How Shed Businesses Grow With Complementary Products And Smarter Marketing

Google decides who gets seen, but your business decides whether the visibility turns into real sales. We’re joined by Christopher Sedlak, a longtime shed industry marketer from Lancaster County, to talk about what’s changing right now for shed manufacturers, dealers, and outdoor product retailers and what to do when the market feels tighter than it did in the post-COVID boom.

We dig into a simple idea that fixes a lot of wasted spend: a plan is what you do, but strategy is why you do it. From there, we walk through the hub-and-spoke model where your website is the hub and every spoke, from Google Ads and local landing pages to referral cards, signage, and lots, feeds qualified buyers back into one place. We also get real about “near me” search behavior, Google Business Profile visibility, EAT signals, and why having a physical presence in the areas you want to serve can beat a bigger budget aimed everywhere.

You’ll hear practical ways to find low-hanging fruit, tighten your targeting down to the zip code level, and reduce friction by putting financing info where customers can’t miss it. Chris also breaks down what our consulting process looks like, including the deep question set, SWOT analysis, and a short list of recommendations built for managed growth.

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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Geek Marketing

Challenger
LuxGuard
Shed Sales Summit

Transcript

INTRO 0:00

You're listening to the Friday edition of the Shed Geek Podcast, brought to you by Shed Geek Marketing. At Shed Geek Marketing, we've assembled a handpicked team of specialists from across the Shed and Portable Building industry to help manufacturers, dealers, and service providers grow smarter and scale faster. From websites and SEO to Google ads, meta-campaigns, content creation, video production, lead funnels, systems integrations, and industry-specific lead gen tools, we help businesses build real momentum instead of chasing random marketing trends. Today, Shed Geek Marketing is holding down this title sponsor spot at the top of the show. But this could just as easily be your company, featured right here in front of thousands of industry professionals, business owners, and decision makers every single week. If you'd like information about title sponsorship, podcast advertising, or our 2026 Shed Geek Media Kit, reach out to us at info@shedgeek.com. And now on to the podcast.

Cord 0:59

Welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast. I am joined today by Mr. Chris Sedlek. I think it is going to be a phenomenal show, a veteran of the industry, uh, and somebody who is just so thoughtful whenever it comes to growth and strategy and all the all the good stuff, the stuff that everybody is looking for. So, I am uh excited to have him on. I'm coming to you from uh actually a very sunny day here in Metropolis, Illinois. We have the weather has finally broken and we're back to standard July, uh hot, sunny, and humid. Um, and so we have got it gotten a little reprieve from all of the the water that we had lately. Um so we will take it for a few days, let things dry out, uh, and I'm sure we'll be asking for rain here in another week. But before we get rolling today, just a couple things uh so you know how to stay plugged in with us. Uh our shed geek call-in line, 618-309-3648. Email info@shedgeek.com. Of course, you can always visit www.shedgeek.com to uh fill out a lead form, see what we've got going on. You know us. We are we are in the uh consultation business, the marketing business, two things that Chris participates in uh along with uh RTO, and we actually are soon to have sheds on the ground. So uh we'd be looking for uh any kind of uh outreach in any of those areas. If you are interested, check us out on Facebook. Um, as always, the Shed Sales Professionals group. Um, there's been some really great conversation going on in there the last week or so. So, if you have not checked out the SSP page, um go and look at that and go back a little bit. Some great conversations, great advice, uh, and always so heartening to see that uh professionals in this industry want to help each other, want for everyone to succeed, um, and and want the industry to continue to grow and continue to become a uh mature industry with great providers in it. Uh if you have anyone uh in your family, in your friend group that you go to church with, maybe, um, that would prefer to use the call-in line. That is 330-997-3055. 330-997-3055. That is a great service uh that we are signed up with that allows people to call in, listen to the podcast. You can go back in the catalog, you can come forward to the latest episode, and wherever you leave off, uh the next time you call in from that same number, it will pick right up uh where you left it. So, I think that is a great technology, a great practical solution, something that we are always searching for uh here at Shed Geek to help everyone out. So, having said all of those things, uh, I would now like to introduce my guest today,

Meet Chris Sedlak And His Background

Cord 3:57

Mr. Christopher Sedlack. He is a Rosewood marketing alum, um, a guy who has been in the industry um for years and has provided so much good service uh coming to us from Lancaster County, um right in the heart of all things Shed, all things, uh uh Amish and Mennonite playing community. So, Chris, man, tell us tell us about you, tell us about yourself, and uh, and obviously now you've become uh one of the Shed Geek Consulting and Shed Geek Marketing partners. Um, what has this journey in Sheds been like? I know for so many of us, it has really shaped um our careers and our lives.

Christopher Sedlak 4:42

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for having me on the podcast today, Cord. It's a pleasure to be with you. It's a pleasure to speak with the audience as well. And share a little bit about what I do with Shed Geek and how I might be able to help people. Uh, at the end of the day, that is what this industry is all about. It is about helping each other, and you already mentioned that earlier. Um, so as you alluded to, uh I was with Rosewood Marketing for about 10 years. Um, originally started as a web developer for them, and then very quickly moved into the digital marketing aspect uh with that um business, and very quickly learned that with Rosewood, some of our main clients that we had were in the shed and outdoor product space. Uh so over the decade I was there, I had the privilege of serving many, many clients that were selling sheds, pergolas, pavilions, gazebos, outdoor furniture, um, so anything that our clients would associate with the shed space, I've done it from the marketing perspective. And then recently, uh right before I left, I worked with a couple of clients that were in the tiny home space as well. So, as we think about the shed industry and expanding out um with other industries that are similar to it, the tiny homes definitely is a place that um that I've been and that our clients typically are interested in going as well. So um, as you mentioned, I'm in Lancaster County. As I often say, it's the Silicon Valley of the shed industry. Um, so I have a lot of contacts here um, you know, in the industry. So yeah, just really looking forward to the podcast here today.

