Guest Interview: Jason Paris of Paris Painting “A Painter’s Dream” Series: Episode 1

Published On: January 2, 2023

Categories: Podcast

Guest Interview: Jason Paris of Paris Painting “A Painter’s Dream”
Jason Paris

In this series titled “A Painter’s Dream,” Jason Paris will be discussing what makes the painting industry so attractive to ambitious entrepreneurs, and how painting company owners can capitalize on current and future opportunities. It is a 4-part series.

In episode 1, this episode, we will be discussing macroeconomic trends, and how the ebbs and flows of the economy should affect decision making & planning within your painting company.

In episode 2, Jason will dive into the influx of young talent into the industry, and what that means for all painting company owners.

In episode 3, Jason will outline what you need to do in order to make your painting company sellable, allowing you the option for a lucrative exit.

And in the final episode, Episode 4, Jason will elaborate on his philosophies of business and how they apply to you and your painting company.

Video of Interview

Podcast Audio

Topics Discussed:

Episode 1: Macroeconomics
(e.g. current recession worries)
– how do the ebbs & flows affect decision-making & planning

Audio Transcript

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Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast. The show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over one million and annual revenue. I’m your host, Brandon Pierpont, founder of Painter Marketing Pros and creator of the popular pc, a educational series, learn do grow marketing for painters. In each episode I’ll be sharing proven tips, strategies and processes from leading experts in the industry on how they found success in their painting business. We will be interviewing owners of the most successful painting companies in north America and learning from their experiences in this series titled A Painter’s dream.

Jason paris will be discussing what makes the painting industry so attractive to ambitious entrepreneurs and how painting company owners can capitalize on current and future opportunities. It is a four part series in episode one. This episode we will be discussing macroeconomic trends and how the ebbs and flows of the economy should affect decision making and planning within your painting company. In episode two, Jason will dive into the influx of young talent into the industry and what that means for all painting company owners. In episode three, Jason will outline what you need to do in order to make your painting company sellable, allowing you the option for a lucrative exit.

And in the final episode episode four Jason will elaborate on his philosophies of business and how they apply to you and your painting company. If you want to ask Jason questions related to anything in this podcast series. You can do so on our exclusive Painter marketing Mastermind podcast form. On facebook. Just search for painter marketing mastermind podcast forum on facebook and request to join the group are type in the U. R. L. Facebook dot com forward slash groups forward slash painter marketing mastermind again that you are all is facebook dot com forward slash groups forward slash painter marketing mastermind.

There you can ask Jason questions directly by tagging him with your question. So you can see how anything discussed here applies to your particular painting company. Jason as the chair of the board of directors of the P. C. A. And founder. What I can confidently say is the most successful company that painter marketing process ever worked with on their marketing. I think you are a perfect first guest for season three of the painter marketing mastermind podcast. Thank you for agreeing to return to the show and conduct this series for us.

It was a long intro but 2023 is uh it’s a new season and we had to start with a big intro. So welcome to the show man. Thank you for this is I think your 3rd, 3rd time. Third time’s the charm them out. You’ll be at six by the time we’re done with this series. Okay good good good human number. It’s a good human. Not quite divine. So maybe we’ll get one more but there’s always always a possibility of a bonus episode right? There you go. All right so today we’re talking about macroeconomics, there’s obviously a lot of concern, you know, begin 2023 of recession, little uncertainty, world uncertainty.

I’ll let you kind of kind of take it away with your overall thoughts. Good man. Uh I’ll give you some thoughts feel free to rein me in because I will get real scattered real quick. I’ll just provide some uh kind of lay of the land right now. We’re recording this in Q 4 1003 like all good good podcasts will do and the Fed just raised interest rates for consecutive three quarters of a point and that’s historic. And so the focus of this episode is really macroeconomic trends and how that affects decision making, which I don’t think is going to change the next quarter when this gets released.

So that’s gonna be probably top of mind for most painting business owners, especially in the northern half of the US very seasonal for the most part painting industries. I mean there’s a wide flux of exterior demand that enters the market uh during the summer months, which then exits. And now you’re kind of given the time to sharpen the saw do some business planning in the winter. It’s pretty common for a business over all the things that we’re seeing right now. Um You know, everyone has heard me kind of bang the drum of your only competition is your ability to execute your business model and that will always be true in painting uh for the first time, I don’t say always, that would be true for the foreseeable future in residential painting.

Uh that’s not true in every industry and I’ll just, that’s a pretty novel thing that we get to experience. I don’t know if that’s true in painting companies that specialize in painting water towers, right? Your ability to succeed maybe based on how well you can beat the competition, not just execute your business model, but residential repaint, hyper fragmented. How can you execute your business model? They’ll determine the level of your success. That being said. There are a couple things to keep in mind. I think it all stems from consumer confidence, which at the end of the day, the way I like to call that is how willing is your client to part with their dollars. Right.

And they’re just different decisions, you make their different uh environmental, I think of things mostly as video games. So it’s like there’s different patches involved, whether it’s a headwind or tailwind, so called the last 10 years, uh there’s been uh an unsustainable, there’s been a big tailwind and the last call for the last three years or two years, an unsustainable tailwind that we’ve all been enjoying in uh in the home services industries, painting being no exception, Right? And so what does that mean? It means uh you know, inflation is low, which means that people the basket of goods that they’re trying to buy with their salary or income, uh is pretty stable.

Interest rates are very, very low. Right? And so when someone goes, the biggest way that affects things is purchasing homes. And so you buy a house and the monthly payment on that house is pretty low compared to a high interest rate environment. That just means you have less dollars to kind of have left over in your in your monthly budget for nesting or maintenance as most people categorize it in their personal budgets. And with all those things, consumer confidence was relatively high. Right? Uh, the unsustainable part of the last couple of years was Covid obviously.

So everybody had a little influx of cash and they also had a decrease in expenses for the most part. Right? People weren’t going out to eat, they weren’t going on vacations. There was a lot of entertainment that got slashed and so things you saw surging uh, a lot of outdoor activities. So people buying bikes, kayaks, rvs, but people are also dumping a lot of cash into their homes. So That’s been the reality over the last 10 years. That of course creates tactics uh based off of that. Now we’re in a very different market and uh, it’s changing month by month.

It will probably be changing quarter by quarter for a little bit of time. I’ll just say I majored in economics at the University of Minnesota and so uh, anyone who’s a good economist will tell you, I don’t know the answer, right? And there’s a lot of talking heads out there, especially conferences over the last three years and they probably exist today telling you with confidence what’s gonna happen next year. And uh you know my response to that is well that’s great that you can see the future how much cash if you dumped into the futures market because there’s a literal casino where you can say if you know there’s a recession next year uh by a one year futures option.

And uh you know you can actually leverage your cash up to 10 to 10 X. On that people don’t know they’re not gonna put their money where their mouth is. It’s just really fun to to be confident. So I say all that pretty humbly as an economist, I’m not economist but having some economic background, the real answer is I don’t know the things that I know are true today is that consumer confidence is low. Interest rates are high and inflation is high, right? So that makes a little bit harder to get your clients to part with their dollars.

