How Much Revenue Are You Losing To Silence

Most shed businesses don’t have a lead quality problem. They have a response problem. We sit down with the teams behind ShedPro and Velocity360 to map the full journey from a high-intent Google search to a real conversation to a signed contract and scheduled delivery, and we get honest about where leads actually die: slow replies, inconsistent follow-up, and zero visibility into what’s working.

We break down the “order of operations” that keeps owners from buying the wrong tool at the wrong time. First, you need consistent lead generation through a strong shed website, smart Google Ads, and a buying-friendly 3D configurator. Then you need one place to capture every lead, measure attribution, and run a repeatable process that improves response rate, close rate, and sales velocity. You’ll hear why speed to lead inside 60 seconds changes everything, how multi-touch follow-up can be helpful instead of pushy, and why automation should handle tasks while your salespeople focus on human conversations.

We also dig into the realities of online shed sales, the tension it can create in dealer networks, and how analytics helps manufacturers and dealers invest ad dollars where they actually turn into revenue. Along the way, we talk values, culture, and what it looks like to grow a business that creates jobs and gives back.

Subscribe for more shed sales and shed marketing insights, share this with a dealer who’s overwhelmed by leads, and leave a review. What’s your biggest bottleneck right now: leads, speed, or follow-up?

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

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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Pro

NewFound Rentals
Shed Suite
First Choice Metals
Shed Challenger

Transcript

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 feeling 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 leads, 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 ShedGeek, you'll get 25% off all setup fees. Check it out at shedpro.co/ShedGeek. Thank you, ShedPro, for being our studio sponsor and honestly for building something that helps the industry.

Shannon 1:33

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast here from Metropolis, Illinois today. Um and really excited about the opportunity to speak with uh this group of guys. Uh it's amazing how sometimes the industry works, and um really thankful for the relationships that we built. And that includes with today's guest, great partners and just great men that uh love the Lord, honestly, uh every one of them. And I've seen that uh in front of and behind the scenes. But before we get rolling, uh a few ways to stay plugged in with us over here. Just give us a call at 618-309-3648. Uh, email us at info@shedgeek.com. Go check out our website at shedgeek.com, uh, fill out a lead form, give us a call. We're happy to have you on the show anytime. Uh whether you produce uh product or service or you uh sell, deliver, or build in the industry. Check out our Facebook page and our YouTube channel, give us a like and follow, and check out the Shed Sales Professionals page where we try to add value to the Shed Sellers and for the playing communities. Give us a call uh to listen to the podcast. The number is 330-997-3055. Uh, if you have a playing community friend who wants to listen, share that with them so they can uh so they can uh tune in to the Shed Geek podcast. We appreciate all of our listeners. Uh welcome to the show. We have a uh an educational segment today, I guess we're gonna call with everybody. Uh we have good folks from Velocity360 and the good folks from Shed Pro over here on my right. I feel like I'm on my screen. I'm just the I'm just uh waiting for the bell to ring and I'm the referee here, guys. We're ready to get it's a royal rumble. We're getting started. But welcome to the show. Um I think everybody knows, James and Steve, what you guys do at this point. I think everybody knows Joe and Brandon at this point. My goodness, have you guys made such a wonderful splash? Congratulations on all the success you guys are having. Let's talk about let's talk about leads. What do you guys want to talk about? Let's talk about leads. Let's talk about helping the industry. How do we help the industry? We got to kick this thing off somewhere. Um, James, why don't you're the eldest guest here on the Shed Geek podcast. We go back a little way, so why don't you uh start us start us out here uh with some thoughts, with some questions, or with just some uh generalities for the listeners here?

James Price 4:08

Sure, sure. Well it's great uh great to be back on the podcast. Uh always enjoy the conversations and it's uh fun to to do this with Velocity 360 as well. Um so yeah, I mean we've uh we've been kind of kicking around uh between our two companies. Okay, how do we how do we really benefit this industry as much as possible? Can we make a win-win situation? Uh and so that's uh what we've really seen with the customers that we do have that are using both Shed Pro for the lead generation websites, Google Ads, 3D configurator, uh, and then pairing that together with Velocity 360, uh, and just the ability to help your salespeople close those leads that are coming in. And we've just seen some tremendous uh numbers, uh some real movement in the right direction for the businesses. Uh and so that was really the motivation to kind of reach out and go, hey, can we uh do this educational podcast to help uh help people close more sales uh through using both of our systems?

Cold Outreach And Relationship Building

Shannon 5:14

And Joe, uh gosh, we're going we go back a ways now. It's we're becoming we're becoming old buddies and not just new partners. Uh it's exciting to see all the success you're having. Wonderful job speaking at the Shed Sales Summit last year. Always appreciate you and Brandon. You're always so kind. Uh and you guys are right there in Knoxville. So, you know what? When we get back this year, you're gonna be right there in the thick of the Shed Expo and everything else. And uh yeah, what is what is it sort of what's this ride been like so far, you know, uh for you with this this partnership?

Joe Ignace 5:46

Oh man, uh Shed Pro makes it a lot easier, that's for sure. Yeah, actually, so fun story. I so for meeting Shannon, I cold emailed Shannon way back when off of a free podcast listing site that these random emails go out and they random to pick, yeah, they randomly pick Shed Geek podcast, and then he was the only person to respond, by the way, out of like a hundred people. So I got on, and yeah, that's kind of led to a lot of this. So thanks for that. And then uh and all the connections have been really helpful. So um, and then I cold call Steven. I cold called Steven after uh Shannon gave us our first referral, and uh we were helping him, and it was like, wow, I just I figured out at that time compared to the Facebook ads they were running, the Shed Pro leads, I think it was a 16 times higher close rate if you're using a Shed Pro uh configurator lead, you know? And uh it was all about obviously sales optimization with uh you know with our shed specific sales serum solution. And um yeah, so that was kind of the first two things. So it's two cold calls, two great relationships and friends now. And uh it's just kind of wild. So thanks for picking up the phone and responding to an email um from somebody you don't know. Um, you know, and being open-minded, I think that's a that's a really great thing. And I think when you're with companies um with leadership who are open-minded or always looking for ways to improve the experience for their for their clients, you know, whatever way they can. Um, that's a great place to be and it's a great culture to have um with the companies that you work with, because I think with the vendors, you know, um who help you make your business happen, if you can have people who are aligned with you on what you believe, um, your values and how they treat you, and they're always you know in the background find finding ways to make your life easier, your life better, and help you grow your business so you can impact people locally, um, get back to churches and charities. I think that's just a a wonderful, wonderful thing to be a part of. And I feel like that's what Brandon and I get to do every day is just enjoy talking to some really great people.

Shannon 7:45

Joe, I could just sit and listen to you like go on these runs for 45 seconds, and it's amazing. You're you and Brandon's like sales history. Love what you guys do, and that's probably what was uh you know what caught my attention, you know, like whenever we first started talking. And likewise, I've uh, you know, we're literally connecting with people now that we hope to have in the industry two to three years from now or 12 months from now or whatever, whatever that looks like, because we're trying to, we're trying to educate. I'm not saying we're doing a good job of it, but you know, we bring the guests on, and they usually give some wonderful value and we try to throw in a few nuggets here and there, but you guys have been great from your initial call and discussing the sales process. We had a lot of people uh reach out, I remember, even from that episode. So, let's use that that that momentum, you know. And I wanted to jump in here and say where you said, you know, thanks for picking up the phone, you know, and talking to someone. You know, I bought a house once because I dared to ask a guy who everybody said the house wasn't for sale. I just dared to ask him, and he's like, uh, you know, yeah, it's for sale, but nobody has any interest. And I was like, no, everyone has interest. Uh everyone I've talked to now, like wants to know, but I'm the only one who called you and asked you. And I ended up buying that house, I ended up getting that deal somehow. So, to your point, you know, you've got to be comfortable if you're gonna be a salesperson working those relationships, working on the phone, uh uh connecting with people and just picking up and dialing. Like more than anything, just pick up and dial and don't take no's so personal. Let me just say that. Don't take a no so personal. Uh that's the nature of business, but you got to keep trying.

