Expert Roofing Contractor Interview with SEI Owner, Marc Shilling

Expert Roofing Contractor Interview with SEI Owner, Marc Shilling

About Us

With more than two decades of experience and our dedication to excellent service, you can rely on SEI Roofing to provide you with only the best roofing work around!

SEI Roofing’s owner, Marc Shilling, was recently invited to be a guest on the The Contractor Marketing Podcast to share his insights on how he became an expert in the roofing industry and to answer homeowners’ frequently asked questions.

You can watch the videos here, YouTube, or on contractormarketingpodcast.live. You can also listen on any of your favorite podcast sites. For your convenience we’ve included a full transcript.

Table of Contents

Winning Strategies in Roofing Ventures with Marc Shilling


Scott: Hello, it’s Scott Berry, host of The Contractor Marketing Podcast. And today we’re with Marc Schilling, one of the premier roofing contractors in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. How are you doing, Marc?

Marc: I’m doing fantastic.

Scott: Thank you so much for visiting with us.

Marc: Yeah, it’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Scott: So, our podcast is for people that own contracting businesses, remodeling businesses, roofing businesses, and want to learn from the best. They’re looking for the things that people do that they hadn’t tried yet. Just lessons learned. And you have a very successful operation and roofing company, and I think there are going to be some things that you’ve done that other people can learn from.

Marc: Most definitely. And I’m happy to share my knowledge. A lot of hard work and experience, a lot of failures.

Scott: Yep. And I think- not everything worked the very first time.

Marc: Definitely did not.

Scott: Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. So, let’s start off with how you got into the business and how SEI was born.

Marc: Sure. I was in college. My freshman year in college I played golf on a scholarship and decided that that was not the route I wanted to pursue. So, I went back to college full time, and I was bartending.

And I had a client walk into the restaurant one night and said, “Hey, man, how would you like to make more money than you can imagine?” And as a bartender you’re like, “Yeah, I hear this all the time.” Well, this guy owned a roofing business, and he took me under his wings, started to teach me the ropes. And I was actually making less money because I was 20 and no one wants to buy from a 20-year-old.

Scott: Yeah. And you were just getting started?

Marc: And I was just getting started learning the industry. So, when I would sit down with a client like yourself, you would ask me three questions and I’d know maybe one. And so, I just struck out left and right. And then a hailstorm hit in Euston, where I was working. And it was a predominantly Asian area. And everybody had a $250 deductible back then.

Scott: Oh, wow.

Marc: So, my sales pitch was, if I can get you a new roof for $250, would you buy a roof? And every one of them said, if you can give me a new roof for $250, I’ll buy a roof. And back then, this was roughly 30 years ago. If you knock doors, you knocked it out of the park because no one knock doors.

Scott: Right.

Marc: And so, I killed it.

Scott: You were hustling?

Marc: Oh, I was hustling.

Scott: I mean that’s what it was.

Marc: Full time student. And I’m knocking doors every afternoon and working the weekends. And I made more money than my college professor, my junior and senior year of college.

So, when I graduated, I came up to Dallas and I went to work for one of the premier roofing companies at that time here in Dallas, Pyramid Roofing. And one of the owners, Dan, took me under his wing and took me to a whole other level. And I actually flew out to Colorado and work for them in Colorado for a year. And when I came back, that’s when I decided to venture out on my own and start my own business.

And I learned a lot through two very successful roofing businesses. And I learned a lot from being around some great successful salesmen on what works and what doesn’t work.

Scott: Well, you had some mentors.

Marc: I had some great mentors.

Scott: And is that something you’d recommend for other people just getting in the business?

Marc: Oh, most definitely. Growing up, my father owned his own insurance business. And so, I was taught at a very early age, work ethics, how to work hard, determination and basically taking care of clients and taking care of your customer. And that’s what my dad did so well. So, I took those things that I learned when I was a kid, and I implemented them into my roofing business.

Scott: So, tell us about the business. What are you guys really good at? What are you known for?

