Fortified Roofing: Mastering Business Cycles & Quality

John Kabourakis (00:00)
We started a YouTube page earlier this year and

We have a couple of dozen pieces of content out there right now. We have a combination of some long form content, a lot of short form content. All of our short form content can all be found on all of the major social platforms too. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, we’re on TikTok and we’re on LinkedIn. So what we’re doing is we’re producing these informative videos all about roofing. It’s basically a one stop shop where

anyone who’s thinking about getting a roof done, whether it’s next week, next month or next year, they can go, they can watch a lot of this very informative content and educate themselves on what to expect, what to look out for.

Erika (02:14)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika and today I’m thrilled to be joined by John Kabourakis the powerhouse behind Fortified Roofing, a company making waves in the construction and renovation space. John, it’s awesome to have you here.

John Kabourakis (02:32)
Good to see you, Erika.

Erika (02:33)
So let’s dive on in, John. For those who aren’t familiar with your world, give us the rundown. How did you get started in roofing and what was that journey like?

John Kabourakis (02:43)
You know, was wild looking back now, it’s been 24 years and looking back, just sometimes I want to pinch myself and say, wow, I did all that. At 21 years old, I found myself working for a roofing company and realized very quickly, it’s not easy. The roofing business is not easy. It’s hard work, it’s tough work, long hours, it’s dirty work, it’s dangerous work.

I did it for about a year and then I moved on to some other things. I always had this entrepreneurial spirit in mind. I always knew that I wanted to run my own business. And then several years later, I accumulated enough money where I said, I’m going to start looking for a business that’s right for me. I was very open to a lot of different things. And I came across this roofing company that was for sale. It a small local company that was installing about 70, 80 roofs per year.

He was owned by a gentleman that was looking to retire at that point. was in his seventies and he was looking to move on. It was the perfect opportunity for me. So I jumped on it. 27 years old. was, we closed on the roofing business one month after September 11th. So it was a wild time. We, know, a lot of uncertainty out there in the future. We didn’t know what things, what was going to happen.

We didn’t know if there was a recession that was going to be coming. I didn’t know how it would affect the roofing business, but it just seemed like the right time. It seemed like the right opportunity. And I jumped in. And what I didn’t know at the time that happened was, again, this was 2001 now, the end of 2001, moving into 2002. And that was the very beginning of the largest real estate expansion in our history. So from

2000 the end of 2001 when I purchased the roofing business until 2006 2007 really 2008 for me when everything started to fall apart in real estate business We just rode that wave and we just had double-digit growth every single year So I was lived within my means. I didn’t overextend myself. So when when things did come crashing down in 2008 we were able to survive that and Reinvent ourselves and then move forward

And now here we are 24 years later, still going.

Erika (05:44)
That’s awesome. John, what’s your main focus at Fortified Roofing and you know what what area are you servicing?

John Kabourakis (05:52)
We’re servicing most of New Jersey and a good part of Eastern Pennsylvania. We’ve also done work in New York state and in New York city as well. Things have quieted down over the last few years now in the wake of COVID. COVID we had our two busiest years we ever had. And now with the rise in interest rates and lack of activity in the real estate market, things have slowed down in the roofing business. This is a nationwide thing that we’re seeing right now.

So most of our work right now is New Jersey and a little bit of Eastern Pennsylvania as well. And ⁓ my focus is really right now just getting ready for that next business cycle because we see interest rates starting to tick down pretty soon. And I think that’s going to really open things up. going to see that next business cycle really take off. And we’re just trying to position ourselves for it right now.

Erika (06:41)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. me. I saw on your website that you emphasize quality craftsmanship and customer satisfaction and you your company is doing a lot of roofing projects. How do you balance that pace with that quality and satisfaction?

John Kabourakis (06:59)
You have to have good systems in place and you have to have good people. I try to set a culture where I reward my employees for doing the right thing, where I reward them for going the extra mile because consumers these days, homeowners are extremely demanding. People, when you’re working on their home, they get very, very emotional about it.

any little thing that goes wrong and even sometimes things that don’t go wrong but they perceive it as something that went wrong can really set people off. So we really need to cross all of our T’s and dot all of our I’s. But I think that’s really the way that we keep things moving is to empower our employees to do the right thing. Of course we have to pay them well, we have to reward them, recognize them for going that extra mile.

Erika (07:46)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you also talked about your systems that you have in place. Can you talk more about that? Is there any technology that you’re using?

