Small Business Stories - X-Kote Paint Renewal System Video

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Small Business Stories - X-Kote Paint Renewal System

Small Business Stories - X-Kote Paint Renewal System Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com with me here is Marc Johnston. Marc is the owner of X-Kote Paint Renewal System, that’s at Vancouver Greatest Columbia. We are coming to you from Las Vegas, Nevada at SEMA 2007 that is Specialty Equipment Market Association from the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Marc how do you doing sir. Good, got to meet you. We appreciate you to be in here. X- Kote Paint Renewal System, now you’re telling me before we are on here, this is a unique product. What is it? Marc Johnston: It is a hand applied automotive and marine clear coat. Alex Fees: Clear coat. So cars or boats? Marc Johnston: Cars, boats, RVs and we’re planning lots of different other uses for ADP panders or what not but that’s the main use for it. Alex Fees: What makes you guys unique? I mean — Marc Johnston: Well it is hand applied and we utilize the same chemistry as the automotive marine clear coats that are in the market right now at Cross Link Polyurethene except we figured out how to hand apply it leveled so as low with completely flat and the urethanes today, they adhere mechanically. That means you have to struck them or they will delaminate. Our product adheres chemically. So you get a a much more consistent much stronger issue. Alex Fees: The other ones prior to now they adhere mechanically— Marc Johnston: Everybody else is a urethane coating as the clear coats that you know you can pair a product to, you have discussed the paint surface in order for it to adhere, the damage it will peel back. Our product is very unique in the world with the only people doing this and our product adheres chemically. Alex Fees: Chemically versus mechanically. Marc Johnston: And now you don’t have to scuff it you just prep the surface, get the wax and grease soft, wipe it down with wax in grease remover. Apply it by hand and that’s it you let it self level and that is it. You’ve got a hand applied clear coat that is comparable to the top clear coats on today’s market. Really. Alex Fees: Well these sounds like some high tech stuff here Mark, how do this come about it. Marc Johnston: Well, I was 20 years in the car business and I own a couple of car dealerships and I own a body shop and years ago I started playing around with paints and solvents and I came across something instead of the play with it but I had a lot of issues and we the customer that came in one day and he was a Chemist, bought a car from us, we got the talking, we hired him and it took about a year to develop a product that would actually work on the car and we started putting that on every single car that went through the dealership for about a year and a half. Alex Fees: Really. Marc Johnston: And a lot of the cars we would offer the customers free oil change for years so we could actually track those cars. Alex Fees: Really. So you can see how they were holding up and — Marc Johnston: They were holding up in the real world. Now just in the laboratory and a lot of the car dealers around town, you know I created a little bit of a bus, they started sending you their cars recondition, so then, we had revenue to generate our RND on this product and we improved that during that time and we put on every single car that we put through in the car dealers cars and then we went on the license three dealerships across Canada in all different climates and gave me years where the product to see if they could actually do what we did in our shop and make a good round of it. After a year we came across a lot of things like for example the boats, one of our dealer sponsors as one day and said you got to try this on boats. And it is unbelievable on the outcome. Alex Fees: So that was sort of your— somebody in your task market who came out with the idea trying out on boat. Marc Johnston: So we’re very unique in the sense also that our product was probably tested on 10,000 or more vehicles before we actually put out to market. Typically, we put out the market or a product you test it, you put it in the laboratory, you do accelerating testing and what not and you throw at the market and hope for the best. We actually had it on the more 10,000 vehicles before we sold the product. Alex Fees: Well Marc so you don’t have by history or experience in Chemistry you hired somebody who did. Marc Johnston: Yeah well you know I had a pretty good background in the painting and what not and I am sure paints and solvents and chemicals and stuff. I’m not a chemist myself but it really took a chemist to get down and specially the adhesion. The chemical adhesion was the big key. Anybody could work on this and get a clear coat to flow like we do and it’s a bit of work to get to do that but to get it to actually adhere and not to laminate that’s the key. Nobody in the world has done that today except us. Alex Fees: What about that year long trial period Marc, what kind of experiences were you finding after a year? How are those beautiful solding out? Marc Johnston: After we had a year we had small issues that we had to work through and we work close with the chemist and you’ve got some of the different variables, climate and different kinds of pain and different and you know all sorts of things and once we had a product that we felt was good and solid that’s one when we license three dealership across Canada and all different climates, to make sure that what we did here in Vancouver is going to work in a cool climate like in PEI for example or a Northern British Columbia. Alex Fees: What about in South of the border Marc do you have many clients much business here in the United States all possible climates here. Marc Johnston: We’ve got hundreds of dealers. Alex Fees: What about SEMA 2007 have you been here before? Marc Johnston: We exhibited last year 2006 and that was really sort of our step into the US market and we’ve grown lips and bouncing scent and we’ve drawn about 800% instead. Alex Fees: Holy cow, Marc Johnston: 800% in a year and this year we’re just doing a small business here. Alex Fees: Well how much of that 800% increase do you think is attributable to your participation with SEMA. Marc Johnston: I would say huge. We got a really good response last year and we took everything we did last year and we went home in non license and said the show was great it brought everybody to us. Where did we fail and we’ve improved all of those three key points our packaging, our pricing and we had bigger packaging and the pricing and we improve all a lot and we can definitely see the differences here. Alex Fees: And stuff like that, pricing and packaging I mean none of that is your original formula and that stuff is all very fixable. You guys have a hand applied clear coat that works then the rest that can be worked out. Marc Johnston: It’s all marketing and that’s what we’ve improved is our marketing and that would really. Alex Fees: You know I was talking; I was interviewing the guy earlier Marc and he said that when it comes to SEMA if you’re not a part of SEMA then you’re pretty much not on this industry, does not need to be the case. Marc Johnston: Very true, very true. Alex Fees: It’s just that much of a central organization. Marc Johnston: Yeah we would miss the show. This is the one show we really planned for it and we put all our eggs in the basket for this show. If the only show is we do about five or six year and this is the show we really concentrate on this. Alex Fees: Again this is Marc Johnston owner of X-Cote paint renewal system. Marc its time for our free plug. YOU get a website or something? Marc Johnston: Yeah we do. Its www.x-kote.com Alex Fees: That’s x-k-o-t-e.com. So x-kote.com All right Marc Johnston Thank you very much sir. Marc Johnston: Thank you very much. Alex Fees: Again he is the owner and President of X-Kote Paint Renewal Systems at Vancouver. I’m Alex Fees you’re watching SBTV.com.

