Digital Social Hour - Making Millionaires Through Roofing, Owning a 9 Figure Business and Surviving a Massive Flood | Lee Haight DSH #241
Episode Date: January 23, 2024On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Lee Haight talks about the art of storm chasing, how he scaled his business to 9 figures and how he makes millionaires through the roofing industry. APPLY... TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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if someone has a problem on the roof,
that it's an opportunity.
And if you fix big problems,
you'll get big paycheck.
Since they can't get up there
and see if the damage is bad,
it can actually be a good thing for construction
because one of the biggest problems in construction,
if a customer can come out
and point at something that they don't like
because they can see it,
then you might have to go back
and listen to a bunch of Karen talk.
Roofing is very cool.
That's true.
Because you can knock it out in one day.
It's an exterior. People ain't up there picking your work apart. And as long as it
doesn't leak, then you're good. Welcome back to the show, guys. Got a great guest for you guys.
Someone today that's going to change your perspective on the roofing industry. Lee,
hey, how's it going? What's up, my man? How you doing, brother? Good, man. It's good to see you.
Yeah, it's great to be here. Yeah, man. So it's always these old school businesses
that you don't really see much on social media. It's a boring business boom out there, buddy.
Yeah, but there's guys making tens of millions with it. So I'm excited to learn from you about
it. Hundreds of millions, man. Yeah. I mean, how did you first get involved with roofing?
Well, my dad was a car salesman. Where I'm from in Texas, there's a lot of hailstorms and tornadoes.
And basically, when he got into the business, it kind of changed my family's life. And ever since
I was a kid, the people I grew up with were roofing salesmen, and they were my heroes. So I just kind
of like, watch what they did. My dad made me read personal development books. The next thing I knew,
I failed out of college, didn't have anywhere to go. And I had to start from scratch, making my way selling roofs. Wow. So what age were you? I was 18 years old,
failed out of college, basically no work ethic, the example of millennial.
But, you know, it's funny what you can find when you lose everything and you have to go door to
door. Right. So you were rock bottom just going door to door selling roofing services?
Yeah, man.
And what we do is a little different.
We get the insurance companies to pay for replacement,
whether it's a hurricane, hell storm, some sort of a wind damage.
Got it.
There's a multi-billion dollar industry out there.
And, you know, we call it sky diamonds when money falls from the sky.
But a lot of other people call it like chaos and natural disaster all right but it's a lot of fun yeah so like after these hurricanes i'd assume a lot of
these roofs get completely destroyed right oh yeah dude this year actually was the craziest story ever
uh for the first time ever my house got hit by the storm the storm chaser got taken out dude
you know when the storms happen we started doing these like really sick dances
we're like i mean i'm just saying really we're like or watching the storm like everything and
this storm turned towards my house and i really didn't think there was gonna be anything wrong
because it was hitting further north but the storm surge was so bad that there was like two and a
half feet of water in my home damn yeah we rode out the the hurricane it was a great party lots of roofs got messed up but then you go and your house is completely full of water and it's
like all right it's time to go to work yeah uh ironically one of your buddies uh jeremy uh he
flew in probably like two days later and uh only with a little bit of training he bird dogged or
kind of got me on the door of a two and a half million dollar roof anyways um
with like two weeks of training i wrote him a six-figure check crazy uh but uh that's how it
is dude whenever there's a hurricane a hailstorm there's sometimes billions of dollars in opportunity
you just run up to people and you fix their problems and then you make a lot of money yeah
and you've made over 10 people millionaires doing this, right? A lot more than that, actually. As a matter of fact, when I first started coaching other contractors,
my whole principle was I was going to sell Grant Cardone a roof.
Right.
And in order to pay his bill, all that content and everything ain't cheap.
But it caused me to have to get in the business of coaching
and creating content and selling my services as a consultant.
Right.
And I started coaching other contractors and helped them with the same things that were helping me.
But then adding paid advertisement, adding social media as an unfair advantage, all of us grew together.
And so we've got probably 20, 20 plus blue collar millionaires that have been made in the system.
Incredible.
Yeah.
