What makes a successful metal roofing business, and how can you grow your company correctly, without encountering common pitfalls?
With the proper knowledge and resources, running a metal roofing business can be very lucrative. Recently, contractors have looked to expand their business and take advantage of the increasing demand for metal roofing projects. However, it’s essential to grow your business the right way so that it can continue to thrive. While growth can help you gain more market share and allow you to take on projects, making the jump too quickly or without the proper information can damage your business.
Sheffield Metals International (SMI) is a leading supplier of metal roofing materials, including coils, sheets, and accessories like clips and fasteners. Our company is made up of a talented and knowledgeable team, many of whom are former metal roofing contractors and installers. We also retain both a Technical Department and an Architectural Department who are on hand and ready to help contractors and architects with their projects.
Along with providing high-quality metal roofing materials to the industry, our priority is building relationships and creating helpful content that we can offer our customers to help them complete jobs and grow their businesses.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to grow your metal roofing business the right way. We’ll offer tips for growing your business, including the characteristics of a successful metal roofing business, actionable ways to grow sustainably, and common pitfalls to avoid. By the time you’re done reading, you should have an overview of how to grow your business and an idea of what to do next.
What Does a Successful Metal Roofing Company Look Like?
Even before you begin taking steps to grow your metal roofing business, it’s important to take a step back and identify the main characteristics of a successful company. Remember that every owner will have different goals and ideas of what “successful” means to them – these are just a few key points we pulled from experts in the industry who identified these traits of thriving metal roofing companies.
Sustainable
One of the most telling signs of a successful metal roofing business is sustainability. The companies that take great pains to ensure they’re doing things the right way, including growing in tandem with the resources they have available to them, are the ones that tend to last over the long run. While some companies may try to take shortcuts to make a quick profit, this does not translate to long-term success and will likely not be sustainable.
A sustainable metal roofing business aimed at helping team members and customers, instead of just the bottom line, is what makes those companies sustainable and great.
A great example of this is not spending money that you do not have and understanding the risks associated with expanding a business with people or capital goods.
Empowered
An empowered organization with the correct processes and appropriate hierarchical authorities is a sustainable organization. Your team of key people must have the confidence and the training to execute specific processes even when leadership isn’t there.
We’ve seen many metal roofing companies with owners wearing every hat within the company, pushing themselves to do everything and ensure every part of the company is on track. While this may work at first, as the company continues to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult. It can lead to burnout for the owner and a lack of confidence for your team, which is relying heavily on you.
Additionally, this should be part of the strategic growth conversation before expanding the business. Do we have the people to take this on, or can I add this to my list of items as the sole proprietor?
Some businesses have been forced to close simply because leadership could no longer be present and the rest of the organization was not ready and trained to handle the work.
A considerable part of creating a sustainable metal roofing business is empowering your team of key people through training and building an empowering culture of autonomy and confidence in others. If you want to grow, it’s essential to be able to lean on those you hired to do the job right. That way, if ownership has to leave for an extended period, the business will continue to run smoothly.
Streamlined
A part of empowering your organization and making a business sustainable is streamlining processes and making various parts of it repeatable and scalable. With set procedures and processes in place, you can have confidence that your team will make the best decisions possible and leadership can focus on building the business itself.
How Can You Take Your Metal Roofing Company to the Next Level Sustainably?
1. Understand Where Your Company Is at And What Your Goals Are
While growing a metal roofing business might seem like the logical progression once you’ve started to feel comfortable, we have met many contractors who are content staying where they’re at. They like to stay within their wheelhouse and work on providing the best possible work for their customer without having to focus too much on expanding and taking on unnecessary risks. Others are looking to aggressively expand and build their companies up.
Ultimately, what you decide to do with your metal roofing business is up to you, your personal goals, and how you wish to service your customers. But before you make any decision, it’s essential to take stock of where your company is right now, including crunching the numbers and identifying the resources you already have. That way, you can have a better idea of what you’re aiming for and how you can build upon what you already have.
2. Prioritize Safety
Safety is key in the roofing industry, especially when a business is growing. When roofing businesses start to expand, they may lose some of that attention to detail or look to take shortcuts to speed up jobs. But in a high-risk industry like metal roofing, neglecting safety is one of the quickest ways to permanently hurt a business.
As you look to expand your metal roofing business, be sure to make safety a top priority and make sure this echoes throughout the company.
3. Focus On the Business
We often see many business owners working within the business as well, working on roofs and helping out with installations. This may work for smaller businesses, but if you’re looking to grow, the owner will have to spend more time working on the business side of things. The metal roofing companies that are able to make the jump from good to great are those that figure out how to work on the business and not just in the business every day, completing tasks like:
- Establishing repeatable processes: Streamline your business with tasks and actions that can be replicated with the right training.
