From Brushes to Brand: Building a Scalable Painting Business

Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast. The mission of this podcast is simple: to help you navigate the financial and tax aspects of starting, running, and scaling a professional painting business. From the brushes and ladders to the spreadsheets and balance sheets, we've got you covered. But before we dive in, a quick word of caution. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date financial and tax information, nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered as financial advice specifically for you or your business. We're here to share general knowledge and experiences, not to replace the tailored advice you get from a professional financial advisor or tax consultant. We strongly recommend you seeking individualized advice before making any significant financial decision. Welcome to the Profitable Painter Podcast, the show where painting contractors learn how to boost profits, cut taxes, and build a business that works for them. I'm your host, Daniel Honan, CPA, former painting business owner, and your guide to mastering your numbers that drive success. So let's dive in and make your business more profitable. And I'm super excited today because I get to talk to Micah McClain. How's it going, Micah?

Dude, I'm great. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate being here.

I'm excited to jump into the conversation. I mean, I've— we've known each other for a while and we see each other at the events and you're always putting out awesome stuff online. So I think it's going to be a super valuable conversation. So Could you, could you just give folks a kind of like a rundown of how you got started in the painting industry and what you've been doing and the value you've been providing to folks?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, the short version is, you know, as a kid, I think it was around about 10, my parents divorced and they were both salespeople at a Ford dealership. And they, when they got divorced, they both started independent contracting companies. My dad started a flooring company. And he later left it to do life insurance. My mom started a paint company, so I was about 10 years old and she started a paint company. This is about 1990, so, so like quite a ways ago. And, you know, being a single mom, I had to go to a lot of job sites with her at times, you know, when I wasn't in school and afternoons and weekends. And that turned into me working on the job site and, you know, prepping. And eventually I was actually painting. And then before long, by the probably by like 14, 15, I was like crew lead. Um, and by the time I graduated high school, like not— I still had to go to school, but by the time I graduated high school, I was running multiple crews and, um, and, and, and help basically co-running our company. Um, and then, um, you know, I did that and I was super happy. I loved it. It was nothing I didn't like, but there was part of me that really just wanted to not be the person that like stayed in a hometown for the rest of my life. I just had this deep desire to leave and I was a little personal moments too, was kind of started personally running with a crowd that was like really heavy into drugs and alcohol. And I saw myself like going down a path I just did not want to go down. So I literally just one day without warning, I just woke up, I was like, I'm going to join the military, I'm going to leave. And so I literally went to a recruiter's office, joined the Air Force because they were the ones that could get me in the soonest. That's literally the only reason I even chose the Air Force. I went to office to office like, how fast can I leave? And like, they were like, yeah, next week. I was like, cool, let's go. And And, um, really just a vision to like kind of get out of town, see the world, be a part of the military. I did have some family roots in the military too. Grandfather battled Normandy Beach and, and so on and so forth. My parents met in the military. So like I, it was always the little thing that I kind of wanted to do it, but it was just catalyst at that moment. A lot to do with like the crowd I was hanging out with. So I did that. And then, um, when I was in, uh, is a longer version of the story. We don't have nearly enough time for it, but there was a couple things that happened when I was in that made me like, oh wow. I want to really get into this sales and marketing stuff. And it really came around like the iPod. So like, I remember like before I deployed, um, my first time, cause I joined right before 9/11. So before I deployed the first time, I went to my boss and was like, hey, what, you know, you gotta get this government packing list, but what should I, what should I bring that's not on that list? He's like, absolutely hands down, bring some sort of music player. Right. So I go and buy some like music player. It was like a Toshiba or Sony or something else. And so then I deploy and whatever, come back home, 2003. Steve Jobs had his famous keynote where he released the iPod and he, you know, most of that, that, that