Dylan McCabe 0:00
limitless roofing Show Episode Number 35. Welcome to limitless roofing show. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we interview owners and CEOs, of roofing companies and industry experts so that you can get the insights and strategy you need to remove the limits on your own business and your own leadership. Now, in this episode, I talked with a friend, Steve Patrick. And Steve is going to break down the three critical insights you need to secure overhead and profit on your jobs, we’re talking about something that could add 1000s of dollars to every single roofing job you do. And he’s also going to discuss the things that he sees contractors failing to do over and over and over again, that prevents them from securing overhead profit, we’re talking about an extreme limiting factor in your business. And Steve has taught 1000s of contractors how to do this. He’s often a speaker at many of the big conferences, he speaks on this subject. And he also runs with Tony runs a level playing field, which is a Facebook group dedicated to this subject with over 16,000 members. I’m a big fan of Steve for his personal leadership. I think he’s a great example as a good leader. But also he’s just a wealth of knowledge. So I think you’re gonna get a lot out of this. Let’s jump right into it. All right. For those of you tuning in live, we have a special guest on the show, Mr. Steve Patrick. So Steve, thanks for joining the show. Thanks for Yeah, well, I’m excited because when Miller and I started decided to start limitless, which at the time was called roofing mastery. We, we started the podcast, and you were one of the first guys that we had the opportunity to interview. And since then, you know, coming to the industry from the outside, I’ve just only seen how impactful and how valuable level the playing field is. And it’s just awesome to be able to make friends in this space with people like you. Thank you really appreciate that very kind. So the topic of today’s discussion is three critical truths about overhead profit, and I really can’t think of many people better qualified to discuss this topic than you. But before we get into all that, for people that are not familiar with level the playing field, just give a you know, a little bit of background about yourself, who is Steve Patrick, and what is level the playing field?

Steve Patrick 2:26
Well, my mentor, and the claims adjusting business, Tony rudess. And I started to level the playing field. Several years back, my sister is also a business partner, Deborah, and so leveled the playing field, it started out is we started out doing appraisals, and and then we started doing trainings. Now we’ve estimate writing estimates made easy. We have contractor products. We’re partners with the commercial roofing Academy, and we’re about to have an online library of trainings that people can access and watch anytime they want. With some of the best in the country,

Dylan McCabe 3:12
so yep. Man, that’s great. And I love the Facebook group, because, you know, somebody posts a question or a challenge having to deal with a claim or custom, you know, insurance related issue with a job. And they can get hundreds of comments and not just trash either. I mean, they can get very insightful comments about how to tackle their issues. So I’m sure you guys had no idea that Facebook group would blow up the way it has.

Steve Patrick 3:39
It’s funny, so I wish I could remember who suggested that we do a Facebook group. Someone suggested I didn’t even know what a Facebook group was. I said, Well, what’s the Facebook group? And so I told Tony, hey, we can do this Facebook group. And he said, Well, what’s the Facebook group? I mean, we didn’t even know what we’re doing. I mean, to be perfectly candid with you. I said, you know, since we’re in Dallas with the North Texas Roofing Contractors Association, I said, you know, I’ll bet we can have 100 people join, if we don’t screw this up. And we’re about to go 16,000 people, probably in about a week. So talk about exceeding our expectations. It’s just been nuts. It’s a it’s got a whole life of its own.

Dylan McCabe 4:19
And so how long ago was that? How long is the Facebook group inactive?

Steve Patrick 4:22
I think five or six years, something like that, I’d have to look it up. I can’t remember, like five years or something like that.

Dylan McCabe 4:27
Wow, that’s wild man. Well, digging into what we’re going to talk about today, you know, knowing what you know, working with the clients you’ve worked with, and just your time in the industry. We’re going to knock down these three critical truths really, really, it’s going to come from the opposite side, which is what are the three biggest challenges that you see contractors facing over and over and over again with insurance companies? And then we can go to the truth of that and really how they can deal with that. But before we get into that, what I’d love to hear like what what’s the most frustrating thing That you see happening over and over again, when it comes to insurance claims and contractors.

