I Started My Career With a Borrowed Ladder. Here’s How That Shaped the Way I Evaluate My Business Partners.

I’ve been in the home services industry since I was 21 years old, but I didn’t run a national roof restoration brand right away. In fact, I was in my fifties before Roof Maxx was an eight-figure company with dealers in all 50 states.

My career started with a single extension ladder, and I didn’t even own it. I borrowed it from my dad.

It was 1988, and I had decided to become a roofer. I wanted to do something practical, where I could see and feel the impact of my work firsthand, and I wasn’t afraid of heights. The only problem was that I couldn’t afford my own equipment.

Seeing that my drive was genuine, my dad agreed to lend me his ladder. I strapped it to the top of my Honda Civic hatchback and went canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone needed my services.

The way my father treated me when I was looking for my first shot in business ultimately set the tone for how I would evaluate future business partners and dealers for the Roof Maxx product: a safe, all-natural rejuvenation spray that restores the flexibility of asphalt shingles and extends their usable lifespan.

An early lesson about honoring commitments

The ladder my dad lent me was a 24-foot aluminum D-rung extension ladder by the Werner Ladder Company. It cost about $90 back then, which is around $250 today.

This was not a cheap piece of junk; it was a serious tool. Lending it to me was my father’s way of telling me he believed in what I was doing, but he wasn’t just going to let me hang onto it forever. He wanted to see results — and when I had made enough money to buy my own ladder, he wanted this one back.

So I put his ladder to work.

One of my first jobs was to clean gutters for a neighbor. I spent the afternoon picking dead leaves, twigs and other assorted debris out of their eavestroughs for about $30.

It wasn’t all profit, either. I had to pay for my meals, a few smaller tools, and of course, gas for the Civic. Those things ate up about half of my first paycheck. At that rate, it would take me about five more jobs like that one before I’d be able to give my father his ladder back.

But I had done a good job, and my neighbor was only too happy to recommend me to other area homeowners. By the end of next month, I had a steady stream of customers for small roofing jobs and had made enough money to buy a Werner of my own. My father got his ladder back thoroughly cleaned, and with a thank-you note attached.

The qualities that make people believe in you should make you believe in others

Over the following years, my brother Mike and I set up a full-service roofing company offering everything from eavestroughing to roof repairs and full replacements. It didn’t take us long to discover a critical gap most other contractors in the industry weren’t fulfilling.

Back then, replacements had by far the highest profit margins of any roofing work. So that’s usually what contractors recommended to homeowners, even when a full replacement wasn’t necessarily needed. Minor damage? Full replacement. Aging but otherwise structurally sound shingles? Full replacement. That’s pretty much how it went.

Of course, the many homeowners who caught on to this practice were none too pleased. We quickly realized the entire industry was going to get a bad name if the trend continued, so we started looking for a way to give homeowners other options.

When we discovered the Roof Maxx product, we realized it could give homeowners a way to keep using the asphalt shingles they already had on their rooftops for years to come, at a fraction of what roof replacement would cost. From there, it was a matter of finding other contractors who wanted to sell and apply the product as part of a comprehensive roof restoration solution.

But it wasn’t enough to find people who were simply good at selling. We also needed our dealers to believe in honesty and transparency. So we went out of our way to find people with the same sense of honor and integrity my father had instilled in me all those years ago.

We even made it part of our official restoration process for dealers to perform thorough inspections and tune-ups to fix minor damage before treatment. That way, if a Roof Maxx dealer tells a customer their roof is ready to benefit from treatment, they can rest assured that it’s true.

Growing up scrappy teaches you to read others

When you start out with next to nothing, your word is everything. You have no powerful friends vouching for you, no business credit to fall back on. So you learn quickly to only promise what you can deliver and get it right the first time.

That’s why I always try to have a face-to-face conversation with new Roof Maxx dealers. Resumes and recommendations alone don’t teach me who you are. I need to sit across from you and hear you talk about what motivates you to succeed.

It doesn’t matter to me how big your business currently is. I started mine with a borrowed ladder. What matters to me is that you’re willing to put in the work and achieve results without cutting corners.

That’s how I know you’ll honor your commitments: to the customers you serve, to our brand and to yourself.