Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast, the show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over 103 million in annual revenue. I’m your host, Brandon Pierpont, founder of Painter Marketing Pros and creator of the popular PCA Educational Series to 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 “3rd Generation Painter, 1st Generation Mindset”, Joshua Joosten & Cody Roberts of Sequoia Painting will be sharing their story on building a near $2m residential and commercial painting company based in Tulare County, CA. They will be detailing the changes that Sequoia Painting has undergone from starting as a post-retirement hobby for Joshua to a profitable and growing enterprise with a very unique approach to the painting industry.

In episode 3, Joshua & Cody will deep dive into the culture of Sequoia Painting and the mission they have to professionalize and elevate the painting industry.

If you want to ask Joshua and Cody questions related to anything in this podcast series, you can do so in our exclusive Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast Forum on Facebook. Just search for “Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast Forum” on Facebook and request to join the group, or type in the URL Facebook.com/groups/PainterMarketingMastermind. There you can ask them questions directly by tagging her with your question, so you can see how anything discussed here applies to your particular painting company.

What’s going on guys? Good morning. Good morning. Very uh very excited to connect with you. I, I feel like in the first two episodes, this idea of your culture in the past you guys have toward it kept kind of showing up and we never fully went down that, that uh rabbit rabbit hole because of this episode.

And so I think there’s, there’s gonna be a lot of cool stuff you’re gonna share. For sure. We agree. So, I guess let’s, let’s get into maybe uh Joshua your, your background uh within the painting industry, kind of what you viewed, maybe as, as normal or what you think the stereotypical culture or environment looks like in a painting company and then we can, we can go from there. Yeah, for sure. So, um I, like I said, I grew up um third generation uh painter uh and uh the culture that I always seen, you know, is, you know, basically you got some old school painter just kind of down your throat, always nitpicking you and, and always, you know, telling, telling uh everything you’re doing wrong versus, you know, that’s a great job, you know, pat on the back.

Um And, and then as far as the estimating goes, just kind of what we call here in the office guiming, you know, not really knowing your numbers and knowing um where things are being put into. Uh And um yeah, so we wanted to change the culture when I came into this one with Sequoia painting, uh wanted to change that culture a bit to where, you know, people liked coming to, to work as much as everybody hates, you know, working obviously, but like everybody coming to work and, and making it uh a fun place to come to, you know, that’s why our slogan is creating happiness.

Um And uh so yeah, I love it. Making work a fun place to be. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts? You cut out a little bit? Were you talking to me? I was, yeah, I guess what are your thoughts on, on that? What the, what the stereotypical painting company might be and how you, so, I mean, a lot of the shared uh shared views of that being, you know, my experience in painting uh as little as it was before the Sequoia painting journey started was with Joshua’s Joshua’s father, you know, uh wanna paint houses, make some money over some room.

We call Uncle Jake and see if he needs any extra help. So, um wonderful people aren’t always wonderful leaders, you know, or not. Um e even if they’re running a successful business, um I guess it all just depends on how you gauge the health of your business. Is it the nuts and bolts of the financials or is it the well being of the people there and their mindsets? You know, I think both are insanely important. Um So Uncle Jake was awesome. I learned a ton, obviously him being the second generation painter and growing up with a brush in his hand, um like Josh said, you know, those are kind of the things you associate with a trade like painting and it’s not just painting.

I’ve been in other trades and I’ve worked for other yellers and screamers, you know, and those guys just aren’t typically you, you don’t get the best reaction out of individuals. But in my opinion, with that type of a demeanor mindset, you know. So, um, when I first, you know, came over to kind of shadow Joshua and see, you know, what he was working on here at Sequoia painting that was pretty obvious from the get go, the, um, I guess the thing I, that, the way I saw it initially was the trust that he, um, had with, with the people in the field, you know, and I think from a very first step point, I mean, I think trust has to be earned but a lot of times you gotta put it out there and give, give the person the trust and hopefully they don’t do something for you to lose it, you know?

So, what he was working on was the exact opposite of what he saw as your stereotypical painting contractor as far as the way it was ran and managed and overs and oversaw, you know? Sure. Yeah. And Joshua, I know that, that you started this thinking it was gonna be more of a hobby than a full blown multimillion dollar business. But was this culture, was this intentional or, or was it just, that’s how you are? And so the culture just became, you know? Uh, so, yeah, uh, it was going to be just a hobby for one of mine.

And my partners from the Department of Corrections. Um, and we were just gonna paint a couple houses a month, you know, never knew it was gonna turn into this, you know, and as it started to turn into this, coming from the prison system that everything is negative every direction you turn and there’s not a positive thing that comes out of that job. Um I wanted to come up with a, you know, an idea and a, and a culture that brought happiness to the table that people wanted to come to work.

