Are You Paying For Leads Or Paying For Clarity

Your shed business does not have a marketing problem. It has a clarity problem.

We’re joined by James and Joel from E-Impact to unpack what “marketing” actually means for shed builders, manufacturers, and dealers trying to grow in a market where buyers are pickier and attention is harder to earn. We start with what’s changing at E-Impact, including their ownership transition and how they think about building a strong team that can keep improving year after year.

From there, we get practical. We talk about the real difference between marketing and sales for a product that is customizable and high-consideration. Marketing should communicate and educate early so your sales team can focus on customization, speed to lead, and customer service instead of repeating the basics. We also dig into branding fundamentals that many shed lots forget, plus a simple way to think about the funnel: problem awareness, solution options, then picking the right provider.

A major takeaway is local visibility. Google has localized shed searches, and that creates a huge opportunity for independent companies that get their Google Business Profile, reviews, website, and local SEO dialed in. We also discuss when it makes sense to outsource to a full-service marketing agency versus building an in-house team, how to spot the current bottleneck, and why positive ROI is the baseline for any marketing spend.

If you got value from the conversation, subscribe, share it with another shed pro, and leave a review so more builders can find it. What’s the biggest marketing or sales bottleneck in your business right now?

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: Shed Pro

Identigrow
IFAB
Cardinal Manufacturing
Solar Blaster 

Transcript

ShedPro Sponsor And Workflow Pitch

INTRO 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Shed Geek Podcast. Here's a message from our studio sponsor. Let's be real. Running a shed business today isn't just about building great sheds. The industry is changing fast. We're all filling the squeeze, competing for fewer buyers, while expectations keep climbing. And yet, I hear from many of you that you are still juggling spreadsheets, clunky software, or disconnected systems. You're spending more time managing chaos than actually growing your business. That's why I want to talk to you about our studio sponsor, ShedPro. If you're not already using them, I really think you should check them out. ShedPro combines your 3D configurator, point of sale, RTO contracts, inventory, deliveries, and dealer tools all in one platform. They even integrate cleanly into our Shed Geek marketing solutions. From website lead to final delivery, you can quote, contract, collect payment, and schedule delivery in one clean workflow. No more double entries, no more back-and-forth chaos. Quoting is faster, orders are cleaner. And instead of chasing down paperwork, you're actually running your business. And if you mention Shed Geek, you'll get 25% off all setup fees. Check it out at shedpro.co/ shed geek. Thank you, ShedPro, for being our studio sponsor and honestly for building something that helps the industry.

Stay Plugged In With ShedGeek

Shannon 1:33

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast from Metropolis, Illinois, here where we've got sunshine in the day and thunderstorms in the afternoon. It sounds like it's spring. Uh today I'm joined by the good folks over at E- Impact. Uh, but before we get rolling with the interview, just want to give you a couple uh ways to stay plugged in with us over here at Shed Geek. Uh, if you have any questions, give us a call, 618-309-3648. Uh, you can email us at info@shedgeek.com or contact us at shedgeek.com. Just go to our website and fill out any lead forms necessary to the purpose for which you're reaching out. Uh please like and follow our Facebook page and our YouTube channel, and stay plugged in with groups and private groups like the Shed Sales Professionals and other private groups and even open groups around the shed industry. For the plain community members, our call-in landline number is 330-997-3055. My guess is you're not going to be listening to this on YouTube, but for those who are who have plain community friends, share that number with them. Uh, hot item of the day, you know, I don't have anything other than a conversation about marketing, which is exactly why we have the professionals here today. Uh, James and Joel joining us from E-Impact. Uh, welcome to the show, guys.

James Charles 2:59

Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, good to be here.

E-Impact Ownership Transition

Shannon 3:02

It's been just a little bit since we've chatted and uh gosh, I'm well, not really been a while, James. I feel like me and you chat fairly regularly, just not always on a podcast. But uh uh it's exciting to have you guys back. Uh, certainly appreciative uh for you guys. Uh, I think you've done a couple episodes, uh, even sent us a couple of uh while we were out on the road, uh, even sent us a couple places while we were out on the road and uh was able to interview some people because you were able to make some contact with those for. So, we really appreciate that. Uh we thank you for all that you guys do in the industry. And we want to talk about like uh let's start out with like the new ownership, you know. Like I think we interviewed Chris one time before, but you know, it looks like you guys are you know making progress and moving forward and uh you know some a few changes over there in a good way, you know. I'm sure Chris is doing great, but in a good way, you know, get getting some opportunity here. So tell us about it.

James Charles 4:03

Yeah. So um, yeah, we just finalized uh full transition. Uh myself and Joel and one other partner uh finished buying out Chris's uh ownership in the in the business. So, he is onto greener pastures. Um he has yeah, multiple things going on. So, he has plenty to keep himself busy with, um, really kind of set us up and uh you know was his brainchild originally. And uh 10 years in, he uh kind of came to the realization that uh his involvement had sort of run its course and he was ready to try his hand at something new. He's really you know a visionary. Anybody who knows him knows he's the visionary entrepreneurial type. And so, uh he had some other things he was able to kind of focus on. So, he's he has a few other businesses now. One of them is uh focused on chicken coops, actually. So yeah, he's doing well. So, the new ownership, yeah, the new ownership team then is um the three of us. So, Eric, who's not on the podcast, um, he's our lead developer, has yeah, I don't know, 10, well, probably 15 or 20 years of web development experience. So, he kind of leads our technical team, um, and then Joel and myself.

Shannon 5:19

Very nice. And uh Joel, this is our first time getting to meet, but uh certainly nice to meet you. And uh it sounds like you've been over at E-Impact for a while, I'm guessing.

Joel Steele 5:31

Yeah, good to meet you as well. I uh well, it's funny as you were talking about just the business transition. It's always weird in my head. I think about six years ago I was a youth pastor, I was playing dodgeball with high school students, and now I own a business. So, I don't know how the how that transition happened necessarily, but it's been a lot of fun. Um I've been at EAMPAC since 2021, started writing content um back in back in October of 21, and then yeah, slowly have now found myself in an ownership seat, which is uh I don't know, I'm just very excited about it. I love the team that we have right now. Um, and one of my roles here is CPO or chief people officer. Uh, I thought HR sounded a little too official and I don't know, uh made people nervous maybe. So uh I take care of our people um and I also help with some of the strategy for some clients as well. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