presentation, he talked about computer this and monitor this and whatever. And then it was like at the very end, he's like, and I got something really cool to show you, you know, reaches into his pocket, pulls out this first iPod and said, you guys know what this is? It's 1,000 songs in your pocket. And those 5 words made the first trillion-dollar company on planet Earth. And I was enamored, to say the least. I was like, what just happened? Because you got all these companies, like, they didn't invent the MP3 player at all, but they built the most wildly successful electronics company. I mean, Toshiba and Sony, these companies that had like decades and decades on them, they crushed them overnight with 5 words, $10,000 in your pocket. And so while all of us, all these companies are trying to sell on like data rates and MP3, that and battery life, they didn't mention any of that. They talked about the lifestyle They talked about the person, what the person got, and they made one of the most successful companies on, on earth. And that moment when I saw that, I was like, what just happened? And that sparked some curiosity. I started taking some classes when I wasn't deployed. I started taking some psychology classes, some marketing classes, things like that. Uh, and that evolved when I got out. Instead of going back into painting, I created a, an agency. And it's, I have, um, been a part of a few different agencies. I, I've built and, and, and, and, and sold my shares in a couple. And more. All of, all of the agencies that I've been a part of since I left have all served home services. But I think one of the mistakes I made earlier on is I had, I tried to be like an everything for everybody agency. It's a huge operational mistake, right? I mean, I know you've seen this too, like painter companies that try to do like 50 other services and it just doesn't work right, right? I did that mistake on the agency side, tried to create too many products for too many different niches. And so then it was about 6 years ago, there was a period of time my wife, who's our co-CEO of this company, and she was with our last agency too. There was this one 30-day period of time where there was like 4 or 5 panic attacks that led her in the hospital because operationally the company was set up for like such wildly bad systems. So we sat down and had a heart-to-heart like, okay, well, what we'd like to do is change the gears and reshift this company. And we sat down with the other partners of the company and they didn't agree. So we left, we sold our shares. And we started Search Good Grow. We started, we created the LLC in 2019, but we like officially opened for business January 1st, 2020, right before COVID So that first year was a, it was a rocky year. So we just left a really cushy, high-paying job, but from a very, very stressful agency to complete reset. Like we just like, we had nothing, right? When we got a savings and stuff, but like no income and a company that no one had ever heard of and to build this company a lot differently than the, the last company I built, which was basically like a company brand. This company, I decided, we decided to operate differently. We pulled from my personal values. My number one value is core values, integrity first. And so I was like, well, whatever we build, that has to be its number one core value, period. And it wasn't true in my last agency, and it is true here. It's the only way we operate. We, we talk about it in every team meeting. Our, our processes are built around it. Our internal feedback, everything we do is built around that. Uh, and that's a, a value that was instilled in me from the military. So we knew that we wanted to operate with that going forward. But we also, I was like, you know, I, I grew up in home services. This is what I do. I mean, I did this for a long time at, at the, you know, um, my, my family just had this huge history of doing that. And so I decided that this company was gonna focus only on home services, specifically painting. We, uh, will occasionally, occasionally accept people that are not painters, but it's almost always if that painting company also has another company. We only market to painters. 90-something percent of our clients are painters. I grew up as a painter. I know painting. Um, and, and, and I, and very ironically, um, I found that like one of the things that I liked about the military and the trades is like there's a lot of common values there. Most contractors are super honest, high integrity, easy to talk to. And, and, and so I think the part that I liked about the military is the same part that I liked about the trades. It's like very similar type of person. It's a lot different than like, you know, a lawyer or a Wall Street person or something like that. It was just a different character of person. And that was another huge reason why we bought this company is I want to be able to like Enjoy the people I work with, be super impactful and help change lives and live by some values that I believe in that I also know that the person on the other end believes in too. And for me, that was huge. Yeah.

