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 Student Painter to $4M in 3 Years — The Rise of Gabe Elias
In this episode of The Profitable Painter Podcast, Daniel sits down with Gabe Elias, founder of EVM Home Improvements, one of the fastest-growing painting and home improvement companies in Massachusetts.
Gabe went from a 19-year-old Student Painters rookie producing $200K in one summer to building a powerhouse business doing $4,000,000+ in only three years, plus acquiring a 7-figure construction company.
He shares the raw, unfiltered story of early struggles, insane learning experiences, building a strong personal brand, scaling with subcontractors, and using social media + recruiting to blow past industry norms.
If you want the blueprint for fast, aggressive, smart growth in the painting industry, this is it.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How Gabe produced $200K at age 19 without ever touching a paintbrush.
- The painful mistakes that shaped him — including nightmare jobs, difficult customers, and expensive lessons.
- How EVM exploded to $4M using branding, visibility, and constant recruiting.
- Why organic social media is still the most underrated growth tool in the industry.
- How Gabe builds a pipeline of painters on demand through culture and visibility.
- Why the home improvement division is harder to scale — and how he’s solving it.
- The mindset required to grow fast, stay organized, and avoid overpromising.
- How to decide when it’s time to hire a coach (and what to avoid).
This is one of the most motivating, practical, and high-energy episodes we’ve ever recorded.
Subscribe and learn how to scale a painting business the right way — one episode at a time.
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 painter business, from the breakfast and letters to the spreadsheet and balances we've got to cover. But before we dive in, a quick word of caution. Nothing easier on this podcast to be considered as financial advice, specifically for you or your business. With you to shared 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_01: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. So let's dive in and make your business more profitable one episode at a time. Super excited to talk with Gabe from EVM Home Improvement. Welcome to the podcast, Gabe. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. All right. So just to give folks an understanding of where you're coming from, could you let us know, you know, how did you get started in the painting industry and what have been some major milestones along the way?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I started with an internship called Student Painters, right? There's a lot all around the country. Student painters, college works, et cetera. Mine was, you know, called Student Painters. They recruited me, my sophomore year college. I didn't think much of it. I just, you know, I got a cold call email, responded to it. It said, like, you know, our average intern makes uh$10,000 in the summer. I thought, you know, hey, that sounds really good. Um, why not give it a shot? And um the rest is history. You know, I did my first year, it was my rookie year, um, absolutely crushed it. I broke some company sales records, um, produced my first year about$200,000 in revenue in a three-month span in the summer. Um, had to, you know, recruit my own painters, recruit my own marketers, do all that good stuff, right? Um, and mind you, I never to this day, uh or since then never touched a paintbrush in my life. So um that was a very large learning experience, learning curve. But I was able to really learn delegation and and really use, you know, my network. And I was really good about recruiting and finding the right people to help me, you know, make this happen. So I did that, you know, plenty of podcast episodes of me during that experience with the CEO of the company. Uh, there was a couple of newspaper articles published. You know, I'm a 19-year-old, you know, in college, feeling like, you know, on top of the world, right? So that was my first year. Second year was promoted to be like a regional executive manager where I was able to recruit other college students to, you know, bring on as rookie branch managers and teach them how to run their own painting branch. And I was their mentor and their coach. Um, and so I recruited, you know, six people, all personal connections. Um, in fact, I had about half of the training room in New England was recruited by me that year. So it was pretty cool. I uh I think I was able to make a lot of noise with my success and then was able to kind of turn it into a culture thing and get a lot of people bought in. Um, a lot of them were my friends, you know, were my buddies that were able to see what I did that past summer. Um, so did my two years there. Um, it was great. I loved it. It made me realize like I'm obsessed with entrepreneurship, um, made me realize this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, you know, work for myself, build something for myself, and uh lead, right? And um, after two years of doing student painters, that took me to like my senior year of of college. And um, I decided to run up my own business. At the time, though, it was kind of just like a side thing because I was getting ready to graduate and kind of get into the corporate world, get a full-time job, but I wanted something on the side to do some extra cash. So it was really just my my buddy LJ and I, who is my business partner now. We were like, let's let's just keep doing some painting jobs on the side and just make some cash that that summer. Um, and we did that and and just never stopped, you know, never stopped since. So that's how I kind of got into it. Now uh EDM is uh we're in year three of business, right? I'm 25 years old. Uh, we're in year three of business. We should be doing you know, a few, a few million this year in revenue should be uh around 2 million in painting, um, and another two million in the home improvement uh division as well. So we have two separate divisions. And I recently uh just purchased and acquired a uh uh seven-figure construction business out of Boston, Massachusetts as well, uh, which is like general contracting. Recently got my my CSL license as well, so did my business partner, which is a huge uh step, you know, to help us scale. And uh that's where I'm at now today.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. So yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, uh, I mean, just starting from the the top, doing 200k in the in that summer as a 19-year-old, that is uh a pretty uh awesome accomplishment. It might not sound like much to someone who doesn't know what you have to go through because you're going to school full-time and you you're having to basically start your business in the spring-ish, and you're having to learn all this along with your full-time course load. And then uh you're trying, I'm assuming you get did cold calling door-to-door.
