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Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 545 - A1 Roofing Co-Owner and Chief Culture Officer Vincent Malizia - How To Build a Company You’ll Never Want to Leave
00:49:09
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- [00:00]
Vincent Melizzia
And typically those people have checked out. Most of the people that don't want to learn and grow anymore will check out at some point. I feel pretty confident in saying that. I think most of them have left. The majority of people that are here know who we are and what we're about, and they're here, they're along for the ride. They're like, let's go. We got it. Like, it's not going to be easy, but this is our fifth software system in six years. We'll figure it out, you know.
- [00:25]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah.
- [00:25]
Vincent Melizzia
And I think it helps that when we're launching a new system, we're not screaming and yelling at people like, you should have been up and running six months ago. We pay for the trainings, the support, and as a team, we work on it and we get it done.
- [00:46]
Cameron Herold
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herald. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now, here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer.
- [01:14]
Savannah Brewer
Today's guest is A one Roofing co owner and Chief Culture officer Vincent Melizzia, a man who has spent over a decade building not just roofs, but an incredible company culture. Starting out as a kid cleaning job sites alongside his father and brother, Vincent learned early that if you want nice things, you have to be willing to work for them. That drive, paired with a business degree from St. Joseph's College, has helped him grow a one roofing into a thriving people first organization. In our conversation, Vincent shares how they rebuilt their culture to drastically reduce turnover, the role mentorship plays in developing leaders, and why delegating with trust and autonomy is essential for long term success. We also talk about his philosophy on self fulfillment and caring for yourself outside of work and how those values have allowed him to love the business he's helped lead for over 14 years. This episode is packed with lessons on leadership, culture and building a company worth staying in. Let's dive in. We are live with Vincent. Welcome to the show.
- [02:19]
Vincent Melizzia
It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [02:21]
Savannah Brewer
Absolutely. We've already gone into our spot a little bit because we've just really enjoyed chatting about some of your performance with the marathon that you ran in New York. And I just can already tell this one's going to be really fun. Full of energy and your mindset and perspective is really Aligned with mine. And so I'm excited to dive into, hearing how that's transferred to the company that you've built. Can you tell us a little bit about A one roofing? What do you do and who do you serve?
- [02:50]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah, so we're a roofing company in New York. We service the tri state area. We have a wide variety of clients, but we focus mainly on commercial work in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the Long island region.
- [03:07]
Savannah Brewer
Awesome. And you're currently the co owner and your brother is the CEO, is that right?
- [03:12]
Vincent Melizzia
That's correct, yeah.
- [03:13]
Savannah Brewer
Okay, tell us just a little bit about that journey because it sounds like you guys started doing this maybe in high school together with your dad, and now you're 14 years later still doing it together.
- [03:25]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So my brother and myself, we grew up, we shared a room, we shared clothes, we shared friends, and every job we worked, we worked together. So the local golf course, our restaurant, we always just worked together. And then when we were in high school, we started asking our father if we can go to job sites to start working because we wanted to make money. And same thing in college. We stayed local for college. We continued to work in the business, and before we knew it, we were 28, 29 years old, and we were still stuck on a roof. And we're like, what did we do here? This is not why we went to college. But that's kind of how we got into the business. And then we did use some of our knowledge from college and just from what we saw in the industry and how we can make some changes. And we were lucky enough to grow the company where we were able to get off the roof and hire some staff members to start doing the work for us. So it started out with a handful of employees, like field workers, and then, then some office personnel, some estimators. And then before we knew it, we were just blowing up. So today we're close to like 100 employees now.
- [04:40]
Savannah Brewer
Congrats. That's amazing. How did you guys divide the responsibilities?
- [04:46]
Vincent Melizzia
In the beginning, it was trial and error, right? We were both doing estimating. We were still pretty small. So, you know, we would both do the schedule. Whoever got back to the office first would do the schedule for the crew members. But then as time went on, it was getting so busy and we were growing so fast that I basically took control of the operations because I just felt like really confident in it. And it was something that I really enjoyed. So I kind of took that over and just started managing the crew members. And it went from, you know, five or six crew members to all of a sudden it was 10 and 15 and. And then it became a full time job. We're up to 30, 40, 50. And it was, became a lot of managing and scheduling and coordination. So that's kind of how I got into this, this end of the business.
- [05:37]
Savannah Brewer
Was your dad an owner of a company? Like the same roofing company or was this something very different?
- [05:44]
Vincent Melizzia
So My father founded A1 Roofing in 1981. He was, he installed the roofs, he did the estimates, my mom did all the billing from home. That's kind of how we started the business, small residential, just in Long Island, New York. That's what he really focused on. He solved a lot of his work out, but he ran a good business. And one thing he always taught us was just basically always do the right thing. You tell a client or one of your employees that you're going to do something, you got to do it, you follow through, even if it means it's going to cost you money. But at the end of the day, just do the right thing.
