ThinkBiz Podcast
ThinkBiz Podcast is your go-to show for real conversations about building and growing your business. Hosted by Garrett Hammonds of Hammonds Media and Nolan Rogers, we dive into the challenges, wins, and strategies that matter most to small and startup companies. Tune in for expert advice, inspiring stories, and actionable tips to take your business to the next level.
ThinkBiz Podcast
Planning tips that may just save your business with Robert Norris
At some point, all business owners eventually find themselves in a metaphorical bathtub having a panic attack, wondering, "How am I going to make this business work?" Well, for Robert Norris, owner of CertaPro Painters of OKC-Edmond, this was more than just a metaphor! However, today, Robert is thriving with one of the leading painting companies in Oklahoma.
Enjoy this week's podcast, where our hosts Garrett Hammonds and Nolan Clay Rogers talk with special guest Robert Norris and explore how to plan for your business, including finances, setting goals, and taking care of your mental health.
Find Robert and CertaPro Painters of OKC-Edmond on the platforms below:
- Website: https://certapro.com/okc-edmond/
- Phone: 405-509-8018
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CertaProPaintersSouthOKC
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Stay Sharp, and ThinkBiz!
// Thank you for listening to the show!
Check us out at:
- https://www.thinkbiz.solutions
- https://youtube.com/@thinkbiz.solutions
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/thinkbizsolutions
- https://www.facebook.com/thinkBiz.s
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Podcast is produced by Hammonds Media. For assistance with you digital marketing needs, visit https://www.hammondsmedia.com
Hello,
SPEAKER_01:hello. We are back with the Think Biz Podcast. Good morning, everyone. It's a happy Tuesday here in OKC, and we have a new guest today.
SPEAKER_00:Good morning.
SPEAKER_01:We have Robert Norris here with us, who is just... An incredible human being and also an incredible business owner. So, I mean, honestly, I think we can just jump straight in. Tell us about yourself, Robert. What's going on with you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, first of all, thank you guys for having me. I'm looking forward to talking today. So, my name is Robert Norris. Whenever I... first came to the United States. My name was Roberto Manuel Ortiz Marien. So we're going to go with Robert Norris for today. So yeah, so I'm the owner of CertiPro Painters in Oklahoma City. We purchased the franchise rights for the Oklahoma City territory in 2012. So we've been in business since November 13th of 2012, doing paint jobs for residential and commercial properties. I'm happily married, got two fur babies and live about a block away where I went to high school at Putnam City North High School. Go Panthers. So yeah, been doing this a while and love helping other business owners, love helping other painters. And yeah, we provide services for local homeowners. Awesome. Very cool.
SPEAKER_01:What really inspired you to buy the franchise in the first place? Was it kind of you needing to solve your own problem, just get into business for yourself for the first time? Or was it just a good opportunity that showed itself?
SPEAKER_00:So it's a funny story. We actually, my dad and I at the same time, we both came to the realization that we were making other people money. way more money than we were getting paid for the money that we were making them. He was in the electric field selling big electric components and I was oil and gas, but I was just the guy that just basically traveled around and checked the image standards and sold fuel whenever I had an opportunity. And we weren't quite making the money that we wanted to make. So he came home one day and he's like, man, I just closed this deal. And this is what's going to happen, and I'm going to get screwed out of money. And I had just closed the deal, and basically the exact same thing. So we were like, let's take a look and see what we can do outside of that. And then CertiPro has recruiters that were trying to sell the territory here. So basically, I... We went online, and they reached out to us. We went out to see it, and I didn't realize this, but my great-grandfather on my dad's side, because I was adopted, he actually was a wallpaper hanger and a painter back in the 20s. So my dad reached out to me. He goes, hey, we reached... we got to reach out to my Serta Pro painters. Do you want to go back into the family business? And I was like, what's the family business? He's like, well, apparently back in the day we were painters. Grandpa was a painter. He helped him out. So I was like, yeah, that sounds great. We went out, checked it out, fell in love with the franchise, purchased it and the rights to work here. Two weeks later, my little sister got sick. So my dad was like, hey, I got to go back to corporate life because I got to provide insurance because we didn't have insurance at the time. We're in a brand new business. And I was like, well, what does that mean? I was like, I've managed people before. I've managed all that. I don't know anything about financials. Yeah. Yeah. So he goes, good luck. And that's that's basically the beginning of Serta Pro Painters. That's
SPEAKER_01:awesome. Man, what a story. I imagine along the way you've come across a number of successes and challenges as all businesses do. What are some of the things that you've learned throughout the process of owning your own business?
