RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:00:03) – And we’re back with more blood and gore, just like a vengeful psycho killer sequel. Trust me, I’ve got him right where I want him, as he confesses his true crime past. On how his reputation became a victim of unscrupulous acts despite his efforts in part two of going places unknown with Sean Shreve. Get ready to level up your powder coater game. So yeah. And I think that. I mean, in describing the Internet culture today. You’ve got two kinds of influencers. You know, the kind that just have have that reach or followership or.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) – (00:01:17) – I think what you have is naturally likable people.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:22) – Organic reach or it’s not organic reach, but like that organic ness that they don’t care how many followers they have versus, you know, because they’re being authentic, they’re just being themselves on whatever platform they’re on. Um, and versus the. I guess that the fiery or, you know the fiery fellowship really fast, hard and fast but have nothing behind it. You know what mean? There’s just nothing behind it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:54) – And there’s lots of celebrities out there that we could compare to, but mean, you know. Me personally, I’m all about organic reach versus paid or any other kind of viral type stuff because yeah, you’re not really going to get the followership in that. I kind of want to go back to this point that was made a little while ago actually about, um, you know, growing your YouTube channel and, you know, at some point it’s going to have so much reach, you know, just so much that you can, you know, and that’s okay because the guy with the the you notice that there’s the other kind of viral or powdered highly clicked on powder coating is videos out there are the guy that has the automotive channel that, you know, does all kinds of things. Automotive, of course, it’s a much broader audience, right. Um, and it’s got one video that’s powder coats. Yeah. Like truck, you know, here’s my powder coated tracker, my whatever, and it goes crazy and stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:06) – But there isn’t what a lot of what you’re doing out there where the how to videos even this podcast you know we reached a couple milestones with just the getting into the top 200 of how to podcasts. I mean that’s for a niche market that’s you know and that’s what I’m getting at is that powder coating is niche and you shouldn’t expect a million followers out of it because even if you could get a million followers out of it, how many of those are actually going to continue to come back and engage in your lives or engage with, you know, comments, likes and shares? Yeah. How many are those? And I’d rather have those people every day coming to my blog or to my podcast or whatever, my YouTube channel, um, because I know they’re going to come back every week. And that’s to me more important than how many not how many followers do not engage, you know, that are not engaging.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:04:15) – I’m not going to pretend I’m going to hit like, even I mean, I’m at 25 something now, 2500 something now, which to me is ridiculous. You know, like, I didn’t think I would get anywhere near that. So like the idea of 10,000, I guess now is a little more reasonable. But even then, like, I don’t care if I even get to 10,000 followers, it’s, you know, having the goal of having followers is like having the goal of having a bunch of fake friends around you, you know, like, I’d rather have like two cool friends that I know are honest with me, for better or worse every time than have a bunch of fake people who just want to like big me up and, you know, like on my videos or leave fake positive comments and things like that. And it’s the big thing with me is, you know, I don’t need a million followers. If I can teach 100 people some dumb trick on powder coating, I’m way happier doing that way, happy doing that.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:05:04) – And it’s, you know, there’s all these people are like, you know, I’ll give these. I guess, you know, I don’t see them as like secret tips and tricks, but I guess either I came up with them or I got them. Somebody would never showed up to other people or whatever. But I’ll show people how to like mask a valve cover. Like, I don’t know if you’ve seen my video about masking the backside of a valve cover for powder. I use tinfoil. I don’t tape the whole back thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:27) – Ross has done that a few times. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:05:29) – Tin foil, tin foil and binder clips on the backside.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:31) – Well, it’s cheap.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:05:32) – Too fast. It’s incredibly fast. Like, that’s the biggest thing, you know, Tape sucks, tapes expensive. It sucks to deal with most of the time, especially on multi coat stuff. The foil thing is quick and easy and do it and you know, it’s it works every time. It’s not like it doesn’t work on certain types of outcome every time.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:05:52) – And when I started posting that, I started seeing all these, you know, pictures of people’s work done and hanging and all of a sudden now everybody’s using binder foil on the back. And I’m like, That’s awesome. And people are like, Oh, how come you don’t give unknown credit? You know, Unknown coatings credit. Like, they’re not gonna give me credit for that. I don’t care. You know, it’s not like it’s not like I invented some crazy new way of doing something. It’s just like, I’m glad that now somebody else has found an easier way of doing something cool. Yeah, good enough for me, you know? Or the, you know, putting clay when I sandblast valve covers. You know, if you have a customer who doesn’t want you to remove the baffles which. I don’t know why anybody would ever want that, but it happens. You know, I came up with the idea of using modeling clay to plug all of the openings in the baffles because it’s sticky, right? So it’ll stick to everything during the blasting process.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:06:43) – And I’ve tested it 4 or 5 times to make sure that the only way that you can even get into it, as if you tried to blast media into it, even then, it doesn’t really work. Um, before I ever told anybody else about it, But I’ve been using that way of doing it for six years now, seven years now. And now I see people like, Hey, where can I get modeling clay from? You know, Like I was like, Hey, you just go to Walmart, you know, like, it’s crazy. And and that to me is way more that I’m way more proud of being able to help ten people than I would ever be of having 10,000 followers.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:18) – And because that’s what it’s about.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:07:20) – Yeah. And having the having the channel grow as well as it has has been awesome. I mean the opportunities now, I mean I’ve, I’m getting contacted by powder coating companies that sell powder like big name companies, um, offering me, you know, real sponsorships, not, Hey, can you mention our name once in a while? You know, these are we’ll pay you to put our logo in every video, use our product for everything.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:07:45) – And, you know, because.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:48) – They need help. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:07:49) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:50) – And it’s they’ve been they’ve been in the industrial world for so long, they don’t even know how to handle a, you know, how to handle custom coaters. Yeah. And I’ve been preaching that since way before. You know, I’m not going to name names, but like, you know, I can’t believe they’ve ignored this for so long, you know?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:08:13) – And you see you see them trying to jump into it now, but you can tell they’re really far behind. Like prismatic is the only one that ever catered.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:19) – I mean, but they they cater to just us, you know.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:08:22) – Well, that’s what I’m saying. So Prismatic has done that. I mean Columbia and like powder by the pound. Some of those guys who I you know I think initially we’re taking big box out or repackaging it and selling it off.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:33) – We understand that now.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:08:34) – Yeah but it’s you know, prismatic has always been there and then all these other companies are now playing catch up like in a big way.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:08:41) – I mean I, I don’t we’re still in some negotiations with two companies, so I don’t want to say anything name wise, but I’ve been contacted now by three big box powder companies who try to sponsor the channel. And I’m just like, I gotta be honest with you guys. I’ve never even used your powder before.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:57) – So I’m telling you, this is the beauty of what you and this podcast is doing is it’s disrupting the market. Yeah. And it’s I was talking to Ross about this yesterday or think this morning, I don’t know. I’m 50. I forget when I talked to my husband now but you know we’re now, you know we’re making some noise. Yeah. Um, and they’re starting to kind of turn their head a little bit and realize, you know, there’s an army of us, literally. I mean, I know that’s what you call the Facebook group and stuff, you know, mean I’ve been preaching that to them for. For, for years even before, you know, uh, to anybody that would hear me, um.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:45) – And, you know, ironically, the interesting thing about Prismatic is their problem is the opposite. They want to get more industrial customers.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:09:55) – And that was always my problem. That was my problem with Prismatic forever. It’s like, well, why don’t you guys, if I want to buy a £55 box of your clear, why do I why am I still paying almost full price that you would be charged me per pound? Yeah. And but the more that I stepped back and looked at it, I was like. It makes sense though. This is actually your market like. You know, if you mention powder like, hey, where’s the best place to get powder? It’s prismatic every time. On any hobby form. Any hobby form.