“Ahh home again,” I say to myself with a smile. I proceed to my pole barn which towers the house. “Screech,” sounds the door as I open it. The buzz of lights turning on fills the pole barn as I walk further in, revealing my kingdom of toys. But then something strange begins to happen, when I walk further into the shop I hear a strange annoying beeping sound. “Beep beep beep beep,” the noise gets louder! “Beep beep beep beep!” It is almost right in front of me. “Beep beep beep beep!”
Suddenly I wake up, finding myself lying on an air mattress that my parents gave to me for a bed in my new apartment. I quickly roll to the edge of the bed and hit the snooze button on the annoying alarm clock. 6:55 is what it reads. “Dang I’m going to be late again,” I say frustrated to my trusty cat Rizzo, who was a war victim I rescued from a shepherd/husky mix my parents decided to adopt when I moved out.
As we both jump out of bed I rush to get dressed for work. I can hardly get my shirt on before Rizzo is ramming my leg begging for food. Once I’m dressed I get Garfield, I mean Rizzo, his breakfast and head out the door. As usual I get down the first flight of stairs from my second floor apartment and realize I’ve forgotten something. Tripping all the way back up to my door I look at my watch. 7:10, I’m already 10 minutes late. After getting everything needed in my possession it is back out my five front doors, that is after I chase down Rizzo who enjoys exploring the halls in the morning.
7:20am I finally reach the shop at Signet Painting where I am told four places that I need to go to for the day and 12 different paint colors that will be needed. Racing out to the work truck I grab a bottle of water for breakfast and leave for the first job.
After arriving at job one of the day, and painting all thewalls I call Jessie the “information database” of Signet Painting. When she goes back over the colors with me I realize I’ve just painted a white house blue, so to speak. As quickly as possible I repaint and move to the next job.
3:30 pm after four houses and 22 repaints I head back to the shop to call it a day. I stop the truck in back and enter the shop. As I walk in I see the two spray booth workers, “How is it going?” I ask. “Not too bad,” is the reply.
4:00pm I head back to my apartment to feed Rizzo once again. When I enter my underground parking lot I look over at my unrestored Chevelle. “One day,” I say under my breath. One minute later and five front doors entered I have finally made it home again; I look in the kitchen for something to eat for supper. Well it looks like mac and cheese or frozen pizza again.
Once I settle down on the couch enjoying a movie and a bowl of mac and cheese I think about my dream house in the middle of nowhere. The one I had seen this morning and realized I had a long way to go to get there. After the movie I reach down in my wallet to grab my lucky power ball ticket. When they read off the numbers for the night I once again succeed in not matching a single number. “Well looks like I’m back to work tomorrow,” I say to myself, while putting my dish in the sink. Getting dressed for bed, once again I’m getting head butted by my mini pig Rizzo, wanting his final meal for the day. As I lay in bed thinking of
all my imaginary toys and land, I smile and say, “One day”.
Editor’s Note: Devin is 20 years old and in his second year at Signet
Painting. Please encourage this young man to keep writing. If
you liked his essay, drop him a line at gehrketurkey@hotmail.com.
We’d like to hear your “day in the life” stories for The Painter’s Rag. Tell
us how your day starts, flows and ends. We’d like to hear not only from
contractors but your estimators, painters, project managers, admin,
anyone and everyone. Send to Julie@signetpainting.com
Please share with us ways you can motive your employees to be more productive without attaching a bonus or incentive each time.
]]>What questions are good to ask to find out what they expect? Do you use samples and/or photos of a properly painted surfaces? Or do you have certain written standards in your estimate forms that go over preparation such as: Good, Better, Best (Restoration). Let us know your thoughts and what you do in your business.
]]>If you are unfamiliar with the term CRM, we are referring to small and big programs such as ACT! by Sage, Microsoft Access or Outlook, Maximizer, Salesforce, to name a few. Please include what you like and dislike about the programs and how your company uses the software (i.e. Sales, Marketing, Proposal Generator, etc).
]]>John Peek and Mike Chism realized that what they were learning was missing in the painting industry for business owners. They encouraged Linnea to start a consulting group just for painters, which is now called, "Advisors On Target." This group has grown to more than 30 businesses around the country in the last couple of years, and several of our current board members have benefitted from being a member of On Target. Though they focus on all areas of your business: marketing, hiring, budgeting, etc. you will benefit the most by having your business financials being more On Target!