Steven Choi 9:25

I want to piggyback off of that. Yesterday, I was I saw uh a lead in my CRM, and I didn't think that this guy was worth calling, but I uh I was just you know, just for the heck of it, I'll go ahead and call. And the receptionist picks up and I ask for the name of the lead, and she said, Oh, uh, this this person has been deceased for a long time. So, um uh just uh sometimes you don't know, but now I know, and uh just pick up the phone and sometimes just trying to I was trying to make light of a situation that didn't come off the way that I thought it would.

Brandon Tobin 10:03

Let me chime in there. Uh I see I see you drowning, I'll throw I'll throw your life for uh I think uh the moral of these stories here is uh you know, yeses or no's are great, whatever it is, like to not be afraid to reach out to somebody digitally, you know, to find out if it's a yes or no, because a relationship that leads to in person, like we all got to connect to the Shed Builders Expo and countless other things, all because of some phone calls and some emails. And I think uh in this industry especially, there's has been and maybe continues to be some nervousness about interacting with people online, you know, through Facebook Messenger, through email, maybe even over the phone, when uh there's just like a breed of people that really got used to foot traffic, people coming onto the lots. And uh just to encourage everyone, like there can be a fun, effective, interactive way to build relationships that start with you know, a Facebook lead form, a Facebook message, uh a text message, a phone call, whatever. And um, I think what also we're seeing is a trend in the industry is people that are that are moving towards online sales completely, uh, which is also kind of interesting and kind of cool. So, I think that just since the internet, but especially since COVID, there's been a huge shift towards online shopping and building relationships that way. Um and also, I just want to say kudos to the shed industry because you know when I was shopping for a car, I wanted to talk exclusively through their website and texting. I did not want to go meet that person in person. Um because we know the reputation used car salesmen have. But I think uh most people who sell sheds have managed to avoid that reputation. And uh to back up Joe's point, they're all good people. So, um anyway, both ways work in person and online.

Joe Ignace 11:47

Yeah, yeah. I didn't say this, but I wanted to say one thing. Our first three clients used Shed Pro, and two of them were direct referral. So, thank you guys so much for helping us get Kickstarted, by the way. So all the three of you on this call, we probably wouldn't be in the industry without the three of you.

James Price 12:03

So yeah, thank you very much. And I think um go ahead. Yeah.

Shannon 12:09

Well, I was just gonna say I want to add to it too. I've had the luxury and the pleasure of being on calls with Steven too, and uh, you know, I don't want to downplay the success that he's had by knowing what you guys have done over there at Velocity, but Steven is a killer on a on a on a sales call, trust me. Like he is instinctually just uh uh just knows how to talk to the customers in in in a way that I admire, you know. So Steven, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to you there too. I always feel like I learned from you and I'm better from for being on a call with you. Uh James, sorry, we have nothing. You just founded the company and created the best uh 3D configurator. I'm sorry, we don't have it all to brag on. Um no, really do appreciate all of you guys. So, let's you know, we kind of touched on this already about lead attribution, but I think something that Steven said uh even maybe before we got started here was really on an educational piece talking about the flow of this process, you know, and I think if we could just use this time to help somebody, if we can use this time to educate somebody, somebody who's just not quite so sure uh on what to expect, what to look for, and even really what the process looks like. Um, whoever wants to take the lead on it, where does the sales process start? And what should they be focusing on in the beginning? Whoever wants to take it, feel free to run with it.

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Steven Choi 14:36

Um maybe I'll start off if you guys don't mind. So um 99% of our customers you have a 3D configurator with Shed Pro. Occasionally, I do get people that come to us and they're asking for a 3D configurator. And as I start trying to understand what their bottlenecks are, what their pain points are, you know, I come to find out that actually they don't have leads, right? And they don't have a website and they don't have online leads coming in. Um and they're asking for a 3D configurator, and if I if I push it, I could sell it to them. But as an ethical salesperson, you know, what I what I tell people is that there's actually an order of operations, right? If you if you don't have leads, that's actually the main problem. That's if you don't have a website, if you don't have a way for people to find you online, having a 3D configurator isn't necessarily the first piece that's gonna solve your lead generation problem. And so um I think just um what I like to say is that there's an order of operations, right? That you need to have leads, that's the first thing. So, getting a website, getting a you know, doing Google ads is the fastest way to generate high quality leads. And then once you have those pieces, um now you need a system, now you need some efficiency, now you need to you know be able to scale. That's where the 3D configurator, uh where a CRM, you know, and having these other uh pieces to actually bring a system together, that's what that's where it's gonna help you. But I think the first thing is do you have enough people that want to talk to you? And that's the you know, we need to start there.

Shannon 16:21

Key to sales, Joe. Keep your funnel full, keep your keep your opportunities full. You're not gonna close everybody. And if you're just looking to sell to the five people you're talking to, uh it's gonna be a struggle because you might close one out of the five. You need you need 20 people to close those five, right?

Speed To Lead And Follow-Up Systems

Joe Ignace 16:39

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So, you know, so the name velocity through sixty comes from this formula sales velocity. And so, sales velocity is this leads times average conversion times average price over sales cycle length. So, with you know, if leads is zero, the rest of it's zero. If you're if you don't understand, you know, your math associations here. So, you know, if you have zero times whatever, 90%, there is no 90%, you know, it's always uh a rate off of the lead. So, you do have to have leads first. So, it's like you've got to have inventory and a way to, you know, basically get some eyeballs and then get some interested people. And then there's all of the nuance of what you do with the leads, right? So, do you catch them within 60 seconds? Are you following up with them for 75 days, 14 touches if they're unresponsive? Are you requesting a Google review to keep feeding the machine at the top? Because 90% of people look at your Google reviews before even calling you or filling anything out on your form. So, it becomes an ecosystem. And so, um the definition of scale, you know, because everybody's got these different goals. Some people are just wanting to have a nice local business, right? They're a one lot dealer and they're dabbling in some of the online leads because that's where sales are going. Other people are you know have many, many locations, hundreds, you know, um, some of these organizations. And it's just based on where you're at. If you've been in business a long time, sometimes you've got to clean up the chaos, and um, sometimes you can optimize your ads and your lead generation as well. So, there's it it's not a simple problem. You know, it's a complex problem with many you know inputs, and uh it takes you know a team, like a big team, multiple teams, to make it all happen depending on the size of your business. And so, um you've got to have leads, or there is no conversion rate. Um, once you have a consistent number of leads, and that consistent number of leads could be 30 a month, it could be 300 a week, you know, um, depending on this again, the size of your business. The most important thing is once you have leads is to track attribution, where do they come from, and what percentage are buying and what percentage are not. And in velocity, we track um you know some simple stages, you know, did they respond? If a lead doesn't respond, you're never making a sale. If you don't know that number, you know, I ask people all the time, me Brand and I, when our calls, what's your response rate? And people look at me, we don't know that. And that's okay. And they're still successful companies, don't get me wrong, and that's not what we're saying. But if you can't figure out what to change in your first initial message or timing of the message, or you know, did my call, did that script work, you know, etc. Like we can go through all of the outreach touch points to get a response. It like what if adding an emoji you know increased your response rate 10%? Well, if you don't measure it, you have no idea. So, you can scale leads, but if you don't scale your response rate or improve your response rate, sometimes you're spending a lot where you could just upgrade that conversion rate and get the same result. And really, it's best to do both, right? If you're wanting to scale, more leads at a higher conversion rate equals a higher sales velocity. That's really what you want, right? So you got to know your sales velocity. You gotta know did your sales rep do an outbound touch? Did they do an outbound touch? Did they receive a second inbound response? We call that warm, a warm lead. So, we automatically will move it there if the sales rep did the activity. That's a big visibility problem for people, is they don't actually know did the sales rep get there, you know? And there's really three types of companies. You've got, you know, if you're a dealer listening to this, you've got somebody who has a dealer network, and then you have somebody who has a corporate sales team. And you know, there's really even a fourth one that would be a hybrid. They've got a corporate sales team and a dealer network. And in all four scenarios, you know, you want to know did that lead get worked correctly? And a lot of people don't even have a definition of what it means to be worked correctly, you know. Um, and so they have a definition.

