July 11, 2025 • 43 mins
In this value-packed episode, host Daniel Honan sits down with Micah McLain, founder of Search Quick Grow, to share actionable strategies for painting contractors looking to grow their businesses profitably.
Key Takeaways You'll Learn:
- The power of niching down and why trying to do everything often leads to failure
- How to calculate your true market potential (most contractors are leaving money on the table!)
- Branding lessons from Apple and Nike that apply to your painting business
- When it actually makes sense to add new services or locations
- Simple but powerful customer experience upgrades that drive referrals
Micah shares his unique journey from growing up in a painting family to military service and eventually building a successful marketing agency focused exclusively on home service businesses. His insights come from real-world experience helping hundreds of contractors scale their operations.
Pro Tip: "Master one service line before diversifying. Optimization beats expansion every time when you're building a sustainable business."
BONUS: Want to stop overpaying in taxes?
Join our free webinar: “Making More Money and Saving on Taxes: Bookkeeping for Painters)” happening August 5th.
Save your spot here: http://bookkeepingforpainters.com/webinar
On August 5th 2025, I’m hosting a free, live webinar revealing:
✅ How to pay way less in taxes—legally
✅ The simple ratio top painting businesses use to grow profits fast
✅ What the top 20% of painters are doing differently
Go to BookkeepingForPainters.com/Webinar to register now!
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 provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
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.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We strongly recommend you seeking individualized
advice before making anysignificant financial decision.
Welcome to the ProfitablePainter Podcast, the show where
painting contractors learn howto boost profits, cut taxes and
build a business that works forthem.
I'm your host, daniel Honan CPA, former painting business owner
, and your guide to masteringyour numbers that drive success.
So let's dive in and make yourbusiness more profitable, and
(01:00):
I'm super excited today becauseI get to talk to Micah McLean.
How's it going, micah?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Dude, I'm great Thanks for having me, man, I
appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm excited to jump into the conversation.
I mean, we've known each otherfor a while and we see each
other at the events and you'realways putting out awesome stuff
online, so I think this isgonna be a super valuable
conversation.
So could you, could you justgive folks a kind of like a
rundown of how you got startedin the painting industry and
(01:31):
what you've been doing and thevalue you've been providing to
folks?
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So you know, the short version is you know, as a
kid I think was around about 10,my parents divorced and they
were both salespeople at a Forddealership and they, when they
got divorced, they both startedindependent contracting
companies.
My dad started a flooringcompany and he later left it to
do life insurance.
My mom started a paint company.
So I was about 10 years old andshe started a paint company.
(01:58):
This is about 1990.
So so, like quite a ways ago,and you know, uh, being a single
mom, I had to go to a lot ofjob sites with her at times, you
know, when I wasn't in schooland afternoons and weekends, and
that turned into me working onthe job site and, uh, you know,
prepping, and eventually I wasactually painting and then,
before long, but probably bylike 14, 15, I was like crew
(02:21):
lead, um and by the time Igraduated high school, like not,
I still had to go Um, and bythe time I graduated high school
, like not, I still had to go toschool.
But by the time I graduatedhigh school, I was running
multiple crews and um and andand help, basically co-running
our company, um and then um.
You know I did that and I wassuper happy.
I loved it.
It was nothing I didn't like,but there was part of me that
really just wanted to not be theperson that like stayed in the
(02:45):
hometown for the rest of my life.
I just had this deep desire toleave and I was a little
personal moments to was kind ofstarted personally running with
a crowd that was like reallyheavy into drugs and alcohol and
I saw myself like going down apath I just did not want to go
down.
So I literally just one day,without warning, I just woke up.
I was like I'm going to jointhe military, I'm going to leave
(03:06):
, and so I literally went to arecruiter's office, joined the
Air Force, because they were theones that could get me in the
soonest.
That's literally the onlyreason I even chose the Air
Force.
I went office to office likehow fast can I leave?
And like they were like, yeah,next week.
I was like cool, let's go.
And so I ended up with the AirForce and really just a vision
to like kind of get out of town,see the world, be a part of the
(03:26):
military.
I did have some family roots inthe military too.
Grandfather battled NormandyBeach and so on and so forth.
My parents met in the military,so it was always a little thing
that I kind of wanted to do it,but it was just catalyst at
that moment, a lot to do withlike the crowd I was hanging out
with.
So I did that and then when Iwas in, it was a longer version
(03:47):
of the story that we don't havenearly enough time for, but
there was a couple of thingsthat happened when I was in that
made me like, oh wow, I want toreally get into this sales and
marketing stuff and it reallycame around like the iPod.
So I remember before I deployedmy first time because I joined
right before 9-11.
So before I deployed the firsttime, I went to my boss and was
like, hey, what you know, yougot this government packing list
(04:09):
, but what should I?
What should I bring that's noton that list?
He's like absolutely hands down, brings some sort of music
player, right, so I go and buysome like music player.
It was like a Toshiba or Sonyor something else, and so then I
deploy and whatever.
Come back home 2003.
Steve Jobs had his famouskeynote where he released the
(04:30):
iPod and he you know most ofthat.
That, that presentation.
He talked about computer, thisand monitor this and whatever.
And then it's like, at the veryend, it's like and I got
something really cool to showyou, you know reaches into his
pocket, pulls out this firstiPod and said you guys know what
this is?
It's a thousand songs in yourpocket and those five words made
the first trillion dollarcompany on planet earth.
And I was enamored, to say theleast.
(04:51):
I was like what just happened?
Because you got all thesecompanies like they didn't
invent the MP3 player at all,but they built the most wildly
successful electronics company,I mean Toshiba and Sony, these
companies that had like decadesand decades on them.
They crushed them overnightwith five words, $10,000 in your
pocket.
And so, while all of us, allthese companies, are trying to
(05:15):
sell on, like data rates and MP3, that battery life, they didn't
mention any of that.
They talked about the lifestyle, they talked about the person,
what the person got, and theymade one of the most successful
companies on earth.
And that moment, when I sawthat, I was like what just
happened and that sparked somecuriosity.
I started taking some classeswhen I wasn't deployed.
(05:35):
I started taking somepsychology classes, some
marketing classes, things likethat, and that evolved.
When I got out, instead ofgoing back into painting, I
created an agency, and I havebeen a part of a few different
agencies.
I built and sold my shares in acouple, and all of the agencies
(06:02):
that I've been a part of sinceI left have all served home
services.
But I think one of the mistakesI made earlier on is I tried to
be like an everything foreverybody agency.
It's a huge operational mistake, right?
I mean, I know you've seen thistoo, like painter companies
that try to do like 50 otherservices and it just doesn't
work right.
Right, I did that mistake onthe agency side, trying to
create too many products withtoo many different niches.
And so then it was about sixyears ago.
(06:25):
There was a period of time mywife, who's our co-CEO of this
company, and she was with ourlast agency too.
There was this one 30-dayperiod of time where there was
like four or five panic attacksthat led her in the hospital
because operationally, thecompany was set up for like such
wildly bad systems.
So we sat down and a heart toheart like okay, well, what we'd
(06:47):
like to do is change the gearsand reshift this company, and we
sat down with the otherpartners of the company and they
didn't agree.
So we left, we sold our sharesand we started Search Good Grow.
We started, we created the LLCin 2019, but we like officially
opened for business January 1,2020, right before COVID.
So that first year was a.
(07:08):
It was a rocky year.
So we just left a really cush,high paying job but from a very,
very stressful agency tocomplete reset, like we just
like we had nothing right whenwe got a savings and stuff, but
like no income and a companythat no one had ever heard of,
and to build this company a lotdifferently than the last
(07:29):
company I built, which wasbasically like a company brand,
this company.
I decided we decided to operatedifferently.
We pulled from my personalvalues.
My number one value is corevalues, integrity first, and so
I was like, well, whatever webuild, that has to be its number
one core value period, and itwasn't true in my last agency
and it is true here.
It's the only way we operate.
(07:50):
We talk about it in every teammeeting.
Our processes are built aroundit.
Our internal feedback,everything we do, is built
around that, and that's a valuethat was instilled in me from
the military, so we knew that wewanted to operate with that
going forward, but we also I was, like you know, I grew up in
(08:12):
home services.
This is what I do.
I mean, I did this for a longtime at the.
You know, my family just hadthis huge history of doing that,
and so I decided that thiscompany was going to focus only
on home services, specificallypainting.
We will occasionally acceptpeople that are not painters.
It's almost always if thatpainting company also has
another company.
We only market to painters.
(08:33):
90-something percent of ourclients are painters.
I grew up as a painter, I knowpainting and, very ironically, I
found that one of the things Iliked about the military and the
trades is there's a lot ofcommon values there.
Most contractors are superhonest, high integrity, easy to
(08:54):
talk to, and so I think the partthat I liked about the military
is the same part that I likedabout the trades.
It's a very similar type ofperson.
It's a lot different than alawyer or a Wall Street person
or something like that.
It was just a differentcharacter or person, and that
was another huge reason why webuilt this company is I want to
(09:15):
be able to enjoy the people Iwork with, be super impactful
and help change lives and liveby some values that I believe in
, that I also know that theperson on the other end believes
in too, and for me that washuge.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, that's a that's a amazing story and, uh, just
listening to you now I was likeman.
We have a lot of parallels withour journey, I know.
Um, I also was on the.
My dad had a, a paintingbusiness, so I was up on the job
sites, also military, and Ilike your comparison to the
(09:53):
painting industry, to themilitary, kind of the same types
of people.
