Shed Geek Podcast
The Shed Geek Podcast offers an in depth analysis of the ever growing and robust Shed Industry. Listeners will experience a variety of guests who identify or specialize in particular niche areas of the Shed Industry. You will be engaged as you hear amateur and professional personalities discuss topics such as: Shed hauling, sales, marketing, Rent to Own, shed history, shed faith, and much more. Host Shannon Latham is a self proclaimed "Shed Geek" who attempts to take you through discussions that are as exciting as the industry itself. Listeners of this podcast include those who play a role directly or indirectly with the Shed Industry itself.
Shed Geek Podcast
The Journey from Landscaping to Online Shed Market
Unlock the secrets of the shed industry with our guests from Glacier Sales, Cody, Matt, and Mitchell, as they share their captivating journeys from diverse backgrounds into the world of sheds. Cody kicks off with his incredible story of how a random encounter on Highway 60 transformed his career from selling mulch and even transporting animals for the Dixie Stampede into shed sales. Matt reveals how a late-night call from Cody led him to embrace the simplicity and scalability of the shed business, while Mitchell discusses how the evolving e-commerce landscape is shaping their strategies in both the shed and landscape industries.
Join us as we explore how these dynamic entrepreneurs are pushing the boundaries by shifting from traditional sales to a powerful online presence. Discover the challenges they faced, from weather-dependent projects in landscaping to adapting to the rapid rise of e-commerce catalyzed by the pandemic. Through their story, learn about the strategies that have reduced overhead costs and captured a wider market share, highlighting the importance of adaptability and technological savvy for modern entrepreneurs.
We also dive into innovative marketing strategies that are redefining how sheds are sold today. From the use of Google PPC ads and SEO to the power of 3D configurators that enhance customer experiences, you'll gain insights into what it takes to stand out in the shed industry. Listen in for personal anecdotes, industry networking tips, and a discussion on financing options for customers through rent-to-own models. As we conclude, we express our gratitude to Glacier Sales and look forward to future collaborations that will continue to drive growth and innovation in this vibrant sector.
For more information or to know more about the Shed Geek Podcast visit us at our website.
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To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.
This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Union Grove Lumber
Digital Shed Builder
iFAB LLC
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Shed Suite
Indentigrow
Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek podcast. And let's see. On our drive home from our two-week venture out in Colorado and it just happened on a couple of guys on the side of the road said, hey, you want to do a podcast and no, it doesn't work that way. We actually got in touch with Cody from Glacier Sales, Cody, Matt and Mitchell.
CODY:You got it.
SHED GEEK:I got it. I should be in sales. Yeah, I remembered your name and repeated it three times, so yeah, well, tell me a little bit whoever wants to go introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit whoever wants to go introduce yourself. Maybe just a little bit about who you are and what you do, how you got started. How did you find the shed industry? We'll start over here.
CODY:Yep, so my name is Cody. Basically, how I got into this was I bought a piece of property on the side of Highway 60, and I was selling mulch and material and some guy showed up and said hey, you want to sell sheds here?
CODY:And that's kind of how it all started.
SHED GEEK:The rest is history, as they say.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, yeah it's worked out for you though.
CODY:So far, so far.
SHED GEEK:What. What about you? Matt you?
SHED GEEK:you just
MATT:basically,
MATT:um, he said, hey, this guy asked me, uh, to sell sheds for me. Do you want to sell sheds for me?
MATT:and that's it
SHED GEEK:all good uh,
MITCHELL:Cody called me about midnight one night I was pushing snow I think it was December or January and he said, hey, you want to want to sell sheds with me? And I said, yeah, I mean, we can try it definitely. And then, I think, every night after that, for like three weeks straight, we worked on, you know, starting our, you know starting our business together. So that's how it started.
SHED GEEK:That's good. So you guys started with one company, but now you guys are working with.
CODY:Stormore, stormore. Yeah, I like them so far.
SHED GEEK:Oh man, one of the premier companies in the shed industry doing a great job, big, branching out farther and farther all the time, it seems like, and I had the pleasure meeting a couple of their dealers and haulers and things like that. So, it's always a pleasure. So, shout out to them for all that they're doing and and great job in the industry. We appreciate them and I appreciate you guys sitting down to interview with us. So, Cody, what's your experience so far? What, uh, what are you taking away from this? You said you were in excavating and you decided to leave that to be able to be in the shed industry full time.
CODY:Well, I kind of had a problem whenever I first started everything. I had excavation, I would do tree work, I would sell mulch, I hauled camels and elk around.
SHED GEEK:No way.
CODY:Yeah, for Dixie Stampede
SHED GEEK:what? Did you really
CODY:yeah and then uh had the sheds. I had a u-haul dealership. All this was going on at the same time, so, um, I liked all of it, but the shed industry kind of called my name. It just seemed more, uh, more scalable to me than anything else
SHED GEEK:take that dolly pardon.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, yeah, the shed industry just knocked you out. Yeah, oh, that's awesome. So I mean, not every day do you hear somebody say I used to haul camels and other animals around, so that's, that's pretty interesting. What?
SHED GEEK:what really drove you to it, what was kind of like that deciding factor to be like, yeah, I think I can do this?
CODY:I want to do this the biggest thing for me was it's not very many businesses that you can literally get your product for free and then, um, basically you can get marketing all that stuff for free from store more, and then, um, whenever you sell it, you just get a check, it's all. It's basically all profit just once you sell sellability just get a check, it's all. It's basically all profit just once you sell sellability. Yeah, it seems simple and scalable. So that's what I love. But you're not. You know, you're not going to a store, you're not buying the mulch, you're not hauling it here, and then you got to haul it to somebody else and then this is just you have a parent company, they supply you the product, you sell it and you get a check for it. So, it seems easy.
SHED GEEK:Matt, you're doing sales, is that right? How's that experience been for you so far?
MATT:I like it a lot. I'm not the kind of person who likes to get told what to do a lot. So being able to do sales, you can kind of just make it work for yourself the way that you want to make it work. And we're actually trying something. We're in the process of building a sales team right now and I've never been any kind of manager before, so it's kind of interesting to try to figure that process out.
SHED GEEK:Oh man, yeah, it's definitely speaking my language. You guys, when I say I'm a shed geek, it's like all the things it touches sheds to. So, like sales is really important for me. So, I think on the trip out here I don't remember what was the book I was listening to. It'll come back to me. Anyway, I just started, I don't know maybe. So, I just started for the third time like Grant Cordon, seller Be Sold. So, like I'm listening to that on audio because I'm getting ready to try to do a deep dive in that and I don't believe everything Grant does. I love his stuff, man, he's got some really good stuff and honestly, the audio book this time around was so much better than reading it. I don't know why. Normally reading it infiltrates a little deeper for me. So, I love what you're talking about in sales and all that's just interesting to me, there's the whole philosophy of sales have you read the 10x rule yet?
MATT:I haven't no, or anything from Alex Ramosi, yeah, no, oh yeah, he's in, he's, he's got a couple books. Uh, he just gives a lot of really good information about okay, not just sales, but business building as a whole yeah a lot of good free information that you can get from him.
SHED GEEK:We'll compare some notes before we leave. So, I actually have an app on my phone where I take notes and do all the stuff. The hardest part for me about reading a book is implementing the things, because you leave and read another book and then you've got all this stuff jumbled in in your mind and you got to give time to let it set in and practice the things that you are actually trying to accomplish. So, uh, I try to go back and reread a book. So, uh, John Maxwell, Jeffrey Gittimer, you know, um, um, definitely, like you know, grant Cordone. There's several others that we could go through, but I love that aspect of the sales part, and that's the part I miss from selling sheds.
MATT:That's the thing about Alex Ramosi's books that I like is that they're very actionable. He takes time in the middle of a book. He'll say stop what you're doing, do this thing right now, and it gets the ball rolling on things that you should be doing, um, instead of just reading about yeah all good.
SHED GEEK:So, Mitchell, you're pushing snow. You're not hauling camels, you're pushing snow, you're working for, like, county state or something like that, or for yourself
MITCHELL:I own a landscape, construction and maintenance company.
