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
ShedHub Revolution: Transforming the Shed Industry with Jeff Huxman
Discover how the shed industry is being revolutionized! Join us as we sit down with Jeff Huxman, the visionary behind ShedHub.com, a one-of-a-kind marketplace for sheds and accessory buildings, often compared to Zillow and AutoTrader. Jeff takes us through his inspiring journey from a self-taught coder in the late '90s to the founder of a platform that makes it easier for builders to showcase their virtual inventory. Whether you’re a builder or a customer, Jeff explains the simple sign-up process and the significant benefits ShedHub offers.
Want to increase your business visibility and customer engagement? This episode is packed with insights on harnessing the power of SEO and digital marketing tools. We dive into the importance of creativity, passion, and energy in entrepreneurial success, featuring valuable tips from James Price. Learn how ShedHub leverages Google Search Console to track impressions and clicks, making it an effective platform for generating leads. Jeff shares the nuances of search engine optimization and the importance of targeted keywords to attract web traffic, providing a foundational understanding for anyone looking to boost their online presence.
Stay ahead of industry trends and learn how ShedHub's services can significantly enhance your website's visibility and SEO performance for just $40 a month. From real-time analytics to future trends in the shed industry, we cover it all. Discover how listing your products on ShedHub can provide valuable backlinks, enhance your brand identity, and monitor site activity transparently. Plus, get insights into the global potential of the shed industry, including emerging markets in Canada, England, and Mexico. This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the shed business or those curious about the future of this unique market.
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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Union Grove Lumber
Shed Pro
Shed Sales Summit
Realwork Labs
RTO Smart
Luxguard
Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek podcast here on this Friday afternoon recording with a good friend, comrade, supporter of the show. I don't know all kinds of things, brainiac. Thank you, mad scientist. Jeff, I know most people know who you are in the industry, I think. But for those that maybe are just finding the show or sort of new to the show or that kind of thing, do you care to introduce yourself and a little bit about your company?
JEFF HUXMAN:Sure so Jeff Huxman, the founder of shedhub. com. It's a two-sided marketplace similar to Zillow for houses or AutoTrader for cars. Shed Hub is like that, except for sheds and other accessory buildings. So we started back in 2000. We're four years into it, been coding since the late 90s, taught myself how to code and found myself involved with inventory management in the shed industry, management in the shed industry and um through a winding path, I ended up creating shed hub.
JEFF HUXMAN:So here I am, and and there's, there's other podcasts that delve more into that story of how it all started um but yes, it's um interesting industry to be in and be a coder as well.
SHED GEEK:Yeah well, we've had you on the show a few times and you have been an avid advertiser and we're capitalists, so we like to support those who support us. It's pretty simple, it's not real complicated, and you know. You said other accessory buildings. I wanted to just hit on that topic almost immediately, as we've even begin to expand the podcast into, like, the idea of what a shed is and almost happened to mention other buildings, I mean whether it's a gazebo or, you know, greenhouse or post frame, even I mean you know, getting into, like the barn does and things like that, and like what's a shed? Right, so you're shed geek.
SHED GEEK:Well, my introduction sort of in the portable shed world, which is where I worked for quite some time before starting the podcast, but it it's, uh, it's. It's almost sometimes hard to find where one industry stops and another begins, and even the vernacular of like shed. If you're in Michigan and people say shed, it's like 80 by 220, and you're like, ah, well, it's a different shed than what I'm thinking, but that's technically accurate, I guess. So, like shed hubs, even for those buildings, you can list those buildings on there, even though they're not portable and movable. It would bring traction to their product visibility to their product.
JEFF HUXMAN:Yeah, absolutely yeah. So right now, we don't have a whole lot of people advertising the larger buildings. But yeah, the definition of shed varies widely and we're glad to post a variety of different buildings Currently you mostly just see the portable buildings on shed hub.
JEFF HUXMAN:But there's no reason we can't post. You know more carports and metal buildings and even some of these larger. You know buildings that get quite big. A lot of people are posting um. You know sheds that are really tiny homes so a lot of people will ask me, like where's the cutoff for square footage to post on shed hub? And you know we're open. We're open to interpretation.
SHED GEEK:Well, and that's you know.
SHED GEEK:I also think it's fair to like point out that that's like um, virtual inventory to an extent as well.
SHED GEEK:Like when you think about like inventory on a lot, but like every shed builder or salesperson out there that's listening kind of understands that, like, not every shed that gets sold is sitting on a lot.
SHED GEEK:You know, if you're trying to move inventory, of course we get it, but there's a reason why we have all these tools, these 3D configurators and different things is to build and show somebody something. If they're building from scratch with their own vision and own idea of a customized, you know shed, and that's almost always the case with a carport, unless it's a fairly standard, you know carport, but even then, there's customizations in most cases, almost always. So, you could actually list something that you've sold, show it on the customer's property, with permission, I'm sure, of course, and then you know, maybe you put something in the notes right that says, hey, we don't deliver this, we come here, and we build it. But I mean, this is an example of virtual inventory that you could list that we built one just like this on a previous owner's property, so we could build one on yours too, and this is what it would cost one just like this on a previous owner's property, so we could build one on yours too, and this is what it would cost.
