How to Sell More Cabinet Painting Jobs

Michael Murray: All right, welcome back to another episode of the Price Sell Paint podcast. I am Michael Murray joined with our co-host John Bryant. But today we also have a really special guest coming to us from San Diego, California. What is up Luis Rodriguez? How are you today?

Luis Rodriguez: Hey, what's up? Pretty good. It's a good morning. Pleasure to be here.

Michael Murray: Awesome, man. How's the weather down in San Diego? Pretty perfect?

Luis Rodriguez: Right now, pretty gloomy, so they call it the June gloom over here. So no summer.

Michael Murray: Okay. Man. We finally have good weather where we're at, so I gotta go over there then. And John, it's still snowy and cold in Canada, like always.

Jon: Dude, it's just been horrible. I don't know why I live here.

Michael Murray: Luis, let's get into it. Enough talk about the weather. So tell us more about your story and about your business. Just give us the quick, maybe two or three minute overview about yourself and the business and how you got to this point.

Luis Rodriguez: Sweet. Yeah. So company name is Lifetime Custom Painting. My dad started it back in 2008, I believe, about 15, 16 years ago. We do strictly residential interior exterior. I started with them about four years ago during COVID. I was doing college and stuff of my own, learning online marketing. So I decided to bring that over to my dad. I wanted to help him grow the business. So I did that for about four months. And then I learned about this consulting company called Nolan Consulting, which they help painters grow. So we joined them. And from that point on to now, it's been about four years. It's been pretty steady growth since they're giving us the playbook on how to grow a painting company. So it's been pretty fun. I've got a lot of mentors. You two are one of them. So yeah, right now just consistent growth. Right now we're at 16 painters in the field. I oversee sales and business development. And then my dad, he's in charge of managing all the projects and handling past customers.

Jon: So Luis, how did you get into this?

Luis Rodriguez: Honestly, I was doing dropshipping. So just selling stuff online and then COVID hit. So our production in China got halted. So that business wasn't viable during that month starting February. So I had to switch to something else. So the only thing I saw that I could bring my skills to was my dad's business since I knew how to run ads on Facebook. So I told him, hey, let me start running ads for you. I tried that for a bit and it actually worked pretty nice. So I said, I'm going to stop all this dropshipping stuff and I'm just going to focus fully on helping you grow the business since I'm pretty sure the two of us can grow this pretty strong in San Diego. And within 10, 15 years we'll be a really established company here. So that's a quick overview of my decision to start working here.

Jon: So it wasn't like a bunch of family pressure being like, Luis, this is you take over the business. This is you. No, that was just more kind of organic.

Luis Rodriguez: No, no. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty funny because I remember back in middle school, I was like, dude, I'm never going to be in painting. Like, it's not what I want to do. And after 2020, I'm like, dude, this is awesome. I love doing this.

Jon: It's funny how we've all kind of arrived at that same conclusion. We all start at the start.

Michael Murray: Yes, we stare down into the pit of despair of, there's no way I'm going to be doing this. And then you come out the other side and you're like, actually, that's pretty good. When you run this business, painting businesses can be certainly really successful and profitable if you're doing it the right way.

Jon: So I have a quick question for you. You mentioned a little bit about the arrangement that you and your dad have in the business and kind of growing it. And a big part of that is sales. And obviously here on the podcast, we love to talk about sales, painting sales specifically. So you mentioned before we got on that your dad manages a portion of it, you manage a portion of the sales, but ultimately you guys are doing sales together. How does that work? So somebody kind of has a sense of the structure here.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, so after we got set up with Google SEO and online ads and Facebook ads, that's what I would consider new leads, cold leads. So I basically do, I would say 95% of all those estimates because I want to test out the sales method that Nolan Consulting has given us and all the sales training that I've got on my own. And then my dad handles all our past customers. So we do work with a few insurance companies, a few realtors and GCs. So he handles all those relationships and all those estimates since they're more involved. And then I just do new customers.

Jon: Cool. And as a side point, I mean, we always like to kind of give a shout out for everybody that we're interviewing. So sales last year, I think you were really close to the $2 million mark individually, I'm pretty sure. Now that you know that it exists, I'm sure you're going to be over that this year, but how's that run up been? So it's been kind of three, four years now you've been doing this.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, so in 2020, that's when we finally broke a million. 2021, we did 1.4, 2022, 1.7. And then last year we stayed stagnant at 1.7. We grew by like 50 grand year over year. This year projected we're doing 2.2. So slow and steady growth. But the big goal this year is to keep our net profit consistently because before I was just focused on revenue and then I didn't know what matters is net profit. So we're fixing that up this year. This year we're running at 8% net. Last year we finished at 0.1% net, which is horrible. But now we're cleaning everything up.

