Unforeseen Success Through Cause Marketing! Antis Roofing & Waterproofing is an industry leader in cause marketing. Hear from Charles Antis himself on the importance of corporate social responsibility and the impact that his company is making on their community. Find out how you can leverage your company’s support to help drive your brand and business, all while cutting the costs of your marketing spend!

Antis Roofing has been Servicing Southern California’s communities since 1989. Antis Roofing is Southern California’s best choice for comprehensive roofing & waterproofing in the HOA Space. Please visit www.antisroofing.com for more roofing information!

About Leap: Leap is transforming the home services industry as the first complete point-of-sale application, digitizing every stage of the in-home sales process including estimating, financing, contracting, and real-time communication. Created by veteran home services professionals, Leap’s application helps businesses eliminate errors and increase efficiency by simplifying and automating the day-to-day sales process.

Full transcript: 

Kelly:
For today, I’m really excited to welcome Charles Antis. He’s a widely known grouping expert, entrepreneur, and humanitarian, as well as an inspirational business leader who is a real champion of the corporate social responsibility movement. I’m going to try and give an adequate introduction. Charles has a long list of accomplishments. He’s served for over 10 years on many national and local boards, notably the National Roofing Contractors Association and Roofing Alliance For Progress. Locally, Charles has served for the Orange County Habitat for Humanity, as well as the Ronald McDonald House Orange County Board of Directors, the Orange County United Way Board of Directors, and the United to End Homelessness Executive Council among several others.
Kelly:
Charles has actually been the recipient of several national awards as well. Most recently including the American Red Cross Corporate Hero Award and a Civic 50 honoree of the most community-minded companies in Orange County in 2019. Charles and his team have actually also sponsored the Community Corner of the Anaheim Ducks Arenas of 2017, which has donated over 50,000 seats each year to various non-profit organizations. Today, Charles has a number of new initiatives, as well as including setting up blood drives in their office using their vans to help deliver food to the elderly and essential workers.
Kelly:
We’ll hear a lot more about those stories coming up. We’re really excited to have Charles here today and looking forward to hearing more about his ideas on using social giving as a way to really like elevate your business. With that, I’ll welcome Charles. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Charles Antis:
Thank you Kelly. I’m so excited to be here. This has been so much fun because I feel like we have so much in common to lead in Antis Roofing. We’re going to have fun today.
Kelly:
Excellent. Before we jump in, I wonder if you could give just a quick overview of the background on Antis Roofing and Waterproofing, just a quick overview of the business, and then we’ll jump into your first story.
Charles Antis:
Okay. Well, a quick story, I grew up in Oregon really quick. I was a want to be lager, worked in the mills and all men worked with their hands. I ended up in California 21 years old without a job, and I looked for a job with my hands and I happened to be in roofing. That’s how I got into roofing. I started my own company because the company I worked for didn’t have quite enough work, and that’s how I got in here. Now here I am 31 years later with this original skill that was I could go solve a leak that no one else could. That was the one thing I came up with that allowed me to put my brand out there before we had cause in our brand.
Charles Antis:
The cause was give me the leak that no one else can solve, and I’ll fix it for free, then you’re going to look great at leak repair, and that’s what we built it on originally, but that’s how I ended up in roofing and that’s what we do today. In Southern California, Antis Roofing keeps homeowners association families, HOA families dry. We’ve been keeping them dry for 31 years, and we like to say this thing that every nail matters. I’ll prove that today and the things that we talk about.
Kelly:
Fantastic. With that, let’s jump in. I know this is a cause that’s near and dear to your heart. If you like to tell us maybe a little bit of the background story here on this, we’d love to hear more about it.
Charles Antis:
Well, thank you for asking. This is a really personal story. To me, Ronald McDonald House seven years ago was just like this nice charity that I thought of when I went to McDonald’s, I didn’t know what it did. It involved kids, I didn’t know until my wife… I got married at 50 and my wife was pregnant. We had twins coming and she was so healthy, but she was really big and right after the baby moon, she got sick. The doctor said, “The baby’s gotta come out, you have preeclampsia.” I’m googling preeclampsia and it was like, “Oh no, we go to the hospital,” and the next thing you know, there’s four doctors in a room and there’s a doctor with each baby. Charlie and Gracie my twins come out six, seven weeks early and they don’t look like my older kids looked.
Charles Antis:
I was in that panic moment and then the doctor said something that the children’s hospital nurses, and this is my real story. I’ll tell you why this is important later, but my real story is these children’s hospital nurses and one of the panic moments my life came in and said. He grabbed me by the shoulder and said, “Charles, there’s this one thing that we’ve discovered. If you can come in and spend time with your premature twin, and that means this take your shirt off, lay them skin on skin in your naked chest. If you can do that twice a day for two hours, our statistics show that they have a like three times greater chance of completely healing.”
Charles Antis:
My wife and I were in there every day and on the way in I passed, that’s where I learned Ronald McDonald House right next to the chalk which was the Children’s Hospital Orange County station, where we were going in where the nurses were helping us and our children’s live and survive and thrive. These Ronald McDonald House people said, “Hey Charles, if you need to come in late, you want to spend the night here, you can. There’s coffee, there’s snacks, there’s computers. We’re going to help you stay close to your sick kids so that they can heal.” I got to be honest, I couldn’t hear it Kelly because I didn’t want to associate with the families that had sick kids. I was in denial, I was in pain.
Charles Antis:
I just wanted to go in every day, and I just wanted to hold my kids, but something happened one day, and this is the real story and you’ll know why I told it in a minute. One day I’m running in late. I had to go to work that morning and I had taken the month off, but I had to go to work. I was going in late, and this is like three weeks in, so I’m going to have Charlie on my chest. I wanted to get out of the hospital. I didn’t know when they were going to get out and I’m going in there, but I had acid reflux, like acid indigestion really bad, like that chronic heartburn where you’re not going to be able to do anything. I’m running in with chronic heartburn and I go, “Oh no, I’m not going to be able to do it.”
Charles Antis:
I went by the Ronald McDonald House station where that nurse had always offered me food and snacks and nobody was there. I looked down and I saw a little green nature valley granola bar, and I took it. I actually thought I stole it because I didn’t want to owe them anything, but nobody was looking. I probably wouldn’t have grabbed if she was there. I don’t remember what happened next, but I have a memory, about an hour later when I’m in that chair in that NICU and there’s Charlie on my chest. I just remember he was sleeping and I was comfortable, and I didn’t have that heartburn anymore. Eventually, that metaphor of that granola bar caught up with me, and that’s how I got involved in Ronald McDonald House.
Charles Antis:
When they came by and they said, “Hey, how are you?” I said, “You guys helped my twins couple years ago. Can I keep you guys dry because I know you keep us close? Can I go up and keep your roof dry?” They said, “Sure,” and then I got on the board, and that’s about the same time I was involved with an NRCA when Bill Good who was the NRCA CEO at that time. He said, “Charles, you have a brand that exceeds other roofers in this area. How do you do that?” I go, “I don’t know, I try to do real things in the community.” He goes, “What can we do to lift the brand of roofing?” I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what we can do. We can dissolve the habitat roofs. We’ve donated all the habitat,” but he’s, “No, that won’t work.”
