How To Exponentially Grow Your Business Using Connection, Personalization & Integrity With Josh Bickle. (#101) — Transcript
Updated: Oct 26
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 101
Dustin Serviss speaks with roofing business owner Josh Bickle about growing companies through relationships, integrity and personal service. They discuss managing teams, taking over a struggling business and the realities of ownership.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Chapters
[00:00:09] Introducing Josh and the roofing businesses
[00:04:41] Moving west and starting again
[00:07:46] Trusting the people on site
[00:12:58] Retention and the long game
[00:16:55] Changing the roofing stereotype
[00:21:04] Quotes, paperwork and capacity
[00:25:06] Managing employee challenges
[00:28:12] Business premises and real estate
[00:32:52] Investing in the acquired business
[00:40:52] Local reputation and online presence
Guest & resources
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Josh Bickle: But we took it over, and he was generating negative three hundred grand a year
[00:00:03] Dustin Serviss: Really?
[00:00:04] Josh Bickle: Which was a shocker when I saw it. My wife kinda looked at me like, what did you do sort of thing.
[00:00:09] Dustin Serviss: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth or TPOW as we call it. I am your host, Dustin Service. That is the voice owner of Standard Roofing and Integrity Roofing, which are a residential roofing company and a commercial roofing company. So, as you can imagine, he has a team of over forty people and managing forty people, a lot of them in the field and a lot of them of younger age demographic. He has a few challenges to work through. Weather, he's got people gone sick, schedules, shortages of material. We get into everything in this podcast that has led to the success of his business and what he is up to in the future with property development.
[00:00:47] Dustin Serviss: And again, he's a guy who I've known for a long time, but, wanted on the show for a while and he's a guy who I CrossFit with, for the last year. A true leader, a true inspirer, for businesses, and, great community involvement. Tons of work with the community and giving back. And, again, a real class act. And most recently won a Dancing with the Stars show with his wife, Joanna. And, so, again, behind, the full sleeve tattoos, the rough blue collar lifestyle at work. He's a very diverse individual. I'll just put it that way. So without further ado, Josh Bickle. I'm excited today to have Josh Bickle on the show today.
[00:01:21] Dustin Serviss: We are in my home studio, and, Josh is a CrossFit, workout partner and a business associate from Salmon Arm. So, this is a great local representation. And, listener, if you are, running a business with, you know, multiple employees and lots of moving parts, this is one you're gonna wanna tune into because there is, a number of things we're gonna uncover today. Josh, thanks a lot for being on the show.
[00:01:44] Josh Bickle: Thanks, Dustin. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you.
[00:01:47] Dustin Serviss: This is great because you know me, fairly well. So you might be able to throw some challenge back at me, and I'm I'm open to, some some, some grinding along the way. So...
[00:01:56] Josh Bickle: I look forward to it.
[00:01:57] Dustin Serviss: So, Josh, warm us up. Integrity Roofing, Standing Roof... Standard Roofing, what, what are these businesses that you're running right now?
[00:02:06] Josh Bickle: Long story short, they're both... One's a residential roofing company. We do primarily, shingles, steep slope roofing, gutters, soffit, and then standard roofing is more commercial industrial, flat roofing applications, TPO, more bigger commercial industrial kinda things.
[00:02:21] Dustin Serviss: So when someone, like, wakes up and says, you know, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur, today or starting today, roofing is probably not something that comes to someone's mind. So how does that come about?
[00:02:33] Josh Bickle: Honestly, it kinda fell in my lap. I had a buddy from high school that want to get out of his house. And at the time, I had, rentals at the university I was attending. So he moved in with me. And, he was at a bar one night, met a contractor. Contractor needed a roof. He approached me for some money for some tools to do the roof, so no problem. Then he asked him to do another roof and another roof. So he needed a truck and equipment at that point. So I'm like, well, if I'm finding this thing, I'll I'll learn what I can, and we'll we'll do it together. So that's kinda where it started.
[00:03:02] Dustin Serviss: Is that... Is is luck find you, like, normally in life, or is that just something that happens at one time?
[00:03:09] Josh Bickle: Well, if you're in the trades long enough, you you kinda wonder if this is what you should have done. But like I said, I was young, and it was an opportunity. Roofing is a very, physically intense job. You're dealing with the elements, the sun, not to mention the weight of the materials, the height, the ropes, all that kind of stuff that go with it. So if I had to do it again, I would I? I don't know. But it worked out.
[00:03:33] Dustin Serviss: Does your wallet think you should do something different?
[00:03:35] Josh Bickle: I think my wallet's pretty happy right now. Yes.
[00:03:38] Dustin Serviss: So okay, so we're backing it up, getting it going. You've got, how many years ago was that?
[00:03:44] Josh Bickle: That would have been, eight... No. Shit. That would have been about when I was twenty two, I believe.
[00:03:52] Dustin Serviss: Twenty one years ago?
[00:03:53] Josh Bickle: Yes. That's about right.
[00:03:55] Dustin Serviss: So twenty one years ago, you lend us some tools. And then... But this isn't... Like, that was in Ontario.
[00:04:01] Josh Bickle: That was in Ontario. So, I was with that partner for... I I think we were at it for about a year. And then, honestly, partners are difficult. We both had completely contrasting ideas of what should be done, where the money should be allocated, and that kind of nature. So that that relationship fell apart. I did have a second partner. We... That one worked for about a year and a half. Same kind of issues happened, and, I was gonna hang up my tool pouch and get on to something else. At the time, it was in rentals as well. But my wife said, what do you need a partner for? Why don't you just go out of that on your own?
[00:04:34] Josh Bickle: So I thought that was a good idea. I was kinda nervous doing something on your own, like, because you're a hundred percent accountable for everything that you do. Right.
