The 2026 Kickoff Playbook (Every Painting Contractor Needs This)

Jon Bryant: Hey everybody, welcome back to Price Sell Paint. I am Jon Bryant. I'm with Michael Murray as usual. For those who are regular listeners, we are going to get some guests on soon. We're very excited to talk to some guests. If you would like to be a guest on the podcast, we would love to have you. So feel free to reach out to Michael who's feeling a little lonely on LinkedIn. He'd love some LinkedIn love and we can get that set up.

So I know today, Michael, we want to talk a little bit about what's coming up here. We're recording at the end of November here and this will come out early to mid-December. That's our hope. Here in North America and likely where you live too, there's a bit of a holiday season coming at us. Specifically in the United States, there's this time of the year between Thanksgiving and the end of the year, New Year's, where it's just a little bit slower. You really can't get past that as a seasonal business.

So today what we want to talk about is this time that we have. Are you relaxing? Are you ramping it up with phone calls? What are you doing to finish the year right and start next year well? Michael, I know you've got a couple ideas. What's been your experience with this type of time of year? You've gone through it before. What does it feel like? It feels like no one's ever going to call you again, right?

Michael: Oh my gosh, yeah. So first of all, good to be back the day after Thanksgiving when we are recording this. So I hope everybody, when you listen to this, had an awesome Thanksgiving and are getting ready for Christmas and New Year's and Hanukkah and all the holidays that are upon us in December.

December is really tough. I actually had a call last week with a painting company owner that I'm friends with who reached out for some advice on marketing. Leads aren't happening and what do we do to keep everybody busy? I said, to be honest with you, that should have already happened. There's really not a ton that you can do for the next three or four weeks when it comes to where do we dump marketing money. That was kind of his question. We've got this extra money, we're looking at the end of the year here, what could I put it into? You could put it into stuff for January and February, but really I was telling him people call me because they know I've experienced a lot of pain and suffering.

Jon Bryant: So you played the role of Scrooge in the conversation. Very festive.

Michael: The wise old sage is what I was going for. Let's commiserate. Is there any hope, Michael?

Not a single ounce of it. It's going to be January again. And then the phones, there will be an opportunity to do more of your traditional marketing and selling type efforts. But I think for sales reps this time of year, it's really just about, I think one of the big things is just leaning into relationships and not necessarily asking for a withdrawal from that relationship in the form of a sale. While that can happen, right, we should, there's probably still some sales to be made, but I think a lot of it is just making deposits into those relationships.

Take advantage of some of the extra time that you might have in your calendar. Take somebody out to lunch that had a meaningful impact on your success this year. Just check in, see how they're doing. Ask them about their holiday plans. Ask them about their goals for next year. Go into that relationship asking somebody, hey, what are your goals for next year? How can I help? Who's somebody I could connect you with that could help you to reach your goals that you've set for yourself next year? If I got a call from somebody with that intention, I'd feel pretty good about it, as opposed to getting calls this time of year that are like, hey, can I set up a demo so I can try to sell you something? No thanks, pretty busy.

What comes to mind? Does that resonate with you? Is that a good use of our time?

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I think it's a great use of our time. I always think that stuff is a good use of your time. Those unexpected intentional touches, I've heard them called before, and reaching out for no other reason than just to connect. Using the different times of the year as a theme. Sometimes I think this time of year, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, all of these holidays are really just about being with people that you have relationships with and being thankful.

So just to refocus on that, I think there's just so many reasons to reach out with that theme and do it in an unexpected way. If it's St. Patrick's Day, you can see how lucky people are feeling. There's cheesiness, I guess sometimes it might be. It's all about tone, Michael. It's all about tone.

So I totally agree with you. And I think one area that we've seen some success in, at least in our marketing and sales efforts over the years, has been to try to stay away from some of these hardcore marketing events that happen. So to your point, reaching out, saying thank you is really different than sending a mass email on Black Friday when everybody else has got 17 other mass emails. 17 might be low actually, 700. Trying to separate yourself a little bit from that discussion, whether it's earlier or later, one area we've really enjoyed is not sending Christmas or holiday gifts, so to speak, but doing that in the new year, separating that event. So it's a little more memorable because a lot of contacts are getting stuff this time of year.

To your point, it's about just bringing a little bit of, hey, I'm thinking of you, a little personalization and being available to build relationships, I think. I really get a lot of value with that.

Michael: Yeah, I think it's that long-term mindset, not the short-term mindset. And I love what you talked about too. I don't think you need to think of this in terms of a scalable effort. It's not trying to reach a thousand people, it's trying to reach 10. What if you just have a deeper, more meaningful relationship with 10 people in your network, in your circle that you want to just be a better friend with and you want to do more work with and pass some business with next year?

