Mark Watson and Joe LeVecchi took a year to put the parts and pieces in place before they opened Exterior Medics. They’d both been salespeople and sales managers at roofing companies specializing in storm work and they’d both worked for suppliers to home improvement companies. So in putting together an exterior contracting business, they knew what they wanted to avoid.
First, they decided not to name the business after themselves. “The industry is filled with that,” Watson says. Instead, at the stage where the two partners were making the leads, selling the leads, and managing the jobs, they already were thinking about their company as a brand.
“Storm chasing taught us a lot,” Watson says, including the value of a lead: Salespeople doing storm work knock on doors for their leads, and then proceed to sell the job.
Today 55% of Exterior Medics’ business is roofing, and 20% of the company’s sales come from repeat/referral business. It is actively growing its commercial division, which specializes in servicing the property management side of things, such as condo complexes.
For the last four years, Exterior Medics has won the Angie’s List Super Service Award, given to the review site’s top 5% of companies.
Takeaways
- Exterior Medics creates detailed, specific proposals, right down to the type of underlayment to be used and how it will be fastened. “We want customers to know that we’re not about doing the minimum,” Watson says. “We do six nails, rather than four, for higher wind warranties.”
- The company commits itself to building every job to the standard specified in the Golden Pledge warranty offered by its principal roofing supplier, GAF. Normally homeowners who have contracted with a Master Elite (GAF’s best contractors) company installing GAF products can purchase a Golden Pledge warranty, and only after the supplier has vouchsafed the quality of the installation. Exterior Medics elected to make that level of installation quality a standard. “If you know there’s a better way of doing things, and you don’t do it, that’s stupidity,” Watson says.
- The firm offers a workmanship warranty that matches the manufacturer’s warranty on the product. So if the shingles being installed have a 25-year manufacturer warranty, Exterior Medics will offer a 25-year workmanship warranty. The same holds true on the windows and siding products that the company installs.
- Exterior Medics recently completed the third total overhaul of its website so that, among other things, it is receptive to mobile, where more and more customer inquiries originate.