Color & Capital: Revenue-Boosting Strategies for the Professional Painter - Episode 55

Ever wondered why wallpaper can drive even the most seasoned DIY enthusiast up the wall? Join me, Chris Kerby, as I peel back the layers of home construction and remodeling, sharing hard-earned wisdom only the trenches of owning three construction companies can teach. We'll navigate the finicky world of wallpaper, dive into the transformative power of decorative painting, and discuss the unique demands of residential painting—from whirlwind production jobs to the finesse required for luxury homes. Plus, I'll reveal the secrets behind specialized techniques like the German smear, expanding your knowledge on how to specialize and excel in the painting industry.

But it's not all about the brush strokes; the real art is often in the business and estimating. In this episode, I dissect the balance between budgeting and delivering standout quality, reflecting on how past experiences shape a painter's approach to new projects. As we traverse the landscape of paint contracting, I'll offer insights into the delicate dance of pricing, estimating, and scaling a business. And when it comes to color consultations, I'll discuss the fine line between offering opinions and stepping into a designer's shoes, guiding you through the nuances of sheens and shades. So, whether you're a budding contractor or a homeowner with a vision, this episode is your palette for success in the vibrant world of painting and remodeling. Let's connect on social media and our website—your stories fuel our community's growth.

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. The next one would be wallpaper. Wallpaper is a beast and I know that anybody who is watching this that's a painter especially is going to tell you well, if they don't focus on the wallpaper, there are a lot of painters who stay away from that stuff. We've had our issues with it in the past. Either do you paint over it, can you paint over it yes, you can, but you got to do certain things to be able to do it. It's tough to get off of the wall. The best thing to do is to remove it and then do the paint. There's just so many different ways that you can mess that part up, as far as just removing it and then, not having the knowledge on how to do it and remove it correctly, fix the wall back after you removed it and then install new wallpaper. There's a lot. We have in our area one really good person at it and that's all she does and that's all she focuses on, and she is the go-to wallpaper person and she stays booked out and stays busy because she's really good at it. That's wallpaper. I do not like wallpaper. I know a lot of you may do it, but I'm telling you it's so easy especially now with the patterns and everything to mess up. That's that.

Speaker 1: 2:47

And then the other one I put after that was decorative painting, right, murals and what they would say is an artist's touch. So some people want like, on our building, we might have somebody come out and paint a mural, we might have somebody out to do some sort of artistic even writing on the wall these days is prevalent Making these impact statements on the wall as a business owner, as a leader, having written word on your wall in your business is big. There's people who hand do these things and that are artists that actually paint and that's what they focus on. They pick these individual things. These are all things you can do as an individual contractor and specialize in. Now, those are also things that you can grow beyond being an individual contractor and specialized in.

Speaker 1: 3:37

And then, continuing with the niche side, you can also look at just painting residential homes and you can. Realistically, you can also look at just painting residential homes and you can. Realistically, you can. There are so many avenues to go down just in residential painting. For instance, around here we have a one of the large production builders that we call them track. They build these track homes and they really need painters who are production painters. They go in. We say blow and go and that means that they're going to go in at a certain price per square foot and they're going to knock that thing out and move to the next.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Now those aren't your high-end, high-quality finish homes that take a lot of specialization. Those are I can paint the walls, ceilings and get out of their type of homes. Same thing on the exterior and they are mass produced and they are. There are painters who have crews that just do that and they build their. They build their business around that. There's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: 4:39

In residential, besides doing the high volume production type of painting, there is the high end homes, the quality homes, and that is a specific niche because as a painter, you can do one home and make enough money off of that one home as compared to doing 10 of the production style homes. It really is about quality, what you use and how you do it. But that's a specific niche too is staying in these high-end homes, high-end neighborhoods with tons of custom interior trim work and the expectation and detail is very specific and those houses you've got to take your time, do quality work and those aren't rush jobs. The clients are paying a lot of money for that custom detail and that level of attention, and that's why focusing on the high-end custom homes is a I would classify it as its own thing. Not that you can't do both, but it is very hard to build systems and employees and things and be able to accommodate both. That's why I say that you painters out there may disagree. You may have different reasons why you disagree, so let me hear it. That's fine, that's something that I'm open for discussion on, because it is important to understand the differences in production and quality.