Cord 6:28

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, we've been acquainted, I guess for, I don't know, not maybe not quite a year, but um it feels like, you know, our conversations and uh, you know, the amount of kind of you know back and forth that we've had just talking about um the shape of the industry and where it's at and where it's going and what's working, and um, you know, so much of that has been informed, you know, by your um vast um breadth, you know, of that, not just breadth, but then depth on each individual product category. Um but you know, I'm always interested in the way that you kind of view um the way that you view these complementary products because I know, you know, especially more in the northeast, you find more of those um eclectic lots that are that are kind of um that uh really are carrying outdoor products from A to Z. You do see that across the South and the Midwest, um, but it does feel like there are more um, let's see, saying it, you know, uh saying it in like the most accurate, kindest way possible. It feels like there are a lot of lots across the South and the Midwest that are not necessarily active daily lots, right? And so that doesn't necessarily uh lend itself to then having just this huge array of different types of products, but maybe a good place to start, Chris. I mean, I know this is something that that you really um have specialized on. How do you see the expansion of the outdoor products, you know, within the shed industry? Because certainly from a revenue perspective and a competitive perspective, just to have the extra streams of revenue, but then also you know, you hear certainly from the manufacturing side, people talk about how much uh focus and energy and effort are going into those products. And so, what like what is your what's your read on that and what kind of a mix have you seen work for your clients?

Outdoor Products Expansion After COVID

Christopher Sedlak 8:38

Yeah. Yeah, those are all great questions. So, in thinking about the clients that I've worked with both at Shed Geek as well as at Rosewood, um, I think we need to dig back a little bit to COVID. So, COVID, we saw the shed industry explode. So, when we look at Google Trends during that time for any shed or outdoor product keyword, everything was exploding. And why? Well, because people couldn't travel. So, their vacation was a staycation in their backyard, and they wanted to make their backyards as nice as possible. So, 2020 into 2021, that was extremely strong for the shed industry. But what we've seen as time has gone on is that the interest in those outdoor products has definitely declined, uh, at least as far as internet searches that we're seeing. So, as the decline has occurred, a lot of clients have come and said, what can I sell in addition to sheds that is going to be complementary to that and help me boost my bottom line so that I'm not putting all of my eggs into one basket. So, you know, the shed industry does tend to be a little bit cyclical. Of course, we have the one-year cyclical aspect, especially in the Northeast, that we ramp up usually, I when we say right after Valentine's Day, and then kind of slows down after June, picks uh picks back up in the fall, and then after Thanksgiving, it's pretty much dead until next Valentine's Day. So, we have that cyclical nature, but then there are cyclical natures that happen with the economy as well. So, having entered into everything here in 2016, I was seeing, you know, a lot of the clients do extremely well all the way, you know, up through COVID. But then again, now we have the pullback that's occurring with it. Um, so what I typically tell clients is, you know, what interests you? What is it that you have a passion for? What can we bolt onto your business that is not going to completely reinvent the wheel? So, for some clients, that may be bringing on a company that sells carports and metal buildings and they can be involved in the sales and maybe not the setup of it. Or maybe they want to choose a company like Country Lane Gazebos and do the selling of those. But Country Lane's going to come in with their professional contractors and install that for them. So again, it really the question is when I'm speaking to a client, what is your passion? What do you enjoy about your business? Is it the building aspect of it, or is it more the sales aspect? What gets you going in the morning?

Cord 11:19

Yeah, and that's so important. Um matching one of the things I appreciate you about you, Chris. You know, I've worked in oh gosh, several different um um advertising agencies, uh, marketing agencies, um, you know, media agencies, which of course Shed Geek is somewhere uh in that mix uh in all those things. But, you know, um since I since I graduated college in 2014, I've been in some version of that environment. And so often I think what winds up happening is you see a winning method, right? You see a winning uh tactic, basically. You know, here is um you know, whatever the thing of the day might be. I mean, it's always easy to kind of pick on some of these old things that that maybe uh uh people smirk at now. Um, but maybe that is like um daily Craigslist posting, right? Which was very, very effective back in the early 2010s, you know, like that was that was still rocking and rolling, and uh, and even before that, into the aughts. Um, you know, or kind of the very beginning of um disruptive uh Facebook advertising, right? I mean, very, very effective before that was so saturated, and even still today, you know, you can get good results out of those things, but it's a much more nuanced approach. But I guess what I'm saying is so often I think that uh in agencies, because you're dealing with um multiple clients and you have this kind of like wide view of what tactics are working, um, it's easy to just apply those tactics to everyone because you know that like you can get, you know what the result could be or should be. Um, but I think very often some of those tactics actually miss the mark for the genuine goals um of the industry. And in the industry right now, a lot of those, a lot of the questions you just asked, right? What do you enjoy? Do you actually just enjoy the manufacture? Do you enjoy you know being in the shop? Do you enjoy swinging a hammer? Do you do you enjoy managing um the folks who do swing hammers, right? Because that is a totally different endeavor than it is to be to lay on this big digital marketing strategy that is that is all about you know selling and leads and working leads and CRMs and everything like that. And but it seems prescient to me at the moment because um we with maturing of an industry, with consolidation of an industry, comes specialization, right? So, like it is perfectly viable, you know, to say, okay, how do what are the uh who are the partners? Um what is the um you know, is it does that mean that that um you know marketing is actually done under another brand? Does that mean that that sales is outsourced, right? But the point is, is all of these very specialized services uh and different niches within both the product and service category are developing right now. I mean, I think we're seeing a big push. Um people have started these some of these solutions in-house where they're doing um uh lead development centers, basically call centers, right, for in-house leads. But just like everything else, Chris, you know, when you figure out that you have a good solution for yourself, the next thought that you have is, well, gosh, I bet I could sell this to you, right? So, you know, um, so I think that that is your approach is so important. Do you mind just to kind of like, you know, I mean, I'm not gonna ask for a uh a quote unquote elevator pitch of your philosophy, but if you don't mind to just talk about like the way you approach these things because I think you're so genuine in that approach.