For more information, please visit their WEBSITE
]]>The Board of Directors of the Residential Forum would like to encourage ALL forum members to attend the PDCA Annual Business Meeting to be held on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 in Los Angeles at PACE 2008.
We are supporting the proposed changes in the bylaws, and would encourage our members to vote FOR the changes as well. Our reasons are as follows:
The current bylaws do not allow the forums to have a voting member position. The proposed bylaw changes would ensure that our particular interests and industry segment will be addressed.
For example: It is the stance of the Residential Forum's Board of Directors that should the industrial sector have had a forum, and a vote, then their interests would have been included in PDCA policy and programming. And the disappearance of the industrial sector within PDCA would not have taken place. In addition, if the PDCA had given the union contractors a vote on their interests within the PDCA, then they would not have formed their own association (with the help of PDCA) which now competes with the PDCA for members. We want to give an equal opportunity for all sectors of this great business to have their interests met within the framework of the PDCA instead of by forming and joining competing associations. We believe this to be an integral and vitally proactive segment of the proposed bylaws.
Currently, we spend money for our Residential Forum representative to have a "voice" on the PDCA BOD, but with no vote at all. We insist that a "Voice" without a vote is NO VOICE AT ALL. The new bylaws will relieve us from financial burden of sending a representative to both the Mid-year Board meeting and the Annual Board meeting.
The proposed bylaw changes will reduce the national Board of Directors (BOD) to a more manageable size and will utilize a regionalization concept that gives a continued representative and balanced voice to small and large councils. No one is excluded.
Members of the new BOD (4 per region) will most likely be based on quality of leadership abilities rather than pure size of council. (Although it is highly likely the larger councils will still get a representative seat)
The proposed BOD makeup will give each member a GREATER and more balanced representative voice in PDCA policy decisions.
The changes clean up the current bylaws and make them more relevant to the current structure and practices of the PDCA.
These are a different set of bylaws than was submitted last year. A new bylaws committee, made up of members of councils that had some concerns over last year's submissions, revamped the previously submitted bylaws and came to an acceptable compromise with those changes. Several people think these proposed bylaws are the same as last year's. This simply is not true.
At the mid-year board meeting in August, there were objections to the inclusion of forums on the new BOD and considerable discussions. Therefore, we feel it necessary to gather as much support at the Annual Business Meeting as possible. We would like to show the overwhelming support of these proposed bylaws, WITHOUT modifications.
It is vital that we have as many members at this meeting as possible. Even if you can make it only for the one day, we would ask that you be there for your vote.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve the membership of the Residential Forum. We look forward to new horizons as we enter a new chapter in the history of the PDCA.
Sincerely,
The Residential Forum Board of Directors
PDCA Residental Forum
Sure, you notice there are kids running around the yard, after all, it’s August. And you noticed the missus in the driveway this morning. You even remembered that you could say hi to real people, and you did, you shyly glanced at her and said, “Hi”. Then you patted yourself on the back for communicating such a friendly gesture. And now you are contentedly painting steps. But you don’t see it coming. You don’t see the kids let the dog out the front door. The dog circles the house and bounds up your freshly painted steps. He jumps up and puts his paws on the back door which happens to be black. He is let in by someone, you are not sure who; everything is a blur now. He proceeds to track your oil-based product across the wood floor inside. You put your hands on your head and look to the heavens. Why? Why did this have to happen to you? You never saw it coming. You have entered… (A bass drum bongs somewhere in the background)…THE PRIVATE SECTOR.
When my paint contracting company made a paradigm shift in markets, primarily from all new home construction to all contract remodel and repaint projects, I needed some advice. My painting staff was most at ease when they could walk into a project with their shoes on, plug in a radio and begin to sand taping mud, thereby releasing dust to float throughout the premises. So I turned to my colleagues at the PDCA (Painting and Decorating Contractors of America) Residential Forum to help my painters and I understand how to adapt from new construction to private sector work. My friend John Imhoff of Imhoff Painting in Eagan, Minnesota, was a little skeptical about how this would work for us. He said, “I am intrigued by this issue. I wonder if we could make a list of the similarities between new and re-do because we have quite a task to retrain a new construction person to do repaints. It’s so different that I question - if they liked new would they even enjoy doing redos?”
