a couple of years ago i added you and i
see XM8 Alena Wilson the most Russian
name
that i have in my network my mom took it
from Olena where she knew a lady in
college that was Russian that i had a
Russian gentleman
say oh that was my father's mistress's
name i was like oh cool
okay
a couple of years ago i think i added
you or you added me
on Facebook and i see Xactimate training or
XM8 Mastery
Alena Wilson the most Russian name
that i have on my network your mom is
here
i want to hear the story behind Alena
okay so it's Alena
you've like you're leaning on a tree
that's what i always say so people
remember and
it's not a big deal i get called a lot
of different variations
i've also been asked why there's not an
i instead of an e
well she took it my mom took it from
Olena so as where she knew a lady in
college that was Russian
named Olena and she just switched out
the o for an a
and that's how i got my name so i get
that
i've actually had some really funny
conversations about about that i had a
Russian
gentleman uh say oh that was my uh
father's mistress's name i was like oh
cool okay
thank you i had a lady who did my
glasses once she said oh it's like red
riding hood in uh
Russia and i was like okay so very
popular
my wife's name is Lena l-e-n-a
oh wow and so obviously i came here i
was 22
and when she introduced herself to
people she's like it's
Lena and i always chop her name because
now i'm trying to say it with American
accent and she's like she corrects me
how to say her name
and uh in Russian your name would be the
way you
spell it would be Alona okay
yeah not Alena but anyway it's it's like
one of the most
Russian name as a matter of fact we have
a candy
that's a chocolate bar no way uh yep
Alonka
it's very popular like my dad just came
from Russia like two years ago and
everybody brings that
chocolate that's amazing i had to ask
yes
no so your name after Russian woman
pretty much
love it do you consider yourself as an
entrepreneur yes
absolutely i have to wear all the hats
i have to do not only do i do all the
you know a lot of the training um
i've had to create a membership site
i've had to get into
CRMs which i never thought i'd get into
that world of how to use it
um you know how to set up order forms do
all the marketing
you know just run everything wear all
the hats so that's what to me when you
say entrepreneur it means you wear a lot
of hats
so it's a family business yes tell me
what you do
how you run your business so what's your
title in your business your mom and dad
works for you
good question so um back when i started
the business um mom
owns uh the majority and i own just a
tiny bit less
than her so we're partnership in that
aspect
and then we brought dad on as the live
trainer so um
when i kept traveling around and saying
the same thing you know 50 times over i
was like this needs to be online why am
i saying this the 51st time
and when i went online i got really into
you know that space but there are still
people who want to
you know that hand-to-hand aspect of us
looking over their shoulder and saying
this is how you do it they just learn
better that way
so dad's really suited to doing that so
dad's our live trainer tell me how did
he get into the business
that's a fun story 2008 i was in real
estate
and um you know during the 2008 crisis i
was in a second home market
so Ruidoso in New Mexico all the east
Texans that are gonna
watch this they'll be like yeah we know
where Ruidoso is because that's what they
all fled to
but when the first thing that happens in
a you know a recession
you sell your second home and this is a
whole market of just second homes it's a
resort town so
um dad actually was teaching um
adjusters how to use Xactimate
and so he was doing it online out of his
small office he said hey Alena you know
about construction
come try to teach one of these classes i
was like yeah okay i'm laid off didn't
know
really what the next steps were and then
i just started teaching online and did
that
for three or four years for another
company
and then i saw the results of it just
some things that were happening i was
like you know what i think i can make a
better mousetrap out of this i think
there's a lot that's left on the table
a lot of these classes the adjusters um
they are thrown into three days of
Xactimate training
and then they're out on a hurricane and
so you know i thought man there's got to
be a better way to do this to prepare
people and then you know they'll write
better estimates and better things will
come from it so
we started our business and i just
started going around seeing who needed
training hey
can i come to your office and train you
and i found that there were a lot of
contractors that wanted the training
so first class show up Minneapolis
actually class full of contractors
super excited yes i finally got all
these guys in a room
i can't believe getting paid to do this
this is amazing start teaching and
immediately i don't know if you've ever
spoke in front of a crowd but they did
this
like i was not hitting the mark they
were not having a good time in my class
i'm going what is going on here you know
the adjusters love this stuff what's
wrong with the contractor and i said hey
you know i'm not
doing a good job here what's going on
they said we need to know about
supplementing how do we use this program
to get paid what we should i don't i
don't care about how to use it that's
great
but the reason i'm using it is so that i
can come up again and not come up
against the insurance companies but
