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How important is reputation management in the powder coating industry?

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[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]Have you ever thought about starting your own powder coating business? In episode 12 of RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast, guest Sean Shreve shares his journey into the industry and offers valuable insights on reputation management, outsourcing, and profitability. Sean emphasizes the importance of being honest with customers and building relationships with other businesses in the industry. He also advises those interested in starting a business to first try it out as a hobby and outsource their blasting needs to save on equipment costs. Tune in to learn more about the risks and rewards of starting a powder coating business and how to succeed in the industry.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19nDjOxLF4E[/embedyt]

RossKote (Kim Scott (00:00:05) – Just like a good old American slasher movie, your company’s hard earned profile can get axed on social media. Yep. Say one thing wrong, and you could be that guy who gets it first in the thriller. How can you come back from a murderous reputation in this two part episode of the Powder Coater podcast? We’re talking about what happens when a bad reputation follows you home and climbs into bed with you. Our featured guest has crawled through some of the worst things that can happen on the World Wide Web and live to tell about it. Not all of what you think you know is as bad as it seems. Find out when we go to places unknown and cover reputation, reviews, results and rankings on our continued series about publicity and branding featuring a famously unknown custom coater. Get ready to level up your powder coater game. Welcome to RossKote’s Powder Coater podcast. I’m your host, Kim Scott. And this is episode 12. Yes. I can’t believe we’ve made 12 episodes. This weekly podcast interviews influencers and industry people and covers trending topics in Powder so powder coders can effectively learn and grow their businesses.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:54) – Last week we featured an episode with Jace Kaser, of Kaser blasting and coating, who takes a kaleidoscope view or rather a 30,000 foot view of approaches to coating. Today’s guest gives you a practical manual to the finer details of powder coating and running a shop. The Daily Grind. He’s fond of dogs and runs a successful YouTube channel and business known as known as being mad, famous for being unknown. Please welcome Sean Shreve from Unknown Coatings to the show. Hi Sean. How’s it going?

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:02:36) – It’s wonderful.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:37) – Did I mess up your last name? I forgot to ask for the show.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:02:40) – No, it’s Shreve.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:41) – So it is. Okay, good. I said it right. Okay, good. Well, now, how long have you been coding? And what compelled you to be a powder coater?

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:02:56) – I technically started December. Actually, I got my big oven or the, you know, my 4×4 by six oven. So that’s not really started in my opinion. Um, December 22nd of 2008. I remember it for a completely ridiculous reason, but do remember that that’s the date for some reason.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:03:15) – Um, as far as why I started was. There was a couple of things. I was building a car. I worked. I was working as a contractor. I did used to do commercial sign design. I was working out of state on a job that we were doing, and I was building a car in Utah when I had just recently moved to Utah. I think I had only been here for a couple of months before I took off to California for almost a year. So, um, once we did that, I started building a car here. I was trying to get parts powder coated. Um. Called around to the couple of people that I could call here, and there was nobody willing to give me any sort of reasonable pricing. And when I say a reasonable pricing, I didn’t know what the pricing would even be, but most people wouldn’t even quote me. They wouldn’t give me any sort of quote. And I wasn’t asking for anything. Be wild. I didn’t think or especially now, knowing what I know now, um, I had just looked.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:04:08) – I wanted an intake manifold for a four cylinder car, a valve cover, and for a four cylinder and four brake calipers. So nothing in my world now, nothing too crazy. And I think out of the four places that I called on, they one would give me a quote and he would only quote the valve cover. And he told me $400. Wow. And I was just like and I you know, I had no idea what the price would be for, you know, I was completely new to it all. And, um, you know, I wasn’t happy, I guess, with the answers that I was getting or not getting, mostly not getting. And I just like, this can’t be this hard, you know, like I’m a mechanical, you know, I’ve done mechanical things since I was a little kid. And I was like, I’m sure I can figure all this stuff out. It can’t be that hard. And I bought I think I bought a harbor freight gun. I only had that for about three days before I threw it away.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:04:58) – Um, but I think I started technically powder coating my own stuff for myself with a craftsman gun, which I don’t think they have them around anymore. Um, craftsman didn’t actually make them. They were rebranded craftsman guns. But, um, there’s if you go to summit racing, you can still buy that exact style of gun now. And it’s like this. It doesn’t use an air compressor. It’s got a fan inside. It works like a hairdryer. Oh, wow. A little cup underneath it that holds. If I said it holds a quarter pound of powder, that would probably be pushing it. It’s literally like the epitome of hobby gun. And I bought a couple of those because I knew that they were going to discontinue them. So I bought a few and then I was able to order the replacement cups for them so that I didn’t have to keep stopping and refilling them. I would just like, you know, like a gun would just change the clip and the gun basically, and keep going so I can do full parts.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:05:53) – And, um. Even the first little bit that I was working, I was I didn’t want to work for anybody else. I didn’t want a powder coat for anybody else. I was working in a pretty good job at the time. That paid really well, gave me quite a bit of free time. And you know, it was more or less a hobby for myself. I was, you know, when I first got the systems, I was powder coating anything metal in my garage. There was nothing saved at that point. And. Just finally, I think it was about six months in, I finally agreed to powder coat for somebody else. Um, the first set of wheels I ever did were in a house oven. There were 16 inch wheels in the house of it. And knowing what I know now, I have no idea how they came out. And the weird part is I still have those wheels and they’re still in great shape, which makes even less sense knowing everything I know now.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Listen Now” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ global_module=”20170″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”]

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:06:40) – It’s it’s one of those things that makes you question all the things that you’ve learned and heard stories about as far as like adhesion and cure times. And I mean, these wheels have held up great and there’s a 0% chance that they were cured correctly. So…

