Innovative Spaces and Entrepreneurial Spirit with Chris Long

Unlock the secrets to transforming your space with innovative storage solutions as we sit down with Chris Long, the visionary behind Long Yard Storage and Long Box. Chris takes us on a journey through his entrepreneurial evolution, from establishing micro compounds for Canadian contractors to franchising his concept on a global stage. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for both businesses and homeowners, offering a peek into the creation of versatile, foldable containers that reshape our approach to portable storage and the strategic business model that underpins this booming industry.

We also celebrate the power of collaboration and industry relationships as we reflect on insights from Gideon Zook on the evolution of storage units since the 1970s. This episode is not just about space—it's about the people and innovations that fill it, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in storage solutions.

I extend a warm thank you to Chris for sharing his expertise and encourage our listeners to embrace the innovative products that are revolutionizing the shed and storage industry. Join us for an episode that's packed with practical knowledge, inspiring stories, and a glimpse into the future of storage solutions.

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! 

For more information or to know more about the Shed Geek Podcast visit us at our website.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.

To be a guest on the Shed Geek Podcast visit our website and fill out the "Contact Us" form.

To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.

This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Union Grove Lumber

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Transcript

Shed Geek: 0:37

Okay, Welcome back to another episode of the shed geek podcast and a little impromptu here this morning. Uh, and I'm I'm jealous because what I do know about this guest today is that it's warm where he is and it certainly is not where I am today. Uh, a balmy 20 degrees, I think it is today feels like six, Chris, if you can make any sense of that. It's it feels like six, but it's 20. I think that means it's six degrees, then, Like that's what it means to me. But, but, um, tell you what, just take a little time, if you will, to introduce yourself to the audience. Uh, your company, a little bit about who you are and what you do. Great.

Chris Long: 1:20

I appreciate that I'm excited to be on the podcast and I look forward to this conversation. So I'm Chris Long, the founder of long yard storage and long box. So, starting with long yards, I started my first business in Canada, discovered a shortage for contractors in the industrial space for small spaces, so I had an industrial piece of land that curved up in the compounds and I basically started renting them out. And, as simple as the sounds, it is, you know, simple but not easy, as we're expanding internationally, as I'm also a franchise, or, with long yards, we have franchisees, so we're looking to have five new locations open by the end of this year, as I've projected by the end of this month.

Chris Long: 1:57

So so, um, and the complimentary which is why you know I'm excited to this podcast is at the Long Yards locations, in the compounds, we had tenants that were just buying containers and having offices. So we figured, let's find a product that we might as well bring in-house. So we ended up becoming, um, you know, a distributor of what we call long box. Then these are containers, which I'm actually in a long box right now and they fold and they unfold and they're very mobile, very versatile. They're steel, so they don't rot and rust and they're just. You can easily get it in a in a backyard, you know, right through a gate. Super simple, just very versatile product. So a little bit about me, who I am and the long box products, and excited to dive deeper and keep going from there.

Shed Geek: 2:41

And definitely very cool, well spoken too, and what the audience should know is, like we a lot of times I'll do like a um meet and greet or do like a um a vetting process a little bit early on, at least kind of want to know more about the product, to ask good, good, uh questions that mean you've just missed each other and communication back and forth. The last few times, actually, it's been on my part, not on yours. Uh, we've just been running, running, so I appreciate that you would still bear with me and come on to do this. So. So I guess let's start, maybe, with the long yards and let's talk about like what, what's an average Cause, like you're not just putting you're not just putting um like sheds or like containers in there for people to come run out.

Shed Geek: 3:26

This is space for, like small businesses for a small period of time or a long period of time, and you like develop that space, I'm guessing for them to come in and pull all their equipment in, um, how does it sort of work? And what's like the average space? Maybe of like one of these, uh, these compounds? That's, maybe that's the wrong word. Yeah.

Chris Long: 3:46

No, it's a. It's a. You call the compound. I hear many different things mini lay down yards, a lay down yard, outside storage, um, contract storage yard storage yard. We actually own all the domains. I stored your near me. We clean house so we're like we're taking this over.

Chris Long: 4:04

Um, but to answer your question, it's for those small growing businesses and homeowners that don't need a full. They don't need to lease a one or two acre place with an office. They don't need that five, three year office lease for, you know, three, five or eight grand a month on a triple net lease. You know they don't know how their business is going to be in the next three, six, nine or 12 months. So we created a solution to that problem. It's fully fit up, it's ready to go and it's month to month. So it's what your business means when it needs it, right? Pretty simple, uh, and? And so the average size compounds, just their, their, their micro compounds in space that you can't get, and they vary from 2000 square feet up to 20,000 square feet, and it really depends on the market and where we're targeting and what we feel like is the avatar in that area that we're going to build these yards to target them. But to give you an idea, it's, it's in that range, and I mean we can't keep up with demand.

Shed Geek: 4:58

That's awesome, man. Yeah, what a great idea. Um, was it, um, ray Kroc that said one time? He said, uh, you know, I'm not in the burger business, I'm actually in the real estate business, right? So it kind of sounds like you know, you're taking some inspiration there, uh, and you're, you're, you know, you're taking a look at the value of property and like what that property value can do for a small amount of time.

Shed Geek: 5:23

We have, we have like this, uh, uh, uh, what they call it encampment every year in our local little town, and actually where our shed lot was at one point sits right across from the main uh, uh entryway to this state park, and it gets so busy every year whenever they do the war and react meant and things like that, that we began to rent out the lot, the shed lot, for space. It was very valuable space for one day a year and then, all of a sudden, no one would pay me anything to park there, couldn't even get them to show up half the time. So, um, where, where does the idea from this come from? Where do you harvest an idea like this? Where's the thought generated?

