Building a Trusted Local Business in Western North Carolina with Zach Broch

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. All right. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McCrae filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners.

0:45I'm excited to have Zach Brock with Secure Roofing as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. So Zach, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to be on here with you today. My name, as Seth, is Zach Brock. I am the owner and founder of Secure Roofing, licensed general contractor in the state of North Carolina since 2017, and we have been serving Western North Carolina since that time. Our primary focus is residential roofing. We also do have a commercial division, which probably about 25 to 30 percent of our business falls into the commercial with the rest of it being mostly residential from apartment homes, single family homes, things of that nature.

1:36That's our primary focus is keeping Western North Carolina homeowners assets protected and keeping them dry. Perfect. I love that. I love that. So if you had to start your business from square one, what would you do differently? Um, wow. That's a, uh, that's a loaded question. One of the things I have learned, um, not to do is to, is to look too far back in that. But, um, when I started this business, um, didn't have lines of credit, didn't have a whole lot of financial backing, um, had a background in, in construction and real estate development. And we started it with, um, a focus of just really providing the best service that there was out there So in reality, there's not a whole lot of difference between my product that I'm putting on the roof, asphalt shingles, or any other roofer's product, right?

2:31Where there's three or four main shingle manufacturers here in the United States, all the roofers have access to that product. What differentiates a roofer is the quality of their service and the way that they respond to any warranty claims should those things come up. should those things come up, really having a local focus on your community. That's kind of what the drive was as we started this. If I did anything differently, it would probably be, I would have started our geographic footprint a little bit smaller than what we started with. So we started off essentially serving all of Western North Carolina, which we still do, but it was a lot initially.

3:16early on, you know, taking jobs as far as the Tennessee border to east of Charlotte. And we also serve the upstate of South Carolina, the Greenville-Spartenburg area. I probably would have tightened that geographic footprint a little bit, would have helped us with some growing pains, but we were able to get there and efficiently serve that entire market. Okay. So digging into that a little bit more, what growing pains did you see? I mean, And obviously, probably, you know, you took on a little bit more business you probably could handle. But anything more, anything in particular? Digging into that a little bit more?

3:52Yeah, digging into that, it's, you know, like every business, it comes down to people and making sure you've got the right people. So initially, we probably made a couple of fast hires looking to fill some shoes and resumes look great on paper. And it wasn't necessarily the right fit for our culture. They were great people, good workers. But we've got a very, very specific forward-facing to the client structure with very strict customer service expectations from all of our people. And we've got a very specific process for client onboarding all the way through job completion. And that reflects in, you know, if you look us up online and you look, we've got, you know, well over 100 five-star reviews on this because of that process.

4:41and the way that we handle our clients and really bring them into the fold and communicate with them. So I think the geographic envelope and then looking to hire some people in there that ultimately didn't fit our profile for what we wanted to be to our clients. And I think that's something that every business goes through. Okay, okay. So what have your biggest learnings been as an owner since you started your business? Well, every day is a little bit of a learning experience, even after this many years in business. I would say that really keeping the – it's easy for a business owner to detach himself, I think, from certain aspects of the business because the business owner wants to focus on, obviously, growing the business and expansion and systems and processes and things of that nature.

5:37one of the things that I still do at least once a week is I will be out. Even as the owner, I'll be out on a job site. I'll be meeting with the client. I'll be working with the crew. Really just to keep that hands-on focus. And it's not just for the client. It's for the crew as well, seeing the business owner in that position. And, you know, we're not we're not a huge company, but still taking those steps to be to be forward facing to both our employees and the clients. OK, OK. So what are some common misconceptions about running a business? Would you say. That it's like winning the lottery and that, you know, business owners have it great and they don't do a whole lot of work and they make a whole lot of money.

6:23being a business owner really is putting yourself last in the food chain and making sure that everyone else from your suppliers and your lines of credit to your employees and your staff, everyone else is taking care of ahead of you. And if you're a successful business owner, there's great upside for you and great potential in that. But it comes with a tremendous amount of risk comes with a tremendous amount of stress. Um, I'm 49 years old. I'm still be 49 this year. And I have been self-employed since I was 20 years old. So, uh, it's a, uh, it's, it's not for the faint of heart, but, um, if you're a serial entrepreneur, um, and you've got it in your blood, um, you wouldn't do it any other way.

