Dugouts to deal sheets: How a former pro ballplayer found a home in roofing

By Jesse Sanchez.

From pro baseball to roofing boardrooms, Ryan Groth turned competitive grit into a game-changing sales career and found his purpose.

In this episode of People Make Roofing, cohosts Luke McCormack from Roofing Talent America and Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Ryan Groth, founder of Sales Transformation Group (STG), to explore how a onetime professional baseball player turned himself into a powerhouse in roofing sales.

Ryan doesn’t hold back as he lays out his unique path into the industry. “I had some construction family history, but I always had big dreams and goals and that showed itself through baseball,” he says, recalling his time being drafted by the Pirates and the Angels. But the transition from dugouts to boardrooms wasn’t instant — or easy.

“I was 25, getting married, about to have a kid. I knew I had what it took to figure stuff out, but I didn’t know what it would look like until I started to meet certain people in the roofing industry,” Ryan recollected. That moment of clarity came when a friend told him, “Why don’t you get into sales? You’re a competitor. You’re a communicator.”

That was the pivot Ryan needed, and he took off. “Once I started getting into sales, I started to realize, this is like a sport. Everything that I did and who I became to get to the level I got to in athletics, I can do that to make money? Let’s do it.”

What followed was a transformative stint with a South Florida roofing firm where Ryan not only learned the ropes but began to develop the sales processes that would define his company. “We were running and gunning and he taught me the game,” Ryan says of the CEO he worked under. “I got to sit under him for four-and-a-half years and probably get 30% of his time.”

That apprenticeship laid the foundation for STG, which Ryan launched seven years ago to help contractors build sales teams that drive growth. His mission? “We help contractor teams sell more. That’s really it.”

The conversation doesn’t just showcase a personal success story — it challenges conventional views of the roofing industry itself. Ryan’s insights are raw, direct and reflect the grit required to thrive. “I’m not really extraordinary at TPO and PVC,” he admits. “I care about people and the business and the leadership and the culture they’re creating. And if we can make that incredible, everything else will figure itself out.”

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the conversation to learn more about Ryan’s journey and the vision behind Sales Transformation Group!