Jon: Yeah. Better than negative, exactly.

Michael Murray: Better than negative. Louise, let's hang out there for just a second. What are, maybe a couple of the changes you feel like you guys have implemented well this year to really focus on that net profit? Is it pricing? Is it estimating? Is it on that side or more of on the expense or job management side?

Luis Rodriguez: It's a hundred percent job management. All our other expenses came in at budget or below budget, but our job hours, we were going over on job hours because instead of sending people home, we would just say, hey, John's done at this job, send them over to Kelly's job. And we weren't really managing the teams. So this year we implemented crew leaders. So each crew leader is in charge of four to six painters. And in that field there's two or three job leaders. So now we're doing proper work orders, managing jobs, we're finally doing job costing really well. So at the end of the jobs we're making sure everything went on budget, make sure materials are doing good. And of course our job leaders are keeping us up to date with how the jobs are going. And I feel like that's been the main driver. Because before we were just booking jobs, starting jobs, on autopilot without really checking anything else, just because we saw money in the account. And then we also implemented profit first. So that helped a lot, which is just moving money on a consistent basis into our accounts. And then that helped us cut down expenses. So I would say it's managing jobs properly with job costing and a management team with crew leaders and making sure that we're paying ourselves first before anything else.

Michael Murray: So talk real quick about Profit First. Maybe there's somebody that's listening that that's not something that they've heard of. I think John and I are both fairly familiar with it. We use something, I would say it's like a version of that textbook. But Louise, talk a little bit about what that is for somebody that maybe hasn't heard of that before.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah. So for example, for us, for the past 10 years, we've only had one bank account. So all the money that we got went to that bank account. And from that point, we would just pay all the bills, but we weren't separating profit from taxes, from materials, from gross wages. It was just all one account, pay everything from there. So now we have four accounts. Our main bank is Chase. And then we have Bluevine. So in Bluevine we have four accounts, which is one for profit, one for revenue or reserves, and one for taxes. So every time about once a month when I split the money up, we allocate a certain percentage to those three accounts. And then everything else just goes to paying off our expenses. And then from there, if we don't have money in the expense account, that means that we have to cut down on expenses. So that's helped me determine, all right, we're spending too much money in these two categories because percentage wise, it should be all allocated properly. And that's where we found out that we're spending way too much money on hours from just mismanaging jobs. And of course, our job costing helped us see that too.

Michael Murray: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I mean, what I hear there is just really knowing your numbers and that's a big part of, John and I are both big fans of production rate estimating, having standards so we can then make decisions based on that. Are we charging enough hours or not enough hours or too many hours or what that might be? Are we charging the right price per hour? And knowing where the money's going. It's not just, I feel like too often, I think in all small businesses, but certainly in home improvement and the painting industry, there's just a chasing of revenue. It's just staying busy. Because if I'm busy, I must be making money. And I think once you've done that for a few years and every year you realize that you're not making any money or you're maybe not making what you should be making, after you pay all your taxes and all the other things that maybe we too often forget about, then it's like, okay, I really got to dig in here and understand where is this money going and how does it flow through the business? And I think what we all realize is that we probably aren't charging enough as well as maybe we need to manage the projects better and things like that. So anyways, kudos to you. I mean, it sounds like you've really brought a lot of professionalization to the business in the last four years. And certainly this year as well. So it's awesome to hear, keep it up.

Luis Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you.

Jon: Louise, question for you about the job costing. Because I think, I mean, really important part of the process. What's interesting for us is that we, in our business up until recently, we only job costed on hours. And so we literally just look and see like, did the hours estimate, did they come in lower or higher than the estimated hours? And that gave us indication of whether we made our margins because our hourly rate is really where the whole business lies. But maybe for those who aren't familiar with job costing, can you explain a little bit of your process? I mean, ours is really simple and rudimentary and we've had to change it. I think we kind of changed it to what you're probably doing, which yeah, maybe you want to tell someone a bit about what that's about.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, of course. So for us, for job costing, we use a sheet passed down from Nolan consulting. It's pretty simple. So basically you input how much you charge for the job. And then on a separate form, you input all of your employees and all of the wages and then all of your direct burdens. So how much you're paying for taxes in your specific state. And then what you do is you enter in all your materials. So all the materials you spent on the job. So that form tracks what you spent, how much you charge or how much you spent on materials, and then how much you spent on labor. So at the end of the sheet, it's going to give you your gross profit. And you can also input how many hours you estimated and then how many hours you actually took. It was going to be from all the ones you input from however you track employee hours. For us, we use this app called Busy Busy and the guys clock in. So at the end of the day, we just pull a report and then put those hours into our job costing. So we know it's accurate. And then once the job's completed, we get a full rundown of what our gross profit is, what percentage we spend on materials, and then what percentage we spend on gross labor. And then from there, our goal is to do at least 50% GP, which is gross profit. And 10% to 15% of materials is a pretty good sweet spot. We've noticed that most of our jobs come in within 10, 12% for materials. And that's pretty much how I would do the job costing on there.

