We want to be better!

three reasons I'm leaning toward black diamond:

1 they have a pre mix color that's a factory medium grey metallic as my car. GM 90

2. Activated base coat

3. I've heard from several people it sprays easy, and covers great, which is rare with budget line paints.

Just wondering, what is your experience with kirker black diamond that you would say it's no good?
 
Barry,

Are you looking to increase business through additional jobbers or painters? I really don't know anything about the paint industry, but it seems that SPI is targeted to the painter? When you do increase business, would it be more beneficial to retract from the retail sales end and concentrate more on the manufacturing end?
 
We have a lot of jobbers and the jobber is our number one objective for distribution.

Now the real world, we can never get enough jobbers to supply everywhere, for lots of reasons it is just not possible.

That is why we do ship free to shops, in areas where we don't have a jobber to service.

"Seems like we target the home users instead"

Well I guess we do, our main goal is to be available 95% of the time to any painter and we do not separate do-it-yourself guy from a professional, this is our way of pulling sales through the jobber.

Perhaps it looks so out of whack is because we have a place like this and I will post on other forums to help where the majors are not and do not and unless you are a mega dealership, they don't even care if you get your problem solved or not.

Another thing that makes this look out of whack, most professional painters do not get on a forum like this, let alone register but you would not believe the number of painters i talk to on the phone that read these forums, take a look at the guest count during their evening or night, that is the indicator.
 
Barryk;7065 said:
We have a lot of jobbers and the jobber is our number one objective for distribution.

Now the real world, we can never get enough jobbers to supply everywhere, for lots of reasons it is just not possible.

That is why we do ship free to shops, in areas where we don't have a jobber to service.

"Seems like we target the home users instead"

Well I guess we do, our main goal is to be available 95% of the time to any painter and we do not separate do-it-yourself guy from a professional, this is our way of pulling sales through the jobber.

Perhaps it looks so out of whack is because we have a place like this and I will post on other forums to help where the majors are not and do not and unless you are a mega dealership, they don't even care if you get your problem solved or not.

Another thing that makes this look out of whack, most professional painters do not get on a forum like this, let alone register but you would not believe the number of painters i talk to on the phone that read these forums, take a look at the guest count during their evening or night, that is the indicator.
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and i'd put money on that SOME of those "guests" are the ones who have nothing but negative to say about the product and have never used it......but WILL browse the forum for valuable information because..what other reason would they be here since they dont use it? ha . this forum is great because most of the guys on the others have no experience with spi...but will comment on it all day long.......sending guys over here to talk to the guys who use it everyday is awesome.
 
58mark;7033 said:
ok if summit stuff is junk, then what other places are junk? TCP global? Kirker? Not all of us are putting Universal under $1000 worth of base
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Why would you put universal under your base? :confused:


Call Chad and get ProSpray base, you will have a great quality base for a lot le$$ then $1000.
 
I get a lot of calls from new shops that saw our ad in ABRN or Bodyshop business and when they call to order, they have already been on here and know what and why they are ordering.

Yes, the anti SPI people are on here also but hey, most of them could stand to learn something.
 
I looked at thier website weeks ago, and it didn't seem very jobber friendly. I guess they take their name seriously, and could care less about guys like me
 
most of them ??????? there are a few hacks on the chevy sites who talk smack about spi. then you check their work and can tell spi would not help them. cant fix stupid .
 
58mark;7045 said:
That's the assumption I've been going on all along, and that was my plan. Strum indicated there would be problems though so I thought maybe I should reconsider. I'd RATHER use SPI
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I am not saying that you are going to have compatability problems with using Summit base and SPI products. I have never, and will never use Sumit paint, so I don't know first hand. I was just using Summit as an example of a cheap paint line that very few on here would recommend. Maybe Kirker makes it...I have no idea. I would just stick with something that you know what you are getting. If others on here are saying Kirker would work, than I'm sure it would be great. I would just stay away from relabled mystery paint.

The best thing you could do is give Barry a call, and do what he says.
 
I think it's great that you post here and pretty much every other forum i've been on ;). I'm a diy guy and appreciate the fact that you sell to us and actually take the time to assist. It's a great selling point for whatever %age we make up. Good luck to you and your team.
 
Senile Old Fart;4359 said:
I have no idea of cost/dividend but your website sucks. I try and refer anyone and everyone to it and some cannot even find the pricing page!
The web is becoming a larger part of everyday, it's time to get your site upgraded to equal your product IMHO.
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I was just at the website and it is vastly improved over the old version. I give it 2 thumbs up!
 
It might be fun to see a paint contest. Make contestants use all SPI products and show before and after pics. Whoever does the most impressive job wins. You could then use the contestant's entries for marketing...

Dkr.
 
I think one of the best things you have going for you marketing wise is the quality advice offered on this and other forums... even the ones you and Shine and others here no longer post on. I personally wound up as a customer from reading that long ass thread about duplicolor over on Hot Rod I think it was. It was clear to me who was giving good advice and who was stirring a witches brew and I proceeded to follow the good advice trail. I know that isn't going to lead to big sales but it goes a long way towards creating positive image and I'm pretty sure thats something ads can't buy. If I ever finish this project I have a friend with a 50 GMC who wants me to redo it and I know that I won't be shopping around for something else when it happens.

