Dennis Oz: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Remodeler Success Podcast, the show where we talk about what it really takes to build, grow, and lead a remodeling business that lasts. From systems and sales to leadership and lessons learned—all the scars on our faces—we dive into all of it with folks who are actually doing the work.

So our guest today—that’s why I’m shaking, maybe—is someone who leads in more than one space while keeping the quality and the team aligned. Because it’s not just juggling between two different businesses, but really maintaining these two businesses with high quality and also offering stellar customer service for both of those.

And again, today’s speaker has built a career that spans both remodeling and roofing. And I’m sure that’s going to be really interesting for most of you out there. Because, again, starting at a young age and carrying those lessons into leadership—that’s a lot of things we’re going to cover today.

I also want to mention, because we’ve had some questions about it, there is a great spot on the Top 500 Remodeler list. This is definitely something we will talk about today. Please welcome to the show, Seth Larson.

Seth Larson: Oh Dennis, thank you so much. I’ve got big shoes to fill now.

Dennis Oz: Seth, it’s amazing to see you here. Well, just to start diving into the questions—I have some really amazing and interesting ones today—could you please introduce yourself a little bit?

Seth Larson: Yeah, I think you did a great job. But yeah—Seth Larson, born and raised in San Diego. I come from generations in the trades, from auto detailing to construction to framing. My dad was a custom home builder. Both my older brothers are in construction in San Diego too, so we get to work together. That’s the quick, very quick background. Obviously, I have a wife of 16 years and two kids. But most of my time is spent at work.

Dennis Oz: This is amazing. This is great. Well, we know that managing these two companies—especially in roofing and remodeling—you’ve done that at scale. You’re dealing with multiple crews, overlapping timelines, material delays, and sometimes you’ve got to make real-time decisions. I’m sure there are some operational issues that you’re dealing with most of the time. How do you fix those issues?

Seth Larson: No, that’s a great question. And it’s kind of funny diving right into, like you were talking about, construction and roofing. So I’ll give you the quick background on each company.

Stel Builders is residential only, and we’re design-build. So we have an architect on staff, multiple designers, and project managers. But we subcontract all of that work—we don’t self-perform any of it.

On the opposite side, with the roofing company—Resilient Roofing—we actually bought that company. So Stel, we started from scratch—”we” meaning my wife and I. And then we bought Resilient Roofing. The company had been around since 1967, which is really neat. When we bought it, it had one employee—so it was very, very small. We’ve grown it since. Now we’re close to about 60 employees. But we do all in-house work, so it’s the opposite.

And it’s so wild because, as an outsider—not the people listening to your podcast, but outsiders—if you said, “Oh, I’m in the construction business,” the two would sound the same. But your listeners, and you, would know those are vastly different business models. So it’s been eye-opening to say the least.

When we first got into it, you’d think it’d be easy. But man, it is really two different businesses.

So I veered off track there for a bit, but to get back to your question—I’d say the beauty is, not in the early days, but now with the amazing team we have at both companies, those kinds of issues—like you were talking about: material delays, manufacturer delays, subcontractors and such—we have such a robust and experienced team that those kinds of problems still pop up, but they don’t become an issue. I don’t know if that makes sense.

We see them coming, we forecast, we lay all those things out. And also, there’s very little overlap between the companies. Besides my wife and I, there’s no overlap. We don’t have a project manager at roofing who goes and builds a remodel, or a secretary doing work for both companies. It’s very, very split down the middle, which helps—less confusion anyway.

Dennis Oz: This is amazing to hear, because I’m sure when you do it this way, it gives you more control. Arguably it gives you much more power when making decisions.

You also mentioned the team. I have a couple more questions about how you built that team and how you keep them aligned. We’ll get there.

But let’s talk about sales a little bit. I want to learn more about your sales processes. Because sales in construction—we all know—it’s more than just closing. You’ve got to qualify the leads, educate the homeowners, and set really clear expectations right from the get-go.

What does your process really look like, and how do you train new team members to follow that? That might be a follow-up question. Because you’ve got the sales process—now someone needs to learn it. How do you do both?

Seth Larson: Yeah, that’s a great question. We have three different sales processes.

So one is for the design-build remodeling company. As you were kind of alluding to, it’s a relationship-building process. It’s not really a sale. There’s very little selling involved in those types of projects.

