1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
Welcome to the Business Chronicles, where we dive deep into the stories behind the businesses that shape our communities. We bring you conversations with inspiring entrepreneurs who share their journeys, challenges, and the unique value they bring to their customers.
In this podcast, we explore the passion and vision behind successful businesses, uncovering the secrets to their success and learning about the innovative products and services they offer. Whether you're a fellow entrepreneur looking for insights or simply curious about the businesses in your area, this podcast is your go-to source for inspiration and practical advice.
So, sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the dynamic world of business, one story at a time."
1st Media Consulting Group, Inc. Podcast
From Gridiron to Rooftops: Mike's Entrepreneurial Journey with Blitz Roofing & Construction
What if you could transition from a college athlete to a successful entrepreneur in multiple industries? Join us as we explore Mike's incredible journey, starting as a college football player at the University of Central Florida and evolving into the innovative owner of Blitz Roofing. Mike shares his unique path from selling yellow page ads in Orlando to achieving great success in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. His story is one of persistence and adaptability, balancing a stint with the Orlando Predators while climbing the corporate ladder at industry giants like Stryker and Boston Scientific.
Discover the secrets behind the rapid growth of Blitz Roofing and Construction, a company founded by partners dissatisfied with their own roofing experiences. Mike discusses how they leveraged business acumen and strategic partnerships to expand statewide in Florida, all while prioritizing customer service and responsiveness. Learn how their experience with Nona Scientific, a lab testing company, informed their approach to revolutionizing the roofing industry. From clear communication to immediate responsiveness, Mike outlines the core principles that have driven their success across multiple sectors.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, this episode is a goldmine of advice. Mike emphasizes the importance of gaining work experience, delivering excellent customer service, and striking a balance between making money, expanding, and investing in research and development. Whether you're looking to start your own business or simply get inspired by a remarkable entrepreneurial journey, this conversation offers invaluable insights. Don't forget to subscribe to the First Media Consulting Podcast and nominate other businesses that would make great guests on our show. Thank you for tuning in!
Welcome to the First Media Consulting Podcast, the Business Chronicles, where we dive deep into the stories of successful business owners. Here's your host, Didi and Nicholas. Thanks for joining today. Let's talk.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome to our podcast. I'm so excited to bring to you Mike, who's the owner of Blitz Roofing, and he's got a story to tell us today, so we're so excited to hear from him. Good afternoon, mike. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Great, Nick. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
Speaker 2:You're very, very welcome, man. We're excited to learn more about your business and kind of give some insights when it comes to you know some of the things that you face with your business as you got started. So let's talk about a little bit of background of how you got started, a little bit of background of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my background, my career, has been in medical, so it's a little bit outside of the roofing industry. But I went to University of Central Florida, grew up in Cocoa Beach, then played football at UCF. I'm a proud Knight. So go Knights, charge on there you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and from that point, after I graduated UCF, I didn't know if I wanted to be a sports commentator. I was trying to make the NFL, had a lot of different things going on Ended up jumping into selling yellow pages to get my career started while I was still trying to play football. So my agent gave me a little bit of money to help pay some bills, but it wasn't enough. So I went around town in Orlando selling yellow page ads, trying to, and a lot of people that are watching this show might not even know what yellow page ads are.
Speaker 2:It's been a long time. But yeah, yeah, that has been a long time.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. So I did that and then got lucky because a recruiter was looking for. I found a thing where they were looking for pharmaceutical reps and I thought you know what this might be a good thing. So I called the recruiter and he's like listen, there's zero chance that you're getting into pharmaceutical sales. You're a jock. You just finished your college career playing football. You have no sales experience. It's never going to happen. Well, about three weeks later, this recruiter called me. He's like I'm shocked. You're a lucky guy. The hiring manager wants to talk to you and have a conversation. I said that's great. So we got on the phone. Long story short, I ended up getting the job going off to Chicago. Um jumped the gun. Uh was out there for eight weeks doing training but came back, became a pharmaceutical sales rep. And as soon as I got out in the field I get a call from the Orlando predators. Uh wanted to sign me to play for the Predators.