So say someone watching this is in an area where there was just a big storm, big weather event. probably 20, 20 plus blue collar millionaires that have been made in the system. Incredible. Yeah.
So say someone watching this is in an area where there was just a big storm,
big weather event.
How can they get involved with this?
Well, you can look me up at Lee underscore.
Hey, hit me up on the DM.
We'll get you some free training.
I've actually partnered with Bradley and you know, the cool thing about it is, you know, I've done it all over the country.
You don't have to have like a recent storm.
The one thing and reason why banks,
Wall Street, everyone's all into my business is we're essential. And Ruth's sort of recession
proves if it's leaking, you got to take care of it. If it's damaged, the insurance company's got
to pay for it. And so, you know, these jobs are highly duplicatable. They're very expensive
and they lead to opportunities like solar where you can double profits. So what I would do is get them access to the training.
They wouldn't need license, insurance, or any type of experience.
They just need education and people that could do the jobs.
Really all you do is learn to sell the jobs, get the contract,
and someone else does it all.
That's cool, man.
There's not many industries where you don't need capital
to be able to make six figures a year.
Yeah, or six figures in two weeks
like home jeremy jeremy's beast of it just takes somebody hungry that enthusiasm that energy out
there yeah when hard work meets uh opportunity you get lucky and uh that's what we did but you
know talking about that project it was a two and a half million dollar job you know just because
it was easy to acquire the lead on a project like that doesn't mean that it's easy to do the whole sell, build, collect.
Right.
You know, I probably got fired off that project five different times.
You know, people overreact, especially when it comes to multimillion dollar decisions.
Right.
And insurance companies are the most evil companies in the world.
But we persevered and won.
The good guys won.
Nice. And that had millions in profits. So six figures to jeremy there you go did they send pis after you the insurance company
oh dude i'm always under investigation i'm public enemy number one do you go up to them and say like
oh dude i have my best youtube videos are videos where i fight them on multi-million dollar fights
10 million dollar fights and i10 million fights. And I
recently roasted them, won a huge lawsuit on one that basically I deposed the lawyer. I mean,
I deposed the adjuster on site like an attorney and he just ratted on himself and just basically
in court, it caused them to lose the whole settlement. And yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Wait, so he was just exaggerating numbers basically?
Well, no, what they do is they delay they deny they defer responsibility and there was 48 people that
were outside of their home and he was trying to get us to reuse old building material he was trying
to like ignore responsibility and people couldn't get moved in so when we got out there with a camera
and he got caught in a bunch of lies it documented something that when it came out in court,
caused the jury to say, nah, give these guys millions of dollars.
Wow, that's nuts.
What happens when there's mold or rats in the roof?
Well, if there's mold in the house, dude,
the thing is it's literally something that can cause sickness to the home.
And when hurricanes cause a lot of water coming in like that,
you can't even move back into the property until, you know, the roof's complete.
And so, you know, you have to actually get the insurance to pay. And it's the only way that you
can get it done is through the insurance. So it ends up meaning that there's a lot of profit in
the job in the end. Right. And you scaled this company to a nine figure valuation. How long has
this company been around?
The company's been around for 20 years. We kind of were a regular door-to-door company,
did just insurance for a long time. After me selling Grant Cardone, I started buying all
these coaching programs, Russell Brunson, and really helped scale my paid advertisement. But
from each different little mentor, learned and through coaching other contractors I
got the best practices of some of the best people in the industry and basically I would say over the
last eight years that it's through growing companies partner with companies and then my
own company going from a company that does 10 million a year to 100 million in top line revenue
wow but it's all about leads. And whenever you can get
like an incredible offer in front of a lot of people, like Grant Cardone could not refuse this
offer. Hey, uncle G, if I can get your insurance to pay for your roof, can I be your roofer?
He's like, man. Yeah, sure. Why not? Why not? Yeah. Hormozy talks about this, right? When your
offer is so good, like people got to be dumb not to take it. Yeah, man.
And so I think a lot of people are on the internet
and they're thinking that they need to be a coach.
They need to be a digital marketer.
