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 Pierrepont, founder of painter, marketing pros and creator of the popular PC A educational series. 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 painter turned big business owner will Reyes of Battle Bourne.
Painting will be sharing how he has grown his painting company to over $5 million in annual revenue and will be providing some creative options for other owners. Looking for explosive growth. In episode one, we’ll discuss the mental transition he made from painter to business owner and the hurdles he needed to overcome along the way. In episode two, we’ll discuss how to create a killer client experience that builds a repeatable and profitable book of business for your painting company. In episode three, will outline some of the application tools, tricks and styles to paint that have allowed his team to create superior results for their clients and earn an enviable reputation in his local marketplace.
In episode four, this episode will, will lay out his approach to employee retention and how maintaining key team members has allowed for sustained growth. And in the final episode, episode five will, is going to deep dive into how to think about adding other trades or widgets to your painting business. When is it a good idea? And when is it likely Shiny Object Syndrome? If you wanna ask real 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 form on Facebook and request to join the group or type in the URL, facebook. com/groups/painter Marketing Mastermind again at URL is facebook. com/groups/painter marketing mastermind. There you can ask will 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, what’s going on, buddy? We are back live. I think the last episode um covered a lot of stuff in terms of how employees run the projects and how they think about it.
And I think it’s a really gonna be a really good lead into this one. I think so. I think it was, I hope so. I hope people get the value in it. So, yeah, that or it’s just gonna be a beer to do talking for a while. Either way is a win. I, I agree. I agree. I couldn’t agree with you more. So uh employee, you know, good, good people, retaining them, finding them, retaining them this whole, uh you know, just can’t find any good people, can’t find any good painters.
Uh is a big re refrain right in the painting industry. So I’d love to love to dive into how you’re able to find the good painters that apparently are hiding from any other painting companies and how you’re able to keep them. You know, that’s a really good question. And I’ve, I’ve had that asked time and time again. And, um, you know, our crew is very slow to uh warm and then slow to um accept new people. And I think, you know, um that’s probably one of the, the biggest secret to the success of our team is that as far as our boots on the ground go, we, um we tell people that come in through, you know, we get them through various sources d or range reps, whoever and when we get painters that come through, you know, if they can get through the office, whether I interview or the PM does, um We always let them know like, hey, this is just the first stage of the interview process, you know, and then we go through the qualifying process and get a personality test on them, see if they’re a good fit in that manner.
And then once, you know, they get all those boxes checked, we say, you know, we’re gonna, it’s, it’s a, it’s a trial. It’s, it’s a dry run. It’s a, um, you know, it’s a, it’s a working interview when you can fit with the crew. You know, if you make it past day one, you, you, you’ve got the whole week to impress him. Some people don’t make it past the first hour, four hours that day. You know, we’ve gotten calls in numerous cases. Hey, this person is not gonna work.
So they come back to the office and cut him a check and send them back and, you know, or they’ll, they’ll start out the great, you know, first the great day or first day will be great. And then by the third day, the fourth day, they slow down a little bit, which is to be accepted, um, expected. And then, you know, maybe they call on Friday and you’re like, well, I hope send them packing. You know, it’s not hard to find people to hire. It’s hard to keep people once you got them and you know, the people that work with us that have been working for us for a long time.
Um, you know, I asked them, you know, what, what keeps you guys here? What makes you guys stay? Because you think you always have the answer as, as the boss. You wanna, you wanna be the leader, you wanna have all the answers, but that’s just not the reality. And, you know, you don’t wanna have all the answers most of the time, you know, you wanna be able to lean into your team. And so when we talked, you know, they, I, I thought I was gonna get some, some basic one liner.
Oh you treat us well. Um, What else? You know, we did get some of that, but for the most part we went down, I wouldn’t say a rabbit hole, but we went down a conversation of a lot of deep respect and mutual admiration for my team. And I, and you know, we started to jot down what, what matters most to them, you know, to create a loyal base of um team members, crew employees, however you wanna name them. Um for us, loyalty means the most and to get somebody’s loyalty, they have to trust you and you have to trust them.
And for the most part, I trust everybody here. I mean, I trust anybody that works with me, with my kids and those are my most prized possessions. You know, I’ve had guys walk around $15,000. Hey, loss. Do you want me to bring that to you now? Cash? No, just bring it to me Monday. Ok. You know, a lot of employers wouldn’t do that. They would be really like, uh you better bring that to me or, uh, that guy might get second thoughts, but I’ve never had those issues with the people that work with us and they’ve never had a problem just holding on to it.
You know, we do a lot of cast work around here. That’s, you know, a lot of people in old, in Reno, old fashioned like that, you know. So, you know, trust is probably the most important thing once people have earned my trust and I’ve earned this, their trust, I would say there’s not much they won’t do for you. And then once you’ve got that trust earned, you will start to wanna do things for them. You know, like, you know, to each person has to be treated a little differently.
You can’t treat everybody the same as a whole. It just doesn’t work like that. You know, some people, I mean, everyone’s needs are different and so a lot of times when people are working here, we talk about like, what matters to you, you know? Is it, yeah, a good schedule. Is it pay, you know, is it vacation time? Like what matters to you? And, um, most people would be, I don’t know, shocked or a little amazed that for the most part the staff here, money is not the biggest issue.
You know, the, they’re not super motivated by money. I mean, it makes the world go around things easier when you have it, but for the most part, you know, respect is a big thing for them. Loyalty is a big thing for them. Trust is a big thing for them. You know, once they’ve earned the trust and the loyalty, they understand that everybody here shares that same trust, the loyalty from the person, you know, cleaning up the paint job. It’s, you know, the person bagging up the trash to the person answering the phone.
And so, you know, those are the things that we see that are super important. We just don’t treat them like a number. And so that was probably one of the biggest things that we talked about was that they’re not treated like a number and they, they appreciate it. And so, so when you guys bring someone on and that, that first week on the job, that’s technically still part of their interview. Yeah. And they know that we make it very clear and, and the guys know they don’t have a job, the crew members, they understand that what they’re looking to do is find somebody that’s first of all trainable.
