Shed Geek Podcast

Navigating the Construction Industry with Shield Wall Media

• Shed Geek Podcast • Season 5 • Episode 72

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Gary Reichert, owner of Shield Wall Media, joins Jared Ledford on the Steel Kings podcast to reveal the powerful strategies behind his company's success in construction industry publishing and trade show management. What began as a job selling advertising has transformed into ownership of a media conglomerate that's reshaping how construction professionals connect and do business.

Shield Wall Media has found remarkable success by focusing on underserved market niches within construction. Their flagship publications - including Rural Builder (celebrating nearly 60 years), Frame Building News, Metal Roofing Magazine, and Roll Forming Magazine - provide specialized content unavailable elsewhere. But what truly sets them apart is their approach to trade shows, particularly the upcoming Construction Role Forming Show in Dayton (October 1-2).

Unlike typical industry events that welcome anyone with an entrance fee, Shield Wall's shows strictly target qualified attendees who possess real purchasing power. "We go for the people that sign in front of the check, not the back of the check," Reichert explains, ensuring exhibitors connect with potential customers capable of making substantial purchases. This laser-focused approach has yielded impressive results, with manufacturers reporting closing significant deals directly at these events.

Transparency permeates everything Shield Wall does. They provide complete attendee lists to exhibitors at no additional charge, donate all entrance fees to charity (over $30,000 last year), and produce detailed industry data reports broken down by region - filling crucial information gaps for specialized construction segments typically overlooked by broader market analyses.

Perhaps most fascinating is Shield Wall's newest initiative: children's books about construction trades. With "Max Builds a Metal Roof" nearing publication, this innovative approach addresses the critical shortage of young people entering the trades by creating positive emotional connections early in life, potentially inspiring future career interests while helping family-owned construction businesses build meaningful connections with the next generation.

Ready to experience the Shield Wall difference? Visit constructionroleformingshow to register for their upcoming event and discover why industry professionals consider their trade shows the most productive in the business.

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

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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: J Money LLC

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INTRO:

Hey, this is Joel Olney at J Money in the heart of the Buckeye State, and I want to personally welcome you to today's episode of the Steel Kings podcast with my good friends Jared Ledford and Eric Olson, better known as the Steel Kings. Be sure to check out jmoneyllc. com for financing solutions for your buildings. And now let's get back to the Steel Kings podcast for your buildings.

Jared Ledford:

And now let's get back to the Steel Kings podcast. Hey, what's up guys? This is Jared Ledford with the Steel Kings podcast. Back at you with another episode. We are coming to you live from Urbana, Ohio, and we've got a special guest today. Eric is on assignment. He is actually doing God's work in Belize this past week and doing some mission work this next week as well, so he is enjoying his summer vacation and I am back at you with another episode. We are going to get into it here shortly, but, as always, we're going to do some housekeeping. At the beginning of the episode.

Jared Ledford:

We're going to give a call out to our ad sponsors today, which is VersaBend. You guys know these guys. If you are still doing five bends to make a bow, you're burning your time away. The VersaBend handles two inch, two and a quarter inch, two and a half inch square tubing and the two by three rectangular tubing all in just three bends. Faster, cleaner, more efficient, switching sizes, no tools needed, just seconds. It's designed for precision, with built-in endpoints and angle settings to hit exact pitches every time. You can get yours for $19,500. If you're out of state, there is no tax. Shipping runs around $600, depending on your location. Check out the guys over at Versabend and those guys are going to help you out. At csccarport. supply, call 864-446-3645. Tell Wendell that the Steel Kings sent you.

Jared Ledford:

I am having a particularly good day. It is Monday, July the 21st. You are going to be getting this podcast probably about two weeks after I record it, so I hope you guys have a really good week. This week I have got a special guest. I met this guy I guess it's been about two years ago now. We met at one of his trade shows and we just bonded a little bit and love the publications, love the content. Gary Reichert from Shield Wall Media is going to be joining us in the studio here and just wanted to give a proper thank you up front to Gary for coming on the podcast. We're going to go ahead and get him in the studio, Gary, can you see us?

