The Grit Blueprint
The Playbook for Building Unmistakable Brands in the Built World.
You can be the best in your market and still get passed over by a competitor who simply shows up better and more consistently where their customers are looking.
The Grit Blueprint Podcast is where visibility, media, customer experience, and creative brand strategy turn trust into growth in the built world.
Hosted by Stefanie Couch, a lifelong building industry expert born and raised in the business, this show explores how companies in building materials, construction, manufacturing, and distribution position themselves to win before the first conversation even starts.
You’ll hear from executives, operators, and decision-makers who are rethinking how they show up in the market. You’ll also hear from Stefanie and the Grit Blueprint team as they share the systems, strategy, and content that make good brands impossible to ignore.
Every episode turns insight into action. Because in this space, great work alone isn’t enough. You have to be seen, be known, be chosen, and ultimately, become unmistakable.
Produced by Grit Media. Powered by Grit Blueprint.
The Grit Blueprint
Pick One Target, Play The Long Game, And Win The Contractor’s Vote: Todd Tomalak at the WDMA Executive Management Conference
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
A soft market can fool you into thinking nothing’s moving. Under the surface, single-family starts are edging up, mortgage pressure is easing, and homeowners are about to unlock record equity, shifting windows and doors from isolated upgrades into bigger, General Contractor led projects. I sit down with Todd Tomalak to decode what’s next and how brands can earn the only verdict that matters: the contractor’s yes at the kitchen table.
We break down why fenestration often loses to visible bundles like kitchens, and what it takes to win anyway: reduce friction, ship on time, and make installation boring, in the best way. Todd connects today’s volatility to a 1974 “lumber recession” playbook, where tail events shattered loyalties and market share moved fast. Expect more pro veto moments, where installers override plans based on what actually works on site. That’s where margins live, and where the few who master complexity will lead when demand rebounds.
Search has changed too. Pros and homeowners now ask long, specific questions to YouTube, Instagram, and AI assistants. If your content doesn’t speak to climate, codes, install constraints, and aesthetics, you won’t even enter the conversation. We share practical ways to audit how GPT frames your brand, craft niche content that ranks for real prompts, and position yourself as the credible alternative when the first choice falls short. The strategy is simple and hard: pick one target, go deep, and become unmistakable to the buyers who matter most.
Topics we covered:
• Macro softness and rising single-family starts outlook
• Windows and doors losing to visible upgrade bundles
• Contractor labor tightness and the power of pro veto
• Brand loyalty shaken by tail events and reliability gaps
• Parallels to 1974 and the coming market share swaps
• Home equity extraction fueling larger, GC-led remodels
• Search shifting to YouTube, Instagram and AI assistants
• How GPT frames brands and why that matters for recommendations
• Niche strategy for remodel complexity and margin
• Practical steps to be named first at the kitchen table
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🚀 About Stefanie Couch
Stefanie Couch is the founder of Grit Blueprint and a third-generation building industry professional.
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Focus On One Target
Stefanie CouchIf a rabbit runs by and you are hunting elk, you don't even look at the rabbit. You are fully focused on what you want to do. The way you are going to win is you pick one target. You want to own that thing.
Todd TomalakIt's a great exercise of playing with this given day. If you just describe a bunch of building product brands, choose your window company, let's put some faucet companies, let's list them all at GPT. And then say, imagine that these brands are Star Wars characters. Who would be like who? It's going to assign one of those brands as like Darth Vader, like a villain. If there's some deep-seated piece of information that GPT is mining and then reflecting, that gives you the sense that you're Darth Vader. You need to know that because you're not going to get the recommendation.
Stefanie CouchIt is not what you wrote in your blog on your website the last 20 years. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast, the playbook for building unmistakable brands that grow, lead, and last in the built world. I'm Stefanie Couch, the founder of Grit Blueprint, and I'm a lifelong building industry insider. I was raised here, built my career here, and now my team and I help others win here. The truth is, you can be the best option in your space and still lose to someone else who simply shows up better and more consistently. Each week on the Grit Blueprint, I'm going to show you how to stand out, earn trust, and turn your brand into a competitive advantage that lasts. If you're ready to be seen, known, chosen, and become unmistakable, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Welcome to the Grit
Show Intro And Guest Setup
Stefanie CouchBlueprint Podcast. I'm your host, Stefanie Couch, and I'm here today on site at the Window and Door Manufacturing Association Executive Management Conference, and we're in Boston, Massachusetts. We're at the Parker House Hotel, which happens to be, Todd, the oldest hotel in the United States of America.
