GC vs Roof & Gutters Only

The GC I sell for is strongly considering switching to roofs and gutters only.

The arguments for doing this are: quicker job completion time, less hassle dealing with subs, and smaller profit margins on collateral.

As a salesman my arguments against are loss of a major selling point (we are a one-stop shop) and losing out on O&P which sweetens most of my deals.

I am interested in hearing the opinions and experiences on both sides of the argument, especially those who have made a switch.

I completely understand where your GC is coming from. Iv been on both sides, and have done both sides.

But it really all depends on the situation or what kind of storm passed and the damage it caused.

example:

I know a storm chasing company that cleaned house when a small hail storm struck in my area.

Few years later another hail storm hit that damaged more than just roofs(siding, windows, fascia, gutters). That same company came back and had hardly any success. I believe the reason is because they didn’t do anything else except roofs.

Most people would prefer to deal with one company that can do all.

The other trades are often a PITA. We have an excellent interior crew at all locations. We’ve developed a good team of subs in Alabama which was need based due to the tornadoes the past two years. I believe it has helped us win a lot of jobs, one stop shopping. We also get O&P on a relatively large percentage of jobs we do. I won’t make the trade off considering the additional profit dollars that 20% O&P provides.

I think the most important thing is to develop a good/great team of subs. And then treat them well in order to keep them and provide motivation for them to want to do our work. None of those things are easy. In our case, we require any sub that does work for us to provide GL and WC certs and we regularly check to verify each and every one. On the other hand, we pay them well and in a VERY timely manner.

To be sure, we’ve had some experience with bad subs and it is worse than painful. That just goes with the territory in my opinion.