SPEAKER_02:Uh oh yeah. Yeah, door-to-door, you know, social media posting in groups. Um, we were fortunate where we we were given like lawn signs and flyers, things of that nature, you know, from from the actual, you know, business student painters itself. But um, yeah, like you said, we had to start while we're in school and try to basically line up jobs in the spring while actively recruiting painters um and have everything set in stone for the summer and produce all of that in the summer, you know. Yeah, um, so yeah, no, it was a great learning curve, but I fell in love with the grind and and the results and now I'm here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and did you did you do the submodel or employee model for the student painters?
SPEAKER_02:That was employee model. Yeah. So we had we were paying hourly, um, you know, lower rates, because obviously, you know, we have like 18 to 21-year-olds painting. Um, the customer knows that as well. They know obviously it's a student thing, right? They're gonna get more of a budget-friendly price. The quality probably not gonna be as professional as a as a contractor that's been doing this for 30 years. But um, I think I was able to really sell, you know, the company and really have, you know, make the customer kind of fall in love with me and really trust me with with the story that I was building. You know, I think they uh they were almost inspired by it and also were like, wow, this kid's crushing it and and I trust him and let's give him a shot, you know. And then with that, I just I just ran with it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's that's awesome. I mean a lot of folks have trouble doing 200k in their first year, full year, fully dedicated. So the fact that he did it over uh production over three months is really uh is really good. So thank you. Um what I'm sure though, uh there were some big challenges, especially I I did the same thing when I was 18, college watch painting. So I I know for me my personal experience, uh it was there's some big challenges that I had to face. It was like um, but I'd love to hear what what are some of the like the big challenges that you faced in that first summer in the painting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. I think I mean organization was a big thing because there's just so much going on, right? You got you got leads coming in, um, and then you're you're doing estimates, and then you're doing marketing, and then you have to proactively recruit painters for the near future. So you got to kind of like time everything. Um, and that was definitely stressful. I mean, thankfully, I I had a great mentor at the time uh who helped me a lot. But even then, I think the organization thing was very challenging for me. Um, I was more of like uh, you know, get things done when needed type of guy, but this made me really learn the hard way where it's like you can you can't just forget about a customer, you know. Um there was one, there's one story I shared this. I have another podcast episode with the CEO of Student Painters. Um his name is um Steve Acorn, great guy. And um, where I shared my whole rookie experience as well. So if there's any young listeners, you know, tuning in to this episode and maybe they're inspired and they want to try some sort of student painters or college painting experience, they can kind of listen to that episode as well, which shares my whole experience. But I remember, I remember there was one time, you know, in that that first summer where it was actually crazy. Um, we were at a job, definitely some Karen's, right? Definitely some crazy customers. Uh, they seemed like the coolest people in the world when I when I sold them, you know, and then a couple of months passed by when it was time to actually do the job. It was an absolute nightmare. Uh, this project was in Sterling. It was a very heavy prep exterior job, complete color change from like yellow to blue, needed honestly like three coats, you know. And um, man, I the job was supposed to take about a week and it turned into like a month and a half absolute nightmare. Um, not only did I lose, you know, a couple thousands of dollars, but um the the customer, the husband, you know, started becoming a little hostile, which was pretty crazy. And I'm like a you know, I'm a 19-year-old dude. So um started kind of getting aggressive and talking back. And I was trying to stand my ground. But long story short, my mentor had to get involved. I was, you know, banned from the job site. Um, and we had to get like a Sharon Williams rep out there and do a full like, you know, inspection of the job to try to kind of explain, like, you know, Gabe did a good job. But it got so bad to the point where my painters were using like art, art paint brushes like this size to get in between little tweaks and crevices that you could still see a little bit of yellow because we weren't allowed to spray um in in student painter. So looking back, I could have probably resolved this a lot quicker by investing in a sprayer, but we weren't trained for it and we weren't supposed to