Welcome to the painter marketing mastermind podcast. The show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over 1 million in 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 Relationships are Key Candelario Valenzuela of Villas Pro Painting will be sharing how he has grown his painting company to $803 million in annual revenue with a 100% year over year growth rate and the advice he had for ambitious painting company owners who are looking to follow in his footsteps.

In episode one, Candelario discussed the importance of effective systems to scale. In episode two, Candelario outlined how knowing your numbers is critical and which numbers he most focuses on. In episode three, Candelario discussed the importance of reinvesting into your business and the decisions he has made as his company has grown. And in the final episode, episode four, this episode, Candelario will deep dive into the importance of networking and some actionable insights he has on how to most effectively network for your painting company. If you want to ask Candelario questions related to anything in this podcast series, you can do so in our exclusive painter marketing mastermind podcast form on Facebook.

Just search for painter marketing mastermind podcast form on Facebook and request to join the group or type in the URL facebook. com/groups/painter market Mastermind again at URL is facebook. com/groups/painter marketing mastermind. There you can ask Candelaria questions directly by tagging him with your question. So you can see how anything discussed here applies to your particular painting company. What's up, Brother Brandon episode four, the bittersweet finale to an awesome podcast series. The, the last one man, the last episode of the series. So I'm pretty excited about it.

This is it. Yeah, we'll probably have another series. You're uh you're awesome. I've enjoyed it and I quite honestly, I'm, I'm so honored and humbled that, that I was your first podcast series. I feel like you're, you're speaking at Sherwin. I'm pretty sure I'm about to start seeing you on probably billboards and you know, motivational TV commercials. So I'm just glad I got to, got to know you, you know, early on. No, no, no man. Um I'm, I'm really honored to be working with you too. So, uh, feels good.

But networking is something you're strong at you. And I have, I mean, that's how we initially got to know each other really. And, uh, we, we've been at actually quite a few events together, so let's get into it. Yeah. So, uh, networking, man, whenever, um, I, I was thinking about doing it because it's, you'll, you'll, you know, if you listen to a lot of the people, uh, out there that are, are being successful in their, in their businesses and, you know, whatever business they, they have where they take, they always talk about the importance of the relationships. Right.

Um, getting to know people, like getting to know someone new every day. That is, it's really important. Right. And, um, for me it was like, oh, my God, I don't know, because ii, I mean, I seem like a, like a, you know, outgoing guy and what not, but from the inside, like, I, I, sometimes I am kind of like shy. You hate people. I'm just kidding. No, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's kind of like a little bit fearful right to go out there and get to shake somebody's else hand without knowing them or just trying to, you know, start a conversation.

It's, it's, you know, it, for me was at the beginning it was a little bit tough. But as you, as you start doing it more and more you start getting used to it. Right. And then you're like, ok, cool. And then once you start seeing to the results of networking and seeing that you can learn from other people or that you can, you know, that that might be your next client as well. It's, it starts to pay off. And then you're like, oh my God, like, really like relationships are a key to, to having a, a successful, you know, business or painting, painting business.

Yeah, that actually surprises me a little bit because you, you are very outgoing. Uh you appear very extroverted although sometimes, you know, people have introversion and extroversion both. But I want to get into this idea. You are nervous to kind of, you know, go out shake people's hand, put yourself out there a little bit because I think a lot of people are like that and I don't, I, I think we talk about network, it's important, the community, all that's true, but we never really focus on kind of the fear.

So how did you get past that? So, so for me at the, for me was in the beginning, right? Whenever I was, even when, when you start handing out cards by your business cards to people. So for me, whenever I was out there at Home Depot, um Sherman Williams, all these things to where I was trying to like, make contact with different people. That was like one of my, my kind of like my nerve-racking uh you know, things to do. It was like, oh my God, I, I feel shy about this.

Uh I don't know how this is gonna go. I feel like if I get rejected I'm gonna feel bad and I, I do care a lot about people so, you know, I'm really uh sometimes emotional in that end. Um And I was like, oh my God, what do they tell me? You know, hey, get out of here. What, what not, but just, just facing your fear, I think facing my fear was, was what's a really important uh thing for me to do just getting out there and, and, and, you know, rubbing shoulders with different people and trying to uh uh you know, give pass out or, or, or in this, in this case, trying to bring the word out that, hey, I'm in business.

I wanna, you know, I, I'm looking for, for customers and, and things like that. So your initial networking was really geared toward business development, Home Depot, meeting people, business cards. And I think a lot of times new business owners will suffer from things like imposter syndrome, feel like they don't belong there or, you know, not good enough and, and then the fear of rejection I think is pretty much universal. No one really likes being rejected. How did you, do you just brute force yourself? Did you say, hey, I'm afraid that they're gonna basically tell me I'm not good enough or get away or I, you know, I don't want your services and maybe even be rude about it, but I'm gonna do it anyways or any kind of like mental Jedi trick that you employed.