SPEAKER_00:Well, one thing my wife always tells me is you're always learning. Whether you're learning what you should do or what you shouldn't do, you're always learning. So as a business owner, one of my biggest challenges was learning the financial aspect of owning a business. That year one, margin control, that the IRS was gonna want their money, that the insurance company was gonna want their money, that all of the fees and little things that nickel and dime you to death on that first year, it was difficult, but we learned all of those things. If I were talking to a new business owner, that's one of the things I would tell them. I would say, hey, there's a lot of things that are gonna come up randomly, Start the business with enough capital because we did not have enough capital and that capital helps. Start with a true business plan. What happens with whenever you don't hit your goals? What happens when you exceed your goals? And have that in mind. And then always start a business with an exit strategy. So you know, okay, once I reach this level, I can either exit the business or I need to come up with a new business strategy at that point because, you know, You have to know the way out before you can know the way in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's really important because I was looking at some economic statistics a couple weeks ago, and normally small business growth is supposed to be a good economic indicator, right? Right. The problem is, like you were saying, ideally you do that with enough capital up front to survive.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:But at this point, a lot of people in the past few years, and especially since 2020, they're starting businesses with no capital to begin with. Right. And so unfortunately, new entrepreneurs that are just starting out There's so many more new businesses that just aren't able to have that exit strategy like you're talking about. They have no clue how to do the financial side and they just have no buffer whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And, you know, then they're starting to hire people. And whenever you're hiring people, you really got to have capital because at any given moment, you may have a slow month. You still got to pay their payroll. And I remember one time my wife found me having a full-on anxiety attack in the bathtub because I couldn't catch my breath. And I laid down. That was the closest place I could lay down. And I was like, I don't know how we're going to make it. And somehow we made it through. Through the grace of God, we made it through that. But it was one of those situations where you never know what's going to come at you. And like you said... the SBA and a lot of like other places have offered these business loans or they, you know, back during the pandemic, um, which seems like a century ago, um, the government was just handing out money. Right. And people were like, well, I could take this and start my own business. What happens when the money starts, stops coming in or when you got to pay it back at an interest rate? Like that's where a lot of people make a mistake. Um, and yeah, We all start with good intentions, but just because you're good, for example, if I'm a good painter, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm a good business owner, right? So continue to learn and continue to grow in the things that are actually going to be making you money as well as what you're good at. I think that
SPEAKER_01:moment of... Anxiety in the bathtub and feeling, oh goodness, how am I going to do this? I think that's going to be a very relatable feeling to a lot of people. Mainly because the scariest part of jumping into your own business or being a business owner, the beginning is the financial part. piece. It's like, how do I take this leap? I have this other job, you know, or, or whatever is going on, you know, when do I, when do I take the leap? And so just kind of, um, just from your own perspective, what is that moment where you can say I've reduced enough risk where it's, it's time to, to jump in?
