Shed Geek Podcast
The Shed Geek Podcast offers an in depth analysis of the ever growing and robust Shed Industry. Listeners will experience a variety of guests who identify or specialize in particular niche areas of the Shed Industry. You will be engaged as you hear amateur and professional personalities discuss topics such as: Shed hauling, sales, marketing, Rent to Own, shed history, shed faith, and much more. Host Shannon Latham is a self proclaimed "Shed Geek" who attempts to take you through discussions that are as exciting as the industry itself. Listeners of this podcast include those who play a role directly or indirectly with the Shed Industry itself.
Shed Geek Podcast
Build Back Better PART 2
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Part 2 with the Shed Geek Marketing Team.
Your marketing invoice should never feel like a foreign language. We talk candidly about the real problem we keep hearing from shed dealers, manufacturers, and service providers: paying for “SEO” or “digital marketing” without knowing what you are buying, how it is measured, or whether it is actually driving leads and sales.
We dig into how search is shifting fast, especially with Google’s AI Overviews and the growing push toward AEO (answer engine optimization). Even strong organic rankings can lose clicks when AI answers the question directly, so we share practical ways to adapt: anticipate customer questions, validate them with keyword research, and structure blog content to answer clearly at the top while still going deep for SEO.
Then the conversation gets hands-on with live call-ins, including a breakdown around product visibility, backlinks, and Google Shopping and Merchant Center considerations. We also address the overwhelm that comes from endless reports and dashboards, and why narrowing your focus to SMART goals and a short list of KPIs can bring sanity back to your marketing decisions.
If you want shed marketing strategy that’s measurable, realistic, and built for the portable building industry, hit play, share this with someone who is tired of guessing, and subscribe and leave a review so more shed businesses can find it.
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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Shed Geek Marketing
First Choice Metals
Velocity 360
J Money LLC
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.
Why Education Beats Mystery Invoices
PART 2Welcome back to part two of this episode. If you missed it, go back and check out part one that aired on Wednesday.
ShannonIt all comes back to information and content, right? Like 50% of all websites are, you know, WordPress sites, but they started as a blog. You know, blogs just an extension of, you know, a magazine or any other type of like publishing, like information that you're putting out there. You're creating content, you're putting information out, you're just doing it digitally. And that's because the digital age is here and it's very relevant. Uh, and unfortunately, as a shed dealer, you have to perfect both if you're gonna be uh if you're gonna do this on a do-it-yourself method, or you're gonna have to trust that there's an agency or someone, uh a marketing agency or someone that's doing this for you. We give our secrets away. The reason we give our secrets away is because we find that most it's like taxes. I just did a tax podcast or bookkeeping podcast with someone, and we discussed this. Like we literally give you all the information because most people don't want to do it their self, don't have the time to do it theirself. And I think most people we've realized in this space want to be a shed manufacturer. They don't want to be an SEO expert. Uh, they do not want to be uh a Google Ads expert. Um, they want someone to do that work for them. Um, and they've got to trust that it's actually uh accomplishing what they want, but that comes down to education. There's me more than the than the consultation calls that we get on, and somebody says, here's my bill, I have no idea what I'm paying for. That's wild. I here's my bill. We had it yesterday. Here is my invoice, here's an example of who I use, and this is what it what it says. And it says some very smart language in it that is so ambiguous that you could uh you know tie that to just about anything.
Christopher SedlakIt says a lot without saying anything at all. Yeah.
ShannonSure, yeah. Sure. If you don't feel as though you understand what you're buying, how can you measure what the effectiveness of what you're buying? It's also it's and this isn't just us. This we're gonna take the we're gonna take the um the bullet here for the for some of these other marketing companies here because we're doing this podcast. But there's nothing that hurts worse than someone saying, we don't want to use you, we don't think you're doing that good of a job. And by what way are you measuring that? My gut. You know, my gut. There's no proof that what you're actually doing is good or isn't good. We just believe, or we've been convinced by someone or something, we've read an article or whatever. But are you actually doing good? And we haven't lost a lot of clients, but I mean those are real moments, those things do happen when you when you lose them. There's nothing that you dislike more than a client who just doesn't understand it and you lose them. You know, if someone comes with proof and says, well, here's why, and that's true, and we really weren't doing the best job for them. Yes, that's a problem on our end that we need to solve. But whenever they're actually doing really well, they just have no way of measuring that. It's very disheartening, you know, to be able to like, because that's why we're here educating. That's why we invite other marketers on, is we're not worried that other market we have other marketers that advertise with us. That's fine. Like, we can't serve every one of you if all of you came today. So, like we need other people. It's just that we want good education out there so that you understand. Uh, I think I heard somebody say this one time before. If you're shooting a gun and you and you get done and somebody says, How'd you do? and you say, Great. How do you know that? How do you know if you don't have a target out there that you're trying to hit? You know, how can you measure effectively? So there needs to be, as much as I'm not a data geek, there needs to be data to support the ideas and the different things. And that's what I think you guys are really good at. I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there. I'll get off my soapbox before I lose listeners. Uh, we we've got uh, you know, we still gotta be mindful of the uh tightrope we have to walk on that, and that's delicate. Um
SEO Meets AI Overviews And AEO
Shannonlet's talk SEO. I you guys have kind of mentioned it here in a couple different ways. This is the speech I always give to people. Um, it's become common language to just say go Google it for how long now? 10, 15, 20 years. It's just part of our makeup in in everyday life. Go Google it. Jacob, now we're seeing where AI is has entered the chat, uh, pun intended. Uh, you know, uh Google has uh Google has entered and they said or uh AI has entered and it says now you get an AI overview whenever somebody googles something now, which decreases the amount of website clicks that people are actually getting because they're just satisfied with the answer and the AI overview. Um how is AEO affecting SEO? How does all of that stuff affect shed retail and uh and SEO in regards to shed websites?
