Stop Buying Leads and Start Building A Brand With Branden Sewell

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're going to be discussing how to stop paying for leads and start building a strong brand that grows organically with Brandon Seawell. Thanks so much for joining us today, Brandon.

Yeah, thanks Phil. I appreciate you having me on.

Yeah, absolutely. So Brandon, he's The owner of SealPro Painting down in Florida in the Orlando area. He actually used to live in the great state of Maryland, where I live as well. And he moved down to Florida to actually start a church with his wife. And he has a background in the trades, which I'm very eager to get to discuss. Also discuss like building a strong brand, getting referrals. So can you tell us a little bit? Like you started co branding in 2017 and there was some transition that was going on from a company in Maryland to Florida. I'm just curious to hear, like, how did all this happen?

Yeah, yeah, so actually I started out, you know, when I lived up in Maryland. I worked for a company called Perfect Painters and More. And when I came down to Maryland to start or came down from Maryland to Florida to help start this church, I also started a, another location of, of that company. So we were actually called Perfect Painters and More, but we were down in Florida. And you know, I had a partnership, if you will, with the, the business owner up in Maryland. And you know, there were just things that I was passionate about as a young entrepreneur and like the way that I thought things should be done vers how he did things. And, and I just, I quickly noticed like, okay, this is, this isn't going to work for me for two reasons. One, because I had such a, like stark difference of views on how the business should be run. And two, because it really was not financially, you know, feasible for me to continue doing things the way I was with that. So yeah, I was part of that partnership up until 2020. And then in 2020 I negotiated out of that partnership and then rebranded to Seal propaining to where now I'm a hundred percent owner. And before I had two other partners and it just, yeah, it just didn't make sense. And you know, like I, I love those guys. I respect them in their own right, what you know, they do. It just was not fit for me. So, you know, and we can talk more into like what those differences are, which I think you briefly brought up.

Yeah, I think a lot of times people have this grand vision of franchising their business and a lot of times the systems and processes in their Business are not tight. And so then they have someone like you who's like, hey, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to roll. And then really they don't really have much there that's going to help support someone. And so I could definitely see how that might be frustrating. One thing that I am curious about, so your background is in like remodeling and selling like before the painting stuff. And one thing doing my research on you was that initially you started where you were just basically like getting leads, like funneling leads into your business and then subbing out a lot of the work. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean that's how, that's how I started out. You know, that was kind of how I was taught was like sales, sales, sales and then production was just kind of like the necessary evil and just sub everything out. And you know, I quickly just like I felt I was like, I'm not building a business, you know, I'm not building a brand, you know, I'm not building something that I felt was significant or even, you know, something that I could sell in the future because I was basing it around, you know, other people's businesses, if that makes sense, instead of my own. And so I had more of like a long term mindset where I was like, okay, well I want to build my brand. You know, I want people to know who SealPro painting is and I want the people who are going out on those job sites to represent Seal Pro Painting. And there was some of like just the quality control and having, you know, control and things like that that I was interested in as well with changing up that model.

Yeah, I agree. I think for a lot of people there's like two sides of it like transactional marketing and then branding. And both of them, you know, farming and hunting, both of them can produce results. But if you're really heavy and transactional side, it's just constantly fighting for the next deal over and over. Opposed to having stuff just acted to you and stuff flowing in more organically because of your brand and your presence. And I think at one point you were spending like, I don't know, was it like four, six thousand dollars a month or something on thumbtack or something like that.

I was spending like six to $8,000 a month on you know, lead gen companies. You know, whether it was, you know, we kind of would like cycle through them. Whether it was like craft jack networks, porch thumbtack, you know, all those different pay per lead services. And you know, with those, it's there's It's a game, you know, it's. It's basically, you know, you got to be fast, elite, fast to the lead, fast to close, you know, and it's. That's the name of the game. And then it's just sales. It's just all sales. It's cash flow. That. That's it, you know. But then what the problem is is once that you know, it works until it doesn't, you know, these, these lead sources that you're using, one, like, you know, they could be great, like for a little bit, and then out of nowhere, like, the lead quality can just go to absolute garbage, you know, and then. And then here you are, you know, you got your. Your situation where, okay, I've spent all of this money on these lead services, and now the return on investment isn't there. But I. And the problem is, is like, you built. If you build your business on that, where's the, where's your brand equity in your community? You haven't built relationships, you haven't built strong foundations, like for referrals. You've, you know, maybe just solely relied on, you know, just the lead volume. But what do you do? Like, in 2020, we noticed that there was a shift in the market and the leads just, they were awful, like out of nowhere, you know, it just got horrible. And then that was when I really had to have a realization like, I can't. I can't my. Build my company off of this. If I want to build something with like, longevity and, and legacy, if that makes sense.

Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people, they think, oh, well, if I just have bigger ad budgets and I just spend more to get leads, then that's how I'm going to grow my business. When in reality, it's like the companies that have been in business the longest and that are growing have been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years. And they are doing all the basics right. And naturally they're growing over time because eventually, like you mentioned, the rug gets pulled out from under you and the leads dry up, and you don't actually have like a solid business. You just have one lead funnel that's coming in. And I think that happened to you, right? The leads just dried up and you were stuck. You had a large payroll and you're like, well, what do I do now?

Yeah, Yeah, I had 12 employees, you know, sales rep, production manager, multiple crews. You know, and we were. I mean, we grew just from 2021 going into, you know, start of 2022. We pace to grow over 50%, you know, and it was booming. I mean, business was like, I. I was excited and I was like, okay, like, things have shifted. You know, we went through Covid. That was a little rough. And now we're on the up and up and. And. Yeah. So having all of that money into thumbtack. Yeah. Just out of nowhere, like, they, they really change up too. Like, they're. That's the other thing you don't have control over is like, how do they divvy up those leads that they'. In. So what they change. You used to just, you know, you would set a budget, and then you would set what kind of jobs you wanted, and then you would get the leads based on whatever your budget was. Right. So if I said, okay, I want $4,000 worth of leads and these type of jobs, well, I was going to get $4,000 worth of those type of leads. And the game was like, if I can call them faster, get them a quote faster, I was more likely to convert that and sell that job. Well, what happened? They completely changed up their model where it was like, pay to play. It was like, well, now you don't just put a budget of $4,000. We're going to ask you, how much are you willing to pay for this lead? And if you're not willing to pay more than this other company, then you're not going to get those higher quality, better leads. Those are going to go to somebody else. So it was like a pay to play thing. Well, now you have to factor in, okay, well, what's my cost per acquisition going to be? And it was. It was a crazy gamble. It was. You know, I like to think that I know who had, like, played a role in influencing thumbed up to change that. A really big guy in the home services space. He talks about it on his own podcast, but I heard him say in an episode, he's like, the future of marketing is who's willing to pay more for. For leads. And, you know, we're. The big guys are gonna like, basically force out the little guys, and if they're not able to play, you know, then they're out. And now us big guys can, you know, we're willing to pay. And maybe they have these huge marketing budgets, and so they could so. And so, yeah, that's what happened. And so we went from having like, you know, being on pace to do like, you know, anywhere between 90 to 100,000 in sales revenue for a month to dropping down to like 35, you know, a huge drop. And my My mistake is, like, I didn't. I didn't catch it fast enough. You know, I didn't. It, like, took me a couple months to realize, like, hey, that wasn't just, like, a weird, like, off month. Something changed, and I didn't adapt fast enough. And so then I, you know, like, my. My employees kind of saw the writing on the wall, So I lost 12. I went down to zero employees. And, yeah, it was. It was pretty crazy. So for. And that happened in, like, October. So just kind of like the time frame was, like, May. We had, like, peaked out. You know, we were doing, like, Like I said, anywhere between ninety to a hundred thousand in revenue a month. And then we had just slowly declined to where, like, I think my worst month was, like, 10 grand. And. And I. I was like. I was like, I'm done. You know, this is. It's just gonna close up shop. But then, you know, I hired a coach and, you know, you know, figured out to change some things and was able to kind of, like, regroup myself, and, you know, ended up hiring on another employee. And I think it was January. And then just, you know, now we're back up to where I've got, you know, two crews of painters. And then I also have a paver. I'm doing paver ceiling now, so I've got an employee for that. And then I've got a couple subs that are taking on some jobs for me. But. But, yeah, so that. That's kind of my. My story.

