This is Under Pressure, a podcast where we dive into the untold stories of entrepreneurs and business owners who have conquered adversity to achieve greatness. And now, here's your host, Nic Staton.

The Under Pressure Show. I'm your host, Nic Staton. Today's guest is Isaac Sterner. Isaac, if you don't mind explaining a little bit about yourself and your background and stuff like that.

Nic Staton

Yeah, for sure. So I, I'm a roofing contractor, and I got into roofing while I was still in high school. And I am going on six years in the industry. I took a break for a year, went to college realized it was definitely not my gig. So I got right back into the roofing space and fell in love with it and fell in love with taking care of people and the properties and just the way life is when you're a roofing guy.

Isaac Sterner

Right. Nice. Um, is there, can you explain a little bit like what you got into, what, what you did before you got into roofing? Like, uh, I guess a little bit about like where you came from and, um, uh, I guess like how you were brought up and stuff like that as a, I guess a child and for sure.

Nic Staton

Yeah. So, um, I've always been, my dad's always instilled in me, hard work, dedication, be proud of what you do. Your reputation is everything. Um, so my dad used to go to, uh, food shows and, and sell food and trail mixers and stuff. And I'd always go with him to those trade shows. And it was awesome. I fell in love with that. I was like, you know, I'm really good with people. I really liked this. Um, so then in high school, um, for, three or four years in high school, I was a barista and store manager for a couple different local coffee shops. And I was like, hey, I'm really good with coffee. I love coffee. I'm really good with people. This is great. But then I realized, you know, you really can't make a living when you're outside of high school and college, working at a coffee shop. So I was like, all right, well, what's next? So My cousin actually got me into roofing. He was a canvas manager for a local roofing company. And I was like, ah, I'm good with people, right? I'm going to try this. It's just knocking doors. I'm not doing anything too terribly stupid. So I went knocking doors and found out that I was really good at knocking doors. I had no problem with people telling me, no, you know what, get off my property. Hey, why are you knocking? Look at the sign. It says no soliciting, right? I got really used to that really quickly. And I was like, hey, I literally am making money just walking around when it's nice outside. And when it was rainy, I was in the office learning some new training. I was like, I can dig this. And then a couple months in, I was like, you know what, what does it look like to get into sales? And my boss is like, hey, actually I was about to just offer you a sales position. Why don't you jump into this? And it's like, all right, cool. So I learned about how to climb roofs and I was like, ah, heights are not my thing. We ain't doing this. And quickly realized, you know, I could start out with doing a bunch of these ranch houses that are like five, 12 pitches. I was like, this is not a big deal. Cause when I'm knocking, I knocked the houses that I want to inspect, right? Right. Well, you quickly realize that once you start getting referrals and repeat business, you take what you get and you learn to love it, whether you like it or not in the moment, because Food's food and business is business. So we got into doing all kinds of stuff. I'm actually at my fourth roofing company. And it's crazy because this industry is like, everyone, every homeowner gets scared of hiring a roofing contractor. It's like, oh, I'm gonna get screwed over. I got a fly by night guy. Well, the reps get screwed too. So two out of the last, two out of my previous three companies I was with combined, they owe me about 200 grand. So I got fired from the first one because of a whole contract thing. They wanted to keep my commission. I was like, all right, you know, whatever. And then I got The second roofing company was great, just wasn't getting paid enough. That's when I decided to go off to college for a year, try that. And I was like, you know what, this just isn't for me. So I came back into the roofing space and I was like, you know what, let's try this. Then that company was like a home remodeling company, but they did roofing and I was supposed to like help revamp their roofing department. I was like, yeah, this is great. Well, He owes me about $30,000, $35,000. I was like, all right, bro, I'm out of here. I can't live and fucking make you money if I ain't making something. No, you can't. And it's ridiculous because the last guy, he had me on a salary of $4,000 a month. And I was like, all right, whatever. This is cool. This works. They got me around, paid my bills, but I was like, I need to make some actual money here. And he just refused to pay me my commission. So I was like, all right, this is not how this works. So then I ended up with Resurrected Roofing, and I've been with them. Actually, last week or two weeks ago, I just crossed over my two-year mark with them. Dude, it's the best decision I've ever made. I'll never go work for another roofing contracting company.

I just want you get your good commissions, good commissions and stuff like that.

And dude, they're fantastic. Some of the owners have actually become some of my best friends. And our our environment is just it's way more than just a normal roofing company with, you know, we flash we don't flash all of our money. We don't like we're very relational and. That was huge for me. Cause I was like, I don't want just a bunch of sales guys that come and go. I want somebody that, you know, we're going to build a connection once we're going to be here for the long haul. And that's all it's been. It's just awesome.