Yeah, definitely. Everything is on your mind, right? Because you're, we all create this many stories in our heads that this is gonna happen. And most of the time whenever you know, you, you go out there, you make it, you do it then and, and then you, someone starts to look at your card. For example, me, I remember I was one day at, at, at the Home Depot and I was starting to do this and I was handing in cards every now and then I will see people like really interested on it and start looking at my computer.

Oh my God, I got a, a project actually coming soon. Um uh I'll probably be giving you a shout in the next couple of days and that feel right there just makes you want to do it more and more because then you know that, OK, cool. I got rejected a couple of times but now I'm also seeing, you know, the results where people are just telling me, hey, you know what, um some good feedback right from them. So I think getting to do it and, and getting rejected a couple of times, it's fine.

And then once you start receiving those good feedbacks or from people that are really interested on, on doing uh uh some, some work together then that, that just feels like, you know, ok, cool. Like this is something that, that I can be doing because there's, there's business out there that I can be, you know, getting so just getting out out that negativity or, or that, that mindset sometimes like just shifting that if you're, if you're, you know, thinking that, oh my God, I'm gonna reject that or this is gonna happen or you start creating all these stories, just get rid of that and, and you know, oversee that and just see that there's potential and you're, you, you might be able to get some business doing that.

Yeah, a lot of times we build things up in our minds to being bigger scarier, harder than they necessarily are. Right. Right. And at the end of the day, it's just gonna be your mindset, right? It's like, ok, cool, like I just have to face this fear. I gotta get to it and I'm just gonna do it because I know that this is the steps for me to get to where I wanna be. One tactic I've used when I've done things that were really uncomfortable is I almost pretend like I have an invincibility cloak, right?

And so they, and when people interact negatively, so say I'm at Home Depot and I'm handing out business cards, maybe someone says no or like piss off right or get away. Um I realize that, that, that's, that they're not talking to me, they're talking to the situation, right? I'm impervious to it because I'm simply a part of this situation and they are essentially reflecting their own perception of the world or how they choose to interact or really any potential issues they may have uh versus anything personal on me because they don't even know who I am. Right?

And I think when I think we take, tend to take things. So personally, but if you say, hey, I'm, I'm a business, I'm a new business. Uh one of the ways that I heard that's good to drum up. Um, some customers is to go to Home Depot or go to the door knocking or go these different grassroots avenues. They don't cost money. I don't have a lot of money to invest right now. So I'm gonna go do this because that's what I should do. I have a financial fiduciary duty to my company, to my family, uh to go do this, even if that company is only me right now, I have a duty to do it. Right.

So I'm gonna go do it. I'm gonna put myself in a situation and I understand different people are gonna react different ways to that situation. There's nothing unethical, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing sleazy about what I'm doing. I'm doing what I should do as a new business owner and then other people will react how they choose to react and I think if you can kind of almost box it up and put, you're not personally going out there, you're doing the duty of your business. Uh, you, you're doing what you need to do, you're doing what you ethically should do if you're going to start and grow a company.

Yeah, definitely. 100% with you on that. It's, it's that, um, you know, it's things that you have to basically do for your business. So, yeah, definitely. Yeah. And then another, another thing I try to focus on in just business and life in general is you're gonna get a positive outcome either way because if something goes well, like you got those highs, right? People. Look at it. Oh, I have, I have a project coming up soon. I, I think I'm actually gonna be giving you a call, man. That feels good. Wow.

It's like the reward. It's what we're actually there to do. But then you get some lows, some people who are maybe not interested, maybe didn't even take the car, maybe they muttered something, right? Those are kind of lows. Uh You either are getting the high in such that what you're doing in business is working, it worked the way that you wanted it to work or you're getting the low in the sense that you get a learning, right? And I think if you can shift your mind as an entrepreneur to you win either way, like you have some new initiative.

Let's say you don't do cabinet refinishing, but now you want to roll out cabinet refinishing. You, you, your team bought you some jobs, you decide this probably isn't the right fit for your company. You could view it as a huge failure or you could view it as, as a learning. And I think the, the sooner you can become almost ultra positives because everything is either a win or it's a win in a different kind of way, the better your entrepreneurial life and journey will be right? And, and you're right, you, you, you start getting better at it.

You, you, the more you do it, you know, the better you start getting because if you don't go out there and you don't start doing it, then you're not gonna know how, how good you can be at it if you don't go and try it. Yeah. And one of the things you've displayed throughout this whole podcast series is positivity. You haven't talked a ton specifically about it, but you've demonstrated it. And so I think it's important for listeners to, to recognize it is a, it's a real thing and it's not that you haven't taken lumps, you haven't taken hits, bad things haven't happened to your business, the same things that happen to their businesses happen to yours.