Jon: So when you started doing this, like on every job, what was the first thing you guys started to learn?

Luis Rodriguez: We're spending way too much on gross labor. So we were packing up jobs, and we were going over on gross labor. Our materials has been pretty steady, but gross labor was just eating up all the gross profit. We were doing 36% gross profit, 30%. So that's when we realized, my gosh, we're doing something really bad here. So we started properly managing how many hours we're doing per job by doing production rates, which helped us out a lot. And then of course, by charging more, which is what we didn't realize we needed to do in the beginning. So now that we have, they're somewhat accurate. Our production rates, we're still working on it. Right now we're playing to see how much we can raise our prices where we're still closing at 50% rate and our GP is still pretty good. And for us, we do a lot of kitchen cabinets. So that's where we experienced pretty big growth because for kitchen cabinets, that was actually our worst performing jobs because I wasn't charging enough. And then that's what taught me to say, okay, I gotta charge at least twice or three times of what I'm currently charging because of all the materials we're spending and all the labor hours involved. And now our kitchen average is about 64% GP, which is pretty good.

Michael Murray: Great. Yeah, that's awesome. Louise, I'd love to go back. I know you mentioned that your background is in digital marketing and while we're really focused on the sales side, I think it's really related to marketing and lead generation and things like that. What have you noticed this year in terms of how leads are coming in, what kind of marketing stuff has been working well? If you could just maybe talk a little bit about some of your strategy that's been working.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, of course. So we primarily do three. So we do Google LSA, which is Google local service ads. I'd rank those probably like a two or three, because we haven't landed too many humongous projects. Most of those are small little projects, like one, two day jobs. Then we do Google ads, which is SEO and then putting us in Google sponsored ads. Those are pretty consistent. We don't get too many of those, but those are within the four to $7,000 range dollar jobs. But the most profitable ones for us are Facebook ads. So that's what I've primarily been running since that's what I know. And what I've tried doing, interior exterior ads, they haven't hit too much. So my favorite ad to run are kitchen cabinet ads. And the best way for me that I found is long form video. So between one to two minute videos, explaining the process, what we do, how long it takes, and showing them exactly step-by-step process in that video and then at the end having our form, which is called a Google form or a Facebook form. So they answer all their info on there. And then I automated the whole process. So as soon as they put in their info, they can self book on our calendar, which is my calendar. And then I'll do a follow-up call with them to make sure that they're qualified. And then I'll go out there and do the bid.

Michael Murray: That's sweet. It sounds like you close those pretty well. I mean, I think that might be everybody's big fear or maybe people have had experience. I've done Google ads, I've done Facebook ads, and I just get a bunch of tire kickers and bad leads and this never works. And it's a waste of money. What are your thoughts on that?

Luis Rodriguez: So there are a bunch of leads that aren't going to be any good. Right now our closing rate for those are between 25% and 30% for Facebook ads. And we do have to vet a lot of the customers out because, yeah, sometimes they will call tire kickers. But in all that rubble, there will be a few really good ones. So just by following up, make sure that your presentation is solid. You explain to them exactly why you charge what you charge, what's involved in the process, and what makes you stand out against the rest. And for us, what's really helped us out with closing those jobs is offering the high quality painting products, which is going to be either Malesi 2K or Centurion 2K versus your standard urethane paints from Sherwin Williams Emerald or Benjamin Moore Command or Advance. And that's what we used to use all the time, but then we found that's what everyone uses. So once we moved over to the higher quality paints and we can take a sample door with those paints on them. That way they can see what the difference is and why they're paying for a high quality paint and what that'll last.

Jon: So let's, I mean, that's super interesting. Obviously it seems like people care about whether this job is going to last. Strange, strange concept. But maybe we can talk a bit about your process, Luis, because I think, you know, you guys obviously closed. Yeah. I mean, it's a strange concept. People actually care about whether this project they're going to do lasts. Weird, huh? I think one thing that'd be really interesting is if we can kind of dive a bit into your sales process, Luis. So one area I'm curious about, and it comes from your high rate of closing on projects, is that maybe walk us through your process for a cabinet job of how you maybe get it started to kind of set yourself up for success.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah. One thing that I, from just trying a bunch of different tactics, I think what's helped me the most is what we like to call setting up the table. So before you start measuring and giving price out and showing products. I do this right when I get to the door after I greet them is letting them know exactly what's going to be happening within that 45 minute to one hour time block that they allocated to us. So typically I start off, for example, I'll be like, all right, so the way I like to do these is first I'll ask you a few questions to understand what your vision for the project is and what your most pressing concerns are. Then I'll take some measurements, I'll take some pictures, and I'll build a bid on the spot. So before I leave, you'll know exactly what's involved, how long it'll take, what our warranty is, and of course, what the cost is going to be to do all of this. Does that sound good to you? And then that way I know that they do have the time allocated for this and they are prepared to talk about price at the end. Because I do like to offer a slight discount if they do close with me that same day or by that end of the week. That way I can start filling out my schedule. And that's another tactic that I added is giving a little discount. I usually say it's a few hundred bucks. For me, that means 300 to 500 bucks. That way, if they do let me know within that day or the next couple of days, they get the discount. And then I start filling out my books so that we're about three to four weeks booked out.

