Every single one of us is in sales. Many people think sales is just taking customers out for expensive dinners or rounds of golf. Sales is about relationships and connections. It is about understanding not only your customers and their businesses but also understanding who they are as people. Wendi Zubillaga, Chief Sales Officer of Citadel Roofing and Solar gives us an inside look at what it takes to build your sales brand in the building industry. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendi-zubillaga-4631618/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/citadel-roofing-and-solar/ https://www.biabayarea.org/ https://citadelrs.com/
NAME: WENDI ZUBILLAGA
(SM) All right. Welcome back to Strong Conversations. I am Sam Marcoux. This is the Building the Brands series, and I'm having a lot of fun. We just started. If you're listening to this or you're watching this, but we're gonna have a lot of fun here with Wendi Zubillaga. Wendy, how are you?
(WZ) I'm doing great today. Thank you very much for having me.
(SM) No, thank you for being here. This is a long time coming. So when we started putting this series together, we were brainstorming who would be good on this podcast and a mutual friend, Nate Johnston, as you know, he reached out to you and asked you and then he screen shot it and sent me and said, Wendy is in and I was like, I'm mad at myself for not thinking of this earlier. This makes all the sense in the world. We're talking to a lot of professionals, right, in this industry, structural engineers, distributors, manufacturers, framers, but you are the epitome of sales. So I'm excited to talk to you today because as a as a self-professed sales professional, talking to another sales professional is always a great time. So for the uninitiated, what is your title and who do you do it for?
(WZ) So I am currently Chief Sales Officer for Citadel Roofing and Solar. Since 2015.
(SM) Okay.
(WZ) And one of the founding partners.
(SM) Yeah, and just nonchalantly. I also kind of helped found the company.
(WZ) But my title is sales, very proudly
(SM) Just sales in general.
(WZ) On my business card, I put sales. I didn't like titles anyways.
(SM) Yeah, it is kind of weird, I guess, but, you know, titles are there for a reason, I suppose, but Chief Sales Officer, I like that. I might use that title for myself down the road. Obviously, you've been around in this industry for some level for a little bit of time. You started in the industry at 22. Talk us through how you got started in the industry and who you got started with?
(WZ) Yeah, so that was 36 years ago, so a few days ago. My brother and I actually started a fencing company. I was 22 years old and I was working at Hewlett Packard in finance where I got recruited out of college and I was stuck in an office with what I called then old ladies, that were people probably my age now, probably not younger and I was bored out of my mind. Yeah and I was probably about three months into it. My brother and I had a family friend, a friend of our parents that we watched growing up that was in the home building industry, which we didn't even know what that meant at the time. We just knew he'd built fences for houses. [02:22]
(WZ) So we would go to his summer parties and occasionally get invited on a trip to Hawaii and so to us, that was wow. We would go camping maybe once every few years and get to go to Disneyland. So we thought this guy does something pretty cool. So my brother started working for him during high school, and he would help build fences to earn some money during the summers. So my brother's 18, he's finishing high school, and he's very entrepreneurial and I'm 22, miserable at Hewlett Packard and he says, "Hey, let's do a fencing company." Why not? It can't be that hard. It’s old. You're a young blonde. Send you to these events and you'll meet people. Oh sounds better than sitting in an office. So we rented a trailer from a family friend, B & B Concrete, who's still very big in the Bay Area and it was $600 a month, on their yard and we used our credit cards, mainly mine because I was older and had credit to buy our materials and whatever we needed, phones and it was way different back then. You didn’t really need much. We didn't have computers. So that's what we did and we joined the BIA.
(SM) So we're going to talk about the BIA. We're going to talk a whole lot about a lot of these things. Cause there's, there's some stuff here that you touched on that I think we should be learning from to try to get newer, younger people into our industry, but we’ll touch on that in just a little bit, but I don't want it to go unsaid. You're working in the finance department. Your brother calls you, he's a teenager, says let's start a company and you take all that wisdom from working in finance and say we're gonna put it on the personal credit card and that's how we're gonna get started.
