When to Replace Your Roof and How to Scale a Roofing Business with Trenton Wisecup
Roof replacement signs, scaling a roofing business, and how to recruit skilled labor-- Trenton Wisecup joins Andrew Brown to unpack all this and more.
Host Andrew Brown sits down with Trenton Wisecup, founder of Arrow Roofing and Empower Me Consulting, to dive into the reality of scaling a roofing business in today’s skilled trades industry. They explore how to identify roof replacement signs before it's too late, implement effective AI tools for contractors, and make the transition from trades to business owner.
Trenton also shares his no-BS perspective on how to recruit skilled labor, what separates winning businesses from outdated ones, and the mindset needed to thrive as a modern contractor or entrepreneur. If you're in roofing, HVAC, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, or construction, this is a must-listen.
IN THIS EPISODE:
(00:02:10) – Roof Replacement Signs: Why homeowners wait too long and how to spot early warning signs
(00:14:25) – Scaling a Roofing Business: From door-knocking to building an eight-figure culture
(00:24:05) – Transition from Trades to Business Owner: What every skilled worker should know
(00:34:50) – AI Tools for Contractors: Real-world examples that boost leads, sales, and efficiency
(00:48:15) – How to Recruit Skilled Labor: Why leadership—not labor shortages—is the real problem
(00:58:30) – Leading Without Emotion: Why neutrality is your secret weapon in business
Key Takeaways:
● Roof replacement signs often go unnoticed—by the time it leaks, it’s already too late.
● Scaling a roofing business requires systemized leadership, not just hard work.
● AI tools for contractors can double your output and halve your overhead.
● How to recruit skilled labor starts with building a culture people want to stay in.
About the Guest:
Trenton Wisecup is the founder of Arrow Roofing and Empower Me Consulting. After starting with just six installs in year one, he’s now helping contractors and business owners across the U.S. master the systems behind scaling a roofing business, using AI tools for contractors, and making the transition from trades to business owner. He’s passionate about mentorship, modern leadership, and building businesses that actually work—for owners and their crews alike.
Keywords:
Roof Replacement Signs, Scaling a Roofing Business, AI Tools for Contractors, Transition from Trades to Business Owner, How to Recruit Skilled Labor, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Andrew Brown, Trenton Wisecup, Arrow Roofing, Toolfetch, Contractors, Electricians, HVAC, Plumbers, Carpentry, Construction, Millwrights, Trades Careers, Tradespeople, Industry Experts, Craftsmanship, Problem-Solving, Creativity, Skilled Trades Advisory Council, Advocacy, Education
Resources:
Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trenton-wisecup-9a86b6235/
Website: https://arrowroofingservicesllc.com/
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Transcript
A big turning point for me was to realize that emotions
Speaker:in business is like, you know, business suicide.
Speaker:If you want to self destruct, if you want to
Speaker:completely set yourself back from growth,
Speaker:from networking opportunities, from bringing real value
Speaker:and impact to not just yourself, but your family and your organization,
Speaker:you're going to stay living in your emotions, right?
Speaker:Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening, listening to the Lost Star of the Skilled Trades
Speaker:podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on
Speaker:careers in the skilled trades that are high paying, honorable,
Speaker:rewarding and fulfilling. The trades are the backbone of the
Speaker:economy that keep us running. And without them, our world
Speaker:would cease to exist.
Speaker:Today we have a special guest. Trenton Wisecup, owner of
Speaker:Arrow Roofing Services. Welcome, Trenton, to the show.
Speaker:Thank you, Andrew, for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker:Likewise. So I was thinking about roofing
Speaker:for a quick moment and then I started thinking about when I was
Speaker:buying my house. So I have a house from 1958
Speaker:and I bought it about eight years ago. And I remember walking
Speaker:around with the inspector and the inspector was pointing things
Speaker:out and all of a sudden he points at the roof. He's like, you a
Speaker:30 year timberline roof and it's almost end
Speaker:of life. So I kept like a mental note like, okay, that's going to be
Speaker:X amount of thousands of dollars. I know I need to do a green kitchen.
Speaker:So I was like adding things up in my head. I went to go look
Speaker:at the roof recently and there is moss
Speaker:all over the roof in like shady areas.
Speaker:My question is, how many people or just the general
Speaker:public know they have a roof problem until they have a roof problem? Like
Speaker:a leak? Yeah, I would say 90% of them don't
Speaker:think they have a roof problem until water's coming in the house. Right?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah. Normally it's not 911 until you start
Speaker:to see that water on the ceiling and starting to,
Speaker:you know, compromise the inside of the house. That's normally like the big
Speaker:red flag that gets people to kind of take action and say, hey,
Speaker:is something going on with the roof here? I should probably get it looked at
Speaker:a little closer. You know, it's funny, you try to be proactive with things and
Speaker:these are like reactive problems because usually the general public
Speaker:doesn't know. Even looking at the roof, you might see a
Speaker:couple areas or again, when it's leaking, it's almost like it's
Speaker:too late. And then you're making the call to
Speaker:a service provider. And I assume at that point that's what most of the
Speaker:calls, is that what's coming in at that point? Like something's leaking? Would that be
Speaker:good percentage of the calls that are coming in for you? Yeah, a lot of
Speaker:the inbound leads that we get are people that are aware that
Speaker:they need a roof. And it is most times going to be because they have
Speaker:water coming in the house or they're getting ready to move and they want to
Speaker:make sure that everything's on the up and up before the inspections and things take
Speaker:place. But normally when they're calling, it's because
Speaker:the water is falling, you know, for you, typically.
