Behind The Builder Show: Accelerating The Sales To Build Cycle - #6

Episode #6 – Behind The Builder Show: Accelerating The Sales To Build Cycle

Featuring Dan VanOrden & Johnny Drozdek

What happens when two of the most influential technology platforms in the construction industry come together?

In this episode of America Builds Better, Jared Ledford sits down with Dan VanOrden, CEO & Co-Founder of IdeaRoom, and Johnny Drozdek, CEO of SmartBuild Systems, during the 2026 Post-Frame • Rural • Plain Builder Show in York, Pennsylvania.

Together, they discuss how builders can streamline the entire sales-to-build process by connecting lead generation, 3D visualization, estimating, project management, and customer communication into a seamless workflow.

As labor shortages, rising customer expectations, and increasing competition continue to challenge the construction industry, builders are looking for ways to operate more efficiently without sacrificing customer experience. This conversation explores how technology and automation are helping builders eliminate bottlenecks, reduce manual processes, and create scalable systems that support long-term growth.

In This Episode:

✔️ How automation is transforming the construction industry

✔️ The IdeaRoom and SmartBuild integration

✔️ Improving lead generation and sales efficiency

✔️ Streamlining estimating and project management

✔️ Eliminating duplicate data entry and manual processes

✔️ Creating a better customer experience

✔️ Scaling construction businesses through technology

✔️ The future of builder software and automation

Whether you’re a builder, contractor, supplier, salesperson, or business owner, this episode offers valuable insight into how technology can help you build a more efficient and profitable operation.

About Dan VanOrden

Dan VanOrden is the CEO & Co-Founder of IdeaRoom, a leading 3D visualization and sales platform serving the construction, post-frame, shed, and outdoor structure industries. Under his leadership, IdeaRoom has helped builders improve customer engagement, generate more qualified leads, and accelerate the sales process through interactive design technology.

About Johnny Drozdek

Johnny Drozdek is the CEO of SmartBuild Systems, one of the construction industry’s leading estimating and business management software platforms. SmartBuild helps builders simplify estimating, project management, and operational workflows while providing the tools needed to scale efficiently and profitably.

America Builds Better is made possible through the support of industry-leading partners who share our mission of helping builders grow stronger businesses and deliver better customer experiences.

Title Sponsor:

IdeaRoom – https://idearoom.com

Preferred Partners:

DEFYNED SEO – https://defynedseo.com

Shield Wall Media – https://shieldwallmedia.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Dan Van Orden, founder of Idea Room, and we're proud to be the official sponsors of the American Builds Matter podcast. Enjoy the episode, guys.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Hey guys, what's up? This is Eric Building.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

America builds better.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

What's going on, guys? I'm Jared. This is America Builds Better. Welcome back to another episode. We are getting ready for the post-frame role plane builder show in York, and it is right now. All right. When you're seeing this, we are going to be just days away from a big, big time happening in York at the Exposition Center. We are super excited to be there. So we are finishing up our trade show series. We have talked to Acuform. We have talked to Graeber Post. We have talked to so many people in the space and shared so much content over the last few weeks. And I can tell you I am deeply, deeply grateful for you giving me your time and attention and walking through some of these awesome products and offerings that we've been able to feature over the last few weeks. I can tell you, this is going to be our last episode with featured content, and nothing gets me going quite as much as Idea room and smart build. So they're in the house. We've got Dan and Johnny back with us again. And I can tell you something right now. This is the one. If you're in post-frame construction, you want to pay attention to what I'm saying right now. If you do not have a 3D design tool, if you are using a pen and paper for bill of materials, that is out the window. It's antiquated. Get something new, get something fresh. I can tell you as always, the team at Shield Wall Media, if you need trade information and you want it for free, check out the team at Shield Wall Media. They will get you a subscription to any of the magazines, Plane Builder, Rural Builder, Rollforming Magazine. They will help you out. The best part is it's free. If you're a trades, you're doing anything in the industry, check them out for sponsorships and ads. They can also get you featured. And the best part is there's 90,000 subscribers across 60,000 unique people. So I can tell you, it's the market you want to be in in post-frame, sheds, metal buildings. Shieldwall media is helping America build better through publishing. Our friends at Idea Room, how grateful we are for that relationship. I can tell you, Idea Room has helped me change my business. It'll help you change your business. The best part is they're now integrated with Smart Build. So for our post frame friends, for our Bill of Materials friends, pay attention to what we're going to talk about on this call. I can tell you something right now. They're integrated with almost everything. And if they're not, they can figure it out. The team is on the money at Idea Room. They are helping America build better through technology and advancement. Check out idearoom.com, design, quote, and close. Team at Define, higher ranking, stronger business. As you guys know, if you want to work with me on your marketing, on your SEO, check us out at DefindEO.com. We're helping America build better through business development. I can tell you this much, guys. We are so ready for York. And this, I love these series where we can just dive into one topic for, you know, we've now done it for six weeks. Next week's episode, it's actually going to be tomorrow's episode if you're listening today, is going to be a hype episode. So I want you to pay attention. I'm going to bring Dan and Johnny into the studio. Dan Van Orden, Johnny Drosdeck, Idea Room and Smart Build. What's going on, guys? How are you? Hey, Jared.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Hey, Jared, good to be here again.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, I can tell you this much for everybody. You guys like the peaks behind the curtain. So Dan and Johnny and I shot an episode about 10 days ago. Okay. And I had my first ever major fiasco as a podcaster where I lost all my content. So I have to say thank you to Johnny and Dan for both coming back and giving me their time for a second time. So you guys get to see the uh we did a dress rehearsal, guys. Now we're going to give them the show. How's that?