Just last week, we “sold” one—quote unquote—but we signed a contract for just over $900,000 for a remodel. And this Friday—it’s not signed yet, so don’t count your chickens—but we have a client coming in to sign one for $1.2 million. That’s about the size of projects for that company.

But signing the contract is just the very last step of maybe ten meetings—eight to ten, depending on the project. First we meet at the house, then we get to know them and their family, what their needs and wants are. We have a whole questionnaire for that.

Then we measure their house. Then we lay it out as-is. Then we propose new plans. Then we go into 3D and modeling—the whole drill through the design process.

So the sales process is the design process. And like I say, once we get to the end, signing the contract is just kind of the natural conclusion to that process. So there’s very little “sales” involved.

That’s the sales process for design-build.

The other two are on the roofing side. For residential repair or re-roofing, that actually can be—not always, but we strive for—a one-call close. It’s not high-pressure, not hardcore, no negative reviews like “they pressured me”—none of that. But if we can find the problem, solve it with multiple options, and get that done in one visit, it’s just more efficient for everyone.

Then the third one is more of a business development approach. That’s for the commercial side of roofing. And we do have two pretty separate divisions for sales. Once a roof is sold, production handles it as a team.

But for sales, there’s residential and commercial. The commercial side is kind of in between the other two. It’s similar to remodeling—you’ve got to meet the client, understand their needs, and if they’re a property manager or a general contractor we work with regularly, they’ve got to get to know us, test us, and trust our process.

They have to test us out—make sure we’re any good. So it’s a little more relationship-driven, while still focused on solving a problem.

I don’t know if that makes sense, but those are our three sales processes all in one.

Dennis Oz: This is good to know, and thanks so much for sharing.

This one—I’m sure our listeners today are really getting the golden nuggets out of it, because you know folks, we’re talking here not only about one business but two businesses—not interfering with each other, but also having clearly set guidelines and managing them at the same time.

So I’m sure you’re getting a lot of value out of the conversation today, because we’re just warming up. So I have another question for you.

Seth Larson: Absolutely.

Dennis Oz: Yeah, yeah. So yes, I just wanted to dive a little more into team management. That was the sales part of it, but then you also have to keep your team motivated about delivering stellar customer service. Your clients need to have a great client experience, in both sales and also customer service.

How do you get your teams ready to deliver this greatness at the same time?

Seth Larson: No, that’s a good question. It kind of ties back into the sales process.

So at the remodeling company, the salesperson—like we keep saying—really is a designer by nature. They have to be passionate about the design, because if they weren’t and they were just trying to sell something, people see through that, you know what I mean?

So anyway, I say that to say the designer is involved the whole time. They ensure that the project is a success and that the client is happy.

Whereas with roofing, it’s slightly different. There are so many more transactions that the sales rep really is a sales rep. Once they’re done—of course the client can call them, they don’t disappear—but their job is to bring in the client.

And then we have such a robust administrative and production team that ensures customer success and five-star reviews. I think last month—we had a push for it—but in June we had, what was it? 62 five-star reviews or some crazy thing. That was our biggest one ever.

Dennis Oz: Just hear this one, folks. This is very important—and you need this one too. Very important. And thank you so much, Seth. I’m sorry, I don’t want to interrupt, but—

Seth Larson: No, go ahead. Yeah.

So obviously, you’ve got to earn that. You can’t just ask people for five-star reviews—they’d say, “No, get out of here.” But that just proves that our process works. And again, back to sales—sales has to set it up correctly. They can’t just go sell anything and then rely on a good team to make up for it.

They can’t sell garbage. They can’t sell things that don’t fix the problem. They can’t try to ding people for too much money or—what’s it called—bait and switch, where you sell something for cheap and then come back and say, “Oh, that’s extra.”

So you’ve got to have a talented sales team.

But the difference between the two companies—I know I keep going back and forth—but that’s kind of what I’m trying to portray here: the differences and pros and cons of both.

You do have to have a stellar administrative team, and of course, an amazing production team.

The other thing—I don’t really know, it’s a combination—or I guess you could say the never-ending argument is: do you hire someone that has experience in any of those roles, or do you train them?

Well, there are pros and cons to both. If they have experience, they also might have bad habits. If they don’t have any experience, they just might not have the talent—we can train for that.

