Mike advises painting business owners to start by automating the tasks that eat the most time from their day, not by building a full SOP library. Delegating paint ordering, delivery, and crew expectations through simple checklists and scorecards can free up roughly ten hours per week before you hire a production manager.
Chapters
What sort of processes should any business owner make sure that they have in place before they make that production manager hire? The whole concept of systems and processes can be so foreign to people, and it's such a big thing. Put systems in your business. Go get systems. It's such a buzzword. It can be so overwhelming for people when it comes to systems. The first system that you need to think about adding into your business is what's going to take the most off of your plate. Like, it's not like, oh, let's start creating our SOP library. No, that's not where you start. Start looking at your calendar and what system or process will help me remove the most things off of my plate. Some of those systems might simple as scorecards and setting new expectations for your painters, creating new checklists for your painters to make sure that now they're responsible for picking up paint and ordering it and getting it to site instead of you. Like, that alone could save you 10 hours a week. So how can you save the most time