Strategies, Challenges, and Future Insights with Richard Mashburn-Part 2

Discover the incredible power of collaboration and expertise-sharing in the shed industry! Join us as we continue our chat with Richard Mashburn, who passionately discusses how genuine efforts to help others can lead to remarkable success. Learn how step-by-step guidance on social media and a dedication to assisting newcomers can foster a supportive and thriving community. This episode will leave you inspired to share your knowledge freely and embrace the values of passion and integrity for true growth.

Facing off against corporate giants like Home Depot and Lowe's might seem daunting, but we've got strategies to help local businesses not only survive but thrive! Hear our compelling conversation on leveraging local presence and superior customer service to carve out a niche market.

Dive into the digital realm with Richard Mashburn as we unpack critical topics like building trust, effective delegation, and the nuances of digital marketing. Understand the importance of an online presence and how to adapt to changing consumer behaviors to stay ahead of the curve. We emphasize the value of clear communication and trust-building in explaining complex services and offer actionable tips for capturing local market share. Celebrate the collaborative spirit with us through engaging dialogue and personal anecdotes that highlight the importance of consistent communication and mutual respect in the industry.

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

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Transcript

Shed Geek: 0:08

Welcome back to part two of two with Richard Mashburn. Stay tuned to today's exciting conversation and wrap up from last Wednesday's episode. Susan -Shedgal and Samb just entered the chat. how much of it can

Shed Geek: 0:27

you take, but how much can you give away? And I have two personalities here that I feel like already do a lot of what we do. They create a lot of content, and it's like, man, wouldn't this make sense if we were doing this together, instead of we weren't fighting each other? But it's like is it collectively, is it holistically better to kind of have these conversations, offer your content, offer your value we talked about when you called the other day about coming in.

Richard Mashburn: 0:55

Yeah, and I made the comment when he said you were coming, Susan with him, and I said I found it very enlightening. Not only did I agree with your position, but your willingness to step up into multiple social media platforms and list step-by-step instructions of how you started your organization.

Susan Frair: 1:15

Yeah.

Richard Mashburn: 1:15

In very simple terms, very actionable and. I literally grabbed my young gentleman here and said read this and pay attention. This is not complicated, it was join 100 groups, post every week. I mean I can quote it back to you.

Speaker 5: 1:32

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's something.

Richard Mashburn: 1:34

I'm trying to go through and I'm going, but that was a very open sharing of expertise that in a lot of instances takes years and you were answering someone's question that admitted they were new, yes, and I saw the detractors in the first four or five comments and and then I saw the four pitches from you know, shane, geek marketing and all that to pay for their service.

Richard Mashburn: 1:56

You cut that out later but you know again, you know that the advice was and I felt like and I made the comment to Shannon then that was a very open offering for somebody that knew an intense amount of value if they paid attention Absolutely, and it was just out there and it was to be digested. You know, and again, it's not that they couldn't have figured it out on their own, but so many people if you just give them a few step-by-step instructions, it was like teaching a hauler. There's some techniques that you don't learn until you got the scars. You know on your knees and stuff setting them up. But if you get them with the right person in the beginning, you can save them months worth of pain and suffering and damage to their equipment and you and you kind of go.

Richard Mashburn: 2:39

Those are just the basics and giving that stuff away to help somebody succeed to me seems like the more logical way to approach it. But you know, I admitted to all of y'all at breakfast this morning. You know I wasn't 60 days into my own lot and I felt that possessiveness of knowledge you know, it was like I don't want to give this away. That might go down the street you know, and it's like I don't know.

Richard Mashburn: 3:01

I really feel like that's important and I do believe. You know you used the term this morning. You know, shannon, it won't be blessed unless I do it for the right reasons. You know, I believe there's going to be some people not so blessed and I think there's an opportunity for people to receive a lot of blessings if they actually think about how they're going to approach it, because it's not going to get easier in the near term.

Susan Frair: 3:32

I agree with that too.

Shed Geek: 3:33

I can almost, can, almost ad lib there to tell you I think you know some people who not just listen but explore and change yourself so much. I struggle with what to say sometimes on the podcast. That might surprise you, even if we have our finger on the edit button. But you know, I even talked about names, urls, getting bought up around, shed, geek, um, lots of them, and I was like oh wow, and I was like I didn't understand that I actually got two of them back because I was looking for them.

Shed Geek: 4:02

I haven't even bought them yet I know I gave them back to you and it wasn't susan, but I was pleasantly surprised to actually get a text message one day that said I bought two of those and I want you to know that I'm releasing those. And, uh, that was really immature of me to do that. Um, because, because people have experienced those scars in this industry where it's like, well, that's a business opportunity. But let's be honest, unless you are harvesting urls at five thousand to a thousand urls and just waiting on those things to sell, you're doing that for the intention of not letting the other person see growth. And so many people in this industry have seen those little, small things like that. Hey, this gentleman who who said this? God bless him because I hope that it it reaps rewards because of that situation. But because people have experienced those small and even, in his words, petty things, like we're on guard and, like you said, 60 months in, and you're kind of possessive of that information because someone will take it and run with it, you can't replace passion, like you can't do it. You know the dream's free the hustle, sold separately, right? You know what I mean. So, unless you're, you can't do it. You know the the dream's free, the hustle sold, sold separately, right? You know what I mean. So unless you're gonna actually do it.

Shed Geek: 5:09

So people say all you know, I've talked about the podcast. What if we do a podcast? Do it, your passion will drive you to do it. If you do it, and you do it well, it calls me to improve, to be better. Right same with the rent-owned company or shed company or anything you're doing. Just go do it and do a good job and be passionate about it and do it for the right reasons. And if you will, it'll be blessed. But if you don't I'm not asking anyone to bless it and I just don't think it will be if you don't have pure intentions, and I think we've. We've experienced some of that and this is probably a rabbit trail, but gosh, we've all experienced a little bit. But that in the shed industry, the Bit of that in the shed industry, the gentleman's agreements, the this, the that, that fell through, the whatever, and there's like this scorn and it's like how do we be better as an industry.

Richard Mashburn: 5:50

They go back to the valuations thing. How do I put value on your number one performing lot when you have a handshake rent agreement and I don't know that the new landlord's going to like me? Yeah, how do I value that lot in my value.

Richard Mashburn: 7:21

But the other thing is like you brought up like URLs, that's that scale thing and people sitting back and really. But the other thing is like you brought up like URLs, that's that scale thing and people sitting back and really. And it's hard when you're day-to-day in your own lot and doing all these things or your own plant and bring your eyes up. You know there was a famous Billy Crystal skit called the White Man's Overbite and he was talking about teaching people to dance. You know, and he was talking about high school dances. You know when you start dancing, you know, and he was talking about high school dances. You know when you start dancing.

