:00] You, you sometimes get what you pay for more often than not, and, um, when trusting your plumbing, your very expensive HVAC system or your extremely expensive roof to somebody making sure that their reputable license insured is absolutely huge.
Eddie Griffin: Definitely reviews. Um, you know, we have, I think in our area here we have like 800 and, uh, 30 ish reviews we're uh, 5.4 0.8 stars. You know, so looking at those things, right? When you see a roofing contractor that's a 4.5 with 30 reviews, you know, just doing your research, obviously we're doing something right.
Um, or we wouldn't have such a high rating with so many reviews. Yeah. So things like that to look into.
John Wilson: Well, I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your story. This was, uh, this was a lot of fun. Very, I feel like I got to know roofing even a little bit more and I'm, I'm looking forward to following along and tracking.
When you guys hit 50, we'll have to have you back. Yeah. When Eddie
Jack Carr: hits 50, [00:45:00] he's coming back.
Eddie Griffin: Hey, I'd love to, I'd love to be on before that man, but definitely. Definitely. Thank you guys for having me. I truly appreciate you allowing me to share my story. All
John Wilson: right, thank you. If, uh, for the listeners out there, if you like what you heard, make sure you give us a five star wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, and thanks for tuning in.
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