Stories From the Roof: Sean Levine - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Sean Levine, CEO and founder of Royal Renovators Inc.. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Megan Ellsworth: Welcome to Stories From The Roof, the podcast that brings you tales from the most unexpected vantage point, rooftops. I'm your host, Megan Ellsworth, on this show, we'll ascend to the top and explore the world through the eyes of those who live and work above. Join us on this unique journey as we uncover the stories, perspectives, histories of roofing contractors. Let's begin our ascent onto the roof. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Stories From The Roof, my favorite podcast that we produce here at rooferscoffeeshop.com. I'm your host, Megan Ellsworth, today I'm here with my new friend, Sean Levine from Royal Renovators Inc. In New York City. Hi. So glad to have you on. 

Sean Levine: I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having us. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. Absolutely. So Sean, can you go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company? 

Sean Levine: Absolutely, Megan. My name is Sean Levine. I am the president, CEO, founder of Royal Renovators Inc. We are a New York City based roofing company and specializing in all exterior renovations. And yeah, that's just a little taste of who I am. 

Megan Ellsworth: Perfect. Perfect. So Sean, tell me, let's get into it. How did you get into roofing? 

Sean Levine: Okay. Well, it's been multi-generational. Awesome. On my mother's side ... Yes. On my mother's side, my grandfather was a contractor. My mother to this day still has a general company that does all kinds of home-related things from employment agency to, cleaning and co- construction's a component. So for over 30 years, I've been involved in it from when I was a child, just being involved and helping out. And then, so yeah, over 30 years experience as far as the most recent iteration where I hunkered into roofing specifically, it would be about 15 years. And it's actually a, a really interesting story, but when I had graduated law school - Oh, wow. ... That transition, I had graduated law school into the 08 recession. Now- 

Megan Ellsworth: Ah. 

Sean Levine: ... You might remember that. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yes. 

Sean Levine: Housing stock was worth 50% less. It was a true recession. It was not the recession that we keep thinking we're in where things go down five, 10%. Yep, things were really bad and unemployment was bad. At the time, they weren't hiring lawyers. Law firms were just trying to retain their existing associates and not fire the existing lawyers. They certainly didn't want a kid right out of law school, no experience. Right, that gave me time to really dig in to find, what is my passion? Is my passion truly law? And actually it was, but I discovered that my passion was even more so to be an entrepreneur, an entrepreneurship. And from there, while studying for the bar exam after I graduated, I had an opportunity to work in roofing and exterior renovation sales. Okay, because my best friend at the time was doing that. 

And I figured, you know, you have a few six months post- post graduating law school to study for the bar, I said, "Why don't I make some extra money?" You know, my parents had cut me off as they should have. By that point- Yeah. ... I had no business still having their credit card. Yeah. And so I said, "Let me make some side money." You know, being a lawyer, being persuasive, it can go hand in hand with sales, you can educate a person about a product or a service and then they can go with you. I figured the skills might translate and to this day I would say sales is one of my core competencies and so I actually did really well. I was as an office of over just under actually 100 salespeople and- Wow. ... I was in the top five and after just about a quarterfew months at the office, I realized, you know, what,  it would take for me to open my own company. 

Yeah. And I ended up speaking to someone who, who their father had a roofing business and they were, his, they were, it was his son and he, was helping father and I sat down and I said, "What does it cost? I want the best materials. I want the GAF Blue Deck Armor." Yeah. I want exag- they said, "Wow, you want the, the Rolls-Royce of roofing?" I was like, "Yeah. Nope, right yeah. Just give it to me like the most expensive thing possible." And I did the numbers on it and I was like, "Wow, the company I'm working for is, is charging so much more than that. There's such a spread between whatever small percent I was getting in commission to if I'd owned the company." Yeah. And that's when the entrepreneur in me kicked in and I said, "Wait a second, this could be really exciting." Now, Megan, I'll tell you that I was naive into thinking how easy it is to operate a business and how easy it is to go from a white collar field to roofing. 