SPEAKER_00:So in a business, you're either going to be reaping or you're going to be selling. You're either going to be growing or you're going to be dying, right? So it's one of those situations where whenever you get into a business and you're looking at, you know, what is my year going to look like next year? Am I going to try to pull more funds for my personal wealth, for my personal establishment or whatever it is? Or whenever you're able to make that decision as opposed to, hey, next year we're going to have a growth year. We're gonna be tilling the soil. We're gonna be planting more seeds. We're gonna be spending more money. There's gonna be more work that's gonna have to be done. Those years are gonna be the years that you're gonna be growing. your capital is going to be hurt, right? You're not going to have the cash flow because you got to buy seed. You got to buy, you know, all the tools for that. And then there's the years when you're just like, hey, last year was an exhaustive year. We cannot do that two years in a row. We're going to pull back, go back to basics, maintain what we have. We're not going to hire anybody right now. The thing I will say though, is you have to continue to grow one way or the other, right? You can't just stay stagnant. So like, let's say, You had a great year of reaping and reaping and trying to get more for yourself. You have to have, if you see the right candidate, you have to try to pull the trigger. You have to have a backup plan for that. If you have a new technology, paint. I own a painting company. Paint changes daily. There was a new paint that just came out a couple days ago for Sherwin-Williams, a new stain. There's a new paint that's coming out for Benjamin Moore. You know, am I going to not use that paint because I'm stuck with what I have, even if it's better. No, you just got to continue to grow and make those changes, continue to learn. But what I would say is, you know, that moment whenever you're like, hey, I've made it, I'm able to like pull back. I've been in business 13 years. I've had one year out of 13 years where I was able to go, okay, We need to slow down. We've made it for a little bit. I'm able to maintain for a little bit. Every other year, start a business, they said. It'll be easy. Every other year has been one of those years because you have to continue to grow your business. Because if you don't continue to grow, somebody is at your heels. And they're going to take your customers or somebody could do it better at any given moment. There's plenty to paint in Oklahoma City, but that doesn't mean I want to not paint new houses, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's interesting. With so many of the customers that I work with on the marketing agency side, it's fascinating to see that people want fast growth, but they don't necessarily always have a plan for how they're going to get there. It's just like, I want to grow, but I don't. So hearing you talk about different ways that you can actually watch and measure the financial side in particular and see how how you're making progress and all the different parts of your business that tell you whoa you know this year we don't want to repeat this year or you know next year we we want to go harder i think that's helpful you know for for folks because we need measurements along the way
SPEAKER_00:right well and there's certain trigger points and certain things that you set right um what the funny thing is is You're in the industry, you know. The first thing people want to pull funds from whenever they're slowing down is marketing.
SPEAKER_02:And
SPEAKER_00:I'm like, you need more leads. You're going to get more leads if you don't have the marketing. So, you know, the first place they look at, well, do we really need a website? Absolutely. Do we really need to do Instagram and Facebook? Yes, absolutely. Pay-per-click. Google, you have to spend the money. Now there's marketing sources that aren't going to have the return on investment. You know, there's difference in marketing. There's building a brand and generating leads. Sometimes building a brand generates leads and sometimes generating leads builds your brand. But for example, if I'm doing pay-per-click so that I can be at the top of Google, That's so I can generate more leads. Right. Right. You have to spend the money. So that's why capital is really important. But also, it's like I send out a direct mailer piece every year. Sorry to anybody who receives it. But it's one of those situations where, you know, you have to build a brand alongside that. Yeah. So that's where that is. And there's certain trigger points. You know, some people are like, hey, don't hire anybody until you spend...$350,000 or your revenue is$350,000 per employee,$400,000,$500,000, whatever it is in your business. Then there's the spend 13% of your marketing or your revenue on marketing. There's seven touch points that you need to make sure that your customers are seeing. There's certain rules of thumbs that you do, but the business itself has to run with the idea that Marketing is going to continue. Growth is going to continue. Getting people in there. Again, if you're not growing, you're dying in the business world. So it's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_01:So there's kind of a curiosity then, Robert, is we've been talking a whole lot of math. Right. And across those 13 years of math that you've been doing about, in one year of you kind of getting a step back, what's something that you think most business owners do need to know? Because you already understand the need for marketing and the branding side and that constant growth. But what's something that's not on the math side? that business owners really need to understand so they can have a few more of those years in their time running the business?