What Marketing Really Means

Shannon 6:20

Well, the Lord works in mystery, and uh you can you can always play dodgeball over at E-Impact if you get bored. Yep. Uh no, I love the term, uh the acronym uh CPO Chief People Officer. Uh, you know, I just having fun in general, a little bit more the uh, you know, the things we probably need to do in our business. And uh yeah, appreciate your dedication also to the ministry there. That's awesome. And uh uh just sounds like an exciting, like good time over there at E-Impact with all the changes that are going on in a in a good way, right? Like, you know, growth, you're seeing growth, and yeah, that's pretty awesome to hear that Chris is still like uh, especially with chicken coops. I mean, what a you know, a sister industry, if you will, to everything that we do that is shed related for sure. So um, well, let's jump in. Uh, you know, like let's talk about let's talk about marketing, maybe. Let's talk about what it looks like, you know. Uh uh, let's talk about what it looks like in today's landscape. I mean, I made the comment I think before we got started here, uh recording, like marketing is so ambiguous. Like, now are we talking about digital marketing? Are we talking about traditional marketing? And I kind of want to get you guys' thoughts because we've been paying a lot of attention to traditional marketing here lately. Cord, um, you know, who does the Friday shows, he's got a marketing degree, and uh he's really been harping on this a little bit here lately about you know the loss of logos, the loss of like uh uh um marketing on the on the actual lots, you know, good signage and things like that. We get so often caught up into the digital conversation, which deserves its own place and in today's you know retail market. But what are you what are you guys' thoughts and what are we seeing? Who's doing it well, who's not doing it well, um in like even traditional marketing?

James Charles 8:17

Yeah, I mean that's a good question. I know you have a lot of marketers, or probably a relatively high percentage of your guests are marketers uh on here, right? So I think it's a topic that's sort of front and center, um, and probably even just with your own interests and the angle that you take within the industry. So, like the question of like what is marketing, it's I think it's one of those things where you know you ask 10 marketers, you get 20 answers, um, sort of maybe a little bit. I can give you, you know, my take on it. The way that we kind of think about it and talk about it internally is it's kind of simple. Like you have there are people out there in the world that have problems and there are other people who can solve those problems. And those are the two sides of a market, right? And when you bring them together to do business, that is the market. So it's the exchange of goods and services. Marketing is just bringing those two groups into contact so that that market can taste take place. So to me, that's the simplest definition, whether you want to picture it as a bridge um or you know, an outlet where you're plugging the two sides together, but that's really what it is. So there's different components of marketing. There's the thing of like maybe some problems people don't even realize initially is a problem, right? You know, and so like use the simple classic example in the shed industry of like, oh, they're tripping over stuff in the garage. Um you know, if you get used to having your garage full of stuff, you kind of that becomes normalized, right? And so, like opening people's eyes to like, oh wait, maybe I don't have to like keep everything in the garage, maybe I could actually park the car here. And so there's like the problem awareness part of marketing. There's okay, so I need to clear the garage out. What's the best solution? Should it be a shed? Should it be self-storage? Should it be the attic? You know what I mean? So, there's different ways to solve that problem. Why is a shed the best solution for a certain segment of people? And then, you know, a step further, what is the best type of shed? Who's the best shed builder? It gets down, you know, and then narrow the focus down to okay, we're looking for, you know, a 10 by 12 with a gambrel roof, and you know, where do we buy it? Right. And so in some ways, if you're familiar with the classic concept of the marketing funnel, the different stages of the funnel are just serving different parts of like helping the person be aware of the problem, clarifying what the problem is, what's the best solution to it, um, down to like who's the best provider now to actually solve that problem. But really, at its simplest, it's you're solving problems for people and they're paying you to solve that problem. And if we can bring those two sides into contact, that's where the market takes place. So, I don't know, there's my definition.

AD-IDENTIGROW 10:49

Oh no. Sam, what's going on? Are you okay? Yes, I'm fine, Lisa. I was just trying to get a screwdriver and all this other stuff fell down. I'm ready to go buy a shed so we can have some space and this garage again. I agree. I keep looking at the shed Mr. Jenkins bought. Let's ask him where I got his. Howdy, neighbor. We're wondering, how do you like your shed? I love it. It's exactly what I needed, and I couldn't have asked for a better service. And where did you get it? I can't remember, but let me check. Something this nice will probably have the builder's name on it somewhere. No, I'm sorry. I can't find a name anywhere. Well, we finally got a shed. Yes, I just hope we're happy. The thing is a lot more shoddy than I expected, and I'm sure I told him I wanted a window, but they didn't have it in the paperwork, so I couldn't argue. Boy, is this a lousy shed. We haven't even had it two years, have we? Barely. It was just a bad deal all the way around. Mr. Jenkins told me the other day that he likes his shed so much he wants to get a second one, but he still can't remember where he got it. Your product is your best advertising. At Identigrow, we provide nameplates that ensure your quality products are never forgotten. Identify your products, grow your business. For more information, visit identigrow.com. Or give them a call at 540-283-9193.

Branding That Gets Remembered

Marketing Versus Sales In Sheds

Shannon 12:26

No, that's good. Um, I mentioned the conversation kind of developed develops itself. And the first two things I write down already is branding and marketing versus sales. And I know we've kind of had some conversation on this before, but where do you really feel like um, you know, I like to I've said this a million times that like when you're a small business, you know, your chief marketing officer, your chief sales officer, your chief ordering person, uh, you know, uh uh uh purchasing your chief trash taker out, or you're everything. You just kind of like consume the business. Um and as you start to grow and as you start to scale, um, you know, it almost feels like you know, maybe there's not as quick of a separation between the marketing and the sales side in the shed industry that what I think is necessary or maybe would like to see. Uh marketers are not necessarily always salespeople. You know, marketing's always getting uh the blame, right? For bad sales. I think Kyle Summers, you know, which you I think he might have been on whenever you guys were uh interviewing the first time, you know, he's got a comment out there that I love that he had put on Facebook that said, you know, bad salespeople get good marketing companies fired. And I think that's just a that's just a universal truth to that. Why do you think that is? Why do you think uh there's that separation between marketing and sales in the shed industry?

