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
Coffee, Prayer, And A Million-Dollar Paint Roller
We share how Grace took a sleepy painting company, faced a divorce and a two-hour commute with five kids, and still 10x’d revenue by focusing on sales, margins, and team. The path is not easy, but it is simple: solve the next problem, implement fast, and use a proven roadmap.
• starting in cleaning then pivoting to painting for better margins
• taking over the company after divorce and relocation
• learning in-person estimates and building trust
• tracking close rates and raising average ticket
• fixing margins with clear scopes and change orders
• hiring subs, standardizing production, and defining done
• shifting mindset from operator to CEO
• using constraints to drive focus and action
• investing in coaching and following the roadmap
Quit your job, man.
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Go to the profitable inner podcast. To help you navigate the financial attacks aspects of starting running and special thing. Before we dive in a quick word of content, always trying to provide accurate, up-to-date financial and tax information. Nothing to do with this podcast to be considered financial advice specifically for you or your business, which you describe general knowledge and experiences, not to replace the skilled advice with a professional financial advisor or tax consultant. We strongly recommend speaking individualized advised or making financial disposal. 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 Hunan, CPA, former painting business owner, and your guide to mastering the numbers that drive success. So let's dive in and make your business more profitable one episode at a time. I'm super excited today to be joined by Race Groundtree out of Texas. How's it going, Grace?
SPEAKER_00:Hey, good morning, Daniel. Good going very well. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm super excited to dive into the conversation. Just for the listeners, could you give a kind of uh understanding of how did you get started in the painting industry and what have been some major milestones along the way?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. So um in 2017, I started a cleaning company. I um it was literally just me cleaning houses. Um I I had a baby and I left my corporate job, and I thought I just needed to clean six houses in a week and be able to spend as much time with them as possible. And um, I ended up growing the company really fast and hired my first employee and then hired another and then took myself out of the business and grew the company to where I was working and running it from home. Um, and then in 2018, I met my former, my ex-husband, um, and he was kind of in between careers, and I said that he should start a home service business too. So um, and I I used my kind of what I had done to market my cleaning company to market just his general skills, and um, he started doing a bunch of different types of things, and then we found that painting was what we just got the we had the best experiences with, it was most profitable, and then he discovered Eric Barstow and took his course, and then we kind of both started this company and built it together for a few years, and then um a series of things happened in 2023, uh mid no 2024. So last year um we got divorced and I took over the company uh in August, and then I took Eric's course and started to learn a lot of the things that I didn't know when I took over the company, and here we are today.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Okay, awesome. So it sounds like you you initially started with cleaning houses and you kind of learned about the home service industry, and then you at the time got your husband involved in the home service industry just generally. Um, and then because painting was more profitable, you guys started focusing on painting. You got divorced in 2024, and so for the last year, you basically had to take that over and learn, you know, by taking Eric Barstow's uh painting business pro course, you know, how to take it over and to run it on your own. And so that that sounds like quite the journey. Um, how has that been over the last year? Like uh that's such a quick learning curve, like to go through because I know you know you kind of had some background for years with home services, but what was that transition like taking over on your own?
SPEAKER_00:So it was crazy. I mean, it was just it's just been an insane ride. I mean, because number one, I ne I was never really invested in learning the Eric Barso course. I just kind of I handled all the client communication, I did the marketing, I talked to the subs, I'm bilingual, but I never did estimates in person. There was just a lot that I didn't know about the industry. And when we were facing kind of our divorce, um, I had been pretty involved in the company for a while, but it had been very sleepy for the like the past 18 months or so. And I just kind of looked at it like, I think I can do this. Um, and I got a phone call right in the beginning of that when I knew because when I knew that I was going to take over the company, I got a phone call from Jason Paris actually. And he he was trying to pitch something to me, and then he quickly realized my business wasn't you know big enough to kind of partner with. But towards the end of that call, I asked him, Do you think that do you think that a woman can sell paint jobs? Do you think that people will hire a woman? Because I was getting ready to do estimates in person for the first time. And he was like, Absolutely, like I believe people trust women and in a different way, and I think women can do really well in this business. So that was a reassurance that I needed. So I bought a shirt and you know, at the same time as taking over the company, I was also moving three hours away. I lived two hours from my service area in Houston, Texas. So, and I also became a single mom of five kids under six overnight. So it was everything all at once. And I was I I went from essentially being a stay-at-home mom, you know, doing everything on my phone, never having to go anywhere, to driving all picking up getting all my kids to daycare and school by like 6:30 a.m., driving two hours to Houston, doing estimates, producing jobs, getting off at like 3:30, 4:30, driving back two up two to three hours with the traffic, picking up all the kids. And I did that every single day for like six days a week. And it it was crazy. I don't know how I did it.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know how you did it either. Uh so you were two hours away from your service area.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I moved in with my parents initially. Uh, so I have these like five kids in this one bedroom at my parents' house, and then we eventually got a place out there. I knew that I needed to be close to my family as I was kind of going through this divorce. I could have tried to grow in this new area, but I felt like we had traction and we had a reputation in Houston. So I wanted just double down on what we were already doing. And I felt like with enough time and kind of us having our bearings, I would move closer to Houston. And I did about six months into that, I moved to the Houston suburbs and you know things got a lot better.
