Build A Simple HR Foundation That Protects Your Shop

HR is one of those topics everyone avoids until something breaks. We wanted to change that, so we brought on Kerri Roberts of Salt and Light Advisors to talk about human resources for small and mid-sized shed businesses in plain language that actually helps. If you run a shed manufacturing shop, a dealer network, or a delivery and logistics team, this conversation is about protecting what you’ve built while making it easier for good people to succeed. 

We get into the real reasons owners finally reach out for help: unclear expectations, no documentation, messy performance issues, and that sinking feeling of “what’s our liability here?” Kerri shares practical stories from the field, including how leave laws, ADA conversations, and state-by-state rules can flip the outcome of a tough employee situation. We also talk about the hidden cost of losing people, why “good intentions” aren’t a compliance strategy, and how a simple HR foundation can stabilize both culture and operations. 

Then we go tactical: what HR means at five to twenty employees, what should go in an employee handbook (and what should not), how to standardize interviews so you hire for skill instead of charisma, and why 1099 vs W-2 classification is a major risk in blue-collar industries. Kerri also breaks down compensation strategy in a way that’s doable right now, including pay bands and tiers that show employees how to grow. 

If you’re tired of reactive firefighting and want to build repeatable people processes, press play. Subscribe, share this with another owner in the shed industry, and leave a review with the one HR question you want answered next.

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

CAL
Styker Hunting Blinds
J Money LLC
Cardinal Leasing

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.

Welcome And How To Connect

Shannon 1:34

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast here in sunny Southern Illinois. Really enjoying my time here today in Metropolis, right next to our neighboring city, Paducah, Kentucky. For all of those of you who work in the Shed Industry, you know where that's at. Uh today I'm joined by Kerri Roberts, and I'll uh let her introduce herself here shortly. Uh, but before we get rolling, a few ways to stay plugged in with us over here at the podcast. Uh give us a call directly at 618-309-3648 if you have any questions or comments. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, we'd love to have you and hear about your shed story and your journey. Uh email us at info@ shedgeek.com. Go check us out at www.shedgeek.com. Uh fill out a lead form if you'd like to just have more communication with us. Uh and check out our Facebook page. Give us a like, give us a follow on our YouTube, give us a like and a follow on our um on our Facebook page. We really appreciate that. And we'll do the same for you. Just reach out to us and let us know or send us an invite. We'll be happy to follow you back. Uh check us out at the Shed Sales Professionals group, uh, private group where we talk about all the things relevant to shed selling in the industry. And for those of you who uh listen on the call-in landline, the plain communities, uh, if you have a friend who would like to listen, the number is 330-997-3055. Hot item of the day. I don't have an odd item. Uh the item that I've got to talk about today is HR, and I'm excited to talk about it with Miss Kerri Roberts. So, Kerri, welcome to the show. Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Kerri Roberts 3:11

Yeah, absolutely. And there's a rare occasion where someone's like, oh, I'm excited to talk about HR, and I recognize that. I totally get that. And um, one of the things that I used to say on my website is I know what you say about HR and it doesn't hurt my feelings. I've just been doing this for 20 years. I happen to enjoy it, and thank goodness that there are some people

Meet Kerri And Fractional HR

Kerri Roberts 3:31

that enjoy it. But um I appreciate being on here and uh just a little bit about me. I spent about 20 years in corporate HR. I was in distribution, gum parts, ammunition. I've been in finance, higher education, insurance, and then did a stint in mergers and acquisitions, uh, integrating companies. And I decided that I'd rather be unemployable by other people. So, I went out on my own about three years ago. Uh, April 2023 is when I launched Salt and Light Advisors. And I just saw a major gap when it comes to small and mid-sized businesses in the world of human resources. And um, usually companies of that size aren't investing in that, but they have people. And so they do have HR. It's just, it's more like by default versus by define by design. And um I wanted to help those companies, but I understand they're not going to go, you know, spend $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 on, you know, an HR executive. And that wouldn't make sense. And nobody needs that on their PL. And so I thought, you know, why don't I start doing project-based work and fractional work for those smaller businesses, bring them what they need on a short-term basis, get them set up, and then let them run with it themselves and I can to move on to the next company. And so it's worked really, really well. Pipeline's been full, and it's been a huge blessing to be able to make an impact on small to mid-sized clients in that way.

Shannon 4:50

Yeah. Uh, well, right in your wheelhouse, right here for the most part, with the average listener of Shed Geek Podcast, uh, small businesses, blue-collar, construction-minded, uh, definitely fits. Uh, and like, here's what we found is that like we love to do these podcasts almost as like educational pieces. Uh, it's exciting to talk about what's happening in the industry. It's also talking uh exciting to talk about the things that don't get the primary conversation piece, like HR. Like you said, who who's excited about HR? You know, with that being said, one of the most impactful people in my life was an HR representative, and he actually told a very good story in our in our um it was a it was a youth group that we were kind of like helping with for a small time and he came in to speak, you know, um and he's he was talking about a paradigm shift, and he said, if you've ever had a paradigm shift happen during your day, and the way he did it was he kind of explained how you know there was this um restaurant down the road that always offered up barbecue on a on a on like a uh a baked potato, and it was only on Thursdays, and everybody would go on Thursdays to get this. He always looked forward to it. And a young man came in looking for a job, it was in the shed business and uh kind of hat in his hand, not very confident, asking for a job application, and of course he's trying to find it and he's got it misplaced, and they're honking the horn, they're you know, come on, let's go, let's go get this barbecue, you know. And he's like, uh, you know, hold on, let me help this guy. And he's really struggling to like find the application. And then he finally finds it, but he's in a panic. He's almost kind of like, Okay, you gotta go get out of here, I gotta go eat. And uh, and the guy said, uh, well, I appreciate the application, sir, but could you could you help me fill it out? Because I don't read or write very good. And he said, Oh. It was at that moment, it was almost like the Lord said, Slow down, slow down, and he said, Y'all go ahead and go eat. And he stayed there, he helped the kid fill out the application, and he said, You know, I pulled harder for that kid to get the job, I felt like than I did most anybody, because uh, you know, it was just something special about the humility that he had in his day, you know, wanting to wanting to really get this job, but really being vulnerable saying those things. I can't read or write very good, how can you help me? Anyway, much love for my HR people. So, uh I've got nothing but good things to say about here. But let's jump in. Uh, I'm curious. So, if you were to say what's one of the biggest mistakes you see in small blue-collar businesses right now, what are those things?

