November 28, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode of The Profitable Painter Podcast, Daniel sits down with Gabe Elias, founder of EVM Home Improvements, one of the fastest-growing painting and home improvement companies in Massachusetts.
Gabe went from a 19-year-old Student Painters rookie producing $200K in one summer to building a powerhouse business doing $4,000,000+ in only three years, plus acquiring a 7-figure construction company.
He shares the raw, unfiltered story of early struggles, insane learning experiences, building a strong personal brand, scaling with subcontractors, and using social media + recruiting to blow past industry norms.
If you want the blueprint for fast, aggressive, smart growth in the painting industry, this is it.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How Gabe produced $200K at age 19 without ever touching a paintbrush.
- The painful mistakes that shaped him — including nightmare jobs, difficult customers, and expensive lessons.
- How EVM exploded to $4M using branding, visibility, and constant recruiting.
- Why organic social media is still the most underrated growth tool in the industry.
- How Gabe builds a pipeline of painters on demand through culture and visibility.
- Why the home improvement division is harder to scale — and how he’s solving it.
- The mindset required to grow fast, stay organized, and avoid overpromising.
- How to decide when it’s time to hire a coach (and what to avoid).
This is one of the most motivating, practical, and high-energy episodes we’ve ever recorded.
Subscribe and learn how to scale a painting business the right way — one episode at a time.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast.
The mission of this podcast issimple to help you navigate the
financial and tax aspects ofstarting, running, and stealing
a professional painter business,from the breakfast and letters
to the spreadsheet and balanceswe've got to cover.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
(00:21):
Nothing easier on this podcastto be considered as financial
advice, specifically for you oryour business.
With you to shared generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decision.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast, the
show where painting contractorslearn how to boost profits, cut
taxes, and build a business thatworks for them.
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.
Super excited to talk with Gabefrom EVM Home Improvement.
(01:05):
Welcome to the podcast, Gabe.
Thank you, Daniel.
I appreciate it.
All right.
So just to give folks anunderstanding of where you're
coming from, could you let usknow, you know, how did you get
started in the painting industryand what have been some major
milestones along the way?
SPEAKER_02 (01:21):
Yeah.
So I started with an internshipcalled Student Painters, right?
There's a lot all around thecountry.
Student painters, college works,et cetera.
Mine was, you know, calledStudent Painters.
They recruited me, my sophomoreyear college.
I didn't think much of it.
I just, you know, I got a coldcall email, responded to it.
It said, like, you know, ouraverage intern makes uh$10,000
(01:45):
in the summer.
I thought, you know, hey, thatsounds really good.
Um, why not give it a shot?
And um the rest is history.
You know, I did my first year,it was my rookie year, um,
absolutely crushed it.
I broke some company salesrecords, um, produced my first
year about$200,000 in revenue ina three-month span in the
(02:05):
summer.
Um, had to, you know, recruit myown painters, recruit my own
marketers, do all that goodstuff, right?
Um, and mind you, I never tothis day, uh or since then never
touched a paintbrush in my life.
So um that was a very largelearning experience, learning
curve.
But I was able to really learndelegation and and really use,
(02:27):
you know, my network.
And I was really good aboutrecruiting and finding the right
people to help me, you know,make this happen.
So I did that, you know, plentyof podcast episodes of me during
that experience with the CEO ofthe company.
Uh, there was a couple ofnewspaper articles published.
You know, I'm a 19-year-old, youknow, in college, feeling like,
you know, on top of the world,right?
(02:48):
So that was my first year.
Second year was promoted to belike a regional executive
manager where I was able torecruit other college students
to, you know, bring on as rookiebranch managers and teach them
how to run their own paintingbranch.
And I was their mentor and theircoach.
Um, and so I recruited, youknow, six people, all personal
(03:11):
connections.
Um, in fact, I had about half ofthe training room in New England
was recruited by me that year.
So it was pretty cool.
I uh I think I was able to makea lot of noise with my success
and then was able to kind ofturn it into a culture thing and
get a lot of people bought in.
Um, a lot of them were myfriends, you know, were my
buddies that were able to seewhat I did that past summer.
(03:32):
Um, so did my two years there.
Um, it was great.
I loved it.
It made me realize like I'mobsessed with entrepreneurship,
um, made me realize this is whatI want to do for the rest of my
life, you know, work for myself,build something for myself, and
uh lead, right?
And um, after two years of doingstudent painters, that took me
(03:53):
to like my senior year of ofcollege.
And um, I decided to run up myown business.
At the time, though, it was kindof just like a side thing
because I was getting ready tograduate and kind of get into
the corporate world, get afull-time job, but I wanted
something on the side to do someextra cash.
So it was really just my mybuddy LJ and I, who is my
(04:15):
business partner now.
We were like, let's let's justkeep doing some painting jobs on
the side and just make some cashthat that summer.
Um, and we did that and and justnever stopped, you know, never
stopped since.
So that's how I kind of got intoit.
Now uh EDM is uh we're in yearthree of business, right?
I'm 25 years old.
Uh, we're in year three ofbusiness.
(04:37):
We should be doing you know, afew, a few million this year in
revenue should be uh around 2million in painting, um, and
another two million in the homeimprovement uh division as well.
So we have two separatedivisions.
And I recently uh just purchasedand acquired a uh uh
seven-figure constructionbusiness out of Boston,
Massachusetts as well, uh, whichis like general contracting.
(04:58):
Recently got my my CSL licenseas well, so did my business
partner, which is a huge uhstep, you know, to help us
scale.
And uh that's where I'm at nowtoday.
SPEAKER_01 (05:09):
That's amazing.
So yeah, I appreciate it.
Yeah, uh, I mean, just startingfrom the the top, doing 200k in
the in that summer as a19-year-old, that is uh a pretty
uh awesome accomplishment.
It might not sound like much tosomeone who doesn't know what
you have to go through becauseyou're going to school full-time
(05:30):
and you you're having tobasically start your business in
the spring-ish, and you'rehaving to learn all this along
with your full-time course load.
And then uh you're trying, I'massuming you get did cold
calling door-to-door.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
Uh oh yeah.
Yeah, door-to-door, you know,social media posting in groups.
Um, we were fortunate where wewe were given like lawn signs
and flyers, things of thatnature, you know, from from the
actual, you know, businessstudent painters itself.
But um, yeah, like you said, wehad to start while we're in
school and try to basically lineup jobs in the spring while
(06:10):
actively recruiting painters umand have everything set in stone
for the summer and produce allof that in the summer, you know.
Yeah, um, so yeah, no, it was agreat learning curve, but I fell
in love with the grind and andthe results and now I'm here.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
And and did you did you do the submodel or employee
model for the student painters?
SPEAKER_02 (06:32):
That was employee model.
Yeah.
So we had we were paying hourly,um, you know, lower rates,
because obviously, you know, wehave like 18 to 21-year-olds
painting.
Um, the customer knows that aswell.
They know obviously it's astudent thing, right?
They're gonna get more of abudget-friendly price.
The quality probably not gonnabe as professional as a as a
contractor that's been doingthis for 30 years.
(06:54):
But um, I think I was able toreally sell, you know, the
company and really have, youknow, make the customer kind of
fall in love with me and reallytrust me with with the story
that I was building.
You know, I think they uh theywere almost inspired by it and
also were like, wow, this kid'scrushing it and and I trust him
and let's give him a shot, youknow.
And then with that, I just Ijust ran with it.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Yeah, that's that's that's awesome.
I mean a lot of folks havetrouble doing 200k in their
first year, full year, fullydedicated.
So the fact that he did it overuh production over three months
is really uh is really good.
So thank you.
Um what I'm sure though, uhthere were some big challenges,
(07:42):
especially I I did the samething when I was 18, college
watch painting.
So I I know for me my personalexperience, uh it was there's
some big challenges that I hadto face.
It was like um, but I'd love tohear what what are some of the
like the big challenges that youfaced in that first summer in
(08:03):
the painting.
SPEAKER_02 (08:03):
Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah.
I think I mean organization wasa big thing because there's just
so much going on, right?
You got you got leads coming in,um, and then you're you're doing
estimates, and then you're doingmarketing, and then you have to
proactively recruit painters forthe near future.
So you got to kind of like timeeverything.
Um, and that was definitelystressful.
(08:25):
I mean, thankfully, I I had agreat mentor at the time uh who
helped me a lot.
But even then, I think theorganization thing was very
challenging for me.
Um, I was more of like uh, youknow, get things done when
needed type of guy, but thismade me really learn the hard
way where it's like you can youcan't just forget about a
customer, you know.
(08:45):
Um there was one, there's onestory I shared this.
I have another podcast episodewith the CEO of Student
Painters.
Um his name is um Steve Acorn,great guy.
And um, where I shared my wholerookie experience as well.
So if there's any younglisteners, you know, tuning in
to this episode and maybethey're inspired and they want
to try some sort of studentpainters or college painting
(09:08):
experience, they can kind oflisten to that episode as well,
which shares my wholeexperience.
But I remember, I remember therewas one time, you know, in that
that first summer where it wasactually crazy.
Um, we were at a job, definitelysome Karen's, right?
Definitely some crazy customers.
Uh, they seemed like the coolestpeople in the world when I when
I sold them, you know, and thena couple of months passed by
(09:31):
when it was time to actually dothe job.
It was an absolute nightmare.
Uh, this project was inSterling.
It was a very heavy prepexterior job, complete color
change from like yellow to blue,needed honestly like three
coats, you know.
And um, man, I the job wassupposed to take about a week
and it turned into like a monthand a half absolute nightmare.
(09:53):
Um, not only did I lose, youknow, a couple thousands of
dollars, but um the thecustomer, the husband, you know,
started becoming a littlehostile, which was pretty crazy.