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:54) – Yeah, I know sometimes it’s like that first time you nail it and then it all goes downhill from there and you’re like, Wait, what? Was I just lucky? Or did I actually what did I do right? And why can’t I replicate that? That’s a common, common thing. But go ahead, continue your story. It’s it’s it’s interesting.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:07:13) – Uh, you know, I did some wheels. I was very much into dodge neons at the time. First generation dodge neons. The one that nobody liked. And I had some really crazy sparkly gold. You know, there’s anything anybody knows about me. It’s the sparkles. Anything sparkly. I’m into it. I don’t know why. I’ve no idea. It’s always how it’s been. Um, had these crazy, just high metallic gold. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:07:35) – Um. Wheels that I did. And that was the first set of wheels I did before the next set of wheels that. Did were for a customer that I reluctantly took on. It was my very first customer, um, a gentleman. And I was posting my build information. I was on a bunch of local forums at the time. This was before Facebook. Was that cool? Um, and I had my, you know, my project Cars, I had kind of listed on forums and one of them was a Nissan Forum was pretty active in Utah. Nissan’s because of a G35 Infiniti G35 that I was driving. And um. A guy contacted me just kind of out of nowhere and said, Hey, I saw that you had a Go Wheels. And I said, Well, not no, not really. You know, and at this point, I’m not even part of coating for my friends. Friends are asking me and I’m saying I’m saying no. And. I tell him basically no. And then he’s like, Well, you know, I see that you live in Harriman. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:08:36) – That was the city I was living in at the time here in Salt Lake, just south of Salt Lake. And he said, Do you mind if I at least come by and show them to you? And I was like, Sure, man. You know, like whatever. Like, I’m just going to say no in person, but I’ll meet somebody new, you know, Like, it’s whatever. He he showed up and he pulls up in a brand new Gt-r. Now, this is 2008, so a brand new Gt-r is literally a brand new Gt-r. We had just got him here that year. And, you know, I think he I later found out he was one of the first people in the state to have one. And it was like $140,000 to get this particular car, um, way above sticker price just because they were so desirable. Right. And he pulls up super nice guy. I mean, just I mean, he’s still a customer to this day but I mean super, super nice guy.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:09:25) – And he said, you know, we talked back and forth a little bit, just, you know, small talk about whatever. And he came in and was checking out one of the cars that I’d had been working on and, um. I said, All right, well, you know, did you want to show me these wheels? Thinking like all at least look, you know, he was nice enough guy. He explained his situation. His situation was kind of unique. He was visiting his brother’s restaurant, and next door is a large wheel company here called Wheel Works. They’re kind of the the go to for high end wheel stuff here. Um, or at the time they were and. He said that he had gone into wheel works, who he had dealt with countless times, and they weren’t able to help him because they’re the powder cutter that they have been outsourcing work to. Had become pretty flaky and they didn’t want to take on new jobs. Um, so he explained that situation to me a little bit. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:10:18) – I said, okay. I said, Well, do you want to show me the wheels? You know, like, I’ll at least take a look at them. Maybe I can help you out, whatever. And he’s like, Oh, it’s these ones. And he points to the Gt-r, and I’m just like, I was like, Oh, no, no, absolutely not. Like, there’s a 0% chance that I’m gonna touch those wheels. And he’s like, Dude, I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring you just the wheels. I’ll hand you $400 to do them. And I don’t care what they look like. I just want them matte black. And I was like. And, you know, it wasn’t a money thing to me at the time at all. It was more just like a I could step out and try to do this and see how it goes. But I didn’t have a ton of confidence. I mean, I’ve been doing it for six months at that point, but I, I had never dealt with anything that big.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:11:02) – I think there were 20s from the factory and my oven wouldn’t even compensate for those. But I had just ordered a new oven. I knew that it was coming from Ted’s fab and would be here, I think, within a couple of weeks. And so I explained to him the situation, said, Hey, if you can wait till the oven gets here, I’ll, I’ll do it. And I wasn’t sandblasting any of my own parts. I had like a harbor freight cabinet. But I hate sandblasting even to this day. I hate it. And, you know, I lucked out. I have a girlfriend who seems to enjoy sandblasting almost. I mean, she definitely does it. Yeah. So I’ve lucked out quite a bit in that regard.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:36) – I better get Ross another girlfriend. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:11:40) – It’s pretty great, honestly.  

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:41) – One for sandblasting, one for doing social media.  

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:11:45) – All the things. And then. You know, he eventually he brought the wheels. And, you know, it’s once again, knowing what I know now. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:11:53) – I don’t know how they turned out as well as they did. Um, but he was and they they came out flawless, you know, and. And I. I thought that that would be a one time thing and I was going to keep just kind of doing my own thing. And, you know, maybe now I’ll let friends bring their stuff over or something. Well, it turned out the restaurant that he was visiting, his family owns all of it around here. It’s like a burger joint around here. And he owns a bunch. His brother owns a bunch of his dad owns the bunch. And the one that’s next door to We’ll Works. He’s down there all the time because that’s where they have their meetings. And so the owner of Wheel Works walked out and said, Hey, I saw you got your wheels powder coated. Um, you know who did them for you because they look nice or whatever. And, um. He said, Oh, it’s some guy in his house in Harriman.  

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:12:44) – You know, I was working out of a think my garage was a little over 1800 square feet. It was a huge garage, to be fair, but it was just a garage. You know, I was legitimately still just working out of home. And he he said, Well, do you mind if I get his phone number? And so he called me and asked if it was okay to get my number out. And I said sure, thinking there’s no way that this company that, you know, every time you drive by, they have nothing but $100,000 plus vehicle In my parking lot, I was like, There’s no way they’re going to deal with that. Why would they? You know, they have so many other options that they could go with and. Right. Um, he called me the owner. It was super nice. He said, Hey, I want to send you up four wheels, four completely different wheels. I want to pick four colors to have you powder coat them, you know, one of each color.  

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:13:26) – And I just want to see the quality and make sure the color is what we need. And if those were, he’s like, I’ll pay you for them, you know, no matter what. And then if if they’re nice, maybe we can send you some work. And I said, okay. You know, I mean, what can really go wrong at that point? You know? I mean, they’re going to pay for him no matter what. They’re picking the colors. I don’t have to stress about like, you know, matching anything or anything at the time. Right. Uh, you know, once again, I’m not sandblasting, so I actually, I was outsourcing all my sandblasting. I actually outsourced all of my sandblasting for the first eight years, I think was busy. Yeah, really.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:01) – Risky. I mean.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:14:03) – I lucked out. I’ve only had one really bad experience, which we can all get to that. But I had a really, really bad experience with the same blaster cost me.  

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:14:15) – I want to say about $50,000 in the end, which sounds outrageous from a sound blaster, but, um, we had, you know, I took them over and I had them sandblasted. I explained. I was like, Look, guys. And they always did good work for me. But I gave them the speech. I was like, Look, I really want these to be perfect, you know? And they’re like a big industrial blaster. They do mostly giant things constantly. So wheels isn’t really their thing. Um, but they had the media for it and, you know, the equipment to do it. And I said, This is what I need. I got them done for me that day because that was kind of their thing. They would always turn my stuff around pretty much the same day and I coated them. I think they brought them to me on a Thursday and I delivered them to them Saturday. Wow. Which is still something I tend to try to do. I’m not going to pretend that I always make a 48 hour deadline, but, um, in this area, I’m definitely the one that flips the wheels fast. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:15:08) – Um, I did the wheels. They were happy with it, and that led to within three months, I think I quit my job my full time. My full time job was. Very cushy, you know, So it was it took a lot to get me to quit. I mean, I knew that this was going to be the thing was, I’m going to have to dedicate a lot of time to this. But I have this job where I don’t have to dedicate hardly any time to every day and get paid pretty well. You know, like, do I really want to give that up? Um, but I’ve always had a thing where I disliked working for other people. Even as cushy as my job was. I mean, I worked from home, you know, it wasn’t like I had to go deal with a boss. I had to answer to somebody probably once every couple of weeks. But it was still like somebody telling me what to do, which I’ve. Yeah, I’ve always struggled with, for whatever the reason is. 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:53) – I think a lot of us do you know why we’ve been doing it for so long to It’s. You know. Yeah, it’s long hours, but they’re mine. Yeah. Yeah.   

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:16:05) – And if they’re long, it’s my fault. They’re long, you know, like. 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:08) – Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, that reminds me of, um. Victor Pate from Black Label. Same thing. He. Him and his wife were coming from really good jobs and then just decided to jump off a cliff. You know.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:16:24) – Think I’ve known Victor or, like, you know, talk to Victor since. Right when he first started. He was in I think he got dumped into I don’t even know if it’s still there. I might not even just be in the group anymore. There was a powder coating group that was just custom powder coaters, and it was a pretty tight knit group of people. And I remember somebody invited him in and I think he’s military, right? He’s ex-military, if I remember correctly. 

