In this very special episode of the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast, we host a group interview of Nick Slavik, Brad Ellison, Chris Elliott, and Chris Mole, all owners of highly successful painting companies. These titans of industry discuss topics that were covered during Nick Slavik’s “Ask A Painter Live Winter Retreat” in Minnesota, during which time only a small group of people were privy to this great information. This lively debate and exchange of ideas demonstrates that while there are certain important themes that seem to be consistent among highly successful painting companies, there are often times multiple paths that painting company owners can follow to achieve that success.
Video of Interview
Podcast Audio
Topics Discussed:
- Finding, retaining, and motivating top talent
- Overcoming limiting beliefs and head trash, and replacing it with the right mindset
- Marketing strategies that anyone can employ today to grow their business
- What these leaders would focus on first if they had to start all over
Audio Transcript
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Welcome to the Painter Marketing Mastermind Podcast, a show created to help painting company owners build a thriving painting business that does well over one million and annual revenue. I’m your host Brandon Pierpont founder of Painter Marketing Pros and creator of the popular pc, a educational series, learn do grow marketing for painters. In each episode, I’ll be sharing proven tips, strategies and processes from leading experts in the industry on how they found success in their painting business. We will be interviewing owners of the most successful painting companies in north America and learning from their experiences.
In this very special episode of the Painter marketing Mastermind podcast, we host a group interview of Nick Slavic, Brad Ellison, Chris, Elliott and Chris mole, all owners of highly successful painting companies. These titans of industry discussed topics that were covered during Nick’s Slavic ask a painter live winter retreat in Minnesota, during which time only a small group of people were privy to this great information. This lively debate and exchange of ideas demonstrates that while there are certain important themes that seem to be consistent among highly successful painting companies, there are oftentimes multiple paths that painting company owners can follow to achieve that success. If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed in this podcast and how you can use them to grow your painting business, visit painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast for free training, as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company. Again that you are L is painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast. Alright, So we have a very special edition of the Painter Marketing Mastermind podcast. We’re doing a bit of a repeat from our live podcast recording at the pc expo 2022. There was a bit of an issue with the audio may or may not be released, but we have a lot of guests here who are kind enough to lend themselves lend their time again. So we have brad Ellison from Somerset painting, we have chris Elliott from on it painting, we have chris mole from Mr mole’s painting and Nick Slavic, what what is Nick’s company again? Nick Slavic painting and restoration Almost almost forgot the name of that one. and we are going to talk about Limiting beliefs. We were all in attendance at a very in depth retreat that Nick Slavic put on ask a painter live winter retreat. Uh the there was some extremely in depth conversation up to an hour per person, about 20 people there. So the depth was impressive. Um what we uncovered. So which of you gentlemen, kind kind of want to kick this off? Should we kick it off about limiting beliefs and or should we uh we talked about, we can do limiting beliefs, we can do really. Whatever. Yeah, kind of whatever was talked about maybe at the retreat however, you feel like you want to start it. Right. Yeah. So limiting beliefs. I thought it’s a um it’s something that limits you, right? So what I learned and what I took away from the um the winter retreat getaway was that um it’s all about mindset, you know, but it’s it’s not about intelligence and it’s not about skill, it’s not about hard work, you know, it’s about the mindset and um and that if something isn’t working, um you’ve got to change the way you think about it and it, and it’s hard, you know, because you have to retrain your mind attack problems from a different point of view. And I learned this from listening to people like you guys that are more successful than I am, do more people than me have had more success than me with less work to get there because of their mindset, you know? Um Yeah, and I just opened a complete new perspective um, on limiting beliefs for me and how it’s all revolved around how you, how you perceive it, you know? So if I can, if I can interject, so are you saying that you think that success of people in this industry or any other is being able to conquer limiting beliefs and doesn’t, do you say it doesn’t have anything to do with skill or hard work? I think it’s all about your mindset, you know, I mean skill and hard work. I think it’s, I think it’s if you have a like a mindset of like perseverance and grit and like never give up attitude. Yeah, I mean I’m I’m as dumb as a box of nails you know and I’ve been able to I don’t buy that, I’ve been able to run a pretty successful being company in a real small populated area because I listen to people that of that that have had the success you know and just mimicked it and put my own little um little twist on it. I mean from from brad from chris I mean the leadership mixed systems, I mean all of you guys are like really? I mean a lot to me you know and I listened to you guys so chris martin. Oh go ahead, read. Well I would agree that mindset mindset is a critical factor in being able to take a business from you know modest, modest performance to exploding it. Like a lot of the guys we hang out with have right I think that but you can’t just have the mindset I would say you you have to have the skill and the hard work and skill to your point chris, small skill and hard work will get you to a certain point but the mindset you know getting rid of that that limiting belief um and having the right mindset will allow you to explode but just having the mindset alone if you don’t have the skill of the hard work, I’m not gonna be successful. I mean we know a lot of guys that are you know call themselves entrepreneurs that have the right the right mindset, but there they’re really dumb as a box of rocks right? You’re not, well no you’re not, but but there are guys that they don’t hustle, they don’t have the skill, they just have the mindset which alone is I think worthless. I don’t know if you guys disagree with me. There’s some, there’s some saying or something about the difference between dreaming um and really planning, you know and uh and dreaming of just and I kind of think what christmas is saying, I believe that as part of the mindset, hard work comes with it, you know, I don’t think you have this abundance growth oriented mindset and then you sit on the couch and just kinda drink your beer and hang out and think oh man, I’m gonna be, You know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna run a $10 million dollars I think that’s dreamy. Yeah yeah yeah. To cross this point our beliefs generally uh generate activity. There are our actions, right? So like our identity plays a lot into our belief system and then part of that mindset is being open to challenge your own beliefs or at least evaluate that right and not have dogma and being unwilling to change. Um so I think first off it’s like, hey like I’m open to change, I’m not going to change every time I’m influenced by something but I’m at least gonna be open to it and then once I identify that a belief is limiting me, then I’m going to adopt a new belief and get the, hopefully get the result that I’m after by adopting that new belief and I think that’s where the mindset, I think once you, once you have the right mindset, once you have the right belief system, then that’s gonna, like I said that’s just gonna um produce a better activity that will give you the result. Yeah. Nick, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I think um one of the things, you know, because we, we trafficked heavily in the book called grit and it’s very important to delineate the difference between um the the scientific version of grit and the grit which we all know which is just like muscle man in your way through everything. And I did the dumb dumb version of grit for 24 years in this industry before I actually did something more intelligent and the scientific definition of grit is having a super ordinate goal and then um having enough, you know, um Tenacity to see it through over many, many decades. And the hard work part which brad was saying is comes in in a different way, it’s not head down through the brick wall, over and over, just physically exhaust yourself. It’s intentional practice. So it is, it can be hard work but a lot of the times it can be fun for us, it’s you’re you’re doing a certain thing over and over and over again with a feedback loop and you’re always putting a little stretch goal out in front of you. It’s not just doing work mindlessly, it’s doing work with somebody telling you good or bad, constant improvement and stretching yourself. So that’s that’s the that’s the, when we talk about grid, it’s probably a good foundational thing