Speaker:When do those calls, is it throughout the year? Is it a certain timeframe? Is
Speaker:it summer? Do people wait and do this, you know, later on
Speaker:at a different season or it's just throughout the year? It's kind of
Speaker:different every year. I would say that you do see, you know,
Speaker:historically you see a lot of calls coming in the spring, right? The snow starting
Speaker:them out. Here in Michigan, it's starting to get warm enough where people are
Speaker:starting to care a little bit more. Again, the vitamin D is coming through the
Speaker:windows, are feeling like a human again. It's like, hey, you know,
Speaker:we need to get this checked out and looked at. But we run, you know,
Speaker:door knocking teams and we're really proactive in our communities and
Speaker:in the territories that we work. So we are like actively engaging
Speaker:our clients throughout the whole year. You know, we qualify
Speaker:our customers. I mean, if you got two years left, you know, one,
Speaker:maybe three years max, you are in the market to start looking what that
Speaker:pricing looks like. We run like free 25 point
Speaker:inspections. We call them roof condition reports. That's simply
Speaker:what they are. They're just roof condition reports. And we do them for free.
Speaker:And it helps us analyze, you know, the condition of the roof, bring clarity
Speaker:to the client lifetime. And then all of a sudden they think they didn't have
Speaker:an issue. But you know, we found exposed nails or the
Speaker:shingles decayed in a weird way. And we got water drip, drip, drip. And they've
Speaker:not seen it yet because it's being absorbe by the roof deck or the insulation.
Speaker:And you know, so just being competent and having guys that can go out and
Speaker:qualify these deals appropriately throughout the year,
Speaker:you know, we don't rely just on the consumer to call us and
Speaker:say, hey, arrow roofing, you know, we have a problem. We are very
Speaker:proactive to go out and generate leads and just, you know,
Speaker:help educate the community and get them clarity on the conditions of their own
Speaker:roofs. Now do you actively go around in certain neighborhoods to
Speaker:take a look at people's roofs. Because you said that, yes, people will call,
Speaker:but if, I don't know, there's a problem. But somebody who is
Speaker:scouting sort of the neighborhood and says, you know, that roof, that roof
Speaker:and that roof, there's an issue with them. Are you being
Speaker:proactive in that sense? You are sort of banging on the
Speaker:person's door or knocking on the person's door or even calling to let them know,
Speaker:hey, you're almost at end of life and you should be thinking
Speaker:about, you know, possibly replacing your roof. Are you that proactive?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, we're super proactive. So, you know, we've been in business, this is
Speaker:our eighth year, and so we've worked extensively in our state.
Speaker:We go back and we revisit the neighborhoods. We call it groundwork.
Speaker:And so there might be 200 homes in this
Speaker:neighborhood, but when we actually drive through it, maybe only
Speaker:43 of them qualify for an actual replacement
Speaker:just due to, like, age and condition and the symptoms, if you will, that you
Speaker:can see from the ground. And so those are the people that we go and
Speaker:we pick on and we educate them. Right. And so out
Speaker:of those 43 that are qualified, you'll probably get,
Speaker:you know, 20 to 30% of those people do convert because it's
Speaker:time to actually do it. So we're not like targeting people or
Speaker:trying to convert people that have 5, 10,
Speaker:15 years left in their roof. But we're really strategic in the way that
Speaker:we, you know, target our avatar client. We make sure that they're
Speaker:qualified for our service. Because at the end of the day, we're going out there
Speaker:to serve, you know, not to sell, but to serve them.
Speaker:And that's what, you know, keeps the referrals coming and things like that. But
Speaker:to answer your question, that is kind of like the level of
Speaker:strategy that we're using to engage the client. Lifetime.
Speaker:And you could say this for a lot of different things in your house. And
Speaker:most of the general public don't know that they have a problem. Not even
Speaker:their roof, their boiler, their water heater, their ac. And
Speaker:when things fail, you know, my big shtick is that I am
Speaker:pro skilled trades and getting the next generation into the trades, whether
Speaker:it's roofing, whether it's H vac, whether it's welding, any
Speaker:blue collar skilled trade. I'm thinking about my own friends, my own neighborhood.
Speaker:Nobody knows how to do anything like nobody, let alone screwing a light
Speaker:bulb. Nobody's touching anything. And we need these men and
Speaker:women who are helping fixing these type of issues.
Speaker:The people who are on your staff, the roofing experts. Are you
Speaker:finding that there's not enough people in the
Speaker:trades to do this type of work or are you seeing good amount
Speaker:of people that are coming through that you could hire
Speaker:or are they even staying? I'm very controversial.
Speaker:So we'll probably have people that agree with what I'm going to suggest and people
Speaker:that won't. But you know, I think that's a nice big excuse.
Speaker:Excuse, right? Like, oh, nobody wants to do the trades. You
Speaker:can't hire any good workers. I think it's a really easy way to like
Speaker:point the finger and let yourself out as a leader from
Speaker:getting more intentional on your leadership and how to
Speaker:cultivate, you know, the culture in a business or
Speaker:an organization that attracts people that to come and
Speaker:work there. So you know what I've seen
Speaker:is like we had over a thousand applications to be a door
Speaker:knocker last summer. So like that tells you that people are
Speaker:wanting to get into something where they can bring
Speaker:impact, be valued and make money. And
Speaker:I think that a lot of old roofing styles of
Speaker:leadership and business models, they lack
Speaker:the clarity behind the vision, the goals and
Speaker:then like ramp up trainings, onboardings, actually, you know,
Speaker:recruiting funnels and programs that help your reps get
Speaker:wins early in their career that helps
Speaker:drive retention. Now what we do is hard, it's high ticket, not
Speaker:everyone can do it. So there's attrition, right? It's business, it's all numbers game.
