Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
A New Wave in Flooring: Brian Jones and His Green Vision
Discover the secrets behind eco-friendly flooring with Brian Jones, the passionate owner of Lifetime Green Coatings. Join us as Brian shares the captivating journey of his business in Northern Kentucky, transforming spaces from residential garages to commercial animal shelters with his innovative, environmentally friendly products. Learn how Brian ensures the perfect bond on concrete surfaces, even in tricky areas like crawl spaces, and find out why his special quartz application is the go-to solution for preventing slickness and erosion on driveways. With a palette of over 200 flake color combinations, there's something for every aesthetic preference.
But that's not all—Brian opens up about life in Florence with his wife Katelyn and their playful new puppy, Rocky. Amidst tales of sleepless nights and puppy antics, Brian discusses the superior thickness and durability of his all-natural flooring compared to traditional epoxy floors. Hear about his plans to expand his referral network by collaborating with home builders and realtors, offering incentives like referral fees and charity donations. And don't miss his exciting community engagement initiatives, from trade shows to customer safety pledges. Tune in to connect with Brian, explore options for free estimates, and discover how his eco-friendly approach is making waves in the flooring industry.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, charlie. I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I interview local business owners and influencers so that you can get to know them as people and not just logos on a business card or the side of a truck. They are real human beings, just like you and me, and so if you know them a little bit better, you're more apt to do business with them. And one gentleman I would like you to do business with is Brian Jones, the owner of Lifetime Green Coatings. Lifetime Green Coatings of Lifetime Green Coatings. Lifetime Green Coatings just like it sounds, it's a floor coating company. I've seen plenty of samples of his work, so I want to introduce you to Brian. Let him talk about his company, and so, without further ado, brian Jones, welcome to the Good Neighbor podcast. Tell us about yourself and about Lifetime Green Coatings. Welcome to the.
Speaker 1:Good Neighbor podcast. Tell us about yourself and about Lifetime Green Coatings. Hi, Mike, yeah, so I live here locally in northern Kentucky. We bought a franchise through Lifetime Green Coatings almost two years ago. We've been running it and trying to scale and doing all the good work. We mainly focus on a lot of residential garages, basements, crawl spaces. We do some commercial work as well, you know animal shelters, whatever it is you name it, but yeah, yeah, that's us in a bottle.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there are many, many applications for what you do. I would think that typically people would think of you as mostly garage floor coatings. There are multiple types of companies like that out there. Some are doing epoxy. Everybody's got kind of a differentiator of some sort doing epoxy. Everybody's got kind of a different, a differentiator of some sort. One thing that I like about yours is the environmental friendliness of it and, I guess, safe for pets and et cetera, et cetera. But one thing you mentioned was the crawl space, and I'm not used to thinking of somebody in your business category as helping in a cross-space area. What does that look like? What do you do in a cross-space?
Speaker 1:Just, you know, the main thing is we want to get a bond. So, whatever the concrete is, obviously it needs to make sure it's free of clean dirt, debris whatever, to where we can coat it and make it look more appealing. Okay, a lot of the same processes that we would do in a garage application or a basement. The main thing is you just want to get a really good bond to where you don't have no problems down the road.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I guess what confused me is, when I think of crawl space, I think of my first home. Opened up a trap door in my utility room and the crawl space was nothing but dirt, nothing but a big dirt floor. So I've seen people kind of encapsulate crawl spaces with vinyl wraps and things like that. But you're talking about a crawl space that's got a concrete flooring already. Is that correct Concrete floor? Or even around the sides yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, I see, oh, around the outside of the exterior of the home. Right, okay, all right, that makes more sense. So then let's see, have you ever done? I would assume patios would be another category of yours, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a really popular thing that we do. You know it's more so in the winter, not in the wintertime, but more so the summer and the spring because you know we start getting really cold temperatures. A lot of our application process slows down in some aspects of it. But you know there's other things that we can do in, you know, the garage space or the basement space, bringing those temperature levels up of that floor to where we can apply basically year round. So that's a really good benefit that we can do.
Speaker 2:Have you ever done driveways? Can you do driveways, should you?
Speaker 1:do driveways. We can do driveways. We have a different type of application. It's a quartz application. It's just basically where we would make sure the concrete is good, there ain't no moisture issues, and then we would level it as well as we can and then make sure whenever we go about coding it we'll throw a quartz application which is basically just like a um, a grounded up, uh, quartz rock that we would throw into it to where it will make it real appealing, nice and and you know it'll last you a long time okay, so so.
