Greg: Welcome to the Tim Faller Show, where production is paramount. We discuss the tools, time and people associated with getting jobs done and making a profit for. On today’s episode of the Tim Faller Show will be sending a gigantic thank you from the Tim Faller Show with Steve Wheeler himself, executive director of Round Tables for Remodelers Advantage. Alongside Tim Faller.

Greg: I’m your co-host, Greg Woleck. Here is the Tim Faller show.

Tim: Hey, everybody, Tim Faller here and welcome to the Tim Faller Show. As I always do, I tell you, send in your ideas. It really does help me to make sure that we’ve got a program that’s put together that helps people. So if you have ideas, Tim@remodelers advantage.com. So I have to tell you a little story as we’re getting started here.

Tim: We’ve been doing this podcast, I think the first time we recorded and perhaps even went on the air April 2018. But the idea has started in the later 2017, actually in November and like a lot of businesses do. We had a meeting. We sitting around a conference table talking about marketing and the big challenge for us was and still is, how do we get the the name remodelers advantage out to people who are not already in our database or already in our world.

Tim: And so the idea of podcasts was thrown around and the marketing people said, Look, that’ll help. I mean, if we can get some podcasts going that’ll help accomplish this goal. And so I believe it was our marketing director at the time looked over at me and said, Hey, Tim, would you be willing to do a podcast? And I looked up and I said, Sure.

Tim: And then there there was this pregnant pause, right? And then I said, What’s a podcast? And so and that honest folks, I had no idea what a podcast was. And I share that with you. Not to illustrate my lack of social media knowledge or anything like that, which I think is known by everybody. But it’s an opportunity for me to say thank you to the person that in that meeting offered to be my co-host, and then proceeded to basically be the behind the scenes guy for what has been an incredibly successful run for both Steve Wheeler and myself.

Tim: And so without me being involved, he sat down, he crafted the opening, he picked the music, and probably the most important thing was guided me through the first, I don’t know, 8 to 10 episodes and gave me feedback, told me what was working and what wasn’t working. And until I got really comfortable with the forum. And so he’s the voice that gets us started off every time or has gotten us started off every time.

Tim: And he’s also that voice. For those of you who have been a guest. I sat up with the guest like, what are the questions I’m going to ask? And I, I mix them up a little bit and stuff, but nobody knows what Steve’s going to ask. And so he’s that voice that pops in about halfway or two thirds of the way through the interview and throws that question at the guests that they weren’t expecting that now they have to think on their feet.

Tim: So, Greg, today, as we pay tribute to Steve by discussing his career in remodeling and perhaps helping people know where he’s been there, he’s done that. And I just want to say a huge, huge thank you to Steve for being my co-host for about five, maybe five and a half years here. So, Greg, let’s get started.

Greg: Thank you, Tim. We are thrilled to have Steve Wheeler joining us today on this very special episode, longtime co-host of this program, Steve Wheeler is the executive director for roundtables for Remodelers Advantage. In this role, Steve oversees new membership sales and loves spending most of his time enhancing the roundtable’s member experience. Prior to joining R.A. and after graduating college with an architectural engineering degree and spending three months on a framing crew, Steve started Wheeler Group Remodeling and spent 12 years in the remodeling business as an owner in Wilmington, Delaware.

Greg: Welcome, Steve.

Steve: What’s up, Tim? What’s up, Greg? So this is very odd.

Tim: This is really weird, man. You’re the guest. Did not to go host, but I think. I think it’ll. It’ll really work for us. First of all, let me just say, I mean, I said it in the intro, but I want to say it now that we’re, you know, really talking to each other. And this has been a great experience for me.

Tim: You made this show what it is in terms of the structure. The guests initially helping me to know, like what’s a podcast? So I truly appreciate the the the help you’ve given me with this over the years. So just a huge I can’t say it enough. Thank you for all of that.

