 I think empathy is the first step towards getting the spec and really understanding, you know, your customer. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody, welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, alongside my co-host, Beth Popney-Glomf. And today, we've got a great show lined up for you today. We are really excited to welcome Greg Rohl. He is the principal of the Rohl Model and Family-Founded Rohl Faucets. Greg, we are so excited that you are here. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm very excited to join you. Thank you. So, Greg, for our listeners, give us a little bit of your background, what you do, and then we'll dive into talking a little about how people can be more effective in their marketing and sales. Sure. Well, as Beth noted, our family Rohl established Rohl LLC back in 1982. The company was founded by our father, Ken, and my brother, Lou. And then another brother, Mark, joined. And then I came on board officially in 1993. And over the years, the company grew from really introducing, notably, the first pull-out faucet, which was a new thing back in 1982. But along with that, it was a level of European quality and design that, particularly in the plumbing and decorative plumbing category, had really been seen before. It was pretty much considered a kind of a commodity market. And there were a few sort of decorative faucet lines, but they were more on the bass side. And they kind of evolved out of hardware companies. But when my father sort of discovered this product line over at a trade show in Germany, he realized there was an opportunity in the marketplace. And the company he was with wasn't really interested in working with a real high-end manufacturer. In fact, the message back to him when he suggested introducing this product under their label was no one will ever spend $250 on a kitchen faucet. At that time, he might spend $50 to $75 if that was really high-end. So the idea of introducing a product line that was four to five times higher than the standard was a risk. But I think he understood at that time European products, particularly appliances and cabinetry, and kind of that euro style was starting to come into the larger metro markets like New York Metro and Los Angeles. And so he moved our family from Chicago to Southern California and started that business. And really, he left the former company and he was an entrepreneur at 48, 49. When we think back on that scene, the office was the spare bedroom, the warehouse was the trunk of the car. And he'd literally fill up the trunk of the car and head out and place these products in the marketplace. And fortunately, he had been in the building materials industry for many years, particularly focused on kitchen. So he knew the showrooms, the kitchen and bath designers, and so he knew the marketplace across the country. So he really had the strategy in mind. He may have not had a lot of resources, let's say at the beginning, but he had the experience and the confidence and the right product, I think, at the right time. And also, as I mentioned before, at that time, he was really catching what we call kind of this boomer wave. That generation was just starting to enter its home formation years, late 20s, early 30s, and really so well positioned. I was a wealthy generation, they were interested in luxury. This was the early 80s. So that kind of conspicuous consumption was a little bit more the style. And the force of that generation and the strength of their buying power, and their focus on home, and particularly kitchen and bath, certainly buoyed our company early on and through the years and through the various trials and tribulations and successes and setbacks. But I think the whole industry and that kind of luxury market within kitchen and bath grew from what might have been single digits into healthy kind of teens, maybe even going towards 20% in the late 90s. So we're actually up until the great recession, but we were able to build back. And it was just an amazing kind of journey from one product to sourcing from over 20 different factories from Western Europe through North America and even New Zealand. We had some partners there too. So it's been a great experience. And I think the lessons learned really are both kind of the art and the science of business. And I think a lot of times, I think as you were saying before, people want to focus kind of on the process and product and data. And I think there's a real human side. As I was telling some of the other day, I think empathy is the first step towards getting the spec and really understanding your customer and being hungry, you want to achieve, you want to be successful. But I think you also have to be humble and really listen and understand what's motivating your customer, whether that's a B2B or a B2C. There's so much good information. I don't know where to start. A lot to unpack there, right? That was awesome. What I want to ask you, Greg, is you've seen the lifecycle of a building product manufacturer go from startup in your second bedroom to international manufacturer. And you said something else a minute ago about how empathy is really the cornerstone of, I forget how you said it, but the cornerstone of getting the spec. Talk to me about marketing, sales, and how to get into spec. As you've seen the lifecycle of role, what's changed as well as what are some tried and true tactics for manufacturers to learn from if they want to grow their sales and specifically grow specifications? Sure. Well, one of the things we like to do in our company, like my dad, having that corporate background, and he would call himself a corporate tenure, that kind of combination. He had the entrepreneurial spirit, but a corporate training and a lot of those tools really came in handy both internally, no matter whatever size of business you're starting out, but also in communicating with our own teams, our sales teams, and then ultimately our customers. One of those things would be the use of formulas and acronyms and the one like D, P, and E come to mind. Whereas D is differentiated. So from a product standpoint, making sure that you have a story of differentiation, whether it's a functional improvement, better quality at same price or lower price, what's the unique back story? What's the origin story behind your product or your service for that matter? P is always profitability, particularly at B2B. In our company, we sold through distribution, so different channels, but at each step, there had to be a story of profitability in working with our product line. In that extended, it