If you think of a roofing company, you think of small businesses that have a hard time staying in business. Lots of competition in a tough service environment with high employee turnover rates and low customer retention. One thing you would not think of is branding.

This is where Charles Antis comes in, who founded his namesake company Antis Roofing & Waterproofing in 1984 and soon thereafter started to inject it with personality and the stigma that it needed to be bigger than just the service offering he provided. Charles himself turned into a conscious capitalist, who has donated every single roof installation of every single home built by Habitat Orange County since 2009 and was honored with the American Red Cross Corporate Hero Award.

This is the story of a roofer who turned into a leader in corporate social responsibility and who sees himself as a futurist. Charles shares with us how leading with cause will shape an amazing corporate culture (Antis has a 93% employee retention rate) and drive new business, all while giving real meaning to what you do.

____Full Transcript:

F Geyrhalter: Welcome to Hitting The Mark. Every two weeks, I sit down right here with you and with a contagiously inspiring founder, just like today, or a shockingly transparent investor to talk about the art and the heart of a brand. It all started as an experiment, and once listeners like yourself started tuning in, it soon turned into this biweekly labor of love that, in return, requires a lot of time from researching future guests and curating the flow to reaching out and dealing with the logistics of the scheduling the podcast, the editing the show, creating assets, pushing it on social, et cetera, et cetera. You know how it goes. Good things take time. If Hitting The Mark provides you with inspiration, and you’re slowly but surely forming an addictive habit of listening to it every two weeks, please show your support to offset some of the cost so I do not have to bring on interruptive sponsorship messages because I really, really would not like to do that, and I don’t think you’d enjoy it, either. Instead, I want to thank you on the air, connect with you on monthly group calls, have you submit questions for guests upfront, and simply have this be 100% community-supported. This marks the beginning of a new community-enabled and community-driven era of Hitting The Mark. I’d love for you to check out the brand new Patreon site, which I link to in the notes or simply go to hittingthemarkpodcast.com and hit the support button to learn more about the different levels and perks that come with your support. Now without further ado, I welcome a founder who has been at it for 30 years. It is not a new brand, nor one that is shockingly innovative or disruptive at all at it relates to the services it provides, but Charles Antis, founder and CEO of Antis Roofing and Waterproofing has built a brand on the power of good, a long time before it became a mainstream business etiquette and, to an extent, most can only aspire to. Charles began his career as a roofing professional in 1984. Since then, he has become an inspirational business leader championing social corporate responsibility. While Antis is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year or, as Charles would say, “For 30 years, we’ve been keeping families safe and dry.” Charles is a member of the board of directors of Orange County Habitat for Humanity, for which Antis has donated every single roof installation of every single home built by Habitat OC since 2009. That’s over $1 million in in-kind donations. Charles inspires others into doing well by doing good, and was honored with the American Red Cross Corporate Hero Award. Despite me having a rule of not inviting former clients or people I know prior to having them on as a guest, I did meet Charles ever so briefly while I was presenting a United To End Homelessness brand campaign to the executive council of the Orange County United Way Chapter. Charles was one of the guys I presented it to. We quickly knew we were aligned when it comes to messaging and branding, and following him on LinkedIn and seeing his great social responsibility efforts on a weekly basis, I decided to reach out and, voila, here we are. Welcome to Hitting The Mark, Charles.

C Antis: Thanks, Fabian. I’m excited to be here.

F Geyrhalter: Absolutely, so Antis is going back 30 years, not to date you here, but it’s been a while and roofing is a commodity and it is, frankly, a tough business to stay in business, let alone thrive. How did you start the company and when and how did you begin injecting it with personality and the stigma that it needed to be bigger than just a service offering you provided, or you yourself turning into a conscious capitalist, as you call it?

