Transforming Spaces and Building Bonds: A Dive into the Shed Industry and Its Community Impact

When my neighbor erected a quaint shed that transformed her cluttered backyard into a serene retreat, the neighborhood's curiosity was piqued. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know the story behind these charming structures. That's why I invited Daniel Hostetter from Heritage Structures to share his intriguing tale—starting from his father's early days in the shed industry to Daniel's own foray into the business, sparking a revolution with innovative ideas like metal roofing and an online configurator that reshaped customer experiences. We even unearthed a trend that's got suburbanites flocking to chicken coops, a testament to the industry's agility in aligning with consumer whims.

Sheds are more than just storage spaces; they're a symbol of our heritage, aspirations, and a testament to craftsmanship. In our heart-to-heart, Daniel and I unpack the philosophy of sales that values connection over transaction, discussing the delicate balance of meeting customers' needs while nurturing deep-rooted relationships. Amidst this, we scrutinize industry patterns, such as the surge in demand brought on by the pandemic, and how Heritage Structures has leaned on the pillars of quality, functionality, and exceptional service to carve out a reputable standing in the market.

Finally, we spin a yarn about the barn spinner, a head-turning marketing marvel that showcases the creative flair of the shed industry. It's not just about building sheds but constructing memorable brands that linger in the minds of potential customers. As we wrap up, we send out a prayer for prosperity and spiritual enrichment to our listeners and their enterprises, fostering a sense of community that transcends mere business engagements. Tune in for a conversation that's as enriching for the soul as it is for the entrepreneurial spirit.

Also, find out how the podcast can be heard throughout the plain communities by dialing the number 330-997-3055. If the number is busy, just dial again! 

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Transcript

Shed Geek: 0:37

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek podcast. So thankful for Sunshine today up here in Pennsylvania because we've been dealing with snow and everything else on the way up. But I'll tell you what. I'm just going to go ahead and give you the mic, Let you introduce yourself, who you are, your company, a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Daniel Hostetler: 0:59

Okay, I'm Daniel Hostetler from Heritage Structures. We're located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. We started in 2012 and have had a number of changes slight changes throughout, but Sheds has been a part of my life since the early 90s. Okay, so we enjoy what we do and enjoy helping people and meeting people along the way.

Shed Geek: 1:27

So you kind of grew up in the shed industry a little bit.

Daniel Hostetler: 1:30

then Did you have family that worked in it or yeah, my dad started working at a shed shop in Bedford Pennsylvania in 1991. And so it just kind of went from there.

Shed Geek: 1:44

And then you just kind of followed suit at some point and ended up in the shed road yourself.

Daniel Hostetler: 1:49

Yes, at 14 or 15, I told my dad these guys need some competition. They were the only shed shop in the area at the time and doing well, but just no competition and kind of at that point I decided that someday I was going to have a shed shop myself. And obviously we're not in Bedford, but we 2012,. We decided it was time to make that happen. So we started out in very small, very small facility, worked by myself, and just kind of grew from there.

Shed Geek: 2:32

So started as a dream, kind of watched your father and the next thing you know it sort of turned into a reality for you. Reminds me of a story of a video that we did just recently where the gentleman was talking on his website about, you know, watching his dad growing up and you know how young guys are. They just kind of watched your dad and want to be like dad and he's like man. I always saw him working and and in the shed shop and I thought I want to do that one day. So it's cool to hear second generation, third generation shed guys show up. So what's the journey? What's the journey been like since 2012? There's a lot that's happened in the shed industry, even just since 2012, let alone 91 when your dad got started. What are some of the changes you've seen the most?

Daniel Hostetler: 3:24

So while going from in 91, that was a huge change from 91 till 2012. The internet, sales and marketplace and that sort of thing probably is the biggest change that I've seen Really here. The metal roof was a not necessarily a new idea, but it wasn't. It wasn't displayed, it wasn't pushed, and that was kind of my end on the market. I displayed metal roofs and I I did them for the same price as shingles and so that was kind of my way of, and we did residential roofing as well. So I got quickly became known as the metal roof guy in the market. So that was kind of the way I worked my way into the area.

Shed Geek: 4:21

Now I noticed you guys do a lot of siding, vinyl siding as well. Is that common, you think? Because of the weather, the location, HOA, what sort of like pushes?

Daniel Hostetler: 4:37

that what of it is? The HOA is around here. Some of them allow for painted sheds as long as they color match. Some of them are required to be absolutely as close as possible to the house, down to the door, color stuff like that. And also I mentioned earlier, most of our sheds are going into into a subdivision where they may have a half acre lot, and so the shed is going to be 30 feet from the house, and so they want something that's nice, something that is durable. Maintenance, you know, is a huge thing. They don't want to have to ever do anything to it again.

Shed Geek: 5:23

Were you doing anything vinyl sided before 2012? Or is that something that you kind of did? You start with vinyl sided, or were you? Were you still doing wood sided sheds when you first began?