When I really did not know if the roof was on the side of the building or if the siding was on the top of the building, I did not even- Oh my God. ... What sheet rock was before I started this job. Literally. Super wide collar, suits every day,, from there that naivete plus that desire to, to grow and prove myself, because keep in mind, I had, had a bachelor's degree, top of my class, master's degree, top of my class, law school, top 5%. And at this point, I was a failure. I had, you know, not become a, a, a practicing attorney. I couldn't get a job, The economy was a mess. I had some student debt a little bit and I was like, you know, in a brand new industry, everyone's telling me that you're making the wrong decision, just keep trying in law. 

But my heart told me you're young, you can pivot, you can make mistakes, you can take risks, this is more what you wanna do. I didn't wanna be in a, a office with no window, which was one of my jobs- Right. ... During law school. I had an associate position that summer, no windows at an office all day long. Ah. I didn't want, I wanted to be out in the field. I wanted to be out and about. I wanted to be speaking to customers and helping people in a big way. And so that just fueled me to basically leave that company and start my own. And the very first company I started in roofing failed. It went out of business.  

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, no . 

Sean Levine: It went right out of business, which is, to my understanding, very normal. Yeah, a lot of successful owners need to fail the first time. Right, you know, I had learned about cashflow management, you know, you could make 5,000, 10,000, $25,000 a week and have it overhead of, you know, whatever it is, half of that. Week two, you do the same and you're making all this money. Week three, it just, it rains, you can't work and then you don't make anything and then two weeks passes. Next thing you know, unless you can borrow the money or something like that, you have to close the operations. There's no, for, if anything goes wrong for a month, you don't have the cash flow, you have to close. Yeah. So a lot of important lessons like that were learned, I made my mistakes, I got a couple bad reviews that I said this time around, I, I'm gonna take that feedback constructively and make sure that we really hit the ground running. 

Yeah. And, since I started Royal Renovators, about 15, just about 15 years ago, the company took off. Wow. It, it just ... So that's how I started into roofing. It was really about, discovering my passions and, taking action on that. 

Megan Ellsworth: I love it. I love that. And I also love, you know, I talk to a lot of people that are a part of family businesses or have the family element like you do, you know, I love that part of roofing and of construction, how, you know, your grandfather was in it, your mom's in it. It's just, I love how it passes down generation to generation. It's really cool. 

Sean Levine: Yes, absolutely. 

Megan Ellsworth: So kind of going off of that, who would you say taught you the most about roofing?  

Sean Levine: I would have to say admittedly it would be a combination of YouTube and just general self-taught,, it would be honestly the head of, head, head installers, - Yeah. ... The head workers, the ones that had, at the time, decades of experience actually nailing in the shingles and rolling the roof membranes and me just sitting there with a paper and pen and just writing everything down and just absorbing as fast as I can. So I was self-taught. Yeah. I was self-taught about roofing. There was not a single person who sat me down who said, "Hey, let me take you under my wing. Let me show you this thing we call roofing." It was me jumping in and just trying to figure it out, in my early 20s. So yeah, so that was so self, so self-taught, That said, I was very, fortunate to have some incredible roofing masters. 

Some of the heads of the crews that I was able to, find, I'll give an industry streak, we called some supply houses and asked for their best, you know, c- customers that bought roofing materials. Who, who do you think, you know, Mr. Supply House does the best work that we could speak to and just compiling workers like that,, just I had, I was fortunate that to, to this day some of those people that were here day one are still at the company on the installation side- Wow. ... And they, it's insane. You see, like, kids that are born, then next thing you know, they're, they're grown, yes. But, yeah, they, to this day, they taught me a lot and I'm still learning, but, yeah, I was fortunate some real master roofers, true master roofs. I would put one-to-one against some of the best roofers in the, in the whole country, the whole world maybe, that they are just absolute experts masters and I was very fortunate really early on to get connected to them and, I took advantage of that opportunity to absolutely hundreds of thousands of questions for years on every square inch of the roof. 