People were, you know, excited, you know, I, for many years I went to work every morning, sweaty palms, bubble guts, just hated going to that place, you know, and I did not want that kind of culture for sequoia painting. So, you know, as we started to implement our policies and procedures, uh I really wanted that to, to withhold, you know, being happy when you come to work, you know. Yeah, I think it’s really interesting that your slogan has nothing to do with painting and that it’s creating happiness.

That’s neat. Yeah. What do you Joshua? What do you do when the employees riot? Do you lock down the office or? Yeah. Yeah. But we put the yard down. Yeah. Yeah. That was actually a very struggle for me and it still is sometimes, you know, uh a lot of our hard conversations, uh Cody usually handles that. He’s a more, well, spoken person than I am because it’s turn around, put your hands on the wall. You don’t do what I say, you and I are going to the ground, you know.

And so it was definitely a hard transition for me uh to uh respect people’s feelings, you know. Mhm Yeah. I think it’s good that you, you acknowledge that and that Cody has maybe the skill set or the, the demeanor to do it more easily. And so you divide and conquer in a way to get that done. The, the, this slogan of creating happiness, would that be more geared toward the homeowners and the commercial property owners that you serve or more geared toward your team? Yeah, that’s a two for, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s both.

Um And that’s one of the things we find or we, we know is incredibly unique about the mindset. We try to instill, you know, is it, it’s creating happiness all the way around. Spread kindness, you know what I mean? Um, employees need to be happy in what they’re doing and the service they’re providing that usually will create the by-product of the customer being pretty darn pleased. Also, you know, when you have tradespeople that enjoy the brand, they represent and they enjoy the trade that they are involved in whether it’s short term or long term.

Uh It’s just kind of a nifty byproduct’s, you know, that you’re uh commercial uh relationships and your residential customers typically end up being pretty happy with your service as well. Yeah. Yeah. The idea of making, make your employees happy and they’ll make your customers happy, I think is very good. And so the, we want, we want our teams to be happy when our customers would be happy. I, I don’t think, I think very few people listening to this would proactively want anything other than that. But then we, we run into the reality where maybe people seem like they don’t care or a bunch of mistakes are made and, and you start to struggle with how to actually run a business or how to hold people accountable or maybe how to motivate people but do it in a way that, that you’re trying to be positive.

I think that’s where the rub of, of, you know, the screamers and the elders comes from it because they’re not trying to make people miserable but they’re trying to run the business. So what, how do you guys do that? How do you handle that? How do you hold people accountable but not be a yeller and a screamer? Well, with our, our, our policies and procedures that we have, um I mean, we have a matrix, a disciplinary matrix that uh basically, you know, your four first um issue will be a verbal talk which that will go in your file, you know, and then from there, uh verbal talk would turn into a write up your second offense.

You know, and then third one could be a suspension, um, and, or a termination, you know, and, you know, the funny thing is, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of like a, you know, I, I raised four kids and you don’t give a, especially a teenager rules. They’re gonna go crazy out there. Right. So you give them guidelines and you give them these expectations and that’s what we’ve done, you know, sequoia painting is, is giving everybody an expectation here. These are what can get you in trouble here. This is the guidelines and uh employee handbooks and lots of training, like I said, we do quarterly training.

So, um, and uh, another thing, you know, knowing, uh going back to like knowing your numbers and knowing, you know, how you got those numbers and the estimating and stuff is, is very crucial because now, you know, what something should take versus you just feelings based, you know, and you got somebody out there that’s milking the clock and they’re always going over on the time. Well, that’s quick meeting with that person like, hey, for industry standards, these are not just made up by us, but this is through the PC A that, you know, this is how much a person sued get done per hour, you know, and it’s not meeting our expectations, you know, you need to change it or, you know, do something about it.

And, um, but yeah, a lot of it’s just, um, policies and procedures put those guidelines out there, you know. Yeah, I believe uh, um, human beings by nature want to be held accountable. Right? I think accountability. Um, we’re, we’re prewired to want structure and to be held accountable. We have an acronym of the word paint that is tied with the company as well. Stands for professionalism, appreciation, integrity, neatness, and teamwork. So we lean very hard on every letter in that acronym as what we hold near and dear to us.

You know, it’s just worked out really well that it goes with the word paint, you know, um professionalism being up front. I, I think when we have the expectation of even if you’re an apprentice and you’re learning this trade, there’s an expectation there and the first expectation is to be professional, you know, and I think when that is known across the board, no matter if it’s the uh most elite foreman you have in your, in your line up to the person that doesn’t want to jump into college, but they gotta do something to make a little bit of money in the meantime, while they figure out what they’re doing fresh out of high school and they’ve done a couple projects, you know, as kids around the house, never really minded the painting part.

So, hey, let me see what this seems like for a little while. You know, the the first expectation is, is professionalism, I mean, and simply put, right, if you’re getting paid to do something that is a profession, you know, and we just hold the professionalism of a painter. I, we hold it pretty high. But I think that’s what speaks to the people that enjoy that culture that are seeking that type of uh place to work in the industry they like and have that or that has provided for their families, you know, and be able to feel good about that.

