Growing a home improvement company takes more than filling open jobs. The harder challenge is finding people who can grow with the business. A company may need someone to perform one role today, but years later that same person may be ready to lead a team, run an office, or guide an entire region.
That kind of growth does not happen through ambition alone.
It also does not happen through leadership alone.
During the past Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch, Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, spoke with Max Alesi, Vice President and Co-Founder of Home Genius Exteriors, about the culture he observed throughout the event. Employees were cheering for one another, supporting one another, and sharing the energy of a company that had grown far beyond its early days.
When Cummings asked Alesi what he credited that culture to, Alesi pointed to two things.
The first was choosing people whose values already aligned with the company’s direction.
“We bring in people that value what we value,” Alesi said.
He explained that those values include taking care of customers, growth and expansion, discipline, and work ethic.
That answer gives hiring a deeper meaning. Finding the right employee is not only about whether someone can complete a task. It is also about whether that person cares about the same things the company expects its teams to protect.
Max Alesi, Vice President and Co-Founder of Home Genius Exteriors
For homeowners who value match, it can matter because the people inside the company eventually become the people speaking with customers, planning projects, managing teams, and carrying the company standards into local communities.
But Alesi made clear that hiring the right person was only the first step.
The second part was leadership.
“We train leadership,” Alesi said.
He pointed to senior leaders and managers who help guide people. His view was that good employees still need resources, teaching, guidance, and leaders willing to help turn potential into progress.
“When you put the right people in place, you give them a little bit of resources, teaching and guidance, the score tends to take care of itself,” Alesi said.
That idea shaped the strongest message from his rapid-fire conversation.
A company can find someone with ambition, energy, discipline, and a work ethic. But those qualities still need somewhere to go. Someone has to teach the next skill. Someone has to offer guidance. Someone has to help that person see a larger future than the job they hold today.
Alesi described that future in clear terms. He spoke about people who may want to run an office in three years, lead a region in four years, or take charge of a team in five years.
That long view makes career development part of company growth.
New markets need new leaders. Growing offices need managers. Larger teams need people who know how to guide others. If Home Genius Exteriors wants to keep expanding, it cannot rely solely on its existing leaders. It also has to help develop the people who may lead the next phase.
Alesi’s strongest promise captured that partnership.
“It’s not easy, but we’re the type of company that if you take two steps, we’re going to take three steps,” he said.
His message placed responsibility on both sides.
The employee has to bring ambition.
They have to bring energy.
They have to stay coachable.
They have to be willing to work.
Then the company has to respond with support.
“If you can bring the ambition, the energy, the coachability, we’re going to bring the resources and the support to try and get you to the finish line,” Alesi said.
That balance gives the current value of the past Q4 Launch. The event showed the energy of a growing company, but Alesi’s conversation explained one way that growth can continue after the celebration ends. Find people whose values align with the mission, then give them enough support to become more than the role they were initially hired to fill.
Power100 attended the past Q4 Launch to better understand the leadership, culture, and people behind the company’s growth. Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry.
Through his conversation with Alesi, Greg Cummings uncovered a wider leadership lesson for the home improvement industry. Hiring ambitious people is only half the work. Strong companies also have to build the path, training, and support that give that ambition somewhere meaningful to go.
Max Alesi’s rapid-fire conversation with Greg Cummings at the past Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch revealed a simple idea behind the energy in the room. Culture was not being built by asking everyone to become the same person. It was being strengthened by bringing in people whose values already aligned with the company’s direction, then giving them the leadership and support they needed to grow.
Home Genius Exteriors team at the Q4 Launch
Alesi described that process as a partnership between the person and the company. Employees bring ambition, discipline, work ethic, energy, and a willingness to learn. Leaders bring teaching, guidance, resources, and a path toward greater responsibility.
That balance became the heart of the conversation.
When Cummings asked what created the culture, he saw at the Q4 Launch, Alesi began with hiring.
“We bring in people that value what we value,” Alesi said.
His point was that culture begins before someone settles into a role. A company can teach skills and explain systems, but it becomes much harder to build a strong team when the people within it do not share the same basic standards.
For Alesi, one of those standards was customer care.
“They value taking care of the customers,” he said.
That detail matters because he did not describe the right employee only as someone who wants to earn more, gain a title, or move up quickly. Ambition still has to connect to the homeowner.
People joining the company are expected to care about the customers whose projects create opportunities for everyone else to grow.