(WZ) Well, okay, it wasn't wisdom and it was three months and I figured if it goes wrong, you're 22. You don't think that way. Well at least I didn't think that way. That's not how I'm built.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) So I don't think we had that … I had that thought process ever.
(SM) So you get started. You're working with your brother. You get some equipment. You get your kind of seed money to go, right, from your credit cards and then you said you joined the BIA. What is the BIA for those that don't know?
(WZ) That's the Building Industry Association.
(SM) Okay.
(WZ) It's also known as the Home Builders Association. Depending on the market, they have different names, but it's basically an organization that builders, subcontractors, suppliers belong to and they do a lot of political things and I mean, they're great for us. They advocate for legislation, but on top of that, they provide incredible networking opportunities.
(SM) Bingo.
(WZ) And, you know, I'm super into networking and It's my strength and I love people. [05:00]
(WZ) So going to those events at 22 was a little intimidating, right? And I was literally one of two women in the room usually and the other one was my age now probably. So in the beginning it was a little, ooh, this is…, but it was also fun. I mean, it's not hard to meet people when you're 22 and it's 50 year old men, right? But there is …and I was able to get us some opportunities because at that time, that's all you want as a salesperson.
(SM) Right.
(WZ) It's an opportunity and I remember it was Ponderosa Homes, from the Bay Area, and Pultee Homes, that gave us our first two opportunities.
(SM) Well shout out to Ponderosa Homes and Pultee Homes.
(WZ) Still two of my favorites.
(SM) Yeah. So you touched on, you know, being probably one of the youngest people in the room, which is intimidating just by itself, but also on top of that being one of the only women not only in that room, but probably in the industry at that time, but how are you able to … I mean are you scared the first time you walked in there or was it like I've got this?
(WZ) I mean that was a long time ago, so I don't remember being scared I just remember that it was oh wow. I gotta learn how to do this.
(SM) Right.
(WZ) But our industry so fun.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) It's not that hard to realize that okay, I can have a good time here, too.
(SM) Yeah, the walls can come down pretty quickly.
(WZ) Yeah, pretty quickly and I mean, I think I remember the most intimidating time was going to my first PCBC.
(SM) Ah, the Pacific Coast Builder.
(WZ) Yeah, in San Francisco, and I don't even remember what year that was, but it wasn't that long after I started in the industry. That was a little intimidating, and going to the first party and maybe being a little more scared there because people get a little crazy, and I’m 20, probably be less than 25.
(SM) Right. [06:48]
(WZ) And it was like all right, you have to learn how to do this now, right and do this professionally. And that's a challenge in itself.
(SM) Was it the scope and the scale of PCBC versus like a BIA event.
(WZ) Absolutely.
(SM) Everyone.
(WZ) Yeah and you know you’re supposed to go to these big events. People drink a lot and you’ve to learn to talk to them and maybe at a young age you don’t want to drink too much…
(SM) Sure
(WZ) You want to make an impression. So, there was some navigating through all those challenges, but, I mean, PCBC is still a great event.
(SM) Yeah
(WZ) and I love it.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) You know, it's been great for everybody, I think.
(SM) I went to, I went to your guys' party this year at PCBC.
(WZ) Always my favorite time. It’s one of my favorite events to do during the year.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) It’s kind of, that's kind of something that we're known for.
(SM) Yeah. Yeah. 100%. No, you look for the name when you go to these events, who's gonna be there and okay, they're gonna be fun. They're gonna have something for us to do that night and it's and your right. In this industry, networking is huge. It's paramount to the success of just about anybody, regardless of what you're doing in the trades, sales, whatever it is, you have to know people. You have to get in, you have to earn their trust.