SPEAKER_00 4:51

All right. Sounds good. Hopefully we should be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

So Johnny, yeah, Johnny, Johnny is from Smart Build, Dan's from ID room. We're all going to be in York. We're all going to be neighbors. So come check us out as you walk through the door. We're back to the right hand side of the exposition floor. And I can tell you guys, you guys know how I feel about your products. I use them every day. They're a huge part of my business. I want them to be a part of everyone's business. I think everyone would be better off and better served, customers, contractors alike, if they were utilizing IDRoom and Smart Build. How do you guys feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Well, I couldn't agree more. Before John. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I mean, I I I'll say this, and and I think a lot of the viewers maybe are new, new to me in my face. I'm appreciate being here. Kind of kind of new to Smart Build, joined the company, rejoined the company actually about five months ago. A lot of people remember Keith, Keith Dietson. He's the founder and visionary behind Smart Build. I worked with Keith for a long time, the first 20 years of my career, and he just retired at the end of at the end of 2025. He's the guy, you talk about software and these tools helping helping builders. He's the guy who saw the opportunity to bring software into this industry and to help people build better businesses and really better lives through technology. And Dan, I know you and I share that share that vision. So I'm I'm excited to be here, excited to be on the podcast, excited to see both in person in York next week. So yeah, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, and we're definitely excited to be working with Johnny. Uh I met him first at that last show. Keith and I were always jamming, had a similar vision, and Johnny and I are just carrying that forward. Uh, you know, from moment one, we were jamming in the conversation, kind of had a similar vision around, you know, just just disrupting how all customized buildings are uh sold and kind of carrying forward that kind of synergy between Idea Room and Smart Build, where we really focus on that kind of B2C marketing and selling to the consumer, and then handing it off to SmartBuild for kind of that expert sales and bill of materials and fulfillment. And so yeah, we're just uh really excited to keep that going.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Yeah, I can I can tell you from my perspective, I've been a longtime user of Idea Room, right? I think I've been a client with you almost seven years, something like that, six, seven years. It's been a long time. And the the processes have gotten so much better, and we're gonna talk about some of that. But I got introduced to Smart Build, I guess about three years ago, and I was blown away at the level in which Smart Build operates to give you exactly what you need when you're producing the building itself. And I I kept telling myself, if we could just get idea room and smart build together, you know, I was pushing that concept years ago. And I know that, you know, we talked about sheds, we've talked about metal buildings, but post-frame is really where you guys are focusing on starting this relationship, and it's already started, it's it's really successful. You know, as someone who's using the process, just so you guys know in basic ones and twos, I utilize Idea Room as a customer-facing lead gen tool for my business, meaning it's all over my advertising, it's all over my website. I advertise to my customers, hey, design your building today and do it right now on your phone with a mobile friendly user interface and all of these things. And then what my staff and my team love about it is we get curated leads from customers with name, phone number, email, exactly what the customer wants. And the best part is now it just plugs right into Idea Room. So for those of you who are using Idea Room, imagine coming into builds that are ready to be sold and sent to bill of materials at the same time. I mean, am I missing anything about the process? I think it's pretty easy. If you have Idea Room or Smart Build, you can have both, right? I mean, it's pretty easy peasy. There's not much to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, I mean, it it seems pretty magical and simple once you have the two connected, because basically you design the building in idea room, like you're talking about on the phone, and then it flows straight through to Smart Build. You see the building show up kind of magically designed the same way, and then you can blow it out into all those details and bill of materials and do kind of the final details. And Jared, really uh what you mentioned about the phone is kind of, I think, when we finally got together in this partnership. I think it's been a couple years now, and others have kind of spoken the way you did that they always wished that Idea room and smart build could work together. I think we've been doing post-frame for maybe eight or nine years now with our earliest clients. And very early on, we always saw SmartBuild in the marketplace, and you know, we kept talking with each other, getting at the same shows, and yeah, we just had a lot of people saying, Hey, it'd just be great if you could marry the two. Um, and really it was when we did that investment in that hyper-optimized mobile user interface we call Boost that Keith and I really started talking seriously about working together. And I think they had been hearing more and more in the marketplace just requests for lead generation, marketing integration, mobile uh optimization. And it's really just kind of a different focus that has always been a part of what Idear room does. And so it was kind of like perfectly timed. Um, and maybe to make a plug for that, because we've talked about it before, Jared, uh, Boost is fantastic. Everybody should turn it on. We didn't force it, but we've been doing a lot of marketing around it, and it it converts leads at a much higher rate. Uh, and then yeah, once you get that smooth experience where you can go from the consumers just designing on their phone, even seeing it in augmented reality in their, you know, in their yard, and then push that all the way through to kind of final sale and fulfillment and do that really quickly. Uh yeah, I mean, there's a lot of work that goes into making it, you know, work that smoothly, but it's kind of magic when you see it.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah. And Johnny, how do you see it, man? I mean, it's gotta make your customers happy, right? Because, you know, Smart Build worked for a long time on eModeler, and eModeler worked just fine as far as you know being a forward-facing customer tool you could place on your website. But I think there was a need, right? There was a need in it, and you guys saw a fit with idea room. That's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, that's right. I mean, when I think about uh I think about our development team, and we, you know, we eat and sleep and drink and think about like all the bits and pieces of all the different ways you could frame these things. That's what that's what our passion is. And gosh, we've just been doing that for so long. That's where our strength, and that's where that's where we really know that we can serve and differentiate. But we were getting those requests. Like, how do I how do I leverage this, Smart Build, to, to, to get more leads? And how do I run this on a mobile device? All of those kinds of requests. And and it just seemed uh, especially with the kind of the cultural fit between the companies uh and and the good dynamics between you know between leadership and the teams themselves when they were working together, just a really good that that's what makes the um the combination work so well, is because the teams work so well and the companies work so well together. So yeah, there was a need and it has been filled very well.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