Where are y'all based out of?

Yeah, so our main office is in Tequila. We just moved it from Commerce to Tequila and we just merged with another sales force. So we brought on about another 15, 17 people and you'll see two names floating around. You'll see American Elite Roofing and then you'll see Resurrected Roofing. But we own both companies. We slowly started to rebrand to American Elite and Yeah, we still wanted to keep the resurrected name. So we don't lose any clientele over there. So we primarily did the whole, I guess it's this logo right here. You can see it up there in the top left. Yeah. American elite. We started that because we thought that more commercial clients were going to be opposed to the whole biblical context of the company. Then we were like, well, great. Most foreign clients are also probably going to have, if they don't have a problem with religion, they're going to have a problem with America. I was like, well, either way, it's a little less confrontational. That's kind of where we're at. Nice.

So in the Kula, like, are y'all up there near the Kula high school and stuff like that off?

Yeah, we're actually right across the street from the Kula high school.

Always up that way. That's where our shop is for the truck.

Nice. I don't know if you know where the fire station is in the Kula park, but we're literally like right across the street.

Yeah, I'm kind of familiar with that area a little bit. I grew up over that way, in Loganville, not too far from there.

Yeah, for sure. You're down south, aren't you?

Yeah, now I'm down south. I'm in South Fulton. I'm on the Coweta County line with South Fulton. Oh, sweet. Yeah. I just say Noonan, because I mean, I say Chattahoochee, and people are like, huh? Yeah, I hear that.

Are you in Tennessee? Yeah, right. We have one of our sales guys who lives in Noonan and he's like, dude, I live in like the border of like four different towns. So like I'd rather just be in Noonan. I was like, no, whatever works.

There's so many fucking places around here. And the other thing is, dude, I don't think there's, you could ever really get stuck in traffic fully because there's so many different ways to get home. I think I counted like 10 different ways to get home.

Holy cow. That's wild.

It's like every road connects to fucking some other.

Oh yeah. No, that is awesome.

Yeah. Um, so, uh, how did you get started really like exactly into roofing? What made you like really decide to pick roofing, I guess, over anything else? Is it because the commissions and stuff like that, and you just got tired of the hourly? Man, once you go commit, like I've told this, I know once you go commission, you ain't going back to nothing else because now you don't want to.

Yeah, you start getting the taste of freedom and not like you realize that your time is worth more. than just an hourly, you know, 15, 20, $25 an hour. And on a regular basis, I have other roofing companies reach out to me, they're like, hey, will you come train our sales team for the day or come and do some fieldwork or teach my guys how to knock or hey, we project manage this job. I'm like, guys, you can't Respectfully, you can't afford me. And they're like, well, what do you mean? That sounds like it's really cocky. And I'm like, no, absolutely not. But when I go and sign two or three roof replacements a day, or whatever I have going on my bucket for the day, I can be making anywhere between five, 10, 15, $20,000 off of commissions in a day when I'm going to sign contracts. I might not be making it that day, but I'm going to sign those contracts.

Right, when you get away from the bastions and stuff like that, but at the same time, pipeline that's built up, so it's fucking trickling in. It's coming in probably every single week or every other week, whatever it is, because you've done building so much, where people that come into roofing industry, it takes them a little bit. They get discouraged because of them having to wait till that back-end check and them having to figure out something or whatever to do.

I tell them, if you can make it a month, month and a half, Roofing will change your life because a lot of people, it takes quite a while because of the whole insurance process. Well, every insurance carrier and every claim is different, but not everybody's got a ton of people they can flip to retail immediately. Retail is a little hard to sell. Sometimes nobody wants to drop 20 grand on a roof, but everyone's willing to drop two grand for their deductible or whatever. It's really subjective. I feel like a lot of good salesmen leave the roofing space because they can't make it that 90 days or that 60 days. It's really unfortunate because I've seen a lot of really great people come in and they're like, dude, I'm literally strapped for cash. I'm like, go save up and then come back because you ain't going to make it. It's just kind of a bummer.

It is. I mean, that's kind of what I noticed when I started helping out with roofers and stuff like that. I was like, God, yeah. Fucking forever. And then I noticed, I was like, I'm going after these smaller fucking reasons. You don't really make a whole lot when we do our 50 50 split after, you know, say you got your commission. Some of them will do a 50 50 off of that commission. Um, And dude, the smaller roofs, it was like, dude, I'd much rather just soft wash that motherfucker and sell them on that. Oh, yeah. Same time.

