What separates an average roofing company from an elite one?
It is easy to point to revenue, close rates, lead volume, or the number of locations a company operates. But John Eggen, COO of Big League Roofers, believes the real difference starts much earlier. It starts with how well you understand the homeowner, the roof, your team, and the reason behind every recommendation you make.
John’s approach is simple: listen before you speak, inspect before you recommend, and educate before you try to sell.
In this episode of the Roofing Success Podcast, John joins Jim Ahlin to talk about how Big League Roofers is building a company where “above and beyond” is not reserved for special situations. It is the standard. They discuss sales training, leadership, operational processes, the shift from insurance to retail roofing, competing on value instead of price, and why the best roofing companies are developing professionals rather than simply training salespeople.
Make Above and Beyond the Standard
One of the best examples John shares involves a homeowner who initially called because of overflowing gutters.
Instead of showing up, looking at the obvious problem, and quickly putting together a price, John slowed the process down. He listened to the homeowner, inspected the property for 30 to 45 minutes, and later delivered a detailed 16-page report with annotated photos explaining what he found.
The homeowner’s response was telling. He described it as one of the most thorough and easy-to-understand reports he had received from a contractor and told John he wanted Big League Roofers to complete the work.
The homeowner felt John had gone above and beyond.
John saw it differently.
“My above and beyond is really standard, because that’s the way it should be.”
That mindset is a major separator for roofing companies. Elite service does not necessarily mean doing something extravagant. It can mean taking better photos, writing clearer notes, inspecting areas other contractors overlook, asking another question, or taking the time to explain why something matters.
The goal is to leave the homeowner more confident than they were before you arrived.
Stop Training Salespeople to Only Sell
Roofing companies naturally pay attention to sales numbers, but John believes that can become a problem when the sale becomes the entire objective.
A signed contract is a lagging indicator. It tells you the outcome, but it does not necessarily tell you what created that outcome.
Instead, Big League Roofers focuses on the behaviors that lead to the sale. Did the salesperson listen? Did they perform a thorough inspection? Did they document what they found? Did they explain it clearly? Did they earn the recommendation?
John compares the process to visiting a good physician. A doctor should not walk into the room focused only on writing a prescription. They first understand the patient, diagnose the issue, explain what they found, and recommend the appropriate treatment. The prescription is simply the outcome of doing those things correctly.
Roofing sales should work the same way.
“The goal at Big League Roofers is not to just train great salespeople. The goal is to help develop professionals.”
When roofing companies improve the behaviors that create trust, sales become the natural result rather than something that has to be forced.
Teach Your Team How to Think
John is heavily involved in role-playing and training, but his goal is not to create a team that simply memorizes scripts.
He wants people who understand the principles well enough to make good decisions on their own.
That means teaching the what, why, and how behind situations instead of simply giving someone the answer. During training, John may repeatedly ask “why?” until a salesperson can get beyond a surface-level explanation and actually understand the roofing or building science behind the recommendation.
The same approach can apply outside sales. A new project manager, for example, might role-play a situation where a crew accidentally damages a homeowner’s landscaping. The purpose is not to memorize one perfect response. It is to learn how to slow down, understand the situation, communicate, and make a good judgment call.
Over time, those repeated decisions become habits.
For roofing owners trying to scale, that distinction matters. If every unusual situation has to make its way back to the owner or COO, the company will eventually hit a ceiling. The better approach is to build processes that help employees understand how experienced people evaluate problems.
Stay Close Enough to Inspect What You Expect
Scaling a roofing company requires delegation, but delegation does not mean leadership should become disconnected from what is actually happening in the field.
John still visits job sites, crawls through attics, talks with salespeople, and reviews opportunities with the team.
As he puts it, you have to “inspect what you expect.”
That does not mean babysitting employees. It means staying close enough to the work to keep learning and to understand where processes, training, or quality assurance can improve.
John believes every attic, job site, and conversation can teach him something he did not know yesterday.
That willingness to stay curious is especially important as a roofing company grows. Owners may spend more time thinking about long-term financial health, culture, risk, and growth. Operations leaders have to connect that long-term vision with what needs to happen today. Salespeople see the homeowner directly, while installers see the realities of execution.
Elite roofing companies learn how to connect all of those perspectives instead of allowing them to operate in isolation.
Moving From Insurance to Retail Roofing
Big League Roofers is also navigating a change familiar to many contractors: moving from an insurance-heavy model toward more retail roofing.
John sees that shift as an opportunity.
If a salesperson’s primary value is helping a homeowner navigate an insurance claim, the company becomes vulnerable when the insurance environment changes. But if your value comes from inspecting, educating, communicating, and helping homeowners make confident decisions, that value remains regardless of how the project is funded.
Retail has also brought operational advantages, including improved cash flow and less time spent waiting on supplements or digging through code commentary to justify insurance-related items.
More importantly, the retail model reinforces Big League Roofers’ broader philosophy.
Whether someone has a $200 leak or needs to replace a 25-year-old roof, the contractor’s responsibility is the same: understand the condition, explain the findings, present the available options, and earn the recommendation. Sometimes the right recommendation may even be that the homeowner does not need a new roof yet.
Losing on Price Is Not Always Losing
Retail roofing also means homeowners may be comparing several estimates, and Big League Roofers is not always the cheapest option.
John has been $3,000, $5,000, or even $7,000 higher than competing contractors and still won projects because the homeowner understood what they were getting.
That starts long before the proposal.
If one contractor talks about ventilation ratios, flashing details, roof-to-wall transitions, decking conditions, and findings from an attic inspection while another contractor simply provides a number, the homeowner is no longer comparing two prices. They are comparing two completely different experiences.
That does not mean you will win every job.
And John is okay with that.
“My responsibility isn’t to win every job. My responsibility is to make sure that a homeowner understands their home, understands their options, understands the difference between those options.”
If the homeowner still chooses the lower price, that does not automatically mean your sales process failed. The better question is whether that homeowner was more informed after meeting with you than they were beforehand.
That approach can also pay off later. John has seen homeowners who initially chose another contractor return years later because they remembered how Big League Roofers treated them.
You can lose the project and still earn trust.
Leadership Requires Questions, Not Just Instructions
John also shares a leadership lesson he had to learn over time: what makes perfect sense in your own head may not make sense to everyone else.
Earlier in his career, he was quicker to identify a problem and immediately push for a change. Today, he is more likely to slow down, understand the issue, challenge his own assumptions, and then explain the reasoning.
He also asks more questions instead of simply giving instructions.
That helps him understand how another person sees the problem. Once you understand their perspective, you can identify where additional clarity, training, or context is needed.
The same principle applies between ownership and operations.
John believes owners and operators may have different responsibilities, but they should never have different goals. Healthy leadership teams do not need everyone to agree immediately. They need enough trust to respectfully challenge one another, make a decision, and then leave the room aligned.
The question should not be, “Who is right?”
It should be, “What is right for the homeowner, our people, and the long-term health of the company?”
Understanding Is the Difference
For John, the future of roofing is not about becoming better at pushing homeowners toward a contract.
It is about becoming better at understanding.
Roofing sits at the intersection of construction, physics, weather, building science, communication, and human relationships. Contractors who reduce all of that to a price per square or a closing percentage are missing much of what makes a roofing professional valuable.
The companies that separate themselves will be the ones willing to slow down, stay curious, ask better questions, and continue learning.
John sums it up perfectly:
“Roofs are what we build, but understanding is what we leave behind.”
Average roofing companies can sell roofs. Elite roofing companies build trust, develop professionals, educate homeowners, and create processes that make exceptional service repeatable.
That is a standard worth building around.