Todd TomalakPretty historic, right?
Stefanie CouchYeah, I mean, I feel like George Washington could have been doing an interview here at some point. No pressure. No pressure at all. I am here today with my friend Todd Tomalak from Zonda. He is the principal in the building products part of Zonda. You do amazing research, and you actually just spoke at the conference as well as I did. And I'm excited to have you join today and talk about some of the amazing things and crazy things that are happening in our market right now. So welcome to the show.
Todd TomalakThank you. Exciting times, so a lot to talk about.
Stefanie CouchYeah, for sure. And you just spoke to uh, I think about 60 of the top leaders in the window and door industry, and you talked about the macro, all the data, the analytics, and then I flipped the script a little bit and talked about AI and branding. But I think overall the sentiment is things are a little slow right now. They feel soft, and no one's quite sure how it's going to turn out. But you have some interesting data on where things are going. So let's just talk a little bit about that to kick it off.
Todd TomalakYeah, so so maybe I'll set a bit of context for how are we where we are right now? Things are pretty soft, pricing is bad, there's margin
Market Softness And Upgrade Trade‑Offs
Todd Tomalakthat's bleeding. Things sound pretty rough. Uh we did some research at the beginning of the year looking at when people are configuring their homes, you know, apart from the whole question of like, do I want to go buy a home or am I locked in? Uh how often will I upgrade, say, the windows versus the flooring versus the cabinets? And one thing that was real clear was when costs increase or mortgage rates increase or affordability gets squeezed, which that's been the story this year. Uh the number one category that gets uh suffered the most, the most sensitive category was windows and doors.
Stefanie CouchDo you think that's because people don't open maybe their their windows as much? They don't think about them as much. I mean, doors you open every time you go out, but is it because they aren't seeing that aesthetically like a kitchen countertop or a bathroom tile? Or that what I mean that's always what I've kind of thought. Is that what the data shows, or do you have a gut feeling on that?
Todd TomalakI like windows and doors a lot. Uh I think the challenge is you're fighting against a bundle. So if I want to upgrade my countertop, I might also upgrade my cabinets. And then I can't stop there, then the faucets too and the appliances, and then now it's now it's whether or not the windows and doors can override that whole bundle. So when we see the upgrades happen with windows and doors, it tends to be on its own in isolation, which means the buyers love it, it's great, but it's it's got to be on its own. So so the the the exciting story is that we're we're you know in the part of our our year when we're re-examining our macro. For the first time, uh, I think in the last 18 months, we're raising our single family starts forecast, both for this year and for next year. Not a lot, a little bit. Um and we're a little bit more positive on which way mortgage rates are going, which means that those buyers that were maybe thinking about, you know, do I want to do my windows or maybe, you know, should I only do the kitchen? We would expect more windows to generally go in. So that's a nice way to start next year. We generally
Forecast Improves For 2025–2026
Todd Tomalakexpect 2026 to be remodel-led, more growth and call it so mid-single-digit growth and uh window indoor spending next year. Doesn't sound like a lot, most of it's because it's really taking off in Q2. And declines maybe in single family spending on windows indoors just due to the timing issues. By the time we get to late next year, we think we see both parts, new construction and home improvement, begin to take off uh and and plausibly, we'll see, but uh plausibly double-digit growth.
Stefanie CouchYeah.
Todd TomalakBy the next year.
Stefanie CouchThen leads us to another problem that we all have seen and know is coming, is the pro-contractor is going to be a shortage, a labor shortage. They're gonna really be able to make so many decisions in the market, which is why I talk so much about branding and you know, notoriety and being remembered and chosen, because if you don't have that loyalty of that contractor, what is going to make them in that home when they're selling at the kitchen table to that homeowner that wants new windows? What's gonna make them say your name and your window product or your door product instead of the other 25, 30, 40 options that are out there? And that is a big point of contention because I do believe they're the ones that are gonna be selling. Even if you have a dealer channel, you know, I worked to the dealer channel and the distributor channel. Yes, they have decision-making power, but ultimately the person signing that check is at the table. Yeah, that's the contractor. Yeah.
