Episode 4 – Bringing Professionalism to The Construction Industry

Brian Davis 00:00
Chris. Chris, so good to have you on the Local Business Breakthrough Podcast. I’m excited about having you. This is Chris Dyck from August roofing and solar, and they not only operate in Simi Valley, but most of Ventura County all the way up into Santa Barbara and then down into LA County. Yes, we have Santa Clarita. You know, we have the valley. Of course, we have Malibu, we have all of these places. But one of the things that I am most excited about August roofing and solar isn’t the work that you guys do, but it’s the reason why you guys do the work that you do, and so share, share with us, share with our audience, what your mission is, and unpack the why behind why that matters to you, and why you would create a company that is pursuing this Mission. Okay, well,

Chris Dyck 01:00
it’s a little bit of a story, but it goes back to actually, when I actually got into roofing. So I’ve been roofing since a week out of High School, graduating high school, I was worked at a gas station. How many? How many years ago, since? Well, 85 was when I graduated. So was that almost, almost 40 years now? Wow, yeah, 40 years, and in about a half a year. So, yeah. So I worked at this gas station, and it happened to be in an area there was a lot of construction happening. So, you know, right, as I was rolling in from high school, you know, 334, o’clock, that’s when all the construction workers were rolling in, filling up their trucks and stuff like that. And so it was back in the day when you you worked at a gas station, you didn’t sit in a little booth. You were out on the island collecting money and stuff like that. And there was this one guy, he was a superintendent for a roofing company, and he kept bugging me say, Hey, you got to come work for us when you graduate. It’s great job. And, you know, kept trying to get me to do that. And

Brian Davis 02:04
so why, why do you think that he was doing that with you?

Chris Dyck 02:06
I don’t know. I’m I’m kind of a extrovert. I guess he would say, I like talking to people, and I would just always make relationships, especially if you I started to see him come again and again. So just built up a relationship with Him. And so he

Brian Davis 02:21
saw something in you that, you know, yeah, I was different than other people.

Chris Dyck 02:26
I don’t know. I was young, and they needed people to work. So it was business like, you know, business is booming, and so they need guys. And yeah, I’ve never really thought about it that way, but there’s probably, you know, obviously, something that he saw. And then

Brian Davis 02:41
also, I mean, if you if you’re friendly, if you’re striking up conversations, he’s probably like, who would I want to be stuck on a roof with for eight hours a day? Yeah? Like somebody, somebody that it’s nice to hang out with, yeah, yeah, could very

Chris Dyck 02:52
well be. So anyways, get to the week before I graduate, and I go to him, I go, Okay, well, tell me about this, this roofing thing. So he starts telling me about it, and I’m like, Yeah, this sounds like a good job. And, you know, the real thing that got me was the the it started off at $9.65 an hour. And so for a little context, minimum wage was 335 so I made a couple raises. I was a five, so I was still looking at doubling what I was making, and I really wanted to move out of the house. And I was like, okay, boom, I’m going to do this, because I want to move out of the house. I can do it at 965, an hour. And so

Brian Davis 03:33
that’s amazing. So was it that you was it? Was it just that this opportunity came up? Like, had you had previous experience with construction or building things or anything, or

Chris Dyck 03:43
none whatsoever. Wow. I mean, yeah, I guess I did. I do like building things. I mean, always loved playing Legos with a kid. And I mean, I like the free form blocks more than anything else, while they didn’t have the special, fancy models that they have today, that my kids have today, and in, in my in my Lego playing age, but I always loved that. So I love building stuff, I guess, in that sense, but never really had done any construction whatsoever.

Brian Davis 04:12
So then you, you know you’re working at a gas station, a construction guy keeps on coming and offering you this opportunity, yep. So the reason why you’re taking it, or one of the main reasons why you’re taking it, is because it’s just financially going to enable you to move out, kind of start the next chapter of your life. Correct? Was there? Was there? What was, what was the expectation? Right? Like, was there any expectation that you were going in because you’re looking at the money, you’re looking at the freedom that it’s going to afford you. But, like, work, like, roofing is hard work, yeah. Like, and you’re going from like, walking around talking to people, you know, handling money a little bit here and there, like, how, how was that transition for you? Well,

Chris Dyck 04:50
that’s the funniest story of it all. Is the first day that I worked on the roof, my back hurts so bad that I actually stopped at seven. 11 and got a newspaper to look through the want ads, and I said to myself, I’m not going to roof for the rest of my life. Oh, man. And so here I am, 40 years later.

Brian Davis 05:09
So what happened? Still roofing? It wasn’t anything better in that.

Chris Dyck 05:13
I guess not. Either that or I got got through that initial pain, yeah,

Brian Davis 05:21
initial pain, then you got stronger. Yeah, right, and that’s what, that’s what pain does, yep, doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger 100% okay, so there you are. So you’re learning, you’re learning roofing. You’ve now kind of, you know, taken a new direction in your, in your career, so to speak. So how do you go from I’m a new guy. I’m the newest guy on the roofing crew to owning your own roofing company.

Chris Dyck 05:44
So like I said, it was booming. Business was booming, and the company that I was working for was large. So this is back in 85 and they had 350 roofers. So this was a large organization, and so there was a lot of opportunity. And I just kept working up. And I got, you know, worked up to becoming a foreman, where you have your own crew. And that in itself, was kind of like a mini entrepreneurial situation, because this company, what they did was they piece worked. So if you were a foreman, you got X number of dollars per roof for a house. And it changed depending on complexity and size and stuff, of course, but then I could go out and hire people. Now they would be under the company’s, you know, workers comp and all that sort of stuff, but I would tell them how much to pay each man out of the piece work. So we obviously had to go by, you know, minimum wages, and follow all the rules. But so I kind of was like, my own company within the company, that’s

Brian Davis 06:51
interesting is that what happened when you originally got hired is that you were, yeah, I got hired on this guy’s career, and then you worked your way up so that now you had your own crew, yeah. And so it’s like, it’s an opportunity to, almost, like, run, kind of your own department, yep, or business,

Chris Dyck 07:08
and be rewarded for being successful and working hard at it. And, you know, that’s kind of where I was, you know what I’ve been what I was always taught was work hard. My dad, my grandpa, always worked hard. And so that was, you know, easily modeled for me. So here was an opportunity. All, all I did was apply myself, yeah, yeah. So,

Brian Davis 07:29
so this opportunity, you decided to go with it, yep. And there was, there was something about it that you must have really liked, like, what was there something about it that, like, kind of like, opened your eyes to like, oh my goodness, like, I this, this is what I want to do, and this is what I want to continue to do, and I don’t want to just continue working for this company, but I want to have

Chris Dyck 07:51
my own right, yeah? Well, the thing that intrigued me was the entrepreneurial aspect of it, right? I mean, if I figured out how to organize my guys better than I can make more money, right? I, you know, kind of configured things from my truck and my toolbox and everything to make us super efficient as a crew. And then, you know, moved up in favor with my boss, and I got larger and larger projects. At times. I got entire subdivisions that I got to handle, but again, I could make some decent money then, and so that, that’s really what, what drew drove me. I’ve always, you know, this is the funny thing is, as a kid, I remember, you know, I didn’t want to be a fireman or a policeman or, you know, a lot of little kids. I wanted to own my own business, and I didn’t have any idea or notion around what it was going to be. I just had this yearning. And so this kind of like, you know, I’m 20 years old, and it fulfills that yearning already. Yeah, it’s amazing, yeah. So, I mean, I, you know, I don’t know if I’d still be there today, but I would last a lot longer if there hadn’t been some, you know, there was a a kind of a moral issue. So my boss viewed us. He wasn’t the greatest guy. He viewed this as, you know, kind of like independent contractors. And so there was a few things that happened on some jobs that he felt that that were my responsibility, that were covered under his liability. So he decided to start taking him out of my paycheck. Oh, wow, yeah. So

