Use your initial company goals to organize and strategize

CCS Influencer Will Lorenz suggests aligned yourselves first with the goals of the ownership of your business and then move down into each segment of the business.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with CCS Influencer Will Lorenz. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle with coatingscoffeeshop.com and I am here with my friend Will Lorenz for the December influencer topic. How are you, Will?

Will Lorenz: I am great, thank you very much. Good to have General Coatings be a part of this conversation and talk to you about roof coatings and what we're doing in the marketplace.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, absolutely. Our December question is how are you communicating with people within your company to make sure that the work they're doing is aligned with your company goals for 2025?

Will Lorenz: That's a great question. I think what we first did was we try and post out what actually are our plans to people. And then recently, we did have a sales meeting in December and we brought together our sales R&D tech service teams, marketing teams to have that discussion about our business and what we're seeing both at a territory level, a product level, at a market level and try and assemble that together and then get back to our team members about what is the best strategy here if we have to make any adjustments.

And we preface that by have a meeting in October where we had a corporate strategy meeting of all the different entities and divisions. We aligned ourselves first with the goals of the ownership of our business, and then we moved down into each segments. And so General Coatings is made up of General Coatings, which is coated spray foam roofing, Everroof, our restoration roof coatings business and then UPC, our spray foam insulation. We align first at the top and then move down. And then we just try and have a regular conversation about what's going on and what we need to do to adjust to market conditions.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, that seems to be what all the influencers are saying is just the constant communication, to make sure everybody stays on the same page and knows exactly what we're working towards and to get to those goals.

Will Lorenz: True, true enough. I would agree. I think we've had an election year, which always throws a lot of curveballs for all of us. What are we anticipating with regard to the change in the presidency and then also differences in Congress? What it means for programs that we support. Whether it's labor related, whether it's product related, whether it's tariff and importation related, we're all very concerned about what those impacts are.

And to some extent right now, we're going forward with the plans that we've done well with and what we see, but we're planning to make adjustments in January if the new administration comes in and says, "Hey, where you got your products from are now going to be more expensive due to tariffs," we're going to make adjustments on that.

Or if we see the challenges with regard to labor force availability, we're going to support organizations like NRCA to be able to try and address it so our contractor base can adequately put down our products. There are macro issues and micro issues, you know?

Alex Tolle: Yeah, absolutely. And it's great that you have your main plan exactly what you're going to do, but a couple of ideas of what you're going to do if things change or... Things happen, and you got to be prepared for those things that come up. That's great.

Will Lorenz: I think on a micro issue, what we try and do is get as close to our customers as we can and understand what their business is expecting from us as a supplier. And then we try and communicate what we're planning to do to support them and how we can move together, growing the business and having them be successful. Many times, there are these macro issues that come along and then we look to be a part of organizations that can address it best. Labor force issues have been ones that... We've been working with NRCA for years and taxation issues and things like that.

But then we're also belong to the Chemistry Council, and some of these product technology issues that relate to chemistry, we battle with them making sure that we get fair consideration with EPA and OSHA and so forth. And then we're also involved with RCMA, with a great organization to really promote things fair and open, abilities to use roof coatings. We're active now in Florida and California with some of the regulations that are going on there to make sure that roof coatings aren't restricted or being challenged in the improper way, that people understand the benefits. And our marketplace is open for all of us to participate.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Will, thank you so much for joining me for the December, the final influencer topic for 2024. And looking forward to working with you more in 2025.

Will Lorenz: Great. Thank you, Alex. And we'll see you at the shows too.

Alex Tolle: Yes. Happy holidays. Happy new Year. We'll see you next year.