Get ready to be inspired by Norm and Lindsey Dopfer from Roman Roofing! This episode promises an engaging tale of resilience and adaptability as they transition from the health and fitness industry in Ohio to becoming a powerhouse in the roofing business in sunny Southwest Florida. Learn how they navigated early challenges, including the difficulty of partnering with other contractors, and the eventual decision to obtain their own licenses—leading to their recognition as one of the most reputable roofing contractors in the region.
Norm shares candid insights about their journey, recounting how they went from working in air-conditioned offices to braving the elements and managing a thriving enterprise. Discover the lessons they learned and the obstacles they overcame, which ultimately landed Roman Roofing on the Inc 500 list and achieved impressive sales figures. This episode is a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of having a clear vision, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to turn their dreams into reality. Join us as we explore their remarkable story and the impact they’ve made in their community.
Roman Roofing, Inc. Norm & Lindsey Dopfer 921 NE 27th Ln Cape Coral, FL 33909 (239) 688-4260 License: CCC1330707 WEBSITE
Get ready to be inspired by Norm and Lindsey Dopfer from Roman Roofing! This episode promises an engaging tale of resilience and adaptability as they transition from the health and fitness industry in Ohio to becoming a powerhouse in the roofing business in sunny Southwest Florida. Learn how they navigated early challenges, including the difficulty of partnering with other contractors, and the eventual decision to obtain their own licenses—leading to their recognition as one of the most reputable roofing contractors in the region.
Norm shares candid insights about their journey, recounting how they went from working in air-conditioned offices to braving the elements and managing a thriving enterprise. Discover the lessons they learned and the obstacles they overcame, which ultimately landed Roman Roofing on the Inc 500 list and achieved impressive sales figures. This episode is a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of having a clear vision, making it a must-listen for anyone looking to turn their dreams into reality. Join us as we explore their remarkable story and the impact they’ve made in their community.
Roman Roofing, Inc. Norm & Lindsey Dopfer 921 NE 27th Ln Cape Coral, FL 33909 (239) 688-4260 License: CCC1330707 WEBSITE
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:
Welcome, good Neighbors, to episode number 167 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbors Norm and Lindsey Dopfer from Roman Roofing. Welcome, hey Jim. How are you doing today? I am doing awesome. Pleasure to have you guys on board here and interested to learn a little bit more about you. So let's jump right in and why don't you share a little bit about what you do over at Roman Roofing?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, jim. Well, first of all, thanks for having us. We appreciate the opportunity Absolutely residential re-roofs, tile, metal shingle, and we also have a uh ever-expanding commercial division that we recently stood up uh, two years ago that's. That's doing pretty well, so, uh, dabbling that arena as well, we do a little bit of solar uh, along with uh inspections and, you know, try to help out.
Speaker 2:
however, our homeowners need so so basically, you cover it all, right yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Literally, literally everything. There we go, so let's back up your story a little bit. Uh, how did you get involved in the roofing industry?
Speaker 3:
Uh, years ago I worked. I worked in uh the health and fitness industry up in Ohio and I had one of my top sales guys, uh move to Florida and he got into the roofing industry after Hurricane Wilma back in 2005. And he had been trying to recruit me for quite a while to come down to Southwest Florida and help him run his business. And you know I declined. You know I said I work in a, in an air conditioned office and work with beautiful people all day. So roofing and uh hot weather didn't seem like uh too attractive to me at the time.
Speaker 3:
But uh, quickly, after, after years of working in the in the corporate realm, um, I decided to come down for vacation and and and see, see, my guy Mike and uh take a look at what the industry had to offer and, uh, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with Southwest Florida, uh, the water, the people, the weather. Um, it was just a a massive change from Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan. So, um, that was it. I came on, I helped him start his company and run his company. I learned the ins and outs of uh roofing industry, you know, took many lumps along the way and learned many lessons, but eventually moved into starting my own company here at Roman Roofing.
