Shed Geek Podcast

STEEL KINGS: 3D DESIGNER DEMO

• Shed Geek Podcast • Season 6 • Episode 16

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 47:51

Send a text

Most post-frame buyers start on their phones. If your sales flow doesn’t, you’re already behind. We brought Dan and Norma from Idea Room into the studio to show how a mobile 3D configurator pairs with SmartBuild to capture better leads, price faster, and close more barn, shop, and barndominium projects without adding headcount.

We start with the buyer journey: predefined styles that snap a basic shell into a premium farm build or wraparound design in one tap. Clean visuals, fast loads, and simple controls keep users engaged long enough to hit submit. That single click does the heavy lifting—contact info, site ZIP for tax and delivery, notes—and then spins up a SmartBuild job automatically. Your team opens it to find precise materials, cut lists, and assembly drawings aligned to supplier catalogs, trimming errors and waste while turning “rough price?” into a real number in minutes.

The integration now runs both ways. Sales View pulls the SmartBuild job total back into Idea Room, and with a manual refresh you can sync new edits after changing doors, leans, or structure. Reps manage leads on mobile with click-to-call and status updates, while one SmartBuild specialist dials in the details for accuracy and margin. Setup is fast—mapping colors, doors, windows, and trusses takes minutes when supplier data matches—and branding the configurator on your site builds your pipeline under your logo.

We also preview features for complex use cases: interior and divider walls, mezzanines with stairs and railings, and barndominium layouts that feel less like a gamble and more like a guided path to a buildable plan. If you’re running SmartBuild today, this is the turbo your process needs; if you’re not, you’ll see why dealers and builders are adopting the stack for speed, precision, and a better buyer experience.

Ready to see it live? Meet us at the NFBA Trade Expo in Oklahoma City, Feb 25–27, for hands-on demos. If this helped, subscribe, share with a builder who needs a faster quote flow, and leave a review to tell us what feature you want next.

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

Would you like to receive our weekly newsletter? Sign up on our website.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.

To be a guest on the Shed Geek Podcast visit our website and fill out the "Contact Us" form.

To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.

This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: J Money LLC

Cold Open & Sponsor Shoutouts

INTRO

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

INTRO

Yeah, we're all right. What I'll tell you, dude, is I am beyond excited. I am January Ledford. It is time to get motivated about your business. It's time for some personal development. It's time to get out and shake and hottie with people.

INTRO

I can tell you, man, what the Steel Kings are. Dude, we have a lot of what one thing, I mean, if I can say one statement about the step job, is that people need direct help from our marketing. I'm Jared. He's Eric. We are the get out in your communities, everybody, and do something good for somebody else. It'll make you feel better.

NFBA Focus And Guest Introductions

Why Idea Room For Post-Frame Sellers

Jared

Well, howdy howdy, welcome back to another episode of the Steel Kings Podcast. I am Jared, and I am super excited for today's episode. We have been rolling through a oh man, just a great cast list from the last few weeks focusing on the NFBA Trade Expo at the end of February. And man, do I ever have some exciting guests today. You guys hear me talk about uh 3D configurators and different partners, but Idea Room has really been uh a huge proponent of what we've done here on the Steel Kings podcast over the last year. And we talked to Dan a few months ago about some of the exciting things that Idea room is doing. If you haven't checked those episodes out, go back in the archives and check those episodes out. But I can tell you, we are here today to talk specifically to everyone in the post frame industry about something that Idea room has been doing now for uh some time, and we'll get into more of a timeline on that here in a bit. But this is a solution for all of you users of Smart Build. So, if you're utilizing Smart Build right now, which I know a lot of our friends and partners are utilizing Smart Build, this is gonna take Smart Build to the next level. This is taking, and you guys know I'm a I'm a huge passion for lead gen. So, lead gen is something that I've worked on here, uh Dayton Barns and Five Rivers now for years and years, and trying to focus on what really works the best to get the correct leads that convert to sales. I have been a huge uh advocate for idea room for the last uh six or seven years now. Um, Dan, ironically enough, sold us our idea room years ago, and we have been huge high-level users of Idea Room, bringing in 3D designs through our website, through uh dedicated marketing through Meta and Google and different things, but utilizing those 3D designs to really take what a customer's vision for their project is and taking it to the next level through the sales process. Um, it is just beyond exciting for me to have Dan and Norma on from ID room. I'm gonna go ahead and bring them in the studio now. Dan, Norma, welcome to the Steel Kings podcast. What's going on?

Dan

Thanks, Jared. Glad you have it back. I'm uh kind of ready to go deep on the smart build partnership. And uh I brought the expert, Norma. She's the one working on it, as our product manager. And um, she should probably do a longer introduction because you already know me.