JEFF HUXMAN:Yeah, and there's a few people who are Hub doing that currently on Shed Hub. They'll post sheds that they've already built on someone's property with the idea that they could build something very similar on the next person's property. So, yeah, a lot of people say you know, I don't know if I'm a fit for your platform, Jeff, because I build on site. It's not a problem. Just get a little bit of permission, like you mentioned, from the landowner and we're good. Yeah, yeah.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, no, that's great. I always think about content of the show, and especially with reoccurring guests. In spite of the idea of having you on the show to tell people about your product, a lot of times products just change, or things are changing over time, or new things are happening, or new analytics are happening, which are exciting because it's like more proof and validation of what's working and what's not. But let's start at step one. Uh, I want to start, if that's okay. Step one like how does a person go about signing up for Shed Hub? What does that look like? And then what should they expect once they sign up? How does that, how does it even kind of come together? How does it happen? Just on a very elementary level, gotcha.
JEFF HUXMAN:So, um, you know we have this promotion going on through your brand and through your podcast.
JEFF HUXMAN:Um, so to the people listening and watching here, I'll share my screen here. We've got this website, geek. shedhub. com, and basically you go to this website, you click subscribe and you'll get a little form to fill out and this is basically how you start the process and there's this great promotion right now 39 per month for 12 months. A lot of the features for this level plan you'll find, you know normally would be at the 400 a month level. Um, this is per location. So if you know you want to sign up multiple locations, you just change the quantity here to however many locations you want to sign up and you fill this out, hit subscribe and then we have an onboarding team that will reach out to you within a business day and oftentimes much sooner and help get you started and we'll show you how to log in, upload inventory, um, and we'll even help you upload the first few pieces of inventory and get you started. Um, so that, in a nutshell, is how you get started so essentially was it.
SHED GEEK:Four comes out to 468 a year to use the platform, and I mean one shed sold, will you know pretty well, break you even on most average price, the shed sales. And I also want to point out, Jeff, that you don't take a fee. It's a subscription base, so you're not taking a fee. They're still keeping all of their sale, correct.
JEFF HUXMAN:There's no commission. No commission, that's just a monthly fee, correct?
SHED GEEK:Yeah, gosh, I would almost probably doing it over. I think that's more than fair because, cause I'm almost, you know, if I were doing it from scratch, I'd almost be like man, if we're adding this value, let's get 1% or half percent or something, and you know what I mean. But I love that. You know it's, it's pure, it's. It's just simple, it's honest. Um, also, I want to point out to people that, like you mentioned that geek. shed hub. com.
SHED GEEK:Uh, if you guys aren't sure where to go, if you don't subscribe to the newsletter, um, you know we send that out to over 4 000 people three times a week. So there's what. What you'll see a lot of times is, uh, that email blast will come out and it'll have all kinds of things. It'll have a uh, a whole bunch of uh information on there, including a bio of today's guest. When you're listening, uh, it'll have links to listen or watch the episode. It'll show who advertisers are and it'll have links to their website or lead form, and there'll also be uh digital display ads below and those are just little clickable links for people to go to, including Shed Hub as one of them. So when you click on that, it'll automatically take you to that geek. shedhub. com.
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SHED GEEK:And I can almost go on a tangent there. Already, Jeff and I'm gonna stay away from marketing because we're talking about Shed Hub today. But you know, those email campaigns are extremely valuable because, like you guys could be using those and those are automations and things we build so that you can know who's coming to your site and measuring those through different analytics and stuff like that. So, when you click on those things, that adds value. It adds value back to the platform. So, when you're looking at shopping, it serves like an online magazine, essentially. You go there and you can click on it and find out all the information you want, because we link it that way. And that's just sort of what the digital world does now. And that's your world, Jeff. The digital world, that's what you're doing.
SHED GEEK:Got to interview you a few times. You're one of the first ones to reach out to us to interview. Got to sit in with, uh, our friend john ross, who used to work at amazon, and we got to interview him together, who's wrote a book called the amazon way. It's excellent. If you haven't read it go listen, listen to it.
SHED GEEK:So, um, so that's the process. That's how you get there. That's how you get on it. Save some money on geek. shedhub. com. Go click on the link, just type it into your URL. Go sign up for the newsletter, whatever it is. If you don't know how to sign up for the newsletter, go to shed geekcom. Call me, text me, email me, chase me down. Whatever you got to do, um, but now what's it? Look like Jeff. Moving from that point on, why? What's your value proposition? Why should I be on shed?
JEFF HUXMAN:so we're just a very, very visible platform. Um, here I'll share my screen again. So this is a screenshot from something, a tool called Google Search Console, and basically this measures how many impressions we're getting on Google Search and how many clicks we're getting from Google Search. And so an impression on Google Search is basically is your information visible after someone searches for something? So if someone searches for sheds near Baker, Louisiana, there's going to be a bunch of results and if Shed Hub appears in those results, that counts as one impression. And there's a million ways to search for a shed. I mean, there's all types of keywords and key phrases and things like that, and so Google is just keeping track of any time anybody appears in one of their results.