Marc: Well, so when I got into this business you talk about learning along the way. One thing I recognized really early on is we [roofing contractors] all predominantly use Hispanic crews. And so, there’s always a language barrier when you send your crew out to a customer’s house and they’re calling you that morning, “Hey, we don’t even know who to talk to here. Who’s your foreman?” The foremen, they’re bilingual, but they don’t want to talk to the customer. They feel intimidated and they don’t want to say the wrong thing.

So early on, I recognized, you know what? We need a project manager. I need an employee of my company on every job to represent us, to be the liaise between those two and to make sure that things run smoothly.

So, it was a big venture because when you first started roofing business, overhead, you’re trying to keep it down to a minimum. And when you bring on a $50,000 to $75,000 employee it comes right out of your pocket to your bottom line. But I can tell you for a roofing company that’s starting off, that is something that you need to put on your platform of what you want accomplished. And you want to have that person added to your business plan as soon as possible.

Scott: One of the first people that you would hire?

Marc: Well, most definitely. I mean, obviously, you need to have a very strong sales force, one or two or three good guys. But as soon as you establish your sales, you need to budget into your business a project manager.

Scott: So, you can do it probably for a little while, right?

Marc: You can make it happen. As an owner, I was the project manager because once I started recognizing, “Hey, there’s a problem here.” I had to go out into the job sites and be that person on the job to make sure things ran smoothly. To make sure everything is getting cleaned up, making sure that the things the customer told me were important to them, their landscaping, protecting this flowerbed, making sure you cover up the pool, all that is being taken care of. Because we all know that if someone’s not managing your guys, they’re going to take some shortcuts.

Scott: Yeah, things happen.

Marc: Things happen. So, early on, I realized, hey, if I got to cut my salary back to afford to have this guy, that’s what I’m going to do because that’s going to create longevity. It’s going to create those relationships to when the second storm and the third storm hit, those people are coming back to you saying, “Hey, we had a great experience. We’re not risking. We saw what happened when our neighbors went with a guy that’s a little bit cheaper. They had a lot of problems. And we had a great experience with you.” And when someone has that great experience, they’re not going to go a different direction.

Scott: There’s no reason. They don’t want to risk it.

Marc: It’s not worth the risk. To save a few hundred dollars?

Scott: And a bad roof could be stuck on there until the next storm. I mean, a long time.

Marc: Exactly. And you have one bad leak, and that roofer is not there to take care of it and to honor his warranty and to take care of whatever damage might happen on the inside? That might cost you thousands.

Scott: Absolutely. So that’s one of your advantages, right? Because, I mean, we get a lot of storms in the in the Dallas Metroplex and a lot of the people roofing don’t roof 12 months out of the year. They’re also painters and other things. And then some people aren’t around two months later.

Talk about that because that’s one of your strengths. You’ve been here for a long time. You’re going to be here for a long time. And it makes you unique in this industry.

Marc: Yes, most definitely. I started this in ‘97, and so I’ve been around the block a long time. I know all the good roofing companies. I know the ones that are there for a year or two and they disappear and then they jump back into it when a storm hits. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of homeowners that aren’t familiar with this industry and what goes on.

Scott: There’s a lot of new people to the area.

Marc: There’s a lot of new people. So, that has been what I’ve been trying to do with my clients, is to educate them on, don’t just look at the price. Because a lot of people are looking at the price or even if it’s an insurance claim, they’re like, “Hey, I’m out my deductible. What else am I out?” And so, someone comes around and offers a little bit better deal, that can be very inviting to the homeowner. But they’re not seeing the long-term repercussions.

Scott: They don’t know, they don’t have the experience yet. I mean, once you’ve been burned?

Marc: Then you realize. And you know the customers that have been burned. I know because they ask the right questions.

Scott: Exactly.

Marc: They ask all the right questions. They review the contract. They make sure that it’s a win-win for both of us. But they’re protected.

Scott: You get burned one time, end up having to spend thousands on leaks and you’ll be much smarter the next time around.

Marc: Sure.

Scott: So let me ask you this. How important are referrals and reviews and things like that to this business?

