Guest Interview: Juan Vasquez & Jose Hernandez of Illusions Painting Inc.

Published On: March 7, 2022

Categories: Podcast

Guest Interview: Juan Vasquez & Jose Hernandez of Illusions Painting Inc.
Juan Vasquez & Jose Hernandez

Juan Vasquez & Jose Hernandez, Co-owners of Illusions Painting Inc, share how they have grown Illusions Painting Inc. from doing $480k three years ago to surpassing $2 million in 2021. The partners dive into limiting beliefs they had to conquer, and how attending the PCA Expo for the first time in 2018 changed their lives. They discuss how embracing new challenges has made all the difference in their business, and some big plans they have to help other Hispanic painting company owners find similar success.

Video of Interview

Podcast Audio

Topics Discussed:

  • Power of the PCA – dive in before you think you’re ready
  • Why living outside your comfort zone is a necessity for business growth
  • Evolution of the painting industry, and predictions for future change
  • Bringing educational resources and PCA access to more Hispanic painting company owners

Audio Transcript

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Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast, a 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 on this episode of the painter marketing Mastermind podcast. We host guests, juan Vasquez and Jose. Hernandez juan and Jose are co owners of illusions painting a high end residential painting company based in Monterey California that currently does over $2 million in annual revenue, Juan and Jose have seen tremendous growth over the last three years and they directly attribute that to their first experience at the PCA expo in 2018 the partners discussed how a willingness to embrace new challenges has been key to their business growth and they talk about some big plans. They have to help other hispanic painting company owners find similar success moving forward. 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 juan Jose. Thank you for agreeing to be on the painter market Mastermind podcast. Hey Brandon, thank you so much for having us man. It’s our pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so I guess tell us a little bit about illusions painting. What do you guys do? Where are you based? Okay, so my solution spending, we are out of Monterey California, so about central coast and California. Uh we are family, you know, model company. Um Yeah, you know there’s Basically illusions that started back in 2007, that’s when the illusion was founded and we mostly do high end residential work. Okay so you guys do high end residential any commercial? No, no we’ve done a couple and only for clients clients that will have their offices and that’s that’s about it. But yeah, not much commercial. So it’ll be, it’ll be clients that you’ve done their their homes and they have an office and they want you to do that, correct? And then they have a, we have a good relationship and they want someone they can trust and that’s what we will do, awesome. And what was your guys revenue last year? 2021, it was just over $2 million. Okay. Just over two million. And are you when you’re doing high end residential, is this residential repaint? New construction. What is that? Um well I would say an 80, 20 ride, New construction, 20% probably remodel. Okay so you guys are doing 80% new construction, residential, 20% remodel repaint and then a little bit of commercial for for clients that you already have residents got it. Alright so are you are you both co owners? Yes. Yes we both are. But it’s so um Juan you had mentioned that that you started this company yourself back in 2007 and then and and then I think something changed or something magical happened three years ago. I don’t know there was some X. Factor and the and the company kind of took off what happened? Uh Well I mean Jose’s my, it has been my best friend since we’re in high school right so we started painting by about the same time and we both worked for the same companies to companies in the past Um a commercial company and a residential company. And so from there I took off and I started the business in 2007 and he stayed behind And so I worked for about you know I would say 10 years or so on my own. And then there was always a talk of like and we always talked about back in high school right to own a business. So we own a business together somehow. We talked about it about three or four years ago and we talked talked and then um We found PC eight and uh he became a partner and then God I can’t tell you it’s just been a been a really great crazy roller coaster for us. A good one. Yeah. Yeah Jose you took the leap. You joined. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And and again he mentioned P. C. A. I think if it wouldn’t mean for the one the one time that we went and I believe it was in 2018. The first time that we went to Afghanistan. Ah I didn’t want to go. It was it was we were in the conversation of you know, you know, joining the business, you know, you know partnered up with delusions and going to an expert. It wasn’t like my my thing at the moment. I’m like no like I need to work. You know like I have that mentality like I need to work and I need to keep on working you know so I can make my bill pay my bills and and somehow he goes back, you know what? Don’t worry illusions, you’re going to be part of illusions, illusion is gonna he’s gonna cover, you know, it’s going to cover this this expense. Uh And you know, so let’s let’s just go, let’s just go and you know, he goes like there’s nothing to lose. Probably a lot to begin and like I said that was a game changer. You know like not just hurting it from him but then from the rest at P. C. A. Meeting. You know like Nick’s loving. I’ve seen the coffee coupled with the coffee mug like meeting all of these changes. I’m gonna change my coffee mug here. Uh Yeah I was talking about from the the Oscar painter live went to retreat. Nick Nick gave away a bunch of coffee mugs and and I don’t you know Nixon a humble guy so I don’t want to say I don’t wanna say it’s because he’s arrogant but he didn’t paste paste his face on. It’s a sticker so it didn’t come that way. He put a sticker with his face on every single coffee much. So I’m just gonna leave it at that. It’s we’re talking about. Yeah. Yeah so that’s that’s a little bit of us has happened to us you know the last few years. Um So yeah it’s it’s amazing man. Um It’s tough challenging but it’s really really good. But the risk, you know most of our listeners are already Pc Aa members or at least subscribe to overdrive but some are not because we released this podcast and all all streaming platforms and get a fair amount of use. So at the risk of sounding like I’m overly plugging the P. C. A. Because I really do very much believe in the value of it I guess. Can you guys talk and and this podcast will be released after the expo but for us all sitting right here the expo’s next week and we’re all going to