Absolutely.

It's kind of hard to soft wash a roof when you know that it's got all that damage on there. So sometimes on the smaller roof, I just pass those off to people because at the end of the day, it's not worth it. But when it comes to like the 50 and shit like that in the hundred squares, bro. Yeah, we're going, you can make it an easy five grand. Oh, dude, we made the biggest cut that I made was 7000. That was off of a 14. So he got 14. And then me and him did seven and seven. Nice. I think that was 100 square roof. That was for awesome job insurance. They did the whole fucking thing. They didn't have to do their deductible or nothing because I mean, their monthly, their monthly payment for their insurance was probably like a car note.

Yeah, probably. I'm not, I'm not surprised. Chubb is phenomenal.

Anytime you see Chubb, you're like, Oh yeah, that one's fucking good. As long as it gets approved.

Oh yeah. And it's going to get approved. There's no question about it.

What's been the hardest part of this whole thing so far?

Dude, it moving from living in my parents house to moving out on my own. I was nervous because I'm 100% commission based. My bills were really low and I was like, you know, I'm fine. But when you actually move out, it's like buying. I know a lot of guys will say, hey, go buy a bigger, a truck more, a little more expensive than you normally can afford because it'll light a fire under your butt and make you jump into gears that you haven't used before. And it'll you make so much more money. You'll be living a fuller life. You'll be busier, but you'll be structured and. I, that's how I kind of felt when I, I had to, all right, now I've got, you know, three or four or $5,000 a month in bills. It's like, oh crap. All right. Now I actually have to get off my butt and I got to go do something full time. Um, but when you start, once you get two years into the industry, you start getting crazy referrals. And I'm sure you experienced this too, but like I get referrals like two and three, sometimes five and seven a week. And it's like, and it might be repairs here and there or gutters or whatever, but a lot of it's for roof replacements. And it might be retail, it might be insurance, but dude, if you can make it two years in the roofing space, you're going to be just fine. But it truly is. It's not for everybody, but it will change your life. But at the same time, when I say it changes your life, you also have to put in the work and the scare of, I don't know if I'm going to make it this month on my bills, but at the same time, once you start getting through all that, you let off the gas and you get scared again. But don't ever let off, just keep your foot on the gas,

be fine. So I heard, I heard something that you said, you said, uh, that they tell you to go buy a big truck or whatever, a truck that's out of your thing. Is that why all those roofers drive big ass trucks?

Cause sometimes yes, but at the same time, no, because like, I'm sure you experienced this in a different way, but, um,

I feel like some of them just get the money and then they're just like, oh, shit, let's go blow it.

Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are those that aren't great with money. But at the same time, when November and December roll around, you get scared of that tax bill for the next year. And Uncle Sam likes to take his cut. So those I mean, really, the only thing you can write off when you're a roofer and you're 1099 is you're Is the truck, your mileage, maybe some equipment and apparel if you're buying that, but there's not a whole lot of deductions. So like, dude, right now, almost every single year I'm buying another truck.

That makes sense why my buddy's always buying another truck or whatever every year or every other year or something like that.

It's crazy. Or when you start making big money and you get comfortable and you're like, all right, I like my truck, I'm going to keep this, they start buying rentals. So short-term, long-term rentals, that's what I'll be starting to do next year. So next year, I plan on buying the truck I want to keep for a while. And then maybe, probably the year after that, I'll start jumping into some rentals and stuff. It's just like you got to have something to depreciate on your income. Otherwise, you're paying, you know, 25, 30, 40 percent on taxes. And you're like, no. Completely see that it's miserable. Like I got my CPA texted me this or emailed me, uh, this was two weeks ago. It was like, Hey, just want to let you know, we file an extension. I was like, yeah, it's cool. Whatever. And he was like, also, you're going to know about $19,000 in taxes this year. I said, did you not see the truck I purchased? And he was like, no. I was like, yeah, that's what I thought. Send him over the info. And he was like, all right. We're fine. Don't worry about it. I was like, that's what I thought.

I ain't paying no 19 grand in taxes. We actually went over to W2. I actually seen a return. Yeah. I'm like, oh shit. $2,300 return. All right. I'll take that.

Wow.

I ain't seen a return in fucking, I don't think ever.

Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I think my last return was probably seven years ago.

