Mission Control Podcast

In this episode of the Mission Control Podcast, Mike sits down with Connor Rodich from Executive Partners, a firm providing executive-level expertise to roofing, solar, and trades businesses. They dive into the growing trend of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between roofing companies and private equity firms. Connor shares valuable insights on how business owners can strategically position their companies for maximum success when considering a sale to these firms. Tune in to learn how to navigate this evolving landscape and make your company an attractive prospect for potential buyers.

Interested in learning more about Roofr?

Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Executive Partners:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.exec.partners

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@executivepartners

Website: https://exec.partners/

Connor Rodich:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/connor.rodich

In this special episode of the Mission Control Podcast, Jay Bradley from Roof Nuts gives Kris O'Connor of OConnor Contracting in Buffalo, NY, a hands-on lesson in door-to-door sales. Since Buffalo doesn't experience many major storms—mostly dealing with snow—Jay shares valuable tips on generating business through door-to-door techniques that have proven effective for many contractors.

Interested in learning more about Roofr?

Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Jay Bradley (Roof Nuts):

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DJBizzle

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRoofNuts

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCt3sPshRuCO9jnUSKw6tZ0g

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@roofnuts

nstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroofnuts/

Website: https://www.roofnuts.com/

Kris O'Connor:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kris.oconnor.94

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oconnorcontractingwny

Website: https://oconnorroofingbuffalo.com/

In this episode, Mike sits down with Eli Pacini, president of Melo Roofing in Syracuse, NY, and a proud veteran. Eli shares his journey of building Melo Roofing from the ground up, the lessons learned in managing a growing team, and the toughest challenges he's faced along the way. They explore a thought-provoking question: Is it better for your company to stand out or to excel at something specific? The conversation heats up as they dive into a lively debate about what's truly easier—achieving 10x growth or doubling your success.

Interested in learning more about Roofr?

Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Eli Pacini (Melo Roofing):

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elijah.pacini

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meloroofing

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCAWuroRcRRyDSv0QAvE2IsQ

Website: https://meloroofing.com/

In this episode of the Mission Control podcast, Mike is joined by Nick Capobianco of our esteemed partner Roofr. Nick explains in depth the many benefits Roofr can bring to the table for roofing companies and the possibilities of their instant estimator tool. They also talk about the importance of automation in any business. Later on, they discuss marketing and the simple things companies can do to increase their traffic that many do not. They wrap things up by discussing shooting content, getting started, and its benefits. Tune in for all of this and much more!

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Check out the Roofr x Ascend | Roofing Brand Builder Bootcamp:

October 11, 2024 | Dallas, TX | Aloft Dallas Love Field

https://roofr.com/brand-builder-bootcamp

Nick Capobianco:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholas.capobianco.7

In today's episode, Mike is joined by Mikaela Freeman & Connor Rodich of Executive Partners, which partners with roofing, solar, and trades businesses by offering executive-level expertise that empowers entrepreneurs and their teams to escape the daily grind, achieve lasting profits, and position for lucrative exits. They get in depth about how a business can achieve operational efficiency. This includes automation, implementing CRMs, crafting a customer experience, profitability, and much more. Be sure to tune in for a ton of expert-level advice!

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Executive Partners:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the.exec.partners

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@executivepartners

Website: https://exec.partners/

Connor Rodich:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/connor.rodich

Mikaela Freeman:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikaelafreeman.exec.partners

In this episode of the Mission Control podcast, Mike sits down with Jay Bradley of Roof Nuts! Roof Nuts offers cold calling services, door 2 door lead generation, and in-depth training for roofing companies to help them close deals much faster. Jay is a true expert in his craft; he gives some amazing advice on generating/closing leads, explains the different approaches that should be taken with varying personalities, and goes over what he often sees going wrong with closing leads. They also detail what a roofing company should consider before hiring a marketing company and how to work with them to attain the best results.

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Roof Nuts:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRoofNuts

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCt3sPshRuCO9jnUSKw6tZ0g

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@roofnuts

Website: https://www.roofnuts.com/

The Mission Control Podcast has returned with a banger of an episode! Mike sits down with three titans of the roofing industry. Eric Reno, the founder of Paramount Roofing in Detroit; Austin Fricker, the owner and CEO at A. Fricker Roofing & Waterproofing in Tulsa, and Connor Rodich, the President at Executive Partners, which offers executive-level expertise to roofing, solar, and trades businesses. They have in-depth discussions about hiring, setting up systems and processes, building a team, selling a roofing company, and much more. You do not want to miss this one; these guys drop some fantastic knowledge on these topics.

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Eric Reno:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eric.reno.165

Paramount Roofing: https://paramountbuildinginc.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC6cfqbfHqf2wt1xXqqgHQ5g

Austin Fricker:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austin.fricker.5

A. Fricker Roofing & Waterproofing: https://africkerroofing.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@a.frickerroofing

Connor Rodich:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/connor.rodich

Executive Partners: https://exec.partners/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@executivepartners

In today's special episode, Mike is joined by two amazing guests: Corey Combes, the owner of SouthShore Roofing & Exteriors in Tampa, FL, and James O'Connor, a Lawyer who is a partner at Phillips Lytle LLP in Buffalo, NY. James has been practicing labor and employment law for the last ten years. As Corey's attorney, he has helped him navigate the world of business regulations that many new business owners often get lost in. The focus of todays conversation is on when its time to switch your employees from a 1099 to W-2. James gives some amazing insights into this that would be beneficial for any business owner to know and understand.

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

James O'Connor:

Email: jo'[email protected]

Phone: (716) 504-5723

Phillips Lytle: https://phillipslytle.com/

Corey Combes:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corey.corey.71868

SouthShore Roofing & Exteriors:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthShoreRoofingandExteriors

Website: https://southshorecontractorstampa.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCuSTqyiihxDvtgmwiv9iP-g

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:32:00 Mission Control: Welcome back to another episode of the Mission Control Podcast, brought to you by none other than your boy Mike Stearns. Ascend Digital and the team at Roofr. Look, if you're a contractor and you're looking for clean and pristine proposals that will give your target audience no choice but to buy, click the link below.

00:00:32:01 - 00:00:47:17 Mission Control: You'll see it. You'll be happy that you did. They also do things like roof measurements online roof quotes. I mean, they're just great and a great team, so go check them out. Today we have a very special episode. So we've got Cory Combs, who you may or may not know. And if you don't, you should. So we're going to help you with that.

00:00:47:20 - 00:01:17:01 Mission Control: And then we also have Mr. James O'Connor. He's an attorney that specializes in labor and employment law. We'll get more to that in in a minute. But, from my understanding, I'm just a marketing guy. There's, there's been some misinformation, some misunderstanding, and some lack of clarity around to 1099. And I also understand that it's been, it's been a point of emphasis for some agencies, and that could have some impact on your business now, tomorrow, next month, next year.

00:01:17:03 - 00:01:43:11 Mission Control: So. Well, we're going to give you a lot of great information. It's very important to know, and James will attest to this, that this is not legal advice nor should it be construed as such. So, without further ado, Corey James, get after it. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast with you guys is because, you know, I'm pretty active on social media and a lot of the contractor groups and what I keep seeing and I've been James is my attorney.

00:01:43:11 - 00:02:15:04 Mission Control: I've been working with him for, the last, you know, four years or so, developing contracts, trying to stay compliant, trying to stay ahead of some of the changes that these agencies have made. And I notice in these contracts for groups that there's a lot of bad information, either completely wrong misinformation or just flat out nonsense about how you classify your employees and how you stay compliant with independent contractors.

00:02:15:07 - 00:02:34:09 Mission Control: Plus, recently, there's been a lot of things that have changed with the IRS. The Department of Labor. And so I wanted to talk about those changes, how they're going to affect contractors, how they're affecting contractors now, and what we can do to stay compliant. So I'll let you introduce yourself, James. Sure. Thanks for that. Thanks, Mike, for having me on.

00:02:34:12 - 00:02:55:25 Mission Control: And thanks to Corey. yeah. James O'Connor. And I'm an attorney at, the law firm Phillips Lytle. in Buffalo. We have, 8 or 9 offices at this point, or throughout the northeast. And because I'm a lawyer, I have to add, as part of a disclaimer that my opinions are my own and not Phillips legal, the firm where I work.

00:02:55:27 - 00:03:19:15 Mission Control: but I'm a partner. I've been practicing and labor and employment law for about the last ten years. I do a lot of employment litigation as well as some labor negotiations. If you're, you know, a union workforce, part of my practice is also what we call counseling, which is when there's not an active lawsuit, pending at the time.

00:03:19:15 - 00:03:47:10 Mission Control: But, clients such as Corey or someone like him calls up and says, I have this issue. We're trying to hire this person they really want to be at 1099. What can we do? And, you know, my role in that capacity is, more of a counselor. And we talk through those issues because it's not a one size fits all approach, and there's no cookie cutter answer to some of these questions.

00:03:47:10 - 00:04:13:12 Mission Control: Everybody's business is different. Everybody's appetite for risk is different. And there really are no one set of rules that will apply across the board, which I think is part of the problem that you're seeing on your social media groups and, search boards, whatever it is that people think that because something works for them, it must apply in all situations.

00:04:13:15 - 00:04:44:01 Mission Control: And from what I do in the legal world, that's just a very dangerous precedent. And we've really got to be cautious about, about doing that. So, yeah, I'm I'm thrilled to be here, excited to talk about this. I love nerding out about, labor and employment law. And, hopefully nobody has to ever deal with an investigation by one of these agencies or a lawsuit by an employee or, God forbid, a group of employees.

00:04:44:03 - 00:05:04:09 Mission Control: but one of the ways that we can mitigate that risk, because it is a risk, is to deal with it on the front end and be proactive. And so I'm excited to be a part of that. So thank you for having me. You're very welcome. So if I'm a contractor, it just seems to make more sense to give free advice, post to 20,000 other contractors and hear what they have to say.

00:05:04:09 - 00:05:25:15 Mission Control: Is that not a good idea? It's absolutely not a good idea. I mean, or go to TikTok, you know, that's where I get my news. So I yeah, that that's, a little bit of, you know, the blind leading the blind, so to speak. And just like I, you wouldn't want to listen to a bunch of lawyers talk about how to market or how to put a roof up.

00:05:25:17 - 00:05:43:27 Mission Control: you know, I heard it was this way. So I'm going to say that that's the only way to do it. And it works in all scenarios. We get that sometimes. I bet you do love you all. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a good point. was there something, Corey, though, that happened in your business that kind of sparked the interest in having this conversation?

00:05:43:27 - 00:06:27:08 Mission Control: Yeah, yeah. so last year I had a problem with one of my, one of the people in my sales team. It was 1099. And, you know, James and I have iterated our, independent contractor agreement a few different times to try to meet some of the conditions that we had with some salespeople. And what happened with this person last year, really, was the catalyst for me to, to to make everybody to just be based on some of the changes that have come, come down the pipe, you know, some of the things that James had counseled me on from a risk management standpoint, and then knowing what the legislatures were working on to

00:06:27:08 - 00:06:46:11 Mission Control: bring some of the new changes that were going to happen in 24. So, even though this person that worked for me did, they were technically independent because they were doing another sales position at a in a different industry. So I think we would have been fine if we would have gotten into a lawsuit with him, which, by the way, I fired that person.

00:06:46:11 - 00:07:09:21 Mission Control: I owed them a bunch of commissions. There were jobs that, you know, that they did, that they had undersold. And I got an email from this person that basically said, because they kind of knew that I wasn't 100% compliant with the rules, and the laws, allegedly was not 100% compliant, allegedly wasn't 100% compliant. Thank you, sir. You're welcome.

00:07:09:24 - 00:07:33:06 Mission Control: that I didn't want to open up myself to an investigation. After seeking counsel from my attorney, we decided that it might be a good idea to just settle. Right. And so we did. I personally knew that, I didn't want to go down that road with either a lawsuit or an investigation and all of that stuff. So we it cost me quite a bit of money.

00:07:33:09 - 00:07:57:09 Mission Control: We decided to go that route. And then we also decided to start making some changes, going to W2 so that I could further reduce my risk of getting in this situation again. So to maybe give some clarity on this, can you talk a little bit about the agencies? I know there's three big ones. And then what are some of their rules and guidelines?

00:07:57:09 - 00:08:37:00 Mission Control: Just basic rules and guidelines for 1099 versus W2. And then we can sort of get into the changes and how those affect contractors. Yeah, absolutely. So there are three big federal agencies that care about whether you're properly classifying your employees. And those are the IRS, the NLRB, National Labor Relations Board and the US Dol Department of Labor. There also are myriad state agencies, depending on which state you're operating in that also care, whether or not you're classifying them as employees or 1099 independent contractors.

00:08:37:03 - 00:09:08:27 Mission Control: And unfortunately, not all the agencies have the same test. it would make things much simpler to do business if they were, but they are not. And so it's important to understand that when you're seeing some of this information out there, it may technically be true, right? Somebody posts something on one of these groups or, message boards that says, you know, as long as you do these three things, you're good.

00:09:09:00 - 00:09:38:03 Mission Control: That may be true for one of the agencies, but it may also not be true for one or more of the other ones. We want to be compliant with all of them. Right. So, but generally the for instance, the IRS looks at three types of areas when they're determining whether or not you've properly classified your employees behavioral, financial and the type of relationship.

00:09:38:05 - 00:10:05:06 Mission Control: So behavioral is do you as the employer have the right to control or do you control the work that is done, how that work is done, not the result, how it is done if you do? Sorry, they're not an independent contractor. They're an employee. financial a are the business aspects of the worker's job controlled by you?

00:10:05:08 - 00:10:37:13 Mission Control: For most of us, I think the answer is probably yes. How that person gets paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides the tools and supplies, if you, as the employer, are the answer to some of those questions, guess what? You're the employer. They are an employee, not a contractor under the IRS regulations. And then the third is, you know, the type of relationship which, is in my practice, I have seen be less important to the IRS these days.

00:10:37:13 - 00:11:04:14 Mission Control: But, it essentially means, you know, are they allowed to have or provided, you know, benefits that are typical of an employee, like vacation pay, insurance, things like that. now, you may see on a message board as long as you don't pay them insurance, I'm just making this up. As long as you don't pay them, you know, give them offer them insurance or provide them with vacation pay or other employee benefits.

00:11:04:16 - 00:11:39:14 Mission Control: You're good. They it can be 1099. That's not true. the IRS would look at other aspects, mostly the behavioral. So, to take a statement directly from the IRS guidance, they say the general rule is that an independent contractor isn't independent contractor. If the payer you has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done or how it will be done.

00:11:39:17 - 00:12:12:05 Mission Control: So you mentioned sales. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm thinking to myself because I know a little bit about your business. Do you distribute sales manuals? Do you have trainings on how to, close a deal or present a sale? Do you have trainings on how to enter sales once they're made into a process, or workflow? something that maybe Mike has designed, if the answer to any of those is yes, according to the IRS test, those folks are employees, not violating the rules.