MITCHELL:Okay, so it's pushing snow,
SHED GEEK:So, you're like; so yeah, selling some sheds.
SHED GEEK:Sounds okay right now.
MITCHELL:Yeah absolutely. No, I really like to touch on, kind of what Cody said it. I've been in, you know, the landscape industry for, you know, since I was nine years old, but, um, Cody really caught my eye because you know there's so many variables, you know, with the landscape and they say restaurants and landscape companies are the two hardest businesses to run and own. Because the amount of variables, and after Cody and I had, you know, many conversations about you know what we were, what we were, you know, thinking about starting um, it just it sounded so good. I was like you know, we can exit this out, you don't have to have all this up front capital and so all you had to do is work hard.
CODY:And that, uh, that really struck my you know, struck my mind and to absolutely we should start this yeah, we kind of had the same pain points in previous businesses because I had the dirt work, and it was like it would you'd have this job bid out for this amount. Well, then it would rain for two days and then now you're fixing the entire yard because you had equipment in there. It's just different variables. And he was able to relate to that because he did the landscape thing and then he was buying material from me. So, I was like he's a good business guy, I'm decent at it, like we can combine and maybe make something that's actually pretty good
SHED GEEK:no, I think it's great.
SHED GEEK:Uh, you know, whenever partnerships work, they, they work great. I've seen some of the most successful things literally listening to that book. Grant was talking about a 15-year-old partnership that he's got with somebody. Initially everybody's like it won't work, but if you honestly put your head down and you stay the course and everybody stays on task and you just have clear expectations, it's amazing what you can do and accomplish and it's like a whole trifecta here, all three of you guys working together. Matt's taking over the sales. What kind of sales are we looking at? You guys have lots You're doing online sales. Give me a little bit about what you guys are doing, or what's your approach.
CODY:I can start this here, but basically what we have, we have a lot in Harrison right now that we do sell from, but our goal for our company is kind of just to push the shed industry into the new era. Like people actually do buy stuff online now. It doesn't have to, you don't have to you don't have to the e-commerce a lot yeah, for sure you don't have to.
CODY:You don't have to have somebody have a miserable life and they sit in that shed your little office for 40 hours a week and hope that a couple people a day come in. Our idea is that we do all of our online marketing, and we want everything to be like if you want to buy a building, you don't have to drive all the way to Harrison to buy it all the way to Harrison to buy it. Here's the pictures. We have a 3D builder. I can build exactly what you want and we can do all of it online. And like we're getting ready to go to Wyoming tonight. Like I can sell a building in Wyoming versus I get one vacation a year and I have to sit in that office all the time. So, we're just really trying to move it forward to where everything's online and so far we're making some progress with it.
MATT:Since we started selling at that lot in Harrison, I've only sold one in person. Everything else has been over the phone or online.
SHED GEEK:It's amazing, covid, to me, ushered in a lot of that, because it prepared us for shopping online, even when we didn't want to. A lot of things were slowed down or shut down or something for at least a minimal amount of time and I think it just kind of, you know, made something happen a little quicker that was already taking its natural course. Anyway, I always say like I don't really know where we're at, but I feel like we're in this middle territory of like consignment or not consignment, but just like regular sales lots, brick and mortar lots and then online locations like that can sell just straight e-commerce. You know, um, we're somewhere in the middle of that and I don't know if, like the brick and mortar will ever go away. But, man, is there so much opportunity for, like the young folks who are excellent on technology and excited about it and understand it, learn it, and then about it and understand it, learn it and then utilize it. There's so much market share they can take.
CODY:Well, and we were sitting here thinking we're like we can have a lot. We can pay somebody to mow the yard, we can pay an employee to sit there, we can pay lot rent. We've got to have insurance on that property. Or we can just really push to go all online. You don't have any of that stuff. Or I mean just really push to go all online. You don't have any of that stuff. All you have then are a few office people and you're giving commission to your sales guys Like it. Just yeah, you got to pay taxes.
SHED GEEK:Well, I mean yeah.
CODY:But that's just kind of our idea behind. It is like everyone else is all brick and mortar and we're just really trying to shape our business all towards e-commerce.
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SHED GEEK:So, somebody told me it's like you know why e-commerce and online sales work so well is even assuming that you're a shed lot that serves like a 50 mile radius?
SHED GEEK:I don't know about you guys, but I take a lot of the same roads every day around our local area and once in a great while, me and my wife be like hey, you want just go riding around and we'll ride around and we'll see something new, and people will be like that's been there three years.
SHED GEEK:You know, I never saw it, but you have access to it online because you can target market-specific people and behaviors and patterns.
SHED GEEK:And they're buying and you know you can use google and facebook to its full potential and what it's meant for, um, or at least what it's become, whether it was meant for it or not, and that's ultimately what other industries are doing as well, or they're targeting people it. One of the most simple ways to understand this is if you buy something off eBay, the three suggestions below it say people who buy this also buy this. So you know it's one way to know that they're watching your behavior, your buying patterns, all of that information and those are things that happen already with phones and internet and credit cards and just know everything your debit cards, all of it's sort of tracking your behavior so you can use that to reach people inside of that 50 mile radius that you've never reached before 100 mile radius or 200 mile radius and you don't have to have the great location either good point yeah you might be paying a thousand dollars a month for a good location, versus if you just spent that $1,000 on marketing.
SHED GEEK:It could go into ad spend, it can go into your website, it can go into whatever and gain more traction. Now, what about what's your guys' experience so far with folks who are uncomfortable with purchasing online?
MITCHELL:Don't sell to boomers.
MATT:I honestly thought it was going to be more of a problem so far Information that you have to get from people over the phone that I've never met in person. In my head I'm always thinking it's going to be a problem and it has not been as big of a problem as I thought it was going to be. I think people are just. They just understand and it helps that. I think that's one of the things that I was thinking about. That's what helps about having the lot in Harrison is we're talking to people in Harrison, they assume we're a local. You know down-to-earth business mom and pop place there in Harrison, um, and they've seen our lot.
CODY:You know that helps, I think and if they are worried about it, you know like, oh, I'm not doing this over line, it's like okay, here address, like you're more than welcome to go look at it.
CODY:I tell people that all the time we always like if you just provide the most value, they'll trust you every time Because, like I had this one guy the other day that was wanting to buy a building and he was like ah man, right now, or Zoom, call and I'll show you exactly what I'm doing on the computer. I can run you through Shed Suite. This is where it's asking me this information and if you don't feel comfortable with it, I'll meet you in Harrison. It's no big deal and I was able to close the sale just because he, like I, was like hey man.
CODY:I'm calling you. I'm not just trying your information on uh through messenger or something like that. I can just literally if you want to, I'll meet you there.
SHED GEEK:If not, we can do it right here I feel like cyber security and all that still got a ways to go. As far as some of that stuff, uh, you know it's, it's. It's going to be an important part of this process as we watch online sales. But I mean, everybody's got this anymore. You know, Walmart's got this I mean the fact that, uh, you know, uh, just driving through Albuquerque and I'm not just a shed geek, I'm a little bit of a history geek and I had I seen that, like Jeff Bezos was originally from Albuquerque, if you didn't know that.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, you know it now so I was like wow, I was like man, the home of, of, uh, Jeff Bezos and the water around there and Demi Lovato, uh, just so you know, I don't know why.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, so I remember seeing that and I was like, wow, what a strange combination. But yeah, I mean, look at what Amazon's done in the last I don't know 20 years. Like, if you read anything that Bezos put out there, the way he started and the vision that he had, I mean I know it's imperfect, but and's as good a system as what anybody's doing. You know, being able to sell online and being able to reach customers, and we all I mean maybe not every one of our listeners here, but I'd say a good portion of us order something through Amazon. It's taken so much market share, you know, and it's kind of like its own bubble, like Google or like Walmart or something.
CODY:It's kind of dominated that online space well, and how many things do you buy online that you actually don't think about? Like my phone bill, I get charged every month online.
