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
Metal Meets Marketing Part 1
What happens when the "podfather" of the Shed Geek Podcast Network meets the Steel Kings? Pure industry gold. Shannon "The Shed Geek" joins Jared to dive deep into the challenges and opportunities facing today's shed and steel building professionals.
The conversation kicks off with Shannon's remarkable journey building the Shed Geek brand and podcast network—a testament to what happens when you pour yourself completely into something you're passionate about. "If you give a hundred percent of yourself to something," Shannon explains, "it returns." This philosophy has guided him from procurement to sales management and ultimately to becoming one of the most recognized voices in the shed industry.
Together, they tackle the controversial 1099 vs. W2 debate that's reshaping dealer networks across America. With brutal honesty, they examine why manufacturers continue relying on consignment models where a mere 10% of dealers generate 90% of sales. Jared shares his successful transition to a W2 model at Dayton Barns, creating consistent customer experiences and professional standards that benefit everyone involved. Meanwhile, Shannon provides eye-opening perspective on the challenges dealers face when manufacturers fail to deliver on promises.
Marketing emerges as another critical pain point. With manufacturers and dealers competing against each other in the same digital spaces, everyone's cost per lead skyrockets. Is there a better way? The hosts explore how centralized lead generation and distribution might transform the industry, creating more efficient systems that benefit dealers and manufacturers alike.
Don't miss Shannon's announcement of the new Steel Structures Sales Professionals Facebook group—a community where industry professionals can share knowledge, debate best practices, and elevate everyone's game. As Shannon puts it, "Iron sharpens iron," and education is the key that drives us all forward.
Ready to transform your approach to selling steel structures? Subscribe to the Steel Kings podcast and join the conversation that's reshaping an entire industry. Your competition is already listening.
For more information or to know more about the Shed Geek Podcast visit us at our website.
Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.
To be a guest on the Shed Geek Podcast visit our website and fill out the "Contact Us" form.
To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.
This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: J Money LLC
Hey guys, what's up. This is Jared and this is the Steel Kings podcast, coming at you with another new episode, and wanted to let you guys know right out front the good folks at J Money will help you out with your building needs as far as financing. If you're a shed dealer, a metal building manufacturer, if you're an independent contractor working on home improvement projects, check out the team over at J Money. Our friends Joel Katie and the whole team over there are happy to assist you with all of your financing needs. We have a very, very, very special guest today on the Steel Kings podcast. I am super excited and this guy you're going to recognize him right out of the rim, but I'm not going to waste too much more time, we're going to bring him into the studio. The podfather of the Shed Geek podcast network, my friend Shannon the Shed Geek,
Jared Ledford:How are you today, brother Shannon?
Shannon Latham:Man, doing good, appreciate the hype. I like the energy. I like the music. I like the street art. I love what you guys are doing with the visual. For those who don't tune in to the visual aspect of the show, it's really cool. Lots of neat stuff going on the screen, kind of making me envious over here in my buzzsprout world. But that zoom has served us well. But I got to look at StreamYard man. It looks you guys are making it look look cool A podfather. I like it. I had a buddy called me but he said he said you're like the Joe Rogan of sheds.
Jared Ledford:Yeah man, yeah I you're making us.
Jared Ledford:You're making us kind of your co-pilots on this journey with the shed geek podcast network. Um, we were, we were honored to be featured. Um, you guys have, uh, heard us talk to guys over at Sheds Direct on a previous episode we were featured as their podcast of the month for the month of May. So, if there's any Sheds Direct dealers listening and checking us out, we appreciate you guys. For sure Shannon was telling you guys we're on YouTube, we're on Spotify, we're on pretty much every one of your podcasting platforms. So, if you're checking us out on YouTube, check us out in audio format.
