Marketing, Mindset, and Business Mastery with Charlie Gindele

I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty

metal roofing and other building materials, and today my co-host here on

Construction Disruption is Ryan Bell.

Ryan, welcome back to the show.

How you doing today?

I.

Hey Todd.

I'm doing great.

How are you?

I'm doing well also.

So, um, hard to believe, but I think this is going to be episode 156.

Uh, we are coming up close to four years of doing this show and we are embarking

right now, as you know, on what we are.

Kind of calling season three of the show and as part of season three,

just so our audience knows, um, we're gonna change things a little bit.

You're not gonna see any dramatic change in terms of format or, uh, what we're

doing, but, um, we are gonna focus more on guests who are of interest to.

Folks in the home improvement industry, um, folks who are perhaps

contractors, roofing contractors, metal roofing contractors, other

types of home improvement contractors.

And so we're gonna try to cater our, uh, guests and what we talk

about in our subjects a little bit more toward that audience.

Doesn't mean it won't still be of interest to, um, all of our other manufacturers

and architects and developers and all the others who, uh, are part of our audience.

Um, but you are gonna know.

It's a little bit of a shift in terms of the type of guests we have on

and the things that we talk about.

And gosh, Ryan, you guys are gonna put me in the hot seat here fairly

soon on an episode, aren't you?

That's right.

Looking forward to it.

I've never had that happen where you guys interviewed

me, so we'll see how that goes.

Well,

time for everything.

there you go.

Kind of like going to the orthodontist.

I.

Why is it like going to the orthodontist?

Tell me a little bit

' Ryan Bell: cause there's a first time for going to that

and it it could be a little unpleasant.

Well, it'll be a peculiar experience, I'm sure.

Anyway.

Well, thank you.

Well, let's go ahead and get rolling.

Are you good to go?

yes.

Let's dive in.

Good.

Well, today's guest is someone who has an absolute wealth of

knowledge and experience in construction and home improvement.

Um, hailing originally from Eastern PA or Pennsylvania.

Someone told me the other day that Pennsylvania is the only.

Date that we commonly refer to by its two letter abbreviation and I got to thinking

about it and that's probably kind of true.

So anyway, um, Haing originally from Eastern Pennsylvania, um, but having

spent the last 40 years in Southern California, or, uh, SoCal I guess is the

kids call it, um, Charlie Gindele started his career with Alcoa Building products,

but um, then he transitioned or moved into the retail side of home improvement.

Including eventually, the Renewal by Anderson replacement Window

program, having worked mainly, uh, during his career in metal

roofing, windows and doors.

Um, over his 38 years of business ownership, Charlie's businesses

did $425 million in retail sales.

They completed 42,000 jobs and his total employment during that time, um, God

bless him, uh, was about 1300 people.

That's pretty amazing.

Now Charlie retired in 2021, but he certainly hasn't slowed down.

In fact, I see him out there and out and about more now than I did when

he was active in his businesses.

But, uh, he now does business coaching, including sales and business planning

training, and he's written three books.

Uh, his books are available on Amazon.

We'll put them in the show notes, but his books are lessons learned.

My Journey from Contractor to Businessman.

Build It to Last a memoir and More Lessons learned.

How to accelerate the growth of your home improvement business.

Um.

Throughout the year, um, this is where I see him out there on the road a lot.

Charlie speaks at numerous conferences and he also serves on

some nonprofit boards there in his area of, uh, San Clemente, California.

Um, he is a coach for the Wealthy Contractor Success Society has been

involved as the leadership of Certified Contractors Network, or CCN as we call it.

And he was recognized by Dave Yoho and his group in 2023 as a legend

of the home improvement industry.

Um, Charlie, that is quite a biography and I really only

hit a few of the high points.

Um, welcome to Construction Disruption.

It's a pleasure to have you as our guest today.

Todd, thanks for having me, and it's great

to see you and Ryan and.

Very good.

Well, thank you.

Well, so if you can think back to a bit over 40 years ago, um, you

had a good career that was started with Alcoa, um, building products.

But actually right out of college, I think you actually had started a

home improvement company, um, and then you went into the manufac.

Manufacturing side of things, but then a few years later, um, you chose to

leave the corporate world and pursue once again the retail side of things.

I'm just kind of curious, what was it, you know, your, your career could

have taken a lot of different paths.

What was it that really attracted you to the home improvement industry?

Well, I tell people I've been in this business

almost alm almost my entire life, and I, and that's pretty true.

My dad was a fire captain in the city of Philadelphia, and like

most policemen and firemen back then, they didn't make much money.

And they all had second or third jobs.

And my dad worked for a contractor.

So when I was about 10, 11 years old, he started taking me out on

Saturdays or or weekdays during the summer when I was off from school.

And I started working for him doing roofing, siding, insulation, and

I kind of started as a gopher.

You know, go for this, go for that, and then strap the tool belt

on and start climbing ladders.

Uh.

And I just, I, I think, you know, at an early age, I, I love to stand back and

look at what I had done that, you know, in the, with, you know, over the last

eight hours or 10 hours or whatever.

And a lot of times a homeowner made a co positive comment and that was,

you know, really icing on the cake.

So I, I loved working with my hands.

I loved building and creating things and, uh, so I did that, you know.

Uh, when I was in high school, my dad was having a.

I didn't really have a job.

And then a friend of mine's father asked was putting aluminum siding on his

house and I said, let me give you a bid.

And I gave him a bid and he gave me the job.

And that was the first job that I did and that that led to other jobs.

