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
Adventures at the Shed Expo: From Road Trips to Storytelling PART 2
What if the business world was just as much about relationships as it is about profits? Join us as we continue our conversation with a fascinating guest who knows this truth all too well. From growing up in a large family that transitioned from farming to the shed business in the turbulent 80s and 90s, to working through fierce competition and economic shifts, his journey is a testament to resilience and adaptability. As he moved to Montana to build custom homes and later found his way into the oil industry, he eventually returned to his roots in the shed business with a fresh perspective and renewed passion.
Exceptional customer service is more than just a buzzword—it's a way of life in the shed delivery industry. Sharing personal stories, we dive into the nuances of treating each customer interaction as an opportunity to build lasting relationships. Whether it's going the extra mile for a repeat customer or embodying the spirit of ownership like the dedicated driver Josh, these anecdotes paint a vivid picture of the mindset that sets top-tier service providers apart. We discuss the broader industry landscape, acknowledging that while many provide excellent service, there's always room for growth and improvement by fostering the right attitude.
The episode takes a deep dive into the evolution of the shed delivery business model, exploring how the shift from small owner-operated setups to large national companies has impacted service quality and customer satisfaction. We reflect on the importance of nurturing mutual respect between drivers and company owners, and how better communication can enhance productivity and loyalty. Rounding out the discussion, we highlight the power of collaboration and integrity in fostering industry relationships, sharing inspiring stories from the expo that emphasize the spirit of community and support among competitors. Through personal experiences and reflections, we underscore that the business is as much about human connections as it is about delivering sheds.
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Welcome back to part two of a two-part episode. Be sure to go back and listen to part one. You might have missed something. Hope you enjoy the conversation today. So anyway, yeah, 11 years old, let's get back here.
JASON KAUFFMAN:decided he had been farming and decided farming wasn't for him anymore. You couldn't make money back in the 90s and 80s.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah, I remember that.
JASON KAUFFMAN:My dad's farm, the mortgage on his farm. He was paying 18% interest in the 80s. Like we're grumbling right now because we have interest rates at 9%.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, I know they were ridiculous, they were 18%.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, I remember that they were paying for their farm five and six times over by the time their mortgage was paid for.
ADVERTISEMENT:Yep, yep, I remember that.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, my dad had quit farming. He had worked for my uncle in a pallet factory, john Weaver. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then in 1990, we moved to New York and my dad, I had two older brothers. I was 11. Uh, my brother Daniel would have been 16. My brother Paul would have been 17.
SAMBASSADOR:So, they were working in the shop at that time.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And my dad started building sheds.
SAMBASSADOR:So, this is when you lost all your buddies that you went to school with in Pennsylvania that we talk about.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, yeah, Canon.
SAMBASSADOR:Sumi and all those guys.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, I went up there and there was 11 years old is a hard age to move. Yeah.
SAMBASSADOR:Were you excited? I mean sure you were excited about moving.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, there was a part I was very secure. I was in my family unit. There was nine of us kids, so I had friends in my own family my siblings, true, so I had friends in my own family, my siblings, true, and there was one girl that I went to school with that moved to the new location with us. We were starting a new church in the Mennonite churches.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And so there was a little bit of camaraderie that I knew, someone familiar, but basically everyone in that school when I went to that new Mennonite school was new. I didn't know who they were. John Zook, who was there today, became a really good friend of mine. So that was a New York friend, that was a New York friend, so that's where I met him. He was two years younger than I am, but we just connected in a way that you know what, when you're 12 years old, two years is a big difference.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, he moved when I was 12 years old and, but we connected in a way that I would be surprised. I was surprised even then, but he and I just clicked and, when I was out of school, started working for my dad full time. He started working for my dad two years later when he was out of school.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, really.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, he and I worked together in my dad's shop Yep. So, he and I worked together in my dad's shop Yep. We built that shed business up, moved about 40 minutes south and started another shed company and sold that shed company to John Zook's dad.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, nice, so now we're two shed companies about 40 miles apart.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, and that's literally what I did, nothing else up till 2009. I got married in 99. So, 10 years after I was married, I was still running my dad's company and at that time my dad had moved to Montana and I really wanted to move to Montana. I was a little burned with the shed industry. Uh, at the time, oh eight, oh nine was coming along, the housing market was collapsing. Shed sales were dropping and we were. Uh, Lancaster County was just pumping out sheds up into upstate New York where we were from.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And we couldn't. We had a hard time competing with them. I mean, they were. They were willing to sell a shed at 150 bucks over cost because they were making 5,000 sheds.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah, and we're like we can't do that Absolutely so.
JASON KAUFFMAN:We, um, I ended up moving to Montana after my dad did three years and at the time I thought like I'm done with sheds, I'm never building sheds again.
