Hiring Sales Reps, Higher Margins & Scaling a Painting Business // Justin Georgopoulos

Michael Murray: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Price Sell Paint podcast. I am Michael Murray, joined with Jon Bryant, but today we have a very special guest, Justin Georgopoulos, another Canadian to join Jon. We love the Canadians. You're in London, Ontario, right across Lake Erie from where I'm at in Cleveland. You run a really successful painting company, Hi5 Painting.

Justin Georgopoulos: Yeah.

Michael Murray: Excited to hear all about the rebrand. You also have a coaching company called Trade Launch, helping other painting contractors scale up their business. So yeah, welcome. Thanks for being here, Justin.

Justin Georgopoulos: Thanks for having me. It's an absolute honor. I love PaintScout. Our whole team loves PaintScout. I told them I was coming on and they're like, dude, lucky guy.

Jon Bryant: That's awesome.

Michael Murray: Well, that's sweet. Tell us more about your business and how you got into this whole thing.

Justin Georgopoulos: Yeah, so I really started the painting company through Student Works Painting, about six years ago. Before that, I was working at a butcher shop. I'd just dropped out of school and was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I was listening to some self-development podcasts and learned about door to door. So I would grind up the scrap meat at the butcher shop and go door to door with flyers I made on Canva to sell dog food.

I did that for a bit and learned the door to door way. I didn't really do anything with the dog food company, but it was a good place to learn. I got approached by someone doing door to door sales with Student Works, went with them, and as a rookie we set their record at 500K. That was all through door to door sales in the winter and then producing all the work in the summer, which was absolutely crazy.

Then the next year, a million dollars packed into a summer, all student painters — just chaos. But it was great to learn. I really appreciate Student Works. It's such a good way to learn how to run a business without getting bottlenecked right away as a painter. I got to learn how to recruit, all that stuff. From there we branched out. We saw a big opening in the painting space, learning door to door and how to hire estimators, and we caught onto that relatively early on.

We were branded as 519 Painters, which was our area code. At some point about a year ago, I just thought, we're thinking too small. We want to be bigger than the city. One night I was with my new business partner — he was our COO, we'd just given him some equity — we had a great night and gave each other a high five and said, we gotta bring high fives back. Right there we made the decision. Rebranded everything, which has been a huge process — wrapping 12 trucks, getting all the walls wrapped in the office. People are loving the new brand.

As for Trade Launch, it's just taking what we're learning and helping other guys. The main focus is helping painting contractors hire estimators. We role play and train their estimators, help install them in the field — the exact same process we used to bring over eight estimators into our own company, all selling at great closing rates and GP margins.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, that's great. I think we're excited to chat about some of your philosophies on bringing in a sales rep — it's such a major thing for a lot of businesses to do well. Maybe let's start with your door to door experience. Are you still doing that? Do you find it valuable?

Justin Georgopoulos: Personally I'm not doing it as much — I'll go out the odd time, or our sales manager will — but yeah, everyone is required to knock on doors. That's hell week. It's like Navy SEALs hell week.

We don't hire sales reps with experience. Maybe if they're coachable and willing to knock on doors, but very rarely. We call experienced reps retreads. We don't want them. We want to find young guys or girls who are down to canvas. That is the first thing a new sales rep does. We do not give them estimates until they've earned their stripes by setting up their own appointments and learning the door to door way.

We still do door to door to this day, but less on building big canvassing teams. Our estimators have KPIs for what they're supposed to self-set. After an estimate, they'll knock on neighboring doors, go to job sites, knock on doors — any free time in their schedule is spent doing door to door, and then we're plugging them with inbound estimates. We reward those who outbound more with more estimates, so it's a flywheel: guys who do door to door also get more inbound.

A lot of companies do like 8% commission for sales, maybe 5 or 10%. Then for self-gen leads it's an extra point or two. But we think about it this way: if we're spending 10% on marketing to Facebook, why wouldn't we give that same amount to an estimator who's finding new revenue? If we spend 5% on a lead because our estimator self-genned it, that's not double spending on marketing — that's new revenue. So we pay our guys 5% if they self-gen a deal, whether they close it or not. They could knock on the door, get an estimate, someone else closes it — they still get 5%. If they close it themselves, they get their 8% sales commission plus 5% for self-gen.

