Contractor Freedom - Break out of Contractor Prison

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of contractor prison and enter the bliss of contractor freedom so you can have the time, money, and freedom to live your life with purpose beyond your business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go! All right, welcome back, everybody. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce a special guest who is truly a beacon of innovation and leadership in the home service industry. Billy Kline, the owner of YourNewDoor. com is here with us. Billy runs a family business. Metro area and Billy and I have been online friends for quite a while now, but we recently got to spend some time talking in [00:01:00] person when he, uh, generally offered to take me to the airport in Austin, rather than me hailing an Uber. So I really appreciate that, Billy. And Billy made a choice to a few years ago to eject the status quo in his business and to, and to change the game. And since then, he's made some impress impressive strides in his business. And I'm sure that you are going to be inspired by his story. One of the things that I really. Appreciate about Billy is how humble and hungry he is. And plus he's got a heart to give back and to help others. So Billy, welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. It's fantastic to have you here with us today. Billy Cline: Hey Jason, I appreciate you having me on. It's an honor. There's one thing in this world I like to talk about is business, right? I'm very awkward a lot of times when we get into social events or settings, right? Like, I don't want to talk about much. I don't like talking about baseball or sports much, but I want to talk about business. So if I can corner someone at a party or something like that, it wants to talk business, you know, they can't shut me up. But otherwise, a lot of times I sit around and don't say much. So I enjoy these, We know Jason Phillips: if we revisit that. That little [00:02:00] talk we had on the way to the airport, you know, you told me where the way your business used to be. Can you just give me a, give us a, give the listeners a glimpse of, of how did things used to be with, with your company and you? Billy Cline: Well, you know, we spoke a little bit and I referenced that, you know, the path that you're on and what you do and what you speak about, contractor prison and breaking out of that. I was the epitome of that, right? Like my, my business owned me. I didn't have a, I didn't have a business. I had a job really. Right. And my number one goal every week was to sell enough jobs to make payroll. Right? And it was really one of those scenarios where I couldn't afford to take a day off. I couldn't miss a day. If something went wrong on a job where we didn't get paid for that job, we were going to miss payroll. And you know, it was always something, right? Like it was literally what you hear and what you think when someone talks about being a firefighter in their business. If, you know, you know, Honestly, it's probably was a good exercise for me to go through because now when something's on fire around here, I just sit around and, you know, it doesn't, I don't get excited about it because I've been through way worse. Right. [00:03:00] So, but it was literally, you know, five alarms every day, just trying to keep the wheels on the bus. Somebody doesn't show up, you know, somebody messed up a project, something was missold or whatever....

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello Contractors, we've got a great episode for you today. I have with me today Mr. Joe Covarrubias. He is the, the shy, quiet type. No, for those of you that know Joe, no, he's not the shy, quiet type. Joe's our VP and he has been, training the salespeople at our home improvement company for, I [00:01:00] think, eight years now. Eight years. And so we're going to learn some insights from Joe so that you can take your sales organization to higher levels. Hey Joe, welcome to the show today. Joe Covarrubias: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I always love Visiting with you on a different level other than a boss employee relationship. I love just sharing and chatting. So thank you for having me. Jason Phillips: I'm glad you were able to take some time out of VP prison. No. So you've, you know, you've trained quite a few salespeople. And the reason we're doing this episode today is because so many of our business owner friends. are at the place where they've hired their first salesperson and the new salesperson for whatever reason can't seem to close the deal like the business owner. And I thought we might diagnose for them some possible things of what could be going on. So, you know, what would be the first thing, you know, if a guy comes in, Hey Joe, my new salesperson, he's not closing deals like I was. Can you help me diagnose it? You know, what's the first thing you would look at? Joe Covarrubias: Well, the first thing I would look at [00:02:00] is, you know, I've been real fortunate to kind of go on this journey with you of the behavior profiles. And when I first started as a sales manager here at Phillips, I didn't have, I wasn't as educated as I was, and I was just hiring guys who had the gift of gap, you know, just sales guys, right? But as I've been along on this journey with you, With regard to behavior profile, that'd be the first question I ask. What is this guy's, is he in a seat that, is he in the right seat? I mean, be great guy. He may be a, his, it is this profile may be a sales profile, but it could