Marc: It’s everything and I’ve realized it more and more over the past few years. We were talking about it earlier, this market was for the taking probably 19 years ago on the Google side of it. And you could run the Google Ads, you could pay the money and you could get a very good return on your investment. And over the years, that return has diminished.

To the point of, it’s almost like, “Hey, I’m not making money and I’m just doing this to build my clientele base.” So, if you’re a new roofing company, it could be advantageous just to build some clientele for the long run.

Scott: Maybe during storm season or something.

Marc: But in and out, that’s not where it’s at. It’s really in the referrals.

Scott: It’s gotten expensive.

Marc: Extremely expensive. The referrals are where it’s at. You’ve got to network, and you’ve got to work your client. And that’s why, for these new guys getting in this industry, you got to have a project manager. Because that whole experience, and this is what I try to teach my team, it’s just not, “Hey, I got a new roof and then I had a decent experience.” You have to overwhelm them. You have to leave that lasting impression. And if you can do that and accomplish that, then you have a lifetime customer.


Common Homeowner FAQs

Is it important to offer free roof inspections?


SEI General Manager, DeVonti Lang: Because something you do for free for someone, they’ll remember you down the line. And I get so many follow up calls from like a year or two later of “Oh, I remember when you came out.” And they’ll just follow back up with us. And half of the time we get that client. So, inspections are really important in the industry…But the leads and inspections are critical because when it’s slow, two years down the line, those people you do favors for will pay off. And it never fails.

How can you maximize your insurance claim after hail damage?


DeVonti: So, for the most part, when someone calls us about a claim or they’ve been hit by hail, we like to send a salesman out to the property first. The reason we do that is because the insurance companies have their best interest in mind, where we have your best interest in mind.

Which means we’re going to try to get the maximum dollar amount for your claim so you can get everything done to your property. Whereas insurance companies tend to skim out on a lot of things, and since you pay for your insurance monthly, we feel that you should get everything.

So, the process essentially goes is, if you were to call us, we would send a salesman out. We have drones that have technology to examine data for hail, markings, etc. From there, we’re able to write up a claim that’s similar to insurance, because we use their same software, Xactimate. And we’re able to give you a quote that would be very similar to theirs and we go from there. A lot of our clients like us to handle the insurance company, since we’re adept in their lingo and it helps the process go smoother because they’re tough to deal with at times. Every company is different, and we just want to do right by our clients and maximize their value.

When should I make a roof insurance claim?


Marc: So, a lot of times people are procrastinating, not wanting to make a claim. They see how much their deductible is going to cost them. So, they’re kind of trying to save up for that. And we’re asked a lot of times, like how much time do we have until we run out of time to make a claim? So that varies on your insurance company. But on average, it’s 12 months.

You have 12 months since the date of the storm to make that claim. So, it’s critical to make sure that if you have damage or you’re questioning whether or not there’s damage on your roof, that you give us a call and we can send some guys out. It’s a free evaluation and we’ll give you a fair assessment of what’s going on with your roof and whether or not you should make a claim.

How can I spot roof damage?


Marc: There are a lot of people that they get damage on the roof, and from the ground they look at the roof and they’re saying, “Hey, I really don’t see any damage.” They walk in the house, there’s a big rainstorm, there’s no leaks, they think everything’s fine.

And then they start seeing some of their neighbors get new roofs and they’re really not sure what to do at that point. And so, we always recommend our clients to give us a call. Let’s come out and give them a free evaluation of the roof, make an assessment. And the one thing about all my guys, I’ve trained them all personally. We are very fair. We will give you a true assessment of what we know the insurance will or will not buy.

It’s real important. One thing that’s happened in the past 6 to 8 months, with all the claims going on, is a change in the way the policies are being written. And a lot of the insurance companies are not going to insure people, or they’re going to drop them, if they make two claims that are non-paying claims. So, you really want to avoid making a claim just to say, “Hey, let’s see if the insurance is going to buy the roof.” It either needs to have damage, or not, before you make a claim.

What’s the difference between RCV and ACV roof insurance policies?


Marc: The first thing we like to do is we’d like to go out to the client’s house and make an assessment of the damages on the roof. And then if we get off the roof and we feel there’s substantial damage to the roof as well as collateral damage, then we sit down with the client, we talk about the deductible, how it’s handled, we explain the insurance policy and how the claims are paid.