to set that we’re not talking about just belting the teeth, get out there and conquer the world. This is actually a very sophisticated mindful approach to hard work. Yeah, I love it. There’s a yeah, I I just think, yeah, and I think nick makes such a good point is that passion and and the perseverance over time. And so that’s where the talent and the effort. So it’s talent times effort, equal skill, skill times effort equals achievement, right? So it’s all playing in together. Yeah, there’s a saying that, you know, some people, it depends how you perceive the saying, I perceive it in a certain way, that I think is not offensive, but there’s a there’s an expression called labor loses and I think that means stupid labor loses. So if you just, if it’s just head down, you know, no matter what what kind of business you’re starting, whether it’s marketing agency like I did or painting company like you guys all did when you’re if you’re just, I’m just gonna outwork everybody. I think that’s sort of, the price of admission is you have to be willing to work hard or you shouldn’t really be in the game of entrepreneurship and business ownership. But if your game plan, if your strategy is just, well, I’m just gonna work harder than everybody, you probably are not going to ultimately find as much success as you could, it’ll be an inefficient approach. Yeah, it’s it’s stamina over intensity, right? But there are times where intensity matters, there are times where you have to work your face off, but the goal is making it sustainable to be able to move at a sustainable pace and position yourself. I think it’s a goal for all of us as owners, um because if not we just, it’s a heck of a lot less risk just being an employee, right? But as an owner, we’re working into doing, um the things that we love and the things that we’re best at in our day, or at least that’s my goal. My goal is like, I love sales and leadership, so I want my day to consist of sales and leadership, right? So, um if it takes me 60, 70 hours a week initially to get so sick, let’s say 60 hours a week to where eventually I’m doing six hours of leadership And I’m willing to do that, the sacrifice that 60 to eventually get to where I’m just working six and it’s at my own, it’s of my own accord of my choice, I’m spending my time doing the things I would love to do and doing the things I’m best at? Right? And that’s when you’re that’s when you’re generally out operating at your best when you’re operating um, in your natural skill and um, and doing, you know, doing what you’re interested in, right? That’s how you get, it’s easy to get passionate about something that you love, right? We don’t spend a whole lot of time and the things that we’re not passionate about Crystal. Can you kind of expand on that? Because I want to make sure that that when we talk about this stuff we drill down and give people who are listening really actionable takeaways. You know, like if they’re if they’re listening to you and and say they are they like sales and leadership or maybe they like something that’s different from what they’re doing. Let’s say they’re still on the brush, or are there still um doing a lot of the estimating and they’d really like to really be more managing and leading and inspiring their people. And you say, well, if you have to work 60 hours to get to where ultimately you’re only doing six hours of of something you don’t want to be, you know, you have to work, you’re doing six hours and you want to be doing 60 hours of it? You have to put in a lot of work? What does that mean? Are you talking about building systems and processes. Are you talking about something else? What how do you get there? Yeah, I think it’s creating a vision for the future. Right? So being a vision casting. So one identifying what you want, being able to not only see what that that vision is for you and your company, then being able to articulate it in a way that your people can see what you’re saying right then being able to make it believable for the people that you’re sharing this vision for and then putting the tactical steps to do that. So if the goal is, hey, I’m currently in the bucket working the brush, but I want to just be doing sales. Okay great. Now we have the goal. Now let’s make the tactical steps to achieve that. What’s that look like right. So I think it’s really important to start with the end in mind um to spend some time internally thinking about what you truly want if you’re just moving without a plan, like it’s really easy to get off course if you’re, if, if I’m in colorado and I want to get to florida to see my buddy Brandon but I don’t use a map and I just start driving, I may end up in Canada. Right Dude, you just got to drive faster and and more hours during the day. Stop sleeping. Yeah. Well Brandon, I would say having the end have the end goal in sight. It’s probably super important for you and your clients because when we’re, when we’re looking at our marketing spend and our strategy, it always starts with, well what is our, what is our goal revenue and once another goal revenue then you work back. Okay. Well based on the marketing activities that we’re doing, how many leads need to be generated, how much do we need to spend to generate those leads of the leads that are generated? What percentage you’re gonna turn into estimates and what percentage of estimates are gonna turn into sales. What’s our average job size? And if you don’t know all that data, just having the and you know, just having an idea of like, well I want to double in size. Okay. Well how what are you, what are your numbers? You got the end goal but now start working backwards to step one which is where you’re gonna spend your first dollar in marketing? Right Brendan. Yeah. No, I love it. And yeah the I think when you figure out where you want to go, I think you need to figure out why you want to get there to, you know that’s kind of weird because you are going to run into hiccups. You know, they’re gonna be issues and you better you better know why um or you’re gonna give up potentially. But then yeah, knowing your metrics is important. Yeah. So so are you saying that have a contingency plan in order now you gotta burn the boats man. I don’t, I’m not really a big believer in the contingency plan but I think you you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing I think and you know for me personally it’s financial freedom and time with my family and the ability to do all kinds of stuff. That’s a, that’s a big driver for me that keeps me going during dark days and whether it’s, you know, whatever it is for you um It’s like Simon Sinek start with why I think that’s important. Mhm. Yeah. So chris small you are in a pretty interesting situation because you you are in a in an area that has an incredibly small population, something that most people would use as an excuse to fail. You know, they would say, well there’s not enough, there just isn’t enough work here To to get to more than 200,250,000 a year. Can you speak a little bit to your population and what you’ve done and maybe where you’re at in terms of revenue and and everything else with your business. Yeah, I can honestly say that I’ve that I owe it all to network and to be honest, you know, I’ve the relationships that I’ve built while after I’ve made this company. You see ah little personal story on why I actually built, made a painting company because when I came to the States and um I came here traveling, you know and I wanted a change of scenery with everything. I feel like um a new group of friends um I wanted it a new um Korea so I left painting behind and I worked on a construction company and ended up getting in a bit of bother and went to jail for 170 days. And when I came out I used to work a seasonal job, well here in Minnesota, you’re five months of the year, you can work outside seven months of the year, you get laid off, you know? And I got left hubert out most of the summer and then for the first ever time I was broke, I had nothing, there was no propane in the tank, I had my family and new baby was eating noodles completely broke, had nothing and I felt useless, I felt the worst I’ve ever felt in my whole life, you know, especially as a family man, a new family man and uh it was like massive action for me actually I went on fit so I always go back to painting no matter what because it’s the only thing that I know and how to be able to put to put food on the table and I think there was, this was probably about um I think it was about four years ago now after I got out it was in november, I just started I was up like 20 hours a day, getting four hours sleep on the internet, adding all of the pages on on facebook and then mix Slavic popped up and, and I added him and, and reached out to him and he ignored me. And I know he didn’t really, yeah, I think I had like a bobcat on the shoulder or something and he was like, oh man, this guy. And then, and then I was in my living Minnesota, you know, and, and then it was just just working for my wife’s family and friends and making a facebook page and and just uploading and learning marketing as I go and, and, and, and just facebook marketing and just being really persistent and I would just just keep uploading pictures and just, I just thought, you know what, this, this will work. I’m going to make it work and I just grinded through it, you know, I didn’t sleep. I was reading books, I was, I was reaching out to people like nick and, and uh yeah, and it just clicked, you know, I remember being on a group and and being in there and it was just a one man show at the time and