7:14So it sounds like you probably are a better entrepreneur than you are like a, you know, an actual employee, correct? Yes. I'm, um, I'm, I'm a, uh, I'm a very, very hard worker. I probably wouldn't be the best employee if I'm going to put 110 % of everything that I've got, which is the only way I know how to, how to work. Um, I want to do it for me. Perfect. Perfect. So how do you handle taking vacations running a business? Um, actually, um, that comes down to the, uh, the quality of the staff that you've got. And we've got some fantastic project managers. I've got an amazing office manager in Amanda who really starts to run things seamlessly.

7:57And what we do is, because our business is weather dependent here, we kind of slow down in the winter. So my wife and I and family will typically try and structure our vacations more towards the winter side of things when things are going to be a little bit slower, kind of do it at a set time around the holidays. And then I've got great staff that I can trust to pick up and handle anything that arises during that time. Perfect, perfect, perfect. What have you attributed to your growth so far?

8:33Well, I would say growth-wise, the biggest part about it has become our reputation, which takes a while for a company to have them grow. As you're young in your first couple years of establishing a business, you're building your reputation. Um, we're very proud of the reputation that we've got, uh, in the community. Um, plus having been in our community in the construction industry for close to 20 years, um, got a lot of connections. Um, a lot of people, you know, knew who we were, um, in our other business, which was a, uh, a restoration business. So we, again, general contracting, but we, we did flood mold fire restoration and have become very well known in the community.

9:10So it was a, that part was a relatively easy transition for us because we had kind of built to name on the construction side of things in our community already. Other than that, it really comes down to communication for us. I think that is most clients' biggest frustration. It's not necessarily the quality of the work that's done by a contractor. It really seems to be a lack of quality communication and really keeping them in the loop. And that's one of the things that we bend over backwards to do. So we've got an onboarding process when someone comes to us for a roof. They've got a concierge who's dealing with them that, you know, this is their go-to on everything that they've got that's going to happen with their roof from the day that their shingles are going to be delivered to when the dumpster's coming to when the crew will be arriving to do it, how long to expect this to be.

10:05These are the days. Please don't park here. And really, really just outlining the entire process to manage their expectations. And that's one of the things we do really well. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. If I were to work with you guys, that would be something I'd love is I'd rather you over communicate with me than under communicate with me. That's a huge thing for me. So how do you balance your personal life with the demands of running a business? I mean, do you shut everything off at a certain time of day, 5, 6 p.m. You're done or how do you how do you balance that? In the early years of doing business, I didn't ever shut it off.

10:39And that was a huge mistake. our work is very important to us but family life it's why we work this hard so yeah our clients will always have someone to reach in case of emergency those are always going to be a person a live person holding the phone in case of emergency but I'll personally probably stop somewhere between 5 and 6 p.m. depending upon what my meeting schedule is at that point and then that time forward belongs to either taking an hour to go to the gym, staying healthy physically, playing basketball with my son, sitting on the porch with my wife, and really just having some family time there and wake up and do it all again.

11:26But if you don't take that time to recharge, you will burn out. And you'll also lose some of the best moments in life. Nobody's ever sat on their deathbed and said, man, I wish I would have worked a little bit more. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. So you talked a little bit about this earlier, but let's dig into this a little bit more. What qualities do you look for in potential employees? First and foremost, absolute integrity. People are human. People are going to make mistakes. We don't expect people to be perfect. We expect you'll learn if you make a mistake, but we expect absolute integrity internally.

12:09in dealing with your coworkers, dealing with your company, and externally, being up front to a client of, hey, if there was a mistake that was made on a job, a mistake can be fixed, but it's get ahead of it. Mrs. Jones, we didn't realize this. Wrong shingle collar got ordered on this. We're going to have to delay your job for two or three days. They're going to come pick this up. They're going to address it and deal with it. We don't tolerate finger pointing and blaming. It's just not our culture. If there's an issue, we all jump together to address it. And the reality is there's going to be issues.

12:43Not everything in a business is always going to flow smoothly and easily. And if it did, everybody would do it. So that's one of the primary things that we look for in an employee. Second, you have to be able to communicate well with the client and your fellow staff. So between integrity, communication, and customer service-based, that's really what we're looking for. And we're looking for people that want to have a long-term home. So our senior manager that we've got has been working with me for over a decade now. Prior to Amanda coming on board with us, and it was only because of a family relocation that she had left.

