STEEL KINGS: 3D Designer to Sales

If you sell post-frame or tubular steel buildings, you’re probably juggling two hard problems: catching serious buyers at the moment of interest and delivering a build that lands on site exactly as promised. We brought Dan from IdeaRoom and Royden from SmartBuild into the studio to show how a modern stack solves both—by marrying a fast, mobile 3D configurator with takeoffs, pricing, and drawings that your crew can trust.

We walk through the journey from a late-night phone scroll to a qualified quote. Idea Room captures the design and contact info in minutes, letting customers visualize colorways, doors, and rooflines from any device. The design and price context then flow into SmartBuild, where supplier rules, loads, framing methods, trims, and hardware convert a pretty render into a precise bill of materials down to the last screw. That’s the difference between profitable installs and those dreaded mid-day runs to the yard.

You’ll hear why this pairing shines in post-frame, shops, and barn dominiums, where visual confidence meets structural accuracy. We dig into new capabilities—interior walls, mezzanines, and pricing data pulled straight from SmartBuild—plus what’s next, including labeled floor plans and speed boosts. Real-world numbers matter, so we share how teams are closing multiple buildings in days by routing curated Idea Room leads to their best SmartBuild operator for final checks and instant drawings.

We also outline how to get started based on your goals. If you need more qualified leads and cleaner sales calls, start with Idea Room. If your bottleneck is fulfillment accuracy, begin with SmartBuild and let Idea Room map to your profile for seamless pricing and visuals. Either way, implementation pays off when your supplier catalog and build rules are dialed in.

Ready to turn clicks into clean installs and more closed deals? Hit play, then subscribe, share with a builder who needs this, and leave a quick review to help more crews find the playbook.

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

Transcript

Welcome & Sponsor Shoutouts

INTRO 0:00

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 0:27

What I'll tell you is I Jared 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 hands with people. I can tell you that steel things.

Jared 2:08

So, I have back today, I've got Dan with me from Idea Room. We're also going to bring in Royden from Smart Build. So, for all of you that are listening and already have Smart Build, sit down, get comfortable. If you're driving, be careful while you're listening. You might want to pay attention to this one. So, I am going to bring in Dan and Royden into the studio with me today. What's up, fellas? How are you? Welcome to Steel Kings Podcast.

Dan 2:36

Hey Jared. Always good to be here.

Meet Dan (Idea Room) And Royden (SmartBuild)

Jared 2:38

Yeah, man. Good to have you back again, Dan. Royden, Welcome to the show, man. We have we yeah, we have been trying to get you on. You are one busy dude. You guys are working hard at Smart Build. You guys are building a great tool. It's already built, but you guys are constantly upgrading it. Uh, tell us about who you are, tell us about Smart Build and just an overview, if you can.

Royden 3:02

Yeah, sure. You know, it's uh blessed to be here. Um, for sure being on with Dan. I it's a it's a partnership that's a lot of work has gone behind the scenes making this all happen. I think I don't think anybody realizes that for sure by uh from the idea room team. And uh no, it's gonna be exciting for sure for the companies that are rolling it out uh first and foremost. But there's some history there, but we don't have to go into all those details, but not today.

Why Integrate: From Competitors To Partners

Jared 3:30

But well, we definitely want to talk a little bit about it. I wanna I want to get a little bit into the why behind it, right? So, I know for a long time it was, you know, you had Idea Room or you had SmartBuild, it was one or the other. And now what we're seeing is that you can use it collaboratively. And as a user, you guys know I'm using it on a high end, um, obviously, working closely with Dan, working closely with Royden. We love the process that we had with Smart Build. We also loved the process we had with Idea Room. Now we're really happy because we get to enjoy the best of both worlds. We can serve um at the discretion of our supplier, which in this case is Graber Post. So we really appreciate the guys at Graber Post. Um, but I can tell you we loved Smart Build, but we were used to doing our lead gen a specific way. So, if you are sitting there right now and you are selling metal buildings or selling sheds or considering getting into post frame, or maybe you're doing some post frame and you're buying from local lumberyard or whatever, you want to learn more about what we have to offer here with the SmartBuild platform. And once you have Smart Build, you strap the turbo to that baby with IdeaRoom, and now you're taking lead gen through the sales process, creating more deals at the end of the day. I know that that's how you guys feel. You guys are tech guys, it's hard for you guys to like sit here and sell me on something. Um, but I can tell you, Dan knows and Royd, and you're hearing it. I would sell your guys' stuff up one side and down the other. I think you guys are doing great and seeing you together. I just want to give the audience a little bit of a taste of the why behind it. How did it come together?