I was like, man, I’m actually getting jobs here, you know, and people, I didn’t think that it would work out with being such a small community. I didn’t think that there would be many. I remember calling the painting company, a local painting company in the area and asking if they had jobs and they laughed at me and put the phone down. And I was like, all right, well let’s go. So I just put the pedal to the metal and just, and just went at it. And four years later with um, yeah, we’re running like a $600,000 painting company with six painters. And it’s only up until last year that are started job costing and actually running a business properly, you know? But what’s the population where you live? The 16,000 people like in my, I mean, I live in a town of 1200 but after dr 35 minutes to population of 16,000 people. So you have a service serviceable area of 16,000 people, 64,000 would be an hour drive from pretty far from the Medici, which is uh, the 16,000 um, area population. And then an hour drive from Bemidji where most of my employees live Is about 64,000 people in total. So you’ve gone in four years with really a $64,000 um, market total addressable market from very minimal, I guess zero revenue when you started to now 600,000 and six painters. And you primarily did that through through facebook, through community networking. Um, you’re a volunteer firefighter. I think you’ve probably formed some connections that we do. You have any advice for people who are listening or in a really small service area or maybe maybe they started a painting company. Maybe they’re even just thinking about starting a painting company. What advice do you have for them? Is that is that what you would tell them to do to stay on facebook all night and post the pictures. Have you learned a more efficient way? What are your thoughts? Yeah I would just tell them to care you know and never give up and care about your people. You care about your clients. It’s one of them once where I mean um tell a quick story here about there was a client that was you know you get that one client out of every 200 that is not absolutely like out of this planet sort of nuts. And uh it was like a small popcorn texture ceiling scripted I painted it and there was a little blemish in it and she would call me 56 times on a saturday at midnight crying down the phone like that sort of nuts. Anyways I hope she doesn’t listen to this by the way. Um Anyways she so I I went back there and give her her money back, fixed the area and um fixed the area. And I got a phone call three weeks later from a guy that lived up the road and says oh you can make heather happy And I want you to work on our house. And we landed a $29,000 job and this joke that I had but for just just biting the bullet and just just doing it just whatever you know I take the roof like there’s more smooth than there is rough and just getting it done. You know I love that there’s there’s more smooth than there is rough. Yeah. Um I think Sorry go ahead. Oh no. I was just gonna say you know before before we we kind of move on to someone else. I definitely need to address the fact that what you said you were in jail for 170 days and you have a dexter. You know you got behind you look like dexter. I’m I’m not sure if you change your ways are not if this you know we are recording this so just make sure you’re you’re thinking about that. I’m not going to give me an evidence on this thing. Should he scrambled no. To get back to the point really though. I just think net network with people that are smarter and that have been doing this for a lot longer than you. Um read listen to audio books. I’m not much of a reader. Listen to audiobooks go online, find a group that suits your culture of what you want to find the people that you enjoy being around that you care about. Mostly theory. You know that I’ve got the same personality as you and that’s doing it man that is that’s killing it. That’s been doing it for a long time honestly and just yeah and and actually help fill their cup as well as drinking, even though it’s impossible for Nick Slavic, you have to bribe them with turkey hunting and stuff. But I think, I think you’ve, you’ve got to help fill cups as well as drinking from other people’s as well. You know, you have to give a little back to, to your community, to your friends, to your colleagues, to your loved ones. I think give it, it’s got to be a conscious be give, give, give, you know, get that, it drains you a little bit given the universal reciprocate. So nick Slavic is is uh courteous enough to be on this podcast, even though he is not feeling well, actually feeling quite poorly. Um, so this might be kind of brief and nick if, if you’re gonna curl or anything feel free to leave at any time. But one of the things that, you know, I think everyone thinks of Nick Slavic and you, you almost have this, um, almost like a demigod image, right? Like, like your your your the perfect ultimate artisan, you know, the ultimate craftsman um, of painting and you’ve got it all figured out with these human being model. Um, and and everything is perfect. But one of the things that you ran into which I loved, one of the things that you address that at that s car painter live went to retreat was some of the things you’re struggling with and, and they would actually be a lot of people wouldn’t expect it because the thing that you really dove into was people, you know, and that’s your forte. That’s what everyone, you know, nick Slavic, he’s figured it out that the decent human being model, I’m gonna follow him. So can you speak a little bit? I think just people seeing their their role models and really honestly for a lot of people probably idols of sort here, um you’re human, you struggled, you still have struggles with, you know, can you speak a little bit to that and kind of what you’re doing to try to overcome overcome it. Yeah, I tell you what, even since um the escape painter live winter retreat where we we go real deep and we get really personal, I’ve actually identified another limiting belief that I have which is I think my my ego, I have a fixed mindset and I have a lot of ego wrapped up into the people in this business. So when somebody, when somebody leaves it does wreck me for a while because I do take that personally and you know, you can at one point you can say, well that what makes that’s what makes you good, You’re caring, you’re empathetic, you’re this and that. But there’s another way to look at it which is you have a non abundance mindset and fixed mindset where the performance of your company is you and you live and die by the performance of your company. And so that that is a new limiting belief that I have identified. And I need to find a way to uncouple myself from that because it does take a lot out of me when when somebody decides not to do this with me. So that is a huge thing and you know, again fine we can recruit, we’ve got the decent human being theory, we’ve got a training facility, we’ve got everything to do that. But I don’t like taking steps backwards every bit of effort. I do, I like it to be building towards something else. And the thing I need to harness that limiting belief, do some work with it and get over it is because every time an employee comes and goes um it does sort of like feel like a huge setback and I need to uncouple myself from that. So I think the next year or so it’s probably going to be devoted to, you know, diving deep into that and trying to figure that out a little more. So yeah, but that’s we are, we are a humanistic business that happens to paint and you know, there is, you have to the pattern detection which I believe we are on the uh in the business of pattern detection as well is people bring all sorts of mass personal chaos with them wherever they go. And um it’s tough because there might be nothing you can do, you might over pay over empathize over benefit, give people more leeway than what you want and because of something out of your control in their own personal lives, that will dictate whether they come and go and how it affects your business. And that is a hard thing to get over with because we are the rainmakers, right? If something needs to be done, we can affect the change and when we, when there’s no way for us to possibly affect change. That’s helplessness. And as entrepreneurs, we do not dwell in helplessness. Yeah, I love that. So, you, I mean, that’s that’s a totally different, I mean, in a way it’s a totally different subject matter than really anything I’ve explored on the podcast, which is this idea that I personally struggle with it, that you wrap you give so much of something to your business that it sort of becomes you and if and for you that the people is is kind of what, you know, it’s your thing, it’s what you really, truly care about tremendously and it’s where you built a lot of your success, but if the business fails or something like you said out of your control, because personal lives, you know, people have lives and you can’t fix every problem, you’re not god. Um they have a problem, then you take it as essentially a personal failure, you’re like, you’re failing in your life, that’s how you take it and and how, and you’re basically gonna spend the next year of your life. One of the things you’re going to work on is how do you how do you sort of decouple yourself without reducing your performance, I guess? Yeah, that’s it. And so everybody in this group knows me well enough to know that I take long deep dives into books and traction has been a six year thing for me. The book grit has been a 2, 2. 