How SEO Changed Everything for 4 Square Roofing, with James Hamilton III

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.

0:36hey there and welcome to this week's episode of epic entrepreneurs i'm bill gillillian your host i am the principal at action coach business growth partners and i've got a super great guest today i am very interested in hearing his story it's james from foursquare roofing but before we get to that just remember hey we've got the Asheville Business Summit coming up on September 23rd it is time to get your tickets we are three weeks away ish and uh as we record this it'll be closer by the time you hear this so get those tickets um it's going to be an amazing day we've got nine speakers it's I mean it's all about leadership marketing management anything to do with building your business.

1:21Coming off the heels of Helene, we're in a unique position to be able to blast off and take our businesses to the next level. So, hey, James, got James from Foursquare Roofing over in Gallatin, Tennessee. I'm super pumped to have you on the podcast. So, James, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your business. Sure. I'm happy to be here. I would say, you know, I started life as a real estate agent at 20 and was a licensed real estate agent around greater Nashville, where I'm from, for around 15 years. And about 15 years in, I found roofing because real estate can be inherently inconsistent.

2:09I mean, it can be great and it can be either it's feast or famine out there. And so I ultimately found roofing back in about like 2015 and saw the opportunities and saw how potentially lucrative the storm restoration, exterior restoration business could be. And I just kind of pursued it. And right around the time, of course, the internet was a thing, of course, back in 2016 to 2017 time period, but not nearly as relevant. So if you could set up online businesses back then with various organic SEO stuff, you would have an advantage, you know, 10 years later and like where we're at now. And so my company's had, with Roofing, 10 years to marinate with the online SEO.

2:57I built all of my stuff myself. And I think that's been a huge advantage in my business, not having to rely on marketing companies and just being able to reap the benefits of what the Internet can bring. Yeah, so we'll talk a little bit about marketing. That'll be some of the stuff to hear about your learning. So, well, that's interesting. I mean, it's not a big leap, but it is kind of a leap to go from selling real estate and brokering real estate to going ahead and getting in a trade. So did you just jump in right away and start a roofing company? What was your path? Yeah, definitely not. So it wasn't that easy to just start a roofing company.

3:45I mean, it might seem that way, but there's a lot of years of learning from other roofing company owners, which I still have relationships with today. They're still some of my best friends. But learning from people that were above me, and then you finally get to a point in your life to where maybe you try your own thing. And so I didn't really like door knocking with roofing. And so I figured out a way to do digital door knocking through organic SEO. And so that just made it even more so the better because I enjoyed the craft and the trade of roofing and how lucrative it could be. I didn't like knocking doors.

4:27And so I was able to create the online organic SEO, which still functions to this day. Yeah, we'll talk about that more in a minute. Well, let me just ask you. So if you had to start over, what would you do differently?

4:44If I had to start over, I definitely would have picked. It's kind of hard to say because I have a lot of different things that I do, But I would have probably tried to pick one thing and really focus on that more than multiple things. What do you mean by that? Like one market or one? One business. I mean, I had so, you know, there was a time where I was juggling real estate and roofing. Oh, I got you. I had to make a decision at some point. Okay, I can only do one. And so that's, I wish I would have, you know, learned that a little quicker. I maybe jumped in on the roofing a little quicker. I understand.

5:28I got it. I think so. Yeah, and I understand. That's a great learning. Because, I mean, most people, a lot of people, when they go into business, they still have a job. Because you want that paycheck. So I love that. So what have been some of your biggest learnings as an owner and an employer since you started? You have to treat your people really good. Your inner circle of people will help you. You have to take really good care of your people and have good people around you. That's the biggest thing. So get good people and take care of them. Pretty much. I love it. I love it. So what are some of the common misconceptions about running a business, and how do you address them?

6:20It's definitely not easy. I don't know if some people nowadays think it took me 10 years to even get to where I'm at now. And so I would definitely not say that's overnight. So, I mean, if you want to be an entrepreneur, and not to say it can't happen for people faster. It certainly does. But be prepared to be patient. I like it. Yeah. I mean, what's the saying? An overnight success usually takes about 15 years. Something like that. Something like that. Yeah. We've heard that. So what do you attribute your growth to? The SEO. Wow. So let's talk about that a little bit. So how did you learn that?

