The Steel CodCast

Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford

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. 19h ago

    Why Jenn-Air V2 Beat Wolf, Miele & Gaggenau in Blind Chef Tests

    Jon Beresford's team ran blind baking tests. Professional chefs — pastry chefs, legitimate professionals — compared Jenn-Air V2 wall ovens against Wolf, Miele, and Gaggenau. Same recipe, same conditions, no shared conclusions between testers. Different chefs, different years. Jenn-Air won every single time. Every chef was surprised. Every one arrived at the same conclusion. This episode explains exactly why — starting with the physics. Every oven is fighting the same problem: the thermal boundary layer. A thin film of still air clings to food and slows down how quickly heat can reach it. Convection exists to strip that layer away. European convection — the technology Wolf, Miele, Gaggenau, and most luxury brands use — is genuinely excellent. But it pushes air horizontally, which means pressure differentials form throughout the oven. The rack closest to the fan gets more airflow. Bakers rotate pans. It's not a skill — it's a workaround for a physics problem the oven hasn't solved. V2 is a structural departure from that model. Two fans, spinning in opposite directions, cancel out each other's lateral pressure and create symmetrical balanced airflow. They're mounted vertically — driving air simultaneously upward and downward across every rack position at the same time. Two dedicated heating elements at 3,400W each bring total convection wattage to nearly 7,000W — roughly three times what most systems run. The result: every rack, top to bottom, gets identical conditions. Multi-rack baking stops being an approximation and starts being an engineering result. The reason professional chefs responded the way they did: they trained on commercial deck ovens that move air vertically. When they step into a residential kitchen — even a high-end one — something always feels slightly off. V2 is the first residential oven that actually replicates how professional equipment behaves. They weren't picking Jenn-Air. They were recognizing a result that matched decades of training. So why hasn't the floor heard this story? Because Jenn-Air led with Obsidian — a bold, polarizing interior finish that divides the room before the conversation even starts. V2 wins the room every time because better baking results aren't a matter of taste. They're physics. You cannot prefer a hot spot. Jon calls it one of the most significant marketing misfires he's watched happen in the luxury category, and it has cost the brand real sales. Anthony and Jon close with the three-minute floor version — the exact questions to ask, the one-sentence boundary layer explanation, and how to land it with the blind test story in a way that makes the argument undeniable for any customer who takes cooking seriously. 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 📧 Questions for the mailbag? Send them to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

  2. 1d ago

    The Brand Naming Question, No Retail Store & PDF Takeaways | Mailbag

    Big meta mailbag this week. Listeners came with questions about the show itself, and Jon went there. He breaks down why he sometimes keeps brand names vague — it's not about protecting anyone. The show has grown well beyond the appliance industry floor, and when customers, designers, and architects are listening, a critical brand mention that lands as useful context for a salesperson can create a completely different reaction from someone without that industry background. His answer: the Friday SCRC episodes are where the most specific brand conversations happen, and if that's what you're after, make sure you're tuning in on Fridays. Someone asked if Steel Cod would ever open a retail store. Short answer: no. The value of this platform is being able to serve the channel without being in it — no brands to protect, no relationships that create conflicts of interest. Jon's vote is a firm no, and his reasoning is that the moment that changes, everything this show is built on changes with it. There's also a fun one where a listener called Jon "a lot." He didn't disagree — but he also gave Shannon real credit for being the human side of the show. For asking the questions the audience is probably thinking, for not performing expertise she doesn't have, and for finding the thread that makes his deep industry takes actually land for regular people. And if you've been wanting PDF takeaways from episodes, they're available right now. Email Jon directly at jon@steelcod.com — that's Jon, not John. Steel Cod University is on the way, and when it launches, everything will have a permanent, searchable home. Until then, email is the move.

  3. 4d ago

    Promotional Programs Are Traps, JennAir Is Grieving & Thermador's Wake-Up Call | Steel Cod Retail Council

    Happy Friday! It's another Steel Cod Retail Council episode, and this one has a lot of Jon. In a good way. Shannon and Jon break down four questions the council answered this week — and Jon's response to Q1 turned into a full rant (we love it) about why the appliance industry needs to stop calling them "promotional programs" and start calling them what they actually should be: loyalty programs. He even walks through a real scenario — a woman who had her heart set on a specific Miele dishwasher for years, but had to give it up to protect her Sub-Zero and Wolf package discount. Jon's question: do you think she's writing a glowing review? The answer is pretty obviously no. Beyond the rant, the council weighed in on which brands are winning the floor right now (SKS and Monogram are both doing the work), which brands face the most customer pushback and why (SKS's LG stigma is real and the brand needs to own its origin story publicly — Viking is a completely different kind of problem), and which brands have the biggest gap between what they promise and what they deliver. The Jenn-Air response was the one that stopped Jon cold. Not angry. Not frustrated. Eleven separate dealers said some version of "I just feel bad for this brand." Jon describes that as the grief stage — and says it's the last stop before a floor quietly stops recommending you and you never find out why. Thermador, Samsung, and Miele also came up in that last question — and none of it was comfortable. As always, if you want to join the Steel Cod Retail Council, the link is in the show notes. If you have questions for the mailbag, that link is in there too. Leave a comment, let us know what you think, and we'll see you Monday.