Speaker 2:
Very nice and you mentioned, you know, those struggles everybody has some type of challenge or obstacle, whether it's a new journey or starting a business. Is there something along your journey that happened that we can kind of look back at now and not necessarily glad we went through it, but you know you're better off for going through it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think, I think one of the biggest things there's several things, and I mean that that podcast would take a month for us to get through it, you know, to be honest with you, but I'd say one of the most valuable things is, you know, relying on other people before actually obtaining our own license.
Speaker 3:
Early on in our career of just going around trying to partner with people that had licenses and work with other individuals that you know they just weren't as motivated as me and my wife. You know, we really wanted to get out and prove to the community that we could provide a good service and do what we say we do and kind of go the other route of what the roofing industry is kind of known for or the construction industry. So early on it was hard to, you know, try to sell other contractors. What our dream and vision was and the good thing was is everybody said no. So we just decided, hey, if we're going to make it happen, we need to go out and obtain our own license and do it on our own 100%. And here we are nine years later, an Inc 500 company, one of the most powerful residential roofing contractors in Southwest Florida, and I think we posted up like 82 million in sales last year, so it's been quite a journey for us.
Speaker 2:
So you've done it the right way. And it's you know. Like you said, I'm from the Midwest myself, so the work ethic is something that we all struggle with down here. It's just, you know, people don't want to work. I guess it's the lifestyle down here, but finding good people is not easy. That is not easy. So are there any myths or maybe misconceptions surrounding what you do that we could clear up for our listeners?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think the whole industry itself kind of has the low undertones of scamming and conning and that sort of thing and unfortunately you're going to have that because you do have individuals that ruin it for everybody.
Speaker 3:
But there's a nice checklist that homeowners can go through to ensure that they are hiring the right contractors and dealing with the right contractors.
Speaker 3:
But, um, I think just doing your research and and looking out and checking and speaking with members of the community it's not all about just reviews. But, you know, talking to, uh, actual people that have had work performed by licensed and insured contractors in the area is the most important We've seen. After this large hurricane come through here, which was only a couple years ago, year and a half ago, we're already re-roofing projects that are less than a year old because of the influx of out-of-state contractors that came in that don't know the codes, that aren't familiar with the products, that are here just for a cash grab. And I think the biggest lesson that the community will learn from that is you know, you need to be patient and you need to work with locals locals that have good warranties and put on the best products. If not, you're going to pay twice and in some circumstances that we've experienced working with homeowners. They've actually paid three times, Wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And then the important part you just mentioned too is license. There's so many people that storm chase and come down here aren't licensed to do work here in the state and then end up, you know.
Speaker 3:
You said end up paying more, yeah, and to touch a little bit on the licensing phase that nobody really talks about is a lot of contractors in the area. They will lease their license out to anybody and everybody and just take a monthly payment from them. So and most of the contractors you know in this area there's a handful of them that they don't even have the license themselves. They are utilizing somebody else's license. So if you see somebody adding and sheet metal or and solar after their name, you know the following year. You know it's typically because they change license holders. You know again. So that's very important. I tell homeowners like you need to do your research and find out how long that individual has actually been licensed and is it his or is he paying for it from somebody else?
Speaker 2:
So it's very important, absolutely Good, good information right there. So do you notice anything trending in the industry?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean one of the largest trending things taking place right now would be the private equity world. I mean the entire industry is being consolidated as we speak. I mean you have a lot of uh big time hitters, a lot of large banks. You know from you know I don't actually I'm not going to go out and utilize any names, but there's hundreds of them that have uh reached out to us and have already acquired many, many uh companies in the area. Um, I know probably 15 companies that are under contract or have already sold, and my connections in the industry. You know I get a lot of information from other markets, like the Texas market, the California market, and it's a big roll up.
Speaker 3:
They're doing so. They did it 10 to 12 years ago in the dental industry, they did it five to six years ago in the HVAC world, and now you're seeing it in the rest of home services, which primarily would be roofing, solar, and then you'll get into pest control and pool services that are being acquired as well.
