Get to know EVERROOF - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Barry McConway of EVERROOF. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from RoofersCoffeeShop. This is Heidi Ellsworth and we're here today to get to know a company that you've heard of, but we want to get more information, and that is EVERROOF. So, I am thrilled to have Barry McConway here today to talk about EVERROOF and the roofing industry and coatings overall. So Barry, welcome to the show.

Barry McConway: Hey, Heidi. Thank you so much for having us, and I loved your intro. I'm not sure everybody's heard of us, but I think that's part of the point, right?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, we're working on it.

Barry McConway: We'll talk about that as we go along today. So [inaudible 00:00:52] being here.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Well, you know what, let's get started with some introductions. So, if you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and your history in roofing and EVERROOF.

Barry McConway: Yeah, yeah. Well, Barry McConway, president of EVERROOF. I started in April, so not a long time. What's interesting is I've been in the coating industry for quite a long time, about 20 years. So the information knowledge transfers quite a bit. I'm learning a lot in my last few months here. Been on a few roofs, walked a few jobs, seen the do's and don'ts of coatings in our industry. It's really interesting. Energy bringing myself to this position is just obviously I do have coating manufacturing experience. Also just bringing the key skills to EVERROOF to bring a little bit more of a sales team and also some better service for our contractors and distributors. I think that we have some opportunity there. But there's a lot to talk about, so hopefully that's a good introduction for myself.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Well, let's also talk a little bit about EVERROOF. I mean, you a very trusted manufacturer of roof coatings, but like you said, we're trying to get the word out. So, tell us a little bit about the history of EVERROOF and where you are today.

Barry McConway: Yeah, it's interesting. We're a sister company to General Coatings Manufacturing, which does foams, foam roofings, and that company was acquired probably in 2012 by American Polymers. And when they were looking at the list of materials that General Coatings had, what stood out really notably was that they had great silicones and acrylic coatings that they were using on top of their foams for their jobs that they were doing. And really it was clearly obvious that these products had their own standalone use in the restorative world of roof coating, right?

So, we really looked at it and said, "Okay, let's leave General Coatings alone, but let's create EVERROOF. Let's focus on the roof coatings. Let's add our great base of urethane." So now we have your urethane, your acrylic, and your silicone base of manufacturing quality. And so, about a year after, like 2013, EVERROOF started. We started in the private labeling. Then we branched out into direct sale and trying to get our own brand in the Southern California area where our manufacturing was started. But clearly now we're branched out. We have another major manufacturing position in Texas and we've got some sales reps nationally now. So, we're poised to be bigger, better and taking the I should say 13 years of experience of great coating technology and we're ready to go and bring it out on a larger base.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's excellent. That's great. Well, talking about that, bringing it out on a larger base, you're uniquely positioned to provide quality products with that history and with what you just talked about. So kind of talk about that with your products and that positioning as you're going forward.

Barry McConway: Yeah, it's interesting. I looked at the landscape of the competition in the world out there and there's a lot of good competitors, a lot of good products out there. What's unique about us is we are a true manufacturer at the core. Obviously, we've been in business since 2013 in EVERROOF, and we have not worked aggressively to explode our distribution. What we've been doing in those years is really honing and getting our products right, getting our applications down, getting our warranty straightened out, really looking at what we need to be successful at the contractor level and the distributor level, and be really a good partner for people. So you could look at a business and you could say you're a sales organization and you sell products, or you can look at your organization and say you're a manufacturer. And I think that we are a manufacturer that is really now putting our sales engine behind what we've already proven and vetted.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's key. I mean, I know since April and you said you've been looking at the landscape of the roof coatings, how do you see that philosophy I love differing from the overall market that you're kind of seeing out there?

Barry McConway: I don't want to complain or criticize anybody. I think it's a great market to be in, right? What's different is that we're not trying to make the big splash and the quick sale. I think that we're really into it from key partnerships and relationships and honoring those over a period of time, building it on a slow, steady pace. So I think you'll see our differentiation and our willingness to consult and be with our contractors or our businesses, our distributors. What do they need for profitability? What do they need for marketing? What do they need? We're a very flexible organization because we're not a nationally aggressive top tier company that's out there. We want to be that. But we're going to take our time and we're going to do it through great relationships and longstanding customers.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's excellent. What are you seeing trend-wise in the coatings industry out there? What are some of the things that are hot and what are some of the things you're focused on?

Barry McConway: Well, it's very personal to me. I mean, the trend, the thing I see that the market, I mean, I've been doing a lot of studying. It's a $2 billion global market. It's a $200 some million US domestic market. And I look at where we are and we're, I think, dramatically underutilized from our manufacturing capability and what we could produce and what we could deliver. So the good side is there's enough space for all of us and the coating application world is showing a great year-over-year growth rate in all of the industry trends, double-digit or high single digit. We could talk finance and CAGR and year over year, but bottom line, it's good. So, the trend for me is I want to get on the train, have EVERROOF be a part of that growth, have our fair share of it, be in a great place with good products and markets and enjoy my competition because I think there's enough space for everybody.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is the fastest growing. I mean, we're seeing it all the time, and it is such a solid solution for what we're seeing with sustainability, what we're seeing with longevity, durability. And when you look at that overall, that huge market and the demand, what are you seeing for your contracting customers? What are some of the things that they should be thinking about when it's coming to who they work with and also doing more roof coatings?

