October 15, 2025 • 45 mins
Struggling to scale beyond $2M and stuck as the bottleneck in your own painting business? In this game-changing episode of the Profitable Painter Podcast, we sit down with Michael Cheney, who grew No Drip Painting from a side hustle into a projected $4M empire in Columbus, Ohio.
He reveals the exact leadership and hiring shifts that unlocked explosive growth, and how he’s building a self-managing company that runs without him.
You’ll learn how to:
- Hire Leaders, Not Doers: Why Michael hired a Director of Sales and Director of Production, and how it freed him to focus on vision, not daily tasks.
- Structure Sales for Scale: The 6% commission + 50% GP threshold that keeps his sales team aligned with profitability.
- Double Your PM Capacity: How adding a Coordinator and Crew Leader role enabled his PMs to manage nearly $2M each.
- Lead Leaders, Not Just Employees: The mindset shift required to attract talent better than you, and why it’s essential for breaking the 7-figure ceiling.
- Build a Marketing Machine: How Michael is structuring KPIs and reporting to fuel predictable growth.
- Create a Business That Gives Back: How his “Paint It Forward” program is scaling alongside revenue, with a goal of 50 projects per year.
If you’re ready to stop doing everything yourself and start building a business that truly scales, this episode is your roadmap.
Hit SUBSCRIBE for more weekly strategies on mastering your numbers, boosting profits, and building a business that works for you!
For being a loyal listener, I want to send you a copy of my new book Profitable Painter. Inside, I’ll show you the exact frameworks that have helped painting businesses save big on taxes, increase profits, and scale with confidence
Head over to profitablepaintercpa.com/book and grab your copy today. Don’t wait — this is my gift to you for being part of the Profitable Painter community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
To the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running, and stealing
a professional painter business.
We've got to cover it.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
Always strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information.
(00:21):
Nothing easier on this podcastshould be considered as
financial advice specificallyfor you or your business.
We give it your generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the clear advice yougive from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend seekingindividualized advice before
making any significant financialdecisions.
(00:42):
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 tomastering the numbers that drive
success.
So let's dive in and make yourbusiness more profitable one
episode at a time.
Today I'm super excited to haveMichael Cheney on the podcast.
(01:02):
Welcome to the podcast, Michael.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Hey Daniel, thanks for having me.
This is gonna be fun.
We got to talk about financesthough.
That that makes me nervoussometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
No, I I know you're killing it.
I I I doubt that, but uh we'llsee.
No, but uh no, I'm super excitedto have you on because a lot of
people are already familiar withyou in because you're pretty
visible in the industry.
You have a great paintingpainting business out of Ohio.
So I'm excited to dive intothings today.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:33):
Let's do it.
So just just in case someonehasn't aren't isn't familiar
with you, could you give folkslike what how did you get
started in the painting industryand what's been your journey
along the way?
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
Yeah, for sure.
So, like most, I didn't choosepainting.
I think it somehow chose me.
Um, it's not a family business.
I I chose this, but I like tosay that my mom got me into
painting.
And and the reason I say that isbecause I grew up with a single
mom and we took good care of ourhouse, even though we didn't
have much at times.
So we were always painting andputting up wallpaper.
(02:05):
So I I started painting at ayoung age, and then as I got
older and I started learningabout finances, I was like, you
know what?
I need a I need a second streamof income.
I was in a completely differentindustry.
I was actually a personalfinance blogger, so I did write
about finances all the time.
Um, but I was like, I need a Ineed a second stream of income.
(02:25):
And I kind of reverted back tothis painting I did as a child.
And and so I chose painting askind of a side hustle.
And one thing led to another.
I found out quickly that Ireally didn't know how to paint,
um, you know, in in scale, youknow, the way that you need to
paint when you're really workingfor someone.
But I started with a brush in myhand, I learned how to paint, I
(02:45):
learned how to spray, I did allthe things, all the staining,
all the clear coats.
Um, I literally just startedthis thing from the ground up,
and um it's been a heck of ajourney.
And and I love it.
What I love about it now is thatum we're my business is at a
point where we've got somestability and some processes and
structure, right?
(03:05):
We're in the we're in thescaling arena at this point.
And um, I have an amazing team,and my my new second level at
all this is I'm now learning howto lead leaders.
And so that's a challenge forme.
Um, you know, obviously I've gotto be in tune with the finances
and all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, we're at a point nowwhere we're growing.
We do really cool things forpeople, you know.
(03:27):
We have a tagline and it'schanging lives through paint.
And we have an amazing paint itforward program that we really
invest in.
And we just do cool things forpeople, whether it's our team,
whether we're teaching themEnglish lessons.
Um, I have a Spanish teacher,and and the business helps
support me and my journey oflearning Spanish.
So we just do cool things underthe name of Paint.
And um, yeah, I love it.
(03:49):
I think I've I've found my mylittle place in this world, and
it has to do with the paintingindustry.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
Yeah.
That's an amazing story.
And just to give folks a kind ofperspective of where you're
where you're coming from, what'swhat's the revenue look like
over the years and like year oneto to now?
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
Yeah, gosh, year one, I mean, it was probably a
couple hundred thousand bucks.
I can't even say that I trackedthe way that I should have been
tracking.
Um, once I realized, you know,that this was going to be a
business, um, you know, Iremember when we first had a
million bucks and and it, youknow, I always heard that, you
know, millions like thismilestone.
(04:29):
Then I got there and I'm like,I'm I'm happy we did it, but
man, this was exhausting, right?
Um, I've run all over Columbus,Ohio, delivering ladders, paint,
all out of a Honda Civic.
Um, so it wasn't um thecelebration I thought, although
I'm like, okay, I've gotsomething here.
Um today I'll tell you we'regonna hit three, seven, five,
maybe four million this year.
(04:49):
We did two five last year.
And um, where we're kind of atin this business and where what
I'm shooting for is um we'rewe're going for the gold.
We're trying to be the premierpainting company in Columbus,
Ohio.
Um, we're not trying to show upto the tournament, we're trying
to win the the whole damn thing.
And so I'm creating a teamaround that.
(05:09):
Um, once I honed in on that'swhat I want to do, like we're
going for it.
Um, I've got I've got a team andI'm learning how to hire.
I'm learning how to put peoplein place because the truth of
the matter is that where we'regoing, I'm probably not gonna be
the one uh at the top of thisthing.
There's other things in life Iwant to do.
I know where my place is in thisbusiness.
(05:30):
And so my job now is to build ateam to get us to where we want
to go.
And part of where we want to gois we want to do 50 paint it
forward projects a year.
Right now we do about 20.
And so, you know, we need todouble triple this business to
support that.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Okay.
That's that's awesome.
So you year one, a couplehundred thousand dollars, now
you're up to four million, andyou're really sounds like you're
really focused on leadingleaders, as you said, uh,
building a team because youknow, at that level, it's you
need to have strong leadersbecause you're not anywhere near
the the uh the ground floor,like you're not interacting with
(06:06):
customers, I'm sure, like asmuch as you have in the
beginning when you're a millionor lower.
So so it's really about buildinga team.
Um and in and how long have youhad this business?
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
So I really I registered with the state of
Ohio in 2017.
So, you know, it's you know,eight years or so.
Um, and and the structure thatwe have today, I like to talk
about this because my goal, whatI say is I'm leading my way out
of the business.
Um, I'm really a visionary andand I have all these ideas with
the business, and I want to beable to really explore that and
(06:40):
lean into that.
So the structure that I have nowis I have um a director of
sales.
Um he uh he's a great guy.
You'll see him at the PCAevents.
His name's Dan Street, and he'scome in and he's really built
out our sales process.
He he runs our sales team, andthen I have director of
production who's Katie.
She started kind of in at the PMlevel and has moved up over the
(07:00):
last couple of years.
So I've got sales and productioncovered.
Uh, they're the experts, I'm notthe experts in those fields, and
I am sliding into the marketingrole.
Um, I'll also say I'm not amarketing expert, but what I'm
doing is I'm building out someof our reporting and structure.
It turns out that's kind of whatI'm good at is building out the
structure and things like that.
(07:20):
And then my next big hire, um,hopefully within the next six
months will be an in-housemarketing person that can kind
of get us to the next level.
And we'll probably still partnerwith an outside marketing
company like we do now, but butwe'll have a better footing on
what's going on.
Because as you know, marketingisn't just Facebook ads, you
know, we've got a street team,we've got a lot of things on the
(07:41):
ground here in Columbus that wedo.
Um, but that's kind of what'shappening.
And I like to mention thatbecause if I was just planning
on staying at this level, Imight not have all those
positions, you know, but becauseI know we're going to, you know,
another level that that we arejust not, we're not there yet.
I'm strategically putting thesepositions in place so that the
(08:03):
foundation is there.
Um, and then, you know, once Iget that marketing person in
place, now I'm at another levelin the business.
But that's kind of how we'redoing this.
And from a financialperspective, because I've really
thought this through, this yearis like an investment year for
us.
And I know that we're going totalk some numbers here, but um,
I'm willing to give up someprofit this year so that I can
(08:24):
get the Dan Street, the salesguru in place, that I can have
my director of production inplace.
I'm giving up profit now so thatwe can build the stability.
So then in a year or two, we'vegot a real solid system.
SPEAKER_01 (08:38):
Makes sense.
So the you have a director ofsales that you already have in
place, a director that'soverseeing production.
So for the the sales director,are they basically um like a
sales manager?
I guess what does that looklike?
Do they have like the all thesales report to them and they
kind of coach the salespeople,or what what is that role?
SPEAKER_00 (09:00):
That's exactly it.
And we just we chose our owntitles for certain reasons, but
um, so it's a sales manager, andso we've got um we've actually
got five estimators right now,and I or sales reps.
I I used to call themestimators, but we've
transitioned to sales reps, it'smore professional.
Um, but I'll tell you, we'veexperimented with something this
year that's been kind ofinteresting.
We have two sales reps that arefull commission.
(09:22):
Um, and so we are playing withthat and it's been working, it's
an interesting way to kind ofrun it.
You know, we want to attractkillers, we want to attract
people that want to get to thenext level.
But to your point, my salesmanager Dan, he runs the sales
team, he hires new sales reps,he's in charge of all the sales,
the training, um, and he holdsthem to their KPIs.
So he does things like um wehave a system where he needs to
(09:46):
um physically monitor, meaninggo out on sales calls with reps
so many times a month.
