Jon Bryant: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Price. Sell. Paint. podcast. I am here with Tom Reber today. Guys, if you don't know Tom, you got to check out what Tom is up to with the Contractor Fight. Tom has a really interesting background dealing with contractors, helping hundreds of thousands of them just get better. And Tom started a painting company really recently, so I'm excited to talk to you, Tom. Did I miss anything there? Is there anything else that people need to know about you?

Tom Reber: You're good, man. You're good. See, I told you we were going to make this easy on you today. I'm just going to be agreeable. Make you the hero today.

Jon Bryant: I love it. I think that's the opposite of what it should be, but I appreciate that. I'm excited to talk with you. I've been on your podcast a couple of times and it's fun to have you here. I think our community will really benefit from what you have to offer.

It's really an interesting story. If you're up for it, I want to talk a little bit about this movement from having a painting company in the past, coaching people, hundreds of thousands of people, to then now getting back in the painting industry. For those who don't know, Tom has started a painting company in the last couple of months called Simplify Painting. And I can tell you're excited about it. So let's talk about it.

Tom Reber: I am. I called my uncle yesterday. He's coming out to our Mile High event. I was on the phone with him and said, "Hey, I'm flying you and your son Austin out to Denver. I put this big event on and you need to be there this year. No more excuses. I'm paying for everything." And he's like, "Great." He's like, "What's new?" And I said, "I just started another painting company." And the first words out of his mouth was like, "What are you retarded?" And I know I'm not supposed to say that word anymore, but I just said it. So there you go. It was a direct quote. And I said, "I might be, but I am excited."

I have to tell you, I had a tiny little company in Chicago for a few years. And then I partnered up with somebody and we grew that to doing between 300 and 400 projects a year, which was what I thought was a decent amount of work until I had Jason Paris on my podcast. He's doing like—he's got 100 sub crews going, doing like 60 jobs a week in the summer. It's crazy. Hat tip to him.

We were doing millions in sales over the years and just had a riot, made a ton of mistakes, did some things right, and sold my half of the company in 2012. And then loitered around for a couple of years, just kind of tried to figure out what was gonna be next. Somebody asked me to speak at an event, and then I spoke at this event. And then somebody's like, "Do you coach people?" And I'm like, "Sure." And then now here, fast forward—what's this, 12 years?—the Contractor Fight is kicking butt and got an amazing team in place.

We've grown it to the point where I've got a CEO in place and I've moved to the founder role. I just had the bandwidth and I'm always looking for creative ways to connect with our contractors. You always want to be relevant. Your relevance is a problem. I felt for years it was kind of rolling around in my head that I'd start a painting company again.

About a month and a half ago, two months ago, I made the decision. Three weeks ago we did our first project. And as of this recording, what's the date, the 26th? Really about three weeks into it. We've sold about a little over $20,000 bucks. And that ain't gonna cut it. We got to get to 30 or 40 a week. But I'm doing it as a side hustle because we have a ton of people that come to the Contractor Fight who start their business as a side hustle, and they don't know how to price and get work and schedule their time.

When I started my very first company, it was a side hustle. So I wanted to kind of get back in the weeds. I'll tell you, man, it's already made me a better coach. I was joking with my foreman yesterday. I said, "Man, the longer I've been out of the field, the faster I used to paint."

Jon Bryant: Yeah, that's so common.

Tom Reber: Until three weeks ago, it was a little over 12 years since I sold a paint job. So yeah, we're humming along and we're getting the plane off the ground. And I just wanted to be an example of the things that we teach in the Fight.

Full transparency, man, I don't need to do this from a financial point of view. What was really eating at me is every time I was coaching, every time I'm on stage speaking, every time I'm doing one of these interviews, I'm talking about what I used to do and not what I do.

There's a scene—if you remember the show called Vikings, I don't know if you watched it—but anyway, one of the first episodes, I think, Ragnar, this guy wanted—he was tired of raiding to the east, inland, and he wanted to go out to the sea and go west. He wanted to see what was out there. He had this little secret meeting, these guys get together, and he's like, "I'm—the king always wants us to go east and it's the same shit every year. And there's something different out there." He knew there was. He had this faith that something was out there. And he's like, "Are you guys in?" And everyone's like, "Yeah, we're in." And then this one guy hadn't answered yet. And he walked up to him and he said, "Brother, are you in with me?" And the guy said, "Yeah, I need new stories to tell my kids."

Jon Bryant: Yeah, right.