I I think what I've enjoyed so much is that it's it's a such a smooth partnership. And for somebody who is using both products independently, it came together very smoothly. So the team at SmartBuild knew what I needed, the team at IDRoom knew what I needed, and the integration process was relatively smooth. You know, I know a lot of times people are nervous about time commitments and you know, is it worth my time to take a phone call, to take a Zoom meeting, to do the things that are necessary? This is the one, like this is the one thing in your business, if you're selling pole barns or manufacturing pole barns, if you don't have this tool, you are way behind your competition. And what I would challenge you to do is if you're using idea room, and for example, you go to your mobile device, you go to your personal idea room builder, and you're not happy with the way it looks, you've seen somebody else's idea room that looks a little bit better. Check on boost. Dan's right. I mean, I think last time you told me maybe Dan 55%, 60%, something like that have converted to Boost, and that's free. It doesn't cost you anything. It's as a matter of fact, it's a it's a slider bar in your in your sales view. I mean, it's super easy to turn it on, right? I mean, it's that it's that simple, not missing anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, it's a toggle. Okay, uh, yeah, your existing site with boost turned on.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

You've got to have boost on, people. You've got to have it on. Boost is like an understatement. I call it super boost. Like it's like supercharged to the max. I I've been I I've been telling the people that talks to us at Defined or whatever, you know, if you've got smart build, take idea room, strap a jetpack to your process. You know, if you've got idea room and you don't have smart build, right now is the time to lock up your bill of materials. Get that stuff under control. You know, I I hear it from both sides. It's funny because contractors are contractors, builders, dealers, all of them. They're all notorious. They love what they love and they don't want to change their process. I get these guys and they have idea room. It's funny. They don't want to get smart build. And then I show them the process and they're like, oh, you mean I don't have to use a pen and paper, you mean I don't have to use an Excel spreadsheet, you mean I can do this pretty much instantaneous. Yes, you can set your framing rules, you can set everything specific to your builds, and every time you build a building in Idea Room and it goes to Smart Build, it's going to have your processes. So if you have specific knee bracing or you have specific spacing for your polls, or whatever part of your poll barn makes it unique, they can make that a standard for your integration. And that's what I'm trying to stress to you is that a lot of times on these these, you know, I get on these talk tracks with different products or services that I'm trying to say is helping America build better. That's what this podcast is all about. I don't believe in anything in this industry like I believe in the relationship between Idea Room and Smart Build. I believe that it is the number one tool that's missing from your business if you don't have it. If you are selling pole barns, metal buildings, you are missing out by not working with the team at Idea Room and Smart Build. I mean, I'm looking at your website, Johnny. One of the things that I wanted to outline for you specifically was the integration with Idea Room on Metal Buildings. We're starting that process. We're starting Surface Bid. You know, Smart Build is excelling into different avenues all the time, getting their product put together. The way I look at it from an outsider is Smart Build knows what they're good at, Idea Room knows what they're good at, and it just so happens they're kind of good at different things. And when you can bring two teams together that are so good at what they do and make one harmonious interaction for a customer like me, I'm telling you guys, it's the one thing you guys watched us build Five Rivers Pole Barns last year, right? We built that company from absolutely nothing, and we are doing a lot of business right now, and most of it's thanks to these two guys that I'm on this call with. That's a fact. We would not have a business at Five Rivers Pole Barns without it. Without Smart Building Idea, and we we would not have it.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

I might just add in, sort of, sort of just building on that same concept, Jared. Like the the tools, the tools that are offered here, and they're they are very complementary, right? That's the reason why they go they go well together. The tools are are are are they're ideal for a variety of stages as you grow as your business grows. So you're just starting out, right? You can you can set up a system for yourself with your own materials, or you can come in under a an existing distributor. So it takes a while to set up your pricing, set up your your framing rules, set up your patches of materials. It takes some time to do that, and you can do that, or you can come in under another distributor, right? It's kind of a cheat code for getting out, getting a very professional upfront package, like right out of the gate. But then as you grow, as your business grows, there are additional tools that allow you to grow your business both from both of these companies, Adirum and Smart Build. So it's it's just been a, I think we've really appreciated the partnership that uh that we've experienced with builders and suppliers upstream and downstream throughout the industry, uh, and and and the ways that they have you know helped us find and build better tools that support the industry.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

