Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Tuscaloosa and Northport!
Good Neighbor Podcast Northport
Precision Tint: Mike Wilkins' Artful Journey in Window Tinting
When Mike Wilkins looked beyond the family business to shape his own path, he didn't just start a venture; he ignited a passion for window tinting that has grown into Northport's premier service, Precision Tint. Sitting down with me, Patricia Blondheim, Mike spills the beans on his evolution from a detail business to mastering the art of window tinting, covering everything from the tiniest of golf carts to the towering splendor of skyscrapers. His anecdotes about privacy frosting for Alabama football's athletic departments and the practical, protective benefits of tinting are just the tip of the iceberg in this episode's exploration of the tinting trade.
Strap in as we uncover the layers of material that go into creating the perfect tint—Mike talks shop about the reputable Lumar films from Eastman Corporation and shares how his business not only weathered but thrived through economic downturns. Your ride—or glass pane—could be missing that essential shield from the sun's harmful rays and unwelcome glare. Mike's journey with Precision Tint is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit and the importance of adapting to industry trends while honing a specialized craft. #GNPNorthport #Precisiontint #TuscaloosaTinting #TuscaloosaTinting #WindowTinting #WindowTinter #CarWindows #HomeWindows #windowtinting #windowtint #tint #tinting #windowtints #windowfilm #tintedwindows #tintshop #cartint #cars #detailing #tints #car #ceramictint #tintlife #autotinting #ceramiccoating #uvprotection #paintprotection #ppf #tinted #cartinting #autotint #m #windowfilms #lifetimewarranty #carwindowtinting #llumar #privacy #automotive
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Patricia Blondheim.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, Patricia Blondheim, and today we have good neighbor Mike Wilkins, and Mike is the owner of Precision Tint in Northport. Mike, how are you today? I'm great, Patricia.
Speaker 3:How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. Thank you, hey. Can you introduce your company to us and tell us about? You know your role within your window tinting company?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are Precision Tint here in Northport Alabama. We do all commercial, all commercial residential and automotive window film. Uh, we also uh, I'm a side affiliated with a detailed business next door. Uh, that's part of a side venture as well. We won't talk about that much, but we, we do all types of window tinting. Uh, we've tinted everything from a golf cart to a skyscraper, so that's what we do.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I could kind of break it down to the ridiculous, but especially here in the South. But what are some of the primary reasons people choose to tint their windows?
Speaker 3:Well, window tinting, you know, back in the days of the 80s it was all for a darkness, people wanted nobody to see them.
Speaker 3:And then with the state laws that have passed since you know 93, uh, they, they limit the amount of darkness. So the window tinting basically nowadays, with the uh onset of as much skin cancer as people get, it's more of a protective layer. Um it, you know, you put on a, a good window tint it's like wearing 250 spf sunscreen and so that is uh applies to people that are in their cars a lot, or uh in a home, in a business, it's basically for the heat that comes through the offices or the glare that's on a computer screen. We even do a lot of frost film, which which is kind of a privacy-type deal. Where you have a conference room that people don't want people to see into. We do a lot of that. We do a lot of frosting for Alabama football athletics department in their weight rooms where they don't want people to see in them, and all that good stuff. So that's basically in a nutshell what window tinting does.
Speaker 2:Well, tell our listeners about your journey. How did you, how did you get here, Mike? How did you start this business?
Speaker 3:So I started out at 14 working for my dad in a family-owned business. We had a carpet cleaning janitorial business, worked from 14 until I was probably 19 years old 20 years old with him Decided that I just wanted to take a different journey and so I bought a detail business back in 1999 and had it running successfully. Everybody kept asking me when we would detail their cars, could we tint windows? Could you tint my windows? And so in 2001, we jumped into tinting windows in cars as well as detailing cars. That kind of just was kind of what I sunk my teeth into. And then, two years later, we had a sales rep for the tent that we were buying for our cars asked me was I interested in doing a commercial job? Never have done one. I said, sure, I'll try anything once.
Speaker 3:And as they say, that's the rest of the story. We do cars got into the car tent. You know very heavily Got into. Flat glass is what we specialize in. We do a lot of commercial residential work and then that's how we basically got started. The tent business in 08 was paying the bills when the economy went in the tanks in 08. So we shut the detail business down. I took my window tint business to my house for 10 years and then in 2018, moved back out into a brick and mortar building and then, in October of this last year, we moved to our location now into a new building over on Watermelon Road, just to a newer building a friend of mine built, and that's where we're at today.
Speaker 2:So what types of materials are used in window tinting and how are they different?
Speaker 3:Well, there's different kinds of film. The film manufacturer that we are tied to is is lumar films. They're an eastman corporation, so if you've ever heard of a kodak camera, you know who their mother company is. They're very large, uh, very dependable company. There's all types of window tint manufacturers out there. We just have aligned with lumar for the last seven, eight years, um, just because of their warranty, uh, their dependability, and then their willingness to stand behind their product for the last seven, eight years, just because of their warranty, their dependability and then their willingness to stand behind their product.