be meeting in Orlando so can you speak a little bit too, You know what happened at that first expo in 2018? What kind of changes were implemented? How did that really help your business? God. So first time we went to P. C. A. I think we were I was I think my total total revenue was like 480,000. So um I remember you know we didn’t know what to expect. So we show up to this big expo um We sit down in some of the and some of the tables and the round tables and they’re talking about there’s $1 million $5 million dollars and there’s all these million dollars and we’re like holy crap like swimming with in the deep end right? Yeah I’m like dude like I think we have a place, first thing in my head is like we don’t belong here. Like I mean I’m I’m just doing you know this is my third year going on my own and and you know about to join, you know partnering up with one of evolutions and I’m like I’m I’m just doing 100,000 revenue and I’m like I don’t think we belong here to be honest. And and that’s why when we talk about you know bringing it to to the hispanic community, a lot of these people don’t know that there is resources and and and basically this is our place you know for for us us contractors, it’s not uh you know, because we I had that mentality impression, I had that mentality like I don’t belong here. Like I just belong on the field and keep working and keep getting the next shop and keep working and keep doing it over and over and over and over. Um I didn’t know much about the business, the business side of the the trade. Yeah, Yeah. Go ahead. I was just gonna say I want to dive into that Jose because that’s something that I’ve seen a lot and and we actually even have um customers call painting company partners of painter marketing bros that came in with that mentality that that they talked with us and they saw what we do and who we work with and and there are no we don’t belong with you. You were were not big enough for that or you know, we we all we don’t go to the expo I mean I’ve even talked with companies that are over a million and they think that they’re not big enough to go to the expo or to join the peace there, do the thing. And I, for me personally, I can’t really understand that mindset, that mindset of not embracing that challenge. But a lot of people have it in this industry. So I’d love to kind of hear more about how you faced it, you know, and maybe maybe it was sort of accidental, maybe you showed up and you didn’t realize you don’t feel that way. So you got, you got dragged to it. But what did you guys do to kind of break through that if there are people out there listening who feel that way, who feel like, you know that I’m never gonna get there, I’m not I’m not ready for that. What what do you recommend? I think it helps a lot this around with like minded people um or or or always, you know, like we always talk about how, you know, like, you know, again, I’m gonna bring up next level’s name again, you know, like, you know, meeting some of these great people uh that is gonna, you know, humble people, great people that is gonna make you believe in yourself because sometimes people see something in us that we don’t see it and and I mean, and we see the same with some other painting contractors around the area, we, you know, we try to, you know, invite them and and try to, you know, bring him into a pc. A and and and we’re like just just go try it, you know, 11 event, you know, go try it and and you’ll see the difference, you know, you see how much you can learn, wow. So I think sometimes what it what it takes is it’s finding the right the right person that is gonna push you there, you know, like, like this guy, Yeah, yeah everyone needs to find their wand and he goes like he’s like come on man, he’s like I don’t want to go alone, it’s like it’s like I never been there neither. So it’s like let me let me tell you something, you know like um we come from a very humble and poor community and so we never really got a chance to explore or go anywhere out of our, you know state California, you know, so we haven’t done a lot of that. So the whole fact of just us being in a new place and exploring something new, it was like oh it’s exciting. And then um what’s his name, josh, he’s from josh from san Fernando valley, san Fernando valley and I can’t remember from alright alright painting I think. Yes, so Sharon Williams, our local Sharon Williams took me to a, I’ve always been close to our sales reps. And so he took us down to see him talk about, you know how he was able to grow his business and stuff in a very small area here. And so he went and brought me there and that’s when I heard about P. C. A. He goes, you know, back in these days I joined the PCH and it really helped me like grow my business and I was like hmm okay well I guess P. C. A. It is, you know. So I came back home and I told this guy and then he’s like, oh man we don’t have any money with. And I’m like yeah we don’t, you know, and it’s very hard to go, you know. Mhm. Put $3 $4,000 on a trip when you don’t have it, you know? And then it’s like yeah exactly. And so I told him I’m like, hey, you know, we talked about like being different in the area, like we don’t want to be another painter because in our we live in a small area but there is such an abundance of work. There’s there’s a big golf community, there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of international people coming into the area. It’s a very very expensive area. So we didn’t want to be like just like the other painter next to us. So we needed something to set us apart and by coming and listen to you guys and listen to like nick mais, nick Slavic. Um was the guy from the podcast chris chris bury like from, it’s just yeah it’s just all these guys that like have something unique going that were like, wow okay. So how do they do it? So we just, I started talking to more people and then I got closer to some of the the local uh like in Oregon. They have a chapter. So we started going, he’s um he’s the one that kind of took us under his wing and hey man, I mean we’re here, we’re still learning that’s what we’re doing this, this is so exciting because this is something new and this is, it gives us a whole new life to something new. So that’s great. Yeah, that’s really great to hear. So you guys, I went to the pc, I took a leap of faith, uh spent money, invested money, you know, the difference between spending and investing, in my opinion, invested money that you didn’t really have, um at least not comfortably and you took a bit of a gamble because you saw what worked for other people and so you decided to take that risk. I think that’s great now when you went and you learned these lessons and, and you kind of get started getting involved with the local chapter and, and had a mentor there, I guess, what are some of the, some of the things that you implemented, like, what did you actually change? So I know it’s a tough question, God so much and you know, we uh completely, I mean