C Antis: That’s a lot there, and I’ll give you my best answer. When I started my business, I did not have a business plan. I didn’t know what marketing was. I couldn’t distinguish marketing from sales, nor would I for many years. I had an instinct of a couple of things that helped me survive. One was one that I would later call customer care. It seemed to me instinctively that the first, most simple, form of marketing, was I need a good word of mouth, that I needed to take care of a client in a deep way. I became very good, unable to facilitate re-roofs, being small and having limited skills, I figured out that if I could tell people that I’ll solve that leak from rain, that leak in their home or in their business from rain that no one else can solve, I’ll do it for free. It seemed to me then they might believe me to pay me. That was all I had, and I followed that through with great customer care. That’s how I got work initially and that was my first ray of a brand that was put out there. Another component happened that led me to the reason we’re talking today, and that was, in that moment of needing every call just to pay the bills, my work one week was weatherproofing a door that was a home bedroom converted into an office, so when a client might call, that they wouldn’t hear my daughter crying. That was my work one week, because I only got about two calls a week when I first started my business. One of those calls I got was a women who had leaks in her home in every room. That sounded pretty good. I was going to get some money for leak repairs. I didn’t have an excess then. I had a mortgage payment to make in a couple of weeks, I didn’t even have the funds for that yet. I’m driving out to this home on the next day and I’m noticing as I’m getting closer that the homes are getting smaller, more disheveled, until finally I turn on the street where the home would be and I just see it, like dead grass and four walls. I remember thinking, I hope that’s not the house because it had one of those one-half the numbers on it. I went up and knocked on it, and then the next three things just changed everything for me. A middle-aged woman answered the home with this tired expression on her face. Before I could say anything, I was hit with this mildew like I’d never smelled before, that just pulled me back and sent a shock in me that I was figuring out how I was going to leave. I remember before I could say anything, this third thing happened. I felt a tug at my finger and I looked down and there was this little girl with the biggest smile I can still see in my eyes, with tow-blond hair. She couldn’t smell what I smelled. She just had a visitor and she just pulled me in on my finger. I went in through this little crowded living room into a tiny under-sized hallway, until finally she turned to her right and into her room. I knew she slept there because she points to this My Little Pony poster on the wall. As she points to that poster, my eyes look down and I see four mattresses with disheveled and moldy bedding. I realized that’s where she sleeps, that’s where she and her siblings sleep. I was sitting there in shock. It’s a good story now, but it wasn’t a good story right then. I was in this state of shock, fight or flight, because this was a threat to me. I couldn’t help it. It sounds horrible but it didn’t feel good yet. As cute as that little girl was and as the moment was there, because I was this professional, I could do something, it didn’t hit me until the mother came in again with that look on her face. Something in me stirred that didn’t stir just with the child, but I looked at that mother and I don’t know where it came from, but it was my doctor on an airplane moment and I just said, “I’m going to take care of your roof.” I went up there on the roof, hoping they just needed some patches, and I saw a completely dilapidated roof. They needed a brand new roof. I followed through. I followed through. I didn’t have any employees yet so I got six volunteers. We showed up there on Saturday and I got some inexpensive but dry roofing material, and we gooped that roof and we put rolled material on that roof and it was dry and that family stayed in that home. That was a crazy moment because it didn’t hit me in any which way. It was just what I had to do and it as kind of like my doctor on an airplane moment. If you’re a doctor on the airplane and somebody has a heart attack, I think that most of us believe that the doctor raises his hand and says, “Yes, I’ll help.” I also believe that when a doctor raises his hand and helps that person on an aircraft who had a heart attack, I highly doubt the doctor sends a bill. I feel like that’s what happened to me. It just happened to me and my profession was different than medicine. Who could help that family more than me? That was a magic moment. I didn’t know it was magic until months later. I’d run into one of the siblings. There were five other kids and I’d run into one of the siblings. They would be like, “Hey!” We high-fived and I noticed I had a pretty good day that day. Or I’d run into one of the volunteers on the next Sunday and they’d be like, “Hey!” There was this story that we did together that I had no idea that it was changing everything in the trajectory at Antis Roofing. This story became our culture. This story held us together even though it took me years to recognize that this story was part of the reason we were strong. I think for our techs and for our people, it felt good, like we’re not just profiting off this trade, we’re giving back. It wasn’t something we talked about because it was not okay to talk about it where we grew up. I grew up where you don’t talk about the good that you’re doing. In fact, there were things that were quoted to me as a child, like don’t let the left hand know what the right hand’s doing because then God can’t reward you. I’m paraphrasing what I heard, maybe not what was said, but what I heard, so it felt wrong to talk about it. The reason I did it, it was more like, what am I going to do? It wasn’t, in the beginning, Oh, my God, I have this opportunity to give back. It feels that way sometimes now, but even sometimes now it feels like it did then, like, Oh my God, how can somebody ask for that? How can I possibly do it? In that figuring it out, in that not saying no, in those magic moments of going to bed on the possibility of doing something really noble, there’s where something happens that I don’t know how to describe. I’m just here to tell you, story after story, that it happened. That developed who we were. We eventually learned to talk about it after our giving became more formal, after we became involved with Habitat for Humanity in Orange County. Sorry, I went on a long tangent there, Fabian. I warned you.

