242 Transcript

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[Music]

welcome to scaling up the podcast where

we scale up on knowledge so we don’t

scale up our systems i’m trace blackmore

the host of the scaling up h2o podcast

and nation i just cannot wait to tell

you this story of course one of the

things that i love to do most is teach

our incredible profession as one of the

trainers for the association of water

technologies technical training well one

of the things i love most besides

teaching at that venue is just meeting

new people and hearing stories and

especially what do you guys do with this

podcast and does anybody really listen

to this podcast after it leaves my

office here in atlanta georgia and i’m

just so inspired when i hear stories

that you guys did something about

something that we talked about and i

want to share a story with you to

inspire you to maybe do the same thing

but this one individual came up to me

and they were almost in tears and by the

end of the story they actually were in

tears they were telling me that they

finally understood their son of course i

was talking to the father the mother i

can’t remember what she did but she was

not at the technical training seminar

these parents were having a difficult

time with their son

they just didn’t feel that they were

getting through to him and they didn’t

understand him and they didn’t know

where to go well they heard me talk

about on this podcast the i said this

you heard that assessment that kathleen

edelman did and of course we’ve had

kathleen edelman on the show twice that

was episode 117 and then we had her come

back for a part two on episode 179

and i throughout

different episodes of the podcast have

been talking about

all the ways that i’ve been able to use

temperaments which is really what i said

this you heard that is it’s a

temperament study and they really

connected with that and they decided

what did they have to lose

so they bought the workbook they went

through the workbook and they almost

instantly saw where they were using

words that did not connect with their

son

they were able to identify which

temperament their son was they were able

to identify which temperament they were

and together they were able to use the

workbook to come up with language that

they could all use and it’s not perfect

now but they are communicating

better they’re able to have better

conversations with their son their son’s

able to have better conversations with

them and they feel like they’re

connecting

now the truth is they’re probably not

really saying anything different they’re

just using different words to say it

thank you so much for sharing that story

with me

that means so much to me and i’ve got a

lot of stories that are just like that

from my own experience my wife and i

have always had a great relationship but

it wasn’t until we started studying

about each other’s temperament that we

were able to give each other the correct

words

so we didn’t misunderstand each other

and i know if you’re married you have

had misunderstandings well that’s what i

said but that’s not what she heard or

vice versa folks this gives you a lens

around

all of that so if you have not listened

to episode 117 or episode 179 i think

you need to go back and listen to those

i just spoke about kathleen not too

terribly long ago and it was that

message that urged this family to listen

to those episodes and buy the workbook

folks i cannot tell you how this will

change every relationship in your life

again the workbook is called i said this

you heard that and you can get the

workbook by going to an affiliate link

that we have set up and i did that just

to make it as easy as possible for you

to get this workbook yes it’s an

affiliate link which means amazon gives

us a very small commission for sending

you there but it’s not going to cost you

anything extra it’s just going to make

sure you get to the right site very

quickly scaling up h2o.com forward slash

temperament it will take you right to

that amazon page

you can order it maybe you order a

couple copies and your entire family go

through it maybe you order several

copies and your entire team goes through

it now we talked about i said this you

heard that in the rising tide mastermind

fourth quarter last year and just the

stories that have come out of the

mastermind where people have been using

it with their families and their teams

have just been amazing this is a tool

about communication so you’re probably

thinking i’ve done myers-briggs i’ve

done disc i’ve done enneagram and that’s

great i think those things are all

wonderful programs but the thing that i

said this you heard that does is it

allows you to understand yourself in

addition it allows you to understand

other people and here’s the big

difference it allows you to understand

yourself enough so you can give other

people what they need

and their specific language that each

one of the temperaments need so you’re

not changing what you’re saying you’re

just changing some of the words that

you’re using to say them and you are now

able to get your message across more

clearly a lot less gray

so listen to those two episodes again

117 179 you’ll hear about all the four

temperaments you’ll even hear about the

four needs that each one of the four

temperaments have and when you learn to

master yourself you’re then able to give

others what they need and it is just

