Starting a Painting Business in 2025 [What You Need to Know]

Jon Bryant: All right, Michael, take me back to when, actually let's start this again. All right, Michael, today what I want to talk about is what I think is an interesting subject and that's it, you know, where we've gotten to today. There's a bunch of things we've learned and I always think about, you know, what would I have told the person that I was when I first started in this industry, in this business, what are some of the things, like some of the insights, the wisdom I would have shared with that person? So are you up for chatting about that today?

Michael Murray: Great. Yeah. No. Yeah. I like that a lot. I think that's a great topic.

Jon Bryant: Great. Well, let's, let's maybe talk about where we're at today, just to give people some context and then we can go back to the start. So tell, tell me a little, I mean, obviously I know about your business, but just for everybody who's watching, you know, what, who is Michael Murray and what is textbook painting these days?

Michael Murray: Yeah, sure. So, I guess, you know, the real brief started the company in 2006, after graduating from college, when I was in college, ran a painting business for one of the painting franchise kind of companies or whatever. We basically specialize in residential repaints. I would say, you know, middle to upper middle class kind of target customer. We don't, we do very little commercial work. We do a ton of kitchen cabinet refinishing. It's actually the biggest part of our business. And yeah, but interior, exterior, we have an employee model. So we don't use any subcontractors for really anything, but especially for, you know, doing the painting work. Generally, you know, it depends a little bit on the time of year. We certainly get a lot of, you know, winter weather, which we've chatted about here in Cleveland. So exterior season's about six months. During the busy season, I would say we're between 35 and 40-ish painters. And then, you know, this time of year, it's generally 25-ish on average. You know, again, give or take, I think anybody in the industry knows that that's not always an exact number depending on the day and the week. Yeah. So this year we're going to do little over three million, about three and a quarter or something like that. Pretty similar actually to what we did last year. We're kind of flat year over year. Yeah, less than what we were hoping for. As we wrapped up 2023, certainly a learning year for us. Now as we're getting into 2024, certainly some optimism going forward for some renewed growth. We've grown quite a bit over the last, I don't know, whatever, four or five years leading into 2023. Yeah, I don't know, that kind of helped.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I think so. I think that gives people some context around what we're talking about. Yeah, strangely enough, I mean, my story is fairly similar, although I didn't do a student painting company. I just wanted to, I think actually what's funny about my story is I wanted to go start a business I could go bankrupt at by the time I was 20. That was my goal. And you know what? The painting business isn't too hard to do that. If I wasn't living at home when I first started, I would have definitely achieved that goal pretty quick. Because I knew nothing like I had no support. I had no I absolutely nothing. I remember, you know, buying my first power washer and ladder off of a, you know, ex college pro guy and him saying, you know, good luck. You're never going to make it. That's like that's the point. That's the point. So thank you. And so, you know, from there, it's been kind of a meandering path. Let's just say, let's say. I think for a long time, I struggled with the industry itself. I, I did it for the purpose of learning and, you know, ultimately found it hard, hard to get out. It's a, it can be a very nice cashflow business if done right. And, you know, I started that in 2000 and, six, 2007, I guess officially we started 2008. And it was just seasonal to start with. And then we moved into being full time. So it's been 10 years that business has been operational full time. And I run that with my, you know, it's a family business. I've got, it's a staff model as well. And so, you know, this last year we would have been up to, I think total the company was about 65 staff. And yeah, it's fun. The motto of that company is to keep Calgary colorful. That's the city we work in. And, you know, it's been a fun journey to see that grow. And so that's really at the end of the day where Paint Scout came out of was that journey and trying to understand how to price and sell, which, you know, we'll get into this, but that was one of the big things I wish I could have been more exposed to from the start in really where I had the most opportunity to go bankrupt was in that pricing model. But in any case, that's my story. So that's been a 15 year journey total. I wouldn't say every day has been fun, but overall, I think it's a pretty cool industry to be a part of. So, yeah.

Michael Murray: Yeah. I hear you. So it's basically, you know, kind of what I hear you asking from the beginning then is like, what, what do we wish we knew in years, like one, two, three, maybe four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, whatever. Right. As we were getting going and building something and, you know, kind of going through some of those initial challenges. Is that right?

