Latest / The Goo Crew / When Should You Start Your Own Painting Business? | The Goo Crew #5

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When Should You Start Your Own Painting Business? | The Goo Crew #5 · The Goo Crew

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Joshua Nelson, uh when should you go out on your own and start your own paint business company?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Never?
0:08
SPEAKER_01: Never ever.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: We'll take all the work.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: Depends.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Depends on what you got going on.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh sooner the better.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Sooner the better?
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Like because the thing is, to start a business, you don't need to do a whole lot.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: All you need are some paintbrushes, probably a four foot ladder, and a client that'll pay you money.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, technically all the people who are uh like work on the side.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Say if you're and all the carpenters we know, all the plum everyone we know in the trades who works on the side, granted they've been doing this for a while, they just start getting side work and they're not like they just like I just have to fit this in.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't uh you don't want to burn all the bridges and cut off your money supply.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: You probably it's probably good to have something in the bank for a rainy day.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: But it's uh the sooner you start, the sooner you'll you'll know if you actually like doing it.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: If you like running the show, some people love it, some people hate it, some people want to do it on the side, some people want to build a crew on the side, and you can do it any you kind of do it any way you want.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean we've seen a lot of different entries into painting from like a variety of guys.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Like and uh you and I were talking about this yesterday where a lot of guys don't plan on being a painter, like it's one of those Yeah, I had zero plans to do it.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Same Z.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So uh there's a lot of ways to kind of end up there, which I think and it's kind of true of other trades as well.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, but particularly painters, there's not I I would say I know more carpenters that like went to some sort of trade school and then got on a crew and then worked their way up to like a like a lead and then maybe went out on their own.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: We've seen that that's like a pretty normal progression for a lot of the carpenters that we know.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: We just work behind a lot of carpenters.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: We don't work behind painters because yeah, that's us.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: That's us.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So where the a lot of painters have, you know, you have like I guess the the easiest arc would be someone that like their dad had a company.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: They painted for their dad, like we know a lot of that too, and then they just kind of kept going with it.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that way they've you know, they're already kind of starting out with a bunch of tools and a bunch of gear, and they have the ladders and they have someone showing them what to do and stuff.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you have guys that will like work under a a larger crew, uh, maybe work on summers, things like that, and then they'll start like branching off.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Teachers, it's really common as well.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, lots of teachers.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Where like a lot of teachers will pick up, they'll do like, you know, they'll paint in the summers, they'll try and book some jobs, and then uh, like our one buddy Mark, he kept painting through, like he would do sidework while he taught during the school year too.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: He would take on like stuff for the weekends and things, uh, because that kind of like will carry over if you've booked your own.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: He still does side work.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Does he?
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's a lot of entry points uh for that, but I don't think you I think you're right.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: If you uh you would want to have some level of work coming in where you're like you can generate the work, yeah.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: You can if you can get that skill of just getting leads, like booking jobs, yeah, and at a decent charge rate, then you're you're good to go.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times how it worked out for me was I was in school and uh I think my junior year of college, I started a business on the side just for for fun.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: It's like all right, I don't I think this is a cool thing, you know.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: You read the rich dad, poor dad books.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: You need to start a corporation, so I did.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: And then I landed a and I just I was put an ad in our our local church bulletin, and then tons of people, I had no idea who they were, kept calling me, and I would do a job, they'd hire me again, they'd refer me to their friends, but I was only working a few days a week because I was in school.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I landed like a huge retirement account my senior year just by accident, uh, because someone from the church hired us to do a retirement home.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: And remember when I graduated college, I'm like, dude, I'm not gonna paint anymore.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: This is dumb, I'm not gonna do this.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: And then that work got better and better, and all the jobs that I interviewed for, because I actually had a few job interviews, a few job offers, and I just turned them all down because I didn't want to sit in the office all day.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: And then I was actually the money they were paying me was less than I was making painting.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: It was all like substantially less.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: I was like, dude, I'm my own boss, I'm making more money, just painting.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: And then by I remember one time I almost sent an email to that big commercial account being like, hey guys, I I actually wrote the email.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I I'm not gonna do this anymore because I'm gonna go get a job.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: So I typed that email out.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: And remember I was talking to dad, he's like, You sure you want to do that, man?
4:57
SPEAKER_01: You can hire someone to do this account for you.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: If you got, you know, so and so to do it, you can make money on it.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And I remember I was gonna send it to the person I dealt with the invoices.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: I was like, not yet.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: And then I just kept painting, and then when I would go there and paint, one of the guys they're like, Man, you have no idea what you're sitting on here.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: You have no idea.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: They love you here.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, I wasn't even talking to any people hiring us.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: I was like, What do you mean?