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:16:46) – And he had that kind of vibe to him when he was posting. And I was like, Oh, I like this guy. Like, you know, like he’s not as, you know, some of the guys in the group, I didn’t I didn’t have a problem with him. We just, you know, we looked at life a little differently, think. And so there was somebody, I think, a little closer to to how I look at things, I guess. So I kind of sided with him a lot of things. And yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:07) – Yeah, I can certainly relate to him and his story, but also his attitude towards life to, um, and for a lot of guys that are just getting started out there, you know, that maybe are on the fence about being a coater or whatever, I mean. I guess that’s kind of what I’m, I’m really on this podcast and stuff and what I’m trying to find is sort of there’s this element or this essence of what makes a great powder coating company or a powder coater attitude or a mantra or something.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_shop posts_number=”3″ _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_shop][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:42) – And so I’ll probably end up asking you that question towards the end. But um, you know, you do have this YouTube channel. Um, it’s taking off.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:17:53) – Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s growing much faster, much faster than I ever could have imagined. And I know that most of my audience is powder coaters, so I know that at some point there’s kind of a threshold that that will hit to where there’s not more people to grow. Um, but. A lot of the people coming onto my channel are people that have never powder coated in their life and they’re now looking at doing it. So I guess I guess it’s a thing that I can help that growth a little bit. Um, but yeah, I mean, it’s when I was making videos for Instagram just because I thought they were fun. They’re more fun than boring pictures on Instagram. Right. And, um. It ended up being a thing where I was like, Well, you know, I watched a couple videos on YouTube.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:18:40) – There’s not a ton of powder coating videos on YouTube, especially. There’s definitely people powder coating on YouTube. There’s tons of that Just, you know, you see them spraying down a wheel or whatever, but there’s not a lot of construction. There’s not a lot of there’s not a lot of there’s basically a lot of people from what I could see in the comments, a lot of people not willing to give up information.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:01) – Um, yeah.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:19:02) – I can’t even imagine a world where I’m going to be secretive about information for something that’s I figured it out on my own, you know what I mean? So it’s like it’s not like it’s that hard. And if somebody has a question, I’m happy to help them with it, you know? And that’s that’s kind of where the channel grew to. And it. It was kind of funny. I, I, I had done a couple of how to’s that people had asked me about. Um, I had basically no issue at all. Um. And I would explain it like I had no no issue at all, just putting out random powder coating videos.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:19:38) – Then a couple people ask me for how tos and I was like, Sure, yeah, I’ll show you how I do it. And then I went back to just putting out powder coating content. You know, it’s not that easy. The thing that’s like how tos’ are a little bit hard for me just because although I don’t, you know, I don’t. I don’t know everything. Um, when somebody asked me how to do a how to I already know all the information that I’m going to tell them, but I don’t. I’m always uncomfortable because I don’t know if I’m explaining it in a way that somebody who doesn’t know powder coating will understand, right? Because I already know all the questions. So it’s like, you know, I was telling my girlfriend, I was like, I want to start making these videos that has her powder coating with no experience and she can ask me the questions that she needs to know because I don’t know if I’m asking myself the right questions to answer on a on a how to or a tutorial or right.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:20:27) – Because you’re coming from that other side. And yeah.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:20:31) – And I just assume like, you know, I already know all these other little things, so I skip over stuff all the time. I see myself after I’ve edited a video and uploaded it. I’m like, Oh, I probably should mention this and this, but in my head I was like, Why did he know all that? You know, And so everybody else did too. But I know that that’s not real. Um, but when I had went back to just putting out just powder coating content, you know, with no how tos everybody is like, well, where are the how tos? Like, can you do more? How tos, you know, like more, more tutorials? Can you show us how to do this or this? Then I started, you know, I got a bunch of videos that were a bunch of comments on videos that were like, Can you show us all your equipment? And I was like, Yeah, I mean, I guess I don’t know how that could be even moderately interesting video to anybody.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:21:13) – But sure, I think it’s one of my best view or highest view.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:17) – I almost clicked on that one. Yeah. Last night. When was looking at your, your channel. Yeah. And stuff. Yeah. You know, um. It’s funny how it’s gone from just ten years ago to everything being in the forums to Facebook groups and Instagram and YouTube where people want it now, you know, and they don’t necessarily want to participate in some conversation about it. I mean, aside from groups, yeah, they just either want to watch it and be done and move on or, you know, it could just be the nature of Internet itself or just. Yeah, that’s how busy people are.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:22:01) – That’s how we are in life now. I think in general, I think I mean, yeah, I’m, I’m legitimately mad if I look something up online and I can’t find how to do it or fix it or assemble it or whatever, I’m like, nobody’s ever put this online before, you know, that was that real idea.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:16) – Let me blog about that or let me let me write it, you know, and that’s for us, you know, because we’re content drivers and we’re resource drivers, you know, that’s a cue for us to say, hey, maybe somebody could be looking at something for that, you know, or needing a video on that and stuff. So it’s amazing how much it’s changed in ten years. And I think it’s only mean. Where do you see yourself or your channel or business going in the next 5 to 10 years? So I’m kind of curious.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:22:48) – If I tell you you’re going to think it’s a terrible answer. Um, my whole goal since I was 22 years old was to retire at 40. Oh, and that’s a good that’s.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:59) – A good goal.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:23:01) – Kind of. Everything I have done, um, in that time has been geared towards that. Like I. Yeah, I make, you know, pretty okay money. Um, I don’t spend money. I don’t have any dumb toys or I shouldn’t say dumb toys.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:23:17) – I don’t people like all their fun stuff, but, um, do any of that stuff. I have one expensive hobby, which is golf. Um, and that’s about it, you know, like, I just all my money just kind of goes away. And I’ve done some investing safe, very safe investing in a few things and, you know, lucked out on a few other opportunities. And um, so ultimately, like in ten years there won’t be an unknown coatings, I’m sure, um, I doubt there will be in five years, but. I don’t know. I mean, there’s a lot that changes. I have a bunch of rare Japanese wheels in storage that my plan was to. Move back to Seattle, where I’m from, and then one set a week, I would restore a set of wheels and put them up for sale just to keep my sanity basically. Right. I have a really hard time. I don’t know how much, you know, I just. I recently just had surgery on my wrist.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:24:11) – It wasn’t able to work. Um, it’s from a car accident back in 2017. And not being able to, like, do things for a month was much harder on me than even I expected. And I knew it was going to be rough. So I can’t imagine going to a world where I’m retired and don’t have to do anything. I just like I mean, even vacations, you know, day three of a vacation, I’m like, Well, maybe we could go back a little early, you know, like, like to work. And and that.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:24:37) – Happened to Mister Clarity, too. Same thing.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:24:40) – He don’t know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:24:41) – Yeah. I mean, the guy that does all the breaks and brake calipers and stuff think the same thing happened to him too. Yeah. Um, with that, he was in an accident. Um, which is how he. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. Mean that’s hard. I can’t imagine a setback like that. I’m always worried about, you know, with the chemical burns from, you know, 17 and.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:25:06) – Yeah, yeah. No, but, uh, you know, just, you know. Yeah, it’s always but that then that’s a really. I like what you just said about your goal because I think, I mean, I don’t know, uh, powder coaters in general, what they’re, what they’re thinking when they get into this. Obviously, not having a boss is really important. I mean, you and I both agreed on that a moment ago, but like, having something outside of just being a powder coater or what your ultimate goal is, is what you should always be having in the back of your mind. Yeah. And stuff. And think that if you can bootstrap this business, the profitability on it is is ideal. It’s it’s probably why most most a lot of people don’t know do you think a lot of guys are just getting into coating today because it’s cool or do you really think they are thinking about um you know the the the profitability to be made in powder coating mean it is all labor.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:26:12) – I mean it’s probably a pretty mixed bag honestly. I mean, you have people that are, you know, they’ve seen the the cost of equipment has dropped significantly mean you can get pretty decent equipment now. I mean you can you can have a full setup for well under $5,000 at this point. You know, if you’re willing to cut corners in a few little areas and still be able to do stuff in your garage with no effort, you know, stuff out for yourself all day. Um, but I think it’s, you know, it’s like any, it’s like any hobby in that regard, like somebody might get into themselves, like I did maybe like, oh, I guess I could make this a business. But then you also have the people that jump into it and it’s just going to be a business like that’s all they want, you know? And honestly, I think the people who jump into it like you have to have. A pretty ridiculous work ethic to jump into a business that’s this labor intensive and.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Become a patron” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ global_module=”20171″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”]