Steve: Thank you, Tim. This has been fantastic. We will get into it in the talks today. But this has been the experience of a lifetime for me, going back to 2017 when, you know, I started to listen to podcasts and I was seeing it becoming more pervasive in the marketing space. And I said, Man, we’ve got so much information to put out there.

Steve: We really need to be be there. Took a few months before anybody would listen to me, but I’m so glad they did. And that’s really the genesis of all of this. And it’s been it has been fantastic. I’ve loved every episode, every minute. It’s been great.

Tim: Yeah. And I know we both have our favorites, but in many cases, those favorites are the same and things that we’ve chatted about. And for the listeners that have been on board for so long, just to understand that when Steve and I talk about these things at the end of a podcast, like, Wow, I was really I learned that.

Tim: I learned that this is not we’re not faking it. This is stuff that we’ve really picked up from the podcast. And so I feel like we’ve given something to the world out there. But at the same time, I know I’ve learned a tremendous amount about the, the rest of the remodeling world because all of us are a little bit isolated until we start talking to people from all over the country about what they’re doing.

Tim: So, Steve, as we’re getting into this, just go back a little bit. Let’s talk about your career remodeling. How did you get into remodeling? Why did you get out of college and then actually start a business?

Steve: Yes. I mean, I’ll rewind all the way back as as a kid, you know, I was I was very mechanically inclined. So where in certain cases, maybe, you know, scholastic direction wasn’t my thing. I could always put things together. Just putting things together made sense to me. Building things made sense. You know, my dad was a they call it financial planner now, but a stockbroker side did not have experience in construction, but always enjoyed it and just used to always kind of say as a kid that one day I’m going to own a construction company tongue in cheek.

Steve: But that was really the start to get my head around it. But then was working in the world of wanting to own a nursery plant nursery, if you can imagine that when I started college as a order mental horticulture major and went through my first series of plant science classes, and when I woke up, I decided that that wasn’t for me.

Steve: So I kind of went back to the drawing board from architectural engineering and did that. And yes, so then I when I graduated, I was really looking for work and that’s back in 0304. So that’s lots of the track building mega boom. And look to be a project manager on some of those track built companies and in the meantime took a job with a local general contractor and the first job was framing in addition.

Tim: wow. Yeah. So, so you you did that for a few months and then you said, like, maybe maybe you said, I can do this. Is that kind of the way?

Steve: Actually, exactly what happened without knowing a darn thing about, you know, building or running a business, You know, at the same time, my older brother, who he had last a job as the director of the VP of sales for the 76 hours to Philadelphia. So. Wow. And so he came to work with me on that job site and just, you know, to get some something to do and some work in the meantime.

Steve: And we both kind of fell in love with it. And so a birth became we can do this and started off on that journey together and starting the Wheeler Group and then learning, you know, not really knowing how to structure, frame, start a business. We did it and realized 5050 partnerships are a challenge. Family run businesses are a challenge, and we make both of them.

Steve: They are extra challenging. And a year end decided that not having awkward holidays and Christmases is what we wanted to do. So we left and he worked in the construction for many years, as did I. We always work together in a way and with separate entities. And then he followed my dad’s footsteps into the world of finance and now owns that business of Wheeler Financial here in Wilmington, Delaware.

Steve: And I kept on with Wheeler Group remodeling and it was, you know, for a little while was the Wheeler group of one. But it’s hard to hire people and yeah that was that.

Tim: So what did you like about it? What what was it that you really enjoyed about the remodeling side of things?

Steve: You know, I think when I first started with that crew, there was, you know, I just I loved the high level of sophistication and what we were doing and laying out the project and, you know, I had always had experience in either construction or landscaping of just a pick, you know, a digging bar and a shovel. And construction was just the hard labor side, right?

Steve: But when I started to see just actually building things and just the complexity of a hip roof and rafters and all this stuff, I was just I loved it mixed with, you know, working outside, mixed with physical exertion and just, you know, the collective group, almost like a team doing that. I just I fell in love with the process and then the relationship with the client and them coming out and saying the daily progress.

