Rich Bardy - Multiple Locations: How Rich Bardy Grew TruCare Painters in Three States

summary

In this conversation, Branden Sewell interviews Rich Bardy, the owner and founder of True Care Painters. They discuss the challenges of getting off the ladder and transitioning from being a technician to a business owner. Rich shares his journey of starting in the painting industry and the steps he took to build his business. They also discuss the pros and cons of buying leads and the importance of focusing on profitability. Rich shares his vision for True Care Painters, which includes expanding to multiple locations and partnering with other painters. The conversation emphasizes the importance of mindset, perseverance, and surrounding yourself with the right people.

keywords

painting industry, getting off the ladder, business ownership, challenges, technician, profitability, buying leads, expanding, partnership, mindset, perseverance

takeaways

• Transitioning from being a technician to a business owner requires perseverance and a willingness to learn and adapt.
• Buying leads can provide quick growth, but it may not be sustainable in the long run. It's important to focus on building your brand and generating organic leads.
• Profitability should be a priority in your business. Focus on managing your finances, eliminating debt, and saving money to create stability and flexibility.
• Surround yourself with the right people who can mentor and support you in your journey. Learn from others who have already achieved what you want to accomplish.
• Develop a strong mindset and overcome self-doubt and negative thoughts. Speak positive affirmations and believe in your ability to succeed.
• Gratitude and humility are key in overcoming challenges. Appreciate what you have and stay humble in your journey.

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:02.847)
Hi everybody I am Brandon Sewell I'm the owner of Seal Pro Painting located in central Florida. I am also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder. Today I have with me somebody from my industry his name is Rich Barty and he is the owner and founder of True Care Painters. Welcome to the show Rich.

Rich Bardy (00:32.791)
Thanks for having me.

Branden Sewell (00:35.325)
Yeah, absolutely. So if you could, you know, just give the audience a quick introduction to yourself. Tell them a little bit about how you got started in the industry, how long you've been in business, and maybe like your service areas and things like that.

Rich Bardy (00:52.397)
Sure, so my name is Rich Barty again. I am the owner and founder of True Care Painters. We operate in the Greenville, South Carolina, upstate area. We also have an office in the Poughkeepsie, New York area and also in Ocala, Florida, central Florida, just north of you. I've been in this industry for 15 years now. It got started because it was just

I don't know, just kind of happened. had a bunch of summer jobs that with a company called Big Apple Painting Company that used to do a lot of college painting when I was living in New York. And just wanted to start a business and be a business owner. was in college at the time and I really found it very difficult to sit through courses and found it maybe too easy.

So I always wanted to work with my hands, fell into the painting industry. And then I went to go work for my now wife's parents that owned a direct buy franchise in a town called Wapinders Falls, New York, which is our old hometown. And they needed some painting done. And it was a way to make some extra money while I got out of the mortgage business. And I guess I did a good job because they referred me to some of their clients.

some of their members of their buying club and just started working, didn't know what I was doing, but I went out and painted and here we are today, 15 years later, so yeah.

Branden Sewell (02:26.896)
That's awesome, man. So with being in business for 15 years, you know, there's obviously a lot of ups and downs that come with that. And I think one of the biggest challenges that people face, and this is what our podcast is really all about, is helping people understand what it takes to get off the ladder. you know, we talk to a lot of different industries on here, so it's not just painting, and a lot of people call it different things.

Some people might say off the truck or I talked to a cleaning company yesterday. They call it off the mop. But there's so many different sayings. But ultimately it's really all about just going from being the person, the owner who works, you know, they say in your business instead of on your business. It's like that E myth, you know, thing. So.

Talk to me a little bit about what the history looked like for you as the owner. You know, how long were you working in the field on the ladder? And what steps did you take to get to the point where you maybe weren't required out in the field every day and what that looked like for you personally?

Rich Bardy (03:44.171)
Yeah, sure. That's a great question. So I was in the field for about five years. Really, my target when I first started was to be the best painter I could. Local Sherwin -Williams, where we were, had something called a cut contest. They would draw weird shapes and lines on a piece of sheetrock and contractors from all over the county would come in and try to cut as close to the line as they could.

