51:37
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
corrosion, coatings, protective coatings, content, people, talk, bridges, industry, industrial sector, started, manufacturing, related, pittsburgh, company, jim, live, linkedin, tick tock, equipment, create
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Jim Kunkle
Damon Pistulka 00:05
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of business. I’m your host, Damon Pistulka. And with me today, I am happy to say I’ve got Jim conkel. Jim, welcome my friend.
Jim Kunkle 00:16
Damon. It’s great to be here. Hello to everybody looking for a great broadcast this evening.
Damon Pistulka 00:22
Oh, yeah, we’re gonna have some fun. We’re gonna have some fun, Jim. So you’re coming out of Pittsburgh? So the, what is the weather like in Pittsburgh this time of year?
Jim Kunkle 00:31
Well, we’re kind of getting into that period of time when things start to transition, you know, you start getting those early spring birds singing a little bit. But occasionally, you’ll get a nice warm day, and then it’ll be below 30 degrees or 20 degrees at night. But as deeper we get into March, things start to get more stabilized. And those pretty little flowers start to push their way out of the ground.
Damon Pistulka 00:52
Yep, yep, good stuff. I mean, just before we got on here, I actually stepped outside. And you know, I’m in Seattle. And it’s, I think it’s in the 50s today in the low 50s. And not raining. So there’s actually a little bit of that yellow orb in the sky shining on me, which we don’t see much this time of year. But yeah, this is great, because I noticed the flowers and the plants and everything are starting to look like Hey, I might be coming back. So
Jim Kunkle 01:17
yeah, my my youngest daughter is doing her PhD at the University of Washington. She lives up in Seattle. In fact, my wife is out there right now visiting her for the week.
Damon Pistulka 01:25
Nice. Nice. Well, it’s a it’s actually a not a bad place in the wintertime. It doesn’t get very cold.
Jim Kunkle 01:32
Yeah, I love Seattle. I used to do a lot of travel to Seattle, and my past business life and great, great region. Great area. The volcanoes up there kind of scare me a little
Damon Pistulka 01:42
that that is one. That is what I remember. I was here for the last big earthquake. And I had you know, growing up in the Midwest, we just didn’t have earthquakes. That was a little different. It was different. I was driving down the interstate and it felt like a tire fell off my car. That was Yeah, yeah, it was. It was quite
Jim Kunkle 02:00
interesting. We don’t get earthquakes here in Pittsburgh.
Damon Pistulka 02:03
Yeah. Yeah, that’s Yeah. That’s good. That’s good. So it’s cool to get to talk to you today, Jim, because man, we’re going to talk today about the importance of content. You know, when we talk about the importance of content, I think it’s, it’s cool to get you on. Because when people talk about corrosion, or coatings, you know, just protective coatings, they really don’t think about content, like many other industrial sectors, everybody looks at it and goes, Why would I do that?
You know, Kurt Anderson idea. We do the manufacturing ecommerce success on Friday, and we talk about these things a fair amount. And it’s I think it’s universal across the industrial sectors of the world, really, is that they don’t understand how interesting their stuff really is to their customers.
Jim Kunkle 02:57
Yeah, I completely agree with that. And really, when you look in the manufacturing hemisphere, there’s so much there, there are a number of podcasts. And there are a number of content creators and some of which have a great following. And they have great programs and great content. My industry when you’re talking about the coatings and corrosion side, even though they’re kind of separate or separate. Industries, they have a commonality. And that commonality all the time is corrosion and fighting against corrosion, but that our industry seems to be a little bit behind the curve with content.
Damon Pistulka 03:32
Yeah, yeah. So when you talk about the corrosion industry, just give a couple typical examples. I mean, I know I know, like, you know, putting a powder coating on something, so it doesn’t rush. But give us some interesting examples that you’ve seen of corrosion coatings, that you go, wow, I would have never thought of that.
Jim Kunkle 03:53
Yeah, so I mean, when really think about it, when you’re using any types of metals and materials that come from the earth, the ultimate goal, when you form those into a steel bridge, or a ship or any type of structure, they want to return back to their natural state. In other words, they want to go back to that base element.
So they basically corrode, they start to fall apart. And so what a protective coating does is think about, it creates a barrier to block the environmental impact. It could be salt, it could be water, it could be atmospheric. And that corrosion is what really accelerates that deterioration of that that structure. Here in Pittsburgh. We just recently had a bridge that collapsed and luckily there were no fatalities. It’s just happened a little over a month ago, in the bridge itself had corrosion issues. In fact, it was targeted to be repaired.
But in the state of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, specifically, the Pittsburgh authority did not request maintenance money to tackle corrosion. Now, the final report hasn’t come out yet. But it’s probably going to be a corrosion issue that caused it to kind of slip and then fall down, it fell down on itself basically in a ravine. Ultimately that bridge, now it’s going to cost $25 million of taxpayers dollars to, to replace it. But if it would, it could have probably been a been a million or 5 million to do the repairs to deal with the corrosion and correct a situation.