we didn’t have anyone in the office. So for us it’s like we did everything so that now we have our patty here, which is our angel here in the office and takes care of a lot of things and puts up with a lot of stuff with us, right? But then just learning and understanding how to how to run a business properly, like, okay, you know, we are the painters, but now we have to take a process of like um from nick programs, how to implement programs, like there’s there’s there’s a reason for everything. And so that’s what we started doing every time we came back the girls in the office and be like, okay, now what what do you guys have this another big overhaul of some sort? And we did, honestly in the last three years, I think we’ve done more than I did in over 10 years, you know, as far as like, um just implementing things, we created our handbook, we’re trying to get a lot more organized. Um it’s just it’s just just so, so much, but programs, I think it’s one of the biggest ones. Yeah, so it sounds like you largely systematize your business and you stopped doing all the administrative work yourself and and kind of took the plunge and hire someone to help you handle that back office stuff. That’s exactly right. And so now we’re looking to find a project manager so I can leave us free from being more of the project and be able to focus more on what we want to improve more and innovate. And one of our biggest things is like we’re always having something new and it’s always having some kind of a challenge. And so we want to keep doing that, but this is kind of like what really, I don’t know distinguish us in the, in the area, so we want to keep doing that. So when when you implementing these systems and higher the higher patty, what did that free you up to do? You know, I I well, let me backtrack a little bit. So you guys are primarily working as a subcontractor. Right to general contractors doing new construction? Yes. Okay. So that’s a little bit different from most of the people that we’ve had on the show. So I’m happy about that. Um Now when you were, when you freed up, I have my thoughts about what this probably did for you. But I guess what did it allow you to do To go from 480. So now three years later, over two million. Thank you. Well, I mean, the ability to um I mean just go on for more work. So basically the way we get we they will call us and say I have this project coming up. Okay. So they’ll send us planned, they’ll set of blueprints, they’ll send we’ll do a walk on the jobs. So before when I needed to do the paperwork, when we needed to do the actual painting, when we needed to do all this, I mean, you’re limited to how much time you can take off to do these new projects and and so on. Right. So by having the proper help here in the office and the proper help at the job site, it has freed me to go do that and I will say kind of oversee more of the, on the field on the field. Yeah, problems. And then I’m more in the office making sure that the bids are sent out that are, you know, basically that we keep in front of the other people. Yeah. Okay. So, so one of the themes that we’ve seen in this show, a lot of, of owners especially seen rapid growth like you guys just had over the last few years is a sales oriented mindset and it sounds like that’s really what it did for you guys was rather than alright, you go out and you, you know, you send a bid and you fill out all this paperwork and you get hung up in in one or two or a couple, you can keep going and going and going because now you can pass off that paperwork and all that other stuff to your angel patty. Yeah, exactly. And keep in mind that, you know, a lot of this has been coming as if we’ve been learning as we go. So we’ve had some challenges where we’re, I mean we lose money on some jobs because we’re like, uh, like we see an opportunity and we want to go for it. But then we have everything else on top of us and it creates a dynamic, you know, where we’re like, oh God, what did we get ourselves into? But then, you know, then we realized, hey guys, we did this already, we have the data, we, we have this and they’re like, okay, yeah, okay. So it’s not so bad. So now it’s helping build that. So that’s the second part of it, I think. Yeah, I think, I think if you’re gonna see that rapid growth and want that rapid growth, you have to be comfortable with the changes and the fact almost getting comfortable being uncomfortable because you’re always going to be in in another, you’re always going to be in a new place. You’re just always going to be in a new place. Yeah, no comfort zone I think is the killer for every business, right? I mean you get comfortable and like you’re like, yeah, no rush becomes a lifestyle business versus uh something you maybe want to try to grow a little more seriously. No, for us, I think um we really like what we see in PC A. Uh and we talked about PC A. Because this is the only, you know, um the only association we’ve ever belonged to, but it’s done so much for our business for us personally that, I mean it’s, it’s a big part of us. It’s it’s it’s really what helped our business. We had the ideas, but now we have the resources and that’s really what helped us take it to the next step. And for us this is only a stepping stone, you know, we really want to learn, keep doing this. Um we want to bring people, we’ve met some guys in the area who really have, like, we see that spark that we had, you know, and we want to bring them along like, hey man, let’s go. Yeah. And then, and then at the same stage where we were like, they’re scared, I can’t go, I can’t afford it. I’m too busy and I’m like, yes, you’re investing, just figure that you’re going to invest in your business. It’s not an expense. Again, you’re investing and down the road, you’re going to see them all the fruits, you know? Yeah, yeah, abundance versus scarcity mindset. Right, right. The mindset. So you guys went again, kind of focusing on the growth trajectory here, Um, you want for 500,000 over two million. You passed the kind of valley of death right around 77 50 million. What were the biggest struggles that you guys endured during that growth? Cash flow, cash flow, cash flow, Okay. Even even okay because, and that’s primarily probably because you guys were working at general contractors. So a lot of are a lot of our contracts are, is a 30 day net. So basically, you know, you invoice once you’re done with the job, but then you have 30 days to get paid. And so when you have around 20 guys, um, that hurts, you know, if you don’t have a big bank account, you know, then it’s uh, it’s tough. So there was days where it was very stressful, like just trying to make payroll and um you know, but then we’re working with the same uh ways of like how can we improve our accounting system. So we were able to have a better water the gay uh like uh you know, a bigger bank account. We got we got ourselves a credit line of business credit line. And so I just struggled by struggle kind of took us