Gary A. Cohen, Executive Vice President, Certified Contractors Network (CCN)
One of the most dangerous things a roofing contractor can do is operate in a vacuum. Many roofing company owners get so consumed with the day-to-day duties – estimating jobs, juggling production schedules, managing crews – that they never lift their head up to see how their company stacks up against the market.
Here’s the truth: contractors who isolate themselves frequently plateau and stunt their own growth. Contractors who collaborate, benchmark and learn from other successful roofing companies grow faster, avoid costly mistakes and build more profitable businesses.
The good news? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are proven strategies for connecting with other contractors and bringing game-changing insights back to your business.
If you’re not regularly comparing your company’s performance metrics to other successful contractors, you are likely leaving profits on the table. Benchmarking allows you to answer questions like:
■ How does my gross profit per job compare to top-performing roofing contractors?
■ Am I spending too much on lead generation compared to others in my market size?
■ What’s a healthy labor-to-revenue ratio for my type of roofing business?
Seeing your numbers in context is powerful. Many owners have had an “aha” moment after realizing their material waste, lead cost, close rate or cost per lead was far outside the norm, insights they never would have discovered working in isolation.
One effective approach is joining a peer benchmarking network. This is a major focus for members of Certified Contractors Network (CCN) and it should be for you too. These programs provide anonymous KPI sharing and detailed scorecards, so you can see exactly where your company excels and where it lags compared to non-competing roofing businesses. This clarity often leads to immediate, actionable improvements. So, find a powerful group to benchmark with and it will surely pay dividends if you engage.
Imagine sitting in a room or on a structured Zoom call with several non-competing roofing contractor owners from across the country. None of them are your competitors and all of them are there to share what’s working and what’s not in their business.
This is the power of a contractor mastermind group and it’s a format that CCN has successfully facilitated for decades. Identify a best-in-class contractor mastermind group. Belonging to a group with like-minded and seasoned owners can only help your business. Here are just a few examples of possible benefits:
■ You hear real-world solutions to the exact problems you’re facing – challenges, production bottlenecks or storm season chaos.
■ You discover marketing campaigns that are delivering results in other markets and can adapt them locally.
■ You gain perspective from owners who are one, three or even five steps ahead of you in revenue, profitability or operational maturity.
Contractors who participate in masterminds often describe the experience as having a board of advisors who truly understand your business. Many contractors have shared stories of avoiding six-figure mistakes simply because someone in their mastermind group had “already been there and done that.”
Your roofing company is only as strong as your team. If your sales manager, production manager or marketing manager never interacts with peers outside your company, they are limited to what they already know. High-performing contractors give their teams the opportunity to:
■ Join functional roundtables in sales, production, marketing and finance.
■ Share challenges and best practices with counterparts at other top roofing companies.
■ Bring back fresh ideas that improve performance in their specific department.
Roundtables have become a favorite among these groups. For example:
■ Sales managers swap closing strategies and learn how to improve lead-to-sale conversion.
■ Production managers discover new scheduling techniques to reduce downtime and material waste.
■ Marketing leaders bring back fresh ideas for social media, local events and neighborhood marketing campaigns.
When your team is exposed to industry-wide best practices, your company levels up faster and you’re no longer the bottleneck for every new idea. Take the time to find functional roundtable groups.
In many industries, continuous education is a requirement. Roofing is no different. Yet too many contractors rely solely on trial and error to grow their business.
We all know that in professional sports, although the players are arguably already the best in the world, they still practice and work with coaches and trainers on a daily basis. That’s because if the team wants to win it all at the end of the season, everybody on the team must improve daily to become best-in-class. How is this any different for a roofing company?
Think of your company as one of many teams in your league (your geographic market area). If you want to come out on top each year, your team must be hyper focused on repetitive practice, with a goal of becoming best-in-class.
By seeking out specialized contractor training programs for sales, production, finance, marketing, business operations and leadership, you can shortcut years of frustration and build a championship team.
Contractors who consistently invest in development – both for themselves and their teams – are the ones who adapt fastest to change, whether it’s a new building code, supply chain issue or marketing trend.
The most successful roofing companies in Florida and across the U.S. share one common trait: they are deeply connected to other contractors and industry best practices. They don’t try to figure everything out alone. They:
■ Benchmark KPIs against peers through structured programs.
■ Participate in mastermind groups for owner-level collaboration.
■ Encourage team leaders to join functional roundtables.
■ Invest in continuous, external training to stay ahead of the curve.
Running a roofing company can feel lonely but it doesn’t have to. Contractors who connect, benchmark and learn from peers consistently outperform those who try to go it alone.
If you’ve ever wondered how top roofing companies seem to grow profitably year after year, the answer is simple: they stopped running their business like an island and plugged into a network of knowledge and accountability.
Gary A. Cohen is Executive Vice President of Certified Contractors Network (CCN), North America’s leading training, coaching and networking organization for home improvement contractors. With over 30 years of industry experience and a background in business education, Gary specializes in helping contractors achieve scalable growth through proven systems and processes. He can be reached at gary@contractors.net.
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