Yeah. So. So it sounds like you kind of built a house of cards esque of, like, leads, but not really a solid foundation. And now you're in the process kind of building it back up from the ground up the right way. That it might take a little bit longer, but it feels really good. And you feel confident in building out.

Yeah.

And bringing on people. You feel confident what you're actually building sounds like.

Yeah, I mean, it's a hard lesson to learn, and I think there's a lot of young guys out there who I think were like, me. You know, like, you're ambitious. You just. You're like, oh, I can, like, go out here and just sell jobs. You know, like, you're the face of the company and then just sub everything out. But it's. It's definitely super risky to do that. And I mean, for some people, like, I guess, you know, that works it. But for me, I was just like, that's not how I want to build a company. And I. I realized just how quickly it can go wrong. And when you don't have a solid foundation and, you know, so what I learned from the coaching program that I went into and was really what I, like, really wanted to build all along was, like, a solid brand that had equity in my community and was building solid relationships, you know, for solid, like, referrals and, you know, getting more work, because it was like, people knew who we were, if that makes sense.

Oh, yeah, a thousand percent. So what are some of the things that you learned that you've implemented? Like building equity in the community and referrals?

Yeah.

What are some of the key things? Like, maybe two or three of them that you're like. Yeah, this has been.

Yeah. So what I would say is, first you have to build relationships and community, like, and that's networking. Right. So in the old way that I was doing business, it was just everything was online, you know, so I was just paying for the leads. I was getting the leads direct to consumer.

The.

The shift that I had to make is I had to get out and I had to get in my community and I had to build relationships with people. Right.

Yeah. Can I say one thing about this? Because this is so important. We see this all the time. Like, Even if you're 5 million, 8 million, 10 million, $20 million, that. That part, it doesn't matter about how big you are. It's about doing the basic things correctly. Like, if you have salespeople, if you have office managers, if you have people, they need to be in the community. Especially if you're like, the local company and you want to be the local company, you have to have people that are out there in the community. You can't just be sitting back because other people are going to come in and do this stuff, and they're going to be the local face. And so many times I see, like, people have been in business for 30 years, and, yeah, everyone knows us. Everyone knows, but they're not doing anything. Like, they're not going to networking groups. They're not holding, you know, events. There's community events that they're not even a part of. So I completely agree with you. And whether that's you as a business owner doing that or you and then a bunch of people on your team or if you're just starting out, like, this is a great way to grow your business like this. So thank you. I definitely agree with you.

