Many home improvement companies want a winning culture. They want strong salespeople, career growth, big results, and teams that enjoy celebrating success together. But a strong culture cannot be created by a company party, a sales contest, or words placed on a wall. It has to be built through what people choose to do every day.
That lesson came into focus during the past Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch, when Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, spoke with Brendan Thomas, Sales Director at Home Genius Exteriors. The event gave employees a chance to celebrate what the company had achieved, but Thomas quickly pointed to the work that had happened long before the celebration began.
“The culture comes from people that want to win,” Thomas said.
For Thomas, wanting to win was not about chasing a single big sales day or a single company award. It was about showing up again and again, doing the work, and building progress through small daily actions.
“People that want to win, that come in every day, work hard to get those daily wins that turn out to be career long wins, year-long wins, and hopefully a five-year win,” Thomas said.
That view gives the past Q4 Launch a deeper meaning. The event showed what success looked like when people finally had a chance to celebrate together. But Thomas made it clear that the culture in the room had been built on the regular days when there was no party, no stage, and no applause.
Fun Moments at the HGE Q4 Launch
For people exploring careers at Home Genius Exteriors, his message also set a clear expectation. The company can give people training, coaching, and a path to improve. It can show someone how to become better at the job. But the person still has to put in the effort to make those tools useful.
When Cummings asked how someone could become part of the team and eventually contribute to the kind of success being celebrated at the Q4 Launch, Thomas answered with a focus on personal responsibility.
“The biggest thing is showing up and putting the work in,” Thomas said.
He then drew a clear line between what a company can teach and what each person must decide for themselves.
“We train people on how to be successful, we train them on how to do the right thing, but I can’t train somebody on how to work hard,” Thomas said.
That statement became the strongest lesson from the conversation.
Home Genius Exteriors can teach a process. It can provide training. It can help employees understand what good work looks like. It can create room for people to grow. But Thomas believes those opportunities only become meaningful when someone is willing to show up and use them.
That idea also matters beyond sales. Home Genius Exteriors serves homeowners through roofing, siding, windows, doors, gutters, insulation, and other exterior improvement services. The people representing an exterior home remodeling company have a responsibility to both homeowners and their own careers. Training can help employees understand the work and the standard expected of them, while personal effort helps ensure that standard is upheld each day.
Power100 attended the past Q4 Launch to look beyond the celebration and 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 rapid-fire conversation with Thomas, Greg Cummings found a simple lesson in the event’s energy. Companies can create training, opportunity, and support, but a lasting culture still depends on people who choose to bring effort into the room every day.
The celebration showed what the team had achieved. The daily work explained how they got there.
Brendan Thomas’ rapid-fire conversation with Greg Cummings shifted the focus away from the celebration around them and toward the habits that made it possible. The Q4 Launch gave the team a chance to celebrate what it had achieved, but Thomas made it clear that culture was not built in a single event. It was built during ordinary days when people had to decide whether to show up, learn, work hard, and keep going.
Home Genius Exteriors CEO Jeff Gunhus at the Q4 Launch
His message created a simple path through the conversation. People must want to win. They must turn that desire into a daily effort. Training can then sharpen their skills and teach the standard. Over time, those small choices can grow into stronger careers, stronger teams, and better service for homeowners.
Thomas did not credit the energy of the Q4 Launch to a company contest or a motivational speech. He went straight to the people.
“The culture comes from people that want to win,” Thomas said.
That idea places personal drive at the beginning of culture.
Leaders can create goals. Managers can coach. Companies can offer training and opportunities. But Thomas’ point was that those things become much more useful when a person already wants to improve.
That desire does not mean someone has to arrive as a finished salesperson. It means they need enough internal drive to keep learning when the job becomes difficult and enough ambition to keep moving after one good result.
When several people bring that attitude into the same room, it can also affect the team around them. Employees see others practicing, improving, competing, and earning results. The standard begins to rise as effort becomes the norm.
That helps explain the energy Cummings experienced at the past Q4 Launch. The celebration was filled with people who had spent months working toward their own goals while also watching teammates chase theirs.
For Home Genius, that culture matters because motivated employees are often the people who carry the company’s standards into conversations with homeowners.
Thomas then explained what winning looked like over time.
“People that want to win, that come in every day, work hard to get those daily wins that turn out to be career-long wins, year long wins, and hopefully a five-year win,” he said.
The important word was “daily.”
Thomas did not describe success as one huge moment. He described it as something built through repeated work.
A good day can become a good week.
A group of strong weeks can become a strong year.
Years of steady effort can become a career.