We did a long conversation with Cole and Trent from Graber Post, and we talked about Smart Build and ID room. So you guys have seen that on a previous episode. I can echo what Johnny's telling you right now. If you are a contractor getting your business started, look for a supplier who already works with Smart Build. One of the things that you have to understand is if you can streamline your process and make it easier on yourself, you can do better business that way. I love working with Graber. I have to give them a cheap plug right here and right now. Graber Post has been excellent to work with, they do a great job. And the best part is they have Smart Build, they have Idea Room, and it works. It's just that simple. Like if you don't want to have to worry about SKU numbers, if you don't want to have to worry about what something costs, Graber has a team of people that work inside SmartBuild. As a matter of fact, you can call Graber if you're a contractor for them and get support on Smart Build, right? They'll do just about anything to help you sell more material and make your process smoother. And the best part is they have both, right? They have everything set up out of the gate. Companies like Graber, company like Burroughs. There's a multitude of businesses out there, but those two, well, really three, Martin Metals, Graeber, and Burroughs are the three that if you're in their market, it's worth a phone call. You don't have to worry about anything. It's it's basically off the shelf, right? It's just a piece of software you sign up for, you get into an agreement, and you go. It's pretty self-explanatory. It's ready to go. You could be selling buildings in probably a day or two. It's that simple. So preferred partners on Smart Build and Idea Room, ones that we know are going to be easy setup for you guys. Burroughs, Graeber Post, Martin Metals, they have Smart Build already. They have teams that work with Smart Build. So typically on a Smart Build setup, and Johnny can give us a little bit more, but from a basic overview, you would sign up for Smart Build, and you would be either going to a supplier that already has Smart Build or to someone to get materials, and then you would have to upload like SKU list, length of material, all of these things. Quite a process, okay? And we do know people that help with smart build integration. So I know that there are some people out there, and I want to do a call to action. And this is no way, shape, or form to cut you down if this is you. If you have smart build and you're having issues with it, reach out to Smart Build. Okay. They're not shy about helping you. Don't get discouraged. Okay. Reach out to me, Jared in America Builds Better. I can connect you with people who can help you with your Smart Build integration or your idea room setup. But that's the best part about this, is these two companies want to see you succeed, and they work with the biggest players in the industry to give you a platform to sell buildings. Am I missing something, fellas?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

No, no, no. Okay. They're gonna help you with implementation. You know, call Brendan, call Nadia, they're gonna help you with support. We got people here who want to help. They come from industry, they've been there, they've been in the field, they they they know the product. Yeah, that please call us. That's that's the best.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

I tell the story, I tell this story a lot. So we work with Graeber, I make no bones about that. I love Graeber, they've been on the podcast, we've talked to them a bunch. I was having issues reaching Delmer. Delmer is so busy sometimes that he doesn't even know what's going on half the time because he's taken dumb questions from people like me. I called Smart Build, and literally the phone call, the person that answered the phone was able to walk me through exactly what I needed in less than 30 seconds. And I felt stupid, to be completely honest with you. I just didn't look. But you know what? I I know better. I'm yeah, I'm gonna Smart Build made me smarter. I'm not gonna spend my time looking through something when there's an expert that's available that can maybe give me a pointer and in the right direction. And I would stress that to you at Idea Room too. Because I this is the funny part. We went to the NFBA trade show and we were trading people back and forth. Dan was walking people over, I was walking people back over to Dan. And like the only questions I was getting is well, I have smart builder, I have Idea room, and it's not doing what I want it to do. And I immediately showed them, like, oh. It was that easy to fix. Yes. Like, I can't encourage you enough. Get outside your comfort zone. Ask questions. You'll never get any smarter or any better if you don't learn from somebody who knows it better than you. I didn't know how to use this stuff. It's not like I woke up on a Monday and was an idea room and smart build expert. I've been using it for years. But I can tell you, you can get there. And it will make your process easier. How'd you like to care more about selling your buildings than jotting down your bill of materials? I saw a guy the other day, no joke, he was sketching out, sketching out a design of a pole barn, and it looked like chicken scratch. And I'm like, what are we going to do with that? What are we going to do with that, man? And he's like, well, you know, that's that's how we mock up our buildings. And I'm like, what? Like, it's 2026, dude. Like, that is that isn't not gonna work. The second that you go to a company and they're handwriting your proposal or their hand, and that's another thing. Smart build walks you all the way through the proposal process. We haven't even talked about that. That's one thing I get lost in the process on. I'm telling you, from a 3D design in someone's bedroom to produced documents to sell the building, it's that quick. It's it's moving from one to the other. They submit the design at 10:30 at night on a Thursday. Friday morning, your team comes in. They've got the information from Idea Room and also a uh a building inside Smart Build. You've got an expert on the other side at your business who takes that smart build just like they always do. They make sure that it's outfitted exactly the way it needs to be. They call the customer. Customer's like, absolutely, I want to buy the building. I'm good to go. You've got your bill of materials, you've got your order form, you've got it all. It produces everything from start to finish. Okay? Like, there isn't anything out there doing that. Think about how much time you just saved. Are you producing order documents on your own? Are you producing those by hand? My goodness, that's as antiquated as it could possibly be. Are you sending those, you know, a different way? Think about having it all in one process. Think about how much time you saved. I mean, I could go on and on about it. You guys know how I feel about it. I could rep it all day long and twice on Sunday. I love it. And we haven't even scratched the surface of the potential.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