over the threshold and then the next threshold. And so that’s basically that’s that’s what we endure most of the time at that at that point. Yeah. And now are you guys using employees yourselves or subcontractors? What’s your employee model, employees, employees, employees. You guys have 2020 employees plus right now it’s around 20 guys. Yes, yes, that’s 20 on the field. And then we have two assistants to assistants in the office and us to hear. And what is your what is your goal? So 10 years from now, what’s the goal? You must have a goal. I want to be fishing and wants to retire. Freedom. Freedom. Yeah. Um See I’m in the other hand, I’m a little more ambitious so I, you know, nomination uh world domination maybe for one No right now I think we want to have a couple of like um we’ve worked on different finishes. So we want to have a couple of departments in the in the company and then um you know 30 to 40 employees, but we really want to have it to where we have a system. And one thing that I’ve heard from listening to the PCH and everyone is having a franchise sort of business a model. So basically that it runs on its own, it doesn’t require us to be there every day, like every other painter that I know, and so that’s what we’re working towards that. So we want to be part of it, but we want the business to work without us being present. I don’t know if that makes sense. You guys want to ultimately create your own franchise. Um, not, not necessarily, I, I just want to be able to free ourselves to do other things that we love to do and you know, that’s kind of the whole deal, potentially other types of businesses as well. Yeah, we, we started a couple other ones and you know, we just really want to grow as a person and I think that creating this in the business, we really believe that it’s doable. So that’s what we’re working tours. It’s, it’s, it’s hard, let me tell you, it’s hard because if you’re not there, the quality, sometimes it’s not the same and but we’re really sharing for it. So I am, I think I mentioned this in another podcast, but I’ll mention it again, I’m a big believer, not in everything he says, but in his mind set of robert, Kiyosaki. Yeah. And, and he has a, a definition of business ownership of true business ownership that I would say is pretty relentless and I really like it, it is a high bar it to, to own a business. So I’ve never owned a business. When, when you factor this into own a business, you need to be able to walk away from that business and not be engaged for a year, come back and it’s better than when you left it. Then you own a business. Until then you own a job. And that’s what we’ve been, like I said after hearing from everyone here reading some of these books, um, it’s, that’s the ultimate goal and it is doable. You just gotta change everything that, you know, everything that, you know, you have to change. You just have to. Exactly. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it, but don’t you agree that, that, that’s kind of the excitement of it. Uh we go back to the same thing you get in the comfort zone where you’re like, everything’s running good. And then you’re like, honey, I don’t have to get up today. But when you have something in the back of your mind, you’re like, oh no, I’m getting up today. Like honestly to come and sit here for you. I was, I was a wake up 4:00 AM and that doesn’t happen to me, Okay, I was like up and I’m like, I can’t wait, I can’t wait. It’s just the excitement, you know, it’s something new, something exciting. And so we’ve been both talking about this and uh yeah we feel it you know we love it. We could be painting or doing proposals but this is exciting. Yeah. Well I appreciate you guys making the time for sure. This is really valuable. Yeah. So you guys had mentioned that you know you’ve found a lot of value in the P. C. A. And you guys are from Mexico originally, is that correct? That’s correct. From Mexico originally you guys are spanish speaking and that a lot of there are a lot of painters and painting company owners out there who are spanish speaking and maybe not even fluent in english who are are not really tied in with the P. C. A. And don’t necessarily feel that they have the the support and the resources that you guys have been able to find and and uh Jose I think you had even said that they might feel like they don’t belong there or that’s not for them and that you guys want to make it your mission to kind of extend the PCA community. two More Hispanic Painting Company Owners. Is that right? That’s right. And can you talk to that? I’m sorry, can you can you just talk a little more about that? I think that’s really interesting. Yeah and like I said at least like I said I always speak from you know for myself and I said some some people or some painting contractors they think you know the language barrier. You know like our culture, you know again you know we don’t belong here. Oh I you know I you know I can’t go to those places, I can’t afford it. Um So we wanna we wanna say um we want to embrace it and and and emphasize how how important it is to to invest in their business. And again I had that mentality you know just like them we’re like I had to work, I have to work and I have to keep working because if I don’t work today then you know I don’t have I don’t have any work tomorrow or if I don’t make my money today, I don’t have my you know my money tomorrow. You know that mentality. So just kind of trying to uh lead them, lead them to the pathway and say this is doable. I mean you guys think we’re doing something good, you can do it too. I mean we see it in you guys. I mean we see like you know 11 earlier mentioned how we see some of these painting contractors and we’re like we see something in you that you probably don’t know you have it but we see it and we see ourselves that we I mean at some point we were there too. Yeah. Yeah I think that’s great and I mentioned to you guys we we have a lot of um people like that who actually come to paint a marketing pros and then kind of have that that mentality you know just so I don’t belong or I can’t invest that in the business or a day to day focus and I think it is it is a true probably true mind block of sorts. Yeah. You know um we’ve um one of the P. C. A. S. We were talking about just a couple of years ago but we were talking about like the millenniums and and then you know because how things have changed. Like us just having these conversations over a video. I mean we didn’t grow up with this stuff you know and so now we’re talking about how the millennials are doing and how how technology is changing You know how a lot a lot of it is over the computers over a chat room and so if you want to you know improve your business you gotta understand that you’ve got to be up you know up to the front of what’s going on because if you get behind and you know what’s going on then that’s how your business gets behind. And so when it comes to that point um a lot of our you know you know the