Speaker:Same way with sales, same way with recruiting. So a lot of people are
Speaker:so focused on selling that they don't
Speaker:recruit hard enough and they don't want to recruit hard enough because it's really
Speaker:hard to recruit effectively and then build a training or a
Speaker:ramp up program that ensures that the rep will
Speaker:find success within, you know, 60, 90 days, whatever
Speaker:your guys's program is. You know, we've
Speaker:grown, I mean we've only scaled, you know, there's different areas of growth,
Speaker:it's not always revenue. Right. It took us several years to
Speaker:learn how to build a company culture and a
Speaker:recruiting program that can be like married with one another
Speaker:to capture the young talent. Right.
Speaker:So all the guys that work out in the field for us are anywhere from
Speaker:like 19 to like 25 years old. And they're grinders.
Speaker:And you see the same thing in the solar industry. You got these 20 year
Speaker:olds that are driving Lambos and that are making all this money. They're not scared
Speaker:to go out and knock. They're not scared of the trades. They're not scared to
Speaker:go out and have those hard, uncomfortable conversations at the door and these
Speaker:different things that a lot of tradespeople, because of old
Speaker:ideals, they won't adopt. So you're seeing because
Speaker:of the lack of adoption of technology, the lack of adoption
Speaker:of, you know, new business and more like modern business
Speaker:acumen, because sales has changed, roofing has changed,
Speaker:the client has changed. And so I think that a lot of people
Speaker:can't retain or find help because they've been running
Speaker:their business the same way for 15, 20, 10 years and they've
Speaker:never, you know, had that evolution and caught up to the
Speaker:time. You know, there's somebody, I was thinking about who I had in the
Speaker:podcast last year. His name is Melvin, he's in Iowa. He's like a well known
Speaker:roofer and he knocks on doors. I mean, basically that's what he does. But he
Speaker:also knows a lot about roofing and can work on roofs.
Speaker:And people who are hungry, they want to make money. And there's a good sales
Speaker:cycle here and there's good training, there's good retention. And
Speaker:they see that leadership has a vision of where the company
Speaker:is going. As you said, that it's grown over the eight year period. But more
Speaker:so, I understand the sales side, but more so the people doing the work
Speaker:on the roof itself, are they people who
Speaker:you work with or is it subbed out in that sense?
Speaker:And if it's subbed out, do you have issues finding those
Speaker:people to actually do the work? Not the knockers, but more so the people on
Speaker:the roof, you know, we. Can go pretty deep with this. I don't know
Speaker:how deep you want to go, so put the guardrail on me. Andrew, when it's
Speaker:time. Here's the thing is, if you want to be a roofer at scale, you
Speaker:gotta sub them out. It's just the only way. If you're small,
Speaker:local, you stick to like just owning your backyard. Having
Speaker:your own internal crews can be like incredibly beneficial. So I'm not like
Speaker:against having in house crews, but in my
Speaker:experience to do anything at a level of volume and
Speaker:keep the quality really high, you have to build relationships with
Speaker:really powerful professional subs. Because
Speaker:now I'm not recruiting the labor, I'm recruiting the
Speaker:best leader, the best sub, you know, contractor that
Speaker:has the relationships that he can leverage to get the best
Speaker:quality contractor on my job. So what I focus
Speaker:on is paying the guys and paying them above
Speaker:standard. So, you know, running Incentives,
Speaker:right? Like we have company and then, you know, individual
Speaker:incentives per department for go backs. So if they don't go
Speaker:back x amount of times a month, they get a reward. Like you got to
Speaker:have all these. We call them accelerators. Like, there's got to be
Speaker:accelerators. There's got to be something involved in the game plan that helps
Speaker:even the crews feel like they're winning. So, like, for me, you know,
Speaker:we've never had an issue of not being able to get a roof on, not
Speaker:having quality contractors. Now there
Speaker:is, you know, a lot of people are using Latinos. Some people
Speaker:use, you know, white crews and mixed racial crews. When we
Speaker:first started out, we used just, you know, non Latino
Speaker:crews, let's call them just for, like, communication
Speaker:purposes. Like, hey, this might be easier. I was the only one that could speak
Speaker:a baby, but a Spanish, you know, So I just wanted it to be smooth
Speaker:overall for the whole team. You know, we had weird experiences,
Speaker:you know, where, you know, they're kind of more like jailbirds,
Speaker:right? It's a different culture. They got their shirts off, they're covered in
Speaker:tattoos. Not that I care about any of that, but customers do.
Speaker:You know, when you're cussing from the roof and playing your rock and roll
Speaker:and you can hear it down the street and they're smoking weed on the job
Speaker:or doing something stupid, you know, like, at the end of the day, like,
Speaker:that's not okay. And so when we converted early
Speaker:on in our career to the Latino crews, all that went away
Speaker:and the communication was actually way better. They were showing up on time to
Speaker:the job, they were cleaning the job, leaving on time, not
Speaker:calling me, giving me their baby mama drama. And my stepdad needed money
Speaker:for gas. And I, you know, I need a front on today's job because we.
Speaker:It's just like, dude, that's not. That's not how it works, right?