be a long sales cycle. There's different sales. And here at Philips, you know, we work, we try to nurture a one call close environment. And there's a certain profile that. That does that. So if they're not closing OTS on the spot, that's probably the first place up. Jason Phillips: Is the personality profile. Interesting. Something near and dear to my heart. Yeah, exactly. You know, it makes me think about if we look at external things and we look at like sports. Right. You know, there's a typical physique of someone who's winning medals in swimming. Joe Covarrubias: Right. Jason Phillips: And [00:03:00] you know, from their height, their leg length versus their upper body length. And then their lungs. This is the same thing for like marathon runners. Sure. And let's say basketball players or sumo wrestlers or boxers. Right. Or it's like in any professional sport for, let's say individual sports for now, there are. Some typical...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, contractors. I ignored these resources. For so many years, and I kept hearing about all the amazing resources that the PCA had available for its members. And even though I've been a member for a long time, I had been a member for a long time, I never really took the time to check these things out because I was always busy running my [00:01:00] business. Well today, I've got great news. We're opening the closet turning on the light in today's episode We're diving in with the PCA's own Janelle Roedl the PCA member advocate I want you to stick around till the end because I guarantee you're gonna discover one or more multiple resources that you can use To solve your business challenges, stand on the shoulders of the giants that have gone before you, save you time, money, and headaches. Janelle, welcome to the show. Janell Roedl: Thank you, Jason. I am honored and it's a pleasure to be here. Jason Phillips: Well, I am so glad that we connected. Janelle, would you, would you take a moment to share with everybody, you know, what's your role? What, what is, what is the member coordinator at the PCA? Janell Roedl: Absolutely, I'd love to. So my title now is Member Advocate and I kind of gravitate more towards that title because it really shows that my role is on the side of the painting contractor. Not [00:02:00] PCA, but I'm here to create a premier experience for PCA members. , we do that in a variety of ways by providing resources and connecting our contractors with those resources. We have so many that it's often a challenge. One of the biggest challenges is, Finding those resources. So it's my role to help do that. , to answer questions, troubleshoot just problems, issues, connect with you. Take feedback. I would love any feedback on, the PCA, the resources we offer, the member experience, because I just want to make it better. My heart is service. I love people. I love connecting with Jason Phillips: Well, you know, I, I love, I love that. And I appreciate you sharing that. One of the things that's frustrating is when you're working within as a business owner, or let's just say as a consumer at all, you're working with an organization or you're working with, with a, with a company and. You're like, who do I call for this? Who do I call for that? I mean, just recently my company, we had been working with another company that was going to deliver some [00:03:00] stuff to us and, some digital goods to us. And they had so many departments and people, we didn't really have a single point of contact. And so hearing you just say, look, that's my job. So I think that is, Janell Roedl: Yeah. I'm your girl. Jason Phillips: so before the end of this episode, you guys are going to learn how to get in touch with Janelle so she can answer, any questions, that you have. So let's, you know, the, the, the PCA, the Painting Contractors Association, for those of you that aren't familiar, significant anniversary this year? Janell Roedl: There is, this year marks our 140th anniversary and that...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello Contractors! I'm excited to be here with you today. I've got a very special guest with you with us here who you can see on the screen and you're going to, you're going to want to tune in till the end because we've got some, we've got some awesome info that's, that, That impacts you guys, so many of you guys who are using a particular software for running your contracting business. I don't know if you [00:01:00] guys know who that is if, what it is, if not, yeah, you'll find out, but I've got a feeling most of you guys already know. I already know what I'm talking about here. We got the one and only, got Tanner Mullen with us here today. Tanner's not only, he's I don't know if I could call him a serial entrepreneur. But he's definitely a visionary. He obviously, you like that? Okay, yeah, he Not only is the owner of premium, painting, but also Dripjobs automation software for contractors. And not to mention, he's got the painting contractors group on Facebook, which has, more people in it than a population of China. Tanner, he's a giver and he's an all around great guy if you haven't interacted with him online And so Tanner, it's my pleasure to have you on today, man. Tanner Mullen: How are you doing? I was saying, I'm so glad he started a podcast, man. I think this was, long overdue. I respect you fully and, I'm just excited to see what you do with it. Contractor freedom, all the good stuff, man. I'm happy to be here. I really am an honor Jason Phillips: me as well. I feel the same way about you. I'm glad we got to