Industry and Community 4 min read
Eagle Kianes on Creating the Golden Pour Awards and Why Unity Beats Competition
The decorative coatings artist built a national stage for installers who were only ever recognized by each other. His other message: stop copying and start creating.
Key takeaways
- Eagle created the Golden Pour Awards because installers had no platform and their only recognition came from each other.
- Winners are voted in by the industry, so the trophy gives clients proof of quality, not popularity.
- He wanted to launch in 2027. The board's president told him to just start, and he did.
- His advice to contractors: stop copying the style you were taught, help each other and keep practicing and testing products.
Eagle Kianes noticed something about the people he admired most in decorative coatings. They were creating what he calls masterpieces every day, on floors, countertops and walls. And almost nobody outside the trade knew it.
“The only form of recognition we were getting was the recognition that [we] gave each other. That was it,” he says. “We would spend money to go to these big events pretty much just to network with each other.”
That gap became the Golden Pour Awards.
A platform for the people doing the work
The industry is growing fast, Eagle says, with new people arriving every day. Some think it is a get rich quick business. “It really isn’t,” he says.
What it lacked was a platform. “Why don’t we create a platform that’s going to be able to build a national recognition to those artists who deserve it?” he says. “And that’s where the Golden Pour came into play.”
He wanted the trophy to carry real weight, the way a Grammy or an Oscar does for an artist. It was custom designed to be unique, in keeping with his belief in doing things differently.
And it is not a popularity prize. “The industry voted him in and the industry gave him that trophy,” he says.
Why the trophy matters to clients
Eagle connects the award directly to pricing.
A client planning a $40,000 floor is not looking for the cheapest installer, he says. They want great work, and they do not want to pay to fix it later. An industry voted award gives that client something they can check.
“Your client can literally go back onto the website, go to the Golden Pour page, and actually see that yes, he was recognized by the industry, not by popularity,” he says.
Just start
Eagle did not plan to launch so soon. He wanted to wait until 2027.
The president of the event’s board talked him out of it. “His actual words was, listen, we just need to start,” Eagle says. “We can tweak it as we go, but just start.”
It changed his thinking. “The longer we wait, the longer it’s gonna take for us to make a change,” he says.
The first response was rough. People did not understand what the event was for. So the team explained it to distributors, manufacturers and installers as something “created for the industry by the industry.” After that, he says, the momentum built until it was “pretty much rapid fire.”
Stop copying, start creating
Eagle’s biggest message to contractors is about creativity. Too many, he says, simply copy the style they were taught.
“Start finding a creative way of being able to implicate your own art into the mix, your own creativity into the mix,” he says. Do that, and your work stands out, and the client gets something truly their own.
“My biggest thing would be be you, become creative and do something different than what everyone else is doing,” he says.
Competition is overrated
The idea Eagle thinks is most overrated in the industry is competition itself: the belief that sharing knowledge takes money out of your pocket.
“If you sit back and you help the next person, it’s not only going to benefit you, not only is it going to uplift your spirits, but it’s actually gonna bring you closer to connections,” he says. “Doors will open up for you because you’re actually opening doors for other people.”
“Doors will open up for you because you’re actually opening doors for other people.”
Practice, study and test in the lab
Asked where the trade is heading, Eagle’s advice is to keep learning. “Educate yourself. Practice your craft,” he says.
He means more than pouring epoxy. Installers need to know the specs, the working time, the pot life, and what each product can and cannot do.
Eagle keeps an experiment lab where he tests materials before using them on a client’s floor. “I don’t ever want to test something out at a project and it fail,” he says. He also uses it to push the limits of what the materials can do.
“When you practice, it’s not to build perfection, it’s to build improvement,” he says.
“When you practice, it’s not to build perfection, it’s to build improvement.”
Advice for homeowners
Eagle has a clear warning for homeowners trying to save money. The cheapest installer often costs the most.
“The cheapest guy normally is the guy that’s less educated and the guy that’s going to leave you a very bigger problem on your floor or on your countertop,” he says. That shortcut can turn into a much bigger bill down the line.
He also believes in answering the phone. Many callers are ready to start, he says. They just need to know they have found “someone reliable, someone serious about the job.” And if a contractor cannot answer quickly, he suggests getting an assistant.
He is honest that he cannot say for sure whether he has lost jobs that way. “I lost a job and still to this day don’t even know that I lost that job because I never answered the phone,” he says.
Bigger than one person
Eagle sees the Golden Pour Awards as something meant to outlast its founders, and it is already reaching into other countries.
“This is something that we’re creating to outlive us,” he says. The goal is to bring installers together from around the world, “showing that unity will overpower any type of competition or hate.”
His pitch to anyone on the fence about attending was short.
“No one man is bigger than the program, and we are the program,” he says.
Watch on Epoxy Growth Guy
Clips from the interview
See Eagle Kianes tell it in their own words, on Instagram.