Brandon Tobin 20:36

I just heard somebody that says, Oh, we really want those first three touches to be manual so that it feels really personalized and heartfelt. And it's like those salespeople are copying and pasting the same message anyway. They're just getting to them late sometimes because they forget, they can't remember, or they're busy talking to somebody else.

Joe Ignace 20:52

Yeah, it goes into a black hole. You know, and the and you know, our philosophy for everyone on here, like I'm sure agrees with this, but the best use of a salesperson's time is closing the lead or talking to a human being. That's the best that's why we hire salespeople. So, the reality is if they're doing that and someone calls, they can't answer. If a lead comes in from Shed Pro or it comes in from a Facebook form, or it comes in from their website form, whatever, wherever it comes in, if they're doing the best thing that they can do as a human-to-human interaction, they literally cannot get to every lead within 60 seconds. But that person who filled out a lead form doesn't care what you're doing. They care only about what they're trying to do, which is buy a shed and they're shopping. And so it's a speed problem, it's a time problem. They you have to get there quickly because if you don't, someone else gets them on the phone and you never hear from them because they're going with that other guy down the street, you know, or who's selling online across the country now, because that's a thing, you know. Um there's big metal.

Shannon 21:54

It's becoming um a bigger and bigger thing. I mean, uh if you guys just saw the discussion that happened recently. On the uh the Shed Sales Professionals page where they were talking about selling online specifically, and then you saw where some of the dealer network was pushing back and saying, Well, if my company was selling online, that would cause some concern for me. And um, um, it's interesting to like, you know, I could I feel like I could do a podcast just on that question and all those comments. Because it's very interesting in being around the industry for a while now to know that like you can take both sides. If we were uh when we put on our consultation hat, if we're consulting the dealer, who's an independent dealer, um they're an independent business owner, but they're being funded consignment inventory, James, you know, by a company who's putting a lot of faith into them, a lot of money into them. There's a lot of investment there. You know, now you've got this other side where uh are they investing in online sales through their dealer network or through the manufacturing company? And that becomes a very sticky situation really quick and a conversation that becomes uncomfortable because it's like, well, we're putting all this money into the inventory already. It's hard for us to put it into a website and ads and a CRM and a way to keep up with this, or some companies say, I want to own that whole process. Um, are we steering? Are we attempting to steer the industry one direction or the other? And if so, which direction would that be?

James Price 23:24

Yeah, well, we have uh several manufacturers that they like they are ready to put money into advertising budgets to drive leads to their dealers. Uh and so we'll go through, they'll pick some dealers out of their network and go, okay, here let's run some ads towards them. Uh and then so we'll send a bunch of leads and then they evaluate, they go, okay, is this dealer closing these leads? And if they're not, then they go, okay, we're gonna re-shift this budget to somebody else that is closing the deals. Um, and so that's where having uh velocity to really help those dealers uh take advantage of uh any extra budget that the manufacturer might be allocating towards uh driving leads to those locations. Uh I mean just huge difference uh to be able to uh to like you said, Joe, just that speed of reacting and not being overwhelmed by okay, I have to do this, I have to, so as that message comes in, I need to get uh sending out those emails, just automate a lot of that work. Uh and it just it feels good as a salesperson. As you see, as you see those emails going out, those messages going out, and those touch points happening uh while you're focusing on the right kind of calls, uh it just feels good. It's like you've got a team working for you uh while you're focusing on the right kind of activities, the right kind of work that that really closes those sales. Um and the last thing I just want to mention is uh my just reminded of my grandfather, he was selling tractors, uh, and of course he didn't have a CRM, uh, so he's tracking everything on paper. But it's just amazing because he did track stuff on paper. And so he would see, okay, he would go visit 30 people, knock on 30 doors, and uh 29 no's, and then he would get that yes on the 30th door. Um, but what he realized as he tracked the data, okay, 50% of those no's they would come back the following year and they would buy with him because they had a good experience when they talked to him. Uh and so I just imagine, okay, if he had the CRM, if he had the automations, like what kind of sales numbers would he have uh with those leads that he's working? Uh so it's just really, really important to be able to get to that data. Uh, and then just a real relief to know, okay, I don't have to do all the work. Portions of this can be automated and I can focus on the right kind of work.

Brandon Tobin 25:49

And speaking of some of the numbers too. So, one of the questions, Steven, I like that that you ask is, Hey, do you have a leads problem or do you have a follow-up problem? So maybe this is for Steven and Joe or Joe, if you want to share the site that's got some of the numbers. But what do you guys think uh are some telltale signs when you hear the numbers from somebody of like, oh, that's a bad response rate. That's a bad close rate. They have a follow-up problem. They don't have a leads problem.

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How Leads Flow Into One CRM

Steven Choi 27:07

Yeah, I mean, when people ask me, you know, some people sign up for our Google Ads or our configurator, um, you know, and they ask me, well, how many how many sales will I actually end up with, right? And for Shed Pro clients, we've seen win rates as high as 50 to 60 percent. So if we're sending 100 leads, some folks are closing up to 50 to 60 of them. I've also heard of clients that we send 100 leads and they only close two to five, two to two to five percent. And so what's the difference? We're doing the same thing for every single client, right? We do websites, Google Ads, and 3D configurator for two different clients with two different very different win rates. And when you dig into you know what separates the person that's closing just a few of them versus the person that's closing almost half, inevitably it comes up to like what is their follow-up, right? And so, like the person that I talked to that was doing two to five percent, you know, I kind of dug in. Well, how are you working these leads? And they said, you know, well, we're emailing, um, you know, we'll email them a quote and then we'll wait to hear back from them. And that was pretty much it, right? Versus the folks that are doing 50 to 60 percent, they have a CRM, they have automations where every single person is getting touched, 13, 14, 16, whatever, how many times you have you know your automation set up, but there's this ongoing follow-up that's not dependent on the salesperson to do that manual touch point every single time. And so I think a lot of times when people first starting start getting digital leads, it feels different or it feels like the leads aren't high quality because they're used to picking up the phone or they're used to somebody coming into the lot. You've got somebody that not only has the need, but they have the time right now. They called you or they showed up to your lot and they're ready to talk to you right now. When somebody goes online and it's 10 p.m., you know, and they fill out a 3D request form or they click on a Google Adder or whatever, they have the need, but they obviously didn't have the time to talk to you when your lot was open. Right. And so, I think that's the difference between an online lead versus you know a phone call or whatever else is that you have to be able to catch them when they're available. And that's where that 60-second automated follow-up that Joe was talking about is so important, but also that's where the system of sending out you know touch points um throughout the day or throughout over the course of several weeks, you don't know when you're gonna catch them, right? So that's where you need that follow-up to come in so that so that actually the CRM is catching them. And then by the time that you've got them, now the salesperson can actually have a live conversation. And at that point, it feels like a really high quality lead, right? But it but until you've actually caught them um, you know, in a live conversation, it might just feel like you're shouting into the void. So, we're really thankful for Velocity 360 because you know it's kind of solving that piece of that follow-up. Um whereas before, you know, it you may just sort of feel like it's you're not connecting with these people that should actually be quite qualified.