Jon: Do you bring that up at the start or when do you bring that up?

Luis Rodriguez: I bring that up at the close. So once I present the price and I show them my presentation on Paint Scout, I'll let them know, hey, I did add a little discount in there. It's a few hundred bucks. That's if you did let us know by the end of the day today or by Friday, if you'd want to move forward with us.

Jon: And if it's Friday at 3 PM, then it's like double whammy. Like you have, you have hours. Let me know. Cool. So going back to this, like setting the table. So you're going to, it sounds like slow down the process a little bit at the start. Make sure that they have the time to allocate it. Make sure that they understand the project. Is this where you bring out your samples or what? Like, do you have them all in your kind of like a trench coat that you carry around or how does this work? Just open it up and hopefully, yeah. No one's scared about that move ever with a trench coat. Yeah. So how does this work? Like when are you introducing the concept of the product to the customer?

Michael Murray: Especially in San Diego when it's 75 and sunny most of the time.

Luis Rodriguez: So for that, I haven't had a specific like, all right, I'm going to say this and I'm going to say this and then present it. I mostly just go with the flow when I'm talking to them. So first I'll ask them a few questions about why they called us, how long they've been thinking about getting this done, why they want to get it done, what's their biggest concern. And then after I ask what their biggest concern is, if they say, our previous paint job didn't last too long, I'm not sure if it's the paint or what's going on. Then I'll say, it could possibly be a mixture of these couple of things. And then I'll let you know what products we're offering. Or if they're like, we have them stained. We want to go to paint. What are you offering? Then I'll go right into it if that's the case. And then I'll ask some follow up questions after that. But it's typically when I figure out why they want to get the project done. That's when I'll start going into what the products we offer are.

Michael Murray: Yeah, talk a little bit more about that. So what are some of the answers that you might hear and how does that direct your next steps? So, I mean, we can even role play a little bit. So why don't you ask me, I'll pretend to be your customer and let's just kind of hear how you might transition some of that conversation.

Luis Rodriguez: Okay, so for example, Michael, what's your biggest concern for this project?

Michael Murray: Yeah, I mean, I think certainly price. We're probably going to be living here for just a couple more years. So we don't want to spend a ton of money on our kitchen, especially if we're going to be selling soon.

Luis Rodriguez: Gotcha, gotcha. Well, if that's the case, I do have two different options. One's meant for if this is going to be your lifetime forever home. Another one is if you're looking to get a really good quality job done, but you're not looking to invest that much into this house since you're looking to move pretty soon. So I can walk over those with you and let you know the benefits of both. From there, you can make your decision depending on what your goal is here.

Michael Murray: Okay, that sounds good. And if, so let's go back and maybe redo that and I'll give you a different answer and let's see how you might respond differently.

Luis Rodriguez: Okay, perfect. Same question or a different question? Okay. All right, so what would be your biggest concern for the project?

Michael Murray: Yeah. I mean, I think certainly it's just having contractors working in our house. Are we going to be able to use our kitchen? How long is this going to take? We really don't want some big month long process where it's really interruptive. We've had some other contractors doing projects and they took a lot longer than they said they were originally going to and things like that. So really just concerned about how long it might take and what kind of interruptions are going to be involved.

Luis Rodriguez: Gotcha, gotcha. I do hear that a lot and it's really good that you brought that up. So for us, our typical project for a kitchen, it's about one to two weeks, depending on how far you go with it. If you do your countertops, backsplash or just strictly paint it. So you're not going to be looking at any more than two weeks. Mostly it's going to be between that one to two week period. So five to seven days is our average. And I'll walk you through exactly what that process looks like. I'll show you some videos of what other kitchens similar to yours, what that looks like. I'll show you what our prep process is, who you're going to be in daily contact with if you have any questions about the process. I'll let you know what that process looks like and who's going to be the point of contact for all your concerns.