- [06:21]
Savannah Brewer
Doing the right thing is always the right thing. One of my quotes I always lean back on, when you think back to some of the lessons that he taught you, it sounds like that's one that transferred. Is there anything that you guys did differently that you think worked really well and maybe he wasn't doing before?
- [06:38]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So one of the things in construction, it's typically not the friendliest environment to work in. Are you working with a lot of people that dropped out of high school? This was 20 plus years ago. But a lot of people that dropped out of high school, some of them had substance abuse issues. So there were not the friendliest people that you were working with. And it's very rough as far as you make a mistake, you're going to hear about it. And that was something that we didn't really agree with. Right. Like yelling and screaming, flipping out about things. Like we ran the approach like, well listen, this person made a mistake, let's learn from it and move forward. And if this person continues to make that same mistake, well then that's going to be another conversation. But it's going to be a conversation. It's not going to, you know, yell and scream at somebody. Obviously they feel, I have to imagine they don't feel great about the mistake that they made. So screaming and yelling I don't think is going to help the situation. So we just always took approach to treat our employees, treat our clients the way we want to be treated and believe it or not, we've actually walked away from a lot of clients because they don't treat our staff very nicely. And we would come back from being out in the field and we'd have staff members like upset and crying and we would find out that people were screaming at them. So we would actually terminate contracts and relationships with clients because we just, we didn't feel that anybody should have to put up with that regardless of how much business they're giving us. It just doesn't give you an excuse to treat people unfairly.
- [08:20]
Savannah Brewer
I think that's a huge thing I would just want to double click on because there's certainly businesses and I've worked in some of them where they'll just take on any client. It's more revenue and you see the team suffering. But in most of the, like the really well known leadership books that I read, you know, it says like when you take care of your employees first and make sure that their priority will take care of your customers. So I'm curious, what other effects positively have you seen in terms of your culture, maybe trust with team that's been able to build as a result of looking at business that way?
- [08:53]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So as far as a culture standpoint, that's a huge change that we've made here as well. What I started realizing was we're not just competing against other roofing companies, we're competing against Starbucks and Google and Apple. Right. And how cool would it be to say that you work for Apple? But I said I want people to say that about A one, Rupert. So I said how can we make those changes? So you know, we started a little at a time, right? It was health benefits, it was holiday time, wall paid, it was a 401k with a 4% match. Then we started doing some other stuff that was like team building. So we started doing company retreats where we would take, I don't know, 50 to 60% of the staff and we would go away for one or two nights and we would have leadership meetings and trainings and hands on activities and we bring in guest speakers like John Starks. And we found that, you know, putting this back into the company, back into our employees that they were buying into the A1 mission. Other things that we were doing were small stuff, happy hours, team bowling, picnics, anything that we can do to bring the team together. Because what we found was our accounting team doesn't get to meet the crew members. Right. So how can we change that? So when we would set up these events, they weren't mandatory to Attend, but you find that a lot of employees want to attend them and you see that they let their guard down and they enjoy it. Right. So that was big for us. And then one of the other big things that we wanted to change was we're very family focused, family oriented. I have three children of my own. I go to their practices, their games, I coach some of their sports. I go to their moving up ceremonies, the field days. And we said, why is it fair that the owners can do these things but our staff can't? I said, and what happens is then they're going to have animosity towards us because they're going to say, well, I miss my daughter's or son's wrestling match. Right. So we encourage all of our staff to attend their kids events, to go on field trips with the kids, take vacations with your family. I mean, I strongly encourage vacation and I really, I also encourage my staff to shut their phones down if they can. As long as they prepare before they go away. I really don't want them answering emails and phone calls. I want them to disconnect and regroup.
- [11:27]
Savannah Brewer
Do you have a vacation policy set in place or is it like unlimited? How do you guys do that?
- [11:32]
Vincent Melizzia
So my office staff is, is a different entity and then my field staff, so my office staff has unlimited PTO. What we found was that every January 1st, everybody's vacation would renew. And what would happen is in December, it would be a ghost town here. Everybody was off because they felt like they were going to lose their time. So we launched unlimited pto. And what we found was that every single one of our employees took less time except for one. So it really made a big difference because now they didn't have this pressure to use it again. But we do encourage it. Like when I see one of my employees that's just struggling, whether it's something going on at home or if they just have a lot on their plate at work, I try to pull them aside and I try to tell them, take a few days off or, you know, just, I, I want you to regroup. I can see that you're not in a great place and I, you know, maybe a few days away will help you get that boost that you need.
- [12:33]
Savannah Brewer
In terms of your industry. I would imagine that turnover is probably fairly high with field workers. Do you guys have any way of measuring that? And have you seen, with the things that you guys have implemented, do you have way less turnover than typical roofing companies?
