May 2, 2025 • 36 mins
In this powerful episode of the Profitable Painter Podcast, host Daniel Honan sits down with Gene Harris, owner of multiple Painter 1 locations and founder of Hoosier Admin, for an inspiring conversation about building a business with intention and impact.
Jean shares how his background in the Navy and property management helped shape his mindset as a business owner. But what truly sparked his entrepreneurial drive was planning for his family’s future, including long-term care for his special needs son. That mission led him to launch and scale not just one, but multiple businesses, all while stepping out of daily operations and focusing on building wealth through smart systems, strong teams, and a service-first culture.
Takeaways from this episode with Gene Harris:
- Purpose-Driven Wealth: How long-term family goals fueled Jean’s business journey, and why asset ownership beats a 401(k).
- Delegation Done Right: Why most painting contractors wait too long to give up the phones, and how Hoosier Admin fills the gap.
- Systemized Success: The importance of documenting roles, building reliable teams, and getting out of the "you = the business" trap.
- Culture of Hospitality: From project managers to painters, why customer happiness is the North Star (and how to hire for it).
- First Impressions Matter: Why offshoring your phones can backfire, and how a professional, U.S.-based admin team changes the game.
Whether you're just starting your painting business or aiming to scale out of day-to-day chaos, this episode offers a blueprint to grow with clarity, purpose, and peace of mind.
🎧 Listen now, then start building a business that supports your life, not consumes it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution While we strive
to provide accurate andup-to-date financial and tax
(00:20):
information, nothing you hear onthis podcast should be
considered as financial advicespecifically for you or your
business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
(00:41):
before making any significantfinancial decision.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
My name is Daniel Honan, I'mthe founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters and I'm also a CPA thatworks exclusively with painting
businesses, and today I'm superexcited to talk to Gene Harris.
We're going to get into a lotof really interesting stuff.
He's had an amazing journey inthe painting industry.
Welcome to the podcast, gene.
How's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Great Daniel, how about?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
yourself.
I'm doing well.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I'm glad to have you and I really want to
dig into your journey.
I know you've had a prettyunique journey and I think a lot
of folks are going to get a lotof value out of it.
Can you kind of just give usthe highlights?
What is your journey in thepainting industry been?
How did you get started?
What are some of the keyhighlights as you've made your
way through the years?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thanks, yeah, so just a really high level.
I didn't start out in thepainting business.
I actually started.
I was in the Navy out of highschool and then after that I
started working for severaldifferent companies, operations
wise, my final kind of.
Prior to getting in thepainting business, I used to run
apartment communities theinstitutional quality stuff for
20 years all across the country.
I was vice president of acouple of property management
(01:50):
companies.
And then, just one day, justlooking at 401k, looking at
retirement, I have two boys, oneis 21, who's at IU currently,
right now, and another one who'sabout to be 19.
He's special needs with PittHopkins syndrome, and dawned on
me this is probably about eightyears ago, now maybe nine, but
that there's not going to be twoof us in retirement, there's
(02:12):
going to be three of us.
And then what does that numberlook like?
And then, thirdly, what happensto him when we're gone?
And so how do you support ahuman 20 years after you're dead
?
And that's a pretty big numberto figure out and realizing that
the only really true path totrue wealth is owning assets,
starting with maybe companies orinvestments and I've had the
(02:36):
experience of running companiesfor a long time never really for
myself and I looked atfranchising.
I looked at several differentbrands and finally settled on a
painting franchise, which isPainter One.
Back in October of 2019, Iopened my first Painter One
business with.
The idea at the time was tojust build it up and sell it.
So at the time it was a $50,000franchise fee.
(02:56):
You buy it, you run it for acouple of years, you make a
profit, you put it on the market, you sell it.
Maybe you sell it for three,four, 500 grand.
Take that equity, you go intoanother franchise that requires
a larger equity investment.
You just continue to level upand there are actually guys that
do this for a living.
That's this kind of their model.
Got into it.
It was about 90 days.
(03:18):
I was into it and I realizedlike, well, this is fairly I
won't say usually fairly easy orfairly simple compared to what
I come from.
Right, it's not a complexbusiness.
You know you get some paintingleads, you do some painting
estimates and you paint thehouse and it's still painting
right.
And also and the reason why Ichose a painting company was at
the time, I was looking forsomething that was quasi
recession proof.
(03:38):
I don't think there's anythingtruly recession proof, but
definitely I remember runningapartments in 08, 09, and 10,
during the last the real estatebubble, the real estate crash.
There's still painting.
That still occurred.
It still happened, whether itbe exteriors or commercially or
whatever.
But eventually someone's goingto need something painted and a
lot of people are going to geton a 20-foot ladder to paint the
(03:59):
high stuff, for sure.
And it's paint.
And if you mess it up I knowI'm oversimplifying it, but you
can always repaint it right.
I'm not demoing someone'skitchen or doing something like
that.
So I thought it was very simple.
I got into it 90 days into it,realized why would I sell this
just to start over in anotherbrand?
A whole new system, noguarantee of success, no
(04:23):
guarantee I'll love it.
New system, no guarantee ofsuccess, no guarantee I'll love
it.
And really expanding on myapartment businesses that I used
to run, I had deals in Denverand Houston and Atlanta and
Oklahoma City and all across thecountry, so I'm used to, I'm
familiar with running teams faraway and so I was like, well,
why don't I just open up asecond location?
And in 2022, I opened PaintingOne in Cincinnati and at the
(04:49):
time, my plan was to well doCincinnati, which is about two
hours from Indianapolis, thenmaybe Louisville, which is about
two and a half hours fromIndianapolis, you know, and kind
of go around and then, onceI've had three or four, maybe
just start opening locations allacross the country.
And so if I had a dozen PainterOne locations, that'd be pretty
good for long-term.
You know, wealth.
(05:11):
And well, when I opened thesecond location that's when I
realized at the time of my wifewas my admin and I was like,
well, I don't need to hire asecond person to open up
Cincinnati to answer the phonesfor Cincinnati, my wife can
still do that.
And that's what I came up withthe idea of starting a business
where we answer the phones forother painting companies and
(05:32):
sharing the admin costs.
And so I went to the franchisor, said I had this idea, they let
us try it with a couple ofowners, and then that eventually
turned into what is now aHoosiermin.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Nice, that's awesome.
Yeah, that's quite a journeyand I definitely want to get
into.
There's a lot there that I wantto get into.
I'm going to start with.
You know, one of the things thatwe have in common is a special
needs child, and I thought itwas really cool that you kind of
realized early on like, hey,we're going to have to it's
(06:07):
always important to save forretirement for anybody but
adding that extra layer of notonly like when I pass, but like
what happens to my kids, orspecifically my special needs
child, you know, after I pass,like having that additional care
requirement, like having thatadditional care requirement and
(06:27):
it sounds like you kind ofthought about retirement in
early on, but also in adifferent way what kind of come
to?
Like what did you realize?
And, if you don't mind sharing,like, what kind of calculations
did you do?
Or like, how did you?
What numbers did you come upwith?
Like, hey, I need to hit thislevel of wealth, like anything
that you would be willing toshare in that regard.
I think that would be superinteresting.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, I don't know if I have any specific numbers
that I recall per se, likewritten down, like as far as
like a goal number.
I think if I had, really, if Ihad to really sit down and come
up with a number, I'd probablybe really depressed.
So it's more or less.
I just got to blow, I just gotto blow it up as big a number as
I can.
I don't even know what thatlooks like, but no, it's more so
(07:07):
.
Like I said, our son issocially verbal.
People love him.
He's a very class, half fullkind of person.
Most of the time People enjoybeing around him, but he doesn't
have any kind of I don't knowthe word, maybe safety awareness
.
He still might walk out intraffic, uh, without looking you
know, kind of thing.
So he always needs someonearound.
(07:27):
He can do a lot of things onhis own, but he's, you know,
he'll never be able to cook forhimself.
You use hot objects, thingslike that, uh, you know.
So there's a lot of thingshe'll never can do, um.
But when you have a specialneeds child, in the beginning
you're just kind of fighting thefight, right, you're figuring
out their health.
It's more focused on theirhealth and their learning, and
then you don't really thinkabout because you don't know
either, a lot of kids are oneway very young.
(07:50):
And then, you know, we allchange, as we know, um, as we
get older.
But when he 19, that's about 11or 12, and I was like, oh, you
know, just kind of dawned on me,wait, he's not leaving, like
he's going to be with us.
And then then so, um, you know,if I'm thinking about sailing
off into the sunset anytime soon, you know how, how, how do you
support that?