Jared

So yeah, yeah. So you guys know Dan. Dan's the CEO and co-founder of Idea Room. Um, obviously, if you guys are in the steel buildings or sheds, you you're well aware of who Idea room is. I think this conversation with it being NFBA related and trade show related, we're both going to be there. Idea room and the Steel Kings are both gonna be there at the trade show. So, if you see anything that you uh want to get more information on, definitely check that out. Uh, in the meantime, check out our friends at J Money, Defyned SEO, Velocity360, Cal, and obviously Idea Room. Norma, welcome to Steel Kings Podcast. Tell us a little bit about what you do. You're the Idea Room product uh product manager, and uh you're working specifically on uh this smart build integration. So welcome to the podcast.

Norma

Correct, Jared. Thanks, thanks for having me.

Jared

Um absolutely it's a pleasure.

Norma

Uh yeah, so so I am the one of Idea Room's product managers. Um, and the last year I've been solely focused on um the smart build integration and anything that we could put and enhance in our product that improves that um that experience with the integration, um, just so we can dominate it.

Jared

Yeah. So the idea here is that for those of you that are using Smart Build, you might be familiar with Smart Build's eModeler, which is kind of their customer-facing version of their build tool. Um, and some of you may have that as a plugin on your website already. Some of you might be utilizing that to create some sort of legion. The idea here was that idea room's process is just better, right? I mean, let's just be real about it. It's just better, right, Dan? I mean, you don't mind me saying that.

Dan

Well, we talked about it last time. Mobile is really important, and that's kind of the genesis of the partnership. That you know, they really wanted to find someone that could do the mobile experience, kind of the B2C experience. A lot simpler and easier to use for your average uh post frame buyer to kind of design their building really nicely. Uh, so yeah, huge upgrade from that experience. Um, and that's why we're working together.

Mobile First: Conversion And Lead Gen

Jared

Yeah, so from for a personal perspective, at Dayton Barns, our web traffic is about 82% mobile. So, people that come to our website are visiting 82% of the time they're on a mobile device. So anything that uses a mobile browser version of what we see on our website. So, our website is really built and driven to drive traffic through a mobile environment. And what works really well for us with idea room is that that that 3D configurator works as well, if not almost better, in a mobile environment. It's built for that mobile environment. So, I want to stress to you guys if you guys want to see it work in real progress right now, Daytonbarns.com, five riverspolebarns.com, click on design in 3D, and you can check out what the idea builder looks like from a practical standpoint on your smartphone. But in the meantime, Norma's gonna do a demo for us today, which I'm really excited about. Is there anything specifically that a smart build customer needs to do other than contact you? There's not anything they need to do on their end other than reach out to you guys, right? It's ready to plug and play right away.

Norma

Yeah, absolutely. For folks, right, that already have an integration with Smart Build, it's just contact us, it automatic itself self-serve. So once they get um the integration subscription updated, they could they could they could start and get going. Um if you don't have a subscription, obviously from Smart Build, then you would start there first and then we connect the two together.

Live Demo: Prebuilt Styles To Premium

Jared

Awesome. Yeah, if you're not using Smart Build and you're selling and you're selling pole barns or in your post frame space, reach out to your uh supplier. Chances are they probably have some sort of smart build integration available to you. Um, we're gonna talk to Smart Build and probably have Dan back on with uh Smart Build in the future as well to talk more about this integration. But today I want to show you specifically for those of you that have Smart Build what you guys can do with the ID room integration. So I'm gonna go ahead and we're gonna do a screen share on the studio today. So for those of you listening along, we're gonna do our best to describe. But number one, right off the rip, for those of you that are seeing this for the first time, it looks phenomenally better, not just on the web browser, which we're looking at here, but certainly looks better on the mobile um as well. Um, just from a vision, you know, visibility type of quality. Um, that's one thing that I've always been really impressed with Idea Room is that the quality of the 3D design looks like it's real. So um there's 3D augmentation features as well. You can put these buildings on people's properties. I'd be happy to do demos with you of that on a larger scale. I've used that to sell buildings, I don't know how many times, where I've gone out to the customer's property and actually put the building where they wanted it. And that's just like an unreal thing. When you can take a picture of a 3D mock-up in somebody's yard and they're like, oh, that's exactly what it's going to look like. And sure enough, boom, it looks like that when it's built. Um, so Norma, tell us a little bit about what we're looking at here. We're looking at a web browser window with a with what looks like a pole building.

Norma

Correct, correct, Jared. So, this is um uh uh 3D configurator test site, right? That that I use for demos, but it is specifically set up for the uh uh post-frame pole barn industry. Um so we're gonna go and right now we're just looking at a classic building uh with a simple door, small, right? Um, but I'm gonna walk you through um and could can I start on the demo now, Jared?

Jared

Or oh yeah, yeah, go right ahead, Norma. You just you just take the lead and you let us know. We're looking at a 26 by 34 by 10 uh fully enclosed building with a walk-in door currently.

