Austin Gray: All right, welcome back to another episode of the OWNR OPS podcast! I'm your host, Austin Gray. In this week's episode, I have Sam Allsopp joining me. He is an owner of a roofing company in Florida. Sam, welcome to the show!  

Sam Allsopp: Thank you! I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.  

Austin Gray: Yeah, for sure! I've been excited about this interview because our SEO partners, Andy and Bod, recommended you highly. I had lunch with Andy about a month ago when he was here in Colorado, and I asked him, "Who should I bring on the show?" Andy hands down said, "Sam's an incredible operator. You’ve got to get him on the show."  

I’ve done a couple of tweets asking for recommendations, and Bod, every single time, said, "Sam! Sam! Sam!" I'm excited about this.  

Sam Allsopp: Cool! Those are good guys; they’re crushing it on the SEO front for sure. I was just talking to Bod yesterday, trying to pick his brain on some stuff. They have that GMB duplication model they’re running right now, getting different GMBs opened up in different areas and trying to push that SEO. It’s pretty cool, and they’re like wizards behind getting that done faster than Google would probably like it to happen.  

Austin Gray: Seriously, they are! Everybody asks me for help getting verified, and I'm like, "Just text Bod; they will get it done for you." They do that every day, every hour. They definitely know what they're doing there.  

That’s such a painful process, though! Oh my gosh, getting the GMBs open for different locations is terrible.  

Sam Allsopp: Dude, I know! My little brother's starting this business down in Texas, and he's like, "How do I get verified?"  

Austin Gray: Well, it's a challenging process, but it's also a good thing, too. I mean, I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this, but there was a time when there were no protections in place. Oh my gosh! You’d be doing all this work to get ranked, doing everything properly, right, white hat, I guess you would call it, and then it was so easy for these marketing companies to come in, create fake GMBs—like a thousand different GMBs for different roofing companies, naming them differently, and just trying to rank them—black hat, because they don't care if they get taken down. They’ve got hundreds of GMB profiles!  

That happened with Google Maps, and more recently, with LSA. Oh my gosh! That used to be one of my best channels for leads. Anyone here listening with a service business knows that an LSA lead is a solid lead, typically. Then they started bombarding that with fake businesses, making it super competitive with fake reviews and all that.  

So, while it’s difficult to get GMBs open, I’m thankful because it’s cracking down on people taking advantage of it.  

Austin Gray: Absolutely! So, let’s get into your story. I read a tweet the other day that said you're currently at $22 million in revenue and set a goal to create a $100 million roofing company. I’d love to hear how you started this and why roofing?  

Sam Allsopp: So, you're correct on the numbers—$22 million in sales year-to-date for our crawl revenue. We're typically a little behind; we usually sell a little more than we build. It's always like trying to catch sales!  

But I’ll go all the way back! I went to Florida State, and my junior year, I started a gym. For anyone familiar with Tallahassee, it was called Top Dog Fitness. I started that with two buddies. We got a loan from my friend’s dad; it wasn’t much, but it was enough to buy equipment. We built the gym ourselves and built up a subscription-based, high-intensity interval training business model, targeting sororities mostly. It just clicked and blew up!  

I started messing with Facebook ads while doing that just to run promotions and target different sororities. It worked really well. Fast forward a bit, and I got out of that. I didn’t really sell out; it was informal—I just didn’t want to be in Tallahassee anymore, so I moved back to South Florida, in the West Palm Beach area where I'm from.  

I actually worked at a corporate company—I was at NextEra Energy. You know, I had a finance degree, and I was doing bidding on big contracts. Like the classic cliché entrepreneurial story, I was just miserable. It just did not click for me. I didn’t like going under the fluorescent lights, didn’t like having a boss necessarily. I could see my future, and I just didn’t like what I saw.  

So, I jumped out and started doing—you know, I had that experience with the Facebook ads from running the gym. I started doing Facebook ads first for roofing companies. I was looking to figure out a niche to serve. To be honest, I started with gym owners a little bit, but they’re kind of tight, and their membership amount isn’t that much. I thought roofers make $30,000 a roof down here, so I had more wiggle room to honestly mess up and still get the more expensive leads and remain profitable.  

So, I jumped into roofing, running Facebook ads, quickly getting into Google Ads, LSA, and PPC stuff. We grew that pretty fast. I had almost 10 roofing clients, and I was just running their ads for them off a retainer model.  

Then, a buddy came to me. I was running his ads for a company he worked for, and he said, "Look, man, my owner’s kind of stepping out. I got my license. You’re good with the sales and the marketing and building the operations, and you’ve built a business before. Let’s start a roofing company together." That was in 2019.  