And then, um, and then more so,like I said, you know, let's
(08:14):
say we live in our eighties,he'll be in his sixties, you
know.
And he has, you know, he has abrother, but again a.
You know, we don't always knowhow our kids are going to turn
out, whether they're going to besuccessful.
But even if they are, do youwant to put that burden on them
and their family?
So it's something I always talkto my kids about, especially my
older one when he was goingthrough high school and taking
(08:35):
very advanced classes or doing alot of work and things were
getting hard.
He just wanted to quit and Ijust told him.
I said so.
You may not see it today, butputting in the time and the
effort today will pay itsbenefits.
This dividends in the future.
And wouldn't you rather have 10doors to choose from one day
versus one?
Right?
So you know he can look aroundthe room and a lot of his
friends and family, or hisfriends who he went to school
(08:56):
with, didn't apply themselves orwhatever, and now they graduate
high school and they'vebasically got one door to walk
through.
Right, you know they got to goget a job and figure it out when
, because of putting the worknow, you know, have more
opportunities.
I'm kind of doing the samething.
Where, creating moreopportunities, where we don't
just have one horse, we haveseveral and that's an investment
(09:19):
world, they tell you.
You know to diversify, right,so all of our eggs are in one
basket.
Like I said, I've painted onein minneapolis, painted one in
cincinnati.
Obviously two different cities,they're fairly close, so the
economies are very similar.
But still, and then, inaddition to that, like I said,
with hoosier admin, and then wealso started a christmas light
uh company, uh, last winter.
(09:39):
So it's our fourth company thatwe have now and, um, one of
them's got to work, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
So, yeah, I don't have any like specific numbers.
It's more or less a strategy ofyou know, maybe I sit all the
painting companies one day,Maybe I keep the holiday
lighting company, the Hoosieradmin.
We can do anywhere in the world, it doesn't necessarily need to
be in the city where a paintingcompany, someone has to
physically go out do the SOS.
I need to be in the city wherea painting company, someone has
to physically go out do the SOS.
So I have to physically gopaint the projects and so you
know, but maybe I get them to apoint where they're just running
(10:12):
themselves and there's, youknow, someone else is running it
and it's just paying dividendson into the future, you know,
after we're gone.
But again, the goal is reallyjust more to set it up so
they're all successful, and thenwe have choices and we have
options and we can make thosedecisions, you know, at that
time in the future.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, it sounds like you'vekind of building equity in your
business to kind of build yourwealth, which I think a lot of
folks, a lot of paintingbusiness owners they don't I
mean a lot of them do, but someof them don't think of their
business as something they canbuild for enduring wealth.
They think it's more like it'sa job that I've created for
(10:49):
myself, kind of thing.
Yeah, but you're kind of likesetting up the businesses to run
on their own and you're thebusiness owner.
You're not involved a lot inthe day-to-day.
At least you're building itthat way, that's true.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, involves a lot in the day-to-day.
Uh, at least you're building itthat way, you're probably,
that's true.
Yeah, yeah, and it's.
I guess I want to.
You know my advice wouldeveryone start from day one.
But I know a lot of peopledon't, don't, don't come from
the professional world.
They just started painting andthen all of a sudden they have a
business.
They woke up one day and theyhave a business kind of thing
and they have to figure out thebusiness side of it.
But yeah, it's, it's aboutsetting up systems and processes
.
You know roles,responsibilities, having all
that stuff in writing writtendown.
So if you ever needed someoneto step in, someone could
(11:32):
absolutely step into where youare and just continue to run,
and you're not the business initself, right?
Everything's not in a notebookand people just know your name
and have your number.
You have to professionalize itand so we've set it up since day
one to be able to.
You know, I have a GM inCincinnati.
She runs everything there.
(11:52):
Haven't been back thereliterally since, physically
since 2022.
And Indianapolis kind of wentboth around the world.
I've had estimators, I've hadproject managers.
Indianapolis kind of went botharound the world.
I've had estimators, I've hadproject managers, I've had
general managers come and gokind of over the years.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, so it sounds like your two painting
businesses pretty much right nowrun on their own.
You have a general manager thatoperates them and you have
estimators and crew andeverything.
They're operating without yourmuch input from you.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
It sounds like on call phone or whatever, but for
the most part the majority of mytime is one hour a week Just
meeting with the entire team,just going through everything
(12:52):
soup to nuts from just theoverall business and just
continuously providing input,leadership, guidance to what our
goals are and keeping everybodyon track.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Nice.
That's awesome and it soundslike kind of the key to this is
obviously delegation.
You know, get mentionedpainting business.
What were the hardest ones tomake, processes for hardest
(13:27):
roles to fill that you kind offigured out like maybe little
tricks like to get the rightperson in a certain role or
right process.
What are kind of the pitfallsthat you ran into while trying
to grow in your paintingbusiness and getting it to run
without you that you were ableto figure out and solve?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, but my number one.
In my opinion, the number onemost critical role in your
business is the project manager,or the person who is the
communicator between yourcustomer and your painters, or
your customer and your business.
That, in my opinion, is onethat is the hardest to staff for
and it is the most criticalcomponent.
(14:06):
The sales, the estimating piece.
That's easy, I mean, anybodycan do it.
It's not difficult, it's notrocket surgery.
It's all about there.
Really, it's just aboutcreating a relationship with the
customer.
Do you trust me to come andproduce this project for you?
Really, at the end of the day,you should be competing on price
price.
I know I see a lot of guys onfacebook complaining about they
(14:28):
got underbid or whatever, andthat's going to happen.
But if you, um, you justrealize that that's just not
your customer with the personwho wants to go with the
cheapest provider, um, you know,we try to be in the middle of.
I've heard times that we werethe most expensive and they and
they still hired.
So, really, the estimatorportion is just did you show up
on time?
Do you look decent?
(14:48):
Can you speak correctly?
Does the customer just feelgood about you being in their
home?
Essentially right.
So that's what we're doing.
You know a lot of businesses.
You don't actually go in yourcustomer's house.
You're in their home with theirchildren, with their pets, with
their family, with their life,and do they trust that you're
going to come and do a good job.
It's really where it breaks iswhen you're producing the
project right, so the paintershowing up on time, are we
(15:10):
covering?
Are we prepping everything,everything properly?
Are we communicating with thecustomer properly?
And then at the end, you know,are we do what we say we're
going to do?
And if it breaks, then that'swhere the rubber meets the road
and is the person who is theliaison between the customer,
are they capable of dealing withit when it breaks, right, and a
lot of people get stressed outand they get all nervous
(15:32):
customers upset, and you can'tget upset too.
That doesn't help anything,right?
And so I kind of coach my teamin the sense of we actually this
is going to.
I don't know how else to saythis, but we kind of like it
when it breaks, and I know thatkind of seems like evil.
Like what do you mean?
You like pain, like no, but thepoint is is when it does break.
It's your opportunity to proveto your customer.
(15:54):
That's why they hired you.
They didn't hire you becauseeverything's going to go right.
You know, I think if everythinggoes right, it's easy.
We would all agree if we tookthe customer out of the equation
and we just went and did thejob and they just paid us money.
Wow, this is going to be areally easy career.
But it's more or less whathappens when it breaks.
How do you handle it?
It's really, if you look at itas an opportunity to prove to
the customer, to go above andbeyond, to make it right, to do
(16:16):
whatever it needs to do.
I've literally gotten five-starreviews from the most horrible
situation you could possiblyimagine.
To turn it around and thecustomer is leaving us a glowing
five-star review going.
You know, you guys proved to usyour character.
You stood behind it.
You continue.
You didn't run away.
You stayed here until we were100% satisfied.
But we'll have that customerlike I know I'm super picky,
(16:37):
right, you know we've all gotthat one.
It was like they know thatthey're tough to deal with and
the fact that you're unlikeanyone else and you kept showing
up with a smile and continue towork with them and through the
issue, versus gettingcontentious with the customer.
They recognize that and theyappreciate that and then they
start referring you.
(16:57):
And then those referrals arethe best because all their
friends know that they're aroyal you-know-what to deal with
.
They're like if Susan hired you, whoa, please come to my house.
If she paid you and she likesyou, then we know you've been
vetted, so to speak.
So in my opinion, that's whereI've struggled the most, where
I've had one of the higherproject managers, and they do it
(17:19):
for a while and they do okay,but they just get tired of, if
something were to happen,dealing with that.
Also, our crews have gotten waybetter too over the years.
Now we've got some crews thathave been with me almost four
and a half years and it's thesame people and they're amazing.
So our quality has gottenbetter.
So obviously that makes thingseasier to deal with.