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, because I would just do the work, invoice the work, they'd give me more work, and it was a bit sporadic.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: And then eventually we got all their painting, and it was a six-figure account.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: And it got us through like the uh oh eight, oh nine recession.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we both uh you graduated 06.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Like 06, and then did you did you grad did you have to go through the summer?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I did a few summers.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so and then I graduated in like right at the end of 07.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: And then Josh and I, we basically graduated into like one of the worst job markets, I think.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh mine was okay.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: Yours was a little rough.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh but and I had uh we've both been painting since we were like 15.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: So we were another common entry point is you work for some company like is in a maintenance capacity, and there's always painting to be done, and then you know you start doing more and more of that, and then the side work can come from that.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: Because originally handiworks was gonna be like all kinds of stuff, like maintenance work and yeah, the stuff I did at my actual job, like installing shelves and doing odds and ends, but then everyone kept calling me to paint.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Paint and then please paint.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I guess I'm and then pressure washing.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: We did some of that earlier.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Pressure washing, and then then the reps starts to stack up in one direction, so you actually start getting some like competency in a more narrow band of skills, and you're like, okay, now we're we're painting.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And then I had a similar choice to you, where I had uh like coming out of college, I had some job offers.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: I was already working an IT job, but much like you, I uh because everyone tells you you should get like this and that kind of job for you know your future.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, futures.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was so sick of like school and then also of uh being in an office was just not was not for me.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And it was a lovely setup.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like a bad, like soul crushing job or anything.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: I just did not I wanted to move around.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Like I was getting I was like I can't, I know I gotta move around and just be somewhere else.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And then because you start going to the same place every day, and it just started a little, I just you know, and it and I had a lot of freedom even in that job because I had to go to all these different campuses and take care of computers and stuff like that.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: But uh then I was painting with you on the side while I was doing that as well, and I was like, dude, painting's so much more straightforward, and I just I was like, I can do this for a little bit.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Everyone was like, You're quitting your IT job to do that, because it sounds bad when you say it like that.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I was also making way more money painting, yeah.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, I was like, yeah, like I'll I'll paint, dude.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: I'll paint with my brother, like this will be chill as hell, and then like that's what and then we were heavily involved in uh like the fight gym stuff, and then we had the freedom to do that while we were painting, because you can be like basically you're like a if you're a contractor, especially like painters and stuff, you're you're basically like a pirate mercenary.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Like there's no there's no HR, there's no you can be a little wild.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: You can be you can show up to a job say with a black eye, and you're like cool, they're gonna get the job done.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: So uh and then it we just kept getting more stuff, the work started getting better, and then I th and I think that's like neither of us thought we would be doing it for as long as we've been doing it.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: No, I remember a guy when I was at that commercial retirement community, he's like, Oh man, you get in painting, you're not gonna get out.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, nah, man, I'm I'm not gonna stay in this that long.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: But the they just kept paying me thousands and thousands of dollars.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Whoa, I actually made some really good money this month.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: This is awesome.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think if you're if you're thinking about going out on your own, uh chances are you have probably you've done some side work, at least, I feel like, or you've worked on a crew or whatever.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh that jump off point of where you're like, I'm gonna go out on my own, I think there's like a couple there's like a there's a uh a line where you go from side work and because sidework if you are booking stuff on the weekends, if it if you don't get one weekend of side work, you probably still have your normal paying thing, so it's not that big of a deal.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: When you start trying to book out, you know, instead of uh booking out two days of work a week, now you're trying to book out five for yourself.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like that can be a scarier jump off.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's scary.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh, I'm it's all on me.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: I have I remember having like a week and a half worth of work and being like, dude, after this, I don't have anything.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't have any money in the bank.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: I was in college at the time.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Luckily, I was living at home, so my expenses were low.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: But it's scary because it was like, oh, what if the phone doesn't ring?
10:01
SPEAKER_01: And I you know, I always have my freak out moments.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Usually my uh freaking out in work is when we don't think we have enough backlog, and you've dealt with me during those times.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Every year.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every year, you know, in February or March when you don't have the backlog that you like, and it it changes the bigger your crews get.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: But if it's just you, you actually don't need that much work right backlogged.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: But you're not gonna have it's very rare in painting to have six to six months to a year of backlog because people aren't gonna wait that long.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: The nice thing with painting is there's not there's no permitting, it's like you can just start as soon as they're ready for you.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: They pick colors, you can get in.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to order cabinets or a lot of the other stuff or get pull permits or all that stuff.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: But like, you know, if you get a couple rooms, that can keep you busy for a month if you're a one-man band.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like you know, you look at some of the jobs we do, oh, that would supply someone with work for a whole month.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And it's like four or five rooms that you like you're just going through.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Like it'd be in good income if you did that.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you do normalize things pretty quickly, especially when you go through if you're if you get out on your own, and if you can I think particularly if you can do it when you have low overhead.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: So if you're like a young fella and you're you know living in a reasonable apartment or you know, maybe still at home with your parents, whatever, like that's a great time to like start start doing stuff like that because you can always get a job later.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can always get a job later, and then I had I never had like the uh because I wasn't a partner with you until like later down the line.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: But I still never had uh I just always knew there was work coming.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Just like it's fine.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: We'll that's why you make a good partner.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: You're not freaking out about the same things I freak out about.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And then uh I start freaking out when our queue is so big where I'm like, we need to motor through this work.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: I love a big cue.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: See, that's what I'm like, yes, that's job security for the next three months.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I mean, and then it does become like I think on the other side of that, like if you you know, why would someone want to go out on their own in the first place?
12:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you probably painters tend to be like weird, there's some odd characters that end up painting, especially the guys that stick with it, but usually they don't want a boss.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what's great.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Like one of the things, like we don't like being told what to do.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And even though you are working for people and you're working for, you know, you might be working for renovation companies and builders or whatever, but like they're just an account.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you if they're like if they're mistreating you, if they're giving you work you don't like, you can just not work for them anymore.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like you're not getting fired, you're not whatever.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: It's you can you find the stuff that you want to do.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And uh when you first start out, you're kind of like, unless you have some solid in, like it was weird that we got that commercial account that gave us reps on pretty straightforward painting uh that really helped us.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it was it's a bit of timing on it.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: It was timing so because we put the ad.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: I what I did is I kept running the ad in the church bulletin.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: This guy calls me and he's like, Are you busy?
13:08
SPEAKER_01: I just remember me calling me, like, hey, this is you know, let's just call him Jim Jim from So-and-So retirement community.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Oh, I have no idea who this guy was.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm actually busy the next two weeks thinking he'd think that's awesome because I have I'm booked out.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm like, yeah, I can get he's like, uh, that's not good enough.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I could come tomorrow and take a look at it.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: And I remember pulling up, this is a massive complex, which I had no idea.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: I should have never been called to do that.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: But what they did is they had a painter who was fairly slow, yep, and then they would bring me in to get stuff done quicker.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: And that made it eventually he was so slow he got fired, and then we took over everything.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And then, like a lot of times too, you're gonna go through when you start out, the work that you're gonna do is probably gonna look different than the work you're gonna do five years down the line, ten years down the line, as far as like how you select for work.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Because in the beginning, if you don't have a lot going on, you're just gonna take whatever comes down.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Take whatever you get.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So we we've done, you know, we did jobs that we wouldn't even look at now as far as like for prices we would never get.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: They got some good deals early on.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: But our skill set was not No, we weren't as good as we were now, are now.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And like that, and that too is a thing of like what skill set are you coming into?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And there's a a thing when you're if you go out on your own, you're gonna start looking at jobs and you're gonna be the one responsible.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna look at it, you're gonna put a price on it.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: That's very intimidating for a lot of guys.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: I remember being scared of like going into someone's home that I didn't know, and just pulling up and be like, hey, what's going on?
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I'm looking around, and I'm like, okay, I actually have to do this, and then you have to start imagining, okay, I'm gonna be in their house, I'm gonna be working on this, I'm gonna do that, uh, and then put a number on it where hopefully you're happy that you got the work.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you don't want to be too low, but you don't want to be so high that they would never hire you.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you do enough iterations of that, and then you're like you start getting more confident with your ability to generate work, and you're like, okay, and then you really need to focus, in my opinion, on doing a really good job, like early, like you need to get your skills up.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: So, like, it's just reps, and you want to do a better and better job, like your standards should be higher than your clients.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: So you don't want callbacks, you don't want to just slop it on.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And at some point, if you have any aptitude for painting, your skill set and your standards will far surpass whatever your clients that's kind of like the hope.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: We very rarely get callbacks.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had zero callbacks last quarter.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: The other quarter before that, I think we had three.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which is probably unusual for us.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: And then the better you get, usually the better clients you can get, and the more like to know if you're doing a good job is will that client hire you again?
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Or they recommend you to their friends or family.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: If you're doing that, you're fine, you're gonna be fine.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: Because the more jobs you get, the more things you do, the more work you will generate in the future because of that.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: It just gets easier and easier as you go.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like a wave of momentum.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: But you do have to market, especially early on.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: And I I'm and I'm working on some modules in the the Goo Crew classroom right now, um, where like I remember when I first started, I'm like, I don't want to inconvenience people and tell them that I'm painting, and like I didn't like I'll just let them know once or people, but it's pretty much the people who know and trust you, like who know you, they will hire you first.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: And then like the further away from people who don't know you or don't trust you, the harder, like those leads are a bit harder.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Because they're not like they're like new, hey I Josh, we grew up with him, his family's great, he'll probably do a good job for us.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: And since he's newer, he might give us a good deal.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Like we had a lot of that in the beginning.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I did do a decent job.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: My pricing wasn't as where it should have been, but I built up to it over time.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, and then I feel like our work scaled up to our pricing.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: It did as well.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And then we probably kept it too low for the we underpriced, yeah.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: That's that's another story.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: So I think we'll we'll address that one later.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: But it's more of if you can and also it's like being there's some opportunities that will show up where the commer the way we stay really busy is we work for some commercial accounts builders, and they're good, and then we service their clients like they're our own.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: And we they just give us tons of work, there's high trust, we get their uh you know, charge rate we want, but we we are Johnny on the spot with that.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just take care of it, and we we've had times where we almost lost some of those accounts.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Yep, and that was not cool.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And we actually the right way that was the busiest we were ever we ever were, and we just let the ball drop on so many things.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had all this money coming in, but the actually our business was getting worse because we were like our clients were not happy, they were complaining to the builders or renovators, and you get a couple of those in a row, and they're like, Oh, dude.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but uh, but if you get like honestly, like one or two commercial accounts could just keep you busy full time or you and a couple guys, or if you just want to run a crew, yeah, like that would do it.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: But just more of reaching out to all the warm people first that you know, uh, emails, like any email on your like any any contacts you have, hey, I'm painting, hey, and then just let them know at least once a quarter.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Anyone on your email list on your phone that's local, on your phone contact list, you start there and then you can start reaching out from there.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I know guys who are like brand new, they'll start Facebook ads, yep, and they're local, and as long as you they're just they're colder, so you're probably hit rate to get them.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh are less.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: I know a guy who's actually a landscaper, started out, he just joined a uh Facebook like local group, and you're allowed to put one ad a week in there.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and he gets he's uh he's actually a landscaper.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: I met him at the a party the other day, and he gets tons of uh work of that.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's thinking about going full time, but he's like, dude, I just put one ad a week.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: They're the great leads, most of them are pretty darn good, and it's like the local, you know, shell font homeowners group or whatever that is.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: So there's some ways to do it of where like getting your name out there uh that aren't not like you don't need to go cold call a bunch of people because uh the ones that worked for me was advertising where put people know me, and then reaching out to builders where we had a recommendation from.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: So like I would work, we'd work behind like Dank in our first time.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: What I did was I reached out to the homeowner.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, these builders are really good.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Could you write us a recommendation to them?