So in the United States, for example, we have aging infrastructure. Now, that could be transmission towers that are sometimes seven years old. Well, when the wind hits them, you know, they can fall down. water, wastewater, concrete, and the containment for the clarifiers are bridges, we have a lot of legacy bridges that are historical, and still, and so you know, to get that 100 year bridge, you know, nobody wants to replace the Brooklyn Bridge, we want to preserve it forever.
In the same thing. When you look at for example, in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh has the most bridges of any city in the world. Next, I think to Venice, Italy. And a lot of our bridges are all the old fashioned plate bridges, which are bonded together. And so they need to have maintenance, replacement of metal and protective coatings. So it’s a it’s an intensive process to do. But it needs to be done in order to make maintain and sustain that. survivability and life lifecycle of that bridge.
Damon Pistulka 06:23
Yeah, no doubt. Well, and I’ve honestly, I didn’t think we’re going to talk about corrosion protection. But I think it’s an IT. It’s interesting, when you think about what you just talked about, our infrastructure is aging. A lot of this was built in. Oh, heck now, how many years ago? almost 100 years ago? Yeah. A lot of it has been? Yeah, you know, because it was built in the in, in the year after the, the the Great Depression, in the 30s and 40s.
With the Public Works, yep. The public works. Yeah. So that’s, you know, we talked about the Tennessee Valley Authority and things like that, that were building dams and bridges and all these kinds of things across the United States. And then you look at the the interstate systems and all that we built out all through the 50s and 60s. And, and every one of those bridges, like you said, is, is got metal in it, or concrete of sorts. And when you talk about the one that you said to that I hadn’t thought about before is protecting concrete from corrosion.
Jim Kunkle 07:22
And the same thing with bridges, because when a steel bridge comes down, it’s replaced, typically with a concrete bridge. So within that you have you have cabling that’s in there, really, that adds to stress, tensioning, and all that. And that’s where corrosion can attack as well. So corrosion, you can have attack in the rebar, which is metal, or when you have these strands that helps secure the suspension bridge, it’s concrete, that can impact that as well.
And it’s just amazing to work in this industry. I mean, I had the opportunity to go up one of the towers at the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, and when you’re talking about riding an old elevator that’s been there for it seems like forever, it still operates, it’s beautiful to see it. The last time I was in San Francisco, the bridge is in serious need of painting, the the red is turning into a pink color. And so, you know, they have their own crews, but they also bring in contractors that do the work as well.
But it’s just amazing to see how how our ancestors, and I would call them ancestors, because we’re only talking sometimes 70 or 100 years ago, but our fourth, you know, our relatives, and in great grandfathers and grandfathers had built America, it’s just amazing to see the work that they did related to iron and steel. Yeah. And you know, me living here in Pittsburgh. And you’ve, you know, you think about that, you know, we were, you know, at one time during the Cold War, you know, Pittsburgh was a number one target by the Soviet Union because of our industrial capability.
And now, my city is transformed more into data, information, and then also medical and scientific work that happens here. And a lot of services that come out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So it’s amazing to see the transformation. And you know, you and I were talking earlier about digital transformation. And that’s the one thing I want to champion in the corrosion and coatings industry, is the digital transformation of both corrosion and coatings. We went into the pandemic, and there was some movement to that because everyone was working from home. But the industries both industries on corrosion and coatings really need to embrace it deeply.
Because in order for us to tackle the problems that we face related to corrosion, and our infrastructure, we have to educate the citizens out there. We need to educate all areas of life to understand that if we don’t have infrastructure, we’re not going into be able to do well in the future. We need these roads, we need these bridges. We need the power grid. We need everything that we have. Make it survive and carry on so You know, that’s really a big important thing for me when it comes to the corrosion and coatings content that I’ve done in the past. And that’s an area that I like to champion very hard.
Damon Pistulka 10:10
Well, you know, you brought up a good a good point is how do people understand what we can really do to protect these kinds of things? And I think about it, I think about it from two, two standpoints. First of all, the people that have to decide what the heck they’re going to do, I mean, if I’m, if I’m the head of the, the roadworks for the for a state or a county or city or whatever, how the heck do I know what we can do to a bridge, or something like that, that has metal and concrete and the best way to protect it for, you know, from corrosion and just degradation in general?
And then to, if I’m the technical person in that, in that state, that or that area that needs to understand what are my options, so I can recommend the right things. And when you talk about this, this is where content comes to play in educating these people within the industry that are really concerned about something like conversion protection, for bridges for whatever else are talking about in our infrastructure. And who’s given them that content right now?
Jim Kunkle 11:16
Exactly. That’s a great point. And the thing to look at, too, when you’re working when I work with engineers, be it in some cases, public entities. And even sometimes with the private corporations, when it comes to corrosion coatings, most of the people were put into that position, they didn’t grow up telling their parents, I want to be a corrosion engineer, or I want to work around protective coatings, I want to protect these assets that are out there. So they get kind of voluntold, you’re now the corrosion engineer, or you’re now going to deal with our coating specification.
So what they rely on, they rely on the manufacturers that make the coating products, they rely on organizations that have standards, and specialized training and accreditations maybe for contractors. So there’s a whole gamut of different entities out there that can provide them information, the end of the day, what’s important is that that public entity that private or that corporation, that they have a strong specification and dealing with corrosion and protective coatings as part of that.