Charles Antis:
I know I’m telling a story that we probably would have told later, but this is what it’s such a big story to me, is I finally said, “Bill, you know about Charlie and Gracie, because he knows Charlie and Gracie. Do you know how they started? It was Ronald McDonald House.” Right now, I’m on the board and I’m keeping these families safe, dry, and close to their kids so that the kids can heal just like mine. He said, “What do you say?” He said, “I think we could sell that,” and Bill Good went and called over 200 roofing companies. Today in the NRCA and the Roofing Alliance, over 200 of us are donating all of the roofing service.
Charles Antis:
We’ve adopted the roofs of all the Ronald McDonald Houses and across the country, we hold ourselves high because we know we are the ones that are going up there and keeping families safe, dry, and close right now when we’ve never needed it more, and that is a powerful story. I didn’t know that we were going to tell this story. I’m so glad I did, and that’s why I’m up doing that. I can’t put my foot up that high anymore. You can see that’s as high as I could kick it, but I’m rocking the socks. We got people rocking the socks across the country. On Monday morning, KLOS is going to start a campaign that you’ll be able to see nationally, but we’re rocking the socks for Ronald McDonald House, and we’re going to have a donation opportunity.
Charles Antis:
This is awesome because this is lifting and keeping more families close. At the same time, it is lifting our brand and letting people feel good knowing that we’re installing roofs, and we’re people that believe that it is unimaginable to ignore sick children. I’m going to dissect some of this later. I didn’t mean to go off so much, but you got me excited because that’s a current campaign, that’s live right now. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you will see me posting about people like you who are like me rocking the socks, so families can stay close now and be safe when they need it the most.
Kelly:
Yeah, that’s fantastic, and I think it all started with a granola bar. That’s amazing.
Charles Antis:
Who knew?
Kelly:
Never know where these things are going to enter your life, so that’s fantastic and that’s led to some really great involvement and publicity for Antis, that it’s just coming from the goal of wanting to give back and help, how that’s come back to give back to your business the way it has. I think that’s fantastic. I know you touched on this a little bit like in the introduction of what Antis is and how you guys got started. You’re like give me the leak that no one else can fix. Can you expand a little bit on that back story and how that moldy mattress lost you to where you are today?
Charles Antis:
I don’t know, I feel like this is going to be one of those emotional days because I like the way you just went back into that. When I started my business, I was desperate. You know that feeling, I’m sure there’s a lot of entrepreneurs listening or salespeople that feel like entrepreneurs. It’s the same mindset. I’m desperate, I’m desperate. I mean every call was so important when I discovered I had this skill that I didn’t know I had it, but it was the one thing I did better than anything, and the calls were so desperate. I put weather stripping on my home bedroom converted office, so that you wouldn’t hear my daughter if you called in this business to business environment because I was only selling to HOAs. That’s just where I showed up, that’s who called.
Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Charles Antis:
I’m getting those leak repairs, and I got a call one day though, and it wasn’t from an HOA. It was with a woman. She had leaks in every room and to me, that was an opportunity to make good margin on four or five leaks. I’m driving up there the next day, but as I’m getting there, my mood lessens a bit because I noticed the homes are getting smaller and this is LA near LAX. Finally, I noticed a little graffiti and oh, and then finally, I turned on the street where the home was going to be. I just see this dead grass and setback, there’s this small home, real simple with like a 140 and a half, and the half is hanging sideways. I’m thinking, “Oh, maybe that’s not it,” and I go up and I knock on the door.
Charles Antis:
These three things I think, or maybe some in some ways the most important three things that ever happened to me because something awoke me that day because the door opened. I saw a woman and her face was so hard. By hard, I mean she looked like she’s had a really rough month, and life was not easy and that shocked me, but I was about to say something. Before I could open my mouth, I was hit with a second shock. It was mildew, a smell of mildew like I never heard, and it was causing me to recoil. Then I know it was that fight or flight, I was leaving, but as I started to leave and think what I was going to say, the third thing happened, and it was a tug at my finger.
Charles Antis:
When I looked down, instead of the expression on the mom’s face and my face, there was a little 6-year-old girl with blonde hair about like yours, but she had this big smile ear to ear because she was so happy, she had a visitor. Looking back, she probably didn’t have a lot of visitors, and she pulled me in through this crowded living room and threw this hallway until finally into her room. I knew it was her room because she pointed with this big smile to the wall, and there was a my little pony poster on the wall, but that was the moment that my eyes dropped down. I just saw four mattresses with bedding with mold on it, and that was a tough moment because it caused this shock in me. I didn’t know what was happening.
Charles Antis:
There was something stirring in me, but it was a stirring, like I need to get out of here. There was something else that says I can’t stir, I can’t leave and this little girl just held my stare for like it felt forever, but it was probably 30 seconds, and then something happened though. The mom walked in and the mom still had the same expression on her face> When I looked up from her expression to the mom’s expression, something came out of me that I never remember ever saying before, and that was, “I’m going to take care of your roof.” The moment I said it, it was, “Oh, what did I say? I want to grab those words, but what did I say?” Because I immediately questioned, “Is that possible? Can I, will I?”
Charles Antis:
Looking back, that was a magic moment because I’ll tell you what it felt like. It was the weight of the world because I had every intention when I said it. Even though it came out before I said it, the moment I said it, I had no money, I had a mortgage payment to make, but this woman, when I looked at her, I said with full intent, “I’m going to take care of your roof.” I knew I said it with full intent because I was so afraid by the words that came out of my mouth. I went up on that roof, “Please, please, please, please be a little whole and I just need some Henry’s to patch it,” but no, it was shot. I mean the roof, it was cream of wheat, whatever that means.
Charles Antis:
It was nothing up there and I wasn’t even experienced, but I got volunteers. We went up there that weekend, and we gave them a safe dry roof. It was drippy, goopy on the outside, but it was dry on the inside, and the family stayed in that home. Looking back, that was that moment, that was the moment… It was like my doctor on an airplane moment. I wouldn’t call it courage. Yesterday I was talking to somebody, they called it courage and maybe it was courage. Maybe there’s some doctors on airplanes when they hear that announcement that don’t raise their hand, but don’t we think that every doctor does, and why shouldn’t it be the same for me? I have a gift that I can solve leaks better than anybody, and this family needs it more than anybody.
Charles Antis:
I pressed a magic button that day by saying yes, and what it showed up in our company was even though there was no employees yet, there was a culture that came out of that and it showed up. Whenever I saw one of the volunteers, there were like six volunteers, there were like six siblings. They all had blonde hair. I remember them and whenever I saw them, it wasn’t like a, “Hey.” It was like a, “Hey, high five,” way animated stuff. Before, I was like this all the time. That was rare to me, and I thought wow that snapshot of volunteers that helped me do the roof of the people involved, of the family involved feels just like the culture we have in Antis Roofing today. That’s become our story.