Second of all they can work with. And so if they can find somebody that’s trainable and they can work with, they can deal with you not knowing a lot or not as much as them, they can deal with you being slow. Um, you know, if you’re there and you’re trainable, you’re eager to learn, then we’ve got a place for you with, uh, you know, when we don’t have time for those kind of people, those people that think they already know it all. You know, they wanna come in and they wanna start telling you how to do things on your job and they may have a good idea and it may, uh, make things faster, but we’re not necessarily looking for fast pay jobs.
We’re looking for efficient paint jobs. So we want people to do our system that falls in line with how we get things done. So the faster they can fall in and learn the way we do things, the faster we can get jobs done for us. So, not so much speed, but more efficiency is what we’re depending on is that typically when you get a, like a notice from your crew and says like, hey, this person isn’t gonna work out, is it typically because they are a know it all.
Um We’ve had guys, we had a guy here two weeks ago, three weeks ago, 40 year, I’ve been paining since the eighties. Do you know everything? No, I don’t claim to know everything. That’s a good attitude to have. He made it two hours too hot outside. The ladders were too tall, you know, birds are too loud. You know, it’s, it’s different reasoning. It’s different reasoning for why people don’t make it on this team. But I’d say the majority of that reasoning is ego. You know, it’s ego driven, it’s ego based like I said in the last podcast, I can’t remember one.
Most of the painters I know are the best painters ever you’ve never met a faster way. Ain’t no one can cut a line fast and you ask spray at a house and, and so we just don’t have a lot of room for that. So when people come over here with that attitude, we usually look just to get rid of them. You know, the interview. Great. Sounds gonna be like there and then they get on site and someone quote disrespects them or I don’t need someone telling me what to do.
I know what I’m doing. Well, no, you don’t, you don’t know what you’re doing, especially here and you do need somebody tell me what you do, especially here because we do things a little different than most places. So those were the things that we, we talk about. And so, and it’s not like we’re not open to change. We’re very open to change. You know, my, the, our leadership team here, you know, we have the same questionnaires with them. It’s like, why, why do you like working here?
What keeps you here? You know, we talk about being open to change. It’s not just me, it’s everyone but that falls under below me. Everybody has a job here from our P MS to our office manager to our marketing director. They all have a job and something they’re all specialized in, but they’re all open to change. Not just me, you know, a lot of times people think it has to come from the top, but the most part, you know, my whole job was to work myself out of a position and, you know, live, you know, on easy street or, you know, pursue something else I wanna do.
You know, I don’t put a ton of hours in here. Uh, like I used to, you know, I used to sit there 12 hour days, wake up at, you know, 656 in the morning, you to work at seven to paint, you know, and these are gone, you know, now it’s usually just come here for a few hours in the morning and get things going and then the rest of the team does it, you know, the office manager takes care of what she needs to take care of. Sales manager, take care of what she needs to take care of the PM, takes her.
So those are the things that, that, that, that’s how we run the company and that’s, that goes down to the trust that we, you know, that, that, that I’ve given them and they trust that they give me. Yep. So you, you guys have, you know, people, people come on board a little bit of a longer, I guess interview process, um kind of everyone’s involved, officers, involved, crews involved. How do you, you know, you mentioned that you get, get applicants from various sources, from Sherwin Williams and other places.
What are you looking for when they’re actually interviewing in the office with you? Um, well, so when we put out the ads, we always put, you know, pay is depending on experience, you know, pay starts from anywhere to year. So typically when we meet people and the things we’re looking for is their enthusiasm to learn, you know, their ability to, um, like, you know, to keep their mouth shut. You know, when, when they come in, we want to hear them and we want to ask all these questions, but we wanna know when they get on site, they’re willing to accept our way in our methodology and our systems.
And so a lot of times we run into people that don’t want to do that, they wanna tell you how they can make you much better or they can do it better. And I always answer, well, if that was the case, then I’d be interviewing for a position with you, not the other way around. And so those are the things that we look for, the things that we are red flags for us, you know. Um We always ask like, hey, man, you know, can you pass a drug test?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Can you Yeah. Is your background test gonna show anything up any crazy? No, no, a couple of fights here. Anything like that. You know, those are things that we look for, you know, one of the most important things is if somebody comes in, they’re like, how much does it pay? It’s usually a red flag breast, you know, we put down what it pays the position, it pays, how much it starts out at what, what’s toss out and they come in asking that.
That’s usually that problem. That person usually doesn’t work out. I, I’ve yet to see that person. Well, how much does it pay? That person doesn’t work out for us? You know, pay is very important but, you know, it’s not all that matters. And we try to explain to a lot of people here that we do things differently. And so if you think you’re gonna come in here getting top dollar just to walk into my office and sit down or sit with our PM and tell them how good you are.
And now you want me to pay you top dollar that works a little different here. You’re gonna have to prove yourself. You know, we always sound like, well, it’s not saying you wouldn’t get paid that, but I’ve yet to walk somebody through these doors that knew more than us as a whole that could produce more than us as a whole. And so we’re pretty confident about our system and how we want things done. And so that person is a red flag. You know, I want a person that walks in through these doors and then they go through the interview process.
Everything sounds great. And then I go, ok, let’s talk about pain. They go ok. And they say, well, what is it? Pain? We say between A and B pain experience and they go, ok. And then in our area we’re not the, we don’t pay the best. There’s other painting companies out there that pay more probably by 23 dogs. So if you’re asking somebody, hey, this, you know, you’re making 7003 bucks with me or you’re going down the street making 23 you know, 20 even 24 $25 with, you know, painting company, you know, ABC, they’ll ask, well, why don’t you pay as much?
You know, we, we have a whole different process and a whole different answer for that. At first, some people are shocked and they walk out and we go, ok, that’s cool. You know, you’re not gonna hurt their feelings. But then some people ask, well, you know, can I get warm while this is how we start out with? And then we always ask a few questions, you know, when you’re taking care of your employees and then you’re earning their trust. You have to do all that by saying, hey, I want what’s best for you and your family, whether it be just a single person with his dogs or a cat or it’s a single woman with a dog, cat.
