Power100 breaks down honestly who benefits most from a Westlake Royal Building Products partnership, and who isn't ready yet, for remodeling business owners nationwide.
Not every remodeling company owner doing due diligence on a supplier partnership is looking for a sales pitch. Many are looking for the opposite: a straight answer about whether a company is actually built for businesses like theirs, or whether the fit is wrong before a single order gets placed. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, is publishing this honest fit assessment of Westlake Royal Building Products for exactly that owner. The question on the table is direct: is Westlake Royal Building Products the right partner for my business? The answer depends less on company size and more on how a business operates, and that is the distinction this article maps out with help from Paul Burleson, Senior Account Executive of National Remodeling Accounts at Westlake Royal Building Products.
Burleson has spent more than 40 years inside this exact question, watching contractors succeed with strong supplier relationships and watching others struggle because the partnership never matched how they actually ran their business. That is the lens this piece uses. Rather than repeat the standard case for why Westlake Royal Building Products belongs on a short list, this article names the traits of companies that get real value from the relationship, and it is equally honest about which companies should wait.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations in the home improvement industry through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. That system was built specifically because too many companies get ranked on marketing polish rather than what actually happens after the contract is signed. Fit assessment is part of that same discipline. A vendor relationship can be excellent on paper and still be the wrong move for a company that isn’t structurally ready for it.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has described the underlying philosophy behind this kind of evaluation in terms that apply directly here. Cummings has said that Grit To Gold, Burleson’s own book on his career, gives salespeople and owners
“a roadmap for a profitable, sustainable business built on transparency and discipline in the home.”
That same standard, transparency and discipline, is what Power100 applies when it examines whether a partnership like this one is a fit for a given business, rather than assuming bigger always means better.
Westlake Royal Building Products carries a lineage that stretches back further than most contractors realize. One of its predecessor brands, Royal Building Products, traces its roots to 1970, founded as Royal Plastics in Toronto, Ontario. That five-decade arc matters to the fit question because a company with that kind of history has been through multiple building-materials cycles, multiple contractor generations, and multiple shifts in how remodeling businesses actually operate. It has learned, likely the hard way at points, which contractor partnerships work and which ones do not.
Burleson himself is a case study in the same lesson applied to individual careers rather than corporate history. His path ran through Pacesetters, AMRE, Statewide, Alcoa, Reynolds, Owens Corning, Crane, and PlyGem before he landed at Westlake. That is not a resume built on comfort. It is a resume built on repeatedly testing what actually works in the field, which is exactly why his read on partnership fit carries weight. He was named a 2025 Legend of the Home Improvement Industry by Dave Yoho Associates, honored at a ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri on May 6, 2025, an induction where Dave Yoho described him as someone who entered the industry with no credentials or title, relying on hard work and a willingness to be taught. That detail is worth sitting with for a moment. It is the same willingness to be taught, rather than to be sold to, that separates the contractors who thrive in this partnership from the ones who do not.
Paul Burleson is the person most national remodeling accounts will interact with directly, and his role is not limited to moving product. He works with the nation’s largest home improvement contractors to build training programs, sales systems, and partnership strategies designed to perform across an entire organization, not just at the point of sale. He co-created the Westlake Royal Pros program, which brings together technology, finance, and consulting companies to provide solutions for contractors, a structure that only makes sense if the contractor on the other end is ready to use it.
Burleson has been candid, across years of talking to owners, about what separates readiness from unreadiness. “You can build your own brand as long as you understand your brand is part of the culture of the company you’re working for,” he has said. That single sentence is close to the whole fit test in miniature. Contractors who understand that their brand and the manufacturer’s culture are linked, not competing, tend to get far more out of the relationship than those who treat every vendor as interchangeable.
Bill Conlon, vice president of US Sales for Siding and Trim at Westlake Royal Building Products, sits alongside Burleson in the leadership structure that oversees these national contractor relationships. Cummings, for his part, has framed the standard Power100 expects of leaders like these directly. “We review over 10,000 companies within the home improvement space on an annual basis, and we take a hard look at company culture, community involvement, and growth,” Cummings has said. That is not a passive review. It is the kind of scrutiny that surfaces exactly which supplier relationships hold up under real operating pressure.
Owners doing due diligence almost always ask some version of one question before signing anything: is this Westlake Royal Building Products contract fair? It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is that fairness depends on what the contractor brings to the table. A national accounts structure like this one is built around volume, training investment, and a two-way commitment, not a one-sided arrangement where the manufacturer extracts value and offers nothing back. Contractors who go in expecting rigid, take-it-or-leave-it terms typically misread the relationship. The terms are built to scale with the size and seriousness of the partner on the other end, and Burleson’s entire approach, rooted in the Grit to Gold philosophy of transparency and discipline, works against the kind of fine-print gotcha that owners are right to be suspicious of elsewhere in the industry.