Jared Ledford:We've also got a plain community dial-in version. We send out a newsletter. So, check out shedgeek. com to sign up for the newsletter and get all of your notifications from the team at shedgeek. com. Shannon brother, you are here on a mission today and I am super excited. We're starting a little bit of a journey in Facebook and you know, for those of you who don't know Shannon, I'm going to give him the floor for a minute or two here just to give you a background on himself. Tell us a little bit more about you, brother, and what you're up to.
Shannon Latham:Yeah. So, in short, man, it's just, you know, know, the best way I know how to explain it is, you know, walking. This journey has been so unique. It's. I keep saying I need to write a book about this at some point because you, you know, truth is stranger than fiction.
Shannon Latham:Honestly, and uh, I think you know shed geek, the shed geek brand, all the affiliates and partnerships and things that's come along the way, you know, has really surprised me in a way that, like, if you give a hundred percent of yourself to something like it, it returns. You know what I mean. Like it returns, like there's no way that you can't go out and pull yourself into an industry and to people, um, and then like, see the, the fruits of that labor, and that's kind of, that's kind of you know what's happened with shed geek and how that connection has even happened with, uh, you and Eric and just so many others along this journey. Uh, it's really just pouring yourself into something completely and I did that with sheds and along the way in that journey, all of a sudden I found sheds is like a common denominator, but there's so many other things that exist. Whenever you say, like, I'm a shed dealer, you know, or shed manufacturer, you know.
Shannon Latham:I started my journey in purchasing as a procurement coordinator and I was trying to save money and order material and learn about all the different aspects of it and went into sales, you know, end up in sales management, you know, had had a couple of trucks and lots and then kind of started realizing like wait a minute, like not my, not my area of expertise necessarily. So, it was like the marketing world, the advertising world, the building relationships and this like honestly, man, it was like, hey, why not start a podcast? I'm listening to podcasts, listening all these people talk, and I'm like people are constantly asking for more resources. I want more resources, want more knowledge, want more information and, uh, you know. So that's what we did.
Shannon Latham:And then it took off on this other whole journey of marketing and rentals and financing and e-commerce and partnerships with 3d configurators and, um, uh, other podcasts and other networks and yeah, so it's, god's been good man. It's just been like this really unique and, you know, interesting industry that has landed me in some really cool positions and, yeah, I'm thankful for it. At the end of the day, I'm super thankful for the listeners.
Jared Ledford:Yeah, one of the things that we talked about this past week, uh, you know, we talk probably at least two or three times a month off offline and we we get into these zones where we get in these long, really long conversations, and one of the things we talked about this week was creating content that we'd want to listen to. Right, it isn't necessarily for everybody. So, you know, if you're listening to us and you don't like what we have to say, we're the first ones to tell you check somebody else out. But give us a shot. You know we're, we're, we're encouraging you to. You know, do better with your business. I know a lot of the stuff that we do, you know, feels canned and, uh, you know, kind of, you know coachy and all that kind of stuff. But you know, Shannon and I were talking about a little bit. That's what we want to do. We want to motivate you guys.
Jared Ledford:You know, for me personally, I have been on a single shed lot with 15 buildings and been struggling to find a way to do business, been struggling to find a way through Facebook, marketplace or through. You know, even back then I wasn't even doing any SEO or anything like that. I mean, this was a one man show and a lot Eric was the same way. We were just slinging sheds, trying to figure out a way to make a dollar for the next day to sling more sheds. And you know, I know there's a lot of you out there that are like that, that are listening to the podcast and checking us out. We are an open book, Shannon and I both Eric as well. You know I've been putting my new Steel Kings email address out here for you guys. Drop me an email. I am an open book. Shannon is too. I think your info is shedgeek. com For anybody that's wanting to find out more about the business and find out more about sheds and steel buildings. That's really what we're here for. We want to be an open book, we want topics, we want questions. If you guys have anything you want us to talk about, I am more than open to. You know, having a question and answer type of thing like ask, ask the shed geek anything, or ask you, ask the steel kings anything. You know, if you guys have questions, we want to answer them. We want to be an open book.