do it. So it was an absolute nightmare. Uh remember this project, you know, till this day. Um, and then worst thing about it all was, you know, I sold the job, collected the the deposit, but I forgot to get a signature and didn't realize till till the the problems arrived at the job. Um, somehow forgot to get them to sign a contract, you know. And again, this is 19-year-old me. So I think I learned every lesson in the book uh on that project. And um to this day, I think it still haunts me a little bit, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I'm the same way. I appreciate you sharing it because I know physically uh like I just thinking back to my first summer doing college works, like the things that I went through, I'm like, damn, that's like it still bothers me now. And that was literally I'm I'm 39 now, and that when I was 18. So uh decades later at this point, and it's still I'm like, man, similar situation we had at exterior. Um I can't remember if it's a color change, but basically so much was going on. We had uh multiple jobs going on simultaneously. Um I lost a crew, I needed to, but I needed I had promised the client that we were gonna start their project, so I'm gonna hire someone quickly. And so I did, but I did not vet properly. And so yeah, the the the the guys said that they had painting experience. Um you know, I was like, okay, great. So I have a job to start today. So I I got them started with the supplies and like some guidance, and then I had to go to a different job side to start another project with another crew, and uh I came back like in two hours later, and they were it was like a a brick exterior with you know um a little bit of siding, but they were leaning their rollers on the brick, like with paint on it, there's like leaning it up against and like there's paint all on the brick everywhere. So they were only on that job site for like two hours, but they completely just ruined the this person's house, and so I I was just like spending hours, you know, with wire brushes trying to get there. It was just a nightmare.
SPEAKER_02:So but yeah, I have another, I have another funny story. This one's shorter, but I uh, you know, this job, I was like, this is gonna go smooth, you know, it was a perfect little like rectangular, like two-story home, no peaks, no dormers, nothing. Um, the guy was super chill, sold him on the spot, overbid him. You know, I was like, all right, we're gonna crank this thing out in like three days. And the one thing I didn't do, I perfected everything, the walkthroughs, the setting the right expectation with my team, got the signature, everything, right? The one thing I didn't do was color test. And that's because he knew the exact color he wanted and sent me it. And I was like, you know what? The guy knows this is the color he wants, whatever. I was busy that day, skipped the color test, had my production manager at the time go pick up the paint. And around lunchtime, we painted two sides of the house, and he showed he gets there, and he was nice and he almost he like cracks a joke, but he goes, What the hell? You know, why does my house look like Barney? Um, because it was like a purple color when he wanted like a navy color. And I'm like, Oh my lord. So we had to repaint those two sides and get the right color, you know. Um, and my painters are, you know, in the corner laughing, and I'm ready to kill all of them because they were all my buddies too. I'm like, you guys suck. Yeah, you know, because of the the Barney joke. But yeah, oh man, there's uh there's a lot, lots of mistakes made, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but it's uh it's how you learn, right? You learn the hard way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It definitely speeds up that process. And you obviously learned a lot because you know, since then you are now you have a two million dollar painting business, a two million dollar home improvement business, and you said you just acquired a a million dollar um what was it? What type of business book?
SPEAKER_02:Uh uh like a general contracting business out of Boston. Yeah, remodeling. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right, yeah, cool. So um no, that's awesome. So and and you just you've been running the uh EVM painting business for only three years, right? And so you've already got it up to two million, but it's also actually four million, because right, because it's just two different divisions within the same company. Exactly, yeah. Okay, so so you grew it from from nothing to four million in three years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, which is pretty which is which is pretty crazy, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that is huge growth. Um so congratulations to you doing something right. You learned something from student painters, it sounds like thank you. So what have been some of the major challenges growing so quickly over three years? And I guess also just to context, was that growth pretty much like pretty steady in the first those three years, like million to two million, four million?