James Charles 13:55

Yeah. And again, I can give you my thoughts on it. And I think the implied caveats all of this is these are my ideas and these are not uh, you know, whatever. Take them with a grain of salt, right? I don't uh purport or we don't purport to be the be-all end-all of marketing knowledge. We certainly have maybe picked up a few things over the years and we try to know what we're talking about, but uh you know, I think it's just great to keep an open mind with some of these things. I can tell you the way that we sort of look at it is marketing is the communication and education. A lot of times sales teams get tasked with doing what marketing should be doing ahead of time, which is communicating and educating about what the product is. The goal of sales, the job of the sales team, and again, this is where if you get sales coaches on, they may have a little different take on this. But the sales becomes more important the more customizable a product is. So, the sales team's job is to do that final customization for on a complex product to make it the perfect solution. Again, with that paradigm of solving problems. We don't have salespeople for paperclips, right? We barely even have marketing for paper clips. We know what they do, right? That's a commodity purchase. I buy it, it does the thing, and it solves the problem. There's no customization needed, right? Um, same thing with you know, a lot of consumer goods. Now there's marketing there, right, to educate people about why do you need this particular energy bar versus this other one, right? You get into consumer package goods and all those other things, but you don't really have a salesperson because, again, there's no customization needed. And when you're talking about things like buildings, um, business software, right? Very complex purchases, marketing does the general communication of where this product fits, what the feature sets are, et cetera, et cetera. Sales then takes that and tailors it to the individual user. That's the job of sales. And so what happens a lot of times is the sales team ends up explaining the product effects, the product details, um, why is this product a good solution for your problem, et cetera, et cetera. That's all marketing stuff, right? When really they want to be saying, okay, what's your use case? You know, let's tweak this, let's, you know, modify the building in this way so it's the perfect fit for your exact use case. So that's how I would pitch it. Now I know there's some that probably would take a little bit different interpretation of it. I think you had uh was it Jim, uh Jim Mosier from um Mosier Data, he's yeah, Mosier marketer, Mosier Data. Yeah. And he was mentioning like using AI to kind of close a loop, like recording sales calls and stuff. And the beauty of a solution like that is you're taking all this marketing work that the sales team is doing on their sales calls, and then you're able to capture it in some way where you can actually start to process it back into your marketing, improve your marketing off of that. So the sales team is I don't think you're ever going to get away from it perfectly, but you want the sales team to be doing less marketing and more selling, personal interaction, customer service. And then that's where they can really focus on the other half of sales is just the customer service aspect of it. Like how fast you call someone back has nothing to do with the product, it has nothing to do with sales. That is really just a customer service. And so, if you can take some of that marketing burden off the sales team, then you free them up to actually really have that personal connection and like serve customers really well. So, I don't know. I talked a lot. I don't know if Joel has more or you have uh Shannon.

Shannon 17:22

Yeah, what's your thoughts Joe. Like if you

Joel Steele 17:22

I don't have too much. I think um I don't know. I feel I feel like in some clients, and these are probably actually clients we don't work with anymore in the past. I've there's almost been uh an anti-separation of sales and marketing too. And so, recognizing that we're also still on the same team, and it's not the blame game. Like I don't want to play the blame game when I'm marketing for a client and they're asking me, you know, how come the sales are down? And I go, I'm looking at the leads and I'm thinking, well, your leads are up, it must be the sales team. And it's not, I don't want to have that be how that conversation goes. I would rather work with the salespeople, work with the sales team leader, whoever it is, um, to figure out the root cause of, well, are the leads just not qualified? Are they tire kickers? Or, you know, are you guys having trouble keeping track of the leads that are coming in? Is this something that we can do better? Is this something that we can help you do more of with the CRM? Or and so I think just also that relationship, um, and I don't know how it is with all the different shed clients out there now, but just making sure that you put the time and energy into that specific relationship because you are one team trying to achieve that one goal to start with.

Education Mindset And Bottlenecks

Shannon 18:29

I think of like this is maybe a bad metaphor, I'm not sure, but especially with today's, you know, like landscape and what we're seeing, you know, happen in real time over overseas in the news. But I always say, like, the you know, the Marines give the Navy a hard time and the army a hard time and the air force a hard time. And you know, uh, but the reality is they come together as one, you know, one united front when you're trying to, and if you think of your business that way, that your sales team and your marketing team and even your uh production team and your hauling team or whatever is all coming together for the benefit of the customer, and that's a lot of moving parts, right? There's a lot of gears turning there to try and like make sure that you maximize the efficiency of each of those individual entities. And that can become hard to do, but I think the answer, I wrote this down. I think that the answer comes through education. Like it's almost like, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I did not like school. Uh, you know, uh, I just didn't like it. I didn't I didn't like even education until I was like 28. Uh I, you know, then all of a sudden I became like this, it was like it dawned on me, this realization that I can be educated in multiple things. Uh, and I really began to crave education once I matured. Uh, but whenever I was young, I was just rambunctious and just, you know, wanted to go outside and play recess and play baseball. Uh, but as I've gotten older, I've realized, you know, it it's the more educated you are, whether you're talking about rent-to-owned in this industry or finance or um product design or whatever it is. I mean, I don't know, I guess you could name, you know, we took we were joking around about paint earlier, you know, uh uh, and I think I told you guys like we did an exclusive partnership with you know the guys over at uh at Pittsburgh, and uh James was like, Well, hey, I got thoughts on covering, so maybe we'll get to that. Um, but it's one of those things where I'm like, the more educated you are on all of those things, the better you're gonna be. But would you guys I don't know, would it be fair to say that sometimes like uh people in in business, and maybe we should even say people in the shed industry, kind of have their thoughts on you know how they want to go about it, how they want to accomplish it. And sometimes that maybe closes off a few avenues of opportunity because you haven't you haven't educated yourself further. You know, the apostle Paul talks about furthering education, right? I mean, this is a very faith forward industry, and I know that they appreciate that. So, he talks about the ability and the need to continue to be educated. Uh and who's doing that is the is the question. Who's doing that? You know, like where's your education coming from? Where's your information coming from, Joel, about CRMs? Where's your information coming in about ads? I got to thinking about one person that said, you know, advertising. So now you get, you know, you shorten that to ads, you abbreviate it. And then like Facebook became like, hey, we run ads on there. But they weren't talking about the Facebook ads manager, they were talking about boosting posts and typical social media presence, right? Like a business page or the difference in a closed group and an open group, you know, how the algorithm changes and how Facebook messes with that constantly for marketers, right? You know, so we've got to stay on top of it. Um And I guess the question is like, you know, where do people go get educated and what are the things they should be looking for today? If you're a shed company, what should I be getting educated on from a marketing perspective? How about that? Let's narrow it down to that.

AD-IFAB 22:15

Shed builders, if you're looking to boost efficiency and improve your truss and component production, you need to know about IFab LLC. We've been building shop-tested, builder-approved equipment since 2011. And we specialize in reliable, durable solutions for real-world shed manufacturing. From trust presses and our adjustable jig to the precision door table, forklift building movers, and three-point building movers, IFab equipment is designed to help small shops and large production operations run smoothly. And if you haven't seen our latest truss saw system, you're missing out on some major upgrades, like an integrated stop system, pneumatically automated slider saw, integrated scrap conveyor, and a standalone elevating conveyor. These innovative options are helping shops cut faster, cleaner, and more consistently than ever. Whether you're expanding production or tightening up your workflow, we're here to help. Visit IFabLLC to explore our machines or give us a call. Let's talk about improving your shop. IFab LLC. Simple, innovative solutions for the shed industry.