We want what’s best for somebody that walks in here So when we talk about that, we offer a couple of different things. You know, some painting companies, most of the painting companies in our area don’t do this. You know, we pay for um the 401k, we match you there, we match. Um, we pay you your, your PTO that starts from uh minute one. You, you’re, you’re eligible for after 90 days, but it gets retro from when you first started. So you’re getting, you’re collecting hours then. And the biggest thing is that we pay for your health insurance.
And so it’s important for us to have team members that are healthy and, and able to work as opposed to somebody that says to me, I, you know what, I don’t need the health insurance, just pay me more. And so we always say, hey, that’s not how we do things, you know, if you know, there are certain cases where our workers have um opted not to for the health insurance and we pay him a little more to offset that. But very rare. For instance, my wife’s a government worker, her insurance is better.
I got insurance from her. Ok? We can understand that. So, you know, I I’m in the military. I don’t need insurance. I’m signed up for four more years. Ok? We can work with that. But if somebody walks in and says, oh, I don’t ever get sick, that’s not the type of person we want you, we want somebody here that understands that your health matters more than your ability to think. Like, oh, I’m gonna be fine cause you know, I’m 25 or I’m 30 I’m bulletproof. So the, the company ABC down the street, you know, that company that’s paying a little bit more, they’re typically not offering these benefits, not in our area, not to say all of them don’t cause I don’t want to speak to the, everybody in my area.
But as far as we understand, not everybody’s giving the package that we’re giving. And so along with that, you know, it matters to us that you find health insurance, uh you know, um uh value to, to your home because if you don’t, you’re probably not going to be the person you want here. It almost seems like a good uh like natural weeding out mechanism. You know, because the, the one person looking for the quick buck is just gonna care only about that once we have that conversation of like here’s what we start out with, but here’s the benefits that come with the job and that person is more concerned and it’s always comical because it’s always like a dollar.
They want more. They don’t understand, you know, how much insurance really costs. You know, I think we spend $8000 a month on health insurance for employees. You know, it’s not a small number, you know, but to us it’s worth it because I know my employees have health care and then we don’t have, we don’t have the, the, the shitty healthcare insurance, like we have good healthcare insurance for our team. And so that’s important for us cause a lot of our team members have families and we don’t want to short them and you know them not getting the health coverage that they, you know, that they deserve.
And so that’s stuff that we, we take care of. So we’re pretty proud of that. So once we hear people would rather opt for the money than the health coverage, then we’re usually probably, we’re probably not gonna make it past that. That’ll probably be a process for us unless like I said, my wife has insurance that covers me or I’m in the military there. So some small, very few exceptions to that rule. So you guys have a process that forces people to, to be compensated a little bit differently, which is gonna be really attractive to the more conscientious individual, uh or maybe the more stable or one who wants to care for their family, not as attractive to the one who just wants to make as much money uh as, as quickly as possible, which is probably not the right team member.
And then when they join now you have, now they have something to lose because now they’re building Ptopto, they have health insurance. There’s a reason why they wouldn’t want to just jump ship. Whereas at painting company ABC if someone else comes along and offers them a dollar more, they’re probably not gonna stay there. Right? And so what we’ve essentially done is, you know, conveyed like, hey, I understand you wanna get paid more than we all do. But me making sure you have health insurance costs a lot of money, you know, for some people, it’s 033 bucks a month, 400 bucks a month and some of my guys, it’s 7 $800 a month.
And so we just, that’s an acceptable, um, cost for us to know that I don’t have to worry about them, you know, falling off a roof or, you know, they get in a car accident on the way to work or, you know, they get ran over by crossing the street. And so I know that they’re protected and they’re covered. And so that’s me showing them that like, hey, your health is more important than the money. And then I hope that, understand that, that you understand that we’re looking for their trust as opposed to just getting the money.
Because when you go to work, you have to ask yourself, you know, why am I here? Why do I come here every day? And hopefully, if you’re a good employer, they answer that question. It was like, you know, I like going to work because they care, you know, I like going to work because I’m not just a, an employee, you know, that could be replaced easily. And so once you get hired on with us, um, short from like drugs and theft, it’s a little, it’s not easy to get fired here, you know, and, and, and, and that’s been a problem in the past for sometimes, but it’s also been a blessing because we’ve given people who had problems time to foster them up and educate them and learn them up to the, to the positions that we want and, and help them become the people they, they wanted to be, you know, um, and so, you know, a real testament of that is, is we’ve had five past employees here that worked with us that we helped get started on their own, all became contractors, all started their own painting businesses.
Um, three out of that five were successful and two of them didn’t make it. The tutor that make it came back was like, this is harder than I thought it was. I thought it usually is. Yeah. Hey, can I get my job back? And so it’s not as easy as most people want to think it is. You know, it really is tough. And then the guys who did make it are doing well and we help them and, you know, we guide them and, you know, they, we send work back and forth, you know, they said the same thing.
This was, it’s not as easy as I thought it was gonna be. But I’m glad I can call you. You know, I still ii, I have past employees who are contractors. Hey, what would you price for this or? Hey, how much for this? You know? And so that’s, that means a lot to us here at B Bourne because if you can wake up and go, why am I going to work today? Well, it’s because it doesn’t feel like work. Well, that’s a, that’s a compliment to me, you know.
You know, well, because they care about me, you know, they don’t, they’re not concerned with the money more than the person and I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with me on that, but that’s ok. But to me, the people that work here with me are the reason I’m able to do what I do, you know, I used to put the 12 hours in now I put the two hours in, I couldn’t do that without these people that I, that I trust and I’ve earned their trust and they’ve earned mine, you know, it’s coming back because of that.