connect. I think we've only met in person, maybe like one time in passing at a PCA event. And we we've been on a couple of podcasts together before. I think [00:02:00] on, I would like that. So I, one of the things, one of my goals, again, this isn't about me today, but. One of my goals is I just, I want to build bridges. I feel like our industry is too fragmented and that's adding to the contractors, feeling like they're on an island. And I believe that a forward thinking people need to unify, build bridges, work together, and we can make this whole community a better place. So that's one of the reasons I decided to have you on today. Hey Tanner, tell us, obviously you're the owner of Premium Painting. And am I, did I hear before that, that, you grew up in the paint business? Is that true? Tanner Mullen: Yeah, I did. Actually, my dad was a painter by trade and you know, just as a kid going on the job site with him. I remember in eighth grade, everyone else had summer where they'd hang out with their friends and I had get up at six o'clock and. Grab your white Dickies and your painter's shirt that had blue tape on it from the day before. But you know, it was, it was interesting. I didn't resent it, but I was like, I will never do this again. When I went off to college, got into the professional things like car sales, and I was really heavy into the restaurant industry. At [00:03:00] 19, I was a manager of a restaurant that I couldn't, I wasn't even old enough. To drink the alcohol that they were...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, Contractors! I'm excited. You are gonna want to stick around for the entire episode today. We've got a very special guest with us, Mr. Nick Slavik. He is the proprietor of Nick Slavik Painting and Restoration Company, and he's also the host of Ask a Painter Live. He has been a national and [00:01:00] international speaker. He is a U. S. Army veteran who volunteered for two tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. After he got out of service, he attended college. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in business management. And by the way, Nick is also a family man. He and his wife have four kids. And Nick has traveled the U. S. hosting masterclasses for business owners and craftspeople. As a matter of fact, Nick is a craftsman himself with more than 30 years of experience. His company has been awarded 15 national awards for craftsmanship. And he's currently the chairman of the board of directors of the PCA. That's the Painting Contractors Association. And Nick, I just want to thank you so much for joining us today and say welcome to the show!, Nick Slavick: You are making a Minnesotan blush. We are very self conscious about that sort of thing. And to list our own accomplishments in front of us, you're making me turn red, Jason Phillips: you've got quite a list. Just read, reading your site and your bio and all of this stuff. Man, you are, almost like, you're almost like a Renaissance man. I'm just, I'm not kidding. Nick Slavick: aNd so you have no idea how much I appreciate that because one of [00:02:00] my mentors outside of this industry is the prototypical renaissance man where his politics don't align with his hobbies. His hobbies aren't his politics. He's his own person. He builds stone huts. shoots things. He's he's an avid person in politics. He loves family. He does this. There's nothing in his life that fits any bucket. He's a fine artist. He makes things and it's just Great entrepreneur. And to me, people who don't fit the mold like that and are just they do what they like, they try to do the best and create good opportunities for others is inspiring to me. Jason Phillips: You are inspiring a lot of people around around the nation and I'm sure beyond, obviously you're an international speaker. I've seen you travel here and there and speak in different countries. You and I were talking before we hit record and about the difference We're both on the same journey and our listeners are on the same journey of entrepreneurship, owning small business. And, my listeners know that I came in completely broke with a sales and marketing mindset, but you came in a different door. But we all were, we both ended up at the same place. Could you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you're at today? Nick Slavick: Yeah. So this was there's [00:03:00] not many origin stories. One of them is I did it in college. One of them is my dad did it and made me do it. And I was, my dad was the, I did it in college. I was the, my dad did it in college and then made me do it. So we encompass a lot of the origin...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: I've got a special treat for you today. I've got with us, Tom Droste, CEO of Estimate Rocket. And Tom coaches company leaders in sales and profit planning. And guess what? Software implementation as well. In case you don't know Estimate Rocket, it's an all in one business management platform. Software for contractors that helps them run their entire business. They say [00:01:00] from lead to paid all on one platform. So let's jump right into it. Tom, welcome to the show today. How are you doing? Tom Droste: I'm doing great, Jason. Thanks for Jason Phillips: absolutely. Me as well. Quick question. How long has Estimate Rocket been a thing? Tom Droste: Sure. Estimate Rockets, been a thing for about, seven years. Jason Phillips: So what, you know, did you have a software background or a contracting background? What gave birth? Tom Droste: Yeah, so I started, in accounting. that was my, that's what