But anyway, I think where we’ve landed is a perfect mix of both. We have people that have the will and the skill—if you’ve ever heard that term.

Dennis Oz: Yes, yeah, definitely. Yeah. That’s right. Cool. Wow, thanks so much for dropping this knowledge here, Seth. It’s great to hear.

Let’s talk about the rebranding that you went through.

Because you know, it was a long-standing family business, and you rebranded the company—and I’m sure it’s not just like a name change. There’s a legacy there, there’s a reputation there, and client perception—all of that.

What surprised you the most during that rebrand, and what should others really watch out for?

I’m asking you this question because some of our listeners here may be thinking about rebranding, and sometimes they don’t really feel like, “Let’s do this.” They can’t quite reach that moment.

What would be some pitfalls—or some of your really golden nuggets—to share with people who are thinking about rebranding?

Seth Larson: No, that’s a great question.

It’s a lot of work. It’s expensive. But at the same time, like I say, when we bought it, the company was so small—that was the time to do it, you know what I mean? Instead of once you get big and you have truck wraps to redo, business cards, and so on.

So timing-wise, it was great.

The reason for it, mainly, was to get out of—what’s the word—basically being tied to a name, a person’s name. It sounds too small.

We’re still a mom-and-pop company, but I don’t want to advertise that to the world. I’d rather look like an organization that’s not made up of just one person. I don’t want to be the most important person, you know what I mean?

So really, the main reason to do Resilient Roofing—I knew it had to start with an “R.” I didn’t realize how hard “resilient” is to spell for most people—that was a tough learning curve. But I wanted two R’s, and for it to be sort of easy to remember.

Anyway, we did a whole market study on different names and stuff. Came up with Resilient Roofing. And so far, I think it’s been good.

Nothing crazy that we learned or mistakes or anything—once you decide something, you’ve just got to run with it.

But I’m glad we did it because it doesn’t have that feel of “John Smith Construction” or something—it just seems like it’s that one guy. Ours was “Larson Roofing,” so it was our last name. It just seemed like a small family.

Anyway, our long-term plans are to be multi-city and multi-state. We’re still just in Southern California for now. But eventually, the idea is to grow even bigger—so quote-unquote “a bigger name” would make more sense for that idea.

Dennis Oz: Yeah. Well, I’m sure that you will get there eventually.

Because folks, if you just really have a quick look—even skim—Seth Larson’s resume, you’ll see. When we say, “This is going to be coming up,” I’m sure it will.

Because yeah—starting from a young age—you’re clearly top of your game.

I’m sure you’ll get there. Slowly but surely, for sure.

When you say, by the way, that you don’t really want to be the most important person in the company… you are the most important person in the company.

Do you think that’s a big obstacle for being in the business?

Seth Larson: That’s exactly it. Yep. You caught onto that. So obviously, you’ve studied those rules.

I feel like—what’s the term—you can only go as fast as your slowest runner, right? The group can only go so far.

I feel like the leader oftentimes becomes the most important person because of their ego, and that takes a long time to let go of if someone has a big ego.

I never did, so I was always real quick to get that out.

But I can only say that because we have such a good team. If we didn’t have a good team, yeah—I’d feel like I need to jump into everything and double check and watch over everybody’s shoulder.

So I’m sure it takes time. And even with us, I’m sure releasing that control takes time.

But long story short, I don’t ever want to be the person that everybody jumps to. That doesn’t mean I don’t get involved in issues or problems or that the team can’t come to me—that’s not it at all.

But the kind of rule—it’s sort of a joke, but it’s meant seriously too—is: don’t bring a problem to me unless it’s a really big problem. Then I’ll handle it. Then I can take care of it.

But I don’t want the default to be, “Hey, we picked the wrong color,” or, “The materials can’t get there on time,” or everyday stuff.

That’s just part of being in this business. That’s the world we all live in.

That can’t come to me—because right now, we’re doing a podcast. I’m excited to do this podcast.

But if my phone’s ringing, and they can’t get an answer, and the crews have to go home, and we have to reschedule—well, that just ruined five people’s day, let alone the customer.

Now they’re upset because it was waiting on me. And sure, that makes me feel proud, makes me feel like an important person.

But I don’t believe in any of that.