Submit For Quote: Data Capture That Works

Norma

Yep, yep, correct, currently. Um, so I'm gonna walk you through um on through the 3D configurator, the um and consumer experience, right? Let's say somebody comes in to the website for one of our customers, um, and they go through, they can navigate the default. We have different styles pre uh pre-configured. So if they wanted to go look at a farm, right? So now I'm gonna select a farm and a farm displays with some default doors, windows to kind of help the customer and the end consumer jumpstart and get some ideas on some of the um basic or foundational buildings, right?

Jared

This is this is what I really like about the idea room configurator here. You can build your own styles and save your own styles and links. But what Norma's just done with the click of one button from a customer's perspective is she's gone from that classic fully enclosed building with one walk-in door. Now I'm looking at bail windows, I'm looking at sliders, I'm looking at multiple windows, I'm looking at a nicer door, I'm looking at a custom roof line with uh, you know, with the custom openings at the top and the cupolas. Um, so we've taken this building from basic to premium high-end farm building in one click of a button. And that makes it so easy from a customer's perspective of, well, I don't know how to add bail windows, I don't know how to add sliders, I don't know how to add cupolas. We've already done that for you, right? With one click.

Norma

So yeah, absolutely, Jared. And also, right, it's a good way to highlight certain features, components, or um, that the customers want to highlight and show front and center to the end consumer. Um, so as Jared mentioned, right, I'm gonna click back to the classic. We could we could start and design that farm building that we just saw from scratch here, right? By going and selecting, right, the different uh changing the size, um, the color, etc. We're not gonna do that right now, but you could get to that building from the classic, right? Um, so we're here to talk about the smart build integration, right? So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna choose now the a wraparound, which is a pretty complex building, right? With the complete wraparound lean. It's uh what size is it? 42 by 34, 11 foot height and seven foot height on the leans.

Into SmartBuild: One-Click Job Creation

Jared

And so this is your typical, this is your typical I want a barn dominium. For those of you that listened to the Mrs. Postframe episode, we talked a little bit about barn dominums and how those work. This is your typical I want a barn dominion project. This is a uh entry door on the eve side of the building. It's got a hip roof in the front, so it's got an additional gable in the front with a wraparound lean to on the other three sides of the building. And all of this, again, was one click of a button. Norma's gotten this in one click. Um, it's just so clean what it looks like and how quick it works. I think I want to stress that for those of you that are using an e-modeler or another 3D software, the smoothness and the quickness, this isn't just because of Idea Room's demo. And again, that's why I say go to my website, fiveriverspolebarns.com or Dayton Barnes. You can utilize our tool, check it out, demo it yourselves. This is not just because Idea room's here doing a demo. This thing is this fast all the time, it works great. Um, I just want to stress that to you guys because I know that's been one of the things that have come up before to me, Norm, is well, it always looks good when you're doing it, Jared, but when I'm doing it, it looks slow. And I'm like, well, you're not using Idea Room, right? That's the whole point. So, go ahead, Norma.

Norma

Okay. Um, all right. So again, on the in consumer, I built this, you know, selected the wraparound. Looks great. Now I want to submit it for quote. So I'm going to go and select the submit for quote button and put in my information. So, I'm just gonna put test steel keys as our contact info. So now with the click of a button, um I so for those users, um, I selected the submit for quote, a form came up that asked for your contact info, right? We need we need to know zip code and delivery address so they so smart pill can know where it's going to be delivered and know what taxes and um uh the correct pricing, right? So we need to collect that minimum information. Um so now I've filled out that information and now I'm just gonna submit for quote. And as soon as I submit for quote, a job is going to be created over in the Smart Build platform. And then we will go to that platform here in a sec. And I think actually the job gets created before this gets processed. So let's go look now. I'm gonna go to the to Smart Build's um um application.

Speeding Sales Teams And Scale

Jared

So in the meantime, I want to stress to you guys, you've just accomplished one very valuable feat. You've given the customer access to design their own building, but what you guys don't think about is you've just collected all the customers' data. So everything that you need for that customer, first and last name, address, city, state zip code, there's a notes field. Um, I do know that some of the higher integrations do allow for some custom fields as well. There's also a feature where you can, if the customer is inactive for 30 seconds, a minute, a minute and a half, there's a custom um lead gen tool that Smart Build or uh excuse me, that ID room has built in with this Smart Build integration to where they can collect the data. So let's say a customer was on their 3D configurator and they were working to do a design and they got busy. Let's say they got pulled away from the screen. ID room can send a message to that consumer and say, hey, are you still interested in a building? Here's some quick information, they'll get you quick data sets as well. Um, I think that that's one thing that really gets missed here. And I and I can't stress this enough. We do not do a good enough job of getting our customers' information as an industry, as a whole. I'm guilty of it. I know that everybody listening to this is guilty of it at one time or another. When a customer is knocking at our door, our job needs to be collectively to get that that that handshake, right? Put that hand right out and get all that information. ID room does such a good job of that because it's just a built-in process. As they design the building, they hit submit for quote, all of that information populates automatically. You don't have to do any additional steps. It's simply one screen, they auto-fill. So, if your customer has uh auto-fill settings on their browser windows, it'll automatically fill their first and last names, their address. They don't really have to do much. And again, this goes back to the mobile-friendly environment, right? There are 3D configurators out there that don't do these things the right way. So I would stress to you, at minimum, if you're using a 3D configurator in the shed space, the steel building space, and this frame, it's certainly worth a phone call to idea room to get an evaluation done on what you're doing. So Norma is going to show us here um how the process from Idea Room to Smart Build took place.