6:59I mean, what was your – I mean, did you just get in there and mess around and take some classes? What did you do? No, there was no real classes on it when I learned it. I mean, there was videos and things like that and content online that you could read, And that's basically, there was just a filter of information that made sense as far as citations, backlinks, keywords, things like that. And in roofing, it's not overly hard because it's roofing, roof repair, roof replacement, new roof installation, your service area, cities, which would be like 30 miles local to your office, I would think. Like, you know, you just work those keywords with citations.

7:40And over time, and honestly, I was afraid that AI was going to potentially destroy what I've created with organic. But it seems like AI actually pulls from all the citations that I created over the past decade. It pulls from that information. Yeah, AI is looking for answers. so if you have blogs and things that can give it answers then that's what it's looking for and so that's if you've seoed and you've backlinked and you've got all that connections and stuff then you've got all that so i mean you're that's that's yeah that's pretty cool but that wasn't a that wasn't an overnight thing i mean you just yeah yeah my my girlfriend at the time thought I was losing my mind because of, you know, the phone wasn't ringing.

8:31And, you know, and it just seemed like a lot of wasted time on it. But just somewhere at that time, 10 years ago, I just, I knew how important reviews would ultimately be online and saw where the direction was going with it. So I always have made sure I have a few bad reviews. I think most contractors that are really in the trenches probably do because you can't please everybody. But all in all, I have really good stellar reviews, and I've worked really hard for them. And I think that having a little bit of foresight back then, again, I have a little bit of jump maybe on some other – You have a lot of jump.

9:10A little jump. I think you have a lot of jump. I mean, because 10 years of stuff is – I mean, that's amazing. and I kind of like it that you did that. So where was the tipping point? Like how long did it take you to like go from the phone not ringing to like you could pretty much count on it? Pretty quick. So back then it was pretty quick. A little longer now, I would think, with all the noise. Probably a little longer now. Honestly, to this day, of course, like I've done thumbtack, pay for leads boosted facebook business uh posts things like that but never have i uh employed the services of a marketing company to take over uh all of my systems and stuff and i've never done that um so it's all been a hundred percent or i mean the way i look at it is i've never paid really for a lead um you know i've had my website produces leads and then of course all the online SEO and local, you know, word of mouth is huge in our business.

10:21And I would give the best advice I can give is, you know, if you can figure out how to do residential roofing, it's actually pretty elementary if you can get it dialed in. It can be extremely lucrative, but just take care of your people and put good material on there and you'll be good. And you let the review slip because they are just as good as gold oh yeah yeah i love it that you've grown it organically it sounds like you haven't done too much with like paid ads or anything like that i know you it sounds like you've experimented some with it but not necessarily like didn't need it really no well yeah i mean because i mean what can happen is you're going through you know life you're like well hold on things slow down a little bit and you're and it's it comes in waves uh like Right now, it's in a really good way, and it can go up and down, but consistently, it generates gross millions of roofing leads of many types annually.

11:21Yeah, that's awesome. So, how do you balance your personal life and your business, running the business? My wife and I like to travel, and we like to go swimming and just plan for important things. and spend a lot of time with friends and family. We actually have some friends coming to stay with us from Florida this next weekend here at the house with their three kids. We're trying to have a family and things like that. Actually, my wife and I got married in Costa Rica. I won a class in Costa Rica five months ago. She has an insurance agency in Hendersonville. That's another cool thing is we kind of can work off each other.

12:06But we do a lot of things just to, you know, we work hard and play hard, I guess you'd say. I love it. I love it. Well, congratulations on the marriage. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, she's awesome. It really didn't hurt the situation at all. I love that. Didn't hurt. It didn't hurt. Not at all. So you talked about having great employees. So what qualities do you look for in employees? uh hard work uh hardest coughing nails um i mean you know i work with a lot of hispanics um and so i've tried to have sales guys but that's another maybe interesting thing is that so when the leads come in from they come into my phone i go do the sales myself i'll go sell the job myself i'll put the logistics together in relationship with the distributor on material schedule all the labor, pick up checks, front end, back end checks, warranties and stuff like that.