And so I literally had a home improvement business while I was in college.

And then when I got out college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do

and I had backlog of jobs and I kept doing that for three, four.

So, you know, I've been doing it literally since I was 10 years.

That is an amazing story.

Yeah.

You had the, uh, nail pouch and the tool belt on at a pretty young age there.

Well, I'm kind of curious.

So thinking back to 1980s, early 1980s, mid 1980s, Southern California, um.

I think it was a market that everyone was kind of had their

eye on and, uh, wondering, you know, what the potential might be.

Does anything really stand out to you about the potential that existed in

Southern California at that time that kind of, you know, caused you to, to

settle out there and start your business?

And I'm kind of curious, do you still see that potential today?

Has it changed?

Has it morphed a little bit?

So, yeah, so back in the early eighties I was

working for Alcoa Building Products.

And I was, at the time I was staff engineer and I was doing a lot

of technical type work and lot of training and, and uh, we had this

aluminum product called Country Cedar Shake, and it was really designed to

be a sidewall product and we sold a lot of it in Long Island, New York.

And we sold some answered roofs and some late commercial type buildings.

And, and back then Kaiser had aluminum.

Shingle that they made.

And they had a lot of dealers in Texas and Oklahoma, and I think it

was 1979, Kaiser decided to get out of the building products business and

they kept making the aluminum shingle.

And in 1980 they got, they all of a sudden they decided to get out of that.

And all of a sudden our district managers were calling us into our office in

Pittsburgh saying, Hey, we wanna sell some of this Alcoa Country Cedar Shake And, uh.

You know, we had the product, but that's all we had.

We didn't really have a roofing system and the components and accessories.

So I started getting involved and I went down to Texas and Oklahoma and

some of those markets where they were selling the Kaiser product and started

talking to these guys and I. You know, they really knew, knew their stuff

and we didn't have a complete system.

So I started working on, learned a lot from them.

Started working on Valley flashings and Gable end flashings and starter

strips and things like that.

And we eventually built a roofing system and we started to have some success there.

And, uh, about 1981 or 82, I made a trip out here to Southern California.

Never been to California before.

You know, movie stars with swimming pools and TV shows and all that.

And what I found was everywhere I looked, there were wood

shake and wood shingle roofs.

So either a home either had a tile roof, or it had a wood

shake or wood shingle roof.

The fiberglass shingles pretty much didn't exist then.

You know, they were some old asphalt composition shingles

and a lot of the homes didn't, neighborhoods didn't allow those.

So I was just, you know, and we knew that from Texas and Oklahoma, the

big market was replacing wood shingle roofs and, but we came out here and

this, this made Texas, you know, seemed like minuscule everywhere I looked.

So I was excited about, you know, getting the market off the.

And saw an opportunity, but we didn't have any distribution here.

And so I started talking to potential distributors and most of them weren't

interested in getting into a metal roofing product and tried to find dealers.

And the dealers I wanted to work with didn't wanna work with us.

The dealers I didn't want to work with wanted to work with us.

And uh, and finally after a couple years of spinning my wheels, I just said,

California aluminum roofing.

I, you know, resigned from the business, moved out in April

four, and you three years we.

You know, if not the largest, one of the largest roof Alcoa

Roofing dealers in the country.

And we, and we continued to grow that for about 15, 16 years.

And in that time we did 3,800 residential re-roof and built systems and hired a,

built a sales team and installation teams.

And, uh, you know, it was, uh, quite a ride.

Quite a ride.

But the main thing was that there were wood shake and shingle roofs everywhere.

And, uh.

That was 41 years ago.

Today that doesn't exist.

The wood shake and wood shingle roofs are pretty much all gone.

They've been replaced.

It, you know, most of the cities now have class A fire ratings and it's almost

impossible, not impossible, but almost impossible to get a class a, uh, rating.

And there's still a few niche markets where, uh, you know,

because of aesthetics and tradition, they'll still allow wood in there.

But, and.

We ran hard with it for about 15 years, but what we saw in the late nineties was

the advent of a lot of, uh, lightweight, relatively lightweight, non-combustible

roofing products like lightweight concrete tile, and, uh, some synthetic products.

And, and then also the, the advent and, and the acceptance of

class A fire rated, uh, you know, uh, composition shingles, you.

Right.

Presidential and the laminated shingles and those things,

and they became more and more accepted.

So the marketplace really changed over the over time.

It really has, and it's interesting.

I mean, it's still a great market, um, but products kind of morph and change

and suddenly other things come up.

So, um.

Just speaking though about Southern California, I, I really wanna

get into the meat of advice you have for business owners today.

But, um, I do wanna ask you about the Southern California rebuilding after

the recent, um, tragic fires, uh, the Palisades and Adeena Fire and others.

Um.

A couple of episodes ago, interestingly, we had an architect from Southern

California, a gentleman by the name of Peter Day, Maria on the show.

And, uh, Peter actually also has gotten into manufacturing, uh, manufacturing, uh,

modular, uh, construction modular homes.

He talked a little bit about what his thoughts were as far as the rebuilding

from the fires, what the timeline might look like, maybe what some construction

trends and things might look like.

Kind of curious to see what your thoughts are on that as far as, uh,

you know, what the future might hold.

Well, I could tell you living here.

Uh, back in January when those fires broke out and they, and that

the previous weekend, they had forecasted really high winds, so it

wasn't, didn't sneak up on anybody.

They said, we're gonna have, you know, the worst winds we've had in 10 or 15 years.

And they were that, and then some, they started like on a Tuesday afternoon

and, and it, it was unbelievable.