I went to school for and did that for Two years and decided this isn't a lot of fun, but I started, , using computers in my accounting career and I said, this is fun and, got spreadsheets, which at the time were brand new phenomenon and, just really got hooked on it. I went and quit my, great. high paying full benefits job as an accountant and went to work at a computer store, at the time. So that was my, I turned, I found out recently that my father in law thought I was absolutely a lunatic for quitting this great job I had with benefits and everything[00:02:00] going to a computer store. I was at the computer store for about a year and then I started helping people, Do business things with their computers. And I just really got hooked on it. And then that kind of morphed into building applications. and, this is actually my second software company, the first one, did a whole different area of work, but I will say that one of the first things I ever wrote was actually an estimating program for a plumber. And this was back in the day when, data was stored on these little things called floppy disks. wE're going way, way back. And we complain about now, about how things are slow and, they're Things aren't, you can't, not enough capacity and we're talking days when, it wasn't a meg that you were sending for a photo. You were lucky if you could send 30k Jason Phillips: Yeah, you don't know what slow is until you had to deal with the old floppy disks. Tom Droste: Exactly. When I started, this company, the company is actually called Logical Engine and we were doing, projects basically for people who needed software. And, we got into doing an estimating application actually for, concrete lifting companies. And [00:03:00] that's how we got it. That was really the start of it. It was super simple, did very little. And as we grew it, we saw the need for a lot more than what we were doing with that application and expanded it to other trades and really just Jason Phillips: You've been, seven years, is quite a long time for software these days. And,...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, Contractors! Welcome to the show today. We've got a very special show for you, and right here with me, we have Mr. Daniel Honan of Bookkeeping for Painters, and Daniel spoke at our Contractor Freedom Summit, and just delivered a, I'm just going to say, a pile of knowledge that I think was really eye [00:01:00] opening toward for so many of the contractors. Now, daniel, he's, he is, by the way, he is a former business owner and military intelligence officer. I don't know if we might have to get into that or not. He has an MBA, a degree in accounting and he used, he, he used to run, do cold calling. appointments, manage crews, run payroll, and with just all of that experience he's created this back end for painters to help save them time and money by just running an efficient business and allowing you to focus, on the on the sales and production side. Daniel, I just want to say thank you so much. Welcome to the show, man and I'm Glad you're glad you're here with us today. And so Let's get into it. But man, tell us a couple of things. Where are you right now? And what is, what is bookkeeping for painters and what made you start the company? Daniel Honan: Yeah thanks Jason. I'm really happy to be here excited to be here. And right now I'm in Nicaragua that's where I'm, I work out of doing some advanced tax strategies we can get into maybe. But no I'm really passionate about helping painting business owners and closely related trades know their numbers and what they mean. And I've been in [00:02:00] their shoes I've had to run a painting business and it, it was chaos, at least for me trying, that was my first business I ever ran and I did it in college and I definitely didn't have, a good grasp on my numbers and what they meant. So I definitely felt that pain of not knowing, how much money do I have? Can I afford things? What are my margins? Am I doing good or not? I try to help folks get clarity in their business so they can make decisions to get their business to the next level. And then we also along with that, once they get nice and profitable, We try to help them solve the issue of taxes, because if you hit any level of success in your business, your biggest expense is going to be taxes, so we try to help them protect their profits through proactive tax Jason Phillips: So when you say, Daniel, when you say, know your numbers, can we talk about what that means? Cause there's so many, different types of numbers. And, when you say know your numbers, what are you referring to? Daniel Honan: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's a big one. There are many you could go with. I like to start with gross profit. [00:03:00] That's an important number. Maybe the most important. Because if you don't have your gross profit down, and just to define what that is, gross profit is your revenue, what you've produced in revenue, minus any direct costs, so that would be gross I'm sorry, any direct costs, so that would be direct labor, so painters on the job site,...