You thought running your roof contracting firm would be easy because you ‘know’ roofing, but how solid is your knowledge of running a business — your business — compared to slinging shingles?
Life as a roofing contractor is not getting easier despite recent technological advances and improved product quality. Consolidation in the residential sector makes standing out even more challenging than just a few years earlier. And, if you’re a firm relying on subcontractors, it adds to the friction.
Perhaps you’re experiencing one or more of the five frustrations roofing entrepreneurs face:
CONTROL
Your schedule isn’t yours. You’re working harder and longer hours than you ever imagined at this point in your business.
PROFIT
You aren’t making enough money to invest in the people, training, and equipment you want; you’re not even paying yourself what the market says you’re worth.
PEOPLE
Nearly 80% of all your business issues are people-related. Employees, suppliers, and customers are unhappy. They turn to you to keep the peace.
HITTING THE CEILING
You feel stuck in your business. You are either growing too fast or not fast enough.
NOTHING IS WORKING
Conferences, books, industry gurus — you’ve tried them all, and nothing seems to help.
There is a better way to run your business that could make these frustrations disappear, and many small- and mid-size roofing contractor firms are achieving great results with the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS.
EOS offers simple and practical tools to run your business like a world-class company, not a ‘mom-and-pop’ shop. The system helps entrepreneurial leadership teams within the roofing industry create three things in their business: ‘Vision,’ ‘Traction,’ and ‘Healthy.’ What do these terms mean?
Vision: Everyone on the leadership team and then the rest of the company 100% is on the same page about where the company’s going and how to get there.
Traction: Traction is about instilling discipline and accountability for executing that vision.
Healthy: Helping the leadership team become more cohesive and high functioning because, often, they’re not.
Real-World Results
Indianapolis-based Stay Dry Roofing is an EOS success story. The company, founded in 2016 with offices throughout the Indianapolis metropolitan area and Ft. Wayne, Ind., and a branch in Ft. Myers, Fla., has been running on EOS since 2018.
According to Josh Lyon, Stay Dry’s president, the company has been running on EOS since 2018; it has doubled its business since implementing the EOS strategy, including upgrading its leadership team, hiring the right people and putting them in the right seats.
Lyon said the company chose EOS because it recognized crucial missing parts in its operation; most critically, Stay Dry wasn’t clear on its identity/vision for the future. It also had difficulty getting “the right people on the bus” and ensuring everyone was on the same page. Lyon is both the company president and its “Integrator.”
As ‘Integrator,’ a key role within EOS, he oversees the leadership team and the concern’s day-to-day operations: managing sales, handling processes, watching company finances and ensuring Stay Dry executes its vision.
Elements that play significant parts in any company’s success, including employee recruitment and retention, maintaining a positive corporate culture and imbuing employees with an ethos of success, have all contributed to Stay Dry’s sustained growth.
“EOS is like a playbook,” Lyons said. “It helps you draw out all the plays, like on a football team; then you execute the plan … you might get punched in the mouth or knocked off course, and then EOS helps you get back on track; it’s [our] North Star.”
The way we help roofing leadership teams achieve ‘Vision, Traction, and Healthy’ is by assisting them to strengthen their roles with the six key components of their business:
The EOS Model
Vision
Develop a clear vision for your business by answering “The 8 Questions.”
People
Solve your people issues by implementing simple tools to get the “Right People in the Right Seats.”
Data
Run your business on facts and figures instead of on egos, emotions and feelings
Issues
With open and honest communication, get to the root of all the obstacles and challenges that are holding you back from achieving your goals and then work to make those issues disappear forever.
Process
Identify the handful of Core Processes that make your company run. Then, document and simplify these processes and roll them out through your organization with a checklist to get all the major steps “Followed by All.”
Traction
Become masters of execution by setting clear priorities and holding yourself accountable for achieving those priorities with a great meeting pulse.
I invite you to take the EOS 10-minute Organizational Checkup and see how strong your company is.
Adam Kaplan is a professional EOS implementer with EOS Worldwide, helping roofing and other entrepreneurs get more of what they want from their businesses. Previously, Kaplan was the principal of a recruiting firm. He earned his MBA in finance from Emory University. For more information, email adam.kaplan@eosworldwide.com or call (248) 270-2017.
