From crafting components for race cars to shaping the shed industry, Wayne Allred's career arc is nothing short of astounding. Our latest episode welcomes the founder of PMP Buildings, who shares his company's origin, the significant pandemic pivot, and how a viral video set their chicken coops clucking across the nation. Wayne's blend of craftsmanship and creativity has not only yielded unique steel structures but also a burgeoning business model that thrives on customer satisfaction and innovative marketing.
Join us as Wayne peels back the steel curtain on PMP's construction process, revealing why his sheds are more than just storage spaces – they're feats of engineering designed to withstand the test of time. The conversation takes an inventive turn as we discuss transporting these robust structures and the amusing yet ingenious product design stories that respond to real-world needs. Wayne's philosophy intertwines quality with customer and employee relationships, proving that the foundations of a solid structure and a solid business are remarkably similar.
The personal tales that close our discussion resonate with authenticity and emotional depth, touching on family, faith, and the essence of human connection. Wayne opens up about the integration of these elements into his business, the power of second chances, and how an accountable, supportive community can transform lives. This episode isn't just about the nuts and bolts of building sheds; it's a heartfelt narrative of resilience, innovation, and the indomitable spirit of entrepreneurship.
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
Digital Shed Builder
CAL
Shed Hub
Luxguard
From crafting components for race cars to shaping the shed industry, Wayne Allred's career arc is nothing short of astounding. Our latest episode welcomes the founder of PMP Buildings, who shares his company's origin, the significant pandemic pivot, and how a viral video set their chicken coops clucking across the nation. Wayne's blend of craftsmanship and creativity has not only yielded unique steel structures but also a burgeoning business model that thrives on customer satisfaction and innovative marketing.
Join us as Wayne peels back the steel curtain on PMP's construction process, revealing why his sheds are more than just storage spaces – they're feats of engineering designed to withstand the test of time. The conversation takes an inventive turn as we discuss transporting these robust structures and the amusing yet ingenious product design stories that respond to real-world needs. Wayne's philosophy intertwines quality with customer and employee relationships, proving that the foundations of a solid structure and a solid business are remarkably similar.
The personal tales that close our discussion resonate with authenticity and emotional depth, touching on family, faith, and the essence of human connection. Wayne opens up about the integration of these elements into his business, the power of second chances, and how an accountable, supportive community can transform lives. This episode isn't just about the nuts and bolts of building sheds; it's a heartfelt narrative of resilience, innovation, and the indomitable spirit of entrepreneurship.
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
Digital Shed Builder
CAL
Shed Hub
Luxguard
Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. And still hanging on to Texas, still hanging on getting interviews here. But it's been fun, it's been a blast. Had so much fun on this trip Two weeks, Wayne, we've done rodeo, we've done oh I don't know the silos down there. We've got to see some, yeah, Chip and Joanna. We've got to see some, yeah, Chip and Joanna, and we've got to see some cool things. But my favorite part is being able to sit down with shed builders and folks in the shed industry like yourself and someone who brings a little unique approach to the shed industry. So if you want to introduce yourself, uh, your company, a little bit about who you are and what you do, that'll be good sure,
WAYNE ALLRED:I'm Wayne Allred, owner of PMP Buildings. I have an amazing team here that does amazing work and I'm very proud of them. Uh, PMP started back in 1989.
WAYNE ALLRED:Uh started on April the second because I didn't want to start on April fool's day nice, good call uh anyway started in 89 and and the PMP stands for Performance Metal Products because at the time I was building parts for race cars. I had just gotten out of business with a partner and we were building fuel cells for dragsters and I was building wheel wells and things like that. So I had some racing straps on it and things like that. But over the years that kind of went down and other areas went up and the PMP stuck. We still called it Performance Metal Products, even though we didn't really build any racing products anymore, but the name stuck and we just shortened it down to PMP. So yeah, we've had some incredible highs and lows during those years, but we've stuck it out in spite of it.
SHED GEEK:It seems like it's worked out pretty good. So beyond that, you do some commercial work in air conditioning. Is that right?
WAYNE ALLRED:Yes, so when we started we were doing a lot of sheet metal work. That's the main deal is. I had a sheet metal shop and we had air conditioning contractors that we would do their duct work for them. Over the years that evolved to where I eventually got my own license and I also have another business where we do air conditioning, uh work and we do mostly commercial work, um, assisted living, memory care, senior living type buildings, you know, nursing homes and stuff like that. So we kind of specialize in that. We don't really just if you call me to come work on your air conditioner, I would you down. Yeah, because we just don't do that kind.
SHED GEEK:We just do new commercial work yeah, yeah, that makes good sense, that's so. So all of this led you somehow to the shed world. You started this in 1989, so bring this fast forward and and explain to me the the gap between there and getting into the shed business, or what I would say, maybe the business, a portion of the shed business, for sure.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, kind of sort of. So also, I have a welding degree. That's what you know. A lot of people go to college for some kind of degree. Well, I got a welding degree. So we did sheet metal and welding and that led to us doing a lot of welded products and we were building hay rings.
WAYNE ALLRED:And I had this older gentleman that kept trying to convince me hey, if you would build a round-top greenhouse, that thing would be awesome. And I just thought, man, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. You know, that's going to be ugly. So I built one. I used the cheapest materials possible. That thing was so ugly it was just pit lot more air conditioning work. So I kind of put my that on the back shelf and really the timing just wasn't real good either. But over the years the greenhouse has kind of stuck in the fact that we would just build one, set it on the road, and when it sold we'd build another one, set it out, and we didn't really try to sell them. But the air conditioning business took me all over the state and I was constantly traveling. I told my wife I'd love to stay home more and I felt like God was leading me to. Won't you try the sheds again? Or won't you try building some greenhouses again? So I said you know I'm going to build something to go with the greenhouse and we'll hire someone and see what happens. So I feel like the timing was right, that God brought you know someone into the right spot.
WAYNE ALLRED:Jeremy knew one of my Jeremy and his wife was friends with one of my daughters. They came over to borrow a frame or something another for their wedding. And I talked to Jeremy, found out he had been a shed builder, but him and his dad and everybody. They built huge barns and stuff, but still he was interested. He needed a job. He was just moving into the area. So I hired Jeremy and we started making I don't know. We made maybe four or five sheds a month, you know, and we were making animal shelters and greenhouses and we weren't really making storage buildings but stuff to keep animals in, because we saw a need there.
WAYNE ALLRED:And then COVID hit. And when COVID hit I had people out working in the air conditioning business that couldn't do it anymore because they shut down the job site and I had seven guys that needed something to do. The government was saying, hey, we've got some PPP money If you will keep all these guys busy on the payroll. So we just started building sheds and I didn't really have I didn't have anywhere to sell the sheds and we were just piling them up on the road. But my daughter came in from college. She's a college coach and she came in. I said look, I don't know anything about Facebook, but make me a page page. Let's run some ads, because I heard you can sell something there. I had no, I had no clue.
