The Steel CodCast

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Happy Halloween. Jon is solo this Saturday with the first mailbag episode -- pulling questions at random from the hundreds that came in since the format change. He’ll do as many of these as it takes to catch up. Topics include: the format debate (shorter vs. longer), where the name Steel Cod actually came from, whether appliance dealers should sell plumbing and lighting, how to sell a product that’s not on your floor, trendy finishes (taste vs. tide), the Miele “too small” objection broken down by brand capacity data, whether anyone should still sell Viking, and updates on which brand guests are coming -- and which ones are not. On Miele: Jon runs through the actual capacity numbers published by LG, Maytag, Whirlpool, Samsung, and GE. They’re all landing at roughly the same three-basket load. Samsung says overloading hurts cleaning. GE says pounds aren’t even a capacity rating anymore. Miele holds the same load and was engineered specifically to clean it. Stop apologizing for the number. On Viking: if you need a podcast to answer this for you, you probably already know it doesn’t belong. Floor space is currency. Make brands earn it, and know exactly what they’re solving for you before they get it. On brand guests: Whirlpool is a definitive no. JennAir is a fast no. Electrolux has gone quiet. Blue Star -- Jon is keeping that one quiet for now. Sub-Zero Wolf -- great relationship, no urgency on their end, Jon thinks they’ll get there. SKS -- leadership changes are being sorted out, and Jon is confident they’ll be on.

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Thermador named 16 designers to a new Design Council. The Retail Council was asked what happens when brands build programs like this -- does it send business to the dealer or go around them? The council was divided, and Jon says the division makes sense once you understand that the question has two very different answers depending on what the program is actually designed to do. The Thermador Design Council is not a lead generation program. It is a product influence program. Sixteen designers, two-year terms, brought into close conversations about where the product is going. That is a legitimate thing for a brand to do -- and it is going to have a real impact on where Thermador’s product direction goes from here. But it is not the same thing as a dealer referral program, and treating them as equivalent is where dealers get into trouble. What the program creates is deep designer loyalty to the brand. Two years of close conversation means those designers understand Thermador at a level most designers never achieve with any brand. The question is where that loyalty goes. If the program has explicit channel structure -- every touchpoint reinforcing that Thermador is sold through independent dealers -- then the loyalty becomes a dealer asset. The designer who feels deeply connected to the brand walks their client into the dealer showroom with more conviction than ever. If the program creates brand loyalty without channel clarity, the designer will eventually go direct. Not out of malice -- simply because nobody told them where the purchase was supposed to go. Jon’s single test: ask the brand, when a designer in your program specifies your product, where does the sale go? If the answer is clear, the program is built for you. If the answer is vague, it is not -- and the dealers who lost designer relationships to brands going direct lost them because the program was never designed to protect their position in the first place. What a dealer can do: build your own designer relationships independent of any brand program. Be the indispensable person in the designer’s professional life before any brand fills that space. The dealer who is the designer’s trusted advisor never loses the specification to a brand program because the designer comes to them first. No brand program replaces that relationship once it is built. When brand loyalty and dealer loyalty compound each other, it becomes additive. When they compete, the dealer without their own foundation loses.

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Asko publicly committed to the independent channel exclusively. The Steel Cod Retail Council was asked if that makes them more likely to give Asko floor space, and what the brand still needs to improve. Jon’s take before any nuance: this is unambiguously good news, and the channel should respond to it seriously -- not cautiously, not with a wait-and-see attitude, and not by leading with everything that needs to change before anyone would even consider it. The council’s skepticism is earned. They’ve watched luxury brands say the right things and then show up in environments that cheapen the very conversation independent dealers work to have. They’ve watched dealers invest in display and staff development around a brand and then watched that brand open a box account down the road. Jon says that skepticism belongs on whether the commitment is real -- not as a reason to dismiss a commitment that is the right kind. Brand recognition came back as a concern from the council. Jon pushes back hard. Asko was Sub-Zero and Wolf’s business partner before Cove came out. But even if it is a real concern, the answer is still no. The independent channel’s competitive advantage is not selection, not price, not convenience. It is expertise -- the ability to guide a customer who doesn’t know what they need to a decision they’re confident in. That customer does not need to have heard of a brand before they can fall in love with it. They need to trust the person in the room. Asko requires an educated salesperson to sell it. The independent channel has plenty of those. Low brand recognition is not a barrier -- if anything, it is a reason to be in the independent channel in the first place. What Asko still needs to prove: service infrastructure that doesn’t require dealers to find their own servicer. Parts availability on laundry specifically -- that is where the concern is most concentrated right now. A salesperson uncertain about parts will protect the customer relationship by recommending something else. It is not a detail, it is the difference between a brand staff recommends with full confidence and one they quietly avoid. Rep support that shows up when there is a problem, not just when there is a promotion. On the product itself: cleaning specialists. Dishwashers and laundry at a genuinely differentiated luxury level. Jon puts them in the Miele conversation on laundry. Dealers who carry Asko and feel supported by the brand sell them with conviction. The opportunity is real if the infrastructure matches the commitment. Jon’s advice: ask your rep about service in your specific geography -- not national metrics. Ask about the parts story on laundry. Press them. If the answer holds up, the floor conversation is earned. East Coast dealers with Pinnacle representation should already be looking at Asko seriously.