Kerri Roberts 7:28

Yeah, I work with a lot of construction agencies, I've got lumber companies, you know, I've got a lot of um fence companies and people who install screens in homes, you know, a lot of my blue-collar clients, they're my favorite to work with because when I'm working with um, you know, more of my like attorney groups or physician groups, they feel like they know their business, right? And I'm just there to maybe help with a thing or two. Where when I'm working with down-to-earth folks, they're usually like, you know what, I don't know this part, but I'm really good at X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, that's exactly right. And, you shouldn't have to deal with what I handle. That's why people like me exist. And then we partner together to get this going to make this easier. But the thing that I hear the most, that's one of the greatest mistakes, in my opinion, is they'll say, hey, but I don't want to be corporate. And that usually makes me laugh because I didn't want to be corporate either. That's why I left. Um, I grew up on a farm and my father is a taxidermist and a farmer himself. And so, and I live on a 140-acre farm now with my husband, who's a Marine Corps veteran. And so I get it. I don't want to make anyone corporate, nor do I want to make them different than how they are today. I just want to protect them and I want to make it easier for their employees to navigate. And so I

HR Without Going Corporate

Kerri Roberts 8:40

hear them have this perception that, you know, implementing HR practices in their business is going to make them something that they're not. And really, it's just going to make it easier for everyone, whether we've got a handbook that explains to employees how to succeed and also protects the employer, or we've got policies to help employees know what's expected of them, or we've got outline job responsibilities or tasks or descriptions or whatever you want to call it, depending on how formal. Putting some of these things in place are foundational and it's not going to make anyone corporate. It's just going to make it easier to navigate your day, whether you're the employer or the employee.

Shannon 9:18

Oh, what a great, what a great line. And I noticed that you said protect in there two times, and I took note of that specifically, which makes me think when we say protect, what is what do we need protection from? Uh, what is something most shed builders or like small manufacturers are doing today? You know, and that could get them into trouble. Uh, and they don't even realize it. And these are maybe, you know, not going to be relatable to everyone across the spectrum here, because we're, you know, we're we got guys selling, you know, sheds, you know, I don't know, 50 a year, and some that are selling, you know, 15,000 a year, you know. So, like you have a corporate structure in some, you have a very small mom and pop, which is most of the backbone of our operation, much like America. But like, what are these things that need prep protected from? What are the areas that they don't realize that they may be in trouble and not know it?

Kerri Roberts 10:07

Yeah, one of my clients recently came to me and they said, we've got a guy, he's um a disabled veteran. And since September, he hasn't worked a full week of work. And this was February when they came to me. And so I was like, okay, what's the plan here? You know, what are what are we talking about? And they said, you know, he just he's got a lot going on. And so, it's been them being gracious and them being generous, but now they realize what they came to me for is like, can we fire this guy? And they weren't trying to be cold, but you know, they were like, we need work done. We either need to make him part-time, take away benefits, or we need to, you know, make sure that he's gonna be here full-time or he needs to go, you know, we don't know what to do. And so I explained to them, all right, so you've done it out of the goodness of your heart, but now this guy doesn't understand the expectations, and you've been just kind of letting this go and go and go. And he doesn't know that you all are frustrated and this is an undue hardship on your business at this point. But then you also don't want to come across this cold and callous. You care about this person, it's a legitimate issue that he's having, but you need somebody to work. And so we went, we backtracked in the process. And even though they were a smaller employer or a 26-person operation, we implemented an FMLA policy, even though they don't have to have that, the Medical Leave Act. They don't have to have it until you have 50 employees. But we went back just to be gracious and we implemented that. Well, he'd already had 12 weeks of job protection at that point. So we exhausted that process. Then we went through the ADA process, Americans with Disabilities Act. And through that communication, we didn't, we weren't trying to push him out. But through going through that process, he realized I can't work, you know, like I can't commit to working. And so he said, I think I'm gonna step out. It's time for me to retire. And it was amicable, nobody was upset. He understood through us going through this process that it was making it hard on the employer to get things done, but we couldn't go hire someone to replace him while he was still in seat or kind of in seat. And so we went through, he resigned, we went through that process, issued cobra paperwork, which is what we do with medical benefits. If you have medical benefits, so they can elect in those privately, and everything was fine. But they, when they came to me, they were like, we don't want to do anything illegal, we don't want to be mean to this person, but we also can't get the work done that we need to get done. And we're a small operation, we can't just go hiring another person to backfill

Leave, ADA, And A Real Case

Kerri Roberts 12:31

this guy if he's not going to be there. And I totally get it and I see that with clients all of the time. That's a very common example. And I've got those examples all over the place, whether it's, you know, hiring someone who isn't qualified for the role, and then we hope that they can be trained up to it. And then we go through a time period and they're not catching on, and then we go another 30, 60, 90 days, they're not catching on. And then before you know it, they've been working there for a year. They've never met expectations. We don't want to give them a pay increase. Now we've got a disgruntled employee because they didn't know that they weren't coming up to speed. And so we have to address those items. But I can I can rattle off things like that all day because usually it's small businesses, but you know, large businesses let things slip through the cracks as well, where we're doing right by people or we're trying to do right by people, but what we're doing is not clarifying, not communicating.

Shannon 13:23

Yeah, I was actually more surprised whenever I worked in corporate as at a large business. Um, you know, probably uh, yeah, I would say they were at least a Fortune 500 uh minimum um casino, you know, so it was very large, you know, and it expanded into the Midwest. And I was more surprised at what was lacking as a large business as I was of what was lacking as a small business. Sometimes the larger the business, the more stuff there is uh that does go undiscovered. Uh I think I was the most surprised when I was like, uh, what do I do? What do I do as a hotel manager? 265 rooms. What do I do if there is an actual emergency or a fire? And they're like, you'll figure it out. Like, I don't think you'll figure it out needs to be the answer, but okay, we're gonna roll with it.