Speaker 1: 6:05

As far as a painting goes, all right, that was all number one. Oh, and I don't want to leave this off. But brick painting, german smear that is a specialty in itself and some people I know again, there's a local guy here that's all he really does is that whitewash, that German smear, that water wash, the lime wash, whatever you want to call it. Here we call it German smear, but that gives the house a little bit different detail and that is a specialty and there is a process to that. Again, that goes back to being able to know what you're going to get into, how to do it, specialize in it and become known for it, and you're going to have tons of work because once you pick that niche especially a niche that's not popular, that is rare as far as being able to have the talent to do it right and you become the go-to on that, you are definitely going to be able to grow your business as you become known.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Number one was specialize in niches. Number two is invest in high quality tools and supply. I could go on and on about investing in high quality tools and supplies and how that impacts you as a contractor and how that increases your revenue, because tools every ever it seems like every week they are coming out. These tool manufacturers are coming out with better tools, higher end tools, tools that help produce faster results and with less labor intensive, things like these sprayers and these, the different types of paints that you can do onsite. You don't have to take every door off. You can do it right there in the kitchen. You just have to mask up properly, but being able to.

Speaker 1: 7:55

At first you may not be able to afford some of those higher end tools, but as you, as you grow and as you get money and as you get more work, investing in your tools is critical because you want to the the output that you can perform with higher end tools is just different. The results are better, I know, and as far as on the carpentry side, the saws you use matter and and the tools you use matter as it as it pertains to the results of how that trim carpentry look. It's the same thing with paint. What tools, the quality of tools, the, the money that you put into taking care of and investing in your tools that type of stuff will help you and it makes you look more professional. When you show up with the proper tools to do the job, they know they're gonna take you serious because they can see that you're investing in your craft, you're investing in your tools, you're investing in your work and you're investing in your business by getting good tools and upgrading to better tools in the future. So that was number two invest in quality tools and supplies. Number three offer comprehensive services. This goes back to.

Speaker 1: 9:08

We talked about specializing as an individual contractor. As you grow and you get more people on your team, they may specialize in different areas than you. They may qualify as a painter right, they know how to paint. They've been doing it for years. Know how to paint They've been doing it for years, but just like anybody else, they hone in on a very specific part of their passion. What they're passionate about and what they do is that you might be very, very, very good at cabinets and you may hire somebody who can paint that's very, very, very good at doors, or very good at residential painting.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Now you've got residential painting and you've got cabinets, so you're offering both and then, once you move past that, you may have somebody who knows how to do a little bit of drywall. Now I wouldn't say go and become a massive drywall company, but patches and repairs are something that a painter can make their way on and gain a little bit of work by doing that. If you're doing the patch, repair, the paint and then you're doing the cabinets, now you're just continuing to add to your portfolio. 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. When he mentions that, he mentions it with the purpose of letting me know that the homes they were doing were one, two, three up to $10 million homes.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Yeah, they were not spec homes. I learned how to do that with some of the best painters in the area old school painters. We used to have competitions on who could cut the straightest line and who could get done with the room. I love that. I just don't see that anymore. Yeah, you don't see that competition and that drive and building those relationships and a team atmosphere, and so that's what I shoot for is building that culture of so how can we improve? So starting so, how old were you when you, when you got into paint? So that when I haven't hit, that must've been I see 97, 98, 97.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Okay, 20. That's dang, you're getting there. I was 27 years ago, yeah, 20.

Speaker 2: 11:20

dang, you're getting there. That's 27 years ago, yeah, 20.

Speaker 1: 11:22

so I'm 44 now, so a little over 20 years gotcha okay, you know people talk about and and I'm glad you said custom homes and it's not a spec home, because what we've run across sometimes too, is you have this mentality and it and it's very prevalent in paint, where you know you large production builders, track home builders, whatever you call them, where you're from, and it's called blow and go. Yep, right, can you talk to me about the proper way to say it is production painting. Yeah, okay, talk to me about a production painting and nothing, again, nothing wrong with that, because the spec builders, for the budget that they're wanting to build these houses, are paying a lower every avenue. That's right. All right, talk to me about production painters. What is that mindset and where you differentiate yourself from the?