So, we came together and started Neil Roofing. He already had the LLC; his last name is Neil. We’re 50-50 partners. He’s the roofer, and I’m kind of the sales/marketing/operations guy. I joke that I didn’t want to fill my brain with too much roofing-specific knowledge; I have enough to worry about. Code compliance, what systems to use, and all that goes to my partner. He makes sure we build quality roofs, and I’m scaling the business.  

That’s how I got into it. It’s been a heck of a ride! I started with one toe in when we first began Just because our digital marketing was going well. I was making money; I was my own boss and all that.  

Once we started getting contracts signed, I saw the potential for a roofing company and how scalable it was down here, leveraging digital marketing, which not a lot of companies were doing.

Here we are; we’ve doubled year-over-year since inception. Generally, that's a red flag—don't grow too fast—but we’ve done it carefully, provided a good service, and our reviews show that. We’re having fun while doing it, man!  

Austin Gray: That’s a high-level story. For our listeners, can you tell us a little about the roofing model? You’re leveraging subcontracted crews all over the place down there, correct?  

Sam Allsopp: Correct! A portion of our roof work is self-generated in-house. I didn’t preface this, but I’m getting over a cold right now, so I’m a little nasally and may cough here and there.  

Yeah, we utilize some contractors down here; in my opinion, it’s necessary. If you look at our business model, we’re a growth story, 100%. We had to find a labor solution that allowed us to grow and scale as fast as we have. So, we’ve landed on that subcontractor model.  

Don't get me wrong—just because they’re subcontracted doesn’t mean we don't train them. We have toolbox talks and W2 superintendents on the job. We go through everything to make sure that the homeowner feels they’re getting an in-house experience. They get assigned a project manager from the office who communicates with them. They also have an in-house W2 superintendent who works with the foreman to pick up trash, run materials, and serve as quality control and safety.  

So, yes, the long-winded answer to the question of labor: for the most part, it’s subbed out, but we do have some in-house portion.  

Austin Gray: I want to talk about your organizational unit here. Let’s go back to the first roof you ever did, or the first five. I’m curious—you can get the leads, you’re selling the deal, your partner is managing the field crews. What did that field crew look like starting out? You mentioned a project manager and foreman in your current business, but what organizational unit did you start with, and who was part of that team?  

Sam Allsopp: Our first hire was actually my cousin. He was doing some finance work, and at the time, we didn’t know what we needed. I just knew I was getting too busy to do everything. So, I brought him down from Orlando. He felt comfortable doing it. We had a big pipeline of contracts.  

I waited until we had a couple hundred thousand in executed roof contracts. In South Florida, it’s not like you sign off, and you build the roof the next day. You’ve got HOAs and permitting, so it’s a little more complex.  

We bring him in; he was like our utility player. My partner Andrew and I were selling and finding crews to fulfill the work. He was doing the permitting, material ordering, customer communication, and letting them know when we’re starting the job.  

When we started to grow, we hired a few sales guys because our lead flow was at a point where I couldn’t handle it. We hired superintendents who handle the production.  

So, if you look at our numbers, you can fulfill around $4 million to $5 million with that basic model. I was leading sales, marketing, and operations, and overseeing how things flow through the business to provide a good customer experience.  

Then we had Seth, our operations manager, filling in the cracks on the administrative side: intake, material ordering, permitting, all that. When we scheduled the job, it would go over to the superintendent, who would take the job and work with the sub crew to fulfill it. Seth was doing accounts receivable and other tasks.  

That pod of three was able to fulfill a solid amount of work.  

Austin Gray: So, you focused on recruiting more of the management within your crew. You went out and subcontracted crews from the very beginning, correct?  

Sam Allsopp: Yes, we started with subcontractors. It’s such an advantage; there’s an argument that you don’t get as much say over what they're doing, which is true. There are pros and cons, but with our business model and how fast we’re growing, it’s just been the best utilization of time. We find really good sub crews that can fill those positions.  

We’re cycling through subcontractors to be completely honest; we have an abundance of labor down here. People say they don’t, but if they say that, it raises a red flag for me. Right now, we don’t have to look for subcontractors. I have a CSR team that answers all of our inbound calls. I would say two or three times a week, we get a sub crew that calls us directly saying, “I know about Neil Roofing, and I want to prove myself. Give me a couple roofs.”  

So, it goes a long way to have a good reputation by paying the crews on time and offering fair rates. We’re not undercutting them.  

It starts with the sale. We go in with a value proposition. We aren't the cheapest roofer, but we’re probably making the same margins as the guy who is cheaper; he’s just using lesser-quality material and labor.  

