We recently connected with Jessica Lemperes and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica , appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? We’d love to hear the backstory the illustrates how you grew the firm

Scaling a business is made to look pretty simple. You can purchase all of the self-help books on the topic, but in my opinion many provide a very glossy and sugar coated roadmap. Rarely are the blood, sweat and tears discussed as those likely wouldn’t sell the “scaling your business” books, programs or consultations.

As a business owner, it’s important to know your team. I encourage owners to seriously consider the following questions before committing to scaling and growing their business.

Who is on your team? Do they WANT to scale alongside you? Do you have a few that are completely invested in the company and treat it as their own? Is the team ready to scale (i.e. processes and procedures in place, clear and concise roles, etc.) Does your team have the emotional, mental and professional capacity to commit to scaling with you?

We all want to look at our businesses and call them successful, but we also need to be honest about where the business is at. Growing a business is no small endeavor. It takes tenacity, skill, a little bit of luck/blessings and of course, the right people.

Our first year in business was an exciting year. The word “exciting” has come to have many different meanings at Local Roofing, LLC. In 2018, I was hired by the business owner, Marcus Eytcheson, as a part-time business manager. Yes, part- time! Marcus was venturing into business ownership in an industry he was incredibly knowledgeable and skilled in; the roofing industry. I split my time between two different businesses as we worked to grow Local Roofing. We jokingly named my position “Manager of random thoughts and ideas” as Marcus is a Visionary and needs someone to assist in filtering his ideas.

Our first year’s sales hit $2.2 million. We accomplished this with an incredibly small, but dedicated team and a lot of grit and hard work. Each and every person on the team pulled more than their weight that year. What did we all have in common? A drive to see this business succeed. We believed in the business, we committed to the business at ground level and not one of us wanted to see it fail. We were taking small salaries, not spending a lot of money from the company, and we were literally pouring our hearts and souls into the business. Humble beginnings at every level.

Many people questioned our sanity, and especially questioned those of us that have no ownership in the company. I cannot tell you how many times I heard ” Why do you care so much?, you are just an employee. You have no perks of ownership.” Let me make this abundantly clear; a business owner NEEDS to have “employees” they can count on and lean on while growing a business. I realize this looks vastly different depending on the size of the company you work for, but in small businesses it is a necessity.

From 2018 to 2023, we increased our branch count. We started with Fairmont Roofing (2018), added Hayward and Becker Roofing (2019). Then we added Folie Roofing (2020) based out of Waseca, MN and then this year (2023) we launched Albert Lea Roofing. All of our branches are in Minnesota except for Hayward Roofing, which is based in Hayward, Wisconsin.

What have we learned along the way?

Finding the right people aka employees. I think we can all agree that this is an incredibly important aspect to any business. Maybe your business is a 1-2 person endeavor or maybe you have hundreds of people on your team. Either way, it’s vital that they be the right people.

Don’t be afraid to delegate, but make sure you are delegating to the right people. Pay attention to skill sets and personalities. Not everyone is suited for data entry; not everyone is suited for project management.

Finding your niche is one of the best things you can do. We are a roofing company that specializes in asphalt and stone coated steel roofing options. Technically, we can sell these products in any market, but we have found that our company is better suited for the smaller communities we serve. We enjoy working with our families, friends and neighbors. Connecting to the communities we serve is important to us. Trying to expand into larger communities has not served us well as we are then competing with hundreds of other contractors (think the Metro area) and spend way more on marketing to try and get a foot in the door.

Try to keep your overhead low. This looks different for everyone of course, but utilizing home offices and opening up one main hub has been beneficial to Local Roofing. Does a storefront help? In some instances, yes, I do believe it helps. However, if you work in the service industry and are typically going to your customers vs. them coming to you, a fancy office isn’t necessarily going to get you the best return on investment. Really look at the numbers of investing in an office building. Examine the pros and the cons. For some, getting out of the house is a necessity when it comes to work. Not everyone can work from home successfully. Does everyone on your team need a company vehicle or would paying mileage to some team members be a better use of resources? These are questions to ask yourself as you work towards growing.

If you are a visionary, find an integrator. If you are an integrator, find a visionary. I highly recommend reading “Rocket Fuel” by Wickman and Winters.

Work your processes and procedures. Don’t just put these down on paper to say you have them. Actually work them, work through them and analyze them. Where can you improve? Processes are never perfect and will constantly be evolving. Give yourself some grace if you run into a few bottlenecks or issues with your processes. These are opportunities to learn and grow.