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:27:06) – True.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:07) – And can be this volatile in regards to I mean, you’re in an environment that’s not exactly friendly most of the time you’re around blast media, chemical, hot ovens. You know, it’s you have to really yeah, you really have to be able to work like work past that stuff. And I don’t I’m not saying anything negative about people today versus years ago. I just I don’t know how many people are really willing to put themselves through that. Um, so to jump into it as a business to me seems way riskier than jumping into a hobby and then taking it to a business. And that’s, you know, I’ve told people countless times like, Oh, I’m going to go buy the best of the best of the best for all my equipment and start doing this. I was like, Wait, you better make sure you don’t hate it before you do all that, you know? And it’s it’s kind of funny that that advice actually comes from my dad with golf clubs, of all things.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:27:56) – Because, you know, golf is golf can be very expensive as far as the clubs go. And, you know, he would always. I. It’s kind of weird. You know, I’m a I’m a pretty good golfer. I’ve golf since I was a child, two and a half years old is when I started and played junior golf tournaments all growing up and was successful at that. But I was naturally good at golf. So I don’t know much about the teaching aspect of golf. Like I’ve had friends and girlfriends and stuff like, Oh, can you teach me how to golf? And I’m like, Not really, because I don’t like, I don’t know how to explain it to you, you know, Like I just I’ve been able to do it forever, right? With no, I’ve had three lessons in my life and they were all putting lessons, you know, So it’s like don’t have the ability to teach that. And they’re like, Well, what equipment should I buy? And, you know, I want to buy this and this and this.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:28:40) – And my dad was always like, Why don’t you tell him to go rent some clubs and make sure they don’t hate golf before they go out and do it? Because, I mean, you know, you can loading a bag with even kind of middle of the road equipment, you’re going to be 1500 to $2000 into a golf bag. And what if you do that and then go hate it? And, you know, I’m going to tell you right now, the resale on golf clubs is not great. You know, it’s like a car. It’s like an expensive car. It goes down really fast. So and that advice is always kind of like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:29:09) – Worse than that. You could buy the you could buy the $500 club and then hate it tomorrow. You know, I mean, you know, there’s.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:29:18) – People I actually just had this conversation with a buddy of mine yesterday, I guess it was I was like he was like, hey, can I borrow your driver? And I was like, sure, you know? And he’s like, Well, I’ve been looking at buying this club.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:29:29) – And this guy was like, Bro, go buy a set of used clubs. There’s a place near us called Uinta Golf. They sell used clubs and new clubs, but they have a really great exchange program where you can buy clubs used, and if you don’t like them, you get the full price back within 30 days to put towards another set of clubs there. You can try you could try 20 sets of clubs, you know, over and over and over. And I was like, Go do that. And then he’s like, you know, can I borrow your driver? And he’s a pretty. He’s a very novice golfer. I know some of the issues that he has with his swing. And I’m like, you can borrow my driver, but you’re not going to love it. You know, like you’re going to hate it probably the entire time because my driver is not forgiving. You know, it’s like if you miss hit it at all, it’s a real problem because it’s designed for somebody who’s played, you know, forever like myself.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:30:14) – So it’s just one of those things like, you know, I try to give people advice about equipment as best I can. And my big thing is I think I had this weird advantage where I had a good blaster near me and I didn’t have to buy equipment for that. So in my head I’m always like, just outsource your blasting for now. Like take that completely out. Because if you can get out of a $2,000 blasting cabinet, you know, a $2,000 compressor, get away from all that stuff, and you find somebody reliable near you who can do it. Um, sure. You got to pay somebody to do it every time, but you don’t have to sandblast, which is, you know, like I said, I hate. And then it’s less work for you overall. You need less space if you’re doing it, especially in your garage, less space. And um, so I, you know, I tend to push people kind of that way a little bit. Some people listen, some people don’t.   Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:31:04) – It’s, it’s all about.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:31:05) – I think that’s really solid advice. I mean it even though you, you know, you may not have. Uh, come. You know, started with sandblasting. A full setup like that. Mean? Yeah. Mean it. Even though you didn’t, you still were giving out good advice because it really is a huge part of the business. But then it doesn’t necessarily have to. You can price it in, you know that’s an easy cost to price in. Yeah.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:31:35) – And the price set, I mean it’s, you know, I was paying $20 a wheel to get blasted, you know, which is right. And that’s not stripped and blasted and that’s me bringing them a wheel. They’d blast it for 20 bucks and give it back to me and be completely bare ready to go. And so, like, I can charge, you know, I think at the time it was $300 for a set of wheels. Like, sure, I have that $80 expense. I might have $20 in powder.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:31:58) – I’m coming out of this. Okay. You know, for a couple of hours of work that I’m putting into it, it’s definitely going well. So I don’t know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:32:05) – It’s a lot of people don’t think about it that way. And that’s some of the things they should be thinking about, because it seems like every day on these group, uh, pages and group forums and stuff on Facebook that the same question gets asked over and over again How do I get into it? How what do I buy? What’s give me the setup? And it. Kind of floors me. I don’t know what to think about those kind of guys. What do you think of them? The guys.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”be our guest” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ background_color=”#D6D6D6″ global_module=”20173″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”]

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:32:34) – The guys that are very willing to just go out and blow money on something are somebody that I like. I can’t relate to it at all. And I, you know, I have the money to spend on it and I still can’t relate to it. And like, you know, like I look at these people, I’m like, you’re going to go out right now and you’re going to spend $10,000 on equipment to, like, put you in this place.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:32:54) – And you literally have never powder coated a thing in your life, you know, and just like, what are you doing? You know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:33:01) – I know.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:33:02) – I was like, go hang out at a powder coating shop for one day and then try to make that decision. You know, it’s like there’s a lot of things that I think people just don’t understand about it. And it’s not, you know, I’m not special in any way, shape or form. I don’t think I’m better than other people, but I know that my friends think I’m ridiculous for the job that I do. You know, they’re like, oh, it’s 110 degrees in your shop and you’re in and out of a 400 degree oven all day, you know, And it’s like and you can’t get away from it mean that, you know, once you’re, once you’re around powder coating at all like the heat to the heat is an element, you know, like it’s playing a role in your life no matter what you do. And, um, the shop that I’m in now, I actually had a shower put in this shop specifically because I was getting too hot in the shop.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:33:43) – The Oh, I know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:33:45) – Shower.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:33:46) – Yeah. The way the sun comes around this building, it’s on all three sides of my building the whole day. And you know, it’ll be a 95 degree day outside is 110 degrees in my shop. Like my wall. My brick wall that faces south is hot by the end of the day. And it’s just like, you know, you you have to be willing to put yourself through some pretty ridiculous stuff. And, you know, I’m sure there’s tons of other jobs that are just as crappy to, you know, I’m not discrediting that at all. I just the people that just want to jump in with both feet and hope for the best, I’m like, Man, have you ever done anything outside of an office? You know, like, have you ever gone outside when you didn’t have to come back into for a while? You know? And I mean, it is what it is. Like I, I know that my work ethic is pretty ridiculous and I have always just kind of been like, that’s the reason I do this is my, you know, I have a good work ethic.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:34:36) – You know, I convince myself, basically, and, you know, even my my really good friends that would see me working 16 hour days, we’re like, Dude, what are you doing? Or before car shows where I don’t sleep for 2 or 3 nights straight and I’m a, you know, by the fourth day I’m like a full on zombie, you know, like, even I know that the things I’m saying or doing don’t make any sense. But I’m like, Well, I got to finish this stuff for this car show. You know, it’s countless times where I’ve been caught asleep under my table at my booth at car shows because I hadn’t slept in days. And luckily I’ve had, you know, good friends and girlfriends in the past and stuff that have done really well working in booths and stuff. And I’m like, Oh, I’m just going to sleep under here with my dog for two hours or whatever. And right to catch back up.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:35:21) – You can’t even enjoy the car show. No.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:35:23) – Well.

