The Foureva Podcast
Welcome to The Foureva Podcast, where we break barriers and redefine success!
Join host Jamar Jones, a dynamic entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of "Change Your Circle, Change Your Life," as he takes you on an extraordinary journey of inspiration and motivation.
In each episode, we bring you an impressive lineup of star-studded guests, each with a unique voice and a wealth of insights to share. From industry leaders to renowned experts, we uncover their secrets to success in personal, business, and marketing domains. Prepare to be captivated by their stories, strategies, and experiences that will empower you to reach new heights.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a marketing professional, or simply seeking fresh perspectives on life and business, The Foureva Podcast is your ultimate destination. Discover the transformative power of changing your circle and unlocking your full potential. With each episode, we delve into the minds of the most influential voices in the industry, providing you with the tools and inspiration you need to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness.
Don't miss out on this dynamic podcast that will fuel your ambition, challenge your limits, and propel you toward success. Tune in to The Foureva Podcast and join a community of driven individuals who are ready to make an impact. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and 'foureva' transformed!
The Foureva Podcast
How culture and community can scale your business quickly w/ Michael Saglin - Infinity Exteriors
What does it take to lead with authenticity, empower your team, and build a thriving business culture? In this episode of the Forever Podcast, Jamar Jones sits down with Michael Saglin—community leader, youth football coach, and operations executive at Infinity—to unpack the secrets to sustainable growth, leadership, and community impact.
Michael shares his journey from playing football to coaching and leading a team of 94 employees across multiple locations. Discover how he turned a passion for honesty and integrity into a thriving business that’s completed over 48,000 homes. From building a culture-first brand to implementing innovative “pod systems” that empower leaders, Michael reveals how authentic leadership drives both business and personal growth.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ How to scale a service-based business without sacrificing quality
✅ The power of honest leadership (and why “admitting your faults” is a game-changer)
✅ How to create a winning culture in a traditionally fragmented industry
✅ Why empowering your team is the key to sustainable growth
✅ How to stay connected to your community and give back with purpose
✅ The importance of transparency in pricing and how it builds trust
Michael also shares his personal passion for youth sports, community building, and his unique approach to leadership development—showing that sometimes the best ideas come straight from your own people.
🚀 Whether you’re an entrepreneur, leader, or business owner, this episode is packed with actionable insights and heartwarming stories about the power of leadership and community.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and turn on notifications for more inspiring interviews on business growth, leadership, and personal development!
You could write books and books about all these processes. This would never fail because we've spent so much time putting this all together. But if you don't have the right people and the right leadership to show the people the way, then it's all going to fail anyway. We have great people In the end. That's what it is. We have no turnover. I mean attrition is nothing.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you work there, you just stay there.
Speaker 2:Working. There is an experience, you know, that's really rare these days. Yeah, hey, what's going on? Everybody, welcome. Welcome to another episode of the forever podcast. Man, how we doing today, how we feeling. There's a lot of stuff that's going on currently and we are going to get into some killer conversation.
Speaker 2:Man, we got Mike Saglin on the podcast from Infinity Exteriors. He, he's the brand president and he's a guy that is all about community. He's about leadership, he's about the people culture, uh, and overall, just a good guy that has a vision and believes in people. Uh, and when you get in a room with people like this, you start to understand how they got to their position that they're at right now. He lives leadership in all aspects of his life and dude's got some killer kicks too, man. You'll hear about that conversation very shortly. He's got a whole collection of kicks, man, which is awesome.
Speaker 2:So just a really good guy, and I think through this podcast, you're going to learn that culture in your organization, as far as to scale and to grow, is the key. It's the key. Yes, there's a lot of other things that you need to be able to grow and get to the places that you know that you want to be. But culture is like your team that you're building to empower them to make their own decisions so they can critically think about problem solving and coming up with solutions like at scale, like that is the. That is the most amazing thing that you can build, because then you know that those pieces of your business are running smoothly and you have trust in those places. Because you can't be everywhere and Mike is a brand president. He can't be everywhere, but he instills that brand throughout the entire organization. You're going to hear about how he's been able to stamp and repeat that over and over as they're growing and scaling from Wisconsin to Illinois and who knows where they go next. So enjoy this conversation. This one's a really good one, and so glad that you tuned in to the Forever Podcast. So glad that you tuned in to the Forever Podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another amazing episode of the Forever Podcast. It's your boy, it's your host, jamar Jones, and we got an amazing guest here today. We got my man. Mike Saglin is in the building. He is a leader, community advocate, an amazing human being. We're gonna get to know him a little bit more. Welcome to the show man Nice to meet you. Welcome to the show man, nice to meet you. Thanks, yeah, nice to meet you, man. So tell me about, like, what's your favorite spot is in milwaukee? Uh, location, food, entertainment, like what are you into? What are you into when you hit the city?
Speaker 1:it's pfizer yeah, yeah, that area has grown, it's. It's great down there now. They have great restaurants that surround it. Little uh Mecca I used to watch basketball games there when I was little. Now it's a restaurant. There's a nice little bar down there right off the district called Whitetail.
Speaker 2:Must stop it's great time there, yes, and are you have. You been a long time Bucks fan.
Speaker 1:I grew up here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I, yeah, I, um. I grew up in central milwaukee, so literally walking distance from the old mecca. The old county stadium now am fam, um, it was great, great spot to grow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100 and just the. The remodeling of the, uh, the arena has just like lit up that whole downtown area yeah yeah, so nice, because I know for the long when I get in a lot of conversation when I'm traveling, people are like either they've never been to Milwaukee before or it's been a long time since they hit the city. And I'm like you got to go.