F Geyrhalter: No, this is, first of all, this is an amazing story and I would react very differently if I had not heard it last night on a keynote. I was so taken by that story. I was hoping that you would tell it. It was really, that was the moment where you found purpose and then the purpose was contagious and it actually created the culture, and through all of it, authenticity and empathy. You started creating a brand, really. To me, that’s beautiful. On your website, you state, “The more we give, the more we grow.” I’m a big believer that doing good is good business. Expand a little bit on that thought, perhaps even with some data points that made you make that statement so confidently on the website, because now your brand has been walking that walk year after year for a few decades. How is doing good, good business and how can you actually tell everyone with certainty that it is?

C Antis: It was honestly in the moment. I love that statement, “The more we give, the more we grow.” I’ve just got to be honest about it. It’s one that we kind of said, let’s not say that, really, much right now. I love it. I’m going to tell you why, because we said that, and it worked three years ago, because we do have this really big desire to make impact in the community. We want to draw attention to it because we want to show other businesses that they can do it. Sometimes our statements are scary. Three or four years ago I started saying also, “We err on the side of generosity with all of our stakeholders.” That basically says we’re not going to get over on anybody. When you make that statement, there’s a little bit of a mind check where you go, oh. I used to always have my angle that we got away. We did better than other people here. How can I be generous? In thinking that way, magic happens. That’s what we discovered. In thinking that way, it started to happen. The more we give, the more we grow. Let me tell you about that one. We said that three years ago and we had this amazing growth year. We grew like 40 percent. Then, what happened in California, as a roofing contractor, it didn’t rain. When you go from a lot of rain, the biggest rain in 10 years to no rain the next year, our sales went down 20 percent, so our profit went way down.

F Geyrhalter: Of course.

C Antis: Ironically, though, ironically there were some things that happened. That’s when I started, why are we saying that? That’s really not responsible. We say it to make a claim in the direction that we’re going so we get people’s attention, so we can share the success in what we’re doing. What we ended up talking about, and I did some big talks that year that our sales dropped 20 percent, and we still talked about that because we are growing. Our giving grew last year. I don’t know how fiscally responsible some people think this is, but in a year, in 2018 where our profits went down tremendously, our giving went up. Some people would say, in fact, our giving, we gave almost a million dollars in grants and in foundation stuff and roof sponsorships. That might have been irresponsible, but we did grow. How did we grow from that giving? We all grew in our capacity to understand how to message cause marketing. We grew in our capacity to understand this important deep value that runs through our employees and extends out into the community. I wouldn’t have gone down that path, but I love messaging. I think if you’re true to messaging today, this takes me into a point, that I’m so authentic in the moment, trying to get the message right, and I’ll admit that I’m going to miss it sometimes. When we miss it, we’re all going to learn from when we just missed it. I’m not saying we missed it by “The more we give, the more we grow.” I’m saying that that was the right message to say three years ago and now I’m questioning it, if that’s how I’m going to lead. Sometimes I will talk in that vein, but I think that it grew the impact through why we had it at the time. We were authentic in the moment three years ago trying to nail what it is that we do for people, what it is that we do for the trade associations that we belong to and how that extends from our people out through the associations and to all the stakeholders. That’s why I wanted to get into that. I had to talk around that because we talked about it, I wanted to talk about how authentic message is going, but I still have answered your question, so can you, after that little side note I went on, give me the question again? This time, I’ll dive right in.