Steve Patrick 5:06
The claims adjusters are ignorant. They have no idea what they’re talking about. They heard they hire people, maybe they were working three weeks, three weeks ago at Subway, and now they’re their claims adjuster, or maybe they’re not even a claims adjuster. Maybe they’re just another voice on the end of the phone. And they have no idea what what overhead and profit is. And it’s unfortunate that number one, that our industry, still to this day, doesn’t know what overhead and profit is. If they did, they wouldn’t be arguing complexity. You know, the insurance company says this isn’t complex enough, it’s it’s an irrelevant position for them to hold. So that’s the number one thing is in our industry isn’t any better. Unless you’ve gone to one of my classes or listened to me talk. Our industry thinks overhead and profit should be separated out from our price, which is absurd. No company and no industry in the entire United States does that I happen to be sitting in the parking lot of Costco and you go into Costco here, they don’t have a price plus overhead and profit. Like they sell big screen TVs. It doesn’t say 12 $100 plus overhead and profit the 300. It just says 1500 bucks. And so why? If no one in the entire United States separates out their overhead and their profit? Why do we do that? Why do we play the insurance company’s game and separate it out? It’s absurd. No one should ever separate out overhead, nor profits from their price. It’s all built in just like everyone else. Yeah, it’s pretty weird insurance company, the insurance companies price, they don’t separate out their overhead and show that as a distinct separate line item. They don’t separate out their profit to show that as as a distinct separate line item on their insurance premiums. So if they don’t do it, why do we that’s the reason why lump sum pricing is so important, because that’s what everyone does lump sum prices.

Dylan McCabe 7:16
Yeah, it’s really weird, you know, coming coming to the world of general contracting, and roofing from the outside. Issues like that are difficult to understand. And I think I guess, now that we’re here with this type of estimate, you know, doing everything through exact umaid and waiting for the insurance company to prove things really just doing it backwards. It’s going to take a lot of people doing the same thing coming together with one voice to make a shift in that area. So let’s get into it, then what do you think is the biggest one of the biggest challenges? One of the biggest problems that you see over and over again, that is just a part of the way contractors do business or maybe a part of the way the insurance companies respond? What’s one of the biggest out of the three challenges that people face? And then let’s get into the truth that people need to hear and how they can respond?

Steve Patrick 8:07
Well, the first thing you need to do, and I teach this in all my classes is stop making statements and ask questions, ask the adjuster question, if you’re making statements, yes, this is complex. Because of this, this is complex. Because of that, not only are you playing their playing field, but you’re making statements, everything 90% of all the conversations that you have with an adjuster should be in the form of questions, asking them questions. So when they say. So what does complexity have to do with that? How did you arrive at the conclusion that complexity has anything whatsoever to do with overhead and profit?

I mean, what’s it have to do it?

Let’s just go with profit. The one of the biggest problems you have as consumers when you say overhead and profit, since they’re not familiar with the word overhead, it’s an accounting term. And unless you’re an accountant, you’re not familiar with the term overhead as in general overhead. And so when they hear overhead and profit, their mind is thinking what’s overhead, and they don’t even hear the profit part. Most everyone knows what a profit is. Companies have to make a profit to stay in business. Right? But they don’t know what the word overhead means. And so that’s one of the biggest problems is consumers haven’t got a clue what the insurance company is talking about, and what we’re talking about, if we go down the rabbit trail, that the insurance companies trying to get everybody to go down.

Dylan McCabe 9:35
So if the insured doesn’t remember

Steve Patrick 9:39
the term overhead and profit means and you know, I was having breakfast with the pit bull that works. Pit Bull, an attorney. That works for all insurance companies. Everyone knows this thing was a problem. Have a discussion. I won’t mention his name. But everyone knows who he is. And we were having breakfast here in Dallas, and I asked him five questions about overhead and profit. And he was unable to answer the questions. So he literally took the Fifth Amendment and our private conversation on all five of the questions by taking the Fifth Amendment, what I mean is what he said was point made, point made point made point made point made on all five of my questions, he wouldn’t answer the questions because he knew that I was right. And he knew the chairs industry was wrong. And so if the pinball attorney that works for all the insurance companies can’t answer those questions. Surely, you just can’t? And then what it does is these five questions, what it does is it makes them realize that their entire position on overhead and profit is irrational, and illegitimate. And

Dylan McCabe 11:03
so and I know, this is stuff that you teach the five questions and stuff like that. So I know you don’t want to share all of those. But what’s what’s a really good question that somebody could ask and who should they ask? I mean, we all know the field adjuster doesn’t hold any sway over how things go. So how do you get the I’m assuming you’re trying to really ultimately ask this question of the desk adjuster if they start to deny coverage on items.

