Hippo Roofing focuses on paneled metal roofing for homeowners
Brian Stillwell and his father are both roofers at
Hippo Roofing LLC, Melbourne, Fla., but it didn’t start out that way. Twenty years ago when they were working together in the Midwest in the hail damage repair business, one question kept nagging at them, “Why are we seeing so much damage?” Eventually, they discovered a startling statistic: poor quality, workmanship and poor products were causing the majority of the damage. After relocating to Florida, the Stillwells saw a similar lack of safety and quality. This discovery prompted them to launch Hippo Roofing with one goal in mind: deliver the absolute best possible roofs at the best possible price and install them to perfection. Now a few short years later, Hippo Roofing has practically done that. It’s become a recognized leader in residential metal roofing and has won numerous awards.
Hippo Roofing focuses on paneled metal roofing for residential homeowners. It sees these jobs as affordable to the client, relatively simple to install, easy to collect and most importantly, profitable. “We also sell a minimum amount of stamped metal roofing
(shake, tile, slate, etc.) to residential homeowners but find this type of roofing is often unaffordable with the larger roof footprints in Florida,” Stillwell says. “We could do commercial, but we are good at residential metal roofing and want to stay focused on a market that that is not exhausted and working well.”
110 2015 Projects
In 2015, Hippo Roofing completed 110 metal roofing projects. But it salespeople say the company is still looking for the one magical source that brings in great prospects at low cost when the company needs them. “We obtain our leads from a variety of sources, and track the numbers and cost within Acculynx,” Stillwell, sales manager at Hippo Roofing, says. “Many leads come from our website
(although we suspect the website is often just the final focal point of many other types of advertising), referrals, prior clients, vehicle wraps, yard signs, pay-for-click advertising, home shows and sign walkers just to name a few. Many prospects contact us because we have built the reputation of the contractor to contact if you are considering metal roofing.”
To manage over 100 metal roofing projects a year jobs are installed north and south of Hippo Roofing’s office with a maximum drive by Interstate of 30 minutes or so. EagleView, property appraiser and GoogleEarth simplify measurements and improve material ordering. Each job is managed on-site with a crew leader, and backed up by a field roofing foreman and production manager. “We track our customers from prospect, to sale, to work order to job completion in web-based Acculynx supplemented with instant, all-access photo support using CompanyCam,” Stillwell says. “Job comments are entered by any staff member and distributed selectively or universally to keep everyone on the same page.”
Success and Challenges
To ensure its success, Hippo Roofing identifies the metal roofing type that most people in its market desire and makes this a focal point. Also, Hippo Roofing prides itself on its presentation tools. “Our sales system demonstrates how much more a shingle roof costs over time and how the small difference in cost between shingles and metal makes the decision to purchase metal easy,” Stillwell says. “We also provide financing through home improvement banks which often permits a sale that would otherwise be lost. Lastly, Hippo has established a relationship with a metal manufacturer that sells direct at very competitive pricing. Roofing is ordered on the web and delivered within two or three days of input.”
Its Hippo Roofing’s sales system that has allowed it to overcome one its biggest challenges-discrediting the belief that a metal roof costs two to three times that of shingles. Prospects felt they could not afford a metal roof even though they wanted one. “That objection was overcome by configuring a metal roof at least cost, showing options and advertising trademarked slogans that caught on, and changing the image of metal roofs being unaffordable,” Stillwell says. “Once we had success with selling this type of roofing, clients told their friends, co-workers and neighbors which dispelled the myth and accelerated our growth.”