So one of the things that I appreciate you sharing all that we’ll call you an economist as far as this podcast episode is concerned because I’m certainly not. But one of the things alright paint an honest it is watch that be in the in the description of this podcast. So Jason the paint an honest one of the things that I have heard um from from some people in the industry may or may not be true, but I wanted to run it by you. Is this idea that painting is largely recession proof, which I found a little bit surprising.

But the argument was essentially that in a, in a recessionary environment, much like Covid, that you would not typically go do as many activities. You know, there would not be as much in terms of recreation vacations, like you mentioned cruises, movies, you know, eating out things like that, right? You kind of curve back on that uh, and you spend more time indoors again. Also like Covid, I think that was also a driver of people want to repaint their houses as they spend a lot more time there and they realize they hate hate the color of their house or whatnot.

Uh, and then when you’re in your house obviously you’re more likely to want to change the color. I think the fact that we just came out of Covid and everyone was a lockdown could affect that. But what is your, your thought on that? It’s also potentially a substitute for moving houses or upgrading houses or doing a full kitchen redesign or interior redesign uh, is just to throw on a fresh coat of paint and kind of feel like you’re in a new house. What do you think about that?

Yeah, there could be some, some demand that got pulled up potentially in Covid. I think we saw that in 2008 to 2009, there was some demand that got delayed. So in 2010 to 12 there was a surge in demand that was just delayed, demand essentially is what it was. So you might have some demand that got pulled up. So what I mean by that is in 10,53, a lot of people were due to have some painting done uh and they delayed that decision two years and so everyone that was due to have some painting done, you know, had the demand for their, for their services, but then you also have this little bumper crop that got pushed in that sphere as well, probably opposite thing with Covid.

So you had people that were due to paint in the next 2 to 3 years. Uh and then for all the reasons that you described and I’ve described, they pulled that demand up a little bit, so you might have a little bit of a demand vacuum, that’s potential. I would still say for a professional service, the demand far outstrips the supply, Right? And I don’t want to get into the state of the industry too much cause we have future episodes called out, but there just are not many professional painting contractors in the US uh, to call a spade a spade.

And you know, that’s, there’s different markets and you, and I personally have observed at least anecdotally different levels of professionalization in different markets. And I think it starts with a little hot bed and then it creates that competition that everyone then steps up to that bar. But by and large I’ve never I’ve never visited a place or experienced a place including my hometown where the supply of a professional service meets the demand of professional services so that’s not going away. I think it could be harder to get those.

What I mean by harder uh is you may actually have value now Brandon. Uh Not calling you, I would just call it if you like if you like rants. This is the episode for you. Uh But the last 10 years every conference I go Two there’s just like a million coaching consulting companies that focus on marketing and sales. And I was like who has an issue with marketing and sales the last 10 years? Like if you can’t figure that out uh that’s not going to be your restrain er in your business, right?

And the reality is that’s kind of like the candy that’s like the easy and I think it’s the easier part to attack what I would have liked people doing this is why I think there’s pain was so successful. It’s what we focused on. But over the last 10 years what I would have liked to have seen more in the uh service. You know professional services to contractors market a little bit more, how do you do production coordination and management. Right. That’s what actually was holding back painting cos it just makes them feel for lack of better where it’s the sexiest thing to sell sales and marketing.

Uh Now fortunately for you. Brandon you you’re here at the right time in a recession that this is actually people do need help with sales and marketing. Right? It’s yes there’s a glut of demand and there’s a low supply. But that that dampening, there’s a relative dampening that will happen because it’s hard to get people to part with their cash uh based off those factors I laid out. So I think that’s something that you’ll be seeing is people are gonna have to get sharper. They probably spend more money on sales and marketing.

Uh at the same time you can start to push down on labor a little bit. Right? So those two are inverse right over the last 10 years it’s been a laborer’s market over the next year potentially. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I do have cash. I have not placed it in a futures option uh over the next year or two. If there is a recession, you know, you can start to push that down a little bit. So those are some of my thoughts on recession right? First of all, nobody knows markers could actually become useful and not just selling services that no one actually needs but now they do need it.

So I am pumping you up, I appreciate the plug, Jason, I’ll make, I’ll make sure I get you your referral fee over there, just kidding. Um I did want to kind of dive into this idea that the, I guess the purse straps, you know, while it’s tightening up a little bit right from consumers and what that means in relation to a professional company, because overall people are gonna be maybe a little bit more skeptical, a little bit more reticent to just part with their dollars. But you’re saying that that even though the ratio might not be quite as insane as it was in terms of demand and supply, it’s still a very good ratio for professional painting companies, but then you also have homeowners who are going directly, right, some get there via google, that’s a bit different but directly to thumbtack or angie or things like that, where they really want people to beat each other up over the price, you know, not, not really a great customer.

How do you kind of a approach this product, market fit, so to speak, this ideal customer and how that relates to what you’re talking about. Yeah, there will always be, I like to play in the professional services segment. And so you think about like restaurants, uh there will be many steakhouse, right? Some clients demand, may steakhouse, I don’t like to play in that market, that’s like uh fine finishes of europe craftsman painter, you know we’re gonna use, paintbrushes are made from virgin lamb’s in Italy or something, right?

That’s not the market that I play in, yep. Then there’s like, I don’t eat out that much. I guess there’s like the nice restaurants, uh they’re not quite manny’s, but they’re still kind of nice. Uh I don’t know, because I just drink smoothies every day. So, pretty boring guy. Then there’s like olive garden, red lobster. Uh this is a bad metaphor for me. There’s like the nice chain restaurants and there’s like the low chain restaurants, like value oriented, think Subway Mcdonalds, chipotle, like bread and butter, come get in, get out, you know, high volume, pretty good profit margins, highly replicable.

Uh then there’s like the food trucks, uh where it’s like, yeah, it’s like a food truck on the side of the street. Uh then there’s like someone that has a sandwich and he decided he didn’t want it, he wants to sell it to you. There will always be a market at that bottom where people are willing to forego an experience, they’re willing to forego certainty of what’s being fed to them. Uh They’re gonna want to go into that, that bottom of the barrel and get the lowest possible price, whether it’s food, whether it’s home services that’s always going to exist in the marketplace.

I think right now there’s an abnormal vacuum that that exists in because of the absence of professional services. I think more people would buy professional home services. I’ll talk specifically to painting if there’s more supply of it, but there’s just not and then they’re left scrapping and saying, well, what, what can I find? What can I hire? And the answer is the chuck in a truck, the mic on a bike, the stand in the van, uh, which is not to degrade the size of a company, just the ethos in which it operates.

So you think it’s a little bit of a, you know, if you build it, they will come kind of deal here. If you show up and you’re the professional company and you’re at the right house, then you are likely to close that job for a good profit margin. I don’t know every market, I’ve traveled quite a bit around and I’ve not seen one where the demand meets the supply of what’s out there. And I think that would be, you know, not just anecdotal, Jason thoughts. All the companies that trade in the lead reselling industry see the exact same thing, right?

They have excess demand and the supply cannot meet it. Uh, I think the major paint manufacturers would echo the same thing. That’s like their biggest risk are the biggest concern right now is people want paint applied, but they want it applied well and with a professional service and they can’t find it and that, that trend does not look like it’s gonna be great, unless some, some key things change. Um, you talked about like that again, I don’t think for a professional company is gonna be an issue.

