From Desk Job to Thriving Paint Business: Knute Olson's Journey

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 to boost profits, cut taxes, and build a better business. I'm your host, Daniel Honan, CPA, former painting business owner, and your guide to mastering the numbers. That drive success. So let's dive in and improve your business one episode at a time. I'm super excited today to be speaking with Knut Olsen out of Washington. He has an outstanding business called Cascade Ridge Painting. Super excited to have him on. Welcome to the podcast. How's it going?

I'm doing great. How are you doing, Daniel?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I'm really, really looking forward to this conversation. If you could kind of give us a background for what brought you into the painting industry, where did your journey start? What are some of the major milestones that you've seen along the way?

Sure. Well, again, thanks for having me on. I'll try to just do the quick kind of elevator pitch version of it, but I'm currently 39 years old. I started my painting business at 35, so this is year 4, 4th full year. A quick background, I had zero experience in painting or running a painting business. I went to college, got a 4-year degree, business degree, and basically from the time I graduated college, from 22 till 35, I worked, for lack of a better term, just kind of boring desk jobs. And I knew when I was about 30, I really had that inkling that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, start my own small business, be my own boss, all the benefits that come with that. It was more figuring out what do I want to do in that business role. I gotta— what widget am I going to sell, for lack of a better term? So yeah, I did a lot of research and spent years doing research, and I landed on that there was good money to be made in home service businesses, business to consumer. And so yeah, I just kind of was searching around the internet for a few years, and I fell on painting. And I had no idea that painting businesses could make the kind of money that they can make, and there's a high demand for it. And while there is a lot of competition, um, 80 to 90% of it isn't very professional, which isn't good or bad, like Nick Slavik says, it just is what it is. So yeah, um, spent a lot of research at age 34, and then when I was 35, I finally, um, set my business up and got going. Basically just watched videos, um, on how to do this And so yeah, that's, that's where I'm at now. So this is year 4. I'm still kind of in the infancy stages, I would say, but that's, that's where I'm at.

That's awesome. What, what, so you were, as you said, you had boring desk jobs from 22 to 35, and it sounds like you were kind of thinking about making the jump into entrepreneurship for half a decade almost from 30. 35. And what was the— was there anything particular, something that happened, or was it just a growing, you know, desire over time? And as you research more and more, you just got more confident in your ability to do it, or was there anything that particularly like set you off to start it?

Yeah, you know, there wasn't any like anything like that, but by the time I hit 30, I just really just didn't like working for people anymore. I would see things that I wanted to do, but I had to like go through the chain of management. And, and people don't like change. I don't like change. So it's like I just realized I really wanted to start my own business and do my own thing. Um, and it was kind of, for lack of a better term, almost soul-sucking doing the— just going to work every day, 9 to 5, doing a desk job, sitting at a desk and, and doing that kind of work. I just didn't get fulfillment out of it. Um, starting your own business isn't for everyone, but there is something kind of neat about waking up every morning and kind of— you got to go kill what you're going to eat that day, you know. Like, we as business owners, we're not even legally allowed to like have unemployment insurance, you know. We got to cover our own vacation pay, sick pay, which again, that's not for everyone, but I love it. And so I, I will never go back. And, um, Yeah, I just, I love being a small business owner.

Yeah. And I know you're, you're, you're married with, with kids. We were talking about it before the podcast started. How did, how did your family, especially your wife, take that? Like, because you put it as boring desk job, but, you know, a lot of spouses are like, that's, that's stability, you know? How did you, did that take some convincing or what was your, your spouse right on board and everything?

Yeah, she's always been very supportive. Um, I didn't do it like cold turkey though. Luckily, I, I did it very slow. So my first year in business, um, I still worked my job and kind of did this kind of part-time just to kind of get the ground rolling. And every year I slowly did less hours there and more now. And now I've made the transition where I— this is my full-time what I do. I've been doing that actually for a while now, but Yeah, so for anyone listening that is just kind of in that infancy stage, even if you're not married and kids, don't just cut the head off the snake right away. Maybe you can do it slow. You should be able to do— maybe, okay, I'm gonna take 1 or 2 less days a week that I work, and I'm gonna focus on the business and do it that way.

So what did that look like? You know, because you said you're in your 4th full year, you started around age 35, you're 39 now, what did that look like in terms of like revenue for, for, for year 1 to 2 to 3 to 4? Like, and, and how much were you working that boring desk job and, and how did you kind of manage the business while you were doing that simultaneously?