But you've, you've maintained this positive mindset which has allowed you to scale the $2 million. You're still gonna take hits bad things are still gonna happen to you that never, that never ends folks, unfortunately, but never that part day it almost gets worse in some ways. But, uh, yeah, you gotta have that mindset. Sometimes people say more money, more problems. Right. Right. But you have problems either way though. What I say is I'd rather have money and problems than not money and problems. You're gonna have problems either way. Right.

Sometimes it's good problems to have, right? Or having problems sometimes might be good. You've upgraded your problems. Um But yeah, I know definitely that, that mentality, you know, having being positive, having that positive attitude, it's always gonna get you, you know, where you wanna be at, it's, it's always staying positive even though it might be a negative situation where you might be in, you know, with somebody just looks at your car that throws it in front of you or whatnot, then you gotta stay positive. You, you always have to, you know, think, ok, cool.

Like, you know, it didn't work out here but it's gonna work out somewhere else. And I, I, you know, I did it work some of my first projects whenever they started coming in after I, you know, I started investing in marketing and all that stuff when I was always putting cards out there and I started receiving calls from actual customers that were calling me because, you know, I gave them a card uh at home Depot. It was just kind of like, you know, for me, I was, I was so grateful but I was like, oh my God, like this is, this is truly what um can help you grow your business or, or get business, right?

Um And then from, from there you start realizing, ok, cool. Like what else do I need to do? I, you know, I, I know that I got to hang out cars and things like that. But where, where could I go? How can I meet people? Um where it's gonna be more like, you know, talking about business? What not? And then there's this, you know, there's a lot of networking groups that you can go to, right? And you just got what I did was I started looking like looking up on Google, like, for example, I knew that my uh back when I started, one of my top customers were uh realtors, right?

So I started looking up for, for realtor groups, like, where, where are these people networking at? And I started going to those events and, and, and events, right? And I'll go in there and I'll just introduce myself and I didn't know how to introduce myself like, 230 my God, how do I, how do I approach these people? Right. They're in a different, whole different industry and I have to, you know, change or, or look up, you know, different things on how to, you know, how, how could I present myself to these people and then you just start, you know, you start getting better at it.

You know, my, my, the first presentations might be a four but after you keep on doing it and doing it and you see how other people do it, then you're like, oh my God, that's just starts to just, just basically, uh, click on you and you start learning from them and then that's, that's the way that you start doing your own thing too. So those kinds of groups, which are the ones that you found most effective. So, um the, the ones that I'm currently using right now, it's going to be like, for example, b and I it's an important group uh for me has helped me a lot with, with the business.

Um It's, it's basically where you go in there and for people that don't know, um you know, there's, there's some different, different businesses in there and they're only, they only have like, for example, one painter, one roofer uh from that whole networking group and the, the keys or, or the, the key here in this group is for them to be referring people and you referring them people to them as well to these different businesses. And you're, you're the only painter there. You're the only roofer, you're the only with whatever trade you're, you're, you're from, you're able to get business from all this, this, you know, there's 2100 people in this group, they, they all have to send you business to you.

Like you're the only painter that they can, they're allowed to send business to. And then, you know, that's, that's how you, you scale on that, on that group. What if the B and I already has a painter, you're not allowed in it. So I, I re, I remember whenever I, whenever I first started trying to look, look for a group for me to join or for a company to join, it was, it was kind of like nerve wracking too because I will go in there and they'll have a painter and I'll still go in there. Right.

And they would just, they just didn't allow me to present or anything like that. But I'll, I'll see, OK, cool. Like, how do they, how do they present and, and stuff? And then I was like, OK, I gotta find a group that doesn't have a painter until you, until you do you find a group that doesn't have a painter, you stick to it and then you're just, you, you ask and you don't start getting worried like, right, the next day, you know, networking doesn't work that way.

Sometimes we, we think, oh my God, we're gonna start getting, you know, I'm gonna go to all these networking events and the next day I'm gonna start getting a whole bunch of jobs or, or, or leads or, or what not, but it doesn't happen that way. It's over time because at the end of the day, you're also building trust with these people, right? They don't know you, but the more uh consistent you are on assisting their event, then you start becoming more natural, more normal to them and then they start learning more about you and then when they start knowing who you really are, then they'll, they'll start sending uh leads and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think that's a, a super good point. Networking is about relationships and about trust and if someone refers a customer to you, then they are putting their name on you and any reasonably cautious person would not want to do that until they felt pretty comfortable with you. Right. It's, it's, and it's the same way, like whenever you're gonna refer someone, I see it, I see it on my, on my own perspective. Right. It's like whenever I'm gonna refer someone is like, ok, cool. Like if I'm gonna refer someone because I know that they do good job of good work. Right.