They need to be a podcast guy,
but maybe they don't have the personality,
the focus, what you do is not easy
and monetize it's even harder.
But you know, there is vehicles
and I say dirty jobs make clean money.
And my purpose is to raise the status for some of these dirty jobs.
And whether if you start doing the actual job yourself
or you start with selling the job,
becoming the nine-figure valuation is all about hiring and training
and duplicating yourself along the way,
which just means giving to others what was freely given to you.
And I've been doing that for 20 years.
So I think just the compound effect of doing that for so long, like for me, a lot of times I think,
man, I would love to be able to be this massive influencer over a really wide audience, but the
riches are sometimes in the niches and everyone's got a roof. So, you know, I see myself in the next year combining 20 companies and having a company worth
400, 500 million. And the next two, three years selling that company for a billion dollars and
creating hundreds of multimillionaires. Yeah. That's awesome. What were some of the best
hires and decisions you made along the way of this 20 year business? I would say the best hire that I ever made was my first coach. Hiring my first
coach really, I paid because I paid attention because I paid. I would say that kind of, you
know, the one big thing that businesses need is they need to be able to hire and train. If you
talk about what does Hermosi do for businesses, what are they better at than anyone else in the
world? They're better at finding top talent,
using marketing systems to get engaged potential recruits,
and then training them with systems and processes to be successful.
And so I would just say that's probably the most important thing.
Nice.
So when you're negotiating with these insurance companies,
I mean, that must be pretty, I don't know how to describe it.
Well, it can be crazy, man. we had seven insurance companies go out of business there's actually been uh in florida this crazy
scam going on the biggest scammers in the world are insurance companies yeah and ron desantis uh
ron desantis is in on the take and serious oh yeah absolutely Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, in Florida, it's well known that $500 million in actual income from all these different insurance companies have entered the
landscape to change the rules. And a lot of these insurance companies will be small insurance
companies, but the CEOs can take $20 million bonuses. And what happens when a hurricane
happens, they get something called reinsurance and they take money
off the top and so what's happened is there's been seven insurance companies go out of business
they've changed the rules all while ron desantis says hey these rules are good for homeowners
well truth is is like the insurance companies are in his back pocket wow that's scary man dude's
running for president right now well i mean look mean, look, they're all for sale.
You know, I think a round of golf of Ron DeSantis costs $100,000.
But, you know, step your game up. If a roofer wants to be recognized, then you've got to fight a multibillion-dollar force.
It's just how it is in the world.
So is this industry recession-proof?
Yeah, I would call it recession-proof because there's always storms.
I would call it recession-proof there's always storms i would call it recession proof because a roof is a necessity i would call it recession proof because um the one
thing that a bank will always loan a person on is is at home and so um when your roof is bad if you
don't have the money for it you can get a loan and all across the country there's been such a
building boom there's so many storms whether it's a hurricane a hailstorm or the country there's been such a building boom there's so many storms
whether it's a hurricane a hailstorm or windstorm there's you know probably a hundred billion
dollars in restoration opportunity of you know projects every single year from these insurance
restoration projects interesting which types of roofs do you just see get wrecked completely the
most like well the asphalt shingles are biggest roofs that exist which ones are those those are just the roofs that you see out there regular that have granules
they're just your typical they get you know the the the streaking on them you know they can get
blown off by the wind um you know my house i have a metal roof i believe like a metal roof will last
three times as longer as a shingle roof so So it's actually cheaper than a shingle roof. And so, um,
you know,
figuring out how to get homeowners,
a metal roof at the same price as shingles has been one of my other best
offers.
Like if anyone is watching this across the country and you want to like the
last roof that you ever put on your home,
the thing is,
is that you'll get your return on value out of the investment,
but you'll also,
you'll probably save money on your insurance you'll have that roof for the next two three years where i'm from in
texas there's a lot of hail so these these these roofs they stand up against the elements right
and uh yeah we finance them and we do them for the same price as shingles because we're such a big
company and we advertise it online so we got the leads and we just need the young people the
people that want to fix big problems for big paychecks that know even though like nobody wants
to get up on a roof and do the roof but like uh i'll sell out of it yeah have you ever been on a
roof yourself oh yeah but uh every day yeah not every day but uh how scary is that oh man this
is what makes it fun dude i. I'm an adrenaline junkie.