ADVERTISEMENT:Yeah, yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, I went out there, I built a couple custom homes. I built a house for my wife and I and I just could not make ends meet and I ended up going to the oil field and driving truck hauling crude oil until the economy kind of rebounded and I went back into sheds, believe it or not. I mean by that time I'd had a couple years break and it wasn't just like weighing heavy on me where I was burned out. Yeah and I discovered I know what I'm doing.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'm comfortable doing this yeah, and I'd also learned a lot, I mean in those years of. You know, I was 30 years old when, when I moved to Montana and I've heard people say, when you do between the ages of 40 and 50, you accomplish more than I had learned all the rest of my life, up until 30 years old.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I mean even all my schooling that I got, which wasn't extensive, but I learned more in those 10 years because I went through some really hard financial times and I learned to do without and I also learned to fix stuff myself. I learned to build stuff myself, but I used to just say oh, whatever, someone else will do that for me. So those were good years. I'm thankful for it, but the so you, you do drive truck.
SAMBASSADOR:I mean you got a semi that you haul and deliver with. You've done trucking off and on. Where did that?
JASON KAUFFMAN:come from. So, when my dad and I were hauling sheds in upstate New York, we used to haul with a ton duly in a 20 foot bumper pool trailer and when we went to do wholesale sheds. We needed a longer trailer and we needed CDL's. Okay, so all right. Funny story about that.
ADVERTISEMENT:My dad has a way of like you want to go hunting on a property that you've never met the landowner before say my dad, I mean he'll get the keys to the to the corral and he'll get the four wheels, like that's my dad he just he wins hearts, he walks up to somebody and they just like him instantly.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, my dad and I both knew we needed to get our CDLs, and my dad had had CDLs before, but he let them expire. So, there's a local driving school putting on an open house to get recruits oh nice. And my dad's like, hey, let's go talk to him. And I'm 21 years old I've got my learner's permit for my CDL's my dad had his learner's permit.
JASON KAUFFMAN:We go to the recruiter and this was a driving school where they guarantee you a job with a trucking company oh, you go to their driving school and you're gonna have a job when you're done.
SAMBASSADOR:You didn't want the job, no, we just wanted a license.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, my dad goes up there and I mean the guts that he had. I remember cringing inside of my little 21 year old self. My dad's like, well, we need to get our CDL's, but we don't need to go through your school. And I'm like, gulp. But. But he's like, hey, we've been driving trucks and trailers and oversized loads. He's been driving it since he's 16. Yeah, I've been driving, I had my CDL's before. And the guy liked my dad. What can I say?
JASON KAUFFMAN:and he's like well, I'll tell you what. You guys come back on Tuesday. You have your CDL's, I mean, you have your learner's permits. We're like, yeah, yeah, just come back on Tuesdays, we'll take you on an evaluation drive and then we'll figure out what you need to do to get your license. So, we come back on Tuesday. And I kid you not, I had never driven anything more than a five-speed truck before that, and they stick me in a semi-truck that I'd never driven before with a 10-speed, so I had high-low range.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'd never done that before I'd just been looking, youtube didn't exist back then, oh no, so I was just like I'd read about double clutching. And I knew I had the double clutch to get my license and I get in that truck and I guarantee if that instructor sitting next to me would have known that I had literally never sat in a semi-truck seat before he would have never let you do the running. He would have never let me and we out on the interstate, we were going 70 miles an hour.
JASON KAUFFMAN:about 10 minutes later, are you serious and I'm like crapping myself. We're coming. It's like I take this exit here. You know, upshifting is pretty easy when you're double clutching yeah, yeah, downshifting is a whole different.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I don't think I made three gears on the way down and I just clutched and break and come to a stop. He directs me back to the shop. We get out there and I'm like, yeah, he's gonna tell me you need to go to six weeks of school. Yeah, we wait there. He takes my dad on the drive, then he comes back and he says you did better than your dad, oh. And I'm like okay, and he says, well, you guys need to know how to parallel park and do your pre-trip. And then you're ready and I'm like whoa.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So yeah, we went back there and like three days time we interacted with some of the other guys doing parallel parking and serpentine backing yep and uh at the time. They didn't make us do the alley dock, they just made us parallel park and do our pre-trip. And a week later they had an appointment. I sat with a dot officer in the truck and did my test did you test?
SAMBASSADOR:yeah, none.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I mean, I didn't drive a semi-truck again until 2012 oh wow that was that would have been 2001. No, no, no 2000. In year 2000, I got my CDL's and it was 12 years later before I drove a semi-truck again. That's wild. But then I drove semi-truck in the oil field and I learned a lot there. I put probably about 200,000 miles hauling crude oil.
ADVERTISEMENT:Yeah, you did.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And a lot of that was heavy haul, and I worked with some old-time loggers. The generation of truckers that you were and that are before us were the guys that actually had CBs in their trucks and talked to each other and knew how to put chains on their truck and knew how to fix stuff on their truck. Those are the truckers I learned from in 2011, 2012 in the oil field.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, and.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'm very thankful for it, because they taught me a ton of being out there on your own in a semi truck and handling whatever life's going to throw at you.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, so what does Kauffman Builders do?