You just have to put more of your energy and effort on sales and marketing, right? Probably less energy and effort on labor recruitment and retention. Right? Which has been the focus. Like a lot of companies over the last 10 years have been focusing so much on sales and marketing because guys like you hype them up and tell them that they need to buy a service, Which has not been true. Now you are going to be true. So I’m just, I’m tearing you down but I’m gonna build you back up what they should have been focusing on the last 10 years is their operations, right?

Instead? It’s like they just complain about, I would say they write, I just, I’ve heard people complain about operations and you look at where is your energy and attention and effort and dollars going. It’s going to sales and marketing. Well maybe put it maybe put it where the issue is. I think that in a recession that would flip, right? So Brandon you become extremely valuable, people should be buying your services. So you see what I did to you down, build you back up. It’s kind of a one to, right?

Because now it actually makes sense to put focus on those areas, right? Every human, every organization has limited focus. There’s only a handful of things that we can actively do do well or do excellent. Uh And so now you have the opportunity to start to pull away from that a little bit. But you know. Yeah. Then this gets into a philosophical conversation around growth which will probably save most for episode three. But I’ll give like a little teasers. Growth is a decision. It’s not like I’m gonna grow to whatever the opportunity is, there are downsides of growth and what limits your ability to grow.

Uh It’s not just what dollars are available out there in the market for me to go grab. Yeah, that all all makes sense to me. Um Jason, I do wanna kinda kind of touch on the marketing and try not to dive too deep into that. But marketing is really a lead indicator of success. Marketing done well. So a lot of one of the issues that I see with with a lot of painting company especially the smaller guys is they don’t really worry about the marketing too much, They don’t worry a little bit about the sales, but a lot of times the sales process really isn’t great.

You know as they call text, just call text again. I mean that’s basically the sales process is once things start to dry up once, oh my goodness. You know, I’m only booked out for two weeks, a week, three weeks, what whatever and they want to be booked out for two months, then they start looking into marketing and then what you’re doing then for marketing is you’re buying leads, right? You’re buying leads and and maybe you’re not buying them from angie, maybe you’re not buying them from thumbtack, but you’re gonna be buying them from google or you’re gonna be buying them from facebook could be higher quality leads, could be a better sales system, but you’re still buying the leads, right?

If you actually want to build up that presence that where you don’t have to go by all these leads, that’s a lead indicator of success, that’s something you do prior to needing it. So as we head into this recession, you know, potential recession, I I honestly hope that it’s not as bad as some people are, people thought there, I would also say there’s like uh I don’t know what the name of it is, but there’s a thing where everybody who wants to be an expert sounds a lot smarter when they’re really concerned and cautionary and uh that’s just a human thing, that’s just a human trait.

Yeah, it’s just a human bias. Uh We take experts more seriously, we give more credence when they’re very concerned and and and like this is gonna be an issue. Uh So if you’re in a room of people and everyone’s like uh this is gonna be great and then one person says actually this is gonna be an issue, people like that, that guy knows something. So I’ve heard for the last 34 years, five years, six years that there’s sessions right around the corner and everyone should be stockpiling cash and then you talk to that expert, it’s like how much have you put in the futures market uh to buy a call option and it’s like none because I just like sounding smart.

But uh yeah most indicators are showing we’re not ramping up, right? I do believe in the business cycle. That’s a big focus at the U. Of M. School of business is the business cycle. So there are some natural elements to it. But um yeah, most mostly the indicators are showing recession, nobody knows for sure otherwise the street would be going pretty wild. Yeah. So one of the things that that I kind of preach and I’m interested in your thoughts are is that in a downturn or really in any negative scenario there’s opportunity for for companies and for entrepreneurs who are looking for that opportunity.

I believe that in session every environment painting companies have the ability to take more market share and and kind of accelerate their growth actually in a market because they’re professionalizing and and companies and consumers who are now being a little bit more selective will say with who they hire are gonna gonna even gear even more towards those professional companies than they would when when kind of everyone there. What’s your thought on that line of logic reminds me of Warren Buffett, he’s like everybody has a lot of fun swimming in a high tide and then when the tide goes out, you see who brought their swimsuit, right?

Uh So that’s the reality. Yeah, I think we saw this in 53 as well. I know we saw in 2008. So what happened in 2008 is a lot of people left the industry and never came back. Uh So we’ve had this like it’s actually, it could be depending on how bad the downturn is. There is a bad town, bad turn, It’s hard to get more than 2008 for the home services. So that would be hard to replicate. It doesn’t seem like it would be in that same uh spirit of a of a downturn.

It would be affecting other things more heavily, but it actually probably be worse because here’s why, so there’s been a very very nice tailwind right, for the last 22007 years call it. But then like an odd, unsustainable swoon of a tail end the last two years, covid. Yeah, just like, so any company that’s like doing okay uh is now going to be really struggling right? If you’re doing exceptional right, you’re gonna be probably doing good right? It’s just gonna be a lot harder. You gotta get tighter, you gotta get crisper with everything, There’s not gonna be as much margin for any element of your business, you’re gonna have to have higher service, higher, higher lead conversion.

Uh, you know, you’re not gonna have probably as much as you’re dumping more in. Um, to your point that will likely reduce, I don’t know what will happen, obviously, I don’t know. I’m an economist, so I know nothing. Uh, but supply could actually drop, right? So people get out of the industry that we saw in 22008, which create that, you know, part of that tailwind of supply and demand gap starting probably in about 21.5 was because so many people dropped out of the industry and never came back. Uh, and so you have, everyone’s seen the statistics of the boomers are retiring and then, you know, millennials are the worst and gen z or whatever is not, I don’t know what they do.

They just sit on their Tiktok’s all day. Right? So it’s like, who’s gonna fill that gap when the boomers go out? It’s kind of like, we’ve talked about that uh, demand vacuum or that demand bumper that comes up either can get pushed back or pulled up, you have a lot of boomers will be retiring in the next five years, call it from the trades. And if there’s a downturn downturn after they’ve got kind of a little comfortable for the last 210 years, five years, 2100 years. Uh, they might pull that retirement up and say it’s not worth it.

So yeah, those are all things that will be fun to watch. I’m obviously very bullish on the paint industry. I think it is a painter’s dream. It’s like the most silly thing and I think I know for a fact we’re gonna look back on this. Nostalgia can be like, man, that was like a fun ride to be part of an industry that professionalized. And then like my kids are gonna be like, all you had to do was like get a scheduling widget on your website and like just show up and you were better than everybody.

Like you just had to answer the phones and and like not pooping people’s yards and like that that made you guys elite like, yeah, no, no wonder you were successful dad like that. And uh now I could get into, I can’t remember our full series, I don’t wanna jump too far ahead, but there is, I think it is the next one I’m gonna talk about more like there’s a reason why intelligent smart people are not, have not been diving into the home. So they are kind of diving into the professional home services, like HVAC plumbing and elect, but there’s a reason they’re not diving into painting.

Uh And the reason is that it’s hard, right? It’s not because there’s an absence of profit, right? The definition of a supply demand gap, you know, that derives into profit, that’s like code that’s code for profit for for people uh in in the markets, right? So a supply and demand gap that means there’s profit potential right now, Why are why are intelligent people not diving into this industry? Uh there’s a reason for that and teaser. We’ll get more into that on our next episode. I love that.