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I think, yeah, so I mean, I'll throw it back to you a little bit. I think I've heard you say this before, like you kind of wish at this, knowing what you know today, going back to the start, I think you had said like, you'd really like to know what a good company is and then what a great company looks like. Maybe you want to talk a bit about that.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, part of the challenge for me, I would say like really until I got involved with Nolan consulting in 2018 ish, that time period roughly, I really didn't know like what, what anything really was going on in the painting industry. I would say until that point, you know, I even would say I had some like, I don't want to use the word shame, but almost like shame over like, I'm just a painter or like I'm, I just own a painting company. And that is, you know, less significant and less you know, what less than, you know, most other things. And that's just the industry and it's okay kind of a thing. And then, you know, I got involved with Nolan and the summit group and realized like, wait a minute, like that's not necessarily true. That there are people in the painting industry that are very successful and very talented and not just hardworking you know, because I would have said that. And, you know, but profitable and financially successful and like very good business owners and operators at a high level. And so I think like that really opened my eyes and then, you know, and then to like, kind of narrow that down into like, okay, so if it's possible to run a five or $10 million a year business and have, you know, a lot of employees and sales team and all these different things, it's like, okay, cool. So how do I break that down? And you know, what is, you know, if it's possible to do that, it's probably possible to sell a job for more than $50 an hour or $60 an hour. And, you know, realizing like helping to understand like one, like just what is like. Like what is normal? What's the average? But then also realizing like, okay, so then what is excellent? And I've always been pretty competitive, especially like internally competitive, that if I know like what could be done, I feel like I want to see if I can do it. You know, if I put in enough hard work and I study enough and I, whatever it might take you know, let's see if I'm capable of that. And until that point, I think my answer would have been like a million dollars would have been like, oh man, that's like the biggest business or whatever, right? And then it's like, you know, the film comes off your eyes or whatever, and you realize like, no, like you can, there's actually a lot more possibility there.

Jon Bryant: Totally. I remember one of the first conversations I had with one of the coaches at the Nolan Consulting Group was them asking me what my goal was. And I think at the time, our business did 250,000 of revenue. And so I said a million. I'm like, oh yeah, if it was a million, oh my goodness, that's so big. And his response was, yeah, interesting, but that's kind of when the fun starts. And I think thinking back to that, he was absolutely right. And it's hard to see that. I think when we, and by human nature, this is just very typical. We look at what we have, we multiply it by three, and then we say, wow, that would be a lot. That comes down to salaries, that comes down to home values, that comes almost universally across the board. And so even today, if you were to ask me, what would be a big painting company? I'd probably just triple our value and be like, here's what big means now. But yeah, I mean, I'll just kind of echo your story a little bit. I remember I was very, my ego was very hurt about being in the painting industry. I remember this. It was like, I got into this for random reasons because I needed essentially to start a business in three days from the time that I came up with this idea. So I had no better ideas. I didn't know what I was getting into. Like very atypical story, right? Either you use it, you're a student painter or it's in the family. For me, I was like doing weird things for a 20 year old. Anyways, I remember having this mentality of like, the painting contracting world sucks. I don't want to be a part of it. I have a finance degree. All my friends are, investment bankers are working in corporate finance and I felt very inferior. And it wasn't until I talked to His name, I believe his name is Mike Crestwood. I think he's part of the PCA. And Mike, I met him at a conference and he said, how's things going? How's your business? He said, well, you know, we're, I don't like it. I don't like this industry. I don't like being a part of it. And I kind of want out. He's like, well, give me the facts. Give me the facts, your business. I said, well, you know, we're 1.5 million revenue. We have staff, but I just can't handle going to parties and telling people what I do. Because I was having this moment of like real vulnerability. Like, and he's like, huh, John, you've got it all wrong. You have it all wrong. And I kind of wish he was there at the start. I mean, this goes back to the original question, which is that he said, you know, here's the secret I found of having a really good life for me. And that's that I get to do my job. I get to to run a profitable business because I understand how to do it. And people in my life believe that I'm driving a station wagon, slapping paint on houses and everyone thinks they're better than me. And the freedom that comes from that is so incredible because behind the scenes, I'm going on like three trips to Europe a year. My kids are all in private school. Like I am, all my debts are paid off and I don't have to live up to anything. Whereas if you know, you're a, you're a doctor or a lawyer, like an investment banker. Every single day people have expectations of you. And you go to a party and somebody thinks, oh, that person is successful, so I want something. He's like, you get to go below the radar, it's amazing. And to this day, I believe that's true. That we run in a very, very unique industry where if you run these businesses properly and you're humble and you're very, kind of attentive to that making sure that ego is in check, you can run a really successful business if you know what that means and not have any expectation from anybody. So I think it's great. And I've been able to get over that from that perspective. So had that, you know, had Mike been there from the start, I might've thought very differently instead of trying to escape it like every day. Like literally like, hey, do you have like, if you had a job that was different than painting, I might be like, sure, I'll take that. And now I'm like, I love it. I think this is great. And it's super fun. This industry is going somewhere, because of people that are thinking about it differently.