SPEAKER_01:And uh so two hours away from the service area, and then you you have five kids.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I do. Okay, yeah, I do.
SPEAKER_01:All right, I have four kids.
SPEAKER_00:I knew that.
SPEAKER_01:Uh but so but I obviously have my wife to help me significantly. I mean, she does most of the dealing with kids. So I uh I'm just trying to imagine being two hours away from service area and having five kids and going through everything you went through and still managing and growing the business. It sounds I I literally don't know how how you did that. Um you must have really just insane time management skills or ability to switch contexts uh very well.
SPEAKER_00:How how old are your kids if you don't like so um when this all started, my baby Roman, he was four and a half months old. Um then my daughter was three, or I think she turned three during this. Twin boys, um, they were four, and then my oldest was six. So, you know, now everybody's a year older. Um yeah. I don't know that I have insane time management skills. I I I think that I got a lot better with my time management through the course of that because it was a must. Like I could show you my calendar, it's insane, you know, color-coded, just but it could still be a lot better, and that's something that I'm constantly trying to work on and do better and be more efficient with.
SPEAKER_01:So, I guess what do you attribute being able to balance all that for at least the six months when you were two hours away, but then even still now you're you're in the area now, but you're still you still are a single mom with five kids running a business. Like that's pretty impressive.
SPEAKER_00:Two coffees and prayer. Coffee and prayer, coffee in the morning and another coffee in the afternoon. So it's like around four shots of espresso. Yeah, no, seriously, though, I had a lot of support being in paying business pro. Like they gave me the roadmap, and then I felt like I didn't know a lot. So I really leaned on and implemented the course, the the coaching, all of that. Um, and then, you know, it I guess I would say really, what other choice did I have? You know, it almost it's almost like constraint drives productivity. So the the other option was if I don't scale this company, then I'm going to have to get a job and I'm not going to be able to pick them up from school every day. I'm not going to be able to, you know, be there for things that they need. And the whole like really what drives me is to have more passivity and have time with my kids, like lots of time. You know, they're, they're, they're living in two households basically. Their parents aren't together anymore. I feel like the best thing that I can do is, you know, kind of use the gifts that God gave me for growing a business and grow something where other people can also have, you know, I can hire and bring on a team and they can have time freedom too. And we can all be with our families more. That's kind of the dream. So, and Eric, the painting business pro, of course, is really like centered around that is you know, creating the designing your life now, not working 80 hours a week. And I did like I did work a ton of hours, but now, you know, I work about 25 hours a week. I have lots of time with my kids, and I'm always looking for sort of ways to do better. But I have a lot of help and I implement. I think that's key. Like you can take all the learning and listen to all the podcasts, but if you're not implementing what you're learning in somewhat of a strategic way, then you're just building, you know, it's just another form of entertainment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a good point. I implementing, not just learning. So it's great to learn, but I guess it depending on your definition of learning, because some folks say you don't really learn it, you don't really learn something until you actually do the thing. But uh, you know, I go to a lot of conferences and some folks they take whatever they get out of the conference and they will just implement it, and then next time you see them, they'll be at a completely different stage. Uh so clearly they learned something, whereas some other folks, you know, they'll be pretty much at the same level, but they go to a lot of conferences, and so it's like what you know what's actually happening there? Are you are they actually learning? Because nothing's really changing their business. Sometimes people don't want to grow and they just want to stay where they are, which is fun. But you know, I think it's a key point that that you made that it's not just about taking in information, but it's actually applying it and implementing it into your business to actually get results.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And I can see myself in both of those people, honestly. You know, I've had times where I'm like a super implementer and I'm doing great and I'm growing and I can see the evidence of that. And then I have times where I'm just, you know, I check out and I do the conferences and I listen to the podcast, but nothing really changes, you know, for six weeks, two months. And I think I think I can see myself in in both of those people, probably like most of us.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's seasons for everything, I guess. So what what sort of growth have you seen over the last year?