How She Sells Sheds and Makes $45K/Month
have you ever wanted to be so good at sales that you can actually sell a pen to anybody well susan today will teach us all the biggest secrets of sales she took what was a horrible experience when she was buying a shed for herself and decided to start her own company which is now one of the top shed dealers in the u.s we have a little red mini out here and we're giving it away you're giving away a car we're giving away a car can you maybe sell me this pen sure when i became a shed dealer i didn't know anything about the construction industry or how i was going to find a customer we put together processes that work and we're going to show you how you can do it too well susan tell us a little bit about your background when and why you started shed yell well interesting story about five years ago my husband built us a shed didn't turn out so well spent thousands of dollars decided to buy a shed and have it delivered we had a really horrific experience trying to buy a shed and decided that we would start selling them ourselves and we would do it differently when you did start susan what were some of the challenges that you were faced with initially you know biggest challenge not knowing the construction industry at all not knowing where we were going to get our customers how we were going to get our customers and not having a solid business plan when we started all right well let's leave the answers to what you did to change that later on in the videos you guys so keep watching what's the number one factor driving your growth i mean it's no joke to be one of the top u.s shed dealers yeah i think the biggest thing for us and and the other dealers that i see that are very successful is consistency it is about doing it and doing it regularly what is it right for us we use a lot of facebook marketing we use the free facebook marketplace we post multiple times a week we're in tons of different groups and that has really made a huge difference that is where the majority of our customers come from and and i don't see a lot of dealers doing that which is interesting [Music] susan let's talk more about your systems that you have for organizing and following up on leads yeah anything else that we need to touch on really good questions super important in this industry or any sales industry of course so we have an excel spreadsheet nothing special we have spreadsheets for everything so when a customer comes in we're putting down the date what we talk to them about their name their phone number their email and we usually call two or three days later send an email just to follow up and see what questions they have you mentioned a form that you use when you meet with a customer the customer information yeah she was a c-i-s-c-i-s there you go tell me a little bit about that did you design it we did your business we did you know there's a lot of information that we need to gather to make sure that we're putting together an accurate quote which everybody appreciates and so uh it's just an outline of a conversation but it's so critical to use and so we've you know we put that together it works fantastic and we use it 100 of the time will you be willing to share that form with us absolutely awesome we'll make sure we leave that in the description below [Music] where is shed gowns revenue last year and where are you monthly here today yeah so in addition to the graceland portable buildings we also represent several metal building companies so our total monthly revenue right now is between forty and fifty thousand dollars i expect this year it'll probably bump up at least 100 to 150 000 from that oh wow so for 2022 you're gonna be close to a million bucks it sounds like well i sure hope so in terms of leads and how you get more leads i want to dive more again sales marketing right you use facebook any other unique approaches that you do to generate more customers we have a lot of followers on our facebook page uh you know more followers than 95 of dealers with any company out there so we get a lot of customers through our facebook page again going back to that facebook marketing for us it's where it's at there could be ways that work just as well if not better but it works for us and we're killing it so why do you think you have more followers on facebook than others is it just goes down to consistency and yeah something else that you're doing we consistently post and we give away a lot of things and people know that's how we use our marketing money i think people appreciate the fact that we give back i could spend the same amount on whatever radio or newspaper that's number one it's not going to be as effective and number two it doesn't give anything to the people that have supported us over the last almost five years now wow i like that approach i think it's super successful you guys comment below tell us if you're doing that and how that's helped increase your business as well i see that your car has your logo logo all over logo on your shirt yeah let's talk about the importance of branding yeah and anything else you want to touch on that yeah definitely branding folks if i i cannot emphasize it enough get a brand and stick to it branding for us has set us apart it's the reason why we have so many facebook page likes because people know us by the shed gal and so i cannot emphasize enough get a brand have someone do your logo do a website put it on your facebook page and set yourself apart did you do it yourself or did you use someone like a graphic designer or things like that that's a graphic designer yes got it okay where did shed got come from the the just give us a quick summary and we'll come back to brandon yeah real quickly i had a couple of customers early on that said i couldn't remember your name i put you in my phone as the shed gal and that was it it was it just and that was it absolutely well you certainly did a great job thank you all over i want to give a shout out to our sponsor our new sponsor fiverr you guys it's the number one best platform for you to go to find web designers graphic designers and so much more and help with your branding and your