Susan Frair: 7:47

You know, at first you're staring at your feet and shuffling back and forth. You know, I was just literally picturing. Yeah, this is more of a visual. Yeah, I guess, but you know.

Richard Mashburn: 7:51

And then when you get better at it, you start looking up and making eye contact with your dance partner, and then you know when you, when you get better at it, you start realizing that you're leading your dance partner and you're not necessarily looking at them. But then the short version of the example was the greatest ballroom dancers they don't even look at each other anymore.

Richard Mashburn: 8:10

They stare at the audience because they are entertaining the world around them, and we used to teach that as a management philosophy. When your day-to-day keeps you staring at your feet, you never see what's in front of you and the people that you're working with. Then you have to get to the point that you're seeing them while maintaining that movement and you see the people immediately that you need every day. But if you're going to ever truly master what you do, you have to get to the point that you're all so in sync that you're just flowing fluidly and you're realizing that you're moving and entertaining a world around you that is beyond you. And you mentioned things like URLs.

Richard Mashburn: 8:42

There are people actively harvesting URLs in this industry at a huge rate, but they have nothing to do with the existing current owners. Are you really going to beat Home Depot's marketing team to a shed related? And unfortunately, the people that react and take these bad karma scenarios are doing it at such a minor scale. They're still staring at their feet. They haven't looked up to see around them that you know the boogeyman under the table and out on the horizon is something way bigger than what they were thinking about. And I agree, you've got to get to where you're moving back and forth. You know, the first thing is get your butt off the wall and get on the dance floor. The second is is you got to start shuffling and a?

Shed Geek: 9:31

lot of people are shuffling, but there it is. You got to learn QuickBooks. Yeah, then you got to learn, but once you do that and you start going.

Richard Mashburn: 9:37

You know, is my team cohesive? Do they know? And have they reached a point that they function without me constantly leading? They're flowing with me together and we're in sync. At that point then both of us can look around us and then you know that's where true innovation comes from. We see it and we get beyond it. But you have to get to that stage and I think that's the big struggle. The day-to-day is still so difficult in the industry because of systems that are incohesive and education and knowledge that is readily available.

Richard Mashburn: 10:10

You know, let's face it, we don't really have an institute or an organization, we don't have a publicly traded, we don't have a trade association or any of those things. And I'm not necessarily condoning, I know it gets talked about at every major gathering of any type, but it's like like, where do we finally get to the point that we can get beyond staring at our feet or just trying to better the peoples that we're dancing with, to where we can focus on what's truly out there? Because I think there are things in the environment right now we need to be prepared to deal with. And that's where, like, how do I help sam and susan's new entity where it still benefits me, because in the end we're going to be competing with somebody that has robotic assembly systems can undercut my pricing?

Richard Mashburn: 10:51

by 20% in a national distribution chain and marketing firms out the wazoo that I would fire most of them because they're not really doing what they say, and that's my advantage. I believe in what I do, I have passion about it and I'm going to own my local market, and that's. That's the strength I have passion about it and I'm going to own my local market and that's the strength I have to build now, while it's still effective.

Susan Frair: 11:09

You're speaking my language.

Sam Byler: 11:11

Two key things in there passion and local market. Yes, I don't care how big Home Depot gets, I don't care. And you know, I actually found out through this very rabbit trail one night how much bigger Home Depot is than Lowe's. That blew me away. I had no, I had no idea that home depot was, first of all, even larger than lowe's. Um, everywhere I've ever lived, lowe's is bigger and it's yeah, you're talking four to one almost I had no idea.

Richard Mashburn: 11:41

Until right now I was like they own. All their real was like they own all their real estate.

Sam Byler: 11:44

Yeah, and they own all their real estate.

Shed Geek: 11:46

Lowe's doesn't even own all theirs that intense focus on customer service, rolling out the plans that they did a couple of years ago.

Sam Byler: 11:52

And it is noticeable.

Shed Geek: 11:54

Now we've got.

Richard Mashburn: 11:55

The shed volume is skewed even more than the distribution volume.

Sam Byler: 11:59

Yeah, but my point is, I can beat them locally.

Shed Geek: 12:09

I want to talk about that almost, but I, you know I, since it's publicly traded, I think I can. I heard somewhere in the neighborhood of uh 40 billion to like a hundred and something billion total sales. Yeah, yeah.

Richard Mashburn: 12:17

Thank you.

Shed Geek: 12:18

Yeah, like pretty pretty, but that's publicly traded, so I'm just keeping myself, keeping myself out of the courtrooms here.

Sam Byler: 12:26

But what I'm saying is you can, through your brand, your service, your local presence, especially if you're a local boy and you hire local guys, you can still take on corporate America and win.

Richard Mashburn: 12:45

I think Ace Hardware is a decent comparison in the example we're talking about yeah it is, it's still local ownership community-based. They maintain part of the name White Jones right here. Sam and I grew up in the same neighborhoods, basically without knowing each other, and it's like White Jones Hardware was just a standpoint.

Sam Byler: 12:59

You could say White Jones, and we already know where you're going.

Richard Mashburn: 13:03

And now they're all Ace Hardwares, but they didn't go away and they struggled for a long time and almost went under, you know, with the big boxes, but now they've had this resurgent, where Ace comes in and provides, you know, product purchasing, national materials, stuff like that, but they maintain the local flavor and feel, you know, and that's an important thing, and I think that still allows for competitiveness, you know. I do think, though, there has to be somebody with resources helping fix some of the mundane day-to-day problems for people, yep, and I think that's where that kind of collaborative franchise or branding or whatever becomes more of an important nature.

Richard Mashburn: 13:45

I didn't realize now that I say that out loud after y'all's post the other day, I'm playing right into y'all's world.

Sam Byler: 13:50

Y'all got me man, you fed me a biscuit at breakfast.

Richard Mashburn: 13:54

Now I'm hazed over with carb load and I'm like man. I turned into an infomercial for you guys.

Sam Byler: 13:59

He latched onto that in a hurry.

Shed Geek: 14:01

I'll tell you what I don't get caught off guard. I just want to be able to publicly say that at some point, we're doing your, your marketing. That's all.

Sam Byler: 14:08

I want to be able to say so he could beat you.

Shed Geek: 14:11

That's a 31st one he fired man, I you know what it's it's. Maybe it's worth the risk right.

Sam Byler: 14:17

It would be, I agree.

Shed Geek: 14:18

I'm after him.

Richard Mashburn: 14:25

I'm after him pretty hard. So so much of it is just you know, it's the doing of it and you know, again, I applaud salespeople. I'm a career salesperson, you know. But some of the services you know, even outside the shed industry. You know marketing firms and, unfortunately and fortunately, traveled the country and heard the story over and over and over again. You know, and I talked to shed pro and idea room and some of these people about it and they responded in certain ways going if you knew how many dealers I knew that had sacrificed thousands of dollars to a local web developer on a site that never went live or didn't go, I mean just tons and tons of hard-earned money for good local small businesses that just got eaten alive by people paying a thousand dollars a month hosting fees

Shed Geek: 15:00

yeah, just and you're just like oh, I didn't know, that was like I didn't know, that was a thing I didn't know into one pan almost five percent credit card processing fees.

