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
Kloter Farms: A Destination For Sheds
What happens when a family brand treats a shed lot like a destination—and runs it with the precision of a top retail showroom? We sit down with Joe Schneider, Vice President at Kloter Farms, to explore how a single location in Ellington, Connecticut became a regional magnet for sheds, garages, pavilions, and custom indoor furniture. The story starts with horse-drawn carriages and lands in a modern playbook built on transparent pricing, meticulous displays, and a culture that puts the customer at ease.
Joe explains how the team translates an onsite “wow” factor into digital discovery. Think professional photography at real homes, cohesive visuals across platforms, and strong local SEO for sheds, garages, greenhouses, and outdoor living in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. We dig into the product roadmap shaped by listening—steeper roof pitches, screened rooms, and eventually multi-car garages with engineered kits assembled on site. The move upmarket required dedicated project management, tighter vendor coordination, and realistic timelines. The payoff is trust: buyers of bigger buildings feel guided, not pushed.
We also unpack the operating habits that keep conversions high. Every display is priced with current discounts, so Sunday visitors can browse freely and pre-qualify themselves. Salespeople are not on commission, which keeps the tone helpful and focused on fit. Each year, roughly 100 display models are replaced, creating urgency for discounted display units and a fresh look that invites return trips. Behind the scenes, long-term vendor relationships ensure quality and capacity, while leadership flexes with the seasons—delivery support before winter, sales intensity in spring, and presentation all year.
If you’ve wondered whether to chase more lots or build one great destination, this conversation offers a rare, field-tested alternative. You’ll hear how a third-generation team balances volume with quality, leverages repeat buyers, and uses small structural choices—clear pricing, photography, promotions—to create outsized impact. Enjoy the story, then subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to tell us which strategy you’ll try next.
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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Pro
Shed Challenger
LuxGuard
Making Sales Simple
Digital Shed Builder
IFAB
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Cord Koch:Welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. I'm your host, Cord Koch, filling in for Shannon Latham. Just want to quickly remind everyone for any additional information about today's guest or to get a hold of the Shed Geek Podcast directly, reach out to 618-309-3648. You can also email info@shedgeek.com. You can fill out our contact form on www.shedgeek.com. And also remember to check out the Shed Geek Facebook page for the latest updates, guests, their information, and all things Shed Geek. And for those of you who are on Facebook and are shed sales professionals, be sure to check out the Shed Sales Professionals Facebook page and interact there so that we are all sharing our knowledge and are helping each other be better. So having said that, I would like to introduce today's guest, Mr. Joe Schneider, Vice President of Kloter Farms in Ellington, Connecticut. Am I saying all those things correctly, Joe?
Joe Schneider:That's correct. Yes, you go.
Cord Koch:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here. I really try hard to pronounce everything correctly. Um I know my name is not up on the screen right now, but my last name is Koch, but it's spelled K-O-C-H, like a good German would, of course. Um so I've always been very uh very sensitive to trying to pronounce uh other people's names and businesses and everything correctly. So um, Joe, since I've said everything correctly, why don't you give us uh a little bit of an introduction uh to yourself, to Kloter Farms? I know uh Shannon uh has actually been acquainted with, I believe it's your uncle Jason for uh for several years. Um kind of give us a little a little background on who you are and why you're in the shed business.
Joe Schneider:Sure. So, my name's Joe. Uh like you said, we're with a company named Kloter Farms. And why I'm in the shed business is I'm personally third generation of the Kloter family. Uh my mother was a Kloter, it would be my grandfather who started the company back in the late 70s, early 80s. So it's a family-run business, uh family-owned business, um, and it has grown significantly over the years in different avenues. Uh, we started out with smaller options for sheds, went to larger garages, um, and now we also have a full furniture store with indoor furniture as well as custom kitchens, but the majority of our of our business is sheds, garages, and everything for your outdoor perdiless pavilions, probably furniture, things like that. Um Ellington, Connecticut is not really a super hustling, bustling area. It's 20 minutes off the highway. Right. Um, you pretty much, we joke about it here, you either buy pizza in this town, or you buy a shed. And so Klotor farms is a big like staple centerpiece of the town. Of course, it's grown over the years. Um, but it was always created and defined as a destination place. So that was the vision that my grandfather had to draw people to come from all different parts of the tri-state area, which is Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and get people to come here and not just buy a product to have the full what we call the Kloter Farms experience. Um so we have over 16 acres of buildings and sheds here, um, several acres of a full-blown custom display, and then about 15,000 square feet of a custom indoor furniture store combined with you know places to play on and uh ice cream for people. So again, it's it's designed as a destination place, which also where we operate our business to sell sheds and things like that.
