Shed Geek Podcast
The Shed Geek Podcast offers an in depth analysis of the ever growing and robust Shed Industry. Listeners will experience a variety of guests who identify or specialize in particular niche areas of the Shed Industry. You will be engaged as you hear amateur and professional personalities discuss topics such as: Shed hauling, sales, marketing, Rent to Own, shed history, shed faith, and much more. Host Shannon Latham is a self proclaimed "Shed Geek" who attempts to take you through discussions that are as exciting as the industry itself. Listeners of this podcast include those who play a role directly or indirectly with the Shed Industry itself.
Shed Geek Podcast
How A Sales-First CRM Turns Slow Follow‑Ups Into Closed Deals
Customers don’t wait, and they don’t remember who you are after they fill out three forms at 9:30 p.m. That’s why this conversation zeroes in on the mechanics of modern selling for shed dealers: speed-to-lead in under 60 seconds, warm automation that follows up at least 14 times, AI call summaries that feed your ops and delivery teams, and clean attribution that finally shows which lead sources are worth the spend.
We sit down with Joe and Brandon from Velocity360 to unpack how a sales-first CRM flips the usual script. Instead of piling on tools, they streamline the stack so every message lands in one place, the first contact fires instantly, and nurturing stays human and intentional. They share wins from dealers who doubled conversion rates and grew revenue by 25% in a single quarter—not by shouting louder, but by fixing the funnel leaks no one could see before: first response, follow-up discipline, and handoffs from sales to delivery.
We also dig into the realities that stall teams: CRMs that take months to configure, reps who hate data entry, leadership with no visibility into what’s working, and budgets wasted on channels that don’t convert. The remedies are practical: white-glove setup built for the shed industry, AI that writes tight call notes automatically, integrations with configurators and marketplaces, and dashboards that show conversion by source in real time. If you’ve ever wondered why some dealers seem to sell on autopilot, this is the playbook.
Want to turn more inquiries into installs and keep your team focused on real conversations instead of chasing ghosts? Press play, then share this with a fellow dealer. If it helps you spot one bottleneck, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what’s your current response time—and what would 60 seconds change for you?
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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Pro
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Shannon:Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. Some of the some of the fan favorites on the show today. And yeah, I just want to remind everybody if you enjoy what you hear on the podcast today, be sure to go check out our newsletter. It's really simple. You can just message me at info@shedgeek.com to get added. Go to our website if you would like to get added to the newsletter. Or just give me a call at 618-309-3648. And if you have any questions about today's guests, don't hesitate to reach out. We want to put you in touch with them because we want success for you and we want success for them. And Joe, we can build success together when we do that. So introduce yourself if people don't know you already. I should have written down your whole lineup and just like made these big this big accolade list for you. But no, no introductions needed. Joe, who are you?
Joe:Yeah, sure. Yeah, if you don't know me, I'm the owner and founder of Velocity360. We're a sales CRM solution for the Shed Industry. Um I'm an author of a book called Problem with Potential, How to Stop Overthinking, Get Out of Your Own Way. I did speak at the Shed Sales Summit, and I've uh you know speak a lot. I actually have our own conference that Brandon and I run, and um I'm all about helping people. So our whole mission is surrounded by this idea that if local businesses win, the local communities win. We usually we love working with businesses that give to charity, give to their local churches, and make the world a better place.
Shannon:Love the love the the quick elevator pitch. That was really good, man. It's really solid. I feel like you didn't even like practice that. It just comes off natural for you.
Joe:I did not practice that. No prep.
Shannon:Nice. Um Brandon, tell us tell us who you are for those who haven't got a chance to meet you.
Brandon:Yeah, for sure. So I'm Brandon Tobin. I'm the chief revenue officer with Velocity 36C, kind of Joe's uh right-hand man. And then I'll say um, I'll take some of the credit for nudging us in the software direction because I sold software for going on 20 years now. It was on CD ROMs back then. So, I'm a little older. But um anyway, really love what we do. Uh just want a pitch competition, actually, like a Shark Tank style thing in the Tri-Cities Northeast uh Tennessee region. Um, and the whole theme was like David versus Goliath. How we're we're just like the slingshot, but those small local privately owned businesses are the Davids that we want to equip with better tools to take on the Goliath, the big competitors, big tech with the big money. Um, and I think, yeah, we just got tired of like the HubSpot's and DocuSigns of the world making 90% profits off the backs of small businesses. So we decided to do something about it.
Shannon:You know, before Court introduces himself, for those who don't know him, like something you guys would find interesting is that we and Court are co-partnering right now on a new podcast, even, which is built around the exact premise that you were talking about, um, which kind of still has some roots from where Shed Geek started five years ago, which was to be a uh at that point, was to be like a local or regional player uh in podcasting and niche down, like the conversations where we could focus on local businesses. So we're actually going to be starting a podcast that's very specific and very native to Southern Illinois, where we live, towards a uh uh city alderman here in town. And uh we struggle from the politics, is what I would like to call it, of our of our state, um, you know, being way down here. And we just kind of feel underserved in southern Illinois in some ways, or maybe I'm speaking out of turn just by saying that. And we're like, hey, how can we help local businesses in our community? Uh he's got a heart for people, I do too. And we love to see our local businesses win instead of moving into these big conglomerates. And that's not because we're anti, you know, uh uh uh big business or anything. We just want to see still want to see mom and pops win, man. We really do. We love whenever mom and pops win. So, Cord, introduce yourself. Uh everybody pretty much knows who you are. You've been leading a few over the podcast, but just give them a quick look.
Cord :Uh yeah, Cord Koch, um uh founder and uh CMO at uh Growth Opps Ally. We are a fractional C-suite and executive services business. So, um not just consulting, but actually uh digging in, getting our hands dirty, uh executing on high-level uh strategies, both uh marketing operations and uh finances. So, uh myself and my partner Shalisha Wood started that company. We've talked about it a couple times uh you know on the podcast, Shannon. Um but I'm really excited to be here today with uh Joe and Brandon. I actually had already done a sort of episode one uh of a Shed Geek CRM series. So this will kind of be episode two, I suppose. Um, and just really looking forward to uh being able to enlighten, continue to enlighten uh the listeners as far as just how important these tools are. Uh and I have a feeling Joe is gonna hammer this point home, uh, but that they need to be making you money, right? Uh these are not just tools for the sake of tools, they are tools that that are there to make you successful. So, I won't steal this thunder. Um, but uh but I'm happy to be here, Shannon.
Shannon:We need we need like we need like uh everybody to put their dudes up and we need like this little ding ding ding. This is where this is where you get in and we start fighting and we get into the mud and we get into the muck of everything. Joe, let's talk all things CRM, buddy. Nothing's off the table. Let's get real with people and give it to them uh right where they are. What do you see getting into the shed industry, uh offering these CRM services? What are the, I don't know, give me two, three things that come to mind immediately that you feel like you're here to help solve.