What do you do in this? And New York City, by the way, the houses are not standardized. I wish. Right. One's on top of the next, they're built crazy. Yeah. You have 15 regulating agencies. No one knows what they're doing. You've got the roof stock over 100 years old. Yeah. The average brownstone flat roof in New York City is over a hundred year old pre-World War I, you know. Wow. At this point, 125 plus many of these from the early 1900s or before, you have just an absolute mess. And so sometimes being a master roofer, it's not like shingles where you have a nailing strip- Yeah. ... Or siding, you have a nailing line. You, with flat roofing especially, which is our niche, you really have no black and white right answer. Yeah. You have to make the best of compromises and it's gotta last 20 years, for example, on a flat roof, that's how, that's the warranty. 

Shingles, it's 50 sometimes, even two lifetimes GAF will give you. That's how much easier it is to make sure it's watertight. Right. So, yeah, it, it's very complicated, but, I will say that the questions therefore never end because every situation is different, every roof is different and that's part of the, makes the job exciting. Yeah. And that's what one of the biggest challenges and what makes it so difficult, but yet so exciting to be in roofing specifically in New York City. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. It's so cool. I've only ever talked to one other roofer that does work in, you know, Manhattan in the city or the, one of the boroughs. And so I learned so much because you don't think of it like I didn't even realize like just how many flat roofs and all the different, you know, how old they all are. So you said that's like your specialty. Just curious, can you tell us a little bit about what roofing in New York is like? 

Sean Levine: Absolutely. I'll start by saying that we also are licensed in Nassau and Suffolk County, AKA Long Island, we do work out there as well and it's just not, not as challenging and we don't, we focus on New York City and it's funny because the Long Island roofers won't step into New York City. They won't step one foot into Queens County. Maybe the border they'll do a roof. Yeah. But at the end of the day, the challenges, the complicated roofs, the neighbors complaining, the houses one on top of the other- Yeah. ... It's a nightmare. They won't even enter New York City. Long Island roofers are excellent, excellent roofers, they won't, it's a different animal altogether. Yeah. It's like a freshwater fish won't trying to go into a saltwater situation. Yeah. They can't handle it. So for that reason, we can handle suburban roofing. We do it. 

We have an office in, in Nassau County and Valley's dream, we handle that, but at the end of the day, we like the, the hardest thing you can get, which is flat roofing- Yeah. ... In New York City- Yeah. ... Especially those, you know, those, like you said, those old brownstones that you get either in Manhattan or in the developing parts surrounding Manhattan from Long Island City Queens to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which are now more expensive sometimes than Manhattan itself. Right. Those have the same old walk up townhouses, brownstones that are worth a fortune, no backyard connected on both sides, you know, if you wouldn't think, how could this property be worth more than a 10 bedroom mansion with a pool in Long Island, but that's it. And so for that reason, their stakes are high. The stakes are high. The homeowners expect the best and, we found there's a real gap. 

Unfortunately, I, I found that really early. That was a big motivator also, Megan, was just seeing the difference, the distance between what roofing should be, the standards, where it was when I entered the industry, that was a big motivator. I was like, wait a second, like, we, people, we gotta do better here. It's a lot that's just patches and low quality stuff. I'm not seeing any premier company here, there's a demand, but there's also a need unrelated to the money or the business. There's a need here to, to help. So, just to, to go back to the question, roofing in New York City, yes, very fun, very challenging, but, I'd love at some point to, to get into just that need and just the gap I discovered early on, - Yeah. ... With that. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's interesting. So what, I guess kind of going off of that, what's one of the most valuable lessons you've learned throughout your roofing career? 