Yeah, so what I kind of did was during the summer season, um, I was kind of more 50/50 where I was kind of like half my own business, half the W-2 job. And then in the wintertime, I actually would kind of go back to more of the full-time job. But just to give you like revenue numbers, um, so my first year— well, actually my first year and a half in business, I did all the labor myself. I was a solo painter, did everything myself. Um, so year one in business, I made $60K. And I did every mistake in the book. I way underbid jobs, I wasn't efficient, I just— every mistake you can make. And then year 2, um, that was the year I decided I'm not gonna be on the tools anymore and I'm gonna use SubCrews. And so year 2, I did $225K. Year 3, which was last year, I did about $360K. And then my goal for this year was to really kind of jump all in, and I wanted to hit $500K this year. And, and, um, I know a lot of people are struggling right now, but I've been very blessed. Um, I'm— I've got it kind of mapped out month by month, and I think I'm going to be probably closer to that $600,000 number than $500,000 for the year, assuming everything goes kind of how it's been going. So, um, yeah, just as far as revenue, that's, that's where I'm sitting at.

That's awesome. That's, uh, getting close to almost doubling the business from the year 3 to year 4 if, if you hit around $600,000. You did $360,000 in year 3 to $600,000. That's a, that's a huge jump. So congrats to you on that. Thanks. So, so first year you're doing solopreneur. And as you said, you made every mistake in the book with underpricing and all that. Learned, learned. And I think everyone does, you know, first year it's, it's tough. And the second year you're You brought on some subcrews so you get off the job site so you could focus on the sales and production management. Third year, continue that same model, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then—

Yes, correct. Yes.

Yeah. And then fourth year, is it, have you brought in like an office manager or anything? Are you still doing, you're doing sales and production management and you have crews under you? Is that the same structure?

Same structure. Yeah. I still do everything myself. I'm PM, I'm sales, I answer phones, I do everything. The only thing I don't do is just the labor of the painting. I have the crews do that. But yeah, I'm still doing everything. Yeah.

Okay. What is the primary acquisition method? Because I mean, you've had some really strong growth, especially from last year to this year. How are you— is it all referral-based or do you have some sort of outbound strategy like Facebook or door-to-door or something?

Yeah. So I got that pulled up right now. So out of my leads this year, it's been kind of interesting. About my number one lead source, about 25% of my leads is from Google LSA or Google Guaranteed. Uh, for anyone listening, like, that's a no-brainer. Like, those leads don't cost very much. They are people that are motivated, they want to buy. Um, you usually used to be able to get refunds on them pretty easy. I think they have like an AI technology that automatically gives refunds because I will get like bad leads where it's just like a telemarketer and I'll just get refunded automatically by Google. I don't know what your experience is with other contractors, but I can't say enough good things about LSA. So you like, you gotta do that. Um, it costs money, but you got to do that. And then, so then, yeah, and then I'm just kind of looking. So then that's my number 1, and then number 2 and 3, which is each about 20— so I guess if you combine this, this is about 40%— is, is what I call website or Google search leads. I guess that you could kind of say is the same thing. So maybe that's my number 1 lead source. So that's majority of them. Um, and then, yeah, everything else is just kind of little things here and there. I got some— I'm only at about 10%, like the word of mouth repeat referral. Every year that grows, and it's just a compound. If you do a good job, people are going to refer you, and the longer you're in business and you get those reviews, that just compounds. So yeah, that's the majority of it. And yeah, I've tinkered with things, you know, I've tinkered with some direct mail and EDDM stuff. Um, last year I did my local home show, and that's actually not too bad, but that's only once a year, and it's just kind of a one-time hit in the spring. And but I'll get some work from that. Um, Uh, the lead gen sites like Thumbtack and Angie, I have done that before, but this is kind of the first year I finally just kind of cut that off and I'm— I just find it's not as good as it was 4 years ago. Um, and then, yeah, so that's, that's basically my, my lead gen mix right there.

Awesome.

Did you—

since you're— well, let me start with, uh, LSA. So for LSA, uh You know, a lot of folks that I've spoke to are definitely using Google LSA. And just so for the listener, like, it's different than the Google Ad, which I think a lot of folks are familiar with. The Google LSA is actually a separate thing that Google's come out with in the last few years. And it basically features kind of local service folks. So if you search a painter near me, you should see it come up. And folks can schedule a consultation or free estimate or a call you directly right from that ad. So it's pretty powerful in terms of connecting you with those people who are looking for, you know, work to be done. And it's, it's, I guess, like the downside of LSA is you kind of have a cap on how much you can really spend on Google LSA. Because, you know, you're in a certain area and there's just only so much money you can put into it. But that, that's, that's amazing that you're, you're doing that well with it. Did you put in a lot into SEO and into your website? Because I was looking at your website, it looks pretty, pretty amazing. I don't know if you did it yourself, you had somebody do it, but I wonder if that is one of the things that's helping your SEO. And for you to rank on, on Google pretty well because a lot of, uh, leads seem to be coming from search.