SPEAKER_00:So, um, you know, I, we met yesterday and we talked a little bit, but, um, there's a, there's a, you have to take care of yourself, right? You have to take care of yourself. There's people out there that will burn and turn and burn all day long and they don't, you know, this is outside of the math, outside of all of those things. Um, You should always pay yourself, right? I know the people that go hungry just so their business can run. The problem is that you now have lost the opportunity to grow in the future because you've burnt yourself in the present. So you have to make sure that no matter what, you have a work-life balance of some sort. Does that mean... Well, I mean, does that mean that you're going to be... You're going to get to... Get off work at 3 o'clock every day and go in at 9 o'clock in the morning. No. I mean, you're a business owner. You're going to be there at 6, 30 in the morning, and you're going to be there until 7, 8 o'clock at night. But if you're going three or four days without sleep, your body literally starts shutting down, right? So you have to take care of yourself. One of the things that I like to do is I like to work out. The gym time for me is important because even if I'm not lifting weights, I'm there to let out some steam. release get some time to myself um spend some time with my wife there's times whenever my wife we're on vacation and i'm getting phone calls and she's like you know and it's uh you know i love her and she's incredibly patient for it but it's also one of those it's like i have to run this business yeah so even if we're on vacation i'm gonna get phone calls one time we were in jamaica I was getting phone calls in Jamaica. I had to get out of my room, go send out some emails. And she's like, she's like, so is there a shut off button? Like, do we need to shut this off? She's, I guess she's incredibly patient with me with all that stuff, but it's also one of those. It's like, you have to have some type of work life balance that will help you grow longterm. And there's people think that things are going to end tomorrow. There's, I own a painting company. The reason I do that is because they're not sticking sirens and lights on top of my truck to make sure that I'm not saving people's lives, right? If you're doing one of those businesses, yeah, it's a life and death situation. If you're doing financial planning for a customer and they call you and it's at the end of the world situation and you're in a place where you're like, hey, I can't do that right now. I knew a guy one time, Family member in the hospital. Step out of the room, out of the hospital, to take a phone call. Like, you can't do that. There's things that you're going to remember in life, and that's one of those things that you have to make sure that you give yourself a little bit of time. That's one thing I would tell business owners, because it feels overwhelming at times. Like, take care of yourself. Take care of your health. When it comes to the business itself, you know, just... You just keep moving forward. Take another step, even if it's a baby step. Try not to take too many back steps. You're going to take them, but make a plan to come forward. But I mean, as far as outside the map, you know, each business is so different. It's really hard. And each person is so different. But the one thing I've noticed is people will wear themselves out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. And honestly, you just kind of reencapsulated your understanding of business needs to grow all the time. That also speaks to taking care of yourself. It means that you need to grow all the time. So if there's not equal amounts of growth on the personal side and the business side, that's probably a good indicator as you've been talking about that it's not going to work.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:This isn't a good fit.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And I mean, like people always say, read, you know, a lot of these podcasters and, uh, as I, as I know, a lot of people are like, continue to read books.
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_00:Even if it's an audio book, just continue to learn. Whether it's on the leadership side, continue to learn. Because, dude, there's so much knowledge. There's so many people that do it better than me that you've got to get better.