F Geyrhalter: I actually think you pretty much answered it. I think the idea that even if there’s a year where revenue goes down a little bit just based on external reasons, really, which in your business was simply the weather, to actually give back during that year and to give back more than you did the year previous-

C Antis: That was crazy.

F Geyrhalter: But it’s not crazy. It’s not crazy. To me, Charles, this is good-

C Antis: I mean crazy, crazy in radical. It’s radically different-

F Geyrhalter: Right.

C Antis: And I love that. My point is, is being radically different in a social, generous way, in an inside-out way of the community, through your people and the community, it’s never been a better time to error there. By having this intent to grow, give more, having the intent to be able to give more as we grow and to have the intent to be generous, it really pays off today. It keeps people in your company and it keeps people so much more productive because if you’re authentic in the moment and if you have that cause that’s tied to your brand and you’re practicing talking about it in the front of your company and you have a brand-holder in your company — which, it’s more convenient if it’s the founder or CEO, it can be your director of cause, it can be somebody else in your company — but if you have this today, you have such an advantage in business. When I go to sell a client today, we sell HOA’s and we service more HOA’s than anybody, that’s our niche in the roofing business, but when I go to sell a client today, I used to walk into that room and, just because I was a roofing contractor and guilty by some association from a past experience they had, I would go into this and I would be accused of things that we’d never do. We would be accused of kick-backs and of purposely not doing the work that we intended to perform, and we learned and had to take it. When I go to a board meeting today, that doesn’t happen. What happens is the opposite. There is maybe one person in the room that, instead of one person chiseling us and accusing us, there’s one person that’s looking at me and smiling, male or female, looking down, touching their hair, like is that person flirting with me? I start asking questions, “How’re we doing?” “Great.” “Why? What are we doing great?” I’ll get answers like, the one that really hit me when I knew this brand was working six years ago, this board member from this association looked at me and says, “I don’t know, Charles. We just feel good when we think about you guys.” That was something I’d never heard before. That’s when I knew that I’m on the right track. Yeah, last year we gave more away than we put in the bank. Is that responsible?

F Geyrhalter: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

C Antis: I think, yes. Do I need to look at it and make sure that we have a trajectory that fits? Yes. There’s always running the right balance, but the balance has shifted and it’s a time today, whatever your spend is on your people, you’re on top of spend for HR and your people and the community, all that together, it’s going to drastically increase. If it was already high, it probably needs to double. If it was low, it might need to go ten times. That’s a scary number, but if you can keep your people- in the new world it’s all about being empathetic and being adaptive and being a critical thinker and having high emotional intelligence. This is going to keep the people there that will allow you to do that. It’s all about being adaptive, and you can keep your people if you have cause. That’s what great CSR, we didn’t do it for the outside value gain. I think I really started on the wrong side. I was so focused on the customer that I often, and as much as I love my people, I’m so focused on the good we can do in the community, sometimes I overlook my people. I often joke that I was like Will Ferrell in Old School when he’s all alone on the street and he’s running and his wife comes up and he’s drunk and he’s running, and he’s like, “Hey, Honey!” She’s like, “Honey, you’re naked. Get in the car.” He goes, “No, come on, Honey. Everybody’s doing it.” That’s my enthusiasm when it’s just outside focus, but when you work through your people, then you keep your people, they become the ones that help you adapt in this super-changing world. In the roofing industry, it’s going to change so much in the next decade. It’s going to change for the better but, if you’re not adaptive, good luck.

F Geyrhalter: Oh, yeah.

C Antis: Good luck in your business.

