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
When Success Becomes The Lesson: Rebuilding A Smarter Growth Engine Part 2
Growth doesn’t come from stacking more sheds on the lot; it comes from choosing the right model and building systems that make it work. We sat down to map how a shed business can hit a true 20% lift by aligning strategy with execution, from boutique marketing builds to smart, segmented lead funnels that guide buyers from curiosity to contract. Along the way, we break down why vertical, short‑form video wins on Reels, Shorts, and TikTok, and show how interest‑based algorithms reward clear hooks, tight loops, and real proof.
We compare paths that both work: a display‑first, digital‑heavy approach using configurators, live video consultations, and fast scheduling versus a true super-lot model with deep selection and rapid delivery. The takeaway isn’t either/or; it’s fit and focus. Independent dealers can diversify with logical add‑ons to cover lot costs without muddying the brand, while manufacturers can back dealers with better creative, smarter funnels, and clean attribution. If you’re wrestling with the dealer network question or wondering how much inventory you really need, you’ll find practical ways to reduce risk and increase throughput.
AI has a real role here. We share where it shines today—copy iterations, data analysis, and workflow automation—and where to keep a human hand on the wheel. Weekly consulting sprints on funnel design, monthly oversight, and a trusted partner bench help you launch systems that work on day one. Expect concrete moves: segment by use case, embed social proof, route leads intelligently, and track CPC, CPL, and CPA in one place. If your homepage is doing all the heavy lifting, it’s time to evolve.
Ready to build a system that matches your model? Subscribe, share this with your team, and leave a review with one question you want answered next. Then reach out at info@shedgeek.com to book a discovery call and start turning clicks into scheduled deliveries.
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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Pro
Hello and welcome back to the Shed Geek Podcast. Here's a message from our studio sponsor. Let's be real. Running a shed business today isn't just about building great jets. The industry is changing fast. We're all feeling the squeeze, competing for fewer buyers, while expectations keep climbing. And yet, I hear from many of you that you're still juggling spreadsheets, clunky software, or disconnected systems. You're spending more time managing chaos than actually growing your business. That's why I want to talk to you about our studio sponsor, ShedPro. If you're not already using them, I really think you should check them out. ShedPro combines your 3D configurator, point of sale, RTO contracts, inventory, deliveries, and dealer tools all in one platform. They even integrate cleanly into our Shed Geek Marketing solutions. From website lead to final delivery, you can quote, contract, collect payment, and schedule delivery in one clean workflow. No more double entries, no more back and forth payments. And if you mention Shed Geek, you'll get 25% off all setup fees. Check it out at shedpro.co/ shed geek. Thank you, Shed Pro, for being our studio sponsor and honestly, for building something that helps the industry.
Cord :Welcome back to the Shed Geek Podcast. Today we will have part two of two, finishing up our conversation from last week. Hope you enjoy.
Cord :How do we get in front of them? How do we tell a story? How do we eventually capture their lead? And then how do we work that from a sales perspective? Right. If you want to grow by 20% a year, then your strategy does not need to be, you know, sort of like we were saying earlier, uh, you know, more lots and teardrop flags. Now you can get there by doing that, there's no doubt, right? But you know, if you want 20% revenue growth, then you can get there. If you want uh, you know, 20% net growth, right, then you're gonna have to manage to do it on a scalable uh level that doesn't include, you know, $150,000 or $200 or $250,000 worth of inventory going and out for every lot, right? So my whole point is, you know, we want to be able to strategize with companies, create really, really smart marketing systems that match up with their goals, their values, where they want to be, uh, where they're headed. Um, and you know, frankly, to do that, we need to limit the number of those systems that we're building at that one time. Um, that's just that's just the truth of it. Um, you know, and so having what we would think of as a more boutique service um and doing that a little slower uh and with hyper intention, hyper focus, um, and making sure that those systems are fantastic and that, you know, because the other dynamic here is um, you know, save for, I suppose, um, you know, the kind of deep south, right along the Gulf Coast, uh, or over in West Texas or whatever else. But for the most part, a lot of companies want to be doing some of these these build-outs uh over the slow season here, right? Um, you know, from that October through February, March, you know, type of a season, so that then you're launching into that kind of new sales year. Um, you know, and to do that, to do that really well, um, you know, we just need to have high intention and then those systems need to work the day that they roll out. Uh, there does not need to be, you know, extended periods of fixing and everything else, right? So um anyway, I think that the combination of um kind of doing away with the white labeling, bringing that customer experience in-house, really being intentional about being a boutique service, um, you know, and only onboarding uh X number of customers per quarter or per six months, or you know, as we get into it, I think we'll kind of feel out what exactly that that uh limit is uh for each of our partners. And then on the partner side, really and truly having niche expertise in every one of these services, to me, those three things uh really are what define uh or what are going to define Shed Geek Marketing going forward uh and why we think that we can do such a great job uh you know for the customer.