19:31
SPEAKER_01: And so they did that, and then I called the builder, I was like, Hey, uh, we're so and so, and like, oh, we got your recommendation from Susie.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Our painter is like way overpriced in the market right now.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Can't let's once you come in and I'll you I you can give a little presentation.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: And I went in and I like, oh my god, dude, I don't give presentations.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I just showed up, it was me, like, yeah, I'm Josh, you know, we charge this.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: It was like 35 bucks an hour.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, that's kind of high.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: I said, Well, our clients really like it.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: So, like, you know, they keep hiring it's like, all right, we'll give you a shot.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and so they recommended us told Kathy James.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh that was the first one, and they recommend they gave out two names.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: Rest in peace.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Rest in peace, Kathy James.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: And then I ended up like, dude, I was Johnny in the spot.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: I brought her color books.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: I did this, and I don't even think we were the cheapest price out of the two, and I should have charged more because it took so much longer.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: But I just knew like this was like if I get this well, the odds of this turning into something bigger was higher.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: So it's sometimes worth it to be like, if you're gonna give a discount ever, it's on that first account for a big commercial account and just be Johnny on the spot.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And that worked out, and then we did with the other uh for John.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh same kind of thing.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: I had we had a client, they had Gimme Construction working there.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Hey, could you put us a recommendation?
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Same thing happened with their painter.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Like they were like having issues with it's usually a timing thing because whenever people are happy with their contractors, they're not looking for anyone else because it's such a pain in the butt.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: To get unless, like, if the guy they have is either retiring, getting worse, or sick, what whatever, name it, they're having issues, that's when they're looking.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Because if you ever hire or recommend someone who sucks, like that looks bad on you.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: It's such a pain.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: So if you have someone good, you're not looking for other guys, right?
21:16
SPEAKER_01: In most scenarios.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you're you know, if you're uh thinking about going out on your own, like you do want to have some sort of lead generation mechanism.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Like you need to have at least that ball rolling.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and our dad always talks about momentum and like in in life, but like that's what happens.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And then if you start getting out in the field, and instead of being at your you know, your day job every week, you're out, you know, driving around looking at jobs, painting.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Now everyone's seeing you paint.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Now you're gonna have more like the casual brush ends of like you know, the neighbor coming up and saying, What are you doing?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, what you know, are could you look at something in my house?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: And things start.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Or like snowball, uh, and then I think just being Johnny on the spot's a good way to put it for especially anything that's going to be like a feeder account, like a a carpenter or whatever, and like we have a bunch of those, and then a feeder account, we have like some of it's commercial, but then some of it is like basically all residential, where like we have an account we've been working behind for like 18 years now.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh nine, something like that.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: The math is on that.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And uh they they don't like we're not we don't sub for them.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: There's other crews that we do sub for, and if they get the bid, then we're definitely gonna be doing the painting because they built our number into their number.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then uh this other account that we've been working behind, and it's been some of like our best work, like that we that it's the work that we like to do, uh, is they just give our card to their client, there and they do renovations and kitchens and baths and all kinds of stuff, and they just say, Hey, there's almost always the homeowners like, Hey, do you have a painter you recommend?
