The Steel CodCast

Most dealers have already decided Qoldfusion isn't for them. Shannon O'Hara and Jon Beresford are here to tell you why that instinct is worth reconsidering. This episode is an independent, unsponsored deep dive into Qoldfusion's residential walk-in refrigeration. No partnership. No financial relationship. Just an honest look at a product that keeps coming up and deserves a real answer. This episod...

Knowing everything about appliances doesn't automatically make you great at selling them. And being a great listener doesn't automatically make you trustworthy. So what actually separates the salespeople customers love from the ones they forget? Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford dig into one of the most honest conversations in appliance retail: the product expert versus the problem solver. They break...

Chef Rachelle Boucher joins Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford to talk about what the appliance industry keeps getting wrong about the people it's supposed to be serving. Guest Links Rachelle Boucher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelleboucher/ Rachelle Boucher on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inductioncookingclub?igsh=MTF3NjU3OWd3NTc4NQ== Rachelle is a chef, appliance enthusiast,...

Customers trust reviews. Salespeople fight reviews. And somewhere in the middle is reality. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon tackle one of the biggest forces shaping appliance buying decisions today: online reviews. Whether it's Google, Reddit, YouTube, retailer websites, or professional review sites, customers now arrive at the showroom carrying dozens, sometimes hundreds, of...

Not every luxury appliance is built for the same person. And when it comes to two of the most respected names in the world, the real difference isn't performance. It's the ownership experience they're each trying to create. Anthony Fors and Jon Beresford break down one of the most misunderstood comparisons in the appliance industry: Miele vs. Gaggenau. They explore why more options don't always me...

"Is it made in America?" It's one of the most common questions appliance salespeople hear. And it's also one of the most misunderstood. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon tackle one of the most emotional topics in appliance retail: American-made appliances. But this isn't a conversation about politics. And it isn't a conversation about whether American manufacturing matters. It...

Most customers don't really shop for a speed oven. They shop for a kitchen package. And that's exactly why this category gets misunderstood. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most overlooked comparisons in luxury appliances: Wolf Speed Oven vs Miele Speed Oven. At first glance, this seems like an easy decision. A customer buys: a Wolf range a Wolf wall ove...

Free sounds like an easy decision. But in appliances, "free" can completely change how customers evaluate value. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon tackle one of the most interesting conversations in luxury appliance retail: Thermador's Emerald dishwasher versus the Bosch 500 Series. At first glance, the comparison feels simple. The Emerald often arrives as part of a larger Ther...

Few appliance brands create stronger reactions than Samsung. Some customers love them. Some salespeople avoid them. And almost everyone has an opinion. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon tackle one of the most fascinating dynamics in the appliance industry: how Samsung became one of the most recognized appliance brands in the world while still struggling to earn complete trust f...

Most people think appliance sales is about memorizing products. George Kandathil learned very quickly that it isn't. In this special guest episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon sit down with George Kandathil, Sales Specialist at Goeman's Appliances, to discuss what modern appliance sales actually looks like from the perspective of someone who entered the industry recently. Because today's...

Most appliance sales follow the same formula: Good. Better. Best. The assumption is simple: customers start at "good" and work their way up. But what if that entire framework is creating more confusion than clarity? In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most common sales structures in appliances: the Good-Better-Best Ladder. At first glance, it seems logical....

A customer hears about a feature. And almost immediately responds: “I won't use that.” For many salespeople, that single sentence can completely derail a conversation. But this episode argues that the objection isn't really about the feature at all. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the fastest-growing objections on appliance sales floors today and why it reve...

Customers shop for: burner power BTUs burner layouts cooking features and brand names But when they get home? The part they interact with every single day is the knob. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most overlooked conversations in luxury cooking appliances: gas range knob control. And while almost nobody walks into a showroom asking about knobs, the ow...

Both washers say they help remove pet hair. But they’re not actually solving the same problem. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most misunderstood comparisons in laundry appliances: Maytag Pet Pro vs Samsung Pet Care washers. At first glance, this feels like a simple head-to-head battle. Both products use pet-focused branding. Both promise better pet hair...

Most people think brass burners mean: more power more heat better cooking But that’s not actually what brass does. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most misunderstood conversations in luxury cooking appliances: brass burners vs aluminum burners. And the key problem is this: most sales conversations reduce the entire topic into a meaningless “premium featu...

Luxury dishwashers are one of the hardest appliance categories to read. Because unlike cooking appliances, customers never really “see” the performance happen. Nobody stands around watching a dishwasher clean. Which means this category moves less on proof… and far more on belief. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down the latest movement inside the Steel Cod Power Index f...

Modern appliances are smarter than ever. More advanced. More efficient. More engineered. So why do so many customers feel exhausted by them? In Part 2 of this deep dive on energy efficiency and appliance performance, Anthony and Jon move beyond engineering and regulations into something even bigger: the emotional relationship customers now have with appliances. And the core problem is this: modern...

Energy efficiency sounds like an obvious good thing. Lower utility bills. Less waste. Better engineering. Smarter appliances. So why are so many customers frustrated? In this special Part 1 episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon take a deep dive into one of the most important and controversial conversations happening in appliances today: the tradeoff between efficiency and real-world perfor...

Most people already have an opinion on this debate before they even walk into the store. Agitators are rough on clothes. Impellers are modern. Impellers clean better. Agitators are outdated. But this episode argues that almost all of those conversations are incomplete. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most misunderstood topics in laundry: agitators vs imp...

Most dishwasher sales conversations sound exactly the same: cleaning performance drying systems decibel ratings cycles efficiency But this episode argues that most salespeople are skipping the one thing customers actually interact with every single day: the rack system. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down why dishwasher racking may be the single most overlooked differe...

Some ventilation systems look incredible. That doesn’t mean they perform well. In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most misunderstood debates in kitchen ventilation: perimeter venting vs traditional baffle filtration. At first glance, perimeter systems seem like an obvious upgrade. They look cleaner. More refined. More modern. Less industrial. But this episo...

Most refrigerator conversations stop at: compressors evaporators capacity and cooling performance But what happens after the door closes? In this episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon break down one of the most overlooked topics in refrigeration: air filtration and what’s actually happening inside the refrigerator environment. Because once the door closes, the refrigerator becomes a sealed...

The premium induction landscape is shifting under the feet of luxury appliance dealers. On this weekend edition of The Steel CodCast, Anthony Force and Sean Beresford dive deep into the latest proprietary Power Index data to expose which luxury induction cooktop brands are gaining market velocity and which ones are losing their grip on showroom floors. The raw data uncovers an unexpected reality:...

Most sales training teaches people what to say. This episode explains why that’s the wrong place to start. In this special guest episode of The Steel CodCast, Anthony and Jon sit down with Angela Warner for a deep conversation about appliance sales, customer psychology, trust, training, and why the best salespeople almost never sound like “salespeople” at all. The discussion starts with one of the...

The balance of power in luxury appliance specification has shifted, but maybe not in the way you think. On this weekend deep dive of The Steel CodCast, Anthony Force and Sean Beresford pull back the curtain on the complex relationship between interior designers, showroom salespeople, and the high end consumer. With manufacturers investing heavily in direct to designer marketing, lunch and learns,...