Services Home Show where you’ll learn a lot that you need to know and a whole lot you don’t. A whole lot you don’t. A whole lot, um…
So yeah, we were having a great conversation before we started recording and then, you know… but yeah. So, uh, you know we like to talk sports. You know we’re not a sports podcast, but yeah, we put our two cents in. Yeah, we put our two cents in and obviously we’re from Wisconsin. We’re Packer fans. You know, we’ve been truly blessed with good teams, but great quarterbacks. Since you’ve been—I mean, you’re a little bit younger than I am—but I mean, since like ’91, since I was like 10, right? All I remember: Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers.
Sure. Pretty good. Pretty good.
And now—we had Don Majkowski, though. Do you remember Don Majkowski?
Magic! He really wasn’t very good. But anyway…
He was the Magic Man. He magically got hurt. Never won games, right?
Yeah, he magically got hurt and then Brett Favre stepped in and gone—played again. You know the odd thing is that this show’s gotten so popular. Magic Man, I’m sorry if you see this. You were fun to watch.
Actually, there’s a fun story. When he was still playing quarterback, that’s when the Packers players would play the high school coaches in basketball. This was a thing when I was in grade school. I was in sixth, seventh grade, and so the Packers—it was the Magic Man and a couple of the—you know, a handful of Packer players—came to play at New London. They played the coaches from New London’s basketball team, right? So it was kind of a cool thing. Packers came and played as kind of a charity thing. Packed the gym and stuff.
Really pretty good basketball players, too.
Yeah, they weren’t bad. Well, they’re athletes, right? I mean, you’re not in the NFL if you’re not an athlete. But I’ll never forget—Majkowski gives me the ball. I’m a little guy, you know, sixth, seventh grade, three rows deep in the stands. He gives me the ball. And all the high school kids—and I know they’re on that other baseline—and they’re trying to shoot the ball and no one’s making it. I throw it up from the stands—freaking swoosh it. He comes back high-fiving and stuff. It was pretty awesome.
But this was a dream?
No, that was the real deal. Real deal.
Don’t assist from the Magic Man three rows deep. He was the assistant. He was the setup guy.
That’s awesome. Yeah, I know. It’s fun.
Well, so now we’re entering the Jordan Love era. Opinions, or is it too early?
Uh, you know… it’s his ship, right? And, uh, we’ll see. You know, you can see there’s some jitters, but there’s also some good throws he made. So, uh, I’m excited for football. Like, you know—it wasn’t that the long wait got over.
And I don’t even want to talk like quarterback controversy, but this guy that they brought in for backup—have you seen him play at all?
I watched him when he came in the second half. Phenomenal. He looked calm and collected. And wasn’t he like the MVP of the Canadian Football League or something?
Oh, the… no, the… um… there’s another one. Not the Canadian one. It’s the after-the-NFL-season…
XFL?
Yeah, not XFL, whatever the one is right after that.
Oh, but anyway, he’s good. Yeah, he’s good. He looked calm, cool, collected.
Yeah, he made some really good throws.
Right. A couple… did you say he threw a couple interceptions? We talked Rodgers…
A couple interceptions that you could have probably not thrown, but…
He threw interceptions?
Yeah, a couple interceptions.
I don’t watch it. I don’t watch pre-season.
I watched it a little bit because that guy was playing. I was like, oh, check him—he’s pretty good.
Yeah. Crushed with hail and storms and wind Friday night.
Who did?
We did. I ran home quick to take care of the dog before the house got hit with rain and wind, but it didn’t happen.
Not really weird. Not that we would wish that on anyone.
Aaron Rodgers and the Jets. They are loading—spending some money.
They’re loading that team up. Dalvin Cook. Nine million dollar, one-year contract.
Seems like they’re kind of putting all their eggs…
I think they’re playing the short game.
I think they’re playing…
They’re playing the short game. That’s a good way to put it.
Yeah. They’re betting. They’re betting on this year.
Yeah, it’d be fun to watch. I mean, I don’t know. Here’s the deal: the days of a quarterback—especially legendary quarterbacks—staying somewhere all their career with the structure, the pay is nowadays… it’s just not going to happen.
Right, because it can’t.