(WZ) Absolutely. Well, in this industry so close-knit and everybody knows everybody and you know for a long time in my previous company, I traveled all the time. We were in five states and it still amazes me when I walk into somewhere, how many people I know. People don't leave when they come to this industry, which is really interesting also. [08:10]
(WZ) You have other, there's other opportunities in other industries, but I think, and you might make more money by going into other industries, stocks. Like if I had stayed at Hewlett Packard, they were acquired by Apple. If I was working at Apple, I'd probably have a yacht or something, or maybe my own plane. I don't know because I probably would have been one of their first employees, but I don't know, it was boring, it's not the same, the people, our industry is filled with so many amazing people.
(SM) It's a ton, it's a big patchwork, it's a big quilt of personalities and everything else and everywhere you look, I mean, you could be in the industry for a long time. I've been here almost 25 years and I'm still meeting people almost every single day and I'm like how did we not know each other before we're like best buds. How does this happen? How do we not know?
(WZ) I think I think what's different about our industry is it doesn't matter if they're at the lowest level in a company or the highest level of the company, it's 99% of the time all great people. There’s not that ego. There's not that oh, I'm better than you. I'm a CEO. No they're all just…they’ll have a beer with you. Ask you how your family's doing. I love that about this industry. I mean that's why I've been doing it forever and I don't think I'll ever stop because I couldn't imagine that social aspect of my life being gone.
(SM). Right. Being gone.
(WZ) I'd be, yeah, I couldn't handle it.
(SM) So I’m interested to know this because in talking to you, I obviously know who you are, but didn't know your full, I guess, work history up until now and you are very good at either starting a company and building it or starting with a company when they're really small and building it. It seems to be one of your superpowers is the ability to create and grow business. So you have the company with your brother, eventually you move on.
(WZ) Yeah, after seven years.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) It was through a relationship I made at a PCBC. My brother and I were very close. He's one of my best friends. There were holes in the walls, right? It wasn't healthy for our relationship to continue. It was time, but it’s also my brother and that’s my baby brother and I always want to take care of him. So I got an opportunity to work for a roofing company and he just said, “Hey, I want you to sell for us. Our goal is to be 3 million revenue” which is like nothing and we’re having a lot of challenges so I want you to sell for us and still sell for your brother, but just help us figure out how to grow. So it was a great opportunity for me to transition. It was actually a guy from Ponderosa Homes that made the introduction for us. So I said what the heck? Did that. When I left that company, I stayed with that company 20 years, and ended as the president of the builder division. We, I think there were in excess of 350 million. [10:54]
(SM) And when you started there, the goal was to get to 3 million.
(WZ) Yeah, and we grew to five states. We did that through a lot of acquisitions. You know, and we had a great team of people that helped us, but yeah, it was a lot of fun, but it was also time for me to do something different.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) And that was what happened in 2015.
(SM) And that's when Citadel was founded.
(WZ) That's when Citadel was founded, and that was myself and two other individuals that were at Peterson Dean. We decided to go out and give our own business a shot, the numbers guy, our finance guy, an operations gentleman, and myself, are kind of the brain children. I left first, and then they both followed. We started 2015. I think I left the beginning of April, June 1st, we had our license and like insurance and everything, we had trucks and buildings and all the stuff and we're gonna do all that, those things, important things and we got our first contract June 1st also.
(SM) Wow, that's amazing. I mean, again, three different instances and I would say four. I'll go ahead and share. I, you and I were talking and I think even back in high school, you had that entrepreneurial spirit a little.
(WZ) Oh wait, wait, wait. That was more my brother. Okay. All right. Thanks, Sam. Yeah, we would have my mom would leave for the weekend, and we'd have parties, and so we'd get someone to get his beer, an older person to get his beers and then he would charge people, my brother, my young brother was probably 11 or 12 at the time. He'd charge people a dollar at the door if they wanted to come into the party. They would always say, "Well, I'm a friend of Wendy's." He'd say, "Well, everybody's a friend of Wendy's, so you either want to come in or not. Where's your dollar?" So then we'd have money to go eat, you know, out down at the restaurants down the street for the rest of the weekend.
(SM) I love it. The Statue of Limitations is over on that, so we're all good, but I mean, you've just been wired to go out and sell and grow business and network. I mean, that's just kind of who you are.