5 year thing for me. And the next book for me is mindset. It’s actually done over 40 years by a clinical psychologist and they dwell in the fixed versus abundance mindset. And when I got done reading that book, it really clicked for me. It’s like I used to think that this was a badge of honor. Like I am, I am the empathetic, caring boss and I’m I’m carrying this weight, this this huge emotional baggage because that’s what makes me special. And that’s my thing that I can give to these people in the world. And it’s actually a weakness. And and and if you if you believe the fixed versus abundance mindset, it’s actually a really bad way to go through life with an abundance mindset. You would think you know what, there’s always going to be other people out there, maybe you could have done a little better for them, but it’s completely out of your control and there’ll be more opportunities later and I believe that, but it has to feel right to, and it can’t biologically affect you. So that’s that’s my next interest chris. Elliott, What are you? You’re you’re extremely passionate about leadership. That was a big thing that you dove into and even thinking about changing your employee model because you thought you could make more impact. What’s your thought on all this? Yeah. So I think that one, I don’t think we can attach, um our businesses can’t be us, right? Not at least not if you’re going to scale, right? So a lot of what we’re passionate about and our vision for the business is obviously uh, in the business, but we cannot be the business. So I think that part of the growth and maturity over time is creating that separation. Like so for on it painting, it needs to be its own living breathing organism right now. I’m tasked with nurturing that and helping it grow in a very healthy way, but it is not right? So, I think that’s really important um, to um, wow. Change of perspective with the business as it is. It’s something it’s not a part of me, right? Um, and then, uh, is very challenging when when you bring someone in, uh, you invest into them, you share your knowledge, your expertise, um you share your company, something that you put so much time and effort into not only the culture, but the systems of processes, uh, an extraordinary experience and service that you provide your customers and they get to come in there and be a part of that. And um it hurts when they leave, but then I think over time you learn um that, Well one, it’s just expectation, right? Not everybody that comes into the company is going to stay. Um, a lot of times it is just a stop for them, but we hope it to stay and we want to invest into them as it’s to stay. Um and um, but I think if you have the right expert location right for yourself and them, that it doesn’t hurt as much when they, when they leave. Yeah. And I know nick one of the things that you had, I guess I’ve been struggling with a little bit is when people leave or I think you you overheard an employee um say that that for now this was the best opportunity and and for you that that hurt, you know, And I called him out on that if you remember, you remember. Yeah. But but you know Chris Elliott, that’s kind of what you’re saying right now. I mean, I don’t think, I don’t think it’s reasonable. I mean, I understand why it happens, but these are our babies. You know, it’s our business were growing where we welcome people and you know, it basically to become a part of this growth journey with us, but maybe it’s it is just a step on their growth journey. Maybe this isn’t their their vision or their dream, no matter how much we want it to be sure. Yeah, and I think there should be a level of attrition, right? If people aren’t leaving, you’re probably not pushing hard enough, right in general for the company, not them, but there should be, uh, you’re not always going to get it right. Right. So we’re something we’ve really tried to get better at, is that recruiting process because it’s not great for us or the individual, if we bring them in the company and they’re not the right person or they’re not in the right seat, so they’re not in the right seat. We obviously can look for opportunities to get them in the right seat. Um, so we’re not immediately giving up on them, but they’re not the right person. We made a mistake, we did them and ourselves a disservice. So part of it is that like being able to understand what that prospect pool is for you, who you’re, who you’re recruiting for, for what position? Um, having a good system of bringing onboarding and having a good system for training. Um, and then, um, dad lose you guys. Okay, Okay. Um, and then, uh, yeah, just hiring the right person, hiring the right person. So then you’re not bringing your not hiring bad employees. I have to say that’s probably been one of the most painful, um, parts of my journey in my business is bad hires, it hurts, almost nothing hurts more than a bad hire. So I think that um yeah I think just a really great a very intentional focus on getting the right people in the right seat and save both you and the candidates and people you bring into your team a lot of pain, but I don’t I think it’s an unrealistic expectation to think that everybody is going to stay. Do you have any anything that you’ve learned for how to avoid bad hires that that you could share? Yeah, I think that part of it, I think part of it again is as you mature as a business and as you mature as a business owner or business leader you uh you start to understand yourself better? You start to understand your business better? So you just you you understand who the right people is. So that again as you’re able to articulate that vision and the mission of your company a little better. As you start to um identify and articulate values of your company, it gets a lot easier to align the right people with your company. Um And and whether they possess the right cultural virtues um for someone that would be within your organization? So for us it’s um humble, hungry and smart. Right? So are are they humble um are they interested in the collective goal of the of the organization? Um are they hungry? Do they are they are they want to work right? Do they do they do they want to be there? Do they have the capacity of the job? Do they get the job? Um, and um, are they just generally self motivated and hard working? Right? And then smart or are they people smart? Do they get the dynamics? Do they understand group dynamics and No, not only how to interact with other team members but also how to interrupt. Act with your, your customers? Right? So for us, those are the three virtues that someone has to possess. We didn’t, we’re seven years in. It took a lot of trial and error to get the point that we understand that to be on our team. You have to be humble, hungry and smart. We didn’t know that six years ago. Right? So some of this is just experience and exposure and then paying attention and being able to document your data. Um, and um, and learn from, just learn from your experience, right? Pay attention. Yeah. Would you say that that those values especially for companies that are maybe a bit smaller than you? Do those values start with the owner, with the founder. If you’re, if you’re a small company, should you look at yourself and say this is who I am. This is what I value and therefore I’m this is what the company or is that not the way you think about? Absolutely. Yeah. I, I think initially, I think again, I think the company grows and becomes um, something of itself, but initially a lot of our company is is a lot of um the things that we care about and how we express it through our, through our business. Yeah, I love that. So, yeah, I think it’s, I mean that’s intentional hiring, you know, the where you’re actually putting pen to paper and you’re you’re sitting and taking the time. I think very few companies do that actually write the value system and I think when they do it, you know, you you’ll get these big corporations that do it that I think is largely an HR exercise, but I think people think it’s trivial or, or soft or, you know, it doesn’t really actually matter. And you’re sitting here saying that it’s it’s everything for bringing the right people on board. And ultimately, I think every business, but especially service based business, like painting, we are, you know, we’re running people a people company here. Yeah. I think it’s such a huge part of building a great culture. But then once that culture is established, it gets really easy to identify who’s not apart who’s not part of that team or shouldn’t be a part of that team. But for me it did start with my values, like I I changed them a few times. Like I I think our first core values I copied off someone else’s website. So, uh and then, Right, right. And then then I then I recognized um that that that it mattered and it mattered to me, right, I want to lead, I wanted to be able to cast a vision for my team that people could get behind, right um and then I wanted to be able to make sure the people that I was gonna to work towards that goal are people that are lined with with the things that I care about in line with my, I was not lying with my belief system. So so our, our values of our company are focused on the customer, deliver on your promises, take ownership and everything, pursue growth and happiness, right? That started with my values, my number one value, focus on others and then deliver on your promises, take ownership and everything and pursue growth and happiness because and it goes back to grid again, that that passion and that persistent to pursue that, that long term goal, happiness is very fleeting. So