Brush Up Success: Becoming a Stellar Paint Contractor & Designer's Guide to Color Choice -Episode 54

Unlock the secret to a flawless finish on your next home project as I, Chris Kirby, team up with Zach Carpenter of Cyclops Painting and Coatings. Together, we delve into the transformative power of paint and its pivotal role in home building and remodeling. We promise to equip you with the expertise to steer clear of last-minute punch-out panic, ensuring your work stands out for all the right reasons. Specialization is the name of the game for painting contractors looking to carve out a lucrative niche, and we're here to show you exactly how to do that, be it in residential, commercial, or any other specialized market.

Our candid conversation with Zach isn't just about the strokes of the brush; it's about the strokes of genius that can make your business thrive. Listen as Zach unfolds his unique journey, and discover why a strong local presence can mean consistent quality and accountability for clients. The upcoming tutorials with Amber and Justin will further build on the professional nuggets we lay out, turning theoretical knowledge into practical prowess. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a curious beginner, this episode is the canvas for your next masterpiece in the making.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The Home Building and Remodeling Show. Let's go. Welcome everybody to the Home Building and Remodeling Show. My name is Chris Kirby and I'll be your host. I am the owner of three construction companies on the Alabama Gulf Coast. The show is about residential construction. We're going to cover topics of home building and remodeling. Are you thinking of doing a remodel or building a home? Are you a contractor looking to improve your knowledge base or grow your business? Have you ever done a remodel project or built a home? There were so many things you wish you knew or that you could have done differently during the process. Then this show is for you. We break down the process of building and remodeling and how to have the best results during your project. Whether you're a DIYer looking for tips, someone looking to hire a contractor to do a project, or a contractor looking to expand your knowledge base or your business, welcome aboard. Glad to have you. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1: 1:11

We kick off the show with my thoughts on home building and remodeling. I'll share best practices and talk about some of our experiences in business and out in the field. These shared thoughts and lessons learned are meant to help you on your very own journey. Let's go All right. Everybody this month on the Home Building and Remodeling Show. This is the month of paint. All you paint contractors can get excited because we're talking directly to you. My thought segments are going to be on my experience in the industry with paint and it's after doing this for a while you kind of figure out paint is one of the more sensitive trades as far as it's so visual, and you'll hear me and Zach Carpenter, the owner of Psycop's Painting, talking about how sensitive paint is and how, if you don't get it right, especially at the end when you're doing punch out and usually paint is the last thing, but it is the biggest thing. Paint is on all aspects of every remodel we've ever done. It is a part of it and it is one of the most crucial and important parts because paint can help compensate for errors in other ways, and you contractors know what I'm talking about. There's a saying about paint making a carpenter what he ain't and different things like that that we joke about in the industry. But, truth be told, this is absolutely one of the most crucial steps to get right because it is the most visual.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Besides your trim, carpentry and your tile, paint is one of those cosmetic touches that you just cannot let slide. You really want the best of the best doing it. You want to make sure that it is correct that's where you're going to run into the most problems on your punch list correct that's where you're going to run into the most problems on your punch list. And so what we've done is come up with 10 tips for you to increase revenue, and we're focusing on these tips to increase your revenue, but also just to increase your effectiveness as a paint contractor. And again, I run remodeling company, home building company, interior design company, but I have professional painters that work for me that are very knowledgeable, and you'll see Amber and you'll see Justin as we're putting out the how-to videos. But also I just keep myself associated with high quality painters and I'm always learning. I may say something wrong, we may say something wrong on the show, but you know what we're trying to do is educate people about our industry. We do the how to's, we do the show for a reason, and pain is crucial. Let's jump right in with the 10 tips to increase your revenue as a paint contractor, and number one, one of the one, of the most crucial.

Speaker 1: 4:02

I've done plenty of shows about niches, but the number one thing you can do to increase revenue as a paint contractor is to specialize in a niche. A lot of people think painting is one of those things. We run into it with clients all the time hey, I can just paint the walls myself, don't quote painting, we'll handle the painting part. Well, we now we don't even offer that. If they're not going to let us paint because of the results of unless they're a professional painter, then we'll let them do it. But paint puts the finishing touches on most work and so it's super critical.