Um, he will pull them in and docall blitzes.
We have 7 a.m.
Monday mornings that he runs.
Um, so we've got some, we've gotsome structure in there.
And then, you know, the secondlayer to all of that, now that
we're so uh quickly approachingthe fourth quarter, in the
fourth quarter, we're gonnareview our entire sales process
(10:09):
because we know that there aresome things within that that we
need to elevate.
But yeah, to your point, he'srunning the show on sales.
I'm completely hands off.
And now my job is to coach him,coach and lead him, right?
I said I'm leading leaders.
Um, and now um, you know, hisjob is to report his numbers to
me and and they should behitting the KPIs.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
Yeah.
Okay, that's that's awesome.
So um, so I'm really interestedin the uh like the sales
manager, sales director rolebecause yeah, I know a lot of
folks have trouble filling thisrole where sometimes they'll try
to get their best salesperson inthat role, and it often doesn't
work.
Did you do you have any secretsauce on how to find a a sales
(10:52):
manager, a good one?
SPEAKER_00 (10:54):
Yeah, so I've made all those mistakes.
I've taken my best painter andmade them the crew leader, then
made them the PM.
I did all of it, and I know itdoesn't work, right?
So um part of my learning curveis getting better at hiring, and
I will say I'm still gettingbetter, but um when I hired Dan,
he was my biggest hire to date,okay?
And it was nerve-wracking.
I've I've I you know can'tbrought him on on a salary
(11:17):
higher than I've ever paid.
He has a nice commissionstructure, you know, all of
these things that were were newfor me.
So, you know, I was nervous.
Um, what I'll say is I'll tellyou how I found him.
So um I was on the board ofNeri.
Um, Neri is a remodelingorganization.
By the way, if you're not partof Nary, especially if you do
residential and you want to meetremodelers and stuff like that.
(11:39):
Neri is a great networkinggroup.
Um, but I was on the board ofNeri and so so was Dan.
And um I say I was on the boardbecause once I hired him, I had
to remove myself from the boardbecause they have restrictions
on how many people from eachcompany can be on the board.
But I met him throughnetworking.
He was um in sales leadership atPella, so a big, you know,
(12:00):
well-known company.
And I'll tell you what, um overthe years, I've connected with
him.
He kind of heard about ourmission and he was interested in
it.
And so when it was time for meto hire, and I do this all the
time, when I start to hire, Ireach out to my network first.
Um, you know, while I'mtightening up that job posting,
while I'm putting it on Indeedor Hire Bus, we use Hirebus now.
(12:23):
Um, but um I reached out to mynetwork and Dan was the one that
I reached out to.
I said, hey, listen, I'm hiringthe sales manager level.
Um, you know, it's new frontierfor us.
You're well connected.
If you know anyone, considersending them my way.
And he said, I know someone.
And he was talking abouthimself.
So we met and it worked out.
But the cool thing that I justlove is that um we're starting
(12:45):
to attract like some realtalent.
And, you know, Dan has 20 yearsof experience in the remodeling
industry in sales.
His book of business isunbelievable, right?
Part of our initiative forgrowth is to get new remodelers
in there.
And well, guess what?
He's already got that book ofbusiness built.
Um, so it's it's a really coolum like collaboration that I've
(13:08):
been able to develop with him.
Um, but I would say is that froma hiring standpoint now, I now
know like hiring is ongoing,right?
Even when we've got a supersolid sales team, Dan and I's
conversation is okay, who's onthe bench?
Where, you know, at some pointwe're gonna need someone.
So we are I'm really invested inbuilding this bench.
But you know, Dan, I would sayis a testament to my team
(13:31):
showing up at Nary meetings,being professional, speaking
about, you know, who we are,what we do, and and and you
know, it was a whole teameffort.
Um, but then when it was time toactually make that hire, I got
to connect with Dan and it's sofar it's been great.
He's you know, he's killing it.
And you know, I can't emphasizeenough how like my job really is
(13:52):
to find people to do the job waybetter than I can do it, right?
Like I I scratched and clawedand cried a lot to get us to
where we got to, which was twofive.
And now it's time to get peoplein there that really know what
they're doing.
So that's a long way to talkabout my hiring process, Daniel,
but um that's kind of wherewe're at.
We're able to kind of you knowstart to attract some some
(14:15):
talent, and it's really fun,exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (14:17):
Yeah.
No, that's that's awesome.
Uh I really appreciate yousharing.
And uh, I I it sounds like thethe sales director, sales
manager.
I mean, he's really a coach tothe salespeople, and he's
tracking those KPIs, making surethey're hitting their goals, you
know, refining the salesprocess, also helping uh
(14:38):
identify who who the next hiresuh will be.
Um and then and then it soundslike you're really focused on uh
building the team.
And it reminds me of yeah, bookby Walter Isaacson.
He wrote a uh Steve Jobs umbiography, and that that's what
(15:00):
like Steve Jobs was so focusedon was just not necessarily
running the business, but justhiring the right people to run
it for him.
And like that, that's what hethought his role was was really
to find the best people to workin Apple or whatever he was
Pixar or whatever he was workingon at the time.
And um, and so that's kind ofwhat I'm hearing you kind of say
(15:20):
you feel like your role is to tofind the best people to work in
no drip painting.
Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_00 (15:26):
Or I mean that is it, because I mean here's the
thing, like like I know I I'vewhat I what this business has
taught me is it's taught me whatmy skill sets are and what I
really like to do.
Okay.
And the older I get and the moreI move through this business,
you know what?
I want to do those things.
I want to do the things that Ireally like.
(15:47):
And I know that that's gonnarequire me to pull back because
you we've all heard this, but Ihave been the bottleneck.
I have been the one, you know,where things are getting stuck.
You know, I'm I I have chokedthe business out many times
being that bottleneck.
And so what I'm really exploringis the things I love, what I'm
(16:09):
good at, what contributions Ican give to this business.
And that also means I got torecognize what I'm not the best
at.
Look, I did sales for years,right?
I started this whole thing, Iwas great with our customers.
You know, look, I would have a55, 60% close rate.
I was good at it, but I can'tsustain that, nor, if truth be
told, I don't really want to bea sales rep.
(16:31):
I did it, I did a good job, Igot us to where we are.
Now let me get someone in therethat actually knows what they're
doing and is excited about it,right?
So, you know, if sales is yourjam and you're excited and
passionate about that position,man, let me get you in here
because that's not where mypassion lies.
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Uh, you know, I I feel like wehear a lot that the owner or I'm
the bottleneck in my business,or the owner's the bottleneck in
the business.
But it seems like you've reallytaken that to heart to basically
grow through hiring like uhreally great people that can
(17:10):
replace you at your level orhigher.
And and I think I feel like uh alot of people don't think of it
like that, like finding someonebetter than they are doing it.
They they they they think thatthey are the best at whatever it
is and that they'll just have tofind someone that's you know can
can get by in the the role.
Uh but I feel like you're yeahfind someone that's better than
(17:30):
me to to take my place.
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
Yeah, that's it.
Because we we're gonna do bigthings and I need I can't do it
all.
SPEAKER_01 (17:37):
Yeah.
So you you mentioned tryingbecause I I like to dive into
compensation plans.
Yeah.
unknown (17:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:45):
You mentioned trying to do a full commission for your
sales reps.
Uh so what have you tried forcompensation for salespeople?
What's worked, what hasn't.
SPEAKER_00 (17:54):
Yeah, so I'll tell you what we're doing now, and it
seems to be working, but we'veonly been doing this for about
six months, so I'm sure we'lltweak it.
Um it's we pay they pay get paidsix percent.
Okay, six percent commission,but there is a threshold in
place.
The project has to hit our GPgoal, okay?
So our gross profit goal perproject is 50%.
(18:16):
Now, as we grow, that willincrease.
We're actually trending around53% per project.
This is not um, you know, ourgross profit for the business,
but we're trending around 53%.
So there is that caveat inthere.
And I've heard other companiesand folks say they don't really
like that.
That's kind of our we have, Ifelt like we had to have a
(18:36):
threshold in there, especiallysince that's new.
I'd be interested to see whatyou thought about that, Daniel.
But we pay 6% on that.
I have some other um sales reps.
When I, truth be told, when Ibrought them in as sales reps, I
paid them too high of a salary.
I know that now it's a lessonlearned.
Eventually we'll kind of bephasing that out, but that's a
delicate piece.
(18:56):
We aren't just gonna come in andcut people's pay.
But my folks that are on salary,um, again, it's too high, but
they get paid 60,000 plus 2% onany job that hits the the 50%
gross profit.
My goal over the next year is toshrink that salary.
And the truth is if they go fullcommission, they'll they'll earn
(19:17):
more.
But you know, I've I've I'mstill figuring some things out
right now.
That six percent is working forus.
Um, I don't know.
Any thoughts?
You're you're the numbers guy,and and what do you think about
that setup?
SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
Yeah, no, I I like the six percent because uh with
payroll and and workers'compensation, that should be at
8% or or below for um what theyclose, because that's kind of
the number that I use is 8% ofwhat a salesperson uh closes.
And so that that seems right.
And then I just ask uh if theyhit 50% gross profit, but what
(19:51):
if they don't?
What is what does it go down?
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
So right now they don't they don't if they don't
hit the 50%, they don't get thebonus.
What we're trying to do iseliminate people just low
balling bids.
Like you got to follow oursystem and our pricing metric.
We don't like do discounts.
If someone says, oh, you're toohigh, we don't say, okay, I'm
(20:15):
gonna lower the price.
What we do is we train on how tohandle objections and how to
really show our value.
So um again, you know, we'rewe're kind of still exploring
this.
That's the setup we have, butour our approach at NodeRip is
like we win together and we losetogether.
So we try to create this strongbond between sales and
(20:35):
production, where it's like, iflet's just say we we've kind of
screwed up the pricing up front,um, our PMs aren't gonna get um
bonuses either if they can'tproduce that and hit the 50%
target, right?
So what it creates is this quickfeedback loop, right?
So if our PM gets a project andand we're going through this
(20:55):
project, we're like, you knowwhat, we missed a few things
here, we missed some additionalprep work.
I'm gonna give that feedback tomy sales rep immediately so they
can correct it right away.
So we we've, you know, ourenvironment and our culture is
let's support each other, we wintogether, we lose together, but
let's figure out how to win asmuch as we possibly can.
SPEAKER_01 (21:14):
Yeah.