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Strategy Versus Plan And The Hub

Christopher Sedlak 17:05

Yeah, so when I meet with clients, the thing that typically comes up within about the first 15 minutes of the call is asking the client is do they understand the difference between a strategy and a plan? And I think it's sometimes we end up conflating those things and merging them together and say, well, I want a strategic plan. But what I'm gonna say here today, and it's really important to understand, is that the plan is what we're going to do. Strategy is why we're doing it. Okay. And I think for a lot of clients that that come to Shed Geek and that are going to work with me, that's something that they are not always familiar with. It ends up being more, well, let's throw mud on the wall and see what's going to stick. I want a new website, I want a pay-per-click plan, I want some new signage, I want a new logo, but we don't always ask the question of why are we doing those things. So, my goal with any consultation that we have is to identify the why we're doing it. So, that goes back to the whole idea of what gets you out of bed in the morning, what are you passionate about? What are the unique selling propositions of your business? So, you know, in a certain sense, if I'm thinking of like putting a pay-per-click click um account together for a client, there are many principles putting that pay-per-click client together or pay-per-click account together for that client that are going to be similar across all shed clients. But then there are those differentiating things that go back to that strategy. So, you know, if we think about a bicycle wheel and we think about the middle of that being the hub, okay, and that's your website. The question is what spokes do we need to put into that hub to actually be able to affect the change that you want to see? And not all spokes are created equal. And again, without understanding that strategy first, planning becomes very difficult.

Cord 19:07

Yeah, without a doubt. And you know, to that point there at the end, I always like the hub and spoke model, you know, that you talk about. And that was one of the principles um even back uh Fathom Communications, which was my first um job uh uh out of college. Uh up in Chicago, we had uh international trucks and bluebird buses, were a couple of the clients up there, and it was uh strictly advertising, so we didn't have as much uh influence on the in-house marketing. But in any case, you know, we were advising them on how to what channels to bring leads in through, what spokes, you know, what spokes are bringing those in. And of course, there's you know more organic uh uh spokes that are um bringing those in that don't necessarily have a direct you know ad spend uh required. There's usually some kind of development cost, whether that's uh heck, just printing signs, right? You know, printing signs and putting them on corners or putting them in the front yards of people who you've just uh delivered a shed to. Um but in any case, my the point that I'm getting to here is you know it seems like we're in this this moment where there are more and more spokes available uh to people. And um I guess you know, I'm I've I'm always interested. We walked around the uh the post frame show there in York, Pennsylvania a few weeks back, you and I did, and I feel like we just strolled the aisles for an hour and a half while chatting about some of the changes that we're seeing and you know how to match that up and uh maximize that for our clients who have those kind of genuine wants and uh you know that actually matches their true strategy. But what do you see in that development of those spokes and what do you prioritize? And then how do you kind of work outward when you kind of prioritize? Look, here are the three spokes, you know, that have to work. Here are another two that are highly recommended, and here are the here are five more that are options, you know, and like how do you see some of that, Chris?

Picking Spokes And Avoiding Mud Slinging

Christopher Sedlak 21:28

Yeah, so there's a there's a lot to unpack there. So, of course, I'm gonna go back to what is the strategy that we're looking at. And I think a lot of people are surprised in speaking with me, and with all the digital background that I have, because sometimes I'm gonna tell people that maybe the digital solution is not the right solution. All of these things have to work together for the common good. And yes, I think at the end of the day, the website for most of our listeners is going to end up Being the hub that we want to plug people into. But there still is so much value in things like having a referral program. I think that's something that's so under-looked by so many of the clients that we work with. And that doesn't have to be digital. In fact, I think digital actually complicates things with that. So, having just simple business cards that have, you know, the offer on it. So, maybe you know you give this card to somebody else and you're going to get a hundred dollar gift card. And your friend's going to get a hundred dollar gift card too if they decide to buy a shed. And they can just write the customer's name on it. And then when somebody turns that card in, okay, well, we know where we got it from.

Cord 22:41

Right.

Christopher Sedlak 22:41

Um, so I think that is so important. There are so many new mediums. So, of course, everybody's familiar with Google Ads, and Google Ads is still phenomenal. But here, just recently, we now have Chat GPT that is offering ads. So, that is a space that we're going to have to explore. Uh, we have TikTok. That's something that I don't think a lot of our clients are utilizing as much as they really could be in this particular space. So, again, it's going to depend a lot on the demographics that we're looking at as well. Facebook and Twitter and X now is going to be trending a little bit more for a mature audience. And TikTok tends to be a little bit more of a younger audience. So, again, it comes back to what is your strategy? Who are you trying to reach? Who is your target market? What are their demographics? Instead of again just throwing the mud to the wall and seeing what's going to stick, at least going into it with some understanding that these are good places that we can go ahead and if you will, create those spokes that are going to connect into the hub.