And I'm like a you know, I'm a19-year-old dude.
So um started kind of gettingaggressive and talking back.
And I was trying to stand myground.
(10:14):
But long story short, my mentorhad to get involved.
I was, you know, banned from thejob site.
Um, and we had to get like aSharon Williams rep out there
and do a full like, you know,inspection of the job to try to
kind of explain, like, you know,Gabe did a good job.
But it got so bad to the pointwhere my painters were using
(10:35):
like art, art paint brushes likethis size to get in between
little tweaks and crevices thatyou could still see a little bit
of yellow because we weren'tallowed to spray um in in
student painter.
So looking back, I could haveprobably resolved this a lot
quicker by investing in asprayer, but we weren't trained
for it and we weren't supposedto do it.
(10:55):
So it was an absolute nightmare.
Uh remember this project, youknow, till this day.
Um, and then worst thing aboutit all was, you know, I sold the
job, collected the the deposit,but I forgot to get a signature
and didn't realize till till thethe problems arrived at the job.
Um, somehow forgot to get themto sign a contract, you know.
(11:18):
And again, this is 19-year-oldme.
So I think I learned everylesson in the book uh on that
project.
And um to this day, I think itstill haunts me a little bit,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yeah, no, I'm the same way.
I appreciate you sharing itbecause I know physically uh
like I just thinking back to myfirst summer doing college
works, like the things that Iwent through, I'm like, damn,
that's like it still bothers menow.
And that was literally I'm I'm39 now, and that when I was 18.
(11:49):
So uh decades later at thispoint, and it's still I'm like,
man, similar situation we had atexterior.
Um I can't remember if it's acolor change, but basically so
much was going on.
We had uh multiple jobs going onsimultaneously.
Um I lost a crew, I needed to,but I needed I had promised the
(12:12):
client that we were gonna starttheir project, so I'm gonna hire
someone quickly.
And so I did, but I did not vetproperly.
And so yeah, the the the theguys said that they had painting
experience.
Um you know, I was like, okay,great.
So I have a job to start today.
So I I got them started with thesupplies and like some guidance,
(12:33):
and then I had to go to adifferent job side to start
another project with anothercrew, and uh I came back like in
two hours later, and they wereit was like a a brick exterior
with you know um a little bit ofsiding, but they were leaning
their rollers on the brick, likewith paint on it, there's like
(12:56):
leaning it up against and likethere's paint all on the brick
everywhere.
So they were only on that jobsite for like two hours, but
they completely just ruined thethis person's house, and so I I
was just like spending hours,you know, with wire brushes
trying to get there.
(13:16):
It was just a nightmare.
SPEAKER_02 (13:18):
So but yeah, I have another, I have another funny
story.
This one's shorter, but I uh,you know, this job, I was like,
this is gonna go smooth, youknow, it was a perfect little
like rectangular, like two-storyhome, no peaks, no dormers,
nothing.
Um, the guy was super chill,sold him on the spot, overbid
him.
You know, I was like, all right,we're gonna crank this thing out
(13:39):
in like three days.
And the one thing I didn't do, Iperfected everything, the
walkthroughs, the setting theright expectation with my team,
got the signature, everything,right?
The one thing I didn't do wascolor test.
And that's because he knew theexact color he wanted and sent
me it.
And I was like, you know what?
The guy knows this is the colorhe wants, whatever.
(14:00):
I was busy that day, skipped thecolor test, had my production
manager at the time go pick upthe paint.
And around lunchtime, we paintedtwo sides of the house, and he
showed he gets there, and he wasnice and he almost he like
cracks a joke, but he goes, Whatthe hell?
You know, why does my house looklike Barney?
Um, because it was like a purplecolor when he wanted like a navy
(14:23):
color.
And I'm like, Oh my lord.
So we had to repaint those twosides and get the right color,
you know.
Um, and my painters are, youknow, in the corner laughing,
and I'm ready to kill all ofthem because they were all my
buddies too.
I'm like, you guys suck.
Yeah, you know, because of thethe Barney joke.
But yeah, oh man, there's uhthere's a lot, lots of mistakes
(14:46):
made, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (14:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:47):
Um, but it's uh it's how you learn, right?
You learn the hard way.
SPEAKER_01 (14:51):
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
It definitely speeds up thatprocess.
And you obviously learned a lotbecause you know, since then you
are now you have a two milliondollar painting business, a two
million dollar home improvementbusiness, and you said you just
acquired a a million dollar umwhat was it?
What type of business book?
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Uh uh like a general contracting business out of
Boston.
Yeah, remodeling.
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
All right, yeah, cool.
So um no, that's awesome.
So and and you just you've beenrunning the uh EVM painting
business for only three years,right?
And so you've already got it upto two million, but it's also
actually four million, becauseright, because it's just two
different divisions within thesame company.
(15:34):
Exactly, yeah.
Okay, so so you grew it fromfrom nothing to four million in
three years.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Yeah.
Yeah, which is pretty which iswhich is pretty crazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah, so that is huge growth.
Um so congratulations to youdoing something right.
You learned something fromstudent painters, it sounds like
thank you.
So what have been some of themajor challenges growing so
quickly over three years?
And I guess also just tocontext, was that growth pretty
much like pretty steady in thefirst those three years, like
(16:07):
million to two million, fourmillion?
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
I would I would say the first two years it was
steady.
It was like, you know, it was agood like uh double, you know,
100% growth.
But from year lat from last yearto this year, it's been insane.
It's been insane.
And you know, the year is stillnot over yet.
Um, you know, definitely a crazyamount of growth.
Um and yeah, 100% there's beenplenty of challenges.
(16:29):
I think I think the biggest onereally is like is not oh it's
kind of it's scheduling.
I think the biggest one isscheduling.
You know, obviously we're wehave our CRMs, we're very
organized, we overcommunicatewith our customers, but I think
a lot of times is like giving acustomer a rough, a rough time
(16:50):
frame of when we would be ableto do the job, right?
Like let's say I I go sell a jobright now, it's interior
painting, I let them know, hey,you know, we're booking out to
like uh February, March timeframe right now, and they're
okay with it.
I sell it on the spot, I collecta deposit signature,
everything's ready to go.
What ends up happening is it'seasy to get a little
(17:12):
unorganized, and you tell alittle bit too a few too many
customers that same time frame.
And when that time frame comes,right, you're like, oh snap, you
know, we definitely can't do allof these in these two in these
next two months.
Um so again, just anorganization standpoint, more
what's scheduling for me.
Um, we don't we don't have, youknow, so we don't deal with any
(17:35):
struggles with production, whichwe're we're thankful for.
We have very great crews, wehave a lot of guys on our team.
Um I would say it's morescheduling right now, if
anything, you know, scheduling,getting jobs done in the
timeframe that's promised, andalso just like not overpromising
customers' deadlines and alsolearning to say no, right?
(17:56):
Because a lot of jobs arelast-minute jobs that and
customers are so clueless, youknow, they're like, hey, you
know, they're like I have this$50,000 exterior paint job, but
I, you know, I need it startedand done, you know, in a week
and a half.
It's like, dude, no one's gonnabe able to help you.
And if someone's able to helpyou, it might be like a one-man
crew, two-man crew, you know,under the table crew, and
(18:19):
they're gonna just absolutelyscrew the job.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, they don't understandthat.
So um, a big thing is learn abig challenge for me is learning
to say no and and um, you know,just not overpromising specific
time frames for the customers.
That's what I would say rightnow.
Um and I would say that thecrazy, the exciting thing too is
(18:42):
like I would say a couple monthsago it was lead generation, but
we finally tapped into someFacebook ads.
You know, we're working with uhLucas Jensen and the Ford Media
team, and they've beenabsolutely crushing it.
Uh, we've been doing the ads forabout three, four months now.
And uh, I mean, just this monthour ROI was 7x, you know, what
we spent.
So it's it's uh it's I'mstarting to realize like, holy
(19:05):
crap, you know, we shouldprobably like imagine if I'm and
we're spending like a hundreddollars a day.
So I'm like, imagine if we spenda thousand dollars a day, you
know.
Um, so yeah, those are some ofthe things I would say it's more
more in the production side ofthings and scheduling and kind
of just setting properexpectations with customers, not
overpromising and then underdelivering.
(19:26):
And um, and just some moreorganization, right, in the
production side of things,prepping jobs ahead of time, you
know, rather than last minute.
SPEAKER_01 (19:35):
Yeah.
Well, one of the things it seemslike you've done well, and you
mentioned it before, was thatyou you've never painted uh
before, right?
Um at least consistently.
So yeah.
So you've never painted um andyou've gone from zero to four
million in three years.
(19:55):
And uh so I'm assuming you'vebeen really good at and you
mentioned this before too, whenyou were recruiting on the
painter, student painter side.
Yeah, but uh in order to toscale a four million dollar
business, uh especially apainting business, you need a
lot of people.
So I'm assuming you're very goodat recruiting, finding and
(20:16):
recruiting uh people to actuallywork with you.
Like so, could you talk moreabout that?
SPEAKER_02 (20:21):
Yeah, I'll say that is definitely one of our biggest
strengths.
It's it's something I've I'venever struggled with um really
ever.
Um, I know a a lot of timestoday, like every in today's
time in industry, likeeveryone's like, oh, you know,
it's impossible to find goodworkers.
Oh, no one wants to work, youknow.
More more older generationpeople will throw those things
(20:43):
around.
But luckily, we've neverstruggled with finding you know
human capital and finding peopleto work and produce good quality
work, um, at least for painting.
Um, how we were able to do that,I mean, I kind of go balls to
the wall recruiting when it'sneeded.
You know, it's all over oursocial media, Facebook,
(21:04):
Instagram.