From the conversations you were having at the last show, what were people mostly asking about? Was it on the marketing side where they wanted to know how to you know integrate it with their Google ads? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the side on different pages, or was it the sales guys? And what do they do with all that time that they save?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Um I think I think understanding, I think understanding how to market it, how to market the 3D design process in general. So Postframe has been longing for this for some time. And not that eModeler didn't work, it worked just fine, but it certainly didn't work on a mobile environment. Johnny hit on that at the beginning of the episode. It needed some touches. Smart build, again, has their strengths, idea room has their strengths. What you can do with the right team behind you, and I'm happy to help with that. That's one of the reasons we work so closely with Idea Room and Smart Build. If I could just work with customers that were only on Idea Room and Smart Build, good for me. I can help you scale your tools and make it even better and get leads coming in that buy buildings because that's where you're gonna miss now. You're gonna have the processes and not know how to get people to actually get to you. Post frame, specifically for the people who are going to the post-frame rural plane builder show. We are set up on four corners. We're as close as we could be for one show. We are on an aisleway on four corners, and you've got Smart Build, you've got Graver Post, you've got Define, and you've got Idea Room. And let me tell you something. That's four corners you want to live at at this show. You can find a new supplier that's gonna get you all the materials you need. You can get your 3D designer on your phone, you can get your bill of materials, your order form, all of that stuff taken care of. And the team to push the leads to you is gonna be there too, and they're gonna tell you how to use it. The best part about me, Dan and Johnny know this. I'll tell you how to do it. I don't care about it. I want to see you guys using their products because I'm telling you, rising tide raises all boats. Okay. I would much rather compete with somebody who has the best processes, and if I lose, you know what? I need to get better. But it's easy to beat somebody who handwrites their order forms and does bill of material like 1975. It's easy. If you're doing it like that, I'm not trying to say it's it's just not working, okay? You're not selling the amount of buildings that you could if you had better processes. There's so much stuff out there. You're gonna get bombarded with CRM this and marketing that, and get this tool, get that tool, get this piece of this, get this piece of that. I'm telling you, if you do nothing else other than have a basic website with idea room and smart build, you will absolutely drive your process with a jetpack. I I believe that. I believe it's the one tool, the one tool necessary.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Were you telling us, Jared, uh last time about uh a builder that was struggling, but you brought them to a distributor and got them set up and off and running. And that was a quick process. Was that a quick process for them?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yeah. So one of the things that I do, I rep everybody that you know, anybody that shows me any attention and love, I will literally shower them with affection and love right back. So you guys know I love Graeber Post. I could literally tell you stories after stories about fun conversations, good times I've had with them. The quality of the materials is great. But I I ran into a contractor through the marketing service, and she said, I have smart build, but I can't figure out how to use it. She's been a client for some time. Um, she was working with someone, and again, if you need somebody that does smart build integrations and can help you, contact the team at SmartBuild. You can reach out to me. We know people that aren't gonna, you know, bomboozle you. They're not gonna scam you. We're gonna give you somebody who can really help, give you the time and attention you deserve, get you set up the right way. She was not very interested in doing it herself. She didn't understand that she could go to someone like Graber. And I just connected her with Tim at Graeber. I mean, I just I literally gave Tim her contact information. And it wasn't about selling her marketing, it wasn't about trying to get her, you know, one of the things that you can do with these suppliers, Graeber, Burroughs, you can bring in contractors under you and all that stuff. Like, I don't care about that. You know, that was the first question I got was well, do you want her to be under your team? And I'm like, no, I want her to have her own team. Like, I want her to be her own person. Like she wants to do this on her own. But she loved idea room. She was using uh construction maestro and uh construction maestro and smart build together and paradigm. She had like individual subscriptions for everything. And the best part about Graeber, they'll set you up with paradigm, they'll set you up a smart build. You're ready to place orders pretty much right away using that process. But she loves Idea Room. Loves Idea, wanted Idea Room so bad. That's actually how we got connected with her, was because someone I think at Idea Room might have shared her. And we were able to like get all of this stuff fixed. And again, because we're working so closely together and we care about it so much, we made a customer happy, right? And now I've made a friend that's right up the road from me. That that I think the way we're gonna work together, the way I benefit from that, is she is a builder in the northwest or northeast portion of Ohio, and I don't have a build crew up there. So I'm going to market buildings through Idea Room, build materials through Smart Build, through Graber, and I'll push the installs up to her. If I got a building in Northeast Ohio, guess who's going to get it? I know exactly where it's going. They've been doing installs for years. They have a really basic website. They had a very basic version of Smart Build. They were trying to use a local supplier for that. It just wasn't working out for them. You know, no, no, no hard feelings. I mean, they're a small business. They're a cut like a husband and wife, and they do a great job, and they've got a couple of subcrews that do their buildings, and that's great, right? But I can tell you that experience alone was a reason why I want to help get the industry involved with knowing about things like Idea Room and Smart Build. Because she was so blown away by what she was able to do with Graeber. You know, and I feel like I've talked to both of you guys about this. Like there's a glue there. It makes everything easier on everybody because you you get your supply, right? You get your supply. We've talked about, we talked about that with Josh Nolan from Burroughs before NFBA, you know, at the beginning of the year. Josh is all about sourcing great material, sourcing from the right place. You know, build foundational processes with the right team. Get your materials sourced properly. They're probably going to be working with smart build if they're worth anything whatsoever. Guess what? It plugs right into idea room. I mean, it's it's that simple. And it it makes me laugh because people think it's hard and it's really just asking the right questions. It really is. Like, I can't stress it enough, guys. I mean, I really believe in what you two are doing and anything that I can do to help or push this out. We need to talk about it because people just don't know about it. There's so many people in the industry who have no clue, and they're missing out. I mean, I don't I don't know how else to say it. I mean, to me, it it's that simple. If you don't have Idea Room and Smart Build, you are behind the eight ball. Badly. Badly. It serves so many purposes all at once, it solves so many of your problems. You know how to put buildings up, Mr. Contra. You do. You've been doing it for years. And you know what? You don't want to be left behind. You know, the one thing I will say this too, and I know I'm getting long-winded here, but I want to say I want to share this too. In post frame, there is a lot of generational businesses, multi-generational businesses, family-run generational businesses. If you're listening to me, take what I'm saying into account. If you are a 60-plus-year-old business owner in a post-frame industry without a good website, without 3D integration, without all the things, and you have a child, male, female, doesn't matter, a child that wants to take over this business in their 20s, they do not want to take over a pen and paper company. Okay. They want to take over a tech company. They want to take over a company that has good processes and can build and make generational wealth happen. That's the kind of thing you can do when you work with the proper processes. Okay. And that's that's the kind of clients I've worked with that defined, to be completely honest. Some of our best clients are customers who are generational, pole barn, and post-frame customers who want to transition from the way that they've always done it and make it better. And you can do that right out of the gate, easy peasy with IDRM and Smart Build. You take a huge step forward. It solves so much. I mean, I I could go on and on, and I don't I want you guys to tell me if I'm missing anything.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