I hadn't made that connectionbut that makes sense now that
you say that like there is a lotof similarities there and you
and you kind of, but there's alot of similarities, right?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
um, I think the idea of like going to work and doing
something with your hands andfeet, you know, um being a
person of honesty and integrity,like those things typically are
true between them, um yeah, um,one thing you mentioned was you
know niching, because obviouslyboth of us have decided to
(10:31):
niche in the painting industry.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But, um, you also mentioned you know painting
businesses, niching, and thatjust you know what.
Do you have any thoughts onthat like should because that is
a kind of a common questionthat I hear like should should,
starting out as a paintingbusiness owner, should you just
do any kind of painting interior, exterior, cabinets, deck, you
(10:53):
know fencing, commercial,residential or should you try to
focus on one particular thing?
Do you have any like strongfeelings about that?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I do.
I think that like for me, meit's like a soft rule, soft
guidance, like should you ifyou're just starting out, let's
just say, like first year,hundred thousand, two hundred
thousand dollars a year shouldyou have like a cabinet crew or
garage epoxy crew, a stainingcrew and an interior next year
group?
Probably right, I think that ifyou can figure out what one
(11:25):
crew can do, like for the mostpart, an average residential
paint crew can handle interiorsand exteriors with the same
workforce, with the same tools.
Right, for the most part.
You know some high extensionladders for outside, probably
you know occasionally a need fora lift, but for the most part
it's the same tools, it's thesame job.
Right, where it startsfundamentally changing a lot and
(11:51):
I think it becomes risky toenter too early is when you
think about something likecabinets or epoxy floors.
Those tools are no longer thesame tools.
The processes are fundamentallydifferent.
The risk tolerance of them andgetting them right is harder.
Right, the prep is way moredifficult on cabinets and garage
coatings than it is on outsidesiding or stucco or a drywall
wall.
The prep of those substratesare super easy by comparison.
(12:13):
Every substrate needs its ownprep for sure, but generally
speaking, like a two to four manresidential paint crew can flip
flop between interior andexterior pretty easy.
So like, if that's the crew youhave, you should maximize that
crew on 100 before I think youshould go to something else.
(12:33):
Right, maybe even get to wherethe point you have two or three
crews doing the same thing.
But if your first painter, likemaybe you're a cabinet tech
there's some of that that existslike some people like they
start in cabinets.
That's what they know.
Well, maybe maximize that first.
But for me the simple answer islike maximize where you are
before you start something new.
Yeah, you know how many times Ihave conversations with people
(12:55):
that are like five hundredthousand dollars a year and
they're ready to start a secondlocation.
Like, wait a second, you shouldprobably be between like five
and 10 million in the cityyou're at before you should
think about another location.
And what you know like.
If you actually can go throughthat process of building the
right systems for hiring,scaling, marketing, sales to
(13:16):
actually build somewhere in that, that range you probably can
take.
Just take those systems and putthem in a new city and be up
and running and a fraction ofthe time.
But if you haven't gone throughthat like $500,000, you really
don't even need systems andprocesses.
You can bootstrap that and kindof just wing it, figure it out.
But the second you're not atthat second location.
You're trying to wing it,figure it out.
(13:36):
Chances are it's going to flop,you know.
And so I think the disciplineof getting to a place where the
company can run not necessarilya hundred percent without you,
but definitely not in everydepartment's day to day Right,
and if you can build the systemsand processes in the team
members responsible for that,then I think at that point you
(13:57):
could have another department oranother city or another,
whatever right.
The business altogether likeRussell peach or peach painting
super successful is doing like400 K months with peach painting
super successful.
He's doing like 400k months andresidential painting and you
know I think it was maybe likesix, eight months ago he's like,
hey, I want to start a flooringdivision.
So we made him up, you know, uh, you know a flooring website
(14:17):
and local business and all thatstuff.
Right, I didn't question thatbecause he's already like on
track to do five, six, sevenmillion this year.
He's got systems, he's gotleadership, he's got a sales
team.
He is actually the ceo.
He's not like operationally inany individual department, you
know, and so at that point whatthat means is like he can
(14:38):
rapidly start another businessup like that.
You know and that's just oneexample like there's plenty of
other people in the space thathave done exactly that.
Where I think it's problematicis if you've got one residential
paint crew doing a couplehundred thousand dollars a year,
but they could be doing 600,000a year, should you start
another apartment?
No, if your company is onlydoing a few hundred thousand
(14:59):
dollars a year, should you go toanother city?
No, I think you should maximizethe team and the location that
you have and then go from there.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I feel like a
lot of folks underestimate, likethe market that they're in.
They think that they'vesaturated the market.
Like I was just talking to apainting business, they were
just doing cabinets and theywere doing about 300,000 per
year in cabinets.
(15:26):
It was in a decent sized city Imean, it wasn't New York City
or anything, but it was still apretty decent sized city and
they felt like they had kind ofsaturated the market and they
needed to add on another serviceline because they were doing
$300,000 in cabinets per year.
And I was like there, there's,there's, uh, they're cabinet
(15:48):
companies that do multiplemillions.
They do just do cabinets and Ithink a lot of folks don't
realize like there's a lot ofpeople in your area that need
cabinet work or interior work ordeck work.
So I feel like that happens alot for.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
For that is is chat GPT.
We wrote a prompt.
I'd be happy to share it withyou guys if you want.
We wrote a prompt to help ususe chat GPT to figure out the
market capacity in an area.
I'll use real easy numbers.
Let's say there's, like youknow, a million people in an
area, and let's just say every,and let's just pretend for a
(16:23):
second that every like half ofthem are homeowners, right, and
let's just pretend for a secondthat half of them are homeowners
, right.
So that million, now you've got500,000 potential customers.
The others are renters orapartments.
You're never going to work withthem.
And then the people that arethere that are homeowners you
say the 500,000,.
Let's just say the averagerepaint cycle on any one thing.
Let's say cabinets.
Let's just say it's like 10years.
(16:46):
Well then, then you just say,okay, 10 of that, 500 000 in any
given year is looking forrepaints.
It might be, it might beslightly off from that, but it's
a pretty ballpark, right, yeah,and then so.
So now you're looking at like50 000 cabinet jobs in that area
and you're doing 300 000 in inthat.
What do you do?
100?
Like not even remotely in theballpark.
(17:08):
You're not even 0.1% at thatpoint.
Yeah, once you understand andagain, chatgpt can figure this
out because the census data onpopulation is public data, right
?
The average time for repaintschanges in different areas and
climates and things like that.
So there's statistics on thatwhich you can use and so it can
(17:28):
take the population versus thecensus data of the homeownership
versus renters in that area togive you the true homeowners.
They can cross that with theaverage amount of repaints and
then it'll give you about howmany paint jobs there actually
are in any sector.
It'll break it down, about thismany interior, about this many
exterior, this many cabinets,this many whatever Right.
And then when you break it down,you can just tell it how much
(17:49):
you're doing and it'll actuallygive you a market share and
every time I've done that withmy clients they're surprised as
heck to figure out it's under 1%.
Even the big ones it's under 1%.
Yeah, I remember a podcast I'mgoing to paraphrase this a
little bit.
My numbers are probably alittle bit off but there was a
(18:11):
podcast a few years ago withtommy mellow and I think at the
time he had one one location at,let's say, ballpark 11 million
or whatever right, pretty high.
And he's like, yeah, everyonethinks like I'm dominating.
It's like we did the math onthat, you know what it is.
It's like it's like two percentof the market share, like it's
a really tiny number, rightand's you know making a bunch of
money and it's still reallyreally small.
So for that client, like that'smaking $300,000 a year, I'm
(18:32):
sorry, you're not close to acapacity in that, unless you're
in some tiny rural town thatonly has, like you know, 5,000
people, then maybe, butotherwise you're not coming
close yet.
And the goal is not to thendiversify.
The goal is to master whatyou're doing, because you're
going to yield a return byfiguring out how to master the
thing that you're already doing.
Then you are to start somethingnew.
(18:52):
Because now and that's the samereason why my wife had those
panic attacks is we were doingtoo many things for too many
different people.
It was operationally insane,like we had this culture in this
business that was unbelievablystressful, right, the culture,
the communication, the processes, the turnover, the performance,
everything was bad.
(19:12):
I mean, we did good work buteverything behind the curtain
was awful, and that's what wecreated this company to be.
The opposite of right, and Iwould absolutely advise that any
painter do the same thing, likemaximize the team that you have
, maximize the systems thatyou're using.
(19:33):
Sometimes people like a similarconcept, like well, should I
change CRMs?
Well, are you using the CRM youhave right now to 100%?
If not, do that first beforeconsidering jumping tools,
because even something likejumping a tool or even a
marketing provider, right, I'llget people that have
conversations with me.
They're like hey, I heardyou're great and I appreciate
(19:55):
that.
I think we are really good atwhat we do.
But at the same time, if somecompany is getting you like 10%
cost of marketing, so 10x ROI,are you really going to jump
ship with me to maybe get 9.5%?
Like, is that really worth it?
Probably not, right, the onlytime we even accept clients is
there's something really bigthat we can come in and solve.
(20:15):
If we're going to come in andhelp save you a half a percent,
it's not worth the move at all.
You should talk with yourcurrent marketer and optimize
the systems you have.
You know you'd be surprised atwhat a painter actually
communicating with theirmarketer on a regular basis will
do.