WAYNE ALLRED:And the next thing I know we're going from four to, you know, 10 and then 20, and then you know, it just keeps going up yeah and the next thing I know we're building chicken coops and we're building kennels and we're building greenhouses and sheds and it just kind of went on from there.
WAYNE ALLRED:But I had no clue that the shed industry was this big or that you could make a living doing it. I just kind of stumbled into it and, as I was telling you previously, I didn't grow up in the shed industry, so I didn't really know how people hauled them or how they built them or how they sold them, and I just kind of made it all up from scratch and figured it out for myself as I went along, because I didn't have any previous history to fall back on, which, as I told you before, may have been a blessing, but also it may have set me back a little bit, because I had no prior experience and we just had to kind of figure out things as we went along. So that's kind of a brief summary of how we got to where we are now.
SHED GEEK:Well, you're definitely a creative type. I love that about you, and what that allows you to do is find a way when there's not a way, and then careful that you know that way doesn't get stolen too soon, because it will First movers advantage. Don't last too long, wayne, in the shed industry, unfortunately, and maybe that's just the nature of business, but what you do is very, is very, unique. Uh, what you do looks different. I don't see the style of structure that you have. Now you, you sell some um metal like carports and stuff like that.
SHED GEEK:That's sort of a third party you know and you you're sure to distinguish that between that and your work that you do here in-house, because you have a whole team of fabricators here that are doing things as well too, and 100% of what you do is metal correct.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yes.
SHED GEEK:So you're able to bring this metal in and turn it into this final product, and we're going to put some pictures out there for those of you who decide to view this, this metal in and turn it into this final product. And we're going to put some pictures out there for those of you who decide to view this on on youtube. Go check it out. Just go to shed geek uh podcast on youtube. Be sure to subscribe while you're there if you don't mind. But, um, yeah, we'll put some pictures out there. Walk me through some of these products, how they're made. Uh, you know how do you move them there's. It's so interesting and we've got some pictures and videos we'll put in there for those of you that watch. But I'm just curious, uh, your explanation of this and how you came to to build them the way that you do well, I'll try to explain.
WAYNE ALLRED:If you're just listening on the podcast and you don't have a visual reference here, you can always go to our website and check out some of the pictures. Go to the website.
SHED GEEK:That way we can get some backlinks.
WAYNE ALLRED:Go to pmpbuildingscom.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, there you go Go to the gallery page and you will find tons of pictures there. But ours are a little unique in the fact that they have a round top on them. We have a machine that will roll the one-by-one square tubing. Everything is steel frame. It's way lighter and really more versatile than working with wood, because we can do things with the steel you can't do with wood, and we're welding everything, so there's no nails or screws to come loose. Later on we tell customers that our stuff is termite-proof, it won't warp, it won't rot, it won't rot, it won't split Any of those things.
WAYNE ALLRED:We've had shed haulers that have moved our stuff and the first thing they always ask us is how old is the building? Because they want to know if that building is over 10 years old, they're really cautious to come move it. But when they find out it's an all-welded steel structure and they look at us oh yeah, we'll move that. Yeah, no problem, you know. So it's a little unique in the fact that we use all steel. Now we still put treated lumber on the you know bottom to come in contact with the ground, because the steel will rot eventually.
WAYNE ALLRED:We build all of our framework from steel, weld them up, paint them up and then cover them.
WAYNE ALLRED:We use a 40-year max reel, but I know I can buy cheaper and I try to put quality in everything.
WAYNE ALLRED:We found that there's a spot in the market that if you build quality, people will pay for quality. We can build cheap, but also we have to stand behind our product and later on people will remember and call you out for a cheap product when they're disappointed. Later on, people, when they pay for quality, they'll be proud of it and you can be proud of your product out there also, and that's also part of what we try to do as a business. I try to instill into all my people in the shop and the office and everything we are doing, quality buildings, where there's a niche in the market where people will pay for quality and you can go off the chart with quality that people are going to pay for. But if you'll provide a quality product that people can be proud of and you can be proud to sell, uh, there's a market out there, no matter what industry you're working in you know you've come a long way from that first one.
SHED GEEK:You set out by the road, huh yes, yes, I.
WAYNE ALLRED:I hope that thing is. I hope it's in the dumpster somewhere, because I don't, I wouldn't want anyone to see that, you know don't want my name associated anymore with that one.
SHED GEEK:I just I just done it thinking it wouldn't sell. And then you bought a bunch of them and I had to go and improve the system, right?
WAYNE ALLRED:You know, I know this is not what you asked, but it leads me into another thought that I really try to instill into everybody here, and that is if we build something that's not quality and a customer has a problem, we are going to take care of it. You know, people don't realize how many thousands and thousands of dollars in advertising you would have to spend to overcome one disgruntled customer where if you just went and take care of them, you know they wouldn't have told their neighbor, who told their neighbor? Who told their neighbor? And you wouldn't have to spend $10,000 to overcome that one negative review that you got. So I mean, we will go overboard to take care of our customers and make sure that we're providing quality and everything that we do here.
SHED GEEK:You know, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I want to almost say you can echo those sentiments with employees A lot of time, don't get me wrong. There's customers and there's employees you just can't satisfy, no matter what you do. But generally speaking, you know it's it's cheaper to keep them than it is to onboard a new one. And I always like to say, man, like, sometimes you just got to hear the grievance because most people want to do a good job. Right, they want to come into work, they want to do a good job, and it's the same with employees as it is with customers. You just really got to listen, just be willing to hear them out. So I love what you do. I think it's amazing. We definitely want to make sure that we show plenty of pictures of it, um, walking through the construction of it. You built like a, an apparatus to begin with to like to like even do your bend your metal originally before you could find a, a better machine. Is that right?
SHED GEEK:yeah I mean. This thing looks like a torture device for those of you you're gonna wonder what's going on, but it's.
WAYNE ALLRED:It's pretty awesome and it's very ingenuitive of you well, part of my story is the fact that, um, I like to build stuff from scratch, I like to look at something, and my I grew up in the country, so we're out in the country and my dad taught me to weld at a very young age so I could always, and my dad would encourage me. You can go out in a scrap pile and you can build anything you want to have. The scrap pile. Here's just some metal, here's just some welding rods. You know, I may have been like 10 or 12 years old kid after. You know, and you know nowadays you wouldn't turn kids loose with a pile of scrap metal and here's a cutting torch and a welding machine to build what you want to. But that's kind of how I grew up. So whenever I would find a problem or something that needed to be done, of course we couldn't just go to the Internet. Oh, I'll just go to the Internet and search up a way to do that. You know, you got out there in the pile of metal and you just dreamed up a way to do whatever you wanted to do and you built something. You know, and we were the only ones in the neighborhood that our mini bikes that were choppers because we cut the forks off and welded long, long pipes on there, you know. So we had chopper mini bikes, you know.