Jared Ledford:Um, the reason why we're here today is, uh, Shannon started a new facebook group and, for those of you who are part of the Shed Sales Professionals Facebook group. If you guys are selling steel buildings the Steel Structures Sales Professionals page on Facebook check that out. That is Steel Structures Sales Professionals. Shannon and I are moderators in that group. Just another avenue for us to communicate with each other, maybe bounce ideas off of one another. Again, open book. There are plenty of buildings to be sold, both metal and wood. We've got pole, barn and post frame guys out there too. We just want to open up the floodgates and really create a community of people that can communicate with one another, work together on projects. I might not be able to do something that somebody else can do and vice versa, and if there's a way that we can work together and make everybody's business harmonious, we want to do that. Shannon, why did you start the page? What was your why behind it?
Shannon Latham:Yeah, man. So, I had that page. It was kind of set in dormant from a different, a different avenue. So, there was about 1,000, 1,500 people already in that private group and, as you guys know, you know Facebook kind of opens up the algorithms for private groups. They kind of participate and want others to participate. In that. There's no, you know, you're typically not getting sold anything there. It's not like a Facebook page where you're kind of like a pay to play, where they want you actually in the, in the, in the meta business suite and things like that. You know.
Shannon Latham:So so I thought, well, education is really kind of like near and dear to my heart. I really feel like education is the thing that drives us all forward. It's the thing that we're, that we're missing. Forgive me, I'm getting over a code here, so so my thoughts are you know, iron sharpens iron. You know the, the, the most read book of all times, the Bible, the second most read book is man's search for meaning. You know, like people are always seeking education.
Shannon Latham:I always want to learn more and, and you know, when you put yourself out there and you're vulnerable to put yourself out there on a podcast, put yourself out there on a in a magazine article, put yourself out there as a speaker at an event, uh, even creating a private group page and like trying to like harvest some rules, to like create content. You're doing most of these things you're doing for free. Most of these things you're doing because you're passionate about it. And then, like you're vulnerable because, like you're, you're showing your things. You're doing for free. Most of these things you're doing because you're passionate about it. And then, like you're vulnerable because, like you're, you're, you're showing your card, you're putting yourself out there and what I've found is, you know, you get like a 90% participation rate between the people who really want to do more, learn more, be better, increase the value of the industry, make it a more cohesive industry, learn how to be collaborators and competitors in a respectful way and change the mindset of like the dog eat dog business world. Constantly that exists, having some of that hunger, but not having it so much so that it you know you lose who you are, and basically it's like, hey, let's create some content, let's, let's put something out there, let's have conversation. Like I encourage people to go to the steel structures, uh, sales professionals, to learn more about that, have good, healthy debate, call things out when necessary in a professional manner, uh, but give more than you take away from it, right, you know? So like, so, like you know, and that's the idea too with a podcast or with anything that we're doing so, like, I encourage people to go on there and have conversation, but sometimes you got to bring awareness. You got to bring awareness or you got to stay top of mind and awareness is, it exists, it's there now. Maybe you didn't know it was there, maybe to hit your, your page at some point, but you can go, seek it out, put a few things in there. We want to make sure we keep that limited to sell steel sales professionals. We don't just want random people coming in, because why would they want to be there to learn about how to sell steel structures? You know, that's not the target we're going for. We're going for the B2B market and getting people to just kind of have conversation. Trust me, there's plenty of conversation that happens around steel structures and the sales of steel structures, so why not get it on there where we can have a conversation that helps everybody?
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Jared Ledford:Yeah, I think it's good to forum. I'm a big Reddit reader. I really love Reddit. I think I go there for just about any major question I have. I try to seek out somebody else who's dealt with the same problems that I've dealt with or the same. Whatever I'm looking to do, whether it be install a door at my house or upload a YouTube video or put together information for this podcast you know, it really comes down to a situation where content that we can provide to each other is very valuable. It's innately valuable, right. It's one of those things where if I don't know and somebody can teach me, then I'm that much more dangerous going forward.