And yeah, I mean the marketershould be communicating too, but
you know how many times we askour clients to communicate back
(20:36):
with us and how much teeth wehave to pull sometimes to do
that.
Communication works both ways.
So optimize the team you have.
Optimize the location you have.
Optimize the service you have.
Optimize the marketing partneryou have.
Optimize the CRM, before tryingto go to a new system or tool.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, and I think it goes against a lot of our
tendencies as entrepreneurs.
You know, painting businessowner, entrepreneur.
We're entrepreneurs where youwant to start something new.
That's kind of like why you'rein in this place to begin with
and so.
But to actually do that all thetime is not good, because then
(21:14):
you're you're just creatingchaos.
You want to start your, startyour business and then try to
create stability by focusing inon you know one thing and and
then really getting reallyawesome at that one thing.
Um, you mentioned uh peachpainting in their rebranding and
I I talked to um uh russellright, yeah, sorry, I just
(21:41):
blanked his name for a second.
So I talked to russell.
He was on the the panel at umpaint boss 2025, where we yeah,
we talked about um adding on a,a service line like how do you,
how do you add on a service line?
And so he was.
He was doing painting, then headded on flooring and it was
(22:02):
really interesting how he wastalking about, how he rebranded
with I believe he was workingwith you at the time how he kind
of rebranded his, his logo andand everything.
Um, and I think it had a lot towith his website too like
having uh, I don't know thedetails, but could you is that
something that you work withfolks a lot on, and could you
(22:24):
like go through?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
his process there.
Yeah, so I mean high level hisprocess, and he talked to me
about it beforehand and so, like, again, if you're doing like
30K, 50K months, this should notbe a topic that you should
cover yet.
Like, maximize that currentchannel, that you have the
current team, that you have thecurrent marketing systems you
have in place and build thatfirst primary service, whether
it's interior, exterior, whetherit's cabinets, whatever.
(22:48):
But for him, what came in partand this happens a lot is
typically, when you do abeautification service, if you
do a great job, that homeowneris likely to ask you if you do
another beautification service.
So what you'll typically findis that there's a huge amount of
crossover between, like,painting, remodeling, cabinets,
flooring, backyard design.
(23:09):
So we lump those all intobeautification Wants, not needs.
Think about it this way Like,if you're plumbing breaks and
like your house is flooding,you're calling an emergency
plumber and the first person toanswer the phone is the person
you're hiring.
Pretty much you kind of don'tcare.
Price, right, it's just who canget out here and stop this leak
the fastest is who's getting mybusiness.
(23:31):
But when it comes tobeautification, it's a little
bit different model, right,trust and vision start coming
into play.
It's not just paint on the wallthat we're selling.
Nike doesn't sell shoes.
They sell empowerment forathletes.
They're the people that standbehind the people that get up
(23:52):
early in the morning when it'scold and wet, and still put on
their shoes and go out for a run.
That's what Nike is all about.
The shoes are just the productand so, as a company, if you
have a good enough brand whichRussell does it's not just about
the paint on the walls, right.
These people are entrustingtheir vision to make the home a
house, their home.
(24:13):
Right, and, very naturally,these aesthetic things like if
someone's repainting, they'reprobably doing cabinets, they're
probably doing floors, they'reprobably also doing like
furniture and TV and otherthings Like imagine, if you live
in a house for like 20 yearsit's dated, your kids just moved
out, so you don't have to worryabout the house getting beat up
again and you're going to gothrough kind of a major like
(24:35):
relook.
You know, hey, this is going tobe our forever home, Our kids
just moved out, let's just redothis thing, let's do it, rip
everything.
So he was finding himself inthe face of these clients.
They trusted him because he gota great band, great reputation,
he's a great guy and he's builta fantastic team.
And then they're also askingabout these other services.
So it starts to make sense.
If you have a scaled team andyou have the opportunity to do
(24:57):
these other things and you knowthat it's a good time to start
diversifying right From both aninvestment capital standpoint,
managerial standpoint, all ofthat stuff, then, yeah, it can
start to make sense.
And the mechanics of it wererelatively easy.
I mean, most of it was him.
I mean we just came in andbuilt him a new website, new
Google post profile, new adaccounts, things like that Right
, and a logo variation for youknow his main brand for that one
(25:21):
.
But that's not.
That's really not even the hardthing.
It's more an operationalconsideration than the branding
thing.
So I don't want to take anycredit there.
This was the right move by himat the right time.
But he considered the financesof this and he had talked to me
about it a couple years beforeand we talked about it and both
him and I agreed that it wasn'tthe right time yet.
And then he revisited it laterand it was the right time.
(25:42):
His painting company was scalingand growing.
Without him he could not showup for a few weeks and he'd
still make sales, his team wouldstill, he'd still have hires,
he'd still have crews working.
At that point, can you put somefocus on building another brand
?
Yeah, I think you can.
I think if you're like stillactively growing and putting
these systems in place in yourpaint brand, you're trying to go
another brand.
Now, all of a sudden, you as aperson, you're like 50% here,
(26:04):
50% there, and that's not thisplace, that this one, this first
one, isn't ready for it yet.
So I think that he did.
He was very smart in how hescaled it at the right time.
He had strong teams and systemsin place to know that, that
that he could walk away forweeks to maybe even a few months
, and that business would stillgrow.
And at that point, startanother division, start another
(26:27):
city.
Sure, go for it.
I think the thing most peopledo, it way before that's ready.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
What are you?
You mentioned Nike and Appleand, like these, these companies
are.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
They've been huge influences on what I think about
marketing.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, well, they were huge influences on a lot of us
to to buy their products forsure, at least at a minimum to,
you know.
Just think back to Steve Jobs,you know, was it think different
when he got back the secondtime to Apple?
That was kind of a big push, Iwas too young to experience his
first time.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
It was when he came back the second time where I
started following him Right,which I think is where he kind
of just killed it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I recently read Walter Isaacson's biography on
him and when he came back thesecond time, that's when he just
the iPod, the iPad, all that hewas a completely different
person yeah and uh and then forfor nike, um, phil knight, it
was just the way.
It was relentless.
(27:27):
The.
What they, what he did withnike was it was crazy on all the
because I read I read a shoedog, um, written by phil knight
Knight, and everything that theywent through, but it's just the
passion of just staying at onething for so long and going
through all the hardships thatthey did financially and
everything, but they really madeit through the way that they
(27:51):
rebranded themselves or brandedthemselves and set themselves
apart from Adidas and the othercompanies.
Do you have any?
Like, what do you think apainting business should be
doing in terms of brand?
Like, how should they thinkabout it?
What things should they bedoing to make sure that the
brand is good?
It's actually one of myfavorite questions.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So, like, remember the brand is what got me into
marketing in the first place.
Right, that that thousand songsin your pocket is that's what
drove me to marketing and that'sa brand psychology thing.
It's not web.
Yeah, I mean, we have a greatweb team and all these other
mechanical things, but that'snot really where I think we
shine the best.
I think where we were, where Iand my team are the actual best
(28:35):
at, is the brand voice andpositioning.
It's because it's what we studyand we put our time into, and
the other things are justmechanics that help get us there
.
I think that most peoplemisinterpret what branding is
and the reason why I study PhilKnight at Nike and Steve Jobs at
Apple as much as I do.
There's a few others too, butthose are the top two.
(28:55):
Really, they were so fantasticat the same era when we were
both kids, like the sametimeframe.
We grew up with that.
We saw those struggles and thenwe saw what they become and the
legendary companies they aretoday and the thing is, is they
they focused on story and theyfocused on who they served above
product, and I think that's areally big thing that people get
wrong and I've gone down thisroad too.
(29:17):
We even had to just gut checkourselves in the last quarter of
focusing too much on productand not enough on vision.
Right, the reason why Apple Imean let's take Apple for a
second Like this is an Applecomputer right here, like this
little.
You can see a little outline.
This is just an Apple computerand I could you know, for the
price of this I could go toWalmart or Best Buy and buy a
(29:39):
Windows computer with three orfour times the amount of actual
processing power and RAM and allthe other tech specs in there,
right?
So why do I buy this and notthe other one?
Well, really, I mean part ofit's that I like the operating
system, part of it's that I'vebeen using it for a long time.
But the first time I did itit's because of brand story,
because I believed in what theybelieved in and I identified
(30:00):
with it, and they almost createda tribe.
You know they really did.
Microsoft had done such apiss-poor job of their operating
systems and how they functionedand how they helped.
They were quirky, they brokeall the time, they were the
buggiest things on the planetand then, all of a sudden, apple
came out with not the bestperforming machine but the
(30:20):
smoothest operating, easy to usemachine, and they focused on
allowing their biggest firstavatar they focused on was
creatives Creating a tool thatallows creatives to just create
without having the tools be thebottleneck that gets in their
way.
If I'm an illustrator, let'ssay for Pixar, and I'm
(30:41):
illustrating something and mysystem crashes, that kills that
vibe.
I just stopped creating becauseof a technical thing.
And so Apple came and createdthese machines that got out of
the artist's way and allowedthem to create, and that was the
story that they told and thestory they held and allowed them
to create.
And that was the story thatthey told and the story they
held true to.
So, yeah, it was a product atthe end of the road, but they
(31:03):
identified with artistsspecifically in in the 90s and
early 2000s.
That was their biggest thingthe late 90s, early 2000s.
That's really where theyfocused on is that is the artist
, and I mean the first toy story, pixar.
That whole thing was done onapple computers.