Chris Long: 6:02

Well, uh, it's a funny story because I had I was a contractor myself, I'm a licensed carpenter of an extraction industry for 15 years, my structure company, conrack structure, named after my grandfather for 10 years and I had a two acre lot outside the city in Ottawa, canada. I don't know, people sometimes like they get my Canadian accent right away, but, um, and you know, my wife would come home and she's like Chris, like our, our driveway has trailers and equipment. I'm like, yeah, like I got no space for it and you know I didn't need a full big spot, I just needed I had a skid steer, I got a few dump trailers and and the solution came. The problem came from a solution I needed. Right, I had a commercial property eight minutes from my house and I was like, what do we do on this? My brother and I want to do self storage.

Chris Long: 6:45

Self storage is getting saturated a lot of places. They're just popping up everywhere and I I still love storage because, as a real estate guy, I was like, man, this is the space to be. But so I just put the two and two together. I'm like, okay, I'm going to build a product for the problem I have and I'm going to go all in, and I had to go all in because no one believed in me and my investors are like no, you're crazy, that's not going to work.

Chris Long: 7:09

And I'm like it's pretty simple minded. I'm like, no, if, if, if, if I need it, sure enough, someone else does, and sure enough that's how it worked. So I started off with phase one, built it out and it was. It was a leap of faith. I couldn't even afford to put the gates on when I finished because it took every ounce of capital. I had to get it going. But I pre sold the first phases by the year, which allowed me to put the gates on and get it going. And then the rest is history released up the other.

Chris Long: 7:34

We're talking about 67 yards on 10 acres, and, and, and now it's leased up. And that one property changed my life. It allowed me financial freedom. I literally moved my family and I to Florida from Canada. We're expanding internationally and just from the real estate side, I mean, I bought it for 470,000 and now it's easily worth 4.5 million, and that one deal just changed my life. So, and what we're doing now is we're finding franchisees to do the same thing. It's like let's find you a piece of real estate together, let's put the long-yards model and let's do the same thing that I did. So that's, that's the long-yards side of things, man I think it's a great idea.

Shed Geek: 8:13

What year did you start this?

Chris Long: 8:15

I cut the ribbon October 1st 2019. Man, good for you.

Shed Geek: 8:19

And you look like a young guy, so it looks like you're starting out pretty early.

Chris Long: 8:24

That's what's great, you know, I appreciate it, I guess the business stress hasn't really beat me up too much. I am 35. So I guess I'm still looking pretty good for my age but thank you very much. Yeah, well, so I'm 43.

Shed Geek: 8:35

So to me, everything that's younger than me is a young guy.

Shed Geek: 8:37

But I mean, you know, 35 seemed out at the time and now I'd imagine I'm starting to be like these 50 year old guys say, oh, you're just a young pub, right, but good for you, man. I think that's awesome. Have you ever had a customer ask you about how to supply power to their shed? Do you sell electrical kits as an upsell for your sheds currently. Do you want an easy, no-hassle option to offer for your customers when they want to add electric to their sheds? Check out Echo Ethics Solar.

Shed Geek: 10:07

How many locations have you guys been able to manage? Is that something you share or is that on?

Chris Long: 10:14

your website. We are building out in Central Florida in winter, here right now. We just secured another property in Texas which, until we go to the next phase of due diligence, we don't really disclose it. We got one in Texas, north Carolina and another one in North Carolina actually so same area. As a franchisor we're expanding that way. So, yeah, we got them up to coming.

Shed Geek: 10:44

So let's say somebody was a listener to the podcast and they were like hey, we're in the storage space. This sounds eerily similar, maybe not the same as what I do, but we've got some space, maybe even have some space in a really high population area. I'm sure you do your due diligence on population density and things like that to kind of figure out what you're going to see. But my thought is what if somebody wanted to contact you and they just want to know more about that specific area of your business and they were like, hey, we'd like to at least fill out, whatever your forms are, to at least entertain the idea and us have a conversation? How does that work?

Chris Long: 11:23

No, you can find me right on longyardstorage. com. You just follow through the links and fill out some information. I'll get the link, or I put my phone number right on podcast, 941-278-1995, or my email clong@longyardstorage. com. So my information is out there. I'm pretty easy to track down and happy to jump on a call.

Shed Geek: 11:42

There's just, you know, there's a lot of guys that have a lot of space. They build a lot of sheds, so, you know, for a lot of them they have a lot of unused space and it just seems like it could be a good marriage if it were to work out. So that would be just awesome. I think it's a great idea. What are you seeing Most people like? What? Are they using these for storage-wise?

Chris Long: 12:02

Well, it's funny A lot of people will take my business model and assume boat and RV, but it's actually the farthest thing from boat and RV. It's a lot of these small businesses it's the arborist, the landscaper, the general contractors, the property maintenance guys, it's car dealerships, sometimes tow truck drivers. You just have such a large client base that need a mini yard, you know. And then it goes to homeowners and hobbyists. I got people that just, you know, want to get away from the wife and they've got their little spot there and they got a little shed and they just do their thing, you know. So it really caters to so much.

Chris Long: 12:36

It's probably, at say, 70% small business and 30% homeowners. And the homeowners, you know it's just like boats are. We do have the boats and RVs, not as common, but they got their ATVs or toys or just a yard for all their stuff. You know, as the city grows, you just have less space right, especially in places like Florida with HOAs and then everything else. So there's just such a need for it on so many different levels and the client base really varies. We do have a very good idea of who our avatar is, how to target them and the best places to focus, but we're just always surprised by new clients coming in.

Shed Geek: 13:07

Well, I just want you to know, chris, I would absolutely never, ever, ever, use this to get away from my wife because she edits these videos, and I just want her to know that I want to be with her all the time. We would never never consider this ever as a man cave or an escape route to get away so yeah, I should have, sorry, had to do my due diligence there.

