Betting on Yourself: Why Cody LEFT His Factory 9-5

Leaving a steady paycheck for a commission-only career can feel like a huge gamble.

In this episode of the Hoel Truth Podcast, Cody Stephens shares how he made the leap from working in a factory to joining the sales team at Hoel Roofing & Remodeling. What started as encouragement from friends eventually became one of the biggest decisions of his life.

Cody talks about the hesitation that comes with changing careers, especially when you have a family depending on you. He also opens up about some of the personal challenges he and his wife faced, including navigating IVF treatments and raising their kids while building a career in sales.

The conversation also dives into what makes a great work environment, how the Hoel team approaches customer service, and why providing for family is the motivation behind everything Cody does.

About Hoel Roofing & Remodeling

Hoel Roofing & Remodeling helps homeowners across Central and East-Central Indiana with roofing, siding, gutters, windows, doors, and exterior remodeling projects.

Our goal is simple: help homeowners understand their options and make confident decisions about their homes.

📞 Call: 765-561-4023
🌐 Learn more: hoelrr.com

Transcript

Cody, why'd you choose to be part of the Hoel Roofing family?

Well, you know, Hoel Roofing did a lot of great things for two of my closest friends. You know, and since day one, you guys were a very welcoming, welcoming family environment.

As someone who is a family man, you know that that meant a lot to me. And then overall, I just really enjoy how well you guys take care of your customers.

Welcome to this edition of the Hoel Truth Podcast! As we continue our series on the sales team, our guest today is Mr. Cody Stephens. So, Cody, take a minute and do yourself tell us about your lovely family. And, we'll kind of kick it off with that.

Well, I am, my name is Cody.

I'm 28 years old. I have a wife. Her name is Marissa. And then two kids, a seven year old son, Joey. And then, a almost one year old, daughter, Eliza,

grew up, kind of a little bit growing up. I know you're in Florida a little bit, Shelbyville whatnot. Yep. Kind of back and forth.

You know, my dad, lived in Indiana. My mom lived in Florida. So, I spent some time in high school here in, Shelbyville, Indiana. And then actually graduated from, Rockledge, Florida. So I kind of made my way back, so kind of pretty cool with, Chris sales manager is a good friend of yours for most of your life now, I guess.

Probably. Technically, yeah. Nick. Nick, a salesman over here. Kind of same thing. So, just, kind of talk about how you, how you got here. I think you been. I don't think I know you've been with us, what, three and a half years? Actually, I think, this year's my fourth year. Yeah, yeah.

So coming this fall, I think maybe close to for you, sir. So kind of how I got my start, you know,

I started out when I moved back here from Florida. Started out as a factory, and Morristown, kind of doing everything, operating machines, then kind of moved into maintenance. Funny enough, I actually got Chris a job over there.

I was over there for about five years, and he was over there for, several. And then, Nick started working with you guys and got Chris the job. And then after Chris started working here, he's pretty much told me, like, hey, like, this job changed my life. You really need to consider doing it. And I know that he had talked to me about, trying to come work for you guys for, gosh, probably a half a year.

You know, but I didn't. I was a little nervous about switching over. I'd just gotten married. And then, you know, wasn't really, I guess, brave enough to make the jump from salary to commission. And. Come on, Cody, tell the whole story. But like that. Oh, okay. I'll tell from the way you tell it. So, Cody, Cody comes and works for us, and, I said, you know what made you do it?

And he said, well, friends with Nick and Chris, okay? Nick did it. He had success. But Nick is smart, like he's in college. His parents are attorneys. He's smart. So he's like, he could figure it out. Like, well, when Chris did it and Chris started having success, you pretty much say Chris freedom. So you figured if Chris could do it, Cody could do it.

So yeah. Yeah. Somewhere along those lines, and then finally, you know, he kept trying to get me to talk to you, and then, then he had his, diaper party for his first son, and I saw you guys there, and, that's when I first kind of started to open the door, for conversation about switching over.

And then, you know, for a little while, I worked both jobs because I was just real nervous about switching to commission. And, you know, that was killing me. And then by the time, spring rolled around the next year, I just finally decided, okay, hey, I need to switch. And it was probably the greatest decision I've ever made.

Awesome. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, it's always scary, you know? And and the best part is with the team is getting to know everybody's personality. And I always remember, like, we were talking and. And and and I always want you guys to do what's best for your family. And it made sense. You kind of came in in the fall and it can get it can get thin.

It can get skinny in the winter. For sales guys in this business, especially if you don't even start your pipeline until October, you know? But, I'll never forget when you were like, okay, when I get these two deals closed, I'm going to quit. And then literally they closed the same morning, I believe. And you're like, driving to work.