WAYNE ALLRED:But getting back to what you were asking about, so yeah, I needed to roll the steel, but I didn't have a way to do it. I didn't go online and search okay, where can I buy a rolling machine? I didn't really have the money and I didn't know if this idea was going to work anyway. So I bought some chain out of the scrapyard, I got some shafts out of the scrapyard, I found a gear reduction motor on eBay, I bought an electric motor on Craigslist and I put together a machine that would roll the steel. It was really crude, but you know, it worked for us for a few years until we got rolling and we made some money. And now we have a really nice one that has a digital readout and all that stuff.
WAYNE ALLRED:And I mean I think we're highfalutin now you know, that little digital readout, because before you were back here, just kind of eyeball of eyeballing, you would hold up this piece of uh bar that we had bent for the correct angle and you would say oh, yeah, that looks about right.
SHED GEEK:Go with it. You know, send it, send it, just go with it. Yeah, um well, and then, even beyond that, uh, your delivery process. You found some very unique ways to deliver these, so you guys offer delivery on your product now. Now there's some products here that people can just show up and they can load on the trailer. So you'll do. You do hunting blinds really cool hunting blinds. Like you know, you're telling the story about a guy who you know builds just hunting blind windows. When we talk about entrepreneurship, like neither me or you, one knew that that was a job. It's a full-time job for somebody does that all the time across it.
WAYNE ALLRED:I mean I'm I'm searching for windows for my hunting blind and I discovered there's this guy out in torch west texas. I'm going out that way anyway. So I go out there to his place and I go out there and he's got five people in a shop building hunting, hunting blind windows all day. And I'm going, how I didn't just blew my mind. I mean I'm thinking I had no idea someone could make a living even by themselves building hunting blinds windows, much less to hire someone yeah much less to have five people out in the shop.
SHED GEEK:So I mean yeah, you just stumble across different industries, uh, that just blow your mind that, wow, people can make a living doing that I think people find that to be surprising when they end up in the shed industry and they start looking at all the shed hauler events and you know just different things that that happen. They're like what there's? That's a thing. I didn't know that was a thing, because for most people sheds just boils down to like something that's at home depot or lowes and that's it, that's, you know that. That's all they know. But so anyway, to get back to your question, yes, I know I didn't fully answer your question I got derailed for a second there.
WAYNE ALLRED:But um, yeah, one of the things. I didn't grow up in the shed industry, so I don't have a background of you know this is how you haul a shed. So our sheds don't have. Most of our stuff here doesn't have floors in it, so it's just an open bottom. So to haul a shed the traditional way just won't work for us. So what we have to do usually is we'll jack it up on one end we built carts that have four wheels on them and we'll set it on a cart on one end. We'll pick up the other end and then we'll just drive it up on the trailer. When we drive it up on the trailer, we leave it sitting on the wheels on the trailer. When we drive it up on the trailer, we leave it sitting on the wheels. We don't even take the wheels off, we just scratching it down with the wheels on there. When we get to the customer, we'll pick it up and we'll take it right back off the trailer and just drive it right into place wherever the customer wants it.
WAYNE ALLRED:Now, one of the things that's a little bit different that me and you were looking at on the truck out there was that the first big shed that we hauled. We sold a 10 by 16 storage building. Me and Jeremy delivered it out there and we were using one of the big, what I call tractor jacks, the big, tall ones. Well, that thing missed a hole on the way down and it felt like it killed everybody in sight, you know, and that thing just scared me to death. So I thought I just can't have that happening to me or one of my employees.
WAYNE ALLRED:So I went down to Tractor Supply. I bought a trailer jack. We welded an ear on the side of it so that when I stuck that ear under the building and I turned the handle, it would pick the building up and I didn't have to worry about falling on anyone or falling on me. Well, we did that a couple of times and it was pretty good. But I thought, you know, if this is good, what would be better? It would be better if I didn't have to sit there and turn that handle. So we cut the handle off, we welded a nut on and we got our big makita drill out there and we put it on that nut and that jack would just zip right up and down just like nothing.
SHED GEEK:You know, and and I'm not sitting there with my tongue hanging out, cranking on the handle, you know, and and that works because the the weight of the building isn't just incredible yeah, I mean, you don't have to, because it's all metal.
WAYNE ALLRED:Our buildings are super light. Yeah, yeah.
SHED GEEK:Yeah. So you've got dog houses. You've got a couple different styles. You've got chicken coops. You've got different styles of those greenhouses and sheds, so like in traditional storage. You've even got traditional storage where you've put shelving in it all the way around for, you know, those who have Christmas decorations and things like that. It just makes it simple. So you, you, you are in sheds, you're just in metal sheds, but a large part of your product service is really the livestock, whether it's dogs, chicken coops, you know, horses, whatever goats. You've got a lot of different things and you said you've sold quite a few of those. But what's really cool is you've, you've even
WAYNE ALLRED:Sure, I mean all of our stuff. We've had to kind of figure it out. You know there wasn't a set way, you didn't. Just I couldn't even search online and say how do I move this, you know. So we just kind of had to figure it out and a lot of our products come from you know me needing something at home, like I needed a well shed for my. My well shed was getting rotten. I tore it down and I thought I'm not building another. You know we build everything out of metal. I'm not building another wood well shed.
WAYNE ALLRED:So we built a little round top well shed, put a little door in it and a louver on the other side that I can open and close in the winter, and started using that Same with the dog house. We need a dog house at the house. We built an enclosed dog house and put a heater in the back so my dogs stay in a heated dog house during the winter. A lot of our stuff just came out of necessity and before I would take it home I would sell two or three of them off the lot and I would go. I guess other people need that too. And one thing led to another and we just end up with quite the variety of buildings, and we have some that you can come and pick. You bring your trailer and we'll load it on your trailer and you can take it home. And we have the others that we will load and deliver ourselves. So how?
SHED GEEK:how do they move these around, say like a chicken coop, if they've got one? What instrument did you guys create for that?
WAYNE ALLRED:Well, on the chicken coops, it's commonly, you know, in the industry of the chicken coops, the lighter buildings usually call them a chicken tractor, so that you can move it around the yard and things like that. So we put wheels on ours and what we did is, at first we put four wheels on there and what we discovered is, yeah, that's fine if you want to move it in a straight line back and forth, but we had customers breaking the wheels because they would try to turn the building and it would break the wheels or whatever. So we thought, hmm, how can we improve on that? So what we did is we have two wheels in the center, where it's pretty well the center balance. You flip those wheels up and there's handles on the front. You can just grab onto the building and just pull it around and you can spin it around a circle it'll pivot, yeah it'll spin the circle if you want to and then just crank the wheels back down move it to some fresh grass.