Cord 23:45

Yeah, I really like your point there with, you know, obviously we're sitting here, you know, recording uh a podcast uh digitally, and you and I um, you know, I wouldn't say all, but a lot of the work that we do is digitally focused. Of course, we do banners and yard signs and you know those types of designs and things as well. But you know, the majority of kind of working in the marketing side of the space, uh, marketing and advertising side winds up being kind of in that digital world. But, you know, one of the um things that I think that we have seen quite a bit of here lately, um, you know, we've had some shared clients and then and then we've had some clients that were um um kind of unique to each one of us individually who had during the during and then in the sort of immediate afterglow of the COVID era in sheds, um, I think there were a lot of manufacturers who felt that maybe they had gotten a little overextended. They had a lot of inventory out on traditional, you know, 20 to 40 uh unit uh shed lots. And a lot of those manufacturers uh were doing a ton of custom builds during that era, and so there's this pullback, and it it's really become quite common, Chris, that that we are talking to manufacturers who once had a dealer network who pulled back to just having their manufacturing location that also in a lot of cases, most cases probably, serves as the primary then actual lot location where they've got some inventory there. Of course, customers, they've got a sales office, customers can look at the sheds and go into the sheds and explore there. Um, but it's now a common theme where um you know our advice whenever people have conferred to us their genuine strategy, which is you know, we want to um you know get our numbers back to where they had been in that immediate afterglow, that that 2021-2022, you know, type of an era, um, you know, and have seen just steady decline, nothing that is bad or you know, nothing that's terrible, um, you know, and still very good business, but people who want to go reclaim uh you know that sort of 10 or 15, 20 percent um growth again. And you know, I think for us, we have very much leaned into like, hey, you know, like you need to get that physical presence back. You know, you can um I mean talk about that a little bit.

Physical Lots As Marketing And ROI

Christopher Sedlak 26:37

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we've encountered this recently with one of Shed Geek's clients that had um, I think they ended their you know, dealer network probably right before COVID. And of course, COVID was great, and now unfortunately, it's been a little bit more of a challenge to ramp them back up on the digital side. Um, so you know, when we're thinking about the physical presence, there is all of the traffic that is driving by that location every day. So you have all of those what we would call in digital language impressions uh that are you know recurring. Uh, if you have a store, footfall traffic, but that that's kind of the concept that we're having there with it. You know, how many times are people actually seeing you? You know, in marketing, we have this thing called the rule of seven. Somebody's got to see you seven times before they're even gonna recognize your brand.

Cord 27:26

And I think that is climbing rapidly, Chris. We've talked about this separately, and I've said it on this podcast before, but our attention has gotten so short that like I've seen different studies in different industries, and none of them are specific to sheds, but just based on you know similar categories to uh you know furniture or um you know uh home construction, like some of the similar categories. Seems to me like that number could be as high as you know, 14, 15, 19. I mean, there are some crazy numbers out there now.

Christopher Sedlak 28:02

We have so much that's competing just for our attention continually, right? Um, you know, that just think about going down the highway now and all the places that have digital signage that's up. Uh 20 years ago, we didn't have that, you know. So, there is always that, and then you're always getting distractions with your phone. How many email lists are you signed up for that you didn't even realize you were signing up for? Um, so that's definitely an aspect that we have to consider, um, just in terms of you know how many impressions. But then the thing, you know, linking this back to digital is when somebody actually ends up on that lot and maybe they're scanning a QR code on that shed, we still want to be able to, again, bump them back to the website with it. Um, even if you don't have a sales presence on that lot in terms of a salesperson that's there all the time, just having that presence that's there. Um, and at the end of the day, you know, on Google Ads, we'll talk about what is the cost per acquisition? That's the sort of thing that you need to be doing with your sales lots as well. When you have a sales lot that's set up, regardless of whether it's manned or unmanned, to be able to figure out how many sales are you actually making from that lot and what is your investment into that lot.

Cord 29:18

Yeah.

Christopher Sedlak 29:19

So, that's definitely something to look at. You know, and one thing I'll share at this junction as well is you know, people I think are especially with rising real estate values, people are a little bit scared about what rent is going to cost and what, or maybe what buying that lot is going to cost them. But there are ways that we can even work around that. So, one of the clients that I worked with here recently, we were talking about their greenhouses. And this particular person has been pretty much internet first with their wholesale strategy. But they also realized was holding them back, but lots are really expensive where they're at, either to rent or to own. So, my suggestion to them was what would happen if you went to a garden center and said, Hey, I am willing to give you one of my premium units to go ahead and put onto your lot. We're gonna put some signage on it and probably nice metal sign with a QR code, our logo on it, et cetera. But you give it to the garden center and they can keep it all the way through the end of the season and they can use it for whatever they want to. So there are ways that we have to kind of think out of the box here a little bit too, to say, okay, if this is too expensive, what other options do we have? Because doing nothing is not really an option at this point. We need as many spokes as possible, again, feeding into that website.

