LIVE From IRE 2023 With Titebond!

Heidi J. Ellsworth and Darci from Titebond sat down to talk about their product line! 

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Darci Kunard from Titebond.You can read the interview below or watch the YouTube video. 

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello. We're back. I told you we'd be back. We're live on the sound stage at the International Roofing Expo. My name's Heidi Ellsworth, and we have a special edition here because my very dear friend Darci's here. So what we're going to do is we're going to do a little, who is it, Hoda and Kathy?

Darci: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: Cheers.

Darci: Cheers from IRE. So we thought we have to make this a little bit fun. And you're fun no matter what. Oh, thank you. You're always fun too. We have so much fun together.

Heidi Ellsworth: We have so much fun together. Okay, so we have so much to talk about, Darcy.

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: So first of all, introduce yourself.

Darci: Yeah. Oh, so I'm Darcy. I'm with Franklin International. We are under the Titebond brand, so if you've come to our booth at IRE, you know we're a tight bond. We make glues, construction, adhesives, cox and ceilings, wood flooring. But my favorite thing, near and dear to my heart, cox and ceilings.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: You know.

Heidi Ellsworth: And we have some great podcasts on that. Let me just tell you.

Darci: Me too.

Heidi Ellsworth: Check them out. We've done about four or five podcasts together.

Darci: I think so, yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love the one on Glue.

Darci: Oh. That was fun.

Heidi Ellsworth: You just don't think you can have a whole 30 minutes on glue, but there's a lot into it.

Darci: There's a lot more I can talk about.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know.

Darci: I don't want to bore your audience.

Heidi Ellsworth: So today, first of all, everybody knows the brand Type On.

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: If you don't, I don't know where you've been. But Type On is just such an amazing brand. And I love this. It's a color.

Darci: Oh, thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth: It was hiding the wine earlier. But it's a color palette. Tell us about this.

Darci: Yeah. So our metal room sealant comes in over 100 colors. What's cool about this, is the actual caulk itself. So if you're a distributor, if you want to wrap our product, show this to homeowners, we provide these to you at no charge.

Heidi Ellsworth: How cool is that?

Darci: Yeah. So it's wonderful, and it's an exact match.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: We also have that color matching, which we talked about in one of the podcast.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: On our website where you just use the dropdown menu and you select your metal roof manufacturer and voila, you know what color matches that metal roof.

Heidi Ellsworth: Amazing.

And it just feels like the consumers, the homeowners, they are so much more aware today.

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: That they want this detail, right?

Darci: Yes. Oh yeah. And this is very important. When you are bidding a job, you can actually show this to your consumer and say, "Hey, we have an exact match." And that will set you apart from maybe a competitor.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. Really important. And it's pretty cool just taking it in and showing them. And just starting the conversation of, "Okay, we'll pick the color." But as a homeowner I'd say, "Well, why is this so important?" And so now it starts that conversation on ceiling and making sure that you're watertight and all of the important.

Darci: Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: And a lot of people don't know you want to have a sealant around your rivets.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: That is so important, because that is a horrible point for water intrusion.

Heidi Ellsworth: Right.

Darci: So you've got to get a nice little seal on top of that. And if you have a color, your homeowner won't be mad because otherwise it's not going to look very good.

Heidi Ellsworth: Otherwise you have a polka dot roof.

Darci: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: And you don't want that.

Darci: Nobody wants that.

Heidi Ellsworth: No one wants polka dot, okay.

Darci: No.

Heidi Ellsworth: So now this, I love it. I love bringing stuff.

Darci: I know. I was like, I got props.

Heidi Ellsworth: I'm like, oh, she's going to bring fun stuff. Okay, so what is, Ooh, this is fun. What is it?

Darci: This is our actual metal roof sealant.

Heidi Ellsworth: Wow.