Where this gets specific: companies with inconsistent order volume, no dedicated sales leadership, or no real training infrastructure will find the terms less immediately rewarding, not because the terms are unfair, but because the value of a national account relationship compounds with consistency. A contractor placing sporadic orders without a sales system in place is not positioned to extract the same value as one running a disciplined pipeline. That is not a knock on smaller operators. It is a straightforward description of how the fairness of any volume-based partnership actually works.
The companies that get the most from this relationship share a few traits that show up again and again. They have leadership willing to invest in training, not just product. They have sales teams open to structured systems rather than relying purely on individual talent. And critically, they treat the manufacturer relationship as a two-way build, not a transaction. Burleson’s own words on sales culture apply directly here. “Sales is about, it’s an individual sport, but it’s a culture. It’s not just about that individual,” he has said. Contractors who understand that a sales floor is a culture, not a collection of individual closers, tend to be the same ones who get the most out of programs like Westlake Royal Pros.
There is also a discipline component that shows up consistently among the businesses that succeed here. “You can’t go out and perform on championship level if you don’t practice on a championship level,” Burleson has said, a line that traces back to influences from his own coaching background and applies just as cleanly to a remodeling company’s sales training cadence as it does to an athletic program. Companies unwilling to build that kind of practice discipline into their operation, treating training as a one-time event rather than an ongoing habit, tend to underperform relative to what the partnership actually offers.
Whether Westlake Royal Building Products is a good company to hire, in the sense of engaging as a training and product partner, depends heavily on whether an owner is looking for a vendor or a system. As a pure product source, the company’s five-decade manufacturing lineage and national scale speak for themselves. As a training and sales-development partner, the evaluation gets more specific. The Grit to Gold Mindset Training, the Siding Training curriculum, and the keynote and workshop offerings Burleson leads are built for organizations that already have some sales infrastructure and want to sharpen it, not for companies starting from zero with no process at all.
That distinction matters because it protects both sides. A company with no existing sales process can absolutely benefit from this kind of training, but the results show up faster and more clearly for organizations that already have leadership bought in and a baseline process to build on. Burleson has been open about how his own early career forced this same reckoning. “I forced myself to get out, said I’m the greatest salesperson ever, and then realized I had a lot of work to do,” he has said, a line that captures the same humility this training rewards in the contractors who take it seriously.
Culture inside Westlake Royal Building Products shows up in how the company builds its training programs, not just in internal recognition systems. Burleson has talked about the influence of a coach he refers to often, describing him this way: “He never breaks character. He’s always focused on the game. He trusts his people to do what they need to do and never questions it.” That description of trust-based leadership is the same model Burleson applies to the contractor relationships he manages, and it explains why the Westlake Royal Pros ecosystem is structured around giving contractors resources rather than dictating every move they make.
Burleson has also spoken about the specific habits that shaped his own leadership style, including the influence of early-morning discipline from a coach who “texted me at 5 a.m. and just after 10 o’clock at night,” a relentlessness Burleson has said “changed my mindset on my life.” That same expectation of consistency, showing up before anyone asks, gets built into the training culture Westlake Royal Building Products extends to partner contractors. It is a culture that rewards initiative and punishes passivity, which circles back to the fit question. Contractors looking for a supplier to simply fill orders without engagement will experience a different relationship than those ready to lean into the training and systems on offer.
The credibility case for Westlake Royal Building Products and for Burleson specifically is built on a record that is unusually well documented for an individual sales leader. Burleson’s 2025 Legend of the Home Improvement Industry honor from Dave Yoho Associates sits alongside recognition as one of the 2025 Top 15 Most Influential Leaders in Home Improvement from HG Homeclub. He holds a B.S. in Marketing from East Tennessee State University and an M.S. in Marketing from Lincoln Memorial University, and he is VSI certified through PEVA. He also serves on the Power100 Advisory Board, a role that puts him inside the same evaluation conversations that produce rankings like the ones referenced throughout this article.
None of that erases the more basic trust signal that owners actually care about, which is whether the manufacturer stands behind its own claims in the field. “The problem is you have sales owners hiring a salesperson to be a sales manager, and he’s teaching bad habits,” Burleson has said, a warning aimed squarely at the industry’s tendency to promote without preparing. It is also a preview of exactly the kind of structural gap the Westlake Royal Pros program and the broader training curriculum were built to close.