23:01
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, call, you know, call Jeremy.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And then especially recently, the paint work, painting tends to bleed into other areas.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: So if you get, let's say, like a master bathroom done, sometimes they have to jack up a wall in the actual bedroom, and then the client wants uh, you know, the bathroom done and the mass the rest of the master suite done.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: So like now you're not just doing the bathroom they did, now you're doing this other big room, and then it has happened to us countless times at this point where like uh the client will be like, hey, we're so-and-so is doing our bathroom, but we want a lot of other rooms painted as well.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: And then now you've I've gotten like full repaints for an entire house based on one bathroom renovation.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: So uh that that happens quite often.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: It grows.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And then if you're if you if you get like one residential job, like in a you know, somebody's house and they are used to paying for work, you do a good job on that one room.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: When they're looking for painting, they're gonna be like, I'm gonna have that guy back and paint more of my house.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: That happens all the time, and then you get a couple of those churning, and then just people go through seasons where they're like, I want everything painted or I want more.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: We have another project coming down because people are always messing with their house and doing more painting and making their house different.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: So it's and then space just in some of it's for a lot of people, they consider it more just like maintenance and upkeep.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Like they want to keep a nice house, and that's part of it is having the walls painted and looking nice and the trim in good shape and all that jazz.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And if you can do that, you you the I always say there's an infinity amount of work.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: I've never had a scarcity mindset when it comes to work.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're in a pretty populated area, but there are homes everywhere, there's work everywhere.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: There's paint companies everywhere.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: There's paint companies everywhere.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: I see all the trucks all the time.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: All the time.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: So and it's I think guys would be shocked too if you're like if you're on the other side of things and you haven't gone out on your own.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Um the when you really get going and you get a couple seasons under your belt, like you'd be shocked at just the fact that you show up when you say you're gonna show up, do the work and do it competently.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Like you've I we we've talked a lot about lead generation and stuff.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: We haven't really talked a lot about on how good are you actually at painting.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and there's a little bit of on some level, especially if you're gonna be like a one-man band or like a two-man crew, something like that, you need to like the work.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: On some level, you need to like something about it that's gonna keep you coming back to it.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things about painting is uh I had a I had a very stark contrast between what I was doing for my like day job versus the side stuff I was doing and painting with you at night and on weekends and stuff, is that IT work, at least the kind that I did, was incredibly ungratifying because it was the same problems got generated every day.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: I would solve them, and then on a computer, there's no the the computer looks the same, the server looks the same, nothing has changed other than what you did to solve whatever dumb technical thing that someone screwed up or someone's mouse wasn't plugged in or the computer wasn't on, or just like nothing, you're just kind of maintaining something versus when you paint a room, it's you you do a little literal like visual transformation every time you work.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: You're improving things, you're patching holes, you're making the surface smoother, you're changing the color, and you get to see a visual representation of your effort almost every day.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So, like that's all we do every week.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And you know when the job's done.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: You know when the job's done, it's it's got you know parameters on it, and then everyone gets to see your work.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I think a lot of people talk about like, oh, it's unrewarding or no one appreciates it.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, we get thank yous all the time.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: We get tips.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Tips, get you know, people are like, oh, and you you've if you do a good job and you know what you're doing, like they're so happy that you took care of that for them, and they're like, Oh my gosh, it looks amazing, and they're so happy, and now you have a before and an after pick.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: It's like the easiest marketing thing, too, is just before and after.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Before after.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: So put it online.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's like very uh you've described it as like honest work.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Like that's it is straightforward, it's honest, and then the people are thrilled to pay you money.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: It's weird.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they'll give you a check for thousands of dollars, and they're like, Oh, here's a little something extra for you guys.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, we're the owners.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, you get decent tips sometimes.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy, which is awesome.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, hopefully you're you know, I would just say, like, if you're kind of on the fence or you know, you have Josh and I are very like independent guys that's been, you know, uh, we don't really like having bosses and stuff.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: That'd be the worst employee.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: That'd be so terrible.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: I could do it if I had to.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if I had to.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, the thing was being an employee, because I was I worked in a property management company, they wanted to hire me, and man, I did like two days there in a row.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: This is right when I was thinking about I they were offering me a job, and that was the one where I did the job interview, and I dressed like a complete slob because I interned there and they were we're gonna interview, I was gonna manage this huge commercial building, I think in Delaware.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to go to Delaware, I'm in Pennsylvania.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Dude, I showed up, everyone like who was waiting to interview was dressed to the nines, like full suit, full dress if they were a girl.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: And I just came there at like a sloppy tie, I had stains on my white shirt, could look like complete bum.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: And then I did the interview, I just didn't care.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want the job.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I was so relaxed, just chilling in the interview, and I knew some of these people, and then they offered me the job.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: I was like, all right, and then they showed me what they want to pay me for like 35 grand.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: I was like, dude, and they're like, Well, there's like a bonus, and then I'm like, dude, I make way more than that painting.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: This is silly, and this was years ago, and I was way undercharging back then.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, no thanks.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
29:03
SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
29:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm like, no thanks.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: They call me back, they're like, You uh what?
29:07
SPEAKER_01: I said, No, I don't want it, man.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: And then they were just shocked.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: They're like, well, what if we pay you more?
29:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, why don't you offer me that to begin with?
