Sherwin-Williams - Roofing Passport Enhanced Capabilities - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Christian Zimprich, Sherwin Williams’ MetalVue sales director, Junny Lee, Sherwin-Williams' MetalVue Market Segment Manager and Chris Morris, a MetalVue Partner with The Stonegate Group. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Welcome to MetalCast, the podcast where we're turning up the heat on all things metal roofing. On this show, we'll explore the world of metal roofing from its durability to design, expert insights and more. Join us as we bang out the details on the toughest roofs in the game. Get ready to unleash the power of metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: Hello and welcome to another episode of MetalCast from MetalCoffeeShop.com. My name's Karen Edwards, and today we are being joined by the team behind Sherwin-Williams MetalVue program, Junny Lee, Christian Zimprich and Chris Morris. Welcome to the podcast.

Christian Zimprich: Thanks, Karen. Happy to be here.

Karen Edwards: I would like to start out just by having each of you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your role with this cool program. Junny, why don't you start us off?

Junny Lee: Sure. Thank you, Karen. My name is Junny Lee. I'm the market segment manager for the MetalVue program. This is now my 11th year with the company. I joined the coil marketing team June 2024, and up until that point, my background has been in sourcing and supply chain.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Christian, how about you?

Christian Zimprich: Sure. Thanks, Karen. Christian Zimprich. I have been with Sherwin-Williams just about 11 years. Spent a lot of that time with the coil division actually and have been around the MetalVue program and a prior role in marketing. I'm currently the sales director actually for our MetalVue program. So I have a small but growing team supporting me, Junny being one of them, on this really important initiative and look forward to talking more about the program.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. Thank you for being here. And Chris, last but not least, introduce yourself please.

Chris Morris: I'm a resident industry nerd, Karen. I've been around the space for the better part of two decades for manufacturing, contracting and supporting OEM. Just super excited to help folks that are currently in the metal world or want to get into it be more successful based on their affiliation with this program.

Karen Edwards: All right. Well, thanks. I'm really excited to dive in and talk about this program and talk about some of the updates. So Christian, why don't you start us off just by giving us a high level, what is the MetalVue program and how does it help increase the profitability of metal roofing work?

Christian Zimprich: So the MetalVue program really got its start, well, going on I think over five years ago now. I can't believe where all that time went, but it started off with this concept of, hey, we as Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings Division, we support obviously a lot of our partner manufacturers in the metal roofing space with our coatings packages. But what could we potentially do to help support, again, our partners in the value chain to grow the MetalVue or excuse me, the metal roofing market as a whole?

So our initial concept was this Roofing Passport program, which I know we'll talk about a little bit more and get into more detail, but it evolved into this overall MetalVue concept. So MetalVue is a suite of tools, resources, capabilities, partners that we can bring to contractors, manufacturers in the space to help them address some pain points that have historically existed for really the value chain that supports metal roofing. So there's a number of sub-programs, if you will, under the overarching MetalVue program.

Again, Roofing Passport being one. That's our estimating and ordering platform as part of the MetalVue program. But really again, it's designed to bring those tools and capabilities and the Sherwin-Williams brand as well. Obviously one of the more recognized brand in the building products industry. By combining those resources, capabilities with the brand, I think we've got a pretty powerful program here that we really think is going to move the needle towards growth and market share for metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: Thank you, Christian. Chris, I'd like you to talk a little bit deeper about the resources and tools that contractors have access to.

Chris Morris: Yep, no problem. So if you think about it like a car or a race car, you have your engine or your nucleus and that would be the Roofing Passport. So that really enables or equips folks of, again, we'd like to meet them where they are, where they've been doing metal for the past few decades or the past few days, really allow them to use the latest technology to be able to order, to estimate, to procure with confidence. And then you could think about outside of that engine you've got the chassis, which is MetalVue.

So that will help folks with articulating or leveraging the brand that is Sherwin-Williams and the coatings that are provided and the longevity and durability that those give a homeowner. And then you can think about ways to leverage that in the home from a contractor standpoint. The attributes that metal as a substrate gives from efficiency, from sustainability, all the way down to look and feel.

So touching from the front end or the tip of the spear would be from a sales and marketing standpoint all the way through labor and how to procure labor, how to educate labor and how to connect both OEMs to contractors and contractors back to OEMs. So it's really that end-to-end environment that can meet you where you are, what sophistication, what educational levels you have within metal. Quite frankly, the program doesn't care because they're going to have something for those again that have been doing it forever and those that just want to start and get into it.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. I like your analogy to the automobile. It kind of puts it into perspective. It really is a tool that a contractor needs from just starting out to they've been doing it a while and they just want to improve. This isn't new. This has been out for some time now, but you guys are making improvements and you're adding things and enhancing things. Let's talk a little bit about what's different in the program.