business so go ahead and check out the link in the description below to get 10 off for our viewers what's the number one or couple mistakes that you think companies make that drives away customers and prevents them from making sales yeah i think it comes down to training and the lack of training of their team members which results in people feeling like they're being sold that's number five and that the used car sales experience that of course no one wants to deal with what was your revenue last year just gross revenue yeah between 500 and 600 000 total whoa we're talking some serious yeah opportunity to make oh yeah from zero to that in less than five years yeah absolutely and your commission structure how what is that structure like with grace yeah graceland so we get a percentage of each sale and with graceland portable buildings that's ten percent of the of the sale price do they set that or you gotta negotiate in that that is set okay yeah and that's pretty standard in the industry i see [Music] let's talk about your monthly budget right now where is that for marketing yeah and what platforms give you the best return on your investment interestingly enough our marketing budget consists of giving things away and so we probably average two thousand twenty five hundred dollars a month on uh giveaways and that's what we do for marketing tell me more about that elaborate because our viewers wanna know what do you mean by giveaway which platforms are you using instagram facebook we have a facebook page that we almost continuously have giveaways on we have a little red mini out here and we're giving it away you're giving away a car we're giving away a car okay this is awesome tell me what that does to your business and how it helps your business overall we like to give back and we like to help people for this contest in particular we're giving that card to someone who who really needs it but it brings you more customers it does bring me more customers you know we we have a good name people follow us they feel like they know us because we're out there on social media constantly it certainly drives up our numbers on facebook and our contacts and our sales ultimately [Music] susan pretty cool shed walk us through some of the highlights and unique aspects of yeah this particular model so this is a graceland portable buildings corner porch cabin it's a 14 by 28 all of our buildings are delivered intact which a lot of people don't realize that they're not built on site they you get your choice colors some of the things that set us apart in this industry is all our trusses are built with two by sixes with the two by four bottom rung that's not normal all of our buildings have a roof ridge vent that helps with air flow all of our buildings have a patented soffit system proven to keep the building cooler they're just the top of the industry i have a hard time calling this a shed i mean you could park this in the back yard and make it home why do you call it a shed i mean yeah graceland manufactures sheds now our customers uh use our buildings for all sorts of reasons we we have some buildings pictures of buildings that customers have done that when i say they're nicer than my home i'm not kidding they are absolutely stunned so you can do whatever you want with your shed wow [Music] you used to be a dealer for another uh shed builder yes you switched over to graceland we did let's talk about why that was an important decision for you as a business person yeah the the other company we were there for a year we were their number one dealer we sold more sheds than all their other dealers combined that brought problems yeah it just did it brought quality they just were not set up to run that amount just because you were moving so much yes absolutely we had not seen the graceland portable buildings before we went to another dealer had i seen them we would have been a graceland dealer right off the bat but we switched because graceland has the highest craftsmanship portable buildings in the country and not only that they have great prices but when we switched it wasn't about the price it was about how they built their buildings and how they do business that made our decision super easy to come here so the quality difference was pretty substantial it's they all look the same drive when you drive by you got to come in and see us our taglines check out the rest and check out the best we encourage customers to go look at other companies we want you to get the most value for your money that's awesome it's a good way to run a business let's go through your sales process somebody shows up your doorstep we talked about the the form uh what else do you want to highlight in terms of a to z you know what major steps do you take questions that you always ask what are some highlights you know what style are they interested in what size what what roof style do they have a color in mind do they have any access issues those are things we ask each and every time to qualify to see if we're able to even help them right so i order something yes it doesn't exist how long does it take for for uh graceland to produce it yeah that varies greatly uh very covet has wreaked havoc right on on the material supply chain and any any company that's selling a lot of buildings has a long lead time it could be 12 16 20 weeks right now but people are still buying sales skyrocketed when covet started so if i order now i won't have my shed for a couple months at least yeah exactly i see so well worth the wait how much do you have on on in queue right now yeah for delivery oh god remember we have hundreds of buildings waiting you know we're in queue yeah you're between washington and yeah we're in washington and arizona the shed gal yeah yeah [Music] for someone new to sales yeah how can someone learn to see things from the customer's perspective boy that's that's super important you have to be able to have empathy and put yourself in their shoes and walking in their shoes you know people are spending a lot of money with us we call around other dealers and other companies and it's not about price checking it's about seeing when they talk to