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Cord 32:08

Yeah, absolutely. And that and that ties back, you know, beautifully with what with where I was going with that whole conversation, which is, you know, though that low that location, whether, you know, specifically if it's a Google business profile, but even as a location that is um you know not necessarily branded, they're all tying back, right? So, I mean when you think about um the website itself, um, you know, especially if you have that Google Business Profile location, if you have been able to find that lot or purchase that lot uh uh in whatever way, you know, you are bolstering your digital strategy by being able to add that location. Um you can say that your service area is 200 miles, you know, in all directions all you want, but the fact is you're not you're not really going to surface for most of those intentional ads. Now, you know, you can run disruptive advertising, whether that be, you know, Facebook or TikTok or some kind of uh you know, within a streaming podcast app, Spotify, right? Heck, you may you may hear uh uh you may hear an ad during uh before or after one of these broadcasts. But my point is um, you know, it really needs to tie back in and maximize. So, you know, certainly we would never discourage the physical side of marketing, the physical side of putting up signs, putting up lots, being creative, getting into a garden center, right? Our um um ask would be that you know, let's maximize that physical side of the business and uh and allow it to bolster everything digital, right? Like let's create that authority and that presence so that Google starts to create momentum, uh, whether it be just in in old good old standard what we're still seeing right now, um, you know, with the sort of ranked website layout, uh, or as they say they're going to move to this uh you know AI dashboard kind of a model, it's still going to be the same game. How do you how do you have authority? How do you assert that authority? Um, you know, and how many places are you truly represented, not just sort of in name only in a like, well, we're willing to we're willing to drive. Well, everybody's willing to drive for the right business, right? But what aspects of your business actually show that you have those local connections? Um, you know, and some of this even goes back to, oh gosh, oh, I hate that I'm going to I'm gonna lose the name of the company right off the I thought I could pull it off the top of my head. Um, but a company that Shannon um you know had interviewed and actually brought a lot of shed companies on back um two or three years ago where you actually are marking every location inside of uh Google Maps that you have delivered. You know, you're effectively posting a review with a geolocation uh with photos and it prompts all these different things.

Christopher Sedlak 35:23

You're thinking of real networks, right?

Cord 35:25

Yes, yes, uh Real work Labs. Real work Labs, yep. Yes, Real work Labs. So, you know, you know, like some of these tools that maybe like you know had early adoption and then it feels like have kind of you know slid down because maybe people didn't see the sort of immediacy of that SEO result. But again, as we continue to move in more of a direction where the Google algorithm itself is kind of determining what that that validation and authority is, all of these little touch points are going to keep adding

Winning Local Search With Authority And EAT

Cord 36:01

up.

Christopher Sedlak 36:01

No, I think that's really great, Cord. And you know, as I often tell our clients, you know, I want you to think back when you were a child and there's a sandbox that you wanted to play in. And sadly, there was a bully in that sandbox. And he wouldn't let you play in the sandbox unless you gave him his lunch, gave him your lunch.

Cord 36:22

Yeah, right.

Christopher Sedlak 36:23

Well, Google today is the bully in the digital sandbox. Yeah. Okay. And you have got to work with them instead of against them. So, what is a popular search term that's in Google? Well, anything that's going to have near me with it. So, shed's near me, gazebo's near me, pergola's near me. So, how do we deal with that? Well, it's really hard to kind of incorporate those words near me on your website. So, we can try to do things like build location-specific landing pages, and that that's a really good strategy. We can certainly use those keywords within a Google Ads account for locations that are a little bit further away, and that's perfectly fine as well. But at the end of the day, there is going to be nothing more powerful for our clients than actually having locations in the areas that they wish to serve. Because if I'm searching for an Italian restaurant, I don't expect to be getting results in Metropolis, Illinois. I'm expecting to get results really close to where I live here at home. That's right. So, if somebody is searching, you know, for a shed and they're up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour from me, I would expect them to be seeing locations there, not locations down here in Lancaster, even though the companies in Lancaster are certainly willing to ship sheds and set up sheds up in Harrisburg. And now we're competing more and more for that SEO space. You know, we used to say, oh, if you can be, you know, in the top 10 of Google, you're doing really good. But now it's the top three because we have so much clutter that is above the fold. We have the AI summaries, we have the shopping results, we have the three-pack that's there. So before and before anybody's actually getting down into the organic listings, you have all of this paid media that is above it and the AI results.

Cord 38:26

That is somewhat even uh tricky. I mean, honestly, uh, some of it is is they've gotten pretty slick about putting sponsored results that are barely labeled.

Christopher Sedlak 38:40

You don't even realize they're sponsored. That's right. And they're always changing it as well. Uh, so that's the other thing to understand. So, much like a website, you cannot set and forget a website. You can't build a website five years ago and say, well, I already have a website, it's good enough. Google is expecting that you're always continuing to update that website with the latest information about your products and your team and your locations uh that you have, and that you're just demonstrating that you have expertise and authority and trustworthiness uh for what you're selling. It's what we call EAT, EAT. It's a you can look it up on Google, um, but it's one of the principles that we use with SEO. Um, but you know, no matter what we're doing with it, just always remember that Google's holding the keys. The question is, are you going to open the door when they put the key in?

Cord 39:30

Yeah, that's exactly right. Are you going to be there? Are you going to participate in in each of those things? And, you know, I think we have a better tool set today. Um you know, obviously land and placement is always going to come down to what's available. I mean, there's, you know, like it when it comes down to a specific corner or a specific side of town or a specific specifically zoned area, like all that is just what's available and what's the price and blah, blah, blah. Um, but I do think that the tool set that the data that is now available that can help inform those things is just as accessible to you know us or you know to our clients themselves, to the broader shed industry. I mean, you know, at this point, you can go and do pretty darn deep level um um SEO research, which should really inform like where you want that location to be. You know, if you want to maximize the impact, the lead impact, which leads to sales impact, if you want to maximize that impact, you really need to understand, you know, down to the localities, down to the sort of um um community levels within well, especially within cities. I mean, when you're talking about cities and suburbs, you really have to understand it on that community level um to really say, well, which you know, where am I going to maximize this? Because as you well know, Chris, there's a lot of times where one half a whole half of a city, you know, all of the suburbs on, I'm just giving an example, on the eastern half, they may all search for um uh I'm trying to think of like a neutral place where maybe we don't, you know, maybe they all on the east side of Nashville, everyone searches for sheds Nashville, right? Because they just presume that, like, oh, well, out here on the east side, which is um you know a little more um doesn't have as much uh commerce like intermingled with uh with housing, right? So, out there they just presume, oh, well, I need to search like into the city to find what I'm trying to find, right? Whereas you get to the south side um of Nashville where you're in between Nashville and Murfreesboro, well now those people are a little more specific about how they search. They might even search for their own community because they expect that there's basically a highway of commerce that runs between those two like major central Tennessee cities. Um and so, but you really need to understand those things. But the good thing is you know, as of today, really one call and helping people set up a couple tools, um, people could do the research themselves or you know, just do it for them. Like high-level tools, like tools that really inform and have really great data at this point, do not require um, you know, going and conducting some kind of independent um surveys or independent, you know, at this point we really can get down to some pretty granular level um when it comes to what exactly that strategy should be.

