Episode 339 – Chris Schroeter – Your Market Is Bigger Than You Think (Live from the 2026 HPBExpo)
Audio Stream:
“Leadership is a game of trust at the end of the day. If you cannot trust people doing what they do best and better than ourselves can do, you’re not going to move forward.”
In this episode, Tim sits down with Chris Schroeder (CEO, Napoleon Products) to explore how a family business evolved from a garage startup into a global empire—and what it takes to lead at that scale. Chris shares candid insights about transitioning from hands-on R&D work to trusting teams across continents, the brutal facts every leader must confront, and why curiosity beats ego every time.
In this episode, Tim and Chris cover:
• Why dealers who ignore electric fireplaces are missing massive wallet-share opportunities—and how the automotive industry’s upselling playbook applies to hearth retail
• The counterintuitive truth about market saturation—how adding more dealers in a market often doubles sales for existing stores by raising category awareness
• How Napoleon’s CEO invested years reshaping his own personality to become the leader his global company needed, moving from “chip on my shoulder” to radical trust
Don’t miss Chris’s framework for working on the business instead of in it, his take on why brutal self-honesty drives growth, and the simple question that reveals whether you’re the limiting factor in your own success.
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