Joe:Yeah, so the um the few questions I'll usually ask everybody, and the answer is normally no. And this would help you understand if you're listening to this, does my is my software set up well or does it kind of suck? Um for your sales system, okay? Question number one Do you do you or your sales team, depending on the size? We do have locations that are we're talking to companies with locations up to 100 lots, or and we have single lot dealers and we have manufacturers, everything in between. But the question is do you or your sales team get to every single new lead and contact them within 60 seconds? Everybody I meet with, their answer is no. If that is happening, you're missing out on a lot of sales because if you catch a new lead within 60 seconds, your closing percentage on that lead increases by 381%. Okay. That's all, huh? And yeah, that's right. And the problem is that you want your salespeople closing and collecting signatures and cash. They're doing the best thing they could do for your business if they're busy and cannot respond to those leads. So, you have this natural problem of a human limitation of time. You want them to be closing. You need to be also having them reach every single new lead. And it's impossible because everybody's going online and you're getting hundreds, thousands per month of meta, you know, inquiries and lead forms and Google ads, right, coming in. And you cannot have uh you can't get to every lead within 60 seconds. And we we solve that problem with a turnkey workflow, for example. But if you if you're not doing that, you you probably need to come chat with us. Um, the second thing I like to ask people, uh answer is almost always no. Do you follow up with unresponsive leads at least 14 times before writing them off?
Shannon:That's a big no in the industry, I promise you.
Joe:It's a big no, right? And it makes sense because the best use of your salesperson's time is what? Closing. Not following up on with unresponsive leads, but because technology can do that, right? You know, but those leads, so I'll have clients, secure storage sheds, um, you know, being our first one that we just tout, and Jeremy's just the best, and I just love working with him. But there's so many times I'll get into his account and I'll ping him, you know, wow, this is crazy. But they'll we'll have 20, 30 touch points, and then they'll respond, I'm ready. Because when they're when, you know, every person who fills out a lead form for a shed is going to buy a shed someday. It just may not be today. It could be in six months, it could be in three months, who knows? And they're gonna forget every company that they followed up with, or like, right, that they fill out a form. They what's the name of the company? They don't know. They did a hundred companies, they're just looking at stuff they like, and they're gonna forget. And the only the people who win that is the people who follow up the most, right? So, the stats show if you like the average conversation is started with a lead after seven touch points. The average that means 50% of leads will respond at seven touch points. Of the ones that will respond, there's still people who will never respond, by the way. Okay. So, 14 is you're playing the odds. You're maximizing your chances for a response, right? You're showing that you actually do care. And when we talk about these workflows, by the way, like it's all about intentionality. So something we like to set up is this like very intentional, warm follow-up. It's not like used car salesman, okay. Don't do that. That runs people off. You want to build trust. It's more like, hey, I saw your form yesterday. I know I couldn't catch you then, um, or whatever, but I'm really excited to chat with you. You know, when's a good time to call? And then we can also like automate like a voicemail from the sales rep, the exact thing they would have said if they didn't pick up the phone. And it just does it. It's so warm and intentional. And most of the other competitors that you're competing with, because you can throw a rock and hit a shed from anywhere in the country, right? Um, you know, they're not doing that. They're not being that intentional. They're not being that great with systems because this industry's modernizing quickly. Um, with AI and the tools, it's it's just gonna get even more competitive. Okay, so those are those are the first two questions. Um okay, I've got two more. Third question is do you automatically request getting five-star reviews from every client every time? The answer is 90% no. People are a little bit better at that one because they've got these SEO going. But if you don't have that, you should probably come to Actus. And the last one is do your sales reps add notes for every phone call conversation in the CRM for your service team and your ops team and your delivery team to be able to look at? The answer to that one's always no. And we have an AI, we have an AI call summary feature that auto-adds notes for every sales rep, every phone call. And it just adds the notes. And they don't even have to add notes ever. Even if you're driving, doesn't matter. And we can format it to whatever you know the client needs. If they need like to pull out the building size, 12 by 24 and the budget and whatever, we can actually train the AI to pull out the exact notes really concisely from every conversation. It's wild.
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Shannon:So let's set the stage from like early early on. Uh I'll ask some questions, just give me your thoughts on it. Um, who needs a CRM?
Joe:That's a great question. And Brandon, if you want to pop right in.
Brandon:Yeah, I'll pop in for that one. I'll I'll say um, man, we it was the tale of two stories at the Shed Expo where we would meet so many people that were productive, successful, you know, million dollars plus of sales per year. And then we would ask them these questions, we would ask how to keep track of everything. And a lot of times it was nothing. It was like, oh, our personal cell phones, piece of paper, maybe Google Sheets. You know, they had absolutely nothing, but it was definitely getting the point where their growth was bottlenecked and it was being hampered, especially if they wanted to open another lot, manage multiple salespeople. You know, if they were in that, okay, we've gotten our first few years, you know, we got our feet under us, but now we want to grow. Um, those people needed CRMs. And then the other end of the spectrum, we would need people that um had just kind of experienced this bloat of their tech stack, where they had nine, 10, 12 different things um that were costing thousands of dollars a month. They had like Ring Central for their phones, and then they also had HubSpot for their CRM, which was costing them thousands of dollars a month just to store their contacts. Um, and then they would also have something else for reputation, you know, Google reviews, and then something else for texting, and then something else for like AI responses over voice or chat, and they would just, you know, eight, nine, ten different things for customer communication. Um, and they just really benefited from streamlining that, keeping it really simple for their salespeople to have one place to go to see all the conversations from all the channels with that you know particular lead. Um, and a lot of times it saved them 50 to 75% what they used to be spending. So, I'd say those, those are the like the two types that that we ran into a lot that needed uh CRMs in general or needed something simpler and all in one spot, like what we offer. But uh Joe seemed like he has something to add to that also.
Joe:Yeah, you know, if you're if you're gonna run a business that you want to grow um and not be stressed out of your mind, you need a CRM. Because the thing is your business, you're just without a CRM, everything becomes a black hole. Your phone, you're like, oh, that person texted you at 3 a.m. I would like to buy, and then it gets buried under 100 messages and you can't find it easily. Right? That's a non-CRM person who is just lost out on a on a shed deal that's worth five, nine thousand, whatever, whatever the average sales price is. And you add that that many missed text calls, that much lost over time, you're talking hundreds of thousands a year, you know, and missed opportunities.
Shannon:I'm gonna work from the from the tail coming back here now, Joe, because I'm curious. I have no I have no ads. I do not run med ads, I don't run Google ads, Bing, TikTok, Snapchat, none of that. I do have a website, it's pretty basic. Do I need a CRM?
Joe:Yeah, absolutely need a CRM.
Shannon:Yes. Talk to me about it.