Christopher Sedlak 43:00

So yeah, I mean, and again, this all is going to tie back into what the strategy of the client is. So, let's say that we have a client that is specializing in custom sheds. So, we're not talking about cookie cutter sheds that are coming off the manufacturer's assembly line. We're talking about somebody coming in with a center fold from Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Um, or they're you know, maybe sketching something up on the back of a napkin, and it's definitely not a normal thing. Um, you know, a custom shed's gonna cost a lot more money than an economy uh shed is going to cost. Where do we actually want to, what is going to be the lowest hanging fruit? Just because you're willing to serve a hundred mile radius does not mean every place within the hundred mile radius is equal.

Cord 43:50

Yeah.

Christopher Sedlak 43:50

So, you know, when I think about like Google Ads, maybe we start out by targeting counties that we want to be, you know. Servicing. But over time, then we're going to break that down into the zip code level because some zip codes are going to be really good for click-through rate and conversion rate, and others are not going to be good for that. So, what you end up with eventually is a little bit what looks like Swiss cheese when we look at a map, because there's no point in continuing to push ads out to an area that is going to not be receptive of them.

Cord 44:25

That doesn't match your genuine strategy.

Christopher Sedlak 44:28

So, that's where again it all comes back to just saying, well, I want to do Google Ads is not quite good enough. We need to go ahead and backpedal this and say, Well, what are you building? Why are you building it? Who are you serving? What's your demographic? What's the psychographic of that demographic?

Cord 44:42

Yeah.

Christopher Sedlak 44:43

So, a lot goes into uh building all of these accounts. And then same thing with building these localized landing pages that we were talking about. Don't spend the money building landing pages for areas that are not in your wheelhouse of where you really want to be doing business or where your ideal customer is not found. So, at the end of the day, it's where's the lowest hanging fruit is? And I would probably say for most of our listeners, there are probably low-hanging fruits that they don't even realize that exist out there that they should be pumping money into.

AD- SHED SALES SUMMIT 45:17

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Financing Messaging And The RTO Opportunity

Cord 46:04

Yeah. One thing, and this is a this is a just a curveball. I don't know that I've ever you and I have ever discussed this side of it, but certainly one of those low-hanging fruits to me seems to be for somebody out there, right? It seems to be the fact that like when you think about that Swiss cheese nature of like where strategy actually works and with what demographic and what demo and what geography, you know, um like all your substrates baked in. It just winds up being so like here, there and everywhere. Swiss cheese, as you said. Um, but one of those one of those strategies to me would seem to be um, you know, there is, and I think particularly right now, there is this like slippage towards like the what I would call like um you know uh down market slippage of the consumer where I think there are more price shoppers right now just out of necessity. And so, you know, it seems to me when we talk about um strategy and what do you genuinely want to do, it's continued to be strange to me that there are not RTO companies that are directly participating in going straight to the consumer and running an ad that says get approved, right? And like we have all we have this patchwork of a bunch of small like manufacturer or dealer-led you know efforts, and then in in that framework, right, like payments and uh um you know the difference in lenders or like the difference in rent to rent versus rent to own, it winds up taking like second and third order, right? Over or you know, it it has to be slightly downstream from you know what is your what are your primary styles, to your point. Like as a manufacturer, that you know, you have to think about like who's the customer, I have to introduce them uh you know to this product, I need to do good branding. And then somewhere down the line, you then either have like promotional campaigns, um, you know, you have sign messaging, you know, on that you print up, you know, once a quarter that kind of has a starting at price or uh you know payments as low as price or whatever. It continues to kind of confound me why the RTO companies don't just put the primary budget and messaging effort into like just the just the payment and uh uh as low as you know, messaging and just push like make that the top line priority and go direct to the consumer. I mean, what do you I'm sorry, I'm throwing you a curveball here, but when we're talking about low-hanging fruit, like there's fruit out there for RTO companies to just be like, well, here's a person who wants a shed that I was able to go find. They want a shed, they want it on payments, they want it so that they can afford it, they want it in a way that does not require them to give up, you know, whatever uh uh gosh, you know, two and a half, three months worth of, you know, a blue-collar paycheck, or what you know what I'm saying? And so, you know, what do you what do you think about some of these again as this as this whole industry matures, and like where is the low-hanging fruit and who's it actually for? Because that's a lot of low-hanging fruit. I mean, we know this across the south, and but who are we but some but for whatever reason, the industry has allowed I'm trying to think of like the way to keep the analogy alive. If it's low-hanging fruit, like you've allowed uh, you know, uh 10 different people who are sick or who are five feet tall to try and pick an eight-foot tree, like just send one eight-foot guy out there, right? And just like grab.