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:23) – And they own the market.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:10:25) – Yeah, right. And that’s the thing, you know, that’s what I always go back to is that brand recognition, you know, like it doesn’t. You can say all you want about the fact that they don’t do big box pricing, but I guarantee you they’re doing more business.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:10:36) – Anybody else? I mean, I’ve seen I’ve seen their trucks. I’ve been to the prismatic. You know, I just I actually used to live in Oregon where Prismatic is like the same city that it’s in. And when I went back there to visit some friends, I actually stopped by Prismatic or, you know, Nick Industries technically. And, you know, I’ve seen the three ups trucks there that they’re loading up every day. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I know how much business they’re doing. Like it’s not I’m sure that big box companies are doing just fine as well. It’s not like, you know, Prismatic has taken a big bite of what they want, but now it’s the big box. Companies are coming back after Prismatic customers saying like, Hey, why don’t you guys try to buy some of our powder? And you know, the number of companies now that have sent me, I probably have gotten. £300 of powder for free from companies that are just trying to get me.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:11:26) – Hey, why don’t you come over to us? Why don’t you mention us on your, you know, your YouTube channel? And I’m just like, I mean, I could but if you’re, you know, the downside of me is if I don’t like your powder, you’re going to know about it on the YouTube channel, you know? And yeah, it’s like the risk worth it to you, you know, like, is the risk really there? That’s one of the big things with, you know, I love ifs powder the a bunch of the colors that I’ve gotten from them. I love love they’re super wet black, although they’re matte black. Two silver, one of the best silvers I’ve ever used. There’s a bunch of colors that I absolutely love, but they have atrocious customer service. If you’re not a company ordering $1,055 boxers and when I say atrocious, I mean I can’t email, call or text my rep and get a response for weeks, you know, and it’s like or I could just get a hold of say.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:12:17) – It’s ever been that bad for me. But I would like to order their powders more and, and think that that’s kind of more or less where think I want to make this you know this point is that. I think it’s good that we’re that we’re maybe possibly being influencers or disruptors or, you know, and finally having a voice either on YouTube or somewhere else where we can actually say, this is kind of lame and you need to make it better. Mean, uh, you know, remember when the whole tiger thing kind of came on in the groups and stuff and everybody’s like, Well, how do I get an account or how do I order and stuff? And I’m thinking rolling my eyes, you know, like, Come on, tiger, get an automated system there where we could just we don’t have to call.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:13:10) – Tell your web guy to spend ten minutes of his day to make this possible.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:14) – Yeah, I think that, to be honest with you, I think their problem is a little harder to solve than that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:18) – But but it’s important that we do speak out and that we do say this could be better or this is messed up or whatever. And I think it is going to change. And, you know, when I had I wish I hope today’s people that are listening to this podcast go back and listen to the Thrush 99 podcast because this is exactly what Russell was talking about, that if we get we’re big enough that if we get together, we can change this industry and it’s going to come. It’s not going to come from the industrial coaters people, it’s going to come from you and me and everybody listening to this podcast about what it is that we want out of the industry. And I get really my voice is going up and I’m getting excited and, you know, whatever, But it’s so freaking true. And we need to this is why we want to build the community in a positive way and and cheer everybody on. Not, you know, block them on Facebook groups or bash them in conversations on about posts and stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:37) – It’s one of the reasons why I started the podcast is to make a more positive. Uh, experience for people that are trying to go to these places and get information. And I love I love your channel because I’m always attracted to. Powder coaters or industry people that are. Providing a valuable resource, right? Your channel is a resource blast Coatings blog is a resource for when you’re down in the dumps and you want to hear so, you know, like don’t know or you want to get positive about how to manage your business. Jace has got an incredible you got to go there guys, to go check it out because it’s just such a great you get so uplifted when you go there because you realize you’re not the only one with this problem and this guy is trying to help you solve it or get a better grasp of it. Right. I am dying to get on there. Why? Because they have a library. People of videos, how to videos in from a technical expert. Uh, and it they’ve got they’ve got the same problem.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:55) – I have too much content all over the place and not promoting it enough. Right. Uh, you know, it’s good that you’re just mainly focusing on the YouTube channel because when you create as much content as I do, I get boggled down with putting it everywhere all over the place. And they literally swear they got the the freaking powder coating library of Alexandria in there on their website. But how can you freaking find it? You know what mean? I had to actually have them tell me where to go to get all these. And it’s the way he talks and it’s like somebody like me who’s non-technical and not a powder coater. I could literally get all of those videos that I watched and I’m like, Oh, I have a better understanding of this now, and where is it hidden in somewhere in deep and down in their website somewhere.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:16:46) – No. Nine pages of links. Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty rough finding that stuff on there.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:51) – Yeah. So it’s not just about ordering from, it’s also just trying to find because it just seems like it’s a freaking maze on their website that they could just simplify for users so much better and give a better customer experience.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:04) – But anyways, hopefully they’re listening.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:17:07) – I think touching on the one thing where you’re saying like you like pages or people or whatever that are willing to help other people is I think that. When you’re authentic, it’s really easy to want to help other people, and it’s really easy to help other authentic people. You know what I mean? Because you see what they’re doing and you’re like, Oh, I want to help that person. You know, like I want to help them grow at, you know, I’ll help other people grow it. No benefit to me. I mean, I shout people out of my YouTube or Instagram, whatever. I don’t care if they ever shout me back out, you know, like, that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because I’d like to see them grow. But whatever the reason might be, you know, and it’s, um, there’s a I was going to say, kid, you might even be my age. I actually have no idea idea how old he is, but he’s been doing work with, uh, I want to say, like a redline easy 50 gun, I think, which I’ve no experience of any kind with.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:18:00) – So I know very little about them, but I know that they’re not like they’re a hobby level gun. They’re not like a, you know, high end gun by any means. And he bought one of my units and looking at the work that he had been putting out with this easy 50, like I was floored. Like over the top impressed. I think I’ve mentioned him now in like 2 or 3 different YouTube. I think I met him on a two different YouTube Q&A and then just a regular video I shout out because like, you know, and I think I’m only sort of shouting out like his Instagram and his Snapchat, remember correctly. But it’s like the work that he’s putting out with this. You know, I don’t want to say like low end equipment, but in scale, low end equipment. Um, was incredible. You know, it’s like I’m way more interested in seeing that person grow than trying to push down somebody who’s doing good work. You know, it’s like more people to see that you don’t have to buy $1,000, $2,000, $4,000, $8,000 gun to put out good work.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:18:56) – You just have to be dedicated and committed to what you want to put out, you know, And it’s it’s pretty much.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:01) – Out for his competition because when he does go and buy that $5,000 game or Wagner or Yeah, Nordson or whatever, look out, He’s going to be amazing. You know, can you get to be that good on a on a on a hobby and you know.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:19:15) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:16) – If he ever gets, you know, if that’s what he wants but you know. Yeah. It is all about the progressing of the industry and the industry is people. Yeah, it always has been.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) – (00:19:27) – That was one of the reasons I, you know, I left most of the powder coating groups on, on Facebook. Just seemed like there was a lot of drama in them that I just and not even entertaining drama. It was just like grown men arguing about dumb stuff, you know, basically what it was. And I, you know, I can get that anywhere on Facebook. I don’t need to be in a powder coating group to find that.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:19:49) – Um, but there was, you know, I remember seeing one of the You.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:53) – Should try the lightworkers group. Oh, my God. Some of those. Oh, my God. Some of those groups are just like. It’s like the more ascended this subject matter and the lower the vibration can be.