Joe:Now, now here's what I will say. If you're happy with where you're at and you don't want to, you have no goals of increasing, you're exactly happy with the way that your business is gonna run, um, a CRM is not gonna feel like a good fit for you unless you have a goal, right? If the goal is to work less, then you should get a CRM because it could automate what you're doing, right? Even if you don't want to grow, even if you don't want to make anything better, like all of the very good texts to your walk-ins, you know, the follow-up emails, the follow-up calls, saying happy, you know, Merry Christmas, happy New Year, happy Fourth of July, all of that can be automated in a way that you could probably half the amount of time you're working and make the same amount of money. So if that sounds appealing, you should probably still have a CRM. If that doesn't sound appealing, then you probably, I guess you don't need a CRM. And, you know, it the there's got to be the value of that, right? And if you're trying to go from one location to five though, you know, if you're truly trying to grow, yeah, you like need one. You need you need a method to the madness. If you have even one sales rep, you're getting that point where you're hiring somebody, and you don't know what they're saying to your customers, it's kind of terrifying because they could be losing you sales more than they're making you sales. And you need to just be able to coach them and have a quality control metric. You need to be able to listen to their transcripts, listen to their conversations, see what they're texting and emailing people. So whether you're small or large, doesn't matter. Almost everybody in the industry, once you start growing, has more than one person on your team other than yourself. And at that point, that's the trigger because that's where things can go pretty, pretty like the wrong direction very quickly. Um, where you hire somebody, you spend 80 grand, 60 grand, 40 grand, whatever it is on their salary, and you have no visibility. And that that's a big need um once you're at that point. Again, if you're wanting to be the solo person, I completely understand. We could probably save you 25 to 50 hours a week. Um, and if that's sounds great, then you know, we should probably chat again. And then again, if you're starting to grow, even that one person, um you probably need something. Again, it's all these people who buy from you. I think a lot of people in the shed industry think that once someone buys one shed, they never buy again. And it's just so not true. They're gonna buy again, they're gonna move. They might, you know, if you get the right people, they probably have investment properties. They might be, you know, a tiny home person who buys a bunch of tiny homes all the time, it's like we'll buy hundreds from you. So, you know, it's really about that client profile, but you won't know that information if you don't write it down, right? And then you can't follow up on it. Anyway, I digress.
Cord :No, you're well, but you're even you're even uh I mean, I think that was about as uh judicious as you can be. But like the truth is even if you even if you are completely happy, right? Even if you're that that last person that you just said, the fact is um, you know, there there's a it is requisite at this point, right, to continue to up the volume of leaves that you're handling to maintain business. Because more and more of those really high quality uh on lot visits, right? The high uh you know, high close rate type of sales that those kind of single operators that Shannon kind of laid out there, uh, you know, who may not be running any kind of anything digital or whatever else, like you have to be increasing the volume of leads that you're working with, which by the nature of it means that you need to be thanking CRM, right? Even if you want your business revenue to stay the same, as those activities move digitally, you're gonna have to kind of work more leads, work more digital leads, uh, and work more leads in an automated fashion, right? Just to wind up with flatline sales, uh, much less you know, growth. So at this point, I think it's even something that is a maintenance strategy, right? Um you know, even if it's not totally a growth strategy, uh, you know, you have to be integrating some of these tools and concepts uh just to maintain even the current market share that you have. So, I think you're being super judicious, Joe. Uh, but I but I think it's the answer is almost who needs a CRU. It's pretty close to everyone. And I'm sure people will roll their eyes uh, you know, listening to this podcast where a bunch of guys wearing headsets talking on a Zoom call say everyone needs a CRU.
Brandon:But like, but you well, you hear those uh you know grumbles from everybody in the industry that it was just so easy during COVID when all the stimulus money was floating around and like you know, people had nothing to do, everything was closed, so they would just go look at sheds, you know, and it was the money was pouring from the sky, and then that bubble burst, right? And all of a sudden, um everybody got really used to their online life, you know, being stuck inside shopping online. Um, you see that with car sales, with sheds, with just about everything. Man, if you go onto somebody's website, um, like I was shopping for a car recently, and if I say that I'm interested in something and I immediately get texts and emails saying, thank you so much for your interest. Here's the CarFax report, here's everything that you could ask about this vehicle, and here's like nine or ten others that you might be interested in as well. I'm like, that is great customer service. This is 9:30 at night on a Sunday. I feel so I feel so well served right now. And if I've reached out to somebody's website or called and they just weren't open and they're like, ah, I'll get back to them on Monday, like they're gonna lose that very large sale and possibly like several more sales over my lifetime. Um, and it's like people will use um, you know, I want to build relationships or I want to be so personal. I want every single thing to come from me manually doing it because it'll mean more, even if it's the exact same words as if a system did it. It's like, well, sorry, you're not gonna be able to do that at 9:30 at night on a Sunday when people are shopping, like you're gonna be in bed or having dinner or whatever with your family. Um, you don't you don't want to have to work 24-7. And uh you can still build relationships with those people and actually give them a better customer experience um by automating some of these things and taking them off your plate.
Joe:Yeah, and by the way, the customer, uh this may sound crude, the customer doesn't care that much. They just want those things a lot of the time. You know, they just want to get their service met, like they just want to get their thing done well, quickly, easily. And they and they always go, like every human being, right, path of least resistance. And if it's hard, you know, they can't get a hold of you and all this stuff, they pop to the next one. That's why, that's why if you get them within 60 seconds, your clothes rate goes up. They stop shopping, right? All the people are shopping. If you get them within 60 seconds, they stop shopping and they talk to you. And then you have the ability to use your best asset, the relationship building, trust building, you know, personalized relationship that you that you or you're great at sales. Most of the people we talk to are good at building relationships with the people that walk in the lot. They're just bad at the digital follow-up. That leads to the conversation, which is where their greatest strength is anyway.
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Shannon:I'm gonna get in the weeds here from a customer perspective again, since I started this narrative of I'm the customer. Um these are my questions to you. Uh what about this one? I've tried a CRM before, you know, uh, it didn't work for me, or uh maybe it wasn't set up right, but I just never was comfortable on how to use it. What's your response?
Joe:Oh, yeah. So we hear this all the time too, which is really normal. And almost every one of these people is like perfect for us because we have a white glove set up. Um, we just started working with a company and they were trying to set up, you know, their own go high level. We've worked with people trying to set up their own hub spots before, right? And they'll spend years, literally years, trying to set up the software to do what they want. Um, and we do it in 30 days, you know? And so, it's just like, yeah, like I get it's not about the software. It's usually about the fact that we work with a lot of great people who are not techie. Most people in the shed industry are not techie. Their sales reps are not techie. It needs to be so simple for everybody to use. And frankly, if you're trying to self-set up, you're just pulled in so many different directions. It's hard to become an expert on it. It's a it's a PhD. You're getting a PhD in software to be able to set one of these things up. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just very difficult to do all the integrations, et cetera. So, I think people try really hard to set it up. They see the value and they just can't get it done that way. And so that's why we offer the White Glover. We'll literally set up everything. We'll migrate you from your previous, you know, um, CRM, we'll move all your context, your data, your workflows. You don't have to start over. Our goal isn't to make you start over on our platform because we care that it's our platform. Our goal is that you grow your revenue, convert more leads and less time, employ more, employ more local people, help them, help their families, give to your church, give to your charity. That's all we care about. We don't, we don't care. Like, we'll integrate with anybody. Like it doesn't matter to us any of that stuff. We just want you to go win. And that's what the white glove's helpful. It's like, yeah, like I get you had a CRM in the past, but did it do this, this, this, this, and this? Oh no, it was just an Excel sheet for you. Well, yeah, then that would be frustrating to spend $3,000 a month for HubSpot, you know, if it just stored some contact information that you could do on Excel, right? That's all about the setup. It's all about how you design it. And we have a turnkey shed specific solution that has led to secure storage sheds in their first six months growing 167% in revenue and doubling their sales conversion in nine months. So that's why we got into the industry. So two years ago, three years ago at this point, I cold emailed Shannon to get on the Shed Geek podcast because I was doing some consulting at the time. And uh he was like one of the few people who emailed me back. I got on, talked about sales, you know. And then I got on again with Brandon had an episode, I had an episode. And then finally, after like 18 months of knowing this guy, he sent us one lead, you know, uh, shared us with somebody. Finally, uh his name is Jeremy Gaither. I was um actually in Arizona. So I have a little daughter, her name's Graceland, and uh, she's about 18 months. But my daughter was probably four months. I was I was in Arizona, you know, um on our first vacation as a family, and I had to go to the you know hotel, you know, lobby and you know, have a quick Zoom with Jeremy to kind of work out the deal or whatever. And we started working with them. And so, because of the success with Jeremy, like we never thought we're gonna be in the shed industry. That was not on the uh you know business plan, you know, or whatever. I yeah, I talked to some people in the industry and they're like, they say the same things. It's so funny how that works. But um it just went so well with Jeremy. It's like we've got to go to the shed, the shed expo. Like we have to. We've got to go share this with people. We could do this again. And then we had a company, Dutch Boy Barnes, and then Sun Crest Sheds and all these guys. And Dutch Boy Barnes in the first three months grew their revenue 25%. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot in three months.