Cord Koch:Right. Well, well, I'll tell you, you all are doing a good job because um whenever Shannon and I have been on the road, um, you know, and we are uh out visiting manufacturers and dealers, um, you know, and really kind of uh doing the in-person uh you know version of exploring the shed world, everyone always says, as we start to get up to that uh you know northeastern part of the country, everybody always says Klotter Farms, you know, Kloter Farms. They're the they're the ones to go see. Um so not only are you impressive to um your customers uh you know and creating that experience for them, but um I'll say you've made a name for yourself even amongst manufacturers, which is always a uh a high uh you know, high price, right? So um but um you know I really was was very interested. We were talking a little offline, and you were saying that you know this is your grandfather's vision, and that it actually started with uh a horse-drawn carriage or making custom carriages. What was the origin of how the sort of the uh manufacturing there started?
Joe Schneider:Yeah, so it's uh it's a fun story to talk about and tell, but uh you know things get you know shifted over the years of how did everything really kind of come about and start. It was um again always something that has to start out small to become something that's bigger over the over the years. But he would sell he would he had he had horses, and he would sell shavings and horse bridles and tackle uh to different people. And he was uh always a visionary and and liked to have newer ideas and concepts. So he was trying to to design this custom carriage that actually had a spring built into it. The back wheel had a spring, so you could actually go up and down, you could flex. Yeah. Um called a flexi shaft. Um and he had learned that there was some fabricators down in Pennsylvania, so this was down in late 70s time frame. So, he took a drive down there with my grandmother, and he found a fabricator gentleman down there, and he started bringing up every few months a couple of horse and carriages, and he would bring them around to different shows and places.
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Joe Schneider:Um that well worked for a little while, but it was difficult to trailer everything around.
Cord Koch:And right.
Joe Schneider:He was down there one time and the gentleman who he was working with mentioned that somebody was starting to make pre-built sheds. So, he stopped in there and said, Well, I'll buy one of these pre-built sheds, and then you can put the actual bridle and tackle into the shed and ship it up to me. Right. So, he brought that shed to uh what we call our Big E, which is a huge tri-state fair. Um, it averages about a million people, million five people in a two-week period. So the exposure is is extreme to that fair. And he had very little interest in the horse-drawn carriages and significant interest in the sheds. So this is like 1979. And as the story goes, as in his um, you know, designer type world, entrepreneur, he took over a dozen orders of pre-built sheds without having a supplier, without having a way figured out how he's gonna get them from Pennsylvania to here. But he knew somebody down there was building sheds. Right. So, he took several orders from that show, and he said, I'm not sure how I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna, if people want this stuff, I'm gonna figure out a way to sell it. And that's what the very short version of what started really a uh kind of a pioneer down there in Pennsylvania of my grandfather and a couple of young Amishmen on what is now in Lancaster County, one of the biggest shed building hubs of the United States. Right. Yeah. Um, so over the years of this is our 45th year of being in business, things have grown a lot to a high quality, high volume type product that we sell. And our job as third generation coming in is truthfully maintaining what has been built, the values that have been built, but also keeping a very high quality product at while still delivering a high volume number of sheds and buildings and garages and things like that. So he kind of he jokes about it, he kind of backed his way into uh a very large uh business uh shed company that has grown over the years.
Cord Koch:Yeah, so it's just the entrepreneurial spirit though, isn't it? Um, you know, at this point, like something that has almost become like a meme on the internet, right? Where uh the sort of meme will be something like um uh you know, it'll be a cartoon or something of someone looking surprised or looking dreadful or whatever, and saying something to the effect of uh, you know, figuring out how to build the project after I just want a bid on something I've never done or what you know, like you won the bid and now you have to figure it out, right? It sounds like that's you know, that's that a lot of times that is the entrepreneur's journey, right? You know, you get in front of people and before you know it, they're asking, uh, can you do this? And I think, you know, uh entrepreneurs and and uh you know uh spirited people say, Yeah, of course I can, right? And you wind up you wind up kind of uh in that situation. Um so maybe kind of obviously it's been an evolution um over the years, but you know, one of the things that really jumped out to me was just how um how well presented um you know, going from building uh building horse-drawn carriages in the 70s and 80s to now, you know, whenever you look up Kloter Farms, as I was doing some research, I mean, my goodness, you all have professional photography on every single uh platform that you're on, right? And everything is is beautiful and and so well presented. And I would even call some of the furniture uh Instagrammable, you know. Uh you know, it's just very beautiful, and it also has that form and function. Uh, I believe a cube bed was something that I saw. Uh you know, so maybe kind of what bed? A cube is that was that what it was? It was like in a dresser where the bed actually you know actually came out of the dresser. So maybe kind of talk about um, you know, obviously what that journey has been like, and now you've wound up, I mean, you know, not just as a as an in-person uh experience, but really you're translating that experience onto digital platforms, which is so impressive in this industry when people are able to really make you feel like you're in that experience uh through a screen, right?
