My Journey to Bakeris Roofing, by Steve Gee

I was raised the son of a bricklayer who taught me the value of work ethic. My dad’s philosophy was do the job right or don’t do it at all. I’ve used that as my foundation throughout my career of serving customers, which began at McDonald’s right out of high school. From there, I picked up a route job working for a 7UP bottling company. I worked there for around ten years, where I was also an account manager. I then came across automotive sales after deciding to do something a little bit different. I ended up working at a local dealership called Ramsey Pontiac for about nine years.

I felt like I needed a break from that, so I went to work for Anderson Erickson Dairy, which is a family owned place that ranks as one of the top 100 dairies in the country. I was a sales rep working out of the corporate office in the ice cream division. When they started doing some cutbacks, I decided to get back into the automotive industry. I joined Granger Motors in Granger, Iowa, which is about 30 miles from where I live. I worked there until around five months ago when I was able to join my wife, Dawn, who’s been working with Jeff for about six years.

I initially got to know Jeff when I was able to tag along at Success Group International. When all the spouses would go out and see the sights at Vegas, Arizona, or Orlando, I would go to the classes and try to learn things that I could apply in the automotive industry. Along with Jeff, I got to know Jeff’s wife and the structure of his company. It felt like it would be a great fit, even though I’m not very inclined to climb up on roofs. I realized that I couldn’t be a salesperson at Bakeris Roofing because it requires getting up on roofs, but I was still invited to go to company events. Eventually the company started growing to the point that Jeff was constantly having to split his attention in several directions at once.

We ended up having discussions about handing over some of Jeff’s duties. Since I had a background at the 7UP company managing seven route drivers at a time, I applied my management skills to bring Bakeris Roofing to the next level and alleviate some of the duties that Jeff had to deal with. He’s still very hands-on and closely involved with the day to day workings of the company. My role as the sales manager/marketing manager is to improve Google reviews, twitter, and other social media avenues along with managing and adding more salespeople to the team. My ultimate goal is to get Jeff to where he wants to be, so he doesn’t have to oversee the salespeople and he can focus on the areas that are most important to him.