John Kabourakis (07:55)
Yeah, you know, when I first got into this business in 2001, we were still advertising in the phone book. It’s hard to believe, but that’s how things were. And then all of a sudden, a few years later, this thing called the internet started to come along. And the interesting thing behind that transition was manufacturers of roofing products, they would rely on roofers.

to promote their products back in those early days. When the internet came along, some of those manufacturers got very smart. They looked at the internet as a conduit to the customer. So they sort of bypassed the installers, went directly to the customer, utilizing the internet to present themselves. And some of them were very successful with that. So we…

We had to adapt. We had to make sure that what we were doing was what the customer, what the homeowner was looking for. So it’s been a…

There have been a lot of changes with regard to technology over the last few decades. One of the biggest changes that we’ve utilized is with these new aerial reports, we used to have to get up on roofs and physically measure these roofs. Now what we do is we pay $18 to a company called Quick Measure. We type in an address of any home that we want to get measurements for a roof on. And within usually about 15 or 20 minutes,

it gives us back this extremely detailed report with every measurement imaginable on the roof. So the amount of time that we’re saving just by utilizing those quick measure reports is immeasurable. The safety involved too, because now we don’t have to get up on every single roof as we did in the past to measure them. So that’s been a huge benefit and it’s allowed us to utilize that spare time, that time that we’re saving in other areas.

accounting software right now has come a long way and and you know we’re dealing in roofing we’re dealing with some big numbers you know a lot of cash flow so to be able to control those numbers and to keep a close eye on those numbers is very important so we’ve i think we’ve done a pretty good job of utilizing the technology

It’s unbelievable how quickly things are happening and trying to weed through what works for us and what doesn’t work for us and which pieces of technology we want to use because there’s just so much out there where again in the beginning there was nothing. Now we have all this technology. The roofing business itself hasn’t changed very much, but everything around it has changed dramatically.

Erika (11:01)
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, maybe this ties back to you saying that the roofing business in some ways hasn’t changed a lot. What would you say is like a misconception that people have when, you know, they’re, going to, you know, get a new roof, whether it’s a homeowner or an investor.

John Kabourakis (11:18)
there’s a lot of misconceptions out there. I most of these misconceptions have to do with the products that are involved. You know, in the roofing business, there’s a lot of unprofessionalism out there. The barriers to entry to get into the roofing business are extremely low. Here in New Jersey, as in most states, you fill out a one or two page application, you send it in to the Department of Consumer Affairs, a couple of weeks later, they send you back a license.

You don’t need any continuing education. You don’t need any degrees. There’s no apprenticeship. So so what we are faced with constantly is

competitors of ours coming out there and filling the heads with homeowners of all kinds of misconceptions and After 24 years of being in the business We know what’s right and what’s wrong for just about everyone when it comes to roofing. We’ve seen it all We’ve installed over 8,000 roofs over the last 24 years. So

When we hear this information that homeowners are gathering from competitors of ours, you sometimes you just scratch your head, you wonder. Specifically, a lot of those misconceptions revolve around the different products involved. Ventilation is a key factor. We hear all kinds of different things about attic ventilation that competitors of ours bring up that really just don’t make sense.

So there’s just so many. It’s hard to sometimes. And then what you find is competitors of ours that might bring up a couple of different misconceptions. Now we meet with a homeowner, we do a presentation for a homeowner and we try to weed it all out. And now the homeowner is confused. Should they believe us or should they believe these other competitors? So it’s all in the delivery sometimes.

how you educate these homeowners, it’s difficult sometimes. So we do our best. We really do.

Erika (13:04)
Yeah, yeah. What would you say is the most difficult challenge about that market and being competitive?

John Kabourakis (13:10)
We’re in an area where we are very densely populated here in New Jersey and even in Eastern Pennsylvania. New Jersey itself has eight million residents in a very small area. It’s not a big state geographically. But with that brings a lot of competition. So when someone decides they want to get their roof replaced, typically the standard is they’ll go out, they’ll reach out to three different roofers to get three different estimates.

And sometimes they’ll get five or six estimates. There’s no limit to what they can get, right? And what they’ll see now more than ever is this huge disparity in the types of materials that are being offered to them and the pricing. So more times than not, these homeowners get extremely confused about which direction they should go, what they thought might have been a simple…

process where they were just going go out, get a few estimates, pick one and move on. Now they’re just completely confused and we often find ourselves trying to sort it all out for them. So, and that’s a big part of it that, you know, something we didn’t have to deal with as much in the past that we’re dealing with a lot more now than ever is just, you know, basically being an aggregator, if you will, of roofing for people.

Erika (14:23)
Yeah, and as I’m sure you know, every business owner has a story or two along that makes or breaks their journey. Can you maybe share a moment where a project went sideways or you had to completely what you were doing for a customer? Can you share one of those moments?