Charles Antis:
We didn’t start telling the story till about eight years ago it. To me, it wasn’t a story to tell and suddenly, it became who we were. I realized why we did this, and that’s something I know we’ll go further into because you know what roofers, I’m in the roofing community, I’m a roofing pro and roofing pros, all of you guys man, there’s something that you may not want to talk about because it’s not like baby boomers to talk about it, but you can’t let anyone have a leaky roof just because they don’t have the money to pay. I love that about roofing pros, and all we’re doing right now is we’re networking and learning why it’s important to talk about it, and that’s what I want you to get out of today.
Charles Antis:
There is a way to talk about it so long as you’re really doing it and if you do, then the cause can grow, and you can enlighten and help thousands of companies and millions of people. When you do that, you sleep really good at night, and you don’t worry about your business as much.
Kelly:
Yeah, that’s fantastic and I think that a lot of folks probably do have, for lack of a better word, like an origin story that where you’ve got this one or two standout moments of like, “Hey, I can do something about this.” It might be something that you don’t talk about, but I think that it’s a really powerful message to help keep that cycle going, what you guys are doing for this…
Charles Antis:
That is our origin story, you nailed it. That’s what I call that. That’s the most important story that I tell, it qualifies us. If I don’t tell that story, then how do you really understand because we don’t understand each other through data. We understand each other through stories.
Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and that’s something that can go across all different types of businesses, so roofing, fighting, windows, interior, exterior modeling, all of that good stuff. It’s all making huge differences in people’s lives and their homes and things. There’s definitely like look for the stories and find what you can do and give back with what you have. I think that’s fantastic.
Charles Antis:
More storytelling.
Kelly:
Is that how you guys… Yeah exactly, exactly, and is that how you guys ended up getting involved into the Habitat for Humanity side of things-
Charles Antis:
Yes.
Kelly:
… through the growth of that story? Yeah.
Charles Antis:
Yes. Well, that’s exactly what happened. We did that. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk about it because it didn’t feel right. If I talk about it, people are going to ask for more. If I talk about it, I’m going to get cursed and that’s a weird thing, but I don’t know why, but I always thought if you give something, don’t ever talk about it, or you will be struck with a boat of lightning almost like Charlton has a thing that… but I learned the opposite is true. I learned that by talking to members of the NRCA if we don’t talk about it because it’d be like a 60-year-old, 65-year-old roofer from Florida. Well, Charlie by a gun, I’m going to donate that Ronald McDonald roof, but I’m not going to talk about it, but I always win that argument because I can say this.
Charles Antis:
Dude, if we don’t talk about it, then how’s it going to grow, and that’s what the roofing industry is using today to build this brotherhood, to build brotherhood’s not the right word, to build this family. I will always make sure National Women Roofing is right there, the strength. Much of the strength of the roofing industry is all of us that do it, but it’s the family of us together. We have all these ways that we tangibly get there, and we’ll talk more about that I think.
Kelly:
Absolutely, and I think that’s probably a really good segue into the importance of corporate social responsibility, like what it is, how it fits in today’s environment. We talked a little bit about how that like philanthropic landscape is changing a little bit. Could you talk a little bit about that?
Charles Antis:
Yes, I will. I want to freeze on this picture. I didn’t notice it we were like. This is a great picture because I want to tell you what. This is where we give 20…. Actually, we’ve given away 50,000 seats in the last three years, 20,000 seats a year of hockey. Once hockey resumes, we still have this contract and this goes to over a hundred non-profits. People that couldn’t otherwise go to a game and a hundred local non-profits, the best and the brightest of Orange County. The board members are all the business owners and right now at Honda Center with whatever 40,000 people there, there’s a live moment where everybody’s seeing this video of us upon the roof with eagle and all of the habitat roofs.
Charles Antis:
There’s the announcer in our suite and he’s talking about it. This picture reminds everybody of that big moment. It wasn’t a national TV moment, but it feels like a national TV moment. It’s a brand builder and we didn’t pay for this… Well, we paid for the suite. We gave away the tickets, but the publicity comes keeping on afterwards. I just want you to see the value of that. We didn’t plan that out that way, but look at that. I mean that’s Greg from Eagle Tile. I mean he uses that as his cover shot on his LinkedIn as he should. It’s a big moment. The Honda Center loves it. When you start building this, it’s amazing. Let’s talk about today. Today, you want me to talk about how it shifted, right?
Kelly:
Right and then we’ll get into some of the like activities that you’re doing.
Charles Antis:
Let’s go to the next slide because it’ll steer me. There’s a few things I can talk about. This is perfect, yeah. I got to tell you guys when I know that we struggled in the roofing industry and at industries, we struggled to know what we could do five months ago when the world shifted. It wasn’t clear and it showed up in a lot of ways at work. It showed up on are we essential or not? In the roofing industry, there was a big discussion on many platforms. The largest attendant ever on a digital platform was when [inaudible 00:20:46] spoke up about that are we essential, but when all this was going on at the moment, and we’re wondering how do I lead, and I knew in the moment that we needed to be steady.
Charles Antis:
Whether I knew the answer is not, I knew in the moment it was raining. I knew we’re essential service, I claim that. We’re the ones that protect homes, keeping the things that can harm people out, just like firefighters, but what it wasn’t clear was some of the other messaging. Antis is a purposeful brand. You see that we’ve donated all the roofing on habitat over 80 families, and we do all the stuff for Ronald McDonald House. We cook meals of love, and we do that. Our employees do that, our clients do that, our supply chain does that. All of our community does that with us. It’s a huge part of what we are. All of a sudden, when this happened, my people were like, “What are we doing? We can’t do habitat builds? They were shut down temporarily.”
Charles Antis:
We couldn’t go inside Ronald McDonald House to cook meals of love, but suddenly, what’s our purpose? Well, I got to tell you I didn’t know what to do, but this is something that I learned. I just listened and it took a while to hear it because we can’t hear data, we only hear through stories. Susan DeGrassi, one of our VPS and a board member of American Red Cross, she started talking about food delivery. She started talking about food insecurity and blood insecurity. I’m like, “What’s blood insecurity?’ I mean I just didn’t know. Well, they’ve shut down all the blood places because of the COVID spacing rules, so how can people donate, but we have 7000 feet that we can donate and sterilize.
Charles Antis:
Why don’t we donate that and then American Red Cross can pull blood drives here? Well, Kelly yesterday, we had our 16th blood drive. We’ve had over 1200 life-saving units of blood donated, and this is the blood truck leaving Antis Roofing after another day of… This is a month, ago and what this does for the community is huge, and what it does for us is huge. Let me tell you one of the things that we’ve discovered. When people come and a blood donor I’ve learned, and I know my father, he was always a blood donor and he would give because he could. He always gave and he still does. Sometimes, I talk about my dad and is he alive? Yes, he is. He still gives when he came, but my dad was like this, and these blood donors come in and they’re just very quiet noble in a way.
