026: Anthony Langdon – Asset Roofing – Focusing On The Next Indicated Step

Title: Anthony Langdon – Asset Roofing – Focusing On The Next Indicated Step

Guest: Anthony Langdon

Peter: To the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If

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Peter: I’m here today with Anthony Langdon. He is the owner of Asset Roofing. I wanted to talk to him today about 2020, the year that was and where he is going from here. And one of the questions I have for you, Anthony, is, so some stuff happened in 2020. We all know that.

How did your company react?

Anthony: I think initially when COVID hit and, the kids were pulled out of school, we were on the brink of a big marketing plan, and I thought the year was gonna go great. And I think for just a second, as a owner, father, we froze. For just a second, I am very competitive person. I’m also a little military in there. Mhmm.

And after about a week of feeling that way, thought, no, we’re gonna run into the problem instead of from the problem. So I envisioned a burning building. Yeah. And instead of running away from the problem and letting it burn down, we’re gonna go in there, salvage what we can. And in the middle of the chaos, where I thought other roofing companies were retreating, I was realizing the market’s not changing.

People are still wanting the roof done.

Peter: Still need a roof.

Anthony: The homeowners were home. So we increased the marketing. The phone rang. People were seeing us. We were meeting people because they weren’t at work.

That kind of thought process allowed, I think, the business to quadruple. And I don’t think it was anything we were doing special except for seize an opportunity to be available Mhmm. To the market. Yeah. You know, I would say some other roofing companies that may not had the structure shut down, other roofers still needed a roof.

It was a great year. Best year that we ever had on all phases.

Peter: So you mentioned military. So was there something in your military training? I know I don’t know if anybody knows this, but you were a marine.

Anthony: Right? Correct.

Peter: So what what what was it about being a marine or your training that

Anthony: So I think the biggest thing is when the bombs and the noises are going off, you have to center yourself on the task and the

Peter: goal Mhmm.

Anthony: And respond in a neutral thinking zone. So, know, doing the next syndicated step, all the things that you know to do, just keep doing them. Keep showing up. Take care of your brother. Take care of your sister.

Take care of your employees. Take care of the community. So instead of trying to chase roofs, we were thinking about how can we take care of the people that we’re responsible for, family, employees, their kids Yeah. Things of that nature. But it it was definitely not easy.

I mean, I I can’t remember one day where it was smooth sailing.

Peter: Okay.

Anthony: Not one. So there’s material shortage. Yeah. There was kids everywhere. There was stressed out customers.

There was confusion. And the staying focused on one day at a time, one extenicated step, one issue to solve, some things fell, some things rose. Yeah. And we just continuously showed up.

Peter: So how does this carry over into 2021 and beyond?

Anthony: For myself, I think we solidified a brand of what the people are really looking for. And some people might say, geez, it’s just a roofing company. It’s like, yeah, we’re just putting roofs on here. But if you really dive into the roofing market, roofers rip people off. And so what I discovered was the genuine transparency, diligence, structure allowed us to stand out amongst other roofing companies, or just companies.

It’s a good character. So think the brand of what it is we actually stand for manifested itself. So we have a huge starting point for 2021 and a lot of confidence in what we’re going to do.

Peter: So when you talk to other business owners, like what are you hearing? Are you hearing a similar strategy or take, are you seeing a mixed bag of how folks are reacting and kind of the results?

Anthony: Yeah, I think it’s a mixed bag. Think it depends on what you do for a living.

Peter: That’s true.

Anthony: Who you are as a person.

Peter: Yeah, if you’re a

Anthony: restaurant, I mean- Yeah, you have so many rules and regulations. Yeah. But yeah, I think it just depends on your character what you’re really trying to achieve. What’s your actual goal? I think as a business owner, if you don’t understand why you’re taking on the extreme sport of entrepreneurship, it’ll probably take you out.

Yeah.

Peter: What do you see in terms of your, just sort of purpose? What’s the why for asset roofing?

Anthony: Well, the beginning of it was, number one, I wanted to become an asset to myself. So I’ve been roofing my whole life. Most people don’t stumble into roofing because they wanted to. So it’s something I came into and I discovered over the years, this is what I have. And then how was I going to separate myself from every roofer?

Everybody’s a roofer in Washington. And so becoming an asset to myself, taking And care of then that kind of manifested into my own personal brand where people were attracted to the fact that they could rely on me. And then it grew into my family Mhmm. To become a total asset to my wife. Mhmm.

And we have six kids. So the six kids. And then I discovered through that that people were gravitating towards this behavior.

Peter: Mhmm.

Anthony: And I thought we could become an asset collectively to the community Mhmm. Through roofing, which is the only thing I got. So it all started with myself. And now the name asset was originally, I’m an asset. And I thought, well, so is your house.

And I thought, well, so is everything. We’ve kind of come to this place where it’s like, you either have liabilities in your life- Yeah. Or you have assets. Right. So we want to make sure that we’re always an asset to everyone around us.

Got it. So that’s kind of the name, asset roofing, is- Yeah. Some people think, Oh, your house, but it’s actually me.

Peter: Right, right. So everything has value.

Anthony: Everything has value.

Peter: Yeah, I like that. Is there anything that you went through last year and going into this year, you kind of surprised yourself. You were like, Oh wow, that was amazing. Or have you always been really confident about your skills and expertise and that sort of thing? Is there something where you’re like, Wow, I didn’t necessarily think we’d be able to do that,

Anthony: but we did it. I can’t say that I’ve always been confident in my skills.

Peter: Okay.

Anthony: I think I, as a competitive person, I talk myself into being confident. Sure. So that people don’t suspect that I’m not. Yeah. Typically I go into all situations not knowing what I’m doing, ingesting information.