Christopher Sedlak 50:08

Yeah, so in full disclosure, uh I'm no expert with RTO. And I'm gonna say, you know, in terms of the clients that I've worked with, especially here in the Northeast, they will do RTO, but traditional financing seems to be the thing that we see with it. Um, but yeah, I mean, to your point, it seems like probably the RTO companies are just kind of wanting to ride on the back of their dealers with it and let the dealers handle that. But you know, again, here's the question that I would throw back at you is why could there not be some sort of cooperative advertising measure between the dealers and the RTO companies to pull their resources together so it's a win-win for both of them? Um so again, that that could be, you know, with Google Ads, that could be with Facebook, and that could be with you know television and radio ads. There's a lot of different you know mechanisms that we could use there. Um that could be a win-win.

Cord 51:09

Yeah, absolutely. Um I just think I think it's a little I think it's a little naive to think that the ideal RTO um consumer is also you know, that they're that their primary method of choosing a shed is like a brand method or a dealer method, right? I think the truth is, is like if they are going to be that type of customer, there's a lot of wisdom in just going directly to them and capturing the customer, figuring out where they're at, and then saying, Oh, just so happens we have uh one of our RTO, uh one of our manufacturing partners, right? Instead of the other way around as a manufacturer dealer saying, Well, we actually have an RTO partner, you just flip it and you tell them, you know, where to go or where it's gonna come from. And a lot of times they may not even care.

Christopher Sedlak 52:07

Um, so anyway, I mean I'm just spit-balling here, but I think that all at the end of the day, though, I mean, it really is marketing is all about bringing, you know, I'm thinking the imagery I have in my mind right now of the Olympics, and you have the high jump, and you got this large pole, and we're you know, the pole vaulting, and they got to go over the pole or they got to go over the high jump. We want to bring that pole as low to the ground as possible for the consumer to make it as easy as possible for them.

Cord 52:36

That's right.

Christopher Sedlak 52:36

So, you know, if you are a dealer listening to this, make sure that your financing information is on your website in a very clear place, especially with the economy the way that it is right now. You know, people that's something that's first and foremost on people's minds. Am I going to be able to afford this? So, again, whatever you need to do to bring down that bar as low as possible, that's super important. Yeah, meet the try to always put yourself in your customers' shoes, you know.

Cord 53:07

Yeah, meet the market meet the market's expectations. Where it's where it's at. Yeah, you know, and so, you know, like we say, as we talk about, you know, um um goals and how that pertains to strategies and how that pertains to plans. Um, you know, I know a lot of people out there, a lot of people out there love business. A lot of the people that are in the shed business are entrepreneurs and they just love business. Um, you know, now a lot of them also they just love building. And for all by all means, let's put in place a strategy that allows you to maximize the time that you just get to do what you love to do. Um but if you love business and you love taking advantage of the market conditions and you love going and competing in a free market in a capitalist society, you know, uh uh in a in a free country in America, um, you know, then um there are there's a lot of opportunity out there right now. There just is. Um, you know, as I think pretty much all of the wisdom from old times, you know, that continues to be true is you know most of the biggest opportunity in your life is gonna happen in times that other people consider to be hard times, right? Like that's when you can go and win pieces of the market. That's when you can be bold and go match up to a uh to a consumer expectation, to a market demand that other people just don't see, or it's too hard for them to shift. It's there it's too hard for their organization to shift. That's right.

Flexibility In Hard Markets

Christopher Sedlak 54:47

And I think that that's like the big thing for so many companies right now is you have to learn to be flexible. Um, you know, the consumer right now, especially in the economic times that we live, is in a different place than they were back in 2001, and certainly the late uh 2010s as well. So, what are you going to do to alter your product line or your manufacturing process uh or add-ons that you have that would attract that particular segment of the population? Because there's no quicker way to go out of business than not meet the needs of your consumers.

Cord 55:25

That's right.

Christopher Sedlak 55:25

And they're and then no marketing plan will ever solve that problem.

Cord 55:29

That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's just that's right. I mean, and they're changing quickly. Um, you know, and the dynamics in the market in such a you know, we're in that that liminal space, right? We are we are in that middle space where a shed um costs as much or more than at least uh, I mean, I'm not gonna say top of the line, but a good, reliable, you know, you can get a nice, reliable Toyota Camry that's you know, whatever, 12 or 14 years old for the price of a nice shed, right? Um and we're in that that space where like you know um like we just have to recognize that it is a different type of purchase than what consumers normally make. So being flexible and being able to chase uh chase that market as it as you know all the consumers of the next three to five years are kind of adjusting for what their household budgets are and what their lifestyle is going to be and how they're going to live. The more flexible that you can build your company, the better. So, um we've gone on here for uh about an hour and we said we were gonna keep it to a tight 45, but that's the way of mine and your conversations. Um Chris, but give us give us a last word here. Um I have enjoyed uh working with you so much. Um, you know, maybe just a last word on you know, really um gosh, we didn't even talk about, you know, your you know, you actually perform the Google um the PPC, Google Ad Services, you know, as a service provider as well.

Christopher Sedlak 57:13

That will have to be the next podcast.

Cord 57:15

All right. We can we can dig into the actual you know service side of marketing, but maybe from that that consultative um you know uh maybe just what that process looks like with you um and then what you hope to deliver at the end, because I have read your audits and they are so thorough that even if you don't do any other services with Shed Geek or any other consultation with Chris, just the audits that you that you give to our clients uh so that they know where they're at and where the opportunity is and where the strengths and weaknesses um of their company are, even just that uh is well worth uh you know uh six weeks consultation just to get that product out of it. So, let's tell us about it, Chris.