So yeah, I’ll kind of touch on that briefly. I think, I think for entrepreneurs and business owners who are forward thinking, you kind of want to get on the front of a wave, so to speak, when you, when you see a trend and if you can get there in the beginning, um Kryptos would be the most one of the most ridiculous examples of that in for a penny. And they become, you know, $25,20223 or whatnot. But painting is is kind of that wave, you know, home services, plumbing, h Vac grouping um all these home services are really far more developed than painting, but we’ll leave that for episode two.

I want to kind of dive a little bit deeper into this idea of a professional painting company because we’ve talked a lot about how there’s only a small segment that’s really professionalized and a lot of people are kind of kind of flying by the seat of our pants a little bit, I guess how would how would someone who’s listening is not maybe sure whether they are professionalized or not. How would they even know and what could they do to become more professionalized? That’s a great question. I just want to comment on what we’re talking about with crypto and painting and all that.

There’s a, there’s a difference between gambling and establishing fundamentals and gambling is fun. Gambling is like one of the most addictive things because it’s, it’s randomized positive reinforcement. Right? So our dopamine really drives us to gamble, which is why for the most part governments will regulate gambling except for in Minnesota when they prey on the most vulnerable by put by trying to fund our viking stadium through pull tabs. Right? And so in general, that was not nice. That was bad, right? Governments are supposed to protect the people who are most vulnerable.

Gambling is a pretty challenging things for humans to regulate. Which is why it’s a pretty regulated industry along with sex gambling and violence. Those are all tightly regulated. Uh and the most profitable. But our dopamine positive, random positive reinforcement with gambling is, is tough. So we’re driven to it. That’s different than following the fundamentals of business. And so just make sure people are already in that differently. Now you asked me a good question. I got, I got to fired up. This is the rant episode for sure.

What did you just ask me? Yeah, don’t worry. I asked what what someone who’s listening who’s not sure whether or not they’re professionalized company. Yes. Specialization. So I think it’s like, so I’ll start like really high level of philosophical and then get a little more granular what that looks like. So philosophically. It’s being exceptional, right? And there’s a difference between being exceptional and getting by and you can do that in every element of the business. It’s, how well are you treating your clients? Are you treating them with exceptional service or just getting by right.

What is the quality of your product is an exceptional product or is just getting by right? And just getting by works. Works until there’s a headwind that enters the market, especially if there’s a tail and the tail and goes away and you’re hit with a headwind. Just getting by, put you underwater. Right now. The market is more demanding. They require more service better product. How well are you treating your labor is a labor treated exceptionally or just getting by right? Just getting by is uh, get a little granular on that.

On that item. Just getting by would be actually no, keep philosophical and get granular. How are you treating the business? What is the health of the business? Is the business exceptional, exceptionally healthy or just getting by? What I mean by that is the profits typically so profit and brand and brand equity. Right. So most companies In the industry and painting industry, average companies, 22022 people less than $22023,210 in top line revenue. They make an income, but there isn’t profits for the company, right? And that’s fine because they don’t need that margin, especially when they’re getting by.

It’s nice to get by. There’s nothing wrong with getting by, but it’s not exceptional. And there’s not that margin for when the headwind comes. Right. So I’ll go, I’ll go to each one of those elements, Right? So how, how, how good is your service? Are you showing up to the client whenever you want to? Are they getting a bid, you know, on the spot the next day? Or is it either they have to call on you to get the bid back? Are you just letting the phone ring for you?

Are you generating, generating leads or buying them? Right. You talked about the difference between generating leads and buying leads? Um that would be, that’s the difference between being exceptional and just getting by just getting by is, oh, I got my phone rang. Sometimes I call him back. Sometimes I don’t, when I do call him back, sometimes I show up to the bid. Sometimes I don’t, I show up to the bed. Sometimes I give them bid. Sometimes I don’t write it all I get by the end of day.

So it all works out, right. That’s getting by. That’s not exceptional. How do you treat your labor? Is it show up and you’re gonna learn through osmosis? That’s what most people experience show up and you’re gonna just kind of learn through osmosis or is it like, hey, we take uh, developing skills pretty seriously. So here’s your classroom section, here’s your coaching plan and here’s the ongoing learning management that we’re gonna go through the full path of skills and development and wages and all that. Is that really laid out?

You’re saying come show up, work through osmosis and I feel like you deserve a raise, you get a raise, right? That’s kinda what it looks like. Yeah, yeah, transparency. Just organization. So organization, thoughtfulness, intention. That’s probably a theme through all those. Like, are you thoughtful are intentional? Are you organized? Um, and then the profits, right? Are you getting by? You making a income income? Right. That’s great for the, for the people playing roles in your company. So most people are like their president sales rep and maybe project manager, maybe painter to uh, so each one of those roles has a certain package that’s assigned to it.

Uh, but outside of that is the company itself turning a profit for the shareholders, which is typically a sole proprietor, right? If there’s not profit, that’s fine. You’re getting by. Uh, but when the market tightens up, it gets a little bit more cut throat a little bit more more fun. Uh, then you don’t have that margin to do either to survive or to really go full steam ahead. Like you talked about getting that market share. Now you’re doing capital investments, you’re doing some fun things and uh, you don’t have that opportunity so professionalized.

It’s really about, are you getting by or are you exceptional? Those are a couple of areas of the business. There’s obviously many others, like, like administrative finance, vision casting, you know, all the different, we use a paint by numbers wheel in our company to kind of go through different sections of the company, but just getting by. Are you exceptional? That’s the difference between being professional and not. Yeah, I love that man. One of the things I don’t want to get to business on this and the last thing I’ll just say, that’s not that’s not necessarily calling out the size of the company. Right?

So you can be, you can operate a professional company at a one man shop, two man shop, three man shop, are you delivering exceptional service to your clients? Is your labor treated exceptionally? And is the company exceptionally healthy? Right? That that could be a $10 million $200,000 company, right? It’s not, it’s not, I’m not doing uh the size of companies, it’s really how are you operating the business? So I wanna kinda, well, I’ll make the point I was going to make and then I kind of want to push you on that for a second.

So I think what you’re kind of describing and again, not to get too business, you’re basically saying focus and the exceptional for every one of your stakeholders, calm stakeholders. So the people who are working in your business and give them a path, give them a vision. They’re not just showing up turning, you know, hours for dollars? Because ultimately, what do they care about the future of your company? If they if you’re not promising them any kind of future skill development and then for your customers, provide them an exceptional Experience, I think that one’s a little more straightforward.

And then for the, the company treat the company almost as a separate entity, right? You can’t always be sucking cash from it. You should have built the business, your systems, the profit margins in place. We can be building up your capital reserve or like you said, with brand equity, you know, where more and more people are finding you naturally and coming to you, um that should be, that should be treated almost as its own separate entity. But I want to push you a little bit um what you just talked about the difference between a 10 million and let’s go to the opposite extreme.

