Builder Education | Building A Skilled Team Through Culture | Velux's Paul Johnson

You guys walk through the details to make sure that not only were we installing it correctly, but we were installing it to make sure it hit the warranty. The last thing we want is something that's installed that's questionable. But even if we weren't doing that, and I called you and said, Hey, I got this detail, you guys want to see this stuff going correctly. Yeah, we simply do not succeed without that. And we've done

well. I mean, we're very a large market shareholder in the US, of course, within that as well, but it's because of the quality of the products that we've got out there. But installation is a critical part of it too, right? You got to make sure that that side's done and you meet the need. That's what we're trying to further do.

Welcome to the modern craftsman podcast today. We are joined by V lux's own Paul Johnson, we had some time to sit down and speak with him about his time at Velux, which has been over 30 years, and got some insight on to what the culture looks like at the business, and the opportunities for growth within the business, for people To be able to stay within a company for 30 years, because I feel like that's just pretty atypical

for what people do today. We talk about the industry some of the the challenges associated with it, but then we really dive into what I would call Paul's mission right now, which is this training academy for builders to help them feel confident, not only installing warranting the skylight packages, but also selling them, selling them to their clients and integrating them into their value proposition when they're going

to sell jobs. So really great conversation. I love, I love getting on a podcast with people who are a little bit older than me and have a fair amount more experience life, experience, industry, experience, and just getting to hear their perspective of what the past 30 years have looked like being in the home building industry and in some way, shape or form. So a lot of great takeaways from this conversation. I hope that all of you enjoy it as much as Nick and myself did. This podcast is

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part of the future of workwear. So So Paul Johnson, I'm actually our director of installer engagement, which is a newer department within within Velux. I've been with velus for a number of years, really always on the sales side. So I'm used to calling on contractors, architects, dealers, distribution, things of that nature as well. But for me, it's always been, I've always looked at it a little bit interesting. I've grown up in a family of

entrepreneurs. I've been the only real corporate, I guess, corporate jockey, I guess you would say, in any part of my family. And it started with my father owning a lot of small businesses throughout the years, and I spent time as a child working at some of his stores and and helping out, and learned a lot of things and how authentic it is to be a small business owner. And that continued throughout my my career, with my sister being an entrepreneur, more in the

consulting world, but really independently driven. And then when I married as well, my wife owned a small manufacturing company, so I then again, was kind of introduced to another Mindset and entrepreneurship. And her father was a builder as well. So I've always been surrounded by an entrepreneurial mindset multiple different type of business areas, and it really

has shaped the way I look at things. It really has shaped the way when I look at things through a corporate lens, I can take a step back and think about it more from an independent business person or a small business owner. And it's really it's really been good for me to be able to do that and reflect, as opposed to simply taking more of a corporate approach. So that's a little bit of background on where I came from, what I've got, and how some things have been shaped for me, I

feel like that's ideal. You can get some of that perspective without some of the hardships also. Thank you. Yes, I agree. Have you ever announced baseball games, because I feel like I'm sitting here listening to you talk, and I'm like this, he would be a perfect baseball announcer his book. That's why they sent you on here. Maybe that's my retirement strategy. So a legit radio voice, there you go. Thank you. I mean, you're not bad on the eyes either. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you.

So Paul, you said you've been with Velux a number of years. What's, what's the number? I almost don't even like to admit it, to be honest with you, Nick, I have been with v less in my entire career. I actually started with 19. I went to a small, small university where vlux America is based our manufacturing and actually got a part time job. Part time job on nights and weekends, doing

customer service. And again, that was, that's, that's a good, a good question, because that was that that was part of my history as well, and it because it was a unique opportunity for me to spend a few years learn about this company with very little investment. Personally, it was just a part time job, yeah, and I learned that I really liked it, and it was

super interesting. And I learned from some of the interaction with some of the sales people that, wow, it's something I really want to do so long winded way not to answer your question, but I've been with the company for over 30 years, and so that just aged myself pretty good. That's okay, 1920 years old. What was so interesting about it, you know, it's very funny. When I first went there, I literally can remember the day I went for my interview, I went to some

small building that I thought was Velux. It was not, of course, it was simply one random building in our large campus. No idea what I was walking in the door because, of course, back then, it was a little different. You don't have the internet. I wasn't googling on my iPhone. There was no iPhone, so I really couldn't understand anything. But this, once I got into it, is when it when it got interesting, Nick because all of a sudden

you're selling building materials. As a child, I always loved building, whether it was tree houses, whatever it was, I was convinced I was going to be an architect. Always was interesting to me. Path didn't go that route as well, but I was always interested in that. So it was neat to kind of get in the building materials world and have some conversations, you know, with an architect, with a contractor, even via the phone on customer service, just kind of learn, sort of organically.

That's kind of where the interest was. It just, was it just kind of fit, if that makes sense. Well, I mean, I can, I can only imagine 9020, years old on the customer service side, you're probably dealing with a lot of people complaining, or, like, or not even, maybe not even complaining, but just not under, like, trying to understand the product. Or like, hey, what am I doing wrong? Why is this not

working? Or how do I do this? You know, in one part of my brain, I'm like, man, like, the liability that I feel like I would have at 19 years old, telling an entire industry on how to install a skylight, like, but on the other side, like, I can, I can relate to that in the sense that you feel that sense of, you know, maybe it's pride, but it's like, hey, they're, they're, they're trusting me to get the information out. And there's probably some sense of. Of pride associated with that?

No, I think it was. It gives you a little sense of fulfillment right at that age. Of course, I thought I knew everything. I knew very little at the point in time, but you learn a lot. You change fast, you develop fast. And it was a bit of a sense of pride. You know, you felt you were making an impact. Didn't

really have problem. Calls might have went a different path, if that were the if that were the bulk of calls, but it was really more about feeling the impact on that right, helping a consumer, helping somebody on a project, on an installation. It was, yeah, it was a sense of pride. That's a good way to that's a good way to put it that I think that's really what the root of it was.

What do you think? Like, I'm always amazed at people who remain with the company for such a long amount of time and be it's just my personality. Like, I can get bored quickly if there's not space for growth, if somebody frustrates me, I'm like, All right, I can't handle you. You breathe weird at this point, like, I got to get away from you. Well, like, what type of opportunities presented? What's the growth strategy? Like, how do you stay with the company for that long, what are

they doing? What are they providing, as far as resources and growth for you to remain where you are? You know, it's that's actually a really good question Tyler is. It's actually a subject I spend a lot of time with my the newer team I built here. I'm actually with one of my managers down in Orlando, working in one of our locations down here this week. And that's actually a subject of conversation with us, is, you know, what was it? And it's always part of the interview

process. Because, trust me, when anybody hears you've been there 30 years, how in the world have you been there for 30 years? Help me understand this and comprehend it? So it was opportunity. Tyler, I'm very much the same way. If I don't see, if I, if I didn't see the opportunities, it would never have worked out like this. So I was given a lot of opportunities. I felt, I don't know, maybe, maybe eight positions, nine positions. Nine positions in the company, just

opportunities to grow. And I was given the opportunities to grow at a relatively young age, too. I would argue, Tyler, maybe some of the options I was giving maybe were a little early, if you will. So but, but it was, it was they were willing to give me a chance, and that's something that I like to bring to some of my team today, as well as something that I've really, really kind of gravitated on, is people need to be given the opportunity. They don't necessarily need to come in with

all the experience. So multiple opportunities to grow. I was also willing to be mobile, right? I was willing to go where I needed to go. Fortunate for me, I stayed on the East Coast, up and down the East Coast, and kind of made my way back to the Carolinas, which is where I call home, and where my family is, and where I really appreciate but I had no problem with being mobile and doing that. So I was given a lot of different opportunities to manage sales teams, manage our national

accounts groups, which was a unique thing too. Nothing, honestly, that was of major interest me before, but dealing with a lot of the large national chains, large buying groups, cooperatives, things of that nature as well. You learn a lot about elevated negotiation skills. And that really appealed

to me, and kind of gave me a different gear, right? It put me in an incredibly uncomfortable area in my career, after being an expert on the sales side, developing people to be thrust into a large corporate negotiations where truly all the decision making, power is with you in the moment and be able to work through that. Was a really, really good learning experience that I think a lot of people really don't understand the scale of an opportunity like that. So long winded answer, but