The firemen didn't have a chance.

80, 90 mile an hour winds.

They could, they could have had every firetruck and firemen available

and all the water available.

They need it.

And they, they, you know, the winds were just horrific.

There was no way they were gonna be able to stop that,

let alone contain it quickly.

And, uh, I was reading an article recently and they're estimating that there's

a little over 18,000 structures and or homes that were destroyed, 18,000.

Wow.

I mean that, that's an incredible number.

And right now, I mean here it is, what, three months later, four months

later, and they're still figuring out what they're gonna do with

all the debris and the toxicity.

And there's automobiles involved in that.

You know, there's thousands of cars have been destroyed and, and businesses and

you know, people, people relocating down here to Orange County where I am, 60

miles south, you know, 'cause there's just no housing available up there.

A friend of mine was moving out of the area and he put his house for lease

and he leased it like overnight for three years at an unbelievable rate

to someone from who was displaced from their home in la And, you know,

this is well to do person, but, so anyway, uh, I I just, it's horrific.

I, I don't see that 10 years from now.

I don't see the.

the.

place being rebuilt in 93, I think it was, we had a fire in Laguna Beach

and it destroyed about 300 homes, came down Laguna Canyon and, and, I mean,

12 years later they still weren't done.

You know, that was 300 homes we're talking about 18,000, you know, and, uh, so,

uh, it, it's gonna be a real challenge.

And, uh, it, it, it's just horrific if you see the pictures from up

there and you drive, drive around.

So I, I just don't see that thing and maybe 20 and probably not in our

lifetimes, will that place be back to.

Yeah, maybe Ryan's lifetime, but probably not.

You and me.

No, I, I, and that's pretty much what, uh, the architect we spoke with had said too.

He said, it's gonna be years and years and talked about some of the very

same things that you talked about.

You know, one of the stories I'm seeing come out a lot.

And, um, I actually spoke, uh, about a week ago with a homeowner who was

right on the edge of the ine of fire.

In fact, he said.

One house beyond his burned and everything beyond that burned.

And so he felt very fortunate, but he said the heat had done things

to his house, plus embers that landed on his house caused damage.

So he's having to replace a lot of things despite the fact that

everyone looks at his house and as says, gee whiz, you survived.

Which he's felt very blessed by, but he's still having to do

a lot of work to the home also.

So I know that, you know, again, you know, you just did a tremendous job

when you moved to Southern California with the, uh, Alcoa Roofing Program.

And, you know, after a number of years you also started to get into gravitating

more toward replacement windows.

Um.

Just kind of curious, I mean, are, are replacement windows still a solid

opportunity in Southern California?

And are there any other products, replacement products you see kind of, uh,

potentially coming on strong out there?

Yeah.

Replacement windows are, are still really going strong.

I mean, uh, you know, the, the market pretty much didn't

exist in, uh, 19 90, 19 89.

It was a new market.

I was actually approached by a guy that was, uh, the GM of a Alcan building

products distributor, and he was gonna start fabricating vinyl windows and.

He approached me, he said, you know, you guys have done a good job

marketing and selling a high end retail, you know, home improvement

product with the aluminum roofing.

You ought to think about windows.

And I was like, wind windows don't dual pane windows, Southern California.

'cause I guess I had that East coast mentality.

I mean, you know, winters are cold, but out here climate's relatively mild.

And, uh, comparatively speaking and uh.

We test market it with some of our roofing customers.

And after about six months, sold about 20, 25 jobs, figured out how to install

them in stucco and things like that.

And uh, and, and it took off.

And, you know, then there was an influx of a ton of.

Manufacturers that started making vinyl, dual glazed

windows in Southern California.

And, uh, and and you know, every Tom, Dick and Harry was getting into the business.

I remember back in the mid nineties going into the Orange County Register

newspaper on a Saturday morning, the Home and garden page, and there were like 20

ads for guys selling replacement windows.

Newspapers now, but they're still all online.

And, but the, you know, the market has matured quite a bit, but one thing

that I did see was, you know, in.

In early nineties, California passed Title 24 energy code, and what that

did is effectively outlawed aluminum single glaze windows, which are what

most of the builders put in back in the sixties, seventies, and eighties.

And so all the builders.

To meet the code, start going to vinyl, dual glazed vinyl windows.

And they of course put the cheapest window they could put in there.

And we noticed about 10 years ago that there was a new market and

that was all these cheap builder grade vinyl windows failing.

And we started selling our, now.

By then I'd become renewable by Anderson.

We started selling our fiber composite windows, and we found built.

Processes to replace those builder grade vinyl windows.

So that market is still going strong.

I mean, there's still tens of thousands of windows that need to be replaced,

and a lot of those early vinyl windows, whether new construction

or, or replacement or failing.

Uh, but over and above that, I, I, I, you know, this one day

bath thing is really, really.

Going out.

I see a ton of people getting into that one day bath, and it's,

to me, it's a little deceptive.

They aren't really remodeling the bath, they're just doing a new bathtub.

Most of 'em don't do anything else, but that seems to be

something that's attractive.

Uh, outdoor living here in Southern California is, is big, and I know

it is a lot of other areas of the country and some of these uhgo

guys are developing with, uh.

So you can close it when it's raining and open it and when the sun's out.

And then what something we saw in our business, and I, it's still a

big trend, I think a big, a lot of big upside is what we call big doors.

These big multi glide doors or

these folding doors.

And uh, and you know, there a lot of the.

Higher end homes are putting them in.