Local SEO And Google Maps

James Charles 23:34

Yeah, well, I mean, that's a big question. Um so a few thoughts I have on that. Just keeping that, like we talked about this earlier as well, keeping that that humble mindset is so important. Something Chris used to say uh frequently internally here, uh when he was leading uh E-Impact was you know, we're not the best, but we're better than we were last year. Right? Just keeping that mindset of like we don't know it all. And it's probably not, I shouldn't say probably, it's not possible to literally know everything. You will never reach 100% expertise. Even when you look at uh, you know, let's say football, for example, there's different coaches with different strategic game plans, different, you know, and they're always innovating and somebody's always doing something new, trying something new, and there's, you know, often that's why dynasties are so hard in a lot of sports, right? It's because there's so many factors that go into it, there's so many variables. And so something like marketing, where you know, you're essentially trying to communicate with people who have real problems, but a limited attention span or a limited amount of focus is that people are going to be trying things new, it's gonna constantly be evolving, that's never gonna change. And so, you know, I I always try to have the mindset of like here's what here's what we see working, here's why we think it's working, or maybe why the data says that it's working, right? And getting as close to certainty as possible while also saying, like, let's be open to ideas from our clients from elsewhere of like what's the best way to do things. So just keeping that open mindset, that that's a good thing. So as far as where to get educated, that maybe brings up a little bit larger question, even of how much do you personally, how deep do you go in education on something like marketing versus outsourcing it, right? So, you know, and that's a question, and it depends a little bit on um what the organizational approach is to outsourcing versus like building, you know, in an in-house team. It depends a lot also on scale, right? Because if it's a small um, you know, mom and pop shop, it's gonna be tough to afford someone who can do full-time marketing, and then you're expecting them to go dive deep on all these different areas of marketing, which is its own world, you know, and to itself. And so, there's some balancing like that. So, anyways, that's uh uh maybe preferencing thoughts a little bit. Um I do think you want to, and this is the value of like good marketing advice, good business advice, any good advice is you want to solve the most pressing problem that's right in front of you. So instead of like going into a vacuum thing, like what do we learn about marketing? It's what is the bottleneck right now. Sometimes, you know, having a good either if it's an agency partner or a consultant, I know you you're getting into marketing consulting, to be able to narrow down the focus and say, here's where the bottleneck is right now in the business. Okay, let's focus on learning about that area of marketing. We don't have to know about everything. You know, let's really solve the problem that's right in front of us. So that's maybe a non-answer to your question, but it's one of the most useful things. It's what I see predicting success like for employees, for organizations, is like how much can they narrow down the focus to the most immediate problem, address that, and then go on to the next problem and address that. And if you're educating yourself on the issue that's right in front of you, that's um you know, that that's gonna get you a long ways. So I as far as specific areas, two big ones, the most immediate one is probably just local visibility. So to go back to that picture of the marketing funnel, the people near the bottom of the funnel are the ones who they know they're gonna buy a shed, they know they're gonna maybe even what size, what style, and they're searching, you know, shed builders near me, sheds for sale near me, 10 by 12 sheds for sale near me, like these kinds of searches. One thing that's changed with, you know, let's say Google's algorithm in particular over the last few years is that it's gotten a lot more localized. So it used to be if you would type like storage sheds, you would see uh the same result across the entire country, right? Um and so it would be one or two brands that did a really good job with SEO, and then they would rank in the entire US for storage sheds. More and more, Google is understanding which specific product categories and which specific search terms are generally purchased locally. So even without you putting your state in, your city in, even without near me or any of those searches, Google understands if somebody searches shed builders, they're trying to hire someone near them. The way you can tell if a certain search term is considered local by Google, I know you know this, but for the audience, is if you do a search and you look near the top of the search results and there's the maps pack with um three or four Google business profiles listed there, that tells you that Google is viewing this search as a localized search. More and more, frankly, the majority of shed-related searches have now been localized. So it makes the barrier of entry actually easier for small independent local businesses and actually probably takes a little bit of market share away from these single big players that had a good dominant nationwide uh SEO presence, you know, a number of years ago to now where it's a lot more localized. And so it actually is easier to get your foot in the door in your local area if you're focused on it and know what you're doing. So, anyways, I'll break there. Maybe there's more I could say, but um, that's good. That's probably a top place to focus.

Shannon 28:51

Especially on the educational side, you know, um, you know, we've started, you know, we started consulting and we even, you know, I think it's okay to say we even kind of share a client in that space for that very reason. Uh is sometimes you realize through a consulting process, like who the best, who the best person is to serve that client, you know, and like we found that to be you guys, right? You know, like through this consulting process, you know, and a lot of the variables go into that from knowledge, experience, uh, uh ability, pricing, you know, just a plethora of things. And we want to continue that professional collaboration. And I'll tell you why we did this is because we created a uh uh a platform that people begin to call in and ask questions about. And the question we were asking recently is like, when does that become a business model? When does your experience, I mean, there's a reason uh a shed hauler charges, you know, $750 to move the shed instead of $250, right? It's because of his time or her time and experience, their expertise, their ability to do something quick, the fact that they've invested in the equipment that's gonna move it without harming the shed. Uh, you know, all these different things go into it. Like you could probably move it in a half a day, you know, but they could probably move it in 15 minutes. And that's what you're where you're paying for, where your payoff becomes in marketing. We always use the words, we want to make you more money than we cost. Like that's just been part of our sales pitch. We if we're not making you more money than we cost, we should we should be walking away. We shouldn't just be a line item on the budget at the end of the day where you're like, well, you gotta pay for marketing. Yeah, no, it's supposed to help you.

James Charles 30:33

Positive ROI is the way we phrase it internally, but like that has to be the baseline, right? If anytime you're gonna outsource some of this, you're gonna hire somebody, there has to be a net return, otherwise, right? What's the purpose? Then it then it's a cost center, not a not a growth uh uh growth input for the company.

Shannon 30:51

You can be you can be a marketer, uh, but for those who say uh I can do it cheaper myself, it's like, wow, you talk about getting thrown something in your face. It's like imagine when your customers come in to buy sheds who constantly say, Well, I can build this myself. No one's taking away your ability to be able to do the job, right? Like, or figure it out, like you can figure it out. And for the large companies that end up, you know, hiring a an internalized marketing, you know, team, you know, which I'm of the opinion you need a team, because if you have one individual, I still believe it's hard for one individual to be good in all these disciplines. Uh uh, so like you almost need a team. And then if you have someone who's managing that, yeah, you can do a really good job. Uh, but it's really hard to uh uh it's just I don't know, it's really hard to know everything there is about marketing, even as a marketing agency or as a marketing individual with a degree from a school that says, hey, this this person knows everything there is about marketing. It's constantly developing, it's constantly changing. And we're seeing that with AI now, uh, the way that's changing business. We're seeing that with um this just the digital landscape in general. You may be at a point where you don't feel like you need a marketing agency yet, but uh that's why we wanted to be in consulting, is because we were like, let us help identify where's the best place to go and where do you need that education? Because some people just want to buy. Hey, I just do it for me. I don't want to take the time to figure it out. I'm plenty busy. I want to be a shed builder. You know, uh, I'm assuming you guys experienced something similar.