Jared Ledford:And you know, one of the things that you and I have talked about at length, right, Shannon, is the sink to the bottom. You know that lower level that is kind of metal building sales. You know, I remember when I was telling some of my closest friends about my decision to go into metal buildings and sheds, they thought I was crazy. They just thought I was crazy. And what we've done here, you know, at Dayton Barns, over the last five, six years, is we've gone from a group of independent contractors to W2.
Jared Ledford:You guys have heard me talk about this. I'm passionate about it. I think if you pay people to do a job and you train them well, they will do it at the best of their ability, and if they can't, you know, unfortunately not everybody can sell a steel building online. But if you do it and you do it well, chances are you're going to be somewhat successful at it. I want to get your opinion on that. Shannon, you know we talked about that offline coming into today's conversation. The 1099 versus W2 what's your? You know where you act currently on that yeah, I want to touch.
Shannon Latham:I, I want to talk about that. I want to touch on. You said reddit, dude, google, just, you know, purchased reddit, you know, for the purpose of like, wanting to have good, authentic, you know content that's not just ai generated. So, what an interesting, you know situation there where you're seeking information and it's funny that people are seeking information from actual people. That's why we go to YouTube, that's why we go to Google, it's why Google has become commonplace in our you know, in our conversation. You know it. It wasn't even originally a Google, you know, like Google's like a million zeros or whatever it was. It was called back rub, you, you know. And why was it called back rub? You know, because the backlinks. There's so many interesting things you know to learn as you dive into the tech world and things like that.
Shannon Latham:But thanks to your question on, yeah, the 1099 aspect, it's something that we run into in the shed side and the steel side all the time, because a lot of times a shed manufacturer will have, you know, uh, uh, and a consignment model that's not really a floor plan model like you see in the car industry, um, and it feels like, you know, we kind of follow suit.
Shannon Latham:We're always 10 years behind the car industry, right, you know on, know on what they're doing. And so, the question becomes you know, are you selling steel only? Are you selling sheds? Are you selling other products as well? But those two come up and compliment each other almost as cousins, right, you know, steel, sheds, sheds, steel, and they're both. You know they're, they're, they're both solving, know they're, they're both solving a need, they're, they're typically exist for the purpose of covering something or storing something. So, uh, storage for access or for excess, uh, rather, content that we, we just happen to acquire, uh, the American dream, right, uh, you know, buy more, buy more, buy more, find a place, no doubt no doubt you know, but why?
Shannon Latham:but why 1099? And it's gosh, it's. It's such a big conversation it could probably be a podcast all on its own. It's um, you know. I think the manufacturer just has to kind of like, determine, like, what is their, what is their, why? You know, what is their, what is their why? You know, what is their mission, vision, values, what's their value proposition? Why are they getting into building steel buildings, you know? And if they are going to build these steel buildings, what are they trying to do? Are they trying to do this McDonald's franchise model where they go out on property and, you know, set up these locations?
Shannon Latham:Because the one thing that's interesting to me about steel versus sheds is the amount of inventory that is on the ground for sheds. You know the prefab aspect to sheds. You can build it one side, you can build new construction buildings, but there's a massive amount of prefab buildings that exist for inventory purposes and with steel, steel, you don't really see that. You know, you see them sell off display models and because of that, typically what happens is they're looking for someone with a half- acre of ground that owns a body shop and they're like, hey, we set up a couple buildings out here, do you want to sell them? And people are like what's it cost me? What didn't cost you anything? What if I don't sell anything? Also, does it really cost you anything? Ironically, no floor plan. Do what you can.