Sean Levine: I would say that there's only two ways of doing things when it comes to roofing the right way and the wrong way. Mm-Hmm. And I know admittedly that that's very black and white. That sort of thinking does apply though when, if a project is done 99% well, it will still leak because it's 1% off, the roof will leak. So that sort of black and white thing I would have recommended in relationships, you'll end up becoming fighting with everybody. I would have recommended in, in anything you pursue because you become a perfectionist, you'll lose your mind. But you don't have that choice. So with, so the number one valuable lesson I learned was that you have to do things the right way now. The right way is not always the easy way. It's not always the cheap way. Sometimes it requires enormous amounts of money, enormous amounts of sacrifice and things like that. 

Therefore, by default, most customers don't want to just, for example, replace the whole roof. It's expensive. Right. It's complicated, you know, it's, it's risky. If the company doesn't do a good job, you have to do the whole thing again twice, so the most valuable lesson I learned was to lean into the fact that you have to do things the right way and you can't cut corners and sometimes that means the right thing to do by a customer is not to give them what, just what they want. If they say, "Hey, just, I'd like a tar job. I'd like a simple repair. I'd like a layover." , Ms. Jones, you know, by law you have two roofs. After that, it can dangerously add weight to the rafter beams of the house. Right. And therefore, therefore I can't even do that for you. It requires sometimes sitting with hours. 

When you have four or five estimates to run as an estimator out of the co- at the company, you have to stop and potentially reschedule or, or come home late because you have to sit with Mrs. Jones and it's teach her roofing. So her- Yeah. Almost always their first time. I'm sure other roofers on this podcast have her, know this very well. It's almost always their first time getting a roof. Yeah. And they don't know anything. Your job is not to sell them, it's also to educate them on what is the process so they can make their best decision for themself. And so one of the most valuable lessons, you gotta sit down with Mrs. Jones and tell her, "No, you can't just do it that way. You can't just go with the other layover, maybe option that another estimator gave you because it's against the law or it can cause, for example, torch down roofing is illegal in New York City if the deck is wood, which it always is on residential. 

No one has concrete metal decks. That one is a wood- Right. ... Wood deck. For that reason, torch down can cause the house to catch on fire. The FDNY banded in the 90s yet I, I don't wanna skip percentages and just come off the cuff. I would say a, a, a very big percent of, of the competition to this day is still doing torch down roofing and then silver painting the flat roof with two, three workers, one, two, three calling a day they're gone and just doing a layover like that as opposed to we bring about 20 people, 20 workers to a job site, mix of mechanics, senior mechanics, helpers, we replace the roof and we do it in one day, by the way, almost always. Wow. We'll stay late, we'll stay over hours, we rent cranes to bring material up, whatever we need to do, it's one of the things we're proud of and we're known for and we have time lapses across the web because people can't believe that we do it in one day. 

But in order, but yeah, it's basically one of the most valuable lesson I learned is you have to really ... It's not just knowing how to do a roof right, it's also being able to explain things to someone to get them to do it the right way. Yeah. And it is very difficult, to do, but it is, it is what helps you sleep at night, what makes you look back and have a legacy be proud of doing the right things the right way. So just to go back to the answer, there's, again, two ways to do things the right way and the wrong way and, I'm a big extremist on that lesson that roofing has taught me. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, I know. I mean, I totally understand. So we talked about, you know, the beginning of your career, how you got started. I'd love to ask if you could go back to that time, to the beginning of your career, would you do anything differently? And if so, what would you do? 

Sean Levine: That's a great question. If you can go back in time, would you do anything differently? , You know, you would think that this would be an opportunity to fantasize about, wow, you know, if I did this different or that, it could have been bigger or better. I'll tell you, we've fast forwarded to about a hundred people where if you're counting, for example, some subcontractors that work exclusively for our company and their workers for years just only been working for us and only doing our jobs, over 100 people we've fast forwarded really fast and opened up several offices in New York City and now we're opening up this year in Chicago. We already, we signed a lease. We're moving in. Oh. So we're already expanding states. We're going to the next cold weather, old building stock, brownstone rich, flat roofing city, I'll say, I don't think we could have did this any faster. 