the goal can’t necessarily just be happiness because it’s gonna come and go, the goal has to be fulfillment, right? The growth and for me that that fulfillment comes through to pursue uh growth mindset, having a growth mindset and pursuing growth and being, there’s moments that I’m the teacher, but but there’s also moments that I’m the learner and I have to be able to play both of these roles and and for me that’s where I find my fulfillment. So uh Chris Elliott, you are a very busy guy, you run a very successful company and and um you’re working on constantly improving that. But you basically I think when people listen to stuff like this a lot of what a lot of what ends up happening is they don’t really know where to start or they don’t feel qualified and they don’t they don’t feel they know themselves well enough for their business far enough so they end up not doing anything and what you did where you basically just borrowed another company’s values as a starting point and then kind of went from there. I think it’s genius. You have this this starting point of humble, hungry and smart if if anyone listening says you know I don’t have values but I like those. Those sound good. Um you know chris I thought you were a ranger uh in the U. S. Army that did four tours of duty. I mean you’re a pretty respectable guy. You’ve started and growing a really successful business. If people hear this and I think man I would probably be a pretty good place to start. Can they reach out to you if if they have a couple of questions or they or they wanna what would be the best way for them to potentially touch base with you. Yeah, so we we we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast. But yeah it’s it’s uh a givers gain mentality, right? So it is a give and take. So I’m I’m more than happy to, to give and, and anyone can reach out to me, um, through my email. See Elliott on a painting dot com. Uh, instagram is chris Elliott at Chris Elliott on it. Um, and um, I’m happy to help in any way cool brad. You have been remarkably quiet and, and you haven’t gotten in the ring with anyone yet, which makes me think that these guys aren’t saying, I know, I think Nick is sick, which is probably part of the problem here, but these guys aren’t saying anything. Um, I guess to to What is the word I’m looking for? Brandon. I think the wind might have subdued him that you all sent. You didn’t challenge. I’m sorry. So there’s no way his microphone is working. I’m going to sleep for the past 30 minutes. What? No. You know what’s funny is, um, I am, I am a, I don’t, I like to argue. Um, but really when I’m around guys like you, I like to challenge and it’s certainly not. It’s totally out of respect, but also you guys are freaking smart. You’re successful, what you’re doing is working. Yeah, I haven’t heard anything yet to disagree with. So, um, kudos guys, you’re either speaking my language now or, or I don’t know, maybe tone down it was the wine brad, let’s say let’s say that, You know, let’s say someone’s running the company and maybe it’s not going the way that they wanted and, and I’m not saying they’re going to start over, but I think there’s a lot of value in thinking if you were to just start start over, um, hypothetically on a company, what, what would you focus on? Right? Like, like how would you build it from the ground up? You know, um, chris moles talked about four years and it took him four years to get there and he just, he grinded pumped. He gave back, gave, gave gave um, Chris Elliott’s talked about this idea of giving, he’s talked about the values and really finding the right hire, knicks talked a tremendous amount about mindset, how he started with, um, you know, scarcity mindset, every competitor was, you know, not to be collaborated with, not to be trusted. Now he’s grown and still growing. What would your sort of number one priority be? Um, kind of growing a business? Well, so Chris Elliott has talked a lot about hiring and um, one of the things, I, I didn’t hear him say, but I’m sure that he does this is hiring before he needs it, right? Um, if you wait until you need not, yes, now you’re, if you, if you wait until you need someone for a position, you’re already too late and then you’re scrambling and that’s when you end up making a bad hire, which I’ve also done in the past. Um, so if, if I were to hypothetically start a new company within the next week or so even Um the first thing that I would do is hire two people right off the bat, hopefully I would have enough in my savings to bring on someone that can serve as a kind of a project manager type role. Uh and then another person that would serve as an admin to help me with the schedule and whatnot. Um I I love sales, so I would probably stick in that um and I love recruiting, so I would, you know work on trying to find some some painters, but that’s thing I if I were to start a company, I don’t have any sales yet, I would need to hire right away. Um I I wouldn’t, I guess I guess most people start out just themselves painting, but since I’m not a painter, I would actually hire and invest that before I actually make my first sailor um um complete my first job. So that would be one thing um The other thing I would do is have a very strategic marketing plan and spend a ton of money To start generating leads, I know that I can sell by myself $2 million dollars a year in painting services, but I can’t do that if I don’t have anyone to sell to and if I were to start a company now no one knows who Ellison paint, would, you know, hypothetically it was called Ellison painting, who that is. Um And so I would have to rely on someone like, you know, Brandon to help me come up with that strategy and and implement it. Um what’s been really nice for me is talking to Jason paris and nick and Brandon guys that are, I think expert marketers and kind of figured that out, I think there’s ways to generate a lot of sales leads very, very quickly and if you have a, an efficient sales system sales cycle and a good salesperson, you could close a lot of deals right away. But again, the thing that comes after that, the third thing I would do is recruit the hell out of the Metro Detroit area. Um we, because I’m not a painter, I would have to hire painters and I would probably do it in a fully subcontracted model, so I would have to find subcontractors and that’s why I’m always looking for better ideas to find them. Um we have a really nice Sherwin Williams rep that refers cruise over to us, but it might be hanging out at Sherwin Williams stores and try seeing who’s coming in and and finding guys that are looking for work uh a lot of us are part of that painting contractors group on facebook and I’m an administrator on that now, so I’m one of three admin and there’s 112 112,000 members in that facebook group, I think I have a little bit of cloud, if I said I was looking for subcontractors in the metro Detroit area that I could probably find someone. Um, but I’m confident that if I decided to start a company today that I could, I could get it up and running and Rocking and Rolling in 2022 pretty quickly. But it’s so so I’ll be, I’ll be totally frank with you if you had asked me this question a year ago, Brandon before I had met chris and chris and nick and Jason and all and all the guys at the retreat. I don’t know because you guys know my background, my background is I I started working for a painting company That was long established since 1984 and ended up partnering with the with the founder and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past five years. a different background. So, and I, my my scope was so narrow. I thought that Somerset painting was the biggest company in the world And I thought that the way we did it was the absolute best way to do it. And I thought that 2. 5, maybe $3 million dollars was the ceiling for a painting company and talk about destroying my limiting beliefs, spending four days with you guys up in northern Minnesota and seeing guys that are killing it, doing what we do, but way better and way more quickly. Uh, it doesn’t matter that I’m not a painter. Chris. Elliott wasn’t, isn’t a painter, Jason Paris was barely a painter, right? Matt Kiper is not a painter and you and you guys run the I think the three biggest highest grossing, uh, companies that were represented that retreat. Um, and I will touch on my one other limiting belief is competition is bad, right? Having other companies in your market is bad. That’s a, that’s a belief that I inherited from the guy I work with and being at the retreat and meeting specifically Nick Slavic and Jason paris and seeing the relationship. Uh, you know, the chairman and vice chairman of the PCH and traveling the country together. Friends. I think Nick actually pays one of Jason’s companies to do some marketing for him. Right? Talk about working together. It’s, it’s incredible that the two of them together in the same market just continue to raise the bar and both of them are, continue to be more and more successful. It’s crazy. I’m embrace competition now. Yeah, yeah. That that abundance, you know, the scarce savers abundance mindset is so important. And so many people don’t even understand that Nick. I do want to point out since you decided that that you’re gonna just keep calling me the dirty marketer that brad just said you’re an expert marketer. So now we’re both dirty marketers, Easy. Now I am a painter that found out a tricky way to market. And also, you know, remember lovingly when you, when you inquired about the retreat, I said, we don’t, I mean, listen, consultants and marketers, we are very leery