WAYNE ALLRED:Uh, there's not a crank, it's a lever. You just move the lever over to this side. The wheel goes down. You pull the lever up to this side. The wheel goes down. You pull the lever up to this side and the wheel picks the building up. So it's pretty simple really.
SHED GEEK:And for the larger ones, you will load these up, though, like we discussed earlier, you'll take them out. I don't know. You've got a delivery radius that you go to or something like that.
WAYNE ALLRED:We deliver up to 75 miles. And then you know, using a mule, but we're using an easy mover we bought. I think we bought it at the trailer shop. Give a little shout-out to them. That thing has been awesome. I mean there's no telling how many buildings we've moved with that thing and that thing has really been awesome. It hasn't let us down yet. I mean, we have used and abused it severely and it just keeps on going and we haven't even had to buy a single part for the machine since we've had it.
SHED GEEK:That's awesome and it's been a few years now and you'll actually that sits on the back of the truck, so you'll just you've built like a little ramp for it.
WAYNE ALLRED:We built a ramp that folds up. We fold our ramp over, fold it down. Just drive it right off the truck.
SHED GEEK:And same thing. Just drive it right back up on the truck. So we're not taking up room on our trailer. I don't want to lose any room, so that we can you know if we have one direction we're going and we can put stack two or three buildings on there. We want to take all we can Now, if you build a really large storage unit that's something that you have, or would call on a shed builder at times to move.
WAYNE ALLRED:I've got a local guy that I call for those. Yeah, yep.
SHED GEEK:Yep to to move. So I've got a local guy that I call for those. Yeah yep, yeah yep. But uh, this thing's really took off. You're really surprised. Uh, you were telling me it, my goodness it just. Uh, you know, you, you get grabbed a couple dealers, they sold a few too, and then I mean, you're just between that and your, your marketing efforts. It sounds like you guys have really the last couple of years has been surprising at how how many customers show up for the product.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yes, it has been Once again. Not having any background in the industry, we didn't know how to advertise. We have learned that on the fly. We're real aggressive on learning things.
WAYNE ALLRED:Rebecca does an amazing job here selling buildings, but I'm always encouraging Rebecca. Rebecca does an amazing job here selling buildings, but I'm always encouraging Rebecca, you can spend time, part of your time at work, spent researching and watching training videos. That's all very productive use of your time, you know, and I encourage you to do those things. But I'm also a big fan of you know, putting something out every single day. You just can't put your stuff out by the road and just sit here in the shop and say, well, they'll come find it. They won't, you've got to get in front of them.
WAYNE ALLRED:So I'm a big proponent of oh, you're always putting something out there every single day of the week. Sometimes it's paid, sometimes it's not, and we have a mix of both and we have a budget and we try to, you know, hit more than one spot. We'll put some on craigslist, we'll put some on facebook, we'll put some on google, and then we're experimenting with other things also. And, of uh, of course, we're going to be hopefully visiting with you about doing some consulting also yeah, we'd love to talk.
SHED GEEK:We appreciate any opportunity we get to to set with folks and we're big proponents of education and I just think that a more educated person makes a better decision. We've got friends all across the industry that we work with and do business with, and we've got friends that we don't do business with, and you know what it's still. Um, I guess you hold your secret sauce close, but outside of that you know what I mean. It's just conversation and, uh, it works out really good. So, yeah, definitely love to talk with you more. I love your products. I, I love what you do.
SHED GEEK:I don't see anyone else doing this and I'm just. You know, I told my son. I said, my goodness, you know they're in Longview, texas. I said I wish it wasn't so far away because I would just drag a trailer load of these things up and I guarantee we'd sell them and I think others would too. So I don't know, watch out, wayne, because you might get some phone calls from some local people or people within a few hundred miles and if they do say, hey, we at least want to know more about these products and see them. You know, I don't know, are you open to that?
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, we've had requests from actually all over the country.
SHED GEEK:Is it okay if I tell you about that? Go for it. The mic is yours.
WAYNE ALLRED:So recently we built the chicken coops and we found pretty good success with those what I call good success. But we're buying a nest box from a company called Best Nest Box. Now I'll give a little shout-out to them. They built an awesome product. But they said hey, if you will do a video showing our nest box and you win the deal for the month, we'll give you know, a percent offer to some best nest boxes and we'll put your video up. So that happened and we didn't know it. They put our video up and you know we won a coupon or something to win some, uh, uh, you know, buy some more best nest boxes. But we didn't know. They put their video up.
WAYNE ALLRED:And then we started getting calls from all over the country wanting to know you know what? Can you ship one over here? Can you ship one here? And we're like no, it's an all-welded, you know chicken coop. We can't just ship an all-welded chicken coop across the country. It would cost as much to ship it as it would for the coop itself, you know. So that's kind of counterproductive. But what's happening? Why are we getting all these calls? And then I discovered that best nest box had put our video on their instagram account and it's like currently up at 900 and something thousand views. So the people all over the country were seeing it and we were getting these calls and so, yeah, we've generated a lot of interest and we really haven't figured out how to um, what to do with that. You know they're it's definitely interesting.
WAYNE ALLRED:But you know, just being interesting and not being able to make money off of it is is another thing right, we're trying to figure out how do we, how do we capitalize on that? You know what do we do with that yeah, it's amazing how, uh.
SHED GEEK:Well, I always say video production is highly underutilized in the sales process anymore. You know, I I do a mixture of zoom calls and I do a mixture of in-person uh, interviews. I always like the in-person interviews. It can't always work, I can't just it's just not always possible to make that happen, but they're more personal. Sitting here with you, you know, seeing the, the race car having that conversation, seeing your shop having those conversations um, that's primary communication.
SHED GEEK:But your secondary communication is being able to visually see something and understand something. It's it's the same reason why amazon tries to give you an accurate description of what you're buying, so you understand it. It's the same thing that is the achilles heel in our e-commerce portion for for sheds, why it makes it hard for somebody to pull the trigger on just buying a shed completely without talking to somebody. You know, but it's, it's. It's usually where their journey begins, like they start searching and the next thing, you know, they call text email, whatever it is.
SHED GEEK:How have you found you're talking about, uh, Rebecca, and she's just top notch. She's already you know she's. You guys got a website and you're you know what I mean Like you're, you're making changes on that regularly. You know you're learning about the marketing side of things whether it's boosting post and understanding the difference between that and like a Facebook ads manager and saying, wait a minute, I thought I was running ads or you know whatever and learning that they're sponsored ads, and then of course there's boosting posts and doing things on marketplace.
SHED GEEK:So the rabbit hole gets deeper, doesn't it? You just keep going down that trail farther and farther. Um, how's that experience been? You mentioned george or buddy george, and how that's went well. You give him a shout out if you want, or I will, uh, but how's that experience? How's that experience went so far?