Yeah. And I think it's just, you know, people do business with you, like the person, you know, so they're. They're not just gonna, like, purchase from a Logo. I mean, yes, they do to some extent, but at the end of the day, it's you. It's the people that represent your brand who are gonna be doing that business. And so like, if you don't have your face out there, if you're not going and talking to people, you know, like you said, somebody else is gonn and they're going to build that relationship and they'll be like, oh, wow, I really like this guy or this girl. And you know, I'm going to do business with them and forget about, you know, SealPro. I'm going to do business with Joe. Because Joe is right here and he's talking to me. He's meeting with me weekly. You know, I have his phone number and if somebody needs something, he's top of mind. I'm going to just automatically think a joke is, that's a face. So I think getting, getting out there, staying top of mind with your referral partners is key. Building those foundations and then, you know, second to that is, you know, you have to, you have to build your brand, right? So you're doing that by getting out in front of these people. You're getting your brand into the community and you're kind of like that vehicle. And then once you're, you're doing that, I think a big thing that people miss is they don't build community with their clients. So it's like you're building community with your referral partners. You're getting involved in the community, making a name for yourself, getting your face out there. But then the other side is like, okay, well now you service these clients. Do you just service the, is it transactional? You know, do you just go out, you do the service, you collect the check and then you don't continue to build relationship. Well, you're missing out on opportunities. So we did this before, but we shifted our perspective. We used to like send out thank you cards or send out newsletters, but they were very sales driven. So like, you know, I'd send out, you know, multiple newsletters and stuff a month, but they were always like, hey, get 10% off, or hey, get 20% off on this service or call us by this date and sign up and we'll give you this. And it was just always sales. And what I had to shift is I had to start building relationships. So then my newsletters were no longer, hey, you know, reach out to us for this sale or whatever it was, hey, you know, today is my son's birthday. Send us an email, join us in wishing him a Happy birthday. We'll read him every single email that's sent in. And we appreciate you being a part of the SealPro family. Well, next thing you know, I'm getting like email after email after from all of these past clients who are saying happy birthday to my son. And you know, it's just building that relationship where they're like, like, wow, he's staying connect with us, staying connected with us on a personal level, not just for the transaction or like, you know, and of course, like we want to do future business with them, but it's letting them into our world. Right. And communicating that with them on a relational level. And that keeps us connected and, and then, you know, they're gonna start to like, feel like they're part of our family. Right. Like they know my wife's face, they know my kids face, they see what we're doing, they, they part of that through, through those interactions. And so then you just stay top of mind and then more business comes out of that. And I have plenty of stories where, you know, like, just even those simple newsletters and thank you cards and stuff has turned into repeat business or more business.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. And I think the big thing that we run into a lot, you know, doing digital marketing consulting is people, they want to hit so hard in these emails of like, no, we got to have a sale. We got to have something in here. And it's like, like people don't want that over and over. Maybe once, maybe once or twice a year, there's some special sale, but other than that, it's just adding value. Maybe sharing a customer testimonial, maybe cross selling something, but not a hard sale. Because why would people want to get hit over the head over and over for painting? It's like, hey, I might only do this once every couple years. Why do I need to. Yeah, you know, that kind of stuff. So I completely agree with you. What about like Google reviews, like building a brand online? Is there something that shifted from just like obviously like paying for leads to something else? Are you doing anything different from that end?

Oh, yeah, I mean, I definitely as, as my mindset shifted from like the digital, you know, lead services or whatever. I definitely had to change up my strategy and intentionality on social media.

To.

Really focus on building relationships and making sure like people saw us as their local professional painters and so definitely got a lot more involved in social media and using that as a tool. And then also, I mean, Google's always been a strategy for me and I think that's Just like for me it's like common sense. You know, I sit down when I think about my approach as a business owner, I think about how I feel as a consumer. Right. And what, what are those service companies that I interact with that give me those feelings of like, wow, I want to work with them. Or like when I think about this service, this is who I think about first. Or you know, why did I go with this company versus this one? And then all I do is I just like reverse engineer that back into my approach of like, like, well, I went with that company because maybe they didn't have, you know, five stars, they had 4.8. But the one with five stars had three reviews and the one that had 4.8 stars had a thousand. You know, so it was like, it's like a no brainer. Like, well, they have more experience. They obviously like on average that that's not a bad track record to have like a thousand reviews and have a 4.8 rating. So, you know, it's just, I'm like, okay, well having a lot of reviews matters and having them frequent, you know, like, not just like, hey, I got a review six months ago and then I got another one today. It's like consistently getting those reviews coming in is important because I think Google looks at that, but I think also your customers look like, look at that, having a good amount of reviews. And that's a big strategy for me. We recently started using CallRail so that we could really definitively say like, like, hey, this is where our leads are coming from based on like the call tracking and a hundred percent RGMB is like our top performing lead source. So it works and it's, it's easy to do, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. One of the things that I'm curious about is you created a service contract for painting, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, yep.

So what, it was that part of the, the coaching that you got and like how did you go about that or what? Yeah, how did you come up with this idea? And like, how did you do it? What did you, how did you figure it out?