AD-CAL 14:14

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Kerri Roberts 15:17

You mentioned um that you're in Illinois and bordering Kentucky, and I'm in northeast Missouri. And Missouri is what I would call an employer-friendly state. Illinois is an employee-friendly state. Kentucky is more on the employer side. Um, and so understanding the differences between those laws also, like if the example that I gave, if we were operating, if that client was operating out of the state of Illinois, we'd be cooked if that um employee said, hey, they pushed me out. You know, like the odds are the employer would have been ruled against even though they were being gracious through the process. And so, understanding your state-specific leave laws and how they interact with federal leave laws, and sometimes even counties have more stringent laws and regulations. And I know I don't say that for people to say, oh my gosh, this is why I don't do HR at all, because it's too complicated. But that's why good partnership is

State Laws Change The Outcome

Kerri Roberts 16:10

helpful. So, you can have somebody else check on that for you. Because it is, it is a lot. And so many times small businesses are just doing the best they can to bring revenue in and pay their people, but there is more to it. And we we have to be responsible as an employer and understand really what our employer responsibilities are. Just trying to do our best really isn't enough.

Shannon 16:33

And and when you're doing this fractionally, that benefits also the fractional price of hiring somebody inside, which uh are our full-time oftentimes, which brings me to my next question. You've kind of addressed this already, but when you when you say HR, what does that mean for a five to 20 person, you know, shed business? You talked about the 26 person, you know, I mean, that kind of fits a lot of our audience and a lot of the business owners who we speak to specifically.

Kerri Roberts 17:00

Yeah. So, let's say a 5 to 10 person business, usually what I'll come in and do is take a look if they have handbook policies, how they're paying their people. Do they use an HR payroll technology? Are they paying out of QuickBooks or Gusto or, you know, like what systems are they using? I want to make sure that whatever they're paying for, they're actually utilizing the system. A lot of times I can peel back on that. If they're interested in offering employee benefits or they already offer those, I take a look to see what they're offering. I let them know, hey, here's the benchmark. You're actually going above and beyond, or, you know, we need to take a look at this for you to be competitive. But I usually map out what a good hiring process looks

What HR Means For Small Teams

Kerri Roberts 17:35

like. So, when they have a hiring need, I help them put that in place. So, here's where I recommend for job postings, here's how you can take job descriptions, turn them into job postings, where you should post, what I recommend for pay ranges, what good benefits options are when you're not required to do full comprehensive employee benefits packages, but what are some things that we could do to still make it exciting for a person to come work for you? I walk through what good onboarding looks like to get them trained and up to speed. I mean, we want them making money for the business as fast as possible. And so really analyzing what is their speed to production and how quick they're making money. And then sometimes depending on the client, we'll look at job costing, you know, how are they determining where their contributions are earning the company money, things like that. And then we look at disciplinary actions if they want to implement performance reviews. I mean, there's a ton of direction that we can go into. But um, usually I do an HR audit if they want me to, and I'll take a look at what they currently have, and then I give them what I would call a gap analysis to say, here's what you have, here's at your size what I would recommend that you have, here's what I can do externally to get this up and running in the next three months, especially if they're small. Usually it takes me about three months. The last time I had a, it was actually a pole barn company out of the Midwest, and they had three employees, but then about seven contractors. And they came to me and said, We don't know for sure if they should be contractors or not. You know, we're not 100% sure. So, can you help us with that? And then we're gonna grow. It looks like we're growing. So, if we add more W-2, what should we be doing? So, it took me about three months to put this plan together while I was doing that. I got like an office manager in place for them because they really needed somebody to do some of that back-end admin. The owner was still doing, and he also was doing business development. So, it was slowing his business down. So, I peeled off the tasks from him that I thought an office manager could do, got that person in place, got them up and running. And then I transferred what I had learned and then what I had built to the office manager and said, now you need to run with this. I don't want to hand it back off to the business owner because they need to be doing business development or being on the job site or whatever they actually like doing and not being stuck in the office if that's not what they want to do. And most generally that's true, you know, they just don't know who to delegate it to or what to pay that person or what expectations. Um, so it's not as complicated as it seems. I mean, HR is such a broad term, and so many people think like it's company culture, and but really your processes are your culture. You know, that's what it becomes. If you have your good systems set up and you can kind of rinse and repeat, then your culture is you are standardized, you are professional, you are proactive instead of reactive, and that becomes your culture, not something like we're kind of a mess. So, when our new hires come in, they see that we're a little bit messy, and then three months from now we recognize they're kind of a messy employee. And my argument would be well, you showed them that you weren't on top of things. So, the expectation was set very low. So, we need to clean it up.

Shannon 20:39

Very, very good point. And it segues perfectly into my next question, but not without me stopping and saying that's one thing that we run into constantly is the 1099 versus W-2 situation over here. And I think that probably happens in a lot of blue-collar, you know, industry, but specifically in ours as well, too. We haven't added uh uh caveat to that, the plain communities, the Anabaptists, Amish and Men and I, where that falls into somewhat of a different category in some respects, uh, you know, especially whenever it comes to workmen's comp and different things. So, 1099 seems to, you know, reign supreme, you know, in how most people are hired. But the HR audit, I don't feel like we spent near enough time on that. We'll have to come back to that, you know, uh maybe later in the episode. I'm really interested in what that looks like. We've been doing a lot of marketing audits and we say the same thing. Marketing's such a broad term. Marketing can be a lot of things to a lot of people, uh, but we got to figure out what it is to you. And uh it sounds like you do a similar process with HR. Um, you maybe kind of touched on this, but at what point would you say a company needs to get serious about, you know, thinking about HR?

Kerri Roberts 21:50

Well, you could be a five- person company with no growth goals and you're sitting still, and maybe you're okay where you're at, but if you're a five- person company and you are Growing, scaling, you have the desire to turn into something different. I would say you need to start thinking about this now. Um, so it kind of depends on your goals as a company. And,

Handbooks, Clarity, And Ownership

Kerri Roberts 22:10

you know, I've got companies that have 12 employees and they get situated and then they don't really have to talk to me ever again. You know, like they get their processes in order. And then I've got other companies who they can see, okay, now I have these operations together and now I can buy a vertical. Now I'm gonna start doing plumbing. I'm gonna do electrical, or you know, like I'm gonna start implementing these different things. And those are the people who really need to get a little bit deeper.

Shannon 22:35

Yeah, very nice. That's a great answer, and it's definitely something that's relatable as well. To bare minimums, HR basics, every company should have in place.