Agency Value Versus Doing It Yourself

James Charles 32:30

Yeah, I mean, at this point, we probably worked with north of 50 uh shed brands at least. Um, you know, so we've kind of seen the whole uh the whole range of different styles, different partnerships. Um I can speak maybe a little bit about to what the value should you hire an agency and what the value proposition is kind of within with an agency. So, like you said, it's really hard to know everything. Um so we have clients all the way from like, you know, they're doing their first one 1.5 million in annual revenue, um, where it's just owner-operator, you know, dad and the boys, whatever, you know, family business type of thing, all the way up to, you know, much larger uh businesses that have, you know, actually entire in-house marketing teams. Um and we have a number of clients there where they still retain us in some capacity. And the beauty is if you have, so we're a full service marketing agency, uh, which means we have teams you know focused on uh breadth of different marketing subcategories. Uh the value proposition there is that we can tailor the specific services that we're providing to a client based on what the skill set of their internal team is, right? So we have one client who's very large and they're they hired a new marketing manager. His background was in uh creative direction, you know, art direction, design. So he's really passionate about like brand, logo, design, look and feel of things, right? And he would say himself, like, not really any clue about SEO. You know, that that's not his wheelhouse, no interest, um, not interested in managing like, you know, paid campaigns when it comes to, you know, different. I mean, they're at the scale where they're running different types of Google ad campaigns and, you know, overlapping campaigns and then meta campaigns and, you know, testing alternate platforms and all this kind of stuff, right? So he ended up hiring a couple of additional people. So they have a multi-person internal team now, but we still work with them, um, you know, providing a lot of SEO services, website maintenance. They have a very complex site. So that's just one example where we kind of scaled with them over a number of years, and the nature of the relationship changed over that um that time period. So what you can get with an agency is the expertise of a really specialized marketer at the cost of a part-time hire or less. Right. Right. And so you might be able to hire like an intern or somebody just out of college, which uh everyone needs to start somewhere. So by, you know, I'm not knocking that. And that's actually that can be a really good, if you find the right person, that can be a really good value for a first heart hire in marketing. And it's also useful to have someone on the ground in the business who's there day to day. They can go out to the lot and take pictures, they can go out to the shop and you know, capture video, whatever it is. So there's definitely a place for that at the right scale. But, you know, for less than the cost of a full-time hire like that, you can tap into an agency that has, you know, the way we're structured is every client, they have an account manager that they can call at any time. They have a strategist then who's taking like the 30,000-foot view of where should the marketing be headed, what's the direction. But then those two uh work together with the client to kind of figure out what is the priorities for where you specifically are right now as a business, what do we focus on next? Let's generate priorities, and then those go to all of our specialized internal teams, you know, Google Ads, meta ads, SEO, local SEO, um, e-commerce in in cases where that makes sense, you know, CRM implementation, developers, like photo, video, print design, all these different things. And to be able to get that right, you know, for the cost of a part-time hire, um, is really hard to replicate. So that's kind of the general value prop of having a full service agency, you know, on hire.

Shannon 36:22

Man, I love it. I love everything about it because I know how necessary it is. Excuse me, and I know the questions that we get and that we've gotten over five years, you know, or 12 years overall, but really uh, you know, just even the last five years podcasting. Um you know people want to know, but they want to know for the purpose of typically making the best decision. I the I I'm of the opinion, Joel and James, let me know what you guys think. But I'm of the opinion that most people who are like, well, I can do it myself. It's uh I can do my own marketing. It's a lot like building a shed. Like once you start actually looking at the work, unless you desire to do it, like you get very bored with it quick. So, like, we could we could give all the secret sauce and the trade secrets away, which is so anti-shed industry, right? Hide it, hide it, hide it. Don't let somebody else copy what we're doing. And it's like, well, I don't know, it's sitting out there in a lot. Pretty much everybody can see what you're doing. It's the same way with marketing. You can almost tell everybody our secret sauce. And for like a lot of manufacturers, they're gonna go, Well, I don't want to do this stuff anyway. I just I'd still just assume pay you to do it because I don't have the time. Right? Uh, talk about a you know, like a Google ad. You know, you talked about like I've used the line at least, you know, I don't know, 50 times. You know, like you can spend a thousand dollars a month on Google and pay our $5.99 fee or whatever it is to run your ads, you know. So now you're at $16.99, or you can take $16.99 and you can run them yourself. And honestly, I believe that we will get better results with the $11.99 budget we have, or whatever, the $1,000 budget we have than you will with the whole $16.99 because you're not a marketer, you haven't run ads, you haven't learned it. Now, that's not saying you won't learn it or can't learn it. The question becomes how much money do you need to spend to figure out marketing? How much money do you need to spend to be a good hauler, to be a good salesperson, to be a good manufacturer? So, like that was always sort of our approach. You know, I don't know how you guys have looked at it, or if you want to share, but.

AD-CARDINAL MANUFACTURING 38:37

I got a big day tomorrow. I have a fully finished 18 by 40 cabin that's gonna require two to three meals to get it delivered. Way back in the sticks and down a dirt lane. With all the rain we've had lately, it's gonna be a mess. Well, it needs a bigger mule. Well, when you talk, Cardinal listens and you ask for it. With its diesel-powered 69-horse engine and capacity to move 40,000 pound sheds, the Mule 9069 is ready to turn your big days into just another day in the good life. Ah, that's right. You're talking about the one they had up in Michigan at the shed show. That monster mule, that man, that thing was awesome. That's right. It's the one you've seen at all the shed hauler barbecues. Man, yeah, there's nothing like a little diesel donkey to make my day go so much better.