Well, like as a business owner, my I, I think of my business in like two ways. Like one, I'm either building it for legacy to pass it on, like to like I have a son and a daughter. If like in the future, down the road, they wanted to take over it while I'm creating like a generational tool for wealth. Right. So I want something that has longevity, has a lot of value. And then secondly, if, let's say, you know, 15, 20 years down the road, my kids are like, I don't want anything to do with the painting industry. Forget your painting company, dad. Well, I want to be able to sell it right? Have an exit strategy. So what I understand is that if you can have reoccurring revenue, that's going to get you a higher return when you go to sell. Because now not only do you have just like a book of business where you've done these one off jobs, but now you have this reoccurring revenue where like you go to sell it and you know, an investor wants to buy it. Whatever you're able to say, hey, we have like X amount of guaranteed revenue that is coming in annually from our service contracts. So really I wanted to do it from like, of building value in my business. So that was one part of it, it to like better my future exit strategies. And then secondly, I wanted to do it to, you know, with painting too common, you're going in, you're doing a painting project and you, you don't talk to that customer for, you know, until they need painting again. And painting's not one of those things that you do, you know, over and over again. Most of the time. It's usually something people do like every 10 years or 15 years. Right. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to kind of find a way where I could stay connected to my customers and draw out the lifetime value of each customer. So I knew if I could create a service contract, then that means, okay, well now I'm not just doing that one off service and then never seeing them again for 10, 15 years, but now I'm going to be at their house, you know, one or two times a year. And so what I did is I just thoughtfully went through like, you know, data of saying like, okay, how long does it take for us to complete these different services? And I was like, these are services that we could offer that wouldn't take, you know, too much time. They could be done in a timely manner, four hours or less. And we can offer this as a service contract to our customers. So that's what I did. I have a list of different services that the customers can choose from. And just from doing this for, you know, as long as I have, I know that we can finish those projects in a good amount of time. And we pitch it, you know, by telling our customers like, hey, like there's a few different ways, like there's been like for people who have HOAs and they have like these small projects that the HOAs get on them for, like, hey, you know, you need to repaint this trim because it looks horrible. Well, most painting companies aren't going to want to come out or they're going to charge, like, a lot of money to. To just come out and do something that's only going to take, you know, an hour to do, right? Or they. Or they won't be able to get through to anybody. They. They'll just call these companies and they'll be like, hey, it's not worth my time, you know? So now that's a solution where these people call us and are like, hey, our HOA is on us for this, like, and I automatically recommend our service contract. Hey, look, let me save you some money. I'll get you on our service contract. Here's the different services. This falls within it. We'll come out. We'll take care of that. If anything comes up, you get up to two visits per year, and my guys are in and out. You know, get those little jobs done quick. Front doors, like, we get those calls all the time. Like, I can't find anybody to come out and paint my door. Everybody's says it's not worth their time. It's not a big enough project. We take them like crazy now, and they're easy for my guys to do. The other thing is, is, like, we'll pitch it as, like, hey, are you a family that likes to entertain a lot? You know, do you have, like, parties at your house? Are you doing, like, family gatherings on the holidays? Well, if you're planning those, give us a call, schedule your service. We'll come out, we'll touch up all your trim, touch up all your doors. You know, make sure everything looks fresh and nice so that when you have those gatherings, your house looks great. You know, you don't have to be embarrassed that your doors and your trim are a mess. So there's like, a couple different angles that we sell it on, but it's worked and it's. It's been great.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds awesome. And if you're listening out there, if you do carpet cleaning, gutter cleaning, roofing, siding, doors, any of this stuff, like, these are all things that you could incorporate some in, like this H Vac they already got covered. Covered electrical, a lot of times just generators. But there's so many other things that you could get service contracts on. Have you seen, like, is there a specific price point that people are like, I don't know, man, but if it's like 100 bucks, it's like, yeah, it's cool. That's fine. Like, have you.