Speaker 3:So I worked out a deal where I could play with the Predators and do the pharmaceutical sales rep, which was great for about two weeks, and then I had a back problem. I felt it pop in a practice and some other issues and some trades and things like that were going on. So I ended up having to hang the helmet up or move and I couldn't do that because the pharmaceutical job obviously paid a lot more than the arena football career and that was going to be limited. I mean, before I even got out of college I had a tip, fib compound, fracture bones through the skin and my lower leg. And then I came back and then again, south Carolina, my junior year of college, I broke the same leg again and played the season with it, but when the season ended I'd have a second surgery and then I had a separated shoulder. The shoulder kept coming out so I had to have surgery on that. So I was already beat up coming out of college.
Speaker 3:Um, so college, so did the pharmaceutical thing for a short period of time Well, I shouldn't say short, it was a couple of years to get some sales experience. But I knew I wanted to get into medical device and so I had a gentleman out of Jacksonville by the name of Mike Shields, who gave me an opportunity to sell video arthroscopy equipment. And so I went out. It was a distributorship, so I didn't get anything. You know, with pharmaceutical you get a car, expenses, everything, insurance, everything's taken care of, and on the distributorship side when you're selling medical devices at that time it was eat what you kill. And so my wife couldn't wrap her arms around why I wanted to give up the car. I had to go buy a car. I'd give up the benefits. The stock program gave up everything to go do that. But I always knew inside that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and do my own thing eventually. So I didn't want to get stuck in a pharmaceutical rep, because at that time it was also known as a glorified UPS delivery person. So because you're basically going in, you're bringing samples, you leave the samples behind the doctor, you get a chance, you try to detail them on why your product's better than the competitors and then you get a signature on your computer to document the samples that were left behind and then you're out. So you'd hit 10, 12, 14 locations a day. And so I did that, yeah, and when I got into the arthroscopy towers and doing that whole thing. I won a massive deal downtown Orlando and I beat out a large company by the name of Stryker and they were not happy about it. So the next thing I knew I got a call from Stryker wanting to bring me over and hire me to come work for them and then I had some of the benefits back, the stock program, all that stuff. So it worked out well and I worked for Stryker for a good five years, was number one rep in the nation for a couple of those years and the top five the majority of my career.
Speaker 3:And then left Stryker and went to Boston Scientific in their neuromodulation division, worked there, had a great run, then jumped into a startup company out of Houston Texas called Radiodyne and it was a prostate immobilization device. It wasn't very sexy but it was a great product that was filling a good need and it was some of my friends from Boston Scientific days that were actually running that company and had started it. So once again I had kind of made it. I was making great money, left Boston Scientific and took about an 80% pay cut with no benefits or nothing to go, get in with a startup company out of Houston Texas and started helping to build that from the floor up and it was really nice because it gave me a good opportunity to learn from other individuals that had started the company on the process of building the company from approval of the product all the way through. And the only experience I had before that was watching my dad, who was an entrepreneur as I grew up and he owned fuel oil companies and ice companies in lake city and jackson and so watching him and riding with his people and how he handled his employees and everybody was equal and some of the things that he taught me really helped me a lot in my career.
Speaker 3:But back to the Radiodyne company. We built that for I was there for four years before I started my own finally, and I started a laboratory. So we started building a lab, had a great run. The lab sold the lab, then moved over into home healthcare and started a home healthcare company, built that, sold that and then went back to lab and am currently building a lab. We're within the seventh year and that's going great. It's called Nona Scientific. But during that process now we get to today with the roofing side and that's. I started the roofing company with another couple guys that I'm pretty good friends with, and one of them actually works with me on the Nona Scientific side. He's my CEO that I hired for Nona Scientific.
Speaker 2:Wow, I just threw up on you.
Speaker 2:No, that's In five minutes. Well, no, there's so many things that you can take away from that, right, and I think the biggest thing was you didn't have any sales experience, right, and told no. You kept being told no, no, no, and then it would never happen. And then you got the job as a pharmaceutical sales, you know, rep. And then I think the biggest thing in terms of a takeaway here is, like, no matter how many times you're told no or you can never do this, don't listen. If you're really passionate about it, you'll find a way to make it happen. Now, jumping forward. Now tell us about the roofing business. A little bit Sure.