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:20:12) – But, uh. It was you know, I left those groups and I think it’s kind of funny to me now. I don’t know. You know, I’m sure you’ve seen enough of my videos that have a sticker on the side of my the video. The gun that I use in all my videos is a hyper smooth oh two, right. That I purchased in 2008. And I remember seeing a post that was talking crap about the fact that I was using, you know, I’m giving people advice and tell them how to do things, but I’m still using this hobby gun. And. I’ll be super honest. The only reason I’ve continued to use that in all my videos is because I know it bothers people, which is the wrong reason to do it.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:20:52) – But there’s a sticker now on the side of my gun because he’s like, Oh, how could he be telling anybody how to do anything? He’s using a 20 year old gun. So that’s why on the side of my gun now, there’s actually a sticker that says 20 year old gun in quotes. And then I saw that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:04) – I saw that and was wondering what that meant because I didn’t understand. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:21:09) – The best part of that is I later went back and found that guy’s business. His business closed down this year. He said, due to Covid. You know, it is what it is. I don’t know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:23) – Well, there are some powder coaters out there that including us, that are struggling, but that’s our state.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:21:29) – Yeah, I’m just saying, like looking at the quality of work, I would say that a global pandemic was not his problem. That’s great. Um, but it was funny because, you know, he’s using I think he was using like a Wagner, you know, he’s using like a $4,600 gun, whatever it was.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:21:46) – And I’m just like, So wait a minute. You’re mad at me for using this gun that I think when I bought my gun, it was $700 and it came with like a whole kit of startup stuff. It was on sale. I remember it being on sale. It’s the why ordered of the day did. And I was like, So you’re mad at me for using this gun and being able to put out, you know, clearly good results? Like anybody who’s seen my stuff, like not bragging, but like you can see that the work is there, like the quality is there. And I was like, so you’re mad about that, but you’re using this gun that cost, you know, five, six, seven times more than mine. And and you can’t keep it. You can’t keep your business going. But I’m doing just fine, you know, And it’s that’s not, you know, it’s not a shot. Maybe it’s not a slap in the face, but it’s like your focus is in the wrong place if it’s an observation.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:29) – Yeah, Yeah. I did have that feeling when I was watching that video last night. Like, what brand is that? You know, what brand is using? Because it was like colored, like a Wagner. And I’m like Adele Wagner on there. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:22:45) – That is it is a I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:47) – Don’t know what it is. It’s it’s an industry thing, too, don’t you think? Like, think it comes from, um, like a top level kind of thing or where, you know, it’s all, you know, there are these industrial coaters, man. It’s all about who is your guy, you know?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:23:08) – Yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s like, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk always talks about he’s like, I want to build the biggest building in town. And I can do that two ways. I can either build the biggest building or I can tear down everybody around me. And it seems like most of those guys have a way bigger interest in tearing everybody down around them.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:23:23) – And just like going out and trying to put in the work, like make things happen. And it’s like, I don’t I don’t know how anybody could live in that mindset. Like that’s so far removed from how I think about anything. You know, it’s not to sit here and say that I don’t have negative thoughts about people in the industry necessarily, but you’re not going to see me all over the Internet blasting them, making fun of the gun that they’re using. You know, that’s the last thing. If they’re putting out work, if it’s good work, don’t care. Don’t care if they’re using a harbor freight gun. You know, if you’re they’re throwing glass out of it with a harbor break. I’m cool, you know. Right. I’m not going to.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:23:57) – Maybe they’re trying to forget how they started themselves or something. I don’t know. Like I don’t you know, I do see that sometimes, too, in the in the chats and stuff and and stuff. It’s even. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:24:10) – Even trying to compare I mean, industrial coaters comparing themselves to me is ridiculous.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:24:15) – It’s like I know that they’re industrial coaters who I’m sure put out great work, but we all know that most industrial coating doesn’t have to look that great. You know, it’s not like it has to be amazing. You’re talking matte black on probably 80% of your jobs or architectural bronze. You know, it’s like it’s like we’re not too worried about it. And most of it, you know, fencing, railings, all that that’s going to be installed before the customer even sees it, has a problem with it. It doesn’t even matter. You know, it’s like it’s like to compare that versus when I have somebody come here and pick up a set of wheels and they pick up a wheel and they’re going like this and flipping it all around. Like, I know for a fact that my quality is probably better than most industrial coaters just by default, because it has to be not. I’m not saying they can’t put out the work, I’m just saying that they don’t have to put out that level of work because they’re an industrial coater, you know? And so to compare the two is just ridiculous.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:25:05) – You know, it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:25:05) – Funny because I ordered this right next to me here. You can’t see it on the camera, but I ordered a pro quote or no pro pro form or something from Home Depot. It’s just a slab wall. It’s plastic. Right. Um, but the hooks that come with it are powder coated.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:25:24) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:25:25) – And I was inspecting the powder coating, and I’m like, Who’s got this account? You know, whatever.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:25:31) – But it’s funny, looking at the coat.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:25:33) – I mean, overall, it’s a good coating, but, you know, you can see you can see debris from the weld and, you know, it’s not cleaned up and stuff. And I’m like, Do I want to put this on my wall? You know, like but, you know, yeah, it’s amazing how much they get away with those line coaters and those industrial coaters get away with it, you know, because for them, it’s all about margins, right? It’s all about making the most amount of money.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:25:59) – And it’s a different problem that they’re solving versus what we’re solving. Right. Exactly. So I do want to talk about because on your. Yeah. Getting back to your search results on that first page. Okay. You type in unknown coatings, right. Um, and there is. And the reason why I’m bringing this up is I’m on the advisory committee for the state of Hawaii. So get into you know where I’m going now.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:26:33) – Yeah, I think I know where you’re going, but yeah, go ahead. Well, I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:37) – Guess the point is, is that, you know, the I notice that you don’t necessarily have an accreditation, although it seemed like maybe you should, uh, I’m not sure why the is ranking. You guess if that’s where the complaint came from. There’s a complaint in there. Didn’t really click into your profile. You don’t really have a profile, actually.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:01) – But my my thing has changed in the last 12 years. It is literally it goes like a s, c, a b, s constantly.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:12) – And I’ve my the only response. I mean, I guess I feel weird telling you this is because now you just said that you’re part of a BBVA thing but.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:27:20) – Don’t work for them. I’m just an advisory board.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:23) – I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them. And actually the same you know, I talked to my parents. I had gotten a negative, you know, whatever it is, a complaint or whatever. And I talked to my parents and they, of course, thought it was a big deal. You know, you know, my parents are 69 and 71, you know, so old. I guess we’ll say I’m closer than that than I want to be, but.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:27:46) – Different from a different age.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:48) – Right. And, you know, to them, the BBVA was everything because that was the only person that was the only thing you could turn to to get any information about anybody. And, you know, luckily, I’m I’m just on the edge of, you know, I had Internet when it first came out kind of a thing.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:28:04) – You know, I had AOL when it was on three floppy disks kind of at the store, you know, and. For me. You know, what I tell the Better Business Bureau is they have no value to not only myself, but to anybody. Actually, if you’re not old, there’s no value in the BPB, in my opinion. Now, the reason I say that is only because of the Internet. You know, if people want reviews and they want to know things. The Web doesn’t provide enough information for that to even be a thing that people can look up, you know, mean they can look up, oh, this person’s had X amount of complaints and they resolved X amount of complaints, which is great, I guess. Um, but there’s nobody, there’s no 25 year old that’s going to look at the BBC that’s not even close to a reality. And that’s the same thing I’ve told them the first time I ever got a complaint. I remember I hemmed and hawed about how I wanted to respond to it now.