[00:04:40] Dustin Serviss: So that
[00:04:41] Josh Bickle: was, a bit of a fear that I got over. But, it also worked out because at that time, we moved across the country to British Columbia from Ontario and, started from scratch with what I had learned with my previous two partners and kinda hit the ground running. So the landing in Salmon Arm, probably at that
[00:04:59] Dustin Serviss: time, there would've been, like, thirteen thousand, fourteen thousand people. It... And you just thought, I'll just start knocking on doors and start a roofing company? Or how did that work?
[00:05:09] Josh Bickle: Well, I was living with my uncle out in Blind Bay, and, I met up with a contractor. I drove by his job site and stopped and said, hey. Do you have a roofing contractor? He's like, actually, I don't. But he was only at the floor stage of the project. So he's like, if you wanna help me finish framing the house, I'll give you the roof. So I was like, alright. So, that's kinda where that progressed in Blind Bay. And then I did... I'm very... I guess you could say I'm social. So I did go out in town and try try to introduce myself to whoever I could. I joined a boxing club, just to kinda get my face out there, and
[00:05:41] Josh Bickle: that's where I started meeting other people. And then I landed a a bigger contractor in town to try me out. And, yeah. He told his contractor buddies, and one thing kinda led into another. And it it grow... It grew substantially since then.
[00:05:55] Dustin Serviss: So where where are we at? So Pick Integrity Roofing, which is the residential. How many people... Or what's what's the, like... How's the sky... The size... Without getting into numbers, what's the size of, like, a a roofing company? How do you gauge, like, how much work it is or how big it is?
[00:06:12] Josh Bickle: So let me try to understand your question. So you're asking, like, how did we grow to where we are now?
[00:06:18] Dustin Serviss: How many people do you manage? Like, right now?
[00:06:20] Josh Bickle: At this time... At this point. So between the two companies, it's probably just under forty. Each... Call it split in half, eighteen apiece. Right. Would be about accurate.
[00:06:29] Dustin Serviss: And so you have... And, again, you mentioned it of, like, people outside. Like, when I envision this business or when we coach people in in business, it's... This isn't a very static business. This isn't forty people sitting in an office, and you need to buy them a computer. You have a lot of moving parts in infrastructure
[00:06:42] Josh Bickle: Yes.
[00:06:43] Dustin Serviss: And risk. Yes. So how how do you manage that? Is it
[00:06:47] Josh Bickle: well another person? A a lot of it happened, dynamically as we grew. So I was always a big reader when I was younger with, self help books and that kind of stuff. So I was always taught to kinda reinvest in what you're doing, and that's where you're gonna get your greatest returns. So when I was... When we moved to town and it was just me and, actually, my wife was doing the books, and sometimes she'd actually come help me clean up on job sites, I I was very diligent about writing down my tasks every day. So I knew that if I grew, I'd have to pass some of those tasks down. So I had a clear outline of what I was doing every day, so
[00:07:19] Josh Bickle: what I could allocate to the new guy. And then my job was always constantly changing, so I was kinda figuring it out as we went. So, from one crew to three crews is probably the biggest changes I had to encounter because now you have people in charge of the jobs that wasn't necessarily me
[00:07:37] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:07:37] Josh Bickle: That I had to teach them. Sometimes people do things differently. So I had to teach them the way I wanted it done so I knew that every job was being done the same way.
[00:07:46] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:07:46] Josh Bickle: So if there was an issue, I could diagnose it pretty quickly. And also just to make sure that everybody had the same mentality on how you treat your clients because that's huge too. You can have a fantastic tradesman that's a complete douchebag for a lack of a better term. So you have to make sure whoever you're leaving on those sites is able to represent you and your brand accordingly. So that was tough for me because I was very, hands on. I wanted to be the guy on-site. I wanted to know every shingle how it was put down. So to to let go of that was very difficult for me. And my wife was kind of included on that because it got to the
[00:08:25] Josh Bickle: point where it was seven days a week, sixteen hours a day, sunrise to sundown. There was paperwork all night and it was, needless to say. Our our marriage was struggling for a while there. Yeah. Then we had a child, and things kinda grew from there. So she kinda put her foot down and said, you know what? If this is what's happening, something's gotta change or else this isn't gonna work. So a lot of it came down to our relationship. So I scaled down from seven days a week to six days a week to five days a week, had a second child. So then I was like, I want to be there more for my my kids' growth, so I try to get home around two or three now.
[00:08:59] Josh Bickle: So
[00:08:59] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. I was gonna ask about that because I think it's important. And so I got two questions coming up. So the first one along the lines of when you started delegating things. So listener, if you're in your business thinking I need, you know, I need... I'm not balanced. I need to find some scale. Was there times where you empowered somebody to do something and they did it wrong? You know, those early days. And then how did you kinda stick handle your way through that?
[00:09:23] Josh Bickle: What I noticed from talking to other guys in the trades as well is everybody wants to get big quick. And I don't think that's realistic in the trades. So, I definitely had conflicts with some of my guys. Some of the things they were doing weren't the way it was told. So you you learn a lot about you and how you're supposed to, treat people because nobody's gonna be just like you. Everybody has different strengths. Everybody has different weaknesses. So, I had to adjust my mindset from thinking everybody can do it the exact same way I do to kind of giving people a little bit of the benefit of the doubt saying, okay, you're gonna
[00:09:58] Josh Bickle: do it a little bit differently. In the end, you get the same result. Would it be the way I do it? Maybe not.
[00:10:03] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:10:03] Josh Bickle: But as long as the quality is there, the client was happy, we were able to navigate the personality differences. So that part of it was huge. And again, once we moved to a a bigger kinda point in the business where I was essentially off the tools, that was... I had to train everybody to the point where they could completely run a site from a to b without me on-site, while I was in the office trying to handle with all the paperwork, and then you get the office staff side side of things. So kinda back to what I said at the beginning, I did write down what I did every day. So everybody was gradually taking on more and more as the company grew.
