Profitable Painter Podcast
Profitable Painter Podcast is a rich resource for anyone interested in starting, running, and scaling a professional painting business, offering valuable insights, strategies, and interviews with industry leaders. Through case studies and in-depth discussions, we deliver a vivid picture of the painting industry, with a disclaimer that any financial or tax information is general and not a substitute for professional advice.
Profitable Painter Podcast
From Solo Painter to Freedom-Focused Business Owner: Mihai's Journey
Stuck as the "perfect" painter who can't let go? Discover how Mihai scaled his painting business to nearly $1M in a small market, built a self-managing team, and now takes 3-month vacations while staying profitable.
In this episode of the Profitable Painter Podcast, host Daniel Honan sits down with Mihai, a high-end painting contractor from Sudbury, Ontario. Mihai started as a perfectionist solo operator, frustrated that no one could meet his sky-high standards. He reveals the pivotal mindset shifts and operational systems that allowed him to break free from the tools, hire a loyal team, and create a business that runs seamlessly without him.
You’ll learn how to:
- Shift from Perfectionist to Leader: Lower your "unattainable" standards (that customers don't even notice) to build a team without sacrificing quality.
- Build Systems WITH Your Team: Why involving your crew in creating processes, not just dictating them, is the secret to buy-in and accountability.
- Master the "Hybrid" Management Role: The exact formula Mihai used to hire a Project Manager before he could afford full-time overhead, creating a win-win blended role.
- Implement a Game-Changing Bonus System: Discover the incredibly fair per-ROOM bonus structure that motivates his team, ensures quality, and builds a culture of ownership.
- Dominate a Niche Market: How targeting the top 20% of earners in a town of 160,000 allows him to charge premium prices and get clients who say, "Price is not an issue."
- Achieve True Freedom: Learn the systems that allowed Mihai to take a 5-week vacation (and 3 months total last year) while his team ran the business.
If you're ready to stop being a slave to your business and start building a company that gives you time, profit, and freedom, this episode is your blueprint.
Key Takeaways:
- The hiring mindset shift that stopped him from driving away good people.
- How weekly company meetings create a culture of continuous improvement.
- Why he expanded into exterior and commercial work to break through his revenue ceiling.
- The detailed process for tracking labor and bonuses by individual room, not just by job.
- How to build a business that supports your desired lifestyle, not someone else's definition of success.
Subscribe to the Profitable Painter Podcast for more weekly strategies on mastering your numbers, boosting profits, and building a business that works for you.
For being a loyal listener, I want to send you a copy of my new book Profitable Painter. Inside, I’ll show you the exact frameworks that have helped painting businesses save big on taxes, increase profits, and scale with confidence
Head over to profitablepaintercpa.com/book and grab your copy today. Don’t wait — this is my gift to you for being part of the Profitable Painter community.
Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast. The mission of this podcast is simple to help you navigate the financial and tax aspects of starting, running, and stealing a professional painting business. From the brushes and ladders to the spreadsheets and balance sheets, we've got you covered. But before we dive in, a quick word of caution. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date financial and tax information, nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered as financial advice, specifically for you or your business. We're here to share general knowledge and experiences, not to replace the tailored advice you get from a professional financial advisor or tax consultant. We strongly recommend you seeking individualized advice before making any significant financial decision.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast, the show where painting contractors learn how to boost profits, cut taxes, and build a business that works for them. I'm your host, Daniel Honan, CPA, former painting business owner, and your guide to mastering the numbers that drive success. Let's dive in and make sure your business is more profitable one episode at a time. I'm super excited today to speak with Mihai, who has an amazing painting business up in Ontario. Welcome to the podcast, Mihai. How's it going?
