Shed Geek Podcast

The Art of Business Adaptation and Growth in the Shed Industry PART 1

• Shed Geek Podcast • Season 4 • Episode 1

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When life throws a wrench in the works, it's the stories of resilience that light the way. Today's conversation with Shannon Latham, the shed industry's trailblazer and host of the Shed Geek Podcast, is a beacon of hope for anyone facing their own pivot points. As Shannon reminisces about the leap from purchasing to podcasting, we uncover the rich tapestry of personal struggle and triumph. The chat isn't all heavy; our shared laughter about fashion faux pas and inventive ad ideas reminds us that humor is a crucial companion on the road to success.

Shedding light on the business side, Shannon brings a wealth of knowledge in innovative financial strategies. We probe the nuances of leveraging private equity and Rent-To-Own models, recognizing the importance of adapting in an ever-fluctuating economy. The discussion pivots to marketing magic, where Shannon's tales from Shed Geek Marketing unfold strategies that help businesses escape the hamster wheel of tradition. It's these golden nuggets of wisdom that could spell the difference between thriving and merely surviving.

We cap off this part of our chat with a glimpse into the daily dance of an RTO rep—a role that's both intricate and influential. While we don't claim to have all the answers, starting the conversation is the first step to demystifying this aspect of the shed industry. Stay tuned for the episode's continuation, where we promise more insider insights, heartfelt stories, and perhaps a few more chuckles with Shannon, the guru who's guiding sheds out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

Also, find out how the podcast can be heard throughout the plain communities by dialing the number 330-997-3055. If the number is busy, just dial again! 

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

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube at the handle @shedgeekpodcast.

To be a guest on the Shed Geek Podcast visit our website and fill out the "Contact Us" form.

To suggest show topics or ask questions you want answered email us at info@shedgeek.com.


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Studio Sponsor: Union Grove Lumber

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Shed Geek Marketing

Dylan Street:

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the shed geek podcast. I'm your host, Dylan street.

Dylan Street:

And today we're sitting with a very um interesting individual heavy handed in the shed industry.

Dylan Street:

Uh, his name is Shannon Latham. Shannon, do you want to give a quick introduction to the audience?

Shannon Latham:

I like the. I like the intro heavy. Did you say heavy handed?

Dylan Street:

I guess it just rolled off the tongue, that's just how it came.

Shannon Latham:

You go with whatever works.

Dylan Street:

That's right.

Shannon Latham:

So you're playing the role of host today. That's right, shed geek, I love the outfit.

Dylan Street:

It's very impromptu. It looks really good yeah.

Shannon Latham:

How weird do you feel without a belt and suspenders, though?

Dylan Street:

How weird is it that you carry multiple options of these around your bag?

Shannon Latham:

Weird is that I'm going to say very, very strange One of a kind yeah, Um, um one of a kind. I guess you'd say that's right.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, it looks good on you.

Shannon Latham:

I like the orange the orange and the black work Good.

Dylan Street:

I like it, maybe kind of feel like I'm representing Vienna uh high school.

Shannon Latham:

Oh yeah.

Dylan Street:

Vienna basketball team. The Eagles shout out to them.

Shannon Latham:

So how will, how will like Sierra react? If you just like come home and you got the bow tie and suspenders, is she going to be like, yeah, go with it full time?

Dylan Street:

She would probably just like, glance as I come in the door and just like, and then go back to doing what she's doing.

Shannon Latham:

You know what's the up to now?

Dylan Street:

Yeah, you really never know. Yeah, I love it.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, it's probably every having me on the show today. Yeah, you're very well. It's a lot for me to be here anytime.

Dylan Street:

Maybe we'll get you on another time real soon. You know, we'd love to have you again. Love to have you again.

Shannon Latham:

So what are we doing today?

Dylan Street:

Yeah, that's a. That's a good question, man. So you know, I've just been, I've been hearing your name a lot in the industry. It just seems like everywhere I go, your name's just always popping up. So I just wanted to bring you on and just like, see what, what do you got going on? What's new, Anything groundbreaking that's coming up that that we, as a what was? I had a. I had a name for a shed, shed consumers, shed consumers. Do you have anything for us? Can you give us something? What you got going on? You know what? This?

Shannon Latham:

reminds me of. Have you ever seen the YouTube video of Chris Rock, or not? Or not?

Dylan Street:

Chris Rock Getting slapped by Will Smith oh not that one.