You look at Joe Montana. Look at Steve Young. You look at Brady, Favre, Rodgers. Those things are going to start to happen. And I don’t know. I wish him the best of luck. You know, if he stays healthy, it’d be fun to watch. But he’s not a spring chicken anymore, so who knows?
I hope they win. Do they play the Packers?
No.
They do or not?
Well, if they do, I hope they win all their games except that one.
Yeah, I mean, how cool would it be to see a Packers-Jets Super Bowl?
Some people would really have to suck in the NFC for that to happen.
The people would have to suck in the NFC to get us to the Super Bowl. But it’d be fun to watch.
I know. Yeah, it’s football season. It’s… it’s, uh, fall was in the air the other morning. Walked outside—54 degrees. You knew it.
Yeah, oh, it’s so good. I turned the air conditioning off and opened the windows.
Right? Yeah, great. It’s that time of year, which is fun.
Horror Stories or A Sales Rep Falls Through a Ceiling
Anyway, horror stories. Horror stories or funny stories?
Yeah, I think you got a good one to start with. I think this is a fun one, right? So, uh, it’s a new sales technique we’re using.
Yeah.
It’s called “through the ceiling.” I’ll let you explain it.
Rough. I mean, half the roof is the underside of the roof, right? So there’s more square footage in the attic than there is on the roof deck.
Correct.
So we always want to check the attic, and we had a relatively new rep. He was really, really good at selling gutters. Very, very, very good. People loved him. Very, very good at selling gutters. And he really wanted to sell roofing. And so we got him trained, and I get a call—we’re out east, we’re together, we’re always at a convention—and I get a call, and he’s like, “Hey, I got great news, boss!”
“What’s that?”
He goes, “I sold my first roof!” Like, “That’s fantastic!” He goes, “I got bad news.”
I said, “What was that?”
He goes, “Well, when I was inspecting the attic, I fell through the ceiling.” I was like, “For real?”
And Shane’s going to put the photos up because he actually sent me photos—because he fell clean through. Clean through. All the way down to the floor. And the lady still bought—probably because she figured if I don’t buy, maybe she’s gotta get the ceiling fixed.
But it actually worked out for her, because she got her ceiling fixed and she got some free insulation, because half of it fell on her living room floor.
Not how we want that to go, but…
But think about the experience. You got to see from your production staff—you know, your production manager and all the people—you could run up that night, going out there, you know, cleaning up her living room that night.
Like, didn’t you go there that night?
Yeah, they were there that night. I remember that night.
Yeah, so that’s a good story. I mean, it’s not like we want to do that…
Well, that’s called the “through the ceiling close,” right? Like, you know, if I fall through this thing, I hope I close it.
Oh geez. Yeah, no, but I mean honestly—and we were told when we started doing Dr. Energy Saver and home performance work—it’s not if you fall through the ceiling, it’s when.
It’s when. Correct. It happens.
But you know, we’re going from places that most people don’t want to, and we find things that most people never find because we do that. And, you know, it’s when you’re crawling on your hands and knees with a respirator on, with a headlamp, sorting through the mice and the bats and the raccoons and all the nasty stuff that lives—growing on a two-by-four on edge or a two-by-six, whatever—which is what now, really? An inch, inch and a half, right?
It’s going to happen.
Yeah.
Slip off and next thing—I’m here—through the ceiling close! Hey! Hey, look at me!
All good up there?
Anyway, I want to bring you an insulation sample with me.
Yeah.
But no, that was a funny one. I do remember that one. We look back and… you know, I remember Emily Lindus when we started our adventure back in 2008, 2009. We both did. She said, “You should start a book because you’re not going to believe the stuff that you run into running a home improvement company.” I’m like, “Ah, I can’t do that. I mean, it won’t be that big of a deal.”
I wish I started a book.
She was so right.
Yeah.
We should have the funny stories. Talk about it in the podcast though too, right?
Yeah.
But the other thing is you almost forget even some of the crazy stuff you ran into—and some of it you want to, right?
Selective memory.
Correct.
Yeah. There’s a whole lot of stuff that I don’t want to remember.
Right.
Well, you know, we get to help people every single day and every once in a while you run into the weird one.