Speaker 1: 4:37

You want to specialize in a niche because if you're just a general painter, that's fine. You can probably get by with painting any and everything in residential and commercial applications. But the education piece in painting is so critical and also there are just going to be things that you're better at that. Once you start to paint those things and figure out I like this, I enjoy it, I'm more passionate about this specific niche, then you're going to do a better job and then you're going to become known for doing that specific type of work and your referrals and leads and people calling you honestly is going to be endless. Because once you're known for something, then you can definitely make your way in our industry, then you can definitely make your way in our industry, identify things. So markets right, there's specialty markets, there's residential, there's commercial, industrial, so all of those require different level of knowledge and different level of coding, different level of application, different things like that. Once you figure out what you want to do, as far as what specialty area, as far as residential, industrial or commercial, then even marine around here we live on the Gulf Coast marine painting, coatings and things like that are a big deal. People probably pay a lot of money to get their boats updated and painted and so, anyway, once you figure out what it is you're going to do, you want to focus on that area, and specialization can lead to higher rates of return. And not only that, but one of the things that I've listed a few things here, and there's just way more in paint specialization. But I'll go over some of the specialties that I know around here people specialize in and they make good money Focusing on things.

Speaker 1: 6:27

First, as a paint contractor, you need to figure out is it just going to be you, if you're focusing on just being an individual doing paint projects? This first specialization is pretty specific and you can do it alone, and that is painting exterior doors. There is a big push in the market painters just to have a different color front door and whatever style is in whether it's the bright yellow or red or whatever people want their door painted, it is one of those visual aspects of the home that give it curve appeal and people really want their front doors to be taken care of. Now there are a couple of different things about just painting front doors. First, you can ruin a door, especially a high dollar door, wooden door. That requires a certain level of knowledge to be painted. You need to make sure you know what you're doing and again, that goes back to professional development and learning the trade the right way as a painter but that is definitely something that you can do is paint doors as an individual contractor and you will get tons and tons.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Every house has a front door and a lot of people are looking to make an impact statement with that door. As far as curb appeal, painting exterior doors and it could be front back I just say exterior, but front is the most prevalent that people want their front door to be done right, look good, refinished, and it creates repeat work because the front door is going to get weathered and no matter what you do, whether it's a wood door, a true wood door, a composite door, a metal door all of those doors are going to have to be either refinished and restained or repainted at some time due to exposure to sun and exposure to the weather. The number one specialty when I'm talking about specializing niches is, I think, as an individual contractor, would be front doors. You can make your way on just front doors alone.

Speaker 1: 8:35

The next thing I looked at was cabinets. I know a couple of people shout out to Peggy and shout out to Devin who are local here. Hopefully they're listening or they have listened before, but anyway, they are individual contractors who only focus on they only focus on cabinet refinishing. It's a big gig around here. There are a lot of people who want to repaint or change the color or update their cabinets and sometimes it is more cost effective to refinish refinish as far as painting, restain or change the color and you really want someone who knows what they're doing that can take care of just doing the cabinets and they're can take care of just doing the cabinets. And they focus on their tools. They focus on the proper way to mask off and seal surfaces so that they don't ruin other aspects of a kitchen or a bathroom or wherever these cabinets can be. Some of them focus on furniture painting too, dressers and things like that. But anyway, there's a proper way to do it, proper technique. That's another specialty that you can focus on as an individual and make your way. Typically, sub out our cabinet work when we're doing remodels or in new construction. Our painters now can do it. If it's a larger cabinet job, say you know, more than 30 doors, we're probably going to use one of our local subs who only focuses on that because we want it done right. And that's another specialty as an individual contractor that you can focus on and make your way.

Speaker 1: 10:15

And now we move into Shop Talk. It's the portion of the show where I bring in a co-host and we cover trending topics in home building and remodeling. Hope you enjoy. Let's go. Welcome back everybody. We got Zach Carpenter with us. Zach is the owner of Cyclops and, april being paint month, we want to talk about everything dealing with paint, from product to tools, materials, best practices and contracting in general. Zach, can you introduce yourself to the audience and then talk a little bit about your company and where you got the?

Speaker 3: 10:50

name for it. I sure can. So my name is Zach Carpenter and my company name is Cyclops Painting and Coatings, and we've been in the paint industry for about 20 years total. Wow, we've got a lot of experience in that area, and so we just enjoy the process. Man, I love watching the change that comes from painting.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Absolutely. It's very visual, right. It is All right. So then, where did the name Cyclops come from?