Steve: So that I mean, I still drive past that job from time to time and look and know it just, it attracted me and I was hooked. I mean, from then on. And that was it.

Tim: Yeah. So that has to be a warning to everybody you bring in, bringing people into the business. And if they’re handling a shovel or a pick or a dig in bar for too long, you’re going to lose them because the excitement is in is in the building of that structure. The excitement is in seeing that kind of thing together.

Tim: Somebody asked me a little while ago, like, what are you really and what do you really enjoy? And there was just a question about life, right? And I said, you know, when it gets right down to it, I enjoy producing and it doesn’t matter if I’m going fishing. I want to catch fish that I can bring home and eat.

Tim: You know, if I’m build the project, I want to see some progress for the day. And I think that’s what got me excited about it. When I first got, I could see I was doing something with it.

Steve: And that’s that’s really what, you know, when when we left that project, we had built this wonderful thing that people were moving into. And during the whole career, you know, when you left a job, you knew you had produced something, right? And you had this beautiful product that you have built. And, you know, that was a gigantic transition for me, you know, from owning the business to coming to a remodelers advantage, bringing new members into the roundtables program.

Steve: You know, I hadn’t yet met many of the members, which to me became the finished product of supports, you know, that culmination of what I was doing. But that first three months, I’m like, you know, would sell somebody and over the phone and leave. And there was this I was definitely had a void of a finished product right in the work.

Steve: It was it was really it was evident. And I said, man, this is this is going to be a challenge. But, you know, as we have summits, we have meetings. That’s where I get to see, you know, some of that benefit and payoff for, say, watching people grow has been a huge, huge benefit and reward. Reward. Yeah. So this career of helping people.

Tim: I think this is another common thing that we have. When I got out of being a lead carpenter and became a production manager, I joke about this a little bit and it’s like I have nothing to show for a day’s work. Yes, it’s like I moved back then it was paper. I moved paper from one box to another box, signed a few things, but what did I actually accomplish?

Tim: And it’s a very hard it’s a hard transition for people to make very often as a craftsman, to get into a more managed ment type of role, to actually see the product. What did, what did they produce as as a result of today? But I see that some of your skills from the remodeling world translated over to the remodelers advantage world primarily in the sales side of things.

Steve: Yeah. I mean you know if you a small business, every single thing you’re doing is, as some people say, you’re killing it, dragging it home and cooking it. It’s everything you do is you sell and then produce. So yeah, so sales was a big part of it. Come from. I mean, that is the kind of connection I have with family members is a history of sales.

Steve: So yeah, then I definitely had a lot of experience in selling, I think not to the same level as what we do here, but yeah, there was definite experience and sales that carried over, but that was about it until they asked me, until I came to the office one day and somebody had something, had knocked a hole in the wall and had to patch drywall.

Steve: I was like, this is great. You see my old skills. You guys can see what I’m really good at here.

Tim: I remember you and I put up a shelf at the office together like this because we had duals and nobody else did. So that.

Steve: Was.

Tim: A lot. A lot of fun. So give us a little bit more about how you moved into that management phase at that remodelers advantage. What is it you do at with remodelers advantage at this point? And and how do you I guess now how do you find your jollies, so to speak.

Steve: Yeah. So, you know, when I was director of business Development for many years, you know, after making that decision of closing the business, it was everything was growing well. But, you know, I just I was born and raised in the area. I currently live in. And it was one of those kind of life moments of, you know, I’m really going to turn it up here and take this next step in the business growth or and then, you know, I was having these thoughts of, you know, I’m going to be an older person and having never left this area.