Speaker:So I think that a lot of people are either not training
Speaker:those guys, not cultivating leaders within their internal teams, or
Speaker:just not taking that chance, even with, like, communication barriers
Speaker:to build those relationships with the people that are working the
Speaker:hardest in the space and really going above and beyond on the
Speaker:jobs and have the ability to
Speaker:recruit at high quantities of people. You know, we can
Speaker:have anywhere from eight people on a job to 20 people on
Speaker:a job. You know, we can promise a certain amount of squares
Speaker:because of our relationships with our crews. And then the crews are all
Speaker:certified through manufacturer. So, you know, the crews that
Speaker:we're using are certified through the manufacturer. So, like, they
Speaker:Only put on our material, they're not putting on Iko. GAF owns
Speaker:Corning and dealing with all these different, you know, specs. And
Speaker:this is different, and this is different. It's the same consistent, you know, roofing systems
Speaker:that they install. So it's good to hear from obviously what
Speaker:you're seeing out there. And, you know, I get sort of
Speaker:mixed responses in that for different trades there are
Speaker:shortages. So, you know, for me, I was only trying to pinpoint
Speaker:are you seeing shortages in the trades that people don't want
Speaker:to. There's one thing about people not showing up for work and that's a quality
Speaker:issue, but more so that there's not enough people to actually
Speaker:do the work. But it doesn't sound like that's really the case. There's a good
Speaker:amount of people, especially if a contractor has a good crew of people, they're reliable,
Speaker:they show up, do good work, they say what they're going to do, you're always
Speaker:going to run into an issue with certain people and that's just
Speaker:possibly not people you want to work with moving forward after that job is
Speaker:over. I do want to shift a little bit of focus more so of
Speaker:the business aspect, because what the audience, or my audience would
Speaker:get most good information from is people who
Speaker:are in the field. So if you are a roofer, if
Speaker:you are a welder, if you are an electrician, let's say you want to
Speaker:make that shift from in the field to business owner. Because
Speaker:I feel that myself. I'm a business owner. I own a company called
Speaker:Tool Fetch, an industrial supply company. We carry over 2 million
Speaker:products from 650 different vendors and we've scaled the business out over a
Speaker:24 year period. So I understand the whole, like, aspect of
Speaker:entrepreneurship, but a lot of people don't. What does it take
Speaker:to go from someone who's in the field, who's got that technical skills, to
Speaker:someone who wants to be a business owner? What do you need? What kind of
Speaker:qualities do you need? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, there's a book out
Speaker:there called the ems. You know, anybody that's looking to do that
Speaker:conversion from, you know, being a rep to going straight
Speaker:to owner, for a lot of people, it's really romantic.
Speaker:It's romantic, it's sexy, it's fun, it's the dream, it's what
Speaker:you want to do. But at the end of the day, a lot of entrepreneurs,
Speaker:a lot of people at the top, they're not getting credit for the amount of
Speaker:energy and Time that's being committed and sacrificed that
Speaker:nobody sees. One thing I would say to encourage somebody that's
Speaker:looking to do that is you have to be willing to be in it for
Speaker:like the long term play, right? Like you're not going to get
Speaker:immediate results. And with that being said,
Speaker:nobody's going to tell you, good job, nobody cares. And
Speaker:so you don't need to care either. You just need to keep
Speaker:your chin down and keep pushing through. So, you know, a
Speaker:couple characteristics are you're going to have to be mega resilient, can't be soft.
Speaker:There's, you're going to lose money, you're going to lose friends, you're going to
Speaker:lose relationships with clients. I mean, it's just part of it,
Speaker:right? And so you got to be really resilient and you have to be brave.
Speaker:So a lot of entrepreneurs are actually scared all the time. You know, we're,
Speaker:we're walking around like, oh my gosh, is this gonna work? Is that gonna work?
Speaker:You know, but people look at us and they think that we're brave because even
Speaker:though we're terrified, we continue to push the limit and to try it.
Speaker:It's like, oh, this is kind of scary, but let's see what
Speaker:happens, you know, where other people aren't willing to
Speaker:swallow or digest that level of risk. So, you know,
Speaker:making sure that you have a resilient mindset that you
Speaker:aren't looking for anybody to co sign you or to pat you
Speaker:on the back because at the end of the day it doesn't matter. And then
Speaker:the other thing is you need to pay to play because you're just a rep
Speaker:at that point. You may think you're sweet, you may think you're the top sales
Speaker:guy, I'm the best installer, I could run my own crew, I can have my
Speaker:own business Again, that's really romantic. But at the end of the day,
Speaker:you need to pay to play and pay for a mentor or
Speaker:get in some type of mastermind group or attend some conferences that allow you
Speaker:to rub shoulders with people that can give you a
Speaker:heightened insight on what you're about to walk into. And
Speaker:so those are just a couple quick qualities. Andrew,
Speaker:you mentioned Emyth and I read Emyth a handful of years ago and I was
Speaker:like, shit, that sort of describes a little bit about me.
Speaker:It was an eye opener for me and
Speaker:just a lot of it made sense. But I didn't go down the E myth
Speaker:road. I went down eos Entrepreneur, operating system. I don't
Speaker:know if you know what that is. But it's similar to E myth. It just,
Speaker:it's a blueprint for your business. How to communicate, how to have
Speaker:meetings, how to have goals, visions, and break it down from a three
Speaker:year goal to a 90 day goal to a one year goal, that type
Speaker:of stuff. And that really helped our business kind of propel
Speaker:forward, have quarterly meetings, have yearly meetings, and really have
Speaker:a structure in the business. If we ever want to sell the business that the
Speaker:business basically runs itself, it's not on me, it's not on my
Speaker:partner, the business. Basically, if we left for like a
Speaker:week, two weeks, the business would be stronger. So you do need a structure.