had to be profitable for our sales team. Most of our representatives were independent reps, so they're working on commission. So obviously that had to be worth their while to go out and advocate and support, particularly a new product line. And then in the showroom, obviously the person in the owner, the manager, they need to see that your program is profitable and worth investing time and space in a retail environment and the people selling the product on the showroom floor. There's all kinds of benefits and stiff programs and that kind of thing that are pretty typical, but they need to see that when they're working with that product, it's a profit, it's a benefit to them. The specifier has to see a benefit in selecting your product over something else, so there has to be something compelling about it. So again, in a building material sense, I can imagine that either it performs better, it's easier to work with, it's more dependable from a sourcing standpoint. Better service, obviously your service team has to be second to none and that makes a huge difference. So you get the greatest product, but if the team in the field isn't well supported and keeping promises, that product's going to get set aside for another selection. So then finally, E, and that kind of leads into the E being easy. Your product has to be easy to work with, easy to specify. Ideally, if it's something that end user is also seeing, it has to be easily attractive, whether it's a design or a function. And then that EZ also goes back to the profitability. So if I'm selling a brand or specifying a brand, let's say the product or the money I make is money I keep because there are no after sale issues, or if there is a need for after sale service, it's second to none. And again, I'm not going back and giving back that profitability and having to deal with any kind of issues after the sale. So again, that's I think a very general approach to I how one succeeds. Getting into the marketing of brands, our product line, as I mentioned, was considered a luxury brand. We built the company around this luxury strata within the kitchen and bath world. We had to become very good storytellers, and that's where I think the power of story is really important. And not just with a decorative product, but I think any product. Having a real sense of its origin, the development. We had the great fortune of dealing with factories that were in beautiful parts of western Europe. Many of our factories are in the north of Italy. And it must have been actually known as the village of faucets, Laga da Orta. It's about an hour north of Milan. And it's kind of up the mountains. It's a lake region. It's absolutely beautiful. It's also very historically connected with metalwork. Alessi, the brand Alessi, they're based there. There's a lot of and it may have been because of the resources in the area or the ability of access to water. But there was a real generational tradition of working with metal and brass. And so the plumbing industry, there are a number of different factories, both commercial products as well as decorative products. People do components in that area. So there was a lot of storytelling that we had access to, which again made it compelling for again the end user, the specifier. We had product in England. We have two factories or companies based in England, Pair and Row, and Shaw's original, which are now part of House of Role as well. And again, wonderful stories of both engineering and artistry, authentic original designs. The Shaw's story is really interesting. It's a company that goes back to late 1800s and making fireplace sinks, the apron front sinks, which are so popular now and have been, they still make them kind of by hand. And it's still a really special product with a lot of human effort that goes into it. So again, that's something compelling. And that brand, one of the things that we also learned over the years was that Row essentially became a brand, but originally we were a sales and marketing company and a distribution company. And we evolved over time and we learned a couple lessons that we had to be our own brand. Row, there is no factory with Row above the door. We were working with other manufacturers, some of which had great stories, but trying to incorporate all their brands wouldn't necessarily be, it would be more confusing. So Row was always top of line. But other companies like a parent of Row or a Shaw's, their brand story was so authentic and contributed so well to their story and to their value that we utilized that. And eventually that Shaw's original, the sinks are distinguished by a kind of blue diamonds as Shaw's original 1897. And people would look for that, particularly as commodity or things are, other products come in and try to offer that look for a lower price. People would say, no, I'm going to step up. I'll spend more for the Shaw's sink with that blue diamond because that's the original and that's what I want in my kitchen. So I can find the balance between when to highlight brands within that have great stories if you're offering multiple products and when to make sure that the main focus is on your brand. I think it would be another lesson word. I'd love to dig in a little more about what you're saying about story. We are big believers in story and it's something that comes up again and again, especially for products that could potentially be positioned as commodity story becomes even more important. But specifically, Greg, I'd love to get your experience with how from a role from roles perspective, you've solved the problem or at least you're solving the problem that a lot of manufacturers have, which is you have multiple product lines, multiple product families and multiple audiences that each of those product lines are speaking to. Could you talk to us a bit about how you take those into consideration? How are you speaking to everyone but keeping a very clear message at the same time? Yeah, it's an interesting balancing act. I think, A, it's understanding who all the end users are or who all the stakeholders are within your distribution channel down to the end user. Again, that's where that empathy comes in and really taking the time to understand big brands oftentimes will develop customer personas and that's a typical more of a consumer brand process. But I think it's well worth even on the building product side that we think in those terms. One of the things that we did over the years that I think helped distinguish us was looking at the lessons that other product, say luxury categories employed and saying how do we take those