I'm on Snapchat, which issomething that you know most
people aren't on, and I have apretty large audience on there.
And even as simple as like ablack screen post just saying
looking for some more, you know,painting contractors gets me
leads, right?
I have a decent followingonline.
Um, so I think that helps withthe exposure.
(21:25):
But even if I didn't, I wouldstill be spamming all social
media, right?
Organic social media is justhuge.
It's so underlooked andundervalued.
And um, I mean, you can domillions in revenue with just
literally just organic socialmedia.
I'm talking Facebook, Instagram,TikTok, next door, Snapchat, um,
Facebook groups, which issomething I can talk about for
(21:47):
hours.
You know, this is all organic.
Um, so we're putting all thoseads out there when needed, and
as well as like indeed, right?
We'll we'll slap on some Indeedads.
But fortunately, we've neverstruggled with finding a team.
Um, however, we do struggle withthat on the home improvement
side of things because the entryto skill level is much higher,
(22:10):
right?
You you can't just hire alaborer to remodel and finish a
basement or a bathroom or akitchen.
Um, so that's where it's alittle more difficult for us.
I'm fortunate that I have myfather on the team.
He's done construction his wholelife.
Um, he's our, you know, numberone go-to sub for home
(22:32):
improvement, pretty much all ofour jobs.
But we're starting to get to thepoint where we're so busy that
he can't even cat, you know, hecan't even maintain it and um be
caught up.
So now we're trying to expandthe home improvement and
construction division by findingsome reliable, vetted
contractors.
But the tricky part about thatis it's not just like painting,
(22:54):
right?
Exterior painting, interiorpainting, deck staining, kitchen
refinish.
That's pretty much it, right?
All painting.
Home improvement, there's a muchmore variables in a variety of
services we offer, right?
We build decks, we do bathrooms,we do kitchens, we do basements,
right?
We we frame and finish newconstruction.
(23:16):
So it's like I could have agreat bathroom sub who's just on
point, but he's not going to beable to do a basement or a deck
or frame a uh, you know, a 3,000square feet house from scratch
and finish it.
You need a GC sub for that.
So that's been the biggestlearning curve right now for me.
SPEAKER_01 (23:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
And creating systems for that, but not only that, um,
vetting the guys becauseeveryone will say they have
experience, you know.
Oh, I have experience, I have 20years doing this, and then it's
like they don't even know howto, you know, do some simple
finished carpentry.
It's like, dude, you know, solately I've been creating some
systems for that.
It's still easy for us to getthe leads, you know, to get
(24:00):
sub-contractor leads and andlaborer leads, but um much
harder to vet them and findreliable sources for the home
improvement and contracting sideof things for sure.
So been a learning curve thisyear with that, and I'm trying
to kind of figure it out stillas I go.
SPEAKER_01 (24:17):
Yeah.
Well, you said you you don'thave any, you don't you never
struggled with the paintingside, but it sounds like you're
kind of always recruiting.
You you have a following and youpost frequently on organic for
for painters.
So it sounds like you've neverstruggled with it, but it's
(24:38):
because you're kind of alwayssort of doing it or at least
cultivating the ability to doit.
SPEAKER_02 (24:42):
Proactively.
SPEAKER_01 (24:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
Yeah, proactively, and you know, um, always you
always gotta have some guys onstandby, you know what I mean?
Um, if you're doing thesubcontracting model for the for
the painting industry, which isvery common, you know, even if
you just have one crew andthey're the best crew and
they're just crushing it, younever know.
You know, their their head guymight get hurt or they might go
(25:07):
out of business or they mightstart getting some of their own
work from another contractor.
So you gotta always have, youknow, a player, you know, you
gotta always have some differentteams, you know, ready to go.
Um, I think a big thing too isjust the the culture that we've
been I've been able to create atEVM and just our branding.
We have a very strong brand.
(25:27):
You know, everyone that's localto us in the Massachusetts area
knows of us, right?
They either see the wrapped vansor the wrapped cars or they see
the lawn, they see the hundredsof lawn signs all over the city.
We have a bunch of um, a bunchof uh, you know, the actual big
signs, you know, downtownLemonster.
You know, I'm always gettingSnapchats and pictures of people
(25:50):
that I don't even know justdriving by and just sending our
our logo or whatnot.
So it's almost like we've builtthis cool thing that people are
like want to be a part of.
And if they don't want to be apart of it, they at least want
to support it because it justseems cool and they've seen what
I've been able to build sincethe student painter days.
And I think a big reason forthat has to do with me
(26:12):
documenting all of it.
I've been documenting my journeysince the student painter days.
Oh, nice.
Without without realizing thatthat would build a nice brand or
a personal brand, you know.
It was kind of just doing it forfun, and then it's pretty cool.
People have been following alongfor about four, uh, five years
now.
You know, my my brother did anestimate yesterday.
(26:34):
Um, he does some some roofingsales for a local roofing
contractor, and he also workswith us as well, EDM.
And he's he's 19 years old, buthe's a stud.
Um he did a roofing saleyesterday, and the customer just
happened to know me.
I have no idea who this guy is.
We've never done a single jobfor him, but he said he's been
(26:55):
following me from the beginning.
And when customers tend to saythat, and when they say that, I
know they're talking about thestudent painter days, uh, which
is it's pretty cool.
You know, it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Wow.
So that that's that's huge.
And probably I would I wouldguess from what you've said, has
a big uh a big factor on whyyou're able to scale so quickly
is that you are you have thataccess to talent um that you can
easily um because a lot what Isee a lot is painting
businesses, um they're trying todo everything or they they're
(27:27):
they only have a couple peopleand they don't they they say
they can't find anybody, whichlike you s alluded to, there's
people out there.
I mean there is, yeah.
There's there's people that wantto work.
So uh, but really what it is isthey don't want to invest, they
don't have a um a following likeyou, but they also don't think
that they they should have toinvest the time or they
(27:48):
underestimate how much they doneed to invest into recruiting
and hiring to actually get getthat those candidates coming in.
Um but what would you what wouldyou say to somebody maybe who
doesn't have a following, youknow, like you do, and they
haven't cultivated that over theyears, what would you recommend
if they are constrained, liketheir business is not growing
(28:10):
because they just don't haveenough people, they're booked
out for months and they needmore of more of a team, but they
feel like they don't know whereto start with that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
Yeah.
I mean, I would say you gotta goall out, right?
If that's the if that's thebiggest problem, you know, I'm
sure you're gonna have otherproblems as well, but you need
to prioritize that problem,right?
Because at the end of the day,you're gonna be stagnant if you
don't, and you won't be able toscale if you don't have the
team.
So you got to just do everythingin your power to get more guys,
(28:39):
get a better team, right?
And that goes from number one,organic social media marketing.
Again, there's no reason why youcan't be posting daily, putting
out ads, indeed.
Get creative, go, go.
Uh, Facebook groups is huge,right?
There's thousands and thousandsand thousands of Facebook groups
with thousands of people in eachgroup.
So that's like a secret sauce ofmine.
(29:01):
And, you know, I feel like Icould write a book on that one
day because it's generated memillions of revenue within the
last five years.
And it's just like it's organic.
It's not, I'm not talkingFacebook ads, I'm talking
Facebook groups.
Um and you can use that forrecruiting.
Um, and you know, I would sayeven back back in the student
(29:21):
painter days when we had torecruit, um, we would put out uh
little little flyers.
We would go to local highschools, try to do
presentations, and if theydidn't allow us to do
presentations, we would go intolocal parking lots, like high
school, sports games, the gym,right?
Like areas where we we wouldfeel like we could get some
(29:42):
leads, and we would put outthese little flyers under their
windshields.
Some people called us pissedoff, um, complaining.
But hey, like by all meansnecessary, right?
Like we were we were doingeverything in our power to get
get help, get the help that'sneeded.
So I feel like a lot of peoplejust fall again in the trap of
oh yeah no one wants to worktoday it's nowadays no one wants
(30:05):
to work you know it's too hardfinding good people but it's
like what what actions are youactually taking and taking you
know to find those people andhow much of those actions are
you actually doing you know areyou are you posting once every
three weeks you know are you areyou just like slapping on an ad
and calling it a day or are youchasing that and putting in
(30:27):
hours daily to to find you knowanother crew or to find more
help so you gotta want it yougot to want it enough to make it
happen.
That's that's the the biggestpart of it too.
SPEAKER_01 (30:36):
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And I think one of the thingsthat folks are like people get
that you have to well mostpainting business owners I think
get that you have to spend moneyto get customers or at least
time.
But I think they're less awareof the time and money to spend
(30:59):
to get new new employees or newsubcontractors.
Do you have like kind of like arule of thumb or anything like
(31:20):
that?
SPEAKER_02 (31:20):
No that's that's a good question.
Off the top of my head I don'tin terms of because we've never
we've we've always been able torecruit organically we've never
had to actually like even whenwe post on Indeed we do the free
the free post we don't boost itor or or you know pay for the
Indeed ad post.
So fortunately I've never had tospend money to get a team um you
(31:46):
know but I don't I don't imagineit's much differently than
spending money to find work youknow obviously not to that
extent but maybe look at anmaybe look at an ad agency and
see if they can help you know ifit's if it's uh worth the
investment.
I mean even if you just do$50 anad, but instead of a a painting
(32:07):
ad, right, to acquire a customermake it a hiring painters now
type of thing, right?
And kind of follow that samescript.
I mean there's agencies outthere that I would say the
agencies out there are chargingabout you know$2,500 to$5,500 a
month I would say in thisindustry.
(32:28):
I would say look for the lowerside of things, you know, if
you're looking for somethingmore budget friendly, but test
it out.
And if you're not able to swingthat maybe try it on your own
right try to learn ads a littlebit but I don't see a reason why
you should do the ads forrecruiting if you haven't fully
embodied the the organicstrategy right because social
(32:51):
media is just so powerfulnowadays.
