Position your business more competitively by adding metal to your offerings

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says why not put yourself into the growing metal market where there is opportunity to make a few extra points of margin?

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee about adding metal construction to a contracting business.

Megan Ellsworth: Hello everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at metalcoffeeshop.com. I'm so excited. I'm with my friend Randy Chaffee, one of our influencers, and we're going to be talking about why you should add metal to your business. Hi Randy.

Randy Chaffee: Hey Megan. How are you my friend?

Megan Ellsworth: I'm so good. It's good to see you.

Randy Chaffee: It's good to see you as always. I'm so old. It's just good to be seen. So you know.

Megan Ellsworth: You're not that old.

Randy Chaffee: Older than you think. You just don't start calling me grandpa. Already have enough people that do that.

Megan Ellsworth: You got it.

Randy Chaffee: Fair enough.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, so this month's question is more contractors are looking to get into metal. What is your advice for adding metal construction to a contracting business?

Randy Chaffee: Wow, that's a great question. One that you know that I love is I live in the world of metal. So my response back right out the gates would be, why wouldn't you? I mean, why wouldn't you?

You think about it, asphalt, it's been great for us as a country, as a world for a long, long time. It's still huge, right? But the metal segment of the roofing is growing at an astronomical rate and even small percentages of an increase, this makes that pie so much bigger. So far the pie is growing bigger each year than what people that are getting involved into taking a slice of that pie are. So there's tons of business out there for people that want to get involved in metal.

So its jumped the wave right now when it's climbing and growing where asphalt, and I have products that go into the asphalt market, so I'm certainly not downing that as an industry at all, but it's declining slightly because of the advent of metal.

So if you want to be in leading edge and sets yourself apart, and I think that's two or three of the real reasons why a contractor or a roofer should get involved. One is leading edge. We talked about it's a growing industry. But, probably more importantly, you can start getting yourself out of that transactional price-only genre that you get into when you're in asphalt because a lot of times that can be who's got the best price.

When you get into metal, you can be anywhere from the lower end. Some of the Ag-rib panel that gets put on typically in the rural areas is very cost-effective and probably no more than a good shingle job. But you can work your way from there into the lookalike standing seams that are still they fasten through. You can get into actual standing seams, you can get into all kinds of stamp shingles, whether it's painted, whether it's stone-coated, whatever the case may be. So the sky's really the limit, right?

Really it takes, especially once you get out of maybe the, I guess I'll say the lower end price point, it takes a little bit more of a technician to be involved. I'm going to take these glasses off. I look way too smart and nobody will believe it. So I mean, who am I kidding? I didn't believe it myself when I looked over. So I said, "Okay, they got to go." So if I walked out of my office, my wife would say, "Get those things off. You are not that smart. You don't deserve those."

Megan Ellsworth: What are you doing?

Randy Chaffee: Anyways. But once you get into, especially standing seam and any of the shingles, whatever the case may be, the stones coated or the painted shingle, it takes a...

You got more groceries, good job. Didn't you pay?

Anyway, it takes more of a technician, I guess is what I'm saying, right? And with that comes the ability to keep your price where you want it to be. You don't have to get into giving it all away because you got the same OC, the same GAF, the same whoever shingle that 12 other people that just quoted the job have. You've got your reputation, you got those things which play up. I always believe in that, sell yourself. They're buying, for lack of a better term, Megan's Roofing, they're not buying the shingle per se.

We've talked about this many a times. I'm a big believer in that branding yourself. But with that said, why not put yourself into a growing market where the opportunity to make a few extra points of margin are there. Where you can maintain your price that you want. Because where there might be 15 guys willing to bid this asphalt shingle job, there might only be four or five guys willing to bid the metal. And so you really have put yourself in a lot better position to, I'm not saying demand a higher price, but to maintain the price level you want.

And the second part of it is you are offering a product, if you're so inclined or your market or your clientele is so inclined to care about the green, being green and not as in painted green, but the green sustainability and all those sort of things. Obviously metal's a very green product and that's another advantage that you can sell to customers, especially if that's an area that they're fairly concerned with.