Speaker:Especially if you want to scale up your business and you want to get to
Speaker:10, 20, 30 million plus. It requires
Speaker:you not to do everything. It requires you to delegate certain things.
Speaker:It requires you to have mentors. Like you said, I have mentors myself
Speaker:and that took a very long time for me to actually get there.
Speaker:Also masterminds. And for me, I am a part of a CEO
Speaker:group called Vistage where I meet with other CEOs monthly and
Speaker:literally I get my head handed to me every month in a good way, because
Speaker:that's how I grow and that's how I get uncomfortable with
Speaker:being comfortable. So it's always interesting to hear somebody
Speaker:who is entrepreneurial and I always call entre, we're weird.
Speaker:And I'm saying this in a good way. Entrepreneurs are built differently.
Speaker:There's something about that grit, the hustle. You could knock me to the ground,
Speaker:I'll get back up, right? You drag me through the mud, I'll clean myself off.
Speaker:There's something about being an entrepreneur and I don't think everybody has those qualities.
Speaker:I completely agree. You either got it or you do not
Speaker:got it. Cannot be trained. I mean, you can learn and you can
Speaker:grow, but you're just born as a savage or not,
Speaker:you know, and it really just comes down to that
Speaker:simplicity of it. You either want it or you just
Speaker:talk about one. You either go get it. See, here's the biggest
Speaker:thing is a lot of these business owners, whether we're talking about
Speaker:recruiting, whether we're talking about reps wanting to become an
Speaker:owner. Think of how much action you need to take to do it and then
Speaker:times that by five. And so it needs to be this like
Speaker:massive level of action. And they can be micro
Speaker:and they can be large, right? But what they do is they compound, they
Speaker:add up to be this massive amount of action that you've taken
Speaker:after One goal after learning one trade after
Speaker:learning one aspect of the business. When you do that,
Speaker:that's what helps you get through that learning curve quicker. And I see
Speaker:a lot of people, they think they're working hard. They think they're taking action.
Speaker:But you've never learned how to work. You don't. You don't know what it
Speaker:looks like to put in the hours. You don't know what it looks like to
Speaker:stay up late. You don't know what it looks like to wake up early, what
Speaker:it looks like to make 200 dials, knock 500 doors, put
Speaker:on 600 roofs. Whatever it may be, taking that massive action
Speaker:is really important. It is. And there's always things that can
Speaker:happen in your business that you're just. Somebody leaves,
Speaker:somebody gets sick. There's a change in the administration, they make
Speaker:a change, and all of a sudden, your business snap of the finger,
Speaker:it's changed, and the game has changed. And you need to evolve and think on
Speaker:your feet as a business owner. Have you ever been in a situation
Speaker:where it was like, I had that oh, shit moment. Like, we need to change
Speaker:things. We need to. This is not working, and we need to try anything
Speaker:else. Does that happen to you at any moment in time and what did
Speaker:you have to do to get back on track? Yeah, only like,
Speaker:millions of times. I mean, it happens all the time. I mean, us
Speaker:as leaders, we put together these playbooks. It should go just like this. On
Speaker:paper. It works out. The math makes sense, everything makes sense. And
Speaker:then none of it. And then none of it works or none of it, you
Speaker:know, goes the way that we want. So early on, for example, in
Speaker:our career, the very first year, we sold six roofs and we put the
Speaker:roofs on ourselves. So it was like, me and some buddies, I was the only,
Speaker:like, real roofer. And so I'm, like, overseeing and
Speaker:selling and doing this and doing that. And I realized really quickly that
Speaker:you can never make money selling and
Speaker:installing them. Because I was like, oh, I'll just double dip. I'll sell it
Speaker:and I'll build it. And then I was like, this sucks.
Speaker:This will never work. I want to buy my time, okay? I'm not
Speaker:trying to break my back and do everything. I want to buy my
Speaker:time. So I utilized my communication skills and my sales
Speaker:skills to start recruiting crews. So I would, like, drive around, I would
Speaker:look in the market and see who was putting on the nicest roofs. When I
Speaker:saw them installing, dude, I would poach. I'd whip up there, start talking
Speaker:to them. In Spanish, see if they want more work, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Next thing you know, we pay them a little bit more, treat them a little
Speaker:bit better. And I've had the same crews now five
Speaker:years, six years. That's really kind of one of those things
Speaker:where, oh, yeah, I'll double dip, I'll make more money, do
Speaker:more work, when realistically, it wasn't that at all. It
Speaker:limited my time to go out and sell more. It limited my energy
Speaker:and my ability to, like, maximize my energy towards
Speaker:what I was doing. Right. So that was kind of like a plan that
Speaker:didn't work. And I'm glad it didn't work. And so we put in a new
Speaker:plan that, hey, we need crews. And then that worked. Right? So that's a
Speaker:very simple early example. When you're the jack
Speaker:of all trades, you're master at none. It's just you're working on too much
Speaker:in the business. And I get it, you feel that you can do everything.
Speaker:In essence, it holds you back. You can't install and you can't sell
Speaker:together. You need to pick a lane and stay in it. But it's good that
Speaker:you figured that out early on and made that shift. Because
Speaker:if you've scaled the business over a course of seven, eight years,
Speaker:you're in that mindset where you need to be to scale a business.
