Business Spotlight: Meet Ashish Bajpai of Elite Finishes GA

Balancing Corporate Structure and Family Values in the Painting Industry

This episode highlights how a unique painting company blends corporate structure with local, family-run business values. The discussion covers the company's innovative features, such as a six-month touch-up program, a seven-year exterior warranty, and a two-hour color consultation. Emphasis is placed on the importance of professional project management in an industry that often lacks it. The company prides itself on thorough surface preparation, which is key to successful painting projects. The accessibility of the painting trade compared to others, like plumbing and electricity, is also discussed.

00:00 Introduction to Unique Company Structure

10:23 Corporate Program Structure and Family Business Blend

11:06 Professionalism in the Painting Industry

11:18 Accessibility and Perception of Painting

11:46 Importance of Surface Preparation

Transcript

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This is The Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Poehler. Hey everybody. I am excited to be here with Ashish Bajpai. He is the owner of Elite Finishes GA which is a local painting company. Welcome Ashish. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so we're excited to talk. So why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about Elite Finishes. Yeah, so we're a a residential painting company based out of Milton. We tend to focus primarily on folks who are looking for, painting to be done right. Paint is an extremely durable product. Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, PPG, these companies have put a lot of money into it and the stuff lasts, but it only lasts if it's prepped correctly. A lot of what we do is really try and bring a better experience to the painting process. I like to tell people there's really nobody outside of your cleaners that's gonna see every square inch of your home except for painters. And so who you trust and who you wanna bring into your home really does matter. And that's what we try to embody and everything we do. Awesome. Awesome. And you guys do both interior and exterior painting? Yes. We do both interior and exterior. On the exterior side, I a lot of our products that we've introduced. Are really driven by just the nature of the experience, right? Obviously it's on the outside it's subject to the weather and elements, but we found that, nobody's really backing their work for an extended period of time. The painting companies. All have 20 year warranties on them and most painters will do at most three years. And so we've extended that to a seven year materials and labor warranty. Just 'cause we feel that confident in terms of how we prep that if the prep is done correctly, the paint will last. Awesome. Awesome. Why don't you talk a little bit about your background and what led you to Elite Finishes? Yeah I have an engineering background. So I like solving problems. I like solving puzzles. And so I spent about 12 years with at and t. Doing corporate strategy work, product management work really on the digital side, surprisingly. Then ran a the e-commerce business for a biotech for about three years, and then had, a midlife crisis. And we had just, we had probably just moved into Milton and. Really enjoyed the community and so wanted to do something that got us more involved in the community so that kind of entrepreneurial small business itch really kicked in at that time. Science has always been something I really enjoy and had a knack for. And when you really think about paint and how it goes in the chemistry the science behind it is actually pretty fascinating and something I found interesting. We had a pretty bad experience with a painter in our house, and just the quality of the work wasn't great. And so that kind of led me down the path of exploring it more and finding a way to serve people in the community. So that's how elite finishes came to be. So I know it sounds like your passions came together, science, technology, your love of the local community. I know that you and your family live right here in Milton, and you've been here for a little bit. So why don't you talk a little bit about your family and what you guys are into and how that kind of brings a different take to your business and how you run it day to day. Absolutely. So in, in our family, so you've got myself, my, my wife, Ami, and our three kids, Arick, Ariana, and Asher. We committed to the A's. Yeah. With the first two. And so had to stay with it for the last one. And so I think that was a lot of, just. Probably in some ways, representative of what we do, right? When we commit to something we're gonna go full boar to it. But we, we live in Milton. We've been here since 2021. We've changed houses once, but within Milton and super active in the community, I think both boys play baseball out of Hopewell. And they play soccer out of rush. And then Ariana. Plays soccer out of top hat. And she's our explorer of the group where, she's done dance, she's done cheer, she's done softball, you name it. So she's still trying to figure out like what that thing is gonna be for her. And then, winter they play basketball. All three of 'em do. Nice. So we've got two of 'em at Birmingham Falls, one at Northwestern. And