Junny Lee: Absolutely. So if you factor in this past maybe six months or so, a lot of our efforts have been focused on the voice of the customer. And then at Sherwin-Williams, one of the driving pillars of our company or the culture is about continuous improvement. So we take into account all the feedback we receive from our customers, good or bad, positive/negative feedback. It could be from the customer visits. It could be conversations from trade shows.

It could be just any casual conversation we've had, and the challenge of delivering for the users and any upcoming users, other Roofing Passport program itself. So the biggest thing I think especially with the user base today, they'll notice is the refreshed interface. UI/UX goes hand-in-hand. What does that mean? That means the overall dashboard of the Passport looks refreshed.
It's cleaned up. It's organized. It's very visually appealing, and that really impacts the intuitive nature of the Roofing Passport. Everything is much easier to maneuver through the program itself, the platform itself. Once we improved the interface, then we realized that for contractors or users, if they want to be very on top of their projects, all the active quotes that they're on, we need to make sure that job management is easier for them as well.

So we looked into, excuse me, how can we improve the communication portion of it? So we dedicated comments left behind for EagleView or Roofing Works, our core partners within the Roofing Passport. But really that was the two priorities for us, improve the interface for the users and then improve the intuitive nature of the platform itself. We started factoring in concerns such as the abandonment rate.

That's a big one. I'm the type of person where if it takes me way too long to sign up for an account or whatever it may be, I'll come back to it later on. Or you know what? I might just not. I might lose interest. Previously, everything was done externally from Roofing Passport. Now we've brought things in-house. So it's much easier to onboard users. If you're trying to bring on board new contractors or whomever may be, it's a much more streamlined approach to signing folks, getting folks involved into Roofing Passport.

Karen Edwards: So we're talking about the improved appearance and the interface. And I want to make sure people understand what the platform is. Is it a website we're going to? Is it an app? How is it accessed and where does it live? You mentioned bringing things in-house. Tell me a little bit about that.

Chris Morris: Yep, so it is URL based. So you can think of an application that you can get from any machine with password protected. And it's got logic that's built in from a parent-child relationship, depending on who's in it, whether it be an OEM or a contractor. So it has all that logic already built into it so you can access it again from different vehicles as well. But I think more importantly, what we're talking about is whether it's a blueprint, plans, drawings, address, so we're able again to be able to go ingest all those different types.

So you might think of this as like an XML file from your EagleView report. You may think of this as a blueprint from a builder specifier architect. You may think of this as even a cocktail napkin drawing with links and different geometry inside of it. So we really wanted to try to meet all those expectations from wherever you're getting your raw ingredients to be able to use this as the oven to go bake that and have very sophisticated inputs create very simplistic outputs.

Karen Edwards: So I want to talk a little bit too about this one click estimation process and how that works.

Chris Morris: So if we're talking about the one clicks, we're talking about remote. So we're not on the job site. We haven't potentially been to that job site. And let's talk about just from a pricing standpoint. So I want to go out to Christian's home or I get that inquiry from that, I want to be able to provide an accurate estimate. So we're talking in the high 90s. So we're talking about confidence in that. So what we're able to do through Roofing Passport is a deep linked integration with EagleView.

And so we're able to take their lats and longs and the raw ingredients in which they give through that XML file. So we're able to be as precise as any other connection in the entire world as it relates to estimation. So we're actually able to take not just... For a lot of times if you're in the asphalt world, you're going down to the foot. We're talking sub-inch. And so that really matters obviously in metal and being accurate.

So there's been years of work and a ton of great people that have touched this program to ensure that you can have that ultimate confidence when you're going to present that estimate or that bid. Now, the other caveat too is just like anything is you want to trust, but verify. So still want to be able to go on site and run that tape measure to make sure that that 14 feet 7 inches is correct for that particular slope of roof.

But again, that's in the high 90s percent of confidence going in. The great part is is there's been tens of thousands of jobs run through the engine, and so we've been able to get the disposition from the job and then that would be called job costing. So being able to go see how accurate it is. And a lot of times we're hearing it's within 100, $200 of the total roof. So that's talking about typically $50,000 plus all in for that residential re-roof opportunity.

Again, that enables the folks that haven't been familiar with metal to go out there and say, you know what? I can stand by this estimate. I can feel comfortable with the price that I've given to the homeowners, and then I can scale my business based on the affiliation and the confidence that I'm getting from the partners in which I've chosen through the MetalVue program.

Karen Edwards: Wow! That is really impressive to be within 100 to $200 of that job. And you said tens of thousands have gone through there and that accuracy is spot-on. Okay, so you said it's integrated with EagleView. Can we talk about some of the other integrations into what kinds of tools that contractors have access to when they're part of using the Roofing Passport program?