Like, hey, I’m, I am a professional, I got, I’ve heard so many times and, and I don’t wanna understand and it’s, it’s all mindset I feel, but I’m just a painter. I tell our guys. No, you, you are, you are a skilled tradesman. Like let’s not just a painter ourselves here, there’s, there’s, there’s far more to what we do than just a painter, you know what I mean? We are professionals in the paint industry. So um the acronym is leaned heavily on and I, I just think having, having ex the, the expectations are not a gray area, you know, and like Joshua said with the corrective action, um I think we talked about it or we touched on it in one of the episodes that we were, we’re, we’re human like everybody else.

It’s not always unicorns and rainbows, you know, the not, not firing fast enough, you know, and, and maybe hiring too fast, you know, or the other way around. Sorry. But mm if you have a, if you’ve gone through these corrective actions. I mean, it’s knowing when to let somebody go if the culture pitch just not there and it doesn’t always mean they’re a bad person. Right. And that’s, that’s the, that’s the human nature struggle. Part of it, I guess is when they are a good person, it’s somebody you wouldn’t mind sitting down and having dinner with.

But the culture fits not there that the, the meeting of the expectations is habitually not there or whatever it is, you know, um knowing when to cut those ties and look for that next diamond in the rough as it were, you know, do you guys have anything that you’ve built into your interview process to try to weed out people that aren’t a good cultural fit before they come on board. You know, there, what a topic of discussion that is hiring process. I am constantly looking for insight in that, you know, and I know um talking to a marketer here, you know, how it is to a target your audience, right?

And that’s kind of the goal, that’s the goal too, on the hiring side of things. Like how do we, how do we target these individuals? Um Nothing that has shown to be any more effective than the other, you know, I I will say whatever this little nugget of information is worth. I think our most validated culture fits have been the individuals that when you bring up the, the pay point, uh, part of the discussion, they have a dollar amount that they know they’re worth. Right. And I think they’re worth or, or, or think, but I, I feel the ones that give that solid number tend to fit the culture much quicker or have more of what it takes to fit the culture versus the ones that are, it’s kind of a classic, um, and not just painting in several trades, a classic response like, well, let me start me where you think is a minimum and let me show you what I can do and then you can tell me, then you can offer me a pay amount, right?

Like how many times has any employer heard that one? The ones that have that dollar amount that in their mind, this, this is my skill set. This is what I’m work. I, I find those individuals, they seem to fit what we’re about a little more often than the other. You know what I mean? Yeah, it’s interesting because that’s, that can be off putting to a lot, a lot of companies, right? If somebody comes in and they’re a little more confident, they’re saying, hey, this is my number.

It can come up as arrogance, maybe. Sure. I, I think um and like Josh said that he, he, he threw the comment in there or what? They think they were a very much so we’ve had those guys that thought very highly of themselves and the proof wasn’t in the pudding, you know. Um, but more often than not, that’s kind of my opinion is the ones that have had that. This is my, this is where I’m at. Number. They seem to really fit with what we expect and our culture a little easier than, than the other form of that answer.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I think when you, you guys pay, you know, a bit, a bit above average, I think when you’re, when you’re willing, there are a lot of people who would rather make less money and have less responsibility and not have necessarily the benchmarks that they need to hit the KPIS and be as closely monitored. So I think when somebody comes in and, and they are a little bit more definitive in terms of what they want to get paid, they’re also probably more likely to wanna produce uh in a way that makes sense as well. Absolutely.

So a quick, a quick little side excerpt, I won’t spend much time on it this uh as a much younger man just joining the workforce. Um I’ve always been pretty ambitious in whatever field I was in and I’ve only been in a couple, I haven’t been in, I don’t have a huge uh sheet of trades. I’ve been in uh I was very passionate about running heavy equipment and moving dirt and these kind of things. Right. Uh Right out of high school company. I went to work for, I quickly excelled, you know, I was hungry.

I would take anything that was thrown at me all the task it was teach me how to decipher these plans. I wanna set grades. I wanna check grades. I wanna like, I, I wanna know this industry, I, I need to know how this industry makes money and what it takes. And I was paired up with an individual that was double my age. Um And in my opinion, at that point, me only being like eight or nine months into this working world. And in this trade, my knowledge and ability on several facets was far and above what he had.

And I was venting to my foreman on the ride home about, I just don’t understand, you know, this guy’s been doing this for this long and blah, blah and, and he very simply put it Cody, the world needs ditch diggers too. So if that’s what he’s happy doing, if he’s comfortable there, he’s, he’s meeting his expectations. Hey, the, the, the world needs that too. You know, like you’re ambitious and hungry and you want to know anything and everything about all of it. That’s not everybody. And, and I understand that, I think a little bit more now than I did back then, you know, because back then my young mind just couldn’t understand like, how, how has this guy been doing this twice as long as me and is looking to me to do it the right way or however it went, you know, so just to kind of piggyback, what you said, like, sure.