Todd TomalakEven in new homes, we've seen that where the home homeowner wants
Contractor Power And Pro Veto
Todd Tomalaka certain product and the builder wants a certain product, and maybe they even have a rebate structured, and then the rubber meets the road, yeah, and the installer wants to do something else, and we see them, especially when the market gets tight, they look the other way, maybe even bundle it with some other products completely Greek.
Stefanie CouchYeah, and I think smart distributors and smart manufacturers are thinking that way, figuring out that's the thing about the tools, the allowing people to reduce friction in the buyer's journey for those contractors and even the homeowners. How what do they actually care about and what are they really thinking about? And I don't think that's what we always think it is.
Todd TomalakYeah. So so let's let's let's pull the thread on this brand loyalty thing. You were describing to me yesterday, uh so you were super loyal to Ford? Ford? Not my whole family. Okay, so what what what let's agree talk about that? What what what happened?
Stefanie CouchSo uh my granddad had a lumber yard. We had a lot of Ford lumber trucks, so kind of you know, was that uh growing up? Also, he had a Ford in the 50s, the 60s. I remember when I was growing up, he had this horribly colored, it was like tan and 100 grain striped Ford F-250. It was the long bed one, it was like the ugliest truck ever, but it was beautiful because it's my grandfather's. And then my dad has still a 2001 Ford F-250 that has 250,000 miles on it. That he, I mean, I think he loves it more than me. I'm fairly certain. Um, so my family has been Ford family my whole life, and I drove a Ford Mustang in high school and college, and then I got an explorer. So I was loyal Ford person for life, um, and honestly never knew I was like a Ford Evangelist on the street. I mean, yeah, I it was very much a sin in my house to you know even talk about driving another car.
Todd TomalakOkay, so then what happened?
Stefanie CouchSo I was in Dallas one day, uh driving to work in my Ford Explorer, and I was going over an overpass in Dallas, so up way up in the air, and the engine on my twin turbo explorer just exploded into like a million pieces inside the engine, and it just basically stopped, like stopped the car. I mean, it was you couldn't do anything. So thankfully I was able to coast down, and by miracle, there was literally an exit at the end of the ramp that I was able to roll up and have enough power to get to a gas station and off that exit ramp. But that was pretty frightening because I didn't think I was gonna get it was a one, like pretty much one-lane ramp in the middle of the sky in Dallas. And uh it was scary. And so when it came time to buy the next car, I just couldn't make myself buy a Ford again because I was like, man, this is not good. They didn't take care of the issue.
Todd TomalakFreak event, freak event, like like Clinton predicted it. They you know probably doesn't happen how many other times did you drive it?
Stefanie CouchBut a lot for years, like two or two or three years. I think I'd had the car like three years maybe or something.
Todd TomalakYeah, yeah. And and they could have fixed it.
Stefanie CouchYeah, so they could have fixed it. I think it was gonna be thirteen thousand dollars. And the point, the real sticky point, so what really it was that wasn't enough to make me stop out of 50 years of Ford Ford loyalty. Um, what was enough was that when I took it to the dealership, it had 100,000, 501 miles on it or something. So barely out of warranty because I had a hundred thousand mile warranty on it. Um, and they they were like, sorry, Charlie. Um, and so thir thirteen thousand dollars was what it's gonna cost to fix it.
Todd TomalakDoes Ford does does Ford know about this?
Stefanie CouchNot yet. Um, I would love to talk to Ford about it because I would drive a Ford again, but um it at the time I was a little sour about it. And so all 50 years of that brand loyalty uh went to the Kia dealership and bought a tell your ride.
Todd TomalakOkay. Now that's that's interesting. Um so generation after generation, super brand loyal. Yeah. Wouldn't you have even talked about something else? So so let's maybe just connect the dots to what we're seeing in housing. So the last five years, there's been more. We talked about like those freak events, your engine blowing up. There
Brand Loyalty Shaken By Tail Events
Todd Tomalakhave been more outlier, weird swings in pricing, inventory issues, tariffs, uh you couldn't find products to save your life or find an installer. Uh we did some math on this. There were more like edge case events in the last five years than there were for the prior 50 cumulatively. Wow. So um yeah, I would say we we should have all sorts of product companies shaking up the snow globe of like they used to have great brand loyalty, they had great relationships, they had the right program, and like none of that is the same. It's kind of all up for grabs.
Stefanie CouchYeah.
Todd TomalakThat's that's what we're seeing now.
