Thursday, November 21, 2024
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Reader Spotlight Social Media

It takes a Facebook group…

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum…..

Roger Coulter
Roger Coulter

My name is Roger Coulter and I own and operate a small residential painting company in the northern suburbs of Chicago with roughly 15 years of experience. Painting is my life and I am fully committed to providing for my family through it. I have heard a lot of stories about the “old format” painting forums, some good, some great but mostly negative… I’m the new guy and have not experienced it for myself, but I did recently join a private Facebook group “Paint, Wallcovering & Pressurewashing Pros“, created by Mike Pope of Vancouver House Painting.

And I asked one question!

I asked “where would one start with blogging?” Then  Scott from Vermont suggested I blog about 3 things I’ve learned from joining the private face book group, then Chris from Utah offered to post it.  I’m new to the “online world” of professional painters and never thought I would even get as far as chatting with others about their favorite ceiling paint… let alone writing a blog! But here I am, my first blog post…

The following is just my view of what I’m learning in my venture into using Social Media:

First and foremost
I have seen a community of professionals with real names and faces begin to grow and grow fast. Community is the key word. The importance of community in every persons life is huge no matter what you do. I have learned from this group that joining it has given me a sense of strength in 1210ap-communitycommunity. I have sat down at many paint store free lunches and have not witnessed the kind of openness of product knowledge, business plans, and personal life between contractors as I have seen in this group. I think the distance geographically between most of us on the page loosens up the competitive edge and allows us all to push each other to try new techniques, products, or god forbid abandon a bad habit. That’s community to me, peers pushing peers to be the best they can be and even sometimes holding each other accountable giving good business advice and values. You can tell a lot about how you care for a person on how you value their opinions.
I care about all these guys, on screen or not, I belong to a community.
Second thing, and its a good one
There is no “quick” discussion or poll about who thinks the best of anything is. Everybody has an opinion and their entitled to it. Everybody in the group has their “go to” products and methods and I love hearing all about them, old or new. Last week I used some new products talked about on the group, now I’m offering a better eggshell than before. Dry ice blasting… crazy! Never heard of it before joining the group. Guys get to brag, some want to test stuff out… win win. If you don’t like somebody else’s favorite product you can tell them and as my kids say… let it go.
And Thirdly (is that a word?)
Miller Evolution Paint is amazing… actually I’m not sure because I cant get it out here but the point is as follows. I see a lot of pictures of that paint because someone is proud of what they use. When your proud or care about something or someone you take a picture of it.  I pleases me to be a part of a group where people love what they do for a living and are proud of their work or paint they use. I have learned from this group to take lots of pictures of my work and life, I’m proud of it. A group of pictures goes a long way and makes a good memory.
Happy Thanksgiving!
By Roger Coulter
 RWC Onteriors

 

13 thoughts on “It takes a Facebook group…”

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