Speaker:You know, for a lot of small businesses out there, especially guys, you know,
Speaker:or women running H vac companies or plumbing companies,
Speaker:a lot of them are doing the work. And also the sales side,
Speaker:I've had people come here. It's just like a couple of people who do the
Speaker:work and they gotta ride around, you know, on a Tuesday,
Speaker:losing time from actually working on a job because
Speaker:they have to sell as well. And I've seen that to
Speaker:some degree, it's almost a blueprint for getting burnt out. At some
Speaker:point you get burnt out. It's only so many hours that you can put into
Speaker:doing both of that. And I assumed you learned that a really early on in
Speaker:your career. You need to figure that out. Whether that's a
Speaker:mentor telling you, or you just kind of literally figure it out on your own,
Speaker:which it sounds like you did figure it out. And the reason why that happens
Speaker:to people is because their egos are so freaking big. So they think they know
Speaker:everything. They don't want to change anything. They limit themselves
Speaker:through their belief system. So they have a limited belief. And
Speaker:what it does is it traps them because they're so
Speaker:egotistical. Oh, look at me.
Speaker:Oh, I Look what I've done, you know, oh, I can't find
Speaker:anybody. You know, these people, they're not willing to
Speaker:recruit and humble up, let go of those egos in order to grow.
Speaker:I wanted to shift over to, you know, this is
Speaker:more so of just feedback that I get. When you call certain
Speaker:companies and certain roofing companies and services, it's very hard to
Speaker:get a price, meaning that they have to come down, they have to
Speaker:estimate it. I don't know if you know Grant Cardone, a very kind of well
Speaker:known sort of guy on social media and he does sales, he does marketing.
Speaker:I was at one of his conferences and he was literally calling roofing companies.
Speaker:At the show, there was like 500 of us and he's calling
Speaker:somebody's company. All he wanted to do was ask for pricing, like,
Speaker:what's the price? They said, no, no, no, no, I can't give you the price,
Speaker:we'll have to get back to you. And he was saying that what I would
Speaker:do is I would just move on to the next company. Is that something that
Speaker:when it comes to services like that, can you really quote
Speaker:a price over the phone or is it. You'd really have to go out there
Speaker:to see sort of the square footage and what the work
Speaker:is. I like Grant, by the way. He's a phenomenal
Speaker:marketer, phenomenal sales guy. So he can twist our brains up into a pretzel
Speaker:if he wants. And oh, these companies aren't doing those. Look how much money they're
Speaker:missing out on, blah, blah, blah, right? So I guess there's two ways of looking
Speaker:at it. You know, if you look at it Grant's way, oh, they're not giving
Speaker:pricing. Again, two ways of looking at it. One, you could give
Speaker:pricing as long as the expectation is set
Speaker:appropriately that, hey, there's going to be adders because we're not there,
Speaker:we don't know what's under the roof. So, hey, here's a price
Speaker:and it could go up. We just want to let you know. So there's one
Speaker:way of handling it. The other way of thinking of it is, you know, no
Speaker:roof is created equal. You know, you're a contractor that wants to give
Speaker:them the accurate pricing and set expectations
Speaker:clearly one time up front and go the extra mile
Speaker:to inspect it, to set yourself apart from the
Speaker:competition locally. Because you got in the attic. And this other guy, I called
Speaker:him, he just sent me an estimate. But you're wanting to get my attic. Why
Speaker:is that? You know, so there's a second way of looking at it is,
Speaker:hey, well, you know, one, we don't want to waste our time, we don't want
Speaker:window shoppers. So we want to make sure that we're going out, getting those
Speaker:multiple touches, building that rapport and the trust through
Speaker:the level of competency and the level of engagement and intentionality
Speaker:that we bring to the inspection to make sure that we're doing it right the
Speaker:first time. It all makes money, it all works. So just, you know,
Speaker:which one do you prefer? And I totally get about having to go out there
Speaker:and see if there's other issues out there and then obviously a face to
Speaker:face being there. Like you said, it's not somebody who's just kind of making
Speaker:phone calls and you, I don't want to say it's a waste of time, but
Speaker:it's just, it takes up a lot of time and you want to make sure
Speaker:that that person is really serious about
Speaker:maybe doing the roof or doing some type of service. And hear that
Speaker:from a lot of people who are in the trades. It's like, okay, somebody's
Speaker:interested in us coming down, but then it's not serious. And
Speaker:I completely understand that, that you don't want to completely just kind of
Speaker:waste these type of hours. So you got to know that the person who's
Speaker:interested in this type of work really wants to actually do it. So
Speaker:I completely understand. There you were talking about before we got
Speaker:on the show, we were doing some technical issues and you had pulled up
Speaker:chatgpt on something. How have you seen the industry
Speaker:change in roofing with AI? And how are you using
Speaker:AI in your business today? We are using
Speaker:AI in four different ways in our business right now.
Speaker:So one way that we're using it is for lead
Speaker:generation, B2B communication and engagement.
Speaker:So like, you know, now the AIs can send 80,000 emails a month, they can
Speaker:do 20,000 calls a month. You know, you can script them out. They're
Speaker:always learning. You get to change the voices, you get to pick all these
Speaker:unique characteristics behind the agents. So you know, we use it for
Speaker:that, right? Because it's able to do way more volume for a way
Speaker:more affordable price. And we've been able to capture more commercial
Speaker:leads and a frickin 90 day window. Then we'd have
Speaker:our whole time being in business. And it's because it's a numbers
Speaker:game and having the tools that can go out and get those numbers that you
Speaker:just are limited because you're human or you're, you don't have enough
Speaker:hiring Power or enough cash flow to sustain a big team,
Speaker:whatever it may be. Another way that we're using it is through
Speaker:analyzing our sales meetings. So when we have
Speaker:our meetings, they're being recorded by AI, and at the end
Speaker:of that, it's transcribing a summary and giving
Speaker:our sales team live time pointers on
Speaker:why they lost the deal, how they could have won the deal,
Speaker:where in the deal that they lost the sale, where they could have
Speaker:advanced, where they could have asked more strategic and qualifying questions.