- Tracking jobs carefully: Use spreadsheets to stay on top of the details of all your jobs. Successful roofing companies dive into the numbers and have a deep understanding of their financials.
- Staying organized: As businesses grow, scheduling becomes more complex. Larger jobs can encounter complications and create delays. Focus on staying organized and clearly communicating with your customers.
Spend time building relationships within the industry, organizing and tracking jobs and profits, and devising a marketing strategy to promote your business.
4. Scale Intelligently
If you don’t have the initial infrastructure and resources in place to grow at the rate you want, you will likely encounter problems. Many businesses in the construction industry have struggled and even gone out of business because they were not prepared to take on the amount of growth with the current infrastructure they had in place.
It’s best to scale slowly, be cautious, and only take on additional jobs when you know you have the tools and skills to do so. If you do a project you’re not comfortable with and something goes wrong, it could harm your company.
However, being opportunistic can help fund and expedite the next wave of growth. Has a close competitor gone out of business? Have you picked up a key employee that will allow you to scale things more quickly than otherwise? Was there a nearby storm that you know will singlehandedly carry the business for a period of more than 12 months? While these things all can aid a business, what is the plan financially for the business when this opportunity starts to slow down?
Creating an organizational chart that details various positions within the company you want to become can also be beneficial. Sometimes, companies can grow organically, with team members being raised to higher levels than they’re comfortable with. An organizational chart can help establish the skills needed for each position, which will help delineate who would be a good fit and whether you need to look for an outside hire to fill it.
5. Market Your Business
Today, companies from all industries are putting more money into marketing to spread awareness about their brand. The more eyes you can get on your business, the more interest you can generate and the more jobs you will be able to bid on.
One of the most significant factors for buyers is trust. This is especially true in the metal roofing industry, where homeowners and building owners want to make sure they’re dealing with a company that can provide them with the quality they’re paying for.
As more metal roofing companies pop up in hotspots like Florida and Texas, establishing trust is going to be a way to distinguish yourself from the pack.
Running ads and traditional marketing methods like signs and mailers are great ways to get started in marketing. Use social media to post pictures of your finished projects and let your work speak for itself. To build trust even deeper, you could consider creating educational content for your customers to consume. This could be case studies on past projects you’ve done, videos of installations, or helpful content for home and building owners.
Leads are a business’s lifeblood. Good leads are worth paying for. If you align with a business to support your marketing, it is critical to have the supporting content and team that is educating and in front of the customer. If someone promises you 100 leads per month, that might be great at first glance, but if you do not have the supporting content, sales staff, and business infrastructure in place, it likely won’t be advantageous for your business.
6. Invest in Smart, Skilled Labor
Find the right people to bring into your business that can complement the skills you have. Finding talented individuals who understand the industry and can offer their specialization is critical to making sure all facets of your business are robust as you continue to grow. As you bring on skilled labor, you can build a culture that seeks out impressive people and is dedicated to becoming better. A bad hire can have a cascading effect. The wrong person can run the right people off. Conversely, the right hire can elevate everyone’s game.
7. Find Industry Training and Resources
The growth of any metal roofing business starts with one assumption—that you understand the intricacies of metal roofing and installation best practices. Understanding the fundamentals is one thing, but metal roofing codes vary by region and are constantly updated, so it’s essential to stay on top of industry news.
Align yourself with the right manufacturers and suppliers, trade associations, and content hubs where you can find information on metal roofing to keep you and your team updated. Spend time attending seminars to learn about the latest technology and how you can integrate it into your workflow. Understanding the industry as a whole, including everything from installing specific details to overall trends, will give you confidence when speaking with your customers and your team.
Leverage manufacturer content and industry resources, and most importantly, make programs and time for people development. Never forget that you are scaling the people who run your business, and without them, your ability to scale the business will be limited.
Looking for Help Growing Your Metal Roofing Business?
By now, you should have a better idea of what it takes to grow your metal roofing business the right way without scaling too quickly or taking on too much risk. Still, reading about how to do this is one thing — sometimes, it helps to have direct advice from experts in the industry who can relate this information to your unique situation.
Feel free to check out our additional resources related to this topic, including how to switch from asphalt to metal roof installation and how to break into the commercial metal roofing industry.
If you’re looking to speak with a metal roofing expert, feel free to contact Sheffield Metals. We are more than happy to answer your questions, assist with your next project, and help you achieve your goals.