John Kabourakis (14:41)
Yeah, I try to block those out of my head, you know, try to be positive, try to think of all of the, ⁓ the good things that, ⁓ that happen. mean, listen, you know, after 8,000 roofs, here’s something that you might think would happen more often. Right. I mentioned our systems in place to try to keep things organized and try to prevent problems from happening, but no business in the history of mankind, is perfect. Right.

So.

I remember this one day, was a beautiful day, things were chugging along, we were doing good, I was sitting at my office, it’s probably around, I don’t know, 9.30 in the morning, and I get this phone call from this frantic woman who says, I just got a phone call from one of my neighbors who said that you are installing a roof on my house, but I never hired you, you’re at the wrong house.

This is one of those things that’s kind of a worst case scenario for the owner of a roofing company, a nightmare situation. So of course we immediately reached out to the roofers and said, stop, stop what you’re doing, Woody, because they were tearing off this woman’s roof. And it was a roof down the street that we were supposed to be tearing off. So fortunately she caught us relatively early and we didn’t tear off a whole lot of the roof, but we did tear off a decent section of the roof, about a thousand square feet, which

It relatively large house, it was about a third of the home that we tore off. So, you now it comes into play, well, this has never happened before, so what do you do? So, we kind of got lucky. This woman needed a roof anyway, all the roofs in her neighborhood were starting to be done, and we were able to ⁓ sell her a roof, fortunately. So it worked out, where… ⁓

You know, we gave her a price we gave her a very very good attractive price almost a price where you can’t say no to So we ended up completing the job and and ⁓ and she paid us for it But that could have just really could have gone the other way without a doubt. We managed to salvage it And you know again, you know, she she was pretty savvy. So she very quickly looked at her reputation She had never heard of us until then she looked up a reputation so that we had a good reputation

actually knew a couple of neighbors that used us already so it all worked out but had we had a bad reputation and had no one in our neighborhood already used us she may have not been so inclined to move forward with us and then who knows what would have happened it probably would have cost us some money there so that’s that’s one of the ones that really uh… jumps out over the years

Erika (17:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, you’re not kidding.

That’s intense. Is there something from that experience that you still apply in what you do today?

John Kabourakis (18:00)
Absolutely, mean, you know, back then we used to double check or, know, with our roofers in the morning, now we triple check. So because, you know, and then, and then there’s the situation of the wrong color too. There have been a few times before where the wrong color was delivered to the job. Fortunately, we never actually installed the wrong cover color rather. but there have been a few times where we had those materials delivered. And if we didn’t, if we weren’t diligent in checking to make sure.

that we had the right collar that was about to be installed on that roof, perhaps would have installed the wrong collar. And it’s one thing if you start installing the wrong collar and realize it quickly, okay, not too much damage is done. But if you install an entire roof and it’s the wrong collar and the homeowner doesn’t accept the wrong collar, you have a huge problem on your hand. So we do have systems in place to make sure that everything that’s installed is what’s ordered.

and is what the homeowner wanted. We often find ourselves dealing with homeowners where they purchase a roof for us and that collar is the one thing that kind of just is hanging out there where, you know, week will go by after they sign the contract, they still haven’t picked a collar. So they’ll call us up and they’ll say, okay, I picked my collar. I want the collar bark wood. We’ll say, okay, that’s great, but we need that in writing. You know, we need something in writing confirming that you want bark wood.

because we know you were looking at three or four different colors and when we show up to install your roof we don’t want any problems we want to make sure that we have it in writing so that if you forget that you did pick barkwood or if you said barkwood you meant another color that were kind of covered so that’s just one example of one of the ways that we cross our t’s and dot our i’s there is we make sure we get it all in writing everything has to be in writing verbal

is nice but it’s at the end of the day when things go wrong you want that paper to be able to prove that you did what you were supposed to do.

Erika (19:54)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’m sure as you’re familiar with John, relationships are so important in the industry and running a business. For you, what’s been the biggest game changer from networking or building relationships in the industry?

John Kabourakis (20:10)
Yeah, we have some suppliers that we’ve been using now for over 20 years. And we’ve built some great relationships with them and they like us. I hear from them over and over again, the reason why they love doing business with us. We have suppliers that we give millions and millions of dollars worth of business to, materials that we purchase every year. And…

they tell us about their customers who purchase significantly less business or materials from them than we do and their experience with these competitors is just horrendous. It’s horrible. It’s kind of scatterbrained. ⁓ It’s unorganized. know, they might be sending orders in the day before they need an order and now the supplier has to scramble and try to fulfill that order in a short period of time.

try to pull all the materials together, make sure they have them in stock, and if they don’t, they have to figure out a way to get them. And then there’s the attitude behind some of these competitors where they’re giving a little bit of business to these suppliers and they somehow think they own them. So they’re dictating terms to them and whatnot. And this goes back to that culture that I set up that I mentioned before with my employees. The culture is we look at all of our vendors as partners of ours. We don’t look at our vendors as