I knew I was on to something because I won first, second and third in that contest and they only gave me the first place prize, but it was an extended ladder and believe it or not, I still have it today. I was in the field for five years because it took me that long to kind of feel comfortable enough to start the transition out. I did have a desire there. wasn't, I was, I was tired. You know, we just had a baby. My oldest was

of maybe about eight months old when I fully got off the brush and it was meant out of a desire to just kind of create more. I noticed that my skill and my crews only got me to a kind of a dollar amount, I guess I was capping my income. And so I realized I could have a crew run. And if I wanted to earn the same income as when I was in the field 40 hours a week.

I would have to sell about twice as much revenue or volume than I was producing in the field. So I had a talk with some family members and I kind of always got fuel out of fire. People tell me I can't. And then it puts me into enough of an uncomfortable position to want to get even more uncomfortable and kind of be like, they said I can't. my gosh, I got to...

do something about that. Like I know I can and now I got to prove it. So it was like fuel. First it was my father telling me I would never be able to provide for my family being a painter. know, like he looked almost practically disappointed because I wasn't going through the normal course of go to college, get a good job, work for somebody, do the 401k deal. I was in college and I just didn't like that whole, I didn't want that life. So.

Rich Bardy (06:08.769)
you know, working with my hands, but coming from the mortgage business, I had a lot of experience in sales. So I took that knowledge and kind of just kind of jumped in. I got a credit card. I had really no money because I, you know, we were paycheck to paycheck living in my wife's and grandmother's basement, which was not ideal living conditions. So we're constantly renovating that place and pouring money into it as a way to pay rent. And I would just look at my son and said, I need to make a change.

So I always been the type to kind of jump head first into an empty pool, because I think that there's opportunity at the bottom. It's either a hard landing or I could swim down there and kind of have it a little easier to get down. But I, again, took the credit card out, had somewhat credit, and then took five grand out and just started buying leads, internet leads. And I started crushing those things, calling them. I was just determined. I did that for...

This was 2016. just kept doing it and kept doing it and eventually found the magic and burned through that five grand really fast and didn't sell a thing and then figured out how to do in homes and bought a little printer that was Bluetooth to a tablet and I would type up the quotes in the home. Kind of was ridiculous on the first couple of meetings. It took a long time, but I got into a groove, conquered the embarrassment and then sold my first deal.

And that was for $7 ,500 full interior and within four months we were running 17 guys having about five crews and they were all consistent but then that opened up the whole door. Now that we have the sales lockdown now we got to get that production kind of ironed out. So everything was kind of done through a fire, just learning to be uncomfortable, kind of liking that uncomfortability and

just doing something about it, making a choice, sticking to it and making mistakes and correcting them as we go. mean, that's kind of like been the whole sequence of this past 15 years, get uncomfortable, get comfortable, get uncomfortable, learn, mistake, learn, mistake, grow. And yeah, it's kind of how that all felt.

Branden Sewell (08:27.472)
That's good. You know, and I think a lot of guys or gals who want to accomplish this, they come to this crossroads of, you know, in their mind, they're thinking maybe to themselves, I have to figure out all of these different things to be able to make this happen. And

they might be thinking like, I've got to have this done. I've got to have this done. I got to have all this stuff figured out and I have to have a perfect plan. And the reality is, is that that'll cause you to just stay where you're at. so I think whether, I mean, obviously you don't want to have no plan. You don't want to just recklessly step out and not have any type of

strategy, but I think if you're waiting until you have it all figured out or thinking, you know, it's like having kids like I have so many people who like would tell me before I had kids, they're like, you'll never be ready. Like if you're if you're trying to like, wait until you're ready to have kids like don't ever have kids because you're never going to be ready. You just have them and then you learn and you adapt and you get better and

Rich Bardy (09:38.688)
Never.

you

Branden Sewell (09:50.369)
You you're going to make mistakes as a parent. just got to, you know, you just it just happens, right? So I think it's that's kind of the same with like business, you know, it's the same. You just got to step out and you're going to make mistakes, but you got to just you got to go for it.

Rich Bardy (09:56.801)
Yeah. Momite first? It is. It is.