Tearing Off a New Roof Because of the Color
I had a weird one a couple years ago. We did a roof and picked out a color, and it was very clear she picked out this color. And the roof got done and I had a feeling—some… that was kind of when things were economically changing a little bit—I think there was maybe a being-able-to-afford-the-roof kind of an issue. And so I think it was maybe a try to get a little better deal if I don’t like the color type thing. And I said, you know, at the end of the day, I want you to be happy. I want you to get exactly what you deserve. I want it to be beautiful. You have a beautiful house. I want this roof to be right. So the roof got done and she didn’t like—she liked the color—and so she wanted a different color.
So guess what I did?
Tore it off.
Tore it off.
But what color she wanted on there?
Say, I want to be happy.
Did she like it?
Probably as much as the first one. But that was part of the deal, right? But it goes back to the point of—you know, we want to be happy. And I think there were ulterior motives on that one. But we kind of look back and chuckle at that one and go, well, that was there. We’ll tear it off and redo it.
Correct.
And then she’s like, “Oh no!” Like, now she’s stuck, right? Does she keep the color that she really likes?
Yeah.
Well, and tell me I was right or…
But that—so that goes back to a story of Kevin Lindus when we were at Lindus Construction.
Steel Roof Story
Do you remember the story about the steel roof?
Steel roof got done, and when they were doing it they put a couple scratches in it. Pretty obvious scratches. So the homeowner had Kevin come over and look at it. And he said, you know, the scratch is up there? Yep, there were scratches.
He’s like, “Well, how about you just give me some money off the job?”
Kevin said, “Nope. I’m going to redo it.”
Because at the end of the day, if I give you money off the job and someone asks you about the job, you’re going to go, “Yeah, they did a pretty good job but they scratched it. But they gave me some money off.” But if I replace it, you’re going to say, “They scratched it—but they replaced the roof.”
Right?
Yeah.
Most people would be like Easy Button.
Yeah. That was never his mindset. And it’s never what he taught us either—before we left and came over here.
I’m racking my brain with funny stories and… some of them are… some of the funny weird stories I’ve been in, they may not be appropriate for…
Yeah, like some of them… there’s been some… there was one really weird one that—it was very strange. Like, their marriage status was way different than mine and… it was… it was really weird.
But we did…
The problem is, I sold it and then the installers had to go deal with it for like…
I was there for a couple hours.
Yeah. Then the installers had to deal with the weirdness for like the whole day.
Yeah. Saw it through.
We did have a lady that came to the door with the sales guy and the roofing supervisor and the roofing crew, and every time they came she just magically forgot to tie her robe. And she didn’t have anything on underneath it.
But it was an accident.
“Accident.”
You know, when you think about it, when you’re in thousands of homes a year, you know, over that—you know, you do it for a decade plus—you know, you’re going.
Finding Guns Hidden in a Wall
Accidents happen, right? We actually just had one recently. My production manager, JP, has really been involved, and I’ve just been catching bits and pieces of it.
It was this old mob house up near the Ripon area. They were doing demolition and remodeling, and they actually found guns—hidden in the walls. Like, hundreds of guns—120, to be exact. Just stashed inside the walls.
So, my DS guy—my insulation guy—he goes, “Man, I’m excited to get into the attic. If they put stuff in the walls, what could be in the ceiling?”
And we’re just getting started. John’s words: “No kidding.” I mean, imagine that—guns in the walls, a chicken coop, all kinds of weird stuff on the property.
Can you imagine buying a house like that and discovering crazy things as you go? That’d be amazing… but I’ll never do it.
Because it’s haunted.
Oh God.
Home Improvement Expectations
Even after all these years of fixing people’s homes, we still run into some wild stuff. But at the end of the day, whether we fall through someone’s ceiling or someone picks the wrong color—we fix it.
It’s all about the experience.
We had a recent project where the homeowner had a different trade come in before us, and it went really poorly. Their expectations were just totally off—they assumed we’d pour the concrete too. And then they realized, “Oh, this is what it’s supposed to be like.”
Because home improvement shouldn’t be stressful—it should be fun. It should be exciting. You should be telling people about your project. You should be looking forward to it—not dreading it.
If the experience doesn’t feel good, it probably means it’s not going to turn out right. And it probably wasn’t done by us.
So take care of people. Make the experience fun. Do great work for them. Let them enjoy it.
You’re spending your hard-earned money—money you worked hard for—to improve your home. You should have fun doing it.
Enjoy the ride. That’s it for today. We’ll see you next time—thanks for watching!