Cord :That's what people shoot for in a year, uh, right? That's probably for most people, that's uh that's a reach goal of 12 12 month YOY, you know.
Joe:Yeah, and I and I think his in his first month, his conversion rate like almost doubled, you know, because of how much, you know, how many, how many more follow-ups were happening. And so, yeah, I mean, that's where that's what our goal is. So it's like, yeah, like this isn't that. And you know, it's really important for people. I just think in any industry, it's like just because a failure happens or something doesn't work out doesn't mean it's good. And I will say that most people in this industry promise the moon, and then you get like nothing. Um, 88% of CRM implementations fail. That's the industry-wide stat. So Brandon and I were like, how can we like flip that on its head? So we have 90% plus of our implementations go well. That was our whole thing. That's why the white glove process is so important, is people just need to know how to use this daily and they need everything just set up for them. And over time, they can learn to set up workflows themselves. Um, you know, that's the goal, right? So that's how we set it up. How can we convert revenue faster and flip that stat on its head? Um the solution.
Brandon:So piggyback on that um Dutch Boy Barnes story, real quick. Jeremy Miller had he was a very good project manager and he was a very good leader that helped make sure that that went well, and that's super helpful. It's not all 100% us. It's just like any, you know, partnership, marriage, whatever. Jeremy Miller, uh different Jeremy, at Dutch Point Barnes, was awesome because he understood as people that he's got some old timers that are just only ever going to greet people with a lot. They're going to write everything down, and somebody else is going to have to enter that stuff in the system so that those people actually get delivered their sheds. And that is not the person he was going to put in charge of managing their online Facebook leads with Velocity 360. So, he got the right people on the bus in the right seats. And I think that is something else that people could learn from Jeremy is hey, if you've got somebody who is techie, who is comfortable with a headset and a mouse and keyboard and three monitors, yeah, that's the person that's your power user for Velocity 360. They should probably have all your online leads, close as many as they can. And then the ones that need to go to the lot, you know, let them share the commission with whoever is the salesperson that's on site. Um, and I think that kind of hybrid model makes a lot of sense for most situations where, you know, if you just try to run your business like you're gonna survive and grow and do well just based on walk-outs, you know, and you're not gonna have any digital presence and you're just gonna throw your hands up in the air and give up on that. That's not gonna work. Uh, just like we wouldn't recommend not having a physical location at all. Like some people do need to see and feel and touch and open the door, and that's how you make some sales and also like a lot of upsells too, you know, like when somebody realizes, oh man, this doesn't look quite the way I want. I want it to look more like that and to have windows or whatever. Um, so yeah, it's the best of both worlds. That's I think another thing that helped uh that project in particular go well.
Joe:I just I'll mention one more thing too, just so for this question there. Sorry, Cord.
Cord :That's okay. No worries.
Joe:The analytics piece, so failed past CRMM implementations, they also fail because of lack of integrations. And they fail because lack of lack of analytics. So, one of the things we build for every single shed client, steel buildings client, too, by the way. We work with steel industry manufacturers, we have furniture companies now too that we're working with, like Dutch furniture, Dutch country furniture out of Delaware. So the analytics piece is so important. Most people we talk to can't figure out if their ads actually have an ROI. And so one of the things we've done, we're we've networked with nearly every software company in the Shed space at this point. Shed app, sheds for sale, you know, Shedd. ShedSA, idea room, Idea room, Shed Pro. And we're building a relationship with these guys to make the integration process really easy and you know, part of part of the onboarding so that all the leads get in and they all get marked the correct source. And on the dashboard, we have a specific lead source section that auto-tracks conversion rates by lead sources. And in fact, that's why we got into this space again. Like Jeremy had one lead source, like Shed Pro leads in his particular case, were converting like 23 times higher than his basic meta-add. Like, dude, double your spend. And I was like, wait, we need to call these Shed Pro guys. Wait, we need to be friends. They need to send us some people who might struggle with sales conversion or something. That's actually how we got Dutch Bory and Suncrest, by the way. Um, to start helping them because they were just like, you know, a lot of these shed guys are great at the operations, build a shed, like they're experts in that. I wouldn't know what to do, but man, the sales converse, they just need some help, right? And so, getting all those in one place, we were able to, he was able for the first time, Jeremy's been in the business for a very long time, had some really large companies. Um for the first time, he could tell which lead source, where should he put his marketing dollars? And it's a big missing piece of most failed CRM implementations is that you know, that um analytics piece. And we like to make that very simple. We also like to make it very simple where you can actually see the bottlenecks in your sales funnel. So, where's the biggest drop off in your sales funnel? It's usually getting the first response for most people. And so then we can we can recommend you know changes to the workflows, maybe a voicemail or a text here that could help increase that you know engagement rate, or here's a promotion you should run, um, which is helpful for people. And you know, we'll just help set up anything up in the workflows. And we'll work with their marketing team too. If they've got a marketing team, like website team, we help do all of that for them. Um and if we if we have all of that, the CRM, you'll be pretty happy. You you're in one place. We also like we have like with whatever payment solution you use, um, once they pay, it auto-updates opportunity values in our system, whatever you're using. So, all of the numbers are the same across the entire suite of softwares you might be using. Um, so you have real-time data, which is very helpful for people.
Cord :Yeah, very much so. So I'm just thinking about this from the dealer or and or manufacturer perspective. Like I said, we've kind of um had some of these conversations um, you know, in as part of this CRM series on the podcast, but also offline and um, you know, talking through these things. And you know, I think that people are intimidated a little bit about what that process will look like. I know that some CRM companies um or CRM implementers, um, you know, they really want to try and match the sort of whatever you have going on currently, you know, with their build-out. But you know, I mean, uh the way I'm taking it from you guys, uh Joe and Brandon, you correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like you guys are pretty confident in the sort of shed setup that you guys have. You're confident in the methods that you're using uh to continue to make people responsive, get them on the phone, move them down through that. Uh I like what Brandon said, that middle of the funnel uh, you know, type of an area. Uh, you know, if you're thinking about it from uh ads all the way down to sales. So, kind of maybe walk me through what that looks like. Um, you know, is that we have all these tools, we have all these workflows and automations that we feel like, you know, we have known quantities for the results, or is it more back and forth? Let's match your day to day. How do you guys just sort of approach that process?