Yeah, let’s get into that a little bit. That trust. Is that true? That is clearly a very key piece of this. What do you, uh, I mean, how do you kind of vet that, like when you’re, when you’re having people come in and they’re interviewing with you, how do you figure out whether you can trust them? Well, it’s like we said, you know, you go through the questions, the standard questions, you know, it’s what do you do? How do you do it? And you know, what can you do for us?
You ask them all the questions that they’re gonna, you know, basically tell you what you wanna hear. And then, then we ask one question that’s, that’s I always ask is like, well, tell me something about yourself and you know, I said, I always ask like, well, tell me about yourself and they always give you some bullshit answer. Oh You know, I, I like, I like painting, ok? No. And I always have to remind them just, just be honest. Tell me something that you don’t think I wanna hear.
And that’s when I’ll get the trust. Hey, man, I just need this job for the summer, ok? I’ll give you a summer job. You give me 100%. You’ll never hear me, bitch. Ok? Great. Hey, I’m just here to learn and to start my own painting business. I know that’s not what you wanna hear. No, that’s actually what I wanna hear. Really? Yeah, I need to help raise the next generation of painters to help me boost up the trade because the last generation didn’t do that for me. Last generation.
In my opinion, this is just Willie talking here did a really piss for job of cutting the price and you know, bringing down the trade and you know, talking bad about the other guy and I I don’t wanna be a part of that. I wanna be a part of the next generation that the change where painters boost each other up, you know, where I’m too busy. I can give a number out to a guy that I know that’ll do a good job. That’s honorable, you know, that’s what I wanna do and that’s how we wanna work.
So when people come through, we ask them like, what are you looking for? What do you want, what do you wanna do or you just want a job? You know, I’ve got people here, like I said, I’ve helped five guys do their own business. My oldest employees been here with me for 10 years and we asked him, are you trying to get out there on your own? He’s like, no, I just wanna work my, my, my 40 hours and go home. Ok? No problems if that’s all you want.
That’s great too. If you want more out of life, we can help you with that as well. So, you know, you don’t have to need, you don’t have to want the moon or re invent the wheel or start your own company. You, you could just want a secure job and that’s like a huge amount of trust for me if I know this person is gonna show up every day on time and get the job done and I don’t have to worry about him. You know, that’s, that’s my first employee.
He’s been here the longest, you know, he comes in. I don’t, I don’t even talk to him all week comes in. Does the job. I never have to worry about it. It gets done. Right. I don’t have to worry about him. Those employees are nice. Well, you know what, most of the people that work here are like that, you know, we don’t do a ton of micromanaging. You know, we know the jobs can get done and that’s what we’re really proud of. And so, you know, that’s where we look for it.
So as we’re interviewing, we’re asking these types of questions like, you know, what are you looking for? You know, what do you want from us? Oh I wanna be the best person you’ve ever hired. OK? Don’t give me that line of bullshit cause that’s what everybody says, everyone walks that door, they’re gonna be the best and they’re gonna work the hardest and I’m gonna give you 100 and 10% we’re asking for the real version of you cause that’s all you’re ever gonna get with us. And so that’s what we get.
And so once we can determine what they want in life is that’s usually when we can start working on the trust and once the trust starts getting built, there’s not much we can do about it. You know, I said it takes a lot to get fired around here. I have an employee with us. Now who I’ve let go three times. And I asked him, why do you keep coming back? He’s like, why do you keep hiring me back? And I said, well, I know you’re a good person.
I trust you. I know you’re not gonna do it wrong. But his biggest thing was he couldn’t get to work on time. So we had to let him go. Three months later, we give him another shot, fired him again. Three months later, we give him another shot. Vic, why do you keep coming back? It’s like I, you guys, I like it. You guys treat me well. I mean, can you imagine getting fired from a job and then keep going back there and they keep hiring you back?
It’s a little weird, right? It seems weird. Right? But now I explain it to you like this. I know he’s a person I can trust. I know he’s not gonna do me dirty and I know he’s not gonna see for me. He doesn’t do drugs and he’s not a drinker. So I don’t have to worry all these things that, you know, you always have to constantly be, you know, keeping an eye out for this person’s displayed none of that. His biggest problem was getting to work on time.
So he said this is the last time. Will I got it together? I’m, I’m never late. I won’t be late again and he hasn’t been late since. And so it’s like those are the I, and I’m in this and, and he called me the whole time. He didn’t work for me. Hey, can you help me with this job? Can you do this with me? Can you help me price this out? So even people that don’t work or that we let go still remain friends, you know, there’s still people I trust I’ve still, I’ve sent work to people.
I fired here just because I know they’re gonna do a good job and, um, I can trust him about it, but sometimes it just doesn’t work, you know, maybe they got into it with another employee or, you know, like we couldn’t get here on time. So those are things. So those are what we’re looking for, you know, and, and I mean, he keeps coming back from the same job. Most people went on with the next painting c what does that say? Yeah, I think the, the fact that you maintain that relationship that you help him when he’s gone.
Um, and then that you’re willing to provide another opportunity. A lot of, a lot of companies don’t really appreciate what, um, I guess how you handle termination or how you handle employees that, that leave or mess up what it does to the rest of the team, right? When they see you doing that, when they see you still helping this guy, even though you had to let him go because he couldn’t really meet the minimum requirements of the job by showing up on time and then you were willing to offer him another opportunity.
That means that every other person working for you just naturally likes you more and trusts you more because I think, well, company ABC probably wouldn’t do that. A lot of companies would just buy and get rid of you. You know? But I mean, there are some big ones, like if you steal from me, you’re, you’re dead to me for life. You know, you do drugs on my job site. You’re dead to me for life. You drink in my truck, you’re dead to me for life. I’ll never talk to you again.
But you’re late. You can’t get on to work on time. I can deal with that. You know, you’re a good person. You’re not a bad person. But, you know, unfortunately we had to get a lesson was taught. I mean, and think about it and he came back. This is the third time he’s been back. Yeah. Third time he’s been back and he keeps coming back and now he’s, now he’s work on time. He’s our all star. You know, everybody in the crew came back. Well, why did you hire Vic back?