F Geyrhalter: Any business, really, today. Back to culture, I think today Antis has a 93-percent employee retention rate or something that’s really, really outrageously high for the industry. “Culture is everything” is a headline on your website. I just could not agree more. I say this on the air, a great culture kicks even a great branding spot. I’ll say that again and again because it all comes from within. Going a little bit back in history with your company, and I ran an agency for a long time, I had that same problem. You talked about in one of your keynotes how you had Founder’s Syndrome in the early years of running a firm. You compared it, this is hilarious, you compared it to a seagull flapping and flapping around while pooping on everyone, which is…

C Antis: A seagull boss. Someone who flaps those wings, squawking and shitting all over everybody. I think that describes what a founder ends up doing, even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, based on his behavior. Even if you’re not being a little bit loud, because you are the founder, everybody knows you’ve done their job before and you ask a question like, “Why are you doing it that way?” It comes out like, “Why are you doing it that way!” That’s how you hear it. Founder’s Syndrome is really all of the things that founders did to get it started often will be what’s going to get it to the multi-ten-million range. Founders must be self-aware, lest they will keep stabbing their tires. Founders Syndrome is something that, it’s for everybody that’s a founder. It is so healthy. In fact, I just learned this. As I was describing Founder’s Syndrome to somebody else, I actually looked at the Wikipedia page and it’s grown from where it was a few years ago. Founder’s Syndrome also occurs to division heads, people that are project managers, that bring in new things in companies that are so protective of the baby that they brought in, and they crush innovation. Founder’s Syndrome is our worst enemy for all of us that have start-ups. We both have tendencies that made us, that were great to get us where we were, that will hurt us if we’re not careful as we hire people.

F Geyrhalter: How were you able to shake Founder’s Syndrome so that other entrepreneurs can learn from it, at least the way that you did it? What was it? What was that moment?

C Antis: First of all, I really believe in Vistage-type groups, that’s CEO-type groups-

F Geyrhalter: Yep.

C Antis: Where you go and you just learn to be honest with another group of CEO’s one day a month. That is where I heard the term, that’s where people helped me pause to see it. I think being adaptive, it goes deeper. I’m very adaptive, I think. It took me a long time to realize it, but I’m a young 57-year-old. I’m very millennial-like thinking, but I think I’m adaptive through my path. I was raised in a religion, in my parents’ religion. I’m no longer part of that religion. It’s a strong culture religion, Mormonism. I think when you leave a strong culture religion, it’s very difficult because that becomes your community. I think that you can do two things, you can go, and for me, it was like I had to redefine myself. In that redefining myself, I had to be self-critical sometimes to learn and grow. I had a couple of times like that where I had to redefine myself in life. I think that moving from the country to the city, how am I going to survive here? those life experiences. If we go back and re-frame our lives, we’ve all been very adaptive, but I think we have to embrace that today. When you get that Founder’s Syndromitis, when you realize, oh, my God, I have this, this is funny and you forgive yourself. The way you get that is doing self-assessments. I’m a big fan of self-assessments. When I did my disk and I found out that I had a high eye on a disk scale, my Vistage group pointed at me and laughed and they said, oh, you want to be the center of attention. I quickly said, no, I don’t. But hopefully, by later on that day, I admitted, well, yes I do, and thank you for telling me that’s who I am and I’m not doing something wrong. Now I can forgive myself and realize that it’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. I’m great in sales, I’m great at speaking, I’m great in marketing, I’m great in customer care because I have a high eye. When you learn about yourself, the more you’re willing to- do the emotional intelligence test. If you just try to grab the concept of emotional intelligence, it is the greatest gift. You will get Founder’s Syndrome because it is just your survival mode, because we all operate in animal mode even though we think we’re so smart. That’s basically what emotional intelligence tells me. Self-assessment is really how I’ve grown, but I’ve also been forced to grow a few times. I think that sometimes when things hit our lives, if we can flip our brain to only believe in positive outcomes, we can realize that some of these things that we used to see as tragedy — I’m not saying there’s not tragedies — but a lot of things we would used to see as something bad, we can flip in this new mindset. Failing is the greatest gift. Fail, fail, fail, I’ve failed being a contractor. You can fail and still survive. I’ve failed on so many jobs in the past, and we’re really good at what we do and what we design and how we perform today because we’ve failed so much to get here.