James Charles 39:38

No, I mean, we, yeah, if people want to do it themselves, like by all means, it's not, we're not um we're not really here to kind of push ourselves on the people who aren't ready for it, right? Um, it's like the mechanic going and knocking on doors, you know what I mean? Like, listen, I don't want to change my own oil, right? I know how to, absolutely. Um, you know, I don't unfortunately, I don't have a shop, I don't have a lift, I don't have a place to dispose of oil. I mean, yes, there like I could find all these things, or I can go and have it done, you know, in 20 minutes and be off my way, right? And is it gonna cost me a few bucks more? Definitely. Uh, is it worth it? Also, definitely for me, right? So that's a you know, if you're set up with a shop and you got, you know, you know, you can put it on lift and whatever, then it makes sense for you to do your own oil changes, right? Um, when I, you know, my dad has an auto repair shop. So if I'm around, uh, you know, I can go change my own at his shop. Um, if I'm not, then I'm definitely paying somebody to do it, right? So it's a little bit that approach. Um we're not we're not super secretive like with what our strategies are. I mean, we don't share, you know, uh clients, you know, their analytics. Uh obviously, you know, that sort of thing. But from a strategy perspective, I mean, quite frankly, most of it's out there on the internet. Like anybody that has the time and the desire can go do it. And some have, and you know, other people we see people, you know, we pioneer sometimes we've pioneered a few strategies here and there, and then you start to see other people replicating, and that's the nature of business, right? Is that you know, we improve each other, the bar gets raised. Um, and that's just how it goes. And so, we're definitely big on making sure clients have as much information as they want from us to understand the strategies that we're recommending and that we're pursuing. We want them to know the why behind the things that we're recommending, and we want to stay really closely aligned with like at the end of the day, uh the thing that matters is bottom line revenue, right? Or bottom line profit. Right, top line revenue is maybe secondary, and then leads are like the most immediate marketing indicator that that direct into those things, and then you work backwards from there. Yes, like clicks and impressions and those things are important as much as they contribute to leads, which are important as much as they contribute to top line sales, which is important as much as it contributes to bottom line profit, right? And so really making sure that our teams as much as possible are, you know, they're not business owners, right? But we're trying to uh instill in them that that motivation to think like a business owner, right? What are the things that really matter? What is the bottleneck now? Let's address that, let's move to the next thing. The way we're currently set up, we don't really have like set packages even. Um, so we work with like monthly budgets, but we're very flexible internally about like what does this particular client need right now? All right, the hours of this month are going toward that. You know, maybe they need to build out you know some capabilities in their CRM, that's where it's going. Maybe, you know, maybe they're doing a print campaign to promote a uh in-person event. Okay, we can shift focus there. But just trying to think, you know, and identify, and it's the same thing that I think you're doing, you know, with consulting is coming in and helping people figure out what is the bottleneck. Because sometimes when you're in the business, it's a little hard. You know, um, I had a conversation a couple of months ago with a business advisor, and in like 90 minutes, he gave me more clarity than I had in like the past year in terms of like what are the couple of key metrics that I need to be focused on right now for where the business is at, what are the levers that we need to work on pulling. And uh, it was amazing, right? And so I think that's the value that you know you provide as a as a consultant that we try to provide, you know, to our strategy team is to really identify that bottleneck and then hit it and solve it.

Shannon 43:25

We're just by nature, we're just conversationalist. We're people that are curious about what other people's experiences are. I mean, we just the Bible says iron sharpens iron, so I mean, like first thing I do whenever I have a serious question is I'll go out here and ask Cord Indiana, you know, and be like, hey, you know, what are your thoughts on this? You know, doesn't always mean that you're always going to take that uh, you know, thought and put it into practice, but you're gonna gather as much education as you can so that you make the best decision. What you're really trying to eliminate, at least for me, is the most bad decisions. You know, for me, I'm just trying to be risk adverse and take away the most risky things and then like see where some of those things land. Uh which this is why I think that the consultation will work. This is why I think the collaboration even with companies work. I mean we went out and hit it really hard on marketing and probably the biggest lesson we learn is we come back, you know, with our with our tail between our legs because we were like too fast, too quick, uh didn't set reasonable X expectations. And you know uh what we did do is offer up a lot of education, a lot of consultation, right? And a lot of people were like we need something we need this. And like you know we were like okay we'll provide that for you. And then you know we failed in many cases on that because of too fast too quick. And that's why we've changed some things over here because our focus is and always will be and we want it to be uh the results and you said that earlier. You said the bottom line profit is what matters right and it's not because money is all that matters but because you're paying for a service so you need results. And if you're not you're not going to keep paying.

James Charles 45:06

And if you are you're gonna keep going and I should clarify that I don't mean that's all that matters in the world by any means. I actually yeah very much disagree with that mindset. But when we're talking about from a business perspective why you would hire a marketing company.

Shannon 45:21

Yeah yeah yeah yeah 99% of the time that's gonna be uh geared at improving the numbers improving revenue and profits yeah no and I and I don't want to paint you into a corner there by any means because uh you know I think I know what you mean but to make sure it comes across right on the podcast right is like you know uh uh you know well what you do in your company matters you know but the results will drive a lot of the future you know opportunities whether it's for or against and yeah I but listen first of all I've never just in full transparency and in and now my six year podcasting I've never heard one negative thing about E-Impact marketing I've only heard positive things only now I don't know if you can keep that up forever but no I'm sure if you talk to the right people you'll hear there's been definitely been things where we've slipped up or you know and again it's that thing of like right maintaining humility that like um I mean I'm glad to hear that you've only heard good things.

James Charles 46:24

I'm sure if you talk to the right people you know you'll hear some of the ways that we've slipped up in the past. But we want to be able then to recognize when we do that and figure out okay what causes right can we can we do a solid postmortem of what the issue was here. We have clients that you know that leave from time to time and um we like to have every one of them you know do a quick exit survey on the way out so that we know where what do we have to do better where do we have to grow um thankfully you know we don't have too many of those or a whole lot but um you know it's always about learning we're not the best but we're better than we were last year.

Shannon 47:03

No that's exactly right. Uh kudos to you guys for even taking that exit strategy you know and leaving it in a place where that customer can come back right that that's what you want to do instead of burning that bridge and uh very important that's just general business acumen it's not even a marketing strategy right that's just like a people strategy and I think Joel would agree with that as the chief people officer it's just how you treat people it's how you leave them it's how you find them it's how you work with them and it's how they how you how you leave them.

Choosing Vendors And Understanding Trade-Offs

James Charles 47:33

This is why I'm excited you know uh you guys I've always seen you as the pinnacle in the industry and I think of so many other good companies too don't get me wrong you know we'll leave someone out if we get started but I mean whether it's Jim Mosier or Rosewood or Schweb or you know gosh I don't know there's just you know uh uh there's so many it seemed like whenever I got in it was uh you guys and uh oh gosh um white up why dop yeah yeah yeah I was gonna say that I was like and that's one of the beautiful things is there's so many uh options now you know people have choices it's definitely something we've seen in the last like for sure three years is that um I think Jim mentioned it as well and we may have even been at a shed show I think one or two shows prior to when he first started coming. So, like yeah it was us and YDOP. And the last show I there was probably I want to say 10 vendors offering marketing services of one sort or another at least. And so yeah there's options out there and people have choices which you know it's good.

Joel Steele 48:30

It means we all got to stay sharp and we all got to be providing uh the best the best um service that we can and you know there's pros and cons to different models different vendors have like different areas of core expertise um so yeah I think the industry's at a good place in terms of having options I think too like you were saying James earlier with the football analogy I mean that's it's also great for I would recommend companies explore what those options are like take the time if you're gonna make the investment into marketing whether an agency or not take the time to understand what each one what their playbooks are almost and what they can do for you because there's a reason that a coach can coach a team and have three wins in a season and then he switches teams and he has 14 wins the next season. The coach didn't learn something vastly new necessarily um that just really worked for that structure in that team. And so um ask questions ask questions as we're talking about education you can be as educated it seems like in this day and age as you want to be um and so ask the questions and don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. But yeah all the competition you know the other reason is we're talking about getting into marketing and education and if you're not asking the questions somebody else is somebody else another company other another of your competitors is going to be talking to these guys and pushing forward and wondering about this and testing this hypothesis and stuff if you're looking to grow and you're not doing that um it may be time to start doing that.