Michael Murray: You mentioned you're going to show me some videos. How are you going to do that? Did you bring an iPad with you or something? Look at that. Nice guy. Come in prepared. Come and prepared to the podcast.

Luis Rodriguez: Right here. Voila. All the essence of young people from here.

Michael Murray: So that's pretty cool. I like that idea of showing some videos. Tell us a little bit more about that. I mean, that's like, how long are those videos? Is the customer, are you both watching them together or do you kind of like let the customer hold it and you kind of go to your measurements or just talk a little bit more specifics about how you use that.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, so that one same thing. I kind of bring it up as we go with the flow. And I have five, 10 second snippets of projects that I've captured from different types of jobs. So if it's going to be a countertop job, if it's going to be a kitchen, or we're re-staining, or we're just changing knobs, depending on what they're looking to get done, I'll show them quick snippets of what that process looks like if they go with us. That way they're prepared to what to expect if they do move forward with us.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I like that. I might steal that. We don't use, we use iPads obviously with Paint Scout and creating our quotes and we've definitely done the showing photos of stuff, but we don't have videos that we show. And I really liked that idea of having some short videos to incorporate on site. We use some videos on our website or in some follow-up emails or even some of our prep emails. And I think we have some videos on the Paint Scout presentations section. But nothing that we actually kind of, I would say force the customer to watch in a way, which I think is a pretty smart way of showing instead of telling. So I like that a lot.

Luis Rodriguez: And I found that really valuable, especially for us when we do either countertops or we modify their doors for soft close, because a lot of customers, they won't really understand what a soft close means. So when I show them, okay, so we're taking your door, we're drilling holes, we're installing new hinges, calibrating them. And when they ask, what's your countertop process? If I just explain, we're going to come in here, we're going to demo, we're going to mask everything off. We're going to put new countertops in. It sounds pretty simple, but it's actually a really involved process. So when I show them pictures and videos of what that looks like, they're like, okay, so it's going to be a pretty big hefty work. And now we're prepared for all this.

Michael Murray: I assume you guys are subcontracting out countertops or you're throwing that out or something. Yep. Yep. Cool. Is that a pretty big thing for you guys? You guys sell a lot of that as part of the package.

Luis Rodriguez: We sub it out. Yeah. I would say it's probably 30% of the kitchens we do include the countertops. Yeah, especially during summer, summer's where it picks up. First three months of the year, final three months of the year, not too heavy, but the summers where it really picks up. During fall and winter, it probably drops down to like 10%, 5%.

Michael Murray: It's interesting. I think it'd be interesting, John, if you want to walk them through, I like these role plays. I think to hear more about how he gets to the price and the closing and talking about that discount. I know discounting can be certainly a hot topic on some of the Facebook groups and at some of the PCA conferences and things like that. Right. Should we ever discount? How do we discount? Luis brought that up as far as a sign on the spot or sign within this week type of a discount. I think it'd be interesting to hear how he might incorporate that into the conversation.

Jon: Yeah, sure. I mean, I think the whole thing about cabinets too is really fascinating because I think it's, although it's painting, it is very different type of service. So we'll do a role play in a second, but I think, Michael, you and I have talked about the fact that, and I think this is why Facebook ads really work. It's because we can create a want. And so versus interior exterior painting, which a lot of cases is a need. This is something we can create an aspirational vision for what your kitchen could look like. And I know at least in my life, the first thing that my wife wants to do is paint the kitchen cabinets. Let's change these up and it's not a need. I mean, they operate fine, but it's definitely been there for the last little while. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about that because I think, like you said, you were pricing it too low and now you've moved your pricing up. Do you feel pretty comfortable with your pricing right now? You do, okay. Yeah. And so let's go through a pricing, maybe role play here. So I imagine, when do we get to price in your system? When do we start talking about that? Very good, okay.

Luis Rodriguez: The very end. So after I talk with them for any concerns, why they're looking for a paint job, after I take measurements. So typically I'll take measurements and pictures for like 10, 15 minutes, then I'll build it out. And then once I'm ready, I'll let them know that I'm all wrapped up and I have the bid ready to present to them.

Jon: Cool. Do you reference price at the start or do you just drop it kind of at the end? Like, do you say we'll talk about price at the end or how do you phrase that?

Luis Rodriguez: So I used the Paint Scout presentation. I kind of copied Moose Painting's exact layout. He posted on Facebook and I just ripped it all off. So I go through his exact. I told him at the PCA, he's like, yeah, it's awesome. Love that.