Yeah. Um, so go to back to LSA. You're correct with everything you said. Um, I used to do AdWords, which is a totally separate thing. I don't do that anymore. And I've heard from other painters that they can't tell if that actually works or not. Um, and especially with the way that Google search has changed, especially this year where those LSA ads are just like Boom, big green right on the top of the search bar. And it looks so professional. Here's your reviews. Whereas the AdWords, they kind of look like ads and they're very expensive and it's hard to track that. Whereas the LSA, you can track that very easy because it tells you right away where that lead just came from. So you always know, you get that little voice call from Google, dong, you know, so you know it's an LSA ad. Um, as far as my website, yeah, it's so funny. I had a kid, Um, Facebook messaged me about a year ago and said, hey, and I get these all the time, hey, I'll, I'll build your website for free, just pay me whatever you want. I thought, okay, sure. And I did the website myself on Wix. It didn't look very good. It was okay. It made the job done. But yeah, so long story short, he built it for me and I saw it and I'm like, dude, this looks great. Okay, I'll pay you. And I gave him like $400. And like, uh, I think it's awesome. And then he also— he did it through Wix, so like I have control of it now. He just gave me the whole— you probably know the terminology, but I have control. I have control over my website, which is something you'll probably talk about, why you don't want to give marketers your website, because they can— you can't edit it. And if they go out of business or they move on to something else, then you might have problems editing it. But yeah, and then the third thing on SEO is, um I live in a little bit of a smaller market. The county— I live about 2 hours north of Seattle, Washington, and I'm about an hour south of Vancouver, Canada. I'm right near the Canadian border, so obviously that's a different country, so I can't service that market. Um, but, um, my county has about 200,000 people in it. That's what I service. So it's not real big, but I think for SEO that helps me because if I hit it hard and I hit the Google reviews hard, I got ranked really high really fast, and I'm still ranking really good. Um, so that is an advantage if you're listening to this and you're in a little bit of a smaller market like me. If you can really hit the SEO and Google reviews, you can jump ahead than if you live in Portland, Oregon, or you live in Cleveland, Ohio, or whatever it might be.

So yeah, and yeah, you, you are coming up on 100 Google reviews at the 4.9, which is pretty awesome, especially given that you're— you've only been in business for a little while. So it definitely shows. So I think you've, you've definitely figured out how to rank high, you know, Google reviews, a good website, and you've dominated your area. And you're just, you're probably getting the, the majority of the traffic of people wanting their house painted, they're probably calling you. So That's, that's awesome.

Another hack I did, I'm going to share this little secret. So you may not see this when you're searching, but, um, this year I opened up a, like a, I'd call like a virtual office, but a second location. So I live in a city and the biggest city in my county is called Bellingham and it's about 25 minutes away, but I wasn't ranking in Bellingham because I don't, my headquarters aren't there, even though I work in that city all the time. So I found a guy. I was driving through Bellingham this last winter when I was slow, and long story short, I found a guy that was looking to rent a room in his house, and I purposely wanted a location that didn't have a painter near that area so that I'd rank there. So I made a deal with him. Hey, can I have an office here? And I'm gonna put signage up, and I'll pay you $200 a month. And then I opened up a second Google location there. So I'm actually trying to get— I only have like 8 reviews right now, so that one's just starting. But I'm doing that to try to rank. And so $200 a month basically for SEO is what I'm doing there. And I think that is helping because I've gotten calls on that. So for anyone listening that has that scenario, um, that's just something I'm trying. So, and so far it's working.

Yeah, no, that, that, that definitely, uh, is a thing that folks come into— because there's definitely rules. Like, Google has a whole bunch of rules, and I am not an expert.