Fair enough, Yeah. And that’s the truth, you know? Fake it till you make it, I guess. I wouldn’t say faking it, but I’m always retaining. But I think what I learned the most is that the relationships that you build no matter where you go, are a key component to growing.

You never want to have a bad relationship in anything.

Peter: You mentioned that earlier, just before we got on the air here, were talking to a vendor, a supplier. Right. And after you you hung made a comment about working with suppliers. I thought that was pretty instructive.

Anthony: Yeah, I just, you never wanna burn the dealer up. They’re as, they’re super important. You wanna take care of them. They deal with stuff all day long. Right.

So you take care of them. They’re going to take care of you. Yeah. And in fact, this topic probably started with my relationship with that guy I was talking to, because I realized if I really started taking care in my earlier years of roofing, I got to know him a long time ago, that when it comes time for my business to grow, everybody’s gonna remember me. Always make an impression by serving the people you are.

You’re not asking them to serve you because you’re the owner. You’re continuously trying to serve every phase. Right. So I want to serve the vendors. I want to serve my employees.

Serve my family, serve the community. That’s kind of the job as an entrepreneur. You’re in the service business.

Peter: I’ve really found that to be true as well with vendors we work with. If something goes wrong, I mean, something in business or in life, something inevitably goes wrong. Yes, every time. It’s really about how you respond and react to it. Yep.

And kind of what you were talking about that, what is the next step? Trying to get, like, I’ve never been around the bombs going off or anything like that, but I mean, things are flying around and you’re not sure, and things are just looking really bad, sometimes you need to step back and look at like, okay, in a week, if I react in a really super negative way here, I might get what I want today with this person and I may make them feel bad, Right, yep. But am I really helping them, and am I really helping myself? Right. You know, so.

Anthony: Yeah, that’s a good point. My dad used to always say, If you’re chasing pennies every day, you’re losing dollars every month. Working with somebody to solve an issue now, it’s going to come back around.

Peter: And people don’t forget that stuff. No. Either way, right? I mean, in fact, they’re more likely to remember that time you chewed them out about something than the five times you said, Hey, thanks, blah, blah, blah. I mean, we’ve had it with our business marketing company.

Occasionally something breaks somebody did something wrong. And I always take the approach of, I try to put myself in their shoes, my customer’s shoes or client’s shoes of how did this affect me? What needs to be done to get it fixed? And I always take that approach. So I always take that approach when I’m talking to a client about something that we did wrong.

Right. I’ll raise my hand. Yeah, we did it wrong. Here’s what we’re going do to fix it. Right.

Let’s go deep into the like, what happened and unless we need to. Oh yeah, this is bad. Yeah, this is bad. We don’t need to spend hours and hours talking about how bad something is. Need to talk about like, okay, how do we move forward?

Which is kind of like COVID. Everything going on here, right? It’s like, how do we move forward?

Anthony: Right, absolutely. That’s a good point. It’s taking care of all your relationships. So business with the vendor, is it all about money? It can’t be, It just cannot be.

If it’s all about money, you’re gonna fall short. Well,

Peter: the thing is, money comes and goes, relationships Stay.

Anthony: So if you’re in the forty year game of business, you need to have built relationships with people face to face contact where they remember you when you need them, and you remember them when they need you.

Peter: Yeah, it’s reputation and character, and the thing I try to counsel folks, younger folks that I’ve worked with who want to be a little more aggressive when something goes wrong.

Anthony: Right, pump the brakes.

Peter: Yeah. And I learned that from a boss that I had as CEO of an electronics company I worked for, guy named Bruce Blakey, and a bunch of folks that worked there, we called it the Bruce Blakey School of Business, just because we observed this guy who was a single handed entrepreneur who built this company from nothing to millions and millions of dollars, And full company I was a sales rep and marketing rep for the company, and When we would have our distributors or dealers have something wrong or they’d want something, I’d always write up a fax or a telex or whatever, and I’d always be kind of harsh about it or very to the point and all this stuff. Sometimes it was a lot of money involved. He would review kind of what we were writing and he’d always take the edge off it. He had this black felt pen and he would always cross

Anthony: And out

Peter: stuff he

Peter: he’d just say, No, I don’t think he just kind of shake his head and takes glasses off and say, You know what? He’d be leaning forward. He’s, I don’t think we need to do that. I think we’re, I think this is, we need to be, these guys, we’re gonna work with these people for a long time. So it was nice to have that opportunity to learn that early in my Well, that’s humility.

Anthony: Yeah. It’s got to be a key component You to your have

Peter: to be in a position where you can, I mean, it’s something that ruined your business, that’s different?

Anthony: Right.

Peter: Right. Then, I mean, it, we’re just talking about day to day stuff.

Anthony: Day to day stuff, yeah.

Peter: That comes up. Yeah. And if you play your cards right, you’re not gonna have to deal with some catastrophic event ruins your business. Part of that is who you pick as your suppliers.

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely.

Peter: Right? Yeah. Do they respond to you in the same way that you respond to them?

Anthony: Yep.

Peter: And if they don’t over time, you’re gonna probably go pick different

Anthony: Pick another supplier.

Peter: Supplier, yeah. You might not burn that bridge. Right. But by the same token, when there’s a chance to order a bunch and there’s somebody else that comes along, you’re probably going to try them out.

Anthony: Yeah, even they’re more expensive. Yeah. Oh yeah. It’s all about the experience, right?

Peter: Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, there’s a whole conversation we can have about

Anthony: Sure. Cost,

Peter: expense and what does it really cost anyway? Well, Anthony, I really appreciate your time today.

Anthony: I appreciate you even considering putting me on a mic.

Peter: Oh, well, you know, we’ll do it again. Okay.

Peter: Well, we’ll talk soon. Thanks. Thanks, Peter. Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms.

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