Cause I've always been 1099. I've always just ran the company 1099 and been by myself. But now that I've got employees and stuff, it's like, that's awesome. That was the smartest thing to do and to retain them and stuff like that. So yeah, I don't see any different really in my taxes being paid every single paycheck. So I don't have to worry about it now the year on that part. So I guess that's kind of how, getting money back somehow is because we're paying it on time every single time.

Yeah, but have you thought about the fact that, you know, now that you're W-2 and now you got a new tax. You shouldn't still do write-offs?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you still got write-offs and stuff. I just bought that brand new 2024. Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. All that you can still write off. Yeah, really anything different. I mean, even my shop out there, my office, everything because I run everything out of my farm.

Ah, yeah. That makes more sense.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't have, I don't have, um, I don't have a shop that I pay rent to, but yeah. Comes out of the company that pays towards that space of this, um, house or whatever. Yeah. That's smart. Yeah. So, and then, uh, I'm pretty much every vehicle are all, they're all been written off. Um, and sometimes you got what now for. I've got a Toyota Tacoma, I've got the new F-250, I've got two 450s. That's cool. You're still trying to sell that red truck? Man, nobody will buy that damn thing. I don't know what the fuck. I figured somebody would be like, hey man, $6,800 or $6,500. I'd be like, fuck yeah, take it. I mean, something. But dude, ain't nobody gonna get it. Is it gas? Yeah. OK. It's the last year that they made the cat eye on the front. That's one thing that stands out to everybody. Yeah. And then it's a 5.3 Vortec. And I mean, that thing runs great. The only reason I want to get rid of it is because it cost me the most on my fucking insurance for one. Really? Yeah. It's crazy as hell. You think that the F-450s would cost more? No, that Silverado cost me the most. Jeez. Freaking Chevrolet. Yeah, I have no clue what the fuck is special about it that fucking does that. But I'm like... It's probably the Vortex. I think that might be. It's fine. Anyways, so when you find yourself under pressure, what how do you deal with stuff like that?

Oh, that's a good one. When I am under pressure, I like to walk outside, sit on my deck, take a couple deep breaths. If I'm in my truck, I'll roll the windows down, you know, some fresh air really does it. And when I get fired up, when a client decides to, you know, screw me over or I get in some kind of argument or something, I try to take about five to seven seconds before I respond. And if it's something that I can respond to, like if it happens in the evening and it's something I can respond to next day, I try to. I pride myself on a fast response time, but if you're gonna piss me off and I need to settle down and not, blow up or ruin something, you just take a second. It's a lot of people are like, Hey, I'm demanding an answer right now. But the grand scheme of things, if it's not going to matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes on it. So like at the same time, like I just try to slow down and, and not create more chaos for myself. Right? So the end of the day, like it, it all comes down to how you respond to it. And if you're going to let something just blow up, I know quite a few people that got a short temper, right? But at the same time they take, they're like, okay, I will take five seconds. I will take seven seconds before I respond. And it changes everything because it could be the means between, you know, a massive loss of contract. And like dissolve customer base or hey, you really responded well to that. Now I'm giving you 50 rental homes that I have like it. It's wild what 5 to 7 seconds can do.

Oh, it definitely is. I've learned my lesson on responding super fast to things or whatever, especially with me being dyslexic and not having reading comprehension, fucking reading the fuck out of whatever they're saying. And then I'm like, oh fuck, I answered that wrong. Just blew that shit. But if I take that time to actually understand, then I'm like, Oh, now I understand what they were saying. I don't respond with a smart ass comment. I need to actually just take my time and then. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's helped tremendously in so many different ways.

Yeah. I can't tell you how many times, like you said, you're dyslexic. So am I. And dude, if I, if I just lose my mind and like, I, it ruins my night and it gets out on my family and I don't really need that. I don't really want that. So it's like, you know, why, why ruin somebody's night when you can just take five to seven seconds.

Right. It is. It's true. Um, how do you manage your mindset? Ooh.

Um, yeah, well, it's kind of crazy to say that because when you're in the roofing space, you, you have to fill your day. You've got to schedule everything. You make your own schedule. You do your own work. Um, yeah, we might ride around in teams once in a while, but at the end of the day, like it's on you to go and generate work. and it's on you to make a paycheck. And if you don't care, if you don't really know what you're doing or have the ability to mentally compartmentalize your day and what's going on, then it really messes with you. So like even my family time, everything gets scheduled out. If you, if I don't schedule over my day out, my day will go away so fast and I'll get nothing done. So it's, you have to be on top of that, especially being essentially your own boss, but like somebody that makes your own schedule. Right.