Shannon:You know, there's so many directions you can take this episode in, and we've got like a HubSpot annual report pulled up, you know, the 2025 state of uh marketing report, just some general overviews, you know, or whatever that it talks about, uh which age groups are marketers targeting in 2025. You can just assume that that's gonna like pretty much lend credibility to 2026 closely as well. Uh Gen Z, uh, let's see, the actually the baby boomers being the smallest uh targeted marketing. Gen X, uh technically I'm right on the cusp of that that generation. Uh, but then Millennials, the highest, and Gen Z, the second highest. Um short form video and visual and visual storytelling dominate. Uh there's just something about videos. Again, just a plug to my guys over here at Live Switch. That's why they exist. You know, live switch.com, tell them Shed Geek sent you. You know, if you decide to sign up with their services, you know, uh we get a little something. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, we're not trying to like break the bank open. We're trying to help people because I think it's uh I think it's a phenomenal service. I think it's gonna be helpful the way that sales are starting to trend. And when you think about like that company I talked about that brought on 500,000 in sales and online, you know, they were really surprised because that was beating a lot of their dealers, especially, you know, if they have like uh I think it's like 26 dealers or so, you know. Imagine they're probably in that top 10 for sure in year one, right off the bat, and they're sitting here going, wait a minute, this is with no inventory whatsoever. Which look, I this is like I said, we can go one of a couple directions, you know. I mean, I've said this before several times, and shout out to Tough Shed, you know, uh to my knowledge, the largest shed manufacturer in the country, you know, and do this on a display model, you know, like we've talked about doing that here, Cord, uh, just to kind of see how that goes, not because we're in a high traffic area where it's gonna generate a whole bunch of success, but just like not selling off an inventory model, bringing people in, actually having the customer, you know, experience, increasing the customer acquisition time, decreasing some of like the standard way of impulsive decision making that happens a lot of times in buying a shed. I just want to get one out the door, want to help the customer long term. And probably part of doing that's coming in, making sure to get them the right colors, make sure to get the right structure, make sure to get it right all the bells and whistles that they want and things like that. And maybe that increases that customer acquisition time to an hour or an hour and a half or whatever it is uh across the industry. Um, but you know, Tough Shed does this and it's amazing. You know, they bring people in. Uh now, of course, they go build them. They don't do much prefab from what I'm aware of, or at least have knowledge of, but they do a phenomenal job, you know, and they've done really well in the in the shed space. Um, and I'm like, is that the future or is it more inventory? I mean, I do believe in superlots, but I believe that superlots gonna have to be two, three hundred buildings to move the needle. I mean, I don't know that a superlot's 40 buildings anymore, or 60 buildings even. You know, I think you're gonna have to have so much there that people are gonna drive from 50, 100 miles away to be like, okay, well, there's plenty to choose from here. I can surely find one I like. It's a big enough organization, they can get it delivered within four or five days. But if you're eight to ten business days on an inventory piece and you're three to four weeks on a new building, I mean, I tend to think that people are gonna choose a new building, get what they everything that they want. It's brand new, out the door. Uh, so like again, we can take this marketing concept and conversation in a lot of different directions, but uh business models are going to work, Shannon, right?
Cord :Like, I mean, you know, Walmart may have um, you know, put a lot of like small hometown grocers um you know out of business, right? But they're still there. Um, you know, and in fact, some people would maybe argue that as Dollar General now starts to add um you know produce back, uh, starts to add fresh meats back, right? Like, you know, now is like Dollar General filling part of that niche, right? Um, you know, Walmart may have put all of the independent or many, not all, many of the independent small town grocers out of business. I mean, personally here in Metropolis, we still have a independent small town grocer, Big John's. Um, you know, they did not put Kroger or Aldi uh or a food line, right? Like everybody actually really likes those like mid-size, right? Like bigger than what you would think of as a as a um like a hometown grocer, right? But not so overwhelming that now people don't enjoy the experience of going to Walmart any longer, right? And I'm just using this generic example because the fact is, is like multiple business models are going to win, but you better know which one you're in, right? Because if because if you are if you are Big Johns, if you're a local hometown grocer and like you are trying to market and run an app, you know, as if you are Walmart, and like you have all these tertiary expenses, as if you are selling, you know, furniture and you have all these other products with margins and whatever, right? I mean, my point is like there's not a single direction that is going to just all out and out win or lose. But like depending on what business model you're in, you better know which one of those avenues you want to participate in. I mean, I think that we, you know, here at Shed Geeks certainly believe like for independent dealers, gosh, you had better be diversifying. You know, and if you're dealing with a manufacturer, a shed manufacturer, uh, or a manufacturer of any kind that still has an opinion that your independently uh owned, operated, and run shed lots should not have anything other than sheds on them, then like I hate to be like this, you know, because the manufacturer probably don't want to hear this. But like you need to find somebody who will, because like that's the path for that business model, right? Um, you know, and so you know, same with inventory versus custom. There's gonna be some of both. Not everybody can be Buc-ees, right? You know, uh Buc-ees won't fit at every exit, Buc-ees won't fit in every tank, you know. Um, but that doesn't mean that that you better not really and truly understand, you know, where your strengths are and what your strategy is, and make sure that your systems, you know, to our point, right, when you're designing or updating or upgrading your marketing systems, you had better know, you know, who your customer is, uh, what kind of offer you're going to them with, and have a strategy to both collect that lead uh and to close that sale.
Shannon:Think about what we've been hearing even here in quarter four. Um, you know, different manufacturers that we talk to uh talking about how sales are down. And there's gonna be somebody listening, Cord, just gonna be like, what are you talking about? Quarter four in 2025 was my best ever. And you know, like, you know, which direction do you go with that? And it's like, yeah, because the person who's saying it was my worst quarter ever, you were probably taking some of their market share. You know, maybe you did that through some of your digital uh uh, you know, uh tools in your toolbox, you know, or maybe you're just in a an area ripe for opportunity for the next couple of years in in terms of shed sales. Maybe you're in a growing area that's just constantly in need uh of storage.
ADVERTISEMENT:Oh no.
ADVERTISEMENT:Sam, what's going on? Are you okay?
ADVERTISEMENT:Yes, I'm fine, Lisa. I was just trying to get a screwdriver and all this other stuff fell down. I'm ready to go buy a shed so we can have some space in this garage again.