yeah, we love it. It's a phenomenal community. And that, living in Milton we all know that, homeowners have a lot of pride and people are looking for quality. And I think that's something that kind of differentiates elite finishes. And you did touch on that a little bit in the beginning. But maybe speak to, how you work with homeowners who. Really want their homes to be a showpiece. And maybe even a little bit about, I know you guys do some color consultations and help with that as well. What are some of the things that people can expect if they give you a call and end up working with you? Yeah, I think I think I've my product management background lends me to. Really thinking like the consumer in a lot of ways. And what I've realized is, no homeowner, and this goes for Milton, it goes outside of Milton. But generally, like nobody, nobody wants to pay for a subpar service, right? If they're spending dollars that they've worked very hard for. I think the expectation of quality is. A reasonable one. And so what we found just anecdotally is that homeowners inside their home tend to be. They, they do want that quality, but when they're interacting and having to be critical of the work that somebody is doing and I tend to find it more in the home services space where it is a little bit more labor intensive and they're, you can tell they're working hard. Homeowners tend to be a little gun shy in terms of really being. As critical as they want to be. And so we actually built a business model to have a project manager on every project and really the idea behind that is to. Allow the homeowner the space to be as critical as they want to be without having to worry about confrontation inside their home. Just 'cause the home is a safe place. You just, you want the end result. And sometimes that journey can be, there can be ups and downs in that journey. I would love to say that we have never missed anything or messed anything up but honestly, I think, putting, putting aside the idea that, perfection's gonna happen on the first shot, that the reality is, we continue working until we get it to where that homeowner really is satisfied. That project manager allows for a buffer between the two if the homeowner wants it right. Some people are very comfortable with being, forthright and critical. And it's not in a bad way, right? Our painters know that's gonna, it's gonna happen. They're gonna miss things. They're in the weeds. But having that project manager there also gives us that kind of first layer of quality control where when we identify issues before a homeowner sees it, like we can resolve those, right? That end experience for the homeowner should be seamless, easy. Every one of our painters actually comes through my house as part of the interview process, right? So there's the skills gap and making sure that there is no skill gap there. But then the second piece of it is really the wife approval. And is more, being able to sign off that, would she feel comfortable being alone in the house with the painters? And a lot of that really comes from. Just the idea again, that, you're bringing somebody that you don't really know into your home. Like you should be able to trust them and trust that, everybody in the house, the pets, everything is gonna be taken care of and safe through the process. 'cause it is pretty intrusive. We try and go as quickly as possible, but, we, we also manage the teams down to a smaller number, anywhere from three to six at most, just because. Quality really starts to deteriorate when you have too many hands in the pot. So we've just found like that's the optimal number where yes, we may be there for a few extra days versus other companies, but we know the end product and the end result is gonna be better. Hopefully nobody's having to call us back for something that got missed. We're very big on the six month touchup. That's included free of charge. And really the driver for that is, Murphy's Law will hit as soon as you paint your walls. Kids are gonna come in, life is gonna happen, things are gonna get dented up, dinged up. That six month window is just enough time where. The paint really won't have changed tints and colors at all. And so we can really touch up well. And honestly, people, again, people are investing a lot of money in a whole home repaint, and so we wanna make sure we're servicing them. On the color consult side obviously I have, I would say I'm probably above average when it comes to being able to see colors and undertones, but I've also recognized that there are designers that have a much better eye for these things. And so we partner with a lot of designers in the area to come in and obviously that's something that we cover the cost for a two hour paint consult. But we found the end result. It tends to me much better from the homeowner's perspective 'cause they're just much happier with the colors they choose and what goes up on the walls and ultimately that's what it's all about. Awesome. And I think that's another thing that makes your company unique is that you have structure of, maybe a much bigger painting company, right? You have this like corporate program structure and you have very specific things that are unique to what you guys do. The six month touch up. The seven year exterior warranty, the two hour co color consultation, but then you bring