He was like, he’s a good painter. I know, but he’s never on time. Um, if he’s, if he missed, if he’s late one week, we’ll cut him again. So that was our story with V and so you know, you gotta, you can’t just be so dry, so, so black and white, you know, sometimes people have lives, man, you know, sometimes I mean I had employee and his kids were sick all the time. Awesome. I’m sorry, I can’t make it in today. It ok, your kids are important.
I understand, you know. Um boss, I can’t make it in a, you know um I say he but it was a she she was a single mom, two kids. We said you always got a job here. Your kids will never get you fired in this house. And she worked here until she ended up quitting. Um, and she tried to start her own business and she was one of the ones that got it up, got it going and came back was like, this is too hard. This is too hard as a single model.
That’s very hard. She think it was too hard and she’s like, I, you know, I just thought it was a lot easier. You made it look easy and I said it looks easy because you just see what I do. I said it looks easy because you’re not recognizing the rest of the team in the house. What marketing does, what the office does, you know what sales does, what, you know, our PM does. Of course my job is easy. I had to do all those jobs in the beginning and I don’t do any of them there.
Everyone else else is doing it. And so it’s easy to say, I thought, you know, it looks easy until you go to do it. And then it’s, it’s not as easy. Sure you mentioned in the hiring process using a personality profile. Um Can you talk a little bit to, to what you use and then what you’re looking for? Yeah. So for different. So we use um you know, the disc profile that was uh Jason Phillips. Shout out to Jason. Uh you know, he’s uh yeah, Jason, yeah, Jason Phillips, uh you know, Grandmaster Jason Phillips, he uh introduced this profiling this, this, this um personality profile and um it’s been uh I don’t wanna say a game changer but it’s really opened their eyes and getting the right people in the right position and then setting those people up for success.
You know, there is such thing as having the right person in the wrong position, which we had to do some shuffling after we got that. Um you know, after we learned about that profiling and it made all the difference in the world. You know, we had a lead that we thought, well, here’s how we’re gonna communicate to him and then we had him test out and come to find out it was the wrong way for us to talk to him. And so once we channel, we change the way we communicate with them, his progress was night and day.
And so that’s really important to us. And so that was something very important is that Jason taught us and that introduced us to it. And so if anybody out there is, you know, having issues with, um, you know, employees or crew members or what have you, I would probably say, run through your personality profile and see if they’re fit for the job that they’re supposed to be doing. Now, there’s always an exception to the rule, it’s not 113% foolproof, but for the majority of it, everybody in our house here, um their personality profile fits the job that they’re supposed to be doing.
You know, what are you guys looking for? Out of a painter? Personality profile wise, you know, for our lead painters, we’re looking for, you know, a dominant personality, somebody that can, you know, run a crew and, you know, his main focus is getting the job done efficiently and, you know, and not necessarily being liked, but being respected. You know, if you put a person in there, that’s more, you know, um emotional base where they rather be light or they don’t want anybody to be mad at them because fear for they wouldn’t be like, then you become, then it becomes a problem.
You know, you gotta be able to, you gotta be ok with not being like that day. And I’m the same way is like, you know, some of my employers have asked like, how do you deal with that. And I said that the job is not to be liked every day of every minute, the job is to be respected. And so for our painters, you know, we can deal with most of them on anywhere on the, the disc profile, but certain key roles, we need them to show that they’re gonna be leaders and leaders, you know, lead.
So let’s get into retention. So you have, you know, your team comes, they interview, you give them personality profile, seems like a good fit. Talk about the pay. They figure out that you’re not the highest in town, but then it makes sense because it’s holistic. You, you dive deeper than other interviews. You ask them some stuff, they don’t want you to know they open up, they start to trust you. It’s a different experience. They join, the team’s not very welcoming like, oh, this is a bit weird.
The team decides they like them stay there for the week ends up being a good fit they’re in. Um they have the, the PTO that they’re earning, they have the 401k, they have the health insurance. What other reasons are there that they, they wouldn’t leave? What else is going on in the employee day to day life. So for the boots on the ground, the guys are incentivized. Um So every Google review they get and it doesn’t have to be a five star. It could be a four star.
Every Google they get and even some three stars are, are qualified. You know, for instance, all the crew was great. You know, Victor was amazing. Ran the job, great. Um, you know, I didn’t like the paint color. They give you three enough stars. Well, that wasn’t really his fault. So we let them go. So every, every employee that gets listed we give out an hour. PTO. So for the job. So if you’re on the job and for instance, we have, uh we are, our flooring team is three people and they get listed almost every day.
They get PTO, almost every day. So we give out one hour PTO per Google review. So if you get a Google and a Yelp from that house, that’s two hours, you get a Google a Yelp and a Facebook, that’s three hours. So if you’re listed, if you’re the only person listed there and they review you three times, you just got three hours of PTO. What if, what if they list more than one person? So it’s one hour per review. So if you got two guys, you both split the two hours or the hour, it see what I’m saying.
So we had to be really careful that because we would have, you know, six guys on one job and all of a sudden, you know, they get six hours of PTO be like, wait a minute. That’s not, the math is not mathing on that. And so they, they get Google Yelp and Facebook. And they’re all listed. All of them. Yeah, you, yeah, you would have 789 painters just every day and every client’s list just like, hey, hey, hey, so um our flooring crew probably does that the best of everybody.
They get 80% reviewed and they all get listed. So you gotta figure these guys get about two hours of PTO a week on top of their normal PTO. And so, I mean, theoretically you can add another 52 hours, even if you just got one a week, you could add another 52 hours of PTO to your time to your um your timeline or your um your pay scale. Yeah, that’s a nice benefit. What is your um what is your normal PTO schedule look like? Now that I’m the wrong person to ask, um I wanna say after your f you, you get um after 90 days you’re eligible, then we refer you from the 90 then it occurs by.