I'm not just gonna refer someone that I don't know. So it's, it's definitely creating that relationship. That's what, when you go out there, you might be shy the first time, but then you go the next time and then you start to get used to the same people and then they start to get you to, to know you and then, you know, you guys start referring each other, yeah, 210%. Are there any other groups other than the BN I that you would recommend? Yes. A B and I your Chamber Commerce group.

That's, that's another important one too for me that, that has opened the doors as well. Like if you're, you're a certain city, you look up, you know, a chamber of commerce, you know, in your city and then join, join, join that group. Right? If, if that's something that you feel com you, you can visit those groups before you join them, you'll go in there and then you'll see how, you know how the environment is and you'll, you'll talk to different people in there. And if you feel that's the right group for you, then you join.

If you don't feel like there's, there's plenty of other, other groups out there. Yeah, love it. So we've talked about networking uh from a, a very, very grassroots level. So handing out business cards and Home Depot, I would say things like door knocking are very similar to that. It's just pounding the pavement, right? Pound in the street. And then we've talked about joining these local groups uh with other business owners, you can create a network where you refer customers, they refer customers, everybody wins and you build trust.

Are there any other uh purely Biz devs or business development? Are there any other channels that you wanna talk about before we kind of maybe shift into some more of the professional networking, uh in terms of that, I mean, it's, it's just gonna depend on where you are. If you are commercial uh uh business, then there's other type of uh networking groups in there, right? Like, uh Boma, it's one of, for the, for the commercial painters, there's, there's, we, we're actually uh launching our commercial, like we're, we're expanding our commercial department and we're hoping to start seeing some results by the end of this year or, or maybe beginning of next year.

But we're, we're starting to, you know, going out to this networking groups. And the crazy thing about it is they, they do have painters in there. There's whole bunch of other painting companies in there and it's like that. Uh And this is, this is something that for me was kind of like, oh my God. But how am I to do it? Like, I'm gonna go out to this networking group where they already have 210 other painting companies, companies that they're, you know, also trying to gain work from all these other people or this business is like, how do I go in there and how do I compete with these people?

But in reality it's not really, you, you're competing against them, you're just gonna be yourself, right? You're gonna be yourself and you're gonna talk about what you guys do. Good. And then at the end of the day there's plenty of food for everyone. Yeah, that abundance versus scarcity mindset. And I wanna go back to when you said you were sitting in a BN I group and there was a painter already in that group. So you weren't allowed to present that would be uncomfortable for a lot of people. Right.

The I can't imagine the painter loved it. Right. Even with an abundance mindset, he might have had mixed feelings about it, even if he was nice about it. Uh A lot of people would be kind of nervous to do that to go into a group and sort of sit there with a competitor. But again, you're putting yourself out there in an ethical way. You're not, not trying to violate the rules of the group or anything like that or, or take away his business, but you're repeatedly putting yourself in situations that are a little bit uncomfortable and you're clearly reaping the rewards from doing so. Right. Right. Definitely.

And ha having that, it's, it's, you'll be surprised, right? That uh you'll find all these other painters as well in there or you might see them. Sometimes it has happened to me whenever I'm given an estimate and there's like two other two or three other painting companies in there, right? Where we're giving the same estimate to the same customer at the same time at the same time. The crazy thing is that, that's how I met uh our, our, one of our, our production manager, I met him through an estimate, like doing an estimate actually.

And after that, we connected and, and you know, we, we did look at the job and all that stuff, but we felt like our, our conversation was, I guess because we, we, we saw that the customer was just shopping around and, you know, she had a whole bunch of companies like five companies in there. And we're like, man, what is this, this person doing? Right. She was just looking for the, for the cheapest quote, I guess I've never heard of a situation like that with that many companies at one time giving a quote.

How do you handle stuff like that? I mean, at the end of the day, I have, you just gotta be yourself right? The way that you, you compose yourself. If they're not there, that's the way that you have to be right, asking the right questions and then sometimes you'll see another company might take the lead because I, I've been there were like the customers basically talking to all four companies and we're all walking with the person behind and like we all asking questions and it just, it for me, I mean, I, I that was like the beginnings of my, my uh and, and nowadays I call them and I just wanna make sure that, you know, before we arrive, we have just the customer, they're giving us the full attention.

But, you know, at the beginning it was just we, we do no pre calls or, or confirmation or anything like that. Uh, but now we do because we're, we know that this, these things might happen. Yeah. No, I don't even think that that estimate should be conducted under those circumstances. I, I would leave. You're not, uh, you're not like a duckling, you know, following along. Mommy Duck or, or competing in some kind of beauty pageant or the cheapest pageant. But whenever you're starting, man, you don't look at those things.