What The Integration Actually Does

Dan 5:09

Yeah, Jared, um, you kind of talked about it a little bit. Smart Build and IdeaRoom had been kicking around the industry together for quite a long time. And in terms of the partnership, it's probably been a year and a half to two years that we've kind of been talking about it and exploring it. And we kept getting asked to integrate. We would have conversations about integrating, and we would kind of either be indirect competitors or it would be like, oh, we'd really like both, but we need to kind of put them together. Um, and one day one of our customers showed up, just you know, kind of going to this thing we've talked about before. We love customer feedback, we've got customer ideas, and they wanted to integrate aggressively, and they were willing to help pay for it. And so we kind of did the first integration as a professional services project. But when you started showing that and how well it worked, it was kind of magical. Like you could see their eyes light up and the sales process becomes a lot easier. And then Keith and I really started, you know, talking pretty intensively about does it make sense to kind of pursue a formal partnership together? And we were at the same time kind of having this same thinking, which was just the industry is asking for more mobile optimization compatibility, uh, looking a lot at the analytics about how to drive and have your leads, um, more marketing and sales capabilities. And I think Smart Build was here in that, and we were trying to decide you know, do we invest there? Do we pick a partner instead of going through that evaluation process already? And we just kind of pushed it further and started working together. And in fact, Royden went with us to one of the shed expos because we were looking at whether or not to do this, you know, with stick built and in and in sheds, and there was a lot of conversation about bill of materials. Um ultimately that's not the industry that this is the best solution for. Uh, but there's a ton of excitement in post-frame and in tubular steel. And the more we showed it and the more excited people got, and then Smart Build was just like, how is IdeaRoom to work together? Um, it was just great. I mean, Royden's great, uh, Mark over there, who runs their engineering, is fantastic, you know, Keith is great. And in fact, he and I are both entrepreneurs, so even at the time, it was like ready, fire, aim, which we love doing. We move fast as entrepreneurs. Um, so as we just started working together, it was kind of clear it was gonna be a great working relationship. Those guys are experts and great at what they do. And then I think when you just started putting the integration in front of people, and there were even some big customers early on that I think were just very interested, and then were kind of the next ones to work with us on it. Uh, it just validated there was there was real demand, and so we kind of took it further. Um, but yeah, Roy, and you were there. I mean, what's your kind of perspective on uh how things came together and how well it worked?

Royden 7:54

Yeah, no, it was if you think back, I was trying to think back the first show that we that the idea even came up, and it was a it was a shed show a few years back, and it was for a it was for a shed company, and then the whole idea kind of grew and ended up being more post-frame and carport, tube steel, um, the integration for that. But it what didn't work out for sheds, and if you know the SmartBuild product, you know our value, um it can bring value in the shed market, but people don't need takeoffs for sheds like they do for post-frame and bigger buildings. So that's kind of why we had initially took a step back and said, hey, you know, is that is that right for us? And it wasn't at the time, but now with this the SmartBuild and the IdeaRoom partnership, you can see where it, I guess it was meant to be, is more the post-frame and the bigger buildings. And yeah, it's if you look at it and the history and the work that's gone in, I don't know. There's a lot of 3D configurators on the market. There's you know, there's all kinds of tools, but I don't know that a partnership where they're I would put IdeaRoom as you know the best at what they do, and when it comes to takeoffs, there's really not any other um software products that focus on Post Tram like SmartBuild either. Not just because I'm from Smart Build, but there really isn't, you know.

Sheds vs Post-Frame: Where It Wins

Jared 9:11

No, yeah, and I can I can tell you. So this is what I love to hear. This is what I love to hear. Brag on yourselves because I bragged on you for a long time. What I can tell you from my perspective is I'm an end user, right? I can talk about any 3D configurator I want. As a matter of fact, I have a platform, we're on it right now, we're talking, right? And I have chosen to take that platform and share out your guys' message, the SmartBuild message, the IdeaRoom message, because my goal here is to make everyone in the industry better. I want everybody to win, not just me, not just Dayton Barns, not just Five Rivers Pole Barns, not just what I'm doing. I remember hearing about you guys at the Shed Expo that you guys were kind of tinkering around with something. It's fun hearing you guys reminisce about that because I was in the crowd, I think maybe at an ID room presentation when it was first presented, like we're working on an integration with Smart Build, because it immediately started turning wheels in my head. Because just to be truthful, when we were approaching Graeber initially to become a distributor of their products and start working and installing pole barns, my big hang up was I have a team of reps that are built around the IdeaRoom platform. I've made no bones about it. Everybody in the office knows IdeaRoom up one side and down the other. All of our sales processes are built around the 3D configurator. I could not get over the idea of how massive SmartBuild was. Smart Build is so it's just so intuitive, and you can do so much with it. And it's so once you know how to use it, it is the coolest 3D design tool. And when you partnered alongside something like Idea Room, that is so tech first and like user-friendly, and now I've got a team of reps here that I can now give the IdeaRoom platform to and work in conjunction with my SmartBuild. So now I can have a team of reps up front that work on IdeaRoom and build and design buildings, and then they can send them to me in Smart Build, and I can do my thing in Smart Build. I get to do what I like to do all day, which is screw around on the 3D design tools, both with IdeaRoom and SmartBuild. But this gives me the ability to scale. And I'm telling you guys, if you're using Smart Build right now and you're and you've got guys or gals utilizing SmartBuild for lead gen, do yourself a favor and talk to Royden or Dan at the at the conference in Oklahoma City. Do yourselves a favor. It's booth 914. ID room and SmartBuild are right next to each other, so you don't even have to walk that far. You guys will be right in the same area. And I'm telling you, come over and see me. I'll be at my booth. We can demo it live. I'll show you how it works. Right from my website, right to my SmartBuild. I'll show you. It is the coolest thing. So, I love hearing you brag on yourself, Royden, because I think you should. I think you should. If you're if you're selling post-frame buildings and you're not utilizing Smart Build, you need to learn real quick. It's a lot easier and a lot better. And if you're using Smart Build and you haven't heard of Idea Room or you're not using IdeaRoom, now's the time to really listen. So I appreciate you guys telling that story and giving us kind of the back end of that, right? Because that helps us build a narrative. Because I think a lot of people in the industry still think of Smart Build and Idea Room as not necessarily collaborators, but certainly maybe even uh, you know, they're competing, right? You're competing in the same space. But now, like I said, strapping a turbo to a beautiful car. Is that how you guys see it? I mean, I I'm describing it. I don't want to describe how it is, but is that how you guys see it?