Speaker 2: 12:15

production mindset. So a production mindset is coming in and you're getting from start to finish of that job as fast as possible because you're on a very low budget. Yeah, very low budget. Your painters are not high quality painters, they're not bad. And that's the first question I ask. When I hire somebody that's told me they've been painting for 20 years, my first question is what have you been painting for 20 years? Because if you've been painting apartments or you've been painting spec houses, you may not fit into what we do. That's right.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Because it's a speed versus quality. That's right. And you know, I've run into it with the people we hire sometimes here. They aren't used to Monday through Friday atmosphere taking time and making sure the work they are go, go, go, go go. Yeah, and sometimes I don't have 50, 60, 70 hours to give them every week and they're great at what they do. But it's a production mentality and construction that is. We've got to finish this as fast as possible because the check is sitting in our face when the project is done. And then it's more right Because you're like well, production's the way to go, because you know XYZ is building 150 homes.

Speaker 1: 13:29

I want 150 homes. But what they're not realizing is you have to make a sacrifice to do that. That's right. You're on their dime, their schedule and guess what, when they're tired of you not performing, they can let you go when you control your destiny. You don't have to do 150 homes. You can do less than a third of that and make the same money because of what you charge and the quality of work that you put out. That's right, Right. And you have more in your repertoire. You put out, that's right, Right, and you have more in your repertoire. So do you got and I don't know anymore? Do you mess with cabinets, trim custom? I mean any of that type of stuff, or talk to me about what you're focused on.

Speaker 2: 14:09

So our DBA is Cyclops, painting and Coatings, because we coat a lot of stuff. I don't mess with furniture, small items like that. We will do cabinets. It's not one of our main things that we do, but we do everything from a new construction home to a commercial building. Two months ago we were sandblasting an 11,000 square foot metal building Sandblasting and then two coating with the macro epoxy and I want to deep dive a little bit here.

Speaker 1: 14:36

When you because you're the business owner one of the things that, when they're doing this production mentality, are you still looking at a price per square foot on your estimates? I won't get into specific costs, but is that how you do that? And I know in production side or spec home side, it's a floor square foot?

Speaker 2: 14:55

Yeah, no. So we break it down per house, per trim package. I can estimate closely by a square foot price per floor, sure, but when you get in these custom houses that we do, the trim packages are all different. You walk into a room and you got a 20-foot ceiling. There you go, a covered ceiling, stained trim or stained doors, or you know Even the size of the door. So how would you give a square foot?

Speaker 1: 15:19

price for that, right? What's your recommendation there for the beginner, right? We do this show so people who can they can learn how to do things, they can learn how to do business. So for the beginners out there who's just starting out just listening to this, because I've got you on here talking about being a paint contractor and running a business so what's your advice when it comes to estimating as far as how to do it? So you're saying price per square foot. Because you've been doing it for so long, you can roughly come up with a number, but the best practice, the best way to do it is so I'm actually having to learn that right now myself because I just do it.

Speaker 2: 16:00

I've been in it for so long, but I'm hiring production managers and I'm starting to hire sales teams and to figure out how to get it out of here on to training somebody else, we are doing the same thing.

Speaker 1: 16:13

And what people don't realize and this is what I explained to our team is if I'm paying you, let's just say, $1,000 a week, and I charge a per square foot number, how do I know A that you're going to get done in the time allotted, right, and that it's going to cost $1,000. You can't do that. You can't have. You know what I mean. So there has to be a legit way for you to break down your price, to make sure your payroll and compensation, all that is covered, and that is something that we have evolved and changed over time to where Over time, and it's experience.

Speaker 2: 16:53

That's really where that comes from. You can look up all kinds of programs to try to make this easier, to bid, and I've used some of those just to see if I could make it easier, and then I'll look at the price and I'm like there's no way. There's no way it works, we've done that too, we can do it.