Stefanie CouchYeah, and then you also have the fact that most of those people that were brand loyal are 50, 60, 70-year-old contractors, or you know, people at dealers or people at the distributors that have been working in the business, they've had their brands that are favorites. It's kind of like that song that you can always play that you always like, like Free Bird. Like everybody loves Freebird, right? And if you don't, like, are you even a music music person? And at some point, though, I don't know if the next generation will scream Free Bird at the end of a concert because will they even know what Free Bird is?
Todd TomalakSo Ford and Freebird is the Ford and Free Bird, yes.
Stefanie CouchAnd and the thing about it is though, that the next generation is going to be loyal. They are loyal to brands. We've already proven that through certain things. It's just how they become loyal and how they find them is different. And that's what I don't think brands brands are optimizing for, and they certainly aren't winning at it yet. So most of them.
Todd TomalakSo said another way, brands are optimizing like it's 2003.
Stefanie CouchYeah.
Todd TomalakBut it's not 2003. We're in we're in an entirely different era.
Stefanie CouchThat's right.
Todd TomalakYeah.
Stefanie CouchYeah, they're they're selling to the boomer and the Gen X generation generation like they did in 2003. They should be selling to Gen Z on TikTok or wherever. I'm not saying TikTok is the platform for everyone, but the pro contractor is doing research online, they're using AI tools to search, they're looking at videos on YouTube, the homeowner is doing the same thing. So if you're not optimizing for that, I do believe you're missing it's undervalued attention in our industry right now because no one's really doing it. And if you wait too long and everyone does catch on, then you're gonna just be behind the eight ball on that end. Right.
Todd TomalakYeah. Right. There's historical and macro, like there's there's a whole story that's seems to be coming together that that I'm hearing. Um, I think we talked about this before, but if you if you went back in time 50 years to the beginning of 1974, this is this is like when when people talk about stakeflation. Yeah. Oh my goodness, what are we gonna do? We're losing jobs, and then inflation's going up and rates are going. So this is an important precedent because in January of 1974, there was this belief, you know, if we went back in time that uh there was this big underbuilding of housing going on, but like like two million units a year were expected for you know to be required for like 20 years. Yeah. Uh we saw this big wave of multifamily coming online at the same time, just like we do right now. Uh, and then there was even problems in in the treasury market. There was there was a failed bond auction in August of uh of that same year, and then we ran into the same type of issues with stakeflation. Remember the scenes of people parking their cars because they were waiting for gas rationings. And what people forget within housing was the next year, we don't even call it this anymore, but uh at the time, the next year was known as the lumber recession. And the key characteristic of it was market share substitution, consolidation. You saw a lot of companies, especially in distribution, yeah, go under. Three years later, Home Depot appears on the map. Ten years after that, it's it's it's off to the races. Um, a lot of deferral happened. These these bizarre outlier events are the kind of Ford Explorer engine blowing up equivalent, uh, but but in building products. So we're at the pivot point.
Stefanie CouchI agree, and I I do think people are worried about that, and they also don't know what to do if that is the case. That's the thing, is if that repeats itself, you know, history is one of the things that I love the most because it does it does tell us a lot about the future. And I talked a little bit today about we don't know what's gonna happen. The data is showing us something, but there could be outlier events that shift that. What do we know?
Todd TomalakSo here's here's a question that I think is gonna hit us right in the face next year that uh we we we know we will face, but I don't know what the answer will be for some of these, uh especially window indoor manufacturers. So uh one thing that's shifting right now is home equity extraction is is just starting to increase. Typically in a normal year, uh you'd see about two to three percent of available uh tappable equity pulled out in a year and consumers would spend at about half that on on home improvement. Right now we're below 1%. So uh rates are beginning
1974 Parallel And Share Shifts
Todd Tomalakto move a little bit lower, there's more accrued equity than there's ever been. We're starting to see evidence that that homeowners are tapping that home equity. And the reason that matters so much uh we we've talked about this before, is that what tapping the equity does is they spend more, but they also bite off more. So it's not just, hey, I want to do a window indoor job. It's I want to do a window indoor job and I'm in a in that kitchen is driving me nuts. And I want to redo my cabinets, and I want to redo my deck, and I want to do, and so you know what what what that really does is it changes who's the contractors involved. What are they gonna recommend? You know, the the GC is maybe an entirely different GC than just the guy who only does window jobs. So um our our kind of working hypothesis is that the companies that gain share next year are the ones that play really well with these big GC-dominated jobs that are just more complicated. Yeah, and then maybe you've got some other other stickiness that they can um they can find themselves part of the project because of something that uh the consumer identifies as important. I I do like uh, I won't say the name of the brand, I'm not gonna say the name of the company, but there's a Sky Cove, beautiful product. I I wanted one in my own home at some point, and that's the tip I always go back to that if I had to bite off a big project that you just you know do it by the bullet. Even if it was a different project, you might think about it.