Kerri Roberts 22:47

Um, I mean, I know nobody wants to talk about a handbook, but a handbook is something that you need. If you have two employees, you need to have a handbook. If you have one employee, so many times we say, Well, my employees, because we're small, they're jack of all trades, and a company's kind of touting themselves. Like, we all, you know, we're a family, we're a team, we all jump in and help. And I would say, your employees actually probably don't like that as much as you think that they do. That's not really something to pride yourself on because have you ever let them know how they can make more money with you? Or do they know how to succeed in your company or what success looks like or when they're doing a good job? I'd say most of the time, if you've got a jack of all trade who's doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, they're not 100% sure what your priorities are, how the company makes money, therefore, how they can grow as a person in business themselves, whether they're doing construction or whatever they're doing, like most people want to know how can I make more money over time? You know, how am I gonna grow at this organization? Is there opportunity for me? And so I think that's a huge missed opportunity is building out that handbook, helping them understand what that process looks like, getting their policies in order, and then having a systematic approach, for lack of a better term, for how you're gonna communicate with your employees, how they're performing. Does it have to be a big formal performance review process? No. But I would say if you're not communicating with them on a regular basis, maybe you do need a process to help you move forward with that. You know, so many people want to say, well, we're just not a formal environment. And to that, I usually say, well, if I talk to your employees today, would they understand exactly what's expected of them or how they can grow or if you're satisfied with them? And nine times out of 10, an employee is gonna say, I've they'll probably just tell me if I'm doing something wrong. And it's like, well, that's one, that is one way to do it, you know, but that's not that doesn't feel great as an employee. And I think we want our employees to know if this is done, I move on to this. So many times we talk about our employees and say, oh, they have a low sense of ownership or people just don't want to work anymore. And I would argue it's a clarity issue, it's a leadership issue, and it's a communication issue. It's not usually because employees are slackers, but if they are, coach them up and coach them out.

Shannon 25:06

Man, we need to get you a pulpit. I love that. That that was the best riff that I've heard in a long time. That was excellent and well said and needed to be said.

AD-HERSHBERGER LAWN STRUCTURES 25:16

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Shannon 26:47

You know, um I hear horror stories all the time. Now, this was not in the shed industry, so I want to preface this by saying that. But you know, uh guys asking or gals asking illegal questions in interviews, no handbook, no systems. How common is that? I mean, this particular person was uh was asked during the interview uh because the manager came in that you know it's like a I think it's uh a 400- employee company at this point, right? So, we're not talking about small business and what can be said, like you would think at this level certain things would be, and like this guy comes in and starts asking questions off the cuff, like, do you go to church? What church

Interview Mistakes And Legal Landmines

Shannon 27:25

do you go to? Uh, you know, trying to, you know, in their eyes, you know, ensue due diligence that would say, hey, if you answer this way, it makes me feel better as an employer. But there's just certain things that you can and can't ask, especially as a not only of a W-2, but even of a 1099 without having that handbook. I don't know, how common is that? Do you run into that very much?

Kerri Roberts 27:48

Yeah, I run into it all the time. Um without having standardized interview questions, not only are you putting yourself at risk, but you've also opened up, and I'm not saying you're intentionally opening it up to discrimination, but let's say I am easy to talk to. But this other person, three seats down from me, is a little harder to talk to. That person might be more qualified for the job, but because I'm a better communicator, you might hire me because I charmed you or whatever, you know, felt like I was gonna be easy to work with. And so, without standardized interview questions, of course, I mean, yeah, the legal aspect is a whole separate issue and that that is an issue. But if you don't have standardized questions and you're not asking every candidate the same question, the odds are so high that the person who is a better communicator and maybe more fun to chat with is gonna get hired over the person who they may very well be more technically skilled in the role.

Shannon 28:44

Man, what a good answer. I'm telling you, I could can a lot of these answers and turn them into shorts. I feel like just because they're really good. Um ran into this, you know, on a couple of different occasions in some of the industries I've worked at. What are the uh-oh moments that force people to finally call you? I can think of like uh, you know, a situation in my in my previous life where, you know, this company was doing the right thing. Uh then there became these, you know, harassment allegations. And they had absolutely no uh no way to deal with these things. So, they dealt with them the best way they thought how, with a good heart and good intentions. Uh, but it was sort of a good old boy approach of dealing with it. Like, hey, we want to treat this with respect and you know, like we want to do it the right way, but did we do it the legal way and did we do it in a way that benefits our company the most? We had we had a true heart at trying to approach it and it just turned into a mess for them. Whereas if they would have been protected, that would have maybe helped them out a little bit. Have you run into that? Yes, I'm sure you have.

Kerri Roberts 29:50

I'm sure you have. I would say, you know, in my perfect world, a client would come to me proactively and say, we just want to build this foundation

The Messy Moment That Triggers Help

Kerri Roberts 30:00

because we see the value in it. You know, like that's my perfect world. But that almost never happens. You know, like I've been doing this out on my own for three years. I had one client come to me and say, Whatever you are doing, we feel like we need it. And so will you go in and do it? Everyone else is calling me because there's a mess. I mean, just today I got an email in my inbox right before we hopped on this call, and somebody said, like, hey, we've got a husband and wife duo. They haven't been performing, they're toxic in the organization, blah, blah, blah, you know, all of these problems. But they are cashing in their PTO, they quit contributing to the 401k. We think they're getting ready to leave us, and we think that there's a stone left unturned, like they've got something against us, and so we want to protect ourselves. No documentation. But they already knew for a long time that they had outgrown this couple, shouldn't still be in the organization, but weren't addressing the issues, and now they're afraid tables are going to get turned on them. And so, as a defensive strategy, we're gonna need to clean it up. Now, here's what I'll tell you I can clean up a lot. I've been doing this for a couple of decades. I can clean up a lot, but I'd rather you sleep better at night and have all of this in order and you don't wait until someone is stressing you out, you know, like making you your stomach hurt over it because you know that there's a potential liability and you don't even really know exactly what the liability is. You just know that you feel like all of a sudden, you need to protect yourself because something's about to go down. Oh, that bums me out for a business owner because the reality of it is they could have proactively addressed this and they didn't. And so, the majority of my clients come to me in this state of stress. We get this issue cleared up, and usually what I'll do is I'll walk through with the leadership team, tell me every, you know, tell me everything you know. And not do they have to remember. I've got a ton of questions that I can ask them. So, I can start putting documentation in order. Sometimes it's a little retroactive documentation. I'd rather not do that. But, you know, when did you talk to them? And when have we had meetings and what has been said verbally and, you know, trying to document that? And then I get everything situated. And then sometimes we wait and see what comes of it. You know, are these people really gonna leave and file a suit? But I'd rather be proactive and start pushing. And sometimes that picks a scab, you know, like sometimes that causes an issue, but that's what I'm there for is to help resolve that. You know, as the wound gets revealed, then we've got at least we know what we're dealing with instead of sitting back. I don't want to see employers have to be reactive. You know, they're already trying to do enough to keep their business going. I don't want them to be like, when's the shoe gonna drop? That's just not a great way to do business. But a lot of business owners are sitting in that seat right now.