Chris’s Consulting Process And SWOT

Christopher Sedlak 58:04

Yeah, absolutely. So, when you come on board with Shed Geek as a consultation client with me, like Cord said, it's typically about a four to six week process. Um, you're going to be interviewed for most of those weeks. There's gonna be a lot of questions that are gonna be asked, probably questions that you've never thought about before. But I would definitely want to have a very full picture of your company. We're gonna dig into information about financials, what products you're selling, which products you want to be selling that you're not selling right now, what's your mission, uh, vision, and values are for the for the organization. Um, what clients do you enjoy working with? Which clients do you not enjoy working with? That is a very real thing in this space. We're gonna talk about your digital presence. We're gonna talk about your Google business profile, your website, your social media uh if you're using that. We're gonna talk about the lots, we're gonna talk about what has been working with you with marketing and what hasn't been working with you marketing. And on and on and on and on we go. So, you know, over the course of those four to five weeks, I want to say in my question bank, there's somewhere between 80 and 100 questions in there that you're gonna be asked. And I think that the feedback that I've gotten from most of our clients here at Shed Geek has been wow, you know, if I got nothing else out of this consultation, you made me think about things I've never thought about before.

Cord 59:26

That's right.

Christopher Sedlak 59:27

And that's super important when we're thinking about that strategy to have that fully informed process about everything that's going on. So, then what I do is I take all of that information and then I make a SWOT analysis out of it. What are your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats that you have within your local area for selling the products that you want to be selling? And then from all of that, I come up with some recommendations. Usually, it's about two to three recommendations. You don't want more than three recommendations because that's actually a lot to do in one year. But all of those recommendations are going to be going right back into we list a strategy out first, and we say this is the plan that goes with the strategy. And they're all going to relate to the, all those answers that you gave me on those questions. So, it's an extremely comprehensive process. And like I said, it really should be making people think a little bit more about how they're operating their business and where they want to be going with things. Um, so yeah, so in a nutshell, um, I'd love to work with any of our listeners out there that think they might have an interest in it, uh, at least get on a you know introductory call so you know we could talk a little bit more about you know their specific needs and desires out of a process like that. And I also say we can tailor it. So, if somebody wants to be tailoring a little bit more just to their website, we can certainly do SEO audits or pay-per-click audits. Um, and then we have other providers that can certainly do social media audits as well. Um, but yeah, so you know you can have a big consultation, you can have a little consultation.

Cord 1:01:03

That's right. And like you said, you know, we've had kind of varying levels. Um, you know, we've had uh people on for consultation now that um have been on for almost a year since we launched consultation. Um, you know, and so we've had like long-lived clients who stay on the consulting side um and kind of continue to talk through issues and then do a lot of implementation themselves. Uh we've had other clients who um are able to just kind of you know pick up and run, you know, with the different implementation strategies. And then we've had people in the middle who say, look, gosh, I want to do all this, but I'm just constrained by time and budget. And so, we're just going to take one step at a time. But the thing that seems to be universal, Chris, is just having the conversations, getting the analysis, understanding, um, understanding at a high level a very professional um um evaluation of your company changes the way you think and do your day-to-day stuff. Whether or not you have the time and the financial uh capital available to just go and put a bunch of actual build-s in place, I guarantee you that your mind is going to start thinking in those directions, uh, in directions that you may not uh have even been aware of or thought of before, as you said.

Christopher Sedlak 1:02:29

So yeah, and I just want to address like the budget issue. So, that's one of the things that we kind of work with the process of going through that consultation as well. One of the questions I'll be asking our clients is how much are you wanting to grow in the next year, the next three years, the next five years? And typically what ends up happening is everybody thinks, oh, I want to grow 50%. And then you're gonna hear me say the famous words, are you thinking about managed growth? Right. Because that's so important in this industry that we don't want to overwhelm. It's the reason that we don't come back with 10 different strategies. We want to go ahead and consolidate that. But based on that information about how much you want to grow and about how many units it's gonna require to sell, I can actually kind of work the numbers backwards and tell you what the budget's gonna be to actually affect that sort of change.

Cord 1:03:17

That result. That's right. That's right.

Christopher Sedlak 1:03:19

So always think about you know, with budget, it's not so much what you're spending, it's it's an investment in your company's future.

Cord 1:03:27

At what you're aiming for. That's right.

Growth Budgets And Closing Thoughts

Cord 1:03:30

You know, like you said, it all circles back. Well, Chris, thank you so much um for your time today. Uh, I always, always uh enjoy the conversation, and I'm glad that now we've been able to capture one of these conversations uh for our listeners uh instead of keeping them to ourselves uh and anyone, uh any of the passers by at the expo floors that we might be wandering through. Speaking of, uh catch us at the expo uh in Knoxville coming up. Uh I think we're all planning on being there. Um, you know, so hopefully uh all the team who can attend will be there and you can have a little bit of uh you know FaceTime with everybody and maybe even bend our ears a little bit uh you know for some impromptu uh thoughts on what you've got going on. So, in any case, Chris, you have a nice rest of your day. Thank you so much for your time. Uh really enjoyed it. And thank you all for listening. I will see you next time on another episode of the Shed Geek Podcast.

OUTRO 1:04:36

Today's Friday edition of the Shed Geek Podcast was brought to you by Shed Geek Marketing. If your company is looking to increase leads, strengthen your brand presence, improve digital visibility, or simply stop wasting money on marketing that doesn't work, you're in luck. Shed Geek Marketing was built specifically for this industry and has assembled the absolute best providers from across the country that, bottom line, bring you the results. From dealer startups to nationwide manufacturers. We help businesses connect better, market smarter, and grow with intention. Interested in becoming a title sponsor of the Shed Geek Podcast or advertising across the Shed Geek Media Network? Reach out today at info@shed geek.com and ask for the 2026 Shed Geek Media Kit. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time, right here on the Shed Geek Podcast.