amazing what that will do for

relationships all of this to say thank

you so much for that individual sharing

that story with me i will in turn share

that with kathleen that wrote the study

and nation i can’t say enough good

things about it if you have not done

some work and i said this you heard that

please look in to doing that because it

will help every relationship that you

have

and that’s what this podcast is all

about it’s all about relationships it’s

all about community we’re all part of

the scaling up nation

we understand all the trials and

tribulations that each of us has to go

in and out of each and every day and we

know that we are not alone we have a

huge scaling up nation that understands

all the things that we are dealing with

and what i ask is that you find ways to

attend where other scaling up nation

members are

that’s why i am always going to give you

some ideas of where you can go to

experience more of the particular water

treatment that you may practice just

like i had that conversation in a

community of like water treaters at the

association of water technologies here

are a couple more so the american

chemical society is having their

exposition

in san diego california that’s going to

be march 20th through 24th

and then the 17th annual international

water association

edge conference on water and wastewater

technology that is going to be in reno

nevada march 27 through april

2nd

and then speaking of the awt the

association of water technologies is

having their annual convention and expo

in vancouver canada that’s going to be

september 21st through 24th why am i

telling you this now when i was telling

you earlier dates and this one’s all the

way out in september well i know the

majority of our listeners are in the

united states and i also know the

majority of the people probably haven’t

traveled in a while and your passports

may not be valid or they might be close

to expiring

it’s taking a minimum of six months to

get passports renewed so if you plan on

going to this convention go ahead and

renew your passport if it is expired and

if you are going to return back into the

country and your passport expires within

a six-month period it is not considered

valid so you also need to update your

passport nation if you go to our show

notes page we’ll have a link that takes

you directly to how to update your

passport if you were here in the united

states so we’re trying to do some of

that work for you that link will be on

the show notes page and of course all of

the events that i mentioned those also

will be on our show notes page want to

keep you in the know so you know your

one-stop shop for everything we always

talk about on this show will be at

scalinguph2o.com

when nation my interview today i know

you are going to love

i met this individual a couple of years

ago and have really enjoyed getting to

know him better and i’m really impressed

at all the things that he does and how

he tries to solve some of the issues

that us water treaters have here’s that

interview

my lab partner today is landon marks of

fluid maintenance solutions landon how

are you

i’m doing fantastic thank you trace

glad to have you on the scaling up h2o

podcast before we get started do you

mind telling the scaling up nation a bit

about yourself

i grew up in northwest oklahoma and

graduated from oklahoma state university

back in 2011 was going to be a school

teacher actually and i changed courses

and chose to be uh in sales instead i’m

not gonna lie probably the best decision

i’ve ever made

but i was gonna be a baseball basketball

coach and

that’s where my heart was instead of

instead of teaching school but um you

know i’ve been in uh been in sales for

the past decade

and

worked for in different industries uh

such as metalworking and

food processing water industry now of

course uh for the past four years that’s

where i’ve been but then i started my

company fluid maintenance solutions and

you know what i haven’t looked back

since

you know i was thinking where you and i

met when i was getting ready for this

interview and i’m pretty sure it was at

that awt event that i moderated where

you were one of the panelists on the

discussion of young professionals

yeah that’s absolutely right that was a

great panel by the way i would love to

get to do that again that was fantastic

well for those of the scaling up nation

that didn’t see that what were you guys

talking about on that panel

so really it was just a panel of young

professionals in the water industry

that business owners could bounce

questions off of of you know how can

they attract a younger generation of

water treaters to the water industry

landon i’ve got to ask you so you just

let the scaling up nation know that you

you wanted to be a basketball coach now

you’re in the industrial water treatment

industry what the heck happened

so that came to be

okay so i know that’s got a switch isn’t

it you know what

hats off to teachers

my heart was in coaching baseball and

basketball but not so much in teaching

school and

you know what i didn’t i didn’t feel

like i was going to wake up one day

and all of a sudden like

kids

and parents would all of a sudden

respect teachers like they should

or you know it’s it’s in oklahoma you

don’t make a whole lot teaching school

and uh it’s just

it’s just a matter of like career choice

of of

what i thought would be best for me and