Brian Davis 09:34
I went to, is this something that he told you about? Or all of a sudden you see your paycheck and you’re like, what

Chris Dyck 09:39
happened? No, all of a sudden I saw my paycheck, and it was just light. Oh, that’s, yeah, that’s definitely the way to handle your people absolutely. And then I asked my superintendent, who’s the next guy in line? He goes, Well, I don’t know. And then it took two or three weeks he and I finally said, you know, and this, I mean, I’m 20 years old, and I’m gonna go and see the owner of the company. And I’m like, I gotta go talk to this guy, because it’s not right. Mm. So went in, he explained to me what his opinion of it was, and I said, You know what, you don’t, you don’t pay me for the liability. You don’t pay me enough to cover the liability of these situations. And you know, that’s under that’s, you know, those things are yours. And he goes, You know what, I really don’t need people with an attitude like you so you’re fired. Wow, just sent me out of the office right then and there, and it was the greatest day of my life. That was when August roofing was born. So you’re

Brian Davis 10:29
like, Okay, I fine. I’m gonna go do this myself. I’m

Chris Dyck 10:33
gonna and we actually, actually did end up competing against him a number of years later, probably about 10 years later, on a few number of jobs. So that’s kind of a little good karma for me. Anything Did

Brian Davis 10:45
you since you guys were continuing in the same field and then competed with each other some, some years later? Did you ever talk to him about it again? Did that ever come up or like, No,

Chris Dyck 10:56
we never. He was, you know, he’s like a, I guess it was a different level than me. You know, very large organization. We never, he didn’t hang around the same like, associations and stuff.

Brian Davis 11:10
So never got to you guys weren’t in the same circles. Yeah, exactly,

Chris Dyck 11:13
yeah. We didn’t hang in the same circles. And I don’t think ever, ever talked to him again.

Brian Davis 11:19
So being 20 because you were 20 years old when that happened, right? Yeah. So being 20 years old, did you have somebody that was kind of like speaking into you to give you that perspective of like, Hey, you’re not paying me enough to cover this liability. Or was that just like, as you were looking at the situation and like it was just from your gut, like, kind of, like, your own understanding of like, hey, no, this is like, if I’m going to take this liability, then, like, there should be a different type of pay scale, correct?

Chris Dyck 11:48
Yeah. No, it was really. It was really my up being, my upbringing, my being, right? And it really, it set up what our purpose, August roofing purposes, is to redefine professionalism in the construction industry. I felt that it was entirely unprofessional. That was obviously the biggest but there was a lot of other things. You know, we didn’t have health insurance. I mean, if we didn’t work, we weren’t getting paid. You know, there was no paid holidays, stuff like that. So to me, it just like the whole industry. And this is one of the largest companies in Southern California and that. So you think you’d be at the pinnacle of benefits and stuff like that. So if this is the best that is out there, oh my goodness, so, and this is just not the way I was brought up to, you know, brought up and or what I believed, you know. So talk to me a

Brian Davis 12:46
little bit about that, unpack that, a little bit about what it, what it is that you believe in, and how that informs the decisions, and, you know, your why of starting this company,

Chris Dyck 12:56
I just felt that roofers should be treated as with as much value in the world as, let’s say, a doctor or lawyer. And it just didn’t feel to me that there was that kind of equality. And so my goal has been like I said, redefine professionalism in the construction industry, and that meant going through and and looking at the various things. I mean treating your customers, right? I mean, if you want to talk about a corrupt section of construction, unfortunately, roofing is horrible. I mean, we just the other day. I literally just heard this story this morning. The head of guys, they did a nice old lady did a inspection for her, came down off the roof, and they showed her the problems, and she started crying because she had had the roof done already, and they literally did nothing. Oh, man, literally did nothing, and that. So that’s what this unfortunately, you know, if you’re doing an interior remodel or something, it still can get away with stuff. But you know, your eyes are right there. How many people are going to climb up on the roof and make sure that they’re getting the underlayment that they want and everything like that? Now, I don’t want to make a wholesale thing. There’s a lot of great guys out there that do great work, but unfortunately, the general way the industry acts is not very professional. So I set out to up the bar, right, yeah, and then everybody can follow. And so I figured, not only am I doing a service to creating a great organization that will take care of people, employees and customers, but you can elevate the whole industry, right, right? Because if that’s what customers and employees start to expect as the minimum standard or as the goal, then you’ll elevate the whole industry. So that was, that’s my why.

Brian Davis 14:55
Wow. So not only, not only making things better for. For the employees, right, and taking care of them, but as you do that, then they are going to take care of the customers. And I think that that speaks a lot. And I’d like you to talk a little bit more about this. We’ve you’ve talked about how there wasn’t benefits that were offered, there wasn’t holiday pay. There wasn’t any of these things. And so, like, and a lot of the workers in the industry are subcontracted, and so the incentives, right? Like, the incentive lies in them trying to do work as quickly and cheaply as possible, correct, right? So then you’ve taken a different approach, and kind of like, talk about how an August roofing and solar crew, the guys that are showing up and getting on the roof and doing the work, you know, taking off the tiles and putting them back on, installing the solar what, what is their incentives?

Chris Dyck 15:54
Well, the My goal was to really create a job for roofers, right? Like, it’s not like, Okay, I got a job. I got a roof for you to do today, and when it’s done, come back and maybe I’ll have another roof for you to do, because that’s kind of the subcontracting industry, the kind of the way it goes. And again, I don’t mean to paint the whole industry that way. There are some great contractors out there, but for us, it’s, a regular job. And, you know, I understand my my most employees, they need to work 40 hours a week. So we go out of our way to, you know, if they’re done a job and the next one’s not quite ready, you might put them with another crew. And you know, this kind of the standard thing we have, we have pay for them. We have also created a career path through our roofer development program, and we’ve created multiple different levels, and there’s different skill set that you have to reach, and then once you reach that, you get a a pay raise to the next skill level set. So a lot, lot like the way the union was structured before it disappeared. Well, the reunion is still around for commercial, if you’re a residential there it was gone back in the day that I was working on the roof, you know, again, paid holidays, the, you know, the six days everybody in the office gets paid for. Right now the roofers get paid for. So, you know, the company wants a day off. Everybody wants the day off. But the roofers, if they got that, means they only got a four day week, right? Yeah, like on your Fourth of July or whatever. So that hurt them, actually, right? And so paying for that, then as they move up and as much, depending on how much time they spend with us and what position they can get, you know, a week or two weeks of paid vacation, also, which is pretty unheard of for construction workers, yeah. And then we, finally, we put in, got health insurance for everybody too, where we cover a portion of it, not all of it.