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, we're a small company In our area. We're the only company really like us we have. Shed center would be the closest, but they've got multiple shops and they cover multiple states. Yep, and then the big national companies. Uh, there's a little mom and pop that builds maybe 20 or 30 sheds a year. He has one style shed really, and he's been there for 25 years. He's competing with the people that are buying kits at Home Depot and Lowe's.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Okay, and he never moves his buildings. I move his buildings all the time because people want to. They bought that building 20 years ago and they want to move it to the new property. But other than that, we're kind of a small specialty shop. We build 200 buildings a year or less and we're building custom buildings that are going into higher-end HOAs horse barns that are like multi-piece horse barns, two-story barns, a lot of stuff that none of our competitors are interested in doing. And then, because we're a small one, we're an all-in-one. I mean, I own the shop, I own all the display, lots, and I have my own employees. They build the buildings, my sons work for me, yep, and I do all the deliveries and something that's that's always a nice touch. And I don't tell every customer this, but I'd say probably a you know a third of the customers. Sometime in the delivery process they find out that I'm the owner of the company oh, yeah, yeah and they really like that.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I mean, that's never been a negative. Yeah, they're like oh wow, the owner of the company is delivering it, and I like that because I have the final contact with oh yeah, and I know you realize how important that is.
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JASON KAUFFMAN:I mean. So the delivery I did Monday morning before.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I started West here. This is a repeat customer he had bought. This is the fourth building he had bought from me. He spent around $180,000 in my company in the last two years with buildings, so he got expensive buildings, oh yeah, yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And I showed up there and I had told him the last building I delivered. He told me where this 16 by 36 garage was going to go and I measured it and I said it's not big enough. You need to expand that gravel pad. It was a garage for his pickup that he's putting in. And I showed up and it's a 16 by 36 and the gravel pad is 13 feet wide at one end and 12 feet wide at the other end. And my heart sank and I know and this is part of who I am and it will tell you a little bit maybe how I run my company, but I can't just drop that on there and sign off, yeah, and sign off on his warranty and say you don't get a warranty on this building because had I dropped it on there, there would have been no warranty.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Because it yeah. A garage package has to have an acceptable gravel pad that makes sense I looked at it, I looked at my pilot car driver and I'm like you got some shovels and rakes and we worked for 45 minutes and we fixed that pad. He had a wheelbarrow there. We rolled stuff off of his driveway, we expanded the pad. I got it to where I was happy with it, yeah, and I could sign off on that warranty. And I asked my brother-in-law, who was my pilot car driver. I'm like I should charge him.
ADVERTISEMENT:I should charge him 200 bucks for two of us working for an hour, but I said the guy has to spend $180,000 in my company.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'd be a jerk to charge him Absolutely. And I said you know what? He's going to remember that I did that work for him. Yeah, because he was apologizing to me. He's like the guys that were supposed to help me yesterday turned up sick and I was on my own and I couldn't finish it. Well, that's how I roll. Yeah, what if it took me 45 minutes to fix that pad to make him happy? It really didn't cost me anything. Yeah, I mean my brother-in-law's labor.
SAMBASSADOR:You weren't going to get another extra shed delivered anyway.
JASON KAUFFMAN:No.
SAMBASSADOR:It didn't cost you a delivery.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And so, to me, that customer's happiness and that building being set on a good foundation, it was like that's worth it for me. I'm not going to get called back and have a warranty claim on this thing that I have to tell the guy no, you don't get a warranty because you didn't have the approved gravel pad.
SAMBASSADOR:I'm like no I'll fix this for you, yeah so you bring up an interesting point that I've been harping on a little bit on the hauler page about service and I'm not gonna lie, Josh Emhoff called me up one day. You know Josh, great dude, yeah, um literally has a self-employment business mind while he's a company driver. He is an anomaly, that's. That's rare. Yeah, I, I have conversations with him so he takes it to the extreme. I I've had other drivers that treat their company equipment like their own. You know good drivers, they work like they're working for themselves. But Josh is on a whole different level. Like he literally acts like he owns the business, Treats his customers like that you know his customers, not the company's and just offers ridiculous service.
SAMBASSADOR:Why is it so hard? I know you're not on the hauler page as much as you used to be, but you see it and we all see it. What, what has made us and I feel like we're a good group Haulers are we have a good group of haulers. Um, like I told somebody today, there's, you know, we're running somewhere between five and 10% of people that if you call me and ask me about you, I'm going to tell you don't do business with them, whatever. But that's 90% of them. I'll do business with my good guys, but there's less than five to 10% of them that I honestly don't feel like could not improve quite a bit on service and I'm preaching to myself First of all. I gladly will. What have we lost in that and how do we fix it?
JASON KAUFFMAN:That's a good question and maybe you can't answer it but how do we go about?