you on the phone how do they answer are they asking your name are they asking you any questions are they just you know throwing up a price to you and so we do a lot of training behind the scenes with our teams because we want them to treat people differently than what happened when i was trying to buy a shed do you use any particular schools resources to train your staff so we actually put together a 52-page shed gal training manual that's available we've we've said to any other dealer out there with any company i mean we're happy to share it no for you guys yeah so we do a lot of team training where we just talk about here's this experience what could you do differently with that okay this was said to you how could we react differently so we spend a lot more time with our team than most dealers do [Music] what are the ingredients key ingredients for a perfect customer service experience i think finding out taking the time to find out what a customer wants and needs is is just i can't emphasize how important that is and following through with what you say you're going to do being accurate when you give them a price nobody likes that oh by the way uh nobody nobody loves it oh by the way i messed up my quote a little bit yeah and and following through there are challenges especially with covid uh you know time frames have gotten a lot longer than we anticipated but it was trying to communicate as much as we possibly can the information we have when somebody joins your team right what's the first thing you teach them to say yeah why or why not yeah you know we there's so many things we go over but part of it is asking the questions how do we explain our buildings you know we explain them from bottom to top and then everything in between but not just the lingo yeah it's the lingo but it's how does it benefit the customer you know why does it matter that it has a roof ridge vent nobody cares but they sure care that it helps them they're going to get low right yeah so it's education it's it's teaching people our team members how to educate without being pushy we emphasize the fact of how we will treat people and what is not allowed and so we want customers to have the best experience possible and and we do that by training hiring the right people to begin with and training them properly and and doing ongoing training we want a customer to feel like we care because we actually do right and it's cold but let's do blitz all right i always love blitz what's your favorite business book seven habits of highly effective people what car do you drive well here they are what up i mean hard not to notice yeah was there any point in time when you thought of going back to what you did previously absolutely not what's the one thing you can't start your day without except coffee a plan just mapping out my day and we i know that things are going to change all day long but i always have a plan of of these are the things i need to get done and these are the things that can wait till tomorrow if necessary awesome the last one when you're not running a business what would we find you doing flying on an airplane going to travel awesome [Music] about review platforms yelp angie how important is that for this business is to generate new leads build a better brand awareness i wouldn't know we don't use any of them you know have you ever thought about it or is there a reason you don't no we we are so busy and continually expanding that we have not seen a need for it i haven't found a benefit to uh growing our business with any of those platforms so we just have said no for somebody watching that's really just fascinated by you know sales love sales loves the idea of sheds and how simple it is is there an opportunity for them to get going and do the same thing in their market or is it completely tapped out oh no it's there especially in in in the west coast it is not it's in its infancy i would encourage anyone who is interested in this business to call me contact graceland contact another carrier another company i mean they we could have 20 more shed dealers in snohomish county and we'd still all be selling a ton of sheds i encourage it it is a great opportunity to get into especially right now [Music] i want to put you on the spot and since we're talking about sales and techniques can you can you maybe sell me this pen sure just want to see what you would say and how you would go about it yeah paul when you came in today you mentioned you needed a pen correct yeah yeah do you need just one pin or do you need 500 pins or somewhere in between i'd prefer to have more than just one okay i go through them pretty quickly okay uh do you like blue or black ink uh i prefer blue that's just my preference my favorite color do you like this type with this this type of lid no okay no so we're gonna we're gonna go through the catalog and we're gonna we're gonna look at different designs for you do you need a logo on it i would yeah i would love to yeah yes possibly your name and phone number correct yeah as a real estate agent that's important oh yes how soon do you need them oh they are going to be for your real estate business this is not personally used i should ask you that yeah yeah so how soon do you need them uh just within a couple of weeks so that would be something where we'd have to talk about the expedited shipping there is an additional cost but the benefit to that is you're going to have them when you need them yep i need to need them so uh are you what number are you thinking you're going to want to give them away to customers yes yeah it's going to be more like a marketing tool to give away to customers and clients well thank you for asking that yeah i didn't think about that well let's look at uh the designs let's find out what you like and then let's look at the price breaks for how many you buy because the more you buy the cheaper they are each i didn't know that yeah i definitely want to get a good deal well i think you've got me sold on your phone i like the a lot of questions asking you we want to hear from you guys how you think susan did so comment below feel free to say the good the bad all the comments