Brian Davis 17:58
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s awesome. So then the August and so August roofing and solar crew, their incentive is to do good work, correct? Because, instead of trying to cut corners and maximize their take home for each day of work, right? It’s like, what they’re doing is they’re trying to maximize their career, right? By doing excellent work, by increasing their skill sets, so then they could continue growing in the company. Yeah, and now earning more money, more responsibility, and so then at the at the end of the day, the everybody benefits, but like especially the customer, sure, right? Because they get people that are showing up instead of, instead of people trying to a crew that’s just trying to get on and off the roof as fast as possible, as cheap as possible, they’re getting a crew that shows up and want to do the absolute very best that they could do and make sure that this customer is taken care of because their careers are riding on it,

Chris Dyck 19:04
right? Right? Yeah, absolutely. And they’ve got pride in their work too, right? What type of difference

Brian Davis 19:10
has that made in the lives of the of the crew members? Because I’m sure that you’ve got guys that come and start working for you that have experience working for other crews, where it’s just not that way, that’s correct, and then they get a job with August roofing, and it’s just 180 degrees different, yeah. So like, what? What are some of the things that you’ve heard them say? Well, the,

Chris Dyck 19:31
I guess, the biggest things that happened that speak, that spoke to that was a number of years ago. Most of our guys now are actually created from within. We don’t hire many guys from that are like roofers or have skills because of our internal process. And I like to keep everybody moving in internally, so unless we have a huge demand for a certain position, well, you. Usually try and move people up. And so again, It just strengthens the the bond and the loyalty of the employee, right? Because they knew they’re gonna get taken care of. But we had a couple guys that we hired in that were from another company, had good skill set. It was a good company, so I figured, okay, I’m willing to take a try. They weren’t really super happy with the hourly pay. Because, again, the the piece work mentality is, is like, sometimes they’ll work 1012, hours, you know, the does till you the job gets done, right? Yeah, and we work a regular eight hour day. We don’t normally. I mean, very rarely do we work on the weekends again? Because I figured these guys got families just like everybody else. They’re taking their kids to soccer and, yeah, all that same kind of stuff. So why? Just because your construction worker, do you not have that you’re not afforded that kind of, those kind of simple luxuries in life, right? So anyways, I hired these two guys, and they weren’t super happy with their pain. It didn’t take too long, and they’re like they laughed, and they took another job at another company, and it was over the almighty dollar. But they didn’t really calculate everything, because it wasn’t about three months later they kept they called and said, Hey, can we ever job back. And then they so, they really, they really understood. They that that it was, it was different. Now it takes a different mindset to understand that it’s different. Because, you know, if you know, those guys will throw a lot of dollars at you, but that’s all it is, you know. And some of them don’t even pay into Social Security or anything. So they’re not, you know, they’re totally running under the radar. So you’re not even getting anything towards future social security or potentially no insurance if you hurt yourself on the job. So

Brian Davis 21:58
yeah, there’s a big difference, you know, in the cost, in the cost for a person to be an employee of a company, rather than somebody to be a contractor or subcontractor.

Chris Dyck 22:11
Yeah, for us, it’s like almost three quarters. So if I pay a guy, you know, 20 bucks an hour, it’s costing the company 35 bucks an hour to keep them on the roof, just from, you know, that doesn’t include, like, the the days offer it is, including those benefits. It’s just insurance and what the government wants and stuff like that.

Brian Davis 22:34
Yeah, and that’s that, that stuff is always important to take into consideration. You know, it’s almost like a hidden cost. Oh, yeah. And then once, once they start getting hit with it, then they’re like, Hey, wait a minute. Like, back at August, roofing is a little bit better, right? You know, with your, with your business mindset, right? Because you’ve been, you’ve been successful in business, what would you say are some of the things that have helped you to develop that, you know, it’s like, there could, there could be, I don’t know, just kind of like intuition, you know, but, but you, from our previous conversations, it also seems like you’re somebody that enjoys reading, that enjoys getting into things. So like, what have been some of the main influences as you’ve been developing this company, and kind of like your own, your own business skills, like you developed your roofing skills, all right, you know? But like now you’re running the running a company. How have you developed those business skills?

Chris Dyck 23:35
It’s totally different. The number one thing is you, you hit on it. Just understand you don’t know what you don’t know. Right? Read, talk to other people in the industry associations, hanging out with other guys that are doing the same thing. A it always amazes me with the technology that we have and the, you know, the the super computer in our hand, that literally, there should be a book. And if you wanted to start a roofing company, you could just buy that book, and you would know how to start it, and it would be successful. But that’s not the case. It’s each one is as unique as like a fingerprint, right? And each guy has his own thing. And so just meeting other guys and listening and talking to them, sometimes I’m like, Oh, wow, that’s a hell of an idea. Only been doing this 40 years, and I didn’t think of that. So that’s, that’s a that’s a big thing. Play the long game. Yeah, right. Just know that it might not work out today, or especially in the money thing, right? You have to make some decisions that are the right for the long game. And then all of being flexible, like everybody in the office knows I’m Mr. Plan B, right? Gotta have a plan B, and being okay, if you got to go to plan B, you. It’s just a nature of business. So those are probably the three things that I hang a lot of the foundation of what I how I’m successful in business.

Brian Davis 25:09
Yeah, I like that. You don’t fail if you don’t quit, right? Just keep on going. Talking about business development, one of the things that you guys have done is you saw the solar energy or solar panel boom happening and so so share with us, kind of how you guys went from just being a roofing company to now a roofing and solar company. Yeah,

Chris Dyck 25:39
so it was 2015 is when we officially launched into solar. But the years previous, and there must have been a, like a really heavy rain year and 12 or 13 somewhere in there, because it was all of a sudden we were getting, like a huge amount of calls from past customers that the roofs are leaking hadn’t talked to them since I put the roof on 1012, years ago. And even new customers too, and we’re going out there, and it was a solar panel installation, you know, in 2012 that’s when, literally, the solar, you know, this new solar boom started, and it only took about three years before we started selling seeing the damage that their attachment systems were doing to our old roofs and to the roofs of other contractors. And so early in the in the situation, I had a friend, a business partner, that was a solar contractor, and he and I worked together. He would take the solar system off, and then I would do the work, and then who put the solar system back on. But another thing that that I’m not a big fan about is subcontracting stuff. I mean, we literally do everything in house, yeah, and when it got to being more than like one a month, and it was like one or two a week. Then I’m like, Nah, we gotta, we gotta learn how to do this. And so that was our first real reason for even getting into solar was just to help out customers that had, you know, poor installations, and we had to go fix them, right? And this way we could do, again, have this great service, get in, get the job done and get out, not, you know, because anytime you got to bring in another subcontractor, you can just slow down the process, right? Just makes the the situation longer. Oh, definitely

Brian Davis 27:36
trying to balance schedules right. So now his workload, you don’t have control over that. So it’s like, you know, these customers, they’ve done all this wonderful, beautiful, high quality work on their roofs and stuff, and then they get solar. They’re excited about that. A handful of years later, they start getting all these leaks. Were these customers? Like, were they thinking that it was the roof? Were they surprised that the solar was was causing these leaks? Like, kind of, yeah, and how did, how did that mean?

Chris Dyck 28:07
Some, some people understood it well enough that they’re like, oh, shoot, that’s exactly the plane of the roof where my solar is. Other people, you know, don’t understand the how a house goes together at the same level, right? So they, you know, they thought it was something a problem in our roof. So,

Brian Davis 28:25
yeah, because they’re, like, the soldiers brand new, yeah, we just put that on things. It’s like, well, actually, then make these things called holes, yeah, and they go through your roof, yeah. So you, you had a lot of business that were, you know, because of what these solar installers have done right now, they don’t know how to properly seal the roof right? So, like, after, after fixing all of these solar, these incorrect solar installations, you decided, hey, like, we’re gonna, we’re gonna start installing the solar so that it can be installed correctly.