guys that we’re talking about Hispanic guys really don’t have this understanding that they’re really like what what is it what is it gonna do to me like go and sit in front of a bunch of guys where I’m not making money, I’m paying for it, what is that gonna do for me? And they don’t understand that. You know, you might just take the one little golden golden nugget that’s gonna come and change something in your business and as soon as that happens it changes your mind the minute you change one thing where you you you create, so if you have an issue in your company and you fix that issue, that’s that’s gonna sells you from that, you’re gonna be okay, what else can I fix? What else can I improve? And that’s kind of what we want to be and julie, I can’t remember her last name, she’s the one who’s a pc a social Mhm. Um And she was the one that has approached us about that and you know, we really really really, really found that interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s great. I think it’s that shift from being a more of a painter or or an operator to kind of thinking like a business owner and working on rather than being stuck in your business or or kind of being unable, there’s always gonna be, there always gonna be excuses, they’re all they’re all they’re always gonna be a cash crunch, there’s always gonna be this until they’re not and you have to make the decision to to take that leap, I think at some point. Yeah, that’s right, yeah. And so for us, you know, having two guys here who can really bounce back ideas and you know, we really talked very heavily about like joining together because you know, you know, partnerships are always tough and especially in business and but you know thankfully we’ve been able to share something that’s very unique. Um I have a certain passion and he has a passion but at the end of the day we both want the same ultimate thing and that’s what’s helped us, you know, to for him say I got this, I got this here and then meet in the middle and just keep working. So that’s what we want to show or at least bring to us. How do we went from not knowing what we were doing to about three years really understanding more about it and just willing to learn on a constant basis. Yeah, let’s talk about that for a second because it it reminds me of one of our more recent guests Tony this nardo of old world painting and he founded his company with his friend from college um Kent and you guys were friends in high school. Right? So let’s kind of walk through how that changed when Jose came on board. Were there any issues and what recommendations do you have for partnerships? Um you know, honestly I um I think it’s it’s it’s it’s every person is different and every relationship is different. You know, you got to understand that we we have our differences, there’s gonna be times where the stress hits and we’re like, I can’t take this no more right? But, but it’s the understanding of the overall purpose that we have and the respect that we have for each other, I think that really, really takes us to that level. Um, there are people who are driven by money and material and those I think believe that they will have a bigger issue in business for us. We’re we love what we do and we want to achieve a legacy, not so much money, but for us it’s the legacy that we are going to build something very unique and we share that both share that passion and I think that really, that’s what helps us. So if you feel that you have that with someone else, try it, you know, you can put a trial of like a year and if it works out it works out. If not, you know, you move on, but you gotta try. I think that’s the biggest thing try it and then you, you know, time will tell. Yeah, so one, you know, most painting company owners sort of own it solo or do they own it with their wife and maybe the widest part time or however that works. Um they’re, they’re not a lot of partnerships like this and obviously it’s going to come with us with its challenges. But have you, did you find that that it was a relief in a way where you were you able to not worry about so many things or what were some of the benefits of it? Well, I mean I always said, you can’t, you can’t, you’re limited to do, you’re limited to how much you can do on your own. And so I’ve always been a big believer in and having finding the right person to do the right job. I can’t do everything and I don’t want to learn how to do everything because then, you know, you might know everything but you’re not going to be good at anything. And so for me, it was finding the right person, the right mindset for the right project in the business. One of the reasons that I left my old boss was because I didn’t want to be a painter no more. So I approached him and said, hey, is there anything else I can do in your business? And he goes, no, I just need painters. So I said, I gotta go, So you know, so for me, I want to embrace that. So in my, in our company, I want to make sure that if one of my guys wanted, has wants to inspire to do something else, I want to, I want to give them that opportunity because it’s only gonna make me grow and I’m gonna bring more value to this person and by having Jose here and having patty and having Isabel, I mean we created a team where like God, I mean if I’m not here, they’ll take everything else. So I mean, you create instead of having this little ball now you have this massive, you know, or like a team that just creates something unique. So I guess that that really what drives us here. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s, I mean that’s really powerful. You know, it’s do you want all of a small pie or or less maybe have a much bigger pie? You know, when we first one of the first books we didn’t, I still don’t read, I do valuables. Right? So I listened to them. Right? And one of the first books that through pc a we they mentioned to us is Gerber, Michael, Michael Gerber’s I don’t know. I’m pretty sure you’ve read it right? Yeah. Quite read the e myth revisited I think three times now here because that was the first book that I have ever read or listened to. Right? And it’s how he talks about like working on your business, not in your business. You know, many times. I did this charts where I put my name on the top and then all the lower things on the bottom and I’m like, where’s your name? Your time on every single thing. Like you’re the owner of the president and estimator everything. So it’s the first time to say, you know, everything that we’ve learned in such a small amount of time and and being having the help from everyone else has made it so much easier And I guess it’s more of the mentality. Um If you don’t have the mentality you can if you can’t trust someone else then it’s gonna be tough. Yeah. I love that. I mean I think success starts in your mind. Yeah. Yeah. You have to see it, you have to see it to believe it, right? Yeah that’s entrepreneurs. You know they see a kingdom where other people see nothing. Exactly. Yeah and