Speaker:It's kind of like a game film, if you will, for salespeople.
Speaker:So, like these top athletes, the reason why they're able to go out and
Speaker:make this impact on the court is because they're able to watch their
Speaker:film, they're able to review their technique, and
Speaker:at the end of the day, that's what our job is as leaders and as
Speaker:roofers. Like we are sales organizations. Yes, we put on roofs,
Speaker:but at the end of the day, if you can't communicate and get the lead
Speaker:in the funnel, then you're not serving your community. It doesn't matter if
Speaker:you're the best technical roofer that's ever walked the earth, if you
Speaker:don't have the communication skills and technology implemented to
Speaker:help you learn at a faster rate. Because there's young people out there that are
Speaker:using AI and now we're learning like,
Speaker:you know, a very rapid, accelerated pace
Speaker:compared to anyone before us historically. Right.
Speaker:So, you know, that's just two ways that we're using it. But as
Speaker:fast as it's hitting the market, we are reviewing those things.
Speaker:We're doing research on it. Hey, how do we use this? Can it actually help
Speaker:us? Is this a scam? Is this a huge
Speaker:resource? I think a lot of people are lazy to
Speaker:do the research. They're lazy. They're old dogs trying to learn new tricks.
Speaker:They're lazy to exercise their brain muscle and like,
Speaker:get on a computer and work out a technical difficulty or
Speaker:figure out a new system or new software. People are terrified
Speaker:of that. And it's just stupid. It's so beneficial and
Speaker:it helps so much that if you could get through that limiting belief or
Speaker:that procrastination or whatever that is that's stopping you,
Speaker:technology could help you cut your team in half, cut your overhead in half,
Speaker:and add your bottom dollar at the end of the day. So that's just
Speaker:how we're using or some of the ways that we're using. AI currently,
Speaker:AI has been a game changer. And ever since, really ChatGPT came out.
Speaker:I've been all over it, from deep research to Claude, whatever it may
Speaker:be, video editing, highly like engaged. Using it day
Speaker:in, day out where I mean, I use Google, but
Speaker:people are more so going to chat GPT and having a conversation
Speaker:and it can give you an unbiased sort of feedback
Speaker:in real time. And obviously you got to give it the right inputs. You
Speaker:know, from doing your social media to like you said, it's
Speaker:diagnosing your. Your meeting to see how the pulse one to
Speaker:doing interviews and feeding in the transcript and
Speaker:basing it upon does this person meet a criteria of job description and
Speaker:this is person meet a personality from a disc assessment. There's
Speaker:a ton of things that you can do. It's cut so much time.
Speaker:You know, when I use Copilot or it's chat GPT or any of these type
Speaker:of softwares to some degree, I almost feel like I don't have to
Speaker:understand it. ChatGPT does and I feel like I get lost a little
Speaker:bit in a sense. Like some of these things you need to know, but you're
Speaker:almost so reliant on the technology. But that's just kind of where it's going.
Speaker:If businesses do not take advantage of AI, they're going
Speaker:to be passed by, especially with, like you said, the younger generation
Speaker:who's just using it already. The older generation who's
Speaker:still using Google is on Facebook. Just like not really on
Speaker:the cusp of where technology is. You kind of get passed by.
Speaker:I completely agree. It's like being in the gym. You want to stay healthy
Speaker:everywhere. Right. So there's new techniques, there's new
Speaker:technology, there's new ways of doing things all the time. I mean, we live in
Speaker:a world of infinite leverage. Infinite
Speaker:leverage. And people will still come on this podcast and give you excuses on
Speaker:why they're not hitting and smashing their income goals in their
Speaker:scaling and growth goals. Right. So at the end of the day, there's people
Speaker:out there doing it and if you really want it, you'll go do it as
Speaker:well. A lot of time, the biggest limiting factor is yourself. You just need to
Speaker:look in that mirror and, you know, tell that person, shut up, I
Speaker:can do it. And all about a mindset.
Speaker:Now. The tools of the trade. Trenton,
Speaker:this has been an amazing conversation, but in every episode
Speaker:we always ask our guests a tools of the trade.
Speaker:What's one key lesson? Or
Speaker:what was a mindset that really kind of like took you to that
Speaker:next level that you can share with the audience? Yeah, I think a
Speaker:big Turning point for me was to realize that emotions
Speaker:in business is like, you know, business suicide.