Norma

Yeah, so now we're in Smart Build Smart Build's application, and we can see that there was an order created for the from me submitting the quote, right? The Norma Test Steel Kings. So now if I click on the edit button, I can go in and review and see what I get from the Smart Build application. And it's loading.

Materials, Cut Lists, And Precision Outputs

Jared

So, we all know, all of us smart build users know, we might as well just wait a few minutes, about 30 seconds. It's no different than if you were loading up a normal Smart Build configuration. Okay. What I can tell you is from somebody who's been using this now for about three months, it works really, really well. Really, really well when you think about all the moving components. So, what we've got now inside of this smart build window is exactly what we were looking at. We're looking at the hip roof, we're looking at the wraparound lean two on three sides, same exact configuration that we had, except for now we've pulled in components and different things specifically to Smart Build. So if you're working with one of our, you know, one of our partners like Graeber or Burroughs and you're utilizing them as a supplier, you can utilize ID room to do these 3D configurations. And let me just give you a hint. Let's just say, well, you know, I'm not really worried about customer interactions, I'm really more worried about my team. Let me tell you something. Okay, this is where this thing really takes off for me because now I have a team that can design pole barns in two minutes instead of 25 minutes, and I don't have to have them all um, you know, buttoned up with waiting to get these configurations done. I have a guy who works my smart build, and I've got a team of guys who lead gen for me up front on pole barn leads. So, if you guys are trying to figure out a way to scale, this is another way to scale. This gives you another opportunity to really design these things in in a lot more at one time. Is that fair? I mean, Dan, pop in there. I know you're smiling and nodding along. I that's what this is designed for, right? I mean, this is the whole idea is to make this easier.

Dan

Yeah, just to build on what you've been saying, there's kind of two sides of the equation, right? There's the marketing and lead gen benefit, and you kind of saw the difference between the Idea Room experience and smart build, which is we focus on really nice visuals, loads really fast, smooth animation, things like that. That for the consumer, when they land there, you just want it to be simple, nice, easy, and look great, right? And so we look a lot at that conversion rate. So, how many folks land there, how many can get through kind of a simple design process, and then how many leads we generate. And at least for the earliest folks that adopted this for integration with Smart Build, that's what they were looking for. They wanted more conversions and they're tracking their entire marketing pipeline and kind of those analytics. But there's also the sales efficiency, right? For your sales people that are working with customers. And so from that perspective, you know, you kind of get started faster, either because the consumer already submitted and it lands in your inbox and you can pick it up from there as a salesperson, or because we just have a really fast and simple way to kind of start with the building design, then pick it up in Smart Build and refine the details. So yeah, you're either looking at I want more and higher quality leads, or I want my sales process to be really fast and efficient. And yeah, those sales guys love it when they see this.

Mapping Engine: Colors, Doors, Trusses

Jared

This to me, this to me is like okay, I had this really, really beautiful, I had like a beautiful car, right? Smart build is this beautiful car, and it worked great. Drives like a top, everything's fine with it. I strapped a turbo onto it. Idea room's the turbo on to Smart Build. I mean, it is the it is the premium gasoline and the turbo that just got put onto your Smart Build. If you like using Smart Build, which I can tell you, we would be lost without it, quite frankly. We love Smart Build just as much as we love Idea Room. But I can tell you, who doesn't like a turbo and some premium gas in their really nice car? You know what I'm saying? Like that to me is where I'm at with it right now because I just I think about where I was a year ago when we started this. So you guys have listened to us come along this process. You've watched the journey of us starting a pole barn company from really scratch. You've listened to us do this whole journey. And one of the things I was really I mean, I was reaching out to Dan before I even knew this was a thing, before I knew Smart Build and Idea Room were either even working together. And I'm like, what can I do to overcome this? And he said, just be Patient, it's coming. Just be patient. It's coming. And sure enough, here we are, you know, less than a year later from that discussion. And I can't imagine what will be a year from now, right? Norma, show us what you've got on this smart build integration. I'm just I'm still blown away that we're here, but show yeah.