Now that's a, that's a amazing story. And, uh, just listening to you now, I was like, man, we have a lot of parallels with our journey too. I know. Um, I, I also was on the, my dad had a painting business, so I was up on the, on the job sites. Um, also military. And I like your comparison to the painting industry to the military, kind of like same types of people. I, I, I hadn't made that connection, but that makes sense now that you say that, like there is a lot of, uh, similarities there.

Um, and you kind of, yeah, it's not 100% the same, but there's a lot of similarities, right? Um, I think the idea of like going to work and doing something with your hands and feet, you know, um, being a person of honesty and integrity, like those things typically are true between them. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Um, one thing you mentioned was, you know, niching, because obviously both of us have decided to niche in the painting industry, but, um, you also mentioned, you know, painting businesses niching, and that just You know, do you have any thoughts on that? Like, should— because that is a kind of a common question that I hear, like, should, should starting out as a painting business owner, should you just do any kind of painting, interior, exterior, cabinets, deck, you know, fencing, commercial, residential, or should you try to focus on one particular thing? Do you have any, like, strong feelings about that?

I do. I think that, like, Um, there's a— for me, it's like a soft rule, soft guidance. Like, should you— if you're just starting out, let's just say you're like first year, $100,000, $200,000 a year, should you have like a cabinet crew, a garage epoxy crew, a staining crew, and an interior and exterior crew? Probably not, right? I think that if you can figure out what one crew can do, like, for the most part, an average residential paint crew can handle interiors and exteriors. With the same workforce, with the same tools, right? For the most part. You know, some extension, high extension ladders for outside probably, you know, occasionally a need for a lift, but for the most part it's the same tools, the same, same job, right? Where it starts fundamentally changing a lot, and I think it becomes risky to enter too early, is when you think about something like cabinets or epoxy floors. Those tools are no longer the same tools. The processes are fundamentally different. The risk tolerance of them in getting them right is harder, right? The prep is way more difficult on cabinets and garage coatings than it is on outside siding or stucco or a drywall wall. The prep of those substrates are super easy by comparison. Every substrate needs its own prep for sure, but generally speaking, like a, a 2 to 4 man, uh, residential paint crew can flip-flop between interior and exterior pretty easy. So like, if that's the crew you have, you should maximize that crew 100% before I think you should go to something else, right? Maybe even get to where the point you have 2 or 3 crews doing the same thing. But if you're first painter, like maybe you are a cabinet tech, there's some of that that exists. Like some people, like they start in cabinets, that's what they know. Well, maybe maximize that first. But for me, I think the simple answer is like maximize where you are before you start something new.

Yeah.

You know how many times I have conversations with people that are like $500,000 a year and they're ready to start a second location? Like, wait a second, you should probably be between like $5 and $10 million in the city you're at before you should think about another location. And what they, you know, like if you actually can go through that process of building the right systems for hiring, scaling, marketing, sales to actually build somewhere in that that range, you probably can just take those systems and put them in a new city and be up and running in a fraction of the time. But if you haven't gone through that, like $500,000, you really don't even need systems and processes. You could bootstrap that and kind of just wing it, figure it out. But the second you're not at that second location, you're trying to wing it, figure it out, chances are it's going to flop, you know? And so I think the discipline of getting to a place where the company can run, not necessarily 100% without you, but definitely not in every department's day to day. right? And if you can build the systems and processes and the team members responsible for that, then I think at that point you could have another department or another city or another whatever, right? Mm-hmm. The business altogether. Like Russell Peach with Peach Painting, super successful, is doing like $400K months in residential painting. And, you know, I think it was maybe like 6, 8 months ago, he's like, hey, I wanna start a flooring division. So we made him up you know, uh, you know, a flooring website and local business and all that stuff, right? I didn't question that because he's already like on track to do $5, $6, $7 million this year. He's got systems, he's got leadership, he's got a sales team. He is actually the CEO. He's not like operationally in any individual department, you know? And so at that point, what that means is like he can rapidly start another business. Up like that, you know. And that's just one example. Like, there's plenty of other people in the space that have done exactly that. Where I think it's problematic is if you've got like one residential paint crew doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, but they could be doing $600,000 a year. Should you start another department? No. If your company is only doing a few hundred thousand dollars a year, should you go to another city? No. I think you should maximize the team and the location that you have and then go from there. Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense. And I feel like a lot of folks underestimate, like, the market that they're in. They think that they've saturated the market. Like, I was just talking to a painting business, they were just doing cabinets, and they were doing about $300,000 per year in cabinets. It was in a decent-sized city. I mean, it wasn't New York City or anything, but it was, it was still a pretty decent-sized city. And they felt like they had kind of saturated the market and they needed to add on another service line because they were doing $300,000 in paint, in cabinets per year. And I was like, there's, there's, there are cabinet companies that do multiple millions that just do cabinets. And I think a lot of folks don't realize, like, there's a lot of people in your area that need cabinet work or interior work or deck work. So I feel like that happens a lot.

