The Steel CodCast

Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Business

The Steel Codcast is a daily podcast delivering expert commentary, industry insight, and real world perspective for professionals across the appliance industry. Hosted by Jon, VP of Sales, and Anthony, President of Steel Cod, the show blends evergreen education with breaking appliance industry news to help listeners sell smarter, position products more effectively, and stay current in a fast moving market.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Designed for appliance sales professionals, manufacturers, distributors, brand leaders, and independent dealers, The Steel Codcast covers appliance industry trends, sales strategy, and product positioning across every category. Episodes explore everything from small countertop appliances and mass market products to high end luxury appliance brands, built in appliances, and emerging technologies.Released Monday through Friday, the podcast delivers consistent commentary on appliance sal...

  1. 1d ago

    Thermador’s Designer Council -- Is It Sending Business Your Way or Building Loyalty Around You?

    📩 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.

  2. 2d ago

    Asko Said It’s Independent Channel Only -- Does the Council Buy It and What Does It Still Need to Prove?

    📩 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.

  3. 3d ago

    The Induction Range That Plugs Into a Regular Outlet -- Sam Calisch of Copper Explains How

    🎓 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.

  4. 4d ago

    70% of the Council Feels the Rate Hike -- Jon Says Most Dealers Are About to Respond Wrong

    📩 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.

  5. 5d ago

    What Actually Earns a Brand Floor Space in the Independent Channel

    📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The Steel Cod Retail Council was asked this week what matters most when evaluating whether a product belongs on their floor: innovation, price point, or brand recognition. Nearly 40% of the council didn’t pick any of those three. They wrote their own answers. Jon says that is the most damning finding of the whole episode. His own ranking: innovation first, price point second, brand recognition dead last and not close. Brand recognition works in big box because the customer sees a name and buys it. In the independent channel, the customer buys because the salesperson convinced them to. A dealer who uses brand recognition as their primary evaluation criterion has outsourced the most important decision they make to a manufacturer’s marketing team. Wolf has made bad products. Miele has made bad products. Gaggenau has made bad products. Brand name is a starting point for customer expectation. It guarantees nothing else. Innovation comes first, but only honest innovation. Jon’s test is three questions: does it make the result meaningfully better for the specific customer on your floor? Does it eliminate a real frustration? Can your staff demonstrate it in a way that makes the customer feel it, not just understand it? If no to any of those, it does not go on the floor. Air fry is convection. The channel has spent years calling incremental improvements innovation, and the word has lost meaning because of it. Price point is about where a product fits in the conversation you are already trying to have with your customer. It is not whether the product belongs at all. Does it fill a gap in your current mix? Does it create a natural progression toward greater investment? Those are the right questions. The off-script criteria the council actually uses: does it fill a void in my mix, does it add a customer I am currently losing, can it be demonstrated compellingly on my floor, is there rep support, is there service infrastructure. Jon’s bottom line: every brand that listened to this episode just slumped in their chairs, because their reps are walking into dealer meetings ready to talk about the three things the council just said do not matter.

  6. Oct 23

    No Direct Competitor, No Comparison Conversation: How to Position Gaggenau

    📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The Retail Council weighed in on Gaggenau this week and the split between dealers who carry it and dealers who don’t was pretty revealing. Jon’s main takeaway: Gaggenau doesn’t belong in the same evaluation conversation as the rest of the brands on your floor, and if you’re applying that lens to it, that’s probably why you don’t have it. Dealers who carry Gaggenau came back positive. The new design is working. It’s getting second looks it wasn’t getting before. Sales conversations are opening up that weren’t opening up before. Jon’s read on that: the pull isn’t coming from marketing. It comes from a product that is extraordinary enough that people who encounter it want to talk about it. That’s a different kind of momentum. Dealers who don’t carry it didn’t say so directly, but you could tell from the answers. Pricing too far out of whack. No range offering. Ordering complexity. Jon’s pushback: those are the wrong frameworks for evaluating this brand. Gaggenau is not a brand you evaluate the same way you evaluate the brands sitting next to it. The council produced a line Jon found interesting: Gaggenau is never sold, it’s requested. He partially agrees. The customer who ends up buying Gaggenau either already knows the brand or identified it very early on as something that belongs in their life. The dealer’s job at that point is not to convince. It’s to confirm. The dealer who positions Gaggenau as one of several options will get a pricing pushback every time. The dealer who positions it as the answer to a specific scenario for a specific customer will have an entirely different conversation. BSH understands what Gaggenau is. They have Thermador for the Sub-Zero and Wolf cross-shopper. Gaggenau sits above that and has to stay there. It has no direct competitor. Jon says that is not a limitation. That is the entire point of the brand.