I was like, so we given our resignation letter today, Cody. And you're like, well, I don't know about today. And I was like, come on, Cody. You said, let's go, buddy. You know, so and like I said, like it's I think it's a healthy I mean, I want you to be smart, but there is, there is a level of like, I don't want to say a healthy fear, but like, when, you know, you've got to go provide, you know, and that's one reason why I've been very fortunate to have guys in your generation.

I mean, the bulk of our team is your age group, you know, and people want to complain that there's every generation or every age group, they're lazy and you can't find good people. Like, I'm I'm very fortunate. And I think my, our secret sauce is finding guys who are married with kids because you I mean, you've you come home.

I mean, you got, you know, you got two kids like, you want to provide for them. You want to be able to, you know, give them things that you didn't have. So I mean, it's it's it's a good it's a good motivator, you know. So and we, we thank the world of, of Marissa, you know, I like I like giving Marissa a hard time and, you know, little Joey, and maybe we're a guy.

He's going to hit on my daughter's hand a couple of years with the little player that he likes to be. Maybe so. But, you know, I. I love I love his energy, too. And just, you know, being around him and, you know, I kind of like to talk about maybe challenges that we've had and, you know, and I know you'll never tell Joey that he's your step son, but kind of talk a little bit about that, because I think people it's good for people to kind of hear stories and understand, like where people come from.

And like, you know, maybe some challenges that you guys have had to overcome there.

Well, you know, you know, say a couple years ago, his biological dad, passed away. So that was, a pretty big challenge for us. You know, I was around in the picture, long before that. That was a major challenge that we had.

And then, me and Marissa personally, could not have children, so we had to go through, IVF. So that was, a pretty big challenge. But you guys were very supportive all along the entire way. You know, I'm very fortunate that I had this job as well. Because, you know, anyone who's ever gone through that understands how expensive that can be, you know, and, and, you know, after about two years of going through the entire process, you know, we did have success.

But being fortunate enough to have this job, you know, we came out of it pretty much debt free. You know, every treatment, every, you know, operation that we gone through, we pretty much paid it out right? Which, you know, if I was at the factory, probably would not have been possible. We, you know, may not even be sitting here talking about my daughter today, if that was the case.

So. And you know, for me, I've always respected you because you've never, you've never said like Joey as that's my stepson, like Joey, that's, you know, that's that's my son. And even before unfortunately, him losing his dad, you know, so as a, as a guy from a blended family, like I, I admire that when, Ellie does a great job, with her blended family of just loving the kids.

I mean, they're kids. They need love. At the end of the day, you know, don't need to worry about who gets credit for that. You know, just truly need somebody there to love his mom, you know, and love him. So, you know, that's kudos. Kudos for that, you know? So, Yeah. And I mean that that journey was a lot of prayers, you know, a lot of asking for updates, a lot of not being real nosy because that was a process.

And, you know, and I know that's a very emotional and, you know, trying thing on a marriage and, you know, thankfully making code or making Chris made light of some of it. So, you know, we could we could yeah, we can laugh about it a little bit, you know, but at the end of the day, like, you know, it's, it's it's a journey.

And that's what life is like. Life is doing is just living life with with people and encouraging them. And you know, some days we're celebrating births. Yes. That's awesome. But you're also putting, you know, putting in the prayers and, and, no pun intended, coded the work before that baby, you know. So yeah. But so one question I asked Chris when we did this was like, what what makes what makes us different?

Because I'll, I'll say this out loud. There's a there's 150 roofing companies in our listening area, you know, and I've always said this, I'm always been humbled with the amount of talent that come here and work. I'm not naive. You could go sell roofs somewhere else. Like I don't want you to. I'm just. I'm just saying it out loud, you know?

So what? You know, what do you feel like? Truly feel like, you know, our secret sauce is. Or even your secret sauce. Well, you know, I guess, for me, the first thing I noticed being here, you know, I never actually worked for another roofing company. But just really, in comparison to really any job that you can have, you know, all the jobs I've worked at in the past, you're basically treated as like a number, you know, especially at a factory.

You know, there's probably 100 people in there that don't know your name. They don't really care about you. They just want to know if you're going to show up and punch in at 5:00. Here, as far as the work environment definitely feels, like a family. People care about you. You know, we're a team.

People help each other out. And then as far as, you know, what we do, for our customers, you know, just kind of, not trying to talk bad about other companies, but, you know, stories I've heard along the lines from customers, past experiences. You know, there is a lot of contractors out there that are shady, don't care.

You know, they may come out, do the work, and then, as soon as they have a problem, they don't answer that call. So one thing I do love about this company is I can trust, that, you know, at the end of the day, we're always going to make our customers happy. We we truly care about customers, being, you know, satisfied with the end result and taken care of people, you know, so that's that's a big thing, that I think sets us aside, for most other companies, you know, that it's, you know, when it comes to, dealing with the customer, it's more than just the money, you know, it's about making someone happy, you know? 