JEFF HUXMAN:So for Shed Hub, during the month of May 2024, we had 1.39 million impressions. That was a new record for us and during that same month we received 33.4 thousand clicks from those search results. So really the reason to be on Shed Hub is we're very, very visible, and the feedback that I get is people who find us on Shed Hub and then reach out to your shed company in turn. The leads are oftentimes very, very valuable warm to hot leads and people oftentimes buy from the leads that we bring in, so that's the value we bring. We're just a very visible platform for people to find your products now let's get into the weeds on that a little bit.
SHED GEEK:Um, being visible through keyword search, this is so. So we've had people reach out and say hey, I'd like for you to build a website, by the way. By the way, can you go ahead and make sure that website shows up first on google?
JEFF HUXMAN:right and it's like okay.
SHED GEEK:So now we're in a place where we have to like educate, right, because you can build a beautiful website, right, doesn't matter how much it costs, how many pages. You know $50,000 site, if that's what you want, you know you can build it, but it may get nowhere without traffic. I mean it'll have some organic traffic, but then developing SEO, search engine optimization is literally that optimizing, getting eyeballs on the website. That's what you're trying to do, and you're trying to do that via a search engine and obviously Google is the top of the line when it comes to if you're going to be visible.
SHED GEEK:But you can do that through several different keywords and without giving away the, the secret sauce of, uh, Jeff Huxman's, you know, uh, wonderful, you know, seo presence, what. Break that down just a little bit for people to kind of understand, like how people are looking sheds near me, sheds for sale near me, sheds in x town, whatever you want to name, name your town, sure. Break that down just a little bit for the, you know, for the person who's like I, I don't, I don't get it, how does that work?
JEFF HUXMAN:yeah. So there's a lots of different ways to search for a shed. So someone might just type in the word shed and you'll get certain results for that Shed. If you're in England, the word shed means a parking garage, so that's totally different than a portable shed. There's sheds like deer antler sheds, so there's less. The smaller the word, the smaller the search phrase, the less context there is.
JEFF HUXMAN:And you're competing with lots of other things to get attention when the search term is smaller or less discerning.
JEFF HUXMAN:So if you as a company are trying to improve your search results, you try to expand the number of what we call long tail keywords because they're easier to compete on. So it might be sheds for sale near a particular town or a particular brand near a particular town, and Google's going to pick up on which town that person is searching from. So even if you don't explicitly say in the search results in your search query hey, I'm in Houston looking for a shed Google can oftentimes tell, based on your IP address, where you're sitting and is going to give you results relevant to that. So basically, seo is a game that takes a lot of time because you're trying to figure out how Google thinks and behaves and presents results. A lot of it they tell you in vague terms on how they operate, but there's a lot they don't tell you, and so there's a lot that you can learn just by doing SEO for years and years, like our team has doing SEO for years and years, like our team has.
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JEFF HUXMAN:SEO is one of these things where it takes a lot of time to get noticed by Google and then Google can reward you very well over time. But it takes time and a lot of people don't have time. So you might want to sell sheds right now. Like you, you need to hit a quota. You want to get shed sales. You know paid advertising might be a better route for you. So SEO is more of a long-term play to make sure you're visible and noticeable for a long period of time.
SHED GEEK:And when you say paid advertising, essentially you're getting into the more common PPC. Google ad campaigns, meta ad campaigns, and then there's a whole conversation around that, but this is more of an organic traffic monster that you're trying to create, and what you're trying to get is you're trying to get google to notice you, and they're the ones that ultimately index you and put you up where they want you, and they do that based on a like a multitude of things, right, you know and what essentially they're saying is hey, we, we are a search engine.
SHED GEEK:When you're at home you don't know the answer, you say go Google it. Well, depending on what you Google will determine the results you get. So if you say sheds, you'll get a multitude of different things. But if you say sheds near me, then you'll get a whole different multitude of things. Right Like you'll get it'll be a more refined search.
SHED GEEK:So that's why, when someone says, put my website up at the top of Google, the guy I'm with now he's already got me there. It's like well, let's investigate here a little to see if you are there or not. It depends on the keywords.
JEFF HUXMAN:It depends on the keywords. It depends on the keywords and really the way to guarantee you're at the top is to outbid everybody else. On paid quick search Big budget Now, a lot of people skip over those ads and they're looking for the natural results. So it's good to do both. Yeah, you know I can't advocate one over the other, but yeah, it takes a lot to get people's attention on Google, and having a suite of tools at your disposal to help you with your marketing is important.
SHED GEEK:Well, and we like to tell people, you know, 5050, 50, it's good to have a good, you know good paid campaign going, but then it's also good to have, like we've seen, some of the hottest leads from some of the companies that we work with. It's got good, organic, long-term seo going, uh. But I mean you got to constantly update, you've got to constantly stay on top of it. But like you figured this out and I know you get nervous when I say these things but like you have figured this out to get shed hub to show up all over the place, call, phone calls I get all the time now are like tell me more about shed up. I'm like, well, what do you mean and what they're really asking? When I get into the meat of it is like every time I search something or different searches, I find that, like mine will be like number four, number five, but shut up is always like number one or two or three or seven or nine or whatever it is.