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:29:00) – I should preface this by saying that the complaint that happened, I had already taken care of it before the DVD. So, you know, I was already kind of a step ahead of what they were trying to accomplish. Right. But when I started looking into the web a little bit more, I realized that it’s essentially a private company who makes money off people paying for accreditation. I mean, it has government ties. I’m not going to say that it’s a guy just making a bunch of money off people buying their A-plus ratings, but. I noticed when I had gotten negative comments on it, a couple of months went by and I got a letter and an email from the web asking if I would like accreditation. Then I could pay $5,000 and I could get via accredited business and get a sticker for my door and get put on some nonsense website. I think it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:29:51) – 5000. That’s not what I pay. But yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:29:54) – Mine was five -$5,000. Wow. Actually, I printed I think I actually posted on Facebook because I was like.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:30:00) – I was like, so let me get this straight. Me, who I assume only has negative things because like, nobody contacts them when it’s positive because it’s not how that works. I was like, I only have negative things with the BPP who every time they’ve messaged me, I’ve told them that like, stop sending me these letters. You’re wasting your money. I don’t care what any of you say. Your opinion is of no value to me or really anybody else. And now you’re willing to let me buy an accreditation? I was like, So you’re basically just a fraud? Like, you’re just mean. Imagine any sort of thing where I can pay to get a better grade, you know?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:33) – Yeah. I mean, well, it’s, it’s, it’s it’s more or less sort of taking an oath, I guess, if you want to call it that, which might even infuriate you more that, you know, you’re going to uphold a certain type of value, you know, to legitimize think that.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:30:55) – But it’s a value created by old people for old people. We’re not created for the generation I live in.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:59) – Listen, this is why they’re asking. They’ve asked me to be on the advisory committee for the state because they are having an identity crisis and finding and sort of trying to find their relevancy in this new world, the people that are running the BPP. Um, Tyler is the president of the for the Western. We’re called the north northwest Pacific region. And I’m not sure if Utah is included in the Northwest Pacific. Think it’s. Yeah, but it’s like California, Hawaii, uh, Seattle or Seattle. Washington and Oregon think Idaho, maybe Nevada as well. But. Yeah. Mean this is the reason why they have advisory committee members that are business owners that are on this, you know, so that they can get this feedback from us on. Right. You know, obviously now it’s all about when we meet. But um, I think that the thing is, is that in terms of Google search results.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:32:12) – Okay, let’s just talk about Google for a second. And going back to that is, you know, if I saw anything in today’s search results for your company, the one that was most relevant to me or most disruptive or negative was actually the one because the other ones, you could just read through and realize that that was, you know, that was a silly situation or it got resolved or it was something else or this guy had a penchant for you or whatever, you know, to whatever, to nail you, whatever. But the one is important because it’s even though, um, it, the, the baby is sort of struggling with its own identity crisis and stuff. Like we said, it’s still a trustworthy site. You know it regardless of the 25 year old going there or not, which I agree with you 100%. He’s not going there. He’s going to go to Facebook or Yelp first before they go anywhere. Exactly. Um, in terms of like having a profile or a backlink to the baby is actually So like if you’re, you know, I know you have a website and it looks like you’re in the middle of building it out and stuff like that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:33:36) – Yeah, well, well, let’s just talk websites for a minute because like, that’s the thing, you know, like if you want this, if you want to stay, you know, if the website was now your mission, right, you’ve got your YouTube channel going or you’re okay on Instagram and your gram game is good. Uh, if you were to focus then in on your website, then then having a solid backlink to the baby actually helps your website. And that’s all I want to say. Um, there’s, there are other relative websites in getting a legitimate backlink to, to build your reputation, to build your Google algorithm research results and stuff like that. And that’s, that was to me the only thing that I saw in terms of what I know about. A website building and blogging and, and social media and, and marketing and stuff like that was to me that the thing was actually more a negative than any of the other forum stuff.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:34:41) – Shenanigan.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:34:42) – Yeah. Just yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:34:44) – My whole issue I guess with the has always been.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:34:48) – You know, pretty straightforward. It’s the. It’s the market that they are talking to, right, as like a grand spectrum of things. Not, you know, I understand there are some positives that you could get in in having a positive. You know, having to think positive things about you no matter what that might be. I think I just looked it up online. It just says I have no rating, whatever, whatever that might mean.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:35:11) – No accreditation.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:35:13) – Right. But looking at it, I also it says I’ve only been in business for nine years. It says that I’m a detailer in a city that I haven’t lived in in almost ten. So it’s like. That information. I didn’t put any of that information there. They put it all there and it’s apparently all wrong. And what I told my parents, I actually remembered while you were talking, the thing that I had told my parents was the is important to people who would look up the phone number in a phone book. And that’s how I saw it, like.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:35:40) – The people who still wait for that phone book to come and will flip through it and find that number. That’s the people who care about that. And they’re not mine. They’re never going to even be close to my market now. To be fair, I did just have yesterday a guy that told me he was 98 years old and dropped something off here. But technically speaking, that is not my market. Um.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:36:00) – Yeah, it’s hard to say really, for especially for businesses like ours, where where can the help us or any large site like that. Um, you know, to me and one of the reasons why want to get somebody maybe you can pull some strings from me over at Prismatic. I’ve been begging for a few days now. Uh, is to get them on the, get them on the podcast because their website is an authoritative site where we can post our content. Uh, get get valuable. Very, very valuable. If I could show you my results on the value I get out of that website by posting every possible job I can that uses the prismatic powders.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:36:49) – Uh, I don’t see why a if they knew what I know. I mean, not I’m not saying prismatic. I’m pretty sure prismatic knows what, but if every powder coater knew what I know about prismatic platform, you would be posting there every fricking day, getting a review and stuff you could get in just the this last year that I have posted on it and our work and the the and started looking at all of that value I’m getting out of that site it’s unbelievable and I still think prismatic is under utilizing the site the platform.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:37:30) – Yeah absolutely which is hilarious because I mean you type in powder coat anything in prismatic comes up for me the first, the first three results pretty much you know, they have their paid ad and they have, you know, link straight to their site and then they’ll have some, you know, some other link that follows that. And it’s. Prismatic does a ton that. I’m sure they know what they’re doing after they understand the analytics side of it and how it helps other people.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:37:57) – Um, but because their focus has always been on the hobby coater, I think that, you know, I don’t know if they went out of their way to try to help hobby coaters in that regard, but they did kind of by default, you know, just in the presence that they created. And I mean, you look at and there’s no other site that even comes close to that mean powder code wise. I mean, there’s there’s nobody you can look at, you know, powder by the pound and Columbia and all those. Yeah. You can post pictures of your stuff on some of those. And I’ve never had a single person say, Oh, I saw your stuff on such and such website, but they’ve seen it on prismatic, you know, it’s like, I mean it is what calls.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:38:33) – Where they found us on prismatic and then called us and I’m like, How did that happen? You know? But yeah, exactly. You know, And do I want to let’s talk about this.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:38:46) – Search results again but in a different way. And that is um. You know, coming up, counting how much, you know, guess the average business and don’t know what the stat is exactly but did some did some kind of research on search results. Okay. When you’re typing in and I hope every powder code coater listening in will do this, especially if you have a website. But even if you didn’t because did I did ro row two on this search. So what you do is you put in quotation marks and then you type in your business name. So for you I put in a quotation mark unknown coating quotation marks, and then hit the search button because that’s how you get the most valid because when you just type in unknown coatings, you know, obviously they could talk about the results, could be either coatings or unknown or combination of all kinds of things. Right? Yeah. Um. So unknown Coatings got 83,600 results in the search. That’s awesome. That is amazing. It’s it’s YouTube.