SPEAKER_02:I would I would say the first two years it was steady. It was like, you know, it was a good like uh double, you know, 100% growth. But from year lat from last year to this year, it's been insane. It's been insane. And you know, the year is still not over yet. Um, you know, definitely a crazy amount of growth. Um and yeah, 100% there's been plenty of challenges. I think I think the biggest one really is like is not oh it's kind of it's scheduling. I think the biggest one is scheduling. You know, obviously we're we have our CRMs, we're very organized, we overcommunicate with our customers, but I think a lot of times is like giving a customer a rough, a rough time frame of when we would be able to do the job, right? Like let's say I I go sell a job right now, it's interior painting, I let them know, hey, you know, we're booking out to like uh February, March time frame right now, and they're okay with it. I sell it on the spot, I collect a deposit signature, everything's ready to go. What ends up happening is it's easy to get a little unorganized, and you tell a little bit too a few too many customers that same time frame. And when that time frame comes, right, you're like, oh snap, you know, we definitely can't do all of these in these two in these next two months. Um so again, just an organization standpoint, more what's scheduling for me. Um, we don't we don't have, you know, so we don't deal with any struggles with production, which we're we're thankful for. We have very great crews, we have a lot of guys on our team. Um I would say it's more scheduling right now, if anything, you know, scheduling, getting jobs done in the timeframe that's promised, and also just like not overpromising customers' deadlines and also learning to say no, right? Because a lot of jobs are last-minute jobs that and customers are so clueless, you know, they're like, hey, you know, they're like I have this$50,000 exterior paint job, but I, you know, I need it started and done, you know, in a week and a half. It's like, dude, no one's gonna be able to help you. And if someone's able to help you, it might be like a one-man crew, two-man crew, you know, under the table crew, and they're gonna just absolutely screw the job. You know what I mean? Yeah, they don't understand that. So um, a big thing is learn a big challenge for me is learning to say no and and um, you know, just not overpromising specific time frames for the customers. That's what I would say right now. Um and I would say that the crazy, the exciting thing too is like I would say a couple months ago it was lead generation, but we finally tapped into some Facebook ads. You know, we're working with uh Lucas Jensen and the Ford Media team, and they've been absolutely crushing it. Uh, we've been doing the ads for about three, four months now. And uh, I mean, just this month our ROI was 7x, you know, what we spent. So it's it's uh it's I'm starting to realize like, holy crap, you know, we should probably like imagine if I'm and we're spending like a hundred dollars a day. So I'm like, imagine if we spend a thousand dollars a day, you know. Um, so yeah, those are some of the things I would say it's more more in the production side of things and scheduling and kind of just setting proper expectations with customers, not overpromising and then under delivering. And um, and just some more organization, right, in the production side of things, prepping jobs ahead of time, you know, rather than last minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, one of the things it seems like you've done well, and you mentioned it before, was that you you've never painted uh before, right? Um at least consistently. So yeah. So you've never painted um and you've gone from zero to four million in three years. And uh so I'm assuming you've been really good at and you mentioned this before too, when you were recruiting on the painter, student painter side. Yeah, but uh in order to to scale a four million dollar business, uh especially a painting business, you need a lot of people. So I'm assuming you're very good at recruiting, finding and recruiting uh people to actually work with you. Like so, could you talk more about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'll say that is definitely one of our biggest strengths. It's it's something I've I've never struggled with um really ever. Um, I know a a lot of times today, like every in today's time in industry, like everyone's like, oh, you know, it's impossible to find good workers. Oh, no one wants to work, you know. More more older generation people will throw those things around. But luckily, we've never struggled with finding you know human capital and finding people to work and produce good quality work, um, at least for painting. Um, how we were able to do that, I mean, I kind of go balls to the wall recruiting when it's needed. You know, it's all over our social media, Facebook, Instagram. I'm on Snapchat, which is something that you know most people aren't on, and I have a pretty large audience on there. And even as simple as like a black screen post just saying looking for some more, you know, painting contractors gets me leads, right? I have a decent following online. Um, so I think that helps with the exposure. But even if I didn't, I would still be spamming all social media, right? Organic social media is just huge. It's so underlooked and undervalued. And um, I mean, you can do millions in revenue with just literally just organic social media. I'm talking Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, next door, Snapchat, um, Facebook groups, which is something I can talk about for hours. You know, this is all organic. Um, so we're