Nobody can run a roofing business alone

Thank you for the invite and for having me today.

Yeah, so a little backstory before 21 is I had my own boutique from 13 and 14. So I already had an idea of business. And then in 15 I started at a roofing company, worked there for about three and a half years, left at the end of 18, doing 40 million at that company. The next company I went to was a GC with an electrical division. They had helped us build out one of our properties, and they closed the doors in March of 2011. one due to the owner being sick and I loved that job. It was really flexible. So instead of jumping back into an eight to five and building something for somebody else, I jumped into my own business. And here we are five and a half years later. So it's been great.

learned patience and grit and determination and just hard work ethic keeps it going at the end of the day.

Yes, managing people. I knew that I wasn't that great at it. I'm still not that great at it. I hired an operations manager because of that. She deals with the people and the team. but that is my hard suit is managing people.

Yeah, great question. So we specialize in the roofing, construction, service, trades department. My ops manager and I, we actually met at that roofing company I had spoken about 10 years ago. And so our background is in roofing. So that is what we know. We're good at it. We enjoy it. But the trades and the service based businesses that go with it kind of all tie into it. So we like to call ourselves a back office in the box. We aren't just a bookkeeping firm. We tend to do everything in the back office except for answering phones and doing marketing and sales. So we want to handle everything else. So bookkeeping, payroll, all of those APARs. And then on the admin side we help pull permits, we help do invoicing, we call insurance companies or customers. So like Soft Collections, we're that extra set of hands.

Not being organized and not putting the right people in place when they need it. So usually they're waiting too long and now we're cleaning up a mess. And so not hire they're they're usually not hiring fast enough. and so if they don't want to manage people, which I totally understand, getting in business, then we come in and we're that third party. So, you know, they hire us, they don't have to manage the team. We have we have people internally that manage our team. So yeah.

Yeah, and Yeah, mainly we see it at the end of the year and or coming up to the April tax deadlines. So end of the year they realize they aren't as organized. They don't know their numbers and so they'll call us in to help organize it. Or they're going to get ready for their taxes from the previous year and they realize they still don't know where everything is and they didn't have the right people in place. So from now through April is our busy time as we help people get organized and ready to file taxes.

we we give a dedicated person per each account. So it's not like you're gonna be flipped over to a bunch of different people. You get your one person. I think being a back office in a box, most people don't realize the admin side of it because we have bookkeeping in our business names. So really the numbers and the bookkeeping comes into their mind. But again, we do the permits and the warranties and the admin as well. So I think that that's what sets us apart and I don't think that all business owners realize we do that, if that makes sense.

Yes. So not all industries job cost or project cost, meaning they're not trying to figure out if this project made them money or not. Some people just have true income and expenses. So that is extra work that goes in that we make sure every receipt and every cost that is for a specific project is allocated to that project. usually because people are making commissions and getting paid off of that job. So you want to make sure that you're not paying out money they aren't owed. So that is that. is a big piece of construction and real estate that you don't normally do in just regular bookkeeping. Extra steps.

I can't do it all by myself. so when I first started, I absolutely thought I could handle this all by myself. I'd have like ten clients and it would just be easy. That is not what happened. it's still been great. but I had more than ten clients and so I had to hire. So on my personal side, it's been trying to figure out that work life balance that everybody talks about. Like granted, I we own a company, so there's not gonna ever be fifty fifty, but it's making sure that there's still time for that personal life. because business can take over.

A lot. that's a great question. Trends this year I would say trended down for a lot of businesses. business was not as profitable for a lot of our clients. we actually had a lot of clients a couple clients close their businesses this year, and that is not the norm. the past four or five four years that we've been in it, we have not seen as many close or as many that have down sales. So the trend this year was a lot of people were struggling. which we see right in the market and in the news, but I saw it on the business side. And so a lot of small businesses here in Texas were struggling a little more than they have in the past.

the economy everything costing more and not as hot politics but election years are always interesting is what we'll say and we'll keep it at that so people always hold their money different on election years

I would slow down and actually get the processes out of my head. we are still to this day trying to get some of the processes and systems for the company out of my head and on paper or just organized enough that everybody can follow the same thing. So that would be what I would say is get those processes out quicker so that the standard for the company is recognized my team knows it but you know there's still questions sometimes

Yeah. so we're women owned, women ran. my vision is to help support women in the community and women on my team and small businesses and help us all become successful in any way that we can.

So Yeah, my advice would be if they don't know if they have the right people or they know they don't have the right people, reach out and find those people. So even if it's not our firm, find you a firm or somebody that can support you as you try to grow. Because if you're growing your company and you're really involved in it, it's going to be hard to get you out of it as you continue to scale. So the more you're involved now, the harder it is to get you out of it later.

Absolutely. You can find us through our website, which is easy, www.simply the bestbookkeeping.com. And my email is Morgan at simply the best bookkeeping.com. So either one of those would work. You can find us there. we're over on LinkedIn and Facebook if you wanted to check that out. But this has been great.

Yeah, this was awesome. I hope you have a great day. Thank you.