Jacob BroussardYeah, yeah, no, that's a good question. Um it's a question I'm hearing more and more. So, when there's an AI overview present, that if I'm not mistaken, I want to say that number is 66% of engagement. Um is it goes straight to that AI overview. So, even if you're rank one organically with your website, uh you're already seeing a re well, let me back backpedal. So traditionally, rank one websites get 39% of all engagement, and then rank two, you're getting about 19%, rank three, and these are based off 2025 stats for the full year. Rank three, you're getting uh I believe nine percent. Uh and so when now AI overviews are quite a common occurrence, especially in informational-based searches. Um, not as they're not as common in transactional-based or transactional intent searches yet. Uh, but uh when they are present, the AI overview, they are already taking away 66% of uh user engagement from the entire page of search results, uh, of the search results. So, with that 34% you're left with, that's divvied out to those other stats I just gave. So, um of the 34%, uh 39% of that is going towards rank one. So, it's a big drop, right? And so how do we how do we get into the AI overview? So, uh it's a matter of anticipation, anticipating what your customers' needs are and their questions more um more specifically, right? And so uh there is a pretty neat way you can begin to do this. And if you go into, I always recommend an incognito window because or a private browser, because that's not gonna be um Google caters to your preferences and your previous searches, so that will a private browser will remove that uh any results tailored to you, um, since we're trying to find out what the general public is searching. If you go to a private browser and type in a keyword relevant to, you know, first well, your sheds, right? So, if you go and type in sheds, uh hit enter, and then when that page comes up, go back into the search field and type in what, so don't not all at once, but what, how, why, and at different times. And it will populate a list of questions people are asking about sheds, right? And so from there, um, what I'll what I do is I will go in and take those questions and I'll plug them into Google's keyword planner and see just how many people are searching those. And we will tailor blog posts um and articles uh about those questions. And so, how do you get into the AI overview though, still? Because even a blog post doesn't guarantee that. Uh, at the top of the page of your blog post, you want to summarize the well you want to answer the question at hand and three to four sentences and give an oh while giving an overview of the content below. And from for content below that, you want about a thousand to fifteen hundred words. Uh, if it seems appropriate, I mean you can do more than that by all means, if it's a very uh thorough question. Uh but yeah, I would say this is a good way to get started. Uh it's something I definitely recommend. And then in regards to uh your LLMs, so Chat GPT, Claude, and them recommending you as a business, they pull from third-party sources. So Reddit, Quora, uh, the list goes on. Uh, there uh there's tons of sources that they're gonna pull from, but Reddit and Quora are some of the bigger ones. In fact, I'm so sorry. Um, in fact, I am actually about to send out a newsletter um and a strategy on Reddit, on using Reddit to your advantage, uh, to come up as a um just to be mentioned by these LOMs, right? When someone's in Claude or in chat, GVT, Grok, uh Gemini, uh Deep Seek, any of these, uh, so that way your business is mentioned.
ShannonTell you what, if you're not falling asleep on this podcast, I applaud you. Uh simply because there is so much information here that if you're someone who is a shed builder and you're like, this is the problem, I just need to know what a webhook is. I just need to know. Uh I don't understand uh, you know, all the different terminology or really all the different acronyms that you're using. It just sounds like deep space whenever you begin to talk about that. But that is the real world of retail, not just in sheds, but in the world. I mean, look at how far Amazon has come already. Uh, just what they've been able to accomplish online, becoming a major retailer uh or you know, theoretical retail space, I guess you'd say.
Keyword Research That Reflects Real Buyers
ShannonBecause Google's become part of our everyday conversation, let's talk about keywords. Uh, you guys all build websites or build some kind of branding or whatever. Whenever we say keywords, we have we have people who are might listen to this podcast who know so much, and all this stuff is gonna make sense, and they're gonna say, Tailor this podcast toward a high-level knowledge bank. And then we're gonna have people who are gonna say, you know, I don't know where my website is hosted. I don't know if I own my website. What does that even mean? So we've got to try to find a way to have that conversation that reaches everybody. I like to start at the elementary level just because I need that for my own self. I don't know about others, but I need it for me. Um, whenever you say keywords, start with keywords and let's talk about how Google receives those keywords and how it affects that shed dealer and their website. Anybody, feel free to take it. I'll go ahead, Jacob.