So I wouldn't that that Iwouldn't even recommend I mean I
I we'll jump into this but I doyou know business coaching
consulting for other you knowhome service contractors as well
and I don't I would never tellone of my guys to to go the ad
route for recruiting I justdon't think it's needed you know
(33:12):
again put out make flyers makedoor hangers put them out there
right um post in Facebook groupslocal groups go go to local
colleges and see if any kids areare are looking to to get some
work right um email emailcoaches like sport coaches that
(33:32):
that are at local colleges nearyou or even high schoolers I
mean you might you might be ableto find a helper who's 19 and
you pay him 15 an hour but hemight he might maybe help you
you know finish a job 15 hoursearlier right it's like you got
to want it um but in terms of acertain ad spend and using ads
I've never really I've neverreally had to do that for for
(33:53):
recruiting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:54):
Yeah yeah well it sounds like you're putting a a
lot of or you're willing to puta lot of time into it to to
recruit which is great um yougotta put one of the one of two
you gotta even put time money orcombination to and not be afraid
to do that.
And uh so no I think that'sgreat.
And I think that's like you saidit's probably one of the big
(34:16):
reasons why you've been able togrow so quickly you just got to
be able to do both things.
You got to be able to get newcustomers but you also be able
to get more team members and youcan't absolutely can't neglect
the other one.
So you gotta always be doingboth which can be you know kind
of a juggling act to make sureyou're doing both simultaneously
but um it sounds like you got itdialed in for the for that so I
(34:38):
appreciate you sharing some ofyour tactics there.
Absolutely cool um so we talkedabout the uh some of your your
challenges were you know notover promising and you've
recently um it sounds like overthe last year you said you
(35:00):
you've grown even more thandouble uh yes and and that was
is that basically an unlock youfound with with marketing like
what's going on there I wouldsay it's a combination of uh of
the ads that we we've we finallyI finally pulled the trigger to
invest in them but I would alsosay it's due to the fact of like
(35:24):
from year one to year three wedidn't really like year one we
didn't have a CRM right year onewe didn't uh we weren't actively
marketing it was more likesurviving like it was more of
the opposite of like let's tryto get some jobs and we'll we'll
we'll pump them out but thestruggle is finding jobs and
(35:46):
then year two and year threecame along and it's more it's
more reversed right the oppositewhere it's like damn we have so
many leads coming in we have somany damn jobs like we need to
like figure out how to pump thisout now right um so yeah I think
I think it's a combination ofjust dialing doubling down on
(36:07):
all the marketing.
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
You know year one we would do some marketing here and
there but it wasn't like itwasn't fully systemized right
and now in year three I meanwe'll do ads we do you know I
have an assistant on the team Ihave someone managing our social
medias sharing to thousands ofFacebook groups a week um
posting three to five times aday all of those posts again get
(36:30):
shared to thousands of groups aweek um door knocking right as
you know creating a doorknocking team training them
coaching them coaching themhaving them go out so having
multiple streams of leadgeneration I think is definitely
what made us just like you knowjust blow up um and then of
course I would say also thebrand I think again going back
(36:54):
to it we have a very strongbrand and I think I think EVM is
very good at making noise that'sthe best way to put it good
noise right we're just out thereeverywhere you go you see a sign
you see a car you see a logo yousee a shirt uh you know you see
a team member out there at astore um you know you see
(37:15):
newspaper articles you see thepodcast with me it's like we're
not we're never stopping tryingto just like just expand the the
actual brand you know um I thinkthat's a big thing I think
that's a big thing is is makingnoise you know making a lot of
noise and I always made that agoal it's like my hometown is
(37:36):
Lemonster Mass and I alwayssince day one was like I want
everyone in Lemonster to knowwho and what EVM is and like I
want to get to the point wherethey're annoyed with the fact
that everywhere they go they seea damn lawn sign or something.
It's like holy crap they're justeverywhere.
Yeah and I think we're I thinkwe've we've been able to do
(37:56):
that.
You know yeah cool uh youmentioned door to door what what
percentage approximately of yourrevenue is generated from door
to door yeah this year we didn'tdo any door to door year one and
year two we did I always did umand unfortunately that was
(38:16):
before we had again like a CRMand actually cared about metrics
but that was I would always tryto have three to six door
knockers they were always highschoolers I would train them up
the key was you know at leastone hour a lead and they would
go about three hour shifts soyou know I would say on a good
um a good schedule you knowmonthly um I was trying to
(38:43):
acquire I was happy with 15 to30 door to door knocking leads a
month year one and year two.
Year three we didn't door knock.
So year four next year issomething that I I want to bring
that back in and fully reallyembody it.
You know I see Justin with tradelaunch a great guy and and he
(39:04):
really fully embodies the doorto door knocking system and
incentivizes his guys.
And if you really do that I meanyou can you can you can get a
hundred two hundred leads amonth with with like two to four
guys if they're really embodiedand they're really trained and
you really have some incentivesout there for them.
And that's something I've neverhad you know never had the time
(39:24):
to do um and I want to do inyear four because I don't see a
reason why we can't generate anextra 50 to 100 leads, you know,
hot leads a month with like twoto four door hang uh door
knockers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So why did you stop in yearthree?
(39:44):
I we stopped in year three weshouldn't have it I I would say
it was just a a lack of a lackof system just a lot going on a
lot of growth happening we madea lot of investments again we uh
we purchased a commercialbuilding that we're turning into
our our headquarters wepurchased uh we acquired a
construction business out ofBoston we got a new office
(40:05):
before all of that which I'm inright now there was a lot of
moving parts uh year three waspretty freaking hectic to say
the least we made a lot ofinvestments and um door knocking
was kind of just like you knowit just I kind of forgot about
it.
SPEAKER_01 (40:21):
Yeah it kind of just felt then you realized
afterwards like oh that actuallyworked and we need to do it
again.
Yeah exactly cool um no thatmakes sense uh and I think a lot
it's it's a great like you saidit's a great acquisition channel
that I think there's a littlebit of a learning curve but if
you can unlock it for foryourself and then for your team
(40:44):
I mean like you said it it's itcan be a yeah printing a money
printing machine.
So absolutely um cool well I Ifeel like I could talk to you
for another few hours but I knowwe're only scheduled for an hour
here.
So I want to give youopportunity to um you know if
you have any ask of the audienceor any final thoughts on scaling
a painting business, you know,to anybody that's listening up,
(41:06):
you know, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_02 (41:08):
Yeah I would just say you know my biggest
recommendation is is you got togo all out.
You know it's it sounds clichebut you got to want it.
If you don't want it enoughyou're you're gonna just half
ass and you're not gonna get toyour goals as quick as you
should and then you'll probablyfall off right most contracting
businesses most businesses ingeneral don't even make it past
(41:29):
year two, never mind year three.
That's a proven statistic.
So you got to want it right umyou got to expect that there's
gonna be a lot of lows and a lotof failures and and hiccups
along the way um but you have tounderstand that that's gonna all
be learning curves and that'sgonna make you you know the man
you want to be who has thebusiness that that you want to
(41:52):
have right um and I know there'sa lot of specifically in this
industry you know there's a lotof gurus out there and pay me to
coach you pay me to consult youpay me for ads you know I'm
gonna 3x your business that'ssomething that I would like to
bring awareness to and and saybe careful with that.
If you do want help I wouldrecommend you have at least a
(42:17):
foundation built first right andthere's I mean YouTube
University right there iseverything you need is out there
for free.
Everything you need is out therefor free.
It's it's ridiculous.
I mean Google Alex Hermosy andhe will literally teach you
anything you need to know.
Now don't get me wrong when youspecialize in one thing it's
good to tap into the industryand tap into the the well-known
(42:40):
guys who coach and consult or doads but I think it's important
to build your foundation first.
And once you build thatfoundation and you start scaling
once you hit that little thatlittle climax point where you're
like I don't know what else todo or I don't know what else I
can do to take this to the nextlevel or you know maybe it's
like I don't feel like I'm usingmy time wisely that's when I
(43:03):
would recommend investing in acoach or a consulting and
there's plenty of guys in theindustry again shameless plug
but I own Elias consulting youknow I'm working with trip jobs
and I work with a lot of homeservice businesses where not it
is new.
I started this year and I planon on scaling it um these next
couple years I strictly strictlyserve home service business
(43:28):
owners so it's not just paintingI have a lot of guys that do
landscaping I have some guysthat do snow removal um I have
electricians I have plumbers alot of uh mobile automobile
detailers so pretty much anytype of service-based business
I'm here to offer and and helpum and actually provide you know
one-on-one consulting um youknow you get a bunch of modules
(43:50):
and courses you get 24-7 accessto me we have team meetings all
that good stuff and I'm I'malways happy to uh even just
jump on a quick call for an infostrategy and kind of see uh
where your business is at andhow I can help you for free as
well, you know, and kind of gofrom there.
But I would say again build yourfoundation build the team once
(44:11):
you feel like you want you'reready to really take it to the
seven figure plus multiple sevenfigure mark that's when I would
recommend you know possiblylooking into a coach.
But if you have the funds andyou want to save all that time
and and all the mistakes thatwe've made if you have the funds
do it you know because you'reinvesting in someone to help you
(44:33):
and not only that you just spenta good amount of money on
someone to help you.
So I I hope that you would fallfollow through and actually be
coached and be coachable.
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
You know yeah for sure you speed up your learning
process by just getting withsomebody who has already done it
for you and save you a bunch oftime.