But they also make sure that they have a very thorough plan of action when it comes to dealing with our assets. Because the goal is to make sure that you do maintenance at the right time to maximize a lifecycle. Because overall, if a pipeline the worst thing that can happen, for example, the gas pipeline, or an oil pipeline, if you have a failure happen because of corrosion, or you have a failure of protective coatings on it, that could lead to a rupture or a blowout, that not only we have loss of, of life sometimes or property, but the public relations element of that is such a detriment to that company.
And, you know, like I say, there are lots of examples out there of the corrosion related issues that have happened, be it buildings that collapse or bridges that fall in sometimes when we deal with these high wind storms that might happen, where you have towers, transmission towers come down, because they’re so corroded, they just don’t have the structural support the whole the power lines up.
Damon Pistulka 13:25
Yeah, yeah, that’s really something when you when you think about how extensive corrosion protection really keeps things, keeps things working for us every single day.
Jim Kunkle 13:35
Yeah, and with protective coatings, I mean, protective coatings isn’t everything it’s in, you know, it’s in those earbuds you’re wearing, it’s in your mobile phones, you know, it’s it’s on the wood that’s on your, you know, the hutch behind you. So when we really everything we have that we work with, that we live with, that we use on a daily basis, has some form in most cases have a protective coating on it, it could be as simple as a paint, or it could be some type of a sealant. And that’s what protects that from the environment.
And a lot of times it can also protect it from other external forces. I mean, we have now nanotechnology and coatings, we even have things that deal with ballistic coatings as well. you’re eventually going to hear stories of self healing coatings. And you might see a day where you have a merger of the biological type of coating systems that are in some way a living type of coating system like skin.
Damon Pistulka 14:31
Wow, that would be something that definitely would be because the self healing part of it would be would be a mat it would be just a tremendous benefit to protecting anything really
Jim Kunkle 14:42
yeah and I think what the you know you’re looking at the you know, the military’s looking at ballistic type of coding systems that will help in the protection of the of the warrior, but also to in the protection of, of the equipment when it comes to a lot of the capital equipment we have. I mean we we have a Navy, we have an Air Force and you know corrosion in a corner of an aircraft wing could lead to a catastrophic failure. And so there were so many things. When we think about corrosion.
We really, in some cases, we know what needs to be done. And I think what it comes down to is educating and getting it done prioritizing it. But it comes down to effective planning, if you have a good game plan, you’re going to be able to mitigate you’re never going to eliminate it, at least at this time. With current technologies. We’re not there yet. But you can least mitigate it and make it manageable.
Damon Pistulka 15:35
Yeah. Well, that’s great. Well, you can really tell Jim, the your protective coating specialists because the the the effortless way, you can speak about it in many different phases. You’ve been in this a while, and obviously understand the industry sector very well. So when you look at this sector, what are some of the the challenges that are things that you see around the protective coating sector that that really could be improved with content,
Jim Kunkle 16:07
yet, the first thing is when and I highly encourage, you know, I started off years ago doing and I’ve done hundreds of short videos, which are more lessons to learn. I’ve done also to coatings and corrosion interviews, where we talk about technical topics and other things related to coatings and corrosion. And on my YouTube channel, if you just search under Jim Kunkel on YouTube, you can take a look at a lot of that material. You know, what I found in the industry was that we have a lack of content creators, we, you know, we have a little bit related to podcast and some content, but it’s more sales type related, and it’s very small and quantity.
And so what I highly encourage you to, especially in my industry related to corrosion and coatings, people who are professionals in industry need to go out there and create content, talk about these technical issues, talk about the impact and the cost of corrosion, in the ways that we can help alleviate or minimize or manage corrosion with protective coatings, for example. So I loved when I had the opportunity to get approved for LinkedIn live.
And I started streaming content in coatings and corrosion, put on my YouTube channel. And then I also had to go out on LinkedIn live here. And Twitter, for example. So I’ve been streaming the multiple platforms. Over time, you know, people started to really, you know, reach out to me, and I’ve had probably the greatest story I could tell you is a contractor working in the mountains of Pakistan on a pipeline, you know, he had a challenge related to pressure drop, when they were doing a brace of blasting up at altitude.
And for whatever reason, I think his crew or his company, they just didn’t have experience working at altitude. And they didn’t realize that when you go up and out in the atmosphere, you have less pressure you’re working with. So that means the you have to be able to adjust and have the right type of equipment. And what happened was he started experiencing problems as they were moving up the pipeline to get to the higher elevation.
And he had watched one of my interviews that I did with a, an equipment company that manufactures abrasive blasting equipment. And he realized what the problem he was, so he communicated to that company. And they helped him out. And he reached out to me, he said, You know, I’m so glad I subscribed to your channel, and I watched your content, because I’m not used to this. You know, I just I do we do coatings work. And this was the first time we ever did a pipeline, it went up a mountain.