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no thanks.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: I just told them no.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: It was great.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: It was the best job interview I ever had.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: I think I landed so many like potential jobs that way by like not just not caring and just being relaxed.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, if you work a job, all you're like one decision away from just having no work.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: You only have one person supplying you with work.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Depends on what you're thinking, but like, you know, Microsoft just got 4,000 layoffs.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Like these big tech companies, all these big companies go through seasons.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Where my wife used to work at Johnson Johnson, every Christmas they would just fire thousands of people.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Just because, hey, we're getting rid of this department.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: So everyone's about one decision away from getting their secure job fired, like to be have no income.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: At least with painting, you could instead of you could lose a big account, but you still have 50% of your income because you have all your other work.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, even uh, even you're way more in control of like the controls of your world.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah if you are, you know, you actually can steer your business which way you want it to go.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: You can.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And you can make like strategic moves where we kind of saw the writing on the wall with our original, our original commercial account at the retirement facility, where like you know, we had just gone through iterations of it, different people had been running it, and then they started kind of making corporate changes, like, because we would see the corporate changes on the how they treated their contractors, like things changed quite a bit, and then we were just like they became like an insane high maintenance girlfriend where we're like, yo, this is that now we're getting into like territory of unreasonable.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to work their demands.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: And we don't, and we just so we pushed hard into cultivating more of our residential clients, and then when you kind of put that account on autopilot, and we're just you're just like, We'll see how long it lasts.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: And then they were like, I could have done a little better job, but I just kicked it.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: But then like we were so tired of them, yeah, like by the end, yeah, grateful in the beginning, yeah.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And then we were like, but then when they they were like, Hey, we got a new painter or whatever, or they brought it in-house, whatever it was.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were like, Cool, and we had plenty of work already stacked up, and it was not a big deal.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So they were yeah, sorry, didn't but I was just saying, like, it wasn't like a crushing blow to our business.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: We were like, Okay.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And then we just we were like, Thank God I don't have to go there anymore.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: We went and pulled our side.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: That was the one time I was gonna like quit painting because I had to go there.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: We can I think we'll do a commercial accounts podcast in the future.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: But I just remember I had worked, I I took I took it back over and I was working.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, if I have to do this for the rest of my life and work here, I'm gonna go crazy.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'll just quit.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: I'll do anything else.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: And then when I realized you could hire someone to do it, yeah, that took me a while, like who was good because I went through a phase where I just wanted people who were inexpensive or cheap.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: Then I found a guy who was awesome and he took care of the whole account for me.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's just a shame he moved away.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: But then when I brought in the next guy, I was like, hey, I think I got this account for about five more years if I can coast.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: But like I wouldn't even show up.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I I would go, I'd visit it like twice a year.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: The guy was a rock star.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but eventually it just well, he he still works there, but we don't.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: We'll just say that.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: So uh we'll a tail for another time.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: A tail for another time.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: But I the thing was like just say if you're starting from scratch and you're like, what do I do?
32:28
SPEAKER_01: You can just do a couple marketing strategies.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Like the biggest paying companies out there that have 20 or 30 guys, a lot of what they're going on is their old referrals.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: That's sometimes like half their work, but then the other half is they're actively pushing in marketing and either doing either two to four strategies total.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: So even if you're trying to generate from scratch, you can go Facebook ads, target locally.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: You can go neighborhoods you've either worked for or you want to work for, just put door hangers or hire someone to put door hangers.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to send mail, you can do mailers like those little postcards, and you just have to be consistent with it.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So there's strategies you can do that will get you good leads.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: And then the thing is, if you were to get a job in that neighborhood, say if it takes you four bids to get a job in that neighborhood, then that person, oh, I like this.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: If you do a good job, then that starts the momentum.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: So every time you get a job and a success and they're happy and they're like, this these people are awesome, it just gets easier and easier.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: But you do have to do some kind of a push early on.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of the paint contractors I've talked to who've been doing this a while have zero marketing.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Unless they're trying to expand.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: Like even the big carpenter uh companies that we work behind or renovation companies, they've been doing a long time.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Zero marketing.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Zero.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the just people you because you you build your reputation, and that's what snowballs for you uh around.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: So, like in the beginning, you do have to hustle a bit more, and then you'll also uh as you are if you're if you're thinking about going out on your own, you probably have a level of work you're comfortable doing.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: Like if I showed you a bedroom, you're like, oh, I can paint this.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens is people are gonna ask you, can you also paint this?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And then you have to look at it, and there is a especially in the beginning when you don't have a lot of reps under your belt, you're gonna look at a job and be like, I've never done that before.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Do I have the skills to then bridge what they call like the skill gap?
34:22
SPEAKER_00: When you you if you're on like uh, you know, if you imagine a canyon and you're on, you know, one side of the canyon and the work that you were supposed to do and complete is on the other, like, do you do you feel like you're competent enough to bridge that gap and actually develop yourself and your skills a bit more to then accomplish what the client is asking for?
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And then you do that enough uh where the jump becomes like less intimidating because hopefully you have pulled it off and you didn't fall into the canyon and like really screw yourself.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: I can paint a bedroom, but can I paint this two-story foyer?
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: I remember the first time we did, I'm like, can I even how do we even get up that high?