ADVERTISEMENT:I agree. I keep looking at the shed Mr. Jenkins bought. Let's ask him where I got his.
ADVERTISEMENT:Howdy, neighbor. We're wondering, how do you like your shed?
ADVERTISEMENT:I love it. It's exactly what I needed, and I couldn't have asked for a better service. And where did you get it? I can't remember, but let me check. Something this nice will probably have the builder's name on it somewhere. No, I'm sorry. I can't find a name anywhere.
ADVERTISEMENT:Well, we finally got a shed.
ADVERTISEMENT:Yes. I just hope we're happy. The thing is a lot more shoddy than I expected. And I'm sure I told them I wanted a window, but they didn't have it in the paperwork, so I couldn't argue. Boy, is this a lousy shed. We haven't even had it two years, have we?
ADVERTISEMENT:Barely. It was just a bad deal all the way around. Mr. Jenkins told me the other day that he likes his shed so much he wants to get a second one, but he still can't remember where he got it.
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Shannon:You know, we're talking about just doing like a smaller lot here local and simply for the reason of like staying uh staying in the game. We've been out of it almost too long, right? In terms of like sales to just get in the game. But it's like, hey, let's just do a couple of small things to diversify. Let's just do, you know, uh um sell off of a display model, right? Get rid of that display model at the end of the year, bring in something new, just put enough out there to kind of show people uh, you know, what can be done, but then do a lot of the work online, do a lot of the work through uh video. Uh maybe that's live switch, maybe do a lot of it through Zoom, you know, uh, maybe do a lot of that through a 3D configurator, you know, uh uh being able to like show them the uh the features and benefits of what they're getting. But maybe it's like offering some of these, you know, trailers, you know, from our buddies down in Eagleville. You know, maybe that's offering a um uh a carport, you know, just diversifying to your point, just add a couple of things to help pay the lot rent or whatever. And like that, you know, it's a small town. I don't I don't feel like even in a 50-mile radius we're gonna be a huge dealer, you know. Um, I competed in sales a couple of times, you know, here even locally, even got first place a couple of times against some pretty large territory. So like really put the work in and got it done. But it's like, what's the long term look like? It's just it's just helping people, it's helping people get storage, it's helping people solve problems. And if you're an independent, you know, dealer, yeah. I mean, like you have to think about that. And if you're a manufacturer, if you're not putting that in, you're not front loading that into your agreement where you're saying we're gonna bring you these free buildings, but you can only sell these things, it's kind of hard to tell an independent manufacturer not to pay the bills, you know, and like especially if they're taking on all their lead gen and website and all these different things. And you know what? Some of them may like the benefit of staying independent because then they can switch vendors and like it's just it becomes very it becomes it becomes a lot, right? Like you really have to understand the industry well, I think, to understand how to market even the products in the industry.
Cord :Well, yeah, I mean, if you're not again, it's what's the strategy? You know, if you are not, if you're an independent dealer who is who is not diversifying, who is not trying to build the profile, right? The business profile, um, in your customers' minds, in those local consumers' minds, as the you know, solution for uh whatever those kind of backyard, outdoor, um, you know, uh whether it be utility storage, um, you know, kind of those backyard solutions, outdoor solutions, storage solutions at your home property, whatever it might be. Like if you're not trying to be that if you are if you are just selling any one of those products individually, then like you better have a really good, you know, lead gen process to make sure that you are scooping up every single um you know uh digital lead for a shed within your ratings, right? You better be getting it because that's you know that that if that's your strategy, then you need to have a component that says I'm all in on sheds, right? Because if you're all in on sheds and being all in on sheds just means that you have uh a lot, right? And that you don't have that those marketing systems that are kind of surrounding it and bolstering it and everything else, then like there are other business models that are gonna outplay you in that, right? And it may not get to you, to your point, Shannon. You may be in an area that just has a couple years of good, strong development and growth ahead of it, and it may not get to you for some amount of time, and that's perfectly fine too, right? Like do it for a couple years and get out or whatever. But you know, it it's just about being intentional and knowing what space you want to occupy in your consumer's mind, uh, and making sure that you're then intentionally. Building marketing systems around that.
Shannon:I think this is why we've kind of got into that consulting space a little bit more. We've been like, you know, we want to give away uh as much value as we can on the podcast for free, the old Zig Ziggler, you know, help others get what they want so you can get what you want. Hopefully, through that advice, you can see that there's like a uh uh a systematic approach or some leveraging of information, knowledge, and experience here that we can use to benefit someone. That's why the consultation, I'm happy to say, you know, we've got Tyler Mayhan on board. A lot of you guys know Tyler, you know, from uh Better Barns out in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. He wrote in the SBJ for years and ran a successful business for you know 20 years being involved in that. Peter Miller, you know, the guys down in Florida, you know, and what they've done with the Shed Sales uh Summit and being able to create an actual experience that like focuses on the hunger of solving education in in the sales, uh Shed Sales specific arena, you know, Richard Mashburn, gosh, like a man that needs no introduction, you know, and just like the value. And we're and here we are, you know, we've got a couple of uh consulting clients already through just kind of quietly generation. But then the other people that we're adding to that process to be able to uh look at your PLs, like through a business perspective. You know what I'm saying? Like uh look at your marketing agents, uh your marketing numbers and take a look at what your cost per click, you know, and your cost per lead and cost per acquisition are. Being able to get into the details. I mean, your company even growth ops, you know, you and Shalisha. I mean, Shalisha, gosh, we gotta get her on a podcast Cord, you know, like I mean, she's just brilliant, you know, in terms of business and uh um, you know, was even a uh you know, her husband's like a franchise consultant, you know, and she's ran you know franchise consultants or uh franchising agencies for years. I think at one point over, I don't remember what she said, time like two HR blocks. HR blocks, yeah.