of you people. All right. And to let you come with on a retreat. But there’s a lot. We had a lot of group meetings. We had a lot of debates. We had a lot of everything else. And I said, I’m going to call you a dirty marketer in all love for that period. Then you proved yourself. And now you’re calling yourself a dirty marketers. We don’t listen. We’re past. It doesn’t look like you are, but I’m done. I thought that this was my thing with, you know, I’m done past the hurdle. You pass mustard, man, You’re, you’re one of us. I love it. All right. The term has put the bed officials. Listen Brandon. But you know what I’m talking about. I am so leery about getting cornered at the retreat when we’re all having a good time. When we’re all just telling about kids and dogs and fishing and hunting stories. My worst nightmare is somebody to grab you by the shoulder and be like, hey man, you know, I do this service that I can do for you to, you know, it’s one of those things like it’s like, no, man, Listen, if we trust you will find you don’t worry that you didn’t do that hard. There we go. Yes. There was no asking for the sale at the escape painter live retreat. We were big fans. Yeah, yeah. So funny. Yeah, Matt matt said something. Matt Kiper called it called his wife cooper um onto my podcast. But Matt Kiper said uh yeah, I really appreciate how you, how you handle or how you didn’t basically how I handled the retreat. I it kind of shocked me honestly. I mean I took it as a compliment and he didn’t even know me coming into it. But I guess it it surprised me that you guys would expect something different, but I can see how some people would be different. I mean, it just seems like you have to be a pretty big douche. You know, you know, you know my friend requests, I get on facebook from from guys that our own marketing coming, hey, just trying to see what you’re doing over at Somerset painting uh do you need help with the website? I’m like bro, go to Somerset painting dot com. We got a website, man, I make million dollar kings become $2 million kings. Um so I want to I want to touch it. Can I ask you a question why? Why? So yeah. So what is the number one you think uh that you think uh contractors in our industry from a marketing perspective could improve on probably a long term focus. So I think I think and and um nick loves this, but I think that that with partnering with a company that builds you the brand equity online. So people actually finding your site and becoming paying customers Um is the number one way to, to build a long lasting business over time. It’s also the number one way to get host. And that’s where, where people are so leery of it because no one and ultimately what I’m talking about is S. C. O. And no one really, a lot of people don’t really know what it means. It’s nice to throw the, throw the buzzword around your house, your STL or in three website did free S. SeO audit this or that. Um, but it’s kind of a black box. And so when you, when you partner with a company, a lot of people get taken advantage of and no, you just need to pay for another year. You just need to wait another year. You just need to keep waiting and and ends up, you pay for three years. Nothing ended up happening because the marketer wasn’t really doing anything and they were patting their pockets and you didn’t, you didn’t know anything. So you, you bandit off their life. But, and that’s sort of the unfortunate unfortunate reality of the situation. But that is the best long term approach. I think this idea of pay for pay for leads that the biggest issue, um is they wait to market. So they need to, they need to feel that that follows along the same problem is like hiring before you need it, you need to, you need to invest in your marketing before you need it. And so I think a lot of painters are looking for the quick hit. How do I get leads right now? Yeah, that’s important. I mean, but, but yeah, but you’re in a pinch, right? You need, you need it. Yeah, I want to, I want to clarify what I said earlier. I said always be, always be hiring. What I really meant is always be having hiring activities. Like always be doing hiring activities. So then you’re not, yeah, then you’re not in the position to make a desperate higher because you’ve been, you’ve continued uh, prospecting new candidates interviewing, Um, even from a, a labor force that we’ve, so for the past year we’ve had someone dedicated to just scheduling and recruiting. So obviously the seasonality of our business. Um during the 2nd, 3rd quarter, 80% of his time is dedicated to scheduling, which is simply is super dynamic during that time of year. But during the the winter months, 80% of his time is dedicated to recruiting. Is he recruiting subcontractor crews? Was the recruiting? So, so everyone in our company has a number, His number is five interviews a week. So he recruits, he interviews at least one crew every single day during off peak. How does he, how does he find him? Uh, so as you said? So, so work in the stores. So get into the stores, getting, getting uh flyers out. Um, facebook job ads. Uh, craigslist ads indeed adds um, we, we give them a budget. So he’s actually, we were actually paying for, we have add spin just for recruiting painters. Yeah. But by the way, Chris Chris Elliott mentioned earlier that he, you know, kind of stole ideas from people when he started out. Um I don’t think there’s anyone better in this whole world than me just stealing other people’s ideas and be the first to say like I am not, I am not creative. People think I’m creative because I used to like sing and act and stuff. I’m not creative. I’m just like a guy who can sing. I am. What I am is I’m a mimic. Er and so when I, when I see a guy like Chris Elliott and he’s so successful doing what I want to be doing, why would I try to reinvent the wheel? Why don’t you find out what chris is doing? See if, see if he’s willing to help get it off the ground. And then along the way, maybe you make some tweets tweets to, to make it like more your thing, meet more of your personality or the vibe of your company, but why would I try to invent a whole new system from scratch when there’s guys that already figured that out. There’s no shame in that. I’m not ashamed of it. Yeah, that was, that was a big one for me to overcome. It was it was my ego honestly. So I at the retreat I mentioned this is I read traction the first year of my business seven years ago I read traction and I was like, I took a couple of things from it. Then it sat on the shelf until uh, 2. 5 years ago. Reread it, read it again, read it again and, and had been implementing for the last 2. 5 years and it has, I won’t say that it’s changed my business, but it’s, it’s definitely enhanced my business and so big. But a big part of it was just getting over thinking I was smarter than this book that had this great operating system. I was like, well I don’t need that, I’m gonna make my own right. Same thing with cultural virtues like defining humble, hungry and smart. Like that’s not mine. I thought it had to be mine for a long time. But that, that I adopted that out of the book I read and I was like, yeah, I don’t need to reinvent the will. Now again, I’ll put my own flavor on it. Um, but I don’t, I don’t need to create it like for you, the hungry for you just means like you actually have to eat food has nothing to do with like drive or motivation. I’m actually hungry. You know, for me personally, I’m actually a little hungry right now. Um, so Brandon, I wanted to get back. So I asked that question because I have to believe a big, a big, uh, part of what’s holding a lot of contractors back in our system. Marketing is limiting beliefs. Am I wrong? No, I think you’re, I think you’re 100% right. I think it’s limiting beliefs and I think it’s, I think it’s a bad experience in the past. You know, most people have had that and then I think it’s, it’s not really having clarity on the future vision. You know, the, the companies that we partner with, that makes sense when I ask them questions. And as brad brought up, you know, our sales process is really focused on the future first. You know, what, where, what do you want? Why do you want it? What does that mean? Um, how do you bounce that though? Because, because obviously there, yes, it’s, it’s going to be a big step for someone to say, okay, I, I’m buying what your stolen, I’m going to invest into the long term. I’m gonna be patient and I’m gonna go with this uh, search engine optimization approach, right? But I also need leads today. So how do you balance that? Yeah. So that 1? What we’ll do typically, So we offer both, but typically if someone needs leads today, they’re not going to be able to afford both. That’s just the reality. So what we’ll do in that situation is we’ll do the paid ads, we’ll do pay leads. Um, and we do exclusively as we don’t sell leads or anything to multiple companies, but we’ll do that for probably a period of 4 to 6 months, basically put some meat on their bones, so to speak, in terms of their business to where then they can start actually making the monthly investments all about budgeting, you know, on top of the paid ads. But if you, if you need leads today, you need leads today and you can’t be investing into something with, with promises of a year from now because the reality is as idyllic and nice as that sounds, you’re going to go bankrupt. And you, you know what I always tell and I’ve told many many people on this because I’m still conducting most of the sales actually, all the sales at this point for paint marketing pros and people sometimes come