And I think a lot of times that’s really confusing for customers because of the verbiage that the insurance companies use. And the biggest confusion is when they see their claim and it says depreciation. Because in anyone’s mind, they think of depreciation is something you’re not going to get back.

There’s two types of policies I want to explain. One’s called an RCV policy, which is a Replacement Cost Value policy, and another one is called an ACV policy, which is an Actual Cash Value policy.

Most homeowners have an RCV policy which is a Replacement Cost Value. And with a Replacement Cost Value policy, the depreciation that is taken out of your payment initially will be paid to you on the back end. So, they actually do pay the depreciation. And that’s a very confusing part for homeowners because they see a claim of, let’s say, $50,000. They see a huge deductible taking out of, let’s say, $7,000 or $8,000. Then they have a depreciation of maybe $20,000 and they’re given a check of half or even less than half of the claim amount. And they think that’s all they have to work with.

But in reality, the only thing they’re going to be out is their deductible. That depreciation will be paid at the very end of the claim when we finish the work, and we send in our final invoice.

And one last thing that’s really unique about our company, we work with our clients, so you don’t have to come out of your pocket to pay the depreciation, when we finish the job. We will actually float that amount until the insurance releases that within a week or two.

How do I handle insurance claims during Dallas-area storm season?


Marc: Storm season is coming upon us: March, April, May. And with the seasons changing, it’s actually rolled into some of June, where we’ve seen some hailstorms… We always tell our clients this. If there’s a storm early in the season… we’re going to tell that client, “Hey, you have hail damage. We’ll make an assessment to see if there’s any significant damage that needs to be covered up or tarped to prevent any interior damage.” But we’re going to advise our clients to wait a couple of months before they make a claim.

What we’ve seen in the past is people get anxious to get the roof done. We start to do the work, and in a week or two later after we roofed the house, here comes storm number two. And they’re having to make a second claim. So, we always advise early spring storms to wait until late spring/summer to make the claim.

One thing I want to talk about would be the difference between roof damage and collateral damage. So, a lot of times you’re going to see collateral damage on the house: It could be on the gutters, it could be on your AC unit, you could see splatter on the fences from the hail damage. And you could think, or you could be told by another roofing company, “Hey, there’s damage all over the roof.”

Because you’re seeing the collateral damage does not necessarily mean there’s damage on the roof. And that’s why it’s important to call SEI, because our guys are trained and experienced. We know exactly what the insurance is looking for. We know how they do the test squares. And you need our expertise to make sure that you don’t make a claim that would go down as a no loss claim.

Is there a difference between a home inspection and a roof inspection?


Marc: So, I want to give you a little story of a client we had. His daughter is in her mid-twenties. She was a first-time home buyer, super excited, has a great career, got her first house. They had a…homeowner inspection. The guy never really got on the roof. He took some pictures from the ground and on the ladder. So, everything looked good. Her father was out of town while this was going on, when she made the purchase. She couldn’t wait.

So, she gets her house. This happens a lot and this is why it’s so important to call us. But the insurance company that they got insured with sent out their own inspector to look at the roof. Upon inspection, they found damage on the roof, hail damage.

So, they got a letter in the mail [from their insurance company] that said you have 30 days to replace the roof or you’re going to be dropped. This happens. This is the reality, that you can have a state inspector or a home inspector come out and look at your roof and miss something. Even though you paid a lot of money, $700-$1,200 for a home inspection, they can miss the roof.

And we’re seeing a lot of these inspections now saying, “We don’t see anything, but we recommend having a roofer come out to make a fair assessment of the damages.” A lot of these roofs are steep, and they don’t want to get on them. So, this happened to this lady and the father had to step in and help her out since she was on a limited budget to get the roof done and it was a $15,000 mistake.

So, I highly suggest that if you’re buying a house, if you’re looking to buy a house or even if you’re selling it, to have us come out, it’s a free evaluation. We’ll assess the roof and then if you need to have something written up, then we can do that as well for a nominal fee.