No, I I like the the fact thatyou're you know um you're
holding them to that grossprofit uh 50% because uh that's
something that's missed a lotwith commission only is that
folks don't have that grossprofit uh target built in there.
So I like that.
(21:34):
And uh the other thing I'd askis for the current for the folks
that have been on there for awhile, like they they've got a
on the salary that was a littlebit too high, 60,000, and then
they get a 2% gross profit.
Um one thing that I've because alot of times when folks come to
work with us, they often havepackages that are set too high
(21:55):
for their team.
And we've we've tried differentthings.
One of the things that seems towork is that if you go to your
current team and say, um, hey,three months from now, or some
you know uh future date that'srelatively out there, you know,
three months or so, for threefrom three months from now, this
position is gonna be compensatedthis way moving forward.
(22:16):
And the reason why this is gonnagive you an opportunity to
actually make more money.
And so when you when you make itfar far enough in the future
where they can react to it andit's not like tomorrow or
something like that.
And it kind of especially forthe salesperson, most
salespeople will like the ideaof the opportunity to make more
money if they're the rightperson, especially in
(22:38):
residential retail.
And that kind of gives them timeto absorb it, understand it, and
then if they need to move out,you have time to react.
Um you know, because if theythey might stay on until that
that change happens three monthsfrom now or something like that.
Um that's kind of like that.
We've seen that works is kind ofgive a long lead time to like,
(22:58):
hey, this is gonna changeseveral months from now.
And then yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
That's good.
You know what else we did um iswe we ended up putting a
threshold in.
This is our first with withthose salary folks that are a
bit too high.
Our first threshold was umyou'll get bonus, but you have
your commission.
Technically, for them it'scommission.
You'll get commission on, butyou have to 80,000.
Your your base sale is 80,000 amonth.
(23:25):
You get commission on everythingabove that because we're paying
you 60,000 just to hit just tohit that threshold.
So it it actually evens out theplaying field with our
commission folks.
They're commission still makinga little bit more.
So commission sells 80,000,they're still gonna make a
little bit more than our folksthat have this 60,000 safety
net.
(23:45):
But the first step towards kindof controlling this was putting
a threshold in there.
And and it was received well.
And uh, but I think you'reright, I like the idea of
communicating ahead of time.
We're in at like this weirdposition right now because um
we've got our fourth quartercoming up where we plan to be
strong, but it's the first, it'sJanuary and February that tend
(24:06):
to be um, you know, some peoplecall it like the dark quarter,
like there's that that areabetween the fourth and the
first.
So um we want to make sure we'redoing right by the tank, but I
but I like your suggestionthere.
SPEAKER_01 (24:18):
Yeah.
Awesome.
So shifting gears into theproduction director, um, what
does that role look like and andwhat do they what are they doing
there?
SPEAKER_00 (24:31):
Yeah, so think of it as a production manager and the
PMs report to them.
Okay.
Now what this what this persondoes, what Katie does, is she
has a dashboard, our scorecardfor production, and her job is
to hit our KPIs.
So we have KPIs for revenueproduced, gross profit, number
of reviews.
We're big on collecting reviews,um, callbacks, we track
(24:53):
callbacks, we want callbacksless than 2%.
And then a missing one, we trackum oh, payments collected on
time.
So her job is to ensure thatthose KPIs are uh met.
And I'll tell you some likeunique things that we do, or I
wouldn't even say unique, butnow that I have that position,
in order to take care of ourcustomers and make sure that
(25:13):
we're providing great customerexperience, I kind of talked
about on the sales side whereDan will go out and monitor our
sales reps, right?
Well, Katie will her one of herjobs is each week she has to
call five customers for each PMand check in.
Hey, Mrs.
Smith, um, you know, our projectmanager started your project
today, and I just want to seehow the experience is so far.
(25:36):
You know, did they use thechecklist?
Did you know?
So we're doing a quick check-inwith our customers because if
there's any indication thatsomething's off, we want to fix
it quickly.
And that feedback also rollsinto coaching um our PMs, right?
Uh so the production manager,from my standpoint, their job is
to make sure we're hitting ourKPIs and that we're hitting our
(25:57):
gross profit.
And by the way, our gross profitis 50%, but 75% of our projects
have to hit that.
That is like the threshold forour business right now.
SPEAKER_01 (26:06):
75% of the projects have to hit 50% or higher.
Yeah.
That's yeah, that's awesome.
Um so basically they're managingthe the project managers, and
then they have those differentKPIs, revenues produced, gross
profit, callbacks, paymentscollected, and then they're
doing check-ins with thecustomers to make sure that the
uh project managers are doingwhat they're supposed to be
(26:28):
doing.
SPEAKER_00 (26:28):
Uh so they're doing that, they're doing all the
hiring, they're hiring oursubcontractors.
We also have employee painters,and over the years, our goal is
to have more employee paintersand less subcontractors.
And so um, you know, there'straining, we we also have a crew
leader position.
Uh, so it's the hiring is big.
And the truth is we've we've notdone a great job at hiring this
(26:50):
year, and and we're kind ofunderstanding and feeling what
it looks like when we kind ofreally don't follow our hiring
process and onboarding processto the full extent.
So we're refocusing on that.
But I'll tell you what we'vedone.
We've we've um, by the way, ifyou come to the Women in Paint
event, which all the ladies outthere need to come to, I will be
(27:12):
going over our productionprocess and we've got some
really cool things in there.
But what we've been able to dois we've been able to expand the
capacity of our PMs.
Okay.
So there was a time when Ithought if a PM can produce a
million bucks a year, uh,remember this is residential.
I was like, oh, that's great.
Well, I we've blown past that.
We've made some tweaks, we'veadded a coordinator position.
(27:32):
We've got our um our goal rightnow is we're pretty, we want to
produce 475,000 a month.
So we've got two PMs that areable to do that.
We have expanded their capacityby shifting some things around,
you know.
So I'm I expect my PMs, youknow, we should even a new PM,
we should be producing 1.5 up to2 million.
That that is kind of where wesee that our PMs can do.
(27:56):
Um, but I've got that productionmanager in place there to just
run production.
So imagine I was doing that atone point.
I was running production, I wasrunning sales, and now I've
taken myself out of it, putsomeone in there that really is
passionate about it.
And um, you know, Katie's gonna,you know, she her job is to
(28:17):
build build this system so thatwe can do 10, 15 million.
That's the goal.
SPEAKER_01 (28:21):
Yeah, no, that's that's great.
So you've expanded the thecapacity of the project manager
from one million and basicallydoubled it.
So they're potentially producingtwo million instead.
So is it is it uh are youshifting some duties to like
crew leaders or to the officeperson or something, somebody
like that to free up some ofthat capacity?
SPEAKER_00 (28:42):
It sounds like you know what you're talking about,
Daniel.
Um, that's exactly what we did.
So we implemented the crewleader.
So we remember we've gotemployee painters and subs.
The crew leader, when you havemore crew leaders, your PMs can
do less, really.
If you train your crew leadersright, they can start jobs, they
can give a great experience,they can close it out, they can
do all the quality checks.
So we've really invested in ourcrew leaders this year.
(29:05):
And then we implemented acoordinator role.
We did this about nine monthsago, and that coordinator role
takes all of, I'm gonna call theadmin stuff off the PM.
They're collecting colors,they're scheduling color
consultations, they're doing allof the scheduling, they're
scheduling the customer, they'rescheduling the team to paint,
right?
So they understand the skill setof all of the painters.
(29:27):
There, you know, there was atime when the PM was doing all
that, and the PM's making phonecalls, returning phone calls,
missing phone calls, right?
They're they were trying to dotoo much.
Um, it got as we grew, they justcouldn't keep up with it.
So now we've it's essentially anadmin position and they handle
all of that.
And that's really the big thingthat has allowed us to expand
(29:48):
the capacity of a PM, as well asjust some systems thing.
There's some tech stuff inthere, and then there's just
some processes that we have tofollow.
There's updates that you need togive, there's communication.
You know, the way we start,there's a system on how we start
a job and close it out, and andyou know, how we pre-position
the customer to give us a reviewat the end.
(30:09):
So we're getting, you know,pretty detailed in there.
And the goal is that all of thisruns like a well-oiled machine.
But that's exactly what we didwas we implemented the crew
leader position, reallytightened up them, and then that
coordinator position is reallylike it's it's essential if you
want to remove some of the adminstuff off your PMs.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we talked about the the thedirector of sales, the director
of production, and and nowyou're you're diving into the
marketing side of things, andyou're I I'm just structuring it
so that I'm assuming so you canhand it off at a at a later
point.
Um so I'm I'm assuming you'redoing like you mentioned
(30:51):
Facebook ads, you mentioned likea street team like doing
canvassing.
What what is what does that looklike?
What does that director ofmarketing role look like?
SPEAKER_00 (30:59):
Yeah, so here's my job now.
So in sales and in production,we've got some similarities,
right?
So we've of course got KPIs forsales, KPIs for production, and
our my my managers of those twodepartments have a scorecard,
okay?
Um, and then the folks belowthem have a dashboard, right?
So I'm taking that same systemthat we've been using in sales
(31:21):
and production, and now I'mbringing it to marketing.
So I'm in the process ofdeveloping our scorecard, right?
Which has our metrics.
How many leads do we need aweek?
How many of those leads, youknow, what's our our um our set
rate from lead to appointment,right?
I'm really restructuring the umthe the reporting piece of it
and making sure we've got oursolid KPIs in place.
(31:44):
Um, and so I'm working on that.
And then um I'm also reallytaking a deep dive into, you
know, we do a lot of reportingmanually right now.
So, you know, if if a Facebooklead comes in um and we get the
appointment, what's the closerate on Facebook leads versus
repeat customers, right?
(32:05):
So I'm really getting in thereand getting in-depth information
on our reporting so we canstrategically make decisions.
In addition to that, um, youknow, we do newsletters.
So under the marketing umbrellaincludes these newsletters, any
sort of graphics or copy that weneed.
Um, you know, if we want animage for our door hangers, what
is that gonna be?
Who does that?
(32:25):
Um, right now I I have anoutside party do that, but
eventually those type of thingswill be rolled in inside the
business.
Our street team right now, thisis the first year we've done it.
It actually is is reporting tothey're reporting to my sales
manager, my director of sales.
Um, it's that's kind of been thebest fit for it, but you know,
(32:45):
there there is a thought thatthey will probably end up
reporting to marketing at somepoint.
