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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Carmelo Marsala, an expert in real estate and business innovation. Carmelo shares his journey from flipping homes at 19 to creating successful brands in the real estate industry. He discusses the importance of relationships, culture, and leveraging real estate for business growth. Throughout the conversation, Carmelo emphasizes the lessons learned from adversity and the significance of seizing opportunities. The episode concludes with insights on future goals and the value of community in business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Carmelo Marsala (00:00)
one thing that I don’t talk about publicly enough is I was able to build this business because of the real estate that I bought. ⁓ You know everybody talks about real estate being this passive income thing and I don’t see it that way and people want what somebody wants to ask me you know is your personal home a real estate investment and most people can be said no I disagree and I said yes I actually the way that was able to build this business is I bought a commercial building that increased in value.Yes, I had a tenant there, but I also built luxury homes that I got to live in, which was pretty cool, but also increased in value and eventually gave me liquidity to invest into the business.
Quentin (02:04)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m excited to be here today. I think we have something at least for me that I’m not that well educated on. And so I’m excited to have this gentleman here because he knows what he’s doing. He’s an expert at what he do. Tell everybody, everybody is an expert at them. Nobody knows them like them. And so this gentleman is an expert in yourself, but he’s very, very, very well knowledgeable.about what it is that he do. And he’s going to break some of the myths and really kind of explain what it is that he does. And I’m telling you, lean in because you need this information. Please lean in. So I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Carmelo Marsala. Mr. Carmelo how you doing today,
Carmelo Marsala (02:49)
Good, good man, thanks for having me.Quentin (02:51)
Absolutely, man. Well, thank you for being here. Listen, everybody don’t have to know all my business, but let me just say, I appreciate you, man. I appreciate your patience with me today. Humbly, I appreciate you. But listen, man, I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. Give us a little bit of an origin story, man, of how you got started, how you got this thing rolling, how you got in the real estate. Love that. And then also, if you don’t mind, tell us where you are in the world, man. We lovewhat people are demographically or geographically. So, man, Romelo, you have the floor,
Carmelo Marsala (03:23)
All right, few questions there. Well, I’m actually in Montreal, Canada right now. We do also have an office in Florida, but I’ll get to the origin stories. I think it’s an interesting one. I actually started when I was 19 and I actually started flipping homes. That was like what was interesting to me. And often, you know, we tried to figure out how do we increase the value of these homes? And I started working with other house flippers and started to realize that curb appeal was really, really important.And I actually got into student painting. So I was painting exterior homes, college pro actually, you may have heard the yellow signs anyways. And I would paint doors, I’d paint siding and I’d paint all this stuff outside and it would never really last. It’ll always end up chipping, peeling, cracking, whatever. And then I figured, well, that’s not actually increasing the value of the home. If anything, it’s actually ended up decreasing the value of the home. the aha moment for me for our first brand really came from, I saw a brand new door being installed.
And it was painted, Like metal doesn’t come in brown or black or whatnot. And that didn’t scratch, it won’t chip, it won’t peel. And I figured, well, how do they do that? So I went to a factory and I said, hey, how do you, you know, I started researching how they paint doors. And I said, can I grab these products and apply them on site? Now the idea was good, but in practice it didn’t work because those products are A, toxic and B, they’re not meant to be applied on site because they need to dry in ambient air conditions that are controlled in a factory.
So what we did is I found a chemist to help me create products like that.
on site so that we can customize them to the weather so that we can apply them on site. Actually, that’s one of our first ever patents. And what we do now is we actually are able to get a 15-year NOPA warranty on doors, windows, siding, all of this stuff. So basically, we give a new life to existing materials. So that’s the origin story from 16 years ago now.
Quentin (05:52)
love from 16years now, from 16 years ago to now. Man, I love that, man. Thank you for walking us through the journey, letting us know what you do. And I want to get more into actually like the strategies of what you use and how you do it. But I want to ask you a little bit about you, man. And so I love, man, I love the journey. I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning no matter what we go through in life, destiny has a way of giving us tools that make us who we are now.
And it’s just like compound, like, you know, and so I would love to know throughout your journey. This is 16 years ago, man. Like you had vision, you had innovation. What has destiny taught you about you? Has it taught you discipline? Has it taught you consistency? Like what has this journey taught you about yourself?