that's the background. So I'm jotting down some notes as you're speaking. And I was essentially like, okay, so you joined the company with the 90s. I'm 30 in the 90s, I'm 39 and I say that, and I'm like, it that math can't be right? Like, it can't be 35 years since the 90s, but I guess it is, yeah, so I'm sure that it's gone quickly. But what was the like? How big was the company? Was the structure of the company when you joined? Well, so that's actually a good point, right? We were smaller

number one. So just to give you a little background, we lost America. We just celebrated our celebrated our 50th anniversary. So super big, super big milestone. Globally, you know, we're 80 plus years old, but in the US, we just celebrated the 50 years. So super exciting. So I've been with the company, you know, 70% of the 50 years, which is mind blowing to me, but much

smaller company at the time, Tyler, a much younger company. A lot of the sales team on that group were much on the younger side of things, and that was just by default for various reasons. New Company not overly well known. So we're about four or five times, probably five, six times the scale of what we were when I started, if not a little bit more at that point in time. So I've been here during a lot of the growth, which did help lead to the opportunities, right? That help build the

opportunities. And it's exciting right now, like some of the project I'm working on right now within my group as well, is kind of a catalyst for that next level, right? We want to, we want to double or triple the size of our company yet again, which is a much larger task at this point in time. But we're at this weird moment that a lot of opportunities are going to present themselves for the right people. And I say that, I mean, okay, maybe I'm the right person, but I'm thinking more

about the future, right? So I look at the group I'm building, and the team I'm building is that these are the future individuals. I hope we have a cool story like this Tyler to tell somebody else later on. I did this. I joined when I was, you know, 26 years old, or whatever age it is, and. And and develop my career that way. Are you allowed to tell us what you feel is in store to two to 3x what you're doing in the near future? Yeah,

I can talk about it. With respect to to my department, which is one of the, one of the, the business drivers that we've invested in. So my department, I mentioned installer engagement. What in the world does that mean? Nick, you ever heard of an installer engagement department in the company? No, but I'm excited to learn about it. It's super cool, because the bottom line is, we have a lot of people that touch our products in the

contracting world, right? We've got, you know, remodelers, we've got roofers, we've got builders, we've got the laborers, we got the business owners. All people play a different part in that journey, if you will, to you better utilization of our products. We sell such cool product, we have still daylight and fresh air, that's also kind of cool. You know, we sell a skylight, a window for a roof. It's daylight and fresh air.

It's kind of a cool thing to sell. So within the installer engagement department, it's about, how do we better unlock some of that potential and better invest and specialize our focus on the installation segment, right? As opposed to maybe being more of a generalist type of approach. So within that, I've got a couple different sections, but the one, the one I was talking to within that Tyler, was the pro partner Academy, and that's actually a project that we started working

on at this point, 1819, months ago. And it was worked on because of what we just said, how do we grow our company? 2x 3x whatever it may be, and we identified a few different business drivers. I won't speak the other two, as those are being worked on by some other groups as well, but some really cool things on advisory services for consumers and also some things on builders, right? How do we better work with the

builder to deal with the needs that they need as well? But my particular group is really focused on the remodeling sector as well as the roofing sector, right? You've got the roofing side where skylights are a plate need to be replaced on every roof you re roof a house, replace the skylights. Sounds simple, but it's not. It's getting people really involved, and the remodeler really under understanding the transformation of a space that can occur with some of our products. So it's

building out these academies. And by doing so, what we've done is we've actually invested in a physical Academy. So the first one, we just opened in Rockville, Maryland, is about 15 miles north of the White House, 3000 square foot training facility. But the key part of that is it's really geared more towards the business owner, the general manager, maybe the sales side on, some of the business tactics that can be used to better utilize our products and our solutions to help make their

businesses more successful. We've also got installation, right? The installation is the easy part of it. I could teach you that when I was 19, how to install a skylight and do it well, but it's more about really getting people to grasp this. So it's that first Academy, which is that physical location. We also, within that particular one, we have two mobile training

vans. So, you know, Nick, if you came to our location in Rockville and you're like, This is great, but I have, I have a crew of six, and I happen to live in Richmond, Virginia, I'm not going to send my crew of six up here, because that's a massive investment. So we have Mercedes Sprinter vans that are fully outfitted to be able to do full blown installation training for up to nine or 10 people at a time, at your location, if you

will. So that was kind of cool. So we built a team of four that we put there in the middle, and got a very large radius, for lack of a better word, of maybe 120 150 miles that we can immerse the training on. And we're replicating that again in Orlando, Florida, where I'm at right now working on it. And then we're going to do it again in San Jose, California. And we're just kind of getting started. That's really the 2025

roadmap. And then we'll bring a mobile training to some other areas, like Seattle and Los Angeles as well, without the physical location too. So it's building a real good training structure, not just centered around how do you put our product together, but really about what potential our products can unlock. So hopefully that'll give you a good outline. Why do you think 50 years in business, in the US? Why now?

Like, why? Why are we just now? Like, I feel like, because you guys aren't the only one really implementing this hands on training, like in the field. Let me walk you through step by step. Why? Why now, in 2025 so that is actually a great question, and one I've had to answer several times is we always did training, Nick, I

mean, as a sales rep, right? When I was a sales rep in New Jersey, when I was a sales rep in Charlotte, North Carolina and the coast of South Carolina, other areas, we did training. I'd roll up. I do training, but what you end up with is me doing my version of a training for you, right? Nick, it's not consistent. I've got maybe a small hand sample I use just to do some kind of fundamental, simple, simple training. It's

really just kind of upping that game. So why now? It's just because we realize that we need to up, up the level of consistency and ability to upskill our our entire group, and just invest more heavily. Plus, what we've done historically, as I mentioned too, is I was a sales rep. I would train you Nick when the opportunity presented itself, and I would really say, Hey, this is great. Let's, let's train you and your company on how to do this. But how many of

those trainings can I do? Well, now I've established a team that literally every day, days. In, day out. Their sole goal is to generate interest in actual training, whether it's business training, whether it's installation training, whether it's measurement, whatever it may be. And they have the mechanism do that in a consistent way. So whether you're trained in Maryland or trained in Florida, the core of the training is 90% of it is the same. Nothing else really

changes. Honestly, our products might be different. We may sell one different model in Florida because of preferred installation methods versus Maryland, but the core of everything is still the same, so it's just more consistent, and really just kind of upping our game versus what we historically

have done. What we did before wasn't bad, and Nick would be fine if we continue doing it that way, sure, but the academy just really levels it up, and we see a real good journey about being able to capture more contacts with much higher frequency. So the key is, I don't want to train a contractor once, right Nick, I'd want to train you from the business side. Then I'd want to train your team from an installation

side. Then when I want to bring other course curriculum, things that you or parts of your team see valuable enough that you interact with us again. It's about frequency. It's about interaction. It's not just touch you once and say, Have a good day. Thanks for sharing the time. So it's really just trying to up the game. So what specific I know in your the questions that you provided us or answered for us, you mentioned building a value proposition to help engage the larger number of pro partners.

So I understand, like value proposition from a business like ours. We're going, we are, we're specifically going to direct the consumer. Is the idea for you to build a value proposition that you can go to these contractors and rely on them to sell rather than going direct to consumers to try and sell skylights? Yeah, you know, we'll, we'll continue doing our consumer advertising. We're very aggressive. AG, TV everywhere,

right? We need, we need that demand to be created so, so, you know, Tyler and Nick, if they come to you, they say, Hey, I absolutely want skylights in this project. And that's our goal, right? Is we want them to almost ask you for it. But what we need to do is also make you guys confident enough, even when they don't ask for it, that you then offer it. Or when someone does ask you for it, you're absolutely like, yes, love it.

Love V LUTs, great product. Let's do it. So the value proposition I made reference to with that is, how do I get I mean, time is money. Your time is money. Working on a project is an investment. So how do I how am I able to pull you away from that to invest two hours for this training, invest three hours for an installation training. That's the value proposition I'm trying to kind of flesh out with a team as well as, what do we provide? You know, the training alone. I

mean, the training we provide is free. That That alone has some immense value. I will tell you this. I've been very amazed at how shocked people are that this training is free when they are actually involved with it once they see it. That's actually been really nice to enjoy. We do have some similar Academy structures in some parts of Europe. They actually charge for the training. We have no intention of doing that right now, because, you know, there's value in us getting the word

out. But we need to do that. We need to find a way to also show a desire to partner, maybe closer with us. I mean, at the end of the day, you guys do a project, right? It may have 345, skylights, maybe whatever that is, it's still a small part of the project, right? It's just still a small part of the

project, and always will be. So how do we, how do we move the academy to where it can be a little bit larger mind share for you and be a little bit more outsized desire for you guys to be involved with, and that might be from whatever it may be, from certain items and value that can be there. It might be from whatever it is, but also to find a way to learn more. Because what we do, we sell through distribution. We sell through a

dealer network, right? You don't buy directly from us, so we have no way to really understand what volume and what volume and what really influence we have, because at the end of the day, the academy is to grow the business. So if you use 40 skylights a year today, how do I know you move to 60 or 70 in the future? And that becomes maybe some data sharing and rewarding a group for doing that. We're still trying to build it out and determine what that influence is. So we can better model this.