It really motivates guys because they can almost double their commission by sourcing leads. And for us, it's a predictable 5% channel.

Michael Murray: I love it.

Justin Georgopoulos: Door to door is huge for us. Our painters do it. Our project managers do it. Everyone is knocking on doors.

Michael Murray: Do painters and project managers get the same commission structure?

Justin Georgopoulos: A little different — more off an hourly base. We pay more off the estimate being set, and then we pay sales reps off the close.

Michael Murray: Got it. What percentage of a sales rep's estimates do you expect to come from self-gen versus inbound marketing?

Justin Georgopoulos: It depends on the season. We're in Canada near Toronto, so our seasonality curve is intense. In the off season, depending on how our marketing channels are working, they're filling the gaps — that could be 40% self-gen, 60% inbound. Once we get into busy season it's more like 10 to 15% self-gen and the rest inbound. But our KPI is at least two self-gen closes a week from our sales team.

Michael Murray: And that's two sold jobs, not just two estimates. Yeah, cool.

Justin Georgopoulos: Yeah, sell two self-gen deals. Now for newer reps, we don't hold them to that right away. If we hire someone, they're a junior estimator — 100% self-gen for the first two to three weeks, doing ride-alongs with our sales leaders to learn how to close. Once we feel they're ready, we start giving them some inbound as a bonus, but all new guys start strictly on self-gen only.

One thing that helps is they learn to appreciate a lead. If you give an estimator 12 leads right away, a lead just becomes a number on a calendar. But when someone knocks doors for three weeks and learns what an appointment is actually worth, when you give them an inbound they're grateful for it. You hire a guy and promise him all these estimates right away and then can't fulfill that — they complain. But a new rep who you give one inbound to is like, thank you so much for this lead. It changes the perception of what an estimate is worth.

Michael Murray: How many estimates on average per week is somebody doing?

Justin Georgopoulos: About 20. We're lucky to find guys — or rather, we have a system to find guys — who are willing to work Saturday through Sunday. We actually have to tell our guys to take days off. Monday is a full day of training, admin, pushing deals over, handoff forums, getting everything set. Then we run appointments Tuesday through Sunday. So we've got a great office setup and guys come in Monday just to lounge, do their admin — then Tuesday to Sunday we're closing.

Michael Murray: Cool.

Jon Bryant: What do you tell your guys to make door to door less intimidating? Because I think a lot of people listening are scared to do it.

Justin Georgopoulos: Well, if you have the courage to run a business, knocking on a door is nowhere near it — but it is a different perception, and there are different personality types where it can seem more intimidating.

Start very simple. You're producing a job right now, your painters are there — knock on the neighbor's door and just let them know. "Hey, just wanted to introduce myself. My name's Dan. You'll see our truck coming in and out — we're just painting the house here. Curious, what are your plans for painting?" Just see where it's at.

You're not trying to sell anything. You're just asking what projects might be coming up and introducing yourself. We knock on the door, stand back six to eight feet, give a nice wave and a smile. We talk to them like they're a neighbor — because they are. No huge pitch, no pointing out problem areas on their home. Just: hey, this is what we do, what can we help you with? If they're not interested, we say no problem and ask to add them to our list for email and drip campaigns. We get their name and number and move on.

Jon Bryant: Do you send new reps to knock around your current job sites, or do they wander into any neighborhood?

Justin Georgopoulos: We have a door to door map of where we've already been and where we're going, so we plan routes for them. But all our guys can see where we're currently producing, so they can knock there too — those are some of the hottest leads, right next to where the lawn sign and wrapped truck already are.

We also have our premium neighborhoods mapped out so we don't send anyone to rough areas on their first day. We don't want to scare them off. We send them to nice areas with heritage exterior houses, and they start visualizing like, wow, these are big painting jobs.