SPEAKER_00:I'm very good, Daniel. Thank you very much for having me. Nice to be here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm I'm glad to have you here. I know you're you're killing up, killing it up there in Ontario. Can you to give listeners an idea of when you started and and where you are now? Uh just what when did you get started in the painting industry and what have been some major milestones along the way?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I uh I moved to Canada in 2013. Um I worked for a painting company here for about a year and a little bit, uh, just in the beginning. And then in 2015, I opened the company. I just branched out on my own, just being on the tools and you know, one-man show, like uh um everybody else, or almost everybody else. And um I worked by myself for about three years, and uh then I started hiring some people, and I failed miserably in the beginning. Um, that didn't quite work. Everything kind of changed, and I would say this would be the first milestone is when I uh when I joined the business grush group and uh met Nick May and all the guys in there, and uh, I attended the crank event in Denver, and that kind of changed my perception about everything, you know, in terms of hiring, in terms of uh business type, because I I don't have any business background or nothing. And um there was a little bit of an eye-opener that uh you know, more could be done with a painting company than just you know make a living and uh and uh be an employee basically. And then from there, um I um I believe it was 2020 when uh when I started to hire a little bit more than you know, a helper or two, or here and there, and I really got serious about business. So from there we grew in 2023. We had uh nine painters on staff and a project manager, and then since then we dropped down a little bit. So now we have seven painters and one project manager to date. All right, awesome.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's great. So it sounds like you you know you were the owner operator 2015 for a few years. Uh it sounds like you had some mind shift changes in around 2018-2019, and really started getting serious in 2020 to 2025, and it looks like you had some really strong growth uh between in in those five years.
SPEAKER_00:Um Yeah, we we did sorry, and then Yeah, no, go for it, go for it. No, I I was just gonna say we did. We I mean, we're not quite the typical painting company, right? That you hear that oh, we scaled from like uh 200,000 to a couple millions or something. We're still close to a million. We we never broke the million. Uh this year we're probably gonna be at around nine 960k. That's what uh that's what the prediction is, and stuff like this. But um again, um we could probably be a lot bigger, but we decided that we're just very niche on what we were doing, right? So we we only did uh interior for interior residential and kitchen cabinets, we've added that in uh in 2020. Um, we've also targeted kind of the the 15 to 25 percent of the top earners in town, so that kind of limits us quite a bit. Um now forward to this date, we're kind of starting to change that perception a little bit. Uh and uh we incorporated exteriors and we've incorporated some commercials, so we're kind of trying to expand because we realize that you know we're uh we're kind of locked into our potential on how much we can grow. We we reached 10 painters, that was like probably the the highest that you could go in a place we are like where I'm at in Sudbury, Ontario, we have about 160,000 people, so we're pretty limited to uh to how much we can grow to that level, you know, and that uh that prices that that we're charging. So yeah, that's kind of like the 10th.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it sounds like you're you're initially focused on interior and cabinets, and that allowed for some some good growth uh to a million in revenue. And with the population only being 160,000, you feel like to really get beyond that, you need to add some additional services like exterior to to basically increase the revenue from that point forward.
SPEAKER_00:Is that kind of yeah, it's either that, either we cut down on quality and we drop our prices because we're we're constantly say um told that we're double the price than the next guy everywhere we go. Yeah, right. So uh that's a little bit harder to do, and I don't really want to slash prices. So then I'd rather just expand a little bit in the areas where you know we we could and still keep our healthy profits and and everything.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And you said 160,000, uh 160,000 in as the population, but you're targeting specifically like very high-end uh wealthy individuals so that you're actually working off a lot smaller of a population, probably. Yes, right. Yeah. So maybe the the top 20% of that, or maybe pretty much, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The top 20%, and then every so often, like we get into, you know, some people that uh get into money, either they got an inheritance or something like that, and uh, you know, they then they can afford us and stuff. But the majority of the people, yeah, it's there. So any any kind of other jobs that we go with uh we found that it's kind of a waste of time to just go and quote, because we never get the job, it's always the same thing. Oh, well, what what what are you doing? You know, that you're so much hired. And uh, you know, I think we have pretty good value propositions and everything, and we do provide a lot of value, but for people that don't have money, I don't think that really matters. You know, if they're not your clients, they're not in your target market, then no matter what you what you give them or what you do, if the price is too high, you know, they're not just not gonna hire you, in my opinion, anyway.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And and with the uh with the population, you're targeting the top 20%, that really means you're only you only have about 30,000 in your your niche with with the the pricing, the premium service that you're providing.