Charles Antis:
They don’t talk about it, but we create a storytelling room and I’ve heard… Let me tell you some of these stories. Like this guy Nigel, he had to give blood every week because he had too much iron in his blood. His whole life he was cursed and he talked about it, he hated it. Until one day, he met a little girl who needed a blood transfusion every week just to live, and it changes perspective. When Nigel tells us this story, how it affects my people, how it affects me? I mean it’s a one-liner story and it made me emotional because I remember how I felt when I heard that tape. I heard another story of Harry, Harry from SRS, and I’ll mess up his last name. Harry came and gave blood.
Charles Antis:
I was teasing him about putting out both arms and then that night, he sent me an email. He said, “Man that freaked me out when you said give out both arms.” He says, “Because when I was a kid I grew up in Lebanon and it was war-torn, and there was a civil war and people were dying in the hospital because nobody would brave the war to go into the hospital to donate blood, until the largest man in the village heard this, and he literally stormed the hospital doors. They were locked. He knocked them down. He walked through the doors and he put he went like this and said, take what you like from both and don’t stop till you have all the blood you need. He put out both arms.”
Charles Antis:
When you hear those stories, all of a sudden, we have a story. I’m not telling the story. Harry’s telling the story, Nigel’s telling the story, my employees are telling the story. The newspaper echoes this story, social media echoes this story and all of a sudden, we’re doing this thing that’s gross, collecting blood at our place which gave us the willies. Some of us at first, we had to work it out and all of a sudden, it’s a brand builder. All of a sudden, it’s a story that will last forever. I doubt we’ll be collecting blood next year, but we’ll always remember where we were during COVID. We weren’t sitting in our hands. We were saying yes and that brings us to the next picture because I want to keep going right now.
Charles Antis:
I think we move on to, yeah, a friend of mine. This is very common across the country. I see a lot of roofing pros doing the same thing, but Wahoo’s Fish Tacos is a very big brand on the West Coast. Throughout the world, there’s probably 60, 80 locations. Wing Lam is just an incredible guy. He’s a great friend of mine. He’s the guy holding the Cholula bottle up in the middle, and he’s a character. You’ll see him on national TV all the time. He’s incredible guy, but all of a sudden, I called him one day because his restaurant wasn’t open. I said, “Hey Wing, how you doing?” He goes, “Oh, it’s been rough. We lost 85% of our business.” This is like five months ago. I said, “Dude, can I help?”
Charles Antis:
Then I gulped because he got quiet and he said, “Yes.” He goes, “Yeah, I can keep four more restaurants busy and keep them just open if you can help me deliver food to frontline heroes at hospitals, at police stations, and at nursing homes, at fire, I just said yes. It was so awkward, I got to admit. It was so hard showing up. It was so hard showing up because this wasn’t my crowd, and I’m hanging out with Monster and Hint Water. I’m drinking Hint Water right now. These are brands that are donating all this product, keeping some more people busy, instead of just shutting down. I started going out, and we started donating. We started delivering, and we’ve made like 100 drops in the last five months, and it is the most satisfying thing.
Charles Antis:
When you go to that hospital that day, I remember the doctors came down from the COVID floor, and it was full. The stories are harrowing. Some of the deaths that they’re in, but they said, “You know what it means for us after working at double and we get this warm burrito and this little bottle of Cholula, and all this hygiene product.” They were so grateful. We go to the police station and the police chief two months ago when they were really taking a beating, the police chief comes down and he started crying. I was really awkward. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to turn my head. This big man with a badge standing in front of me saying, “Thank you for lifting our morale when we hadn’t seen an act of kindness in two months.”
Charles Antis:
All I did was say yes, and then there was one more slide I wanted to jump to the last thing because we’ve been busy. Then the last thing was food insecurity, and food insecurity, what’s that again? That’s what happens in third world countries. No, if you look in your cities and you read deep in the newspaper, not even that deep, you’ll notice that 20% of everywhere, mostly seniors and a lot of children are not getting full meals. Second Harvest Food Bank is the largest food bank in Orange County, and it is a very modeled food bank and creating innovative ways. They created a second Harvard truck brigade. I didn’t know what it was.
Charles Antis:
They created it because they couldn’t get the food to all the seniors and all the homes, and all of the individual seniors that live up in an apartment or something somewhere. I didn’t want to get involved, but Susan DeGrassi, the same Red Cross board member who’s my director of cause. She said, “Dude, there’s people that are not eating.” I raised my hand and it was really awkward. I know Harald Herman, he’s the CEO. He’s one of the founders of Yard House Restaurants, and he said, “Dude, we have food insecure people,” so I said yes. I went out and I drove the truck, and it was really awkward. I didn’t want to do it. I went out that day. I drove the truck, and I remember this one story that happened.
Charles Antis:
This is my first occurrence, this is my first awakening, all this is going on, and I’m having a hard time knowing how to be in the new world as it shifted. This is like four and a half months ago. I delivered this box up to this second story condo, and there’s a woman inside. We’re not supposed to go inside because the COVID rules, but she said, “Can you please bring it in?” I suppose I said yes. I brought the box inside, but I looked at her and she smiled at me. She was probably 80 years old in her nightgown and she just smiled at me like she was going to hug me, but she didn’t. She just said, “Bless you,” and at first, it’s like, “What?” Bless you and ha, ha, ha. Bless you, ha.
Charles Antis:
I was like all of a sudden, I was really having a struggling. I was struggling how to be a CEO and all of a sudden in that moment, standing in that woman’s home that I’ve never been before, she’s throwing these bless yous at me like they’re just darts of love. Something hit me and something awoken me and in that moment, I thought, “Oh my God, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.” Then there was this moment where she said, “Excuse me a minute.” She went to get something, and I thought she was going to give me a gift, but she came out and she had a really squeezed gone tube of Colgate toothpaste and a little hotel bar soap. She said, “Can you give us some more of these?”
Charles Antis:
It was like here I am wondering what I’m going to do, wondering about my habitat bills and all of a sudden because I said yes, I’m learning about frontline heroes, I’m learning about blood recovery, but this was the first thing that hit me. I learned from this woman that there really are people that I’ve told that story probably a hundred times in the last four months. I’ve talked about it with other roofing pros across the country that are doing the same thing, and they’re volunteering their trucks because if you look, the reason we do every Wednesdays at two, is that was the hardest slot Second Harvest had to fill. What’s the hardest left to fill? We sent three trucks every Tuesday over this period.
Charles Antis:
We just ended this cycle, but we’re ready to do it again, and it cost us a lot of money to do that, but let me tell you. We just won an award last week for two of these things from 1OC which is like a local United Way brand that highlights the good giving. We won an award for taking care of the frontline heroes. We won an award with Second Harvest for helping deliver the food because we’re modeling and showing other companies how to do it. When you win awards, God, it answers the question what you were doing right now, and I feel really blessed. I didn’t do it for the award. I didn’t know that award was there. I think they made it up for what’s going on right now, but let me tell you. Thank you very much, I’ll be able to do more now, I’ll be able to get the word out more.