Stefanie CouchYeah. No, that's a great point of like your wish list. I think there's a lot of practicality that goes into things sometimes. We were talking last night about this. I think this is one of the most interesting things in buyer behavior and in branding and customer uh data, is that we all like to think of ourselves as super hyper-logical thinkers and decision makers. You know, I did this because of that, and it makes sense, and the the logic is solid and all those things. But most of buyer decisions, there's a lot of statistics around this, are actually not, I mean, they're emotionally led in some way. Even in B2B, which is actually everyone thinks B2C is like, oh yeah, you bought this thing because your granddad had it and your mom had it, and you know, whatever, you ate it at Christmas when you were six. No, even in B2B, logical decisions are not what leads most of the time. How does that actually affect what people are doing in this category? Because you feel an emotion around your home so deeply.
Todd TomalakLet me ask you, let me let me ask a separate question and we'll answer it with that. So, in the example of your Ford, loyal to Ford for years and years and years, you went to IKEA. Why did IKEA?
Stefanie CouchWell, I liked aesthetically the way it looked. So I had the tell your red had just come out, I was starting to see them everywhere, and they just looked really cool. I knew I wanted a white one with black wheels and black accents, so I had like a specific one I liked that I kept seeing.
Todd TomalakDid you have any other like if you couldn't get IKEA, what would you have done?
Stefanie CouchProbably going back to a fork.
Todd TomalakOkay. So so now that that is the the case study of uh what we should be thinking about. That it's sometimes market, this is my own perception, but what we hear marketers talk about is like this universe of all these brands, and I like this one first, and this one second, and if I can't do that one, I'll go to the seventh one. If I don't like that one, I'll go all the way down. But basically,
Equity Extraction And Bigger Projects
Todd Tomalakthere's like one other thing that you had your eye on. Yeah.
Stefanie CouchAnd there was there's a few reasons like with the Kia, other than just aesthetics, that was what first caught my eye, which is why I think branding is so important. Like you see something, you you lead with that first, right? And then from there, it was a 10,000 or 100,000 10-year warranty. So I knew that it was comfortable, like everything that mattered because I had just dealt with that. Um, and then from and it was a brand new car, so I knew it would take me longer to get to that than it did with the explorer where I had bought it like 50,000 miles or something. And then from there, it was also the fact that I wanted some comforts like heated seats. Well, every other car that I looked at that had the things I wanted was 80 grand. Right. Where this car was like 50 grand. Right. And so I think that was the difference, is I could I there would have been other things I thought about or looked at, but I just didn't want to spend that extra 30. So it was the only thing in that category that was better, a little better than what I had been driving, but not a whole lot more expensive.
Todd TomalakThat's what disruption looks like. Yes. So that uh there's that one potential opportunity that key is not a traditional competitor to to Ford. No. Right? But they got in there for the record, and I'll say this into the can. So for the record, I drive a Ford, I drive a F 150 Lightning.
Stefanie CouchFor the record, I should have another one. I still love Fords. We'd both like a brand deal.
Todd TomalakYeah, please, we can work something out.
Stefanie CouchUm bring me back home, Ford.
Todd TomalakBut with I I am hoping though that what we see. Happen in 2022. So I think this is a story of 2026 and 2027. So the market's been bad for three years, really bad. It's gone from bad to worse this year. But all the ingredients are there where we see the level of demand go from kind of here to higher, higher. And and when that happens, what we don't know is uh who is that that B player that is if I can't if I can't get this forward, I will go to this other product. And that's what we're about to find out. Yep. So there'll be a lot of market share swaps, um especially when you bundle it with other things, yeah. That that we're gonna we're gonna discover.
Stefanie CouchBecause I don't think that applied in 2021 because no one had product, so it was literally just whoever had product or whoever could deliver it. I don't think there was a choice there. I think it was a I am in the desert, and if this water is this certain brand, I don't care. It like it could be out of the mudhole. I'm I'm in.