You just on the course, you want to get some work, man. So I was like, oh my God, I was so desperate getting some work. Oh, go ahead. No, no, no. There, there, there's a quote. Um, one of my mentors said that I think is really good. If you're not embarrassed by what you were doing a year ago, then you're not moving fast enough. I think that that quote has really stuck with me. Yeah. If I look back a year ago and I'm like, oh, that's pretty good.

But then what have you been doing the past year? If I look back a year ago, I'm like, oh my gosh. Was that? Oh, look at me. Holy God. What was I doing? Cool. Then I've grown a lot over the past year. That's, that's a very true, true, uh, quote right there. It's, it's true. Like I, I always look in the, you know, to the past and I always say, oh my God, like, you know, we've changed so many things and how we used to do business a year ago.

But that's, that's true. I mean, that's, that's how you're growing. Right. That's how, you know, that you're going. Yeah, I love it. Ok. Let's get into some of the ways that you and I have really spent a lot of time together, which is not really networking for business development so much as it is networking with peers and to get better at, at business. How do you look at that? Well, I met you at the PC A so the PC A could be, you know, another, I guess another way of like uh networking, right?

And this is just more like a, a growth internally, right? As, as a, as a business owner, like, how do you wanna grow? Like what, you know, things that, that you can learn from all these amazing uh you know, business owners that you're meeting. So definitely for me PC A was actually the first one where I went into a networking actually for learning how to uh manage my business or what to, what things to do in, in, in business, basically. Yeah. So how did that change? Let's, let's talk about that first because we met in person PC A expo.

We had spoken previously. I think you, you found us online or, or something we had connected, but then we wanted to meet in person. How did your business change from that as you know, I'm a huge PC, a advocate, right? Super, super involved with the PC A. Um How did your business change from before you went to, to maybe after you left that initial expo? I mean, it was a, a 280 degree change, man. Definitely it was a big, big change when I was, when I went in there.

Basically, I was looking in like I wanted to grow, right? I wanted to scale. How do I do it? Um I knew that there was people there that were gonna help me kind of like give me some pointers on how to, you know, achieve whatever I wanted to achieve. And it, it was definitely a big game changer on my end is out, it was all about asking questions of the things that I wanted to do, right? Like, oh my God, like how do I implement systems? Like what are you doing in the business like that?

I need to be doing too. Uh you know, like there, there's so many and, and I know a lot of people that are watching or, or listening to this, this podcast probably are the same way right now where they're asking so many questions to themselves and they don't have the answers to. Well, I was able to, you know, find those answers when I, when I went to the PC A. Yeah. So the for people who are listening, who, who have not, are not part of the painting contractors association PC A or who haven't been to Expo.

Uh If you go to PC A paint ed. org, PC A painted. org uh and then forward slash expo, you can actually register there. The next PC A expo is gonna be February 220rd to 15203th 21520 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. So do, do register. It's, there are so many stories of, of people's lives being changed. Through the PC A and through, through meeting people like Candelario, the, these are the kinds of people you can meet, you can go there, you can sit there, have lunch, have a beer with Candelario, talk with them, go to all these sessions.

It's gonna change your life. Yeah, definitely. But it was, it was, it was, I think PC A is, is one of the, the, uh, I mean, it's, it, it is the, you know, paint contractors association. So kind of like, you know, all the painting contractors aren't there. Um, and it, it's, it's for me it was like, how humble, like, all because I was, I was sometimes I would be sitting with people that are, you know, they were when, whenever I first went to the PC, I was doing like, $2100,22024 and you'll talk about numbers like, hey, where are you?

Out of numbers? And you'll see some people say 2 million, 3 million and you're like, oh my God. And the way they said it is so humble is like, oh my God, like, you know, you, you didn't feel ashamed of saying, OK, I'm a 500,000 where someone is a 2 million and they will kind of give you their hand, you know, to help you out. So it's kind of like, you know, it's, it's that, uh, uh, humbleness from, from all these great folks out around there. Yeah, it's incredible. And you'll get some, uh, you get a lot of people well under 500,1003 who come and then you'll get, I mean, you'll get some of these commercial painting companies, tens of millions.

It's, it's nuts. How big some of them, I mean, alpine painting and sandblasting. Dave Scaturro, I think, I mean, north of 20 I don't know where he's at but, but it's heavy. Yeah. And what, what I would say to a lot of people is like, you know, if you're like, let's say you're, you're, you're under, you know, you're under a million, you're under 500,000 or what not, whatever number it is. Don't feel, don't feel shy about it. Like none of these people are gonna treat you like less for, for, uh, for me, it was kind of like that, uh uh feeling of like being in, in the middle of all these people that were making way more money than I was and just the way they treated me, treated me the advice, the, the tips and everything that they will be giving me or, or what not.