Let’s go one man show. So, so, you know, chuck’s running his business, we don’t call him chuck, because this guy’s gonna be professional, we’ll call him uh I don’t know William right? Kind of a sophisticated sounding name. So Williams running his business, he’s also doing the painting, he’s also doing the estimating, right? He’s doing all the project man, but he’s doing it? He’s doing the admin work, Williams, doing everything? How can he possibly be a professional company while doing all those things. How is he not going to drop the ball and answering the phone and all these other things he needs to accomplish?

Yeah, it’s kind of like don’t settle. So uh there’s a couple of philosophies aligned to this one is the concept of generalization versus specialization. Uh if you if you have an excess demand for your capacity, it’s time to specialize, uh you get an opportunity to specialize, I would call it, right? And so there’s a, if there’s excess demand for your capacity, whether it’s an individual decision of how you wanna live your life, this is okay, this is a good life conversation or a business conversation of your business only has so much capacity and there’s excess demand for that.

Uh you now have the opportunity to specialize and specializing, gives the opportunity to gain efficiencies. Ultimately, the end product is more, the end result is more profit, right? So you don’t have to buy every every equipment peace in the world. You just buy equipment for this specialized thing. You don’t have to train your people on every single thing or get good at everything yourself as a craft person, just get really, really good at this better thing. It’s a flywheel specialization is a flywheel so that’s kind of like one element of how do you professionalize as a one person thing if you feel overwhelmed if you feel overwhelmed.

That’s called excess demand for your capacity? It’s time to specialize. So it’s like a first concept uh The other the other is um Man it’s like a human thing like we wanna settle like it’s it’s nice to be comfortable, it’s nice to just get by uh It takes a different kind of hard work to go beyond what’s necessary before before it’s necessary right? And so it’s kind of like I learned this lesson um back had a little season after I left corporate America before I started. Well actually well I started my painting company, had a painting company but was also working with a roofing contractor and he was very professionalized and I would just watch him work.

I mean he’d worked till 10:00 at night in his office, arguing with adjusters over insurance pricing and uh he didn’t need to do that, he was like dude you’re gonna make good money on this roof. Uh But he knew he could make more money. Uh He had the potential to and he was doing it before it needed to get done. And uh it was like I saw that I saw the type of work he was working hard on. Uh And then I don’t know if this is a good this like exposes too many of my internal thoughts.

The next day my truck broke down and I called somebody who I knew and I won’t I won’t call them out. Uh They were older than me and they’re a friend and they’re kind of like a friend, not a friend there, Somebody, you know, they came out and like work super hard fixing my truck. Uh because I like need to get done and I just looked at those two different roles of like here’s someone who’s very reactionary and here’s someone who’s proactive, so don’t read too much into that cause there’s a lot of biases, it’s my father in law.

So there’s like a lot of, a lot of internal drama there that I don’t get into. Um but it’s just that concept of working hard, doing the extra effort when it’s not necessary. It’s before he needs to get done versus doing just what needs to get done when it needs to happen, right? That that’s how someone who’s, even if you’re a one person shop, it’s like, well I could go home right now or I could do this extra thing and the clients really gonna love it. That’s gonna create my brand equity and all those things.

It’s like I don’t need this right now, but I could invest in, it’s kind of that concept of investment, I guess investment of time, investment of energy, investment of effort and then the concept of specializing if you feel overwhelmed, just start cutting stuff out, right? And that can be, that’s like a philosophy that applies to your individual life applies to the bandwidth of a company. You know, there’s more demand than you have capacity for start cutting stuff out and start to reap the rewards and the fruit of specialization.

Yeah, that makes sense man. So a couple of points on grant episode. Yeah, we’ll just name this one the rant episode. No, I don’t think that was a ramp and that was, that was a good discussion. But the couple things I’m kind of pulling out of that, our first off scarcity mindset always kind of jumps out of me as bad. And so your, your roofing contractor that you talked about being on the phone arguing insurance quotes for his jobs because he’s trying to make a little bit extra margin where he could be, he could be productively focused on growing his business rather than trying to, trying to increase the margin a little bit on this one job, right?

And then and then another thing you mentioned which is near and dear to my heart is you gotta grind. You know when you’re, when you’re the one guy, you have to work exceptionally hard to no longer be that one guy, there’s sweat equity and then there’s dollar investments at that point, your sweat equity and then eventually you kind of grow your business, you can start making dollar investments and outsourcing some of your goals. Yeah, I talked to uh I’ve worked with people and I like not mentored but you’ve been around people where they’re like yeah, but time is money.

I’m like time is money when you have money right now you don’t have money, You need to invest time, you need to grind. You need to push unless you can find someone’s gonna loan new cash and you want to start playing the leverage game. Uh you don’t have to grind. Yeah, I mean maybe you can, but I’ll talk like specifically like with real estate. I was working with a guy and and I partner with him on a deal and it was like uh he’s like yeah I’m just gonna like hire this out and like do this that I’m thinking like man if I were in your shoes, I’d be like hustling and I’d be like figuring it out and like getting scrappy.

But he was like yeah but you know time is money like yeah but you don’t have money and you’re not gonna make money on this, it’s just gonna be like not that great for you. And uh yeah that put in the grind, put in the hustle. Uh America’s a great country for capitalists to call a spade a spade. Uh It’s called capitalism, it’s not called labor is um so at some point uh you know your ability to leverage and apply capital uh is a lot of what turns the gears of this country for good or for bad, it’s not the perfect system but could be the best system given human nature, It’s bad, it’s also a bad system, don’t sugarcoat that.

Um But it’s not called another rant about financial institutions and the structures of incentive ization and like man, if we had like a fantastic like the days of judges and the, the old old scriptures and the scrolls, you got a good judge, things were great, you had a bad judge, things are bad. So it’s like the good bad parts of authoritarianism but, and socialism as you can call it. But most humans are not that way, it’s not sustainable structure for the long term because we’re all broken people and we are good but there’s broken parts to us.

Yeah, but capitalism is also really bad too man, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. It’s like, it’s a, there’s a lot in there too. But we live in a system called capitalism. So once you start to understand that concept, which I think we’ll get more into on episode two or three, industry trends is episode two and building with the end of mine making it sellable. Episode three. Yeah. And when, and when I say sellable, just throw a little teaser, you don’t have to sell all of your company.

It’s good if you can take on an operating partner, uh, that concept. So whether you’re selling in full or selling in part building a company where you can harness the value of your equity is really what you should be be gearing towards and whether you sell that equity, I heard of a company that does that, that’s exceptional. We’ll think about their name, They take a minority interest and I forget who it is. You know, I’m not just here because I like hearing you talk Brandon. You do like hearing me talk though.

I didn’t get to talk. Yeah. So we have all the holdings. I think all of holdings is exceptional that I think we are going to affect the industry in a big way when I think it really, what are the the attack vectors of influence and how you change an industry? A lot of it is being an example to the big boys. Right? And so we’re not a big boy. You know, we’re like a little teenage boy but we got some muscle to us. We’ve got some, some energy to us and yeah, I’m pretty excited about what we’re doing and how we’re gonna make some change.

Yeah, I love it man, you’re, you’re big enough and you have the systems enough that you definitely know what you’re doing and you have the muscle management. We have the man and the talent and that’s like the man, okay, little teaser for what’s coming up like that is the actual secret sauce. Uh, it’s not just like, here’s what you need to do now. Go do it. Here’s the playbook. Go follow it. It’s who’s gonna be, all of it is the first letter of the hebrew alphabet. The pictograms, an ox uh, the painting industry is the Wild west.