Um, we just haven't had thestructure to do it.
But my job now is to kind ofbuild out this marketing
platform so that we're really intune with our numbers and we can
make strategic decisions.
So for example, if we know we'regonna be slower in December,
okay, what are we gonna do aboutit?
We need to start figuring thatout now.
(33:06):
Um, do we have a specialcampaign for repeat customers?
Are we calling everyone from2025 that didn't that did not
accept a project?
That's the kind of stuff thatwe're doing.
Um, but the marketing, my me,the marketing team gets to kind
of create that plan and then wewe you know use our team members
(33:27):
to get that done.
Um and uh, you know, we'll have,I'll tell you like other things
we're doing.
We work with a lot of designers.
So in October, we're gonna hostlike this little designer event
that kind of falls undermarketing.
Marketing sales are gonna kindof partner on that.
We're gonna get some vendors tocome in and do some cool things.
So it's um it's kind of newfrontier for me.
(33:47):
I'm by no means an expert at it,but I I can create the structure
so that when I find thatmarketing expert, they come in
and they've got something towork with.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
No, that sounds awesome.
Uh in are there any otherdirectors that you've identified
that you'll need to because I'massuming the end the end state
or you're because you said youyou're you want to lead leaders
and maybe even eventually notexit, but maybe be like on the
board, I'm assuming, whereyou're advising and you you have
(34:20):
leaders that are leading thecompany, but you're kind of like
an advisor to to your to no trippainting.
SPEAKER_00 (34:24):
Is that kind of the potentially?
I mean, my next after we getmarketing in, we have to do
in-house finance.
We have to have a finance teamin in-house.
Um, you know, we have abookkeeper, um, CPA that I work
with, love the relationship, butat some point, I, you know,
we're we're getting big enoughto where we're gonna want to
bring that in-house.
I foresee that happening.
(34:45):
And then at some point, there'sprobably gonna need to be some
sort of HR thing that takesplace, you know, this kind of my
long-term thinking.
And then who knows what what'sgonna happen from there.
I mean, I can tell you that I'vegot a talented team, so I've got
people who will joke around andsay, okay, Baker's our um sales
coordinator, but he's reallygood at IT stuff.
So actually he's he also doesall of our IT stuff.
(35:07):
You know, as you grow, you findthese little gaps that you gotta
fill.
Um, and so yeah, I mean, I'mhoping in the next year or two,
you know, I've got um a salesmanager, a production manager, a
marketing manager, a financemanager, and that's me leading
leaders.
Now I've gotta learn how to, youknow, um hold them accountable
to the KPIs, but also still keepthem interested and have them
(35:30):
love this business and want todo amazing work.
SPEAKER_01 (35:33):
Yeah.
What I know you're you're toointo several more.
So uh what have you learnedabout leading leaders that maybe
you didn't realize beforehand?
And uh, you know, something thatyou could give to folks that are
maybe at the same level as youor trying to get there.
SPEAKER_00 (35:51):
Yeah.
Um, one thing is that when youhave leaders who are good at
their job, they want to knowmore about the business and the
health of the business, right?
They have a higher businessacumen than like others.
And so I really never had manypeople in the business that want
(36:12):
me to share financialinformation.
Now, I don't mean financial, noteverybody should be privy to all
financial information, right?
But when you've got leaders,they want to understand where
we're going in a year, twoyears, and they want they want
me to be able to lay that outfor them.
And it's it's really cool for mebecause um, you know, I'm sure
people can relate to this, butthere's been times in this
business.
(36:33):
Well, let me say this allentrepreneurs know it's a lonely
road, right?
We hear it all the time, andgeez, it is, it can be lonely.
And there's been times when Iwhen I have thought to myself,
like, man, I wish I had abusiness partner to like just
bounce this off of, like to justguide me.
Am I doing, is this the rightthing?
Like, you know, and and thenthere's other times that I'm
like, I'm really glad that I'mdoing this by myself, right?
(36:55):
It's good I don't have abusiness owner, another business
owner with me.
But as you get more developedteam members, I now feel the
support because if I havesomething tricky, I can actually
go to them, right?
They they are more forwardthinking, they don't have their
eyes down in the day-to-day.
They they have the ability tolift their eyes up and plan.
(37:16):
So that is stretching me becausenow it's forcing me to be able
to have those conversations.
Here's where we're gonna be insix months, here's where we're
gonna be in a year.
When all of that is, I've beenhaving this conversation with
myself, no one else has justreally tried to pull it out of
me.
And so for me, that's like fun,but it's also a learning curve
because now I need to make surethat I'm keeping them up to date
(37:38):
because I need them to stayengaged, I need them to really
understand um where we are andand what we're doing here.
SPEAKER_01 (37:45):
That makes a lot of sense.
So it's it's getting to be alittle sounds like it's getting
to be a little less lonely.
You have you actually have ateam that can uh empathize with
you and like help you plan andlike so that sounds sounds like
something good to look forwardto if you're maybe you're not at
that level yet.
SPEAKER_00 (38:00):
Uh yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01 (38:02):
But I think what it requires is what we talked about
in the beginning, is that youactually have to look for people
that are better than you at thewhatever thing that you're
looking for, which can be kindof a mindset shift for I know it
was for me, like you know, yeah,I I know, and before I was like,
oh, I'm best at this, I'm bestat that.
And uh so that kind of mentalitykind of prevented me from
(38:24):
getting people who are betterthan me, you know, uh into the
business.
So I think at least for me, itwas definitely a meant a mindset
shift to to actually no, there'sa actually a lot of people who
can do a lot of more uh a lot ofthings better than I can.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (38:40):
And so uh but once you kind of open up your mind to
that, then now obviously there'slike the having them you need to
have the margins, which you'vegot you apparently do with the
50% plus gross profit margins,you know, hitting 53% on
average.
So that has to come first,obviously, to have the margins
to support hiring key peoplebecause they're gonna want more
(39:03):
money, which from my and youmight be able to uh see this,
but uh from my experience thethe the more expensive folks
like the people that are moreexpensive that are like really
uh A players, um they're moreexpensive, but they the return
on investment is way more aswell.
(39:24):
Like it's just uh they by anorder of magnitude.
Um so you might spend a littlebit more, but you get a lot more
back.
Is that been your experience?
SPEAKER_00 (39:34):
Yeah, it's true.
And remember, I'm just kind ofgetting there with this, but you
know, it's it's scary to to makethe commitment to a higher
salary and a higher bonus umoption.
But you know, I I I stillalways, and maybe this is why
(39:55):
I'm the business owner, but I'lltake the risk, right?
Because I really, really believein what we're doing.
And um when my team reallybelieves it, and these folks
that I'm interviewing or youknow, I end up hiring, they
believe it, right?
And so you're absolutely right,like what you get back is worth
it.
It it it requires the risk, itrequires you to get
(40:16):
uncomfortable with with thesalary to get to the next level.
Now, I will also say if itdoesn't work out, you got to be
prepared to switch directionsquickly.
Like, like you've got to be onthe ball, you've gotta have
metrics, you've got to be ableto hold people accountable.
If it's not working, let it notwork and and and get out of that
situation.
I haven't had to do that at thislevel yet, but I have had to do
(40:39):
it at other levels.
So um, you know, yes, it's takenthe structure.
I've had to have the structure,I've had to have the KPIs and
the goals.
I mean, you know, some of thesethings, um, I will say, you
know, there are some thingswhere we're still building the
plane while we're flying it,right?
We're we're putting the planetogether, but I've had to have
enough structure for someone tocome in and sink their teeth
into.
(40:59):
Um, the other thing is when youhire people who are super
capable, the onboarding processisn't as strenuous as is people
that don't have the skill setbecause in some way they onboard
themselves.
Now you got to have thedirection right now.
I'm the leader of a leader, soI've got to be on point.
But like they know what they'redoing.
(41:21):
I don't need to tell a salesexpert how to build a sales
team.
I don't need to even really tellthem how to build a sales
process.
Now I might need to tweak somethings because maybe they're not
from the painting industry, butlike they've already done it.
And so they're actually gettingto teach me, right?
Um, and so it's it's this nicecollaboration because I've got
(41:41):
these ideas and I can say,here's what I want to do.
And they're like, okay, I knowhow to do that.
Um, so it's really cool and it'sa completely different
experience.
SPEAKER_01 (41:49):
Yes, that's a good point.
Like, and this really goes forany hire.
If if the if the new hire, fromwhat I've seen, like if they're
not making your job easierwithin the first, I don't know,
couple weeks or maybe a month,depending on the position, then
they might not be the rightperson because it when you hire
uh because there is some likeonboarding and stuff that
(42:11):
happens, they gotta get context,they gotta get on the system or
whatever.
But like a real like an Aplayer, like they should be
making your job easier veryquickly.
And if they're not, then youprobably need to do something
sooner rather than later.
SPEAKER_00 (42:26):
So I totally agree with you, fully agree.
SPEAKER_01 (42:28):
Yeah, cool.
Well, uh Michael, you've beensuper, super uh gracious with
your time.
And I we've we've covered somuch.
I feel like I talked to you forlike another four hours and not
get to everything.
Um, but I do want to beconscientious of the time.
Uh do you have any asks of theaudience or any last thoughts
(42:49):
that you'd like to throw outthere um before we let you go
today?
SPEAKER_00 (42:54):
Well, I thought you were gonna like really press me
on numbers and stuff, so I wasalready.
Um no, you know what?
I what I'll say is that um Istill believe there's just so
much opportunity in this in thisindustry.
Obviously, you see it, it's whyyou work with painters.
Um, and there really is, and andit's hard, it's it's it's hard
work.
(43:14):
Um, but you know, I think it'sit's possible.
You know, I really believe thatwe're gonna accomplish amazing
things, and we already have, andwe're gonna do many more amazing
things, and there's lots ofopportunities for women in this
industry, and so I'll I'll justleave you with that.
There's so much opportunity, andif you can figure out your
systems and processes, and andand you know, I'll say like you
(43:36):
gotta have systems andprocesses, right?
Um, you've got to startdeveloping the foundation to get
to the next level, but man, youknow, so much, so much uh
opportunity, and and we've gotso many young folks coming into
this industry that that arehungry and it's just elevating
the industry for all of us.
So it's super exciting, andyeah, I love what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01 (43:57):
Thank you so much, Michael.