At our conferences, I help contractors grow.
We have something called the Blue Collar Fight Club.
You know, what do we do?
We do cage fights.
We settle beefs in the cage.
That's crazy, man.
But a lot of us just train and have fun and like to fight for fun.
Yeah, man.
Are you tied up there, or are you just free walking up on the roof?
Oh, on the roof, dude? I'm a fighter monkey dog. So you're not tied to anything? No, man. Are you tied up there or are you just free walking up on the roof? Oh, on the roof, dude, I'm a fighter monkey dog.
So you're not tied to anything?
No, dude.
And the steeper, the taller, the better.
No, not really.
But because the insurance company is not going to climb it.
Right.
And if I can document the claim correctly,
then I'm not really going to have to worry about it.
There's all kinds of tools, ropes and harnesses.
There's this thing called a goat you can use.
But, you know, me, I just like to get in the Valley and, uh, you know, have three points of
contact and have some good Nikes with some soft souls. And, uh, ballsy. Cause you've probably
seen some people fall off. I'd assume. Yes. I had to knock on wood, never actually fell off
a roof myself. But, uh, you know, the thing is, is like, uh, you know, there's some sweat equity
involved when you get up on someone's roof.
Not only do you get to get a little adrenaline, have a little fun,
but the customer respects the fact that you're up there.
Since they can't get up there and see if the damage is bad,
it can actually be a good thing for construction
because one of the biggest problems in construction,
if a customer can come out and point at something that they don't like
because they can see it, then you might have to go back and listen to a bunch of Karen talk.
That's true. That's one of the reasons why roofing is very cool that's because you can knock it out in one day it's an exterior people ain't up there
picking your work apart and as long as it doesn't leak then you're good wow and uh that's you know
sometimes roofing is attract the bottom of the barrel but uh we try to set the standards for
service and growth and roofing yeah my old house had a leak i should have hit you up back then yeah in jersey yeah
rains a lot in jersey have you um what's like the most expensive roof you've had to fix
most expensive roof that we had to fix we're doing a four million dollar roof right now
it's a condo association it it was uh fought with the insurance company the insurance company
went out of business so it was a four-year fight um we're currently replacing this roof this one's
this one's got millions in profit there's another one we just finished as a five million dollar roof
it was a casino yeah uh so in vegas yeah dude that was not in vegas it was in uh even scarier. It was in Louisiana, and it was a Cushota Casino.
It was ran by Indians on a reservation, a group that was a great group to work for,
but a lot of people had a lot of say, beware of having reservation.
Oh, you're millions of dollars.
They can hold your money at any time, so you had to be perfect.
Of course, you get a leak in one of these buildings, you're going to have a lot of damages.
That was a $5 million project over a a year and we just got finished with it so you know doing the bigger jobs you know that that took time to work into that but you know the funny
thing is is that if you're new in the business and you just go out there and get a lead you can
still get paid off of doing one of these bigger jobs just by handing it off to my
my company like jeremy dude i was at the miami airport like on the way to bolivia a few months
ago massive leak oh yeah if you landed up yeah dude the the bureaucratic uh bidding that goes
into the airport work in miami i don't know but yeah you're right there's everywhere you look you
know once you kind of get into the space, you start changing.
It reframes what you start looking at as far as money.
You start looking at roofs differently.
Yeah, no, for real. This day is going to change my life with how I view roofs.
I'm going to be spotting them now.
So you also do solar, right?
Yeah, solar is something that a lot of people say is a scam.
And I'll be real with you.
A lot of solar salespeople, they oversell it.
And I wouldn't say it's a scam, but sometimes they make promises that aren't true.
And as a roofing contractor, you know, I've seen the problem.
Solar causes leaks, people not staying in business.
And so with roofing and solar being installed through one company, for one, you got a warranty that lasts forever.