[00:10:45] Josh Bickle: So the guys that started with me, some of them are still with me now, and they've moved up the ladder as well. And it's kind of grown dynamically that way with my role constantly changing and then just delegating a little bit more as things go up.
[00:11:00] Dustin Serviss: Is there one sort of specific story or book or something that that helps you pass on those messages to people? Like, when you're trying to empower someone and trying to empower, a staff member, is there anything that you're always gonna come back to? Is there a website? You use a tool or you just think in your head, you know, just pick up your shit and get going and just do it like I do? Or is... What is... What's the the motivation? Because you do have some long term stuff. And so it obviously says something for for the culture.
[00:11:32] Josh Bickle: So culture is a big thing for us. This may not be what you're looking for for an answer, but, roofers, drywallers, a lot of trades are pretty, transient businesses. You got a lot of guys that come and go. Sometimes they have criminal problems or tax problems. But what I realized is a lot of times people just want a place to belong. So, we started out with t shirts and some of these guys that would work for us get a t shirt and they're over the moon. I'm like, what what... Like I can't believe how happy you are for having a t shirt. He's like, I've never had a t shirt from a company I work at and they were so pumped.
[00:12:05] Josh Bickle: So then that kinda resonated with me. I'm like, okay. So they just want a place to be. So then we went as far as getting business cards. So if they're on a site and somebody comes by, like, here's my card. And they over the moon. Like, it's just things to make them part of the business. Also staff meetings are important, like, people are great when you tell them what to do, but people also like to be heard as well.
[00:12:26] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:12:26] Josh Bickle: And a lot of the times, they had ideas I didn't have. So, like, how do we improve customer service? How do we improve the speed of the job? How do we ensure that the job site's as good as it was when we left? Like... And all those kind of variables that go along with taking a job from the beginning to the end. So once you start working as a team, again, that whole thing is reinforced that I'm part of something. We also did get involved in, like, profit sharing. We do piece work as well. So Right. There's a lot of, like, incentives we have built into it. And a lot of people, like, you know, my...
[00:12:58] Josh Bickle: Like, some some of my competition, why would you do that? Blah blah blah blah blah. But the long game is kind of what I always thought to focus on. So if you can retain the guys that are great and they can train the way you've trained them to other people, the the whole thing grows almost on its own. Like, I'm at the point where I can... Between the two companies, I can work two, three hours a day if I want.
[00:13:19] Dustin Serviss: Right. So... So in the in the... In a plug for the trades, because I think it's... There there needs to be a little bit more promotion that there can be sexy things. Like, a hardworking roofer, like, how much would they make in a day? Like, I guess maybe their hourly, but pick an average, like, in the middle. Their hours lead different.
[00:13:36] Josh Bickle: Some of our guys by the hour are, like, thirty to thirty seven kinda range.
[00:13:39] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:13:40] Josh Bickle: Some of our piece work guys on the shingle stuff, like, if they go for it, they can make over five hundred bucks a day. Right. But they're working for it. Right.
[00:13:47] Dustin Serviss: And
[00:13:47] Josh Bickle: you look at these guys, and they're jacked. They're in good shape. They got great suntans, like... And honestly, if you have the right kind of culture with it, they have fun. Yeah. Like, they have the music on, they're singing to Kelly Clarkson with each other. Like, it's it's it's ridiculous, but it's it's fun. Like, it's Yeah. It's it's it's kinda neat to be at different job sites every day too. Right. A lot of guys that are in manufacturing, for example, they're stuck in the same building doing the same thing day in, day out. Right. So there is a little bit more ability to see different places.
[00:14:15] Josh Bickle: Some of the places we do on the lake are just beautiful. Yeah. Give you a different perspective on things, and you meet a lot of people.
[00:14:21] Dustin Serviss: Right. And so in in going... Kind of finishing on my second question, which was, you know, when you decided to go home at two PM on average, during the week, Was there, like, an email that came in and said, okay, Josh, you know, you're approved for two PM? Or, like, I know your motivation why you had to do it. But how did it actually roll out in practice?
[00:14:42] Josh Bickle: I just kinda set that number in my head. Like, if you're a nine to five kinda guy, you know, four fifty five, I gotta get home in five minutes or whatever the the story may be. So I just kinda set that and plan my day around it. So I do go in early. If I'm particularly busy, I'll go in at four, four thirty in the morning sometimes to get through my paperwork. But generally, I just kinda plan my day like that or plan my week like that. But being the trades, you can't necessarily plan everything. Like, I'll have a day set up the night before and then come eight AM, that whole plan is out the window because there's an emergency on that
[00:15:12] Josh Bickle: site and the material didn't show up to that site. So Right. It's a very dynamic process that is constantly changing. So you gotta adapt. You gotta be able to keep your customers in the loop. Like, we got delays for x, y, and zed reason. We'll be there, hopefully, on this day. Yeah. And, like, honestly, with the customer side of things, as long as you're clear and open and honest about what's happening, people are understanding. They just wanna know what's going on. They wanna be in the loop.
[00:15:37] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. And what... Like, would... Do you know what the market share you have in the in the region is?
[00:15:44] Josh Bickle: I'd I'd probably say upwards of eighty eighty five percent. Yeah. We built a lot of long standing relationships with contractors in the area, which is huge because they're your repeat clients.
[00:15:55] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:15:56] Josh Bickle: When I moved to town, some of the roofers in town didn't care who they're working with and didn't give anybody special treatment.
[00:16:03] Dustin Serviss: Like Right.
