Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric (00:24):
Good, morning for your
buildings.
And now let's get back to theSteel Kings podcast.
Good morning, it is June 12th,2025, 8.15 am.
I've got my podcast studiogoing this morning.
I am coming to you fromGermantown, Ohio, today Doing a
(00:48):
solo episode today of the SteelKings podcast Brought to you by
J Money.
Our partners ov er there.
Great.
Met those guys a couple yearsago Giving them a big plug.
They're an instrumental part ofour business, part of our
(01:09):
business and um and uh, theycan't finance really any project
but in particular for, uh, howit pertains to our uh business
at the Steel Kings, uh, shedfinancing, metal building
financing and then moving intopole barns big shout out over
there to the J money team um,and so I've, uh, I've been
talking to I think we've droppeda couple seeds essentially in
the past episode or two aboutgetting me on a solo one which
(01:33):
is going to happen today.
You can tell if you've beenwatching since the beginning,
which really wasn't that longago.
I've upgraded my area here.
I've got a mixer and a fancymicrophone now and kind of
figure.
Maybe I'll go after it that way.
But anyway, I wanted to kind oftake a dive into this morning
(01:56):
about who I am.
You see, Jared and I most ofthe time.
I know Jared's done a couplesolo ones with some guests by
himself, but really as thefounder of Dayton Barns, you can
see, I've got our websiteplugged up here Kind of just
(02:18):
want to give you a kind of Ihave no game plan, I have zero
notes.
I've got a McDonald's coffeewith a shop espresso sitting in
front of me.
Shout out Germantown, Ohio,McDonald's.
I get the, I go with thesugar-free French vanilla large
and then I always get a shot ofespresso in there and I start
(02:39):
humming around midway.
So, I get to the McCafe lineand then here comes the music
and I start getting a littlemotivated for the day.
What's your motivation?
What gets you out of bed in themorning?
What's got you fighting so hardin life?
(03:01):
Maybe you're not fighting hardand maybe this episode will
inspire you to some degree.
I wanted to take a deep divetoday.
If you guys want, tour thewebsite, tour our Facebook pages
.
Give you a little bit ofinsight about who I am and maybe
where I come from.
A huge shout out to Shannon andthe Shed Geek podcast.
(03:25):
We've connected with them overthe past year or two, Jared,
especially at trade shows in theportable building space and RTO
space.
Absolute love that connectionthere.
It birthed our Steel Kingspodcast, which is somewhat of a
branch off of the portablebuildings but really moving into
(03:47):
larger projects with pole barns, metal buildings, Jared and I
started a business a few monthsago where we do turnkey pole
barns in the state of Ohio.
We can ship out pole barn kitsbasically anywhere you can fit a
semi truck, and I mean it kitsbasically anywhere you can fit a
semi truck, and I mean itanywhere you can fit a semi
truck.
We can drop a pole barn kit offwith stamp trusses and
(04:09):
instructions and you can put upthat bad boy in your backyard
all the way up in let's call itGrand Forks, North Dakota, where
I was born, or all maybe downthere towards Galveston Texas,
which I think is the're allmaybe down there towards
Galveston Texas, which I thinkis the farthest tip down there
in Texas.
Heck, we could go to Key Westwith the pole barn if that's
(04:30):
something you wanted.
So just keep that in mind.
So again, my name is Eric Olson.
I started Dayton on October16th, 2019.
Leading up to that moment, Ifound myself outside a lot that
(04:51):
summer prior to that October andwas working with my hands a lot
, my family got hit by one ofthose tornadoes that was in the
Dayton area.
That particular spring in 2019,in May, the Dayton area got hit
with 19 tornadoes I think adozen of them were F2 or
(05:13):
stronger.
One of them took down severalhundred trees in our backyard
and kind of turned that into alittle woodworking area, and
when I ran out of wood Irealized, man, I need, uh not
need, to buy wood to make thetable, so my profit margin
shrank, shrunk down a little bit, and so I had to pivot and just
kind of jumped into sheds.
(05:34):
It was a natural move in there.
I did not build them, um, itjust kind of fell in my lap
through a family member and Idecided to start watering it and
, um, and now it's June 12th,2025.
Um, the business is rocking.
Uh, we do not have thatlocation I first I started at,
(05:56):
which is in Huber Heights.
Um, the that location is nowclosed and we have home bases in
Brookville, in Troy, in Urbanatwo locations in Urbana and then
I live in beautiful GermantownOhio.
Germantown Ohio is an absolutegorgeous little sleepy town.
(06:17):
I'll call it.