Speaker 1:Lots changed in the past decade, the stigma of Wisconsin, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Immerse yourself in a place where bold ideas are sought after, where all are encouraged to bring their personal flourish. Here, innovation is a way of life In this city. The beat flows Together. We're dancing to the rhythm forward. Now it's your turn to grab hold of that energy where you'll remember not just the meals, the celebrations or the uncommon coasts. What you'll remember is how we made you feel. Come experience Milwaukee, where fresh meets fearless every day.
Speaker 1:Little city, low payroll, Green Bay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's nothing there except for the Packers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, milwaukee's a little different. If you stop, you'll come back, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's grown into something pretty proud of something we can be proud of and really it's the people man, like the people here, when you start to really get ingrained into the city, like the people are just second to none man. They're just like they're really loyal, compassionate, just amazing people and just like warm-hearted is a lot, lot of the sense that I get from Milwaukee and you are a football coach right, yeah, for real. So talk to me a little bit about how is it leading. I know what age group, what, age group are they?
Speaker 1:I've coached varsity. I've coached kindergarten. Okay, cool so you pick and we can start on either end yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So you, man, you got the whole gamut. Um, what is it? What is it like, uh, leading a team um for a common goal, just just in football.
Speaker 1:We'll start there first I think my journey is a little different than a lot of people that yeah that I fell into coaching.
Speaker 1:I played forever, so I was 30 years old when I stopped and I needed something to get away from. So I became a. I joined a varsity staff with no children so no children playing football yet. So I you're teaching other people's kids how to play football. But that starts your leadership journey, because you need to instill your core values into into the kids, to understand what a team is, what you mean to a team, what taking a playoff or taking a quarter off or not coming to practice means to the other 90 kids that are there. Yeah, um, you're not.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get where you want to go without every all hands on deck yeah, yeah, and I'm curious, do you know a guy so it's a great friend of mine Jeremy McLaughlin. Do you know who? That is Okay, he, he, he coaches a lot of basketball and he's done a lot of like women's, girls, boys and, but he's over in like Catholic Memorial, like Waukesha area. He's coach, but he's done varsity and he's just a well-known like coach around the area. I just didn't you know it's Milwaukee. Yeah, yeah, never do.
Speaker 1:And then how long you been coaching for 27 years, 27 years, yeah, in total, if you from the time that I yeah, so the time that I started coaching, yeah, it's been 27 total years.
Speaker 2:What's the most memorable coaching moment that you can share with us real quick?
Speaker 1:That's. It's easy for me and it touches my heart every time I tell the story we had. So I was coaching high school at the time. We had a team of kids that played together from first grade until their senior year of high school and I was year seven or eight into this varsity team and we got into the playoffs. We level one, win our game. Level two we were a two seed. Level two we play a team that beat us earlier during the year, had the whole redemption speech from the coaching staff. Like you don't get this chance a lot in your life. We crushed that team.
Speaker 1:And then level three, level four. Level four is the game to go to state. We find out that one of the guys, one of the best people I've ever met in my life, didn't have much longer to live and he joined the staff that year because he knew he was kind of coming to the end. And we won that game. And I have goosebumps right now, actually Just a bunch of grown men hugging, crying. We ended up losing in a state game, but it didn't matter at that point.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It's the bigger part of life that kicks in. Yeah, it was pretty awesome Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow. And how does man like, how do you really bring the team closer?
Speaker 1:during a moment like that. I think they see it on you. That's just the honesty of life. I think, when a grown man can tear up in front of kids and it's just genuine and the story didn't end the way we want it to end, but the story is the story I mean. On the other hand, I can argue that we won our my son, I coach my son's team also. Okay. We won our youth my son, I coach my son's team also. Okay. We won our youth Super Bowl, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:But just my son jumping into my arms crying, and his version of his tears were a complete different tears that my other story was, but they somewhat met the same thing. Yeah, because it's just kind of emotion and honesty kicks over, yeah, kicks in. Yeah, tears that my other story was, but they somewhat met the same thing. Yeah, because it's just kind of emotion and honesty kicks over, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of times when you've got a lead, it's not always with like an iron fist Right. You know, you got that compassion, that empathy really works wonders. Yeah, when you're trying to lead people, um, and how is coaching also translated then into what you're doing?
Speaker 1:um, for infinity it's the same thing yeah that's the. That that's, I think, the best part about leadership, is it? If you're honest every day, it's really easy. Yeah, um, stand behind what you say. Be there for your people, make it known that you genuinely care about their well-being and they're going to be there for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely something that, like, a lot of people try to put on the fake facade or the tough facade, you know, trying to lead people, but, you know, just knowing that you're honest and you don't have anything to hide, and I'm right there with you, there's that dynamic that builds trust. You know, over a long period of time and how long have you been at Infinity then? 12 years, 12 years, and you guys have done a lot of homes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 40. We're in that. We're over 48,000. Yeah, yeah, what has that journey been?
Speaker 2:like for you? 40, we're in that, we're over 48,000. Yeah, yeah, what has that journey been like for you?
Speaker 1:It's probably worth writing a book about at some point yeah, we were a roofing company. You're that, but Infinity was. So. The founder of Infinity his name is Josh Sparks. He is now doing big things for our sector and for people. We're building something big. But he started Infinity when he was subcontracting for a company that is still in business, but when he had to collect the bill he didn't understand why it was so much and he couldn't justify in his head why someone would charge someone this much money to do this job.