Yeah, for sure. So when I first started it out, I had this, like, particular price point, and I was like, oh, well, you know what? Maybe I'm, like, undercutting myself a little bit, and I need to, like, bump the price up. Because initially my mindset was like, I'm not doing this to make money. I'm doing. Doing this for, like, the big job that comes along. I'm doing this for being top of mind with my customers. Right. So I'm not. That customer's not going off. I'm losing contact with them. They run into somebody, you know, a friend, and they're like, hey, do you know any painters? And they. They're not even thinking of me. But now with the service contract, now I'm tapping into all of those referrals because I'm staying top of mind. So that's the trick. So I got. I got kind of, like, that strategy got kind of thrown off for a minute because I tried to raise the price. I was like, well, I'll make this profitable, super profitable. And. But that's not the strategy. So what I'll say is, like, I ended up bumping it up from a lower price point, and I'll just start out there. We charge 288 if you pay annually. So it's. It's 288 for the whole year if you pay up front. Front. And you get up to two visits. And I tried to bump it up to, like, 500 bucks, and there nobody was. Nobody was, like, biting. And I have some things that, like, keep me protected at that 288. Like, one. I say it's up to two visits, because if they don't feel the need for a second visit, well, that's fine. They'll just do the one. And that's where I make a little bit better of a margin. Right. The other thing, too, is it's up to four hours of service. So they don't have to use the full four hours of service, but it's up to that. So if they. If we come out and they only need this one service and it only takes us two hours, well, I made a little bit better margin on that visit. The. I'm trying to think the other. Yeah, so, like, having that verbiage in my contract that it's up to two visits. It's up to four hours. And then I also have in the verbiage that if you go over four years, then we'll charge you at an hourly rate that we have set. So that protects me. So like if my guys end up being there for five hours, well, we're not, we're, you know, making that money back on the hourly rate. So.

Yeah, that's great, man. So if you, if you get a hundred people on a service contract, you're at like what, 28, 000 or something like that every.

Yeah, yeah. Annually.

Yeah, but still then you're the sticky. The stickiness of it. It. And they're not going to use another painter when they need a whole house or they move or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was saying. The idea with this is not to think of it as like, oh, this is going to be like this crazy profitable cash cow where the value is, is like I just mentioned, is staying top of mind because you're tapping into those relationships, you know, and those referrals that your customers have. And our customers love it. I mean it's. When we, we get feedback about it. It's, it's. It's pretty awesome.

Yeah. The last thing a question I have about it is, have you. You mentioned about if you pay annually, is that like it's. I would imagine it's just easier to do annually than like monthly. And then you have to pay, charge them every month or something like that. It's just like here's an annual contract or what have you seen people wanting to do?

I mean most people just choose to pay annually so you get the money up front. So I, when I send over the service contract, you know, we use jobber, so we send it over and we have like the service contract terms as one line item which, you know, tells all the different services that they can choose from and how the contract works. And then we send over two options to sign up annually at a discounted rate of 288. Or you can sign up and pay monthly and it's still a year contract, but you'll end up paying $360 for the year. So $30 a month if you do the monthly contract. Most people just end up paying the annual fee. We require a card on file. They have to pay 100% of that cost up front. And then we schedule their services out.

Out. Yeah, that's great. I could also see like if you do a big project, you know, $10,000 painting, it's like, hey, why don't you get the service contract on here? We'll do a touchup in six months, you know, blah, blah, blah. I could see that. Very easy sale.

We Just wrapped up a. It was a big project, a $22,000 contract, and we got that customer on the service contract, and we, you know, their riverfront property here in Florida, you know, there's just the. Those homes that are on beachside with all the salt water and salt in the air. Like, you know, things just get tore up. So we pitched it to them, and we've got them on an annual contract. And, you know, it's. We also tell our customers, like, hey, if you sign up for our service contract at the time of sale, we'll discount your project. So, like, let's say they have a, you know, let's say a $10,000 exterior repaint. We'll say, hey, we'll give you 10 off of that 10,000 if you go ahead and sign up for our annual service contract. And so they're essentially, what they're getting is like, that service contract, you know, basically kind of rolled into their project.

Yeah, man, I love it. I think. I don't know many other painting companies that have something like that, but I think it's awesome. And I think you're definitely onto something. I had John Warlow on our show from Built to Sell that book, and he has another book called Automatic Customer, and he was talking about, like, there's so many ideas out here, and I know a lot of business owners that I speak with. It's the. The implementation is so hard to figure out. Scary. Yeah. And they get.

