Category: <span>Technology</span>

Category: Technology

From leads to estimates to project management, this roofing company has a tech solution every step of the way

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By RoofersCoffeeShop®

RCS Influencer Drew Smith says that technology is used every day and on every job from start to finish at Brad Smith Roofing. At Brad Smith Roofing, we have found success using several different programs that all work together to help us run the business. Those programs are:

  • JobNimbus
  • EagleView
  • CompanyCam
  • Clock Shark
  • QuickBooks
  • GPS TrackIt

We researched and worked with several different CRM programs in the past, but JobNimbus has proven to be the most compatible with its operation. The JobNimbus program is open on every computer and the app open on every company iPhone all day operating its client’s complete account information and sales calendar.

JobNimbus also has the ability to formulate estimates, send, receive and track all lines of communication with the client throughout their customer history whether it originates in the office or out in the field. We are able to open all saved contracts, documents, emails, invoices, and estimates wherever we are. It is a cloud-based system, so internet service and a device is all we need to access the vital information necessary quickly.

When I have JobNimbus open working on a proposal for a client, I simultaneously have EagleView and CompanyCam open in order to connect all the dots. EagleView gives us the satellite blueprint with which to estimate a project while CompanyCam quickly opens the field photos gathered during the initial inspection. The field photos saved on CompanyCam allow verification that the findings and notes match the EagleView report before putting the final touches on an estimate.

CompanyCam also allows multiple people from the office staff, to the foreman on site or the project manager to see the same photo in real time, despite being in separate places to quickly communicate with each other and make important decisions. CompanyCam has revolutionized our operations at Brad Smith Roofing and reduced important time downloading photos and has eliminated the need to print project photos because they are so easily accessible from anywhere, anytime, with a date and photographer (user) stamped notation.

We can visually identify the problem areas in the photos using text and shapes superimposed over the photo in the edit feature of the app and it makes for a very professional and visually informative presentation for the customer, as well as, simple processing for the crew members when setting out to perform the work. Every department of our business relies on the project documenting capability of this application to fulfill tasks. Newly added features to this app also include the ability to read the actual slope degree of the roofline and accurately measure the roof, line by line. These features are just another way to make the diligence of the estimator that much more efficient and accurate.

Clock Shark has done very well for us integrating with QuickBooks and allowing quick tracking and documenting of individual crew member labor time, travel time and location. Each crew member can clock in and out of projects throughout every day with the user-friendly app on their mobile device. The time that the Brad Smith Roofing team spends verifying payroll has dramatically decreased since implementing Clock Shark. We are also able to take the information that Clock Shark provides in real time and then use it to cross check with GPS TrackIt that is installed on each service vehicle to ensure there is accurate documentation to report back to a customer or insurance company for labor time verification and invoicing.

QuickBooks organizes all purchase orders, vendor invoices and everything financial and makes it easily viewed at the click of a mouse. Job costing should not be considered complete without the use of Clock Shark, GPS TrackIt and QuickBooks.

Drew smith is Vice President at Brad Smith Roofing.  Learn more about him here.

Source: RoofersCoffeeShop.

Ways to Build a Strong Digital Marketing Strategy

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By Steve Eastlack, Surefire Local.

Ever wonder why so many businesses struggle with their online marketing? If you think you’re one of those companies implementing tactic after tactic but not quite seeing the results you expected, then you’ve come to the right place. The reason many companies fall short of achieving excellent results from their online marketing is because they lack a clear, smart digital marketing plan. That’s it, plain and simple.

In our recent webinar, ‘LIVE Q&A: Building a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy’, we answered some of the common questions business owners have when it comes to planning and establishing their digital marketing strategy. Below are some of the key takeaways from the webinar:

Learn how to diversify.

Running your business on referrals? Consider this as an accomplishment in itself because it speaks to your brand. However, you don’t want to run your business on a single channel. The solution? You need to diversify. Start by investing in Google Advertising. It is the channel where your ad dollars are best spent on, especially in the first stages of your business growth. It’s the only channel where people are proactively searching for you and the services you provide. Once you start, you’ll find it’s easy to use, easy to learn, and easy to see if it makes sense with regards to your business growth and lead generation.