Michael Murray: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's really good. And like the way he described that is so true. And now, you know, now, especially, you know, kind of maybe being on the other side of that conversation a little bit, I would echo a lot of what he described, but I think there's so many people that, you know, our kids are friends with or whatever that are, you know, a lot of these jobs that you just described, and they have big fancy houses and they drive expensive fancy cars. And I know that most of the people that have those things have a ton of debt and they can't really afford them. Not to say that that's true of everyone. And to your point, I'm like, I'm kind of good with my not all that fancy truck that's seven years old. And it has, I drive now, I drive a vehicle that is a completely branded textbook painting vehicle looks no different than the vehicles our team drive And I've gone 180 degrees on like I fully embrace it. To your point because it comes with like no expectations. And that isn't that's not a me problem. That's a you problem. Whoever, you know is judging that or whatever and that's and I'm amazingly okay with that.

Jon Bryant: I know it's weird, right? So like going back to the start, I wish I could have felt comfortable with this, knowing that this is a really valuable industry and we do a lot of good work. And when you're changing the aesthetics for people, it actually really can change the way their life works. Like color is very important. We provide very valuable services. And so it's important to remind myself of that. I mean, I don't have to anymore. I feel like it's ingrained in me now, but at the time I struggled through that at the start. So. But let's talk about kind of this like idea of, of good versus great. When you started, what do you think was good or great?

Michael Murray: In what way are you asking like the size of a business or more specific?

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I mean, you said a million, but like, did you, did you feel like now, if you could go back and give the playbook, what does the playbook look like?

Michael Murray: Yeah. I would have said even from the very beginning, you know, I was blessed with the idea that, so my dad had a marketing agency when I was growing up. Took me to a lot of like, you know, professional speakers like Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins and people like that when I was like in high school. So I was, and I was reading, you know, Robert Kiyosaki and, EMETH in high school and college. And so I was exposed. Yeah.

Jon Bryant: Wow, that, you must've been so cool. Ha ha ha.

Michael Murray: It's so cool. You're done. And I was exposed to a lot of these like important ideas. And so I would have said, even early on, I would have said, my goal is to run a business that doesn't rely on me. Right from the beginning. I never started as a painter. I don't like pretend to be a great technical painter. I think I can paint pretty well. Part of it is because I care a lot to do good work. And I think that is a big part of most professions. But anyways, I would have said that, you know, what good looks like is a business that doesn't necessarily rely on me, especially for like the getting the painting work done part of it, that I'm going to be, you know, working in the business in the capacity of probably marketing and sales and administration and back office. But, you know, and that like, was just kind of acceptable, I guess. And not probably realizing like, wait a minute, you could actually build out a whole sales team and, you know, office team and, you know, all of these different things. I probably would not have thought that, but I think at the very beginning, I would have thought, okay, like, you know, I'm going to hire like really good people that run the operations side at least.

Jon Bryant: And it sounds like it took a while to kind of get that in place or to understand it fully. You have the concept, but how long did it take you to actually get there?

Michael Murray: Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, one, so we had a different business model when the whole thing first started for the first like 10 or 11 years and whatever, we don't need to bore anyone with the details of that right now, but it's like, so, you know, somewhat like the timelines are a little weird, but it's certainly, even if we go to like, when we made a complete pivot to this new business model, like 2017, 18, it's still, it took a few years, you know, mostly because, you know, we didn't really look to inside the industry to hire. And so a lot of it was like learning from others in the industry, outside of our market, and then hiring people from outside the industry to try to like train on some of these best practices. So yeah, I mean, I would say it took at least a few years to, you know, get a team built to some extent, if you will. Yeah. Still building. Still working on it.

Jon Bryant: Still building, yeah, totally. So do you think you could have delivered that, the concept of what you have now to yourself 20 years ago, 15 years ago, like would that have been possible?

Michael Murray: I don't think I would have been able to envision an org chart like I can envision one now in like the size and like the depth of that. Mostly because like the numbers wouldn't have made sense. Right? If you're going to run like a million dollar business, you're going to be able to afford a few non-revenue producing people. Call it overhead, call it management, call it whatever people that aren't painting essentially. And so it's like, okay, if you can only have like two of them, where are you going to put them? And my answers were somebody in charge of the painters and somebody to like answer the phone. And that probably would have been the extent of like, an office manager, the term for person who kind of does everything in the office. And somebody running around checking on the paint. Those are some good job descriptions there. That's right. Something like that.