Gary Reichert:

Hey, Gary, how you doing.

Jared Ledford:

Hey, man, I'm good. How are you? It's good to have you here in the studio, man. Thank you On a Monday.

Gary Reichert:

If there's any barking, it's not me. My assistant is wandering around here someplace and decided that he wants attention.

Jared Ledford:

I understand. I so I understand, I understand. We'll take all the guests.

Gary Reichert:

Unsolicited commentary.

Jared Ledford:

That's okay, we'll take all the guests we can get. Man, I was just telling the listeners there how we met a couple years ago at the Garage Shed Carport Expo. Yep, we had a beautiful time in Knoxville and got to know each other a little bit, chatted back and forth and just mutual connections brought us back together recently, yeah, and thought it'd be interesting to get you on the podcast and, uh, maybe share a few minutes with you here, uh, and just talk about what you got coming up. We, uh, we of course have been hyping up the roll former show. It's going to take place in Dayton and, uh, just thought you might be able to walk us through a little bit about Shield Wall media, a little bit about yourself and how you are impacting the industry and thank you um, yeah, absolutely yeah, uh well, can you spare me just a second.

Gary Reichert:

I'll, oh yeah, get him in some place. It'll be a little quieter.

Jared Ledford:

Gary, take your time, brother, we are. We are in no hurry, so I'll keep you guys abreast. To it, Gary runs, uh, shield wall media, which is a media conglomerate that does a lot of the trade publications that you guys are well aware of the Construction Role Forming Show, the Post Frame Builder Show, the Rural Builder Show, several different magazines, including the Plane Builder just a plethora of different things that Shield Wall is bringing to the industry and really taking us places. That I don't think 10 years ago, five years ago, we just didn't see the kind of traction that we're seeing now in the steel building, shed, pole barn, you name it. Gary touches all these different industries and he's such a impactful player in what we do so it was imperative that I get him on, you know, to talk to us and just tell us a little bit more about what he does. So, Gary, I was just giving him the overview of Shield Wall and all that. Well, thank you, kind of pick up where I left off. Yeah, absolutely.

Gary Reichert:

Yeah, but no, I acquired this about six years ago, went from three magazines to right now like six. Getting into some consumer stuff with Build my Barndo, which is a digital-only publication at buildmybarndo. com. Getting fingers into everything you can think of, from data generation to actually just launching a line of children's books, which is kind of cool. And then trade shows, magazines, all kinds of things.

Gary Reichert:

The one that you mentioned actually the next one in date in the construction role forming show is especially a good one for manufacturers, because most of the manufacturers that you see at a trade show the people that pay for a booth can't sell to 90% of the people walking the floor.

Gary Reichert:

The people walking the floor are typically contractors or builders or people looking to buy, for example, a 20-pound box of screws or a couple of them. They're not equipped to buy in pallet loads, container loads, truck loads, pallet loads, container loads, truck loads. And the whole reason that the roll forming show started was if you can put a half million dollars into a line of roll forming equipment, you can probably buy in a pallet load, container load or truck load. So not that we don't love the people that drive nails, we just don't particularly want them at that show and if you're a manufacturer and you actually want to show due to do business, that we somewhat discourage the actual people that drive the nails and our elevator pitches. We go for the people that sign in front of the check, not the back of the check.

Jared Ledford:

Yep. So, and I and I can attest, and I can attest to that. I think that your shows are specifically set up for that type of audience where business is going to be done face-to-face. A lot of handshakes, a lot of opportunities for these manufacturers and conglomerates to really make the connections that they're not always going to be able to make. That's kind of where you're getting at, right, Gary.

Gary Reichert:

Yeah Well, I mean, and for both sides if you're looking at buying a role former, say you're going to start a role forming shop and you are walking around a show that includes everybody and their brother, the chances that you're going to get the 10 or 15 minutes undivided attention from the engineer or the salesperson at whatever the company is pretty slim, because they have to be able to bop around and talk to everybody. But I've actually had people at my show. One of the best compliments that I had was there was a gentleman from a company that makes role formers that said I had somebody show up with a schematic for a panel and a deposit check and he goes. I've never had that happen at another show. So, it's something where it's a show to do business at. It's not a show to just go and socialize and I mean that's part of it too but the people that are coming in, it's about a qualified audience.