Chris Dyck 28:58
Yeah, really, what precipitated is, I haven’t had a good friend I’ve known in the industry. He’s probably, was probably only about 10 years behind me, so he’s been in it for about 20 years at that time, and he had actually worked on all sides of he’d worked for a roofing contractor, he worked for a solar contractor. He had actually worked in installation, and he’d worked as a manufacturer’s rep. So he had a wealth of knowledge from all different areas. Yeah, and again, he was kind of burnt out on the industry, the non professionalism of it. And he basically, you know, I don’t know we were having lunch or something, and he said, Hey, I’m done. I’m getting on an industry. I’ve got another industry. I got job offer there. I’m going to get out of this. I I’m just, I can’t handle this. And I said, Give me, let me make you a job offer. Okay, just get let me give you one. So he decided to join us in 2015 and that’s when we started full solar insult, brand new solar installations. And he really. Launched the division within August roofing. And so he worked with us for about five years, and then it was time for him to retire, and then we just kept going on.

Brian Davis 30:12
But he helped you build up all of your processes, right, exactly, get the crews

Chris Dyck 30:18
trained him. Yeah, he knew all the you know, the the solar mapping and like all the technical stuff that that we didn’t know, so

Brian Davis 30:27
and so and so. Now, when an August roofing and solar crew come to install some solar they’re not just a solar installation crew, but they’re expert roofers that are going to leave that solar installation properly sealed, yeah, and not cutting any corners,

Chris Dyck 30:45
yeah, yeah. I mean, we’re a full on solar company. I mean, the level of installation that we do, a level of knowledge, and everything we’re, we’re a full on solar company and a full on roofing company. And we just, we know proper, we know how to properly attach the panels to your roof and waterproof around them so that you don’t have any problems. So it’s you’re getting the best of both worlds. We’re not roofing company that just kind of knows a little bit of solar or subcontracts it out. No. I mean, we fully know it. Our our people in the office understand all the components to it and pull our own permits all the whole nine yards.

Brian Davis 31:27
That’s awesome. That’s awesome now, well, one of the things you know, in a perfect world, like everything always works out, yes, you know. And you guys were working, you guys were installing solar panel systems from the company Sun Power, right, correct. And Sun powers like the top of the line, you know, the most advanced technology they had, the micro inverters on every single panel. Just everything. Everything was flawless and high quality, super high quality. And it was designed specifically for the installation. So it was making the installation as easy as possible for the installers, so that everything would be working, you know, pristine. But then I think just a couple months back, the news broke that sun power is not doing too well, you know, things are, things are kind of going a little bit south with them. So what kind of, what is your take on? What happened with SunPower as they they went into bankruptcy, and now they’re, you know, they’re trying to figure out all of how everything’s going to look over the next, you know, handful of years. And now, what is it that August roofing and solar is doing now, you know, to best serve their new solar clients. Yeah,

Chris Dyck 32:48
so the after my friend left that had helped us get the solar department going at August roofing, that’s when I started looking around. You know, I, I am constantly, constantly looking at improving my organization. That may be another thing that helps in success in businesses, is never stand still, right? Yeah, keep looking and so just notice these Maxi and panels, super high quality, their their technology, just the way they do things is differently, which, you know, they’re they’re not just trying to make a better mousetrap. They’ve completely made an entirely new one. And so I’m like, That’s the panel I want to install. And so then kind of reverse engineer it. I found out the only way to do that was become a SunPower dealer, so I went ahead and became a Sun Power dealer. And that’s how our relationship with SunPower started. And it was great. I mean, they definitely, like you said, the simplified installation, which, then again, increases quality for the customer, right? They had, you know, their rails were proprietary in attachment to the rails, you know, invisible mount the whole the whole nine yards. It was a well put together system. I mean, they were thinking about it. And then at some point in time, Sun Power and maxion divested. So like in the rest of the world, Sun Power and maxion are still one corporation. And so at some point in time they divested, I think it was shortly after COVID.

Brian Davis 34:27
So this is just like a US thing, yep, just in the

Chris Dyck 34:31
US. And they created two different companies. And so the maxion side, they have actual they make something right panels. They have technology, Sun Power one now, all of a sudden they’re there. They didn’t really do anything except kind of like a franchise or hold all the processes together for a franchisee. Yeah, ie August roofing. So. So that had its value, my desire. The value that I was looking at was the maximum panels, yeah. Then all of a sudden, after they divested, they started having coral and they no longer Maxi on, no longer supplied panels to Sun Power. Still a little interesting. I don’t know how that all happens. They’re the same corporation one day, they’re separate the next day, and then they won’t share technology that made them but, you know, I guess there’s stuff bigger than, bigger than me. So anyway, so we, we started, you know, I stuck with Sun Power and their processes and the new panels and everything. I was super thrilled. And, you know, there was some chinks in the armor happening, and so we kind of were, we’re already thinking about, you know, do you know, looking at some other looking at no longer being a Sun Power dealer? Problem is, is when, you know, there’s a lot of processes and procedures that go with everything. And so sometimes it’s like turning the Titanic right, that saying so to change all of that. And so we are kind of messing around with it, dipped our big toe on the pool. And but the real, you know thing that the real catalyst was when they filed bankruptcy, yeah, so now, you know, there’s no more support and everything like that. And so then we just started going, I go, we go, okay, there’s only one way to go, is forward, right? And so we just sat down and we went through getting our modeling, our financing, our our new system, you know, the sun power had a system, and so we have a C 10 license, so there’s a guy that qualifies that license, so we have an electrician on staff. And so he sat down and we, you know, created new designs and systems that would, you know, help the customer and have a and he actually had some ideas for improving on the the sun power system. So, you know, we’re gonna, actually, now we’re looking at having a better system where we have a greater financial like we got leases and loans, and then I get Maxim panels back. Oh yeah, that was, that was a big thing for me. So I get all, I get the best of all the worlds, and I’m more competitive for my customers,

Brian Davis 37:28
yeah, and also, there it’s, it’s not dependent on just, like, kind of like, one proprietary ecosystem, right? Exactly. So, like, if something does kind of not working out all that well, you could just go and look for a replacement to that component. The

Chris Dyck 37:43
strength of the new process is this incredible rank, because this, like you said, one component drops off. It’s easy to replace that, and it doesn’t topple the whole other part of it. Yeah,

Brian Davis 37:55
so that’s, that’s Sun Power, and that’s Maxi and what about Tesla? Tesla, yeah, heavy. You know what? Where are you guys at with Tesla? Well, we’re,

Chris Dyck 38:04
we’re Tesla authorized installers, so we can do their batteries. They they don’t make any panels. So, I mean, the only thing that really is that you need authorization for, or to become a certified installer for, is the batteries. And their batteries are off the charts. They’re, they’re really great. So, yeah, maxium panels with Tesla batteries. And so

Brian Davis 38:28
the Tesla batteries are part of that system that you’re talking about, that you guys have put together. Yeah,

Chris Dyck 38:32
yeah. So it’s, it’s top notch. I’m really happy about it. That’s awesome.

Brian Davis 38:37
That’s super exciting. So we’ve talked about the history we’ve talked about, you know, now that you’re August roofing and solar, correct? So, like, what’s what’s next? Like, what are you looking towards in the horizon, as far as leading August roofing and solar

Chris Dyck 38:55
into the future? Yeah, we’re just developing more programs. The next one that’s happening right now is we’re looking at a maintenance department to actually, you know, help roofs last longer in the first place before you need to replace them. Also a big thing these days is fire safety.