00:12:12:05 - 00:12:41:01 Mission Control: You are. You are directing and controlling how the work is done. And for that reason, you are their employer and they cannot be. 1099 and that's just the IRS, right? And they admittedly are not, you know, really the ones do we worry about, the ones that I worry about, the NLRB and the US Dol because those folks have they can issue some serious penalties.

00:12:41:03 - 00:13:15:14 Mission Control: You know, the IRS, you can you can work with them, in my experience. But so let me, maybe let me give you maybe let me give you guys, sort of a simple way to look at this. if we're providing so if we have sales training that we're providing to our 1090 nines. So, for example, if you hire a consultant, then they have, a standard operating procedure, a sales process that you're training them on how they need to sell in your company, then that violates the IRS rules, correct?

00:13:15:14 - 00:13:35:10 Mission Control: It certainly could. Yes, yes. Now, if we're using a CRM and we're telling them, hey, listen, this is how the information needs to be put in, here's how your contracts have to be done. Here's the contracts that you have to use. Here's the estimating forms you have to use. All of those things could be in violation of what you just described, correct?

00:13:35:10 - 00:14:16:24 Mission Control: Yes. And in in that instance, it is more likely that they would be considered employees rather than 1098. I, I, I can't think of any other way of explaining to, an IRS investigator or a court, how given what you just described, you're not directing how the job done. Right? Right. So with a straight face, how am I really going to work with an investigator and say, hey, look, you know, I know you're doing your job, but these guys really are 1099 I can't say that with a straight face if all those things are true.

00:14:17:00 - 00:14:37:08 Mission Control: So so if you couple that with, you're providing shirts and you're providing trucks and you're providing cell phones and you're providing all of that. So now we're looking at everything in their totality okay. So we're giving them a process to follow. We're giving them we're directing them how they sell their jobs and where to put the information, what forms to use.

00:14:37:08 - 00:14:57:17 Mission Control: All of that stuff. And they're wearing our shirts and hats and they're doing, you know, giving them trucks and all that stuff. Now there's really no argument to be had that there. 1099 I would absolutely agree with that. Yeah. It seems next to impossible to create an environment where a salesperson could be to 99. Then it's difficult for sure.

00:14:57:17 - 00:15:38:07 Mission Control: And I think that that is by design. I think that the, not I think I know these agencies, particularly the NLRB and the US, Dol they have issued memoranda and, and guidance that explicitly states that they are, moving towards a model where, folks are going to be classified as workers rather than independent contractors. And the the policy reason behind it is they want to make sure the workers are all entitled to any and every right as an employee, that is available to other employees under the law.

00:15:38:14 - 00:16:12:00 Mission Control: And those memoranda are coming from like, for instance, the chair of the NLRB or the general counsel for the NLRB, the fact sheets on the US dollar website. They all indicate to me that they are moving towards wanting folks to be employee versus independent contractor. That's crazy, because like, from my understanding, from what I've observed, it's not always just the employer, the ones the talent and the benefit of that.

00:16:12:00 - 00:16:28:27 Mission Control: A lot of the times it's the employees. Well, well, the contractor, the independent contractor that's like, I don't want to commit to this. I don't want this level of control. But I guess what they perceive as an acceptable level of control versus what one of these agencies perceive as an acceptable level control, it seems to be, you know, quite an imbalance there.

00:16:28:28 - 00:16:56:05 Mission Control: Yeah. That's right. And unfortunately, they all three agencies are explicit that just because you say you agree that you want to be an independent contractor doesn't mean that you are an independent contractor. Even if Corey and I were to say, yeah, I want to be independent contractor, I don't want to be a W-2. We write it, put it down in writing, and we sign, and I even say I'll waive any rights I have to claim I'm an employee.

00:16:56:05 - 00:17:26:09 Mission Control: It doesn't matter the agencies, if they want it to, if they're motivated, they can come in and say, despite all of that, we view you as a W-2 and we're going to penalize you accordingly. I have a quick question. So for my limited understanding, because again, I'm just a marketing guy, with like the IRS, right. And like write offs and deductions, there's certain things that you could do that would maybe draw more attention to yourself.

00:17:26:12 - 00:17:55:01 Mission Control: Does that the same if that is true, does that same theory apply to like these different agencies? Are there are there certain egregious missteps that contractors make to where it's like, okay, we're putting a target on your back? Yes, absolutely. And I think that's part of the reason why you did what you did, Corey, is because, there are certainly things that you don't want to do or have done to you that put you on their radar.

00:17:55:01 - 00:18:26:06 Mission Control: So with the IRS, you're right. It's crazy deductions, crazy write offs, some bean counters going to look at that and say, hey, this looks funny. Escalate this. We're going to review it the second time. And once you're on their list, you know, I'm sorry. It seems to me like you're on their list. You want to be able to say, yeah, that's been at least been my experience anecdotally from clients I've worked with is once they think they have somebody who's a violator, they're going to stay focused and check in every few years.

00:18:26:09 - 00:18:54:23 Mission Control: So with respect to the independent contractor, it's it's really about minimizing the risk that your workers are going to file a complaint because they do have the right to file a complaint, even when you settle. You may remember this from our settlement agreement. Yeah. Even when you're paid money to walk away and release your claims, you cannot by law waive your right to file a complaint with one of these government agencies.

00:18:54:26 - 00:19:18:29 Mission Control: You're only you're only waiving your right to recover money. Exactly. So in reality, I've been doing this for ten, 11 years. In reality, when you pay somebody to go away and you sign an agreement, even though they are made aware, they can still file and still make your life hell. Corey. Yeah, I've never seen it actually happen. They always just go away.

00:19:19:01 - 00:19:39:27 Mission Control: Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'm sure it still does happen where somebody takes their money and then says, you know what? I really want to give it to my former employer. I'm going to file a complaint anyway, even though I can't recover anything from it. And I'm sure that does happen. But it's got to be few and far between because I've never seen it.

00:19:39:29 - 00:20:01:19 Mission Control: And you know, I do these things quite regularly, so minimize the risk that your workers are going to file a complaint and you know, the other pieces, if you're making, you know, the type of money that we all want to be making, right? And you have no W-2 employees, that's going to be a red flag. Sure. It's going to be a red flag.

00:20:01:19 - 00:20:35:06 Mission Control: So let me ask you this. I mean, you know, and I'll, I'll, I'll kind of put this in contractor's terms here in just a second. But, this put me to ask a question. If you are non-compliant, meaning you have some 1099 salespeople that you're skirting the rules on, and you do finally get compliant. Is there a way or is there a statute of limitations where they can retroactively go back to that period of time where you were non-compliant and, you know, I'm going to say yes, but let's see what the attorney has.

00:20:35:09 - 00:20:58:09 Mission Control: Yeah, the answer is absolutely yes. and it varies how far back they can look depending on which agency you're talking about and which, lobbying violated. IRS can look back six years or seven years on most things, which is why we always recommend you keep your records for that length of time. some of the other agencies, like the Dol, can look back at least three years.

00:20:58:12 - 00:21:32:28 Mission Control: state versions of or iterations of the Dol can also look back longer than the US. Dol New York State can look back six years on certain things. So yes, absolutely. I will say that if if you're under an investigation by one of these agencies and you have made a good faith effort to comply, whether that's before the complaint or even after, it does go a long way.

00:21:33:00 - 00:21:58:19 Mission Control: if you've got the right investigator and frankly, the right, the right lawyer, who can sit down and talk to this person and say, hey, look, this guy is just trying to make a living. And, you know, here are all the steps he's taking to ensure compliance. But like the IRS, they will trust but verify. Sure, they will check in and make sure those controls that you've put in place are permanent.

00:21:58:22 - 00:22:25:06 Mission Control: sure. Absolutely goes a long way. It's not determinative. You can't just say sorry, my bad rule, but it may limit the figure. Take from first degree murder on a manslaughter. Similar to that. Sure. Yeah. It definitely reduces the vigor with which they are, seeking their pound of flesh. Because that's what this is all about, right? Let's call it what it is.

00:22:25:10 - 00:22:43:15 Mission Control: Yeah, I want to get in. I want to get into this here. Yeah. Seeking the pound of flesh. But go ahead and finish in that. All they want to squeeze out as much as they can. I'm sure that they you know, they probably are our good people and and you know, they're they're probably nice people. don't get it twisted.

00:22:43:15 - 00:23:11:07 Mission Control: Their job is to secure money for their agency. And yes, it's about enforcing the laws and yes, it's about workers rights. But at the end of the day, these folks need to justify their existence. Yes. To their bosses. Yes. All right. The higher ups and the federal government and Congress, who, you know, authorizes these agencies to exist.

00:23:11:10 - 00:23:39:23 Mission Control: And what better way to justify your existence than to say we've brought in $3 billion in penalties? yeah. And I'm just making that number up. I don't actually know. I'm too scared to look into those numbers because I'm sure it's a high number. Yeah. It helped out this many contractor, independent contractors that were actually employees. Right. And, nine times out of ten, they're not that money is not going to those folks.

00:23:39:23 - 00:24:01:01 Mission Control: It's going to the agency when it's a penalty, for a violation. You know, it's it's the same across the board. It's the same with OSHA. It's the same with all those agencies. You know, a very rarely actually trickles down to the employee or worker. yeah. Because it's really, you know, at the end of the day, not necessarily about compliance.

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:39:22 Mission Control: That's the, that's the lever to, to get the money. Yes. And so let's, let's talk a little bit about, you know, why people violate these, these rules. Right. And from a contractor standpoint there's, there's and I don't want to say it's just a contractor violating these because it's not right. on the sales, you know, when I transitioned everybody over to W-2, the big objection from the sales team was, of course, that now they're going to pay more taxes because they are W-2, they don't afford the same write offs and things like that as they could when they're an LLC or an S Corp or whatever.

00:24:39:25 - 00:24:58:11 Mission Control: So it saves it saves taxes for the sales person. So that of course they want to do it. I think that's why they put that mechanism in there so that it doesn't matter if you make that agreement or not, because they would they understand that people are going to make that agreement all day long because it's financially beneficial to them.

00:24:58:14 - 00:25:19:25 Mission Control: and then on the contractor side, we save workers comp, we save state and federal income. And, there are some other fees and taxes that we pay on top of when we have W-2 employees, like, we pay into, unemployment. We pay, you know, so so there are a lot of things that benefit us if we don't have to pay those.

00:25:19:28 - 00:25:42:06 Mission Control: There's also laws on the books and some well, in a lot of states where you have to have benefits paid time off, paternity, maternity leave, things like that that you don't have to offer. Once those people, or 1099 are independent. So talk a little bit about that and, and why people do that and sort of what the agencies look at.

00:25:42:09 - 00:26:21:10 Mission Control: from their standpoint to, to, to recover that money. Sure. So, the, it's absolutely a risk management, analysis. And every employer is different and every business owner is different and has different goals, different appetites for risk. So there's certainly are situations where looking at all of those negatives that you just described with being a strictly W-2 workforce, which admittedly, there's a lot of negatives to making them W-2 there is.

00:26:21:12 - 00:26:48:21 Mission Control: It's costly, I get it. and for some employers, maybe it is worth the risk of, being found in violation given the amount of money that you would save by having these folks be 1099, set that money aside and save it for a rainy day. If you do get whacked with a violation, you're still up. You've still made money.

00:26:48:23 - 00:27:16:28 Mission Control: Not every employer is like that. I think the calculus for you was, you know, it's not close to being worth that. it's going to depend on the amount of revenue that is generated. Not not necessarily the amount of profit going into the owner's pockets, which is a big difference. Pay attention to that, guys, because they're going off of revenue generated and not the profit in your pocket.

00:27:17:01 - 00:27:45:07 Mission Control: Yep. Think about that. Yep. Other factors include, the length of time of the violation. You know, some of these penalties are daily violations, particularly with the NLRB. and, you know, they can be daily violations of 1000 $2,000. Okay. So you're telling me that they'll look at it from the length of time that you engage in relationship with that person all the way through to when the investigation started?

00:27:45:07 - 00:28:14:21 Mission Control: They'll find you per day. They can. Yeah. How? Yeah. And part of the the reason why, those investigations are so costly is forget about the lawyer fees, which I again concede are going to be substantial. If this is a if you're a major company and you're doing a ton of work and you've got a ton of employees, or workers, I should say, okay, would you, would you clarify that just a little bit?

00:28:14:21 - 00:28:53:06 Mission Control: Because we've got people that are going to be from 1 to 2 employees all the way up to some of the larger companies. They're going to have 20, 30, 40, 50 employees. So, how does this affect the smaller guys? So the smaller guys, it's really about, mitigating the risk that somebody files a complaint, period. Because if they do and you are so small to use a, you know, for lack of a better term, if you're really operating on thin margins and you're, you know, more or less just scraping by, something like this could ruin you.

00:28:53:12 - 00:29:17:28 Mission Control: It just cut. If you can't afford, you know, a ten, $15,000 fine plus a $5,000 legal fee, you know, you may end up closing up shop over it. Now, if you are slightly larger than that, but not much larger, it may not affect you as much. You may look at this as, geez, I really can't afford, I'm just going to throw out numbers.

00:29:18:00 - 00:29:47:03 Mission Control: I can't afford the 100 grand a year extra. It's going to be for me to make my ten employees or five employees, workers. W-2s. I'm going to roll the dice and just hope and pray and treat my workers well and hope that they don't file a complaint. but if they do, I'm gambling that the amount I'm going to pay the government is going to be less than what I would pay to convert them to w-2s.

00:29:47:05 - 00:30:10:23 Mission Control: So those folks, it may not matter much the larger you get. Yeah, the more likely it is in my experience, working with folks such as yourself, you're going to want to convert them to W-2. Yeah. because the number of employees one person files a complaint. Well, guess what? They're looking into everybody who got it. Yeah, you got it.

00:30:10:29 - 00:30:36:01 Mission Control: And, you know, it's not technically a class action. It's not called that. But it's the same concept of if they get, you know, a piece of bread, meat in their teeth these days, they're going to be digging through and seeing how deep does this rabbit hole go. And if they think that there's a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, guess what?

00:30:36:03 - 00:31:13:14 Mission Control: They're going to be hunting. And if you've got 50, 60, 70 employees, that number can get real high real quick. This is not even considering the fact that under a proposed rule, you could be deemed a joint employer of your subcontractors, not necessarily for this purpose, but, in general. And now instead of your 70 independence, you could be potentially responsible for everybody you do business with.

00:31:13:16 - 00:31:33:04 Mission Control: Whoever's assignments you know, roofing subcontractor, anybody that you use for labor for an example. And we'll put a pause on that because we're going to dig into that hearing a little bit, you know, about some of these proposed legislations. I have a question. So some people may or may not make an informed decision and say it's the juice worth the squeeze.