Good question. I may be fortunate in that we are doing remodeling projects where new substrates, millwork and drywall have been installed. So the transition is not quite as steep as going from all new to all repaint. The change is that we now have homeowners living in the quarters. These are living, breathing creatures who expect some level of communication from the workforce. They also have a myriad of other issues that will be addressed in our Top Ten List.
But first, I thought it would be fun to create a list of things you should know about new construction painting. Imhoff wondered about the similarities, so if you see one, circle it. We’ll call this: The Top Six List for New Home Construction Painting:
The number ten thing you should know about painting in the private sector is:
#10. Hire Right.
In other words, it all begins at the Start Line. Nigel Costolloe with Catchlight, Inc. in Brookline, MA, advises to hire for aptitude, courtesy and diligence.
From this we can deduce that when retraining a new construction person to do repaints, perhaps it’s not about their former market niche so much as their abilities and attitude.
#9. Go the Extra Mile.
Jeremy Brooks with Brooks Painting, Inc. in Davis, CA, says, “Have your painters always look for that 1% extra to do for the customer. You only get one chance to make a first impression, from vehicles to the way you dress. It is not just about paint, in fact in the residential repaint market it is most often not about paint.”
Stephen Gregory with Gregory Dill & Company in Seattle, WA, adds, “If your customer points out an area of concern of most any kind; say that they point out a drop of paint in an area not being serviced, take care of the clean up immediately...that instant. This will tell the customer that everything they want you will do.”
I find a similarity here to new construction work. We emphasize to our painters to find every flaw before the homeowner walks the home with the builder to create the final punchlist. If there is something obvious for them to find, they will begin to examine the entire job with a more critical eye.
#8. Communicate.
Daniel Martucci, President of SPS in Tampa, FL, says it all starts with communication. They have one particular item that they are sticklers about called The 5 Minute Rule. If the painter is going to be five minutes or more late, they must call the customer.
Ken Sisco of Ken Sisco Painting, LLC, in New Port Richey, FL, works the circle of communication by providing a detailed job order for each job with estimated man hours and material for the lead painter before the job begins along with customer contact information and directions to the job.
Stan Wryn with Western Accents, Inc. in Beaverton, OR takes communication full circle by advising that the painter communicate the daily goals for the project with the client either verbally or in writing using a jobsite communication form. This helps keep the client abreast of what is going to happen and the paint crew has committed themselves to achieving their goals.
#7. Mind Your Manners.
Wryn says, “No smoking or profanity allowed when on the client’s property. I have my painters that smoke, do so only on their breaks and at the curb. As for profanity, you never know when someone is listening. Be ever so cautious with the clients flower beds and shrubbery. If one is damaged, the responsible painter is to inform the client. I offer to replace any damaged flowers or shrubs.”
Roger Moyer with Aspen Painting in Aspen, CO, advises us to find out if the owners will be home and to ask what hours you can work. Joel Hamburg with Joel Hamburg Painting, Inc. in Portland, OR, lists the following guidelines for behavior: Never turn on an owner's radio or TV. Never sit on homeowner's furniture, unless invited to do so. Take shoes off or use shoe covers when going back inside a home. Don’t smoke or chew inside or outside the home. And driving home the point about smoking, James Ashe with Beach Painting Contractors, Inc. in Kill Devil Hills, NC, adds: Homeowners hate cigarette butts in their yards.
To sum it up in a sound bite, Sisco says to follow this golden rule: Don’t make yourself at home.
#6. Know Your Job.
The technical side, that is. Moyer says, “Check adhesion of existing coatings and prepare a disclaimer if you are the least bit concerned about the existing coating failing under your new paint. For exterior jobs, shut off the sprinkler system, and look to see if the system is too close to the house and is causing damage.”
And something that a new construction painter is not used to having to do is mentioned by Ashe, “Before painting you must clean grease, dirt, and mildew, whether inside or out.”