But yeah, just having thatperson that just has thick skin
(17:42):
and can kind of let it roll offtheir shoulder and not take it
personally you know you didn'tpaint it, you know you're not
the one painting, you're justthere to solve it and obviously
if my customer is smiling, mypainters are smiling, then
that's all that matters.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So yeah, project management tough.
What sort of things have youfound, like what are you looking
for when you're looking forthat project manager?
Is there a certain personalitytype?
Or, yeah, what are you kind oflooking for?
Speaker 3 (18:11):
It is.
It's really a hospitalityexperience, it's customer
service experience.
You know, necessarily you don'tneed a painter.
You know you need someone whoknows how to paint.
That's the job.
You know they're the one withthe technical experience and you
can learn from that person.
(18:31):
As far as why this is a way ornot a way, we can, you know we
can educate the customer throughthat, but really it's that
person that you know.
I go all the way back to.
I kind of glossed over it, butI used to run Hollywood videos
and I had 13 retail stores withthem back in the late nineties
and I took over the.
It was the least profitable, itwas the top 10 least profitable
districts in the company and innine months we were the number
one most profitable district inthe company.
You have no control over price,no control over advertising, no
(18:51):
control over the product.
In our business we have totalcontrol over all three of those
right?
So when?
No control of these things, butyet somehow you're still to
take care of your customer, andnot only that, but your
competitor has the exact sameproduct.
You do.
Braveheart is your customer andnot only that, but your
competitor has the exact sameproduct.
You do.
Brave heart is brave heart,doesn't matter whether you go
where you go, and and so it wasthere where it was getting.
Um, and I'm dealing with storemanagers now, not just the
(19:14):
employee and everyone, but I'mstarting with the store manager
part, and it's you know, we'veall heard the customer's always
right.
I was talking to my boss oneday and she's like well, gene,
it's not, it's it, it's thecustomer's always right.
So when you're taught, whenyou're two years old, you're
taught there's a right andthere's a wrong, and so,
therefore, the customer's alwaysright, and then, intuitively,
you're wrong, and no one wantsto be wrong.
And so there's a bit of aninternal conflict there, and so
(19:42):
I had to change the idea happy,right.
So if the customer is happy,then everything's good, and so
do whatever it takes.
And and that's a broadstatement, but it's
intentionally broad and so youhave to empower them to do
whatever it takes.
But not only that, it's notjust the store manager, it's all
the way down to the part-time Iused to say $5 an hour, that's
how old I am, part-time, hourlyemployee that's still in high
(20:04):
school, who just comes in andworks three or four hours a week
.
That person has to be empoweredto do whatever it takes.
To do whatever it takes to makethe customer happy.
And most people, most companiesI talk to, aren't willing to do
.
Oh well, you know.
They come up with a whole listof reasons why you know they
can't do that and you know, andwe're going to lose our shirts
and whatever.
And I proved it was theopposite.
(20:24):
We made more money, thebusiness made more money by
doing that, and so finding thatmentality, someone who can
really understand that, thatit's about you're wrong, it's
not about the painter messed up.
And I talk to my painters aboutthat too.
I'm like you know, I've hadguys literally argue with me
we're closing out a $10,000project.
(20:45):
There's one little thing thecustomer is pointing to that
they want taken care of, and thepainters argue with me about
well, that's not my job, or thatwasn't part of the scope, or
whatever the reason is.
And literally we're talkingsomebody's going to take five
minutes to just go over, paintit or whatever we need to do to
it, or whatever we need to do toit.
And I tell them you know, Idraw an imaginary line on the
ground like a finish line.
I'm like we're on this side ofthe finish line.
(21:07):
Don't plant your flag on thewrong side of the finish line.
Step across or buy to write usa check for 10 grand.
Like, do the thing and get thecheck, get the money.
Let's keep this machine going.
Everyone's happy.
Let's keep on going.
Right here end up with a badreview.
They probably you end upgetting paid, but they're not
happy about paying you.
They're never going to tellanybody.
You know we've all heard right,if you upset a customer, we'll
(21:29):
tell 10 people.
You know how much they hatedyou.
It's hard to get people to bragabout you, so to speak, so
let's eliminate that, you know,from the equation.
Now, my painters have been withme long enough.
They and that's the thing, theyall understand it and that's
probably the number onecompliment we get.
If you go through our reviews,you'll read everyone's so nice,
the painters are so nice,everyone's.
(21:49):
So you know they're just.
They're no way about the by the, just the the bedside manner, I
guess.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right this you know, and uh, we're just, we're saying
yes, we can do that and it'sjust, it's a win-win goal here,
right, yeah, so it sounds likeyou're, you've built culture of
hospitality from not just theproject manager but the crews as
(22:17):
well, where their, their whole,is making the customer happy
yeah awesome.
Um, one of the kind of the keythings that I see a lot of folks
make mistakes on is they try tohold onto their phone too long
when they're in their business.
You know they're doing hundredsof thousands of dollars,
hundreds of thousands of dollarsper year, and they're still
(22:39):
answering their phone.
From my perspective and youprobably didn't have to deal
with this well, you had yourwife to help you with this but
like this seems like this shouldbe the first thing that you get
off plate when you'redelegating, when you're growing
your business, trying to get outof the business, out of the day
to day, because it's just likewhy are you still answering the
(23:00):
phone?
You're probably not going to beable to answer it all the time,
and just getting it to someonewho can reliably answer that
phone can save a huge amount ofmoney.
Can you talk about what youbecause I know you deal with
this on a daily basis with yournew company, or I guess you've
been around for a little whilebut could you go into the
(23:20):
importance of getting rid ofyour phone?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, so you're exactly right.
I mean, we were talking to aclient yesterday.
They're a $1.2 million paintingcompany and they have nobody
answering the phone.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Golly.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
He doesn't even have a CRM.
I'm like my eyes are like thisbig, like, oh my God, all right,
let's start here, let's go.
You're right, and it's notsaving money, it's about
producing.
And that's kind of where it wasborn from, when I, you know
again, I came up with afranchise brand and even the
brand the other brands have, ananswering like a call center,
(23:56):
Right, and so a lot of the otherfranchise stores will have some
sort of central call center.
But it's in and that is.
And talking to the franchisorfor Painter One, even he started
Five Star Painting and they hada call center and he hated it.
He said it was the, thefranchisees hated it, the
customers hated it, likeeveryone.
(24:18):
It's okay, it serves a purpose,it lets that first call in.
At least there's a warm bodyanswering the phone.
But it that's it, though.
Very transactional, it's verynot not intimate at all, you
don't get to meet it, you're notrelated, it's just hey, I need
an appointment to two o'clockTuesday, cool Bye, see ya, you
know, and it's still don't knowanything and you sound just like
(24:39):
any other phone call.
That happens.
And so so we were.
I realized I was like I didn'twant that and the franchisor
didn't want that and so there'sno.
There was a center for painterone.
It was.
The franchisee just had tofigure it out.
And, just like other paintingguys who start getting busy and
start busy enough where thephone's ringing and you're doing
the estimating and you're doingthe project managing, um, you
(25:01):
know, when you're standing inlike what you and I are doing
now, we're just doing anestimate, my phone starts
ringing, I can't take the call,and so by the time you get back
to calling them back, they'veprobably called your other
competitors.
Just talk to your friends andfamily.
It's not just me making this up.
I had a conversation the otherday with a guy.
He was looking for a plumberand he said they called 15
(25:24):
plumbers 15 times.
No one answered the phone, noone.
And he said, by the time the16th guy answered the phone,
he's like I don't want a quote,just come fix it.
He's like I don't make another15 phone calls or 30 phone calls
to get two more quotes.
He was so worn down at thatpoint he's like, please, so all
(25:45):
those other guys and maybethey're busy, they're too busy
to do it, but they could grow ifthey had someone to, like us
take the phones for them, thenthen you're just adding value.
So we, we look at it as a valueadd.
So we get to that point youcan't afford a full-time person,
(26:12):
but you need someone full-time,because that call could come in
at 9.05 or 5.35, right, and youliterally just get two calls
that day.
But during the rest of the daywhat's this person doing?
And so how Arcany was born outof was you can't pay someone
full-time to answer phones foryou yet at that point, but you
need someone available full-timeat that point.
(26:33):
But you need someone availablefull-time.
And so by us providing the adminand what that's what we've got
was we can, we'll hire them,we'll train them, we'll staff
them, we'll do all those things.
And then you're, we're sharingthat with you specifically.
So if Daniel, we assign you anadmin, then she's your admin and
she might answer that she'syours, but she might be mine too
and another's, but she's justour admin.
(26:55):
We're sharing her.
And so because of that, then weall can afford her now, because
now we're all paying, we're allcost sharing.