Shed Geek: 13:33

Yeah, I think it's great. What do you provide inside of these spaces? Is this, you know, blank slate, or you're willing to, you know, provide some amenities? Is any of it climate controlled? If that's necessary, do they provide that for themselves? What's that sort of look like? Is it just the space?

Chris Long: 13:49

It's just it's a fenced in yard, 67 fenced in yards. So you got you know the fabric the gate. You have a self storage gate, so immediately people are not coming in and out and then in when you drive in. Instead of self storage units, it's self storage yards, basically. And then we brought we provide power to a capacity, we provide a camera in your yard and we have some people tenants with cameras in their yards that are running. You know an excavation company and they have a bulldozer in the back that they don't want anyone to go near. We can set up the camera in a way that if anyone goes near a certain part of the yard, they will get an emotional sound on their phone. So without even having to think about or know, like, just immediately someone's near my stuff, I can look and I know who's there when. So that's really cool.

Chris Long: 14:33

So we're big on the automations and me the technology. But, and then also, as I'm sitting in one of my long boxes, we provide those in the yard as well. So someone wants to rent a long box because they obviously have some inside stuff that need to keep out of the elements. We provide that and we also have what we call long offices. So there are offices that fold and unfold, fully insulated, european doors and windows, beautiful product, and that's for if you need a little admin, you know someone staffed a little bit of bookkeeping or to keep an eye on stuff, inventory. Other, you know fencing company and you're displaying your products in the yard. Whatever the case is, we're very adaptable and that's our core model is adapt for for multiple reasons, but you know yeah.

Shed Geek: 15:12

So tell me a little bit more about these long boxes. Who builds or manufactures these? What sizes do these come in? Tell me a little bit about the backstory of that and how you kind of got you know, began to use that also in conjunction with the long yard.

Chris Long: 15:29

So I was looking for a partner for these products for a little over two years and it's actually hard to find to become a distributor and like we get wholesale pricing and we have the first very fusel, for you know Canada and the States. So with these product lines and we had to search really deep to get them and you know they come from Europe and you know they're fabricated in Turkey but they're really well built, 20 gauge steel. Get them in different sizes. Now we can do custom, but for scalability purposes we're only sticking to a few sizes Seven by 10, seven by 13, seven by 16, and four colors. We're doing black gray, light gray and blue.

Chris Long: 16:11

And and I think that's one of the keys because we're importing them and by the time they come over the water there's timelines and it just takes a little bit of time for us to get them. So you know we want to keep it simple and kind of like a cookie cutter assembly line and just keep these rolling, because we also sell them locally at our locations to consumers. And another point I just want to mention is that we can wholesale these, which we've already wholesaled them in Montreal and in Kentucky and people buy them in bulk as well, because they could sell them from their shed locations as well. So people love these products, which they could check us out, longboxstoragecom. They want to add them to their already existing inventory, then we can do that as well.

Shed Geek: 16:50

Oh, very cool idea and we're just seeing more of that. The shed becomes sort of the ethos or the nucleus, if you will. Sort of that brands a lot of different things together. That brings them together, Whether it be, you know, play sets or greenhouses or chicken coop. I mean there's just there's. Now you're seeing metal, you know steel tube, and some people are, you know, selling post frame and sheds. So then that starts to get complex in the software side of things. Yeah, with the steel buildings, how do these compare to something like what I would refer to as like steel container, con-xbox, something that you're seeing come across seas and then, and then just you know, they sell those out or scrap them out or whatever they do when they get damaged.

Chris Long: 17:35

Great question and that's a lot of people think they're like well, I can get a shipping container. It's just a different product, right? First of all, these are more contemporary. They're more clean. A shipping container is a tank. It's a great product, but it's more like an industrial setting.

Chris Long: 17:49

You can put that in the back of your commercial property and I mean it'll last you a long time. It will rust, it's steel, but you're pretty confident that you could. You could beat that thing up a little bit. It's heavier to move. It's just. It's a bigger product for these they can literally fold and unfold. You can easily get it in your backyard. You can go across a beautiful landscaped backyard on it from a deck and everything else and just have it set up. So it's very quick and easy and simple and it's very versatile. And it's just, they're two complete different products and I really got to educate people a lot. It's like because it kind of looks and feels like a shipping container, but it's a late last thing from it and the outside it's just. It's just a beautiful product. It's very contemporary.

Shed Geek: 18:31

You could definitely see some of those on the website. I'm kind of going through that and viewing it a little bit. You can see the windows and I know with like traditional still containers you can make all those alterations yourself. But to be honest with you, it's not as though they're so cost effective that it offsets, say, like a traditional storage shed, like a stick built shed, you know, and you get the aesthetics with that and you get the aesthetics kind of with what you're talking about. How do you transport these things? I mean, we've got a big transportation, you know department in the shed industry.

Shed Geek: 19:08

So how do you do this?

Chris Long: 19:10

It's so easy. You need a flatbed trailer and two guys could move these. You don't need specialized equipment and they can stack on top of each other. So you could deliver five of these at one shot, because they stack male, female. When they're folded they're about 12 inches high, Wow, and that's it. And then they come like a sandwich and then it's like an IKEA box almost. That comes unpacked. So you could deliver them unassembled and you know you could easily have two guys take it apart, move it in the backyard so that's the beauty of it and then when you obviously sell your house or move, you can unfold and take it with you to the next house. It's just a different product, but you don't need massive equipment, You're not hauling extremely heavy sheds and you're not taking apart fence panels or just you don't need it like a dingo or you know you could just literally a pickup truck and a flatbed and you're good to go.

Shed Geek: 19:59

Yeah, absolutely Very cool. I'm looking through the different pictures on the gallery to sort of see the stack ability here that you're talking about.