Yeah. I don't think we could have done any better, I would say the only massive answer I would tell myself was take the money you saved and buy Tesla or Bitcoin, but do the exact same thing with everything else you're doing with respect to me. That would be my answer if I could go back in time. Totally. Just keep doing it, Sean. There's gonna be times you think you're gonna not be able to overcome it or you're gonna think you're gonna go out of business. It's gonna be fine. Just keep going and that's all I could say. 

Megan Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. So what would you say is the best thing you've ever done for your business then? 

Sean Levine: Okay. So when you're ... I'll, I'll start by saying sticking to high standards and I'll, that's the answer and then just to explain that in, in more depth is that when you're in law, you know, you're taught that if the date is wrong or you misspell one thing, someone can go to jail. They could lose their freedom or they could lose their money or whatever the consequence that you can imagine is on the line. And so as an attorney, you've got to make sure every T is crossed, every I is dotted. And I came with that attention to detail into roofing. Now, roofing is a messy thing. It's a messy field, it, there's no perfection here. So it's very hard to get, you know, that level of attention, that level of standards , into this industry. But what I would say is the most valuable thing I ever did is holding onto those standards, quite frankly, is that as like when you take these personality tests, introvert versus extrovert and it's like you're 60%, 40% that, or when it comes to conscientiousness, which is one of the five, the big five personality traits, I score between 94 and 99%. 

It's borderline perfectionism. Now, I've learned to manage it in life and with respect to roofing, but one of the things I'm proud of is that I've been able to keep that moderated and tolerated and then watered down and as necessary, you know, calm down when needed. But to keep those standards high with respect to who we hire, with respect to the materials we, we use, with respect to our processes, with respect to pretty much everything and not compromising on those standards is the best thing I've ever done in my career is that I've just had so much pushback and, so many times it was like, "Hey, let's just get this or this person's good enough to hire or why don't we just do things this way or no one's gonna know X, Y, Z if you do that. " And I just never was able to and I'm proud to look back and say I'm still in business because most of the time you can't have those kind of standards. 

You go out of business. You know, you ha- in business, I would say good enough, sometimes 70% is good. Move on, keep scaling. I've held it really hard and really tough and so with respect to everything from customer service and the, the five star reviews on all the platforms that have been sued from, from doing this kind of work from every time we get anything less than five stars, reading the feedback, taking it constructively, not getting offended, not taking it negative. "Oh, We finished the job, but they didn't call me to tell me they finished. They just went home. "But We just did a perfect job, Ms. Jones or Mr. Jones. "What do you mean we did the best roof?" No, you gotta see what Mrs. Jones says, take into consideration. Now we need a new protocol, a new customer management, you know, protocol. 

You gotta let Ms. Jones know that you finish the job, just give her a call, have the project manager go to the house, knock on the door. Yep. And that's it. So anytime you get feedback, you gotta incorporate it. And so yes. So, so extremely high standards, being, being able and being fortunate enough to still be able to be in business and keep those standards and that's the most valuable thing I would say I've ever done for the company is instill those standards. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. I love that. And I, I love seeing someone a business owner like you with such passion for what they do and the work you provide and the high standards that you try to live up to. So in one word, how would you describe the most important trait for an, an employee or a coworker? I'll also take a small sentence.  

Sean Levine: Sure, absolutely. Well, you could I would say intelligence and then I, because I kind of expect ethical and honest, - Yeah, I expect that, but I would say intelligence, because if you have someone smart, you could build, you could build. If they're ... And, then of course second best, I'll cheat. Second best is a good work ethic because, you know, it's nature versus nurture. They can add the nurture component to the nature of the intelligence, but if they really are smart and again, hardworking, you can shape them and they'll really be able to make more than they ever expected, improve the lives of themselves and their family and really help the community and the process, So intelligence for sure. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. That's great. I couldn't agree more. I think it's, you know, it's hard to start with not having that there, you know? You can't always give that to someone . So what is something that you learned from the best boss you've ever had and who are they? 

