Roof Revival Shows Homeowners Where Every Dollar Goes with Will Welborn

0:00Will Welborn:Welcome to Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners. Every week, we sit down with business owners, founders, and leaders to uncover the real stories behind building a successful business. The wins, the setbacks, the lessons learned, and the strategies that help them grow. No scripts, no fluff, just honest conversations with entrepreneurs who are in the trenches every single day. Whether you are a business owner yourself, thinking about starting a business, or simply enjoy hearing how successful people think and operate, you are in the right place. Let's jump into today's episode, shall we?

0:57Will Welborn:Good day, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae with Action Coach Business Growth Partners, where we work with local business owners to turn big ideas into real scalable growth. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Will Wellborn, Roofing by Roof Revival. Will, thank you for being here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I look forward to getting to know about you and just talk about Roof Revival and what we're doing in the marketplace. All right. Sounds great. Yeah, perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So I'm very excited to have you. So let's go ahead and jump right in.

1:33Will Welborn:So for those of you who may not know it yet, who are you, Will? Who is Will Wellborn and what is Roofing by Will Wellborn? Well, so I've been in the industry about seven years now, and my business partner, Jeff Johnson, and I actually worked together on a large regional reefing company. Spent 21 years in the insurance world. My partner, Jeff, spent many years in the commercial medical field managing large teams. And after being in this business for six years each and working together for four of those, We just saw a lot of things that were changing in the roofing game, especially as it relates to insurance and the way homeowners were looking at their home.

2:17A lot more as a long-term asset than just something you live in for a few years of lived. So we launched Roof Revival and are doing things drastically different than other roofing companies in the area, we think even across the country. So it's been a fun few months here, and we're excited to get to share that with you today.

2:36Will Welborn:Yeah, no, that's exciting stuff. So, you know, be honest, what makes Roofing by Will Wellborn different from other roofers out there? So, and I'm going to, I probably should have said this earlier. So, Roof Revival is a company name. Roofing by Will Wellborn is sort of my personal brand behind the scenes. So, my company, our company, Roof Revival, the way that we have designed it differently is our motto is that we are radically rethinking roofing with shockingly transparent pricing to every customer. So, most roofing companies, they want to replace roof. They want to come meet with a homeowner.

3:14find damage and show them a reason to either file a claim or replace the roof. And our system is much different. So we say repair first, renew when possible, and replace only when necessary. So we've got great technicians that can do minor repairs to get that roof safe and secure for that homeowner. We also do a full cleaning and rejuvenation process, which can add life to the roof in a case where the roof is not damaged but does need some maintenance and that homeowner wants that roof to last a lot longer and look a lot better. And then if we do have to replace the roof, we do something radically different than the other roofing company.

3:50We actually present our price to the homeowner with the materials itemized out, down to the penny, with no overhead or markup added. We show them the labor price from a certified installer. Again, no overhead or markup added. They pay the actual install labor. The only thing we add to the price is our flat fee, which does not change regardless of what type of shingles they choose, if they add other trades or other work to the job. So it's a fully transparent pricing model for that homeowner. They know where every penny of their project is going at all times.

4:25Will Welborn:Nice, nice, nice. So, you know, take us back to the very beginning. Obviously, this is hypothetical, but what made you say, you know, yep, I'm doing this, I'm starting that particular business? So I had owned my own roofing company in what we call the traditional model. And I joined a large family owned company locally. It's a fantastic company, great leadership, a really good company. But it's not really the companies, even the great, really, really well run companies in the market today. There's just something missing. So Jeff and I, we talked and met who came out of the sales side, I came out of the leadership side.

5:04And we just realized that the way insurance is changing, deductibles are getting much higher. A lot of roofs are covered on an actual cash value basis, not replacement cost. It was just changing at a pace that was outrunning most of your traditional companies. They were still operating the same way. They're presenting replacement-only options. and when they do present that replacement estimate, it's this big one number and everything's lumped into it. The homeowners really can't tell where all that money is going. So we decided to do something different. It's been a learning curve and we still have to think through some things every day when we talk to a homeowner.

5:46But so far, it has been fantastically received by every person we've talked to because they love seeing where their money is going and what they're getting for every dollar.

5:59Will Welborn:Nice, nice. No, I love that. I love that. So, you know, and again, this is hypothetical. If you had to start again from absolute scratch, let's say you had no brand, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around? Or would you do anything differently, honestly? Well, I think like anything else, part of running any business is your systems and your processes you set up. So hindsight's easy to look back and go, hey, I wouldn't have used that software. I would have used a different one. Or, hey, I might not have chosen that website provider. I would have chosen this one.