Carmelo Marsala (06:35)
And like I guess in business in general is you just got to keep moving forward and sometimes you get lucky bounces and you put your put yourself in a position to get lucky and and like anybody that has been in business a long time, they’ll let you know that yes, they’ve got some lucky bounces, but they were in the position to take that opportunity and actually do something with it. And actually, quick quick story on that same thing happened for our second brand. in 2016, actually,A customer asked me, so they want to stain their brick, do their doors, do their windows. And they said, hey, I don’t want to do this job because my roof is green and I don’t want to spend, you know, 25K replacing my roof. So I said, well, this was lucky for me because I’m like, okay, well, aha moment here. Another one. I said, what if we can change the color of your roof? And he said, well, I don’t want to paint your roof. And said, no, no, I don’t mean painted. I mean, what if we could change the color of your roof, but it looked like new and lasted like new. At that point, I had no idea what I was talking about. And I did the same thing. I researched, how did they make a roof?
Basically what happens is they put these roof granules into this hot asphalt They’re stamped into it and that’s what and that’s how they make a roof, right? So we said what if we could take these granules and reapply them onto a roof? That’ll basically be like replacing for a roof for a fraction of the cost time and mess and that’s what we ended up doing and now ten years later We spun this off into its own brand
Quentin (07:48)
Man, bro, what I tell you, you are the personification of Destiny Has No Wasted Moments. You’re like, listen, when I said this, I’m…I’m listen, I’m going to seize this moment though. Like I’m going to seize this moment. And so I love it, man. And so I want to ask you a couple of different questions. I’m kind of rolling it up into one. I want to know like some of the strategies you use to kind of keep the machine going. But also I want to know as you was building your strategies, have you faced any adversity? Like have you had to overcome some bumps in the road? Cause you know, sometimes we got to pivot, you know? So talk to me about some strategies that you use and a little bit about adversity.
Carmelo Marsala (08:23)
I mean, adversely, I could talk for about four hours, so I think more. So I think we’ve only got a few minutes. But I will tell you a story of how we actually pivoted to a franchise model. from 2010 to 2013, we grew like crazy. I went from me and another employee to 60 employees in like three and a half years. And at that point, I was marketing team, sales team, customer experience. I was basically doing everything at one point.That on this one day, I went into a job site and I started spraying, Spray House. We spray stuff, right? So ⁓ phone to my ear, customer calling, the phone fell from my ear down the ladder. I threw the spray gun down. said, something’s gotta change. This is not sustainable. ⁓ all came to me in one day. And I said, I gotta change the way that we do this, because we can’t keep growing this way. And that’s when I found the franchise model. I used to be a franchisee for student painting. And I said, let’s franchise this model out.
And from there, we’re now in over 100 locations across
Quentin (09:20)
Listen, every time you talk, it keeps getting better and better. I’m loving this story, man. I’m loving the art. Again, man, I’m loving how you’re you’re seizing the moments. And I think this is what makes, you know, just entrepreneurial shit business so special. It’s because people talk about luck and there’s some like, I think you even talk about something, you know, luck of the bounce. But I don’t know if I got this from Jay-Z or not, I’m being honest with you, but luck.Carmelo Marsala (09:23)
HahahaQuentin (09:46)
is when opportunity meets preparation. That’s what luck is, right? And so I love it, man, because it seemed like every time you talk, you’re showing me how you just seize the moments. You’re seizing opportunities all because of the preparation. And so I have to ask you, Carmelo, what is, what’s your next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve a scale next,Carmelo Marsala (10:39)
So, you know, I spoke briefly about Spray-Net, that’s our first brand. We’ve got over 100 locations across North America. And our second brand now is called Liquor Roof. And basically, that’s the one I spoke about where we basically replace a roof. We’re looking now to expand that in a similar way across North America because we think we really have something that’s different for roofs. And that’s really our focus now for the next two, three, four, five years as we continue building Spray-Net, right? We’ve got a good foundation there. We want to build on that.We also want to build a foundation for liquor.
Quentin (11:10)
I love it, man. I have to ask you, what is your perspective on relationship building? Is building relationships within business important to you? I know you talked about how it was just you. Now you got 60 employees. So it seems to me you know a little bit about relationship building. Talk to me from your perspective about relationships. Are they important? How do you go about it? Talk to me a little bit, Carmelo.Carmelo Marsala (11:36)
I mean, a business and organization is basically a series of interconnected relationships. Without relationships, you’ve got nothing. I’m actually pretty proud of the fact that we have employees. Actually, I’m looking into our warehouse right now. We’ve got employees. I’m looking at two employees right now here. One of them has been here for 14 years and the other one for 13. So we’ve got people that have been here almost since the beginning. And actually, the average tenure here is pretty high, like almost eight years on average. So like that to me is important.But relationships within the business, of course, that creates your culture, relationships with our franchisees. We actually, I’m pretty proud of this. We won quite a few awards, but this one I’m particularly proud of. We actually won the 2025 Top Culture Award within our franchise system, which is really, really cool. Basically, they surveyed all of our franchisees, all of our staff, and that’s the award. We won the Innovation Award and the Culture Award. So I think, I mean, without culture, I think that it’s culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? Without a good culture, you got nothing.