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:35:24) – To be fair, I think I stopped enjoying, I think being tied in the automotive industry. I stopped enjoying a lot of things. Automotive, I mean, powder coating for me is pretty much strictly automotive. I don’t do any commercial industrial. I don’t do, um, you know, uh. When I say production work, I’m thinking like line work, like I won’t do a thousand work. And so I do wheels. You know, wheels are my big thing, kind of the go to for wheels. I’m definitely in this area on the go to for multi piece wheels um you know even other powder coaters send people down to me to do multi piece of Yeah they’re tricky. Yeah it’s just been I’d much rather focus on the things that I enjoy. You know I’ve said forever. I just want to be able to enjoy my job. And the second that I have to powder coat 500 black brackets, I’m not going to enjoy my job anymore. And there’s plenty of powder cutters who are super willing to do that exact work, who don’t want to do wheels, you know? So I suggest I have, you know, people that I send work to all the time and I’m like, Hey, you know, why don’t you give these guys a call? They’re perfect for that.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]

Unknown Coatings (Shawn Shreve) (00:36:30) – You know, they do good work. Just mention that I sent you over there that care of you. Um, and then vice versa. You know, those same companies, when they get something with wheels, they just send them straight to me. So it’s worked out pretty well.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:36:43) – Well, kiddos. That concludes part one of going places unknown with Shawn Shreve. Join us for episode 13, Part two as we take a deeper dive into reputations, reviews, results and rankings. Until next time. Aloha.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”2022 blog wrap up” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ global_module=”18725″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”]

About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

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What’s working now on social media in powder coating

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[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]In our exclusive interview with Danielle Miller, Owner of Miller Media Management, we uncover some of the strategies powder coating companies can use when posting to social media platforms like Instagram & Facebook.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vc1ertl3zQ[/embedyt]

RossKote (Kim Scott): [00:00:00] In this episode of the Powder Coater Podcast, we introduce you to Danielle Miller and welcome her as our podcast, first resident guest. She’s a media strategist who’s well versed in powder coating. Danielle has been featured in HubSpot in Huffington Post, and she’s here to talk about what’s now working in social.

Find out why using the newest features on Instagram will get you noticed and how to build a stellar profile. She explains how Pinterest can lead to website growth and why Facebook wants you to join a group. We’ll also cover how to use partnerships to gain access to more followers and clients, as well as what the must have hashtags are for powder coaters.

It’s all about building marketing strategies for your brand on social. Let’s get ready to level up your powder coater game.[00:01:00]

Welcome back to episode 11. I’m Kim Scott, your host of the Powder Coater Podcast, where you’re listening to influencers and, we’re interviewing and covering trending topics so that powder coaters can effectively learn and grow their business. And today I am super stoked. I’ve got a girl on my side who has been my partner in social media and my group, my go-to guru.

Fortunately she resides right here in Maui, Hawaii. She’s the owner of a top rated social media marketing company here. Her mission is to help entrepreneurs [00:02:00] anchor on results when it comes to marketing their businesses online. And her articles and presentations have been mentioned in HubSpot Social Media Today, and Social Media Examiner.

She’s also a prolific Pinterest producer, so to speak. So welcome aboard, Danielle Miller. How are you today?

Danielle Miller: Hey Kim. Doing great. Super stoked to be on the Powder Coat podcast today and talk about marketing. You know, that’s my, my jam. That’s where I get nerdy.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, and you and I met back in 2015 when I was struggling with social media. I had not ever tried Instagram, didn’t really know much about Facebook in, in terms of business Facebook. And you and I collaborated on a project together for another business I owned at the time and [00:03:00] really kind of sidelined Maui Powder Works. Because we hadn’t really taken ourselves too seriously and you were there for me.

You were there to review my, and give me feedback on my website, my approach to, the market, my message to the market and who my audience was. So I really do thank you and appreciate everything that you’ve done for me, and I know that you have something very valuable to share with our listeners today.

So I’m happy that you’re here.

Danielle Miller: Thanks. Yeah. We have a lot of big changes happening on social media right now and, it made for perfect timing to hop on and let all the powder coaters of the world know about what is the latest and greatest, what’s, what’s working now.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, and I think this perfectly segues with a lot of what our previous podcast was about with, Jace Kaser, from Kaser coating about how he markets his business, and does social media and how [00:04:00] he produces content on whatever platform he’s using. So I’m happy that we’re here to discuss maybe a little bit more in detail about how to. Bring a balance to your social media cuz it can get overwhelming if you don’t know where to start or how to do it.

And also how does that convert into leads and sales and new customers, without having to spend a bazillion dollars just in advertising. And we’re not gonna really address advertising today. We’re gonna talk about just the organic reach that you can do. With some of the things that we’re gonna talk about today, some of the, some of the ideas, that you can implement today in your business, Right?

Danielle Miller: Absolutely. And help you get focused, so you don’t feel overwhelmed and you know, kind of what, what are the new trendy things and what are the tried and true things that are always working?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. [00:05:00] I think that’s kind of the problem is sometimes you can get really burnt out for those that have experience with instagram and social media and what it’s like out there already. We are gonna address some of the more advanced concepts as well in this podcast. And, you know, for the new guys out there that need to get started, I hope to maybe give you a little bit of encouragement or confidence that you can do this.

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Because, you know, if you’ve been on social media, you know, you know how exhausting it can be. And you know, sometimes you just need to take a break and it’s okay to do so. But when you take that break, how do you jump back into it, because as you know, social media changes all the time.

And so that’s what we’ve got you here for is to give us the latest, greatest on Facebook and Instagram. So let’s hop into this.

Danielle Miller: Yes, let’s dive right in. Okay, so, let’s start with Instagram. And the reason I like to start there is cuz if you’re somebody who is overwhelmed with creating content [00:06:00] for every one of your platforms, then you need to be thinking of Instagram as the top platform that you create for and let.

The content you create on Instagram, trickle down to your Facebook and trickle down to your Twitter and trickle down to your Pinterest. So let’s start with Instagram. The latest and greatest on Instagram right now is “Reels”, and that is a contender for TikTok. It’s basically, just the same way that Instagram came in and copied Snapchat and integrated the same features that Snapchat offered right into the Instagram platform.

They’ve now integrated a lot of the same features that were on TikTok, right into Instagram with reels. So reels are, at the moment, still a bit clunky, but what’s happening with them is if you’re participating in reels and creating reels, you are actually getting. A lot of preferential treatment in terms of getting your content featured on that Instagram Explorer tab.

So we talked about, you know, today’s focus really being organic reach, that unpaid [00:07:00] reach, that reach that anybody can get as long as they’re creating quality content. And the the important thing here is that if you can get your content featured in that explorer tab, then you have a very high chance of being introduced to a lot more people for free.

It’s like getting a free ad on Instagram. So the, the short and quick on reels is that they are slightly longer videos that allow you to overlay text on top of your video and also do transitions between your, videos. So you see sometimes people come in like you might be showing a rim, right?

You’re showing a before and after. Is the concept of the reel. And you might show a rim, take a little video of it. Then when it comes out of the processes and it’s completely done, and like right before you’re giving it to the customer, you can now overlay that before picture of the rim, video of the rim. Right with your brand new video of the [00:08:00] rim, and have it transition within this Instagram reels video. And overlay text that says, you know, this process took this long. But the result was amazing. And here’s what the client had to say. And you can fit all of that in as long as you can fit it in, in a short period of time.

 They’re really like the 15 second. Now you can go up to 30 seconds with your reel. Those are really, really well received these days. .