Alesi also named growth, expansion, discipline, and work ethic.
Those ideas work together.
Ambition can help someone imagine a better future, but discipline helps them keep moving when progress feels slow. Work ethic turns goals into action. Growth gives that effort a direction.
That is what makes value alignment useful for leadership. It reduces the distance between what the company says matters and what employees already believe matters.
For someone exploring careers at Home Genius Exteriors, that raises a clearer question than simply asking whether a job is available. The better question is whether the person sees themselves inside the values and expectations that come with the opportunity.
Alesi’s second point placed responsibility back on leadership.
Finding ambitious people was not enough.
“We train leadership,” Alesi said.
Home Genius Exteriors Top Leadership led by CEO Jeff Gunhus (Left) alongside Max Alesi (far right)
He pointed to senior executives and upper managers who help show others what strong leadership looks like.
“Our leadership team from Jeff, Austin, Brent, Spencer, the C suite, all of the upper managers, they show the way,” Alesi said.
That phrase gives the leadership model more meaning.
Showing the way is different from simply setting a target.
A person may join the company with strong ambition but still have no experience leading a team. They may have great energy but need help learning how to manage people. They may work hard, but still need someone to show them how to turn that effort into better decisions.
That is where resources, teaching, and guidance become useful.
“When you put the right people in place, you give them a little bit of resources, teaching and guidance, the score tends to take care of itself,” Alesi said.
His message was not that results happen without work. It was that the right person becomes much more valuable when leadership gives their effort direction.
That also matters as a company grows.
New locations need managers.
Larger teams need people who can guide others.
Groups of offices need leaders who can think beyond a single job or customer.
If a growing home improvement contractor only hires for the role that exists today, leadership gaps may appear tomorrow.
Alesi’s view looks further ahead.
The person hired now may become the person trusted with a team later.
That makes leadership development part of growth itself.
Learn how Home Genius Exteriors approaches training, leadership growth, and career development.
When Cummings asked who the right person was to join the company, Alesi described someone willing to work hard because they could see a larger future for themselves.
“Someone that’s willing to grind, but someone that’s willing to grind because they want more in their life,” Alesi said.
The reason behind the effort matters.
Someone may want more responsibility.
They may want greater income.
They may want to lead.
They may want to build a career that looks very different three or five years from now.
That future gives the daily work somewhere to go.
Alesi then made clear that he was not only looking for people who could succeed in their current role.
He wanted people who could imagine themselves becoming leaders.
“We’re looking for someone that three years from now, four years from now, five years from now wants to be running an office, wants to be running a region, wants to be in charge of a team,” Alesi said.
That changes the hiring question.
The company is not only asking whether someone can perform today.
It is also asking what that person could become with time, effort, coaching, and support.
Then Alesi made the promise that best captured his view of leadership.
“It’s not easy, but we’re the type of company that if you take two steps, we’re going to take three steps,” he said.
That promise works because it asks something from both sides.
The employee still has to move first.
They have to bring ambition.
They have to bring energy.
They have to stay coachable.
They have to do the work.
But leadership cannot simply watch that effort and expect the person to find the path alone.
“If you can bring the ambition, the energy, the coachability, we’re going to bring the resources and the support to try and get you to the finish line,” Alesi said.
That may be the strongest lesson from the entire conversation.
People are more likely to believe in career growth when extra effort is met with extra investment.
For a growing company, that kind of leadership pipeline can also help new markets develop people who understand the culture before they are asked to carry it.
The employee takes responsibility for moving toward the future they want.
Leadership takes responsibility for ensuring there is a clear path in front of them.
When Greg Cummings looked around the Q4 Launch, he saw people cheering for one another, supporting the team, and sharing the kind of energy that is hard to fake.
Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch
When he asked Max Alesi where that culture came from, Alesi did not point to a single speech, a single leader, or a single company rule.
He pointed to the right people and the right leadership working together.
That difference matters.
A company can hire someone with ambition, discipline, work ethic, and energy. But those qualities still need direction to become something larger.
Someone has to teach.
Someone has to coach.
Someone has to open the next door.
Someone has to help that person see what they could become in a few years.
That is where leadership enters the story.
Alesi’s “two steps and three steps” idea places the responsibility for career growth on both parties.
The employee still has to move first. They have to bring ambition. They have to stay coachable. They have to put in the work.