Shannon Latham:And some people just grasp that concept and either run with it or do nothing. In other words, if you've got a steel building, manufacturers got a thousand locations that they're selling from. They may have a hundred active and then have 900 locations out there that just have an old building that's slowly falling apart over time, that no one's really putting any commitment into, into selling. But then you've got those performers, those top 100. And then of those top 100, you might have 10 like dynamite, you know salespeople or whatever, and they're just taking the bull by the horns and saying I see where this can do well, and I've seen car guys do so well that they say I'm getting out of the car industry, I can sell this product better, I can sell this line, you know better. So, I guess what I'm saying is it really depends on the manufacturer and their mindset, their mentality. But as far as the dealer, you know you're an independent contractor. You are an independent 1099 contractor, which means you know you have the ability to sell what you want, do what you want, be in control of your brand, you know, as opposed to so, so.
Shannon Latham:So, the W2 side is like would you do better investing into those hundred productive this is? These are the questions that come to mind for me. Would you do better dedicating yourself to the 100 dealers that are dedicated to selling your product and not worry about the 900? But sometimes, maybe it's aesthetics, it looks better, it's optics maybe, rather than aesthetics, and it's easy to say, well, we're in 1,000 different places. But if they don't have, you know, professional sales training or whatever they're, just they're thumbing their way through it. And you said it, you said it a shed lot before 15 sheds. You're trying to figure out Facebook. You're trying to figure out, okay, what does it look like if I yeah, double top plate, single top plate, 16 oc? You know you're doing the same thing in metal, right? You're trying to figure out, like out, okay, what is a hat channel? What does that mean exactly what?
Shannon Latham:is this. You know what I mean.
Shannon Latham:Why is 12 gauge better than 14 gauge? That doesn't make sense.
Shannon Latham:Aren't we going down.
Shannon Latham:There's so much product knowledge that you have to consume outside of even your sales knowledge. It's just also interesting to me.
Jared Ledford:Yeah.
Jared Ledford:Yeah, buddy, I can't agree with you more than I do when it comes to things like the 1099 versus W2 thing. I think what I really struggle with exactly what you said. I've been gosh, I think, probably a dozen manufacturing houses over the last two years all across the United States and I hear the same things from manufacturers and I'm always asking what am I going to have to do from a dealer perspective to be in your top 10? And if you have a thousand dealers, what's your top, where's your gross coming from? And almost always it's 10% is the top coming from? And almost always it's 10% is the top. You know, 10% does 90%. Basically, so the top 10% does 90% of the sales and I think what you end up with over time, at least from our perspective, we're in a pretty competitive market.
Jared Ledford:We're not, you know, we're not, you know we're not in Mount Airy, right? I mean, most people that are really competitive in the industry are down in Mount Airy, North Carolina. For those of you that don't know, that's kind of like the heartland for metal buildings Tons of manufacturers, tons of dealers. It really gets happening down in Mount Airy within a couple hours of us. We've got probably a dozen or more dealers within a couple hours of our location here in Urbana, and what I find more often than not is I want to do a process, a sort of way, from top to bottom. I want to advertise a sort of way. I want to market a sort of way. I want to get customers a sort of way. I mean every single process, how we do our builds, how we design them, the 3D designs that we do, but what you end up finding is not everybody is maybe as professional as they might need to be, and what you end up with is you end up with this kind of muddying of the waters where it hurts everybody, and I cannot stress that enough. You know, if you're doing it, if you're a single man show and you're successful, I applaud you.
Jared Ledford:That is not what this is about. What this is about to me is the people who love this industry, like myself and Shannon and Eric and so many people that we've met. I mean goodness, Shannon, you've met more people than me, but I've met enough people over the last few years to know that we are in a very, very strong industry. We're in an industry that has an immense amount of talent, and what I want to try to do is I want to try to encourage those who don't know any better. It's really the fact that they haven't been taught. Just like you said, the sales training is lacking.