Tom Reber: And so that's just kind of where my mindset is with this in some ways. I wanted to get back in the fight and just see how we could build something really cool here in Colorado Springs. There's a lot of good people here in the city. It's half a million or so spread out and it's a growing market. I'm an entrepreneur at heart like you are. But I knew this was right because it had been on my radar for several years. When I finally put our CEO in place and everything else in the Fight, now I have the bandwidth to spend a few hours a week on this. And dude, I just—I tell you the biggest thing that I guess revelation in the last few weeks since I've got this thing up and going and we're chipping away and we're solving problems and I'm kind of getting back into my groove of just what it takes to run something like this—I'm having a blast. I'm really having fun.

I think one of the things I've missed—like with the Contractor Fight, I love it. It's my baby. It's the movement and it's the thing. That'll never change. But my team is spread out all over the country. We've got 20-something people around the country. The only full-time person, or the only other person in Colorado Springs is my videographer. And so when you're running an online business like this, or you're traveling to events and whatever, most of your days are pretty lonely. I don't mean to be like a wuss about that, but it's like, I'm not hanging out with our team.

So it's really nice to get back on a job site and just kind of shoot the shit with the guys. I sat down for about an hour with my foreman yesterday and we were just talking production rates and I'm talking the vision for the company. He has another business that he's shutting down to come be part of what I'm doing. And I think it's just because I have such a big vision for what we're going to create. I have a five-year plan that's crazy. And I'll be 60 in about five years. So I got some big, big goals for this thing.

But really, I just wanted to get back in the weeds, be an example to our fighters, and feel what they're feeling again so that I can help them more. So there's all these different reasons, but there you go.

Jon Bryant: It's a great story. I really resonate with that too, just being in it. Yeah, when you've got just a remote team, it's so hard to feel connected to what you're doing.

Tom Reber: Yeah. And you know what's funny, dude, the first job that I sold—our sales process, the Shinfu, and I Shinfued this client, we'll get into that later—which justified us, it made sense for us to have a site visit. So I go out for the site visit and I close the deal on the spot. And it was only like $1,600. It was like they were painting the inside of this guy's garage that he wanted done. He had all sorts of pain with contractors and this and that. I go out there, I meet him, I firm up the number. I was right in the range where we'd said we'd be. And I pulled away from there with the deposit check for the first time in 12 years.

And dude, as I'm driving down the road, I'm like—plug your ears little kids—I'm like, "Fuck yeah." I was so fired up. It was just cool to be back at the game. So I'm a competitor at heart. I love the game. I love to compete. And so yeah, we're just—I'm having fun, man. So it's good to have fun. And I got a lot more content opportunities now and this and that. So yeah, we're just grinding away.

Jon Bryant: Well, I'm curious to know—part of your story is that you had a painting business, you took time off. You guys developed just amazing systems for other contractors through that process. Do you—I'd imagine you feel so much better equipped this time around. Is that true? What are you doing different?

Tom Reber: I'd say the biggest—there were lessons I learned in our old painting company that I probably didn't fully learn until I was leaving, if that makes sense. You could look back at the game tape of eight or ten years—what was it, ten years I think it was—where most of that ten years I had a jacked up money mindset. I wasn't as...

Jon Bryant: What's a jacked up money mindset for those listening?

Tom Reber: You know, just trying to mind read: "They'll never go for this. This is—you got to price at the going rate. You can't get a 50% gross profit." And all that. So just that scarcity mindset. Even though I made a lot of money, I still had this—I think I made pretty good money because I, despite myself, despite my mental toughness, if you want to call it that, around money and value and what we're really worth.

Jon Bryant: Right, right. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.

Tom Reber: And so starting again with the correct mindset has been a total game changer. And then I think the second thing is when I first started a painting company, my very first tiny one I was telling you about, I had no idea. I had never heard the term job costing. I had never heard—I didn't even know there were coaches for contractors. I didn't even know honestly, dude, that you were supposed to market your business. So all I knew—I knew you had to get work. And so I just did what I watched my uncle do, who's a painting contractor. He would just go meet people. And I'm like, "All right, well, if I just go meet people, I'll get work." And I did, and it grew pretty quickly.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. Until tax time came and then you're like, "Whoa." Until tax time came. That's what happened to me at least. I went to the paint store and I was like, "Heard you got paint." And the next thing I knew, my accountant told me I lost $5,000 that year. So that's pretty much how the year went. It was just two bookends. I'm in it and I lost money. Great.

Tom Reber: Yeah. So I think the other big change is I've come right out of the gate with this company, with Simplify Painting, where I'm doing a couple of things that are interesting here too. Number one is I'm not using any of my Fight resources or my team. So I'm truly starting this like I'm a dude starting a side hustle.

Jon Bryant: Interesting.

Tom Reber: Because it's harder, of course. I'm used to being able to just text my assistant and go, "Hey, can you do this? And can you do this? And can you do this?" And she's like, "Got it." And this and that.