Speaker 1:And that was it. He started Infinity and said and that's who we are still today. We're a big volume, we're a volume company. We charge what we need to charge and it's not too much. It's not too much, it's not too little. It's what it costs yeah um and we've done. We've done great with it, it's just be it. The honesty comes back in a back into play here yeah, yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you know a business has started through like, hey, the like, why does it need to be like this? You know, and maybe I can, we could do it better but also be at an affordable price. You know, for people what's been? Give me a story about a job that that you guys have done. That is like just a one of a kind kind of job that you could share with us.
Speaker 1:Well, we did the largest pieced metal roof in the state at one point. When I say pieced, it's not your long panels, they don't make the product anymore, unfortunately, but it looks like shingles. Okay yeah, really cool job We've done. Did a huge weeded project in Madison, which was awesome.
Speaker 1:I mean, just that's again. We get into that kind of work too. And it was 11 buildings, all rough siding windows, gorgeous property. Yeah, it was yeah, the color scheme was awesome. Walking away from it when we were done, the last thing we did was put the siding on the sign. Okay, Out front that said the name of what it was, but we don't get into a lot of the large commercial stuff which would be memorable for most people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:But every project is memorable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the big thing with us is you're doing a shingle repair, you're doing a $150,000 home makeover. That person is the same person. Yeah, If you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, you treat every job the same. Yeah, yeah, that you're going into it and what like. So you know, with roofing, you know like a lot of times, like I used to own a home and anytime you need some work done, you kind of just scroll through the internet, yeah, or you might know somebody you know that can that can help. What's the difference between you guys and just hiring a subcontractor or a contractor to come and and do the job?
Speaker 1:Biggest thing if you're ever looking for anyone exterior, or anyone for that matter. Read the reviews. I mean the reviews tell you the story. We can't pay people to leave good reviews, or bad ones for that matter, so the vast majority of ours are good. The bad ones will explain kind of what happened, because if I told you that every project is perfect, I'd be lying to you. Oh yeah, stuff happens. It doesn't work that way, but it's how you end.
Speaker 2:Can you shake hands at?
Speaker 1:the end Can you just admit that, hey, just something went wrong and but now we're here. Yeah, we'll go to the reviews first. We're just different because we're different.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I mean we grade ourselves as a company on our customer reception.
Speaker 3:What do our?
Speaker 1:reviews look like. What do our, how do our people feel working at infinity? Um, it's it. We've kind of brought hospitality into the roofing sector um my dad was a chef I mean, I grew up in that too, where, um, it doesn't have. If someone signs a contract for a roof, for siding, for windows, they're, they're with us, they're signing with for an experience yeah, and, and you treat them that way. Someone's going to do a roof once, maybe twice, in their life. Yeah, it's exciting for them, so it better be exciting for us, yeah.
Speaker 2:Now can you cook as well. I see your dad was a chef.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I say I can cook. I think I can talk about how I cook better than I can cook. I'm okay, yeah, yeah. What was the best dish growing up? Oh, I. It's funny because I get my parents the business all the time, because I always I basically lied to my kids about how I grew up eating hot dogs and dry pork chops, but my favorite tenderloin yeah. That's. It should be everyone's favorite, but that's that was absolutely my favorite.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, definitely like a tender, like oh man, so good, so good.
Speaker 1:Got to eat it rare yeah.
Speaker 2:Rare I eat everything. Rare, rare I can't do rare. Usually it's like medium.
Speaker 1:Medium is like You're taking all the flavor out of it.
Speaker 2:Can have a bunch of like sitting in a puddle.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh yeah, it's kind of yeah yeah, cold in the middle, yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, there's something for everybody. I couldn't take it Because I used to have actually growing up.
Speaker 1:Everything was like well done, and then I learned that I want some flavor you know there, but I couldn't go as far as medium rare yeah, medium rare at least go there.
Speaker 2:All right, mike, just try one just for you. I'm gonna try that next time I'm gonna try that next time and see uh see, how that goes. I'll send you a picture, perfect, um and so like. With what you guys do you know, with so many homes I mean like 48,000 homes how do you keep the standard, like the quality standard, so high as you're doing so much like you say it's a lot of volume, it's like you're going constantly how do you keep that standard high?
Speaker 1:I think there's two answers. I mean, I could go down the chain of all the processes we have built to make sure that that happens. Or I could just tell you that the people at Infinity know the drill. Yeah, and that's more important than the process is. You could write books and books about all these processes. This would never fail because we've spent so much time putting this all together.
Speaker 1:Yeah never fail because we've spent so much time putting this all together. Yeah, but if you don't have the right people and the right leadership to show the people the way, then it's all going to fail anyway. We have a great, we have great people. That's in the end. That's what it is. We all the majority we have no turnover. I mean attrition is nothing.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you work there, you just stay there because, because working.
Speaker 3:there is an experience you know, that's really rare these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like super rare.
Speaker 1:I don't know if anyone could work anywhere else, and I don't think it's not because of me and it's not because of what we do. I think it's the atmosphere. It's really our offices. We have six of them and they're all like you walk in and everyone's enthused, Everyone's energized. I mean not that I could work anywhere else, but I don't think I could anymore because of what we built.
Speaker 2:It's a great place. It's on the culture and it sounds like the culture is really sound throughout the organization and that stems from leadership. What's your number one? Leadership, like rule, I would say. You know when you need to lead a team like how do you like? What's your standards?