SPEAKER_00:Pretty much, roughly around there.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. And so so with that, you you know, if one percent of that population of that 30,000 is getting painting done uh per year, that's a few hundred per year. So yeah, you know, that's definitely or or yeah, so that's definitely you probably have a good part portion of the market, it sounds like, um, of that of that target market.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I mean, we we don't have issues there. Whenever we're we're in front of a right customer, there's no they don't get other quotes, and there's no doubt that we're the we're the choice for them, right? Price is not an issue. It's like I don't really care how much it is, I know you guys are gonna do a good job, you're gonna be here, I don't have any issues. Let's just do it. And we are getting quite a bit of repeat customers now because we're on the 10-year mark this year, and for the first couple years we didn't got anything, but now we we see quite a quite a big percentage of those customers uh just reaching back out because either they move into a new home, either they're ready to to repaint their homes and stuff like that. Nice.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, that that sounds that sounds like a good uh strategy to well, one reactivate past customers makes a lot of sense. Uh get repeat work, but also adding it uh another service in that area since you're you have a great relationship with your your target market already. Add in um services that are close, you know, exterior painting, you're already doing interior painting. So that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:That helped us quite a bit because whenever I send the the first mailer out saying that we're starting to do exterior, we got a big influx of uh of our repeat customers just saying, Oh my god, I'm so happy that you guys are doing that. Now I have this, I have that, I have the other thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, so we we got a lot of jobs that way to start, which is nice because it's the same thing you can uh you can charge the pricing that you want and maybe a little bit higher just to kind of uh you know make sure that you don't lose your shirt in the beginning when you're first learning production rates and all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I I got a lot of production rates from other people in the community and stuff, but until you get your own, you know, you're still kind of winging it. Nice.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. And uh I'd like to go back a little bit um to in 2019 time frame. It sounds like you had some mind shift changes in regards to hiring. Could you go into more uh detail on what what was holding you back? Uh maybe some uh some mind shift some uh mindsets that you had that kind of were limiting you and and what changed and and how did that impact your business?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Like for me, I'm a perfectionist. And like since I started, I was just every nique, every little thing, everything has to be perfect, right? And then uh when I first started hiring people, I was just like, what the hell, man? Like, you do you not see that? Do you not see that? Like it was just basically uh, you know, nobody was good enough for for me or doing a good enough job for what I was expecting. And uh I lost a lot of people like that in the beginning because I was hiring people with experience, right? And I mean, uh probably the worst person to work for when with that attitude and that mindset. And then I remember I saw a video from uh Nick Slavik on an Ask a Painter now when he was saying, you know, the customers are probably only expecting about 70% of the quality you're giving, you know, 80, 85, and you should not ever expect 100%, right? And that was kind of the first thing that I'm like, maybe I am a little bit, you know, like trying too hard, and maybe I don't really need to go that extra mile because nobody's ever gonna see it. And so that was the first uh the first thing. And then I always thought that okay, you're never gonna be able to find uh people to work for you. It's you know, it was that mentality that you you can find people, you can find good people and uh and all that stuff. And I was also limiting myself that I'm in a smaller market and I kind of knew almost all the painters, nobody was doing a good enough job, so I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'm just gonna be by myself, you know, and just make a living like this. Decent living, mind you, but you know, you're still an employee. Like it's uh that's what it is. And then uh the next big change was when I went to to the crank to Denver and I met Nick May and uh and a lot of uh other guys on uh on that uh that program. And uh, you know, I saw that everybody had bigger build businesses, and they had you know 10, 20, 30 guys, 40 guys. I'm like, well, obviously I'm missing something because if if uh so many people can find people and can can build a business that thrives and you know is profitable and um you can get yourself out of the field and just focus on the business side of things and actually just treat it like a business, right? So when I came back, um, you know, I I just kind of went with that attitude and just try to not expect as much from the people and just kind of try to uh to give a break and to understand that nobody's ever gonna do it as good as I'm doing it, to my standards anyway, like to myself, and that uh nobody's gonna give a crap, excuse my language, you know, as much as I do for everything. And just um really started to build systems instead, right? Rather than every time going on the field and just lay down on them and hey, you didn't do this, you didn't do this and stuff. I'm like, okay, well, how how can I reverse this? How can I how how can I be proactive so I make sure that all these things are done in advance? So started implementing company meetings every every Wednesday morning. That's like standard, no matter what happens, 8:30 to 9:30 is a full company meeting with everybody. Um started building um manuals and started building core processes and pretty much everything, you know, like you're explaining to a five-year-old, like, okay, this is how it has to be done from start to finish, and then really enforcing those things. And um I'm pretty lucky to have all the people that are working for me. They kind of bite in the vision that I want. And they're people that