Richard Mashburn: 15:09

You know, and they were at scale now. You know they were over a million dollars a year in sales. You know, and you kind of go wow you know there's just, you know, just small areas where you could go pick up two or three percent here, better functionality there, things like this through a cohesive opportunity.

Shed Geek: 17:15

We spend a lot of time in the customer acquisition phase. So, like you know, build a home like me and Sam was talking. Build a home, you're going to spend a lot of time with them. Sell a shed, you're going to spend a minimal amount of time. So you try to get your qualifications out of the way quickly and you get, you get things done.

Shed Geek: 17:30

But we, what we've learned, is, like you know, one guy finally broke it down to me you just keep saying S-C-OC-R-M-S-O-S. I don't know whatever everything else you're saying, and it doesn't mean anything to me until you explain what those things are. And then you've got to like, allow them to ask, in their broken language, their questions, like okay, well, what do you? You know, like like when you get somebody say hey, I want a website, you're like cool, custom coded website hasn't been touched in 12 years. Next thing, you know the hosting's ending on that or whatever. And they're like I need a new website. Sticker shock. Oh, no, it's not. You know what I mean $1,500, like it was five years ago, or whatever. And then all of a sudden you end up in this whole other conversation where they're like by the way, when you finish that website, go ahead and make that top on Google's list whenever people are looking for it for me. Thank you so much. We'll see you later.

Shed Geek: 18:21

And it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. I really I just realized all of a sudden he doesn't understand the process. Then we had to go down this conversation of seo and on page and off page and all these different things, and they're just like hey, you're talking foreign to me. It just doesn't make any sense, like I just want you to get it up on top of the list. I'm like you and 19 million other users want to get on top of that list.

Shed Geek: 18:43

That's, you know, for those keywords, that's not. It doesn't work that way. So that so we just started saying ask me in your brokenness. It'd be equivalent to me going in sam's shop and he'd be like all right, we're gonna put this truck together right here, and I'd be like we do this wire thingy. What's what's going on here? You know what I mean. I need to be able to ask questions like that instead of sam being like you know, don't you know? That's the break line. And I'm like no, I didn't know that we would have threw that out. You just have to. You just have to really take the time to explain to people and I think if you do that and then you build that trust factor, then then I think you can sell it gives you permission Using your example, though, and Sam and I can joke about it later.

Richard Mashburn: 19:25

If I pull a Tesla into Sam's shop, that's a foreign thing. There's some common components, but right now, all of a sudden, I'm running into stuff. I started making phone calls in January and I'm going what is going on on meta? And they're like oh, it changed January one and everything. I'm like.

Susan Frair: 19:44

This makes no sense and as soon as you learn it, it's going to change.

Richard Mashburn: 19:48

Yeah, I'm like good Lord, this is just mind numbing. In the pace of you know, all the desktop QuickBooks users got kicked on to QuickBooks Online and then Online did auto self-categorization. It's like what All of a sudden things quit working the way that they were and they're changing at a pace. A lot of us it's hard to be out there trying to just do the day-to-day and stay, so you do need expert help in certain areas.

Richard Mashburn: 20:17

I don't need to self-diagnose this lump on my knee. You know I need to get somebody that's a professional to come help me with it. But then there's the cost standpoint.

Sam Byler: 20:25

You know, how do I then?

Richard Mashburn: 20:26

afford what I'm doing and how I go about it. But I think the rapidness of that change is one of the hardest things and it may not catch and it may not last. But the one thing we can count on is it will change. It'll change from that to something else to something new and how do we evolve and do it?

Shed Geek: 20:42

It seems like the key book I read recently made reference to this, like the key to scalability is the power of delegating and letting go. It's like you're only one person in the day with the same amount of 24 hours, that everybody else has to be able to make the best decisions, and it's decisions that takes you from a thousandaire to a millionaire to a billionaire. It theoretically at least in my perspective. So you have to start pulling on other people. You have to start trusting other people to do certain things because you're just not capable to do all of them. You want to have as much control over it as you can, but the, the key is letting go, and it's always going to get a little farther away.

Shed Geek: 21:20

If you play the telephone game, you've seen this the, the original oh boy picture gets so far away from management by the time it travels through so many different people. But you have to be. You have to be able to let go, to delegate, to be able to scale. So you're going to have to trust people with certain.

Richard Mashburn: 21:37

What is the skill? The thing I see is, you know it's the decision-making process on the partners that you choose. Either you have to have enough technical knowledge, which is, like my opening.

Richard Mashburn: 21:50

I'm trying to gain at least functional knowledge of all the systems so that when I do start delegating and hiring people, I understand if somebody's actually answering the questions correctly and honestly yeah, you know, or you have to just be a really dynamic, and I think some of the most unfortunate stories you hear are people that did put that trust in just to the wrong person or entity. Yeah, you know, and they didn't understand the red flags to look for. And then you get somebody that knows you know. You know, if I call sam over to look at my truck and go man, I hired this great mechanic and I thought he was wonderful and tam goes, you know, there's no engine in that truck, right?

Shed Geek: 22:24

you know, I was wondering why it wasn't running sam. You know, and it's like you know, for you it's just so obvious. That's why we I didn't know what you needed.

Richard Mashburn: 22:30

It's why we're so protective of of the brand personally, you don't want to give up these things, but at the same time, how do you develop a skill set? You know, I've got great sales manager here and he's got an expertise in different fields, but if I go, let him hire drivers he doesn't know what he's looking for.

Shed Geek: 22:47

Yet we're a small enough industry that word travels so quickly um, we've been really protective of the brand and and like we've turned down jobs or turned away certain work because we're just like it's not the right fit.

Richard Mashburn: 23:00

Cause. I would say to that you know, my frustration is why do you see the bad actors resurface over and over and over again? Because somebody is willing to buy into the story, because they don't know, and and I think that's that's one of the things there is an accountability that you either have to eventually say the market will correct itself and take care of them. You know or not, you know, and then you become the used car dealer.

Shed Geek: 23:28

Yeah, well, we've. We've lived on our brand, so we want to protect it, we want to build it as trust. Sam's lived on a brand.

Sam Byler: 23:34

Susan's lived on a brand for a long time, like being able to do this together is really awesome, but I get calls every day from people wanting a reference on somebody, and I don't mean to be rude, I really don't, but I just about will not give a reference on anybody.