better represent the homeowner and what
the repair actually cost so then i said
okay
i'm going to open a supplement company
and figure this out
it's very sad that a lot of niches
including your niche
is pretty much we're in business because
someone is not doing what they're
supposed to i have a theory that
all of this you know hundreds of
companies now thousands of employees
uh public adjusters Xactimate trainers
we would be all out of business if
insurance companies just do
what they supposed to do yes you agree
absolutely agree yep
uh how much do you see on average
insurance companies are shorting
their estimates by default so
when i start to work with contractors we
say on the low end
an average of about 25% you'll see that
increase pretty much
immediately and if you can really work
in the system 25%
they should be at 40. that's how short
but you know getting into it you got to
kind of finesse it
but your goal should be 40 to 50 percent
that's what we see how do you call it is
that insurance
companies committing fraud on a daily
basis or is it negligent
or negligence i would say so i come from
training adjusters
um in my classes when i first started
out i would say yeah so ridge and starter is
included in the waste so we don't need
to add those items
they i parroted what they told me and i
didn't know any better because i had
done remodels i had never done insurance
work so i knew construction but
um not as far as i was going to be paid
out of Xactimate
so uh i just would parrot what they say
and these guys they're coming from
they were just customer service manager
at AT & T
uh they're back of house manager at a
local steakhouse they have no
construction experience so they
are i don't know they don't know what
they don't know and you know it's
the insurance companies they could
so when you uh like in a CAT situation
hurricane wind or tornado
uh big events you'll see estimates come
in like from State Farm and they'll have
two
three line items let's say they'll have
the removal without replacement without
felt and then they'll have felt and
you're going oh
this guy doesn't know what the heck he's
doing there's actually a tactic that's
being played there they have to get
money into the insurance hands
by a certain amount of time and so they
insurer can go find a contractor
they expect supplementing and that's not
something that many people will tell you
we would teach supplement you know
you're going to get supplements in those
classes
when i was training adjusters expect
comment below guys if you knew this
information
comment below if you knew that insurance
companies
actually expect supplementing in a lot
of instances
so don't yeah no that was quite a few
years ago i'm sure everybody's going to
go back
but it's true and i actually experienced
uh it myself like i remember
quite a few times where i would meet
adjuster inside i'm like
where's ice and water we're in Minnesota
and the guy is from Texas so he didn't
know or whatever he's like
sorry i missed it just supplemented
and the job would go from nine thousand
to
fifteen thousand fourteen thousand just
over like two three items
it's like they want to but they always
can find someone for nine thousand
dollars
right the problem is homeowners
trust adjusters and their insurance
companies it's interesting what's your
advice
to the homeowner that's that's a really
good question um you know the reason the
adjuster
or the reason the contractor is even
using Xactimate is to show the adjuster
hey i'm playing in the same ballpark as
you
and here's what's great about your
estimate but you missed
these four line items and so when you
can talk line items apples for apples
you can just the homeowner say take them
outside say he missed this this and this
for a full roof warrantable roof i must
replace
all of these items not just the four or
five the adjuster gave you
so that's kind of you know if you could
show them the paperwork apples for
apples and educate your homeowners some
people don't
talk to their homeowners and keep them i
don't know not in the dark but oh you
don't need to worry about that
i think get the homeowner on your side
they're the lever that moves
you know the insurance company we're
sticking our nose in a third part you
know as a third party
they have the contract with the
insurance company the more they're
informed the more they're gonna be an
advocate for the contractor
and then also let them know that they
are you know supposed to have a
contractor of choice because what the
insurance companies will also do is oh
you can find a guy that does it for less
no this is my contractor of choice
he showed me that he has good
workmanship with a warrantable roof
that includes all of these items you're
shorting me
why are you doing that my homeowner next
door insurance company says
we we have five companies who are
willing to do it for this price
exactly they'll say that but you're my
contractor of choice and if you sell
that homeowner that you are gonna do the
best job on the planet and have the best
service
and they're they'll go to bat for you
how often do you see
insurance claim that is perfect nothing
to add
i have 1 in 100 probably
i've seen them where they're not
supplementable in my supplement business
absolutely
and it was a small insurance company um
i think it was out of
Illinois of all the places because that
usually was the worst um
and then some of the church insurance
companies weren't so bad
and so we'd just find one or two line
items it was you know
in and out and they were super wonderful