Joe Schneider:Yeah, that's I mean, it's definitely a challenge, and and every day it seems like there's more and more that you can do with uh again, it starts with professional photography, but for sure in the world of AI and being able to add and subtract things to a to a project. Um we are very fortunate to have a lot of raving customer fans that are more than happy to let us come back with a photography team or a crew and set up and um take pictures and videos of their of their really their outdoor space. So maybe it's a shed or a pool house, but then they come back and they buy a pavilion and some furniture, and then we can kind of create that whole kind of outdoor oasis concept that we can offer you everything for your for your backyard. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and over 40% of our customer base is second, you know, coming back for a second time. So that's a huge amount of people that uh retained customers is a very big thing for us. So not just coming for one purchase and one and done. Uh we talk about that a lot when we sit on you know panels and things like that of a lot of people's to mentality can kind of be like, I need to find the next shed customer. And you're right, you might on that, but to have products and stuff that accent sheds nicely allows you to have that customer come back two, three, four times.
Cord Koch:Absolutely. And you talk about a low uh cost of acquisition, right, is what you kind of call it in the marketing and sales world. Uh the lowest cost of acquisition possible is a satisfied customer who walks back on the lot and knows they're buying from you, right? Absolutely. And they'll tell ten of their friends too. So that's a snowball effect. Absolutely. So, maybe walk us through, Joe. Um, I know you're the vice president there at Kloter Farms, but um, you know, are you kind of in this third- generation operation? Like what is your day-to-day? Are you providing some of the long-term vision? Are you digging in on uh you know on the the lot or or in the sales area itself? Like, tell us tell us what you're doing there to keep this family business rolling, Mr. Schneider.
Joe Schneider:So, every day is a different something different. Um I like to refer to myself as the fireman sometimes. So I just I'm I don't have a set set of rules or uh tasks that I need to get done every day. Um but in a high volume in 20 or 30 people's yard every day, uh things just happen. Uh multiple build crews. So, the concept of being uh there and helpful to your sales team is my number one spot that I even though I don't get to do tons of selling, I still love to work with customers and sell to them. So, I'm often outside chatting with customers, thanking for them for coming. Uh we do have a full uh six-person, uh full-time sales staff. So people come in to our facility, they're greeted by somebody. And so I help our sales staff. And then my second, probably biggest, is vendor relations. And I have done all of the ordering for all of our products for several years. I am reluctantly, but requirement. Uh I need to pass that off to somebody uh because I love doing it. I love our shops, the people that we work with. Um we're very much a relationship-based company. So we have we've been here for 45 years, but the companies that we started with 30, 40 years ago down in Pennsylvania, they're also on their second and third generation. So we we pretty much treat them like family. They come up to our vacation homes and spend time with us. So that's very much a uh a close family atmosphere. But as things continue to grow, and uh we have I have hired um a gentleman to do all of the ordering. So, I'm working on transitioning that, um, setting things on purchase orders and uh making it so after the sales team sells the product, it comes here on at the right time, on the correct load, and that is a full-time job that I've been doing that I'm shedding um currently. So my schedule's lightening up, but more on the visionary side is where I would like to be in the next 12 months.
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Cord Koch:Yeah, absolutely. That's one of those things where like you know you need to do it. Right? You know that you need to automate and you need to uh kind of adopt those kind of modern best practices, but at the same time, you hate to lose those phone calls with vendors. Right, you know, like on some level, you know, on some level, you just kind of uh it's one of those things that keeps everybody connected. Um, you know, it's been a theme uh really over the last several weeks here on the Shed Geek podcast, a theme of diversification of product offerings. And I know that you all are in a little uh different circumstance. I mean, you have uh, like you said, more of that um experience lot, um, you know, where you do have, I believe, kind of like a country store and uh some gifts and you're doing furniture, so you have an indoor showroom as well as outdoor. Um but you know, so I know it's a little different from people who are kind of on a standard shed lot, but maybe just talk a little bit about how you all um approach that those different product offerings. Um, and if you don't mind to share maybe even just sort of what the best uh um diversified offerings are, right? You know, is the is the second best thing that you sell is some sorghum molasses or something, right? Um, because if that if that helps people come onto the lot or whatever, then you know I think that's something that that a lot of people would consider.