Speaker 1:Admit your faults. I mean, start there. I don't. I've never ruled hard, I've never really had to. I mean, you can when you have to, but you don't. I don't even know what ruling hard is. To be honest with you, but be honest with your people and let them know that they are part of something special. We all talk every day. We're all doing something that no one's ever done. I don't believe there's another company quite like ours anywhere else Sheer size alone, plus what we provide to people.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 1:Experience-wise. I mean, our warranties are unbelievable too, and that's basically just. We built that over the years. We're sizable, so we can return that to the homeowner, that's nice. Yeah, but yeah, we're learning every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Learn something every day and realize that you're learning every day and you're in the now. Just make it as the knowledge as good as you can make it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a really good point, because there's a lot of companies, you know, when you see you're learning every day, there's a lot of companies that get real stagnant, like quick they get comfortable and the learning stops. You know they're not changing and evolving anymore. And I just think that's really important to always keep learning because, like, when you figure out, like you start to know it all and like, yeah, you know, we're the biggest, we're the baddest, we're here, Somebody else, just like you guys, kind of came in and said, hey, we can do this better. And then that's when that starts to happen. So the fact that you guys are constantly evolving and changing is awesome, and I have a great good friend of mine and they built a company with that same philosophy as well.
Speaker 2:Like the industry was just stagnant and just like same old, same old, nothing's going to change, and the consumers just had to deal with it. Yeah, and so to come in with that frame of mind like there's such a big opportunity, and the fact that you guys leave with culture first, it's just. It's just so important that you guys lead with culture first, it's just so important. I've heard this I don't know if you've heard this phrase before is hire fast, fire fastest, or no, sorry, hire fast, fire faster, promote fastest, yep, have you heard that before? Yeah, yeah, how does that work when you guys really notice a rock star, just like on your team, like how do you? Is that something that you're saying, hey, let's, let's go ahead and give this person more opportunity? Or how does that work that's?
Speaker 1:that rare in our business oh by the way because, yeah, you usually stops at one shop, oh and, and it's a month if you're just getting money at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, no, it's good.
Speaker 1:No, that was a culture thing with us. When someone outgrows their position, what do you do with them? What opportunities can you provide to them? That's how we started expanding. So we had a gentleman who's doing a great job he's in Appleton now Kind of needed to spread his wings a little bit.
Speaker 1:Well he wanted to go there, we sent him there. We had a guy that wanted to go to Madison, we sent someone to Madison. So every person, every shop that we've opened is we call them brand managers. Our brand managers are all ex, like home base employees Changed the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we've had people come to us and say, hey, I got family in lacrosse. Well, let's see if we can do something up there, because we're not going in blind, we're going with a story, we're infinity and this is what we do. So we just scout it a little bit, send a guy up there and say sell away, yeah and yeah, and it's, it's, it's working, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's good, and why is? Why is branding so important to you guys? I feel like you know like once again, the industry can get real stagnant. You know you can get just get used to your phone ringing. Get real stagnant. You know you can get, just get used to your phone ringing and. But why is branding and and just being in front, um, why is that so important to you guys?
Speaker 1:I. There's also two answers that you, you everyone.
Speaker 1:I could say growth. I could say we have a goal, we all have a goal. Right, I have a goal of a dollar amount I want, I want to hit and a location goal before I'm done and I'm going to hit that. And everyone at the all 94 people at Infinity know that we're going to hit that because why would they question it? We've already beaten everything else, every other goal we've had. Branding with us.
Speaker 1:It's almost a pride thing at this point and you want people to know you work at infinity. You want to come to work knowing that another great quote. We use it at the end of a lot of our meetings. Every decision you make every day should be made with the mindset yeah, you're building a company better than ours, so that's gone a long way. Where you're going to work, you're making a difference. And as long as we keep our headspace correct day in and day out, we are, we do, we're on I don't know 35, 38 job sites a day. So if we're affecting 35 to 38 homeowners, human beings, in a positive manner, yeah you feel good?
Speaker 1:yeah and that's what this, that's what this really boils down to with us is. We're roofing exteriors. It's a such a fractured industry right now as it is. You have how many times you see people on the news with I got my deposits taken. I don't know where this company went. I now we have.
Speaker 2:I just heard about this. It was popped up my Facebook and I was like dang, I mean, somebody had just a really bad story with a certain contractor and like there were the comments underneath were like yeah, same thing happened to me, same thing happened to me. And I was like, oh my god, that's why reputation is so important. Back to the reviews. Yeah, it's like man, like man. If you don't keep that right people, that word spreads fast. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Super fast and now we're getting storm events now once, twice every year, and that makes it worse because now you have companies from other states come in. They don't. They're not all bad, but a lot of them are. And so then we're in the, we're in the roofing sector, so we're grouped into that as much as we say that we're not stormers.
Speaker 1:We don't we come in and we give you a price and you do what you want. What we don't want is for the bad companies to continue to get work and then the whole industry stays in the perception that it is, when we are honestly the polar opposite of that. Yeah, we don't hide anything. You know what the pricing is. We show you when we're in the house. Everything's on a tablet, everything's broken down, it's so black and white, and that's the industry could be that way and it could be fabulous if everyone lived that way. Yeah, just be honest, it's nice.
Speaker 2:It's nice when you have some honesty, especially around the pricing. We can get to the whole medical healthcare conversation, because that's I mean know, and I and I love that people are challenging people in that as well like, just hey, if I got a hospital bill, let me see, like where is this going, you know, like please, so like the same thing, like applies in in your industry, was like, yeah, just be transparent. Yeah, you know with, with what's going on. And then, and the more fair you can be, you know, the better um, for, for, and that's so good that you guys are, that you guys have this, this stance and your brand and like who you are and you want people to to know. You know about, like, what you guys are doing. That's that's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2:And and culture is, is it just so? Every I get in I talked to so many entrepreneurs. You know every single day and like culture, always. You know you can bang down the doors, you could have killer sales, you could have these ups, you know in your company, but like what's going to keep you there is culture, you know, and how many people you guys have total working for you guys now Ninety-four, ninety-four, nice, nice. So still tight-knit, but you have several locations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that may have made us tighter, because the conversation is different. Yeah, and I think that that may have made us tighter because the conversation is different you know you you'll call someone from the other office. How's it going? Just out of the blue, like you sat next to them for two years and you just stay in contact with them. We do a ton of company events. We do a ton, a ton of charity work and we get together for all that stuff. Um again, it's help people out.