In addition, don’t forget to invest in a comprehensive, mobile-responsive website. Make use of a content strategy, using blogs, videos and other types of content, to lure leads in and turn them to actual customers.

Identify the platforms that will work for your business.

To know which platforms are best for your business, you need to determine your goals, identify your target locations and know your audience. Some of the platforms you can use depending on your objectives are:

  • Websites
  • Local Search
  • Lead Generation
  • Ratings and Reviews
  • Directory Listings
  • Google Ads/Facebook Advertising
  • Content
  • Social Media
  • Rising Trends and Platforms

Note that not everything might work for your business. Be sure to consult your trusted digital marketing expert to identify the right solutions for your marketing efforts.

Reach out for help.

Contrary to what some people might think, creating a foolproof digital marketing strategy isn’t a simple task. Much like a home improvement project, it requires careful planning, in-depth research and active cooperation with a specialist. Assuming you’ve recently hired an expert to help you with your digital marketing, it pays to know you’ve hired the right team for the job. Here are some of the questions you should ask to your digital marketing partner:

  • How am I doing based on the key metrics we’ve established?
  • How many leads am I getting and how is that progressing?
  • Can you show me the processes you implement to make sure I’m meeting my goals?

By this time, you should already be prepared to build a winning digital marketing strategy for your business. You have the knowledge you need, the assets, and a rough structure in mind.

Source: Surefire Local

AMP: What Happens When You Harness This Awesome Technology

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By Ashley Rannikar, Art Unlimited.

Welcome to the digital age, where information can be transported across the planet and back in seconds, card catalogs are cute things of the past, and microwaves annoy us because making a bowl of Ramen can’t be finished fast enough. We have a need—a need for speed—and it transcends nearly every area of our lives, including on the web.

What is AMP?

When it comes to your website, AMP is an improvement to the present and a key to the future! AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It is an open-source library which enables you to make your website simple, stunning, and freakishly fast on mobile devices. It’s supported on most websites and browsers and has been proven to increase web engagement significantly.

How Does AMP Work, and Why is it So Fast?

AMP takes the basic parts of a website (HTML, JavaScript, and caching) and optimizes them for speed and mobile-friendliness.

In regards to HTML, AMP takes what is already on the website and places some restrictions on it so the performance of the page is optimal. Because of those restrictions, custom coding or shortcodes are sometimes not displayed. Usually, it attaches itself to regular HTML tags. Though when necessary, it replaces HTML tags with custom AMP programming to create simpler patterns in the coding.

JavaScript is the coding that makes a webpage interactive, which is necessary if you want a great website. However, it can slow a website down significantly if the system gets hung up downloading the files. Adding AMP to your website ensures the elements on a page load asynchronously. This means parts of a page can load independently of one another, making the essential content render ultra fast.

Google AMP Caching is the key to speed. When a webpage has implemented AMP, Google caches the page in its system. Then, when anyone goes to view the page, Google can immediately serve them the simple, cached version without having to find and render the whole page from scratch.

AMP is like an instant dinner made by a fairy godmother. You ask for a website to load and bippity-boppity-boo, it’s right in front of you! No more slaving in the kitchen, waiting seconds upon seconds for your microwave to ding the arrival of your bulky, mobile-unfriendly website.

Speed is our need, but it is not the only benefit of having AMP installed on your website. Over the last several months, we have been implementing and tracking the effects of AMP across multiple websites. Take a look at the results we have found.

AMP Results

In measuring the effectiveness of AMP in our websites, we first looked to Domain Authority (DA). Domain Authority is a number calculated by Moz which projects the probability of a website ranking well in the search engine results page (SERP). It operates on a consistent scale from 1 to 100. The higher the number, the greater the likelihood of it performing well in the SERPs. In our SEO work, we’ve found that Domain Authority generally moves up and down very slowly and rarely jumps multiple numbers. To our surprise, AMP threw a wrench in this pattern.

