In the past I have already talked about how complicated it is to communicate a paint.

On the one hand, since legislation (with good reason) prevents us from using some terms. For example, as far as housing is concerned, we can’t use terms like scent, ecological and anti-mould. Even though they are still very used, these terms represent an extreme simplification of reality and lead customers to think that a paint, as a chemical product, has characteristics that actually hasn’t. 

On the other hand, there is a technological problem, because paint is not a hat. I talked about it last week with a colleague, technical supervisor for validation of new Refinish products. He has a big responsibility: he tests new products and, basically, he is who decides whether they work or not. With many years of experience and competence and great passion, he would never approve a product that doesn’t work properly.

As a sportsman and a mountain enthusiast, he often wears brightly coloured hats (see the picture). So, while we were talking, I caught his hat and said to him:

“If you tell me this hat is waterproof, I’ll communicate it to the world. Then, if a customer gets his head wet, whose fault is it? Mine or yours?”

He looks at me and says simply:

“Paint is not a hat”. 

Observation: every year, in the world of Refinish, there are Lechler body shops that switch to our competitors and other ones that switch to Lechler.

Of course, we can be proud of the number of our body shops in constant increase, but there is always someone who, for some reason, is not satisfied. Nevertheless, we give everyone the same services and products. Products (and above all processes) that require time. Time (that includes training and analysis of technical sheets) helps to understand how a product can behave in different application contexts. Outdoor temperature, humidity and equipment are only some variables.

Then, obviously, we should consider the applicator’s skills and sensitivity and, also in this case, I can refer to another mountain activity that gave us some satisfaction during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang just concluded: alpine skiing.

On the market there are many competition ski brands and models of very high quality (PREMIUM) that require great professionalism and “technical” competence (to achieve with training) to use as best one can. But every skier, for his own skiing approach and physical characteristics, adapts to a specific brand/model. Therefore, he chooses and changes to try to be better, always taking into consideration recommendations of professionals in this sector (in this case, trainers and instructors).

This is exactly what happens in the world of body shops, where the refinisher, for his application approach and equipment, selects the products/processes (PREMIUM) with which he works better.

To sum up, paint is not a hat; it’s more similar to a pair of competition skis: if you can’t use them, you can get very hurt.