RossKote (Kim Scott): Wow. So that’s something new because I had been guessing about the reels and we kind of took a step back from Instagram and sure enough, right as we were moving into our new shop. That’s right when reels was getting launched. And of course I missed out. So it’s good that we’re talking about this. Of course I’m not on TikTok, but a lot of people are, and this is a great way to kind of learn a little bit more, and maybe you just start with reels.

I don’t know, do you have to build up your profile first? I mean, do we wanna kind of backtrack a little bit or[00:09:00] if someone wanted to get started or just maybe only has a handful of followers right now, do you suggest they go directly into reels or still continue to build up their profile?

Danielle Miller: So I think it’s great to do both simultaneously because, as long as you’re using the appropriate hashtags and whatnot in, in your post, you’re gonna end up getting that organic reach and attracting your followers. And then with the reels, Instagram’s gonna place you in that Instagram Explorer feed if you’re getting enough engagement on your reels and for the followers that you already have.

Let’s say you’ve done the thing where you’ve invited your customers, you’ve invited your friends and family, and you’ve made it up to maybe 250 followers on Instagram. You know, you’re just getting started. Now you can really develop some tight relationships with those 250 people by participating in reels, cuz Instagram is gonna show that content to those people.

You know, it’s like, it’s almost as [00:10:00] if it bypasses the algorithm, right now because it’s a new thing they really want it to take off. So I would say, yeah, you gotta get the basics right. So you have to make sure your Instagram bio is solid. That means you’re not telling people. About what you offer in terms of services and instead you’re telling people why you’re worth following on Instagram.

benco sales b17 ad

And also with your bio that you’ve got your website link in there cuz that’s the only clickable link you’re gonna have on your Instagram account until you have 10,000 followers. and that you’ve taken the initiative to go ahead and become an Instagram business profile so that you get the insights and analytics about your content, because that’s the only way you are gonna know what’s working and what’s not, so that you can focus your efforts on the things that are actually producing results.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think, you’re hitting on some pretty key points about Instagram that I think [00:11:00] commonly get overlooked. From when I’ve looked at other coaters profiles and stuff, is this lack of the profile or, you know, lack of information on the profile. I know we’ve kind of hashtag stuff on our profile.

We’ve kind of put in powder coating as a hashtag within the profile. Is that not valid anymore to do? Do you still recommend that?

Danielle Miller: I still recommend putting, let’s say, one to two relevant hashtags in the profile. Although, honestly, I haven’t seen the return come in. There’s no way to really track if your profile is really being featured under those hashtags.

What I have found is that if somebody tends to follow that hashtag, then you are more likely to show up in the recommended profiles after they follow somebody else who’s been using that hashtag. . So that’s kind of the benefit about putting it in your profile. But keep it short, You know, this isn’t like when you stick those 30 hashtags in [00:12:00] your caption or in your first comment.

This is one or two core hashtags. I recommend one be geographic, right? So for, for us here in Maui, you’re hashtag tagging Maui. If you’re in London, you’re gonna hashtag London, right? And the other one be industry specific. So powder coating. Something very specific to the, your style or aesthetic could also work.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Right, like if you’re just doing break calipers or, certain kinds of rims or, you know, certain kinds of customers that have like, you know, customized, race cars or something like that, that makes sense. Totally, I mean, pander to your audience, really. I mean, who is it that’s coming to your shop and who do you wanna get more business from?

Danielle Miller: Yep, definitely.

 

 

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RossKote (Kim Scott): So do the reels translate into the Facebook feed, or is it just still Instagram stories to Instagrams, to Facebook stories?

Danielle Miller: So Instagram stories to [00:13:00] Facebook stories is the flow. However, with reels, you have the ability when you’re uploading them to send them to your story. So in that way, you can put a clip of your reel into your story and send that also to Facebook.

 And that’s one way to go ahead and reuse that content. And in essence, just think of, with stories for those of you who aren’t using them yet, I wanna encourage you to get ahead of the curve now because the trend is actually to post less and less in your newsfeed and post more and more in stories.

So I’m seeing like the big influencers, the people who are really on top of their Instagram game are posting where they used to post every day in their Instagram newsfeed. They’re now posting. Maybe two or three times a week in their newsfeed and posting every day in their stories. So that’s how much more importance the big players are putting on Instagram stories right now.

And [00:14:00] reels are gonna compliment your stories because you’re able to share them directly to your stories and your feed.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Okay, well, let’s slow this roll down because now I’ve got an issue with that in a sense that it’s harder to track the analytics in stories because the analytics in stories is not as robust as it is in the profile, correct?

Danielle Miller: Oh, very true. Very true. I mean, you, you’re only getting 14 days history, first of all, so that’s tough. And you’re really just seeing about, you know, who tapped forward, who tapped back, But what you will notice is that if you’re more active in stories. Within your insights, those that count of the people who are discovering you and doing profile visits, those numbers change.

Those numbers increase. Especially the profile visits and in direct messages actually. So direct messages and profile visits are gonna increase dramatically as a result of [00:15:00] being more active in stories.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Well, that’s an interesting statistic there, you know, because that’s really where as a powder coater, that’s where you want your people to go, your audience to go.

Definitely start that conversation about rims or how much for this, or how much for that or, and also, you know, click through to my website or my, my landing page or whatever. So that’s actually interesting. So that’s what the statistics, that’s what they’re finding out now.

Danielle Miller: Yeah. That they’re definitely, they have that heightened engagement and the action that you’re taking on them is direct messages. So it instantly moves people from just being a commenter, you know, or just liking your post into starting a private direct message with them right off the bat where you can start talking to them about their needs and answering their questions.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I hadn’t noticed that before, but I’m gonna have to start paying attention to that now because, [00:16:00] you know, I was kinda getting that organically happening just with my profile picks and stuff and my feed. But, that definitely changes the way I’m gonna approach Instagram now.

And what about Facebook’s stories? Does anybody care? Or is that just something that is just another one of those Facebook features that nobody cares about.

Danielle Miller: So the shortened skinny on Facebook stories is that they are, at this point, they’re just so easy to forward your Instagram stories to Facebook, and you’re getting featured at the top of the newsfeed.

So every time someone opens their app, if you’ve posted to your Facebook stories recently, you’re gonna be one of the four or five stories featured at the top, which is an opportunity to get your brand in front of people. So if we’re talking about easy wins. I would call Facebook stories an easy win. It’s not that you’re gonna necessarily get the direct message or get the sale from there, but it’s like if you’ve, if someone’s saying, Hey, I’m gonna give you a [00:17:00] free billboard on the highway, as long as you give me the content that you want me to put on the billboard, would you take it?

Sure. You know, so I think that Facebook stories are an opportunity just to get your brand in front of people again.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, that’s a valid point. All right, let’s move on to Facebook then. You know, we know how difficult it is to have a Facebook business page these days without having to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in advertising every year.

Any changes on that front? I mean I see that there’s user functionality that’s changing for businesses to make it much easier to manage. Other than that, what else has changed in Facebook or is that the change?

Danielle Miller: So, yeah, let’s talk about that because that’s a big one that people might not know about.

In terms of user functionality that’s making it easier for people to manage their Facebook page, go to Google, type in Creator Studio. Facebook Creator Studio is [00:18:00] a free tool offered by Facebook that allows you to preschedule all of your Facebook posts and Instagram. From a desktop computer or they have a kind of wonky app for the phone as well.

And, it’s just really streamlines the process of getting your content posted. Plus it also keeps a record of all of your posts with their reach, their engagement, their comments, that you can quickly look at. So I’ve found that using Creator Studio is a really nice tool for kind of systemizing your social media marketing in terms of like, you’re gonna sit down once a month or once a week and schedule out your posts for Instagram and Facebook so that you know, you don’t have to babysit your Facebook account. You know, you’re just there really to monitor your notifications at that point. And to the other point, yeah, there’s a different change happening.