SPEAKER_02 (44:52):
So yeah that makes a lot of sense absolutely gabe
you've been super generous withwith your time I learned a lot I
think I think this is a supervaluable conversation and uh if
if folks want to learn moreabout you they go search Elias
consulting is that is that whatit is Elias Consulting yep Elias
Consulting um for for my youknow coaching consulting and if
(45:13):
you're a a homeowner for somereason listening out there in
the Massachusetts area EVM homeimprovement and painting will
we'll give you a free estimateand take care of your home.
SPEAKER_01 (45:22):
Awesome I I really appreciate your time gave uh I
feel like we could have gone onfor a lot longer but uh I
appreciate your time and for thelisteners with that we will see
you next week.
All right thank you
Welcome 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,from the breakfast and letters
to the spreadsheet and balanceswe've got to cover.
But before we dive in, a quickword of caution.
(00:21):
Nothing easier on this podcastto be considered as financial
advice, specifically for you oryour business.
With you to shared generalknowledge and experiences, not
to replace the tailored adviceyou get from a professional
financial advisor or taxconsultant.
We strongly recommend youseeking individualized advice
before making any significantfinancial decision.
SPEAKER_01 (00:42):
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast, the
show where painting contractorslearn how to boost profits, cut
taxes, and build a business thatworks for them.
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.
Super excited to talk with Gabefrom EVM Home Improvement.
(01:05):
Welcome to the podcast, Gabe.
Thank you, Daniel.
I appreciate it.
All right.
So just to give folks anunderstanding of where you're
coming from, could you let usknow, you know, how did you get
started in the painting industryand what have been some major
milestones along the way?
SPEAKER_02 (01:21):
Yeah.
So I started with an internshipcalled Student Painters, right?
There's a lot all around thecountry.
Student painters, college works,et cetera.
Mine was, you know, calledStudent Painters.
They recruited me, my sophomoreyear college.
I didn't think much of it.
I just, you know, I got a coldcall email, responded to it.
It said, like, you know, ouraverage intern makes uh$10,000
(01:45):
in the summer.
I thought, you know, hey, thatsounds really good.
Um, why not give it a shot?
And um the rest is history.
You know, I did my first year,it was my rookie year, um,
absolutely crushed it.
I broke some company salesrecords, um, produced my first
year about$200,000 in revenue ina three-month span in the
(02:05):
summer.
Um, had to, you know, recruit myown painters, recruit my own
marketers, do all that goodstuff, right?
Um, and mind you, I never tothis day, uh or since then never
touched a paintbrush in my life.
So um that was a very largelearning experience, learning
curve.
But I was able to really learndelegation and and really use,
(02:27):
you know, my network.
And I was really good aboutrecruiting and finding the right
people to help me, you know,make this happen.
So I did that, you know, plentyof podcast episodes of me during
that experience with the CEO ofthe company.
Uh, there was a couple ofnewspaper articles published.
You know, I'm a 19-year-old, youknow, in college, feeling like,
you know, on top of the world,right?
(02:48):
So that was my first year.
Second year was promoted to belike a regional executive
manager where I was able torecruit other college students
to, you know, bring on as rookiebranch managers and teach them
how to run their own paintingbranch.
And I was their mentor and theircoach.
Um, and so I recruited, youknow, six people, all personal
(03:11):
connections.
Um, in fact, I had about half ofthe training room in New England
was recruited by me that year.
So it was pretty cool.
I uh I think I was able to makea lot of noise with my success
and then was able to kind ofturn it into a culture thing and
get a lot of people bought in.
Um, a lot of them were myfriends, you know, were my
buddies that were able to seewhat I did that past summer.
(03:32):
Um, so did my two years there.
Um, it was great.
I loved it.
It made me realize like I'mobsessed with entrepreneurship,
um, made me realize this is whatI want to do for the rest of my
life, you know, work for myself,build something for myself, and
uh lead, right?
And um, after two years of doingstudent painters, that took me
(03:53):
to like my senior year of ofcollege.
And um, I decided to run up myown business.
At the time, though, it was kindof just like a side thing
because I was getting ready tograduate and kind of get into
the corporate world, get afull-time job, but I wanted
something on the side to do someextra cash.
So it was really just my mybuddy LJ and I, who is my
(04:15):
business partner now.
We were like, let's let's justkeep doing some painting jobs on
the side and just make some cashthat that summer.
Um, and we did that and and justnever stopped, you know, never
stopped since.
So that's how I kind of got intoit.
Now uh EDM is uh we're in yearthree of business, right?
I'm 25 years old.
Uh, we're in year three ofbusiness.
(04:37):
We should be doing you know, afew, a few million this year in
revenue should be uh around 2million in painting, um, and
another two million in the homeimprovement uh division as well.
So we have two separatedivisions.
And I recently uh just purchasedand acquired a uh uh
seven-figure constructionbusiness out of Boston,
Massachusetts as well, uh, whichis like general contracting.
(04:58):
Recently got my my CSL licenseas well, so did my business
partner, which is a huge uhstep, you know, to help us
scale.
And uh that's where I'm at nowtoday.
SPEAKER_01 (05:09):
That's amazing.
So yeah, I appreciate it.
Yeah, uh, I mean, just startingfrom the the top, doing 200k in
the in that summer as a19-year-old, that is uh a pretty
uh awesome accomplishment.
It might not sound like much tosomeone who doesn't know what
you have to go through becauseyou're going to school full-time
(05:30):
and you you're having tobasically start your business in
the spring-ish, and you'rehaving to learn all this along
with your full-time course load.
And then uh you're trying, I'massuming you get did cold
calling door-to-door.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
Uh oh yeah.
Yeah, door-to-door, you know,social media posting in groups.
Um, we were fortunate where wewe were given like lawn signs
and flyers, things of thatnature, you know, from from the
actual, you know, businessstudent painters itself.
But um, yeah, like you said, wehad to start while we're in
school and try to basically lineup jobs in the spring while
(06:10):
actively recruiting painters umand have everything set in stone
for the summer and produce allof that in the summer, you know.
Yeah, um, so yeah, no, it was agreat learning curve, but I fell
in love with the grind and andthe results and now I'm here.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
And and did you did you do the submodel or employee
model for the student painters?
SPEAKER_02 (06:32):
That was employee model.
Yeah.
So we had we were paying hourly,um, you know, lower rates,
because obviously, you know, wehave like 18 to 21-year-olds
painting.
Um, the customer knows that aswell.
They know obviously it's astudent thing, right?
They're gonna get more of abudget-friendly price.
The quality probably not gonnabe as professional as a as a
contractor that's been doingthis for 30 years.
(06:54):
But um, I think I was able toreally sell, you know, the
company and really have, youknow, make the customer kind of
fall in love with me and reallytrust me with with the story
that I was building.
You know, I think they uh theywere almost inspired by it and
also were like, wow, this kid'scrushing it and and I trust him
and let's give him a shot, youknow.
And then with that, I just Ijust ran with it.
SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Yeah, that's that's that's awesome.
I mean a lot of folks havetrouble doing 200k in their
first year, full year, fullydedicated.
So the fact that he did it overuh production over three months
is really uh is really good.
So thank you.
Um what I'm sure though, uhthere were some big challenges,
(07:42):
especially I I did the samething when I was 18, college
watch painting.
So I I know for me my personalexperience, uh it was there's
some big challenges that I hadto face.
It was like um, but I'd love tohear what what are some of the
like the big challenges that youfaced in that first summer in
(08:03):
the painting.
SPEAKER_02 (08:03):
Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah.
I think I mean organization wasa big thing because there's just
so much going on, right?
You got you got leads coming in,um, and then you're you're doing
estimates, and then you're doingmarketing, and then you have to
proactively recruit painters forthe near future.
So you got to kind of like timeeverything.
Um, and that was definitelystressful.
(08:25):
I mean, thankfully, I I had agreat mentor at the time uh who
helped me a lot.
But even then, I think theorganization thing was very
challenging for me.
Um, I was more of like uh, youknow, get things done when
needed type of guy, but thismade me really learn the hard
way where it's like you can youcan't just forget about a
customer, you know.
(08:45):
Um there was one, there's onestory I shared this.
I have another podcast episodewith the CEO of Student
Painters.
Um his name is um Steve Acorn,great guy.
And um, where I shared my wholerookie experience as well.
So if there's any younglisteners, you know, tuning in
to this episode and maybethey're inspired and they want
to try some sort of studentpainters or college painting
(09:08):
experience, they can kind oflisten to that episode as well,
which shares my wholeexperience.
But I remember, I remember therewas one time, you know, in that
that first summer where it wasactually crazy.
Um, we were at a job, definitelysome Karen's, right?
Definitely some crazy customers.
Uh, they seemed like the coolestpeople in the world when I when
I sold them, you know, and thena couple of months passed by
(09:31):
when it was time to actually dothe job.
It was an absolute nightmare.
Uh, this project was inSterling.
It was a very heavy prepexterior job, complete color
change from like yellow to blue,needed honestly like three
coats, you know.
And um, man, I the job wassupposed to take about a week
and it turned into like a monthand a half absolute nightmare.
(09:53):
Um, not only did I lose, youknow, a couple thousands of
dollars, but um the thecustomer, the husband, you know,
started becoming a littlehostile, which was pretty crazy.
And I'm like a you know, I'm a19-year-old dude.
So um started kind of gettingaggressive and talking back.
And I was trying to stand myground.
(10:14):
But long story short, my mentorhad to get involved.
I was, you know, banned from thejob site.
Um, and we had to get like aSharon Williams rep out there
and do a full like, you know,inspection of the job to try to
kind of explain, like, you know,Gabe did a good job.
But it got so bad to the pointwhere my painters were using
(10:35):
like art, art paint brushes likethis size to get in between
little tweaks and crevices thatyou could still see a little bit
of yellow because we weren'tallowed to spray um in in
student painter.