Dan 12:51

Yeah, absolutely. There's kind of two sides of this equation, and I think they're all both very strategically aligned. And it's great to be talking to you about this, Jared, because uh you also work in sheds, car ports, post frame, selling all types of buildings. Yeah, and there's a lot of complementary benefit to taking what we've learned about kind of marketing and selling in this way, man, uh, and taking those benefits and using them to sell any type of building, yeah, right? So we talked a little bit about like IdeaRoom's deep history uh in the first podcast, but we worked very early on um with some postframe customers and built custom configurators, and we've watched Smart Build that entire time because very early on, there were a variety of solutions for bill of materials, but just watching them from the sidelines, A, they became like the de facto biggest solution in Postframe for Bill of Materials, and a lot of the competing products have just kind of waned over time, and so we kind of saw them grow to dominate that space and become the clear market leader, and but we both have a desire and a move to go multi-industry where it's not just postframe, you can do other types of construction like red iron and tubular steel and different things like that. And in the conversations with uh everything as this kind of relationship came together, that was very complementary in terms of our strategies. And yeah, we would see um uh SmartBuild show up again after having become you know the very care market leader on Postrain at tubular steel shows or at Shed shows, and you're like, oh wow, this could be a competition. But ultimately it was, and this kind of came from the conversation between Keith and I about really what is our focus. IdeaRoom is B2C, it's that simple, easy to use interface, mobile optimized and kind of focused on the marketing and selling. And Smart Build is kind of that expert sales tool for the final uh design revisions and bill of materials and shop drawings. And as a whole, like the most important things and powerful things they do, we don't do and we don't want to do, which is why we wanted to partner. And so, there's a lot of strategic alignment around you know, helping these companies sell, being multi-industry, where as, more and more companies sell across different spaces, uh, they can use both of us. And then there's a lot of complimentary learning about like what we've learned in the market and what they have. And so, yeah, we saw that happen in terms of are we competitors? Are we direct competitors? In fact, in the first conversation with Keith, really saying, Hey, do we do this? He said, Oh, we got to decide, are we friends or foes? And beautifully, yes, we decided we're gonna be friends, yeah. And even though um there isn't kind of a big focus there, that shed expo was pretty significant for the relationship. Yeah, because in about four weeks, I remember Keith was like, Oh, this is gonna be really fast, but we're gonna prep for the show. And uh, even getting Royden there, I think you drove there, maybe Royden, it was kind of last minute. Um, but we pulled it together really fast, like a demonstrable product, and just knowing we could work that fast together was like, All right, let's keep this going. Yeah, yeah.