SAMBASSADOR:you know we run the bash, we can do classes. Is that how we go about it? Do we keep doing what I'm trying to do keep the Facebook page more upbeat and talk about service, talk about having the right attitude, because there's guys that will come on there and they'll be like I'll never do that. Where does that come from?
JASON KAUFFMAN:I think there's a, and it's like we said earlier. There's not a single thing that you can say okay, that's the problem.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, I agree, but so you've been?
JASON KAUFFMAN:around sheds as long as me, longer than me. Um, the, the, the shed business model that was everywhere when my dad started sheds was one shop, one delivery rig and customers out of that shop from one display, and then you had dealers that would buy from you and resell and owned their own delivery equipment. The mule wasn't on the market. There weren't semi-trucks hauling sheds with two houses. There were semi-trucks hauling sheds to retail lots and they delivered it themselves. So, the delivery experience was largely by the owner, or a close associate of the owner, of a sales lot. So, they cared. They were the ones that the customer was going to come grumble to if there was a problem.
JASON KAUFFMAN:As the business models have changed and you have these huge companies now where you've got a national company and then you've got a regional sales manager in a regional shop and you've got 15 drivers all hauling sheds out of that shop to 30 different dealer lots and then from those dealer lots they're delivering to customers. Yep, you've broken some of that personal connection. So, um, oh yeah, you don't have the driver that is delivering the building has never talked to this customer before, unless it was maybe through scheduling, although some of them are working through a dispatcher.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So, they've never talked to this customer before and they're never going to talk to the customer again, most likely unless there's a repo or something. So, they just flat have less vested interest in it. That's part of it. Vested interest in it, that's part of it. Now, part of it too, comes is if, if the company that owns the whole kit and caboodle is treating these drivers with respect and with uh and has and has their like, has their interest in mind.
JASON KAUFFMAN:The driver will in turn have the interest of the company in mind. So, you know guys like um, Abner and Keith that have a good relationship with the suppliers. They're delivering for they care about those buildings more than joe schmo driver, who has never met the owner of the company never talked to the customer before and they don't care if they never see him again.
JASON KAUFFMAN:That there's. That's a cultural thing that I think we need to fix, and I think it goes two ways. I think the haulers need to say, look, if I can make the company owner money, that's going to make money for me. But if they feel like, hey, I'm making the company owner money and all he cares about is, great man, go do more of that.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And there's no two-way reciprocity where the company owner says I'm looking out for my driver and the driver says I'm looking out. Where. The company owner says I'm looking out for my driver and the driver says I'm looking out for the company yeah, so I think that is the biggest, easiest target to say look, this needs, we need to mend this. But there's also all right, you're a trucker. You've been a trucker most of your life. There's a difference between a steering wheel holder and a truck it's the same thing.
JASON KAUFFMAN:It is the same thing there are people that are like this is a job and haulers, I would say there's a smaller percentage of them that that's a job, because shed hauling is not easy to do if you're a steering wheel holder. But there's still a percentage of those guys that don't care.
JASON KAUFFMAN:They're like screw it, I'm not getting paid anymore for this and why would I put extra effort into something that I'm not getting paid extra for? And then there's drivers that say you know what? I'm going to walk around my truck and check those tires again because I don't like that road I drove on. The steering wheel holder is going to be like oh, there's pieces of rubber flying off the trailer tire.
ADVERTISEMENT:I wonder, why that happened.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And the other guy is going to be like. I saw that happen 50 miles ago when I pulled into that parking lot and I ordered a new tire. So, your guys that are going to go do that service, that are going to take care of that customer, that are going to spend an extra 15 minutes fixing that door that was improperly hung at the factory because they want that customer happy, Yep, yeah, you know what? They didn't get any more money for that delivery, but they left feeling better about themselves and they left that customer with a better feeling about the company, which means that customer is going to brag the company up more, which means that company is going to sell more sheds. But that's not an immediate reward for a driver. That's a maybe reward.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, yeah, yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And that's difficult to do. It's difficult to keep that up if it's not built on that mutual respect between driver and company owner. Yep, and I don't know perfectly how to heal that, because you've got drivers that resent the company and you've got companies that resent the driver. And then you've got companies and drivers that are emulating or embodying a good relationship, where they're looking out for each other all the time.
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SAMBASSADOR:You I mean you nailed it. Even when you tie it in with the truck inside, um, when you get so big, um that you're, the drivers don't know the shippers anymore, they don't know the receivers anymore and the receivers don't know the drivers. The shippers don't know the drivers, you lose that connection point. That's when. That's when service starts going down. Um, I, I think you probably just gave me the answer to why I struggle so much with, uh, regional reps. You know I'm it's the achilles heel in the shed industry to Now, if you're a regional rep and you're listening to this, don't get mad at me. Um, figure out how to do it better. And some of them do it great. So, I tell everybody, um, I'll, I'll tell all the big companies that you are living and dying on your regional reps. And it's the reason I know why. Now is because what you said, the regional rep does not get to establish a relationship with the customer.