Todd TomalakEncourages lazy laziness from a product management standpoint.
Stefanie CouchIt certainly does. And from distribution and dealers and all of that as well, that's why I feel like we've had such a big drought of the hard things that do make the difference that make you that second. Um, they didn't have to post content, they didn't have to have brands attention or visibility like they need to now, because it was catching fish in a bucket. Right. And and we feel like we've gotten a little bit, I feel like fat and sassy. We remember that that filet mignon that just appeared on the table, and now we see the thing we need to go hunt, and we're like, but I wish the filet would just still be on the table, already ready, and you know, that's not today. And I don't I don't believe that's gonna come back for a long time because even if it does, I think the pros are smart enough now to know they have the authority and they're gonna push for more from these people.
Todd TomalakThe pros will have influence around so much. Uh pro veto, pro-veto, that's the phrase that that as a consumer, I think I want something. Uh someone else thinks they want something, but the pro chooses to to kind of influence us. We've seen we've seen this 10 years ago. Some of the major manufacturers, like number one brand awareness, they've got everything right on paper, uh, calling us and saying, What what can we do? Because it looks like we're losing market
Search Has Changed: AI And Video
Todd Tomalakshare, they were because of pro veto. Yeah. So that that would be a fun thing to measure, would be to say, uh, when the pro vetoes what's the Kia? What are they putting in there? That because that's that's probably what we'll see.
Stefanie CouchWell, and also why.
Todd TomalakRight.
Stefanie CouchYou know, because if I ask you to tell me why I replaced my 50-year brand loyalty with a Kia, I don't know what you would have said, but you probably might not have thought that my Ford Explorer engine exploded on the top of a bridge in Dallas and I got scared, and then you know, all these things. Um, and there was a car shortage at the time, and and cars were more expensive than they ever been, and it was all these all these categories.
Todd TomalakThose tail, those tail events.
Stefanie CouchYeah.
Todd TomalakUh you've heard, I don't know if if if I've told you this, my my example of what tail events do.
Stefanie CouchTell me.
Todd TomalakOkay. So you go check into a hotel, and uh some hotels have like the little coffee area, or the little so you you're tired out and you you check into your hotel and you go to the coffee area and you ask for a coffee and they bring you a whiskey. All right. So, so now that's a tail event because you you believed that this was just a regular, right? Uh, and it raises all sorts of other questions. If it's a whiskey, then am I even you know in the type of restaurant that I think I am? Uh is it a safe place? Could it, should I, you know, should I should I be here at this time of night? Who knows what's going on? Yeah, uh, do they serve food? All sorts of other things that we don't know. So you're running into uh a tail event tends to be related to uh a whole universe of other decisions that get made. Yeah, and uh maybe totally unrecognizable versus the original event. So that's that's what we see happening.
Stefanie CouchYeah, and I think that for people that are looking at what would matter to people that are pro-contractors or even in the dealer channel, how do you get their attention, keep their attention with these products? Because there are so many products out there, there's so many brands, they're all innovating, they're all great products. I mean, some are better than others, but in certain categories, like a mid-tier vinyl window, or you know, there's a lot of options. And so when you look at that, if you think about where the attention is today, that has shifted. And even I talked about today, search has changed. What was the search engine for years, for 20 years it's been? Google. Google. Yeah, Bing tried to get like 1% of the market and you know, whatever, Duck DuckGo and some other people that they were they were so far away that it didn't even matter and didn't register. But today that's already shifting so quickly that people are searching on YouTube or Instagram or Chat GPT, and I don't think they realize that the type of content you have to make to get and keep the loyalty of a contractor on Instagram, right? It is not what you wrote in your blog on your website the last 20 years.
Todd TomalakYeah. GPT will do feels like original, original analysis, comparing your here's a great exercise. I was playing with this the other day. Uh I'm not gonna say who who wins, but if you just describe a bunch of building product brands, so choose your window company, let's put some faucet companies, we'll do like uh Moen and Delta and Kohler, throw some flooring company, just list them all in GPT. And then say, you know, imagine that these brands are Star Wars characters. Who would be like who? Yeah. It's gonna assign one of those brands as like Darth Vader, like a villain. A villain, or as an evil, it's gonna assign someone else as a hero. Now I would want to know, just like, boy, like, because when we ask much less on-the-nose questions about like, well, which one do you recommend? Like I'm I'm thinking about you, you gave this example later today. Like, I'm thinking about I'm in Colorado, I'm thinking about installing a certain type of window, what should I do? Yeah, if there's some deep-seated uh piece of information that GPT is mining and then reflecting, that uh gives you the sense that you're Darth Vader, you
Be The Alternative: Niche To Win
Todd Tomalakyou you need to know that because you're not going to get the recommendation.