take pride in what they're doing, and you know, they they pride themselves on doing a good job. And from the beginning, when I started these company meetings, I involved them into the process from start to finish. So, you know, today we were talking about patching, let's say. Let's let's build the procedure for patching. And then getting everybody in there and getting everybody's input and basically creating the systems with them, they they bought into it and they kind of feel they're a part of it, and they have to to do it that way because we all agreed to it from the beginning. And um that made the the world of a change, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, cool. So it sounds like uh one of the mindsets were your uh standard was so high that it it was the the the the customer doesn't even care about the things that you were caring about. It sounded like like you yeah, like uh the PCA has the the standard for a painted wall. It's like it it it it should be covered if you can stand five feet away and nor under normal lighting with no you know assistance to to look at the wall. If it looks good, then it's good, as opposed to using you know a spotlight and with a magnifying glass up to the wall, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So it sounds like it was a very very unattainable um level of uh of of finish that I was looking for.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay, so you kind of adjusted it so that it was meeting the standards of of your customers and who have probably have high standards, um, but you were you were just way above them. So just tweaking it down a little bit allows.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just just kind of go in between, right? Like just lower my standards a bit to to where I can make them attainable for people. Yeah, that that we I mean for people to be able to keep them on staff as well and not uh you know not frustrate them to the point that they want to quit.
SPEAKER_02:Makes sense. Okay, so that was one mind shift change that allowed you to bring folks on and still have high standards without overburdening them with crazy standards, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_00:I think that was that was the one thing that made the biggest difference because otherwise I think I would have still struggled if I just put everything together and I would have just gone, okay, you guys you guys have to do this. You know, they would uh it would have never flew.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that's a key piece because a lot of folks uh listening probably probably have heard you gotta create systems. Like everyone hears that, you gotta you know create your processes. Uh, but I don't think enough emphasis is probably put on involve your team in create the creation of those profit processes so that they are bought into it and they actually they feel like that there's ownership there where they they created it or they helped create it, and so now they feel like they need to like psychologically they have to make sure it works and they follow it. Is that what you've kind of seen?
SPEAKER_00:Uh pretty much, yeah. Pretty much. And uh we've we've kept that going, right? So even to this day, every every time we meet, we discuss things and how can we change? What do we need to change? What do we need to keep doing? What do we need to stop doing? And you know, is is there a better way? Is there a new product that we could be using to make our life easier or to make your life easier? Because they they're the ones in the field working with everything, right? Um so that really helps. And that really like everybody's been saying that they they can wait for the company meetings, right? Because it's interactive, it's it's always, you know, it's a way to improve, it's a way to make their life easy and as a whole to the whole company, pretty much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, what you just said reminded me of uh, I think it's the UPS founder, I forget his name, but he would always ask his lower level employees, the ones the ones who are actually doing the work, he would always ask them some question to the effect of what's one thing that you would stop doing in the business, or one thing you would start doing in the business, or one thing that we're doing really well that we feel like we should keep. So there's always that feedback from folks that are actually executing the work because sometimes as a leader, you're like you're up in the tower and you're not in the day-to-day doing the work, and so you can kind of lose touch with what what's working and what's not working.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. You you tend to think that you know everything that's happening, but you don't.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, cool. So you you kind of had some mindset shift changes there, you brought on a larger staff, you created ownership and and started to to see the growth. Um what are what are some other uh challenges that you kind of had to overcome in that growth period?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the next one was when I uh when I hired my project manager and uh you know there was uh there was the delegation part and letting go of things. There was uh that was the next one because um you know I was kind of a control freak. I really needed to know everything and do everything, and if somebody wasn't doing it right, I was the only one that could do it right or fix it, or you know, rather than uh then uh spend the time to teach somebody how to do it. I was just like, oh, it's gonna take me longer to to teach you, I'll just do it, kind of thing, right? So that was uh that was kind of the second part. Okay, how do I how do I remove myself from all the things that I don't have to be involved with and just empower people and you know train and just uh build that culture of you know taking ownership for for mistakes and for all that kind of stuff. So that was uh that was probably a hard year that one just you know mentally more than more than anything. But um I mean uh we've kind of overcome it. Like I still have the tendencies every once in a while to just revert back to that, and then I'm just reminding myself, nope, not a good way, stop. Uh you know, be be a leader, not not be a you know, like a manager kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02:What what point like revenue-wise, were you when you determined, like, hey, I really need a production manager?