I looked those rules up like crazy. I was like, okay, it has to be an actual location, actual office, you have to have signage. So I was like, I— before I even did it, I just double-checked and made sure I'm clicking every box so I don't get deactivated, right? I did all that. So be— so I just did, yeah, let's— why don't I just do a room for rent in an area that's kind of has commercial buildings anyway? And Yeah, this guy just like, yeah, sure, man. I was like, dude, you can rent your room out. I'm not going to go in the room at all. I'm just, I just need the signage and I need to pay you a check every month for my virtual office and have your address. And he said, okay, sounds good.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it, yeah. As long as you're like, it sounds like you've done your research. Google does have a bunch of stipulations on making sure you have access to the building and that is a bona fide, all that stuff. But yeah, that is, uh, that is a good hack to open up or service a different location where your home office or your actual office is not in. So that makes sense. And no, that's good stuff there. So you're at $600,000 or about, you're going to hit projected $600,000 this year. What is the kind of the next step for you? Do you, because a lot of folks at this level, you know, when they have subcrews and they're doing their sales, production management, and even the admin work, they often start getting kind of stretched kind of thin right around $600,000 to $1 million. And so they often, you know, bring on someone else to help them. Do you kind of have a plan on the way forward there?

Well, yeah, this is something I'd love to pick your brain about and kind of see what other people do. I definitely have recognized, like, okay, if I had a PM, that would cut my schedule probably in half right there. And so I'm not doing the PM work. Um, but yeah, no, as far as my daily schedule, I have it pretty dialed in. I'll— during this busy season, I only work maybe 30 hours a week, give or take. Um, I always block off my mornings till about noon for just PM admin stuff. And then my daily schedule, I schedule my estimates every day at noon and 2. Those are the two times, and I try to do them both hopefully in the same town so I'm not driving across town for each estimate. Sometimes that doesn't work out, but I try my best for that. I don't do Saturday estimates, I don't do evening estimates. I will make an exception if it's like, you know, I just— somebody like whatever, but maybe like one or two of those a year. I don't do it very often. And then I try to be at 2 o'clock, be done with my day after that 2 o'clock estimate and just be over with. Um, I've had the same couple sub crews now for 3 years and they've been great and they're pretty autonomous where I can just like hand them off and they do everything nice. Um, and it's funny because those are the first 2 crews I hired and then that first year I tried bringing on other crews and they didn't work out at all. So I'm like It's funny how it works out because I feel like had it gone the other way, I might have given up and been like, oh, I can't use subs, this, this stinks. But, um, yeah, I know, uh, kind of rambling, but to go back to your question, I would love to know your thoughts because I'm thinking, okay, $600, usually they say 7% is about a good number for a PM for an all-in number. That includes, you know, their salary, you got to give them probably a vehicle, you gotta you know, there's payroll taxes, and then it's like, well, that's not very much money for them at that point. And from what I've heard, you got to be hitting that about that million mark, um, before you think about the PM role, um, to make it kind of pencil out. But I don't know, what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, no, great question. Uh, so I— a lot of folks, what they'll do is before a full-fledged production manager, they'll hire basically an office person to maybe do a few random things, maybe answer the phone. So those leads coming in from Google LSA so that you can make sure, you know, if you're an estimate or you're tied up, they are actually, you know, answering the phone consistently. And then maybe, you know, doing admin work like invoicing and maybe helping with coordination with the crews, maybe getting them scheduled or helping getting the colors from the customers, like making sure that they provide those colors and, you know, doing all the button clicking to, for project management to make sure that the colors are loaded up in Basecamp or wherever you're doing your project management, that you have a production, a crew assigned to it and they have what they need and they may be ordering the paint. So maybe a little, you know, taking some of those tasks that a production manager would do, but you're still the production manager. You're just kind of overseeing the office person and giving them some of the admin tasks, computer tasks, and they're answering the phone, that sort of thing. A lot of folks do that. And, you know, the pay typically for an admin, you know, somewhere between 3% and 4% of revenue. You could maybe get away with. So it also depends obviously on the how, you know, are they full-time versus part-time and where you are, where you are in your business. So that might be something to take a look at is, is an office admin that can kind of take some of those computer tasks away from you.

Okay.

And, and that would, you know, also would probably help with your set rates, like if you know, getting your phone off of you. Because if you miss even just a couple of phone calls a month, I mean, those are— that's potentially booked work that you missed. And that just that alone would help pay for that person's wage, you know?

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Cool. So, um, so it sounds like you have really strong crews, you know, and this is a challenge that a lot of folks have is like, they want to use subcontractors, but then they're having to continually find new subcontractors because it's just not working out with subcontractors. And it sounds like you've landed on a few crews that are really good. What is the scope of what they do? Are they doing— obviously they're doing the painting, but are they doing the initial and final walkarounds? Are they collecting the check? Like, what— are they getting a Google review? Like, what— where do you— where do you draw the line with them?