A lot of business owners are getting super frustrated with the limited organic reach from their Facebook page. I [00:19:00] mean, unless you’re getting shares. It’s really tough to reach people organically. You could have worked your tail off to get a following of a thousand people or 5,000 people and you’re seeing your posts reach, you know, maybe 200, 300 people, out of the thousand that have said, I really wanna see your content.

So the solution, right now, the trending thing, and the thing that I see getting hotter and hotter are Facebook groups. So it’s no longer about having a Facebook business page that puts your business and your brand first. Instead, it’s about being the admin, and being in control of a community of people interested in a topic.

So you create a Facebook group around, you know, well, you could do powder coating in, you know, London, right? So you could have a geographic region and an industry, or you could go specific and be like, you know, amazing rims spotted in [00:20:00] Massachusetts, right? And, and by being the admin of a group where people can feel like they can share content into it and contribute, you’re really building a community.

Which is stronger than just building your own Facebook page, which is all about you.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Well, I have to tell you, it’s pretty interesting out there these days with powder coating and Facebook groups. And the reason why they’re exploding right now is because forms are, I don’t wanna say they’re dead, but they’re kind of what people used to go to for information.

But it seems. Powder coating is growing so quickly today that, it seems like the information that can come forward in a group can happen so quickly in order to get the answers to, you know, a post or like a troubleshooting post. Or, “Hey, can you help me out with this?” Or, “What should I try [00:21:00] here? Hey, check out this, project I did”.

It’s kind of an all around for powder coaters to go today, and it seems like every time I look there is a new, powder coating group started. I mean, it’s just changing weekly. I am currently, at the time of this recording, blocked on one of a fast growing powder coating, groups. I just found out. So, primarily because, you know, I think that there are some, sort of approach differences within the group. And, it sort of had been building and maybe coming to a head. And that’s the problem sometimes is you do have someone, that thinks of a group to be a certain way, and then, it maybe changes or people can disagree.

But the thing is that of the reason why I got into Facebook groups. Is not [00:22:00] just to promote my podcast or my content or any of that, it’s just that I found that so many, of the, of the existing groups could turn negative really quickly, because it’s competitive, rather than more helpful and that I felt like there needed to be some kind of a force in there to kind of just answer the questions people had without any kind of slight or agenda or, sales pitch kind of thing. Right. So…

Danielle Miller: Totally.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I mean, you know, it can vary from group to group about what its content is. Most of the groups that are out there today are just general groups. They don’t really have one slant or the other, but you’ve certainly given us ideas on how to, focus in. Because the whole point of the groups is to be engaging and to get the questions answered or to get the help that you need, quickly.

Because the forums sometimes can take too long to get that answered because you’re based on people logging in or going [00:23:00] there, going to that site. Whereas Facebook is just, the engagement level is just huge.

Danielle Miller: Definitely. And Facebook has been pushing groups like crazy. So you know, if you start your own group, even if you’re starting kind of from scratch, if you can get that first wave of engagement and, and be posting on the regular and getting people to contribute to the discussion, they’ll start recommending your group to everybody who has similar categories and you can get your group to grow pretty fast. I mean, the other thing I wanna tell people about groups is like, you might think like, Oh, I can’t wait to have a group with like 10,000 members in it, or I can’t wait to have a group with a hundred thousand members in it.

Trust me, I’ve been an admin of a group with 10,000 members in it, and it sucks. It’s super hard to manage. So, get yourself to a hundred members, get yourself to 250 members and do a fricking celebratory dance. Because honestly, if you can get [00:24:00] really tight with a hundred or 200 people, think about the referrals that could bring you, right?

Don’t look at the group members as the people who will become your customers. Look at them as people that are going to become your friends and want to refer you business. And that’s gonna take the pressure off for the sale and really do exactly what you said, Kim, which was put your value first.

Put out the priority to answer people’s questions and just be of service first. And from there, the referrals will come in. So, Definitely, I like the idea of smaller, great groups that are, are super targeted in what they wanna talk about.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think that it’s definitely opened up for powder coating, subject matter, and it’s definitely working in a more positive direction.

But, not without, its pitfalls. And I’m sure that we’re working through it. Okay. So what, are there any [00:25:00] other platforms to, that we wanna talk about today that, changes are happening to?

Danielle Miller: Well after that intro, like, how could I not talk about Pinterest?

Right. So, Yeah, I freaking love Pinterest. For those of you who think Pinterest is just for housewives and, and homemakers and people looking up recipes, like you should look at the Pinterest report that most recently came out. They put out Pinterest themselves, put out their holiday guide and the amount of people that are on Pinterest with the intent to shop for things, for products or services or plan big projects like.

Updating their gate at their house or, you know, redoing their car. These things are super popular on Pinterest and all you need to have a really great Pinterest presence is a stream of high quality photos [00:26:00] and videos, which powder coaters are getting all the freaking time. Every single time you guys have a project, you’re getting sick photos of what you’re creating.

Yeah, uploading those to Pinterest, making sure that that image is linking back to your own website and then categorizing your pictures into however you like. You can do it by color, you can do it by, item, like you can have a board just about rims. You can have a board about architectural design.

That method of using Pinterest. Totally helps your SEO. Okay, so for those of you who didn’t realize, a killer Pinterest game is going to improve how you rank on Google, because every time someone’s repinning your images, it’s creating more back links to your website and telling Google your website is full of awesome content. [00:27:00] Pinterest is great.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think one of the hardest things about Pinterest is just learning the platform and it seemed like they had just done a recent change or update the face of it or to the user experience level where I went there after a couple. I mean, it just, had happened recently.

Everybody, all the platforms are changing their game. Facebook, Instagram. And it just seems like we’re in that time period, or that pattern or that, you know, that time where things change. And I went there and it’s like even the, the app is different, and I just really had to reorient myself around it again.

And I’m like, Wait, this is like, it seemed like it was. Less user-friendly for the business poster or the, you know, and more user-friendly to the, to the pinner, I guess. And it should be, that’s what it’s there for. But, trying to find my analytics or any of that stuff, it was complex.

But I do see some, Instagrammers, [00:28:00] have Pinterest accounts. And they’re succeeding, even if they’re not necessarily selling a product like. A powder or some other related product to powder coating. They’re just posting their Instagram or they’re posting some pictures or a blog post.

And I am seeing some other people doing it pretty well out there too, and are getting that message. So, yeah, I think that’s, that’s a great way to end kind of the update on platforms and social media. It’s a learning curve on Pinterest, just like Instagram and Facebook. But, of the features you’ve mentioned or the benefits.

It’s definitely a playing out in our game for sure. So, talk about partnerships as we switch over, to the next segment here. What are partnerships? What are you talking about?

Danielle Miller: Yeah. Right on. So with partnerships, the important thing to remember is like this discussion is all about organic reach, right?

So we’re not talking about advertising and when, when you’re not dedicating money to an ad budget, you need to find other ways [00:29:00] to quickly reach audiences. And so a partnership could look like you partnering with, let’s say you have some like B2B business, like there’s another business out there that is a client of yours and you wanna talk about their business.

Like that’s a fantastic partnership. And that might look like you’re creating some posts on social media and tagging them in your posts and tagging them in your caption as well. And, Like, take it to stories, right? We talked about Instagram stories. If you are posting a picture of a product and you know, the partners that you work well with, whether it’s like the metal fabricators or it’s somebody else in the whole design process.

Maybe it’s an architect, maybe it’s a designer. You wanna be tagging their accounts in your stories about projects that you guys have worked on. Because it allows them in a single tap to reshare your story to all of their [00:30:00] followers.

