But How Was Miami?

I spent much of last week surveying independent paint retailers on sentiments towards their brands, leaving Pittsburgh Paints CEO Brian Carson anxious to know what I had learned.

THE surveys were timed to take 20-minutes though none took less than 30 with 45 being closer to the norm. And some of the calls even stretched passed an hour as dealers and I waxed on and off about the milieu of independents. 

A moniker we no longer share though I do still speak the language.

I can’t share the questions which I asked dealers nor can I share their responses, that data belongs to the client who paid to conduct the double-blind survey. What I can share was that there was one response common amongst the participants, a sentiment shared by more than half of the dealers I have surveyed so far.

I'm sorry Brian that I can't say more, but how was Miami?

Anybody Hear From Gassenheimer??

Thank you to everyone who is watching and listening to my new podcast series Mark My Words and Friends. I'll have a new episode posted next week, the fourth in that six-part series with Steve Rice, my first podcasts since the Gassenheimer and Opportunist days.

During the introduction I share who’s next after Steve, a conversation with paint I plan to record through the summer for release in the fall. Plus more on the surveys; Brian you can find that here.

After this episode the series jumps the tracks as Steve and I discuss a topic on my mind for several months which impacts everyone reading these words, though it has nothing to do with paint.     

Last winter my work had me traveling to large cities around the United States; Chicago, Los Angeles and Milwaukee just to name a few.  Plus a week spent in New York City when the schedule was so tight it could not even accommodate a commute back to Stamford.

Over a slightly longer span semi-retirement has allowed travel beyond our native shores including time spent in similarly sized European cities: London, Edinburgh, Rome, Florence, Milan, Bologna and recently Budapest and Vienna. 

I don't present that list to boast, but to add context for episodes five and six with Steve, because it’s the contrast between American and European cities which had been on my mind since last winter.  So stark as to be discouraging and impossible to dismiss. 

Add the rail lines and airports feeding those cities into the comparison and the dichotomy remains stark, compelling me to want to share. Off topic by our normal standards here but I hope you like it because I am already preparing the follow-up!

Free At Last

Last month I closed on the sale of the building which housed Tremont Paint for 50 of its 112-year history.  Bought by my father and uncle in 1968 the building was the final tangible connection to my life as a paint dealer.    

THE sale makes me eligible for a nomad visa, untethered from all responsibility for the first time since my third decade.  Now in my seventh and rationing the hours I commit to commercial endeavors, it’s a feeling I'm finding fast comfort with. 

Though I still own the title to the ghosts which roam that building's floors.

My father and uncle owned the building and business when I joined Tremont in 1988, though my uncle was no longer working in the store.  Pushed out of by family drama which included the suicide of my father’s sister and working as a painting contractor in nearby Westchester County, New York. 

For decades my father’s biggest customer he represented as much as 50% of Tremont’s volume in some years, that status plus my uncle faulty ethics conspired to manipulate Billy into being a decades-long victim, one of many my uncle had.

In the end Billy’s victimization would be settled by his son, one of several sins I carried for my father in the tale as old as time.  Only the sale of that building could allow all the souls involved finally rest.  An atheist’s exorcism.

It’s a that story my mother would have encouraged me to wrote had she ever had that need, but in private conversations for decades I had been sharing my intentions with my mother to one day write it all.

And now that that building sold and everyone else is dead, it's getting to that time.