But the biggest thing I think is homeowners are becoming so well-educated on metal, on the advantages of metal and with all the different aspects you can get from a lower end Ag panel look all the way up to a high end standing seam or the stone-coated or the stamped shingles so you can go the full gambit. Consumers are educating themselves that, I think, you're going to find eventually, probably sooner than we think, there's a whole customer base that are going to be metal buyers.

Most people, and I deal with a fair amount of people that are pretty good in the in-home sales world of selling roofs, and they'll tell me that. Now, there's always outliers to this, but most cases a homeowner is sold on metal probably before you come to visit them. They have researched. They've seen neighbors. They've heard the issues or whatever the reasons are, you're probably not going to convince them back away from metal.

So either you're not going to get the call if they call and say, do you do metal roofs and say, nah, I really don't do that, but I could do you a really... I'm not really interested. I want metal. So you're going to start losing some of those people right out of the gates.

Now I think there is an option going the other way for somebody that's looking for just a roof. They don't really know the difference necessarily. They've heard a metal, but they're not really sure.

Jesus, one of the biggest probably pushback people would get is well metal's a lot more money. Well, in some cases, yes, at the higher level, the higher end it is. At the lower entry level, not really much at all if any. But you're still a, I don't want to say a forever, but basically a forever roof. You're one and done.

And people that... Different day, different time we could... I've walked through this math before and it's interesting, but to kind of cliff note it. That's an easy one to get around. If you go, okay, you're $8,000 for this roof, probably not getting a roof for eight grand, but I said it so I'm going to stick with it, for a single roof and 10 grand for the metal roof. Oh, that's two grand. That's two grand today. But fast-forward ahead into today's world, sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 years is all, and that roof is starting to need some replacement, eight grand versus 10.

Now it's with inflation is another 10 now. So now you're to 18 versus eight. How many times do you need to do that, right, to where... Or can you go ahead and just buck up for the extra two grand today and never have to do this again, probably. Or if it's a finance deal, another couple of less lattes at Starbucks a month, then you can probably pay that extra and not have to do that.

So I think there's a way to sell around that cost issue if there is one. But the real beauty is it's a one and done. And the other, I think for contractors that really are engaged with their consumer and they want to do a good job for them is resale value. A lot of customers will say, "Yeah, but I'm only going to be here for another three or four years and I'm selling, so I really don't care."

But you're going to care when you go to sell your house.

Megan Ellsworth: And they want a new roof.

Randy Chaffee: And they are going to go, okay, do the comps, right? Your house is worth 400 grand and the one down the street's worth 400 grand. But I kind of like, yeah, but their house is going to need a new roof in the next four or five, six years. My house is not going to need a new roof probably for the lifetime of you owning the home. So yeah, I'd like to keep my price, if you don't mind.

Easier said than done. But I'm just saying that's just one more thing. Insurance. I know in a lot of areas, insurance in fire areas out west where you're from, down in the south where I live most of my life with the hurricanes, metals becoming not only popular but almost the only option. In my part of the world, it's either metal or the clay or cement tile.

Megan Ellsworth: Right. Tile.

Randy Chaffee: A lot of places just are not allowing for shingles anymore because every storm that comes through, they're off again. And so that's the real basics. You're going to offer your customer a better product.

And again, if you're into the world of asphalt shingles or any other types of roofing, I'm not saying don't ever take away from this, oh, that Randy guy said you should just stop today selling asphalt. Absolutely not. That'd be silly. There are people that want that.

There are HOAs that you might not work your way through that today and you need a roof today. But even with that, I would caution contractors that want to do some work in HOAs, don't get fearful the first time you get a pushback because a lot of HOAs out there had to have that education. They had to have samples brought in. They had to be shown the value and the look, because that's one of their biggest things is they're worried about the look. They see metal as the...

They drive through the country and I don't want... This neighborhood is not going to look like a hog farm. Well, there's a whole... We're not talking about just a bare galvanized cheap metal thrown on a hog building, right?

A lot of your manufacturers sales guys or reps can be pretty good with giving you the information, giving the background, maybe even coming and meeting with or helping whether it's in person or virtual to help these HOAs understand. We can give you a very nice look. Maybe we're not going to do a ribbed panel in our HOA of five, six, $800,000 or $1 million homes, but stamp shingle or a stone-coated shingle, something that looks very aesthetically pleasing,

But now you do a one and done. And so there's options to work through that. So I wouldn't be dismayed if they say, well, we're in HOA, we don't allow metal. The word to that is, yet.