Rich Bardy (10:07.679)
It's a journey for sure. mean, there's always been, I think the most pivotal moments in my career, at least has always been at my worst lows. It's coming out of those lows because you know, the trajectory is up. But there's always ups and downs along that trajectory. So I noticed that when we hit the bottoms, hard, you know, like didn't know what to do. Home life was difficult because money was tight or

if the business wasn't producing what we wanted it to, it was always making the decision to just not complain. Like there was always that little part, like we want to get it out, get those feelings out. Okay, I got it out. Now I got to go figure it out. So I have a big saying and I stuck with it. You can either plan to fail or you can plan to succeed because not planning

is planning to fail. And we're just now getting on board with operating procedures and committed to sales processes. Like our thing that we were good at was always just building relationships and honestly just being genuine, know, no sales tactics, no crazy stuff, no verbiage that's going to get you the sale. It's just providing information, being helpful, you know, basics, light trust, understand, you know, be yourself, be genuine.

That's always what has got us above. And with that genuineness creating and having integrity at the same time, the people that you need and the skills that you need kind of come with that. So as long as your base is good, your foundation is good. Like I just kind of feel like we're building the framework now. You know, it's 15 years in, we got, you know, two of the best owners ever that are operating, you know, just running with our

with our trademark and our logo and the other owners are just the best. I couldn't be luckier to have the right people. Don and Florida and Alexander in New York are just some of the best people I've ever met. We know each other's families. This is not just the growth of the business. It's the growth of our life. And our journey used to be separate and now it's come together.

Rich Bardy (12:30.665)
Everything was always just a conversation, mutual respect, and making sure that we're bringing core values to the forefront. So if anything, have your core values down. Understand who you are as a person, because who you are as a person can reflect in your business. Your business is just going to be a mirror of you as a person.

I get proud, I get down too. We need operating procedures, we need better KPIs, we need more kind of like training, better training and things like that. We need more leads, like all of these problems kind of like never go away. So we're kind of systemizing the process in order to kind of make that a little easier. But our core values have never changed. It's always been, you know, we...

We look up to God first and then we make sure that we're always loving each other and showing each other with the utmost respect. We believe first that the details matter. We even have it up on my wall in my house. We always talk the truth and we never quit. And those are some of our core values that we operate not only for the company, but that's where we started was developing that for our families.

So yeah, it's always gonna be an upward struggle, man. Everything is always never gonna be perfect. If you're striving for perfect, like I'm sorry, life's gonna be a big disappointment for you. If I can just do 60, 70 % like right, I think most people operate in the 30 to 40 % productivity. If we can get up to 50, 60, 70 % productivity, now you're talking upper 5%, 1 % in the world.

And you can really make a difference. Your core values is really where it comes down to, maintaining loyalty, integrity, things like that.

Branden Sewell (14:32.475)
Yeah, that's good. I want to backtrack really quick. obviously like a strategy for you to get off the ladder was increasing your lead volume and making sure that you could keep, you know, crews busy. you know, I know we've talked about this, you know, just in conversation offline, you and I, but I used to buy leads too. And I know that's kind of like, and it's the way I was taught by, you know, a painting.

contractor that I used to work for. And it's it's a quick thing, right? It can be like quick growth. And it's like a sales machine. You just Yeah, you just buy the leads.

Rich Bardy (15:10.829)
quick injection of revenue into it. Yeah, as long as you can sell it, highly recommend that buy it, go, you know.

Branden Sewell (15:17.773)
Yeah, so, but let's talk about this really quick. as time has gone on, my opinion on that has changed and I'm just curious to hear if you would agree or disagree. Like if somebody were to come to me and ask me for advice and say like, hey, I wanna grow, I wanna get off the ladder. And they might ask me like, hey, should I buy leads? My answer would be no.

Absolutely not. Yes, you can grow fast. Yes, you can like make a lot of money quick, but it's not sustainable. And I don't think that it like has enough payoff. And I think that if you it takes like a small amount of error to really like throw you into a tailspin. And how do I know that? Because it happened to me.