(WZ) Yeah, and my mom says, she said that at three years old, that's when she noticed it in me.
(SM) Really?
(WZ) I started bossing people around and I had to like know everybody and everything that was going on. I was bossy bossing or nosy. I don't know what I was, but she said like I changed at three and then she's like oh god what am I going to do with her? [13:08]
(SM) Yeah she's like I don’t know what to do.
(WZ) And I'm pretty much the same I've been my whole life.
(SM) When you uh … so you haven't changed but the industry around you has, in many, many ways.
(WZ) Absolutely. I mean, yes, it has and no, it hasn't, right? It's still the same great people. What I would say is, especially on the builder side, it's got a lot smaller.
(SM) Right.
(WZ) A lot of acquisitions.
(SM) Consolidation.
(WZ) Yeah, a lot of that. So that's gotten a lot smaller which means it's even more important to keep your relationships very strong and to make sure you're doing a great job because since you don't have as many of the 50 homes a year builders or 100. Those have been acquired by the big guys. So yeah, in that aspect, it's changed. I'd say there's other areas of our industry that hasn't changed enough, but I think we'll probably see that coming up in the next 10 years, which in our industry takes a long time for things to change right?
(SM) It’s a slow moving boat.
(WZ) It is and that’s what’s also very charming about it.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) So, it's, it's good and it's bad.
(SM) So, what's the biggest change that you have seen from when you first started and getting involved with the BIA and doing those events and going to PCVC and International Builders show and all that to now? What's the biggest thing where you look back and go, wow, that is wildly different than what I, what I know today.
(WZ) Well, now I don't care about how much I drink at events. Like I did when I was 22. I mean, I don't know that it's changed in in my … I mean there is a lot more women involved.
(SM) Right.
(WZ) Right. It’s still not enough. It's still very much a male dominated industry, but comparatively speaking. Oh, yeah, it's… there's a lot more women. [14:59]
(SM) Do you ... I mean, you're somewhat of a trailblazer when it comes to that woman, sales, construction sales on top of that. That is a minority for what we do, but you were one of the very first to do it and do you have a sense of pride of being that trailblazer? Do you think about that at all? I mean, I'm sure there's women in this industry that look up to you and go, "Wow, she paved the way for me to be able to do this?
(WZ) I mean, I don't think about it that way so I don't know, but it's been great. Yeah, I love what I do. I say it all the time. People always say, well what else would you have done? You know, rockstars, not an option, because I would have killed myself and then I think the only other thing that I want to do in my life, like if I could have had a bunch of money, I would own an NFL team just so I could walk into the locker room.
(SM) Is that what it is?
(WZ) No, I love football.
(SM) You’re a big football…
(WZ) … and I would like to walk in.
(SM) Okay. Well, you would own the locker. Yeah, that’s my ….inaudible….Yeah, okay, so Let's talk a little bit more about the BIA and let's talk about the fact you are an advocate for sales, you're an advocate for this industry, you yourself admitted that you got interested in joining this industry on some level because you saw the success of your neighbor and like this guy's having parties. He's going on vacation. He's doing something right and I want to do that, too.
(WZ) Yeah, and I think it was something…it wasn't an industry anybody… I didn't know about it.
(SM) Right, right.
(WZ) So you're a little curious. Yeah…it was … I don't know.
(SM) Do you think the industry has a marketing problem?
(WZ) Oh yeah a million percent we have a marketing problem. We're suck at marketing.
(SM) Well, what's our problem? I mean, I know we do, but what are we doing wrong to get new people, new blood into?
(WZ) Well, I mean, construction itself isn't sexy.
(SM) Right.
[16:55]
(WZ) It's not exciting. People don't perceive it that was because actually it is a pretty exciting industry. You're doing something that's, you're building the American, like it's a cliche, but you are building American dreams and you're watching KB Home probably does the best job as far as marketing and putting that message out there 'cause I go to a lot of these builder events and, you know they always show a family at every one of their conferences and they have them come and speak about picking out the products, right? And then showing their kids playing in the house and it is. It’s pretty cool what we do, right? I mean, it wouldn't be as cool as building a chip for a computer.