Shannon 32:45

Definitely seen that in some of my previous experiences, but this industry is very prone to it. The way it's fragmented with consignment dealer locations, which are separate brands, separate 1099 independent contractors versus uh W-2 employees. And then you have some that are W-2 employed lots, but uh sales locations, you know, but then you have other uh areas that deal with the public as well, too. You know, the logistics side, the hauling side. I mean, you're delivering these pre-fab sheds to somebody's land and you're talking you're on their property and you're dealing with customers. I mean, so whether it's the manufacturing uh, which rarely speaks to the customer in most cases, but definitely the logistics side and the sales side, I mean, they're constantly in front of people. And what is the expectation, even if they're a subcontractor, of like the greater brand, of the larger brand that they're representing? Uh, is there any conversation there? And and like I think about these larger manufacturers who have these consignment lots, they might have everything ran through a lawyer whenever they sign the initial paperwork with the uh independent contractor, but does the independent contractor understand the language? Do they actually know what their expectations are for them? Um makes me think, I'm I ask myself, what is the cost? Like, what is the cost of HR, the lack of HR financially and culturally?

Kerri Roberts 34:13

I mean, just as a random but factual number to throw out, when you lose a person,

1099 Vs W-2 And Hidden Risk

Kerri Roberts 34:20

it's somewhere around 30 to 50 percent of their annualized salary, whether you lost them because they're not performing or because they actually left the company because you pushed them out or because they left, it's about 30 to 50 percent of their annualized salary. And then you think about someone who wasn't productive for you for a period of time, and now we're going upwards in that. And I would say, you know, even independent contractors need a good orientation and need a good clarification. But so many of us are treating our 1099s like employees. We're telling them when they have to work, how they have to work, in what technology they have to utilize. And that's really getting over into W-2 land. You're treating them like an employee. And the scary part is a lot of people want to be a 1099, but if you start treating them like an employee and then something goes sideways, all they have to do is say, Well, they were treating me like an employee, and now you've got back pay overtime, potential employee benefits. There's a lot of risk there on top of fines that you'd have to pay. So doing a classification audit to determine exempt, non-exempt, 1099, like those are all areas that need to be analyzed. And I have not seen one client over my last 20 years that was doing it correctly everywhere. Not one. What we can do is draft job descriptions to where they match the classification, but how you are actually treating them and that person's actually operating might be a different thing. And so when people say they want to outsource their HR, I'm usually like, hey, just to let you know, it lives inside of your organization. I can draft your handbook if you're not living up to what your policies say. I can write the fanciest, cleanest, clearest handbook out there. And same thing with job descriptions, classifications, compensation data studies, I can do all of this for you. I'm trying to do a knowledge transfer to make sure that you're clear on that. But then you have to hold yourself and your leadership team accountable to living by that. And it's hard. I mean, it's it's hard to say to a person, year on salary, now we need you to clock in and out, or you're a contractor. But what we've realized is the success comes when we have W-2 employees because we need to be able to dictate a little bit more on how this operates because it's client-facing or whatever it is. And so, do you want to make the shift or are we gonna have to, you know, hire somebody for that role? Those conversations are hard. We've got a lot going on, so it's easier just to hope nothing bad happens. And you know what? Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you can go years and years, but all it takes is one lawsuit. And I saw some data the other day that when it comes to a small business perspective, under 10 employees, 70% of those don't recover from an employee lawsuit. They never recover financially.

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Shannon 38:26

It's the Achilles heel in many ways of the Shed Space. Uh so many 1099 independent contractors, and oftentimes I believe that probably the 1099 independent contractor versus the W-2, they don't always don't know the difference. Like they may know, I mean, that sounds terrible, but I I know there's many that do, but for the most part, uh a lot of times if you're bringing them inventory and they're their own LLC or S Corp or C Corp or whatever they've however they've established uh themselves as a business, they don't know what the lines are. What are the rules? You know, for the most part, if they're bringing you inventory to sell, you believe that, you know, it makes a lot of sense to like just say yes to everything. But you don't have to because there's a mutual benefit both from the company that's helping you sell the uh helping bring you that product for you to sell. And we are a very unique industry. We don't often do like the net 30, 60, or 90 or floor planning. It's oftentimes consignment, you know. So like it's free inventory for you to earn a percentage on, and your responsibility is, you know, renting of the property, right? Like overseeing your business. But you got to be careful that there's there's like this understanding on what the rub is between an employee and a contractor, and like what people can say, both as a 1099 independent contractor, but then what they can say as well, too, or what they can require you to do. And you can have a spirit of cooperation all day long. There's nothing wrong with that. You you you should always have that in any of your business endeavors. Uh, but it's also there's some not just legal language, but there's some language that protects you so that you're not uh, I don't know, uh you know, like stopping yourself from being able to grow because you're spending too much time in things that probably you shouldn't be doing or you don't have to do. I'm trying to dance around a subject here to be very careful if you can't tell.

Kerri Roberts 40:18

Yeah.

Shannon 40:18

Um it's just a big part of our industry and it probably requires like, you know, a lot of educational segments for people to sort of understand what it is I can and can't ask and what they can and can't ask of me.

Kerri Roberts 40:33

Yeah, and I would say I do have a free resource out on my website. It's just making me think of it. If you go to saltandlight advisors.com/ contractor or employee, um, I've got, or you can go to saltandlight advisors.com/freebies, and um there's a guide out there that you can click on a button, get a free guide. But you can also go to the Department of Labor, the DOL's website, and it maps it all out. I just took what the DOL said and tried to say it in like regular people terms. Um, so I've got that out there as a free resource if that would be helpful to anybody.

Shannon 41:05

What is more expensive um hiring someone new or fixing a problem after the fact?