00:31:33:04 - 00:31:56:10 Mission Control: The upsides there. I'm going to roll the dice and see if I don't get caught, because I can't afford to pay 100,000 to have these ten w-2s right there going to be independent contractors. And that makes sense for me. I'm not an attorney, but from my understanding, like, let's say the difference between murder manslaughter is intent. So is that a contributing factor when one of these agencies decide to pursue a case, if they feel as if there was malice and you intentionally did it, does that make a difference?

00:31:56:11 - 00:32:21:14 Mission Control: Sure, absolutely. It's it's not, a determinative. You can't just say I was trying to do my best. I really didn't mean to do this. That's not going to win the day, but it absolutely will, go a long way. And minimizing your penalty second time and third time offenders absolutely get hit way harder. and that's obviously shows an intent, all right.

00:32:21:15 - 00:32:49:24 Mission Control: And a willful, malicious intent to skirt the rules. unfortunately, it's not necessarily a significant savings in many instances where you can truly establish and connect with the investigator who's, you know, a person like, like all of us, and you can connect with them and say, hey, look, you know, this guy's responsible for 30 families, who work for him.

00:32:50:00 - 00:33:15:00 Mission Control: And he's, you know, really doing his best. Thought he was doing the right thing. Got some bad advice, right? I've a Facebook group. Yeah, right. Yeah. And it may help a little bit. They may knock a little off. but it's certainly not going to be a wash. I mean, I could see, like, I own a business. I started a business and what I thought I was going to have to know versus what I had to know was markedly different.

00:33:15:00 - 00:33:34:15 Mission Control: And, I mean, you think of all the things that you're trying to figure out on the go with a gun to your head to meet deadlines and all these different things. And I could see it being very easy to stumble into this situation without any malice, like without having any idea that you're violating laws. Right? So, I'm for the people, Mike Stearns, man of the people.

00:33:34:15 - 00:34:02:20 Mission Control: So shout out to all my contractors out there that are in this situation. Just didn't know it. I feel like that's a vast, vast majority of you guys. So that's why we're having this conversation. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, ignorance of the law is a defense, which I found that out a couple different times. And the, you know, the, the, the precarious spot that contractors are put in is, you know, we're trying to I mean, let's be honest, like, you cannot follow the letter of the law and stay in business.

00:34:02:20 - 00:34:31:12 Mission Control: It just doesn't I mean, it's so expensive. You go broke, you go broke. I mean, if you paid every single tax and every I mean, you go broke. There's no possible way you could do it. But let's say that you have a violation. You you get, you know, you get investigated. You, you know, you go through all of this stuff, you're telling me that they would have no problem fining you out of existence?

00:34:31:12 - 00:35:05:09 Mission Control: Basically. Sure. Absolutely, absolutely. they they will tag these agencies down in the description, write your local congressperson and tell them you object to their existence to these agencies and yeah, no, it it I've seen it it absolutely can happen. if you get if you're just especially if you're just starting out, you know, some of the worst parts of my job are when it's usually a young person and he or she is, is, you know, wide eyed and going to change the world.

00:35:05:12 - 00:35:29:09 Mission Control: Oh, man. And it's they start their business and they truly are doing their best. And for whatever reason, a disgruntled worker, I don't want to call this, you know, them employees, but a disgruntled worker files a complaint. And, you know, these agencies come in and they want to look at all the books, and then you're getting audited by the IRS.

00:35:29:12 - 00:35:59:12 Mission Control: And these new business owners, you know, a couple of them I've seen 2 or 3 years in, they still haven't turned a profit. And for themselves and, you know, they're not taking a salary, even a $10,000 fine closed up shop. You see, that happened twice. Yeah. It's sad. Yeah. That's sad. Have you seen an instance where, you know, let's say like the Department of Labor gets called in and the books aren't necessarily up to snuff.

00:35:59:12 - 00:36:36:08 Mission Control: Right. And so they're trying to figure out I'll pull out all the numbers. Have you ever seen it where they call in the IRS? Because the books aren't good and they're trying to determine what's going on. So like, hey, we need to check the taxes and all of that stuff. Yeah. So does that happen? I it I've never seen it and I don't know that it happens above board, but I do I do know that when you get investigated by one of these agencies, your likelihood of being investigated by another one in the next five years is high.

00:36:36:10 - 00:37:07:13 Mission Control: and I, they, they have said they have issued memoranda, these agencies encouraging their field offices around the country to work closely with their sister agencies. And so it's definitely is becoming more of a thing. I've never seen it where they flat out admit to me and say, hey, your client, the books are terrible. We're calling the IRS.

00:37:07:15 - 00:37:30:09 Mission Control: I've never had that conversation. What I have had happen is a doll comes in, they're getting a wage. And our complaint, somebody saying I wasn't paid by all of my lunches or my meal breaks or, I should have been paid overtime and a wage an hour audit can be, very long. And it can be they want to look at everything.

00:37:30:09 - 00:37:58:29 Mission Control: Right. And what I have seen is we close out the wage and our investigation, we come to an agreement. Some money is paid. April that next year, increased audit from the IRS, a secondary audit and surprise, surprise hit with some violations. not deemed willful in that instance, thankfully. But I mean, the IRS, they still want their money.

00:37:59:02 - 00:38:24:04 Mission Control: they just don't want a penalty on top if you can prove that it was innocent. but if it happens again, I mean, you better believe they're they're coming for the whole kit and caboodle. So are you telling me. Yeah. So are you telling me that there's there are compliance things on? And I'll ask you this question a little bit differently in a second, but there are compliance issues with the relationship with 1099.

00:38:24:04 - 00:38:51:15 Mission Control: So an independent and, an employer. But there are also compliance issues with W-2. So there are some laws and regulations that if you do switch everybody over to W-2, there are some state laws. And obviously we can't get into those because those are going to be, you know, based on the state that they're in. But you're saying that there are compliance, things that we need to be aware of, even if they're W-2.

00:38:51:16 - 00:39:22:03 Mission Control: Absolutely. And when you make somebody a W-2 and this is again, probably part of the problem you're seeing on your Facebook groups and message boards is that, making somebody's W-2 does not automatically put them into one category of W-2. You can be a W-2 exempt employee, meaning I work 45, 50, 60 hours a week, but I'm not getting overtime because I'm exempt from it.

00:39:22:06 - 00:40:03:02 Mission Control: or you can be nonexempt your typical hourly worker. So we did outside sales, right? So talk a little bit about that. We did. And so there are other exemptions under the, Fair Labor Standards Act. FLSA, that allow you to have two employees. So you're still taking care of on that front. but they're paid commissions, for instance, and they're not entitled to the minimum wage and overtime requirements that a typical W-2 employee is, with respect to the outside sales, you know, there are certain factors that need to be met.

00:40:03:04 - 00:40:32:06 Mission Control: the main one is outside, right? Don't give them an office. Don't give them a place to work. If you do now, they're not an outside salesperson. And guess what? They're entitled to a salary or their hourly rate. based on the minimum wage, depending on, you know, your agreement with them and what state you're operating in. And I don't know about you guys, but I, I clock, you know, sometimes 80, 90 hour weeks, from time to time.

00:40:32:09 - 00:40:54:17 Mission Control: And so if I were to discover that unbeknownst to me or my employer, that, I really am not an exempt employee, that overtime time and a half of an additional 40, especially with what you build, I.

00:40:54:20 - 00:41:21:02 Mission Control: I I'll take it I think I could I can take it, but yeah it it it is incredible though that you know, the fact that you your pants somebody a commission based on sales and because something is you would think trivial as we're getting them in office. Yeah. We're telling them we we want to see them from time to time.

00:41:21:02 - 00:41:53:11 Mission Control: They get to come to meetings, things like that. Now all of a sudden they're W-2, or not, they're not exempt. And you can't just pay them straight, commission. That's that's the reality. so that's why we were very careful with your outside sales team. because that exemption is important. I think, you know, if they're doing their job, they're going to want to keep their commission agreement because they're going to be making a lot more than minimum wage.

00:41:53:11 - 00:42:15:22 Mission Control: Yeah, but if they're not and if they're slackers or having, you know, a bad month, maybe they do make more money if they can just say, hey, I, I was working 70 hours. Yeah. And you know, I'm not a true outside salesperson. Corey Combs should have been paying me time and a half for every hour I worked over 40.

00:42:15:25 - 00:42:52:24 Mission Control: And, you know, that's a real, real concern. but I think the point is, just making somebody W-2 doesn't mean necessarily you have to track their hours and and start making them, you know, eligible for time and a half and minimum wage. There are exceptions as well. So so that's where, you know, when when you and I originally had the conversation, you know, I'm like, look, man, I don't want to have to deal with all of this W-2 stuff because, you know, my my payroll company was like, okay, you know, you got to track all their hours and you got to track this, and you got to track all this.

00:42:52:24 - 00:43:21:09 Mission Control: And then, you know, I'm like, look, I'm not doing that. So we went in and if you're listening to this, pay attention, okay? Because we're talking about the sales team, mostly because that seems to be the biggest issue. We're going to talk about labor here in a second. But for a sales team perspective, most of us we don't do traditionally inside sales, which means they're not in an office using the phone, calling people, doing sales in that we're going to people's houses or buildings or whatever.

00:43:21:16 - 00:43:44:21 Mission Control: That is their primary function. They're not working out of the office. So what we did, we classified them as W2 outside sales. I put together a bullpen in the office where we had a bunch of cubicles. None of them belong to anybody. If they need to come in or they need to park there to do some work, they can.

00:43:44:28 - 00:44:07:19 Mission Control: They're not required to because they work outside. And so that was one of the big things that we wanted to make sure. There's another misconception that you cannot have a W-2 employee that gets commission only, which is not true. Right? Right. There are certain classifications of W2 that you can pay commission only in this outside sales was one of those classifications.

00:44:07:19 - 00:44:33:10 Mission Control: That's correct. Yep, yep. And one of the you know, examples. These agencies love to give examples, and so that they can make their regulations clear. One of them is an outside sales person typically conducts their sales in customers homes. Right. I, I know for a fact that that's a lot of what your team does is they're they're going out and selling jobs and meeting with customers at their homes.

00:44:33:12 - 00:44:55:15 Mission Control: that is for businesses, by the way, that doesn't work. Yes. Works as well. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And you know, I think that no one factor is determinative in any of these tests, which is a fancy way of saying that, these agencies will do what they want and they will, work with you if they want to.

00:44:55:19 - 00:45:33:21 Mission Control: But if they want to screw you, they can, because they can rely on this. No one factor is determinative. some of them even say there is no magic test. That's the official legal term that they use, no magic test, which in reality means if they want to get you, they're going to get you. And if for and that applies whether they're 1099 W2 or whether they're W2, but should be paid something different than straight commission, which in some states that's really hard to do.

00:45:33:24 - 00:45:58:22 Mission Control: you know, for instance, for instance, New York State, that'd be pretty difficult to do, in giving somebody a W2 status here in New York carries with it, a lot of other benefits to the employees, that, you know, where you're operating may not necessarily, come into play. It does not. So I, I love Florida.

00:45:58:24 - 00:46:17:20 Mission Control: Yeah. So you could just pay them for commission. You don't have to worry about vacation pay and paid family leave and all all that sort of stuff. in New York there is a commission to sales person exemption under the New York labor law. but, you know, it's it's not the same as as it is down in Florida for you.

00:46:17:22 - 00:46:38:08 Mission Control: So that's why everybody's different, and that's why you cannot take a cookie cutter response or fact, of the law and apply it to your business without talking to somebody who knows what they're doing. You just can't. So let's say I'm a small contractor listening to this, and I'm in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and this was so eye opening and I really want to do the right thing.

00:46:38:08 - 00:46:56:23 Mission Control: But the problem is, is like, we're not making a ton of money. We still got positions that we need to hire. And I just can't seem to make this a priority because there's other things that are essential and vital to my business operating and growing, that have to be pursued. Like when is the right time? And like, what does a roadmap look like to compliance?

00:46:56:23 - 00:47:34:28 Mission Control: And better understand this because you guys are expensive. Yeah, yeah. That's right. And the answer is today. Right. Sooner rather than later. There is no time, better than the present. Why risk, going another day and having another thousand or $2,000 per day? Fine. Adding up? I, I look at it as, yeah, you can pay me or somebody like me, you know, $1000 or $1500 to do an audit, a sweep and check out how things are looking and what your risk is.

00:47:35:01 - 00:47:58:20 Mission Control: And that's that sucks. And nobody wants to do that. Or you can pay somebody like me 30 grand to defend you. Yeah. And that's, you know, the initial retainer far less well see what I mean? So, you know, is there a chance that you don't pay me or somebody like me at all and you never get audited or investigated?

00:47:58:25 - 00:48:28:27 Mission Control: Absolutely, absolutely. And for some businesses, maybe that $1,500 savings and I'm just throwing out numbers. Maybe that's worth it. I know for somebody like, like yourself, it's not even close. I know you're going to rather dish out a couple of grand to get it squared away rather than get whacked on the back end, because given your size and the amount of revenue you're doing, it's not only what you're paying me, but it's what you're potentially paying these regulators.

00:48:29:03 - 00:48:47:24 Mission Control: What's your peace of mind worth to you? Yeah, that's a that's a great point. I mean, the more you grow, the larger you are. The bigger target you have on your back. And somebody told me that a while ago. And it's so true because, you know, even though you do the right thing, you try to take care of your employees or your independent contractors and all of that stuff.

00:48:47:27 - 00:49:12:22 Mission Control: Things happen. Relationships sour. You know, when money's involved, people get weird. And so, you know, I give you a scenario, in our agreement, we have a we have a commission agreement where you, our sales team has to meet certain margins in order for them to be able to, recover their full commission. So the less that that job hits margin, the less commission they make.

00:49:12:25 - 00:49:38:28 Mission Control: Well, every single time when you have to dock the commission, there's always a conversation about it like, oh, what happened? You know who screwed me? This, that and the other. And I'm very transparent with our panel so I can show them, like, hey, this is where you screwed up, right? and this is maybe why it's a good idea to get compliant, because I've always provided my team with the estimating tools, right?

00:49:38:28 - 00:49:59:05 Mission Control: The pricing, the tools, the platforms, everything to do their job. And so their argument is like, hey, I'm using the tools that you provided me. Your tools are defective, right? That's always arguments, never their fault. Right? It's always something that I did. And you have enough of those conversations and you have enough of that conflict. The relationship starts to sour.

00:49:59:05 - 00:50:24:20 Mission Control: And that's and in the case of the, the person that I paid out a, an obscene amount of money, which I lay in bed at night sometimes still thinking about it, pissed off okay, because I was 100% on the right. there's a really good argument if you're going to operate like that, to make sure you're compliant, because you need to be able to stand firm in your position without letting your sales team run over you.