Brian Davis 39:12
Yeah, I get those notifications from California. Edison, yeah, you know saying, Hey, we’re going to turn your power off, right? There’s too much wind, yep. So

Chris Dyck 39:21
we have a opportunity to take help a lot in that, right? So on the solar side, we could give you a battery and help your family get through the power outage. And on the other side, you know, the the debris that’s left on roofs is super dangerous. And another thing that that’s really come to light in the last 510, years is the vents that are on the roof. If they’re not properly done, the fire will start in the attic,

Brian Davis 39:49
really, yeah. Like, how does that work? Well, because I’ve always thought of like, the fire happening on the outside of the building.

Chris Dyck 39:57
Well, the embers get sucked in the vent. And drop into the attic. So the fire marshal just changed their rules and increased the or, I guess you decrease the size of the wire mesh that need to be inside the event to knock the embers out and increase the number of miles from the wildland fire area. So again, there’s, there’s, there’s millions events, I mean, millions of events on houses that would potentially, you know, cause a fire situation for customers. So Wow.

Brian Davis 40:39
So then your maintenance program, for customers that sign up for that, they’re going to get somebody from August roofing and solar showing up and inspecting all this stuff, right, exactly.

Chris Dyck 40:49
And then we’ll inspect solar too. So it’s not, it’s a, it’s a entire, you know, health checkup kind of for your roof, you know, you know, when I say roof line and above, make sure that as to the best of our ability, that it’s all functioning as best as possible. For you,

Brian Davis 41:08
that’s awesome and super good. Anything else that’s next, well,

Chris Dyck 41:13
I’m always working on stuff, you know, we’re, we’re constantly working on our internal processes. Yeah, yeah. We just year ago, we created a new position called a project coordinator. And so this project coordinator, my vision of it was really to be an advocate for the for the customer within the company, so they literally are the one point of contact with the company. There’s superintendents and foremen that are on the job site, and they talk to the customers all the time. But you need anything this project coordinator, they’re there to to help you. They get all the little they get permits. They get the porta potties out on the job site, take all that little stuff and just make sure that the customers have a great experience from beginning to end. I mean, that’s, you know, we talked about changing from being a referred to being a business owner. Now, you know, that’s kind of what hit me back in 2012 was I kind of decided, well, you know, I I’m not a really roofer anymore. I’m a CEO, or whatever you want to call me. And so I’m like, Yeah, okay, I guess I gotta get smarter about this sort of stuff. And and customer experience has always been like, I’m pretty I’m pretty tenacious about it. I if, if I feel that their customers not getting a good deal because of the way we’re treating them, we’ll dive into it and figure out how to fix it pretty quick. That’s where the project coordinator came from. Even though the sales process, you know, you know, a lot of guys will just go out, take a look at the thing and send people a bit, email them a bit, put it underneath the front door. You know, three weeks later, yeah, I want my guys to sit there and, you know, we’ll, we’ll spend an hour, hour and a half, with the customer, yeah, you know, my guys go there. We take pictures of the of the roof. We come down, we show them to you. Go over all the concerns. Help you understand not, I mean, how many, how often do people buy roofs? You know, probably once a once a lifetime, really, maybe, maybe two or three times, depends on how many times they move. You know, I really want us to make sure that they have all the information to make a good choice. Whether it’s August roof here or not, I know not everybody’s going to choose us. It’s there’s no way we could, right? And so it’s just so that that’s kind of our customer service to the to the world, right? And also we’re, we’re, we’re raising the bar, right, so now the professional, unscrupulous guys are going to have a little bit harder place to hide if we’re educating people.

Brian Davis 44:01
Oh, yeah, right? Because, yeah, if your your guy comes out, gives the inspection, gives all of the reporting, shows photos of what’s going on in the roof, right? Like that, that eight year old woman that you were just talking about, like, if she had that had that experience, right? And then the, like, shady roofing contractor then shows up, you know, for a second or third or fourth bid, yeah, and doesn’t provide any of that stuff, right? You know, the customer is going to be able to tell the difference just from those interactions before they make the decision on who to go with, correct? And hopefully they’re not going to go with the other guy. Yeah,

Chris Dyck 44:35
it doesn’t always stop them from it, but, you know, some people

Brian Davis 44:39
like, you know, they like taking that risk, taking that gamble, yeah?

Chris Dyck 44:44
Like, you know, bungee, bungee discount, bungee jumping, right?

Brian Davis 44:48
Mm, hmm, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s crazy, man. Like, I don’t get, I’ve had experience with contractors where just the work just never gets fixed. You know, you have some. To come out to the house and the problem is still there after the fourth or fifth time that they’ve come out, but they keep on telling you that it’s fixed, yeah, but no, it’s not,

Chris Dyck 45:09
yeah. Well, that’s another big thing for me, and this was, we started this a long, long time ago, because that’s that always bugged me about contractors, is you’ll you have this little problem and it’ll never get fixed, and they just keep showing up and not doing anything, essentially, until it everybody gets so frustrated that I, like, I’m not going to call back. It’s not you know, you know. And for me, it’s like that, and that’s usually only, like, one or 2% of the jobs, right, that that have that. And so I started a process. We call it a warranty, call process internally. But, you know, we log them, we treat them completely different. We count them, we watch them, you know, we, we, I see are they going up or down, you know? I mean, it’s a definite barometer. And I want, I want zero. So, you know, that’s we’re always working towards. So, you know, it’s another, you know, example of an internal process that we have. So, you know, we have the sales process that we’re educating people. We have a the production process where we’re really involved in making sure the customer, you know, has a good experience. Like our superintendents, we have a pre job walk and a post job walk so, you know, and some people don’t care for them. They’re like, you know what you’re doing. You do it. But our goal is to have, on the first day, superintendent’s going to be their first thing. Get with you, walk around the house, take a look at the contract, make sure everything’s going to be done right. Kind of like, you know, when you go into surgery and you’re having your arm amputated, and they the doctor marks this arm right? Yep, right. So it’s the same sort of thought process, and then then we can go about doing the job, and then when it’s all done, we’ll have the same kind of walkthrough. I actually, you know, what we found super successful is if customers actually look at it every day. And just because my foremen are great, they’ll, they’ll talk to the customer, and if they, Oh, you don’t like that, okay, great, you know, because sometimes a certain detail, yeah, um, could be purely esthetic, totally, right, yeah. And you don’t like it this way, but you like it that way. Okay, fine, you know, yeah, right. But we’re going to do this eight times on this house, right? Because it occurs eight times, and you don’t say anything till day at the end of the day after, you know, at the end of the job. And that we should fix eight, eight situations. Or you tell us on the first day, hey, could you do this one that way? No problem. And then we do all the rest of the details the same, and then it looks good. So, you know, it’s kind of an interactive process. I mean, roofing kind of feels like getting carpet put in your house like, kind of a pretty simple thing, but it’s, it’s much more, I it’s much more of a pretty major piece of construction on your house. It really is, yeah, you know, it’s not, it’s not one dimensional, right? You know, we’re fixing dry rot, there’s lumber, there’s sheet metal, there’s, uh, tar paper, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of different things. It’s

Brian Davis 48:19
a whole entire system. Yes, you know, that’s one of the things that I hear you talk about. It’s a roof system. Yeah, it’s just not like one layer, right? But there’s a lot of things that have to work together in order to make this right,

Chris Dyck 48:31
and then then throw solar in on top of it. Now, you’re really talking about, you know, you got projects that are, you know, 70 $500,000 project. This is a good piece of construction that’s happening to your house. So, you know, neither of us wants to take it lightly, because if we work together, we can have just this awesome outcome at the end, and everybody’s happy, right? Because, I mean, you know, I’ve joked a couple times with my customers, is like, you know, at the end, um, when I kind of did the the job walks at the end. I was like, nothing, nothing much against you, but I don’t want to ever talk to you again, right? I mean, yeah, referrals and stuff, of course. But I thought, you know, that’s a that’s a great testament to a refer is, if you don’t hear anything from your customer, it means his projects, his products working, right?