So if you don’t use any, by the end of the year, you’ll probably, I think it comes down to a, about a little over a week. I think it is 50 hours somewhere around there. And so, um and that’s for X amount of years and after that, it, you know, goes to more hours. Um but you know, we do pay the PTO but we are also incentivizing it with, with getting the reviews because if you I mean, if you just get one a week and you’re on 5 to 123 jobs a week, you just added another 52 hours to your schedule.
You know? And like I said, I’ve got guys who get two hours a week, you know, the crew gets two hours a week. So that’s even if they didn’t do it every week for 52 weeks, they did it for 40 weeks. That’s another 2700 hours they just put on their paycheck. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine working at a place where you got another week of PTO or more? Just for doing one review a week? Now? I think our, our gutter crew, they’ll usually do probably, I don’t know, 2700 reviews a month.
We’ll bring in from in there, you know, give or take. And so, and some of those guys are listed almost every job. You ever have people kind of like infighting to see who gets listed on those. We haven’t had, we, you know, that was something we thought about and then it did come up because when so it’s, it’s a part of that customer experience. We talked about the other podcast, right? So we’re creating this great customer experience, right? For this client and they’re loving it. They’re loving the crew because they’re so nice.
Well, the crew is being so nice because that’s their job. But they’re also like saying, hey, we gotta do something to make sure we’re, we’re memorable. We gotta make sure that this client knows our name because the first thing our lead is when they got on site was like, hey, this is Victor, this is Joey and then they go back and go, hey, I’m Joey. Ok. Or when they go and they go, oh, you know what, hey, did you want all the feathers? You know, the, the weather should be pulled out of this and I go, ok.
All right, thanks. And so if you’re making sure you’re memorable and then the review comes, you know, you’re listed. I mean, you can’t fight over it because the client’s gonna list whoever they want to list. Yeah, but it would typically be the lead who would ask right? The client the lead always ask at the end of the day, hey, after we get done doing the full walk through, we’re down to our two questions and the questions are like, hey, did we earn that good review? And they’re gonna go, yeah, your name however they wanna, you know, voice that and then they’re gonna say, ok, hey, we just need to check the balance of that and we’ll get out of your hair.
Expect a call from us next week to make sure, you know, if you do see something the next week, it’s not a big deal. We’ll come out and take care of it for you. So that lead does um, solicit that last um, little reminder of like Hey, did we earn that good review? And then they’ll get, and if they say, yeah, I’ll write a review. Ok. Hey, you know, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you list to give you a really good experience today, whether it be, you know, one of the boys out there or whoever you want to be.
So, and sometimes they don’t list the boys. Sometimes they list, you know, the, the, um, um the, the sales associate and then the project consultant or they, they, they list um, you know, the PM, you know, which is Derek. So it just kind of depends on how it comes and how you ask that question. But we usually want to ask it in that manner like, hey, if anybody out, if, if, if anybody out, you know, stood out here just you might listen to them and they go, ok, cool.
So that’s how these guys keep track of it. And so once the review comes in, we write it on the white board in the back one and then we’ll put a tick mark to whoever’s name that is. What do you do if they don’t put anyone’s name? Uh And then then it’s just a good review. There’s nobody there, you know, we’ll talk about it. So, like today I went in today I think we had six reviews for last week in painting. We had um, I think 2700 in gutters and then I think four in and flooring and so, you know, painting, crushed it, you know, gutters did really well.
And so we’re like, ok, here we go. And then I’ll get the hours when we come and do the job costing report and then we’ll, uh, phone the hours into a payroll. Yeah, I love it. Ok. So they have the, the ability to earn more PTO, they’re, they’re clocking that PTO as they go anyways. And now they have a, like a tight knit crew, right? Because it wasn’t, it, it a little harder to get into. But then when you get into it usually means it’s probably a very good fit.
Is there anything else you see that you’re doing maybe a little bit differently from some other companies? Yeah. So we are very specific in how we do things. And so, um, we only have two pain crews. We have a six man crew and a three man crew. And so once the schedule is full, the schedule is full, you know, not, not a lot of times we can, you know, uh, fit somebody in or squeeze them in, like once it’s full, it’s full because of the way we get things done.
And so it’s not like, well here, let’s see if we can hurry up and get this house done a little early and then we’ll start on this one now. No, it’s not like that, you know, this week we have five houses for the big crew. We have two houses for the small crew and that’s just it. We’re full. And so we, we start to run into a lot of issues and we ran into this years ago is we were unable to take on a lot of work because now, I mean, we’re booked out until November currently.
And so you gotta look at that, like, how much work are we missing? Right. How much work are we missing? So, the biggest thing I think we do that our crews love is that we’ll just send them the work as side work. So if I got somebody that says, hey, I need the whole house blown out because I got a tenant moving in. Ok? No problem. We can do it. Oh, you can. Yeah. Yeah, we might, yeah, we can, we can fit it in. Let’s let’s come take a look at it.
So we’ll look at the project, hit him with the price and then I’ll send it to one of my guys on the weekend or after hours to do it as a side job. So all of a sudden, you know that job that I did for $2700. Well, I was never gonna get it anyways. I didn’t have the time for it. So our crew will come and do it on their own time and they’ll get paid on the job. So you come to me and you work in a house that, yeah, the pay is not as good as elsewhere, but they sure do care about you.
And so you figure if I can slide you a side job, whether it be a full interior. Last one I gave out last Friday was, um, 203 bucks for a garage door. Lady needed it. Done, needed it done Friday because her ho a was gonna find her. If she didn’t. 211 bucks, I’ll have it done this afternoon. Ok, great. Called Tony and said, hey, man, 23 bucks. He ran after 22 minutes later he was done, got a call, got a picture sent it. So that full interior that you’re not gonna get to.
It’s 24000 bucks, you’re gonna give your, your crew the opportunity to just go knock it out on the weekend. They are going to probably supply the paint and then they’re gonna take the full 22 and it’s essentially they’re running their own, you know, project almost like mini company for that day. Have you ever had issue? I mean, I assume you haven’t, you only have two crews and I mean, you got a pretty tight, tight process and tight team, but have you ever had issues where there was like a quality control problem because you weren’t actually running it and it was now someone else running it.