00:50:24:22 - 00:50:53:12 Mission Control: If you have an agreement like that in place. Right. And just to clarify, I mean, you you mentioned that you provide all the tools and you provide the training. That is one of the reasons why we opted for, okay, let's make these folks W-2 because guess what? They are these agencies are going to designate them as such based on probably solely that fact right there, that you provide that sort that stuff for them and you direct them on how they get things done.

00:50:53:14 - 00:51:29:05 Mission Control: Now, it doesn't mean that there a straight W-2 that has to get, you know, all the benefits that come with it. They can still be straight commission. they're just W-2 rather than 1099. and yeah, I mean, I think that's that's absolutely right. And some, some companies may be comfortable with, that risk and some companies may be so stubborn that in the case that you're referencing with the gentleman who worked for you, they may say, no, we're not paying him a dime.

00:51:29:05 - 00:51:55:10 Mission Control: Let him call, let him file a complaint. And you know, he would have. Yeah. And and what would have happened is your other employees would or workers would have been found to be W-2. The amount that you paid this gentleman, you would have paid ten times that. Sure. To the doll. Please don't file a complaint. Still. Okay. So where do they delineate.

00:51:55:10 - 00:52:15:27 Mission Control: So. Okay, I I'm sorry. I've got a sales. I've got a sales team. They're operating within confines of my roofing company. We have standard operating procedures. We have these tools. Is it the fact that he requires them to use this versus. Here's a link. You can use this measurement software if you so choose. Here's, here's a software that we use.

00:52:15:27 - 00:55:35:11 Mission Control: This is why we use it. This is how it makes your life easier. But you don't have to use it, right? Right. Is it giving them the option versus mandating them to use it that becomes a problem? Or is it just having it in place at all and giving them access?

00:55:35:13 - 00:55:48:21 Mission Control: Does the same thing. The same thing go for sales training? Like if there's Adam Barnes when he does a lot of YouTube training on sales. Right? So if I send my team a link because I find this very helpful, that's how I learned it. So I send them a link. There's not, we're not coming into the classroom.

00:55:48:21 - 00:56:07:08 Mission Control: We're not going into the conference room and meeting about it. But like this might help you with could that be perceived as the same thing? It could be, but it's far less likely. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. there is a difference. And, you know, like I said, it's it's going to be fact dependent and how the interviews go. None of this is determinative, by the way.

00:56:07:08 - 00:56:33:26 Mission Control: Yeah. Okay. Really. And so I'm telling it to I've had 2 or 3 in my career that were absolutely identical and totally different results, because they were two different investigators and have to be open and upfront about that with my clients who are facing these scenarios, which sucks for us because it's like, hey, listen, there are really no hard and fast guidelines here.

00:56:33:26 - 00:56:54:20 Mission Control: Like, you got to pay me anyway, right? Right. Yeah. That sucks. It does suck. That sucks. And, you know, it's I mean, I don't know any that's like me selling our SEO. Like they're like, well, when can I expect this? When the guys, like, that's all I can guarantee is will do the same for you. As we done for every other client, your results are going to be drastically different.

00:56:54:23 - 00:57:12:17 Mission Control: And it might take six months. It might take 18 months. We'll get there. I don't know what the roadmap looks like. Yeah. That's why the attorney advertising you always see prior results do not guarantee future outcomes. Yeah. Because it's it's the truth. And it's, I can give you percentages and tell you what I think is likely to happen.

00:57:12:17 - 00:57:30:21 Mission Control: And the the further in we get with an investigation, we can read the tea leaves and say, hey, look, this is not for us. Yeah, I'd like to take it off a subtle. Yeah. Oh, or it could go the other way and we could say, yeah, this is going really well. Let's hold out as long as we can.

00:57:30:21 - 00:57:57:16 Mission Control: Yeah. And and you know, do we can. But if you caught what I said, you know, the fact that there are going to be employee interviews, I think that's critical to, to at least highlight is that at the end of the day, if you have people loyal to you and you are treating people decent, that will go a long way in protecting you because these regulators and investigators will be talking to your employees.

00:57:57:16 - 00:58:16:29 Mission Control: If there's a complaint and it's going to go a long way if you can treat them right. and, you know, so that's my pitch to kind of just be and it's a selfish motive, right? It's yeah. Not truly altruistic. I'm not paying them more and treating them well because I'm a nice guy. I'm doing it because it's ultimately going to insulate me on the back end.

00:58:16:29 - 00:58:43:04 Mission Control: If things do go south, do the right thing. Six core value at the end. So so I'm going to put this into, I guess maybe a little bit of a, a neat package for so contractors can understand, you can have 1099 salespeople. You can if it happens it works. But it's really going to be sort of a free for all.

00:58:43:04 - 00:59:19:20 Mission Control: Meaning if you're in a state where there's no contractor licensing, then this truly independent person at some point is probably going to look at you and say, why am I working for this person when I can duplicate exactly what they're doing, leave and do this on my own. I just need to find a crew. Because why should I stay working for this guy when I'm still taking, you know, all the upfront work of generating my own leads, using my own tools and technology.

00:59:19:23 - 00:59:37:15 Mission Control: finding out how to do everything on the front end, right? The contract, the homeowner do all that stuff. Well, what do I need this company for, right? Or not leave and just do it on the side. Take your lead in selling to the other company. Oh, like what happened to me? What are the other reasons why I decided to go to W2?

00:59:37:16 - 01:00:05:29 Mission Control: Even though your, you know, you're bound by a contractor's license in the state of Florida. What? It didn't stop was this other individual, who. By the way, I spent a lot of time developing. They went and, started undercutting me with their buddy who opened up a contracting business. And you can't stop that if they're truly independent.

01:00:06:01 - 01:00:36:20 Mission Control: Now, if they're W2, there can be repercussions for that. and so for me, the control, because really it comes down to and I don't want to use the word control in like, like a negative, you know, connotation, but control, meaning I can get everybody doing the same thing, rowing in the same direction, setting up standards and making sure that we're all following the same paths so that we run a more streamlined company.

01:00:36:22 - 01:00:54:24 Mission Control: It's much, much harder to do that on a full, independent basis, because now you have different people with different personalities, different ideas of how things should get done, and you kind of have to let them do it, or you're violating the rules to have that right. You do. Okay. That's perfect. I really like that. Okay, that that's a good explanation.

01:00:54:27 - 01:01:22:01 Mission Control: And, you know, I think when people are selling, selling your leads or undercutting you, regardless of whether they're an independent contractor or a W-2 employee, you know, that sucks. And it's going to happen. and that's just sort of the cost of doing business. I mean, the lawyer in me wants to say, well, even an independent contractor, we could have a non-disclosure, confidentiality agreement.

01:01:22:06 - 01:01:52:25 Mission Control: Maybe they violating a trade secret law, by misappropriating your trade secrets. But the truth is that getting a court to rule in your favor on that, it's going to take 2 or 3 years and a lot of money, a lot of money and legal fees. And at the end of the day, if you are successful in proving that your sales records were true trade secrets, which is not guaranteed.

01:01:52:27 - 01:02:17:01 Mission Control: And even if the court awards you damages for that misappropriation, right, the amount of sales that were, is taken from underneath you, so to speak. You have to recover that judgment and good luck because pretty 1099, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And you you might be sitting here watching this episode thinking my sales team would never do that to me.

01:02:17:03 - 01:02:33:27 Mission Control: I got on my left. You thought the same thing. He invested a lot in this particular individual. From what I understand, you may have maybe even sent him on a honeymoon. Paid for as I don't know sure that this guy was like, yeah, the names in the comments. I'm kidding. It won't be there. Yeah. Yeah. And if you think you.

01:02:33:28 - 01:02:54:17 Mission Control: But what what is the saying? if tall fences make good neighbors, they do. Yeah. And yeah, it's the truth. I mean, you can trust people all you want and be, you know, friendly. But like you said, when it comes to money, people get weird. You know, at the end of the day, what I've learned is, you know, the the the the larger you grow as a company, the more people you have working for you.

01:02:54:19 - 01:03:34:26 Mission Control: and anybody that knows me knows that I've really tried. I treat my people really, really, really well. I train them really, really well. I want to set them up for success. And like you said, it's not necessarily altruistic. The more successful they are, the more successful I am. So it's a mutually beneficial situation. But what I've learned is, is over the years, people will is as soon as things aren't going exactly right for them, they're going to look for reasons why your, maybe not the right person and how you're screwing them or whatever, and they stop looking at their behavior and what they're doing, and then all of a sudden, when

01:03:34:26 - 01:03:54:01 Mission Control: there's an opportunity for them to look out for themselves, they will do I fault them for that? Maybe. Maybe not. But it does happen. And at the end of the day, I learned that I just need to protect myself across the board. Period. Nobody. Yeah, I don't I don't know that that we need to go all the way there, but, trust but verify.

01:03:54:03 - 01:04:23:17 Mission Control: How about that? Yeah, I also yeah. Right. Right. Trust no one. Yeah. I'm going to send that clip to my therapist. Trust nobody is going to want to talk about that. So let's talk a little bit about what tell me about how it roots back to 1989. The fuck out of here. unresolved childhood trauma. Yeah. so let's talk a little bit about how these agencies enforce these guidelines.

01:04:23:20 - 01:04:52:18 Mission Control: Sure. So, they're going to, if a complaint is issued, they will, assign an investigator. That investigator reaches out and says, we've got a we've received a complaint. You know, depending on the type of complaint it is, typically have between 10 and 30 days to respond. that's when you call your lawyer. he or she reaches out to the investigator and says, hey, I'm just getting up to speed.

01:04:52:18 - 01:05:13:12 Mission Control: Can we get a little bit more time? They're going to ask for documents and records, depending on, the type of investigation, there most likely will be interviews of your workers. you yourself, as the business owner, will have to submit for that. Let's say your records aren't really great and you don't have a fine point on everything.

01:05:13:12 - 01:05:45:07 Mission Control: Does that go against the investigation or the contractor that goes across the contract there? Yeah, I just clarify this one to make sure. So there's, you know, give you an example, right. There's a presumption, that if certain records are not being kept, it's because they're being faulted. So if you're saying, I swear we give these guys a lunch break, it's just not in the records they're going to presume that you don't actually give them the meal break and that.

01:05:45:07 - 01:06:11:17 Mission Control: So there's no innocent until proven guilty on this. No. In fact, in New York, for example, there's what's called, you know, and this term is just incredibly ironic. The term of the statute, the name of the statute is the New York State, Fair Play Act, Construction Fair Play Act. And it you know, from my perspective as a business attorney, it's not fair at all.

01:06:11:17 - 01:06:40:25 Mission Control: But that's what it's called. And what it means is, in the construction industry, your workers are presumed to be employees. They are not presumed to be, independent contractors. They're not even presumed to be nothing at all. And it's going to be up to, either the investigator to prove one or you to prove the other. No. You start out at they're presumed to be employees, and it's up to you to tell us otherwise.

01:06:40:25 - 01:07:08:05 Mission Control: And that includes your sales team. Sure. Okay. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I think that the, where people will get caught up with that is, you know, they're not technically listed in, in the statute as being covered by it, but in practice, two absolutely are. I mean, if you are out there selling shingles, guess what? You're going to be covered by that law in New York State.

01:07:08:06 - 01:07:32:15 Mission Control: And you as the employer. This is the other piece. Once the complaint is filed and once the investigation is ongoing, they're no longer just looking at your sales guys, right? They're looking at everybody. Yeah, they're looking at your labor. They're looking at your office staff. They're I literally have heard people that have 1099 project managers. And I laugh like, how do you even justify that?

01:07:32:15 - 01:07:57:22 Mission Control: Yeah. Like there's no justification for having an an admin person that works in the office as a 1099. Like you're clearly just trying to pay them and not pay taxes on them. Yeah. Most instances I think that's right. I mean, the only time I could maybe see that would be if it's truly, for like big projects and this person is truly coming in for one project, you'll you've never seen her before, and you'll never see her again.

01:07:57:28 - 01:08:23:22 Mission Control: She has a separate business entity she controls. And, you know, not only the result, but how she does her job. Then maybe that's just a consultant, though. That's not going to be an Ironman, right? Right. Yeah. And so, you know, it's it's problematic. And I know New York is not the only state to have these fair play act, type of statutes on the books, where you are presumed to be employees.

01:08:23:24 - 01:08:52:14 Mission Control: It also applies in the transportation industry. I mean, there it's and it's growing. That's the other piece. Is that I've been doing this for, you know, ten, 11 years. And even in that short amount of time, relatively short amount of time, I have seen the trend and it is going more and more employee friendly. when I was in law school, the it was starting to go that way, but it was still kind of business friendly.

01:08:52:16 - 01:09:19:13 Mission Control: It's not anymore. And it's going in the direction pretty precipitously of throw employee, which I'm all for employees. Sure. I'm all for employee rights. but you know, the pendulum is swinging. I think personally, a little too far, in that direction. Okay. So before we get into that, because we're going to talk about there's some rulings that have come recently and there's some some different guidelines and things like that they're going to have and we'll talk about that.

01:09:19:13 - 01:09:40:06 Mission Control: But so let's get back to how these agencies are for us. So they, they they do an investigation. They go in and they talk to your employees, they look through your records. There's no presumption of innocence. There's actually an uphill battle that we have to do in the construction industry, which we have to prove otherwise, that they're not employees.

01:09:40:06 - 01:10:07:07 Mission Control: And that's a big distinction, guys. We have to prove they're not employees. Okay? Right. That depends on the state. Yes. Yeah okay. Yeah okay. Yeah. Depends on the state. But I would imagine that with those in the books on a federal level, they're still going to be looking through that lens. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. A it's just codified in a law in New York state and other states.

01:10:07:09 - 01:10:48:02 Mission Control: but that is absolutely it. You are on the defensive. Once you get that call or receive that letter from these investigators. and, you know, there's a settlement discussion period pretty early on, because it's about the money, right? Right. Hey, you know, here's what we're seeing. What do you want to talk about? and, you know, then they issue after their investigation is over, they issue their decision, and it's, usually in writing and we'll set forth, you know, the number of violations, the nature of the violations, anything that was not substantiated will be at least listed.

01:10:48:04 - 01:11:18:10 Mission Control: And then the penalty. And then there's usually a period, sometimes ten, sometimes up to 30 days for you to appeal and say, we want to talk. And the appeal usually looks like, you know, a settlement. Yeah. I had I mean, that's right. So, you know, OSHA, for example, you know, the maximum award per violation or fine per violation, it's 14,000 and change.

01:11:18:10 - 01:11:44:24 Mission Control: It's a weird number. and, you know, say that you get and that's just for one violation. So, you know, if you have 30, that's hundreds of thousands. But say you have just one violation for that maximum amount. it's 14,000. You got ten days to talk to them. What I would do is call them up and say, hey, look, you know, we we get it, we're going to make some changes.