Essentially, it's sharing herlabor costs for the value of now
.
Now, all of a sudden, we dohave someone available and now
we can start to kind of growthat curve up and and no, you
know, no, uh, go on, go missed.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Right, one of the things I'm starting to hear a
lot about is, you know, to getsomebody to answer your phone.
But you know, get somebodythat's from Mexico or from
somewhere else, uh, to to answeryour phone.
What are some cause?
I know you've probably seenthis, but what are some of the
downsides of doing that?
Yeah, so, and again this, Iknow you've probably seen this.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
But what are some of the downsides of doing that?
Yeah, so, and again, this isnot me saying this, it's just us
talking to our clients who cometo us and they say, you know, I
try to virtually, you know,they're called VA.
Va is all rage right now.
It's going to offshore VA,right, and again, that's fine
and it works to a point.
Right, it's very fractional, um, it's very transactional, it's
uh, there's uh sometimes thelanguage barrier.
(27:57):
Sometimes we found, even when Italked to the franchisor painter
one when he had the call centerat five star uh, his call
center was in canada and someonewould call in for an estimate
and they'd say what's yourpostal code?
And they say postal code, where, where are you?
And like, oh, I'm in BritishColumbia, and literally no other
(28:18):
conversation.
They would just hang up or theywould say something like, oh, I
thought I was calling paying inone of Indianapolis.
Well, no, you are.
So you get into this trying toexplain who you are and what you
are, and some customers want todeal with it.
They don't want to talk tosomeone.
They don't want to talk tosomeone offshore.
They feel like it.
They don't want to talk tosomeone.
They don't want to talk tosomeone offshore.
They feel like, oh, you'retaking my information and are
(28:39):
you even real?
You know so there's a trustissue.
Now, right, well, I'm givingyou I had.
We were here a couple of weeksago where I saw you in Orlando
and we went to again my specialneeds.
I like to play video games, andso we went to Dretty Speed Lab
and, for two hours for $2525,play all the video games you
want.
I'm like I wish we had one ofthese next to us, super
inexpensive, but you had to fillout this form and it was a
(29:01):
release form because they havego-karts and other things you
can do in there, and my wife andI do it.
We go through whatever.
Her father and hermother-in-law were there and
they stopped coming around thecorner.
So I go back to them andthey're like we're having to
redo.
It's like, why look?
Because I tried to use a fakeemail.
I'm like, why like?
Because I don't want to eitheradvertise it.
(29:22):
They just go on this huge rantabout that.
Anyone's giving their simpleemail.
Can you imagine?
They called for a painting.
They got someone offshore.
They're, they're.
They're exactly that customerwho's hanging the phone up
because they just don't trustanyone anymore, and so having
someone stateside is huge.
The other thing we do inaddition, you know again I'll
expand on a little bit the wholepoint of we're not there just
(29:43):
to set the appointment right.
So the goal is when you call in, hey, you know like I'd like to
get my house painted and tellme a little about your painting
project, and so we're there tocreate a relationship, a
memorable review on the phone.
Some people don't want it,that's fine, but a large
majority found, or you know, alot of our setup calls are
(30:04):
probably 15, 20 minute callswhere we're talking about, you
know, have you ever had acontractor before?
What experience do you have?
What are you looking for?
What do you like?
And next thing, you know we'rehearing like, oh, my kids in
college, you know now that we'retalking about their kids and
and and it literally showed upwith estimates.
And our clients do too.
Where they're saying they'llshow up and all the customer
wants to talk about is the adminwho they first talked to.
Oh, I love your who's, thatperson that answers your phone,
(30:24):
and you know, whatever, and Ireally love them so much and
y'all are so much better thaneverybody.
And you've already, you'vealready sold from the pack from
that first call.
You haven't even shown up yetto do the estimate.
So you're, we're so far ahead.
And then what we found is a lotof times because of that, when
we we give the on-site, then I'dsay a large, probably almost 50
(30:45):
percent of the time, we walkout with a check like literally
the customer that yep, let's goahead and do it, I'm ready to go
, I trust you.
Everything so far looks good tome and obviously it's a race to
the door.
If we can get there first, alot of times we can cut out a
lot of our competition.
People have appointments, maybeset up the yeah, I'm going to
call and cancel all you know,all my future estimates.
This sounds reasonable.
We hit the price we're lookingfor.
I trust you're going to do thejob and go and then.
(31:08):
So then we produce the job, orif we don't get it, then part of
what else it was, then we doall your follow up on top of
that.
So, again, in addition to thatoffshore person, you know we
understand what you're doing,the city you're in, et cetera.
And so, hey, daniel Gene was atyour house yesterday, gave you
quotes, a want to make sure yougot it.
B did you have any questions?
You know we just continue thatconversation and continue that
(31:36):
and sometimes you know we'll,we'll call and text and we don't
hear from people for a whileand but we'll continue to do it
and we've we've won jobs becauseyou're the only one who
continued to call me.
You're the only one whocontinued to do this, and so
we're finding that definitelythe onshore admin is, is is is a
plus.
A lot of our admins, we found,are all college educated.
That's the other thing.
That's just blown our mindsjust going through this.
(31:56):
There's a lot of folks outthere who have real jobs, real
careers, and then they need togo back at home Most of the
stories because they have kidsnow and they want to be home
with the kids and kind of workaround their hours.
Or, like us, or like yourself,they have a special needs child.
Someone has to be there all thetime and they're looking for
something to do, not necessarilyto pay the bills.
Usually there's someone else inthe home that's the primary
(32:19):
breadwinner, so to speak, butthey still want to do something
during the day, maybe the kid'sat school.
So now I've got six or sevenhours that I need to fill my
time with, and really there's alot of real work-from-home jobs
out there and again we're justhearing this from them.
There's like, yeah, when they goon these interviews, these,
(32:39):
these guys are smartest orthey're multi-level marketing or
cold calling or whatever, andso again we're able to win and
our clients are able to win fromthat too, because you know, you
have, we have phlebotomists andnurses and just all kinds of
really highly educated, degreedfolks answering the phones.
So you get a really highquality on the other end to your
customer, you sound veryprofessional, et cetera, and so
a lot of those things have.
(32:59):
And for the price point?
The price point isn't much morethan you probably could get an
offshore person for on your own,but the quality is as far as
and it's what we do and againwe're the ones hiring the person
, we're the ones training themfor you in your business, where,
if you go hire your own VA, youhave to interview the VA.
You have to hire the VA, youhave to train the VA.
(33:21):
You have to keep up with arethey doing things, listening to
the calls, et cetera.
Are they doing things right,doing things wrong, et cetera.
You have to continue to coach,re-coach, retrain.
That takes a while, and theneven then, if it, you know,
maybe it doesn't work out aftera couple of months.
So then you have turnover andthen you got to start all over,
all over again.
So now you're back doing allthe phones again trying to find
(33:42):
that person again, and so thattakes you away from your
business.
Where with us it's, you know,almost set it and forget it and
we turn it around.
Or we're having calls with you.
We're forcing you into a weeklymeeting with us so we can
review everything with you andmake sure that we're keeping you
on track and hitting the game.
And then, lastly, with us too,because we're doing it for
everybody else.
(34:02):
Then you're benefiting fromthat group knowledge where we'll
have clients go yeah, we'relooking to do Facebook ads, or
we're looking to do this, and doyou have any other clients
finding success?
And what are they doing?
And, oh, we have a client.
You know we started thiscampaign for them and we do this
follow-up and whatever.
And so you're benefiting fromthat group knowledge.
Um, what about what?
(34:24):
What others are and succeedingat?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
so yeah, that's that sounds like a no-brainer.
I mean, you're basically thatfirst impression super, super
important.
You want to have someone on theother end answering that phone
call that sounds professional,that knows your area like and
can speak to it, and then alsois able to follow up and set
(34:50):
rates are super important,especially if you're doing
outbound marketing like Facebookads.
Like you mentioned.
Being able to follow up withfolks provide that great
experience to set thesalesperson up.
Success to close the deal.
I mean this sounds like anamazing service.
Where can folks learn moreabout Hoosier?
Admin.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Just go to HoosierAdmincom.
It's Hoosier, like the IndianaHoosiers, h-o-o-s-i-e-r Admin
A-D-M-I-Ncom.
It's a play on words, hoosier,admin, but we're based in
Indiana.
So if you know anything aboutthe Hoosiers or seen the movie
Hoosiers, that's kind of whereit came from.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's been a while.
I think I saw that when I was akid.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
But I had to go rewatch it the other day just to
see it again, so it wasinteresting.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Was it Gene Hackman?