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if I have that la ladder high enough.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: You guys need to buy a ladder.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you've come from like if you worked on a big crew already, you might have some SOPs under your belt.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't done it personally, but you've seen it done.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a lot of that.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: So we were making a lot of yeah.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: We never painted a foyer, like, yeah, we didn't we just we knew how to paint mostly, but it's more commercial.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Josh and I would routinely just send it.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: We're like, yeah.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, the problem was that we would like, hey, this foyer, it'll be like three days.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, it's six to paint.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're gonna eat it.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna eat it on those for sure.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah because it because you're guessing at work that you and I th and that's okay too.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: That's something I would say.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: We we talked about it on like our bad jobs uh podcast a couple uh times ago, uh, where like the the one the jobs that you're looking at, particularly early, where you're not sure of all the steps, the bids are probably not gonna be great, but it's gonna be alert, you're basically gonna get paid kind of not the best to learn.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh like when I did that first staircase.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Like I made a bunch of mistakes and but now I knew a bunch of things not to do and things to do on the next go-around.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: So take a little longer.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you're just like, oh, I'm and and that's probably one of the with repetitions when you're actually quoting it and then doing the work, you're gonna get a very accurate number in your head of how long it actually takes you to do something.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's that's a really core kind of skill to develop early, not to like bullshit yourself and say, like, oh yeah, I can knock this out in like two days.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, dude, you're gonna have to now do that in two days.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the for when you're doing the essence, if I can do this in two days, I know that my price will be lower and I know they'll accept it.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: Versus like, oh, it's gonna take four, oh, no way they're gonna pay me, you know, four thousand, like whatever the you know, your charge rate is for that.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: There's no way they're gonna pay me this much to do it.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't know that.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: And I remember giving out pricing early on, being like, I would never pay for this.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, dude, they're like 20, 30 years older than you, and they have a net worth of two million dollars.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: They don't care.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: I was remembering I was debating, like, should we make it$215 or$230?
37:10
SPEAKER_01: Like it was like for a pressure wash, and we would go back and forth for 30 minutes, like, uh, uh, uh, let's split the difference.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, like, dude, they didn't care.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: No.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: No, no, some people do, but a lot of people when you're talking like that little amount of money, like some people like it's unbelievable like how much people will spend on things.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I talked to a guy the other day, he runs a full-time, he has he's off the brush, but he's a full-time crew.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I can't believe someone paid$30,000 to get their whole house painted.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, if they pay$75,000 to$150,000 for a kitchen, that's not that big of a deal.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Bathrooms cost over$30,000 a lot of times.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we see them for$75,000.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: If not more.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, paintings the one of the lower ticket items for a house that's, you know, anywhere from what's low end at anywhere$250,000 up to over a million dollars to pay, you know, five grand to get a couple of rooms painted.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: Not a big deal.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: And then uh you're in paintings, like it it is a little bit more on the higher volume side in terms of the amount of jobs you're gonna go through.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: It's like not as much as like plumbing or electrical or uh but like your jobs are probably gonna be like you're gonna churn through work quicker than a cut like a company that's doing remodeling, where they're gonna be they're gonna be parked there for three months.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: That's very rare for us to be anywhere longer than.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: They're not as high ticket as a whole kitchen reno, but they're not as low ticket of, hey, we're gonna clean your gutters.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: And the nice thing is people get like you can paint the same room five years later.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: It's not like you paint it once and it's done forever.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Which is nice.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: So, but painting does have a lot of like uh so you know, the the motivation side of things of why would you want to go on your own?
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Like it's you can be very independent, you can like you can you have a lot of control over your schedule, uh, but you are gonna be working a lot, particularly early on, and then you're gonna go through seasons where you have uh we we've done a better job now of like we have a very steady schedule all year.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: We pretty much work, you know, we have the hours that we work.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but when we first started, we put in some like marathon times where we had we commit, we were like, Yeah, we can do it, we can do it, we can do it.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: We said yes to too much stuff.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And then we had to like work our balls off for it.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: There were subweeks we probably painted like 80 hours or whatever.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: We worked Saturday, we'd work Sunday.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times it was for the commercial retirement community because they had to get it, you had to be done by Monday.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: They'd call us, they give us a week to turn around, you know, a unit, and oh, holy cow, when how are we gonna get this done?
39:49
SPEAKER_01: Or they call me on a Thursday and like, can you get this done by Monday?
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And I'm already on another job.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, we'll do it over the weekend.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: And then and then for me too, what the reason I like continued forward painting is because I got to paint with you.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, if I had to do it by myself, I would not be.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Some guys don't mind by themselves, but yeah, if you have a good if you have a crew that you like, it really helps because it's kind of like you and the boys out just on a mission.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fun, it's fun being a part of a crew, particularly if you can like kind of uh dictate who's on the crew.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're hiring who's on your crew.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: If you like him, right, cool.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: This guy sucks, you can get rid of him.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: So, but like we've we've been working together, and in case no one's figured this out by now, Josh and I are brothers, so um, but we've been working together for a super long time, and it's been like the it's fun.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Like if you if you were uh like painting or whatever, and then you had a buddy and you guys actually get along and you'd be like, Hey, do you want to just like paint together?
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Like that's I know guys that are one-man bands, but they have basically another friend who's also a one-man band, and they just team up on pretty much every job.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: And they just they both have their own, you know, trucks or whatever, and then they they like working together, and you're gonna find guys that you like working with, and then you're gonna find guys that you don't, or gals.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but that the being on the crew is something that I always enjoyed, and that was kind of like because you're just like a bunch of dudes trying to go get stuff done.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not it's like you have a mission every time, and then we just come in and be like, all right, what are we doing?