And if you'd like to hearMichael go into her production
process, you can go to the Womenin Paint uh PCA event that's
coming up here in is thatNovember?
SPEAKER_00 (44:08):
That one's gonna be end of October 28th through the
30th in Nashville.
And I know you're gonna bethere, Daniel, because you're a
big supporter of women in paint.
Um, it's gonna be awesome.
And look, if you're eventhinking about it, um, just pull
the trigger, take the bet onyourself.
I know you know there's expenseto it, but you're not gonna
believe the connections youmake.
And um hop on the Women of PaintFacebook page if you want a nice
(44:31):
supportive environment to askquestions.
Uh so yeah, I hope to seeeveryone at Women in Paint.
SPEAKER_01 (44:36):
All right, and with that, we will see you next week.
To the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running, and stealing
a professional painter business.
We've got to cover it.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
Always strive to provideaccurate and up-to-date
financial and tax information.
(00:21):
Nothing easier on this podcastshould be considered as
financial advice specificallyfor you or your business.
We give it your generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the clear advice yougive from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend seekingindividualized advice before
making any significant financialdecisions.
(00:42):
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 tomastering the numbers that drive
success.
So let's dive in and make yourbusiness more profitable one
episode at a time.
Today I'm super excited to haveMichael Cheney on the podcast.
(01:02):
Welcome to the podcast, Michael.
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
Hey Daniel, thanks for having me.
This is gonna be fun.
We got to talk about financesthough.
That that makes me nervoussometimes.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
No, I I know you're killing it.
I I I doubt that, but uh we'llsee.
No, but uh no, I'm super excitedto have you on because a lot of
people are already familiar withyou in because you're pretty
visible in the industry.
You have a great paintingpainting business out of Ohio.
So I'm excited to dive intothings today.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:33):
Let's do it.
So just just in case someonehasn't aren't isn't familiar
with you, could you give folkslike what how did you get
started in the painting industryand what's been your journey
along the way?
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
Yeah, for sure.
So, like most, I didn't choosepainting.
I think it somehow chose me.
Um, it's not a family business.
I I chose this, but I like tosay that my mom got me into
painting.
And and the reason I say that isbecause I grew up with a single
mom and we took good care of ourhouse, even though we didn't
have much at times.
So we were always painting andputting up wallpaper.
(02:05):
So I I started painting at ayoung age, and then as I got
older and I started learningabout finances, I was like, you
know what?
I need a I need a second streamof income.
I was in a completely differentindustry.
I was actually a personalfinance blogger, so I did write
about finances all the time.
Um, but I was like, I need a Ineed a second stream of income.
(02:25):
And I kind of reverted back tothis painting I did as a child.
And and so I chose painting askind of a side hustle.
And one thing led to another.
I found out quickly that Ireally didn't know how to paint,
um, you know, in in scale, youknow, the way that you need to
paint when you're really workingfor someone.
But I started with a brush in myhand, I learned how to paint, I
(02:45):
learned how to spray, I did allthe things, all the staining,
all the clear coats.
Um, I literally just startedthis thing from the ground up,
and um it's been a heck of ajourney.
And and I love it.
What I love about it now is thatum we're my business is at a
point where we've got somestability and some processes and
structure, right?
(03:05):
We're in the we're in thescaling arena at this point.
And um, I have an amazing team,and my my new second level at
all this is I'm now learning howto lead leaders.
And so that's a challenge forme.
Um, you know, obviously I've gotto be in tune with the finances
and all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, we're at a point nowwhere we're growing.
We do really cool things forpeople, you know.
(03:27):
We have a tagline and it'schanging lives through paint.
And we have an amazing paint itforward program that we really
invest in.
And we just do cool things forpeople, whether it's our team,
whether we're teaching themEnglish lessons.
Um, I have a Spanish teacher,and and the business helps
support me and my journey oflearning Spanish.
So we just do cool things underthe name of Paint.
And um, yeah, I love it.
(03:49):
I think I've I've found my mylittle place in this world, and
it has to do with the paintingindustry.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
Yeah.
That's an amazing story.
And just to give folks a kind ofperspective of where you're
where you're coming from, what'swhat's the revenue look like
over the years and like year oneto to now?
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
Yeah, gosh, year one, I mean, it was probably a
couple hundred thousand bucks.
I can't even say that I trackedthe way that I should have been
tracking.
Um, once I realized, you know,that this was going to be a
business, um, you know, Iremember when we first had a
million bucks and and it, youknow, I always heard that, you
know, millions like thismilestone.
(04:29):
Then I got there and I'm like,I'm I'm happy we did it, but
man, this was exhausting, right?
Um, I've run all over Columbus,Ohio, delivering ladders, paint,
all out of a Honda Civic.
Um, so it wasn't um thecelebration I thought, although
I'm like, okay, I've gotsomething here.
Um today I'll tell you we'regonna hit three, seven, five,
maybe four million this year.
(04:49):
We did two five last year.
And um, where we're kind of atin this business and where what
I'm shooting for is um we'rewe're going for the gold.
We're trying to be the premierpainting company in Columbus,
Ohio.
Um, we're not trying to show upto the tournament, we're trying
to win the the whole damn thing.
And so I'm creating a teamaround that.
(05:09):
Um, once I honed in on that'swhat I want to do, like we're
going for it.
Um, I've got I've got a team andI'm learning how to hire.
I'm learning how to put peoplein place because the truth of
the matter is that where we'regoing, I'm probably not gonna be
the one uh at the top of thisthing.
There's other things in life Iwant to do.
I know where my place is in thisbusiness.
(05:30):
And so my job now is to build ateam to get us to where we want
to go.
And part of where we want to gois we want to do 50 paint it
forward projects a year.
Right now we do about 20.
And so, you know, we need todouble triple this business to
support that.
SPEAKER_01 (05:44):
Okay.
That's that's awesome.
So you year one, a couplehundred thousand dollars, now
you're up to four million, andyou're really sounds like you're
really focused on leadingleaders, as you said, uh,
building a team because youknow, at that level, it's you
need to have strong leadersbecause you're not anywhere near
the the uh the ground floor,like you're not interacting with
(06:06):
customers, I'm sure, like asmuch as you have in the
beginning when you're a millionor lower.
So so it's really about buildinga team.
Um and in and how long have youhad this business?
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
So I really I registered with the state of
Ohio in 2017.
So, you know, it's you know,eight years or so.
Um, and and the structure thatwe have today, I like to talk
about this because my goal, whatI say is I'm leading my way out
of the business.
Um, I'm really a visionary andand I have all these ideas with
the business, and I want to beable to really explore that and
(06:40):
lean into that.
So the structure that I have nowis I have um a director of
sales.
Um he uh he's a great guy.
You'll see him at the PCAevents.
His name's Dan Street, and he'scome in and he's really built
out our sales process.
He he runs our sales team, andthen I have director of
production who's Katie.
She started kind of in at the PMlevel and has moved up over the
(07:00):
last couple of years.
So I've got sales and productioncovered.
Uh, they're the experts, I'm notthe experts in those fields, and
I am sliding into the marketingrole.
Um, I'll also say I'm not amarketing expert, but what I'm
doing is I'm building out someof our reporting and structure.
It turns out that's kind of whatI'm good at is building out the
structure and things like that.
(07:20):
And then my next big hire, um,hopefully within the next six
months will be an in-housemarketing person that can kind
of get us to the next level.
And we'll probably still partnerwith an outside marketing
company like we do now, but butwe'll have a better footing on
what's going on.
Because as you know, marketingisn't just Facebook ads, you
know, we've got a street team,we've got a lot of things on the
(07:41):
ground here in Columbus that wedo.
Um, but that's kind of what'shappening.
And I like to mention thatbecause if I was just planning
on staying at this level, Imight not have all those
positions, you know, but becauseI know we're going to, you know,
another level that that we arejust not, we're not there yet.
I'm strategically putting thesepositions in place so that the
(08:03):
foundation is there.
Um, and then, you know, once Iget that marketing person in
place, now I'm at another levelin the business.
But that's kind of how we'redoing this.
And from a financialperspective, because I've really
thought this through, this yearis like an investment year for
us.
And I know that we're going totalk some numbers here, but um,
I'm willing to give up someprofit this year so that I can
(08:24):
get the Dan Street, the salesguru in place, that I can have
my director of production inplace.
I'm giving up profit now so thatwe can build the stability.
So then in a year or two, we'vegot a real solid system.
SPEAKER_01 (08:38):
Makes sense.
So the you have a director ofsales that you already have in
place, a director that'soverseeing production.
So for the the sales director,are they basically um like a
sales manager?
I guess what does that looklike?
Do they have like the all thesales report to them and they
kind of coach the salespeople,or what what is that role?
SPEAKER_00 (09:00):
That's exactly it.
And we just we chose our owntitles for certain reasons, but
um, so it's a sales manager, andso we've got um we've actually
got five estimators right now,and I or sales reps.
I I used to call themestimators, but we've
transitioned to sales reps, it'smore professional.
Um, but I'll tell you, we'veexperimented with something this
year that's been kind ofinteresting.
We have two sales reps that arefull commission.
(09:22):
Um, and so we are playing withthat and it's been working, it's
an interesting way to kind ofrun it.
You know, we want to attractkillers, we want to attract
people that want to get to thenext level.
But to your point, my salesmanager Dan, he runs the sales
team, he hires new sales reps,he's in charge of all the sales,
the training, um, and he holdsthem to their KPIs.
So he does things like um wehave a system where he needs to
(09:46):
um physically monitor, meaninggo out on sales calls with reps
so many times a month.
Um, he will pull them in and docall blitzes.
We have 7 a.m.
Monday mornings that he runs.
Um, so we've got some, we've gotsome structure in there.
And then, you know, the secondlayer to all of that, now that
we're so uh quickly approachingthe fourth quarter, in the
fourth quarter, we're gonnareview our entire sales process
(10:09):
because we know that there aresome things within that that we
need to elevate.
But yeah, to your point, he'srunning the show on sales.
I'm completely hands off.
And now my job is to coach him,coach and lead him, right?
I said I'm leading leaders.
Um, and now um, you know, hisjob is to report his numbers to
me and and they should behitting the KPIs.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
Yeah.
Okay, that's that's awesome.
So um, so I'm really interestedin the uh like the sales
manager, sales director rolebecause yeah, I know a lot of
folks have trouble filling thisrole where sometimes they'll try
to get their best salesperson inthat role, and it often doesn't
work.