Is he the yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
that's right.
Yeah, yeah, gene Hackman.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Good stuff, all right .
Any last thoughts that you'dlike to give the audience before
we let you go?
Gene, you've been supergracious with your time.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
No, just if you reach out to me directly.
You can just go through HoosierAdmin and you can find me there
.
You also go to parent1.com ofIndianapolis or Cincinnati.
You can find me there as well.
I'm happy to chat.
If people have furtherquestions or want to learn more,
I'm happy to help out.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Awesome.
Thanks so much, Gene, and forthe listeners.
That's all we have for thisweek, but we will see you next
week.
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running and scaling a
professional painting business,from the brushes and ladders to
the spreadsheets and balancesheets.
We've got you covered.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution While we strive
to provide accurate andup-to-date financial and tax
(00:20):
information, nothing you hear onthis podcast should be
considered as financial advicespecifically for you or your
business.
We're here to share generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
(00:41):
before making any significantfinancial decision.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
My name is Daniel Honan, I'mthe founder of Bookkeeping for
Painters and I'm also a CPA thatworks exclusively with painting
businesses, and today I'm superexcited to talk to Gene Harris.
We're going to get into a lotof really interesting stuff.
He's had an amazing journey inthe painting industry.
Welcome to the podcast, gene.
How's it going?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Great Daniel, how about?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
yourself.
I'm doing well.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, I'm glad to have you and I really want to
dig into your journey.
I know you've had a prettyunique journey and I think a lot
of folks are going to get a lotof value out of it.
Can you kind of just give usthe highlights?
What is your journey in thepainting industry been?
How did you get started?
What are some of the keyhighlights as you've made your
way through the years?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thanks, yeah, so just a really high level.
I didn't start out in thepainting business.
I actually started.
I was in the Navy out of highschool and then after that I
started working for severaldifferent companies, operations
wise, my final kind of.
Prior to getting in thepainting business, I used to run
apartment communities theinstitutional quality stuff for
20 years all across the country.
I was vice president of acouple of property management
(01:50):
companies.
And then, just one day, justlooking at 401k, looking at
retirement, I have two boys, oneis 21, who's at IU currently,
right now, and another one who'sabout to be 19.
He's special needs with PittHopkins syndrome, and dawned on
me this is probably about eightyears ago, now maybe nine, but
that there's not going to be twoof us in retirement, there's
(02:12):
going to be three of us.
And then what does that numberlook like?
And then, thirdly, what happensto him when we're gone?
And so how do you support ahuman 20 years after you're dead
?
And that's a pretty big numberto figure out and realizing that
the only really true path totrue wealth is owning assets,
starting with maybe companies orinvestments and I've had the
(02:36):
experience of running companiesfor a long time never really for
myself and I looked atfranchising.
I looked at several differentbrands and finally settled on a
painting franchise, which isPainter One.
Back in October of 2019, Iopened my first Painter One
business with.
The idea at the time was tojust build it up and sell it.
So at the time it was a $50,000franchise fee.
(02:56):
You buy it, you run it for acouple of years, you make a
profit, you put it on the market, you sell it.
Maybe you sell it for three,four, 500 grand.
Take that equity, you go intoanother franchise that requires
a larger equity investment.
You just continue to level upand there are actually guys that
do this for a living.
That's this kind of their model.
Got into it.
It was about 90 days.
(03:18):
I was into it and I realizedlike, well, this is fairly I
won't say usually fairly easy orfairly simple compared to what
I come from.
Right, it's not a complexbusiness.
You know you get some paintingleads, you do some painting
estimates and you paint thehouse and it's still painting
right.
And also and the reason why Ichose a painting company was at
the time, I was looking forsomething that was quasi
recession proof.
(03:38):
I don't think there's anythingtruly recession proof, but
definitely I remember runningapartments in 08, 09, and 10,
during the last the real estatebubble, the real estate crash.
There's still painting.
That still occurred.
It still happened, whether itbe exteriors or commercially or
whatever.
But eventually someone's goingto need something painted and a
lot of people are going to geton a 20-foot ladder to paint the
(03:59):
high stuff, for sure.
And it's paint.
And if you mess it up I knowI'm oversimplifying it, but you
can always repaint it right.
I'm not demoing someone'skitchen or doing something like
that.
So I thought it was very simple.
I got into it 90 days into it,realized why would I sell this
just to start over in anotherbrand?
A whole new system, noguarantee of success, no
(04:23):
guarantee I'll love it.
New system, no guarantee ofsuccess, no guarantee I'll love
it.
And really expanding on myapartment businesses that I used
to run, I had deals in Denverand Houston and Atlanta and
Oklahoma City and all across thecountry, so I'm used to, I'm
familiar with running teams faraway and so I was like, well,
why don't I just open up asecond location?
And in 2022, I opened PaintingOne in Cincinnati and at the
(04:49):
time, my plan was to well doCincinnati, which is about two
hours from Indianapolis, thenmaybe Louisville, which is about
two and a half hours fromIndianapolis, you know, and kind
of go around and then, onceI've had three or four, maybe
just start opening locations allacross the country.
And so if I had a dozen PainterOne locations, that'd be pretty
good for long-term.
You know, wealth.
(05:11):
And well, when I opened thesecond location that's when I
realized at the time of my wifewas my admin and I was like,
well, I don't need to hire asecond person to open up
Cincinnati to answer the phonesfor Cincinnati, my wife can
still do that.
And that's what I came up withthe idea of starting a business
where we answer the phones forother painting companies and
(05:32):
sharing the admin costs.
And so I went to the franchisor, said I had this idea, they let
us try it with a couple ofowners, and then that eventually
turned into what is now aHoosiermin.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Nice, that's awesome.
Yeah, that's quite a journeyand I definitely want to get
into.
There's a lot there that I wantto get into.
I'm going to start with.
You know, one of the things thatwe have in common is a special
needs child, and I thought itwas really cool that you kind of
realized early on like, hey,we're going to have to it's
(06:07):
always important to save forretirement for anybody but
adding that extra layer of notonly like when I pass, but like
what happens to my kids, orspecifically my special needs
child, you know, after I pass,like having that additional care
requirement, like having thatadditional care requirement and
(06:27):
it sounds like you kind ofthought about retirement in
early on, but also in adifferent way what kind of come
to?
Like what did you realize?
And, if you don't mind sharing,like, what kind of calculations
did you do?
Or like, how did you?
What numbers did you come upwith?
Like, hey, I need to hit thislevel of wealth, like anything
that you would be willing toshare in that regard.
I think that would be superinteresting.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, I don't know if I have any specific numbers
that I recall per se, likewritten down, like as far as
like a goal number.
I think if I had, really, if Ihad to really sit down and come
up with a number, I'd probablybe really depressed.
So it's more or less.
I just got to blow, I just gotto blow it up as big a number as
I can.
I don't even know what thatlooks like, but no, it's more so
(07:07):
.
Like I said, our son issocially verbal.
People love him.
He's a very class, half fullkind of person.
Most of the time People enjoybeing around him, but he doesn't
have any kind of I don't knowthe word, maybe safety awareness
.
He still might walk out intraffic, uh, without looking you
know, kind of thing.
So he always needs someonearound.
(07:27):
He can do a lot of things onhis own, but he's, you know,
he'll never be able to cook forhimself.
You use hot objects, thingslike that, uh, you know.
So there's a lot of thingshe'll never can do, um.
But when you have a specialneeds child, in the beginning
you're just kind of fighting thefight, right, you're figuring
out their health.
It's more focused on theirhealth and their learning, and
then you don't really thinkabout because you don't know
either, a lot of kids are oneway very young.
(07:50):
And then, you know, we allchange, as we know, um, as we
get older.
But when he 19, that's about 11or 12, and I was like, oh, you
know, just kind of dawned on me,wait, he's not leaving, like
he's going to be with us.
And then then so, um, you know,if I'm thinking about sailing
off into the sunset anytime soon, you know how, how, how do you
support that?
And then, um, and then more so,like I said, you know, let's
(08:14):
say we live in our eighties,he'll be in his sixties, you
know.
And he has, you know, he has abrother, but again a.
You know, we don't always knowhow our kids are going to turn
out, whether they're going to besuccessful.
But even if they are, do youwant to put that burden on them
and their family?
So it's something I always talkto my kids about, especially my
older one when he was goingthrough high school and taking
(08:35):
very advanced classes or doing alot of work and things were
getting hard.
He just wanted to quit and Ijust told him.
I said so.
You may not see it today, butputting in the time and the
effort today will pay itsbenefits.
This dividends in the future.
And wouldn't you rather have 10doors to choose from one day
versus one?