to work with but those are kind of like
on the smaller end of things
um and then there's some like uh if
we're in a local area we get to know an
adjuster
he'll be like oh yeah it's it's Alena i
know what she needs
and he doesn't waste his time he doesn't
waste your time he already knows what
we're going to ask for
those kind of situations are great when
we can make those relationships and then
you know you're like yes we have Tom on
this one you know kind of a deal
what's your take on overhead and profit
when you say 25 to 40 percent is it
include overhead and profit or just
supplement
i would say depends on the insurance
company the area of the country
it's so many variables i would say about
half of those will have
O &P baked into that percentage
is it possible to get O& P on every claim
there are people out there that will say
yes i'm very realistic i'm actually more
on the pessimistic side of things so i
find other buckets to get that money out
of in Xactimate
so if you know what you're doing um you
should know your profit margin
and everything that you need to get that
or you know that number that you need
and so there's other buckets other
places to put that money
um project management hours landscape
protection there's tons of
you know different line items that we
can get real creative with
and if you can back up that you're
actually doing that work and the guy is
actually out there
um you know we can usually get those
paid in lieu of overhead and profit so
you've been doing this for 10 years or
eight years
i forget about about 10 i would say
like confidently i knew what i was doing
it took a little while to get me there
and Xactimate but yeah can you name top
10 silly insurance denials
like we're not paying for that like that
kind of stuff uh
i love anything to do with flashings
it's not damaged by the storm
what i mean like i'm gonna have to take
that aw i can't warrant
a 30 year old flashing what is that to
me is just so
like you know not paying for flashing not
paying for if that's a good one
um when you say silly it's hard on me
because uh
it's like all of them are silly to me
so saying um you know you're you're a
roofing only company or you just do
roofing
um but you know you're subbing out the
work well no you know we're gonna we're
gonna pay O &P on everything else but
not the roofing part
that to me is just it's so blatantly
against how the program was designed
it's
i mean you know yeah because you're
roofing business you can't have profit
you can't have overhead right
so you don't have rent you don't have
employees right you don't have like
what yeah it's insane yeah and then you
know
just the the the stuff that you know if
you use Xactimate correctly
you should be able to get um you know
all of the light items paid so when we
add like landscape protection stuff like
that that is stuff that we are doing to
take care of the
property and those kinds of things
aren't baked into line items
so um just just any denial to me is
silly it's hard for me to pick out
you know just a few so i'm sorry i'm not
very good
have you ever heard these denials before
you are the very first contractor who
have
ever mentioned that or tried to get paid
for that
yeah the very first yeah no that's yeah
uh we already have that including in
this other
line item oh that's a great one yeah
that's that's that's
uh very often that's a good one towards
what what kind of
items they usually refer to um like we
were talking about the landscape
protection and all of that oh that's
included in the
you know removal the newest one that
really is getting me is that the um
the ridge tear off is included in the
tear off of the the base shingles that
you can't add a removal charge
to the ridge well where's your dump fee
is going to come out that ridge is heavy
stuff
so it's just fun things like that that
we find
i have five other contractors right now
who would be willing to do it for our
price
tell that one uh mr homeowner the prices
this contractor charges are way too high
you should get more estimates
oh my goodness oh yeah all the time
um what do you tell the homeowner yeah
just again
you know get estimates or don't get
estimates don't get estimates there's no
reason to
no way absolutely not that is your
contractor of choice they can determine
so what homeowner can i should tell home
uh
this is my contractor of choice i've
signed a contract i can't break the
contract
blank insurance company had never paid
for that before
we have a whole library to pull from to
show them that yes in fact
blank insurance company did pay on this
usually it's Allstate
no would never pay for that never paid
for that
no roofer ever have ever asked for OSHA
safety
ropes it is not required on this job
because it is
only one story oh love that one it was
about six feet from the ground though
we don't pay for that starter or cap
what else because
that is included in the waste that's
that's very
very common one yep just submit your
estimate and we will look
it over always have signed detail
contract not estimates
do they say that that's that one i don't
hear so often not one
particular Xactimate is fine yeah well
what have you insurance saying just do
insurance ever say go create your Xactimate and send us the
amount
if they're really busy and especially
with COVID i'm hearing
in certain areas that they are they're
yeah they're asking for you to send an
estimate i don't see what what could
be wrong with that if you could yeah
and obviously you know that's not hail
or wind damage i mean