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello contractors, welcome to the show. Today I have another special treat for you. This guest is one of my favorite people in the business and I love his no nonsense approach. Brandon Lewis, founder and CEO of Painters Academy. Brandon grew his business [00:01:00] from flat broke, like a lot of us, to over 1 million in revenue repaint sales and 20 employees during like the worst recession since the Great Depression, as he likes to say. And in less than five years, he went on to sell his business for over 440, 000 when the economy was still struggling. Brandon's an author and speaker. His works appeared in American Painting Contractor Magazine, Paint Contractor Magazine, InPaint Magazine, Professional Painting Contractor Magazine, and PCA Educational Outlets, just to name a few. You probably already know this guy. But Brandon's worked with over 450 franchised and independent contractors in six different countries, ranging all the way from startups to 50 plus million dollar organizations. And he helps owners realize their dreams. Hey, welcome back to the show. Brandon Lewis: I am excited to be here. [00:02:00] Thank you for that introduction. It was worth the 20 mailed you. And I'm a big fan of Jason. Jason spoke at our Painting Profits Summit a couple, two or three years ago, I can't recall about the very hot topic and it's getting hotter. Right now if my, if the reports from our members and in general in the industry are to be believed the dual employment W2 slash 1099 conversation is getting hot and heavy with the new administration. And I believe that there's been a few of our members that got caught with their pants down to the tune of a quarter to half a million dollars, and we're going to see where it goes. Jason Phillips: That is real and I talk to guys regularly that. Do not have that set up and that, that might could be another episode all on its own. We could probably even get a, a labor law attorney in on it as well. Someone that could officially speak to it, you and I, we can speak our opinions and what we know, obviously we're not attorneys, but that is [00:03:00] definitely a risk and exposure that business owners have for sure. So Brandon, tell me, but by the way, before we get off this. I want to talk about your upcoming summit, but not yet. I've got some questions I want to ask you. You were originally a painting contractor, right? So what prompted you to cash out there and start doing what you're doing now with Painters Academy? Brandon Lewis: I've done a variety of things. Before I ran my painting business, I was in politics and non profits. And so I used to run U. S. Senate, U. S. House, state and local races. I wrote a book called How to Raise Money for Political Office. And ran political campaigns and really enjoyed it. I had great success at it. I ran I think 13 of them and never lost one, but it was just, it was a meat grinder, and so I started looking for franchising opportunities. Couldn't afford it at the time, and ended up starting my own painting business. And after five years of that, I was also simultaneously getting ready, as I...

Jason: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, contractors, Jason Phillips here, and I actually have another Jason with us, none other than the one and only Jason Paris from Paris Painting and Aleph Holdings. And, I think you're going to really enjoy what, enjoy Jason today and the, and the chat we're going to have. So [00:01:00] Jason, welcome. And for, for those that, uh, man, for those that don't know who you are, Uh, which would be surprising, you know. Hey, give us, give us the lowdown. Who's Jason? Paris. Jason Paris: Yeah, so it's pretty cool. Both of our names are Jason. Both of our last names start with P. So we're both jps. We're both Jason. Uh, so I'm a humble painter from flyover country, man. I'm in Minnesota, as we like to call it. also known as a Silicon Valley of painting. We have quite a few major HQs in the painting world up here. Titan Graco three M. Uh, a handful of others, but yeah. Humble painter from flyover country. Just, uh, you know, slinging one gallon at a time. Jason Phillips: So, uh, now, now Jason, a humble painter. Jason Paris: Yeah. Very humble. Most humble. Number one. hum. The, the humble part. one, humble. Let's talk about the painter part. Um, , have you actually ever actually painted? I did. I painted for a summer in college Jason Phillips: No [00:02:00] way. You've, man, you've got one up on me. Oh, I did know Jason Paris: how to hold a brush. You hold a brush like a pencil, not like an ice cream cone. And, uh, yeah, I, I know how to work the viscous visic nature of paint and cut a nice line. And, and, uh, I, I mean, I know enough to be dangerous. Jason Phillips: You know, if you handed me a paintbrush, uh, it would probably be like watching Forrest Gump when he was a kid run down, run down the dirt road from those kids on the bikes when he had those braces on his legs, I'd probably be watching Jason Paris: would hurt your, you'd find a way to hurt yourself, Jason Phillips: yeah, exactly, exactly. Wow. I did not, man, I did not, did not know that you had actually done painting before. Super cool. Jason Paris: Super sunburns and I mean, a lot of exterior painting and so yeah, scraping houses and did caulking wood, and yeah, did all of it. Jason Phillips: You know, I, my first week in the business, I actually worked as a helper, uh, And we, and we painted a fairly large exterior, had [00:03:00] all kinds of French doors, uh, stained garage doors, and I, I learned a lot, and it took us a week to do that house. I learned a lot about how much time it takes to do certain things. Jason Paris: Yeah. Jason Phillips: And I'm a huge fan of, of sending people, uh, out on the job. To do what I call the, the real work initially, uh, so they'll have an, have an appreciation for it, especially if they're going to be in like a sales role or something like that. But so what, what are things, man, what are things today look like for, know, Paris...