SPEAKER_00:So this is a little bit different than every other company as well, because uh my project manager, I uh I trained him from the ground up. So I took I uh he came in as an apprentice in 2020 and then uh taught him painting and everything. And he really showed interest in being with the company in a more managerial role. And we've always been talking because the goal for the company is to expand out of this area, so open more locations to bigger cities and you know expand that way. And um, you know, I was keep on talking with him in the beginning. Okay, would you be interested in you know taking uh maybe over this location or maybe you know being in a general manager position or stuff like that? He did have some positions before where he was working as a manager in some other uh departments and some other areas, some other fields. And uh he showed great interest. So we kind of roll with that idea, right, from the beginning. Okay, well, we'll teach you this, I'm gonna teach you this and all that. So when we had five painters, we decided to do a hybrid role. So um, based on all my calculations, we would need to have eight painters on staff to be able to make sense to hire uh an overhead position for a project manager. So we just calculated the percentage. Okay, if we have five people, then you'd have to be uh 40% in the field still, and 60%, you know, doing the project manager stuff. So uh that's what we pretty much did. Uh and then at one point he became full-time when we were at uh 10 painters, and then now it's uh because we scale back, he's back at like 30%, or I think it's 30, 30 something percent that he's in the field. So that way uh it still allows me to have freedom from the field in terms of projects and and everything. And um, you know, it's a little bit more harder on the bottom line, a little bit, you know, just because sometimes, yeah, we do have five or six painters, but you know, there's vacations, there's all this, there's projects, or there's inefficiency in hours and stuff like this. So you you can really kind of feel it in that uh in that point, right? But I'm very happy to to just not have to be there all the time and be able to focus on the things that really matter for me and you know have my time and enjoy my life to the to the way I want to live it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I I think that the the way you handled bringing on that production manager's sounds really smart because you you basically have a blended role. And you so 10 painters would mean that you would need a production manager to manage them 100% of the time. But if anything below that, you basically okay. If we only have eight painters, that's 80%.
SPEAKER_00:If it's 60%, oh it was it would be for eight painters, that's 100%. That's a full-time uh that that's that's how I calculated, yeah, based on our numbers and everything. But it was easy for him to do 10 because you know it was still kind of the same amount of jobs because three of those were trainees. So, you know, when you put weight for weight, it was still kind of like eight point to five painters or something like that based on their weight. So it was good.
SPEAKER_02:So eight painters, 100% production managers. That's like four crews approximately if you're doing two-man crews, right? Yeah, something like that. Okay, and then if if there was only six, then there he's basically 75% doing production management work, and the other 25% he he's doing, he's grabbing a brush and he's jumping in with the crew. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, cool. Now that's a that's a a cool way to kind of think about it and and basically have that blended role so that you know it's a win-win still, because a lot of folks I feel like they when they're trying to hire a production manager, they feel like it's all or nothing, you know, where I need a production manager, they're gonna just do production management and not blend the role at all. And so it kind of handcuffs them into that. When when I think that that's a creative solution, I think that it seemed like it worked. It's working.