Sam Byler: 23:53

And I tell them right up front. I'm like, look, this has been my experience, but I'm not telling you that you should use this guy or that you should not use this guy. Now, if I have an experience, then I'm happy to share that or whatever. But I've got guys that get mad at me because they're like, well, you didn't really tell me anything. Sorry, but it goes back to what the conversation I had with you yesterday and man, this guy the true form of a leader in learning every part of his game.

Speaker 5: 24:29

Man my hat's off to him.

Sam Byler: 24:30

Because to be willing to put in the dirty work to understand how all parts of your company work is huge to me. I'm an old Amish boy that works on trucks but I do my own taxes and I have since I was 17 years old.

Sam Byler: 24:45

That doesn't mean I don't trust the CPA. I just know that I have more years and experience in my business than they do and what works for me works for me. Now I'm not saying you don't go trust the CPA, but don't go trusting any CPA. I've had guys that came and told me they use the IFTA company to do their, their IFTA taxes and they were paying $1,700 a quarter. You know how much you should be paying a quarter $17 max. You should never pay a hundred dollars a quarter on IFTA. That's just one little small item that you know. Well, I'm a mechanic. I shouldn't even know that. Well, I learned that because I own my own business, you know.

Speaker 5: 25:21

I finally did something.

Sam Byler: 25:22

The other day that I've never done before. I went and got my own LLC done and I got my own EIN number. I might have actually paid more for my EIN number than I was supposed to because I might have accidentally used the company, but it still went from $1,100 to have it done to 500 bucks, and what I'm saying is back to what we were talking about on. You're pushing the marketing side to go with your rent to own and I wholeheartedly agree. But I did not buy that at the start because I didn't understand it.

Sam Byler: 25:57

I'm like ah, shannon's just looking for a way to not pay 5%. But I understand marketing enough to know that if $4,000 a month of my marketing budget makes me $40,000, why am I not spending $40,000?

Shed Geek: 26:13

I understand it well enough to say if it's costing you money, then you're doing the wrong thing, because it should be making you money the way. I've tried to explain it to people recently is like you don't have marketing, cool, Then you don't have a two by four to build a shed.

Sam Byler: 26:24

That's exactly right. What do you mean?

Shed Geek: 26:25

Well, you're investing in a two by four to sell the shed. You're investing in marketing to make you money. It's not supposed to cost you money, of course there's an investment. What it's costing you the five percent. If somebody comes in and just tossed you five percent, says I want you to stay with me, I get it. They're fighting for their business. You know what I'm saying? Like I'll give you six percent if they give you five or whatever. But it's like when is somebody going to come in and do something service-based?

Shed Geek: 28:16

We thought about going with the divisor change and it was like we could probably soak up business for a small time. You know, because you'd start get some, some regional stuff and the payments would be so cheap they could sell man. The bottom line on that was so bad and people understood it even less it was like we want to save your customer money. That's all it boils down to. But they're like I don't trust you. Where's the catch, you know? And it's like, no, we're going to make less money in order to do that. Well, that's the 200 guy in the holler conversation, right? You don't want to be the 200 guy, because every rto guy is going to look at you and be like I'll never listen to this podcast again, right, and instead I'm over here going come on here and talk about it with me instead.

Shed Geek: 28:54

You know what I mean? Like then educate me. Or you know, ministry works both ways. But yeah, I, we've had to take the time to people to explain it. So we've increased our customer acquisition and now we're almost doing consultation for free.

Shed Geek: 29:06

It's like, are you ready for an hour phone call whenever you want to talk about marketing? Because they just call you up and be honest with you, they're not the right customer. If they call you up and they're like, I want this, this, this, they start making a lot of demands and they're not listening. You, you're just like there's four or five other companies. You know what I mean, that you should call. But if you take the time and be like, okay, explain it, explain how it works, explain how the website works, explain the difference in a GoDaddy site and a Wix site and a WordPress site and, you know, maybe, explain the difference in SEO and on-page and off-page and CRMs and drip campaigns and UTM parameters and I'm talking out of my head here now, because I love to use words like UTM and GA4 and Metapixels. But if you said, go, install that, I'd be like Dylan.

Richard Mashburn: 29:47

Dylan, I need your help. Dylan, where are you at? I've never asked this and I don't know, but the biggest challenge I always had with those type of things is those are all great subjects, but they're not the end of the cycle. And where I found, from my perspective, why I wasn't aggressive with as many marketing firms as I was at RTO National. We launched project after project after project. We gave websites away.

Speaker 5: 30:15

Built them and gave them. We did marketing for people for free.

Richard Mashburn: 30:20

And we couldn't get them to respond to the leads, we couldn't get them to maintain.

Shed Geek: 30:23

Oh yeah, we've had this conversation. You've opened up a whole can of worms there, and to my point we opened up this conversation.

Richard Mashburn: 30:31

Why do I feel like I'd be successful is because four of the six lots down the street I go visit are empty.

Richard Mashburn: 30:40

So again again selling someone marketing that doesn't know when I get the lead what I'm gonna do with it, and I do believe that's the piece of when you think about. You know the four great disciplines of the industry. You know there's the manufacturer, there's the dealer, there's the hauler and there's the payments provider and you kind of go. Everything else supports one of those core disciplines. It's hard to come up with an imaginable entity that does all four well or has a cohesive system for all four well and that's because everybody started as one of the above, but I still go back to and I have that same fallacy.

Richard Mashburn: 31:12

I'm a salesperson but I was talking to a manufacturer yesterday and they're having this discussion with me and I'm going. The failure is you're still thinking like a manufacturer and he goes well, why is that a problem? I said it's not a problem and it's not a bad thing. It's what you do. But if nobody's selling what you're building, there's nothing to build. Yeah, if nobody's selling what you're building, there's nothing to haul. If nobody's selling what you're building, there's's nothing to do payments on. And so often and I do see there's an interest in paying for marketing and getting better websites and having a 3D configurator and learning social media and doing those things, but there's still a lack of commitment to following through with the basics.

Richard Mashburn: 31:57

You got to be there. You got to answer the lead. You've got to respond. You've got to do these. You've got to answer the lead, You've got to respond. You've got to do these things. And going and paying. It's like right now. I told you point blank the first time we talked I would love to go ahead and pay for some marketing. I'm not ready to digest the lead flow at scale, yet my couple thousand dollars a month I'm spending right now is selling what we're able to run through the system today while I'm learning.

Shed Geek: 32:23

And everybody's learning. We've had that situation a couple times where people just aren't even ready because they're like we can't build them fast enough, so we don't need to sell them right now. We're already seeing success, right.

Richard Mashburn: 32:34

But stick to it because most marketing firms, most CPAs you said you know, build a house, I get a relationship.

Richard Mashburn: 32:40

I build a shed, I do a transaction, but they a cpa wants to finish your taxes, get paid for your taxes and close it. It's not about doing what's best for you, it's about getting the job done. A marketing firm wants to draw your dollars, drive the leads, and they don't care if you're particularly successful with them or not, as long as you keep paying the contract we've taken the approach to to be on that consultative side on the other.