Shannon Latham:

Um, I said Chris saw the rock and then, uh, Kevin Hart in the ice bath. When they make fun of each other.

Dylan Street:

Oh, no, no, no.

Shannon Latham:

That's what I feel like. You have to watch that on YouTube whenever they're making fun of each other. That's the energy I feel with this. Uh, so yeah, what's going on? What's new?

Dylan Street:

Man.

Shannon Latham:

So well, we kind of talked about it on the shed geek marketing episode that me and you did, and it's really just like trying to trying to create your narrative, like and I really have chewed on that for, from thought, just over and over and over that comment creating your own narrative, not letting the industry create it for you. And I think part of that's been like you know work, what do you do in the industry? You know, whenever I met the industry I was working in in RTO. Uh, and I say, when I met the industry, I technically started in in um purchasing.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

And then sold for a while and just you know all the stuff right. But then figuring out these different knacks, like, and really having like this desire to just see the industry move forward but also be part of the industry, so you got to, you got to understand Dylan, like, for me, like the, the, the, the, the shed geek podcast is sort of a media spot, yeah, or at least that's what some people have called it, and I'm like I don't know if I go back to the origin and the origins of like where it started, why it started, how it started, and I can go through that story, um, if I haven't told it already. But you know, for me it's like, what does it look like longterm? My, my passion is to do this podcast. Sure, I loved doing this podcast and I love being able to connect with people. That genuinely makes, like, my heart happy.

Shannon Latham:

But then it's like trying to figure out how to scale it. Yeah, you know, yeah, um, so, like I got, I got thrust into a you know, doing this, you know, originally without any intentions to monetize it or just didn't have the vision to monetize it, didn't know what it was going to turn into, just wanted to do something cool and felt like it was needed and then all of a sudden it became a necessity, right? Yeah, you know a lot of people don't know that story. They don't might not even know my story in general you know, which my my testimony I'd love to speak on sometime.

Shannon Latham:

But that came to be where the podcast sort of became a necessity. So begin selling advertising and that's just kind of an odd space. You know, I don't I don't do it like Marty does or Gary does. I mean, with those guys do they do best? You know I don't have a desire to be in like the magazine business or or whatever you know. Um, so with those guys do they they do best. But they sort of have an endless supply of like advertisers they can take on you, add new pages.

Shannon Latham:

We're kind of limited in that, without doing like five podcast a day or a week. And I don't know that we're going to talk Sheds five days a week. Maybe we can. But then you have to ask yourself, beyond that, even you've listened to the podcast, is it? It's Sheds, it's Sheds. But then we talk about faith. Yeah, we talk about everything about Sheds, yeah. So, like it's been kind of weird for for for people to come to me and be like man, it's kind of like your style. I got, I got an offer to do another podcast, you know where somebody's like hey, we want to pay you to be the face or whatever of this and I'm going over it in my head like gosh. Does that make sense? Should I do that? Yeah, what? There's just been cool opportunities, um, from day one. I mean opportunities to work for companies work for other media companies, rent-to- own companies. So, like I,

Dylan Street:

You know, what's interesting is that until you do something for yourself, nobody ever sees your value.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, that's a good word, man, that's a good word. Like I've been scared my whole life to like jump out and do things on my own because you know, you want certainty, you want you know, like in business, that's what everybody wants, is a proven process.

Shannon Latham:

But it's so funny because it's kind of intuitive to, like my nature, everyone in my personality test come back as a, as a, you know, a trailblazer or whatever. They come back is like and you think, well, is that real? Well, I mean, I started a podcast where there was no podcast because I was like it doesn't matter to me if it works or not. I enjoy this, so I'm going to do it. And then it turned into this cool thing. But it's turned into other cool opportunities, whether it be jobs and all and all that. What's funny and I want to get into my personal testimony, but maybe we can, you know is that's the one thing that evaded me for most all of my life.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

You know, like I've got a family, I've been with my high school sweetheart. I was just showing you pictures of me and Deanna in 1996.

Dylan Street:

Senior mullet.

Dylan Street:

And my mullet, yeah, yeah.

Shannon Latham:

She's going to post a picture of my mullet now for everybody to see.

Dylan Street:

I already know what she's going to do when she's editing. That's all the grease you put in your hair. I saw it, the grease. And now your hair can't even grow.

Shannon Latham:

Business in the front, party in the back. Man you know? Hey, those were cool at one point, you know.