putting all those ads out there when needed, and as well as like indeed, right? We'll we'll slap on some Indeed ads. But fortunately, we've never struggled with finding a team. Um, however, we do struggle with that on the home improvement side of things because the entry to skill level is much higher, right? You you can't just hire a laborer to remodel and finish a basement or a bathroom or a kitchen. Um, so that's where it's a little more difficult for us. I'm fortunate that I have my father on the team. He's done construction his whole life. Um, he's our, you know, number one go-to sub for home improvement, pretty much all of our jobs. But we're starting to get to the point where we're so busy that he can't even cat, you know, he can't even maintain it and um be caught up. So now we're trying to expand the home improvement and construction division by finding some reliable, vetted contractors. But the tricky part about that is it's not just like painting, right? Exterior painting, interior painting, deck staining, kitchen refinish. That's pretty much it, right? All painting. Home improvement, there's a much more variables in a variety of services we offer, right? We build decks, we do bathrooms, we do kitchens, we do basements, right? We we frame and finish new construction. So it's like I could have a great bathroom sub who's just on point, but he's not going to be able to do a basement or a deck or frame a uh, you know, a 3,000 square feet house from scratch and finish it. You need a GC sub for that. So that's been the biggest learning curve right now for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And creating systems for that, but not only that, um, vetting the guys because everyone will say they have experience, you know. Oh, I have experience, I have 20 years doing this, and then it's like they don't even know how to, you know, do some simple finished carpentry. It's like, dude, you know, so lately I've been creating some systems for that. It's still easy for us to get the leads, you know, to get sub-contractor leads and and laborer leads, but um much harder to vet them and find reliable sources for the home improvement and contracting side of things for sure. So been a learning curve this year with that, and I'm trying to kind of figure it out still as I go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, you said you you don't have any, you don't you never struggled with the painting side, but it sounds like you're kind of always recruiting. You you have a following and you post frequently on organic for for painters. So it sounds like you've never struggled with it, but it's because you're kind of always sort of doing it or at least cultivating the ability to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Proactively.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, proactively, and you know, um, always you always gotta have some guys on standby, you know what I mean? Um, if you're doing the subcontracting model for the for the painting industry, which is very common, you know, even if you just have one crew and they're the best crew and they're just crushing it, you never know. You know, their their head guy might get hurt or they might go out of business or they might start getting some of their own work from another contractor. So you gotta always have, you know, a player, you know, you gotta always have some different teams, you know, ready to go. Um, I think a big thing too is just the the culture that we've been I've been able to create at EVM and just our branding. We have a very strong brand. You know, everyone that's local to us in the Massachusetts area knows of us, right? They either see the wrapped vans or the wrapped cars or they see the lawn, they see the hundreds of lawn signs all over the city. We have a bunch of um, a bunch of uh, you know, the actual big signs, you know, downtown Lemonster. You know, I'm always getting Snapchats and pictures of people that I don't even know just driving by and just sending our our logo or whatnot. So it's almost like we've built this cool thing that people are like want to be a part of. And if they don't want to be a part of it, they at least want to support it because it just seems cool and they've seen what I've been able to build since the student painter days. And I think a big reason for that has to do with me documenting all of it. I've been documenting my journey since the student painter days. Oh, nice. Without without realizing that that would build a nice brand or a personal brand, you know. It was kind of just doing it for fun, and then it's pretty cool. People have been following along for about four, uh, five years now. You know, my my brother did an estimate yesterday. Um, he does some some roofing sales for a local roofing contractor, and he also works with us as well, EDM. And he's he's 19 years old, but he's a stud. Um he did a roofing sale yesterday, and the customer just happened to know me. I have no idea who this guy is. We've never done a single job for him, but he said he's been following me from the beginning. And when customers tend to say that, and when they say that, I know they're talking about the student painter days, uh, which is it's pretty cool. You know, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So that that's that's huge. And probably I would I would guess from what you've said, has a big uh a big factor on why you're able to scale so quickly is that you are you have that access to talent um that you can easily um because a lot what I see a lot is painting businesses, um they're trying to do everything or they they're they only have a couple people and they don't they they say they can't find anybody, which