They're, people see them in magazines and they're very sexy.

The problem is that most of the older homes that aren't built with the big

openings, so now you get into a ton of remodeling the, you know, combining

two or three openings into one big opening with new header and sometimes

new footers and.

I mean, some of these jobs are 70, $80,000 projects on to put a 20 foot wide by 10

foot high folding or multi glide door in.

So, you know, I see that as as being a big opportunity also.

Yeah.

Interesting.

No, I agree.

And those are beautiful where I see those movable walls and things.

So, so it's interesting, I, uh, this is like a trip down memory lane for

me a little bit here, Charlie, but, um, so my wife and I still live.

Than one of Don Snyder's old houses there in Sydney.

And, um, we actually put a motorized pergola on the back of our, uh, over

the back patio, um, a couple years ago.

And I, I could talk a lot about those.

The, the products are maybe a little bit oversold, but it's still pretty

cool and caught some attention.

So I have to ask you, um, the gentleman you were talking about from Alcan,

are we both thinking of Ra Khan?

Who was, who was his sidekick?

Tommy La.

LA Yeah.

I think Eric.

That's what I heard too.

I've, I've got a funny story about, I think it was Eric.

So I'm working a home show with these guys and they're pitching,

uh, you know, a homeowner comes through or maybe as a contractor,

but they're pitching vinyl siding.

I. And Eric is showing how tough and resilient it is, and he takes a piece

of this and in his, his excitedness, he wax it across the back of a wooden

folding chair that was in our booth.

And the siding just crumples.

I mean, it just fully folded 90 degrees.

So Eric tosses it over the back of the display.

It just keeps on going.

But that's my, that's my best Eric Ho story.

He is largely responsible for me getting into the window and door

I, I remember that.

Yep.

I remember that.

Good guys.

Well, I'm kind of curious, so, you know, as you continued with your

career and your business as you were involved, um, originally with the

Dial one, uh, program and then the RBA renewal by Anderson program.

Um, what do you see as benefits to those, you know, who are

selling replacement products?

What are the benefits to being involved with the national program,

um, such as those or maybe others?

And is that something you would generally suggest, uh, that contractors consider?

Uh, yes and no.

I mean, it, it can be a good thing.

It can also be a not a good thing.

Uh, you know, I got involved with Dial one in, uh, 1993.

They approached me and I didn't know the whole history of Dial one at the time,

but Dial one was started in the eighties by some of the same folks that started.

Estate back in the seventies and then 19.

And, and in your marketplace or even in the country, there was just all

these little mom and pop type realtors, and these guys had this idea that if

they created a brand name, identity and, and systems and processes in

the real estate market that you know, they could really grow the thing.

And so they went around to realtors and start it.

Getting them to sign up and take the Century 21 banner run.

They started doing a lot of national advertising, and so when you moved

around in your city, your town, or across state or across country, you

know, you look for a Century 21 realtor.

And, and they, it became enormously successful and became copied also in the

real estate industry many times over.

Uh.

So the, some of these guys branched off and they were looking at a similar

type of pro, uh, marketplace, and they settled on the home improvement

property services type business.

And they came up with the idea named Dial one.

And the idea was they would build a bunch of, have a bunch of dial

one franchisees in a given market and they were all complimentary.

And so if you, if your furnace went out and you called a dial one.

H-H-V-A-C guy come out, he'd show up in the uniform and be polite

and courteous and the billing was fair and honest and the warranty.

And if you had a good experience and then you had a leak in your roof,

you'd be inclined to call a dial one roofer if you needed, you know,

you wanted to have your bathroom done over, you need to landscaping.

So, and the name dial one came from Dial one number for all your needs

and the concept really solid, but they were never really able to.

It was what they call a conversion franchise where

you're taking business and.

You know, to a Dial one franchise.

And, and a lot of these guys were in my market, were small tradesmen.

They were good plumbers and electricians, but they were not good business people.

They didn't really have much marketing savvy or sales savvy.

And, uh, so it was this, you know, they were enabled, weren't

able to sell, sustain it.

But I. They approached me and they had an influx of venture capital, had a

new management team, and they painted this picture of having 2000 franchisees

and, and 30 major metropolitan areas in the United States by the year 2000.

And I felt like if they could do what they said they could do and I could

do what I thought I could do, that the synergistic effect would be, would really

be, be better than I could do on my own.

So we got involved in that and, and re-identified our company and painted

our trucks and reloaded and put our guys in uniforms and everything.

And for the first year or so, it was really going well.

But uh, I guess they weren't hitting their sales goals.

The venture capitalists pulled the funding plug on 'em, and all of a sudden, about

late 1995, early 1996, it went away.

Great concept, not just not able to sustain it.

So turned, but we kept flying the dial one flag because we had re-identified

and we became known as dial one.

And all the little dial one guys loved me because I.

In the early two thousands, uh, 1995, Anderson Corporation started a

division called Renewal by Anderson, which was their custom made, made to

order replacement window division.

And they stumbled and fumbled with that for the first five or six years,

but they started to get some traction.

And they approached me in the early two thousands about being

the Dial or the Renewal Anderson affiliate here in Orange County.

And we went back and forth for a while, but finally, in beginning of

2005, we switched over to renewal by.

Be becoming the Renewal by Anderson affiliate.

We kind of phased out of the cafeteria approach we had for

the other windows and doors.

And it was a, it was a major change.

It was kinda like blowing up my company and starting all over again.

You know, it was kinda

Oh, I bet.

turning the thermostat up to a temperature

that was pretty, pretty darn high.