Steve: And it was really something I was struggling with, although I loved doing what I was doing. You know, I decided in previous podcast we had with Greg, he mentioned you wouldn’t leave anything. He wouldn’t have left his previous job if this hadn’t shown up right. The only and I felt the same way. I was a member of the remodelers university and I saw this come in front of me as a salesperson, and I live an hour and a half from the office, which totally made no sense at the time.

Steve: My wife was seven months pregnant with our daughter, so none of it made sense, which was so exciting. Well, I don’t know if I could do it again, but it was exciting at the time because business, God’s work brought in new members into the Roundtable’s program and did that for three or four years and then changed a lot of things in terms of how we deliver our product and in that time really got hands on with our members.

Steve: I mean, everybody was hands on during that time when COVID hit in 2020. So I think just the overall looking at the program as a whole, we get very interested in and saw there was some talents there with working with members. And so that’s where the transition happened. And now I really look at the overall product of roundtables and the goal is to continue to enhance, improve overall member experience and just make sure that our members are, you know, living by or, you know, working by the values and and using best practices and earning more, working less as we say.

Steve: Yep. But, but that people are progressing. That’s the most important part and I love it. I know.

Tim: Steve, take us back to that point where you said you’d be my co-host and I mean maybe even back a little bit further. You mentioned quickly a little earlier, people finally started listening to you. Guess I don’t remember exactly, you know, who was promoting the podcast, but I’m guessing now or it was probably, you. And then how did you how did you think about this?

Tim: Because I give you, like all the credit for getting the right, the right sequence, the right solution, the right formula for this show. It has worked so well for five, five and a half or six years. And so how did you what was your thought process for crafting that?

Steve: So, you know, I’d love to say it was all original thoughts, but obviously Google helps quite a bit with just looking for templates and frameworks for podcasts. I’m a huge listener of podcasts, audiobooks and things like that, so I was familiar with certain things I liked about podcasts and certain things I hated the podcasts. They’d just kind of start and go on for an hour and a half with no direction, and I found myself lost.

Steve: And so, you know, I just wanted something that was conversational but educational. And and I think, you know, that fits right into your wheelhouse. And that I think you just, you know, somehow they meshed perfectly because, you know, one of the joys of doing this podcast is, is I love watching how excited you get. And when we learned and, you know, whatever I’ve done in terms of, you know, some production side in the beginning, you know, 80%, 90, probably 95, 90% of the topics were you and they’re submitted by the people, but that was really you generating a lot of that.

Steve: So it was really a great pairing to to start off and do this. And it’s, you know, from the start, you know, I remember picking out the music like Mark and.

Tim: Ask you about that.

Steve: How did you.

Tim: How did you get that music?

Steve: Because it’s so so Mark Harari, he held that he helped on kind of the computer side or the I guess the technical side of getting the podcast together. And he’s like, you know, you got to we got to get a song together. So here’s where you go to find music. And I guess, you know, people make music professionally.

Steve: They put it out there and you buy the rights to it. And so I went through I mean, I spent hours listening to different riffs and I mean, it took 5 seconds of getting into that wonderful banjo. I love that I could probably listen to without the podcast. I just listened to that song. But it started off I said, Don, that that just shouted invalid to me, yeah, that’s a nice beat.

Steve: I like some pop music. So it did. I said, That’s Tim and Steve right there. Perfect, perfect music. So that’s how it happens.

Tim: That’s I don’t know if you even knew this about me, but I am a big bluegrass music fan. I love bluegrass music, and I don’t think you even knew that at the time, but it fits right into my world. The first time I heard it, I went, that is that is fantastic. So good. Good job on that.

Tim: Good job on. I love it. So maybe, maybe favorite podcasts or maybe the thing that stands out to you that from you know, again, when I think it’s been five and a half years or so that they’ve actually been published too. Yeah, something episodes are out there just kind of wondering if anything stands out to you that just really got you excited.

Steve: Well, I just I look back at all of the episodes and all the titles and topics and it just screams the amount of genius and like intellect that we’re surrounded by, right. With remodelers advantage in this community. Just I’m just so impressed by every guest we have with the information that they’re able to bring to us. You know, and they’re just people who work in production and have something that they want to share.