01:11:44:27 - 01:12:09:06 Mission Control: We don't have $14,000 to put up. would you take five? And they say, nope, we'll take eight. And we say, deal. First I could do a 66, 66. Yeah. Okay. And $0.66. And then it's tapered. It goes away. I mean it doesn't go away. It's still notice a violation in that instance. But, the investigation is at least over.

01:12:09:09 - 01:12:31:14 Mission Control: is there a double like, like a, kind of a comp, comparable, like double jeopardy type thing there? Yeah, more or less. Right. So when you enter into a final order or a settlement agreement with one of these agencies, it is, it does release. They are releasing you from liability for that violation from all other agencies as well?

01:12:31:15 - 01:13:15:09 Mission Control: No, only those one. Great. Yeah, sure. That was to try. It's very clear in those agreements that, this is only a release for the items that, we're, we're fighting for and it's not a release for things that we don't know about yet, even if they occurred in the past. So private parties, you and I get into a settlement agreement together to typically literally nine out of ten times the release language is I'm releasing you from any potential lawsuit I may have had against you from the beginning of the world, period till the day we sign, right?

01:13:15:10 - 01:13:34:15 Mission Control: It doesn't matter what it is, right? Yeah. That's not what the government enters into with you when you sign these things. It's. We're releasing you from these violations, and we've caught you for. Correct. Let's say I'm a contractor and I have a very large appetite for risk. And I'm going to roll the dice and I'm going to everyone's going to be a 1099.

01:13:34:17 - 01:13:49:22 Mission Control: And, you know, I'm two, three years in and I get notified to get that letter. And so I should. And, why don't I just close up my business, open under a new name and, you know, let that ride with the other company? That's a great question. I mean, it's just that this is a corporate veil. Protect.

01:13:49:22 - 01:14:12:00 Mission Control: You know, it absolutely would get pierced. And if you were to, you know, file for bankruptcy or, you know, dissolve that corporation. it there could be an ad, what's called an adversary proceeding brought in that bankruptcy where you say, hey, I'm bankrupt. I, you know, I stop all stop all direct debt. I have no money. Help me.

01:14:12:00 - 01:14:36:13 Mission Control: I'm poor. Yeah. And you know, this creditor, in this case, it would be a potential creditor. One of these agencies can file an adversary proceeding against you in the bankruptcy and say, yeah, that's all fine and well, but we think this was a fraudulent bankruptcy and or a fraudulent dissolution. And because of the violations. Right. Okay. Yep. Yep.

01:14:36:13 - 01:15:03:25 Mission Control: And that's typically not going to happen unless and until they find out that you've opened up shop down the street with a new name, if you really are just going under and saying, I, we don't have any assets, we don't have any money. This is bankrupting us. Truly, though, to let you let you slide. I mean, they're not going to go after you personally for a judgment unless, you know, it's a really egregious violation.

01:15:03:27 - 01:15:29:00 Mission Control: And you're a sole proprietor or a DBA, which you should not be. Right? Yeah. Because you have no corporate veil at that point, right? Yeah. Yeah. In that case, maybe they would. But, if you're an LLC or an Inc. and you really do dissolve over it, it's probably going to go away. but when you reopen under a new name, that's coming back up for sure.

01:15:29:00 - 01:15:53:24 Mission Control: So, Jim's roofing, I go bankrupt after this, notification of this potential. Fine. And then I open up Jim's roofing and exteriors three days later. That's a problem. That's a problem. That is a problem. And for, you know, depending on the amount at issue, if it's a, you know, potential five, $10,000 violation, maybe it goes away. But if it's anything significant, I mean, they have endless resources, right?

01:15:53:24 - 01:16:13:24 Mission Control: Their lawyers are already paid for. And it's with taxpayer money, your money that you paid in taxes. Yeah. What if you don't pay? Is there a debtor prison? No, there's no debtor prisons. But, you know, they can certainly get a judgment and they can certainly enforce that judgment by doing things like IRS liens, UCC liens, IRS things.

01:16:13:24 - 01:16:35:20 Mission Control: Yeah, they can, you know, if you have equipment, they can seize that equipment. you know, any tools, things like that, if it's going towards satisfying the judgment, they if they follow all the steps, they can absolutely seize that and, and sell it at an auction. And, you know, they have to do that in a commercially reasonable way.

01:16:35:24 - 01:16:56:27 Mission Control: But, you know, if you've got a $100,000 excavator, they can seize it, sell for 18 grand, and you still owe the difference if it's if it's deemed commercially reasonable and they want to get their judgment. Yeah. You can get pennies on the dollar for your stuff. And which leads into a whole bunch of other issues. If you lease that thing, don't own it.

01:16:56:27 - 01:17:19:01 Mission Control: And, you know, it's it's messy. It can get real messy. really quickly. thankfully, there are no debtors prison stuff. So you're not going to go to jail for this, folks. Wow. all right, so it seems like that's really not I mean, if you're if you're a smaller company, this might be a risk that's worth taking.

01:17:19:01 - 01:17:34:26 Mission Control: Possibly. Sure. Right. Sure. if you're, you know, if you're doing a little bit more, you have, you know, more than four, more than four or 5 or 6 people working for you. It might not be something that you want to. What you want to take on is basically what you're saying. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. I think that's right.

01:17:34:26 - 01:18:09:12 Mission Control: And it depends on the revenue that you're doing. Yeah. but you know, I think the other pieces is what is your ultimate goal? Is your ultimate goal with the business to build something and grow it and pass it down to you know, your kids or something. Right? That's a whole different ballgame than somebody who's trying to create a business, operate it for 2 or 3, four years and then sell it to a group or whoever, that those are two totally different goals.

01:18:09:12 - 01:18:33:18 Mission Control: And that's why, again, these cookie cutter answers are not helpful and can be very dangerous because the person who wants to have this thing last forever and pass it on to his grandkids, that guy or girl has a very different, very different set of goals than somebody who's trying to get in and get out and and make a quick buck on the sale.

01:18:33:20 - 01:18:58:27 Mission Control: yeah, that's wrong with that. That's a great point. I mean, you know, pe you know, private equity, you guys all know it's a really hot topic in roofing specifically right now. And, you know, this is a good thing to talk about, actually, because, I know a few companies that have been acquired, some larger companies have been acquired, and, and one of the and I know some that has been turned down.

01:18:58:27 - 01:19:21:09 Mission Control: And one of the objections is, noncompliance with some of these laws because these big PE groups know that it, look at that period. They have deep pockets, and they know that these government entities and these attorneys like to go after people with deep pockets, because that means that they're going to justify their existence with these large fines.

01:19:21:09 - 01:19:48:25 Mission Control: And so even if your goal is to liquidate your company within a few years, you still need to think about your marketable ability with noncompliance of these laws. Yep. Absolutely. And you know, if I've got if I'm a P group and I've got two potential acquisitions and they're all things being equal the same, except one is compliant and one's not, I'm going with the compliant one.

01:19:48:27 - 01:20:11:03 Mission Control: Right. That's easy. Yeah. And you know, you you can't explain I mean you could try, but it's not going to be super persuasive to a PE group. When you say but this is the reality of it. There's no other way to make money. everybody does it. Those things all may be true. Guess what? They don't care. P groups not buying.

01:20:11:07 - 01:20:34:18 Mission Control: Yeah, they're just not buying your business. And again, if you're not interested in selling, then none of that means anything to you. What do you care? Yeah. If you are those are considerations that need to be taken into account. Because if you're trying to sell your business, you know, one of the first things they're going to look at is what are your potential liabilities and where are you at with compliance.

01:20:34:21 - 01:20:55:02 Mission Control: And so, you know, there could be, could be a little bit of a loss leader to convert everyone. sure. But in the long run, if your goal is to sell, maybe it's actually a really, really smart investment. But while we're talking about that, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're going to say something as an, as a small part to coming on.

01:20:55:05 - 01:21:14:07 Mission Control: I think that's all the time that we have for today. Okay, great. Okay. Time flies when you're having fun. Yeah. I mean, I've learned a lot. Hopefully you folks have as well. Corey, I appreciate you coming in. Yeah. James. I'm great. I couldn't be more grateful for you sharing your time. I'm sure I'll get an invoice for it.

01:21:14:10 - 01:21:35:05 Mission Control: if somebody if somebody in the audience did want to, have you counsel them, how would they go about reaching you? Yeah. You can reach me at, my, my email address, which is j o c o and n o r at Phillips litle.com. So that's, we'll put it on the screen. Yeah. Two hours and Phillips little is lightly.

01:21:35:07 - 01:21:56:25 Mission Control: Or you can call me at, (716) 500-4572 three. Be happy to help. Thanks. Thanks a bunch, guys. Truly grateful. And thank you to the folks at home. And thank you to roofer. And we go

In today's episode, Mike shares some roadside wisdom on the importance of looking to the future and planning ahead with your business. Think of where you want to be in a year, two years, etc, and make sure you're putting a plan in place to be successful when you get there.

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

In today's episode, Mike is joined by Corey Combes, the founder of SouthShore Roofing & Exteriors in Tampa, Florida. Corey has built up his company from the ground up to become one of the premier roofers in Tampa. He gives some fantastic insights into how he has gotten to this point. Corey is highly knowledgeable, and the conversation includes a wealth of valuable information. Stay tuned to learn his best tips and tricks.

Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5

Contact us : [email protected]

Let's Connect! ==== ==== ====

Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT

Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Corey Combes:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corey.corey.71868

SouthShore Roofing & Exteriors:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthShoreRoofingandExteriors

Website: https://southshorecontractorstampa.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@southshoreroofingexteriors2465

00:00:00:09 - 00:00:16:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So we're back for another episode of the Mission Control podcast. Kristen, what episode is this? What number? I think this is number eight. We're creeping up on 100 folks. They say a very high percentage of podcast last, like, you know, like one episode, three episodes. But I mean, we are we are vetted. We've withstood the test of time.

00:00:17:01 - 00:00:34:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I want to take a minute to to welcome Corey Combs, South Shore Roofing and Exteriors to the show. But I also want to acknowledge that the team over at roof is fantastic. So if you need instant roof measurements and a roof quotes clean and pristine proposals which will give your audience no choice but to buy from you. Hit up the team at roof or down below.

00:00:34:03 - 00:00:50:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns There's going to be a link. Click it. Let them know I sent you. You're going to love that you did. What's up Corey? Nothing man. We love roofer around here. Yeah, there are a team partners and they help bring the show to life. And, they're just a great company, you know, a great company run by great people.

00:00:50:13 - 00:01:10:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I'm sure we're going to have some conversation around centered around roofer today. We will. And we might as well jump right into it. So you've recently done a tour de America, with the team over at Roofer. So why don't you talk to me? What about what those events have looked like? what it's been like for you.

00:01:10:13 - 00:01:33:02 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The interesting thing about roofer is I think they're coming from their position a different spot than most people are. Because, you know, Richie and Nick and some of the higher ups came from the roofing industry, their family still in roofing. And so their goal isn't just to create tools for roofers, but it's also to help roofers understand how to use those tools.

00:01:33:04 - 00:01:52:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And part of that roofer Ray show was really about bringing good information that they can plug into their business right away. So we had things on, you know, how to market your business. We had things on how to present in the home. So people say yes to you and buy from you. And that was what I was doing with them.

00:01:52:07 - 00:02:22:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Then they had a, a guy named Dan that came in and talked about the client experience, and he's from a different industry altogether. So he came from the credit card space, and then he came from the technology space, and he talked a lot about the client experience from a vantage point of overall, how do you make your, your deliverables much better for your clients, or how do you put something in place to make your client experience different and better?

00:02:22:17 - 00:02:37:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So that was the framework of it. And I learned I actually learned a lot from Dan. Some stuff that I was able to put in my company. And you and I talked about it the, the where we dropped the ball and what we could have done better on the client experience. So it was it was really good.

00:02:37:21 - 00:02:53:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I love that. Yeah. So you're not one of those guys that you've been doing this for 20 years. So you know everything and nobody can teach you anything. it depends on what day you ask. to be fair, it sounds like we're asking on the right day because you seem very receptive to what Dan had to offer.

00:02:53:16 - 00:03:10:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And. And one of those things in your business. That was great. What I find a lot of the times is even one good information is given. It's not the absence of the information, it's the lack of execution and implementation of that information. Yeah, I say that a lot. execution is the secret sauce. It's not the information. Yeah, yeah.

00:03:10:12 - 00:03:28:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So what would you be your advice to all the roofers that are tuning in as far as how to take something from concept to being implemented? It's a good question. I think that, you know, in my experience and what I've done and, you know, what I've helped others do is you first got to figure out what your biggest gap is.

00:03:28:08 - 00:03:58:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns and how can you solve that and how that's going to affect your overall business. Right. And I think one of the big data services that the industry is doing right now is telling everybody that sales cure all, and that's, that's a Band-Aid statement. That's not a, that's not a solution statement. Yeah. I'll add that a lot of the times, not only does it not cure everything, it makes a lot of things worse.

00:03:58:14 - 00:04:21:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It does because it covers up the actual problem. So you think things are fine, but then when those sales stop coming in, or the issue that you had is so great, you can no longer conceal it. Now you have a bunch of sales and you still have this big problem. Yeah. And that's a really good point. I was actually I wasn't even on that line.

00:04:21:03 - 00:04:41:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I was thinking more. So like if you have production issues and it's a result of a breakdown of a process, inundating more projects into the pipeline is only going to put more stress in and exacerbate that existing issue. Right, exactly. That's exactly right. And then it makes it more far reaching and results in a shitty customer experience. And it's just counterproductive to what we want to accomplish.

00:04:41:21 - 00:05:04:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The insidious part of that, though, is on the surface, it makes everything look okay because you hang on to that. Well, we sold X like, you know, here's our gross revenue or whatever. And as we've seen with some of these bigger companies that have recently closed, that gross sales number means nothing. And you talk about it a lot just being a vanity stat.

00:05:04:20 - 00:05:24:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns and this is proof that it's a vanity stat. Your sales, if not followed up with the rest of what it takes to run a good construction company. If that doesn't follow suit, those sales are just a vanity stat period. And it feels good. It makes our ego feel good. I did $20 million in revenue. It's like, oh, this guy's doing 7 million, made twice as much as you.

00:05:24:17 - 00:05:40:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah, well, I realize I didn't answer your question about the implementation. That's okay. We'll get there. We'll get there. but I went through that myself last year in 23. You know, we had a we had a really big year sales wise. We had a it was, you know, from a revenue perspective, you look at it and you're like, wow, this was amazing.

00:05:40:13 - 00:06:07:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns By far the hardest year that I've had in business in my 30 year roofing career. We just were not handle we were not able to handle all of the issues. Some were ours, some were not ours. in a way that we could continue to produce the customer experience that we were used to producing. We had a lot we had a lot of problems.

00:06:07:09 - 00:06:35:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns We had a lot of problems on the installs because of material availability, our lack of planning, the inability for my team to so I for about half the year last year, I kept talking to them about we're getting right to the goal line and we're not scoring the touchdown. Like for some reason we would get 90% there and then everybody would just stop and then we would leave it there and then we would upset the customers.