Take a look at the graph above. Companies from the following states leaped in Domain Authority almost overnight! It took only a couple of months to gain a higher domain authority rather than a couple of years.

  • Florida – 9 points
  • Florida – 12 points
  • Georgia – 22 points
  • Michigan – 10 points
  • Minnesota – 12 points
  • Minnesota – 10 points
  • New York – 8 points
  • Oklahoma – 11 points
  • South Carolina – 12 points

Next, we look at the importance of mobile-friendly websites. Check out these stats compiled by Main Street ROI:

  • Out of all online traffic, 52.64% came from a mobile device in 2017.
  • By the end of 2018, mobile traffic will account for 79% of all traffic.
  • Over half of Internet users say they wouldn’t recommend a site that isn’t mobile-friendly.
  • If a site isn’t mobile-friendly, 8 in 10 customers won’t engage with it.
  • Conversion rates on mobile devices are up 64% compared to conversions on a desktop.

If you want your company to have a competitive online presence, there is no way around mobile usability. Even if your site has been built on a mobile-first platform, installing AMP still seems to significantly increase your chances of ranking better in search results. Google loves AMP because people love faster load times.

Respect Google. Love people. Have AMP installed on your website today. Contact Art Unlimited with any questions you have about getting AMP into your website!

Source: Art Unlimited

Technology stacks need to be able to communicate and integrate with each other for success

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RT3 member Charles Antis interviews Antis Roofing Chief Operation Officer to share more about the technology stacks that she has implemented within the company.

Charles Antis of Antis Roofing loves technology but when it comes to implementing it, he trusts his COO, Karen Inman to put the solutions in place. In this interview, he talks to Karen about what is happening at Antis Roofing. Watch it here, or read the transcript below.

CA: This month’s question is: What is your technology stack, and how does it work together? Karen, you get to answer this question for me because I can’t.

KI: Well, and this is what I do. This is part of why I came to Antis. So, at Antis our application stack includes the Microsoft Office Suite of tools along with SharePoint and Teams for our collaboration. And then in the past year, we’ve actually switched over to an ERP system. We use Salesforce.com along with Accounting Seed. Both from the field side as well as the office on customer service. And then of course with our accounting team.

Something special that we’ve done, which is really cool, is we actually worked with CompanyCam, who we’ve used for a little while to create an API that works with Salesforce. So, our techs can take photos in CompanyCam and it syncs with our Salesforce instance, which is really cool. Because then our estimators get to see that. And it’s all in one place.

And then the other piece that we use in our application stack is HarnessUp for our safety program. So, we used Tom Whitaker’s tool and it is phenomenal. It really has made a big difference for us out in the field. On the safety side, it’s been a game changer in our ability to see what’s happening out there and also educate the guys. So that’s our stack. That’s what we’re doing.

Charles Antis is the founder and CEO of Antis Roofing & Waterproofing. Karen Inman is COO of Antis Roofing & Waterproofing

Source: RoofersCoffeeShop

Want to see more technology in the roofing industry? Get involved with RT3.

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By Karen L. Edwards.

Don’t just become a member, become an engaged member if you want to help advance technology in the industry.

As we enter the second year of the existence of the Roofing Technology Think Tank (RT3) we’re excited to see the interest and the growth continue to surge forward. RT3 members are committed and dedicated to advancing the adoption of technology into the roofing industry. We continue to add new members who are passionate about the future of the industry, so we thought it might be a good time to revisit what our group is about and how you can maximize your involvement to make a difference.

Not like other industry associations.

RT3 is not the typical industry association that you might be used to. We call ourselves a think tank for a reason. We are constantly looking for the latest technologies and innovations to understand how they can be applied to or adapted for the roofing industry. Our members are individuals and companies who are passionate about technology and how it can help those working in roofing be more efficient, keep their workers safer and make the industry a more appealing career path for our future workforce. We do this through a series of live and virtual meetups throughout the year.

Live meetups are held at unique, tech-friendly locations that are not necessarily affiliated with roofing. For instance, our team held a live meetup on the Microsoft campus where we heard from leaders there along with a tour of their innovation lab. We saw many concepts in development that we were able to see how they could be incorporated into the roofing industry. After seeing and learning, we disseminate information back into the industry to help educate everyone on what amazing things are happening that can help our industry as a whole.