SPEAKER_00:It works beautifully. Like he's been uh he's been for two years now, two two and a half years in this uh role. And I'm all I've also been training him into sales and stuff because ultimately he's gonna be taking over my position as a general manager when I move from here and open another uh another location and stuff. So, what does that allow me to do is like I can leave anytime from the company. So last year I took three months' vacation and I was out of the country for the most part, and uh he was pretty much running the show, right? Sales and everything. And like I have commissions and bonuses and everything tied to it. So they're making really good money. I probably made the same money last year as uh as he made, right? But for me, what that allows me to do, having the freedom to just live whenever and know that everything's being taken care of, and uh, you know, also knowing that I'm not sacrificing the the net for it just because you know it's hybrid. Like if I'm not here, uh I don't pay myself. I I I mean I pay myself, but you know, you know what I mean. Like I'm I'm just kind of like I'm a shareholder when I'm not around here. He's taking the the percentage and everything, so that's been working really good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, that's that's amazing. Three month vacation last year.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it wasn't all in one, it was broken up, but it it accounted for three months. Yeah, it's still I was gone for a month and a week, the longest, so five weeks. Yeah, no, that's a to come back to, so it was good.
SPEAKER_02:And so um so during that point in time, did you have someone doing sales or like how did that work?
SPEAKER_00:So it was like I was helping him as well with the sales. So he was doing uh like he was doing all the appointments, like going in, taking all the measurements and all the dimensions and stuff, and he was putting together the quotes that were the simpler ones, and then I was putting all the other ones, right? Because we're we're very, very heavy on systems, like we have everything systematized and we're about 90% automated on everything. So we that that part runs like clockwork, so it's uh it's pretty seamless. So I mean, for me it worked because I mean I'm still working here and there when I'm putting quotes together, but you know, it's different when you're working from Europe in a country on a beach or something, and uh, you know, doesn't really matter. Don't really find it like work as long as everything's running smooth here and the people have work and everybody's happy, then that's all that matters.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, that's that's amazing. Uh three months vacation, you're pretty much out of the loop, and uh he's taken taking over things. And so um you're just helping him out a little bit with the more complex stuff, it sounds like and yeah, and then you know I was still a resource for him.
SPEAKER_00:So if if there was something that he couldn't handle or something that you know he had he needed help with, I I'm always there, right? Like my phone is on, my email is on. Like I don't, it's kind of like a hybrid vocation, right? I'm there, but I'm still kind of taking care of the things here, right? Which I don't mind at all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I I think you guys do virtual quotes, right? Where they do, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Is that so that's we can we do both. So we give the up the people the option. Whenever somebody inquires, we give them the option. It's like, listen, we we can either schedule an in-house estimate or we can send you this form and you fill it up. Which option do you want? You know, there's benefits to each and there's uh there's downsides to to other. But we find that a lot of people maybe they have busy schedules, maybe they they can only be available after hours or weekends, and we keep it straight from you know the working hours. And uh, you know, they take that uh that version, the virtual quote, and you know, they get a ballpark. If everything looks good, we'll then schedule an in-house estimate. Because if we know that you know the price looks good to them and they want to move forward, then I'll go on the evening or in the weekend to meet with them, you know, on their time. But otherwise, you know, if we don't have that that first level of you know uh understanding, then doesn't really work.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so if if they were expecting it to be$500 and it was$5,000, then you just saved yourself the time of having to go out there.
SPEAKER_00:And I mean we we talk about all this on the on our uh Discovery call, right? Like when uh when people call us and you know, we kind of vet them and uh you know kind of throw some ballparks here and there just to see how how they feel about it, especially with cabinets, because it's a lot easier, right? And then for uh for interior painting, we kind of uh based on all the data, we kind of developed the pricing for floor square footage as well, you know, depending on what you need done. So because the majority of people when they call they say, Oh, I have a 3,000 square feet home. How much is it gonna be to paint? Right? That we get that question all the time. And I was always saying, Well, you know, that's if we paint the floors or the ceilings then only, then I could tell you, but otherwise it's impossible. So I'm like, okay, well, how how could we figure out a way where you know we can kind of give a ballpark to these people? So we just run all the data, and based on kind of square footage, we have uh uh like a coefficient that we multiply it with, the whether it's just uh walls, just ceilings, wall, ceiling, stream, and everything, and we can kind of put a ballpark together, you know, okay, it's gonna be between 7,000 and 9,000 or something like that. It's better than not having any kind of answer for them. And um, you know, that kind of oh my god, well, that's ridiculous, blah, blah, blah, and then end of conversation, you know, next kind of thing. Or they're like, okay, yeah, well, we could probably work with that, and then you know, we we discuss further, we schedule an appointment or whatnot.