Speaker 2:So, therefore, an application would not cause the driveway to be slick um and cause you to slide on it when you get your feet wet, correct?
Speaker 1:correct yeah, I mean it's you know, the main thing is, you know, we, you want to make it look good, you want to make sure that nobody is going to slip on it, because that's the most important thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it stops the concrete from eroding too. It does.
Speaker 1:It's sealing that concrete to where it isn't going to break down on you as quick as it normally would.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's saving you money in the long run and it looks nice, exactly. So let's talk about colors. Are there different options in terms of color combinations, and are you limited or is it unlimited? What's that look like?
Speaker 1:No, so we have. We have three different base coat colors. We have a silver, then we have a dark steel and then more. Those are more Soviet use in the type of garage applications. And then we have a it's called a Bristol brass.
Speaker 1:It's more so inside the home, whether it be a basement or somewhere in the area, and then the application once, when we put that down, we would, you know, we would throw our flake applications on it and there's tons and tons of different flake options that we can put. I mean there's literally 200, 250 colors that we can choose from really at our disposal. Now, whenever it comes to the quartz application for, like driveways that are outside, there's tons and tons of quartz options as well. You know, the main thing between the quartz and the flake, we want to make sure that the quartz is it can go inside or outside, but we really try not to flake driveways just because you're going to be driving on them and it could get slick over time. So we mainly focus on the quartz whenever it comes to the driveways and then we can do flake on our patios and garages and basement areas.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, that's good to know, and I just you know, I know that, regardless when a client is asking these questions, when you're consulting with them, you're going to steer them in the proper direction regardless.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that with the different color applications, I could see people wanting to trick out their basement with maybe their favorite team colors, like for man caves. Things like that Can you also do? Have you ever done countertops? Is that an application as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a different application. I'm sure we can. We don't really market that. It's more so we market the basements, the garages and we also offer the best warranty out there. It's a lifetime warranty because we know it's going to hold up and the main thing is getting a really good foundation. I mean, that's the number one, because if you don't prep, prep the floor right, you're going to have issues on the back end.
Speaker 1:You know if, if we're not doing the right things first, then what's going to cost us in the long run. So it's really important that we don't um, we don't do anything that that shouldn't be done. Um, whenever it comes to prepping that floor, really good.
Speaker 2:When I kind of looked through your website and I saw some commercial applications, there were some things that surprised me. One is cannabis, and I didn't know if that was like greenhouse applications, and then the other was agriculture. So explain those to me. When you say agriculture, cannabis, what are you addressing?
Speaker 1:there and it's more so, you know, trying to push the environmentally friendly thing that you know, if we're putting down a floor, you know we don't want any type of you know toxins to go in here, and that's kind of what we kind of push as well as whenever we're doing. You know these big areas, but it's just, you know, it's just basically just showing that, yeah, we, we're in this space and that is that is what we do. Right, this is it's not just some fly-by-night company that we're here today, tomorrow and we plan on um, you know, getting our encoding, anything that we can get our hands on that we know it's going to last um more. So focus on commercial and stuff, not so much the agriculture or any certain type of campus facility, it's just anything that we know that you know it's going to last long term.
Speaker 2:Okay, but still, I guess you know the point is going through your website. It was eye-opening and educational for me, so we would, I guess, encourage people to go to your website, which is lifetimegreencoatingscom. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, there's an interesting component of that that I believe is called HeroVision a component of that that I believe is called hero vision, and explain, explain that to me. What is that? So hero vision is where, basically, you go onto our website and you have. You know, you take a picture of your floor, whether it be a garage, basement or whatever floor that you're thinking about getting an overlayment of the coating on, and then you just upload that picture and then it has a few of the functional flake applications and it'll kind of just show you what your floor is going to look like whenever that is all done and completed. So it's a really good idea. You know, if you're thinking about getting your floor done and it has, you know it just shows you basically what it's going to look like. Okay, it's a really good benefit if you're kind of on the fence of if you want to get something like that done, if you want to spend the money or you don't.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, I can understand wanting to make the right choice and not suffer from buyer's remorse afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know, for instance, a garage floor. You're going to be looking at that thing pretty much every day. You're having it in and out of that garage, so I could see value in that. So I would encourage people to go to lifetimegreencoatingscom and check that out. Just play around with it and see what these coatings might look like in your garage. And in terms of you know, speaking of garage, I'm thinking home. You mentioned you live in Florence. Are you married? Do you have a family?