So looking back, I could haveprobably resolved this a lot
quicker by investing in asprayer, but we weren't trained
for it and we weren't supposedto do it.
(10:55):
So it was an absolute nightmare.
Uh remember this project, youknow, till this day.
Um, and then worst thing aboutit all was, you know, I sold the
job, collected the the deposit,but I forgot to get a signature
and didn't realize till till thethe problems arrived at the job.
Um, somehow forgot to get themto sign a contract, you know.
(11:18):
And again, this is 19-year-oldme.
So I think I learned everylesson in the book uh on that
project.
And um to this day, I think itstill haunts me a little bit,
you know.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yeah, no, I'm the same way.
I appreciate you sharing itbecause I know physically uh
like I just thinking back to myfirst summer doing college
works, like the things that Iwent through, I'm like, damn,
that's like it still bothers menow.
And that was literally I'm I'm39 now, and that when I was 18.
(11:49):
So uh decades later at thispoint, and it's still I'm like,
man, similar situation we had atexterior.
Um I can't remember if it's acolor change, but basically so
much was going on.
We had uh multiple jobs going onsimultaneously.
Um I lost a crew, I needed to,but I needed I had promised the
(12:12):
client that we were gonna starttheir project, so I'm gonna hire
someone quickly.
And so I did, but I did not vetproperly.
And so yeah, the the the theguys said that they had painting
experience.
Um you know, I was like, okay,great.
So I have a job to start today.
So I I got them started with thesupplies and like some guidance,
(12:33):
and then I had to go to adifferent job side to start
another project with anothercrew, and uh I came back like in
two hours later, and they wereit was like a a brick exterior
with you know um a little bit ofsiding, but they were leaning
their rollers on the brick, likewith paint on it, there's like
(12:56):
leaning it up against and likethere's paint all on the brick
everywhere.
So they were only on that jobsite for like two hours, but
they completely just ruined thethis person's house, and so I I
was just like spending hours,you know, with wire brushes
trying to get there.
(13:16):
It was just a nightmare.
SPEAKER_02 (13:18):
So but yeah, I have another, I have another funny
story.
This one's shorter, but I uh,you know, this job, I was like,
this is gonna go smooth, youknow, it was a perfect little
like rectangular, like two-storyhome, no peaks, no dormers,
nothing.
Um, the guy was super chill,sold him on the spot, overbid
him.
You know, I was like, all right,we're gonna crank this thing out
(13:39):
in like three days.
And the one thing I didn't do, Iperfected everything, the
walkthroughs, the setting theright expectation with my team,
got the signature, everything,right?
The one thing I didn't do wascolor test.
And that's because he knew theexact color he wanted and sent
me it.
And I was like, you know what?
The guy knows this is the colorhe wants, whatever.
(14:00):
I was busy that day, skipped thecolor test, had my production
manager at the time go pick upthe paint.
And around lunchtime, we paintedtwo sides of the house, and he
showed he gets there, and he wasnice and he almost he like
cracks a joke, but he goes, Whatthe hell?
You know, why does my house looklike Barney?
Um, because it was like a purplecolor when he wanted like a navy
(14:23):
color.
And I'm like, Oh my lord.
So we had to repaint those twosides and get the right color,
you know.
Um, and my painters are, youknow, in the corner laughing,
and I'm ready to kill all ofthem because they were all my
buddies too.
I'm like, you guys suck.
Yeah, you know, because of thethe Barney joke.
But yeah, oh man, there's uhthere's a lot, lots of mistakes
(14:46):
made, you know.
SPEAKER_01 (14:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:47):
Um, but it's uh it's how you learn, right?
You learn the hard way.
SPEAKER_01 (14:51):
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
It definitely speeds up thatprocess.
And you obviously learned a lotbecause you know, since then you
are now you have a two milliondollar painting business, a two
million dollar home improvementbusiness, and you said you just
acquired a a million dollar umwhat was it?
What type of business book?
SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
Uh uh like a general contracting business out of
Boston.
Yeah, remodeling.
Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
All right, yeah, cool.
So um no, that's awesome.
So and and you just you've beenrunning the uh EVM painting
business for only three years,right?
And so you've already got it upto two million, but it's also
actually four million, becauseright, because it's just two
different divisions within thesame company.
(15:34):
Exactly, yeah.
Okay, so so you grew it fromfrom nothing to four million in
three years.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Yeah.
Yeah, which is pretty which iswhich is pretty crazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah, so that is huge growth.
Um so congratulations to youdoing something right.
You learned something fromstudent painters, it sounds like
thank you.
So what have been some of themajor challenges growing so
quickly over three years?
And I guess also just tocontext, was that growth pretty
much like pretty steady in thefirst those three years, like
(16:07):
million to two million, fourmillion?
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
I would I would say the first two years it was
steady.
It was like, you know, it was agood like uh double, you know,
100% growth.
But from year lat from last yearto this year, it's been insane.
It's been insane.
And you know, the year is stillnot over yet.
Um, you know, definitely a crazyamount of growth.
Um and yeah, 100% there's beenplenty of challenges.
(16:29):
I think I think the biggest onereally is like is not oh it's
kind of it's scheduling.
I think the biggest one isscheduling.
You know, obviously we're wehave our CRMs, we're very
organized, we overcommunicatewith our customers, but I think
a lot of times is like giving acustomer a rough, a rough time
(16:50):
frame of when we would be ableto do the job, right?
Like let's say I I go sell a jobright now, it's interior
painting, I let them know, hey,you know, we're booking out to
like uh February, March timeframe right now, and they're
okay with it.
I sell it on the spot, I collecta deposit signature,
everything's ready to go.
What ends up happening is it'seasy to get a little
(17:12):
unorganized, and you tell alittle bit too a few too many
customers that same time frame.
And when that time frame comes,right, you're like, oh snap, you
know, we definitely can't do allof these in these two in these
next two months.
Um so again, just anorganization standpoint, more
what's scheduling for me.
Um, we don't we don't have, youknow, so we don't deal with any
(17:35):
struggles with production, whichwe're we're thankful for.
We have very great crews, wehave a lot of guys on our team.
Um I would say it's morescheduling right now, if
anything, you know, scheduling,getting jobs done in the
timeframe that's promised, andalso just like not overpromising
customers' deadlines and alsolearning to say no, right?
(17:56):
Because a lot of jobs arelast-minute jobs that and
customers are so clueless, youknow, they're like, hey, you
know, they're like I have this$50,000 exterior paint job, but
I, you know, I need it startedand done, you know, in a week
and a half.
It's like, dude, no one's gonnabe able to help you.
And if someone's able to helpyou, it might be like a one-man
crew, two-man crew, you know,under the table crew, and
(18:19):
they're gonna just absolutelyscrew the job.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, they don't understandthat.
So um, a big thing is learn abig challenge for me is learning
to say no and and um, you know,just not overpromising specific
time frames for the customers.
That's what I would say rightnow.
Um and I would say that thecrazy, the exciting thing too is
(18:42):
like I would say a couple monthsago it was lead generation, but
we finally tapped into someFacebook ads.
You know, we're working with uhLucas Jensen and the Ford Media
team, and they've beenabsolutely crushing it.
Uh, we've been doing the ads forabout three, four months now.
And uh, I mean, just this monthour ROI was 7x, you know, what
we spent.
So it's it's uh it's I'mstarting to realize like, holy
(19:05):
crap, you know, we shouldprobably like imagine if I'm and
we're spending like a hundreddollars a day.
So I'm like, imagine if we spenda thousand dollars a day, you
know.
Um, so yeah, those are some ofthe things I would say it's more
more in the production side ofthings and scheduling and kind
of just setting properexpectations with customers, not
overpromising and then underdelivering.
(19:26):
And um, and just some moreorganization, right, in the
production side of things,prepping jobs ahead of time, you
know, rather than last minute.
SPEAKER_01 (19:35):
Yeah.
Well, one of the things it seemslike you've done well, and you
mentioned it before, was thatyou you've never painted uh
before, right?
Um at least consistently.
So yeah.
So you've never painted um andyou've gone from zero to four
million in three years.
(19:55):
And uh so I'm assuming you'vebeen really good at and you
mentioned this before too, whenyou were recruiting on the
painter, student painter side.
Yeah, but uh in order to toscale a four million dollar
business, uh especially apainting business, you need a
lot of people.
So I'm assuming you're very goodat recruiting, finding and
(20:16):
recruiting uh people to actuallywork with you.
Like so, could you talk moreabout that?
SPEAKER_02 (20:21):
Yeah, I'll say that is definitely one of our biggest
strengths.
It's it's something I've I'venever struggled with um really
ever.
Um, I know a a lot of timestoday, like every in today's
time in industry, likeeveryone's like, oh, you know,
it's impossible to find goodworkers.
Oh, no one wants to work, youknow.
More more older generationpeople will throw those things
(20:43):
around.
But luckily, we've neverstruggled with finding you know
human capital and finding peopleto work and produce good quality
work, um, at least for painting.
Um, how we were able to do that,I mean, I kind of go balls to
the wall recruiting when it'sneeded.
You know, it's all over oursocial media, Facebook,
(21:04):
Instagram.
I'm on Snapchat, which issomething that you know most
people aren't on, and I have apretty large audience on there.
And even as simple as like ablack screen post just saying
looking for some more, you know,painting contractors gets me
leads, right?
I have a decent followingonline.
Um, so I think that helps withthe exposure.
(21:25):
But even if I didn't, I wouldstill be spamming all social
media, right?
Organic social media is justhuge.
It's so underlooked andundervalued.
And um, I mean, you can domillions in revenue with just
literally just organic socialmedia.
I'm talking Facebook, Instagram,TikTok, next door, Snapchat, um,
Facebook groups, which issomething I can talk about for
(21:47):
hours.
You know, this is all organic.