Steve: And that’s been amazing to me that yeah, yeah. Joked about how I jump in with a question, but I haven’t stumped anybody. Everybody knows the answers. You know, I ask the question because I like to have more of a conversational riff, you know, not kind of a preprogramed answer, but yeah, I paused some people, but I don’t know that I’ve ever stumped them.

Steve: So it’s a pretty good a fantastic answer. But I made a list of some of the shows that really stood out, you know, being this all the House enthusiast over the years. The podcast with Kevin O’Connor was a fantastic one. Our fourth episode running, in fact, the production meetings with Terry McDermott was one where I was really like it just jumped out.

Steve: I said, This is going to be so much fun because after that episode I learned so much from that episode. I said, Man, this is this is going to be a blast. McRae Hiring and keeping great people is probably about a year, year and a half ago and then active listening with Christine Myles and then becoming a team without a construction background.

Steve: That’s from the very beginning with Brad yet and that was fantastic And that was another moment just got me really excited about doing this show. Yeah, and there’s just.

Tim: Probably five or six of those, I guess. Yeah, we’ve done quite a number of those over the years that people that did not have construction backgrounds.

Steve: So and ones that I’ve brought in thing, you know, Greg mentioned inclusion in construction and I had a friend come on the Tigers from high school to talk about that was really important to me women in construction and just there’s been such a wide range of topics that we’ve had that I think just shine a different light than other shows do.

Steve: And I think we’ve tackled a lot of different topics, not just sticking to one channel. You know, we’ve been diversified in what we talk about and I love it. I love that we’re able to tackle different topics and do it in this framework.

Greg: So Steve, longtime listener here. Yes, just, you know, what I’ve always enjoyed about you on the podcast is this like this joy in your voice about thinking about what it was like when you were in business? You always have this comment like, Well, when I was in business or it was, is there any is any light bulb moment that came up through the 200 plus episodes that really got you looking back on your your ownership time?

Steve: So that is a fantastic question because I often joke that from the first day I started in roundtables, it’s just this it’s been almost like a lifetime purgatory of light bulb moments and hindsight being funny. Lord, I should have done this. You know, it’s like, my gosh, when I first came and people talked to me about charging for estimates and how they did it, and I started to do some calculations and realized, yeah, there was probably a college degree worth of free estimates given out.

Steve: And, you know, it’s just so there’s been just I think a lot of the scheduling things is as you’re a proponent of and expert in and that’s that was a huge one something that I think a lot of people struggled with. What I did is I was, I think, 2015 when I closed the business. So, you know, different technologies were around, but I don’t think they were nearly as adapted as they are now.

Steve: So a lot of it was getting charts and excel and things like that. But scheduling is a big one. I think if there’s yeah, I think it’s just a huge collection of hindsight’s 2020 on things that could have done better, but it’s, it’s been so fantastic to see the innovation that’s exists in this community.

Tim: So Steve, I know I’ve I’ve learned so much from the podcast, but also just from consulting with companies. And then in 2010 ish, I had to open up my own little company again. And you know what? Just having the knowledge in your brain doesn’t necessarily change your actions because I found myself fighting with myself to charge properly to do change orders.

Tim: And it was, you know, the knowledge up here in my head was all there. I know what has to be done, but my heart, if you will, or the way I feel about business and feel about people was still kind of trying to push me into that place where I was before, before I learned all that stuff. So it’s better not to regress, I’ll put it that way.

Steve: No, that’s for sure. Onward and upward. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really, you know, it can be packaged in many different ways, but in a lot of cases, if you talk about, let’s just say eating exercise, work practices, the info, we have the info. Right? Right. And execution is 99% of all of that. We have a lot of people know what to do, but it’s it’s the ability to have a tough conversation, the ability to hold somebody accountable.