Speaker 3:So Blitz Roofing and Construction. We formed this company a couple years ago and we grew extremely fast. We never thought we'd be statewide this quick, but we have roofs on commercial and residential buildings being built and being put on right now in South Florida both coasts Naples, sarasota, tampa, orlando, new Smyrna Beach, melbourne, jacksonville, pretty much all over the state and it and it happened pretty quickly and it was really just because we felt like there was a huge need in the roofing industry and my business partner, mack McKellar he actually had some roofing issues and he had to have some stuff done and he had previously shared an office with a licensed roofer back a few years ago and I also had a roofing issue and I needed some roofing work done and we had to get a new roof and I had four companies come out. He also had the same scenario. We had brought out a few companies pretty close to around the same time and we weren't impressed at all.
Speaker 3:There was not a whole lot to it. There was a very, very weak follow-up. The first thing everybody did was try to push a claim on us and it was just car salesmen over the top very aggressive insurance, insurance, insurance and we thought, man, there's got to be better roofing companies out there than this. And so we just started kicking the tires a little bit and tried to do some homework. And he had a friend, like I said, that was a licensed roofer, and so we approached his friend and we sat down and had several meetings and, like I always tell people, you don't always have to be the smartest guy in the room, you just have to surround yourself with smart people.
Speaker 2:Yes, I like that. I've heard that many times.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you don't have to have a license personally to do all the stuff that you want to do. So, like in laboratory. A lot of my friends that I played football with are like man, how in the world do you run a laboratory and do lab testing and micro and molecular and PCR and toxicology and all that? You're a football player Like. How does that happen? I like to look at myself as an average guy as far as my knowledge, my brain power, no different than anybody else, but what I like to do is put pieces together and build from the ground up and build an organization from forming the LLC all the way to a million dollar company that's producing millions of dollars a year, and that's what's fun to me. And so with Nona Scientific, that's one where we jumped in and we we grew the company and it's uh. And mac mckellar is the ceo of nona scientific. He came on with me a while back and did really well and worked himself up. He's a younger guy, he's in his uh, late 30s and proved that he was definitely the guy to be the CEO of Nona Scientific. So he took that over and now he's running that On the roofing side.
Speaker 3:We really haven't even gone into who's truly the CEO and president at this point. Everything has happened so fast, but we have been able to build something, and once again, neither one of us are licensed roofers build something, and once again, neither one of us are licensed roofers. But we understand that if we have the licensed roofer and we bring them in the fold, we all work together, we all join in a partnership and a company and we all have the same goal. Then we can move from there and that was one of the things that a lot of people that was missing in the roofing side was just the customer service, and that's the biggest thing in lab side.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're not following up with a doctor after they call you and they've got a patient in the room and they don't understand a result if you're not responding immediately.
Speaker 3:Essentially and this is how we have all of our salespeople trained If you're not responding immediately, you're not going to make it, because they have to have this. They don't have time to wait. They need results, they need to know what's going on and they might not understand the results. So we have to be their right-hand people to help them and educate them on something they might not have seen on a result before. So we took that same philosophy over into the roofing side with man.
Speaker 3:If we just tell them like it is, tell them if it's a claim, we're not against it. You know, if they have severe roof damage caused by hail or a storm, then we'll definitely bring that to their attention and give them the options that they have in front of them. But we felt, like the service and responsiveness and customer service and responding to people and even on projects, keeping them in the loop as we work through the process on a roof, that it might only take two days to replace a roof, but each day they're going to know what's going on and how that process is going and when it's completed then we let them know when the project is final and then we walk them around and have them review it and if they have questions, then we let them know when, when the project is final and then we walk them around and and have them review it, and if they have questions, then we answer the questions and we don't leave until we get a five-star review awesome man that is.
Speaker 3:Uh, that's very good information yeah, just a few different, uh arms of a business that have gone two separate yeah, you know it's funny. You look at roofing and lab and the first thing anybody says is how in the world did you have lab and roofing? It's like two different, totally different. No overlay.
Speaker 2:But, like.