For anyone listening, I have a free community where we have live footage of me knocking on doors — hours of it. Getting estimates, getting rejected, some crazy conversations. I have one clip of getting seven estimates in a row on one screen camera shot. The scripts, objection handling, the exact onboarding training — it's all in there for free. It lowers a lot of people's intimidation because they can see someone selling paint, someone getting rejected, and they're like, okay, it's not that bad.

Jon Bryant: How were those videos made? Were you holding the camera?

Justin Georgopoulos: Someone held it to their chest while I knocked on doors. One time a guy posted a ring camera clip that kind of went around — a sales trainer at Ivy School liked what I was saying — but mostly just a guy with a camera.

Jon Bryant: Gotcha. I find it fascinating. One question I have — the businesses I've been around have never really done door to door. We do door hangers around the job, wave to the neighbor, that kind of thing. But typically the door to door jobs are smaller average job size. True or false?

Justin Georgopoulos: I've heard that, and I guess it depends on what kind of houses you're targeting. For us, it's actually the opposite — our highest average job size comes from door to door. But it can go either way depending on what you're going after. Like if someone just wants their garage door trim painted, maybe don't chase that if you don't want to skew your numbers.

We always ask though: "After the garage door trim, what's the next thing? What's down the line?" We try to build up scope and give options, whether it's upsells for the current project or things for the PM to surface when they're on site.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, because I can see a lot of the value being in the relationship building, the drip campaign — they know you now, and you're set up for that big job down the line.

Justin Georgopoulos: Yeah. We categorize all our door to door contacts as A, B, or C leads. An A lead wants a quote within the next week — hot. A B lead has a project but isn't ready to book yet. A C lead has no painting in mind but gave us their name and number. We get mostly C leads. In a three-hour shift, one rep could get 30 to 40 C leads. We have this big data list that we cold call months later, run sending campaigns to — and those are basically free leads we own forever. Especially in Canada where you can't buy a residential list, you have to go get them yourself.

Michael Murray: Is all your work residential, or do you do commercial?

Justin Georgopoulos: About 85 to 90% residential.

Michael Murray: And exterior versus interior split?

Justin Georgopoulos: About 70/30, exterior focused. We're adding Venetian plaster and some other services to keep interior busier, but exterior is our bread and butter. And staining — our profit margins on staining are insane. We're at about 75% GP on deck staining because we use premium oils, have a never-chip never-peel guarantee, and we strip and brighten the wood. We quote at high amounts because a lot of guys don't want to do the prep work, so clients pay triple to go with us. Interior is great too, cabinets are excellent. But in deep winter it can be harder to convince people to paint inside if they want to keep windows open, so we really rely on exterior to hit our numbers.

Michael Murray: How much flexibility do reps have on pricing and discounting?

Justin Georgopoulos: We price all our jobs at a 70% gross profit. The rep has a 10% buffer to give as an on-site discount or promotion. They navigate it at the close depending on what's needed — maybe a step out, call a manager, come back with a discount.

On our appointment setup calls, we let the customer know they may qualify for some promotions on the day of the estimate, and we ask if — assuming the price looks good and everything checks out — is this something they'd be open to moving forward with that day? So we pre-close them and get them ready to make a decision.

Michael Murray: Talk a little about that conversation on the phone. The appointment setter says that, and the customer says they want to get other quotes. How do they handle it?

Justin Georgopoulos: First, the most important metric for a CSR is speed to lead. If I had to choose between a perfectly qualified appointment and a speed to lead under one minute, I'd choose speed to lead every time — because booking rate is the most important top-of-funnel metric.

The second is speed to appointment. We try to get out same day or next day. The one thing that adjusts that is decision makers — if we could get out tomorrow with only one decision maker there, versus the next day with both, we'll push back to get both.

The setup call looks like this: answer the phone, introduce yourself, find out what they want. But we don't ask surface-level questions. We ask why this year? How long have they been thinking about it? We really diagnose like a doctor before prescribing — really understand the house, the client, their wants, needs, their why. That call is five to eight minutes.

Then we look at availability, book a time, and ask what time works for them and any other homeowners involved. We say it really does help us to have both people there, just so everything's super clear. We also explain how the quote is going to go — that it's typically an hour to an hour and a half. The estimator will walk around with you, take measurements, write up the proposal, then sit down with you inside to go through everything. We really only need you for the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes.