Um, it's being done like theirmodern stuff is linux, but I
(31:23):
digress so and you take, youknow, you take nike and and in
the fame of, like you know,reebok and adidas and all these
other companies are all focusedon, you know, the pump and the
soul and the weight and thecolors and all these other
things.
And, yeah, nike has to havethose things.
They still make shoes, but whatthey did and, um, I think the
(31:43):
analogy is like Phil Knight wasat um a conference and he he
asked everyone is like if you'veever ran for uh, for health or
fitness, stand up.
And like, a good portion of theroom stands up and he says if
you haven't, if you've ran morethan once a week, if you
regularly run more than once aweek, stay standing.
Everyone else sit down.
(32:04):
Most of the room sits down.
And then he said if you wereone of those people that run
three times or more week rain orshine, hot, cold, no matter how
you feel stay standing up andeveryone else stands down.
There's just a small amount ofpeople still standing.
He's like, and he sayssomething to the effect of when
you're out there and it's hotand cold and you're tired and
you don't want to do it, butyou're doing it anyways, just
(32:26):
know that we're the light andthe lamppost cheering you on.
And that's how he described hiscompany and it was powerful,
right?
So at the end the day, anyonecan throw paint on a wall I'm
sorry, but it's not thatcomplicated, right?
Can we do it better than maybesomeone that's real sloppy?
Yeah, and we can pay a littlebit of attention to detail and
(32:47):
all that stuff.
But the story and the why andthe how and the customer care
and the process of how we takecare of the customers that is
the only way to build a bigcompany.
If you want to be a smallcontractor, forever cool, stay
in the tools, focus on puttingthe paint on the wall and you'll
probably make a few hundredthousand dollars a year.
(33:08):
You want to build a big companythat scales, you have to stop
thinking about the product andthink about the person, and
that's the thing that people getwrong about branding.
They think branding is aboutthe product and it's not.
Nike doesn't think about theproduct as much as you think
they do.
They think about the personusing the product far more.
(33:28):
Same thing with Apple.
They didn't build theirtrillion dollar empire based on
this tech specs of this computersitting in front of me.
They built it by understandingme and what I want and what I
need, and they built a company'smessage and branding and story
around that and that's why I buytheir product, that's why I buy
Nike, that's why I buy Applestuff.
Right, it all comes back to thecustomer, to a deep dive, a
(33:54):
really almost obsessiveunderstanding of the customer
and what they need.
And if you have that, you'reprobably going to do great
things.
If you continuously focus on,like, how does this masking tape
go on the wall, that's notwhat's going to drive that big
company.
That's just going to.
You know, that's that'smicromanaging, tiny processes
that really don't matter much.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
So if somebody listening painting business
owner, they're like, okay, Iwant to be more customer focused
and try to really define mybrand, what are some steps do
you think they should take to do?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
that.
That's fantastic.
I love that.
I think there's two main thingsthat I would do.
Number one is break down thecustomer journey and steps.
You could break it down into asmany as you'd like.
The way that we break it downis the following Marketing what
do they see?
What ads do they see?
What do they see on Google Web?
Your branded wrap, truck yardsigns, door knocking, whatever
(34:58):
you're doing what does thatmarketing look like?
Second would be what does thelead nurture look like?
Like after they get in touch,what's the calls look like?
Callback automations like howprofessional is that?
That's the second part of thingthat they encounter and what it
says is really really important.
How fast you answer that phoneis really really important.
(35:19):
The third major interaction thatthe customer has is the sales
and bidding process.
Like you're going to ultimately.
You know your lead nurture isultimately going to end in a
scheduled appointment and so nowyou're going to go out.
There's a lot of debate andcontention about like should I
sell on site or should I not?
I'm a firm believer that youshould be able to present
on-site but not be pushy.
(35:44):
I want to give people optionand education and coach them and
guide them and pay attention towhat they actually say, what
they actually want, and build aprice and package that matters
to them.
And that's an art.
It's a tough thing to teach,but if you can do it, you're
going to be wildly successful.
And then the next part is likedoing the job right.
The crew shows up, they'redoing the thing they've got to
do, what they said they weregoing to do.
We call this operations orfulfillment or whatever word you
(36:05):
want to put on it.
But the crew show up and do thething that they say they're
going to do.
And then the last part of forgetabout what happens six months
later.
Right, there's all sorts ofthings that we can do to get,
like reviews and testimonials.
We can also, and um, havefollow-up processes, check back
(36:25):
in with them three months later,make sure nothing's going wrong
.
You know how powerful that is.
You mean, you know how manypainters call a homeowner back
three months later, a monthlater, six months later, just to
make sure that that Mrs Smithis doing okay and that
everything's great.
Still, you know what I mean.
That's incredible customerservice.
It takes five minutes and youwant to be ninja?
Just set your CRM to do areminder After the job is done.
(36:48):
You have a reminder for Xamount of time afterwards and
you just call back and check inon them.
That's empowering.
And what about referralprograms or maintenance programs
or extended warranty programs?
Empowering.
And what about, like, referralprograms or maintenance programs
or extended warranty programs?
There's a lot of things that canhappen after the job that can
increase their satisfaction in abunch of different ways.
Um and I think so, like now,you could break, you could
borrow my five breakdowns, oryou could break it down into
(37:08):
more steps or less steps orwhatever, right, you could say
it's all sales and production,if you want to this, it's all
the same steps, but you canbreak it down as many steps as
we want.
We break it down to those five.
I think that once youunderstand how you're going to
break it up, then it's time toactually start paying attention.
And what we recommend doing islike, as you're going through
those steps, when people askquestions especially when people
(37:30):
say no, when people askquestions and then don't buy,
that question probably mattereda lot more than you think it
does, right, if someone's likeoh, I didn't hear from you today
, oh, I'm sorry, I chose anothercontractor, it means your
callback wasn't fast enough.
Right, Like, or maybe you, youyou're in that school where you
you go and you measure and yougo back home and then you send
an estimate and then you followback up three to five days later
(37:53):
and you call them back.
Oh, sorry, I picked this otherperson that tells me I need to
be closing on site, Like.
The actions will determine whatyou need to do.
If you're paying enoughattention to them, right,
customers, indirectly ordirectly, will tell you what
they want.
It might be the hardest onesare sometimes where it's like
really subtle hints at things.
Those are the ones that I tendto miss.
(38:13):
Right, that there's littleinclinations of hey, maybe this
isn't good enough, and thoselittle soft issues.
You stack a couple of them ontop of you and all of a sudden
you're not the best choice.
Somebody else that doesn't havethose issues is so at that
point, what I'm saying is, onceyou break it down into the
logical departments, we usethose five that I mentioned
(38:35):
earlier.
We would say what in marketingcreates friction, what makes
people more likely to say yesthan no?
And then we write those downand we do those things right.
What in the nurture sequencemakes people like become
qualified, booked appointments,understanding of doing a little
pre-selling, understanding whatthey want before they want not
(38:55):
booking appointments.
That doesn't make sense foreither one of us.
There's a little bit of phonecall skills to have there and a
script and process to followwhen I'm doing the sales.
What is going to matter to themMostly?
Empathetic, listening, right,not pitching your product and
services, but actually askingwhat matters to them and giving
them a solution to their problem.
(39:15):
And it sounds like the samething, but it's just not.
And so you basically just breakall that down.
But like operations, you knowhow powerful something like a
daily check-in via text for yourhomeowner is Like at the top of
the day and the end of the day,hey, ms Sue, here's what we're
going to do.
And then at the end of the day,hey, here's what we got done,
here's what's left for tomorrow.
We'll see you at 7 am tomorrow.
(39:36):
Those little things and it'ssmall, but those things are
powerful, right, and we have todo them in our business.
I know you have to do thosekind of things in your business,
but so basically what I'msaying is just remember that
brand is not your logo, brand isnot your product Brand is what
people think of you, it's yourcustomer service, and so break
down that customer service intohowever many steps make sense
(39:58):
for you and then, inside of eachone, raise that bar, make it as
professional and good as youcan.
And if you continue on thatjourney, it's never really done,
it's constantly iterating.
But do the best you can todayand at some point you'll need to
refocus in and do a little bitmore and raise the bar again as
you continue to elevate.
But if you continue to beobsessive about the clients,
(40:22):
your customers, your clients andwhat they want, what they need,
what they expect all of thosethings, chances are you're going
to build a wildly successfulcompany.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Excellent, awesome.
Looking at the time we're about, at our time here, micah, and I
really appreciate your time.
You definitely dropped somevalue, some really good thoughts
on rebranding, when to changeor add a service line, when to
not add a service line.
Can you, can you, uh, do youhave any asks of the audience?
(40:59):
Do you?
You know, if they want to learnmore about you and what you do
for for businesses, where shouldthey go to to learn more?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
uh, easiest way is go to searchcutgrowcom, um, or you
can look me up on facebook,instagram, any of those channels
, uh, at michael mclean, um,either one of those.
You'll be able to get in touchwith me pretty quickly, um, but
you know nothing to sell here,man.
You know?
Um'll be able to get in touchwith me pretty quickly, um, but
you know nothing to sell here,man, you know, um.
If anyone wants to work with me, obviously, uh, love to have a
chat, but my, my biggest thingis I just want to provide value
(41:25):
and you know, like I saidearlier, if you've got a
marketing team and you're doinggreat, don't change, like
optimize where you are beforeyou try to switch ships.