Shannon 49:58

You know Jim even talked about that he talked about the race to the bottom because there's so many people and I you know maybe it is a race to the bottom but it's kind of like you know rent own. I mean I remember whenever it seemed like there was only really five or six rent owned companies really out there now there's you go to the NSRA and there's 50 companies represented there at least and that's not even all the companies that exist uh but uh uh 3D configurators has really you know become that that space and arguably you could just put them into that marketing bubble uh to some extent just because of the you know the way the lead attribution happens from a 3D modeler you know is really a great lead um and we support all of them we love them we're glad that they you know exist in this space because there's a lot of clients and the more shed the more we grow the bigger the industry is the more those things are needed the more marketing and I don't know what the next big thing is but it seems like those three areas are definitely very uh flush with competition you know and that's good I think generally speaking but

AD-SOLAR BLASTER 51:03

Hello shed builders, I'd like to grab your attention for just a moment as we look ahead one thing is clear customers will have higher expectations than ever before shed consumers have an unprecedented access to information. To stay competitive you need to create sheds that are not only high in quality but also rich in innovation. You might recall my friend Dan Rheaume, one of my early podcast guests who introduced Solar Blaster fans, specifically the solar roof blaster. Dan has been busy handling orders and he's eager to speak directly to shed builders about his groundbreaking products. What stands out to me about Dan's products designed specifically for sheds like the solar roof blaster and the solar light blaster is how they enhance the shed owner's experience. With the focus on quality it's time to start thinking about adding features and benefits for the end user. Here at Shed Geek we wholeheartedly recommend Solar Blaster as the solution. My favorite thing about the entire line of products the support you'll receive from Dan. Not only is he incredibly knowledgeable about these products but he's also one of the most customer focused individuals I know. He truly stands behind both his product and his service. We're searching for companies ready to elevate customer satisfaction to the next level. To learn more just visit SolarBlasterfans.com and fill out some basic information for a callback or connect directly at 480-747-7097. You can also check out the Shed Geek newsletter where a click on the Solar Blaster ad will guide you to a form for more information and some cool videos showcasing the products let's power up innovation and elevate customer experiences together.

Shannon 52:53

You had some thoughts James I feel like I cut you off there go ahead.

James Charles 52:56

No no you're good I was just going to piggyback off of that and say like yeah I wasn't counting even the configurators in that number although some of them have now you know added marketing offerings which I would kind of class as marketing services. But again like there's different models to choose from right so like you said we're maybe um I wouldn't say I don't like to say that we're the best right and again we're trying to be better every single year. But one thing that we do that's unique is uh we'll only partner with one company per industry per uh immediate geographic area. So that means we end up turning a lot of leads away. And so it's a great thing that there's a lot of options out there now that we can point people toward um you know I have a list of uh you know agencies I don't have referral agreements with these guys you know necessarily or anything I just say hey here's some other your shed company here's some other uh shed agencies you could check out because unfortunately you know we have we're already partnered with one of your competitors um and so the fact that there's just that you know and then there's the thing too where like some of the configurator brands now have marketing services and um they're pushing that the vertical integration model and there's definitely some benefits there in terms of yeah you're probably gonna have the most seamless uh tech experience like the tech stack is going to work the most seamlessly if you keep everything under one roof. You know there's pros and cons. There's trade-offs to that model as well where then you're a little bit limited by whatever the scope is of the marketing features that that company adds on but there's pros and cons to everything. And so having helping people to learn what the trade-offs are what's gonna work best for your brand um that's where the consultative piece of it is so important.

Best Marketing Advice For Next Year

Shannon 54:39

But yeah we try to maintain great relationships with uh all of our partners and competitors uh you know that's why the shed shows are always a good time it's so it's so important and you got to be there and to Joel's point you know ask questions when you go you didn't travel all the way to Knoxville uh neither did these other people and spend a bunch of money on the booth and a setup and wear nice clothes to impress you know that day or whatever it is you know what I mean a nice uh uh claw machine dropping out of the sky whatever it is you know what I mean we've seen it all kangaroos and everything else there people don't do all this so that you won't come up and ask questions so like if there's a ever been a perfect time to ask them it's there you know they want those questions they welcome those questions you guys are there working the booth for that reason and there's a lot of freedom in that moment because you can honestly you can you're almost consulting uh in your sales approach just by naturally educating people so that they can then make a better decision and I think some people even take away how you treat them in that moment how you treat them on a phone call from day one how you treat them at a shed show whenever they walk up to your booth uh you know those things are very important to people how approachable you are uh and all those things uh I know we're getting into to 50 minutes I wanted to ask you guys uh just a sort of some final thoughts if you will and I thought about doing like one or two questions but I really want you to just kind of like both of you just uh uh open freedom here you know what should people know what should companies know regardless of size regardless of a hundred million plus or fifty smaller than fifty million or even the shed manufacturer who's doing you know 50 buildings a year uh or whatever what's the best marketing advice that you can give them here today what should they know what should they be planning for over the next year um yeah that's a great question and it's I mean there's so much that you could tailor specifically to that individual company depending on where they're at um even geographically but I would say man just recognize where your audience is at um is going to be the first thing that comes to my brain.

Joel Steele 56:56

There's no reason to be on LinkedIn as much as you are trying to promote something if that's not where your audience is at the end of the day. There's no reason to uh do SEO if you have a website that doesn't really function to begin with and so it's not gonna be very operable. So, know where your audience is and I think James even said this earlier uh as you guys were talking about it but just identify that first problem that you need to solve to be able to interact with them and get to where they're at.

James Charles 57:26

And to take it full circle kind of back to where we started is know the problem that your customer is trying to solve right and then put yourself into their shoes. Even better than trying to put yourself in your into their shoes is you know listening to what they tell you on sales calls or just asking them right but what is the problem they're trying to solve how the how would they go about solving that problem right and then make sure that you're there where they're solving that problem. So yeah a lot of times your most interested buyer when they're ready to purchase they're gonna go to Google or now the AI augmented search tools and they're going to say like right who can I buy from then you'll also have the people who are browsing and scrolling on Facebook and these other platforms that are getting aware and those are also good places to be at but at the end of the day you want to be found where your customer is going to search when they're trying to solve the problem that you can solve for them and make sure that you're found you know at the at the peak moment of interest.