Steve Patrick 11:29
Yeah, if you’re spot, if you’re talking with someone who doesn’t have the authority to say, yes, you’re wasting your time. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to waste. So. So you start off with if I happen to have something on my estimate, that’s outside the realm of your authority, I apologize in advance. I don’t always know where every adjusters level of authority is. And, you know, I don’t have unlimited authority of my company either. So if I have been asked for something that’s outside your area of authority, just simply say,

let’s go on to the next thing on the list. And if you put it that way, it makes it easy for the adjuster

to just say, let’s just go the next thing on the list. And they say face without looking like, you know, I don’t have the authority in my company to say yes to things. You know, you don’t want to put somebody on to make them lose face.

Dylan McCabe 12:27
Like that. No, that’s good.

Steve Patrick 12:29
Well, let’s just go the next thing on the list. And as you’re going down your estimate, and then you can just circle the line items, that they don’t have the authority and now you know what lineups to take those supervisor all the things circled on your estimate that they said, Let’s go the next thing on the list. And of course, overhead and profits probably going to be one of those things. So on the list of things that don’t have the authority to say yes to, and the overhead and profit, you simply go up the chain of authority in the Claims Department trying to find someone to be reasoned with. And if no one can be reasoned with your client has been backed into a corner, and they only have six options. They can do nothing, which is, which isn’t much of an offer. But they can’t do that. They can take it on the chin. And they cannot pay the contractor out of pockets. The amount, they’re leaving off the estimates, the client could hire a contractor to do substandard construction for the carrier’s scope. They can’t go to court, either small claims court or lawyer up for big court, they can hire a public adjuster or they can go to appraisal. Those are the consumers six options. And there was a seventh one, it’s important that you learn and memorize those six options. So you can explain them to the consumer so they understand what their options are, and then they can decide what they want to do. Well,

Dylan McCabe 14:00
I like the way you describe that, because you’re really talking about tactics. I mean, there’s a lot of different ways you can ask the same question and try to negotiate or use leverage with an insurance adjuster. But what you’re describing is a respectful way to approach somebody, so that you’re getting around them if you need to, but you’re not doing it in a way that offends them and burns a bridge. Now I really liked that. And I think that really speaks more to your own core values and just the kind of guy you are that you would develop a method like that. But I really liked that because as soon as you you know, there’s a verse in the Bible that says a brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city, you know, offend somebody. And it’s more difficult to get them to work with you than it is to overtake an entire fortified city. And so I really like that because you’re you’re you’re going in a way that’s respectful, you’re not going to offend them. You’re not going to talk down to them. We all know what it’s like when somebody starts treating us like we’re an obstacle or a problem. They have no regard for the way they’re, they’re acting toward us. So I really like that.

Unknown Speaker 15:06
So we want

Steve Patrick 15:07
to stay professional. Yeah, we want to be professional, you never know when you when you’re going to meet this adjuster again. And then if you act like a jerk, and you walk up on another claim that he’s that he just rolls his eyes, and you’re not gonna get anything that you ask, or that you say that you’re charging, because you’re a jerk. It doesn’t work. If the adjusters being a jerk to you, and they persuade you? Of course not. So what makes us think that us being jerks with them is going to persuade them? It’s absurd.