Did you do you have any secretsauce on how to find a a sales
(10:52):
manager, a good one?
SPEAKER_00 (10:54):
Yeah, so I've made all those mistakes.
I've taken my best painter andmade them the crew leader, then
made them the PM.
I did all of it, and I know itdoesn't work, right?
So um part of my learning curveis getting better at hiring, and
I will say I'm still gettingbetter, but um when I hired Dan,
he was my biggest hire to date,okay?
And it was nerve-wracking.
I've I've I you know can'tbrought him on on a salary
(11:17):
higher than I've ever paid.
He has a nice commissionstructure, you know, all of
these things that were were newfor me.
So, you know, I was nervous.
Um, what I'll say is I'll tellyou how I found him.
So um I was on the board ofNeri.
Um, Neri is a remodelingorganization.
By the way, if you're not partof Nary, especially if you do
residential and you want to meetremodelers and stuff like that.
(11:39):
Neri is a great networkinggroup.
Um, but I was on the board ofNeri and so so was Dan.
And um I say I was on the boardbecause once I hired him, I had
to remove myself from the boardbecause they have restrictions
on how many people from eachcompany can be on the board.
But I met him throughnetworking.
He was um in sales leadership atPella, so a big, you know,
(12:00):
well-known company.
And I'll tell you what, um overthe years, I've connected with
him.
He kind of heard about ourmission and he was interested in
it.
And so when it was time for meto hire, and I do this all the
time, when I start to hire, Ireach out to my network first.
Um, you know, while I'mtightening up that job posting,
while I'm putting it on Indeedor Hire Bus, we use Hirebus now.
(12:23):
Um, but um I reached out to mynetwork and Dan was the one that
I reached out to.
I said, hey, listen, I'm hiringthe sales manager level.
Um, you know, it's new frontierfor us.
You're well connected.
If you know anyone, considersending them my way.
And he said, I know someone.
And he was talking abouthimself.
So we met and it worked out.
But the cool thing that I justlove is that um we're starting
(12:45):
to attract like some realtalent.
And, you know, Dan has 20 yearsof experience in the remodeling
industry in sales.
His book of business isunbelievable, right?
Part of our initiative forgrowth is to get new remodelers
in there.
And well, guess what?
He's already got that book ofbusiness built.
Um, so it's it's a really coolum like collaboration that I've
(13:08):
been able to develop with him.
Um, but I would say is that froma hiring standpoint now, I now
know like hiring is ongoing,right?
Even when we've got a supersolid sales team, Dan and I's
conversation is okay, who's onthe bench?
Where, you know, at some pointwe're gonna need someone.
So we are I'm really invested inbuilding this bench.
But you know, Dan, I would sayis a testament to my team
(13:31):
showing up at Nary meetings,being professional, speaking
about, you know, who we are,what we do, and and and you
know, it was a whole teameffort.
Um, but then when it was time toactually make that hire, I got
to connect with Dan and it's sofar it's been great.
He's you know, he's killing it.
And you know, I can't emphasizeenough how like my job really is
(13:52):
to find people to do the job waybetter than I can do it, right?
Like I I scratched and clawedand cried a lot to get us to
where we got to, which was twofive.
And now it's time to get peoplein there that really know what
they're doing.
So that's a long way to talkabout my hiring process, Daniel,
but um that's kind of wherewe're at.
We're able to kind of you knowstart to attract some some
(14:15):
talent, and it's really fun,exciting.
SPEAKER_01 (14:17):
Yeah.
No, that's that's awesome.
Uh I really appreciate yousharing.
And uh, I I it sounds like thethe sales director, sales
manager.
I mean, he's really a coach tothe salespeople, and he's
tracking those KPIs, making surethey're hitting their goals, you
know, refining the salesprocess, also helping uh
(14:38):
identify who who the next hiresuh will be.
Um and then and then it soundslike you're really focused on uh
building the team.
And it reminds me of yeah, bookby Walter Isaacson.
He wrote a uh Steve Jobs umbiography, and that that's what
(15:00):
like Steve Jobs was so focusedon was just not necessarily
running the business, but justhiring the right people to run
it for him.
And like that, that's what hethought his role was was really
to find the best people to workin Apple or whatever he was
Pixar or whatever he was workingon at the time.
And um, and so that's kind ofwhat I'm hearing you kind of say
(15:20):
you feel like your role is to tofind the best people to work in
no drip painting.
Is that accurate?
SPEAKER_00 (15:26):
Or I mean that is it, because I mean here's the
thing, like like I know I I'vewhat I what this business has
taught me is it's taught me whatmy skill sets are and what I
really like to do.
Okay.
And the older I get and the moreI move through this business,
you know what?
I want to do those things.
I want to do the things that Ireally like.
(15:47):
And I know that that's gonnarequire me to pull back because
you we've all heard this, but Ihave been the bottleneck.
I have been the one, you know,where things are getting stuck.
You know, I'm I I have chokedthe business out many times
being that bottleneck.
And so what I'm really exploringis the things I love, what I'm
(16:09):
good at, what contributions Ican give to this business.
And that also means I got torecognize what I'm not the best
at.
Look, I did sales for years,right?
I started this whole thing, Iwas great with our customers.
You know, look, I would have a55, 60% close rate.
I was good at it, but I can'tsustain that, nor, if truth be
told, I don't really want to bea sales rep.
(16:31):
I did it, I did a good job, Igot us to where we are.
Now let me get someone in therethat actually knows what they're
doing and is excited about it,right?
So, you know, if sales is yourjam and you're excited and
passionate about that position,man, let me get you in here
because that's not where mypassion lies.
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Uh, you know, I I feel like wehear a lot that the owner or I'm
the bottleneck in my business,or the owner's the bottleneck in
the business.
But it seems like you've reallytaken that to heart to basically
grow through hiring like uhreally great people that can
(17:10):
replace you at your level orhigher.
And and I think I feel like uh alot of people don't think of it
like that, like finding someonebetter than they are doing it.
They they they they think thatthey are the best at whatever it
is and that they'll just have tofind someone that's you know can
can get by in the the role.
Uh but I feel like you're yeahfind someone that's better than
(17:30):
me to to take my place.
SPEAKER_00 (17:32):
Yeah, that's it.
Because we we're gonna do bigthings and I need I can't do it
all.
SPEAKER_01 (17:37):
Yeah.
So you you mentioned tryingbecause I I like to dive into
compensation plans.
Yeah.
unknown (17:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (17:45):
You mentioned trying to do a full commission for your
sales reps.
Uh so what have you tried forcompensation for salespeople?
What's worked, what hasn't.
SPEAKER_00 (17:54):
Yeah, so I'll tell you what we're doing now, and it
seems to be working, but we'veonly been doing this for about
six months, so I'm sure we'lltweak it.
Um it's we pay they pay get paidsix percent.
Okay, six percent commission,but there is a threshold in
place.
The project has to hit our GPgoal, okay?
So our gross profit goal perproject is 50%.
(18:16):
Now, as we grow, that willincrease.
We're actually trending around53% per project.
This is not um, you know, ourgross profit for the business,
but we're trending around 53%.
So there is that caveat inthere.
And I've heard other companiesand folks say they don't really
like that.
That's kind of our we have, Ifelt like we had to have a
(18:36):
threshold in there, especiallysince that's new.
I'd be interested to see whatyou thought about that, Daniel.
But we pay 6% on that.
I have some other um sales reps.
When I, truth be told, when Ibrought them in as sales reps, I
paid them too high of a salary.
I know that now it's a lessonlearned.
Eventually we'll kind of bephasing that out, but that's a
delicate piece.
(18:56):
We aren't just gonna come in andcut people's pay.
But my folks that are on salary,um, again, it's too high, but
they get paid 60,000 plus 2% onany job that hits the the 50%
gross profit.
My goal over the next year is toshrink that salary.
And the truth is if they go fullcommission, they'll they'll earn
(19:17):
more.
But you know, I've I've I'mstill figuring some things out
right now.
That six percent is working forus.
Um, I don't know.
Any thoughts?
You're you're the numbers guy,and and what do you think about
that setup?
SPEAKER_01 (19:29):
Yeah, no, I I like the six percent because uh with
payroll and and workers'compensation, that should be at
8% or or below for um what theyclose, because that's kind of
the number that I use is 8% ofwhat a salesperson uh closes.
And so that that seems right.
And then I just ask uh if theyhit 50% gross profit, but what
(19:51):
if they don't?
What is what does it go down?
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
So right now they don't they don't if they don't
hit the 50%, they don't get thebonus.
What we're trying to do iseliminate people just low
balling bids.
Like you got to follow oursystem and our pricing metric.
We don't like do discounts.
If someone says, oh, you're toohigh, we don't say, okay, I'm
(20:15):
gonna lower the price.
What we do is we train on how tohandle objections and how to
really show our value.
So um again, you know, we'rewe're kind of still exploring
this.
That's the setup we have, butour our approach at NodeRip is
like we win together and we losetogether.
So we try to create this strongbond between sales and
(20:35):
production, where it's like, iflet's just say we we've kind of
screwed up the pricing up front,um, our PMs aren't gonna get um
bonuses either if they can'tproduce that and hit the 50%
target, right?
So what it creates is this quickfeedback loop, right?
So if our PM gets a project andand we're going through this
(20:55):
project, we're like, you knowwhat, we missed a few things
here, we missed some additionalprep work.
I'm gonna give that feedback tomy sales rep immediately so they
can correct it right away.
So we we've, you know, ourenvironment and our culture is
let's support each other, we wintogether, we lose together, but
let's figure out how to win asmuch as we possibly can.
SPEAKER_01 (21:14):
Yeah.
No, I I like the the fact thatyou're you know um you're
holding them to that grossprofit uh 50% because uh that's
something that's missed a lotwith commission only is that
folks don't have that grossprofit uh target built in there.
So I like that.
(21:34):
And uh the other thing I'd askis for the current for the folks
that have been on there for awhile, like they they've got a
on the salary that was a littlebit too high, 60,000, and then
they get a 2% gross profit.
Um one thing that I've because alot of times when folks come to
work with us, they often havepackages that are set too high
(21:55):
for their team.
And we've we've tried differentthings.
One of the things that seems towork is that if you go to your
current team and say, um, hey,three months from now, or some
you know uh future date that'srelatively out there, you know,
three months or so, for threefrom three months from now, this
position is gonna be compensatedthis way moving forward.
