While I truly hope you have something fun and fabulous planned for the summer (I myself, am counting down until our week at the beach in June with the entire Neill clan – 3 generations and 32 of us in all), if you haven’t already done so, please block out a few days in September as well (14-15) to be a part of the 13^th annual Advanced Shop Talk Conference.

Registration is now open, but if you do nothing else at the moment, at least call and make your hotel reservation. Room rates are only $109 per night, and anyone who attended last year can attest that this is a steal for the Oak Brook Marriott in Chicago. The rooms are clean and updated, the lobby boasts several flat screen tvs and comfy sofas for hanging out and watching the game, and there’s even a Starbuck’s tucked next to the restaurant for those of you who need your morning grande fix.

The conference programming isn’t too shabby either. We listened to all of your suggestions and have allotted more time for roundtable discussions. We have also divided the conference into two specific segments to help stay focused. We will spend one day working “in” the business and the other day working “on” the business. Hopefully you won’t miss all of the extra “hats” as we go back to the drawing board and make the adjustments needed to take our businesses to the next level (or just eliminate some of the chaos).  Looking forward to seeing everyone in Chicago.

Ok, check out these two pictures, one is from the Spring 2012 Professional Painting Contractor magazine published by Sherwin Williams, the cover picture is of a painted lady in an unusual color scheme of pumpkin, yellow/crème and turquoise accent. The other photo is of a house we finished 2 days before the magazine arrived in our office on April 6th.

I’m not hacking Mike Starling’s (PPC editor) computer because I promised to stop doing that as a condition of my release.  And I’m not an innovative colorist.  This is not a conspiracy either (nod to the tinfoil hat brigade), this is a coincidence.  But it is also a gentle reminder of a few things: 1) that historic colors tend to cycle back (and in so doing look new), 2) an astute client makes us look good (neighbors and drivers-by don’t know whether we had anything to do with the colors or not), 3) our trade/industry involvement makes them look smart (my client was aghast when I showed her the PPC cover and refused to return my copy), and 4) the internet is the oxygen of modern times (my client researched & sourced the color scheme online – who knows, maybe PPC sourced the scheme there too?).   Does that make her an innovative colorist?   Hmmm…yes, I guess.

All this got me to thinking; through the web portal we are living the modern illustration of the proverb – as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the wits of another.   I have a collection of books and manuals that I haven’t used in several years; small engine repair manuals, Chilton automobile books, gardening, specialty painting, quotes & toasts, philosophy, history, model building, etc; all together they pale in comparison to my substantial collection of cookbooks – volumes of material for which I paid are now gathering dust.  Pre-web; I’d search the chicken section of my cookbooks looking for something new and different, maybe I’d find coq au vin (chicken with wine) and give it a try. Now, if I want to make coq au vin  I go online and search for recipes, read a few and discover knowledge previously not available to me: that one man’s bacon bits (from my old cookbook collection) is another man’s lardons (salt pork cubes).  My knowledge is now on par with a trained chef – in pre-web times, that is.

What a friend, the internet, yes?  Yes, right up to the point where it’s not.  Let me illustrate that with a couple of painting related examples: number 1 –  you are selling an exterior and your prospect asks you if spray and backroll is the equivalent of 2 coats because your competitor (not qualitative,  only categorical)  said so.  You chuckle, and explain why this isn’t so, later your client researches this and finds substantial evidence that you are correct – the HERO!  The web is your friend and your client’s as well.  Situation 2 – as an experienced, plugged-in industry leader you’ve concluded over the years that it’s wiser to wash your exterior after you concluded the dusty prep and you’ve incorporated this tautological wisdom into your sales conversation, and you gain expertise in your client’s eyes, and they trust you.  But you’re not alone in that method, other like-minded businesses also wash post-prep and one of those guys had the temerity to blog about it, or post a video of it on you-tube or blurb it on facebook; and instantly, the knowledge is available to any knuckle-dragging low bidder who can operate a mouse and read.  You’ve lost an edge.  In this case, the internet is NOT your friend.

May you be blessed to live in interesting times.  Welcome to modernity where our cup runneth over.

As painting contractors, we may not realize it, but each painter can represent his own “tribe” and sometimes will stand loyal to his thought processes and techniques unless we teach the art of collaboration. It starts with being a company that people “want” to work for. It starts with: Are you a likable boss? Do you listen? This is the essence of becoming a leader. Managers control resources but people follow leaders and we should strive to be both.