Jacob BroussardUh I'll jump in. So I mean, keywords are gonna be what you use every day. And when you're talking to somebody, whether it's a customer or whether it's somebody internal in your industry, another business. I mean, what are the words that come out of your mouth the most when talk when operating your business? And more than likely it's gonna be what people are searching to. Um, of course, there's you're always gonna have your internal lingo to any industry. I would probably avoid you know trying to rank for something that seems like customers won't be using that term. Um, and then so how do you find out are people searching for these uh terms uh that you have in mind at that point? Uh you can even without having a Google Ads account, you can do this. But I recommend if you have a an advertisement that's running, even if it's for three you set one up for three bucks a day. Um, I believe you have to have it up for 30 days. Um and the reason I say that is when you go to and I can even screen share actually if you want Shannon. Does that add some value? If it's if it's enabled, uh actually, I don't let me see. So, um I'll just talk it through on um so while I'm checking if it's enabled. There we go. No, it's disabled. Okay. So, when you go, if you go to ads.google.com, sign up for an account, once you get that set up, there is a way to navigate to the keyword planner and it will show you what the volume is for any keyword you input. Now, if you don't have, you can still sign up for an ads account and not run an ad and access this tool. But when it comes to actually seeing the data, it gives you a range. So, for example, if I want to know how many people are searching Dallas sheds, I can put that into the keyword planner. And if I don't have a running advertisement, it will show me 100 to 1000 searches a month. Versus if I have a running advertisement, it shows me very granular data and it will show me that there's actually 560 searches a month. Um, because Google's catering to the people that are paying them for that, you know. So if you're running ads, you're paying Google, right? Uh, for your ad spend. And so that's why I mentioned both having the running advertisement and not, is because you're gonna get more specific data. Um, but also at the same time, you have us too that we can go and pull the keyword volume. We're more than happy to do so. Uh but yeah.
CordIn fact, that's how we start a lot of our yeah, that's how we do a lot of our discoveries, is just really seeing what the market looks like in that way based on those keywords.
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Live Call In On Outsourcing Marketing
CordWe've got somebody in the in the queue here again. Uh Sambo, I'm not sure if this is somebody coming in from uh Facebook, I would presume. Uh Shannon, shall we just let him in?
ShannonYeah, bring him in.
CordBring him in. Let me do that. Uh they should be joining momentarily. I think we've we're because it's kind of oh Sam!
ShannonPodcast just got a whole lot prettier, didn't it?
CordYou're on mute, Sam, by the way. There you go. Yeah, take that little mute button off. Maybe I can send you a request. I'll make it a little easier.
Sam BylerThere we go. There he is. There he is. Y'all keep recording stuff, and I have to give you permission to record me.
ShannonWhat are you up to? What are you doing?
CordSam Byler, by the way, if we haven't said it yet. Sam Byler jumping on to live podcast.
Sam BylerI just had to stop by and say hey.
ShannonWe just missed Phil. Phil was having Phil Music was having some um some uh audio uh technicalities, and he was actually with Gavin Morley. So uh I hate that I missed him because Gavin's up there in Michigan. Uh they were gonna jump on to say a few things. And we got Joe Ignace coming in here before too long to talk about leads and stuff like that. But what are you doing? Hey, uh Shed Hauler, let's give it a let's give it a shout out while we're here. Shed Hauler Bash March uh 2027.
Sam BylerYep, March 27, 23rd, and 24th. We moved it. Now that's not a typical Thursday and Friday. We moved it to a Tuesday and Wednesday because that's the week of Good Friday. Good Friday's early this year.
ShannonOkay. And you're gonna beware. I know it's close to home for me, but Southern Let's Home of Cardinal Manufacturing, home of uh oh gosh, who else do we have here?
CordJ Mag, of course, up in Harrisburg.
ShannonJ Mag.
CordUh yeah, there's a bunch of people around there.
Sam BylerI mean PLD to the fact it's not that far from Paducah, all of a sudden you got a bunch of people. Oh well, yeah.
ShannonYeah. Yeah, right down the road and beautiful facility this year. The uh yeah, the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds are actually having the fair this week or last week. That's gonna be I feel like that's gonna be well attended. That's gonna be a beautiful uh time to have the event.
Sam BylerYes. And for once, we're not dependent on weather because we can literally do everything inside if we want to. Nice. That is so nice. No big tents to set up, no wind to blow around, doesn't matter.
ShannonYeah, oh that's exciting, Sam. Um I'm happy to see that it's here close to home and you know, certainly easy for me to make. Uh it's just 90 90 miles or so down the road. So, uh actually I set up a lot in Mulkey Town, right outside of uh uh DuQuoin. So, you'll go right by it on your way in, Mr. David Ross. It's been five or six years ago, maybe seven or eight. Gosh, who knows the time's flying by. But uh Sam, you got some you got some marketing questions. We're happy to answer them. We're answering marketing questions today, bro.
Sam BylerI came I came on here to put my marketing plug gig in for my you said something about website hosting and all that stuff. And I'm just here to tell you, I have four websites currently running that I'm using. I know nothing about them. You know why?
ShannonBecause you don't do them.
Sam BylerI don't do them, I'm no good at it, but I have a guy that is extremely good at it, and the other day when everything falls apart, I send him a message, he answers back, they get on it, they take care of it, and I don't have to worry about it.
ShannonIt's hard, it's hard to, I mean, you're kind of like this uh, you know, this Willie Mays type player, you know, five tool player in baseball. A lot of people talk about Willie Mays being able to be good at everything, right? Like, you know, some guys like strikeout like Mark McGuire, a lot of strikeouts, a lot of home runs. Uh but you're kind of good at a little bit of everything. You can put a truck together, you you've sold e-commerce, you know, all these different things. Marketing's hard. I mean, I don't think people really think about all the complexities that goes into it. I have no doubt you could become the best uh website builder uh, you know, that you could be if you spend all your time into it. Why do you see it as valuable to have somebody? Why do you is it your time? Why is it valuable for you to just pay somebody to do that?