For that is, is, um, ChatGPT. Um, we wrote a prompt. Um, I'd be happy to share it with you guys if you want. We wrote a prompt to help us use ChatGPT to figure out the market capacity in an area. I'll use real easy numbers. Let's say there's like, you know, a million people in an area. And let's just say every, um, and let's just pretend for a second that every, like, half of them are homeowners, right? So that million, now you got 500,000 potential customers. The others are renters or apartments. You're never going to work with them. And then the people that are there that are homeowners, you say the 500,000, let's just say the average repaint cycle on any one thing, let's say cabinets, let's just say it's like 10 years. Well, then, then you just say, okay, 10% of that 500,000 in any given year is looking for repaints. It might be It might be slightly off from that, but it's a pretty ballpark, right?

Yeah.

And then so, so now you're looking at like 50,000 cabinet jobs in that area and you're doing 300,000 in, in that. Would you do 100?

Mm-hmm.

Like not even remotely in the ballpark. You're not even, you're not even 0.1% at that point.

Yeah.

Once, once you understand, and again, ChatGPT can figure this out because the census data on population is public data. Right. The average time for repaints changes in different areas and climates and things like that. So there's statistics on that which you can use. And so it can take the population versus the census data of the homeownership versus renters in that area to give you the true homeowners. They can cross that with the average amount of repaints and then it'll give you about how many paint jobs there actually are in any sector. It'll break it down about this many interior, about this many exterior, this many cabinets, this many whatever, right? And then when you break it down, you can just tell it how much you're doing and it'll actually give you your market share. And every time I've done that with my clients, they're surprised as heck to figure out it's under 1%. Even the big ones, it's under 1%. Yeah, I remember, I remember a podcast. Um, I'm going to paraphrase this a little bit. My numbers are probably a little bit off, but there was a podcast a few years ago with Tommy Mello. And I think at the time he had one, uh, one location at, let's say ballpark $11 million or whatever, right? Pretty high. And he's like, yeah, everyone thinks like I'm dominating. He's like, we did the math on that. You know what it is? He's like, it's like 2% of the market share. Like it's a really tiny number, right? And so he's, you know, making a bunch of money and it's still really, really small. So for that client, like that's making $300,000 a year, I'm sorry, you're not close to a capacity in that unless you're in some tiny rural town that only has like, you know, 5,000 people, then maybe, but otherwise you're not coming close yet. And the, the goal is not to then diversify. The goal is to master what you're doing, because you're gonna get a yield of return by figuring out how to master the thing that you're already doing than you are to start something new. Because now— and that's the same reason why my wife had those panic attacks, is we were doing too many things for too many different people. It was operationally insane. Like, we had this culture in this business that was unbelievably stressful. Right? The, the culture, the communication, the processes, the turnover, the performance, everything was bad. Um, I mean, we did good work, but like everything behind this, behind the curtain, was awful. And, and that's what we, that's what we created this company to not to, to be the opposite of, right? Is, and, and I would absolutely advise that, that all, any painter do the same thing. Like maximize the team that you have, maximize the systems you're using. Sometimes people like, uh, similar little concept, like, well, should I change CRMs? Well, are you using the CRM you right now to 100%? If not, do that first before considering jumping tools, because even something like jumping a tool or even a marketing provider, right? I'll get people that have conversations with me. They're like, hey, I heard you're great. And I appreciate that. I think we are really good at what we do. But at the same time, if some company is getting you like 10% cost of marketing, so 10x ROI, are you really gonna jump ship with me to maybe get 9.5%? Like, is that really worth it? Probably not, right? The only time we even accept clients is that there's something really big that we can come in and solve. If we're gonna come in and help save you half a percent, it's not worth the move at all. You should talk with your current marketer and optimize the systems you have. You know, you'd be surprised at what a painter actually communicating with their marketer on a regular basis will do. And yeah, I mean, the marketer should be communicating too, but you know how many times we ask our, our clients to communicate back with us and how much teeth we have to pull sometimes to do that? It, it's— it— communication works both ways. So optimize the team you have, optimize the location you have, optimize the service you have, optimize the marketing partner you have, optimize the CRM before trying to go to a new system or tool. 100%. Yeah.