Joe Schneider:A lot of what we do is listening to yeah. And to boil a lot of it down is listening to our customers and what they're asking for. So yes, for a long time we've had the very basic T111 pre-built shed. Up in the northeast here, we still use all hardwoods, we use no OSB uh material, everything's still solid plywood, true, you know, real T111, um, or you know, vinyl siding or clapboard, but we uh we will always have the basic 10 by 12 T 111 shed on our lot, but it was really customers that pushed us to hey, we want a shed, but we want it to look more decorative. Okay, we want a shed, but we want a 10-pitch roof on it. Um okay, we want a type of structure, but we want it to be a screened-in room. I can look around at the lot and remember the years that customers kept coming in and kept coming in, and finally we're like, okay, well, enough people ask. Um, people have been asking us for years to build a greenhouse. We've gotten into that, um, worked with one of our vendors, designed it, engineered it, and now there's probably 35 greenhouses sitting out there ready, ready to ship next week or two weeks from now. So it's on the outdoor division, it's very much uh listening to customers and trying to build something on a production-based level that we can market to the customer. Um, on the indoor side, it's very much keeping up with trends um and complementing that really nicely with a lot of uh small product like uh decorations and candles and stuff like that. That that makes your show your showroom or your country store really beautiful. And then and then we make it an urgent, like add some urgency to it where we have uh sales that end at a certain date, and we have a big fall, like we've now we've decorated the whole country store for fall, and now we've decorated the whole country store for winter. So that will come up and that will be like a huge thing, and a ton of people will show up because Kloter Farms Country Store just got decorated for the winter, and that's that creates a crowd and creates a buying crowd and things like that. So on the store side, it's more of um keeping up with newer trends, and you know, we build only all custom American-made hardwood furniture, we advertise that hard. And on the outdoor, it's really listening to the needs of people and then seeing if we can make it work.
Cord Koch:Right. So I guess you don't take offense to saying you have some Instagrammable products because you're shooting to have some Instagrammable products.
Joe Schneider:Yeah, that's part of it. I mean, people, you know, me and you, we're all every all of us, we're all sitting on our phones for too long. I see that note pop up once a week on how much time I spend on my phone, and I'm like, what could I be doing with that with that four hours a day? So exactly.
Cord Koch:Exactly.
Joe Schneider:That's a real thing. So we're on our phones, we're all on Pinterest, people are looking. And that also speaks to people coming in and saying, Hey, I realize you guys don't offer this shed exactly how I want it. But I saw this online, I saw this on Pinterest, I saw this on truthfully someone else's website. And can you build it for me? And we're not we're not the custom one-off company, we're still production driven based, but we'll say, hey, we can't do this, but we can do 80 to 90 percent of what you're looking for on there. And they usually want to work with us, so we'll figure out a way to make it happen.
Cord Koch:Well, I kind of noticed um maybe a little bit of what you're saying there because uh I noticed both on your social media pages and on your website, you're featuring some really great-looking two-car garages. Um can you just, I mean, you know, obviously that starts to take that production scale up and up and up. Um, can maybe you talk about because I know that there are certainly um other manufacturers out there who feel that they would like to go from building more standard-sized sheds up to those uh you know bigger structures. What was that kind of journey into that like? Because it seems like it's kind of new. Am I am I right about that or no?