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, hit that last thing you said when he's saying George, we did contact George at Real Work Labs when you had interviewed him on there and that has helped us a lot. It's got our Google reviews way up and it's helped us uh, learn how to get those google reviews and make it easy for the customer to get a google review. So, uh, give a shout out to real work labs and uh top notch. George is awesome yeah, and it looks great on your website.
WAYNE ALLRED:When people can sit there and look at your website and they can click on those pictures and a picture pops up and it shows you what town it is and what the product was and if they left a google review and what your, what your neighbor said about the building, so I like that also yeah, oh, that's awesome but going back to what you were talking about, about the advertising and things like that, it just me and you were probably a little more old school that if we're going to buy something as major as this, we're going to go touch it, we're going to feel, we're going to look at it, we may even get our tape measure out and stuff like that, but I am just.
WAYNE ALLRED:It just amazes me that people will look at our website or our Facebook page and they will call us. They will buy the shed. They've never seen the shed in person. All they've done is looked at the pictures and they say, yep, that's just what I need. And you deliver it out there. And when you deliver it, that's the first time they've seen it. And that just blows my mind.
SHED GEEK:It's a different world, isn't it?
WAYNE ALLRED:Yes, I can't get a handle on that. But then again, like you said, amazon has trained people that you look online, you look at their reviews, what other people said, because you can trust that more than what the manufacturer says. The manufacturer says oh, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread you know.
WAYNE ALLRED:But they say well, what did your review say about it? You know? So I've learned those are really important and if you get those things right and you put out a good product, you advertise it well, show some good pictures of it, people will buy it. And they've never even laid hands on it. And that, just that blows my mind, because I am so old school, I want to go touch that thing, I want to shake it and you know and say is this really built good? And stuff like that.
SHED GEEK:We're in between. We're in this like this weird time in history where you know especially post-COVID where you had to do so much online even for those who kind of struggle through technology you know it's become a real part of our life, right.
WAYNE ALLRED:Like it or not.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, like it or not, it's one of those things where the rest of the world does it, whether we do it in the shed industry or not. So that's where we've seen, like the explosion of technology over the last five years really hit the shed industry with configurators and just different programs and things. It's, uh, you know, I don't, I don't even necessarily like it, wayne, I'm not, you know what I mean.
SHED GEEK:Like, like you said, we're old school yeah you know, I didn't grow up in, uh you know, on a computer or really in that space, that tech space, my, my son does a much better job than I do of understanding it and adapting to it. But for us, we're, we're, we're in a weird part of history for guys like me and you, where we're like well, I'll, I'll thumb through it, but I'll probably have to mess it up a couple of different times. Um, because it just doesn't come to me as simple and and you're, you're understanding someone else's creation, so the user friendliness of it, the, the interface of the different things, and and those are conversations that we like to have. Whenever you start getting into, like website building and things like that, you want people to have a. You can just go get a website, nothing wrong with that, but you kind of want to flow in a process so that people understand it well and it's user friendly.
WAYNE ALLRED:They don't get mad, and when you get a website, you want to make your website easy to navigate.
SHED GEEK:Right.
WAYNE ALLRED:You know, ours is pretty basic, which I like, and we're also a little bit different in that we're super transparent on what we build and what it costs. If you go to our website, you click on the picture, it takes you to that product and you know immediately this is how much it's going to cost me. I know some would argue well, if you would have them call you, you could sell them, you know, and things like that. I don't like to be sold that way. I like to. I don't like to spend 30 minutes with someone to know that, oh well, I can't really afford that anyway.
SHED GEEK:And I just spent 30 minutes with you.
WAYNE ALLRED:If you would have told me the price to start with, we could have had a lot shorter conversation and you could have been on to someone else, you know that's a good point but that's how I feel and I'm I know I'm a little bit odd in that way, but you know I like just being transparent. Put it out there. There's no secrets. This is what we sell for and I feel like customers appreciate that open, openness and honesty.
SHED GEEK:So what? So what is your, your philosophy? Most people will go to your website or come here and talk to Rebecca. What's your philosophy for whenever somebody buys a PMP structure, I guess what approach do you take whenever they come in? What are the things you want them to know about PMP buildings if they're a customer of yours?
WAYNE ALLRED:Typically we're going to ask and see kind of what their needs are, because sometimes people will come in and they think they want something, but then when they tell you what their needs are, you'll go, well, okay, that would work, but we have something that would be even better, you know, and we'll try to match their needs with. You know what we have and sometimes maybe we don't have just what they need and we may have to, you know, say, well, I'm sorry, we don't build that, but we do a lot of customizing here also. So if they can describe what they want, we build it right here on site. So it's not like it's um, we have to ship it off somewhere and ask, hey, can you do this? No, we know immediately whether we can do it or not and we'll customize and we'll. We try to meet the customer's needs, though um, we're always, you know, we want to meet that need and we want them to be happy and proud of their product when they leave here with it and we deliver it to them. And you know we just want happy, satisfied customers and we will go overboard to do that.
WAYNE ALLRED:Rebecca and Jeremy and the guys will tell you that I want happy customers, because I play on saying, if I was in business short term, then yeah, let's sell, sell, sell, let's get it out the door. But you know, if you're going to be in business for a while and you want to you're going to be in the community and you want to be proud of what you build. You need to build a quality product. You need to treat people good, as if you know if you sent your son up here to buy a product, you know you would have known that he's treated well.
SHED GEEK:That's right and uh, and he left with a good product and stuff. So we try to treat people. You know like we're going to be treated ourselves. If you wasn't so so far away from me, I have my daughter just bought a shed. I said, man, I would have sent her over here. These are, these are awesome. The prices, right, the, the qualities there for what they need. So I love it.
SHED GEEK:Do you think there's? Do you think there's more potential for parts of the shed industry to kind of go this direction towards all metal? I mean, we see what's happening with carports and and all that stuff and the expansion of that. I talked to a guy even on this trip who said my, my shed rep told me you might want to get some carports or something to sell here. It just kind of helps bring in customers and he said, man, it's turned into half our business. So of course I needed to get somebody.
SHED GEEK:But do you think there's more potential? Or or do you think people always, uh, like a portion of them, always like the wood and the aesthetics of all the different things you can do with that if you're willing to pay for it? You know, uh, there's a lot you can do with it, but, but what you got is, man, it's simple. You can mimic the process over and, over and over. You could get them out the door quickly and you can do it price effectively and they last a long, long time. Is there more room for this type of building and what you do to grow in our industry?
WAYNE ALLRED:Well, shannon, I would say that's leveled out more in recent years. At one time the metal was so much more expensive than wood. It just made it cost prohibitive. I tried building some sheds years ago, but the lumber was just so cheap compared to the cost of my metal that I just couldn't be competitive. And now you know, with all the prices that went crazy in the last few years. Lumbers went up. Still went up some too, but it's still.