I mean, you’re gonna have those fit, doesn’t mean they’re not great people, does it mean they’re not culture fits, you know, but don’t want that extra responsibility. They’re, they’re fine being that top notch second guy, you know what I mean? And I think it goes back to what you mentioned with the target market and the messaging and, ok, who are we looking for? And if you’re looking for a ditch digger, then, you know, that’s what you’re looking for, right? If you’re looking for someone that maybe wants to take more ownership and become a team lead and, and move up in an organization, then that might be a little bit different.

But being super big on you as a company who, who you’re looking for, how are you communicating with, um, what the expectations are and then having sort of a, you know, we call it like a funnel, right? And sales or marketing like a sales funnel, having a hiring funnel that is, that is all geared toward that. I think another thing we look at too and nonchalantly you, you, you take, you look at this quite a bit Cody, um, is their employment before, you know, if, if you got, you got a guy that’s got, you know, he’s 453 years old and he’s already got 30 jobs that’s probably a red flag right there.

You know, uh if you’re interviewing, you know, four or five people and you got that one individual that, you know, he’ll, he’s been with three people his whole entire life and he’s 40 years old, he’s gonna probably stay around, especially if the culture fits what he’s wanting, you know. So that’s another big thing we look at is, you know, how often they bounce around from one job to another another because um you know, coming back into this industry, uh and I, I’m sure it’s with every, every uh trade, but painters just seem to like hop around a lot, you know, and when you do find those ones that have then with AAA painting company for, you know, 10 years or something.

And, you know, a lot of times, you know, the words kind of going out there too as far as Sequoia painting is, there’s room to grow here. You’re not gonna just be stuck as a painter, a journeyman painter or something and just be stuck at that level, you know, there’s room for growth. And I think that’s another huge culture thing is, is being able to, to have that, you know, where you could accelerate, you know, and, and then, and grow within the company. Yeah, that upward mobility is really key, especially for people who are more driven and, and are gonna come in and know what they’re worth is, do you guys have any any statistics on your turn turnover rate of employees in the beginning statement putting this all together, it wasn’t easy because, you know, um I mean, of course, throughout the PC A, you see a lot of, you know, professional painting companies, but it’s really a culture shock to uh painting painters that come in, you know, tradesmen that come in and they see the professionalism, you know, we got uniforms you guys are required to wear.

Um you know, the, the uh the employee handbook showing them the disciplinary matrix. Um All those kind of things is, is, is kind of a culture shock to them. Yeah. Uh As far as like hard numbers, we have the information available to, to run those, like Josh said, it’s uh felt like it was probably higher than we would. Well, I I would say higher than we would like, but at the same time, that’s what it’s taken to get to where we’re at, you know, so um ever improving, ever evolving.

So um maybe we’ll get a little bit better at that, that funnel, right? And, and, and that lesson as time goes on, you know, I love it. So you guys mentioned trust and how important that is and being willing to extend it first and then hopefully they don’t do something to mess up the trust that you’ve extended to that to that employee. What does that mean? Extending trust? How do you extend trust to them? Well, I, I think it starts with, I mean, obviously the, the trust to oversee that, that job gets carried out and upholds the brand that’s been created.

That’s kind of the first layer of trust I would say to a for, you know, to one of our foremen and whoever their uh apprenticeship help help is or experienced help is, um we don’t have the ability to make it to every single job every day or I shouldn’t, that’s worded wrong. That’s not a priority based on how we have structured things, right? We did not want to have to prioritize micromanaging job sites. So that’s kind of the first layer of trust. I mean, that’s a big one.

There’s probably, there’s gonna be people that listen to this podcast. There’s people that uh like Joshua’s dad and uncles and they would not even, that’s, those are dirty words. Like, what do you mean? I’m not gonna go by one of my job sites daily or at least every other day and make sure guys are doing what they’re supposed to, you know, like we want the people that want to do what they’re supposed to. That’s, that’s, that’s where that first layer I’ve been what I think anyway, that’s that first big layer of trust and that’s not, that’s not left for them to realize on their own.

That’s something we’re very upfront about, you know, like what their expectations are. They’re clear. And I’ve had several conversations, I have conversations regularly. I feel like about, about that trust may not call it trust but what their prior, what their main priority is, what their main priority is to see that job be carried out and meet the expectation of the brand that got the job, you know. Yeah. And the way you’ve set up your or chart, not having the project managers and having the crew self manage the projects that requires a tremendous amount of trust that very few painting companies instill in their employees. Yep.

So, and I, I think the it always is gonna circle back to the people, right? Brandon. It, it is all about the people. So um it would be extremely unrealistic for me to sit here and tell you like we’ve always had the most trustworthy, you know, now it, it’s, it’s, it’s like anything you have a magic wealth, everyone else struggles with people, but you guys have a magic wealth. We’re, we’re just the Yeah. Right. Exactly. Like we’ve, we’ve had to learn and take the lumps and one of our mentors has a, a saying that I’ve adopted that is I, I mean, as a business owner, you, you, you have to be ok with is lessons are expensive and good lessons are typically really expensive and uh anything that negatively financially impacts your business is.