one thing led to another and i met the

right people and the sales journey

brought me here

well let’s talk about here what is your

day-to-day like

sure my day-to-day i tell you what i

wear all the hats

as you can imagine you know i do

everything from

sales calls quoting

processing orders

inventory

let’s not forget accounting that’s

important

you know it’s usually a pretty full day

owning your own business as you know can

be absolutely terrifying but

i love it i wouldn’t change it

it’s an absolute adventure and has

completely taught me

a new definition of perseverance and

grit that’s for sure

especially through i mean i’ve started

this company two weeks before covet

happened in 2020. so i probably couldn’t

have picked a worse time to start this

business

so let’s put that in perspective i’m

still standing i’m still here

yeah if only we had that crystal ball

right but maybe that was the time that

it was meant to be

maybe so i mean i’m not gonna question

it because i’m still here doing it

the hardest thing in owning a business

is starting the business

most people don’t take that first step

what was that first step like for you

i started the company because i found a

niche market

dip slides of course are in the water

industry used a ton

where my background was

was in the metal working industry

any so metal working industry being

anything that cuts metal

milling and things like that i realized

that the machining industry

needed a simple way to check their

machining coolant for bacteria

when i found out i’m going back to

when i discovered that not many people

if all are are marketing this product

the machining industry if i came out of

my seat and i was like holy cow this is

this is a market that needs this product

so that’s that’s where i started fms

well you’re talking about dip slides so

i want to ask you episode 214

was almost a throwback to an earlier

episode that i did i remember i was

trying to figure out what i was going to

talk about

and i saw a corrosion coupon

that somebody did not love that sent to

me to analyze and it had just gone

through the most pathetic life and just

somebody didn’t respect it they didn’t

understand it

and i looked at it i said you know what

i’m going to tell your story and i did a

whole show from the corrosion coupons

perspective and i decided to do that

again on episode 214

with the dip slide i know you’ve

listened to that episode so what did i

get right

you got a lot of stuff right trace

actually it took like

all my talking points i could possibly

talk about for an hour about dip slides

you nailed almost all of them so

i tell you what the episode was good

i mean you explained it very basic

product right

dip slides are fantastic when they work

when they don’t work or such as we go we

can get into um you know the things that

go wrong with them later if you like

your your episode

explained very well

what dip slides do

why they’re used and kind of the do’s

and don’ts of what you are supposed to

do with them what they actually test for

what they don’t test for

uh you mentioned storage

excuse me what they’ll actually pick up

you know the planktonic bacteria that’s

in then it’s in a cooling tower

i thought that episode was fantastic you

did a good job

well by the way storage you were the one

that fussed at me because i was keeping

them in the refrigerator you said no you

can’t do that you know what i actually

was curious when i listened to that if

that was if you got that from here and i

was like surely i’m not the first person

to tell them that

i figured it was a good spot to keep

them it was going to make sure that

nothing grew on them and you were like

no that’s the worst place ever to keep

them i’m not going to say it’s the worst

you know i mean you could put them on

the back of ups truck in 120 degree heat

for a week but

but uh

guys if you’re listening to this

don’t put your dip slides in the fridge

right on the front of every box that i

put out there the manufacturer suggests

it’s 68 to 75 degrees

you don’t have to keep them in a dark

place either like in the in a dark

closet you don’t have to do that as long

as they’re not sitting directly in

sunlight that everything else is

completely fine you know room

temperature

landing you mentioned from the episode

we just talked about that when dip

slides are working birds are singing

there’s rainbows everybody’s happy

but then there’s an occasion where

things don’t go as planned something’s

happened to the dip slide what are some

of the things that can happen that’s

just going to ruin all of our day and

then what do we do about it

that’s a great question everybody that’s

used dip slides has opened up a box and

they’ve fallen apart or there’s growth

on them

something of that nature they’ve already

started to grow bacteria in some way

when the dip slides are sliding off the

medias something has gone wrong in the

adhesive that’s on them

of course yeah i’m sure you people have

inquired about this like oh you know

what happened why did it happen guys if

these things get too hot

that can just easily happen if the

adhesive isn’t the right mixture

when things are just recently there’s

been an issue of growth the growth that

has been happening here in the last few

months with dip slides inside the

packaging actually is the cap that’s

screwed on to the to the dip slide

isn’t completely sealed so

when these are shipped