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello Contractors, Jason Phillips here, and I have a special guest with us today, Mr. Will Reyes from Battle Born Painting in Reno, Nevada, and welcome Will. Will Reyes: Hey buddy, it's good to be here. Jason Phillips: I'm glad you're here. So I guess you're not currently in Reno, right? Looks [00:01:00] like you're remote. Will Reyes: I am. I'm actually in Guadalajara, Mexico, hanging out with some friends and having a good time and just taking a little R & R, if you will. Jason Phillips: Oh, so I see you're, you're, you're hanging out for a living these days, huh? Will Reyes: Well, I mean, I'm trying to be like Jason Phillips. You might know the guy. Jason Phillips: Oh, no, no, no. Well, well, hey, man, I'm, I'm so glad we're getting, we're getting to connect. This is a, this is long overdue, you and I, and, uh, I'm, I'm super excited to have you on today. And, and hey, by the way, you're going to be speaking at the upcoming Contractor Freedom Summit. And we can touch on that. Yeah. Excited for that. Hey Will, for those that don't know you, tell just a little bit about your company and give us, give us the high level, you know, the 30, 000 foot overview. Will Reyes: Yeah, my name is Will Reyes. Like Jason said, I am more in painting, but we don't just paint, you know, we do a narrative things, you know, a lot of things we learn the hard way, but we do interior, exterior painting, which a lot of you probably do. We do, we have a concrete coatings division where we coat concrete with things like rough floors, [00:02:00] polishes, epoxies, polyureas, things of that nature. We have a cabinet division that's separated from the painting division, so they just do cabinets all day long. And we have a gutter division that's going into year two that we really like, that's been doing well for us. And then we started, a nano coatings business last year that we had to put on hold, but this year we're actually taking off with it, and it's actually yielding some pretty good results. We're really happy with it. Jason Phillips: Wow, man. Congratulations. It sounds like you've got a lot of irons in the fire. Will Reyes: Three years ago, that would have been a mess. Fast forward to today, it's not as hard as, not as hard as I was making it to be, if you will. Jason Phillips: Not yet. I get it. You know, sometimes we've got to just jump in and figure it out. Take a leap of faith, right? Will Reyes: I am the absolute epitome of learning the hard way. Jason Phillips: I get it. Yeah, me too. You know, for so if you guys haven't met Will in person, I, gosh, I met Will a number of years ago and we've just really developed a, uh, a great friendship. And, uh, you know, at first glance, Will's this huge, ominous, bearded, tattooed, rough, curly [00:03:00] guy. But, you know, one of the things I've learned about Will, and I really appreciate about you, Will, is, man,...

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, contractors. I'm excited today to have with me a very special guest. , his name is David Beasley and he's the, he is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the, for the BBB serving North Central Texas. He start, man, he's been with the BBB a long time. He started way back in, in [00:01:00] 2006. So he's been there like 17 years and he's been in various leadership positions. Now he's the COO. He's been recognized with 17 different Better Business Bureau Outstanding Awards as well as, gosh, he was the Dallas Business Journal's in 40 Under 40. Just an incredible resume, but I've invited David to come on today because David understands, he understands trust, and you know that I'm, you hear me say this all the time, trust is the currency of business, and so we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about, how relevant the BBB is, why you should be using a member and why you should be actively educating your potential clients on the value of the Better Business Bureau for them. And so we're going to have a really interesting conversation, David, I am glad to have you. Welcome. Thank you for joining David Beasley: us today. Thanks for having me, Jason. I always enjoy having conversations with you and this one today. Jason Phillips: One of the things, David, that you know [00:02:00] the BBB is a foundation of trust, right? And so could you maybe just tell us what does that David Beasley: mean? A lot of people that are, there's still this big question that I always get sometimes whenever I say I'm more at our business bureau, I'll get family members who say Oh, so you work federal government, right? The truth is that BBB has been around since as a philosophy since 1912 right here I'm sitting here in Dallas and the concept was born out of a big assembly that was had here by the advertising industry way back then it was far more of a, of an issue on truth and advertising and the advertising industry was trying to figure out how they were going to be able to survive past having the power as far as advertising still working if people couldn't trust it. So at that time it was a snake oil salesman, some wildcat[00:03:00] oil investment schemes. Obviously Ponzi schemes started in that same century. So the. The advertising industry took it upon themselves to say, look, the only way we're going to survive as an industry is to self regulate ourselves and to demand more of ourselves. And then over the next hundred years, it turned into just more than advertisers, but any industry that could potentially benefit from self regulating themselves. And. And the fact that recognizing that the best way to promote capitalism, to promote a great business is to make sure that consumers trust business to continue doing it. Jason Phillips: Wow. Especially, right here in, in Texas, of course, not every, not everybody hearing us is going to be from Texas, but in our state for the business I'm in. For home improvements, there's for painting, roofing, gutters, things like that. Those are not [00:04:00] licensed trades. And