So look at that as a lesson, right? And if it really hurt your business, then that was probably a really good lesson, you know. Um, we’ve had those along the way like anybody, you know, and we’ve had those breaches of trust. Um, those people aren’t here anymore, you know, they, they always that stuff with, with the right procedures in play, those things come to light, you know, it may not be an immediate turnaround and I think that’s probably the thing, a lot of sole proprietorships that want to make the move to scale to a couple crews and get them out of the field as much.

I think that’s the, that’s the scary part. Is it not being as immediate as going to the job every day or every other day? You know, some things may take a, a few month duration for everything to show up that points to a but it’ll still happen. You know, we’ve had those, we’ve had those things happen. I mean, yeah, so you guys have brought up the, you know, not, not having a project manager. It’s obviously a massive differentiator is what the whole last episode was based on.

We brought up quarterly training, that’s a bit atypical to provide training that frequently to your whole team and then being very clear with upfront expectations when people come on board and we really dialed in handbook, having great sops and, and processes so they fully understand what success looks like in the role and then having a matrix, a disciplinary matrix. Ok. Here, here are the steps that are gonna have that, that are gonna transpire if you aren’t meeting the expectations? Are there other things that you have intentionally put into, into the business to improve the culture or things that just have sort of started happening sporadically that might be different from other painting companies.

You know, one thing, um One thing that comes to mind, I think it might kind of pertain is it because it kind of it piggybacks on the trust thing, right? Um, one of our mentors that we refer to quite a bit, um, in the regards to like company vehicles and company equipment and, and those sorts of things, um, to think that your van may or may not be getting used for a personal errand here and there. Yeah, chances are, it probably is, you know, the equipment that’s in it that is owned by Sequoia painting, they’re probably gonna be a, a ladder or two or a spray pump getting used here there for the side job they picked up for a little extra money, you know.

Um, we’re ok with that. Um, the vehicle thing, we have a pretty clear, uh, layout on that. Uh, I don’t expect you to take, take special trips, but hey, if you’re doing something on your way home and you’re in the van, be efficient about it. It’s on your way home. Go ahead and stop, do what you gotta do, yada yada, you know, like we don’t, not giving you the green light to be running all over town on the weekends in your company vehicle kind of thing. But, um, don’t go out of your way to go get your personal vehicle and you know, that kind of thing as far as equipment goes.

We tell guys all the time, hey, if there’s anything you guys need from Sequoia painting for a side job that keeps you safe and helps you be more efficient. You just let us know if you need extension ladders. If you need pivots for staircases or rooftops, if you need uh the bull horns on your ex, whatever you need, man, if you need to use, if you picked up a side job and there’s no power and you need the generator or you want to use a gas rig, you just let us know, man, that stuff’s here for you guys to you.

You’re more than welcome to use it. Just let us know when it’s being used. I think that is one that speaks to a lot of people because it’s gonna happen and why not have, why not have your people, you know, and trust feel like, you know, and trust them and they’re not doing something behind your back for their benefit, you know. Yeah, that’s a huge differentiator. A lot of companies wouldn’t want them doing side jobs at all versus you know, they would, they would view this as almost enabling or encouraging it.

But I think you’re right. I think if, if they’re gonna do side jobs they’re going to do them and what a cultural boost that is like, hey, we wanna make sure you’re safe and taken care of. And so we’ll put a little bit of our money even behind it to make sure that you’re, you’re taken care of it. It invokes a reaction that it is, it’s amazing, you know, to watch the face because it, I mean, for most of our guys that we’re not their first painting employer, right?

They’ve worked for these other types of painting contractors. And so when you tell somebody that like, hey, man, it, this, if you need these things to be safe and efficient on your side jobs, um just let us know like we have no problem with that. We know you’ll take care of it, you know. Yeah. Yeah, that’s wild. Um That, that, that I think builds a trust, you know, uh with your team when you’re, when you’re building that kind of culture. Um Yeah, building trust with somebody is huge, right?

You know, you get to a point where you can trust each other and it’s on both sides, you know, we have to trust them and they have to trust us, you know, and once you, once you establish that trust and it’s sometimes it’s small things I hear guys like, wow, you guys let the foreman’s take the company vehicles home. I’ve, I’ve worked with 10 different companies and heck, no, they don’t even do that. They don’t even provide a, uh, usually don’t even provide a company vehicle for you.

Do you work out your own vehicle? You know, and, and that just a little bit right there kind of opens the eyes to the people that are new to the culture. Like, wow, that’s a big trust, you know, taking, taking a vehicle home. Yeah, that’s definitely very different. You guys are showing that you’re, you’re extremely different company. I wanna, I wanna ask kind of a weird question. So we’ve talked a lot about trust. Are there other values that you think are really pertinent to the culture that you’ve created at Sequoia painting outside of trust.