Speaker 2:
So that's the big trend currently. Yeah, great, crazy. Stay local. That's the key for sure. So you mentioned being from Ohio originally, loving Southwest Florida and falling in love with it, like we all do when you get a moment of free time, because I know being a business owner can be very demanding. What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Speaker 3:
I have three kids. I have Roman, who I named the company after, who is nine years old. He's actively in baseball and he likes to swim and go out and collect bugs and do all the things that boys like to do. Um, my son, orion, is five. They're they're both into running. They, they log the miles every day. So they'll go out and run their mile every morning before school. Uh so, so they're into that. And then my youngest is, uh, his name is Griffin, he's three years old and he's the reason for all these gray hairs you see right here. So he's a wild child. But other than just being with my lovely wife here and the kids, you know, I have a couple of friends that are retired military from you know tier one operators.
Speaker 3:
We do a lot of shooting, we do prep classes and prep courses camping hiking, boating, and then. I also am a part owner in a couple other businesses as well, so a lot of my attention is goes to that and manage a musician. We just got off tour about a week ago, so he did a 22 state tour. We're in the beverage industry and then we're also in the firearms industry as well.
Speaker 2:
Wow, you've got a full plate there. Definitely a full plate. We're busy.
Speaker 3:
Getting ready for this. We're actually getting ready for the Florida roofing and sheet metal convention today and as soon as we're off here we're heading getting ready for the uh, florida roofing and sheet metal convention today and uh, as soon as we're off here, we're heading to orlando for that.
Speaker 2:
So very nice, very nice. So is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about roman roofing that maybe they wouldn't be aware of or aren't?
Speaker 3:
yeah, other than the other, other than the uh products and warranties and and services that we provide. That you know we are locally owned and operated. Me and services that we provide. That you know we are locally owned and operated. Me and my wife do own the company. We did name the company after our son, roman. You know we're active in the company every day. We love what we do. We love building relationships with the community.
Speaker 3:
Some of my best friends right now are previous clients of ours, were guys that I've done roofing projects for or assisted them with with some sort of construction.
Speaker 3:
So just to let them know like we're average, normal people, like everybody else, our team is comprised of a lot of locals, a lot of former military veterans and if you ever want to talk to the owner of the company, you know you're more than welcome to stop by the office and come in and say hi, it's not.
Speaker 3:
You know, like you got to press one, then press nine and press eight and you're going to get a dial tone. We advise all of our estimators to invite their customers to come to the office or to invite me over to their house. And let me kind of tell my story and, you know, explain how we differentiate ourselves from others. So it's a family owned and operated, a lot of friends that work for us friends and family and we like to project that off to our clients as well and let them know, like, hey, we understand you're probably going to go through this once or twice in your life and we want to make sure that we hold your hand through the process from start to finish and understand that you have confident, educated professionals behind you that will, you know, be there to service you, you know, for whatever your needs are.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I love it. I wish we had more businesses like you here in Southwest Florida. How would our listeners go about contacting you if they had questions?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, absolutely, give the office a call, babe, what's that number there? Yeah, absolutely, uh, given the office a call. Uh, babe, what's that number there?
And then you can also get on our website and take a look. There it's romanroofinginc. com and romanroofing. com. So uh, and our offices is, uh are located in, uh, cape Coral. Uh, what's the address at the new location?
Speaker 2:
The showroom 919 Country Club Boulevard.
Speaker 3:
And that is a new uh showroom that has, you know, 95% of the products that we offer and sell. So if the clients you know you're getting a lot of estimates, you come out and you have guys coming and going from your home Sometimes they're leaving estimates or leaving samples behind they're not giving you the full view of what your options are. We encourage everybody to come into our showroom, take a look around, look at all the products, see it, touch it, ask all the questions. We have all the warranty information and products right there on site. So this kind of lets them see what visually, what it would look like on their home as well. We have little mock-ups all over the place and we can also guide them to one of the 25,000, I'm sorry, 24,000 projects that we've completed in the area. We have a list of addresses where, if they're interested in a product, we've installed it and we can show them on an actual home.
Speaker 2:
Perfect. Hey, norm Lindsey, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such good neighbors and I hope to see you out in the community soon.
Speaker 3:
Thanks, jim, appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:
Go to gnpastero. com. That's gnpastero. com. Or call 239-296-2621.