That view gives employees a more practical way to think about growth. A large goal may feel far away, but today’s work is close enough to control. A salesperson can make the next call. They can study the next lesson. They can prepare for the next appointment. They can improve one part of their process.
That is where consistency becomes more valuable than one great performance.
One strong month can create excitement. It cannot build a long career on its own.
Thomas’ message suggests that the people who last are the ones who keep working after the excitement of an award, a strong month, or a company event has passed.
That same mindset can matter for a roof replacement contractor because homeowners depend on teams that can deliver a steady standard from one project to the next, not only when conditions are easy.
Learn more about Home Genius Exteriors careers, training, and opportunities for long term growth.
When Cummings asked what someone needed to do to become part of the team, Thomas did not begin with sales experience.
Brendan Thomas, Sales Director at Home Genius Exteriors
“The biggest thing is showing up and putting the work in,” Thomas said.
That answer made personal responsibility the first step.
A company can offer a training session, but the employee has to attend.
A manager can give coaching, but the employee has to listen and practice.
A business can create an opportunity, but the person still has to act on it.
Showing up may sound simple, yet it becomes more important the more it is repeated over time. Consistent effort allows someone to gain experience. Experience gives coaching more meaning. Repeated practice gives new skills a chance to become habits.
Thomas’ message also places a limit on what leaders can do for another person.
A manager can guide someone who is struggling with technique. They can help correct a mistake. They can teach someone a better process.
But they cannot perform the employee’s effort for them.
That makes work ethic the base under the rest of the development process.
For leaders, the lesson is useful. Before asking whether a person has mastered the role, it may be worth asking whether they have shown a consistent willingness to do the work required to master it.
For homeowners looking for a siding replacement contractor, this matters because strong service depends on people being willing to prepare, learn, and follow through long after the sales conversation is over.
Thomas’ clearest leadership lesson came when he explained the line between what the company could provide and what the employee had to bring.
“We train people on how to be successful,” Thomas said.
That statement indicates that Home Genius Exteriors does not expect every new person to arrive with all skills already developed.
Skills can be taught.
People can learn how to communicate better.
They can learn a process.
They can learn how to prepare for customer conversations.
They can improve their product knowledge.
They can learn how stronger habits create better results.
Thomas then added another part of the company’s role.
“We train them on how to do the right thing,” he said.
That moves the conversation beyond performance.
Training should not only teach someone how to win. It should also teach them the standard expected while they are trying to win.
Then Thomas drew the line that leaders cannot cross for an employee.
“But I can’t train somebody on how to work hard,” he said.
That contrast carries the core message of the entire interview.
The company can provide the tools.
The coach can provide direction.
The team can provide support.
The opportunity can be real.
But the person still has to choose what they will do with all of it.
That balance matters inside an exterior home remodeling company because trained employees still need the personal effort required to carry those standards into real customer interactions.
One part of Thomas’ answer deserves special attention.
He did not only say the company trains people to be successful.
He said it trains people “how to do the right thing.”
That adds an important standard to the idea of winning.
High numbers can show performance, but numbers alone do not explain how those results were created. In home improvement, the way a salesperson communicates with a homeowner matters. The expectations they set matter. The promises they make matter.
A person can arrive with great energy and still need direction.
A work ethic without training can lead someone to repeat the same mistakes faster.
Training gives that effort a path.
It helps employees understand what the company expects, how they should represent the business, and how their own goals must still fit inside the larger responsibility to the customer.
This is where character and coaching work best together.
The employee brings effort.
The company brings structure.
The leader brings feedback.
The standard helps keep all three moving in the same direction.
For an efficient window replacement company, that balance can be important. Strong sales performance should never come at the cost of clear information, honest expectations, or responsible service.
The setting around Thomas and Cummings added one final layer of meaning to the conversation.
They were speaking during a celebration.
Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch
Employees had gathered. The energy was high. The team had reasons to enjoy what it had achieved.
Yet when Cummings asked where that culture came from, Thomas pointed back to the work.
That contrast matters.
A company event can bring people together and give them a chance to see what their effort has produced. It can recognize strong performance. It can create memories and give teams fresh energy for what comes next.
But it cannot do the daily work for them.
The real test begins after the celebration ends.
Thomas’ message suggests that this is where culture becomes real.
The party can show people what they built together. The next morning shows whether they are prepared to keep building.
That lesson reaches beyond sales. Whether someone works with customers, supports projects, manages teams, or helps deliver the finished job, long-term performance depends on habits that continue after the excitement fades.
For Home Genius Exteriors, the same idea matters as the company grows. A winning culture creates value in new markets only when local employees bring the work ethic, training, and standards into those communities every day.