It’s a tough question. Trust is a, yeah, it is a tough one, you know, I don’t know if it’s uh I, I think so long as we see the adaptation of that paint acronym pretty quickly in their journey with us, we know we’re on to a good human being, you know, um I if we got somebody that just can’t wrap their head around being professional, you know, whether it’s the keeping the completed uniform or the interaction with the customer or keeping the, the the vehicle looking professional, you know, those kind of things.

Um Usually we know we’re, that’s could be, that’s gonna be a friction in the future, you know, and it may or may not be a, a full culture fit if we don’t see, uh, an adaptation of that acronym pretty early on. So, for people that, that have left, either you let them go or they chose to leave. Is there a, a theme that you’ve noticed? Hey, this is typically what goes wrong or is it just very different every time? Um, I bet you could nutshell them into not liking the accountability when it comes down to it.

Um, for different reasons. Um, different ones, you know, whether it was, I guess I air a little dirty laundry, whether it’s fuel theft or, you know, cheating a customer of their complete job or, um, that’s just a couple. We fortunately we don’t have a whole laundry list of those kind of offenses, but those are two that come up to the top of my mind. Um, the accountability, right? They did not, um, respond well to the accountability end of their action and led them to no longer being employed at Sequoia Pain.

Some of that stuff too is tough to track. There were, there was, um, speaking with a painting company owner recently who, who’s one of this person’s estimators had a pretty good close rate but, and so it seemed like there wasn’t a problem but, but the revenue wasn’t quite there. So there was a slight discrepancy. It just took a really long time to figure that out. And when they looked at it into it, they realized that this particular estimator would, would actually not produce an estimate for projects that seemed unlikely to close.

And so just go out there, take the company time, do the measurements and actually not produce the estimate through the system. And just totally abandon it obviously is detrimental to the company because some of those would close and then create this artificially high close rate. Like, wow, I’m, I’m really good at my job and that was, I never heard of that before, but a lot of, you know, the wrong employee, the employee that doesn’t like to be accountable, that likes to cut corners. Sometimes they can be pretty creative.

Josh, I’m sure, you know, all about creativity from 20. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um And you know, the the thing is, is we, we, we put it out there, you know, you, you got guys, you got eyes on you all the time, all the time. I mean, you’re on a job site, everybody has cameras and also a customers is not gonna, our, our estimates are so detailed that they know that they’re receiving, you know, a two coat system with a back rolling inside that, you know, if it’s an exterior.

Um and the customer ain’t gonna hesitate, you know, when they’re spending X amount of dollars on something. Yeah, I just noticed that the guys only put one code on there, you know, and we start getting stuff like that from, from a, from a uh from a customer. Um you know, it’s gonna start throwing some red flags and we will, you know, start looking and doing our own little investigating here and start watching and, and, uh, if we continue seeing that it won’t, you know, they won’t be a good fit for the company.

You know, we, we gotta find somebody that’s 100% trustworthy, you know, and that basically, you know, and is gonna take and treat the jobs the projects like it’s their own, like they own sequoia painting, you know, they’re taking ownership of that, you know, when, when it gets handed off, you know, from sales to the foreman, you know, it’s, it’s, they’re taking ownership to that, you know, that’s, they’re, they’re gonna be prideful on what they do and what kind of job they do there. And it’s, it’s funny when you start to build a culture like this with, with performances, trust me, they ain’t gonna hesitate to come into this office and be like, hey, Cody ain’t cutting it.

He’s not gonna be a part of this culture. He’s not performing well, you know, it took him freaking eight hours to mask off eight windows, you know, and, you know, and, and so, you know, we’ll start looking into that a little bit and yeah, it definitely you’re not gonna fit the culture, you know, and, you know, a lot of times too and I think I spoke of this, we uh our pay scale, you know, not just because you’re a, just because you’re a foreman, you know, you, you’re gonna gotta work your way up to the, the higher end scale level.

You know, because we wanna see how you’re gonna produce and how you’re gonna interact with the customers and like any other job, you know, that I’ve ever been in the more money you make the more responsibility you have. You know. So that’s sometimes why I, I don’t understand, you know, having a project manager, if you’re gonna be paying somebody big dollars, they should be responsible for their own damn project from beginning to end, you know, uh like doctors and nurses and attorneys, you know, they get paid a lot of money because of the responsibilities that they take on.

You know, so we share that a lot with our culture too, you know. Yeah. And I think the what you talk about the employees thinking and acting like an owner like they own sequoia painting, that’s tough, right? It’s tough to get everybody on the team to think and act like that. But if you can, it’s unbelievable what happens. 100% you get. Um And I, and just so we’re all full disclosure for any ears that, that, that listen to this. I mean, even our, I like to refer to them as elite, like our guys at the top of the board on that foreman list.