We’re planning ahead through 2019 and into 2020 to host future meetups at some pretty incredible places – you won’t want to miss out.

We give back through education.

In 2019, RT3 formed a panel of five roofing contractors who are having success and helping their businesses through the use of technology. This panel presented at the International Roofing Expo in Nashville and will also be sharing their experiences at the upcoming AECTech conference in Illinois and the Western Roofing Expo in June. None of the contractors are compensated for their time or travel expenses but they do it because they feel so strongly about giving back to help other contractors find the same successes that they have.

In addition, RT3 partners with Smart Brief to produce this twice weekly newsletter that helps you stay informed about the top news and trends in the roofing industry.

Any member can participate in RT3 task teams.

As part of our continued effort to study, learn and give back through sharing of educational content and resources, we’ve developed Task Teams that work on initiatives related to: future workforce development, communications inside and outside of the industry, RT3 member recruitments, meetups and tactical. The best way to get energized and feel like you are making a difference is to be a part of one of these task teams.

Be a thought leader.

RT3 has a blog that posts thought leadership content from our members about eight to 10 times each month. We are always looking to share the knowledge that many of our members have. Think you don’t have anything to contribute? We bet you’re wrong and would love to have a 10 minute conversation with you about our organization and what a difference it can make, not only for your business, but for the industry as well.

Inquire about becoming a member!

3 Virtual Reality applications for roofing contractors

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By Michelle Mittelman, AccuLynx.

Virtual and augmented reality games may have originally been developed as entertainment, but are finding new applications across different industries every day. Innovative uses for these emerging technologies are starting to carve out quite the spot within the construction and roofing sectors as a way to help homeowners visualize their projects, and for contractors to provide more accurate estimates and safety measures for their crews.

Roofing Virtual Reality Applications for Homeowners:

The most accessible application of virtual reality in the roofing industry for homeowners is the ability to see products and visualize projects ahead of time without having to visit the store or job site.

It’s not until the project is finished that you know what it’s actually like to stand in the space. By that point, of course, it’s too late to make any meaningful changes. [source]

Technology has already significantly evolved the shopping process for homeowners looking to repaint or re-shingle their homes. Online applications like the GAF Virtual Remodeler are giving homeowners the ability to visualize the changes using actual photos of their home to help them make decisions alongside their contractors, giving them greater control over the process.

Using Technology to Help Educate Customers and Sell Your Services

Roofers who can provide virtual reality tools during their sales process can help homeowners make educated decisions regarding their homes, and ensure that they feel comfortable working with a professional contractor.

Virtual reality can be used to help educate homeowners. GAF’s virtual reality feature includes interactive teaching points that can help explain different roof structures and products to customers. It allows you to point out exactly what is wrong with a roof and actually show homeowners why it is a problem. This feature is helpful in ensuring that homeowners understand what is going on with their home and makes interactions with your client more informative and professional.

After discussing why a roof needs replacing, your sales team can use augmented, or computer generated virtual reality technology to digitally overlay recommended products onto a house at the job site as part of a sales pitch. As part of your customer service model, helping homeowners make informed decisions for their home with the help of virtual reality can give your company an edge when compared to basic paper estimates.

“By engaging clients early on it prevents costly fixes later and keeps clients interested in the project. They can see their vision, they know they’re heard, and they know work is being done. It makes augmented reality in construction a major investment in reducing costs for re-work” [source].

This augmented reality can also be used to the advantage of your estimators and sales team.

“3D modeling acts as a crystal ball, allowing contractors to look into the future and spot errors before they’re made. Simply by exploring the 3D model with virtual reality glasses, [roofing] professionals can spot errors and tweak designs before the work crew starts”. [source]

Offer Virtual Estimates

Another aspect of virtual reality that makes your job easier is removing the problem of scheduling conflicts. Homeowners cannot always be around to meet with someone from your team and vice versa, so it can be difficult to schedule a time when both parties can meet. Some companies are using virtual reality to resolve this problem by offering virtual estimates.