SHED GEEK:They're always seemingly on the front page of most every search in almost every city Without using an SEO service, by just signing up. If your website's not performing at a high level or indexing at a high level, you're automatically getting more visibility. For $40 a month.
JEFF HUXMAN:So, yeah, if you list your products on Shed Hub, you get a boost from that. But then also, we actually provide links back to your own website, and so Google also keeps track of which websites are providing juice to improve the ranking of other people's websites, and oftentimes you can find that Shed Hub is providing this link juice. You can find that Shed Hub is providing this link juice. We provide SEO value to these other companies to help improve their ranking as well.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, so it's not just being ministered to, it's ministering back right.
JEFF HUXMAN:You know what I?
SHED GEEK:mean You're not just getting help, you're actually helping them and their website perform as well, so you're not trying to take their website out. The idea is like you said you want you want their buildings to be seen on their website your website and any other website and there's a couple of different ways to do that. You can do that on the brand builder, which we'll need to talk about if, if somebody chooses to use that. But essentially, you know Google has all these things to choose from. Based off of what you search on, who they want to recommend is the most reputable place to find that and like if they are recommending Shed Hub is a top source in multiple search queries among multiple cities across the United States.
SHED GEEK:That's essentially saying, hey, we recognize this website gets a lot of traffic, but what about the other side of this, Jeff? This is the thing that gets me. What about the other side of this? What about people find it there and they see Shed Hub, but they don't use the digital platform thoroughly through the purchasing option? What I mean is you get them the lead, but the person does. What we're all more comfortable with is just seeing the phone number calling the person up and then a possible sales situation occurs where they end up selling the shed, but there's no like proving that the lead was generated by Shed Hub.
JEFF HUXMAN:That happens quite a bit. So, yeah, we post your phone number right next to each piece of inventory so people can call you. Know, pick up their cell, tap in the number, call you. Shed hub won't necessarily get any sort of credit or recognition or an assist in that sale, um, unless you ask, it's explicitly and sales people aren't going to bug them with a lot of those questions because they're looking for the sale. You know it just slows down their process, maybe.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, I I think I think there's a lot more leads that's happening that maybe are even hard to identify, and I think, man, I think you know that would be really cool if we could do that, but I think everyone's looking for that. They're looking for proof. So, okay, we got how to get on there, we got sort of what it does or or how it works, but then it's it's like what do these analytics mean? You, you showed, uh, you shared your screen earlier and you kind of showed some impressions, but like, what does it look like in real time?
JEFF HUXMAN:yeah, okay, let's see here. Okay, so I was launching here the uh, this is live, real-time, as we speak visitors to the website. So each one of these dots represents a visitor and you can sort of see as we talk here, as new people visit the site and you know this is sort of fun to watch. You can see where all the visitors are coming from and you can sort of, if you watch this long enough, you can sort of see where a lot of the activity is.
SHED GEEK:So this is fun for me so what we're seeing for those who aren't viewing there's a graphic on that says five, the number five, and it says active users in the last five minutes and that number will rotate. It'll go five, six, seven, eight, nine, down, back and forth, constantly bouncing, measuring that activity, and then there's 23 active users in the last 30 minutes. But this is like the way it looks 24 hours a day, because there's people staying on it and there. That's because google is suggesting, whenever people search for sheds, hey, this is the most reputable place to go find it's. It may be ranking below or above your current website, depending on keyword searches in your own area.
SHED GEEK:I always encourage people to go look, you know it sheds near me or sheds near insert, name of town that you're in, or something like that, because you'll see that shed hub usually shows up. And if your sheds were listed on there invisible, like my mind tells me, people are going to spend more time on that site. Even if they leave that site, they may end up going to the actual company's website. So, like you're still capturing them and that's really what you want, right? You want to be showing up constantly whenever people are. It's the same with reviews we just did, you know, this uh podcast with Liftify, you know, and it's like you know that's the whole purpose of reviews is we're trying to like get you shown as the most reputable place to be able to purchase a shed in your particular area. You're just showing people that nationwide yeah hello shed sellers.
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SHED GEEK:I don't know. I hope I broke it down. I hope that makes sense, because I'm not sure if we've done that the first time and I get a lot of these calls and I'm like next time I get Jeff on here, we got to go through that system, tell me about the brand builder, like those who are, are trying to make sense of that sure. What, how, what's that look like? Because you're going to be way better explaining that than I am sure.
JEFF HUXMAN:So, the brand builder website is something that sort of evolved because people wanted a way to share their listings but they didn't necessarily want to share a link to Shed Hub. I mean, Shed hub's job is to provide you with leads. We're not necessarily looking for your website to bring us your customers, because they'll get distracted potentially by other pieces of inventory that aren't yours. So, it's really our job to push out leads to you. Um and so, for the people who wanted to be able to share the inventory on shed hub but sort of keep that internal to their company, we created something called a brand builder website, which is a very, very quick website the home page, another page that lists all your inventory that you have on Shed Hub, and then individual pages for each piece of inventory for people to look at. So you can share those individual pieces of inventory through text message or email, have people look at what you've currently got, but it's your branding, it's not Shed Hub's branding on that page. There's a little, you know, powered by Shed Hub at the bottom, but it's your branding on that page. People know that this is your stuff and they're not going to be distracted by other people's listings. So it's a very useful tool. It actually helps your company with SEO.