Jared Ledford:It's not just a matter of you know, I'm not going to tell somebody they don't love what they do. That's not what I'm here to do. What I'm here to do is to tell you that if you're doing it a sort of way, keep doing it, but do it better. Even if you're a number one dealer for your manufacturer and you're buttoned up and all your employees are on salary and you can do whatever you want to do, there's still something you can do better. We try to do better here at Dayton Barns every day. You guys have heard me say it. We have a team in-house, they're on a payroll, we W2 our guys and gals and we really strive to give you the same experience from any one of our sales staff. That way it's on point, point brand wise. It's on point with our manufacturers expectations. We're not giving customers false expectations and we're not over-promising and under-delivering. I think that's the biggest thing. So, from a dealer to a manufacturer perspective, you know the 1099 thing's fine, manufacturers paying 1099s.
Jared Ledford:But I think that the future really is manufacturers going in-house, looking at inside sales teams, looking at potentially partnering with their top dealers to really do revolutionary next level things. Because what we're seeing right now and I want to get your opinion on this, because you're a marketing guy I mean you do a lot of your business with the guys over at Shed Geek Marketing. Dylan and his team are doing a fantastic job. Quick shout out to those guys If you need help with your marketing products, give the guys over there at Shed Geek Marketing a call. I can tell you it doesn't hurt to make a phone call and it doesn't cost anything for a consultation. They'll give you some over-the-top view on what they might be able to do to help you out, and they're doing some pretty revolutionary things in the shed space and steel buildings.
Jared Ledford:What I can tell you my main question to you, Shannon, is we work with manufacturers all across the United States. I'll keep those for another time but all the manufacturers that we work with are competing against one another in a space. So, let's just use Pepsi and Coke as an example. Pepsi and Coke compete everywhere. You see Pepsi and Coke in every supermarket, grocery store. You see them in every gas station. So, if you've got two manufacturers and let's just say I sell for both those manufacturers, I'm spending money on marketing, they're spending money on marketing.
Jared Ledford:What we end up doing is competing with each other, driving our CPRs up cost per results. For those of you who are new to the business or need lingo, cost per result is how much it costs you to secure a raw lead. So, for us, a raw lead is can I get a building quote? Am I in your service area? I'm interested in a building, that kind of a thing. What we do on our end is we have in-house lead generation. You're gonna contact and talk to somebody on our team in-house. They're gonna take the lead in real time. Can I get a building quote? Absolutely, we're here to help. You Just need your size and zip code and we go from there. We qualify the lead and it goes to one of our project managers. But what I've been trying to convince manufacturers-
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Jared Ledford:Have the manufacturer house leads, send the leads out to their dealers or work exclusively with a sales team, because we are competing against each other in a space that is costing us thousands of dollars a month. Shannon, is that the way you see it? Because it's the way I see it. I witnessed it every day.
Shannon Latham:My ads manager goes crazy and, uh, you know, I'm trying to get cost per result down, trying to give customers a streamlined process yeah, I mean, you know it's so much, so many things to unpack there, um, but you know I would say yes from a marketing perspective. Um, you know it's it's kind of pay to play. We've had a couple of people ask us you know, like, what do you? You're working with someone over here, what do you? You know what do you do with us? You know what's your dedication level to us and it's like, well, you know, if your ad budget's $15,000 a month, like a company we spoke with yesterday, versus $1,000 a month, you know yesterday, versus a thousand dollars a month, you know, well, you're probably going to have 15 times more visibility versus, you know, the thousand dollars a month. Guy, it's not a reflection of our marketing or any marketing that you're using, whether it's us or someone else. You're just going to have more visibility whenever you have the functionality to get in front of people, more Add copy, all those things matter. But in reality, from a Google and meta perspective, if you're paying to get in front of that many people, you're going to consume a certain, you know, like, amount of leads, of leads.