Daniel Hostetler: 5:36

So originally my original idea for building sheds was to do tongue and groove bourdon batten style sheds and do animal shelters and some of that stuff. And I soon realized that the amount of people that want a bourdon batten shed while there's lots of them out there not everybody wants a bourdon batten shed, and so we started. Within the first year we started offering vinyl sheds as well, and then one of the things that started us off was chicken coops. Chicken coops weren't a huge item in the area at the time and we were located in Shippensburg and we started in April, and every year every week that summer there was an article in the weekend paper describing the benefits of homegrown chickens. The borough was in the middle of a huge argument or battle trying to legalize chickens inside the borough, and so they had all these articles and we sold chicken coops all summer long and I think up until this year we've never sold as many chicken coops as that first year.

Shed Geek: 7:03

What do you think calls people to want to go that direction? More homegrown I mean you hear a lot of talk about food plots anymore and just the ancillary structures that we offer in the shed industry. Outside of sheds, carports, expanded metal. I mean there's people doing really big projects, post frame, but then chicken coops, dog kennels, horse run ins, animal shelters of all kinds. I don't know what's the cause, what's the reason.

Daniel Hostetler: 7:34

I think part of it is some of these people grew up on a farm or grew up with a farm as neighbors. Especially in this area there's a lot of farms and there's something about their past that they really enjoyed. It's good memories and they want their kids to have a part of that, and chickens are a great way to have a small farm in your backyard.

Shed Geek: 8:02

Yeah, absolutely. It seems like I remember my grandma having chickens, but we didn't grow up with them. We grew up in a very small town, just to be clear, like 150 people, but it was. We had a post office, so we had that going for us.

Daniel Hostetler: 8:19

Yeah.

Shed Geek: 8:19

I think. But my brother since then has moved out into the country and having his boys hunt all the time and first thing you wanted to do is get a chicken coop and raise our own eggs. You know what I mean? They raise chickens there and they eat off the land a lot. It seems like there's almost a mentality I don't want to say prepper mentality, because that's not really fair just because you own chickens but there is sort of a mentality that seems like, especially in the more conservative circles, moving that direction. And hey, we've benefited from it, from offering these structures.

Daniel Hostetler: 8:56

Right, right,

Daniel Hostetler: 10:39

And there's so much you can do with a shed. There's so much you can do with a small shelter and you can get a little bit of an experience with your kids. And it's a great solution to expand just a little bit without moving or building a huge building Sheds just a great addition to your property.

Shed Geek: 11:06

So we know how you got here. What kind of led you into the shed world. What are you seeing now? 2012, all the way up, moving now into 2023. You've been at it on your own for nine years. What do you take away from all this?

Daniel Hostetler: 11:22

The opportunities and the people that we have gotten to know, the customers. Whether you meet somebody in town or somewhere else, my kids are always saying who was that? I talked to some stranger. Oh well, they bought a shed a couple of years ago or we did this or that project for them. So the network of people and the opportunities that we have been able to enjoy through the years is really what drives me, and there was one project early on that we did that.

Daniel Hostetler: 12:00

The lady came in and she described the type of pergola that she wanted. She wanted a round top pergola, but it was completely custom in all ways, and so she had a little drawing. She described what she wanted and I put something together and it turned out great and she was just overjoyed. She was like this is better than I imagined, this is perfect. And so those kind of special projects are what you can build 12 or 16 sheds all day long, but a special project or a pool shed where you have a little pergola on the end or just some little touches to it, that just really people feel more invested because they help design it and with a small shop you can accommodate people very, very well.

Shed Geek: 13:01

I definitely see those little pergolas on those pool shacks and I told my wife. I said you only seem to see those up here and they're really awesome. And then I go to Michigan and I start to see those little saunas that they're doing, which apparently are coming out of Pennsylvania, which I wasn't aware of. We was up there at BC Barnes, at Joe Bond Triggers, and we saw that and I was like man, that's just awesome, like we really need to have one of those around the house One of these times eventually.

Shed Geek: 13:30

So like I find myself working in the industry but then being a true shed geek myself, a customer myself, that's like man, what a neat idea. I love creativity and anytime you see something new and I've been on record saying it and I'll say it again like I'm always impressed in Pennsylvania with the craftsmanship and the different design elements and things that you guys come up with I just always feel like you guys lead the pack on design and quality. Not suggesting that we do bad and there's some salt and peppered in some really, really nice companies that make some really nice sheds in our area, don't get me wrong but maybe more of a focus on quantity and moving more out big box store type mentality than it is necessarily small in customization. Has that been important to you, the customization side?

Daniel Hostetler: 14:27

Yeah, it's definitely challenging. I mean a shed's a shed. Some people come in and say I just want a basic shed. That sits in the back of the yard that nobody notices, I'm like, but you're buying a heritage. You want people to notice this.

Shed Geek: 14:43

It's going to stick out. Yes, yes, I love it.