[00:16:03] Josh Bickle: With contractors, whatever they need, we're there because a lot of their jobs are hung up on, these roof. You have a roof. You can't do your electrical. You can't insulate. You can't do anything. The job is pretty much at a standstill. So we've always been good at catering to our contractors. We deal with insurance companies. Realtors are phenomenal. Yeah. Because they see houses every day. The house needs a roof. Call Josh. He'll take care of you. So, honestly, I don't remember what your question was.
[00:16:30] Dustin Serviss: Well, no. You're you're answering it because it's just like... Just for listener getting relativity to what what sort of your mind operates like. Because, again, you know, we're in a small town. You got one or two of the great businesses in town. And and so I think we should share that and help, you know, for a listener that's, trying to grow grow... Growing. This is this is good. This is good information.
[00:16:55] Josh Bickle: Yeah. The thing too is, again, the whole roofer had that stigma about it. Like, it's roofers, drywall. There's a lot of trades have these negative stigmas. And when my wife and I kinda went out on our own, it's like, what are the stigmas? What are the stereotypes? What can we do to change that perspective? So we are very good at the basics. And the basics are calling people back when you say you're gonna call back.
[00:17:16] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. Get
[00:17:17] Josh Bickle: them a quote when you say they're gonna get them a quote. Do the quote for the price you said you're gonna do the quote for. Do it when you were gonna do the job. Like, follow-up when the job is done to make sure they're happy. Like, this basics, really basic stuff that is time consuming, sometimes boring, but it's necessary to have that kind of mutual respect between your client and you. And also jobs that don't go our way, we don't get them. I'll call those people and say, hey, I realized we didn't get your job and that's totally fine. I just like to know why. Yeah. And people are always... Most of the time, they're open about it.
[00:17:48] Josh Bickle: Oh, I had a friend that knows a guy so we hired him or me and my brother did it, or the price was too high. We had a competitor that was lower. And honestly, I don't believe in being the lowest price contractor out there. Yeah. So...
[00:18:00] Dustin Serviss: Now you're delivering value. And so is is there anything that you've picked up from those calls that you've had to change?
[00:18:08] Josh Bickle: Oh, a hundred percent. Hundred percent. A lot of them come down to... I I noticed when things started rolling a lot and I felt that I was kinda stretched, like, I'm sure everybody that's growing goes through that point where they're like, I don't know how I'm gonna possibly fit all this in one day without pissing off four people. So when you get to those stages, sometimes a lot of the the basics kinda goes under the under the wayside, if you will. So, I found when I was at those points in my life, I realized something wasn't going the way it should go. So what do I need to do to change it?
[00:18:41] Josh Bickle: So either that would be changing a system we have to make things easier, delegating something to another guy that has more time on his plate, hiring potentially, a different office person or a different position, like a controller versus an admin person that can take these tasks to ensure they're getting done so that I don't have to worry about it. So that was always something that has resonated with me is I was always the gauge of when things needed to change. Because I was getting overwhelmed. I knew something wasn't right and something had to change. Finding out what needed to be changed was sometimes the difficult part.
[00:19:16] Josh Bickle: But, again, as you know, you you talk to people. I have a lot of older, gentlemen that have... Not necessarily in the trades, but business guys that have made it. And the the input I get from those guys is amazing.
[00:19:27] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:19:27] Josh Bickle: Like, little tips and tricks that they failed on or succeeded on And how to... Mastermind principles. Yeah. How to utilize those to to your own business. And kind of, mistakes and things that you do wrong, those are the... What you learn from the most.
[00:19:42] Dustin Serviss: How do you gauge... So you kinda said, you know, you're recognizing your bottlenecks, and then now you've got managers in the office. And do you act now on their saying, oh, I'm getting overwhelmed? You know, and then I need to get you an assistant. And then when you look at like the work load, you're like, hey, man. Like, pull up your jog strap. Like, I could do way more than that. Like, how do you gauge honoring... Because in the office, that's a cost center. Yep. Right? I know it's leverage, but it's... You're taking money out of, like, the profit to put back in there to make it easier. So Yep. Do you look at those...
[00:20:13] Dustin Serviss: The managers and go, hey. Like, okay. I'm gonna get you an assistant, but you better generate
[00:20:18] Josh Bickle: Yep. Yeah. So the guys in the office cost me money. The guys in the field make me money. Yeah. So that's kinda how it works. So we're we're kind of in a smaller neighborhood up here or geographical area. So we've kind of reached our market cap in terms of what the demographic can use for roofers.
[00:20:33] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:20:34] Josh Bickle: So where I'm at now, like I said, we have a pretty strong market share. The way we're set up, I don't really need to grow or change too much to maintain. I'm not much of a maintainer though because I always feel like if you're not growing, you're falling behind kinda attitude. So I'm all at that transition of my life right now. Well, what's the next step? But when my guys do get overwhelmed, yes, you're right. It's kinda like, come on, man. I used to do this by myself. You can do this or I'll help. Like, again, all the times I only need to work two, three hours a day.
[00:21:04] Josh Bickle: In spring, especially, you know, we do home shows and stuff to generate leads, and we'll have big influx of quotes to do. So I got, two guys at Standard that can help me do with quotes. Integrity, we have a great manager that does a lot of the quotes, and then there's me. So I can do do it all. So Right. Whichever company is struggling behind, I'll go jump on the roofs and measure them up and see what I can do to help. Same with the paperwork. We do a lot of contractors who send PDFs. So I don't know about you, but sitting in the office all day looking at computer screens is.
[00:21:35] Dustin Serviss: Well, I don't love it, but I I do spend a lot of time here. So it's, it's different, but you have people that manage the PDFs and all the stuff.
[00:21:43] Josh Bickle: Well, yes. Two degrees. So, again, my guys that have moved up have... Were on the tools originally. So they like being outdoors. They like working.