Sure, great question. Um, so for me, what I found is, um, on the— like, on an exterior, for example, on the wash day, I will go there with them and the customer, and the three of us will walk the house together and do the pre-job walk all together. I also go and buy all the paint and I deliver all the paint now, which some people listening to that will think, oh, that's crazy. But yeah, I always just— I have to be there anyway for the pre-job walk, so I just bring the paint there. Um, I always buy all the paint. Um, I feel like that's— I know other people do it where the subs buy the paint out of their own pocket, but, um, I just feel like that's, that's a, that's a big hit for them to take. Um, And then, yeah, once we kind of walk it, and then usually the next day what I'll do is I'll go meet them there the first day they're kind of starting the work, and we'll walk it again and just go through the same thing just so it's super clear. By going through it twice, I have not had a mess up yet. I have not had them paint a door pink that was supposed to be red or anything like it. It, it is, it's pretty straightforward, you know. Um, same with interior too, because it's ceiling, walls, trim, you know, it's hard to kind of Once you've gone through it twice in two different days, they should get it. I don't even write up work orders anymore. I used to do that, but I just— they— I would just see them sitting in their vans and I was like, are you guys even looking at these? They're like, no. Like, okay, well, I'm not gonna— I'm gonna stop doing them then. That's, that's a waste of my time. And then after that, it's kind of their job, basically. I might check in once a day. If it's a longer job, I won't even check in at all. They just handle it. And I tell the customer, hey, if there's any little things like Um, I just did this this morning before we hopped on, you know, like I was doing the pre-job walk with the guys, we're washing the house, and the customer pointed out some like nails that they wanted out of there. And I just said, hey, and I just told the customer, hey, if you see anything little like that, just tell my guys as the job's going on, like they're in control, ask them, and they can do things like that. And they're just, I don't know, they're just happy to do it. They don't see it, my guys don't see it as a burden. Um, so then yeah, they handle it all and, um we just communicate as far as supplies go. At the end of the job, I have them do the final walk around because that is so hard to predict, like, when they might finish. Sometimes they'll tell me they'll be done at noon, but that might mean 3, that might mean 10, you know. Um, so I have them do the final walk around with the customer, and, uh, I do— I collect payments myself. I don't have them handle that at all. And I get the Google reviews myself. Um, so as far as payments go, I just, just invoice through QuickBooks and, um, yeah, but they, I'm trying to do ACH mostly, but sometimes they'll write checks. Um, sometimes they'll pay with a card, but yeah, that's pretty straightforward. You just get their email and it's not, that's not too difficult usually. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how I handle it and it's pretty, pretty hands-off actually.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like, so this interesting, you do two walkarounds, one, one with the client being there. With the, with the crews to really make sure that they understand exactly what needs to be done. And, and it's funny, like that those two walkarounds actually just, you don't even worry about the work orders anymore, because they don't even feel like they need it because they feel like it's pretty well ingrained in them after going through the house twice with you. And so is there Any other documentation, like pictures that you're taking as well, or is it just pretty much just the walk— the walkthroughs that those two times?

Yeah, nothing like that. During the estimate, I'll take— I just take one picture now of the house. And the only reason for that is it helps me because I do so many estimates, and then usually people don't sign on the spot. Everyone usually gets a couple bids and they'll get back to me, and that's fine. I, I totally get it. But as I'm getting back to clients and trying to follow up, I actually kind of forget like who that was. Like, it's in my, my phone. Hey, follow up with this client. So I go through, I'm like, oh yeah, that's that house that I did 2 weeks ago. Okay, that's right, that's right, that's that person. I kind of remember little stories about what we talked about during the estimate. But, um, yeah, you know, one thing I should do, and I've been trying to do this, is I've been trying to like before the job starts do a video walk around. It only takes like a minute or 2 just in case there's something broken that I can get on video. I almost never remember to do it. Um, I haven't been burned yet, but I'm sure I'm gonna get burned bad one time. But no, I don't really do much of that actually.