Jared Ledford:

Yeah, and that's the problem with a lot of these trade shows, is they? They really just become kind of a, you know, meet up with everybody, have some drinks and no real business gets done. And while that's, you know, there's room for that, I guess in the industry. Certainly, these are. These are more qualified conversations. Like you said, these are going to be getting business done. I mean, I know that Wendell and the team over at VersaBend are excited to see us. This will actually be the first time we've met in person, and I feel like some of the connections that we've made have probably been directly through you, Gary. Some of the connections that we've made yeah, I mean some of the connections on the metal, the post frame, the wood side I mean a lot of that came directly from going to your trade shows and I can speak from a from a very qualified position in saying that that work gets done there and I can value that as somebody who doesn't like to travel now.

Jared Ledford:

With the rule forming show, it takes place October 1st and 2nd in Dayton, so it's right in our backyard. We're like about a half an hour from there right now where I sit. I couldn't be more stoked about that because obviously I can spend the night at the house and be right back the next day and have a great time. That just makes it easier on me. But I'll tell you I'm looking forward to it, man, and I think that it's a great opportunity for those of you out there listening who are in the manufacturing space, large scale, want to get some business done. This is not just going to be a drink and socialize hour. This is going to be try to get some business done so I can value that man.

Gary Reichert:

And if anybody has any questions, I mean naturally, feel free to reach out to me, because we do a number of things with our shows, too, that are unique. One of the big ones is that after the show, any exhibitors get the full attendee list at no charge, and nobody else does that, so that does two things.

Gary Reichert:

One of the one it makes you able to follow up. The other thing that it does is it lets you know that we're not giving you a line of BS about our numbers, because anytime you go to a show, I'm not going to name specific names, but I've been involved with shows that have inflated their numbers by two to three- fold. And nice thing is if you get all the names of everybody that walk through the door. We can't do that because you know who they are yeah, it's hard to argue.

Jared Ledford:

it's hard to argue when you got black and white. Fact and I will say you know that's the whole value proposition in going to a trade show is how many people you may be able to interact with, how many different businesses, how many different. You know bites at the apple, if you will, you're going to have. So, you know, when you, when you see these trade shows, you have to know that there's transparency involved with shield wall. I think that's probably why I mean and I've know you've heard me say this, I know others have heard me say it too I really prefer to go to your shows over the others out there and, like you said not going to name anything specific I've had a good time at lots of trade shows, but I can tell you unequivocally, without question, I have done the most business at Shield Wall shows over the last three years.

Jared Ledford:

As a matter of fact, I can. I can tell you the relationship that the Steel Kings have with Shed Geek. The whole reason this podcast exists a lot of it has to do with being at the right place at the right time at a Shield Wall show, with professionals, and having the time and the wherewithal to get the business done and we wouldn't be in, honestly, we wouldn't be on this call. The Steel Kings podcast would probably not exist with 99% certainty if we had not attended that show in Knoxville. So, for that I am immensely thankful, and I've said that, but I mean it.

Jared Ledford:

I mean I can tell you, if you, if you doubt going somewhere because, well, I've gone to trade shows before and it's not for me, it's just not. You know, I don't, I don't intermingle. Well, these are all people who want to come and work, these are all people that have a product or service that they want to discuss with you, and they are focused on the role forming. This specific show is role forming, industry based. So, you're talking role forming machines, anything that you would use in a steel setting, whether you're making sheeting siding, whatever it is roofing, whatever, whatever industry you're making, sheeting siding, whatever it is roofing, whatever, whatever industry you're in. This is going to be a one-size-fits-all kind of a kind of a show for you.

Gary Reichert:

So yeah, I mean, and anything that you're looking at, component wise too, because there'll be door manufacturers, faster manufacturers, underlayment, um the machines naturally coil and all kinds of things. So, it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty good resource.