[00:21:49] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:21:50] Josh Bickle: So after ten jobs on their... On the PDFs, they get a little bit old. So I'll jump in and do it with them. Like, it's Yeah. I have no problems doing what needs to get done. If we're overwhelmed by a job, I'll stop by. I'll throw my tool pouch once in a while. Not very often. Yeah. If the roof needs to get loaded, I'll go load it. Like, Right. I'm not averse to not doing things that need to get done. But again, it is very hips and valleys. So spring, it ramps up. Summer, it kinda plateaus.
[00:22:18] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:22:18] Josh Bickle: Fall ramps up. Winter slows down.
[00:22:20] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:22:20] Josh Bickle: So you kind of expect when those trends will come and how to kinda, like, get ready for it. And we all kinda know that now.
[00:22:27] Dustin Serviss: What I hear often in the blue collar kinda sector is, like, well, if if I'm not in the office, you know, first in, last out, then, like, my guys won't respect me. And, you know, how how... Like, how could I ever stop work at two PM?
[00:22:40] Josh Bickle: You
[00:22:40] Dustin Serviss: know, listener, you're looking, scratching, and like, well, I could never do that, or I could never take a Friday off. How how did you position that to them? Like, obviously, if you're getting up early, you could maybe say I'm working eight hours. But did you specifically talk to them? Was I, listen, I am available by cell phone, but, two, I'm out of here.
[00:23:00] Josh Bickle: Honestly, I am a I am a big proponent of being there before anybody else. So I generally try to get there half hour to an hour before the guys are in, and then I can review their paperwork from the day before, look at what we're supposed to do that day, make adjustments for the weather.
[00:23:13] Dustin Serviss: Free time.
[00:23:14] Josh Bickle: Anybody in the trades is also gonna understand that, oh, my dog's sick. I can't come in. Oh, I've got to play with my girlfriend. I'm not coming in. Yeah. I'm late because of x, y, and z. So in the morning, that's when ninety percent of the problems happen, and that's when all the schedules need to be organized, revised, changed, whatever whatever the thing may be. In terms of leaving at two, I always have my phone on me. Like, honestly, I turn off my ringer at ten PM. I don't answer it any time of the day because things need to get done.
[00:23:40] Dustin Serviss: People who
[00:23:41] Josh Bickle: I should talk to, if there's an emergency, I can easily jump in my truck and get down there. But for the most part, once the guys are on-site, they wanna put in their eight to ten hours that day. When they're done for the day, they just go back to the shop, park the truck, and drive home. Like, there's not too much feedback they need from me at the end of the day. Right. And in the mornings, supervisors always come in. We have a little recap what happened the day before. If they've done a job, they tell me the complications or the unexpected things or everything went fine.
[00:24:07] Josh Bickle: Sign off on their paperwork, check their safety stuff, make sure it's all there before we file it and invoice it.
[00:24:12] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:24:13] Josh Bickle: So most of my morning, the chaos is... That's when it is.
[00:24:17] Dustin Serviss: I just said that you're off topic, but how... What is the most common reason that people don't come in? Listener, if you're a business owner, you know, this is a real thing just sort of nowadays.
[00:24:26] Josh Bickle: I I I remember when we didn't have texting or any of that stuff, and you had to pick up the phone and call.
[00:24:31] Dustin Serviss: Your boss.
[00:24:31] Josh Bickle: Yeah. You had to call your boss, and that was terrifying. So you had to be sick. I think it's almost too easy now.
[00:24:37] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. I
[00:24:37] Josh Bickle: don't wanna speak out of turn, but a lot of the younger group these days doesn't seem to have the ethic that we had when we were younger. I'm sure our generation said that about
[00:24:46] Dustin Serviss: us too.
[00:24:47] Josh Bickle: The most common one is I'm not coming in today because my x, y, and zed. It's always some ridiculous thing that I'm Right. Have a dentist appointment at two. I'm like, well, couldn't you work till noon? Yeah. And I just stopped having those battles. I'm like, if you don't wanna work, that's fine.
[00:25:02] Dustin Serviss: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Josh Bickle: And I just deal with it. I don't take it personally. I used to get really fired up.
[00:25:06] Dustin Serviss: I bet.
[00:25:06] Josh Bickle: It's all about my schedule, and you're screwing up my schedule. Yeah. You're messing that up for my client. You're putting that job behind. But I've gotten to the point where it's just like... I don't wanna say I'm jaded by it, but it's like, it is what it is. What am I gonna gain from fighting them or arguing with them? Yeah. Employees are hard to get, and my guys are all fantastic.
[00:25:25] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:25:26] Josh Bickle: And everybody's got different tolerances on how much they can work, how much they wanna work, or how much heat they can endure, how much cold they can endure. Yeah. So there's there's so many different aspects that go on in people's lives and how they can manage not even... Not only the physical stuff, but also, like, the mental stuff of what we're doing day in, day out.
[00:25:44] Dustin Serviss: For for any realtor listener, what is, like, what is the most common thing you see in a roof that's a problem or, maybe someone thinks it's a problem, but it's not? Like, if there's some moss on the roof, is that like, oh my god. That's a major problem. Like, I'm trying to think for realtors adding value or, listener, if you are a realtor, you know, what what would that be that we could help?
[00:26:05] Josh Bickle: Well, like I said, we deal with contractors, realtors, and insurance companies. Realtors are phenomenal because they see a lot of homes. They have a lot of people ask them a lot of questions. They deal with home inspectors and all that stuff of that nature. Realtors are very good at calling me and saying, hey, could you mind stopping by this house? We're concerned because of things you mentioned, it has moss, or we're not sure how old it is. Can you just assess the conditions so I can let my client know so we can make an informed decision about our offer?
[00:26:34] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:26:35] Josh Bickle: But but, yeah, the biggest thing is probably moss because people assume the roof's shot...
[00:26:38] Dustin Serviss: Especially in this region. Oh, for sure.