SPEAKER_02:Makes sense. Okay. No, that's that's really interesting. Um so I I like how you guys are incorporating that that virtual quote component to for those busy professionals of that that can't put a you know, set aside an hour in the middle of the day on a weekday, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Which most folks are are not able to do that, uh, especially high earners. So that makes a lot of sense. Um so with with that, you know, it seems like you have a really great reputation based off, you know, a ton of reviews, all five star, and you've you know, you started just just yourself and you uh had really high standards, kind of adjusted those standards brought on the team, and you've had been able to, it seems like communicate you know your vision and they've bought in and you've you know built a great team to be able to continue to to serve at a high level to uh you know, uh high wealth individuals.
SPEAKER_00:Um what what do you think is uh allow has allowed you to really be able to do that and be able to leave for three months at a time um you know uh do you have like core values or something that is keeping the team on track and like how do you ensure that the quality is is staying intact even though you've grown your team so much since the beginning so we do have core values and you know like we talk about about them often but I think the core values are not important anymore I think they're just built in in the culture within everybody right and uh I think one of the things it's uh me not letting uh the quality go and still keeping high standards just not um you know unattainable standards kind of thing so I was still on top of them like a wet rag whenever something wasn't looking good or something is uh is you know it's not done the way they should and you know I'm there every step and even now like if something happens and stuff like I keep them accountable and you know if there's something that they messed up they gotta go back and fix it and you know it's uh it's all that thing so they know they kind of know that unless they they keep up the standards they're gonna have nothing but problems in the company right so we lost a couple people they kind of with themselves out right because if if you're constantly being schooled and constantly feel like you you know you're in kindergarten you're not gonna like that uh that very much uh on top of this we we also have a a pretty good uh bonus system so everything it's uh it's based on production and quality and all that stuff right and um that allows them to make really good money and it keeps them you know uh keeps them very engaged and very on top of things because I mean uh they would rather put that money in the pocket than go back and fix something that hasn't been done the first time. Together with that there's a pretty a pretty high uh level of uh of accountability and checking so at the end of each day every painter has to make an end-of-day report with exactly what they've done with pictures of of the area they've done um the project manager goes by on each job every day just to check on everything and talk to the customer and you know problem solve see what's what and at that level we're we're also checking and then the lead painters on the job side they're responsible for checking all the time for everybody that's there so each job has a has one lead painter assigned that it's kind of like the mini project mini project manager right so among all the all those levels uh I think we we pretty much you know nail it yeah and so could you tell me more about your bonus system so are you yeah basically you have budgeted hours and if they are under the budget hours they get a portion of that or all of that? Yeah pretty much they get all of that so uh basically if uh if a house is budgeted for a hundred hours if they're on 80 hours and uh it passed the quality and everything they get those 20 hours as bonus.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So if budgeted for 100 they do it in 80 they get 20 as long as it it passes a quality check. Is this done by the production manager or yeah okay by the project manager.
SPEAKER_00:And then there's a caveat to that because if there's ever a callback for that job then that's gonna count towards the bonus for you know it doesn't matter if that bonus for that job has been paid already that's gonna count into the total bonus for the next month or next period right? Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02:Okay so then the bonus pretty like as soon as the the job is done in the next month at the end of the month the next pay period they're gonna get their bonus for the previous month.