Jared Ledford:

Yeah, yeah, I'd say so.

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Jared Ledford:

You guys do. Is it three shows a year? Now you guys are doing.

Gary Reichert:

We do three right now and actually we're investigating some things. So, there's some stuff with that that I don't really want to.

Gary Reichert:

Oh yeah, no, no worries.

Gary Reichert:

Going to a whole lot after the beyond the role forming show, but I mean, that's our oldest one and that's the one with the clearest focus and the biggest difference between what we do and what anybody else does.

Jared Ledford:

Well, I know we personally are looking forward to being there. We're looking forward to being a part of that. Like I said, Dayton, Ohio, October 1st and 2nd. The Dayton Convention Center is where you will find the construction role forming show and Shield Wall Media. Gary will be there. I'll be there, along with other suppliers, manufacturers, lots of people to make contact with, so we're looking forward to that. I know that you just got done with the Post Frame Builder Show in Mannheim. I know you are super connected on the post frame side of things. For those of you who don't know, I want to let Gary. I want to give him some time. The magazines are really cool. I actually just got my. I actually just got my most recent source book, number 17, right here and this is from rural builder. These are free of charge, right, Gary? You don't. You don't charge anything for these.

Gary Reichert:

Yeah, we're trade publications. So basically, as long as you're in the construction trades, the advertisers want to reach you If you're considered a qualified audience enough that essentially the people that support us by your subscriptions. So, all you need to do is you can either go online to wwwshieldwallmedia. com and fill out a request for a subscription, or, if you get a hold of one of the magazines, there's a subscription form in all of them. Or, barring that, we've got forms at the shows, so stop by our show and fill one out there.

Jared Ledford:

Yeah.

Jared Ledford:

I can tell you these are really good sources too. There's a ton of good content in these magazines and again, they'll ship them to you. They'll go ahead and send them right to you, yeah, so I mean, I think that that's something that, for those of you who are not getting them, you should be. We want to make sure that you get contacts for that. We'll upload all of that on our social media just to make sure that you guys have a good source through shield wall to get copies of the magazines, because we love getting them here. I know the guys. We do a little bit of everything right. We do post frame. You first talk about steel buildings and sheds. We do a little bit of everything. So, I like the source books, I like the ones that are a little bit more analytical. Um, there's one where you guys send a lot of stats out and I keep that copy yeah, we do.

Gary Reichert:

Uh, that's one of the other things that we're getting into. We're getting into data generation. Yeah, because, excuse me, the uh if you look at traditional sources for industry data for the niches of construction we serve, there's nothing there. I mean, there's nothing useful as far as post frame, there's nothing for cold form steel. There's generic overall stuff for business, but unless you're looking at single family residential with a broad brush or some other big, you can't get anything.

Gary Reichert:

And we put out a CSI Construction Survey Insights annual. That comes out first quarter every year and what we do is we have a proprietary survey that we send out. We've been sending it out for years so we can track trends over time and in addition to the survey results, we also interview people in the industry, talk to some economists and other things along those lines. The book will actually have an individual section dedicated to all the markets that we serve specifically. So, there'll be a section on metal roofing because we have Metal Roofing Magazine.

Gary Reichert:

There'll be a section on low rise residential, ag and commercial construction for rural builder. There'll be a section specifically on post frame. There'll be a section specifically on metal forming and roll forming for construction because of roll forming magazine and each one of those have a section altogether. The magazine is I think this year it was, I think it was 112 pages, yeah, so it's something that's pretty substantial and that is free of charge to anybody that subscribes to any of our magazines, or you can also find it online. All of our publications have their own websites and if you go to ruralbuildermagazine. com, it's in the past issues and you can actually click on it to see what it looks like.

Jared Ledford:

There's a lot of really useful information in that book and what I like about it is that information is coming directly from those like us. You reach out. I think is it quarterly that you reach out or it might be monthly now, but I think it is quarterly that you guys reach out to all the subscribing base with surveys and questions and you want to all the subscribing base with surveys and questions and you want to know the trend lines. You want to know what's going on in the industry. You want to know is business up or down? What are you seeing right now? What are some of the new things? And I've gotten a lot of tips and tricks directly from those magazines. I can tell you in ways that I wouldn't have expected to be completely honest expected to be completely honest.