Sam Byler100% the time. You only got so many hours every day, you better use them for what you're good at. Now I'm not I'm not opposed to getting educated and learning how to be good at something else. But um so yeah, if my if my wheelhouse is being a utility player, um, I'm gonna hone my craft at what I need to do. If it's being a home run hitter, I'm gonna work at that. If it's being a pitcher, you know, utility players don't hardly ever pitch. They will in the thirteenth inning of a game that's gone five hours and they're out of pitchers, they will come in and pitch. And that's when baseball really gets funny because you see these lob pitches coming in. But yeah, you can. You can, you know, when you get up in the morning, it's up to you as a Christian. It's not only up to me, it's my responsibility for what I'm gonna do with my time for that day. And my time is not well spent chasing little websites down that I have no idea where they're at and where they go. I got a guy that's really good at it. I'm more than happy to pay him to feed his wife and kids, send them to school and all that, and they can take care of it.
CordI was just so I was doing the kind of thing that we were aiming to do with shed people here, Sam. I don't know. I know you're I see you're on your phone, but you might be able to see it. So, like, you know, Jacob's approach would be you're down there close to Florence. Is that right?
Sam BylerNot really, but kind of in the neighborhood Greenville and Atlanta and Charlotte. Oh, okay, okay. I got you.
CordI got you.
Sam BylerGreenville and Charlotte.
CordGreenville and Charlotte probably have good volume about I was just curious because we were just talking about um, we were just talking about basically um keyword volume. So, I mean you run truck repair. So, if we were looking up Greenville, South Carolina, let's see, and what do you call it? Is it called uh Sambassador? Is that right? Sambassador.
Sam BylerSambassador trucks, and if you find me on Google, I'm gonna fire my website guy.
CordOh, you don't want to be on there.
Sam BylerI don't want to be on there. I am not the general public concierge.
CordRight. You're running a more niche strategy. You're trying to get to the undercover. Oh, that's funny, Sam. That's funny. This is probably not this is probably not the same advice that we would give to uh to a shed seller.
Sam BylerProbably not.
CordOh goodness.
ShannonOr just FYI, Dan Rheaume uh Solar Blaster fans is looking to come in. I was thinking we could maybe take a look at the site there too and bring Joe in as well, too, when we get a chance.
Sam BylerI'm out of here. I just stopped by to say hey and tell y'all I got a good website guy, and to make sure that everybody knows that you need a good website guy. Let somebody else do your dirty work.
CordThat's exactly what I'm saying.
ShannonAppreciate you, Sam.
Sam BylerThank you.
ShannonWe'll be seeing, we'll see you next month, brother.
Sam BylerYep.
CordY'all have a good day.
ShannonYou too, too.
CordAnd here comes Dan. Maybe
Solar Blaster Call In And Budget Reality
Cordwe should turn this over to Jacob because I was maybe not uh doing the best job of getting the actual search volume done there. I'm going to pin Dan, Solar Blaster is now in.
Jacob BroussardI thought you did a fine job.
ShannonHow are you, sir?
Dan RheaumeGood, good.
ShannonSo, for those of you guys who don't know, Dan's an advertiser with us, Solar Blaster fans. We've interviewed him a couple of different times. Uh, just moved uh a uh uh pilot over to Summit Buildings uh and uh meeting with another guy next Monday to try to send some stuff over. Dan, this is our team. Not everybody's here. People have got work to do, so some of them have had to exit. But uh yeah, it's good to see you, man. How are you doing?
Dan RheaumeSuper good. Nice to see you. I saw your Facebook post and uh I thought I'd give you my two cents if you wanted to hear it.
ShannonHey, we want to hear it. Yeah, give us your thoughts.
Dan RheaumeWell, you want to hear it now?
ShannonYeah, man, go for it.
Dan RheaumeAwesome. Okay, um, what I have found and uh since our last meeting, which I uh totally enjoyed and appreciated, was and I uh Christy and I have she has found Claude. And since she's found Claude, I gotta tell you, uh I like the stuff I see, but I don't want to break the bank finding it out, and that is my big issue. Uh I've got a big stack behind me of reports. Great! I got some reports that didn't make one sale, and honestly, I really only care about stuff that's gonna make sales. I analytics and all this is all good and fine, maybe if you're a large corporation, but if I'm spending a thousand bucks a week on producing reports, it's driving me bonkers. It's literally driven me bonkers that I cut it off. I just cut it off. Um, and I might be to my detriment in one sense, that maybe I'm not getting the very best I could get, but can I afford it? Is the question. And so that's kind of what I my rant.
ShannonNo, for sure. That's where everybody's at. Uh normally we look at shed dealers or shed sellers, but are you okay with us taking a quick snapshot just at Solar Blaster? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, we'll have some just some real conversation, but we won't uh we won't we won't do too much damage here, Dan. We love you over here at Shed Game. We love your page. Matter of fact, we love your product so much. We put it on our own shed. It's uh getting delivered uh here in the next month, and uh I'll make sure to throw some pictures out. Jacob, can you pull up Solar Blaster just in a quick snapshot and see what the website looks like and how it's doing?