Speaker 3: 11:16

Well, so that was kind of funny. Back around Hurricane Katrina 2005, I started getting a blind spot in my eye and I ended up finding out that I had a tumor inside of my eyeball. Oh wow, and so two years of treatment and everything else and finally they removed the eye. So I literally have one eye. You have one eye, and so Cyclops has been running on it for 15 years now, but what a blessing that they caught it and you're still here, resilient. Everything's still good. I'm doing good also.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Awesome, awesome, a lot of what we've been talking about on the show and we'll deep dive into paint, because painting is special. It takes a special person to run a paint business and I say paint business as a contractor, because there are a lot of individual contractors out there and we run across and hire about two individual contractors all the time. But where we align, I think, in some area is the fact that you didn't want to do this by yourself, and so you have a company and you have employees, and so you have to go through the rigor of taking care of employees and managing clients and managing multiple projects. I wanted to deep dive from the contractor's perspective, but also especially from the paint perspective, because when I first started Kirby Custom Renovation seven years ago, we actually were doing paint as well.

Speaker 1: 12:48

And I will say you have a painter now that was working for us a little bit and she is by far the best painter I've met, and I didn't know what really paint should look like or how it should be done until I met her and before we actually got away from paint for the last five years because it was so hard on us, because paint is very visual. It finishes the job. That's right. That's right. And we always had problems where people don't understand if you don't explain it to them about the different finishes, the different sheens, the different aspects of doing a remodel versus new construction. So can you talk to us about paint, the quality of paint and how you manage customer expectations?

Speaker 3: 13:41

I can. Painting is one of the most underrated parts in a construction project because everybody can go buy paint from the store. You got home shows telling everybody how to paint until you pick up that paintbrush and you start doing it. That's right. And then it really shows where the professional stands out and where they don't. Are they putting two coats on? Are they caulking your joints properly? Are you using the proper product for that service? And so there's a lot that goes in it and you were talking about. There are a lot of.

Speaker 3: 14:10

I call them two men in a truck. They're driving around painting and you'll do it for half the price of that oil, but are they there whenever you need them? When you got to call back, do they show up on time? What's the quality of it? Did they put two coats in the places that you can't really reach or see? And so I think about those things all the time and that's what I run off of. Is I run off of giving a quality job, being there from start to finish of the project and giving you a value for what you pay?

Speaker 1: 14:36

for Well, and you mentioned cost, because we're in the same boat, right. So we are not by far. We're not the cheapest and I don't recommend that you always want to go with the cheapest. Now, if budget is top of mind, you need to consider that. However, I think a lot of times what happens in our industry as well is we go in with an all in bid to where we're explaining workers comp and insurance and being diligent, taking care of the project, taking care of the client A lot of the similar things that you're talking to the client to and the value and the cost for those things workers comp and insurance and having employees Right, those things cost money and that's where price frequently is a concern, and we will, and we don't take every job and we don't win every job, and a lot of times it is price and they will come back with the well, the next guy did it at half the cost or a third of the cost, and we try to explain what you're paying for, right, what you're going to get with us, and we can't vouch for anybody else.

Speaker 1: 15:52

We try not to do the comparison thing right, because there's people who are really good. They just want to be an individual contractor and they are craftsmen. But what I try to explain to them is, when you look at it, it's just like me having a home builder's license versus somebody that's not on a remodel. There is an authority figure in my life, right, the Home Builders Association that I have to be accountable to. I don't want to lose my license no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 16:41

We're local and I think local is another and do your paint job and then they're out because they were only here while the getting was good, right. So I promote local and I think that's something that, again, we align with. I know, me and you met because of a business group that we were both in. I'm no longer in the group, zach's still in the group, and the people and the quality of character that the people in that group are is what again sets you apart. You spend time learning from other contractors and professionally developing, and a lot of people do not see the value in that, but that does cost time.

Speaker 3: 17:21

Well, and especially contractors in my field and even in your field, contractors and construction workers and stuff like that. The last thing they're thinking about is networking and building a business and building a brand, and I've had my experience with both sides of it. My first round of my paint company until 2010,. 2008 hit. The economy went down. I made it another two years. I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, sure, and then the business I got in in between. That span showed me a lot about branding and and actually the business side, the business side of it.