Joe Ignace 30:21

Yeah, 100%. And you know, I boy, you know, I think how you look at your perspective is basically everything, right? If you look at an online lead and think it's gonna be think it's gonna be worse and you make the call and you're negative about it going into it, what's gonna happen? Predictably. Right? So, you know, uh people like I when I was training people to sell door to door, it was like, look, if you walk up to the door and you're frowning and you look like there's a there's a puddle under your feet and a rain cloud over your head and you look miserable, do you think you know, mom and dad with the kids is gonna want to sit down with you and talk about their kids' education or not? Nobody likes to spend time with people who are grumpy, who are uninterested in their lives, who seem very focused on themselves, right? Right. So, it's like you obviously if you can go, and I'm not saying that everybody does that, but I'm just saying if you think an online lead is just gonna be bad, you're right. You know, Henry Ford says the opposite, right? As well. If you think you can, you think you can't, you're both right. So um it's not the lead. It's never the I mean, you look, if you got like a bot, okay, on your lead, okay, fine. That's a that is a thing that an advertising, a good company like Shed Pro, you know, we work with Shed Pro on probably 12 to 20 accounts now or something. I don't know the actual number off top of my head. But every lead they're generating is a real human, okay, that I have seen. I'm sure there's a they would say, Well, wait, wait, there's three percent of those that are random, you know, online bots. Okay, so they have the numbers on that. But generally what we see is that they're real people. And if they're real people, they're just like anybody who walks on a lot. They're looking for a shed, they have a dream, and they're just looking for what is the what is the what's the solution to that dream? And that dream can be real simple, like I've got too many bikes, you know, and it's just a real simple you know, storage solution. That dream could be, you know, I want to have a tiny home, you know, and there's everything in between, and there's everything, you know, uh to do with sizing and scope and price and all that stuff, but it's as a good salesperson, and what your sale run is supposed to do is augment right the conversation. The whole point is to get somebody on the phone because you're already like if you're in the shed industry, you're already likable as a sales rep and you're already good at talking to people. So the two things you need to be doing is obviously if they're walking on the lot, do your thing. But if you really want to get all these leads on the phone, you can feel out and build a relationship. And why would you talk to them any differently than if they were in person? So exactly how you would talk to them. Basically, right?

Brandon Tobin 32:50

If someone's bringing their best, happiest golden retriever energy to shake hands with somebody on the lot, if they bring that same energy to somebody on the phone or even through an online interaction, it's gonna go, it's gonna go great.

Joe Ignace 33:02

And yeah, because I if I'm able, I sorry, yeah. I'm just gonna forget this otherwise.

Brandon Tobin 33:07

Yeah, for sure.

Automation Without Losing The Human Touch

Joe Ignace 33:07

I listen to a lot of these calls, you know, just if I happenstance, I'm just curious about what people say. And one of the big things is they don't ask them like, you know, what are your goals with this? Like, what are you envisioning? You know, and like getting to know them, like, okay, cool, like, yeah, awesome. Like they're assuming that the online lead is going to be direct to the point and getting after the price. And so they just cut out all of the good relationship building things that they do, you know, on the lot. And it's just like, guys, and they walk in, are you just saying, All right, how much do you want to spend? It's like, that's not what you say when they walk in the door. Why are you saying that on the phone? You know, and again, there's good salespeople to this, there's this like kind of probably chuckling to themselves that, like, yeah, you know, like that's not how I sell it, right?

Brandon Tobin 33:51

Oh, yeah, especially here in the Bible Belt South, you know, they want to talk about how their sports team did and how their kids are doing, and then before they get to how big of a shed or how much money, like before any of that.

Shannon 34:02

Yeah, I follow a comedian, Brandon, that says, uh, I'm from the South. If you ask me what I did today, I list to you everything that I ate. You know, that's just the way that's just sort of the way we operate, you know. We think in terms of you know, uh, Joe, I want you to get back to that point, you know. And I'm uh I'm I think Kyle Summers was the one on Facebook I'm quoting here, right? That said, bad salespeople get marketing companies fired. You know, powerful, powerful statement. You know what I mean? Like, gosh, you know, you're just over here, like, well, what more can I do? I mean, other than work the sale for you. And like then that generates an opportunity, right, James or Joe in the industry to be like, I don't know, maybe we should start working these leads or something. I mean, you just start thinking to yourself, like, hey, I think I could sell these things because I know these leads are good. I thought that was a well-timed comment for people trying to um embrace just the digital landscape in general and understanding it and then like using it to their full advantage. You speed to lead and speed to online lead. You can reach so many people that are not gonna drive by a sales lot today and sell them a shed. You're gonna pull market share. And then if you're having a bad year, it's like, well, maybe not everyone's having a bad year, maybe you're having a bad year or a bad season or a bad quarter, but it could just be your systems that processes it, it just with a few tweaks, you could be doing amazing.

Joe Ignace 35:32

Yeah, 100%. And I, you know, it's just an embracing of changing of culture, right? So, like with AI and all the different softwares and search engines and things like that, and you know, a younger population, you know, I'm on the uh younger side of the millennials, you know. Um, and so the millennials go up to what 45 now or something, I think is that, you know, and uh 42. I don't know what it is, but um, but the point being is that you know, the I've never I am in this industry and I would go to a shed lot to meet with my clients and do whatever. But you know, I I'm building a building in my backyard, a little office gym space and doing all this stuff. But it's like I never went to a lot. I didn't want to go. I don't have time to go. I'm too busy, I got too much going on. And really, mostly I just want to prioritize time with my wife and my little girl. And um, you know, and that's just the way that you know the up-and-coming generation thinks it's all about you know, time. Time is the only asset that is the most valuable, you it's the only thing you can't get back. And so the idea of driving 30 minutes or driving to multiple lots to find something when I can just literally go online and look at all inventories everywhere and price shop, that just sounds crazy to me. But you know, the generation above us and the generation above that, you know, but they like going in person, they want to get their hands on it, you know, um, and do all of the things. For me, I'd rather research the quality and understand what the materials are, and already just know because I can just ask AI to give me the top 10 you know best specifications for my area, and it's gonna tell me why. And I'm like, that's better than what a salesperson could have explained. And sweet. So, now I need to just get some quotes. And the hardest part about buying a shed, and I'm just sharing this with people because I'm going through this so they understand the consumer behavior. Because I would be a digital lead, right? Like my generation's the digital leads that you're probably talking to on average, okay. Um, the hardest part is getting the estimate back and getting somebody to call you. It's the hardest part. It's like I it's very difficult to buy the thing I want. That's not what you want to hear as a sales organization, okay? You want to make it so frictionless, so easy. And something like Shed Pro does because I can get on there, I can do all my customizations, I can get everything ready. And then I hit submit, it gets me a price, and I'm like, sweet, I'm gonna go talk to my wife about this. I'm doing all of the objection handling for you. Exactly what we want. My wife's okay with it, you know, and now I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and like, what do I do next? I guess I'm gonna call and call, and then they don't call me back, and now they're they don't even text me. And it's just like that's the last thing you want. And obviously, you know, the hottest leads I'm sure everybody's listening to this, do a good job with. But the point being is that you just got to make the process so frictionless. And if it's frictionless, you know, why do people pay six dollars, you know, for a decent sized, you know, what, 24- ounce coke at a gas station when they could buy 12 of those at Walmart for six bucks? It's convenience. People just want the thing done. You know, that's what they want. It's gotta be so convenient. And so, you've got to make your business and your sales process from you know 3D configurator lead all the way to signing on the dotted line, handing you the check or the RTO agreement or whatever it is, to be so simple, so easy for them, and it has to be all about them. It's not about your salespeople, it's gotta be about the people you're selling to.