Darci: So this is the product here. It's a Class 50, which means it expands up to 50% of the joint size and contracts up to 50%. So you want that ability to expand and contract because temperature changes cause things to move. We all know that. But you need this type of flexibility. And so this is amazing. It's also showing the adhesion it has.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: So the brick, the wood.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: This will stick to anything, including primer and other coated metals.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. What another great sales tool to take into the house.

Darci: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: On your calls?

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: Or businesses. Okay, finally?

Darci: Oh, finally, this is our free kit. So this is what we're giving out when you go to Roofer's Coffee Shop or Metal Coffee Shop.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: Either one.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, that's right.

Darci: You can sign up and get a free kit.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know.

Darci: So what comes inside of it...

Heidi Ellsworth: People come all the time getting this.

Darci: Yes. And I will tell you, I have met not one but two contractors who came by the booth to tell me they got it. So that is so cool.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: I know.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes. I love that.

Darci: But it has two tubes of product. It has our little cute demo bracket here, and then brochures. We have a color chart in there. It's not as fancy as this one, but it has our most popular colors.

Heidi Ellsworth: So, this all kind of builds into itself, which makes it so happy. But if you go on to River's Coffee Shop or Metal Coffee Shop, go to the Franklin Wet Directory, type on Franklin, either one, and then you can get to a landing page. Or if you go to promos and rebates anywhere, you get to the landing page and you can get this box. If you can't find it, just let us know. We'll get it for you. We'll take care of you. But they'll be able to find it because you're everywhere.

Darci: I try. I try to be everywhere.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, you are everywhere. Okay, before we go, I want to talk about, this is Women in Construction Week, and yesterday was International Women Day, right?

Darci: Yes, yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: It was. And you and I have worked together as women in the industry for many years. And before that you worked with Vicky.

Darci: Yeah, exactly. I think I've been with Roofers Coffee Shop in two different roles. 12 years.

Heidi Ellsworth: 12 years. It's been 12 years.

Darci: I know.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know. So what has changed in the industry over those 12 years for women? What do you see?

Darci: Obviously I'm going to talk about National Women in Roofing.

Heidi Ellsworth: Oh, okay.

Darci: I know. Feels like a good lead in, right?

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: But I'm going to talk about that, because that is a big thing. And I know you were at one of the hearts of that development.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Darci: And that has been so powerful. And then last night we had the Hard Hats and Heels.

Heidi Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Darci: Little happy hour.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah, I heard it was great.

Darci: It was great.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: And we heard from several women contractors who didn't even know about National Women in Roofing.

Heidi Ellsworth: Geez, great.

Darci: Came to the IRE website, saw it, signed up, came.

Heidi Ellsworth: Oh God.

Darci: And then they heard about Hard Hats and Heels and went, "Oh, I got to see this too."

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: It was amazing.

Heidi Ellsworth: These are such great groups.

Darci: And it's just the camaraderie, the connection that we have.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. I know. I love it.

Darci: And what I love, I will say, 12 years ago, walking the show floor versus even today.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: Women make eye contact, they smile at each other. I mean, there's just more of like, "Hey, I see you."

Heidi Ellsworth: We're here. We're not alone.

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah.

Darci: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: I know.

Darci: It's very cool.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Well, Darci, cheers to you.

Darci: Cheers.

Heidi Ellsworth: We have the first roofing, Darci and Heidi. There we go.

Darci: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay. And I want to say thank you to, we got to put this in there.

Darci: Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: I got to say thank you to Ron Sherman advertising for the wine. Because I ran down the aisle and they gave us a glass of wine so we could have this propped. Oh, we're still live.

Darci: We're still on.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes.

Darci: There was that battery change, I think.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, yeah. That was impressive. So if you lost us there for a minute, I said thank you to Ron Sherman. We cheered each other.

Darci: Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth: And we're going to be seeing each other. So we'll be back. We have the ladies from Westlake coming. We have some great conversations still all day. And of course, we'll end the day with the Heidi and Karen show and the whole team, and maybe some flying chickens.

Darci: And some more wine.

Heidi Ellsworth: And some more wine. We'll see you then.

Darci: Thank you.