Daniel Hostetler: 14:47

And they're like oh yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, but you're working with a square box Like it's like you have to really come out with a completely new design. It's difficult and it just doesn't typically sell that well. So there's small things, small touches and being willing to go the extra mile for a customer. One thing that some customers have told me is on our vinyl siding color swath. We have 20-some colors on the color swath and they are just overjoyed that they can pick any one of these colors and typically they look at all the colors and they go down to a light gray or a light brown or a clay All colors that everybody offers.

Daniel Hostetler: 15:44

But, because they saw the 20 colors that they can pick from. It just impressed them that they can customize this shed however they want.

Shed Geek: 15:53

Options matter.

Daniel Hostetler: 15:54

Yeah.

Shed Geek: 15:54

Yeah, and as a small shop, which you alluded to earlier, being able to do that is paramount. I mean, it's a competitive advantage that you have over a larger company or someone who's moving more product. What is your philosophy for sales? So you've got Bill working here. I feel like we should mention Bill. Me and Bill have been communicating for maybe close to a year now.

Daniel Hostetler: 16:23

OK.

Shed Geek: 16:25

I never anticipated being in Pennsylvania in January, but as Lord would have it, it worked out that way. Thank you for his protection as we traveled through the snow on the way up here in West. Virginia. Now we've got a nice sunny, 50-degree day here, so everything's melted away and I'm happy about that.

Daniel Hostetler: 16:42

But yeah, you don't hang around too long, I know.

Shed Geek: 16:45

Next week's supposed to be cold. Yeah, it'll change. I know It'll change so fast, but we did. We came up here and me and Bill had been, I think, the last two times I come through. I was hoping to stop and my stop's just haven't allowed me. We had so many places to go and I was like we've got to make this happen. We've got to get in here and meet with Bill. What's the experience been like in sales? And I might ask you what your philosophy is, or what Bill's philosophy is, if you feel obligated to speak for him Whenever a customer comes in to purchase a heritage structure, what do you want that customer to know? What do you want them to take away from the experience?

Daniel Hostetler: 17:29

I think the biggest thing is that we are here to serve them. We are here to fill their need. If they don't need a bigger shed, then we don't want to sell them a bigger shed. We're not trying to. We're not a used car lot. We're here to give them what they need.

Daniel Hostetler: 17:51

Sometimes people have to need a little help to know what they need to size their building and that sort of thing. But just build that relationship and be able to talk about what they need and what the purpose of the building is. And then what do they want it to look like? We have an online configurator and that has been huge. That has cut our sales time in the office down probably by 30 minutes, because people will be on our website. They will design two, three, sometimes five, six sheds. And then they come in and they say I was on the configurator, a lot of good ideas, but let's start from the beginning and build the shed. But they already have an idea in their head of what they want and what they don't want, and so it allows them to really figure out their needs from their couch at home. Very good point.

Shed Geek: 18:57

I was talking with someone earlier about a configurator and they asked what do you think about this company versus this company? And I said well, to be fair, the functionality of the design elements tend to matter more to the shed industry than to the customer. I mean, I know folks out there that have a piece of paper and a pencil and they're drawing a box on a piece of paper and they're explaining that and the customer gets it. And I'm not bashing those who do it, we're just suggesting there's a better way that gives a more visible, accurate description of the shed with the 3D designer.

Daniel Hostetler: 19:34

Right, and that was literally. I mean, that's what we did and that's what everybody did.

Shed Geek: 19:39

Yeah, this company's product versus this one. I don't think that sells For me. I could be wrong, I'm fine being wrong, but I don't think that pristine elements of the design of the configurators. What sells the customer as much as it is just functionality and customer service and all these other things that matters more to people in the industry right, right, you know than it does the customer. They just kind of want to see, they just want to have an idea.

Daniel Hostetler: 20:10

Right, right, because to me, I want to make sure that the overhang looks proportion right. The customer doesn't care, he knows there's an overhang there, yeah, or my doors don't look just quite. And that comes from the pride and the sweat that we put into our workmanship, the quality that we do, and so we want it to be exactly, and that's not what the customer is looking for.

Shed Geek: 20:37

And you said it yourself, I cut that on your customer acquisition time by 30 minutes but being able to utilize that they have a more clear understanding sort of of what they're getting. You can print that off, you can show it to them, they can see it at home. So very, very good commercial for those out there that are on defense trying to figure out if they should do a 3D configurator. Definitely definitely worth it.

Daniel Hostetler: 20:59

Yeah.

Shed Geek: 21:00

I would say so, so we know kind of where it's at. But where's the industry going? Where do you see it going? Where do you see heritage structures going over the next 10 years?