Jon Bryant: Sure.

Tom Reber: That's number one. I'm not using any of my money. So I'm truly—this is a—the company is funding itself. So now I have a unique advantage here in that I don't need the income from this company to eat. So I'm taking 5% of sales is what I pay myself. So I do a $1,000 job, I make 50 bucks. I give myself 50 bucks. And we're running at a 50% gross profit. Just did a job the other day, nice size interior that ended up at 58%.

Jon Bryant: 50 bucks.

Tom Reber: So after I pay the team and the materials, we got at least 50% gross profit. I take 5% of that. So I really take 5% of the gross profit, I should say.

Jon Bryant: So two and a half percent.

Tom Reber: And then the rest of it is 100% going into marketing. Well, I should say 90% because the other 10% is paying my bookkeeper and stuff. But that's something I'm doing different this time around.

Jon Bryant: Okay.

Tom Reber: I didn't know about content marketing. I didn't know anything about ads. I didn't know anything. All I knew how to do was prospect. And so I want to say my site was launched maybe two weeks ago, simplifypainting.com, and I've already got like five blog posts up. I'm already starting to hack some traffic here in the Springs. And that's very different than what I did before. I'm doing the content thing. We got a pretty decent sized Facebook ads campaign that just started a day or two ago that I'm investing a shit ton of money—like every dime goes back. Which is cool. It puts the pressure on to make this happen because I want my two and a half percent to be bigger.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. I mean, a 35% marketing budget—most companies, what, three to five percent is where you should be at? I guess you're in growth mindset trying to grow. But if you could hold that line, could you imagine how much work you'd get? It's pretty crazy.

Tom Reber: Well, you know, this falls into the big vision that I have with this thing that is pretty crazy. And I know that—I mean, as you know, everything is easier when you have leads. My number one target right now is how fast can I get to 90 leads a month?

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: That's my only focus right now. I've got a great team. I've got some other guys on deck. There's a guy moving into the Springs here in the next couple of months that's gonna join the team. And as you know, if you got great people and you don't have work, then you don't got great people. So everything's about leads. I'm networking and I'm prospecting. I'm putting 35% or whatever the number is going to the marketing budget.

So those are the two—the mindset thing and the marketing piece are the two biggest things. And listen, for those listening, let me pull out a calculator here. If you go out and get 50 leads a month or something, that averages out around 600 leads a year.

Jon Bryant: You'll probably still have a million dollar company if you can do that. Just quick math, yeah.

Tom Reber: I mean, even if you're a shitty salesperson, you're going to sell some work. I'm sitting here right now—I looked at it last night—I'm running at like a 46% close rate. And so if I'm even conservative and I go, well, I said 90 leads a month times 12, that's a little over 1,000 leads a year. And if I'm conservative at 35% gross profit, it's 378 jobs and it's $1.8 million right there, or whatever it works out to be.

Jon Bryant: There you go. Yeah. I think the saying is sales solves everything. Have you heard that?

Tom Reber: I agree. Yeah. Now, listen, I'm wired to be a marketing and a salesperson. I'm a visionary. I'm not the integrator type person in a company like they talk about, which is why I have an amazing team in the Fight.

Jon Bryant: When did you learn that by the way, visionary/integrator? Was that after the painting company?

Tom Reber: Yeah, that was well after. Yeah, well after. But looking back, my old business partner was the integrator and I was the visionary. By default, it kind of worked that way, but I had no idea.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, yeah, it's once you understand that you're like, that's why it didn't work. Right, right, right. So natural, which will fit.

Tom Reber: So I think for me, my solution to any problem in business is sell more. It's like saying on a construction site, the only tool you have is a hammer. And there comes a point where you need more than a hammer. I get that, but this phase of the business we're in right now—when I need to hire that integrator, that project manager to really take—I've got someone, we're grooming him now and training him. He's a great guy. And we'll add some more people like that. But for right now, it's sell baby. I mean, nothing happens without a sale.

Jon Bryant: Exactly. Yeah, that's what we always say here at Paint Scout.

Tom Reber: I mean, for those listening right now, like, "Well, I'm not organized. I don't know how to do systems and all this other garbage." I'm like, sell more at the higher rates. You'll have the money to hire the people to know how to do that shit. That's always my solution to systems is make so much money that I can hire the people that are kick ass at it.

Jon Bryant: Totally. Yeah, it's great way to go.

Jon Bryant: Good segue maybe. Good segue to Shinfu, which I know I myself want to learn a little bit more about this because I think I understand it, but I don't. I want to hear from your own words. Now I understand this is going to cut down sales time maybe in half and maybe even help you sell at a higher rate. For our audience, I mean, this is so critical. We deal with mostly people who are selling paint jobs, paint sales reps and owners. And a huge question we get is how do we sell at a higher win rate and do it faster? So Tom, enlighten me.