Charles Antis:
Right now, the reason these three… Look at, I’m not talking about these other things anymore and even the rock the socks, I’m wearing the socks. I’m wearing, but we’re not talking about the socks the way we used to. We’re not talking about Ronald McDonald House. Now we’re saying, “Hey, rock the socks with us today, so we can keep families safe and close today.” We’re shifting how we tell the story, so that’s what we learn in this. Our philanthropy, we have to talk through the lens that is today. Your messaging, whether it’s philanthropy or what you do. Think about it, should it be the same that it was six months ago? Ask that last question, “Hmm, how would I said it six months ago? Should it be different today?”
Charles Antis:
Your philanthropy, it has to be the problems that people are feeling today, which is hunger, which is health and blood recovery, which is the frontline heroes. Antis, we keep people safe and dry, but these frontline heroes, they keep us safe, we can sleep in our homes. There’s metaphors that align, and that’s an important part we’ll talk a little bit about too later.
Kelly:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, how that evolved from organizations that really closely aligned with who Antis was, and what you guys were doing to these organizations that might not be as prevalent in the roofing space specifically, but like in the humanitarian space, 100% it definitely is so on point with what’s going on and recognizing the events of the world and showing that your business will respond and participate and is a good social citizen in your community based off of what’s going on in the community around you, and not just necessarily what is related specifically to the roofing niche in this particular case.
Kelly:
I think this is a really good segue to talk a little bit about like how these stories and how these causes can then follow through to actually help build your brand and help grow your business. I wanted to talk a little bit about what you’ve seen in terms of growth. I know we’ve chatted a little bit before this call about how it’s affected, what you guys are doing from a marketing perspective and your budget there. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the business impact you’ve seen from these cause marketing activities.
Charles Antis:
Yeah, this is a good time for me to bring up this point. I love aha moments, where you see things from a slightly different perspective. That’s how my marketing messaging goes. I’m just saying we are staying a little bit ahead of the trend. Wait, where was I going to go with that? Maybe I wasn’t going to go too deep. Well, I’m looking at the Ronald McDonald House. Let’s go back into that. I think right now, first of all, there’s a great opportunity with Ronald McDonald House. I think if you have a fringe into the roofing industry, there’s an opportunity for you to get involved in one of the houses because there is a camaraderie that’s occurring and the NRCA actually helps you promote it.
Charles Antis:
We help you network and we all are friends with each other on LinkedIn, and we help each other and talking about it. We share ideas, but right now, if you’re attached to the roofing community, this is a really cool thing. If you’re attached to the HVAC community, I hear they’re arranging their own thing with Ronald McDonald House now. This is a really big trend where trade associations are looking for non-profit partnerships. I want you to know that if you attach yourself to this, you not only get your story as it develops. You’re now part of the national story, and there’s a way that you can talk about it without acting like you did more than you did.
Charles Antis:
You can literally say, “You know why I’m doing this? Because look at our overall impact. We’re keeping all families across the country and all children’s hospitals safe and dry.” You’re part of a huge claim. It’s okay to make that claim so long as you really are donating your part of that big cause. That was something that I think is important, but I lost the other thought that you were going for. I think you were going for something else, and I just got caught up in the pictures we were looking at.
Kelly:
Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s talking a little bit about how it’s also helped to grow your business and talking a little bit about the impact that you’ve seen. Maybe from a marketing perspective, how it’s changed what you’ve done from…
Charles Antis:
No, let me start because I know I think this is where I wanted to go. Yeah. If you’ve heard of Antis Roofing, you’ve probably heard of us in the last four years, but four years ago, I made a very odd decision. I wasn’t happy about it, but due to budget constraints and we knew we had to donate, we cut out our external marketing spend. What that means is we used to spend about $12,000 to $15,000 a month with somebody that would help our social media decks, run them, help get us press, help write articles. There was press releases and stuff involved, and then we spent that much money. We completely cut that out, and I want you to note that in the time you’ve heard of Antis, 90% of you, we have had no external marketing spend, but we’ve just had relationships with non-profits.
Charles Antis:
We’ve had deep relationships with nonprofits. It’s like Habitat for Humanity, they’re the ones that started talking about us after we started donating the roofs. They called and said, “We donate a roof,” and said, “Sure.” Then they started talking about us and the first time they wrote this in the paper about 12 years ago or 10 years ago, they said Antis Roofing donating roofs, transforming lives. I thought that sounded blasphemous to me. I know you can’t say that, but then I started realizing if you don’t make a bold claim, then nothing happens.
Charles Antis:
If you make a bold claim and it’s real and you’re really trying, you don’t have to do it good, but if you really try, oh my gosh, it was a powerful, powerful moment, but I think that it’s a really interesting thing to note that a company like ours that has this national light on us is not spending anything in the traditional marketing channels. All of our spends are donations to nonprofits, even our suite which in the Honda Center which we used to have. We had a spotlight of the month, we would donate most of the tickets to nonprofits, and that we built our relationship. Opportunities happen that would never happen. When the community thinks of you really highly, oh it’s a beautiful thing.
Charles Antis:
Having been someone been accused of a lot of things that I thought was unfair in the past because I was a contractor and people have been ripped off by contractors, when somebody trusts you, it’s like this. They don’t know why they know your roofs are good because they’ll say something like this. “Why do you love Antis?” They’ll giggle and go, “I don’t know, we just feel good when we think about you.” That used to bother me like, “No, what is it?” I realized no, that’s it, that’s the thing. That’s the thing that the iPhone gives people over other products. We have that thing, and that thing is our real stories. When you talk to me and you ask about problems in the business, I’ll tell you I’ve learned that it’s a strength.
Charles Antis:
I’ll talk about it respecting all people, but I’ll really be honest because I’m at something. If you want to know what’s working in my business, everyone that knows me will say, “Charles will tell you.” I’ll tell you exactly what’s working because that is how this grows and right now, there is a wonderful opportunity to be authentic. I’m just going to say this, this is not political, but wherever you stand, you see more inauthenticity in the world than ever before on what you call yourself and what you call others. It’s allowed to be an authentic.
Charles Antis:
Wow, if you don’t touch any of that, but you’re just authentic and you let your real self show and you let who you are, your real story, like my twin story, or like my moldy mattress story, if you let that show and you let yourself be real and be vulnerable, and you come up with this concept that maybe there is enough for everybody, then your brand is going to grow, and you’re going to thrive. In the new world, the world we’re rolling into, if you’re just in business to make money, good luck. It’s going to be all about why you live, how you live, what you do. In Antis Roofing, everybody here knows why we exist. It’s to keep families safe and dry, and that’s why we say every nail matters because it does.
Charles Antis:
Whether we’re talking about the 200,000 parts on the average roof we install, or the people that install them, every nail matters. This is a great time for you to experiment with this, experiment with building a relationship with a non-profit that aligns with yourself.