I definitely wouldn't have been here. been here right now if I didn't have the schedule today starting off and then looking at it and being like, damn, I need to keep up.

I hear that. I hear that. I was on the same boat.

I kept saying that to myself the whole day and then I got to that last job and I kept looking at the clock and I was like, fuck, I got like 30 minutes to get finished with this, this and this. And I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to do this. And then I saw the text that you came in with the thumbs up and I was like, fuck, I need to respond. I'm going to be a little late. It's all good. Yeah. What's been the best part?

Oh, so if you I mean, I know that we're friends on Facebook and I know that a lot of people see what's going on in my life, but I got a two and a half year old daughter and I've been going through a quite the legal case for that. have spent like tens of thousands of dollars. And if it wasn't to the roofing industry for one, allowing me to make more money so that I can pay for all that, because there's been some months that I was like, all right, I got rent due, I got my truck payment, I got plenty of other bills. Then I've got a mortgage payment and legal fees. That happened almost every month for a solid two years. We're still in the tail end of closing up a bunch of that stuff. But if it wasn't for the roofing industry, I wouldn't have been able to fight for the right to be my daughter's legal dad. I'm her biological dad, but if I wasn't, able to keep up and make my own schedule because there's been plenty of times when her mom's like, Hey, we're changing. We're changing your visitation schedule. So you need to come and get her right now if you want to see her. I'm like, Oh my gosh, okay, so I drop everything reschedule stuff. And because of that flexibility, I'm able to go and still have that time with my daughter.

Right.

And that has been something that's like, and she's my world. She's Amazing. And if I didn't have the flexibility in my job to make more money and the flexibility in my time, I would have been lost. I would have not been able to do that. So I'd say the best thing is giving me my time back, but also giving me the resources to pursue the things that are important to me in my personal life.

That's what's up. I'd like to hear that.

That was for sure.

What are you excited most about for the rest of 2025?

Well, I'm getting married at the end of this month. So pretty stoked about that. And we're trying to figure out, we live in a 300 square, I live in a 300 square foot tiny house right now. So we're trying to figure out what it looks like to buy our first house and pay off some debt and wrap up this freaking legal case with my daughter. So there's some heavy hitters on that list, but business wise, I'm looking forward to probably my first year hitting a million dollars in sales. I've been really close several years, but I also like, made enough money where I was comfortable. And now I'm getting to the point where like, all right, I'm not just I want to hit some goals, so I'm doing it for the goal set goals. I'm not just doing it because I need the money because like I I made good money the last couple of years. I didn't need to hit $1,000,000, but it's something that I challenge myself to do this year. I'm I'm pretty on track to do so. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

I definitely think you could do it. I mean, there's guys for sure doing three and stuff like that. I mean shit. There are animals. They're just crazy. Some of these numbers that get thrown up real quick right off the bat and then oh my gosh, number towards the end and stuff. It's like damn, it's like they just race. They sure do very competitive industry.

Oh yeah, you gotta be. Otherwise you don't stay motivated to get up out of bed every day.

Not so that's what's I guess what matters about having a good team. Oh, absolutely. How can everybody find you and stuff like that on social medias and stuff?

I mean, you can look up Isaac Stern on my Facebook page, or you can look up on Instagram roof with Isaac. So I have a personal business page on Instagram that I post a bunch of funny roofing reels and stuff that is really just fun for me, but also updates on our projects and stuff. And then our company, Facebook and Instagram is currently resurrected roofing on Facebook and Instagram. is going to be switched to American Elite Roofing here shortly, but whenever you type in Resurrected Roofing, it will come up American Elite, or it'll eventually, when you type in our new website or whatever, it'll all pop up. So either Resurrected Roofing or American Elite, this logo is gonna be floating around a lot more. But yeah, dude.

Nice. Well, we're just going to end that right here. And I appreciate you coming on here and explaining a lot about the roofing side. We haven't had anybody, I don't think, we might've had like one roofer or something like that. But it's good to have everybody on because I mean, all these industries, it doesn't matter what it is. It all kind of goes hand in hand with that mindset and the pressure type deal. Like what I like to tell everybody is, when I got into goats, I got into goats at first and I thought that I could go coffee somebody, but all the goats started dying. But what you can do is you can go take pieces from everybody and then put that into your system and keep on making your system stronger and stronger. That's cool. Yeah. That's for sure. So you can take pieces from everybody's system and what it is and add that into your, into what you've got going on. So that's really cool. Well, uh, thank you for coming on here and uh, that right here. Peace.

I appreciate it.

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