Tom Reber: Yeah. So give you a super quick backstory. In 2015-ish, I started this thing called the Contractor Sales Academy with my buddy Steve Schinholzer. Steve's a pond guy. I was coaching a bunch of pond guys and landscape industry people and this and that. I was doing one-on-one pond...

Jon Bryant: And for those listening, it's pond, right? Not P-A-W-N.

Tom Reber: Right, pond, pond company, water features, how's that? Water features.

Jon Bryant: Good. Yeah. Different crowd. Totally different crowd. Yeah.

Tom Reber: So Shinfu is named after Steve Shinholzer because one day we were having a couple drinks and one of our clients and his foreman were there at the time. And that client ended up to be our third partner in the CSA, by the way—Derek Johnson, who's a phenomenal coach in the Fight now. And Travis was Derek's foreman, and Steve was on a speaker call. Over the course of a couple hours, Travis and everybody was listening to Steve on the phone using what we now call Shinfu. At the time, we didn't have a name for it. You'll see why in a second.

And Travis kind of just sat back and he's like, "Dude, you're deflecting these objections and you're just crushing this stuff." And Steve—let me say this, water feature, water feature contractors selling backyard koi ponds is about the easiest fucking thing you could sell in the world by the way.

Jon Bryant: Really? Okay.

Tom Reber: Yeah. So it's not uncommon for somebody that sells those to sell over the phone and get deposits, and then they go out and they confirm it with a site visit. Okay? Now because it's just easier, and I'll get into that when I explain what Shinfu is in a minute.

So Travis is like, "Dude, it's like Kung Fu, man." And then he's like, "Wait, no, it's Shinfu." And then that's how the name came about. So Steve's like a Kung Fu master.

Jon Bryant: Cool.

Tom Reber: And so Shinfu's nothing more—there's many, many deep levels to this, but it's really, let's just get on the same page about the project. What's important here? That's step one, we call the motive. People buy for their reasons, not our reasons. You need to uncover those reasons.

I was actually using Shinfu at the tail end of my other company without really knowing it because I'm a curious person. So an example would be, you go out and Mrs. Jones wants her house painted. We go through and we do the typical, you know, we call it barfing all over them about how great we are and how much experience we have and how professional we are. Here's our shiny little folders and all this other crap that may or may not matter.

I'm not saying the things that we think are important and why people should buy us are not important, but they're not important if they're not important to the client. So the light bulb went off for me one time when I just asked this lady this question. I said, "Hey, what's the worst thing that could happen on this project? You're going to hire somebody. What's the worst thing that could happen?"

And she looks at me and she goes, "If you wake up my kids, I'll fucking kill you all." And I'm like, "Tell me more." And that "tell me more" or "that's interesting, tell me the story behind it"—that's called peeling. So the old Tom and most contractors, they go, "Don't wake my kids up. Don't leave a mess." You pounce on it like a lion on its prey going, "We never leave a mess and we always Swiffer the floors and we're—" You're pouncing.

We're peeling—like peeling the banana or the onion, whatever example you want to use—is like, "That's an interesting comment. What makes you say that?" And you know, I said—so I peeled a little and she said, "My twins are like four months old. I haven't slept through the night once since they were born. They never sleep at night. The only time they sleep is like from 1 to 2:30 in the afternoon, like clockwork. They just—they're out."

And we were doing the exterior. She's like, "I don't need ladders banging on the house and I don't need my kids woken up." And that was truly the most important thing to her. So I just said, "I got this crazy idea, but what if we just kick back our start time a couple hours, which would kick back our lunch. And whenever the kids go down, just tell the crew leader, 'I'm putting the kids down,' and they'll go down the road to this park. They'll go offsite. And when they wake up, text or call the crew leader and they'll come back and they'll finish the day."

And it was a several day project. And she's like, "You would do that?" And I said, "Of course." She's like, "The job's yours." And I'm like, "You don't even know how much it is yet." I hadn't even put numbers to it. Dude, I sold that job like three and a half times what her other bids were because I connected with the one thing that was truly important to her.

And so that's obviously an extreme example. Sometimes people are like, "I want this house painted because I got to get it on the market in a week or two weeks or whatever it might be. My realtor's crawling up my tail about this and I got to get this thing sold." So that's their pain. Remember, people buy for pain or pleasure.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: And this is why I circle back to the water feature guys, these pond guys. When you're asking motive questions, just open-ended questions like, "Hey, if you could wave a magic wand over your backyard, what's it look like?" When you're selling water features, it's mainly rooted in pleasure. And so it's easy to dream and they can add lights and fish and length, longer waterfalls and streams.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: So I bring this up because I know we're talking to painters here. One of the things that I've learned in the last few weeks is actually how difficult it can be for a painter—I'm being reminded, I should say—that we don't get those conversations where people are like, "I want to come home and have a glass of wine and hear the sound of water and watch the lights on my pond turn on and my koi fish swim around." It's that dream. People are like, "I just want shit painted."