Well, and I mean, and it's nice because we've got a sales team that goes above and beyond. We got a production team that goes above and beyond. So it's I mean, it's it's truly a joint venture. Is it? You know, Lee answering an email on a Sunday afternoon, I mean, we literally had us an email on this Sunday and it was the customers like concerns here.

And some of them were valid. Some of them it was it had nothing to do with us. And by the time we got out there, we're at the very next day, the guys like. Well, I already realized this part over here isn't your part, but if you can address these couple little small things, that would be great.

You know, and that's, that's that's cool to see, you know, and what is what is your favorite product to sell? Favorite product? You know, I like selling metal. But I would say probably, you know, my favorite product would probably be malarkey. You know, it's just an all around, you know, great product to sell for someone that's kind of, I guess you would say more on the middle ground, you know, not they don't want to put on the cheapest product.

They care about their home. You know, they want their roof to last for a very long time, but maybe don't want to spend the money on metal. So, you know, I think Malarkey is a great product, to sell for people who want a premium grade roof, without spending the money on metal. You know, metal's great.

But I think, Malarkey is doing a lot of good things that set them aside from, you know, other competitors for shingles. So probably my favorite would be Malarkey. I'd say, and then second favorite would definitely be metal, you know, because it's it's hard. You know, not to talk about the pros of metal. I mean, that stuff can basically last you forever if you keep up with it.

Take care of it. You know, so really, I just like selling, whatever the customer, is looking for, pretty much. And the market's going to fragment. Yeah. I mean, that's that is another nice thing, you know, one thing always good. Easy selling point for Owens Corning is it's 30 minutes from from the office, you know, but.

Yeah, Malarkey's building the plant here in Indiana. Jared's been great as our Malarkey rep. And I will laugh because he's probably going to come in here and take some side sound bites out of this because you said you said malarkey. And if they love their house or something like that, and it's it's always funny because Jared used to tell me, if you if you care about your customers, if you love your customer's house, you'll only put malarkey on there.

So just like you said that and stuff, Jared said, so we don't want to give them too much credit. His head gets pretty big, but he's he's genuinely a phenomenal sales rep to help us out on a lot of different things. You know, when it comes to that and, you know, malarkey, malarkey is a great product. I chuckled because Chris talked about metal, too.

So when you first said metal, I was like, yep, we're going down the same rabbit hole here. So yeah, yeah, but well, I mean, you know, you know, even in certain neighborhoods like HOA is you can't put metal on. So that's another reason why Mark is a great product, because if you want something that's gonna be built to last, and maybe your HOA doesn't allow metal in your neighborhood, you know, Milwaukee would be your next step to, a premium roof.

It's going to last you a long time. So he reside in Shelbyville? I mean, that's home. That's where you're going to raise your family. Right. You're still in Shelbyville, right? Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah. No, you guys are all talking about moving the lodge in there for one minute, and I thought, crap, if he moved to watch it, and I just said, he's still in Shelbyville, so,

Yeah. Yeah. No, we wanted to move to Waldron. We wanted to do a little bit of a smaller town feel. Unfortunately, with a place like Waldron, most people that live there are going to die there. So the houses don't, go up for sale very often. So we kind of had to settle for staying in Shelbyville.

But I think the plan is we're pretty much going to stay in this general area for good. Awesome. What, what are some hobbies? Hobbies. So, you know, MMA, I do a lot of that, you know, I do jujitsu. I'm currently a blue bell and jiu jitsu. That's something I'll probably continue on for the rest of my life.

I'd like to get my kids into it. Just recently started getting into Muay Thai, which, in other words, is basically like kickboxing. And then, you know, I picked up skateboarding again. Shortly after doing that, you know, I sprained my ankle pretty bad. So, you know, but now I'm getting back into it again because my son is, real into it.

So we're going to the skate park every weekend and just praying I don't get hurt again. Yeah, the bad thing is, you're getting older every day, Cody. You're not getting any younger, you know? And, yeah, sometimes, now, I didn't know you're doing kickboxing, kickboxing or whatever. You, whatever you call that, so. Yeah. Blue belt.

How many more belts is there to get or how many belts have you gotten? So this would only be my second belt. It took me about two and a half years to get to it. All in order to get to black belt, which would be your last belt. They normally say could take between 10 to 12 years.

So, you know, you start with your white belt. Then you have four stripes per belt. So you get to black and then so you get your blue belt, your purple belt, your brown belt, and then onto your black belt and then then there's different degrees to the black belt. But those take much longer to get than, you know, just your average belt or average stripe.