right because we read it and we will provide feedback as well [Music] who is your target audience and how does that change the way you market the way you sell age doesn't matter in this in this business so we don't target a certain age but what we do target is typically homeowners or someone who maybe even rents that has a short-term storage need because we can take care of that too so it kind of varies but we also don't get too particular on that because we don't want to limit ourselves to just a certain group of people when you talk about facebook marketing do you do like a marketing campaign on facebook where you target certain areas we market in the entire area that we're in and you know we for here we take care of all of western washington if there's a dealer that's far enough away that we can benefit them too by sending the customer to them that's what we're going to do what is the right personality type for a salesperson if that's even right i mean what do you what's a good trait for a sales person it may be cliche but i think service wanting to serve the customer caring friendly personality we've got staff that have never sold anything in their life and they are killing it mostly because of their personalities and they want to serve the customers do you think everyone can be a good salesperson on that note no no i i you can't train someone's personality you can trade them in the details of the job and how the buildings are built some people are better suited in other in other careers but there is so much opportunity in this business that it just blows my mind so i think you know when i'm looking for someone i'm primarily looking for personality and the willingness to learn the business [Music] anything else we need to touch on that's important when it comes to sales leads and social media i mean you didn't mention instagram or tick tock are you doing any of those i do i do have an instagram channel and just recently started with tick tock it kind of blows me away i i search tik tok there's not there's not shed dealers on there we're kind of cutting edge we're going there i think the biggest thing with social media for us is it drives customers to our lots we're on a super busy road yes we sell to some people to drive by but that is not why we're here we're here because it's easy to find and social media drives those potential customers to our location and that that's huge can someone do what you're doing be a shed dealer but not have a location as big absolutely i mean what's the key when it comes to locations doing this i think you know everybody wants to think oh a busy road is the best place to be it it needs to be a convenient spot to get to you certainly don't need to have as big of a lot but that won't necessarily dictate the amount of volume you're able to sell right whether it's a big lot or small no i don't i think if i had three buildings on the slot i could probably still sell as many buildings a month as i do got it yeah how do you turn leads into paying customers i know we've touched on it a little bit is there anything specific you're doing to convert people yeah uh you know that's a good question because like people will call graceland portable buildings directly or they'll go on their website and we get what's called a hot lead we have a high turnover rate as far as turning those calls that we make to them into sales but we don't believe in cold calling i don't know about you but you don't want me calling you at dinner time to see if you want to buy a shed so we have a high retention rate we have a high closing rate of people coming in but but there's no pressure it's it's a process that we go through in helping people make their decision i imagine if you want a shed you're pretty you know focused on getting a it's like a unique purchase item sometimes sometimes people i've i had a gal come in one time she's like i want that one and that one okay that was it that was the extent of it there's also people that want to take their time and think about it i've had people that literally i talked to three four years ago call me and now they're ready so it's not discounting someone just because they don't buy today [Music] in sales as well as a real estate agent right and we never want to make our customers feel like they're being sold too oh yeah so elaborate on that your experience and why does that turn people off that was my experience when i was playing a shed there was there were no questions asked about what you know what i really wanted or needed and we all know the you know the slimy sales experience that we don't want to have and we we vowed from day one that that was never going to be how we operated how's the process and experience different compared to somebody else our whole goal when a customer comes to our lot is finding out what they need and what they want and i think that's super important because we can address their needs only after those questions are answered so it sounds like you're the one doing all the question asking and the client customers answering and giving you all the feedback correct which then helps you deliver the best experience absolutely that's awesome [Music] after the sale has happened do you do any after sale interactions and how does that help the overall customer experience like what tools are using systems in place yeah we try to follow up with customers frequently we're able to meet up and go out and see the shed after it's been delivered and ask the customer how their experience from start to finish was so we do follow-up calls we do follow-up visits sometimes we just randomly get a picture of the building as it's been delivered and then they're reaching out so yeah it's super fun do you use like a an app software or anything like that or is it just you know how are you traveling yeah we try we have a really nice excel spreadsheet that we put together when we first started so that we can track you know when it was ordered the process when it was delivered and and follow up with them when it comes to sales emotional intelligence yeah you know however you want to answer that but is that important in sales why or why not yeah