Dylan Street:

They're, they're back.

Dylan Street:

I don't know if you know that, but they're back, they're a little more like bushy in the front and they're different. I don't know.

Shannon Latham:

I can do a mullet now. Maybe a skull, it ain't that what they call them, I don't know yeah. Or you just pretty much know, hair on top and hair in the back.

Dylan Street:

I'm starting to get some receding peninsulas up here a little bit.

Shannon Latham:

Well, your eyes going bad yeah, that's the biggest thing my eyes just getting worse and once I hit 30, things started falling apart. But yeah, it's been, it's been kind of um, it's just been an interesting journey. You know, that's the one thing I couldn't find. Fulfillment in family was good, you know, especially whenever I found, you know, a God and like not not God that I was even taught as a young boy because I felt like it was taught different than what I really like I experienced, you know, and how a relationship with God and my savior, jesus Christ, became a an imperative thing in my life, right, so, like those things felt good, like my spiritual, you know, things felt good. And really I didn't even find that until I found myself at the absolute end of my rope.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, going to work, you know, I left the casino, took another job. Sure man, I was miserable. I was miserable and I was actually driving down Interstate 57 one day going to work. And you know I this is sensitive stuff and I don't really talk about this super often, but it seems like I'm giving the avenue here for to just move forward. I don't feel any reason not to talk about it, but you know that there was a really a low point in my life where I just could not be happy with career.

Shannon Latham:

I felt like with a dad growing up where he talked about how you got to work and work hard and and all that stuff and how you're going to have to work hard your whole life, and a lot of people identified their self as a man around your career. Sure, you know, with women a lot of times it was like family and stuff like that, but it was like why can't I find contentment in my career, why can't I be happy in my career and just find fulfillment or whatever you know. So I found myself, you know, struggling financially, emotionally, spiritually, you know all the stuff, and was. Was that a really bad place in my life? I don't talk about too often. Where I was was contemplating, you know, like ending my life, because I was like man, I don't see any value in me, I'm moving forward, and I felt like I had wrecked everything. You know, here I had a home, I had a family and all these things, but I didn't have. I wasn't happy.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, I guess your purpose heavy. Yeah, couldn't find your purpose, couldn't find it at all.

Shannon Latham:

I didn't know. It didn't have a clue about what it would be or what to do and things like that. And, and believe it or not, actually called a buddy of mine, Chris. Yeah, Didn't answer his phone. Dog on at Chris. Dang it, Chris.

Dylan Street:

So, Chris man, and then I thought about I take my Vianna shout out back.

Shannon Latham:

But but yeah, I, I, I don't know. I was looking for people to call and reach out to and just talk to you, and I actually call my mom. Yeah, it's funny, this is like one of the most powerful things I can remember and I can finally, all these years later, say it now without crying. But I remember telling my mom, just breaking down to her and just like boom, laying it out there on the table and being like I feel worthless. Yeah, I feel worthless as an individual. Yeah, you know.

Dylan Street:

I.

Shannon Latham:

I, I feel like I don't even deserve my place here. You know what I mean on earth. I've got you know and that's maybe that's because I was just, you know, so focused on purpose and to me, purpose and career and all that stuff kind of run together again as a man.

Shannon Latham:

You know, I tried going back to college. I got like almost finished my associates in business and then we here, here, here, I here, I eat through high school and then I crave knowledge. When I went back to college, yeah Right, and, and I had a like a 4.0 GPA, I was super excited. Things are good. We ran out of money. I didn't get to finish my associates degree and I was like, oh man, I had all these dreams to like be in business. What does that mean? Everybody asked you like what are you going for?

Shannon Latham:

Like business? What do you want to do?

Dylan Street:

I don't know Run somebody's business, I guess.

Shannon Latham:

You want to run your own. I don't know, I can't afford to do that. How would I do that? So there was, like all these questions, and I called my mom and I told her I said I feel worthless. And this is kind of tough for me to say, but I just never will forget the words of my mother saying you're not worthless, you are my son.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

And just broke me down.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, I thought you were going to say something like suck it up, boy. I didn't know. I'm not saying she wouldn't say that, yeah, you're going to cry, I'll give you something. You cry. That's a dad phrase.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, yeah.

Dylan Street:

I'm not trying to make a light.

Shannon Latham:

No, you're good.

Dylan Street:

You're good.