[00:26:40] Josh Bickle: Yeah. And on the shaded side of the house, it... It's a little bit more prone to moss. But you can put laundry detergent on it, it kills the moss, and the roof's fine.
[00:26:47] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:26:47] Josh Bickle: Other times it's leaks or there's stains in the ceilings that may or may not be from the current roof. So a lot of it's just kind of investigative stuff to give people clarity of mind, I guess, before they commit to something. Because a roof can be five grand to forty grand depending on your house sort of thing. Right? So...
[00:27:04] Dustin Serviss: What's the grossest thing you found in, like, an attic or when you resheated a roof? It was like...
[00:27:08] Josh Bickle: We, I don't wanna say where, but we were in the area, and there was a cedar roof. We had to... When you do a cedar roof, you take the cedar off, and then there's strapping, and then you sheet the roof and then shingle it.
[00:27:18] Dustin Serviss: Okay.
[00:27:18] Josh Bickle: So we pulled off all the the cedar, and there was the biggest porno collection we've ever seen, like, boxes and boxes of porno.
[00:27:26] Dustin Serviss: In the attic?
[00:27:27] Josh Bickle: In the attic. And there was even, like, a platform there. Oh, gross. Like, it was two or three sheets of plywood with, like, a little kinda lounger couch, like,
[00:27:37] Dustin Serviss: Yeah. I grew up.
[00:27:37] Josh Bickle: It was hilarious, but kinda And then you gotta get off the roof and look this guy in the eyes. Oh, yeah. Things are going great.
[00:27:44] Dustin Serviss: Well, he's... Yeah. Because he maybe is not a big owner, though.
[00:27:47] Josh Bickle: I don't know. He was home. And then, like, with cedar, like, if you're in the business, some of those cedar shakes will fall into the attic. So it's kinda like Gotta go in there again. Yeah. It's like... Yeah. So it was... Some... Sometimes it's awkward.
[00:27:59] Dustin Serviss: I was thinking bats and all sorts of
[00:28:01] Josh Bickle: other stuff. Bats, dead raccoons, like birds, cats.
[00:28:04] Dustin Serviss: Like Yeah.
[00:28:04] Josh Bickle: There's a lot of stuff like that or just mold. Sometimes some things you uncover are just like pretty nasty. But, yeah, the porn collection was pretty impressive.
[00:28:12] Dustin Serviss: That's a that's a classic. So I'm I'm gonna pivot to now. And you kinda mentioned it as, like, your business is running well. You know, real estate's a part of your program. It's been a part of sort of the ownership in your current companies. But help us understand sort of your vision for real estate going forward. Like, what is... You know, you know, maybe help us understand your... How you acquired the buildings that you you operate out of because that's, I think, important.
[00:28:39] Josh Bickle: Like, when I started... Like, when I was in university, and like I said, my buddy came to live with me. At the time, I had four rental houses. So I've always been in kind of the residential rental business on that side of it. And then as I, the business grew, we had to rent a shop, obviously, because we had dump trucks, pickup trucks, inventory. We had some metal breaking equipment. We needed an office. So the way things moved, we moved up. And, my landlord at the time was an older gentleman. I just kinda said, hey. If you're ever interested in selling, I'd I'd be interested.
[00:29:11] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:29:11] Josh Bickle: But that was it. And a couple years later, he's like, I'm gonna sell. Do you wanna buy it? And I was like, absolutely. Yeah. So that side of things kinda just, I wanna say, flowed naturally. Like, I just planted the seed and Right. When he was ready, he he pulled the trigger. It was a little bit more complicated than that. Like, residential stuff is pretty straightforward. This building was owned by his company, so I... It was a share sale. So there's a lot of stuff I had to learn because it is different. The liabilities, all the kinda things that I didn't know about, I was kinda forced to learn about.
[00:29:43] Dustin Serviss: Like what?
[00:29:45] Josh Bickle: Well, his holding company owned it. Or, sorry, his operating company owned it, and he used to sell sawmills. Okay.
[00:29:50] Dustin Serviss: He
[00:29:50] Josh Bickle: hadn't sold them in ten years. But theoretically, if somebody had a problem with the sawmill and came after him, they'd be ultimately coming after me Yeah.
[00:29:58] Dustin Serviss: Because I had
[00:29:58] Josh Bickle: to acquire the shares of his company. So technically, I was the company. So we had to keep... I think it was only a year or two we had to maintain that company. Yeah. And then we moved the building over to a holding company. But he also... That company also owned a lot, a residential house. We had to work in money in the bank account for his tax purposes. Like, there was way more to it than I was expecting.
[00:30:21] Dustin Serviss: Yeah.
[00:30:22] Josh Bickle: But in the long run, it worked out. We ended up selling the lot to a friend of ours, Shane, there.
[00:30:26] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:30:27] Josh Bickle: The house we rented for a period of time, and then we sold the house. So everything was a net positive on that deal. And then, again, like, I don't know about you, but it's like a lot of businesses or people get opportunities from who they know, not necessarily what you know. Yeah. So, our industrial park's not very big, and I know most of the guys in there. So they knew I bought the building. I... The guy across the street came over a couple years later and said, hey. I'm selling my building. Would you be interested? Absolutely. Yeah. And so we bought that building. And then when we bought, we bought it standard roofing, which is
[00:31:01] Josh Bickle: a commercial building.
[00:31:02] Dustin Serviss: Right. Commercial...
[00:31:04] Josh Bickle: Commercial business. Sorry. Yeah. Commercial roofing business. Yeah. And that that was the same same kind of thing with the business side of it. Like, the owner at the time approached me and said, hey. Would you be interested in buying our business? So they were kind of a comp... Competitor, but, like, we were night and day above them.
[00:31:19] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:31:20] Josh Bickle: But they did have this accreditation called DRCBC that I was interested in getting. So it made sense. It kinda turned out to be a schmozzle. He was never completely transparent on how the, the financials actually looked.