The Wild west gets settled by plowing the fields. And so like we will, we like to come alongside our partners like an ox and carry that yolk with them to help plow the fields. And how do we, how do we democratize and harvest the equity and painting companies? Uh that’s what we’re super passionate about. Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of a test that I have visited all holdings office and make your ceo or CFO. You guys have hired top tier talent and uh we are still hiring that like we’ve added since then.

Two and a big part of that is just the spirit of what we’re doing. So we’ve pulled a lot of top tier talent from other structures of how people think industries can get professionalized that I would argue are dying and are fundamentally broken. Uh those two, those two paradigms, Gosh, I gotta be careful what I say, Franchising can be okay. I love all the franchisors, especially ones that sponsored the P. C. A. Yeah, I was about to say. There are some just like, just like capitalism is great, big fan of capitalism.

I think uh there are some inherent challenges of capitalism. There are some very inherent challenges with Franchising, right? And so like the other paradigm would be private equity company comes in and buys out a business. Uh there’s some inherent challenges with that, right? And we’re not trying to do either one of those, we’re trying to harness and democratize the equity that’s in a painting company by coming shoulder shoulder like an ox burning a yoke and plowing the fields. You have some interesting interesting analogies Jason. So if you want to, if you want to an ox to help you plow the field.

Getting real visual here, metaphorical. Yeah. This isn’t even the philosophic philosophy podcast. We’re not, yeah, I can number four is gonna be a trip man. Yeah, a trip. So I wanna, I wanna push you again because one of the big focuses of the painter market mastermind podcast is making actionable recommendations right? I feel like there’s so many so many podcasts and discussions that kind of theoretical or don’t necessarily apply or hard to apply. Um, so I want to push you as we’ve talked about this upcoming potential headwind recession kind of, however you want to call it will probably get harder than it’s been because it’s been like taking candy from a baby last couple of years.

What can companies specifically do? We’ve talked a bit about the professionalization, but let’s, let’s call, let’s talk about the mid sized companies. Maybe they’re 205,000 to a million. What should they be doing right now to position themselves for success over the next several years. Yeah, there is a reality. Like it’s not just questionable what’s going to happen. Consumer conferences down. Interest rates are up and inflation is up. Those are three facts. Those are three facts. Those are three real things that are happening now, What that leads to is like nobody knows, right?

You can you can feel there’s a there’s a fundamental of like you think it’ll go one way, but that’d be if you want to place a six months futures call that be a bet, right? So you can bet on that. Um But what can companies do right now? I think you touched on that paradigm of are you buying leads or generating leads to the two very different things. Was much of a reactionary one is more tapping into the value of your of your brand, kind of inherent equity there.

And so I would say developing a strategy where you’re not buying leads but you’re generating leads and this. It’s not semantics. Uh Okay, here’s another rant. People sometimes say how many coffee? I don’t drink coffee? You want to hear? You want to hear a real rant asked me about coffee. Coffee is a mood altering addictive drugs that gets you out of touch with your body’s, right? Your body’s trying to tell you through molecules that you’re tired and you’re saying no to shut off those receptors. I’m not gonna listen to you.

Uh So anyways that’s a real rant, I have no one receives it, That’s fine. Uh Okay. What did you ask me? Gosh, I get so fired up on. Sorry, okay, okay that was that was tangent number one, tangent. Number two is semantics. People say j that’s that’s just semantics semantics, is what the word means, right syntax is how the word, the sentence is structured semantics is what does that word mean? That’s important. I mean when you say like, oh, that’s just what you’re communicating. That’s just what those words mean, semantics are important when someone says that’s just semantics semantics or what the words actually mean. Right?

Number two, uh item number three, generating leads, buying leads practically. What I would do is I work with a marketing company, I work with marketing companies are developing how can I start to generate leads instead of just buying them? Because buying them if I’m not exceptional right now, you may not have the margin to compete in buying leads, Especially over the next year. Right, a year economist, I could never tell you what’s gonna happen because I just don’t know. There’s too much uncertainty. Uh in 2007 it was a matter of if not when gas hit $10 a gallon in 2007, right?

That’s before the big recession happened, everything dropped down. We still barely even got close to that right before, right? When Covid hit, everyone was guaranteed, we’re entering into a deep dark recession worse than 2008. What happened? Think shot up. So this concept of like I’ve been around enough. I’ve heard enough of the chatter. I can tell you. I don’t know. Uh it’s like a coin toss from the sound smart or not. If I give you a prediction, but it does not get easier. It gets harder. I would work on generating leads, not just buying leads because you may not be able to compete when it gets really scrappy.

Yeah, I love that man. And I like your, you know, your humility to um admitting that you don’t necessarily know what’s going, what’s going to happen. Nobody does, but you can at least prepare if they do. They’re probably have their mouth shut and they’re just raking in the cash on the casino. That is Wall Street, right? This is like just, you can, you can buy a stock today, You can, you can you can buy the right to buy a stock. Uh I’m gonna get this next up because I’m too hyper right now.

But options that you have the right to buy stock, either a future value or current value, if you know that the market call it even an sMP fund is gonna go up or down, uh you can make a lot of money on that right now. The cost of that option is going to end and flow given what the street thinks is the likelihood of that result happening right? So like right now it’s probably pretty expensive to buy an option that says that the market’s gonna go down.

That’s a pretty good indicator. Kind of like lumber prices were usually predicted by lumber futures options when we’re going through that crazy time, which we were because we have a building company as well, construction company. Um Yeah I’d love to tell you exactly what’s going on. If somebody does know for sure what’s going on. You know I’d head yourself in making good business decisions. But if you really are predicted for the future I would partake in gambling because that’s a pretty good way to leverage your cash better than a painting company. Yeah.

Yeah fair enough man. So we kind of have talked about what you can do from the I guess we’ll call the sales and marketing business generation perspective positioning yourself for success. You know investing in your long term brand and getting these actually come to you. I want to touch on the flip side of this because you mentioned that it’s been a laborer’s market. You know it’s been obviously there’s been a debate about whether there’s really been a labor shortage or or whether you just don’t know how to hire and treat your employees or contractors.

Um But what can a company be doing moving forward or how should they be thinking about how to treat their labor, how to hire their labor. Um With this potential drawback. Well the answer is not like now you get to treat your labor bad. That’s not the answer. Yeah. No I don’t think so because the answer for a long time has been like, so most companies are 1.5 people because that’s like the network that they can tap, right? And I was like, oh shoot, I have to recruit people, no one’s gonna work with me because I’m not a professional business, who would, who wants to go work with chuck in a truck, stay in the van when it’s like no job description show up, learn through osmosis.

I don’t know what my career path is, there’s no upside. Uh There are pros and cons to growth. One of the pros of growth is you get to attract people that want more opportunity, right? So like most companies aren’t growing. Uh it’s hard to say that because I feel like a lot of companies are growing but the stats don’t show that it’s hard to attract top talent anyways. So the answer is not you get to treat them poorly, but I would just say companies you only have so much focus and this is a good life principle, it’s good business principle and I would put more energy and more focus on the parts that actually need it.