Barry McConway: The contractors are faced with a bunch of people fighting for their attention. They have to pick who's in it to make them successful and profitable and how we're going to help them. I think the future landscape for the contractors is it's a very confused to the end consumer. The roof coating business itself has a lot to offer, and I just don't think we have our fair share in every contractor that's out there in the marketplace. We have a lot of contractors that are still only doing tear off and they're not adding onto their commercial restoration.

That adds to my job of helping those contractors know their options and being able to present those options to their customers. And that education, that hand in hand ability to support them, that's going to be the future, is really giving our contractors an easier way to sell our products and services and the features and benefits. I think it's still, old school roofing is what we don't want to talk about, but I think there's still a mystique that we have to overcome and we need to break down those barriers so that contractors can represent themselves and the great products that they've got and the great services they're doing better to the end consumer, those end building owners. And I think it's my job to help them and give them great products.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: What are you seeing from demand? I mean, I love the research you've done. What are you seeing from demand from building owners, or what's some of the thing the contractors and that you personally are kind of hearing that they are really looking for?

Barry McConway: It's interesting because it's diverse. There's so many people now that have an appropriately well-working roof that want to add extensions because of they're adding solar or they're doing something and they're needing to add, or they're doing a property management agreement that they want to have a new addition to or new coverage or protection of warranty or gainability on that. So it's like there's a lot more reasons today than there were 20 years ago for why people are looking at the roof coatings and the options available to them. And again, our job is to demystify that and explain those options and make it clear, "Oh, you want solar? Well, you're going to have people on your roof. Well, your roof is 10 years old. It's working perfectly, but really, wouldn't it make sense to do a coating right now when we're up there, put the solar panels on there so that you have ease of mind and guarantee for the next 10 or 20 years." Those conversations weren't happening 10 years ago.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No. And when you think about the penetrations of solar, when you think about all of that, coatings are such a good solution for it, and it can be recoated easily underneath those panels.

Barry McConway: Yeah, I mean, we're learning that, at least I am, because, again, I'm shorter in the roofing industry, the people listening to this will laugh because they know. But the differences of solar panel installations vary by number of roofs. Some have different brackets and arrays, and you can go under and sometimes you got to remove them. Our world is very unstandard, and that's what makes the complexity of our job to communicate it. But we can do better and we're going to help these contractors because there is so much demand for their work, obviously. This industry's going up and our roof coatings is in demand. We got to make it easier for everybody to get there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, we just have had some great conversations this week about rooftop ROI and not just the ROI of the rooftop, but really how important the rooftop is now and is going to be even more important in the future for things like solar, green roofing, for what we're experience with the weather today, how are our rooftops handling that and stormwater, all of those things.

Barry McConway: I'm going to cut you off and say you're right. And the main staple of roof coatings, just the reflectivity and not the transfer of heat is still, in my opinion, dramatically under considered by so many people. And that's like level one basic roof coating. What do you gain? You gain better thermal transfer and reflectivity. But God, that's still even a point people don't know.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Exactly. They don't know. I mean, when you think about the heat island that's going on in our major cities, I mean, it just makes sense. And every roofing has its own place, but coatings are really hitting the mark for those. So, what do you see, I'm really curious, you've been in the coatings industry for 20 years, now with EVERROOF, what are some of the things in your crystal ball for the coatings industry in the next five years?

Barry McConway: So, we're going to have technology advancement. That's every day of our lives. Right now, I'm revising two or three primers to do better jobs of adhesion. I mean, we are constantly looking at that, but I think every manufacturer is doing that in their own realm, even shingles and metal roofing and tiling. Everybody's advancing the technology. So then the question is, okay, if technology is constantly advancing, what's the differentiator or what's the other component to that? And then I think it goes back to what we just talked about. It's the ability for us in this industry, in this space, to communicate those technological advantages and options to the end consumer, end consumer, building owner, property owner, whoever that is, so that they know what's available for them today. Because ROI, like you were saying, is so much more complex of a question today than it was 20 years ago because the world is just, it's getting more sophisticated.

So, to answer your question, the next five years, the most significant thing is going to be for the person who's going to win is who can communicate the clearest, has the most transparency on what they're offering, and does it simply, fast and efficient so that those people can make decisions. And then of course, technology is going to help those roofers have less people, less labor costs and all that. I think that's where we're going. So we're trying to get there quickly for our customers. And EVERROOF, I don't think we're perfect in terms of the way we, but we're changing our website, we're adding system calculators, we're doing online warranties, we're doing all of those things to speed up so that the contractors and the distributors can do better.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great. And when you look at the future of the world around robotics, it just seems like we're going to see that on the roof, we're going to see that on the rooftop. And coatings is kind of a perfect.