Jacob BroussardYeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I don't think I have screen sharing, but I can uh audibly walk through it if you'd like.
ShannonYeah, I try so for whatever reason, Zoom has changed up. They this is the problem with technology. They've not made it easier. Used to be able to click the up arrow, click the button, multiple participants can share. Now you have to go to advanced settings and you have to change who can share. And uh, for whatever reason, that button does not exist in my advanced settings. So, I gotta do a little bit more work. So, they did an update and made it considerably more difficult to go through three or four steps now. This is when technology is detrimental, let's be honest. Uh um, you know all about updates, Jacob. I know. So yeah, walk us through it.
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Jacob BroussardYeah,
Backlinks Google Shopping And Product Visibility
Jacob Broussardno, no, you're absolutely right. Um, they definitely don't uh make it easier sometimes. So, uh just a quick overview. So, there's two major components of SEO. You have your on-site, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's everything on your website from content to keyword utilization uh and keyword balance and interlinking, the list goes on. Uh, and then there's off-site SEO, which is everything off of your site that impacts it, which primarily, excuse me, is gonna be your what's called a backlink. So, if I put an article today on my website about Solar Blaster fans, and I put a hyperlink in that article to their site, I've just provided them a backlink. Uh, and so I would say this is about 40 to 55 percent of what SEO um is made up of in terms of impact, overall things that will impact your website. And so, uh a good starting point, um, you know, just I it varies from industry to industry, from city to city, because it just if your top competitor, the rank one spot only or rank one listing um only has 300 backlinks. I mean, then I wouldn't say it's as straightforward as getting 310 backlinks, but uh because quality comes into play and relevance and uh whatnot. But Solar Blaster fans has 532 backlinks. Um, it's a solid starting point. Uh, just looking through some of the backlinks initially, um, they have good quality. Uh, this is a great uh a great starting point, absolutely. Um excuse me, my computer was on do not disturb. I don't know my it's ringing, but um um and then in regards to the website, uh I'm pulling that up bear with me just a second. So I will so shed ventilation is one of the main uh keywords here. Uh and so I do have the keyword data pulled up, and nationally we're looking at about 1900 searches a month for shed ventilation. Um, and then shed air vents and varying terms also all um make up that 1900. Uh and then aside from that, or adjacent to that, uh for solar vent fan, we're looking at a thousand searches a month, or I'm sorry, solar vent fan for shed, a thousand searches a month. Uh solar.
ShannonSo, let's get let's jump into that, Jacob. A thousand people nationally are searching the keyword phrase solar shed uh ventilation.
Jacob BroussardCorrect. And then out outside of that, I mean, we still have another three or four thousand that are searching for shed ventilation alone, uh, just from varying terms, yeah.
ShannonSo, these people are searching for this. Dan has the solution, but are those two people meeting?
Jacob BroussardYeah, and that's a good question. Let's uh take a look.
CordWell, if you start to look here, Jacob, the first thing that comes up in my search, and this is a thing that you and I have been talking about a lot in sheds, but particularly when it comes to the actual shed products, the widgets, so to speak, um, which is the Google Merchant Center, right? It is uh how directly uh so I mean Solar Blaster, at least by my looking here, comes up as the you know top rated right after the sponsored uh Amazon. So, it's right here, but not necessarily featured inside of the actual Google shopping function, the merchant center function, right? So, I mean this right here, if we were just kind of doing an off-the-cuff evaluation for you, Dan, the first thing I would say is we need to figure out why you're not indexing. Do you do you have a direct, let me click on your website, do you have a direct purchase option attached inside of your website, or is it more lead capture and uh you know, like learn more or some kind of a uh uh lead form type of a thing?
Dan RheaumeI believe we're direct purchase.
CordYeah, you've got it in there. I'm I've scrolled down and I'm finding it here. So, it's really to me, might just be like uh is that reporting you know directly to because we're definitely getting a we're definitely getting a mismatch between just how well his uh website does, but then not showing up in the shopping function. So, now I'm scrolling through uh the actual Google shopping. We get you down here.
Jacob BroussardAre you in the um are you in the organic uh area or the top and the sponsored products?
CordI did both. So, I went through sponsored products first and now I've clicked into shopping. And Dan is showing up about oh, I don't know, maybe three scrolls down. So, uh Solar Blaster, ridge blaster uh is about three lines down, and it's well branded. You've got the you've got the uh the Solar Blaster logo.
Jacob BroussardIf when you look up shed ventilation, you're gonna see sponsored products at the top. That's gonna be advertisements. So, those are paid listings um from in within Google Merchant, but then you also have your traditional just organic uh product listings, and you can toggle over to Google Shopping to see those. And once again, you're gonna see sponsored products at the top. Those are paid ads. Um, and there's uh definitely benefit in that, right? So, if you're somebody that needs lead or needs purchases right now, uh and you can you can flip the cost for the advertisement, um, it that's a good option. But if you're someone that has an established um that you're just established, right? And you don't you're not in urgent need of purchases today, uh then optimizing your current product pages is something well one way or another, I would optimize the current product pages, right? Uh that's gonna have long-term benefit. Um, but and then ads are there if you need that short-term uh kick up in sales.
ShannonChristopher, do you want to jump in here?