I mean, that's. Yeah, I can. I can say that that's a hundred percent. Like, I've had this idea for years, but I was scared to implement it because they're there. You're right. There's not a ton of painting contractors out there who do this. I don't know of any personally that have a service contract, you know, so if you have one, let's talk collaborate. If you want to have one, you want to learn how to do it, you know, reach out to me, but I don't know know very many. So I didn't really have, like, a model to go after, so I was just kind of like, oh, this is. This is a risk, you know, But I set it up, and it's been amazing. And, you know, I was scared for a lot of different reasons. Like, man, what if. You know, how am I to get to all these little jobs? Where am I going to fit them into my schedule? You know, are they going to be profitable? And it's. It's worked out amazingly, and the customer feedback has been. Been pretty incredible, too.

Yeah. That's awesome. Another thing I, I learned about you when I was doing some research was that we have a similar thing that we faced in our past, which was the scarcity mindset of things.

Yeah, sure.

It was for me. I'm. I'm broken out of it, luckily, and I'm very much abundance mindset. But I think a lot of times for, for people in the trades, you know, maybe they didn't come from, you know, all this money and they just kind of get into the trades and it's like, oh, I'm making some money here. I had a Josh Zolin on our show about blue collar is the new white collar. And it's like, you start making some money, but then it's so scary because you're like, oh my. The most money I've ever seen. Like, what do I do? And. And do I take this risk? Do I do this? Can you talk me through? Like, obviously you were kind of taking a lot of risk with all the stuff, but how did you. What's your experience been like that and how are you working through that? I'm just curious.

Yeah, so I had a really interesting upbringing. Single mom, she raised like me and my two other siblings, and then we had an older sister and my mom just ended up taking on her two kids. So it was a lot of like, burden for my mom to take on. And my oldest sister, you know, because of her habits and stuff, she created a lot of just turmoil for us and a lot of that ended up being in the way of like, finances. So, like, I mean, I. I've moved over 50 times. You know, in my short life, I've experienced being homeless. Like when I was like, I think I was 15 or I was living in the back of a beach store, sleeping on the stock shelves. Like, my bed was like folded up T shirts and I was like taking clothes off the rack to like wear them to school. I was like skateboarding down to my friend's house to shower, catching the bus at his house so, like, people wouldn't. I had one friend, a couple friends that knew about that. One of them, he's actually, his name's Ryan Blackwell and he was, was part of. He. He was actually. He's now a Purple Heart. He was shot in, down in Panama City when the. I guess it was the Air force base got attacked. And he was one of the people who got shot. But he was a good friend of mine and he knew about it and his family did, and he kind of knew about our financial struggles. But, like, I've lived in hotels, you know, like, family of, you know, what was it? Like, six people, you know, one hotel, sleeping on the floor. Just, you know, it was. It was rough. And so as I. As I got older, one of the things that I had to wrestle is, like, I really want for my life. Like, now I'm married, I have two kids. I want stability, right? So that can be, you know, you have to battle that mindset of, like, okay, I came from, like, scarcity and, like, not having a lot. And so, like, I. Sometimes it's. It is a battle to, like, take risk because I'm. I'm wanting to create that stability. I just had this conversation with somebody a couple days ago at lunch. Really, It's. It's still a challenge for me. And I. I tell my wife, I'm like, it's probably a good thing that I'm. I'm married to you and, like, that we have kids. Because if I. If I wasn't, I would honestly probably be an even bigger risk taker just because I know what it's like to not have. So it doesn't. You know what I mean? I'm, like, it doesn't scare me.

Yeah, right. Completely agree. Like, Like, I know what it's like to just, like, you know, eat macaroni and cheese every night. And, like, I'm cool with it.

I've been there.

You know, I'm cool with that. So, like, yeah, take all these risks. But I completely agree with you. I think when you have a wife and, you know, kids, it's like, okay, how can I, like, build a stable lifestyle for us and still take risk on top of it, but not be reckless?

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think it's. It's. It's tough.

I think, for me, like, if anything, like, having my family, it. It's like, it's made me very, like, in a. I. I just. I fight. You know, it's. When everything happened in 2022, like, that was my motivation to get up every single day and not quit, you know, and not give up when things got hard because it was like, okay, I've got my family and I. I can't just quit. Quit, you know? And so I. I think it's actually a good thing that I had that experience as a kid because I'm like, you know, I. I'm. I'm not gonna quit, you know, so it's. It's this weird, like, balance of, like, okay, yes, I'm not. You have to be willing to take those risks, but at the same time, Like, I'm not afraid to fail. And, and when I do, I'm. I'm motivated to get back up and keep moving forward, if that makes sense. So I would say, like, it's not that it's not there. Like, I still have that. That fear of, like, you know, scarcity or not being enough or not providing that stability for my family that I wanted so badly when I was a kid. It's still there, but. But they motivate me to push past. Past that, if that makes sense.