Setting that expectation clearly is vital, because if you can't get inside to present or they leave halfway through the quote, you're rarely going to close that deal.

Then finally the pre-close: "Hey, as a painter I'm sure you realize we're heading into busy season. A big thing for us is knowing where we're going ahead of time. We do have some potential promotions available if you're ready to schedule on the day of the estimate. Hypothetically, if everything looks good, price makes sense, you trust us — is booking that day something you'd be open to?" If they say yes, great. If they say no, we're still going to quote. But now the estimator has context.

If they say they're still getting other quotes, we say: no problem — just so our estimator can serve you best, what's the main thing you're looking for between quotes? Price, timeline? That way the estimator knows the angle to take.

We also don't tell the estimator if the client is planning to get other quotes. We don't want head trash. We just want them to think this is a closeable job — because a lot of times the customer says "I'm definitely not making a decision today" and then they make a decision today. People say things because their guard is up. Once the estimator warms them up and they trust you, they're ready to go.

Michael Murray: Ha — Jon, did you catch that? Customers don't always tell the truth. First time ever.

Jon Bryant: Wild. I've never experienced that. I always thought me not getting the follow-up was my fault.

Justin Georgopoulos: Yeah, I've done that on software calls before too.

Jon Bryant: Exactly. That's who I am outside of sales — I'll book a two o'clock and never answer again. Fantastic. So I love all the detail, Justin. This is the kind of stuff Michael and I thrive on. Because a lot of guys complain they're just getting underbid by everybody and think they need to be cheaper. That's not what's actually happening — they just haven't been trained the right way. The painting industry is less developed than others when it comes to access to this kind of information, and a lot of people don't even know they need a sales process.

Michael Murray: The only follow-up I wanted to add — you mentioned starting at 70% gross margin, which is above what most consider industry standard. If someone's skeptical and thinks the price is too high, what would you say?

Justin Georgopoulos: There's multiple ways to skin a cat. If you want to be the cheapest, you need a lot of volume and a lean overhead. We have high overhead — to break even we're at about $280K in produced revenue a month. So we price our GP high because we have custom technology, AI, we're wrapping vehicles, we're bullish on marketing. We're all in on our business.

And I'll say this: you'll never be the cheapest unless you genuinely want to be the cheapest. So there's no point fighting that. Look at your overhead expenses — everything you're spending. A lot of guys make good revenue but don't make any money. I've been there.

We pay our subs 30% and buy paint at about 10%, so that's where our 60 comes from to start. Then you factor in in-house staff at around $30 an hour, project managers, sales rep commissions, marketing — all of it. To actually scale, you do have to increase your prices. You'll attract the right avatar. And when you charge the right amount and back it up with great service, your referrals compound. Those referrals will say "they're a bit more expensive but worth it" — and you're in a way better position.

The reason I use 70% is I had a one-on-one with Alex Hormozi, we looked at our business, and he said I should be at 70. So I took his advice.

Regardless, look at what you actually want to make and anticipate the hires you'll need as you scale — new PMs, new admin. Price for those hires now so you can afford them when they come, rather than having to jump prices the moment overhead increases.

Michael Murray: Love it. Agreed.

Justin Georgopoulos: And it gives you wiggle room for discounts.

Jon Bryant: Perfect segue — we've talked a lot about pricing on the podcast, using production rates, understanding your numbers. How do you ensure you're hitting that 70% on each job?

Justin Georgopoulos: First, make sure you're marking up your materials too. Some guys think they have a 50% GP because they doubled their labor rate, but then they're giving away paint and materials for free. That 10% material cost gets factored against total revenue and pulls your GP down. So make sure all materials are properly calculated and have your margin applied.

For example, at 60% gross profit: if you pay your painters $30 an hour, factor in taxes and burden — call it $36. Then to hit 60% GP, you multiply by 2.5 or divide by 0.4. Same math applies to materials — if a gallon of Duration costs $50, multiply by 2.5. That gives you a true 60% margin, not a 60% markup. A lot of people confuse those two things.