So what I would recommend if somebody wanted to get off the ladder is I would recommend like, you know, other things to focus on their life like, you know, can you get more disciplined and like your personal finances and eliminate debt, save money, put money aside so that let's say, while you're trying to build the company up.

you don't, you're not as worried about taking a paycheck. Like maybe you have six months savings in the bank and that gives you some freedom and flexibility. So like eliminate debt, put some money aside, know, sure those things up. You know, those would be some of the things that I would recommend. I'm just curious to hear what your thoughts would be on that. Like, would you tell somebody like, hey, yeah, if you want to get off the ladder, definitely go this route, buy the leads, take the risk.

or would you have a different recommendation? And it's okay if you disagree with me.

Rich Bardy (17:09.965)
No, I actually 100 % agree if I feel irresponsible if I told someone to go do it the way that I did and what my choice was at the time. Ours was more out of like, as I said, I make decisions, I stick to it and I learn as I go and I correct. That's what I'm good at. If I was to do it again, I would say, find someone that's where you want to right? Find someone that's off the ladder.

ask them their opinion, but don't just ask one, ask four. And then you can strategically put things in place that can actually build your brand and not build another brand like, you know, the trap of the Angie's List home advisor trap. Like you buy their stuff, you get a review, you're building up the profile that they have of your business on their page. You're not building your brand. You're not building brand loyalty. You're not getting that person to go back. The person that is attracted to those leads

will always go back to that lead source for new work, even as a painter, even if you send them emails, even if you send them postcards, even if you knock on the door and say happy birthday to their sister and their dog and their kids, like there just is not much, maybe a very small percentage. We found that out of the 1 .2 million that we did with those lead sources in 2016, only 5 % responded to call us back directly.

most of them came back through as another lead that we had to buy again when they wanted to get the exterior down to the deck. So that was a big eye -opener for me. And in order to grow my business, when we finally had some production stuff ready, like we had the crews working well, we had a good hybrid model with some employees and subcontractors. And I noticed that we were just always...

Branden Sewell (18:46.514)
That's, yeah.

Rich Bardy (19:01.463)
having to grow our territory with that lead source into different counties, driving an hour away. And it became really difficult when all I wish that I had was a consistent time set aside daily, weekly, three days a week, two days a week, doesn't really matter, to work on my business and get educated. So I could have learned a little bit about more about marketing and digital marketing and creating the website. We didn't even have a website at this point, you know? So...

I would highly recommend to get some yard signs, put them in the yard, know, do your, your, your, maybe your, your 10 houses around. Like these are little things you can do to start getting consistent traffic, join a B and I or a local Rotary club or any sort of networking event that you can go for free. There's hundreds in my area. I just go to Facebook, start getting into Facebook and posting into like town groups and things like that. All of these things are sweat equity.

marketing tactics that you can get in front of large audiences without needing to spend like I did $5 ,000 on a credit card because that's just what I knew. I was a mortgage guy, Lease came in, we called, we connected, we did refis and sales. I just applied what I learned to that. It was never marketing. So cold call, you can do efficient lists. There's so many other things that you can do instead of.

draining 5, 10 grand into resources, because I'll tell you, 30 % aren't even going to answer the phone. You buy 100 at 100 a pop, that's 10 ,000. 30 % won't answer the phone. And then you'll notice that a lot of the other, your competitors, when you're looking to grow, your competitors are just looking to paint. So they're always willing to go down on price for the paycheck versus building a profitable company. So it's a trap. A lot of the contractors that buy the leads are,

willing to go down the prices that I don't think are sustainable for growth. You're not going to be able to grow. You will make the electric bill, but you will always be caught in a rat race competing against who they claim to be a good contractor. And I also found that licensing and insurance and different things like that were left off the table.

Rich Bardy (21:19.277)
When it came to the calls from the resources, they were providing fake documents and we were like, you never know who you're competing against when you get those calls. It's around Robin. They don't really care. As long as someone has a card on file, they're going to buy it. So I do agree with you in that sort. But there are five different avenues of marketing. If lead flow is your first thing, but habits is probably the most important. If you spend money, you'll just make more and spend.

Branden Sewell (21:20.383)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (21:35.349)
Yeah.