Because if you can model it, you know, I just told you we're going to three cities, three areas. Why would we have, you know, five, five of these by next year, and be in multiple

locations moving forward. But we do have to be able to understand the impact that it's having if we're meeting the goals that we set out to do well, I guess, I guess that's where my my question was kind of rooted is, I think about these companies and you guys doing these training programs where, sure, 50 years of doing it, and you're quote, unquote, just now offering it, the reality is, is, yeah, you've, you've always had it, but there's a couple things

going on with the industry. Is, you know, number one, homes are just more complicated, you know, from a from a building science perspective, but also even from a design perspective. So you're, you know, when you're, I'm gonna, I hope I use this term, and not in an insulting way, but like a stock product, right? Like a Velux, standardized product, you know, you order it, and it's designed to work a particular way. And. Now you have this, like, massive shift to people trying to push the

limits of that, you know, like, you know, what? What can I do? Can I install it differently? Can I, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, different cladding systems. Like, even we've dealt with it, right? Like, you guys have been great on our project coming up, you know, we have a different

cladding system. And one of the things was, how do we install this in a way that you guys can back and then on the other side, you also have a more competitive market, because, you know, when you started at 19 years old, you know you talking about not having an iPhone or even a cell phone to know where you were

going. Well, I didn't have a cell phone or an iPhone to know that there's, you know, a dozen other window skylight manufacturers, and until you have, you know, until I have a personal relationship with someone like you Paul, like, I don't have any really stake in who I choose. Yeah, the end of the day, it's just gonna be, like, who's gonna help me the

most? And if you know, if x, y, z, skylight over here is the one that's gonna show up on my job site and help me, yeah, I'm gonna do 60 skylights a year, because, you know, they're

always there, and they're always helpful. So, you know, I think it's like, I think you kind of alluded to that too, where it's you're building this list of people, and obviously the reoccurring revenue and making sure that you're getting the product, where, ultimately you need and want it, and you're kind of, you know, in some way being almost forced through that, yeah. I mean, you kind of, you kind of hit the nail on the head there, right?

You end up with this nice Academy structure that would make someone like you feel incredibly comfortable that we're investing in your business and your success and your this, right? That's exactly what this thing's built to do. Is build these unique we're going to have these super unique, clustered areas where the support mechanism, and what we're able to invest in in your success is is honestly off the charts

compared to anything that we've been able to do before. And take us in, take a skylight and make it a make it a bigger deal, and work on these different things that make your projects even better. Yeah, and I think I mean, for anyone listening, I've always recommended this, you know, I get people reaching out, like, Hey, how did you use this product? Or, how can you walk me

through how you installed that? I'm like, no, like, call, call the rep, you know, because these guys want to be part of what you got going on. You know, at any level, you know we, you know, we again, we reach out to you. You're, you're part of our echo pond project, that it's a complicated roof, and you guys walk through the details to make sure that not only were we installing it correctly, but we were installing it to make sure

it hit the warranty. And ultimately, you know, we're gonna blast it all over social media and photograph and video it. You know, the last thing we want is something that's installed, that's questionable, and vice versa. But even if we weren't doing that in I called you and said, Hey, I got this deep this detail like you. You guys want to see this stuff going correctly. Yeah, we do not. We don't succeed without without that, right? We

simply do not succeed without that. And we've done well. I mean, we're very, a large market shareholder in the US, of course, within that as well, but it's because of the quality of the products that we've got out there. But installation is a critical part of it, too, right? You got to make sure that that side's done and you meet the needs. And that's, that's what

we're trying to further do. So this is probably not your like within your responsibility or your scope of work, but it's I'm thinking of it because I just met with my roofer last week on a project, and he's working with a lot of companies trying to I'm thinking of your training and

like the language barrier, right? So much of the roofing and siding industry, English is not these people's primary language for so what are you doing for training to ensure that you're capturing that audience and educating that audience as well? Yeah, so Tyler, that's a good one, and you're right. I mean, it's the industry. You've got to be able to meet it where it's

at. So within the academy, we've actually had a bilingual team as a critical part of it, and not all, not all areas we've required it, but, but in Maryland, for instance, two of our mobile trainers, one of which is fully bilingual Spanish, English, and it is. It's inspiring actually to see them connecting with the audience. And hey, I'll be the first one I speak English. That's it, to be there and

witness the connections that are made when Edward are in. Our team in Maryland connects with that audience and speaks their language. It literally is inspiring. Yeah, you know, they've always done good jobs adapting to it, but it really, really is cool, and it resonated with me. And really, when I witnessed that hands down, I was like, we need to build it. So, for instance, in Florida, our team, our team, our team in

Florida, all of them are bilingual. I often joke I have no idea what we're talking about, but let me know if it's something you need to bring my attention to. But you know, here I've got a team that speaks all of them speak Spanish, which is the critical one. I've actually got a portion of the team that speaks Portuguese and Italian. I'm not sure how helpful Italians give me, for me and. Florida. But clearly, maybe masons, maybe, maybe, there you go. I mean, there might be,

there might be something there. But bottom line is, we, we've got to build that structure out. So all of our our installation trainers, the goal is that we'll have majority of them bilingual English, Spanish, and potentially other languages, as I mentioned, as well. So when we go to California, we'll do the same thing. But it's critical this, this in this industry, you you need to do that. And in some markets too, business owners other ones as well, have preferred languages, and we like

to try and cater to that. Yeah, I never really put that much thought to it, to be honest, because but whenever I have anyone working and the crew doesn't speak English, they always have somebody on site. But then I'm like, if they're relying on somebody to translate all of this information, they'd be so much easier to just be

able to speak directly to the installers. And my roofer has been doing a lot of work with a bunch of different companies to try and bridge that, that gap between Spanish speaking and obviously English speaking companies, and he said that there's, like, a huge need for it, which it's, I mean, it's just crazy to me to think that it's 2025, and this is, like, on

the back burner for a lot of companies. So a friend of mine walked one of our projects the other day, and I've been trying to think of the name of it, but he had this device, and I thought they were ear pods, yeah. And he goes, You ever see these? And I'm like, No. He goes, I wear one, and my guys wear one, and I speak English, and it will, it will say it to spent in Spanish, really. And when he talks to me, I hear it in English. That's wild. And I'm like, I was like,

obviously, like, why? Yeah, why would that not be a thing? And we missed the boat. I take out Google Trends. Wait a minute. My one trainer that's not bilingual may now be bilingual after I go Google this, when we finish this, yeah, or you're gonna hear what they're saying about you. You wear it and you don't even show let me I'm gonna mess I'm gonna shoot him a text. I'll get the name of it right now. That's cool. Yeah, that is crazy. I it's always been challenging. It's just the

entire construction industry. There's a lot of Spanish speaking labor, and especially in the roofing and siding industry, that it would seem that it would, it would have to be a necessity for you guys. Yeah, you know, we did a training when we were first getting started up in Maryland back in October, with our mobile trainer, a gentleman named Robert speaks just English. Phenomenal trainer,

amazing, amazing individual. We did a training for a company, I don't care to mention companies names, but a company called Brax roofing up in Maryland, the owner was so hospitable, just a great group. We've known them for a while, and this was really the first training we had done. But the the team was completely Spanish speaking, and the owner was is bilingual as well, but it was clear, as we were doing training he would translate for

us. It was a very normal practice, and it was so evident that this is what he does with vendors, because it needs to. And again, that further reinforcing. Like, wow, if we could just have someone that could, that could speak Spanish, do it even, even, even he would see great value in that. So,

yeah, I mean, it's there. I read something. I can't remember what it was, and I may be misquoting, I can't quote the the where I saw it, but it was either 61 or 80% of the actual installers in the roofing segment are Spanish speaking, yeah, I believe it. It's a big number. It's months, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So this, this new initiative that you're putting in place. You said it's, you said it's been happening for around 18 months.