Cutting Report Noise With SMART Goals
Christopher SedlakYeah, so maybe I'm gonna take this from a little bit of a different angle, but when I listen to David initially, and you tell me if I'm wrong with this, I just sense overwhelm in the amount of reporting metrics he has. Am I wrong on that? Correct.
Dan RheaumeNo, that's correct. Um, just a quick side. Um, I got more analytics yesterday from her work yesterday. I cut I cut out, we were advertising 2600 bucks a month. I cut out 600 yesterday. I'm just you're right, overwhelmed. Um I was returning five dollars and forty-six cents for every dollar I spent, though. So, that's a good trade. But it's not the problem, is you've got to grow so much to pay for this. You have to you can't just coast along, you've got to grow. And if if the this work isn't resulting in growth, um you're throwing money down the drain. Correct. Yeah. So I'll just tell you, um Shannon, I was spending two days a week, which was costing me a thousand bucks a week, four thousand bucks a month with Christy, as you I'm telling you, because we you know um were open about uh who we're working with and what we're doing. I don't know if I'm better off now taking that money and shoveling it over to you guys, and this is why I haven't jumped on it yet, is it seems like it is. We're getting a new perspective, uh breadth of knowledge that we don't have. I just don't feel like everything can come from Claude. We can do what Claude says all day, and I don't know if that's uh uh increasing every increasing the business for every um dollar I spend, I've got to sell three up more than I'm so it has to increase, otherwise it's so anyhow. That's that.
Jacob BroussardYeah, well, can be hallucinated. Go ahead, Chris.
Christopher SedlakYeah, so I was just gonna say, Dan, uh, you know, when you do your annual planning, do you ever set SMART goals at all? Are you familiar with that concept? No, okay. So SMART is the acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Okay. So basically each year saying, okay, I'm gonna have like two or three goals I want to have for my business, and I'm gonna spell out uh for each of those particular metrics what it is that I'm wanting. And then basically backporting and saying, what is it that's actually gonna move the ball the best for these? Because if I'm sending you a report, the last thing I want to be doing is sending you information that is not directly related to those goals that you have. So, basically we end up talking about hey, what are maybe like the top five KPIs or key performance indicators that we need to be talking about every single month to go ahead and move that ball forward? Because everything else is noise that's around that, right? At the end of the day, the number of clicks that came to your website, while maybe that's exciting to Jacob and maybe to me, but if it's not actually moving the ball and actually getting lead forms filled out, that's the metric that you're most interested in if it's increasing sales 5% next year. So, everything to me, uh, from the perspective of, you know, us geeks, if you will, yes, we love data and we love swimming in the data and figuring all that stuff out. But for you as the business owner, that's noise. And maybe some of those noise factors are important in moving the ball forward. But at the end of the day, what are you coming to an agency for? You're coming to an agency to basically say, what can you do to help me increase my sales? And that's all that matters at the end of the day. So, having those five KPIs, having those two or three smart goals for the year hopefully would take you out of that um swimming in all of this data that's out there and saying, I don't even know what a lot of this means.
Dan RheaumeYeah, I can digest it. I I'll show you something. That where is it? Where is it? I don't know. Oh we're gonna go this way. There, there's my board. Okay. That board last week was full of ideas to grow the company. Things just line items that we're gonna grow the company. That board right now is empty. I erased the entire thing. Um there because of some of this AI and some of this new stuff began to be too much clutter. Saying, man, I'm not gonna grow my business focusing on all these little line items, starting a uh this kind of program or that kind of program or a warranty program, or you know, or a database program. I learned last week that I'd spent six thousand dollars on a Shopify database that I thought was gonna go to the 3,700 uh uh spreadsheeted researched roofing companies and shed companies, container companies that my wife had researched, that we sent actual uh mailers, cell mail to um nope, Shopify website won't do that. Only existing customers or past, existing or past customers. And then if you send them, like we sent them our blog post, was which I feel was fantastic to get out to our previous customers that they would tell their friends. If you get one kickback where they unsubscribe, it flags you to the point where I don't know what the result is, you guys know better than I do. But it's like what one guy says they don't want to subscribe, and I can't send them any more information. The 600 or 900, 1100 that I do have already. It's such a convoluted, you know, and it spent six thousand dollars on that just took the win right out of my sales, right? What was I buying for that money? And that's where the board went away or think I'm not buying anything anymore unless I can feel and see that it's gonna show me an actual return.
Christopher SedlakThat's right.
Dan RheaumeOtherwise, I might as well just pick up the phone every day and start calling those 2,700 people five or six a day, and say, Hey, this is Dan. Like to introduce myself because that's the old way that I always did it, and it worked.
Christopher SedlakSo, Dan, there's always gonna be an aspect to marketing of throwing the mud on the wall and seeing what's gonna stick.
Dan RheaumeYeah.
Christopher SedlakBut the goal would be to do that in an informed way, based on some market research and based on past experience, to say, okay, so we're gonna throw the mud on the wall. We got a 50% chance of this sticking or 75% chance of this sticking, rather than just throwing it and like you just said, throwing money away that probably was never going to bring you sales in the first place.
Dan RheaumeYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, good point. All good points. So you've got, yes, for sure.