MATT:I my internet's online uh Morgan and I uh bought groceries from Walmart, had them delivered to the house from my Walmart app for the first time. An entire week's worth of groceries got delivered here and it's amazing. You know, and I noticed that they, when you were talking about getting information from you, I noticed that they, the next time I bought something, they showed me here's your usual items, things that I actually like normal things that I buy.
MATT:It's like do you need to add this to your cart? Do you need this? Do you need that? And I actually like normal things that I buy. It's like do you need to add this to your cart? Do you need this? Do you need that? You know, and it's just normal now to buy everything. It's your new impulse shopping.
SHED GEEK:So, instead of you like going to the checker to check out and you see all the impulse items, now the impulse items are all of a sudden like hey, did you forget deodorant? Yeah, yeah, you know you usually buy toilet paper. Yeah, you know you might need something this time around, just saying and you're like you know what I do. It's next thing, you know it's uh, yeah, and well, ai, what, what, what that's doing? I know everybody gets tired of hearing ai, ai, ai, but it's not going away, it does so much.
MITCHELL:and I can even touch base, you know from my landscape company.
MITCHELL:We have mowing customers that I've had for eight or nine years, and they still don't want to put a card on file. So, it's like there's just some people. I don't think that, and those people may just not be your best customer, for you know the vision, you know that we may have and that's okay. You know that's why they still have lots that are filled up on the side of the road that have been there for 30 years and not 30. But you know what I mean.
SHED GEEK:We got grass growing through it, whatnot, so it's just not be your ideal customer you guys have a unique skill too and with your history and uh, in landscaping like that, if you did have a brick and mortar lot, I can only imagine how you guys could make that look as far as like setting your buildings up.
CODY:Ours don't look that good, actually, gotcha.
MITCHELL:George does a good job of mowing the lawn. Yeah, he.
CODY:and the landscape company would hire somebody else to mow the lawn.
SHED GEEK:Now have you guys ever used any of that to like work with a customer, like maybe setting a pad or afterwards?
CODY:I used to, whenever I still had the equipment and stuff, I would build some pads for stuff. Or, uh, I used to, whenever I still had the equipment stuff, I would build some pads for stuff. But like we were talking off camera earlier, uh, about the carports and how, just like little distractions, I just I want our focus to be clearly on just selling buildings. There's like so many other little things that could just distract time. Like I could sell this building but then I have to go build a pad for this and it might take a day to go build a pad for this one building versus I'm just going to Just selling four buildings in a day.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, no, that's a good point If you could just double down on what you're really good at and focus on it. A lot of guys operate in a way that's kind of like hey, my time's worth this much an hour and if I can maximize that time, I like to pick on Dylan. Many of the listeners know Dylan. He's the president of Shed Geek Marketing. He does a phenomenal job and I say pick on him not really I'm just teasing him because he used to run heavy equipment as well. But I mow my yard. I used to have a lawn mowing business. I always said, get into something you enjoy doing. And my dad side hustled mowing yards growing up. So, like we had to mow yards, in other words, and I just actually got to where I enjoyed it and sort of began to see it as like an art. I know that sounds crazy, but like I wanted the yard to look as best as it could.
CODY:Nice stripes.
SHED GEEK:Yes, to this day I still take a tremendous amount of pride in my yard. So, it's something I enjoy doing. It's not a burden, it's not a task. You know, it's something that I enjoy. And me and Dylan talk about. He's like oh man, I got somebody mowing my yard. I know he can get out and mow and all that, he can run heavy equipment and all that. But he's like I just figure, man, it's worth the 40 bucks or 50 bucks or whatever the guy's coming out there to do. So, I can double down and focus on what I'm doing and I said, man, I totally get that. The only difference in in me is like I enjoy it. It's not a task for me because it's something that like preoccupies my mind. It gets my mind off something. So, I have those little things, whether it's walking on the treadmill or mowing or just. You know my son likes to fish. Everybody's got something. You know that they're like hey, I actually enjoy it. I don't know why. I enjoy hard work, but you know it does something.
CODY:It just puts you in a good mood.
MITCHELL:Yeah something about it you feel accomplished. Yeah that.
SHED GEEK:See, that's the. I think you hit it because, like, sometimes you don't know, you know, did I? How effective was I today when I sold four sheds or eight sheds? I can't look at it and say, hey, I started here, built this, this is done, whereas, like, the manufacturers can, or the haulers can, they know their job's done, it's just a different feeling.
MITCHELL:I feel like, you know, there's some days where you know, Cody and I have talked five or six times, went through emails, designed a couple buildings, whatever, and you know, there went your day and you're like, man, what did I do today? Or you went out there and got your hands dirty and you're like, oh man, I'm sweaty, I had to have done something. I just think it's just a, it's a feeling that you just I don't know that you just kind of create after you do it for so long, you know, going from you know out in the field all day to actually, you know, being hands off yeah, I agree, so all right.
SHED GEEK:So, Glacier Sales what is your? Your? What's coming around? What's the future going to look like? We get it. You're doing online sales. You guys are going to take over the industry. Like you remind me of those young guys that I see like, oh, like Eagle Ridge down in Texas, and like other people that just man, they come out and they just hammer it Next thing.
SHED GEEK:You know everybody's like man, those guys are killing it Mike, Mike and Arlen out in South Carolina, there's just like, there's groups of people that you just like know are doing phenomenal jobs.
SHED GEEK:So, is that what you guys want to want to do?
CODY:Well, that'd be great, but, um, basically I, I personally hate, like the uh, the idea of going and working a job every day, and I just want to like provide the opportunity for everyone else, like you can, if you like to travel and you want to work for us, great, if you want to go, if you want to go spend a week in Florida and you still be able to make a living at the same time, you could do that. So, basically, what we just want to do is we want to build a massive sales team that helps build their own leads and we also provide a great life for those people that they can work whenever they want, they can do what they want and they can make however much money they want. You know, the harder you work, the more money you get, because the more buildings you sell.
CODY:that's kind of our just kind of where we want to head.
SHED GEEK:Careful, if you got a job application I might before the end of the show Sounds awesome. No, I love it. So, what's philosophical from a sales perspective? What's sort of like you guys' mission to your customer? What do you really want a customer to know whenever they visit you guys, whether it be on your brick and mortar, or whether they're visiting your website or just checking out one of your ads, and you guys are messaging them on Facebook or, you know, email, whatever it looks like. And then we'll do the opposite. We'll let you guys we're going to go early on this episode I'll let you answer that question and then we'll start. I'll let you guys ask me some, but what's your philosophy for your customer?
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MATT:I kind of I guess it's probably different for everybody. For me personally, I think of it as all of these people that I talk to have a vision in their head of a thing they want to build. We do a lot of customizing buildings to tailor fit everybody's needs, and I think that that is what we're trying to do is we're trying to give someone the perfect product that they've been thinking about for months and months and months and months, that they're going to put in their backyard or on their piece of property or something like that, that fits every, it checks every box that they know that they need. And that's what I want to do for people.
SHED GEEK:That's great, Great answer. I can see why you're in sales man. You do great Soul division.
CODY:Yeah, do you want one?
SHED GEEK:Yeah, maybe. I mean I can always use a new shed. Yeah, no, it never. Does anyone ever get a shed big enough right, like it's always like I wish I'd have bought bigger.
MITCHELL:Just buy a 16 by 60 for him.
SHED GEEK:There you go.
MATT:That's one of the things about when we moving from one company to another. Stormore manufactures buildings that are two feet wider and 20 feet longer than the last company, which I like a lot it gives you a lot more options. Yeah, and most of the people that we talk to. They want to build tiny homes.
SHED GEEK:That's all their age these days, for sure, yeah, everybody is, yeah, everybody is looking to to do the I don't know if you guys follow the shed to house pages or any of that stuff on like facebook. I started yeah, I started watching some of those because just it's really interesting what you know conversations people are having on there and and it's stuff like that. All those things are important. So normally what I do and we're we're not even really that far into the podcast, but I'm going to do something a little different, just because I felt like it add some value.