It was just for me so gratifying, right? Like being know, knowing that, ok, cool. Like numbers didn't really matter what matter is like, you know, you're contributing with each other. So, so let's, and, and I've actually sat at round tables so they have this thing called brain meld and everyone sits around and there's a topic and you discuss it and, and there are different moderators and I've moderated round table, round tables where there are small companies that are imparting wisdom to much larger companies and saying they do, you know, they do this thing or they've tried that thing and, and you can see the bigger, bigger company, uh, owner being like, oh, wow, that's, yeah, I wanna try that.

I'm gonna actually roll that out to the team, pull out the phone, send an email to their office manager, whoever it is. So, the, this advice, all, all of these, I guess, trade secrets, what, what, how, you know, the scarcity mindset, how people used to think about it. Um, it, it flows all directions. It's not just you're gonna learn from them. They're also gonna learn from you. It's a really open and, and awesome place. Yeah, because there's, there's some people in, in this industry that they know the business side of things and they don't know, you know, the, the, how to do it, how to paint or what not.

And then you, you'll get to, to learn from all these people, right? Because there's, there's the, the actual painters that, that do the, the paint work and then there's people that know the business aspect of things. But then you start listening to how they do things that you are. Oh my God, like, you know, this is changes that we could do. So that way our production can get better or, you know, in, in, in terms of like if you're a painter and you're getting advice from, from people that know the business side of things, experts more than you, then you're able to learn some tips as well and be like, OK, I can implement this and I can, you know, have my numbers grow.

So we talked about with networking for business and these groups building trust, building relationships, letting people see who you are, the kinds of company uh kind of work you do and the kind of company you run. So they feel comfortable putting a name behind that, right? And then adding value to them with professional, we'll call it peer to peer networking like this where you're really learning from painting company owners that have maybe come before you a little farther along. What advice do you have for, how, how to most effectively network in these circumstances?

Um So I will say, first of all, just get yourself up, you know, out there, like, don't, don't be shy, go out there um and second of all, ask as many questions as possible. Right? Don't stay quiet because sometimes you'll, you'll see in this, in this round tables, people won't say anything like it's important for you to speak. Speak up. Right? Ask the question. Don't feel ashamed about, you know, whatever you're gonna ask, just ask it. And that's the way that you're gonna learn if you don't ask and nobody knows what, you know what you're going through.

Sometimes we'll go in there and we'll just, you know, find a corner and that's our spot. But no, just get in the middle of everyone and then just ask the question and don't be ashamed about it and you're gonna, you're gonna learn from all these people. Yeah. And, and to engage, don't be a wallflower. So step one is just getting there. If you, if you think you might have to go and, and you might kind of clam up and be a wallflower, then go be a wallflower.

Step one's just walk into the room, right? Just walk, walk in the middle of the room and then just, you know, be yourself, just ask the questions that you need to ask. Yeah. And then the one of the huge things from these events is the network you develop, that's ongoing, right? So you'll meet different people and, and you'll learn a ton of things at the Expo and, and at other events, but then you'll actually become friends with other, other painting company owns one of the toughest things about being an entrepreneur, at least for me early on was not having other entrepreneurial friends.

Uh All my friends had jobs and so there's no one I could really talk with, you know, commit, they didn't understand the struggle. I couldn't really seek advice from them. And as I've grown and joined more groups and, and sought mentors, I now have a lot of, you know, people in my, my ecosystem that I can rely on and learn from. And that's what things like this provide painting company owners because so, so often you start the painting company, you go out every, every other painter is your enemy and uh you're just hustling and grinding, but you don't truly have a mentorship or, or network to help you. Right.

So, and you'll, you'll, you'll get, you'll get a lot of this uh uh um feedback from, from people that you'll, you'll meet, you meet there, right? And I've, I've got a lot of uh of friends from, from going to like, for example, the PC A I, I still, you know, stay in touch with a couple of them and we'll, we'll talk and we'll OK. How do you use your software? What is your production rate? How do you, how, how do you use it? How do you apply it?

Uh what's going on right now? How's the, how's the market in your area? What are you doing? To stay afloat. And then it's, it's just like it becomes like mentoring, you know, each other. Yeah. And then there are, there are other events that you've attended, right. So I know you've gone to some sales training with, with uh Jason Phillips. He runs a company called Contractor Freedom Summit. And, and you really, I believe, became familiar with Jason through the PC A and the PC A is a statewide gathering groups And now you participate in that.

So you're, you're doing these more local localized networking and you, so when you guys, when you step out of your comfort zone, you go into an event, especially PC A expo, there are a whole lot of other events and other opportunities that open up for you. It's not just that event. Right. Right. We have, we have our, our Texas gathering of painters. We've, we've gone to uh Jason Phillips over there in Dallas uh with, with their group. And then they've also come to here to Austin. Uh Fred is the one that runs the one here from Austin.