Brian Davis 49:20
Oh yeah, yeah, for at least 25 years. Yeah, right. And then after that, then you want to be the first one that they call

Chris Dyck 49:27
Yeah. With that has been another very exciting thing that we’ve encountered. I think we’ve done probably 10 where we’ve actually re roofed our own roof that we put on 25 or 30 years ago. Yeah, and same people happened to live there. They called us back said, Hey, your roof lasted 25 years. It’s time for a new one. Let’s just get signed up and get it done. That’s amazing. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Brian Davis 49:52
And you could only say that because you guys have been around for how long now? Well,

Chris Dyck 49:57
yeah, shoot the. 3033 years. 33 years, 91 Yeah, 33 foot, almost morning on 34 years. Wow.

Brian Davis 50:07
And that’s, that’s super rare, super rare in the construction industry,

Chris Dyck 50:11
yeah, especially for a guy after day one was not going to spend the rest of his life in this and

Brian Davis 50:16
then 33 years later, yeah, wow, man. Or even longer, because you worked it, yeah, you know, for a number of years before you started your

Chris Dyck 50:23
company, it’ll be 40 in June, sometime in June, oh my goodness,

Brian Davis 50:27
are you going to celebrate that somehow? What are you going to do? Chris, you got, you got to that’s 40 years, four decades. Four decades. I mean, you’re not swinging the hammers anymore, but 40 years the roofing industry, we got to do something, what we’ll figure something? Yeah. What would your advice be to somebody that’s looking at getting into, like the home services industry right now?

Chris Dyck 50:48
Run? No, no. Everybody always says it’s it’s difficult or it’s challenging. Everything’s gonna be difficult or challenged. You know, like I said, it’s probably the three things, understand you don’t know what you don’t know. Play the long game. Make sure you just do right by your customers and your employees. Make sure you get into it for the right reasons.

Brian Davis 51:10
Right What do you mean by that? Well, you

Chris Dyck 51:12
have to do it because you love it, because there’s going to be times when it’s just going to be hard. I mean, my 40 years has been fraught with a number of times where, you know, August roofing almost ceased to exist. And the only, the only way, was that I was not going to let it die. My love for the for the company and for what I was doing was greater than the pain you were dagging me I was enduring. Can you,

Brian Davis 51:38
can you share one of those? Or, yeah,

Chris Dyck 51:40
was, uh, let’s see 2000 So, and this is kind of where, let’s see, when I started with a company in 91 so I told you I worked for that large roofing company, right, yeah. And so they did primarily production work, okay, the big tracks, the tracks of homes. So,

Brian Davis 52:00
like, a bunch of homes would be, yeah, you know, like 100 homes, or 300 homes, and then they would come in and just do all the routes,

Chris Dyck 52:06
all right, yeah. So big contracts, you know, that kind of thing, volume work. And so after I had been on my own for a number of years, some of the builders that I had actually worked for, for this company, they realized, Hey, Chris is over here. And they were smart enough to understand that I was the one doing the work. Yes, I was working for this company, but I was where the rope was making me meeting the road. Yeah. So they’re like, oh. So they started calling me and saying, Hey, come on. You want to come bid the jobs. And so, you know, you know, kind of felt good, you know, to bid against my old boss and start winning some but it that game kind of burned me. It’s a high volume game, and, you know, I was trying to compete, so I changed my pricing to meet that, and I didn’t want. And the reality is I didn’t do the the kind of the workmanship that they, that they was acceptable for them, right? So it’s got, you know, like you said, Quick, get it done. Quick, and and so in 2000 It was, yeah, 2000 I had to file a chapter 11 reorganization. So, you know, and the only way that got me through there is just that I love my business, and I loved the business more than the agony that I was was going through, and just worked through it. And so that’s gonna, that’s gonna happen if you’re, yeah, totally. If you don’t care who you are, whatever your business is, just be prepared for that, and that, that is one of the great things to to if you’re mentally prepared for that.

Brian Davis 53:47
So what was it like? Typically, like, as, as I have seen, you know, a number of other business owners go through similar situations. It’s usually they, they come out of it, they either sell or they pivot right? You, of course, didn’t sell right. So what was it that you kind of like pivoted away from, and what is it that you pivoted towards in order to get yourself out of that and then for August roofing and solar to become what it is today? Well, it

Chris Dyck 54:17
was really defining my customer, the right customer, and not trying to be everything to everybody. Yeah, we want customers that want to have a great job, and they want to have a quality product, right? And they’re also willing to invest with us in in treating everybody professionally, and that is something they get in return to, you know, this is like, like you talked about earlier. It takes care of both, right? You treat the the employees like real people and professional and then they treat the customers that way. So and then the customers, they choose to work with a professional company, their employees get treated professionally. And so therefore, the. The customer gets a professional experience, you know. So it’s, it all washes itself. It all works together. So that’s what it pivoted towards. And just, you know, like I said, not and then you know, kind of unique situations, you know, like the solar thing, it presented itself. It was just, again, to take care of customers like nobody knew how to do this right, even though it’s in every roofing manual how you flash a pipe. But nobody wanted to do it that way,

Brian Davis 55:29
yeah, so because it cut in those corners, yep, yep. It was, it was, uh,

Chris Dyck 55:35
was too much effort, too much time in their brains. They just wanted to get it on and get out of there real fast. So there’s

Brian Davis 55:44
still some stuff that I want to talk to you about, okay, okay. And I want to talk to you about your customer journey. Okay, okay. And so the customer they sign up for a risk free consultation, one of your project coordinator consultants, one of your project consultants, yes, comes out. They get up on the roof, they take all of these photos. They do a whole entire, I think it’s a 76 point inspection correct. And then they sit down with the homeowners. They go through all the photos, all their findings, so the homeowners know exactly the current condition of their roof, and then if there’s any issues, then they also walk them through all of their options to get those issues fixed so the work that needs to be done, and then also any all the payment options so that they could see how it could be afforded Correct. What is it after the customer has all that, right? They’re getting all this information, right, right, okay, and now they might still be thinking like, well, well, what’s actually going to happen? What’s actually going to happen if I go with August roofing, what is it going to be like for August roofing and solar crew to show up on my on my property and do the work like, what is it that they can expect? Well,