Hamberg offers something that could have saved me thousands of dollars on a particular job’s demise: When pressure washing an exterior, check inside the home for leakage.
#5. Protect the Customer’s Assets.
Hamberg’s rules include the following: Never leave doors unlocked or unsecured when leaving a home and use a lockbox.
I would add that if you are going to leave a window open for ventilation, make sure the homeowner knows about it. In our area, summer storms can pass through without much notice.
#4. Protect Your Customer’s Property.
Moyer says they use non-skid drops on hardwood floors. Ashe says when scraping outside, lay down a tarp or some plastic to catch the paint chips. In addition, Hamberg offers this: Never put plastic on bushes, plants or landscaping and use brand new or very clean drops for home interiors.
One thing I’d like to add is to cover openings into rooms not being painted to protect them from dust. How do I know this? Why I learned it from paying drapery and furniture cleaning bills.
Another great tip that I immediately put in our company newsletter comes from Gregory: To prevent fluid marks and associated negatives, never let workers park on a customers paved driveway. If there is no other choice, make sure that they have an old tarp under the car.
#3. Ask For Bathroom Privileges Before It Is Too Late.
Moyer says to ask the customer for an onsite restroom and cleaning sink. Otherwise, order a portable potty.
#2. It’s All about Appearance.
Costolloe fired off these three rules about appearance: Get your vehicles washed and detailed every three months. Buy company polo shirts for your interior crews and for all employees to wear to company events/lunches. Buy your employees their painters’ whites, as often as is needed; and never allow exterior uniforms to be used on an interior project.
#1. Beware Of The Almighty Pet(s)!
In other words, you never want to be asked, “Who let the dogs out?” Woof, woof, woof…oh sorry, wasn’t that a really bad song? Hamburg says, always ask if there are pets and if they can go out, or better yet have the owners take the animals with them out of harm's way. He learned to remove pets from the work area the hard way when two dogs caused a paint spill. The clean-up left a slippery floor and when the homeowners’ mother passed through the area, she fell and broke her arm.
My business partner and husband Larry was a little less polite about the topic when I told him I was asking advice about pets. He said, “Animals are your worst enemy. Get the $@W% things contained.” You’ll have to excuse him; he was still fresh from a phone call about paw prints on a black door.
(Article taken from the 2007 Fall Painter's Rag)
]]>Kevin shared with me how he writes a semi-fictional story of how he imagines his life in the next 5 years. He called it his primary aim. It included all the things he would like to see, do, and be in his personal and professional life. I started to do the same thing every year ever since I learned about that. So with that in mind, I reviewed the last 3 years of my primary aim and the ideals and values within them. Some of the things that were central to my primary aim were things like time with my family, time spent on helping others, a business that provided opportunity to grow others in their leadership and to grow the business to be valuable without me and my daily influence. It became clear to me, after identifying the growth and added personnel needed to reach our new 2007 goals, that one of the elements in my business plan was going to be my absence.
Now, I know that’s not what the natural man would think - to leave for a while and let others take control, make decisions without your input. It may seem like crazy thinking. I planned to take the whole month of July off in 2007, then 2 months off in 2008 and 3 months off in 2009. I wrote it down and started to communicate why I wanted to do this to my key players within my company. This is not so out-of-the-blue for us at A.Allbright Painting. I have been developing a culture of leadership by telling them that training others to do what they do will free them up to move into more important leadership roles. I also told them that while I’m away, I’ll be free to plan our future. To accomplish this goal, we needed to plan for my absence, things like who will be in charge, what initiatives will they work on, what kind of reports I will receive, etc… As I was getting ready to do this, some of my managers said, “I don’t think you will be able to stay away for the whole month.” In other words, you can’t do it. Honestly, I had my doubts, too. It’s hard to leave this baby in the hands of others, especially to those who always rely on you to make the big decisions when they come.
Well, the time came upon us and it was time for me to leave. It just so happened that we had a lot of things going on at that time and big decisions needed to be made. The week that I was leaving, we had some big jobs fall out of our schedule un-expectantly, leaving very little work on the books for my crew of 25 (less than 4 days of work scheduled). We were also interviewing a new full-time salesman and we needed to hire a new position called Resource Manager while we moved our Operation Manager to part-time Salesman and part-time Field Manger. Lastly, we were set to finish our first high-rise exterior paint project that happened to be our largest single contract in the company’s history. I left, and I left with all those items on the table for my team. I had all confidence in the world that they would make great decisions without my input.