6:36But I don't know how you look back that way because you don't learn what was the best way to do it until you do it a way that maybe is not the best way. So, you know, I think probably the easy answer was we would have started this sooner. I do think, you know, the market was changing a year to 18 months ago. And I think we would have captured, you know, a little more momentum. But right now, as far as we know, we're the only company doing exactly what we're doing. So we're still way ahead of the game in our opinion.

7:10Will Welborn:Nice, nice. So what would you say is a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for? I think anybody that goes into business when you're dealing with residential homeowner customers is, I think you believe that they care about you and your story and all that cool stuff, which is usually good information. organization, what they really care about is what's in it for them. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just learning how to present solutions to that homeowner and to that customer that highlights exactly what they get out of it and how they benefit.

7:53I think myself and a lot of business owners spend a lot of time early on telling their story and spending too much time on us and not enough time on that end user, that customer, and showing them exactly how it's going to help them. Because when it comes right down to it, that's what they care about. I think that's one thing you could have learned a lot earlier in the process. Okay.

8:22Will Welborn:So what would you say is one common myth people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now when you hear it? Oh, that if you just work hard, you make a lot of money. Yep, everybody believes that. And where's the Lamborghini? And you got this big old mansion. Yeah, when you tell somebody, if somebody asks about the company, you say, oh, it's my business. They immediately assume there's just cash falling out your pockets. And we've been very blessed. We do run a profitable business. But just because you work hard and own a business does not mean that you're living in the mansion and have all the toys.

9:02It is definitely a process and a growth process at that.

9:08Will Welborn:Yeah, no, I agree. So be honest. Are you naturally more of an entrepreneur or an employee at heart? Naturally more of an entrepreneur. So I've been a W-2 level employee for periods of my life, very early in my career and throughout sometimes. But I've always been happiest and most successful when it's based on performance and what I bring to the table. So whether it's being a commission-based producer for a company, for many years in the insurance world, my compensation was based on production. Or in entrepreneurship with owning or running a company where everybody else gets paid first and you have to do a really good job so that there's money left over for you at Lend.

9:52And so, yeah, of my 40-something years in business, 80 % of that spent on the entrepreneurial self-production area of that. So, yeah, definitely been on the entrepreneur side for most of my career. Okay.

10:16Will Welborn:Okay, so how do you personally handle stepping away from the business? like taking vacations or unplugging in the evening?

10:26Well, one thing that in the past, when I had my first company, my roofing company, it was just me. That was a lot harder. Now Jeff Johnson, he's my business partner and a good friend. One thing we have that's really nice is we can support each other. So if Jeff's going to be out of town, I'm going to be out of town. one of us has something with our family we want to actually unplug for the evening, it makes it easy because we've got that support system there. I know a lot of it today is, you know, not to use technology as a crutch, but there's a lot of things today that we've learned that allows you to unplug and to sort of step back, you know, at times and know that if you put your systems in place and your processes in place that that can handle a lot of the day-to-day operations in your company.

11:16you know even if it's even if it's just answering some questions from the sales team you know we we've built some internal systems you know using ai that allows our sales team to ask some general questions and get some feedback that normally would have been a phone call to one of us and now they can go in there and you know ask questions with a with an ai agent that's actually trained on our our information so you know if they're trying to get some basic pricing to present to customer, ask about some products that we typically sell. We've actually built some systems that allow them to do that, so it lets us unplug a little bit.

11:53But the real key is having a system in a place you're confident in so that when you do step away, you know that the business itself is still running smoothly.

12:06Will Welborn:And you do have employees, correct? Yeah, we have several sales members that are production-based sales members. And then we also have three installation crews. It's the roofing world, so our crews are subcontractors, but they work exclusively for us in many cases. And we only use those guys for our installations. So they are independent contractors, but they're like family to us. They know what makes our business roll. And then our sales team are out there and they're spreading the word and introducing roof revival to homeowners and business owners all across the upstate of South Carolina. Okay, okay.

12:47Will Welborn:So when you're building a team, you know, you're getting ready to hire an employee to work for you, what traits matter more to you than what's on someone's resume?

12:58So a business partner, Jeff, he always talks about, like, you know, our passion should be helping the homeowner first, and then if that is good for the business, then that's a blessing. and that's really what we look for. We look for people who have a passion to help other people. A lot of our, several of our sales, roof advisors, they come out of the ministry. Some were pastors. So they have a natural inclination to help people. We have ladies who spent, you know, a lot of evenings as a single mom. She's not now, but, you know, she dealt with having to juggle a lot of things throughout the day and she's phenomenal and they're going to help homeowners and walk them through processes.