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh so I'll when I took over the company August 2024, that's when the company officially became mine, August 16th. Um, prior to that, the company had done uh in the first you know, two, two and a half quarters of a year, we had done about 40,000 to 80,000, you know, 40,000 to 60,000 in revenue. I wasn't tracking it, so I'm not sure the exact number, but I feel pretty confident that's around where we landed. And then I took over in August. Um, and so from August to December, we did 244 K in revenue. Um, so grew a good chunk. It was crazy. I never I like I never imagined in my wildest dreams. Um, yeah, and then this year, um, so it's September right now, or oh my gosh, is it really October 1st? No, September, September. I got scared. I think okay, yes. So now um I'm at six six hundred and seven K for the year. Um, my goal was 500K.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. 617 K for the year, and we're only through the first nine months. And you so you basically since you've taken it over on the rolling 12, you've done well over eight, eight hundred thousand dollars on the rolling twelve. So you basically took it from you 10x the business essentially.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm glad you I didn't know. I was like, maybe four times math is on my strong suit, but uh I think I quadrupled the revenue, but that's yeah, because because you if well, I guess it depends on because we're in September, but you're we do like year to year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I was I'm looking at the rolling 12 because you took it over August of last year, so maybe a little bit uh less than but looking at the numbers, you're you've you've done revenue on your own of like over 800,000 from August to now. And then um before that, the the the eight months before you took it over, it was only five 50k. So you probably 10x the business over the last 12 months compared to the 12 months before that. Wow, that's that's crazy. I mean that's that's incredible growth, especially considering everything that you just went through, which is you know, going through uh divorce, you have five kids, you were two hours away from your service area. Uh that is incredible. I I I don't yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean just hearing that like it almost brings me to tears. I had dreams, I wanted to do certain things, but and it's so funny how like we set a goal, we achieve it, and then it's on to the next thing. So my mind, I'm I'm stressing that because I don't think I'm gonna make it, I'm not, I don't think I'm gonna hit a million this year, which is kind of like my goal. But truthfully, you've kind of put it into perspective for me of just the journey from then to now is insane.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, yeah. I I so for those listening who think they have an excuse as to why they're not hitting their goals, I think you've pretty much proven that no matter your situation, you can hit the goals that you want to hit. Um if you put put your mind to it and put your effort into it. So cool. Well, you know, you you talked about uh uh you your implementation, like you really focused on not just learning things, but trying to implement it uh as soon as you learned about it. One thing that I'm curious about is did you know how to prioritize what to work on? Because, you know, uh I know from personal experience, like there's often many things that I could focus on that are wrong in my business, that I'd like to ideally like to fix, but you know, usually there's more important things to focus on first before doing other things. Did you did you have a certain way to to approach that? Because in order to 10x a business in a year, I mean, I think you would have to have some sort of priorities. How did you figure out what to work on first?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I would say um I'm by nature, um, I'm not so much a look at the big picture from above and kind of see all the parts. That's not really my strength. I'm very tactical. Um so it just looked like solving the next problem. So the first problem to solve was that I had no idea how to do an in-person estimate. So that's what I first focused on with learning and implementation. And then once I felt like my sales process was kind of down, I mean, improved, then it was, you know, fixing my margin, fixing my profitability. And then it was bringing on uh more painters and just a lot of learning around that. So really it just it's kind of been reactive up until now. It's like I see the problem. Eric, my mentor, always says the best CEOs solve the next problem. So that's kind of what I've taken on. Like right now, it's you know, it's team building, it's culture. I hired my first employee three months ago, and there's there's a lot of change going on in my company. There's there's a lot that I need to learn about leading a team, about setting a team up for success and you know, the future of the company, giving everyone a framework that they can truly succeed. Like my kids are in Montessori. Um, they have been since we started, and that's um I love their, I love that style of education. And they always say, you know, yes, kids can do so much more than you think they can do, but also you have to set up their environment for them to succeed. You can't just say clean your room. There needs to be places for everything, they need to know what the expectations are. And so seeing them thrive in that sort of educational structure, I've I try to apply it to my company. And a lot of times I'm right now I'm looking at my business and I'm like, I am not, I don't think I'm creating an environment where people can truly succeed and thrive. And I don't know how to. Um, I don't know how to work on foundational stuff. I'm not very strategic. So that's the next focus of my learning and implementation now. It's the next problem.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, got it. So it sounds like you you worked one-on-one with Eric Barstow. It sounds like was this through the the whole time, or was did you bring on a coach uh later on?