Second is job costing. Are your production rates actually accurate? We're always refining ours — changing our baseboard standards, masking standards — because sometimes when we build a new one we're guessing and then we refine as we get feedback from job costing. Some things like multiple-color spindles on heritage homes, you just have to guess and refine. We have standards for single-color spindles, double, triple — because some of these historical homes are like artwork.

The best advice: don't wait for everything to be perfect. PaintScout has great templates to start with. Refine as you go. If you try to get everything perfect upfront, you'll just keep waiting and keep guessing your quotes. Time your guys, job cost, then adjust. That's the best way.

Jon Bryant: No truer words. Analysis paralysis is real. And we're pricing out art, which is interesting — it's not that different from an actual painting on a canvas. You have standards, but sometimes things will be a little different. Being comfortable saying "my walls are typically 80 square feet an hour but these are different, so maybe 70" — that's okay.

Justin Georgopoulos: Exactly.

Jon Bryant: So 70% GP — where does that land your dollar-per-hour charge rate in your market?

Justin Georgopoulos: $125 charge rate, plus the markup on materials.

Jon Bryant: And you include materials and labor together in one line item for the client?

Justin Georgopoulos: Right, everything comes in as one item. We don't separate labor and materials for the client. But when I'm putting materials in PaintScout, I make sure the 70% is applied. That also gives us room — we're not selling all jobs at 70% because we have that 10% buffer. A lot of jobs we sell have a 5 or 10% discount built in. We love to say to clients, "I don't know if the office mentioned this, but we have some promotions." Especially after a price objection — if you can even tentatively commit today, we can offer an on-site booking incentive.

We also use a refundable holding deposit when needed. If they're not ready to commit — still want other quotes — we say: "I know you want those other quotes, and I'm not going to take that away from you. But if there's a way I can hold this discount for you even after you get those other quotes, would that be helpful?" They say yes. "What we do is take a small refundable holding deposit to lock the discount." About 80% of clients who do that still move forward and don't ask for a refund. About 20% do. But now you're 80% more likely to close deals you would have lost otherwise.

Michael Murray: That holding deposit — is it like 5–10%, a few hundred bucks?

Justin Georgopoulos: Just something — sometimes we'll take a $100 deposit on a $20K job if that's what gets the sale. We changed our full deposit structure recently too. We used to ask for 25% upfront; now we ask for 50%, and then the other 50% when the job's done. If they push back, we can lower it — to 30%, 20% — but we always ask for 50% first.

Here's why: your cost of acquisition might be 18–20% when you factor in marketing and commissions. If you only collect 25% from the client, you have nothing left to play with. But if your cost of acquisition is 20% and you collect 50%, you have 30% left over to go acquire the next customer. Every client pays for the next one. That way you're never using the house's money — you're using your clients' money.

Justin Georgopoulos: If your state allows it — sorry, California.

Michael Murray: Good weather, bad business environment.

Jon Bryant: I love how you're challenging these preconceived notions — GP numbers, deposit amounts. You go online to the Facebook groups and it's crabs in a bucket. Someone says "I'm going to raise my deposit" and immediately it's "you're an idiot, you're going out of business." I love having conversations that challenge those things, because there's no one right way. There's just the way we've been doing it for a long time, and that doesn't mean it's correct. So many people would benefit from hearing this.

Justin Georgopoulos: You have to be willing to adapt and grow. This year we rebranded, switched banks — mid-season with millions of dollars coming in, switched our whole banking system. Switched our accounting firm, our bookkeepers, our administrator, brought in a new project coordinator. Switched from Dulux to Sherwin-Williams. Switched CRMs. We switched everything in the business this year because we realized there are better ways to do things.

Even one change for someone listening could be huge — "I'm going to add $10 to my charge rate." That's one switch. It's stressful, but you adapt and learn. And if you're all in on this business, it's worth it. Because going through all this and wearing all the hats and making $30K net on a $700K business — you start doubting whether you're in the right industry. I've been there. You have to change your perspective sometimes.

Especially with AI and everything coming out — I tell my team, I don't know anything. That's the mentality. I'm confident with them, but sometimes I'll say this could not work. We'll try it out. I will never be too set in my ways.