The point is—you have to give full control. And therefore, you also have to accept mistakes that are made when you give away that full control.

And I’m totally okay with that—again, because we have a great team. That’s my philosophy.

So yes, the majority of my time is working on the business—guiding the ship, setting the direction and the course.

And very rarely do I actually have to fix a problem or escalate something or go to legal or any of that kind of stuff. That takes up a small minority of my time.

Dennis Oz: Wow, this is really eye-opening and thank you so much for sharing this one too.

So let’s talk about AI. I’m sure there’s a lot of buzz here and there—everybody’s talking about AI. And actually, it’s shifting the game really fast. There are faster follow-ups, maybe instant estimates, and sometimes better scheduling tools.

Where do you see the biggest impact for your—you have two businesses, of course—remodeling and roofing. But sorry for the roofers, this is the Remodeler Success Podcast, so let’s go.

Of course, you’re going to talk about the remodeling side of things. Where do you see the biggest impact coming for remodelers?

Seth Larson: No, we’ve met a lot about this as a leadership team. For us—I’m a pretty quick adapter—but I feel like it’s a tool, just like any other tool. You know, just like CAD, just like renderings, just like everything we do.

Use it. We haven’t—what’s the word—we haven’t dove in headfirst yet. You know, we haven’t replaced anybody, I’ll put it that way.

We do have an agent that answers our phone on the roofing side. Roofing—actually, I will talk about remodeling—but the roofing business is growing so fast, we actually do have a lot more AI uses over there, like our answering service.

If you call—actually, I invite anyone listening—if you call our number, it’s area code (619) 501-2138. During the day, you’ll talk to our people in the office, but at night it goes to an AI.

And I bet now that I’ve told your listeners, they’re going to know. But if I didn’t tell you and you talked to her—her name’s Emily—you would not know that she’s an AI.

So we do use it there. Obviously, we use prompts, organizing pivot tables, doing some accounting stuff. We use it to save time there.

On the remodel side, it is a tool. We haven’t fully embraced it. We have such a great process that’s been working the same for almost 20 years. Like I said, we haven’t replaced anybody.

It is a tool—we use it for sort of mundane tasks here and there.

The coolest one I’ve seen is where you upload a blank area of a plan—like the existing plan or even the new plan, but just as a box—and you ask it to fill in cabinets and furniture and layouts and stuff. That one’s pretty cool. I can’t remember the site off the top of my head, but that one’s pretty neat.

Or the other one where you can take a picture—most of our projects are really reinventing the whole space. Rarely do we do like a bath remodel or a kitchen remodel. We do those, but as part of a bigger addition or second floor or that kind of thing.

The one I’ve seen—you take a picture of the space, and it’ll replace your cabinets, replace your appliances, and give you a visual. And it’s a beautiful visual. I’ve seen that one before.

There are some takeoffs and estimating tools that are automated now with AI. Those are—they’re getting better. They’re not quite there yet, but they’re getting better.

So I think the future’s bright. I think everybody—what we’ve been pushing for the last two years—is having everyone on the team utilize it and embrace it. But still, don’t let that make them brainless. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but that’s kind of been our push.

Use it as a tool—obviously, we’re not replacing you. They’re robots, they can’t build stuff yet, so we’re still safe.

But anyhow, try to use it as a tool. Save yourself some time. That’s how we’ve embraced it.

Dennis Oz: Yeah. Well, I’m sure it’s helping you.

I mean, a couple of days ago I realized that the project management tool we’re using—it implemented an AI system. And right now, just like a digital marketing agency, we can see who is doing what.

And I was also asking, what would be some of the things that we can make better on our organizational chart? Maybe, “Oh Dennis, do this or that.”

It’s just like using an advisor. It’s really giving you eye-opening information there, and I really like that part too.

I’m sure that some of the tools—just like you said—will quickly adapt AI, and they will at least have AI functionality pretty soon.

Maybe one good recommendation we can give anyone here about the tools they’ll be using is:

Folks, pick the tools that are really investing in AI and innovation.

So if it’s a tool where they don’t really care about AI, they’re not going to go anywhere in the next five years. But if you’re working with a tool—for example, Seth gave one here—you’re using a tool that visualizes the room right away with different design details.