Cord :On the company side. Um, you know, then she worked on they owned their own HR block. So, she was on both sides of that franchisee, franchise or relationship. Her husband is now a franchise consultant, which means that he places uh, you know, matches people to potential, you know, franchise businesses. Um, you know, and then obviously she and I uh do GrowthOps, uh, you know, where we then offer the fractional uh executive uh services, you know.
Shannon:So these are value props that I think we can like even beyond marketing, it's like it's not just really marketing anymore. It's like people are looking for help in a in a multitude of areas, like a multitude of information. And what we're doing is just trying to pull in our resources to say, hey, we just want a little bit, you know, like that's what keeps the podcast going, you know, is that advertising and uh it allows us to have fun. I mean, to visit you guys and to hear your stories. And there's nothing I love more than a dealer telling me their story. There's also nothing I love more than hearing somebody come on and talk about their product and their service and want to talk about how it benefits the industry. I mean, that's free. Come on, talk about it. You know, is there a way we can partner more? That's great. But I'm excited about some of the other conversations we're having right now with consultation. You know, we're gonna probably build that out a little bit farther. And some of that includes consulting you in a marketing uh capacity. And like if we're not the right fit, like it's just easy to tell you that.
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Cord :We're actually bringing on um you know our first um client for consulting. We will then have specialized uh this uh particular client will then have like specialized lead funnel design um you know type of consultative service. Um, and just so the listeners kind of understand um what that will look like is we went out and found uh you know a person who we feel great about uh is um you know very uh kind of niched down, right? Has a lot of experience in this particular uh kind of uh marketing discipline, right? Lead funnel design. Um similar to kind of what I was saying about, you know, do you add a little uh giveaway piece of uh value, PDF, you know, in the middle of your lead funnel there, stuff like that. Um and so like we are making that connection um should be starting here next week, right? So that is um, you know, an hour a week that you'll that the customer, the client will have with the consultant, right? Where they are basically mapping, planning, uh creating that strategy, um, you know, and then once a month, uh or sometimes twice a month, depending on scheduling, then you and I, uh either both of us or uh one of us are then jumping in from like shed geek headquarters uh onto those weekly calls to make sure that uh all the bases are covered, uh all resources needed, right? If there's a different discipline uh uh you know of advice that is needed, uh if there's a connection that needs to be made, if there's any way that we can kind of add to those, add to that knowledge, add to those resources, add to those connections, we're then getting on to make sure that that that sort of free flow of information is happening. And you know, effectively, you know, this is allowing the customer um to get a really great idea of how they want their marketing systems uh to be designed, what the strategy is, kind of laying all that out um before then taking that next step into okay, now let's venture into who is the right partner to then build, you know, this uh whatever that system we're talking about might be, right? Obviously, CRM, we love Joe, we love Velocity, right? Like uh, you know, so easy shout out there, but whatever system they're looking at improving, right? They kind of have that very personal, uh deep knowledge base to just talk through and playing instructions.
Shannon:And in some cases, Cord, in some cases, it's a pay-to-play. I hate to use that that terminology, but some of those, especially in some of the SEO uh performances that we're looking at, it's you know, it's stacked for the benefit of the person who's actually wanting to create you know good SEO so that they can uh decrease their ad budget and increase their organic traffic. That's a step up. It's going to be measurable in terms of like, hey, this is where you start. And if you don't get results, you don't see a bill. And like I think that's really important, especially after you know, uh our previous experience is like controlling the purse as well, too, so that it's like, hey, if you're not seeing the results, here's your refund. Like, if I don't control that funding, then I don't have the ability to make that right. And like this, we have complete control of that situation moving forward. So, it's just like moving forward in a very slow, um, organized and cautious approach uh to make sure that you actually deliver results. I think that's what people in this industry want at the end of the day. It's like, hey, if it's working, I'll keep doing it. If it's not, I won't. And I'm like, well, that seems very reasonable. Same way, same approach I take. I'm gonna address this real quick just because I have this pulled up and it'll get me through this. I don't know how long we've gone on this podcast now. I didn't write the time down when we began, and uh was just kind of curious at how it would go. But top content formats for delivering ROI in 2025. I thought this was very interesting. Certainly goes along with my my newest SBJ article, certainly goes along with my buddies over at Live Switch. Uh short form video. Uh that's not what they do, live switch. That's not what they do. They connect you with the customer via live uh a live switch, literally, right? Uh, you know, uh, but short form video content, images, live stream videos, podcast audio content, and user-generated content. Uh, I thought that was a very interesting approach that, like, of the all the senses cord, the visual, you know, sure seems to win out in 2025, and I think it will in 2026. People being able to see what it is uh that they want to purchase through your through your content, through your messaging. That short form video content is certainly grabbing and it's pulling on the unfortunate like rewiring of our minds through social media to be able to engage in content at these 60-second intervals where we're just not entertained by, you know, we're probably an hour in. And it's like people are really dedicated who are listening to an hour of conversation. Uh, you know, I used to listen to talk radio for four or five hours at a time every day. So, like it's no big deal for me to just listen to that and I pick up on information through that, you know, just kind of subconsciously. But short form video content certainly is uh is a way to target, you know, those millennials.