“3D modeling and BIM programs, which made huge advancements in the field of project modeling, can now be adapted to VR tools, to visualize a fully virtual representation of an idea in a new dimension at a relatively low cost point. Put simply, the user sees a 3D display through a headset and can get an ‘all-round’ view by turning their head to the side, up and down”. [source]

A drone operator take images of the house that the contractor uses to create an estimate and leaves behind virtual reality goggles. The homeowner can then use the goggles when they have time to view a virtual tour that explains the estimate. Both your company and the homeowner can do their part when it is convenient for them, resulting in a more efficient process that skips over any messy scheduling

Providing these 3D models to your foreman and crews can also help your team visualize the project before it begins, so they see and understand what the homeowner does –

“Many of the problems found in the construction industry are directly correlated with the inability of field personnel, designers, architects and engineers to truly experience a project before it is built.” [source]

The uses for virtual reality are growing everyday, especially in the roofing industry. Virtual reality allows your company to show what a project will look when its done, educate homeowners with ease, and prevent schedule conflicts, proving its usefulness. Ensure you stay up to date on the newest technology by employing virtual reality at your company today.

Stay up-to-date with the latest roofing and technology news when you sign up for the RT3 Smart Brief newsletter. 

Source: AccuLynx

5 Google My Business tools that contractors should be using

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By Surefire Local.

Google My Business has quickly become one of the most powerful tools for a home improvement business. It allows you to easily manage and improve your business’ online presence, helping you attract the right kind of clients across the entire Google ecosystem including Google Search and Maps.

Google My Business Tools for Home Improvement Contractors

1. Google Posts: This feature allows you to create and publish content directly on Google. These Posts show up in the area below your Google My Business listing, also known as your Knowledge Panel. Google Posts allow for FREE views while helping to boost your content, promotions and events. To get the most of your post, make sure to include a picture, message, link, and button type.

2. Services: You can use this tool to highlight what you’re offering to clients, allowing you to add a whole menu of the services that you provide within your Google My Business listing in search results. This is a mobile-only feature (for now at least) and lets you categorize services and add descriptions. This offers a great way to draw the attention of homeowners looking for a particular service provider quickly.

3. Messages: This mobile-exclusive feature offers a new way to engage homeowners you want to interact with your business via mobile text. It comes with a customizable opening message and Google even measures and reports how quickly you respond. A fast response to your mobile audience can help make them interact more with your business.

4. Appointment Link: Make it easy for your prospective clients to reach your business with this handy tool. Setting it up is a piece of cake–just edit the URLs section of your Google My Business Listing and add the link to the correct field.

5. Video: Help homeowners get a clearer idea on how you do business with this new feature. Upload videos about your business to help generate leads. You’ll want to take the videos you upload seriously–they are more memorable than text content and can help increase conversions by up to 80%.

Source: Surefire Local

Why Voice Search is Making Waves in Contractor Marketing

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By Surefire Local.

A key component of your success is to make sure your local marketing is on point.

In today’s day and age, most of your customers are finding you from Google. They turn to their trusted search engine and type in “(service type) contractor in (name of town)” and choose the one that jumps out to them. But now, with the popularity of Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri and all of the other virtual assistants, the name of the game is changing. Why? Because people don’t speak the same way that they type into Google’s search bar, so all of the keyword targeting you have done with your digital marketing may no longer be as effective.

Here’s a closer look at why it is imperative that you consider voice search when crafting your local marketing strategy, as well as actionable tips you can take today to help your home service business get found.

Why It Is Important to Include Voice Search in Your Contractor Marketing

While there are some people that still actually use Google’s search bar, the shift to using voice search is quickly becoming mainstream. From smart home devices, such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home, to the Siri and Cortana found on every smartphone, many people no longer take the time to type their questions. Instead, they ask them. But the words being spoken are very different than the keywords you have been using in your digital marketing for years.