Norma

So, II did want to highlight as well, Jared, that right for those listening that don't have smart build integration, this is what some here I'll show some examples of what you get, right? So, we have a um this integration connects our idea room interactive 3D configurator, right, with smart builds, you know, advanced um building, contracting, material list, cut sheets, etc. Right. Um, so I wanted to show some of the end results, right? The material list. You get a list of every single down to the bag of concrete, down to the screw, down to the nails. So obviously your pricing, um, right, it will be less waste, um, more accurate pricing, um, etc. And then some assembly sheets, right? So you can drawings where you can know where things go. We know with um marked with the with legends and letters to kind of get you um some assembly drawings for your for your installers. And then lastly, is just the so a cut list, right? Of how many two by fours need to be cut at nine feet, etc. etc. Right. So super precise down to the nuts and bolts of a building. Um super powerful together, like Jared said, turbo.

Fast Implementations And Self-Service Setup

Jared

Yeah, I really think yeah, I can't stress enough. I can't stress enough that it's the turbo strapped on to a really beautiful car that runs and drives on its own and does its own thing. I can tell you from my perspective and point of view, it is definitely where you want to be. All right. So we're still looking at the building in the in the reference of we're back to Smart Build. We've looked at the we've looked at the build sheets, we've looked at the cut lists, we've looked at all the benefits. And if you don't have Smart Build, reach out to the guys at Smart Build. Again, we're all going to be at the NFBA trade expo at the end of uh February in Oklahoma City. If you guys haven't secured your tickets for that yet, please let me know. Um, reach out to me. I might be able to help you out if it comes down to um getting tickets or something like that. We want you to be there. Okay, I can tell you. Um, I've had so many people reach out to me over the last couple of weeks since we've started the series and said, you know, Oklahoma City is really far away. I know where Dan's coming from Idaho. Dan and Norma are coming from Norma, where are you at? I'm in Boise, Idaho. Okay, so they're coming from Boise. I'm coming from Dayton. So we're coming a long way to Oklahoma City. We want you guys to come be a part of the uh the NFBA trade show February the 25th, the 26th, and the 27th in Oklahoma City. Um, we can demo this on site, we can show you what what's what when it comes to idea room and smart build as a team. But when you utilize idea room to lead in into smart build, it leads to sales. I mean, I am a huge proponent of that. Um, matter of fact, we've sold four post frame buildings this month using this process. What okay?

ROI, Pricing Logic, And Adoption

Norma

Now we're gonna jump to kind of pull the curtains back and behind the scenes of how does this know where to put the lings, the doors, what doors, etc. So, the mapping integration part of it behind the scenes. So now we're gonna go to our sales view um dashboards, um, where the product catalog data, any integration data. Um, this is where we do all of uh um our implementations um and the custom and customers can view their leads. So, this is kind of the backbone of the 3D configurator. Um so here is the Smart Build mapping component of it, right? Um so we have colors and obviously there we implement and set up similar colors in in Idea Room, and on this side we pull uh through the API the colors from Smart Build, and if they match, right, then we could do an auto mapping to kind of speed things up. Um if some things don't match, then you have to do a manual update. But for the most part, this process takes about five minutes, maybe at most, right? Because then you could go into your cupolas, you know, uh map those as well. Um, your walking doors, basically, right? Everything, your roofs, trusses. So once this is done, this is the magic that says, I'm gonna go back to the idea room configurator that knows we have a door here, a window there, um, what type of truss. So, and obviously there's also some custom code under the hood that um automatically maps like a lean, etc. We don't have to map those bigger components, but um the like doors, windows, truss, et cetera, that's how it knows it's mapped, and then it goes and creates that beautiful building in Smart Build.

Dan

Yeah, Jared, let me hop in here because we talked about this a little bit last time. Uh, we talked about how we've gone down to two to four week implementations, uh, but also with SmartBuild, if they're a customer coming to us, their data is already in shape. And Norma just talked about five minutes for adding the integration and setting up the mapping. This is kind of where we're ultimately at, and then continue heading, which is you can set it up yourself and you can maintain it over time. So this is kind of a peek into the back end that we haven't shown as much, but there's just more and more going in here for people to implement, set up, and maintain themselves. So you're not as dependent on us, and if you need to make changes and updates, you can do it directly. So it's really uh one of the most powerful things we've done recently, kind of starting with Smart Build, because it's just so powerful to get this stuff mapped well and you can just maintain it yourself.

