Today we’d like to introduce you to Kirt Linington.
Hi Kirt, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Kirt Linington, founder and CEO of Linear Roofing and General Contractors came to the United States from South Africa in the year 1999 with $700 in his pocket. He soon went to work for LA Fitness as a personal trainer, riding a bicycle as his only means of transportation. Sixteen years later while he was an Executive VP of Sales for LA Fitness, he founded Linear Roofing and General Contractors in the Dallas Fort Worth Metropolitan area.
The decision to start a roofing company was made after a year of detailed research about the industry and several conversations with a friend who had decades of experience working in roofing. The idea was simple; with vast amounts of hailstorm claims filed in Texas annually, coupled with the fact roofing can be profitable, why not start a roofing company but do it differently. This idea was the genesis for what is now a Linear registered trademark slogan, “We are not the same®.”
Setting up a roofing company in Texas is generally not very difficult but can be extremely costly if you do not invest in the proper insurance coverage, legal agreements, understand local codes and state laws related to insurance work. Personally, for Kirt, there was also the division of time as he continued to work his full-time job and worked off hours to build a new business in a new industry. After three years of balancing risk vs. reward and time, Kirt left LA Fitness after twenty years to scale Linear.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
After four years of building the company and the brand in the DFW metroplex, with an established pipeline for material, labor, and sales, Linear deployed experienced leaders and recruiters to emerging markets throughout the state of Texas in the wake of storms. By analyzing both successes and failures in local expansion, Kirt built the playbook for Linear’s next major move. In the spring of 2021, against the emphatic advice of industry veterans, Linear Roofing launched a division in Florida. Conventional wisdom holds that Florida is where profits go to die. Strict building codes, made necessary by the strong potential for heavy rain driven by hurricane-force wind, call for more expensive material and specific, labor-intensive installation methods that drive up the cost of install on two fronts and increase overhead through stringent licensing requirements. Hail damage, the bread, and butter of the DFW market is extremely inconsistent and unreliable, and this in turn, makes good salespeople and labor hard to come by.
All these shortcomings and challenges that traditionally turn roofers away instead looked like opportunity to Kirt. If Linear Roofing could break into Florida and find success, they could find success anywhere. He started in central Florida, where he had personal contacts, and there was a history of hail damage. Today, Linear Roofing Florida has been responsible for restoring tens of millions of dollars in property damage and proudly helped hundreds of families in the community rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Linear Roofing specializes in Commercial, Milt-Family, Residential, and Solar. We are known for our culture, mission and pride ourselves with our customer service, knowledge, and professionalism. A company without vision is a ship without a rudder, doomed to be dragged wherever the wind and tide carry it to be dashed upon the rocks. The most critical thing a leader can do is to consistently make sure that rudder is not just intact but strong enough to withstand any battering it might take. Kirt has a passion not just for leading but developing promising members of the team into great leaders, and that is truly the beating heart of what Linear does.
As a company grows, leadership becomes a team effort, and it becomes even more critical to make sure everyone is aligned and working toward future success. By being genuinely invested in the mission statement and core values, Kirt inspires the rest of the leadership team to uphold and protect the Linear brand because the brand is everything in this industry.
One of the ways Linear strives to embody the vision is by cultivating long-term relationships with subcontractors and vendors alike. The company runs with zero operating debt and makes sure suppliers, salespeople, and installers all get paid timely and routinely. Revenue and profit growth have occurred consistently year over year, operating well above industry EBITDA averages. Key to this has been Kirt’s discipline to negotiate pricing and hold operating costs in line, minimizing wasteful spending.
Brand reputation is extremely important to Kirt and the Linear team. Working in the construction industry, everything does not always go as planned. Kirt takes issue resolution very seriously. There is an ongoing expectation within Linear that the customer experience will be delivered in an exceptional manner, memorable to the extent the customer is excited to refer the company to friends, family, and neighbors. When there are issues, they are met with resolutions, not ignored.
Not only is it important to Kirt that the customers have a great experience but it is also important to engage with all people Linear is connected to in a positive manner: suppliers, subcontractors, salespeople, insurance companies, state and local government, and employees. This is how Linear works towards having a greater impact on the communities being served, one relational connection at a time. Linear is not perfect, neither is Kirt, but the drive to maintain the vision, brand, mission statement, and company values is unparalleled.
Linear Roofing stands and prides ourselves with Your Roof is Our Passion, and We Are Not the Same
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
When COVID hit, we had around 50 staff members. Door knocking, which was a big part of our business, was completely shut down in Texas. So, we went out and hired everyone we knew in sales who couldn’t go to work because of the pandemic. We also went through our modern-day Rolodex and reached out to people we knew, jumping on their roofs and creating opportunities for those sitting at home to make money. I don’t know anyone who went back to their sales job after joining us. We doubled in both revenue and size after COVID and have doubled our revenue for the last three years. We didn’t want external circumstances to dictate our business’s fate, so we implemented an incentive program to give back to people. While most businesses had a difficult time during the pandemic, we were considered an essential business and were blessed to be in that position. We took all these guys in 9-5 jobs making x amount of dollars, and have amazing success stories for people still with us today who didn’t have work during COVID. We’re trying to give people the freedom to enjoy their lives and not just live to pay for their life. Even if you make the same amount of money and have more time on your hands, money shouldn’t dictate your actions. You should still wake up and put in the same amount of work, and if you can focus on that, then the money will come. I wanted to get people back to enjoying the quality of life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.linearroofing.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirtsting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kirt.linington
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linear-roofing
