Estimating and executing

By Emma Peterson. 

This training from expert John Kenney helps roofers not only estimate accurately, but work in the field more efficiently. 

One of the biggest challenges in the construction industry is managing labor and materials accurately and efficiently. This is a challenge that starts even before you step foot on the jobsite, back when you are in the office estimating a project. Luckily, seasoned industry educator, trainer and Cotney Consulting Group CEO John Kenney has designed training to help roofers with that process, available in both Spanish and English. In this episode of Roofing Road Trips®, he stopped by The Coffee Shops™ to chat about the classes he offers. 

Estimating is challenging for some contractors because they think solely in prices and materials. What John teaches is to go beyond that, as he puts it, "The biggest misunderstanding I see is just taking prices, putting them together and you're done. What I teach is ground up, you have to understand and be able to walk right through the entire roofing process from start to finish.” Being able to see all parts of the process, from the materials and their prices to the labor requirements at every phase of the process, is how you get an accurate estimate. 

And that accurate estimate is not the only thing that John helps people create. His training also helps estimators learn how to transfer their estimates into a format that is usable in the field. He explained, “A lot of times roofing companies and estimators create their scope of work for a sales proposal. Then, without changing anything, that goes to the field. And I'm going to tell you from my experience and anybody that's been in the field, that's 100% useless. Because what we need in the field when you're running a crew is understanding how much time I have to do something, what materials, where they're actually at, which will not be in a sales proposal.” 

To hear more from John about the training and estimating process, Read the transcript of our conversation with him or Listen to the whole Roofing Road Trips episode!