And boy, I learned a lot from watching that and I knew how to who to contact to get the proper equipment, but also get my questions answered. And that made that made me feel great. Because you know, here, here it is, I’m just doing a general conversation with somebody about equipment and things like that and technical discussion. And it benefits somebody who who’s running a company. And you know, they’re involved in something newer for them. But instead of it being a problem that would have persisted to a point where they would have had a work stoppage. They were able to you he was able to utilize the content I was producing, to learn something new.
And, you know, I think that’s what I really enjoy about the content I do. I don’t monetize anything. But I do love to talk to people, I love to interview people. And I love to get information out there. And as you said earlier, I mean, I’m very passionate in the industry I work in because it’s been a great industry for me, and it’s got a lot of plus side for it. You know, the other area too, that I like to focus on is trying to educate the younger generation, because we do have some universities and schools that do have corrosion engineering degrees, but not enough of them.
Damon Pistulka 19:46
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s, it’s I listen to you talk and I talk and talk about the coatings industry and I think about the work that I do in manufacturing and in trying to spread the word manufacturing because we Have all of these young people that are growing up and they they really don’t look at the industrial sector, for a place to have a career. And there are so many, so many, so many, I will say one more time, so many different things that you can do in the industrial sector, everything from graphic design to chemical engineering and welding.
It’s just, there’s just so much Yeah, I agree. And, and we, I’m glad that you talked about educating young people, because, listen, they could have a great career in coatings, they could have a great career in manufacturing, and they could be an accountant, they could be a, you know, like I said, a graphic designer doesn’t really matter. It’s just focusing in on the, or choosing it as the niche.
Jim Kunkle 20:50
Yeah, and I think right now in the current situation that we’re facing, with not only the pandemic and supply issues, but now we’re dealing with these geopolitical issues as well, on a global basis. This is the important time period for, for example, for United States of America to look at our industrial sector, our manufacturing, and let’s look to bring back the manufacturing as much as we can. Now we were not going to be able to manufacture everything, I understand that.
But we need to have some type of a safeguard, because, you know, God forbid, a major, major event were to open up, and then all of a sudden, we are limited because we don’t have the capability or we have to rebuild it. Now, I know recently, there’s some development going on with semiconductors. You know, we rely heavily on Taiwan for semiconductors. You know, God forbid, what would happen if there was a go global and political issue. And we were not able to get semiconductors? Not only related to the fighting force, but also as the UN industries here in America, we would suffer greatly if we don’t have that, that yeah, product coming in. Exactly. And
Damon Pistulka 21:59
I think that’s a that’s a great point is, is that to develop some of these things, the these resources locally, because we need a good mix of them. Just just because we do need the security, we do need and also some of these some of these resources, yes, if I’m going to buy a Brazilian or something, and labor is a factor, you may need to go someplace else to get it. But still, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have part of it coming from the from locally or regionally or in the same country at least. And then, you know, really looking at the overall total cost I interviewed. I don’t know if you’ve ever met Harry Mosher from the reshoring initiative.
And yeah, yeah, Harry’s awesome, because he talks about total cost of ownership. And I saw this even in manufacturing, working in projects only, you know, 10 years ago or so already that the the cost of ownership when you consider inventory and shit and especially in last couple of years, how the shipping is gone. So crazy. Some of this just the these advantages have disappeared. And then when you put in geopolitical or just even from the pandemic, how that just snap food, the supply chain, it makes sense to have your, your resources local, are closer.
Jim Kunkle 23:19
Yeah, I mean, when you look at, for example, and we’re looking to petroleum engine, petroleum industry, you know, we can we can switch quicker on a dime, and start becoming a major exporter of energy product related to petroleum. When it comes to semiconductor manufacturing or manufacture, we just can’t do it. And the other thing too, is what I really want to hear politicians say not to get too political here on your program, is I want to hear talk of balance. And what I mean by balance is I again, I appreciate I understand, when it comes to cost, you’re going to have to work globally related to manufacturing, but you got to have some balance and not have that unbalanced.
That’s crazy. We’re hardly any things going on in a particular side, and everything’s coming in from the international production. You know, that’s when it becomes very, very much of a concern if there is an issue.
Damon Pistulka 24:13
Yeah, yeah, that’s for sure. That’s for sure. So let’s let’s go back to content a little bit, because I got some just content questions for you. So how long ago did you really start intentionally creating content.
Jim Kunkle 24:28
So roughly about a year prior to the pandemic, is when I initially launched my YouTube channel, and started with zero subscribers, you know, in the in the process, you know, the YouTube, it can be a grind, and for me, it was a grind. I just went over 1000 subscribers. So it’s taken me over three years to get to 1000 subscribers. But, you know, the thing that I found was that it’s a labor of love. And when I started doing content, and people would reach out to me saying, hey, I watch your YouTube channel, I love your videos, or I look forward to it.
Because it was a combination for me of doing stuff on LinkedIn, and then YouTube. And as the news came out about LinkedIn live, and I started watching these LinkedIn lives, you know, eventually I applied for approval got denied. And then I started posting more content, I was producing video and doing that. So that kind of drove me to do more and more video, but I found out video is more video content is more effective than me writing a paper, because I do that as well, or doing a post. And it really seemed to benefit me professionally.