Jon: I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that. Sweet yeah, Christian would love that. That's awesome

Luis Rodriguez: So the way I do it is on the first page, we just have a quick little bio of what we do, our licenses and credentials. So I found that a lot of customers from my end, they couldn't get past that page and they're like, where's the bid? So now what I do when I present is I'll flip over the iPad, I'll put the quotation on there and I'll let them know, all right, so this is what you're going to receive. It's going to look like this. The first page is just our license and credentials, quick little bio about what we do. And then if you click on this part, you're going to see the actual bid. And then I walk them through, we click on the bid. Then I walk them through our template and let them know how to read it. So this is exactly what we talked about today. All the notes we went over, all your concerns, I put them in here in the note sections. That way we know exactly what matters the most to you and what will be done. And then I'll walk them through that for their cabinet painting, their hinges, their countertops, their backsplash. And at the very end, I'll let them know the price because it'll be listed right there. And I'm going to let them know. So this is the grand total. And by the way, I did add a little discount in there. It's a few hundred bucks if you do let me know by the end of the day today. I can extend it to Friday if you need more time to think about it. But after that date, the discount will no longer be valid. And we are booking up for X days. So I would prefer to let me know probably two to three weeks beforehand because it does take a little bit of time to get everything organized. And then that usually gives them some time to make sure that they have everything ready. They get all the colors sent into me. They choose countertops if they're doing that or buy new handles.

Jon: Cool. And so as the customer, I see that and I say, cool, cool, Luis, that sounds great. I'm just going to have to talk to my significant other here and let you know what's going on.

Luis Rodriguez: Perfect. That sounds perfect to me. I mean, I get this is a pretty big investment and definitely kitchens are the heart of the home. So this is where you'd be spending most of your time. So I definitely don't want to rush you through any of this. I just hope that this gave you a really good idea of what's possible and what we offer. And if you have any questions throughout the process, feel free to give me a call. You have my personal number, so you can reach out whenever. And then from there, we just greet. Or they're going to be really excited and say, okay, this looks good. Let's move forward. But most of the time I don't get the close on the spot till like two or three days after, after they got their other bids. And then I have some follow-up processes in Paint Scout, which will keep messaging them. And then I'll also call them and voicemail and then text them and email. It's just like seven touch points per customer.

Jon: Carrier pigeon at the end, just in case. And so when you're in those discussions with them in person and you maybe sense, do you ever sense the price is too high and they're just being nice? Do you say anything different in that case or you just like to leave it, let the follow ups work and kind of go from there.

Luis Rodriguez: So in order to prepare them for a price, I always let them know that it's probably going to be like a million dollars. And as a joke, I'm like, just look at it now. It's probably going to be like a million dollars. And then they'll go a little loud. And I'm like, no, I'm just kidding. It'll probably be within this range. And then I'll let them know a pretty big range. I'll be like, it'll probably be between $6,200 to $9,400, depending on all the options that we're going to go through. That way I prepare them. They know exactly what to expect at the end. And they're not shocked when they see it. I always ask them. So once I present price, I always ask them. So I say, is this in the realm of what you expected it to be? A lot of them are going to say no. I didn't know it was going to be this expensive. And I'm like, totally makes sense. This isn't something that you do every day. But I hope that this does give you an idea of what a project like this entails and what it costs.

Jon: So while Michael's muted here.

Michael Murray: Luis, just a quick question on that. So while you set that budgetary range of like $6,200 to $9,400, when do you do that? Is that kind of part of that beginning setting the table process before we've done our measurements and things like that? Or when does that fit in?

Luis Rodriguez: So that's going to be before I do measurements, and this is right after I finish talking to them about what the process looks like. So before I do my measurements, I let them know, so after everything we talked about, just looking at it now, it's probably going to fall between this range. And then that's when I drop it. And they're like, okay, that makes sense.

Michael Murray: Got it. Okay. And so at that point, does it ever end? Does the customer ever say, man, I thought it was going to be closer to like $3,000. Do you, how might you respond to somebody who said that?

Luis Rodriguez: I've had some customers like, the past guy that came in here, he quoted me at half that price. And then I'd say, that's pretty low. We can go into what he's offering and what that process is after I present my bid. And then we can compare them, see why there's a huge price discrepancy. And then that's how I just try to get off that talk real fast. At the end of the day, we charge what we charge. I'm not going to drop my price down to that, but I do want to let them know that, okay, there's something wrong with that price. Why is that so low? That way they can think, huh, maybe this guy's offering something different or maybe what that painter quoted is nothing compared to what this painter is going to quote us or the process is different or the paint's different. But those don't come up too much. We don't really get too many of those.