Kelly:
Yeah, absolutely. I love that the opportunity to be authentic. Just like that, you really resonated with me. I feel like that’s a really succinct way of saying, it’s about do you, do what it feels right and real to you, and that’s going to resonate with the community as well. I love that.
Charles Antis:
Do you know what it feels like? When it feels like when people say, “You Charles, the way you are is okay.” You know what it feels like to be giving an atta boy? It’s the most wonderful feeling. It breaks through that 3 a.m. is my business going to survive, and I sleep better than I’ve ever slept. You get to live in a magic space if you can get to talk about purpose. I don’t look at myself as a roofing instructor. I look at myself as a people awakener. If I can awaken my people to be the best they can be, then how are my roofs not the best roofs out there?
Kelly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), absolutely. I think that’s a great segue to look at our next section here. For some folks who may not already be involved with the cause, or they’re looking to figure out how to get started or maybe they are working with some organizations, but they don’t really talk about it yet and want to get into using that as more of an opportunity for their business. We run through this like how we get started playbook if you will.
Charles Antis:
This is really important that we talk about this because first of all, I’ve learned that a lot of blue-collar professionals, wherever we stand to see is we often don’t hold ourselves as high as other business leaders in the country, yet in the roofing industry and in construction, we’re the ones that build shelter. We are so important. I want to get to how we hold ourselves. I hold myself a lot higher. I no longer put my hands in my pocket because I don’t care if you see my scars. I am proud that these are the hands that keep everything safe and dry in this country. I hold myself that way. One of the ways that I hold myself that way is through my stories. My story of the moldy mattress lended itself to Habitat when they called.
Charles Antis:
When they understood that they got these families and in families, once they got safe shelter, their children prospered in everything. I got to see that and live that then this cause became real, and it was near and dear to my heart. Habitat, Ronald McDonald House, you already know why it’s near and dear to my heart. You have to start with that. This can’t be a good idea, “Oh, they’ve got to figure it out. Oh, they love pets.” Now pets is a really important one, that’s a whole other discussion. It’s really good. If you love pets, use pets. Everybody loves brands that pump up pets, but my point is, is you have to find a brand that’s near and dear and real that aligns with your real story.
Charles Antis:
If you’re not the CEO, you better be number two in the company or the son of or the daughter of or something. It could be I have a director of cause. If I wasn’t here, she has that kind of persona. She sits on boards in the community, but it needs to be the real person that makes decisions for the weight of the spending of the company. That person needs to be a real story that is cause, that is near and dear to your heart, and you better find a way to bring it to your people. I do by bringing them Habitat builds and telling them my story, but once you find a cause that’s near to your heart, it can’t just be something that you love. It must be something that aligns, like Habitat, like the other story.
Charles Antis:
I’ll tell you something that doesn’t align. One of my sponsors for some of my events, if we’re serving a lot of alcohol is MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. When you say that brand, it creates all sorts of back and forth feeling, but when you have MADD supporting an event where you’re serving alcohol, it tells everybody to drive home safe, but I don’t have MADD on my website. They’re not a regular sponsor because it won’t help me sell roofs. It’ll create confusion. You need a brand that aligns, and that’s something that by the way if you reach out to me, any of you I promise on LinkedIn, I promise I will answer your questions because only reason I have this is people shared it with me, but this is really important.
Charles Antis:
Once you find the cause that’s near and dear to your heart and it’s something that will align, you must look at the board because you need to get involved with an established board. Don’t create your own non-profit, just trust me, don’t do it. We don’t need more nonprofits. We need support from existing causes that are there, like the things that we’re talking about here. When you look at that board that you’re going to get involved with on that volunteering, they better have this. A CEO who’s really in charge, one of the top non-profit CEOs. I’m trying to make this work for you, work for the cause you love and work for you. They must have that CEO that’s really sharp.
Charles Antis:
They must have a good staff, and this is another really important fact. This is the most important way to tell if they have that, the board members. The board members of the cause that you’re going to go align with better be people who have what you want, and it’s not talking about money though. Usually they are successful. It’s those traits you want, those character traits that your dad told you about, your parents told you about when you were little. There are board members that are like, “Oh crap, I can’t even imagine being on the board with them. I don’t think of myself that high.” That’s the cause you get involved with, get involved in the committee. If you’re a tradesman, big opportunity.
Charles Antis:
There’s not enough tradesmen on boards. What happens, you’ll get involved to be on the committee. You’ll have the opportunity to serve and boy, serving on a board is way easier than you think of. You don’t have to donate 40 hours a month. I’ve done that, but I tell people exactly what I can and can’t do and they ask me to be on board. You know what they always say? “I think they’re not going to accept this because they can only just…” They always say, “Yes, thank you for telling us what you’ll do and what you won’t do.” By being on a board, man it makes everything that we’re doing real. I’m connected to the community, stuff that we’re working on.
Charles Antis:
Right now, on the United Way Board, working on a plan that I’ve been working on… I’ve been thinking of this for five years, but now we’re building it inside United Way to actually teach CEOs how to do CSR, the imperative CSR. United Way’s building with the idea that we’re going to mirror it all across the country. This is what fulfills me, awakening people and right now, that I get to do this. You think that’s not going to help my brand. It’s going to be that Ronald McDonald House story. It’s going to keep talking about us, help us sell roofs for years. Who knew? I didn’t do it for that reason. I did it because it’s the right thing to do. It’s a really important time to be loud and do the right thing to do.
Charles Antis:
That thing your parents instilled in you, be loud trying. You don’t have to get it right. You can strike out right now trying, but if you’re really trying, this is going to age really well. Never has there been ever been a time more important than to get into corporate stewardship, and that is take care of your people and community, reinvest all of your profits back into your people and the community, never been more important than now.
Kelly:
Absolutely. Some excellent points there. Once you’ve identified your opportunity, you’ve looked at the board, you’ve done your homework on that. Then from a promotion side of things, do you have any tips or things you’d recommend, talking about how to get the word out that you’re working on certain things? I know that a lot of these non-profits and larger organizations still promote that to you practice, but in terms of putting the word out from Antis to the world, would you have any tips or information on that?
Charles Antis:
Yes, because with bias. Especially if you’re working for a guy who’s my age or older, baby boomer bias, they don’t think you’re supposed to talk about it. It’s hard to get over that, and so I’ve learned this. You can’t talk about it if it’s a basket drive, if it’s something you’re going to do once every three months, or once a year. Yeah, you don’t have any credibility. You could mention it, but if it’s something you’re really talking about, you’re doing something every week, you have to be donating every week. You may not have that resource, but you might be pushing the cause somehow, and you’re on a committee. If it’s something you’re really involved with, then it’s really powerful to get it out there.