And also personally, when it comes to my, you mentioned, I’m a protective coating specialist. So you know, I have that certification in the coatings industry, but it helped me kind of really work on my brand, my own personal professional brand, but also me professionally in the in the role that I was performing as a full time, you know, staffer with an organization that focused on corrosion and coatings, what I really enjoy about it was the interaction I got, and when I initially started looking, you know, I’m doing these, these these content on a weekly basis. Yeah.
And then I’m doing this the smaller short content as well, when I would reach out to people to schedule them, they would like, I definitely want to do it. And at that point, I had maybe, you know, I might have 50 or 100 subscribers. And I had people because I thought it would be tough to find guests that were quality guests. Yeah, be able. But they saw the value in it. I think they were they were believers, but they just weren’t ready to take that leap. And I have several people that have started creating some content, but we need more. We need more people to get the message out there. And like I say, you know, the crunch is happening in my industry where you know, the average age is at 50.
I’m going to be 56. So a lot of the people that I find I encounter and corrosion and coatings, they tend to be in the 50s 60s, some into the 70s and still working in the industry. So we need to we need to euthanize not euthanized, but you know what I mean? We need to bring the youth into Yeah, into this industries that I work in. So yeah, and I think content will help do that. I really do think that and you can be any age to create content. You You don’t have to be it’s not a young person’s game it Yeah. At any stage of your professional career, your life.
Damon Pistulka 27:24
Yeah, that’s, that’s for sure. And I think that that’s one of the things I think people when they start to generate content or think about it, they not when they start to think about generating content, like this video that we’re doing now. Yeah, I mean, I’ll be honest, I just started doing them. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t, I didn’t even have a little template around the outside anything, I just started talking to people, because it was one of those things that I knew that I wanted to start doing is sharing people’s story sharing knowledge that can help other people.
And I think if people are considering making content, and you know, you can be you could be an engineer in a coatings company that’s making manufacturing coatings, or you can be we’re at whatever, it doesn’t really matter. Just share something about your industry. That is a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of education. And a little bit interesting. And I think that’s as simple as it is.
Jim Kunkle 28:26
Yeah. And, you know, for me, you know, I’ve got the logo up pointed the wrong way. But the logo up here of build out, you know, build out is not related to coatings and corrosion is a main focus for me deals and business topics. And what I found with build out is that when I create a live stream, and I do an interview, you know, I might have anywhere from 4050, sometimes I have a great guest on where, you know, I might have almost 100 people watching, you know, in and out watching the live broadcast. But what I find is that the replay of that could be several 100 People watching the replay, and then repurposing some clips out of it to help promote it.
That is what really is impactful. And you know, I’ve had different broadcasts where people might reach out to me where, you know, I did that broadcast months ago, but they somehow found it in my feed, and they watch it, you know, or YouTube, for example, you know, 80%, almost 80% of my views come from people who are not subscribed to my channel. So that’s cool thing about it is you’re not doing hashtags on YouTube, you’re doing hashtags on LinkedIn, but you’re doing key words, and people search those keywords.
So you have to make sure that not only do you create content, but you’re using search terms and hashtags effectively and efficiently, that you’re getting people to come in and comment because the more activity that goes on it really feeds into the algorithm, and then things get pushed and promoted. Give you a good example what build At the end of the year, I had two streams that I did where I had panels come in. And we talked about the year end review of 2021. And this was in December, and then we get 2022 a year to review the do a preview of 2022.
And what was amazing was on the YouTube channel, when and again, I stream on, you know, Twitter, sometimes Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube at the same time. What ended up happening was the algorithm because the way I tagged it properly, you know, I had that that episode. No, it didn’t have a lot of us live on YouTube. But it’s gotten over six or almost 700 views from just a search engine, and the algorithm promoting it. Some, I’m just amazed, because it’s not anything special. It’s just us talking about what you know, we think’s coming up in 2022. But it’s been if you do it, right, you really can make a big impact, and you can get a lot of engagement.
Damon Pistulka 30:57
Yeah, well, and what I’ve noticed too, about it’d been because my videos are typically like this, we they’re not meant to be someone that wants to watch a one minute tick tock video, and learn something quickly, I’m going to talk about a topic with a guest that’s got experience had been in a while. And what I really liked to see is, I might not get 1000 views on something. But if I get hours of views on it on a single video, then I’m like, Okay, people sat and listened to that thing, watched it. That’s what really makes me happy. Because you know, that it was was something that people digested.
Jim Kunkle 31:35
Yeah, and the thing with it, too, is, you know, if I’m correct and correct, correct me if I’m wrong, I believe you have like an connections network of like, 37,000. On LinkedIn, yeah, something like that. Yeah, that is impressive. And so you know, the one thing about it, when I look at you, that’s where I’d like to be as in grow that connections network.
And so I focused hard on the quality of the connections that I make. And then the other thing, what I find is that the engagement is so much better. If you are connecting to those on LinkedIn, who are, you’re going to benefit from a relationship with them, they’re going to benefit from a relation you. So and that really helps to with the views, and then also to with the, the use of your content and the interaction, let’s say you’re talking about so
Damon Pistulka 32:26
it is and that’s and that’s what you know, like, like you’re doing with yours in the build out. You know, my my whole thing was, is I just don’t want to see business owners struggling. I don’t want to see him struggling because in, people get into business.