Real-World Results And Workflow At Dayton Barns

Jared 16:02

I really, I really enjoy that piece of that story, Dan, because to me, as someone who has been watching you, right, watching Idea Room grow, watching Smart Build grow, and creating your avenues, you saw fit to work with others rather than try to do everything yourself. And that's a big proponent of this podcast is rising tide raises all ships, right? We can make the industry better if we collaborate with our friends, even if they might in a moment seem like our competition. Okay. Just because they're your competition Monday doesn't mean they're your competition on Friday. And I think asking questions like, are you a friend or are you a foe? What is your end? What is your end goal here with your particular business or your particular process or whatever that looks like? And I think that that's why I gravitate to Idea Room because again, IdeaRoom has their niche, they have what they do and they do it at a high level. SmartBuild has what they do and they do it at a high level. As a matter of fact, two industry leaders, if not the best in both of their fields. Now they're going to collaborate and become the very best at everything. And rather than trying to do it all by yourselves and building a process that's broken, clunky, leading to no response times for people. I know that if I call Smart Build, I can get a response back pretty quickly. Same thing with IdeaRoom, it's that simple. And allowing them to continue to operate the way that they have always operated creates efficiency. Okay. That's what I love about seeing it because it's business development at its core. And that's what this is all about. That's what this podcast is all about. Creating processes that make it easier for you to do business long term. These are two companies that are huge, quite frankly, in our space. Okay. Idea room owns the space and sheds, carports, the whole thing. They are the number one 3D configurator, not just in quality, but in user count. I would bet on it. Don't quote me on that. And SmartBuild, I'm sure you guys got a ton of users. There's nobody doing what you do, not even close. You know, it's often imitated, never ever duplicated. And that's what I really like about this relationship and why I've harped on it. People have been hearing me talk about this for six or seven months. I've been non-stop speaking up the good word of SmartBuild and ID room because we sold four buildings in like four days last month using your guys' integration. Okay. Direct from our website to sale, we had four buildings closed in four days. I can't, I can't honestly contain it. If I if I took the gloves off and I really put the ID room configurator in front of customers, we'd be getting so many design tools, I wouldn't be able to handle it. That's the truth of it. People see the configurator on their phone and they're like, oh my goodness, I can design my pole barn right here. Oh, as a matter of fact, in some applications, you can actually place the building in your backyard. Okay. Some of the configurators out there will literally let you do like an AR representation in your driveway. I've done it. It's great. I mean, that that's the kind of stuff we're talking about here, guys. If you're not utilizing this, figure out why. Okay, contact your supplier, contact your whoever you're working with. If you're a small business owner, SmartBuilds a phone call away. Dan's a phone call away. Not Dan personally, but somebody in Idea Room on his team will be a phone call away. But Dan's available. Yeah, Dan's fine with you as long as we're bringing you business, right?

Dan 19:41

I love selling it. That's where I started. You know that.

Jared 19:44

Dan sold me. Dan sold me IdeaRoom seven years ago, six years ago, something like that. We have been a long-term, long-term customer of Idea Room. We have watched it grow from infancy, and in really, it wasn't an infant. It was a fully grown child that's now matured into this like president of the United States, Dan. So, I mean, I'm impressed by that, brother. I gotta tell you. Royden, you're smiling over there, man. I know I'm doing all the talking for you. Tell me something. Tell me something that we don't know about Smart Build. Tell me something that's coming down the road. Give me a sneak peek. I always ask for behind the curtain. Give me a sneak peek, brother.

Royden 20:24

Yeah, we are working on a lot of things under the hood, but it um top of mind, I mean, it's still Barndo's. Like we we've been dealing with barndo improvements. I don't think those will ever stop. Um, unfortunately. Yeah, you know, you mentioned um other company, other possibly competitors of ours. Like one thing to like I wouldn't the time that our teams put in, you know, under the hood, uh, working with builders, you know, how do you frame, how do you trim your windows, all those little details. Yeah, there's just a lot of time has gone in, and that's what I mean, that's what makes it successful as a product, you know, you can rely on it for takeoffs. When Dan when Dan's team sends the design over, you know, most of the work's done. Yep.

Strategy: B2C Lead Gen Meets Pro Takeoffs

Jared 21:05

Yeah, that's the that's the best part about it, right? Is it's intuitive and it learns along the way. So again, if you're happening to use the IdeaRoom, Smart Build integration already and you're listening to this, give them feedback. Okay. I've been giving them feedback in real time, and I can tell you some of the changes that we've seen, go back to the previous episode if you weren't part of it. I can tell you it is moving at a lightning pace. They want to know what's going on so that they can make the product better. Because if the product is better, they will sell it more. That's the goal. Okay, don't let anyone fool you. IdeaRoom is here, SmartBuild is here because they want to sell you service. Okay, I'd be the first one to tell you that. And I would tell you it's the number one service you should have. Other than a website. You need a website, yeah. Okay, you need a website because you're not going to be able to utilize much of it without it. Now, with SmartBuild, you could probably Get away without a website, but get a website first. Contact the team at Defined SEO. They'll help you build a website. And not only will they help you build a website, they'll give you access to Idea Room, they'll help you out with that, they'll get you connected. And with that, can come access to Smart Build or vice versa. Whatever you need, the team over at Define can help you out. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Velocity360, CAL and J Money. They are great. Obviously, we have Idea Room on today. What do you guys need to get started? Tell me how that's going to work. What process do you want them to go through? I've said it a couple of different ways, but in a perfect world, if someone's listening to us on this podcast and they don't have anything, they have a website, they're installing post frame buildings or steel tubular frame buildings. What do they need? Who should they contact first? What do you guys prefer?