Shannon 58:31

I gotta tell you Joel thinking about just even that small comment that you made like why are you purchasing SEO services when your website needs so much work you don't want to get a bunch of people to a shed lot that doesn't look good or have many buildings right so you don't want to get people to a website that's not optimized to do its job to do the best thing it can for you uh you know and this to me this is exactly where you know you can replace education with uh consultation this is why that's been exciting to us to be able to do and even share or professionally collaborate with folks like E-Impact and others to give the customer the best experience right like money's the byproduct of like doing good business it's necessary uh but it you know if the focus is on helping the people achieve the best results then the money always follows anyway because it comes becomes a natural part. No one's gonna have a problem paying for you know a thousand dollar ad budgets or even ten thousand dollar ad budgets when it makes more money than what you're spending. The problem you have is whenever regardless of the cost of it is it's not getting the results that you're seeking. That's whenever things get upside down. So, you have to be able to provide those results and I got to tell you E-Impact has been doing it for a long time. I consider you guys definitely on the Mount Rushmore of shed marketing agencies uh I've appreciated you know getting to know you guys and your thoughts on things just over the years. Very appreciative for you and what you do in the space. I think it helps build up our space not tear it down and that means a lot. So I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan and I have been for a long time and want to continue to be for a long time and have that professional collaboration. So, thank you guys you know for that for folks who want to know more about you how do they how do we reach out to you?

How To Contact E-Impact

James Charles 1:00:26

We're gonna have a uh a link to your website uh in the newsletter so for those who aren't subscribed to our newsletter just contact Deanna D-E-A-N-N-A @shedgeek.com she'll get you added go click on these links find out about these companies like E-Impact and what they do uh some of the advertisers on there they're gonna be happy to chat with you and talk with you uh but how do they how do they get a hold of you if they need to uh James and Joe Yeah um if you're online www.eimpact all one word dot marketing eimpact.marketing is the website uh or you can shoot me an email sales@eimpact dot marketing or you can call us uh our main line is 717- 929-8780 um and depending what your question is uh it'll most likely route to control or myself if it has something to do with an initial inquiry.

Shannon 1:01:26

So yeah we're happy to talk uh like you said we appreciate what you've done as well we love uh providing value seeing value provided to the industry um you know Jesus says more blessed to give than to receive right or give and it will be given to you and uh just all those things you know is um yeah just trying our best to be helpful to be useful um you know and serve the industry well which you know I think you're kind of one of the hubs for that in the industry which is you know why it's been great to chat today but you know even offline the conversations we've had um yeah we want to help people we've been we've been blessed with you know cool opportunities and just really cool people that we get to meet that's probably my favorite thing is this the communication part and the relationship and networking part like those always take precedent over anything I do from you know whether it's connecting with finance or marketing or rent to own or whatever like my favorite thing to do is just sit down and chat with people break bread with them talk with them get to know them uh if I could do that the rest of my life and didn't need money then I would do it all the time every day. It just I enjoy it I love hearing people's stories. You know I really do believe that good communication solves a lot of problems.

James Charles 1:02:46

You know it's the it's the you know it's the mind's eye to uh to um education is uh beginning a conversation and starting to talk my wife says you just talk to anybody don't you and I'm like well everybody's got something to say I promise you I can I can learn from anybody it doesn't matter who they are and uh I try to keep an open mind to that learned a lot from E-Impact you guys have been leaders in the industry we have definitely uh uh you know we have definitely learned a lot from you guys and uh appreciate what you guys do continue to do and have done uh any final thoughts uh just anything any shout outs you want to give or any final thoughts any questions you have for the uh uh for the industry or whatever just uh whatever your final thoughts are feel free to share them I was just gonna echo James what you were saying and just thank you I'm looking forward to working together more um Shannon I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to collaborate together and to go deeper into the industry um yeah just be inquisitive I don't know that's I don't have too many final thoughts other than continue to be inquisitive there's always something new out there it's an exciting it's kind of exciting you know there is something to be said for yeah it's hard work um but it's also I don't have to stock the same dairy shelf at the local grocery store every day I know where the bottles go I know where the coffee creamer goes it's different you know there's no day is going to be the same and in fact you're gonna have some days that are vastly different and so just continue to be inquisitive about things I gotta tell you James if we don't play kickball the next time we're together uh with Joe you know like whether it's a youth group or not like we just need to we need a professional kickball shed team that's what we need we need an organization there we go I'm just kidding hey I'm looking you know at the next shed show we'll go behind those bag barriers to the empty part of the warehouse play some dodgeball right you know some dodgeball get the get the blood flowing yeah yeah no uh only thing I would say or I would end too in terms of shout outs definitely our team um I mean Joel and I are here on the show but you know there's a whole team of people behind the scenes that are you know doing hard work and um you know every single day working really hard to make things happen you know and the fact that we're if you want to call us quote unquote leaders in the industry um is only because of the people behind the scenes that are really doing the work. We have we have two in-person offices and our team is in person every single day. For the most part we're majority in person and you know 95 to 99% of the work that's being done is being done by our team. There's people sitting together in the same rooms solving problems, collaborating and it's all that effort behind the scenes they're the ones that actually make it happen. So, we can't we can't take credit for the majority of it. It's uh it's team effort.

Prayer And Episode Closing

Shannon 1:05:34

Good word. We'll leave it on that actually if you guys don't care I feel like it's been a little bit since I've uh sent the audience out with a prayer. Would you guys mind if I just kind of pray over the industry as we move forward uh always feel like giving honor to our Lord and Savior and especially in a time today where there's so much um angst and anxiety in the news and things like that that sometimes we just got to be reminded you know of who whose we are and who's watching out for us. If you guys don't care, I'll just end the episode. Hang around afterwards uh uh and we'll chat a bit but uh I'll just uh just uh you know lead us in in prayer. Uh Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for uh just uh opportunity to come together as friends and collaborators uh and even as competitors Lord that you would make us uh competitors for the purpose of doing better uh better for our customers better for the industry and that we can somehow find some avenue uh in there where we can talk and communicate uh at high levels professional levels to do the best thing we can for each other uh and for the industry as a whole we thank you for your son uh the Easter season uh is upon us and we're so thankful uh uh that he would uh die for us and to atone for our sins and we're so thankful uh that we have um uh something to measure goodness against and that is your name God uh we ask you to forgive us where we fail we uh you know we do uh and we ask that you would uh pick us up in those broken places uh and offer us you know uh uh something better uh in the end just as you did job Lord just uh give us something more give us something better uh as you piece us back together as only you can do. Uh God I just pray for the nation and really the world um with all the anxiety that exists in the news today help remind us of something that's solid uh and that was uh here before and will be here long after. Uh so just remind us uh uh to be calm and to exercise kindness uh in our day um and really just more than anything we're thankful we have a thankful heart today for you and that all that you've done for us in Jesus' name we pray amen. Hey, appreciate you guys so much E-Impact you're just uh you're just uh excellent people and excellent guests so thank you guys for being on today appreciate you having us.

OUTRO 1:08:00

Thanks again ShedPro for being the Shed Geeks studio sponsor. If you need any more information about ShedPro or about Shed Geek, just reach out you can reach us by email at info@shed geek.com or just go to our website www.shedgeek.com and submit a form with your information and we'll be in contact right away thank you again for listening as always to today's episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. Thank you and have a blessed day.