If you've got a team, includinga marketing team, then it's
you're not able to optimizeanymore than maybe it's the time
to switch, but you should tryto optimize where you are before
you try to switch.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Excellent stuff and, uh, just gotta say it's like
every every other day I'm seeinggreat stuff that your team is
doing over there.
So whatever you're doing isworking.
You guys are publishing someamazing websites.
I see pretty much every otherday it seems like and I know we
have a lot of, you know, similarclients, similar clientele.
(42:06):
So definitely, if you need helpin that realm, definitely check
out Micah's search.
Click grow With that.
I really appreciate your time,micah, and with with the
audience.
We will see you next week.
Thanks so much.
Bye, guys.
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 provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information,nothing you hear on this podcast
(00:22):
should be considered asfinancial advice specifically
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.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
We strongly recommend you seeking individualized
advice before making anysignificant financial decision.
Welcome to the ProfitablePainter Podcast, the show where
painting contractors learn howto boost profits, cut taxes and
build a business that works forthem.
I'm your host, daniel Honan CPA, former painting business owner
, and your guide to masteringyour numbers that drive success.
So let's dive in and make yourbusiness more profitable, and
(01:00):
I'm super excited today becauseI get to talk to Micah McLean.
How's it going, micah?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Dude, I'm great Thanks for having me, man, I
appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm excited to jump into the conversation.
I mean, we've known each otherfor a while and we see each
other at the events and you'realways putting out awesome stuff
online, so I think this isgonna be a super valuable
conversation.
So could you, could you justgive folks a kind of like a
rundown of how you got startedin the painting industry and
(01:31):
what you've been doing and thevalue you've been providing to
folks?
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
So you know, the short version is you know, as a
kid I think was around about 10,my parents divorced and they
were both salespeople at a Forddealership and they, when they
got divorced, they both startedindependent contracting
companies.
My dad started a flooringcompany and he later left it to
do life insurance.
My mom started a paint company.
So I was about 10 years old andshe started a paint company.
(01:58):
This is about 1990.
So so, like quite a ways ago,and you know, uh, being a single
mom, I had to go to a lot ofjob sites with her at times, you
know, when I wasn't in schooland afternoons and weekends, and
that turned into me working onthe job site and, uh, you know,
prepping, and eventually I wasactually painting and then,
before long, but probably bylike 14, 15, I was like crew
(02:21):
lead, um and by the time Igraduated high school, like not,
I still had to go Um, and bythe time I graduated high school
, like not, I still had to go toschool.
But by the time I graduatedhigh school, I was running
multiple crews and um and andand help, basically co-running
our company, um and then um.
You know I did that and I wassuper happy.
I loved it.
It was nothing I didn't like,but there was part of me that
really just wanted to not be theperson that like stayed in the
(02:45):
hometown for the rest of my life.
I just had this deep desire toleave and I was a little
personal moments to was kind ofstarted personally running with
a crowd that was like reallyheavy into drugs and alcohol and
I saw myself like going down apath I just did not want to go
down.
So I literally just one day,without warning, I just woke up.
I was like I'm going to jointhe military, I'm going to leave
(03:06):
, and so I literally went to arecruiter's office, joined the
Air Force, because they were theones that could get me in the
soonest.
That's literally the onlyreason I even chose the Air
Force.
I went office to office likehow fast can I leave?
And like they were like, yeah,next week.
I was like cool, let's go.
And so I ended up with the AirForce and really just a vision
to like kind of get out of town,see the world, be a part of the
(03:26):
military.
I did have some family roots inthe military too.
Grandfather battled NormandyBeach and so on and so forth.
My parents met in the military,so it was always a little thing
that I kind of wanted to do it,but it was just catalyst at
that moment, a lot to do withlike the crowd I was hanging out
with.
So I did that and then when Iwas in, it was a longer version
(03:47):
of the story that we don't havenearly enough time for, but
there was a couple of thingsthat happened when I was in that
made me like, oh wow, I want toreally get into this sales and
marketing stuff and it reallycame around like the iPod.
So I remember before I deployedmy first time because I joined
right before 9-11.
So before I deployed the firsttime, I went to my boss and was
like, hey, what you know, yougot this government packing list
(04:09):
, but what should I?
What should I bring that's noton that list?
He's like absolutely hands down, brings some sort of music
player, right, so I go and buysome like music player.
It was like a Toshiba or Sonyor something else, and so then I
deploy and whatever.
Come back home 2003.
Steve Jobs had his famouskeynote where he released the
(04:30):
iPod and he you know most ofthat.
That, that presentation.
He talked about computer, thisand monitor this and whatever.
And then it's like, at the veryend, it's like and I got
something really cool to showyou, you know reaches into his
pocket, pulls out this firstiPod and said you guys know what
this is?
It's a thousand songs in yourpocket and those five words made
the first trillion dollarcompany on planet earth.
And I was enamored, to say theleast.
(04:51):
I was like what just happened?
Because you got all thesecompanies like they didn't
invent the MP3 player at all,but they built the most wildly
successful electronics company,I mean Toshiba and Sony, these
companies that had like decadesand decades on them.
They crushed them overnightwith five words, $10,000 in your
pocket.
And so, while all of us, allthese companies, are trying to
(05:15):
sell on, like data rates and MP3, that battery life, they didn't
mention any of that.
They talked about the lifestyle, they talked about the person,
what the person got, and theymade one of the most successful
companies on earth.
And that moment, when I sawthat, I was like what just
happened and that sparked somecuriosity.
I started taking some classeswhen I wasn't deployed.
(05:35):
I started taking somepsychology classes, some
marketing classes, things likethat, and that evolved.
When I got out, instead ofgoing back into painting, I
created an agency, and I havebeen a part of a few different
agencies.
I built and sold my shares in acouple, and all of the agencies
(06:02):
that I've been a part of sinceI left have all served home
services.
But I think one of the mistakesI made earlier on is I tried to
be like an everything foreverybody agency.
It's a huge operational mistake, right?
I mean, I know you've seen thistoo, like painter companies
that try to do like 50 otherservices and it just doesn't
work right.
Right, I did that mistake onthe agency side, trying to
create too many products withtoo many different niches.
And so then it was about sixyears ago.
(06:25):
There was a period of time mywife, who's our co-CEO of this
company, and she was with ourlast agency too.
There was this one 30-dayperiod of time where there was
like four or five panic attacksthat led her in the hospital
because operationally, thecompany was set up for like such
wildly bad systems.
So we sat down and a heart toheart like okay, well, what we'd
(06:47):
like to do is change the gearsand reshift this company, and we
sat down with the otherpartners of the company and they
didn't agree.
So we left, we sold our sharesand we started Search Good Grow.
We started, we created the LLCin 2019, but we like officially
opened for business January 1,2020, right before COVID.
So that first year was a.
(07:08):
It was a rocky year.
So we just left a really cush,high paying job but from a very,
very stressful agency tocomplete reset, like we just
like we had nothing right whenwe got a savings and stuff, but
like no income and a companythat no one had ever heard of,
and to build this company a lotdifferently than the last
(07:29):
company I built, which wasbasically like a company brand,
this company.
I decided we decided to operatedifferently.
We pulled from my personalvalues.
My number one value is corevalues, integrity first, and so
I was like, well, whatever webuild, that has to be its number
one core value period, and itwasn't true in my last agency
and it is true here.
It's the only way we operate.
(07:50):
We talk about it in every teammeeting.
Our processes are built aroundit.
Our internal feedback,everything we do, is built
around that, and that's a valuethat was instilled in me from
the military, so we knew that wewanted to operate with that
going forward, but we also I was, like you know, I grew up in
(08:12):
home services.
This is what I do.
I mean, I did this for a longtime at the.
You know, my family just hadthis huge history of doing that,
and so I decided that thiscompany was going to focus only
on home services, specificallypainting.
We will occasionally acceptpeople that are not painters.
It's almost always if thatpainting company also has
another company.
We only market to painters.
(08:33):
90-something percent of ourclients are painters.
I grew up as a painter, I knowpainting and, very ironically, I
found that one of the things Iliked about the military and the
trades is there's a lot ofcommon values there.
Most contractors are superhonest, high integrity, easy to
(08:54):
talk to, and so I think the partthat I liked about the military
is the same part that I likedabout the trades.
It's a very similar type ofperson.
It's a lot different than alawyer or a Wall Street person
or something like that.
It was just a differentcharacter or person, and that
was another huge reason why webuilt this company is I want to
(09:15):
be able to enjoy the people Iwork with, be super impactful
and help change lives and liveby some values that I believe in
, that I also know that theperson on the other end believes
in too, and for me that washuge.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, that's a that's a amazing story and, uh, just
listening to you now I was likeman.
We have a lot of parallels withour journey, I know.
Um, I also was on the.
My dad had a, a paintingbusiness, so I was up on the job
sites, also military, and Ilike your comparison to the
(09:53):
painting industry, to themilitary, kind of the same types
of people.
I hadn't made that connectionbut that makes sense now that
you say that like there is a lotof similarities there and you
and you kind of, but there's alot of similarities, right?
Speaker 3 (10:09):
um, I think the idea of like going to work and doing
something with your hands andfeet, you know, um being a
person of honesty and integrity,like those things typically are
true between them, um yeah, um,one thing you mentioned was you
know niching, because obviouslyboth of us have decided to
(10:31):
niche in the painting industry.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But, um, you also mentioned you know painting
businesses, niching, and thatjust you know what.