These are still not guys that have never had any kind of disciplinary action, right? Like these guys have had reason to have the verbal, it was how they responded, you know, one of them even had, he, he’s had written, he, he had a company vehicle taken away from him for a full 30 day duration as a result of some actions. It’s how they responded to the discipline. You know, it was the accountability. They accepted it. All right. I’m gonna make a change because Sequoia painting expects this, you know, and that’s, that’s something that I feel is huge too that I am.

It’s a constant reminder to myself of ownership. It has a and I think it’s by default, let’s say mine or, you know, something along because we pour, we put a ton of energy and efforts into these businesses to grow them and nurture them. But I, I try to make every reference to who they work for of being Sequoia painting, right? Like you don’t work directly for Joshua Joosten Cody Roberts, Monica ju you don’t work directly for any of us. You work for Sequoia painting. That’s the brand, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s what you work for.

That’s the expectation is the one that brand represents in upholds sure on the back end ownership built that brand set those expectations. But I, I feel and this is feeling space. I don’t know what kind of studies are into it and what kind of information is out there on it. I just think, um and, and I think it’s been proven to us through our cruise that when it’s that expectation of the brand, right, that logo, you see, um it just speaks more than doing a good job for Joshua or doing a good job for Cody.

You know, they’re, they’re doing it for the brand. They understand the importance of that. Yeah, I love that man. It’s, it’s easy, it’s easier to take a lot of pride in the brand than it would, you know, taking pride if they felt like they were just working for you or, or the, the perception or misconception that many employees have is, is, well, the owners are getting rich, you know, I’m out here and they want me to have all this accountability be more rich. And so you’re, you’re essentially take it, hey, we’re all in this boat together.

We’re all working for Sequoia painting just as you’re accountable. We are also accountable and, and this is, it, it’s a separate entity. Yeah, the uh the, the spoken wheel, right? You’ve heard me use that analogy several times. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the whole deal. You know, it’s, we’re, we’re all spokes and every spoke, the hub, the spokes in the ring. That is all Sequoia painting man. And every piece has got to be in there and, and strong, you know, to keep that wheel rolling smooth. Let’s talk about the customers for a second.

So we’ve focused a lot on the team and what you guys do differently there. And we know that happy team, happy employees tend to make happy customers. But are there other things that you do with regards to either the projects, how you perform them or the interactions with clients or maybe how you handle negative situations that other painting companies could benefit from? I I think um the treating of the customers comparable to how everybody employed by sequoia uh is treated. You know, I think in our, the way we write and price work is very upfront.

Um The expectation is there, you know, um and it’s not a blindly guided journey. They’re, they’re informed along the way um when they call the office or click to call, however, they find their way to us. Um There’s a warm body that answers the phone that takes as much information as they can collect to book an appointment for a member of our sales estimator shows up has a uh set of key points that, hey, this is what Sequoia painting is concerned about. Let’s go over these. I’m gonna evaluate the work.

I’m gonna get you a professional proposal in a timely matter. Um And then the journey is uh kind of lined out for them from then on. If they decide to go with us, they’re prompted, what, what comes next, you know? Well, let’s make sure we get uh an obligation from you in form of a deposit so we can get colors solidified and then we can get you on that work calendar and take care of this project. You know. So I think the customers that choose to go with us because I’ll be, uh, I think I’ve said it in one of the first that we’re, we’re never gonna be your, I don’t like the word cheapest.

I was, we, we’re never gonna be the most economical choice for a majority of the jobs that we look at. Um, so the value is in the certainty it, it, the way I look at it, you know, they, they know what they’re gonna get. They can read the slew of Google reviews if they want some reassurance from total strangers that trusted us with their home, you know, and then just, uh keeping informed, you know, the no, right. They’re not leaving anything unsaid or them not knowing what’s next or on the daily, a daily check in with the foreman to the customer.

Hey, this is what I plan to have completed by the end of the day and tomorrow, I’m gonna be moving to here. Um, having that relationship get built between the foreman and the customer even if it’s a two day deal, you know, especially if it’s a maybe even more so important on a short two day job than a, a 15 or 20 day job. Um, so I think all those things are in efforts to create the customer’s happiness, you know. Uh Any time we are lucky enough to have somebody choose to spend their hard earned money with us.

We want to make sure they’re extremely confident in their choice. Yeah, that definitely does mirror what the way you spoke about it with the employees. So a lot of that’s communication and transparency and being upfront with the expectations and keeping everyone aligned. And in this case, you essentially keeping yourself aligned and letting them know everything you’re gonna do and then ensuring you follow through. They never really a question of what’s going on. I think that’s a big miss for a lot of really a lot of companies in general, but especially in the service space and the home service space, you know, you’re getting it done, but they maybe don’t know that you’re getting it done or how you’re getting it done or when you’re getting it done.