approaches and use them in our world because ultimately we're all selling to the same customer. That luxury consumer might be buying fashion or clothing or jewelry or travel or dining out. Those were our competition. We looked within our industry and we had a lot of our conversations with, let's say, our friends within the National Kitchen and Bath Association. I remember very early on the message was the competition isn't necessarily the showroom across town or even that display next to yours in the showroom. It's really the other ways people might spend their money instead of upgrading their kitchen. Understanding that and that was really fun to employ as we talk about this language of luxury. For us, it was looking outside our world and seeing what was appealing to that buyer in other areas of their life and bringing that into our story. Coming back to when you're dealing with different products and different levels of price point and perhaps sub-brands, again having a clear idea of who each of those brands is serving and I think developing the stories for each of them very clearly and making sure that those stories are well documented and they're shareable and they're clear all the way down the line. I think in our world we could have the best collateral, we could have the most compelling language and the role family and our extended family of our company, we could speak that language very fluently. But the reality is that the sale, we're not there when that designer or that builder is standing in that showroom, they're standing with whoever's working in the showroom. So are they capable of telling your story well and that's something that it's hard to do but the clear the message it can be and consistently broadcast out across all the stages or positions of selling and specifying is something that people really need to focus on. And then that balancing of this, when you have sub-brands versus you're going to say your company brand, we learned a tough lesson early on when my father started the business he envisioned it really the sales and marketing business. It wasn't about creating a branded the product was the star and that product's brand was the one that we promoted and for the first 10 years of our company we were very successful and that brand became very well known and at some point they severed their relationship with us. So when they said we're not going to renew the contract, everyone knew that brand in the marketplace let's say from a specifier standpoint and that was about 70-80% of our revenue with that one product and so we had to re kind of indent ourselves and fortunately again our company had a great trust with our customer base and so again that relationship we were given great opportunities as we started to bring in new products and create new relationships. We found a home and a venue to promote them and again that good customer service that we were known for and that good sense of understanding and our clients needs and concerns really paid dividends in creating opportunities for us but never again we would you know as we started then to really you know conceive of the company as a brand and really talk about the role brand and there were you know enroll it kind of evolved over the years I mean you know you you don't build a brand overnight brand is not something you can you can't buy a brand you know you have to earn you build a brand and it was 30 some years of us you know doing what we did and doing the right things day in and day out and just you know the brand gets built incrementally it's it's really built on a foundation of trust right and and eventually you know we were always marketing I think we were always speaking to not only our you know B2B but we always had an eye on the B2C but being a relatively small company we always invested in marketing but we just didn't have a big advertising budget but we looked at it as you know it wasn't about just creating overwhelming you know consumer reach it was also about showing that investment we would call merchandising the advertising because it was it was a signal back to our customers that we were investing in our own brand we were investing for them we wanted to create you know a pull as well as you know the push through their distribution channel and that was something that ultimately I think helped differentiate us and helped build our brand with our distribution partners over the years and you know again would be you know would help that be a go-to where role would be a go-to product because hey they're investing in you know speaking to that end user speaking to that designer creating some awareness of the brand and even you know early on I think the first ad that my father ever purchased was in architectural digest and that sounds pretty major but at the time art digest had what they call a california edition so it was just they would they had you know you could do a section of advertising that was distributed just within the california market so as opposed to being a $45,000 ad it was maybe a $5,000 right right right and of course the distribution was obviously much much limited now we were based in southern california so that kind of made sense but what we did was we part of the deal like you know give us lots of extra copies of the magazine so let's see you get 50s of any 500 copies of the magazine and then we sent them all to chicago and new york and florida and said gave them to our reps that go out and give put you know walk into your showrooms and say here's architectural digest and look at you know role is advertising and architectural digest to create awareness and we might not have said that it was just showing up in california but i mean it showed that we were you know we were we were doing our part and i think that was something that we always made a point to make sure that you know you didn't invest in marketing without making sure that everyone in the sales structure was aware and again i was also that part of educating them to be speaking that same language and again that's something incremental but again over time that really helped help build the brand this has been super helpful gregg i really appreciate you sharing all this information um if someone wants to connect with you what's the best way for them to do that i'm sure they can email me uh gregg at the role model that's rohl model.com or i've got a website the role model.com as well that's great excellent and for our listeners out there if you want more great content like this go to nvio.com slash podcast until next time i'm zack williams alongside beth popney glove thanks