JEFF HUXMAN:We can launch these brand builder websites and Google picks up on them very quickly and it'll bring you extra link juice and all the inventory they've got for sale. And then from there, you know, you can click view more and you'll see just one piece of inventory. So you can, you know, if this was your website, you could share this link and share it with your customers and they can see some of your products from wherever they sit. They don't necessarily have to come out to your lot to start shopping at your location. They can see what you've got for sale.
JEFF HUXMAN:And these sorts of tools are very, very useful for people who do start their shopping journey online, which a lot do. They can shop from the comfort of home, see something that interests them, and then maybe that person lives 45 minutes or an hour, hour and a half away and they're trying to make the decision in their head Should I put that time and money and effort to drive out to visit this lot? Posting your photos like this and sharing your inventory sort of builds confidence in people to actually come out and make that effort because they see something that interests them, and I've heard stories of people driving hours and hours to come visit a lot because they saw something on shed hub or a website like brand builder sites, travis beach.
SHED GEEK:He gets it all the time from his tiktok account. I think it's awesome, I love what the guy's doing. But I noticed something else on here too. I noticed that, you know, beyond getting the information, for here too, you've got like a like a 3d uh tab embedded in the brand builder too. So like if people are like, well, maybe I want to design something, and then bam, next thing you know you're capturing that information because they become a warmer lead as they take the time to fill out their information, enter that data in and then build a a shed and even request that someone reaches back out to them yeah, actually.
JEFF HUXMAN:So, yeah, this, this build your own custom shed. If you have a 3d configurator 3d builder that you already use, we will link to that at no additional cost. And actually, other companies have told me that they've looked at their own analytics and the single biggest source of 3D configurator leads originates from Shed Hub, beyond their own website. So it's like their website is number one in terms of providing leads through the 3D configurator and then Shed Hub was number two. So that's very encouraging that there's a lot of people that click this and start the process to interact with you.
SHED GEEK:Well, we've seen the value in it, just in running PPC ads specifically towards getting customers to do that. And then you know, once you capture that data, should they choose to give you their name phone number zip. You know, once you capture that data, should they choose to uh, to give you their name phone number zip, you know, whatever it is, uh, um, you're able to do follow-ups and of course, you know it just goes down this whole big old rabbit trail where you can create, you know, automations and, uh, you know drip campaigns and things like that and it's you know, sometimes automated responses for, for the, for the manufacturer, who's so busy that they don't have time to follow their leads, right, you know, like these automated responses can happen, so it becomes.
SHED GEEK:You know, not all tech is bad, you know, and when it's working it's really helpful. I mean, there are times where, Jeff, things break. It happens. What, what, what do? You guys do.
JEFF HUXMAN:Whenever that happens, you panic oh, absolutely, you also solve it very, very quickly. Yeah, I think the level of panic and the level, the speed at which something gets fixed or sort of go hand in hand, yeah for sure, yeah, well that's the thing about.
SHED GEEK:You know. Technology is like apple still making updates, you know so just imagine the rest of us right. If you're in technology and and sometimes it's uh, I mean I don't mind saying like it's, uh, it's, it's frustrating when it breaks, but then also from the seeing the tech side being built and having a little sympathy in that situation, like I always see people trying to fix it and it's, and it's always like no one wants things to break. You know what?
SHED GEEK:I mean.
SHED GEEK:Like no one's. You know, so you're trying to fix the. You know that quickly if something does break. But I've also found communication matters to you know. So you're trying to fix that quickly if something does break. But I've also found communication matters too. You know what our favorite thing to tell people is If you're having an issue with our service, don't run and tell everybody. Tell us, because everybody else can't fix it. We can, facebook can't fix it. Why are you on there telling them? Tell us.
SHED GEEK:On the contrary, if we're doing a good job, tell everybody we want them all to know but, like you know, and I think that a lot of times that's, um, you know, when we try to police different groups and private groups and conversations and things like that, I want I good, real free conversation for at least any of them that we oversee, you know, but then at the same time, like we also want to make sure wait a minute that doesn't sound like that company. Let's, let's address that.
SHED GEEK:You know, what I mean Because like I know the owner over there and you know if they knew this was being said, they'd have a good response to that. So we always try to keep that careful, try to be fair on all those things.
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SHED GEEK:Dude, I love, like you know what you got going. I love what you're doing. I'm not a techie brainy person, you know. In some circles, you know, some people might say I don't know you got it figured out. I'm like ah well.
SHED GEEK:I surround myself with a lot of people smarter than me. That really helps, helps me out, um. But you know, in in the world of the digital storefront, something like this and e-commerce platform which, you know, a lot of people don't realize. You, you know you can check out completely on this system. They can do a full checkout.