Right?
So you know he can look aroundthe room and a lot of his
friends and family, or hisfriends who he went to school
(08:56):
with, didn't apply themselves orwhatever, and now they graduate
high school and they'vebasically got one door to walk
through.
Right, you know they got to goget a job and figure it out when
, because of putting the worknow, you know, have more
opportunities.
I'm kind of doing the samething.
Where, creating moreopportunities, where we don't
just have one horse, we haveseveral and that's an investment
(09:19):
world, they tell you.
You know to diversify, right,so all of our eggs are in one
basket.
Like I said, I've painted onein minneapolis, painted one in
cincinnati.
Obviously two different cities,they're fairly close, so the
economies are very similar.
But still, and then, inaddition to that, like I said,
with hoosier admin, and then wealso started a christmas light
uh company, uh, last winter.
(09:39):
So it's our fourth company thatwe have now and, um, one of
them's got to work, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
So, yeah, I don't have any like specific numbers.
It's more or less a strategy ofyou know, maybe I sit all the
painting companies one day,Maybe I keep the holiday
lighting company, the Hoosieradmin.
We can do anywhere in the world, it doesn't necessarily need to
be in the city where a paintingcompany, someone has to
physically go out do the SOS.
I need to be in the city wherea painting company, someone has
to physically go out do the SOS.
So I have to physically gopaint the projects and so you
know, but maybe I get them to apoint where they're just running
(10:12):
themselves and there's, youknow, someone else is running it
and it's just paying dividendson into the future, you know,
after we're gone.
But again, the goal is reallyjust more to set it up so
they're all successful, and thenwe have choices and we have
options and we can make thosedecisions, you know, at that
time in the future.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, it sounds like you'vekind of building equity in your
business to kind of build yourwealth, which I think a lot of
folks, a lot of paintingbusiness owners they don't I
mean a lot of them do, but someof them don't think of their
business as something they canbuild for enduring wealth.
They think it's more like it'sa job that I've created for
(10:49):
myself, kind of thing.
Yeah, but you're kind of likesetting up the businesses to run
on their own and you're thebusiness owner.
You're not involved a lot inthe day-to-day.
At least you're building itthat way, that's true.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, involves a lot in the day-to-day.
Uh, at least you're building itthat way, you're probably,
that's true.
Yeah, yeah, and it's.
I guess I want to.
You know my advice wouldeveryone start from day one.
But I know a lot of peopledon't, don't, don't come from
the professional world.
They just started painting andthen all of a sudden they have a
business.
They woke up one day and theyhave a business kind of thing
and they have to figure out thebusiness side of it.
But yeah, it's, it's aboutsetting up systems and processes
.
You know roles,responsibilities, having all
that stuff in writing writtendown.
So if you ever needed someoneto step in, someone could
(11:32):
absolutely step into where youare and just continue to run,
and you're not the business initself, right?
Everything's not in a notebookand people just know your name
and have your number.
You have to professionalize itand so we've set it up since day
one to be able to.
You know, I have a GM inCincinnati.
She runs everything there.
(11:52):
Haven't been back thereliterally since, physically
since 2022.
And Indianapolis kind of wentboth around the world.
I've had estimators, I've hadproject managers.
Indianapolis kind of went botharound the world.
I've had estimators, I've hadproject managers, I've had
general managers come and gokind of over the years.
No-transcript.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Okay, so it sounds like your two painting
businesses pretty much right nowrun on their own.
You have a general manager thatoperates them and you have
estimators and crew andeverything.
They're operating without yourmuch input from you.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
It sounds like on call phone or whatever, but for
the most part the majority of mytime is one hour a week Just
meeting with the entire team,just going through everything
(12:52):
soup to nuts from just theoverall business and just
continuously providing input,leadership, guidance to what our
goals are and keeping everybodyon track.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Nice.
That's awesome and it soundslike kind of the key to this is
obviously delegation.
You know, get mentionedpainting business.
What were the hardest ones tomake, processes for hardest
(13:27):
roles to fill that you kind offigured out like maybe little
tricks like to get the rightperson in a certain role or
right process.
What are kind of the pitfallsthat you ran into while trying
to grow in your paintingbusiness and getting it to run
without you that you were ableto figure out and solve?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, but my number one.
In my opinion, the number onemost critical role in your
business is the project manager,or the person who is the
communicator between yourcustomer and your painters, or
your customer and your business.
That, in my opinion, is onethat is the hardest to staff for
and it is the most criticalcomponent.
(14:06):
The sales, the estimating piece.
That's easy, I mean, anybodycan do it.
It's not difficult, it's notrocket surgery.
It's all about there.
Really, it's just aboutcreating a relationship with the
customer.
Do you trust me to come andproduce this project for you?
Really, at the end of the day,you should be competing on price
price.
I know I see a lot of guys onfacebook complaining about they
(14:28):
got underbid or whatever, andthat's going to happen.
But if you, um, you justrealize that that's just not
your customer with the personwho wants to go with the
cheapest provider, um, you know,we try to be in the middle of.
I've heard times that we werethe most expensive and they and
they still hired.
So, really, the estimatorportion is just did you show up
on time?
Do you look decent?
(14:48):
Can you speak correctly?
Does the customer just feelgood about you being in their
home?
Essentially right.
So that's what we're doing.
You know a lot of businesses.
You don't actually go in yourcustomer's house.
You're in their home with theirchildren, with their pets, with
their family, with their life,and do they trust that you're
going to come and do a good job.
It's really where it breaks iswhen you're producing the
project right, so the paintershowing up on time, are we
(15:10):
covering?
Are we prepping everything,everything properly?
Are we communicating with thecustomer properly?
And then at the end, you know,are we do what we say we're
going to do?
And if it breaks, then that'swhere the rubber meets the road
and is the person who is theliaison between the customer,
are they capable of dealing withit when it breaks, right, and a
lot of people get stressed outand they get all nervous
(15:32):
customers upset, and you can'tget upset too.
That doesn't help anything,right?
And so I kind of coach my teamin the sense of we actually this
is going to.
I don't know how else to saythis, but we kind of like it
when it breaks, and I know thatkind of seems like evil.
Like what do you mean?
You like pain, like no, but thepoint is is when it does break.
It's your opportunity to proveto your customer.
(15:54):
That's why they hired you.
They didn't hire you becauseeverything's going to go right.
You know, I think if everythinggoes right, it's easy.
We would all agree if we tookthe customer out of the equation
and we just went and did thejob and they just paid us money.
Wow, this is going to be areally easy career.
But it's more or less whathappens when it breaks.
How do you handle it?
It's really, if you look at itas an opportunity to prove to
the customer, to go above andbeyond, to make it right, to do
(16:16):
whatever it needs to do.
I've literally gotten five-starreviews from the most horrible
situation you could possiblyimagine.
To turn it around and thecustomer is leaving us a glowing
five-star review going.
You know, you guys proved to usyour character.
You stood behind it.
You continue.
You didn't run away.
You stayed here until we were100% satisfied.
But we'll have that customerlike I know I'm super picky,
(16:37):
right, you know we've all gotthat one.
It was like they know thatthey're tough to deal with and
the fact that you're unlikeanyone else and you kept showing
up with a smile and continue towork with them and through the
issue, versus gettingcontentious with the customer.
They recognize that and theyappreciate that and then they
start referring you.
(16:57):
And then those referrals arethe best because all their
friends know that they're aroyal you-know-what to deal with
.
They're like if Susan hired you, whoa, please come to my house.
If she paid you and she likesyou, then we know you've been
vetted, so to speak.
So in my opinion, that's whereI've struggled the most, where
I've had one of the higherproject managers, and they do it
(17:19):
for a while and they do okay,but they just get tired of, if
something were to happen,dealing with that.
Also, our crews have gotten waybetter too over the years.
Now we've got some crews thathave been with me almost four
and a half years and it's thesame people and they're amazing.
So our quality has gottenbetter.
So obviously that makes thingseasier to deal with.
But yeah, just having thatperson that just has thick skin
(17:42):
and can kind of let it roll offtheir shoulder and not take it
personally you know you didn'tpaint it, you know you're not
the one painting, you're justthere to solve it and obviously
if my customer is smiling, mypainters are smiling, then
that's all that matters.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So yeah, project management tough.
What sort of things have youfound, like what are you looking
for when you're looking forthat project manager?
Is there a certain personalitytype?
Or, yeah, what are you kind oflooking for?
Speaker 3 (18:11):
It is.
It's really a hospitalityexperience, it's customer
service experience.
You know, necessarily you don'tneed a painter.
You know you need someone whoknows how to paint.
That's the job.
