Beyond Products: Denise Corbin’s Winsupply HVAC Summit Empowers Contractors in Austin

Ready to break away from business as usual and spark success in a challenging market? In this episode, Denise Corbin—president of Winsupply—joins Jazmin Ramirez, guest host, to discuss her game-changing HVAC Summit designed for contractors who want to thrive, not just survive.

Instead of product pitches, Denise has curated a lineup of top industry experts delivering actionable insights on AI, field management, business planning, financing, and more. With the trades industry facing economic uncertainty, this summit is all about education, community, and building resilience for 2026. 

Tune in for the details on speakers, topics, and how you can be part of this forward-thinking event, whether you’re a seasoned contractor, a student in the trades, or just looking for inspiration in home services. Perfect for contractors seeking strategy, technology, and renewed motivation in today's market.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
01:45 - Event Announcement: HVAC Summit
02:59 - Speaker Lineup & Topics
08:36 - Expo & Networking Partners
10:17 - Key Takeaways for Contractors
11:54 - Sponsors & Philosophy
13:46 - How to Register

Guest Details:

Denise Corbin
Title: President, Winsupply
Background: Denise Corbin is an industry leader with decades of experience in wholesale distribution. Denise’s mission is to create solutions and lasting partnerships for contractors, helping them navigate challenges with education and innovation.

Relevant Links:

• Winsupply’s HVAC Summit (Registration & Event Info)
• Winsupply
• Just Start AI 
• Catalyst for the Trades Podcast
• CI Web Group
• The Opus & Golds Group

Call to Action:

Ready to elevate your business for 2026? Register for the Winsupply HVAC Summit in Austin at winsupplyaustin.framer.website.

Subscribe to Catalyst for the Trades on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube—and share this episode with a contractor who needs that extra boost of knowledge and optimism!

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to "The Catalyst for Trades" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform. Share this episode with aspiring and established leaders, and stay tuned for more insights on driving business success and personal leadership growth.

Transcript

Jazmin Ramirez [00:00:01]:
All right. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming on to Catalyst for the Trades podcast. I'm Jazmin Ramirez subbing in for Jennifer Bagley. And we have Denise Corbin from Winsupply. Hey, Denise, how are you doing?

Denise Corbin [00:00:14]:
I'm good. How are you doing?

Jazmin Ramirez [00:00:16]:
I'm doing good. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do?

Denise Corbin [00:00:21]:
Yes. I am Denise Corbin. I own Winsupply of Austin. We are a wholesale distribution company in Austin, Texas. We have been in business for going on now a decade. Started the business after I. Well, I used to work in wholesale my entire career and kind of got fed up with the wholesalers I was working with because I always felt like our main goal was to be a partner with our contractors. And when it kind of turned into a free for all, it felt like my opportunity when this private equity group came and asked me if I wanted to open a supply house to start my own.

Denise Corbin [00:01:05]:
And have surrounded myself with employees that also had the same mindset. And we have spent a lot of time fixing problems. I think we've called ourselves the problem solvers, or some of our slogans have been, your success is our success. So just, just, just researching and figuring out what the contractors need besides products has been one of our main goals and very fulfilling in the business. So that is what we do in Austin.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:01:35]:
I love that. So I know today we're here because you guys have an event coming up. Do you want to share details of that event, the name, location, all of that?

Denise Corbin [00:01:45]:
I would love to. We are having what we're calling an HVAC Summit this year in lieu of a dealer meeting that in the past has been more of a push for products and buy more things from us. And here's what's coming in the current environment of our industry, and it's kind of doom and gloom right now. And we're really actually excited about that because when there's some doom and gloom, there's an opportunity to educate yourself and to rise above your competition when everybody else is down. So what we decided to call this event was beyond products because what we were doing at this event is not talking about products at all. And what we want to do is educate and motivate for 2026 and contractor planning and business success. We are having it in Austin, Texas. It'll be at the Hilton Garden Inn by the Domain.

Denise Corbin [00:02:42]:
The address is 2600 Brockton Lane. November 7th, and it'll be noon to 7 o'. Clock.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:02:51]:
I love that. So I'm kind of interested. You guys aren't talking about products. So who is speaking and what are the topics that they're going to be discussing?