13:30Our office manager had been here for nine years. So we've got a lot of retention in our staff, and that's really because of the culture that we create. Everybody knows that everybody's got everybody's back. And so we're looking for people that are looking for a long-term home and also want to grow with the company. So there's financial incentives to stay and grow with the company and help build this. And we really are about distributing what's on the table for the company to everybody who's helped build it. Nice, nice. It sounds like it's a good place to work. So digging into that a little bit more, you know, how do you go about fostering a positive and productive work environment for everyone?

14:11It's really about the onboarding and the culture and about what's expected. So, I mean, like I said, we're a relatively small company. You know, we've got not including our subcontractor crews and the rest of it. But we've got seven people that are on staff full-time. So we have to be very particular about who we put in these positions. And also, it's a very tight-knit group. So you've got to be able to really work well with and get along with the rest of that group that is here. and most of the time we're able to figure that out in the hiring process through personality type testing and things like that.

14:54That's come a long way over the last 20 years. So we're able to weed out a lot of that stuff before we get to a position where someone's not working out, but occasionally that does happen. And we'll act decisively if that's the case. We don't allow something to fester in our midst that is counterproductive to our culture. Okay. Now we're going ahead in what's called the quickfire round. And how this works basically is I'm going to say one word and I want you to basically tell me what that one word means to running your business. Okay. First word is education. education massively important to us in our business so we were required by law to do a certain amount of continuing education of general contractors but what we do is probably about 10 times what's actually required and we make that available to all of our staff members as well so if staff members want to do something for personal development related to our field to better themselves we've got an allowance per employee where they can spend that and that can be going to a conference.

16:05It could cover their logic and cover the cost of the conference. As long as it is something that is related to their position, doesn't necessarily have to be roofing. So this can be a management conference. This could be a customer service conference. We make that available to all of our employees and it's massively important. If you stop educating yourself, you've lost your drive for your business and you probably should be looking to exit. Planning. Planning. Planning is very important in any business. We start planning in November for what we want to look at for the following year, where we want to be as far as growth, if there's products that we want to add, what we can do to make our customer service experience better.

16:49So we really spend November, December, and then typically January, which are our slower portions of the year just due to weather. Planning for what we want our next year to look like. And then we also have a five-year plan of what we want that to look like as well. So we tie in our one-year plans for 2026 and then also what does this look like in 2030? Next word is inspiration. Inspiration. You've got to be inspired by something. And if you're not inspired by something in your job and what you do, you probably need to find a new field because you're never truly going to be successful without having something to inspire you.

17:36For me, my inspiration has always been my family. I've got four kids, an amazing wife, and that has always been my inspiration of failure is not going to be an option. What are we going to do to succeed here? This family is depending upon you. Um, and then also the reputation that you're creating for your company. So, you know, my, my company has become my fifth child. Um, you care for it, you love it, you nurture it. Um, it's not just a way to make money. Um, it's something of a legacy as well for, for the time that you've spent here on this earth. Perfect. And then the last word is commitment.

18:19Commitment. Um, in business, if you are not committed to what you are doing, um, that you're going to fail right out of the gate. I have had so many experiences in my almost 30 years of self-employment where you would wake up and you didn't know what the day was going to bring. You didn't know if next month you were going to be in business. And there was a lot of shoestring moments in different businesses over the years. and at any point there, if you're not committed to it, it's really easy to give up and say, I'm going to go take a job and I'm going to have the security of a paycheck. Die hard entrepreneurs are not going to do that and they're going to stay committed to that.

19:04And like I said, self-employment is not for the faint of heart. Okay, okay, I appreciate that. And so, you know, and you can be as, you know, you can say anything you want to hear really about it, But what words of advice would you like to offer to other business owners who are looking to grow their business? Are you talking similar fields or just business owners as a whole? Yeah, business owners as a whole. I would say the advice is figure out where you want to grow. You can't be everything to everybody. And even if you end up being able to do massive expansions over the years, focusing on one area for growth, getting really good at that, completing that expansion, and then moving on to your next goal for your two, three, four, five-year goal, my encouragement would be take it slow, focus on it, do it really well, and then look at your next level of expansion.