And they think for some reason, because I got into business, and I’ve been in in a while. And I didn’t I was one of those people that didn’t fail in the first five years. And now I might have 1020 employees or even 100 employees, that I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. But honest to God, most of those people wake up in the morning, and they go, I’ve got no idea what I’m going to be what I should be doing today. And oh, yeah. All we try to do is share information.
Jim Kunkle 33:06
Let me let me share one other aspect of content as well. You can be a small company, you could be in a highly competitive industry. Yep. If you command and control the mind share, and that content is really what’s driving out there and your competitors aren’t doing it, or they’re, they’re doing it very lackluster, you have a great opportunity.
You know, a lot of people say, Hey, Jim, you know, with all the graphics and all this, you know, you must spend 1000s of dollars on you’re out of your own pocket to be able to do what you’re doing. And I say I spend a couple $100 Yeah, and the thing is what I do, anybody could do. I’m nothing special. But you know, what’s amazing, is the impact the engagement and the opportunities, like I say that I’ve created from my content.
So if you’re a small medium company, or a large company, if you dominate when it comes to content, you can control a lot of the market, you can control the messaging, and you know, the others will be playing catch up with you. I mean, when we look at stuff that goes viral, you talked about tick tock, you know, give you a good example. You know, there was a Sherwin Williams store employee who would be rapping while he was mixing paint. He h
ad a million followers on Tiktok Oh, wow. So you know, these alternative or some of these other types of platforms, you know, they are effectively an extension of your marketing and your content. But they’re a great vehicle. So if you’re doing YouTube or you’re doing LinkedIn, you’re doing tick tock, you know, we’re not the old days of doing billboards, and ads, commercials on radio that still exist, right. But where it’s really at, isn’t it the digital sphere, that’s where it’s all at? And it’s about capturing the mindshare and the attention and if you do that, manuale dominate.
Damon Pistulka 35:01
Yeah, and you know, you talk about tick tock and I just got to mention Bonnie Strom injure with go lids I don’t know if you’ve ever seen her on tick tock with the the goal is it’s the it’s the thing, that clamshell, awesome recyclable thing that goes on top of a drink and you can put a burger and fries and everything in it and drink your drink while you’re walking down the street. She I know, they have to have 10 plus million views on on tick tock, and they’ve got some of them but multi million views on using that product in action.
Yeah, showing that product and helping to show people how it’s used. And these these platforms are really like you said, if you if you own it, I mean you could have, you could be a company that does specialty coatings for for municipal water towers or something, you know, and you could own it, you can own it, probably if you are the ones that we’re showing, this is how we do it. This is why we do you know why we do it. This is how our how just and showing people before and after. And working with clients or whatever it is, I mean, there’s just so much you can do from a content perspective that you can do with your darn phone. You don’t even have to you don’t have to do much.
Jim Kunkle 36:16
Now you really don’t. It’s like I say you could do it sometimes in a few $100 and make a big impact. You know, and the other thing too, that what I’ve in a lot of people in my industry say, you know, hey, you’re an influencer? Jim. I’ve never viewed myself that way. But you know, from creating content, it’s going to happen where you’re going to be an influencer.
And you know, I’ve got different friends you know, in the roofing industry, you know, Bruno no BS, you know, you know, you have people like that, or big influencers in the roofing industry or some other industry, you know, yourself and others that are in the manufacturing and industrial side. You know, that’s what you really want to be able to do is create yourself as an influencer, so that people will listen to you, and they will respect what you have to say.
But you have to be, you have to be honest, you have to be real. And you know, you can’t, you can’t be the the Kim Kardashians, you got to be, you got to be authentic. Let’s put it that way. And I think that’s what people can relate to me and I have people I’ll be at a conference and people walk up to me and they’ll say, you know, it’s great to watch your content to, to hear what you say. And I like how you listen to people. Because the one thing I’m told a lot is when I interview people, although I’m overbearing you right now and talking a lot, but I do like to listen to people because their stories are amazing.
Damon Pistulka 37:37
Yeah, yeah. No. And that’s what I want. I want you to talk today. Because this is and this is why this is why I interviewed like you. I’ve seen your interviews before and Bill that I’ve watched how you do it. And I love letting people talk because they don’t know they’ve got these stories and this knowledge inside of them. They just don’t because it’s it’s doing it every day.
Yeah. Like the guy that the guy that programs the the super complex CNC machine that makes the craziest thing for the space shuttle or not the space shuttle anymore, but for SpaceX that, that you just never even imagined, does it every day that goes home doesn’t even think about it. But if you got them on and they talked about it would be absolutely incredible.
Jim Kunkle 38:19
Yeah. And I you know, like I say I’d never monetized you know, the the coatings and corrosion content I was doing, you know, when I first started doing it, I said you I don’t want you give it a pitch like a sales pitch or in your equipment or your product or service. And when end up happening over time, I would have comments that would come in saying you guys are talking about technology, you’re talking about technique, you’re talking about products and services, but you’re not giving me a solution.