(22:16):
And the reason why this is gonnagive you an opportunity to
actually make more money.
And so when you when you make itfar far enough in the future
where they can react to it andit's not like tomorrow or
something like that.
And it kind of especially forthe salesperson, most
salespeople will like the ideaof the opportunity to make more
money if they're the rightperson, especially in
(22:38):
residential retail.
And that kind of gives them timeto absorb it, understand it, and
then if they need to move out,you have time to react.
Um you know, because if theythey might stay on until that
that change happens three monthsfrom now or something like that.
Um that's kind of like that.
We've seen that works is kind ofgive a long lead time to like,
(22:58):
hey, this is gonna changeseveral months from now.
And then yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
That's good.
You know what else we did um iswe we ended up putting a
threshold in.
This is our first with withthose salary folks that are a
bit too high.
Our first threshold was umyou'll get bonus, but you have
your commission.
Technically, for them it'scommission.
You'll get commission on, butyou have to 80,000.
Your your base sale is 80,000 amonth.
(23:25):
You get commission on everythingabove that because we're paying
you 60,000 just to hit just tohit that threshold.
So it it actually evens out theplaying field with our
commission folks.
They're commission still makinga little bit more.
So commission sells 80,000,they're still gonna make a
little bit more than our folksthat have this 60,000 safety
net.
(23:45):
But the first step towards kindof controlling this was putting
a threshold in there.
And and it was received well.
And uh, but I think you'reright, I like the idea of
communicating ahead of time.
We're in at like this weirdposition right now because um
we've got our fourth quartercoming up where we plan to be
strong, but it's the first, it'sJanuary and February that tend
(24:06):
to be um, you know, some peoplecall it like the dark quarter,
like there's that that areabetween the fourth and the
first.
So um we want to make sure we'redoing right by the tank, but I
but I like your suggestionthere.
SPEAKER_01 (24:18):
Yeah.
Awesome.
So shifting gears into theproduction director, um, what
does that role look like and andwhat do they what are they doing
there?
SPEAKER_00 (24:31):
Yeah, so think of it as a production manager and the
PMs report to them.
Okay.
Now what this what this persondoes, what Katie does, is she
has a dashboard, our scorecardfor production, and her job is
to hit our KPIs.
So we have KPIs for revenueproduced, gross profit, number
of reviews.
We're big on collecting reviews,um, callbacks, we track
(24:53):
callbacks, we want callbacksless than 2%.
And then a missing one, we trackum oh, payments collected on
time.
So her job is to ensure thatthose KPIs are uh met.
And I'll tell you some likeunique things that we do, or I
wouldn't even say unique, butnow that I have that position,
in order to take care of ourcustomers and make sure that
(25:13):
we're providing great customerexperience, I kind of talked
about on the sales side whereDan will go out and monitor our
sales reps, right?
Well, Katie will her one of herjobs is each week she has to
call five customers for each PMand check in.
Hey, Mrs.
Smith, um, you know, our projectmanager started your project
today, and I just want to seehow the experience is so far.
(25:36):
You know, did they use thechecklist?
Did you know?
So we're doing a quick check-inwith our customers because if
there's any indication thatsomething's off, we want to fix
it quickly.
And that feedback also rollsinto coaching um our PMs, right?
Uh so the production manager,from my standpoint, their job is
to make sure we're hitting ourKPIs and that we're hitting our
(25:57):
gross profit.
And by the way, our gross profitis 50%, but 75% of our projects
have to hit that.
That is like the threshold forour business right now.
SPEAKER_01 (26:06):
75% of the projects have to hit 50% or higher.
Yeah.
That's yeah, that's awesome.
Um so basically they're managingthe the project managers, and
then they have those differentKPIs, revenues produced, gross
profit, callbacks, paymentscollected, and then they're
doing check-ins with thecustomers to make sure that the
uh project managers are doingwhat they're supposed to be
(26:28):
doing.
SPEAKER_00 (26:28):
Uh so they're doing that, they're doing all the
hiring, they're hiring oursubcontractors.
We also have employee painters,and over the years, our goal is
to have more employee paintersand less subcontractors.
And so um, you know, there'straining, we we also have a crew
leader position.
Uh, so it's the hiring is big.
And the truth is we've we've notdone a great job at hiring this
(26:50):
year, and and we're kind ofunderstanding and feeling what
it looks like when we kind ofreally don't follow our hiring
process and onboarding processto the full extent.
So we're refocusing on that.
But I'll tell you what we'vedone.
We've we've um, by the way, ifyou come to the Women in Paint
event, which all the ladies outthere need to come to, I will be
(27:12):
going over our productionprocess and we've got some
really cool things in there.
But what we've been able to dois we've been able to expand the
capacity of our PMs.
Okay.
So there was a time when Ithought if a PM can produce a
million bucks a year, uh,remember this is residential.
I was like, oh, that's great.
Well, I we've blown past that.
We've made some tweaks, we'veadded a coordinator position.
(27:32):
We've got our um our goal rightnow is we're pretty, we want to
produce 475,000 a month.
So we've got two PMs that areable to do that.
We have expanded their capacityby shifting some things around,
you know.
So I'm I expect my PMs, youknow, we should even a new PM,
we should be producing 1.5 up to2 million.
That that is kind of where wesee that our PMs can do.
(27:56):
Um, but I've got that productionmanager in place there to just
run production.
So imagine I was doing that atone point.
I was running production, I wasrunning sales, and now I've
taken myself out of it, putsomeone in there that really is
passionate about it.
And um, you know, Katie's gonna,you know, she her job is to
(28:17):
build build this system so thatwe can do 10, 15 million.
That's the goal.
SPEAKER_01 (28:21):
Yeah, no, that's that's great.
So you've expanded the thecapacity of the project manager
from one million and basicallydoubled it.
So they're potentially producingtwo million instead.
So is it is it uh are youshifting some duties to like
crew leaders or to the officeperson or something, somebody
like that to free up some ofthat capacity?
SPEAKER_00 (28:42):
It sounds like you know what you're talking about,
Daniel.
Um, that's exactly what we did.
So we implemented the crewleader.
So we remember we've gotemployee painters and subs.
The crew leader, when you havemore crew leaders, your PMs can
do less, really.
If you train your crew leadersright, they can start jobs, they
can give a great experience,they can close it out, they can
do all the quality checks.
So we've really invested in ourcrew leaders this year.
(29:05):
And then we implemented acoordinator role.
We did this about nine monthsago, and that coordinator role
takes all of, I'm gonna call theadmin stuff off the PM.
They're collecting colors,they're scheduling color
consultations, they're doing allof the scheduling, they're
scheduling the customer, they'rescheduling the team to paint,
right?
So they understand the skill setof all of the painters.
(29:27):
There, you know, there was atime when the PM was doing all
that, and the PM's making phonecalls, returning phone calls,
missing phone calls, right?
They're they were trying to dotoo much.
Um, it got as we grew, they justcouldn't keep up with it.
So now we've it's essentially anadmin position and they handle
all of that.
And that's really the big thingthat has allowed us to expand
(29:48):
the capacity of a PM, as well asjust some systems thing.
There's some tech stuff inthere, and then there's just
some processes that we have tofollow.
There's updates that you need togive, there's communication.
You know, the way we start,there's a system on how we start
a job and close it out, and andyou know, how we pre-position
the customer to give us a reviewat the end.
(30:09):
So we're getting, you know,pretty detailed in there.
And the goal is that all of thisruns like a well-oiled machine.
But that's exactly what we didwas we implemented the crew
leader position, reallytightened up them, and then that
coordinator position is reallylike it's it's essential if you
want to remove some of the adminstuff off your PMs.
SPEAKER_01 (30:27):
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we talked about the the thedirector of sales, the director
of production, and and nowyou're you're diving into the
marketing side of things, andyou're I I'm just structuring it
so that I'm assuming so you canhand it off at a at a later
point.
Um so I'm I'm assuming you'redoing like you mentioned
(30:51):
Facebook ads, you mentioned likea street team like doing
canvassing.
What what is what does that looklike?
What does that director ofmarketing role look like?
SPEAKER_00 (30:59):
Yeah, so here's my job now.
So in sales and in production,we've got some similarities,
right?
So we've of course got KPIs forsales, KPIs for production, and
our my my managers of those twodepartments have a scorecard,
okay?
Um, and then the folks belowthem have a dashboard, right?
So I'm taking that same systemthat we've been using in sales
(31:21):
and production, and now I'mbringing it to marketing.
So I'm in the process ofdeveloping our scorecard, right?
Which has our metrics.
How many leads do we need aweek?
How many of those leads, youknow, what's our our um our set
rate from lead to appointment,right?
I'm really restructuring the umthe the reporting piece of it
and making sure we've got oursolid KPIs in place.
(31:44):
Um, and so I'm working on that.
And then um I'm also reallytaking a deep dive into, you
know, we do a lot of reportingmanually right now.
So, you know, if if a Facebooklead comes in um and we get the
appointment, what's the closerate on Facebook leads versus
repeat customers, right?
(32:05):
So I'm really getting in thereand getting in-depth information
on our reporting so we canstrategically make decisions.
In addition to that, um, youknow, we do newsletters.
So under the marketing umbrellaincludes these newsletters, any
sort of graphics or copy that weneed.
Um, you know, if we want animage for our door hangers, what
is that gonna be?
Who does that?
(32:25):
Um, right now I I have anoutside party do that, but
eventually those type of thingswill be rolled in inside the
business.
Our street team right now, thisis the first year we've done it.
It actually is is reporting tothey're reporting to my sales
manager, my director of sales.
Um, it's that's kind of been thebest fit for it, but you know,
(32:45):
there there is a thought thatthey will probably end up
reporting to marketing at somepoint.
Um, we just haven't had thestructure to do it.
But my job now is to kind ofbuild out this marketing
platform so that we're really intune with our numbers and we can
make strategic decisions.
So for example, if we know we'regonna be slower in December,
okay, what are we gonna do aboutit?
We need to start figuring thatout now.
(33:06):
Um, do we have a specialcampaign for repeat customers?
Are we calling everyone from2025 that didn't that did not
accept a project?
That's the kind of stuff thatwe're doing.
Um, but the marketing, my me,the marketing team gets to kind
of create that plan and then wewe you know use our team members
(33:27):
to get that done.
Um and uh, you know, we'll have,I'll tell you like other things
we're doing.
We work with a lot of designers.