Shannon Latham:So, you know, yes, it all ties into the 1099 thing, because even never we think about. You know the, the thousand dealer network. You know, and each one of those dealers are branding something different. You know we're Jared steel sheds for Shannon steel sheds. You know I say this all the time but putting on my consult a, a consultation hat, if I was, if I were giving you advice as a 1099, you know steel manufacturer, you know I would say maintain your brand in case you want to have a different vendor. But if you just switch vendors every time somebody gives you more percent on the sale, you're going to run through and you're probably going to get a bad name for yourself after a while and people aren't going to want to bring you free stuff.
Shannon Latham:But you know for you to sell. But even if you, even if you do see, with sheds it's different because they're prefab and you can purchase, you can wholesale purchase. You know, and then you own those and you can do what you want and have your own rent, own. You can have your marketing. You can have your own. You know own, rent, own. You can have your marketing. You can have your own. You know, whatever you own them, I, if I go, buy 10, you know mailboxes, you know, and I want to sell the mailboxes the way I want to sell them. Um, you know, I don't have to be beholden to the company in that respect, but in some ways you are, because they're giving you free inventory on a consignment model. So, it's like are you really independent as 1099? You're not quite W2.
Shannon Latham:So, where's the trade-off here? You make for a good billboard advertiser, but where's the commitment to the backend? Is there a co-op program? Is there a? How do you sell more? At the end of the day, you can take all the fluff out because you can start discussing. You know cost per lead, per conversion. You know SEO, CRMs. You know like URLs, pos, every acronym you can think of on earth. And like the guy we talked about today, he said hey, I don't know what SEO is, but I love to build sheds and I want to build more sheds. But I'm not a sales guy and I need help on that. And that's why the dealer network, that's why people go and they find the dealer network. But what's happening is we're in this unusual place in history where the dot-com boom happened in the 90s and we're 25 years, 35 years later and we're starting to realize things like just having a website doesn't matter anymore, because really if you have a website, it only matters if people find it.
Shannon Latham:There's so many people competing for that and that's what SEO is right. Like you're looking to index on Google and so, like people call us and they say I need a website, I'm finally ready to do it. Right, I'm 25 years late, but I'm finally ready to do it and I'm just going to walk in. I'm going to give you the least amount of money and I'm going to show up on top right, like, oh, you're not going to pass the 25 years of experience that people have been doing, you know. So, like, I'm glad you're here at the party, but I can't catch you up all at one time. So, like you know, we go through this education process with people. Every time we talk to them, it's like well, do you want a new website? They're like yes. So, then you almost have to ask the question do you want that website to be seen? And they're almost offended by that question because it's like duh, why else would I want a website? You're like okay, well, we need to discuss that. It's. Having a website, having it seen are two different things. It exists if you tell people go here, you know, but are they finding it in keyword search. You know, is it, is it showing up? And yeah, so there's a there's an educational side even to that that I admire. So, I love pursuing those avenues.
Shannon Latham:But if you've got someone coming out knocking on your door they're saying, hey, look, we would like to set up a couple of display locks, yeah, and we'd like for you to sell, I would like to think that if you're going to say, yes, I will sell those, that you're going to have some level of dedication to actually making that happen. They're not just going to sit there for three years and you're not going to sell any buildings and you're going to move on. You know, thinking about my experience and we kind of talked about this off air you know, thinking about this experience, I remember becoming the state of Illinois, one of the this company's first. We were the very first dealer location in Illinois. This is a good company. I really liked the company. I mean I still think they're a good company and surprise, surprise, you know they're involved in sheds too, because it's kind of sometimes hard to maintain the autonomy between different companies.
Shannon Latham:But like, I remember one in situations specifically where we sold a big steel building, the biggest steel building we ever sold to a farmer. The guy passed away the next day. It was like oh, this is terrible. You know like we took down the percentage. We went out there. We found out from his son. We went out there. We said look, we're sorry, it was awesome meeting your dad. We'll just refund the money, cancel the order. We appreciate you giving us a chance. He said no, wait a minute. This is my dad's last dying wish is to buy this.