- [12:52]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So I don't have the numbers in front of me. But I actually just spoke on this in Texas at an HR event, and that was one of the things I focused on. So pre Covid our turnover rate for our field employees. And again, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe they were around, like, I want to say, like, 75%, which is. Is higher than the industry average. I believe now we are down, like, the 22% range. And I think the industry average was somewhere around 50%. Wow. But again, I have to. I have to check those numbers to confirm. But the changes that we made, I think play a huge part in that.
- [13:34]
Savannah Brewer
With your field workers. I would imagine there's also a huge part of that was, like, physically demanding. How do you take care of employees? Not just, like, emotionally. Like, I think we have accounting people and operations people on our team. You're kind of more looking for, like, the emotional side of it, but then someone that's out there actually, like, building roofs, I just think is a totally different game. What. In what ways do you support them?
- [13:59]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So growing up, actually installing roofs, because we did it. I probably was 15, and I did it till I was about 28. It is one of the most grueling things you could do. It's top five most dangerous professions, high suicide rate. Everything is working against you outside of a nice summer or fall day. Right. But the majority of the time, it's extremely hot. It's windy, it's cold, it beats you up. So we used to work six days a week. Most of the guys wanted it because if they don't work, they don't get paid. Right. Some of them still do, but for the most part, a lot of them wanted to work six days a week because in the wintertime, when it snows up here in the Northeast, they don't get paid. So they know that when the weather's good, you work as much as you can. So what we said was, you know what? We're going to stop the Saturday work because we want you to have time to rest your body, rest your mind, spend time with your wife, your kids, maybe go do a day trip somewhere. But what we found was we felt that giving them the weekends off, they came back on Monday more energetic, more productive. So do we lose that day of work? Yes. But I do feel like our production is still at the same level, if not higher, because now our employees are well rested, they're well energized, and they know that come Friday, they're done. They have Saturday and Sunday, and whether it's to go worship to go for a hike, go, you know, to go for lunch with your kids. Whatever it is, it's all that stuff that fills your soul and just makes you fulfilled and feel happy.
- [15:42]
Savannah Brewer
Speaking of fulfillment and things that bring you joy, one of the things we were talking about was you running the marathon. And that's for anyone that's watching on YouTube or not. If you're not watching on YouTube, then you're just listening to this. Vincent has a shelf in the background and there's a picture of him running. And I asked him what was the most meaningful thing on his shelf. And that was the thing that you mentioned. I would love to hear what is your kind of personal philosophy on taking care of yourself outside of work? Because I imagine you also have a lot of pressure and stress on you with 100 people on your team. What do you do outside of marathons and work that brings you joy, fulfillment that you think carries back into what you do day to day?
- [16:23]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So, you know, as young entrepreneurs, my brother and myself have always been focused on growing our business. But one of the things that we said was we don't want to lose sight of the other important parts of our lives. Right. So that one, one avenue of that is ourselves. Right. So we need to make sure that we're focusing on ourselves, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's going to church, whether it's, you know, just a day alone to regroup. So it's important to not forget about yourself. And it's not selfish because it's basically giving you the energy and mindset that you need to fulfill the rest the other areas of your life, like your family and your business. So for myself, I get up typically every morning around 4am and I go to the gym from say, 5 to 6:30, and that's my time every morning. My kids are typically still sleeping. And it just allows me to focus on my health, my mind, and it gets my day started. So that's one of the things that I do. And then the other avenue is I have three children, I have a wife of 14 years who's a school teacher. So once school goes back, it gets very busy. So I try to make sure that a few days a week, I get the kids off the bus, I coach a few of their sports teams. We're always going on vacation, whether it's a long weekend, a day trip Disney World, I try to do the best that I can to make sure I'm giving everybody the time and energy that they need, including myself.
- [17:59]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron Herold, your high energy leadership guru here to pump you up on the Second Command podcast. If you get frustrated because your managers aren't leading like you want them to be, check out my Game Changing leadership course@investinyourleaders.com that's investinyourleaders.com for just 347 per liter you get 30 years. My proven experience straight from taking 1,800-got junk from 2 million to 106 million as COO and it's packed with 12 easy modules. Learn situational leadership coaching, delegation, conflict management and more all in under six hours@investinyourleaders.com with straight to the point videos, worksheets and real life scenarios, your team will master time management, be able to hire a players and get aligned with your vision. It's all backed by a 30 day money back guarantee and raved about by hundreds of CEOs and thousands of managers already learning from the content. Grab this now and watch your business soar.
- [18:59]
Savannah Brewer
Kind of taking a little bit of a different approach or different angle. What's something that you're still struggling with in terms of the balance of managing both of those things?