Yeah, I think that's a common thing that I've seen, especially folks that are doing multiple, multiple millions. They actually take a picture of any kind of damage or, or paint, old paint drips, you know, before the project starts, just in case, you know, you painted it and then they're like, oh, you drip paint everywhere. Well, no, I didn't. That was here before. Here's a timestamped picture with, you know, the fact that it was there before we, we got here. So, uh, but yeah, that's especially for those, those picky customers, that's, that's like a great hack. Um, cool. So that's awesome. You have— it sounds like you have really good subcrews which take, take a good amount off of, off of you not having to, you know, uh, watch over them constantly. And it definitely shows with your Google high Google ratings. Um, and then, uh, and then we talked about potentially bringing on an office person or a production manager at some point to kind of help you get to that, because that's— you're kind of getting close to that, um, that transition point, you know, that bottleneck where it's going to be all on you. And then, um, having that, uh, office person or production manager to help you to get to the next to the next level. So that's, that's cool that you're already thinking about that on how to, how to tackle that. What are some of, what are like, from your last several years of working in the business, what's like one challenge that you faced that was, that you've, you view, you've viewed as like the biggest challenge that you had to overcome to get to where you are now?

I mean, and this might be a good like thing for everyone, it's like, the hardest year in business is your first year, and then your second hardest year is your second year, and it's a hard year, but you look back and say, that wasn't as bad as the first year, and so on and so forth. So actually, like, every year gets a little bit easier. Um, you just run into things and then you kind of know, okay, now I know how to handle this in the future. Um, I've done a so much better job of not getting too stressed out about clients anymore. Like, I used to get so worried when they would message me and things. And I, I just, I do so much work now, I don't worry about it as much. Um, so yeah, I guess just, it's, it's just that, like, just know it gets easier. It just, you're really basically just washing and repeating. And as you wash and repeat, you add more things on your plate. So like, you know, not to go off on too much of a tangent, but like staining work, I used to not do staining work because it was like, I heard it's, it can be complex. But I started to say no to too much staining work. So I— even this year, I'm like, let me try this out. And even last year and this year, now I do more stain jobs because I, I know them now and I've done them more. And, um, so you can kind of like expand your scope as you grow. Keep it simple early and just know it's gonna— it's gonna be really hard early and you're not gonna make money and you're gonna be— it's gonna be tough, but stick with it and it'll get easier. And that's the best advice. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For the first year, that's always a tough one. So many lessons to be learned. Getting through that is really— if you keep at it, most people don't like the most, most folks do not start the business, let alone get past the first year. So if you get— if you could do that, then it all— it's sort of downhill from there. I mean, there's always challenges that come up, obviously, but It is definitely the first year can be pretty difficult. Cool. Well, do you have any other, like, thoughts or if for the listeners, any thoughts for the listeners on big lessons that you've learned that, that you feel like you'd like to impart to anybody listening that's either running a painting business now or thinking about starting a painting business that you wish you had known you know, before you faced whatever challenge? Any, any lessons that you'd like to impart?

Yeah, I mean, obviously I talked about kind of the stress and, and just taking the hard licks. Um, another thing I'd like to say too, and I did this from the beginning and this has helped me so much, is that this business is very seasonal. And from a lot of guys, that's why they quit, because there's up to 6 months out of the year where you make almost no money. So what you need to do is set up goals and try to— and this is what I do, and I still kind of do this to this day even at my size— I say, okay, there's going to be 6 months where I make nothing. Put a zero, put a zero, and then try to make all the other money during quarter 2 and quarter 3 when the, the fruit is ready to be harvested. Uh, and, and then when you're in the, when you're in the the cold of November, December, January, February, it's like, okay, well, I already had zero here, so any jobs I'm doing here is just gravy. It's just like house money. And that has helped me so much with my, my budgeting, just knowing that and just throwing zeros on there and realizing anything that gets gravy. And then it takes a lot of stress off of you. So, um, I don't think people realize this isn't going to be like— you're not going to have 12 months of the same paycheck. You just won't, no matter how big you or small you are. But smaller guys get it more than the bigger guys do. So that's another piece of advice I would give for sure.

No, that's, that's really good. Like basically if you're in a seasonal place, which most of the United States is, basically plan for the second and third quarter. That's where all your money's made. And then the first and the fourth quarter, you're going to make nothing and use that as a plan, a planning consideration. And then that way. You're prepared for the worst, so to speak. And so if, if you end up getting jobs in the first and the fourth quarter, that's amazing. It's just icing on the cake. But you've already kind of planned, okay, second and third quarter, this is all the money we're going to make. So I think that's really smart to, to do that. So that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Cool. All right. Well, I really appreciate your time, Knut. I think this was a really valuable conversation for the listeners. You know, if you'd like to join the conversation, feel free to join the Facebook group, Grow Your Painting Business, and ask any questions there as well. But with that, we will see you next week.