00:06:35:12 - 00:06:58:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I don't I don't know how we got there, but we did. And so I had to sit back and thank God we had the processes and the documentation and all of those things in place already. So we could diagnose where the issues were and plug the holes really quickly, put the right people in place, get them trained. And now, you know, we're back to knocking it out of the park for our customers.

00:06:58:07 - 00:07:16:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns But if you don't have that stuff in place, then how are you going to solve the issues first, if you don't know actually what the issues are, how can you solve them and then more importantly, if you don't have the processes and the people in place to solve those issues, how do you how do you plug those gaps?

00:07:16:12 - 00:07:42:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It's a much, much harder undertaking when you don't have those things in place to fix what's broken, because it's going to happen. It just does. Yeah, it's really well thought out. That's a great answer. Thank you. I, I did a consultation with, with a younger company and they were coming to me looking for advice on different things like Google among them, but system process things and CRM things, automation, things like that.

00:07:42:08 - 00:07:56:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And I gave them a homework assignment. So what I've been doing. So for anyone that doesn't know, like the process to becoming a sun client is like you pay for a consultation, we sit together for 2 or 3 hours. I talk to you about a bunch of things that have nothing to do with me selling you anything, or even services that we offer.

00:07:56:16 - 00:08:20:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Just, you know, I've been doing this for around a decade and I've paid very close attention to, you know, pre-revenue companies, 20 million companies, everything in between. Help them scale and, watch how many eggs sometimes it takes to make an omelet when they're breaking them. And sometimes there's a lot of waste. Right. so what I've been doing now is I do a follow up because we can go through all these great things, and I'm inundating people with a lot of information that's foreign to them they're not familiar with.

00:08:20:20 - 00:08:38:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And what I found is that the majority of the time, they're ecstatic. They leave a review, they couldn't be more happy, and then nothing gets done. So now I've been scheduling like a 30 minute follow up for the following week, like, okay, here's your homework assignments. And, today, Nick, with easy exteriors, out of Delaware, we had a great conversation.

00:08:38:11 - 00:08:55:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns He had some homework. He didn't get all his homework done. I was like, okay, well, what happened? And I think sometimes, like, accountability has to be binary, like, did you do this? Did you not do it? And I think sometimes other times. Right. There's there's situations where you have to take into consideration things that take place, like when the bulls are flying, we're running a business.

00:08:55:10 - 00:09:11:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It's really fucking hard to be like, okay, we got these 17 things to do by Tuesday. I better have them done. But he did a really good job. Like he focused on like revamping his CRM, writing down, like getting out of his head, his systems and processes and putting them on paper. So like he missed on some of the Google business profile stuff, like it's fine.

00:09:11:10 - 00:09:28:22 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I said, so what I want to do for you is to make sure that there's a pathway to where you're not going to become less busy. Like, that's not going to happen. Like you're continuing to grow. Your company is going to be time is going to be more square. So let's create like a 30 day blueprint where you can say definitively, we've got these nine different things.

00:09:28:22 - 00:09:43:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And on this day, this is a one time task. It should take me about an hour come hell or high water. I'm spending this hour doing this like barring a complete emergency. for things that are residual that you have to do, what day, what time makes the most sense for you, and then, like, having a blueprint where you're not negotiating with yourself.

00:09:43:19 - 00:10:01:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The time for that. And, seeing through that, it actually gets complete. And then then you can move on to the next things in the business. And you seem very receptive and grateful for that. It's it's the willingness, right? You you testing is willingness to actually do some work in this company. Yeah. And I think that's where a lot of guys.

00:10:01:17 - 00:10:29:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns From what I've seen, you know, this is where the, the real, The real bifurcation here you have, you have people that want. Yeah. It's the splitting, right. Going in two different directions. And you have people that genuinely, I think everybody at Face value has a genuine desire to make their company better. Yeah. There's a small percentage that are willing to put in the work.

00:10:29:13 - 00:10:52:14 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns That and I think that's where that real bifurcation comes in, is you have people that want the work done for them, and then you have people that are willing to put in the work and the problem with making things plug and play, when you're not sitting down and thinking through these things yourself and writing them down and you, you're not personally connected to the things that actually make your company run.

00:10:52:19 - 00:11:23:04 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns When you're looking for somebody to just come in and and do the work for you. Yeah. And when you have to dissect that stuff and you have to figure out and diagnose where there's problems, it's harder to do because you didn't sit down at the origin and, and work through all those things mentally and write them down. When you do that, you have a better chance of picking out the things that don't work and changing them because you're intimate with those things that make your company run and and that's really where, you know, we're missing.

00:11:23:04 - 00:11:55:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And that's what I've been trying to champion for and why I've gotten involved with roofer and doing some of this contractor coaching, because there's there's this mindset now, for whatever reason, that it's easy to run a construction company. And that is why the failure rate so high. So you have the amateur that is teaching the beginner. And because of that, there's no foundation there.

00:11:55:10 - 00:12:15:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns There's no real foundation for the business. And then that business is going to crumble because it was never built correctly in the first place. Yeah. And and they're not bad people. They're just inexperienced. And that's okay. We all need to learn, right? Yeah. Speaking of like, inexperience and needing to learn, I see this on the marketing pages all the time.

00:12:15:23 - 00:12:39:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And I get hit with ads and they're like, hey, I'll run your social media ads for free. You don't have to pay me a dollar till they generate business. It's like, you want me to be your fucking guinea pig. You're 17. The fuck off of my feed. Yeah, yeah. right, right. So. All right, so through the the rise events, you're you're visiting groups of contractors.

00:12:39:09 - 00:13:06:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Geographically, they're in different towns, cities, states, countries even. Right. So what I'm curious to know is what are some of the issues that they're facing that are kind of unique to a certain area or a certain company? Like what are a couple of those? If you could think of any that have that have come up, and then what are some of the things that kind of across the board, regardless of the companies that you're dealing with where they're located, it's this is a real problem.

00:13:06:23 - 00:13:34:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I like where you're going with this because we can talk about this and now we then we can go back to the implementation. so happy accident. I saw the thing that I see the most, is so on a location driven issue, which would be their market. Yeah. And a lot of contractors haven't been taught how to build a sustainable business outside of a storm.

00:13:35:00 - 00:14:01:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And so you have these particular pockets which they're calling a storm. They're calling storm markets where they don't believe that retail can function in those storm markets. And what's interesting is, well, I'll go out and I'll Google and I'll find a retail company. I'll say, well, how are they functioning in this market? How did I function in what was perceived to be a storm market on the retail, on a retail side, and did really, really well.

00:14:01:02 - 00:14:34:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And so the issue they're facing is nobody has taught them how to do that. So I think that's location specific. What I've seen overall is a global issue for roofing for contractors. But roofing contractor specifically is this idea that there's a separation between restoration and retail and how those should function from a customer standpoint. What I mean by that is people think that, or.

00:14:34:14 - 00:15:04:14 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I get the impression that from speaking with a lot of these restoration contractors, that they think they don't have to do certain things because it's not appropriate for their business model from a customer service or a customer experience standpoint, such as. Well, one of the things that I was working with, roofer on is helping, roofers, no matter if their restoration or their retail, it doesn't matter is how they can do an in-home demo to help their client understand the process better.

00:15:04:16 - 00:15:23:17 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And it's interesting to me when I talk to them and I ask, well, do you do any type of in-home demo? And they're like, no, we don't. We're, you know, we Dornoch and we're restoration contractors. And what I'm trying to get people to understand is that the only difference should be how the customer pays for the project. That's it.

00:15:23:19 - 00:15:51:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns That's the only difference. The way that you acquire the customer might be different, and the way that they pay might be different, but those should be the only two. You need to find commonalities with really successful companies and how they treat and how they manage their customer experience. So a good example would be even if you're a door knocker, you're acquiring that customer differently than somebody that's using Google, you know, to to have them inbound lead.

00:15:51:10 - 00:16:16:07 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns But once you get to the door, the way that you educate and the way that you care for the customer should be the same. Now, the information might be a little bit different. I'm not going to tell people what the claims process looks like because they're not filing an insurance claim. But if you create a nice presentation for the homeowner so they know exactly what the process is, who you are, and what next steps are, that's really what you should be doing.

00:16:16:07 - 00:16:36:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So you can build loyalty and trust with that particular customer. And I truly believe that's one of the reasons why now these guys are getting pro shop and, you know, they'll go out and they'll file a claim. And then they're all upset because now the homeowner wants an estimate. Well, you haven't done your job to build any trust or loyalty.

00:16:36:08 - 00:16:52:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So now they're out shopping you because they don't trust you. And they don't they don't they don't have any loyalty to you as a contractor because you have not given them a reason to be loyal to you. Yeah, they it's like 50 guys with a white t shirt in a bar with the same build. You look the same as everybody else.

00:16:52:08 - 00:17:30:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah. You're all wearing the same Cologne. You're all wearing the same white t shirt. Right? You know, it's not in a sun t shirt. It's just the. It's just a white cotton t shirt. Maybe a white cotton t shirt. Yeah, yeah. so. So that's a tri blend. 100% cotton. Thank you. Okay. when you have a when you have a, a perspective like that, that's going to change the way that it's going to permeate all the areas of your business when you have a perspective of you just Dornoch and you file an insurance claims, and it's a volume game that's going to permeate all through your business.

00:17:30:08 - 00:17:54:07 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And so what I'm trying to help people understand is, is the more time that you spend on your customer experience, and part of that is your who answers the phone, your sales process, whatever your sales process looks like, how you inform them, how you educate them, and then ultimately why they decide to use their contractor. those things are going to help you build a better, more sustainable business.

00:17:54:07 - 00:18:13:04 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns You'll get more referrals. You'll retain your clients better. You know, the whole deal. And so that's what I think. From what I've seen, this last roofer rise is really what I want to focus on is helping people understand there shouldn't be any differences other than how you acquire your customer and how they pay for their job. That makes a lot of sense.

00:18:13:06 - 00:18:33:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I personally think it's more than education, though. I don't think it's a the nobody's really taught them, and that's the sole reason I would say that a lot of the times through my experience, it's willingness. So willingness to be open minded, 100% people are telling you, right. There's like, you know, someone will reach out to me in the past and say, you know, we want more leads.

00:18:33:10 - 00:18:55:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns For me, that's a fucking red flag, Christian. Make sure I'm waving a red flag there. because it's like, okay, we're focused on immediate, like, not anything sustainable, like whatever. And then the conversation goes like when it's in a store market. or why wouldn't I just hire more door knockers? It's like, we'll do that. Why are you calling me good?

00:18:55:16 - 00:19:21:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I don't need to convince you that Google works like Google works. If if I've got to sit here and and put together a presentation on why Google is a viable option for you, like, we probably shouldn't be talking. Yeah. and even there's been some instances where we've done really well, generate a ton of leads in the issue becomes, to your point, they're not so it should be the same, right?

00:19:21:14 - 00:19:41:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Besides how it's being paid and how the customer is being acquired. Okay. but a lot of the times it's not. And there's a big difference between I'm gonna send this guy out to sign somebody to a free roof, God forbid eating a deductible or a $1,000 deductible, even if it's like a percentage based deductible or whatever it is.

00:19:41:00 - 00:20:05:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns A few thousand dollars, versus, hey, how me $35,000? And a lot of the times hugely different. Well, there's not a there's not a willingness to understand the difference from what I've seen a lot of times. And because of that, they put their number one salesperson, you know, doorknocker, in a position where they're going to sell retail, like, or we're going to go out and sell this job now, and you got to educate them.

00:20:05:21 - 00:20:32:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And especially if it's a retail situation, it's like, okay, how are you gonna get that $35,000 check? You're not just submitting it to the insurance company, but like, this roof's fucked. Like you actually have to engage with that person. Like you said, build that trust, build that loyalty, build a confidence where you're not just one of the 50 guys in a white shirt that all look the same, smell the same, act the same, like what's going to be memorable about your company, where that customer, if you leave there without signing, is I mean, like, I can't wait to fucking work with them.

00:20:32:23 - 00:20:57:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns it's pretty funny because, you know, like my presentation, one of the first things I said is, I say to them, I was like, look, I'm gonna hurt some feelings, guys, okay? The product you sell doesn't matter at all. At all. if you heavily focus on what products you push, you have literally just leveled the playing field to everybody else that sells that same product.

00:20:57:12 - 00:21:18:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So let's say for an example, your your your guy, you know, you use gaff or you use Owens Corning, which a lot of people like to use Owens Corning. So if your big pitch is going in there and talking about, hey, we're in Owens Corning, you know, whatever platinum, great. What happens when you're sitting at the kitchen and you hang your hat on that as your differentiator?

00:21:18:17 - 00:21:38:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns What happens when you're at the kitchen table with two other master or platinum OS's? what's the homeowner going to think? All the same, everybody's the same. so what's the price? What's your price? What's your price? Right. Because you've got that guy. That's right. You're you're all like platinum. Why am I going to pay a little bit more with you versus this other guy?

00:21:38:21 - 00:22:01:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I'm not. Because you guys, you've literally just leveled the playing field with everybody else. So don't focus on your product. You can't you can't control that. I think the manufacturers have done a really good job at like teaching us that that matters more than it does, but it really doesn't. And the way that I know this is because when Covid hit, I've never sold an ICO roof in my life.

00:22:02:01 - 00:22:29:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Okay. Never. You got you going to get shingles. We couldn't get shingles. Yeah. The only thing that we could get was ICO. So there were two things I was concerned with. And I asked my rep, I asked my, this distribution, distribution rep, and then I asked the ICO rep. The two things I was concerned with is if I tell these customers I can get this particular color and product, can we get it?

00:22:29:18 - 00:22:53:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And if I have an issue, do I have the support to take care of the customer immediately so that it doesn't disrupt their life? And I got both guarantees. That's okay. We're going to sell that. We sold thousands and thousands and thousands of squares of ICO. I don't I didn't know anything about the product. Right? I wasn't worried about the product.

00:22:53:00 - 00:23:19:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I was worried about my customer and the support that we could give if they had an issue. That was all I'm worried about. And so what that showed me was, largely. And I actually changed our presentation because I used to have a presentation that went through the installation and what products got used where and all that stuff, and I found out that that is completely useless like most homeowners, unless they're an engineer, don't give a shit.

00:23:19:07 - 00:23:40:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns They want to know they can trust you with their money. You're going to be there for the long term, and they're not going to have any problems. That's really what they care about. So that's what we need to focus on. So we look at the similarities between restoration and retail. We find out what all those similarities are. And then we look at the differences and we figure out how to modify based on those differences.