Kerri Roberts 41:13

Oh, I mean I would say you always want to fix the problem if you can, because you've already got a person in and trained. That said, if you've never really onboarded them, if you've never really trained them, then culturally are they going to be able to hear you say you haven't been cutting it? You know, not everybody can take feedback. There's there's a lot of us out here that are walking around and somebody shares a bit of feedback with us and we take it personal and it's childhood stuff. You know, it goes a lot deeper than what I can do in HR. That's a therapy session. But, you know, most of the time I would say we want to rectify the person who's already in the organization because it's harder to replace them. But there are times where the apple is rotten,

Quick Wins With Job Descriptions

Kerri Roberts 42:00

you know, too much water has gone onto the bridge and we just need to start fresh. But most generally, I would say, let's have that really clarifying conversation. And we're not having it because we as the leader haven't set the tone correctly, but we can always try again. You know, like you can always say, I haven't held up my end of the deal here. I haven't been clear enough with you. I own that aspect. And so, I want to sit down because you deserve it and I deserve it for us to be clear here and map out here's exactly what I need you to do. Did you know that? You know, like did have I ever been clear with you about that? And if I haven't, then I want to level set. And then do you know how to do all of these things? What training shortcomings do we have? Because I want to get you trained on these things. I own that as the business owner as well. And so, the more that we can take the ownership of those things, and then I see owners feel so confident moving forward because they had the clear conversation, they made sure the training was done. Then if that person's not performing, that owner's like, I'm about to let them go. And they feel good about that. It's when they haven't been clear, they know the training was kind of junky, and then they don't want to have the conversation because they know like they didn't set them up for success. So, putting those things into place, that really empowers that business owner to say, I know we've had this conversation. I had it with you myself. I know we've gotten trained. Here's how many hours we spent on it. So now it's time to have a hard conversation, and I feel confident to do so.

Shannon 43:27

Yeah, great advice. Uh, for those listening that have zero, just zero HR understanding right now. I know you said a handbook earlier. Is that kind of where you would go to uh about one thing they could fix in the next month? Just one thing that you, if you could just like wave a magic wand and say, fix this as a small business today, even with zero understanding of HR policy, do this one thing. What would that be?

Kerri Roberts 43:55

I'm gonna go twofold. Let's go people who are tech comfortable and people who People who aren't tech comfortable. If you're comfortable with technology, I'd say to get on Chat GPT or Claude, whatever your tool of choice right now, hop on it and say, I am a shed manufacturer or distributor or whatever you are. I operate in this state. I have this amount of employees, I have this amount of contractors, and I don't know a lot about human resources. Talk to me like a 20-year HR pro and tell me what I need to be thinking about to make sure that my business is set up in a sound fashion. That's where I would start if you are tech forward. If you are not, if you're not comfortable with going to AI and you're not ready to partner with a consultant, then I would say the first thing that you can do is sit down with every single employee and say, you know what I've never done? I've never had job descriptions for everyone. And I know we do a little bit of everything here, but what I want is you over the course of the next week or two, just to make little notes about everything that you worked on. And then we're going to start putting together some job descriptions because I need to make sure that you're resourced as the business owner and that you're trained. And when we grow, I know what to expect for the next person and I can be clear with them and we're going to do this better moving forward. And I'd have those one-on-one conversations with every person. Does that feel a little vulnerable? Because we're pointing out that maybe we haven't been like the most systematic forward business owner. Sure, but like your people already know that. They already see your shortcomings, and they already know what's hard in your business. And so having those conversations, starting the documentation process, mapping those things out, you'll be amazed at the things that will come to light. You'll start to realize, like, oh, we've never done very good training in this area, or this person is working on this when they're not even really good at that. This other person could be doing that. You know, it just really starts to open up your org structure and helps you to take a more strategic approach to your organization.

Shannon 45:52

At the end of the day, it's also the purpose for why you exist and why your business value proposition is here, is because you're hoping to solve these problems that people didn't think about in the beginning. And they're not a big uh corporation, right? That's already got all these things figured out, or maybe they're becoming that and they're realizing they need that. Uh and it's a good place to start. Um,

What A Basic Handbook Should Include

Shannon 46:15

no fluff, just essentials. What should a handbook include? Just the essentials.

Kerri Roberts 46:23

So I would outline you need to put at-will in there if you're in an at-will state. If you're not in an at-will state, then you need to know what your state laws are. I operate, like I said, a lot in Missouri, but I've got seven different states I operate in. So depending on what the state is, there's some bare minimums that you need to put in there. And if you go to the Department of Labor, sort it by your state, it will show what laws you're required to have in a handbook. You have to have those. Do you have to give a nod to Eurissa? You know, like there's a do you have to have FMLA? Those things are outlined on the Department of Labor. So, you need to have those state-specific, federal-specific leave laws as a bare minimum, or what's the point of a handbook? On top of that, you need to help your people understand how they take breaks, how they ask for time off, what they're supposed to wear, what communication looks like with clients or internally, those basic practices that we take for granted as a business owner because we know the answer to all of this. You know, this is our company, we know it. But think about a very first-time person coming in. Where are they supposed to park? Can they drive your company vehicle? If they're a teenager, can they operate, you know, certain equipment? So really outlining those unspoken rules. Some of them are spoken, some of them are unspoken, outlining that in your handbook. So that way, if a person comes in and no one could speak to them in word, communicate to them what it looks like to work in your organization. But I would also say, don't put too much. These are not standard operating procedures, these are not your processes, these are your high-level outlines. You don't need to capture everything because if it's captured in the handbook, then you need to be holding people accountable to it.

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Shannon 49:52

Very good. Uh what's a hiring mistake you see over and over that's easy to fix?

Kerri Roberts 49:58

Oh, hiring a friend or somebody who you see potential in, but they have no skill set in that area. And then we're not training them well to get them up to speed. We see a lot of potential, but as business owners, we are capable, right? We're the people who will take the risks, we'll figure it out, we're problem solvers, and we project our skills

Hiring Friends And Fixing Pay Strategy

Kerri Roberts 50:20

onto other people and we say, shoot, I figured it out. So they're going to be able to figure it out. And that's just not true. Not everybody has your brain. You know, like business owners are unique in that way. We're driven, you know, we're type A, we're whatever it takes to get it done. Not everybody thinks that way. And so, seeing our potential in another person usually gets the wrong person on board and they feel like a failure, and you're frustrated with their lack of performance.

Shannon 50:43

You mentioned uh compensate compensation studies. What do uh what do most small businesses get wrong about pay?