Charles Antis:
What you have to do is have social media. I think most of this audience is sophisticated, but if you don’t, bring your son, your nephew, your niece, and somebody just to get it up there. Social media doesn’t have to be perfect. You just have to get the story out. You can even have mistyped words in social media. I don’t know why that’s the way it is, but it’s the way it is, and you need to get that out there. This stuff lives in social media. It’s the story’s told on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great platform because that’s where all the big eyes in your community are at in a big way. They’re there a lot more, a lot more people… Look, I get comments from people like you will look at my LinkedIn and it’s everybody.
Charles Antis:
Get involved in LinkedIn, and what you want to do is just put it out there. If you’re really involved and you’re really doing it, I can promise you this. You’ll put something out there and you’ll feel blasphemous. “Oh, I can’t believe we’re saying that, we’re doing that,” but if you’re really doing, it is going to create brand like you’ve never thought because what will happen is this. You’re afraid of what your competitor’s going to say because he will. The loud shitty one pardon, my French, but he’s going to point and say, “Ah, look what they’re doing, that’s their gimmick.” Actually I should tip my hand, but that was what one local person said about this, and it was the greatest thing this person could have done.
Charles Antis:
By calling it our gimmick, people didn’t tell people, “Ha, ha, ha.” They listen, but then they watch you all the closer and they, “Oh, they keep talking about that.” Within a couple months, you realize that the 10% detractors are the ones that really lift the brand, but that’s all you hear if you’re like me. I’m on a disc scale, my eye is way high. If there’s one person in the room who doesn’t like me, I’m focused on that person, but I understand that about myself, being really into self-assessments which I also recommend for your team. Self-assess, give them, let them know who they are. If you know who you are, then you know what fulfills you. If you don’t know who you are, you’re just trying to get it right.
Charles Antis:
Don’t try to get it right, be who you are, awaken to who you are. I’m an expert on awakening to who you are, and that’s what I want your team to do. I want to awaken who you are. If you put who you are on social media, I guarantee you, you will thrive. I can’t explain why it works that way, but it goes back to that authenticity piece. It’s the currency of social good, that’s what I call it. Everyone’s talking about cryptocurrency. I call that BS still, but I’ll talk about the currency of social good. We have a boatload of currency of social good and because of that, our empathy is big. The more you do this, empathy is like a muscle. It’s like I’m bench pressing.
Charles Antis:
I can only bench press probably 150 pounds a day. I haven’t tried in a long time, but I can empathetically bench press 500 pounds because the more you talk about it, the more you understand that you can talk about it, that the more it is okay for me to be authentically me and by me being authentically me inside and outside my company with my warts and all the good things, it is allowing us to be understood and trusted in a time when things are so un-trusted. The way to do it is to be involved and then just connect, connect, connect. We’re better together, non-profits everywhere. We’re holding hands and we’re getting stronger. I’m partnered with a taco company right now.
Charles Antis:
Who knew that was going to lift both our brands? Because people trust our roofs, they trust his food because I was up on a roof with Wing Lam after we’d given a mask away. It was a mask like this. This is an awesome math, and it has the California love drop is where we’re bringing food. I just gave this to a board member, the black version. We didn’t have the pink ones out yet, and he looked down at this mask and he said, “Hmm, Wahoos, good quality food,” as he was walking on our roof. He heard himself say, “Wahoo’s good quality food.” What he really said was Antis, good quality roofs because he said something later on in that job walk that I never heard before. Somewhere in that job walk, he said this.
Charles Antis:
He says, “You know what Charles with us, you’ll find it’s not always about the price.” What? I’ve been waiting to hear that my whole life. It happens here because of the currency of social good.
Kelly:
Absolutely. I wanted to just in closing for some final thoughts here. I love this slogan, motto, whatever you want to call it that you guys are using…
Charles Antis:
Our be values.
Kelly:
Your values. Thank you for that.
Charles Antis:
Be values.
Kelly:
Being the person who’s willing to go where others want and these be values coming out of that. I think there’s a lot of great information that you presented here today, and I think that this is something that the credibility that gets lent to your company from participating in these others, and having other people start to talk about you. From these perspectives, that’s something that you can’t buy, you can’t put a price tag on that kind of marketing. I think that this there’s just opportunities to build your company, opportunities to give back, and it all becomes one and the same thing.
Charles Antis:
You’re right. You can’t measure it, but being somebody who has to go by things, feel and being a marketing expert, branding expert, I always put I do. I put a price on it, just so my team has something to compare. When our story of the NRCA, I didn’t do it for this reason, but when it became Antis was the co-initiator of this initiative, I said to my team, “That’s the $10 million story, that’s going to bring a minimum of $10 million in sales over the next several years.” When things happen, when somebody else talks about you on a newspaper, a newspaper articles stay in the air forever. When people Google your name, it’ll wash out the bad press. We have all these newspaper articles and they’d say these, it brand you.
Charles Antis:
When you get a front page article that they’re saying thank you for being part of the mafia of good in Orange County, and you’re passionately up in front of a crowd, that is worth a million dollars minimal in sales. Even when you have branding, we spend time developing those be values you’re looking at. How you how many times we’ve used that? Before I couldn’t do live speaking, I would have it as a backdrop. People would ask for, “Can we borrow your be values for our company?” “Yes.” Developing that, we spent $30,000 to come up with the word be with a neuro expert and you know what, it sounds silly, but that was trying to understand, but it resonates with people. That right there is a million dollar move.
Charles Antis:
I think in terms of branding because I look at everything and how it is a year from now, I have that long-term founder’s brain. I don’t look at a short-term sale, and when you can put the right messaging out, it will age well. There’s no way these be values don’t even stand stronger five years from now they do today.
Kelly:
Absolutely, absolutely. Fantastic. I think we’re almost to the top of the hour. With that, we do have a couple of questions that are coming in for the Q and A. I wanted to transition over to that really quick, but before we get into that, I know this webinar was all about cause marketing and what that can do for your business here, but we’d love to talk to you guys a little bit more about what Leap does and how we can work with your business. I just launched a quick poll here. I hope you’ll say yes to a conversation with us. We’re doing a little special for folks on this webinar here. In return for signing up for a conversation with us, we’ll make a $50 donation to the Ronald McDonald House in your name.
Kelly:
We’re also running a really good promotion on Leap right now which is three months of Leap for free. It’s a perfect time to have a chat, see if it might be a right fit for you. You’ll be helping out a great cause, and you’ll get the opportunity to get started and try Leap for free for three months. I would love to set up a time to have a conversation. You can check off one of these options here on the poll on your screen. You also have opportunity to say yes and sign up for a conversation in a survey after the webinar closes out here. Thanks everyone for taking a moment to take a peek at that and with that, we’ll go ahead and get into our Q and A section here.
Kelly:
Charles, can you talk a little bit more about the effects that this has had on the employees of your company? I know a really hot topic right now with employee retention engagement, things like that. How have you found this cause marketing impacting your employees on an internal scale?