Yeah, makes complete sense. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. If you.

For sure.

What, what's. What's the biggest change coming in your industry? Painting. The trades. Like, what do you think is some of the big stuff coming? I don't know, AI painters or drones, you know, drone exterior painting and stuff. But what do you, what do you see? What are you seeing?

You know, to be honest with you, I, I haven't seen a lot in, in that sense of the, you know, how, you know, robots, you know, like robotics or AI. In that sense, I think the painting industry is kind of like behind the ball when it comes to, like. And I've talked on other podcasts with people about this, but like, professionalism and, you know, kind of professionalizing the industry, it kind of has been behind. When you look at other industries like H vac plumbing, you know, some of those roofing, they've kind of professionalized and, you know, they, they can attract some pretty top talent. And I think there's a smaller amount of companies in the painting industry that have, like, professionalized. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for companies to. That. That are willing to take on the challenge, to really lead the way in that. And that's kind of like, that's where my motivation is. And unfortunately, I feel like the subcontracting kind of holds back the painting industry because it, it keeps companies from create, like, creating that professionalism and you know, like, companies that have really strong foundations, in my opinion. But so, so I would like to see more of a professionalizing of our industry. And you know, I think people are entertaining AI in some sense for like, administrative stuff. But as far as like, technology, like, I, you know. Paul, right? Yeah, with Jock. I'm completely forgetting his last name right now, but Green Industry podcast.

Yeah.

Anyway, he'll like, post these videos of like, these robotics. Jameson. Paul Jameson. Yeah, he'll post these videos of like, these robotic lawnmowers. You know, like, I saw one in Orlando. I was like getting on to 417 and I looked over and there's this lawnmower just like cutting the grass on the freeway. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. But yeah, I don't know that painting is there yet.

You know, there's this company I'm gonna have the guy on. He's venture backed. I'm connect with him on LinkedIn. He does drone pressure washing.

Yeah, yeah, I've seen that.

Yeah, yeah.

This is like, I mean I, I'm not like a techie type person, but I would assume like for painting, like, like you'd have to have some pretty crazy prep work involved with the labor before you could like have a drone go out and just start spraying paint on a house. You know, I agree. I'm sure there's some like, you know, applications where, you know, maybe quality and precision isn't as much of a focus that you could get away with some of that like, like robotics and AI and automation and all that. But when you're talking about like going inside of somebody's house, you know, I just don't know. I mean, maybe there is a technology where you like map out the entire room and you know, maybe this robot like scans it and all you got to do is like mask it off and it's like. Yeah, it would be.

But thanks, man. So this has been great. Where should people get in contact with you? What's the best place to connect? Connect.

Yeah, I would say the best place to connect with me is probably two places. Instagram. I'm really active on Instagram. That's like my social media of choice. It's like a. Sounds like a drug. My. My social media of choice is Instagram and then Also my website, brandon se.com. my name's spelled B R A N d e n stool s E-W-E-L-L.com. you can also furita send me an email@brandon Sealpropainting.com and yeah, I'd love to connect.

Awesome. One other idea I forgot to mention. Do you have a seal of approval or anything seal related that's like catchy like that?

I mean, we have our seal, like our seal logo.

Logo. I think it would be cool to have like a seal of approval or some sticker or something that's like a plan.

Yeah, that's funny. No, I mean we put, we have these stickers that will like put on the paint buckets when we leave behind. But, but that's a. That's funny. Yeah. Like here, the seal of approval.

Yeah, there you go. Cool, man. Well this has been great. I really appreciate it and look forward to keeping up a conversation and building our relationship together.

Yeah, absolutely, Phil. I appreciate you having me on.

All right, talk to you later. Later.