00:23:40:09 - 00:24:14:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And what you'll find I think, is there's way more similarities than there are differences. So what are the top three things that you would advise a contractor that's listening to this to really focus on in their presentation that's going to help differentiate them? Well, the biggest thing that I found is and I went to a GAF training like four years ago, and the guy that was running the training asked everybody in the training if they have their mission, their values and their vision written down, right?

00:24:14:11 - 00:24:42:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Like their core values, their mission and the vision for the company. And I and I didn't I didn't have any of those written down. And he said, I challenge you to, to to write those down. And I did, and it took me like two months to get those written down. What that helped me understand really, was what I wanted to be able to convey to our potential customers based on what our values are.

00:24:42:23 - 00:25:16:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And then more importantly than that, I could train my team on what our value, what our real value proposition is to the customer. And once you learn what your real value proposition and I'll, I'll give you an example here in a second so people can understand what I'm talking about. But when you learn, when you really learn what your value is and you write that down and you create a, a guiding document on that, now you can train and teach your team the person that answers that or the people that answer the phone, your sales team, your, you know, your project managers.

00:25:16:18 - 00:25:43:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Everybody understands the value that you're bringing to the table and everybody can row in the same direction. So I think that would be like the number one thing that I would encourage people to do is sit down, write your value, your vision and your, mission. Mission is, and use that as your, your, your guide to write all your processes and to train your team on, like, who you are as a company, your identity.

00:25:43:14 - 00:26:01:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns We'll call that the North Star exercise. Okay. We'll call that the North Star exercise. If you if you don't understand as the owner what your identity actually is, then you cannot convey that to your homeowners. And why are they going to buy in if you don't even know who you are? And this, I mean, this stuff like, oh, we're high quality.

00:26:01:06 - 00:26:32:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns That's what everybody says. Come on. Oh, we give great service. Okay. You know, like when I hear that, I just roll my eyes. It's like, yeah, it's what everybody says. It's like the most generic answer you can. What does that actually mean? yeah. So that's where you start. Okay. Where do you go from there? Then you, you put together something that highlights how you execute that value.

00:26:32:14 - 00:26:53:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And so when I started South Shore, even though I had a lot of time in the industry, most customers want to know how long you've been in business, because time in business equals safety for them, because you have a long track record of, yeah, being a business for sure. I didn't have that. I didn't have any Google reviews.

00:26:53:11 - 00:27:08:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I had zero credibility. So I had to figure out, like, why are people going to buy for me? Why would they go for me? And so my presentation that I used to do at the kitchen table was all about the service that me as the owner was going to give to the homeowner. I was going to be the guy that sold the job.

00:27:08:22 - 00:27:25:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I was going to be the guy that went up on the roof and check to make sure it was done in a in a workman, you know, good workmanship type manner. I was going to be the person that solved any issues during the build. And, and I had videos of this. I was going to be the guy that was diving into the bushes to clean the bushes.

00:27:25:12 - 00:27:44:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns If the crews didn't get it 100% clean, I was going to be their guy. That was my value, and that's what I conveyed to the homeowners. And so for me, I had to figure out how I could service my clients and show them that I was going to give them service, that nobody else was going to give them.

00:27:44:07 - 00:28:13:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And that's what my presentation was. Even though I had no Google reviews, I had no credibility. I had no time in business. And how many times do you think I got asked how long I'd been in business? One time. And I lost that job because I had to be truthful with them. but because I had figured out what my value was to the homeowner and why it was important to them and really what they were worried about.

00:28:13:20 - 00:28:37:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I created a presentation that made it so they didn't even question right who we are as a company. I remember those days I did too. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I'm talking about. It like figuring out what your value is and then conveying that to the homeowner. Because we all have different value propositions. We do. Yeah.

00:28:37:21 - 00:28:54:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I think it evolves right. It has to. It's not it's a fluid situation. It's not static. And. It's just like anything with systems and processes like as you grow the company, things are going to function differently and things are going to need to be changed. Things are going to need to be adjusted. Yeah. You know, think of it this way.

00:28:54:10 - 00:29:09:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns If you're if you're a five year old child and your mom's going shopping for you versus the 25 year old adult, like, think of the differences in clothes that you worn. Think of the differences in size of those clothes right when you were five and seven and 911, you weren't always wearing the same size pants and shirt, right?

00:29:09:17 - 00:29:27:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Things are going to change. It's a lot easier in that context to pay attention and realize the differences that are taking place, like, oh shit, I got taller. My pants are short as fuck, I need better pants. They need to be longer. it's the same thing within your business. As it grows, you add more people. There's. I mean, yeah, well, so.

00:29:27:20 - 00:29:52:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So our presentation has changed from, you know, me, it essentially telling them that, you know, I'm their guy and, you know, this is what they can count on. And, you know, all this stuff too. Now, we try to discredit the one man shows because now we have a team in place and we talk about what goes wrong and what can go wrong and how those are handled, typically with other companies and how they're handled with us and who we have in a place and all that.

00:29:52:10 - 00:30:07:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So they have to change. Our value is different now. I'm no longer going to be the guy that's going to go clean your bushes because I have a flair, you know? I love that, right? You know, and I'm not above that. I mean, I would if I'm on site and we need to clean up the site, I'm 100% to do it.

00:30:07:20 - 00:30:30:02 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns but it's just not how we're set up anymore. So now our values changed. We have a team in place. and I'll give you a good, a good story. We, we tell this story, and we were just talking about this in our sales meeting. we had a couple last year. We had a couple, bundles of shingle slide off the roof and hit the outside air conditioner unit, smoked it, just knocked it right off.

00:30:30:02 - 00:30:48:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns This thing broke. I mean, just done, right. Two hours later, we had temporary AC hooked up in their house in the middle of summer. Hottest. You know, it's Florida. You know, it's hot, hotter. Shit. two hours later, we had temporary AC set up in their house so they didn't have to go without AC. And then, two days later, we had a brand new unit installed.

00:30:49:01 - 00:31:13:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Lower cost, lower quality. Contractors cannot do that. They do not have the ability and the resources to do that. And so when we talk about the price disparities and why there's price disparities and how those affect the homeowner, that's one of the stories we talk about. Yeah, it would be very intentional about talking about that 100% of my prospects like, you know, and we plan every play to be a touchdown, but sometimes we throw an interception.

00:31:13:00 - 00:31:31:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Here's an example, right. Yeah. It's not important. You throw in a substance how you respond. Yeah. This is what we did. Yeah. So do you want to take the chance of hiring a one man show that, you know, charge to $3,000 less on this roof that doesn't have the money to buy you a new outside unit that broke, and now, you know, now you hate the cost.

00:31:31:21 - 00:31:57:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns That contractor, even though he might be a good guy, he cannot help you because he doesn't have the resources. So what is your peace of mind worth? And that's really kind of how we work on our price, our price disparity. And one of the things that we've added and that we're working on adding is helping explain and get the customer to understand why there are price disparities.

00:31:58:04 - 00:32:14:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So they are a little bit more educated on why we might be more money than the other. And it's all about helping them, price condition and figure out what's important to them, because some people don't find value in that and they just want the lowest price. They're just not our customer. Yeah.

00:32:15:01 - 00:32:24:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns When did you realize it's okay for not every customer to be your customer? When I didn't need the money so badly.

00:32:24:17 - 00:32:53:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It's a fair and honest answer. Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of people struggle with that. It's a hard one. It's a really hard one. It's hard to walk away. We just did it. I mean, one of my sales guys just, sent me a message the other day, and he said, how would you handle this? And I said, by telling that customer, thank you very much, but we're going to choose not to help them because she wanted to change a bunch of stuff in our contract, not doing it.

00:32:53:02 - 00:33:18:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Once they start trying to change the way that we conduct our business, it I've learned over the years it's a huge red flag and it's just not a fit for us. Yeah. The other thing is, I've learned I've sold a lot of those jobs and had to deal with the fallout. And so at some point you get that good balance between experience and not needing the money, and then you can turn down customers.

00:33:18:22 - 00:33:40:22 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So that might be the right answer. Yeah. It's tough right? You start a business. You're so concerned about making it, especially in construction. I want to make it past that first three years for the first week, first year, first three years. I feel like it's a lot easier after that point. Whether you're doing 1,000,000 in 3 years or you're doing 10 million, it's a lot easier.

00:33:41:03 - 00:33:58:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Okay, as time passes, you build confidence that the bottom's not going to fall, that something catastrophic is not going to happen, and you're gonna have to figure out how to provide you for your family. But it's, I don't know. It's it's something I try to be very in tune with because. Yes, hard man. People will take your piece, sir.

00:33:58:20 - 00:34:20:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns They will rob you blind of it. and then blame you and blame me. Yeah, like that's the motherfucker of it. All right. Yeah. That's, Yeah. So that's my piece of advice. Try to get there, you know, quicker than Corey did. Not every customer is your customer, and that's okay. There's somebody that'll help them. It doesn't have to be you.

00:34:20:11 - 00:34:42:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns the tricky part is figuring out what, you know, how to not disqualify people because you don't want to deal with them versus are they not your customer? Because those are two those are two different. Yeah. They're not the same. They're not the same. Those are two different things. Yeah. It's funny because sometimes like I would get a message, I'm like, nope.

00:34:42:17 - 00:34:56:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And then I would sit there and think about it before, like I was like, yeah, let me talk to him. It's like, you know, you might be being a jerk. You know, you may be just like a little bit entitled right now. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's an intuitive thought. And maybe they're not coming from a place that you think that they're coming from.

00:34:56:11 - 00:35:13:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns You should give them an opportunity to explain and not be so quick to dismiss. And that's where the experience comes in. I'm just trying to learn to become like a well-adjusted adult and evolve as the days go on. So. You got any tips for that?

00:35:13:17 - 00:35:38:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns No. Okay. Anyone else in the audience does come on the show. We want to talk to you. Yeah, man. We need some, Eckhart Tolle type, you know, see? So, let's let's get into the implementation side of it. So that's, there's some, some, some practical examples that I think people can wrap their mind around. Like what we're talking about.

00:35:38:13 - 00:36:10:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Okay. So in the beginning of the interview, you asked me, you know, what are some things? Or why do you think people have a hard time implementing and adopting things? You know? And my answer to that is, I think there's two reasons. One, there are inherently lazy people that just want the shortcut. They've been raised in an instant gratification, you know, society where, I mean, I even suffer from it sometimes.

00:36:10:12 - 00:36:25:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Like if I look down at my phone and it takes like two seconds to load a web page, I'm like a piece of shit, you know what I mean? Like what you should have in the sun website, folks. I mean, we're talking about Google, right? So and this is from a guy that duped me into getting an iPhone.

00:36:25:03 - 00:36:45:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns By the way, guys, I hate that long ed at so there's those people that are lazy. They don't want to do the work. and then there's the other thing that's called analysis paralysis, which you're like trying to figure out how to do it so well that it stops you from doing anything because you just can't figure out how to do it.

00:36:45:12 - 00:37:11:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And so you do nothing. I think that's the minor. And then there's another type of personality sprinkled in there that will just try it. and they don't feel like it's good. So they never actually send it.

00:37:11:02 - 00:37:30:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The. The best thing that I think as a business owners, we can learn is you're just going to have to try some stuff, man, and it's just not going to work. And then you're just going to have to adapt and you're going to have to try other stuff, and you just have to be okay with it. Like, that is the attitude you need.

00:37:30:02 - 00:37:56:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Obviously it has to be thought out has you have to think about how it's going to affect everything else and all of that stuff 100%, but sometimes you just got to do it. Yeah, you just got to do it. And so, we, we were talking with roofing contractors and like how to create an in-home demo. And I went through told people how to create an in-home demo.

00:37:56:06 - 00:38:15:02 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns What the framework, what the structure, how the information should go. And after I got that done doing that, telling them how to do it, what do you think the number one question I got was, how do you do it? How do you do it? And can I have your presentation?

00:38:15:04 - 00:38:33:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It's not the information, right. You know, it's the application of the information. I don't I don't know that you can teach and train that and that's why I like what you said about the, you know, the the exteriors company you working with. You tested his willingness to do some of the work, and you saw that he was willing to do some of the work.

00:38:33:12 - 00:38:43:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So you're going to go down that path with them? Yeah. It.

00:38:44:00 - 00:39:01:13 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns If you're not willing as a business owner. I mean, I know you. I've known you for years. You've known me since I started south. Sure. I've known you since you started ascend. One of the things that served both of us really, really well is we're not super. We're pretty risk averse. I mean, we're not, you know, we're not super risk averse.

00:39:01:13 - 00:39:19:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So, like, we'll just try shit, you know, we'll just do things. We'll take a leap and we'll figure it out. We also have the confidence that we'll get it figured out. We'll figure it out. Right? Yeah. so having the confidence that you'll figure it out is a huge one. And then just saying, you know what? I'm just going to do it.

00:39:19:12 - 00:39:44:22 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And this one might not work. Or we might have to iterate on it and figure it out to where it's like firing on all cylinders. But the willingness to just do it is the intangible that you have to have for implementation. 100%. If you have that willingness. Now, we can teach you how to do it. And so that's what I found to be the biggest barrier to implementation is they just don't want to do the work.

00:39:44:22 - 00:40:01:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns They want somebody else to give them the easy or softer way. And it doesn't exist. And they'll pay a king's ransom for it. They will, and then be mad when it doesn't work out the way that they thought, because there's really no way to do that, because I don't know your business like you know, your business. Sometimes we got to look in the mirror.

00:40:01:22 - 00:40:19:07 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Guys and gals go look in the mirror. Yeah, we get that a lot. And like, in our agency, we're not so much for our customers, but for like, prospects. I reach out, like, listen, I just want to. I know you guys are good. I just want to pay you. And I don't want to deal with this. It's like, well, that's not going to work for us.

00:40:19:09 - 00:40:37:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Think about a situation. And this has happened with you over the years where I call you and like thing things look super slow on my side based on the KPIs, because we're operating off of data, because we're not taking the calls, we're not booking the appointments, we're not running the leads. Like, oh, things look slow and you're like, good things have been great.

00:40:37:16 - 00:40:56:04 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Our sales guys have never close at higher percentage. Like we're getting a ton of replacements. We don't know that unless we have a conversation. So what we know is that based on our KPIs and what standards we try to uphold for our clients, as far as like target cost per lead, cost per acquire job, we're going to start making fucking changes because it looks like this campaign is underperforming.

00:40:56:04 - 00:41:12:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns But when I talk to you and you're like, no, it's absolutely killing it. Like, don't change anything, that would be misguided. And that's only as a result of us having communication and you being in tune with what's happening in your business as being in tune, what is happening on the marketing advertising side and bringing those two pieces together?

00:41:12:15 - 00:41:32:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It's like the fucking Power Rangers. Christian, cue the Megazord. I think that's what it's called. when all the Power Rangers get together and they combine it and they get this big fucking machine that's like unstoppable. Transformers, I think does a similar thing. You know, it's like you bring these two things together and it's like, okay, now we can create like, actionable insights based off data and actually move things in the right direction.