SHED GEEK:Excuse me, on this show, um, I normally like say, hey, if you guys want to ask questions, but we were kind of talking about this off air and it's like, hey, maybe we should ask you some. So let's see where that goes. I don't know, maybe, uh, I don't want to take your podcast away from you. I don't want to, I don't want to talk through too much of it, uh, but I want to be able to answer questions and if I'm able to be helpful, I will. So, whether it's podcasting which you guys, by the way, we're doing a podcast previously is that right?
Speaker 5:like you guys don't take my word for it.
SHED GEEK:Okay, that was what it was called, don't take my word for it and this is sorry. No, you're good, it was about what?
CODY:uh. So it was about business at first and then we kind of transitioned it to get because me and him love like hiking and traveling and whatever, so we kind of transitioned it. We were like I didn't feel like we were in the position to be giving advice about business stuff just because we weren't. I'm not jeff bezos like take advice from him, not me, you know so. But we both loved hiking, that's easy to do. So we kind of just transformed it into like hiking and outdoor videos and just kind of filming what we do normally. Anyways, it felt more natural, more fun to do. So we went from the business podcast just to kind of I don't know if I'd ever actually really call it a podcast. It was mostly just youtube, so just posting. I mean, we posted it on podcast pages but mostly focused on youtube videos passionate about that.
SHED GEEK:I would encourage you to keep doing it, because you know people. People tend to find you in the area that you're interested in. We just happen to find a bunch of shed people. For the most part, if I get on here and talk about my life, I think most people are like boring, don't care, don't want to hear it.
SHED GEEK:Well, some people find it interesting if you're passionate about it, right? Yeah, well, some people would find my life comical if they spent very much time following us around, but I would say, you know, all in all, if you're passionate about it people ask me that question all the time. Like I want a podcast, what should I do? And it's like man, like do something you're interested in. If you're going to do one, Like you know, you guys enjoy camping, hiking, biking, whatever it is, Talk about that, because you're going to attract other listeners about that. And especially if you want to interview, if you don't just want to do a monologue and you want a dialogue, you're going to want to be able to talk to each other.
MATT:Yeah, we definitely grew a lot more. Our YouTube channel, specifically, grew a lot more when we transitioned to that versus just doing a podcast.
CODY:I think people just noticed that we were like being real yeah, with the hiking stuff yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
SHED GEEK:I get it. Um, so, all right. So let's do something a little bit different, let's uh, let's, let you guys ask some questions to me, because I'm used to asking so many questions and I don't mind continuing to rattle them off, but I'll just give you some thoughts from the Shed Geek podcast on I don't know wherever you want to go, live podcasting sheds, you name it. I'll do my best to answer.
CODY:I can start.
MATT:if that's good with you guys, you have oh yeah yeah, you said something about starting a rent to own.
CODY:Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean no, never mind. You said something about starting a rent-to-own side of things.
SHED GEEK:Yes for us. Yeah, so I got into sheds through purchasing. I was doing purchasing for a large company, well-known company left went and did some faith-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation work. Company left went and did some faith-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation work. Uh, that's kind of, you know, a passion of mine and just to see, you know folks get clean and things like that. Um and then, um, yeah, basically, uh, uh jumped into sales and became a sales manager and ultimately got hired in rent-to-own.
SHED GEEK:So, I was doing a lot of my traveling, doing rent-to-own as a RTO rep for you know a couple different companies over much of the country and really enjoyed that and especially getting to meet new people and just have conversations. So, I started the podcast because that was just a genuine interest of mine and uh wanted to maintain, like, how do I say this? Uh, you, you were talking about pulling the shi industry into the, the new, the new, the future and for me I didn't necessarily love RTO, but it was the same way, kind of well, it just kind of you know it's. It is what it is. It's very valuable, don't get me wrong. It's very valuable for the customers who need it. Is it's very valuable, don't get me wrong, it's very valuable for the customers who need it and it's very helpful and I think if we sell it the right way it's an excellent thing. But I'm kind of eyeballing things like marketing and finance and all these different things that I feel like are a lot of the future for the industry and rent-to-own's just got such a big footprint in this industry. I mean, I feel like half the sales exist because of RTO, so it's very beneficial.
SHED GEEK:But then ultimately, it's like you know, is there a great deal of consumer education surrounded that, or dealer education, or manufacturing education even. I mean sometimes I'm convinced, and I don't know it all, so don't take my word for it here but I'm convinced that you know we just got a lot of education left to go on, like understanding it, how it works, probably the legalities of it. You know we try to. We attend the NBSRA every year, so we appreciate that it's a National Barn Shed Rental Association. So, you know they put together an event for all the RTO companies to come and learn. If you're a dealer you can go. It's open to everybody. You just got to pay the ticket and go. It's a day before the Shed Expo. So yeah, I started it just because I needed to be able to be competitive in the marketing world. We were kind of getting pushed around by some of the RTO guys.
SHED GEEK:So we were able to do a little bit by launching that.
CODY:So are you getting investors on your own? Are you going to fund it yourself? Oh, gosh.
SHED GEEK:So, we're? We have primarily operated under private equity. I teamed up with a company who's been working rent on for 14 years, so it was easier, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, to work with those guys and they're great, they're excellent to work with and we're just trying to grow that market. Uh, but we're not trying to take on the world. I've, I've, uh, I've had more RTO opportunity and I and I say this, you know, lord, thank you for any opportunity I'm given. He knows I don't deserve it, but you know, uh, probably more than the two companies I worked for previously combined.
SHED GEEK:Uh, because of the show and to be honest with you, we weren't prepared for it, we weren't prepared to take on that amount of rent on. We've had to go look for money, whether it be in private investment. You know bank loans. You know there's some guys that you know operate in lines of credit and things like that, and we've just tried to kind of take what the Lord's given instead of trying to go get too much. And you know there's a lot of over-promising and under-delivering and we don't want to be not paying someone's bills and all that stuff. There's a lot of people dependent on you whenever you're in that level of financial obligation.
CODY:Do you know of a bank that would just finance on them?
SHED GEEK:Yeah, there's a few out there, quite possibly.
CODY:Because I want to like, if you have good credit and you're not worried about having your credit run. I'd love to just give an option to people to be like hey, here's a bank, if you just wanted to go get a loan on one of these buildings. That way you're not paying the higher rent to own rates.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, yeah, obviously, if you're trying to sell from a financial perspective, um, you know credit sale is going to be, you know, federally regulated, versus rent on is going to be state regulated. So, you know, rent on you're paying rental fees, you know, whereas in finance you're actually it's an unsecured debt, you know, and it's you're done with it once you sell it, you're done with it. Um, and, and, yeah, there are banks out there, there are companies out there that do that. We're actually going to be launching a, a finance program because, you know, if you're trying to sell sheds as a shed seller, you know it's not that you don't care, but you want to get the shed sold. You want to stop any objection theoretically. So financing is the objection, or rent owns the objection, or that's okay, we got a friend, that's all good.
CODY:I just think if we could like a lot of these people are trying to live in these things so if we could get a bank to partner with and they're willing to do a six or 8% interest rate on a building versus whatever rent to own might be 24 which I mean rent to own is great for some people and, and you know, if you don't want the building full term, give it back, that's great.
CODY:But I just feel like it's a better service to people to give them that option, to be able to go get an actual loan from the bank on these.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, I mean cash is king, right, you know, like everybody wants to sell for cash, and it's easy. You know your cost and you've got your numbers figured out. Um, that's my wife, if anybody's listening on camera. Uh, but, um, um, no, in all seriousness, um, I would say, you know, I think that there's a little bit of like an educational thing here, not just in the shed industry but in our public education. Like I was listening to Grant in that book and he's like, you know, I spent 17 years getting a formal education, 12 years of regular school, five years of college, and he's like, and I didn't learn nothing about what the business world had to teach me. Like, as soon as I got into it he said I learned far more from going to seminars and things like that than I ever did.