🎓 Steel Cod University: https://university.steelcod.com/ 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Sam Calisch, CEO and co-founder of Copper, joins Jon and Anthony this week. Sam came to appliances from MIT, federal energy policy, and the Inflation Reduction Act -- he is an energy company that happens to make a range, not the other way around. And that framing matters, because the problem Copper set out to solve is not a product problem. It is an installation problem. The hidden cost killing induction sales is not the range. It is the electrician. A 240V circuit installation in any major market runs $1,500 to $3,000 before you even start shopping. Homes built before the 1990s may need a full panel upgrade on top of that. Jon’s math: a $6,000 appliance conversation becomes a $9,000 construction project no one asked for. That is why induction pitches stall. That is the exact barrier Copper’s Charlie range was built to remove -- it runs on a standard 120V outlet. No 240V circuit, no permit, no scheduling delays. Charlie 2.0 now also works on 240V, so it handles customers who already have the outlet. The battery inside gives you full induction power, lets you cook through a power outage, and makes the unit portable enough to demo at a street festival or farmer’s market -- which Sam says has been one of the most effective sales tools they have, because the light bulb goes off when people actually cook on it. Third-party proof stack: Wirecutter, Time, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company most innovative company 2026. And a 10,000 unit deal with the New York City Housing Authority -- where the cost of maintaining gas pipes in those buildings was actually higher than replacing everything with Charlie. That is demand pull, not just a press run. On manufacturing: Charlie is now built in Miele’s production facility in Opelika, Alabama. First time in over 125 years Miele has manufactured for another company. Jon says if startup reliability has ever made you hesitate, that one sentence should answer the question. Three-part sales conversation for the floor: the demo (the precision and speed speak for themselves), the pediatric health stat (40 to 42 percent higher asthma risk for kids in homes with gas stoves -- a health statistic, not a green talking point), and the available rebate of up to $840. Jon’s point: every induction customer you are losing right now has the same reason. Charlie eliminates that reason entirely.

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Interest rates are up. Mortgage rates are up. The council was asked if they’re feeling it on the floor -- 70% said yes. Jon’s first response: make sure you know what you’re actually looking at, because if you treat a shift like a decline, you’re going to make every wrong decision for the next 12 to 18 months. The council numbers break down clearly. New construction and production builder business is down. Remodeling is surging. Luxury is holding. The middle is getting squeezed the hardest. Jon says the mistake is looking at those numbers and going into panic mode, because what’s actually happening is very different from a down market. It’s a customer migration. The reason it looks like a shift and not a decline: the homeowner who bought or refinanced at 2.5% in 2020 is locked in. Their monthly payment would more than double on a comparable home at today’s rates. They’re not moving. That kills the new construction pipeline -- the full kitchen outfitting that comes with a move. What replaces it is the renovation customer. The couple who has been waiting to make the home their own. The empty nester finally spending on themselves. These are real customers with real budgets, and in most markets they’re not just compensating for new construction -- they’re outpacing it. The path to this customer is different. The new construction customer came to you because someone else put you in the process. The remodel customer comes because they almost decided, and a designer or contractor they trust sent them your way. That means your pipeline right now runs through relationships. And here’s the thing Jon keeps coming back to: designers are in the same market you’re in. They have more time right now. The dealer who invests in those relationships during this period is building a pipeline that pays off for years. On the middle squeeze: Jon says don’t engage it. The customer who’s trimming packages and asking for your best price was stretching to get to you before rates went up. Every time you have that negotiation you lose margin, you lose time, you lose positioning, and you teach your staff that price is something that moves when the market gets tight. The luxury customer is still there. Mortgage rates don’t change what someone who’s decided to invest in their home is willing to spend on a kitchen they’ll cook in for the next 20 years. The only question is whether you’re going to let luxury win for you.