Dan 22:50

Well, honestly, that kind of depends on the business goal and either the problem you're trying to solve or kind of the opportunity you're taking advantage of. Again, if it's more on the generate more leads and convert those to sales, it can make a lot of sense to you know start with Idea Room. However, uh, you kind of mentioned Royden, it can be nice when a design comes in from Idea Room because a lot of the work is done. Uh, it's actually amazing when a SmartBuild customer shows up because you guys go to a level of detail that we don't, right? We're doing selling accuracy and nice visual accuracy representation, uh, which is great for marketing and selling. But in terms of the data and the implementation, uh, you guys probably have a bigger and more detailed job than we do. And so, when your customers show up, so it's kind of like if you need the operational efficiency, you don't have a good bill of materials solution, you're working on the fulfillment piece first, which honestly often is one of the first pain points for a business. It can make a lot of sense to start with Smart Build. And for us, we can pull that data in, it's already done. So, like implementation is a breeze. So depending on that, it can make sense to uh start with right in here. And I know he does a ton or all of the demos himself.

Royden 24:07

So yeah, yeah. Reach out to us, and we do a demo, and like Dan said, you know, we have to we have to figure out what the best step is. But if we do our implementation first, it makes Dan's job a lot easier. They just map things across, and like you said, then it flows smoothly.

Operational Accuracy: Bills Of Material Down To Screws

Jared 24:24

So I love that. So we obviously work with Graber, I mentioned that earlier. But guys like Burroughs, Morton, I mean, all of these big time suppliers are utilizing Smart Build. So if you happen to be a dealer, uh if you happen to be a manufacturer, whatever you're doing in Postframe, if you're utilizing Smart Build and you are customer facing to your customers through a website or even through Facebook or Google, you would be very benefited by giving Idea Room a call at this point. Because if you're on Smart Build, you heard what Dan said, it is pretty much a seamless transition into Idea Room. And look at your marketing budget. I would challenge you to find a better deal out there currently than what Dan's charging, which it starts at about 400 bucks. We talked about that last episode. Dan and I talked about it. There's different integrations you can do, but find a better way to spend the money. I challenge you. I really do. I could show you, I challenge you, Jared at thesteelkings.com. I'll literally walk you through what I do. I'll show you. I'll show you exactly what I do that works for me. I have no problem doing that because again, I want the industry as a whole to be better for it. I want everybody to win. I want everybody to expect that when they buy a post-frame building, they're buying it from somebody who's reputable who can give them a structured idea of what the project's gonna look like in cost up front. And then on the back side, they can get a bill of materials that is correct. Okay. I've had so many horror stories, I get them all the time. People call me because we, you know, we do SEO and stuff. I get calls all the time. Bought a po a pole barn kit from Joe Smith's pole barn shop, whatever. And it got here, and I don't have enough timber, I don't have enough material, I don't have enough screws. Do you guys sell that stuff? No, I don't, unfortunately. You know, but tell me about tell me a little bit more about you know what was going on. Well, I bought a pole barn kit from Joe Smith or whatever I said, and it got here and I got 95% of the material. What you can bank on with Smart Build is again, you're going to design the building with ID room. It's going to go into Smart Build, and from Smart Build, you can really lay this baby out. You can do down to the individual screw on exactly what you need on this bill, period. The end. And it will automatically outline that for you. If you're not utilizing it, you're missing out big time. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. If you could know that you are 99.9% confident that what you're gonna get at the build site is what you designed in the configurator, would you not be willing to do that for yourself? What would it save you to not have to run the lows from the job site? Okay, how many times have you done that? If you're listening to this, how many times have you ran away from the job site to go to Menards or Lowe's or 84 Lumber or wherever it is you go to get your supplies when you miss something? We all do, we're all guilty of it. I've had contractors on my job sites call me and say, Jared, we're missing something. Well, it wasn't from the Smart Build list, I can tell you that. It was packed incorrectly, and that's just the truth of it. The bill that Smart Build gives you is exactly what shows in that design tool down to the screw. Okay, there's always gonna be a chance that when something's packed, it's missed, but man, that's only happened once to us, and it was like one 16-inch two by four or something like that. I don't even remember what it was. It cost me like 20 bucks. But again, I've had people call me time and time again when we had tried to do pole barn kit installs that were like, oh man, I'm missing materials. And I can tell you it's just because they went and bought a regular pole barn kit from Menards. There's nothing wrong with that, but you should really be giving a shot to your local pole barn manufacturers for a little bit more of a higher-end service. Royden, tell me about that, man. Because you guys really do. I mean, down to the screw. That's what I always say. Down to the screw. Every piece, every time.

Royden 28:25

Yeah, no, the biggest thing is implementation. We talked about that a little bit before the call. You know, the better job done on implementing Smart Build, you know, getting it set up the way that you frame, the way you build, the way that you install your metal. I mean, there's a lot of time and detail goes into that, but you mentioned like Graber, you know, they put thousands of hours into their setup and their implementation. So if you have a supplier that's put the time in, yeah, you're gonna be in a lot better shape. Or if you do the, you know, you can do the implementation yourself. You know, we'll work with anyone directly and help them, but it takes time. It does take time.