  4. 5d ago

    Manufacturer Service Is Broken — But Not for the Reason You Think

    Jon Beresford is flying solo today — and the topic is one the floor has a lot of feelings about: manufacturer service. His opening is direct: there isn't a single manufacturer in the channel that actually wants your customer's refrigerator to stay broken. The narrative that brands don't care is not only wrong — it's costing the floor more than the service failures themselves. Because the floor that operates from the wrong assumption has the wrong conversation, and the wrong conversation produces the wrong outcome every time. So what's actually happening? Jon walks through four structural challenges every manufacturer is navigating simultaneously. The technician crisis: five retiring for every two entering, a trade school pipeline that collapsed under decades of messaging pushing every generation toward four-year universities, and products that now require 30% more diagnostic skill than the previous generation — partly because modern appliance repair is partly IT support. The warranty reimbursement crisis: factory time guides written in a simpler era still govern what brands pay, and the control board that took 60 minutes in 2015 takes 2–3 hours in 2026. The manufacturer pays for one. Service companies route their best technicians where the math works. The parts supply chain: 200–500 unique components per appliance, many sourced from a single supplier in a single country. When that supplier disrupts, the part doesn't exist at any price. And internal budget allocation: service loses. Product development and marketing deliver measurable ROI. Service ROI accrues over years and can never be traced to a specific investment. The executive measured on quarterly performance will consistently choose product over service infrastructure. Then the most important distinction in the episode: failure and not caring are not the same diagnosis. A part back-ordered because a supplier had a disruption is failure. A geographic service gap known for three years with no action is not caring. A contact center understaffed because of call volume is failure. A contact center chronically understaffed as a budget decision across years is not caring. The floor that can tell the difference holds the right brands accountable in the right ways. Jon names the thing almost nobody in the channel talks about: the padding cascade. The manufacturer pads the real lead time. The dealer pads the manufacturer's number. The customer prepares for the worst. The part arrives early and nobody feels good about it — because the expectation was set at eight weeks and the customer spent three weeks living in that disruption. Stop padding. Give real numbers. Then: what manufacturers can actually control right now, what excellent service infrastructure looks like and why it takes years to build, and exactly what the floor should do — including the questions to ask every new brand before they hit the floor. The closing standard: the brand working through genuine structural challenges while communicating honestly deserves your patience. The brand using structural challenges as cover for decisions it never prioritized deserves to lose your floor space. 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 📧 Questions for the mailbag? Send them to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

  5. 6d ago

    The Tier Is Earned, Not Positioned: Ryan Bloom on Kalamazoo & Urban Bonfire

    Ryan Bloom didn't get into the appliance industry through the usual channels. He started Urban Bonfire in a 400-square-foot shop in Montreal in 2013 — driven by a love of outdoor cooking and a clear view of what the market was missing. He became a Kalamazoo dealer in 2014, shifted to a B2B model by 2017, and in 2022, merged Urban Bonfire with Kalamazoo to form Pleina Group. Now as Partner and Chief Development Officer, he oversees two of the most respected outdoor brands in the channel. This conversation covers both of them in depth. On Kalamazoo: most salespeople default to BTUs and spec sheets. Ryan and Jon agree — that's the wrong conversation entirely. Kalamazoo was never designed to hit a price point. They design the world's finest product first, and whatever it costs, that's the price. The Hybrid Fire Grill runs gas, charcoal, and wood simultaneously without compromising any of them. The deep firebox is a combustion requirement, not a style choice. Every design decision is an engineering answer. A salesperson who understands that is selling something with no real competition. One who leads with BTUs is in a fight Kalamazoo will never win. Ryan also draws an important distinction: costly and expensive are not the same thing. Expensive is when something doesn't meet the value of what you paid. Costly can be fully justified — especially when you factor in the 25-year transferable warranty, the made-to-order craftsmanship, and the M6 marine grade stainless option for coastal buyers that most salespeople never even mention. On dealer partnerships: Kalamazoo doesn't push displays. They build a business plan with every prospective dealer. They've canceled agreements for price shopping. And Jon adds the framing that brings it all together — a bad retail experience at this brand level isn't a missed sale. It's a brand tax. The right partner puts knowledge in before floor space goes in. On Urban Bonfire: Ryan built it to solve a problem he experienced firsthand as a dealer. Outdoor kitchen displays weren't generating revenue because salespeople weren't equipped to have the conversation. Urban Bonfire handled that — full design support, renderings, and quoting, so the salesperson just needs to qualify the customer and ask the right questions. It's not competing with contractors. Contractors don't want this work. It's competing with the decision to have no intentional cabinetry at all. And timing matters enormously — introduce it early in a project and the customer almost always takes it. Introduce it six months in and you've already missed the window. 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 📧 Questions for the mailbag? Send them to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