(SM) No.
(WZ) Right, you might get a lot of stock options.
(SM) But that industry, the software industry, they have good marketing.
(WZ) They have great marketing and they feed people at work and they give them massages and they have gyms and personal trainers and which I think is all cool and great. J
(SM) Its good stuff.
(WZ) Yeah, I mean I know its stuff that my kids like. My son this morning called me and he goes “I'm in the kitchen”. I got a bagel, I got this I got that and they have you know full -blown food every day,. right? The kids like that stuff.
(SM) But see, and I imagine, and I’m sure you weren’t, but you know he calls and says as I'm in the kitchen. I'm getting this free food and you're like I'm at a restaurant with customers or friends.
(WZ) Or like dude. I don't have to go the office.
(SM) Right and I think that's one of the things that's missing in terms of trying to get talent into, I mean there's good talent out there. There's young people out there that are absolutely killing it and will continue to kill it in this industry for a long time, but I think we focus on the wrong thing sometimes and we were talking about this. It's fun to go out and, at least for me, it's fun to go out after a show and meet with people, get to know them, have a drink, have a meal and be at an event.
(WZ) Well, I think the one thing that people don't know is that we don't have the same limitations that most other industries do or are as restrictive, right. There's you know, think about the pharmaceutical reps. In the old days, they could take people out and have fun with them. They can't do that. There’s a lot of industries that are like that but we like to have fun. Yeah construction people are fun. It's a lot of fun and everybody's fun. I mean, there's not a lot of people that aren't fun in this industry and we all have a great time together. I mean really these are my friends. They're not my customers. They're not my clients. These are friends. I would hope that when I die, they're at my funeral. [19:25]
(WZ) I hope that isn’t for a very long time, but you know these are people that have been … I've had customers since when my kids were born. I travel with them. I think this industry is very special and I think we all need to put our heads together and figure out how we make it sexier, more attractive, more fun, more, you know, it isn't a guy with a hammer all the time, but that guy with a hammer is pretty cool too because he's putting the house together, right? But I think when you think construction, you think, "Oh, I've got to learn a trade." No. Or even sales, right? We don't do a good job of teaching young people what a great career sales is.
(SM) You mentioned something to me when we were talking on the phone last week or two weeks ago. You said people don't really understand about sales. What do you mean by that?
(WZ) Sales is just making friends and having fun with people and literally making people fall in love with you right to a certain extent because people want to do business with people they like and they trust. So you know what's the biggest part of my day? Well if it's not having lunch, dinner or drinks with people, it's answering phone calls and making sure that my customers' needs are taken care of and whether that's, you know, someone screwed something up on a roof, which I had today and some broken tiles. Or it's closing a deal, which is still my favorite thing to do. It gets me up every morning. Which is the epitome of a salesperson. Right and I mean, that's the fire in my belly. It's like that's why I'm on my card it says sales, right? I don't care about anything else, really.
(SM) But it's got a dirty connotation, the word sales.
(WZ) Absolutely. It's the solar guy knocking on your door. It's the ugliest of ugly, right? You say it to a 20-year-old that's in college, sales, ooh, no, it's not impressive to tell your friends that, right? Like even my daughter, "What do you do all day? Sales?" Like, what is that? Ugh.
(SM) You know, what's interesting about that is because there's this connotation that like you're trying to get one over on somebody. That’s what it feels like, right?
(WZ) But you can't be that way. In our industry especially. Maybe from the door to door guy or used car guy, you can because it's a one-time client. You know, in this industry, it's very tight knit. There's not … like we said it's shrunk a lot. There's a small number of customers. So you've got to be the person that's following through and doing what you say you're going to do and, you know, being honest and open and I have no problem showing people, "No, this is what I really make on your job. This is not..." You know, builders are infamous for coming after us and saying, "You need to give us 10 percent. Our sales are…our houses aren't selling." There's not 10 percent to give these guys, right? So..