through and say, listen, we’re not fit because I, I’ve been in a position where I couldn’t sleep at night financially, you know, wondering, wondering how things are going to go for my family and what I need to do and, and I don’t ever want to be in any way responsible for putting someone else in that position. So there are some people come through. It’s just, you know, at that point it’s, you kind of just have to grind. I mean, Jason paris did eight hours of door knocking every saturday for, I don’t know how many years, and he’s introverted, you know, I asked some of these people and what are you doing? Do you go on and knock doors? I mean it’s the grit, the toughness, the perseverance, there are ways to get business without hiring me. You can go out and you can, you know, I mean, I’m just gonna say it, you know, not to be misogynistic, you can man up and you can go get business, everybody can go get business. I don’t care how introverted you are or whatever. Jason paris is super introverted. He strikes me as a little bit odd, a little bit socially awkward, but yet he knocked on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of doors and so if he can do that, you can do it. And so if you’re in a position where you’re listening to this and, and you can’t afford to spend all kinds of money on marketing, you don’t trust marketers, they go get your own business, do what chris molded, you know, do network, go give back, you know, be in the community, go make friends, go to your chamber of commerce meetings, go to go to be and I meetings, get out there and put in some sweat equity, you’re always gonna pay with money or time, right? You there’s sweat equity and there’s money. So how are you gonna pay? But you, you have to pay somehow, yeah, that’s my rant rant for the night. We should be good, should be good. You know? But you’re getting interviewed today? So so the number one driver for human decision making is lost, right? You think it’s game? But it’s actually a two? Yeah. So 2 to 1 ratio loss or roughly 21 lost the game. Right? So if it’s time or money, what is the loss that typically someone is not wanting to give up? Right? People people will not want to lose the money typically, but then they’re they’re too lazy or they find reasons to not put in the time. And so then they stay in kind of this cycle um then they hire some crapshoot marketer who promised them to become a king, You know through a Facebook message. And then they get burned because the guys total fraud and then they just curse marketers and then they keep doing their thing, staying at $200,000 um for the foreseeable future. Mhm. Yeah, chris one of the things that that you brought up on the retreat and I’m curious if whether or not you’ve implemented this because we had talked about a chief experiment. But you brought up, you’re very passionate about leadership to the point you’re you’re even considering um making that almost a separate company I believe or you really want to implement that at least in your own business at a very minimal. And you have independent contractors. And your big thing was, well could I make more of an impact on people’s lives if I went to W. Two and so you’re going to hire two W two Painters? Have you done that? Are you still thinking about the same way? What’s your thought? Yeah, we have not made the higher as we started the recruiting process. So, so part of what’s, so Melvin’s not only recruiting interviewing um contractors. Um and you know, it’s our goal to have a network of contractors. Again, we not only want to deliver uh the highest standard of quality to our customers. We want to, we want to deliver an extraordinary customer experience, right? And and all that. But we have to be able, especially in some of our larger, more complex commercial jobs, we have to be able to partner with great contractors to be able to deliver to to reduce the impact to the property. To do, reduce the impact impact to the employees and the and the residents or attendance of that property. And part of that is partnering with great contract, partner, partner with these contractors. Partner with great car carpenters and and great great painting crews. Being able to have the flexibility of scale from uh this this this project is a great fit for 2 to 4 painters and this one needs 40. Right. So for our, our goal over the last 12 months is too uh create a truly a network of contractors so that we can literally um construct the perfect team for for the customer and the project, right? Um So that’s what Mel has been working on in addition to that we are going to hire two painters that are the absolutely right people for our business and the absolute right seat. The benefit we have, we don’t need to make that higher today, right? We’re gonna make the higher when we when they’re able to be the right people and they’re able to be in the right seat for the company. Um so we’re gonna have a lot of patients um in that, but it will have made a commitment and I deliver on my promises. So it will happen this year. I love it. Rock and roll. Hey, can I uh can I just touch on because not only did we were meet originally, well a few of us here at the asked to paint a retreat but we also met again at the P. C. A. And uh to plug that. I mean what was the guy that opened it when he says that time is a country that would never get back speech. What was his name again? Yeah. So that really hit home with me, you know? And I asked myself then like I’m here doing this away from my kids right now, why, you know, and there’s a reason why we often strive to share these experiences with Abbas. It’s the same reason why we put so much emphasis on community. You know, I feel like life is more rich with connections, specifically a connection that’s cultivated with shared experiences like ourselves, you know, our and and touching on like what I was saying before about networking with people and finding the people that you that you just jive with, that you click with that you that you get on with. I mean, I learned so much from Shane Garrett from, from bradman when we sat down in that kitchen, you know them after our talks and when we talked about family, like implemented so much that, you know, like um it’s a, I would love to hear everyone’s perspective on um on the time thing as well, you know, like, because I think that’s really important. I know we all talk about business and marketing and and and growing a company and leadership and stuff, but really like that we can always replicate or we can always hire somebody, we can always get another job, we can always make more money, right? But time is really the only currency that we’re working with that we don’t get back, we can’t be in it back. So it’s, it’s something that’s really been into me right now and I’ve been so much more intentional with it like by doing the weekly family meetings with my family, you know, like what Jason paris um implemented and as shared and I would really want that to go viral because I think it’s important, you know, we’ve had so many people look at, we were just talking about, um earlier this, it doesn’t matter how successful you are, your family can still be broken because you’re not there, you can still be there in the house, but you’re not there. Um, you’re not there in person, you know what I mean? You don’t put down the electronics and actually look at your family and look at your kids in the eyes and be there in person with your wife, with your kids, you know, so that’s, that’s something I know I’ve, I’ve spoken at great length about with you guys. Um, my three, my three things that I’m passionate about, my, my faith, my family and fitness and anything I do. You notice I didn’t mention my business for my, my career, my professional life at all. Um the those that’s that’s secondary to those three things and because we have a limited amount of time, anytime I’m going to spend is only going to be spent furthering one of those three things. And so yeah, I spend a lot of time at the gym and it makes my body healthy and strong and it creates a good example for my kids, keeps me some at least decently attractive and not to my wife, but it’s so hot right now when I, when I was younger, I spent a lot of time, you know, playing video games and doing a bunch of stupid things that at this point in my life doesn’t benefit my faith my family or my my fitness and so I’ve chosen to get rid of those things and that understand though that that that doesn’t mean like I don’t hang out with my friends because hanging out with my friends, guess what? That does have strong strong males as my friends. And that helps my relationship with my wife because I need that everyone needs that we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with. And so like outside of our spouse. And so I spend time with guys that are strong christian men. Most of them are business owners. Uh they’re all great dads, they’re all healthy. Um And they’re they’re terrific husbands and I hope that on the average of the five guys that spend spend time with and actually what I found is I have that group here at home. Like man it was crazy. We spent four days together up in Minnesota at Nick’s retreat and I found another group of people just like that right? And I and I consider you guys my people now and if I’m if I’m the average of the people that were at the retreat man, I’m doing pretty darn good. Wouldn’t you agree? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um this, yeah I I do want to say one thing um what I believe brad had had kind of talked about but this idea of of think brad brought up stealing ideas but networking mentorship, I think it’s incredibly undervalued as a society. Um, and I think painting business owners are no exception to that. The P. C. A. Painting contractors association is absolutely incredible organization. Most of our listeners are already subscribed to overdrive but but a fair amount of them are not actually members of the P. C. A. And then we have a lot of listeners that are not members of the PC to become a member. If you’re serious about your business and I don’t work for the PC, I don’t get paid by the P. C. A. If you’re serious about your business become a member, there’s why wouldn’t you? It’s essentially free and you learn so much from people who’ve come before. You don’t try to reinvent the wheel, even if you think you’re, you’re that smart, at least use it as a starting point. You know, like Chris Elliott talked about use the values as a starting point, steal them or use traction if you’re so smart that you’re going to create a better operating system, then use it as a starting point and then show why how you’re so smart but don’t stay stagnant, don’t stay within action because you’re just too smart to implement this stuff and, and so you’re just gonna figure out on your own that is a stupid, inefficient way to operate and you will never reach the level of success you could or you should if you operate that way, but I do want to wrap it up. We’ve been going for a really long time. Do any of you guys have any, any parting comments, any advice that you want to give any of our listeners, you have to um, follow along and like the escaping the live show as well, if you really want to dig deep, not only in the calling science and, and entrepreneurship, but to meet some of the best minds and the best people, not just the best minds, but the best people in the industry. Yeah, brad. Um, yeah, I would just say reach out to people that you look up to within the industry that’s been incredibly valuable to me. My, my world has completely changed over the past year since I started reaching out on facebook, two guys that were doing things better than me. And uh, yeah, I would say humble, be, be humble. Um, I think a lot of people, men especially get locked into this mindset of their, you know, they, they’ve tried everything. I’ve, no, no, I’ve already figured it out. I don’t need any help. But if you let down that guard and let someone else, uh, kind of take a snapshot of where you’re at, they could identify some of the, your limiting beliefs for you. And uh, and even provide your roadmap to um, to, to place, you didn’t even know you could go Elliott? Yeah, So there is a, there’s a quote in, in um grit that’s, that’s been sticking with me since, since I read it in preparation for the winter retreat with Nick Slavic asked me in a winter retreat. And it is, enthusiasm is common, endurance is rare, it’s very easy to get excited about something. It’s very easy to get excited about your new painting business. The ability to endure and stay on that path over a long period of time will more than likely be ultimately give you the result over that, those intense compulsive cycles, right? So just stay, it’s great to get excited and that enthusiasm, that passion is what’s going to drive you through, but stay focused on that goal and pursue it over a long period of time. And if you’re lucky if you stay at it, you’ll probably achieve mastery. I, I do want to touch on that quickly. So Jason paris is obviously extremely successful, runs a very large painting company. I’m doing over $10 million dollars a year. But it took him a long time, over over half a decade to break a million and he’s introvert and he had to go through a lot of pain to get there. He seems to be kind of a weird dude in that he seems to enjoy pain. He’s currently training for 100 mile race, but he had to go through it to get there. It didn’t just happen for him. It doesn’t just happen for anyone. Um, so this idea that you do while being intelligent, not just pound your head into the wall over and over again for forever and hope you get there while being intelligent. There is a certain level of pain and a certain level of grid that you have to tolerate. You are choosing the road less traveled by starting and building your own business. I think I think that’s a good point nick. Do you have anything? I appreciate you hanging with us. I know you’re, you’re borderline dying over here. Thank you so much for your time. You have any parting words? Yeah. Dude, I’ve been holding off throwing up into my trash can in my office here. Not because of the words that were spoken, but because I am physically ill at the moment. But I do appreciate talking with you and these guys so much that I was not going to miss this. So I came off the bed put my painter face on and we did this. So I just remember just like we said at the retreat, it’s just talking, it’s just talking you know, but but but I I appreciate you bringing people together and having these conversations because we can get lost in what brushes best Do you tape or not tape what oil primer is best and that’s fine. Have those conversations but those are the easiest solvable problems that we will ever face. These are things where you can just try stuff and get empirical data and change it. The human stuff is the squishy stuff and the weird stuff and we need to pivot every conversation to anybody who wants to grow business to the human side and not supply chain and not coatings and things like that. And and these guys here are doing that in a big, big way. Mhm. If I could just say, if you just want to say one more thing, um first off, I don’t even know what an oil primer is finished, finished his bottle of wine. You have to work tomorrow. Chris no, for real Brandon, I really appreciate what you do. I I know we make jokes about about you not trying to pitch us on the retreat, but you’ve provided so much wisdom and insight into the marketing world. Um and I would encourage anyone that’s listening to to reach out because Brandon’s brand is a solid guy. And so if have a phone conversation with him hear about what he does, let him ask you what you’re looking to do. And he even said it today that he’ll he’ll let you know whether it’s a good fit or not, and uh either way you’re going to get valuable information. Um but if it is a good fit and he’s going to work with you, you’re gonna make more money, you’re gonna get more leads, you’re gonna make more sales and if you really want to grow your company, you’ve got to invest it uh into back into your business and Brandon is an opportunity to do that, appreciate it man. Well guys, thank you. Does anyone else want to talk about how great I am? Do you guys want to go around the table or you guys have had enough of that? You never give give a market or a direct compliment to their face. That’s never do it. I drew, I drew the short straw before we started that. I was the one that you took, you took that one brad. Thank you Brandon. I took the time to hand write you a note and it’s in the mail. I love it. Yeah, no one’s gonna see that chris no, that’s not gonna help his business. Chris, chris, chris probably did do that. I’m actually really excited to receive that. I bet you anything that there’s, there is a letter in the mountains. I’ll send you a hoodie and a heart and a yeah, I’ll take it man. Brandon did send us bottles of wine for this for this. Who won? Who won anyway? Because I was, I was excited for games in jail one surprisingly yeah, I would say because it’s a monday night I won, I’m too physically ill to drink alcohol tonight, so I am going to bed clean and sober and I’m gonna wake up like a million bucks tomorrow. We’re going to have quite the night if you hadn’t gotten sick. Oh dude, I thought you send it to us as a challenge to see who could drink the most wine during the podcast. I was, wasn’t that to specify, I sent you guys two bottles. So I was talking with nick like I think a week ago I got it and he said yeah two bottles and he said, yeah, I think he saw one or I told him I sent a bottle of wine and and he said, okay great, we’ll see who can, who can finish it the fastest. That’ll be the game. I was like, well I don’t think we should do that because I sent you guys each too and he’s like, is that a challenge challenge accepted? Alright listen, when you, when you got guys like chris Elliott here too, I mean it doesn’t take much to provoke or poke a couple of guys like us like what’s what’s the game? What’s the challenge? We’ll do that. You got a bunch of bears. Hey, I stayed at the office to record this just so that I would not be influenced to win that challenge guys, thank you for your time guys. Yeah, thank you for doing this. If you want to learn more about the topics we discussed in this podcast and how you can use them to grow your painting business visit painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast for free training as well as the ability to schedule a personalized strategy session for your painting company again that you are L is painter marketing pros dot com forward slash podcast.
Hey they’re painting company owners. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button, give us your feedback, let us know how we did. And also if you’re interested in taking your painting business to the next level, make sure you visit the painter marketing pros website at Painter Marketing Pros.com to learn more about our services. You can also reach out to me directly by emailing me at Brandon at painter marketing pros dot com and I can give you personalized advice on growing your painting business until next time. Keep growing.