Denise Corbin [00:02:59]:
So my, one of my colleagues and I have many resources throughout the trades industries mostly found from trying to research problems that our contractors are having. We hand selected selected each of these people that are speaking just because a of their presence on stage, business we've done with them before or the messaging that they're bringing which surrounds the current economic environment that we're in. We have. I'm going to go through the list of the presenters first because we also have some people that will be doing an expo as well that aren't really presenting. We have Todd Liles with Service Excellence. We partnered with him a couple years ago to fill a void in business training for some of our newer younger contractors in business that maybe didn't have all the information that they needed and some extra coaching to get them to that next level of business. Now they don't only do the small contractors even though that's what we contracted them for, but they are business coaching for all trades and they align with like our fundamental views of how things should work. He's very, he's a very motivating, educated speaker who also came from the Trades industry.

Denise Corbin [00:04:20]:
So love him. We have Wright Kimbro from Goodleap which is a finance partner that we have found and we didn't actually even find them through, you know normally it comes through our manufacturers and our manufacturers have finance partners that they've worked with. They were some of the first, they were first group that we talked to who really kind of launched into the, the 12 year financing and really being able to extend it for years in this industry it was always all homeowners want is 0%, 4 years, 5 years and the demographic is changing. So what we appreciate about him and his company is their forward thinking. They're looking at who the new homeowner is and educating the contractors on what worked in the past with financing is not necessarily how the new demographic of millennials or whoever work with the way they're looking at their finances. We have Justin Judd from Chiirp and I think y' all have done some work with him. He's going to be discussing the emerging field management tools that can be used with people's FSMs. Excited to hear about that.

Denise Corbin [00:05:29]:
We have Sarah Ghiardo with Service Titan coming to also discuss strategies for using AI in business. And then of course my favorite, we have, we have Jennifer Bagley. I, I don't know, we sat on a hardy presentation with her maybe two or Three months ago, it was the biggest Hardi turnout that has ever. That has ever been on a webinar. I made my entire staff join too. And, you know, it was one of the most engaging and, well, I would say at the time, I got a lot of anxiety. But I have learned that anxiety is also excitement. It's the same feeling, you know, in the body.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:06:18]:
So.

Denise Corbin [00:06:19]:
So then afterwards I was like, maybe this is anxiety. Maybe this is excitement that we're getting to do something new. I love chaos in general because I kind of feel like I thrive in chaos. And I think listening to that, I was like, okay, here we go. Here is something new. Some of the things that she said when she was talking about marketing in general was that rain that. I don't know, that hit home for me where it was probably that week. I feel like one of our contractors who was just like, people just don't want air conditioners this year.

Denise Corbin [00:06:46]:
I'm like, people do want air conditioners. They're always buying air conditioners. They're like, no. I mean, even our. All of our website traffic and stuff is down 30%. And I was like, well, it wasn't super coincidental then when Jennifer was talking about 30% of what was going through normal website traffic had switched over to this new AI and chat form. And so there were just some insights from her, the way she presented what she could talk about, that I just, like, really gravitated towards her. And then the thing I think I loved too, the most was just that y' all started the Just Start AI platform, which I feel was very.

Denise Corbin [00:07:32]:
Is very. Was very spot on for what the contracting and our service industry needs is. They didn't quite even know. They've used it conversationally. They've tried it a couple times, but they didn't really grasp how it really can be used in so many different ways. And. But as contractors are, they're all scared of new stuff. So the.

Denise Corbin [00:08:00]:
The Just Start AI made so much sense to me. We all joined that day and sit on as many, you know, podcasts and webinars as possible. And I don't know, I just, just, just. Anyway, so on a whim was like, hey, do you want to join our summit? Because we kind of had a lineup already. But I was like, I feel like this is where. This is really what people need to hear, get their anxiety slash excitement to get going and start planning for 2026. So that is our speaker lineup. We do have a couple networking partners that we invited as well that have.

Denise Corbin [00:08:36]:
We've been impressed with some of their tools and stuff. They will have booths where during breaks that they can mingle and people can touch base with them. We've invited Smart ac which is like a solutions for more of a maintenance program. We, we invited TACCA which is the Texas Air Conditioning Contractors Association. They are there and they're a resource and I just. And then they lobby for us and they do so many things for us and they have great education programs on the technical side that I just don't feel like that. I feel like I've been underutilized. AIG, which is another financing company that we have aligned ourselves with and then we will have our, you know, as I say, there's no products.

Denise Corbin [00:09:21]:
We will have our equipment manufactured. GE there they are forward thinking and have a lot of customer just I think being the brand that they are, they have a lot of customer insights that not all typical OEM manufacturers have that are just focused on the air conditioning side. So it's. They align with us and our views and what we're trying to do pretty well. So that's who will be there.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:09:52]:
That sounds like a powerhouse. Like that is just a ton of people with so much knowledge into our current environment that we're in when it comes to home service digital, just the products that we use. So tell me with that powerhouse like that you have right now that's going to be speaking exhibitors there, what do you think contractors are going to get from this event? Like what is your main key takeaway that you want them walking away with?