Rich Bardy (21:47.309)
I was a victim of that too. had no financial situation. That came when we were hitting really high profits. And then they would go away because we had nothing stored. No savings, nothing. was just the business will always provide. And human beings, I would have stellar months, $100 ,000, $150 ,000 revenue months. And then the next month would be barely maintaining the crew.

because efforts went down. So complacency is definitely your enemy. Not knowing about being a good store of the money that you have. So there's a lot of resources that someone can pick up. But my first thing would be call somebody, look up somebody in your area that's doing what you want to be doing. Because I noticed that a lot of people at higher levels, especially as I started to get up, all they want to do is help.

They don't see you as competition. They see you as a play, a fish in a big pond. There's so many different ways to do it that people just want to help. I've had so many. Ryan Parsons, the brothers at Just Do Gutters, was one of the most amazing people in my life. And a lot of the other mentors that I had back in New York would be even looking up to people. George Apat.

painting. was the big guy in town. I just felt blessed to even be on a competitor list with that man. But he was super helpful. yeah, that's what I would do now. Don't make the mistakes I did. They're leading down a long road.

Branden Sewell (23:28.272)
Yeah. Yeah, that's good. From a couple of things you said, I took a couple of notes. So one thing I wanted to mention is like things shifted for me when I read the book Profit First for Contractors.

Rich Bardy (23:43.393)
That's what we operate to.

Branden Sewell (23:45.851)
Yeah and that really shifted my mindset you know I was you know I before I was on like this cash flow you know mindset I was like just sell sell sell sell sell even if like because the reality is with those lead services you have to try and have a really high conversion rate otherwise you know you're just you know shooting yourself in the foot with the amount you're putting out in marketing so you know it's like you gotta convert but in order to compete these are like people who are.

You know they're they're looking for their shopping on price most people who use like and she leads them to come advisor their price shopping and so you have to be very competitive with price not saying that's every every time but most the time. I'm it's very price driven and you have to have a high conversion rate to make the marketing spend make sense. So that's one point i wanted to make is read profit for settle kinda change how you do that.

Secondly, I just recently interviewed this guy and he used to work for Angie leads and he was like, it's a scam. He's like, I worked on the inside. It's just such a scam. How everything's set up, how they vet contractors kind of to your point. It's like you don't know. mean, they're there at the end of the day, they want to get paid, know, Angie leads or whatever these other services are. you know, you just got to take that into consideration. Is it really giving you any type of edge?

And then the last thing I wanted to say is like be careful who you look up to as a business owner and social media is just it's so riddled with like, you know, for example, people who are able to put out this this front of like, this is all this big stuff that I've done and everything that I'm doing, but you have no clue what their personal financial situation is on the back end.

And just to give an example, I had somebody on my podcast recently, and they're all over national news for this amazing business they're growing and all over podcasts and being interviewed by all these big names and touting these really big revenue numbers. And then next thing you know, I get this message from one of their former employees,

Rich Bardy (25:40.951)
probably.

Branden Sewell (26:09.643)
telling me of all of these financial issues and employees and contractors and subcontractors not getting paid and hundreds of people's jobs not getting done. And I'm like, what? This is crazy. Like I would have never expected it, right? And then, you know, so then I dig more, I start looking into the story, I start looking up.

Rich Bardy (26:10.317)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (26:35.496)
And now the news is like coming out news channels are covering it in their local market and like you know just revealing all of these financial failures and everything. And so I say that to like just because you know you know you if you listen to a lot of really great business people they'll they explain like revenue is a vanity metric.

If you're not profitable, really doesn't matter. And so early on in my business and in my journey as a business owner, I was so focused on that revenue number. I was so adamant about doing over a million in revenue. And then I started learning about profit first. I started understanding my numbers better. And then I almost failed in 2022.

Rich Bardy (27:02.945)
Well,

Branden Sewell (27:32.112)
And then I kind of rebounded from that. then I like I had done way less business than I had done in previous years. But I was so much healthier because I focused on being profitable. So it was like we could do. You know, less work, but a higher profit and be healthier as a business than, you know, just maybe cranking out tons of work and sell, sell, sell, sell, But.