SAMBASSADOR:He's only dealing with the builder and the salesman and the driver maybe yeah, and, and that's part of it would take a tremendous amount of work for a regional rep to get any involvement with the end result the customer.
JASON KAUFFMAN:He has to do it. Let me ask you this In those business models, because I have never been a part of those business models, I was a driver short time for a big national company who handles a warranty claim. I don't know. That's a good question. See, if it was a regional rep, you're sticking him into the right spot.
SAMBASSADOR:No, I'm pretty sure it's not him, but it should be.
JASON KAUFFMAN:That's interesting I never really thought about that, because now he's going out there and seeing the fruits.
SAMBASSADOR:Yes, of what he's allowing to happen.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, either way, if there's a warranty claim and it was shoddy workmanship or it was a shoddy delivery. He is, he is noticing the problem, yeah, and he can be a jerk about it and go back and yell at those people. Or he can say look, we can improve this together oh yeah now he's like I'm stopping by your shop once a week. I'm gonna do a check. I'm gonna do a quality check.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah because I you know because, he had to go do.
ADVERTISEMENT:I had to go fix something for you guys.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And the same way with the drivers. It'd be like, hey, I'm going to start stopping by a couple of your deliveries every week just to see if you guys are doing it up to snuff, and if a driver that wants to do the right thing is going to be like great, you're going to like my deliveries because I take care and a driver, that's just cutting corners all the time is gonna be like, screw that, I don't need somebody looking at my shoulder.
SAMBASSADOR:So, I did, I did uh, in my monologue I did in august. I talked about, uh, morale, the industry morale, and I've proven this. Two months later now I can say that I knew it was, I knew it and I knew how to fix it. Um, I had a company that they were griping about their sales. The sales people were griping about the hauler, the haulers griping about the company. It's a, it's a circle, and, and it's all of a sudden it hit me one day. It's like these are good people. It's not the people, it's not the system. They've got a good system in place. I'm like it's morale.
SAMBASSADOR:So, nobody's weed eating around the buildings because the buildings aren't being put where they want them anyway. The buildings aren't being put where they want them because nobody's weed eating. The manufacturer doesn't care about what he's building anymore because nobody cares weed eating. The manufacturer doesn't care about what he's building anymore because nobody cares. You follow where I'm going with this. So, what do you do? You just come in and weed eat all the buildings. It's not your job to weed eat, but you do. And all of a sudden, the hauler cares about where he's sitting, his buildings, because the place looks better. It's like, oh, I can't just sit in in here. It's not been weeded or mowed or whatever. And the sales guy's like dude. My hauler's like coming back to life again, yeah.
SAMBASSADOR:And then all of a sudden, it was a weed whacker that fixed it yeah, and a weed whacker fixed them around to the whole shed company because the builder's excited, he's happy, because his hauler's happy, because he's not getting. So back to your regional guy, if, if he has, if he has more of the living, breathing pulse of the company, then he knows a little better what he's doing. And, yeah, if, maybe buy him a weed whacker, tell him what he's out there doing inventory. Just mow around a couple buildings or whatever you know. And I didn't get them all done the first time. There's a pile of buildings on that lot, so I did a couple of them, then I did a couple more and then I brought a helper along. We did a whole bunch of them and it took four or five weeks.
SAMBASSADOR:But it was the one time of showing somebody hey, somebody in this company actually cares about something. Yeah, um, I, I see that. So, I've started kind of applying that and seeing it in other places. And you do that because you are the weed whacker, you are the hauler, you are this and that. And you know, for years I absolutely love delivering my own sheds. Until we sold so many I couldn't deliver them all anymore. But we, my, my sales guys, love to brag on the fact. Hey, the owner of the company will bring your shed out.
SAMBASSADOR:Now the bad thing about that is when your hauler gets burned out and he's the owner that's bad. That's why I sold out, because it was like I'm yelling at customers. You know, I have that story about the shrieker and I would do that story tomorrow. I'd do it right that way again, because, well, that was a unique situation.
JASON KAUFFMAN:That woman deserved it.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, she did. And you know, if it would have been the actual customer I was dealing with, I would have done whatever the customer wanted. That's the way it works, but it is it. It's I'm, I'm gonna do what I still think's right. But if I'm, you know, and it it was the, the sales guys would be like, no, you don't really want to talk to him, because the customer would be like I want to talk to your boss. You know it's like they'd be like no, no, no, no, you don't understand, you don't want to. So, I burned out myself. Yeah, um, but I, I honestly think that the shed industry, um, okay, let's talk about what we saw today there. I I like where the shed industry's at today.
SAMBASSADOR:I've really enjoyed the expo. I see a lot of happy people, I see a lot of growth. Um, I see new stuff. Everybody's excited about new stuff. You know, cardinal brought the house this year. There's people everywhere in that booth and you know they have some innovative new stuff. They have new designs and stuff. They have competition. They've never had competition and they're still excited. Yeah, um, I, I absolutely love the fact that. You know. You know we've talked for years about somebody needs to compete against them. Well, they're cardinal. Nobody's going to compete against them. And listen, they, they sponsor me, they're. They're one of my biggest supporters. I love them to death. I support them as much. They support the bash.