Shed Geek: 21:51

Um installation. You kind of said two guys can do this. How long does that take? Is it a pretty quick process? Do you need a fork truck or you know how's it typically operate?

Chris Long: 22:02

Oh, we have on our. It's actually on a long year and start calling. We have a quick time lapse video, but no, it's two guys and 45 minutes. The. You put the floor down and then you put the side walls and then the roof. Last piece that goes on the top and then bolts together and it's it's actually very heavy duty as well. You have these large bolts that literally connect the whole unit. There's steel frames. There's four heavy conducting steel frames that sandwich from the top to the bottom so you can literally park a boat on top of this. It'll heavy, it'll withstand the heaviest snow loads, so super easy to install too. And, and you know, a husband and a wife can put it up on the weekend. It's a. It's really easy. You don't need to be a super DIY handy. It's. It's almost like a fun DIY project.

Shed Geek: 22:48

So let's say that they're bringing these in to the long yard and they want, you know, the installation of some the long boxes so that they can have office personnel there for a small amount of time. Maybe they're building a hotel in a particular area or something like that, and they just kind of need some, some administrative staff there to kind of handle different things, break rooms, whatever you, whatever you use them for. What all can you, can you do with these AC heat? How does that usually work? Just you run something temporary.

Chris Long: 23:20

Right. So the long boxes are more like a simple DIY product. The long offices, they are a little bit more heavy duty. They're insulated panels Now, like they do come in two by eight foot sections so you still, you know, manhandle them and move them around with two guys, but the roof is a little bit heavier, so you're going to want a four clip or something to assemble those. So for those products that are already fully insulated, ready to go foldable and unfold, and unfoldable, those you could, you can add like a, like a mini AC unit, or we could fit them up with the electrical and then you could just transport them fully assembled as a fully, you know, traditional kind of let's call it construction office. So, yeah, those, those are more versatile for because they're insulated to handle the heat and the electrical.

Shed Geek: 24:02

So how does this usually work? Do you just sort of provide the, the total space, and the, the unit for rent, or do you do you rent these things out to different, different?

Chris Long: 24:15

job sites? You're a great question. So phase one of my business model is long yards. We expand with the long yards, we secure a piece of territory in a good location, high growth, and then we do the yards. Phase two is the sales, so right now, we're just selling them, get into the marketplace. Phase three is we bring the yard to you and we bring you a fully enclosed yard with a container, with an office, with camera, with powers at your location. So that's the future growth of it. Right now, though, we're just simply selling them and we're basically getting into that logistics and operation side of things and making sure we have everything rolled out the way we want to, and then we're going to expand to phase three, which is the rentals on site.

Shed Geek: 24:59

I think it's great. I think it'll go over really really good. A solid plan and it looks like a solid product. Honestly, from everything I could see on the website, I would love all my travels to go out and like stop at one of your locations, just kind of check out some of the product and things and see like that, and I think a lot of the shed guys would definitely be interested in the product, especially enough to go to the website and maybe start a conversation with you at some point. Yeah, I don't know, I think it's cool. I think it matches. It matches what we do right. It matches what we do or provide storage.

Shed Geek: 25:35

Exactly. Storage has just turned into something different. It's turned into the. We've kind of went to the aesthetic side with the additions of quality and a real quality driven product, with all the bells and whistles and different things on there. This is everything's editable here, chris. So I'm going to ask you this question because I didn't ask you preemptively, and if you're good with it, we'll roll with it. If not, why did it out? What's the price point on those things? I mean, I don't know if you have them listed or oh, yeah, I'll share.

Chris Long: 26:05

So this is a seven by 10 and it's 3195. Wow, so it's. And this does not include assembly or delivery, which is a quote, you know, we got to get it out there. But and the seven by 13s are 30, somebody is 3195, I believe they're 3595, and then the 16s are 3795. But we think it's affordable right now and one of our strategies is to partner with shed companies in Florida and just say, hey, why don't we put one of these at your location? Because some people they just can't get a shed in their backyard, it's too complicated, or look for something a little different. And then we'll give them kickback. And it's very simple. We have our fulfillment. We're in, we're located in central Florida, so we could and we're sitting on over a hundred of these units right now in in Ottawa and in central Florida. So, yeah, we think the price is on point, the product has a good utility and we're just looking for great partners to help roll the soap.

Shed Geek: 27:01

Man, there's some really good guys down there in Florida for sure. I could only imagine would want to take you up on that conversation. But really even you know we've, we've been able to attain listeners in all 50, all 50 states, and really even our second largest, you know, listener bases is in Europe. But and you guys are talking about doing this thing internationally, because this is something that can be of value no matter where you are- Absolutely, so I could get a full container out to whichever location and there's there's great margins.

Chris Long: 27:34

I mean we're open book with our wholesale and cost and I mean we have a good CRM the back it. But if you have your own sales process and you can even brand it, we can have them shown up with your brand, your colors, right to your door. So it's a beautiful product. Or we could just partner with you, put our products at your location and we can take care of it. So now, now that's local to our brick and motor, because we have to do fulfillment right. But on a larger scale, someone wants to get a full container of these and we're happy to work with them.

Shed Geek: 28:04

Yeah, what do you? What are you seeing as far as like trying to administer a pathway forward for this product? Online e-commerce and or just just sort of the way people are shopping a lot of times nowadays is definitely meeting us in the in the technology space. So we're having this success in both brick and mortar and online sales. What do you see there?

Chris Long: 28:30

Great question. That's why we're very strong in a hybrid model. So right now our website is e-commerce. You can go on the website, pick a product, pick a, pick a color, see our inventory and you could pay for it by credit card and you can put your address confirm do you want to deliver it or install it? And we also offer financing so you can literally get one of these per month, less cost than a storage unit, in most cases close to you. So we offer financing on both Canada and the US and we have the e-commerce website.