19:58If you try and expand on too many different fronts at one time, you're setting yourself up for failure. Okay. Any new products you would like to discuss? We are actually really excited about a product that we brought on board July of this last year. So we've been looking over the years at all the roofs and everything that we replace. And roofs, when they get between 10, 12, up to 20 years old, depending upon the type of environmental exposure that they've had, they're really starting to show signs of aging. But they're not always in a position where they have to be replaced. And in July of this last year, we became the local vendor for RoofMax, which is a product of roof rejuvenation.

20:46You've probably seen some of the commercials on TV, on ESPN, some of your local WLOS things. What it actually does is if you've got an asphalt shingle roof that is aging and starting to show signs of aging like granule loss, you're getting some streaking, getting some color loss, shingles are getting a little bit brittle. This actually restores the natural moisture content of the asphalt shingle through its proprietary product and adds 5, 10, and sometimes even 15 years to the life of the roof. So a roof is one of your biggest expenditures as a homeowner. And we've watched the cost of roofing go up.

21:25We We haven't raised our labor prices since 2021, but our roofs are 40 % more expensive now than they were in 2021 just because of materials costs. And because this is, you know, asphalt roofing is a petroleum-based product, so we're very affected by the cost of petroleum and oil and things of that nature. but having a product where a client who either can't afford to do a replacement right now, but could budget for it in five years and needs to make sure that this roof isn't going to be leaking for the next five years, they can come in and do this rejuvenation process for an absolute fraction of the cost of a new roof.

22:02Or if it's a landlord who's like, you know what, this is how I'm making my money and I want to extend the life of this roof as long as I possibly can before I have to go to replace this. It's really nice to be able to give people those options. And most roofers, when you come out, I won't say most, a lot of roofers, and a lot of what I see in this industry, when they come out, they don't really want to do a repair. They don't want to do something that's a rejuvenation. They want to come in and do their full roof replacement, which is where roofers make their money. And believe me, nothing gets me happier than replacing a full roof.

22:36I'd love to do it. but having a product where we can actually be honest with the client and say, Hey, this is where you're at right here. You're going to need a replacement, but we might be able to buy you five years, 10 years, 15 years. If you do this, that really builds a lot of trust with the client. So if we're able to treat that and get them those extra years on what they're doing, they're not calling anybody else to replace that roof. When it comes time to do that roof, because we were able to be honest with them. We put, you know, their pocket in front of our pocket, in front of our profit, and we are able to help them protect their asset and have them, you know, not go into debt, not have to take a loan, you know, really looking at putting their needs before ours and building that level of trust.

23:23So we're extremely excited about that product. It's fantastic. And we've got some glowing reviews from clients on this, and it's something we're really excited to be able to offer to the Western North Carolina market. Perfect. So what's the next big thing for secure roofing? The next big thing for secure roofing, we've got some great things on the horizon. One of the things that we're going to be doing is tied in with this roof max product, and we're actually going to be in your local Lowe's. So you're going to see secure roofing representatives. We've signed a deal with, with Lowe's through roof max.

24:05and over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, you're going to start seeing secure roofing representatives in your local Lowe's. So come up to us, talk to us. If you need a roof, we'll get you a roof. If you don't, we can show you a rejuvenation product to help maintain the life of your shingles and keep you from having to replace that roof. Talk to us about that as well because you're always going to get an honest evaluation on where your roof is and it's no cost for us to come out and evaluate. So you really have nothing to lose in that. And that's one of the big things that we're excited about coming into 2026 and 2027 is really growing that partnership.

24:44Perfect. And lastly, what's the best way for someone to find you or get in touch with you? Look up Secure Roofing in Asheville. That's Secure Roofing WNC, like westernnorthcarolina.com. And you can call us at 828-888-ROOF, which is 7663. Those are the best ways to reach us. You're always going to get somebody on the phone 24-7 for emergencies if needed. And our normal office hours run from 8 to 5. Perfect. Any social media? Yes. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on TikTok. We're also on Instagram as well. So if you're looking at secure roofing on that, please follow us on that. And you'll get to see some of our jobs and some of our day-to-day and meet a few members of our team.

25:30Perfect. Fantastic. Yeah, thank you so much for being a part of this community and for all that you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success, and I really appreciate you coming on, Zach. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. All the best. Thank you. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you.

26:09Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.