SPEAKER_01:He is being humble, though. He's like the best person. the best painter around in these parts. So just know that. But no, that makes so much sense. And I heard a phrase one time that I've always really liked, that leaders are readers. And the more that we learn and we get to know our craft. It also just shows our passion behind what we do. You know, if you love what you do, you want to know more about it. And that's part of where the drive comes in. And that can even be part of the self-care. You know, it... You don't have to read all fiction or nonfiction. You can mix things up and still find those moments of peace as you go through. And so there can be some dual things there. Some people can't say, if you can't disconnect, then don't read your economics book or something. Find a nice fantasy book or something. But Nolan's already like, he's like, I have something I want to say here. Well, no, it's more the curiosity. because I'm, again, baby business owner over here. And I already get to be part of this awesome community here in OKC at 3810 with ThinkBiz Solutions and with this great network that we've curated thanks to all of you consummate professionals. This is awesome. But was that point of stress and that anxiety that you felt earlier on, like you were talking with your wife, and if you don't know how this is going to work... Would that have been prevented by having a network like this earlier on?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, for sure. I mean, and honestly, the reason that I was able to overcome that was because of a network. It wasn't necessarily just a networking group, but I don't know how I've made it in life. I mean, I've been so blessed with the friends and the families and the people that I've surrounded myself. Literally some of the greatest people I know. I mean, we're able to go, hey, man. I remember one time I showed up at a job site, and this guy, he's a great friend of mine named Troy. I'm walking in, and he's doing tile at a job site. As I'm walking in, I can't catch my breath. The panic attack is still going on, so I can't catch it. I'm crying as I'm walking into this job site. Oh, goodness. I'm like, okay, get it together. Get it together. And he was like, hey, man, it's going to be okay. God's got this. It's going to be okay. And just having a friend say, hey, it's going to be okay. Surround yourself with people. One of the benefits of this ThinkBiz where we're at, the 3810, is that it's business owners. If you're not taking advantage of that, if you're not building relationships with those people, if you're not networking with them, you're doing yourself a great disservice because these people have been doing it a long time. Or even if they're brand new to it, they're bringing a new fresh set of eyes to a business that you've been so blinded by everything that's hitting you in the face that you're just like, okay, this is where we need to go. So I honestly think it's one of those situations where networking and putting yourselves around the right people can save you. Putting yourselves around the wrong people can drown you, can drown you. We talked a little bit about this, but there's people that do, you know, that just absolutely drain your energy, you know. And if you take everything personal and then you get yourself around those people, not only is your business a bad business, but now you're a bad person, right? And you internalize that. And that's a bad place to be.
SPEAKER_01:It's a tough pill to swallow at that stage.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's where, you know, the new businesses that are coming in, networking is huge. I always tell my sales guys, I'm like, hey, you need to continue to network. You need to continue to grow. I can only provide you so many leads. But, you know, for example, I'm doing, we're doing some bids on, the Oklahoma City Library System, the Metropolitan Library System. They're a great group of people. I would have never gotten that if I hadn't been networking and somebody said, hey, I hear they're going to be doing some painting. There's another huge apartment complex that we're working on. I didn't even know that they were going to be bidding out until somebody reached out like, hey, did you hear that they're going to be, do you drive this far out? I got an opportunity to paint a 100-year-old train. You know, the reason that that's happening, I think this, I mean, literally Rob. was just like, hey, we just power washed all this. They're needing a paint job. Oh, awesome. But I'm like, dude, I would love to paint a 100-year-old train. Now, I'm having to bring in some industrial stripes kind of paints and painters for this, but it's also one of those. I'm like,
SPEAKER_02:how
SPEAKER_00:great would it be? Oh, yeah, you got to take good pictures of that one. Right. I mean, it's a massive 100-year-old train in Oklahoma. And I'm like, and they're going to be doing a fundraising to raise the funds for the train and all that stuff. But it's one of six. One of six left. There's only one that's in working order. It's an oil drain. And then the other four are in pretty bad condition. And then this one that they're restoring. And I'm like... Heck yeah, let's paint this thing.