SPEAKER_00:Or no, so I I I would say the second I knew that I was taking over the business. So I started with in with uh painting business pro and working with Eric in June of last year. So okay when I knew I was taking over the company, I immediately signed up for their coaching. They have like a light coaching. I think it was like$400 or$1,700 down$400 a month, and they like guaranteed that you were gonna add five paying revenue, you know, profit to your business in the year, or you get your money back. So I actually spent my rent payment. I think it was June 1st of last year. Their course was$1,700 and my rent was$1,700, and I was just like, Yeah, okay, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's a big deal. Well, it sounds like it definitely paid off. It's um, I'm assuming, you know, they helped you kind of um it's from what it sound like you were saying, solving the next problem that they were kind of giving you the hacks to figure out, okay, here's your sales process, here's what you can do to fix it, make it more compelling, here's how you can fix your margins, make you more profitable, or here's how you can uh bring on more painters. And it was just sounds like it was helping you shortcut a lot of those problems.
SPEAKER_00:And they gave me a roadmap, basically. I mean, it as long I didn't deviate from it because I feel like when we're trying to do something new, we think we're the first person ever to do it, but that's not true. Just about anything you've tried to do or want to do, someone has done it before you, someone has already made all the mistakes, so that's what I looked at Anybus from like they made all the mistakes already and they've scaled their company. So I I want to make this as quick as possible. I want I'm gonna make new mistakes, I want to make my own mistakes, but you know, I just followed the program, truly. Yeah, I'm just dumb enough to just follow the program and not try to rewrite it.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if I'd say that, but uh you definitely you took it and ran it ran with it for sure. Um so what would you say it as far as running the painting possess and growing it so quickly as far as that goes, what was the biggest challenge or the biggest thing that you found most difficult to fix?
SPEAKER_00:Oh um the most difficult thing to fix. I I mean it's it's all gonna sound there's two things. Um yeah, there was challenging moments with the business itself, but truthfully, I really love business and I don't like I don't get too emotional about it. It's kind of fun for me. So I think that strength has served me well. I mean, I definitely had challenges all throughout, but I would say the two big this is kind of esoteric, but the two challenges are number one, accepting that the life that I had envisioned wasn't going to happen and that this was my new reality. I think there was a lot of acceptance around that. Um, and I still, you know, still have moments where I wrestle when things get hard, when I am having a conflict with someone on my team, when you know, when I make a big mistake that costs me in those moments, I'm like, I say to myself, like I shouldn't be in this position. I never wanted this. I just wanted to be a stay-down mom, you know. And then the other part of it is this is a weird one, but last year when the business started really growing like crazy, and then early part of this year, you know, I was making more money than I ever had, and I had more resources and more opportunities. And I think there was a certain psychological, just like I don't know, it's almost it wasn't like I was completely panicked, but there was a lot of stress associated with the sudden change in my life and my circumstances, and also just the sort of the the reality of everything that I was holding and responsible for was just like just almost crushing. And now it's the it's stepping out of this place of being a person that has a business to becoming a CEO and thinking for for the good of the business as its own entity. And that's the invitation that I'm kind of faced with now. It's like I could keep going as I have, I could have a good life, never grow. But truthfully, that's not who I am. I always want to grow. But if I'm going to grow the business and bring on a team, then I have to become more mature, then I have to become more responsible, then I can't, you know, check out and advocate my responsibilities. I need to grow into the person that is not just a salesperson that has a business, but truly a CEO that's considering everyone all the time. And yeah, face that with a little bit of trepidation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So it sounds like the things that you found most challenging were really the mindset changes that you had to do to the speed at which that has happened.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's like I grow, I like to grow. That's kind of my word. It's growing, but sometimes I grow so fast that I'm just like, I can't, you know, I can't I can't adjust. So, yes, a lot of it has been just mental, psychological, you know, just all the change. It's like people that win the lottery. You know, I mean, I didn't, I'm not saying I won the lottery, but it's kind of that same thing. Like, I don't know how to deal with this, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, that that makes sense. I mean, that's a huge amount of change so quickly. Uh and you know, you you you mentioned, you know, because you had a before you went on this journey with growing the business so quickly, you had envisioned yourself, you know, stay-at-home mom with the kids, like in and and I'm sure I I I know my wife who worked in my business, uh she has that uh kind of uh she wants to be with the kids because we have four kids, so she uh feels like she wants to be with them, but at the same time, she also really loves to do what we do and work as well. So she feels conflicted, and that's something that she has to deal with uh that she talks about. Um so it it is I might be putting that on you, but like it sounds like something a little bit of that where you wanted. What's that?