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:40:00) – Is it to YouTube?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:40:01) – It’s there to all over it That that was you know going back to the analytics like my understanding of how Google Analytics worked. I got pretty early on, kind of unintentionally, right? I had read a I had actually listened to a lecture that led me to a book that led me to another book about just the analytics of Google and how and this was, I mean. 2012. You know, it was a while ago.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:40:28) – Really?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:40:29) – Yeah. And so, you know, like I said before, that that’s the reason that you’ll never catch me mentioning another name, especially in my area. It’s more when I say I don’t mention other characters. Names mean in the area. And, um. It’s it’s my understanding of it that has allowed that growth because mean, ultimately if you come you know, if you’re in Utah and you type powder or Utah powder coating or anything like that, mine is the first result every time. And mine as a first result, mine is actually the first three results are two results, I think.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:41:00) – And then like if you keep going, there’s a negative one about me, of course, But I’m in there with, you know, I’m a one man show. You know, my my girlfriend does a lot of sandblasting and other stuff around the shop and is amazing at that. But like, I’m a one man show and I’m being mentioned with shops that have 13, 20 employees. 35 employees. Yeah. And it’s like realistically, we shouldn’t even be being compared, you know, like. Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:24) – Or because I. What’s the one near you? Um, um, I had thought I’d written it down.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:41:34) – Armor or there’s one that’s right by me called a powder keg is. RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:39) – Like no, not powder. I did look at powder keg. What’s the blast? No, Um.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:41:44) – Oh, wait, You’re thinking of the one that I can never remember the name of?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:47) – Yeah, they have an ATV on there. They. It looked like they do it a lot.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:41:52) – Wait, is it powder? Extreme coatings?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:54) – Not powder.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:55) – Extreme. But did Look at them.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:41:57) – I always want to call them bullseye coatings. But that’s not who you’re talking about.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:59) – Oh, but it’s that. Yeah. What is? Yeah, whatever. Okay. I’m never.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:42:04) – I’m gonna look. I’m gonna look.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:42:05) – Okay. Yeah, I’m going to look, too. Because here’s the thing. Um. I guess I want to put in perspective about search results versus a business search result, right? So obviously, when you type in just unknown coatings and hit search results, you get about 15 million hits. But it could be anything from like, you know, a cream that you put on your body to, you know, yeah, the real deal. So you have to use the quotation marks and. So, for instance, I typed in black label. Uh huh. Uh, coatings and not black label powder because wanted to exclude that. So put in black label and they get about they got about 4320 results which is good for business. But then he has a lot of followers on Instagram and stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:02) – So that plays a part in in the, in the algorithm. Um, I typed in Jase Kaser blasting and coatings only 733 results. Yeah. And you know, for a business that’s actually really good for a business though, because I mean and it just goes to show you how, um, how important social media is or being on a platform like YouTube is or doing anything and doing more of it is important. Um.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:43:30) – And talking about the particular that you’re talking about near me is not armor coatings, right?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:34) – No, it’s not. It was. And I think the reason why that one. Um. Let me just type in unknown coating, literally.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:43:44) – What’s funny is I used to be able to find the people that I’m talking about, and now they’re not coming up at all. So. Bulls. Is it bulls eye powder?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:53) – Well, yes. Bullseye.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:43:55) – Bullseye. And something like that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:59) – Yeah, it’s. Think it is. Yes, it is. It is. That. It is that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:05) – And it’s funny because when I saw that bull’s I think.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:44:08) – It’s full blown powder coating. Full blown. That’s it. That’s the one. I never remember it. I never remember that, man. It’s full blown coating, right? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:18) – I mean, they, you know, they didn’t really have think they have like 1400, you know, I’d have to look to see what it was, but it wasn’t that big for a business or even maybe it was more than that. It was more like 7 or 8000. That was pretty good. You know, look like they, you know, look like they were pretty well established and that they, you know, that they had they were more than just a single sole proprietorship that they were a full on business. No. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:44:46) – One of my buddies actually worked there. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:49) – And like it was a fairly they did industrial like lines. Yeah. Okay. Uh, RoRo no website which I called him out on, you know, and he was like, nope, don’t want a website, too much work.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:45:01) – And I’m like, okay.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:45:03) – To be fair, I haven’t had a website until the last probably seven months. I didn’t have one for the last like seven years. So I had one for the first, probably five now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:45:14) – But yeah, but so neither does Ro ro and he’s got 13,000 in the search results. That’s pretty good. But then he’s on it every day. So how many of us are that good, you know. Right. Um, and mean his is pretty big too. And I think he’s on a couple of videos on YouTube and and podcasts and stuff, but, uh, Maui Powder Works 19,800. But we have a really good block that gets a lot of consumers hitting it and stuff. Unknown Coatings 83,600. That’s pretty good.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:45:58) – Shawn Recognition that was it’s. RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:02) – For it’s the good, the bad and the ugly, you know?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:46:05) – Yeah, it’s the it’s the old idea of there’s no such thing as bad publicity, which I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree with that as like a whole thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:15) – But no, it’s not what you would have wanted.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:46:17) – Just I’ve never seen the amount of worry that people have tried to put in me about negative feedback. I’ve never seen any of the results that they were worried about. So it’s like for me, it’s very easy to dismiss it, you know? Right. Going back to I know what I have and haven’t done and I know what people have said about me, and they’re welcome to say whatever they need to, you know? Yeah, doesn’t matter.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:39) – Videos are paying off. Think even despite the fact that your website probably isn’t ranking very high. Yeah. And despite the fact that you’re, you know, your Google you know Zen page one isn’t exactly perfect either You’re still doing really good and think that that’s something that people really need to, I hope getting out of this, you know, as we wrap up here, we can wrap up or keep talking, whatever. After this, we can do it after the show. Sometimes those are really, you know, could be something different.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:47:16) – But, um. You know you do. You do need to be aware of it. You need to know how to be aware of it. Right? Like what we just did and see how how, you know, you’re just one guy doing this stuff for other people or building it, doing stuff for yourself, doing stuff for other people, and how how you can affect the world or how you can affect your community around you and stuff like that. So. Um, think it’s a great way to end the show, um, and stuff, you know, I mean, we could ask a lot more questions. I didn’t want to put you too much on the spot with too many questions and stuff because we really just wanted.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:47:58) – Wasn’t worried about it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:47:59) – So kind of just wanted to ramble around and along as we went. We didn’t really have to, you know, to too much of a specific thing. I think we’ve talked about a lot of different things. Some some are more specific to how to help or how to improve your business through your experience and good, bad or indifferent and how to how to survive when it is bad.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:48:29) – And how bad is it when it’s that bad, You know, I mean that’s certainly you know.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:48:33) – That there is. Let me let me tell you one little story just real quick, because I think this will be helpful to some people who maybe get in a situation where somebody gives them, you know, puts them in a position where they’re dumping a bunch of negative feedback at them. Um, I had a situation pretty early on, I would guess maybe two years into powder coating. Um, I took on a job. Now this is a repeat customer. This is a customer. By then I think this was the third or fourth set of wheels I had done for this customer. He had loved every other cent, everything else had been perfect. Um, he asked me to do something that was. Even now, I don’t know that I would take the job. You know, it’s a it’s a it was a combination of colors. It was basically I was going to do two wheels, candy red on the face of the wheel and fluorescent yellow on the back.