SPEAKER_01:And by the way, just for reference, Rob wasn't referring to himself when he said Rob earlier. We have
SPEAKER_00:two Robs. I refer myself business. There's
SPEAKER_01:three of you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, me, myself, and
SPEAKER_01:I. But I mean, that's just an amazing track record for you. Almost 13 years in business, coming up this fall, you've... Done a lot. You've seen a lot. You're getting to do cool train projects now. You're bidding out projects you probably never thought you'd get to work on from the family business that you never knew originally existed. Exactly. So what's the next step? Where's SertaPro
SPEAKER_00:Painters going to be taking Robert? Well, so right now we're trying to grow our territory a little bit. So SertaPro is a franchise. So it's one of those where I can work anywhere commercially, but I'm limited. Basically, if you go in Oklahoma City, if you go from I-240 North, I and do most of the residential stuff there. But south, more Norman, that was owned by another territory. Now I'm currently servicing it, that area, so I can take care of it. So since I'm servicing it, we're going to try to grow into the more Norman and the southern territory. If there's anybody that lives in that area, we can paint your house right now. It's not a big deal, but we want to purchase that territory as well. So that's the next step. The other thing that I want to do is eventually we're going to need to hire hire a new, you know, some additional employees for the office. And then I would, you know, we're doing concrete floors now. So we're doing for that polyaspartic on garage floors. We do that. So not only can we paint your house, we'll paint your garage floor. So one-stop shop on that. And then the other part is going to be, you know, personal growth. I'm working on, I've really started enjoying hunting. Last year, I went out and went hunting. Well, I've been hunting before, but last year, mentally, it was kind of a tough year again, 12 years in. So it was one of those things. I spent a day on a blind last year. and didn't shoot anything. I saw like 12 doe and saw a pig. I saw a bunch of stuff, but didn't kill anything. It was just one of those things I just sat out there and spent time with nature. So I realized, man, I'm really enjoying this nature time. I'm really enjoying. So as far as the personal, the self-growth, spending more time in nature, doing more walks, doing more, you know, one-on-one time with God and, you know, some more time with the wife. And those are the things that are growing for CertiPro and for myself personally. What about you guys?
SPEAKER_01:Man. I
SPEAKER_00:feel like I've been talking the whole time. That's
SPEAKER_01:why we have you on. We talk a little bit less. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nolan's voice is more soothing than mine. I'm just here as the backup. The crazy
SPEAKER_00:guy. I mean, whatever you were talking, I thought it was ASMR.
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_00:mean,
SPEAKER_01:I was so sorry. Get your crinkle paper. That's right, Mike. And this is actually just a promotion for my new answer. That will... You can subscribe to it for 50 bucks a month. It'll be great. Man, we've enjoyed it though. We've loved getting to talk to you about just... business in general and and your your years of experience um if somebody wanted to find you and connect with you after the podcast where would be the best places for them to get a hold of you
SPEAKER_00:um so we have a facebook page we have a google page we have so uh sort of probe okc and edmund or edmund and okc um we um on facebook you can follow us there we post pictures every once in a while there we have an instagram page where we're going to be starting to upload a lot more of our before and after projects, which a lot of people like. You can pin those to your Pinterest page. And then, or you can just give us a call. We do free estimates if you have a project. Honestly, if you have a question as far as like a paint project coming up and you're trying to get a budget together, or if you're looking at something and you're like, hey, how do we paint the ceiling on a 26-foot ceiling without like... You're like, hey, call a professional. So 405-990-8521. That's our office number. So you can call and schedule a free estimate there. Again, 405-990-8521. Want to make sure you give that number, not just my personal cell phone number. That's going to be– yeah, not
SPEAKER_01:mine. And we'll make sure to include that in the show notes too so that way people can get a hold of it there.
SPEAKER_00:And, I mean, you can go on and find out a bunch of stuff. We're online. We're on Google. They've written a couple of articles. So we've been in a couple of neighborhoods. Yeah, and if you have any questions or anything, let us know. We'd be more than happy to help. I love helping people. I love teaching people. I love allowing people to grow. So if there's anything that anybody needs business-related or this–
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Hit me up. Awesome. Well, do get in touch with Robert. He's a great guy. Runs great business. We want to see him succeed.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thank you. And then if you're a tradesman or if you're looking for a good place to network, the ThinkBiz is a fantastic networking place. I highly recommend you guys come up here. Not only are they great, they also have a podcast. What?
UNKNOWN:No way.
SPEAKER_01:Well, our sign-off here that we do is stay sharp, think biz. Would you do us the honor of saying the think biz part today? Yeah. All right. Stay sharp. Think biz.