Sean Levine: I would say honestly, my uncle, When I was, - Ah. Yeah, when I was young, possibly child s- s- child labor, child, I forgot what the word is. When I was young, about six consecutive summers just about before 10 years old and continuing to my early teens, I worked in South Carolina in the beachware industry from early morning to late at night because my uncle owned the store, so he was there at 70 AM when they opened and1 AM when they closed- Wow. ... And I was there also just trying to rack up whatever it was, five to 10 dollars an hour depending on the year as many hours as I could. That's where I learned the work ethic. You know, that was my best boss was my uncle. He was strict, he gave me a good work ethic. He taught me a litle bit about sales. 

He said to me- 

Megan Ellsworth: Nice. 

Sean Levine: ... His name was Rocky, like the, the fighter, Rocky Balbo. He said Rocky, he said he's like, "You, no one leaves my store. No one leaves the store unless they buy at least a key chain." And so I was a little kid running up to people, "Ms. Jones, one second before you, you know, before, man, before you leave the store, can I show you some t-shirts, buy one, get one for things, two for 10, whatever it was, you know, I learned to overcome the, the some those fears when it comes to sales and human interactions. So best boss, Uncle Rocky, if you're listening, you're the band."  

Megan Ellsworth: Aw, I love it. Uncle Rocky, shout out.  

Sean Levine: Yeah, he still owes me some overtime, but that's neither here nor there.  

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, we'll, we'll talk about that.  

Sean Levine: Invested for inflation and pre-invested into Bitcoin of 2009. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah. So Sean, I love this next question. It's my favorite question because everyone just has the most wholesome answers, but my question is, what makes you smile when you think about your job? 

Sean Levine: That's a great question, Megan. What makes me smile? , I would have to say at this stage in the game, it's doing right by customers doing a good job being, knowing that not a single warranty was ever not visited, that when you finish a project, they really have peace of mind for the next 20 to 50 years depending on the project itself. Yeah. You know, you're doing good by the community. And then number two is the fact that we've been able to get to the stage of philanthropy, Before I get into that, I'll just say that early on within the first few years I felt that need to give back because I, you know, I was like, I don't need the money. I don't need this money. You know, it's like too much, it's more than I need. I have enough for my rent, I have enough for this, I have enough for that. 

I'm not looking to retire in my 20s. Early on, the need to give back hit me hard. It hit me hard. I was like, "I, I've got to give back. This is insane." , it was a crazy need you can't explain and we started by giving a small percentage of each project back to the charity the customer would choose 10 links, breast cancer, childhood, St. Jude research, so we give a percent of every project and then we started doing giveaways. The last few Christmases, we gave 50,000 pounds of food and then toys separately to Kensington, family shelter in Brooklyn, a local community center for homeless, basically homeless families, mothers and single kids mainly. And so being at the stage of not just helping people, you know, it's a win-win, the customer wins, we win, but then we have a little extra, we give some of that back. 

And so stage two thing that puts a smile on my face is giving back to my community, which is Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Br- all of New York City and hopefully in the fut- near future continuing to be beyond throughout the US. Yeah. And so, yeah, it would be that philanthropy, In fact, yesterday, News 12 Brooklyn came to one of our job sites and they did a video of the roof we did and then we had actually just in that neighborhood did a free roof for a few weeks before for Ms. Kimberly Jones, Her husband had just passed and she's a single mother with two kids and my project, one of my estimator project managers during the estimate stage was just very touched and he just gave the roof for free, which is about a value of about $10,000, our cost. 