[00:31:34] Dustin Serviss: Oh, okay.
[00:31:35] Josh Bickle: So when we took it over and... Like, I kinda... I knew the business well enough to know that whatever it is, I'll be able to fix it.
[00:31:42] Dustin Serviss: Right. Because
[00:31:42] Josh Bickle: I knew his staff, I knew his trucks, I knew a lot of his clientele because he was doing more, industrial commercial stuff than I was at the time. Right. So I knew he had the ability to run a business, and I knew the business model was there. But we took it over and he was generating negative three hundred grand a year. Really? Which was a shocker when I saw it. And my wife kinda looked at me like, what did you do sort of thing. But what was done was done. So we had to... Honestly, we just took a lot of the systems that we had built across the street at Integrity and applied them to that.
[00:32:13] Josh Bickle: Their staff was obviously really reluctant when we took over. Like, who's this guy? What's gonna happen? Do I have a job? Right. This is gonna suck. And, honestly, we had a big meeting......
[00:32:21] Dustin Serviss: Them down? Yeah.
[00:32:22] Josh Bickle: That's exactly what we did. I... The day I took over, we had a meeting in the shop. So this is who I am. This is what we do across the street. After walking around the yard, the trucks were kinda decrepit. The yard was a disaster. The office was Right. A shit show. Like, the guy was taking calls from fax machines. Like, it was, like, it was it was pretty bad. And I think once I sat down with them and told them what my vision was, what I thought we could do, what I wanted to change, and then we had a hour long talk, like, what do you guys wanna see different? Like, what would you wanna do differently?
[00:32:52] Josh Bickle: So after that meeting, I think everybody was much more... I don't wanna say, like, onboard, but they were feeling a little better. But then when we started getting rid of the old trucks and getting the new equipment and painting the office
[00:33:03] Dustin Serviss: Got their attention.
[00:33:04] Josh Bickle: Organizing the yard, they're like, alright. This this could be good.
[00:33:07] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:33:07] Josh Bickle: So the funny thing is their their their main guy at the time told me that the previous owner would lay them off, but he wouldn't really tell them. They'd show up for work one day and there'd be a sign on the door saying I'll call you in the spring. No notice. No nothing. It was ridiculous. And, you know, a lot of things that guy did, I was like, oh, that's that's interesting. Like,
[00:33:26] Dustin Serviss: And so in the in the... Only for, you know, a person, business owner, listener who is, into their financials. When you looked at the financials, was it obvious where you could strip stuff out to get that negative back to break even?
[00:33:41] Josh Bickle: Honestly, so my background is... I was in university for mechanical engineering. I never finished it. I was never a finance guy. I was never good on numbers. So it's all kind of stuff I learned, as things grew. So, honestly, when I saw that spreadsheet, the... His, balance sheet, his income statements, I have a vague idea what's going on, but, honestly, I didn't look at it for too long. I'm like, this guy had no idea what he's doing. This is garbage. I just assumed I'm starting from zero. Ah. So that's what we did. I just kinda forgot about it. For the most part, he soon broke ground zero. I had... He had great staff that we still have today.
[00:34:20] Josh Bickle: And like I said, the phone was ringing. So, obviously, I could just Right. Make it work again. And that's exactly what happened. Under six months, we're we're back in the green. So it was good.
[00:34:29] Dustin Serviss: And now is that, is that... Is the... Is residential or is commercial... I wanna say better, but are they are they, like, complementary to each other because of seasons? Or is it, like, you know, one is drastically better than the other?
[00:34:45] Josh Bickle: The residential stuff, as... From a cash flow point of view, makes a lot more sense, because you have two or three guys on a job, they're in and out in two days, off to the next job.
[00:34:54] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:34:54] Josh Bickle: Then you have four or five crews doing the same thing. You're getting fifteen, twenty jobs done
[00:34:58] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:34:59] Josh Bickle: A week sometimes, which is great. And people generally pay pretty quickly. So from cash point of... Cash flow point of view, that makes more sense. The residential stuff, sometimes you're on a job that's twenty thousand square feet and you're there... Commercial. Yeah. In commercial. Yeah. Sorry. On a commercial job, you're there for sometimes three, four, five, two months. Sometimes, like, a long period of time. So you're... You get a deposit, and you can have, like, draws as the job goes on, but the cash flow isn't there. From an income per... Perspective, I guess, there's definitely more money on the flat roofing side of things,
[00:35:33] Josh Bickle: the industrial commercial stuff.
[00:35:34] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:35:35] Josh Bickle: But your liability is also higher. Like, my insurance years ago was twelve grand, last year was eighty grand.
[00:35:41] Dustin Serviss: Like, Right.
[00:35:42] Josh Bickle: It's crazy because you got you got heat or flames. Like, the torch on guys got flames. You got heights. The risk of burning down a building is obviously quite high. You got your fire watches, all the safety protocols. So a lot of the insurance companies are multinational, global companies as opposed to... If you're a residential shingler, you can get insurance from any guy. Right? So if somebody burns down a building in Amsterdam, that might affect my rates here in Canada. So Right. There's a lot more to it on on that side of it. In terms of the volume side of things, like, the volume is great for
[00:36:12] Josh Bickle: cash flow, but it's also ten times more headaches. So the office staff at the residential business is way higher. Yeah. There's more calls. There's more complaints. There's more issues. There's more, job sheets to make. There's more work orders. There's more deliveries. There's more everything. It's ten times more volume Right. Of things coming in.
[00:36:32] Dustin Serviss: And I guess you can't really just say we only do big houses. And, you know, because because then it just is sort of... There isn't probably enough around. You know, I'm just seeing a supply and demand and trying to, like, grow the business on the same infrastructure you have.