Shannon Latham:

You know, if you can't, if you can't, laugh it at life, man gosh, what are we doing? But anyway, I just so like I remember my mom saying that said you're not worthless, you're my son. It meant so much to me she said it in that moment that I just remember being like you know, I cried all the way to work. I remember I'll laugh at myself too. I remember going to a bathroom at a gas station in Marion and I was literally having like a mental breakdown, right Like I'm walking in and I'm staring in the mirror and I just started bawling. And I'm in this busy gas station looking in the mirror at myself.

Dylan Street:

At the pilot while guys are brushing their teeth? What?

Shannon Latham:

is this guy doing? I started bawling at this. One guy walked in and just looked at me and walked out.

Dylan Street:

How you got time for this today.

Dylan Street:

I was like oh no, it's probably a pastor Just left the hospital in Marion.

Shannon Latham:

It's like I don't want to deal with this guy today. It's too much God, it's too much of my play. So I remember I went in and I quit my job. I do. I remember I quit my job and I went home and I was like I don't know what I'm going to do. I talked to my wife and I said, yeah, I just feel like I'm at a at the end of my rope. I just don't know what I'm going to do. And of course, she supported me. And the next day I woke up and I called a friend of mine. He's actually I think I've mentioned him on the show before. You know, jonathan, he used to be logistics manager for Graceland, but he was, you know, he was a bit of a, a lot like me growing up.

Shannon Latham:

He wasn't a pastor you know, and this dude had changed his life and was living it and he's still to this day. I challenge anybody, he's like the most biblical sound guy I know. Sure, I mean just the just the. You know I envy the way he loves the word and gets into it and studies it. But anyway he said hey man, you know, come over here as this company and maybe I'll get you a job. And, you know, did his best and got me into purchasing and the rest is kind of history. You know I, I left there and went and did faith based drug and alcohol rehab but then ended up selling sheds and then the rest of the story kind of goes as is. But it kind of set me in this industry. It was like, you know, god hearing my purpose back then. But you know, I always thought, you know, maybe talking to people, maybe being a speaker you know, it's always funny to be like a motivational speaker. I don't think I'm very motivational, I think I'm more practical.

Dylan Street:

Sure.

Shannon Latham:

You know, but even recently I woke up and told somebody I think it was Gary Bontrager. I said man, I've been wanting to be a speaker and getting paid to speak for much of my life, and then I woke up one day and realized I've been doing that on a podcast for two years. Essentially you know, God just doesn't always do things in the way that you think they ought to be done.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, and I always remember this. It was a TD Jakes. He's a pastor out of Dallas and he was sitting with his son. It was Christmas Eve and his son came home. He had been in college for like seven years, so he was going on his eighth year and they were sitting by the fireplace talking and the son looks at him and he's like man, I just don't know if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And he was going to be. I believe it was a music, like a musical engineer or something like that. And he said to TD Jakes his dad. He said I just don't know if this is the thing for me. And then TD Jakes said which you know, everything he says is just like ah so good.

Dylan Street:

But he says, son, if it is not the thing, it'll be the thing that leads to the thing, and I've always liked that.

Shannon Latham:

How simple, how simple.

Dylan Street:

How simple is that Makes so much sense?

Shannon Latham:

SI remember going to that teen challenge in Cape and I think it's past our bubble and it does that over there. And I remember getting there and like that was one of the first ones that was open in like 1969 and I think Teen challenge was started in 59. Sure, so I mean, like they, this family in Cape, gave like 400 acres to this you know whatever organization. And I remember getting there and he was like man, there's all these people here, like three, 400 guys here. They got to feed them, they got all this, this big enterprise, you know it's all runoff donations and things like that. And I remember he was like I got here, we were about to shut the doors, oh yeah. And I was like no way. I was like well, what did you do to like change it? And I was ready and waiting and anticipating like this huge like.

Shannon Latham:

God moment where he was gonna be like oh well.

Dylan Street:

St.

Dylan Street:

Louis Rams dropped off four hundred million dollars. Yeah, like it always happens like that, I know this story.

Shannon Latham:

Go ahead it always happens like that, you know, like this big miracle happened that, if it wasn't, you know and? And I was like well, how did you change it? And he held his hands out and he said well, when I got here and for those of you watching on YouTube, this was, you'll appreciate this but he said, when I got here, our debt was right here and our money was like right here income.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, income was right here and I was like, yeah, and he was like I switched those. And I was like, come on, man, there's gotta be something more than that tell me about the big experience and he was like no, no, we started bringing in more money than we were putting out, and I was like. You know, sometimes it's the basics yeah you can't spend more than you make, business ain't gonna work dude, they kill it.