Getting Started: Who To Call First

Jared 28:57

That's what I really like about Smart Build. You guys aren't, you guys are not passing over anybody. If you are a single guy and you are trying to get this done, they'll work with you. If you're a conglomerate, if you're a big deal like Graber or Burroughs or one of these major conglomerates across the United States, they work with you too. And again, if you are already utilizing Graber or Burroughs or Morton or any of these suppliers, okay, they have a solution for you right now to get more leads. It's with Idea Room. See how this continues to work like in a circle? If you guys hear me talk enough, you're gonna hear me IdeaRoom, SmartBuild, SmartBuild, IdeaRoom. It all works together and it generates sales through proper lead gen. If you want a customer to be sitting in their bed at 10:30 at night, scrolling Facebook, and all of a sudden they see, oh man, look at that poll bar. Click, boom, on the phone pops up a 3D configurator. Oh, I can design this in 30 seconds. Okay, submit. And all of a sudden you have their info. The next morning you come in, you've got the info from somebody who is laying in their bed at 10:30 at night. Know how I know that? It happens every day at Dayton Barns. It's happened every day for the last six years once we got Idea Room. Once we started working with Smart Build, it was the same thing. Okay. And now that we've got the Idea Room and Smart Build integration, let me tell you something. I've never been more excited to be in the post frame space ever. And in all the time that I've been kind of curating it for myself, I graduated from sheds to steel buildings. You guys know the relationship that I had with Eric, and that relationship was a great one. We went from sheds to metal buildings to postframe. And postframe, man, let me tell you something. It's a wide blue ocean, man. There are plenty of post frame buildings to go around. We're getting into barn dominiums. Go back and listen to the episode with Mrs. Postframe. If you guys need a curated update on Barndominiums, go check out her uh her breakout session at the expo. She's gonna do a great job talking to you about barn dominiums and why. Um we have so much stuff to get to, right? And we've got a short time today to talk about it, but I want to talk to you guys a little bit about the trade show because we're getting to the end of this NFBA series that we've been doing on the Steel Kings podcast. We've been talking about this for the last this will be episode number seven in the series, I believe. So you guys have been hearing me go on and on and on about the trade show. Dan, I know you're excited about it. Roy and I know you're excited about it. Dan, you guys are going to be giving away some stuff. Tell me about that, and then tell me about the exciting thing happening in about a week from now. As a matter of fact, it's a week from uh a week from today. We're filming on February the 4th. So February the 11th, tell me about the exciting stuff coming up.

Dan 31:42

Oh, sure, yeah. So uh if you want to jump start on IdeaRoom and Smart Build, we do have a webinar we're putting on February 11th, uh 12 p.m. Eastern time. And likely we'll be sharing the link with you because there's gonna be a registration page, uh, Jared, you can publish. Um, so that's a good one to come and get more detailed kind of in-depth information. Uh we'll be demonstrating it and showing it, configuring it, that kind of thing. And then yeah, at the booth, uh, we kind of found it at Idea Room at the first expo we ever went to, but um, crossbows always do really well. So we'll be giving away a crossbow. Uh, we're also gonna have some very cool camo hats. Our marketing team always does really good with the uh with the swag and the merch. Uh giveaway there. And yeah, we're right by uh Smart Build Booth 914. And I think we talked about some of the capabilities that have already launched, but really, in terms of rollout and marketing, NFBA show is when we're gonna be blasting out the mezzanines, interior walls. Uh, you can now see the price in the data that gets submitted at the back end of your IdeaRoom design session because we pull that out of SmartBuild. Um, and I can kind of mention something interesting about that strategically. Part of why it's just such a great relationship with SmartBuild is like we saw it in sheds and carports. Pricing and getting that dollar figure and price qualifying the customer is really important to like, you know, the perfect product market fit where you can start to put together this, you know, drive sales online and remove all of the friction from that process. And really, when you close that loop with us integrated with Smart Build and you can start to see that price quickly, uh, it's just the final piece we needed. We thought we could do it with the price book approach, like we do in CarPorts, which is cool. But no, in post-frame, you need the bill of materials, costing and price. Uh, and so yeah, we're we're making a move there in terms of uh new capabilities. Um, and I kind of mentioned last time about every two to four weeks we're doing significant releases. So uh yeah, maybe there'll be something else to surprise you with, but I can't give you more yet.

Royden 33:53

Royden, what are you guys seeing, man? Um, for the show, uh we we are going to be offering some show specials. I don't know that we have any giveaways, but we may we may throw one in there. Yeah, who knows? There's still time to decide.

Jared 34:05

But the giveaway is additional sales.

Royden 34:08

Oh, yeah.