there’s that comes to there’s a lot of headaches with it sometimes but they’re worth it. So what are you what’s going the best with your company right now? What what would you guys say? You’re just knocking it out of the park? Well I think one thing how it started like when we started growing the business and you know we talked earlier about cash flow. So that was my my my issue. I was like one uh there’s this contractor, there is this uh you know contractor that we know local contractor that we know he’s given us this job but this is the but can we get to it? And he goes like yeah let’s do it. I’m like no no no wait wait wait. I said wait wait like we don’t have the manpower, okay one and we don’t have the money you know to just you know to take one of these jobs. So that was him. He’s like, did you get the job? I’ll figure the rest. And I’m like, okay. So, you know, that was one thing that started right? Uh and I’m like, you know what, Yeah, I can take on the job like, yeah, but it needs to be done by these days. I’m like, yeah, we got it. So somehow we made it happen. We got a crew together. You know, we added more, more guys to our crew and we got the job. And then I get another phone call. We’re like, oh, we have this job, you know? But it needs to start by this day, then, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a decent sized project. And, and I’m like juan, so this other contractors is giving us this job. But again, we don’t have the manpower. We don’t even have the equipment. We don’t have one. You know, we don’t have the manpower. We don’t have the equipment and, and cash flow, right? And you go like, you know what, I don’t know how we’re gonna do it, but let’s do it. Let’s take on this job. So, so I think that was one thing, and then from there, it kind of, again, it’s a small area. It kind of the boys started, you know, um spreading were like, oh, you want somebody to take on something like this to do quality. And, and you know, do it professionally with Valium with Valium and like, these are the guys that are gonna call, you’re gonna have to call illusion, like around here there’s another company around that that can do this kind of work and deliver the quality and you know, again, it always started with that. So I think that’s so, so I guess what really right now, um every time we did something a few years, you know, 23 years ago, my mind was always probably, you know, it’s always my mind’s always a couple of years ahead of me, you know, because I’m already thinking never do this. Exactly. So we just had this conversation a couple of days ago, he doesn’t even remember, but we’re stressing because we, I just got awarded some really, some of our, probably our biggest job we’ve ever had, Congratulations and thank you. And then we have another big jobs and some stressful jobs and I got, and I was just telling him, I’m like, hey man, listen, just, how did we do this to three years ago? Because we had, we didn’t have the resources, we don’t have the manpower, we didn’t have the cash flow. I’m like right now we have it, we, you know, just like, I think in all over the country, we’re just short on help, help is if we dive into that one, that’s that’s two hours of talking right? But but we have all these things. So now that’s that’s where he goes, okay, well it is true now, like we’ve been working towards this. So now I guess what is helping for us is all this work, all this good work that we’ve done for this last, you know, three years to where we were secured that we have enough cash, we’re secure that we have, you know, enough resources that we have enough tools and you know, and equipment and the guys, you know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been able to create a good system to where like they’re more organized as before we were not. So we can do a lot more with less guys now because of everything that we’ve done. So I guess that’s what’s working for us. And, and the fact that we’re always bringing something new. So there’s, you know, we have this little model here that’s like if you have a challenge, you know, bring it over. We wanted, we wanted, you know, if you wanted someone to paint your walls were probably not the right guy, you know, so, and that’s really helped us. So I guess it’s positioning ourselves and in that place. I love it. You guys are are willing willing to build the airplane on the way down. Yes, I think that’s the best way, except comfort zone doesn’t really work for me. Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound like it. I love it. So that that definitely super powers, super strength of your guys. Is there anything right now that is a challenge that you guys are trying to work through trying to figure out guys trying to again, you know, like we get these jobs and we’re like, they know like, well, I think you guys can take on this job. This job is basically for you guys. Well, we meet you guys to start working on some samples and we’re already thinking ahead and like, well, we don’t have the main power. You know, we have all of these jobs that we need to get done and you know, if they’re gonna give us this other job, like that’s that’s a huge job. It’s gonna take another another crew. So I think that upscaling in general, I’m seeing that our biggest challenge is gonna get to the five mil. Like he doesn’t, he doesn’t think that we’re gonna get there, but we are going to get there. Um it’s uh tom River, right? You know, tom contract your fight. I don’t know. Tom Okay, so one of the first things that my first podcast, oh no, uh webinar I had was with him. And I always remember this because his question was like, what do you want out of your business? What what is the number one thing? And remember this is three years ago, I we were like less than half a mil. And I I told him, I responded, I was like, I want to make $1 million $1 million. And he was like, Okay, why do you want to do that? I’m like, I don’t know. I think it just sounds cool, you know? Yeah, it’s $1 million. So you know he goes and ask everyone else, he’s like I’ll come back to you. So he comes back to me and he’s like okay one, what do you want the number? I’m more like, I don’t know, it just sounds cool. He was like okay so let me ask you this, what are you gonna do once you reach that number, I’m like, I don’t know. It was my advice to use. No that first and then that that million dollar is gonna come and you will never see it. You know, I never saw it. Well I never saw we passed the mark before. We’ve been recognized. We did and so but what I’m getting at is like we’ve learned to be prepared. So we’re really preparing ourselves to grow um and taking all the measurements, we’ll take all the hits as we can as we need to. But we were growing and that really sets us apart and that really puts us in a place we want to be because you know, we are willing to take the punches and I learned with that too, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think and I think that part is