Dylan Street:

They the landscaping, car detailing through shops, them guys out there working and there's so much potential man, look, most of those guys that come in there grown and and have a know, a trade of some sort. Yeah, well, a lot of them are carpenters. Absolutely.

Shannon Latham:

How you know, I've always thought in my mind how can you capitalize on that at some point in the shed industry? Because everybody's looking for work and you know it's not just a Opportunity to capitalize on them but to pour into them, because those guys need, yeah, leadership, you know what I'm saying. So they need to be around, godly people. So, like you just kind of have to check your own stuff and be like am I hiring somebody for more than one purpose or whatever, but anyway, so, yeah, that's that's kind of. That's kind of led me to purpose and all that stuff, and then getting in and and starting at doing what I'm doing. So you know, ultimately, what are you doing? Man? We're gonna launch a rent- to- own company. Okay, so, like when it's, when it's all said and done, I've had to like think about that in great detail.

Shannon Latham:

It's probably a little, maybe even premature from what I was gonna do. I was gonna wait, you know, maybe six months to a year, man, I just really felt like it was the right time. You know, the opportunities were there. There's been tons of opportunities, don't get me wrong, and I appreciate those. And the reason I'm telling you this story is so that you guys can tie that back into my moment on the Interstate where I felt like I had no opportunity. Sure how weird that I have an abundance of opportunity now.

Shannon Latham:

So now it comes down to Selecting the right things and just trying to hear God and like trying to do and like people are gonna be like, oh no, he's trying to sell Jesus, there's rent-to-own company. You know what I mean. Like who's like hello, can you go? That's. That's really not the case. Yeah, I'm not. If you know, if I feel like this is something that does make us Competitive and and I'm in the industry I'm like the biggest thing I've had to think about, it's like, you know, how does this play an effect on other people who are connected with me or have been connected in any way? And I think we got some really cool things that we can kind of roll out today so that people understand. So I'm gonna let you be the host.

Dylan Street:

So is this rolling out? Like when is it rolling out?

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, so it's. I mean, it's pretty much Live. Now. There's a couple of pieces of the puzzle we're putting together so I had to take a look at like, well, what do I want it to mean for me? So part of that is with. These are just such big conversations I can't answer them in two sentences. I'm sorry, but like part of that is like who am I partnering with? So you know, there's investors. We want to encourage other investors if they're interested in in working with us.

Shannon Latham:

You want to have a. If you want to have a conversation about private equity and like how you can get return on that, you know we're open to have a conversation with you, sure? If you're like, hey, I want to, I want to invest into this, it's not my will just kind of make your checks out to Dylan.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, I think that's private if I understand it right.

Shannon Latham:

I think that's the rules. But you know, like I want to get you with the right people so that we're sec compliant and all that stuff. I don't want to be the guy yeah, because I'm not the guy, you know but but I try to make sure to partner with just like I partner with you and marketing, I try to make sure I partner with quality people who know that you know the job's gonna get done, they can, you know they're accountable, you know they're faith leads sort of their business.

Shannon Latham:

Anyway, yeah, the guys that I'm working with, and if you want to be a partner, you know we have the sustainability to move forward and grow now. So we've made sure that the money's there, and the way that we've done that is through private equity, Because I think private equity is going to be a way of the future. In RTO Leveraging bank financing, I feel like right now it's sure it's probably very valuable and you can continue to do it, but what concerns me are like conversations that you hear about companies pulling their loans right.

Dylan Street:

You know, what.

Dylan Street:

I mean, it's happening.

Shannon Latham:

You know we hear it with shed companies. There's one close to us now that I don't want to get sued here, so moving on Moving on.

Shannon Latham:

But you know there's. You just hear those conversations and you're like gosh, with rising interest rates, longer contracts, you know yield is less. So like, how can you control your money? Like, essentially, if you're leveraging bank financing with RTO, you're managing money, so you're a project manager in a sense. Right, so it's how well you can manage and then stay within the margins, whereas if you own your money, it's still sort of the same thought, but you're able to control, have a little more control with private equity. So we have that. But if you want to have a conversation and want to be part of that, we're happy to take you on. So maybe we're not doing your RTO, but maybe you're investing in the company and you have the ability to make some money even if your sales are down.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

Maybe the other side of the country is doing well, or whatever it looks like. So you know. So that's. That's one thing that I wanted to talk to the industry about. If you want to invest, contact me, We'll do all the stuff. We'll get all the lead forms and all that, but you can call me anytime you know or message me and we'll talk.