SHED GEEK:Something I wanted to talk about, that was important to me to talk about, was being able to embed the code onto someone's website, and the reason that's become particularly of interest for me is just from the amount of websites that we've been building. Um, you know, one thing that people almost say immediately is like you know, who do I use here or that or another? And you try to be fair to everybody and I'm like well, first of all, what you're looking for is, you know, already built. So, if they're like we need all of our inventory on our site and they're worried about having to go in and make all these changes on the back end to the site, I'm like why aren't, why aren't you just linking to shed hub? And they're almost same question every time what do you mean? Well, for the real techie people out there, they'll already know the answer to that, but for those who don't how does that work, jeff? Like, how do I, how do I go about doing that? Why? Why would that be important and what if? What if it up?
JEFF HUXMAN:how does it?
SHED GEEK:update. You know what it's on my website and it's shed hub. So how do those two connect?
JEFF HUXMAN:that doesn't make sense to me sure so I'm gonna try to talk at a level you.
SHED GEEK:You're going to dumb it down for me. Just say it. You're going to dumb it down for me. You're not going to hurt my feelings.
JEFF HUXMAN:Okay, I'm going to dumb it down. If it still doesn't make sense, I apologize.
SHED GEEK:Okay we're good.
JEFF HUXMAN:We have what's called embed code.
JEFF HUXMAN:It's like this little snippet of code that you copy and paste into your own website and through the magic of code, this snippet of code is gonna talk to the shedhub server, say, hey, bring me all this inventory that's on shedhub, um, for this particular company at this particular location, and display it on this website right in front of me. And so the the nice thing about this is your inventory that you posted in shed hub is going to automatically display on your own personal website under your brand, with a snippet of code that we provide you. You're going to need a tech person to install the code for you, but it's not a complicated tech job, it's copy and paste, if they know how to do that. And so the advantage of that is you go into ShedHub, you're updating inventory there. It's going to update on your website as well, so the two are synced instantly.
JEFF HUXMAN:So if it's a certain way on Shed Hub, it's going to show up the same way on your own website. So that's the advantage of it. It puts the content of Shed Hub your current inventory on your own site under your own brand and brand identity, and people are just looking at your content there on your site. So that's what's nice about this embed code. So if this is something that interests you, call me, I'll talk to your tech person and we can make it work that way yeah, no very good I think I followed you for the most part.
JEFF HUXMAN:I got you I got you I'm with you um you know it's.
SHED GEEK:it's become of, like I said, particular interest just because we've had I I feel like I've had just a an unusual amount of people ask me a couple questions and I'm like, man, it's 480 bucks a month, I mean 480 bucks a year.
JEFF HUXMAN:You know, like.
SHED GEEK:this is pretty simple Sign up for this and it's going to automatically update as you go in and make these changes on your site.
SHED GEEK:So like you're not having to try to figure out a website, because a lot of people will figure. You know, oh, this is going to be difficult to figure out. This, this, uh, this website, and getting into the back end of this and I'm not a real techie person, but some of these things are, uh, they're fairly simple. They're fairly simple and you can a lot of times make updates on one program that that will just disperse across many and like that's the. The value that you bring to the table is being able to understand that and help make that happen. Um, I like this pace that we took at this at today's episode, because you know we did, we got into the weeds of shed hub a little bit and I know there's so much more um, the analytics are super important because you understand those analytics at a different level and one thing I want to continue to point out is what you say all the time is it's a two-sided marketplace. You got to remember like we're trying to reach through marketing efforts.
SHED GEEK:You're trying to reach customers to get to the site but, then you're also trying to get manufacturers or dealers to sign up on the site, and then one of the best things they can do is then, in turn, turn around and share that as well to their customers through their social media platforms, through embedding a code on their site. Um, you know it's. It brings a lot of value to your platform, just the same as you do as you go out and like, try to get in front of the public. Yeah, absolutely Hard to believe. Three years now, I think you reached out.
SHED GEEK:We're going into year four, so it's been probably almost four years since our first discussion, so we're averaging about a podcast a year. I don't know, Maybe we need to get you on more, or something like that. Well, obviously we've done the expansion. We've brought on Sam and Susan and they're doing some cool stuff and, um, yeah, I just uh, I still say like I wish this was a tool that was available for me when I was selling regularly. Um, we just didn't have a lot of that and uh, yeah, I really like it. What? What else is Jeff Huxman seeing in the shed industry? I'm curious. Let's get away from shed hub. Enough talk about it you done, you done promoted your company.
JEFF HUXMAN:This whole podcast good for good for you, buddy um, but it you know.
SHED GEEK:What else are you seeing? What's on the horizon, what's on your mind as Jeff Huxman, and where you feel like the shed and shed-related building industry is just going, where is it setting at right now? What are you seeing?
JEFF HUXMAN:You know, the thing that I think about from time to time is, just as the price point of a standard shed goes up, the monthly payments on rent to own go up as well, and sometimes that's pricing people out of getting a shed.