Jon Bryant: Right. Great job descriptions. I hope you still write them out that way. Yeah, okay. So it takes some time to kind of expand your thinking and your mentality about it. But I think to somebody who, say if someone's tuning in, who's just starting, right? Like they're just getting into this business. I think the words you use like org chart, thinking about what your company looks like when you grow is kind of the big things. And I wasn't really of that mentality. I was just like, the more work I get, I'll figure it out. And so the planning for me was, I didn't realize how much you could plan of this business. And what great companies do is they plan quite far in advance. And so I, you know understanding that you can plan for growth and building things for growth is, I think, you know, important to building that, that great company that we talked about, but overall, like, it's just that great companies exist. You can do it too. There's methods, do your research. I mean, the Nolan consulting group, we mentioned that definitely check that out. If that's something of interest, there's, there's education available. They can get you there faster. And I think I, I probably, you know, leading into the next, next point I wish I would have paid for education a whole lot sooner. Right. Like maybe even day one, I think my journey was kind of such that I got in the industry, I tried to get out for a couple of years and, I was, working in marketing actually. And, I came to an end, the company I was with was going under and it was obvious and, and so I flipped a coin heads was like going to web development, tails was going to the painting industry and it came up tails and I cussed. I cussed, yeah, exactly. I was not happy with how that turned out. And the first thing I did was to search, you know, painting company consultant. I knew that I couldn't do it in the way that I'd done it before without somebody to give me knowledge, like that critical knowledge. And so I I would suggest, you know, if you're at that point, get the education, pay for it because it comes back to you 10 fold. Now I will say this, not every coach is created equal. So make sure you do your research and what you need. And you know, there's going to be value equations there for everybody of how much you pay to the result, but, you know, look into it. I don't know any comments there.

Michael Murray: And not every coach is good. I'll just leave it at that. So I think it's interesting though, the way that I came across that, Nolan is an interesting, I never even would have, I never realized something like that was even an option. Like you said, you Googled, you know, painting company consultant or whatever. In my mind, it was like, I never thought that there was a such thing as successful painting company owners. I thought there was franchises, right? So I would have said, Serta Pro or whatever, as like, that's, you know, there's that option. And then there's like the Chuck in the Truck, if you will, local painting company, very unsophisticated, no technology, again, just very blue collar, hardworking, nothing wrong with it, but just not the most professional business. That would have been how I would have described like the only options. You're either Serta Pro or like small, tiny, you know, local contractor. And so like the idea that there was a such thing as the summit group never crossed my mind and I only ever heard of it because I was trying to solve a marketing problem. And so I had searched for like marketing companies for the, for painters or something like that and was on a call with somebody, like a sales call, just learning about them. And he asked if I heard about it from the summit group. And I said, no, I don't know. I don't, I don't know what you're talking about. What is that? And he explained to me what it was. And again, it was just like this moment of light beaming down on me, like, oh, there's something out there. And immediately, you know, it was a month later or something. I was, you know, giving them money and asking for help. And yeah, I mean, thank God that I did. It was certainly a good thing. And yeah, we met years ago through that. And, but yeah, again, it just, I think that like goes to the idea that like, it really helped to shape my mind on like what was even possible. Like you could afford to pay somebody to help you with this stuff. Right.

Jon Bryant: Totally. Right, right. And that they had information that's valuable to you. Like I remember thinking to myself like, man, if I could just write a job ad to hire a painter, that would be sweet. And then to find out that people have done this before, like that's amazing. You know, I will also put a plugin here for the PCA too, that there is a lot of good information and a lot of good people that are a part of that network. I think in addition to education, I wish I knew that there was a network of people that were willing to share information. I remember trying to price a deck a long time ago, and you know what I did? I called companies in other areas pretending I wanted a quote. Hey, I needed a quote on this, can I send you a picture? And I would get this picture back, and the guy would be like, well, it's between a thousand and 20,000. I'm like, sweet, I got some info. We're getting closer. All right, so at least not more than 20. And so in, in addition to education, like having that network effect of, you know, building contacts outside of your competitive area or even, you know, I know there's a lot of existing groups that are, for four competitors to make each other better. And I think these were great. I wish that I felt more comfortable. I was kind of shy, I think to get involved in that kind of stuff. So I try to like, yeah, do my phone calls and, you know, get someone on the line who could help me. But I would, I would highly, highly suggest to my, you know, myself 15 years ago, find a coach, build a network, make some friends, have discussions. Like these things were, are so valuable. So anyways.