00:41:32:02 - 00:41:48:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Conversely, we could be thinking that things are going extremely well, like your cost per lead is down 40%, which means you're getting jobs cheaper. And then I call you and I come to to brag about it. I'm like, Troy, how great is everything? I get fucking sucks. I got 17 calls for face. That is more. If I get one more, it's going to be a fucking problem.

00:41:48:16 - 00:42:10:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Like I'm like, oh, God damn. Here. I thought we did a good thing, right? But again, it's having that communication. So, you know, communicate with people. Well, we also have to talk about how that came about right so early on of us working together. You you said, look, I need you to track x, y and Z, right? I mean, I track the normal stuff like, okay, what's my you know, what's my close rate, how many leads I get all that.

00:42:10:20 - 00:42:25:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And you said, well, you need to look at this. You need to look at this. You need to look at this. Okay. And when I would come to you and I'd say, hey, Mike, shit doesn't look great. And you're like, okay, well, where is your tracking? I'm like, well, see, you're like, don't come to me with this bullshit, right?

00:42:25:21 - 00:42:46:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Until you until you, because the first year I just didn't have the capacity to track that stuff. I didn't know it was me doing everything when I finally realized. Oh, also, when when we signed. Remember we signed up for Google. Guaranteed. I was getting, like, 30 leads a day. That was wild. Yeah. but. And that's when we really started tracking things.

00:42:46:20 - 00:43:03:01 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns But if I didn't have what we actually needed to track, like, what we were getting, what type of leads, how they were, how were they, how they were dispositions, what did they close out? You know, all of that stuff that we actually needed to make real decisions for our company and not just how we feel about shit.

00:43:03:03 - 00:43:21:16 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah. Then you and I wouldn't have been able to have a real productive conversation on what we need to change. And that's the thing. That's the stuff that I'm talking about. You said to me, in order for me to serve you better, I need this from you. And a lot of times as business owners, really? Well, how dare you need to just do this?

00:43:21:20 - 00:43:41:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah, I'm paying you, sir. Yeah, I'm paying you. What do you. What do you mean you can't tell me what I'm closing at? I've no idea. I know those leads. Hit your inbox. What happened? What happened to them is on you. Yeah, and I need you to tell me what happened and how it happened. And I don't want to just hear all these leads suck.

00:43:41:07 - 00:44:02:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns How do you. So. And I know this is something that you and I have had conversations about. And, you know, your salespeople get you riled up, you come to me, then I get riled up, and then we do like a reconciliation and specific around the instant quote. So roofer has this great tool. It's called the incident quote. It's a it's an estimate I forget instant estimator or whatever.

00:44:02:08 - 00:44:17:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And it works really well. It works really well. Patent pending that. That's good. It works really well for a couple reasons. One, it differentiates you, right? And even people that have it, you can have 50 people with it in your market. They're not fucking marketing it. They're not using it. Right. They don't see a thing with Google. Guaranteed.

00:44:17:03 - 00:44:32:05 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns If you got Google guarantee and you're just doing it for lead, you're doing it wrong. Use it on your door hangers, put it on your crap, talk about it. It should be part of your sales presentation. People fucking trust Google. So if you can tell people that, hey, you should trust us because Google gave us a background check, they endorse our work to a certain degree.

00:44:32:05 - 00:44:50:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Like that is super powerful. It's a big deal. but when things are slow or sales reps are in a slump. This happened to me last week. It's actually a friend of mine that works for a client and he's like, man, those Instant Roof quotes are shit. Those leads are garbage. I was like, okay, I had this conversation before.

00:44:50:20 - 00:45:19:22 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns No. I was like, okay. I said, so pull up, leap for me and show me how many times you called the last five. I don't document them and leap. Why not? Why not? Well, because I don't. It's a waste of time. If not, I was like. So I was like, let me ask you this. You think it's a waste of time for you to document what's happening with the leads that you're getting, that you're gonna be held accountable for as far as, like your production or lack thereof, so that the owner of your company can put you in the best position to consistently get the best leads possible based on what's working or not working.

00:45:20:00 - 00:45:32:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I never really thought of it like that. I see where you're coming from. I was like, yes, I'm glad you see where I'm coming from. But a lot of the times, like the instinct, it's going to be designed to do a couple things, give someone a seamless experience as far as figuring out what that roof is going to cost them.

00:45:32:10 - 00:45:50:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And because even if they're in the planning stage, it's fine. Like they want to know tailoring to the society of immediate gratification, because you might not get the click of two other people are advertising it. and people want shit quick, and that's fine. getting the tire kickers out of the way, like filter aspect is huge. It's the best thing about it, in my opinion.

00:45:50:06 - 00:46:10:14 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The fact that, let's say your average appointment with commute time sit down with the customer is like 2.5 hours for your sales rep between them planning it and measuring it and everything that they're doing. If you have them run ten leads a month of people that were never going to buy once they saw the price, you just put 22.5 hours of their time back in their pocket where they could spend that actually working on customers, they're going to fucking buy from you.

00:46:10:14 - 00:46:30:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah. So we get like that all the time. Like the abandonment from the time that the lead submits to the time that it doesn't set an appointment, say, I got all these people. It's like it's always going to be that way. Always. Salespeople become become much more, much louder about it when they're having trouble selling. Right. Because then they could point to a boss man.

00:46:31:01 - 00:46:51:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah. The all these leads are coming in and they're not they're not fucking responding. It's like, yeah, but that's always been the case. Let's talk about the fact that the leads that you are setting appointments on, you're closing 15% lower. Right. Like let's talk about that. Let's talk about why the fact that I audit the accounts that you're getting or the clients that you're getting, and on average, it says you have zero documented outreaches, zero follow ups, like what's happening?

00:46:51:18 - 00:47:14:12 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I know that you're calling people, why the fuck aren't you documenting it? So that I can make decisions to put you in the best position, to have the most amount of leads, the highest quality leads based on what's actually happening and not you getting in a fucking mood about a slump that you're having, literally just had this conversation with my production team about the sales team on Monday, and this is a conversation where we continually have.

00:47:14:12 - 00:47:36:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Right. but you're tapping into something that nobody wants to talk about. And this is the the personal accountability side. You know, it's really easy to go and blame us. And digital when we're having a down month, when we're not getting a ton of, a ton of leads in. And so my perspective has always been, what's the solution here?

00:47:36:20 - 00:47:54:03 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns How do we fix this? And it can't be about put putting blame doesn't do anything like all it does is creates animosity between, you know, let's say you and I. Right? If I come to you and I say, Mike, like, our leads suck, we're not getting them or whatever. And you're like, okay, I'm gonna go and research on my own and see what's going on.

00:47:54:03 - 00:48:14:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Steve, search volumes down, see if, you know, click through all of the things that we can monitor. I'm going to see if those are down, if there's any substantial change. And we'll figure it out on our end. What I need for you to do is I need to look at what types of lead you're getting, what the disposition is, how you're closing them, and, you know, who's being assigned these so we can take a look and see if they're, you know, if there's an issue.

00:48:14:11 - 00:48:33:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And I under your end if you both or. Yeah, or both or both and if and if we don't look at it like that and we don't, both take accountability for our side and try to figure out the solution, because at the end of the day, you want to do the best job for your clients. At the end of the day, I want to bring in as many leads as I possibly can.

00:48:33:02 - 00:48:49:06 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns It does not benefit me to blame you and it doesn't benefit you to blame me. We need to figure out how to solve the issue, and the only way to do that is we both take accountability for our side. Yeah, keep your side of the street clean is so funny because I made a piece of content a while back, like toxic accountability.

00:48:49:06 - 00:49:14:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Like. And that's not me trying to skirt accountability. What I mean by that is we've been put in situations where everyone loves a hate marketing company, is thinking things aren't working and etc. and like, you know, sometimes are better than others. There's ebbs and flows, there's lulls like that. Stuff happens regardless of who you're working with. But there's, there's a there's a tipping point where it goes from like, holding each other accountable to being a divisive us versus them situation.

00:49:14:18 - 00:49:27:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I'm not sure we feel that shit. Sure. Of course. And it's like, I like, I don't want to work under these conditions. If you're not happy here, you know, go somewhere. you know, and that's not to be disrespect, but I don't want my team in that position where they feel like they've got a gun to their head.

00:49:27:00 - 00:49:42:04 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns They're being interrogated. Like, let's have a conversation about let's talk about things that we can do to help you. We have no problem adding value. We have no problem. Like, I'll sit down with anybody for 30 minutes an hour. Like if they reach out, like I tell people, we'll give you as much time as you'll give us. And most people don't show up for meetings.

00:49:42:04 - 00:50:04:08 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And those are usually the same people that I hop on a Facebook group and start roasting smart ass businesses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, these people rob you blind. It's like, I don't know, like I've had 24 hours of meetings allocated for you in the last 12 months and, you have shown none. Yeah, right. And that's like, that's I don't want to say dead payroll, but like, it's certainly somebody sitting there for at least 15 minutes waiting for you.

00:50:04:10 - 00:50:24:19 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns let's just like, you know, communicate you know that that reminds. So we, we just signed this for exterior remodel. It's like we're going to be doing like all of the hardy artists and siding and, you know, new metal roof and new windows. I mean, you know, building out an outdoor patio. I mean, there's it's a huge it's a big job.

00:50:24:21 - 00:50:47:13 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns and so the we met over there last Tuesday and, the woman running the job, you know, we talked with her. We kind of laid out how everything was going to go, the process, what was going to have where are we going to put dumps? I mean, the whole deal. Right? And then two days later, she she text the salesman, I need you to do the detached.

00:50:47:18 - 00:51:06:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I need you to start on the detached garage now. So this woman is not the homeowner. She's actually an intermediary. She's a designer. She's the one that's running the project because the homeowners, travel a lot. And she said, I need you to do the detached garage now. I need somebody there tomorrow to start tearing it off and all.

00:51:06:20 - 00:51:28:01 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns This is a huge job. We've given you guys all these deposits. So my sales guy calls me freaking out, like, hey, we have to start this job tomorrow. We have to do this now. Sad. Hold on, hold on. Okay, let's call her. Come back and said, Tracy, do you trust us as your contractor? Well, yes. Okay. So here's what we're going to do.

00:51:28:03 - 00:51:54:00 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I understand where you're coming from. You have your buyers that wrote $90,000 in checks. You've given us $90,000. We've ordered the windows, we've ordered all this other stuff. We've given you a construction schedule. We told you we're going to start in two and a half weeks, and that's when we're going to start. And here's why. I cannot be putting some of my guys here, pulling them off, putting dumpsters, pulling them off.

00:51:54:00 - 00:52:14:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns We're not doing that. It's a small portion of the project. I get that you want some progress shown to your clients, but you're actually going to harm the process overall. And you need to let us do the job like we laid out and agreed to. Okay. She said, okay, that comes from experience and you knowing what you need to do for your client.

00:52:14:12 - 00:52:33:11 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So they're successful. Yeah. Look, she could have said, no, I don't I don't accept that. Like I'm going to go find another cut for her freaked out or whatever. And we would have had to have a different conversation. But you've got to be comfortable in who you are as a company, your processes and, and be able to talk to people and explain to them why you're doing things the way that they are.

00:52:33:12 - 00:52:50:15 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns They might not like it, but I would much rather have that conversation on the front end and have a smooth, successful project for the next two months. Rather than try to do this. And now we're we're knocked out of our processes. And, you know, my guys are wondering why they just went and did this and that. It just it's going to be a mess.

00:52:50:21 - 00:53:05:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It absolutely. And, you know, shout out to Brock with McClellan's contract and roofing. You know, he was I was out I took my daughter to a theme park for a birthday last August. He had some changes. He wanted me to the campaign. So, you know, I'm running point guard. I'm on with him.

00:53:05:18 - 00:53:23:20 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns A message in my team. We're doing this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this I fucked up. I didn't put one of the work orders in place that didn't set off one of the triggers that it was supposed to, and something didn't get fulfilled. Right? It's why you always call Charlie and and months later and months later, we're meeting and we figure it out, and I'm like, I.

00:53:23:22 - 00:53:41:22 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns I'm like, I fucked up here. That's my bad. But I'm like, also, this is a very good learning experience for me. And I want to appreciate I want to tell you, I appreciate you for bringing this to my to my knowledge, because that's why you don't fucking get away from the process. Right? Like all I'm trying to do is do the best I can for my customer, right?

00:53:41:22 - 00:54:01:09 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Roadhouse pay with good intentions. Great fucking dumpster fire. Yeah. No, it wasn't. Don't get me wrong. Brock's thriving. Everything was fine. But I felt bad because that's something that I told him I was going to do for him, and I didn't get it done. And it was for no reason other than I stepped out of what my typical process would be because I was at the theme park with my daughter.

00:54:01:09 - 00:54:26:01 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns But I wanted to provide a remarkable experience. That shit has to have limitations to some degree, because you put you put a lot of things at risk. It does. And, you know, that's the that's the maturity, I guess, is that you, you you learn those things, you understand those things. And then next time you, you know, are in that situation with your customer, you can say, listen, I want to do this for you, I really do.

00:54:26:03 - 00:54:49:18 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Here's what we're going to do to make sure I don't drop the ball. And this is going to be better for both of us. It might delay whatever the changes a day or two. And that's and I get it. You're in a hurry. I understand, but what we're both more concerned is, is the result. Right. And when you can talk to your customers like that again, they might not like it at the time, but when things go well, they'll respect it.

00:54:49:19 - 00:55:12:10 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And if you don't have the maturity to to have those hard conversations with your clients, that's where it opens you up to. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and then you have a bunch of problems, and now you've just created not only problems for you, but your team, your client. And it just it never goes well.

00:55:12:10 - 00:55:42:14 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns So yeah, I love that example of, you know, being able to have those hard conversations. And let's circle this back to implementation. If you don't have those processes and those systems laid out in your company, those standards, if you will, which I find funny little side note, you know, people are bashing systems and processes now because they're they've decided that, like it is an important part.

00:55:42:20 - 00:56:05:14 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Let's just look at them as standards. We can just look at them as standards. If you do not have those standards in place in your company, how can you adhere to something that that's not in place and that's where you continually have issues. You don't learn those lessons, but if you put those standards in place and the team is trained on those standards, you're going to be less likely to fall victim to it yourself.

00:56:05:16 - 00:56:29:21 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns Yeah, and so am I. I'm not going to create a problem for my team just because I want to make my customer happy. Yeah, I love this. This is great. We should do this again sometime. We should. One thing everyone for tuning in, y'all. The real MVP is shout out again to roofer. You guys helped make this happen and we going to be more grateful for it.

00:56:29:21 - 00:56:36:23 CoreyCombes & MikeStearns And, you know share this shit with somebody to help follow us. Do something, do something. Just do something. We go do something.