And I think it goes against a lot of our tendencies as entrepreneurs, you know, painting business owner, entrepreneur, we're entrepreneurs where you want to start something new. That's kind of like why you're in this place to begin with. And so, but to actually do that all the time is not good because then you're, you're just creating chaos. You want to start your, start your business and then try to create stability by focusing in on you know, one thing and, and then really getting really awesome at that one thing. Um, yeah, you mentioned, uh, Peach Painting in their rebranding and I, I talked to, um, uh, Russell, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, sorry, I just blanked his name for a second. So I talked to Russell, he was on the, the panel at, um, Paint Boss 2025 where, where we, we Yeah, we talked about adding on a service line, like how do you, how do you add on a service line? And so he was, he was doing painting, then he added on flooring. And it was really interesting how he was talking about how he rebranded with— I believe he was working with you at the time— how he kind of rebranded his, his logo and everything. And I think it had a lot to do with his website too, like having Uh, I don't know the details, but could you— is that something that you work with folks a lot on? And could you like go through his, his process there?

Yeah, so I mean, high level, his process, and he talked to me about it beforehand. And so like, again, if you're doing like $30K, $50K months, this should not be a topic that you should cover yet. Like maximize that current channel that you have, the current team that you have, the current marketing systems you have in place, and build that first primary service, whether it's interior, exterior, whether it's cabinets, whatever. But for him, what came in part, and this happens a lot, is typically when you do a beautification service, if you do a great job, that homeowner is likely to ask you if you do another beautification service. So what you'll typically find is that there's a huge amount of crossover between like painting, remodeling cabinets, flooring, backyard design. So we lump those all into beautification wants, not needs. Like, think about it this way, like if you're plumbing breaks and like your house is flooding, you're calling an emergency plumber and the, and the first person to answer the phone is the person you're hiring. Pretty much. You kind of don't care price, right? It's just who can get out here and stop this leak the fastest is who's getting my business. But when it comes to beautification, it's a little bit different model, right? Trust and vision start coming into play. Like it's not just paint on the wall, right, that we're selling. Like The, you know, Nike doesn't sell shoes. They sell empowerment for athletes. They're the people that stand behind the people that get up early in the morning when it's cold and wet and still put on their shoes and go out for a run. That's what Nike's all about. The shoes are just the product. And so as a company, if you have a good enough brand, which Russell does, it's not just about the paint on the walls. Right? These people are entrusting their vision to make the home— a house their home, right? And very naturally, these aesthetic things, like if someone's repainting, they're probably doing cabinets, they're probably doing floors, they're probably also doing like furniture and TV and other things. Like imagine if you live in a house for like 20 years, it's dated, your kids just moved out, so you don't got to worry about the house getting beat up again, and you're going to go through kind of a major like relook, you know, hey, we're gonna— this is gonna be our forever home, our kids just moved out, let's just redo this thing, let's do it, rip the Band-Aid off and let's do everything. So he was finding himself in the face of these clients, they trusted him because he got a great brand, great reputation, he's a great guy and he's built a fantastic team. And then they're also asking about these other services. So it starts to make sense if you have a scaled team and you have the opportunity to do these other things and you know that it's a good time to start diversifying. Right, from both an investment capital standpoint, managerial standpoint, all of that stuff, then yeah, it can start to make sense. And the mechanics of it were relatively easy. I mean, most of it was him. I mean, we just came in and built him a new website, new Google Business Profile, new ad accounts, things like that, right? And, um, a logo variation for, you know, his main brand for that one. But that's not, that's really not even the hard thing. It's more an operational consideration than the branding thing. So like, I don't want to take any credit there. This was the right move by him at the right time, but he considered the finances of this and And he had talked to me about it a couple years before, and we had talked about it, and both him and I agreed that it wasn't the right time yet. And then he revisited it later, and it was the right time. His painting company was scaling and growing without him. He could not show up for a few weeks, and he'd still make sales. His team would still— he'd still have hires, he'd still have crews working. At that point, can you put some focus on building another brand? Yeah, I think you can. I think if you're like still actively growing and putting these systems in place in your paint brand, you're trying to go another brand, now all of a sudden And you as a person, you're like 50% here, 50% there. And that's not— this place, this one, this first one isn't ready for it yet. So I think that he did— he was very smart in how he scaled it at the right time. He had strong teams and systems in place to know that, that he could walk away for weeks to maybe even a few months and that business would still grow. And at that point, start another division, start another city. Sure, go for it. I think the thing most people do it way before that's ready. What are you—

you mentioned Nike and Apple and like these companies are—

they've been huge influences on what I think about marketing.