SHED GEEK:The public education system well, most people think of rent to own and it's probably been sold like this for years as a traditional like loan. You know they use improper terminology technically and again, I don't know it all. Go see professionals who do. I'm telling you, from our perspective at least, our thoughts and um, and that is, you know, we use words like interest, we use words like own ownership or whatever, when really renting is the same as if you're going to rent a home. You know the difference is it's a month-to-month lease and the way I used to like to try to explain it to people is you're not owning the building. You don't there's, you're not building equity in the building. There's no ownership, technically, theoretically, until you've paid all 36 months or 48 months or 68 months, uh, of the contract and then we give it to you. So, the way I used to explain it is to people hey, you know those storage units down the road. We're gonna take one of those storage units, we're gonna cut it apart and we're gonna bring it right to your yard and you rent it every month, just like you would rent it down there. The only difference is this is in the convenience of your backyards. You don't have to go down to the back alley. You know, go down there weird times of night and see weird people, and you know, yeah, you just stay. We're just gonna bring it to you in your yard, but you're renting it, that's all it is. And when you get done renting it, we'll come pick it up and if they're like, well, we'd like to, we'd like to purchase it, though we want to own it, be like well, here's the good thing, unlike the storage unit where you just keep renting for years and years and years. If you pay 36 months, we're just going to give it to you because it's not worth coming back to pick up. And then they kind of understand like, oh, we're just renting it, we're not paying payments, we're not paying ownership.
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SHED GEEK:The problem that has been for a long time is like people believe they're making payments that build their credit or all that, and maybe it's not sold the right way because we're just not investing into the education. We're just trying to get the sale as opposed to explaining it, whereas traditional finance and getting an unsecured loan but something with a decent interest rate, with a good fico score totally different ball game, right? Like totally different. That you, you deliver it based on their credit, they're good, they keep it, it's over, like you don't go back and pick it back up like a like a rental.
SHED GEEK:Um, the hard part is finding banks I that are going to give a decent credit score to subpar credit. So you've got this extreme where, like, the rental fees might be you know, $3,000 on a $5,000 building, so they're in total $8,000 of rental fees, of rental fees, whereas that at you know, six percent interest on a five thousand dollar. You know, maybe they're in, I don't know what that would come out to, but let's call it six grand. You know now they're only a thousand dollars in for total cost, six thousand for total cost, and they're like, wow, it's way cheaper to pay six than eight, so I want this. And then they go to apply and they've got a 530 credit score and it's like, yeah, you're going to get an interest rate that's 1899 and you're back to where the total cost is almost the same. And I don't. I just don't think banks are hungry or have an appetite to go after that subpar credit. Or you know, I think they're going after the 680 fico and above the issue I've called banks.
CODY:I've been like you know, just, I've been running this idea through my head for years now. I'm just like I can't find a bank that'll loan on them. But I I saw I wish I would have saved it, but I think it was on that facebook group and it's like, hey, this bank's loaning on these buildings. And I was like I, I, this bank's loaning on these buildings. And I was like I don't know.
CODY:I scrolled past it or something. But like, I talked to my local bank and they won't loan on them because they don't have titles. I don't know if there's a way, not that the shed industry would want to do it, but I'm just like put, put vin tags on them or something with titles, because then they could get loans from banks on them. But I get why the corporate wants to do.
SHED GEEK:You know, there is a company that wanted to do this and I you know we talked about it. He was maybe like within my first six months of interviews, and Jeff Huxman, with shed hub, was wanting to do a shin number, shed hub id number and put a like a vin, but put a shin on every one. That the problem seems to be and this is what I talked with jeff about back then it's like the vin numbers are government mandated, so you have like a state mandate in each. You know in a federal mandate that says, hey, you got these vin numbers, and the secretary of state oversees it. With sheds we don't have that and, like most people, don't want more government so like you know what I mean you're not saying like, hey, let's create another division, pay more taxes to oversee this.
SHED GEEK:So the value proposition has to be better to do it than not do it. And I think the hard part is there's just like a lot of the industry is like nah how do they do it on trailer houses?
SHED GEEK:yeah, I don't know, I would imagine that's probably. Uh, what's the word I'm looking for? So, it would be government mandated too, because you have to be certified, modular gotcha, so like that's, I think, a lot of the things that split us in the shed industry. When you talk about tiny houses and like sheds, the difference is, if you're offering up a homestead, it needs to be like certified by engineers and different, you know, uh, municipalities or organizations that say, hey, this is safe to live in as opposed to being a shed. And this is why, you know, most folks don't want to and rent on, don't want to rent out on a shed just because, like our house for a shed, because it's like it's a legal nightmare to like take back a home versus a shed, we're just repoing our shed. You know, not repos, not the right word people's gonna get on to me for that, but previously owned yeah, previously owned.
MATT:My assumption was that it had something to do with the regulation behind the finances of it. That, um fine, doing rent to own on a home had different regulation for basically lending money to someone for you know. So that's why they're careful to make sure that it's not a house.
SHED GEEK:You know that you're selling yeah, no, I speak from my experience so far and it's far less than what some people can can elaborate on. That's why I always seek, like the professionals, opinions on that. We've just kind of been around long enough to kind of talk the lingo. But this this is what we're talking about on this podcast today is like conversations that dealers have all the time. These are like all the off-air conversations. This is like all the details of when people come together at shed hauler events or shed sales, trade shows, and these are the things that they're talking about. Or the hour-long conversations that you end up on a phone call with somebody just because you know them in the industry. People are asking those questions because they want to understand that better.
SHED GEEK:I think that marketing and finance are two areas that I really want to focus our business on for the next several years because I think they're going to be a big part of the industry. Rent-to-own is not going away, just to be clear. It's going to be here for a long time. I do think that people are hungry, not only as dealers and manufacturers, but even as consumers of our products, to want the lowest cost they can get. But you know, that kind of that gets into the rent to owns stash a little.
CODY:Yeah, I mean, I get why corporate wouldn't want to do it. But, um, I just think like if you could get a loan from bank, get that lower deal, we could probably sell 20 or 30 buildings at a time to an airbnb place or something like that. But no, airbnb place is gonna be like, yeah, let's rent out all of these buildings. You know what I mean?
MITCHELL:I missed a sale just like this past weekend, uh he didn't want to, he was building a house, so he didn't want to front all his cash. You know what I mean? I missed a cell just like this past weekend. Uh, he didn't want to, he was building the house, so he didn't want to front all his cash. You know, just just in case. And he, he, I gave him the terms and he said I just I don't want to spend that much in you know an interest as he's trying to buy you know, you know pay the taxes and stuff on his house as he's building it. And uh, I think if we could have a cheaper, cheaper interest rate or I could have provided, hey, call this bank, call this banker the purchase, it would have went through immediately.
SHED GEEK:Well, and those are examples where RTO really is handy. Because you don't want the credit score, you don't want anybody running a hard check on your credit. You know it's like, hey, I got my money tied up in this house and that's actually becoming a more common customer, I think in Rent to own. It's not just the strained or stressed credit or no credit, it's also like with inflation, the way it's been in the last several years. You're seeing you. You know folks with better paying jobs and decent, you know wages still struggle because they're putting their capital into purchasing a home or they just bought a car and they're like I don't, I don't want to be on the hook for this. The shed to this eight thousand dollar shed to throw in my backyard, you know, and rent to owns a perfect example for them where they don't want to have something show up on their credit and if they get tired of it or it doesn't work out and they can't make the payments, they can return it.
CODY:It's definitely got its place.
SHED GEEK:I just I would love to have that it doesn't take a credit hit, does it? Huh, no, that's, that's good, yeah, more questions.
MATT:I like it when you've mentioned marketing as something you're pursuing. Can you explain that a little bit more?
SHED GEEK:Well, so you guys are online. So, if you start to understand the power of a couple different things, like why Google and Facebook exist or at least what they do now, I was talking to someone earlier and I said it's become part of our everyday vernacular now to be like go Google it, just Google it. We've said that for years now. Right, but what does that really mean? Like, whenever you say go Google it, well, I don't know. I was looking for sheds, okay, but now what do you put in? If you're looking for sheds, do you put in? You know sheds in Harrison, Arkansas, sheds near me? You know what I mean. Like what are the keywords you're using? And that's what Google's using? Is those keywords to build like some, some, some authority for you to be indexing? Right? And when I say indexing, meaning you want to get your website to the top, you want to be seen. You want to be seen organically whenever they search for certain keywords. So, I have people all the time tell us hey, we want you to build a website, and, by the way, we want to be first on Google. And it's like wait a minute. Those are two different things. You know. Building a website is building this beautiful shed lot and putting it just out in the middle of nowhere. Seo is now running a four lane highway straight to it. So, you can have a beautiful website, but it doesn't mean it's performing and it's in front of people, and that's what you're trying to do with search engine optimization. That's where Google PPC ads come in, because now you're sponsoring ads and you're targeting people off their demographics, behaviors, things like that. So, people that might have been looking for sheds in the past, you want to go capture them and say, hey, look at my sheds too, you know.