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:49:22) – And then, um, the other two were going to be candy blue on the face of the wheel and fluorescent orange on the back. Right? So a bunch of things that there’s a lot of potential for problems. Um, it’s a bunch of colors that don’t go well together.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:37) – The orange, orange and blue go together. They’re complementary colors. No, no, no. **Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) ** (00:49:42) – When say don’t I say they’re not friends with each other from a chemical standpoint.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:46) – Oh, okay.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:49:48) – So, you know, fluorescence and candies are almost never friends. They touch this problem. Right. Um, but, you know. RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:55) – But you were going to go down that trail.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:49:58) – And I made I did the job, but I had, you know, based most of my building as a business was based on the fact that I was willing to do the jobs, that other people were scared. And I was like, I’ll figure out how to do it. You know, when I got told that you couldn’t do, uh, I remember what it was Now, I had done like a gradient with think like seven different candy colors and on forums that I was on and I had asked about it and they’re like, You could never do that with powder.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:50:25) – And I was like, I was like, Why? Like, you know, in my head I’m still new, but so I don’t know. But then I’m like, Well, but the concept is pretty simple, right? Like, why couldn’t you do it? And I remember I spent I think 8 or 9 hours one day just try to figure out the right way to do it, to make it all work. And so, like, my big thing was I was doing the kind of wild stuff that nobody else is willing to do. Even early on, I was ordering colors from prismatic that people were like, That’s powder coat. I didn’t even know you could get powder coat that color, you know, that kind of thing. I had a situation where the guy brought me the wheels. He wanted that color and. I said, okay, it’s going to take me, you know, a week or whatever to figure out exactly how to do this. And, you know, I’m only two years in.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:51:05) – I’m still learning things. I still learn things now 12 years in. But I gave it a whirl and. Aesthetically, it was fine. It looked how it needed to look. But I. I cheated a little bit in the way that I was trying to accomplish things. And I, you know, essentially I did things not the right way, but in a way that would make them appear to be good. Um, what, that, you know, the negative of that is adhesion and impact resistance were basically nonexistent. Um, and what ended up happening is, you know, he liked the wheels. He had them on the car for a couple of months and everything was fine. Um, he sold them to a gentleman here local, and that guy took his car through a drive through car wash. Oh, God. They kind of pulled it on rails, you know, the kind of drops down and the little things push it forward, and it’s on rails. 10.5in wide wheel. Oh, my God.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:52:00) – It’s dragging on the inside of this, right? And it starts chipping away the powder. Now, to be fair, I didn’t do the wheels the right way. I did them in a way that would be as medically pleasing. And I knew that the impact resistance would be minimized because of the way that I did it. Um, it started tipping the powder off and. He contacted? No, he didn’t contact me. He posted about it on a Subaru group talking crap about me and the crap work that I put out and now keep mine. He bought the secondary buyer? Yeah, Secondary buyer. He bought the wheel, so. Oh, that was the other thing because I wasn’t happy with how I had done the wheels. I actually didn’t charge the initial customers right. I never charged him. I was like, I hope this works out all right. I just.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:54) – Don’t.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:52:54) – Know. Like, good luck, Jason, you know? Sorry. Sorry. Ahead of time kind of a thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:58) – Yeah, and do that, too. You just can’t take chances like that, you know? You just. It’s better just to give it away, right?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:53:05) – And then so he posted on a Subaru page, um, made a big stink about it. He was showing how he was flaking away pieces of powder with his fingers on the back of the barrel. All this keep in mind all this initiated by the fact that it was drug on a metal rail to start breaking the powder away. It wasn’t like this just. Just failed. One day, um, I said, Hey, man, I reached out to him, I was super nice. And I said, Hey, I see you have problem with these wheels. I saw that you were also looking on getting them redone. How about just bring them to me? I’ll just refinish them for you for free. Right. Just. I wasn’t happy with the work being out there anyway, but the situation kind of, you know, I had my hands tied by it a little bit.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:53:48) – He wanted them for a car show. I got them done for the car show. It is what it is. And I said, But hey, you know, you’re just you want them like matte black. I think. I think he picked solar black or something like that. And I was like, Just bring it to me. I’ll do them for you for free. No big deal. You know? Um, he said, okay, I need them by no later than this date. Okay? Like, I have to have them by this date. I said, okay, that’s like a week from now. It’s not a problem. Whatever. Um. He brought the wheels to me. I cleaned up the curb rash and stuff that he had put in in the time that he owned them. Stripped them all down, um, powder coated in black, got the tires back on them for him and delivered them on the day that he needed them by. He needed them on that day. He said, I have to have them this day.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:55:29) – Right? Right. But it should it come up some other way. I never in my life would do that because I know that in my heart I would not want to and I’m not going to convince myself to do it because I’m going to have to be the person sitting there mulling over the fact that I’m redoing these wheels for free. And I shouldn’t have ever had to do that. You know, I didn’t have to warranty anything. I didn’t I told the guy I wasn’t warranting his wheels because I didn’t charge him. And then I still did this other guy’s wheels for free, you know, after he made the purchase of the initial set and think that was the thing that taught me really early on, like, you know, stick to what you want to be doing. Stick to your true, authentic self, handle things, how you think they should be handled. And if somebody doesn’t agree with you, somebody doesn’t agree with you. It’s not kind of everybody kind of.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:56:10) – Hard, though, because at some point, you know, it was those risky jobs that you took that got you to the level that you’re at.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:56:19) – Right. Right. But then at some point, it kind of falls back in on itself. When you when you are you you know, at some point there’s a turning point, doesn’t that it falls back on itself. But you turn a point where you’re like, I don’t ever want to be doing that again or I know who I am and I don’t know where that part is or, you know, obviously every guy’s journey is different, right? But yeah, like you got some point. You have to be that. You have to know when that turning point is right.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:56:50) – Be really careful to never shoot yourself in the foot, basically. You know, it’s like you can do whatever you need to, but ultimately, shooting yourself in the foot is never going to benefit you, you know, and it’s and so you can take the risks that you need to take as far especially as far as growing your business, because that’s what was doing at the time. I was doing these wild projects because they got a ton of attention and it would help me grow the business, you know? But it was like it came back to sort of bite me in the ass.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:57:15) – And my thinking at the time is like, Well, I’m a growing business. I should try to fix this problem in this way and mean ultimately I did everything I could have done for that customer. I mean, I had a deadline. I did his wheels for free. I didn’t charge the initial guy. I never in my life had to warranty any of their work for this kid. And I still did it and he still managed to complain. And it’s like that that allowed me at some point, like release that mindset of me where I’m just like, I’m not going to sit and work to do the absolute right thing by everybody, by their standards, right? Do it by mind it Looking back, I should have been like, Yeah, I’ll redo them, I’ll charge you half price and I’ll still deliver them on the date you want. That’s not any better. You know, he’s going to now have to pay money to get me to do these. And my guess is, had he done that, he would still complain.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:58:08) – You know, the only thing that I could have done basically is bought his negative feedback away and don’t care. I mean we you know well established now we’ve been talking for a couple hours. Right. I don’t care about negative feedback. You know, I’m not going to buy that aspect. But it was. You know, you get in those situations where you learn from you know, I don’t want to say mistakes because I think ultimately I was doing the right thing at the time. But you look back at it now, you’re like, oh, that was a mistake. Do you even try to? That guy. And Right. And I think. If we can get more people into the mindset of. You know, doing the right thing, but on your terms, not somebody else’s. I think it makes a big difference in. And how people perceive you mean. Because ultimately the flip side of that is he could have posted a lot of really positive things about me and that would have been great.