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Small Business Stories - X-Kote Paint Renewal System

Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com with me here is Marc Johnston. Marc is the owner of X-Kote Paint Renewal System, that’s at Vancouver Greatest Columbia. We are coming to you from Las Vegas, Nevada at SEMA 2007 that is Specialty Equipment Market Association from the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Marc how do you doing sir. Good, got to meet you. We appreciate you to be in here. X- Kote Paint Renewal System, now you’re telling me before we are on here, this is a unique product. What is it?

Marc Johnston: It is a hand applied automotive and marine clear coat.

Alex Fees: Clear coat. So cars or boats?

Marc Johnston: Cars, boats, RVs and we’re planning lots of different other uses for ADP panders or what not but that’s the main use for it.

Alex Fees: What makes you guys unique? I mean —

Marc Johnston: Well it is hand applied and we utilize the same chemistry as the automotive marine clear coats that are in the market right now at Cross Link Polyurethene except we figured out how to hand apply it leveled so as low with completely flat and the urethanes today, they adhere mechanically. That means you have to struck them or they will delaminate. Our product adheres chemically. So you get a a much more consistent much stronger issue.

Alex Fees: The other ones prior to now they adhere mechanically—

Marc Johnston: Everybody else is a urethane coating as the clear coats that you know you can pair a product to, you have discussed the paint surface in order for it to adhere, the damage it will peel back. Our product is very unique in the world with the only people doing this and our product adheres chemically.

Alex Fees: Chemically versus mechanically.

Marc Johnston: And now you don’t have to scuff it you just prep the surface, get the wax and grease soft, wipe it down with wax in grease remover. Apply it by hand and that’s it you let it self level and that is it. You’ve got a hand applied clear coat that is comparable to the top clear coats on today’s market. Really.

Alex Fees: Well these sounds like some high tech stuff here Mark, how do this come about it.

Marc Johnston: Well, I was 20 years in the car business and I own a couple of car dealerships and I own a body shop and years ago I started playing around with paints and solvents and I came across something instead of the play with it but I had a lot of issues and we the customer that came in one day and he was a Chemist, bought a car from us, we got the talking, we hired him and it took about a year to develop a product that would actually work on the car and we started putting that on every single car that went through the dealership for about a year and a half.