For two, you've built a lot of really like rapport
with the customer when you do a good job with the roof right so you can double the profits by
helping them save money on solar and what we found is that roofers they're probably the best at
sticking at selling roofs and partnering with a solar company and that's really what i had to do
i tried to sell my own solar forever,
but what I've done is found guys that sell solar,
built a team of specific solar closers.
And then literally all of my students,
me,
everybody,
we put all of our leads into an app and we just send them all to solar
closers nationwide.
So if anybody's a solar closer watching this,
the best leads,
the hottest leads,
they're not solar leads.
They're roofing leads.
Dude,
I got some people to connect you with. Yeah. I got some big guys in the solar industry. Yeah, dude. And then the big thing the hottest leads they're not solar leads they're roofing leads dude i got some people to connect you with yeah i got some big guys in the solar industry yeah dude and the big
thing is is they they look away at roofing like there's not an opportunity to make money because
solar is more expensive than roofing and sometimes when you're trying to get someone approved for the
loan if you have to pay for a roof it makes the payment more expensive and it's it's not as easy
well these solar guys don't have a way to make
just as much off of roofs as they do on solar and so my app that i've built called roofing redline
it allows a solar rep to get an instant roof quote to do an instant roof measurement and to do like
an instant quote and not just to have like the ability to sign the contract but to have installers
like direct installers that will do the roof along with the contract, but to have installers, like direct installers
that will do the roof along with the solar project
so that that solar organization,
say like I've seen Edmund on here.
Yeah.
So his guys, they could just sell roofs
and keep selling solar under their tool.
So is this business,
can this work in other countries you think?
Oh yeah, absolutely, dude.
Like roofing and solar is everywhere and you really have to learn that uh if someone has a problem on their roof that it's
an opportunity and if you fix big problems you'll get big paychecks so like the really i think the
reason there's so much opportunity in roofing and construction is because digital technology
is the biggest gangster in the room right and i hate to say it, but my contractors, they're stuck in
the times. They're a little bit of dumb dumb sometimes. And I'd probably say 80 to 90%
really aren't masters at Facebook and Google. And so if you can come in without any experience,
but really be a master at just sales, Facebook and Google, well, you could probably beat 90,
95, 99% of the knucklehead,
blue-collar contractors that are out there doing it.
Absolutely, man, because the people in your space are probably older.
They don't use technology as much.
So if you've got that social media edge.
And here I am, I call it being Captain Save-A-Roofer.
They don't want to be saved.
They don't want to be saved.
Sometimes they don't want to be building their own personal brand.
They don't want to be creating video content and advertising it using AI.
They want to just stick with word-of-mouth referrals.
And so for a young guy to come into the business and partner with me, Brad Lee,
what we want to do is we want to give you the tools to start your own roofing
and solar business and scale it.
First your first million, then your first 10 million and then to 100 million and
the goal is that it won't take you as long as it took me yeah it won't take you 20 years no man i
think that there's gonna we have guys doing 10 million in sales in their second year that's
insane yeah and no one else has a course like this no it's and and i you know it started off
as a course it's a community nice it's it. Nice. It's that because we're not just training, we're providing the tools,
we're connecting people with installation partners,
and we're standing behind the work.
Everything's backed by me.
We have the technology, we have the network, and we have the marketing.
And if the number one thing in business is the marketing, then f***, man.
These guys, these young guys need to realize i'm gonna come
in here and eat these guys lunch in the roofing business i'm gonna learn it i'm gonna take over
and so if you want to take over if you're watching this right now uh go to lee underscore hate send
me a dm we'll get you some free training hell yeah no i love that man i've never seen a roofing
ad until i met you so i think the space is wide open for the taking nice and for me really i'm
trying to broaden it because it's not just roofing.
It's all home services.
Like solar is another huge one.
You've seen a ton of multimillionaires made in solar.
But you've got windows and doors.
You've got exterior HVAC.
You've got some of the guys that we have just had new dudes, multimillion dollar demolition
contractor, general contractor.
And the idea is because these banks and Wall Street are suffering in real
estate with the high interest rates are suffering with technology a little
bit.
It's applying that technology to a dead or kind of wild West industry that
these banks want to invest into.