Dylan McCabe 15:40
Right? Right. Yeah, it makes sense. And so so when guys ask these questions, and they’re trying to say, let’s deal with the stuff that we agree on, let’s get that out of the way. And then the other stuff, let’s take it to the next level. And we’re going for overhead and profit if it’s just outside the house, and we’re just doing the roof, which is what a lot of these adjusters say. It’s just the roof. It’s not complicated. There’s not a lot of management going on. Even though we may have to involve an AC guy, we may have to involve a sheetmetal. Guy, we may have to involve, obviously, the roofers, we may have to involve a window guy, if there’s window damage, we all know it’s more complex than then is typically expressed by the carrier. What’s the next biggest challenge? You see two guys securing overhead profit? We know most guys are not asking the right questions. They’re not going approaching it the right way. What’s the next biggest challenge is blocking guys from getting overhead and profit on a roofing job?

Steve Patrick 16:45
Playing the insurance company’s game, and thinking that complexity has anything to do with it whatsoever. So when the insurance companies build in their general overhead, their cost of doing business and their price, or building and profit? Are they doing so? Because they’re their policy is complex? I mean, their policy is complex. But is that why they’re charging? They’re passing along their overhead cost and charging a profit? Because their product is complex? Is that why they’re doing it? No, because if they don’t pass on their overhead costs, they’re out of business. They don’t charge a profit, they’re out of business. So complexity has nothing to do with it. Don’t even argue complexity, you’re playing on the insurance company’s playing field.

There, they have the home field advantage. Why would you play on their playing field, giving them the home field advantage. And when you start arguing complexity, what you’re doing is you’re saying that complexity is valid is a valid argument. And it’s not a valid argument. Complexity has nothing to do with

the insurance company acts as if. So you have the estimate for all the line items in the sales tax. And like overhead and profit is like we’re giving you overhead and profit like is if you’re at a restaurant, and they’re giving you the dessert for free. overhead and profit is not dessert. It’s meat and potatoes. And it’s not, it’s not free, like consumer pre paid for it with their insurance premiums.

Dylan McCabe 18:26
Okay, so just like sales tax, just like sales tax, imagine them saying this loss isn’t complex enough for the consumer to qualify for sales tax. How absurd would that be? It’s the exact same thing. The consumer doesn’t have to qualify for overhead and profit. they’ve paid for it. Right? Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. So how you guys do that, though? So the biggest, critical truth is that guys need to start you know, guys and gals running these general contracting roofing companies, they need to approach by asking questions, asking the right questions, and doing it in a manner that’s respectful and professional. The second big thing is, is changed the playing field and quit playing their game. So how do you reestablish that playing field? Because we all know that they’re saying send the exact teammate, and then they try to poke holes through multiple items. They also, you know, don’t put items in correctly or with the right amounts. So how do you re establish that playing field?

Steve Patrick 19:33
Simple by doing a lump sum estimate. That’s what the insurance companies do with their insurance premiums. So they say we’re covering like, say on a residence or loss. We’re covering the dwelling, we’re covering other structures. We’re covering contents, we’re covering additional living expenses. On a homeowner’s policy. They also cover liability claims if someone is suing the homeowner for someone’s got property damage or bodily injury or something like that. And they, and the homeowner’s policy covers medical payments in case someone is, you know, an ambulance or whatever they, you know, as bodily injury. So those six coverages are built into the homeowner’s policy. And so likewise. So they have a scope of coverage, those six things that a homeowner’s policy, and then they give you the insurance premiums, they don’t break out their general overhead, they don’t break out their profit. Imagine if the insurance company was to break out their profit as a separate line item, the consumer would be appalled at how much profit insurance companies is building into their, into their product. So they give a lump sum price, or their work, they give a scope of what’s covered those six coverages and policy limits, and then they say, here’s our price. So we do the exact same thing. So we only use exactly, for one thing to create a special spec sheet, a specification sheet. And you do that by using exactly the way you ordinarily would. But what you don’t do is you as you don’t use exact mate pricing, you just print a scope report. And exactly, and that’s your spec sheet. And then when it comes to your price, it’s simple. add up all your hard costs, including the salesman’s commission, every single cost that’s going into the Jones job, and then adding your passport, whatever it is that you need that to have a minimum, never have less than a 20% true net profit. And that’s your rice, you have all your costs, add in your risk, add in your profit. And that’s your lump sum price. By the way, that’s exactly what the insurance companies do. That’s how they arrive at the price. They add up all their hard costs, add in the amount of risk that they’re taking on, add in their profit. And that’s the price they charge for their insurance premium. We’re doing the exact same thing they do. How can they argue that what we’re doing is invalid when we’re doing the exact same thing the insurance companies do?