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Joe:We approach it turnkey. Uh, I don't I don't actually think people like designing CRM workflows and trying to create, you know, maps of their here's how the business works. Let's document every process. I think that's like the last thing on any most of these business owners' uh lists, including myself. I hate documentation. I hate doing that. Look, you know what? If I'm a business owner, like when we talk to people, they just want their revenue to go up. They don't care how it happens. Oh well, revenue, okay, perfect. And most of these guys, because of the answers to those first three or four questions is almost always no. Oh, then that's the first thing you need, and you'll sell more. Right. Like, sweet. Okay, let's just do that. Because you know, generally, most people we work with, their CRMs are set up pretty poorly. It's not like they're missing that much. Now, in our migration process, if they have workflows or anything they love, like we'll just move that over. Sure. We'll just migrate.
Brandon:Take the best, leave the rest. Sure.
Joe:Yeah, because these workflows, like catching within 60 seconds is what you should be doing, but you're not. So you know, following up 14 times is what you should be doing, but you're not. You know, having a 12-month promo, like, you know, of workflows, like following up with people, right? Reviews, AI call summary. This is all stuff that should be happening, but it's not. So having that happening is always better than their current situation. So we're just like, listen, we should start there. Down the road, you need some custom stuff. Like, sure, like we'll make more workflows for you. We can, you know, work on some different integrations or just whatever you need. Like, we have some more white glove services down the road, but your first build, you just need those five things. Your revenue will go up and you'll be happy.
Cord :Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Shannon, you look like you were.
Shannon:Oh, I was I was I was just too much. Well, my I thought my question was, you know, you talked about integration. Um, and you know, we kind of talked about this on air beforehand. Uh so Shed Geek uh and Velocity 360 collaborate, right? And we kind of always have kind of collaborated with you, Joe, even though we didn't send you a lot of leads.
Joe:Uh say soft collaboration or something.
Brandon:Your quality made up for the lack of quantity.
Shannon:That's right. That's right. I'll just blame it on your product offering. I won't blame it on your listen.
Joe:I will say we're two for two.
Shannon:We've we got that one, and we got yeah, Steel Kings too is uh a new client, so which is and uh obviously, you know, uh the Shed Cell Summit trying to, you know, for me it was uh as a hard time trying to make the connection. Like we were wanting to do Shed University a long time ago. I was really happy to see Peter do Shed Sales Summit. So, whenever I saw that he was doing that, I was like, you gotta meet Joe, you gotta go to Knoxville. And it just so happens that you guys were doing an event, and don't let us forget to talk about your event that's coming up in January. But uh it was like you gotta go talk to him, and then you know, uh through that, getting uh the exposure kind of to the shed industry. I think that's what it is, is you just stuck in there long enough. Let's use you as a use case scenario. You stayed in the shed industry and stayed close to me long enough to where eventually like that conversation came together where you're at the expo now and boom, you're closing 20 deals afterwards because you're like finding your lane and where you can help now. So, my question is I think collaborators, you know, uh succeed. I think that whenever you choose not to collaborate, it doesn't benefit you, it doesn't benefit the customer. So, you talked about collaboration, and I think my question is really this is like, what is what is your approach to collaborating with all of these people? And like, what if they offer the service their selves? Like, how do you thread the needle? Because that's probably been the hardest thing for me in the shed industry. Is uh uh, you know, I want to work with everyone because I want to see people win. Uh but man, it's so complicated because we're a very fragmented industry. Some companies do this, some companies do this, some companies do this, some of them mix, some of them don't. Uh they offer a myriad of things. So, like, what is your collaboration approach? Because at Shed Geek, we're certainly happy to collaborate with Velocity 360 because we've been a Knowledge Gap partner for a long time. But Velocity 360 seems to really have some legs, you know. So, like, we want to tap into that. We want people to call us so that we can put you in, put uh put you guys in touch. You know what I mean? That's a way to give me a thank you. Call Shed Geek, let us do it. You can call Joe directly, he advertises with us. But uh, you know, give us a give us a call. We want to make the connection because uh we believe in what you guys do. So what's your collaboration approach is what I'm asking.
Joe:Yeah, and I'm sure Brandon has his ideas. We're pretty we're pretty aligned on this. It's like there's so much business, it just we just there's so much to go around. It just doesn't matter. Like if somebody else wants to offer a CRM, that's great. You know, I'm sure they'll have their value proposition and it'll probably be different than ours. And our lane is so simple. If you want your leads to convert faster and at a higher conversion rate, okay, there you go. That's us. We don't want to make your website, we don't want to do your ads, I don't want to go be your ERP or delivery system and all that stuff. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do with velocity, but like that's not what we're selling and that's not what we're trying to help people with. If somebody wants to come in and do all the cool software capabilities within your company and build all these things, great. You know, if you want to hire us to do some other workflows that are not substandard, it's like sure, but really what we believe is that when you specialize, you do better. And we integrate with our API and you know integrations, we can we can integrate with almost anything. And we're just so open-handed. We just don't we just don't care. Like, whatever you want to use, whatever helps your business. Like, I don't, I'm not a you know, if you uh use someone else's CRM and not us, like well, everybody's got competitors, like yeah. Like we're probably we're not gonna go build, we don't build our workflows and all of our you know, specialized, really cool stuff on other platforms because we can't get the same results, you know? You're not gonna get the same results, we're not gonna put our name on something where we can't control the results um like we want to.
Shannon:Yeah, no, I love it, man. I wanted that almost wanted that soundbite because you know, uh it it's just like why fight over the piece of pie, make the pie bigger. That's kind of been our approach at Shed Geek the whole time. Is like, I think there's enough for us to all win, regardless of what anybody gets into. But man, you really want to you really want to work with people who are results driven. Me and Cord talk about this all the time. We want to be on uh the I'm steel ing your thunder here, Cord. We want to be on the good side of business. We want to be on the side of business that wins, like that always treats the customer well, collaborates effectively, and is results driven. Like, and if and if it's not those things, it doesn't really match up to a long-term potential uh uh partner, and in our opinion. So, like, what's driving the results so much? Joe, you've got so much sales history, uh, so much sales knowledge you've been on the podcast, and you've talked about that before. But what drives you into this area of what I'm gonna call a marketing service, whether that's the accurate way to depict it or not, like what drives you into this because you've seen the sales side. Is it just that the software is so valuable in helping to close sales leads? Because I mean, that's who you are, Joe. Like, you're like the ultimate sales guy, dude. You're like the guy who just gets results. So, like, was it just like, hey, this is the next way to level up? I mean, what was your approach to this?
Joe:Yeah, and I think you know, Brandon, Brandon also cut his teeth doing door-to-door sales. Actually, before I even was at the company, I was asked. We've got to combine 14 years and you know, what is that, 15,000, 20,000 hours of door-to-door sales experience?
Brandon:And that's just the door-to-door, not to mention all the B2B and software and stuff after that. Yeah.
Joe:And he and I both led teams and recruited. And so we've seen firsthand like, you know, the rep not wanting to enter something into the software and like, you know, what the psychology of the salesperson is, and really doing the hardest thing, straight commission door-to-door book sales all over the country that you could probably ever imagine. The most navy SEALs sales academy that you can think of. Uh, when you're 18, 19, 20, building your career in college, right? Trying to pay off school debt. But um, yeah, I think, and I would not, by the way, I just have to correct here. We are not a marketing service. So, like, let's use a sales conversion. Um, I'm curious, yeah.