WAYNE ALLRED:I can build a competitive product with wood. Still went up some too, but it's still. I can build a competitive product with wood and in many cases I can build you a more cost-effective product if you're just looking for a basic shed to store some materials in and things like that. And there's some versatility in ways that I can do things with steel that you can't necessarily do with wood. So the versatility is there. Now the price is effective there.
WAYNE ALLRED:But the deal is I mean, you know you don't turn that ship on a dime and you know, if you've got a whole industry that's always built out of wood and that's always what they've done, you've got, you know, a large segment of the industry that's going to stay with what is known and tried and true, rather than branching off into something new. And also it's another skill set that's required. I mean, I have an applied science degree in welding. That's what I went to college for. A lot of people go to college to, you know, get a degree in whatever.
WAYNE ALLRED:But I think my dad always told me, if you'll get a, you know, if you'll get a trade that you can do, you can go do anything after that, but you've always got to trade that you can always fall back on, you can be good at that thing and you can always make a living if you can do that. I think there is room in the industry for more welded products, for more steel products. But it's going to take some people that are going to be a little creative and think outside of the box and not think, well, I'm going to build a shed, oh well, the first. Oh, I'm going to build a shed, oh well, if I'm going to build a shed, I need to go get some tuba floors, you know, and I didn't have that background so I didn't think that way you weren't skewed to think like that yeah.
WAYNE ALLRED:So my natural inclination was to always build something out of metal.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, I love that man. You're well-spoken too. Among all the things that you're doing you're also well-spoken, so I didn't ask you purposefully. I wanted to save it for the podcast, but I want to know a little bit about this story. The sign that you have hanging up in the back of your shop back here stretches across the width of it. Oh man have I hit a nerve, a good nerve, a bad nerve.
WAYNE ALLRED:No, there's a story behind that you said there was.
SHED GEEK:so I said you know what? I'm not going to ask him and I'm going to see if he'll tell me on the podcast.
WAYNE ALLRED:You made my heart race a little bit, because that's a story I don't tell very much and I don't tell it often because sometimes I get emotional when I tell it and I don't like to do it, so I try to stay away from it. But I'm going to give you the short version, okay. So in about 1996, I'd been in business for about eight years and I thought you know what we're doing good, but I see where we could do better. And I proceeded to buy a huge building. I was in like a 4,000-square-foot building. I bought a building that was 13,500 square feet. I was in like a 4,000 square foot building. I bought a building that was 13,500 square feet. It was huge, hired a lot more people. We upped our business significantly. I had this sign made that if you see it at my shop, it's 40 feet long and it says to God be the glory, great things he has done. And it hung across the front of my shop where everybody driving by could see it. And it hung across the front of my shop where everybody driving by could see it and from all outward appearances, man, we were killing it.
WAYNE ALLRED:We were doing good from outward appearances, but what happened was I unknowingly put myself on a perfection plan. My margins weren't high enough to cover what I was doing and I grew the business so fast that we literally ran out of capital. And, combined with that, some bad things happened in my business. I had one of my shop foremen, died of a heart attack one morning. I had some employees that kind of went off the rails and they stole a bunch of stuff from me.
WAYNE ALLRED:So, combining with, you know, expanding the business too fast and a lot of bad things happening, I was at the end of my rope financially at the end of 1999 and I had to file bankruptcy. So literally I started over from nothing again. I lost most everything I had except my house and some basic equipment that I kept, and I started over and then I would be out in the truck every day with all my guys and we would go build and do stuff and I basically started over then. But I was really. I took that sign down when we lost the building. I rolled it up and that sign hasn't been out for it saved my shop for probably 15 years rolled up in a corner and I wouldn't get it out. I was that ashamed that I had put that sign out and then I disappointed so many people, so it's a. It's a hard story to tell, um, I have it up now.
WAYNE ALLRED:Oh, you're fine, you're good, you're good, don't worry about it, and I have it out now and I'm proud of it because God can do great things and he has done great things. But he had to teach me some lessons and I had a very humbling time in life and time in business. It's not okay to show emotion.
SHED GEEK:That is not okay to, um, you know, throw some dirt on it Right, Shut up and get back out there. If the ball hits you square the nose. You just throw some dirt on it and you keep going.
WAYNE ALLRED:And I know, you know my dad was a country boy, and that's the way you did it.
SHED GEEK:That's right. My dad come from that generation too, and there's nothing wrong with being tough. Being tough's good, it's good quality to have. At the same time, um, you know, god breaks down that toughness through the different things, that, that that he does in us and even as a grown man, the strongest man. That's why it says every, every tongue will confess, every knee will bow, because, no matter how tough we are, uh, he is sovereign, so like uh I I love real emotion.
SHED GEEK:I, I love real events. You know, if we can get excited we just had the super bowl and our pastor would say this he said if we can get excited and jump up and down about a football game, we can get excited about what God's done in our life and we can get emotional about what God's done in our life. And sometimes, if all you can do is cry I even told my pastor that one time. As a matter of fact, we use this and I know it sounds like I'm selling, you know, religion here and I'm not selling religion we use this as a catalyst for how we approach, like marketing conversations. And and I'll tell you why is because I told my pastor one time sometimes I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, I don't, I, you know, all I can do is cry, and he said that's okay. He said the Holy Spirit can discern your tears and that changed my life. I was like holy cow, like he can understand what I'm saying because he understands that that language, that love language of you know, because he knows what my heart's trying to say.
SHED GEEK:Well, we could be on the phone with somebody sometimes and we'll be talking in marketing and I can get this just feeling come over me I'm right or wrong, and I'll just at least ask.
SHED GEEK:I'll say you know, it sounds like you don't know what to ask and it sounds like you don't want to sound foolish in the way that you ask it and in all of your brokenness. Just take it the way you understand it and ask it and let's see if we can decipher what you're trying to ask. So that might be Facebook related, google related. And I tell them look, I'm not the authority, I work with people who, you know what I mean, have that knowledge. Uh, that's what good collaborative efforts do. So, so, and and the last of those questions, and I'll say hey, that's why we all go through. What we go through is because you become a uh, whether it's a professional, but at a minimum you have a testimony and you have a story to tell through that. And I think God's blessed you through every bit of that and I know that you're proud to hang that sign up today.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, god can bring a level of humility in your life that you can't get any other way.