13:07And I just, and I, so I basically, I've tried to do sales guys. It's easier said than done. So I would say I'm an owner operator. So most of my employees are Hispanic. Got it. So at some point to grow, it sounds like you want to probably add sales so that you can grow it a little bit more. It's getting there. We're about to open our second location at 119 Stadium Drive, Suite B, Hendersonville, Tennessee, along with my wife's insurance agency. We're going to put another four-square, more or less permanent location probably there. Got it. I like it. I like it. Okay. No problem. I love it. So this is a quick fire round.

13:54Just give me a couple of sentences or a couple of words on each one. So BEPIC, that's my tagline, is an acronym. So I'll just give you the definition of the letter, and you just tell me a couple of sentences about each. So the B stands for bring the energy. So what are your thoughts about energy? Well, it's everything. I mean, you know, energy is all around us. If you bring bad energy into something, don't expect anything good to come back out of it. So, I mean, it's all. Bring the good energy. Bring good energy, and that's particularly to everything, is you can speak things into life accidentally.

14:32So you have to be careful what you say and do. No question. Yeah, you're exactly right. I love that. Okay, the E stands for education.

14:44I mean, it's part of it. I liked it. I like it. Got to educate. How about P for planning? What's your thoughts on planning? It's a big part of it, especially as you get older. Um, so I just turned 40. And so planning is becoming more of a thing now than what it ever has been for, you know, for me. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, super important to have your, your house in order. Yeah. Love it. Love it. How about I inspiration? Where do you, where do you either find inspiration or how do you be an inspiration? I try to help a lot of people, a lot of younger roofing company owners in my area. that have questions about SEO, I'm like an open book for them.

15:29I want to see them grow and develop their thing into something great. So I try to help guys as much as I can there. But my wife is my biggest inspiration. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So C stands for commitment. Obviously, to do your own SEO and all that, you must have been committed. So tell us about your thoughts about commitment. yeah the commitment part on the seo that's that's that's that's very real um so to do it right i've tried i don't i didn't have a stopwatch in front of me while i was doing this stuff but i would say it's about 500 hours plus of it took over a year um to to really get it, you know, because you have to manually input all this stuff.

16:21And so it takes some serious commitment to get it figured out, yes. But if you can crack the code on it, it's very much worth doing. Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, you got it. I mean, you need it. You need it regardless whether you do it or you hire somebody whose job it is to do it. Either way is fine. It's just, yeah, I think it's, it sounds like it's just something you wanted, you were determined to do and you like doing it. So, and you wanted the results. So I love it. I love that. Yeah, pretty much. Nobody could tell me any different on it. Yeah, I don't blame you. I don't blame you. At some point, it's kind of cool too, because if you actually did go to hire somebody to do it, you wouldn't know it.

17:06I mean, you know, they'd just be doing the admin stuff because you'd already know how to do it. The updates and stuff like that. And I mean, and I've thought about hiring people to do that stuff. So I don't have to keep up with it as much at this point, but I still ultimately, as of now, do all my own updates and stuff like that. Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. So what words of advice would you offer to other business owners who are looking to grow?

17:36Just definitely be ready for some patience and have your education together and be committed. I mean, it's pretty much a lot of things you just spoke about. You know, not to say that it can't happen overnight, because it certainly can, I would imagine for people. But, like, everything good comes with time. That's the thing about it. It just takes time. Yeah, it's a little bit of that compound effect, right? You work and it gets, you know, you get a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. So, that's sort of how it is. So last thing, what's the best way for someone to get a hold of you?

18:14You can probably just shoot me an email at four, like the number four, squarerestoration at gmail.com. Yeah, gmail.com. Probably the best way. Well, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you being part of the community and being part of the trades and taking a different bent on it, actually understanding that the marketing, you know, there's a lot of people that are great contractors who are not great marketers and they complain because they don't have the business they have. But you've gone the other way. You're a great contractor and a great marketer. So thanks for being a leader in that industry.

18:57Yes, my pleasure. Yeah. Hey, and until next time, remember, get those tickets to the Asheville Business Summit. We'll talk to you soon and all the best.

19:37Second, 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.