Speaker 1: 17:07

We've done the same thing where a lot of times, and especially on the home building side, people will come to us with internet plans, we always recommend our guy. They show him the plans and he'll modify them and make changes and rewrite the plans. But what? Sometimes, what they'll do is they'll pay. You can pay for a cost report, that's right. Okay, I did that and almost lost my mind. I was like hey where? Because they tell you to put in your zip code and I just could not believe the numbers and I was like this doesn't make sense. That make sense. Yeah, it was the one I did. I did too, actually, and both of them were no less than 50 to a hundred thousand dollars on up. And it blew my mind, because the problem with that is the client is sometimes running that report, yeah, and then they're like they can easily look that up online.

Speaker 2: 17:59

And then they're like well, why is your price so different? Yes, and you have to sit there and break all that stuff down to them. That's right.

Speaker 1: 18:05

And you know what you get, what you pay for in our industry and time and quality. All of that stuff you should. You don't have to take it to the highest levels, but you have to make what's right for you and your company and your employees. And the client should be, you know, looking at what type of company you run, how long you've been in business and these types of things. Do you have employees, do you take care of them? And that's how you have to get paid. Each contractor is different. Some will have a price per square foot and that'll suffice for them, some, you know. Some will have a breakdown chart and some will have. It's just different all over the board.

Speaker 2: 18:44

There's no blueprint specifically for everybody. That's not. Everybody's business costs different to make it and everybody's production teams are different than that. So you have to do.

Speaker 1: 18:53

If you're out there in the beginning stages, you have to do what's best for you and what you know at first. And then, as you grow, that's where it starts to change. Your estimate changes and evolves and you're like well, now I've got two and three people, I can't do it for this cost. So that's where you know the difference comes and you start to learn how to estimate. But then, moving from estimating to the prep for painting or a paint job, how do you prepare the client for, especially if you're doing interior and it's a larger job? You're going to be there for a while, so do you?

Speaker 2: 19:32

talk to the client about those things. Is that a part of your process? Communication is key in anything that we do. We like the customer not to have, or to have as few surprises as possible once we come in Gotcha what area we're going to be working in in the house, if we can cordon off a section of it to keep them still living in the house, you know then. We just work on different sections and we let them know each day where we're going to be at the next day. We clean up our mess every day before we leave there.

Speaker 1: 20:04

That way they're not tripping, or if they've got small children. 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. But where? How can we talk to the client and them, not hold us liable? Because that's what's happening, right? That's what the painter said.

Speaker 3: 20:28

I would encourage in that situation, for even with the ones that we've done paint consults with that they need to. You can Google those images, you can see those colors. You can Google those images, you can see those colors the images. You can see them. Instagram is a great way to do that. I'm not as familiar with Facebook, but you can hashtag that paint color and it shows you all those images and we've tagged, we've tagged.

Speaker 1: 20:54

You've done some stuff where we've tagged Sherwin-Williams in different colors that they're using. But where do you get that information from? As a designer, you continually tell me what's not trending and what is Gray is out. But like, where does that information come from?

Speaker 3: 21:12

Well, you're currently working with whatever they want to keep their furniture, then you have to consider that. You have to consider their light. I think it's just I was a teenager and painting every wall in my bedroom. A lot of that's just trial and error and experience.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Well, see, and that's the part I think you hit on is the experience factor, is the fact that you have experience in this. And when you're doing a color consult, it's not just something general. You're fact finding, you're asking questions, you're looking at what's there. Then, when we're doing like a remodel, you're taking into consideration what we're going to put there, because potentially you're helping them make those selections along the way. Does that all fit into the color scheme? Because typically we do the the painting at the end of a project. We really want everything done and then we send the painters in and they do their thing. And so you were saying that the the painter is not necessarily the best at saying I guess not what's trendy, but like if this will look good with something.

Speaker 3: 22:24

They can have an opinion about it. But I think what this particular painter I was talking to this morning is trying to steer away from is the liability basically that comes with their opinion, because they're ending up having to go back and fix or correct something that they suggested. Sadly, and when you're coming in as a paint console professional or a designer, when you actually have that title with your name, I feel, like there's automatically some trust with that in your opinion. I?

Speaker 2: 22:57

agree.

Speaker 3: 22:58

And then if you're able to show them some work in that color, that you've done a lot of things that throw. Well, the biggest thing that throws someone off is the sheens. They're just really confused when they're like oh I didn't know.

Speaker 1: 23:11

So sometimes it's also not just the visual part, but it's having the knowledge of the product. 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.