I started the thought process 18 months ago, right? Nick, you may sit there like, okay, Paul, you're just training. Well, you know, we need to think it out what our role training is one of the hardest things, and that was my question. Like, how long does it take to get an initiative like this in place? Well, you know what? So, those so, so great, right? I've been with v less forever, and I did a great job training, right? Pat myself on the back. I did a great job training while I was a

salesperson. I thought I was really good, but wow, I really did not have any understanding for how adults learn. We learn differently than children learn. So we're just a whole different mechanism at this stage in our lives. So we actually utilize some companies that we do work with in other parts of the world that that focus on adult learning practices, and really kind of built out a curriculum. So it was really about this kind of building out what we wanted to do, which that was the easy

part, right? So Tyler, I know what we want to talk about. I mean, this isn't rocket science. Our National Sales Director myself and President other ones. We were like, Okay, this is what we want to communicate. But then it was about how you do it and how you do it effective, that people will then retain it, and you can build a consistent measure as well. So we really just kind of built that out. And the 18 months wasn't just

content right? I will say this. The initial build out was probably six months on the content just to get it structured the right way and in the right the right mechanism. Tools to help people learn. But it was more about the how and where we were going to do it. What it was going to be was it going to be physical? Was going to be mobile? What is it really going to look like? And if you do mobile, how in the world are

you going to have a training that just rolls up? I mean, this thing rolls up and it's got a 55 inch TV that comes out the side so we can do a little classroom setting. Big seven foot rack rolls out of the back of this van, we get three roof sections that go on it. We even built a way to some of the team. Joey, on our team in Greenwood, South Carolina, helped build out a structure to do our tubular skylights, which brings light from into the center of a home, like a hallway or an interior

bathroom, into a small space. Unlike a traditional skylight, we're like, how do we do all this on a mobile van? And I'll tell you what we've achieved it, and we built it to where literally nothing weighs more than 50 pounds. So Nick, I can have one person come in and actually do the full setup for this thing, who's the trainer, the whole deal, and he rolls in, sets the thing up in an hour. Does the full training takes him

longer to break down? Right? Does? It's a little harder to break everybody's work down than it is to put your stuff together. But that's what took 18 months. And that was 18 months until we were actually open, if you will. So sounds like a long amount of time, but honestly, I don't, I don't think it does. I mean, like, there's so much from the like, educational perspective, you were hands on with a lot of this process and developing this

I was hands on. A lot of other people did it. I'm just, I'm also that guy. I just, I like being hands on. I enjoy doing the work. I enjoy getting dirty. I'm here with the team setting things up here in Orlando. I enjoy that. So I was, but a lot of other people really helped kind of build out the final results, and what it was when it came to building the content, hey, other than ideas and what the Cora that we wanted to train, that's where my involvement ended. They built it

into the structures as well. So it was really fun to be involved with it, and it's also fun now to let some of the managers that were hiring winning the Academy be a more active part of the future of this too, and give them those growth opportunities. Yeah, I find, and Nick, you could probably attest to this, that there's the challenge with creating educational content, or, like, learning objectives or this training is, is it ever really good enough? Do you have enough? Is it ready to like,

like you said, be live or be brought to the table? Because it seems as though every time you go through it, you're missing something. You need something else. And it's like, when is enough enough. And I was curious if you struggled with that, or if your team struggle with that, where it's like, at what point you're constantly going to be refining it, but at what point are we ready to unroll this thing? It's a progress over perfection, right? We can drown on that, and

you're exactly right. We wanted to give it enough time. But the bottom line is, it was never gonna be perfect. The one thing we did know when this, when this was originally launched, by the way, we refer to it as a pilot, we had no intention of it, not of it going away. The sense of pilot was figure out what we didn't know and fix it fast, and super fast, and that's what all

tell you. Oh, people have no problem with we asked for it, like, literally tell us, but it's mind blowing, literally the first time you're like, wow, how did we not think of that in the last 18 months? So now it's a constant evolution. And honestly, that's something we have to challenge ourselves to keep listening to right? Is when people do print it, bring things up. You don't need to act on the one thing, but when you hear it multiple times, how do we solve for that? Now, moving forward.

So constant evolution is fun, though, to be able to be that agile, right? Because in traditional business structure, you maybe can't do that. You launch it this way, and that's the way you move. We get that. We get to play around and make the next one better, and then change the content make it stronger and more beneficial for for the group. Speaking of evolution, what have you seen as far as evolution of the product, the skylight as a whole, over your career? And

where do you see that going? Because I think for people who are not necessarily in tune with it, like, what type of progress you're making, what type of development, developments you can make. Is it? Is it ease of installation? Is it technology? Is it energy efficiency? Like, what's, what's, what does it look like, and where is it going? So

the answer that is yes, it's all of that. You know, ease of installation was a big thing, you know, Nick, we go back to the project you were talking about, the echo pond project. Ease of installation is key in all this, right? You go back to the beginning of my career, a V lot Scarlet was easy, easy to install when I started. The problem was you needed to do it just right. And the problem was that put a lot of emphasis on the person doing the actual laboring work, to do it

perfectly, right? It wasn't, it wasn't really forgiving, if that makes sense, yeah, great product, but it wasn't really forgiven. So back in goodness gracious, I don't know, roughly 2000 2010 we actually released a product that provided a leak proof warranty, so regardless of who installs it, as long as you install it correctly. We built some very good forgiveness techniques with three layers of water protection. And within it, we'd actually warranty the product, the product

installation. And I don't think either one of you probably have any other manufacturer that will completely warrant your installation if we haven't trained you how to do it, and that's what we want to set out to do right in the bottom line, though, is we know it's so foolproof, even if one step isn't done precisely, it's okay the other one's going to catch it and stop it as well. So there's a lot of that. Of that. And then the evolution of that is really just the products. I

mean, a skylight is in the US. It's out of reach. It's up in the ceiling. When someone's walking through home, they may or may not realize that room that they're experiencing that product in, that the skylights a key part of it. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. What is skylight can kind of be forgotten. Sorry. What do you mean by in the US? Well, okay, so good question. So Velux globally is based in in Denmark, and in majority of our European countries, they use a product

referred to as a roof window. We call them skylights here. So they're more out of reach. In Europe, they utilize their attic space, traditionally, much better than we do. And that goes back to, you know, following World War Two and other applications as well, they needed to utilize those spaces. So when they use those, it's like a bonus room or a finished room over a garage, where you walk right up to it. And the roof window functions as a regular window, even though it's

in a sloped roof. So roof window versus skylight, where most of ours in the US are kind of out of reach, well above ourselves, versus walking up to it, yeah, sorry, little skylight. No, that, when you said it, I'm like that, that that piques my interest. I want to understand what the difference is here. So within that, to kind of build on that, you know what? What's

the future? Well, one of the big things we actually just, back in April, kind of relaunched our product and all of our all of our residential skylights come as what's referred to as the V lot skylight system. They actually all include solar shade standard. So you go back to what I talked about before. Is if you're walking through a room, you may have no idea that the skylights actually one of the reasons that you enjoy this

room. So all of our products now come standard with a solar powered shade so it allows a consumer to interact with the product on a regular basis. Interaction. Frequency of interaction creates relevancy. We need to be more relevant to a consumer, and it's a good way to engage in that, and in doing so, we put it in more of a production setting, right? You could always buy solar shades. We've been selling solar shades

for 1516, years as a company. They're great products, but there most people don't know they exist for their own skylights, right? You don't normally buy a window shade. When you buy your window, you go get a shade company do your shades. So we put it on a production and in doing so, we're able to reduce the price dramatically. So what used to cost the consumer, you know, 454 $75, just for the product is substantially less now, less than half that, and they're

getting it as a standard part of the product as well. Makes it easier for the contractor, because they don't have to do anything. It's just in the skylight when it goes in, and creates a lot of interaction, so that that's one of the things. Now, what's the future hold? I don't know it's going to be it's going to be fun. Well, I do know a little bit of what the future holds, but, um, projects, it the apparent, yeah, well, this year, but we got a really good product group. There's always ways to

improve the way our products can be installed. There's always ways to improve the benefits of our products for both the consumer, but also the contractor as well. Don't know how much simpler we can really make our skylight other than installing them ourselves, but which isn't going to happen, but we got to continue to evolve, right? And maybe new, maybe new avenues too, that are a little bit outside of the traditional skylight

world. So you had mentioned earlier in the conversation with regard to roofing and when you're redoing the roof, if you should be redoing the skylight, like, what is there to know about the lifespan of a skylight, or when you should be replacing it, either as a homeowner, as a contractor, like, is there a rule of thumb? Well, it's a really good question, right? And the whole

everywhere in the US is dramatically different. I mean, like I said, I keep mentioning I'm sitting here in Florida, roofs don't last in Florida, nearly where they last, even where I'm at in the Carolinas, in Charlotte. But you know, so your average roof, maybe, you know, your average shingle roof, what Florida, you're probably gonna get 1213, maybe 14 years out of it. The roof on my house in Charlotte is pushing 20. It's

time to replace my roof. In Charlotte, North Carolina, when you dealing with asphalt shingles, the bottom line is, you're gonna have to replace it. Now, what we've got, we're building products that will well Outlast a roof. By the way, our skylights will well Outlast a roof. The V lots glass skylights will. So we don't have that problem, but that's actually kind of our own Achilles heel, right? Is if a roofer knows that that skylight is only 14 years old and it's a villas, maybe I

shouldn't replace it. Well, that's probably not a good decision, because technology's changed. The glass efficiencies better, the products better. So it's really been about educating right, educating them that on all your bids, make sure you replace the skylights. Don't just reflash them, pull the thing off. Give the customer a new experience as well, because they can bring in coinciding warranties. You know, they got a new roof with a new warranty. You may as well have a new sky.