Shannon Latham:If this goes well, we need five or six more. We were like, okay, we'll keep it going, you know, and we call the company, we tell them treat this with sensitivity and we're wondering is that just in one ear and out the other? Cause? I'm not sure, cause all of a sudden they showed up to build it and they forgot half the metal for the building. And then they got told well, we're going to put you back on rotation because it's going to be six weeks before we can get back out here. So how do you think that situation went? And you are.
Shannon Latham:You have no control over this as a third party, but you get all the negative reviews you get all the negative Facebook reviews, you get all the negative Google reviews, you get all the nasty phone calls and for some, the mentality is if you don't like that, don't be a dealer of steel buildings, which is what we did. Ultimately, we just decided, you know, after moving into the top 10 place the first year as one of their top 10 sellers and winning an award within the first year, we decided well then, we're not going to sell that anymore until we can get some consistency, you know and.
Shannon Latham:I'm encouraging people to do that. I'm saying this was my story. I'm telling that you know my experience. Ultimately, I feel like that company's rebounded pretty well. They do pretty good. I hear nothing but good things about them. But I think about how relatable my story is and my sales experience with so many other companies. My story is and my sales experience with so many other companies.
Shannon Latham:And the question is like, why are like, like, why is no one taking the bull by the horns in that particular situation and saying you know, like we're going to offer extreme customer service, we're going to make raving fans, like we're not going to let someone down when something like that happens, we're not going to forget half of the metal of the building we drove three hours to install. You know, where does the communication get so far off? Is it this anticipation to grow and beat the rest? Because that's not the key to success for long-term? Is it To win now? It's to win always. So, you know, um, I I'm probably lost on where the question started, in the origin, but I think my experience no, I think that's one thing that specifically stuck out to me, that I was like that was eight, ten years ago.
Shannon Latham:I'm still hearing these stories today yeah, you know, in 2025 and I'm like, I'm struggling to understand, like who's going to own that space?
Jared Ledford:Yeah, and I can tell you we've gotten a lot of feedback. I mean we probably get by a lot. I mean probably two or three emails I've been getting a week from different shed guys and gals. And you know, what I'll tell you is your story is not uncommon. Your story is pretty, pretty much on point. I mean I get it all the time from shed guys that I know like how have you made this metal building thing work for so long? And you know we see guys come and go, but you've been pretty consistent with it and you know a lot of it comes down to what we've talked about already is like keeping up with.
Jared Ledford:You know exactly what you said pick a horse and stick with it. You know, build your relationships out. I mean, I can tell you the manufacturers we work with. We know they're in salt brews, we know we know what to do and what not to do. We know that there's manufacturers all over the place and we're happy to work with a lot of them. Um, you know some of them a little bit more than others, but the fact of the matter is that the ones that we know do certain things well, those are the ones who get those specific type of buildings. If we know that one company tends to do vertical sheeting a little bit better than another company and has pretty quick lead times in the area. I can tell you the one thing that I learned, um from my buddy, lee, and I'm going to give lee a shout out over at, uh, direct metal structures, I think is where he's at now, so cheap plug for those guys.
Jared Ledford:Lee has been an absolute legend to me in this industry and been a very good advocate and friend. When he didn't have to be, quite honestly, he's been on the manufacturing side, the dealer side. He's kind of all over the place. But he told me one time he said, Jared, don't care about commission rates, care about where the building's coming from and where it's going. And I said what do you mean? He said well, you know, if you got a building you're selling in Indianapolis, Indiana, and you got a manufacturer in Indiana, don't sell them the building that's coming from mount airy, North Carolina, selling the building that's coming from Indiana. And ever since we've done that and that's pretty much our golden rule here is if we have a manufacturer we trust, within three hours that's the building they're getting, and if they don't like it they can buy from somebody else.
Jared Ledford:Hey guys, this is Jared with the Steel Kings podcast. Today's episode is part one of a two-part episode. Be sure to listen next week for part two.