the um the packaging that it’s in

actually isn’t it’s not some sterile

and so air gets inside of the dip slide

container and that has been the result

of growth on the dip slides lately since

then everything’s been fixed but those

that’s just kind of some behind the

scenes of why there might be growth

maybe there’s something wrong in the

clean room during uh during

manufacturing

so what do you do whenever that happens

well you certainly don’t use it you

can’t use those anymore

so when we get a dip slide and it’s

compromised in whatever reason

we don’t use it and let’s say the entire

package is that way and now we’re

wondering do we order this same type of

dip slide is there an alternative that

we can use

what should we be doing so we can do all

the things we need to do as industrial

water traders

actually

there is an alternative to dip slides

uh recently i have actually come with a

manufacturer

come up with a new product

that does the exact same thing a dip

slot does the incubation time is the

same

the storage temperature is the same

the boxing is actually better and they

still come 10 in a box

we call these play counts ttc

multiplayer count and they don’t fall

apart

they’re very accurate

you could there’s actually multiple ways

of taking a test you have inoculating

lube uh a swab if you if you’re i mean

even if for time sake if you really

wanted to you can just dip the whole

plate in there

in your sample but what these look like

is something that you would see a lady’s

makeup circle

would be and in the middle is a divider

one side is the bacteria side the other

side

is the smolder fungus you know we’ve had

r d on these and we put them out for

sample out in the industry

and people are

really enjoying them they they’re

consistent

they work

they’re cost effective um a lot of the

accounts that i have switched over to

buying those instead of dip slides

because unfortunately

dip slides will run for a long time and

be pretty consistent

on the product quality

of them coming from the manufacturer

and then all of a sudden something

happens right and then they’re falling

off or they’re growing something for you

know when you get them

so we came up with an alternative

for people to use

so nation a visual for you

almost like a petri dish looking thing

and it’s got the agar on either side so

with everybody having a dip slide visual

in their mind and now this this other

form in their mind why do the issues

happen with one and not the other

so when a dip slide falls off the dip

slides vertical up and down right so it

has the opportunity for gravity to do

its work and it’ll slide off if it’s not

it adhered right and the plates they

don’t really have that opportunity to

fall apart

the packaging on the plate counts is

sterilized so that

the interior is everything everything’s

fine

so they’re not going to grow anything

either you know inside the box comes the

colony density chart that if you compare

it to dip size is extremely similar

and it comes with directions it’s the

the product might take you five extra

seconds to use but

essentially it’s the exact same thing

but

it doesn’t fail

yeah i’ve got to say later we’ve been

using them for a little bit and i really

like how they stack it’s very it gets a

lot more

of them in our incubator we only have

one incubator in our lab and you pretty

much quadrupled if not quintupled the

space uh or the amount of product that

we can put in there and incubate at the

same time so that’s definitely a plus

something you said that i’d love to

explore

is you said that we don’t need to

inoculate them with the little q-tip the

sterile q-tip that comes with them so i

didn’t know this we could actually just

dip them in like we do a regular dip

slide

actually yes you know somebody actually

came to me a question like can we just

can we dip this in your sample

that’s a that’s a good question so i

talked to the manufacturer about it and

yeah

if you really want to y’all i mean it’s

the same thing you can if your sample

size your or your whatever you put your

sample in is big enough

there’s no reason you can’t

i didn’t even think about how many more

you can incubate an incubator

it’s huge and they’re they’re not as

top-heavy and unbalanced as uh as a

regular dip slide so if you’re trying to

reach around and get a sample

15 of them aren’t going to fall over

during the incubation process so yeah

there’s so many things that uh it solved

without anybody knowing that that was a

problem something i did want to ask you

in addition to to the previous question

the dip slide’s designed so we can grab

it we’re not interfering with where the

agar is we’re dipping it into the media

and then we’re immediately putting it

back into that tube

so a concern that i have is if we just

dipped that round dish there’s a

possibility that we might touch

something on the edge what can we do to

ensure that we don’t contaminate it with

just our sampling process

you know that’s that’s a fair and

absolutely true question we’re actually

kind of working on maybe putting a

little

something on the side of it that you can

hold on to to if you really wanted to

dip the whole plate in

then that would you know you have

something to keep your hands and things

out of the way

if that’s

not the case you can’t do that then just

use the swab

yeah we’ve tried to be pretty deliberate

about it uh of course when you wear