41:20
SPEAKER_00: And then you just start figuring out like there's no meetings.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: We have zero meetings, we don't have an HR department, there's no and like, especially if the cli if the house is empty, you can just be this dudes are wild.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: So, like talk about whatever, talk mad shit, like it's it's fun.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: So it's there's uh that's that's the fun part.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you're gonna take on stuff and get yourself into a pickle, and then you have to like you and your crypt figure out how we're gonna close this out.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: Or someone don't paint or yeah, a lot of this client, or dealing with the client, and the client management's a big part of it too.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: It's like your bedside manor.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: That's a huge like that might be half.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: It's almost half of it.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: I would I yeah.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I don't I'm on interior.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say like maybe 25% of half.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think again, a lot of this is we're assuming that you are have the skills to paint.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: You have say say you have a guy, two guys that like have the same skill level, so their finish quality is roundabouts the same.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: The guy that's actually pleasant to interact with is gonna get more work uh pretty quickly.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: And way more referrals.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: Way more referrals.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: I'd say a guy who's a little bit less skilled but still does a decent job would get more referrals.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Especially for interior.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And our and I would say, you know, if you're kind of landing jobs early, you want to be Josh and I always say like we want to be smooth operators, like we do not want to be the friction point on the job.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And with painting, a lot of times if they've done renovations, then you're the last guy in there, and they're probably sick and tired of people being in their house.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: So you just want to, we're always very respectful of we're guests in the home, you don't wreck their stuff.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: You're you know, if you need to lock up, you're locking up, like whatever the thing is, you're not being a friggin' turd.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I mean, I walked in on jobs where guys are blasting like death metal in the basement, and the client was like a nice old lady.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was like, what are you guys doing?
43:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or they're just talking uh like X or R rated when there's kids around, dude.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: You don't know you.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: PG, maybe PG 13, but if there's kids around, you gotta keep that PG.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like we're and if we always we always give each other a heads up of like who's in the house, what's what's what's our environment like, and then you just be respectful of it.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: So, and then the the other part now that's gotten way better, because I remember back when we did all the commercial work, uh, this was like 20 years ago, keeping your mind occupied while you're painting used to be like if you didn't have a good conversation or you were split and working by yourself, it could be like rather boring if you know what you're doing.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: Like by the time you've painted your like 200th closet, you're like, I don't really need to think about this as much.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of on autopilot, but man, now you have like we're always ripping podcasts and audiobooks, that's great, and there's so much like stuff to listen to.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: You could educate yourself on whatever you want.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: We started doing Audible a long time ago, and I think we have over close to like 900 titles in our library.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And Josh and I split the library, so like we have fiction, nonfiction, we've and we've business books, all kinds of stuff.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: So, and there's just so much out there.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: It's so like that part's sweet.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Once you actually get good enough, you don't actually have to engage your mind to like do do a painting job that you've done.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty chill experience overall.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: So it's nice, but uh, and then you know, just projecting forward from people of like, okay, I'm gonna go out on my own.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: Over time, you're gonna start to get more and more of the work that you like doing, and if you like doing you're probably gonna get better and better at it.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then you get known for like you're the guy that does that.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you do bathrooms, you do exteriors, or you do this.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: You're like, hey, I really like being outside, I want to do the exterior work, or I'm really good at I like I really enjoy doing like uh kitchen cabinets, like, and you just have all your SOPs dialed for that, and you're you're the guy, and then you can kind of start like accurately pricing, like, yeah, I know I'm more pricey, but like my finish quality on this project is the bee's knees, and then you it's gonna be done well, it's gonna be done well, and then you're that guy, and then that just kind of that keeps go.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: But you the you're just gonna do a lot of work you probably aren't gonna do later early on, and then it just hones in more specifically.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: And then like right now, we we have quite a full book uh of work that we and it's all that we want to, it's all the kind of work we want to do at all good stuff.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: At the price that we wanna uh that we wanna get.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: So it's like it's a sweet spot, and it doesn't, you know, you send out a newsletter once a month, and that is the extent of our marketing, and then everything else is word of mouth and reputation.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: Which is we did some we did some pushes early on, and then going to the goo crew, which you can join, link uh in the description.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: Is I will right now I'm working on the foundations course of kind of the seven core concepts of like what you need to know for like being a being a painter and make sure you're doing a good job, real quick, three, five minutes.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: And then on the marketing side, we're gonna have I'm gonna get all the best marketing techniques for pretty much all the painter contracting companies around.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll put stuff we do, and then I'll be finding the stuff that other guys do because most paint companies just do a couple, and so we only do a couple, but if you're starting out like, hey man, I don't know, like I don't have the reputation, I will I will put all the best stuff out there, real easy to follow.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: So that is uh coming in the next couple weeks.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah guys, if you are starting out, check out the Goo crew.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh just like Josh said, link in the description.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if it doesn't have 150 painters in there yet, uh up to that point, it'll be free to join.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: And Josh is doing a bunch of stuff in there, as am I, and uh, I think that's it.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: Anything else, brother?
47:05
SPEAKER_00: No, sir.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: All right, well, until next time, y'all take it easy, work smart, and have a good one.