Now, that’s where the trust comes in. We don’t send the side job to Atlas. We can trust you. And so you know, they’re specific about it. So there’s rules and everything about it. So we’ll send you a side job you can, because your name is still on it. You know, we still take the risk, we still take the risk. So if they fall off a ladder, we still take the risk. And so it’s not a popular thing that I do and I know a lot of business owner out there and a lot of painting contractors that won’t do it, they don’t want the risk.
That’s ok. I agree with you. I understand it is risky. But what with what we’re doing. But it also is giving them an opportunity to get ahead. Right, because I can’t pay them $5000 to go do a job, but I can send him that job that was never gonna get done by us anyways. So now my truck is running late hours, you know, my trucks running seven days a week, my employees are happy because they just got a, a huge paychecks that they can put away for the winter time or Christmas.
And so it’s, we’ve seen it as a win win. You know, I’ve had this discussion many times where people are like, well, why don’t you just pay them overtime? Well, we pay overtime when they work overtime, but we don’t like our guys working overtime. We like our guys starting at seven and getting done by three. We don’t make them work. Saturdays. We don’t make them work Sundays and we don’t make them work unless it’s like if we got a job that has to get done on Monday, we’ll send as many painters as we need to get it done.
So we gotta send six or seven or 89 and even 10 guys, even if our P MS gotta paint or, you know, if they need 11 or 12, you know, a lot of people don’t know Kristen and I still paint because we enjoy it. Not because we need to, but we enjoy painting. We’ve been called plenty of times. Hey, man, we need you guys. How many can you bring? I’ll bring two people. Cool. And then we go, then we go there and we, we knock it out, right? But, you know, my whole goal is to make sure my guys aren’t blistering themselves in the summer heat working, you know, in 100 degree weather.
40003, 12 hour days. You know, I’ve had this conversation where you get contractors like, well, you know, they’ll just work overtime. Who the fuck wants to work overtime, man? You know, you got kids. Do you really want to work past eight hours? No, you know, you got, you got a life too, you know, you’re not working here so you can um you know, barely pay your bills or barely see your kids. You know, you’re working here as a means to end and you wanna make sure that this place stays where it stays in your life.
Yes, it’s valuable to work here. Yes, we value as a crew member, but your family is more important this place, you know, and so when people understand that where we, they understand our stances on that, the trust that we build with our crew and our employees, it’s, it’s, you know, unshakeable, you know, our, our guys, they always on Facebook um uh Instagram, I don’t know all the names of these things. Um The tiktoks or whatever it is, they’re always posting videos that’s never been mandatory for us.
We’ve never said you gotta put this on your social media. You don’t have to do a funny video in the day. They’ve always just done that because they enjoy working here, you know. And so if we’re giving that trust to them and they’re giving their trust to us, why wouldn’t I give them the side job? I can pay them just as the same. It would be the same people I sent out there. They would do the same quality of work, you know, but we’re very transparent about it.
A lot of times on the bigger jobs we go, hey, listen, Mr Customer, we’re a little full right now but here’s what I’m willing to do for you cause we’ve had people like no, I want you to do it but I need it done now. We’ll go OK. Here’s what we’ll do for you. I’ll have my crew come out and do it on the weekend as a side job. You just pay them direct. Oh, really? They’re 100% covered. You know, they’ll be in all of our tools, all of our gear, all of our trucks.
You’re gonna get, it’s the same people I would send out here. You’re just gonna pay, you’re gonna cut a check to them instead of us. And they go. Oh, ok. Fine. You’ve never had a problem with it. But like I said, the trust has to be earned because without it you’ll have a problem. Have there been any problems with anything regarding trust? Like you placing trust in the wrong person? Yeah. Yeah, I had one of my best painters. Probably the best painter I’ve ever worked with came up $700 cash short.
And so when I, and, and I, uh, and it was the funniest thing because I never count the money when they bring it to me. But that day I did 700 bucks short. It’s the only time I’ve ever been short. Ever since then I count the money every time now. But I never counted the money before. And then that day I was like, I’m gonna count it. Something seemed off $700 short. Called the client. No, no, I paid him, everything called him. I don’t know what happened. So you can’t accuse people of being thieves unless you see him actually be a thief.
Two weeks later, he came to me with an envelope, $700 in it. Hey, boss, that was my fault. I lost the money. I knew he didn’t lose the money. So that next day we random drug tested him and he failed and we gotta let him go. This guy was the best painter I’d ever worked with. Has down no one I can even give. I’m good. I’m a real good painter. My PM is probably one of the best I’ve ever met. But this guy was better than both of us then.
And unfortunately he, he succumbed to a problem that we couldn’t, we couldn’t overlook. Yeah, that’s, that’s the only time I ever had an issue. Yeah, it’s interesting, I think, uh, I mean, to me a lot of what you do just works, it works together like each of these things independently is not going to be nearly as powerful as the full thing. But to me, one of the things that you do that’s most powerful is that it’s almost like initiation with the crew. You know, and the fact that you only have these two crews, I think that’s probably of everything you’ve said.
I got, I’m feeling like that’s one of the absolute most important things that you do. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s working with them and, and understanding like, what we can do better, you know, I, you know, I, I don’t know everything and I don’t wanna know everything, you know, I wanna learn just as much as the people that, that, that come in and that we employ, we wanna learn from them as much as they learn from us. If I’ve got something I can, I can, uh, knowledge dump on you, then please take it from me.
I’ll, I’ll share everything you, you want. Um, you know, but you can’t have employees that come up and, and have the, the thought of you being dismissive, you have to be open minded and with your trust and, you know, you asked, did I have a problem with it again? No, I had that one, that one problem with it. $700. That was my bad. That was the only time I had a problem with it. And then, you know, I count the cash from here on out because now that’s my new habit.