Daniel Hostetler: 21:13

So with COVID and everything that happened through that, I feel like it's hard to know. I felt like before COVID we had kind of figured out our year up and down. We were used to how it felt. We had a slow month it's always slow in December. Well, covid happened and we had record months and years in months that we didn't normally sell sheds, and so now it's just like what are you even planned for? How do you even move? How do you even make goals? But I think, especially with the housing market and sort of that whole thing going on, I think people are always going to need sheds. Now my wife's probably going to say that I don't actually believe that, because when you get slow then it's like oh my, what are we going to do? And I can move pretty quick from one side to the other, but I think people are always going to need sheds and I think we just build a quality shed and try to connect with people and build that network.

Daniel Hostetler: 23:56

And I think, while we're talking about online configurators and the newest in technology, in some ways it still comes back to word of mouth is still, whether it's reviews online or actual, walking over to your neighbor and saying, hey, where did you get your Shed? But word of mouth is still where you get your best leads, your cheapest best leads.

Shed Geek: 24:26

You're a satisfied customer is your best salesperson. We use that all the time At any service that we're in. We want to do a good job because we know that conversations happen behind the scenes and that's what happens with your neighbors, but it's also what happens with anybody who uses your service, right? Hey, we had a really good experience with them. You should use them. They have a bad experience. They're just not going to recommend your services. I have a funny story on an unpaid Shed salesman.

Daniel Hostetler: 25:00

So we had this gentleman come in and he bought three Sheds, one for himself, one for his neighbor and one for his son. And this guy does all these. He does a lot of research and he does. He leaves that's reviews for people and he just if he buys it. There's other people that they won't even go anywhere else because they know if it passed his inspection that's the place to go. So he asked me for a stack of cards after he bought his Shed. So I gave him a stack. He said I'll pass them out when I get done I'll come for more. So he told me one day that they were. They were headed to Lowe's and they saw somebody in the parking lot looking at Sheds and he had this stack of cards how about that? And he walked up to the. He walked up to the Shed and he's like step inside the Shed so that because of the cameras. And he handed the guy my business card and said here, go to these guys. These guys are the real deal.

Shed Geek: 26:08

A satisfied customer, right Selling you right off of the.

Speaker 4: 26:12

Lowe's lot.

Shed Geek: 26:13

How about that? That's funny.

Daniel Hostetler: 26:15

You don't get many like that.

Shed Geek: 26:17

Well, you know, there's a, there's a lot of folks out there that are doing things like that and I'm surprised something hasn't popped up on YouTube. We try not to do that. It's kind of like I told you before we come on air?

Shed Geek: 26:28

We don't, we don't. You know we don't bash anybody. We don't want to do our best to, even whenever there's problems. You forgive, you know, move on, but you know you don't want to bash competition. But there's guys out there, there's influencers out there, that go and check out different products. You know, and they'll. They build a trusted network and people trust sort of what they're doing.

Shed Geek: 26:50

Because you're also putting a lot of effort into comparing the Sheds. We've never done that. I don't have any intentions to the truth is probably a lot of what we do in the shed industry, like you said before, as a box. So 90%, maybe 80%, who knows? The percentage of what we do is very similar, not the same, but very similar. But there's a difference in a company that goes from doing a million and shed sales a year to 50 million right here in shed sales. And who knows that could be not just.

Shed Geek: 27:24

I tend to think it's not just in your product. You can't increase the value or design so much in your product that that's going to move you from one to 50 million. I tend to think that you can almost know everything and research and development that the competition's doing. But it doesn't mean it's going to be a recipe for success or growth. Right, you have all of your internal workings. Do you want to grow? First question Some companies say I wouldn't want that headache, 50 million Get out of here. I'm happy doing what I'm doing. But if they do and they're trying to grow, getting over those different humps, whether they're vertically integrated and do everything in house, whether they you know, you know call on third parties to rent, to own, to hall, to sell, to build whatever it is. There's a lot of businesses there, there's a lot of conversation, do you guys? Do you guys kind of keep everything in house here?

Daniel Hostetler: 28:24

So the rent to earn? We don't do the rent to earn in house. One thing that we do in house that a lot of people like is the site prep, and I know that's something that you get.

Daniel Hostetler: 28:38

In some other states they don't. They don't do that as well, but probably 99.9% of our sheds go on a actual gravel pad. That's correct, and one of the one of the guys. We have a skid loader and dump trailer and one of the guys does the site reps and really enjoys it. But when the customer says, you know, do I have to call somebody else to line that up? No, it's right here, here's your line item, here's what it's going to cost. And you know, the same guy that calls to schedule the shed delivery is going to call and schedule the site prep.

Shed Geek: 29:17

Very, very, very thoughtful and probably very needed with the terrain.

Daniel Hostetler: 29:22

Yes, you have here at times.

Shed Geek: 29:25

Do you feel like that really offers you a strong competitive advantage to be able to offer that site prep? Not all companies do that, so kudos to you for that.

Daniel Hostetler: 29:33

Right? Yeah, I think it does, because the other thing is, if he doesn't have site prep, he's in the shop working and so it's not somebody doesn't have to do have a full time income from that. It's more of a park time job and there's a lot of people that they just want to write one check. They don't want to have to deal with multiple companies and then, well, this guy can't come do the site prep, but the shed's ready. There's none of that and the other.