Michael Murray: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we do in that type of situation, again, it depends on the conversation, right? But if somebody says, we already have a price for like half of that range that you're thinking this might be, it's often an opportunity to give them, to end the conversation, give the client the opportunity to say, we're not going to work together. And so what that might sound like is something along the lines of, okay, well, it sounds like you have a price, let's just say around $3,000 based on the numbers we were just talking about. I can tell you my price is going to be closer into that six to nine range that I mentioned a minute ago. It sounds like we're not going to be the right fit to work together. Is that kind of where you're at as well, Mr. Mrs. customer? And they might say at that point, they might talk themselves into it. No, no, no. I still want to get a bid from you. You guys were referred. I know that you're going to be more expensive, but we've heard the greatest things about you guys and blah, blah, blah. Or they might say something on the lines of like, yeah, to be honest with you, if you're going to be in that price, we could just never see ourselves spending more than $4,000 to do this. And then it's just, okay, great. No problem, completely understand. We part as friends and we're not going to spend the next half hour here, wasting our time and your time. John, any thoughts on that type of an experience there?

Jon: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting with cabinets because we can actually come up with a price really quickly. Sometimes we're essentially counting. I find for a lot of our estimates, how do you guys work, Luis, mostly counting or you actually measuring linear footage?

Luis Rodriguez: Mostly what I'm doing now is just counting. I do count the doors and then from there, I know exactly how long it'll actually take. And then from there, I have a set price, depending on how many days it takes. Before we were just doing linear feet. And then we did counting, but the method I have now is working out really good for us, which comes out to around $200 per door and drawer.

Jon: Yeah. So, I mean, and that number is going to vary probably company to company and depending on the labor costs and hourly rate, all that kind of thing. But it's actually pretty, when I come to a cabinet job or did, and immediately I just, I'm like, this is 25 doors or seven doors, 25 doors. And I know pretty quickly. And so in my world, it was all about trying to have that discussion about price kind of as fast as we could just to make sure that there was any interest at all. And I think the way we do it is like you mentioned, like price banding, like there's a bunch of options, all that type of thing. And to your point, Michael, like some people just aren't good dance partners. And so it's almost like, let's figure that out as fast as we can. And so we would do these, sometimes it was on the phone or we would gather the scope of the job. And when I would call them, I would kind of give them a range even before I came out to try to save as much time as possible. And at that point, it's just like, hey, it looks like you're looking for something different that I can't provide. Totally get it. When you're ready or you get to the point where you want to consider the project done in the way that we're presenting, give us a call. We'll be ready. And a lot of times it's just creating that little bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt that that low price. I mean, we've all seen it too. The low price. Have you seen some of these jobs that can get done at the low price? It's the wild west out there, man. And it's hard because we're on the inside. We know what this is, right? So I want to be able to leave the customer, not only with what you're saying, Michael, about like, hey, it sounds like we're not going to make it fit, but I need a statement at the end there that describes what we actually do. And when they're ready to get that service, we'll be ready to help them because they're going to look at that $3,000 bid a whole lot differently and maybe call us back. Like, wait a second, you were telling me that $3,000, the paint might peel off. What's that all about? It's like, well, let me tell you, sanding is really hard and nobody wants to do it. So kind of important. Yeah. So that's my comment, I guess.

Michael Murray: Kind of important. Yeah.

Luis Rodriguez: And that's why I do like to make those videos, is to show them what's involved in the $6,000 cabinet job. It's a lot of labor. So I do show them, all right, this is our sanding process. This is our prep process, how we wash them. This isn't something that we can do in three or four days. If we had Hugh Muggie's team to work on one cabinet maybe, but we take our time for each cabinet process. So this is why it does take a while. And at the end you do get a really great quality finish.

Jon: Michael, I have a question actually for you, because I totally agree with what Luis is saying and setting that up. Now you guys have a lifetime cabinet warranty. And I've always been curious how much that plays into that process that Luis is describing, which is that at the end, you have to trust the product. You can do all the steps, but how do we trust the product? Can you talk a little bit about that maybe?

Michael Murray: So what's the specific question, I guess? Like how often are we doing warranty work? Or what are you asking?

Jon: How does that promise play into the sales process?

Michael Murray: I think it's huge. I mean, I think the biggest thing for us with that is we hope it gives a client the confidence that we are going to do the absolute best that could be done, especially that we could do. We are not going to cut corners. And I think one of the big fears that anybody has when they're hiring a contractor is, are they going to over promise and under deliver? Are they going to tell me one thing and then do something different because I don't fully understand exactly what's going to happen. And it sounds great. And you showed me these things and the videos look good and all the things, but customers still have, there's like a hurdle of trust that they have to get over whenever they're working with contractors, because unfortunately not everybody in our industry or in home improvement are honest and have integrity. And so what we would hope is that it gives them that peace of mind to know that, hey, if we don't do what we said we were going to do. If we don't do the cleaning and the sanding and use a really good primer and use the super high quality products like Luis was talking about, we're going to stand behind the work and we're going to come out and fix it. We actually have a customer who we've done, we've painted her cabinets, I think probably five plus years ago now. And over those years, we've had to do a decent amount, more than I would like, of fixing up some stuff in her kitchen. And rightfully so, she's kind of upset about it. And we told her this year, we're just going to start all over. We're going to buy you all new doors for your kitchen and we're going to come in and we're going to repaint your whole kitchen, all the cabinets from scratch. And we're going to give you brand new doors because it's just going to be easier than trying to get the current paint off and all at our cost. And those are the kinds of things that we get to talk about. That is not just something where it's a warranty in name only, but it is something that we really do want to stand behind. Because it is something that we want to be known for in our community as the premium place to go. So I think that emotion or sentiment is kind of what we're hoping for. Did I answer your question?