And we're always out here and whenever we have our meetings is, you know, we'll just talk about business, we'll talk about, you know, marketing one day and then the next day we, you know, the next day that we'll have the event we'll talk about, you know, financials and, and it's just a lot of great information for all the painting companies out there that feel that they're alone, you're not alone. There's a lot of people that were in the same position you are and we're able to help each other.

And I think there are a lot of people who, you know, who are afraid to open up about their company for, there's fear of judgment, there's fear of people maybe looking down on them or, or whatnot the vulnerability of it. Uh But then there's also the fear of competition like, well, Candelario, if we're in the same market, and I tell you how I'm running my business, you could use that to, to try to beat me in the market. But if you think about that, if you think about Candelario and Fred Fred Hamilton and, and these guys meeting monthly or quarterly, however frequently they're meeting, communicating all the time, talking about what's working, what's not working, the finances, the marketing, what are you guys doing?

And then you think about yourself over on an island. Are you more or less advantageous to potentially join that conversation? You're getting hurt a lot worse by trying to guard your secrets but not, not getting the help from all these other companies that are willing to help you, right? Sometimes, sometimes we have that kind of like that ego, right? That we know it all that we can, we, we're not gonna learn from no one else like, oh, what, what can I learn from this guy? Right. I've been doing this for 30 years Candelario, you can't teach me anything, right.

We start, we start putting that barrier in the middle, in between, you know, us and, and in the world. And it's kind of like, you know, that's the first thing that you have to break, you have to take that out of, you know, and just, you know, throw it to the trash and making sure that there's a lot of opportunity of growth and you can learn from everyone. And we talked about that earlier, right? We were talking about how you can learn from, from everyone. II I think, I think that's, that's the right way of seeing things, right?

Is being able to know that there's something that you can take and definitely in this meeting, you'll take something out of it and it's, it's uh it's shifting, you know, it truly is shifting. The the painting contract space, space is 100% shifting. Private equity is taking an interest in it, right? People are seeing the the value of home service companies uh with the with the insane evolutions of technology, with A I and everything that's going on right now there. And the lack of labor really that that has been flooded, been not flooding into the home service and contractor space.

The whole dynamic is shifting. And so there's a, there's this well of opportunity but it's not going to be this. It's not gonna be your daddy's painting company in, in 10 years, your daddy's painting company is not gonna be crushing it in 10 years. So I if you don't join these conversations and figure out what other people are doing and changes they're seeing in the market and figure out how to adapt, you will fall behind. All right. And that's, that's where we go with, with kind of like that phrase where, where everybody says that we're trying to professionalize the industry, right?

We're trying to almost, we're trying to help uh uh different painters that are, I was at that she and William event, I was there and I asked a question where there was like, you know, quite a few people in there and 80% of them are not using uh uh estimated software. They, and they don't know about it about them. And I'm like, oh my God, like, you know, like that's, that was like, you know, 20% of them raise their hands and they're using, you know, either uh a pain scout Joys uh all these other Softwares that aren't out there, but the other 80% were not.

So then that means that there's a big, big gap right into becoming professional, not being as professional enough. So it's like we have a long way to go as a painting industry. Yeah, but when you have companies, when you have private equity. So I, I worked in private equity for several years when you have an interest coming in from that industry. What's gonna happen is it will expedite change because they will come in, they'll buy companies, they'll roll companies up and they'll steamroll companies because private equity is pretty brutal.

So it will expedite change, change might occur on its own in 1520 years, private equity will probably compress that timeline uh in half. So I think that's, and I think that's something that is, is easy to miss or to not know. But I think it's really critical to see that mac more macro trend uh heading toward home services and painting in particular because it is imperative that you adapt kind of adapt or die, right? If you, if you adapt, you can survive, you can flourish, you can grow um or you can continue on the, on the same business model and see where you're at in a decade, right?

But I mean, it's, it's a good thing to uh be part of this, this networking groups where you're able to kind of like know what's going on out in the industry. So that would, that, that, that way we're, we're able to help each other and know that OK, cool. Like we need to make changes in our business because if not, we're just going to stay in the same place all the time, 100% and you get access to more data, right? So you guys talk about marketing. So we're, you know, election year, we're just started the second half, 2024.

Well, the buying cycle is going to be longer. Inflation is still high, the work is there but people are holding on to their dollars and taking longer to make decisions. The cost of lead will go up, will continue to go up this year because that's what happens during election years because of all the money that poured into online platforms. But then also algorithms change platforms change. Google paper click was highly effective year and a half, two years ago. It's incredibly expensive right now for a painting contractor.

If you're just doing it yourself and you're living in a silo, then you don't know if you just, if it just stopped working for you and you should just keep trying to do it or figure out a different way to do it or if it's an industrywide thing and you should make an adjustment. So you're losing access to all this valuable data because of Candelario is over there running, you know, Google ads and you're running Google ads and Fred's running Google ads and, and now it's not working for all of you and you're all trying different things.