Could you talk a little bit more about what that that person you’re interviewing what they offer? So it was B trying to discover what’s a fine what’s where’s the fine line? Yeah, from making it kind of an advertisement to really providing some data. And so what I tend to focus on let’s talk about the generic, just keep it generic, don’t talk about your name brand or anything, just talk about the technology, talk about the product, you know what, what it’s made out of what it does, what the benefit is.
And a lot of people really found a great opportunity to learn from that because you know, now it wasn’t be interviewing somebody and they just specifically talked about their brand they were talking about either a generic concept or they were talking about technology on a technology basis and keeping it simple that way and people of all platforms you know are all backgrounds could really understand what we were talking about it wasn’t over their head.
Yeah cuz EMI industry. We have you know, acronyms we have lingo for everything and a lot of it doesn’t make sense and you know, I worked internationally in Latin America, and you know where we might call something like for you know, for the air hose is going on abrasive blasting, and you’re calling them that you know, a bull you know, bull hose, you know, in Latin America, they they don’t know what that means. So, you know, the thing with it is you’ve got to keep it as basic and as simple as you can so that you don’t leave people out.
Damon Pistulka 40:08
Yes, yes, that’s his. And I like how you explained how you go through the topics with people, because I like to do that too. I mean, I’ve got authors that come on once in a while, and we mentioned their books. But you know, when you talk about the subjects that are covered in their books, that’s really what I think gives people the information and some knowledge, because they want to learn, be educated and learn, I think, when you’re listening to content, and really do it that way. I’m glad you explained that a little bit.
Because yeah, if someone’s just gonna, it’s gonna throw up a sales pitch, and you get a you probably, do I get contacted by people now. And you go, Well, what do you want to what do you want to talk about, I want to talk about my program, well, it’s probably not going to work out. For me, because we’re not here just to talk about your, your know, your online, whatever you want to sell, or this or that. It’s not what I’m here.
Jim Kunkle 41:01
Yeah, the only time I really will talk about a program, if it’s, for example, you know, dealing with a really important topic, like mental health, or, or say, you know, something related to safety training, and things like that, not to say to push or promote a certain type of training, but to talk generally about the importance, you know, for example, with fall protection in my industry, yeah, you know, there are a lot of there a lot of critical things, you know, in the industrial side, you know, simple things like eye protection, or, you know, even back protection, you know, climb, climb and falls and things like that. So
Damon Pistulka 41:33
that’s one thing. That’s one thing I tell you, I’m just talking to a friend of mine, that that manages a, I would say, reasonably large facility. And, you know, talking about safety and talking about how safety has gotten from, you know, we used to kind of regulated 3040 years ago and industry that were, you know, regulations is what really caused safety, or improved worker safety.
Yes. But now, it’s gotten to the point that it really is, the minds of the people working is what’s kick taking these companies to the next level, when you look at construction or anything or in manufacturing, it’s not just that you have the personal protective equipment, or you have the right, whatever, it’s that Damon remembers, don’t walk that way.
Don’t live that way. Don’t go over there, if you know this, or that. And if I see somebody else doing it, make sure to help them and not let them do it. And it’s it’s so much more of a mental game, to get that last bit of very important safety improvements done. Because I’m amazed, I’ve got I’ve got a client that was in the oilfield services industry. And the level of safety that they need to maintain is incredible. Yeah. And there’s no way you can do it. If they’re just saying yes, here’s your personal protective equipment, you got to wear it, blah, blah, blah. It’s they have to be thinking about it all the time. But it’s a great point.
Jim Kunkle 43:12
Yeah, I know, like, you know, I’ve been on multiple multiple over the years project work sites related to protective coatings. And what I really look for all the time in highly encourage is that that tool, toolbox talk, that safety talk before the crews go on, talk about, hey, listen, we’re working in height, make sure this check your harness, your the buddy, check system, all these important things you got to do, because, you know, one little little mistake can really lead to catastrophe.
And a lot of times, you know, like, for example, like if you know, if you if you’re a sprayer, and you inject yourself with a little bit of, you know, just a drop of that code into your gets in your bloodstream, it could cause a fatality, it could cause all kinds of problems. So, you know, making sure that the workers are aware, hey, listen, I got to come down, and I got to go to the hospital. Yeah, little things like that. I mean, you might think it’s nothing Oh, it’s nothing. But it can be major, major catastrophe or death. So yeah, that’s
Damon Pistulka 44:14
a great, it’s this is this is a great example of, of simple content that you can create for your own company, or your industry. And it’s, it would take you all of 10 minutes to do a quick little video to set up and do it and just say, Hey, don’t you know, this is what you do if this happens.
Jim Kunkle 44:32
Yeah. And when that we, you know, in the pit when the pandemic rolled out, you know, I was always on the road. I was a road warrior. You know, I would meet with engineering firms and, you know, a lot of different you know, the EPCs at work in the oil and gas industry, or they could be firms working in oil and gas industry or directly with the owners. There was times were actually for some of the larger engineering firms, I would create content that they would put into their reference library, so that it might be a 15 1015 minute topic.