WAYNE ALLRED:And also you don't realize while it's happening why it's happening. But later on I have benefited from what I went through in so many more situations, whether it's been counseling my kids. I serve on the elder board of my church and we've had situations come up there, hard situations, that it didn't really shake me because I have been down to nothing. I've been down to where I have four kids and I have a family to provide for and I'm down to nothing. So I mean you've got to go get it. When it's like that, you know I've been down to where I've got a fan, I have four kids and I have a family to provide for and I'm down to nothing. So I mean you got to go get it. When it's like that, you know, and and and god provided. So I mean in the last 10 years god has used that more in my life than I ever would have imagined. What was a really hard time in my life, you know it's still hard to talk about now as it is.
SHED GEEK:It has served, though, as a catalyst for testimony for you, and uh, what did I say last night? You know, something else the pastor used to say is don't, don't, uh, go through it. You grow through it. Don't be, don't ask to be delivered from every little situation, because I'm I'm teaching you something through this that you're going to use at some point. So sometimes I need you to go through that and understand that the obstacle is the way, and, wayne, sometimes I wonder it's not comfortable though it's not, and I wonder sometimes if I'm even still done.
SHED GEEK:Sometimes I think that I'm still going to be seeing some of these large obstacles in my way in the future and when they are, what's inside of you is what will come out, and that's what, uh, uh. It was henry bondrager that shared this in a facebook post. I was talking about shaking a coffee cup and and if somebody bumps into you, say my coffee spilled or whatever, said it could have been tea, it could have been whatever, but whatever's inside of you whenever you get shaken, that's what's going to show up, uh, in in that moment. And uh, that's why you went through that, so that you could help in that position with your church and help with your kids and things like that. And we all got to just remember that, that we're not being punished. You know when, when we go through the obstacle, the obstacle is the way and it's the direction and the way to help us in the future. I love your testimony, I love your kindness. You have such a uh, uh, just a kind heart about you.
SHED GEEK:We're going to change directions because 45 minutes happens really fast and I told you it would, but I'm going to give you a chance. You didn't write any down, but I'm going to see if you can come up with any. Do you have any questions for me? Podcast shed related? Whatever it is, it really doesn't matter. Open transparency, open mic to ask questions.
WAYNE ALLRED:I'll see if I can come up with an answer instead of, uh, bombarding you with them the whole time you know, um, I I listened to your a lot of your podcast and I hear you ask this question often. So, um, a couple of things I guess I would I would go at go at is how have you felt that your family dynamic has changed, with you and Deanna working together? Because me and whenever I filed bankruptcy and had to start over, I didn't have any to hire a secretary or anything like that Me and Ruby had to work direct with each other and for a while there that was a little bit of a struggle for us to learn how to work together, because when you go to work that's completely different than when you're at home. So I'm just wondering how you're finding the relationship with your family has evolved as you've worked together as a family and doing this podcast.
SHED GEEK:It's a great question. I bet a lot of people in the industry can understand that, because there's a lot of family enterprises out there that do this. I'm lucky enough, you know, to have married up. Me and Deanna started dating when I was 15 years old and you know, we, we saw some suffrage early on in our marriage. Um, you know, even even financially. I always would tell the story we started with 600 bucks, which means that she started with $600, you know cause? I brought nothing to the table. Uh and and um, we lived on love for that first year and and uh lived pretty poor. We lived in a 1972 festival single wide trailer and, uh, she was chasing me one time down the hall and I jumped off the bed, went straight through the floor. We had to save some, use some of the money to replace the floor. So we've, we've, um, we, we've literally grown up together.
SHED GEEK:To be honest with you and um, somebody said something a few years back. They said you know, if you, if you'll just treat your life where you don't put them in different boxes, where you don't put work in a box, church in a box God's over here, work's over here, family's over here but if instead you just let them intertwine, that it changes your life, because then all of a sudden, you know, I don't know a lot of times when we're working and when we're not, because I'm also having fun. Fun, I'm getting to visit folks like you today and sit down and chat and we'll walk through your shop and it doesn't feel like work, because work might feel like, you know, uh, welding something or selling something or hauling something, and a lot of times I don't know uh, but it's changed our dynamic, uh family dynamic, in a big way. We work well together, uh, love having my son whenever he can travel with us. Um, you know, and we've already told our daughter because we've been out for two weeks, hey, we're, we're missing you like crazy and we can't wait to see the grandbaby.
SHED GEEK:But I think it's been good for us. We're a well-oiled machine. We work well together. They just just make me a better person by being around them. So I would be at a big loss without them. You know, we never really had to go through that figuring each other out. We just I don't know, it's just always been maybe a little bit a part of who we are. I almost wonder her answer. I almost want her to get on the microphone and answer that.
WAYNE ALLRED:You know, one of the things that me and Ruby had to adapt to was you know, like you were saying just a minute ago, where does work end and where does you know home life begin and where is church? Because it all becomes intermingled, and it especially should be with folks like me and you that our faith permeates everything that we do. The values that we find there, the morals, the compass for our life comes from our faith. You know, and that's what guides us, and no matter, you don't separate those things into different boxes, because God's in all those boxes and if he's not directing you in all those boxes, then you know. And if I find I'm doing something on my own and I find I'm doing it in my own effort, god usually points that out to me in a way that it's not too successful, or he'll just point out in a way that I'll change directions.
SHED GEEK:I struggled whenever it was coming time to do a podcast. Part of what I struggled with was there's a small part of my life that follows politics, but I try not to let it overwhelm me, but there's definitely a part of my life that was very faith driven and I was like man, how am I going to be able to talk about sheds? And it's just almost hard to keep God out of the picture at any time, and I shouldn't want to, and I sort of. I think I struggled through that because I too have been at the end of my rope and I'm not going to upstage your testimony here today, but I know what it's like. I know it's like, so I've been there and I think that once you've been there and you feel like you have no purpose and nowhere left to go and and and. Every day is a blessing, every day's up. I always like to tell people it doesn't matter how bad a day you can have, because I can recall the day in my life where they don't get any worse than that so.
SHED GEEK:So for me, um, I would just say you, you have to find a way to live your life with all of those things present. Yeah, you're selling sheds or building sheds here today, but how many times has a shop guy come in and maybe they're having marital problems or financial problems or what it is, and you just offer counsel that day? Yeah, you're providing a job, you're providing work, but let's be honest, the higher calling of what you were supposed to do there today was something totally different. You recognize it?
WAYNE ALLRED:you know, the folks I have the most direct contact with would be, uh, rebecca, who does our sales, and jeremy, who runs the shop here and um, you don't realize, but I mean they will tell me later on. I maybe said uh, and whether it was a act of kindness or something that they picked up or they see the way I do something, they'll tell me it had an impact and I don't really realize that's happening in the moment when it's happening. But you know, you just try to be purposeful in those things and, and you know I've tried to be realized that uh, yeah, the people around me, they, they do see it and hear, uh, what's going on and they and they do pick up on it. You know whether it's good or bad and uh, you know, you got to remember, as a business owner, you have a direct influence over everything that happens under you.