Chris Long: 29:01

However, a lot of people still want to open the doors. They want to feel it. So we do the social media and the e-commerce funnels and digital marketing around where we're confident people can drive and actually open one of these products. Because I think you still need a hybrid of both of them to work, and that's one of the things that we're focused on. But we've spent a lot of time building up the e-commerce in the back end, especially on both sides of the border, so it has been easy to get that going, but we're there.

Shed Geek: 29:33

Yeah, it's well. I feel like this is something that whenever people are shopping around, they're going to start to come across. This and that kind of leads segues into my next question, which is, really, how do you think things like this will affect traditional storage? So there's like a lot of guys out here that maybe will be like I think that's a really great idea. And then, of course, you got to prove the model, that kind of thing which sounds like you're already doing. And then there's sort of believing their product, a stick built product, and the processes are there in place, but a traditional shed hauler could use their trailer to move these. So it's not as though you know what I mean. It's like you don't have to change the whole transportation side of the process. You don't have to bring anything totally different in. This is something that they can do takes about the same amount of time. So how will it? How will it? My question, I guess, is how do you think it will affect traditional storage? How do you think it'll be received and what's your message to those guys?

Chris Long: 31:40

Well, I think this could be a solution to a problem that they have, and I think, based on me talking to local shed sales companies in where I am in Tampa, a couple of the big problems is they don't want to build and sell small sheds that much because the economy is a scale. They make more money building a bigger product, so a lot of the smaller ones get taken up faster. So we actually cater to the small sheds with a versatile product and then obviously getting the shed using the same equipment is one thing, but sometimes getting in the backyard is another. What's the complexity and certain HOAs and everything else? So we just offer such a great solution because this can like fold, you can use the same equipment, you can stack multiple, so instead of delivering one shed, you can have these set up for once a week and deliver six of them at once. Have your crew go out, install it immediately, very clean.

Chris Long: 32:31

Like I said, you walk across a beautiful landscape, backyard, beautiful deck, put in the corner, no headaches. So I think because of that this offers such a unique position in the marketplace and it's just complimenting. If you're already selling sheds, then we take our traffic, we bring our clients to you and if they want, now they have more products to choose from, so it's just a win-win. That's why we think it's great to partner with other sheds and I think, as any business evolves, new products are going to evolve and systems and we just rather partner with people to help them with their sales and anything we can to increase their clientele.

Shed Geek: 33:07

What's your customer experience been like? Customer testimonies for like these products. What do you feel like the common theme is so far from their feedback.

Chris Long: 33:17

It's a wow, is it? By the time they place the order and they get it delivered and popped up. It's like it was that easy. Yeah, it's that easy. So that's really cool and they like that. There's not too many decisions to be involved. It's what size and we have the doors. That could be on the front or on the side. You want a 7x10, 7x13, 7x16, what color? Where do you want your doors? It's a simple process. It's quick, it's easy from picking the product, getting it delivered and installed, and the customer just loves that. And one of the favorite things the customer loves is the fact that if they need to move it easier or if they're not sure if they're going to sell their house in a year or two, they can easily take this folder and bring it with you to the next house. So it's just. It's so much value from the client perspective that they're loving it.

Shed Geek: 34:05

I think it's great. What do you think, man? Is this just like the evolution of storage? Is this, like you know, like watching things change? You know what I'm saying? We didn't, we didn't see it like I don't know, I wasn't around, but I mean, I hear people talk about the Trailblazers that allowed, you know, even this podcast to exist, really because of the industry they built and like in the seventies. It was really cool when we, when we started it's been almost four years now Gideon Zook's episode where he said you know, it's the seventies, there's, there's, there's three brothers and his dad says you know, in Lancaster County, two of you boys are going to have to get out of this or you're going to flood the market, maybe to see that, like, millions of storage units have been sold since then and everybody always says where's the bubble?

Shed Geek: 34:50

And then, like, instead of seeing like a decrease, we're just seeing sort of a changing of the guard in some way. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying you're the, the, the, the Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan or the LeBron James to Kobe Bryant. I'm saying you know there is an alternative there, though, right, there's. And is this maybe just the evolution of what we're going to see in storage?

Chris Long: 35:13

Well, I think, like any product, in any business, it there's, there's um competitive, there's competition right, and the competition is to how do you do it faster and how do you do it easier? And as long as you're evolving to go in that direction, then you're going to have a competitive advantage. Um, but how do you evolve in that direction? How do you partner? How do you, how do you compliment your existing business to go in that direction? So I mean, even with with my business model, it's just, I found a solution to a problem and I built a business around it, just like with with the long box products. So I mean, it's a great question, it's going to evolve, yes, and how do you, how do you stay on that tide to to be involved with the growth of that evolution? And I think it's just partnering with those people. You know why. Why try to reinvent the wheel and learn yourself. Just partner with someone that's up and coming and let them take care of all the headaches for you.

Shed Geek: 36:03

There's a whole lot of talk, like we key phrases, like words, things that just keep showing up, unique cliche sayings and they're cliche for a reason. And like one of them here lightly, and I just addressed it this morning on the shed sales professionals page that I manage, it talks about, you know, competition happens at the bottom and collaboration happens at the top. I guess it was about a year ago. I saw Mr Beast in the Forbes magazine talk about his success as an influencer and it's been because of collaborative efforts. But, like, as you start giving away value, you begin to see that like people let their guard down and we have we have sort of some of that the shed industry, because we have, like all these gentlemen's agreements and all these whatever that's just existed over a time of a industry maturing. So you know, there's, there's been all these experiences that people have had that they can talk about and share and they do. And I guess in my eyes I'm just thinking, yeah, why not work with someone? You touched on something there and that's why I took this rabbit trail. You said why? Why reinvent the wheel? And you know, I believe in collaborative efforts, I believe competition makes us good too.