Shannon:Yeah, hey, label it however you want. I just want to like I'm curious at how you guys propose that value proposition. Like, you know, do you see certain CRMs as a marketing service as a sales extension? Because there's probably some debate, there's some fodder between different people who like how they would identify that. So however you guys identify it, let me know.
Joe:Yeah, yeah. We're focusing, like, we're focusing on the conversion aspect of this. And again, that's why we want to be really clear with where our lane's at. Like, we don't want to go create against, you know, marketing to me is if you think about a client journey, okay, marketing is awareness. Uh, sales, so advertising is getting someone to be like catch them when they're in the decision-making process, and sales is bringing them to a decision. So those are kind of the three definitions that are that I would say is the true definitions. Marketing is awareness, advertising is catching them when they're in the decision-making process, sales is the getting them to make the decision one way or the other. So that's how it fits. We're not advertisers, we're not marketers, we're sales, we're in the sales part of this.
Shannon:You want them to convert, like that. You want to show conversion tracking for those leads that come in. Is what if a lead comes in and it's not a qualified lead? I feel like I know what you guys are gonna say already, because I know Brandon's smiling. I've already heard him answer this question, but I want to ask it again. Like, are all leads good leads, Brandon?
Brandon:Um, not all leads are good leads. No. Um that is that is that is the truth. And uh you will definitely have your share of tire kickers, people who have no budget, that uh just take forever to make a decision. Um and you know what? Sometimes those bad leads can turn into good leads if you give them enough time and nurturing and water. You know, if you plant the seeds and um, you know, it might take them six months, it might take them a year before they finally get off the pot. Um, but that's kind of the key. Uh, you know, we're having not just uh the speed to lead, right? But also having workflows and automations for nurturing folks, you know, when they don't buy within the first 14 touches or however many touches. Um, or even if someone did buy from you, like going back to Joe's earlier point, um sometimes your very best customers are the people who've bought from you already, right? They're very those are your best qualified leads. So, uh yeah, following up with both is important, but uh I'm rambling and I want to know why Shannon asks like that lead question specifically. I want to know where um and I'd be interested to hear Joe's take too.
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Shannon:And I think Cord talked about this earlier. There's a level of interest there. You know, uh, so sometimes you can take that. I like what you said, Brandon, you can take that small level of interest and you can educate them to where they become a buyer, where they just have mild interest early on because they didn't understand the process. But it might take 14 times to do that, right? Like it might take uh, you know, these long-form drip campaigns or something, uh, these automation funnels that continue to put whatever your product offering is in front of people.
Brandon:And people don't buy logically. It's not as if um they're just waiting for you know the next paycheck or the or the big Black Friday sale. Man, if somebody just had uh a continuous drip for me and I happened to be in my go my garage shifting stuff around so I could finally work out in there again. Um, and then I got one of those texts or those emails about a shed being on sale, I was in a highly emotional state of yes, just get this crap out of my garage right now so I can have my gym back. Um that's the other thing about having these uh you know, multiple ways to follow up with people that's just not feasible when you're one person or even a team of people, um, is that you have a better chance of catching them at that perfect right time. Um it kind of goes back to like what Joe was saying about us like staying in our lane and our collaboration philosophy, right? Is there's gonna be people that do more marketing, more top of the funnel, the awareness, the branding, the website, the ads. Um, and there's people that that will do the more human element of sales as well, like Peter Miller, making sales simple. We used to do a little bit of that. We were great at it, but it wasn't scalable. It's not what we you know, we got out of it. Now we're now we're focused on the technology side of sales um to help increase that sales velocity so people can close more leads faster by using the leverage uh the technology and software provides. Um, it's just like you know, investing in a house, right? Like if your house price goes up five or 10% a year, it's uh it's on the entire value of the house, not just your 20% down payment. Like that's leverage. That's what we're talking about here. But technology and with your business, if you invest just a little bit in systems that multiply your time 5x, like that's how you get you know 2500% or greater revenue growth. Um, because it feels like there's five times more of you.
Shannon:Yeah. That's great, man. You guys do like great sound bites when you're not even like meaning to you, just like your natural cadence like works really good. Cord, do you have anything? I've got a couple questions I want to I want to ask, but I want to make sure to like share the screen.
Cord :Yeah, no, I think um just as far as you know what our listeners, at least on that sort of entry-level understanding of where these guys' expertise uh lies, I mean, I think there's no doubt there uh what that process looks like. I mean, to be honest with you, um, you know, I mean, my mind just goes to like where do you guys want to be in, you know, a year from now, three years from now, five years from now. Like, is the shed industry, do you see the potential there to where you're saying, like, you know, like we want to we want to be at all the shows, we want to be a huge provider, have a lot of market share in the shed industry. Like we see the we see where this is going and we want to ride the wave, or like what's that look like, Joe? I mean, I know you're great at casting vision, so give me that good stuff, Joe.
Joe:Yeah, so we're gonna be making maybe the next 12, we know we don't have a really we're gonna do a lot of good annual planning here in December. So, the goal over the next couple of years, I'll say, is a because I don't want to bite off more than we can chew, and I want to be realistic. I always tell people when we do CRM implementations, it's like in setups, it's like, look, we're not a magic wand, we're not gonna close the lead for you. Like you're gonna have to learn the software, it's kind of a pain in the butt for 30 days, okay? But then we're done in 30 days, and yeah, like you're still not gonna know where to click, and you're gonna have people blah, blah, blah, and you're gonna have to, you know, force your team to use it and all this. But like, if the long-term goal is there and you can sell more, it's worth it, right? Like, it's worth doing if that's long-term goal, right? Um so where we'd like to be over the next two years is make a even more shed-specific CRM completely proprietary. So, no secret, but we basically uh do some uh licensing. And if you've seen Go High Level, generally that's like our licensing core. We have a lot of custom stuff built on it that uh are not normal like GHL style features. Um and we set it up really, really well completely differently. But what we want to do over the next 24 months is like have a shed specific sales CRM that's even better. And so we always want feedback. What features do people want to see? Um, we're making a long list and we want to make it even simpler and easier for a sales rep to use. It's already simple and easy, but like how can we make it even better? And that's where we want to be in the next you know 24 months, I would say. Um and we're doubling down to the shed steel industry. We love these people, you know. I like whenever we started the business, the kind of ideal client profile was always like working with um Christian business owners. Like, I just love working with Christian business owners, so fun. It just feels like I'm living out a partial ministry, I guess. You know? Yeah, because I'll meet these awesome, awesome people who are stressed out of their mind. It takes away from their kids or their church or whatever. And you know, a lot of them, see, the lot of people we work with are like they're great at business and they're just trying to open 10 more lots in the next 12 months, you know, and they just need what something's holding us back, right? So it's like it's very logical sometimes as well. But that's what we want to be doing. If we can impact the world in a positive way, in a Christ-centered way, like that's what we care about. And so every site owner we've talked to is basically that way. So, it feels like this is where we'd like to be. Um, and then doubling down, reinvesting into making even better, you know, software pieces, um, I think will be where we want to go.