You know they're the one withthe technical experience and you
can learn from that person.
(18:31):
As far as why this is a way ornot a way, we can, you know we
can educate the customer throughthat, but really it's that
person that you know.
I go all the way back to.
I kind of glossed over it, butI used to run Hollywood videos
and I had 13 retail stores withthem back in the late nineties
and I took over the.
It was the least profitable, itwas the top 10 least profitable
districts in the company and innine months we were the number
one most profitable district inthe company.
You have no control over price,no control over advertising, no
(18:51):
control over the product.
In our business we have totalcontrol over all three of those
right?
So when?
No control of these things, butyet somehow you're still to
take care of your customer, andnot only that, but your
competitor has the exact sameproduct.
You do.
Braveheart is your customer andnot only that, but your
competitor has the exact sameproduct.
You do.
Brave heart is brave heart,doesn't matter whether you go
where you go, and and so it wasthere where it was getting.
Um, and I'm dealing with storemanagers now, not just the
(19:14):
employee and everyone, but I'mstarting with the store manager
part, and it's you know, we'veall heard the customer's always
right.
I was talking to my boss oneday and she's like well, gene,
it's not, it's it, it's thecustomer's always right.
So when you're taught, whenyou're two years old, you're
taught there's a right andthere's a wrong, and so,
therefore, the customer's alwaysright, and then, intuitively,
you're wrong, and no one wantsto be wrong.
And so there's a bit of aninternal conflict there, and so
(19:42):
I had to change the idea happy,right.
So if the customer is happy,then everything's good, and so
do whatever it takes.
And and that's a broadstatement, but it's
intentionally broad and so youhave to empower them to do
whatever it takes.
But not only that, it's notjust the store manager, it's all
the way down to the part-time Iused to say $5 an hour, that's
how old I am, part-time, hourlyemployee that's still in high
(20:04):
school, who just comes in andworks three or four hours a week
.
That person has to be empoweredto do whatever it takes.
To do whatever it takes to makethe customer happy.
And most people, most companiesI talk to, aren't willing to do
.
Oh well, you know.
They come up with a whole listof reasons why you know they
can't do that and you know, andwe're going to lose our shirts
and whatever.
And I proved it was theopposite.
(20:24):
We made more money, thebusiness made more money by
doing that, and so finding thatmentality, someone who can
really understand that, thatit's about you're wrong, it's
not about the painter messed up.
And I talk to my painters aboutthat too.
I'm like you know, I've hadguys literally argue with me
we're closing out a $10,000project.
(20:45):
There's one little thing thecustomer is pointing to that
they want taken care of, and thepainters argue with me about
well, that's not my job, or thatwasn't part of the scope, or
whatever the reason is.
And literally we're talkingsomebody's going to take five
minutes to just go over, paintit or whatever we need to do to
it, or whatever we need to do toit.
And I tell them you know, Idraw an imaginary line on the
ground like a finish line.
I'm like we're on this side ofthe finish line.
(21:07):
Don't plant your flag on thewrong side of the finish line.
Step across or buy to write usa check for 10 grand.
Like, do the thing and get thecheck, get the money.
Let's keep this machine going.
Everyone's happy.
Let's keep on going.
Right here end up with a badreview.
They probably you end upgetting paid, but they're not
happy about paying you.
They're never going to tellanybody.
You know we've all heard right,if you upset a customer, we'll
(21:29):
tell 10 people.
You know how much they hatedyou.
It's hard to get people to bragabout you, so to speak, so
let's eliminate that, you know,from the equation.
Now, my painters have been withme long enough.
They and that's the thing, theyall understand it and that's
probably the number onecompliment we get.
If you go through our reviews,you'll read everyone's so nice,
the painters are so nice,everyone's.
(21:49):
So you know they're just.
They're no way about the by the, just the the bedside manner, I
guess.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right this you know, and uh, we're just, we're saying
yes, we can do that and it'sjust, it's a win-win goal here,
right, yeah, so it sounds likeyou're, you've built culture of
hospitality from not just theproject manager but the crews as
(22:17):
well, where their, their whole,is making the customer happy
yeah awesome.
Um, one of the kind of the keythings that I see a lot of folks
make mistakes on is they try tohold onto their phone too long
when they're in their business.
You know they're doing hundredsof thousands of dollars,
hundreds of thousands of dollarsper year, and they're still
(22:39):
answering their phone.
From my perspective and youprobably didn't have to deal
with this well, you had yourwife to help you with this but
like this seems like this shouldbe the first thing that you get
off plate when you'redelegating, when you're growing
your business, trying to get outof the business, out of the day
to day, because it's just likewhy are you still answering the
(23:00):
phone?
You're probably not going to beable to answer it all the time,
and just getting it to someonewho can reliably answer that
phone can save a huge amount ofmoney.
Can you talk about what youbecause I know you deal with
this on a daily basis with yournew company, or I guess you've
been around for a little whilebut could you go into the
(23:20):
importance of getting rid ofyour phone?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, so you're exactly right.
I mean, we were talking to aclient yesterday.
They're a $1.2 million paintingcompany and they have nobody
answering the phone.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Golly.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
He doesn't even have a CRM.
I'm like my eyes are like thisbig, like, oh my God, all right,
let's start here, let's go.
You're right, and it's notsaving money, it's about
producing.
And that's kind of where it wasborn from, when I, you know
again, I came up with afranchise brand and even the
brand the other brands have, ananswering like a call center,
(23:56):
Right, and so a lot of the otherfranchise stores will have some
sort of central call center.
But it's in and that is.
And talking to the franchisorfor Painter One, even he started
Five Star Painting and they hada call center and he hated it.
He said it was the, thefranchisees hated it, the
customers hated it, likeeveryone.
(24:18):
It's okay, it serves a purpose,it lets that first call in.
At least there's a warm bodyanswering the phone.
But it that's it, though.
Very transactional, it's verynot not intimate at all, you
don't get to meet it, you're notrelated, it's just hey, I need
an appointment to two o'clockTuesday, cool Bye, see ya, you
know, and it's still don't knowanything and you sound just like
(24:39):
any other phone call.
That happens.
And so so we were.
I realized I was like I didn'twant that and the franchisor
didn't want that and so there'sno.
There was a center for painterone.
It was.
The franchisee just had tofigure it out.
And, just like other paintingguys who start getting busy and
start busy enough where thephone's ringing and you're doing
the estimating and you're doingthe project managing, um, you
(25:01):
know, when you're standing inlike what you and I are doing
now, we're just doing anestimate, my phone starts
ringing, I can't take the call,and so by the time you get back
to calling them back, they'veprobably called your other
competitors.
Just talk to your friends andfamily.
It's not just me making this up.
I had a conversation the otherday with a guy.
He was looking for a plumberand he said they called 15
(25:24):
plumbers 15 times.
No one answered the phone, noone.
And he said, by the time the16th guy answered the phone,
he's like I don't want a quote,just come fix it.
He's like I don't make another15 phone calls or 30 phone calls
to get two more quotes.
He was so worn down at thatpoint he's like, please, so all
(25:45):
those other guys and maybethey're busy, they're too busy
to do it, but they could grow ifthey had someone to, like us
take the phones for them, thenthen you're just adding value.
So we, we look at it as a valueadd.
So we get to that point youcan't afford a full-time person,
(26:12):
but you need someone full-time,because that call could come in
at 9.05 or 5.35, right, and youliterally just get two calls
that day.
But during the rest of the daywhat's this person doing?
And so how Arcany was born outof was you can't pay someone
full-time to answer phones foryou yet at that point, but you
need someone available full-timeat that point.
(26:33):
But you need someone availablefull-time.
And so by us providing the adminand what that's what we've got
was we can, we'll hire them,we'll train them, we'll staff
them, we'll do all those things.
And then you're, we're sharingthat with you specifically.
So if Daniel, we assign you anadmin, then she's your admin and
she might answer that she'syours, but she might be mine too
and another's, but she's justour admin.
(26:55):
We're sharing her.
And so because of that, then weall can afford her now, because
now we're all paying, we're allcost sharing.
Essentially, it's sharing herlabor costs for the value of now
.
Now, all of a sudden, we dohave someone available and now
we can start to kind of growthat curve up and and no, you
know, no, uh, go on, go missed.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Right, one of the things I'm starting to hear a
lot about is, you know, to getsomebody to answer your phone.
But you know, get somebodythat's from Mexico or from
somewhere else, uh, to to answeryour phone.
What are some cause?
I know you've probably seenthis, but what are some of the
downsides of doing that?
Yeah, so, and again this, Iknow you've probably seen this.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
But what are some of the downsides of doing that?
