Starting a Successful Roofing Company; Everything You Need To Know

Own a roofing company in two weeks. Turn a profit in 2 months.

How-To: Build and Maintain a Successful Roofing Company

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Establishing, as well as operating, a successful roofing or construction company involves significant planning, compliance with legal mandates (depending on what state you reside in and the ability to formulate and execute strategies quickly and effectively before your competition even has a chance to compete; one example of this would be using analytic data relevant to a recent hail or windstorm event, then ultimately deciding on the most effective strategy considering demographics and other valuable metrics in effort to maximize your ROI for a specific area or storm.

Construction, and specifically, roofing companies, are extremely competitive. Effective time management practices while also optimizing your time spent working are absolutely vital to insuring continued success. Owning and operating a roofing company and occasionally doing small roof repairs, or shingle repairs.

Below is a general overview of the necessary steps to guide you through the somewhat tedious process of establishing a roofing company. If you have read this far you likely have experience in this field from prior employment.

Keep in mind this is just a general overview and we will be going much more in depth on each subject as we progress through this exciting business pursuit!

Market Research

Identify where you will need to focus your time and energy on specific services like residential roofing, commercial construction, renovations, and lastly insurance claims. The two main sources of business discussed in this guide will be based on the residential market; specifically roof replacement via insurance proceeds or simply “cash deals” which generally pay quicker but, unfortunately have lower profit margins when compared with insurance jobs, both of which will generally result in complete replacement of entire roofs using asphalt composite shingles. Make sure to conduct your due diligence in researching the demand, competition, and potential customer base in your target area identifying those areas and demographics of a particular area to give your self the highest probability of success/profit margin.

Decide on a Business Plan Using a pen and paper; describe your long/short term business goals, planned services to be offered, your target market in a defined geographic area, your marketing strategy, realistic financial projections, and finally your operational planning/implementation, also known as SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). Establishing these standard procedures are the only way for simple implementation in addition to simple scalability to be implemented when the tine comes to begin scaling up and growing your company’s reputation.

It is almost cliché at this point, but “failure to plan is planning to fail”. So, be realistic when formulating your financials and projected sales expectations in conjunction with strategies including forecasted (costs/revenue). Calculate your startup costs with a decent safety margin factored in to ensure a less anxious start to your journey into the world of construction, entrepreneurship, and business ownership.

Be conscious while creating this first organization’s financial setup/structure. Deciding on an informed pricing strategy (again, covered in more detail later). Lastly, calculate reasonable/conservative financial projections for at least the next 3-5 years of operation.

Website/Digital Footprint

A website serves as the digital storefront for a roofing company, providing a platform to
showcase services, past projects, customer testimonials, and contact information. It’s the first
point of contact for potential customers searching online, making it crucial for generating leads
and building trust.


Specialized SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services are essential because they ensure the
website is visible to those looking for roofing services in search engines. SEO involves
optimizing website content, structure, and on-site elements to rank higher in search engine
results pages. For roofing companies, local SEO is particularly important, as it targets local
search queries and helps businesses connect with customers in their area.


Without a website and specialized SEO, a roofing company misses out on a significant amount
of business opportunities, as a vast majority of customers use online searches to find and
evaluate local services. An effective online presence through a well-designed website and SEO
strategy not only improves visibility but also enhances credibility, sets you apart from
competitors, and significantly increases the chance of attracting and retaining customers.

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In-depth Solution to Building a Site a SEO Services

Naming Your Company

The process of selecting a name that reflects the services being offered and makes your business easily identifiable and easily distinguishable from other company names is incredibly important to the formation of a new business. Also, critically important, is ensuring the name chosen isn’t already in use or trademarked, so securing a matching domain name for your website will be very important (again covered in more detail later).

Establishing the Legal Structure of your new business

Decide on a business structure choosing between a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC (Limited Liability Company), or corporation based on your needs for liability protection and tax structure. For most individuals, a standard LLC will suffice unless you have a unique tax situation or other contributing factors at play, in which case hiring a CPA to advise would be prudent.

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Registration At the State Level

File the necessary paperwork with your state’s Secretary of State office or similar agency. Obtain any necessary business licenses or permits required. For Texas this is a very simple process. Licensing for you Company Licensing can vary significantly state to state as well as type of construction work. Ensure you have all necessary local, state, and federal licenses. In the state of Texas, this is an easy and quick process. Consider obtaining manufacturer specific certifications, as well as certs. provided by non-state affiliated organizations i.e. RCAT or “Roofing Contractors Association of Texas”, that will enhance your organizations credibility. Though most of these certificates mean little in practice, potential customers value accolades like these.

Insurance/Bonds General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance is an insurance product that your organizations must maintain against the ever-present chances of damages or injuries at work sites due to unforeseen situations or simple accidents that occur all the time no matter hownsafe you are. Unfortunately, insurance in this business is an absolute must have considering the liabilities of multiple parties being exposed to nontypical risks day-in-day out.

Workers’ Compensation: This insurance product is necessary once you begin growing and hiring employees, covering injuries or illnesses resulting from work. Until you reach the point of hiring employees, as opposed to being the only “employee”; I would advise holding off on this expense as you should be covered under your GL. Importantly, if you do decide to forgo workers’ comp in the interim, you absolutely must request and verify that your labor provider does indeed possess workers’ Compensation on their own crew when subcontracting out your labor. Call the insurance company to verify, fake proof of insuranceis a very common practice in this industry unfortunately. It is very common in this industry for crews to provide fake documentation, which in this case would be a fake proof of insurance.