Speaker 1:I do. I. I am married, I have a wonderful wife, her name's Caitlin. She, she puts up with me every day. And then we just actually just got a new puppy, which we don't get much sleep around here anymore so.
Speaker 2:So shout out to Caitlin, and let's shout out the puppy too. What's the puppy's name?
Speaker 1:uh, rocky yeah, okay, so I got a full three hours.
Speaker 2:I think of sleep last night, so it's yeah, I did hear something chewing on a squeaky toy in the background earlier, so I take it that that's Rocky that is Rocky.
Speaker 1:Could be her too, I don't know. Wow.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, that's, that's good to know. So, in terms of you know, helping you reach people in the community, maybe good referral partners for you? You know you've been doing this for a couple of years, which you know two years is two years, but that's still. You know, your business is still, I guess, for lack of a better term in its infancy, still, I guess, for lack of a better term in its infancy, as far as businesses go, you're still probably building your referral network. Are there, are there professions here in the community that you kind of partner with that are good referral partners for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you know. Number one obviously is home builders. You know we have some home builders that were paired up with. You know, across the country A lot, of, a lot of big name ones Pulte, and I mean there's so many of them. But you know not only home builders but any type of realtors that are selling a house to To you know, to somebody that is thinking about getting it done, and any type of commercial people that are selling properties or whatever that might want to get something fixed up. All those are really great opportunities for us to gain business. And not only that. I mean we give referral fees and donations to charity, anything that we can do to help give back as a thank you for letting us do that. And not only that. I mean they're getting a really good floor letting us do that, and not only that, I mean they're getting a really good floor.
Speaker 1:The product isn't like, you know, something that you get at Home Depot that you know it's going to tear up over a year or two. Our product is you know we're the only company in the US, as far as I know that's all natural and just a really great product, and we offer a lifetime warranty with it it's a gypsum and castor oil mix where it has that 100% flexible capabilities to it, to where, whenever you have those cracks that happen in a typical floor, well it helps flex with it to where it won't crack over time. Not only that, I mean it's about, you know, 10 times thicker than just a traditional epoxy application. So whenever we do our base coat flake and then we do our top coat, it ends up being about 25 to 30 mils, so it's a really good benefit. It's about four times stronger than, you know, just a plain old epoxy that a lot of people are using on their floor.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I like the fact that it's non-toxic, that people can go and use the HeroVision segment of your website to see. You know, just play around with different color combinations, let's see. I really can't think of anything else that we need to cover. You know, you and I met at a networking event and it got me thinking. Do you also go to say trade shows, like home builder shows, if people want to come and meet you out and about? Do you have anything like that coming up anytime soon?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're still. We're looking at next year, 2025. We're part of the BIA and we go through some of those events. Tim, he's my bdm. He normally goes through a lot of that stuff for me. Um, you know, we've given out candy for halloween. I mean, there's a bunch of different things that we're out and about, you know, proactively trying to do to to gain the trust of some of the homeowners and builders around in the area. But, yeah, it's really, it's really, it's really good and you know we get. You know people were like, well, some people don't care about the eco-friendly aspect of it. But you know, I got a call yesterday that this lady she's allergic to everything. She was asking me about all these questions and I think we pretty much covered everything forward to where we're going to be able to do her floor without her having any side effects or issues, and then she's going to get a beautiful floor and it's going to be safe for kids and family and pets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and with a lifetime warranty to boot, so that's great. So if people want to reach out to you, if they want to learn more, they want to contact you, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 1:um, you can go on my the website we're in about um, we're about, we're what?
Speaker 1:33, 35 states now nationwide. Um, we've coded a lot of floors, uh. But yeah, my phone number is 879-1698. You can reach me on the website or you can also email me at bjones at lifetimegreencoatingscom. No question is a stupid question. We offer a lot of different financing options that people don't know if they can afford it or if they want to even get a free estimate. We can come there and surely do that. It's no big deal. But yeah, phone number, email and the website would be great.
Speaker 2:Well, perfect, I'll put that information up too when we post this on the podcast website. So our time together is up, at least for this episode. Community, this is the Good Neighbor Podcast, so until we meet again, everybody everyone out there.
Speaker 1:Be good to your neighbor, bye-bye. Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpioncom, that's GNPUnioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.