Branding, Dealer Builds, And CRM Hooks

Jared

What I can tell you too, if you're if you're sitting and you're watching this or you're listening, if you are already working with a supplier, Graeber, Morton, Burroughs, any of the major players out there that are using Smart Build, chances are there's already some sort of implementation or build. You're not gonna have to necessarily work on nuts and bolts. What I can tell you is when I did my implementation, it took them about two and a half weeks from start to finish. And I can tell you I missed a couple of those appointments. That was partially on me. I think they would have had it done quicker, to be fair. Um, I can tell you I did nothing other than sign up, give them access to some credentials on Smart Build, and sat back and two weeks, two and a half weeks later, I was up and running. I didn't have to care about anything. They took care of everything for me from start to finish. Um, what I think we're getting into here a little bit is we're getting into custom implementations. If you're using Smart Build on your own, where you have your own configurations with Smart Build and you're not using a supplier, um, that's great too. And we can do all of that work with Idea Room and make it sing and dance exactly how you want it to. But I can tell you, if you are if you are working with Graeber or Burroughs or one of the main suppliers in the United States and you have access to Smart Build, you are missing the boat if you don't sign up for this. I'm just telling you right now, this is the number one tool that you need to be carrying in your arsenal these days. Um, this will lead to quantifiable real sales in real time. It's not expensive. I'm not going to break down the pricing, but I can tell you it's less than one building. If you if you closed one building with this tool a month, you would more than pay for it 10 times over, probably, to be honest with you. Um, it is something that you absolutely should have on your website at minimum. I can work with you. The guys at Defined SEO can work with you. We are working with Idea Room to implement strategies specifically to closed building sales. That's what we want. We want our partners in the industry to work together. A rising tide raises all ships. You guys hear me talk about this all the time. We should be utilizing the tools that give our customers the absolute best process possible. And the best process possible right now from a post-frame reality, if you are working with Graeber, Burroughs, any of the major suppliers, is to have Idea Room Configurator on your website in your advertising, working for you in the background, collecting customer data and giving your team or maybe yourself every opportunity to sell that building. I think that about sums it up, right, Dan? I mean, I don't know that it's any better than that.

Dan

I mean Yeah, and you uh pointed something out important, which is uh if you want to come to Idea Room and you are already working with a supplier that works with us, it's very easy to get set up on what we call a dealer or builder subscription. Get your own logo on there, get a URL on your website, your own branding. Um, because yeah, from a marketing perspective, you want to be representing your brand, you want to be kind of controlling a marketing pipeline and lead generation. Um, and yeah, it's all about capturing those leads so you can connect with customers and sell them a building.

Jared

It's so nice because what you see now, Norma, can you show us the ID room configurator one more time?

INTRO

Absolutely.

Jared

So she's gonna bring up the ID room configurator. So, in the top left corner, for those of you that are listening, and if you're for your watching, if you're listening with me as well, you can put your logo front and center. So again, five riverspolebarns.com to see our custom ID room configurator. You can change these things in real time, you can change the colors if you're really brand specific like I am. There are so many custom tools and features inside of your idea room backend that when you start working with your idea room setup, your project lead and everything, they will work with you on this and you can plug it right in and it'll work great. And you can plug it into your CRM, you can get your leads coming in. It's just a great tool, a great solution. And Norma, show us, go back to where you were. Um, show us anything you want. I think we're at that point now where, yeah, you know, we want to start wrapping up a little bit, but we also, again, I want to stress to you guys, Norma, Dan, myself, we will all be at the NFBA trade show at the end of February, the 25th, the 26th, and the 27th in Oklahoma City. Very willing to show you guys what we're talking about in real time. Um, I'll be there with Defyned as well as the Steel Kings. Um, Dan and I will have some exciting stuff to talk about, I'm sure. But at the same time, we definitely want to invite you guys to the idea room booth on the trade show floor to see this thing work in real time. Norma, we're on the we're currently back to the idea room uh smart build configurator setup. So we're showing those of you who want to get a full-blown start-to-finish idea room setup. We're back to that screen.

Two-Way Sync And Mobile Sales View

Norma

Yeah, thanks, Jared. Um, so now I actually want to highlight um a feature that we released last week. And as I mentioned earlier to you, Jared, um, we're continually working on enhancing, enhancing, adding features to make this Smart Bill Partnership just blow people's minds off, right? So I'm gonna show you this new feature that we released last week. Um, and we're gonna go to the sales tab in sales view. Um, and one thing I don't know what we've mentioned earlier, but when you submit a uh a design or save or in within the idea room configurator, it doesn't just create a job in Smart Build, it also adds a lead in the Sales View dashboard that our customers can also manage through here. Right. So now there's two there's a sell uh a lead in sales view, and then there's a job in um Smart Build.

Jared

Now one thing that we let me add one thing there, Normal. For those of you who are not using Idea Room, when you get access to Idea Room, you'll get access to what's called Sales View. Salesview.idea room.com is your login window for Idea Room. From that window, you have a very loose CRM styling. You're gonna have customer name, email, phone number, their city, their state. You'll be able to map out statuses in a column. You'll also be able to pull up their designs in real time. So it works almost as a curated customer list. And what I can tell you is alongside of Smart Build, this is a very valuable tool to have, especially for those of our smaller friends that don't have access to a fully functional CRM. This is going to give you a lot of the things that you need to be very dangerous because it'll let you categorize customers, it'll let you search customers by build date and all these different things, and you can start to keep better organization of your leads. What I really like about it is you can add leads directly into it and make your builds directly from there as well, which I like a lot. So go ahead, Norma. Sorry to interrupt.