Gary Reichert:

So, and something that we do too is we can actually do proprietary surveys if people have a specific question about a specific thing. One of the ones, one of the ones that we typically do, is we do a metal roofing color survey, and we'll run an article every year that says which colors are popular. And the thing that we do that's different is we break it down by region, because there's a lot of. If you talk to the metal manufacturers, the people that sell coil, they can tell you nationally what's popular. But there's things. For example, there's a region of the United States where last year the most popular color for roof was blue.

Gary Reichert:

Most of the other sections of the United States, blue is dead freaking last. And then there's other stuff like galvalume too, galvalume or a natural coating. There's some regions where that's going to be top of the list, and then other places where people look at that and go what the heck are you thinking? So, there's, there's things like that. And then two, if there's anybody that has specific market information they're looking for, like we did one a while ago related to frame building news, we did a survey on the size footer plates people use and the only restriction that we have is, whenever we do a survey like that, if somebody else comes up with an idea, is that we're free to use the article, whatever data we generate in an article.

Gary Reichert:

So if anybody's got a great idea for a question to ask, shoot it over to me and we'll get your survey and I'll share the information with you and we'll probably run it in one of the magazines, because we're always, always looking for things like that, because one of the one of the most limiting factors in trying to develop a business is getting good data, and especially whenever you're in a niche, because the stuff that applies to us doesn't necessarily apply to everybody else.

Jared Ledford:

And, yeah, I find myself. I find myself in that trick bag a lot. You know, know we, we've talked about it a couple of times. You know steel buildings and wood sheds. It's a tough market. It's a tough market to crack, it's a tough market to deal with. Um, personalities on both sides of those industries, both good and bad, um, I can't speak of, you know of anybody in particular that I wouldn't want to do business with, but there's several that come to my mind that think, okay, I'm going to avoid them. You know what I mean. Steel building specifically. We all know the challenges involved there. What do you see on your end? I know there's been some rebranding, there's been some changes. Post frame is really your niche and role forming is really your niche and role forming. And what, what specifically? What is the one key target audience that shield wall is looking at going into the end of this year, into the next year?

Gary Reichert:

well, see, we don't. We've got several target audiences and one of the one of the things and see, that's. That's basically the reason that we can expand into new magazines, because if you ever watch Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leary is on there and he calls people a cockroach and basically what he means is that if somebody finds a niche, that isn't necessarily a huge niche, but once they get in and they get dug in, nobody's going to touch them. And that's kind of what we shoot for and typically what we look for to expand it into.

Gary Reichert:

Like when we expanded into role forming magazine, there was no real publication that covered role forming for construction. There was Fabricator, but Fabricator is looking at something that's going to be running a couple of million feet a year. It's not talking panels, we're talking big manufacturer like automotive industry and that kind of thing. There was nobody really specifically for the stuff that we do and that's done really well. It's something where it's not the biggest magazine in the world it's only give or take 16,000 subscribers but it's a very targeted niche that for the people in our corner of the world nobody else is going to get in barrier of entries too high and that's kind of what we shoot for. So, we've got a bunch of different target niches. The one that we're actually looking at, trying to go after going forward, really, is the cold-form steel, light-gauge steel, building kind of thing.

Gary Reichert:

And a big part of that is there's a lot of overlap with what we already do between roll builder and roll forming. There's a lot of overlap with what we already do between role builder and role forming. There's a lot of overlap as far as components and things. There's a lot of overlap with frame building news, because it's the same end use essentially, as opposed to frame building, just a different option. So, if it's going, to need ridge vents if it's going to need cupolas.

Gary Reichert:

If it's going to need doors and windows, it's going to need ridge vents if it's going to need cupolas. If it's going to need doors and windows, it's going to need the same kind of doors, doors, windows and various stuff. So, there's, enough overlap, that we can.

Jared Ledford:

Take you back.

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Jared Ledford:

And that makes sense.