it is i think being able to read the customer uh because everyone's different i think that's super important um to just be able to relate to someone and and get an understanding of what they're there for obviously they're interested in the shed or they wouldn't have stopped in but but to learn you know what suits their needs so to understand their needs and then to seek understanding with the solution i don't want to be giving you a quote on a barn style roof building when your hoa requires the 412 pit transit point so it's it's all about asking questions but it isn't about you have this checklist of questions it's just an outline of a conversation that you should be having with every single potential person that comes in how do you build customer loyalty through sales yeah how do you build that that customer relationship for the long haul for you particularly you know we get a lot of referrals in the shed industry and and no one is perfect you know you the fact is you cannot please 100 of the people out there but we work really hard to let people know we care and we are here to help them have you had a bad experience as a business person you learned from it and kind of ended it with a good note or is there anything that comes to mind that you can share you know not going into specifics but i think it's one of those things where there are sometimes that there are people that just cannot be pleased no matter what you do but that's not the norm that's a very very small percentage and knowing that most people you know they want a good product and they want you to do what you say you're going to do and that's what we do do we fail at times absolutely we are human beings but we try our best to make sure that everybody's satisfied [Music] email list yeah every business we interview some use one others don't what is it like for you you know we don't and here's the reason why i get so many marketing emails every single day and most of them i just delete it's just something i just don't feel like adding to a customer's pile if we have their email they know who we are and where we are is there anything else we can share in terms of unique unconventional sales techniques that you use well our system of the customer information sheet and asking the appropriate questions is unique and you know you call around ten dealers they're they're not gonna do it um they're they're winging it because they don't know any differently so we put together a process that works and when we find a better way we'll change it but until then we're going to keep doing the same thing that's awesome yeah we call it the cis so you guys need to check it out we'll make sure we leave the link in the description below [Music] what's one sales tip or advice that you can give to a new business owner watching us right now yeah have a solid process and reach out to those in your industry that are doing really well because most of us are more than happy to help other dealers so don't be afraid don't be afraid don't be afraid to to reach out for help and you don't know what you don't know and uh many of us that do really well want to help others do really well too that's awesome this place is pretty loud with not only trucks but turkeys right here yes we've got turkeys that's awesome in this business sales right you have happy customers sometimes you have dissatisfied customers what else do you want to highlight in order to you know to take care of those people as well yeah yeah you know sometimes things happen these buildings believe it or not they're built by human beings and you know what i found with graceland yeah it was robots no robots you know graceland stands behind their product and and again let's be honest you can sometimes someone just can't be pleased but graceland stands behind their product they're going to fix the issue or they're going to make it right that's just who graceland is as a company just own up to it absolutely got it pretty simple but the right way to do it absolutely someone that's new to sales right what can they do to improve their skills and experience to to really become that master salesperson yeah someone told me many many years ago in insurance that agent does really good and that one does really bad do everything they do and don't do anything they do and that philosophy sticks with me every single day and it is so true and the other thing is we only know what we know and we don't know what what we don't know so if someone's offering you help for goodness sakes take it if you don't have the answer ask for help there are there are people out there like me that want we we thrive on helping other people uh but you know we were all new at sales at one point and it's more about learning the product being proud of what you sell and just going for it no guts no glory and just loving what you do absolutely remember you said sales is not for everybody so for sure i definitely agree with that yeah absolutely haven't been in sales well susan this has been great i know our viewers probably wish you all the success for 2022.
thank you and then you wanted to mention something for our viewers something special what would that be so our shed gall dealerships operate in arizona and washington state if you come to me and you buy a graceland portable building i'm going to give you five percent off through the end of 2022. wow so that's any of the shed gal dealerships and that's a heck of a deal well let's make sure that you mention the code we can say up flip shed gal absolutely up flip shed gal there you go you guys take advantage five percent off on something that's 10 to 15 grand that's a pretty good savings in my opinion thank you susan this has been great yeah thank you my pleasure i hope you guys enjoyed this episode with susan the owner of shed gal what an incredible story interesting industry take all the advice execute on it make sure you check out our sponsor fiverr and their discount her discount of five percent take advantage of that we appreciate you guys for watching take a second to like subscribe and hit that bell so that you don't miss any of our episodes thank you for watching
2022-03-15 10:45