  7. Oct 22

    JennAir Stone Panels: The Council’s Response Was Telling -- and Very Short

    📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The Steel Cod Retail Council was asked about JennAir’s new stone panel options this week. The responses were the shortest they have ever given back. Jon says that tells you everything you need to know. His argument is straightforward. The panel conversation is an upgrade conversation. You can only sell an upgrade to a customer who is already committed to the product underneath it. The problem JennAir has is not that customers cannot find the right exterior finish. The problem is that JennAir refrigeration is not making it to the specification stage in enough kitchens. That is a completely different problem, and no panel option fixes it. Leather panels did not move the needle. Stone panels are not going to either. The interior finish on JennAir refrigeration has been a friction point in designer and retail conversations for roughly eight years. Designers curate every surface in the spaces they build. When a refrigerator interior does not belong in the palette they are working with, the appliance gets left out regardless of what the outside looks like. You can make the exterior as beautiful as you want. If the designer opens the door and the interior does not fit, it does not get spec’d. On the retail floor, what actually happens is this: a retailer leads with JennAir’s range, the customer falls in love, they move to the refrigerator, and the black interior kills the deal. Now the retailer has to go back and resell the range. That happens enough times and the decision becomes obvious: stop leading with JennAir. Jon says that is exactly what has happened in a lot of markets. There is good product inside JennAir’s columns. Jon is clear about that. The issue is that the interior finish is masking it. His prescription is simple: update the interior. Add stainless steel as an option. That brings JennAir back into conversations that stone panels never will.

  8. Oct 21

    Perlick’s Director of Residential Sales on the G5 Collection and What’s Next

    🎓 Steel Cod University: https://university.steelcod.com/ 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 This week Anthony and Jon are joined by Chris Walsh, Director of Residential Sales at Perlick. Perlick has been building refrigeration for top bars, breweries, and restaurants since 1917, and the G5 collection is their most serious push into the residential space yet. Chris walks through the launch, the two-tier lineup, and how retail salespeople should be thinking about it on the floor. The G5 comes in two tiers: Core and Lux. The real question for retail is how to position both without one cannibalizing the other. Chris breaks down the right customer for each tier and how to keep them from stepping on each other in a showroom conversation. Rapid Cool is one of the G5’s signature callouts, and it makes a lot more sense when you think about how people actually use under counter refrigeration at home. It’s not like a kitchen fridge that’s consistently stocked. It’s for entertainment. It’s for last-minute prep. It’s for the scenario where guests are arriving in an hour and the beverages need to be cold now. Chris explains what the technology actually does and how to use it as a selling point. Anthony shares a story from his days on the floor about a customer who built a full luxury kitchen and decided to cut budget on under counter by grabbing something from a box store. He walked into the house and heard it immediately. The wife’s reaction said everything. Nothing inside was cold, it was loud, and it was heating the kitchen. It’s a category where you don’t get to cut corners and still get the result. Perlick is family-owned, fifth generation, and has been in business since 1917. The G5 collection is at perlick.com.

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

The Steel Codcast is a daily podcast delivering expert commentary, industry insight, and real world perspective for professionals across the appliance industry. Hosted by Jon, VP of Sales, and Anthony, President of Steel Cod, the show blends evergreen education with breaking appliance industry news to help listeners sell smarter, position products more effectively, and stay current in a fast moving market.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Designed for appliance sales professionals, manufacturers, distributors, brand leaders, and independent dealers, The Steel Codcast covers appliance industry trends, sales strategy, and product positioning across every category. Episodes explore everything from small countertop appliances and mass market products to high end luxury appliance brands, built in appliances, and emerging technologies.Released Monday through Friday, the podcast delivers consistent commentary on appliance sal...

Information

  • Creator
    Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    The Steel CodCast

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