Jared Ledford:

That makes sense from our perspective too.

Jared Ledford:

You know, that's the interesting thing about the Steel Kings Even though we're the Steel Kings, we dabble in wood frame buildings, the post frame world, we dabble a little bit in wood sheds, and that's really why I gravitated to Shield Wall.

Jared Ledford:

Up front, from a, really a customer turned, you know, I would say we're, we're, we're friends at this point right, I mean, we, we've known each other for a couple of years now and you know, I, I, that's why I have respect for people in the industry like you, who just tell you like it is right now, in real time. I think that's a lot of where I lose some respect and some ability to work with others is when they, when I know, they tell me, you know, tell me two truths and a lie, that kind of a thing, and they all seem like lies, matter of fact, they are all lies. And I think that's where I lose a lot of respect and the ability to work with folks is that in our industry, which Eric and I started selling metal buildings, eric six years ago, me about four years ago now metal buildings and wood sheds into post frame and all these other avenues that we're doing, but really, what we figured out in no short order is that you're only as good as your word.

Gary Reichert:

And.

Jared Ledford:

I think that and I think that that's something that I appreciate a lot about you and your team over at shield wall is it's not sugarcoated, it's black and white.

Jared Ledford:

It's exactly the way it is every single time, and when I read about it in one of the magazines or in one of the publications, I can tell you I take it as pretty much gospel truth every time because it's vetted and it's coming from people that I trust. And that was one thing that I wanted to make sure we called out was this is a brand, and you know 16,000 folks that subscribe to the magazines and publications. Probably a good majority, if not all the people who are listening are already subscribers. But if there are folks out there who are new to the industry, if you're listening to me for the first time, check out Shield Wall. I promise you you're not going to miss out anymore. If you're missing out, shield Wall is where you need to check out. Tell us about how they can sign up to go to the construction role forming show Gary uh, best way or easiest way is the website is really hard to remember.

Gary Reichert:

It's construction role forming show. com. There you go and that'll put you to a sub- page on role forming magazine's website that you can just enter your stuff and sign up. If you pre-register, it's 50. It's also 50 at the show. One other thing that we do that's a little bit different than any, than most other people do is all the attendance gate that we get we donate to charity. Last year all the money that we got from the door was donated to different disaster relief some for the Helene stuff, some for the Hawaii stuff. But last year we gave away a little over $30,000 to charity to help people rebuild. So, it's something where, yeah, it's $50, but it's $50, that's going for a good cause. It's not going to the buy Gary a boat fund, it's going to help people. Yeah.

Jared Ledford:

And you give us plenty of. I mean there, there's a pretty good perk at the end of the show, right, you want to. You want to let them in on that little secret, Gary.

Gary Reichert:

With the? Okay, it depends on which way you're talking about. Are you talking about the, the social or what?

Jared Ledford:

Yeah, yeah.

Gary Reichert:

So, at some of the shows we do, we do socials after. Yeah Well, the on the way our shows are all two day shows. One thing I haven't been in this industry. I've been in this industry for way too long, which is a different story. I went. I went from being an ad sales guy to owning the company over the course of about 20 years.

Jared Ledford:

We should have touched base on that, because you've got an impressive story. That part of it impressed me too.

Gary Reichert:

Well, it just basically I was too dumb to leave and the I mean World Builder, Frame and World Builder's been around for going on 60 years. Frame Building News has been going on 55. Metal Roofing is going for about 30. And Roll Forming Magazine is an invention of mine and it's relatively new. It's not quite seven years old. And I started out just doing ad sales because I went through a divorce and I needed a job and if I'd have stayed in the field that I was in I'd have had to relocate away from my kid, Went into a brand new field, started selling advertising in a magazine, got lucky and kind of figured out what I was doing and then, through the course of different things, somehow I just ended up owning the freaking company.

Jared Ledford:

So now, we do things the way that I want. Yeah, we do things the way Gary wants. That's what I was going to say. You've told me that before.

Gary Reichert:

So when you?

Jared Ledford:

own it. You can make the decisions.