F Geyrhalter: Right.

C Antis: That’s one of the things, is failing is how I learn.

F Geyrhalter: Absolutely. I think you said so many things. I know you accused me of asking a question that had five questions in it. You do the same with the answers, which is fantastic, because there were so many gold nuggets in there. I really appreciate it. I want to go back to culture for a second because I’m sure that a lot of listeners getting to know your brand, getting to know you and the way that you embody marketing and empathy and purpose, you’ve built a strong culture. Do you as a brand actually have written-down, formulated core values, or is it different? How do you deal with core values and how are they being embodied day to day?

C Antis: I love that. I’m not a formalize, I’m a visionary, which means I loosely define. I know that if I grab things too tight, I’ve learned then I steer them into the ground. If you’re a visionary and you have ideas, you learn to bring in doers around you. I have a great story around that. We were working with a neuroscientist to build our new values. If you want to be heard in marketing, you want to simplify, simplify, simplify. You want to simplify colors, position of your graphics, also you want to simplify the words. I really was wanting to bake down what we do. We spent a lot of time with Dr. Moren, this amazing guy that works with brands like Southwest Airlines. We worked with him for a long time to come up with the one word. The word we came up with is, “be,” B-E. If I had to describe the word, “be,” because we’re giving it new context, I can’t. It comes out different every day. Really, what “be” is to us, is it’s much like what Simon Sinek did when he asked us, what’s your “why?” Some days I can answer that question, some days it hits be funny. When we talk about what we value at Antis, the “be” values is what we’ve come up with.

F Geyrhalter: Interesting.

C Antis: The core part is, is Dr. Moren helped us get to the word, “be.” We came up with this “be safe, be good, be dry.” That’s how we were going to market to our people to show them that we can keep them safe in our communities. What happened is, we did our external strategy session and we had some amazing people that came in, like Michelle Jordan, who I strongly recommend using. She came in and helped us with our strategy. Our team, not me, not marketing, but our team, 20 of us, baked and we surveyed and we came up with what we value. This was actually, an expanded team beyond that. We came down to the five things that we value. This is what they are: Be good, be accountable, be generous, be a leader and be passionate. What we found is we had turned our value statement into 11 words with a lot of repetition there in this really branded, good way that when we donate our space to nonprofits, and we have a lot of nonprofits come in here, they see that and we hear things like, “Can we borrow that?” “Yes! Yes! Please take it!” What happened is, I turned to my team and I said I know that we’ve spent a lot of money to be this, “Be safe, be dry, be good,” but who we really are, are these values, “Be good, be accountable, be generous, be a leader and be passionate,” slightly different context in the word, “be.” What happened is this became who we were. I was giving a big keynote, in fact, it was the one you referenced. It was the one last year at the Legends and Leaders. It was a big crowd and the last slide that I decided to show was this internal thing. We’re an inside-out company. We share what’s working so others can do it. We discovered that these values were resonating. I went up there and I talked and I finished this talk. After I spoke, another writer and a good friend of mine, Steve Cherm, he commented on social media about how Charles ended his message with be good and be accountable. The funny thing was that I called Steve later and said, “Steve, I never said that. That was the slide and that was the value. We’ve had that and we use that slide for impact moments because it says so much in so few words.

F Geyrhalter: It was holistically, right? I love the idea that it started with an exercise of external brand messaging and it turned into, a variation of it turned into the internal values and how you want to operate and who you want to be as a company. I think it’s extremely, extremely powerful. I love that people just feel that intrinsically after the talk. Going from all of these “be” words, be this, be that, do you think that as a brand, if you think about the essence of your brand in its entirety, could you sum it up in a few characters, in one word or a two-word phrase that can describe your brand’s DNA? To think about it, it’s like Harley Davidson could be freedom, Coke could be happiness. What is Antis? Could you think of Antis in a single word or in two words? It must be difficult, based on our conversation today.

