My name is Chris Winter, and I am a shed salesman.
I have been involved in the portable building industry since 2005.
I grew up in California’s Sonoma County surrounded by grapes and wineries. My sales career in California had been entirely in the wine and spirits industry at the retail, wholesale, and distributor levels.
In 1999, I moved to Texas where my wife and I became realtors and eventually opened an office in Bastrop.
We divorced in 2005, and my ex took over our real estate business as part of our settlement. I was now a single parent of a 2-year-old and suddenly without income.
My dad told me about an ad in the local paper for a business development manager with a portable building manufacturer out of Illinois with manufacturing and a sales office in Bastrop—that meant no commuting an hour each way to Austin!
I quickly submitted a resume and was contacted shortly after by the national sales manager regarding an interview. It was managing current dealers and creating new dealers in an expanding territory.
The position they called “dealer manager” covered both Texas and Louisiana. I won the job and started shortly after.
This was a family-owned company that had practically pioneered the portable shed industry, and at this time, their competition was slim but even with its strong place in the market, the Texas territory had been the worst performing of all the states.
That was about to change.
Within a year I brought my territory from worst to first in nearly all categories, so much so I was “let go” rather than pay me the over-quota bonus for the year … but that’s another story for another time.
Two years before this, my parents decided to follow us out to Texas.
Newly retired, they found themselves driving each other crazy with all the new time on their hands together. To get my dad out of the house and spare mom, I convinced him to become one of nearly 100 shed dealers in my territory.
I hadn’t sought to open a dealer so close to the factory since the manufacturer was selling sheds at the plant as well, but dad was a savvy salesman, and I knew he would do well to help support my sales numbers.
That is when A Place For Your Stuff portable buildings was born.
Dad was a great asset and quickly grew to be one of my top sales volume dealers in Texas. Strangely enough, we both had a passion for what we were doing, selling sheds and lots of them.
During his tenure as a shed dealer repping what was now my old company, dad grew continually frustrated as broken promises and poor customer and dealer service from the manufacturer meant fixing customer issues became half the job.
As his dealer manager, I could shield him from many of these problems but now he was on his own.
With a lack of support from the manufacturer to maintain and grow his business as well as what he knew of my exit from the company, I suggested he talk to a rapidly emerging Mennonite-founded shed company that seemed to be doing things right.
Within 48 hours, his lot was filled with new Derksen buildings, and that’s when things really got interesting. Dad thrived with his new supplier, which was now supporting his efforts.
After my being “let go,” I left the shed industry altogether and became a corporate recruiter in high-end medical. Recruiting is all about developing a broad candidate and client base, and by 2008, my investment in the recruiting field was starting to pay strong dividends.
Then the housing bubble burst, hiring freezes ensued, and after three months of no commissions, I was looking at finding yet another career. At 46, I was not the young gun most companies are looking to hire. What to do?
In the wake of a full-blown recession, opportunities are few. It was about this time when I realized that even with the recession, dad’s shed lot was thriving.
When the economy is great sheds sell. When the economy is bad, sheds sell. So much so that his old ways of managing sales, marketing his business, and his computer skills while working four days a week were not going to be enough to stay on top for long.
No one was breaking down my door to hire me and opportunities were few. It made sense to take this break to see what I could do to help A Place For Your Stuff become more efficient, and if I increased sales, I could make some much-needed income as well until the next job came around.
Besides, it was only temporary, right?
It is now 2022 and dad has long since retired and is back to driving my mom nuts. I rediscovered how good I was at this business and how much I liked building a company and being my own boss.
We now sell more than a million dollars a year of the Derksen product from the 5-acre lot we expanded to in 2007. Our relationship with Derksen feels more like partners or even family after all the years.
Winterteam Enterprises has grown to include CarportME.com, our steel-frame sales site in 26 states, as well as Tiny House Texas, our move-in ready cabin business featuring custom-designed homes made from Derksen buildings.
Mark Bowe the host and creator of Barnwood Builders program on the Discovery Channel partnered with Tiny House Texas to design and deliver a portable utility shed made to look like an 1800s log cabin. It can be seen in the Season 8 Barnwood Cottage episode.
The future looks great for A Place For Your Stuff as we benefit from a rapidly growing population with companies like Tesla moving operations to Bastrop County and a base of repeat and referred customers who continue to support us.
My name is Chris Winter, and I am a shed salesman.