Speaker 3:I tell people all the time it's actually a perfect overlay because we're we're running businesses, we're trying to build businesses and, yes, one side is a lot of machinery, a lot of scientists, molecular biologists and really smart people running equipment and machines. And then on the other side we have roofing, which is another group of smart people, but they're, I'd like to say, like the doctor of the roof. They know how to take a roof off, they know how to put it back on, they know how. It's a consultative approach. So they'll go over all the options, whether it's metal, shingle, tile, tpo, you know flat roofs when it comes to commercial buildings. But we do a lot of, a lot of different aspects of that.
Speaker 2:So awesome to hear this story and how your success again, how have you made success out of both your businesses. If you can give any kind of advice to any people who are wanting to be aspiring entrepreneurs or those who want to be business owners, what type of advice can you give? Like maybe two or three pointers? What type of advice can you give like?
Speaker 3:maybe two or three pointers. Yeah, as far as advice goes, I think that it's important to have the dream to be an entrepreneur, but I think it's also important to know when the right time is. A lot of people are really young. They want to be entrepreneurs and look, it works for some people If you find a niche and it works out, great it's, it can work. So I'm not saying that it can't work, but sometimes it's almost good to just go out and get a little bit of work experience working for somebody understanding it a little bit better.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I favor that more, just because that's the path I took, is trying to understand it from the inside out. I think your six, your chance of success is massively increased If you've been in an organization and you've seen the things that you like and also that you don't like and that you might have done differently. But you don't have, say, because you're an employee and you might express something that you think should change, and you might have five levels of management above you that are all like hey, listen, stay in your lane, do what you're supposed to do. I don't need to hear that You're not the owner, we own it. Just do your job.
Speaker 2:It's like you said gain the experience, go into something that you're passionate about, learn, get a mentor, learn from that experience and then you can offset and go into doing what you want to do and formulating your own business, and I think that is so, that's so key and so well said on your end. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say that was one, but I would say another one. That's really important is, no matter what you do and this is my pet peeve and this is what makes my days difficult, because not everybody thinks the same way I do so we're constantly training our salespeople and staff and everybody that every company has to have good customer service. You have to be responsive, you have to communicate. If you're not going to be able to do that, then you're going to fail, because it really and we're not perfect at it we constantly work at it because it's easy to say oh, you've got to respond really quickly. You need to make sure that if somebody asks you for this, that you're on it the next. You know in five minutes, and it's hard, but if you focus on it and you really put your mind and efforts towards that, you're definitely going to. You know, shrink the amount of time compared to your competitors, because some people take three, two, three days to respond.
Speaker 3:I saw it all when I was trying to do it on the roofing side. I mean, some people never responded because they just were too busy, and some people would call me back five, six, eight days later and I'd already made a decision. I was already moved on right, but it's just so crucial to say okay, my goal for my company is to respond good customer service, politeness, friend, just do the right thing and everything will fall in place. And so if you follow just those little things right there, you're 75% of the way there. Now obviously you've got to make money, you've got to balance the books, you've got to make sure you've got enough money coming in to expand. How much money do you contribute to expansion, research and development? And then you've got the whole business side. That takes up a lot of time, but just the communication is huge for success.
Speaker 2:Well, mike, it's been such a pleasure having you on this podcast and sharing your experiences with our listeners from start to finish, know. I wish you much success in your business with Nona Scientific, as well as Blitz Roofing, and definitely inspirational as well. As we wrap up here, can you provide a phone number and a website for our listeners to get a hold of you if they have any questions?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah for our listeners to get a hold of you if they have any questions, absolutely yeah. You can go to blitzroofingcom or my email is mike at blitzroofingcom. Or you can call the office and our office manager Lori, who is awesome, will take your call and get it right to the appropriate party. But the number for the office is 855-349-4823.
Speaker 2:Well, Mike, thanks again for being on this show and hopefully we can have you back again in the near future.
Speaker 3:All right, nick, I appreciate it. Have a great afternoon, Thank you, thank you for tuning in to First Media Consulting Podcast.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe today To nominate a business you would like to recommend to be on our show. Go to firstmediaconsultingcom or call. Thank you for listening.