- [19:09]
Vincent Melizzia
I don't want to make like I have it all answered or all figured out, but I feel very confident in where I'm at in my life with my balance. I'm offered a lot as far as going to events or speaking at events. I really pick and choose what I do as far as where I'm going and when I'm going. I do one on one dates with each one of my daughters, typically on a quarterly basis to spend just, you know, four hours with them doing whatever they want to do within reason. Just to kind of regroup and see how they're, how they're doing and what they're looking forward to and stuff like that. So that goes a long way. So I feel like I'm in a pretty good place. I try to do one or two trips a year with just my wife and myself, typically four to five days. So again, I think that I feel pretty confident in the decisions I've made with the balance of my time.
- [20:04]
Savannah Brewer
Is there a time that you can remember where things were not that way? Where there was like peak stress in the business and things were breaking down? What was maybe one of the harder, harder?
- [20:15]
Vincent Melizzia
So before I had kids we took this business which was a residential roofing company and we transitioned into the commercial roofing world which was a huge job. They're basically two different businesses, so we had a lot of struggles along the way, we had a lot of challenges. We had mistakes made by our team because they weren't really trained properly. So, yeah, there was definitely pre kids. I was very stressed with work. We had a lot of challenging times. Our employees were tough. We were learning a lot. We were still young, fresh out of school, and again, we were taking a business that we knew a lot about and we were changing everything. We're typically not comfortable just staying status quo. And you could ask my team members. I mean, we are constantly changing software, systems, technology, process, procedure. We just, we want to make sure that we're, we're on the edge of our seat and that we're constantly growing. We don't want to just sit still.
- [21:12]
Savannah Brewer
What has allowed you to stay consistent and still passionate after 14 years in the same industry? Because there's a lot of people I was actually just listening to. Have you ever heard the My First Million podcast?
- [21:26]
Vincent Melizzia
No.
- [21:26]
Savannah Brewer
With Sam Park. Great podcast. One of the things they were talking about recently on there is that they interview a lot of billionaires. And when they've interviewed and hung out with billionaires, one of the core themes that they found is that they just stick with something for a very long time. And it's usually around that 15, 20 year mark where they'll see these kind of rapid overnight successes. You would say, what has it been for you guys, both you and your brother, that's allowed you to stay consistent for this long?
- [21:58]
Vincent Melizzia
I think it's been the journey. You're talking about two guys that have done everything in the company, from cleaning up garbage, to putting a roof down, to being a foreman, to doing sales, to running operations, dealing with HR issues. When we started getting into the commercial, we said, all right, how are we going to do this? Because commercial building owners are not looking on Google for companies. We said, we have to build relationships. So we started going to local charity events, local political events, local golf outings. And I'll never forget, I would go to these events. And I was on my phone the entire time just dealing with crew members and staff and jobs and scheduling, and it was so stressful. I said, why am I even here? Why am I doing this? And then a few years ago, I stopped and I was like. I looked at my brother, we were at a golf outing and I said, wow. I said, do you believe this? I said, look what we've done. Now we're here golfing, and you'll get an email here or there, maybe a call here or there. But we have a company, we have systems and process and Procedure in place where everything just runs itself. And it happens so fast. I mean, when you're in the weeds or when you're in the day to day, maybe not so fast, but when you're actually out of it and you look back, you're like, wow, we did it. So now, I mean, there were times when my alarm would go off. I didn't want to get out of bed when I was still working on a roof. I hated it. I did not want to get out of bed. But I was making good money and I was. I had a lifestyle that I wanted to live, but I was miserable. And my wife was like, why don't you just go do something else? Why are you doing this? You know? And it was like, well, I was addicted to the money. I wanted the money, so I just did what I had to do. But I wasn't happy. Fast forward to today, and a lot of my day consists of podcasts, meetings, lunches, golf events, you know, a dinner tonight I have with some clients. It's fun. And I'm with. I'm. I'm with good people. And like, as I mentioned earlier, we only want to work with good people where there's a mutual respect, where we speak to each other in a respectful way. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, these people are great. This is fun. I'm enjoying this. But it was a long journey. Didn't happen overnight.
- [24:28]
Savannah Brewer
In terms of the systems part, speaking of operations, what have been some of your favorite systems that you've implemented that had some of the biggest impact?
- [24:38]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah, so in the beginning, for us, it was really hard when we started hiring people because I was always doing everything myself, right. So when I hired my first employee, I would ask them, I would say, can you please do this for me? And they would be like, well, I work for you. Of course I'm going to do it. You don't have to ask me. Just tell me what you want me to do. But I felt funny asking somebody to do something for me. Just as when I was on a roof, if we needed to get a bundle of shingles up the ladder, I didn't tell somebody to do it. I threw it on my shoulder and I ran it up the ladder. So it took me some time, but it was giving people the power to make the decisions, not micromanaging. And what I told my employees were, especially the new hires, I would tell them, I'd say, I'm hiring you to do this job. I'm not going to micromanage you. If you have questions. I want to do whatever I can to help you succeed. You know, we'll have our check ins and our trainings. But I said, at the end of the day, I'm hiring you to make this decision. So that's really how we empower them to make decisions. And along the way there were some mistakes, but we would always tell them, if you're not going to cost the company 50,000, make a decision. And if it's the wrong one, we'll learn from it.
