The Steel CodCast

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 A bad software update knocked Samsung’s smart refrigerators offline -- in some cases stopping them from cooling. The Retail Council was asked: does that change how you talk about connected appliances with your customers? 80% said no. Jon’s read: the “no” isn’t reassuring. The floor never bought into connected appliances in the fir...

The Retail Council forced a choice: SKS, BlueStar, or Fisher & Paykel -- floor, outlet, or dumpster. Here’s how they voted. Fisher & Paykel won the floor at ~40% and drew the fewest dumpster votes. BlueStar mostly landed in the outlet at ~41%. SKS split nearly straight down the middle -- 35% floor, 40% dumpster -- with almost no one in the neutral middle. Shannon and Jon break down what th...

🎓 Steel Cod University: https://university.steelcod.com/ 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Blackstone has an 80% share of the outdoor griddle market, sold 4 million grills in 2025, and built one of the most loyal consumer followings in outdoor cooking -- entirely at mass retail. Independent dealers have watched from the sidelines. That changes with Blackstone Sel...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The first question of the week: if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one brand or product that’s gone, what would it be? Maytag led at 17%. About 35% named brands you can still buy tomorrow -- Maytag, Dacor, Viking, KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Kenmore -- not because they disappeared but because they aren’t what they used to be...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The first question of the week: if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one brand or product that’s gone, what would it be? Maytag led at 17%. About 35% named brands you can still buy tomorrow -- Maytag, Dacor, Viking, KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Kenmore -- not because they disappeared but because they aren’t what they used to be...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Jon is back solo for Saturday Mailbag #2 -- ten questions from the community, answered one by one, word for word as submitted. Topics covered: What Steel Cod’s Advanced Sales Training actually is. How to stop getting hit by manufacturer price increases after your PO is placed -- expiration dates, price protection language, weekly...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The last question of the week: Sub-Zero launched a 15-inch designer under-counter ice maker. Is ice a real category on your floor, or does it only come up after the kitchen is already designed? 85% of the council said ice is a real category -- expected in luxury packages, sometimes selling multiple units per project, close to stan...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The council’s third question of the week: SKS launched a 36-inch Induction Pro range with a built-in combi steam oven -- is it a range customers ask for, or one you have to talk them into? 73% of the council said they have to talk customers into it. Only 10% have had a customer ask for it unprompted. Jon’s take: the product is phe...

🎓 Steel Cod University: https://university.steelcod.com/ 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Jon sits down with John O’Halloran, who leads luxury strategy for Nationwide Marketing Group. John came up through the luxury side of the industry -- Oakton in Chicago, Sub-Zero, the builder community, about a decade at Elmo, and then a role launching Samsung and LG in the...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The council submitted its first question to itself: which brand do salespeople sell to the spiff the most? The results came in -- SKS topped the list at 43%, followed by Monogram at 29%, JennAir at 17%, and Dacor and LG around 11%. Jon walks through why almost no brand actually wants to run a spiff -- and why they all keep doing i...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The council was asked this week about brands allowing other accounts to undercut MAP pricing -- and in some cases UMP pricing, which is a unilateral minimum resale price, an actual binding policy that should not be touched. 85% of the council has watched it happen, documented it, and reported it. Most got ignored. Jon’s take: the...

📩 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 d...

📩 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...

📩 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,...

🎓 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, b...

📩 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 b...

📩 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...

📩 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 h...

📩 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...

🎓 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...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 Jon said it plainly at the start of this one: the responses to this week’s service technician question were the most profanity-laced answers the Retail Council has ever sent back. The question was which brand is hardest to find qualified service technicians for. Three came back by name: Dacor, Miele, and BlueStar. But the detail t...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 This week the Steel Cod Retail Council was asked whether any brand has opened too many accounts in their area. Three came back by name: Thermador, Viking, and Monogram. Jon’s analysis on all three is worth sitting with, because none of it is as simple as “they spread too thin.” Thermador topped the list, and the frustration is alm...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 The Steel Cod Retail Council weighed in on the best induction range this week — and four brands came out on top for four completely different reasons. Wolf on control. Miele on power management. SKS on the oven. BlueStar on the surface. Nobody picked boil speed. Nobody picked number of zones. The council went straight to the thing...

📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 This week the Steel Cod Retail Council flagged four brands by name — JennAir, Dacor, Thermador, and Viking — and the common thread isn't product. It's response time. Jon's read on all of it: this is what it looks like before it shows up in sell-through numbers. Manufacturers assume everything is fine until the data softens. The co...

🎓 Steel Cod University: https://university.steelcod.com/ 📩 Apply to Join the Retail Council Here: https://tally.so/r/vGGdq0 This week’s Steel Cod University episode covers the Fulgor Milano Sofia induction range from the ground up — where the brand came from, what makes the Sofia worth putting in a luxury conversation, and how to sell the 48-inch to a customer who still misses their gas range. F...