Speaker:If you want to self destruct, if you want to
Speaker:completely set yourself back from growth,
Speaker:from networking opportunities, from bringing real value
Speaker:and impact to not just yourself, but your family and your organization,
Speaker:you're going to stay living in your emotions, right? So one thing that my
Speaker:dad taught me at a young age that really started to
Speaker:shape itself in my professional life was my dad would teach
Speaker:me in between. Glad and sad is a neutral
Speaker:zone. And that neutral zone is called business. And so
Speaker:you have to understand that when you are conducting business, it's simply
Speaker:just that I think that a lot of people get really emotional
Speaker:because they take things very, very personally. I know I did. Every
Speaker:time that something didn't go right, it was a personal attack on me and I'm
Speaker:not doing good enough. And look how hard I'm working. It's elementary
Speaker:level leadership skills and elementary level
Speaker:entrepreneurship education. So
Speaker:unless you can really identify that, hey, none of it's personal, and, hey,
Speaker:I don't need to act out of my emotions. My job's just to be objective
Speaker:and factual. Because a lot of times when the crews, when
Speaker:the customer, when the rep is complaining, maybe they're right,
Speaker:maybe they're right. Maybe you need to change something. Maybe something
Speaker:needs to get tweaked. Maybe they have something. So I would say
Speaker:getting out of my emotions and then being really, really open
Speaker:and encouraging feedback from your team in a spirit of
Speaker:collaboration that excelled our business, because it was no
Speaker:longer me at the chalkboard coming up with this great business plan and rolling it
Speaker:out to the team. It's like, okay, I'm gonna come up with this great plan
Speaker:and now I'm gonna bring it to my great team and I'm gonna have everybody
Speaker:poke holes in it, give feedback. This is awesome. Hey, Trenton. This
Speaker:completely sucks. You know, like being humble
Speaker:enough and not emotional to. Because you're not hurting anybody's feelings,
Speaker:you know, you need to be open to getting and encouraging that feedback.
Speaker:And then when you do that, it helps the team have ownership over
Speaker:the process. And they feel heard and they feel valued and
Speaker:they want to stay and they want to contribute and they want to see that
Speaker:vision come to life, right? So I would say those two things.
Speaker:One, realizing that there is a neutral zone that you can
Speaker:mentally travel to, that's called business, where
Speaker:there's no emotions in it at all. And that is like a key.
Speaker:It's like a wizard move. It's almost like magic when you go There because
Speaker:you're bulletproof. So when you're going to that confrontational
Speaker:conversation that you're firing somebody, terminating a rep, maybe you're trying to
Speaker:collect a big check from a customer, guys when they're, you know, vomiting
Speaker:and puking and showing all that emotion, you're able to just be in that
Speaker:neutral zone and listen really, really well and then come
Speaker:with a solution, like an objective plan. Right? And when you do that,
Speaker:it really affects that dialogue and that interaction. And then number
Speaker:two again, just being open and encouraging feedback and having
Speaker:that spirit of collaboration on your team. Because that, my friend,
Speaker:will get them to buy in more, get them to take ownership to where
Speaker:you're not responsible to think for 50 people.
Speaker:Now 50 people are thinking for 50 people. People. That brain power
Speaker:is a lot stronger. Those would be my two pieces of advice.
Speaker:And I love the emotional piece because especially when you're just starting
Speaker:out. I mean, I started out when I was 22, 23. I'm a very
Speaker:different person years later. And that took time to
Speaker:build those skills where maybe
Speaker:when I was younger, I would react first, then think. Now it's
Speaker:think, then react. And that just took time. That took maturity,
Speaker:that took speaking to other people. It is hard sometimes to
Speaker:disconnect. And, you know, to some degree, yes, the emotions are
Speaker:still there, but you're able to control it in a way that even if you're
Speaker:speaking to a customer and they're yelling at you or it's an employee and you
Speaker:have to terminate them, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker:And being at the top and being CEO, being president, being owner,
Speaker:that's not an easy job. It really isn't. And that just takes time in the
Speaker:seat. No one can really teach you that until you kind of go through that
Speaker:and you have experience. One book that really helped me was the Gap and the
Speaker:Gain. And this book kind of like shifted my mindset in a
Speaker:sense that sometimes you're in the gap, you're in really bad head space,
Speaker:and it gives you tips of how to get out of that funk and look
Speaker:at the good side. It was a book that really helped me a lot. But
Speaker:I do think talking to people, being in a leadership or
Speaker:business group of some sort, speaking with other people in different
Speaker:industries, and just being open and honest that you don't know everything.
Speaker:And I always say it's the things you
Speaker:don't know that hurt. You get around other people with positive
Speaker:mindsets, and that's going to really take you to the next level. If
Speaker:people want to find out more about you Trenton Social Media website Where do they
Speaker:go? Yep, so you can check me out on IG
Speaker:at Trenton Wisecopy. I'd love to connect with
Speaker:any of your followers or any of the fans here on this podcast if
Speaker:they'd like to learn a little bit more about some of our sales
Speaker:approaches, some of our leadership approaches and things like that. And
Speaker:then also I have a consulting business, it's called Empower Me
Speaker:Consulting and you can find it at empowerme consulting. Com
Speaker:and then also my personal website trentonwisecup.com
Speaker:so you can reach me on any of those three spots and love to
Speaker:connect with anybody that is has the time to do so. Trenton,
Speaker:it's been great to having you on the show and thank you for all your
Speaker:input. Definitely good value to the audience today. Thank you very much.
Speaker:Thank you for having me on Mr. Brown and we'll talk to you later my
Speaker:friend and thank you to our listeners. If you want more valuable insights and trades
Speaker:related information, head over to Andrew brown dot net and join our
Speaker:Trades Movement newsletter where we advocate for the trades, share
Speaker:inspirational stories. Like Trenton, we provide resources and you
Speaker:join a passionate trades community. Don't forget to subscribe to the
Speaker:podcast so you never miss another episode. We'll see you next time.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to the lost art of the skilled trades. Visit
Speaker:us@AndrewBrown.net for more resources and tips.
Speaker:Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives
Speaker:as we celebrate our men and women in this skill trades and shape
Speaker:the future together.