Alex Fees: Really.

Marc Johnston: And a lot of the cars we would offer the customers free oil change for years so we could actually track those cars.

Alex Fees: Really. So you can see how they were holding up and —

Marc Johnston: They were holding up in the real world. Now just in the laboratory and a lot of the car dealers around town, you know I created a little bit of a bus, they started sending you their cars recondition, so then, we had revenue to generate our RND on this product and we improved that during that time and we put on every single car that we put through in the car dealers cars and then we went on the license three dealerships across Canada in all different climates and gave me years where the product to see if they could actually do what we did in our shop and make a good round of it.

After a year we came across a lot of things like for example the boats, one of our dealer sponsors as one day and said you got to try this on boats. And it is unbelievable on the outcome.

Alex Fees: So that was sort of your— somebody in your task market who came out with the idea trying out on boat.

Marc Johnston: So we’re very unique in the sense also that our product was probably tested on 10,000 or more vehicles before we actually put out to market. Typically, we put out the market or a product you test it, you put it in the laboratory, you do accelerating testing and what not and you throw at the market and hope for the best. We actually had it on the more 10,000 vehicles before we sold the product.

Alex Fees: Well Marc so you don’t have by history or experience in Chemistry you hired somebody who did.

Marc Johnston: Yeah well you know I had a pretty good background in the painting and what not and I am sure paints and solvents and chemicals and stuff. I’m not a chemist myself but it really took a chemist to get down and specially the adhesion. The chemical adhesion was the big key. Anybody could work on this and get a clear coat to flow like we do and it’s a bit of work to get to do that but to get it to actually adhere and not to laminate that’s the key. Nobody in the world has done that today except us.

Alex Fees: What about that year long trial period Marc, what kind of experiences were you finding after a year? How are those beautiful solding out?

Marc Johnston: After we had a year we had small issues that we had to work through and we work close with the chemist and you’ve got some of the different variables, climate and different kinds of pain and different and you know all sorts of things and once we had a product that we felt was good and solid that’s one when we license three dealership across Canada and all different climates, to make sure that what we did here in Vancouver is going to work in a cool climate like in PEI for example or a Northern British Columbia.

Alex Fees: What about in South of the border Marc do you have many clients much business here in the United States all possible climates here.

Marc Johnston: We’ve got hundreds of dealers.

Alex Fees: What about SEMA 2007 have you been here before?

Marc Johnston: We exhibited last year 2006 and that was really sort of our step into the US market and we’ve grown lips and bouncing scent and we’ve drawn about 800% instead.

Alex Fees: Holy cow,

Marc Johnston: 800% in a year and this year we’re just doing a small business here.

Alex Fees: Well how much of that 800% increase do you think is attributable to your participation with SEMA.

Marc Johnston: I would say huge. We got a really good response last year and we took everything we did last year and we went home in non license and said the show was great it brought everybody to us. Where did we fail and we’ve improved all of those three key points our packaging, our pricing and we had bigger packaging and the pricing and we improve all a lot and we can definitely see the differences here.

Alex Fees: And stuff like that, pricing and packaging I mean none of that is your original formula and that stuff is all very fixable. You guys have a hand applied clear coat that works then the rest that can be worked out.

Marc Johnston: It’s all marketing and that’s what we’ve improved is our marketing and that would really.

Alex Fees: You know I was talking; I was interviewing the guy earlier Marc and he said that when it comes to SEMA if you’re not a part of SEMA then you’re pretty much not on this industry, does not need to be the case.

Marc Johnston: Very true, very true.

Alex Fees: It’s just that much of a central organization.

Marc Johnston: Yeah we would miss the show. This is the one show we really planned for it and we put all our eggs in the basket for this show. If the only show is we do about five or six year and this is the show we really concentrate on this.

Alex Fees: Again this is Marc Johnston owner of X-Cote paint renewal system. Marc its time for our free plug. YOU get a website or something?

Marc Johnston: Yeah we do. Its www.x-kote.com

Alex Fees: That’s x-k-o-t-e.com. So x-kote.com All right Marc Johnston Thank you very much sir.

Marc Johnston: Thank you very much.

Alex Fees: Again he is the owner and President of X-Kote Paint Renewal Systems at Vancouver. I’m Alex Fees you’re watching SBTV.com.

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