NFBA Expo Plans, Webinar, And New Features

Jared 34:09

I can tell you if yeah, the giveaway is additional sales. You go visit Royd and the guys at Smart Build, and they will show you how to sell more buildings. And then while you're there, visit Dan and Enter to win the crossbow because he'll give away the crossbow and the camo hats. I can tell you both companies will provide you a solution to sell more buildings to your customers. That's what everybody wants here. Again, they have their businesses, they own their space, they're collaborating together to make everything better for us. When you said that, Dan, I could not contain my smile. Okay, I can tell you the formula that works selling metal buildings and sheds online can work for post frame. Okay, it absolutely can. I believe it. I've seen it. Okay, I'm a testament to that. I am a very early user of this idea of SmartBuild integration. I have watched it mature, it's getting better every update. The update with the pricing is phenomenal because, again, if you have someone who is very, very good at working with Smart Build, if you have that one team member, maybe you've got a guy, or you know, let's say you got three licenses for Smart Build, but you got one guy who's the best at it. Everybody has that guy in their office that's the best at using Smart Build. That guy starts to get the curated leads from Idea Room. He can go through and make the the couple of changes that need to be made here or there, or the edits, because again, it's gonna get you about 95% of the way. Something like that. Let's be real. You have to get in and really double check everything, make sure that the building in Smart Build is the way you need it to be designed to be built. Okay. IdeaRoom is gonna give you the tool necessary to get the customer in the door, get them feeling cozy and comfortable. Yep, I want a white and black, all vertical post-frame building in my backyard with two 10 by 10s on the front, couple walk doors on each side, whatever. It gives them the visualization and they see that from your business. Again, a branded build tool, branded for your website, selling to your customer for you when you're not even there, right? It is speaking to your customer and doing the sales process for you while you sleep. Okay. And then Smart Build catches the lead and builds it out for you so that way when you go to the job site, you're prepared and ready to sell, ready, ready to install, right? Does that sum it up for you guys? Sound like a hype guy. Just give me an IdeaRoom SmartBuild t-shirt.

Dan 36:34

That was the uh the vision I was about when we got when we started talking back at the beginning. And this was actually some of our learning going into the post-frame industry, right? Like we had blown up in tubular stair and car ports, but yeah, there's details that have to be precise and correct in post-frame, where tubular steel is kind of standardized across the board related to engineering details like wind and snow load. And in post-frame, just tweaking and tuning those final details, there's things that you need to be an expert user to make those final selections and refinements. Um, so it is a critical part of the process, kind of like you're talking about your best guy in the office that knows how to run Smart Build, kind of consult with the customer and finalize. Uh, but ultimately that you get to that point in your marketing and sales pipeline where, and I think we talked about this in the first podcast, seeing the tubular steel industry blow up where it's like you can see price, put down your deposit online, and see your building show up within four to six weeks if their lead times are within order. Uh, it's pretty incredible. And yeah, I can just see it from the increasing demand about going to market online that Postframe is going more and more in that direction. And things like Barndominiums, in a lot of ways, kind of push that because, like, you're selling to an end consumer who's mostly interested in like aesthetics and visuals, and then get the structure right, and you can connect with a ton of customers that way. And we've already talked about it. They're they're searching on mobile. In fact, you said last time 82% on your site. 82% say 50 to 70 percent. I'm gonna start saying 82.

Barn-dominiums, Mobile Traffic, And Speed Tips

Jared 38:09

82 at Dayton Barns, brother. I track it every week, I look at that number every week because again, it's this harmony, right? You're building an infrastructure for your business, and that infrastructure requires constant working. So, Dan and his team are working on it every two to four weeks. Royden and his team are working on it every couple weeks, they'll send updates out. But for me, as a smart business owner, I am monitoring website traffic, fixing things in real time, making sure that pages stay indexed on Google. But in the meantime, I am building that website to be a constant sales funnel. I don't want people to get to the web. People will sell you on clicks, right? Man, this marketing company, though, they're great. They're gonna get me a million clicks on my website. Well, what do they do when they get to your website? You can have all the clicks in the world, have a million visitors, but if what they see isn't what they need or what they want, then you're just getting a view. You have to have actionable items. What better than to go to a website and see a 3D configurator of what it is the product you're looking for? Oh, and by the way, you can target ads that way to say, hey, bypass the website completely. We don't even need you to see the website. Just go to our landing page for IdeaRoom, build.daytonbarns.com. Boom. Dayton Barns logo, boom, 3D configurator on Boost, which is the new the newest version of the IdeaRoom software. It looks phenomenal on a smart device. Any any phone, any tablet, it looks great. Looks like a million bucks. And again, from 3D design to submitted for a quote, I don't know what the average time is. You can take 30 seconds and get a templated design, have a customer's information on your website into your CRM. I it there is not a better tool out there, and now you have the best lead gen, which I have been hyping up for a long time, breeding into the absolute best end use at SmartBuild. I can't, I honestly, I know you guys are thinking, well, Jared, you know, you you're going on and on. I am. It's that serious to me, it's that important. If you take nothing away from what I've said during this whole series of conversation, if you have access to SmartBuild, you need to get IdeaRoom. Period. And if you don't have access to either, you need to call Royden. If you're working in postframe and not using Smart Build, you need to catch up. The competition is gonna leave you behind in the dust. That I promise you. Everybody will be utilizing this if they're gonna be successful in this space and scale at all. You're gonna be left behind. And I'm giving you the tools necessary to have that conversation right now. It's just getting started. So if you're utilizing it and you're seeing it and it's great for you, give me the feedback, man. Come see us at the trade show booth. We have more to talk about here. So many big things coming your way. I can't wait to share more with you guys. I'm gonna wrap it up here, fellas. We've been right at that 40-minute mark. We've got a sweet spot here. I want to give you guys each just a minute or so to wrap it up. Tell us something about your product that you didn't get to share, tell us something about you personally. Anything you want to share as we get out of here for this week?