SPEAKER_00:That's definitely, I mean, I can hear, I hear sort of, I think where your wife is at, and it's a place that I'm often in too. And it's like kids don't care if you had a stressful quarter or if you were up the night before, like until 2 a.m. They still get up. My kids get up like 6, 7 a.m. and they expect the same level of, and then it's like, you know, as a I think may I don't know what it's like for a father. I'm sure that you have your own, you know, wrestling or things that we don't experience, but as a mom, it's like I think I I feel that I should be present to them, I should be better, I should be pouring into them, and then having five, I should be spending more one-on-one time, and then balance that with, but I also have to provide for them. And I also happen to be somewhat good at this thing that I'm doing, and I can see it being a vehicle that I can. So there's always, you know, always a bit of a push-pull with that. And I think that's why honestly I feel like we are we're supposed to be married when we have kids, you know, that is sort of the ideal scenario, and and because that's how all the pieces, but still, I mean, I I can't see myself ever not being in business and not saying just being a stay-at-home mom because that is is a huge job. But God gave me this gift, and I want to, you know, use it to bless my children. But you know, I was at PCA conference in San Antonio last week, and that was a time that I was really torn to be away from the kids because we had moved, we had all these things going on. I felt like I had really not been as present to them as I like to be. I think they were feeling it, they were expressing it to me. So here I'm at this conference, and I just kind of felt like I had to get home. So I ended up actually leaving the conference early and driving home and spending the night with them. And thankfully, I get to do those kinds of things, but it's always a balance, you know, always.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I I can't imagine it's it must be super difficult. And so kudos to you for being able to manage all of that uh with the growth with the family. Uh I can't think of an another example of this intensive growth because usually growth like is pretty consuming. And when folks are growing a lot, there's their personal life is more kind of stable and allows for them to grow with you know I I guess in my own experience, we did have one time where we did grow substantially when I uh my wife similar to your experience, um, didn't get divorced, but I was uh deployed overseas. Wow. Um so she was you know, she we only had two kids at the time, but she took over the the company unexpectedly because of something that happened with uh one of our key employees. And so we had a little bit of what you experienced and we did get through through some substantial growth uh during COVID. Uh but uh uh you know for the most part, uh you know, I I guess maybe maybe I'm misdiagnosing it because maybe maybe stress and personal life can um because I always kind of thought like the the the the growth came from more stable, but maybe maybe it's maybe that's wrong. Um but it it's just interesting to hear like uh with everything that happened that that still resulted in uh your your significant growth. So I'm it seems like it's a definitely a testament to you and your ability to like roll with the punches and make something great out of something that wasn't so great. Um so you know that's just a really amazing story. So um thank you for sharing it. Uh that uh it's just yeah. Wow. Um cool. Well, uh you know, you've been super generous with your time. I really appreciate you sharing with folks your journey. And uh do you have any asks of the audience or maybe um anything else you'd like to share that you haven't shared already that you think that would be helpful for someone that's trying to grow or maybe is in a similar situation that you were in? Um anything that you'd like to share with the audience?
SPEAKER_00:I always struggle with these types of questions. I think um, you know, it's kind of you were saying, you know, how did how did you do this with all of these constraints? And I think I almost feel that having constraints and your back against the wall is kind of an ideal place to be in. You know, the times that my kids are gone for you know they for an entire weekend, I would think that I would get so much done for my business. But the truth is I'm not anywhere near as productive when they're not around. So it's almost there's a benefit. And then what worked for me was not having a plan B. You know, I didn't have a full-time job, and it was just like, whatever I do this month, it's gonna decide the fate of my family next month. And that is kind of a crazy risk to take, but that's the risk I took. And I hear a lot of people that are kind of thinking about going doing this, and they're you know, they're keeping their full-time job and they're doing this on the side. And I'm like, okay, sure, maybe that's what you want to do, but quit your job, man.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that's a good point. Being going all in, putting it all on the line, taking the risk kind of forces you to take action. And maybe that's what what's going on there. Uh, where you you didn't really have a choice, you had to do it until you made it happen. Um, so that makes sense. I think that helps me frame it better. Uh cool. Well, Grace, I really appreciate your time. Uh I I think your story is incredible, and I really appreciate you sharing it with us. And for all the listeners, with that, we will see you next week.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much.