key. I think the idea of learning, you know, I am, it seems like daily I pay a stupid tax, you know and it’s always expensive but it’s worth it if I learned what it’s not worth it? It’s not really a stupid tax if you just keep doing it. Yeah it’s like you know so I can can I ask you something? So do you do you have a you you do you do painting? I do not detaining. Okay. So Amanda how how does your podcast come to life? How does how does it start? How did it how did it start? How did we get here? Yeah so so my my background I ran an auto detailed business, learn digital marketing that way I got into it. Um Yeah founded a generalist agency, worked with companies all across the US different industries, a lot of home services, a lot of painting companies and then found a lot of success with painting companies. Um It’s also just a large underserved niche. So that was how painter marketing pros was born. And then we are marketing partners of the P. C. A. We ran a webinar series last year throughout 2021 called Learning Grow Marketing for Painters. And it was really all about teaching different marketing topics through a workshop style and podcasts and I mean everything and we saw a lot of success with the podcast and it really took off. So then I worked with the P. C. A. I’m coming up with this sort of vision of um working with chad over there coming up with this painter marketing mastermind podcast. What do we think would resonate with subscribers of overdrive because that’s a big thing that they’re pushing right now. It is really overdrive subscription on Pc. A growth. And the P. C. A. Has seen tremendous growth over the last 18 months and they have really big visions over for the next five years. And so this is kind of tied in with that um of sort of I guess bringing more education and and kind of taking okay what’s working for the most successful painting company owners in the US and Canada and and and let’s actually give that information from their mouths right to the other other painting company owners and even the other successful painting company owners because I like I said I just went to um nick’s Plavix ask a painter like to retreat and a lot of the you know almost all of the painting company owners they’re doing several million or more and they all listen to the podcast and they all learn things from each other on the podcast. So it’s just it’s a great sort of mastermind brain dump session. Yeah. No it’s it’s changing us you know I he listens to more podcasts I started to now um it’s uh it’s mind blowing how much you learn how much I like we are. I mean how much I like we all are as as business owners. It can be painting, it can be marketing can be anything but it’s just mindsets like always looking for the, for what it is. It’s coming up like how do you, you know, you know, place yourself in there. So yeah, I think that and that’s a great point because every, every interview that we’ve had, every guest that we’ve had, the story has been different story has been really different and, and their, how they got there is always a bit different. What they’re focused on is a bit different. But the mindset there, there are consistent themes, you know, the sales oriented mindset, this willingness to embrace, challenges, willingness to sort of face the unknown, build the airplane on the way down. It comes up again and again and again. You have to, you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone or you’re, you’re never going to be on this podcast, right? You’re never, you’re never, you’re just never gonna get to that level if you, if you don’t. Yeah, no thanks. Hey, thank you. I feel honored. Hey, you passed a million and you didn’t see it. But you, you get, you can look, you’re on, you’re on the pot. You’re on the paperwork and you know, I know, but see honestly a lot of things like this is like I said, I’m pretty sure I speak for the other ones. We were nervous. You know, this is something that for us, I don’t know what to expect. Um, a lot of times it’s like we don’t feel like why us, like, you know, I don’t think we do anything different than anyone else does, but, but it really gives you a whole different mindset, like for us now, like I want to look more into podcast, I want to look more into why you guys do this, you know, just because it just triggers something in your mind and uh and it’s a, how is that going to help us back in our business? Definitely gonna help us a lot. So yeah, I love that. I think there’s a great opportunity to do stuff like that, become a thought leader in the industry and I think you guys with your mission of wanting to loop in the Hispanic community, the PCH and education and kind of giving them opportunity. I think there’s a massive opportunity for some sort of podcast or something in that, in that realm. Yeah, I think definitely going to be looking into it, finding the time. It’s, it’s very uh well we’ll make it, we’ll make it, build it, build it on the way down, just say you’re going to the podcast of the day and you’ll figure out the rest as you go, hey man, we have, we have a six hour flight on Tuesday. So it’s a good time to start there. It is playing all out. Yeah, and you can always, you can always reach out to me with questions too, about no set up and everything like that. No man, I’m really thankful for for you. Really keeping us in mind and you know, reaching out to us? I said the last few months have been really, really great to us. We’ve been in touch with quite a different people and what we hear from them is what i is that what they think of it? Like, seriously? But it feels good, it’s rewarding, it gives us the fuel, we need to keep pushing, you know? Yeah. Um alright, so I have two more questions for you guys. One is how do you see the painting industry changing the future or do you see it changing in the future? What do I see it? We’re changing. So it has changed if you notice, right? Um, so a few years back, um, it was more like you need a professional to do this, you need uh you need someone to come and paint your house. And so what I’ve seen the last few years is that trending into like, you can do yourself, like there’s so much more information so by you putting yourself on a podcast on Youtube videos and I’ve seen people, we’ve seen people that, that have blown up by not even being a longtime painter, but it’s just having a unique approach to it. And so, and I I guess I see it going that way, you know, more animated, more like, you know, you have to have a presence on online or on some kind of video as opposed to before. You know, I mean advertisement, we don’t do phone calls, advertisement or not even emails anymore. What if you take on that, you guys don’t do enos. You’re like, oh no, like, you know how like, like in the future emails and like email, email marketing you’re saying? Yes, exactly. Yeah. I don’t, you know, email marketing has been supposedly dead for a very long time. Email marketing is a tricky thing, but I don’t, I don’t think it’s dead. I don’t really think it’s going away anytime soon. But in terms of what you’re saying about Kind of influencing being an influencer source. Being very active on YouTube and other social media platforms. 