(SM) No, and I think it's been…speaking of BIA, I was at a lunch earlier this year, and you were speaking. You were moderating, if I'm not mistaken.
(WZ) Yeah. A panel. [22:08]
(WZ) A builder panel.
(SM) And there were some very large influential people representing large builders and you stood up there, and you flat-out said, “Builders need us. You need the manufacturers to be successful for everyone to be successful." Like, it's … we're all in the same swimming pool. We're all swimming here and we all need to work together and I just thought that was a fantastic message because you're absolutely right.
(WZ) Yeah and well, if they think they can come and get 10% out of us, that means that their purchasing teams aren't doing a good job to begin with right? And that's just not the case. They grind us down. This industry we work on has very, very, especially on the roofing side, very, very slim margins. I mean, it's crazy. I have to bleed to give a couple percent, right? So, you know, it's just not there. So, as an industry, we, when these kinds of challenges come up, we have to work somewhat, we have to think differently. It's not the 10% slash your prices mentality.
(SM) Right. You got to be, you got to get creative, right?
(WZ) Uh huh. A million percent.
(SM) So, you mentioned, you wake up, the fire in your belly is to go close that deal, go make, let's go make more friends. What's the number one thing, if somebody's going to go in and say, they're watching this right now, they're listening to this and they're like, you know what, they're making a lot of sense. What's the number one personality trait that somebody needs to be successful in sales? Take the industry out of it, but what's the number one thing that they got to do in your opinion?
(WZ) Well, I think it's something that's just inside. You have to like people a lot.
(SM) You have to like them.
(WZ) Yeah and then when you don't, you have to pretend like you do, but you have to like people. You have to enjoy being around people, like there's a lot of times, especially at my age now, I still do a ton of entertaining. That's the biggest part, one of the biggest functions of my job. Like I go to Fresno in the next couple of days and I'm drinking and eating with people for two nights, right? And then you go, ooh, I gotta go, oh, right. I had a good morning, put makeup on, right?
(SM) All those things.
(WZ) But then once you get in that room with people, and you’re a true salesperson, its like oh this is a great time. It's five minutes in. Yeah. Right? So I think that's probably a personality trait. Also, you have to be able to take no and not let it hurt your feelings or affect your relationship with those people because you're gonna hear no a lot. You're not always gonna win and then you also have to be okay working out of a nine to five and knowing that you're gonna be out in evenings and, but there's also a great part of that too. I'm not at a nine to five. [24:40]
(WZ) So if I wanna screw off during the day and get my nails done, like, you know, my friends at work, my team will say, oh, but you're getting your nails done and its two o 'clock and I am. I’ll send them a picture like ha sucks you’re in an office and I gotta go to dinner tonight, and yeah, you don't.
(SM) I say sometimes the jobs five to nine, you know. –
(WZ) Or no, five p .m. till 2 a.m. There’s no hours on the salesperson’s schedule and you know, I was a single mom raising three kids So it was great and then it also had challenges, but I hired help at home. Yeah, but I was able to you know, go to football games and you know doctors’ appointments things like that that I think you don't necessarily know if you're not in sales.
(SM) And those are the things that in sales as a true salesperson, you do have some flexibility to make that work with the schedule, you know. And I think that's something that, again, if you're talking to a young person, they might not see, "Well, I don't have kids, so what do I care about being available to go to a soccer practice?" But as they get older and they're in the industry...
(WZ) But they like getting their nails done.
(SM) Well, they might like getting their nails done, you’re right. We were talking about the BIA and it's fun when you when you see something that somebody's passionate about and you're definitely passionate about that group.
(WZ) Very passionate.
(SM) It helped kickstart your career way you know way when you started there you're still tremendously involved with the BIA to this to this day.