Dylan Street:

So there's that. Yeah, is there something else?

Shannon Latham:

Well, probably eventually. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think eventually we'll try to do a consultation leg, but it could be a year out, oh sure.

Dylan Street:

Sure.

Shannon Latham:

I mean, who knows?

Dylan Street:

I mean, I think it's going to be your like another rent-to-own company, Yippee.

Shannon Latham:

I've had to think about that. Trust me, what is going to be?

Dylan Street:

the differentiating factor, Like what are you going to do differently? Why should someone move over? I mean, these are the questions everybody wants to know.

Shannon Latham:

Well, there's times you reinvent the wheel and there's times you don't reinvent the wheel. You know, I would tell you the story our pastor told about, like the ham at Christmas time Pastor Tate.

Shannon Latham:

Yeah, I would tell you about that. You know, we're having a ham at Christmas and the daughter's cutting the ends off both sides of the ham and she's putting it in the crock pot or whatever in the pan. And she's like you know, mom, why did you always do that? I noticed that you, like you, should always cut the ends off the ham. Mom got thinking about it. She's like you know what? I've done that? Because mom done that. Let's call her up and let's ask her why.

Shannon Latham:

So the daughter and the mom calls with the grandma and they say, hey, we were just sitting here doing this and having this discussion about why we cut the ends off the ham. She did it. You know not, I do it, but well, done it because you did it. And she started laughing and she said you know you, poor girls, I did it because we didn't have a pan big enough to fit the ham, you know. And what he was saying was you know tradition and the way we got here. We should always pay homage to that, but doing things the way they've always been done Maybe isn't always the answer. So I feel like, whether I'm right or wrong, what I'm attempting to try to do is like usher in sort of new thought new ideas you know me and you've seen this marketing thing work really well.

Shannon Latham:

So so launching whether it be shed sales ideas, marketing, a podcast, it's like how do we take on Rantone? And I've really had to think about that. You know what you said. Marketing just give me a minute here. Marketing is kind of open. It's a little bit open right now in the industry in terms of like thinking about all that shed geek marketing does all the things that you are skilled at doing to be able to help. So you're not we're not even really like necessarily running into a lot of situations where we're we're having to take established businesses away from established businesses. A lot of our customers have been new customers. You've never done anything.

Dylan Street:

Sure A lot of them.

Shannon Latham:

You know, you find somebody who's like I'm just not happy with where I'm at and you have to have a talk and generally what we've done has been like, hey, try and make it right. If you can't make it right, then we'll be there. I feel like that's open season, so like there's a, there's a ton in my eyes for good marketing to come in and still have exposure in this industry. Yeah, um, rantone's way different. You know Rantone's pretty much most people are using somebody and then there's like all these nuances. There's a million conversations and rabbit holes we can probably go down.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

But. But the question is like so how are we? This is, this is one of the areas where I can't say a rising tide lifts all boats are. I can but like, we understand that, like, making the market share bigger in this situation is not necessarily super available. There's going to be a large portion of you taking market share If you become successful in this endeavor.

Dylan Street:

Absolutely.

Shannon Latham:

So like you really got to think about that and think it through thoroughly and be like oh no, what do I want that to look? Like. Like I want the person to know who they're working with, first and foremost. Like a lot of these guys talk to me and they're like man, we don't, we don't even talk to like who does our RTO in like a year. And I'm not dissing the people who do things that way, I'm just saying that's not me, Like I'm not going to be that guy.

Shannon Latham:

I don't want to, like, get to the point, to where You're just your relationship.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, absolutely so. So, but you're right, Cause I was just thinking about the conversation we had with a client the other day about how there's things that are pretty standard in the RTO world now that they never did no existed.

Shannon Latham:

Oh, it's competitive. I'll call it what it is. You know, rip the bandaid off and say it's it's super competitive. 10 years ago you could probably go around and sign people up, whatever. Now you have to compete and, like you know, you want to compete with morals.

Shannon Latham:

You know, there's all these talks about collaboration and different things and I'm like, oh, that's great, but there's competition still very valuable too. So, like one of the things we want to do is you know, dealer premium comes up a lot. Yeah, whenever I think about dealer premium, it's really interesting to be in conversations with people who?