Chris Dyck 57:02
to start off with, if you sign up with August review, one of the first things you’ll receive is from Armand is you’ll receive a welcome letter and video. It’ll just give you some of the basics of what’s going to happen and introduce you to a, you know, a few people that will be helping you. And then the next thing is, internally, you’ll be assigned to a project coordinator. So that project coordinator there, my vision for that position is they are your advocate to making this a smooth project as seemingly possible. You know, any kind of construction, especially a roof, is major, major disruption, interruption into your life, your regular routines. You know, can I brush my teeth in the bathroom? You know, you know, my regular wake, it’s all going to disrupt that. So we want this just to be as minimally invasive as possible. So this person will be your point of contact. You’ll also have point of contact of a superintendent of the crew. And then also there’s a foreman on the crew. Foreman stays there through the whole job, and same with the superintendent. He’s assigned that job, so you’ll have many points of communication throughout the process. So the first person you’ll be talking to would be your project coordinator. They’ll give you your schedule. And then, as it comes closer, as we understand construction, sometimes the jobs go longer. Sometimes they go shorter. You don’t know if it’s an old roof you’re tearing it off. You don’t know what you uncover. And sometimes it goes smoother, and sometimes it doesn’t just it’s there’s a few more challenges, right? So then she’ll dial in, or the project coordinator will dial in the, you know, as you get closer, and they’ll, they’ll give you an exact date. Okay, we’ll be there Wednesday at noon or whatever. And so then, so you’ll be kept in the loop, and then you’ll have an exact starting date about a week out. Then the the next step in the process is the first day of the of the project, and sometimes the day before, depending on your schedule, the superintendent for the job will come out and do a job walk with you. And this pre job walk. You take the contract out, you go over it, make sure that what everybody’s understanding of what’s going to get done is what they want to get done. And we’ve, you know, we found a few things in there. Oh no, no. And it was, it’s not that. It was anybody did anything wrong. It was just interpretation, right? And so, you know, it, it’s just a great time to, you know, get rid of any little potential mishaps. And it’s. Especially when you do this on the first day your your Foreman will be there to get introduced to him. They’ll go walk around your house. They’ll take a look at everything. See, you know, if there’s anything that’s damaged already, we’ll, you know, note that so that, you know we don’t have any, you know, I hate hard feelings, I hate change orders. I hate all of that. I want all of my jobs to go perfectly. You know, without any of that, no, that’s not realistic, that it’s 100% but we do our best to make sure that that that doesn’t happen. And so then the project will will roll along well after tear off, there’s an inspection that’s necessary, right? And again, the Project Coordinator in the office will know when this inspection is coming, as well as your your Foreman will know about that too. This inspection from the city, right? Yes, correct, or whatever housing authority you know, like sometimes the county, or stuff like that. So they’ll, they’ll do the inspection, and then from there, that’s when they’ll, we’ll, we’ll start putting the new roof back on. Obviously, we have to do any dry rot replacement. That’s about the biggest thing that we can’t really know. If I knew it, I would let everybody know. I’d build it in there. But, you know, rotting wood underneath your roof system, can’t always see it, so that’s the biggest unknown. And then we start putting the new roof back on. And then kind of the next major thing for you, and a good thing to do is, you know, every day, when you get home from work, walk around your roof and just see what progress they’ve made, and see if there’s anything that maybe doesn’t look right to you or doesn’t feel right to you. You know there, there are certain finishing details on roofs that can be done different ways. I have no effect on the waterproofing of the roof. It just is, is esthetics. And if, for some reason you’re like, really like that. If we can find another way to do that pleases you more visually, it’d be nice that we can start doing that at the beginning, not at the end, and then have to go all the way through. Or, you know, some people are super nice customers, and they’re like, I can live with it. I really don’t want to make you go do that, which, you know, we appreciate, but I would, I would love to do it the way you would like. And if we can do that from the beginning, then it works great for everybody. And then the final thing is your final job, walk through, the superintendent will come back. We, if possible, we like to do it as the crew is finishing up the final day, because then the crews up there, we have tools out. We can make the corrections immediately. And when we walk off the roof, your house is done. Understandably, work and timing that can always be done. So if it has to be done later, then you’ll have a job. Walk through with your superintendent, go over everything, make sure that everything’s up to your satisfaction. Then the project coordinator will call for a final inspection. We’ll get the city back out, do an inspection of the roof, and then everything will be done as far as that. And then we will create an invoice, and we’ll email that to again, remembering that we don’t You don’t pay until you’re done and happy. So then that way, you know, after that final job walk, we’ll make sure that the happy part is taken care of. That’s

Brian Davis 1:03:32
it. That’s a big difference. That’s a big that’s a big thing. They explain that a little bit more, right about not like people don’t have to pay until, not only you guys are done, right? Yeah, no money, no money down. Yeah,

Chris Dyck 1:03:47
yeah. I should have probably started out with the the process, because, I mean, that’s the first process, is you don’t have to do anything, sign your contract, and then, you know, you don’t need to put any money down. Or throughout the process. It’s only when the job is done and you’re happy that you’ll that you’ll make payment. Wow.

Brian Davis 1:04:06
So that’s, I mean, that that’s a great guarantee, yeah, because there’s, there’s other contractors out there that aren’t, they’re taking a down payment, and then, you know, a certain percentage, way through the the the project, then they’re asking for even more to continue. Yeah, I

Chris Dyck 1:04:24
know I had the customer that, you know, wanted me to, you know, match a price of another contractor. So he sent me a proposal, and I was looking at his payment schedule. I’m like, Holy mackerel. You know, it was $1,000 down or 10% that’s at state, California. Lawsuit took 1000 bucks day one, when they started tearing off, it took 50% more, whoa, and then, like when the materials were delivered, it was another 20% and then another bottom line. By the time the customer got to the end, they had 10% it was all 11. Charge that they had left in the in the situation, and, you know, that guy, what’s it gonna do if you’re got a a, you know, if you’re in a disagreement over what should be done? You know, he might just say, ah, you know, 10% 1000 bucks, it’s cheaper for me to go do the one, to go start on another one,

Brian Davis 1:05:24
right? Yeah, because again, 50% upfront from the next one. Yeah. So, and that’s

Chris Dyck 1:05:28
pretty that’s, that’s typical, you know, that’s something to be, definitely be wary of. And, you know, I do it more to keep my my focus on the customer where it belongs, yeah, than necessarily it is for the customer’s benefit, yeah, if you want to, if you know what I’m saying, yeah, yeah, just keep my, keep my mind in the in the game.

Brian Davis 1:05:53
So it’s kind of your way of just like putting blinders on, Yep, yeah,

Chris Dyck 1:05:57
keep focused, and that takes care of itself. Yeah,

Brian Davis 1:06:01
yeah, it’s good incentive, yes, you know, to make sure that you keeping the important things important. Yep, awesome. Yeah. So

Chris Dyck 1:06:09
did we finish all the Yeah, the final job walk through, and then you’ll get an invoice from the office, and then you can go ahead and pay we have, you know, we might have taken advantage of our financing. We have lots of financing offers that you can take advantage of. We do take credit cards and then obviously checks, so that’ll be the project will be all wrapped up,

Brian Davis 1:06:35
awesome. And then you have your peace of mind. For peace of mind, yes, knowing that, like you got quality work from a quality crew, right? And if anything does come up, August roofing and solar is just a phone call away. Yep, yeah,

Chris Dyck 1:06:49
we have a whole process. Should you find something that’s not working correctly, you just call the office and we’ll put you in our our warranty call process, and it’s tracked, and we make sure every one of them gets done. Because that’s, that’s just the way I want to be a typical contractor that you call, yeah, I’ll be there on Tuesday, and then Tuesday comes and goes. You know, I want to, I want the I want the job done.

Brian Davis 1:07:17
I’m sure that makes a big difference for your customers. Makes a big difference for you, makes a big difference for your crew. Yeah, right. Because everybody that works at August roofing knows what August roofing stands for, yeah. How does it make them feel knowing that there’s some that they’re a company out there really taking care of others in the community, right, and not taking advantage of other people

1:07:38
right now?