If we got into a pinch or something bad happened that we couldn't control like something with like a pandemic or the economy, you know, or whatever it was a lead source, you know, that was great for us going bad, which I think is kind of what our situation was. You know, then it's really hard to rebound from that. So anyway, all that to say just be careful what you look up to. What are you saying?

Rich Bardy (28:08.34)
-huh.

Rich Bardy (28:17.217)
Yeah.

Rich Bardy (28:21.77)
Yeah, are some of the winner in that too.

Yeah. Well, when we, when I was in New York, I had most of my office ran myself there, you know, so we were doing really well, but when the pandemic hit, my wife and I determined it would, it would be better for us to move to South Carolina. So I had the club, I met Alexander through a fluke. My wife met his wife and we thought maybe he would be a good self contractor to use for.

some more immediate work to keep income coming in while we were packing and selling the house. Met him, spent some time with him, great guy. We share the same core values just right off the bat. It was kind of luck. So I offered, you know, hey man, would you wanna, you know, take the brand and take over what we have going on up here? And he said, yeah, and it's been going good. We do mostly organic leads right now, reviews, posting to GMB, Facebook, things like that.

generates good revenue. But when I moved to South Carolina, I knew every mistake that I made, but I was in the field for about six or seven months before I found the right people. So I had to go back on the brush, but I was back off the brush within seven months and we were hitting really great monthly revenue numbers, floating in between 80 to 100 ,000 with subcontractors immediately. So when you know what you're doing and you have the right information,

It's amazing how fast you can get up to where you were. But yeah, profit first. Another one's called the emith. That'll kind of get you off and teach you about processes. So I found a lot of painters are really great technicians, you know, and that book will speak about that. Being the technician is like 80 % of businesses, but running the business is different than being a good painter. It's a lot more off the brush stuff, scheduling, time management, education, getting to know.

Rich Bardy (30:23.039)
I personally was with EOS and Pinnacle. I found that those were great business entrepreneur operating systems that kind of understands pillars of business, stages of business, where you're at, how to identify, how finance and leadership and sales and operations and human resources all kind of intertwine and how they get them to talk to each other, what KPIs or key points of interest to put on your dashboard in order to make better decisions. But all of that,

I just gained in the past, you know, maybe two years. I'm 43 now, started in this business when I was 30. So, you know, being a technician, doing all those things, like first formed our business in 08, which was first class painting service. And then we went to paint life. And if anybody knows the Idaho painter that kind of like really took a hit on our SEO, you know, because we were just doing SEO. He got huge, huge following. And so,

Eventually we became Truecare as a rebrand. But now, if you just focused on your reviews on Google My Business, getting a good website up with wicks or something easy, like a designer, put eight hours into it. And getting photos on Facebook and doing an Instagram, intertwining those, connecting those accounts, and then posting in your local town pages that you're, I'm a painter. I'm looking to paint things.

looking for new clients. This is some photos of stuff we've done. Give me a call. I'd love to answer questions. Join the BNI, free networking groups, and definitely focus on reviews on your GMB or Google My Business page. Post regularly to that. We find Thursday at 5 o 'clock is the perfect time to post on that. So set a reminder in your calendar. Do some content because you'll get the most views between 7 and 9 on Thursday.

Again, at the close of the day, Friday, Saturday, and then the content will start to slide out. So you could just stick with those and probably do five to seven hundred thousand in revenue just with that. Don't have to pay for the market at all. You know what I mean? Doesn't take much, man.

Branden Sewell (32:27.774)
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, doesn't really, it doesn't take much to get it going. I think really it's just like having a spirit of excellence with what you do and just follow through on the things you say you're gonna do with your customers and you'll be fine. I wanna be respectful of your time, so I wanna try to wrap this up here in the next few minutes.

You you have something that i find really interesting and i don't know if you can go into like maybe some details or like what your goals your vision is for this but you're one of few you know business owners you know painting companies that i know of that has the the multiple locations and seem to be making it work. I'm just curious would you be able to share.

with the audience, know, just whatever you're willing to about how that works and what your vision is for it, what you hope to accomplish, and yeah, what maybe the next steps look like for True Care Painters.

