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Roofer MBA
Roofer MBA

No fire burning?

Your first 30 days

Most men land here with one thing on fire and go straight to it. If nothing’s burning today — or everything is and you can’t pick one — run it in this order. Four weeks, five plays, fifteen minutes here and five minutes there. Reading is free; the sheets and cards ask for an email once.

The order isn’t random. The money list pays for the time, the promise list makes what gets said stick, the morning hands you the room back, and the block is what you spend it on.

4 weeks · 5 plays · about 10 minutes each

Week 1

Find the money

Start with money you already earned. It takes no selling and no new work — it's finished roofs sitting in other people's checkbooks — and one sorted list is most of the job. Fifteen minutes a week from here on.

  1. Open the money-owed list and put every unpaid invoice on it: customer, job, amount, the date you invoiced. Oldest at the top, because the oldest money is the money most likely to never land.
  2. Pick the fifteen minutes you'll keep every week, and walk the list once — out loud, top to bottom. One question per invoice: what changed since last week?
  3. Every unpaid invoice leaves that meeting with one name on it, one next move, and the day it happens by. “The office is on it” is how money dies.
  4. Nothing comes off the list until it's paid or you write it off on purpose.

The play behind this week

End of the week you have: the dollar figure sitting out there, the age of your oldest invoice, and one name and one next move on every line of it.

Want the next three weeks to land in your inbox instead of your memory?

Then a new play when we publish one. Nothing else.

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Week 2

Make promises stick

Week one put the money on paper. Week two does the same for everything that gets said and then forgotten — the ridge vent nobody ordered, the warranty paper nobody sent. The first line on the list is yours, where the crew can see it.

  1. Start the promise list — one shared sheet, one place, nothing else. What was promised, who owns it, when it's due, where it stands.
  2. Write your own promise on it first, where your office manager and at least one foreman can see it. Then keep it. If they watch you skip your own line, the list is dead on arrival.
  3. Pick one way in and use only it: anything you or a foreman promises gets texted to the office manager, and she puts it on the list.
  4. Read it out loud one fixed morning a week — ten minutes. Done, done, open, stuck. Nothing comes off until it's closed.

The play behind this week

End of the week you have: one week of promises on paper, yours at the top, every one of them kept or visibly missed — and one place everybody looks instead of four.

Week 3

Take back the morning

Two lists running now. This week is the morning itself: five minutes at the tailgate so the problem turns up at the yard instead of on the roof, and one number of your own so the day doesn't spend all of you.

  1. Tomorrow, before a single ladder goes up: five minutes, standing at the tailgate. What got finished yesterday, what's about to get in the way today, who's on it.
  2. Walk the real blockers out loud — material on the ground, the weather call, anything that changed overnight, what the second crew needs before it can start. Every blocker gets one name and one next step before anyone rolls.
  3. Monday, say this week's one number out loud: “This week, the number is ___.” One number, not ten.
  4. Find the fifteen minutes that survive a real day — before you unlock the yard, or the truck parked right after the huddle — and in that block touch only the number. Friday, score it: did it move?

The plays behind this week

End of the week you have: mornings that start with a five-minute check instead of you rehearsing every crew, one number said out loud on Monday and scored on Friday, and the huddle card in the truck so it runs the same whether you're standing there or not.

Week 4

Get your head above water

The first three weeks bought back some room. Week four spends it on the work only you can do — the bids, the takeoffs, the supplements, the paperwork that has no other home on your day. One hour, door shut, same time daily.

  1. Pick the deadest stretch of your day and take one hour of it, the same hour every day. Start at one and stretch to two once it holds.
  2. Phone parked — glovebox, or silent and face-down out of reach. The one text you glance at is the one that ends the block.
  3. Door shut. Truck door and windows up is the quietest office most owners have.
  4. Tell the crew the window in one line: “Between eight and nine I'm on bids. Call only if there's blood or a truck's on fire.” Then hold it two weeks straight — somebody will walk in with a quick question, and he goes back out with the time you're free.
  5. Then pick where it still hurts most and start that module. Same library whichever door you come in — you just know your way around now.

The play behind this week

End of the week you have: one hour a day the crew knows not to touch, a bid finished start to finish inside it, and the next module picked.

After that

Weeks 5 and on: one module at a time

Thirty days in you have the money on one list, the promises on another, your mornings back, and an hour a day nobody touches. That’s the floor. Don’t go hunting for what’s next — take these three modules in this order, one at a time, and open each one with the three plays under it.

  1. First

    Crew Quality

    Callbacks are the profit leak you can fix without selling anything — and the debrief takes ten minutes at the tailgate.

    Start with these three

  2. Then

    Hiring & Keeping Roofers

    Everything you fixed this month dies if the crew keeps turning over. Hire like it matters and keep the men you already won.

    Start with these three

  3. Then

    Meetings & Decisions

    The truck huddle from week three has bigger brothers: the twenty-minute weekly, and calls that stay made.

    Start with these three

If something IS loud now, jump straight to it →

Want the next three weeks to land in your inbox instead of your memory?

Then a new play when we publish one. Nothing else.

One list, run by us. No spam, no sharing your address, unsubscribe in one click.

These plays are how we run a shop — they are not legal, tax, or accounting advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.

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