I mean, that's what you just talked about is really the most kind of gratifying thing about working in these industries, is a lot of the businesses are small businesses, family businesses. They're thinking about you know passing this on to their kids, uh, building wealth for their families. In many cases, like they're just very busy business owners who are working a ton and having a hard time finding enough time uh to spend with their families. And so we help them with that, whether it's the process side of things, right, to make it a lot more efficient, um, and or build the business, help them grow. Because ultimately, our our primary goal is just drive more and higher quality leads and help salespeople close more deals, sell more buildings. And so when we can do that and we actually see the impact and they see their business grow, um, that's the best thing for us, is just basically we make money when you make money and grow the business and achieve your goals. Um, and yeah, I mean, ultimately, since you talked so much about process, uh, that's a big focus for us right now. I mean, it always is. But uh I think I mentioned this last time where we have an internal initiative we call uh building the ultimate sales tool, essentially, which we've spent so much time perfecting that front-end configurator, making it the best user interface, both for the consumer and the salesperson. Uh, but now we're filling that in with all of the back-end capability for salespeople to have the best tools to kind of close deals. Um, and you've probably noticed it, like we've added mobile support to uh the sales dashboard. We did major upgrades to kind of the lead dashboard, and then getting a little more kind of traditional organization to your leads where it's one contact to multiple leads and building designs. And ultimately this quarter, what we're going to be doing is uh releasing deal capabilities where you can actually track sales deals more like kind of a traditional CRM. So we're kind of filling all these things to have both the best front-end configurator, both for the consumer and salesperson, but fill in all of that sales process support so that uh salespeople have the best tools. And it's kind of wild when you do look at their process. Like they may even have a 3D configurator, but they're still tracking things just through an email inbox or things like that. Um, so yeah, a lot of this is just getting kind of the word out there about all the capabilities that we're releasing because I think we're releasing them faster than we ever have this year, just in terms of new capabilities people can take advantage of. Um, and you know, I mean, some of our customers don't even necessarily know about SalesView, and yet it's available to them so many things that can kind of improve their process. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

That's the crazy part about it. I mean, to divert for just a second from postframe and into Metal Buildings from my Metal Building friends. I know that are there are a lot of you out there that are using Idea Room through a manufacturer. Okay. I want to challenge you to get outside your comfort zone and think about getting your own version of Idea Room where you own the process, you own the leads, the ultimate sales tool becomes your best friend in that space. Um, there's an outline that I want to share, and I'll share it across the social channels. The next era of design software uh was written by Alicia, who's on Dan's team that I work with quite a bit. Um I just want to hit the touching points. AI is changing what configurator operations look like. The configurator is a sales platform, software customers operate themselves with partnership where it counts, long-term partnership as an operating model, where this is heading. And I can tell you where it's heading is more success for your business and better streamlined processes for your sales reps. And when you tie in something like Smart Build on the post-frame side, it's you don't need anything else. That's the thing. If you work with a supplier who is tied into Smart Build and you have idea room, you need nothing else. Okay. You have all the tools necessary. Really, the only thing else you need is a website. You need a website and somebody who knows what they're doing. And I can tell you, here's a cheap plug, okay? And not just for me. E Impact Marketing, they understand what they're doing, and they'll be at the trade show, the post-frame rural plane builder show. Okay. Rising tide raises all boats. You know, um, Simply Shed Marketing, Peter Miller and those guys will be at the post-frame rural plane builder show in York. I am not shy about telling you there's competition out there. But if you're working with Idea Room and Smart Build, you'd be insane not to work with me. And I invite you to get a free consultation. I'll give you more than a free consultation. I'll show you how it works. I want to help you drive the leads, and I want you to love every second of using software because I do. Nothing makes me happier. That, I mean, truthfully, Dan has seen it. Dan's known me long enough. Johnny will get to know me better over time. I'm not blowing smoke. Okay. I am telling you, this is no sales pitch. This isn't a gimmick. If you're not using it, you're missing out. I assure you, you want to check it out. Your competition's using it. Okay. I I don't remember how we got connected with you, Dan, but I'm so thankful that we did. I think it might have been American Steel, you know. God bless them. You know, American Steel does a good job. You know, we've got so many manufacturers that do a good job that use Idea Room. Johnny, do you see it any differently? I mean, am I missing something? You know more about post frame than I do, I'm sure. Yeah, as far as the framing rules and all that kind of stuff. You guys set all that stuff up. You can do it custom per manufacturer, supplier, dealer. But am I missing anything, you guys? Like, I mean, I'm serious. Like a website with ID room and smart build and a good supplier in post frame. A website with ID room and smart build, potentially with a metal building manufacturer that's now going to get on smart build for our metal building manufacturers. Bill of materials available. Consultations are free. Have a discussion with Smart Build. Stop measuring tube steel with paper and a pen. My goodness. I've been out to job sites and seen how much material is wasted. You guys are throwing it away. It's crazy. Johnny, am I missing something?