like you s alluded to, there's people out there. I mean there is, yeah. There's there's people that want to work. So uh, but really what it is is they don't want to invest, they don't have a um a following like you, but they also don't think that they they should have to invest the time or they underestimate how much they do need to invest into recruiting and hiring to actually get get that those candidates coming in. Um but what would you what would you say to somebody maybe who doesn't have a following, you know, like you do, and they haven't cultivated that over the years, what would you recommend if they are constrained, like their business is not growing because they just don't have enough people, they're booked out for months and they need more of more of a team, but they feel like they don't know where to start with that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, I would say you gotta go all out, right? If that's the if that's the biggest problem, you know, I'm sure you're gonna have other problems as well, but you need to prioritize that problem, right? Because at the end of the day, you're gonna be stagnant if you don't, and you won't be able to scale if you don't have the team. So you got to just do everything in your power to get more guys, get a better team, right? And that goes from number one, organic social media marketing. Again, there's no reason why you can't be posting daily, putting out ads, indeed. Get creative, go, go. Uh, Facebook groups is huge, right? There's thousands and thousands and thousands of Facebook groups with thousands of people in each group. So that's like a secret sauce of mine. And, you know, I feel like I could write a book on that one day because it's generated me millions of revenue within the last five years. And it's just like it's organic. It's not, I'm not talking Facebook ads, I'm talking Facebook groups. Um and you can use that for recruiting. Um, and you know, I would say even back back in the student painter days when we had to recruit, um, we would put out uh little little flyers. We would go to local high schools, try to do presentations, and if they didn't allow us to do presentations, we would go into local parking lots, like high school, sports games, the gym, right? Like areas where we we would feel like we could get some leads, and we would put out these little flyers under their windshields. Some people called us pissed off, um, complaining. But hey, like by all means necessary, right? Like we were we were doing everything in our power to get get help, get the help that's needed. So I feel like a lot of people just fall again in the trap of oh yeah no one wants to work today it's nowadays no one wants to work you know it's too hard finding good people but it's like what what actions are you actually taking and taking you know to find those people and how much of those actions are you actually doing you know are you are you posting once every three weeks you know are you are you just like slapping on an ad and calling it a day or are you chasing that and putting in hours daily to to find you know another crew or to find more help so you gotta want it you got to want it enough to make it happen. That's that's the the biggest part of it too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That makes sense. And I think one of the things that folks are like people get that you have to well most painting business owners I think get that you have to spend money to get customers or at least time. But I think they're less aware of the time and money to spend to get new new employees or new subcontractors. Do you have like kind of like a rule of thumb or anything like that?
SPEAKER_02:No that's that's a good question. Off the top of my head I don't in terms of because we've never we've we've always been able to recruit organically we've never had to actually like even when we post on Indeed we do the free the free post we don't boost it or or or you know pay for the Indeed ad post. So fortunately I've never had to spend money to get a team um you know but I don't I don't imagine it's much differently than spending money to find work you know obviously not to that extent but maybe look at an maybe look at an ad agency and see if they can help you know if it's if it's uh worth the investment. I mean even if you just do$50 an ad, but instead of a a painting ad, right, to acquire a customer make it a hiring painters now type of thing, right? And kind of follow that same script. I mean there's agencies out there that I would say the agencies out there are charging about you know$2,500 to$5,500 a month I would say in this industry. I would say look for the lower side of things, you know, if you're looking for something more budget friendly, but test it out. And if you're not able to swing that maybe try it on your own right try to learn ads a little bit but I don't see a reason why you should do the ads for recruiting if you haven't fully embodied the the organic strategy right because social media is just so powerful nowadays. So I wouldn't that that I wouldn't even recommend I mean I I we'll jump into this but I do you know business coaching consulting for other you know home service contractors as well and I don't I would never tell one of my guys to to go the ad route for recruiting I just don't think it's needed you know again put out make flyers make door hangers put them out there right um post in Facebook groups local groups go go to local colleges and see if any kids are are are looking to to get some work right um email email coaches like sport coaches that that are at local colleges near you or even high schoolers I mean you might you might be able to find a helper