Highlight with a new warranty as well. So it's super important for both the contractor to understand that from the contractor, they can also make more profit. You know, an average re roofer, you could increase your profit, you know, another 1700 $2,000 on every roof, which is a pretty substantial impact on roofing. So that's one element, but it's really peace of mine not having to worry about callbacks,

because you own the roof. I mean, you own the roof. The minute you touch that roof and replace it, you own that roof. So, smartest movie you'll ever make is just replace the skylight. And for a consumer, it's the it's the least expensive time for them to do a skylight replacement. You know, if that roof gets redone and somebody comes back to do the skylight too late, two years later, it's going to cost, you know, 50, 60% more. Yeah, time. It's still a good time if you

need to. I mean, don't wait. So if you're a consumer and you feel you need to replace your skylight, replace it. Don't wait on a roof. I mean, the time is now, if that moment is hit, but if you are getting a roof replaced and do have a skylight, absolutely replace it at the same time, regardless of what brand it does. Yeah, I had a I had a job where I didn't do the roof, but they did the roof before the client purchased the house, and

then the skylights started leaking. And it was actually the roofer explained to me that they just cut the roof tabs of the shingle too close to the to the skylight, so there wasn't, there was stuff getting Yeah, there was stuff getting caught in there and debris getting caught in there. He's like, Yeah, you just got to cut all this stuff back, and then it won't leak

anymore. But that's something where it's like, I don't know, with a skylight, it's not like, like you said in the US, it's not like, it's a window where you walk by it and, yeah, the window is not leaking, but it's drafty, or it's not functioning correctly, or maybe it's potentially ugly, we need to update it. Like, I think that, like, the threshold for a skylight, for most people is it's not leaking, so it's good, right? You're not feeling a draft from it. You don't really

care if it's not as clear as it once were. So I think it is important to know, like, yeah, if you're redoing your roof, peace of mind. Do it now. It's going to be a lot less expensive. If you have an issue down the road and you have to tear off that and redo it, and then you have that damage at that point, it's going to cost you a lot more, needless to say, all of the damage that that happens that you can't see.

Yeah, I mean, you make a good point. I literally, you give me, make me Twitch a little bit because I just walk by the windows in my in my my my office area, my home. And I've got the gap showing up. I can see it. I'm like, Ah, got to get these windows replaced. But you're right, it's right there. It's in my face. And if it wasn't, I wouldn't even think about it, not one iota, even though it needed to be replaced.

Regardless. Yeah. I mean, that's got to be tough, even from like, if you're creating a product that's that durable and it's going to outlast the roof, and it's not really any like, people understand subconsciously, what a sky like. They experience a skylight, but they don't necessarily know that they

experience a skylight. So from like, a marketing perspective and growing the business, you obviously have to have a more robust plan in place, where it's like, we could create a skylight once it can go through two, three roofs, and people never buy another skylight in their life. But like, what sort of

model is that? So you guys do somewhat have your backs against the wall where it's like, we're creating a product, and I think that that's you know, even what you're doing with the training program, there's a lot of tile companies that do a similar thing, right? And it's, it's as you were explaining to me, like, with what your product was, it's not back in the day, it wasn't a difficult install, but it had to be done correctly and probably

sequenced correctly. And like it's the exact same issues that the tile industry ran into with wet beds and pan liners and pre pitches. It's not difficult, but if it's done out of sequence or incorrectly, it's going to fail. So then these these tile companies started creating different systems that people hadn't used, but then they're offering free training so that you can become a certified installer, and now, like, yeah, it's easier. It's warrantied. You don't have the sequencing

issues. But it's getting people on board and providing them with this training so that they can then understand the value prop that they have to sell to their clients at the end of the day. So it's a super smart approach to being able to grow the business, especially in the industry that you're in, it's critical. I mean, it just is. It's critical. We just if it

helps us get in skylights and, you know, two, 3% more homes. I mean, we won, we won a monster battle, and that, that's really what we're trying to do, and it just kind of gets that ball rolling, right? So, yeah, yeah. Have you guys found any it to be more difficult with the energy regulations that they're putting into place? Like, what's that changing with, with what you guys have to do, or anything? Well, it's obviously, it's always something we always try

to, try to remain very well. Ahead of the impending energy codes. You know, we the products we produce in the US for Nick to the point skylight markets, right? So the products we produce in the US are actually used in all of North America, Australia, New Zealand also buy from us, as well as Japan. So we're the only skylight manufacturing plant in the world. Everything we do in Europe are roof window. So

anyway, long story short, lot of stringent needs, right? You deal with Canada, you've got exceptionally cold temperatures that you deal with. You've got Australia, exceptionally hot temperatures. So I think we'd benefit from some of the other extremities that that we deal with too. But it's constant with the changes, with energy, star, other elements as well, to kind of continuously up our game. So we're always looking for solutions of what is that next one? So, so to your point,

Tyler, what's in the future? That's part of the future too, is how do you better deal with these energy elements? You know, homes are tight. Energy is key. The codes keep getting tougher and tougher and tougher, and you definitely don't want to have yourself engineered out of the project due to some of these elements. So it's always on the forefront. We've got a big compliance team that's always trying to be well well ahead of the game on that.

Just as we're talking think about this like, was there any point in time that your Velux as a company manufactured windows, or anything of the like? Because it would seem that, like they they would be similar products to manufacture. So that's, it's a very interesting question, right? We are, we are? We're in a very niche and, yeah, I mean, it's a very niche industry, so we've had large window manufacturers have a desire to produce skylights. Yeah, happened on several

occasions, unsuccessfully. Those journeys usually lasted maybe five or six years. While it's a piece of glass and it's in the facade of the house, yeah, that's great. But the bottom line is, this on a roof, it's getting much, much, much more pain than any vertical window is going to get on the side of a house. So it's a it's a little bit of a different game. So your

question was, have we as V lots? We have not as a global organization, under the vkr holding group, we have invested in a few window companies over the years and also divested them. So we held a couple in the US, but divested them years ago. It's really not a desire, right? You're not going to see a V lots window on the market, yeah? And, I mean, that's not something we would I mean, it's easy to see how be a parallel type of thing, but it's much more distance, distance between that we feel

than you'd see. Was it developing the systems or the manufacturing techniques or like the process of the manufacturing that you feel the other companies failed in doing, I would imagine the processes, of course, are probably fairly universal on that. I think it's the trades involved, yeah, the loyalty of our brand and yeah, nature, I think, is where it really failed. It's a it's a business that that is heavily influenced by the roofing trade, the same trade that they deal with as

well. So I don't really have the answer. I mean, again, really good companies. I have no ill will towards them, and all, all great companies. We we have a, we have a luxury of having a good relationships with a lot of window manufacturers because of the fact that we don't produce windows. Same thing on the roofing side as well. It is, I think, I think it's interesting that you guys do

have this warranty as well. Because even working with with windows like from my own perspective, I would be hard pressed to offer a warranty on a window when I see the way that they get installed. And like so, much of the product depends on your installers and their knowledge and their training. And it's impressive to say the least that you guys have developed a system that's so belt and suspenders that you're

able to warranty that in the application. That you are, where it's just that much more, it takes that much more abuse from from wind, sun, rain, everything else. It was a monster chain. We were, we were growing really good. But when we did that is when the trajectory really moved in a different direction, because it took, it's, it's literally some of those moments of, how in the world do you stand behind this? Without that, we could have done it through a certification