So. So what is, where where does next in Korea set on their belt? So Nick and Chris are currently white belts. Okay. I don't un don't know why. Nick decided he was going to quit. But I think he took a break from it. And then I know, Chris got injured pretty bad. So that's kind of why he took a break from that as well.

So. And then once they quit, I kind of surpassed them. Luckily, I was fortunate enough not to get too injured, not to be able to train. So, plan on sticking it out pretty much for the rest of my life. Yeah. Or. Nick. Chris got a pretty gnarly injury on his knee. I believe it was his knee.

So, yeah, I believe it was his MCL. So that's that's pretty rough to harbor hobbling around the office. Oh my gosh I'm glad to your sales manager. Now I'm not sales guy. So you know you only claim to make roofs when you're hopping around like that. But so what are what are some goals in life? Some things that, you know, you and Marissa are striving for.

Well, you know, number one goal, number one priority is just, you know, working hard and hard, you know, not to make it just about money, but make enough money to provide for my family and give them a life that I wasn't able to have. You know, I don't want to have to say no to my kids.

It's kind of the goal, you know? I just want to make sure they have a good, comfortable life. Anytime they need anything, I want to be able to be there to help them. You know, obviously, I have my my goals. And. Excuse me, jujitsu, weightlifting, things like that. But overall family goals, you know, provide a good life for my kids.

I'd like to pay my house off and kind of, be completely debt free, not have anything to worry about. I'd like to retire in my 50s. So that's the goal. You know, right now, kind of hunkering down, doing a lot of investing and trying to set up for the future, you know, because, you know, I'd like to get to a point where I don't have to work the rest of my life, you know, and be able to settle down with my wife and travel, you know, we love traveling.

We go somewhere new every year. So that's something that's very important to us. So, yeah, I think those are pretty much my main goals as far as family goes. So where are you going this year and that till last couple of years, places you've been because I, I, I think it's always cool when you're like, hey balls for running out to go, go here, you know.

So yeah. Yeah. So this year we're going to go to Oregon. Last year, actually, the last two years, we went to Washington State. And then the year prior to that, we went to New Orleans and then, you know, occasionally we'll go on like a beach vacation with, my in-laws. What, what are you looking forward to in Oregon?

Hiking. Pretty much exploring. You know, we like to do a lot of outdoor activities. Hiking, mainly just hiking. And then just kind of seeing seeing the world really, you know, we got some other places where we like to, set goals to go to. I know that, my wife is, looking forward to trying to plan a trip to go to Europe.

So I got a bunch of different places we want to go to. So, you know, I just got to stay working hard and and make the money because my wife's got some places she wants to go. That's not going to be very cheap. What, works? You want to go, and you're, she wants to go to Greece.

So now that's that's kind of like, on her bucket list. Is there any certain things she's wanting to go to Greece because I'm not much of a traveler, so, I mean, I know people talk about going to Europe all the time, and I, I couldn't de one place to go in Europe. So yeah, I think for her, she just likes the landscape.

Thanks. It's beautiful. She wants to go check it out. Me personally, you know, there's a lot of, like, ancient ruins and things like that from Rome that I. I'm real into that I'd like to see, history. Y I should probably tell me I'm boring for that. But that's really my interest in going there. But I think she just wants to go there because it's.

It's nice out there. So. Awesome. Awesome. No, I mean, that's, you know, that's that's what I try to preach to you guys, like. Yes. Where you work hard, you guys can make really good money. But like, live that life like in, like I said, your generation again. Like, I feel like you guys really enjoy traveling. And that's.

It's cool. Nick's been to some cool places, you know? So, Yeah, to me, that that that's what. That's what life's about. Like, you got to have them experiences with your wife. You just can't work 24 over seven. You know, so. Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, I mean, as we wrap up, Cody, I thank you for now.

Almost four years of service, but, you know, like I said, I love this family that we have here where, you know, we get together, we have a lot of fun. The kids get together, they play, and just, you know, the the family atmosphere that we have. And, I mean, you helped bring that, like, I almost made a comment earlier.

You're talking about weight lifting, you know, and the joke around the office is, who can lift more Emily or Cody? You know, and there was a group chat going around a while back, and I said something that Emily said, I mean, this Emily was picking on you, Cody. And like, it's some of the random is times like one day she's a smile, she's a smirk.

And I'm like, what? She goes, she goes, I just I just want bigger guns than Cody. And I was just like, why are they just like a Sunday afternoon Cody thing? Like you're just in her office chatting with her. And I put it in a group chat and I remember a couple people responded, said, well, she already has bigger arms than Cody.

I think she could beat Cody up, you know? So yeah. But you know, that's that's what makes this fun. So, thank you for your time today and, appreciate you, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you.