Cord :It needs to be vertical. I mean, there uh what I I'm not sure which article you're looking at there, but like, you know, uh it doesn't say that explicitly, but that's implicit, um, because the vertical it's not just about so yes, um um the short formness of it, right? The idea that things just need to be in that you know 20 to 60 second range uh for the sake of people's uh uh attention spans. But the other part is that all of the vertical formats, whether that is um Facebook Reels, Instagram reels, um, YouTube Shorts, uh TikTok, right, all of the vertical formats have now moved to uh what is called an interest-based algorithm, right? So instead of being a social uh based algorithm, which is effectively that you know you have told Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or YouTube what you like based on your subscribers, based on what you have declared to Facebook are your interests, right? We were talking this morning. One of my declared interests on Facebook uh is the St. Louis Cardinals. I'll tell you what I have no interest in watching the last two or three years, whenever it has been a struggle for the Cardinals to score runs and find a pitching staff that is like regularly competent, right? Like I'll tell you what I have not been super interested in a lot of Cardinals content because frankly it puts me in a bad mood. Uh because I remember you know how great it was growing up with uh you know Pujols and Molina, uh, you know, and Cardinals, whatever, right? But my point is instead of kind of believing people when they say, well, these are the people I like, these are my interests, you know, these are the groups that I am. Uh the these are the groups that I'm in, right? What that interest-based algorithm does is it says, No, we're gonna tell you what you're interested in, because we're better at putting things in front of you um that you like than you are at telling people what you like. I mean, these are some deep psychological, you know, kind of uh you know, tendencies here, right? And so my point is, you know, um, if you're not doing vertical, do vertical. Uh, you know, talk to your customers. Um, you know, if you have any kind of national presence or national aspirations, I mean, that is that is what this type of, you know, obviously it can spread amongst your community. Uh, you know, it can spread in your local area. But like if you are a company that is regional or has any kind of a national presence, like you should be leading with vertical video because all it takes is one of those things to just catch uh, you know, they don't publicly disclose a hundred percent what all of the little time stamps are, right? Whether or not it is uh that under one second, right, is a big one that is kind of known, right? If people are scrolling uh within one second of your video hitting, um, you know, that's not good, right? You know, uh, you know, if people are watching multiple times, I'm sure for anyone who is on Facebook or you know regularly watches those vertical videos, you'll notice that they've started to build them where they're a loop, where it almost shows you the ending first and then goes back. Like that's a that's an attention strategy, right? The strategy is to to get you to actually allow that video to loop through and watch an extra three seconds of it the second time it plays through.
Shannon:You've seen all these. You've seen these guys that are like tumbling down a hill, and the next thing you know, it cuts over to you tumbling into your shed or your car or whatever you're selling, you know. And the whole idea is to like get you to pay attention longer, it buys you a couple more seconds to attempt to try to sell something to you in a generation where so many videos are being put out, short reels and things like that are being put out. What captures your attention? What lives in your algorithm to your point? Like, what makes you think it's not, and whenever people say, Well, this is like witchcraft or whatever, this isn't a whole lot different than you walking into a library, in my opinion, and the librarian saying, just got some new books in on you know, uh uh what whatever popular magazine, popular mechanics or something, because they know that you enjoy reading about you know muscle cars or something. So, they're like, by the way, the librarian says, just got a new magazine in, you may want to take a look. This is just a digital apparatus that's saying, hey, we know that you like to watch videos over tractor pools. So here's some more tractor pool videos. So if you begin to look into the storage space, if you're a customer, uh whether it's through disruptive marketing or through it's through intention, whether it's through intentional search, like an actual Google prompt using specific keywords, it's still going to show back up into your algorithm. That's happening with YouTube, it's happening with Google, right? These are the two biggest search engines in general, anyway. Um, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off their chord, or maybe I did, but you if you wanted to finish your thought there, it just made me made me think of that in a moment.
Cord :No, no, not at all. Um, no, I think that's um I was just I was trying to I quickly was searching because I didn't want to misquote, but uh oh famous uh Arthur Clark uh right is the any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, you know, and like in a in a lot of ways, um you know, the speed at which you know targeting and retargeting can happen now, um, you know, feels ridiculous because it has gotten to that point. But um, but you know, again, um you know, I just think that um this this for me it just hammers home the idea that you know not that every everything has to change, not that that different business models are not going to be able to survive. And then there's you know, uh, you know, I think here at Shed Geek, you know, we've seen success out of particular business models when it comes to uh independent dealers. We've seen success out of particular business models when it comes to um, you know, your regional uh, you know, or you know, large local, however you want to think about that, manufacturers. Those manufacturers have uh, you know, three to four or five locations, right? We've seen different business models work for them. Um, you know, we've seen different business models work for those large manufacturers that have multiple manufacturing facilities and uh you know, not only a dealer network, but then a network of reps that are going out and adding new dealers. And, you know, and so you know I think that we kind of have our preferences in each kind of category that we feel work. And it's not that we prefer them because, you know, whatever we have some we have some uh irrational, you know, love for a certain business model than the other. It's because we've seen people succeed, which is what we want to encourage and what we want to help with. And so we may have our preferences in each category uh as far as how those things go, but this isn't to say that there's one model to rule them all, right? Little Lord of the Rings.