Daniel Hostetler: 30:07

The other thing that has has led to super happy customers is we've got a snowstorm coming in a week. You know, can we get my shed, my site prep, done in two days so that we can get the shed in right before the storm? And a lot of times we can because it's in house. Some of the other stuff doesn't matter. We'll push that back, whereas if you have a third party, you know it may or may not happen. They have other things that need done, just as bad as well, and so that there there've been I don't know how many actual sales we've ever gotten because of it, but it's, it's left a happy customer.

Shed Geek: 30:52

Sometimes those things I think are hard to track.

Shed Geek: 30:54

Yes, yes, you know how do you ever really know what drives human behavior?

Shed Geek: 32:10

We're trying to figure that out all the time in marketing, right, Like we can get you all the digital conversions, we can get you all the digital proof, if you will, that you need, but there's not really necessarily anything that lets you know what was the touchpoint or the moment in which somebody saw an ad or read something, heard something that finally clicked and said I need to do that, I need to go buy me a shed.

Daniel Hostetler: 32:40

And sometimes you try your hardest to be professional and have your colors working right and have your flower beds and have all this stuff just right so that the customer wants to buy here. And then a customer walks in and you're in the getting toward the end of the sale and you ask him so what made you choose Heritage? And sometimes it's like it's off the wall or like some abstract reason and it's like you mean, I did all this work.

Shed Geek: 33:10

I did all this work.

Daniel Hostetler: 33:11

And you didn't even notice it.

Shed Geek: 33:14

I got a story on that. We used to track really, really heavily and I'm asking the customer why they would come in. We didn't want to bug them because you know, in sales people can say well, I asked them and this is what they said, but you're not going to dig in on that. You're not trying to incommunate the customer, you're trying to just get patholese resistance, get their answer, move on. But we would dig in a little bit and try and find out.

Shed Geek: 33:39

And I remember one time a friend of ours stopped by and at the end of it we just really got in there and was like you know, we really want to know what made you buy from us. I mean we've put all this marketing efforts that we've done this, we've done that, and this was a Saturday. And he said, because you were open. And we was like what? And he was like, yeah, no way else around here is open on Saturday. So I mean I worked Monday through Friday and we needed. I mean I like you guys, I probably would have bought from you anyway, but I had a better deal, I might have got from them too. But you guys are open. I need to get a shed Right. Being available, being available, just being there, just being open, and we did the same thing you did. We put our head down and said, man, we've got all of this effort into trying to perfect the system and sometimes the answer is simple, as you were open.

Daniel Hostetler: 34:29

Or you had you had a shed here. That was the size I wanted, the color I wanted. You know it it they may never have made it to our lot. Had you know they had been to one or two other places before they got here and had they had exactly what they were looking for, they probably would have bought right then and there.

Shed Geek: 34:48

Yeah, yeah, we've. We've tried to perfect that system as best as possible. But that's why I say competition doesn't matter as much as you think a lot of times. I mean sometimes it does. I remember being a young salesperson and really you're on an island of emotions all by yourself. You kind of alluded to that with with your wife. Whenever, like, things get slow, you're like, ah, this shed business stinks, you know.

Shed Geek: 35:08

Next thing, you know like hey, it's going great, you know, and it's easy to kind of get down in that and you can't let your emotions, sort of like, control your, your vision and control your destiny, because you set something out and you you plan and prepare for those moments. But I remember being a young salesperson finding out I don't know they bought from down the road and you're beating yourself up going what did I do wrong? Where did I mess up? What did they do better? I've got to obviously work harder on myself. I spent a tremendous amount of time not just learning what my competition offered or what they did, but really like what I could do myself, the things that were in my control, that I could do better. And I think that's really where I shifted into a period of success is when I focused on me and not on them, and that worked.

Daniel Hostetler: 36:00

Yeah, and I mean there's value in knowing what you're up against but really, like you said, doing what you are in control of, working on what you can change.

Shed Geek: 36:14

Yeah, it seems like you guys have a nice little ecosystem here friendly competition. I've got to interview some of your I guess you'd call them competition, but some of your other shed guys around here and one more tomorrow that we'll interview. It seems like all you guys are just super friendly, really good, just good guys, kind of guys you want to hang out with. Matter of fact, do hang out with each other from time to time and sort of build a community echo chamber, if you will, of how can we help the customers in our area the most, even though we are on different sides of the check right?

Daniel Hostetler: 36:48

Right, right. And yeah, if we're all going to have a time when my trailer breaks down or his trailer breaks down, or we all have those, and if you can't help each other out, it comes back to the customers. We meet the people, we meet the relationships that are built, and if those relationships, even with your competition, is very helpful and it really helps both of us out or all of us, I think so.