  6. Sep 8

    The 5-Tier Convection Hierarchy: Every Luxury Range Ranked | Steel CodCast

    The luxury range sale almost always lives on the cooktop. Burners, BTUs, grates — and then someone waves a hand at the oven and says "it has convection." But some customers cook in those ovens, and the delta between a tier 5 convection system and a tier 1 is significant enough to change the recommendation. Anthony and Jon walk through the full 5-tier convection hierarchy for luxury ranges: what the tiers are, which brands land where, and why the best system at the top of the list doesn't necessarily even involve a fan. They go through what convection is actually solving for, where the real floor sits in the luxury category, which brands share the dual fan tier, which brand gets underrated on convection because the sales conversation always focuses on the cooking surface, and what "tier 1" actually means. Closed with how salespeople should apply all of this — because this isn't the kind of content you read verbatim to a customer. Rate and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and send your mailbag questions to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

  7. Sep 7

    Exclusivity, Retention & the Sell Plan: Real Answers from the Floor

    Six questions, zero diplomatic non-answers. Jon Beresford and Anthony Fors dig into the mailbag this week with some of the most practical questions the floor has sent in yet. First up: exclusivity deals. Do they make sense? For a new or emerging brand, absolutely — the retailer is taking on all the risk, so protected territory is a fair ask. For a brand trying to earn its way back into a market that gave up on them? Same idea. For an established brand? Jon says it's a ridiculous ask, and he explains exactly why the math never works out — for anybody. Then, trade show overwhelm. Someone went to their first trade show and came home feeling like they'd seen everything and processed nothing. Jon says the trade show did its job. The signal-to-noise ratio in this industry is genuinely bad — but the feeling you leave with is almost entirely a function of how you walked in. Go in with specific questions or go home with a tote bag full of pens. (And yes — a full episode on trade show strategy is coming.) Three salespeople left in 18 months, all with the same reasons: better base, more support, a clearer path. Jon walks through exactly what to do — including reaching out to all three after the fact. Better base pay is never the real reason. It's the last straw on a decision already in motion. Then a question about the sell plan model. Jon loves this one because he spent the majority of his career inside one. The model isn't broken. A well-built sell plan is one of the most effective compensation systems in independent retail — when it serves the company, the salesperson, AND the customer. When it only serves the retailer? You're paying your salespeople to lie. And finally: why doesn't negative feedback make it to air? It does — just not the kind that's only a complaint with no question underneath. Jon makes the invitation clear: send specific criticism, challenge a real position, and it'll get answered. Steel Cod has never been paid by a brand to say anything, and they never will be. 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 📧 Questions for the mailbag? Send them to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

  8. Sep 4

    Why We Can't Get Whirlpool on the Podcast — And What That Tells You

    The Steel Cod Retail Council doesn't pull punches — and this week's results are no exception. Jon Beresford and Anthony Fors dig into what the floor is really saying about Whirlpool Corp right now: a brand that feels directionless, is losing builder and designer relationships to delivery delays, and isn't giving independent salespeople anything new to lead with. Jon's diagnosis is clear — and so is his ask of the brand. Then it gets interesting. Jon goes on record about which major brands have responded to the Steel CodCast's podcast invitation — and which ones haven't. Whirlpool? Zero response. Jenn-Air? Declined, but respectfully — which Jon says he respects far more than silence. Sub-Zero/Wolf? He totally gets it. A major appliance family? Conversations that fizzled. Samsung/Décor? Complicated. The wild part: the four brands the council wants most on the show are the exact four Jon is still chasing. Every other brand? Booked through the end of the calendar year. From there, the guys tackle how independent retailers can stop fighting a battle they can't win against big box — and start dominating the one they always will. It comes down to the back end: delivery, installation, service, and owning the customer relationship long after the deal closes. Big box can match your showroom. They cannot match that. Finally, a deep dive into how long it actually takes a new brand to gain real traction on the floor. The council's answers ranged from six months to seven years. Jon thinks six months is a dangerous illusion — and uses the Beko story from Covid as exhibit A. What looked like momentum was a supply chain anomaly. Velocity without foundation is a house of cards. The brands that last are built on rep relationships that hold up under pressure and a service story the floor actually trusts. 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 📧 Questions for the mailbag? Send them to: https://tally.so/r/D4ROKb

See All (100)

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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