JEFF HUXMAN:And so I'm just sort of curious in terms of the world of finance. You know, I think we're seeing more middle-class people starting to do rent-to-own, whereas before, maybe slightly lower-income people were doing more of it. I think you maybe see less of that, but I'm kind of curious to see where finance goes in the future, if it's more bank loans, traditional loans, and less RTO, or if RTO is going to keep on humming along like it has been. So I'm sort of curious about that. I'm also curious, you know, as the price of housing goes up. As certain states have housing crises, like California, are smaller buildings going to become more normal to live out of, and I think there's opportunity there, particularly in areas that are overcrowded and really expensive, for shed manufacturers to really add value by creating more living spaces and maybe fewer storage spaces. I'm sort of curious to see where that goes.
SHED GEEK:I think those are very valid points. I'm not sure I think I can go ahead and disclose this, but I don't have to say who, how or why or any of the details of that. But I think I'm right on track with your, in agreement with you. Um, obviously we lost, you know, we got into the, the rent to own um, wildly successful beyond my imagination. You know, and um, you know, then it's taken me into this world of lines of credits and like understanding things at a whole different level now, and even um, soon to be, it may already be out by the time this podcast gets there. If not, unless something falls through, uh, and I end up regretting this, we'll actually have partnered with a with a finance. You know um company, but you know they're not. They're not hungry for those. There's no in between. They're not hungry for those. There's no in between. They're not hungry for those super low FICO scores with. You know giving, giving away, excellent. You know interest rates, because I just feel like that's a, it's an in-between market that you just don't see. Um, you know these are going to be probably six, 80 or better. You know in most cases, but you know if, if, if it's's, it's more of a convenience to you know to. If they're there they don't want to do rent on. They've got good credit maybe and um, they don't have any outstanding debt so they're not worried about. You know what I mean having to stay away from, like you know, having things public in their, in their scores.
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SHED GEEK:You know, but I do think you are going to see more of that. I worked previously at a company where I think like 6% of all our total sales were financed. So, like it's never. It's never really been like the beefier matter, until you can start doing 500 credit scores with like a really nice interest rate. And I just I don't know that. People are super hungry, banks are super hungry for that. I have an appetite for that kind of line and of course, we're going to be able to do po' barns and post frame and tiny homes and things like that too. So, the idea is to get out beyond just the shed, although there are people who can afford to pay cash or go down to the local bank, but they're there and they're like you know, this interest rate's competitive enough if they run it. We'll just go ahead and take it and you know we're just the originator of that. That's all it boils down to. So, like I think you're right on I I do.
SHED GEEK:I'm having more and more people ask me about finance and I tell people transparently I'm like I don't have to tell you in private. I'll tell you on the podcast, where it's public to everyone Finance, rent to own, even marketing. They are not my number one. Most passionate thing the podcast is Talking to people, is Building the camaraderie, building the relationships, being able to sit down with you, have dinner, meet your family, hang out with you those kinds of things. It's terrible. We're in almost episode. You know 250, we're somewhere between 250 and 300 and we're four years in and I'm beginning to forget conversations and names of people that I interviewed three years ago and I don't think you know what that does to a guy like me. It's, it's, it's, it's awful. Whenever I go to the shed expo and, like you know, someone's like yeah, we. And I'm like, oh, I sound so stupid, I sound so arrogant right now, don't I? And I'm just like I'm sorry, I can't remember. I have had a billion conversations since then and my mental like I need an internal CRM, jeff.
SHED GEEK:Can? I is there d?
SHED GEEK:are you smart enough to create a digital crm that I can just keep, that I can access in my brain like robocop or something?
JEFF HUXMAN:I'll work on it. Maybe elon musk's brain implants can help there.
SHED GEEK:I don't know I, I, I feel so embarrassed, you know, whenever I talk to someone and I can't recall the name, because typically the conversation will come to me quicker than the name. You know, because I try to find out what they're passionate about and those are the things that matter, probably more so than anything. Jeff, I didn't do this on the first two episodes, but I'm going to give you the chance to play host, like everybody else gets a chance to, and ask me a question or two. Shed-related, podcast-related, faith, family, I don't care what. It is Something that me and you have known each other for a long time but that you've never asked me. That you can ask me in front of the audience here and, unless it's really bad and I have to edit it out, I will answer in full transparency what you got so I can just ask you anything, anything all right.
JEFF HUXMAN:Where do you think um the shed industry will take off next in terms of a country? Is there a country beyond the United States where sheds can do good?
SHED GEEK:you know. So obviously you've got some Canadian presence and I know you said you mentioned sheds in England recently and I hope my buddy, Tom Burbage, uh, one of our first guys uh on, is still listening, you know, and he talked about the way they do sheds in in England. You know that they don't have the transportation factor. You know, um, the, the yards or the gardens as, as they say, are, you know, smaller, so the sheds are smaller. Um, Canada has a presence but it's code. You know, obviously there's only a certain amount of time out of the year that you can build.