But anyway, we figured it out and we, we, we, we, we started to have success

at a kind of rebuild my sales team.

And, uh, and we grew that quite a bit.

And, uh.

And then in, uh, 2013, uh, uh, one of the bigger dealers from the East

Coast Renewable by Anderson approached me about partnering with him.

And we got, in addition to Orange County, we got Riverside County, San

Bernardino County, and and LA County.

And we really grew the business to the point that.

In 2019, renewal by Anderson Corporate bought the business from us.

'cause they, their model's always been about 10% of the locations

are company owned and the rest are all independently owned.

And they had no, no company owned locations on the west coast.

So they wanted the LA market because the LA market has more single family homes

than any other market in the country.

And, uh, so.

You know, we, we, we, I, they, we sold the business to renewal by Anderson Corporate.

And I stayed on for three years as a general manager.

And then by the time I left, at the end of 21, retired, uh, the whole LA market,

we were doing about the, you know, 85, $90 million in residential replacement

windows with renewal by Anderson.

And it's grown from there.

That is a, is a story.

Good stuff.

So, so I, I guess to answer your question though, there are

some brand names and franchises that are.

Well worth investing in if you get with the right one.

I definitely would recommend that.

On the other hand, uh, you know, some of them can kind of limit you and lock you

down, and so I just would urge anybody who's thinking about that to kind of

look before you leap and, you know, do your due diligence and talk to some

other existing franchisees or licensees and make sure it's really what you want.

Well wise advice.

Sounds good.

Well, I know that in your books you talk a lot about lessons learned, uh,

that yeah, we all have those stories.

Um, I'm curious, what are a couple of the major lessons learned that

you share in your books that, uh, might enter our audience?

Yeah, well the number one lesson that I learned, and I.

Like people need to learn if they don't know it, is you gotta run your

business by the numbers and you gotta know the numbers of your business.

And, uh, too many people get into these businesses and they're focused on selling

jobs and producing jobs, but they don't know the right price to sell them at.

They really don't know what your overhead is.

They don't know what their cost of good sold are they, what their gross profit is.

They're not doing monthly.

Uh, p and l financials, they're, they don't, they're not

accounting on the accrual basis versus, versus the cash basis.

And, uh, so as I've learned these lessons and shared these with many

people over the years through training and all, I, I'll put this out there.

If you're gonna be in the home improvement remodeling business,

you need to be operating at at least a minimum of 50% gross profit.

And that means you take your revenue and you track your cost of goods sold.

And cost of goods sold should be the material, the labor

and the commission on the job.

And you rac your cost of goods sold from your revenue and you gotta have at least

a minimum of 50% gross profit to be able to pay for marketing and lead generation.

An admin and build a team, and then also make a, you know, a minimum,

a 10% bottom line and hopefully closer to 15 or 20% bottom line.

A lot of people don't believe you can make that, but I know my business as well

as a lot of other businesses are making that, you know, month in and month out.

It's so a lot of that goes into the mindset of, you know, and, but you

gotta know the number of your business.

That's definitely number one.

Key thing I think is, uh, around culture, company culture.

Every business has a culture, whether you consciously are aware of it or not.

And the definition I heard years ago, which I, I really think sums up

company culture, is company culture is all the positive behaviors that you.

Uh, acknowledge you encourage and reward minus the negative behaviors

that you tolerate and allow.

And I talk to so many people and they have problems, and it's related

to the fact that they tolerate and allow negative behavior, whether

it's on the sales end production end.

Whatever.

And they don't encourage and reward, uh, and acknowledge the positive behaviors.

So if you really think about that, it's a pretty simple formula, but you

know, your, your company is whatever it is, your culture is, whatever it is.

And a lot of people just let those negative behaviors, uh.

They allow 'em and they tolerate 'em.

And then I, I think the other thing I would say that's really important

is to become a student of marketing.

'cause these businesses are all about lead generation.

And, uh, I've got a friend of mine, uh, that's in Colorado and he, he

is been in the business like me many years, and he says, nothing scares me

in this business except for no leads.

Of leads.

So in order to combat that and not be in that position, you gotta become

a student of marketing and something I've seen a phenomenon in the last

three or four years, Todd, is that.

During Covid, right.

You know, co after three months into Covid, when people started to deal

with it and all, and people were trapped in their homes and couldn't

go on vacations or couldn't buy cars or whatever, you know, the home,

the phone started ringing for home improvement and remodeling contractors

and there was a groundswell of business.

And during that time, I mean, leads were falling out the sky and people that.

Weren't success, were having success.

And so the byproduct of that has been that a lot of people have

become what I call lazy marketers, where they've, their marketing is

almost all passive and they stopped.

You know, active or proactive type marketing.

And there's a lot of people have morphed into the digital space exclusively.

So, you know, they got a website, they, they've done search engine

optimization, they're doing their pay per click, they're do doing their Google,

Google local ads services type stuff.

They're buying leads from lead aggregators, things like that.

Uh, but I. It.

Doing direct mail, uh, doing canvassing, doing event marketing, uh, marketing

to your past customers, doing retail type marketing, things of that nature,

where instead of sitting back and waiting for the leads, you go out

and get 'em, you go out and make 'em.

That's the big difference right now in 2025 between the people that are

growing their businesses and have leads and the people that don't.

The other thing is a lot of people.

Uh, that I see, I see a lot of financials of companies.

They're not spending the money they should spend on marketing.

If you think of all the market leaders, either regionally or nationally

in the home improvement remodeling business, these people all have

spent their way to the top through marketing and I talk to people,

they're spending three and four and 5%.