program, which we do have a certified program. It's a different type of program. It's not I mean, at the end of the day, we will never be able to get to enough contractors to really impact the business that we need to step up and invest in the product and innovation with it, which is what we did, and stand by it. So glad to hear that feedback. So what's the pitch for you to builders and like, creating this value proposition? Like, for me, like, what's the pitch for me to

sell skylights on a project? You know? It's, if you think about, you know, custom builders. Think about Rama. Dollars are kind of thinking about the same way, right? I mean, at the end of the day, the product that you guys are trying to put in place is to meet your consumers desires, but really be the most amazing, impactful space that they would ever have wanted, right? I mean, you want to deliver a product that's that's basically the wow factor from beginning to end

with that. And the the key for, for for the key for me, my team, our company as well, is to make sure that you understand how skylights should play a more central role in that, is really what I'd say. It's really about us helping you better understand the opportunities for that, whether it's those, those covered porches, which you know, my my family, lives on our porch, our screen porch in the backyard, nine months out of the

year we live on that porch. Well, guess what? Cut all the daylight out from the interior portion that comes off that as well. So four skylights that will flood the inner room with some borrowed lights just understanding those spaces and allowing you to better understand it and buy into it too, right? I mean, I need you Nick you Tyler, to say, You know what? Skylights do make a major difference. Bringing that daylight from above does bring the the light much deeper into

my home. You know, the fact that a skylight, a little two by four skylight, can let you know two and a half times more light into a house versus a vertical window is a pretty big deal, because you guys are also, I'll go back to what you mentioned earlier. Tyler, about the codes, right? You've got more limitations on what products you can use, maybe the number of fenestrations you can use. So by by able to amplify the impact of daylight.

Because everybody wants it, you probably do here. I would think Nick consumers say, I want to be flooded with natural light. I want to make sure this room has great light. Well, you know, for us, my challenge is to make sure you guys instantly say, This is great. I must incorporate skylights into this kitchen. It

just needs to be that instant. That's, that's what this is about, and it's going to take time, but five years from now, if we can create more of that instant, oh, I think it's, I mean, I think, you know, going back to the point I made earlier, I think homes are becoming complicated. Might not be the right word, but just more detailed. And, you know, you hear the argument, right? It's like homes. You know, 50 years ago, you could build a house for $45,000 yeah,

yeah. But not like, not only were was it a totally different home back then. I mean, not only are the materials different and labor, but it was a totally different home and and for a long time, you know, I where I'm going with this is people are taking bigger and bigger risks with built like, just home building in general, and in so many different ways. And one of the ways that I've I've noticed, especially around here, is coastal like people would, wouldn't, would never build

directly on the water. Now you have guys that are building homes. It's like, how close can we get? Can I overhang my house over the cliff, over the ocean? So it's gone in 10 years, depending on where you're at, but, but so my where I'm going is that, you know, people are more apt to, I say risk, you know, at, you know, I'm not

saying a skylight is a risky move. I don't want to say that and have Velux be upset with me. But it's just, you know, 50 years ago, you wouldn't put a skylight in because, hey, that's a potential leak. Now it nowadays it's like, no, you can build right on the ocean. Because, you know, you can understand how to how to do that and how to build. If you do it right, it'll be fine when we can't help you if it slides into the ocean, yeah. I mean, you can delay it, right?

It's, it's funny that you mentioned the screen porch thing, because before you hopped on, I don't know if you could hear us, probably not. But Nick and I were discussing a project of mine where it's a screened in porch edition, and the client has to get a variance. And we don't have construction drawings completed yet, but I, like the architect, did not consider

skylights on the screen in porch. And now I'm like, Damn, we could put skylights on the porch like 100% you're gonna regret it if you don't. So you sold a couple of skylights today. Will Smith, I believe that we spoke about this last time was, and I don't know if this is the case is you guys have the sun tunnel. Was that developed prior to, like, production homes and really pushing trust roofs, or was that the same time, or is that just

so happened to work in that application? Because I would assume that trust roofs are making it and, like, unconditioned attic spaces are making it more difficult for production style homes to integrate these in from the outset. So like, were they, was that developed at the same time? Is it just an application that fits that purpose? Or is there like a better or a solution to integrating skylights into a trust roof that you guys have in place for those options?

So it was a whole bunch of good questions in one one long time. Sorry, I went all over the jokes. That's okay, but you hit some good ones. Because what's funny, you bring it back to what Nick said earlier, kind of that stock size. Nick you were talking about, kind of the standard size. Well, well, the reason we have standard size is because of roof framing, right? You've got your conventional roof 16 on center. Take one out. We know what all the demand we got, all the dimensions. So all

of our widths are built on framing, right? So when you take the trust situation, which, let's face it, trusses really exploded, really in Washington, DC, through the southeast, over to Texas. You know, 20 plus 2015, to 20 years ago, a little bit longer, and continues to be a more dominant thing. So you've got to deal with the true 20 points on center. So we've got sizing that works with those, which is good. But your question

is, was the sun tunnel involved with that? Well, a little bit of the backstory on that is sun tunnel systems was actually one of the first acquisitions we did in the United States. It was actually a company that was based out of California. Real good company had a great product, and they brought daylight in through a tube. And it was really more about bringing daylight in through a tube in an area that you know,

just didn't make sense, right? I can tell you, in my early days, I remember going and seeing a two foot skylight, 20 feet up a light. Well, I was like, What in the world made you think putting a little skylight at the very top of this thing and building a 20 foot light well, to this interior bathroom was a good idea, and it was nice when we, when we, when we acquired the company, because it gave us is, it means bringing daylight into the middle of a home, and it's just more practical, much less

expensive, yeah, than building a light well of that nature. So it really kind of did both things. Now, it does work perfect. That kind of thing works perfect with trusses or site built, you know, you get them 10 inches wide, 14 inches wide. So it really wasn't. It was the sizing was clearly built around what conventional framing was. I mean, that was, that was inevitable. So it was a solution, but it wasn't because

of the trust. It wasn't because of trusses, but it did give us a good entry into an area that can bring a better solution to her model, or to a roof, or to a builder on those interior spaces. You know, the hallway, it's just, it's just dark. Throw a couple of these in there. Throughout the day, you'll never come out of light. It really is kind of a cool thing. Sun tunnel is one of those little odd products where you can't believe what it does to an interior bathroom or maybe a master

closet until you see it. And when you do, you're like, Are you kidding me? This is the amount of light that this thing brings it home. It's literally staggering. And just, I can't, I can tell you, I can't tell you the number of times I've gone back into a job that I've had locked up in the summertime when the whole house is dark because I thought that I left the light on. And I'm like, it's a damn Sun tunnel again. Like, got there. My job in Medford, they have it in laundry

room. My other job in Cherry Hill, they have one in the bathroom. And I'm like, all closed up, and I'm like, damn, left the laundry room light on, I don't know how many times, and I go in and I'm flipping all the switches, and I'm like, that's not the laundry room light. It's super cool. And people remember, you know, is that one thing, when somebody puts one in, like an existing house, that is that thing is amazing. People like literally have to tell all their neighbors. You've got to come

see this. I know you have a house almost just like mine. You've got to see what my my bathroom looks like now, and it's mind blowing, but it's a really cool thing. So anyway, I rabbit trailed off on a bunch of other things too, from your question, but that's a lot. I've installed a few of them too, super easy to install, just like any other like flange assembly on a roof, just not very invasive, even on the inside, like, super easy to keep

clean. You. I did a little backwards when I did it, because it was in a finished house and, like, we basically just lasered a line up through a small hole in the ceiling, and did all the root all the roof work above it, yeah, before, you know, cleaned up inside the attic, and then last thing cut the cut the ceiling open just to minimize the amount of mess. But it was like we were able to put three of them in in a day with, you know, two guys and be cleaned up. No touch up paint, anything

like that. Luckily, no one fell through the ceiling that would have helped a little bit more work, yeah. Like, massive, massive difference. And, like, super easy install, very quick. And that's actually one thing. And I mentioned that on the the mobile training, all that we teach that in the academy, because, honestly, that's, that's kind of a little, a little product that a lot of

people don't know about, right? They always think about us with traditional skies, but they may not even think about two bro skies, or even seeing that as a big thing. I mean, that type of product is very big on the West Coast, very big in Texas, very big in Florida, but a lot of the Midwest northeast. It's just not really a known product. But guess what? It works wonderful in those areas too. So that's one of the things that we do in