Kerri Roberts 50:51

They're Googling, you know, what XYZ company is paying. And I would say you need to know where you're at geographically, how hard the position is to recruit and retain for, and then take into consideration experience level and create a pay range. And kind of a rudimentary way that you can do this inside of your organization right now is put a spreadsheet together or write it down on a notebook paper, the name of the person, what they do, when they started with you, and how much they make. And everybody who's doing similar jobs, now you've got a pay band. Who's the lowest paid, who's the highest paid? If you've got a large discrepancy in between those, you need to think maybe we need a tiered structure. Maybe these aren't the exact same jobs. Maybe we've got tier one, two, tier two, and tier three. Now our employees know how to grow inside of our organization. So, we might have labor one, laborer two, labor or three, and now all of a sudden, we've got like this clear compensation strategy that we didn't have five minutes ago. It just takes a little forethought. And if somebody comes to us and says, Well, this company over here can pay me more, now you have an idea to say, well, okay, you're worth it to me. I can up your pay. Or best wishes to you because you're already paid at the top of the range and you're not even performing at the way we'd like you to. So, it would be okay if you move on. But if we don't have any of that compensation strategy, that intentionality behind it, we don't even know how to answer. And a lot of times we just say, Oh, okay, how's another $2 an hour gonna work for me to keep you?

Shannon 52:28

I feel like you're describing all of my experiences. Um very realistic. Uh we talked about the stigma around HR. Uh, some people think it's corporate, software unnecessary. What's was the reality?

Kerri Roberts 52:44

HR is operations. Um, I've been a chief operating officer. I've been a vice president of operations, and good HR is operations. It's people operations. It is not planning company luncheons, it's not rah-rah. It is helping you know what the foundation of your business looks like and being intentional with that,

HR As People Operations One Step At A Time

Kerri Roberts 53:05

and then employees knowing what the expectations are and how to operate. It's not fluff, but I would say in most business owners' defense, I have a lot of colleagues in the field that are pretty fluffy. And so they have this, you know, perception that that's all HR is. And I started out HR um in a gun parts, ammunition, and shooting sports company, and it was very black and white. And I learned workforce planning, you know, what marketing was putting out there and how many calls that meant we were going to get into the call center. And then based on call volume and a website traffic, how many pickers we needed, how many shippers we needed, how many loaders we needed. And we were doing workforce planning and it's just numbers. And the numbers told the story. Yes, there's people, it's, you know, people are messy, but if you understand the numbers of your business, if you understand the PL and your lar likely largest line item, which is your compensation, then that is your operations. It's not, it doesn't have to be any fluffier, fluffier than that.

Shannon 54:05

How do you do all this? How do you implement this uh without disrupting everything?

Kerri Roberts 54:10

One thing at a time. I so many business owners, when I do this HR audit and I roll out the gap analysis, I will say, okay, here's where I think your legal risks are right now, here's your financial risks, your cultural risks, and here's what I would prioritize first. I'm always going to focus on legal and compliance first just to make sure that they're safe and sound and tidy. And then we're gonna move into other things. And it's more fun to focus on training and development. It's more fun to focus on the cultural aspects, but I would say, like, let's back it up and go to the foundation, and then we move into the operations and then we move into the more strategic cultural aspects. And we can't start where it feels the best. And you know, like we want to buy t-shirts for all of our people. Like, yeah, people don't care about t-shirts if they don't understand how to make money here or the paycheck.

Shannon 54:58

More pizza parties. Give us another pizza party.

Kerri Roberts 55:01

Employees just don't care about that at the end of the day, they want their paycheck. And so, um, I say, like, go back to the beginning and focus on one thing at a time. And is it gonna be disruptive? Maybe if you've got underperformers that you've been allowing to underperform, that is going to be disruptive. But your people who want to understand how to succeed in your organization, they are going to be cheering you on and saying, Yeah, now we're getting, we're becoming a real business now. Like this is exciting. Now I feel proud of where I work.

Shannon 55:28

Just to be clear, I love pizza parties. They're just not, they're just not the solution uh for the lack of other things, right? They're good as a fringe benefit, they're not good as a replacement for other things. Uh, what is the difference in fractional and full-time? That's what you do. You do fractional services. So, what is that difference? And what's a good business uh fit for a business working with you?

Kerri Roberts 55:49

Yeah, so you can bring in a full-time person. Let's say uh a mid-range HR person is gonna be between, you know, $50,000 and $75,000. And um, from me, from a fractional perspective, it might cost if you worked with me at the highest level every single month for a year, it's gonna cost $120,000 plus at a

Fractional HR Versus A Full-Time Hire

Kerri Roberts 56:10

fractional level. You just heard me talk for an hour straight about my experience in this. That's the difference. You get somebody in who doesn't know what they're doing, and they're going to be figuring it out alongside you. And if you had the time, you'd figure it out yourself because you're the business owner. You have figured out a lot of things, you know. So working with a professional who's been doing this, I usually charge somewhere between $17.50 and $6,000 a month, depending on the level of engagement. Um, I've got one-time projects and different things, but from a fractional level, that's around about the range that I work with people. And most generally, I can come in and get this knocked out in three to six months. And then I've built the foundation and then you run with it. Whereas if you hire somebody between $50,000 and $75,000, that's forever. It's not, I mean, it's not an employment contract, but you know, they're there full time. Now you've got benefits costs, which are an additional, let's say 30% that go along with that and all kinds of fluff and wasted time. I'm working, I'm trying to get this up and running for you so I can move on. My structure is different than most consultants. Most consultants want to get in a long-term contract, so they don't have to sell and go out again. It's just not been hard for me because there's a huge need for this. And because I was a COO, I reviewed my PL every month. I did not want one single vendor or contractor on my PL that I wondered what the heck they were doing for me. So that's why I like the fractional service, is because I'm just a small- town farm girl too. I'm not trying to waste your money and I'm not trying to waste my time. And so this works better for me, but it's not the right fit for everybody. You know, there's plenty of times where I come in, do something for three to six months, and then I'm the one who says, you really should hire like an office manager or maybe an entry-level HR person to execute on this for you because you don't have anybody in your organization that's going to hold the weight moving forward.

Shannon 57:55

Yeah, and you've already laid a lot of the groundwork. So, it's super beneficial to them. Two more questions. What's your favorite story of uh a transformation you've seen that went from chaos to structure or just made the biggest difference?