Speaker 1: 17:55

I don't know if you noticed, but in our industry you have some highly skilled, very strong contractors that when they do go out on their own they suffer because sometimes of the business side, where my background was different. I started my leadership and business side in the Navy and then I had my dad and my brother-in-law who had the craftsman, the skill and stuff to do to work. We were able to mesh those two. But you come with a voice of experience in business where you said before you were operating a little bit different I was only good or well 12 hours a day.

Speaker 3: 18:32

I was on the job, working six, seven days a week running myself in the ground, and so I was still doing some networking and things. I've always just met people, and sure, a lot of people. Easy, I thought, easy to, that's right. And I came from a low middle-class family and I just seen a bunch of people that I was around that just didn't do much. They were in their forties and fifties still working by the hour, right and not didn't have an idea of wanting to go anywhere else, and I did Sacred goals and that I just had to learn how to get there.

Speaker 3: 19:02

How did paint enter your life? I've done a lot of things. I started out in construction From the time I could walk. My dad was a home builder and a construction guy. I didn't know that Great trim carpenter, so I'd done some painting with them in the beginning and then I got off of that and I went into ironwork. So I traveled the country installing handrails and apartment complexes, building metal buildings, climbing steel. Well, hurricane Ivan hit and I came back in town and one of the guys that works for me now, donnie, had his own company back then and so he was doing Ono Island work, dolphin Island stuff like that For everybody, because this is it's national.

Speaker 1: 19:42

For everybody who doesn't know or doesn't already know, we're the Alabama Gulf Coast which and when he says some of the local names I don't know island is a nice island in Orange Beach, alabama, where there are a lot of high dollar, high value homes, high value client. Now we're going to move into the portion of the show where we talk interior design. We're going to bring in an interior designer and we're going to talk trending design and products. Hope you enjoy, let's go.

Speaker 2: 20:17

It's like we are really getting in a problem where the client, customer, whatever, they don't know what paint colors they want, so they ask these painters, professional painters.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Right.

Speaker 2: 20:29

For their opinion or suggestion and they get to them. Well then, they get it and they get it on the wall and they're like I don't like it and they're becoming responsible for it because they suggested it Right and because they're doing the work, they're like oh, you can change it for free.

Speaker 1: 20:43

But see, for us it was kind of the same thing Before we had y'all. We would give suggestions on a bathroom or a kitchen and not really know. Like I said this, our room that we're sitting in is gray, exactly, exactly the point, and they know how to paint. But the vision piece or picking colors, the importance of having an interior designer, now you do paint consultations, we do that with.

Speaker 2: 21:09

That said, we actually have a designer going out today for a paint consult. That and we've had, and that's a growing selection that we offer, because many people know that we do that and they don't know they need it well, that's the kicker, right?

Speaker 1: 21:24

they think they like a color and so say, for instance, like if you combine, if you don't know they need it, well, that's the kicker, right. They think they like a color and so say, for instance, like if you combine, if you don't do a paint consult and we go in and we do a remodel without an interior designer and without your assistance, right? Because some people just don't want to pay the money for a designer and we always try to talk them into it because they can show us a picture, we make it happen. But when it comes to offering suggestions, we're going to say, yeah, that looks good and it may not, okay.

Speaker 1: 21:53

But on the paint side of things, we go in and we're going to paint whatever color they provide, right. And if they ask, we're going to say sure, we don't always know. And if they ask, we're going to say sure, we don't always know. But are you a professional selection person, right? How do you quantify or qualify a paint consultation where, for us, we charge $150? So we charge $150 to come out and consult about a paint color? Where do you even start with that? Depending on the face.

Speaker 2: 22:31

They'll have an idea of what direction they're going. It's usually lighter. A lot of people are getting away from the grays now.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:39

They're looking for warmer colors, brighter environments, especially down here. I feel like.

Speaker 1: 22:47

But see, you already know so much more than I ever. People are looking for warmer colors. I'm not going to say that as a contractor, and even as a professional painter, you can say what's trending hey, we've been painting a lot of X, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's just what you're paying a lot of. But that's not. It's going to look good on this surface. It's going to look good combined with this. Even you saying you're already speaking so much more knowledge than we have. Thanks for joining us today. As always, we are grateful for our listeners and your continued support. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Follow us on social media via Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, Get more info at our website, wwwthehomebuildingshowcom and, as always, remember who we are the Home Building and Remodeling Show.