Feedback Loop And Rapid Releases

Norma

Thanks, Jen. No, no problem. Um, so one of the things when you look, when we initially um released the SmartBuild integration, um, obviously SmartBuild does a great job, materialist pricing, detail, right? So in Idea Room Configurator, we didn't want to have to replicate the pricing, right? Because that's really done in Smart Build. So what we listened to our customers and got some feedback, and they said, all we need is really just to show the totals from the job in SmartBuild so we can, you know, get an idea because this is what you send to the customer um initially, right? So they could get an idea of this is how much it costs, etc. And Jared's laughing or smiling.

Jared

Um, I'm smiling because this is a big deal. This is a big deal right here. Yeah.

Norma

And I think this is a surprise for Jared as well, right, Jared?

Jared

It is. I am seeing this for the very first time. So, when you guys hear this, I'm telling you, when this is when this is a peak behind the curtain, I tell you guys, I'm gonna bring you the content, right? I'm gonna bring you the biggest news. This is big news, okay? This is a huge deal for those of you that are in my situation. Um, this is a huge game changing move. Okay. This is absolutely a game-changing move from every single perspective to get a price, a working price, even if it's a rough one, okay. Normally that's what we want is a rough price to quote with. Hey, just spitball something out. I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody say, Well, just give me a rough, rough price. Give me a rough price. I don't have a single clue. Let me take 35 minutes to build it for you. Now, is it gonna take what 35 seconds after I hit submit for quote? Something like that. Yeah, love it, love it. That's news.

Norma

So, Jared, hold on, hold on to your seat, Jared.

Jared

Okay, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna sit right here.

Norma

Okay, all right. So we will you have the option, right, to turn this on or off to say, I want to pull the job from Smart Build. So once you do that, we show it here in Sales View, and then the other cool part is you might make edits in the job, right? Um, remove a door, remove a lean, whatever, whatever it is. You can then manually initiate, oops, sorry, initiate to update, go back, check the job, and give me the latest current price to kind of so to find a way to keep those in sync, right?

Interior Walls, Mezzanines, Barnominiums

Jared

Oh goodness. So we're actually we're actually handshaking and then re-handshaking. So we've actually got like we've got like a continuous, we've got a continuous current here between idea room and smart build. That's something that's new, right? That's a brand new feature. That is, I mean, that is like that is like we have we have finished the circle of life and we are now living and breathing together. We are sharing oxygen and uh that I mean I'm telling you, I'm telling you. So, what you guys have just heard in reality, okay? Your customer goes onto your website or onto your 3D design tool with ID room. They've taken they're on their smartphone, they've got a great presentation, they've filled out and they've built a wraparound building. Now you can make edits in Smart Build and go back to ID room and hit update, get that building updated as you make changes on the Smart Build side. That is a powerful, powerful tool because for somebody like me who utilizes a sales team, I've got a sales team of men and women up front who work for me that can build pole barns and send them to my smart build guy who does nothing but smart build all day. He works on Smart Build, he knows it inside and out, and he can get things back together, and then they can hit update on their side and they can pick right back up where my guy left off. So now we've made changes on the opposite side. Maybe we needed to add some additional bracing, maybe we needed to add something structurally or make a change to a door. Maybe there's something that the customer wants to do that we just maybe my sales reps aren't smart enough up front. That's just the truth of it. Okay. To build a pole barn is a completely different animal than doing a steel building or a shed. No offense to you if you do steel buildings and sheds. I know that takes skill too, but doing a pole barn is a totally different animal. Okay. What I can tell you is I have one guy who handles most of my smart build work, I do a lot of it too. But I can tell you this the pricing and the real-time updating. Man, man. I mean, I can't applaud you guys enough because I've been watching you guys build this stuff for the last eight, nine months. I'm blown away, honestly. It's impressive.

NFBA Invitations & Final Takeaways

Dan

Let me add one more element to it, which is we're now getting the price. You can update after you make changes in Smart Build. Uh, even last week, sales view went out where the sales dashboard, the lead generation, all of that is now mobile compatible as well. So if you're a salesperson moving around and you want to bring up sales view on your phone, uh, all of this is now optimized for mobile so you can access it as a salesperson on the go very uh very naturally and smoothly, including things like you know, click to call, click to text, things like that. So tying it all together. I think we talked a little last time about adding a lot more sales tools and idea room. And as Norma mentioned, this stuff went out last week. We're doing releases pretty much every week or two. Um, so keep an eye on it because we also publish release notes where you can see all the updates as they come in.