who's 19 and you pay him 15 an hour but he might he might maybe help you you know finish a job 15 hours earlier right it's like you got to want it um but in terms of a certain ad spend and using ads I've never really I've never really had to do that for for recruiting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah yeah well it sounds like you're putting a a lot of or you're willing to put a lot of time into it to to recruit which is great um you gotta put one of the one of two you gotta even put time money or combination to and not be afraid to do that. And uh so no I think that's great. And I think that's like you said it's probably one of the big reasons why you've been able to grow so quickly you just got to be able to do both things. You got to be able to get new customers but you also be able to get more team members and you can't absolutely can't neglect the other one. So you gotta always be doing both which can be you know kind of a juggling act to make sure you're doing both simultaneously but um it sounds like you got it dialed in for the for that so I appreciate you sharing some of your tactics there. Absolutely cool um so we talked about the uh some of your your challenges were you know not over promising and you've recently um it sounds like over the last year you said you you've grown even more than double uh yes and and that was is that basically an unlock you found with with marketing like what's going on there I would say it's a combination of uh of the ads that we we've we finally I finally pulled the trigger to invest in them but I would also say it's due to the fact of like from year one to year three we didn't really like year one we didn't have a CRM right year one we didn't uh we weren't actively marketing it was more like surviving like it was more of the opposite of like let's try to get some jobs and we'll we'll we'll pump them out but the struggle is finding jobs and then year two and year three came along and it's more it's more reversed right the opposite where it's like damn we have so many leads coming in we have so many damn jobs like we need to like figure out how to pump this out now right um so yeah I think I think it's a combination of just dialing doubling down on all the marketing.
SPEAKER_02:You know year one we would do some marketing here and there but it wasn't like it wasn't fully systemized right and now in year three I mean we'll do ads we do you know I have an assistant on the team I have someone managing our social medias sharing to thousands of Facebook groups a week um posting three to five times a day all of those posts again get shared to thousands of groups a week um door knocking right as you know creating a door knocking team training them coaching them coaching them having them go out so having multiple streams of lead generation I think is definitely what made us just like you know just blow up um and then of course I would say also the brand I think again going back to it we have a very strong brand and I think I think EVM is very good at making noise that's the best way to put it good noise right we're just out there everywhere you go you see a sign you see a car you see a logo you see a shirt uh you know you see a team member out there at a store um you know you see newspaper articles you see the podcast with me it's like we're not we're never stopping trying to just like just expand the the actual brand you know um I think that's a big thing I think that's a big thing is is making noise you know making a lot of noise and I always made that a goal it's like my hometown is Lemonster Mass and I always since day one was like I want everyone in Lemonster to know who and what EVM is and like I want to get to the point where they're annoyed with the fact that everywhere they go they see a damn lawn sign or something. It's like holy crap they're just everywhere. Yeah and I think we're I think we've we've been able to do that. You know yeah cool uh you mentioned door to door what what percentage approximately of your revenue is generated from door to door yeah this year we didn't do any door to door year one and year two we did I always did um and unfortunately that was before we had again like a CRM and actually cared about metrics but that was I would always try to have three to six door knockers they were always high schoolers I would train them up the key was you know at least one hour a lead and they would go about three hour shifts so you know I would say on a good um a good schedule you know monthly um I was trying to acquire I was happy with 15 to 30 door to door knocking leads a month year one and year two. Year three we didn't door knock. So year four next year is something that I I want to bring that back in and fully really embody it. You know I see Justin with trade launch a great guy and and he really fully embodies the door to door knocking system and incentivizes his guys. And if you really do that I mean you can you can you can get a hundred two hundred leads a month with with like two to four guys if they're really embodied and they're really trained and you really have some incentives out there for them. And that's something I've never had you know never had the time to do um and I want to do in year four because I don't see a reason why we can't generate an extra 50 to 100 leads, you know, hot leads a month with like two to four door hang uh door knockers. Yeah. Yeah. So why did you stop in year three? I we stopped in year three we shouldn't have it I I would say it was just a a lack of a lack of system just a lot going on a lot of growth happening we made a lot of investments again we uh we purchased a commercial building that we're turning into our our