Shannon:You fall into that trap, and uh I begin to think about something that me and you've talked about whenever me and you argue about politics or popular culture or whatever it is, right? Whenever we're just having that conversation, and uh, you know, I I've truth is truth, right? Like it's one source of truth, but like I've heard you say several times, and I agree, two things can be true at the same time. Now, that's not negating away from like absolute truth to be like, well, this is my truth and that's your truth. No, it's saying two things can be true at the same time, meaning two business models can work really well. Uh, and that's the comparison I'm trying to draw. It doesn't mean I think there's this trap you can fall into to say, well, it has to be vertically integrated into this one singular experience. And it doesn't have to be in business. Everyone picks something that they prefer and they run with that. And you know what? That's why mergers and acquisitions happen. That's why I think they're gonna continue to happen in 2026, is because we are seeing companies that are saying, like, we tried this route and we feel like we're kind of at the end of that success bubble, and it's ready to try something different and like move that experience over to somewhere else. That's why we Seen even some large manufacturers sell, uh, sell out to private equity groups or whatever that situation is, you know, that that enters into the space. Um, but yeah, I agree with you completely. I think there's, you know, sometimes there's multiple avenues to work. So that's why whenever one person's saying, you know, do it this way, this is what was my success. Well, it doesn't mean it's going to be that exact thing in their area, but it doesn't mean that you can't take away from uh uh some of the successful things that they've endeavored, uh, you know, and you could pull on those resources. That's why I believe in going to things like the Shed Sales uh um, you know, summit. That's why I believe in going to like Shed Week. You know, it's enjoyable to be there to be knowledgeable about the thing that I'm earning my living off of. So, it just behooves me to engage into the industry. And part of that is following podcasts, following reading books, you know, following certain people on social media who I feel like are just leading in certain spaces, whether through their content creation or through their websites or through their, you know, whatever media that they're using to get it out there. I think we're almost pulling back a little bit over here. It's five years in, and we're like, are we a media company completely? No. You know, we work in the industry. I have since the podcast launched. I was an RTO rep, you know, whenever I launched it. And part of the people would say, you know, I don't think they realize it. Part of that thought was you're knocking on doors, you're knocking on doors in a highly competitive market. And if I realized nothing immediately, it was that people want a relationship in this industry. I ask people this all the time. You've heard me ask some of the some of the brightest and best in this industry, what wins RTO business today? Because I see it as being so competitive. Like, what wins? I'm always interested in the thoughts that I get back from people, you know, of like what they think wins business. Because I remember what it was like to just be like a you know, a hardworking guy out here beating the road and just trying to offer up a good value proposition that was like competitive, you know, and relationship was definitely one of those things. And I heard so many people say, you know, I need more resources, more information. It's like, oh man, we can do that. Let's just, let's just interview, interview folks. Like, who knew that it would come with all the rest of the stuff, right? You know, good and bad that came with it, but we pursued it, you know, you know, prayed about it, followed God, and said, hey, you know, as long I mean, I've said this chord since day one, I'll say it again. You know, the minute God says, I want you to be done with that, I'll be done. Because obedience is greater than sacrifice. But you know, I think we've been able to provide a lot of cool opportunity through conversations. I mean, I've met some of my best friends through in this industry by just having conversations. So I believe that it's very important to have those things. I know I just went on a little bit of a of a you know, whatever there, a rabbit trail. But uh, you know, I'm thinking about like the future of the of the industry and even the future of like media and like communications and like even our own. It's one thing to educate people on these things, it's another thing to actually experience them.
Cord :Yeah.
Shannon:I you know, there's a lot of behind the scenes that you don't get to be privy to that I wish you could, but you know, for the sake of staying out of court, you know, I digress. You know, I don't invite it.
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Shannon:Pet peeves in marketing. I know there's no telling we're rat, and if we end up having to cut some of this, we'll just cut it. But you know, what are some pet peeves that you see cord in marketing? What are some things that you wish would change? Maybe specific to the shed industry when I say pet peeves.
Cord :I mean, you know, I think one of the biggest things is um not trying to segment and this is true across all industries, right? Is it seems like people don't try to segment their uh um both their messaging, their value prop, and then the actual lead funnel itself, right? So, um which would be um what are you saying to people like in that you know the reason you call it funnel is because a lot of times it is like a vertically laid out thing, right? Whether that's uh an actual web page, a landing page, a page that's been created through um you know, through a CRM, right, that serves as a landing page, but then has uh a higher function of reporting. Uh maybe it's as simple as a um you know a lead form itself, right? Which uh, you know, is usually experienced vertically as well because you're asking questions uh, you know, that kind of go from top to bottom. Um but you know, I think I think the biggest thing for me is um most people, most companies in general kind of seem to treat all their customers as much the same. Um, whenever, as we well know, um, you know, we can we could lay out half a dozen um just broad categories for why people are getting um you know a backyard shed, right? A backyard portable building, right? Um, you know, storage, I think was the original kind of thing. But gosh, that has grown. Um, you know, it becomes a hobby space, it becomes a uh ADU, right, is now the you know technical description uh as a as a partial dwelling, right?
Shannon:Where you're you know, a book nook, a she shed, right, a man cave, uh, you know, uh cranny pod, a dotty house, my buddy Dale Beachy over there.