- [25:51]
Savannah Brewer
In what ways do you measure performance? If you're giving a lot of autonomy and trust, how do you make sure that people are actually doing what they're supposed to be doing?
- [26:01]
Vincent Melizzia
We incorporated Summer Fridays a few years ago, where every Friday in the summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day, our staff would be done at 3pm And I'll never forget the first Friday back after Labor Day. I hear my staff talking about what you're doing this weekend. I said, nobody's getting anything done here on Friday from 3 to 5. So we launched Summer Fridays all year long. And one of the things that I said was, everybody can leave every Friday at 3 o' clock unless you don't get your work done. If you don't get your work done, you have to stay and get your work done. Guess what? Every single person got their work done. And if they didn't, they stayed. And they weren't mad about it because they still knew that they can still leave when they were done. But you typically will start finding out who's not getting their work done eventually. If it's one of my sales or estimators, I'll get feedback from clients that they didn't get a proposal on a timely manner. If it's my operations team, I can get an update that they're not scheduling jobs fast enough or efficient enough because we still do have a good touch with our clients. Not everybody, but a majority of them. And if it gets to a point where they're not happy, they will then reach out to us. So that's kind of how Will uncovers certain faults.
- [27:17]
Savannah Brewer
I like the Summer Friday idea. I mean, it's true. I mean, every Friday that I can remember, it's like by Friday, I just feel absolutely toast.
- [27:27]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah.
- [27:27]
Savannah Brewer
And what I found for myself is like keeping Fridays completely open of calls. Like, I do not book as few meetings as possible and I just use it as like a day for whatever actually inspires me. It's like the things that I feel like lit up and I get to be creative and it's maybe something new that I'm working on versus, like on Monday and Tuesdays is sometimes the stuff that, like, I'm dreading doing. But knock it out. And to keep Fridays really open, I think, like, keeping things similar like that for team is really helpful in terms of the mentorship or support you're giving your team, because there's the training aspect that you mentioned. What does that look like?
- [28:09]
Vincent Melizzia
So as far as, like, mentorship, we do what's not really mentorship. We have leadership meetings with the leadership team every other week just to kind of go through what's going on in the organization and stuff like that. The leadership team also has coaches, mentors that. So for instance, I have a mentor that I speak to on a monthly basis who owned a restoration business, sold it for millions, and the guy's been phenomenal for me. I mean, he's basically gone through a lot of the issues and concerns that I've gone through. So for myself, that's been huge. I also have a coach, my brother, saying, and same with our other staff members. So we're not afraid to put money back into our staff by setting them up with mentors, coaches, trainings. I was recently at an event where I had an author come speak about the 10 keys to happiness. So I took that slideshow and I'm going to have a lunch and learn with my staff in two weeks here. So again, it's the little things that we're putting back into the staff that hopefully helps their growth and helps them to just grow as a person, grow as an employee, grow as a mother, as a father, as a. We want them to be the best people they can be, not just for our company, but for the. For society.
- [29:32]
Savannah Brewer
I love that. And it's one of my personal. And anywhere that I'm at, I always tell my team, my commitment to you is that in all of our conversations, anything that we're doing, my goal is that by you working here, every other area of your life gets better. It's just compartmentalizing things just for me doesn't work. And it's really important to pour into your people and when they feel that sense of trust and it just builds loyalty and trust that you really care about them truly as a person, not just what they're there as a number in the machine. In terms of your decision to invest in mentors for yourself, what's your thought process through that? Because I've had mentors that I've paid for that were really great. I've had some where I have learning Lessons from it. And I'm like, that was the wrong person, the wrong decision at the time. How do you make sure that you're investing your money in the right place at the right time?
- [30:30]
Vincent Melizzia
Well, here's the best part of my mentor. He doesn't charge me. And he's probably the greatest or one of the greatest things that's happened to me in my business world, my business life. He's just so valuable. But I've had coaches that I've paid for that aren't great. So at that point, you know, after the contract's up, I'll terminate the contract or whatever the relationship and move on. But the reason why I'm deciding to move towards this was, you know, we're big golfers, we love to golf. We're not huge sports fanatics, but we watch sports and we said the best golfers in the world have coaches. Like, think about that. The best golfers, the best players in the world have their own coaches, their own mentors. Who are we not having? Like, we should be doing that. Like, if we want to be our best, we need to focus on, you know, ourselves and what we're doing and, and learn from others who have been down this road in this path. So that's when we decided to really invest in that.
