# new roofing company



## All'NAll

Hello my name s owen and my friend and i have started our own residential and c0ommercial roofing company. we get mainly all residential work right now and both of us have a lot of experience in commercial wich we both prefer.we like residential but want to really jump in the door with commercial and dont know that many ways to go about it. I am wondering any good advice on how to getting my foot in the door thank u.... ive been waiting 16 years to open my own business and i take my work to the end and back and if i am doing all the leg work and spending money on advertising and data websites that i should try to get some good advise to not make some costly mistakes seems how money is a huge obeject.


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## photo_shop

start bidding government work. start with the local municipalities and your states website. you'll typically search for procurement, bidding or construction opportunities. you'll fill out the qualification forms and send in your w-9 and proof of insurance. they'll put you on the notification list and you'll be alerted when a new job comes out to bid. go to the pre-bid and bid the work. Eezy peezy


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## sammismith

I'd recommend getting on sites such as Thumbtack too, if people give you good reviews your reputation will grow


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## Fred steam ice dam

I would advise against bidding out government jobs and state work if you are new to owning a business in roofing. 
I about bid on a state job this year and read all the paperwork 188 page document for a super easy 1 story elderly housing. 13 buildings 450 square all together. I was within days of dilevering the estimate when I called a sub I use and asked him how the last state job went in 2014 he did for same general contractor I was putting bid in for.
He said everything was great got paid and a lot of paperwork. But after the whole job was done they audit random contractors, less than 10% in total job becuase it was supposedly residential non prevailing wage rates. 
Months After total job was complete the state came in and audited the roofer and had to pay every guy on the job about 35$ an hour for roofing and about 20$ an hour on top of that for benefits. 
My friends said when it was all said and done every guy on the job had to get paid about 47$ an hour certified payroll. If you understand how workmans comp works it's based off your payroll. In state of Connecticut it's about 70 cents for every dollar of payroll. 
That means each guy I. The roof is costing you about 80$ an hour per man on the roof. Long story to say I probably was about to severely underbid the job with what I was going to charge at 375$a square. 

I could go on, but I have another friend who is a commercial roofer who said he will never do state work again after he about went out of business one year becuase of an audit and not paying prevailing wages.

I would stick to residential and get commercial roofing leads through home advisor for a bit before you get into state work.


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## thecoolroof

How are things going so far? This thread is quite old, so I am curious is there any update? Also you should invest some time and list your business on pages like yelp, yellow pages, angie's list, the more the merrier.


_______________________
The Cool Roofing Company


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## aksteelking

*Any other ideas for a newbie?*

Not new to roofing, just to having my own business. Any other thoughts and ideas?
I just paid for a website and SEO but not sure how effective that is for generating commercial work. Maybe it just depends on what I'm ranking in Google for?


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## RooferWife

aksteelking said:


> Not new to roofing, just to having my own business. Any other thoughts and ideas?
> I just paid for a website and SEO but not sure how effective that is for generating commercial work. Maybe it just depends on what I'm ranking in Google for?


We have generated some work off our website with SEO but have found cold-calling to be more effective. If we depended entirely on our website, we would have to work a second job in the winter months! ( we like to play as much as we like to work,  so it pays to either do cold calling or mailers in the spring, for us.)


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## ronpickle

This is not easy, some due diligence is required initially. Make a list of the top businesses in your city, contact them, speak to the decision makers, tell them about your services, good reviews that you have received previously, offer them decent discounts and offer a free roof review.


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## Dimensional

Opt for B2B marketing if you want to build business relations online. Door to Door marketing will take longer than ever, so try online marketing your business and contact more business owner related to your niche.

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Roofer Austin


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## Fiddrick

If you want to get more commercial work, you should invest in B2B marketing. Something as simple as finding the decision makers at local procurement companies on LinkedIn, for instance, could be an effective way to get an 'in'. You need a good elevator pitch and then, hopefully, something more thorough for a one-to-one meeting. 

More than anything, commercial companies will be looking for businesses that have worked on large-scale projects before, even if they're residential projects, so make sure you have a good portfolio and some references to hand. Personally, I'd advise that you avoid government work as it comes with a lot of challenging obligations for a small business.

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Lofts and Extensions London


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