Growth in roofing is often measured by how much a company can take on. More leads, more jobs, more crews, more revenue. But Duncan McClung has learned that sustainable growth often comes from the opposite direction: knowing what not to take on.
Duncan, owner of Almost Heaven Roofing in Charleston, West Virginia, started his business in 2019 as a general contracting company. The company handled residential remodeling, roofing, and a variety of other projects. Over time, that broad approach created a problem. Duncan was involved in everything, the team was stretched thin, and some of the jobs that looked profitable on paper weren’t actually helping the business.
On the Roofing Success Podcast, Duncan joins Jim Ahlin to explain why narrowing the company’s focus to roofing changed its profitability, how saying no protects both the contractor and the customer, and why systems, standards, communication, and trust have become central to the way he runs the business.
Saying No Can Be a Growth Strategy
One of Duncan’s biggest lessons from his first six years in business has been learning when and how to say no.
Early on, turning down work felt difficult. When money is tight and a large contract is sitting in front of you, revenue can be hard to resist. But Duncan learned that a large contract value doesn’t necessarily mean a profitable job. Inexperience led the company to take on projects without fully understanding requirements such as structural steel, prevailing wages, labor demands, logistics, and overhead.
As Duncan explains, “Learning to say no protects both us and the customer at the same time.”
That’s an important distinction for roofing contractors trying to grow. A job that falls outside your team’s capabilities, capacity, or expertise doesn’t automatically become a good job because the contract value is high. Taking the wrong work can consume resources, hurt margins, create problems for your team, and ultimately deliver a worse experience to the customer.
Revenue Dropped, but Profit Improved
Eventually, Duncan realized roofing was effectively carrying the general contracting side of the business. Instead of continuing to spread resources across multiple trades, the company made the decision to focus specifically on commercial and residential roofing.
The result wasn’t immediately higher revenue. In fact, Duncan says revenue dropped substantially during the first year of focusing on roofing.
But net profit improved substantially.
That gave the company something far more valuable than impressive top-line numbers: breathing room. Duncan could focus specifically on roofing margins, roofing profit and loss, crew development, manufacturer training, estimating, and production.
Specialization also allowed the company to build deeper expertise. Instead of trying to understand drywall, excavation, structural work, roofing, and multiple other trades simultaneously, the team could become better at one thing.
For roofing owners chasing revenue goals, Duncan’s experience is a useful reminder that a smaller, more focused business can sometimes be healthier than a larger, busier one.
Build a Roofing Company That Knows How to Sell
While narrowing the company’s focus improved operations and profitability, sales took longer to figure out.
Duncan describes Almost Heaven Roofing as a “production first company rather than a sales first company.” In his words, the goal is to be a good operating company that knows how to sell roofs.
That philosophy affects how salespeople are hired, trained, compensated, and held accountable. Duncan doesn’t want salespeople focused exclusively on their own commission. A sale has to make sense for the company, set the right expectations for the customer, and give production what it needs to execute successfully.
One way the company reinforces this is through its commission structure. Salespeople are paid after the company gets paid, and achieving their highest payout requires them to fulfill their responsibilities throughout the process.
If a salesperson fails to handle something that then requires a project manager to spend time and company resources fixing it, Duncan wants the salesperson to understand the actual cost of that decision.
This makes profitability more tangible. “Just picking up a check” isn’t free when it requires someone’s time, a vehicle, fuel, insurance, and time away from other responsibilities.
Create Standards, Then Give People Authority
Systems and SOPs matter, but Duncan believes they only work when the company has standards people understand and buy into.
His approach to standards is heavily influenced by his military background in the Marine Corps. Showing up at the right place, at the right time, prepared to do the job became part of how he thinks about business.
But Duncan has also learned that standards don’t mean controlling every decision.
For years, he felt he needed to be involved in everything. Eventually, he had to confront an obvious question: Why hire an operations manager if the owner still needs to sit in every operations meeting? Why hire a sales manager if that person isn’t trusted to manage sales?
That lesson became especially clear during Duncan’s honeymoon. He promised his wife he wouldn’t work, handed responsibility to his operations manager, and left.
When he returned, the company was better than when he left.
“Sometimes I’m hurting the company more than I’m helping it by micromanaging or wanting to know every single thing that’s going on.”
For owners trying to scale, that’s a major milestone. Delegation isn’t simply assigning tasks while continuing to control every decision. Duncan’s approach is to put competent people in leadership positions, give them the tools and authority to do their jobs, and then “trust but verify.”
Hire for Competency, Not Just Roofing Experience
Duncan’s hiring philosophy follows the same logic.
Experience is valuable, but competency comes first. He looks at how someone communicates, whether they listen, how they carry themselves, whether they seem trainable, and whether they’re motivated to continue learning without constantly being pushed.
That means someone doesn’t necessarily need years of roofing experience to become valuable to the company.
On the other hand, roofing experience isn’t automatically a positive. Duncan is cautious about experienced salespeople who arrive with an ego, focus heavily on their own production numbers, or have repeatedly jumped from company to company.
The goal isn’t simply finding someone who has sold roofs before. It’s finding someone who can operate successfully within the company’s standards and culture.
Make Sales and Production Work Together
The tension between sales and production is familiar to almost every roofing contractor. Sales wants jobs sold. Production wants clean handoffs and realistic expectations.
Duncan works to reduce that friction through company-wide communication. Team meetings give sales and production an opportunity to tell each other what they need. Sales can ask production how to create better handoffs, while production can explain where missing information creates problems.
The philosophy is simple: everyone needs everyone else to succeed.
Production is also expected to solve problems rather than expecting every job to arrive perfectly packaged. Duncan doesn’t excuse bad sales handoffs, but he also reminds production that problem-solving is part of their role.
That balance creates shared accountability instead of an environment where departments constantly blame each other.
Customer Communication Is Part of the Product
Duncan believes many roofing companies grow quickly because they’re strong at sales, only to disappear because the rest of the business can’t support what was sold.
He wants to build the opposite: a roofing company capable of delivering a complete customer experience.
Communication is a major part of that strategy. Automated CRM messages keep homeowners informed after signing, before scheduling, ahead of production, and throughout the project. Customers know what’s happening and what they need to do next.
The production team also reviews the contract with the customer before work begins. They confirm materials, products, terms, potential wood replacement costs, and other details while verifying that production’s understanding matches what the salesperson promised.
This isn’t just about preventing mistakes. Speaking directly with the customer allows production to hear their tone and understand which details matter most to them.
Instead of selling only a finished roof, Duncan wants the company to sell and deliver the entire experience.
Scaling Means Building a Business That Works Without You
Duncan’s definition of success isn’t simply revenue. It’s fulfillment.
He wants to provide for his family, but he also wants the people helping build the company to have opportunities to create successful lives themselves. That perspective influences how he thinks about culture, compensation, leadership, and long-term growth.
The larger lesson from Duncan’s journey is that scaling doesn’t necessarily mean adding more of everything.
Sometimes scaling starts by narrowing your focus. Say no to work that doesn’t fit. Know your margins.
Develop expertise. Set standards. Hire competent people. Build alignment between sales and production. Communicate relentlessly with customers. Then give your leaders enough trust to actually lead.
A roofing company doesn’t become scalable because the owner learns to do more. It becomes scalable when the business becomes disciplined enough to know what it does well, what it won’t do, and who can carry the responsibility forward.