Shannon:I think it's great, man. Like it is it is an example of what pulls you in about the industry, the conservative or ultra-conservative side, uh, just the kindness and people, the goodness in people, the competitiveness and business. Uh and Joe, like, and I think Brandon too, like you both sold Bibles, like literally door to door. I mean, you know, come on, like this is like coming full circle, you know what I mean? Like to be able to like work in an industry full of people who you know that Bible very well. Yeah, you know, and like hey, I bet you if you're selling Bibles door to door, you get a lot of no's. So I bet you guys got you got used to how to overcome a no probably better than most anybody uh out there, right?
Brandon:Especially because I sold in Washington and New York, just about the most unchurched heathens in America. Um it's funny, you actually gave me the opportunity to share my testimony on your podcast that first episode I did with you. And I was just thinking of um like my local shed dealer right next door to my church, um, went over, shook her hand, and she had a cross bracelet on her right hand. And um, my wife helps make these like verselets. Like our pastor's wife has this business called Verselets, where each letter is like uh a word from scripture. So like this one says, the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And it's just like the acronym for it. So, but anyway, we both shook hands and we're like, we're gonna get along great. This is a this is off to a good start. Like we both love Jesus. This is a great foundation for like an awesome um business relationship. And to echo Joe's point, it does kind of feel like an opportunity to expand God's kingdom and use business as ministry. Like, shoutouts to Shed Crow. They do a really great job of that. That's why they move their business to Vietnam, is because there's countries like Vietnam that are unfriendly to Christian missionaries. But if you're bringing jobs and money there, suddenly they're okay with it. And so that's why they do things the way that they do. And that's a good segue where uh Stephen Choi actually is going to be a speaker at our conference that uh we shall not forget to encourage people to come to. Uh January 23rd. Um I'll let Joe uh tell us a little bit more about it, but I was just getting us there.
Joe:I was just listening to the couple of things. I'll mention the conference here. So right before the conference, yeah, just to really keep everybody on the edge of their seats of this really cool event that you definitely shouldn't go to because it's not very valuable at all. Um don't tell anybody, don't tell your friends together. Don't tell anybody about it. But um before that, the other the other thing I want to add is I really want to have um a service side of this business. Once we get to a point where we're large enough and there's enough margin for this, but one thing on my heart that I thought was really would be really cool to do is there's so many good nonprofits out there that have terrible software, and we want to basically donate velocity 360 accounts to really great charities. Um I think we're 12 months out from that unless we grow really fast. So I guess call us. But yeah, but that that would be really cool to do. I I've my wife's in the social workspace and uh worked with a lot of organizations that just have systems that really hold back how big of the impact in the footprint can be. So, I think we have a unique way of helping, again, those types of nonprofits uh make a difference.
Shannon:So, I'm gonna tell you that right now, Joe, may end up taking advantage of that because we've just been talking about you know establishing a 501c3 uh as we as we grow ourselves personally and individually, and then also the podcast. And you know, I'm gonna let the cat out of the bag here on this episode uh cord, although we may end up recording episodes that um talk about this before this episode comes out, before this CRM series comes out. Uh you know, we're talking about creating a media group for that for that purpose. You know, at one point just starting a podcast, well, it turns out To so much more, and now I found a real niche and a real passion. Uh, so it's like, why not talk about the things that you're passionate about, like prison ministry, right? Like addiction recovery. Like, why not have a podcast that talks about those things and try to find a way to turn those things into a 501c3 where we can donate and help our community? Because, like, man, we're more in line than what you guys realize. Like, Cord being on the city council, having a heart for community, and like, look, he's never opined for me to join the city council, just to be clear. But it's probably also because I've been so adamant about how I refuse to get into the political nature of it, and I just want to help from afar as best I can. Um, but who knows? Uh, you know, well, one of these days, if that if that's if that seems the way the that the Lord leads me. But no, I think it's I think it's great. I think it's a testimony to like who you are as a business owner, too. Like where your heart is, who you're trying to help, uh, what you're trying to accomplish. Uh, I think people buy from people they trust. I think what it boils down to it. And you said something earlier. You said, Hey, I don't want to be a shed builder. Well, guess what? Shed builders don't want to implement CRMs. That's a reason why we need each other, guys.
Joe:Yeah, and one of the one of my favorite things about Brandon too is he's like so aligned on all of this. It's just like uh that's why that's why Brandon and I are working together. It's just like, and he can tell you his story of coming out of the clutches of the corporate ghoul um into the light uh of impacting individuals. But uh yeah.
Cord :What a great phrase, Joe. My goodness. The clutches of the corporate ghoul.
Joe:Hey, listen, I've written I've got a list of books I'd love to write one very off the ground. Like I love, I can I love literary mnemonics and just like different concepts. It's so it's so fun. I can, yeah, that's like the creative part of me. Um that yeah, I just I don't know. There's just there's just ways to describe things. There's so it's so interesting to me to try to, you know, you just try to encapsulate that that beast, the corporate beast of just money over human life. I just did not there, you know. It's just like who cares? What is money? I whatever. We I need to pay my people, so you know, we gotta charge stuff for it, and there's a lot of value in it. So, you know, business. I love the higher purpose, dude.
Shannon:Like, I feel like I feel like I mean it feels like a phone call where you can just sit and talk to a friend. Uh and it sounds like I'm trying to sell it, and it's not just because we partnered with you, but you know, there's a reason I've had a lot of people on the podcast show, people who I've reached out to and people who've reached out to me to be on, and you've tried to decipher, you know, and at the end of the day, I feel like everyone's got a story, but you know what's really cool about you is like we stayed connected somehow long enough to work together. 18 months, 22 months, whatever it was, from like we stayed together long enough to figure out how to work together. And I think that uh uh, you know, I would love to go back. I just saw where David Greer shared on LinkedIn our conversation, you know. Uh, and that's been you know so long ago. Harry Spate, you know, still shares some of the conversations that we had. And some of these are outside of the industry guys, right? That that they don't know anything about the industry. Uh they know sheds exist, but they don't really know like this inner workings of like uh that wait a minute, there's a shed expo, and there's like a shed haulers event, you know, and there's like all of these other things that exist. It's like, yeah, it's a it's a it's a big little industry, uh, and it needs help, you know, because it's growing. It's turning into an adult, it's past adolescence, and part of that includes the tech space. And guess what? An ultra-conservative space, and I've said this a hundred times on the podcast, I'm gonna start losing listeners if I'm not careful. But what do we do as conservatives whenever we don't understand something? Criticize it, criticizing, it'll never work. Computers, who's gonna have a computer? I definitely I've told that story a hundred times. My mother-in-law said, a computer, we'll never have one in this house. Well, now they have a computer, internet, we'll never have that. Guess who the enemy is today? AI. And I'm like, it's just a matter of time before I go over there and my mother-in-law's teaching me about AI.
Cord :You know, probably already used.
Shannon:Can you believe that you can do this? And I'm like, right, well, anything can be used for good, anything can be used for bad. But generally speaking, like, um, if you're a salesperson and you want to close more sales, I just don't know how you're not gonna do that with an automation funnel and a CRM. So why not find professionals like Joe, like Brandon, who know how to do that? Oh, by the way, give me a wave, guys. Tell them we sent you. Go fill out our stuff so we can so we can send Joe more things.