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Shannon 39:58

Stephen, like this is this is like, man, the calls already went in so many good directions, so much good conversation. We when we even talk about lead attribution and all the things here that are being discussed. I don't know, there's a flow, there's a process. It starts somewhere, you know, like you said earlier. It starts with maybe the website, you know, turns into 3D. Maybe there's some ads that are running. I mean, I'm probably gonna do a terrible job at a metaphor here. Uh, before I used to would say it's uh it's like a gun, you know, you can either take a shotgun approach and just see what the BBs hit, or you can take a rifle approach and you can like really zero that thing in close to be very precise. I would use a biblical reference here in casting a net. I mean, that's really what you're doing most of the time with your ads, with your website. You're trying to generate interest, you're trying to generate education, you're trying to get people to understand what you do or be the go-to place when they keyword search some particular phrase in inside of Google, uh, and you're trying to get them to land on somewhere that you're trying to take them on a journey, really, with your digital process. Like, hey, I want to like, I want to directly funnel you into this into this process. At what point, you know, do you hand that off to a CRM? Like what's the rub there? Especially, you know, between Shed Pro and Velocity, how does that seamlessly work? How can we best educate the like the industry on how those things happen?

Steven Choi 41:31

That's a great question, Shannon. Um, so Shed Pro, what we do with you were talking about shotgun versus, you know, what we do is with our Google ads, we're really sniping, right? We're going after the folks that are on Google that are typing for some kind of search keyword that indicates that they have an intention to buy a shed. And that could be something like sheds for sale near me or custom shed builder or whatever, whatever it might be. We work with over 200 shed businesses and on aggregate, our data in terms of all the ads that we're running, we know which types of keywords correspond with an intention to buy and which keywords are more like sort of tire kicker type of keywords. And so, our job is to really maximize the number of leads that are actually, you know, that have a correlation with an intention to buy, send those folks into our clients' websites, into our clients' 3D configurators, and then you know, capture that click into an actual lead. You know, on average, a Shed Pro website generally converts two to three times higher than a typical shed business's website. Um, because we have all this data and we have you know the full flow. Once that data, once that lead is captured, whether it was a phone call or a lead form or a 3D configurator or an inventory request, um, all of that data flows into a CRM light velocity 360. Because you want, I mean, you might have leads coming from all over the place, whether it's Facebook or wherever else, you want all of them to flow into one place so that you can then you know uh work them systematically. And not all leads are gonna get worked the same way, right? Somebody that's super um, somebody that has like a very, very high intention to buy, like typically Google Ads leads will have the highest close rates because we're targeting folks that are searching for, they're raising their hand online saying, hey, I want to buy a shed, and I'm just trying to figure out who to buy it from. We're taking those guys, we're bringing them into our clients, you know, websites, landing pages, lead funnel. So you're gonna find that, you know, depending on where that lead came from, um, the win rates are gonna be different because you know, there's gonna be more folks that are you know more tire kicker type folks on certain online platforms, whereas with something like search, where It's super targeted, you're generally gonna have more folks that are more serious and further along in in their in their buying in their sales journey, basically. Um did that answer the question, Shannon?

Shannon 44:11

Yeah, absolutely. No, I I'm and I'm sitting here thinking as you're having that discussion, you know, sniping, first of all. Love that uh beautiful reference. That was uh that was well tied in. Brandon, the golden retriever energy. Love that too. Um once it hits once it hits sort of like that, hey, we're organized enough that we have enough leads coming in, there's a funnel here, we need a way to actually deal with these leads. There's been some pushback, at least I've heard some pushback on I don't like a robot uh responding to me. But my goodness, like you're if you're responding through a robotic device, right? Through this, through this phone, which most salespeople are, like just because there's a real person on the other end does not mean it's the it's the best approach initially. Uh, and through those automations, you can take their sales process and turn it into an even better response initially to generate more information. But you you're the professional here. What happens when those things land?

Founder-Led Sales To Team Process

Brandon Tobin 45:18

Yeah, let me chime in there. Um, so our philosophy is what should be automated is tasks follow-up, right? You can't automate a relationship. But if somebody comes to your website and inquires at 10:30, 11 p.m. at night, and realistically nobody's working, you shouldn't be working. Don't feel like you need to get back to them at 11 p.m. Uh, but they still want to be gotten back to within a minute, right? Because that's the instant culture that we live in now, and it and it statistically shows they're a thousand times more likely to respond and 381% more likely to become a customer. So they're kind of expecting some kind of automation, text, email, reply on Facebook, whatever, something that gets them a little farther down the buyer journey, that funnel, and shepherds them towards a conversation and a relationship with a salesperson. So once that happens, uh there's no more need for conversations unless they ghost you, unless they go cold. If they become a quote that was sent and somebody's followed up two, three times and it's not gone anywhere, well, then that's where automations can kick back in. But um that that's kind of like our philosophy is all that shouting into the void that you mentioned earlier, right? Of like calling, listening to the ringing, listening to their voicemail, leaving the same voicemail, typing the same message. Like that should all be automated. People should not waste time doing that. But once they, because of an automation, for example, caught someone ready to talk, that's when a human being should tag in.

Joe Ignace 46:45

Yeah. Um, so that's the key right there is getting the response. And if you get the response, you get them on the phone, you're thinking. Now, listen, I there was actually a big spat on Facebook or the Facebook chat about like I would never touch, you know, follow up 14 times, whatever. Which I could look, I completely understand. And if you're in your head, you're thinking used car salesman language or an AI agent that's not dialed in on your language and all these things. In phase one, we don't recommend using AI agents if you're modernizing your company. What we recommend is what if you had your best salesperson write out exactly what they're doing that leads to the best conversion rate that you see. And let's just give that to the 18-year-old out of high school who doesn't know how to sell, and now he sells way better, and so does everybody else in your organization. Let's just use that type of language. Because what I what I basically posed as a response to like, you know, listen, I don't want to robot, it's like, well, that's okay. Well, like, I guess I mean your salespeople are running a system, right? And they're saying messages, why would you write anything that sounds robotic if it was automated? Because you're in control. So, don't write something that makes them feel like you don't care about them. Now, if you're not sure what's right, that's a different problem. We can help you with that. But the point is that if you're in control, you're in control. When somebody asks me, How does how does Velocity 360 work integrating with Shed Pro? How does this blah blah, how does this happen? And these are great questions, by the way. And you're absolutely please ask us those questions. My answer is like, how do you want it to work? Because that's what it means for a white glove service. We set it up the way you want it to work. Why, why would we? You've been in business 12, 30 years, 50 years. Some of these companies we work with. It's like, look, you have a good process. Let's just let's just package what you're doing really well and make it to where each salesperson can now work five times more leads. What's it going to do to your revenue if they're working five times more leads and they're only talking to the hot ones? It's velocity is a binoculars. It's just like which ones are actually interested. That's all velocity is. And then it gives you, as the owner, analytics to see where your bottlenecks are. And it gives you information on where is where are your marketing dollars making you money? ROAS is return on you know, ad spend, you know, most people don't know what that term usually means, but you should be, you know, making money from the ads you're spending. If you don't know the conversion rate or how many leads, right, then you're not sure where to put your marketing dollars. And I always tell people, you know, I do these demos and I'm showing them these different stats. I'm like, hey, you know, if you lose 30% people when you're not, you know, here, what would you do? Like, oh, I would train them on this. It's like, yeah, because when you have stats, it's really easy to know what to do next in your business. And that's all you want to know is what do I do next as an owner, as a sales manager, right? If my shed pro leads are closing three times as high as my Facebook ads, where should you put more money? It's so simple, right? And that's and that's what we want to do. And what we want to avoid in any organization is something they call a sales unicorn. Um, Shannon, you ever heard of a shed a sales unicorn?