Do you have any thoughts onthat like should because that is
a kind of a common questionthat I hear like should should,
starting out as a paintingbusiness owner, should you just
do any kind of painting interior, exterior, cabinets, deck, you
(10:53):
know fencing, commercial,residential or should you try to
focus on one particular thing?
Do you have any like strongfeelings about that?
Speaker 3 (11:02):
I do.
I think that like for me, meit's like a soft rule, soft
guidance, like should you ifyou're just starting out, let's
just say, like first year,hundred thousand, two hundred
thousand dollars a year shouldyou have like a cabinet crew or
garage epoxy crew, a stainingcrew and an interior next year
group?
Probably right, I think that ifyou can figure out what one
(11:25):
crew can do, like for the mostpart, an average residential
paint crew can handle interiorsand exteriors with the same
workforce, with the same tools.
Right, for the most part.
You know some high extensionladders for outside, probably
you know occasionally a need fora lift, but for the most part
it's the same tools, it's thesame job.
Right, where it startsfundamentally changing a lot and
(11:51):
I think it becomes risky toenter too early is when you
think about something likecabinets or epoxy floors.
Those tools are no longer thesame tools.
The processes are fundamentallydifferent.
The risk tolerance of them andgetting them right is harder.
Right, the prep is way moredifficult on cabinets and garage
coatings than it is on outsidesiding or stucco or a drywall
wall.
The prep of those substratesare super easy by comparison.
(12:13):
Every substrate needs its ownprep for sure, but generally
speaking, like a two to four manresidential paint crew can flip
flop between interior andexterior pretty easy.
So like, if that's the crew youhave, you should maximize that
crew on 100 before I think youshould go to something else.
(12:33):
Right, maybe even get to wherethe point you have two or three
crews doing the same thing.
But if your first painter, likemaybe you're a cabinet tech
there's some of that that existslike some people like they
start in cabinets.
That's what they know.
Well, maybe maximize that first.
But for me the simple answer islike maximize where you are
before you start something new.
Yeah, you know how many times Ihave conversations with people
(12:55):
that are like five hundredthousand dollars a year and
they're ready to start a secondlocation.
Like, wait a second, you shouldprobably be between like five
and 10 million in the cityyou're at before you should
think about another location.
And what you know like.
If you actually can go throughthat process of building the
right systems for hiring,scaling, marketing, sales to
(13:16):
actually build somewhere in that, that range you probably can
take.
Just take those systems and putthem in a new city and be up
and running and a fraction ofthe time.
But if you haven't gone throughthat like $500,000, you really
don't even need systems andprocesses.
You can bootstrap that and kindof just wing it, figure it out.
But the second you're not atthat second location.
You're trying to wing it,figure it out.
(13:36):
Chances are it's going to flop,you know.
And so I think the disciplineof getting to a place where the
company can run not necessarilya hundred percent without you,
but definitely not in everydepartment's day to day Right,
and if you can build the systemsand processes in the team
members responsible for that,then I think at that point you
(13:57):
could have another department oranother city or another,
whatever right.
The business altogether likeRussell peach or peach painting
super successful is doing like400 K months with peach painting
super successful.
He's doing like 400k months andresidential painting and you
know I think it was maybe likesix, eight months ago he's like,
hey, I want to start a flooringdivision.
So we made him up, you know, uh, you know a flooring website
(14:17):
and local business and all thatstuff.
Right, I didn't question thatbecause he's already like on
track to do five, six, sevenmillion this year.
He's got systems, he's gotleadership, he's got a sales
team.
He is actually the ceo.
He's not like operationally inany individual department, you
know, and so at that point whatthat means is like he can
(14:38):
rapidly start another businessup like that.
You know and that's just oneexample like there's plenty of
other people in the space thathave done exactly that.
Where I think it's problematicis if you've got one residential
paint crew doing a couplehundred thousand dollars a year,
but they could be doing 600,000a year, should you start
another apartment?
No, if your company is onlydoing a few hundred thousand
(14:59):
dollars a year, should you go toanother city?
No, I think you should maximizethe team and the location that
you have and then go from there.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I feel like a
lot of folks underestimate, likethe market that they're in.
They think that they'vesaturated the market.
Like I was just talking to apainting business, they were
just doing cabinets and theywere doing about 300,000 per
year in cabinets.
(15:26):
It was in a decent sized city Imean, it wasn't New York City
or anything, but it was still apretty decent sized city and
they felt like they had kind ofsaturated the market and they
needed to add on another serviceline because they were doing
$300,000 in cabinets per year.
And I was like there, there's,there's, uh, they're cabinet
(15:48):
companies that do multiplemillions.
They do just do cabinets and Ithink a lot of folks don't
realize like there's a lot ofpeople in your area that need
cabinet work or interior work ordeck work.
So I feel like that happens alot for.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
For that is is chat GPT.
We wrote a prompt.
I'd be happy to share it withyou guys if you want.
We wrote a prompt to help ususe chat GPT to figure out the
market capacity in an area.
I'll use real easy numbers.
Let's say there's, like youknow, a million people in an
area, and let's just say every,and let's just pretend for a
(16:23):
second that every like half ofthem are homeowners, right, and
let's just pretend for a secondthat half of them are homeowners
, right.
So that million, now you've got500,000 potential customers.
The others are renters orapartments.
You're never going to work withthem.
And then the people that arethere that are homeowners you
say the 500,000,.
Let's just say the averagerepaint cycle on any one thing.
Let's say cabinets.
Let's just say it's like 10years.
(16:46):
Well then, then you just say,okay, 10 of that, 500 000 in any
given year is looking forrepaints.
It might be, it might beslightly off from that, but it's
a pretty ballpark, right, yeah,and then so.
So now you're looking at like50 000 cabinet jobs in that area
and you're doing 300 000 in inthat.
What do you do?
100?
Like not even remotely in theballpark.
(17:08):
You're not even 0.1% at thatpoint.
Yeah, once you understand andagain, chatgpt can figure this
out because the census data onpopulation is public data, right
?
The average time for repaintschanges in different areas and
climates and things like that.
So there's statistics on thatwhich you can use and so it can
(17:28):
take the population versus thecensus data of the homeownership
versus renters in that area togive you the true homeowners.
They can cross that with theaverage amount of repaints and
then it'll give you about howmany paint jobs there actually
are in any sector.
It'll break it down, about thismany interior, about this many
exterior, this many cabinets,this many whatever Right.
And then when you break it down,you can just tell it how much
(17:49):
you're doing and it'll actuallygive you a market share and
every time I've done that withmy clients they're surprised as
heck to figure out it's under 1%.
Even the big ones it's under 1%.
Yeah, I remember a podcast I'mgoing to paraphrase this a
little bit.
My numbers are probably alittle bit off but there was a
(18:11):
podcast a few years ago withtommy mellow and I think at the
time he had one one location at,let's say, ballpark 11 million
or whatever right, pretty high.
And he's like, yeah, everyonethinks like I'm dominating.
It's like we did the math onthat, you know what it is.
It's like it's like two percentof the market share, like it's
a really tiny number, rightand's you know making a bunch of
money and it's still reallyreally small.
So for that client, like that'smaking $300,000 a year, I'm
(18:32):
sorry, you're not close to acapacity in that, unless you're
in some tiny rural town thatonly has, like you know, 5,000
people, then maybe, butotherwise you're not coming
close yet.
And the goal is not to thendiversify.
The goal is to master whatyou're doing, because you're
going to yield a return byfiguring out how to master the
thing that you're already doing.
Then you are to start somethingnew.
(18:52):
Because now and that's the samereason why my wife had those
panic attacks is we were doingtoo many things for too many
different people.
It was operationally insane,like we had this culture in this
business that was unbelievablystressful, right, the culture,
the communication, the processes, the turnover, the performance,
everything was bad.
(19:12):
I mean, we did good work buteverything behind the curtain
was awful, and that's what wecreated this company to be.
The opposite of right, and Iwould absolutely advise that any
painter do the same thing, likemaximize the team that you have
, maximize the systems thatyou're using.
(19:33):
Sometimes people like a similarconcept, like well, should I
change CRMs?
Well, are you using the CRM youhave right now to 100%?
If not, do that first beforeconsidering jumping tools,
because even something likejumping a tool or even a
marketing provider, right, I'llget people that have
conversations with me.
They're like hey, I heardyou're great and I appreciate
(19:55):
that.
I think we are really good atwhat we do.
But at the same time, if somecompany is getting you like 10%
cost of marketing, so 10x ROI,are you really going to jump
ship with me to maybe get 9.5%?
Like, is that really worth it?
Probably not, right, the onlytime we even accept clients is
there's something really bigthat we can come in and solve.
(20:15):
If we're going to come in andhelp save you a half a percent,
it's not worth the move at all.
You should talk with yourcurrent marketer and optimize
the systems you have.
You know you'd be surprised atwhat a painter actually
communicating with theirmarketer on a regular basis will
do.
And yeah, I mean the marketershould be communicating too, but
you know how many times we askour clients to communicate back
(20:36):
with us and how much teeth wehave to pull sometimes to do
that.
Communication works both ways.
So optimize the team you have.
Optimize the location you have.
Optimize the service you have.
Optimize the marketing partneryou have.
Optimize the CRM, before tryingto go to a new system or tool.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, and I think it goes against a lot of our
tendencies as entrepreneurs.
You know, painting businessowner, entrepreneur.
We're entrepreneurs where youwant to start something new.
That's kind of like why you'rein in this place to begin with
and so.
But to actually do that all thetime is not good, because then
(21:14):
you're you're just creatingchaos.