Shed Geek: 37:17

But I read something this morning that really, really, I think, resonated, and I put a little post out and it said you know, operating in a collaborative effort is like running in a marathon You're running alongside several other people, but none of you are going to finish at the same time.

Shed Geek: 37:31

You're theoretically competing, right, but your real competition is with yourself, because if you cannot allow yourself to set your pace necessarily by their pace, you're limited then by their success. You set it by your own pace and then you allow that to become the standard. So you just keep trying to beat your time. You just happen to be competing and running along with other people, some that you will look for to encouragement and inspiration, some that you will encourage and inspire on their way, and a lot of times you'll know this if you've ever been beaten that it's some of the most humbling lessons you'll learn on earth, right On earth, whenever you start to collaborate with people, because I've watched people that I've poured into go farther than me and instead of saying, oh no, they went farther, I say, man, I got to be part of their success. So that's where the collaboration really makes sense and the competition makes sense in bettering ourselves. And I'm sorry, I got on that rabbit trail. That's a long way from Longbox and Longyard, but you touched on that with yourself.

Chris Long: 38:31

Yeah, and just like I'm in masterminds, I'm always paying consultants and coaches and you just extract that knowledge and you learn and you level up faster and you move towards your goals faster. You know, I'm always, I'm always learning. But partnering and finding experts in their field just to help expedite that process is, it's a win-win.

Shed Geek: 38:49

Well, and it sounds like you're really hands on with the clientele, because you talked a lot about the sales process and wanting to help them in that process if that's what it needs. So it's not like, hey, here's the product, go figure it out. Like we're sort of partnership driven, kind of relationship driven.

Chris Long: 39:07

Oh yeah, we're going to well with the franchise system and expanding like we're here for the long term. Our location in Canada has been there for a long time. Our franchise he signed up for for 10 years. You know we're at a brick and mortar location. We're not planning on going anywhere and we believe in products that stand for the same thing. So, from right from the fulfillment to the partnerships, to the client journey, we want to make sure that they know that this is a product that's going to be sticking around for a long time and as a CEO and the founder, I need to understand that whole product journey right from the client. That's why you know I'm in one of these. I I literally I believe in the product so much so it's important for me to understand the whole life cycle of the journey, right from execution to fulfillment.

Shed Geek: 39:48

From a manufacturing perspective. A lot of these guys build and sell their own products. I know you said you get a lot of this these are built overseas, what? What options are there to go stateside with that at some point? I understand labor costs can probably, you know, be a big hiccup in that in that process, I understand. But I'm just curious your thoughts for especially a more conservative audience that I have that would would think about the idea of like being able to produce and sell stateside. Just fair, I think it's a fair question anyway.

Chris Long: 40:25

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Well, there's, there's prop, there's the materials and there's the labor, right. So, some the material sourcing, especially for the European offices, the installation, the doors and windows. It's a beautiful product but it it has its brand and trademark and kind of IP because of the product sourcing that comes from Europe and then by being able to match it with the, the labor rates at this point in time we can't see, you know to, to be a cost effective, competitive advantage at this point in time to bring it to the western, you know, shores. Now, maybe with a certain amount of volume that we could produce, it might make sense where you know we have a lot of numbers behind it. But for now, for the economic feasibility, you know we have to stick to this. But it's well built. I mean, those guys in Europe they build a good product and they stand behind it.

Shed Geek: 41:13

So well, I mean, there's so much German engineering here that just listens to the show. When you start looking at the products that exist even inside the shed industry, that are specific to it or that just kind of could aid in the in the building, sales and delivery, especially process, and a lot of these guys have, you know, like that, that German background and like I don't know man, every time I get into a German car, every time I see like this German engineering, I feel like these guys were like born and bred for the purpose of designing things. They're just, they have a mind that is way beyond for whatever reason. They just pick it up really quick.

Chris Long: 41:53

Absolutely. You know, sometimes it's like you kind of make it you think there's a solution, you go in one direction and then you step back and go no, it was better keeping it the way it was. And you know we there's, there's good systems and processes in place. For a reason They've got an assembly line. They've they figured our Oval's kinks. I like to keep things simple and, like we talked about collaborating partners, like you know, they've got a down pat why let's keep it going.

Shed Geek: 42:19

So if somebody's wanting to know more about Longbox, longoffice, longyard, any of the above one more time. What's kind of the best way for them to connect with you? Yeah.

Chris Long: 42:31

I appreciate that I mean. The best way honestly is longyardscom. You can check us out, actually display some Longbox products right there and there's links to the website, and clongatlongyardscom is my email and my cell phone's 941-278-1995.

Shed Geek: 42:45

So I'm going to get to a part of the episode where we've been doing something a little unique lately and I forgot this once with James and I'm James. I'm terribly sorry. I know you listen to every episode. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. Didn't give you a chance to answer this question, but my, my podcast have been getting along.

Shed Geek: 43:00

I'm long-winded, chris. My wife tells me that I tend to get long-winded on some of these. She said you got to shorten them up or get into a point where you got to do two parters and all this and I said, okay, okay, I'll be a little bit more mindful of that. But I want to take the time to turn the microphone around, should you choose to use it. I know we didn't plan for this. I didn't even mention it ahead of time so that you can ask any questions that you have to the shed geek. I do. I do a lot of travel, so I see a lot of places and I do my best to answer responsibly with every question asked. But whether it's podcast related, personal ministry sheds, I really don't care. Turn the microphone around for a minute and, chris, ask whatever questions you have and I'll do my best to respond.

Chris Long: 43:43

What do you think, based on your experience with shed sales, is the number one problem with people trying to buy a shed? What do you hear time and time again and the number one over you trying to overcome it?