So that’s a super easy win for how to get big organic reach without spending ad dollars.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We’ve actually done exactly that in our Instagram and in our blog posts and stuff, and it’s amazing. Especially on a blog post, I’ll look back at the analytics and, and it’s amazing how many people have clicked on, that restaurant website or that welder’s website.

And I can actually add up how many times people have clicked on it. It works and not to get too deep because I know we we’re short on time. But, we will be producing, top 25, ideas that you and I both have proven in powder coating, specific to powder coating.

 And how we can utilize this list of, different post types, for either Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest. And they all work fabulously. But the main takeaway for social [00:31:00] media is that you are educating your client or your audience, whether it’s something like, making an appointment or like how to make an appointment or how to book or how to drop off, rims.

When do you come in? What do I need from you? Are we full service or do you need to take your rims off and bring ’em to us? What’s the difference between someone that you know, doesn’t or does, you know? It also, I think I found that inspiration in inspiring our audience to the potentialities of color or making your rims look new or just giving people that inspiration that they need to like, “Yeah, I can get this done”.

And then also just kind of telling your story is another. Or even just talking about your services, or the backstory behind a project, sort of, you know, just, obsessing about those things. Would you [00:32:00] agree?

Danielle Miller: Oh, fully, these days on social media, it’s all about nailing the story and, and being of service, meaning answering the frequently asked questions.

One of my favorite tips. Kind of collecting those questions is, a lot of us get those questions via email. Like a customer, you know, maybe you’re talking with a customer about a product and either they’ve phoned you or they’ve emailed you and they’ve got a question like, you know, do I need to take my rims off?

Or you guys full service? You do that for me? And keep a little bank of those questions. So whether you are like BCCing another email address, like go into Gmail, create a FAQs for my company@gmail.com and just BCC that email address every time you’re answering a question for a customer that you’ve heard before, that you think other people are gonna have that same question, and all of a sudden you just go to that inbox, that FAQs for my company@gmail.com, inbox and like [00:33:00] it’s full of all of these questions and prewritten answers that you can now copy and paste into your social media content.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I’ve done that. In terms of like, especially sometimes when you have to go through a very lengthy email to explain to a customer; particularly architectural customers, cause they wanna know more about, you know, the durability or longevity of the finish that you’re giving them. And I can’t tell you how many times I have written that same paragraph over and over. And I finally got it straight and realized I should just save this and put it into a blog post, which I ended up doing on our gate post that we just put out on Pinterest about how to get your gate finished. From start to finish, do you get a pre-made gate or do you get a custom fab?

And what, you know, substrate do you use? What finish do you want? How do you do this? And it turned into like a 2000 word,[00:34:00] blog post, which was amazing. I can’t believe I actually had the time to write that thing. The landmark post, happy to have miles stoned it, and I’m ready to put that one off to the side.

So, before we wrap up, let’s talk about one last thing, and that is hashtags, because that’s where I see maybe, a lack of effort, about hashtags. Which hashtag specifically do we use for the powder coater or custom coating? And we can go through, I have a list of them that I use. Let’s talk about hashtags.

Danielle Miller: Yeah, sure. So the quick and dirty on hashtags is number one, you gotta have a strategy. That’s the thing is sometimes I don’t think it’s the lack of effort. I think it’s simply a lack of strategy. People have no idea how to use them. Here’s the, the best tip, simplest tip I can give you for hashtags is stop using hashtags that have over 2 million posts associated with them.

If you’re using hashtag rainbow and it’s got 8 million posts [00:35:00] associated with it. You are wasting one of your 30 hashtags completely wasting it because you will not show up in top posts for that. So all you’re gonna do with a hashtag like that is attract the spam commenters. Instead, what I want you to do is get a little more creative.

Like did you know that when you take a hashtag, let’s say like hashtag. Just powder coating, Right? And then you add an emoji to it that at that point, it’s actually a completely different hashtag. So, You might start to find niche hashtags that have only been used, you know, let’s say 50,000 posts or 20,000 posts, associated with them.

And those hashtags, you actually have a chance of showing up in top posts for them, and that should be your goal. Your goal should be to. Identify the hashtags for which when you use them, your post gets in top post for that hashtag. That should make [00:36:00] up like 20 of your 30 hashtags that you’re using should be ones that you wanna end up in top post for.

So, The other 10 hashtags that you’re using, you’re gonna put a branded hashtag in there. You know, so hashtag Maui Powder Works, or whatever your company is. Make sure you’re branding your hashtag. You’re also gonna do like geographic hashtags. People forget about those all the time. Like definitely for us, you know, it’s hashtag Maui, Hawaii, or it might be a town here or a town where you guys are located.

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Use your geographic hashtags. Then I want you to be thinking seasonal. Like what is in season right now? It’s Halloween, 2020, right? Start posting your orange rims and any other products that you’ve done that are black or orange. Like just start posting those pictures right now with hashtag Halloween 2020.

And that’s because right now that’s a trending seasonal hashtag. So those are my core three tips about hashtags.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, you know what? As soon as we post this, [00:37:00] I cannot wait to see and go to Instagram and start to see exactly what you just said. Because I literally can see that sometimes in the groups and on Instagram is the minute we publish something on this podcast, people get right to it cuz that was a brilliant.

And it’s so overlooked, yet so easy, and so like, just like, duh, but you know, we get so wrapped up in the day to day of just even taking a picture or or doing a before and after. It’s really hard just to get that going or get that started. I know that we’ve kind of, slacked off on our Instagram game.

 I’m looking forward to getting kind of right back in. In fact, I have it right on the, my top 10 lists of things to do this week is to get out three new posts and not just rely on a podcast post to put in my Instagram feed, but to really, catch up with all the projects that Ross has done since we [00:38:00] moved into our new shop.

But it’s hard when you get off that horse, that rail line and then you gotta hop back on again. It’s hard to get back into it too once you’ve been off. So it’s, It’s just a challenge, but it’s also okay to just take a break and then listen to a podcast like this where we have an expert in social media.

Get us inspired to do more. Well that’s awesome, Danielle. I think this is a great place to just end, so tell us how do we get on hold of you? What’s your website? All that good.

Danielle Miller: Sure you can find me everywhere at mmm social media. So website mmmsocialmedia.com.

Instagram mmm, social media, Facebook, facebook.com/mmmsocialmedia. Same thing for Pinterest, mmm Social Media. So, and that’s mmm, like, Mm, it tastes really good. So, I can’t wait to see you guys there. And I do a ton of online workshops, so you know, if you guys are looking for some serious [00:39:00] training, that’s pretty dang affordable.

I’m doing livestream workshops at least once a month.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, wow. That’s something new because I’ve been seeing you like locally in public spaces where you have your in class stuff, but I guess because of Covid 19, things have kind of changed up for you.

Danielle Miller: Totally. Yep. We’re doing a lot of online teaching this season.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Well, that’s good because I think your message is, so well put and so easy to grasp. I obviously saw that in a lot of the classes that I attended in, you know, in person where you have completely changed someone’s attitude towards social media. I know we all start up in these classes going, I don’t know why I’m here.

There’s nothing that this pod, you know, that this, Instagram can do for me. I’ve tried, I’ve tried this, I’ve tried that. So, I always walk away with something new and a new understanding if it’s, you know, coming from whatever you’re teaching. So thank you for that. And yes, you [00:40:00] should go check out our website.

I’ll make sure to put a link in the podcast page, so that you can click to it very easily. And we’d like to thank our supportive followers and fellow powder coaters out there. I hope you’ve learned something new about your Instagram game, and your powder coating business. Please, comment, below and, share the podcast, follow us and share it on Facebook groups.

If you have a topic you’d like to discuss, just email us at info@mauipowderworks.com. Aloha!

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About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

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