Denise Corbin [00:10:17]:
My main key take is knowledge is power and all the things that these people are talking about and it may not relate to their business at this time but understanding what is going on in our industry and where the leads are coming from and, and, and what other companies are doing and I think the ability to, you know, have technology take some of the stress and the pain of being a business owner off of them is where I want them to go. I just. They need support and they always need education. But especially in this climate we want them to walk away pumped up, excited and to come up with a plan of a couple things that they want to do next year from our summit that get them excited about going into the new year. Being in this industry as long as I had the doom and gloom and also being a business owner when things are just down and you don't have a plan and you don't know where you want to go and you're not like working towards a goal, you can get kind of beat down and so being able to share that, this experience and success tips to be excited about 2026 is what I want them to walk away with.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:11:47]:
I love that. So tell me, what sponsors do you have right now that are lined up for this event?

Denise Corbin [00:11:54]:
We're doing it ourselves. Oh, good. So we've recruited everyone. We've recruited everyone. We are paying for it all.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:12:02]:
Um.

Denise Corbin [00:12:06]:
I think. I don't know. A long time ago, I had a mentor and I know this is. That. That's. This is. That's weird. But I had a mentor a long time ago who told me, well, he used to quote Zig Ziglar, so it wasn't like his.

Denise Corbin [00:12:19]:
His own thing. But he always told me, you can have anything you want in life if you hope enough other people get what they want. And so we heard. We're not holding back. We want to move forward. We want to shine light and project optimism into our services industry. And we've invited people that we don't even sell stuff. So we have people coming that are plumbers.

Denise Corbin [00:12:43]:
We have. We have people that are in school for the trades right now. I just feel like if we can give back a little bit right now, that Tim folder will come back, you know, so we'll see. We. We make decisions all the time that we're like, okay, well, here we go. We call it falling forward. Sometimes it's not always the best, but I'd rather fall forward than backwards. So, like, let's go.

Denise Corbin [00:13:12]:
Here we go.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:13:13]:
I love that. I actually live by that same motto and I always try and give us what I can back to everyone else. So now tell me, as we close this out, where can people sign up to get tickets to attend this amazing event? And I'm telling this is going to be an amazing event. The speakers that you have, the exhibitors that you have, there's so many people that have that wealth of knowledge and are willing to dive in and help contractor students and just give back that knowledge. But where can you sign up and when does tickets stop selling?

Denise Corbin [00:13:46]:
Ticket? We kind of have to do an RSVP ish for food and stuff by the end of this week, but we have some flexibility into the end of next week, which would be the 31st on changing those numbers. So, I mean, the sooner the better, obviously, for our first account. But so if you can sign up by Friday, that would help us, especially knowing that this is all supported by us and we have to pay for it, I think. Yep. There's the link to the event. There is a digital catalog that is on that link where we have dissected every speaker, what they do, every networking partner, what they do. These are and you can walk away with this digital catalog and use it in the future if something didn't ring true for what you were trying to do today. You will have all this information later because we know you can't.

Denise Corbin [00:14:42]:
You can't tackle and change everything in your business at one time. You got to do one thing at a time. But this will be yours to keep. But we highlight the speakers that are there. What to expect at the event. We are just, we are starting at noon. Eat before you come. We will have snacks throughout the day and then kind of a heavy orders orders and snacky happy hour mingling.

Denise Corbin [00:15:03]:
Get to hang out with some of the people and then some contractors in the area. But we do really welcome anyone, anyone in Central Texas to come and be a part the event. Anyone that wants to grow, anybody that wants to to change something that they're doing about their business and be excited about it with a support network to help them for 2026. You can also email me specifically if you want more details on it other than the website right there. And my email address is DCC or B I N so DC Corbin supply.com I love that.

Jazmin Ramirez [00:15:43]:
And if you guys didn't catch that the websites you're going to go to is winsupplyAustin.Framer.website to get all of that information just in case it didn't pop up for you. But Denise, it has been amazing having you on learning about this event. I think that this event is going to be so great have that wealth of knowledge coming in and I want to thank everyone to coming on and attending this entire podcast with us as we are promoting the Winsupply event over in Austin. If you don't already follow us on every streaming platform, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, everywhere that you can listen and make sure that you guys go to winsupplyaustin.framer.website to get more information. Thank you guys. Have a good day.

Denise Corbin [00:16:28]:
Thank you.