Dylan McCabe 22:22
Right, it makes sense. But let’s let’s just address what I think may be in the minds of a lot of people listening to this, or watching this. They may be thinking, you know what, that sounds great. Let’s say I put my lump sum contract together. I’ve got my spec sheet I sent in my lump sum contract. You’re right, my overheads way more than they think it is. So I add that then I add my profit margin. And the insurance company says, What is this? And you say that’s my estimate, right? And here’s my price. And then they come back and say, Well, then, okay, that’s great. Send us a full exact amount.

Steve Patrick 23:02
That’s not how I arrived at my price. You’re asking for something that doesn’t exist. I didn’t arrive at my price. Looking at exactly, I arrived at my price exactly the same way that you do. I added up all my costs and added in my profit margin. So you’re asking for something you might as well ask for a rainbow zebra. It doesn’t exist. I don’t use exactly to arrive at my price. So you’re asking for something that doesn’t exist, I can’t give you something that doesn’t exist.

Dylan McCabe 23:36
So how many times how often when you guys teach this and you teach lumps on contracts that I know. I mean, I personally know several guys that are doing this and doing it well. And I know one guy in particular that that’s very high volume that does this with every single job. And the insurance companies has stopped arguing with his company and they they pay out what they ask for. So I know it works. But for how many guys? How many guys do you teach this to? And it’s just like, I’ve never done it this way. Is this even gonna work? I mean, is it is it pretty typical for people would be kind of shocked by this method?

Steve Patrick 24:14
Yes, it is so obvious. What do you think? How do you think that contractors arrived at their How do they create a specification sheet and arrive at a price for software? How did they do that? How did the insurance adjusters back in the day before software arrive at a price? They did the exact same thing. They added up all the costs, like all the subcontractor costs, you know you’re just adding your general overhead add in your your salesman’s commissions this the sales tax and, and the profit and their private the price. This is the way it’s been done for over a century. Fact for centuries. So this isn’t something new actually. What it is, is something old is the exact same thing that the adjusters did back before software. So who says that we have to use software to arrive at our price? In fact, why would any sane person allow some third party? Like exactly to dictate the price that they do their work for? Are we some public utility? Where we’re regulated? And someone else determines the price that we do our work for? It’s absurd. Why would any rational person allow some third party to detect price if they do their work for?

Dylan McCabe 25:41
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.

Steve Patrick 25:42
No sane person would do that. We’re working on contractors and never thought about these questions.

Dylan McCabe 25:50
Yeah, it’s crazy. We’re working on a job right now. That’s almost we’re working on a job right now. In in Dallas, that involves water mitigation and build back. And it’s just a lot of work had to be done on three large, very large apartment complexes. And our total bill just for Waterman alone is just under $2 million. And so the insurance company, of course, asked for exact to mate. Well, they got to about 190 page exact a mate file for just one of the properties. And then they they are using a hope it looks like we lost Steve there for a minute. Let’s see if I can get him back real quick.

Hang with us guys. Just for a minute. No, sir. No, Steve’s driving in his truck. So we’ll see if we can get him back real quick.

Well, what I was gonna say I’ll give Steve a minute to get back. But one thing that that I found out by talking with folks in the industry, is that we’re dealing with a water mitigation job. And of course, there’s overhead and profit on it. And it’s with a job that’s almost $2 million. Obviously, the overhead profits is significant. And so they asked us to put together a exact tomate, which we did. Then they asked for more documents, which we sent, we’ve done everything they’ve asked. And then they sent that out to not only do they have multiple adjusters on the job, which makes things confusing. Hey, Steve, we got you back. What I was basically just describing as a job, we’re on almost $2 million in water mitt. And they’ve asked for exact to mate files, they’ve asked for all kinds of other stuff. Then they sent it out to a third party named Sedgwick, which basically does an audit of everything we send to the insurance company. Well, lo and behold, of course exactly, it’s owned by exact where and I can’t even keep track of all who owns what but basically the same company, the mother company that owns exact were an exact a mate also owns Sedgwick. So can you say conflict of interest? Yeah, I mean, you want to talk about a massive conflict of interest so the same company that’s really determining how pricing is done is also in bed with the company that the insurance companies using to determine whether that’s fair or not, and the contractor us we’re waiting to see who makes the final verdict so of course you know, one of the sponsors on our show is daily in black. So I call Dalian black up and talk to London for a little bit and of course, you know, daily in black is the attorney we recommend to call when the insurance company delays or denies coverage. So I call London black because I know I’m gonna get 800 pound gorilla in the room if I need to with with Dalian black. And one his advice was awesome. I mean, he’s basically like, Hey, man, you’ve got cost incurred. Let’s go get them. So