Barry McConway: They're 3D printing buildings today. [inaudible 00:15:12]. So what's going to happen, that's okay, we just got to stay ahead of it. But the world will always need roof technology and coatings are becoming so much a place as those buildings become more green. So we're in a great space. Like I said, I'm very excited about being where I am, taking on this opportunity to grow EVERROOF into one of the bigger names out there. We're not known yet by everywhere, but I think we will be.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You will be. And I think more so than you even think because people, they know the name and they know the technology behind General Coatings and all of the history you have in your overall company. One of the things I do want to kind of touch back on, because I just love what you said about 20 years ago, what was the ROI of a roof, and it was just to make sure the water stayed out. I mean, really the roof, very little was it being used for anything beyond that. And I can remember 20 years ago talking about, being a farm girl, I was like, "We have acres and acres and acres of roof. What are we doing with it?"

Barry McConway: What are we doing? [inaudible 00:16:29] there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know, all of this great. And today that has totally changed. I mean, that's what we are seeing and it makes me excited to hear you kind of talk about that and that building owners should be expecting an ROI from the roof more than just staying dry, which is just the basics.

Barry McConway: I mean, in some of the conversations we're having, it blows my mind the thinking of the energy companies and the garden, the green roof, all of the different things that are available and where we're going does create, that is space up there that we have to use, and we have to be creative with it. We need great coating technologies to go around it. And the cool part is that as a manufacturer of the three products, the urethanes, the acrylics and silicones, we're in a really unique position of capitalizing and helping our customer base be the leaders as these different things happen and people want to do more ROI capturing things with their roof. So I think it plays well to us. I think it plays well to the future. Should be fun.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It should be fun. We've always enjoyed it.

Barry McConway: [inaudible 00:17:40].

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know. It's all good.

Barry McConway: Experiences we all have, right? But we're okay with that. We're patient.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Now and then. Now and then. There's a few little frustrations. So you talked about a new website. I know you are all, a lot of great collateral. Of course all of that information is on RoofersCoffeeShop. But any other new things, new products, new initiatives, anything that you'd like to share with us? Maybe a little sneak peek coming up for 2024.

Barry McConway: Oh God, it's so technical. It's not probably for the masses. Just some of the primer work that I was alluding to, getting lower cost, more ubiquitous, on more systems of roofing so that it makes it easier to apply and lower costs. We're coming out with a great single component acrylic as opposed to, which I know a lot of people have them, but we're very particular, we're very conservative. We do our pull tests, we do our bleed tests, and those are the things that the culture of our company is manufacturing and conservative.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It takes time.

Barry McConway: It is, but it's okay because I know that means it's less warranty, less headache and our contractors have less issues when they're up there trying to get the job done. So primers, slower facets, our mastics we're going to be. A lot of reformulation based on feedback from our customers so that they can do their jobs better and quicker. So I mean, we've got three changes coming out that are not deep formulaic changes, but add to the usability of the product. Those are exciting. On the digital side, calculators to estimate costs and estimate consumption of materials, warranties that are done immediately online. Those are things that help all of our business. So those are the things I'm working on and it's all at once to try and get it down to the market.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You have had your hands full and I'm just so happy that you are here in the industry with EVERROOF and that we get to have these conversations because I want to keep touching base, Barry. I can see a lot coming on and I'm excited about all this because it starts with the foundation and that's what I love hearing. It's like it's foundational and then it only goes from there. Thank you so much.

Barry McConway: Oh, you're absolutely welcome, Heidi. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to get my word out and have people listen to me. And at the WRE Trade Show we're coming up, obviously I'll be there talking to the people and trying to get more feedback. What else do we need to do to promote and get our products and services up to whatever the industry bar is? Because I mean, I know we're there, but we got to keep asking the question.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Now, speaking of WRE, for folks who may not hear this podcast before they go to the WRE, but hopefully you stopped by our booth, by EVERROOF booth, and dropped off your card for the RCMA giveaway for, well, it's actually the EVERROOF giveaway for RCMA training promo codes. So, if you did miss WRE and you're listening to this, send us a note because we're kind of doing this a lot between General Coatings and EVERROOF and RoofersCoffeeShop and CoatingsCoffeeShop, getting that important training out there. So I love this initiative. Very cool.

Barry McConway: Thank you for reminding everybody. And we want education, we want great roofing contractors out there, and obviously we want our share of product as well. But it's all part, it's good fun to be out there in the space, for sure.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It is. Perfect. And we'll see you on the sound stage, so we'll be talking more about everything that's going on. So once again, thank you so much for being here today.

Barry McConway: Thanks, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. And thank you all for listening. Be sure to check out the EVERROOF directory. You can find great information all about the giveaway. We're doing a podcast. You listen to the podcast, go ahead and go to the contest and you can get free training from RCMA, courtesy of EVERROOF and General Coatings there too. So, check it out all on the directory and then be sure to check out all of our podcasts under the Read Listen Watch navigation on RoofersCoffeeShop, under podcasts and Roofing Road Trips or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and set the notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Outro: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the RoofersCoffeeShop.com.