Want to be a Roofing Contractor? Buy an Existing Company

RCS Influencer Shelly Duhaime says that anyone who wants to be a roofing contractor should consider buying an existing company rather than start their own.

I think any person that wants to own a roofing company should buy an existing company. There are a lot of really good roofing contractors out there that have been in business, have good reputations, but don't have succession plans. They have an established client base. Usually, they know the competition quite well. You could also transition with some of the key people within that roofing company, so if I were saying to my own son, who said, "Hey Mom, I want to be in the roofing contracting business," I would say, "Find a way to buy an existing company."

Some of you may be thinking, “isn’t it easier to just get a truck, some tools and start my own company?’ It goes back to the main issue in construction, and that is labor. More and more, you're going to have to have better benefit packages to acquire, retain, and keep good labor, not only labor but leaders too - your estimators, your foremen, the people running the jobs, your safety people. That part of the business is going to become more and more important to maintain and more costly. The ability to get people is going to be very difficult, so if you're starting off with one truck and one ladder, then it's going to be very hard for you to expand your business to do any more than what you could do with one truck, and one ladder, and a couple of people that help you.

Imagine you've got an established roofing company, that maybe has 75 people. They've got a good client list. They've had somebody running the company that's been a very good operator, can serve as a mentor, give you guidance. You know, I think that's the best route to success, and I think there's a lot of opportunity out there. I talk to roofing contractors all the time, and a lot of them are concerned about what their succession plan is going to be.

Shelly Duhaime is a Captive Specialist for NFP and has been serving roofing contractors for 20 years, in the role of risk management and alternative risk financing. See her full bio here.