Speaker 1:You know, you know, we do it uh, we have a huge event up in appleton. We're doing another habitat house we do oh, yeah, yeah, we do give away five, six roofs to veterans a year. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so it's. Uh, actually we're, uh, we have a fundraiser roof we're giving away in my hometown, um raffling it off, basically for a family in need. So, yeah, it's just, it makes you feel good Of course. Of course yeah, and we don't promote it.
Speaker 1:We don't bring any of it up. We don't put it out on socials Like we're not doing it for any other reason other than other. People need help. Yeah, they need help and we don't need to profit off it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you're not very boastful about it, but it is nice to hear that you guys are doing those things too at the same point, because you know, I mean, the branding at least is important. Like, hey, you guys care about community and you care about the people. Like, honestly, you know, that's just, that's absolutely incredible. Um, so now you're, this is your. Uh, even though I'm doing some podcasts, you say you do some speaking. Um, what do you? What do you normally talk on when you do some speaking?
Speaker 1:leadership, leadership, yeah, yeah yeah, and I'm not good at it I'm not.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on no I'm not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's I. I don't prep, I don't I just go into it yeah, I and I. I feel I don't want to look, or I yeah I don't speak well as it is. I have very wisconsin accent, I know that um, but there'll be no question that I'm off. The cuff is honest yeah, yeah, I'm not, I don't, I don't really even know where I was going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, but yeah, I mean you, you know, you know what you're talking about because you've you've been a leader in a leadership role, a mentorship role, for so long that it's easy to kind of go in front of a crowd or or tell people just about your story, you know, and the things that matter to you most, which you know, I think for a speaker, um, just with with our audience. In particular, we we have a lot of uh speakers, authors, you know, entrepreneurs that are that listen to the end of the pod, um, and if you know truly what you're talking about, it makes it that much easier to be a speaker.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a lot of speakers that they hear different things or quotables from other people and you're like I don't know if I fully believe what you're, what you're selling there, um, but if you're doing it from authentic place, it makes it so much easier, um, and and just, it's something that happens just through repetition and practice, cause I'm sure, like when you're coaching, you probably don't even, you're not even thinking about it.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny. You bring that up because you spend hours and hours putting play sheets together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they stayed tucked in the back of my pants and I never pull them out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's the feel part of it. Yeah, yeah, which is the best part about coaching football by the?
Speaker 2:way, yeah, just that mind game yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I'm going to stop this or I'm going to run this. You do this, I'll do that. The cat and mouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's why I love watching football, because I like to see that dynamic of like, how you're going to. I actually used to coach, so I was assistant coach with Jeremyeremy, uh, with some aau, basketball and and things like that. I was rising force was the team, um, it was, uh, seventh and eighth graders. So I did that for about a year and a half ish. Uh, it was awesome. Got to travel around. The kids are just just so incredible, you know, just seeing their growth, um, and just even like where they're at today is is is awesome, just to see it, um, and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:Like, you know, I couldn't keep it up long term just because my life and business and you know all that stuff, but it was just, it's so, so impactful just to see those kids light up and especially, like I know you've probably seen this like when there's a moment where they've been working on something and then it just clicks, oh my god, yeah, and they just run it up and they're just like, they're just pumped about it and you know there's just no better feeling than knowing, like, what it took for them to like actually make that happen. You know, um, yeah, that's just, it's just. I just love that. That part of coaching, um, and there's the same thing like within, within business is the same thing like you see somebody working at something. They're like, oh man, and now do you work with more of the sales, the sales side?
Speaker 1:I work more operations or operations we have a manager. We have a sales trainer. Okay, get into conversations about. I worked forever, so I did siting, did windows. Yeah yeah, so if there's custom questions then I get involved with the sales guys, but they're pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But just custom things.
Speaker 2:We have, yeah, we have management teams that and then scale down from there and operations, what do you feel is like man, I mean operations is key, I mean sales is just as important as the ops is. What do you feel like for keeping everything systematized processes, procedures like for keeping everything systematized processes, procedures how do you kind of lead with making sure everybody understands, like, their role when to go into a situation, when not to Like, how do you keep that standard?
Speaker 1:We have systems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We use something called a pod system. Okay, so years back, we I don't want to give away all our secrets- but I'll give away one of these. We had a bunch of project managers and a bunch of salesmen. So salesman one would sell a job and PM one through nine could get that job and salesman one through ten. All might sell a little bit different.
Speaker 1:So, we broke them into little mini businesses. Within our business, we put three salesmen with a roofing, a siding and a window project manager. You guys have meetings, you guys have meetings, you guys have meetings. So they have these conversations and they're basically training each other throughout these meetings. They have their own chats, they have they. It's pretty cool. So now we. That was the birth of our green fields. So within infinity new berlin.
Speaker 2:We had three mini businesses working, and now you can take that idea and go plop it somewhere else oh man, okay, everybody listening and watching this is this is some gold here and I need to give give away everything, but that's. But that's how you scale, like when you build, kind of those mini ecosystems. You call them pods, yeah, like the. It's just, that is how you scale something the right way, because then, which? Now you have a system for those pods. So now, if you create another pod, you say, hey, here's the formula, yep, here's the play. Hey, we want to expand, let's create a pod first, let's get the. Hey, here's the formula, here's the play. Hey, we want to expand, let's create a pod first, let's get the. I mean, that's genius, that's really good and it's a way for people to feel empowered, which is also incredible the leader will step up within the pod.