And now—I'm not discounting what I just said about that story with that woman. That was very extreme. But Shinfu is rooted in curiosity. If you could just uncover what's important to people and connect with them on those motivators, it's gonna set up success for you in the rest of the sales process.

Tom Reber: And then we move into step two, which is the money. So once I have— Sorry, my doorbell rang and I said there were contractors working at my house and I said I was gonna be on a call for an hour and of course they fucking ring the doorbell.

Jon Bryant: Hey, the best part is your dog didn't bark though.

Tom Reber: Yeah, I know. They didn't. So anyway, so you transition to the money and I'm like, "Hey, John, I think I have a good idea of what's important to you here. And now we're gonna recap the motive." Like, "You shared with me that your father-in-law lives with you. He's got emphysema and you're really concerned about the dust. And whatever—this and that. The other you mentioned in the past, you've been really frustrated with some contractors about not communicating well."

So after I've peeled all these things back and I'm taking notes—we always take notes on our sales calls. You're not driving down the road in your truck doing a sales call. You're pulling over and you're taking out your notes and you're all in. You got to be in that moment. And that's where people really feel heard. And when they feel heard, then you recap that motive.

Now I can say, "Listen, based on this conversation, I got one of two ways that I can approach your project. Are you okay if we talk about money?" This is on a 10, 15 minute phone call before you ever go out there. And they're like, "Yeah, that's cool."

And I'm like, "Well, based on what you're telling me, the number of rooms or whatever, this and that, let's just say it's a four bedroom project. I'll say, the one way we can approach this is we could come in here and we can go crazy. Like we could skim coat all the walls, we could prime everything, we could use the top hundred dollar a gallon paint on everything, we could paint everything in this room top to bottom that can be painted—trim and closet and doors and blah blah blah. You want to do that, you're probably looking at somewhere around two, $2,500, maybe $2,000 a room."

And then this is called bracketing by the way. So you give a high bracket and then I go, "Or we could just come in and throw a couple coats of high quality product on your walls and change your color. And you might be looking at about $800 or $900 a room. Which of those conversations would you like to have next?"

And you get their budget every time. Because it's a win when they go, "Well, both of those are way out of my range, so it's not happening." I'm like, "Hey, I hear that from time to time. What do you think we should do next?" See, I'm always giving them control. I take control by giving them control. "What do you think we should do next?"

They'll go, "Yeah, you know, those other bids I got seemed low." And I'm like, "Wow, what do you think's behind that?" So I'm letting them talk. I want them talking.

The majority of the time when it's over the budget or way more than it is and this and that, they're gonna say something. I'm gonna—"What do you think we should do next?" And they're gonna go, "You know, hey, I appreciate your time. Thanks for your transparency. But we're gonna go with somebody else because we're not spending that much."

And what I just did there is I saved myself however much time it takes you on average to drive places, stand in the yard or in the house, type in your little machine and do your little song and dance. And then you send over the thing after you've negotiated with yourself for an hour about the price. Then now you've got somebody who wants to think about it. Now they're on the follow-up list. And we're recording this on a Friday. Right now, inefficient salespeople are making like stupid numbers of follow-up calls because they're not selling upfront properly.

Jon Bryant: Good reason to check.

Tom Reber: So there's other steps that we probably don't have time to get into. But it's just those two steps. And I'll tell you right now, all you guys listening, even if you just took bracketing—you know, "Hey, what's your address?" I'll pull it up on my computer, on my phone. I'm looking at the exterior and I'm like, "Hey, people like you typically spend somewhere between $12,000 and $14,000 to paint a house like this. What do you think our next move is?"

That one thing alone, you're going to—you got to know your numbers. You got to be bold with your pricing. And when you do that, you're going to filter out the tire kickers. You're going to filter out the unicorns that are—they're going to put you on what we call Hope Island. Those people that you meet with and they really liked me and I really liked them, and I think we're going to be a great fit. I know I'm getting this job. That's Hope Island.

Jon Bryant: Great place to live, but you're going to be really skinny.

Tom Reber: Yeah.

Jon Bryant: Very interesting. Yeah, I mean, this is a question for you for those listening. When you're getting into Shinfu, and I think like you mentioned, there's only a small amount of takeaways we can have here. Great reason to check out the Contractor Fight if you haven't already for those listening and just to see if Shinfu might help you in your sales process. But I would ask you, Tom, what's the biggest thing that people run into when they start to try to implement this? What's the biggest barrier you find from the average contractor to start using a sales process? And why is that?