Yeah, well, they were huge influences on a lot of us to buy their products for sure, at least at a minimum. To, you know, just think back to Steve Jobs, you know, was it Think Different when he got back the second time into Apple?

That was kind of a big push that I was too young to experience his first time. It was when he came back the second time where I started following him.

Right. Which I think is where he kind of just killed it. I recently read, uh, Walter Isaacson's biography, um, on him and that when he came back the second time, that's when he just, the iPod, the iPad, all that just, he was a completely different person. Yeah. And, uh, and then for, for Nike. Phil Knight, it was just the way it was relentless. The what they, what he did with Nike was, it was crazy on all the, cause I read, I read a Shoe Dog, written by Phil Knight.

Yeah.

And everything that they went through, but it just the passion of just staying at one thing for so long and going through all the hardships that they did financially and everything.

Yeah.

But they, they really. Made it through the way that they rebranded themselves or branded themselves and set themselves apart from Adidas and the other companies. Do you have any like— what do you think a painting business should be doing in terms of brand? Like, how should they think about it? Which things should they be doing to make sure that the brand is good?

It's actually one of my favorite questions. So like, Remember, the brand is what got me into marketing in the first place, right? That, that 1,000 songs in your pocket is— that's what drove me to marketing. And that's a brand psychology thing. It's not web. Yeah, I mean, we have a great web team and all these other mechanical things, but that's not really where I think we shine the best. I think where we, where, where I and my team are the actual best at is the brand voice and positioning. It's because it's what we study and we put our time into. And the other things are just mechanics that help get us there. I think that most people misinterpret what branding is. And the reason why I study Phil Knight at Nike and Steve Jobs at Apple as much as I do— there's a few others too, but those are the top two, really. They were so fantastic at the same era, like when we were both kids, like the same time frame. We grew up with that. We saw those struggles and then we saw what they become and the legendary companies they are today. And the thing is, is they, they focused on story. And they focused on who they served above product. And I think that's a really big thing that people get wrong. And I've gone down this road too. We even had to just gut check ourselves in the last quarter of focusing too much on product and not enough on vision, right? The, the reason why Apple— I mean, let's take, take Apple for a second. Like, you, like, this is an Apple computer right here. Like, this little, you can see a little outline. This is just an Apple computer. And I could, you know, for the price of this, I could go to Walmart or Best Buy and buy a Windows computer with with 3 or 4 times the amount of actual processing power and RAM and all the other tech specs in there, right? So why do I buy this and not the other one? It's big. Well, really, I mean, part of it's that I like the operating system, part of it's that I've been using it for a long time. But the first time I did it was because of brand story, because I believed in what they believed in and I identified with it. And they almost created a tribe, you know, they really did. Um, Microsoft had done such a piss-poor job of their operating systems and how they functioned and how they helped. They were quirky. They broke all the time. They were the buggiest things on the planet. And then all of a sudden, Apple came out with not the best performing machine, but the smoothest operating, easy-to-use machine. And they focused on allowing their, their biggest first avatar they focused on was creatives, creating a tool that allows creatives to just create without having the tools be the bottleneck that gets in their way. If I'm in them, if I'm an illustrator let's say for Pixar, and I'm illustrating something and my system crashes, that kills that vibe. I just stopped creating because of a technical thing. And so Apple came and created these machines that got out of the artist's way and allowed them to create. And that was the story that they told and the story they held true to. So yeah, it was a product at the end of the road, but they identified with artists specifically in, in the '90s and early 2000s. That was their biggest thing, the late '90s, early 2000s. That's really where they focused on is the, is the artist. And I mean, the first Toy Story, Pixar, that whole thing was done on Apple computers. Um, it's being done like their modern stuff is Linux, but I digress. So, and you take, you know, you take Nike and, and the fame of like, you know, Reebok and Adidas and all these other companies, they're all focused on, you know, the pump and the sole and the weight and the colors and all these other things. And yeah, Nike has to have those things. They still make shoes. But what they did— and, um, I think the analogy is like Phil Knight was at a conference and he, he asked everybody, he's like, if you've ever ran for, uh, for health or fitness, stand up. Like, a good portion of the room stands up. And he says, if you haven't— if you've ran more than once a week, if you regularly run more than once a week, Stay standing. Everyone wants to sit down. Most of the room sits down. And then he said, if you are one of those people that runs 3 times or more a week, rain or shine, hot, cold, no matter how you feel, stay standing up. And everyone else stands down. There's just a small amount of people still standing. He's like— and he says something to the effect of, when you're out there and it's hot and cold and you're tired and you don't want to do it, but you're doing it anyways, just know that we're the light and the lamppost cheering you on. And that's how he described his company. And it was powerful, right? So at the end of the day, anyone can throw paint on a wall. I'm sorry, but it's not that complicated, right? Can we do it better than maybe someone that's real sloppy? Yeah. And we can pay a little bit of attention to detail and all that stuff. But the story and the why and the how and the customer care and the process of how we take care of the customers, That is the only way to build a big company. If you wanna be a small contractor forever, cool. Stay in the tools, focus on putting the paint on the wall, and you'll probably make a few hundred thousand dollars a year. You wanna build a big company that scales, you have to stop thinking about the product and think about the person. And that's the thing that people get wrong about branding is they think branding is about the product and it's not. Nike doesn't think about the product as much as you think they do. They think about the person using the product. Product far more. Same thing with Apple. They didn't build their trillion-dollar empire based on this tech specs of this computer sitting in front of me. They built it by understanding me and what I want and what I need, and they built a company's message and branding and story around that. And that's why I buy their product. That's why I buy Nike. That's why I buy, uh, Apple stuff, right? It all comes back to the customer to a deep dive, a really almost obsessive understanding of the customer and what they need. And if you have that, you're probably going to do great things. If you continuously focus on like, how does this masking tape go on the wall, that's not what's going to drive that big company. That's just going to, you know, that's micromanaging tiny processes that really don't matter much.