C Antis: It’s difficult for me, but I’m going to have to answer it two ways. To really understand what we discovered and what we sell and what we sell inside and out the company, it comes down to two words, and it’s for your brand and it’s for everybody that are your stakeholders, and that is fulfillment and impact. That’s the intersection of life trajectory, of seeing yourself in a higher light. It’s that point where you’re having impact in people or people’s lives, or animal’s lives, or that it’s you’re having impact in the environment, whatever it is, but you’re also finding that fulfillment. Those two words are critical to want to discuss how to get to a real cause marketing brand. I want to use the word, “be” because I’m experimenting with this word and I have been for the last year. I think the one that I spend most of my time is the “be good.” It’s simple but it’s like that’s all I really wanted to do. I didn’t know what it was. I had to define in my life what good was. My dad just always taught me to leave it better than I found it. I’d learned that in Scouts, too. It’s a simple thing, leave it better than you found it. I think that the best way I can get there is, I want to be my best self. I want to be my best self and I don’t compare myself to you anymore and I don’t want my people to compare themselves to me. I want you and I want me to compare ourselves to ourselves and I want to be good being my best self. I think that’s my definition of being good, is seeing yourself higher and therefore you’re able to see everything and everyone else higher. Then you become a real asset to the world and you have impact and you have this magical place of fulfillment, which is where I get to every day. I wake up in fear. I have good months and bad months in business like everybody else, but I wake up and I put on this outlook that only sees good things coming. If something hit today that’s other than that, I go, wow, this is really going to be good. I literally can see the other side of that and see the value in this growing experience that’s coming. I think that’s the greatest thing, so be good.

F Geyrhalter: That’s beautiful. Going from that macro level all the way to looking at the word branding, obviously you are a marketer within your space, one of the many hats that you wear within the company. What does branding mean to someone like you, who has been in an industry for 30 years and you’ve been pushing the boundaries within the industry? You really were a game-changer and a visionary within an industry that is known for exactly the opposite. What does branding mean to you?

C Antis: Branding is an action word that, if you don’t try to grab it today, you’re going to be left and you’re going to be lost. Branding is, it’s always been who you were but now, with this craving that everyone has for authenticity, branding, real authentic present-day branding, is what everybody seeks. It’s the most important thing. I have to talk about branding but I’ve got to go into this little weird worm hole about, we hear about these currencies. Facebook is trying to create a currency I hear the Trump Administration doesn’t like. In China they have a currency for social good that they’ve come up with that where if you’re in their version of communism, social good in China, you’ll get to the front of the line, get a bigger house. We have the same thing happening here in Silicon Valley. Those of us that know people that are trying to build algorithms that can root out fakeness because there’s so much fake stuff coming at us from all sides, so branding is critical today. It’s like when somebody goes to prison, they’ll tell you if they don’t join a gang, they’re going to die, because you’re a threat to everybody in prison until they know by which gang you reside. Then it all puts it into an order. That is a fish tank, so we can study that and poke at it. The same thing is in our society today. We don’t know who we are and people are craving to know who you are. If you kind of know who somebody is, it’s not enough like it was 10 years ago. You look for the gang that you reside with so people that care about families being close to their sick kids, they trust me more because I’m on the board of Ronald McDonald House and we do a lot of roof donations there. People that think everybody has a decent place to live, they trust me and my company more because we donate all the roofs for Habitat and we have in Orange County for the last 10 years. It’s suddenly all about this currency of social good. It’s literally like, I’m not telling you I think this is coming, I’ve been talking about this with some other people and I’m watching it happen. It literally is going to mean money in ways that our brains can’t contextualize yet, much like you’re trying to wrap your head around cryptocurrency. I see things very visually, so just imagine you’re looking at your PC screen and you’re seeing all these little eraser head LinkedIn-sized photos of each other, like we see on LinkedIn, darting like shooting stars across the scene. Oh, is that Fabian? Is that Charles? Who is that? We’re all craving to be seen, and this is my visual interpretation of the currency of social good. If you are doing something good, giving back, best practices, are you giving back in your community? Now algorithms are being built to bring you to the front of the line. If you’re giving back in your community, what happens is, you’re not an eraser head shooting star whipping across the PC, you become the saucer, 8-inch saucer, that’s floating up in its own trajectory, ever so slightly, that everyone can see. That is the new currency. I can’t explain it better than that because it’s not really invented yet, but we’re moving in this super-adaptive world and if you want to survive and be adaptable, then dive in to cause. Dive in to mixing your branding with your cause, who you authentically are. It should be something that lines up well, that people think is good. There’s some nonprofits that may not serve you to line up with, but even if they didn’t serve you, you’d still be better off than not having the alignment. People need to know who you are. If you’re in business just to make money in the next 10 years, good luck staying in business. It’s all about who you are, who you align with and you better expect that you’re going to be telling that story. It’s all about telling the story, too. In every nonprofit board I’m on, when we go to the board meetings, it’s always like, ha, how do we get our story heard? We all realize now that people remember the stories. That’s what they remember.