And that’s been one of the biggest like Almost Funny things to watch over the last 10 years is the amount of energy and focus that painting companies have been putting on sales and marketing and I know how you’re going to spin it and sell it, you say like that and it is true, that’s the lead, everything that’s the tip of the spear and everything trickles down from there, which is true. So you do have value brand anything, but you’re not, you don’t have zero value, You have some value.

But the amount of energy attention and focus that has been put on sales and marketing over the glass, specially handful of years has just been irrational and it’s just because it makes people feel good. It’s the easiest thing to sell and it’s probably the most professionalized part of any industry of our industry for sure. Most, the hardest thing to do is to sell service that’s around the operations, the coordination, the management, right. And that’s really what’s been driven and driving and determining the success of painting companies for the last handful of years.

Don’t treat your reportedly treat them well, Be open and honest with them. Uh, say, hey, we’re heading into a hard time, but here’s the tactics they’re gonna be doing. I’m looking forward to coming shoulder, shoulder you guys, typically the founder and the owner is talking about this work extremely hard and, and uh, you know, I’ve got all my eggs in this basket so I’m not going anywhere and make sure that the success this is successful. Um, I’m gonna put more energy and focus on generating leads, not just buying leads.

I think that’s gonna weather us through this next storm. And so people oftentimes reply respond really well to transparency and honesty. Uh, it’s just telling them like, hey, I’m committed. Here’s what I’m doing. I think most people would love to have a leader like that in their, in their place of work. Um, yeah, rally troops be open and honest, transparent be a strong leader. Uh, those are all things are gonna be needed in this potential upcoming season. Don’t stop training. Your people don’t stop giving them job descriptions.

Don’t stop showing upward mobility and career path thing. But if I had to move focus because I believe in the power of focus, I move it to what needs to focus. Yeah, I love that man. So you kind of be in the trenches with your team. They by even working with you by showing up are investing their future into your company, right? Because they’re investing their time. They could be somewhere else that would maybe offer them for the future. So you, you showing them, hey all your eggs in this basket, this is my future.

I’m investing into it. I believe in it. You should invest into it also and believe in it because together, right, not me and I’ll pay you whatever. I feel like paying you or give you a raise when you’re, when I feel like you’re ready. But together we’re gonna grow this thing. What do you think? No, no, no, please. I guess what do you think is that kind of encapsulated what you’re saying? Yeah, a little bit of vision goes a long way. Uh think people respond really well to transparency as well.

I found. Um but the hard part about transparency is it’s really hard to hide secrets when you’re transparent. And so uh, transparency is a great tool in your tool chest of leadership and vision casting and the health of an organization when you don’t have secrets when you’re not hiding anything. Uh so that’s the hard part. You know, if you want, if you have things that you, that you need to hide if you’re not being honest, uh, if you have little secrets, that’s a tough tool to pull out and be exceptional at.

So it’s kind of like you can’t hide who you are, you can’t hide the business. Uh, if you want to, if you want to be transparent and there’s, I don’t know if I’m verbalizing it extremely well, but it’s not like you just be transparent tomorrow and everything is roses. Uh it’s nice when there’s good stuff behind that transparency is what I’m trying to say. Yeah, if you have a lot of skeletons in your closet, you might not want to show them, but you also probably need to go ahead and fix that.

Yeah, like as a business owner, like let’s just say your heart is like, hey, I don’t really care about this business. I’m just trying to get by, I don’t really care about these people’s futures. There’s no future in this company? It’s just like how much, how much how little do I have to work and how much cash can I make for the next three years before I retire, it’s gonna be tough to be transparent with that, right? Maybe try deception. That’s like a tactic that might work for you in that playing field, yep, yep.

Uh, might be successful. Uh, you know, how hard you work often determines how successful you are, uh, to get to the top, but, but it’s, it’s culture and values that keeps you on the top once you’re there. So it’s, that would be the biggest thing I’d say is really examine yourself to examine your business. What you truly believe. A business and a leader is, there’s a reason why leaders get paid what they do. It’s because capitalism knows that they’re valuable. Right? They have a big impact and the transparency, you know, the integrity, A lot of those things drive ultimately the results and the equity value.

Um, again, I only know what I know I like the tactic of transparency and, and that, that is how you make that be an effective tactic. There are other tactics, deception is another tactic, um, bullying is a tactic that has success as well, but they’re not tactics that, um, that are part of my ethos. Yeah, well, I appreciate you acknowledging them as well. You know, even though they’re not really good tactics, I don’t know if you’ve worked at other places. Brandon. There are, there are, there are companies in the world where those are effective tactics in their, in their culture.

I think it results in capitalism rewards that. So yeah, fair enough. Well, the good news for you is that anyone who is kind of employing doesn’t really care about their businesses may be employing some of these tactics, short term focus. They’re not listening to this. So that’s a plus. Anybody who’s listening is I have a few haters, haters. I don’t know. Yeah, I know. It’s not, it’s not your haters if, if they’re focused on the next three years, they’re just make enough to get by kind of, you know, bamboozle people, so to speak, and hiding a bunch of skeletons.

They’re not really investing into their education into the growth of their business. Most people will, this will resonate with them. Yeah, that’s good. Um, alright, and then I want to ask you kind of, what I view as the pinnacle of transparency. What do you think about opening your books? You know, your finances to your employees or your, or even your subcontractors. Yeah. So I’ve seen that work, I’ve seen it not work. I think it depends on the mentality of someone you’re working with, um, and whether they have an ownership mentality of their role really of their life or if they’re an employee in their role and in their life.

And so the way I describe that as an employee shows up to work and stuff happens to them, right? My boss told me to do this. My job sucked today because of this happened to me uh everything is happening to them? Everything happens to an employee, I make this much money because I show up for this much time and my my life sucks. So it’s great because of all the things that people have done to me, an owner life is they take, an owner takes ownership of the well being of their life and the outcome of their efforts, right?

So it’s like, yeah, I showed up to work. I’m gonna make as much money as I can produce today, right? So employees that are on like a budget system or some kind of, you know, productive bonus system uh would be a little bit more um sit a little bit more well with them to be transparent on their books, Right? And so I’d say in our experience, like people who are painting hourly, not not like engaging in the conversation with them. Here’s how here’s how the financial business works.

Uh They come to ask, there’s nothing to hide if someone’s in a management position or leadership position or they have some kind of incentive structure. Here’s, here’s the business model, you tell me how much you want to make, right? And that’s how we do it with all of our like, our sales reps are all driven that way. It’s really, here’s how much it costs to market. Here’s how much it costs to sell in this business model, You know, what do you want, how much money do you want to make and how, how can we get there?

Right. I’ve never, we’ve never told anybody. They can’t have a raise. The question is always like, that’s awesome. How how can we make that work? Right. How does that work in our, in our business model? Uh, It’s not like profits versus wages. The profits are not negotiable, right? The company’s not gonna exist unless there’s profits. Uh, it’s, how do you, how do you contribute to the profits, right? How to contribute to the profits? There’s also people and organizations that have roles that don’t affect profit, but they do affect called net promoter score of either internally or externally. Right?