Christian Zimprich: I can take that one, Karen. So really since the beginning of the program, obviously Sherwin-Williams has been on the forefront. We love our brand, some of our resources, but we've also had a pretty robust partner program since the beginning, so obviously called EagleView. We have another company called Roofing Works that helps us with some of the blueprint and measurement stuff as Chris alluded to.

And then there's another company called SmartBuild, which helps us generate the takeout. The four of us form the backbone of the capabilities within the Roofing Passport, but it also goes beyond that too. Again, this MetalVue concept has that engine, as Chris said, with Roofing Passport, but we have some training resources that we are populated partner with Grosso University, who many people might have already heard of.

We have another company called GiddyUp we're working with that really is helping us with some of the workflow management. So what's been part and parcel and really core to the foundation of the program since the beginning is strong partnerships with experienced companies in the industry. And that's allowed us to really irrigate and bring together a lot of capabilities that I think, again, will help this rising tide that exists for metal anyway and just open the floodgates and really help metal grow as a share of the market.

Chris Morris: Well, just jumping on what Christian said, I mean, Christian, as the sales director and staffing of the team, I think you should always follow the money to see really where the heart is and where the investment is and so the continued investment with the connection, with the help center that is dedicated to support the program with marketing, human collateral as well as a ton of assets. You can look at the trade show exposure.

You can look at the commitments through our very valued customers and OEMs that have seen this as a way to address the ever-growing residential re-roof market. And so as you know, metal to be the fastest growing segment of that market. Folks are starting to see that, the demands coming in from the homeowners. We've seen some of the demand from a legislation standpoint.

We've seen it from an insurance standpoint just with what the substrate of metal provides in terms of sustainability, in terms of natural disasters and different things that relate to the durability and the protection of that property. So I think a lot of folks have seen the tailwind that's pushing this through the market. And so the investment is clear that's being made in this program, and so we can only think that it's going to continue to evolve and get better. So this isn't like the finish line.
It's more of the starting point, even though we've got a half decade of investment inside of it. But we're really starting to see more of that hockey stick growth opportunity based on just the desire and demand to differentiate with product from a contractor level and to the value to the homeowner. And we've seen that growing demand from the residential property owners and their desire to have a roof that they don't have to worry about again for potentially half a century.

Karen Edwards: Metal's beautiful. There's so many things that you can do with metal in terms of colors, style. It complements just about every style of home. So if you're a contractor and you're not offering metal, you're missing out and it's time to get on the MetalVue train, right?

Junny Lee: 100%. Some of the products that I've been seeing over the last few months, and this is a relatively new space for me as well, but the innovation coming out is pretty incredible. I mean, I had no idea. And the way you can emulate some of what's the norm. Some of the normal material that's being used today's. One of our teammates, Brendan McGinnis, he's the program manager for the MetalVue program, he said it best, metal is the superior substrate for what's available out there today.

Karen Edwards: I agree. I love metal. So let's talk about how contractors can get involved. What's the process look like?

Christian Zimprich: Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways. Chris, chime in here too, but we're at all the major trade shows. We're recording this here towards the end of January. IRE is coming up, so we'll obviously have a big presence there both from a MetalVue specific perspective and just Sherwin-Williams in general. We have a lot of products that overlap with this market.
Like Geocel, for example, is our sealer line that's backed and manufactured by Sherwin-Williams as well. We'll have a big presence there. That's one way. We, of course, have different resources online. And again, outside of trade shows or anything, we have a lot of industry contacts too, but there's multiple ways to get a hold of us. Chris, anything you'd like to add there?

Chris Morris: Yeah, you can simply go to SherwinMetalRoofs.com and there's a simple form fill that will get you started that is connected to... So as we sit here today, we'll be launching here at IRE, but there will be a specific contractor and OEM portal that goes in and that's going to be able to leverage the brand resources, logo agreements, things like that to go really propel yourself with your connection to a great company like Sherwin-Williams and the OEMs that support your metal needs.

So we've really grown to that. That would be, again, through a process and a partner called GiddyUp that's really helped us with our workflow to be able to make sure that we're efficiently and effectively educating and onboarding these folks so that they can take advantage of everything that MetalVue has to offer.

Karen Edwards: Wow! Thank you, guys. Excellent information. I want to thank all of you for being here today to talk about this important program and initiative and encourage people to visit the website. You can also visit the directory on metalcoffeeshop.com has all the contact information and links there as well. Thank you all for listening out there, and be sure to follow and subscribe because we want to see you on a future episode of MetalCast.

Outro: Ready to raise the metal roof? Subscribe to MetalCast now and stay tuned for all things metal roofing. Go to metalcoffeeshop.com to learn more. Rock on and we'll catch you on the next episode.