Rich Bardy (33:38.613)
Okay, so first we're working on a kind of like universal CRM in order to keep all the data centralized in one location. We're going to be using some pricing software, intermingling that with some Zaps, Zapier connections and CompanyCam, things like that. our focus this year is to build out our operational systems and our SOPs. Overall goal...

which has changed a little bit, going back to the original plan changed a little bit. But our overall plan is to have one office in every state in the country. That's where our goal is. I don't really have a timeline on that. It was more of a tenure goal. could change, be seven. I'm hoping we can do it five. But I had a discussion with Alexander New York and also

Don and Florida about what their goals were and what they want to do. So right now our goal is to get each office with solid operating procedures that can consistently deliver one and a half million per office. Once we do that, there is revenue in order to hedge into a fund and or maybe 3 % of top line revenue. I don't charge anything to branches. We work together. I might be the owner and founder, but

I believe you need to have a good team and a good vision in order to make really anything happen because I can only do so much on my own. think I kept that in 2016 when we ran big numbers, but I wasn't happy even though I made a lot of money. I think 1 .2 million for a sailing running sales production at the same time and being the only like registered employee besides subcontracting and having some 1099 guys.

really wore me out. our goal, as I said, is to do 50 states. And it's not going to be a franchise model. It's under partnerships. Everybody owns their branch. I don't have any stake in it. all done so far with Handshake. We're working out legal documentation to kind of bring together under an LLC that's going to be more of a holdings company to invest into those funds and take 3 % of top -line revenue and establish a branch model.

Rich Bardy (36:03.947)
I don't know if it's going to be employee -based or if it's going to be partner -based, but I love finding painters all over the world that just are, you know, having that break, get off the ladder trouble. And if we could just save them from that and let them own their business and work with us and take our guidance and our coaching, then help them build revenue. We could always, we're looking to partner.

might be a franchise, I'm really not sure how that looks right now. But our goal for the next two years is one and a half million per branch and start throwing 3 % of top line revenue into an account and start building out a branch model.

Branden Sewell (36:43.849)
Well, that's really cool. it's a I think it's an admirable vision and goal to have. And what I would say is like, you know, this podcast reaches people from all over the country. You know, so if somebody hears this and it like piques their interest and they want more information on, you know, what that partnership looks like, or maybe they're, you know, looking to maybe

See what that looks like and maybe how they could be a part of it What would be the best way for somebody to get in touch with you and maybe chat with you about that?

Rich Bardy (37:17.165)
Call the office or email would be the best

Branden Sewell (37:21.936)
Okay, do you want to want me to leave that in the show notes or do you want to share that now?

Rich Bardy (37:27.504)
They can call the office 864 -692 -4167. Sorry, I get a confused with my cell number because the digits are so close. So yeah, the office number is 864 -692 -4167. Just leave a message, I'll give you a call back or they can email me directly at rich, R -C -H at TrueCarePainters .com. It's T -R -U -C -A -R -E.

painters .com.

Branden Sewell (37:59.022)
Awesome. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really cool business model that you're coming up with. And man, I wish you all the success with that. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out for you. And yeah, it's an ambitious goal. Maybe I'll have you back on here to chat about the progress with that over time and see how that's going.

Rich Bardy (38:23.191)
great and love it.

Branden Sewell (38:25.733)
So just as we're closing out, is there anything that you would like to maybe share that you feel might bring some closure to this conversation and additional value to the listeners on getting off the ladder?

Rich Bardy (38:43.081)
I would just say be absolutely crazy about your goal to get off the ladder. don't let anything get in your way of that. You in order to accomplish goals, it seems like in this world, we have to be almost insane to other people because most don't set those types of goals for themselves. most, most are kind of complacent in their lives. So I would say be insane and absolutely dedicated.

And when you're experiencing hard times, you're on the right track.

Branden Sewell (39:18.615)
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I would say just to kind of echo what you're saying is you have to take that leap of faith and commit and take those risks and don't expect it to be easy. But, you know, I think the greatest challenge is to not quit. You know, so you got to keep moving forward. Don't look at.