But Alesi’s message was that leadership should not stand back and simply admire that effort.
“It’s not easy, but we’re the type of company that if you take two steps, we’re going to take three steps,” Alesi said.
That promise turns growth into a partnership.
The person brings the desire to move forward.
The company brings support to help make that progress possible.
“If you can bring the ambition, the energy, the coachability, we’re going to bring the resources and the support to try and get you to the finish line,” Alesi said.
That is the wider lesson from the conversation.
Finding ambitious people is only half the work. Great companies also have to build a path that gives those people somewhere meaningful to go.
That is how future managers can become office leaders.
That is how office leaders can grow into regional leaders.
And that is how a job can begin to feel like a real career.
For Max Alesi, the strongest culture was not built by asking people to chase the company’s future. It was built by finding people with a future of their own and giving them the leadership, resources, and support to reach it.
Power100 does not let an algorithm make the final decision on its own. Its five-layer ranking system starts with public signals, revenue indicators, and verified business data. Its technology then scores leaders across its main pillars. After that, industry veterans review the results, and Power100 cross-checks the feedback before publishing the final ranking. This gives the process both data and human judgment.
Power100 cross-checks customer, employee, and partner feedback against the scores produced by its ranking system. The platform also studies areas such as customer experience, company culture, growth, community impact, and business performance. That helps Power100 look beyond what a CEO says about the company and compare leadership claims with signals from the people around the business.
Home Genius Exteriors says it looks for people who are customer-focused, ambitious, willing to take ownership, open to learning, and proud of the quality of their work. Its careers page says the company wants to create future business leaders, not simply fill open jobs. That aligns with Max Alesi’s Q4 Launch message: the right person brings ambition, energy, discipline, work ethic, and coachability.
For anyone searching for careers at Home Genius Exteriors, the message is clear. The company is looking for people who want more responsibility over time and are willing to grow into it.
Home Genius Exteriors currently describes promotion and leadership growth as part of its career model. One field marketing job posting says top performers can have a chance to move into a Team Lead role within one to three months and Management within six to twelve months. Its careers page also includes employee comments about leadership training, promotions, professional development, and moving into management. These are opportunities rather than guaranteed timelines, but they support Max Alesi’s message that the company wants people who can grow beyond the role they first enter.
That makes the company relevant to people searching for home improvement sales careers with leadership growth rather than only short-term sales work.
Current company recruiting language says values matter even when someone has a strong ability. One Home Genius Exteriors recruiting page states that if a person cannot support the company’s values, their skills alone are not enough to make them a fit. The main careers page also places customer focus, ambition, ownership, and doing the work correctly at the center of what the company wants from employees.
That supports Alesi’s statement in the interview: “We bring in people that value what we value.” In his view, performance and values are meant to work together.
Home Genius Exteriors has published recruiting language saying it values accomplishment over seniority. Its current field marketing postings also describe possible advancement for top performers into team leadership and management roles. The company still expects employees to prove themselves through performance, learning, and responsibility, so advancement should not be read as automatic.
This connects directly to Alesi’s idea of looking for people who can imagine themselves running a team, office, or region years into the future.
Home Genius Exteriors currently promotes paid training, professional development, career growth, and leadership opportunities. Its careers page says the company is working to develop tomorrow’s business leaders, while current job listings include ongoing training and opportunities for strong performers to advance toward management.
This gives more context to Alesi’s statement that leadership must provide “resources, teaching and guidance.” His message was not that ambition should succeed on its own. The employee brings the drive, while the company is expected to give that drive useful support.
No. Alesi did not promise that every employee would become a manager, office leader, or regional leader. He described a leadership philosophy. Employees must bring ambition, energy, coachability, and effort, while the company should respond with resources and support.
Current Home Genius Exteriors job pages use similar language by describing career growth, training, and advancement opportunities for strong performers rather than guaranteed promotions.
For people comparing Home Genius Exteriors jobs, the key point is that opportunities are available, but employees still have to earn progress through performance, learning, and consistent effort.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform that recognizes and elevates the top leaders and most impactful companies in the home improvement industry. Led by Greg Cummings, Power100 provides CEOs, founders, executives, and companies with a trusted platform to share the leadership ideas, culture, customer impact, and growth lessons that shape their businesses. Through national rankings, interviews, event coverage, and industry stories, Power100 helps homeowners, contractors, partners, and industry professionals better understand the people and companies raising the standard across home improvement.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