Gary Reichert:

Well, and that's one thing that is interesting, because one of the challenges that a lot of other trade shows have is they're run by boards of professional associations. Anytime you've got a board, you've got however many people are on the board, that's how many different agendas that you have, and those are it's driven by the board members agendas, typically not the agendas of the people that exhibit at and or attend the show. Yeah, nice thing is the only people that I have to answer to are the people that buy booth space and the people that walk the floor, and if I can keep them happy, everything goes well, you can keep them happy.

Jared Ledford:

They keep coming back, and that's the idea here is they're return customers, they become subscribers to the magazine. Then that's the idea here is they return customers, they become subscribers to the magazine. Then they hit the other trade shows. They may expand there. Like us, we started out in steel buildings and wood sheds. We've expanded over to pole barns. A lot of that has to do with experience that we accumulated at a Shield Wall show, seeing what we could do as business owners to take the next step in our in our process as business owners. So, I can tell you that's a really cool thing. That's a really cool thing that I can speak from experience, and I can share that with anyone listening. It's a serious thing and I really appreciate that time. Tell us about the, tell us about the kids books. We were talking about that on the phone and you brought it up at the beginning of the show, but I wanted I wanted to hear about the, the kids books, again and I wanted you to share that with everybody it's kind of exciting and it's kind of fun.

Gary Reichert:

Um, and one of the challenges that everybody recognizes and nobody knows what to do anything about is the lack of people going into the construction trades. And there's a lot of great organizations like mike, the micro works foundation, that does scholarships for people that are going in the construction trades. Uh and we've actually worked with them for probably four years we do profiles on the people that win scholarships. We try to help them where we can. They're much bigger than we are, but I mean as far as getting scholarships and doing good stuff. There's other organizations like team rubicon. That is work. They do disaster relief, but they're also working on education for veterans to try to get them into the construction trades, and there's a lot of people trying to get that kind of curriculum back into schools, but nobody's was doing anything for kids and if you listen to somebody that does developmental psych stuff, people get about 60% of everything they learned by the time they're five or six years old.

Gary Reichert:

Yeah.

Gary Reichert:

So having a positive emotional connection to the construction trades might help those people actually look at that as a viable career whenever they get older. So I got a bright idea we had a my mascot made into an avatar for swag for our shows. Uh, the one, the one that actually had to put out the malamute, that was talking to me, um, so we, we had him made into a cartoon doc and then, I was looking at that one day and it was just like that would make a decent children's book and we've got a couple of them in the works.

Gary Reichert:

And whenever I went around and talked to people, I called up a couple of people that are on my short list of people that it's like hey, Gary's got a good idea, tell me exactly why this is stupid. And I was. I was figuring that it would be something that would be a hard sell and everybody would be what the heck are you thinking? And pretty much everybody that I talked to was like holy cow, that's awesome. How do we get involved? Yeah and with yeah when I first heard about it.

Jared Ledford:

That was my thoughts. I thought, man, this is a killer idea. I thought, man, why has nobody else thought of this? And I thought, well, Gary's the one with all the good ideas, and it would be Gary that would come up with something like this.

Jared Ledford:

Cause I've got three young daughters and you know, just like you said, a kid's perceptions are made at that young age. A kid's, you know, I want to be whatever I want to be when I grow up, and they stick with that. You know, I would have never guessed in 100 years. I would want to be a metal building salesman or pole barn salesman or whatever. But I can tell you, I found the industry that I have absolutely been looking for my entire adult life. When I found the industry I'm in now, but I can't imagine what it would have been if I would have seen it or even been exposed to it at a young age. I might be a you know, a tradesman or someone that actually was able to manufacture these buildings rather than just sell them, and I think that that is something that is extremely valuable to the youth of America, especially when we know that the youth is not getting all of the right information all the time. This is something that's going to be good for them.

Gary Reichert:

The other part of it too is I'm old Okay, I'm to the point where most people my age are thinking about retiring or whatever and the number of calls that I get from people that have construction companies or businesses that involve something involving manual labor whether they're roofers, contractors, role formers, whatever that say I don't know what to do because my kid doesn't want the business. Yeah, it's off the charts. Yeah, Is off the charts and giving the. I mean I literally have a couple of people that have called me, basically up in tears because the family business. They don't know what they're going to do with it.