So in October, we're gonna hostlike this little designer event
that kind of falls undermarketing.
Marketing sales are gonna kindof partner on that.
We're gonna get some vendors tocome in and do some cool things.
So it's um it's kind of newfrontier for me.
(33:47):
I'm by no means an expert at it,but I I can create the structure
so that when I find thatmarketing expert, they come in
and they've got something towork with.
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
No, that sounds awesome.
Uh in are there any otherdirectors that you've identified
that you'll need to because I'massuming the end the end state
or you're because you said youyou're you want to lead leaders
and maybe even eventually notexit, but maybe be like on the
board, I'm assuming, whereyou're advising and you you have
(34:20):
leaders that are leading thecompany, but you're kind of like
an advisor to to your to no trippainting.
SPEAKER_00 (34:24):
Is that kind of the potentially?
I mean, my next after we getmarketing in, we have to do
in-house finance.
We have to have a finance teamin in-house.
Um, you know, we have abookkeeper, um, CPA that I work
with, love the relationship, butat some point, I, you know,
we're we're getting big enoughto where we're gonna want to
bring that in-house.
I foresee that happening.
(34:45):
And then at some point, there'sprobably gonna need to be some
sort of HR thing that takesplace, you know, this kind of my
long-term thinking.
And then who knows what what'sgonna happen from there.
I mean, I can tell you that I'vegot a talented team, so I've got
people who will joke around andsay, okay, Baker's our um sales
coordinator, but he's reallygood at IT stuff.
So actually he's he also doesall of our IT stuff.
(35:07):
You know, as you grow, you findthese little gaps that you gotta
fill.
Um, and so yeah, I mean, I'mhoping in the next year or two,
you know, I've got um a salesmanager, a production manager, a
marketing manager, a financemanager, and that's me leading
leaders.
Now I've gotta learn how to, youknow, um hold them accountable
to the KPIs, but also still keepthem interested and have them
(35:30):
love this business and want todo amazing work.
SPEAKER_01 (35:33):
Yeah.
What I know you're you're toointo several more.
So uh what have you learnedabout leading leaders that maybe
you didn't realize beforehand?
And uh, you know, something thatyou could give to folks that are
maybe at the same level as youor trying to get there.
SPEAKER_00 (35:51):
Yeah.
Um, one thing is that when youhave leaders who are good at
their job, they want to knowmore about the business and the
health of the business, right?
They have a higher businessacumen than like others.
And so I really never had manypeople in the business that want
(36:12):
me to share financialinformation.
Now, I don't mean financial, noteverybody should be privy to all
financial information, right?
But when you've got leaders,they want to understand where
we're going in a year, twoyears, and they want they want
me to be able to lay that outfor them.
And it's it's really cool for mebecause um, you know, I'm sure
people can relate to this, butthere's been times in this
business.
(36:33):
Well, let me say this allentrepreneurs know it's a lonely
road, right?
We hear it all the time, andgeez, it is, it can be lonely.
And there's been times when Iwhen I have thought to myself,
like, man, I wish I had abusiness partner to like just
bounce this off of, like to justguide me.
Am I doing, is this the rightthing?
Like, you know, and and thenthere's other times that I'm
like, I'm really glad that I'mdoing this by myself, right?
(36:55):
It's good I don't have abusiness owner, another business
owner with me.
But as you get more developedteam members, I now feel the
support because if I havesomething tricky, I can actually
go to them, right?
They they are more forwardthinking, they don't have their
eyes down in the day-to-day.
They they have the ability tolift their eyes up and plan.
(37:16):
So that is stretching me becausenow it's forcing me to be able
to have those conversations.
Here's where we're gonna be insix months, here's where we're
gonna be in a year.
When all of that is, I've beenhaving this conversation with
myself, no one else has justreally tried to pull it out of
me.
And so for me, that's like fun,but it's also a learning curve
because now I need to make surethat I'm keeping them up to date
(37:38):
because I need them to stayengaged, I need them to really
understand um where we are andand what we're doing here.
SPEAKER_01 (37:45):
That makes a lot of sense.
So it's it's getting to be alittle sounds like it's getting
to be a little less lonely.
You have you actually have ateam that can uh empathize with
you and like help you plan andlike so that sounds sounds like
something good to look forwardto if you're maybe you're not at
that level yet.
SPEAKER_00 (38:00):
Uh yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01 (38:02):
But I think what it requires is what we talked about
in the beginning, is that youactually have to look for people
that are better than you at thewhatever thing that you're
looking for, which can be kindof a mindset shift for I know it
was for me, like you know, yeah,I I know, and before I was like,
oh, I'm best at this, I'm bestat that.
And uh so that kind of mentalitykind of prevented me from
(38:24):
getting people who are betterthan me, you know, uh into the
business.
So I think at least for me, itwas definitely a meant a mindset
shift to to actually no, there'sa actually a lot of people who
can do a lot of more uh a lot ofthings better than I can.
SPEAKER_00 (38:39):
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01 (38:40):
And so uh but once you kind of open up your mind to
that, then now obviously there'slike the having them you need to
have the margins, which you'vegot you apparently do with the
50% plus gross profit margins,you know, hitting 53% on
average.
So that has to come first,obviously, to have the margins
to support hiring key peoplebecause they're gonna want more
(39:03):
money, which from my and youmight be able to uh see this,
but uh from my experience thethe the more expensive folks
like the people that are moreexpensive that are like really
uh A players, um they're moreexpensive, but they the return
on investment is way more aswell.
(39:24):
Like it's just uh they by anorder of magnitude.
Um so you might spend a littlebit more, but you get a lot more
back.
Is that been your experience?
SPEAKER_00 (39:34):
Yeah, it's true.
And remember, I'm just kind ofgetting there with this, but you
know, it's it's scary to to makethe commitment to a higher
salary and a higher bonus umoption.
But you know, I I I stillalways, and maybe this is why
(39:55):
I'm the business owner, but I'lltake the risk, right?
Because I really, really believein what we're doing.
And um when my team reallybelieves it, and these folks
that I'm interviewing or youknow, I end up hiring, they
believe it, right?
And so you're absolutely right,like what you get back is worth
it.
It it it requires the risk, itrequires you to get
(40:16):
uncomfortable with with thesalary to get to the next level.
Now, I will also say if itdoesn't work out, you got to be
prepared to switch directionsquickly.
Like, like you've got to be onthe ball, you've gotta have
metrics, you've got to be ableto hold people accountable.
If it's not working, let it notwork and and and get out of that
situation.
I haven't had to do that at thislevel yet, but I have had to do
(40:39):
it at other levels.
So um, you know, yes, it's takenthe structure.
I've had to have the structure,I've had to have the KPIs and
the goals.
I mean, you know, some of thesethings, um, I will say, you
know, there are some thingswhere we're still building the
plane while we're flying it,right?
We're we're putting the planetogether, but I've had to have
enough structure for someone tocome in and sink their teeth
into.
(40:59):
Um, the other thing is when youhire people who are super
capable, the onboarding processisn't as strenuous as is people
that don't have the skill setbecause in some way they onboard
themselves.
Now you got to have thedirection right now.
I'm the leader of a leader, soI've got to be on point.
But like they know what they'redoing.
(41:21):
I don't need to tell a salesexpert how to build a sales
team.
I don't need to even really tellthem how to build a sales
process.
Now I might need to tweak somethings because maybe they're not
from the painting industry, butlike they've already done it.
And so they're actually gettingto teach me, right?
Um, and so it's it's this nicecollaboration because I've got
(41:41):
these ideas and I can say,here's what I want to do.
And they're like, okay, I knowhow to do that.
Um, so it's really cool and it'sa completely different
experience.
SPEAKER_01 (41:49):
Yes, that's a good point.
Like, and this really goes forany hire.
If if the if the new hire, fromwhat I've seen, like if they're
not making your job easierwithin the first, I don't know,
couple weeks or maybe a month,depending on the position, then
they might not be the rightperson because it when you hire
uh because there is some likeonboarding and stuff that
(42:11):
happens, they gotta get context,they gotta get on the system or
whatever.
But like a real like an Aplayer, like they should be
making your job easier veryquickly.
And if they're not, then youprobably need to do something
sooner rather than later.
SPEAKER_00 (42:26):
So I totally agree with you, fully agree.
SPEAKER_01 (42:28):
Yeah, cool.
Well, uh Michael, you've beensuper, super uh gracious with
your time.
And I we've we've covered somuch.
I feel like I talked to you forlike another four hours and not
get to everything.
Um, but I do want to beconscientious of the time.
Uh do you have any asks of theaudience or any last thoughts
(42:49):
that you'd like to throw outthere um before we let you go
today?
SPEAKER_00 (42:54):
Well, I thought you were gonna like really press me
on numbers and stuff, so I wasalready.
Um no, you know what?
I what I'll say is that um Istill believe there's just so
much opportunity in this in thisindustry.
Obviously, you see it, it's whyyou work with painters.
Um, and there really is, and andit's hard, it's it's it's hard
work.
(43:14):
Um, but you know, I think it'sit's possible.
You know, I really believe thatwe're gonna accomplish amazing
things, and we already have, andwe're gonna do many more amazing
things, and there's lots ofopportunities for women in this
industry, and so I'll I'll justleave you with that.
There's so much opportunity, andif you can figure out your
systems and processes, and andand you know, I'll say like you
(43:36):
gotta have systems andprocesses, right?
Um, you've got to startdeveloping the foundation to get
to the next level, but man, youknow, so much, so much uh
opportunity, and and we've gotso many young folks coming into
this industry that that arehungry and it's just elevating
the industry for all of us.
So it's super exciting, andyeah, I love what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01 (43:57):
Thank you so much, Michael.
And if you'd like to hearMichael go into her production
process, you can go to the Womenin Paint uh PCA event that's
coming up here in is thatNovember?
SPEAKER_00 (44:08):
That one's gonna be end of October 28th through the
30th in Nashville.
And I know you're gonna bethere, Daniel, because you're a
big supporter of women in paint.
Um, it's gonna be awesome.
And look, if you're eventhinking about it, um, just pull
the trigger, take the bet onyourself.
I know you know there's expenseto it, but you're not gonna
believe the connections youmake.
And um hop on the Women of PaintFacebook page if you want a nice
(44:31):
supportive environment to askquestions.
Uh so yeah, I hope to seeeveryone at Women in Paint.
SPEAKER_01 (44:36):
All right, and with that, we will see you next week.
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