You the moments where you fall down don't look at it is like failure or like the ultimate destination but say okay i'm gonna pick myself up what can i learn from this experience and how do i how did it better equip me to move forward into pursue and accomplish my goals as a business owner and so i think if you have that mindset there's not much that can can hold you back.

And one of my greatest or my favorite quotes, my mom actually handed this to me on a little piece of paper when I was in high school. I was just facing challenges as a young teenager and struggling. And my mom handed me this piece of paper and it said, our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

And I don't know who the original author is of that quote, but I've always kept that near to my heart and kind of like a, you know, just something that I really lean on on times where things get tough is just to always remember that it's not about never failing. But if you can pick yourself up and learn and move forward, that's what it's all about. And try not to let comparison get the best of you.

Rich Bardy (40:59.031)
Yeah, I've always found even when things are tough, it was like me saying to myself, wow, this is hard. I don't know what to do. In my quiet mind, the nonverbal conversation in my head with my other ego is you're not good enough. Just give up. Go back to what you were doing before. It was safe. And I found

And I think most people would probably identify with this, but the biggest fight is in our own mind. So mastering our own minds and speaking what we want to be into fruition in our life, like, don't talk about how hard it is. Talk about how you're going to solve it. Do that for 30 days. Watch your circumstances just change around you because your mind becomes stronger and you become stronger than the problem.

Branden Sewell (41:33.886)
Yeah.

Rich Bardy (41:56.461)
So I would say focus on your mind, focus on getting your mind right, battle that voice inside and overcome that. Speak your truth. You're not not good enough. You're not stupid. You're not gonna fail. You're gonna be successful. You are gonna plow through this. You are gonna face this obstacle 100 % like a war reader. We speak truth and what we speak becomes our reality and...

Branden Sewell (42:14.185)
Yeah.

Rich Bardy (42:23.757)
start getting, and it is true, the five people you hang out with are who you are. So find someone that's gonna help you mentor, keep you on track, put yourself around people that build you up, tell you the truth, even when it's hard, and conquer your mind. That's gonna be where I would say you're probably gonna find 99 % of your struggles. We can learn our way to money. Money is paper. Budgeted correctly, it will give you comforts.

But when you're struggling, you're in that struggle for a reason. You need to learn that lesson for a reason. So learn it, right? Go through it.

Branden Sewell (43:00.145)
Yeah.

Rich Bardy (43:02.667)
and appreciate and be humble.

Branden Sewell (43:03.59)
That's good stuff. Yeah, good stuff, yeah.

Rich Bardy (43:06.221)
appreciate everything you have around you. There's so many gifts that we just look past because they're there all the time. Like car has gas in it, refrigerator is on, roof is on over our head, heat is on, AC is on. you're in Florida, know, like look at what you have, change your mindset. So that would be, if I just had someone grill me about that, I think I would be so much farther along, but I'm grateful for where I

Branden Sewell (43:34.182)
Yeah, that's good. You know, as we bring this to a close, I'll say what you just mentioned is probably one of the most key things in getting through hard times is becoming grateful, you know, and being humble. And there's definitely been times where I've faced challenges in business and I've had to step back

Rich Bardy (43:54.819)
And stay

Branden Sewell (44:01.624)
Adjust my perspective and say you know what this is i'm grateful for this i'm grateful for this i'm grateful for this and in that in that gratitude i find breakthrough to to move forward so that's good stuff well i'm gonna bring this to a close thank you so much rich for your time and your insight i look forward to getting you back one here at some point to talk more about this business model that you have and how you're growing and bringing some more value to the listeners in that way

But if you've listened to this show today and you found value if you're watching on YouTube, please like this video comment Subscribe to the channel turn on the notifications share this with somebody so that they can gain some value from the conversation today with rich and also if you're listening on any type of major podcast platform Apple Spotify

wherever else you listen, please rate and review the show that'll help get this out to more people. And lastly, if you need any resources for your business, I do have my referral and affiliate links in the show notes below. So you can check those out. I do get credit for those. So I do appreciate anyone who uses them helps to support me, my business and the show. So we'll see you next time on the next episode of the off the ladder podcast.