Dylan Street:

how many manufacturer dealers have never heard of a dealer premium?

Shannon Latham:

Last time we talked dealer premiums, I had a phone call that said hey, you're going to have a. You're going to have a strange package show up on your doorstep by the end of the week. Yeah, donnie, don't open it. So, like I understand that it's controversial, just to educate people, oh snap, that was a threat. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, they, they weren't saying it.

Dylan Street:

They said like an RTO company is about to send anthrax to your door. I'm like whoa.

Shannon Latham:

I wonder if I anthrax booster from the military is still good.

Dylan Street:

Oh gosh, I have to ask them.

Shannon Latham:

No, they didn't call and do it that way. They were joking, saying some of these guys might not like it that you talk about these things and I'm like, well, that's, that's fine. But you know, Socrates was stoned to death because he educated the public, right, you know? So I mean to me like education is a good thing, Helps you make more decisions. If your business is based on keeping people in the dark.

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

They're going to find out eventually and the question is what are their, what's their attitude towards that? So for me, I'm just like uh, whenever I talk about it, I have people all the time be like what's the dealer premium?

Dylan Street:

And I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm not trying to be like what is the dealer?

Shannon Latham:

premium, then, really speaking, you know, rent-to-own is so, it's so competitive that a lot of times, you know, though, pay you extra if you're the manufacturer, um per contract.

Dylan Street:

Okay, I'm shed, geek, sheds.

Shannon Latham:

Okay.

Dylan Street:

Your RTO. I want my premium baby, let's go yeah.

Shannon Latham:

What? What? Well, you see you, you see a mixture, you know. You see some that are performance based, you see some that are just, you know, open. How give you 2%, 5%?

Dylan Street:

Yeah.

Shannon Latham:

And I've heard numbers go up to six, seven, 8%.

Dylan Street:

You know, I mean yeah.

Shannon Latham:

So, when you think about the, the amount of like, um, um, yield, that, the, the, the you're receiving, sure, and then you're giving so much of that back. Yeah, um, rent-to-own can be a lucrative business, but that's why it's not necessarily my primary job. Like, we also have the podcast, we also have marketing, we also have rent-to-own. We might eventually have consultation. There's like who knows, sure, I can't. You know you can't do it all, but I'm not really. I mean, you're the life of shed geek, marketing much of much of what you do. I mean you're the account manager on on all the accounts. So, like, we'll connect with them, but you're doing a lot of the work. So for me it's about getting out of the way and let you do a good job.

Shannon Latham:

It's not about trying to like go in and be like.

Dylan Street:

I just help project manage, yeah, yeah Well, you know.

Shannon Latham:

However, it works, yeah Right. So like there's it's the same way with rent-to-own, like it's very easy to kind of let people do what they're good at, you know, and and definitely maintain the relationship and make it clear on what the expectations are there's. I mean, I would say that RTO has such a big position in this industry because if you took it away, who knows how many shed sales would go away 50%, 40%, 30%. You know, you go up North, people say, well, it's only like 10%, 20% of my sales.

Dylan Street:

Yeah, but you go down south. South is like, it's like 70, 80% of our sales. That's right.

Shannon Latham:

So it can be very important, and that's probably not a perfect demonstration.

Shannon Latham:

There's salt and peppered examples in there, Sure but but generally speaking, yeah, it becomes a huge part of it so like and then that's that's very protective. And so the guys that are doing it or want to want to be very protective, maybe want to get you signed a no compete, sure you know. Maybe want to guarantee you work with them for a long time, maybe they put inventory out there for you so they, they sort of have some ownership. Maybe they actually have literal ownership in your company.

Dylan Street:

I mean, rto companies are buying companies now to guarantee that they can get the contracts, yeah, binding their inventory, yeah, all kinds of stuff.

Shannon Latham:

So it's very, it's very complicated. It's like do you want to jump into the world of that? Sure, and I'm like man, I've been in the world of that, I've been a you know, an RTO rep for for a long time and while I don't have everything completely figured out, it starts with a conversation. Yeah, you know, we, we obviously see similar legal counsel, just like everybody else. So, like, all the parts of the puzzle are there. Hey guys, thanks for listening to part one of a two-parter for shed geek Reynolds, when I don't a limb to do this episode and we got a little bit long winded, so hope you don't mind tune in tomorrow for the remaining of this episode. Thank you so much.