I think having that type of mindset will be really beneficial, as opposed to doing the emails and all the things. I think we're just all sick of it. I was joking with somebody yesterday on Thanksgiving where Black Friday is literally the entire month of November now. We've just been inundated with marketing and sales and messaging. Everybody kind of wants a break.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I saw a really funny meme the other day which was the price of a smoker, I think, and it was $799. And then the other side was the Braveheart guy, what's his name, from Braveheart. Sorry, put me on the spot. He's like, hold, hold. And it's the week before the sale, it's like $799. The guy's like, hold. Then it comes to Black Friday and the price of the smoker jumps up to like $1,499 cut down to $799. It's like, buy. And that's kind of the way I feel about it. I feel like it's all become a trick. It's just a month long tricking us into buying stuff.

Michael: Oh yeah. Yeah, I got this one with our software, not PaintScout. Our voice over IP software, they're like, oh, you know, you could save some money. This is in the early part of November. You'd save some money if you commit to an annual plan with this new AI upgrade thing that we were doing. And I was like, okay, fine, we'll commit to the annual plan on this AI stuff.

And then two weeks later, it's Black Friday special, 30% off our annual plans. And I was like, you jerks. Different words. And then I go and I look at it and the 30% off price isn't anything off. They just raised the price by 30%. And it's the same price. And I'm just like, wow, that's amazing. That's so slimy.

Jon Bryant: I'm curious to know, when does the novelty wear off here? When do people figure it out? They're like boring, like why would I even be motivated? So that's all on the side to say that people are inundated with marketing. You've got this time of year where we should have done some stuff before. I think that we have another podcast that is helpful to people if they want to listen to it about what to do when things are slow. Because I do think there's eight or nine things you can do. Doing something is better than nothing when you feel panic. So take a look at that one.

But the other thing that I think is really important is to start planning. This is a time of year when we can reflect. Probably the hope is that we can take a bit of time off. I know for a lot of people that's hard to do in small business or in the sales world, but we have this period of time where most people are trying to also take some time off. So reflecting on what went well over the year, I think, is important. Looking at if you set goals for 2024, how did that actually pan out? And then one thing you reminded me of just before the call is what are we doing next year? And it's the planning for how to make some tweaks, get excited again. This is a long game.

What do you guys do, Michael? I imagine you're doing tons of planning, right?

Michael: We are. Yeah, we actually have a lot of annual planning stuff going on. So next week, which will be the first week of December, is when we have our big annual planning meetings. It's basically two full days of meetings with our leadership team and really just finalizing numbers, figuring out exactly, we use EOS, so what are the big rocks going into the new year and things like that. At this point, we have a pretty good idea of what the budgeted revenue is, the budgeted P&L, balance sheet. A lot of those documents are done. For the most part, our sales reps should have already had their conversations as to their sales cookbooks and what are their individual goals and plans for next year. But some of that might still be in the works and getting tweaked up a little bit. And yeah, our hope is that by the middle of December, that's all done.

Over the years, we've done really well with that at times. We've done really bad where it's bled into January and we get the year off to a poor start. So trying to be more intentional this year. It actually started in October. I know you have experienced some moves. IPaint moved to a new location. Pretty much all of November we've been moving. So I feel in some ways behind where I wanted to be in annual planning, but probably ahead of where we've been in some past years.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, it always kind of falls to that early December. So what are we going to do next year? Oh wait, it's in two weeks. We should, how did this happen? Is this a different calendar? I haven't seen this one before. I swear we skipped some months.

Michael: What's the goal for January? What happens after December?

Jon Bryant: Yeah, exactly.

Michael: Well, I think that's key though. For an individual sales rep, while December might not be a big productivity month, for most businesses, January needs to have a decent goal. You should start to see the numbers tick up in January. And so I think it's important that we get stuff done in December so that we're really ready to hit the ground running and get back into those higher volume estimates and different things like that.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. And to that point, the phone is going to start ringing again. It's interesting. In a conversation I had on the podcast with Sue Wadden from Sherwin-Williams and the color department, she made an interesting observation that a lot of demand follows how the home is operating, right? Kids are back in school. Now there's some room to actually do some work inside. The holidays are coming up. We need to get all set up. We don't want anyone in the home. January is this time of renewal, refresh. We've got three weeks here to try to accomplish a new goal. At least I need a gym membership for about 21 days. That's about it.