the academy, is try to really present that. So, you know, Nick, that's one of those extra little business opportunities for a remodeler, right? Just drop a couple of these extra ones in that particular project. Maybe a roofer can add them to that as well. So we're able to do those trainings on that mobile training van, which was a really think about it. On a mobile training van I had to bring away to have a roof, to have an interior finish on an area, and teach somebody how to

actually. You do that whole thing. So that was a that was a project within itself, and I did not figure that one out. Had a guy on the team that did that as well. But really, really cool thing. Yeah, absolutely. What's the craziest place you've seen somebody install a skylight other than the 20 foot ceiling? That one's probably the craziest. That just made no sense. I mean, that was just, Hey, I didn't, we didn't have so much. Did this cost? So

it worked. I was literally, this is the most expensive skylight installation I've ever seen. So the craziest place, wow. You know when I just, I always go back to craziest places, the hard one, the craziest projects I remember doing very early in my career, pool enclosure, they literally had 60 skylights over a pool enclosure, all operable venting, which was great, because they could, it was, it was mind blowing the scale. As

an architect. Architect had a great time on this project, but they had put 60 skylights into various configurations in an enclosed, pool enclosure on a house. So it was really just the scale. And I will say this, this was a long time ago, so we had a lot of low voltage wiring and things that nature. That was, that's why I was at the house, spending some time with the contractor, making sure they could do I spent about a

weekend, probably helping them wire it today. Of course, it's so much simpler with solar and everything, but yeah, 60 of those. So really it's kind of the craziest project I probably was ever involved with. Was that one crazy like a sports the sports stadium roof, it pretty much was, I mean, the entire roof was completely covered in sky. It was beautiful. I mean, it was an amazing, amazing project, but it was really just an a wow factor.

Yeah, that's really cool. Um, what? Uh, with the company, been there obviously, a long time. Do you have a specific project or initiative that you've worked on that is comes to mind as being your your favorite, or something that you feel like you really put your heart into? Of course, the project I'm working now is my favorite, yeah. Amy, you know, I mean, again, these are such good

questions you guys are asking them. You would think I'd be a great reflective person at this stage of my career, but it's always like in the moment now, whatever is happening now, what's happening now, is my most honestly. What I'm working on now is absolutely the most fun thing I've ever done at v less. It is hands down, and I've enjoyed all my positions there. But this is actually fun. This, this because it's new, or is it because it's challenging to you, or like the

potential to be able to help? It's all of that. It is also what's interesting is it also taps into a little bit the entrepreneurial background. It's being able to be have a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit within the environment. It's been pretty cool, right? The team has trusted me and my team to kind of establish thing, how this, how we want to do. I mean, it's everything you got, the whole process, the structure, how do you do it? How do you work with your marketing team?

Who's, who's another big team helping build this thing out to get to get the message out as well. But it's all of the elements. I mean, it's all encompassing. So, yeah, you know, it's all of this. I looked at everything. I mean, my first sales job, I moved I was originally from the northeast, but I up and moved into New Jersey and worked outside of New York, sweet City and Long Island place where I knew nobody, and just just dove right in. Because I was like, I'm just gonna go in

and I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna pay my dues and do what I need to do. So I don't know, I just jump in feet first, I guess you say or head first. I don't know which, which one the analogy should be one. Either way, I'm going through a skylight. I'm going feet first. Yeah, first one. Now, unless it's the 60 skylight pool, I might do a nice swan dive. Yeah,

you might do a swan dive. So this one's the most, this one's the most fun now that I've ever that I've ever done, and I think, I think I'm, I think I'm convinced that this is definitely the coolest, coolest project I've worked on. Did you I know that you got into the industry and and signed on with

V lock so early in your life? But do you recall ever feeling that you were going to do something else, or at any point during your career that, like, there would have been an alternative career path for you that would have been sustainable, you know, if, good lord, I'd be a fool to say that. I'd never have absolutely, I think probably early on in my career is when those moments hit me most right in my 20s and things

of that nature as well. I always really enjoyed the sales side of things, and just being able to talk about what we're trying to do and communicate. Something I really learned early on, that this was a passion of mine, is to be able to do this and be able to develop it. So I would have always been in that arena. Who knows? You know, did you go to school for sales or no? I mean, if you're general business and mathematics is what I went to school. Oh, I

was, trust me, school. I was convinced I was gonna be an engineer. I don't know if I strike you as an engineer. Nothing against engineering, any engineers. I am so glad I did a little bit too much personality for an engineer. I was convinced, trust me, it was gonna, I was going to be an engineer. But through that journey in school, I was like,

this is. Simply not going to happen when I could see through the page, because they had to make the paper so thin in my calculus books, I was like, this just isn't the route for me. Did you did you feel like at any point during your career with V Lux that you had you weren't given enough opportunity to continue to progress and grow. No. What's really interesting is what had, what has been really good. I mean, we're a large company, well, we're a good, mid

sized company, right? But we're small enough that we're able to have good relationships through that even prior, I mean, I report to our president, Stefan right now. Prior to that as well, I still had a very good relationship with him, and could communicate any point in time. I was always very open with what my interests were, and I know not all people function like that. I was always very clear that I did want opportunities, I

did want to develop, and what can I do? So there was always a very good open dialog on those opportunities with my with my direct managers and with others as well. So I never, I never felt it. There were always moments that you just wonder if that opportunity is going to present itself. Power, you know,

is the opportunity that I want going to happen. I mean, I mentioned this department I'm running now, honestly, this, this, this happened last September, and had you had this conversation with me at this point last year, I don't know if I would have said I'd be leading this whole department as this nature. I was still working on all these projects regardless,

but I didn't know. So I mean, like to me, like in the really, the catalyst for that question is, again, kind of circling back on you being with them for 30 years, and from like a company perspective, I know Nick has a fair amount of employees, but like, what are you able to do with your with your company, with the people within your company, with the attitude within the company, be able to

maintain long term relationships. And it can't just be about pay and like, it also brings me back to the fact that you enjoy selling, but you're not a salesman. And like, you have to believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say that you have to believe in the product. You have to believe in this company, because it would be really difficult to say that I enjoy selling if it's a product in a company that you don't believe in and you can't stand for?

No, I couldn't do it. I mean, I know, I know there are a lot of people that can, but I could not work for a company that has an inferior product, something I didn't believe in. I like the brand. I'm fortunate to be with a company has a very large brand name and a very strong brand as well, which makes things, makes things good as well. I can't remember the beginning of what

you had said there, Nick. It was just that, like my question, as far as, like the company and giving you room for growth, and then creating a culture there that gives you the belief and the confidence in in the business, as well as the product to be able to sell when you're not a salesman, because I look at it from Nick and myself and from business and like, if somebody wanted me to sell a product or a service I didn't believe in, I there would be an inability to

do so, and I think I'd have to move on, right? And I think that being in a position as an employer to be able to create a culture where there's a product and there's room for growth and a culture that you actually believe in to be able to sell and enjoy sale selling, and at heart, you're not really a salesperson. I think is like a testament to what it takes to to create a company that people are going to stay at for that long. The culture is key. You know, I didn't mention this earlier. I

should have. I mean, one of the key reasons, by the way, that I've been here, so long as it is great, it is a great product. The company's had a very good culture. We actually just spent a good bit of time this morning on another meeting talking about culture as well, because we're growing rapidly, right? We're in a big evolution of change as well. And protecting a culture isn't really the right word, right? Because cultures can

evolve. They can they can become stronger. They can have certain elements that make them better, but you do have to keep the culture that's there. And you know, I sit there in this meeting this morning, I was reflecting a little bit on myself as well, too. I'm like, okay, the cult, the what the culture was, or what I believe it is, is that really what it needs to be long term, and you can't help but feel that it is

right, because nothing will make me happier than some. Again, I'm establishing all these teams over the last, last gracious six to six to 12 months, and a lot of a lot of new people, a couple more I'm interviewing tomorrow. Bringing all these people in, nothing will make me happier that than some of this group, a large portion this group having the 15 year story, the 20 year story, yeah, 25 year story. And that's where I kind of feel like myself, but also a lot of the other leaders in the

organization too. We got to help sustain that, right? Because it's easy thing to lose if you don't present the opportunities, if you don't let these people. Lead as well, especially in today's day and age, it just, it doesn't seem that's, that's the case. And like to be fully transparent, we have a handful of partners where that is the case, yeah. And it's like, you guys are doing something right? If, if you have all, all of these people who have been it's like, it's your

first job and you never left. And obviously, like, there's some people where it's been their first job and they never left, and they're going through the motions, and that what they want. But like, the the people that we speak with, it's their first job, and they've grown completely within that project, and there's always been room for them to grow. It's, it's really neat. And I don't feel like you see it a lot, and I don't know what the secret sauce is, but obviously, you know, they must

be tapped into it. It's odd. Again, there's just, I could have a handful sitting right here with me, by the way, that have a very similar story to me. Now, I will say we've got a very good mix of new employees, you know, less tenured employees, but we've got enough of us that have had the longer term one, and I don't again, it's hard to say the what and the why, but I think we'd all go back to the culture, the family, type of organization feel that we have.