Cord :Link on newsletter, link in the newsletter. That's right. That's right.
Shannon:And then and next time we have Joe on the show, he'll be like, Man, Shannon, you brought us 30 leads. We're so happy uh to be partnered with you. That works out excellent. So um, anything else that you guys want to share? I know you talked about like your event coming up. We're traveling to Florida during that time, so I'm sorry we can't make it, but I'm also not gonna feel too bad because I'm gonna be in Florida the third week of January. So as much as I wish I could be there with you, um, I will painfully try to figure out a way to get by in Florida in January. Um, what do you guys need from us? How can we help you? We want to connect you with this audience, we want people using your services. Uh, how do we help you?
Joe:Yeah, sure. Um, and just for everyone who's listening here, a fact check. It's the fourth week in January. So, I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. Uh somebody just don't want to come to this conference, but uh listen our feelings.
Shannon:Did I get uh did I get two fact checks that I'm gonna have to edit out in the same way?
Joe:Um invite everybody if you want to have your best year in sales in 2026 um and learn how to have the best system possible for your sales reps to go succeed and you go impact not only the people you work with, grow your business, but all of your customers, give them a better experience. You should come to our conference, Scaling Sales on Autopilot. Um Velocity360 conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's at the Jackson Terminal on Friday, January 23rd. It's an all-day conference. We will have lunch provided, t-shirts, we're giving away a free $500 sales CRM blueprint. We're giving away um 30 days of LinkedIn lead generation for B2B companies who want to go meet business owners and different things like that. Um we're gonna have four hours of content, and I'll go through some of the speakers here in a moment, some of the topics. Um we're gonna have two hours of networking with sales professionals from all across the country. Um and it's gonna be wild. You will not want to miss it. We had about 121 people last year. Um our goal this year is about 200 um people that we'd like to impact. Um we want sales teams and you know, um leadership teams to join. You get 15, 20% off the more people that you have in your group. So like if you're a one-person show, like go tell your buddies about it, because you get 10% off if you come in a group of two to four. If you come in a group of five plus, you get twenty percent off. And we're like talking $103 a ticket at five people plus, which is which is nothing. That's like I always tell in the shed industry, I always tell people or sell in the uh the version of sheds. That's not even you know a tenth of a shed to bring your whole five person sales team, you know, where they where they can go learn, you know, and go crush it. Um we're having the founder of replay. It's uh it's a software where you train an AI on your um sales scripting, your like a rubric for training your sales reps. You put that in the system and they can actually have a sales conversation that gets transcribed, recorded, grades them, and emails you, the sales manager, the owner, of how well they did. And we can integrate with your phone calls and you get automated coaching to your sales reps, which can be a real big problem for onboarding new reps. Um he's gonna come speak. We're having an ads SEO specialist uh come and speak about how to maximize your ads and make incredible Facebook groups as well. Um he's uh out of Charlotte and he created a Facebook group that generates him like $30,000, $40,000 a month in revenue just from Facebook groups. It's pretty wild. Um we're having Shed Pro come speak on having a purpose driven business. We're having authors come speak about local social media so um for lead gen. So it's literally a conference about getting leads, closing leads, training people to close leads better. And if that sounds enticing, all you have to use go to conference.velocity360crm.com slash tickets2026, conference.velocity360crm.com slash tickets2026. And we'll put that link, hopefully, in the description.
Shannon:Yeah, we'll make sure to throw it on the screen whenever we edit everything in. Of course, anybody who wants to reach out, give us a call, uh 618-309-3648, or check us out uh on shedgeek.com or info@ shedgeek, info@ shedgeek.com. We want to hook you up with these guys. We believe in them. We love them, we love their processes. We went to the event last year uh and we had a blast. Uh me and Peter Miller went, Deanna, we did. Uh we were going to speak in Ohio at a keynote for uh Hirschberger Lawn and uh on the way hit a wolf in a rent a car outside of Knoxville. Have you ever heard of that? Seriously. Wait, you've never done that before? Well, not on a Thursday, Joe. Like but no, seriously, I hit a wolf in a rental car. And I'm just like, there's they're not gonna believe it. Anyway, I was on the way to your event whenever that happened. Uh uh and loved it. Like, seriously, enjoyed the event. I always have enjoyed Knoxville. Um man, I just think you do an excellent job. I always felt like you have. It's been nice getting to know Brandon, and uh, I just really believe in what you guys are doing over there. We're excited to affiliate partner with you guys. Uh, we know you're gonna kill it in the CRM space, and we know that people need uh what you guys offer. So I love the collaboration and being able to help. And you're invited back anytime you guys want to come on and chat because if we can add value uh to people's day by listening to these conversations, uh that's what we want uh ultimately, you know. So I agree with you, Joe. Money's money, it's a byproduct of the success, but it's the success we're chasing, it's not the money. We just need the money because somebody wants to, you know, uh uh pay the bills around here for some reason and keep lights on. But if it wasn't for that, man, I'd just be a helper. Uh I do believe in the um you were at the Shed Sales Summit. I totally believe in the uh, you know, um Zig Ziggler quote, you know, help others get what they want so you can get what you want. So be a helper first, you know, and the money will show up. Anyway, that's my little pitch. Uh Cord, you got anything? Anything you want to ask just before we get out of here? I want to be mindful of these guys' time.
Cord :No, I think uh I think we've covered all the bases. Um, I really wish um maybe there is a way that I could manage to scoot over there uh for that. I mean, it just sounds like such a great lineup. Um, you know, so I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna try and move something around. Now that we've discovered it's the fourth week, Joe. My goodness I've been lied to this whole time. Third week, you know?
Brandon:So, you'll show up with a good tan, is what you're saying.
Cord :In the fourth week of January.
Shannon:If I if I wanted this kind of abuse, I'd just go home, fellas. I don't like I don't I don't need to come to work, you know. Um just kidding, my wife edits this, so she'll wink at me. Um hey, look, you guys are awesome. It's always fun to talk with you. And you know what? If we can make it down there to Knoxville, we'd love to be uh be there. But uh yeah, let's take a look, hard look at the schedule for it to see if we can make it work. If not, I know it's gonna be a great event. It was excellent last year. So yeah. Um yeah, appreciate you guys. Uh we'll make sure to uh people want to know more about Velocity 360 outside of listening to this podcast. Go check out the newsletter. There's a link there you could click on, find out more about it, fill out their lead form, schedule a meeting with these guys because they're really fun to talk to at the end of the day. They've got a lot of business experience. And if you guys decide a CRM's not for you, uh you're wrong. Uh but if you if you do, trust me, there's someone that you're gonna want to work with because uh they've just been a joy, uh, a joy for us to conversate with. So wishing you guys lots of luck. And uh yeah, if you need anything from us, just know we're here to support in any way we can.
Joe:Awesome. Thanks for having us on. Appreciate you. Thanks, y'all. Thanks, guys. See ya.
OUTRO:Thanks again, Shed Pro, for being the Shed Geek Studio sponsor for 2025. If you need any more information about Shed Pro or about Shed Geek, just reach out. You can reach us by email at info@shedgeek.com or just go to our website www.shedgeek.com and submit a form with your information and we'll be in contact right away. Thank you again for listening as always today's episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. Thank you and have a blessed day.