13:41Especially if it's a situation where you've got a mom making the decisions and she's really great at that. So we look a lot more for the character of the person and how they interact with the customer. And are they really seeking what's a great solution for that customer versus what college degree they have, how many years of experience they have in sales, any of that. It's really about the person and how they treat our customer. Yeah.

14:11Will Welborn:So it sounds like it's really about honesty and integrity. Those are kind of the front, right? At the front, foremost, what you're looking for. Again, it goes back to our motto that we're going to be shockingly transparent in everything we do. And we want our sales team to be that way, be fully transparent with everything going on with that homeowner so they make the right decision. Okay. Okay. So what would you say is one thing you do intentionally to keep your workplace positive, motivated and productive, especially during like a stressful season or stressful time? Yes. So I think the. The easiest answer to that is just stay involved with your team.

14:54So, you know, we're still a small team. but really the main thing is especially if it's a stressful time maybe it's a little slow down in sales is stay engaged with your team be in the field with them don't just sit in the office and expect them to go out and do all the work be out there with them on a daily basis stay in touch with them encourage them because at the end we are in a sales environment And, you know, all right, homeowners are to repair the roof, replace the roof, you know, rejuvenate the roof. We've got to talk to them. We've got to present pricing. We've got to move them along that sales process.

15:34And they've got to, at some point, hand us a check and, you know, pay us for the services. So, you know, that process, you know, if you're, if somebody's having a little slow week, slow month, it's really about staying with them and making sure they understand you're walking along that with them and not just expecting them to do it on their own. Yeah, no, I like that. I like that. All right.

15:56Will Welborn:Yeah. So I appreciate that. So we're going to head into what's called the quickfire round. So basically how this works is I'm going to give you one word and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word in regards to running your business and then get into the reason why you picked that that word or that phrase to answer that question. Should that make sense? All right. So first word is education. Always. And so, you know, if you're running a business, you should always be learning. You never know everything you need to know. Next word is planning. Think ahead.

16:35So, you know, a lot of times in business, I've done it. Everybody's done it. We get reactive. Things happen. than we planned to how to deal with what happened. So if you're an entrepreneur running a business, really looking ahead and trying as best you can to figure out what's coming around the bend and plan for it, that's a big part of making your life a lot easier and making your sales team a lot more productive.

17:00Will Welborn:Inspiration.

17:04The people around you. So a lot of people take inspiration from you know, speakers, you know, even, you know, financial success, things like that. I really believe the people you surround yourself with or whether you get your inspiration. If you surround yourself with people that are always complaining, you're not going to be very inspired if you surround yourself with people that are trying to make themselves better and are looking to help people. It won't be very hard to get inspired every day.

17:35Will Welborn:Commitment. Required. so you know we're on an epic entrepreneur's podcast if you're going to be an entrepreneur and you're not committed it's not going to last there's going to be hard times I agree there's going to be hard times and things aren't going to go right you know and it's being committed discipline daily so you know I love the exercise of you know I love being around people that like to like to do that and it's just something you have to do every day whether it's exercise, you know, train your sales team, communicate with your customers, whatever it is. It's just got to be something you do every day.

18:21Risk.

18:25Part of the game. I almost said fun, but my wife would say that's not fun. So, yeah, like, you know, again, you know, we're sitting here on the Epic Entrepreneur Podcast. Yes, risk is part of the game. It doesn't mean you have to be silly or mortgage your house for something that's a crazy idea, but your risk is part of the game. And so the rewards of running a business always come with some level of risk involved in that. Execution. Systematic. so I know that when we have systems in place that allow us to work a process from start to finish where we can execute that on a high level usually successful if we're just winging it sometimes you get it right and sometimes you mess it up royally okay

19:25Will Welborn:I like that I appreciate you getting through that quick fire round there So just to wrap things up with a couple more questions, you know, let's say I was a small business owner and I'm listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast episode today. And let's say I'm feeling stuck or overwhelmed or I'm just having a bad start to 2026. What's a piece of advice you would give to that person that's listening today?

19:52Go back to your why. So it's really easy to get down to things aren't going the way you think when you think about what you're doing, when you're doing it, and all of those things. But you get back to why you are doing what you're doing. If you really believe in why you are doing what you're doing, you'll figure out a way to get through that rough spot. And it may mean a complete change in direction. I don't know what it would mean exactly to everybody. But if you believe in why you're doing what you're doing, I think that's the case. We've had some rough patches as we've gotten started here. But we believe that what we're doing is important and that we're making a difference.

20:42And if you can keep that in front of you, I think that's for an entrepreneur going through a struggle or just starting out, that's the most important thing.

20:53Will Welborn:I like that. I like that. I think that's some good nuggets there. So any wise words of advice you would give to those business owners looking to grow? Any tips or hints?