You know, of, of their revenue on marketing and they're, you know, and

they're, they're, okay, but they're not really growing their business.

and and they, you know, and you wind up hitting a glass ceiling where you look

up and you see all the potential business there is, but you're not growing because

your marketing spend is limiting that.

So to me, you gotta spend 10, 12, 15%.

Of your revenue and marketing and then people say, well, I can't afford that.

Well, you can't afford it if you pay for it and your customers don't pay for it.

So you gotta build that in your mark in your selling price and you

know your customers will pay for it.

But that's a big thing.

People underspending and not becoming students of marketing and, and actually

becoming lazy marketers where, you know, you sign up with a company,

you give them a credit card or a monthly budget, and then you sit back

and wait for them to generate leads.

And, uh, so there's a lot of areas where you can, uh, you know, grow your

business by being, uh, making marketing the most essential part of your business.

That is a wealth of advice right there in

those three lessons learned.

Know your numbers, keep an eye on that culture, and that's a

great equation of what culture is.

Um, and marketing and avoiding lazy marketing Our.

Our last guest, uh, on our last episode is gentleman by the name of Marcus Sheridan.

Uh, Marcus wrote the book, uh, they Ask You Answer and his

new book is Endless Customers.

Um, but fascinating talking to him about how AI is, how he is advising

and showing companies how to use ai, uh, to help with their marketing.

And, um, it really isn't lazy marketing the way they're doing it.

It's pulling them in pretty deep with people and it's cool stuff.

I'm familiar with the They ask you

answer book.

He's, he is a very smart guy.

He, he definitely understands it.

Yeah, it sure does.

It's kind of funny though, as you were sitting there talking

about lazy marketing and, and how people can fall into that trap.

Um, back in probably the eighties, there was a series of books you probably read

them too, called Gorilla Marketing and um, yeah, those really had an impact on

me because they taught me that you gotta keep that edge constantly to figure out

where that next lead is coming from.

You can't get into a zone and too many people do you know?

Yep.

Good stuff.

Well, Charlie, you are certainly recognized as a major thought leader

in the home improvement industry.

I'm, I'm kind of curious who are others out there though that you would suggest

people listen to and pay attention to?

Well, a good friend of mine, Brian Gottlieb,

some people know Brian.

I mean, Brian was a Renewal by Andersen up in Wisconsin.

Brian sold those.

He was also, I think, in the bath business in Arizona.

Brian sold his business and he's kind of been on some of the same lecture

tour, talking tour that I've been on.

He wrote a book last year called Beyond the Hammer, which is a great

book and a lot of people have read it, but if you haven't read Beyond

the Hammer, pick it up and read it.

So Brian and Brian's out there on Facebook, you know, I would, if you look,

go to Facebook, I mean, friend Brian and Brian's a really smart guy, very.

You know, future forward thinking type of person.

Another person that I, I think I would advise people to become

familiar with if they're not already is Brian Kaskavalciyan.

Brian's, uh, had G four Marketing and he is also, uh, the wealthy contractor.

And he does his Accelerate Live conference every February This year he had like

four 50 companies there, uh, down in, uh, Jacksonville, Florida, Amelia Island.

Brian also started a thing a couple years ago called the Success Society.

And it's a group of people that meet three times a year in person, and

then every month there's coaching calls and mastermind calls, and, uh,

really people that are focused on, you know, being profitable, uh, and,

and making that 15 to 20% bottom line.

And so I, I definitely would recommend people file.

You know, follow Brian Kaskavalciyan.

And then the last one that is, is, has made an impact in the home improvement

business and remodeling business.

Working with a lot of contractors is is a fellow named Shawn Feurer out of Utah.

And Shawn is, uh, into the mindset aspect of he's Shawn.

Shawn and his dad were contractors.

Shawn has his own consulting business now, and you know, this thing between

our ears that stops our two ears from touching, uh, talks us into stuff and

talks us outta stuff all day long.

And, uh, a lot of it has to do with our mindset.

You know, the glass is half empty, the glass is half full.

I. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Henry Ford.

And it's, if you think you can, you can.

If you think you can't, you can't.

Either way, your right.

So Shawn is working with a lot of contractors to help

them with their mindset.

'cause a lot of times we have these belief systems that are very self-limiting.

Uh, you know, we don't think we're worthy.

We don't think we're capable of, uh, we don't think we deserve

it, whatever, and, and, and, and cracking the code and getting

through that and, and realizing that.

You know, each, whatever we do, it's up to us.

You know, it's, you know, and, and, and not limiting ourselves.

And, uh, so Shawn Feurer, it's F-E-U-R-E-R consulting.

So I would say Brian Gottlieb, Brian Kaskavalciyan and Shawn Feurer are

three of the leading guys today.

If you wanna grow your business, if you want inspiration, if you want tactics, if.

Take your business and your life to, to, the next level.

They would be three guys that I'd be follow online and get involved

with and reach out to them.

They all, they're all great people and I'd all be happy to talk to anyone.

Well, very cool.

And I do, I was not familiar with Shawn, so I wrote, uh,

his name down there and, uh.

Uh, gonna learn more about him as well.

So thank you.

Those sound like great, uh, great advice there.

Um, well, Charlie, thank you so much.

This really has been a great discussion.

We're so thankful for your time.

Um, we're close to wrapping up what we kind of call the business end of things.

Anything we haven't covered today that you wanted to be sure to sell

to, uh, share with our audience?