Shed Geek: 43:54

Wow, what a great question. What is the number one thing that people struggle with?

Shed Geek: 45:21

It's hard to answer in a really simple answer. Also, I tend to think that simplicity you used the word earlier, simplicity is the key to sales. They say sales is a transfer of enthusiasm, but you know, whenever you get someone to stop at your lot, that's kind of an impulsive purchase. When you think about customer acquisition time, if you're building a house with them, you've got to spend a lot of time with them, right, and you've got to extract a lot of data from what they're wanting to get. But with a shed, especially if they're looking to buy an inventory piece, they're kind of there now in the moment. They kind of want to make that happen now. So salespeople can oftentimes be a stumbling block. I know I can by overselling, because a lot of times you have a little bit larger customer acquisition time if it's say like a custom build, and you really want to walk them through all the options. Because you've spent all this time learning all of this product knowledge and all of these sales processes, right, and you're trying to perfect your I don't want to say pitch, because it's not always a pitch, but you're trying to perfect just sort of like the right answer to help whenever you ask a question. And I think a lot of times we won't get out of our way and just stop and be quiet and just ask for the sale. Like they're ready, they want to move forward, and you just say, hey, let's just go ahead. And you know, let's, let's make this happen today. You want to go ahead and write a check. We'll, we'll get with my delivery driver and we'll figure out when we can get this to you. So I think that's probably the one thing that stops them. But not having proper processes and systems, I think is imperative.

Shed Geek: 46:58

A lot of guys that get into sales, especially shed sales we talked about it today. It's kind of like, you know, especially with consignment lots, it's like, hey, let's throw 50 buildings out there and see how they do, and it's like, oh no, that's kind of bad. We give them a book and like these guys are either just like really, really super entrepreneurs that figure it out and next thing you know they're selling like 3 million a year and people are like I had no idea they had that kind of potential. And then you have other guys that kind of struggle and they might not believe in the product because the sales might not come fast and furious early on in the first few months and they just kind of treat it as a side job, you know.

Shed Geek: 47:33

So I think it's a lot of it's got to do with you as a person, you know, continuing your education and continuing to perfect yourself in the process of sales. But yeah, in a short answer I would say processes and ask for the sale. Just ask for it. People are there, they're ready to buy. Let's get this done. It's a short customer acquisition time.

Chris Long: 47:54

I love it. That's a great answer, and I think a simple product makes a simple sale too. Oh, absolutely, would you? Instead of what color? Do you want the shed? Well, where do you want your door? Where do you want the window, like you want the door here?

Speaker 3: 48:08

or there.

Chris Long: 48:08

What color? Okay, seven by 10. So, yeah, I think I think it's a good blend. But I agree with you, I think sometimes the sales process could get complicated and some people just can't ask for that simple sale and in the end of the day, that's the lifeblood of the business, right? So you got to move the product.

Shed Geek: 48:25

Some guys just want a simple shed. They don't care about the colors, this, that and all that they want, they want the quickest answer and they just want a solution to the problem right now. And others you know you talked about Florida and HOA they want to come in and kind of talk more in depth and make sure they get a color matching this and this particular roof, and you know they need that. So I think it's just figuring that out as a salesperson like the needs of the customer pretty, pretty early on. So, yeah, anything else, anything come to mind.

Chris Long: 48:55

What do you think, based on your marketing experience, what you learned from marketing, what's the number one channel that you get your clients? Would you say it'd be Facebook marketplace, facebook or Google Instagram? What channel is the most effective for cost of acquisition and and for actually closing the sale from the time they become a lead to getting them closed? So what do you think is most effective?

Shed Geek: 49:19

Man, what a great question. You know it's kind of funny because I never saw myself in the marketing space and as, just as time developed, you know you begin to learn more and and this is this is probably others experience too, or it will be, if it's not already you know we build. We build a marketing platform the same way you would build a long box or a long office or a shed. You know there's a window there sitting there and it's perfectly good window and standalone product. It works perfect. But it works better when it has an ecosystem around it like lumber, right, you know.

Shed Geek: 49:54

So now, all of a sudden, you have. You know you have Google and you have meta ads, which is, you know, facebook, and, and, and, and Instagram. And then you have Google over here on this side, which is really just this common search engine where they control the algorithm that says we have went out and measured. You know the, the the best place to go. Based off of these keywords we have, we have determined this website is going to offer you the most value. So you know, hey, we we searched 300,000 or 3 million places and within.3312369 seconds, we found this to be number one and this to be number two and this to be number three, and I think that people have to kind of put the whole thing in perspective and say, okay, well, let's start with building a brand, let's start with your branding guidelines and like, get all your color palette, your logo, all that stuff. Now you have a base and then get a website. And then we got to learn about SEO and how to index. And then we got to figure out is that going to happen through organic on page, off page SEO or PPC ads? You know, like what are we going to do? So you can. We have a lot of people that mistake maybe. What a full marketing suite might be. I mean, we'll, we'll do animations, we'll do video, we'll do photography, we'll do brochures. I mean there's a little bit of everything that you can make happen.

Shed Geek: 51:12

But whenever they call you up and say, hey, I need marketing, it's kind of like, well, what piece of the building do you need? Do we just need to come in around what you've already done, or do we need to do the whole thing, or should we suggest what we think is going to make the most impact? And generally speaking, I would think that would be. Your question was kind of directed toward Google, ppc or Metta. You know Metta is probably going to. You know, if you, if you throw some dollars at it and you know where to spend it and build your radius, I think that's going to offer you probably the biggest bang for your buck quickly If you understand what you're doing.

Shed Geek: 51:49

But are you capturing that data and retargeting and different things? But I mean Google's still very valuable. People go to the website to find places or they Google stuff. You know Dylan tells people this all the time. You're down in Florida so you may understand this. But, like you know, kids in the Midwest don't necessarily use Instagram as a search engine. But, like kids, maybe in like California or New York, if they're looking for a pizza place, they might use Instagram or something like that to kind of find where they're going.