Yeah, so, and again, this isnot me saying this, it's just us
talking to our clients who cometo us and they say, you know, I
try to virtually, you know,they're called VA.
Va is all rage right now.
It's going to offshore VA,right, and again, that's fine
and it works to a point.
Right, it's very fractional, um, it's very transactional, it's
uh, there's uh sometimes thelanguage barrier.
(27:57):
Sometimes we found, even when Italked to the franchisor painter
one when he had the call centerat five star uh, his call
center was in canada and someonewould call in for an estimate
and they'd say what's yourpostal code?
And they say postal code, where, where are you?
And like, oh, I'm in BritishColumbia, and literally no other
(28:18):
conversation.
They would just hang up or theywould say something like, oh, I
thought I was calling paying inone of Indianapolis.
Well, no, you are.
So you get into this trying toexplain who you are and what you
are, and some customers want todeal with it.
They don't want to talk tosomeone.
They don't want to talk tosomeone offshore.
They feel like it.
They don't want to talk tosomeone.
They don't want to talk tosomeone offshore.
They feel like, oh, you'retaking my information and are
(28:39):
you even real?
You know so there's a trustissue.
Now, right, well, I'm givingyou I had.
We were here a couple of weeksago where I saw you in Orlando
and we went to again my specialneeds.
I like to play video games, andso we went to Dretty Speed Lab
and, for two hours for $2525,play all the video games you
want.
I'm like I wish we had one ofthese next to us, super
inexpensive, but you had to fillout this form and it was a
(29:01):
release form because they havego-karts and other things you
can do in there, and my wife andI do it.
We go through whatever.
Her father and hermother-in-law were there and
they stopped coming around thecorner.
So I go back to them andthey're like we're having to
redo.
It's like, why look?
Because I tried to use a fakeemail.
I'm like, why like?
Because I don't want to eitheradvertise it.
(29:22):
They just go on this huge rantabout that.
Anyone's giving their simpleemail.
Can you imagine?
They called for a painting.
They got someone offshore.
They're, they're.
They're exactly that customerwho's hanging the phone up
because they just don't trustanyone anymore, and so having
someone stateside is huge.
The other thing we do inaddition, you know again I'll
expand on a little bit the wholepoint of we're not there just
(29:43):
to set the appointment right.
So the goal is when you call in, hey, you know like I'd like to
get my house painted and tellme a little about your painting
project, and so we're there tocreate a relationship, a
memorable review on the phone.
Some people don't want it,that's fine, but a large
majority found, or you know, alot of our setup calls are
(30:04):
probably 15, 20 minute callswhere we're talking about, you
know, have you ever had acontractor before?
What experience do you have?
What are you looking for?
What do you like?
And next thing, you know we'rehearing like, oh, my kids in
college, you know now that we'retalking about their kids and
and and it literally showed upwith estimates.
And our clients do too.
Where they're saying they'llshow up and all the customer
wants to talk about is the adminwho they first talked to.
Oh, I love your who's, thatperson that answers your phone,
(30:24):
and you know, whatever, and Ireally love them so much and
y'all are so much better thaneverybody.
And you've already, you'vealready sold from the pack from
that first call.
You haven't even shown up yetto do the estimate.
So you're, we're so far ahead.
And then what we found is a lotof times because of that, when
we we give the on-site, then I'dsay a large, probably almost 50
(30:45):
percent of the time, we walkout with a check like literally
the customer that yep, let's goahead and do it, I'm ready to go
, I trust you.
Everything so far looks good tome and obviously it's a race to
the door.
If we can get there first, alot of times we can cut out a
lot of our competition.
People have appointments, maybeset up the yeah, I'm going to
call and cancel all you know,all my future estimates.
This sounds reasonable.
We hit the price we're lookingfor.
I trust you're going to do thejob and go and then.
(31:08):
So then we produce the job, orif we don't get it, then part of
what else it was, then we doall your follow up on top of
that.
So, again, in addition to thatoffshore person, you know we
understand what you're doing,the city you're in, et cetera.
And so, hey, daniel Gene was atyour house yesterday, gave you
quotes, a want to make sure yougot it.
B did you have any questions?
You know we just continue thatconversation and continue that
(31:36):
and sometimes you know we'll,we'll call and text and we don't
hear from people for a whileand but we'll continue to do it
and we've we've won jobs becauseyou're the only one who
continued to call me.
You're the only one whocontinued to do this, and so
we're finding that definitelythe onshore admin is, is is is a
plus.
A lot of our admins, we found,are all college educated.
That's the other thing.
That's just blown our mindsjust going through this.
(31:56):
There's a lot of folks outthere who have real jobs, real
careers, and then they need togo back at home Most of the
stories because they have kidsnow and they want to be home
with the kids and kind of workaround their hours.
Or, like us, or like yourself,they have a special needs child.
Someone has to be there all thetime and they're looking for
something to do, not necessarilyto pay the bills.
Usually there's someone else inthe home that's the primary
(32:19):
breadwinner, so to speak, butthey still want to do something
during the day, maybe the kid'sat school.
So now I've got six or sevenhours that I need to fill my
time with, and really there's alot of real work-from-home jobs
out there and again we're justhearing this from them.
There's like, yeah, when they goon these interviews, these,
(32:39):
these guys are smartest orthey're multi-level marketing or
cold calling or whatever, andso again we're able to win and
our clients are able to win fromthat too, because you know, you
have, we have phlebotomists andnurses and just all kinds of
really highly educated, degreedfolks answering the phones.
So you get a really highquality on the other end to your
customer, you sound veryprofessional, et cetera, and so
a lot of those things have.
(32:59):
And for the price point?
The price point isn't much morethan you probably could get an
offshore person for on your own,but the quality is as far as
and it's what we do and againwe're the ones hiring the person
, we're the ones training themfor you in your business, where,
if you go hire your own VA, youhave to interview the VA.
You have to hire the VA, youhave to train the VA.
(33:21):
You have to keep up with arethey doing things, listening to
the calls, et cetera.
Are they doing things right,doing things wrong, et cetera.
You have to continue to coach,re-coach, retrain.
That takes a while, and theneven then, if it, you know,
maybe it doesn't work out aftera couple of months.
So then you have turnover andthen you got to start all over,
all over again.
So now you're back doing allthe phones again trying to find
(33:42):
that person again, and so thattakes you away from your
business.
Where with us it's, you know,almost set it and forget it and
we turn it around.
Or we're having calls with you.
We're forcing you into a weeklymeeting with us so we can
review everything with you andmake sure that we're keeping you
on track and hitting the game.
And then, lastly, with us too,because we're doing it for
everybody else.
(34:02):
Then you're benefiting fromthat group knowledge where we'll
have clients go yeah, we'relooking to do Facebook ads, or
we're looking to do this, and doyou have any other clients
finding success?
And what are they doing?
And, oh, we have a client.
You know we started thiscampaign for them and we do this
follow-up and whatever.
And so you're benefiting fromthat group knowledge.
Um, what about what?
(34:24):
What others are and succeedingat?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
so yeah, that's that sounds like a no-brainer.
I mean, you're basically thatfirst impression super, super
important.
You want to have someone on theother end answering that phone
call that sounds professional,that knows your area like and
can speak to it, and then alsois able to follow up and set
(34:50):
rates are super important,especially if you're doing
outbound marketing like Facebookads.
Like you mentioned.
Being able to follow up withfolks provide that great
experience to set thesalesperson up.
Success to close the deal.
I mean this sounds like anamazing service.
Where can folks learn moreabout Hoosier?
Admin.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Just go to HoosierAdmincom.
It's Hoosier, like the IndianaHoosiers, h-o-o-s-i-e-r Admin
A-D-M-I-Ncom.
It's a play on words, hoosier,admin, but we're based in
Indiana.
So if you know anything aboutthe Hoosiers or seen the movie
Hoosiers, that's kind of whereit came from.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It's been a while.
I think I saw that when I was akid.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
But I had to go rewatch it the other day just to
see it again, so it wasinteresting.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Was it Gene Hackman?
Is he the yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
that's right.
Yeah, yeah, gene Hackman.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Good stuff, all right .
Any last thoughts that you'dlike to give the audience before
we let you go?
Gene, you've been supergracious with your time.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
No, just if you reach out to me directly.
You can just go through HoosierAdmin and you can find me there
.
You also go to parent1.com ofIndianapolis or Cincinnati.
You can find me there as well.
I'm happy to chat.
If people have furtherquestions or want to learn more,
I'm happy to help out.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Awesome.
Thanks so much, Gene, and forthe listeners.
That's all we have for thisweek, but we will see you next
week.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com