- [31:31]
Savannah Brewer
Did you ever find any specific mentors for being a COO specifically?
- [31:37]
Vincent Melizzia
Not necessarily, no. And I wasn't, I wasn't looking for that too. You know, we, anytime I get introduced to any, anyone, I'll always, whether it's a mentor, a coach or an associate, if I feel like they can provide value, then that's all I want. Right? If I go to an event and I take one thing away from it, to me, that was a success. If I have a call with you today and I take one thing away from it, that was a success. You're not necessarily going to learn everything from everyone. Right? But as long as they're helping you grow, that's the most important little steps.
- [32:11]
Savannah Brewer
If anyone's listening and you're looking for mentorship, specifically as a coo, I can say for me, finding Cameron and the CO alliance was absolutely the most impactful thing I could have done as a coo. I've had mentors that were very broad range. I've had some mentors for 10 plus years, like you said, also free. The things that I found for me in terms of actually investing is when I have a very clear problem and I want to solve it quickly and trying to find someone to just like give me free advice all the time when I'm having problems is sometimes not as easily accessible. And so for me, that was where co alliance and Cameron was like, hey, I have no idea what I'm doing. This is my first time in a CEO position. Give me help. So if anyone's listening and that sounds like it would be supportive, feel free to check it out. I want to talk a little bit about your relationship with your brother and that dynamic, because a lot of our members, listeners, you know, we really try to have this yin and yang relationship. As CEO and coo, you're kind of the shield. You're protecting, typically the CEO and their energy so they can focus on vision and energy, speed, oftentimes a lot of culture too. And the CEO is typically filling those. Those weak spots. Fourteen years with, you know, a co partner is a long time in general. Then you got on top of it. You guys are brothers. So I would love to just hear a little bit inside scoop. What is that relationship like now?
- [33:49]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So to your point about the yin and yang, I mean, we are two completely different personalities. I'm very outgoing, I'm always making jokes and, you know, busting chops. And he's more quiet, reserved, like, just, you know, always has something going on in that mind that he's looking to, you know, whatever his vision is and stuff. So it really does work really well. Whether we're both out with clients, you know, it's just different. You know, it's so different how. How we react and respond. But at the end of the day, we both have the same mission, the same vision, and it's really worked out really well for us. You know, one of the biggest things, you know, is we just. We meet, we discuss certain issues, certain topics. We respect each other. We've never gotten into spring matches or fights or, you know, even growing up as kids, we would never fight. We just. We hung out with the same group of kids, and we hung out every day and worked together, and we just always had a good relationship, you know, which I know is rare because you don't hear about it often, but it just always worked since we were young kids.
- [35:00]
Savannah Brewer
Are you able to kind of pinpoint anything that you guys do specifically that you think if other co founders or even just in general people who are in the CEO and CEO role have worked really well for you guys that you can pinpoint that you would love other people to know about?
- [35:17]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah, I think what gets a lot of people in trouble is their ego. Right. You start looking at like, well, he's the CEO or he got this or he got that. Why didn't I get that? And it's not about that. It's about you're running your own race. Like, I, I try to stay in my own lane, right? I know what I'm doing here at the company. I know, you know, what I get back from the company, whether it's financially or my perks, my rewards. And it's great, you know, and I really enjoy it. So I think that what happens is people start looking around and start comparing themselves to others and that's when they start getting themselves in trouble.
- [35:57]
Savannah Brewer
What info do you guys share? Like what is relevant for him to know that you're doing and vice versa.
- [36:03]
Vincent Melizzia
You know, at this point we'll maybe share like some of our bigger clients, maybe some new clients that we brought in, or we'll bring up some things that are going on in the business that maybe we're getting window from so many employees and stuff like that. But it's, it's so random, right? It's we, we're in multiple meetings together, so we kind of have a pulse for what's going on in the company. But we'll jump on a call randomly, just if I'm driving somewhere, he's driving and just kind of go through certain things within the business. But it can be from, you know, a helper on a crew to buying five new trucks. You know, it's just, it's very random.
- [36:41]
Savannah Brewer
Do you guys have an in person office? Are you guys all remote?
- [36:44]
Vincent Melizzia
So we have two offices. We have one located on Long island and then we have a small office located in New York City.
- [36:50]
Savannah Brewer
Okay, gotcha. Do you have cross with those offices? Are they working together at all?
- [36:57]
Vincent Melizzia
So the New York City office is really more of an office for. I'm in the city a lot for a lot of business development stuff. So I'll use it maybe once a week. And then if I have other team members that are doing estimates out there, they can drop in there and just do some of their paperwork and stuff like that. So the majority of our staff comes into the Long island office every single day. We do allow everybody gets one day to work from home, so we try to stagger it so that the office is an empty. So that seems to work out pretty well.