So we, you can, you guys, if anyone's listening, you can go on News 12 Brooklyn and still should be on the front page or of, of the website. We have it on our Instagram and social media, Stephanie, her name for working for News 12, I was actually left our job site and went to this woman's house because it was nearby and interviewed her and she was saying, "Hey, I was praying and praying and Royal renovators, answered my question. They gave me a free roof. Her son was in the video. He's like, Mom, you couldn't, you almost told them no because you couldn't believe it. I was telling you, you've been praying for this. You gotta just accept your blessings. It was really funny to have the kid and then the video. But so, so I would say at this stage in the game, the biggest smile doing right on the work end and then when the job is completed, giving back to the community and that's one of the things that, we're really excited about, proud of and looking forward to continuing to, you know, give back to the local New York City community with respect to philanthropy and charity. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. That is so, so sweet and so cool that you're able to, with every job give back to a charity of the customer's choosing, that's a really cool touch as well. 

Sean Levine: Thank you. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's really neat. Okay. So Sean. Mm-Hmm. Do you have any tips for new people starting out in roofing? 

Sean Levine: Yes. I would see new, tips for someone starting out in roofing. I'll say that it's, it's not impossible. It's gona feel like that in the beginning because it's one of the most technical aspects of construction. Right, it's very technical. It's not about aesthetics. It's not a kitchen or a bathroom where, you know, the c- the person's opinion or what they're consider beautiful is beautiful. It's not subjective. It's gotta be withstanding roof and hurricanes and everything. So it's gonna seem very complicated, difficult, you can do it, you can learn it. I did. For example, Royal Renovators Inc. Became Master Elite just two years after I incorporated the company. And I didn't know anything about roofing, literally did not know anything about roofing. As I said earlier in the podcast, I didn't know if the roof was on the side of the house or if the siding was on the roof of the house. 

I didn't know anything. I taught myself it. I think we're the fastest company to ever become master elite, certainly in New York City, that, you have to sign up, you know, you don't know how many warranties and have them inspected sometimes by the manufacturer themselves. You gotta be at a very high standard, because less than 2% of contractors in the US are even eligible to become Master Elite, let alone actually then do become Master Elite. Wow. So if I could do it. I'd say it's, it's doable. If our company, Royal Rental, could do it in two years become masterly, it's doable. You could learn the industry from scratch, literally, not just basic roofing, complicated flat roofing for New York City and all that. But I also say that you're, you're, congratulations to you because you're about to enter a very rewarding field. 

It's one where robotics and AI is only gona help you and make your life better. Yep. And, you're gonna be making people's lives better. I would say it's, you know, keep doing what you're doing, congratulations. If you're starting out in roofing, absorb as much as you can as fast as you You can. I think you're in one of the best, but not sexy on the DL secretly, one of the best industries you could possibly be in. If you know you know. If you know you.

Megan Ellsworth: If you know, you know. 

Sean Levine: Absolutely. If you know you know. And hopefully not so many non-roofers are listening. I have enough competition in New York City. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Well, Sean, I love that sentiment. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, I ... Where can people learn more about, you know, Royal Renovators in your company? 

Sean Levine: Absolutely. Well, our website is nycrenovators.com and you can also Google us. We have an active social media account on Instagram, Facebook, where we post all kinds of new information, exciting giveaways, new charity events that are upcoming or had just passed. Okay. And just new information on the cutting edge of roofing, So if anyone's just interested in finding out more, take a look at our website, nycrenovators.com or just Google us, Royal Renovators Inc. 

Megan Ellsworth: Perfect. Perfect. I loved hearing your story and I love hearing about roofing in Manhattan. How interesting, Thank you so much for chatting with me today. 

Sean Levine: Absolutely, Megan. Thank you so much for having me. 

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Everyone, please go check out Royal Renovators Inc. On their website and, you'll be hearing more about them on rooferscoffeeshop.com. So thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you on the next Stories From the Roof. If you've enjoyed these unique rooftop stories, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode. Go to rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for soaring with us on stories from the roof. We'll catch you on the next one.