SHED GEEK:So, marketing can be really big. It can be the signs you put out beside your lot. It can be your flyers, your brochures. It can be the way you dress your hat Every little thing can. It can be the way you dress your hat Every little thing can be marketing.
SHED GEEK:But online marketing, I feel like there's a couple of ways to capture people specific to the shed industry, and I think it's good to have a company that has a pulse on what's happening in the industry. So that's why we sort of jumped into it. So, websites, PPC, CRMs I think that's a really important thing as a salesperson, if you're not utilizing a CRM, if you guys are actually following up on leads like you're talking. Mental notes become very dangerous. So, you can't just be like sticky notes everywhere, like this guy said 10 by 12, but would take a 10 by 14 lives on this such and such drive. You put that information in and follow up and then then it just goes bigger. You know like automations and drip campaigns and you know what you're doing with video on your. You know trying to get out to people. There's a lot to it.
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MATT:So, what are you doing now? What are you so? What are you doing, though? What are you doing for people?
SHED GEEK:Oh, all of that yeah.
MATT:So you're building websites for people, you're running ads.
SHED GEEK:So typically, we'll start at a like the conversation. I usually start at a, a like a branding guideline or like logos. You know you start out and say, well, do you have one? Do you have color palettes? Do you have all these things and same fonts and things like that? Have you built that? If you have, great. If you haven't, we start, suggest starting there. If they don't have that, or if they do have that or don't want it either way, we move on to usually the website and we talk about the website and we kind of have different phases of our marketing. So, we'll typically start them out on phase one of doing like a website or reskin on a website if they haven't got one already, and then talk about all their tracking, conversion, because the whole purpose of running ads is you've got to do all the conversion tracking first so that you can even measure how successful a campaign is. If you're just running ads but you're just throwing darts at a wall, you really need a bullseye to hit. That's what we're doing.
CODY:Yeah, they have to get better every time. That's the point of them.
MATT:I can't remember what facebook calls them, but there's like the beginning period of them, that where they're just getting information from your ads. Yeah, it's like.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, it's kind of like uh, just a fishnet campaign initially, where you're trying to to grab people, um, google, you know there's, so from there, from the website, then you, we, you know we'll do things like setting up know tag managers and stuff like that on the website GA4 tags, set up your Metapixel so you can capture stuff coming in from Facebook and and, and then utilize that information so you can target and retarget. So then we'll go into like Google PPC ads, meta paid ads and this is a little different than just like boosting a post. You know you're talking about target marketing for specific zip codes and demographics and behaviors, so yeah, and then we have a full production videography team, so like, if somebody is really intense and they're like, hey, we want a branding film, we want something that talks about who we are, our story, we can push that out. You can do that in a paid campaign, you can do it organically Facebook, instagram, all the socials. But what we're really finding a lot of success in here lately is setting up automations.
SHED GEEK:Really finding a lot of success in here lately is setting up automations. Like we run across a lot of folks who are like I can't, I, I just can't respond to all the leads. Yeah, there's 200 leads that came in and I can't respond because I can't go back and remember one. You need a CRM to be able to do that and then two um. If you set up automations, it's taking out all the work. You were talking about ai earlier being great just ai automations yeah, I mean this is.
SHED GEEK:I mean, what you can do with automations is is, uh, you know text them first, yeah, you know text them day two, you know, you know email them on day three. You can set up all these different automations to where, at whatever point, they respond. Human interaction then takes over.
MATT:My girlfriend that you met out there runs a cleaning company and helping her set up automations for that company. That's something that I found super interesting. We use Zapier for a million different things. Take a person interacting with a Facebook post. They message you, they fill out a form that feeds through a calculator we built and emails them a quote for their house. That would have taken a few hours of a person doing all that work themselves, and that is the future of all businesses really is taking labor out of a lot of things that have to get done.
SHED GEEK:Well, and for people who are like well, that doesn't feel very personal. It's like, no, the person still ultimately takes over when human interaction is needed, but in the meantime, it sounds very much like a person. It sounds like the message you would want to put out as Glacier Sales, like, hey, we're sorry we missed you, but we'd love to talk to you more about the 10x14 that you submitted a 3D drawing of. You know what I mean. So, it sounds very real. And when they're like yeah, actually give us a call tonight.
SHED GEEK:Boom, all the AI stops, the automation stops. You take over as a human and you say great, let's talk. Now that person's ready to talk, talk, so all I need to do is get in more leads. And when people say, oh, this sounds confusing, you just got to think of it like this. It's no different than learning how to drive a truck, haul a shed, move a shed, build a shed. It's just the. This is the salesperson's tool bag that you get to use. Uh, reach more people. And ultimately, you just want more leads because you've got to keep your pipeline full. If I could leave anybody with anything that was of value, it would be keep your sales pipeline full. That is the most important thing, in my opinion, that salespeople, especially new salespeople, don't think about. It's like if you've got five people and you've got to sell to those five, you're going to be disappointed and it's going to be a rollercoaster of emotions. But if you've got 35 people, you're going to get those five sales.
CODY:Lots of leads makes it hard to be poor.
SHED GEEK:That's right. I believe that that's one thing. Grant teaches that I agree with More questions. Anything else you guys got, I'm happy to chat with you guys, this is going to sound crazy Okay.
CODY:I don't know anything about Google SEO. Is it because you're young? I don't know. Is it because I'm older than you and you're like?
Speaker 5:wait a minute.
SHED GEEK:He's a boomer. He's not supposed to know, it's just because we've focused on Facebook.
CODY:Stormor really tries to just focus on Facebook and Facebook marketplace, but in my opinion this might totally be wrong. But I'm just like if I were to, if I didn't know anything about the shed industry and I wanted to buy a shed, I think I'd get on Google and I'm like sheds near me, and then I would look and then that's how I'd sell the shed. Yeah, or I would be driving by a place, but I'm just, I don't. If I was looking for a new shed, I don't think I'd go to Facebook Marketplace.
SHED GEEK:Well, so full disclosure. One I surround myself with people a lot smarter than me, who work probably a lot harder than I do, and they just make me look good. So, disclaimer, first of all not as smart as I sound, okay. Two, I would say that that's okay. They're, I mean, you know they're one, they're a brilliant company, yeah, storm. Or two, Facebook is where you're going to get the majority of your leads, okay, so the difference is in disruptive marketing.
SHED GEEK:Um, you're on social media, you guys are scrolling through and you're just wanting to check out what's going on with your friends, your rock climbing buddies, whatever it is, you know. You're like, hey, wonder what's happening over there with them. Then you get hit with an ad for a shed, because you've been talking about sheds, googling things that are around sheds, looking at content that shed related, even on Facebook when it comes up. So, they're kind of gathering data on you and that's what that pixel does. It's kind of gathering data on you and saying like, yeah, you're looking at things that are related to these other demographics. You're a white male, you're 27. You drive a whatever BMW. You know what I mean. Like people who are white, 27-year-old males typically, who drive BMWs, also like this stuff. So, they kind of got you in a little box you know what I mean where you might not fit into perfectly, but theoretically that's kind of your people, you're kind of like these other guys, you know.
SHED GEEK:But it's disruptive marketing. You're scrolling through and you're just wanting to hang out and talk to your friends and maybe get hit with an ad. Or you were talking about sweet tea earlier and you get hit with a sweet tea ad, whatever it is, I don't know. Um, google is a little different. It's you're looking for something specific. You know, no one googles, uh, something hoping to find something else, whereas Facebook you get on and find an ad, or you get on marketplace or whatever. When you Google sheds near me, you're probably not looking to spend that tax money on a four-wheeler.