JASON KAUFFMAN:They're great guys um oh, they've been the most consistent sponsor immediately on board.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, you just pick up a phone.
JASON KAUFFMAN:The first bash in Montana.
SAMBASSADOR:Monatana, monatana.
JASON KAUFFMAN:It wasn't Steve, but it was. Who's the other guy? He's a lot more quiet, James. No, it wasn't James.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh interesting, I wonder who it was.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I know he and his wife drove out in a car and then they had someone else bring the pickup and the trailer and a couple of dealers yeah, I know who it is. He's got glasses.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, if he listens to it, he's going to be like they don't even know my name there's so many of them running around in there. Some days I actually thought that was Steve, because it was first time I'd yeah, that's right.
ADVERTISEMENT:We did. Later we thought, oh, that wasn't steve.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, so I'm yeah, I know, and he was there today.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's there yeah, so they came out to Montana yeah I mean, and I had called them a week before, yeah, and said, hey, we're having a little yeah, because we thought together some reason we thought they were tied in with pine hill and they were how little I knew this was not that long ago. No, but you and I had never owned a mule before that had no like I was
SAMBASSADOR:well no actually I bought my mule, I bought a.
SAMBASSADOR:I bought one of the first mule fights with remotes.
SAMBASSADOR:No, I bought a brand new one.
SAMBASSADOR:That's the one that made me lose my religion. Did you buy it from pine hill? So no, I got it straight from Cardinal. So how did you not know that cardinal and pine I did separate?
JASON KAUFFMAN:we just never had that conversation because I, because I was thinking at that time yeah, we just never, discussed, have you and cardinal support it and I thought it was one joint company. But they came out just speaking to Cardinal. They showed up as a sponsor, they brought equipment out there.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And they have never hesitated for us on you and I running the bash to say yeah, we want to be a supporter.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah, they're always there Right away, yep, right there. Say, yeah, we want to be. Oh yeah, they're always right away, yep, right there. Um, yeah. But anyway, back to today, seeing where we're at in the industry right now. Um, they're the old guys on the block and you know, we have a new guy on the block and it'd be very easy to just scoff at him, um, write him off, whatever, but they were over there, they talked to them, there was good conversation back and forth.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I was happy when we came in off the street and I saw Steve there talking with Marlon.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, because you know both of them. They didn't know each other, but we know both of them and we do this with Scenic View, Pineh ill, WKM, Myers. We know all those guys and I honestly believe that some of those guys could work harder at building better relationships with each other. You know, you, I'll be honest with you. When you have people like Myers in Tennessee that know everything about a trailer there is, you shouldn't have to haul a pine hill. I'll probably stick my foot in my mouth there and get burned on this. Shannon'll be like, yeah, you can't say that, but you shouldn't have to take a Pine hill all the way to Pennsylvania to get a repair job done. You should be able to get Myers to fix it. You know. You see what I'm saying.
SAMBASSADOR:I, I, I felt like today I seen the old guy walk across the bridge and put his hand out to the young guy and I wasn't sure that I was ever going to see that. Wow, and it was really good for this old man to see that, because I know them both and they're both working with us. You called me two-faced.
JASON KAUFFMAN:You said you know, you're playing both sides of the shovel and I think I called you something worse, but yeah, you probably did.
SAMBASSADOR:But I love it because I see guys that are willing to see the industry as a whole. We could use more of that on the manufacturer side. You know I've been preaching for years. Walk across the street and shake that guy's hand that's selling those sheds across the street from you. You know, just do it. Because when you do and we've done this with the haulers you know when you have a competitor that'll drive six hours in the middle of the night to go help his competitor out, you know to get him back home again. We have that happening all the time.
SAMBASSADOR:Because it's back to what you said about the reason the trucking industry isn't where it is used to be and the haulers is because they don't have the relationship and I'll, I'll die on that rock that if we get relationships. Well, how many times were you hauling sheds before the hauler page and you feel like you're the only one out there? Oh, you know, we did that all the time. You know I was like man, there is nobody, I'm just like on and I came out of the industry. You know building houses where we had home builders associations, we had boards and stuff. You know, for all kinds of stuff you hung out with others every four to six weeks and I jump into the shed business and you're, you're just on your own and we've we've solved that. Yeah, we get people to come hang out at an expo.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah,
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JASON KAUFFMAN:I think talking about walking across the street, talking to your competitor. I shared tonight at the dinner that me and some RTO guys and actually a competitor of mine were talking and I shared with them something that happened to me, I want to say, five years ago, six years ago, that was a really great work of humbling in my heart that God did that I'm very thankful for. Um, I, I made a move against the competitor of mine and I'm not gonna name them because that's not the point, but I made a move against the competitor.