Shed Geek: 37:20

I think it builds a better community and a better customer experience in large for the shed industry in large and whenever you have little pockets doing that here and there and everywhere, I think it just makes for a better experience. We've had a couple big judgments or situations come against the shed industry. If you kind of watch the news or stay involved in it. That's not what we want. We want companies that understand that we're big enough that we can't serve everybody. We try, we want to win in every situation, but then we're also respectful losers if you will.

Daniel Hostetler: 37:59

Hashtag respectful losers.

Shed Geek: 38:01

I should put that out there Like a bumper sticker. But you do have one thing your competition doesn't have, which is really really cool.

Daniel Hostetler: 38:09

You got a barn spinner. Yeah, that has been an incredible attention grabber.

Shed Geek: 38:16

You don't just have that over your competition. I've never seen this in the shed industry. I've seen sheds put on water tower bases. I've seen sheds stacked on top of other sheds, sheds lifted up in the air. One company had a shed upside down on another shed, I don't know. There's a little bit of everything. So tell me about this barn spinner. Tell the audience what it is. For those watching on YouTube, we'll be sure to include, like a picture or video video. Do justice, obviously, if it's moving. So we'll put that in there. Just go check it out. But tell me where the idea came from and how you made it happen.

Daniel Hostetler: 38:51

So we've been talking different times about how can we you know people drive past how can we grab their attention? You know you have 50 or 100 sheds sitting in. A lot like movement catches their attention. How can we, how can we do something that moves? And at first I thought it was a little bit of a crazy idea. You never saw it before, right?

Shed Geek: 39:13

Some of the good ones always are, don't they always end up being a little crazy?

Daniel Hostetler: 39:17

Yep, and a lot of people ask us you know, doesn't the wind blow it over? You know, and there wasn't a lot of you know professional engineering put into it. It was just some backyard boys with a welder. Yeah the way, all good stories start yeah. And yeah, we just we put it together and tried it out. You know what's the worst thing that can happen. You know it fails, you try again and that's you know that's a lot how we get places in life by trying how to preach.

Daniel Hostetler: 39:52

That's a good word, yep. And so, yeah, we just we had a couple of glitches at the beginning, but yeah, it's just a frame three, four feet in the air and it just sits there spinning around and a lot of people have have commented about it, have noticed it. People have asked me if I have a patent on it.

Shed Geek: 40:15

I would have never thought to ask that Maybe I should. Yeah, maybe yeah. Maybe there's a market for it Need a good pat guy. We'll give you a suggestion.

Daniel Hostetler: 40:22

Yeah.

Shed Geek: 40:24

Maybe there is a market for it, but it does catch your attention. You kind of um I guess you're about I don't know. There's a couple of valleys through here and you could see it from a good long distance off.

Daniel Hostetler: 40:37

Yeah, though we we actually, when we put it up, I had a step ladder right beside the shed, the one direction, um, you could see where the road came around the bend, and we checked to see how many rotations the shed did, um, and it was like almost two rotations by the time the person got there, um, so that, yeah, there's enough movement that it stands out above the other sheds.

Shed Geek: 41:06

So this sets on a frame pretty much spins 24 hours a day, yeah.

Daniel Hostetler: 41:12

And we have some solar lights hooked up on the end. Um, that come on at night. Um, because you know that one guy that is, you know, out at three AM headed, headed to hunting camp, um, you know, he needs to see that too, yeah.

Shed Geek: 41:27

Well, he stops in here and then he buys a hunting blind.

Daniel Hostetler: 41:29

Yeah, you never know.

Shed Geek: 41:30

Yeah. So it's like uh, what, what size shed do you have on it? Um, it's an eight by 12. Eight by 12. Um, full shed, fully functional shed.

Daniel Hostetler: 41:39

Yes, well, okay, where that shed's been on there for a little over a year, um, and we're we're talking about, you know we picked, you know we picked a lot of. We picked bright colors or contrasting colors. It's white and black and, um, the doors are a different color. Um, so we're talking, you know what? What colors do we want to do next? Um, we need something that's going to grab attention, um, but so, yeah, that shed's going to come, that shed's going to end up. The spinning shed is going to end up in somebody's yard. Very nice, not spinning anymore.

Shed Geek: 42:12

Not, not, not in theory. Maybe you're onto something here. Maybe there's a market for spinning sheds in your backyard, I don't know. We'll see where it goes.

Shed Geek: 43:44

Uh, but it is a lot of fun. Uh, I think I think it's very clever. Um, I like, uh, I used the word gimmick, but I like what gimmicky type stuff Not like. Let me be clear Gimmick is not the same thing as like, uh, non professional. I don't like non professional, but I think fun. When I think of gimmicky, I think of like fun and you can do that in sales. I mean, it's why I, you know, I have my, my bow time suspenders and we wear different colors and you know kind of. You know believe that the Lord has a sense of humor and wants us to laugh, or something wrong with heaven. You know, being serious, I don't walk around laughing all the time Like I'm an idiot or something, I guess, but, um, but I do have fun, I laugh and joke and and and whenever I saw that I thought, man, what?