SHED GEEK:Uh, we've run into some RTO restrictions up there from having some, some people ask on things like that. So I always wondered if it had more potential. Um, I don't, I don't know. I mean I heard I did have some people saying that you know there's a lot of opportunity on the border. You know, south of the? Uh the border, if you go down to Mexico, there's a lot of opportunity on the border. You know south of the border, if you go down to Mexico, that there's some possibility. You know, gosh, I hope this comes across right, but, like, until you know it becomes a little bit more organized. I think you know, if you're in the rent own game down there, you're probably going to have to worry about theft even more so. But but you know that's already happening in the world of rto. Even here in America, in particular spaces, there are people who are stepping out of certain states and areas and stuff just because of the risk of uh theft rings and organizational uh theft. And just, you know, not just uh uh customers either it sounds like from what I'm hearing but also you know manufacturers and dealers, you know, and things like that.
SHED GEEK:So, I always said you can make a buck easier being honest than you can with all the work that it takes to be dishonest, and there seems to be plenty in this industry to go around. So, like, just do it the right way, I think. But I don't know. That's a great question, one I've never gotten. If I had to answer because you've held my feet to the fire, I'd say Canada has potential to grow more, but I would love to see the same model. The transportation thing is the biggest thing that gets us. We're such a big country, you know what I mean. Like a lot of things are built on site and, um, I would almost probably be more curious and looking in my, my crystal ball of future shed happenings is like how much is going to move more towards on-site as opposed to deliverable, and then the finance thing would really play a much bigger role as well, too right, whenever you know you're cutting out the transportation costs and I don't want to see that.
SHED GEEK:We love our haulers obviously got all the events and all that, so I'm not advocating for it by any means. I'm just watching where business goes. I'm just a student of the industry just watching it and I'm more reactionary than anything. So, yeah, good question what about you? Do you have? You have one? You? You think there's a?
JEFF HUXMAN:yeah, I think Canada I mean the industry is already in Canada to in large part, and you know I don't know a whole lot about Mexico um, and you know the different countries have all these different building styles and different ways they build buildings and so like, uh, an American portable building might not fit or be practical in another country, like in England. Some of those roads in England are like one lane, twisty, windy roads for sure, and you're not going to get a 40-foot shed navigated through there. Um, and so like, the trucks are different, roads are different. You know, it's such a different scene in different parts of the world.
SHED GEEK:I have gotten a few, been reached out from a few people in China who are actually building, I guess, what they're technically calling tiny homes or like these smaller, stackable, different, um, you know, if you think of a portable building, it's not like a you know shed like we're seeing with like runners, and you know what I mean. Uh, um, traditional sheds like cabins and things like that. These are, these are more like I don't want to say generic portable buildings, but they are in comparison to like these wood structures that we're seeing built here on 16oc or something like that. These are, but these are genuine portable buildings. I guess you'd say smaller ticketed items. Um, but I've been reached out to from I don't know, at least two or three companies that are building homes and then they're like trying to get those um, uh, over here in the United States and then try to develop a retail model for that. Me and you both talked to Azure Printed Homes our buddy there what he's doing with the 3D design.
SHED GEEK:So there's some interesting stuff and he's in LA. So yeah, I've had Chris Long with Longbox. I thought that was kind of an interesting interview that we got a chance to do with him. So I don't really know, man, I don't know where it's going, but I'll be watching, I'll keep my eye on it and we're going to keep traveling around and as long as the Lord lets us and keeps us healthy, we'll just kind of keep doing that. So for someone who wants to know about Shed Hub, Jeff, where should they go? We already told them about geekshedhub. com. They can go to sign up through our website for the newsletter, where they're able to click on all these different links, including Shed Hub, and find out more information or how to sign up. But otherwise, where should they go?
JEFF HUXMAN:You can also go to seller. shedhub. com. You'll see other information there. However, you won't see the great deal on Shed hub subscription there as you would at geek. shedhub. com. So, if you want to take advantage of the 39 a month promotion for 12 months, definitely go to geek. shedhub. com to take advantage of it there.
SHED GEEK:I love to save people money. I love it Whenever other advertisers want to save people money through the platform. We appreciate it and it increases our value. We appreciate you and your commitment to the show for all this time and just um, yeah, glad to know you as a, as a friend.
SHED GEEK:We've become, uh, buddies over this last four years yeah, absolutely, it's great knowing you I feel like I haven't prayed in a little while on the show and I always try to keep that front and center. You. You okay with me closing this out?
SHED GEEK:absolutely in prayer, lord, thank you for this day, this opportunity and this continued friendship. Lord, I ask that you'd continue to put folks like Jeff in my path where we can have these long-lasting friendships that are apparent and visible to others as an example of who we stand to be as a company, who Jeff stands to be as a company. We appreciate those because they matter so much. Iron sharpens iron and we just ask that you'd bless Jeff as business, for him to see increase in all that he does, that doors will be open so that he'll have the opportunity to succeed in all of his endeavors and keeping you and your will primary in that opportunity and those uh chances that we get to build our business. We thank you for it. We thank you for your son in Jesus name, amen.
JEFF HUXMAN:Jeff, appreciate you so much, my friend did.
SHED GEEK:It's always good talking to you and, Jeff, appreciate you so much. My friend dude, it's always good talking to you, and um wish you nothing but success, you as well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is Mo Lunsford in sunny Union Grove, north Carolina, and we want to say thank you to all the guests and listeners.