You want to start your, startyour business and then try to
create stability by focusing inon you know one thing and and
then really getting reallyawesome at that one thing.
Um, you mentioned uh peachpainting in their rebranding and
I I talked to um uh russellright, yeah, sorry, I just
(21:41):
blanked his name for a second.
So I talked to russell.
He was on the the panel at umpaint boss 2025, where we yeah,
we talked about um adding on a,a service line like how do you,
how do you add on a service line?
And so he was.
He was doing painting, then headded on flooring and it was
(22:02):
really interesting how he wastalking about, how he rebranded
with I believe he was workingwith you at the time how he kind
of rebranded his, his logo andand everything.
Um, and I think it had a lot towith his website too like
having uh, I don't know thedetails, but could you is that
something that you work withfolks a lot on, and could you
(22:24):
like go through?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
his process there.
Yeah, so I mean high level hisprocess, and he talked to me
about it beforehand and so, like, again, if you're doing like
30K, 50K months, this should notbe a topic that you should
cover yet.
Like, maximize that currentchannel, that you have the
current team, that you have thecurrent marketing systems you
have in place and build thatfirst primary service, whether
it's interior, exterior, whetherit's cabinets, whatever.
(22:48):
But for him, what came in partand this happens a lot is
typically, when you do abeautification service, if you
do a great job, that homeowneris likely to ask you if you do
another beautification service.
So what you'll typically findis that there's a huge amount of
crossover between, like,painting, remodeling, cabinets,
flooring, backyard design.
(23:09):
So we lump those all intobeautification Wants, not needs.
Think about it this way Like,if you're plumbing breaks and
like your house is flooding,you're calling an emergency
plumber and the first person toanswer the phone is the person
you're hiring.
Pretty much you kind of don'tcare.
Price, right, it's just who canget out here and stop this leak
the fastest is who's getting mybusiness.
(23:31):
But when it comes tobeautification, it's a little
bit different model, right,trust and vision start coming
into play.
It's not just paint on the wallthat we're selling.
Nike doesn't sell shoes.
They sell empowerment forathletes.
They're the people that standbehind the people that get up
(23:52):
early in the morning when it'scold and wet, and still put on
their shoes and go out for a run.
That's what Nike is all about.
The shoes are just the productand so, as a company, if you
have a good enough brand whichRussell does it's not just about
the paint on the walls, right.
These people are entrustingtheir vision to make the home a
house, their home.
(24:13):
Right, and, very naturally,these aesthetic things like if
someone's repainting, they'reprobably doing cabinets, they're
probably doing floors, they'reprobably also doing like
furniture and TV and otherthings Like imagine, if you live
in a house for like 20 yearsit's dated, your kids just moved
out, so you don't have to worryabout the house getting beat up
again and you're going to gothrough kind of a major like
(24:35):
relook.
You know, hey, this is going tobe our forever home, Our kids
just moved out, let's just redothis thing, let's do it, rip
everything.
So he was finding himself inthe face of these clients.
They trusted him because he gota great band, great reputation,
he's a great guy and he's builta fantastic team.
And then they're also askingabout these other services.
So it starts to make sense.
If you have a scaled team andyou have the opportunity to do
(24:57):
these other things and you knowthat it's a good time to start
diversifying right From both aninvestment capital standpoint,
managerial standpoint, all ofthat stuff, then, yeah, it can
start to make sense.
And the mechanics of it wererelatively easy.
I mean, most of it was him.
I mean we just came in andbuilt him a new website, new
Google post profile, new adaccounts, things like that Right
, and a logo variation for youknow his main brand for that one
(25:21):
.
But that's not.
That's really not even the hardthing.
It's more an operationalconsideration than the branding
thing.
So I don't want to take anycredit there.
This was the right move by himat the right time.
But he considered the financesof this and he had talked to me
about it a couple years beforeand we talked about it and both
him and I agreed that it wasn'tthe right time yet.
And then he revisited it laterand it was the right time.
(25:42):
His painting company was scalingand growing.
Without him he could not showup for a few weeks and he'd
still make sales, his team wouldstill, he'd still have hires,
he'd still have crews working.
At that point, can you put somefocus on building another brand
?
Yeah, I think you can.
I think if you're like stillactively growing and putting
these systems in place in yourpaint brand, you're trying to go
another brand.
Now, all of a sudden, you as aperson, you're like 50% here,
(26:04):
50% there, and that's not thisplace, that this one, this first
one, isn't ready for it yet.
So I think that he did.
He was very smart in how hescaled it at the right time.
He had strong teams and systemsin place to know that, that
that he could walk away forweeks to maybe even a few months
, and that business would stillgrow.
And at that point, startanother division, start another
(26:27):
city.
Sure, go for it.
I think the thing most peopledo, it way before that's ready.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
What are you?
You mentioned Nike and Appleand, like these, these companies
are.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
They've been huge influences on what I think about
marketing.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, well, they were huge influences on a lot of us
to to buy their products forsure, at least at a minimum to,
you know.
Just think back to Steve Jobs,you know, was it think different
when he got back the secondtime to Apple?
That was kind of a big push, Iwas too young to experience his
first time.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
It was when he came back the second time where I
started following him Right,which I think is where he kind
of just killed it.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I recently read Walter Isaacson's biography on
him and when he came back thesecond time, that's when he just
the iPod, the iPad, all that hewas a completely different
person yeah and uh and then forfor nike, um, phil knight, it
was just the way.
It was relentless.
(27:27):
The.
What they, what he did withnike was it was crazy on all the
because I read I read a shoedog, um, written by phil knight
Knight, and everything that theywent through, but it's just the
passion of just staying at onething for so long and going
through all the hardships thatthey did financially and
everything, but they really madeit through the way that they
(27:51):
rebranded themselves or brandedthemselves and set themselves
apart from Adidas and the othercompanies.
Do you have any?
Like, what do you think apainting business should be
doing in terms of brand?
Like, how should they thinkabout it?
What things should they bedoing to make sure that the
brand is good?
It's actually one of myfavorite questions.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So, like, remember the brand is what got me into
marketing in the first place.
Right, that that thousand songsin your pocket is that's what
drove me to marketing and that'sa brand psychology thing.
It's not web.
Yeah, I mean, we have a greatweb team and all these other
mechanical things, but that'snot really where I think we
shine the best.
I think where we were, where Iand my team are the actual best
(28:35):
at, is the brand voice andpositioning.
It's because it's what we studyand we put our time into, and
the other things are justmechanics that help get us there
.
I think that most peoplemisinterpret what branding is
and the reason why I study PhilKnight at Nike and Steve Jobs at
Apple as much as I do.
There's a few others too, butthose are the top two.
(28:55):
Really, they were so fantasticat the same era when we were
both kids, like the sametimeframe.
We grew up with that.
We saw those struggles and thenwe saw what they become and the
legendary companies they aretoday and the thing is, is they
they focused on story and theyfocused on who they served above
product, and I think that's areally big thing that people get
wrong and I've gone down thisroad too.
(29:17):
We even had to just gut checkourselves in the last quarter of
focusing too much on productand not enough on vision.
Right, the reason why Apple Imean let's take Apple for a
second Like this is an Applecomputer right here, like this
little.
You can see a little outline.
This is just an Apple computerand I could you know, for the
price of this I could go toWalmart or Best Buy and buy a
(29:39):
Windows computer with three orfour times the amount of actual
processing power and RAM and allthe other tech specs in there,
right?
So why do I buy this and notthe other one?
Well, really, I mean part ofit's that I like the operating
system, part of it's that I'vebeen using it for a long time.
But the first time I did itit's because of brand story,
because I believed in what theybelieved in and I identified
(30:00):
with it, and they almost createda tribe.
You know they really did.
Microsoft had done such apiss-poor job of their operating
systems and how they functionedand how they helped.
They were quirky, they brokeall the time, they were the
buggiest things on the planetand then, all of a sudden, apple
came out with not the bestperforming machine but the
(30:20):
smoothest operating, easy to usemachine, and they focused on
allowing their biggest firstavatar they focused on was
creatives Creating a tool thatallows creatives to just create
without having the tools be thebottleneck that gets in their
way.
If I'm an illustrator, let'ssay for Pixar, and I'm
(30:41):
illustrating something and mysystem crashes, that kills that
vibe.
I just stopped creating becauseof a technical thing.
And so Apple came and createdthese machines that got out of
the artist's way and allowedthem to create, and that was the
story that they told and thestory they held and allowed them
to create.
And that was the story thatthey told and the story they
held true to.
So, yeah, it was a product atthe end of the road, but they
(31:03):
identified with artistsspecifically in in the 90s and
early 2000s.
That was their biggest thingthe late 90s, early 2000s.
That's really where theyfocused on is that is the artist
, and I mean the first toy story, pixar.
That whole thing was done onapple computers.
Um, it's being done like theirmodern stuff is linux, but I
(31:23):
digress so and you take, youknow, you take nike and and in
the fame of, like you know,reebok and adidas and all these
other companies are all focusedon, you know, the pump and the
soul and the weight and thecolors and all these other
things.
And, yeah, nike has to havethose things.
They still make shoes, but whatthey did and, um, I think the
(31:43):
analogy is like Phil Knight wasat um a conference and he he
asked everyone is like if you'veever ran for uh, for health or
fitness, stand up.
And like, a good portion of theroom stands up and he says if
you haven't, if you've ran morethan once a week, if you
regularly run more than once aweek, stay standing.