Steve Patrick 29:11
they are a formidable and attorney firm. In fact, Rick and john knocked it out of the park, they just got $135 million verdict from a jury this week on an insurance claim $135 million verdict. Not just that

Dylan McCabe 29:28
they’re not playing around.

Steve Patrick 29:31
So here’s the deal. contractor sends in a letter to the insurance company. And the letter is very straightforward. You state fact fact fact fact fact fact back. Then the contractor sends a letter to the consumer, stating facts fact fact fact fact fact. The consumer then sends a letter to the insurance company and they attach the contractor’s letter And the consumers letter says fact fact fact fact back. The insurance company is unable to refute any of the facts. And so the consumer asks a number of questions. And in the letter, they stated that the following questions are pertinent using that word is important, because the unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act says that the carrier has to answer all pertinent questions within 10 days. So they can’t drag your feet and play musical adjusters and have excuse after excuse why they haven’t answered the consumers letter and their questions, because the law requires them to answer all pertinent questions within 10 days. And so if you handle it that way, so I conduct a an overhead profit class, that’s an all day class, obviously, and you know, 30 minutes to an hour visiting with you today, I’m not going to be able to convey all the information that I teach in a seven to eight hour class. And so the students that use my three letters, and they go through the class, and say what I tell them to say and do what I tell them to do. The feedback that I get back, is, you know, I’ve had people say that now they’re getting overhead and profit on 80 to 90%. of the claims they do. I said, Wow, you should be teaching the class, if you get those kind of results, right, because what I hear from contractors out there is anecdotally about 15% of their claims, they’re getting overhead and profit before they go to my class. And so if you were to just double that, that would be a significant increase in legitimate valid income.

Dylan McCabe 31:50
Oh, my gosh, that would be huge. Huge. Yeah. And what what what really boggles my mind is how they try to separate Oh, np out on certain aspects of the job. You know, in the Texas when the freeze hit Texas, Miller and I sold a lot of water mitigation work. And we hired a consultant Clark brown to basically teach us step by step by step how to do water mitigation. You know, he brought in contractors from around the us to do the watermint part. And we are still waiting on overhead profit for certain things for water mitigation, or pack move, or whatever it might be, but it just makes no sense. So so the first the first critical truth is go from talking with the adjusters to asking the right questions you have in your class very specific questions you teach to us, and be respectful in the way you do it be tactful and think long term. The second critical truth is reestablish the playing field quit playing by their game and their rules. And you’re basically saying do that with lump sum contracts? What would you say is the third biggest challenge and issue and blocking guys from getting overhead and profit

Steve Patrick 33:00
is that they make the argument verbally, and nothing can be verified. So you do and everyone knows this, is that when you’re communicating with an insurance claims department,