JASON KAUFFMAN:That was rooted in in a good bit of pride and arrogance and I knew there was nothing they could do about it and it felt kind of good as a little guy to feel powerful over a big guy yeah and um, I did. Predictably. It hit the fan and I get a call after a bit like what the heck are you trying to do? And I felt kind of smug. I'm like, yeah, oh, I actually found out?
JASON KAUFFMAN:yeah, and I'm good and I'm, you know, what are you gonna do about this? And in the middle of that conversation, the, uh, the, the company guy that I was talking to you me ask me is that who you want to be? And when he said those, words I knew it was God talking to me and you know, I don't even know if this guy's a Christian, but I knew that when he said is that who you want to be? It was like God saying Jason, that's not who you want to be.
SAMBASSADOR:That's not who you are.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And I realized and I told the guy let me think about it, I'll call you back tomorrow.
SAMBASSADOR:And I hung up the phone.
JASON KAUFFMAN:So is this where?
SAMBASSADOR:Jay-Z got his opinion Maybe I'm sorry, I just had to stick that in there.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I hung up the phone and I knew already then that God was convicting me. And I realized that I had become what I hated in other people. I had become the look, when I have the monopoly, I have this screw you attitude and it felt really good to have that over a big company who I felt was always saying screw you to the little guy. And I'm not saying they were, I'm just saying that's how it felt to me.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JASON KAUFFMAN:And I called the guy up the next day and I said I'm sorry, I was proud, I was arrogant and that's not who I want to be. And I'm sorry and I'll back down with what my plans were Yep and.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'm sorry and I'll back down with what my plans were and he was gracious about it, but he didn't, you know, like, oh man, good for you. He just said, okay, I appreciate it, and he backed down about me backing down and that was probably the competitor company that I was dealing with. That I would say that was the most tension with up to that point.
JASON KAUFFMAN:From that point forward the tension melted and when we were at the bash in in Utah, that guy that I had not talked to him since that day years earlier yeah, he walked up to me, sat down, he and his boss, and we talked for quite a while and then he said Jason, I have more respect for you than you'll ever know.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh yeah.
ADVERTISEMENT:Something to that effect.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, and I remember thinking that was one of the most humbling things I'd ever gone through, because not only did I have to go apologize to someone that I felt was more in the wrong than me yeah, and that's always hard to do, yeah, yeah. But second, the biggest thing was I had seen in my own heart the ugliness that was there.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, and I'm like I was easy to point that out at other people, but when God showed that me in my heart and then made me walk across the street and talk to my competitor and say you know what, I'm sorry, I was wrong. That did good stuff to me.
JASON KAUFFMAN:yeah, and did good stuff between me and that company.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, yeah, I'm I that that's. I'm very thankful for that. The God put me through that.
SAMBASSADOR:Shannon and I talk a lot about um, it's, it's. It's important to remember in the heat of the moment that, yeah, it's getting late.
JASON KAUFFMAN:That's why we're talking slower and slower.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, I still think the best podcasts happen after midnight. The Shani Bain one happened late at night.
SAMBASSADOR:The cool thing about recorded podcasts is nobody knows when they actually happen. And Shannon's number one listen to episode. He likes to brag on that. People are like why in the world did you bring him on board, you know, and he's like well, I mean, it's kind of hard to argue with the fact that he's the number one most listened to episode, other than the fact the poor dude just loves me. He can't help himself, you know. Um, he actually had to tell me today that I look more like a geek than he did you look pretty good today.
SAMBASSADOR:Sorry, if I could have found the white cowboy boots I was looking for, I would have really pulled it off.
JASON KAUFFMAN:You would have tucked your jeans inside.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, I would have tucked my jeans inside, yes, and then tonight one of my buddies is like, why didn't you just paint an old pair? And I'm like, why did I not think of that? You know, just paint an old pair of white, not a bing, but anyway it's. Um, yeah, the best ones happen late. I, I just, I don't know where we were after that, but the heart, um, even in the heat, even in the heat of the moment, good, people say stupid stuff and we do stupid stuff. Yep, and, and Shannon is always on me and sometimes I'm back at him. You know, depending on who's in the heat of the moment, that look at where the heart is, find out where they're at. Um, like you, um, they had. No, I, you know, if you would have said it to me, I'd have been like, yeah, but I know Jason, you know, and I know where his heart's at. We say that about people we know, but we don't tend to do it so quick to people we don't know.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Good, so I'm back to where I was 15 minutes ago in how important relationships are now we put ourselves in the best possible light all the time and we put the other guy in the worst possible light.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, well, that's back to that thing. We judge ourselves by our intentions and we judge everybody else by their actions. Um, I've lived on that a long time because that's all we have. Um, and you know it's I actually had I don't want to call him out too bad, but I actually had an experience today because of somebody who's here that had a really hard time with me a couple years ago because of an attitude I had towards him about something, and we actually both walked out on that bridge today and built the bridge back again.