So if you can build an eight figure construction company and it really
doesn't matter if it's roofing or if it's HVAC,
if it's profitable, if it runs without you,
if it has a good marketing system,
then you have an eight-figure network.
Someone will write you an eight-figure job.
Really?
Yeah, and that's really because it's a gold rush.
Wow.
In home service right now in general.
Interesting.
Because we're essential.
We're not going to get taken out by a pandemic.
We're not going to be taken out by a recession.
We're not going to be taken out by, you know, technology is consolidating the business.
But because it's such a like Wild West old man industry.
Yeah.
They got a long ways to go.
That's cool.
Because some businesses are really hard to sell, man.
And they're not liquid.
No.
And like my coaching business.
I have a coaching business and it's all based off of me training.
Right.
And so a private equity group, they're based off of me training right and so a
private equity group they're not really going to come in and want to buy my coaching exactly yeah
you know they're not really going to want to buy my consulting company but you look at the roofing
company that runs with a team of leaders that has a successful marketing system and then now i've
bought a total of four different companies and so we'll do about $150 million in total value.
But what we're looking to do is grow other companies
and partner with about 20 companies over the next year, two years,
and achieve at least a half a billion dollar valuation.
Damn.
That's the goal.
That's awesome, man.
And you own 100% right now?
No.
My dad is still 50-50.
Oh, your dad.
Yeah, dude. And doing business with family is a gift and a curse. It's a beautiful thing. He's
actually here with me now. The one thing I can tell you, he's been a great coach. He gave me
the opportunity and he coached me. But one thing about it was, whenever I had tough times, he
really kind of let me make mistakes and and figure it out for myself
and uh the one thing about it is is like uh his coaching really got me to a certain point but it
was when i started paying for coaching that my business went from good to great next level and
you know taking your family business to the next level means sometimes you have to fight for
control of it right and sometimes you have to live with the stigma that you had it all handed
all to you.
And, you know, the reality is, is that chip on my shoulder,
if anyone out there has got that, that silver spoon stigma, dude,
let that chip on your shoulder drive you.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Yeah.
My uncle, my dad's brother, was way more successful in roofing than he was.
And I was like, damn, dad, you've done it big,
but Unk's doing 100 million.
Why can't we do that?
And so, you know, whenever I got into the business,
dude, I treated it like a sport.
I always saw it as an entrepreneur and sales opportunity.
I read this book one day and I realized,
okay, I got to be the best in the world
introducing people to this business and facilitating their success. And then that's why I was like, I got to sell Grant Cardona
route. And then I got to do training just so I can pay the training bill. Then the training led to
a system, the system helped me. So I can't really take credit for it, but I can say like through
helping people and trying to raise the status of my industry uh man we've built
something that uh i'm really proud of and i wouldn't be able to do it without my wife i've
been married for 13 years saw that you just got engaged right yeah congratulations thanks man
been a been a big part of it man has uh been married for 13 years you know and you know i
think a lot of times people overthink uh what it means to commit now
and figure it out later yeah you know what i mean yeah like dude like playing house and being halfway
in and running around and thinking is there something better like it's got so many guys
i guess maybe i got lucky because i was married before tender before some of this crazy online dating. Yeah.
Um,
but,
uh,
yeah,
just say,
I'm just grateful.
I'm glad you never had to deal with that.
Man,
that is crazy.
Wild West,
Wild West out there.
I've heard,
I think expectations are just at an all time high on both sides.
Nice.
Yeah.
But dude,
it's been fun.
We'll learn more and find out about you.
Uh,
well,
they can go to, uh to Lee underscore hate on Instagram.
You can look me up on YouTube.
Lee, hey, we document everything.
Got some fun there.
But I think the main thing is, is if you're a contractor, you want to grow your business.
You want to start an eight-figure home service business so that you can have an eight-figure
net worth.
Go to www.tothemooncontractor.com.
I'll help you grow your contracting business,
double and triple sales, then we'll help you scale and exit that thing to the moon.
Oh yeah, let's get it. Thanks for coming on, brother.
All right, brother. Appreciate you.
Yeah. Thanks for watching, guys. Peace.