So I think it's going to come back and I think being prepared for that and knowing that there's hope around the corner is good. But in order to tackle that, you're going to get a break and then you've got to go hard. Those first few weeks of January, I think, are really important to be highly active. Really, you're planting seeds in December to then hit it in January. Hey, how are you doing? Just thinking of you. Happy holidays. New year's starting off great. Excited to work with you. Anything in the pipeline? Those are nice ways to do it. It's kind of like you've thought a couple steps ahead. So it helps instead of you're just constantly like, what do you have? What do you have? What do you have?

And then for your customers, just knowing that they're in a time of, it's new, let's get things refreshed. Getting your marketing lined up, getting your sales calls lined up, making sure all of that is ready. Because I don't know about you, but when you watch actual calls, the call volume or contact volume, it's like this chart of November, December, January. Some years we got two calls in between Christmas and New Year's. We were like, yes, we got two calls. Obviously we were just scared. You check every day, you'd be refreshing. Has anyone contacted us? And then January 2nd, it's like seven. Oh, interesting. How could that happen?

MichaelI remember those days. Yeah. It's a miracle. We're going to live.

Jon Bryant: I must be a marketing genius. I finally figured it out.

Michael: I think another relationship that comes to mind as we're talking about this is internal, right? A lot of our listeners are on the sales side. But I think it's a really good time of the year for the sales team, who's probably out of office a lot, they're not maybe talking to the crew leaders and the crew members, painters or the subs or whatever the business model is. They're not talking to maybe some of the office staff as much, just because they're so busy, right, as they should be.

And so this can be a really good time of year to rekindle rapport into some of those relationships. It's a great time of year for the sales team to stop at a job site, say hi to some of the crew members working there. Always obviously appreciated when you bring the crew snacks and treats and whatever that might look like. So I think this can just be a good time of year to again just say thank you and build relationships. And I think we also should just remind people that those internal relationships can be really vital too.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's something to just remind yourself of because I think life is busy. There's a lot going on, but yeah, it's those little things that really matter. Just slowing down for a minute, talking to people. You've got a little extra time. So set that up well for next year. Yeah, man, I love that idea.

What do you do for planning? For the team? I know we've done other podcasts just specifically about planning, but at a high level, this year, all of your experience combined into this planning time, what are you guys doing? Anything different or anything unique on the sales side?

Michael: I mean, to be honest with you, no, not particularly. I think other than having those conversations earlier, so that we're not relying on having to try to get stuff done around the second half of December. I think that's the big thing. It's all the things we talk so much about, right? It's starting with that open-ended conversation with the sales rep. Hey, how'd this year go? Talk about your earnings. Let's talk about your workload and how does that compare to what you're thinking about for next year? I want to earn about the same. I want to earn significantly more, maybe a little bit more. I'd like to work more or less, whatever. Obviously, it's always I want to make more and work less. But it's just trying to figure out, okay cool, so what's the plan to make that happen?

And a lot of that can just be on what are some efficiencies that we can find in a sales rep's day? Maybe it's using technology, which I think is a great time of year to be talking about that. But yeah, I think the big thing from our planning with sales reps is trying to understand the story behind the numbers before we even get into the numbers. And then just trying to create a plan on the spreadsheet that's going to be as broken down as we possibly can. What's the goals by the month, by week? How many estimates do we need to do? Really focusing in on the activities that are going to lead to bigger numbers in terms of the total sales, total commission, stuff like that.

Jon Bryant: Michael, what do you, so my question is when you go into January, you've got all this planning. What are some of the things you have learned are really important for the sales team to plan for early January? Or do you look at it as a whole year? Do you talk about early January? Is that even a part of it?

Michael: Yeah, what exactly, what activity should we be focused on in early January? Is that kind of what I hear you saying? Yeah, again, I think part of it is just being ready to take on a normal workload of estimates. I think if we're not careful, we can get used to that slowness of December and so we're not ready to crank that gear.

Yeah, I think a lot of it typically comes back to using software more fully, better to help do the job, using the CRM, staying organized. It's a lot of the stuff that I think we all know we should be doing and when we're really busy, we're just not doing, and trying to come up with what are the better habits and things so that when we are busy, this is going to run better. And every rep can have their own little spin on things. I think this can be a great, December can be a great time of year to try to play with some AI tools and different things like that that could help them to do their job better starting in January when the workload increases and there's more stuff to do.

Yeah, what about you? What are things that come to mind as they hit the ground running in January?

Jon Bryant: I was just trying to think about that. And I think the one thing that I learned is that it was a good time for me to learn and recenter some stuff. One of the books that really changed my life in terms of the way I think about sales and the way I interpret what selling is, is You Can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, which is a Sandler book.