Shannon 49:34

Yeah, I have.

Joe Ignace 49:35

Yeah, sales unicorn. So, what that why don't you explain that to the audience really quick?

Shannon 49:40

Uh it's somebody who's it's just uh my definition is it's somebody who's so unique that you just almost can't teach that process. You know, the age odd question, are you born a good salesperson or can you teach a good salesperson? And to me, a sales unicorn is somebody who just has such a unique process. Uh, they're just someone who has no other way. They're that top five percent, they're the reason that uh your top five percent of your salespeople are generating 50 of your sales leads. You need to mimic their process, you need to watch their process over and over and over, and then you need to use that into the automation funnel. So, whenever people say 14 touch points, Joe, they're thinking like you said, right? Like hairy chest, gold chain, you know, slick back hair sales guy.

Brandon Tobin 50:24

That's just like exactly and they already said no the first 10 times.

Joe Ignace 50:29

So, I want to latch onto one really important thing, and I love I love the I love it. Um, here's one really important thing you've got to capture what they're doing. The beauty of Velocity 360 is we have an in-house phone system. We're often putting everything under one house, and all the calls get recorded so you can train and have better visibility. And the reason we say, hey, don't start with an AI agent, especially if you're modernizing or don't have a CRM that's like firing all cylinders, and your people are trained on the tech, because you know, we work with a lot of non-techy people. You know, I'm just gonna say it. I'm out on a whim here, okay? That they just want to talk to people, right? So if you do too much too fast, it ends up being a zero adoption and then you wasted your money. And that's the last thing we want to see at Velocity 360. We don't care about all the shiny objects. Like, look, if revenue goes up, that's what matters, right? Who cares what the software is, who cares what it's doing? Let's get the revenue to go up because you're taking a chance and you have all the risk, right? And you and the as the owner need this business to work. And we know that when it works for you, you're probably giving to your local church, your local charity, and you're hiring locals in your community who have families. And we would just want to see that happen, you know. And so in phase two, though, the beauty of having everything recorded is we can take your sales unicorn, you know. Obviously, uh, if they're a deal or something, you might have to get approval, blah, blah, blah. Illegal stuff, okay. Yeah, you know, right? Assuming it's all okay in kosher, right? Um, but we can take all of the calls for the last three, six, 12 months, and we can train an AI agent to do exactly what they were doing because we have so much data. That's the right way to do an AI agent. And anybody who tells you should just jump in, we'll just train it, it's gonna be incredible. They're selling the moon to you, you know, and that's tough, you know. And I'm not saying negative about anybody, I don't even know, you know, anybody's doing that. Like we uh we offer AI agents, but we generally don't recommend doing them at the start unless you have a lot of data you can give us because you want it to sound like you, feel like you, and all those things. And we usually say that's a phase two, six months of data, nine months of data. So, that way it actually does what you want it to do versus your expectations being so high and then it comes in so low. Because the reality is all an AI is just something that you plug in so much data into, and the more data you have, it responds correctly, the way that you trained it to respond. That's all it really is. So, anyway, that's why we recommend that process. It's a it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint. You know, the first iteration of any of these tools, yeah, Shed Pro, the first 60 days, velocity 360, first 60 days, it's the worst it'll ever be. And it only gets better.

Shannon 52:54

I just want to tell the industry too. On those 14 touch points. No, I mean, I just wasn't, you know, like, look, I'm a no-pressure sales guy, kind of easygoing, right? Like, I've been that and we even went to, I see where some comments on there were talking about somebody going to a um uh oh goodness, a time chair presentation, which personally I say go to go to time chair presentations just to increase your sales knowledge. Go see what to do and what not to do. Like, you know, get you get you a free hundred dollar something and a ticket somewhere and go set through that process because it is it is interesting uh watching that whole that whole process. Just go for your own benefit, if nothing else.

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Business Values And Giving Back

Shannon 55:19

Um, but those 14 touch points are not that, Joe. Those 14 touch points don't just come from like me picking up the phone every time and being like, Are you ready to buy yet? No. Well, I'm gonna call you back next week, just so you know. Those 14 touch points come through drip campaigns, they come through ads, James, that you guys are running. They come from a multitude of directions. And the whole idea is that you're being a helper to someone, you're guiding them into the sales journey so that you can eventually close that sale. The sales cycle is much longer for some people. For some people, yes, it's impulsive. They stop by your sales lot, they buy in 10 minutes, that thing gets repo in a month, right? You know, that's just that's the way that use that sales cycle usually goes. But for the high intention buyers who want to process long term, they're willing to go through those 14 touch points without even knowing that they're actually doing it.

Joe Ignace 56:10

Yeah. And if I may, I want to share some stats because I also think that like as a business owner, you want to have the best process. And I think sometimes it's very subjective what the best process is. And so I don't I don't claim to have the best process. I just I just show results and track the analytics, and everybody can kind of make up their own mind of like if it works or if they would want that end result, you know. Um, that that's all that matters. And so, for example, all of our clients use velocity 360 and shed pro, have some sort of multi-touch follow-up, generally at least 14 touch points is what we recommend. Okay. Um, from our first, I think it's four or five case studies. Um, can you all see this on the screen here? Yes. This is this is the result. So, we've had, you know, our longest client has been with us about 18 months or so um using Shed Pro and Velocity. Our others, you know, maybe six to nine months in for some of our earlier Shed Pro clients. Okay, so that's kind of like where this where this comes from. Um, you know, some of these are just some build-out things, but this is why, you know, this works. Like what we're saying, this is the results of doing 14 touches speed the lead within 60 seconds, having analytics and the owner being able to manipulate things. It's not all us. I tell people we're not velocity is not magic, neither is Shed Pro, right? I'm sure you guys would say this. It's we're just trying to help de-friction, right? Make the process more frictionless for the lead. You've still got to do your thing, right? Have the conversation, have the inventory, have a way to deliver, right? All of the hard stuff. You guys do all the hard stuff. You know, we're just here to try to make it a little easier, you know. Um, but we see if you're using Velocity 360 and Shed Pro, the average conversion rate increase across the entire organization, all the leads, um, is 217%, you know. Um, and the average revenue growth is 96%. And that's, you know, an average between 90 days and nine months, you know, depending on when the case study was taken. Um what we see within the first 90 days, though, is that the lowest that we see revenue growth-wise is 25%. Um, and that's based on the previous year, by the way. It's not like month over month, because that would be a disingenuous statistic because you know, shed sales is seasonal. So, if you do March versus February, that may not, that's not apples to that's an apples to oranges comparison because February's cold and there's less volume generally, right? And you know, there's always an exception to the rule. You want to look at March last year versus March this year, right? And again, you know, there maybe there's an election or whatever, and so you know, there's no perfect statistic, right? So that's not where we're claiming this is the perfect statistic. This is what we hear from our clients. This is what we're able to track because the beauty of having great CRM is you can actually quantify all of this. You know the conversion rates when you start versus now, and you know the revenue versus when you start now because of the point of sales sync, you know, with something like uh you know the Shed Pro Ops Hub. You know, we can actually see all of it in real time and it all syncs perfectly together. And that's what we want for our clients. It's like we're not we're not worried about having everybody in the industry use us or anything like that. You know, that that's great. And if people decide to do that, that that would be lovely. And we love to work with everybody, obviously, in this industry. It's the right industry for us. What we want is for the people we work with is to have this result, this type of result every time. And with these types of things being offloaded, like the estimate sick, the conversion analytics, you know, based on the ads, the automations to where the salesperson doesn't have to move things or do admin tracking, the ROI, right? Um, that's what we want for our clients. We want them to be what on what we call our wall of greats. You know, every single client that works with velocity gets a case study. You know, they get a case study, they get a client success manager who's gonna meet with them at day seven, day 30, teach them about how to read the sales velocity formula on their dashboard in real time and how to make decisions from what they're seeing. Because it's not about the software, it's about what you do based on what the software's telling you, you know, in your funnel. And that's the key. Like you've just got to learn to read it, understand it, and then you make this. You're if you're listening to this, you are a good salesperson or a good business owner. You are, you would not have a business in the need of Shed Pro or in the need of Velocity 360 if you were not already successful. If there is no revenue and there's no need to invest into marketing dollars, right? You're investing revenue into marketing, right? Like so, all of this is talking to an audience of people who are so savvy, they just need clarity. If they have clarity, you will have a better business. And that's all we're trying to do. We're just trying to uh help you with your brilliance. And uh again, we want you on the wall of greats and uh you know, be checking in. We're gonna be updating these you know quarterly, and uh, Shed Pro has this direct link right now, and we'll start adding this to our website and stuff like that. And uh yeah, it's a great Shed Pro is a great qual you know product. You know, they do the hard part. Once the lead comes in, we're just doing the follow-up, you know. So anyway, appreciate working with you guys. I'll stop sharing now.