Um, so we're putting all thoseads out there when needed, and
as well as like indeed, right?
We'll we'll slap on some Indeedads.
But fortunately, we've neverstruggled with finding a team.
Um, however, we do struggle withthat on the home improvement
side of things because the entryto skill level is much higher,
(22:10):
right?
You you can't just hire alaborer to remodel and finish a
basement or a bathroom or akitchen.
Um, so that's where it's alittle more difficult for us.
I'm fortunate that I have myfather on the team.
He's done construction his wholelife.
Um, he's our, you know, numberone go-to sub for home
(22:32):
improvement, pretty much all ofour jobs.
But we're starting to get to thepoint where we're so busy that
he can't even cat, you know, hecan't even maintain it and um be
caught up.
So now we're trying to expandthe home improvement and
construction division by findingsome reliable, vetted
contractors.
But the tricky part about thatis it's not just like painting,
(22:54):
right?
Exterior painting, interiorpainting, deck staining, kitchen
refinish.
That's pretty much it, right?
All painting.
Home improvement, there's a muchmore variables in a variety of
services we offer, right?
We build decks, we do bathrooms,we do kitchens, we do basements,
right?
We we frame and finish newconstruction.
(23:16):
So it's like I could have agreat bathroom sub who's just on
point, but he's not going to beable to do a basement or a deck
or frame a uh, you know, a 3,000square feet house from scratch
and finish it.
You need a GC sub for that.
So that's been the biggestlearning curve right now for me.
SPEAKER_01 (23:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
And creating systems for that, but not only that, um,
vetting the guys becauseeveryone will say they have
experience, you know.
Oh, I have experience, I have 20years doing this, and then it's
like they don't even know howto, you know, do some simple
finished carpentry.
It's like, dude, you know, solately I've been creating some
systems for that.
It's still easy for us to getthe leads, you know, to get
(24:00):
sub-contractor leads and andlaborer leads, but um much
harder to vet them and findreliable sources for the home
improvement and contracting sideof things for sure.
So been a learning curve thisyear with that, and I'm trying
to kind of figure it out stillas I go.
SPEAKER_01 (24:17):
Yeah.
Well, you said you you don'thave any, you don't you never
struggled with the paintingside, but it sounds like you're
kind of always recruiting.
You you have a following and youpost frequently on organic for
for painters.
So it sounds like you've neverstruggled with it, but it's
(24:38):
because you're kind of alwayssort of doing it or at least
cultivating the ability to doit.
SPEAKER_02 (24:42):
Proactively.
SPEAKER_01 (24:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
Yeah, proactively, and you know, um, always you
always gotta have some guys onstandby, you know what I mean?
Um, if you're doing thesubcontracting model for the for
the painting industry, which isvery common, you know, even if
you just have one crew andthey're the best crew and
they're just crushing it, younever know.
You know, their their head guymight get hurt or they might go
(25:07):
out of business or they mightstart getting some of their own
work from another contractor.
So you gotta always have, youknow, a player, you know, you
gotta always have some differentteams, you know, ready to go.
Um, I think a big thing too isjust the the culture that we've
been I've been able to create atEVM and just our branding.
We have a very strong brand.
(25:27):
You know, everyone that's localto us in the Massachusetts area
knows of us, right?
They either see the wrapped vansor the wrapped cars or they see
the lawn, they see the hundredsof lawn signs all over the city.
We have a bunch of um, a bunchof uh, you know, the actual big
signs, you know, downtownLemonster.
You know, I'm always gettingSnapchats and pictures of people
(25:50):
that I don't even know justdriving by and just sending our
our logo or whatnot.
So it's almost like we've builtthis cool thing that people are
like want to be a part of.
And if they don't want to be apart of it, they at least want
to support it because it justseems cool and they've seen what
I've been able to build sincethe student painter days.
And I think a big reason forthat has to do with me
(26:12):
documenting all of it.
I've been documenting my journeysince the student painter days.
Oh, nice.
Without without realizing thatthat would build a nice brand or
a personal brand, you know.
It was kind of just doing it forfun, and then it's pretty cool.
People have been following alongfor about four, uh, five years
now.
You know, my my brother did anestimate yesterday.
(26:34):
Um, he does some some roofingsales for a local roofing
contractor, and he also workswith us as well, EDM.
And he's he's 19 years old, buthe's a stud.
Um he did a roofing saleyesterday, and the customer just
happened to know me.
I have no idea who this guy is.
We've never done a single jobfor him, but he said he's been
(26:55):
following me from the beginning.
And when customers tend to saythat, and when they say that, I
know they're talking about thestudent painter days, uh, which
is it's pretty cool.
You know, it's pretty cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:05):
Wow.
So that that's that's huge.
And probably I would I wouldguess from what you've said, has
a big uh a big factor on whyyou're able to scale so quickly
is that you are you have thataccess to talent um that you can
easily um because a lot what Isee a lot is painting
businesses, um they're trying todo everything or they they're
(27:27):
they only have a couple peopleand they don't they they say
they can't find anybody, whichlike you s alluded to, there's
people out there.
I mean there is, yeah.
There's there's people that wantto work.
So uh, but really what it is isthey don't want to invest, they
don't have a um a following likeyou, but they also don't think
that they they should have toinvest the time or they
(27:48):
underestimate how much they doneed to invest into recruiting
and hiring to actually get getthat those candidates coming in.
Um but what would you what wouldyou say to somebody maybe who
doesn't have a following, youknow, like you do, and they
haven't cultivated that over theyears, what would you recommend
if they are constrained, liketheir business is not growing
(28:10):
because they just don't haveenough people, they're booked
out for months and they needmore of more of a team, but they
feel like they don't know whereto start with that.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
Yeah.
I mean, I would say you gotta goall out, right?
If that's the if that's thebiggest problem, you know, I'm
sure you're gonna have otherproblems as well, but you need
to prioritize that problem,right?
Because at the end of the day,you're gonna be stagnant if you
don't, and you won't be able toscale if you don't have the
team.
So you got to just do everythingin your power to get more guys,
(28:39):
get a better team, right?
And that goes from number one,organic social media marketing.
Again, there's no reason why youcan't be posting daily, putting
out ads, indeed.
Get creative, go, go.
Uh, Facebook groups is huge,right?
There's thousands and thousandsand thousands of Facebook groups
with thousands of people in eachgroup.
So that's like a secret sauce ofmine.
(29:01):
And, you know, I feel like Icould write a book on that one
day because it's generated memillions of revenue within the
last five years.
And it's just like it's organic.
It's not, I'm not talkingFacebook ads, I'm talking
Facebook groups.
Um and you can use that forrecruiting.
Um, and you know, I would sayeven back back in the student
(29:21):
painter days when we had torecruit, um, we would put out uh
little little flyers.
We would go to local highschools, try to do
presentations, and if theydidn't allow us to do
presentations, we would go intolocal parking lots, like high
school, sports games, the gym,right?
Like areas where we we wouldfeel like we could get some
(29:42):
leads, and we would put outthese little flyers under their
windshields.
Some people called us pissedoff, um, complaining.
But hey, like by all meansnecessary, right?
Like we were we were doingeverything in our power to get
get help, get the help that'sneeded.
So I feel like a lot of peoplejust fall again in the trap of
oh yeah no one wants to worktoday it's nowadays no one wants
(30:05):
to work you know it's too hardfinding good people but it's
like what what actions are youactually taking and taking you
know to find those people andhow much of those actions are
you actually doing you know areyou are you posting once every
three weeks you know are you areyou just like slapping on an ad
and calling it a day or are youchasing that and putting in
(30:27):
hours daily to to find you knowanother crew or to find more
help so you gotta want it yougot to want it enough to make it
happen.
That's that's the the biggestpart of it too.
SPEAKER_01 (30:36):
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And I think one of the thingsthat folks are like people get
that you have to well mostpainting business owners I think
get that you have to spend moneyto get customers or at least
time.
But I think they're less awareof the time and money to spend
(30:59):
to get new new employees or newsubcontractors.
Do you have like kind of like arule of thumb or anything like
(31:20):
that?
SPEAKER_02 (31:20):
No that's that's a good question.
Off the top of my head I don'tin terms of because we've never
we've we've always been able torecruit organically we've never
had to actually like even whenwe post on Indeed we do the free
the free post we don't boost itor or or you know pay for the
Indeed ad post.
So fortunately I've never had tospend money to get a team um you
(31:46):
know but I don't I don't imagineit's much differently than
spending money to find work youknow obviously not to that
extent but maybe look at anmaybe look at an ad agency and
see if they can help you know ifit's if it's uh worth the
investment.
I mean even if you just do$50 anad, but instead of a a painting
(32:07):
ad, right, to acquire a customermake it a hiring painters now
type of thing, right?
And kind of follow that samescript.
I mean there's agencies outthere that I would say the
agencies out there are chargingabout you know$2,500 to$5,500 a
month I would say in thisindustry.
(32:28):
I would say look for the lowerside of things, you know, if
you're looking for somethingmore budget friendly, but test
it out.
And if you're not able to swingthat maybe try it on your own
right try to learn ads a littlebit but I don't see a reason why
you should do the ads forrecruiting if you haven't fully
embodied the the organicstrategy right because social
(32:51):
media is just so powerfulnowadays.
So I wouldn't that that Iwouldn't even recommend I mean I
I we'll jump into this but I doyou know business coaching
consulting for other you knowhome service contractors as well
and I don't I would never tellone of my guys to to go the ad
route for recruiting I justdon't think it's needed you know
(33:12):
again put out make flyers makedoor hangers put them out there
right um post in Facebook groupslocal groups go go to local
colleges and see if any kids areare are looking to to get some
work right um email emailcoaches like sport coaches that
(33:32):
that are at local colleges nearyou or even high schoolers I
mean you might you might be ableto find a helper who's 19 and
you pay him 15 an hour but hemight he might maybe help you
you know finish a job 15 hoursearlier right it's like you got
to want it um but in terms of acertain ad spend and using ads
I've never really I've neverreally had to do that for for
(33:53):
recruiting.