Austin Gray: Can you talk us through the margins?  

Sam Allsopp: Sure! What we typically aim for is around 40% gross profit (GP). A world-class operation can run above 20% in EBITDA, but they’re often not running a big marketing campaign and may have established GC relationships. That’s typically where you see a margin difference.  

If you’re running serious marketing and paying your sales guys top of the industry, we’re trying to land around 15% to 20% EBITDA, which is where we want to be—off that 40% GP. Again, that depends on how you run your P&L.  

That being said, a lot of people new to business are saying, “What the heck is GP?”  

Austin Gray: How do you calculate that, especially in a roofing company?  

Sam Allsopp: It’s an important topic. Everyone runs their P&L differently; it depends on your bookkeeper or CFO. But to keep it simple, GP is what you make from a job. What did you charge them, and what was your labor, material cost, and permitting fees?  

You line item everything that goes into that job. When you first start out, you're not factoring in overhead. You just count what you're charging; when you start growing, you need to account for everything that goes into running the business.  

Think about your office staff, trucks, etc. We have 25 to 30 trucks at this point. You have to think about everything else that costs money to run the business. Your GP in your EBITDA is not the same because you have extra costs involved in running the business, so availability plays a role in how you ultimately calculate numbers.  

For smaller businesses, you’re running it off GP, looking job by job. We ran our business looking at revenue per job until we hit a certain scale.  

When you’re small, you budget based on GP. When you scale, you have to account for additional costs in your P&L. That’s why GP and EBITDA will differ—overhead costs need to be factored in.  

Austin Gray: When starting out, what did you do to approach sizing for overhead, and did you allocate profit from the jump?  

Sam Allsopp: That’s the downfall of many small businesses: getting market share pricing low without factoring in overhead. Thankfully, we had good advice early on about knowing how to price jobs properly.  

To answer your question, we always added in a margin for overhead, even if it wasn't the full amount. Initially, the margin we factored in was much smaller than what we're allocating today.  

It’s a continuous process; we adjust pricing as we grow and examine costs monthly to ensure we’re where we need to be. Too many small businesses get into trouble without realizing their pricing is off, pricing competitively without including overhead—a classic cash issue.  

If you sell enough jobs without factoring in overhead, you’ll get into a sticky situation. It’s tempting in the beginning to get jobs priced lower, but you have to do what’s best for your employees, yourself, and ultimately the homeowner.  

Austin Gray: For the founders of your business, how did you approach salaries in the beginning?  

Sam Allsopp: When you’re starting, you're recruiting top talent, and you don't always have the cash flow to promise industry average or above. You’re selling people on the dream.  

Mid-level operations staff was much about trust: “This is what this position typically pays; I’ll get kind of close. But hey, if we end the year at X, your bonus will be X.”  

I had those conversations many times, and it’s a sensitive topic. I’m not saying to go start something and recruit family and friends. Get proof of concept, be confident, and ensure they know they’re taking a risk as well.

I can confidently say that all the people who came over early on are still with us and are making far more than if they’d stayed at their previous job.  

Austin Gray: Let’s return to subcontractors. Do you get a per square foot price from your subs?  

Sam Allsopp: Yes, there are adders, but I don’t want to bore everyone. For a standard roofing job, you’re typically paying a price for tear-off or dry-in, depending on whether it’s shingles or tile. I'd recommend having the people that put the shingles on do the tear-off and dry-in to avoid higher costs.  

Austin Gray: So, you’ve standardized pricing across your subcontractors, ensuring they align closely. You’re looking for that 40% gross profit margin, correct?  

Sam Allsopp: That’s the target. Depending on any specific changes, we might fluctuate as well.  

Austin Gray: I keep asking these questions because you’re obviously scaling a roofing company right now. You’ve figured out something that works, and I’m curious: Are you confident that if you hit 40% gross profit margin, you can scale to $100 million?  

Sam Allsopp: Yes, I truly believe that! But I think we have to be careful. We’re continuously analyzing this with a CFO on a monthly basis and being careful with our costs. We’re trying to do this right, and we know our economies of scale.  

However, as we grow, I ask whether we’ll have to adjust our sale price to factor in overhead or if we can make up those costs with savings and efficiencies. I believe we’re being cautious and proactive in our numbers.  

Austin Gray: Do you have any sort of playbook, business coach, or is this just you figuring it out as you go?  

Sam Allsopp: That’s it! We’re building it to the best of our ability. We don’t have any formal coaching or step-by-step plans. My partner was in sales and fulfillment when we started, but we grinded it out through sheer hustle.  

Austin Gray: So, where are you learning from, or is it purely gut instinct?  