Gary Reichert:

And, granted, if you need a bright idea, I'm probably not the first person that you ought to call. But if you have the first book that's coming out is Max Builds a Metal Roof, and that's actually being laid out by my designers right now and with a little bit of luck, that will be actually sent off to the printer within the next two weeks or so, so hopefully we'll have copies of that by the roll-forming show Awesome. But if you've got a roofing business and your son or grandson or daughter or granddaughter remembers sitting on your knee with you saying this is Max, he can build anything Today Max is going to build a metal roof and then your business has. It creates an ability for you to build value in your business and in what you do with the kid, grandson, niece, nephew, whatever sitting on your knee that you're reading the book to.

Jared Ledford:

Yeah, you're generating that buy-in on that legacy up front, and I think that that's a lot of what we miss out on these days with social media and all of the things getting in our way constantly. We are too worried about everything else when we should be worried about what's important and most important in front of us, which is family, neighbors, all of that kind of thing. And I think that the youth you know I struggle with my kids a lot because you know I want to be able to provide them something of a legacy. You know I'm hoping it'll be with Dayton Barnes and my other business ventures. I don't know if it will or not. I've got one daughter who is extremely interested in what I do and I have two that could not care less about what I do. They want to make sure that I keep that cell phone turned on, they want to make sure I keep those bills paid so they can have fun with their friends and go to the pool. But maybe one follows in my footsteps and I know that there's a lot of listeners out there running family run businesses that would be very interested in something like that. So, I was very intrigued and glad when you brought it up. I will tell you, man, it's been great having you on with me and I think this is something that we should do a few times a year.

Jared Ledford:

Anyways, just to refresh the audience, let them know about role forming magazine, let them know about all the different publications, because I can tell you you're going to miss out If you do not check us out. We will be there at the construction role forming show October one and two in Dayton, Ohio, at the convention center. Hit me up on social media. I'm Jared at the Steel Kings. Via email I can get you all the information. Check out the guys over at Shield Wall Media, Gary and his team, will be happy to set you up with whatever you need, whether it be just coming and checking the show out as a patron. We're looking for those in the manufacturing trades, anybody that's working with metal or steel. Come check us out. But I can tell you, Gary, it's been a real pleasure. Man, really Honestly. Yeah, absolutely yeah, I'm going to clean up. I'm going to clean up here at the end, guys, you know me.

Jared Ledford:

I always got to give a shout out to our sponsor, the team over at J Money. They will get you what you need as far as financing for your customers. Joel, he was at Farm. Kid, he was from Northern Ohio. I had 25 years in banking, a passion for craftsmanship.

Jared Ledford:

J Money was created to solve a real problem. Most homeowners need improvements. They don't always have the cash up front. Whether you're selling steel buildings, wood sheds, windows doors, roofing pools, if you're a contractor, dealer or manufacturer, j Money gives your customers an easy, affordable way to pay and helps you close more deals. Easy applications, fast approvals, multiple payment solutions. J Money is on a mission to grow your business with payment solutions, because the need is there and now so is the money. Head to jmoney llc. com and start offering financing that works. My name is Jared. As always, this is the Steel Kings podcast. I'm going to go ahead and check out this week, but for Gary and the team over at shield wall, check them out as well, and we really appreciate you being here, Gary, and we will talk to you soon, y'all get out there and you're y'all get out there in your communities and do something good this next week, and we will be back at you next week with another episode of the Steel Kings podcast, and we will talk to you soon, guys, peace out.

Jared Ledford:

Talk to you later.

Gary Reichert:

Cool Bye.

OUTRO:

Before you go, the J Money team wants to thank you for listening to today's Steel Kings podcast. Remember, money is king and if you need a financing option on your portable wood sheds or steel buildings, we are here to help. Just check us out at jmoneyllc. com for more information and don't forget to catch the next episode of the Steel Kings podcast and have a great day.