that family business, community based business aspect to it by, really personally, in interviewing everybody who works for you and having your wife involved in that. I think people get the best of both worlds. They, they get a local family painter. But someone who has that corporate background. And it's bringing the project management and the structure to an industry which quite frankly, often lacks it, yeah. No professionalism is definitely lacking within the painting world. Yeah. It's more than just a ladder and a paint paintbrush too. And unfortunately, I don't know if everybody knows that when they hire someone. And I, to that point I think painting. Is, of all the trades, it is probably the most accessible, right? And the one that people have the least fear of, right? So I think electricity, people are very fearful of that. They don't wanna go deal with that plumbing, the same thing, right? Like you get water, like a leak or something like that. That's gonna be a big problem I think with paint. It doesn't feel the, the barriers don't feel as high. And they're not. But I will say, the thing we probably pride ourselves on the most, whether it's interior or exterior is knowing how to prep the surfaces correctly. And that'll, that really is 90% of the game, right? And I, we, the parallel we draw in our house a lot of times is, sports it's not about showing up to the game, it's what you did in practice to prepare for it, right? Yeah. Schools the same way, right? You're studying ahead of time, then the test is really, actually pretty simple and easy. Paint's the same way, where if the surface is prepared correctly, getting the paint on is not super difficult. Having it last is not super difficult. We'll, depending on the paint we're using, like we'll advise clients like when we're doing cabinets. The first 30 days of the paint that we use, it's still gonna be curing even though it's dry to the touch. And so just to be a little bit more careful banging into it and those things, 'cause again, they're investing a lot of money into it. There's just, there's nothing we can do to speed up that curing process. That's just the simple chemistry of it. But again, I think that's where we're probably a little bit different than most other painting companies in that we. We do focus on the science. We do understand that if there's things that we are unaware of, we'll bring in even, experts from Ben Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams to help with. Diagnosing the problem and coming up with a solution. So I, and I would almost say that we're more than painters. We're finishers in some sense, like we tend to be the last ones in during a big renovation. And we're the ones that, that really make everything that handshake to, from the transition from the contractor back over to the homeowner. We tend to be that handshake that, that bridges the two. Awesome. Awesome. Are there any myths or misconceptions out there about painting or maybe exterior painting, interior painting that you wanna clear up for our community? I don't know on the exterior. Brick is one of those where, you know I tend to warn all my homeowners and clients that. If you're gonna paint brick, it is a one way street in the sense that it starts to become cost prohibitive to go back to brick. Yeah. So as long as you know what you're signing up for it can be done. We can put all sorts, we do a lot of specialty work with mineral paints that are organic. They're lime wash or even some are like a potassium silicate base. And there's, the thing I would say about coatings in general is when you put 'em on, even if it's prepped incorrectly, six months, eight months, you'll probably be fine, right? Like the, there's gonna be a strong enough bond just between the paint as it dries and the water evaporates out to, to hold onto anything for a good period of time. And I think that's where. A lot of unprofessional painters get away with a lot, right? They can come in, they can make it look decent for a little bit, but that long-term longevity and we tend to think of these things in terms of years, potentially decades. And so that's where really doing things the right way from the beginning while more time consuming. Slightly more expensive over the long run. We'll end up saving homeowners a lot. I actually just ran this calculation for somebody the other day that like I, the number of homeowners that feel like they need to paint every three to five years on the exterior realistically I think if done correctly and then maintained, which we'll do like a soft wash and those types of things to brighten up the home every other year. I think you're. At a minimum 20 to 30% cheaper on a 10 year span. And honestly it's probably more than that because, so paint's gone up probably 20% in the last year. Yeah. Labor. The labor market, there's a lot of studies out there that show for every five people that are retiring out of labor, there's only two coming in. So that shortage is very real. And so when you do have quality people, we do everything we can to keep our quality folks busy because we just don't want them looking elsewhere. 