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hey friends jason phillips here i'm excited to be with you today live For our contractor freedom podcast. I have a special treat for you today. I have my friend Mark DeFrancisco, all the way from Connecticut, down here in Texas, in Allen, Texas with us here live today, [00:01:00] and we spent the whole day yesterday together, and I want you to get to know him, and think he's got some great things you're gonna love, you're gonna love hearing from Mark. So Mark, I just want to say, welcome. Thank you very much. I'm glad you're here. We got to send, spend the whole day today, excuse me, the whole day yesterday and and today together. Man, tell us where where are you from? Tell us your name, your business Mark DeFrancesco: and such. So I'm from Connecticut. Name of my business is MDF Painting and Power Washing. So we've been at it up there for a while. We do primarily high end residential painting and we do some commercial repaint painting as well. Jason Phillips: When did you start? How long have you been in business? Mark DeFrancesco: I've been in business since 95 but really in business since 03, so I had been painting when I was younger and even through college and all that and and then launched out for real in 03. Jason Phillips: Your clients are residential builders or homeowners? Mark DeFrancesco: Primarily homeowners. Jason Phillips: Primarily homeowners. Mark DeFrancesco: Most of our work is direct to owners and even in commercial, we prefer to be direct to owners where we're doing work for the [00:02:00] university or the assisted living complex or whatever building we're painting. Jason Phillips: I see. Got it. Tell us tell us a little bit, Mark, about just the basic structure of your company. Who does? Who does the painting? Who does the sales? Who does the marketing and such? Mark DeFrancesco: Yeah, so good question. Start with the direct labor of our painters. This has changed over the years. We've talked about it. I went from being a completely employee based company to a completely subcontractor based company back to a completely employee based company. And so it's been a bit of a Germany, a journey for us. And but now we're all employees and that's the way I prefer it. Is that typical for your state? It's a mix. It's a big mix. I would say it's probably very similar to 50 50. There's a lot of, a lot more subcontractors in the last 15 years are being used by more and more companies. Jason Phillips: And the employee model, I love hearing from that. Because us, my company, we're 100%, or I'm going to say 99%. Subcontractor model and you're the employee model and [00:03:00] it's they're both great. They both have challenges at the same time There's a little bit different. What Mark DeFrancesco: so There's certainly pros and cons of both I think what's been beneficial to me is being able to live and see and work in...

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business. As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello, contractors. I'm so glad you're with us today. I have someone very special here with me in my office studio today with you, and I can't wait for you to meet him. We've got some great stuff we're going to talk about. I want to introduce you to, right now, Jason Humrichous from the great [00:01:00] state of... Indiana. Hey Jason, welcome. Jason Humrichous: Thanks. Thanks for inviting me to Dallas. Jason Phillips: I'm honored that you're here. I'm glad you made the trek. Jason Humrichous: Yeah, no, great flight and easy, Jason Phillips: man you guys, I love following you on social media and all the great stuff, all the great stuff that you're doing both at work and outside of work. Jason Humrichous: Yeah. Jason Phillips: Man tell everybody a little bit about, who's Jason. Okay. You're you're not me. And tell us a little about yourself. We'll make that confusing. Try not to. So yeah my wife and I, we have six kids. High school all the way through college. We just had two graduate from college this year, and so that's a pretty big deal. And one's going to continue to go on to school and then one's going to be starting her career as in the ministry in essence with Youth for Christ, so pretty excited about that. Started painting in middle school studied for the ministry. Actually worked at a couple different churches in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Didn't know what to do after I resigned as a children's [00:02:00] pastor at a church. Ended up starting, going back into painting. I'm like if I don't know, I don't know what to do, Lord. And I begin to pray, what do you want me to do? And ended up starting a painting company. Just pulling out signs that from the high school days and started getting business. And, did that for a while and then went to work for a contractor in the custom home business in Indianapolis area. In 2009, ended up leaving that company and starting Heritage Custom Painting. The mother company is Heritage Homes and Restorations, but Heritage Custom Painting is what we're doing business as. In 2009, just continued to just work through the economy the best I could. Was on the job site, but then grew through in 2012, pulled myself off the job site. And in 2018, I began to see that I... wasn't able to do what I wanted to do, and I was understanding that I was the bottleneck, I was the problem in our company, and I had to fix that bottleneck. And so in 2019 a [00:03:00] friend of mine, Jason Finney, another Jason, we'll just add that to the confusion Jason Finney and I, we connected at a local paint store and became good friends. And in May 1st of 2019, we sat down at a local pizza joint called Pizza King, and I have a joke that we say, All good decisions happen at Pizza King. Pizza Kings are all through Indianapolis or Indiana area, but anyhow, we sat down and we began to figure out, I like what you do, and he likes what I do, and how can we serve together. And in 2019, May 1st, we joined our forces and continued to just grow Heritage Custom...

