It has been a busy fall. Things heated up in the
lead-up to Roofing Contractor’s sixth
annual Best of Success conference.
It
has been a busy fall. Things heated up in the lead-up to Roofing Contractor’s sixth annual Best of Success conference. Our
publisher, Jill Bloom, handles the important details of the conference
including setting the theme and content and lining up speakers. Running this
conference is way more complicated than that, but this is the part of the planning
process that arguably demands the most creativity and experience.
As
usual Jill had lined up an amazing syllabus to be presented by a very strong
slate of industry professionals. At the last moment one of the speakers had to
back out due to a family emergency, so Coach Bloom had to call an audible.
Without missing a beat, she assembled a panel of experts who shared valuable
information on new media marketing for roofing contractors.
New
media and high-tech tools developed as themes for the conference. And in spite
of the fact that I try to stay ahead of the curve on the topic of new media, I
was wowed by some of the things learned from roofing contractors putting new
media to work in their businesses.
The
other take-away from listening to contractors and others speaking about the new
ways we market roofing businesses these days is that sales and marketing in the
roofing business is still very much old school: focusing on building
relationships and understanding customers’ needs. Educating consumers remains a
big part of the job, and with high-tech tools it can be done now better than
ever via satellite imagery, infrared scans, digital photos and video. A
complete report on the conference will be presented in our December issue.
A
few weeks after that I joined my good friend, David Stewart, for a week of
building with the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in Birmingham, Ala.
Change struck again the day we arrived. David and I were supposed to complete
construction of a new home, but the project had been completed by teams of
local volunteers before we arrived. So the head coach of the project, Johnny
Roberts, called an audible and dispatched us to spend most of the week working
on re-roofing projects. For some reason we wound up on all the flat decks and
other more challenging jobs. It was challenging but great fun at the same time.
We
discovered other changes that set this Carter Work Project aside from others we
have attended. This was not just volunteers and homeowners getting together to
construct new homes - it included retrofitting older homes as well. The mission
of Habitat, while still eliminating substandard housing in the world, is expanding
beyond new construction to include rehab work.
This
is a good thing, especially in places like Fairfield, Ala.,
the small city in the Metro Birmingham area where we spent our time working.
The work on the Carter Project is part of a larger effort to rebuild not just a
few homes, but an entire community. Roofing
Contractor will present more on the project in an upcoming issue.
Besides
just being busy, change seems to be in charge of this fall. Changing demands of
roofing consumers and learning new ways to discover and meet them. A changed
housing market and new ways to rebuild communities in a time of economic
difficulty. And through it all, the old school practice of “listening” remains
the formula for success. Listening to the needs of consumers and communities
produces better results for our businesses and lives.
