On Marketing Without Ads
“About 60% of our revenue comes from previous customers and referrals. Take really good care of our customers, then stay in touch. It's that simple.”
Pond Roofing does about $14 million a year in Northern Virginia. They pay for zero Google AdWords and zero Facebook ads.
On Staying in Touch
Zach pushed on what “stay in touch” actually means. The answer is a fully built-out, mostly outsourced retention system.
“ After a job, they get a package with cookies in it, a discount card, a series of emails that drip out over time, a printed quarterly newsletter for the first two years, then it goes digital — plus text messages and a couple of database-wide sales a year.”
On Client Relationship Management
A 60-year-old company had 60,000 records sitting in the CRM. Most of them were dead weight.
“Otherwise we're marketing to people who've moved across the country and don't own homes anymore. We're mailing to homes that have had a third owner since then. We don't need them.”
They cut it down to roughly twelve years of real buyers — and the list got more valuable by getting smaller.
On Buying Instead of Starting
Patrick didn't build Pond Roofing from scratch — he bought a 47-year-old family business from an owner ready to retire, years ahead of what's now a well-known trend.
“ I just saw a big ball of potential. I was like, oh man, we can really plug in a few more things. This can really start rocking.”
On Growing a Business
Pond Roofing spent years stuck near $9 million, then shrank to $6.5 million during COVID before climbing back.
“Taking a chance on spending on people that would support $12 million to get us past ten — and being willing to reinvest profits into that, knowing it might not work.”
They're at $42 million now, targeting $50 million this year — and none of it came from a clever trick. It compounded.
- Zach, Founder at Venveo
Venveo is a full-service digital marketing agency built specifically for construction, building materials, and home services — the team behind our own growth strategy.
SalesRadar is an AI platform that surfaces high-intent homeowners and buildings before they hit Google, so your sales team gets there before anyone else does.