Steve: It says in between pieces that are the hard part of this business, you know, charging what you should. And I think.

Tim: One of the great things about the podcast is that we brought people on who are doing it, maybe not doing everything, but they’re doing the stuff that we have them on to talk. Yes, It’s not just my theory or your theory. It was it was real people doing real things and conquering some of these demons that are out there in the remodeling world.

Steve: So, yeah, that’s another one to go back to. Greg’s question is when we had the episode on how to fire a client, that one was like, are yes, I remember that very clear that one or two times.

Tim: All right, Steve, we’re going to wrap this up. All right. Let’s move on.

Steve: Moving on. And no regrets? No, I just want to say, Tim, hold this up. The listeners can’t see, but this is my 2014 Remodeling magazine cover with Tim on it. And when I first met you as that master your modeling business workshop, it was my like second or third week of being at Remodelers Advantage. I stepped into an elevator and resumé and I felt like I was stepping into my version of stepping in with the Beatles because I have been reading your stuff, watching your stuff for many, many years as a guy in the business.

Steve: And I have to tell you, this has been an unbelievable joy to share the airspace with you this entire time is an honor. And I thank you. Hey, this is Steve May.

Tim: Thank. And you did.

Steve: Now, this is this is me thanking you. And I’m and I’m so excited for Greg to step into this role. He’s going to be fantastic and take the torch in every way and keep getting better.

Tim: Well, thank you so much, Steve. I appreciate it.

Steve: Take care.

Greg: Steve. I want to thank you once again for joining us today on the Tim Faller Show. I love the fact that I get to work with you at Aura. It’s a really big deal to me. We continue to look forward to great things from you for many years to come.

Tim: Right.

Greg: So, Tim, is there is there anything that you learned about Steve today that you didn’t already know besides ornamental horticulture?

Tim: Yeah, I didn’t know. You know, all the flowers that I have in my greenhouse here. He’s never said a thing like, Ooh, that’s a Brazilian orchid from, you know, I’ve never, never had that conversation with him about flowers. But I’ll have to know now that, you know, that’s, that’s part of his, his wheelhouse. I mean, it was fun just to hear a little bit more about the history.

Tim: I know some things about his his construction experience and so forth like that. But but like you said, it was always a joy to have Steve on just from like the very first minute he started talking. It was excitement in his voice. And I did appreciate a joke about it a little bit, but I did appreciate the questions, you know, that he threw in and challenged a little bit some of the things that were being talked about.

Tim: And I think that was a great a great benefit. But I think it’s very, very hard to overstate the impact that Steve has had on me and my life and me being known throughout the United States. And I already had a name in many places, but the podcast definitely has got me a name in lots of other places.

Tim: And here, you know, it’s like, like he’s the now Johnny Carson’s sidekick, right? Ed McMahon Right. He’s the the guy that really makes it happen. And yeah, I get the front, but he’s the guy that holds up that back end and makes it happen. So it’s really hard to express how much I appreciate what Steve’s done for me, for the industry, for remodelers advantage with this this forum.

Greg: Absolutely. And that is Steve in a nutshell. He’s that person, not just on the podcast. He’s a he’s just a super guy to know. So once again, we’d like to thank Steve Wheeler, our friend, for joining us today and to thank you for listening to another episode of The Tim Fallon Show.

Tim: And, you know, I usually say, you know, trying to eliminate is what it is. Steve’s a guy that won’t say it is what it is. And in doing that, he’s helped put together an amazing podcast that’s going to keep on going for a long, long time. So once again, thank you, Steve.

Greg: It’s been another episode of The Tim Faller Show. Would you like to hire Tim or myself to help fast track your growth? Please send me an email. Greg at remodelers advantage dot com. For more information about our production manager and design manager roundtables to get more information about consulting for your team or if you’ve ideas for the podcast, please subscribe to the show.

Greg: A comment on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much for listening.