SHED GEEK:Yeah, absolutely. That couldn't be said enough. Um, I hope that permeates with some, with some folks here today and maybe even myself, but so I've got another followup question. Yeah, go for it. Go for it.
WAYNE ALLRED:So the other question I had is I know a little bit of your testimony because I've heard enough of the podcast and stuff and I know that one time that you worked with a uh and maybe you can fill me in a little bit better on what this was was but maybe a home or a ministry that worked with the alcoholics and stuff right and um, I was wondering what are you doing nowadays that you would consider, uh, more ministry work outside of your podcast? Is there anything that you know lights your fire and gets you excited, uh, to work with?
SHED GEEK:so. So hebrews 13 3 says be with those in prison, as though you're in prison yourself, and two-thirds of the new testament bible was written from prison, right? So you know, uh, paul and silas's story, you know is is is amazing, um, you know, to be able to celebrate, even in prison. And and I I am passionate about, you know, recidivism. I really hate the idea that that america houses 25 of all the world's prisoners, and I think that we just got to figure that out, because you got to figure out if that's morality. You know, like 80% of those are nonviolent. You know, 600,000 people get released from prisons all the time, and what I've found is that, for the most part, that's an epidemic of addiction, that, if you start chasing the numbers back, it seems to be that addiction ruins so many lives, um, whether it's alcohol, drugs, you know, so, um, there's there's so many more addictions out there as well too, but those are the the common ones that we talk about, and and I did I worked at paducah lifeline ministries.
SHED GEEK:Uh, a year, loved my time there. It was one of the closest years I could ever recall that I had with the Lord, and it was an awesome time to be there and just to be able to serve Me and Dylan's even talked about this at some point trying to be able to find a way to tithe because I was tasked with getting an addiction recovery center started and, um, I don't know, can the shed industry do something related to that? Maybe, maybe I'm just, you know, uh use the old phrase, I'm waiting on god and maybe he's waiting on me. I don't know. Uh, maybe there's something I'm not hearing or should be doing, but I feel like it's. It's coming eventually, uh, around the corner.
SHED GEEK:At some point I'll have a clear vision on what it is and and maybe how to act it out. But I just, at the heart of it, I just wanted to see dads being dads and be home and be present, moms being, you know, moms, and be able to be home and be present. And I and I think I've seen where drugs have stolen enough of that away from our communities and it affects so many other things, like not just jail and prison, but I mean, you know, theft and like all these different things and circles in our industry I just doesn't think us we're not living up to what God wants us to be.
SHED GEEK:So I don't have anything directly to answer your question, but it's always larking in the back of my mind that there should be more. And maybe he put me in this industry to help serve a need there somehow. I don't know. But I don't know what's coming, but I'm ready for it, I guess at some point.
WAYNE ALLRED:So you said something there reminded me of something you said. We're getting towards the end here and I feel like I've been a little serious and I and I've got a funny story, if you've got time for it for a quick funny story.
SHED GEEK:You got it, you got it.
WAYNE ALLRED:So this mixes business and faith and stuff like that and what you're talking about. I had a guy that I had hired that had some problems with drugs and he needed a ride to work. So one of the guys had given him a ride to work and I was working with him, you know, and we'd hold him accountable and things like that. But one day he said I don't have a ride home from work today, boss, I wonder if I can borrow one of the work trucks. And I said well, you know, he gave me a lot of cautions. You drive a ride home, you don't go anywhere else, you're here on time and everything All good. So the next day he shows up for work and he comes in my office and he says, boss, you're never going to believe what happened. But he said you've got to be kidding me. No, you know, yes, they stole all the tools off the work truck.
WAYNE ALLRED:And I just looked at him and I said, man, I feel bad for whoever got those tools. And he said well, what do you mean? I said those weren't my tools. He said, well, whose were they? I said those were God's tools. I said I gave all my stuff to God and he owns all my stuff and I just and I use it, but I've given all my stuff to God, so it's God's tools.
WAYNE ALLRED:So whoever stole those tools, god's going to take care of them. So I didn't say anything else about it, I just lifted that. And he, he goes out in the shop and he comes in and he says I think I might know where those tools are and what had happened. He had fallen off the wagon the night before. He had pawned the tools. We went around and gathered them up, but he was scared to death because he had a grandmother that taught him about faith and about God and while he wasn't really active in his faith, he knew there was a god and he knew that. You know, uh, god was serious about things and it just scared him to death what god was going to potentially do to him for stealing those tools.
SHED GEEK:The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the lord right so like it's, uh, it's, you know that's it's wise to to teach them young and uh, yeah, I love your story.
WAYNE ALLRED:I love that. I know I didn't have anything else to say. No, I love it. They're just kind of a little funny little story that kind of ties all those things together. That's what we're talking about.
SHED GEEK:That's what we want on the podcast. We can talk about sheds and we can talk about the intricacies of of all the shed building and all that, but when it boils down to it, it's people and it's stories like that that probably resonate with people the most. Sometimes they're the phone calls I get the most. It says, hey, who's that fella you had on that told that story. I love that story and I'm like, hey, call him up, call him up and talk to him, tell him you love that story because that that makes their day. Uh, and I think that's ministry at work. Uh, honestly, wayne, a lot of times, if we're just doing that, I love the story and uh, and I love that he felt the conviction to come forward with that. And uh, you can't tell me god doesn't have a sense of humor, can't tell me he doesn't have a sense of humor because that's uh all you had to do. And he says, yeah, I think I found those tools I love it.
SHED GEEK:Well, hey, I appreciate you sitting down with me today. We've got more to talk about love chat with you Maybe we can grab lunch if there's time. I don't know, but definitely, definitely have enjoyed today more than I expected I would. We're a fan of prayer on the podcast. Are you big on leading prayer? Sure, I don't mind. If you don't mind, I'll tell you what let's close in prayer. All right, I'm going to try to take my hat off.
WAYNE ALLRED:Yeah, that's fine, go for it. We're not in cowboy church so I'm going to take my hat off. Lord, just thank you for Shannon and his family. Thank you for what they do and for the travel and how they don't hide the name of Jesus and aren't afraid to talk about the gospel. So we so appreciate that we pray for those that are working in the shed industry. As we so appreciate that we pray for those that are working in the shed industry as leaders, we have folks under our care, that we have the opportunity to influence some that are maybe struggling like Shannon has talked about earlier. That we have the potential to be that older man maybe in their life that can lead them in the right direction and point them towards you, lord. So we pray for the strength and the boldness to do that, and I pray that you bless Shannon and his family as they continue to travel, give them safe travels and praise your holy name.
SHED GEEK:Amen, amen. I appreciate you being on today. It's been a blast.
WAYNE ALLRED:It's been fun and, like you said, that time went by. It felt like it was 15 minutes.
SHED GEEK:And I hope you didn't feel like pressured in any way.