ShannonWell, you have a unique situation, Dan, where you know, marketing and advertising are two different things. And no, you're good, you're good. Uh, advertising is something that Dan does with us. And personally, I think that the industry has missed the mark on that. Uh, just because, like we say, we want good quality products, and I think it adds value versus a static vent. But we've got two or three podcasts with Dan where we've talked about this. Um, so advertising that's different. Marketing and getting him in front of people. We have a unique situation where we have a podcast that advertises to the B2B side, but Dan's both trying to uh accomplish the B2B and the B2C side. He's trying to get this product on sheds that you sell as a shed dealer or as a shed manufacturer. And the reality is it adds value to your shed with minimal increase to the customer, but the value that it offers outweighs it. So we're not just trying. To market to the industry with Dan's product, which is much more unique uh than a shed, but it also fits the same bill. I mean, ultimately, you're trying to get to the consumer. Uh, the consumer in this case is either the end user and you go direct to market with them, or you do it through the shed manufacturer who already sells these things. So, you got to add value and show the value to the manufacturer. Because, like, now they've got to change up their jigs, they've got different processes that they have to accomplish by putting these on here. But Dan addresses all of that in his previous podcast episodes. And me and Cord were just talking this morning about Gary V's famous saying about how success leaves clues. We've laid it all out there on the podcast for the last five or six years, what these things are. So, like, if you listen to them, and I know that sounds like a pitch to just have you go listen to our podcast, but the reality is it's free. You don't pay anything to listen to this. Like, we want to add value, adding value comes back on us. That's through advertising or through marketing or through rent-owned clients or whatever. So it still comes down to you know, Dan's been out here. Dan, I know you already work with multiple shed manufacturers across the country.
Dan RheaumeRight, right. You know, we do. Uh and they um they are using our product uh to the benefit of their customers. It's you know, and it helps them with their sales to create an advantage. But what we've laid out is what we believe is the future. Um and as an example, uh, when I first uh got here to Fountain Hills, Arizona, I uh went and visited all the tough sheds in the state. And they wanted at one point our product, had committed to our products and our light products. And they sent me back a paper one day with a ridiculous price they were willing to pay. It was just below my cost, and they wanted free shipping. Um which I just said no to because I thought, well, that corporate thing, you know. Um but the point being is they're still installing uh turbines on their sheds. I drive by their lot all the time, and here's turbines up on their sheds, those big balls spinning turbines. They haven't jumped into the future. Is that because the cost? Is it because the cost factor, as you say, shed the cost is minimal to the benefit it offers to customer and to the shed itself? I mean, the use and enjoyment of the shed itself, not counting the other benefits, you know, the preserve preservation of the shed, the reduction of heat, the reduction of moisture, all those benefits. So that just begs the question is how do you get to kind of pierce that kind of veil to show them, hey, this is the future, this is how it's gonna be done, whether it's in my lifetime or beyond, it will be done this way. The turbine vent is not gonna be there forever.
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Final Takeaways And Free Consult Invite
ShannonOkay, so uh as you guys can see, we're down to three because people have work to do, they have things to do. So, we're gonna start wrapping up the podcast. We kind of wrapped up things with Dan. Uh, this is what happens with technology when you try something new. We actually had four or five people attempt to come on. Here we are trying to have a podcast while uh letting people in and letting people out. And there was just it was impossible to fit everybody in uh all at once to have the discussion. Again, two hours. That's a long time out of our day to ask anybody to take and uh spend time on here going through the details of this. But just know that if you ever want to have these conversations, if you want us to go through these things, we are an agency that focuses on education. So, we'll do this. We'll sit on here with you and talk about your website, talk about your ads. We didn't even get into the conversation of ads really that heavy. I wanted to get through Google Ads and Meta Ads and CRM and bring Joe in and talk about them over at Velocity, uh, our exclusive partner in CRMs, who does an absolutely excellent job by the way, and gets good results. Um, we learned through this process today. We're not looking to do a bunch of live podcasts. Uh we just had this idea today and said let's run with it uh because we thought we could add value to people who listen and learn more about marketing. Um everybody's got work to do over here, as do we, as do we guys. So, thank you for hopping on here. I don't want to make it sound like you guys aren't busy because you're sticking around with me. Uh, it's just the way our schedules worked out. But maybe let's put a bow on today, David and Jacob, and round out, finish out the podcast. Um, what do you guys think about some of the conversation today? Where can we improve and where do you think we can help add value to people?
Jacob BroussardWell, I think something uh and it may not be exactly answering that question, but something I wanted to highlight, if that's okay, is how AI is making a lot of things easier. But I mean, Dan was the perfect call-in, right? Of and unfortunately, you know, they're having issues because of AI and all of the data that they're getting, right? So AI isn't always going to be the answer. In fact, AI can kind of throw you into this whirlwind where or this tailspin because what you know to be correct or what your gut is telling you, and you have a and Claude is the and the leading model. I mean, truly. I mean, it is what I use AI. Yeah, and so and but they they're wrong sometimes. It's whether it's a matter of not having the right context, or sometimes it's just because it's a machine and or a program, and it's just wrong because it's hallucinating. Um, and so it can make things worse. And so, I think that's where having you know somebody on your side or a team of people on your side that that know the ins and outs, and uh this is gonna be important.
ShannonYeah. David, what are your thoughts uh about today and how we can help people?