[00:36:49] Josh Bickle: So a lot of things that I've noticed... Like, I always keep an eye on my competition. Like, it's... There again, roof is transient. You get a new guy that pops up for year two, and then he's gone. But some of the guys have been around for a while. I kinda... I try... Just try to listen if I can tune into what they're doing. But some of them don't do repairs, for example, which blows my mind. Like competitors. Yeah. So if they have a leak or, I don't know, a branch fell through the roof or, I don't know, some... Something small.
[00:37:17] Dustin Serviss: Right. They
[00:37:17] Josh Bickle: don't even bother going because it's, quote, not worth their time. I've gone to, I don't know, countless leaky skylights, for example, and we fix it. Sometimes I'll do it free of charge because it was like, oh, I just need a little bit of sealant here or I had to just change out that one shingle. Like, something so small and the people are grateful. And then a lot of the times those roofs need to be done, and that's why they're leaking.
[00:37:37] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:37:37] Josh Bickle: So then I measure the roof and I get the job because I showed up to do the the repair.
[00:37:41] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:37:42] Josh Bickle: They're happy with my service. I gave them a price. They're... Well, great. You did the job well. You showed up. I trust you with my roof. Or you get a guy like that says, do you guys do commercial buildings? I'm like, guys, yes, we do. Well, I own a manufacturing facility. Right. Can you quote my five hundred thousand dollar roof? You bet. Yeah. So that hundred and fifty dollar repair quote just turned into a half a million dollar job.
[00:38:03] Dustin Serviss: You just never know.
[00:38:04] Josh Bickle: You never know. Yeah. And obviously, you're dealing with people. You have no idea who these people are that you're dealing with. Everybody lives in a house.
[00:38:11] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:38:12] Josh Bickle: So who's living in that house? I don't know. So you're you're gonna find out. So it's amazing how short sighted I think not doing small things for people is. Yeah. Because if you show up to do the small things that nobody wants to do, that speaks volumes about who you are.
[00:38:25] Dustin Serviss: Right.
[00:38:26] Josh Bickle: Yeah. I can't do
[00:38:27] Dustin Serviss: anything small. It's just, it's kinda gone so efficiency based now. Yep. That, you know, all the, you know, guru books, whatever, it's like, oh, supply and demand. Just, like, keep going upmarket, keep your time down, your team down. But then at the same time, there's there's something in you that's, you know, you move from sort of the survive, stable, success. Now it's like, what next? Which is like the, you know, the the legacy piece of passing that knowledge on to your staff and and running a business or having it run-in in many years to come.
[00:39:02] Josh Bickle: If we were in a bigger demographic, I think I would approach things a little bit differently. Because like I said, I came... What do you
[00:39:07] Dustin Serviss: think you'd do?
[00:39:07] Josh Bickle: Well, I came from Ontario, so it was a bigger market. That was in, Windsor at the time. There's three hundred thousand people per se. And a lot of what I learned there has made me successful here, but you don't quote a job in Windsor. Twenty four hours later, they've had four quotes from five different companies. Like, it was crazy. And then I came out here and everybody was kind of, like, on island time. So So I was the only guy that was showing up and quoting things and I was the only guy that was eager. I was the only guy honoring my time, commitments. But being in a small town is great on the word-of-mouth side of things Right.
[00:39:40] Dustin Serviss: Because you
[00:39:40] Josh Bickle: do a good job for somebody, they're gonna tell three of your friends. On the other side of the coin, you do a bad job for somebody, they're gonna tell twenty of their friends. Yeah. So, with the smaller demographic, you gotta make sure you're on your game. You don't screw it up. You do what you say you're gonna do. You keep your comp... Your your customers happy. If they're not happy, find out why. Make sure they're happy. Like, we've had two unsatisfied customers. And in all our years, like, two of them can legitimately say bad. Yeah. I probably should've recognized it at the quoting side of things, but live and learn, I guess. Yeah.
[00:40:13] Josh Bickle: In in a bigger demographic, there's a lot more forgiveness for that because there's so many more clients looking for roofs. There's so many different companies. People forget about who they even owe... Like, use. Right? So, if you can maintain what we do in a small demographic or large demographic, it'd be huge. Yeah. Is it necessarily necessary? Maybe not. But Yeah. From going to bed at night knowing that I did everything I could for my clients to the best of my ability is important for me. Yeah. So I guess that one's kind of up to the the business owner.
[00:40:44] Dustin Serviss: Well, I I think, I think that's a good bookend, and you just provided a number of good nuggets. Where can people find more information on your businesses?
[00:40:52] Josh Bickle: So I guess I should have a a great, outstanding answer for that. But we just have a website that hasn't been updated in five years. Like, again, so so much of our market is determined just from being in this town. Right.
[00:41:05] Dustin Serviss: So integrity roofing dot c a?
[00:41:07] Josh Bickle: Yeah. Integrity roofing dot c a is our our website.
[00:41:09] Dustin Serviss: I, I appreciate the visit. It's, there's a number of good things in there, and so I, I'll put all the show notes. And, thanks a lot for being on the show today.
[00:41:17] Josh Bickle: You bet.
[00:41:18] Dustin Serviss: Thank you for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed the show, please like and rate the show, share with a friend, or use your new knowledge in your next conversation. If during the show something gave you a pang of inspiration, motivation, or sense of uncertainty, act on it now. Get the clarity you're looking for. Find the permission you seek. Go to service wealth dot com to discover how others are learning how to take Fridays off or buying a recreation property or spending more money. If you're an organizer of an event where you believe my philosophy of finance
[00:41:46] Dustin Serviss: lifestyle design would be applicable, go to service wealth dot com and book me as a speaker at your next event. If you want a copy of our new book coming out soon, send me a message on Instagram or Facebook, and we will be sure to get you a first copy.