Shed Geek: 32:59

That and with you know, this was the region reason why I came up with the original idea for shed university and then stepped away from it and sounds like maybe I'm stepping back into it, um, to organize that for year two and just take it to a whole new level. I don't know yet, I'm still processing that decision. But we wanted to create something on the sales side that made people responsive to the marketing side, because even you're right, most companies will say call me up, what do you need? You need 100 leads. Here's your budget, let's do this. Blah, blah, blah.

Shed Geek: 33:29

But then they're not over here focusing on what are you calling that customer? How many times are you calling? What's your follow-up process? Look like, explain to me your, your, your, you know your sales process. What's your sales methodology? What's your philosophy? What are all these questions? Most are like I'm marketing. See, when you're a small company, like a mom and pop, sales and marketing they blend. They blend so much that it's not like companies like rto, national or other organizations, like a you know, maybe a graceland that's large enough to be able to separate those, or old hickory or something.

Shed Geek: 34:00

When you're, when you're summit my buddy, rvin tutsman, over in Farmington, Missouri. He's like man, I do what ichard said I take care of quickbooks, I take care of the trash, I'm the sales, I'm the marketing, I'm the repair guy, I'm the. I happen to be all of these, you know, as I'm scaling my business up, and now he's invested in marketing, doing a great job. Things are, you know, I mean, he's doubling in size. That's great, but not everybody has that.

Shed Geek: 34:25

And we've had to take the time whenever we're like you, you got 180 leads on this cost per click or whatever and and they're like, yeah, but we're not seeing any results. And it's like call one of them. And they call one of them and they go that didn't, didn't answer, and I'm like that's it, like you're done, like that's it, and they're like, yeah, they didn't answer, so they're probably not interested. I said what time is it? Dylan's really good at this, I love hearing him discuss it. But he's like well, it's 2 o'clock and he's like working. You consider, you know, consider texting them, have you could see? You know what I mean. Where's your follow-up process.

Shed Geek: 35:04

After that they're like you got me a lead, this is junk. You know what I mean. This guy didn't buy. And I'm like, well, we got you a lead, we didn't get your sale. Those are two different things. Yeah, and like you said, there's a response on the other side of that. That is, you have to take as a business. Now I'll go there with you on a consultation level, but maybe I'll charge you for that information, right? Or maybe I'll hook you up with a person who can do creative sales coaching and you now you can take those leads and do that. But I mean, if essentially what your marketing company is responsible for is like making the sale, then I'm not your marketing company anymore, I'm going into business, because if I can accomplish all of that, I'm just going to do it myself. We're getting you set up for success, but you've got to do your part, and some companies do.

Richard Mashburn: 35:48

The combo unit like that, where sales and marketing is one thing, the salesperson, who and how are you training them? Somebody asked me one time and a good friend of mine still at r2 national billy. You know he ran backyard storage for us while and we were out and he was at an event you said billy, yeah, yeah, billy was like man you would.

Richard Mashburn: 36:08

You would have lost your mind if you were at this event. And he goes why? And he goes because you know they were talking about advanced level sales techniques and he goes. But they skipped all the basics and he goes and I'll never forget you.

Richard Mashburn: 36:21

Coming in the room one time and one of the early backyard short sales people challenged me of well, this is the basics, and I'm going because I'm not seeing you demonstrate them. If you want to see advanced techniques, let's go to close with a no and roll to the infinitesimal in dollars a day. You know I can rattle off. You know, and in the automobile business you spent years yeah, you know, you know, years being trained specific techniques on how to do different things and you know at a level that you just don't see even in that industry anymore. Yeah, I was like. But the problem is, is none of that matters until you do a meet and greet, a basic game, common ground, a qualification, and you demo something, either virtually or in person. I said so me teaching you close with a no is a waste of time until I know you can do that that's true.

Susan Frair: 37:09

Put the processes in place and the business will come and it flows with it naturally and I think that's the one you know you get into sales training organizations.

Richard Mashburn: 37:18

I you know, I was at a dealer group meeting one day and they're like yeah, I require my guys to be there five hours a week.

Sam Byler: 37:26

Wait what? And that's literally what I did.

Richard Mashburn: 37:28

I thought you mean five hours a day and he goes. No, they've got to be. I thought you know we got so good at selling virtually during.

Sam Byler: 37:33

COVID.

Richard Mashburn: 37:40

I was already disappointed at five hours a day. And then you, and it was a week, you know, and I was just flabbergasted that you know. And again during covid, people did learn, you know, because the shed industry was struggling to go automated.

Speaker 5: 37:46

Yeah, they got forced that way which saved a lot of people.

Richard Mashburn: 37:49

That were going to fail otherwise electronic signature online marketing and all that, but then they said, well, I'll always be that way, so as long as they're checking into the lot at least five times a week, they they were okay to be a sales leader for that facility.

Richard Mashburn: 38:01

And I'm going wow that's just not, you know. It's like I'm seeing display lights come back up again and I'm going with the cost of real estate for most of these places. Now in some towns it might be viable. In most places that's a dead end street. You've got a phone number on a banner.

Richard Mashburn: 39:28

Everybody nods. Why? I need a phone number to something, Shannon. Where am I going to get that phone number?

Shed Geek: 39:31

ShedGeek. Sorry, that's the default answer.

Richard Mashburn: 39:36

I'm riding down the road You're going to get it from Google.

Susan Frair: 39:41

I was going to say I'm going to Google but I don't know.

Sam Byler: 39:43

Everybody goes online to get the number.

Speaker 5: 39:46

So then I'm going.

Richard Mashburn: 39:47

You invested in this off-site display lot and you've got a big banner with a phone number, yet you don't have a website.

Sam Byler: 39:54

You don't have a Facebook landing page and you don't have any way to contact you. So you Google it and you find me a quarter mile down the road. Who's on Google? And you just lost that sale, yeah. Yep Before we opened the store in.

Richard Mashburn: 40:06

Texas with backyard storage and you know this story always just drives people nuts, but it was. Like you know, in Texas you've got the frontage roads that run down the sides of the interstate.

Susan Frair: 40:17

We were just talking about those this morning. We were the frontage roads that run down the sides of the interstate.

Richard Mashburn: 40:20

We were just talking about those this morning and there's a particular part of Texas we were looking at to possibly open our own lot and there was a high level. There's six shed lots on this one double side but it's an eight lane.

Richard Mashburn: 40:31

So there's several hundred thousand cars a day going by. It is August of 2018. And I had the local guy take me out. I had a backyard storage journal. We went to all six lots at 545. I was on the last one before six. There was not a human at any of the six lots.

Speaker 5: 40:54

No, it's August. It doesn't get dark in Dallas until almost 10 o'clock in August.