And I like to read a lot over the holidays. I've got extra time. Generally, the hope is that I'm also getting to relax a little bit. So you're kind of sitting around, the vibe is a little different around the house and you kind of get a chance to just chill. And so in years past, I've reread that book and kind of got myself reengaged with the material and thinking about the process and how I want to be able to approach things because I think I lose a lot of that throughout the year. You're just kind of go, go, go and you kind of forget some of those basics. So that has been helpful.

For me, reading business books has been helpful. I pretty much only, I don't read non, I only read nonfiction. So I'm reading a lot of books like that around this time when I have a little extra bandwidth. So there's that. And then yeah, planning to just be active. January is a good month. You're going to get your sales back. Proactively doing some things. I said before, planning to reach out, doing some marketing. And in addition to that kind of light sales work where you're following up with people, I think that's kind of the first two, three weeks is when it's critical.

Michael: Yeah, I think January or I guess December, early January is a really good time to be doing some training. It kind of goes along with reading books and maybe listening to Price Sell Paint podcast episodes. Shameless plug. You could find us on YouTube and wherever all of your good stuff is. But in all seriousness, I do think that this is a time of year where we will do extra sales training. It's a lot easier to pull the sales team in.

And so instead of a weekly sales training, like we always do, it can definitely become two or even three times a week. Maybe we're working on some really specific things, maybe some new parts of the sales process or system that we really want to be focused in on. This is a good time of year to implement more of those types of things. And even just to go back to some of the basics. How do we handle objections and how do we just build good connections with a homeowner when we walk in and different things like that that we all know are so critical.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, I mean back to the planning piece, that podcast that we have about planning, I would go through that one if anything. There's some really good stuff about vision boarding, getting those numbers detailed, making sure that the year makes sense, make sure your last year made sense, and ultimately figuring out why you're doing what you're doing, which is all very valuable. We've kind of glossed over that a little bit because it's a lot of detail for today. But that's a good podcast to listen to.

And then yeah, just I think taking that time, being okay with taking a bit of time. Myself, any other salesperson I've ever dealt with or had the chance to encounter feels uncomfortable taking time. They know there's another deal to be made. It's a bit addictive. And I would just encourage you to just close your phone for a day. Try it out. Because going back to the previous point, there's not a lot happening. People are okay to leave a message. They're going to understand. And sometimes turning your phone off, close your computer for a day, it's the best thing you can do for your soul. So I would say that's a good starting place and then adding these couple layers on top. If you find the time and you can do it, that's awesome.

Michael: Yep. Yeah, I agree. I think top-performing sales reps and business owners that are doing sales and different things like that are goal-oriented. We're competitive, especially internally. So the idea of downshifting at any point can seem counterproductive. But we also know that will yield burnout. And so we need to be focused in on ourselves and our health and all the different things that we know we're supposed to be doing.

And this is a good time of year to kind of refocus, recenter, so that you have that energy. I think that January and February is when sales reps make their money. I would also throw November in there, but we're kind of past that at this point. The best sales reps are the ones who really perform in November, January, February, when it's hardest to keep crew members busy.

Mediocre sales reps can look like superstars in May or in September when we get those early spring and early fall peaks of demand. But when demand is low to medium, top-performing sales reps really stand out. They've already built their relationships. They know how to close. So even with fewer opportunities, they're going to sell a lot of work. And so it's okay to accept that December is just going to be a little bit slower and really go after it hard in January and February.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. So what's the synopsis here, Michael? Is that the correct word? Synopsis? Summary. What is the summary here? I think that's true. At the end of the day here, I think our belief is take some time, be okay with that time, get your planning done, start planting the seeds, thanking people, and get yourself in a position to start getting active in January. Anything I missed there?

Michael: No, I think you hit it pretty well. Yeah, exactly. I like it. Good stuff. And it's a really good activity you can do this time of year. Give your favorite painting industry podcast a five-star review. I think that would be a good thing.

Jon Bryant: Do you also subscribe? Is that a nice gift you can give?

Michael: I think so. That's what the cool kids do. So if you want to be a cool kid, you could subscribe. And I heard that Jon's sending out Christmas presents too. Just keep your eye on the mailbox.

Jon Bryant: The gift will be Michael's LinkedIn account for a photo. Send him a thank you gift because if we've learned anything...

Michael: Yeah, that'll be my newest resolution. I'm going to log into LinkedIn.

Jon Bryant: There you go. Great. Well guys, thanks for tuning in. We will connect with you soon and have a great holiday season.

Michael: Yeah, go relax and kick the feet up a little bit and who knows, maybe even grab a fiction book and get lost in a story and come back next year and hit it hard.

Jon Bryant: Good to see you Michael, take it easy. Bye.

Michael: All right. Take care. See you.