Shannon 1:00:49

No, you're good. James and Steve, this this has got to be like encouraging for you guys as well. I mean, uh, all the hard work that you guys are putting into trying to get these leads, and you're like, where are they going? What's happening with them? When's once they're out of my hands? Who can I trust them with? When they work with Velocity and Shed Pro, there's this trusted partner where the handoff comes into you can like measure these now. They're more attributable, right, James? They're more they're more intentional.

James Price 1:01:16

That's right. Yeah, and something that might resonate with a lot of the listeners is uh where we see businesses struggle is that transition from the founder or the owner and his sales or her sales process and getting that to other people or getting it to a process or a system that someone else can come in. And that transition is hard where a lot of times it needs to be the sales unicorn that comes in and creates uh creates magic uh through that transition. Uh and so where I think uh Velocity 360 helps is okay, how do we put something to that founder-led process? How do we put something to how the owner has sold something? Uh, and then that helps with that transition. You actually have uh the good data that can be attributed to the right places. Uh and then now, like Joe said, okay, now you can make some good decisions as an owner going, okay, this it's worth it to increase the Google Ads budget by another $2,000 a month because you know, okay, this is where those leads are going to go, and this is what my sales team is going to be doing with those leads. Uh, and so if you can make that transition from a founder-led sales process to a team-led process, uh, then that that just gives you the sky's the limit from that point forward.

Brandon Tobin 1:02:36

I wanted to uh shout out uh Steven actually. Um thank you, James. Also, that was really good. But both of you guys, I just was talking to somebody yesterday where they were kind of bemoaning the fact that uh they said marketing companies, uh, you know, the marketing world, it's shark-infested waters, is the way that they put it. And uh, you know, you guys are you know, you love the Lord, you serve people, you serve God. And um Steven just did a phenomenal job being the keynote speaker talking about that kind of an impact um at our conference at the end of January. So, Stephen and James, I would just love for you guys to talk a little bit more about um kind of like your case studies that you've seen for your clients, as well as the charities and missions and things that you've given back to. Like Joe and I have hit really on the analytics and the and the response rates and the revenue, but uh you know, I don't want to say like the touchy-feely side of things, but you know, like the transformations in the lives of of uh you know your clients, like kind of that case study perspective. Um we'd love to just hear some of that from you guys.

Steven Choi 1:03:37

James, you wanna you want to start with that?

James Price 1:03:40

Yeah, so um I guess sort of the transformation from uh kind of the maybe the spiritual side. Uh so I think most people know that okay, our business, it's business for transformation. So for all of us, uh like our purpose, create jobs, improve lives, make awesome stuff. Uh so for us, everything that we do, it's okay, it has to be creating jobs, it has to be creating opportunities for people, uh, whether that's a job that we are employing or okay, we're helping our clients grow their business uh and be able to hire more people. Um, and then with that, just the same with uh Joe and Brandon is okay, that with the extra, with the with the profit, okay, what can we do to improve lives uh in the people that we're working with in our communities? Uh so a lot of our work that we will do, uh so we'll uh go back to the community, help with orphanages or uh transforming uh different places uh in, well, I guess maybe not everybody knows, but we have two operations, one uh in North America, and then the other side is in Vietnam. Uh and so I do spend uh most of my time in Vietnam. Uh and so we'll be doing a lot of impact uh to the community there within Vietnam and just creating opportunities, creating places where people uh can be educated, can be trained uh in skill sets or uh life skills. Uh so it's really uh big drive for us. And to be able to do that uh with in the shed industry, uh just everybody that we're coming in contact with is uh just really aligning with those same kind of core values. Um and so as we can do that with a company and we know, okay, as they start having sales, they start having increases, then they're giving back into their communities uh and being a blessing, creating more jobs, more opportunities, uh then it just is a huge win-win for all of us. Uh and it that that's why we wake up in the morning, that's why we uh enjoy what we're doing, uh, if we can actually make a difference in our in our parts of the world.

Shannon 1:05:54

I think I've seen that behind the scenes as well, too. Steven, go ahead.

Final Thoughts And Prayer

Steven Choi 1:05:58

Oh, I was just gonna say like I mean, when I first joined Shed Pro, I guess it was eight years ago, um, I was actually coming off of uh an MDiv degree. You know, I had been uh ministering as a pastor for the previous six years, and um I actually joined Shed Pro because I met James at a conference talking about business for transformation. And you know, when I graduated from seminary, most of my colleagues went into church ministry, um, pastoral ministry. Some went into education, some went into nonprofits. For me, I felt like God was telling me, take everything that you've learned about Jesus and about ministry and put apply that in the business world. And so Shed Pro was just uh a perfect fit in terms of you know the impact and the purpose of the company. And day to day in my sales role, sometimes I don't see, always see like sometimes I'm you know I'm busy selling Shed Pro or I'm busy talking to customers and trying to help them. But as far as like the impact, I it some when I first started doing this, it was like, well, what impact am I making? But it it's um it's so helpful to know that actually the sales that I bring in, it's the revenue engine that's driving the impact that the company is making, whether it's in Vietnam where James is or here in North America where I am. So um, you know, it just uh it's I guess it it's really nice in the shed industry working with companies that are aligned, you know, working with companies like Joe, uh Joe and Brandon at Velocity 360, knowing that they're aligned. Shannon, you as well, you know, knowing that like we're not just in it for you know ourselves, we're not just in it for, you know, um like uh whatever, just to get rich or whatever, but there's actually like this um there's like this mutual understanding that we're all sort of giving back in in various ways in our local communities. And that really helps me because it makes it makes my job easier. It's like I'm not just I'm not just trying to sell something, but I'm actually creating value, you know, across the board.