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:58:58) – But then people might have seen me as a pushover just the same. And I’m not saying that being a pushover is necessarily bad, but in the business world. You don’t want to be known for being a pushover. You know that the last. And I just think that those like those little lessons over time. I mean, that’s something. I mean, to this day, if there’s somebody recommends me on Facebook in a, you know, Subaru group which he’s mostly in Subaru groups um, he’ll always bring this story up about oh he did these wheels for this guy that I bought and they were crap and blah blah blah. And it’s like no, like you drove on the, the wheels that I made black for like seven years and then sold them and the guy still is driving on them to this day and they’re perfectly fine. Like, how is this complaint even real in your head at this point? You know? But right. Some people like to dwell on stuff like that. And that goes back to the you know, some people’s lives are so great that they have to focus on problems that don’t really exist because they need something to, like put their energy towards.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:59:50) – And it’s like. You know, I hope one day my life is that simple. Hope one day I can basically make up problems in my head to concern myself.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:59:58) – I think sometimes it’s like, you know, not that people are mental or that customer’s mental or has a mental disease, but mean we work for customers that have serious issues. And I’m starting to recognize it now because we’ve had a few of these type of customers.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:00:18) – Many and you’re getting to the point where you can turn them away before they’re a customer.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:00:21) – Yeah, well, yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, right. We haven’t quite gotten that far. But, uh, but you know, and to the point where they call us out and say. You know, if we post something on Instagram with a color that is similar to their, you know, like basically they made a promise never to use that color ever again, that prismatic, whatever color or whatever. And then we’ll buy something like Columbia Coatings that has something similar, whatever, and make it, you know, it’s a great thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:00:50) – And he’ll call us up and say. Did you use my color? Is that my color? And I’m like, No, there are a million other colors. Not all of them are going to, you know, like, it’s kind of funny.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:01:02) – I can’t believe that you have a customer that would have the audacity to say nobody else can ever use this color.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:01:07) – But we’re on a small island. So they all drive around and they see each other stuff and they all know each other. And now, you know, like, let me tell you, there have been more than one customer that has we’ve had think they’re up to like three or 4 or 5 of them now that we cannot we’re not supposed to use that color ever again. And they make a promise that I’m like, every time I tell them, I’m like, What do you mean you make a promise? I’m, you know, I’m always yelling at them. If you tried.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:01:32) – That with me, that would definitely land you in the F off category.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:01:35) – B was like, Yeah, bro, I only ordered enough powder to just your job and I’m never going to spray it again. Okay. You know, like was like. But you know, when.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:01:43) – You live on an island. **Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) ** (01:01:45) – Island, that’s, you know, we’re in a different world, obviously. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:01:49) – Yeah. I mean, it it is kind of cool though. And don’t know if you do this when it’s something I kind of picked up and even Ross does it and didn’t know he was doing it. But like when you’re driving across town and you see somebody rolling by you and you’re like, Oh shit, that’s our work. You know? Like, it’s pretty cool.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:02:08) – I see that a lot. And I get tagged in photos like people, you know, post on Instagram or Snapchat or car that they know that I did the work on. And it’s most, you know, most of the kind of wild colored wheels around here. Yeah, those.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:02:21) – Are the easier ones.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:02:22) – Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:02:23) – And so I get a lot of that, you know, it’s like and it’s cool. It’s cool to see your own stuff out there. It’s mean. It’s even cooler is one of the things that I always kind of fall back on when people talk about me being a one man shop or some of the, you know, like armor coatings. It’s kind of, you know, I guess my competition out here, it’s all relative, but, um, they’re the only one that gets mentioned. Um, when somebody somebody’s like, Hey, who should I go to? It’s myself and armor coatings. Like, those are the two. And it’s super funny when people try to like, you know, they’ll kind of try to throw shade at me being like a one man show or whatever. And people are really quick to point out. It’s like, Yeah, but look at the winners of every single car show. It’s always my customers and it’s there was think want to say it was 2018.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:03:10) – Um I was associated with 118 trophies in Utah alone for car shows which it sounds stupid that I know that number, but I was, I was keeping the tally for a very specific reason because somebody said that there’s no way he has that much affiliation with people who win at car shows. And I was like, Well, almost every single class of this car show, first place is my customer. Usually second and third are my customers as well, you know, And it’s like that type of stuff, you know, like going mean guess, sort of going back to like being able to brand yourself, tying yourself to cars that get a ton of attention and win car shows is much better than doing a bunch of work for a bunch of people who are not going to get any attention. And it’s not to say that they are not valued customers, but I can look, I can go out at a car show and walk through a car show and be like, oh, these are all, you know, like 18 or, you know, 30 out of 50 cars.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:04:05) – Here are my customer. And and that matters. I mean, that matters. You know, word of mouth the the, the chat, the group chat that I’m in with a bunch of powder coaters I’ve been showing them screenshot like videos, screen recorded videos of somebody would be like, hey, who should I powder coat my wheels, you know, so kind of knew or knew to powder coating maybe, um. You know, armor coatings gets there, mention 1 or 2 people, but then it will be like 30 of me. And that type of marketing like that is absolutely the best type of marketing that you will ever get. You know that that word of mouth thing. Um, but with that being said, you can’t always focus on like all the negative, you know, or any of the negative stuff that gets thrown your way. Because ultimately if you’re not successful, there’s no negative that’s going to come your way. You know, like if you’re a business that’s not growing and isn’t big and well known, people aren’t going to care to talk about you.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:04:56) – They only talk about businesses that are showing any level of success. And so you can throw all the shade at me that you you, but people can throw all the shade of me that they need to. But it’s like at the end of the day, if I wasn’t relevant, you wouldn’t care one bit what I was doing. You know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:05:12) – You’re obviously breaking, you’re breaking the mold, so to speak, on some level, you know? Um, and who cares if you are counting? Don’t care. It’s a milestone moment that you should be counting, that it’s fricking 2020. The year sucks. Yeah, you know what I mean? It’s like if it wasn’t for us paying attention to all the awesome good stuff we we’ve been doing, you know, like the podcast, the, the patent that the, um, the patina, the, you know, all the other good stuff. That’s mean. It’s been a rough year for us otherwise, you know, And you have to, you know, just to try to get through this year and think people keep thinking, okay, how many more days left? 20, 20, you know? But the thing is, is it might last a little longer than that because of Covid and things like it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:06:04) – Yeah, whatever. You know, we might get into 2021 a little bit before and get comfortable with it before it get really gets all over and stuff. But to hang in there and start thinking about those positive things because you cannot let the Internet or people on the internet rip you apart and rip you to shreds. Um, and you know, think, well, you know, think we should put a question out there to the viewers, your viewers, my viewers, whoever is you know, I want to end this with something for them to think about. You know, have they had issues with, uh, with reputation, Um, have they had hard times with acknowledging their success or dealing with difficult customers? What do you think? You throw it out there, you’re what do you think we should ask for comments and engagement.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:06:59) – I guess the one that I’m always curious about because I know I know the way that I deal with customers is not. At grand scale is not ideal in most people dive.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:07:09) – Right. And so I want to know. I want to know people, I guess. Horror stories. To some degree. I want to know that customer that they had and how they dealt with it. Because I’m always curious. You know, I have friends. I have local friends that I’d be like, how would you have dealt with this? And and they’ll tell me. And it’s, you know, very different than how I deal with anything. And so I’m always curious to hear like, people’s input, especially on like when I say haunt or something like that nightmare customer and how people deal with it. And and not I guess I want to know kind of the base of why they dealt with it that way. You know, like, I know why I handle situations the way I do. You know, going back to the whole self-awareness thing, like, I get why I do things the way I do, but sometimes I’ll see people do, you know, handle a negative situation. And I’m like, Why would you do that? You know, like, why are you doing that? And and I’m not saying it in a negative way.