Everyone else sit down.
(32:04):
Most of the room sits down.
And then he said if you wereone of those people that run
three times or more week rain orshine, hot, cold, no matter how
you feel stay standing up andeveryone else stands down.
There's just a small amount ofpeople still standing.
He's like, and he sayssomething to the effect of when
you're out there and it's hotand cold and you're tired and
you don't want to do it, butyou're doing it anyways, just
(32:26):
know that we're the light andthe lamppost cheering you on.
And that's how he described hiscompany and it was powerful,
right?
So at the end the day, anyonecan throw paint on a wall I'm
sorry, but it's not thatcomplicated, right?
Can we do it better than maybesomeone that's real sloppy?
Yeah, and we can pay a littlebit of attention to detail and
(32:47):
all that stuff.
But the story and the why andthe how and the customer care
and the process of how we takecare of the customers that is
the only way to build a bigcompany.
If you want to be a smallcontractor, forever cool, stay
in the tools, focus on puttingthe paint on the wall and you'll
probably make a few hundredthousand dollars a year.
(33:08):
You want to build a big companythat scales, you have to stop
thinking about the product andthink about the person, and
that's the thing that people getwrong about branding.
They think branding is aboutthe product and it's not.
Nike doesn't think about theproduct as much as you think
they do.
They think about the personusing the product far more.
(33:28):
Same thing with Apple.
They didn't build theirtrillion dollar empire based on
this tech specs of this computersitting in front of me.
They built it by understandingme and what I want and what I
need, and they built a company'smessage and branding and story
around that and that's why I buytheir product, that's why I buy
Nike, that's why I buy Applestuff.
Right, it all comes back to thecustomer, to a deep dive, a
(33:54):
really almost obsessiveunderstanding of the customer
and what they need.
And if you have that, you'reprobably going to do great
things.
If you continuously focus on,like, how does this masking tape
go on the wall, that's notwhat's going to drive that big
company.
That's just going to.
You know, that's that'smicromanaging, tiny processes
that really don't matter much.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
So if somebody listening painting business
owner, they're like, okay, Iwant to be more customer focused
and try to really define mybrand, what are some steps do
you think they should take to do?
Speaker 3 (34:35):
that.
That's fantastic.
I love that.
I think there's two main thingsthat I would do.
Number one is break down thecustomer journey and steps.
You could break it down into asmany as you'd like.
The way that we break it downis the following Marketing what
do they see?
What ads do they see?
What do they see on Google Web?
Your branded wrap, truck yardsigns, door knocking, whatever
(34:58):
you're doing what does thatmarketing look like?
Second would be what does thelead nurture look like?
Like after they get in touch,what's the calls look like?
Callback automations like howprofessional is that?
That's the second part of thingthat they encounter and what it
says is really really important.
How fast you answer that phoneis really really important.
(35:19):
The third major interaction thatthe customer has is the sales
and bidding process.
Like you're going to ultimately.
You know your lead nurture isultimately going to end in a
scheduled appointment and so nowyou're going to go out.
There's a lot of debate andcontention about like should I
sell on site or should I not?
I'm a firm believer that youshould be able to present
on-site but not be pushy.
(35:44):
I want to give people optionand education and coach them and
guide them and pay attention towhat they actually say, what
they actually want, and build aprice and package that matters
to them.
And that's an art.
It's a tough thing to teach,but if you can do it, you're
going to be wildly successful.
And then the next part is likedoing the job right.
The crew shows up, they'redoing the thing they've got to
do, what they said they weregoing to do.
We call this operations orfulfillment or whatever word you
(36:05):
want to put on it.
But the crew show up and do thething that they say they're
going to do.
And then the last part of forgetabout what happens six months
later.
Right, there's all sorts ofthings that we can do to get,
like reviews and testimonials.
We can also, and um, havefollow-up processes, check back
(36:25):
in with them three months later,make sure nothing's going wrong
.
You know how powerful that is.
You mean, you know how manypainters call a homeowner back
three months later, a monthlater, six months later, just to
make sure that that Mrs Smithis doing okay and that
everything's great.
Still, you know what I mean.
That's incredible customerservice.
It takes five minutes and youwant to be ninja?
Just set your CRM to do areminder After the job is done.
(36:48):
You have a reminder for Xamount of time afterwards and
you just call back and check inon them.
That's empowering.
And what about referralprograms or maintenance programs
or extended warranty programs?
Empowering.
And what about, like, referralprograms or maintenance programs
or extended warranty programs?
There's a lot of things that canhappen after the job that can
increase their satisfaction in abunch of different ways.
Um and I think so, like now,you could break, you could
borrow my five breakdowns, oryou could break it down into
(37:08):
more steps or less steps orwhatever, right, you could say
it's all sales and production,if you want to this, it's all
the same steps, but you canbreak it down as many steps as
we want.
We break it down to those five.
I think that once youunderstand how you're going to
break it up, then it's time toactually start paying attention.
And what we recommend doing islike, as you're going through
those steps, when people askquestions especially when people
(37:30):
say no, when people askquestions and then don't buy,
that question probably mattereda lot more than you think it
does, right, if someone's likeoh, I didn't hear from you today
, oh, I'm sorry, I chose anothercontractor, it means your
callback wasn't fast enough.
Right, Like, or maybe you, youyou're in that school where you
you go and you measure and yougo back home and then you send
an estimate and then you followback up three to five days later
(37:53):
and you call them back.
Oh, sorry, I picked this otherperson that tells me I need to
be closing on site, Like.
The actions will determine whatyou need to do.
If you're paying enoughattention to them, right,
customers, indirectly ordirectly, will tell you what
they want.
It might be the hardest onesare sometimes where it's like
really subtle hints at things.
Those are the ones that I tendto miss.
(38:13):
Right, that there's littleinclinations of hey, maybe this
isn't good enough, and thoselittle soft issues.
You stack a couple of them ontop of you and all of a sudden
you're not the best choice.
Somebody else that doesn't havethose issues is so at that
point, what I'm saying is, onceyou break it down into the
logical departments, we usethose five that I mentioned
(38:35):
earlier.
We would say what in marketingcreates friction, what makes
people more likely to say yesthan no?
And then we write those downand we do those things right.
What in the nurture sequencemakes people like become
qualified, booked appointments,understanding of doing a little
pre-selling, understanding whatthey want before they want not
(38:55):
booking appointments.
That doesn't make sense foreither one of us.
There's a little bit of phonecall skills to have there and a
script and process to followwhen I'm doing the sales.
What is going to matter to themMostly?
Empathetic, listening, right,not pitching your product and
services, but actually askingwhat matters to them and giving
them a solution to their problem.
(39:15):
And it sounds like the samething, but it's just not.
And so you basically just breakall that down.
But like operations, you knowhow powerful something like a
daily check-in via text for yourhomeowner is Like at the top of
the day and the end of the day,hey, ms Sue, here's what we're
going to do.
And then at the end of the day,hey, here's what we got done,
here's what's left for tomorrow.
We'll see you at 7 am tomorrow.
(39:36):
Those little things and it'ssmall, but those things are
powerful, right, and we have todo them in our business.
I know you have to do thosekind of things in your business,
but so basically what I'msaying is just remember that
brand is not your logo, brand isnot your product Brand is what
people think of you, it's yourcustomer service, and so break
down that customer service intohowever many steps make sense
(39:58):
for you and then, inside of eachone, raise that bar, make it as
professional and good as youcan.
And if you continue on thatjourney, it's never really done,
it's constantly iterating.
But do the best you can todayand at some point you'll need to
refocus in and do a little bitmore and raise the bar again as
you continue to elevate.
But if you continue to beobsessive about the clients,
(40:22):
your customers, your clients andwhat they want, what they need,
what they expect all of thosethings, chances are you're going
to build a wildly successfulcompany.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Excellent, awesome.
Looking at the time we're about, at our time here, micah, and I
really appreciate your time.
You definitely dropped somevalue, some really good thoughts
on rebranding, when to changeor add a service line, when to
not add a service line.
Can you, can you, uh, do youhave any asks of the audience?
(40:59):
Do you?
You know, if they want to learnmore about you and what you do
for for businesses, where shouldthey go to to learn more?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
uh, easiest way is go to searchcutgrowcom, um, or you
can look me up on facebook,instagram, any of those channels
, uh, at michael mclean, um,either one of those.
You'll be able to get in touchwith me pretty quickly, um, but
you know nothing to sell here,man.
You know?
Um'll be able to get in touchwith me pretty quickly, um, but
you know nothing to sell here,man, you know, um.
If anyone wants to work with me, obviously, uh, love to have a
chat, but my, my biggest thingis I just want to provide value
(41:25):
and you know, like I saidearlier, if you've got a
marketing team and you're doinggreat, don't change, like
optimize where you are beforeyou try to switch ships.
If you've got a team, includinga marketing team, then it's
you're not able to optimizeanymore than maybe it's the time
to switch, but you should tryto optimize where you are before
you try to switch.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Excellent stuff and, uh, just gotta say it's like
every every other day I'm seeinggreat stuff that your team is
doing over there.
So whatever you're doing isworking.
You guys are publishing someamazing websites.
I see pretty much every otherday it seems like and I know we
have a lot of, you know, similarclients, similar clientele.
(42:06):
So definitely, if you need helpin that realm, definitely check
out Micah's search.
Click grow With that.
I really appreciate your time,micah, and with with the
audience.
We will see you next week.
Thanks so much.
Bye, guys.
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