Megan Ellsworth: Yet. Exactly.

Randy Chaffee: I don't allow metal yet. And those things, you know me, I'm not really this pushy, I'm aggressive but not pushy. There's a difference between going after business. I would just ask them, "Look, I'm not trying to push anything. Maybe I won't sell a roof in your subdivision for the next three years, but can we start the process? Can we help you learn to understand? And at the end of the day you still just... Your HOA, you can do what you want. But maybe we can help you understand there's some real value to your homeowners."

So it's really to summarize, it's there, it's growing, it's not going away. It's going to do nothing but get bigger and bigger and bigger. I would say the sooner you establish yourself, if you're not already in metal, if you're in metal already, man, just keep pushing. Push, push, push the idea of metal. If you're not in it, the sooner you get in, the better. Because the guys that have testimonies and 50 pictures to show of all these projects they've done are going to establish themselves as the brand, as the expert. I think you want to be at that position as fast as you can versus, well, I've done roofs for 50 years. Well, how many metal have you done? Well, this would be my first, actually. I did a dog house at home. But that don't count,

I just think you want to establish yourself as early as possible and get training. Most manufacturers will offer some training of some type for your people, whether it's at the job site, whether it's at your facility or you come into the manufacturer, especially in a standing seam in the metal shingle world. Almost everybody and I represent a stone-coated shingle, but all my competitors do it and do it well too. They bring people in. They show them how it gets done.

I think that's super important because, in my real parting words unless you've got something else, it's so important that we do this right. That you as a contractor do it right. That we as a manufacturer, supplier do it right. Because here's the deal. If you don't buy your roof from me as a supplier, or you don't buy it from Megan's Roofing, but you go with somebody else's metal, number one, please go with metal, whether it's mine or yours, please go with metal.

We have to have that job a success and look beautiful, even if it's not my product or your product, because we all live or die on the fact that Billy Bob bought a metal roof, and my God, he loves it. He tells everybody in the world. We still got a shot. If he tells everybody in the world, I got a metal roof and I hated everything about it, it's awful. It's the worst thing I ever did. We all lose, right?

Megan Ellsworth: Yep.

Randy Chaffee: So it's important to support each other in the industry. We're all going to get some, and we win and we lose. And as the pie keeps growing, there's more to win than there is to lose. So let's always cheer on our competitors. Seriously, as weird as that may sound, if you're going to buy from this guy, buy from him.

I would really go as far as to say, look, if you're a contractor in the area that's done lots of metal and you lose a job to somebody that's getting new into metal, I know this goes against the grain, help the guy if you can. If he's got the job, let's just make sure he gets the job on properly and done. Because whatever additional business he might, what you think steal from you, is going to not be near as much as the damage he does to the whole reputation of metal in your area if he does a bad job.

Megan Ellsworth: Well said.

Randy Chaffee: My parting words.

Megan Ellsworth: No, that was really jam-packed. Amazing information.

Randy Chaffee: I'm going to put my glasses back on so I look smart again.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh good. Good.

Randy Chaffee: Look at that. Down in the nose really looks smart, right?

Megan Ellsworth: Randy, thank you so much. That was loaded with good info. I hope everyone out there was taking notes because wow, that's... Everyone out there, if you want to add metal to your business and to what you offer your customers, this is the thing to listen to. And Randy is the guy to talk with.

Randy Chaffee: Much appreciated. It's either I'm very, very smart with my glasses or I've just been around four plus decades, probably more than that.

Megan Ellsworth: Maybe it's both.

Randy Chaffee: I appreciate you as always and thank you Megan for what you bring to everybody every week. The shows, your influencers, the people you have are great. I try to catch them all and it's a real value to the industry, so keep doing it.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, I'm so glad. Well, thank you Randy, and we'll be chatting next month.

Randy Chaffee: Let's do it. I'll be here.

Megan Ellsworth: Well, see you then.

Randy Chaffee: All right, cheers.