Shed Geek: 52:18

So it's sort of changing. You know Google's not always the answer. If you're a more conservative person, you might know DuckDuckGo or something like that. So you're using DuckDuckGo as your search engine and you're waiting for it to kind of, you know, become more valuable. So I think the short answer to your question is finding out what they need, asking them what they need and then offering some solid advice. Google, ppc and Meta is going to be your short shotgun approach at trying to reach customers, as opposed to a longer rifled approach with. You know organic SEO and things like that.

Chris Long: 52:52

So building on that. Hey guys, do you know anyone sorry with Facebook Marketplace? Do you think that's a good little hack too, or what do you think about that?

Shed Geek: 53:00

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously they kind of discourage the idea of businesses staying on there and constantly promoting their products over and over and over, which has become a bit of a sore spot for us in the shed industry. Probably the car side too does that a lot. You know it's the purpose of it was meant for. You know, just like with the local buy sale groups and things like that. You know they kind of are encouraging, like people within community to sell.

Shed Geek: 53:26

I don't think the purpose of it was necessarily for businesses to run a full scale marketing plan on there, but it's free and free gains, the path of least resistance, right. So like if you don't have to spend anything. What concerns me is, like you know, if you're, if you've got a million dollar a year and sales and you're relying completely on that, if Facebook decides to change that up, they're already a little bit aggressive on kicking you out or you have competitors reporting your post or whatever it is. So like it seems like you need to define a more consistent way to reach your customers. That's legal and encouraged. And yes, of course it costs money, but there's value to spending money as well too. It's an investment as opposed to a cost.

Chris Long: 54:13

So yeah, I sound like a sales guy I don't know, like you know, when you're you're in the marketing. I think it goes product marketing and sales and the better product you have than the less marketing sales you have, and the better you are at marketing than the less sales you have to do and the more you have to sell typically is because you know you've got to push your product and your marketing. So I believe it kind of goes into that that series. Um, that's, that's my belief.

Shed Geek: 54:42

No, I love your thoughts.

Chris Long: 54:43

I love that. Yeah, so I mean, steve Jobs did a great job. You know he believes so much marketing that he was going to remove sales. And you ain't going Apple store, you're in a lineup and you're waiting. They don't do much selling, they just do such good marketing and because they have such a great product, you know they don't have to sell. They have a lineup, you know, and that that's yeah, you definitely have to build a brand.

Shed Geek: 55:05

I've got a branding guy coming up pretty soon. Uh, that's speaking on the podcast. I think that if you can get your, your brand to be understood, you know you only have two forms of business Typically uh, you have a service based, you know business, or you have a product based business. The interesting thing about selling a product is you still have to provide a service to your customer. So, like with service, you just sell the service, whether it's SaaS or whether it's like I don't know. Um, whatever you're selling.

Shed Geek: 55:33

But with a product, you got to educate the people on the product and then you need to serve them by getting to the level of the customer. Um, we struggle with that because with marketing, nothing's tangible. So, like a lot of people, if they spend money, they want to walk away with something they can touch, like a, like a long box or a long office. They know where it's at, they can knock on it, touch it, feel it a shed, right here. I spent my money. I feel good. I can have my neighbor come over, I can have my kids come over or my parents and be like hey, take a look at our new product or new car or new long box, whatever it is. But with marketing it's like check this out. I just invested in a bunch of SEO, yes, yeah, all right, I'll never see for six months. I'll wonder what's happening. You know what I mean. To try and like understand. If it's going to show up, so it's, it can be very, it can be very.

Shed Geek: 56:20

You have to like really dream with the customer to sort of get them to understand that they're buying digital assets. Now that is, that is, you know, intellectual property versus hard property. So you're creating at the digital storefront instead of a brick and mortar storefront. You know your SEO becomes your gravel pad and your, your, your Google ads become your product. And you know, like you got to dream with them. And and I think we're just in a place where we're still figuring all of that stuff out. But I do think it's. I do think it's going that direction more if, especially if, you're service based. But I don't know. That's why we have a podcast, right. I mean that that creates communication. That's part of why it happened was because it was to create communication. Me and you can talk all day, dude, and then and I'm sorry I took way, I took way too much of it here at the end. I wanted to have more of your thoughts there.

Chris Long: 57:13

Sorry, but you asked me good. You said ask me anything, and I I hope I came with some good questions. So yeah, I love it.

Shed Geek: 57:19

Absolutely Well, I love it. One more time If I mean you'll need to connect, I'll keep you on here after, if you don't care, for a minute after we quit recording, but just one more time. I want to encourage people to go and look at your product on your website. Connect with you so that you become part of the, the ecosystem that is the shed industry Cause I think what you've got here is a really cool product and and, and I believe that people will be interested in it. But one more time, if they want to know more about it.

Chris Long: 57:45

Yeah, so you can go to see the products at longboxstoragecom. So that's where you get an idea of it. But my main communication, but you could find me there with the emails and links, but I just put my cell phone right up here 941-278-1995 from my main email clong at longyardscom.

Shed Geek: 58:02

Very cool. I think it's an awesome product and we'll make sure for those of you who do not get the newsletter, we'll be sure to throw a link in there to the website and there'll be a bio there to find out more about Chris. And I don't know, maybe long term we can come up with some kind of digital print out or something like that, chris, where people can get you, or we can get some kind of a lead form or something where people can reach out to you and just find out more about you. But I think it's an awesome product and I thank you for being on the show. My friend it was. It was a lot of fun.

Chris Long: 58:33

Yeah, I appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun.

Shed Geek: 58:35

Thank you, it's good.