And so there’s, if there’s a void, if there’s a void of communication lapse, that’s where the mind will run and insecurity will start to set in and, and anxiety will start to creep up in terms of the homeowner. Yeah. And we get, I mean, we, we get all the same questions Brandon, right? Like that, we get the same questions from customers and potential customers that, that any other paint contractor is gonna get, um, have a good answer for them and have an answer that you’re gonna carry out, I guess is the, the key to it, you know?

Well, I ju II, I got my last estimate, you know, of the three that I got and you guys are twice as high. How come like, well, I can’t see the estimate you’re looking at from them, but let’s pull yours up and let’s look at everything we’re gonna do right. And go back through your estimate with them. This is what Sequoia painting is gonna do. This is what I can, this is what I can insure. This is what I can guarantee you. If the other customer, if they’re saying the exact same thing, then if it’s the bottom dollar price that it is influencing the decision, then I would say you’re getting a great value in this other contractor.

They’re gonna do everything that we have lined out. I would reinsure with them like you did with us that you are that they, you are receiving everything that we lined out for that lesser price for everyone listening. That was a sales objection and a tremendous handling of a sales objection. So yeah, I think we were right in, in sales and, and it happens in sales, it happens in customer service. But I think we’re, we kind of act surprised, right? Or we’re like, oh, hey, they’re asking why our price is so high.

Who would have ever thought that they might ask that? I better try to figure out an answer like when, when you see these patterns of questions, you should go figure out what the right answer is the answer that that is honest, but also put your best foot forward in terms of your company should rehearse it and you and everyone in that situation should be prepared to deliver that answer. You bet that was, uh Cody, that was well executed. Felt like I was taking a sales lesson with that.

That was awesome. Um Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, oh, it sounds like you guys are doing a lot differently. You’re, you’re approaching it differently. I think you have an unfair advantage with the, well, with the magic, well, that you have with the people, but I think aside from that, you know, a lot of it’s your, of your own making. Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up this episode? I’ll let Josh go first. Yeah. Well, yeah, first of all, you know, I don’t wanna, you know, have anybody listening here thinking, you know, this was just easy, easy thing to build because from uh starting this in 2020 getting to where we’re at today, it was a challenge, uh for sure.

But, you know, uh all, all I can say is, is in putting, investing into the company by training and setting up policies and procedures. You’d be surprised on how far that goes with, with the culture, you know, and some people may say that we are doing, you know, too much training, you know, I, I mean, I come from a a culture from the prison system that you do nothing but training constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly you’re doing on the job training OJT constantly. Um And you can never get enough training, you know, when we sit down every quarter, I mean, we’re, we’re discussing, you know, things that they communicate with a customer with, you know, uh for example, they, you know, they’re required to call that customer on the first day of the project, letting them know Mr Brandon.

We will be there in about 45 minutes. Uh We’re loading some stuff up and go from there, you know, to all the way to when they get there, what they do when they get there, start organizing and let the customer know, you know, is it ok? If we show up tomorrow at seven AMI know we showed up at eight today, but now we’re just gonna go, which is a cool thing by letting them take their vehicles home, they go straight to the job site and they don’t clock in until they’re on site, you know.

So there’s no, no wasted wasted time, no wasted shop time every day um to, you know, communicate paying with the customer, let him know. Ok. Is it ok if we come the rest of the this project at 7 a.m. you know, and orchestrating all that stuff. Uh So circling back around, it is training is, is very important in my eyes, you know, definitely um training expectations communication all huge or all of high value to us at, at Sequoia painting. And II, I think a oh a a mindset nugget for anybody that may listen to this that I keep in my mind is that if you haven’t built something that you see value in your expectation of somebody else seeing it is unrealistic.

So if you haven’t built something that you believe in that, you know, has what it takes, how do you expect anybody else to come in and do that? Right. So we believe in Sequoia painting, we’re passionate about it. All the aches and pains have been to make it be what we expect it to be, what we know it has potential to be. And that’s, I think what really sets the tone for the culture because it’s not just, it’s not people just sitting back making a ton of money, right?

We, we all hear that analogy all the time. Oh, we never see them, they’re just sitting back collecting the paychecks, you know, the right. Exactly. Um It’s, it’s known that this is we believe in this, we believe in the brand. We believe in everybody that represents the brand, you know, and that that’s never lost on our foreman that are in the field, you know, they get reassured that by myself often I know Joshua does the same thing our, our uh estimator that joined residential uh work acquisition with us this year.

I mean, he’s very good at doing the same thing that we are all responsible for upholding this brand at the highest level. Um And if we all show up and give an honest effort to do that every day, there’s not much that’s gonna hold us back or get in our way doing it. Yeah, Nana’s powerful, Joshua Cody. I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you sharing so much and, and kinda sharing some air in the dirty laundry Cody, as you said, but really giving us, gave us a lot of information, not hiding.

Um not, not holding back on that. I really appreciate that we’ll be getting it the systems and the processes on the next one. So we’ll really deep dive into the training as part of that which I’m excited about. Yeah, I appreciate you guys time and sharing all this. Not a problem

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