'Cause there's just not many of them out there. Got it. Got it. What are some of the things that you like doing for fun when you're not working? So I love being active sports. I'm in the 40 plus crowd now, so gotta be a little bit careful. Knees don't hold up nearly as well, but pickleball tennis are super fun. I love playing basketball. I used to play a lot of soccer actually as an adult, but that's slowed down because as I've gotten older, the other guys. Keep being, getting younger, so can't really hang with that. But even just socializing with friends. We're members over at White Columns and so it's very enjoyable for us, as a family to go out there, right? Because there's yeah's so many young families there, and all the kids have somebody that they can hang out with and, the environment itself is, they've done a good job of kind of balancing. The country club versus the family aspect. So it's, it's probably been the best blend in, in a lot of ways. So honestly it's just kind of stuff like that. I think just being social and just being active in the community is something that we really enjoy. Awesome. Anybody who starts a business is gonna hit some roadblocks along the way. People like to hear about that. Have there been some challenges or obstacles that, you've had to overcome and how, how did you have the fortitude. To get from being someone's employee to, your owning your own business. Yeah, I would say, there's so many different obstacles, right? I think, for me, my background was not in the painting world, and so just learning those things and gaining the confidence to. Actually understand it. Was a process where, you slowly over time learn these things and you don't, you still feel like you haven't learned enough, haven't learned enough, and then you all of a sudden look behind you like, oh, quite a bit all of a sudden. So some of it was that I think, there's so many different aspects to running a business outside of just the operational aspects, right? Of, of, for lack of a better term, putting paint on walls. There's, how do you prep it, right? And like obviously there was learning those things, but then there's the HR side of it, there's the accounting side of it, there's the bookkeeping side of it. And so all those things. Start to be, especially when you're first starting out, like you have to do all those things yourself if you're trying to be fiscally responsible. And so that was a big learning for me was to join a local b and i group and just even within there, like being able to vet. Other folks that could help me. Finding mentors within even other professions that, when you really break business down, the levers more or less are pretty similar. Operationally they may be different, but at a 10,000 foot level, you're still trying to bring customers in, you're trying, still trying to serve them and serve them well and obviously provide for your family in that sense. And finding the right people to support yourself with. Is difficult. I think being a small business owner can be pretty lonely at times. Yeah. You gotta make all the decisions, you gotta deal with all the problems. And so finding a local group like that and I know North Fulton has the chamber, like there's just so many of those groups around, which is great. But I think that would be the one thing I'd encourage almost any small business owner to just go do so that you don't. You realize that you're not alone in it. There's other people dealing with the same problems from a business perspective and just having that community is super helpful. Awesome. Awesome. If our listeners wanna reach out to you, what's the best way to get in touch? I. Almost all phone calls come directly to me they can call me directly at, 4 0 4 4 3 3 7 7 8 0. Our website has booking links. We are gonna be revamping the website here probably later this year, to just provide people with a little bit more information, I think. Articles, things like that. So there's a lot kind of coming, but as of right now I think the website at least still offers a pretty quick and easy way to get on our calendar. We usually try and get to estimates, within three days. I think speed and urgency is something that we feel like. Needs to happen and maybe efficiency is probably the right word is how do we service people as efficiently as possible so we're not sacrificing quality but still doing things in a timely manner. I think those are probably the two best ways to reach out to us. Okay. Thanks so much for joining us today. I, hope folks consider you for their next painting job, whether it's inside or outside. You might as well have you come by and get quote yeah. Yeah and honestly, I think, we're I'm not so naive to think that we're gonna win every project and be the right. Person for everyone. If we can even help folks in Milton in terms of educating 'em on this is what the process should be, this is what you need to look for. That to me, I think just raises the standard in terms of. How we hold people within this profession anyway. And so if I can be of help to any of your listeners, I would love the opportunity to do it. Awesome. Awesome. And you'll definitely get a chance to do that through some of the educational articles that you'll be putting together for our readers and some of the future podcasts. So we're looking forward to that. Thank you, Ashish. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Good Neighbor Podcast, Milton, and more. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmp milton.com. That's gmp milton.com or call 4 7 0 6 6 4 4 9 3 0.