Tom Reber: They don't think it can work for them because they're different. We're always different. "You don't know my situation. You don't know my customers. You don't know my competitors." We got guys in the middle of Nebraska doing this in farm towns. And we got guys in big cities doing this. There's a painter on the East coast that's been in our training. He handles 1,200 leads a year on his own and sells 75% of his projects from his desk before he even goes out there. And when he goes out there, he's going out for one or two reasons. He's going out basically to pick up a deposit check.

We're not in the proposal writing business. So number one, people don't think it'd work for them. And number two, they don't role play. You have to role play, you have to practice. Professional golfers go to the range every day. And so if you're a business owner, you are a professional salesperson, whether you want to be or not.

And so I think that's—you're not fanatical about sales, you don't have the right sales mindset. And we do a lot of training on mindset and money and just value, those things in addition to just the tactics. But Shinfu is really just rooted in human connection and being curious and just, "Hey, I just want to see if we're a good fit. Are you cool if I ask you a few questions here before we set up a time to meet?"

And so when you do that, it's automatically different. But you have to practice so you get used to hearing yourself saying these things. When somebody's like, "John, this is just too much money"—I had a lady say that the other day. Now when somebody usually says, "That's too much money," what do we do as salespeople? We start—we feel like we're getting backed into the corner. And now I have to fight my way out by justifying my price. That's just one example of an objection.

So she says, "That's just too much money." And I said, "That's interesting. What makes you say that?" See, I'm now making her justify her point. And she said to me, "Well, I looked online and the average prices for a paint job in this town are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." This is all on the phone. And I said, "I know. It's crazy. I'm sure you can go out and you could probably find somebody to do this project for a hundred bucks and a case of beer."

Jon Bryant: Sure.

Tom Reber: And "What's keeping you from hiring somebody that's cheaper?" So I'm putting—and not like in a vengeful way, but I'm putting her or the client or the prospect—they need to justify their position. I'm the damn professional. I know what things cost. I know what things take. I know what it takes to stay in business. I know my numbers.

Jon Bryant: Hmm, that's a question.

Tom Reber: And it turned out we were not a good fit, but I didn't waste an hour of my life running out there just to hear the same damn thing. She's like, "Well, yeah, I get that. I'm going to hire somebody cheaper." I'm like, "Hey, great. I really appreciate you reaching out to us. And if anything changes, let me know." Done.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. I mean, so much of this and so much we tell people, all of our kind of user base here at Paint Scout is that time is the one thing you can't get back. And it sounds like Shinfu is really rooted in that where it's like, look, let's just find out if we're good dance partners. Because if we're not, this date's never going to happen.

Tom Reber: Well, you bring up the word date. We talk all the time in our training that that first phone call is just to see, does it make sense for us to go on a date, to meet in person? It's like you're on a dating app and you're swiping left, swiping right. "She's kind of cute and this and that." You read a little about her and you're like, "She's probably a little batshit crazy." You swipe right. And this and that.

And then you see somebody—my wife and I met on a dating app. And we were like, I'm checking her out. She's checking me out. And I'm like—

Jon Bryant: Success story.

Tom Reber: I send a little DM and I just go, "Hey."

Jon Bryant: "Hey, have you ever heard of the Shinfu sales method? Because it's gonna get used on you."

Tom Reber: Yeah, it was something like that. I'm like, "Hey." I just go, "Hey, I'm Tom." And she's like, "I'm Lee." And then we went back and forth for a little bit. And then a couple of days later, we decided to go meet and have a drink and we got to know each other. And now we're married, several years later. So that's what Shinfu is. It's just—

Jon Bryant: Right.

Tom Reber: Yeah, it's sales training, but it's really human being communication training. Because if you just approach every conversation you have with people like, "I just want to make you feel important." And you do that by listening, by affirming what they say, by asking questions, having this conversation versus the typical contractor that goes out, which I was many years ago when I started. You go out and you measure and you do your thing and you go, "I'll send you the proposal or whatever. I'll show it to you now, whatever." There's no differentiation. You're just like everyone else. And now it's just about price. There's no connection.

Jon Bryant: Right. Right.

Jon Bryant: I mean, so powerful, Tom. I think this is the kind of information that we strive to get in the hands of our community. Because at the end of the day, getting the pricing super important—you got to have that conversation. If you don't know how to band the price, you're kind of at a disadvantage off the start. I mean, I've even—this I've done it in a way that I don't know if I think this is good or not, but I've said, "I think this could be like between a dollar and a million dollars. Is that within range for you?" And at least we're having a conversation. We're getting that going and that power of that conversation. I think a lot of people don't experience the price conversation.