But if that guy called me up and came to me and showed me he was back to being clean and sober, we would hire him back. You know, I, I, you know, for the most part, people are good, they wanna do good things and if you give them the opportunity to be good people and be the best that they, they, they can be and, you know, and, and work to their absolute top ability, they wanna do that, you know, and that’s when I worked for somebody that I wanted to be the best for them.
I could be and, you know, I was lucky enough to go through places where, you know, even though some of my bosses weren’t great, you know, they, they always gave me the encouragement to be the best of my ability and, and, you know, that was for that employee too. You know, I think he, he, he still had a lot of potential and if he came back, you know, showed me a clean sober plate, we would probably hire him back because he was a good person, you know.
Yeah, it’s awesome, man. Mhm You know, we created this culture around here and um we, we created a culture here that once you’re, once you get a job here, we wanted to make it, we wanna make it easy to work here. You know, there are a lot of times in my life in the past where I had jobs, it just wasn’t easy to work there. I’m like God, it’d be nice if someone just get out of my way and let me do the job or, you know, man, if they would just change this, it’d be so much easier.
And so that’s why you can’t be dismissive. You gotta be able to hear what someone’s willing to, to say to you because a lot of times you’re just not the expert, you know, or you don’t know it all just because you’re the boss, you know. And so if we can create a system that produces results that people can be proud of and a quality they can stay behind or stand behind. I couldn’t, that’s about as easy as I can make it work for you here. And so that is kind of like our goal on our mission, you know, make it, make it easy to work here and, and people will stay, you know, they’ll give you their all, you know, but, you know, I had, uh, our, our office manager, um, uh, wants to start a new business, start doing hair.
And, um, I said, ok, well, you know, when are you gonna quit? 03 years. Well, three years. Yeah, I know. I, I’m not an idiot. I know I gotta write a business plan. I know you’re gonna, I’m gonna make you help me with it. We’re gonna go through all these things and I’m gonna do it right, because I’ve seen what people have done in the past and I’ve seen what you’re doing, which is right. You know, you care about people. You know, you don’t just let them sit up by the wayside and just hang, you know, the people that work here generally have the best future interests for the next person that stands next to them.
You know, our sales manager can help anybody do sales. You know, our project manager can teach that girl how to run a salon in the most efficient manner. Our marketing director can teach that person. So she’s like, why would I leave now? I got more to learn. And so no skin off our t she’s probably one of the smartest, smartest kids I’ve ever met. Yeah, she’s smart. You know, if you create an environment where people wanna trust you and wanna work as hard as they can for you and then they accept you for who you are, man.
What an environment that is to be. I mean, isn’t that just a cool thing to do? You know, you never have to. Um one of the things we have things written all over this place. Um And one of the things that we have written on there, the board was, you know, which I really like, it’s no one here has to fake it to fit in. And so from the interview process to the training process all the way through, we’re looking for the most authentic version of that person we can get, that’s why I asked them.
Just tell me the truth, your truth. Don’t tell me what you think I wanna hear and then we get on site, you know what we listen, you’re gonna learn more here than you ever have. But what can you teach us? You know, and that lets them get to the point where they can be open and free and be about themselves. It’s like, ok, cool. This is a place I can kind of dig, yeah, I can make a couple bucks more down the street. But where they have my best interests at heart.
You know, if my uncle dies, are they ok with me taking time off? You know, a lot of places are like, well, you don’t have any more PTO and then you’re like, what that person raised me. Yeah. I don’t have to tell you. You got no PC. O now all of a sudden they gotta make a decision is my job that important to stay or do I quit? You know, I’ve been in too many positions throughout my life and I’ve seen positions and I’ve heard friends and, and talk to people where they are.
I’m like, well, you just, you know, just go handle your business. I can, I got no more time off. What do you get no more time off? That’s a, that’s a foreign concept to me. I don’t have any more time off. Just tell your work you can’t go in like work is always gonna be there. You know, you only have so much time with family, you know, that clock runs out. So, in my opinion, those are the things that keep you healthy and those are the pains that create AAA good culture and that’s where people wanna work.
So that’s, that’s what you get when you work here. If you come here to work without a warm painting, that’s what you’re gonna get. And, you know, I’ve had, I mean, my oldest employees is from day one, you know, I think we’re 11 years or 12 years or something, you know, under him is nine years under her is, uh, s, she’s seven years, eight years, you know, I mean, in the painting business to have, you know, crew members and team members that have hung out that long, that’s not a typical thing.
That’s pretty tendered. Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s going but it’s like you said earlier, you know, if you don’t do the job of vetting these people, you know, they’ll leave you for a dollar. I’m gonna make $2 more there, which is only $4000 a year. You chop that up. It’s not a lot of money but they don’t see that those aren’t the people we’re looking for. We’re the, we’re looking for the people like, you know what? Yeah, I can make $2 more there. But, but they won’t give a shit about me when things get bad, they’ll cut me faster than anything.
And so that’s what, that’s, that’s in my opinion, everything I’ve said here is what we do at Battle Born. I’m not saying this is the only way to do things here. I’m saying this is how we do it. And this is the reason why I think we’re successful is we have people here that actually give a shit about what goes on here. I love it, man. Well, that was insightful brother. I appreciate you sharing all that. I was definitely deep uh is there anything else that you wanna to add before you wrap up this episode?
Uh, just like I said before, you know, if anybody’s got questions, I promise you, there’s somebody that knows more than you. And, uh, you know, it’s your job to teach the person knows less than you. If anybody wants to ask me questions, reach out. I’m more than willing to happy, I’m more than willing to share what I know. Uh texting is always a little easier for me. Um or messaging me is fine too. But you know, if you got a question, ask, I promise you, there’s somebody that’s out there willing to help.
Appreciate you. Well, thanks man.
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 PainterMarketingPros.com/Podcast for free training, as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company.
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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 PainterMarketingPros.com to learn more about our services. You can also reach out to me directly by emailing me at Brandon@PainterMarketingPros.com and I can give you personalized advice on growing your painting business. Until next time, keep growing.