Michael Murray: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Right. I mean, even like PCA, right. I mean, you know, we've certainly were able to, I would say, grow a friendship just from getting together at PCA Expo a few times in a row and, you know, a handful of years ago and, yeah, I mean, it's amazing. And that, you know, there's the Facebook groups. I mean, there's a lot of different resources that I think are better today than they were, you know, Facebook groups certainly didn't exist, whatever, 15 years ago, but you know, even like the PCA has improved a ton since then. And, you know, now there's the paint ed website or whatever that they put out with a bunch of really good content. And I think there are a lot more resources and, you know, other coaching organizations that are good. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of opportunities for somebody in that similar situation today than maybe there were when we were first starting.

Jon Bryant: Totally. Let's move on to the thing that, that actually was the biggest problem for me. And kind of spurred on so much of, you know, my interest level in pricing ultimately paint scout, you know, was driven by this need to price jobs. And it really started with, when I started, I had no idea how to price. I wish I could go back to that that individual, you know, John, 26, 2018 and be like, man, here is how to understand how to make your price. Did you know your pricing from the start? Michael, how did that work for you guys?

Michael Murray: So I would say like the one thing that we learned pretty well at the company I worked at in college, which was called student painters, was production rate estimating. And I think I've talked about it maybe a little bit before, but it was like, you know, we, it wasn't sophisticated. I mean, it was literally like, count the number of steps you took and multiply it by three to figure out the width of the house. But to be honest with you, it's like, it gets the job done. I mean, we now use measuring wheels and it's like, we're not, again, I make the joke, we're not cutting wood. We're close enough. Got it. And then we had a laminated sheet that said, you know, every window should take an hour. I don't remember what the original production rates were. You know, the standard to paint like four inch lap siding, wood lap siding was 85 square feet an hour. That is like, you know, memorized. It's in there, isn't it? Right. And forever in a day. That's just what it is. And we've, yeah, we've certainly adjusted a lot of the standards over the years, but, so I will say that we learned that the one thing though, that, so we, I knew how to production rate estimate. I did not know how to price because those are two different things. And then, so I could probably have a good idea of like how long something should take had no idea how to maybe get it done in that amount of time. But also how to like charge accordingly. I remember funny little story or whatever, but I remember my first year I was a freshman in college. So I just finished my freshman year and I'll literally go in door to door asking people if they want to get their house painted by little old 18 year old Michael. I don't know why anybody would have said yes to that, but they did. Hey, so preview of coming attractions. Don't ruin the story here. And so in my mind as a college freshman, I mean what? You know, 200 bucks was just a million. And so I never once booked a job that was more than three thousand dollars. And I remember specifically a lot of times, if I was close to three thousand dollars, I would lower the price to be under three thousand dollars for no other reason than no one could spend more than three thousand dollars on painting a house, because that was insane. And we painted like old Victorian houses that needed a bunch of prep work on them for 27, you know, 75 or whatever, because it was less than 3000. Even if the price I calculated said 3800 or whatever. And if you're in, I'll answer the question that many are wondering, I'm sure. No, I didn't make any money. I literally, I lost money. I worked like 12 to 15 hours every day knocking on doors, painting houses with my friends, and because I didn't charge enough, didn't make any money. Don't recommend it.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny you tell that story because I think the first year I was working, like doing painting. Same story. Like you just have no perspective of money, right? Which is like the, it's the craziest thing, right? So the sheet tells you 3,800, you're like, oh, that's too much. Nobody that owns a Victorian home could afford that. And yeah, I remember getting to the end of the year and meeting with my accountant. I was like, so how do we do, how do we do? She was like, well, you managed to lose 3000. And I was like, on one job? She's like, no, for the whole time, you lost $3000. So like it was a real sobering experience to be like, oh wow, like I don't know how this works. And every single time I felt like this uneasiness of like, what am I doing? I don't know the price.

Michael Murray: I thought you were going to say the accountant said, hey, good news, you're not going to owe a lot into taxes this year.