Tom Reber: No, they don't. Most salespeople are puckered up. They're tense in the sales process. And I did a training call with the Fight the other day and I just said, "Guys, you got to sell loose." It's like an athlete who plays loose plays better. And so for me—be yourself. I'm not telling you to be something that you're not, but for me, I use humor a lot.

I sold a project yesterday. I bracketed her over the phone. And she sent me these pictures and the angle of the pictures didn't look like the exterior was that high. And this lady's a beast, man. She painted her whole exterior except the shit she couldn't reach because she doesn't have a ladder big enough. So she sends me these pictures and I'm thinking it's just two areas of the house and I'm like, "It's two guys for a day or whatever." And I've told her, "I'm like, for labor, you're looking at somewhere between $1,400 and $1,800 bucks." And she's like, "Okay, yeah, that sounds good. Come on out."

Step three, we call the truth. You want to protect yourself. You don't want to tell them $1,500 and then you get out there and it's like five times the price. I always say, step three is—I told her—her name is Angela. I said, "Angela, listen, I'm just looking at these pictures here. Based on that, I think this is where it's going to be. But every now and then, I run into a game changer. If you invite me out to firm this up, there's a chance I run into a game changer with the condition of the surfaces or whatever. It doesn't happen very often. We're usually spot on with this." But that basically gives you permission to have that conversation and not be the bait and switch type salesperson.

So we get out there, dude, and the slopes of the yard on the sides of the house are like almost straight down.

Jon Bryant: Right.

Tom Reber: And so what was 20 feet is now like 35 feet in the air. Yeah, and seriously, there was—

Jon Bryant: Yeah, straight up too, by the way.

Tom Reber: No room between where the fences were and stuff to have a good angle of the ladder and this and that. So I'm having to get all creative. Like, "We're gonna have to run this up here and do a plank here and all this shit." And I told her, I said, "Angela, it's not going to be the range I told you. I need a couple of minutes. Are you cool if I take 10 minutes and just figure this out in my truck?" And she's like, "Yeah."

And I came back in and knocked on the door. I said, "You remember when I said there was occasionally a game changer?" And she goes, "Yeah." And then I took two steps back away from the door and she looked at me. She's like, "What are you doing?" And I go—so this is just playing loose because we're not launching a space shuttle here. It's a paint job. So let's have fun and sell this shit or not sell it, but let's have some fun whatever.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: And I said to her, I said, "I'm gonna take a couple steps back because I'm about to drop a number on you and I think you're gonna throat punch me." And she started laughing and this and that. She goes, "What's the number? It can't be that bad." And I go, "It's four grand."

It's literally like—there's like two hours of painting and it's like two days of staging. It's this crazy thing. And it's high. And I'm like, "I don't want my guys to feel rushed." I told her, I said, "I have to price it this way because I literally said, 'I don't want somebody to fall and die at your house.'" And when I told her the number, she sat down. It was so big.

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: And right now, she's like, "Yeah, I get it." And it was good because she painted her house. So she knows how much work it is. She's like, "I'm totally good with it. I'm going to talk with my husband and he was cool with the original budget." Step four in our process is the influencers—like, "Hey, what's John going to think of spending $1,800 bucks to paint this?" "He's cool with it." So they were cool with the original. And then he left and had a meeting.

Jon Bryant: Right.

Tom Reber: So it didn't close yet, but it will because they understand it. Sometimes when I transition to the money on the phone, like there was a guy yesterday, I sold this tiny little—this guy wants one wall painted and it's in a stairwell and it's like 15 feet up and he's like, "I don't have a ladder."

Jon Bryant: Yeah.

Tom Reber: My wife wants a dark color. It's 15 feet and it's not even the whole wall. He only wants the top half of the wall—like seven feet up and seven feet wide painted. So what's that? 49, 50 square feet, guys.

Jon Bryant: Yeah, something small.

Tom Reber: And I call him back. He sends me these pictures. I call him back. His name's Jeremy. And I go, we dug into the motive. I'll spare you all that. We got to the money. I said, "Are you cool if we talk about the money?" He's like, "Yeah." And I said, "First, are you sitting down?" And he goes, "Why?" I said, "Because I'm about to drop a number on you that's ridiculous." And he starts laughing. And he's in sales, by the way, which was good. By the way, salespeople love to buy. And he goes—he mirrors me. He goes, "Ridiculous number?" It was so funny.