Relationships are important outside of the business too because if you don’t have outside relationships, you also can’t scale. So I mean, it’s fundamental.
Quentin (12:36)
Yeah, yeah, man, I love it. And you use the word culture. I use the word sometimes community, right? I community breeds culture, right? And I tell people all the time, healing happens in community. Like community is common unity. People that’s in the common unity of moving something forward. It’s not uniformity, because uniformity is everybody doing the same thing all at the same time. No, unity is like we do different things with the common goal. And so it sounds like the culture that you built.It’s wonderful. Everybody know what they’re supposed to do. And not only that, it seems like they’re happy doing it. You got people that’s 14 years, 13 years, you winning awards. mean, I think you said the average is eight years. Bro, I’m happy who I met, but I’m almost thinking about calling you like, man, where do I sign up? So I love it, man. I love your approach to community and building culture. And I really hope that gets contagious for people that listen because
When people is, I think there’s a ⁓ study, when people leave companies, they not leaving because of the work. Most of time they leave them because of the culture. Like people can do the work. As humans, we’re workers, we will work, but the culture sometimes is what we’re actually divorcing from. And so I love it, man. I love everything you said, Carmelo, let me ask you this. I want to make space for you. Is there any subject that I have not brought up that you want to talk about?
Or is there any other words of like inspiration, education, motivation that you want to leave? So is there anything you want to talk about or is there any kind of words of motivation? I kind of want to open up the floor a little bit to you,
Carmelo Marsala (14:52)
Sure, mean one thing because it’s a real estate podcast right like one thing that I don’t talk about publicly enough is I was able to build this business because of the real estate that I bought. ⁓ You know everybody talks about real estate being this passive income thing and I don’t see it that way and people want what somebody wants to ask me you know is your personal home a real estate investment and most people can be said no I disagree and I said yes I actually the way that was able to build this business is I bought a commercial building that increased in value.Yes, I had a tenant there, but I also built luxury homes that I got to live in, which was pretty cool, but also increased in value and eventually gave me liquidity to invest into the business.
So I see real estate, not necessarily as a passive income, although it could be a good stream of passive income, but also as as something you can leverage to then invest in something that can grow. And that’s exactly the playbook that I use is let’s, let’s buy real estate. Let’s leverage that to invest in the business so that we can grow that. And, and I, and I think that doesn’t get talked about enough. ⁓ So.
So I didn’t want to talk about that. I think it’s important.
Quentin (15:51)
Man, you’rean awesome guy to talk to. I I love the way you think it, man. I love the things that you’re saying. It’s no doubt I can see why you’re so successful because you’re showing me like the arc of your success and it all starts with foundation. And what you, the advice you just gave is you’re showing people how to lay a firm foundation and to build on that foundation. And man, you’re a builder, you’re an innovator. As long as the foundation is sure.
Man, there’s different other ways we can go. We can deal with the mind, you know, what’s gonna go here, what’s gonna go there, what’s gonna be the paint, what’s gonna be the color, but it’s all about that foundation. If you don’t got that, you don’t got nothing. So, man, I appreciate you, sir. I really do, Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,
Carmelo Marsala (16:39)
Yeah, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn, so you can put my name in LinkedIn. Otherwise, I mean, we’ve got two websites. We’ve got spraynet.com. I’m sure it’ll be in the link in description. And we’ve also got liquoroof.com. So those are really our two brands. ⁓ So yeah, go check them out and get in contact with us however you feel more comfortable doing so.Quentin (16:58)
I love it. I love it. allow me, I normally at this point, I normally say, let me just say three things to you. To you, allow me say four things to you. One, thank you again for your patience. I appreciate you, sir. Two, man, thank you for your time because time is our most precious commodity. You could have been anywhere in the world and you shared time with us today. So I appreciate you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for your story.⁓ I would I call like the gift of your transparency, the gift of your vulnerability. Our stories have a way of planting seeds in people that we don’t know when a return is going to come. But sometimes that seed just get down. And so I believe that you’ve planted some seeds today. So thank you for your story. Lastly, man, thank you for your perspective, like for your mindset, the way you think. Thank you for bringing that mindset to this platform. Carmelo, I really appreciate you being here today,
Carmelo Marsala (17:50)
Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. It was fun.Quentin (17:51)
Absolutely, man. Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Carmelo. You got the, you got the, the nugget. can’t tell me you didn’t. He gave you gem after gem all the way up to the last drop. So look in his show notes, check him out, connect with him. Listen, that’s blow up his business. Like, I mean, listen, that’s, that’s, that’s give it to him. He, want the business. That’s give it to him. Right? So definitely connect with him, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I keep telling you, we’re to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Carmelo.time after time after time. So sir, thank you again. And to everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.