100%,, 100% agree. I think that there’s been a shift sort of a, um, a shift to where, yeah, you don’t, you don’t, you know that you don’t open the yellow pages, right? It’s not like that. You don’t find the comment. I mean that shift has, has very much brought opportunity, like you said to new painters to new entrants that if you come in and you educate, you lead with value, you provide value first. It’s called slang term, I guess is entertainment. So you kind of educate people on entertaining them then yeah, you can really become a thought leader and, and, and really respected in your industry and ultimately charge premium prices that way. I don’t think it’s gonna make a lot of sense for a lot of current painting company owners, but I think some people, especially younger generations are going to find a lot of success that way. Yeah, we, we, we’ve seen that and we want to be, I mean we’re not that young, but you know, we feel that we can still be part of it, you know? And so it’s, it’s how can you, how can you adjust to the changes, I guess. So if we want to be a business in five years, 10 years that is going to run on its own, we gotta be able to implement these things to, you know, because 10 years from now it might be completely different. So we gotta be able, the business has to be able to adjust and, and then then move towards those directions, I, I believe. Yeah, sorry, I thought Patty was feeding you guys a line there. It was actually Isabel Isabel. Okay. And, and then my, my last question for you guys, do you have any advice for the owners of smaller painting companies or maybe painting companies near your size? Um what what advice do you have for them if they’re looking to grow um education is key. You know, honestly, I know it sounds cliche and you know, everybody probably is gonna say the same, but um you have to evolve and you have to educate yourself because you have to be better than what you are right now because if you have the same mentality and same education that you have a self right now, then it’s not gonna then you can’t move forward. So you have to break out of that comfort zone again, how we talked about and and seek new ventures, whatever that may be, whatever your interest is, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and find you, you know, new horizons, I will say. Right, yeah, that’s that’s what I really feel in our business and not to get discouraged because sometimes it might be like hard and sometimes you might feel like, I mean for for, you know, sometimes we’re like, I don’t know, we feel like we’re doing a lot of things, but we’re stuck in the same place and then, you know, we didn’t see it like, no, we’re making progress, we’re moving forward. You know, it’s it’s a small little changes that, you know, that, you know, we keep adding them, we keep adding them implementing those systems and stuff and, you know, down the road, it’s like, you know, we we’ve done quite a bit, so yeah, not just give up, you know, I think that’s a great point, you know, at education systems, kind of building the processes, all that stuff really, a leading indicator of success. You don’t do it and then the next day, all of a sudden you’re at two million the next day, you’re in the same spot that you were in and you question whether it made sense and it takes time for that stuff to work. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. No, exactly. And so you know um us in our industry, most of our, most of the painters um they become a contractor because they’re tired of working for someone else, you know, they’re they want to open their own business. We’ve had a couple of guys in our business that had left and now, you know, a year or so after they realized that it’s not as easy, you know, they had in their mind and I go I’m gonna go on my own, I’m gonna make a lot of money and I’m gonna have all the time in the world. They had this this commercial the other day where he said that he got tired of his 9-5, he goes I got tired of my 9 to 5 and then I want to start my business now, I work 24 7. So it’s like, you know, because it becomes prepared to be a lot more tired now, right? But but understanding that, you know, it tastes work and you have to you have to find, first of all where you want to go, what do you want to achieve in the business? If you okay have a goal, if you have a goal, okay, work towards that. If you don’t have a goal then you just don’t know where you’re going, right? I mean you get up on your car and you say, okay, I’m gonna san Francisco alright? You put san Francisco in your car and takes you there, right? But and so, but if you just get in your car and you drive well, you don’t know where you’re going. So I guess that’s that’s that’s you have to know where you’re going, you have to see yourself, I love that. Yeah. Have have some direction, having, have an end goal and be able to see that end goal, even though others around you might not be able to see it. Yeah, it’s true, you know, and and and it’s um it’s amazing what you would run just by listening to to like minded people and people who have gone to these issues. If you sit down and listen for an hour man, it’ll change, it’ll change. I mean, so much more than you can even imagine. Yeah, the overnight success thing is a myth, I think, yeah, there’s that iceberg, what is that? The iceberg name where what people see is a little bit on top and then there’s the massive iceberg, it’s true, it doesn’t happen overnight, you know, and even, you know, honestly, and I think growing it is not the hardest part, I think really keeping and sustaining a certain level, I think it turns to be harder because it’s easy to get somewhere, but then now you have expectations, um you have to meet deadlines and that’s where the challenge begins. You know, if if you can’t do that just as fast as you got there, you’re gonna come back down because you have to be able to do that. Yeah, yeah, that’s a super good point. Well guys, juan Jose, I really appreciate you guys coming on. This was definitely unique perspective and uh I appreciate all the value guys added here today. Hey Brendan again, you know from us, thank you so much for having us. We will get to see you next week in Orlando. Yeah, Orlando, it’s an honor being here. Yeah. Yeah. Well I I appreciate appreciate you guys coming and I’m looking forward to meeting you guys in person next week. Awesome. Alright man, Well you have a good one and then we’ll see you next week. Thanks guys. 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, they’re 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 PainterMarketingPros.com. And I can give you personalized advice on growing your painting business until next time. Keep growing.

Brandon Pierpont

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