SPEAKER_01 (33:54):
Yeah yeah well it sounds like you're putting a a
lot of or you're willing to puta lot of time into it to to
recruit which is great um yougotta put one of the one of two
you gotta even put time money orcombination to and not be afraid
to do that.
And uh so no I think that'sgreat.
And I think that's like you saidit's probably one of the big
(34:16):
reasons why you've been able togrow so quickly you just got to
be able to do both things.
You got to be able to get newcustomers but you also be able
to get more team members and youcan't absolutely can't neglect
the other one.
So you gotta always be doingboth which can be you know kind
of a juggling act to make sureyou're doing both simultaneously
but um it sounds like you got itdialed in for the for that so I
(34:38):
appreciate you sharing some ofyour tactics there.
Absolutely cool um so we talkedabout the uh some of your your
challenges were you know notover promising and you've
recently um it sounds like overthe last year you said you
(35:00):
you've grown even more thandouble uh yes and and that was
is that basically an unlock youfound with with marketing like
what's going on there I wouldsay it's a combination of uh of
the ads that we we've we finallyI finally pulled the trigger to
invest in them but I would alsosay it's due to the fact of like
(35:24):
from year one to year three wedidn't really like year one we
didn't have a CRM right year onewe didn't uh we weren't actively
marketing it was more likesurviving like it was more of
the opposite of like let's tryto get some jobs and we'll we'll
we'll pump them out but thestruggle is finding jobs and
(35:46):
then year two and year threecame along and it's more it's
more reversed right the oppositewhere it's like damn we have so
many leads coming in we have somany damn jobs like we need to
like figure out how to pump thisout now right um so yeah I think
I think it's a combination ofjust dialing doubling down on
(36:07):
all the marketing.
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
You know year one we would do some marketing here and
there but it wasn't like itwasn't fully systemized right
and now in year three I meanwe'll do ads we do you know I
have an assistant on the team Ihave someone managing our social
medias sharing to thousands ofFacebook groups a week um
posting three to five times aday all of those posts again get
(36:30):
shared to thousands of groups aweek um door knocking right as
you know creating a doorknocking team training them
coaching them coaching themhaving them go out so having
multiple streams of leadgeneration I think is definitely
what made us just like you knowjust blow up um and then of
course I would say also thebrand I think again going back
(36:54):
to it we have a very strongbrand and I think I think EVM is
very good at making noise that'sthe best way to put it good
noise right we're just out thereeverywhere you go you see a sign
you see a car you see a logo yousee a shirt uh you know you see
a team member out there at astore um you know you see
(37:15):
newspaper articles you see thepodcast with me it's like we're
not we're never stopping tryingto just like just expand the the
actual brand you know um I thinkthat's a big thing I think
that's a big thing is is makingnoise you know making a lot of
noise and I always made that agoal it's like my hometown is
(37:36):
Lemonster Mass and I alwayssince day one was like I want
everyone in Lemonster to knowwho and what EVM is and like I
want to get to the point wherethey're annoyed with the fact
that everywhere they go they seea damn lawn sign or something.
It's like holy crap they're justeverywhere.
Yeah and I think we're I thinkwe've we've been able to do
(37:56):
that.
You know yeah cool uh youmentioned door to door what what
percentage approximately of yourrevenue is generated from door
to door yeah this year we didn'tdo any door to door year one and
year two we did I always did umand unfortunately that was
(38:16):
before we had again like a CRMand actually cared about metrics
but that was I would always tryto have three to six door
knockers they were always highschoolers I would train them up
the key was you know at leastone hour a lead and they would
go about three hour shifts soyou know I would say on a good
um a good schedule you knowmonthly um I was trying to
(38:43):
acquire I was happy with 15 to30 door to door knocking leads a
month year one and year two.
Year three we didn't door knock.
So year four next year issomething that I I want to bring
that back in and fully reallyembody it.
You know I see Justin with tradelaunch a great guy and and he
(39:04):
really fully embodies the doorto door knocking system and
incentivizes his guys.
And if you really do that I meanyou can you can you can get a
hundred two hundred leads amonth with with like two to four
guys if they're really embodiedand they're really trained and
you really have some incentivesout there for them.
And that's something I've neverhad you know never had the time
(39:24):
to do um and I want to do inyear four because I don't see a
reason why we can't generate anextra 50 to 100 leads, you know,
hot leads a month with like twoto four door hang uh door
knockers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So why did you stop in yearthree?
(39:44):
I we stopped in year three weshouldn't have it I I would say
it was just a a lack of a lackof system just a lot going on a
lot of growth happening we madea lot of investments again we uh
we purchased a commercialbuilding that we're turning into
our our headquarters wepurchased uh we acquired a
construction business out ofBoston we got a new office
(40:05):
before all of that which I'm inright now there was a lot of
moving parts uh year three waspretty freaking hectic to say
the least we made a lot ofinvestments and um door knocking
was kind of just like you knowit just I kind of forgot about
it.
SPEAKER_01 (40:21):
Yeah it kind of just felt then you realized
afterwards like oh that actuallyworked and we need to do it
again.
Yeah exactly cool um no thatmakes sense uh and I think a lot
it's it's a great like you saidit's a great acquisition channel
that I think there's a littlebit of a learning curve but if
you can unlock it for foryourself and then for your team
(40:44):
I mean like you said it it's itcan be a yeah printing a money
printing machine.
So absolutely um cool well I Ifeel like I could talk to you
for another few hours but I knowwe're only scheduled for an hour
here.
So I want to give youopportunity to um you know if
you have any ask of the audienceor any final thoughts on scaling
a painting business, you know,to anybody that's listening up,
(41:06):
you know, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_02 (41:08):
Yeah I would just say you know my biggest
recommendation is is you got togo all out.
You know it's it sounds clichebut you got to want it.
If you don't want it enoughyou're you're gonna just half
ass and you're not gonna get toyour goals as quick as you
should and then you'll probablyfall off right most contracting
businesses most businesses ingeneral don't even make it past
(41:29):
year two, never mind year three.
That's a proven statistic.
So you got to want it right umyou got to expect that there's
gonna be a lot of lows and a lotof failures and and hiccups
along the way um but you have tounderstand that that's gonna all
be learning curves and that'sgonna make you you know the man
you want to be who has thebusiness that that you want to
(41:52):
have right um and I know there'sa lot of specifically in this
industry you know there's a lotof gurus out there and pay me to
coach you pay me to consult youpay me for ads you know I'm
gonna 3x your business that'ssomething that I would like to
bring awareness to and and saybe careful with that.
If you do want help I wouldrecommend you have at least a
(42:17):
foundation built first right andthere's I mean YouTube
University right there iseverything you need is out there
for free.
Everything you need is out therefor free.
It's it's ridiculous.
I mean Google Alex Hermosy andhe will literally teach you
anything you need to know.
Now don't get me wrong when youspecialize in one thing it's
good to tap into the industryand tap into the the well-known
(42:40):
guys who coach and consult or doads but I think it's important
to build your foundation first.
And once you build thatfoundation and you start scaling
once you hit that little thatlittle climax point where you're
like I don't know what else todo or I don't know what else I
can do to take this to the nextlevel or you know maybe it's
like I don't feel like I'm usingmy time wisely that's when I
(43:03):
would recommend investing in acoach or a consulting and
there's plenty of guys in theindustry again shameless plug
but I own Elias consulting youknow I'm working with trip jobs
and I work with a lot of homeservice businesses where not it
is new.
I started this year and I planon on scaling it um these next
couple years I strictly strictlyserve home service business
(43:28):
owners so it's not just paintingI have a lot of guys that do
landscaping I have some guysthat do snow removal um I have
electricians I have plumbers alot of uh mobile automobile
detailers so pretty much anytype of service-based business
I'm here to offer and and helpum and actually provide you know
one-on-one consulting um youknow you get a bunch of modules
(43:50):
and courses you get 24-7 accessto me we have team meetings all
that good stuff and I'm I'malways happy to uh even just
jump on a quick call for an infostrategy and kind of see uh
where your business is at andhow I can help you for free as
well, you know, and kind of gofrom there.
But I would say again build yourfoundation build the team once
(44:11):
you feel like you want you'reready to really take it to the
seven figure plus multiple sevenfigure mark that's when I would
recommend you know possiblylooking into a coach.
But if you have the funds andyou want to save all that time
and and all the mistakes thatwe've made if you have the funds
do it you know because you'reinvesting in someone to help you
(44:33):
and not only that you just spenta good amount of money on
someone to help you.
So I I hope that you would fallfollow through and actually be
coached and be coachable.
SPEAKER_01 (44:43):
You know yeah for sure you speed up your learning
process by just getting withsomebody who has already done it
for you and save you a bunch oftime.
SPEAKER_02 (44:52):
So yeah that makes a lot of sense absolutely gabe
you've been super generous withwith your time I learned a lot I
think I think this is a supervaluable conversation and uh if
if folks want to learn moreabout you they go search Elias
consulting is that is that whatit is Elias Consulting yep Elias
Consulting um for for my youknow coaching consulting and if
(45:13):
you're a a homeowner for somereason listening out there in
the Massachusetts area EVM homeimprovement and painting will
we'll give you a free estimateand take care of your home.
SPEAKER_01 (45:22):
Awesome I I really appreciate your time gave uh I
feel like we could have gone onfor a lot longer but uh I
appreciate your time and for thelisteners with that we will see
you next week.
All right thank you
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