unknown 40:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Bill materials is a big conversation in tubular steel right now. And yes, there's a lot of people still doing things on pen and paper or in spreadsheets. And we've had just consistent and growing demand in tubular steel to have a solution here. So yeah, some of what we've released earlier this quarter is uh, you know, some some additional capabilities for Iderum integrated with Smart Build for Tubular Steel. I think we called it um Smart Build for Carports. And uh we do need to get the word out there because we've already sent you know some folks over to Johnny to get them signed up and start using kind of that integrated system. And I know those guys are still feeling the pain, and they just may not have heard the message yet. Uh, so we do need to get it out there. Like we are ready to work with tubular steel companies, um, and we can definitely streamline your process and save you money. Um, and yeah, the whole industry on that front kind of needs to mature because, like you're saying, there's a lot of wasted material and or they've scaled their business because I I've worked with a lot of those tubular steel companies from when they started to growing to over 50 million in sales. And when you do that, uh these kind of fulfillment processes are what become extremely painful. Um, so yeah, we're we're ready to work with anybody and everybody that's uh you know ready to kind of get this set up and running.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, and those tools are available, right, on the smart build side. We've been working together, Dan, on on filling out some of the some of the gaps, uh framing, framing specific specific framing rules and practices related to carports. You know, we we've added a bunch of stuff recently. We've got some more stuff on the roadmap uh to continue to support that that style of construction. Weld ups, we're all also supporting weld ups. So on the on the steel side, that that stuff is all in the software. You know, our our our roots are really with the post frame, but have capability to support these other building styles as well.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

What what I love what I love about tubular steel buildings when it comes to smart build and idea room is I'm hoping that as these companies come to the table, there will be more standardized processing for how framing rules work with metal buildings. All of these manufacturers kind of do their own thing, they write at their own pace, and there needs to be more of a standard set. I've talked about this a lot. Like one of the things missing in tubular steel is that the process is being so lacking, it's hard to get zoning on a tubular steel building because what works in one municipality for the way a truss style is, you know, maybe you've got a double header across the tube steel where one manufacturer uses two pieces of like 14-gauge tubing, another manufacturer uses a piece of 14 and 18. Or one company may just use a single piece of tubing. Like these are all of the little nuances and intricacies that like when you start to get into bill of materials for tubular steel, this is why there's so many issues with it, because there is no uniformity to it. Another thing that I'll mention on bill of materials for metal building manufacturers, and pay attention to me, I've sold a lot of metal buildings. Stop sending metal buildings to customers that don't have enough material. That is so stupid. That is the across the board, every manufacturer has been guilty of it 1,000%, except for reliable metal buildings. I've never had that issue with reliable metal buildings. Shout out to reliable metal buildings, they've got a pretty good bill of materials process. But I can tell you, I hate nothing more in my life as a metal building salesman than getting a call from a customer. Building looks great, everything's great. It's missing a couple pieces of sheeting. Got a call last week that said, literally last week, no joke, an entire end wall missing. Building was ready, no end wall, no sheeting on the end wall. You gotta be kidding me. Like it's 2026, and they bought a thirty thousand dollar building, and now it's sitting. Three quarters of the way done, and now you're gonna pay an install crew to go back on a revisit, you're gonna pay more money. It's like get your processes under control, for goodness sakes. I mean, and these are companies that are doing we don't work with small companies anymore at Dayton Barnes. We just don't. We don't have to. We work with big companies that service large parts of the country that have processes in place for things like this. And it's like if you had had smart build, you would know down to the down to the inch of how much sheeting you needed. The best part is is that I mean, and this is going way beyond where we need to be for this conversation, but it does integrate into role form. You can roll integrate into role forming machines and you can do all kinds of stuff with the software, right, Johnny? I mean, you can do tons of stuff. I mean, like way, way, way above pay grade here, but like literally from your bedroom to the rollformer. I mean, seriously, like how crazy is that? That's literally the way it would work. You can take a process from a 3D design and have it on the rollformer the next day if you have your sales team in line.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

People come down to York next week, they they can come to our booth, they can walk into idea room booth, design something on the fly, walk, walk around the corner, and they'll they'll they'll see that in the smart build monitor come up. We can we could do that next week.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