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape tyranny of Contractor Prison and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so that you can have the time, money, and Freedom to live your life with purpose beyond your business. As the owner of a multi million dollar home improvement company and certified human behavior consultant, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you. Help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and the life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hey friends, today we are gonna be talking about core values and what they are, what they're not, and why they're important, how to use 'em. And I think you're gonna, I think you're gonna find some value in this. I have with me today, Ms. Jennifer Smith. Who is one of my senior leaders at my company [00:01:00] Tell all our friends about you. Who was Jennifer Smith? Jennifer Smith: Okay. I'm the HR manager here at Phillips. I also manage the fleet, do a little writing for marketing, which is a love of mine. I was actually originally hired here as your communications person, and I definitely still do a lot of communicating and I do a few tasks here and there. For you to help you out, and that's fun for me. I'm also a human behavior consultant and love that because I love people, I love personalities, and I love helping people find their fit. Jason Phillips: That's pretty amazing. You said you do a few tasks for me here and there. That's an understatement. Actually. I don't know what I would do without you. I'll talk so much about leadership and culture. I get a lot of questions. On core values, and I've even recently been in contact with a number of small business owners, painting contractors in particular that are trying to [00:02:00] clear up some or rewrite, or revise or draft from scratch some core values. So I thought we might just share the journey. You and I have done a lot of work. Yes. On that very subject. Yeah. It's important to us here. So there's things we value. Right, but they're not necessarily always core values. Mm-hmm. And then there's let, can we just talk about the types of values? What's your take on that? Jennifer Smith: Well, I think there are some values that are more core than others, and I would call those foundational values such as honesty. Integrity. Those were pay to play values here at Phillips. If you're not honest, and if you're not a person of integrity where we know that your word is your bond, that what you say, we can count on being true, then we don't even need to start having a conversation with one another because we are not gonna fit. Okay? So those are foundational pay to play values. Then there are these other core [00:03:00] values that are unique. To us as a company that set us apart, that kind of tell other people out in the world. Who is Phillips Home improvements And those are the values that we call core values here that we hire on, promote, on, have conversations around and that that make us unique at Phillips. And I'm sure we'll talk about more of those, but one of those values is people that we really value people. In other words, Vendors and employees. And all people. All people. Absolutely all people. And yeah, that's one of our big four. Jason Phillips: You know, that's really good. Our company Core values, friends at my company, this is our team, right? Our faith people. Teamwork and the pursuit of excellence. So those are [00:04:00] also my personal core values and my, this organization, my company was started on the premise that . People...

In this episode, join host Jason Phillips as he delves into the world of financial management in supporting small businesses. Our special guest, Annie Newton, hailing from Walla Walla, Washington, brings her expertise as a fractional CFO to the table. Together, Jason and Annie explore the various indicators or pain points that small business owners often encounter. They discuss crucial aspects such as budgeting, financial forecasting, and making strategic financial decisions, highlighting the significance of looking beyond basic bookkeeping and embracing the predictive side of financial management & Navigating through challenges of hiring new employees and determining the financial implications involved. Jason shares his logical approach to evaluating the cost of hiring and how it directly impacts revenue and net profit, providing viewers with valuable insights into effective decision-making. Annie's expertise and experience add a unique perspective in offering practical advice and actionable strategies Hit the like button and share this video with others who can benefit from this valuable information. Get ready to unlock your business's financial potential with this enlightening Podcast!

[00:00:00] Welcome to the contractor freedom podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of contractor prison and enter the bliss of contractor freedom so that you can have the time, money, and freedom to live your life with purpose beyond your business. As the owner of a multimillion dollar home improvement company and certified human behavior consultant, I'll be sharing with you skills for life love. Leadership and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and the life of your dreams, then you are in the right place. Let's go.