Jon Bryant: That's a lot of change for one year. I challenge you to do it all again next year, just for fun.

Justin Georgopoulos: This has been the most successful year ever, and it's been fun. We hired EOS to come in and help with our leadership team. Hired Culture Index for deep personality profiling. We've probably invested over $400K in the business this year on growth. And I love it because it separates us. I show our team the P&Ls — painters, everyone. I say, this is how much we're investing. We are going far. And the team loves when ownership is all in. I'm not paying myself much salary right now because I want all the chips in.

That said, you don't have to operate this way. You can build a great painting company at $1M, $2M, $3M a year, fully automated, great net margins. There's so much potential in this industry.

Michael Murray: So Justin, what's the goal? You mentioned rebranding from 519 to Hi5 because you didn't want to just dominate one city. Are you trying to expand into Toronto?

Justin Georgopoulos: We have three locations — London and surrounding area, Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding area, and Bayfield and Grand Bend, which is more cottage country. The goal is to keep expanding, but this year is about refining our systems further before growing again. We grew out fast, and now it's about switching things, getting everything precise, and then going again.

Our 10-year target is 100,000 high fives. Every successful project produces five high fives — one to the painters, one to the project manager, one to the office staff, one to the estimator, one from the client. Our average job size is basically $5,000, so that works out to $100 million in revenue over the next 10 years. That's the goal.

Jon Bryant: So I just need a little hand sanitizer. I love Hi5. I'm going to immediately go get my hand sanitizer. Just joking. Just joking.

Justin Georgopoulos: You'll never not smile giving a high five. You could shake hands at a funeral. You could hug. But you're not high-fiving when things are sad. A fist bump is kind of like, yeah, we're cool. But a high five — you're putting yourself out there. You're being a kid.

Jon Bryant: Open palm, man.

Michael Murray: I'm a high five guy. Was one before I knew about Hi5, but I do love the branding.

Jon Bryant: That's great. So this has been awesome. I feel like we could talk for another hour or two. For everyone listening, I hope you're taking notes. There's a lot of conventional wisdom being challenged in the way Justin thinks about his business. So much intentionality — no detail is just assumed, everything is being pushed and refined. Justin, is there anything else you want to leave the group with?

Justin Georgopoulos: Can I quickly show who's in the office?

Jon Bryant: Yeah, let's do it. Office tour.

Justin Georgopoulos: Okay — Danny and Nathan. Nathan's a newer estimator. How do you like PaintScout so far?

Jon Bryant: Pretty good is all I'm looking for.

Justin Georgopoulos: Danny — what's your highest number of appointments set in a day?

Michael Murray: Let's go Danny.

Justin Georgopoulos: 32. On a Monday. 32 estimates set in a day. And Danny's 18 years old — he just won J. Cole tickets for hitting our record. And then we've got Maria, our color consultant. Hi Maria. And Sarah, our project coordinator — she handles all our scheduling.

Jon Bryant: Hey Sarah! Welcome to the Price Sell Paint podcast.

Michael Murray: Sounds like you've got a great team.

Michael Murray: Quick follow-up — how do you prevent appointments from getting booked out too far? Do you just dial back marketing?

Justin Georgopoulos: We're always hiring. We're actually understaffed on sales right now — our goal is always to have eight estimators going, and we're at six or seven with one in training. But if we get fully stacked up, our sales manager jumps in the field. Our CMO is trained on quotes. Our ops guys and PMs can jump in too. Everyone is ready to work weekends for estimates.

And weekend estimates close at the highest rate. Both homeowners are home, they got their paycheck Friday, they're relaxed and ready to buy. If you're not working weekends right now, I'd reconsider — at least for a while to get more sales, then you can take weekends off again.

Michael Murray: Makes sense.

Jon Bryant: I think it's been great and I'm excited to chat again, Justin. Hope to see you at PCA. PaintCon in New Orleans in November — looking forward to that. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on. And for those listening, feel free to like and subscribe. It always keeps us going. We'll see you next time on the Price Sell Paint podcast.

Justin Georgopoulos: Thank you.

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