And I’m sure most of you guys here—maybe when you’re listening—you feel like you’re struggling with new designs. At least make that project really appealing and really look nice for the homeowner you’re talking to.

These tools are going to be your real favorite assistants in the future—just like Seth explained here.

And thanks so much for that one, Seth.

Since we’re talking about this, let’s talk about marketing a little bit.

We’re talking about the differences between the roofing side and remodeling side, but I want to focus on the remodeling baseline.

I know getting the click is maybe nothing—because bringing traffic to your website is not the end game.

When they come, you need to qualify the homeowners.

Again—first, you have to qualify the traffic. Then when they show up, you have to qualify the homeowners—the real people, right?

What’s really working best for you right now when it comes to getting those solid project leads?

Seth Larson: No, there’s been a lot of changes, as I’m sure you’re aware—especially in the Google world—because of AI. That’s actually a perfect transition to talk about this.

The funny thing is, even though this is a remodel show, we don’t hardly do any advertising. We were 0.02% of our total volume last year on advertising—at Stēl, at the remodeling company.

I wish I could say it’s mostly by referral—and there are a lot of referrals.

And based on the size of projects we have, we only do a half dozen or so a year—6, 7, 8, somewhere around there—projects. So we don’t sell them all, but the point is, we only have to meet with a couple of people a month to make that business model work.

Whereas on the roofing side—it’s a whole different animal. So I know much more about marketing in that world.

For all intents and purposes, it’s the same animal. But budget-wise, last year—if I remember right, don’t quote me on this—but I think we were about 7% of our revenue on marketing. So it’s, you know, a growing company. That’s kind of a good number.

Well this year—fortunately or unfortunately—we’re doing better than most in the industry. That went up to 9%, then it was 12, then 13—we’re at 14, almost 15% now for the year. We’ve just been putting a ton of money into it, because I’ve got to keep the guys busy.

Like I said, I need about one or two, maybe three leads a month at the design-build company, which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s plenty for what we do—since most are qualified, etc.

On roofing—I believe the last number—our target is about 120 a month. So it’s a lot more appointments we need just to keep things moving.

The closing ratios are different, the demo rates are different—all those things are different.

But the point is, the cost per lead has only gone up.

Google effectiveness has gone down. Cost per lead has gone through the roof.

So before—I’d say two years ago, when the big Google drop-off happened—we had maybe 5 or 6 different lead sources for roofing. Now we’re up to about 18.

We’re just trying all different things, trying to get the cost per—what we really care about is cost per scheduled lead. That’s our main measure.

Obviously, you want to track closing ratio and therefore cost per sale—but really, I feel like marketing doesn’t have as big of an impact at that point. That’s on sales.

Anyway, I’m rambling.

But the point is, it has changed a lot. AI is taking over.

What’s it called—GEO is the new term for Generative Engine Optimization.

Dennis Oz: Exactly, yeah. I was going to ask you that one too.

Since ChatGPT, people are just changing the way they act and behave on—I would say—it’s not a search bar anymore.

You don’t just see those blue links anymore.

You just go there and ask: “What would be the best remodeling company near me?” Or, “Where’s the biggest showroom where I can see some designs and display items in a showroom?”

Well, that’s a long way—I’m sure.

Right now, even if today we don’t have a clear path on how to get a really good, successful GEO campaign—just like we’ve had SEO for many, many years—

Do you think we’re getting there slowly?

Do you think people will really change their behavior when they’re searching for things?

What’s your take on that one?

Seth Larson: I do. I was just talking to my neighbor this weekend. She’s in her seventies, and somehow we were talking about searching, and I don’t know how we landed on AI—you know, everybody’s talking about AI—and she’s like, “Yeah, I changed my, um, what do you call it, homepage. It used to be Google. Now it’s ChatGPT.”

And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” That just—

Dennis Oz: And she’s 70 years old?

Seth Larson: Yeah, she’s in her seventies. That really kind of changed my whole way of thinking. Like, all right, this isn’t temporary. This isn’t—you know—it’s going that direction.

So to your point, yeah, I think that’s the direction it’s going. So the question really that I don’t have the answer to is, what does that mean for us? How do we get ahead of that curve?