Jared

I can tell you guys, I mean, I can just tell you for everyone who's listening or watching this, if you are working with Smart Build and not working at Idea Room, you have got to give me a phone call or shoot me an email. I will do a personal demo for you. I will show you how this thing can revolutionize and transform your business. You can literally take yourself to the next level with a phone call. I mean, honestly, this is and let me just say this. Dan and I have been working behind the scenes now for six or seven months, something like that. And they take feedback, okay. Dan, you do a really good job of taking feedback from people. And I know that I'm a high-level user, right? But I can tell you, even when I wasn't, you guys took feedback from me. And I can tell you, you want feedback from your customers, and I value that as someone who's used the product for a long time and watch it grow, have watched it grow from the simplest of things, even though it's way, way bigger deal than simple. It was never simple. But you guys have graduated this 3D configurator into an absolute lead gen monster, it is the best in the business, in my opinion. Bar none. And this, these changes here take it to a totally different level, just so we're clear. Like unbelievable.

Dan

If you heard it and what Norma was saying, we did this due to customer feedback and input. So even if you're a current idea run customer, yes, I'll make another pitch to come to the NFBA and see us at the booth. Uh, Norma is fantastic, she's running the product team working on this, she wants all the ideas and input. So if you want some influence, uh, she's one of the best people I've ever worked with. Come talk to her. She wants to hear it. As you can see, we respond to the feedback and add capabilities. Um, it's really important to us. So yeah, come talk to us.

Jared

I love it. I love it. Norma, do you have anything for us on the end? I feel like we got to leave them with a teaser for the NFBA conference. We're at our 45-minute mark and we've had a couple of technical issues, but we want to leave him with a teaser because I can tell you, we're gonna have you back. We've got some really exciting stuff coming your way on the podcast front, um, Steel Kings and otherwise, and we'll break that down over time. But I can tell you, Norma, it's been a real pleasure to have you on here explaining this to us. Do you have anything for us on the way out?

Norma

Yes, Jared, and thank you for having me. This was super fun. Um I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Um we do so we didn't have time to go through interior walls, divider walls, um particular. Walls, mezzanines with stairs, railings, right? Um, I can showcase all of that at the NFBA. Um, if anybody wants is interested in seeing how they work, getting them set up. Um, I I'll be there to help answer any questions. But those right in those interior walls, um, we divide them into rooms, right? You put it you put an interior wall, it gets divided into a room. You could put carpet, flooring, one room, not in the second room, put a ceiling. So you can really start to kind of build those barn dominions, as you mentioned earlier, um, Jared.

Jared

So those are working with the right partners. Working with the right partners makes barn dominions not feel like such a uh a problem. So go back and listen to Mrs. Postframe. We talked about barn dominiums at length. Is it worth your time? There's gonna be some different expos, um, or excuse me, some different breakout sessions at the expo, um, talking about things like barn dominiums. ID room is a perfect tool to have alongside of that, okay? If you're not utilizing it, get with it. Get with it right now. Dan, do you have anything for us on the way out, man? I'm gonna bring in our I'm gonna bring back in our screen share here. And but do you have anything for us on the way out, brother?

Dan

Well, uh more to come for sure. Uh, you've seen stuff like write fresh off the press. Uh but we're releasing very frequently more capabilities to come. Uh, very big focus on basically dominating the post-frame building industry with these integrated tools, and like I said, adding more sales tools for the sales people to make them successful at selling those buildings. Um, so we'll be back again and we'll talk about more. Uh and yeah, happy to be here and come see us at the NFTA. And yeah, normal will surprise you and excite you with more things very soon.

Jared

So, let me let me tell you this, guys, on the way out. Thank you to Idea Room for being on the episode today, Dan and Norma. It was great having you on. Like they said, come visit us at the trade booths at the NFPA expo at the end of February, the 25th, the 26th, and the 27th. We will be there talking all things, 3D configurators, podcasts, and all everything in the all the above. Thank you to J Money, Defyned SEO, Velocity360, Cal, our partners at the Shed Geek Podcast. Thank you as always for giving us the platform. I can tell you guys, so looking forward to seeing you guys at the Trade Expo at the end of the month. We are so looking forward to it. In the meantime, for Dan and Norma, I'm Jared, I'm the Steel Kings, and I am out of here for this week. Get out in your community and do something good for somebody else. I promise you, in the world we live in these days, it'll make you feel better. And we will see you next time for another episode of the Steel Kings Podcast. Steel Nation, thank you for tuning in to the Steel Kings Podcast. If that episode fired you up, make sure you hit subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who is ready to level up. We drop powerful episodes every week filled with strategies, stories, and real talk from the builders shaping the industry. Stay hungry, stay focused, and keep building stronger. Make sure to visit us at thesteelkings.com for more resources and industry tools. This is the Steel Kings Podcast, where the industry talks back. See you in the next one.

Closing Messages & Calls To Action

OUTRO

Before you go, the J Money team wants to thank you for listening to today's Steel Kings podcast. Remember, money is king, and if you need a financing option on your portable woodsheds or steel buildings,

INTRO

we are here to help. Just check us out at jmoneylc.com for more information. And don't forget to head to the next episode of the Steel Kings podcast and have a great day.