Jon Bryant: She did say that. In fact, based on how you're working this, you might actually hit your goal of going bankrupt. Good for you. So, yeah, exactly. So yeah, like I wish that when I, I guess the thing I would tell myself is that there is a method, you need to trust the method and that the price that you think is enough probably isn't and go up a little bit more. Someone's going to go wrong, exactly. But it brings me to the next point, which is that pricing aside, I didn't understand, so you said you knew how to production estimate, but you didn't know how to price. I didn't really know how to sell. And I didn't understand what a sales process was, right? Like going back, I try to think to myself, I'm like, what was I doing? I probably would walk around the house, itemize it. Someone probably had told me it's like $2 a square foot. So I'm like looking like dazed and confused being like I've counted seven windows and it's $2 a square foot. How do I do this? Okay, well, 400 and then work that back. I get $15 an hour, which is what I would make working somewhere else. That's a lot of hours I should be able to do that. And then I get to the door and be like, here's your price. And I wouldn't even ask if you want to do it. Or I might email it. I was pretty scared. And so I wish that I was aware of, that there is processes to follow when you're doing sales that are good for you and good for the customer. Like it helps people buy products, see if there's a fit. You know, some of the ones like the one that I really enjoy is the Sandler system, like you're familiar with that too, Mike, like it's just, it gives me comfort to know that I'm helping people buy and, our sales teams are helping people buy our our heart is in the right place when we're doing the process. We're asking lots of questions and trying to figure it out. Man, that would have been so helpful.

Michael Murray: I think one of the things I would expand upon is like, now that I've gotten to this point, looking back and like one of the thoughts that really helped was understanding that it's okay if I don't sell the job and if the only way I'm going to sell it is to lower the price to a point of not making money, like I was my first year, then I shouldn't sell the job and I should go do something else. And like that would be better than having done what I did my first year of losing money and working my butt off. I wish I could tell you I learned that after the first year. No, it took like 10 because I'm a slow learner. But you know, eventually, you know, I know that's true. I think that's the problem with the people that live up in this northern part of the hemisphere here. But the, yeah, I mean, it just like, I got to the point where I was like, you know what? It's like, maybe we're not going to be a million dollar business or whatever. And that's okay, because I'm going to price a job at a point that makes sense. And like, sure, there's a little bit of wiggle room to provide a small discount, especially if we need to book a job or whatever. Don't get me wrong. But it's like, I'm not going to go in, because my competitor's price is half of mine I'm not going to say, oh, well, then their price must be right. So I guess my price should be half. Like maybe that's what the price is for this work. And that's okay. But then I'm going to opt out and not participate. Or more to the point, like I'm going to go find a customer who wants to pay for what we're providing here and that, you know, maybe not everybody is the right customer and that's, you know, certainly another lesson that I've learned over the years.

Jon Bryant: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that idea of like, what is the right customer? And that you want lots of people to say no, essentially, because you want the bad customers to weed themselves out. This is so valuable because yeah, going back to that feeling of pressure, like when you, I think. So knowing who the right customer is, is super important. I want to dig into that, but I think a big part of the problem that the root of the problem is that we didn't have enough leads. We didn't understand a market. And so it felt every single time like you got a lead, like, do remember getting those calls? I mean like, oh my goodness. I have a lead. Like I got one this week, so I better make sure I make it work. And the pressure of that one lead led to like really bad behavior. It was like, no, okay. Let me call you like 10 times. I'll try to lower my price. Just work with me. In reality, you don't know why the person's not working with you. Because you never asked. They're just like, it must be price, it must be price. And so, yeah.

Michael Murray: And sometimes it is, and it's just, they're not the right customer. Again, you've got to finish that right.

Jon Bryant: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, more leads to a happier, happier business, right?

Michael Murray: Oh yeah. I said before, I think you can solve almost every problem that, you know, again, it's not that simple, but almost every problem that a painting company has in terms of growing and making profit by just having max leads and max applicants for painters. Right, because then now all of a sudden you can hold a high standard for your crews, right? You're not putting up with the person who shows up late and doesn't want to work hard because it's okay 20 really good applicants coming through the door today. Going to be okay. That's how like the best sports programs operate, right? If you go to the, you know, whoever, the Alabama football team, part of the reason that they're so good, their first stringers are amazing, but their third stringers are really, really good. And there's another kid who's coming in as a freshman next year, who's going to be amazing. And it's this constant flow of really talented people that keep pushing up the standard of what's going to be acceptable here. And we can do the same thing in our painting companies by having constant flow of really good applicants for painters. Similarly to your point on the leads. If we have constant flow of leads coming in, I feel pretty comfortable to say to a customer, this is my price, I would love to work with you. I would love to earn your business, but I'm okay if not because we're not going to starve, because I'm going to, you know, in the next few days, I'm confident I'm going to find some customers who do want to pay for what we're doing. 300%.