So if somebody listening, painting business owner, they're like, okay, I want to be more customer-focused and try to really define my brand, what are some steps do you think they should take to, to do that?

That's fantastic. I love that. I think there's two main things that I would do. Number one is break down the customer journey in steps. You could break it down into as many as you'd like. The way that we break it down is the following: marketing, like what do they see, what ads do they see, what do they see on Google Web, your, your branded wrap truck, yard signs, door knocking, whatever you're doing. What does that marketing look like? Second would be what does the lead nurture look like? Like after they get in touch, what's the calls look like, callback automations, like how professional is that? That's the second part of thing that they encounter. And what it says is really, really important. How fast you answer that phone is really, really important. The third major interaction that the customer has is the sales and bidding process. Like you're gonna ultimately, you know, your lead nurture is ultimately gonna end in a, a scheduled appointment. And so now you're gonna go out. There's a lot of debate and contention about like, should I sell onsite or should I not? I'm a firm believer that you should be able to present onsite but not be pushy. I want to give people option and education and, and coach them and guide them and pay attention to what they actually say, what they actually want, and, and build a pricing package that matters to them. And that's an art. It's, it's a, it's a tough thing to teach, but if you can do it, you're going to be wildly successful. And then the next part is like doing the job, right? The crew shows up, they're doing the thing, they've got to do what they said they were going to do. We call this operations or fulfillment or whatever word you want to put on it, but the crew show up and do the thing that they say they're going to do. And then the last part of this is what happens after we're done, right? A lot of people just do those first 4 and they forget about what happens 6 months later, right? There's all sorts of things that we can do to get like reviews and testimonials. We can also, um, have follow-up processes, check back in with them 3 months later, make sure nothing's going wrong. You know how powerful that is? You mean, you know how many painters call a homeowner back 3 months later a month later, 6 months later, just to make sure that Mrs. Smith is doing okay and that everything's great still. You know what I mean? That, that's, that's, that's incredible customer service. It takes 5 minutes, and you can— if you want to be ninja, just set your CRM for to do a reminder, like after the job is done, you have a reminder for X amount of time afterwards, and you just call back and check in on them. That's empowering. And what about like referral programs or maintenance programs or extended warranty programs? There's a lot of things that can happen after the job that can increase their satisfaction in a bunch of different ways. And I think so, like, now you can break— you could borrow my 5 breakdowns, or you could break it down into more steps or less steps or whatever, right? You could say it's all sales and production if you want to. This— it's all the same steps, but you can break it down as many steps as we want. We break it down to those 5. I think that once you understand how you're going to break it up, then it's time to actually start paying attention. And what we recommend doing is like, as you're going through those steps, when people ask questions, especially when people say no, when people ask questions and then don't buy, that question probably mattered a lot more than you think it does, right? If someone's like, oh, I didn't hear from you today. Oh, I'm sorry, I chose another contractor. Means your callback wasn't fast enough, right? Like, or maybe you, you're in that school where you, you go and you measure and you go back home and then you send an estimate and then you follow back up 3 to 5 days later and you call them back. Oh, sorry, I picked this other person. That tells me I need to be closing on Like, the actions will determine what you need to do if you're paying enough attention to them, right? Customers indirectly or directly will tell you what they want. It might be the hardest ones are sometimes where it's like