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Joe Schneider:Um it's newer for us, the let's call it the space of multi-car garages or the space of a fully designed kit that needs to be fully assembled on site. When I will be about probably about 15 years now, we've been in that that space. So, we always use the uh metaphors here, like we want to walk before we run. So, clients would come in and say they want a shed, but they want a big steep roof pitch on it. So, that's what started us to essentially build a box with eight foot walls and then assemble the 12-pitch roof on site. And but now you gotta hire a crew and trucks and trailers and everything like that. Um we actually about 20 years ago tried to get into the uh two-car garage space and struggled a little bit with it and said, All right, let's back off for a couple years, and we hired dedicated full-time person to manage that department, which is really what uh what is needed for growing a segment of business that that is a four to seven month project, is what it uh takes us from design to engineering to uh building it in the shop. It's only about a five or six day build on site. But you we realize that we need someone to specifically manage these bigger projects. We were trying to push them through like basic sheds. Customer walks in, buys a shed, pays you half, gets delivered six weeks later. That's pretty easy. That's pretty black and white. Um, but when you start talking foundation contractors and electrical people, and now you have a town and engineer and other people involved, you need that one person to go to. And now we have three people in that department that has really flourished for our customers, allowing them to you know still do some work with the town and stuff on the backside, but us really managing the whole part of the project with them. And it's a much higher dollar amount, so they almost expect that.
Cord Koch:Yeah, right.
Joe Schneider:We're not a GC, we're not gonna pretend we're G general contractors, but um that's kind of how that that has morphed, and now and now we have some really cool new multi-car garages and displays, and you know, people will essentially put them up, and the upstairs becomes a uh you know, a bonus room or an in-law apartment and things like that. So, we can do some really cool stuff with our bigger buildings.
Cord Koch:Yeah, and they have that sort of decorative. The ones that I was looking at, a lot of them do have those decorative features, architectural features. I'm sure that in a lot of cases you're kind of matching whatever is going on with a home or uh whatever area you're in there. Um but so for a company like Kloter Farms, um You know, who has really grown um grown at that sort of uh um primary location of you know, and seems to have uh such a great reputation in the tri-state, as you said. And you know, I would hate to try and put a number on it, but a couple hundred miles in all directions, it seems like people know of Kloter Farms and know that's the kind of place to go. So how does how does a company like Kloter Farms then view the sort of view the growth strategies that are kind of you know separate from what traditional growth strategies in the industry would be, which is let's go put up another lot, right? But you guys you guys are seeing it differently. So how do you kind of how do you visualize that three-year, five-year, ten-year outlook uh from that perspective?
Joe Schneider:Yeah, I mean, our way of thinking may be different than others. We are not uh ever looking to put up several, let's say, hybrid or satellite lots. We've really uh pushed hard on that destination experience, and uh we have uh we're very fortunate for an extremely high conversion rate if we can get the customer here. It it's uh it's uh if we can get the customer to come to our facility, we can wow them, we can find a product that fits their needs, and we can sell them the product. Um so we do almost no maybe two percent of our sales would be considered like a on-site consultation. We don't do any of that. Um we just uh feel we have a huge opportunity to uh show people uh what they're getting long before it's even in their property. And you and you just gotta come and see, feel it, and touch it. Um it's certainly been discussed a bunch over the years. Uh let's go 70 miles south. There's immense amount of you know homes and money that comes out of New York City. Right. And at this point, we feel that one or two of the partners, there's four of us um and in the company, would need to move down there. And so it's a cost, it's a uh change of change of lifestyle. Uh significant change in the way our systems are done. And every year for many, many years, we've continued to grow. So, we had a lot of talks about it, and then COVID hit. And COVID, I don't I I think for a lot of people was like us for those like jet fuel. It it ballooned our company to things that we never thought we could do at the one location. So we just decided at this point we're going to going to stay with what we have, and it still takes an extreme amount of effort, energy just to manage and run the day-to-day operations of your normal uh sales and sheds. So when we talk strategy and things like that, it's we don't want to you know talk negatively about the gentleman that has uh nine shed lots, but you go there and you know the doors are falling off and the hinges look like crap, and it's like, well, that's the presentation. And uh yes, I I'm everybody knows that Joe is an absolute stickler for the displays. They all need to look perfect at all times. So but you can't get one shot to show the customer, and to and to not have somebody there or manning the facility is like such a curveball for us to even think about. Um so we have chosen to stay with one dedicated location, and everything gets everything runs through Ellington, Connecticut for us.
Cord Koch:Yeah. So how do you then, I mean, obviously you want to at least have some reach down into the city or into the, you know, I know in uh in New York it's not so much suburbs as it is kind of getting into the neighborhood part. So you obviously want to have some the ability to sell into those areas. So are you primarily doing that digitally? Do you have a big operation that's aimed at that, or is the um notoriety or the sort of uh the reputation of Kloter Farms does it just kind of carry itself into some of those bigger markets?