everything should be in writing. That’s the reason why the three letters are so critical, is that their correspondence is in writing, and it’s part of the claim file. So they can’t say that they didn’t say this, or they didn’t say that, because it’s in writing. So everything has to be in writing. And, you know, Oh, stop asking for overhead and profit. Stop asking for line items. Why are you asking them for anything? This is the line item. We don’t do substandard construction. We don’t do mediocrity. We only do construction best practices. Every single line item in our estimate is legitimate and reasonably. If you find an error, or you believe some line item is illegitimate or unreasonable, it’s simple. All you have to do is bring that to our attention and explain how you arrived at that conclusion. Some answer like we don’t pay for that is not an explanation of how they arrived at the conclusion that that line out of is illegitimate or unreasonable. So if a particular line item is illegitimate or unreasonable, then we should strike it. Conversely, if a given line item is legitimate and reasonable, that they should include it shouldn’t. So how do they justify omitting legitimate and reasonable line items? Either overhead and profit is legitimate or it’s not? Of course it is. So how do they justify omitting legitimate line items? So there’s going to be pushback. Of course there is so if you include overhead and profit in a lump sum price, do you know why insurance companies paid a lump sum price rather than lanata pricing. They hate it because it puts you in the driver’s seat. How can they nitpick your estimate? And say, we’re not gonna pay this price for this, we’re not gonna pay this price for that. If you don’t give them individual pricing, it puts the contractor in the driver’s seat, they can no longer nitpick your pricing. They don’t even know how much of the lump item, the lump sum price includes overhead and profit. How do they subtract out overhead and profit? If they don’t know what that amount is? As part of the lump sum? That’s why they give you pushback, because they hate lump sum pricing. Because you when you’re doing the exact same thing the insurance company does, how they arrive at their price, and, and the type of pricing that they give their clients, which is a lump sum

Dylan McCabe 36:02
price. Yeah, makes total sense. And I mean, no other business operates that way, like Like you said, but if and also like, you know, in our interview with Wally we did several months ago, once you guys listen this, you can find it on our website, while he talked a great deal about how they do lump sum contracts. very enlightening. But but his whole point was, the insurance company doesn’t know what my overhead is, they don’t know how much I pay in rent at the space that I rent. Whether it’s a more rural area, or a metropolitan area, like Dallas rents, rents are, you know, drastically different. You don’t know the size space, I rent, you don’t know the kind of insurance I have on my company, how much I’m paying in company trucks, iPads, etc. The insurance company has no clue what my overhead is. And you mentioned salesman commissions and so on. And so they don’t know what my profit needs to be either. So let’s say I think the case is just rock solid for a lump sum contract. But let’s say you mate, you put that lump sum contract together. You send it in, you’ve got those letters, you’re sending it and they still don’t play ball, what then I mean, are you are you ready to just take it to appraisal or call an attorney if they just absolutely refuse to play by your rules instead of theirs.

Steve Patrick 37:19
That’s where you have the six options, you have to memorize those six options and understand them so that you can explain them to the consumer. So you go up the chain of authority in the Claims Department trying to find someone that can be reasoned with. And if no one will be reasonable, then the consumer has those six options that I mentioned at the beginning of the show. And so you memorize those options, you you explain them to the consumer, and you have them decide what they want to do.

Dylan McCabe 37:46
It’s good stuff, it’s one

Steve Patrick 37:47
of the things is we have to we have to we have to treat every single loss as if it’s a retail job and sell financing. So my price is 30,000, the insurance company’s at 12. So you sell financing for 30,000. Did you know The last payment the last settlement provision, the policy says that they owe the amount that the consumer is paying their contractor. Did you know inside the exact domain user agreement? Exactly mates own user agreement? They define the ultimate price. And this is what exactly mate says and their user agreement. Ultimately, the correct price, I’m sorry, the definition for the phrase correct price. So exactly mate says ultimately the correct price is the price agreed to between the contractor and the consumer. I bet you know, one contractor out of 100 knows that inside exactly meets User Agreement. It says that and it defines the correct price. You know, that’s good stuff. Contractors can use that as credible objective third party source material. To say that my price is correct. Right there and Exactly. So do you find the exact to make credible? They can’t say no, because they use it? If you find it credible, then exact makes definition for the correct price must be legitimate.

Shouldn’t it

again, see us questions. You don’t make statements you ask questions.

Dylan McCabe 39:30
Now that’s really good. Yeah. In the in the in the science or art of persuasion and argument rhetoric. They call that sawing off the log that you’re sawing off the branch that you’re sitting on? If they claim that exact domain is correct, and then exactly mate says that my price is firm. Do you agree with exactly that? And they say no. Well, they just saw off the branch are sitting on and they fall out of the tree so to speak. So that’s great. So So what’s I mean what’s a parting piece of advice you have for guys dealing with Doesn’t mean we’ve given him three really good critical truths. One is lead with questions. Number two is changed the playing field by using a lump sum contract. And, and then the third thing you mentioned was just really changing the way you, you deal with the customer as well. And having those questions and keeping everything in writing, which is just a professional, it’s just the best business practices, keep things professional. What’s a parting piece of advice? For guys, you have to say, Okay, this sounds great. What’s one thing you want them to take away from all of this?