Jon Bryant: Right. So both of those things are in my mind, marketing. Kind of they're fairly equivalent in the approach and how we do it at the core. Now, going back to, you know, Michael in 2006, you know, what's the advice or what's the, what are you going to tell that person in order to get these things going in order to tackle this problem?

Michael Murray: To the problem of more applicants and more leads. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, I mean, one is don't overcomplicate it and you can just get out there and work hard. And that will solve a lot of the like first problems, like you can get to a million through just work harder. Network, go out and meet with people. You know, join some BNI groups or community organization groups or things like that. And you can get to that, that million, go door to door. Like there's, it doesn't map. The thing that you're doing matters less at that point, cause it's less about being efficient as it is about just, just doing enough activity. And similarly with like recruiting it's, you know, it is somewhat similar at that level because you don't need to hire, you know, 40 employees a year, you need to hire a few. And, you know, so you can just, hey, ask, you know, all the things, right? Like ask for referrals, you know, constantly letting people know that you're hiring, posting on the online job boards, like any of those things work. It's just a matter of doing, do it more is what I would have told myself.

Jon Bryant: And there's a lot of free advertising available, but you got to do more of it, right? Like just network, be present. One thing that really, really helped me, and I don't talk about this probably nearly enough, but it's the concept of small market domination. And I learned this a long, long time ago, and I was struggling with this exact problem for our painting business. And I used to think that the whole city was my customer that every person was my customer. And I quickly, well, for one, I didn't have a budget for anything. And so when you don't have the budget for things, what's the best way to use your budget? Cause we know that customers have to see your brand, what is it? Seven times to build trust or be willing to work with you. And so I learned about the strategy that was just to go after a very small number of people at a very high frequency level. And what I did is I started on very specific communities, even I'd pair it down to even smaller sections like a postal code or a zip code. And I would just try to work that one area. That was going to be my area. And I would make sure that, I didn't care about anybody else. If stuff came in, great. But that person was going to see my postcard. They were going to see our signs. They were going to see our trucks. They were going to see everything about us over a period of three months whereby we started to notice that we got lots of work in the community because they trusted us and their neighbors trusted us. And so I wish I would have started that process earlier because what we did was we took that and moved it to multiple different areas and we still follow a very similar strategy, to be honest. It's just gotten much bigger. Right. So—

Michael Murray: I think that's gold. I think that's something that I would probably say we're still not great at. But I agree with you 100% that it certainly is a lot easier. And I would also say too, like it's shocking how much painting work is done in like, you know, whatever, 300 home neighborhood in a given year. It's like kind of mind blowing how much painting work is done in something as small as just like a couple mile radius in one zip code or one city or whatever. You don't have to, you know, have a hour drive territory to do a million dollars in painting work or work for 5 million, to be honest, right?

Jon Bryant: Not at all. No, no, not at all. Yeah, and I think that, you know, changing your perspective on that really helps when you're small. I understand you can actually be big in an area, right? Like, and also the saying, like, I learned a long time ago, I don't know who said it, but everything always has to be painted, right? Like, you know, even in my own home, we just painted a wall, I think it was like three weeks ago. And my kid has already painted like that's already put a marker on it. It's already got to be repainted. And it's like so every single house is like this, right? It's like paint is like millimeters thick. It's not like a huge barrier. And so—

Michael Murray: You should be using dry erase paint or something so your kid could write on the walls and then you'd have no problem.

Jon Bryant: Where were you a month ago, Mike? Come on, man. I need these tips.

Michael Murray: Well, this is, I've gotten better at sales. You can, I mean, that's what I'm here for now.

Jon Bryant: Exactly. So anyways, that's a, that's kind of a fun one that I think not a fun one, but it's super tangible in marketing to just go back to absolute basics, realize you can be small and big at the same time, spend your resources really efficiently. Spend your time efficiently. It's it was so much easier when we did that. So, looks like I just hit the surface of the sun. Okay. My lighting is just weird today. All right. Let's talk about one more thing here. I guess, yeah, I got one more thing, which is why do customers buy? I know it's a big question, but it's one that when I really started, we kind of touched on this, I thought it was price. I thought that we could win jobs by figuring out what the customer would want to pay. I've since realized that there's a lot more that goes into this. People have a lot more baggage than they're willing to admit. A lot more trust issues than they're willing to admit. And I wish I knew that. I wish I knew that. But again, I'd have the perspective. I was like 20 years old. I didn't understand what, you know, adults at that point were going through. So anyways, any thoughts there? I mean, like.