F Geyrhalter: Absolutely, absolutely. Those were some powerful words, and you described the idea of branding, how it is and, really, how it will be in the next half-decade or so. It’s going to happen very, very quickly.

C Antis: Yes, I’m obsessed. I don’t mean to be a futurist, but I can’t help but see where things are going. You’re so right, and it’s really healthy to spend a little bit of time and have a Disney-type plan. Disney, they have strategy for three completely different directions at any given time. They have it if things are great, if things turn bad and then if the world goes really crazy. They have three different strategies they build out every year instead of one. That’s the new world. It’s going to be a way more adaptive world. Instead of being afraid of it, just embrace it. Keep your people, then you’ll be able to adapt to it.

F Geyrhalter: Absolutely love that. Listeners who live in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, they should obviously reach out to Antis to get a new roof if they need one. Who better to handle your new roof than a futurist? They can find you at antisroofing.com, but since the majority of our U.S. listeners are not in the region and more than half of our listeners are not even located in the U.S., how can they follow you to learn more about your insights into company culture and philanthropy and a lot of other things, as the CEO of your brand?

C Antis: That’s a great question. I find that what fulfills me is awakening others to that impact, their fulfillment thing, so I love speaking. I do a lot of talking, do a lot of podcasts, so I’ll share Hitting The Mark, Fabian, on my LinkedIn. I only manage one account, I manage my own LinkedIn, but I love stuff like this. This is where I’m known and this is where I like to talk. I’ll do keynotes across the country this year and I’ll share those on social media. You can also follow us on our Facebook, antisroofing/facebook. I just don’t personally do that. You can follow us on our Antis Roofing four or five social media channels that we have. On my LinkedIn, I’ll post on stuff that I have going.

F Geyrhalter: That’s great and I would highly recommend everyone to do follow Antis Roofing as a company, actually, because it is amazing what a roofing company that is fairly local, it is a big region that you cover, but how a roofing company can leave that mark, it can create this community and culture. It is really amazing. Thank you, Charles. It was so great to have you on the show.

C Antis: I am super-excited. I can’t wait to hear it.

F Geyrhalter: Awesome, and thanks to everyone for listening. Let me again invite you to become a supporter of this show. I just launched this program, so I’m overly excited about making it happen. Go to hittingthemarkpodcast.com, hit the support button. A very special thanks go to Roxie Valez from Berlin, Germany and Freddie Teague from Branson, Missouri, who just joined on the Brandster level, which means they will get to hang out with me on next month’s group call. Thank you both for being part of the tribe and for becoming sustaining members. The Hitting The Mark theme music was written and produced by Happiness Won, and if you’re intrigued to find out who is behind that moniker, head on over to the support side and you will be in for a little surprise. I will see you next time, when we once again will be Hitting The Mark.