Shed Geek: 40:59

You know, it's still 100 degrees.

Richard Mashburn: 41:01

There was not a human. Four of the six had no signage of a way for me to attempt to contact anybody Totally normal. Two did I tried. One of them there was no voicemail set up. One of them I did get a voicemail and I left a message that I never got a call back to. And you're going down the frontage road and going down one side and I said take me back. I said I just kind of have to digest this and we stop of all places at a Lowe's parking lot which is at the turn and they had the typical bad displays in the parking lot with a 17-year-old pushing carts bringing them back in and I get out with a backyard source.

Richard Mashburn: 41:39

I'm looking at these sheds. Honest fact 22 couples stopped me and my sales rep in that parking lot over the next hour, asking us to help them with a shed.

Sam Byler: 41:58

So, me being me, I stay. Oh yeah, absolutely. So I'm starting to work it. Well, what brought you here?

Richard Mashburn: 42:03

Well, we went to see and they all had come to see one of these shed dealers, because it's now 645. They had just gotten off work to get there and I'm going. There's 22 shed deals right here. I mean, these people are going. I need to, can you? They're coming up to me. I don't have a Lowe's shirt on, I'm just standing there. So I'm starting to hand out brochures. And finally the 17, 18-year-old pushing the carts going. Do you work?

Speaker 5: 42:27

here he and the cart's going, do you?

Richard Mashburn: 42:28

work here.

Shed Geek: 42:29

He literally came up and asked me if I worked here You're new huh?

Richard Mashburn: 42:31

Yeah, because I'm handing out stuff on their shelf.

Shed Geek: 42:32

You could have fired that kid and he'd have went home and never even asked management Right right, yeah. I'm not even joking.

Richard Mashburn: 42:37

You could have been like not only do I work here, I'm actually your boss and you've been underperforming, got posted hours till six but we're here six days a week and there's always somebody here. But at the same time you know understanding where the consumer is. So you know. It kind of goes back to my point about you know the four disciplines. You know the manufacturer, the seller and all. Even the seller kind of has to go. Who's my consumer? You know, the most shocking thing when I got in the industry was realizing that, according to all the data, the average consumer was a 58-year-old male. And I'm going well, you know, I worked with Lincoln Mercury for a while. You know, on the retail side. Well, lincoln had a known problem.

Shed Geek: 43:21

So did Cadillac.

Richard Mashburn: 43:25

Their average age demographic was aging a year, every calendar year, and they were dying.

Speaker 5: 43:27

So then, all of a sudden, that's where you see the escalades and the navigators and all the suvs and the sports cars, and all that because you had a clientele that was passing away.

Richard Mashburn: 43:34

Well, the traditional shed industry. If you think about the average shed manufacturer, how old are they? How long have they been in the business? You know, in post-covid there's been this huge exodus of the old of the old guys.

Richard Mashburn: 43:43

You know, the ogs have stepped out and you got a new crew not all of them are educated, necessarily on the hardships of the early days. You know, when you kind of go, how do you take that lost community knowledge we call it tribal knowledge of how you think about it when there's no documentation and how do you adapt to what is? What was startling me in 2018-2019 and I wrote an article once and and it was about you know, in 18, the average age of the purchasing public shifted to 52% under 38.

Richard Mashburn: 44:16

It went into the millennial bucket, you were already at 56, 58% female. And if you call a shed a household purchase, which it predominantly is, you know 80% of those decisions. So you start going. You know how did your marketing look and look and feel? And again, that's where it was such a big thing when you went on to social media. You know you were gender in specific, you were race in pacific and you were age in specific, but you didn't necessarily think, and that's you know.

Richard Mashburn: 44:41

Now I'm coming all the way full circle about the price barrier. The bulk of the buying population of the boomers are aging out and passing away, are sitting in this first-time home buyer, which is this huge influx of first-time home buyers that have been delaying to the current interest rates, that were buying right before covid, that are now flowing in, that are at their beginning of their earning years. But what kind of building do they need? Can they afford an eight, nine, ten, twelve thousand? You know? So, as you see, economic stress with kids and, of course, now that same group is carrying on average, $42,000 in student loan debt that had been forgiven until when.

Richard Mashburn: 45:20

And when did it kick back in that they had to start making payments? When did most of our buddies in the industry start saying that their business was slowing down? Look at the average age of your consumer and you start matching all these things up and there's all these socioeconomic stuff starting to flow together. How do I sell to people under 40?

Speaker 5: 45:33

Because if I don't figure it out, and if I don't, figure out how to cater to women.

Richard Mashburn: 45:37

And if I don't do these things, you know and I don't mean that to sound sexist, it's just the reality, you know, back when we started at RTO National and I was digging into it, I was looking for these anomalies, you know, and I found one up in central Michigan, you know, and average age of the consumer was like 32. It didn't look like anything else, like the rest of the portfolio.

Speaker 5: 45:57

So what do we do? We jump on a plane, fly up there and go.

Richard Mashburn: 45:59

And guess what? Nobody had told us that the dealer had passed away. His son, at 23 years old, had taken over the business. And guess what he was doing? He was selling sheds to all his friends and family on Facebook.

Speaker 5: 46:10

And I'm going.

Richard Mashburn: 46:10

This was like in 18, 17, 18. And I'm going nobody was on Facebook.

Speaker 5: 46:14

It was still Craigslist at the time and it's like you're selling sheds on.

Richard Mashburn: 46:17

Facebook. Yeah, I'll put it on here, but his demographic looked completely different. So then I go all right, you're not supposed to have the data, but you dig in, you go, all right, show me what appears to be a highly concentrated female population in a portfolio, and you get down there and guess what I found.

Sam Byler: 46:38

That rarity of a female dealer, yep, oh yeah, yeah, so many successful.

Richard Mashburn: 46:42

She was selling to other women and I'll never forget one of my- early conversations with a good partner and you know, and it was the two business partners you know, and they had, like I think, at the time, 15, 16 lots in a manufacturing plant and I was asking them these questions because you know I'm coming out of auto where we were just honing in on this stuff, yeah, and it's like you know, we were testing, you know, like you know, here's one that, like wells, never wanted to get out, was like wind.

Richard Mashburn: 47:01

Women don't go out in the wind, they don't buy. You could watch application volumes track with wind streams and when the wind got over 10 miles an hour you'd see application drops that's an intense focus, you know, on outdoor populations.

Richard Mashburn: 47:13

But I'm sitting there going and I asked him. I was like, well, you know, and again, this is 2017, and you're going, you know, would your wife buy shed from one of your lots? And his partner said I'll answer for him. His wife won't get out of the car at one of our lots and he goes because, you know, we, you know we're heavy rent to own, we put our places here. And I was like, okay, and he had a son same age as mine at the time, in their mid twenties. And I was like, well, you know, would your son buy a shed? And he goes. My son doesn't buy anything he can't find on his phone. And I'm going to say you don't have a website. Your lots aren. Come on my lot, just not to.