- [37:28]
Savannah Brewer
Nice. In terms of the ego that we were talking about earlier, I am curious to hear how maybe in some ways it actually can support. You know, there's times it can be detrimental and other times it can be the thing that kind of fuels people to do A really good job. I know for me, it's been one of the parts of myself that I actually am like, okay, there's a little part of myself that the ego in me wants to be the best. And so for your employees, what is your guys's approach to recognition and celebration?
- [38:03]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah, so we had a system called Joint assembly, which we would allow. Not allow. We would give everybody a login. And what that would mean was we said, it's hard for everybody to understand what's going on because we can't be on 10 different job sites. I can't be in the office all the time. So this was a way for us to give out trophies or reward points, which eventually would turn into gift cards, days off, stuff like that. So we did that for years. Where I can say, Sarah in accounting, you know, got those invoices out so fast. Thank you so much. Here's 10. Here's 10 trophies. So we did that for a while, and it worked for a while, but it kind of. It was the same people utilizing it. So we. We just most recently got rid of that. We were doing the employee of the Month, and then the latest thing that we started doing was we do a yearly retreat, and we started doing awards, core values. Like, we've done Employee of the year awards. The employee of the year typically wins a vacation with their wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. Spouse. So we try to do stuff like that to recognize some of their hard work, let them know that, hey, this hasn't gone unnoticed. We see what you're doing, and we appreciate it.
- [39:19]
Savannah Brewer
Do you guys have a central communication hub for everybody across the team? Even so, yeah.
- [39:27]
Vincent Melizzia
Certain divisions have WhatsApp chat, where we have groups set up, like, so our sales team has one set up, so every time somebody makes a sale, they'll put it into the chat. Our foreman have one set up so that they can say, hey, you know, I'm in New York City. I have a thunderstorm moving through. And it alerts the other crews that are in other parts of Long Island, New Jersey. You know, stuff like that. We all use email, obviously. And then we have other software systems that we use to. For pictures, for job notes and stuff like that, to communicate.
- [39:58]
Savannah Brewer
Have you guys worked on implementing any AI yet?
- [40:02]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah, so we've been using AI a lot. One of my field guys who's dyslexic would have to go do his work all day, and then he'd have to go home at night, and his wife would have to help him do his job notes to get back into the office. Now he uses ChatGPT. He'll speak into the phone of what he did at this job. It types it all up and then he emails it over to my office, and then they'll clean it up and then it gets sent out same day. So little things like that have saved our crew members a lot of time. It saves our office a lot of time. So, to answer you, yes, I believe we're ahead of the roofing world as far as technology goes.
- [40:43]
Savannah Brewer
I would imagine that there's maybe some room for resistance. I'm constantly seeing new softwares, and I'm kind of in the know of these things. And even for me, when AI really started to be talked about and used, there was this, like, resistance or fear of, like, how complex is it going to be and can I really use it? And then also just changing the ways that I do things. Have you found there being any resistance or pushback to it from your team?
- [41:14]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, we're constantly changing systems, procedures, processes, and typically those people have checked out. Most of the people that don't want to learn or grow anymore will check out at some point. I feel pretty confident in saying that. I think most of them have left. The majority of people that are here know who we are and what we're about, and they're here, they're along for the ride, they're like, let's go. We got it. Like, it's not going to be easy, but this is our fifth software system in six years. We'll figure it out, you know.
- [41:46]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah.
- [41:46]
Vincent Melizzia
And I think it helps that when we're launching a new system, we're not screaming and yelling at people like, you should have been up and running six months ago. We pay for the trainings, the support, and as a team, we work on it and we get it done.
- [42:02]
Savannah Brewer
What has been one of the most rewarding things or the biggest high that you've experienced at Avon Roofing?
- [42:10]
Vincent Melizzia
I think it's when we look back at what we built. As I mentioned earlier, like, when. When I was still working on a crew in my mid to late 20s, I was. I was miserable. Like, my alarm would go off. I hated work, especially in the winter months. It was just brutally cold. It's looking back at that journey, how far we've come, how hard we've worked. You know, I'll have some of my friends bust our chops, like, oh, you guys are so lucky you had your dad's business. My dad ran a great business. But what we've built Today is completely different. And I think about all the hard work we put in. And when I was working five and six days a week, you know, 60, 70 hours a week, my friends were delivering, you know, pizza twice a week, you know, just for enough money to get by to buy some beers, Right? So it's nice to see that, like, all the hard work we put in growing up, it's nice to see that it's, it's paying off.
- [43:05]
Savannah Brewer
Now, if you could go back to that version of you, late twenties, and sit down, get a cup of coffee and really pour into that person and give that version of you some advice, what would you tell yourself?