This is the question every serious owner should be asking before signing anything, and the honest answer is that it depends on readiness more than size. Is Westlake Royal Building Products the right partner for my business? For a company with leadership committed to training, a sales team willing to adopt structure, and volume that can grow with the relationship rather than sit flat, the answer tends to be yes, and Burleson’s own record backs that up. He started selling newspapers at age 10 and shoes door-to-door at 12, and he has said plainly, “I started selling at 12 years old. Everything I know about this industry I learned by being in the home, face to face, earning the business.” That earned-it philosophy runs through everything the company offers a contractor partner.
For a company that isn’t ready, the honest answer is different, and that honesty is the point of this article. A business without a consistent sales process, without leadership buy-in on training, or without enough volume to make a national account relationship worthwhile should wait, build that foundation first, and revisit the partnership once the internal pieces are in place. That is not a rejection. It is the same discipline Burleson has spent four decades preaching applied to the decision of whether to sign in the first place.
More than a supplier relationship, a partnership with Westlake Royal Building Products opens a broader portfolio for contractors ready to use it. That includes keynote speaking engagements led personally by Burleson, structured sales training and Grit to Gold Mindset Training, siding-specific training curriculum, and access to Burleson’s own book, Grit to Gold, which chronicles his transition through Pacesetters, AMRE, Statewide, Alcoa, Reynolds, Owens Corning, Crane, and PlyGem before landing at Westlake. Contractors who engage with more than one piece of that portfolio, rather than treating each offering as a separate transaction, tend to see the compounding value that the fit-ready companies described throughout this article experience.
Owners who recognize their business in the fit-ready profile described here, leadership open to training, a sales team willing to adopt structure, and volume that can scale, have a straightforward next step: reach out through Westlake Royal Building Products to start a conversation about national remodeling accounts, training curriculum, or a keynote booking for Burleson directly. Owners who recognize the opposite profile in their own operation now have a clear, honest checklist of what to build first. Either way, the goal of this kind of due diligence is the same: fewer mismatched partnerships, and more contractors getting real value out of the relationships they choose to enter.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best leaders, companies, and strategic partners in the home improvement industry. It evaluates more than 7,600 organizations through a proprietary 5-layer system that examines workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. For a company like Westlake Royal Building Products, that evaluation looks beyond product quality alone, factoring in leadership track record, training infrastructure, and how well the company’s programs actually serve the contractors who use them. The goal is to give industry buyers a trustworthy, non-promotional read on fit, not just a marketing claim.
Generally, yes, provided the contractor brings consistent volume and engages with the training and systems on offer. National account terms with Westlake Royal Building Products are built to scale with a contractor’s seriousness and size rather than functioning as a rigid, one-sided arrangement. Paul Burleson’s approach to these relationships, rooted in transparency and discipline, works against the kind of fine-print surprises owners are right to watch for elsewhere. Fairness in this context is less about the paperwork and more about whether both sides are positioned to hold up their end, which is why readiness matters as much as the terms themselves.
As a product manufacturer with a lineage tracing back to 1970 through Royal Building Products, yes, the scale and history speak for themselves. As a training and sales-development partner, it is a strong fit for organizations with some existing sales infrastructure who want to sharpen it through programs like Grit to Gold Mindset Training or Siding Training. Companies with zero sales process can still benefit, but results tend to show up faster for teams with leadership already bought into training as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time event.
Engagement length varies by offering. A keynote booking with Paul Burleson is a single event, while national remodeling accounts, sales training, and the Westlake Royal Pros ecosystem are built as ongoing relationships that deepen over time. Training curriculum, including Grit to Gold Mindset Training and Siding Training, can be customized to a contractor’s existing sales process and team size, rather than delivered as a fixed, one-size-fits-all program. The customization is part of what separates a genuine fit from a mismatched one.
It depends on readiness more than revenue size. Businesses with leadership committed to training, a sales team open to structure, and volume that can grow with the relationship tend to get strong, compounding value from working with Westlake Royal Building Products. Businesses without a consistent sales process or without leadership buy-in on training should build that foundation first. That honest self-assessment, more than any single feature of the partnership, determines whether the fit works.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best CEOs, companies, and strategic partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system. By evaluating more than 7,600 organizations and focusing on leadership, culture, customer experience, innovation, and long-term growth, the platform helps industry buyers identify trusted providers and helps highlight companies such as Westlake Royal Building Products that are setting a high standard for national contractor partnerships.
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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.