Susan Frair: 48:35

I want to add something here because this has been so high level and so fantastic. And then, of course, you know that dealer side of me kicks in. And what can we help for the dealers that are listening? You went to all those lots in Texas and you know had that, you know went to the big box store and had all those lots in in down in texas and you know, had that, you know, went to the big box store and had all those people, those dealers hey, man, if you're listening out there, man and women, if you're not at your lot or you're not doing those things, you don't know the sales you're losing. And I'll tell you what. That. That's more important, I think, than what we are selling, because you know, I had someone recently who ate right, wrong or indifferent.

Susan Frair: 49:19

You know, I do the question of the week on the shed, sales professionals. And the question is why don't you have signage? Well, I don't, you know I don't need to have signage. People know where I am. No, you do not know what you are. You don't know what you don't know. They have no idea of how many customers they're missing by not being there, right? Not Miss Debbie that I spoke with yesterday.

Susan Frair: 49:42

She sells a ton of buildings. She's always done absolutely fantastic. She is there, you know she takes care of business and so you know I just this high level stuff is absolutely so fantastic. And then you know, speaking to those dealers out there that are struggling, you have to take a look at your part of why you're struggling, because it's probably not your location, it's probably, you know, it really is what their actions. Would you not agree with?

Richard Mashburn: 50:11

that. Oh yeah, that was, and I think other industries have learned it due to hard knocks. You know, when I was in automobile lending, you know we had a great client in Charleston, south Carolina, giant Ford store, huge, been around forever, you know, and the father was kind of the cranky old man sitting back there and as the son was coming up and taking over, you know that second generation which we're seeing in the shed business now, second and third generations he knew everything you know and he wanted to do all this high-end marketing and all that. And you know he got the general manager on board and they pitched him and it really became contentious and the store was struggling. And I'll never forget I knew the old man well, the. I knew the old man well. The old man walked into the meeting and I was in town that day and he asked me to come by.

Richard Mashburn: 50:54

And he goes, yeah.

Speaker 5: 50:54

I made everybody angry.

Richard Mashburn: 50:54

I said what did you do? And he goes. I walked into the meeting and I canceled all the advertising. Now, car dealerships in those days were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on advertising.

Richard Mashburn: 51:04

He goes. I canceled everything, I voided the contracts, I paid the fees and the fines. I've got lawyers calling me and I told them gentlemen and I told them they was all gentlemen he goes. We will not spend another dime in advertising until you can tell me the name and the information of every human that walks on this lot all day, every day, and which one of my management team spoke to them and thanked them for coming here, whether they purchased or not. When you accomplish that, I will give you a budget back, but you will not get a dime until then.

Sam Byler: 51:35

That's great.

Richard Mashburn: 51:35

Yeah, and the immediacy of it was horrific. 60 days later they set a sales record yes, 90 days later they were on fire. You know they never went back to the TV that they were doing. They cut back their advertising. They started doing direct to consumer handwritten letters, thank you cards. I mean it changed the entire pro forma and his son had become, and probably still is. I hadn't followed up with him probably a decade.

Richard Mashburn: 52:03

They went on to be just fabulous and they went into the luxury stores, because they found that you know, as you want to go high end and you build tiny homes, it became even more important and they found that you know, as you want to go high end and you build tiny homes.

Shed Geek: 52:16

It became even more important and they found that those people did it even worse because they assumed it. Yeah, you're. You're talking fundamentals and basics and very rudimentary things that people should be just investing into before you even talk about these higher level things of understanding on page and off page, seo and how to navigate a crm and which one to use, and all these different things. Be there. Let's start there.

Sam Byler: 52:34

Be there, be available we sort of said one time we used to track we used to travel together all the time yeah 50 of them weren't there, yeah we did it it didn't matter if it was florida, south carolina.

Sam Byler: 52:46

Now watch shed gal driving around. Yeah, she's like nobody's here. I don't know what brand shed this is, but we did that for years all over the country. It's like how do you set $100,000 worth of inventory out here without going and opening the door and looking at maybe a serial number and figuring it out? And there's a company that makes these cool little tags that you can put on your shed.

Shed Geek: 53:12

Put a QR code right there on it.

Sam Byler: 53:13

Yeah, I used to get mine made locally by my metal. I had a buddy that had a laser machine and I bought these little metal tags three by threes and we cut the top to where it looked like a roof and then I had him laser on there, my brand, so at least you could see absolutely.

Sam Byler: 53:27

That's how I found one of my stolen buildings. I was coming down 24 right out here, and I'm like there goes one of my sheds because I see my logo on the side. Turn around and follow him and here he had bought it off of marketplace and took it down to his little self-storage place. And of course, by the time we get there, the law's there with me and you know I'm like sorry, you're just gonna lose money here and he ended up hauling for me. For a couple of years he was dedicated to at least working hard, even if he bought a shed.

Shed Geek: 53:56

He wasn't supposed to, I think dealers sometimes feel like they're on an island and I think, richard, a lot of times it depends on if you're a it's a hodgepodge of consignment guys, and and and and, and you know wholesale guys that that are retailers, um, and they all do operate just a little different. Some got, you know, their own truck and trailer set up, some don't. Some share a network or something like that. Some, some are vertically integrated, some aren't. But I think a lot of times that the dealer itself, you know they, they feel unsupported in education, they feel unsupported in training oh boy, uh, I got the books thrown at me whenever, whenever I showed up and started selling you know, metal buildings or sheds or whatever it's like hey, here's your binder, good luck.

Shed Geek: 54:42

hope you turn into one of the two percents for us, hope you turn into one of the five percent guys for us. And if you're dedicated, you. And if you're dedicated, you will, and if you're not. The conversation goes something like this when somebody shows up, looks like you sell sheds, yeah, I mean, we can get your price if you want.

Richard Mashburn: 54:59

Well, that's the thing, though, and, like Sam made it, come at you $100,000. Well, now you're a manufacturer. Well, it's not $100,000 per lot anymore. Oh, it's a quarter of a million a lot, yeah, you know. So now, all of a sudden you got five lots. You got 1.2 sitting out there as a small manufacturer.

Shed Geek: 55:18

And now you know, and your rent factor just is three times what it used to be. So what's the cost? What's the cost, then, for a digital storefront, richard, as opposed to those not investing in their self-end marketing? I'm gonna keep plugging it hard here, but I'm just asking.

Richard Mashburn: 55:27

You can put one out there as long as you've got the catch mechanism on the back side.

Shed Geek: 55:32

You know you know but but 250 grand for a new lot and set up and all that stuff and like sometimes we run into folks that are like we won't spend 25 grand on a digital storefront.