Well, it's probably time to maybe steer clear of Google ads right now versus oh, there's just something you did wrong and you're gonna spend thousands and thousands of more dollars trying to figure it out because you don't know it's an industry wide thing. So don't neglect access to data because you refuse to develop a professional network. Definitely, man. Definitely. I was just listening the other day, when was the last about a week and a half or two weeks ago to Ron from Pink Tigers. Um, pretty cool guy, man.

And I was, I, I was listening to him and he was talking about uh the, the, I guess the shift on the market for the month of June. He was, he was kind of giving an update on what happens in May, what happens in June. And then for him, normally June is kind of has a little dip into it and then because of what's going on and then July is supposed to pick up and he, he talks about, hey, how now not to put more dollars into the month of June because you're not gonna get anything out of it because of what the market is doing.

But those, those things like that, you know, you'll, you'll see what's going on. Ok? Cool. Now, I see why I have a little dip on my mo month. So you're able to stay updated. Otherwise you think it's just, you, you, you, you think you're doing something wrong or you know, you need to make some big shift, but if you make the wrong shift, then it's super counterproductive because now when Ron's having a, a good July or a great August or whenever he kind of sees that uptick come back, you're, you're over here in La la land doing something different because you thought your previous strategy didn't work any. Right. Right.

So that's, that's the importance of looking at different data. So what's going on around? Um Basically your, your parameter? Yeah, I love it, man. Um Awesome. We've talked a lot about networking, both business development and peer to peer. Is there anything else you want to add to how to effectively network for your painting company? I think o overall uh networking is, is gonna be the key to your success in, in the pain. It's gonna be part part of that key of your success in, in the uh painting industry or, or whatever business you're in.

Uh definitely relationships are, are way more than money because, you know, you can, you can uh by a lead here and there. But if you have a relationship with someone is like, you, you might get work like, you know, all year around depending on that relationship with the person. Yeah, absolutely. And as the, the algorithms change and the cost of lead goes up or goes down, that can be, I mean, those can be life boats for you. You know, there, there are other fishing lines or other marketing channels and they tend to close well, because they're, they're a referral so they're already trusted.

So it's typically a quite a warm lead. Yeah. And then, and then also like, not just in, in, in terms of gaining business but also like, let's say you're going through a, uh, something difficult in your business, you're able to get that phone and call one of your, your, uh, you know, someone that, you know, that you met in the networking event or what not, or that you network with before and you'll ask, hey, you know what I'm going through this and what can I do in these situations and that might be able to hate, you know, help your f your, your boat to stay afloat. Yeah.

So we covered throughout the series, our first episode, uh we really talked about the systems to scale effective systems. Second episode, we talked about knowing your numbers is critical, got into the CPA dashboard you have and, and some cool stuff you're doing there in the last episode. Episode three, we talked about reinvesting into your business and how you really focused on, on all the marketing channels. The small one you started with, that's not as profitable anymore, but it still makes you money. So you still do it and you have some loyalty and then the other additional channels that you've opened up.

And then this episode, we've talked about networking and putting yourself out there being willing to be uncomfortable, get comfortable, being uncomfortable is how I like to say it and, and growing and learning from other people uh as we finalize this series and it comes to a bittersweet end. Candelario. Is there anything else you, you wanna say? No, man, I just want to say uh thank you um to you Brandon for the opportunity, right? This is first time I do something like this, but it's, you gotta get in that uncomfortable position like we were talking about, right?

Um It's, it's really important for you to just step out of your comfortable zone. Whenever you step out of your, your comfortable zone, then you're gonna see things changes, right? And, and you're gonna, you're gonna be able to kind of like grow on and you're gonna feel good about yourself too because you're able to do, I don't know if you guys, whoever is listening, but whenever you guys are like in a, in a comfortable position, once you're done with it, like you feel relieved, you feel like, oh my God, it happened already. Sorry.

You're about to feel as I'm about to feel right now. Yeah. Oh man, that's true. I, I hadn't even thought about that. This is your first and you just dove into a whole series. You weren't like, hey, let me try one podcast. I said let's do a four episode series because I already, you know, from knowing you for so long, I knew you would, you would do great. Uh But that's kind of scary. Yeah, I was, I was expected for, for one episode. Um I mean, we were able to do four which is like, oh my God, I'm probably sweating right now over there.

You killed, it can de la. I appreciate you brother. I appreciate you being so open and sharing this. I think it's gonna impact a lot of people's lives. And thank you for your time, man. Yeah. No, no. Thank you Brendan again for having me here. And then you know, I appreciate you for everything. 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. com/podcast for free training, as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company.

Again that URL is painter marketing pros.com/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. 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.

Keep growing.