SPEAKER_00:And we keep this very accurately we actually keep it per room per person how they work right because um like if uh let's say you have two people working in an area or three people working uh or how how should I say it uh um yeah I mean if if there are multiple people working in an area right we we kind of like to keep track of uh of each area or no I'm probably saying that's wrong so you're probably gonna have to cut that in the end um if uh um if you would have let's say four or five people on a job site right and you're bonusing everything on a job site it would kind of not be fair right because if some people are working on a high area or some people are working in bathrooms versus something else you know that would be kind of uh not not fair so like this we we keep track per room so um let's say uh John worked in three bedrooms upstairs then he's gonna be bonus just for those three bedrooms that he worked in right and that kept everything very fair and they appreciate that because you know it's like okay well it's I'm actually being bonused on my work and on my uh my productivity not you know somebody slacking downstairs on their phone and I'm busting my uh my ass up here you know no that's really really uh that's really cool so uh because I I've never heard of someone I mean obviously I've heard of the bonus system uh but not never by area um so you're if you know John is assigned the the bathroom in the hallway in the kitchen he gets a budget for those three areas and then so everything is budgeted like when they get the budget they get it broken down by room. So this bedroom has five hours this living room has something has something and the way we do that at the end of the job when they do their uh and I mean at the end of the day when they do their end of day report then they specify they break it down exactly like how many hours I worked in this room how many in this how many in this with pictures and all the description and that's you know that's being timed into the timesheets but it's also broken up per room. So at the end of the job you have exactly everything broken down nice with percentages. If there's you know two or three people working in the same room so you say you have an open concept and somebody worked you know five days and somebody worked two days then that's broken down percentually based on how many hours they worked uh to the full hours of the of the job or area I should say. If uh if John if he's under budget well under budget but Tim who's working on the same job and he's did the living room and he went over budget Yeah that's that's the caveat that uh you know uh as a company I decided that I'm gonna take a loss on that if that means that people are gonna be compensated fairly you know what I mean because we've had uh we've had jobs where you know some people are making 20-30 hours of uh of bonus but the job is actually over budget you know what I mean yeah yeah but it's uh you know I wouldn't feel that it's fair for the people that uh you know that worked really good and they they brought those uh those um rooms under budget to be penalized for the other people that that messed up right yeah uh I think that that's one of the things why our culture is really good because they know that it's everything's very fair and very transparent and you know they never have to worry about anything kind of like that. But I know what you mean like that's always I'm like why did I do this? I should have done it the other way around but yeah you know I mean no that's you definitely putting the giving the employee a really great opportunity and I'm assuming like the folks that are not hitting the budget they're probably I guess what's the process for them like if you have someone that's consistently not hitting the budget since the gone they're not getting the price they're gone like in two two months they're gone they don't last because uh you know I mean fair enough one job two jobs three jobs maybe you have a bad period maybe something's going on at home you're not sleeping things like that right but if it's consistently then you know that obviously something's gotta give so what I've done in the past I didn't uh I didn't fire them but I just dropped their price to the percentage that they're actually working so we have uh um our um our average I mean not average our a painter that's at a hundred percent weight uh it's making thirty dollars an hour and that's kind of the base so if you're at 80 then it would be 30 times 80 right so I just drop their salary to exactly what what they're producing and then there's no bonus there but I'm also not paying extra so that makes sense kind of that that didn't didn't really happen like I've done it a couple of times but the people left anyways right so yeah that makes sense nobody's gonna stick around and and yeah yeah no it's it makes sense it sounds fair cool well uh this has been a really great conversation um I think you've provided a ton of value to folks that are listening with the bonus uh the bonus system that you just went through with the blended role that you have for your production manager the uh the mind mindset changes that you went through I think will will help a lot of folks do you have any uh closing thoughts or um or anything for for the audience um I would say just figure out what kind of business you want for yourself what kind of lifestyle do you want to have and make make that business work for you because I hear a lot of people you know I mean it's very easy to get um into the weeds and just you know listen to everybody how they say oh I've scaled to three million in three years and you know we're making this much money and we have 50 guys and stuff and yeah it's sexy it sounds good right like to say I'm running a multi-million dollar business and and all that stuff but uh how how does your life look like how does your day to day like what's what's the quality of your life are you enjoying the journey or is it just a struggle every day you know and I'd say like just to anybody just try to figure that part out and then you know the rest just comes naturally.
SPEAKER_02:Wise words definitely I mean the business is there to support you so I yeah I love it. That makes a lot of sense. Awesome well I really appreciate your time today Mihai and I'll always a pleasure yeah um I really appreciate it and everything and for the listeners with that we will see you next week