(WZ) Yes, I am. I mean I’m very involved in PASS which is purchasing, agent, subcontractors and suppliers, basically networking.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) We put a few events on. Every BIA has them. I think that is the most valuable event to attend as far as a young person or anybody if you want to see everybody at once or you need to make those connections especially because you get in the room with a lot of purchasing agents. There’s a lot of opportunity there. I don't necessarily need to solicit at those events any longer, but that was where I used to do it right. I'd go up to the “Hi Woody could I bid your stuff?”
(SM) See now you're probably at point too where people Like I need to talk to Wendi. I'm gonna see her next week at this event.
(WZ) Yeah or it's an opportunity to give him a hug and say hey how’ve you been I miss you. How are your kids, right? [26:45]
(SM) Right.
(WZ) How's your wife or husband doing? Because that's one thing about this industry too. You become very intimately involved with these people It's not just about your relationship with the person you get to know their families too.
(SM) Yeah, a hundred percent. I got to know you kind of through osmosis at certain events. So the trap shoot, especially the Bay Area trap shoot.
(WZ) That's my baby.
(SM) That's your baby there. So, talk to me about that.
(WZ) Well, also being in this industry that we have some unique opportunities to give back. The homemade trap shoot is an event that was started 22 years ago. It's actually a gentleman that worked for Pultee at the time and he asked me to help him and it was a different way outside of a golf tournament. Golf tournaments are so overdone. You see people when they tee off or the foursome you're with. It's not really a networking opportunity.
(SM) It’s not. You're networking with like a very, you know, people that you were probably gonna talk to you regardless outside your …inaudible…
(WZ) So I'm so over those and the trap shoot I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it was guns. It was gonna be at a gun club and I thought it sounded like a heck of a lot of fun. So it's for homemade, and Home Aid and Home Aid provides temporary housing. It's the charity arm of the Homebuilding Association throughout the United States, right? That is everybody's baby. All the builders have to participate in it, I believe. They have a certain number that or not that they have to, but it's what they do and so the Bay Area Division of the BIA, which was also Home Aid at the time. Home Aid is its own entity that just works at the BIA started the Home Aid trap shoot. Like I mentioned, I was asked to help. I don't remember how large the first event was, but it wasn't very large and it's a bunch of people getting together at a gun club and you shoot clays, right? And it's a team of five, rotate, and then you shoot two rounds and you take a break and then other people shoot and shoot your next round. Well, we're now going into our 23rd year next year and it's the largest event. I think it's the largest one in the nation.
(SM) It’s huge.
(WZ) and I would venture to guess it's the most profitable as well. I'm fortunate that I have an incredible team that helps me. It's all builders that do the raffle, the silent auction. I mean, We try to challenge ourselves every year. You say, if we had 100 raffle prizes last year, let's get 110. We had 50 silent auction prizes. We want 60 this year, right? We always want to try to beat our revenue target, but it's been pretty stagnant for the last few years because you get so large and you can only put so many people on those tracks. I mean, you've been there. It's a long day now. [29:31]
(SM) Well, for anybody that hasn't been there the last few years, I, along with Mike Couch, uh, a guy you might, you might know….inaudible… Yeah, you might have taken it from him, but that's okay. Um, shout out to Mike. So we’ll actually keep score. So we handwrite everybody's team name, uh, the night before if we have them all and then of course there's always like last minute additions and all that and then you’ve got to keep score. Now these are big whiteboards. They're big, they're bigger than this TV that we have behind us and there's like two or three of us.
(WZ) So I have, I think this last year, we had 400 shooters-ish and I don’t even know if I’m even saying the right number, but I know we had more of the 700 people that attend because not only do people shoot, but they come out and the builders sponsor it, right? We have different levels. We have a platinum down to a silver sponsorship. People donate to the silent auction, I mean, everything there is sponsored.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) Even my raffle tickets that we sell have somebody’s names on them and those are sponsored. I mean it is the easiest event to advertise, sell and market. I get people asking me, before I even set the raffle or the sponsorship levels, when are you gonna start selling sponsorships, fighting over the t-shirts, sponsor the hats? Like, it's fabulous and, you know, we've all been working together so many years and it's a lot of work -ish. I sell all the sponsorships, which I still love to do because I like to beat….it’s that fire in my belly. I got to beat it every year. So I'm pretty selfish about that. I like to manage that whole thing with my name and phone number on it because I want to be the first point of contact because I don't want to lose any sales and it's, I think we net, I don't even know what the number is, but we've raised millions of dollars.