Michael Murray: Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I would have thought, you know, I wouldn't have even used these words, but in my mind, I thought of what we do as a commodity and it is simply a very basic transaction. We're going to put paint on the house, the wall, whatever, and you're going to pay as little as you possibly can for it. And there's no other value really being provided. You know, there is no like one person does it better than the other. Maybe somebody can do it faster. But you know, providing a better experience was not part of my like thought process early on, not to say that we provided a bad experience. You know, it was meant to be like, we were friendly and kind and pleasant and certainly wanted to do right by people and we wanted people to refer us, but all of those things just kind of seem like a given, like that's just what everybody would do. And again, that was a commodity. Like having a pleasant experience was a commodity. And so why would you pay any more for it? And I quickly realized that that's not true, that there's people out there that are in our industry or contracting or a lot of industries that will take your money and not provide you with a good experience or maybe just take your money and not run you. Well, you didn't get anything painted. And, and I quickly realized that it's like, so, you know, if we could, if I could understand how to explain that and give somebody that piece of mind, which, you know, isn't just as easy as saying it. Unfortunately, you do have to actually be able to back it up, that's a lot better if your past customers are saying it for you. People are willing to pay more for that. That's the least I might.

Jon Bryant: Absolutely, yeah. And understanding that, right? Like it's taken, I think, it took me many years to understand what people value. And I think initially, because of these discussions I'd had with people about pricing, I thought it was just like, like you said, a commodity. It was about finding that price that was acceptable. And in fact, it wasn't even just acceptable to the customer. It was just like what the industry charges. And I was like, always trying to guess what the industry charges and the person would pick me. It was like very little thought about the customer at all. And, and now moving to a system, I say a system, like a sales system, sales process where everything we're trying to do is to figure out value, to figure out fit and understand like, hey, we're not the cheapest nor do I ever want to be. Because if I am, I've done something wrong. And you need to be aware of that, that if you go with cheapest, something is incorrect. And well, maybe not, not completely. I say that I kind of, I jest. It's like, like there's something—

Michael Murray: Something's not being provided. I mean, at the end of the day, right, it's like I could make my price cheaper by not having health insurance and retirement benefits for our employees. That's expensive. That we could save a lot of money right there. Or by not having an office staff that will answer the phone when somebody needs help. Like those things are not mandatory in our industry. And we believe that they ultimately provide our customer with a better experience as well. You know, they give our employees a better experience. We believe that if we have happy employees, they can give our clients a great experience. That's our whole business philosophy, my business philosophy. But, you know, so, but not everybody believes that, and that's okay. But again, under like my original mindset is when somebody told me your price is higher than somebody else's, I was like, oh my gosh, I screwed up. I did something wrong. I'm a failure. I did the math wrong. I did the arithmetic. My calculator made a mistake. Impossible. And now I've now realized that it's like, yeah, my price is higher and their price is lower and let's figure out why. Like what is missing from their price that's included in my price? And it's not to say that my price is better, nor does it mean their price is better. I always just, I think that is such a like concrete way of saying it. I thought lower price equals better. And now I realize that is, if not true, it's the opposite of true for many people. And my job as sales professional is helping them to understand that.

Jon Bryant: Absolutely. Yeah, price is an indicator, but it's nothing more than that, right? Like, so yeah, couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I think there's a lot of learning that's come over the years. And I mean, I love chatting with people about this who are starting out. There's a lot of experience that you have to have kind of to get here, but I think that you can, you can shorten some of these things by having you know, some of the stuff we talked about earlier, as well as just like the mentality that the information's out there and go looking for it. So anyways, that's my last thought. You have a last thought there at all.

Michael Murray: Yeah, I mean, it's just dream big. I mean, what's possible in this industry is pretty cool. Once I allowed myself to dream big and opened up my eyes to what was possible, it's way bigger than what I'm doing. It's bigger than you're doing. Someday I'm going to be as big as you and someday we're both going to be as big as a lot of the companies that we look up to. And it's incredible what this industry can do and when it's done well, it's not just great for the business owner, but it's great for the employees, it's great for the communities, it's great for the customers. And there's a lot of people running really good businesses that are taking care of all of those stakeholders, if you will. And yeah, I would encourage again, we said before, is like get involved and ask for help. And so many people in our industry are are willing and able to provide a lot of wisdom and experience.

Jon Bryant: Cool. Let's end it there. If anybody has any comments, feel free to leave them down. Send us an email. Leave some comments. Follow along with us if you feel like we're chatting about and yeah, have a great day and talk to you soon.

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