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:08:03) – Like, I’m legitimately wondering, like, what goes on in your head that makes you think that’s the best approach there, because I’m looking at it. And if I’m in that position, like I’m doing almost the exact opposite of what you’re doing, you know, it’s like so I’m always curious, you know, from like a, I guess like a psychological standpoint, like what is driving.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:08:20) – Absolutely right.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:08:21) – That response in that situation. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:08:25) – And think think that’s a great question to ask. Um, you know, for me it’s all about preventative, you know, measures like having a lock tight, uh, policy, you know, and we put it on our estimate. I’ll show you. I don’t know how you use. How you write up jobs and stuff like that. But we have form here actually, we’re this is our old form with our old logo, but I’m getting a new one, which maybe and we at the bottom we’ve got C, we’ve got all this right. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:09:02) – And so, you know, we tear it off and give them the yellow sheet. They go home with that and they can read it to their heart’s content and if they don’t read it, too bad.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:09:13) – Yeah, I’m I will tell you right now that the way that I input data from a customer varies drastically depending on the type of customer. I don’t I don’t know, probably like a skipping way of saying that, but if it’s a customer I’ve dealt with numerous times, I don’t make them fill out anything. I already have their information. I know what color they want. Everything’s going to be pretty straightforward. It’s never really been a problem for me, honestly. But if I get a customer in here, that’s, you know, I call them tire kickers kind of as a joke, but it’s the ones that are asking a ton of questions or how many? About two nearly identical colors for an hour. It’s like, okay, we’re going to we’re going to cover all our bases with you, you know, because yeah, no intention to be that negative, you know, interaction later down the road because you’re.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:09:57) – Oh, well, I picked this teal and it looks more like this deal. It’s like, well, you’re looking at my swatches, you know, like it’s. You’re like a prismatic, you know? Prismatic obviously does that thing where they spray over brushed aluminum, which I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:10:09) – Hate that.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:10:11) – Blue and I’m that color doesn’t matter at all, you know, and it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:10:14) – If you’re doing a metric that’ll be carried on a trailer around the fricking country and never driven, you know come on, I know someday I’m going to write a blog post about that. But yeah, you know, I don’t want you know what? I think that that actually could be a whole nother show, you know? So let’s okay, so we’re going to say to our viewers, you know, what has been give us your horror stories. It is the month of October and Halloween is coming up. Right? Right. Give us your horror stories. How did you handle it and what did you learn from it? That that that actually is probably a good way to end the show and put it in the comments and like and share Maybe we when we post this video we can put it in the groups and see what the responses are.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:08) – People can put them there, they can put them on the Podbean platform and they can put them on the YouTube. And especially if Sean’s on the YouTube, that might actually Do you follow my channel? Can you follow my channel?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:11:20) – Thank you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:21) – Okay.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:11:22) – I think I looked up some of your videos earlier and I was like, Oh, I don’t even follow this yet. Hold on. Let me. I’m sure I. RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:26) – Do. Me too. I just joined your channel too, so. Yeah. Okay. Give a shout out. Just since we’re on the subject, what is your YouTube channel? For those that don’t know, how do they get a hold of you?
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:11:38) – It’s just if you just type in unknown coatings on YouTube, it comes right up space or no space. I don’t know how that part works actually on YouTube, but they both work. Um.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:48) – Instagram too. You’re on the gram.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:11:50) – And I’m just literally unknown coatings everywhere, including Twitter that don’t even use. So I’m just to get ahead of time.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:11:57) – Okay I’ll never see it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:59) – Just just erased like a month’s worth of crap when, when they closed down the other day they.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:12:06) – I literally if a new social media platform comes up, I go in and I register and I make the name just so nobody else has it. I mean, so there’s, there’s a bunch that I don’t use. I use Snapchat a little bit at unknown coatings. Um, mostly, honestly, I would say 98% of my interaction on there is with powder coaters, you know, just people who found YouTube. Yeah, I’ll be on that. Yeah. Don’t know. Don’t.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:31) – Wait. What about your group page there and then what that. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:12:35) – There’s a UK army page which is just UK Space Army on Facebook. Um, that group initially I kind of had the idea of just like all these people that actively support my channel on YouTube, I was like, Maybe I can get a bunch of them together and they can help each other. Um, you know, I’ve kind of mentioned in some of the Q and A is how awesome it is.
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Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:14:03) – And that’s not happening here, that, you know, people are providing actual answers, given real input. And, you know, people that are only six months into it be like, well, I started this way, you know, And I think those people don’t get enough credit for how much they’re helping a brand new person because, I mean, six months, only six months. But it’s like that six months matter, you know, like that six months was like where you’ve had to fight through all the new stuff you had to learn. And maybe you can tell them what they don’t.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:14:28) – Sometimes we forget to, right? Remember, like, you know, like you forget all those things that you had to go through.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:14:35) – And even mean, you know, I said before, I’m 12 years into this. I still learn stuff constantly. So. Right. You know, I’ve I’ve made a point of saying on multiple videos and and A’s and stuff that I’m not an expert. You know, I’m here providing as much information as I can because I feel like the people that were doing it prior to me making how to videos and things like that, we’re providing a lot of misinformation, you know, And I want to be able to be a guy who knows what he’s talking about, who has done this for, you know, 12 years into it, be able to put my information to input.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:15:08) – And and the advantage that I have is you get to see all that in real time. A lot of the time, you know, I’m making a how to video showing you the whole process start to finish. I’m not sitting there just talking about some things that I’m doing. And, um. I think that that group is just, you know, it turned into a little bit of something that I didn’t expect it to. But it’s in a much more positive way. You know, it’s become something that’s real positive and it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:15:31) – And it’s about engagement, too, because who cares how many? Like like said, you know, we said earlier about how many people will end up being on the channel. It doesn’t matter how many people are on the channel, it’s how many people are engaging on the channel. Yeah, that’s how you know, you know, and we have yet to release this. I just did a recording with a social media expert, which I hope to publish this week, and she she’s like, You don’t want a you don’t want a group with 10,000 members.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:04) – You’ll be it’ll be a nightmare for you because you’ll that’s all you’ll be doing is putting fires out or settling this person or cutting that person out or whatever.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:16:17) – Run a group of 20,000 right now that is specific to high end meals. And I will tell you right now, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve added moderators to this, I would go insane because it’s the amount of nonsense that I have to deal with in that group alone. And this is literally just people selling expensive wheels, right? This should be a pretty cut and dry, easy to deal with. Group. Um, I can’t even imagine a group of people who are just there to give their opinion at a rate of 10,000 people or 20,000 people. You know, it’s like, don’t want anything to do with that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:46) – Yeah, you know. Yeah, exactly. More of the same on the Internet. What, what, what you can do on the internet today and how it’s changing our lives. Yeah.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:16:56) – That’s why I thought don’t need a group of I don’t need to find a Facebook group.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:16:59) – I can do that anywhere. You know, like, that’s not like a bunch of grown men arguing about dumb topics can do that. Just on my Facebook page. I can find that or my wall or whatever it’s called.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:09) – Yeah. All right, peeps. Well, remember to share your horror stories. And how did you handle it and what did you learn from it? And here you go. Sean, Thanks for coming on the podcast today.
Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (01:17:22) – Thanks for having me.
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