They work for us. They have to do what we tell them to do. We don’t have that attitude. And that comes back to us tenfold. Because when we’re in a pinch, when we’re in a bind, and we need a favor from one of those vendors, whether it be one of our dumpster companies, whether it be one of our suppliers, no matter who it is, they come through for us because we treat them well. We treat them. They want to work for us. want… I always say that…

When I call one of my vendors, the last thing I would ever want them to be thinking is, I gotta talk to this guy now. When they see me calling, I want a smile to come to their face. I want them to wanna talk to me. And I think that we’ve succeeded in that. I think that that’s where we’re at. And I’m proud of that because it just makes for a better environment for everyone too. It even goes down to,

when our roofers and our foremen are at a job site and a boom truck shows up at that job site to deliver those materials. Now, the situation that’s going on between the driver of that delivery truck and our roofers and our foremen, it’s just a good environment because it really kind of comes from the top down. It’s through the entire rank and file that we try to…

We try to promote that good experience. So yeah, again, that’s something I’m proud of. And I think if you speak to any one of our vendors, they’ll tell you just that, that they love working with our company and love working with Fortified Roofing because of that good culture that we have set up.

Erika (23:03)
Yeah, that’s awesome. John, what do you see next on the horizon for fortified roofing?

John Kabourakis (23:10)
You know when when things are busy when things are good what tends to happen is you rest on your laurels a little bit. You know we’ve been through these cycles through the years. But our very vivid memories of 2008 when everything came crashing down not only in the housing market but in the home services business. And what we did then was we sort of reinvented ourselves right and then things took off again and like I said during COVID we had to

Busiest years ever so we weren’t thinking so much about growth and making ourselves better with kind of just try to fill orders at that time just so busy. During 2021 we installed over 600 roofs that year just that one year alone so it’s just trying to try to keep the ball rolling and now since then things have gotten slower and slower and we’ve had the time to look at ourselves and look at the environment of competition and look at where we’ve.

come from, look at where we are, and to look at where we’re going. And we’re completely reinventing ourselves once more and preparing ourselves, positioning ourselves for that next business cycle. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re right now on the horizon of that next business cycle. We’re anticipating seeing interest rates starting to come down perhaps next month in September. And I think that’s going to be the beginning of some more drops in

in interest rates that are really going to open up the housing market and start to really provide some fuel for our business to take off once again. we’ve started, one of the approaches that we’ve taken that we really haven’t seen in the roofing business, I mentioned before a lot of the confusion that’s out there amongst homeowners.

We started a YouTube page earlier this year and

We have a couple of dozen pieces of content out there right now. We have a combination of some long form content, a lot of short form content. All of our short form content can all be found on all of the major social platforms too. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, we’re on TikTok and we’re on LinkedIn. So what we’re doing is we’re producing these informative videos all about roofing. It’s basically a one stop shop where

anyone who’s thinking about getting a roof done, whether it’s next week, next month or next year, they can go, they can watch a lot of this very informative content and educate themselves on what to expect, what to look out for.

We have kinds of red flags that they should be aware of, do’s and don’ts. And it’s kind of built around the most important things that people look for when they’re looking to purchase a roof.

And so far it’s off to a great start. And again, no one has been doing this. We haven’t seen any of our competitors doing it, really nationwide. Nationwide, there’s, count on one hand, the amount of roofing companies that are putting out this level of information. you know, we think it’s really, it’s got a good future. And I think that’s going to be a part of the next business cycle for Ford-Five Roofing. think we’re doing a good job of branding through it.

and also building a lot of trust through this channel.

Erika (26:12)
Yeah, yeah, I think you’re, you know, you’re ahead of the curve with the the YouTube channel. That’s exciting, John. Hey, before we let you go, if someone wants to connect with you learn more about fortified roofing, especially if they need help on a project, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

John Kabourakis (26:28)
They can go to our website fortifiedroofing.com. We keep it real simple fortifiedroofing.com or they can check out our YouTube page. If they’re not quite ready yet, just want to learn a little bit. That’s at fortified roofing. And we use the same handle for all of our social platforms as well. Instagram, Facebook. YouTube is the one place where you’ll find the long form videos where it really gets deep into answering.

all of those questions that people have when they’re thinking about getting a roof.

Erika (26:56)
Yeah, well, John, this has been awesome. I love that you’re building your business the right way. Thank you so much for dropping all your knowledge today.

John Kabourakis (27:04)
Thank you, Erika. Good speaking with you.

Erika (27:06)
For everyone tuning in, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more episodes coming up with people like John who are building incredible businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.