How do I choose the best home insurance policy?


Marc: So, we have a lot of clients that are looking to renew policies, and they call us for advice. They had a great experience with us. And I do have some great experience dealing with insurance agents and I have a lot of friends that are insurance agents. I’m going to give you some key things that I highly recommend you take to heart when you’re looking in shopping policies.

One is you want to try to find a policy that is going to stick with the 1% deductibles. And those are getting very rare because most of the insurance companies in the DFW area are now going to 2% deductibles. So, if you can stay with an insurance company that is going to offer you 1%, it’s huge. If you take the average house now between $500,000 and $700,000, you’re talking a $5,000-$7,000 deductible. When you go to 2%, you’re looking at $10,000-$14,000. That’s a huge check you’re going to have to write if there were a claim.

Second, people are very price conscious right now because premiums for homeowner’s insurance are astronomical now. So, people are really shopping around trying to get a great price. And so, their agent that they’re with might say $3,000-$4,000 and then all of a sudden they get this low bid for a policy. I want to advise you to really read into the details, because what happens is some of these newer agents in the industry trying to get their teeth into the industry…and getting clients. They’re gutting policies and they’re selling people policies that are not covering every asset of the roof.

And one thing that we’ll see is a policy that has an ACV policy, and you do not want that. I talked about that in the past and ACV policy is an actual cash value policy and an actual cash value policy will only pay you the value of the roof at that time and you will not get depreciation. So, if you had a $25,000 claim they took $5,000 out for a deductible that leaves you $20,000 and then they depreciate the roof $10,000, that only leaves you $10,000 left. In on a $25,000 claim, you would only be paid $10,000. So, do not get a policy that has a ACV policy. It will really hurt you.

Finally, I would recommend trying to find an agent that’s an independent agent. They can shop around for you with different carriers to get you the best rate. And also, more than likely, those independent agents are going to be very seasoned. And they’re going to be able to explain to you the policies and they’re not going to gut the policy. They’re going to explain to you the value of everything that’s included. And the roof part is very, very important that you have them detail it out and explained it to you.

What’s can I expect from a roof inspection?

SEI Roofing Specialist, Stephen Marcantel: If I go to inspect a house, one of the first things I do is I do a surface inspection. Surface inspection is very important because that’s how you can tell if there’s hail damage to screens, gutters, the garage doors, other buildings, swimming pools. Because swimming pools can get damaged by hail as well. I look at air conditioning units. All that stuff helps me figure out, okay, what’s the severity of damage? Depending on the size of hits that are damaging these units and these other structural things on the house.

So, after I do that, then I check the roof, and I take close pictures of the actual hail damage to the roof. And I have to make sure that there’s enough hail damage because insurance companies need a certain amount of hail hits per squares (a ten-by-ten area).

So, once I do that, I come back down to the homeowner and then I show them my photos. While I’m sitting there talking to them about the damages that I find, I want to go inside and check the attic to see if I can see any minor leaks. Also, to check and see where the gas lines in the waterlines and the AC lines are, because sometimes on certain years of builds, the builder was putting gas lines or AC lines all the way up against the decking, which is a huge no-no because a nail can penetrate one of those items…That’s one of the main reasons why we like to check the attics.

Does SEI inspect a lot of roofs for new buyers or buyers buying a house or seller selling a house?

Stephen: Actually, we do. We do for both. Sellers that are selling the homes, sometimes I’ll have pre inspections, which is very, very important. Because you don’t want to get hit whenever you’re in an option period with, “Oh my gosh, I got damages to my house and I need to get them taken care of within this time frame.” I really consider that to be a very, very important thing for sellers to do so they’re pre ready to sell the house.

And for buyers of houses, not only do I recommend having it inspected before buying the house, but also inspect brand new houses. Because brand new houses are not being built the way they should be built. And so, I run into a lot of issues on even brand-new builds. So, I highly recommend either before or after, getting the house inspected. Because this is a big investment, and the worst thing that you can have is something that’s not built structurally correct or something that’s going to leak inside the house and create interior damage.

Does SEI only do roofing?