If you are customer or service oriented, I highly recommend Customer Relationship Management software to track customer files. If you are highly skilled with Excel, this software can work as well, but the more user friendly the program, the better as you scale and bring on more employees.

Communication needs to be a priority for everyone on the team. Mistakes and hard feelings can often be avoided with proper and thorough communication.

Slow to hire and quick to fire. This is a tough one. We have seen that not everyone will be a good fit for the company. Try to separate yourself from the emotions of the situation and act in the best interest of the company. Oftentimes you will find that the individual agrees that the role isn’t for them.

Offer opportunities for growth on the individual level as well as a company level. Continuing education or trainings can help fine tune your team.

Finally, as leadership, take accountability for your errors and mistakes. In my opinion, this is refreshing and inspiring to see. It reminds us we all make mistakes and it’s how we handle them that has an impact on the team either negatively or positively.

These are some of the things that have helped us along the way and from 2018 to 2022 our sales increased from $2.2 million to about $11 million.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Name: Jessica Lemperes Title: Integrator/COO for Local Roofing LLC

If you would have asked me ten years ago if I would ever work in the roofing industry, I likely would have laughed and said no. In the past, the roofing industry has been seen as dirty, blue collar type work. I didn’t think many women worked in the roofing industry, so it was never on my radar as being an option. I graduated with a degree in Business/Marketing so I always assumed I would end up at an ad agency, marketing company or the like.

Life, as we know, can often put us on a different path than we plan for. I had taken some time away from the professional world to stay home with my children. Our family had gone through a challenging event that rattled our security and I felt I needed to be home to help my kids feel safe, stable and to help us rebuild in more ways than one.

When I decided to re-enter the workforce, a roofing company’s employment ad caught my eye as they were looking for an Administrative Assistant that would have the freedom to work from home. I felt that this would offer me the best of both worlds. An opportunity to get back into the workforce, and also allow me to be available if I was needed at home. I was offered and accepted the position, which quickly evolved into a bigger role with the company. It was at this company I met my current boss, Marcus.

Marcus had decided to start his own company and offered me a position with his company. I didn’t want to burn bridges so discussions were had with both business owners and thankfully both business owners agreed to allow me to work for both of them with my time split between the two companies. My role with Marcus grew fast and furiously while my role at the second company slowed as that owner approached retirement. It all worked out so well.

I am now entering my sixth roofing season with Local Roofing as the Integrator/COO and my eight season in the roofing industry. I often get asked what I do in a day and the answer can vary greatly. I am typically invoicing customers, paying the bills, evaluating the company finances, analyzing our staffing needs/adjustments, and more. I am also the Human Resources contact, the IT department (sorry team!), the marketing department, the social media assistant and everything in between as we are a small business. It takes wearing many hats on a daily basis to get my job done. There have been many sleepless nights as I want to see our entire team succeed. Thankfully those are happening less and less lately. I think it’s safe to say we have the right people in the right seats.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Managing people is one of the hardest things I have had to do. As we climb the ladder, I think many of us want to be the “manager”. For me, it was a goal to lead a team, so working my way up was something I strived for and something that felt like a natural progression.

I will admit, I was not prepared for the challenges I have faced in leadership. No amount of management classes will prepare you for employees in the real world. Your team is facing all sorts of things both inside and outside of work and how they respond to these things will vary greatly from person to person. Some will leave it at the door and others will bring everything into the office and unpack for all to see.

I have learned that everyone’s feelings and frustrations need to be heard. Regardless of how you, as a leader, feel about the feelings and frustrations. It’s important to be available to discuss concerns or just be a listening ear. We all have so much work to get through in a day, but we need to be careful to not become so focused on work that we forget about our people.

Our people are our greatest assets and building an environment of strong team moral is something that leaders need to be considerate of on a daily basis.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

A reputation will always proceed you. It’s important to address customer questions, complaints and concerns with integrity and honesty. We try to do this in a timely fashion. Does every single roofing project go perfectly, 100% of the time? Unfortunately, no. As we have learned, mistakes will happen; it’s how you handle the mistakes that makes the difference.

Local Roofing has worked hard to take care of our customers and make things right if there is ever an issue. I am proud of how our team handles things and appreciate knowing that we keep our word to the best of our ability. Are some things out of our control? Of course! It’s the nature of the business. However, at the end of the day we can rest knowing that we try hard to keep our customers happy and ensure we are providing quality roofing products and installations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://local-roofing.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesslemp22/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-jess-lemperes-73b385a6