Richard Mashburn: 55:42

You know I was talking when we pulled into this lot. You know I still am a believer in more of a display style, you don't you? Know and we, and we tested it, you know, back in the day. And just to be clear, we built lots with 200 buildings on the ground and you still couldn't sell more than about 70 a month.

Shed Geek: 55:57

We're in a hybrid where it's not all brick and mortar it's not all. So we're not suggesting one way or the other.

Richard Mashburn: 56:03

You need the validity and I think that would be, you know, if I was to mimic the shed gal in a poor mimic and give some basics. You know, if you're going to go to a digital storefront, there's some things that people then look at to see if you're real or not.

Richard Mashburn: 56:18

Yeah, you know, it's like right now in the steel industry, you know how do you sell effectively on the steel entry if you're a small guy locally and y'all would do it in a big way? But we go. We've got a brick and mortar, we'll come out and do a site inspection with you and we've got concrete contractors.

Speaker 5: 56:30

Oh yeah, absolutely, We'll introduce you to them.

Richard Mashburn: 56:32

So you validate those things. But if you have your digital storefront, if somebody finds you on social media, they're instantly going to want to go to see do you have a website? They're not going to continually interact with you on your website, your website is your pass to play it means you're with inventory on it and it's recently done. Then they look at your Facebook. When was your last post? Is there actually?

Susan Frair: 56:50

somebody there? Oh, I do.

Richard Mashburn: 56:51

Then they go to your ad and they go back to your ad and now they message you because they see you're valid.

Shed Geek: 56:57

I got one the other day and he goes.

Richard Mashburn: 56:58

I watched your video and it was one of those.

Shed Geek: 57:02

I do believe there is what's an inbound sales lead? Right, I mean, it's what it boils down to. I. I say this unashamedly, but I hope people don't think this this sounds arrogant. If it's a statement of arrogance, please forgive me. I love my grace in here, but I knocked on doors as an rto rep that I could not get in that. I have now taken phone calls that have been inbound leads, from people who call and say we want to work with you. Why? Well, I've got to know you. I listen to your podcast. I trust you. I've watched your videos and it's like I was the same guy then. They're like we didn't know that you were just another guy knocking on the door.

Susan Frair: 57:32

Yeah Well, it's that time consistency.

Richard Mashburn: 57:35

Read the Gen Z stuff. If you start studying the Gen Zs, how do they validate you?

Shed Geek: 57:41

Socially.

Richard Mashburn: 57:43

Exactly how do they develop trust and they will shop. You live in front of you if they find your brick and mortar.

Richard Mashburn: 57:49

Brick and mortar is an enhancement. It's a backside nice to have. And again, brick and mortar is where I believe that you go. You still want to sell bigger buildings and the higher price and the custom items and I think that piece does have an enhancement to it. It doesn't even have to be the one they visit. You can show pictures of it or whatever, but you've got that and there's still. Doesn't even have to be the one they visit. You can show pictures of it or whatever, but you've got that and there's still an older clientele that is very affluent and dominant in this industry, that likes to do the touch and feel. But when you're really trying to figure out your younger demographic, you have to go. How do I validate myself?

Richard Mashburn: 58:21

yeah, and there are pieces of it that I think you know. I had a dealer one time call me and he sent me a bid from a marketing firm and it was 10 grand, like 10 grand a month, but the initial thing they were going to do and he had a bunch of lots. He didn't have google, my business pages set up and I was like you need to pay him 10 grand for one month and have him do at least that yeah because you're not spending the time.

Richard Mashburn: 58:42

You've been in business for decades, you know, and go ahead and pay somebody to do it for you, because right now you're not on google. You know, you haven't claimed your google, my business, you thanks for putting all that free information out, richard.

Shed Geek: 58:54

I'm just kidding.

Richard Mashburn: 58:55

I'm just kidding if you can't get to it. It is that important and I think to your plug point. If you can't get to it and you're already an existing business, you're gonna have to pay somebody you trust.

Shed Geek: 59:06

It's the same thing we say with with running google ads or meta ads. We're like let me explain there. You can do this yourself, and they're like we can and I'm like you can, but maybe you'll waste more money doing it. What you're essentially doing. You're paying us to spend your money and they're like why would I do that? Because we're going to spend it the right way without wasting it. Yeah, that's what, that's what our skill is. And then, if we're not doing a good job at that, you're going to know that. But could you imagine throwing away $1,000 a month running ads, trying to figure it out whenever you can pay somebody to?

Richard Mashburn: 59:36

spend that money the right way. Yeah, you know, they're quick, they're easy, you can throw them up, you can put a transaction on the back and it validates your social.

Shed Geek: 59:45

We are. As much as I'd love to keep going these, as much as I'd love to keep going these guys have a meeting today. Yeah, we do, and I've got to let them go because I just want to keep chatting with you. We're going to do, but this will be a two-parter.

Sam Byler: 59:55

We can leave you here and come back.

Shed Geek: 59:57

Let's wrap it up. Let's get out of here. Richard's got stuff to do too, I know, but appreciate you coming back as a second. I'd love to have this regular conversation with you as much as you'd be willing to have it.

Shed Geek: 1:00:08

You're a wealth of knowledge. Um, you are a trusted resource. Uh, I don't know what you're going to do in the future, but, man, if you ever get into consultation, I'll say this on the air uh, I don't like working for people. I don't make a good employee. Sam might know something about that. Um, we, we just don't work that way, right? But I've said it before and I'll say it again Richard's the only guy I would pay to be my boss. Like I swear I could work for that guy and have no problem. I'd be. You know, when he speaks, I listen and I appreciate your dedication to the industry for sure?

Richard Mashburn: 1:00:45

Yes, it's humbling to do some of the things you do, but it's very quality time spent going out Because like you say. Richard's got things to do. I've got toilets to clean and garbage to take out. Quick books.

Speaker 5: 1:00:57

Quick books, but so is Shed.

Richard Mashburn: 1:00:58

No, I genuinely appreciate it. I enjoy the time. I'm super excited for Susan and Sam and, seeing these interactions, I've been a big believer in just you know if you're out there and you can do it. And it is nice to see the willingness to share differences and ideas and opinions you know and talk about them and see and it's just a conversation you know, nobody should take anything away from it, other than we had conversation.

Shed Geek: 1:01:23

Iron sharpens, iron. Well, if we just can't communicate, I don't, I don't know what we're doing, so we're we're going to keep pushing yeah, if I can't communicate, I don't know what we're doing.

Sam Byler: 1:01:33

So we're going to keep pushing. Yeah, if I can't communicate, I'm just going home and turning the sign over. Well, we'll let you go. Appreciate you being here, wishing you lots and lots of success, you're awesome.

Shed Geek: 1:01:42

I always enjoy the conversation.

Richard Mashburn: 1:01:43

Thank you. Hey, this is Mo Lunsford in sunny Union Grove, north Carolina, and we want to say thank you to all the guests and listeners.