Joe Schneider:Yeah, I mean I the name's definitely bigger than what we do realize. Um you know, I uh it's uh it's a staple in in the shed world, at least up in New England. Um so that carries some significant uh weight. But we also have people that live 20 miles from us that have no idea we sell pavilions or something like that. And you're like, what do you mean? I've been advertising a gazillion dollars all over. And so we push a significant amount on uh on SEO, so uh keyword search, um, sheds, garages, everything, anything to do in Connecticut. Uh, we want to be number one at the top of the page every single time for that. Um we do have when I say tri-state area, it's Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, but still over 80% of our business is all simply in Connecticut. Right. So um New York is 55 miles to the west, and we might go there twice a year. So that's how small of a market that is over there of people, it's almost this imaginary line that's drawn. People just don't come this side of the of the river. Um or they have somebody close. I don't know, but we market heavily in Massachusetts and road and Rhode Island, and still the large core of our business is in Connecticut. Right. Um I also have sat down with many other uh companies and you know they grill me with questions like I have this magic wand, and I'm like, I think Connecticut's extremely unique in the world or in the United States of you have Boston to the north, you have uh New York to the south, and Connecticut is what they call a sleep and stay state. There's not like this enormous attractions, but there is a lot of land and there's a lot of people and there's a lot of money. Um so we don't we almost I don't want to say we don't need to have a second lot. We just 90 percent I'm gonna guess that over 80 percent of our business is done within a 50 mile radius.
Cord Koch:Right.
Joe Schneider:And sure, we might go a hundred miles north of Boston once a week or something like that, but the your core business is in that 50 or 60 miles. And so I sat down maybe a few, well, it was back in August, and these gentlemen had a company in Canada, and they're talking about having 20 lots because they're covering an area of like 600 miles because there's no people out there in the middle of Canada. That's a totally different concept than us, where uh people are you know it's all stacked up right on not on top of each other, but everybody the houses are big, the lots are big, it's conducive for sheds, and we all collect a lot of junk. So we need us we need a shed to store it in. Sometimes we can boil it down and not overthink it.
Cord Koch:But yeah, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. You know, sometimes they're a little more decorative, but ultimately most of them are a box for storage, right? Yeah, yep, you know, absolutely for sure. Don't complicate it too much.
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Cord Koch:What do you want that experience to be as soon as someone steps on the lot? You know, maybe could you walk me through again? I mean, I realize that you guys have a slightly different um, you know, uh operation there than normal, but I mean some of these some of these uh concepts are universal, right? Like how does Joe see how does Joe see that that first impression, that initial customer experience?
Joe Schneider:Well, I could talk for three hours about it, but uh two immediate things come to mind. Um a team of people that cares, so people that care that really want to help a customer, so that's like simple philosophical. But I don't like doing I personally don't like doing business with someone who you know feels like they could care less about selling the product to you, so that's a big thing to us, and um as soon as someone comes on our lot, every single building that we have on our display, and we have about roughly a hundred buildings, dotted all of our display, and there's a bunch of walkways through, so it's something like a little village, and people can walk through, and every single building is priced with the current discount. So, we're closed on Sundays, we're a f uh family-owned business. My grandfather and grandmother uh were very much in the church religious world, um, and that's been the Kloter Farm Staple. So, one day out of the seven days, which could arguably be a very busy day, uh we've always been closed on Sundays. Our lot is always open. So, it's not uncommon for us to be closed on Sundays and me to drive by and see 10 cars there. But I know that the area's presented well, even if I'm not there, and every customer that comes or potential customer can see the pricing of the building without having to talk to a salesperson. Um it allows the customer to feel relaxed, it allows the customer to be not pushed by the salesperson. And uh if they walk the lot for 20 minutes, they already kind of know about what the price is and they know about what size they want. So they've done half the work for you, and now we're just helping them facilitate colors and design and things like that. Um the other thing that we do is none of our sales team works on commission. So everybody is paid either hourly or salary, and our family motto, even though the company's grown, it's still a family motto business that if the company is profitable, we share that extensively with our with our with our team. Yes, I as a partner or boss also get part of that chunk. But we have a pay structure that allows people to not have to be pushy to a customer. And if the company is profitable, you can get 20, 30, 40 percent extra pay in your bonus at the end of the year. Um that helps people uh work in a team so they know they're working towards one goal, and that definitely shows with customers. Um when they, you know, said it's the best sales experience I've you know, we're not perfect, we definitely rub people the wrong way sometimes, but stop being pushy in the sales process and allowing people to just always put your pricing out there and not be afraid or hide your price sheets or things like that. We're completely 100% open on our website when you come here that this is our price and this is where we where we need to be to work out a deal.