Talk about something. And then this way, when they were either training a new engineer on, you know how to write a protective coatings specification, or a corrosion plan or an inspection plan, you know, maybe there’s things that I would provide for them that they would put in a reference library. And the nice thing with that is a way to continually be engaged with those new staff members that are coming into that role.
And especially when they’re young professionals, and again, they they want to learn, and in most cases, they’ve been thrown into that, that role, that job function, and they, they don’t have a knowledge, base knowledge, they might have some basic understanding, but they’re not expert yet that will come in time. And if I can help in that process with them to develop it, and make them experts, that benefits me, but that benefits everybody, because if they are more effective in dealing with corrosion, we’re gonna save a lot of money, we’ll save lives, and we could save our infrastructure no matter what it is.
Damon Pistulka 45:59
Yeah, yeah. And you hit one of the things that I one of the topics that I think people completely overlook content. And that’s for internal training. It is, it is so so, so simple anymore. If you’re in an office environment, you can, you can simply put, zoom up and record it, your screen doing something, to train new employees, or train somebody on something, you can take your phone and, and or put a GoPro on your chest, if you’re doing something in a in a in a in an outside setting or someplace where you’re moving around, and just talk about what you’re doing this, this content isn’t just to put on social media,
this is stuff that you can build a library of training so that now when when Damon comes to work for this company, he goes, Hey, you know, Susan, she did this training, she walked through her day from beginning to end on the job you’re going to be doing. watch that first. And then we’re going to start them we’re going to help you start getting going, you know, yeah, and they don’t have to be pretty, right.
They don’t have to be some, some production, it’s just get, I mean, everybody’s used to watching a video like this now that hasn’t been produced with 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of videography, equipment, and editing and all that kind of stuff. It’s if it shows them what they need to know, it works just fine.
Jim Kunkle 47:25
Yeah, I mean, a lot of content shoot on an iPhone 11. You know, it’s got, you know, great, great camera, you know, and the other thing too, would I like to if you’re in the field, and let’s say for example, you you you’re a company, a contractor works on on pipeline maintenance, and cathodic protection, or you’re doing coatings that go out there and shoot that video and put that into some type of content series. This way, someone who’s new or newer added, or, you know, coming into that role from another role, they can have that immersion a little bit by watching the video, there were they’re going to retain more.
The other thing is when they get out in the field, they’re going to see exactly what they saw on the video. And it’s going to resonate better with them, because they know now oh, this is what I’m looking for. Okay, this that the other thing they just understand much better. And in the retention of that knowledge, or that growth of that experience is much more beneficial for them. Because if you don’t want to have a doll, let’s just talk about it. I think the video when they see video, especially in the field, or, you know, interjected into conversation and have that go back and forth, that’s super important as well.
Damon Pistulka 48:34
Yeah, yeah. Man, Jim, this has been awesome, because I think we covered a lot of different areas that areas in content, and people just need to get to open up their mind a bit more I think about what content can do for them internally externally, and, and how it really can help people because if you do it right, like you said, if you want to do it to get your brand out, you can dominate a market as a small company. And, you know, internally, you can help your people be more effective, get trained faster, be safer. There’s just so many different ways you can apply it, and it doesn’t take it doesn’t take a massive budget and crazy kind of just start trying it.
Jim Kunkle 49:20
Yeah, especially with video content. You know, I kind of look at it, you know, we went from the silent movies and those made a big impact. We went into black and white and color movies, then we had television, and then from television, you know, we started doing things like laser disc and VHS and if you remember the Betamax, remember, and then you got into you know, downloadable video. You know, I remember a time where you had Netflix where all you got from Netflix were DVDs and VHS tapes and things like that, right? You remember that?
And where are they at today? They’re not doing that they’re they’ve totally so you know, there are examples of companies that really embrace content, you know, in you and I have a mutual friend and Kobe Liao, ya know, Kobe, you know has been a strong advocate of that content is king, it is not only king, it’s also the queen as well. It’s all the above. So you know, content is critical for a company of any size or a professional.
But the nice thing about it is it could be live video, because this is a live video here. But it’s going to live in a replay as well. But getting a video content out there is super important no matter what industry you are in, in my industry, I need to see and I want to see more content creators that are focused on corrosion and content. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a company’s doing it. Or if it’s the professionals doing it, I highly encourage it, because it’s very beneficial.
Damon Pistulka 50:49
Yes, yes. Well, thanks so much for being here. Today. We had Jim conkel here, talking about the importance of content and lots of different examples. So if you didn’t listen to this whole thing, go back through listen to it. I’m sure you’re gonna find some ideas for content. If you want to learn more about it, you can sure talk to Jim. He’s under James conkel PCs on LinkedIn. So reach out to him there connect with him. And and he can give you some pointers there. Also, you can find me Damon Pistulka on LinkedIn, as you know, but thanks so much for being here today. Jim.
Jim Kunkle 51:25
Thank you. Appreciate it. appreciate everybody watching. Live and also in the replay.
Damon Pistulka 51:30
You bet. We’ll be back again later this week. Have a great evening, everyone.