- [43:21]
Vincent Melizzia
If I can go back and give myself some advice, I guess I would say, you know, cheer up, it's going to get better. You know, I have a pretty good following on LinkedIn, so I write newsletters and I'll do posts, and I always try to make it motivational or encouraging just because I know, like, some of the stuff that I've gone through and how hard certain days or mornings could be. And that was one of the posts I put out there. I said, you know, we know what you're going through. I've been there. Do not give up. Don't give up. Keep pushing forward. Keep working hard. Put your head down, one foot in front of the other. It's going to get better, I promise you. Just keep moving forward. And I think the saying is from, who's the one that created the light bulb? They said, you know, I think he created the light bulb on his 800th try or something. Could you imagine if he, if he stopped at 7:99, you know, like, for real? Yeah, just keep pushing forward. It's going to get better. It might not be today, might not be tomorrow, might not be next week, but it's going to get better. As long as you work hard, do the right thing, it will happen.
- [44:31]
Savannah Brewer
It makes me think of Colonel Sanders, the chicken guy. Yeah, I know that I read this story a long time ago, but especially I think now with social media, there's so much, much comparison. And you see the point, 01% of people who are traveling the world full time, who are making millions and have all the cars and the houses and the girls or whatever, and there's just, you know, in the younger generation, so much comparison and anxiety that gets built and this feeling that you're just running out of time. And it's something that I'm sure you being in New York, you know. Gary Vaynerchuk.
- [45:09]
Vincent Melizzia
Yes.
- [45:10]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things that he really helped me with, my early 20s, was just like, patience, Allow yourself to have time. Know that, like, you're putting in the work and it's going to compound. But Colonel Sanders, I'm pretty sure he was, like, 73 before someone, like, took his chicken recipe. And now we have kfc.
- [45:31]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah.
- [45:32]
Savannah Brewer
But it was, you know, I feel like the amount of people past 70 that are actually still doing stuff is. It's pretty minimal. So. Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying.
- [45:42]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah. And I think, you know, as great as social media is, I think that it's the death of a lot of people, because the self comparison, you know, everybody's so happy. Everybody's lives the greatest life, Everybody's kids are the best, you know, and people look at this and they compare themselves and it puts them into a downward spiral. They're down, they're. They're sad, they feel like failures. So one of the things I say is the worst thing you could probably do, and I'm sure most of us do it, and I'm guilty of it myself, but the worst thing you could do is get up every morning and get on social media and start looking at Facebook and Instagram, because that's all you're doing. It's like the first part of the day, you're comparing yourself to what everybody else is doing. So, you know, the morning routine is huge. I think that if you have a solid morning routine, it's going to really launch your day for a very successful, positive day.
- [46:35]
Savannah Brewer
Agreed. Yeah. I do not look at my phone until I've had sun in my eyes for at least, like, 10 minutes.
- [46:41]
Vincent Melizzia
Yeah.
- [46:41]
Savannah Brewer
Go outside, go on a walk. And it's just crazy, too. Like, when you open a notification and you see something stressful, like, you immediately start your day just, like, in a state of anxiousness versus, like, go take care of yourself. Put yourself in a state where you can handle what comes your way. Speaking of things that are coming your way, what are you most excited about in the next six months?
- [47:04]
Vincent Melizzia
I've done a few bucket list trips recently. I took my dad to Pebble Beach. I just took my wife to Napa Valley. So travel wise, you know, we've done a lot of really great stuff. The business, we're looking to close out the rest of the year, like, a really strong push. So, you know, that's obviously something I'm looking forward to, but just really enjoying family, friends, relationships. Like, I just love doing all that we have a family reunion coming up. We're all going to Disney World. 30 people in February, so that's going to be a blast.
- [47:37]
Savannah Brewer
That's nice.
- [47:38]
Vincent Melizzia
There's so many great things to look forward to. Sometimes we can get caught up in the bad things that are going on in our world. But you know, when you start looking at all the good that's happening, that's really what I focus on and what I look forward to.
- [47:51]
Savannah Brewer
Yeah, I think it's important to plan and schedule things to look forward to. If you're just in the weeds of the business always, all the time, and there's no vacation coming up or big adventure, it can be a lot harder to get through those days than when you know that there's. There's something coming up for you. So I always try to have something I'm looking forward to. Vincent, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. If anyone wants to get in contact with you or follow what you're doing, where would they do that?
- [48:17]
Vincent Melizzia
Well, they can find me on LinkedIn, Vincent Melissia or my email is virgin.
- [48:23]
Savannah Brewer
Vincent1Roofingny.Com awesome, Vincent, thank you so much for your time. This was great.
- [48:29]
Vincent Melizzia
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- [48:34]
Cameron Herold
You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO alliance founder Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practice practices from industry leading COOs, visit cooalliance. Com.