Cord Koch:Yeah, I haven't noticed on your website that you have uh inventory, obviously, but then you have the actual um oh gosh, what did you call it? The sort of show models, right? You have the models that were that are even separated out on your website that you're selling that were for display, right? And so um yeah, like you seem to be very yeah, yeah.
Joe Schneider:Every year we um every year that all hundred of those buildings come out and a hundred brand new ones come in. So that's like our big um that's an exciting thing. We advertise that, we push that on social media, check out our new display every year. So that that promotes a again, a fresh, clean look. So when you have a lot of people come across your law and you have an ice cream shop, like things get dirty over the year, and a good, fresh look is just that's what we've have felt is just super important for us. Yeah. So those display models we sell at a little bit deeper discount, and then the people wait till spring to get them delivered. So it's a little incentive and it helps cash flow in the winter, and it allows us to keep our displays, but now we have customer deposits, and then we deliver those in the spring when we take apart our whole display.
Cord Koch:Yeah, absolutely. Now that makes a ton of sense. Um and clearly labeling those things again, to your point, right? Not sort of not sort of uh keeping that a secret or just listing it as normal inventory, listing it as the display model, right? And listing it as uh you're getting this discount because of that, um, just seems like a very straightforward uh way. And I mean, just off the top of your head, I mean, are you usually able to sell all hundred of those display models in a 60-day period or something?
Joe Schneider:Like how yeah, we'll have we'll have probably 85% of them sold by January 1. And then you have the other 15% are kind of like really specific buildings, which are a little tougher to put up. But um, people wait, people know that that like we push that out in emails, like hey, get ready for our display models and stuff like that. So usually first day, like 20 of them are gone because there are people have been waiting and waiting for us to put them up for sale.
Cord Koch:Yeah, so that's kind of hard.
Joe Schneider:That's true creating a sense of urgency. So that that's a huge thing. Creating a sense of urgency. Um we run a lot of different sales, so probably 20 different sales throughout the year. So there's always a sale going on, there's always something going on. Uh but there's also always a sale end date. It's nothing like a good hook for to get a customer in there to say the sale ends this day, and after that, that's it. It might sound kind of cheesy, but without being too strong with the customer, it gives them a deadline to shoot for.
Cord Koch:And it's the magic of promotions, right? I mean, there's a reason that there's whole industries built around lead generation and you know marketing and everything like that, and those promotional tactics and event, right? Something that has a start date and an end date that has a an additional benefit, right? I mean, there's just a reason that those things are uh effective, and it's much to what you're saying there, right? It's the psychology uh you know of the of the consumer. So um, you know, that's uh that really uh kind of I think puts a pretty fine point on the approach that Kloter Farms has and um you know the dedication that you have to your customers. Um just a really impressive thing. Um that that like I said in the beginning, that your um your competitors along with your customers, it seems to be fairly ubiquitous that people say go check these guys out whenever you're up in the area. Um so just want to pass that compliment along one more time. Um so how about your how about just uh closing us on something personal, Joe? Um, you know, tell us about tell us about Joe outside of Kloter Farms. Um, you know, I think that's something that the listeners always enjoy is a little peep behind the curtain on uh things that are not always strictly business.
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Joe Schneider:Sure. So, uh the first thought that comes to mind is still revolves around business, but when I was uh 17, I think all of us men go through a stage of we don't really need to work, we can just uh let things pass by or let us parents take care of us. And so my father was the vice president at the time. He ran the company for about 20 years and retired a couple years ago. So, at the time he pretty much pushed me out and said, Hey, if you want to work in the real world, like you know, go get a real job and you can work for a boss, that's not him. So, for five years, I worked several different jobs. I pumped septic tanks, I did construction, I did carpentry, um, I did sales, and that taught me how to be treated, how not to treat people. I use those experiences every day in my interactions with the team, and it allowed me to, when an opening came back up um in sales at Kloter Farms five years later, and they made me go through a typical hiring process, and I started right at the bottom of the totem pole and I worked my way up. Um and that has also built a lot of rapport with the with the team. I wasn't just given anything. Um yes, it's a family business. Yes, it was um probably going to be somebody in the family that was you know taking the reins in the future or running it, but there was no sense of expectation for that to be the case. So, um that's on the personal side of how I got from Kloter Farms to not to Kloter Farms and then back to Kloter Farms.