And I go, I said, "Most guys don't do small jobs. And I said, 'I got to charge you like a thousand bucks for this thing.'" He goes, "Charge me a thousand bucks to paint that?" And I go, "I told you it was a stupid number." And he's like, he pauses and he's like, "I don't know." He breaks the silence. He goes, "I don't know." I said, "Listen, you got one of three choices here the way I see it. You could spend another several days or a week trying to hunt somebody down to do it for a couple hundred bucks. Number two, you could do nothing, which we know your wife's not on board with that. And number three, you could just say, 'Tom, let's get this thing done. Check it off your to-do list. You don't have to go out and buy a ladder and all this other crap and this and that.'"

And then here's the closing question. I said, "Which of those will be easier for you?" And he goes, "All right, let's do it." I sent it over, he shot me a deposit, and it's done. So guys, I just say play loose. When the money comes up or something that could go wrong comes up, don't make it a big deal.

Jon Bryant: That's awesome, man.

Tom Reber: Be—it's like one lady, she's like—I'm painting her interior, or I'm sorry, I was selling her. We were closing the deal, doing the paperwork the other day. And I said, as we're in the motive, I said, "Hey, what's most important to you here? I just want to make sure I put up my notes so we don't drop the ball." And she goes—

And I got this from my old business partner. This isn't some magical selling closing question, by the way. I'm just giving examples of just playing loose. Just have fun with this thing. You have a good rapport and there's a good energy. People are attracted to high energy. And I don't mean bouncing off the wall. I just mean that positive energy that we all resonate with certain frequencies. And so we had this great rapport going and her name's Erin, really nice woman. And she goes, "I don't want paint on my carpet. I hired a guy and the paint job was great. And then like a week later, I go into one of these rooms and you could tell they got paint in the carpet and they never did anything about it and they never told me."

And I just go, "That had to be frustrating." So you always want to affirm—it'd be frustrating. I said, "But don't worry. If anytime there's paint on the carpet, we actually do that as a change order and we charge you for it."

And so it was just kind of playful. We charge extra to get paint on the floor. Like guys, just have fun. I'm just seeing so many people puckered up.

Jon Bryant: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right.

Tom Reber: And then this goes back—I'll shut up with this because I could talk literally all week on this stuff—is when you practice, when you're role playing, and you're testing these things out, you get used to saying—you find your groove. It's like there's four skill—four levels of learning a new skill, four stages. There's unconscious incompetence. You suck and you don't even know it. Then you've seen the light and you start working on it. So then you move to conscious incompetence. And with some more practice, this could be a golf swing, firing a weapon, or sales—third level, conscious competence, like I'm getting pretty good at this thing, but I have to try.

And then the fourth stage, mastery, is unconscious competence, where it just rolls off your tongue and you can't help it. You just know what to do. It's that muscle memory. It's the guitarist shredding a guitar solo in front of a hundred thousand people. And he's leaning over talking to the sound guy about his monitor while he's shredding a guitar. That's mastery because he's put in the reps.

And I would say the biggest opportunity for painters out there is you gotta learn how to pre-qualify, learn how to communicate, and just be curious and have fun, play loose, and be fanatical about sales.

Jon Bryant: I love it. It's great. Tom, thank you very much for sharing. I know all about the conscious and competence, whatever because I took singing lessons this last winter. Turns out I'm now consciously incompetent. So that's great. Got to push through that. But anyways, it's a pleasure to have you on man. It really is. I love chatting with you. I could probably sit here and just let you talk for two hours.

Tom Reber: Likewise. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you having me.

Jon Bryant: You have some sales to get back to it sounds like, so I better let you go.

Tom Reber: Yeah, we got some things going on here today, but it's all good, man.

Jon Bryant: Good. I mean, Contractor Fight, I'd say check it out. Would you agree?

Tom Reber: Yeah, thecontractorfight.com. We got events, got programs, courses, group coaching. We're in the business of making people money pretty damn quick. That's our jam. We want to help you stop stealing from your family. And you got to put the work in. The work that you put in to learn how to spray or cut a sharp line or whatever took time. Well, you got to put that same effort towards running your business if you want to be a business craftsman.

And a lot of guys are amazing craftsmen. You know this. But they don't know how to run the business because they're not confident in their numbers. They don't know how to communicate and sell properly. And they're not fanatical about marketing and building their brand. And you do those three things, you're going to crush it.

Jon Bryant: While also staying loose and having fun. That's what I'm taking away.

Tom Reber: There you go.

Jon Bryant: And if you're in Colorado Springs, check out Simplify Painting. It's about time.

Tom Reber: Yeah, if you want to subcontract, you want to be an employee, whatever it is, let's have a chat.

Jon Bryant: Beautiful. Tom, thanks very much, man. Have a great day. Thanks for being on. Guys, Price Sell Paint podcast, feel free to give us a like. Subscribe if you find this interesting. Have a wonderful day.

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