Cord :Yeah, no, those, I mean, those at least uh insinuate that they're actually like sleeping and living in them, right? So even that's a whole nother thing, right? And then you have true shouts uh where it's actually uh not just a uh partial dwelling unit where you're like living but not necessarily sleeping per se, doesn't necessarily need full uh uh electricity and plumbing. Um anyway, I mean we're just going down rabbit holes, but like there's half a dozen big, like big category uses, and then there are then branches off of each of those that go in different directions. You know, so I think to me, you know, um probably my biggest pet peeve overall is not having those um diversified kind of uh lead pathways. Um, you know, so you make sure that you're speaking to each one of those uh problems and solutions uh and why your value prop, you know, is the right one for the customer. Um I think a lot of times we just throw people to a home page, right? And then we're like, well, you know, navigate for yourself, uh, right? Where you know, I would advocate for a much more um custom journey, you know, for that customer. Um, so that's probably my overall pet peeve. But you know, I mean the fact about that is like it takes money, right? So um, you know, if you're gonna have, you know, a dozen or half a dozen, you know, lead pathways um for your for your customer, then you're gonna have to build them all out. You're gonna have to think through, you know, what are the sort of uh mid-funnel activities? Are you doing that PDF, right? Are you pushing someone to 3D Builder? Um, are you embedding a um, oh my goodness, real work? Are you embedding a real work labs uh map, you know, inside of that, even on that lead funnel page separately from your home page or whatever else, right? So, I mean, you know, that's why. I mean, I understand that in a lot of ways, if budget is the sort of uh, you know, the hampering factor there, and even from a personal perspective, I don't have as many lead funnels for my wife's uh, you know, uh event and uh events business as I would like, you know, because just in a lot of ways, like doing it the way I would want it done is going to require those professional graphics and right. And so like, you know, there's just a budgetary constraint there. Um, but I guess my pet peeve would be people who constrain themselves not because of budget, right? Like we know plenty of companies that could certainly tackle this sort of all-encompassing um, you know, realm, uh all-encompassing uh customer pathway type of strategy, um, who just don't think about it in that way, right? Who just think about it as, well, we've ran pay-per-click for the last 20 years and we're gonna throw people to the homepage, and if they can figure out how to get down the right leg of that homepage to get us a lead, then great.
Shannon:You know, so uh it's made me entertain the idea of selling, you know, abroad. You know, we've talked about this for a long time, but if you can see, if you can follow the entire workflow, you know, uh if you can if you can follow the entire funnel from the time that someone gets interested to the time that someone has a shed delivered in their backyard. I mean, it's made me entertain the idea of like outside of consulting, is Shed Geek Sales the best, you know, uh uh approach moving forward to say, hey, look, we understand this stuff. And if you're like, I just want to build a shed, but be more than happy to have you sell our sheds for us. Maybe we need to go down that road. We've talked about it for a long time. We bought this church and we've got a whole sanctuary out there that's just waiting to be filled. And I'm like, I don't know, maybe that's an opportunity. Um I'm looking at the HubSpot, and we'll wrap up here. I'm looking at the HubSpot map that we've been kind of using to chart our course here, although we haven't stayed on it very good at all this entire episode, uh, which is just bar for the course. And it is talking about AI, redefining marketing with AI, no longer a future tool, but uh, you know, a core of today's successful campaigns from generating multi-model content to optimizing search strategies. You know, marketers are using AI to scale create uh creativity and efficiency. Uh, and it break has a breakdown here, uh, talking about total top AI applications and marketing in 2025. Excuse me, and how 35% of that is content creation, such as writing or images, 30% data, analytics and insights, and 20% workflow automation. And although that 20% is on the low end there, okay, uh, one more 15% AI-powered research. But it's that workflow automation that gets me, because so much of the conversation that's dominated the space, even here in this conversation today, which is you know, getting that workflow online to match up with like the branding of your company or what you would want to see whenever you spend all this time to go out, build inventory, open up a dealer location, just on a gut feeling that somebody seems like a pretty decent guy. Like he seems okay. Let's give him a shot. And I'm like, is that sustainable in business? You know, I mean, I know, and like, look, phenomenal company, and no, they won't be named, but I know, you know, of a company that, you know, uh opened up a surplus, I don't want to say exactly how many, a surplus of manufacturer or uh uh dealer locations this year, and 50% of them got shut down. And I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, I'm like, wow, that's wild, you know, because I'm over here, like, how much more would investing in the digital landscape, like, how much more would that would that take rather than investing in all this inventory and being able to just meet the customer where they are, where customers are shopping today? I think somebody said one time I was looking at closing down the new dealer network, and I'm like, absolutely not, you know. Uh uh, I can't do anything on my own anyway, first of all. But if educating people causes, you know, a movement to shift in some way or whatever, I mean, I apologize, but you know, uh, don't stone me to death. You know, I'm not Socrates over here. You know, we're just trying to like have conversations with people and be as educated. And we're trying to get educated ourselves, but I I gotta tell you, I struggle with the dealer, the dealer network, the inventory network specifically. Uh, you know, reshift their focus or if they become employees, as long as they're independent contractors, I struggle with the idea that you can't outsell on a display model than you can with inventory. So I think there's a shift between three or four or five displays out there and like three or four hundred buildings, you know. Maybe it's not three or four hundred, maybe it's 120, 150, or something like that. But I don't know if that like 10 to 12, 15 buildings is the is the billboard that you want. I don't know if that's a if that's if that's generating enough value uh for you as a company, but I digress. I don't own a major company and I do not have a three to five or six hundred dealer network out there. So come on, come on, educate me, talk about that conversation and why that is valuable to have, but I'm just struggling with it a little bit, Cord. Final final thoughts uh here today.