Jon: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, because I think what we're talking about here is there's a why people purchase cabinet painting. And there's also the way that we can speak to it as contractors and market to it and sell to it as well. And I think everything we've described is this packaging of that emotion of the uncertainty of doing a project that's quite expensive and for something that is aspirational at the end and hoping you're not going to get screwed. And I think making sure that we're doing all those steps in the process to explain the why, explain what happens when things go wrong and line ourselves up with customers who care is really what we're talking about here. So I think just to kind of wrap that thought up, I mean, that package that you're delivering Luis, that's a good reason why you can charge the correct amount. And so putting more emphasis on that, I think is a great idea at the end of the day. So anyways, that's just, I was just overall curious. And I think there's a lot that people can learn from that because it's a whole different product than regular painting in terms of marketing and sales.

Michael Murray: Luis, so I want to end on one final question here, just as we're coming up against our time deadline, I guess. So you've been in the business for about four years, but you came into an existing business. And I would say in many ways, the business that you came into is the most common experience in the painting industry where it's one person who's running a business, handful of employees. You mentioned it wasn't quite a million dollars at that point. So what are some of the things that you've noticed are the big differences between lifetime custom painting in 2024 versus lifetime custom painting in 2019 or 2020 right before you joined. Maybe talk about just some of those differences that you've noticed between that four or five years here.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, I would say the majority of it is just getting everything updated. So getting off of notebooks and putting everything online, establishing an online presence, getting our reviews up for sure. Because before we had like seven, six reviews. Now we're at 137. So we're constantly getting those up, getting our pipeline, if you would say. So we use Smartsheets. Basically it's like Excel on crack. So now we have everything completely simplified to use. So then we know exactly what jobs are running, who the customers are, our QuickBooks. So we build the customers, we have a CRM now. So it's basically just building out systems. That for us was the big change. Before it was just, here's a giant suitcase with all the information on the business, insurances, employees, taxes, estimates, invoices. Now we have everything online, which makes it a lot easier. So if anyone needs information in the internal team, on the inside, we can just, it's on Smartsheets, go on there. Check the email, it's on there. And communication has been pretty huge too. So back and forth communications with my dad and myself. I'm pretty fortunate that he kind of gives me full control over the business. So if there's any decisions that I want to take, I'll bring it up with him and then we'll implement it right away. If I believe it's going to be a good way to push us forward. I do get his input on there and then we implement it right away.

Michael Murray: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, we talked about it before, but it sounds like there's just a much better aspect of knowing your numbers and making good decisions based on data. And that focus on profitability, like you talked about, seems to be a big emphasis now, too.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, for sure. Because our net profit before I started, my dad was doing consistently 10 to 15%. After I started, I did mention that from what I gathered from all the other people in Nolan, it's going to dip a little bit since we are going to try to push for growth. So we started at 15% and I derailed it to zero. And now we're building it back up. So now that we've got the systems in place and we have a good vision of what the future is going to look like. Now we're no longer focused on revenue, we're focused on net profit and building out a smooth running machine. So that's my whole goal here is to make sure that this company can run on its own legs because we have a solid team that can handle anything that comes to us.

Michael Murray: Got it. Yeah, that's awesome. I hear that. I mean, it's putting the systems in place. It's not just relying on the one individual who was really driving everything forward in the case of your dad, but it's really a team with systems and you're really professionalizing the business. So yeah, it's awesome. Something you should definitely be proud of.

Luis Rodriguez: Thank you, thank you. It's been a super fun journey, honestly, and I'll be here for the next 10 years.

Michael Murray: Love it.

Jon: Cool. Well, Luis, thanks for taking the time to chat with us, man. This has been fun. And for those listening in who still can handle our voices, or maybe this is the first time you've heard us, feel free to give us a like and subscribe. Helps us, helps encourage us that this is still worth our time to help all of y'all out there learn about painting sales. So thank you very much. Thank you, Luis. Michael, as always a pleasure and we'll see you guys soon.

Michael Murray: That's awesome. Thanks, Luis.

Luis Rodriguez: Yeah, thank you guys. This is awesome.

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