(SM) I mean that's incredible. I mean, especially, again, people don't see that side of sales and what you and others have been able to accomplish in terms of giving back to the industry and just in general to the communities is fantastic and people don't see that part of sales. Again, if we could kind of clean or scrub the word sales and make it an undirty word, than mission accomplished.
(WZ) Yeah, maybe we change it to making friends and having fun.
(SM) That's it. See there you go. That's how you market it to young people. Making friends and having fun. What do you do for a living? I make friends….
(WZ) My kids always tease me and say, "You eat and drink for a living, mom. Let’s be real."
(SM) Yeah, having fun.
(WZ) Yeah, pretty much.
[32:08]
(SM) Yeah. Okay, so kind of let's do a fun little game here. If you could change part of the journey, but the destination is still the same. You're still chief sales officer, you're still, you know, what you're doing. You're still here on this podcast today talking about everything we're talking about, but if you could change anything about the journey and keep the destination, would you and what would it be and why?
(WZ) My personal journey?
(SM) Just whatever. Yeah.
(WZ) I think, you know, it's, it's frightening to make changes, right? And both the big changes I made, the first one probably I wasn't as nervous because I was doing both at the same time, but the second change was, it was very frightening.
(SM) Are you talking about starting Citadel.
(WZ) Yeah, that was scary, right? Had three kids that were older, teenagers, getting ready to go to college.
(SM) What a time.
(WZ) Yeah, but I knew that I needed to make a change. I wish I would have trusted my gut a few years before and known that change was gonna be okay, but you know, it's easy to look behind and say that, but I think just knowing that change is good. Change is great. It revitalizes you, right, and when you know something doesn't feel right, it generally isn't.
(SM) Right
(WZ) … and I fought … I wrestled personally with that for a while and I wish I would have made that change in my life a few years earlier.
(SM) Well, I mean like you said, trusting your instincts as to what to do and when to do it, but yeah, no, I love that. I love the honesty on that too. I think a lot of people would say, no, I wouldn't change anything 'cause then I wouldn't be here, but there are things that we could certainly change. I mean, a lot of it for me is I not have had the last old-fashioned.
(WZ) Yeah, heck yes. I say that a lot .inaudible… or started with it and then ended with 10 other things. I don't know.
(SM) All right, the most important question and you're going to hate me for this because you told me not to ask a question, but we're in Southern California. We're in the entertainment capital of the world. We're in the OC as the kids say. I think the kids say that. So I'm going to give you that question what is the movie that best describes your life and your career? [34:01}
(SM) And if you don't know, we'll workshop it right here on the table here, but if Hollywood came to you tomorrow and said, we're going to make a movie about your life. Who plays you?
(WZ) Somebody hot.
(SM) Yeah.
(WZ) Yeah.
(SM) Who is that?
(WZ) I don't know.
(SM) You just give them a list. Somebody on this list.
(WZ) Angelina Jolie because she's kind of a badass.
(SM) Okay, Angelina Jolie is playing Wendy Zubillaga. I like that. That's good casting.
(WZ) Okay.
(SM) I’d watched that movie.
(WZ) But I don't know the movie because it hasn't been written yet.
(SM) Well, there it is. See, there's the …
(WZ). It would be a damn good movie.
(SM) That's a good movie. It’s going to get award, 100%. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for being here on…
(WZ) I appreciate it very much,.
(SM) No, thank you, and thank all of you. Stay tuned for more episodes from the Building the Brand series here as part of the Strong Conversations podcast. See you guys next time.
[34:49]
NAME: WENDI ZUBILLAGA