I mean, I could tell you that would be pretty cool because Dan knows I sat at the booth. You know, we were we were just getting started at N FBA, um, launching America Builds Better, getting the branding out to people, and thank goodness, because I'll tell you, I I did more demos of Idea Room to Smart Build using my personal accounts, just showing people like this is what's possible. You need to go over there and talk to those guys. And you guys were back to back at that show. This show is literally, so I want to give a hype here post-frame role plane builder show in New York, four corners, idea room, smart build, graber, defined. This is your one-stop shop to get everything that you need to get going and getting your business into the next level. What have we got, guys? We this we went way long this time. We went way long, but that's okay. I want to have you guys back. So if you have enjoyed the content here, I want to have Johnny back probably separately. I want to have Dan back separately. But I think the three of us just rapping together every once in a while is good for it. Because you guys eat this, you know, these episodes, you guys see these as shorts. A lot of this stuff is 30-second reels of just a hot topic that we're talking about. You know, we do a lot of views and then listens through the podcast channel, but you guys are really enjoying the reels, and I appreciate that. By the way, I don't do this very often, but like and subscribe on YouTube, I'd really appreciate that. It really helps us out and gets us out to more people in the industry. But as we finish up for this week, guys, do you have anything for me? Is there any action items? I know we talked, we didn't get to talk about AI, but Dan, maybe we'll have another episode on that. You know, I think talking about AI implementation with you guys, it makes everything a little bit faster. It's not replacing, it's enhancing, right? It makes everything a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Yeah, let's uh preview this topic, and then we should have a full episode on it. Uh we just sent out a message about it, and yeah, you could say it makes things a little bit faster, but actually it makes it in some cases an order of magnitude faster. So we are as a company basically making kind of an AI native transformation, and we're starting internally, and the two places that people are most interested is essentially support and service, which you kind of made a nod to this, but there are things that you know we used to do because an idea room site and a customer's data set is in many ways almost a custom program thing because there's enough business rules and logic in there, and there's enough uniqueness in the industry that it's always been one of the challenges about how to maintain that. But there are things, I mean, even you know, raising your prices across the board by 3%, rounding it to the nearest $5 and things like that, that if it was, you know, one of our people going through and do it, it can take, you know, 20, 30, 40 different tables, all kinds of formulas to upgrade and change. And that used to take anywhere from hours to days worth of work and a huge amount of testing to make sure that everything is still stable and correct. That can now be done in minutes. So there's kind of an order of magnitude improvement in many things we do on the support and service side of things. And that's kind of where the constant pressure is. So we're deeply invested there. Uh, and then the other is just putting out more product capabilities faster. And I don't know that I've mentioned this yet today, but the two we're coming out with that we're going to be showing at the show are uh the 2D top-down view and the space planner that a lot of folks have been asking for for a long time, where you can place, you know, trucks and cars and tractors and different things in the building to kind of get a sense of size. Uh, we were planning on those being developed across this quarter, and they were basically done in the first half of the quarter because our engineering team is just speeding up faster and faster as we start using uh AI-based development. And that's just kind of like the direction software engineering is going, and you can see it in the news with all the disruption. Um, but all of these things we do in order to enhance our people and focus on what our customers need most. And the one example I'll give is like salespeople. When IDRIM first came out, I got questions about oh, is IDRIM going to take my job? Because you're gonna sell directly to the consumer and they're gonna buy online. Well, no, that's not how it's played out. Ideerums becomes a tool in the hands of a salesperson to spend more time focusing on what they really want to do most, which is talking to customers, educating and consulting, which is what we're doing with all the time that we free up, is our experts get to talk to you more on the phone, consult with you, educate you, train, make sure your site's set up correctly. And because we can streamline that technical work, we get to spend more of that time talking to you and building the relationship and making sure we meet your goals. And that's kind of how we want to use AI next, which is bring it to you guys, not just to increase our operational efficiency, but to enhance what a salesperson does for the same purpose, which is just focus on the highest quality leads and spend more time talking to them and consulting. So, yeah, that would be a great topic to dig into in like just a full uh podcast episode next.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Man, I'd love to be with you on that one because I I've got plenty, plenty to thoughts to share on that one too. And it's the same way I see too, right? AI AI is gonna help people work more efficiently, it's not it's not really coming for people's jobs.

SPEAKER_02 50:54

Yeah, it when it's used properly, it is the best enhancement tool you can use. And I can tell you, if you're not getting in line now, you're gonna be left behind. Just like if you're not using Idea Room and Smart Build in its most basic form right now, as lead gen, bill of materials, order form, all the things. I'm telling you, I cannot stress this enough as we finish up this week. Get to the show in York if you can. If not, idearoom.com, smartbuildsystems.com, check them out. I'm telling you, it's the best time you'll spend looking for a new process. It's the only process, really. Everybody has a website. Listen, I can sell you a website. You want website services, marketing services. I do a great job at that. But so do a lot of other people. I'm not gonna sit here and bad mouth anybody, okay? If you're using a marketing team and you're happy with them, you can still use Idea Room and Smart Build. If you're not using them, the marketing team will figure it out. And then if not, then you can call me. I'll help. I promise. But at the end of the day, I challenge you to heed my words and get to York if you can. And if not, contact the team at Idea Room and Smart Build. Guys, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know for giving me another shot. We had a little technical fiasco mid-episode just to give you guys a peek behind the curtain. There's gonna be a weird cut and uh lost internet there. So I can't wait to see you two guys next week and shake and howdy in person and work on the next great process that we can maybe build together. And we're doing it for you guys. So anything else as we we end out this week, hang out with me after and uh I'll get everything finished up. You guys got anything on the way out?

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Sounds great. Yeah, hope to see you at the show. If you want, we've got free passes. SmartBull's offering free passes, so contact the sales team. Um, yeah, we've got we've got some discounts going on at the show on licenses, but mostly I just want to meet people and and talk to talk to the folks who are who are out there building. So I look forward to to meeting folks in York next week, including you two guys.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Yeah, appreciate it, man. I can tell you the same. I've got free tickets as well. Visit Smart Build Systems, reach out to them if you want to go to York. Don't pay to get in there. We we've got enough. If you're listening to this episode, contact me or Johnny or Dan. We've got you know exhibitor tickets we would be happy to share with you. If you're interested in one of the processes, reach out to us at the show. We'd love to spend some time with you. I can tell you guys, thank you as always for hanging out with me. As we finish up, guys, I can tell you this much. I am excited for the trade show in York. Postframe Rural Plane Builder Show is taking place June 10th and the 11th in York, Pennsylvania. And I am excited to be there with my friends from Smart Build, Idea Room, and Graeber. As we finish out this week, I'm gonna tell you all about the next steps at the trade show in York. Come back next week, and we're gonna do the hype episode. We're gonna talk to Missy from Shield Wall. We're gonna go through the expo, we're gonna talk about vendors and exhibitors and seminars, we're gonna give it all to you. Get out in your communities and do something good for somebody else. It will make you feel better. And right now, in this day and age, we need it desperately. I will see you next week for another episode of America Builds Better. Y'all have a great week. Thank you for checking out America Builds Better. If that episode inspires you up, make sure you hit subscribe, leave a word here, and share this with someone who's ready to let it like. We are dropping powerful content building strategies and stories in real time from the builder to make the building. Stay hungry, stay focused, and eat building. Make you take it down and there to build down the top of the eating, deep emerald, and then we'll be able to do