Stephen: Other services that SEI Roofing provides are not only roofing, but we also do gutters. We do window screens, windows. We do HVAC units on the exterior where we have to maybe replace a top or the fan guard or something like that. We also do painting, siding, interior repairs because…a hailstorm can create damages to the interior as well.

And so, we want to be a full turnkey company to make sure that we provide the best services for your one time or your one-stop-shop. So, you’re not having to general contract your project. You don’t just have a guy that just does roofing. You don’t have a guy that just does gutters. You have a company that does it all. So that’s the other services we provide. There are some other services that we can talk about or suggest. However, we pretty much can do it all.

What’s one of your favorite roofing projects?

Stephen: A story that I can remember because the project was such a huge project, even though it was a tiny house, it was a huge project because there were so many different things that happened to this house.

So, for example, not only did it have hail damage, but the siding got damaged on it. It had vinyl siding on it. And the wood siding on the house got damaged and then it had a wainscot that got damaged. So, it was a project that I had to have so many different moving parts to take care of it.

When we started on the house, the house looked very rundown. Again, the shingles were bad, sidings, all that stuff was damaged. And we went in and we completely turned this house to where, later on, other neighbors started doing their house the way we turned this house out.

It’s one house that I’ll never forget. It’s in the old part of Fort Worth, and I actually wanted to buy the house because she was selling it. It was a beautiful, beautiful project. And I just loved the way it turned out. And I ended up doing my house with almost the same colors.

How important is a professional roof inspection?

SEI Roofing Specialist, Travis Huston: A lot of the times we get calls asking for an inspection, and the first thing they say is they don’t see any damage. More times than not, you’re not going to see the damage from the ground. So, you physically need to be on the roof to actually assess the roof properly. So, it is a very good idea, especially with SEI when we provide free roof inspections. If you did have hail in the area just go ahead and call us and ask for an inspection.

Can insurance companies raise my deductible or premium because of  a claim?

Travis: So the trending situation in the state of Texas is raising insurance premiums [and] increased deductibles. People are scared to file claims on the roof now.

The truth behind that is when you file a claim, it is considered an act of God or an act of nature. And insurance companies are not allowed to raise your rates because of that. However, if you do live in an area where the storms have occurred, the insurance is going to look at the area as a whole and they’re going to raise your premiums or your rates, possibly the percentage of your deductible based on how many claims are filed in the area.

So, I would tell people, if you do think you have hail damage to call SEI, have them do an inspection for you. More times than not, most of these insurance companies are going to raise your premium, increase your deductible, or change your policy to what we call the ACV policy, after a certain amount of years that your roof has been on your house. So, at ten years, some companies are going to a 2% deductible, raising your premium or changing the policy to an ACV policy.

How urgent is it to file a roof damage claim?

SEI Roofing Specialist, Trent Menees: Generally, the standard time for someone to claim on a roof is generally a year. Some insurance companies go a year and a half. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that they only have that one-year time period. And if they don’t have leaks or anything, they’re not really concerned about it. So that’s the biggest issue a lot of times with customers is them not knowing what type of time frame that they have to file the roof claim. So, then they get out, they have a leak and then they try to file on the claim. It was last April, and it’s May now. They can’t file that claim toward that storm.

Can I tell if I have roof damage from the ground?

Trent: One of the biggest misconceptions [about] hailstorms is that people go outside and they’ll look and they don’t see anything. They don’t have any leaks. So, they’re really not concerned about it most of the time. Until you get a professional like SEI Roofing to come out. The customers really don’t know that they have the potential of having major leak issues because everybody’s not a roofer, so everybody doesn’t know what to look for when hail hits.

You have a lot of collateral damage. It’s the easiest way to look for on gutters and fencing and so forth. But the biggest thing is to have a certified roofing specialist come out and jump up on the roof and take pictures so they can show the customers what kind of type of damage that they have that they can’t physically see from the ground level. Because I can’t even see it a lot of times unless it’s like baseball sized hail, then anybody can see it. But if it’s tennis ball or golf ball sized hail, a lot of times you can’t see it until you actually put foot on the roof and take a look at it.

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