We definitely roll oursidewalks up at night, probably
around 8.30.
Everybody goes outside androlls up their sidewalks up at
night, probably around 8.30.
Everybody goes outside androlls up their sidewalks and so
it's safe.
It's great.
I go to church here at a churchcalled Abundant Life Tabernacle
.
The head pastor's name is JimSetzer.
(06:37):
He is an absolute dog for theBible, for healing and different
things.
It's a great shout out there.
That's where my wife and I go.
I got married last summer.
So, through the business, youstart a business, and you don't
(06:58):
know what's going to happen.
You just kind of say yes andthen you start hammering topics
down.
You know you got your media;you want a website.
How do customers reach you?
How do you stay organized?
How do you handle issues andpayments and taxes and quick
books and all the stuff likethat?
(07:19):
And what I've realized over thecourse of the time is it's
through the I wouldn't call themproblems, but as you work
through business, you justaddress different things as you
go further and I think thatthrough that activity I've
learned financing.
I've learned how to managepeople.
(07:39):
I've learned how to solvecomplex problems.
One of my favorite attributesof myself, which I don't have a
ton, but one thing that I knowI'm decent at is creating when
there's something that needs tobe created.
I like solving that type ofproblem.
(08:01):
And there's a famous internet.
You know, I'm not going toclaim it's mine, it's not mine
but there's a famous uhinterview tactic where if you're
interviewing somebody forposition, you really don't need
to ask him that many questions.
You ask him one question, andthe question is, tell me about a
(08:22):
difficult time in your life, anextremely difficult time in
your life.
Tell me what it was, how yougot over it and then what you
learned from it.
And I believe, if the person'stelling the truth, they're going
to tell you what's on theirheart, which shows that they can
handle hard conversations, andthen through that you can kind
(08:44):
of see are they mature, are theygoing to tell the truth when
times get tough.
And so, I've learned how tointerview, I've learned how to
love people that are not thesame.
Everybody's different,obviously.
We've got about 25 people-ishinvolved.
We've got many partners acrossthe board.
I'm into different things.
(09:05):
We're into Shed Hub.
We're into a company calledBarns Direct.
We're into Dayton, Barns andAustin Buildings.
We've got Five Rivers PoleBarns.
We've got a podcast called theSteel Kings Podcast.
I'm on the board of twonon-profit organizations here in
Dayton.
One of them is called GoodShepherd Ministries.
That is a faith-based recoverymission and I'll kind of go into
(09:29):
that.
And then I sit on the board ofa newer 501 that just put on a
revival in Miamisburg.
That's what we were talkingabout last episode.
Which is kind of where I wantto park this episode is those
two topics Kind of give you myheart a little bit, as we're
kind of looking at this.
But I do want to start withGood Shepherd Ministries, which
(09:51):
is a, and we're going to gothere.
I got involved with these guys.
Let me um.
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Eric (11:44):
I got involved with these
guys about a year and a half ago
.
Two years ago I got a dearfriend shout out, Cody Cahoon.
I've got a dear friend who, ina trying time in my life,
stepped up to the plate, boughtme a hot meal.
I was going through some things.
My dad passed away and I justneed somebody to talk to and he
(12:08):
said, man, have you ever doneany service work?
I think it would definitelyhelp with and I wouldn't say I'm
in recovery, but I do live asober life off alcohol and drugs
.
I fight to even take Motrin butI got plugged in there at Good
Shepherd Ministries with SeanTrapp through Cody Cahoon and
(12:31):
Sean Trapp's the director overthere, met with him, met some of
the fellas and really what GoodShepherd's ministry is really a
.
It's a faith based 24-7ministry where they've got 31 on
average, about 30 to 35 guys atany given time.
They all live together in sevendifferent houses.
(12:52):
They manage five or sixmicro-businesses.
All of them are at variouslengths in their sobriety.
Some of them are newly freshand then some of them are three,
four or five years deep andkind of leading, bringing the
younger fellas up into what itlooks like to kind of walk out
that thing and it's been ablessing.
(13:14):
I do a Bible study there everyother Friday.
I'll be doing a Bible studydown there tomorrow, on June
13th, and that is just an honorfor me to be able to give back
in that regard.
I think the you know, I'm justgoing to say it where I used to
go to get things I shouldn't dois actually where I'm going now
(13:37):
to do the Bible study.
So if you're a biblical personor you're just not a biblical
person, but what comes aroundgoes around and uh, but there's
always redemption, and so if youcaused chaos, generally
speaking the world and in mypersonal belief, God will always
give you an avenue to make itright and generally it's going
(13:58):
to be in the same area, uh, thatuh was cursing you at some
point.