Speaker 3:All window film commercial, residential is a totally different animal than automotive, let's say an automotive film. There's carbon dyed and then there's different levels of ceramic film. The new ceramic came on the scene probably five, six years ago. It is designed to reject the infrared heat that you feel, and so when you say you live, we live in Alabama, the law is a 32%. Well, I can give you a film at 32% VLT, which means the light that comes through that blocks, you know, 85 to 90% of the heat that you feel. And you know, five, six years ago that was unheard of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing that you can block the actual heat and it is hotter than Hades here during the summer. That would be a real relief to an auto passenger or driver. Does that also affect how the sunlight wears on the inside of your car?
Speaker 3:Yes, because one of your main contributing factors to fading is heat. Of course we tell people like in a home or business you know if you want to slow fading down. The biggest contributor is the heat, the amount of heat. To stop fading altogether we would all have to live in dungeons and turn the lights off to stop it. But we can slow it down tremendously with the amount of heat that comes through a window. Same goes for your car interior. The amount of heat that comes in that car is tremendous.
Speaker 3:Now we tell people we can't solve your heat problem when your car's parked because you're in a metal oven. There's no way to stop that. It does make a difference but it's not going to stop that. But the biggest thing is when you're riding down the road, and with the advent of the electric vehicle it's been a very big plus for those individuals that choose to buy those, because with the air conditioner turned on 5, you're running more battery down and so if you do a nano ceramic or a ceramic film on your EV vehicle, then you're able to run your air conditioner on 1 or 2 setting and still be comfortable as you would if it was running on high without a window film applied now my question what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:I make the joke with a lot of our customers and tell them matter of fact, just about every day we work so that we can bass fish. Bass fishing has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad took me bass fishing, probably when I was two or three. I have a son that works with me. I took him fishing. He was throwing a bait caster at four. We started the high school bass fishing teams here in Tuscaloosa Northport area. We started the Hillcrest High School team. We helped start the American Christian Academy team. I still, to this day, boat captain some kids that go to ACA because my son graduated four years ago. My fun, my hobby, is fishing. If you took a rod and reel and a boat away from me, I would probably be ready to go meet my heavenly father.
Speaker 2:Sounds like you do your fun the same way you do your business. You want to know as much as you can about it and be as much of an expert as you can possibly be that is. But either way it's fun, right?
Speaker 3:that is correct. Yeah, I tell people all the time we whether it's fishing or tinning windows or just whatever anybody does in general do it. You know, do it 110 percent. Uh, that's just how I do things.
Speaker 2:Well, when you're striving for excellence, I know that you're going to hit a couple of speed bumps and, you know, maybe take a couple of hurdles, maybe well, maybe badly. Can you talk about something that has developed you as a businessman and possibly a human being?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, there's all kind of hurdles in life that you deal with period. You know I come from a, you know, from a divorced family. I was very blessed to have two sets of parents. You know basically my whole life. That, in turn with being working for a family run business pretty much from the time I was able to draw a paycheck, was kind of a tough hurdle for me, just because anybody that works for family, you know you're, when you're not the boss or you're not the, you know the dad, so to speak, because I worked for my dad.
Speaker 3:You think you're getting treated poorly until you leave and then you realize that you, you know you had it pretty good. And so when I left my father's business, when my daughter was you know one, and got out into the real world, I've had several jobs before I started my own thing. But hurdles are a stepping stone to me. They're going to happen. They're going to happen. You're going to have them, whether they're good or bad. The way you handle each one of good and bad, both it will determine your longevity or outcome, in my opinion. Agreed.
Speaker 2:So for our listeners out there who are interested in window tinting, what do you want them to take away about precision tinting?
Speaker 3:Just know that we're in this business to make relationships. We tell customers we don't have customers. We build friendships and we want them to know that when they come to us, we want to put on the film. Know that when they come to us, we want to put on the film. We try to question them a bunch and we want to put on the film that is suitable and correct for them. We also are. You know. Our job is to tell them what the law is, so that they know they're making a lawful decision of what they put on their car. As far as they're choosing whether they do a carbon or a ceramic or a nanoceramic all of that we have the equipment here to show you the differences in those. And then we want you to know that we're human.
Speaker 3:That's probably one of the biggest things that we push. We're not perfect. I don't think there is anybody. There was one man. He hung on a cross for us. I'm not that guy, so we do make mistakes. The biggest thing we tell people is if you're not happy, we will do everything in our power to make you happy, and we've been in business 25 years because I think of that philosophy. Customer service is our number one thing we do and if you'll give us the opportunity, we will do our best to earn your business.
Speaker 2:Well, tell our listeners how to contact Precision Tent.
Speaker 3:They can call our shop phone at 205-242-2070. We have a website that you can go on. It's called tentbamacom. That's T-I-N-T-B-A-M-Acom, and on there is a questionnaire form. You can fill that out, send it in. It comes to me via email and then I can respond that way as well. We tell people we respond quicker to a phone call than we do emails, so the best way to reach us is via our shop phone and that's the phone number that I quoted.
Speaker 2:Well, mike, thanks so much for coming and talking to us today. We really appreciate hearing more about Precision Tent and it's been incredibly insightful, thank you.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate you having me. It's a blessing to be here and we give God the glory for where we're at, and we appreciate you for having us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and thanks too to our listeners for tuning in to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Until next time, you.