Fiorina took HP from tens of vertical units and consolidated them by creating teams with representatives from every department to work together. Horizontal efforts provided vertical results in the profit margin. She taught her people how to think beyond the one product their department created and to engage with all product lines and all departments.

How do we get these results with our painters? Make time for meaningful meetings where employees are engaged to share ideas. Make time for one on one meetings. Be consistent and loyal to the timeframe you set to meet each month. This builds trust. Provide new skill learning opportunities to add complexity and stimulate the mind, as well as the soul.

If you have a thousand tribes – its time to introduce collaboration and create one tribe (your company) and one culture.

May the Forum be with you!

Julie Gehrke

Reference:

Fiorina, Carly, 2007. Tough choices | A memoir. Penguin Group. New York, NY.

Who cares?

Unless someone does, things start to fray around the edges.

Often it’s the CEO or the manager who sets a standard of caring about the details. Even better is a culture where everyone cares, and where each person reinforces that horizontally throughout the team.

You’ve probably been to the hotel that serves refrigerated tomatoes in January at their $20 breakfast, that doesn’t answer the phone when you call the front desk, that has a shower curtain that is falling off the rack and a slightly snarky concierge. This is in sharp relief to that hotel down the street, the one that costs just the same, but gets the details right.

It’s obviously not about access to capital (doing it right doesn’t cost more). It’s about caring enough to make an effort.

If we define good enough sufficiently low, we’ll probably meet our standards. Caring involves raising that bar to the point where the team has to stretch.

Of course, the manager of the mediocre hotel who’s reading this, the staff member of the mediocre restaurant who just got forwarded this note–they have a great excuse. Times are tough, money is tight, the team wasn’t hired by me, nobody else cares, I’m only going to be doing this gig for a year, our customers are jerks…who cares?

Caring, it turns out, is a competitive advantage, and one that takes effort, not money.

Like most things that are worth doing, it’s not easy at first and the one who cares isn’t going to get a standing ovation from those that are merely phoning it in. I think it’s this lack of early positive feedback that makes caring in service businesses so rare.

Which is precisely what makes it valuable.

We mailed pressure cleaning letters two weeks ago, warranty letters last week and maintenance letters will go out this week. Good news too, the calls have already starting pouring in and our estimating book is quickly filling up (hopefully to be followed by the schedule).

If you too welcomed an early spring and weren’t quite prepared to capitalize, it’s not too late, but you might want to get a move on it. As the old saying goes – “The early bird gets the worm.” And while you’re at it, take a minute and plan for the summer, fall and winter. They’ll be here before you know it too.

Sometimes potential customers are wearing cranky pants. Is this a passing thing? Will they be wearing better pants tomorrow? Or, is this customer toxic?

A toxic customer will use and abuse. At the end of the day, they will take you down like a good case of septic shock. The body (crew working on their property) becomes unstable, the blood pressure goes down (morale) and ultimately the toxic customer will try to kill you (or put you out of business).

If you have the wherewithal to handle the occasional cranky pants situation and turn the experience into a day brightener, more power to you. But be cautious of the symptoms (early manipulations during estimate process) of a toxic potential customer and know when to walk away.

And like the song says, “know when to run”- in whatever pants you happen to be wearing.

For those many of you who aren’t and don’t know it; Minnesota is a place for Minnesotans.  If you’re not one a good second talent would be Nordic, Germanic, Swede or Finnish ancestry – which in most cases makes you one anyway  – or some other proxy for the memetic evolution that allows normal people to thrive in sub-arctic conditions for the better part of two quarters  each year…it’s a skill or affliction, depending on your perspective.  In any case, I invited my wife to go to Minnesota and join the family business, she agreed.   Nine years on and we both took it back, and moved back to Denver…

…to be continued in the next issue of the Painters Rag.

If you want something done, perhaps you would ask a professional to do it. Someone who costs a lot but is worth more than they charge. Someone who shows up even when she doesn’t feel like it. Someone who stands behind her work, gets better over time and is quite serious indeed about the transaction.

Or perhaps you could hire a passionate amateur. That’s a forum leader doing it for love, not money. An obsessive in love with the craft. A talented person willing to trade income for the chance to do what he loves, with freedom.

Please, though, don’t hire someone who just thinks it’s a job. This category represents the majority of your options, and this category is what gives work a bad name.

AST 13 Brochure