So, I'm able to give back.
Uh, and it's a wonderful thing.
We've got a trip coming up inAugust, august 15th to the I
think it's two weeks.
We're taking a school buscalled the sober seed bus.
(14:19):
Um, I don't know if we got apicture of that thing.
We'll.
Maybe it'll scroll through it.
Actually it was that.
You just saw it.
If you're watching, you spinback a few seconds.
The Sober Seed bus is reallyjust a renovated bus.
We're going to drive it out tothe Grand Canyon, do some
(14:42):
service work all the way back,like you can see here.
Pick up trash, paint, buildfences, give hope, park it at
Walmart, make hot dogs, thattype of different thing, and so
that's a huge blessing for me tobe able to be a part of.
We just donated a project totheir main office on Xenia
(15:06):
Avenue.
If you want to go check thatout, if you're in the Dayton
area, they've got a 30 by 40that they're intending to do
their landscaping business outof and then welding in the
wintertime.
So I was able to donate that.
Cody Cahoon had a plug ongetting concrete done, so we was
(15:29):
able to give the full thing outthere.
Jared and I will be ontelevision on Channel 7, which
is maybe not a brag, but we aregoing to hit the news.
I think some point in earlyJuly they're going to do a live
broadcast with a ribbon cutting.
The mayor of Dayton should bethere, and some leaders from the
(15:52):
Montgomery County Chamber ofCommerce and the Dayton Business
Chamber of Commerce should bethere.
We're going to talk about theministry.
We're going to talk about ourcompanies and it should be a
good time.
So, look out for that.
Going to talk about ourcompanies, and uh should be a
good time.
So, look out for that um.
And then the second um, and I'mgonna kind of switch over here.
I'm gonna go to Facebook, um,and go to the river.
(16:19):
Rah, rah for freshers.
Uh, they was at our.
So here is um in the secondorganization, this Riverfront
revival.
I kind of want to scroll downand see if we've got some posts
here.
I don't know if I can show youany pictures from it, pictures
(16:50):
from it but anyway I want toshow you a little bit of pic.
Yeah, we'll just go to BradHiggins.
He's the founder of it, butessentially we threw a.
What we're looking at here,that's me right here with my
wife Heather Shout out Heatherand Tyler Haddix.
So, to unpack this situation,what we're looking at is this
(17:13):
was a public revival that wethrew that Brad Higgins, a dear
friend of mine, started.
It was birthed in a vision thathe had during a fasting retreat
about a year and a half ago.
He put all of his thoughts andvision on paper and then it came
to life.
This past weekend, Miamisburg,Ohio, was the.
(17:39):
This was like the town.
So, this amphitheater here offto the left is right on the
river there.
It's a beautiful area of DaytonOhio.
If you ever get a chance to godown there, it's probably one of
the most beautiful parks.
Honestly, the grass isimpressive.
My grass in my front yard sucks.
It's not very beautiful, butthis grass right here it's an
epic park.
(17:59):
We put on this event.
We had all sorts of boothsthere.
There was probably a dozenchurches.
There was four or fivenon-profit, recovery-based
ministries, faith-based.
There was, I believe, 13 boothsor something.
We had bounce houses, foodtrucks, Chick-Fil-A came, a
bunch of different other foodtrucks came and we're looking at
(18:22):
several hundred, maybe up to athousand people came by at the
services that we had on Fridaynight, on Saturday night.
It was just a beautiful time ofministry.
It was an unprecedented event.
So normally church is withinthe four walls.
If you don't go to church, noworries at all.
(18:43):
But what we're talking abouthere is that a public government
you know, Miamisburg GovernmentCenter said yes to us doing
this here and we made a big dent.
A lot of people was findinghealing.
I prayed with many people atthis right where this man is
standing changed some lives.
That's where my heart is, andso, as we're unpacking here, I'm
(19:07):
not, um, trying to paint themost accurate version of me to
you, to you, um, and so that so.
So here I am with Heather, mywife, and then this guy right
here.
He is an evangelist named RyanYoung.
He is a a straight firepreacher, um, and I just want to
(19:27):
kind of go through somepictures here just from the
event.
These are people that I knowpersonally and just wanted to
kind of share.
Got a unicorn.
Yeah, these guys, I all knowthem, and anyway.
So, this was a beautiful.
(19:49):
Another beautiful event that wasmy wife, Heather.
She literally handed out gosh,probably, I want to say I don't
know how many Bibles there were,but I think she gave away 40 or
30 or 40 of them, all sorts oftracks and if you look at it,
(20:10):
you understand why she gave outthe flower pens.