But how do you keep that longer term right? Is it almost, you know, in today's day and age, you almost feel like it's almost impossible to do that. But I don't know. I can't, I can't let go of it now. I won't be here 30 years from now to ask for the 30 year story, so I'm shooting for the 1015, year stories from a few people. Absolutely. I don't know it's it. Part of me thinks it's gonna be, there's gonna be somebody else talking to somebody else like you, maybe you and they're gonna be telling

you this. Would be doing this in 30 years. Maybe that'd be a long run. Do you guys have an office down in Charlotte? So we actually have a what we call our experience center. So it's our national sales and marketing office. It's in a suburb of Charlotte, Fort Mill, South Carolina, literally the first town you hit when you head south out of Charlotte. So that

is national sales and marketing. Our North American headquarters is in a place called Greenwood, South Carolina, which is a couple hours from there, production, customer service, some finance things of that nature as well. So yeah, we've got a little office in suburb of Charlotte. And when did you relocate there? I personally move. Goodness gracious. I personally relocated there probably 2009 actually. And I can tell you the reason why, because it actually had nothing to do with my I was

actually the sales manager with the southeast. Was based in Charleston, South Carolina at the time, beautiful place. Loved it would have been perfectly fine staying there, but my wife owned Charleston. Love it. Yeah, every time I go down there, it's we very seriously consider moving there. It's a good place. My wife and I, we both owned homes in Mount Pleasant. Got married pleasant over there in Boone Hall, love

it. Many open houses in Mount Pleasant, tons up. Anyway, I tell you a bunch of stories about there, but love Love it. Love it. Love it. Anyway. Long story short, wife had a small manufacturing company that was located down there as well, and she sold it, uh, ironically enough, she closed on selling that about three weeks before the financial crisis that hit in

2009 It was an amazing time, but we had to go work. She had to go work for the company for a few years, and they were headquartered outside of Charlotte, so we moved up there for three years. I went up there. Did not lose my other finger, by the way, it was three years, but we moved up there with the full intention of going back to Charleston, and then I moved into a different role with the agreement of my wife, and I've been there ever since. But you know what? I love it.

You got in at a good time. Yeah, yeah. A very good time. Very fortunate. And it was good. And Charleston is only three hours away, so we can go down there all we want. We'll be vacationing there at the end, the end of the summer. So we go vacation where we used to live. It's actually fun. We want our kids to enjoy some of what we did in places we went when we were younger. So you were there while Charleston was exploding, she got an opportunity to just sell Skylights to everyone who was

building and renovating. So it was good. It was good. It was good. I mentioned my father in law was a builder, who's actually a builder in Charleston, Daniel Island, out there on the other side of Mount Pleasant. DANIEL ISLAND. So, yeah, who's the builder? Can you share? Oh, my goodness. What was the name of this company? Oh, it's awful. I can't remember. Yeah, why'd you just do that to me, I haven't been my my wife's first name, evil. Evil. He, he built an eye on a Mount

Pleasant, probably 40, 5060, houses. And I am when that was being built, built on Daniel Island. They all my wife grew up out nobody minds a builder down there. That's why I asked him, but he bought from an older gentleman that sold the business, and he built in Mount Pleasant eye on Daniel Island in East now. So, I mean, there's so many builders down there. I mean, there's so much it's it's crazy. How much is being built on there. Like

the fact I forget. But the fact that Daniel Island, it didn't even exist, like it was always in an island, but there was nothing on it until there. It was never good result, 2002 or two. And it was 2002 they started building the center of town, really. And now you go there and I mean, there's, like, 1000s and 1000s of homes, and there's nothing under seven communities. There's nothing under seven figures on that island. No, no, no, yeah, it's,

it's crazy. Is there a bridge? Or you have to take a fair? Yeah? Bridge. That's what did it. So when they built a connector around Charleston to allow you to get to Mount Pleasant and places like that easier, it conveniently was able to create an off ramp onto this beautiful island that had never been touched. And there you go. Yeah, it's nice place, though, beautiful place. Nate Paul, appreciate you being on. Man, yeah, you're awesome. And

we obviously appreciate the partnership with you guys. And it's cool getting to know, you know the people behind Velux, and you know what you what you're doing with the training, I think is incredibly smart from the business perspective, but also just, you know, for anyone that's listening, this is what I've been promoting for years now. Talk to the manufacturers. Get with them. If you're installing something and you're

not sure, ask the question. You know, they're more than they're, they're, I'm speaking for you, Paul, but they're more than happy to help. And typically, they'll, they'll even get on the job site and make sure it goes well, because, you know, a good, happy, successful builder is going to come back to that manufacturer that that helped them be just that absolutely. I mean, y'all, y'all success, the installer, the contractor.

Success is how it's how we win. I mean, so, yeah, you couldn't have said it better. Is there, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on that we didn't touch on, anything upcoming news, anything that you want to hit as we kind of wrap things up here, you know, honestly, not really, I would just say that. I mean, this, this, this academy is the the key. It's a super cool thing. But nothing, really, nothing, really additional.

Tyler. At this point, I feel like I've shared too much. If somebody wants to learn more about the academy, what's the best way to do that? Well, best way I would do is go to the website. It's actually V Lux USA slash Pro. So be less USA slash Pro. Go right there. You can actually go to the three different locations that we have. Of course, California isn't open yet. Florida opens on June 16, so we are super close on that as well. So the website

be the best place to do that as well. We've got a phone number too, if anybody prefers to do that, but that's the place to learn it all, and where we keep everything fresh and open there cool. So the deal is, they get down there, they put themselves up. Trainings free. How's that work? Yeah, training is free. And honestly, majority of people are usually within close enough proximity, but they're welcome to, you know, we've actually had quite a few people come to Maryland from distances seven,

eight hours away, yeah? And if they just get themselves there and put them up, we'll take care of all the rest. Do all of all the rest, do all the training, but we cover a pretty wide swath where they probably don't even have to have an overnight in most cases. But yeah, training is free. We'll even feed the group, make sure everybody's well taken care of, to make sure it's a really good experience. Maryland's not that far from me, man, we'll have you anytime.

Cool. We appreciate, the conversation, getting to know you like Nick said, it's nice to to meet some of the people behind the partnerships and who are supporting us, and anything that we can do to help support you guys as well. Awesome. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. It's been it's been good, cool. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. All right, thank you guys. See ya. All right. Appreciate you guys listening, you know,

Velux has obviously been a great partner to the podcast. And you know, kind of what I was alluding to in that conversation, in that conversation was how, like, The home is built on the water. You know, more and more people are installing skylights. You know, we, at this point, I feel like we're putting skylights on every single project we have, our echo palm project I mentioned we have, I think there's three

skylights on there, big, big units. Our Broadway house project, we're going to be using their Mega unit above the staircase. So they've been not only a supporter of the podcast, but someone that we turn to often when it comes to adding skylights in our own projects. With that being said, we'll see you guys next week. Head over to monocrossman.co uh, sign up for our newsletter. If you aren't doing that, guys, you're missing

out. Because every Monday I'm sitting at my computer, first thing in the morning, I'm telling you a little story, a little bit behind the scenes, about what's going on in my business. And most recently, I've been sharing some of the documents. I haven't even run this by Tyler, but hey, I think Tyler, Tyler's in the same page with me here, but sharing some of the documents that we've created. I've created things

that have helped me run my business. We've, we've set out, you know, eight years ago, to be a valuable resource for you guys. Is and we want to continue to bring value. So just the other day, I actually sent out a 40 something page document that walked through how we essentially hire and promote people in the company, a step by step. You know, path career path document that I spent literally three days typing, and I shared

it with the email list. So the only way you're gonna get that stuff is if you you join the mailing list, you gotta head over to modern craftsman.co, and then click that join newsletter, and you'll be on the list. Appreciate it.