Dan 41:32

Well, if you want to hear personal, I play drums, so I'm a musician, and uh I like to climb mountains. There you go. However, that's not the focus here. And I've talked enough about Idea Room, so I'll tee it up for Roy. You don't do the manufacturing piece, uh, Jared, but they have more partners and integrations downstream into ERPs, role forming, the manufacturing piece. I think even last session, Norma showed some of the you know, shop drawings, cut lists, all of that. Uh, it's pretty incredible, incredible for that operational efficiency, materials tracking, inventory tracking. Um, and there's just so much more you can do downstream as those uh sales come in. So uh yeah, Roy, maybe talk up some of that capability you guys have and uh whatever else you want to say.

Royden 42:22

Yeah, no, sure. Now on the personal side, I didn't know you played music, Dan. I play guitar, it's not very good, but I like to play. So we can get to it.

Dan 42:30

Hey, we got a jam. Yeah, I have electronic drums right over here in this room.

Royden 42:36

Yeah, we need to we need to get together sometime. But no, on the on the SmartBuild side, yeah, we are upcoming. I think some of the big things we'll be working on more room control. Like one thing with Barn Do's, uh, a lot of people want to lay out the floor plan, and we have interior walls, like you guys are working on them too, uh, Dan, so they integrate better. But the one thing is like, you know, this is a bedroom, this is a bathroom, and I want to have a labeled floor plan that the customer can see that. So, we're working on improving some of that, and obviously, speed is another thing. I mean, make things faster. Everybody, everybody wants it faster every day, so that's that's always on our list. So, no, that's that's what we got.

Closing Thoughts, Resources, And Next Steps

Jared 43:16

Let me give you a user tip for the day. Let me give you a SmartBuild user tip. This is a tip from my buddy Delmer over at Graeber Post. Okay, so if you're worried about the speed, turn your little toggle switch all the way to 60 seconds, and then just do your refreshes after you make all your changes. Let me tell you something. That specific trick is all you really need because you can make all your edits and refresh, and boom, you're right back up and running. Um, 2D floor plan. Let me give you another user tip for the day. 2D floor plan is your best friend when adding windows and doors. You can get it down to the actual, like, I don't know, tenth of an inch. I don't know, it's something crazy like that. But I can tell you, if you need help with SmartBuild, I More than happy to help you. I've got a million and one tricks. I love using SmartBuild. If you have any needs with IdeaRoom, I love that too. And I can give you a different perspective, right? I can give you an end user perspective. I can give you a I'm your friend, and we're just talking shop kind of conversation. Because I know sometimes that's the feedback, and just I'm gonna give you guys some feedback on the way out. Contractors aren't tech guys. Somehow I've been blessed to be a little bit of both. I can be dangerous in both worlds, and I can talk to both worlds, but I can tell you, contractors are scared of technology. Don't let them fool you. They're scared.

Dan 44:40

Until it helps them, then they love it. Oh, yeah, that's true.

Jared 44:43

And you gotta, you gotta, you gotta take the risk, right? You gotta get outside your comfort zone and take a risk. And I can tell you, you will benefit immensely from contacting Royden and his team over at Smart Build, Dan and his team at Idea Room. You guys have been absolutely great. I really appreciate it. We were gonna have you back for more conversations in the future. We will be sharing updates for the webinar on all of our social medias. Um, I realize that this podcast will air after that, unfortunately. So, if you're hearing this after the fact, we will do another webinar. I can get uh I'll get you all the information for that. But contact me, Jared at the Steel Kings, if you need anything. Anything else, guys, as we finish up? One last call.

Dan 45:25

Ah, rocking.

Jared 45:26

All right, thank you guys very much for checking out this episode of Steel Kings podcast. As always, thank you to the team at J Money. Couldn't do it without you. The guys over at Shed Geek Media Network. Let me give those guys a shout out. They are doing some great things over there. If you need shed content, check out the guys at Shed Geek, our partners with Defynd SEO, CAL, Velocity360. Thank you very much to Idea Room and Smart Build for being on the podcast today. As always, get out in your communities and do something good for somebody else. I promise you, I promise you, it will make you feel better. It always makes me feel better. We will be next week for the Expo episode, guys. The climactic ending to the NFBA series. We will talk all things NFBA Expo. We're gonna talk about the trade floor, we're gonna talk about our friends. Man, check us out next week on the Steel Kings Podcast. I'm Jared, Dan, and Royden. We'll see you guys later. Have a great day. 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 building strategies, stories, and real talk from the builders shape. 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.

OUTRO 47:06

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