gloves and then you take apart the

cooling tower with the same gloves

they’re probably not that sterile

anymore but we try not to have our

fingertips go

past where that little lip is or where

the plastic piece ends we’re trying to

be within the body of the side and then

we try to make sure that we hold it down

and and let all the water drip out that

nothing from our fingertips drips back

into the sample i don’t know if we’re

doing that right but it all made sense

to us

no it sounds like you’re mate you’re

doing the right precaution

the the plates work and

your process if you be as careful as you

can of course it may be just a tad more

tedious

but in the end i think the plate counts

are a superior product to dip sides

i’m always amazed when i talk to other

water treaters and they don’t incubate

it in an incubator they put it in their

back pocket or they put it in their

glove compartment or maybe it’s in their

drink holder in their car so i just want

to state or have you state for the

scaling up nation how important is it to

incubate these things at the proper

temperature

i’m glad you asked this question because

i was going to hit on this as like a

drive home point at the end of the

podcast if i needed to

so i was doing a um a do’s and don’t to

dip slides for the special projects

committee at awt in 2019

and

one guy in the audience was like well i

just i just put mine on top of my fridge

it is consistent i suppose more

consistent than being in a back pocket

or you know some some people like why i

just put them in the glove box of the

car or something like that guys

incubate your dip slides

the 48 hours that a dip slide takes to

have the growth

is based on incubation

for results for accurate accurate

results

for a dip slide it’s about four to five

days if you don’t incubate it so what’s

the temperature of your sample out of a

cooling tower what do you say

it’s typically i would say within the

80s 90s

okay

my question for the scaling up nation

here would be

why would you take a sample

of where that bacteria is happy right

we’re talking they’re happy in there

you’re testing for that bacteria that’s

by the way growing

at that cooling tower temperature your

dip slide’s not going to get the

bacteria that’s not growing why would

you take a sample test it with a dip

slide

and then not leave that bacteria at the

same temperature

that it was happy and growing

take it out of the 90 degree

water

and then put it

i don’t know on your desk in your office

that’s this that’s hanging out at 70

degrees

you’re not going to get as accurate

results if you incubate your dip slides

at 90 degrees

that bacteria is going to be happy and

it’s going to want to keep growing so

you’re going to have more accurate

results more data

for your customers to do what you need

to do as an industrial water treater

it makes sense if you have something

that is at a particular temperature you

would want to incubate it at that

temperature so you can duplicate where

you took the sample from it makes

perfect sense and for fun uh i encourage

you

whether using dip slides or what what’s

the new the new method that we just

talked about

the new method is plate count play count

okay okay so not a new method just just

a new to us method oh yeah it’s it’s a

new it’s a new product yeah and we call

it the ttc model okay so with that uh

whatever you’re using store it in some

different areas and do some comparisons

we actually did that here to let people

know how important it was to incubate

those at

a particular temperature and you will

see you will get different growth at

different temperatures so if you don’t

believe landon if you don’t believe me

try it for yourself and you will be a

believer

landon if people want to learn more

about the plank count product that you

have and some of the other things that

you have to offer where should they go

i’m happy to talk to you contact me

i’ll give you my number it’s

six 405

two seven eight six nine

and my email is landon l-a-n-d-o-n

dot marcus

m-a-r-k-e-s

at fluid maintenance solutionsllc.com

and you can find that also on trace’s

show note page

well awesome i’m sure you’re going to

get some calls people are probably

wondering what it is that we’re talking

about

i’m going to put some images of what

we’re talking about on the show notes

page so people can actually get the same

visual that you and i have

any last words that you want to give the

scaling up nation

let’s see you know what a common

misconception i heard one time

at awt actually

was that they were using dip slides as a

way to test for legionella and that i

told them i was like that that’s

completely false

do not use a dip slide to test for

legionnail at all you need to send that

off to a lab it’s a certified lab and

there are rapid tests out there but

those aren’t reportable tests so send it

out to a lab that is reportable

and the only thing that i can say if

that a dip slide could help you as far

as legionella is if it’s completely

you actually alluded to this in your in

your podcast about this slides if it’s

completely saturated with bacteria

that’s data

so make decisions based on what the data

is which leads to more testing but dip

slides are not a not a way if that’s

really to no

great point yeah there’s numerous shows

about legionella uh if anybody out there

in the scaled up nation wants to learn

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