Is it SEO-type projects like we used to do back in the day, specifically for GEO? Or—the word is, and I haven’t seen anything concrete yet—but all of the LLMs and AI searches, supposedly they’re going to put a sponsored link in the results in the future. Who knows? I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s kind of what I’ve heard in a couple articles.

It would say “sponsored,” it would be very prevalent, but that would be the way to get the cost-per-click.

Dennis Oz: Anyway, it’s really interesting to watch as well because we were really dealing with Google’s monopoly, and yeah, we always—like, you know, I say that out loud—because yes, Google Ads, Google Search, Google Maps—our businesses needed to be there.

Right now, people are just using something outside of Google. And of course, that system right now depends on massive Google data, for sure.

But maybe it’ll change in the future. Even Apple is working on its own search system, and if they change—Google is paying billions of dollars to Apple just to be the default search engine right now—and just think about it: what happens if Apple switches the game?

Yeah, it’s really unclear—just like you said, Seth—we never know how the advertising is going to work over there. And right now, it’s just like you said: Google was just making money off the top of the page, and they monetized that top of the page, and it’s going to change maybe everything.

Yeah, so very interesting times ahead. And thank you so much for giving that idea, and I’m sure our listeners really find it eye-opening—the things you shared today.

I hope everyone is really enjoying this conversation today.

Well, we have Seth here—we’re asking him a lot of questions. I don’t want to make him so tired, but folks, a couple more questions before we wrap up.

Let me ask you this. We’ll also be wrapping up after this question.

Well, most of the contractors—I would say, could be either a roofer or a remodeler, or anyone—could be a general contractor, just like someone who has the belt on and the truck, right? They started, but they don’t have a clear plan. They learn by trial and error.

What’s one piece of advice you would give someone just starting out in this industry?

Seth Larson: No, that’s a good one. I think some of the best businesses are started by someone who had their bags on—or still has their bags on—and they just either didn’t want a boss, told themselves they could do it better than the last guy they worked for, or whatever it happens to be, or just want the freedom. There’s a million reasons to do it—I won’t judge any of those.

The biggest piece of advice: when I was first hiring—I think it was my accountant, he had always done our personal taxes when I was employed, and then we broke out—and he owned his own business.

I was just struggling, because I wanted the most—I needed the most efficiency. If I was going to hire someone and pay them thousands of dollars, I needed every ounce and every hour. I was on a quick path to becoming the worst boss in the world.

And he just looked me in the eyes. It wasn’t like this profound thing, but I took it that way. He goes, “No one’s going to do it as good as you. You’re only going to get 80% out of somebody.”

I said, “What do you mean?”—just to keep the conversation going. I knew exactly what he meant.

Basically, it was: don’t count on 100%. You’re just going to drive yourself nuts. Then you’re going to be watching over their back, asking, “How come you didn’t do this?” and you’re going to be micromanaging.

But 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing—or 0% of nothing.

So the point is, you started out on your own because you have a skill set, you’re great at it.

That—even more so—means you’re not going to find someone as good as you. Okay, now that you know that, the band-aid’s pulled off. So just embrace the fact that—let’s say, if you hire whatever position—even if it’s someone to just help you, well, they’re going to get it 80% accurate. You get the last 20%, but that’s five times more efficient for you.

Now you can go do the bigger and better things.

Or for the same note, if it’s a—let’s say a project manager—all those phone calls, all those emails—you do it right now, but, oh man, it takes so much time.

So if you hired that out, even if they weren’t—like I said—perfect, they’re still going to save you time so that you can focus on other stuff.

So that’s the biggest thing. That was the biggest eye-opener for me.

Just, “Oh yeah, don’t expect to get 100%.”

If you expect 80%, the good thing is—the secret (and don’t listen to this if you’re listening to this advice)—you’re going to find people that are better than you.

But whatever—you’ll see that later. You’ll get people that will do it way better than you. But that was the biggest piece for me. That helped a ton when we were first starting out.

Dennis Oz: Seth, I really appreciate you taking the time to share all of this today. From the way you’ve balanced both businesses to how you think about sales and team building and staying sharp with operations—I’m sure there’s a lot here for folks to learn from. Thanks again for being on the show today.

Seth Larson: No, it was my pleasure, Dennis. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope people got a little something out of it.

Dennis Oz: Sure. Folks, that was another episode of the Remodeler Success Podcast. We’re going to see you next time.