Speaker 4: 44:32

a great idea.

Shed Geek: 44:33

I mean, if I had that in my hometown and had a hundred sheds out there, like everyone's going to know you always from now on, as where the spinning barn goes, you start to become a destination point for other businesses. Uh, you'll see a spinning barn, what's that? Now You'll see a barn setting on a hill, spinning in circles. Go past it about a half mile on a right, you'll find this.

Daniel Hostetler: 44:58

Yeah.

Shed Geek: 44:58

Genius marketing.

Daniel Hostetler: 45:00

And the thing of it is this property. You know, it's been years since there was a replicable business here, um, and so we weren't where the old, you know, dairy Queen, or you name it.

Daniel Hostetler: 45:14

Um, we weren't. We don't have that reference point. The idea is that they drive past, they see a spinning shed. They're like, oh wow, that's a great idea and it may be. The thing that we deal with is it may be three years, it may be eight years before they need a shed. That's right. But when they say we need a shed, the first thing that needs to pop into their head is the spinning shed. That is the first thing they need to think. And then they come right here.

Shed Geek: 45:41

I've got a feeling you said a standard and over the next couple of years I hope to see it. I may be wrong, but I hope that we're just going to continue to see crazy ideas from a branding slash, marketing perspective, if you will, an advertising perspective, doing something that's an attention grabber. Um, all of those things. Again, we're gimmicky growing up, but they work too. A lot of times they were, and if you do things with integrity, right, that's the thing that matters. You still build with integrity, but it's just fun, right, it's just fun, and I don't think we see enough of that. So, the guys who put the sheds upside down and you know, up in the air and on on a spinning apparatus, I love it. Right, it's all great.

Shed Geek: 46:25

Free free marketing man that pays dividends over and over and over as it continues to spend. You used to spend in circles. Well, kudos to you, man. Like just great job. Uh, the whole presentation here is awesome. When you walk in the door, I mean just seeing a lot from a distance, but being able to walk in the door, uh, seeing all the sheds that you saw display the pictures, uh, bills very professional, obviously. Um, yeah, I think you're doing a great job and and um, happy to know you and get a chance to make your acquaintance, and um, just think you're doing doing a awesome job.

Daniel Hostetler: 47:04

And we're thinking we we enjoy what we do, um, and, like I said, we enjoy the people. You know, the guys that have worked for us over the years. Um, you know, they've become like family and uh, yeah, it's great.

Shed Geek: 47:18

Any particular shout outs to anybody in the industry, any companies, any service provider, just anybody that you would think of, that you would uh have anything to say while we're here today, the only one I would think of uh right offhand is um, our online configurator.

Daniel Hostetler: 47:36

We love the idea room and uh, we it's been a it's been a number of years. Again, we were the first ones in the area to have a uh online configurator, um, and yeah we just really enjoyed working with them. Um fine tuning um and make, trying to make the sheds look like ours, yeah.

Shed Geek: 47:58

Um, and so yeah, they were.

Daniel Hostetler: 47:59

They were great to work with.

Shed Geek: 48:00

Very good, very good, um. I always give the guest an opportunity to turn the microphone around, um, um and interview me for a second and try to create some good conversation. Whether it's podcasting, ministry, family sheds, I it there's, it doesn't really matter. If you have any questions for me, um love to answer your questions and let you turn the microphone for a moment.

Daniel Hostetler: 48:29

I don't know much about the shed geek, like tell me, tell me a little more. Like when did? When did you start? Um so we, what made you do?

Shed Geek: 48:39

this. We we've got about March of the four years no-transcript and we started at one episode a week, moved into two, probably going to stay there for a while this year. Yet we may eventually start to do like a series where we focus on content of like shed sales, shed hauling, shed manufacturing. So we may change up the formula for it as we go on down the road. But it started because I was an avid podcast listener. Honestly, you know, I've listened to talk radio and I've listened to music and audio books and different things, and a lot of guys were telling me that, you know, they kind of felt like they were on an island by theirself and wanted me more resources.

Shed Geek: 49:23

And then one of the connectivity. It's like the news. You know the news, the news will tell you all kinds of stuff, all kinds of bad stuff, but then whenever you get to meet the people, most of the people aren't like the news describes. Right, they're good people, they mean different, but you've got to be careful of media because it can, it can manipulate, has an opportunity to so so I found that whenever I was going to all these places it wasn't quite like I thought it wasn't. I'm not saying there's not dog eat dog. I'm not saying there's not, you know, really sharp competitions and just thoughts and dealer gentlemen's agreements that have been broken and mistrust and all. There's all these things in all life and areas. But generally speaking, I felt like that was the industry that people told me about when I got into it.