yeah oh all the like i said the
flashings that just drives me crazy
they're crazy so but again they're
ill-educated along the way they do
they don't know they're parroting
exactly what the insurance company told
them to say
how much money contractors are leaving on the
table in your experience contractors who
don't work
on supplementing and just take insurance
companies
estimates and do the job for what it is
yeah the 25 percent so let's say you did
50 jobs last year and you're averaging
one million dollars in claims yeah
you're you're leaving behind 250
grand at least that's on the low end
how long does it take someone brand new
to learn supplementing yeah great
question i love that so
first we need to get them into the
software and getting you know
used to writing estimates um and so i'd
say a good solid
two weeks they should be able to write a
really tight uh wonderful estimate for
you at the end of two weeks
but there's also that nuance of being
able to talk to the adjuster so when you
say you know when they have
supplementing down
um you know two weeks they're getting
really getting that estimate process
down
but then talking to the adjuster there's
a lot of takes it takes a month or two
to really get your sea legs unless you're
a sales person
sales people do awesome they pick it
right up like they don't have any issues
but you're trying to you know teach an
admin or someone like that i'd say you
know
estimating process could be two to three
weeks getting Xactimate down
and then they kind of learn that fine
tuning of okay this is what i need to do
with the adjuster to get these things
paid and it just takes a couple times of
you getting knocked around for you to
figure out what works and especially
like i said what works in your area it
was so different
in Florida from Colorado. Colorado you
know pretty easy supplement process they
understood it Florida they fought tooth
and nail every
can you describe ideal position for
supplementing positions like if i'm a
business owner
and i don't want to go through a third
party i want to hire someone
or maybe look through my employees maybe
someone in the office to
delegate it maybe train to have this
position what kind of traits what kind
of
personality does it take yeah so for
writing estimates
admin all the way um you know a lot of
people that i've
worked with have their back office
people do it so those that are already
doing like accounting or CRM work or
just doing that
data entry stuff those people shine and
getting
all the details in there i've been
looking at photos and really putting all
the estimate together
and then you know if you can give it to
a person to talk to the adjuster that's
what i really advocate for
that you have you know the admins can
write the estimates or you know put
together a lot of the work but you have
one guy who just like
talks to the adjusters that's his game
like you know incentivize him
to maximize what you know gets paid out
on it and it works it seems to work
really well that way
what i really hate is when people take
sales people and say hey write this
estimate and call the adjuster and sell
this job
to me that's really a disservice i've
never personally owned a
roofing company this is just what i've
seen work best out
smooth uh inside of a you know what i've
observed
inside of a company do you recommend
someone with experience or someone
without experience is just fine
someone without experience is just fine
just give them a little more time
you probably want someone that is knows
a little bit about the industry
industry excuse me because when you have
someone like i say
you hire someone who is just delivering
pizzas yesterday and you're like okay
write these estimates they have no clue
what the roof
you know how to put it back together so
in my training i actually assume
a level of knowledge that they already
have that they know how things are put
together
and what goes into it so um they don't
have to
have done that position but have
industry knowledge i think serves them
but i have taught people that just came
from delivering pizzas yesterday so
it just takes a little bit longer that's
all can you share one
really good success story someone who
maybe
was delivering pizza and now he's really
successful
yeah yeah i only think of somebody you
know there's a lot of people that
um were the sub that's of my favorite
stories and i could think of quite a few
where they were the sub you know just
every day clawing through the job
trying to get as many jobs as they could
they said you know what i'm going to do
this on my own
and then you know really branched out
now they have like a 15 million dollar
company
going from you know in five years which
is insane supplement and
organization yeah exactly yeah so that's
those are the kind of success stories
that i really
it's a great point because i see a lot
of subs trying to get in the retail game
and the problem there
if you're the sub today you're
installing every day maybe you're taking
jobs from
bigger company or contractor you go on
your own
on retail and it's hard to be
competitive and subs a lot of times
only can compete on the price lowest
price
always win and because you have to you
know compete with everybody in town now
if you learn
supplements and you work with insurance
companies now you don't have to be the
cheapest you actually charge as much as
you know established companies in town
so great point i i see how
how it's possible yeah and they if you
do it right you can really skyrocket
fast it's amazing give advice to