Part of the structure that we put in place was that they would report to me once a week by email all the decisions made. I can honestly say that I had a new-found excitement to check my email on Friday afternoons. I found that they made great decisions, the same kind I would have made. I couldn’t have been more proud of them while reading their reports. I never emailed them back telling them what decision I thought they should make. In fact, one of our self-imposed rules was that they could only contact me and ask advice for two things (an unexpected legal matter or serious injury).I thoroughly enjoyed my time off. Well, the first few days I still had some loose ends to tie up on some large bids that only I could do, and I also had to pack for our two-week family vacation. We spent a week in San Francisco seeing the sights and then we spent a week on the central coast of California in a rented beach house. By the end of the first week of vacation, my mind was relaxed and I really forgot about work and focused on other important things in life, like my beautiful wife and two precious boys. We had a blast just hanging out with very little agendas and timetables to be aware of. Once my thoughts were free of all the day-to-day operations of the company, I started to clearly think about next year’s goals and plan. So on the last few days of relaxing and admiring the beautiful Pacific coastline, I started to put my thoughts to paper. The last week and a half at home, I finished writing my new primary aim, our 2008 business plan and started this article.
Upon my return to the company, I was very impressed with the new sense of confidence in the office. They felt comfortable in their abilities and in the fact that they didn’t need to bring everything to me for approval. During my month of the company’s key financial benchmarks did better then budgeted and we were more profitable then expected. One thing that they did notice is that even though they were able to handle the day-to-day things, they still needed me to be the visionary: to plan for the future, to give them direction, just what I was working on while I was away. I was able to share with them my vision for 2008 and the growth and new opportunities before us, and now they believed more than ever that we as a team can get there.
In closing, this experience has been a very positive one. I’m not saying it’s for everyone or that’s it’s even a good idea, but for us it was right. I would say that if you desire to do something like this, before you start to communicate this to your team, first write it down in your primary aim, and then build the culture and be patient.
(Josh Abramson is owner of A. Allbright Painting in the North Los Angeles area. This article was taken from the Fall edition of the Painter's Rag, 2007)
]]>Why has blogging become so popular and why should you consider starting a blog? First, blogs are rich in content, making search engines hungry to find and list them. Google, for example, is one of the best search engines for crawling websites strictly for quality content. (Incidentally, if you are searching for a service contractor in your area, chances are you will find the best search results using Google.) Second, most search engines now seem to be giving blogs top priority over sites without a blog installed. Why? Because blogs are updated on a regular basis with new content, and people want to see the latest information. Search engines do not favor websites that never update their home page. This is one of the key reasons professionals should consider creating and managing a company blog to avoid getting bumped down lower on the page of search results. If you are going to create a blog, you need to be committed to maintaining it. Posting just once a month or every six weeks does not communicate that your website is new and exciting.
I created my blog for two reasons: 1) To get better search engine results, 2) To create the feeling that my company is active and still in business. Determination keeps the task of blog updating from becoming tedious. I try to update my blog at least once a week. I was skeptical about having enough new topics to keep a blog going for the painting industry, so I also incorporate material relevant to home improvement.
Because professionalism is of paramount importance, business bloggers should commit some time to making the blog and website match the rest of their business branding. A professional web designer should understand your corporate image and branding campaign. He should also be adept at using the latest technology, web languages, and blog software. My web designer is excellent. He always informs me of updates and better software for my websites.
The online world is still new and getting better every day. For those of us in the Residential Forum, our goal is to build a business that is every bit as professional as it appears. Blogging, done right, is just another piece of the business puzzle that will help us all be the best in our service areas.
(David Chism is part owner of a residential painting company in San Diego with his father, Mike Chism. To view his painting blog click here)
]]>Please check back soon for more informative information that will benefit you and your business. If you wish to be notified of future blog articles, you can sign up on this page (far right column) to receive updates by email.
If you are not a member of the forum, please join today. The annual fee is only $95.00. Your can't beat that price for what you will get from our group. JOIN ONLINE
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