Steve Patrick 40:33
Make sure you educate the consumer as to what’s going on. Because if the consumer is educated, and they understand the facts, then what you’re you have a consumer that is making the decision based all the on all the available information. And so, you know, having the consumer not on your side, having the consumer on their own side. So they taking up for themselves, if they understand that they prepaid for overhead and profit, you know, they wouldn’t accept anything less than that. And so I would encourage, you know, here’s my shameless promotion. Your interview, is, if you guys want to pick up overhead and profit, you have to educate yourself somehow on how to do that. And if you don’t go to my class, where are you going to go to learn this? Because To my knowledge, I don’t know of anyone teaching this besides me. To my knowledge, I’m not aware of anyone teaching this. And so we’re conducting a, a seven to eight hour, all day class in San Antonio, on the 24th of this month, what is today the 17th 15th 15th, I can’t keep up with it. So. And nine days in San Antonio, I’m teaching a class on overhead and profit, the cost of the class is 799 100% money back guarantee. I’ve never had anyone even hint that they want their money back. The following day, on the 25th, we’re doing an all day appraiser umpire School, where we’re teaching you how to be an appraiser or an umpire or both. And that class is 495. So if they’re interested, they can call me at 214-244-2639. I’ll answer any and all questions they have about these upcoming classes. And, and we can see see everyone at the class.

Dylan McCabe 42:43
That’s so good. Yeah, my last question was going to be how can people get in touch with you to get your training, and so they can call you and for guys that thought, Oh, my gosh, I just missed that. Obviously, we’ve got the recording of this, you’re going to see the recording of this show, inside level playing field, you’re going to see it in our Facebook group, the limitless roofing CEO Facebook group, you can just scroll to the end there. And Steve can mention his number, I’ll put it in the show notes as well. But I highly recommend reaching out to see Patrick, you know, I’ve said it many times before, but one of the cool things about being a podcast show host is you get to connect with a lot of really neat leaders in the industry, very influential people in the industry. And Steve, Steve is one of those guys that I put in the top very top of the group of people that I’ve gotten to get to know. So if you want to, if you want to learn this stuff, you owe it to yourself to go through that free training and to be equipped. And you can also reach out to Steve through the group. And also it says called Deborah at the number posted in the comment thread. So you can also call Deborah, if you want to sign up for that class. If you missed the class, and you just catch in this, you know, six months from now by listening to our limitless roofing podcast, you can still reach out to Steve, they have ongoing classes all throughout the year. And you will be so glad you did. So Steve, thanks again for joining our show almost a year later from the original episode. We did.

Steve Patrick 44:08
You bet. So my number is 214-244-2639.

Dylan McCabe 44:14
Awesome. Thanks a lot, Steve. All right, great interview with Steve love the three main critical issues that he taught and obviously, I mean, what a guy to give out his own personal cell number. So strongly recommend you invest in one of his trainings, it can be a big difference maker in your bottom line at the end of the year, when you tally up the money you’ve made on your jobs and secured overhead and profit on many of the jobs that you wouldn’t have without the expertise and skill training that Steve offers. I also want to say to those of you that if this has benefited you please do us a favor and rate and review the podcast it helps us stand out in an ocean of podcast options. If you rate and review and you can just go to rate this podcast.com slash limitless That’s rate this podcast.com slash limitless. And it’s just a big way to say thank you. And if you haven’t done so yet, please join our Facebook community. It’s for leaders and key executives and roofing companies and owners roofing companies to share insights with one another without any spam or advertising allowed. It’s a great place to connect with other industry owners and just sharpen one another’s knowledge and insight as you go. Alright guys, this is Dylan McCabe with the limitless roofing show and I will either catch you in the next episode or inside one of our CEO groups. Adios