Speaker 1:We joke about this too. We spent years and years breaking down silos and forget it. We'll just build three, and so that's what happened.
Speaker 2:But yeah, your, your leaders, leaders will grow, They'll step up take control of the meetings and you're like, okay, yeah, it's ready to go. Yeah, and then, and you're really, you know, giving a platform for more leaders to be created. You know through that because you, especially, especially at scale, you can't point just to one person the whole time like people have to feel empowered, they have to make those decisions, critical problem solving.
Speaker 1:You know going through this because if your phone's blowing up all day, yeah, you're like dude, you basically give the guys the keys, yeah, and you're gonna hire three operations managers, or you're going to let these people control their own destiny within their pods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's gold man, that's gold. I mean we got a lot of people listening in that are. You know they have various businesses. Most are service-based. You know, in that industry, service provider, that kind of thing. So that's awesome because like you could take that same kind of model and stamp that across, you know, and really help. You know a lot of businesses out so having those, and I've heard like I've also heard profit centers, I've heard kind of that same thing like hey, we, somebody had an idea, we create a profit center around that idea. We pull a team almost like a strike team yep, you know, I've heard that too. Um, and then they build that out and then you kind of stamp that across. So that's awesome. That actually gives me some ideas, to be honest. I'm like that's awesome. And then, what do you guys like to do for, like as a team? I know you said culture is important. You guys have a lot of company events and things. Do you guys like is, uh, one of those cultures where you guys are doing?
Speaker 2:things for fun, like outside of work, or yeah, what do you guys like to? What do you guys normally get in?
Speaker 1:we have our company picnics. Obviously we we go to bucks games. We have bucks, we're a buck sponsor okay, a small business partner um. So we go to bucks games. We brewery season's starting now. We golf, get our nails done, so we have a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Well, you're using your hands a lot. That actually makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, About a year ago, maybe no more than that. The office gets left out all the time and they don't golf, not all of them. I don't want to stigmatize the whole office, but they all love getting their nails done yeah, they all love like doing that, so we, we do that yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So you guys, that you guys have this camaraderie around everything, yeah, yeah, we have a ton of giveaways, contests.
Speaker 1:We um review goals like it's it's yeah, put, incentivize your people and you'll be. You'll be amazed at what they're, what they're capable of doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, yeah, yeah, you got it once again empowering, yeah and that's the best part of my day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is what? Oh, he did that or she did that. No one asked like and and, yeah, here we go yeah, we're on to something yeah, and not every great idea is great, but every great idea is worth looking into. Oh um, especially it comes if it comes from your people yeah um, take a little bit of your time and just think about it.
Speaker 2:It's a couple minutes, a couple hours, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of organizations that they don't. They don't listen, you know, and it's so funny I I don't know if you how much you kind of look into what other businesses and like, especially like these huge brands and corporations do, but the amount of I heard this like one stat that the amount of businesses that become like billion dollar organizations that they worked for, like basically their competitor at a point, um is like, so if that company would have just listened to their people and created a pod, created something for their idea to at least see, hey, is there some, is this some viability? You know, with this idea they could have created a whole nother sector and probably, you know, and a whole nother revenue stream. But since they're not listening, you know, and then they go off and start their own business and next thing, you know, you got competition. So just the fact that you're able to say, hey, let me just hear your idea out, because then I'm sure there's been a ton of great ideas, we ask for it.
Speaker 1:We have a monthly newsletter that we put out that has a blind suggestion box If you're too scared to ask leadership just get it out there, drop it in. Yeah whatever it is, and we've had some great things happen. The Pods were a project manager.
Speaker 2:That wasn't my idea. That was one of our oh man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he read a book and he took parts of the book and came up with this plan. Yeah, and I said this is brilliant and it changed everything we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the whole business model pretty much. Yeah, yeah, I mean, there you go. That's the power of like actually listening to your people, yep, and you guys are proactive about it. So you're not it's like you're waiting around for it. You're proactive about it. Now I gotta know, uh, through the activities that you guys are doing outside, is there any type of shoe game activity? You know where somebody shows up, hey, what's the best looking?
Speaker 1:footwear. I get asked a lot what shoes do you have on today? There's actually one of our guys now which I never knew this. He sent me a picture of an $1,100 pair of Jordan 1s. I didn't know who it was because I didn't have his phone number saved in my phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah, we got into a conversation about shoes and it's a thing, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a thing at infinity and you'll have your your job site shoes and then your office shoes. Yeah, so you change when you get back to the office Cause you don't want one. Don't trudge mud around the office Cause then everyone gets angry, but two yeah it's just, yeah, it's, shoes are a thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:So talk to me about those man. What do you got on today, these?
Speaker 1:are just normal Jordan 1 Lows. These are just Jordan Lows.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of them.
Speaker 2:And I think I have nine pairs of these.
Speaker 1:I believe I'm a big 270 guy. Okay, my wife is worse than me Arguably. I think she might have every pair they've ever made, but two. No, all black, no all red.
Speaker 1:Um, our closets are gorgeous yeah, um, yeah, do you have the nice setup like where you have the individual boxes and oh man yeah, boxes go on the top and then every shoe has a slot, um, and we actually take our time to put them in order. Yeah, my kids are bad now too. Yeah, yeah, I'm lucky I made it. Yeah, they wouldn't have any of these shoes.