So there’s net promoter scores for our clients, for corporate staff, for employees and our labor. There are people who have comp packages specifically designed to that sometimes at the expense of profits because they’re building a brand equity. Yeah. That transparency conversation, I think it’s really about, yeah, I could, I could say specific roles at work, specific roles that doesn’t, it ultimately comes down to, does that person have an employee mindset where stuff happens to them or they have an ownership mindset where they’re in control of the outcome of their life and that’s oftentimes going to gauge how well that conversation lands.

Yeah, yeah. So you’re kind of meeting people where they’re at sort of speak based on their role, But then even if they are and what would be considered more an employee role, like let’s say painting hourly if they come to you and they do have this mindset of growth and wanting to learn, you’ll share with them, you can share with them. You can also maybe like it’s good to get shoulder shoulder and in the field, especially whether it’s a leader of an organization or one of the managers because you can, you can pick up on that right?

You might pull someone aside and be like, man, you’re, I know you’re pushing hard for crushing it. I just want to show you what some of the options and potentials are over the next three years of your career here. If you’re interested, right? Here’s how the business financials work, here’s what you get paid painting, here’s what you get paid to manage painting, right? Here’s what you get paid to manage profitable projects with a high net promoter score. This is what the business model affords. Uh, so I just want to give you some some visibility on that, that’s something you’re interested.

Let’s talk about it. Uh, but I would bring that up to someone that has kind of, that ownership of their life, they affect the outcomes of their well being and they take that ownership. Yeah, promoting a great way to promote internally and uh, and keep your rock stars. I love this idea of, of basically partnering with with your employees, so to speak, the ones that have that owner of mindset was, hey, let’s sit down. You want to raise or what’s your goal in this company? Okay, here’s how our business works.

Let’s think together how to give you what you want, how do you help the business get there? How does it make business sense? And how’s everybody kind of win here? Then they’re thinking like a partner. It’s like, yeah, business sense. How does it work? It’s kind of like, here’s uh, you know, they’re they’re different, this is good. Get more philosophical. There are different classes of assets, right? There’s like, even if you if you ever been like the rental business or real estate, it’s like class A versus classy.

And like sometimes you get a higher rate of return, at least cash on cash on class C. Because there’s more risk and it’s more work and it’s more messy right now. If you own the land and you’re leasing it to cbs, uh just send me my check each quarter. Like you’re never that CBS is going to be there for 100 years, right? It’s like no issues, no stress, no headache, not messy. Uh maybe a little less return on that, right? Painting businesses. There’s risk, it’s messy. It’s hard, it’s not a hands off investment that’s just like coupon coupon land unless you take on operating partner, like all holdings, it’s just like, you need to look at the industry kind of average of classes and whether it’s like, this is what companies are generating in the market of profit right now, it’s like, well what should they be generating a profit given what the alternatives of capital investment are?

It’s like why would I get a 5% return on a painting company, You know, 5% return renting land to cbs. That’s like I’m gonna take all my cash on the painting company and put it there. So you kind of look at, look at those conversations and And yeah, this conversation land with with every employee, probably not land with every painting owner in 2022 kicking off 2023. No, it doesn’t. But these are the ways that I think are healthy. Look at an industry is starting to mature on how you start to think about these things and look at how business should be run Jason.

I know you you hate coffee man, but you got my head kind of spinning on this one. I feel like I hate it. I just want people to have alignment with their core values and the actions in their life. Okay, So you want people, I know you want people to, it’s a hard pill for me to die on because nobody receives that message and the answer is always like, I know, but but but but but so I’m not gonna fight it. I’m not gonna fight it. People want their coffee, that’s great.

There’s a lot of great people who drink coffee. Uh Man, there’s a lot, I’m not even gonna say what I want to say because it’s so mean. I just say there’s a lot of people who drink coffee and that’s great. Yeah, I I feel like I should have another cup for this conversation cause you got my head spinning at this point. I wanna I wanna wrap it up and and ask if there’s anything else particularly related to macroeconomics, um the current state of the industry and the economy where we might be headed that you want to want to add to this conversation, You know, I think we’ve got a good base.

I think a lot of this will dovetail into the next next episode. Uh Talk more about kind of macro state versus macro trends. But yeah, there’s just there’s a reality I think any good economist will tell you. They don’t know the answer. There’s also a difference between gambling business fundamentals and then there’s a reality of the facts of where we are today. And uh you know, all those things have started to lead, you know, you want to hedge your bets and make good decisions. Uh I don’t know for certain is gonna happen.

No. Is there’s things that are more likely or less likely for sure, right in every scenario that’s that’s called like risk and reward decisions. So in general, I expect this next year will be different than it was last year, specifically last two or three years, arguably the last 10 years. And that would be a fun season for us at all at all of holdings and it pairs painting. I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s gonna be fun in a different kind of way. Uh there’s no like, it’s kinda like playing a video game Brandon, right?

It’s like a new patch comes out on a game that you like to play and it’s like, okay, now, how do you win in this new environment? Right? Some certain characters got nerves or buffed or new items are introduced or the map layout has changed and the tactics of old no longer work in this new realm. And you know, there’s there’s kind of a rush to find out the new meta of what’s gonna work really, really well. Um and often times that have that prescient view or have done the analysis to, you know, do the big excel sheets, they’re the ones that are the early adopters and win.

Um so it’s gonna be a very different market. How can you adapt, how can you react? There’s no normal, new normal, there is no new normal, it’s just constant change, Right? And so I think we’re well positioned to change. Uh like most people are not specifically in this industry, were not very adapt adoptive industry overall, but that can’t go forever. And sometimes that innovation gets spurred by changing environment. Yeah. And I think now more than ever with with how quickly things are changing. I think covid accelerated that it is helpful to have a partner that understands this stuff and is prepared for it has been around for a long time and it’s cheap, great success.

So another plug dot com dot com apply to become a partner. Go go up and visit Jason and his team and see if it’s the right fit for you guys, If anybody’s interested learning more, this is the plug, reach out to me. I’m pretty easy to find on social always starts with a philosophical conversation and then there’s quite a bit of betting on both sides to see if it makes sense or it could fit worst case scenario. You learn a lot about how we think about business, that’s like your worst day.

So feel free to reach out to me to be happy to talk about more. Love it. Jason, thank you for your time. You can reach out to Jason directly or you can tag him in the facebook group again, search painter Marketing mastermind podcast for him on facebook and that you are l is facebook dot com forward slash groups forward slash painter marketing mastermind. Jason, thank you for your time. I think people are gonna have some follow up questions on this one. I’m gonna maybe go take a nap or something critiques.

Yeah, they’re gonna be piste off and have to defend my rants and then they’re gonna psychoanalyze me and I’m open minded to all that. Yeah. Episode four is uh is where you’re really gonna go off the deep end? I think so. I’m looking forward to that one. Alright brother. Well thank you for your time man. Alright. Yeah. If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed in this podcast and how you can use them to grow your painting business, visit painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast for free training as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company.

Again that you are l is painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast. Hey there painting company owners. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button, give us your feedback, let us know how we did. And also if you’re interested in taking your painting business to the next level, make sure you visit the painter marketing pros website at painter marketing pros dot com to learn more about our services. You can also reach out to me directly by emailing me at Brandon at Painter Marketing Pros.com and I can give you personalized advice on growing your painting business until next time.

Brandon Pierpont

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