headquarters we purchased uh we acquired a construction business out of Boston we got a new office before all of that which I'm in right now there was a lot of moving parts uh year three was pretty freaking hectic to say the least we made a lot of investments and um door knocking was kind of just like you know it just I kind of forgot about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah it kind of just felt then you realized afterwards like oh that actually worked and we need to do it again. Yeah exactly cool um no that makes sense uh and I think a lot it's it's a great like you said it's a great acquisition channel that I think there's a little bit of a learning curve but if you can unlock it for for yourself and then for your team I mean like you said it it's it can be a yeah printing a money printing machine. So absolutely um cool well I I feel like I could talk to you for another few hours but I know we're only scheduled for an hour here. So I want to give you opportunity to um you know if you have any ask of the audience or any final thoughts on scaling a painting business, you know, to anybody that's listening up, you know, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah I would just say you know my biggest recommendation is is you got to go all out. You know it's it sounds cliche but you got to want it. If you don't want it enough you're you're gonna just half ass and you're not gonna get to your goals as quick as you should and then you'll probably fall off right most contracting businesses most businesses in general don't even make it past year two, never mind year three. That's a proven statistic. So you got to want it right um you got to expect that there's gonna be a lot of lows and a lot of failures and and hiccups along the way um but you have to understand that that's gonna all be learning curves and that's gonna make you you know the man you want to be who has the business that that you want to have right um and I know there's a lot of specifically in this industry you know there's a lot of gurus out there and pay me to coach you pay me to consult you pay me for ads you know I'm gonna 3x your business that's something that I would like to bring awareness to and and say be careful with that. If you do want help I would recommend you have at least a foundation built first right and there's I mean YouTube University right there is everything you need is out there for free. Everything you need is out there for free. It's it's ridiculous. I mean Google Alex Hermosy and he will literally teach you anything you need to know. Now don't get me wrong when you specialize in one thing it's good to tap into the industry and tap into the the well-known guys who coach and consult or do ads but I think it's important to build your foundation first. And once you build that foundation and you start scaling once you hit that little that little climax point where you're like I don't know what else to do or I don't know what else I can do to take this to the next level or you know maybe it's like I don't feel like I'm using my time wisely that's when I would recommend investing in a coach or a consulting and there's plenty of guys in the industry again shameless plug but I own Elias consulting you know I'm working with trip jobs and I work with a lot of home service businesses where not it is new. I started this year and I plan on on scaling it um these next couple years I strictly strictly serve home service business owners so it's not just painting I have a lot of guys that do landscaping I have some guys that do snow removal um I have electricians I have plumbers a lot of uh mobile automobile detailers so pretty much any type of service-based business I'm here to offer and and help um and actually provide you know one-on-one consulting um you know you get a bunch of modules and courses you get 24-7 access to me we have team meetings all that good stuff and I'm I'm always happy to uh even just jump on a quick call for an info strategy and kind of see uh where your business is at and how I can help you for free as well, you know, and kind of go from there. But I would say again build your foundation build the team once you feel like you want you're ready to really take it to the seven figure plus multiple seven figure mark that's when I would recommend you know possibly looking into a coach. But if you have the funds and you want to save all that time and and all the mistakes that we've made if you have the funds do it you know because you're investing in someone to help you and not only that you just spent a good amount of money on someone to help you. So I I hope that you would fall follow through and actually be coached and be coachable.
SPEAKER_01:You know yeah for sure you speed up your learning process by just getting with somebody who has already done it for you and save you a bunch of time.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah that makes a lot of sense absolutely gabe you've been super generous with with your time I learned a lot I think I think this is a super valuable conversation and uh if if folks want to learn more about you they go search Elias consulting is that is that what it is Elias Consulting yep Elias Consulting um for for my you know coaching consulting and if you're a a homeowner for some reason listening out there in the Massachusetts area EVM home improvement and painting will we'll give you a free estimate and take care of your home.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome I I really appreciate your time gave uh I feel like we could have gone on for a lot longer but uh I appreciate your time and for the listeners with that we will see you next week. All right thank you