Stefanie CouchYeah. And also if your person cares about something specific like sustainability, or if they care about, you know, uh longevity in a certain climate or something like that, then they are they are searching based on that exact thing. So that's what I don't I don't think people get about the way search is happening today. Google was like windows near me, remodel windows near me, windows in Colorado. Chat GPT is a paragraph that I'm speaking into. I'm actually prompting mine via voice. Hot tip for those listening: if you use AI, talk to your chat GPT, do not type it, because your prompts will be so much more detailed. Which means that you're asking these questions. And if you don't have somewhere on your site the answer to that super detailed question, you're not even gonna come up.
Todd TomalakLet's let me just touch that one, let's pull that a little bit further. Um, I saw an interview of San Altman, and uh he he made this comment that a lot of the Gen Z, but not not limited to just Gen Z, sure, but uh new users of GPT, they were using it for therapy. Oh, yeah. Sharing deeply, like think about the deeply personal things that you would never share with a third party.
Stefanie CouchPut it into AI.
Todd TomalakBut you're putting it into now that person's gonna share. No, no, that engine's gonna give a recommendation for something in their home.
Stefanie CouchYeah.
Todd TomalakAnd it's gonna have such a better, we used to do like segmentation work and like these generic profiles. It's gonna have such a better match. Um we we experimented with this on a family vacation last February. And we were visiting an area we had never been before. It was a cruise stopped at a little spot. My wife basically wrote a story about our family. Here's what we like, here's the ages, here's what's all going on. Give us a daily itinerary. Yeah. And the restaurant that it picked out was a restaurant that I couldn't even find on on Google Maps. Like it was it was fantastic. We loved it. Uh, we did it just for the experiment of doing it. But I, you know, you to your point about um getting a really good understanding of your customer. Yes, this is a different type of fit, and I think most manufacturers don't have a real good sense of the the recommendation that they'll get for these different types of fits.
Stefanie CouchThat's such a good point. Um, so I'll I'll pull that thread. I believe strongly that the way you are going to win in the next five years, we'll say, is you pick one target. Now, there might be subsets around that target, but you want to own that thing. So we'll take hunting as an example again. Like if a rabbit runs by and you are hunting elk, you don't even look at the rabbit.
Todd TomalakRight.
Stefanie CouchYou certainly don't waste your bullets or you're scaring the elk off by shooting the rabbit.
Todd TomalakRight.
Stefanie CouchYou are fully focused on what you went to do. But I think most people don't have the discipline to say, we are really good at this thing, and we are going to niche down to say we are going after that thing.
Todd TomalakYou you know what what you should do?
Stefanie CouchWhat?
Todd TomalakYou should ask GPT right now what window, give them in a scenario. I'm doing a cash out refi, like we talked about. I've always thought about doing my kitchen, I've always thought about what brand window should I use, and then do it side by side with I was just gonna refresh my windows and see. I wonder. It's not gonna be the same.
Stefanie CouchNo, it won't. And you have to think about that from a big brand perspective. Yes, they need more volume and they have all these channels already. But I also do believe that if they really pulled back the numbers and they really looked at who is loyal to them, what are they buying, and where are they buying it, that there would be paratio principle. It would come out, it has to. I've never seen it not in the data. I worked in distribution and and I've had a lot of customers throughout the channel. There is always one or two people, and I always ask them this, Todd, if you could tell me one person that if I said I'm gonna take this one person that's your customer, and I'm gonna multiply them times a hundred, and that's the person you have to work with the next 20 years. Does that person pop into your mind? Easy. Okay, every person has that. Why do we not look at that data and say, this person's great, they're
Remodel Complexity And Where Margins Live
Stefanie Coucheasy to work with, they pay on time, they buy my products, they're super loyal, they're they never get complaints from their customers, they install the right way, all those things. I'm gonna go find 20 more Todd's. Right. Because Todd's awesome.
Todd TomalakRight.
Stefanie CouchWhy do we not do that? Instead, we wait until someone comes into the office and says, I'm not Todd, I'm the exact opposite of Todd. I'd like to give you my money and the headache that comes with it, and we accept that and then we chase it.