Kerri Roberts 58:09

Yeah. So, one of the companies that I was working with, they had an HR manager that she wasn't called that. She was like their office manager. She did their accounting, their payroll, their HR. She was like a one-stop shop for them. And I'm not overstating it when I say she was kind of holding the organization hostage because she did so many things and nobody understood what she

A Chaos-To-Structure Turnaround Story

Kerri Roberts 58:30

was doing. And then she was a little bit of a toxic employee, you know, a little catty, a little gossipy, caused some problems in the organization, wasn't really aligned with the ownership team, was kind of talking behind the owner's back. He just felt like he had to go along with it. And when I came on board, I was doing my HR audit and I said, So, talk to me about this person. You know, like she's been a little difficult for me to work with, and she's made a couple of comments about you personally. And um, you know, I feel a little protective over you. And I've told her, I don't want her to talk to me like that about you. Why are you allowing her to treat you that way? And he was like, I've known her forever, you know, like that's just how she is. And I said, You've got 38 employees, and I bet you that behind your back, they're wondering why in the heck you're allowing this. And it makes you look weak as a leader. And I don't think anyone's ever told you that before. And I'm sorry to have to say that because I think that's probably hard to hear, but she's damaging your credibility. We need SOPs for what she's doing. But I can tell you, if we push her out tomorrow, it's gonna be a mess at first, but we will clean it up and we will get people that are aligned with you. So, you just need to figure out what you're comfortable with. And it took him a few months. Yeah, that was hard. That was hard to hear. He wanted to reconcile, he wanted to figure it out. His heart was in honestly the right place. You know, he cared for her. She had been a part of his organization since the beginning, pretty much, you know, operating out of his basement. And then they'd grown and they were doing excellent. And she just wasn't really aligned anymore. And so bringing me in gave him some peace of mind that he wasn't gonna have to do it alone. And it was messy. I mean, we had we hired two people to take over her job, but then we were doing job costing and got a lot more advanced because of it. She didn't really have the skill set that was needed and it was hard. But once we've gotten through that, his organization went from 8 million to 12.5 million in top line revenue within an eight-month time period. And it was literally because we got the accounting practices in place and then we started holding people accountable. But if we didn't have the person who kind of held the keys accountable, how could we hold all the rest of the employees accountable? It was causing this huge rub. And so, it's exciting. We still partnered together today, and that was three years ago. He's one of my first clients, and it was fun to see. Was it like easy or you know, low drama? No, not at first. You know, like it was harder before it got easier, but now he's in a completely different place. And he really feels like the sky's the limit for his business because he has an aligned team around him.

Shannon 1:00:55

And you get through that. Professional people, even customers who look at your business profess in a professional way, uh, they see that about you, that same kind, long-suffering attitude and approach that you took with that employee, is probably the same one that you're going to take with your customers. And that's going to translate in the sale. It's going to translate in the product knowledge, it's going to translate in the actual follow-up or so many other things. I can't begin to tell you how many manufacturers I've seen that have been held hostage by a dealer who sells a tremendous amount. And they're just like, Yeah, but they're terrible to work with. And I I mean, you know the old story, right? Like sometimes they're worth it, right? You know, I mean, like sometimes it's worth dealing with some stuff. Uh, but then it's like, oh no, am I going to be drug on my reviews? Am I going to be drug on social media and all these things? You know what? Maybe. And you know what? You'll also get through those things because your true character will come out in time. And it just sometimes it does take time. Most important question: if someone's listening and they're thinking, we probably need this, what's the next step? How do they reach you? How do they find out more about Kerri Roberts and Salt and Life Advisors?

Kerri Roberts 1:02:03

Yeah. So, they can go to SaltLightAdvisors.com and forward or forward slash contact is how they can actually submit a form. But that's a great way to get in touch with me and just to see a little bit more about um about my business. But I would say I'm not a saleswoman; I'm an operations person. And so usually clients will or prospective clients will just hop on a phone call. I'll ask a few questions and then I'll say, I think this would be a good fit. Or it sounds like you could go a different direction.

How To Reach Kerri And Wrap-Up

Kerri Roberts 1:02:30

I'm not, I don't want to work with a client that it's not the right fit. I'm not just here to sell to people. I want to make sure I can make an impact in their organization. And so, I'm usually pretty brass tacks about that. But um I would, I would be honored and humbled. And anytime somebody reaches out to me, I don't take that for granted. Coming from a small farm family myself, I understand the investment. And I'm a small business owner myself. And so anytime someone is like, hey, I think I need your help, I'm honored to come alongside the business in that way. And I love the opportunity to partner.

Shannon 1:03:03

Wow, that's great. And if all of us fails, you guys can reach out to me here at Shed Geek. Uh, of course, go to our newsletter, uh, sign up for it. If you haven't signed up for it, let us know. Just uh message me at info@ shedgeek or Deanna uh D-E-A-N-N-A @shedgeek.com. We'll add you to that so that you can see. There'll actually be a link on there, uh where you can go to uh Kerri's website, um, you know, read about her story or description of today's episode. Uh, we do that for all our guests, and we continue to invite you guys on. Uh, we want to know your shed story. We want to hear your shed story. So, whether you're an HR professional like Kerri is here, or you're someone who worked their way up as a first or second or even third-time, third generation uh shed builder, shed hauler, shed seller, whatever it is that you're doing, we want to hear about it. Uh, post-frame, pole barns, chicken coop, steel buildings, all the things that complement our industry. We want to hear your story as well. Too. We're very excited to have folks like Kerri on here who have a professional uh uh business that they can put out there that helps you. Don't forget that. Don't let that get lost in the conversation, that it helps you uh and it helps you as you grow because you don't have to be an HR professional. You can hire Kerri, she can do that for you. So, these fractional services, uh, I love them. I love to see that there's more of these things happening because in small businesses, these have not always been available and it's always been a figure it out as you go. And we don't have to do that now. Uh for just a fraction of the cost, you'll receive much more benefit than what you're spending. So uh, and I don't even like the word spending, it's investing into your future and into the future of your employees and even your 1099 uh affiliates. So, by all means, if you're a dealer, if you're a manufacturer, give her a call. I totally love what she's doing and so happy to have had her on the show. Any final thoughts, Kerri?

Kerri Roberts 1:04:50

Uh no, I just appreciate being on here and the kind words. And I would I would mirror that it is an investment, and I understand that it is an investment, but it's definitely one that will make you sleep better at night in the long term.

Shannon 1:05:04

Agreed. Agreed. So well spoken to. Really appreciate you being on today. Uh, thank you for being on the Shed Geek podcast. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

OUTRO 1:05:14

Thanks again, Shed Pro, 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@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.