Speaker 2:How many shoes are we talking In?
Speaker 1:our house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, total number, how many shoes are we talking?
Speaker 1:There's probably 200 pairs of shoes in my house and they're all tennis shoes.
Speaker 2:And they're all tennis shoes. You just walk in that closet and you're just like man what are we doing today?
Speaker 3:The problem is, my kids have closets too, oh OK, so yeah.
Speaker 1:What shoes am I wearing? And then I pick everything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's yeah. So you start with the shoes yeah, and then you go from there. Yeah, there's work shoes.
Speaker 1:And then other shoes. I wear tennis shoes to weddings. I don't. It's the one thing I can't shake. I won't. I can't wear dress shoes and I don't know you can't wear them. Like something in me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can find a suit, I can find anything to wear around, a pair of tennis shoes, but everything's planned on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was in a. That's why I feel like I have so many hats I have. Like it's probably a shame to even say how many hats I have, but I always love wearing a hat. So, like, even like the wedding I was just in this past weekend, I couldn't wait to take off the shoes first of all, and I swapped out with some nice kicks on I think I had some Giannis' on for that one and then a hat. I immediately threw on a hat Once the DJ started playing and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm like, all right, we don't got to have the tux and all this stuff I can show with a hat and some nice shoes on. But I saw some other people changing out their shoes pretty quick too, because the dress shoes man, I mean there's some nice dress shoes, I'm also not a dress shoe guy I mean there's some nice stuff out there. Actually, my friend, I saw him at the wedding too and he had some really nice Steve Maddens on.
Speaker 1:And I was like dude, those, those are nice, but they're just not my thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I, I like a lot of them, yeah, but I would just never wear them. Yeah, yeah, and so you collect those.
Speaker 1:I also heard that you collect sports cards yeah, yeah, I also get in trouble with my wife for collecting sports cards um, yeah, my son got into it. I, I loved it when I was little, yeah, and I think his love of it, love of the cards, turned me back on where now I just blame him for ordering. Well, he had to get Nolan cards. Yeah, no, it's me ordering and the cards and blaming him. But he loves it too. Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2:what's what's one of one of the bet like give me your top two favorite cards you got uh, we have a breeze hall that I love.
Speaker 1:Um, it's not worth a ton, but it's just I. I tell my son too, like sometimes you have to keep these cards because they just look cool yeah, like yeah, there's something to that too where it's just a gorgeous card. Anything, malik Neighbors, okay, that's more me than him. I think every one of his cards look gorgeous. Yeah, he's a big Penix guy. Okay, but yeah, any quarterbacks, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice, nice. And do you have any of them graded at all?
Speaker 1:We have seven or eight graded now.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're doing well. You got good grades on them, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Oh, that's awesome man. Yeah, I sit in. I was telling you like I collect Pokemon. Well, I collect Pokemon. Well, just as a kid, I just grew up right when the game came out. That was the hot thing. And then my dad used to work for Rockwell Automation and so he would travel a lot. So did mine Really, mm-hmm. Oh, my God, it's a small world man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would bet you that your father knows my father.
Speaker 2:He was in product marketing.
Speaker 1:My father ran the cafeteria and all the banquets.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we went to all those Christmas parties growing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every person that I've ever ran into that worked at Rockwell knew my father.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Because everyone eats right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dang, and what's your father's name? Same as mine, same as yours? Okay, I'm gonna ask him, I'm gonna ask him. I fly back tomorrow. I'm gonna ask him, I'm gonna ask him. Yeah, um, but yeah, so he, he traveled to to japan before the game hit the states. So he came back I remember is the, the meeting he had was with mr fujioshi son was his name and he came back with this binder, um, and he's like, hey, this game's gonna be really big, you know, in the states soon. And I didn't know what it was. It was Pocket Monsters, is what they had on the thing. And then, man, like a year later, boom, it hit the States and I had some of like the early ones. So I did send some of those to get graded. Some were good, some were not so great. It's just the older cards, like also, as a kid I was playing with them.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2:Just messing them up and I kid I was playing with him. Oh, yeah, yeah, just messing him up and I'm like dang if I didn't do this and this one kid stole my cards too, and my bike.
Speaker 2:Um, that's a whole nother story that I'm really upset about, because I'm like man, I was probably sitting on some good stuff that he stole, but um, but yeah, and then I just recently started getting back into it, just because it's getting popular again, and I just went into my closet and I was like man, what do I have, you know? And so I just started to kind of poking around in there and it's, it's fun, man just reliving that childhood yeah yeah, it's just awesome and then so you collected them growing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, yeah, cars, okay, okay. Is that something you did with your dad as well?
Speaker 1:no, I shouldn't say I collected them. I mean not like we are now. Yeah yeah, we're not getting cards now to sell them, we're just getting them to keep. Yeah, and back then it was. You just got cards traded here and there and you went to the card shop because it was right by the ice cream shop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's normally how it starts, yeah. Yeah because I used to always right by the ice cream shop. Yeah, that's normally how it starts. Yeah, because, yeah, because I, I used to always go to this candy store and the card shop was right next to it in tulsa.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on north avenue, yeah, north avenue you know oh my god, yeah, I grew up on 57th and north, yeah, 62nd and north, no, so we were five blocks away, dang, we were at five blocks away.
Speaker 2:What in the world? Yep Dude, the world is just. It's massive, but it's so small at the same time. That's crazy, oh my God. So we probably could have a. There's that Blockbuster right down the yeah it used to be right there. Oh man, I used to go there all the time when they had that. What was it? Was it like 15 bucks a month or something and you could just rent as much as you wanted, or something you just had to swap?