Brian Davis 1:07:39
And it’s really, I think it really goes to what it is that you’re talking about, where it’s it’s bringing a sense of pride and honor, you know, back into the roofing industry, where, like now, everybody in your company can be proud of the work that they’re doing, you know, and proud to let everybody know that’s that’s around them, that they work with. August, terrific, installer, alright, so Chris, yeah, and tell me, tell me about the core values that really guide your your company. Okay, so

Chris Dyck 1:08:06
we have two kind of categories. First is the kind of people we hire. And we hire people that are humble and hard working, work smart and they take pride in their work. And the second is kind of customers. We really the kind of customer service that we deliver, or how we treat our customers. We’re customer driven, we’re professional, and we give our customers peace of mind. And, you know, that’s, that’s the DNA, the heartbeat of August roofing.

Brian Davis 1:08:34
And so why? Why is it that those things are important to you? I mean, why start a company that that is focused on those things.

Chris Dyck 1:08:40
Well, the honest goodness truth is that about, let’s see, when I was 10 years ago. So after being business about 25 years, I brought in a Patrick Lencioni consultant. And we actually did. He was actually a doctor of psychology that his secondary career was working for Patrick valenciani, and I actually knew him, so we had a really good session. And what he did is he dug out of me, what, what, what was really my true heartbeat. And so those are the things that drive me, right? I mean, I, I’m all about efficiency. I want to just run an organization that. So that’s why we’re humble and hard working, work smart, and we just take pride in our work. Just, just get it done and get it done, right, you know. And then customers are always big for me, you know. And still are. And that’s why we’re, you know, professional is, is the biggest thing for us, right? The customer drives us. All my all my guys know I mean that you can see in the way they act. And you know that when I walk away, we want the customers just to go, Ah, nothing else but ah. Uh, peace of mind, right? I can relax, or could even be peace of mind. And they sign a contract going, I know, I know August roofing is going to just take care of this chaotic time that I gotta have my roof done. It’s gonna be crazy. It’s gonna be, you know, dirt all over my yard and stuff like that, but they’re gonna clean up every day.

Brian Davis 1:10:23
That’s, that’s great. That’s a lot of peace of mind. That’s what customers need, yeah, especially with something that can be so personal as as work done on their house. Yeah?

Chris Dyck 1:10:32
So it’s an intrusion, right? Our our home is, really, is our castle, right? You know, let many people in into that, yeah, inner sanctum.

Brian Davis 1:10:41
Yeah, it’s our Safe, safe place. It’s where we keep all the most important things in people in our lives, and

Chris Dyck 1:10:48
then somebody goes and takes advantage of that. That’s just sad.

Brian Davis 1:10:53
Yeah, it is. Well, thanks, thanks, Chris for caring so much, for caring so much about your workers, caring so much about the community, caring so much about your customers, so makes a big difference, man,

Chris Dyck 1:11:04
yeah. I mean, our guys all know our core values, and we hire around them. So,

Brian Davis 1:11:08
so yeah, and that’s what you got on the side of the trucks. Yes,

Chris Dyck 1:11:12
exactly. Oh, all the trucks, yes. And it’s for the guys. It’s not for the customers. You can go around the office and you can ask anybody, and, you know, shoot, they can the sales, the sales. I had sales meeting this morning. They did off in unison, all together, yeah? So, you know,

Brian Davis 1:11:32
they’re all They’re all programmed, yeah, so, but the

Chris Dyck 1:11:35
you know that, but that’s what you want, right? Everybody to understand.

Brian Davis 1:11:39
Oh, totally, totally. I remember when I got my first truck, somebody got me a Jesus fish, right? You know, to put, to put on the back. And instead of putting it on the back, I put it inside, like on the dash, so that I could see it right? Because I was like, I need to be reminded of this, you know. So that’s, that’s important. Now, put these reminders. It’s, it’s really how you build your culture, right? You know how you build your company culture, right? Where these are the things that are coming to mind, these are the things that they’re reciting. And so then when it comes down to acting, you know, they’re going to follow through and act out these, these values,

Chris Dyck 1:12:19
right? Or the bigger thing, I think, is, is that when they they don’t have the ability to get to a supervisor, you know, because every employee at any point in time has to make a decision that, like, kind of just falls on his shoulders. Yeah, right, but the better he knows your company culture, he will be able to make that decision more in concert with what anybody else, his supervisor or anybody else would have directed him to do, because he understands the heartbeat of the company. So

Brian Davis 1:13:00
it’s really empowering, yeah, it’s empowering everybody, not just the the supervisors, the the project coordinators, the foreman, but like everybody, yeah, that puts on a an Ari shirt, yeah? And

Chris Dyck 1:13:13
it works in reverse, too, because, you know, I’ll have some of my my direct reports come to me and they’ll say, oh, you know, I we needed to do this for this customer today to make sure that they were happy. I just want to let you know so it’s they don’t come looking for permission because they know they’ve made the the right decision already. Because of our company culture, it’s more like, hey, FYI, yeah, right, yeah. And so that that’s a, because then it’s a, it’s almost a bottom up thing, right? Rather than a top down. That works way. It’s another good hack for anybody who wants to get into business, yeah,

Brian Davis 1:13:57
yeah. Do bottom up. So that, Chris, there’s you talked about that with all the with all of the customers that you guys present to. You know, it’s unreasonable to to believe that everybody is going to go with you. That’s great, you know, but so with, with some of these customers, as they’re going with these other companies. And as you said, you know, there’s good companies out there, but there’s also a lot of companies that are looking to take advantage of customers and their ignorance and they’re just trying to make a quick buck. So what has been your your experience as you’re taking these jobs? Like, how? What? What percentage would you say of these jobs that August roofing and solar is taking is not just fixing problems that are from just regular wear and tear of a 25 to 30 year old house, but are fixing problems that are actually caused by these other contractors you know that are just looking to take advantage of these customers.

Chris Dyck 1:14:58
Probably. About a third, wow, yeah,

1:15:02
it’s that much, yeah,

Chris Dyck 1:15:05
in in some way, shape or form, and

Brian Davis 1:15:07
you would, and, I mean, this goes along with the that story that you’re just saying, where that eight year old woman, yes, you know, it had the same contract to come out. How many times was it? Four times the

Chris Dyck 1:15:18
I don’t even remember. Yeah, it was the my salesman just told me the story, and he was pretty moved too, because, you know, he felt like horrible for her, because he did the he did the inspection, came back, came down, showed her everything, and and, you know, she started crying. And he was like, what’s going on? He was like, he thought he did something wrong. And she’s like, Well, no, I had my roof down, and they actually did nothing by showing the pictures, yeah? So, and then he was, like, overwhelmed, because he’s like, oh my goodness, you know. So we got great people working for the company, so they’re empathetic the same time, you know. So

Brian Davis 1:15:59
that’s the type of sales guys you want? Yeah, because they’re the ones that are going to actually solve problems, right? That’s awesome. Chris, well, how can people find August roofing and solar if they’re interested in learning more about the company, about what it is that you guys do more about you?

Chris Dyck 1:16:17
Well, we have a YouTube channel. It’s got tons of great YouTubes on there. And people are really, you know, we started that couple years ago, and people are like, coming to us, knowing about us already, which is kind of cool get, you know, it’s a warm introduction then. And so that’s great place, August roofing, the website, and that’s probably the best way to get a hold of us. There’s a form on there. Fill it out. It’ll come right to the guys at the office and we’ll, we’ll give you a call and get get somebody out to give you an estimate.

Brian Davis 1:16:51
Awesome, man. So yeah, so anybody wanted to get into the home services? I hope everybody took notes. They’ve got all of that down. Thank you so much, Chris for for coming out and spending this time with us. I appreciate it, definitely, man, definitely.