These are flower pens.
She just handed them out, andso that's who she is.
She's just a beautiful littleflower butterfly, and so there's
some pictures from it.
Let's go down a little bit more.
Here's a little video.
You can see how fun it was.
Bunch of people, just Beautiful.
(20:35):
I've never seen this video.
Actually Absolutely beautiful,and we had a dunk tank
(20:56):
apparently.
So, alright, some testimonies.
Beautiful, let's cut that downa little bit.
Baptisms, of course, can't havea revival without being
(21:16):
baptized in Jesus' name, amen,all right, so you can kind of
see that.
That's kind of my heart to seethat.
That's kind of my heart.
Um,
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Eric (22:38):
So, we've already got the
place booked for.
Let me see how much time we'vegot left.
We've got 10 minutes, nice,okay.
So those are the twoorganizations that I hold so
near and dear to me.
I also work in the youthministry at the church there and
, aspiring, I'm going to Belizein a month with my wife to put
(22:59):
on a kids conference.
In the mornings we're going torally children and do morning
church services there, just onthe street, and then at night
we're going to do the same thing, but with adults going down
there with a small team tominister, and so that I think,
(23:20):
if I wanted you to know anythingabout me, that's what I want
you to know about me.
All of that stuff is funded andpaid for by what we're about to
talk about, which is ourbusinesses.
So the main slice that we'vegot is Dayton Barns, this metal
building right here with allthis footage.
This is actually a store thatis called the Sharpshooters Gun
(23:45):
Range.
If I've got that correct.
That's in Snowflake, Arizona.
I went out there for a week,took all this footage with a
drone.
Snowflake is, if you'rewondering, it's in a.
It's right next to a towncalled Show Low, um.
It's up in the high plains ofArizona, almost near New Mexico.
(24:07):
It's probably like an hour, uh,in between Flagstaff and Gallup
, New Mexico, up there, um, butI took all of that footage.
That was the first big projectwe did.
I did it over the internet andthen I flew up there to take
this footage big project we did.
I did it over the internet andthen I flew out there to take
this footage.
(24:28):
As you can see, we've got allsorts of sizes categorized.
We've got all sorts of types ofgarages, carports, buildings,
commercial.
We've got a really cool designand price aspect of it.
If you're selling woodsheds andyou want to start selling metal
buildings, I think that's asolid choice.
And here, you know, you got toget yourself a builder, and so I
(24:51):
have become an expert at thistype of deal.
I use this thing every singleday.
Yesterday I sold a building inColerain, Ohio.
The previous day I sold one inOregon.
We have a couple differentprograms that we use for that.
Shout out sensei.
Sensei is a super uniqueprogram to use.
(25:11):
They, um, they have an orderingfeature in there, so you build
the building and then you canactually use this, this
structure, right here, and sendit for an order.
You don't have to fill anythingout except the information on
the customer.
This one is Idea Room.
I think Idea Room is alsoworking on something like that.
I love the user friendliness ofit.
(25:31):
This is really easy for acustomer to use.
That's important for us.
We get a lot of design tools,which is just a person getting
on here making the thing theywant to price for submitting it,
and then we kind of have asales team that responds to it
and kind of works their process.
That way We've got a.
Now don't judge us becausewe're not all the way there yet,
(25:53):
we just started this thing.
We've got a Five Rivers polebarns and here are the projects
that we're doing there.
Um, we've got a uh projectwe're closing tomorrow in xenia.
It's a 30 by 50 pole barnoverhead doors, now kind of the
(26:15):
and we'll get into this Jaredand I will start talking more
about other things not steelrelated, even though the siding
and the roof are all ribbedsteel panels on pole barns.
But essentially, we are gettinginto this space here when that
birthed from is.
(26:36):
We've got a business partner inthe Dayton area comes from a
great pastor family.
His name is Caleb.
He's going to be a guest on theDayton area Comes from a great
pastor family.
His name is Caleb.
He's going to be a guest on thenext episode, so get ready for
that.
He's a concrete contractor,construction guy.
He knows everything aboutconcrete.
We've been using him for padsand for metal buildings.
(26:58):
Where the pole barns came from,which we kind of dove into last
week, is Caleb would go tosomebody's house to price out a
concrete pad for a metalbuilding and if the customer
balked maybe it was tooexpensive, or just through basic
conversation, Caleb would letthe customer know we don't do
(27:24):
pole barns because sometimespeople would ask and so he kept
getting rejected.
He would do the pad butwouldn't do the building because
we didn't sell pole barns.