MITCHELL:Yeah.
SHED GEEK:You're looking to spend it on a shed. See, Facebook disrupts you. And it's like hey, here's a four-wheeler ad. You're like, oh, this money's burning a hole in my pocket. Oh, by the way, here's also a four-wheeler, could use a new four-wheeler. Hey, here's a mountain bike. So, it's like, you know, it's just catering to all shoppers, it's just disrupting your social time and hoping that you'll be interested. So, it's what we like to say is it's a less qualified lead.
MATT:Yes, but it's a lot more lead. That's what I was thinking about was how likely is it the person who is disrupted by a shed, how likely is it that that person is going to buy something as you know uh, as expensive as a shed, you know, whereas someone who is googling a shed already knows they want a shed.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, so like this isn't a perfect scenario, but there's just theorizing here. Say you've got 10 leads on Google and say you've got 25 leads on Facebook. It takes 25 leads on Facebook to equal 10 Google leads, because you're probably going to have two of those buy out of Google and you're probably going to have two of them buy out of Facebook.
MATT:That's probably why they're cheaper than on Facebook.
SHED GEEK:That's right, those leads are yes, because you don't know, those people aren't specifically looking for a shed like Google. They're Googling it.
MITCHELL:Well, on Facebook, all you have to do is click I'm interested, or you know what I mean. In Google, you have to actually call that person or text that person or go to their website and fill something out.
SHED GEEK:Well, that's what tracking tags do, because if they're on a smartphone, like the majority of people are nowadays, you know you're just going to go ahead and click on the phone number or directions straight from Google whenever you find something that you like. So, I look up Sheds Near Me, Harrison, Arkansas. Next thing, you know you guys pop up, so then I just stay on my smartphone and click directions to it. All that's measured through those tracking conversion tags. So now you can go back and say, hey, we can see that these campaigns are working. You know, and that's just on, that's not. That's talking organic. That's not even doing paid ads, uh, where you're doing ad spin. So yeah it.
SHED GEEK:It takes a while to get used to learning all of it and, uh, I'm just excited to be around people who value that, because you kind of see that as the future. And you know it's a learning process, like we're still learning to this day, like what's working and what's not. But all those things are brilliant. 3d configurators, you know those are so important. And like converting leads, it's just I mean, how can you get a better lead than someone who says I built this out, I want this, call me at this number, the only thing that's left to do is for you to sell.
CODY:And they've already seen the price of it. Yes, Like you, just take the order basically.
SHED GEEK:So yeah, those things are important.
MITCHELL:And kind of back to what Matt was saying when you asked about our mission and stuff. A lot of these lots you see on the side of the road. You're just going and looking what their inventory is. I think a good thing about our buildings if you show up, I believe there's a code to our e-commerce, correct and you can go in there and you can see. You know, hey, this is what the information is on all these buildings that we have currently here is you know the 3d builder and you can build whatever you want. So, he was saying earlier you know we want to put you in something. You know exactly what you want, but you go to you know different lots like, well, this is, this is all we have currently. Yeah, you know what I mean. And so, we have, you know, the opportunity to show you. You know the 3d builder and you know price it for you and get you a quote and say you know, okay, this is ready.
SHED GEEK:You know you'll be here less than 30 days yeah, and I and I think I think a lot of people think of like those approaches as um, sometimes I will hear people say that those are like aggressive approaches and I'm like man, if you're in sales, you got to be aggressive at helping your customer. You don't have to be aggressive towards them or like back them down into a sale and make them regret it and have buyer's remorse. But you know, a lot of times I think it's because we want to be kind and we're afraid to ask them questions that cause us to be a little bit more laid back. We're like well, we don't want to push them, you know, but sometimes the customer needs more information from you that you're not providing, they're not asking and they're waiting for you because how many times have they bought a shed before?
SHED GEEK:Right.
MITCHELL:Just because we have a you know 14 by 40 on the lot or you know whatnot, and they need you know an extra 10 feet, but that's all that's available.
CODY:Yeah, in all of our buildings we have like the length that will take you to a 3D builder. And then I also have in every building we have a laminated piece of paper. It's a QR code, you can scan it and it shows you how delivery works. And I feel, like 90% of the people I talk to have no idea how in the world that building's going to get to their house.
CODY:They're like can you get that through this gate? And I just it, like that video shows them. Here's the mule. It can back it up wherever you know.
SHED GEEK:It just kind of well even the QR code you know like is mystery to some. I joked about it before. You know my dad's 81 and we had to go into a restaurant once where they didn't have you know menus. And my dad's like you know old school. He's like what, how do you know what to eat? I'm like dad, you know, do it on this QR code. He didn't even know what that is. I pull it up on my phone and he thinks I'm a magician, you know. He's like wow, you're like a wizard. And I'm like yeah, I'm, I'm pretty much a wizard and it's just, but it's.
SHED GEEK:It's taken society a while to figure those things out too. So, it it's not just sheds, it's us as consumers. You know you said that you ordered food from Walmart and a lot of people don't even know that's possible or how to do it, or they might be uncomfortable with it, and they mess up one time and they're like I'm done with it, you know, because it's not user-friendly. So yeah,
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SHED GEEK:I can't say enough of what Stormor is doing with you guys. They're an excellent company. We want to continue to show them love. We appreciate any of their dealers that sit down and chat with us. We want to always talk about how they are a wonderful growing company and we see them everywhere we go. So, I'm super excited about seeing their new building being built there close to home in Mayfield on Highway 45. We see it every time I go down through there. Really yeah.
SHED GEEK:We haven't made it out there yet when you do come out, We'll take you out to eat or go somewhere in Paducah there and get a bite.
CODY:I used to go through Paducah all the time when I was hauling chickens.
SHED GEEK:Really. Yeah, you're getting more interesting by the end of this podcast. Like chickens, camels, what else I would take?
CODY:at least one load of chickens to Try on, Georgia once a week.
SHED GEEK:Well, there's a chicken plant there in Mayfield, between Paducah and Mayfield.
CODY:This was like a private guy. He actually sold them again. They didn't go to the butcher Huh.
SHED GEEK:How about that, I guess?
CODY:chickens down there are worth more than they are up here.
SHED GEEK:How about
SHED GEEK:that Guys. Anything else, it's an hour and five minutes in. We usually shoot for an hour, so we've got plenty here.
CODY:I got one more question.
MATT:I'm good for it.
CODY:Out of everybody you've interviewed, who's done the most? In business, oh man I don't even know who the top players in this business are done, done the most in in in business you mean like uh, revenue sales, like a deal oh yeah, a dealer like a dealer.
SHED GEEK:Uh, man, I don't know, um, Stephanie Maybe, an Old Hickory dealer I, I don't know, she's killing it, you know, um, there's some, there's some really good ones out there. Uh, I don't know, I know she was like I don't know, maybe sixth in the company or something like that. So maybe I just haven't interviewed number one through five. But uh, there's been a lot of, a lot of dealers that I've learned from in this process too. Like I, I was a dealer at one point. We had three lots and I've seen folks that are, you know, really killing it. I mean, you know, most companies really want to see a million dollar shed lot, you know, annually. I think that's a good across the board standard to hit. Uh, to be able to sell a million dollars in sheds every year. Uh, there are those folks hitting that two and three million and maybe there's more, but it's very possible. It all just depends on your drive. It depends on your willingness to learn. I think Adapt, you know, take advice and, I think, learn about your industry.
SHED GEEK:I, I said something on the podcast before. I probably sounded bitter. I was like man, I'm surprised we get about one or two unsubscribers from our newsletter every week and I'm like it's okay. You know, I'm not, I'm not bitter over it. My mind goes to this place though, like man. If I were selling cars, I'd want to know everything about the car business, you know, no matter how valid or not, I just want to know. You know, if there's a podcast on the car business, I want to know. You know, if I were selling milk, I'd want to know everything about it. If I was hauling chickens, I want to know what other people have seen who's hauled chickens before and say who's done it the best and how do I get there?