Speaker 1:them out. Then they got you for the $9 popcorn on the way home.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yes, the good old days. Now it's all streaming and all this other stuff. Oh man, that's crazy. That's crazy. See, that threw me off. That's crazy. Yeah, and I mean To really blew up. Yeah, I mean a lot of new places, bars, restaurants Awesome place though. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's cool because it's all like kind of localized, though, like there's not these chains or anything. They kept that local kind of feel, you know, boutiques and that kind of stuff, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:You spend a night, spend a weekend just walking around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Running into something you didn't know was there. Yeah, yeah, so I like that they keep doubling down over there, which is awesome. What's the next big project that you guys have coming up? Any other commercial ones that you guys are in the pipeline?
Speaker 1:We always have a few, okay, we kind of outskirts-ish, and we have something coming up in East Troy. We have we just got. I can't tell you what it is but we just got an invite to bid on a huge project in the Harambee neighborhood.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Down east side, milwaukee. Okay, okay, that would be a great one. Yeah, great one to get, I think, more it's huge for business. I mean it's great, but just the vicinity that, the vicinity that it's in, um, yeah, it's kind of back to the roots, kind of. Thing so yeah, so I got my fingers crossed about that one. Um, we have some locations in mind. Um, we have some people yeah that we need to find locations for to be honest with you I they. They've earned it, they deserve it. Let's oh nice start looking Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those are great conversations Again coming from where I was when I was little to where I am now. I never thought I'd be thinking about the things that I think of every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about every day not think of. Yeah, yeah, that's incredible man. What do you feel like is the biggest challenge that you've had being a leader, and just within the 12 years of business.
Speaker 1:what's been one of the things that you've maybe struggled with or that you had to overcome, the most difficult thing not turning into who we compete against, Keeping the mindset day in and day out. It's real easy to fall in, especially with the size that we are to fall into that customer's name that's on the folder, not becoming the folder, yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That person. Every project needs to be treated, almost bring the circus to town, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Like this is a huge thing for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to not fall into PO numbers instead of names.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, I know what you're talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about Because you can kind of get easy to get into, like, okay, just another job, just another job. Just you know, um, but at the end of the day, like every job is is truly unique, you know, because it's an individual and you gotta, you gotta, try to maximize that relationship. You know to the fullest yep, that it can possibly be. So I know exactly talking about and that's the challenge as you grow and scale, like, the bigger you guys get, you know it's going to be, but you guys already have a culture-first mindset already, which there's some companies that scale really big and then they have to get a culture-first mindset and that becomes a lot more difficult to start to implement. And then you're like, oh my God, we've got to fire a lot of people because they don't fit anything what we're doing now, but you guys already had that from the get-go, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah and there are important things to track right. So our mission, vision every day we're saving our communities from unscrupulous contractors. That's on everything that we write, all of our marketing material and we're installing peace of mind.
Speaker 2:That's our vision statement.
Speaker 1:Installing peace of mind.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:My truck wrap just got done and that's on the back of my truck now. Yeah. We'll be great ourselves on a triad. We have our customers first our people second and our prosperity third. So, that's the importance, so it they all translate together, but the first. If the first two don't hit, don't even worry about the third one anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah, exactly yeah, and that comes out of the principles. Yeah, you know, just to have every single person be on that, you know, for those principles and yeah, man, this is good. I love doing these conversations because it's just a reminder also for myself. You know, like I got to have this kind of philosophy around culture first, this is the true things that work at scale. You know, it's so good, man. And then just talking with you, like you really know what you're talking, what you're talking about, which is awesome. I mean, just been doing it for so long. We like to end every single podcast just with just a fun question what is your top three favorite movies of all time?
Speaker 1:Miracle is number one.
Speaker 2:Who's? What is that about? I don't think I've heard that one.
Speaker 1:Oh, my son's going to laugh when he watches this. We were just talking about this. I try to get my family to watch it. We were actually talking about it last night.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Miracle is the Disney movie about the 80 hockey team, the 80 Olympic hockey team Okay, and it's not a movie about hockey. It's a movie about the people on the hockey team. Remember the Titans is second hockey. It's a movie about the people on the hockey team. Yeah, um, remember the titans, the second. Oh, great movie, um, great movie, classic. And I gotta go off the wall with the third one, maybe a little bit, because I don't uh, probably wedding crashers wedding crashers.
Speaker 2:That's a great movie though, yeah. So it's just a funny thing. I gotta say this because so by one of my clients, I I had a meeting with him like a few weeks ago and I told him that I was gonna be in my friend's wedding in door county and he's like, do you think I could crash it? He actually drove up to door county. My friend was totally okay with it, though he was like, hey, he kind of knew him a little bit through it. But you know, I was like dude, you actually showed up Three hours away.
Speaker 2:We were dying laughing and he's like dude, this is like the third wedding I've crashed.
Speaker 1:He'll be wedding crashers too, though. Yeah, he's wedding crashers too, oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's Wedding Crashers 2. Oh man, mike, thanks so much for being on the podcast man, thank you for having me. This has been an incredible conversation To everybody listening, watching. Please go like comment, subscribe to the podcast and where can people get connected with you, mike?
Speaker 1:InfinityExteriorscom Amazing.
Speaker 2:Guys, reach out, reach out, especially if you're local or if you're in Illinois. Reach out to these guys. They, as you can tell the customer care is very important to them, culture first. Just, they leave with authenticity and they want to exude that through everything that they do. So don't forget, guys, if you can change your circle, you can change your life. And until the next episode, we're out Peace. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe, and don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget you can change your circle to change your life. Thank you.