Todd TomalakRight, right. That's it. Because we just understand the marginal sale versus the yeah, right.
Stefanie CouchAnd and I listen, I do know it's a volume game in a lot of places, and I understand that to get volume, you have to be able to sell a lot of people, but I think there's enough volume in each niche. Like if you said remodels in the southeast in you know this area, there is so much business to be had in most of those areas, even if you didn't niche by area. If you said I'm going remodels in this tier with this product, you could crush. I think most of the reason why we don't do that is because we think that if we could just get a hundred wide instead of being we're we're a mile wide instead of a mile deep.
Todd TomalakYeah, so we'll we'll probably characterize market share within subgroups more precisely is what what you're suggesting.
Stefanie CouchI think we should. And I think that people should spend more time thinking about the actual person behind that. Right. Not just like, well, these guys do five million a year, they build 50 houses, these guys do a hundred million a year, they build a thousand houses, whatever. That data doesn't tell us what you need to know is what does that human that's wearing the boots, that has the hammer, or that is has the credit card of the check that's paying you, what are they making decisions based on? Right. Because they're the ones that you, if you win them, then you could win a hundred more just like them. Whatever you love, well, your Instagram has already figured that out. It's giving you ads based on that.
Todd TomalakHere, here's here's the setup that I see to your to your point. Over the last 70 years, we've had roughly the same number of new homes built every year. A million five, million five, million two, million eight, but it was in the same range. Sure. But there were 50 million other homes that existed in the housing stock. We kind of kept building the same amount, and then at 60 million. Now we're at 130 million existing homes that uh those are the ones who are becoming ripe for renovation. This is what we had talked about before. And that's generally the hardest, the hardest type of thing to do. It's much easier to bid on a whole new home. Yep. But uh that's gonna be a niche that is not very clear, at least not yet, who who is the best at executing on that niche. But we're we'll find out.
Stefanie CouchWell, and it like you said, the hard thing is always the thing no one wants to do. But if you can get really good at it, that's why I love Windows and Doors so much, because it is so technical, it's so difficult, and there's not a lot of experts around that it feels really, really good at it.
Todd TomalakThat's what the margins at. That's right. Right.
Stefanie CouchExactly.
Todd TomalakRight.
Stefanie CouchAll right. Well, I want to end this with one last question because I think we could do a 10-hour podcast, but I know you have a plane to catch. So if you could leave us with one thing that you think is really important for the people listening that are in the window and door industry to think about for 2026, one thing that you're like, hey, open your eyes. This is what you should see, that maybe their people or or the macro is just missing. What is that?
Todd TomalakSo for the last three years you've operated in an environment where it was generally easier to sell to new construction than home improvement. That's flipping. That's flipping. And what's more is the type of projects that are gonna lead the market growth is gonna be uh
2026 Outlook: Remodel-Led Growth
Todd Tomalakhigher income, a little bit higher tier. Some of those will be home equity funded. That's an entirely different model of how you go to market, uh who you market to, where you succeed, and they they need to be very deliberate about understanding whether or not if they do well there, yeah, and then uh how they're gonna approach that market because uh whatever companies gain that initial wave of share are gonna gain a lot of margin, and the rest will be left with how it feels right now, which is which is a rough time.
Stefanie CouchYeah, I agree. So go and do some research on how you do in remodel. And if it's not, if ask Chat GPT how your remodel sector is, and if it's not what you want to see, then figure out what metrics you can, what strings you can pull to make that happen.
Todd TomalakThings are gonna change, especially if rates continue to move.
Stefanie CouchAnd very quickly. That's the thing. It's not we're not gonna have a big rev-up period. I think it's gonna turn on and down.
Todd TomalakRight, right.
Stefanie CouchWell, thank you for your time today, Todd. And thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grit Blueprint. And we, I'm sure hopefully we'll do this again soon, maybe in 2026 when all these things you you're predicting.
Todd TomalakWe'll see how these things turn. That's right.
Stefanie CouchIt'll be good to see. Well, thank you for joining us on this episode, and we will see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Grit Blueprint Podcast. If this episode helped you think a little differently about how to show up, share it with someone in your building world who needs it. If you're ready to turn visibility into growth, then head to gritblueprint.com to learn more and book a call to talk to us about your growth strategy. Until next time, today unmistakable.