CODY:Well, that's why I asked you that question. I was like, if you know somebody that's doing really well and you wouldn't mind sharing their contact information, you don't have to do it on here, obviously, but like we're willing to fly out. I want to talk to these people who are doing good. I know there's a guy in Salt Lake City that I've been seeing him post.
SHED GEEK:Brandon, probably Brandon Suarez. Yeah, he's also uh kind of got known starting in like shed hauling uh, and there's some. I go back and listen to some episodes. You'll get a laugh out of some of it. But uh, yeah, um, jumped into selling sheds and yeah, I couldn't agree more. Uh, everything I see from him putting out content, Brandon's an excellent sales guy.
CODY:So, he's kind of two for two. Yeah, do it man. Hey, if you need some company for a couple days or something, I'd like to just kind of shadow you and see how you do things.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, absolutely. I guarantee if you hollered at him he would appreciate it. And you know, I know some hauling guys that have reached out to him. I actually met a guy out in Cortez, Colorado that mentioned Brandon on this trip and he's like, yeah, I reached out to him about, you know, some shed hauling questions and stuff like that. So, he's a really great guy. They actually had the shed hauler bash there about 18 months ago at his location out in Ogden, Utah, so we got a chance to go up there and he's a top-notch guy.
CODY:So what's this Sorry?
SHED GEEK:I'll keep you.
CODY:No, you're good you're good uh, there's an event in Michigan.
SHED GEEK:So, the shed expo is hosted by, uh, the shed business journal. Uh, if you guys get the shed business journal, if not, you should apply for it. It's a magazine that comes out, publication that comes out six times a year, I think, and they have a event every year called the Shed Expo and it's open to dealers, manufacturers, haulers, everybody to just go and learn more. There's I don't know it's quite a few people shows up there. It's in the thousands.
CODY:I just don't know. I was like I don't know if this is somebody that's going to have 30 people there.
Speaker 5:Not that that's bad.
CODY:It's a 10-hour drive.
SHED GEEK:Sure, yeah, it's probably, you know I don't know what numbers, Marty would have a better line on that, but I'm just going to guess between 3,000 to 5,000 people show up, and maybe more, at this place in Michigan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they have there's two trade shows in the industry. So, uh, just in transparency, you know, uh, Marty, and the shed builder expo has been around for a long time. That I know of.
SHED GEEK:I think they just celebrated 10 years, uh, for the shed business journal. It was formerly Shed U, that's my wife again. It was the uh, shed builder magazine and then it's become shed business journal. They did a name change and then it used to be called shed show. Now it's called the shed expo and instead of every two years, they have it every year. Uh, so this year to be in Michigan, I'm not sure where it is next year. Years they have it every year, uh, so this year to be in Michigan, I'm not sure where it is next year. But, uh, we go every year. We set up a booth, you know, sometimes we do shows there, uh, or talk, you know, other business with people.
CODY:But it's like a big community and the one thing you love about this industry is most everyone's friendly and helpful and all of that so I think that's the main thing I've learned is that, like whenever I was with Ozark, I thought I knew quite a bit, but then whenever we went to Storm, I was like I don't know anything about this industry. I had no idea. It's huge.
SHED GEEK:But it's small. A lot of people know each other and they're friendly and they're helpful. You have a couple of bad apples in every industry, but generally speaking, I think most people are helpful and we've tried to set out on a mission to do that. Uh, Tyler Mayhan, if you ever get a chance to visit him, he's over here south of Oklahoma City and uh, I think it's Paul's Valley and, um, he had wrote in the magazine for years, he's been in it for years and he, he had a quote early on in our show that said, uh, rising tide lifts all boats, you know, and that's kind of the approach that we've taken with the show. He, he kind of set the standard for that early on in the in the interview and, uh, I said, yeah, man, that's what we're trying to accomplish here, you know, is that, like we, we don't have to hate our, hate our competition or bash our competition. We just, you know, use our value proposition to do better.
SHED GEEK:We try to learn more, do more and drive the industry forward, and you guys are a perfect example of what I think is going to be the future of shed dealing. So, for sure, shed Sales. So, I encourage you to be involved. There's a Shed Sales Summit coming up that's there, actually put on by Peter Miller, Peter Boyle, Making Sales Simple. So, like $30, you can go in and there's all kinds of classes and events that you can attend and things like that. It's just a fun couple days. So, I think it's worth it if you're going to invest in the industry.
CODY:For sure it's September or something right.
SHED GEEK:September 25th and 26th this year. Okay, yeah.
MITCHELL:I think we'll probably go. Yeah, did you say you had three lots?
SHED GEEK:I did at one point, so we have salesmen. Um, we did. We had a couple, uh, sales people that worked for us. Um, we got out of selling sheds just because the marketing space became more prominent for us on those salesmen or even on these top dealers.
MITCHELL:I know we're running out of time, but um even on these top dealers, you know, are they having salesmen like, do they have sales team?
SHED GEEK:yeah, there is uh. So, it's a mixture of how people do things. You know, it depends on if you're manufacturing, if you're vertically integrated, if you're um, um, yeah, it just depends on how you're vertically integrated. If you're yeah, it just depends on how you're doing it. But a lot of times people will absolutely have salespeople working there and you know, I think you do better with a team personally, you know, because I think you're going to grow better in the spirit of cooperation with everybody. But yeah, it's very common to have a sales team and some guys are doing this.
SHED GEEK:I'd encourage you to go back and listen to the Eagle Ridge interview. Guys down in Texas. They do phenomenal. There's quite a lot of guys down there in Texas that are doing good Wolf Valley, I mean. They have these established sales teams and they know how to sell online. I think you know there's other guys I've ran into and I hate to. I hate to call them out if they haven't been on the podcast. I'll only. I'll only say that you know, for some of the ones that's been on, because they've already shared that. But I don't. I don't want to share otherwise, if people might think it's a bit of a competitive advantage to have this organized sales team. But, man, I believe that you're selling a shed, you're selling storage in most cases, so it really doesn't come down to the product, although that's important. It's good to be able to showcase it with a 3D configurator and you hope that they're using good techniques and products and material and things like that. It's really your systems and processes that sets people apart.
CODY:So, basically, the only objection we can get, and the only one we ever do get because we have the 3D builder. So, they're like I don't like the color, it's like well we can get the color. You don't like the size we can get the size. The only objection we ever have really is price. Do you have any good objection handling to the price whenever we're talking to a customer?
SHED GEEK:Yeah, so I mean, price is never the objection. Okay, like there's always another reason, there's always something else, because if the value prop is there, the price is never an issue. Now I say that with a caveat, because you can price yourself out. At some point. There can get to a point to where you can sell anything and you might be able to sell a shed that's $8,000 for $15 to a particular customer, but you're not going to get the bulk of the customers that way. So, you can price yourself out. But theoretically we all land somewhere within five to maybe I don't know more than 10% difference in sheds across the nation. I mean, maybe Washington State's different than Alabama or Pennsylvania's different than Louisiana or something like that. But generally speaking, price is not the objection. You just haven't uncovered what it is that is their true objection. Because if they're ready to move forward, I mean there are certain things that you'll only buy name brand and consumers are the same way. So, like, price is never the objection. But let's talk off air on that, that way we don't give away too much. Or let's encourage them to go back and either listen to some podcasts or I can suggest some salespeople that really do some intense training that, yeah, they know how to help with those things.
SHED GEEK:Okay, all good, I think we'll let you go home. It's all good. I appreciate talking to you guys. I appreciate you being on Again. Glacier Sales, harrison, arkansas, but Springfield, missouri, for today.
CODY:Yeah, Springfield, Missouri for today.
SHED GEEK:It's definitely a lot of fun to talk to you guys and I feel like I'll see a lot more of you in the industry.
CODY:Yeah, For sure We'll probably try and go to that thing. Hey, in the industry. Yeah, for sure, we'll probably try and go to that thing.
SHED GEEK:Hey, swing by and see us, we'll have a booth. At least stop by and say hello and appreciate you guys letting us do this interview, yeah absolutely.
CODY:Thanks for coming. Thanks for your time.