Sam Allsopp: It’s very much gut instinct. We’re doing a lot of brainstorming sessions about structure and fulfillment with project managers, figuring out how to structure workload with superintendents, how many jobs each can handle, and adjusting bonusing structures.  

Austin Gray: Sam, I can’t wait for the day when you write a book on this or put out resources for others to follow!  

Sam Allsopp: I’ve been thinking about it! We’re head-down right now in the business, but there will be a time when I want to put thoughts on paper—maybe after we hit the $100 million!  

Austin Gray: As we approach the top of the hour, do you have 10 more minutes?  

Sam Allsopp: Let’s do it!  

Austin Gray: I want to jump into marketing. You’re a marketing and sales guy, and we’ve saved this for the end. This is going to be the gold for our listeners.  

How did you start with marketing, and what has your journey looked like?  

Sam Allsopp: The day we started the company, we began running ads. I could do that because I had the confidence from running ads for other roofers for two to three years. I knew what worked based on market-by-market statistics: your cost per acquisition and cost per lead differ depending on average ticket value and gross profit.  

People say, “I get $40 leads,” and I think, “Okay, but your average ticket is only $3,000.”  

I know that spending $50,000 of my own money in 2019 resulted in invaluable experience. Thankfully, I made that investment, and we didn’t take on any investors or lines of credit. I’ll never forget a moment in Miami after my partner called me to say our bank account hit $1,200. I felt fine because we had money coming in, and then after that, it just took off!  

We started with ads from the beginning, running Facebook ads. Back then, they tended to be cheaper than PPC, so I hustled hard and worked leads myself until I grew the business. Fast forward to today, where we've spent $230,000 on advertising in the last month.  

As we grow, we’re beginning to look into more traditional marketing avenues—TV commercials, billboards, postcards—which we’ve not done as much. From what I’ve heard from industry leaders like Tommy Melo, when he started traditional marketing, he noticed lower CPNs on the paid side.

Austin Gray: Which channels are you focused on?  

Sam Allsopp: Right now, it's PPC, LSA, and we just stopped Facebook. We’ve had a tumultuous relationship with Facebook.  

But there is a difference between reactive and proactive marketing. If someone has roof damage, they will immediately search “roofer near me.” Their loyalty is minimal. You want to be that first call they make.  

Proactive marketing is where Facebook ads come in. You have to create compelling offers to entice someone who might not actively be looking for a roofer. If they see an ad, they’re motivated—that’s a fleeting moment, and if you don’t capture that, they may forget about you quickly.

Austin Gray: What are your average costs per lead for LSA or Google Ads?  

Sam Allsopp: LSA tends to be cheaper. Right now, we’re under $200 per lead for it. For blended costs, we try to stay under $500. It’s crucial to look at costs in combination with booked appointments to gauge real performance.  

Austin Gray: Are you still running all your ads personally?  

Sam Allsopp: It's been a journey. I ran ads for about two and a half years and grew frustrated with agencies as I wasn’t happy with results. Now, we’re in-house following the standards we set for Neil Roofing.  

Austin Gray: For someone starting a roofing company in another market, what would you advise regarding ads?  

Sam Allsopp: They need to run LSA ads right away. It’s the easiest way to get up and running, even if it requires proper optimization of GMB.  

For Facebook ads, if you have a system in place for immediate follow-up and a dedicated team committed to calling every lead, it can be effective. But monitoring speed to lead is vital, especially in roofing, where interest can be fleeting.  

Austin Gray: You mentioned you have over 250 Google reviews, a lot of which are five-star. This is the point: don’t just focus on delivering five-star service in the field. Five-star service starts the moment you get the lead.  

Sam Allsopp: Exactly. If someone leaves a one-star review, we respond immediately to resolve the issue. It’s all about being proactive, communicating timely, and ensuring an exceptional customer experience.  

Austin Gray: What final piece of advice would you leave listeners with who are starting businesses?  

Sam Allsopp: Be quick to take action and fix what’s not working. Don’t be lazy regarding one-star reviews or processes. Be patient for results, but impatient to see improvements in daily operations.  

Austin Gray: That’s great advice! Thank you for being on the show, Sam.  

Sam Allsopp: Thank you for having me!  

Austin Gray: Listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the OWNR OPS podcast. If you're enjoying our episodes, be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube or leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify.  

Finally, check out ownrops.com for resources for small business owners, especially in the service and trade sectors. We’ve got a free school group, a classroom full of how-to videos, and a weekly newsletter.  

Thank you for listening! Remember, work hard, do your best, and never settle for less. We’ll see you in the next episode!