Greg Cummings was standing inside a room filled with energy, pride, and people enjoying what they had achieved together. But when he asked Brendan Thomas where that winning culture came from, Thomas did not point to the party around them.
He pointed to the work that had been done before it.
The celebration resulted from people showing up long before the event began. They trained. They worked. They collected small wins. Some of those wins became strong months. Some became strong years. And for some people, those daily choices began to shape a long career.
That is what gave the Q4 Launch its deeper meaning.
The event was not the source of the culture. It was a chance to see what that culture had already produced.
Thomas also made it clear that success is not solely the employee’s job. A company still has to do its part. It has to create opportunity. It has to give people strong training. It has to show them what good work looks like. It has to help people learn how to succeed and how to do the right thing.
But once those tools are provided, the person has to decide how to use them.
That balance sits at the center of Thomas’ message.
A leader cannot work hard for someone else. A coach cannot create effort for someone who refuses to bring it. A training program cannot replace the choice to keep showing up when the work becomes difficult.
Companies can build better systems, better training, and better opportunities, but lasting performance still depends on people choosing to show up and use them.
That lesson extends beyond a single sales team or a single Q4 Launch. For home improvement leaders, culture cannot simply be announced. It has to appear in the daily choices people make when there is no stage, no award, and no celebration waiting for them.
For Brendan Thomas, the winning culture on display at the Home Genius Exteriors Q4 Launch was not created at the party. It was built one day, one effort, and one win at a time by people willing to show up and do the work.
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Not every opportunity requires a finished sales professional. Home Genius Exteriors currently advertises roles in field marketing, home remodeling sales, inside sales, and other areas while also promoting ongoing paid training and first-year growth opportunities. Its careers page says the company looks for people who are customer-focused, ambitious, and willing to learn.
That fits Brendan Thomas’ message from the Q4 Launch. He did not say every person must arrive with every skill. His point was that the company can teach skills, but the individual still has to put in the effort to learn them.
No. Thomas made a clear difference between effort and training. He said, “We train people on how to be successful, we train them on how to do the right thing, but I can’t train somebody on how to work hard.”
The company’s current careers information supports the training side of that message. Home Genius Exteriors promotes ongoing paid training, career growth opportunities, and employee support. Its website also says its home remodeling experts undergo detailed training in labor, materials, product knowledge, and industry certifications.
The employee brings the willingness to work. The company is responsible for giving that effort direction.
That is not how Brendan Thomas described it. He specifically said the company trains employees both “how to be successful” and “how to do the right thing.”
Home Genius Exteriors also states on its careers page that its values are customer-first and customer-focused. The company says customer satisfaction is central because homeowners judge both the finished work and how simple the company makes the process.
A strong sales result may be a win, but Thomas’ comments suggest that the way the result is achieved still matters.
Competition by itself does not guarantee good or bad customer treatment. The more important question is what standards surround that competition.
Thomas said employees are trained to “do the right thing,” while Home Genius Exteriors publicly describes its culture as customer-focused. For roofing projects, the company says it begins with a free expert roof and attic inspection and then builds a project design around the concerns found and the homeowner’s budget.
That makes the intended standard clear: ambition and sales performance still have to operate inside a process that starts with understanding the home and the customer’s needs.
Home Genius Exteriors says the training tied to its manufacturer certifications builds both product knowledge and craftsmanship standards. The company currently lists credentials including Owens Corning Platinum Preferred Contractor, James Hardie Elite Preferred Contractor, CertainTeed 5 Star Contractor, and other industry certifications.
This matters because a salesperson working for a roof replacement contractor or exterior home remodeling company needs more than confidence. Customers need clear information about products, project needs, warranties, and the work that will happen after the sale.
One celebration by itself cannot prove that someone will build a long career. Brendan Thomas’ own message actually points away from that idea. He said career-long wins come from daily wins repeated over time.
What can be verified today is that Home Genius Exteriors promotes ongoing paid training, bonus opportunities, employee benefits, career growth, and several current roles across field marketing, remodeling sales, and inside sales. Its careers page also describes the workplace as one where employees are expected to grow while helping the company serve homeowners.
The Q4 Launch showed the celebration. Thomas’ message was that the real test begins when employees return to work and keep building the habits that may turn opportunity into a career.
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 a trusted platform for strong CEOs, founders, executives, and companies to share the leadership lessons, culture, customer impact, and business practices behind their growth. Through national rankings, interviews, event coverage, and industry stories, Power100 helps homeowners, contractors, partners, and industry professionals better understand the people and companies working to raise 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.