And so I think, through a bunchof people asking for it, he
started pounding us hey, we'vegot to do this, we got to do
this.
That was about two years agoand so finally we bit the bullet
.
We sat down, we had a coupledry erase sessions, we hit the
(27:47):
ground running.
No-transcript, they ship prettyquickly, a month or less.
We've got a pretty decentsupplier.
(28:10):
If you want us to put it up andyou're in the Ohio area, reach
out to us and you can kind ofsee what the work looks like
here.
Beautiful pole barns.
This is like your typical polebarn.
There's a hay loft up there, acouple cupolas.
(28:31):
Let's go back to one more.
Maybe here's like an even morebasic one.
This one's just your typicalgarage.
Super steep roof for an atticor a loft area.
Beautiful structure thereMatches the house, which is also
a barn dominium, which we do.
We'll get into that too at somepoint as we keep going.
(28:52):
I believe this is episode 18 or19.
I can't remember what Jaredsaid last time.
I've got four minutes left onthis route, so I need to land
this plane.
Four minutes left on this read,so I need to land this plane.
I know this was like a bunch ofinfo about me, but we've got
the pole barn business, we'vegot the metal building business
(29:12):
in Dayton Barns and then let'sgo to our Facebook page.
Let's go to our Facebook pagehere and go to Dayton Barns and
all steel buildings.
If you would give us a likehere, that'd mean a lot.
We've got quite a bit offollowers on here.
I wanted to show this building.
We did this one.
I don't know if you can hearthe sound or not Check out this
(29:37):
building Beautiful, look at thatRight up on it.
And so, we are always postingour projects there, all the new
things that we're doing,anything that was recently built
(29:58):
, always, always doing that andshowing off the most recent
project we've done.
Um, I think for now I I willland this plane.
Um, you know, I've been in theDayton area almost my whole life
.
I've left.
I always come back for somereason, um, really praying for
(30:20):
some kids.
Uh, my wife and I have beenmarried almost a year.
We're going out of town in twoweeks, so we'll have a couple
episodes before then and I'll doan episode from Florida Going
down to the Fort Myers area,which got hit by a hurricane a
couple years ago as you guysknow, that was kind of a
devastating one.
Hoping to get some footage orsome live interviews or
(30:41):
something down there.
Um and um, but anyway, man, Ione more, one more plug to the J
money team out there.
Um, as I land this plane forthe day, uh, Joel.
Joel entered my life a couple ofyears ago.
Um, he provided two solutions,uh, one of them was an immediate
, which was a woodshed provider,and the second one he had to
(31:03):
develop, which was the financingfor metal buildings.
If you have any questions aboutfinancing whatsoever woodsheds
or metal you need to contact theJ Money team.
It's easy to use.
The dashboard's easy.
It's really easy to talk to thecustomers.
The funding aspect of it isvery easy as well.
(31:25):
It became a seamless part ofour business.
I've used them.
Dayton Barns did over $5million worth of finance deals
with them since we started,which was last January, which is
nothing to balk at.
It's nothing to brag abouteither, but it's definitely
provided some solutions.
Every customer needs to keepcash in their pocket because the
(31:46):
concrete's expensive, thedifferent parts of the projects
are expensive.
Some of the programs that JMoney has are no money down
options, so you can actuallytruly not pay one penny and then
just end up with a metalbuilding in your backyard, which
is always so good.
I am so thankful for thelisteners here.
I will definitely do a part twoat some point, maybe later in
(32:10):
the summer, but I wanted toshare my heart, so if you hear
my voice, you kind of see myradical energy.
I just wanted you to know whereit's coming from.
From the bottom of my heart,I'm so thankful to be in
business with Jared Shannon, allmy partners, Caleb.
At Five Rivers we have a webdeveloper.
(32:30):
That's an amazing guy.
Thankful for him and his teamand we're hoping that you guys
like our content, keep likingwatching, tuning in.
Let us know if we need to doanything better or if you got
any suggestions.
We're open that you guys likeour content.
You keep liking watching,tuning in.
Let us know if we need to doanything better or if you've got
(32:51):
any suggestions for guests.
We are open for a lot ofdifferent things.
One more thing it's June 12th.
We are going to the Steel Rollform show, which I believe is in
September in Dayton.
If you're in the Ohio area andyou want to meet us, that is a
good place for us to be.
We'll have a Steel Kingspodcast booth.
Probably do a couple episodesthere live.
Looking forward to hearing fromeverybody about that.
If you guys want to catch up,go to dinner, etc.
(33:13):
Etc.
But for now, you guys have ablessed day.