Cord :Uh so I'll circle back to that where that started, which was with the uh use of AI. Um, you know, so I mean I think that uh it's certainly, I mean, you know, like this is not breaking news here. Um I was actually uh on the second day that Chat GPT was open to the public. I was a uh user of Chat GPT. So, I've been a gosh, that's been three years ago now, I suppose, two and a half. Um and was trying, you know, was evangelizing, right? Uh just how great this tool was and everything else. So, you know, I've been on this train for a long time. I've watched it develop. Uh I think that um yeah, certainly for content creation, especially when it comes to um copy and uh iterations of your primary um you know value propositions, right? Making sure that that wording particularly, you know, I'm I'm not uh opposed to some of the content that is is um there the graphic content, so still images has gotten pretty darn good. Um, you know, and I would encourage people to use uh those tools, especially on still images. Um a lot of the the different models do a good job of that. Video, I think, is still lagging. Um, you know, I've I recently heard that um oh gosh, now I'm gonna forget which brand it was. Um Coca-Cola. Um somebody just made a you know, did uh an AI generated ad, right, that is estimated took you know 300,000 prompts to put together a 60 second ad and about five of and about five of now. I mean they wanted it to be as close to the quality of a of a you know a produced, a traditionally produced ad, right? So they didn't just let the AI keep running away, right? They wanted to control it frame by frame and try to, you know, really, really make it something that looked like it could have been shot in a traditional way. Um I still think there's a lot uh to be desired from the video content there. You know, from my perspective, I would say get your camera out, turn it vertically, right? And and do your own vertical videos uh is is still a strategy, you know, other than just one-off little stuff, right? Little, you know, maybe it's an intro or an outro, maybe it can it does a good enough job being consistent, you know, and things like that to give you something that that is good quality. But yeah, so on the content, you know, I think it uh from uh an evaluation and a research perspective, it certainly does a good job. Although in in our industry, um, particularly when it comes to any kind of research on um competitors, just sort of because every all these companies are privately owned, right? Um, you know, it doesn't give you a really great um, you know, it doesn't have a real great understanding of kind of what the dynamics of of private industry is, because it doesn't have a lot of that public knowledge uh, you know, of those things. Um, you know, if you have data sets that are, you know, if if you're one of the the companies that's doing a great job of collecting data, then it can certainly do some pretty good analyzation, right? Like it can look at it and and show tell you trends and and you can kind of prompt back and forth uh you know to to give you some answers to specific questions that are data driven. Um you know, so yes, I mean I'm I've been a proponent of of AI. Uh to your point, the workflows. Uh it you know, you do need to similar to on the um on the the text generation side, you almost need to have an editor or an overseer to make sure that those workflows are are in fact correctly designed and that they have the the correct um you know uh if what type of uh triggers built into those workflows. But generally, yeah, I mean I you know from what from what I've seen from all the demos that I've done, I mean, I think that using um you know AI tools to create the actual um automations in whether it's HubSpot, uh, you know, or or GHL or whichever one of the CRM you know type services that you're using, those AI tools seem to be, you know, 90, 95% accurate with all of the very basic functions of of how you would want to automate those workflows. So, you know, I'm a I'm a big adopter of technology. So I say, you know, adopt it where it makes sense, um, be cautious, be cautious, um, you know, and always, you know, be willing to serve as that, you know, editors, editor or overseer function. Um, but my goodness, like if if the shed industry um, you know, can can be early or not early, but you know, can be somewhat early adopters uh, you know, of of those types of technologies, uh, I think that does nothing but put us ahead um, you know, as compared to other kind of big ticket consumer industries. We we need to we need to try and be ahead on this, right? Versus lagging behind and and other industries kind of uh you know, getting ahead of us in that sort of consumer experience type of stuff stuff, the same type of things that we're talking about, catching up on, uh, even just through more traditional marketing services, right? So um in any case, I guess maybe that's kind of where I land um, you know, as a you know uh what the outlook is for 2026 and and how I feel about you know 2025 and the progress the industry has made and um you know where we want to take our clients uh in 2026 and and well beyond.
Shannon:Well, if you have an interest in more information on Shed Geek Marketing, feel free to go to our website, fill out a lead form, contact me at info@shedgeek.com. We're happy to do a discovery call, guys, and just have a conversation and walk through what it is that you feel like we need. And I think there's just a desire there to say, can we help or can't we help? What does that look like? I don't want to oversell anything. Um, I think there's a lot of people that need, you know, still need a website. If they don't need a website, they need an updated website. You know, maybe they need to uh figure out how to uh, you know, uh do track uh tracking, you know, and and set up uh maybe a Google business profile or just, you know, whatever it is, Cord. Like the most simple of things. Maybe sometimes they just need information about where to go. We're happy to have those conversations. Like it starts somewhere so that we uh generate that credibility for you guys to want to uh work with us or to say, hey, I just want to be hands-off and want you to handle it completely, you know, and if that's what you prefer, we're happy to do that. But I don't think we're coming out with that that hard hitting, you know what I mean, uh uh year and a half that we went through. I think that boutique service explains really well what we're hoping to accomplish, you know, and like limit the capacity at which we're helping. And I believe that good begats good, you know. Uh for anybody who has had an experience uh in the past that you weren't satisfied with, give us a call. You know, like we're we're happy to have that uh that conversation privately. Um you know, I mean, I wish I could have that conversation publicly, but so be it. We'll uh we're we're gonna we're gonna leave it there. I'll digress. I I just can't say enough. Thank you for the nearly five years that we've already compete uh completed here in the industry, just specifically with the podcast. We want to continue to help use it to bolster the uh the information that is happening in the industry uh for its benefit so that it grows. Uh, we want to be part of that process. We want to build up, we don't want to tear down. Um, you know, um give us a call. If you if you want to do a discovery call, we'll certainly go through uh the content with you of what it looks like and get you in touch with the right partners and more than anything, provide results. I think that's what we're focused on in 2026. I think that's the nature of like what we're trying to say here today. So thank you, Shed Industry, for always listening. Any final thoughts, Cord?
Cord :Uh tune in to the uh whatever we are gonna call it, 2025 wrap-up, 2026 uh preview. I think you and I are going to uh do that ourselves as a dialogue first, uh, but then would also like to uh as we get closer to 2026 spring sales season, uh, even do a round table, right? So uh any listeners who would be interested in participating, we kind of have a group that's ready, but uh yeah, tune in because I think it's going to be interesting 2026 for the industry, and we're gonna be here covering it all.
Shannon:Sounds good. We'll talk to you guys soon. I'm wishing you nothing but the best in 2026.
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