Shed Geek: 50:16

But upon my own research, meeting people, they were like we actually want to know more about other companies. We actually want to. It felt nice for them to hear what's happening in your neck of the woods, you know, because we're we're kind of going through this emotional sales crisis right now. Right, we're not, we haven't sold anything in a week. What's going on? Or two weeks or whatever, and they're starting to doubt or whatever. I think for them it just feels good to hear other people's stories and then they want to connect with those other people and it just reminds them of what they're doing and keeps them. I don't know To me if you're a Daniel, if you're, if you're, if you're an off road guide, you like ATVs and for well, it seems like you would just be involved in that world completely. And if you're a hunter, you're going to want to know all about hunting and maybe read the hunting magazine or the RV magazine if you're a traveler, right.

Daniel Hostetler: 51:13

And even from other areas and gaining ideas, and you know thoughts from other people.

Shed Geek: 51:19

So we just wanted to do that, to connect, and it's my favorite thing to do. I mean, we have other businesses in the industry that we dive into but and I love those businesses and we treat them with the utmost respect and focus on doing a good job on those. But being able to connect people, well, I don't know, that's building community and I just feel like that's ministry in a sense. So like if we can do that and keep doing it, I want to keep doing it for several years, if I can, till the Lord says don't do it no more, right, Right, and I think you mentioned about, there's times when there's, you know, sharp interactions or you know that sort of thing and any, any time you have a group of people, you're going to have, you know, a little bit of friction, a little bit of rubbing.

Daniel Hostetler: 52:10

But you know, in the end we're we're all trying to feed our families. We're all trying to serve our communities, and it can be a good thing.

Shed Geek: 52:18

I've always been a fan of win-wins, you know, and I've always lived by the golden rule tried to do unto others as you would want done to yourself.

Shed Geek: 52:29

So I mean we try to, we try to remember that there's a larger purpose than our career, larger purpose than our jobs, right, and our identity is not found just completely in that and there's a whole testimony there. If you go back and we talk off the air, or even if probably in some of the podcasts, you could probably get a better idea of who I am and how suffering from trying to find identity in my career led down this big, long path and then would eventually find me at the shed industry, at the end of my rope, where there was a long lost, long, long time friend not long lost, but long time friend of mine that worked in the industry, that kind of talked with me and encouraged me, and you know, I think that that's what we're supposed to do. So if I can be an encouragement to somebody else today and maybe, if not me, but the listener, right you know it's, it's our, the guests that's on.

Shed Geek: 53:20

I want, I want you know, I want their story to shine so love doing what I'm doing.

Daniel Hostetler: 53:26

Great, yeah, and if you can, you know, have fun while you're doing it. That's we we have. We have a lot of fun when we work and you know, we we had the opportunity to all go down to Chick-A-Tig this year for a couple of days. A guy we did a job for and just yeah, it was great. All the guys and their families and everybody went down.

Shed Geek: 53:51

Oh, company yeah.

Daniel Hostetler: 53:52

We just shut down for two days.

Shed Geek: 53:54

Yeah.

Daniel Hostetler: 53:56

And just had a good time.

Shed Geek: 53:57

Terribly important for your, the guys in your, uh, under your leadership, I can guarantee you, without meeting them, they appreciate that, or they should. You know, for those who don't, they usually don't last. You know what I mean. They don't stick around, but generally speaking, that means so much Uh to count.

Shed Geek: 54:12

I I've worked in construction as a, as a young guy, and always said if I could have found the shed industry back then because there's such good people in it that can kind of take you under their wing. And now here people are looking for employee. You know employees, and at the time it seemed like all we worked around was like rough necks that you know they wanted to do. They were up to no good a lot. Let's just say that without me getting to in detail. And I was like man, wouldn't it be nice to work for a nice Christian organization that you, you know, cared about their employees and like took the time to teach you instead of holler at you, or, yeah, so like I. For those looking to get into this industry, uh, especially from a construction perspective, they need to reach out and find guys like yourself and others who are, who are looking for good help and not not taking advantage of them Just coming in and getting beer, money and getting out of here Right, right.

Daniel Hostetler: 55:02

You know like we don't want those guys, right? No, it's, it's nice to have you know more long term and long term can be different for different people. Yeah, yeah.

Shed Geek: 55:14

No, it's very good.

Shed Geek: 55:15

I'll tell you what I want to close this out in prayer, that's okay.

Shed Geek: 55:17

Yeah, I'll just uh prayer over the industry and just kind of um, yeah, lord, thank you for this day, the opportunity to be here, for this weather today. Thank you, god, for that. Thank you for an opportunity to meet with Daniel and Bill here today, just to learn from them, to conversate with them, um, to journey with them through this industry uh and have conversation that hopefully becomes fruitful, not just for others in their business and their daily walk, but also uh with you, and that all that we would do would lead towards you. Uh, we know that all blessings come from you Uh, we're thankful, uh, that you would uh bring us into a new year with new opportunities, and we just asked that you uh bless the businesses and those listening here and today, wherever they are in this moment. Um, you would just reach down and touch them and give them a reason to uh to um move forward, march forward and uh promote your kingdom, God, as we, as we do. Thank you, thank you. Thank you in Jesus' name, thank you.