Uh, one thing I think is really important is, and Jim Collins in

the book, good To Great Talks about the companies that went from Good to Great,

all identified their hedgehog concept.

And he, you can read the book to find out why he calls it the hedgehog concept,

but basically the hedgehog concept is where three circles intersect.

And the one, number one is what can you be the best at?

The number two circle is what drives your economic engine?

What can you make money doing?

And number three is what are you deeply passionate about?

And, uh, so have finding this, the, the, the, the place in the business world

where those three intersect for your individual business, I think is key.

And when I look at how I transitioned from the aluminum roofing to the windows

to renewal by Anderson, it was because my hedgehog concept was changing.

Being aware of that.

When I look back, in retrospect, I see that happening.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I fell in love and outta love with things.

I, I, certain things drove my economic engine and they didn't no longer drive

my economic engine and other things did.

And, and then really what can you be the best at?

Not, you know, 'cause there's where you want to be in this business,

in my mind, is you wanna be the premium price leader in your market.

You don't want to be the middle of the road and, and, and you can

never be the low price leader 'cause there's always somebody willing

to sell it for less than you.

The price leader.

Charging the right price, which is generally gonna be the highest price

or one of the highest prices for what it is you do in your market.

And, and then being able to go out and educate, differentiate, and build

value with every customer having a sales process and having, making

marketing essential in your business.

All those things I think are, are, are the things that people should

be focused on if they wanna, not to sustain your business, but, but

grow your business and flourish it.

When you do it right, and believe me, I didn't do always do it right from day one,

but I, I learned those lessons and it, it, for me personally, it, it gave me a very

gratifying life, a very prosperous life.

And, and, and.

Making and doing things way beyond what I ever thought I could have

done, you know, 41 years ago when I moved out here to start a business.

So, but they would be the key things.

And I put a lot of those in my two books, the two lessons learned

book, and there's a lot other.

Detail in there that people could get things from.

But, uh, I would think that that's the, that's the big thing is, is becoming

the premium price leader in your market.

Knowing what your hedgehog concept is, charge in the right price, and

then knowing the numbers of your business and build a great culture.

Fantastic advice, um, great advice for anybody, especially who may

be starting out, uh, in their career or in a business or, uh, uh, good stuff.

Thank you.

Well, we are ready to, uh, ask you if you're willing to partic participate

in something we do on every show called our Rapid Fire questions.

So these are seven questions.

Um, you don't know what we're about to ask, but all you have to do is

give, uh, your quick answer to them.

Um, are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

Charlie,

Yeah, sure.

Let's, let's do it.

I knew you would be, you wouldn't be an

entrepreneur if you weren't.

Um, well, Ryan, you wanna ask the first question?

Yes, I'd love to.

Question number one, what is something you have purchased or acquired in recent

memory that was a game changer for you?

I.

Yeah, for me it was, uh, an automobile that

I bought about two years ago.

I, some people may know from tv, salt Lake.

And he builds a, uh, he, he styled this car after a 1953

Corvette, and I'm a big car guy.

And, uh, I was able to buy the ninth car that he made of this.

He calls it a CF one, the body's all carbon fiber.

And, uh, I traded eight cars to get this car.

And so it was, and it was an expensive car and I sometimes thought I was crazy.

But there's a couple other versions of it that have sold at some of these high-end

auctions for twice what I paid for it.

So.

So it's a game changer for sure.

And it's a, it's an incredible car.

People just see it just kind of go crazy over it.

I've seen some of your social media posts with some vets and

things, so I'm gonna check out the CF one though and see what that's all about.

Cool.

go to Ken Digit designs and look up the CF one and

he's, he's built about 18 of them now.

He builds about four or five a year.

That's pretty cool.

Well, question number two, if you could be any fictional

character for a day, what fictional character would you choose to be?

I.

dunno, maybe Superman.

There you go.

Super.

I could see myself flying around with a red tape.

be kind of fun, wouldn't it?

It certainly would faster than a speeding bullet.

Yeah, right.

Good answer.

Question number three.

What's one thing on your bucket list that you haven't done yet?

I wanna go to Italy and Switzerland and never been there.

And, uh, I just, you know, wanna do a little more traveling and my wife is,

likes to be at home and I like to travel, so, but yeah, I definitely like to.

A lot of friends have gone to Italy and, and I'm just jealous of them, you know, so

I'd love to spend a month or two in Italy.

I think that would be on my bucket

You'd be surprised how many times that comes up on this show.

Um.

At least recently it has my, uh, oldest stepdaughter's actually

studying abroad over there right now.

And she loves it and wants to live there.

Yeah.

I just, uh, I just see the photos and hear the stories and.

Yeah.

I've seen a few that are set over there in Tuscany and all and

Awesome.

Next question.

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what

food would you choose to eat?

file.

Well, there you go.

That's a good answer.

So do you put a crest on it or just a file?

No, no crust on top or anything?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, I, there's a lot, lot of ways to prepare it and,

um, variety is a spice of life.

But if I had to pick one food Aon and prepare in multiple

ways, yeah, definitely.

But there's nothing better than Aon.

I hear you.

Question number five, what's something you

think everyone should expect?

Experience at least once in their life.

See, that's, that's a, that's a complicated question.

Uh, well, I, I think everyone should experience, uh, a true love.

The true love a, a love, an unconditional love, and, uh.

Someone that they can receive it from and someone that they can give it to.

A lot of people are in love and in relationships, but, but having an

unconditional love where you can say anything, do anything and you won't

be judged, and, and you can give that in return to the other, to that

person, I think is, is, is something that people should experience.

