Many roofing companies that are very successful often have a distinctive appearance and performance. Large corporate offices and administrative teams that handle everything from planning to accounts are not uncommon.
Jacques Brydon’s legacy Construction is different.
With Brydon’s business expected to reach $60 million in annual revenue with fewer than five people running the headquarters, Heritage Construction has created a success the roofing industry rarely sees: a 14 percent EBITDA margin.
The reference that few talk about
To understand the success of Heritage Construction, one must first understand what a typical roofing company looks like.
The average roofing contractor runs a business with significant labor costs, which include materials that consume about a third of every dollar earned, and a sales team that takes a large share of what’s left. When warranty buyouts come in, small litigation costs arise. Along with this, the difficulties of running a large-scale field operation become evident.
Brydon has watched this trend repeat itself across the industry. He’s seen owners who built $100 million businesses struggle with overhead costs and talked with operators running $30 million to $40 million businesses, net numbers that make those revenue numbers meaningless.
Brydon estimates that 17% is the figure most people would look for if there were no overhead costs. Most are in the five to seven percent range and consider that a success. Heritage Construction manages 14%, which Brydon describes as a “unicorn measure” for this space.
The reason this margin exists is not because Heritage charges more or works less, but because the company was deliberately designed to increase revenue without increasing overhead.
The origin of the operating model
After growing Heritage Construction into a multimillion-dollar operation, Jake Brydon began looking to the future, during which time he considered what further expansion would require. The mentors he had access to, who were operators with $100 million in annual revenue, didn’t paint a very bright picture for him. With high revenue and overhead and accounts receivable a constant problem, the complexity had become evident.
This is where Brydon decided to deviate from the norm.
Rather than hiring at scale, he chose not to invest in automation, which ultimately led him to create Roof Link. This CRM and operating system was specifically designed to handle the complexity that a large office typically requires. Instead of hiring employees every time the company grew, Brydon built an infrastructure that shaped growth without administrative expansion.
The result is an office with fewer than five people running what Brydon calls “the trains arriving on time,” while everyone wears the Heritage logo in sales, sales management or the field.
What RoofLink does
RoofLink sets itself apart from traditional CRMs by providing a complete work process system. It streamlines every task, from the first door knock to final payment, within a single interface, reducing the need for administrative intervention.
With RoofLink, a sales representative manages the entire customer journey: accurately measuring roofs, generating estimates, obtaining approvals, and triggering purchase orders, all within one system.
Sales staff also oversee installation workflows and payment collection. By eliminating manual transfers, RoofLink significantly reduces the need for administrative staff and increases operational efficiency.
This is the infrastructure that makes an office for five people possible. This is also how blunt Brydon is when he says the company reached $60 million in revenue without building the airline infrastructure that constrained its peers.
Heritage Construction’s website says the company has grown from $35 million with 17 office workers to more than $50 million with fewer than four, all thanks to the automation and single-interface approach that RoofLink helps create.
Why margins change everything
Operating at seven percent and operating at fourteen percent is not about profitability for the current year, but rather about the entire risk profile of the company.
Brydon was clear about the realities that undermine the enjoyment of large-scale roofing. When a business operates on margins of five to seven percent, issues such as warranty claims and litigation costs not only cost money, but also affect the enjoyment of running the business. Homeowners who hit this wall often think about selling. This is not because the business is not thriving, but because stress often drives people away.
An EBITDA margin of 14% creates a buffer, meaning that when these friction points arise, the company absorbs them without being destabilized. This means that the owner can flee from a position of strength rather than vulnerability, and that when someone offers them an acquisition offer, the asset is structurally strong enough to spark a different conversation.
Breaking the scalability ceiling
To the first point, there was a time when Heritage Construction could not exceed $40 million in annual revenue. Brydon described this cycle between $30 million, $34 million, $36 million and $38 million as frustrating. Always approaching $40 million, but never reaching it, it became a hill that caused him to lose all enjoyment in running the company because he couldn’t identify what was blocking his success.
The answer turned out to be a focus on the middle level management and recruitment. The ability to grow a business to $40 million does not automatically translate to the ability to grow to $100 million. The skills, systems and structures required differ. Once Brnydon identified the gap and closed it, the ceiling was shattered, allowing growth to resume.
This concept illustrates the importance of heritage moving towards its current status. The company didn’t evolve through brute force or simply by working harder. Instead, it evolved by correctly diagnosing the stress points at each point and deliberately resolving them.
The model that many operators don’t use
Jake Brydon built Heritage Construction on an atypical model for the roofing industry. He didn’t have luck with a good market or a strong sales team; rather, he deliberately created an operating model that helped the company thrive.
Most businesses grow by adding people. Heritage, on the other hand, is sized by systems.
The five-person headquarters is not a limitation, but rather proof that the internal infrastructure works. Every dollar that isn’t spent on unnecessary overhead becomes margin. This margin allows the business to survive the hardships of the seasons, absorb unforeseen costs and grow without the need to seek gross revenue.
For roofers with a 7% margin wondering why growth seems to cost more than their returns, Brydon’s model offers a straightforward answer: Revenue is not the problem; THE aerial structure East.
For Jake Brydon, the solution is not to hire more people. Rather, it’s about building systems that make additional hires unnecessary.
