Founded in 1992 in Sunbury, Ohio, Newman Roofing, LLC has served the greater Columbus area and surrounding central Ohio neighborhoods for nearly 25 years.
Owner Tim Newman insists that his roots are in roofing, following in the path of his father who was a roofing contractor for over 30 years. He began learning the ins and outs of the roofing business at a young age, working for his father’s company and observing how a successful roofing company operates. As Newman’s roofing knowledge grew, so did his interest in the industry and starting a business of his own in a tough market.
“I saw a need for honest, customer-focused service in our area and decided to start my own roofing company so I could fill that gap and continue helping families maintain healthy homes,” he said.
Placing a strong emphasis on high-quality service at an affordable price, Newman and his team of full-time employees and sub-contracted technicians/installers are trained and prepared to handle any project that comes their way.
He recently sat down with RC and discussed the culture and logistics of the business he’s spent the past two decades building.
RC: What type of services do you offer and what percentage of your business is residential vs. commercial; new construction vs. re-roofing?
Tim Newman: Our service offerings include roof replacement, roof repair/maintenance, gutters and leaf protection. We do very little commercial work. Ninety-nine percent of our customers are residential. We’re all about re-roofing and don’t get involved in new construction projects.
RC: How is your company structured?
Tim Newman: The company is organized in the following separate departments: sales and service, accounting, roof replacements, and roof maintenance.
RC: How do you educate/train your employees and keep them safe on the jobsite?
Tim Newman: Our employees take part in quarterly, in-house safety seminars and abide by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards. No one has been injured on a job site in 24 years.
RC: How would you describe your company’s culture?
Tim Newman: We’re a very family-oriented company and strongly value integrity, quality and hard work ethic. We employ people who are passionate and take pride in what they do.
RC: How do you ensure quality workmanship on site?
Tim Newman: We start by hiring people we can trust to do good work for our customers. We also appoint job supervisors to every project and conduct quality assurance inspections upon completion of any job. We have never logged a formal complaint and our Better Business Bureau (BBB) record is perfect.
RC: What are some key challenges in your market and how do you overcome them?
Tim Newman: Staffing. Finding good, trustworthy labor in this industry can be very difficult. We treat every employee like family, and make sure they feel fulfilled in what they’re doing to encourage them to work with us as long as possible. This has an incredibly positive impact on turnover and makes for happy customers.
Marketing. We’ve experienced some headaches while marketing our company against the competition so we’ve recently employed a local digital marketing agency, Holony Media, to help with SEO/SEM and brand exposure. They’re right down the road and are familiar with the communities we work in and the competition we’re up against. They’ve been at it for six months and we’ve already started to see positive results. We’ve worked with larger, non-local marketing companies in the past and never had good experiences with the reps we were partnered with.
RC: No company succeeds on its own. Are there any particular manufacturers or distributors that helped your company reach this level of success?
Tim Newman: CertainTeed maintains the same standards and values that we do and has helped us form winning relationships with our customers by backing our service guarantee with the highest quality products available.
RC: Does your company have a Mission Statement? Please share. If not, please describe the key attributes of your company that make it successful and sets it apart from the competition?
Tim Newman: Our mission is to provide the community with the highest quality service and workmanship available while maintaining a position of leadership in the roofing industry. We value integrity, quality and hard work ethic above all and strive for absolute customer satisfaction.
RC: What advice do you have for other roofing contractors out there striving for success?
Tim Newman: Be honest and take pride in everything you do for your customers. This will always result in high-quality work and satisfied customers.
RC: Please describe the best experience your company had either on a particular job or reaching a particular achievement?
Tim Newman: There aren’t any particular jobs or projects that standout but the culture we’ve manifested has allowed us to stay in business since 1992 without ever logging a formal complaint. Our BBB record is perfect and the feedback we receive from our customers is impeccable.