SAMBASSADOR:Good, for you and it was good, and you know, to see him tonight hanging out with a bunch of us and having a good time. It was cool, it was like good. This is something I can put behind me now.
SAMBASSADOR:You know what I'm. That's very cool, it is.
SAMBASSADOR:It's very good and it's fun to be able to do that. What do you want people out there to know about Jason? What's going on? Where are you going? Anything? This is your chance to grab the big microphone. As I say, I told Shannon the other day on Facebook he's got the biggest microphone in the industry. You know, be careful, and he is. He's very careful about how he uses it. We have a lot of fun. We poke at people and that's part of it. You know it's what makes it fun. But we're yeah. What do you want out there?
JASON KAUFFMAN:I don't have anything earth shattering, um well, partly because I'm so tired, yeah, we are, it's running late.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Integrity matters and it doesn't matter if you're the sales guy, if you're the shed hauler, if you're the builder, if you're the secretary, it doesn't matter. In this whole industry Integrity matters and I think you referenced that. In the industry sometimes you feel like you're all on your own, we don't have any association or whatever. You and I have brought a lot of that to change that with the bash, with the page Shout out to the haulers when you're out there you mentioned the service part of it when you're out there and you're totally on your own and the customer ain't even around when you're setting that building, integrity matters.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Oh yeah, that's good, yeah you do you do the right thing when no one's watching and you will do the service that you should be doing.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah and more than likely you'll find growth. Yeah, don't do it because of growth, but more than likely you'll find it. That you reminded me of one thing I wanted to get back to when we were talking about that guy that actually does go further because he has a company that cares about him. Josh Imhoff that I started that conversation with actually works for some of the best in the industry of caring about their people.
SAMBASSADOR:Now, um, well, you know, there you go yeah, it's it proved just yeah, I'm glad I didn't say it earlier, because it comes back to what you just said that integrity does matter.
SAMBASSADOR:I don't want to end with that and go straight to what I want to finish with, but it just seems fitting to close on that. Like I feel like I should have prayer, but it's too late, I can't do it. It's like I'm going to fall asleep in the middle of it, but we're still like do you know that next month we're six months since the last bash and a year from the next one?
JASON KAUFFMAN:it comes around in a hurry it does.
SAMBASSADOR:Oh, so are you looking forward to texas?
JASON KAUFFMAN:I am I'm really looking forward. I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to being able to participate and be a lot more involved. I really missed being. I mean, it was good for me, but I really missed being involved, Just being in the teeth of it.
SAMBASSADOR:Yeah, I mean I enjoy it. Yeah, I'm glad we were at a place.
JASON KAUFFMAN:I'm not as much as you are, but I am still. It was hard for me just to sit there and be, quiet because of my head hurting and all that.
SAMBASSADOR:But it's kind of cool that we've got it to a place where we can do that if we need to. You know what I'm saying. We have a lot of good people.
JASON KAUFFMAN:We had a really good team in North Carolina and I would say Texas is going to be those guys have been running it longer than you and I have we're going to have a team down there. That's going to be phenomenal, that's going to be good For sure.
SAMBASSADOR:I had a dozen people ask me today. You know when's the next one, where's it at and I'm like man, I put that out there all the time. But you know, October 2025, we'll team up with the Texas boys.
JASON KAUFFMAN:They're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, aren't they?
SAMBASSADOR:They're below Dallas a little bit, but they're flying. Yeah, yeah, you fly. Well, some people actually fly into Austin. They think that's better, um, so it's kind of between the Dallas, I'm pretty sure when you and I were down. Yeah, we did time. Yeah, so it's um, and, and we've got multiple locations we're looking at right now and still picking through a little bit when is that?
JASON KAUFFMAN:hopefully? Well, we'll talk about it when we're down here. Yeah hopefully.
SAMBASSADOR:Uh, when I go out there October 19th for the Texas barbecue, we'll go look at a couple places and kind of get some of that squared away um but yeah, that's, that's coming right up and it's we'll, we'll make it good again. It'll be, a blast yeah, thank you. Um, I told you before you left, Montana, I'm going to get you to do this, glad we did it Didn't get to talk to Chase in the night, but keep him alive and well. We need him around.
JASON KAUFFMAN:Yeah, yeah.
SAMBASSADOR:Take good care of him. So anyway, guys, thanks for being on. Love you like a brother that I never had. So, it's always an honor and a pleasure to be able to get to meet up and hang out with you, especially when we're in a house where we can just chill out and have a good time. So, thank you, guys. Thanks always for supporting us and for listening. I had a bunch of people today tell me that they listen to the podcast. They enjoy all the episodes the Monday ones, the Wednesday and the Friday ones. You can always find us on shedgeek. com. You can check out our newsletters that come on the email if you send us your email, um, or if you get in touch with us and get on our email list. You get more information that way, but we do. Shannon does really good at getting his newsletter out and keeping everybody up to date on what we do.
ADVERTISEMENT:So, till next time it's ambassador, with the famous Jason Kauffman see you guys