David MorseI think if we were gonna wrap this up into one general statement, been on here for a long time this morning doing this this recording. If people come away with anything, they're gonna learn that marketing does not just happen. We talked about at the beginning from the logo and the brand design, and we didn't even get all the way through. Marketing doesn't happen, it has to be a planned and coordinated process. You may not do it by yourself. You know, you look at everyone, you may be good at selling sheds, you may be good at you know what you do on your lot, you don't have to do it by yourself. Um, you know, look at it as an investment in your business. Will you spend some money? Yes. But if you're throwing away money because you're trying to do it yourself and you don't know what you're doing, you're just throwing away money. Find somebody that knows what they're doing, find somebody that can bring value to your business, find somebody that can help show you how to get the return on the investment. Don't just do it by yourself, unless you're good at it. If you're good at it, great, do it yourself. But not everybody's good at everything.
ShannonWe lost you there for just the last few seconds, but I think we got the gist of it. We're just full of all the technical glitches here uh uh today. This is the downside. I mean, technology's ever increasing. I mean, Apple was the first trillion dollar company, I think I read, and they put out updates. I mean, I have this phone, put out updates constantly, you know. Like I look, I mean, I'm convinced I have worse service today than I had 20 years ago. We're still figuring things out. I mean, the reality is uh tech is not always the answer, but it can't be ignored either. Uh, and like marketing extends past uh traditional ad placement and throwing a sign out front. Nothing wrong with those things whatsoever. But you know, we all know just based off of keyword, you know, uh uh research. I mean, just the practice you just did there with Dan, Jacob, like a thousand people plus another three or four thousand people are looking some very uh Googling every month in the United States some variation of shed uh uh ventilation, not ventilation for my home. I'm sure that's a much bigger search, right? Just four sheds in America, three to four thousand people a month are searching. And so, then you ask yourself if I'm a manufacturer, should I have this product? Does it matter to the customer? Well, it matters to three to four thousand people a month on just those variations of keywords. Now, if you went out a little further, you may find that 10,000 people a month are searching for some variation of that. Uh uh, so imagine what sheds looks like, or sheds near me, or sheds in my town. Like there are people who are taking the mantle and saying, well, we're gonna be speed to lead, race to face, whatever you want to call it. We're gonna be the first person that whenever they Google or Bing or whatever, whatever they're using, whatever search engine they're using, wherever they're finding information for their question, there's people who are saying, we're gonna be the answer. We're gonna be the first one to talk to them, and we've at least got a shot at selling them a shed because we're gonna be the first one in line. That's where the CRM comes in, right? Like, you know, that's where I really wanted to talk with Joe was like to get that conversation about you know, speed delete, get to them first. Joe preaches it all the time. First one to answer in 60 seconds, you're gonna have the majority of the opportunity to sell. Um, all the rest of the stuff is all the stuff that you still already know. Promoting your colors, your styles, your sizes, the availability of delivery. Uh uh let's get on and 3D design it. All those things still exist. But generally speaking, you want to be the first one taking up market share in your area. So, I like your comment, David. You know, to put a bow on it, marketing doesn't just happen. It's a strategy. Uh, it's planned. Uh, there's actually an approach to it, and hopefully we could be that solution for you. Um, you know, I hope we offered some clarity today. There's nothing I'd love to do more than do some assessments of shed companies who would be willing to come on a podcast and we could get some or all of the team back on and be a little bit more prepared this time because we just did this on a whim today. Uh, if we could actually plan for looking through your site and if you'd be willing to let us air that, we're more than more than happy to do that as a free consultation so that you can see it. So, uh reach out to us, give us a call. Our heart is to help. Yes, we need to make money. Uh, you know, we have to pay our bills. David, you like to pay your bills? You know, I do like to pay my bills. So, there's a cost to it.
David MorseBut we like to eat too. So, you know.
ShannonI well, we I know me and you like to eat. There's no question about that. Uh, and always joy it whenever we do get together to do that. Uh, but the there the reality is, you know, we want to we want you to make more money than you're than you're spending. There's a you know, we want you to have a good ROI. Like the marketing should be thought of as an investment. It should not be a never-ending spend. And if that's what you're experiencing, like we've been getting here lately, some of the some of the invoices I'm seeing for some of the people who've contacted us lately, it's just it's wild. And I'm not trying to harp on price because if they do a good job, then they're worth every dollar. Uh, the problem is they don't know because they're like, I don't even know what I'm what is this $2,000 for? It's a it says this, but I don't even know what that is. What is that? So that that's a problem. Like, you need to know what you're spending on, and you need to know how to measure what you're spending. So, I'm gonna put a I'm gonna put a fork in it. It's done, David. Uh I think this podcast is finished. I've taken so much of y'all's time today. Um, appreciate each and every one of you guys. I know several of the other uh team members had to leave. They got things to do, as do you guys, I'm sure, including David, it's lunchtime. It is. All right. Uh I would ask for final thoughts, but I think we've uh went long enough. If you guys ever need anything or you'd like to do a consultation, or if you'd like to do uh uh, you know, just run through some thoughts about your marketing and how we can help, give us a call over here, 618-309-3648, or go fill out a lead form on our website, shedge.com. Uh, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. You've seen the faces that help uh create the behind the scenes part that we usually keep hidden. Uh, but this is our team, and uh we look forward to working with you. So, thank you guys so much for listening. Uh, thank you guys all for joining me on this podcast today. Uh and till next time, thanks for listening to the Shed Geek Podcast.
OUTROToday'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@shedgeek.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.