Shannon 1:08:05

Making all the money in the world means nothing at all, Steven, unless you can give some of it away. So, at the uh at the end of the day, you want your success to be an example of how it helped other people and not just helped yourself, I think. And I think uh I can say this personally from both uh private and uh uh professional phone calls that I've had with maybe each of you four gentlemen, that all of you walk the walk, you know, uh in in your own individual lives and also in the way that you guys approach business. You know, some of you have had just been dear friends to me through some uh some great phone calls and even helping me with even my own like direction. Uh and I can continue to welcome those opportunities and those phone calls because I really do feel like those are little nuggets, those are people that uh God put in your path along the way, you know, to just kind of help keep you on a on a on a on a path that He wants you to go. And I think that you can be a sounding board for each other. And that's why we do still believe that a rising tide lifts all boats. And guys, I don't know if you know or not, but an hour and three minutes can go by really fast when you're having fun and good conversations. I personally love talking with you guys. I love the educational uh heart that you have for the industry. Um, I think you guys recognize that like the more people are informed, the more informed buyers they are. And you're doing this, you're taking your own time to get on here to educate people. Uh, should a sale happen out of that? Perhaps. If it does, that's great. But you're still putting the education out there. You're taking the time to do it. You're intentional about what you guys are doing by coming on the podcast or by doing webinars, Joe, doing the events that you've been doing down there, the in-person events where people you know can come. And I'm sure you're going to do that again next year. We try to help promote that as best as we can. We want to see people flood those uh those environments. Steven was a uh uh keynote speaker there last year, did a phenomenal job. Uh just appreciate what you guys do, all in all for the industry. We're happy to be partnered with both of you. I think what you guys do is great. We appreciate people who just sort of believe in the vision. James, you know, you have you've been a friend of Shed Geek for a long time and uh appreciate that. And I can remember our first interview, can really remember our first meeting. Uh, and it was just it was just really cool. And who would have thought, Joe, you know, just a cold call would turn into to something. This is why you should this is why you should pick up your phone and that's why you should answer your phone.

Joe Ignace 1:10:32

You know, yeah, it's these opportunities. Yeah, it's so it's so crazy. You know, nothing happens on accident, it's all you know, you know, God's got a plan for everything. And uh, you know, I think with this group of people, he's brought us all together for something I'm hoping to be, you know, obviously big in the future, or just like how we help people. So um, yeah, and uh yeah, just really appreciate being on here. And you know, we you know, in the educational piece of this, if there's anybody who has just questions, you know, a great place to reach out is anybody on here, obviously, just come ask us questions. We're I think the way that we describe it is this we're very low pressure, you know, it's just like we only want to work with people who it's the right fit for. And yeah, I've heard Steven say so many things about just like uh they weren't the right fit. I told them they need to wait. We've told many people, like, hey, I think you need to go get your leads in order first and like your shed pro contact, you know, like go talk to somebody, uh, get that. And when you're done there, you know, like we'll be a great fit for you, and you'll get the most value because what we care most about, and I think everybody on this call does, is just we just want a great result for everybody we work with. That's the goal. Every time, and we'd rather not we don't want lose wins where the client loses and we win on a transaction. That's not how we do business. It's gotta be a win-win for everybody, or it's a no-deal and they ought to wait. And until it's a win-win, you know, that's when we wanna we don't we don't want to do anything. So um, and reach out to shed geek consult consulting too, because like um those consultations can be really helpful if you're just not sure what to do, you know, and you're like, Do I need shed a 3D? Do I need do I need you know a CRM velocity? Do I where what's my next step? That's a great place to just kind of have somebody who's seen it all, who they own RTO companies, they've got a you know all sorts of cool things going. They've talked to gosh, probably more people in the entire industry than anybody else about how their businesses are run, and they can probably steer you based on your goals in a good direction. And we completely trust them that they'll set they'll send us our way if we're the right fit. So um, yeah, again, just thanks for being on here. And uh yeah, we appreciate everybody on here.

Shannon 1:12:30

Appreciate that for sure. Kind words, and yeah, we love the team over there. We're gonna be launching, you know, putting that on the website here before too long. We've quietly sneaked up on five clients. I'm sometimes nervous to say that we're doing good because we're almost overwhelmed. It's almost like we need a CRM over here or something, uh, Joe. You know, like we've uh we've had a lot of good success uh here lately. And I'm thankful for the industry for that, you know. I don't take that for granted.

Joe Ignace 1:12:58

Yeah, we might have a meeting on the books for May or something, I think. That's right. I can't remember. I think Cord called me one time.

Shannon 1:13:04

Yeah, well, we're thankful for the industry, first of all. I mean, like that we get to do this. Like I made a comment the other day that like some people wake up and they hate Monday. And like, I don't I don't hate Monday. I don't hate coming into work. I enjoy it, I enjoy the industry. And I don't I don't want to lose that feeling, you know, because it's easy to. It doesn't take but a couple degrees to click over away from like, you know, I don't like this anymore. I'm not having fun, I'm not enjoying myself. But I really do enjoy the industry. They've been a lot of fun. There's such a lot of good people. I've got some long-term friends that if I got out now, they would be long-term friends for forever at this point, just because they become part of like our story, our personal story. And uh yeah, thankful for you guys and meeting you guys along the way. I can't recommend you guys enough. I love what both of you uh your companies do. I love that you guys work together. There's a synergy there that really matters. We're gonna bring that back at 2018 where it's synergy. We're bringing it back, Joe. Um, but I love what you guys do, man. It's uh it really is genuine, it's heartfelt. Uh, I love you guys as individuals and as business people. If you want to get in touch with either one of these companies, please let us know. Fill out a lead form. Uh, you know, uh take a look at our newsletter, go click on uh go click on their information and uh read their blogs. I mean, James puts out some really good blogs. Velocity puts out some good blogs that we have on our newsletter. Like, we want you guys to read those because they really are educators at heart, and then I think they're salespeople last, you know. I think that uh that's just a natural process of the way that things work whenever you're trying to do good business. And James, I never will forget, like whenever we first even started doing some advertising, you were like, I don't, I just don't want to come across salesy. I remember that. And you were even asking, you're like, how do I not come across salesy? I just want to kind of talk about who we are and what we do as missions, and if people decide to work with us, that's great. I I'll just never forget that. I mean, like, you know, and I'm not saying everybody else is just going after a sale, even when they advertise. Of course, you want sales. I'm just saying I never will forget that James was he led with that on a personal phone call that was like, what can we do that I don't just sound like I'm just trying to sell everything and collect every dollar off everybody? That's a real conversation that happened off air, just so you know.

James Price 1:15:16

That's right. Yeah, it's uh it's been a blessing to have those conversations with you, Shannon. And uh it's always been fun. Uh and great to know Joe and Brandon. Uh just yeah, great group of guys, and enjoy working with you all. Enjoy the Monday mornings, uh, doing life with you all. So, it's great.

Shannon 1:15:35

Steven, if you don't care, uh, you know, I know you've uh been through seminaries, served your time as a pastor. I can't help but think we should end this with uh uh a prayer, just uh maybe something over the industry and over these uh continued opportunities, if you don't mind.

Steven Choi 1:15:49

Sure. Yeah, let's do that. Uh I'll pray for us. Father God, thank you so much uh for uh just the opportunity to uh be with friends, to talk about how to help people. Um Lord, we just wanna we just want to acknowledge that um Lord that you are God, that you are good, uh, that you're gracious, and Lord, we need your grace every day. Um Father, uh we just uh we pray a blessing over every person that's listening today. Uh Father, give us grace and strength for today. Give us the provisions that we need. Um Lord, there are um all kinds of stuff happening all throughout the world. There's so much uncertainty. Um, there's all kinds of variables in our in our business and in our country and in the world. Um but Father, we just uh look to you for um what we need. Um God, we ask that you would give each of us the wisdom and the people and the customers and the knowledge that we need. And so, uh Lord, bless um bless each and every person here um and everyone that's listening. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Shannon 1:16:59

Amen. Thank you guys. Appreciate you guys joining us. It always uh means a lot to us over here. Um thank you. Until next time, uh hey, reach out to us, we'll put you in touch with these guys who do a great job. We just can't recommend them enough. But thank you for listening today.

OUTRO 1:17:15

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