As for You Tube I can see the point about anyone can say anything and there's plenty of useless info out there, but a quality Channel with a similar design as your website with a good library of how to's or demonstrations would be another way of introducing newbe's like me to your products, and also give you a place to host videos and links back to your website.
I think on You Tube its more about the quality of your production value than simply that its You Tube.
Stanford University has all kinds of lectures and classes posted there, so its not like there isn't anything of quality on it. Its HOW you are presented.
If I was to do something along those lines I'd make sure I had plenty of links back to this forum though.... I think anyone serious about finding a good product who is looking around the web (cause thats where we look any more) will be able to tell the difference between a company selling its wares and experienced customers talking about the products they find to be the best.

just my .02
 
I think one of the best things you have going for you marketing wise is the quality advice offered on this and other forums... even the ones you and Shine and others here no longer post on.
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I agree. I bought because the SPI reputation on the internet is practically flawless which is very difficult to do even with an excellent product. That, and Barry's enthusiasm for painting is contagious.

Dkr.
 
NoobDude;10527 said:
I think one of the best things you have going for you marketing wise is the quality advice offered on this and other forums... even the ones you and Shine and others here no longer post on. I personally wound up as a customer from reading that long ass thread about duplicolor over on Hot Rod I think it was. It was clear to me who was giving good advice and who was stirring a witches brew and I proceeded to follow the good advice trail. I know that isn't going to lead to big sales but it goes a long way towards creating positive image and I'm pretty sure thats something ads can't buy. If I ever finish this project I have a friend with a 50 GMC who wants me to redo it and I know that I won't be shopping around for something else when it happens.

As for You Tube I can see the point about anyone can say anything and there's plenty of useless info out there, but a quality Channel with a similar design as your website with a good library of how to's or demonstrations would be another way of introducing newbe's like me to your products, and also give you a place to host videos and links back to your website.
I think on You Tube its more about the quality of your production value than simply that its You Tube.
Stanford University has all kinds of lectures and classes posted there, so its not like there isn't anything of quality on it. Its HOW you are presented.
If I was to do something along those lines I'd make sure I had plenty of links back to this forum though.... I think anyone serious about finding a good product who is looking around the web (cause thats where we look any more) will be able to tell the difference between a company selling its wares and experienced customers talking about the products they find to be the best.

just my .02
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Interesting, as I have always wondered what kind of damage I was doing to my self on a thread like Duplicolor or Oshpo.
I take the attitude that it is a no win and just leave them be.

Thanks for the post, helps me a lot.
 
Never gonna convince those guys who are set in their ways. But will steer the ones silently watching in the corner in the right direction. Might seem pointless....but imo if it helps one guy, the job is done. Because i know its contagious...1 guys leads to 2.....2 leads to 4....and so on.
 
you cant fix stupid but you can expose it . i have all but stopped posting on a few sites simply because of moderators. they allow way too much bogus info to be spread . then when you expose the bs your just starting a pissing match . i have seen barry told he was wrong when talking about his own product . what i will never understand is how someone can constantly preach about all their accomplishments with absolutely no proof what so ever . hell i didn't even believe barry until i did some research . i'm sure after our first phone call he was thinking " this one will be a pia " .
as for a contest , not interested . just like trophies at a car show they just lead to trouble .

as for the duplicolor thread it was as useless as the ospho thread . if you noticed we never did see pics of that fabulous paint job with the crap. just more of the "lacquer is easy " bullshit .
 
One of the things I see a lot of on other sites - is "here's my (gone wrong) paint job - what happened ?" posts - It might be great to have a library of common symptoms - explanations as to cause and suggestions to fix (with photo's). I like the "here's two samples - one i did properly and one i sprayed over acid etch - and here is the result 1,3,6,12 months after - I don't need anymore evidence as to which the correct way of doing things is.


That is really adding to the theme of How To's.

Barry you know I am learning this "step by step" - and hopefully listening to your great advice and reading info from others here I will end up with a decent result.
I don't trust videos or posts elsewhere - so having the how to videos here that have been "certified" - would take my learning to a new level.

I also understand that almost '2 sets' of videos will be needed 1) a 'pro' or full time set - where you can work on your project full time and do everything one after the other and 2) a set for us 'weekend warriors' - where we have to do things in stages and panel by panel with gaps in between and decent but not the best tools - a lot of the info doesn't apply to us directly. I know we don't spend a lot with you on each order and probably take up a disproportionate amount of your time (not that you ever show that) - but in numbers we could make a significant difference - but you would need to find a way of conveying the answers to the repetitive questions in an economic but workable way - videos and photos might accomplish that for you.

You could let people submit videos and how to's and if selected and used - then maybe refund the cost of the materials bought from you (or a part of) for the incentive to make high quality content for you.

I also think that having a critique section - where I try (film,photograph) my 'first base' test project and without flaming (doesn't happen here anyways) - constructive criticism is given. Again - the best could be added to the library

Also on the other sites - reading discussions on "non-rust cure" questions - they ain't worth fighting on I know - I often read on hoping I am going to find a "Barry, or someone else form here" comment so I then know the right info on that post.

just a few more thoughts ....

Your Friend - Stephen.
 
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