Charles Antis:
Well, I like to scale the story in the last five months or so because that I just told you how we transitioned to real life stories through this filter, the way people here today. What that did externally is it’s lifting our brand in a halo like we’ve never been. We are really relevant in the community, but what happens inside my company right now is something that I’m so elated about. Because even though we win cultural awards, I can tell you a lot of times this is that honesty part, where we’re running a culture where I’m like, “God, it feels people are dyads and triads and not getting along.” People sometimes have job insecurity. I noticed that because I noticed people that are unhappy and right now in my company, I’ve never like this because we’re so relevant outside, there’s more job security.
Charles Antis:
I can think of an employee that for whatever reason was always job insecure, and now this person is so secure in her job, even though the navigation of the future and how we’re going to be as a roofing company is more up in the air than ever, but it matters because our story, and we’re talking about what’s real and alive today. There’s a magic awakening that transitions into innovation by being out there in the community dealing with real live issues. When your people are dealing in the community with something they didn’t deal with before, it is innovative, innovative in a feel-good giving way. When you are innovative and giving and ahead of the room, you come back to work, you’re regenerated, and that it rubs off.
Charles Antis:
Right now, there’s this magic that’s happening, that is because we’ve never been more relevant in our messaging than today. If you look at my messaging, mine personally and a lot of the companies over the last, and I only personally am active on LinkedIn, it’s like I’m not talking about roofing at all right now. I’m just talking about blood, dude frontline heroes and you know what, I know even though I’m breaking all the rules of marketing which that’s what trendsetters do and I’m reminded of that, but right now, we’re breaking the rules of marketing. It’s working because when we look back on 2020, when the world was spinning, when I had my head in the sand, I pulled it out and I got involved by saying yes doing things that I didn’t want to do.
Charles Antis:
We got involved saying yes doing things we learned to love to do, and now we have a magic culture and a magic brand. We’re getting opportunities that we wouldn’t have seen before, and we’re being super innovative, adaptive in the moment. We are re-imagining ourselves without the pain of thinking we’re blowing something up. We’re just seeing that we’re not noticing the rumble on things that are not working. We’re noticing the new growth, and that’s a very exciting place for us to be.
Kelly:
Fantastic. All right. I know we’re at the top of the hour. I’d like to squeeze in one more question before we wrap things up for the day. I think this is a really good one coming in from Dave here. Dave says, “I’m a really big fan of cause marketing, but I’m not at that like CEO top of the company level, so do you have any recommendations on how you can broach this subject and into the office, and to help get others on board and get that buy-in from the top level?”
Charles Antis:
Well Dave, I’m glad you asked that from that perspective because I was painting just from the CEO perspective. Let me say this, really important question for career advancement. I always see, if you ever hear me talk, I’ll talk about the empathetic part which I really am connected to, but also talk about the career advancement, the reason we do it. Everything that you do must be intentional. Why would you do it unless if it’s a one-off? You want something that’s repeatable. What you would do just like a CEO, finding what you’re align with, is if you’re going to get involved, you have to find what you’re aligned with.
Charles Antis:
If the company is already aligned with the cause, then maybe there’s a certain particular part of it that you could align with, or if the company’s not and you want to lead, then if you’re a high enough position and you’re trusted, then lead with what’s real to you, but see how what’s real to you aligns with your brand. I mean it’s easy to look at the big causes like Habitat, there’s shelter, keeping family safe. I come up with a statement for that. The reason people trust me, that CS under the Habitat brand is they me, are struck with the condition that they think everybody deserves a decent place to live.
Charles Antis:
It’s like this reptilian brain response that creates trash, like I don’t know why, I just love them, and that’s the thing that you want. You want the same thing. If you want an opportunity to advance yourself, find the cause that’s near your heart, and volunteer there, get on a committee. Then what’ll happen is those people are so freaking networked. Those board members are cross board members of United Way all these other board. You don’t even know, why you don’t even hear why because these are quiet stories, but there’s people passing names. If you show up and you show real trust, then you have something that there’s a story.
Charles Antis:
I can’t trust you if you’re a sighting guy, or a home remodel guy, until you show me that just like me, you think it is unimaginable to ignore sick children. That means that I’m safe to travel with and that goes back to I’m really into emotional intelligence. Our people think we make decisions with our smart cognitive brains, but we really make decisions with our reptilian brain, that fight or flight brain. I really cater to the neuro messaging to my employees. I really cater to the messaging, all-inclusive messaging. I’m getting some weird terms right here, but right now, never been a better time for you, whether you’re CEO, whether you’re top sales, whether you’re anybody in a company that cares, get involved.
Charles Antis:
If you’re in the roofing business and you’re a woman, you better join National Women in Roofing Kelly. I know you’re going to, and so get involved and get on a committee there. I mean talk about advancement you’re networked with people that are networked, that are passionate, that are just like me. In fact, I love it around National Women Roofing. My people speak there. My women speak there, and everybody’s talking this. It’s contagious when you start hanging around 6-year-old twins like I have at home, or happy uppity people like National Women in Roofing. Get involved wherever you stand and your story will become real, and it’s just magic.
Charles Antis:
It’s almost you wake up and your day’s more magic, there’s more opportunity. Get involved with the causes near and dear to your heart, say yes, do the same screening I said for the CEOs, the same screening and the most important thing, who’s on the board, do they have what you want? You will become them. You may not see it yet, but they will. When people see something in you higher than you can see yourself, it transfers on you, and there’s magic. It’s not fair that I see myself like I do today for others that don’t because I didn’t used to see myself that I could make a difference, and now I believe I’m changing the world every single day. It’s because I’m on these boards where people are changing the world every single day.
Kelly:
Fantastic message. I appreciate that and your enthusiasm and passion for this definitely shows through. I so appreciate you coming on today to talk with us about this, and thanks everyone for hanging on the call. I know we were a couple minutes over, but thank you to everyone for being here with us today. I appreciate having you Charles. Any closing words before we wrap up?
Charles Antis:
I just want to thank you and thank Leap for you guys worked so hard. We had a problem on our end, and you guys were so patient. I’m like Groomzilla if I’m handling things behind the scenes and your whole team, and I know your team through showing up in the personal channels the NRCA like Shashi. I just love it that we’re aligned, and I’m grateful that you were promoting my message all week. I would see it popping up, and it just made me so grateful. Thank you so much for believing like me that we can change the world, that we can create the world in our communities that we want to live in, and that’s what we’re doing, so thank you.
Kelly:
Absolutely, thank you. All right. If anyone on the call thinks of any additional questions or want to reach out afterwards, feel free to send a message to that marketing@leaptodigital.com. That will come directly to me and I’ll be happy to answer your questions, or get you connected or helped out with whatever you need. I’ll also be sending a copy of this recording out after the webinar today, so keep an eye out for that. Probably be tomorrow morning and then as you leave the webinar today, you’ll see a short survey pop up. I would love to get your feedback on today’s presentation.
Kelly:
If you have any ideas for topics of other things you’d like to hear about, we’re all ears, always looking to put out some content that’s very relevant and impactful for you all. We appreciate your responses there and with that, thank you again Charles for coming on and hope everyone has an enjoyable rest of the day.