Cord Koch:Back to Kloter Farms. Yeah, right. There's so much value in learning uh every uh rung in the operation, right? Um understanding what the workflow in the in the manufacturing facility is, uh understanding the workflow in uh, like you said, the thing you like to do, uh products and ordering and uh fulfillment and understanding what the flows in that are. I mean, it really, you know, uh it just gives you such a better insight uh into what those high-level strategic things can even be, right? Because you know what the capacity of each of those individual business units are.
Joe Schneider:Yeah, and it helps with the stressor points too. So, this this time of year, it's October, it's autumn, things are winding down a little bit on the sales side, but extremely ramped up on the delivery side. So, everybody wants everything before uh before the snow flies. So, we can get bad weather in New England here in Connecticut. Yeah, so just working with the crews and being able to know what stressors they're experiencing. So, we have six or seven trucks that hit the road every day. There's 20 to 25 sheds that get delivered every day. Things are gonna happen, things are gonna break. And so this time of year, I'll spend more of my time just listening to the management on those departments and trying to help them out. Where in the springtime, uh, we're really selling, we're mostly selling, we're not really delivering in the beginning of April when the yards are still soaked and stuff like that. Right. Um so in working in different avenues or different parts of the company over the years, it has helped me a ton to know, but also see those stressor points and be a not take over the person's position, but help them where they where they need help.
Cord Koch:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, understand the sort of yeah, where that stress or that pain point is going to come in and be able to anticipate it uh and hopefully anticipate the solution, right? Um, keep everything moving smoothly, uh, just like we're all trying to do. So, uh that makes a lot of sense. Well, we always like to give uh the guests an opportunity at the end of the show. Um, any shout-outs? I mean, I know it takes uh a ton of uh people and vendors and companies uh you know to build you know a 45-year uh you know successful operation. Uh is there anybody in particular uh you know that you'd like to sort of uh shout out here to end the episode?
Joe Schneider:Um not really specifically. We have amazing vendors down in Pennsylvania that really make us tick as a company. Um we know exactly what they can produce, we know how much they can produce, um, so we don't oversell or under you know, oversell the amount of what they can build for us. Um no, I don't really have a specific shout-out. Um other than if you ever want anybody who ever wants to come up to Connecticut, please stop in, ask for Joe, ask for Noah, um, ask for Steven, uh core Christian, those are the four of us here. We're happy to help, we're happy to give you a tour anytime.
Cord Koch:Um that's what I was just about to.
Joe Schneider:If you're a competitor in Connecticut, then no.
Cord Koch:We're not showing you the operation. That's right. Uh no, that's just what I was about to say.
Joe Schneider:Competition is good. Competition is healthy for sure. Competition is necessary to keep everybody in check.
Cord Koch:Yeah, absolutely. Um, no, but uh that's actually what I was gonna say is uh I personally, um next time we are we are in that area, uh definitely want to come and check out the operation myself, shake your hand, uh, meet you face to face. So we will do that. But I would also highly encourage any listeners, um, you know, if you have the ability to uh check out the website, um, check out the social media pages, um, just a really well-run digital operation. Um, you know, so even if you're just checking it out that way, uh, I would encourage everyone just to look uh and kind of take from take some lessons from uh the sort of techniques and the strategies that you all are using there. So um I guess before I forgot to do this at the beginning, just super quick. I've been putting on a hat, one of Shannon's hats, uh, every time on the podcast today is Heartland Capital. Uh my friend John Carr uh has one wound up working over there. So, John, if you're listening, uh I've got your hat on today. And uh Joe, thank you so much for the interview. Um, and I look forward to not only uh speaking in the future again over Zoom or on the phone, but uh but shaking your hand and seeing you in person, sir.
Joe Schneider:Be a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. I uh I haven't done really a podcast before very much. So, I appreciate it and uh you made it easy to talk to. And if you ever need me back or want to talk to some more, I'm happy to.
Cord Koch:So, you did you did great, Joe. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Good rest. Thank you so much. Thanks, you too. We'll see you. Bye-bye.
INTRO:Thanks again, Shed Pro, for being the Shed Geek's studio sponsor for 2025. If you need any more information about ShedPro or about Shed Geek, just reach out. You can reach us by email at info@ shedgeek.com. Or just go to our website www.shedgeek.com and submit a form with your information, and we'll be in contact right away. Thank you again for listening, as always, to today's episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. Thank you and have a blessed day.
Joe Schneider:Happy Thanksgiving from the Shed Geek team.