A lot of people are fortunate to have done that, but not everybody is.

That's a good answer.

A game changer.

Good answer.

Okay.

Well we're gonna switch back for this next question sort of

into business mode a little bit.

Um, what is a great practice in your opinion, to help gain the trust of a

homeowner during the sales process?

I.

I think it's a mindset of that we don't sell anything.

Our mindset is we help people buy things.

We help people, you know, so, and, and no one likes to be sold

anything, but people love to buy.

I mean, you don't pull into the driveway and your neighbor comes over

and say, look at this new car that the guy at the dealership sold me.

You know?

But with your chest out, you say, look at the car that I just bought.

Right?

And too many people in sales I think are.

In the, in the sales business where sales is something you do to people, right?

It's almost sounds manipulative and a lot of sales processes

are taught to be manipulative.

But I think having the mindset that we don't sell anything,

but we help people buy things.

And I, I've been across the table from homeowners and they're nervous

and they're, you know, and I kind of put ease to say, you know, John.

I hope you don't think I came out here to sell you do windows and doors

today, because that's not what we do.

And they look at you like strange, like, you don't sell, whatcha doing here?

They, no, we don't sell windows and doors.

We help people buy windows and doors and I came out here at no cost today

to see if I can help you and maybe I.

Appreciate your honesty in answering those, and so doing a really good

needs assessment and then a really good walk around and inspection,

but all with the mindset of helping people by not selling them anything.

I love that, and I always put it this way, I say.

You know, everything changes when that salesperson realizes that what

they're doing is not to benefit themselves, but to benefit the customer,

and that just changes everything.

Zig Ziglar said it.

Well, if Yelp enough other people get what they want,

you'll get what you want.

You know?

But too many times people go in there with commission breath, you know?

And, and people, people feel it and see it all over them, you turns.

Nowadays with social media and every customer has a megaphone,

you know, to to, to put blast their comments out to the world.

I think it's that much more important, you know, that we, we have adopt

that, that mindset of helping people buy versus selling them things.

Very good.

Final question here.

We'll end on kind of a serious note.

Other than, uh, being known for having an awesome car, what would you like to be

remembered for at the end of your days?

I, I think it's very simple.

I, I. You know, I, I want the world to, I want the people around me and the people

I in I interact with think that, you know, the world's a little bit better place

'cause I pass through it because I touched them, I helped them, I made a difference.

And, uh, to me that's the biggest testimony.

Some, some people have a bigger stage to do it then on than others.

But I mean, everybody.

And if everybody made the world a little bit better, that'd be a heck of

a lot better world than we have now.

Right.

So I just think if you're known for, you made a difference, a positive

difference in the lives of other people, in a community, in a, in an

industry, whatever, then I think, uh, you know, that's a life well lived.

Amen.

Great note to wrap up on and I knew you'd have a great comment.

So that's the reason we ended with that one.

Well, thank you again for your time today.

I'm, uh, can you share with us for folks who may wanna get in touch with you

or learn about your business coaching and things that you're doing, uh, what

are some of the best or easiest ways for them to connect with you, Charlie?

Yeah, so I have a website.

It's charlie.com.

That's C-H-A-R-L-I-E-G-I-N-D-E-L-E com.

And, uh, my email is Charles .Gindele, G-I-N-D-E-L-E, the number1@gmail.com.

So Charles.Gindele1@gmail.com.

And, uh, you know, I, I think can private me.

They go into Facebook.

I have a, you know, place on Facebook and they could private message me,

whatever, but, uh, and then go on Amazon.

And then the three, if you put my name in Charlie Gindele, they're on there.

Yeah, we encourage folks to check out your books, that's for sure.

And we'll put all that information in the show notes as well to make it,

uh, available and handy for everybody.

So, um.

Hey guys.

I think we all got our challenge words in good job.

Uh, Ryan, I didn't really tell the audience we were doing challenge words,

but I think they're used to it by now.

Uh, Ryan, your challenge word to work into the conversation was

Orthodontist

you did a good job with that.

Charlie, you got yours in a little bit later, but you got it in there.

Your word was

Are professionals, you know, you know how to do this

what?

was thermostat, I'm not sure if was in the

best context that I put in.

was perfect.

No, I think we both kinda learned that, oh, I just

wanna get this done with, so we try to figure out how to do early.

It's usually not that

Yeah, no

usually doesn't happen that quick.

Yeah, my word was peculiar.

I got it in there as well.

So, um, Charlie, thank you again for being with us.

It's been a pleasure and it's gonna be a great episode.

I know our listeners will enjoy it.

Thank you.

Todd, my pleasure, Ryan.

Thank you both and, uh, enjoyed the conversation and, uh, I'll see

you in Louis in a couple weeks.

See you soon at the, uh, Dave Yoho, uh, what does he call it?

Mastering success, mastering profit show or

something.

like that.

But, uh, looking forward to it.

Well thank you to our audience for tuning into this episode of Construction

Disruption with Home Improvement Industry Veteran and legend Charlie Ell.

Please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

Um, we're always blessed to have great guests just like Charlie.

Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcast or.

Give us a thumbs up on YouTube.

Um, until the next time we're together, though, keep on disrupting things.

Keep on challenging, uh, the others in your world to be and yourself

to better ways of doing things.

And don't forget to leave a positive impact on everyone you encounter.

Make them smile, encourage them.

Simple yet powerful things we can all do to change the world.

So, uh, god bless and take care.

This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode

of Construction Disruption.