For example, if someone wants to find a home improvement contractor, they will ask, “Siri, who is a good home contractor near me?” as opposed to typing in “home contractor in Los Angeles.” They could also ask questions like, “Who can I call to fix my roof?” or “Is there someone close by that can repair gutters?”

So the secret to success in today’s ask-rather-than-type world is to figure out what questions people are asking and then altering your digital marketing strategy accordingly. This is especially true being a local business. The homeowners around you are asking for your services, and you want to be the company that Siri, Alexa, or Google recommends.

How to Improve Your Voice Search Local Marketing

Now that you understand why tweaking your digital marketing strategy with voice search in mind is so important, let’s take a look at actionable steps you can put into place to capitalize on this new technology:
First, the voice search algorithms aren’t messing around when recommending home contractors. Not only do you need to target the right keywords, you need to have a strong social media presence and reputation in addition to a fast-loading webpage to make the cut. Apple and Amazon want users to trust their smart devices, so their algorithm won’t recommend you unless it knows you are dependable.
Similarly, you should make sure your site has an SSL certificate. By upgrading the security on your site, you give Alexa, Google and Siri the confidence they need to suggest you.

Next, tweak your keyword strategy to target the way people naturally talk. What would you say if you were going to hire someone in your industry? Hint: “Near Me” is a very commonly used term that should be included when possible. While the smart assistants might be able to figure out who you are with basic long-tail keywords, if you can target the exact phrase the user says, you will see more success.
While you want to stay natural, you also want to keep it simple. Most people aren’t going to recite a long question to Alexa—they are using it for convenience, so the question is going to be short.

Additionally, you want to keep the content on your page less than 2,000 words. Since people are usually on the move when using voice search, the algorithms naturally look for the shorter articles to recommend.

A key component of your success is to make sure your local marketing is on point. You need the homeowners around you to find you, which means you need to show up in any type of inquiry they make. By altering your digital marketing strategy to specifically target voice search, you can be sure that you can be found.

Source: Surefire Local

RT3 Makes an Impact at the International Roofing Expo

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The group’s activities featured a meetup at Vanderbilt and moderating a contractor technology panel.

Members of the Roofing Technology Think Tank (RT3) traveled to Nashville, Tennessee for the 2019 International Roofing Expo (IRE). They began the week by attending a live meetup held at Vanderbilt University and hosted by professor Larry Bridgesmith. After conducting a brief business meeting, the group was introduced to Robert Grajewski, Executive Director at the Wond’ry.

The Wond’ry is the ‘epicenter for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Vanderbilt University.’ RT3 members were given a tour of the three-story, 13,000 square foot center that facilitates innovation between students and faculty from all courses of study, whether that be engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs or artists.

The RT3 team heard stories of innovation and creativity to solve problems and develop new and unique solutions using technology. One psychology PHD candidate used the Wond’ry to develop a never-before-heard-of treatment using virtual reality goggles to transport patients to another world to help them feel safe while dealing with their issues. It’s now being written about in medical journals and being adopted by more psychologists. The team was so impressed with what was happening at the facility that some even went back the next day to share the experience with some of their co-workers who were not able to attend the first time.

On the last day of the IRE, five contractor members of RT3 were featured on a contractor panel to discuss the technologies they are using in their businesses. Ken Kelly of Kelly Roofing, Steve Little of National Roofing Partners and KPost Roofing, Josey Parks of J Wales Enterprises, Michelle Boykin of Rackley Roofing and Gregg Wallick of Best Roofing participated. The panel was moderated by RT3 board member and RoofersCoffeeShop® partner, Heidi J. Ellsworth.

Discussions focused on how augmented reality will change field service, how robotics and automation both on the roof and in the air will impact the industry, how GPS and other tracking can save thousands and how technology will change the way the industry interacts with home and building owners as well as with insurance companies.

A question and answer period followed which enabled contractors in attendance to ask questions and learn further about how the technologies available today can have an immediate impact on their businesses. The room and the hallway were buzzing with curiosity and the desire to learn more about advancing their companies through the use of technology.

Stay on top of the latest roofing and technology news when you sign up for the Rt3 Smart Brief newsletter.