really subtle hints at things. Those are the ones that I tend to miss, right? That there's little inclinations of, hey, maybe this isn't good enough. And those, those little soft issues, you stack a couple of them on top of you and all of a sudden you're not the best choice. Somebody else that doesn't have those issues is. So at that point, what I'm saying is once you break it down into the, like, the logical departments, we use those 5 that I mentioned earlier. We would say like, what in marketing creates friction? What makes people more likely to say yes than no? And then we write those down and we do those things, right? What in the nurture sequence makes people like become qualified booked appointments? Understanding of doing a little pre-selling, understanding what they want before they want it, not booking appointments. That doesn't make sense for either one of us, but there's a little bit phone call, uh, skills to have there and a script and process to follow. When I'm doing the sales, like, what is going to matter to them? Mostly empathetic listening, right? Um, not pitching what your product and services, but actually asking what matters to them and giving them a solution to their problem. That sounds like the same thing, but it's just not. And so you basically just break all that down with like operations. You know how powerful something like a daily check-in via text for your homeowner is? Like at the top of the day and the end of the day. Hey, Miss Sue, here's what we're going to do. And then at the end of the day, hey, here's what we got done. Here's what's left for tomorrow. We'll see you at 7 AM tomorrow. Those little things, and it's small, but those things are powerful, right? And we have to do them in our business. I know you have to do those kind of things in your business. But so basically what I'm saying is just remember that brand is not your logo. Brand is not your product. Brand is what people think of you. It's your customer service. And so break down that customer service into however many steps make sense for you. And then inside of each one, raise that bar, make it as professional and good as you can. And if you continue on that journey, it's never really done. It's, it's constantly iterating, but do the best you can today. And at some point you'll need to refocus in and do a little bit more and raise the bar again as you continue to elevate. But if you continue to be obsessive about the clients your customers, your clients, and what they want, what they need, what they expect, all of those things, chances are you're going to build a wildly successful company. Excellent.

Awesome. Uh, looking at the time, we're about at our time here, Micah, and, uh, I really appreciate your time. You definitely dropped some value, some really good thoughts on rebranding, when to change or add a service line, when to not add a service line. Can you, can you, do you have any asks of the audience? Do you, you know, if they want to learn more about you and what you do for businesses, where should they go to learn more?

Easiest way is just go to searchgoodgrow.com, or you can look me up on Facebook, Instagram, any of those channels at Michael McClain. Either one of those, you'll be able to get in touch with me pretty quickly. Um, but you know, nothing to sell here, man. You know, um, if anyone, you know, wants to work with me, obviously, uh, you know, love to have a chat. But my, my biggest thing is I just want to provide value. And, you know, like I said earlier, if you've got a marketing team and you're doing great, don't change. Like, optimize where you are before you try to switch ships. If you've got a team, uh, including a marketing team, that it's— you're not able to optimize anymore, then maybe it's the time to, to switch. But you should try to optimize where you are before you try to switch.

Excellent stuff. And, uh, just gotta say, it's like every, every other day I'm seeing great stuff that your team is doing over there. So, uh, whatever you're doing is working. Um, you guys are publishing some amazing websites. I see pretty much every other day, it seems like. Um, and I know we have a lot of, you know, similar client, similar clientele. So, uh, Definitely, if you need help in that realm, definitely check out Micah's Search Click Grow. With that, I really appreciate your time, Micah. And with the audience, we will see you next week.

Thanks so much. Bye, guys.