a residential contractor who is not
working with insurance claims now
uh are they doing retail no they're
doing retail
i will tell you that it is a transition
in your business model
it's not something that you take lightly
it is a commitment
to do this type of type of work um i
believe it pays off in spades
um because you know if you're in it
depends on what area of the country
you know you're in again if you're in
that midwest spot man you should be
doing insurance work all day long
um so yeah it just depends on
your business model it does change your
business model you do have to
hire an estimator or you know go through
the process get training on this stuff
you can't just jump in with both
feet and expect to do that without
training i'm a big advocate of
continuing education
and so it definitely can be done and
it's a good revenue stream
as an alternative to to the retail
because there's always and the reason i
love my job is there's always going to
be a storm that's going to happen and i
can help somebody
that's really fulfilling to you know
know that it's just a personal
journey that i really like that but to
be able to help the homeowner in their
time of need
and it is a new revenue stream and it's
always going to
pretty much be there if you know storms
are always going to happen
i also would like to add to that we
don't see the trends that insurance
companies are
changing their ways as a matter of fact
the trend is opposite insurance
companies making tighter
insurance companies are trying to save
more money they
are in business to save money to make
money
and i actually was in the beginning
skeptical about the whole like
moral side of the business i was like
are we you know what we're doing here
with insurance companies and then
um i always say numbers don't lie i
looked at insurance companies numbers
if you look like for example State Farm
Allstate right
so those companies they collect 50 60
billion dollars per year
they make about three four billion
dollar profit so
if you look at the claims they only pay
out i think like 5 billion per
year and they collect 60 billion in
premiums
so when i realized those numbers i'm
like why they're fighting us
so hard that 25 30 percent it's like
extra billion sounds like dollars lot of
money
but it's not when you collect 60. yeah
so small percentage so
guys um i just want to make
announcement me
and Alena i want to make sure i say it
right me and Alena we're partnering up
because we want to bring value to you uh
supplementing changed
my business completely if you don't know
my story
uh first two years in business i was a
residential retail contractor i've seen
claims i did not supplement anything
and then i got in financial troubles you
know i always were
you know pretty much breaking even in my
business and four years ago i hired
full-time supplementer
so i don't need Alena's services i don't
need to learn it myself
i went different path but if you're that
sub if you're a
residential retail contractor who've
never worked with insurance claims
this is a great course what is it about
20 hours about 20 hours worth of
training i
bake a lot of exercises and hands-on
content they're not just going to
sit there and watch a long webinar that
i cut up i create an actual course
that is hands-on learning so that
learning sticks and they're actually
writing real world estimates
coming out of my supplement business i
scrape some of those off you know white
white listed them everything but it's
real world information that i teach
and you know by the end of the 20 hours
we call them a supplement master because
at that point they've
they're going to have it down if you
guys know this already i know
you love my network you love our vendors
uh
Alena has amazing reputation in this
business
to be honest with you i have never heard
one negative thing about Alena
really ever and we have a lot of people
around us
you know like before i collaborate with
someone i always ask
you know feedback i like for me a
reputation in our name is all we have
so she's one of the best teachers i know
in this space
i did not want to create this course
from scratch so that's why for me it was
easier to reach out and say hey
let's do something together so it comes
with the $499 plan
i'm going to put links below to our
school if you guys already in the school
maybe you're in the lower plan
i recommend you upgrade to to get this
training
you will change your business you will
change everything if you don't do it yet
maybe you already work with the claims
outsource it
i guarantee you most companies out there
already have someone
inside the company who can learn it uh i
see a lot of people
in our offices uh spending at least one
hour a day
on social media and stuff like that how
long does it take
to learn like per day like it you know
it's 20 hours course so if it's hour a
day
hour a day yes uh-huh about a month
three yeah
three to four weeks and uh yeah they
just press play three to four weeks so
don't tell me that your receptionist or
someone on the back end don't have
extra hour maybe give them a raise five
ten thousand dollars a year to learn
Xactimate do it for you guys
it's worth it if you have any questions
comment below me and Alena will be
answering your questions on this video
if you have them
uh can i get a commitment for you to
answer all the questions
absolutely that's my jam i love doing
that stuff
so if you have any questions for me
Alena comment below
i'll see you guys next video excited
about this integration
our school just got better
