Opinion requested

Mine would be a long sentence. Learn business, determine how much you have to charge to make a decent buck for yourself and your employees, bid accordingly, tell your customers what you are going to do and how much it will cost and then do it, keep pushing at the business and keep a positive attitude when talking with customers.

There are easier ways to make a living but we can't all do the easy jobs. Someone has to be a roofer and you might as well make good money doing it.

Without connections and lots of money to survive the first few years I'd say look into another profession. This one, just like a lot of other construction related careers is tied too much to the economy and if you don't know how to ride the waves you'll drown (in debt) for sure. With that said, if you can walk into an ongoing operation where the owner is due to retire (or sell) in the next few years I'd see what part could be played in being the new owner. A roofing company takes many years to get established enough where referral business keeps you going through the lean times.

JET

The hare will have some bigger paydays, but the turtle wins the race.

I would tell them to go to college and stay out of roofing....honestly, there is an easier life.

GSD Said: dont do it, be a great #2 guy for someone else.

This.

One word of advice?

Don't!

seriously- I have to grown sons- one just graduated college- I have never encouraged them to become involved in roofing- because I know there are horrific odds against even making a simply decent living-let alone abundance.

On the other hand- both sons have often worked on my projects-in fact the recent Grad is working for me now while he looks for a "real" job-and both sons have a real appreciation for the fact that roofing is beastly hard work-even the easy projects are unpleasant,and that you have to deal with many extremely unpleasant people.

they also know it can be relatively lucrative and that there are many paths to success if you can sit down with a pencil and paper and think things through.

If I offered one sentence of advice it would be " Evaluate each prospective roofing project as an independent investment opportunity and don't be conscerned with staying "busy".

stephen

don't do it, be a great #2 guy for someone else.

combinations-its a combination af many things that keep you in business,marketing,technical knowledge,salesmanship,accounting,etc find the combination that works best for you

Charge enough to make money, and do good enough work to stay busy. Invest some of the profits in something other than your business; good stocks or mutual funds.