Asking for a discount

One thing that always drives me a bit crazy is the discount shopper.
Now everyone wants the best deal I understand that I am referring to the one that we spend a ton of time with, discuss the entire project and take the time to present a proposal and then.....

Can you do any better?

This drives me nuts, do you go have a nice dinner and at the end ask if you can pay less?
I equate this to someone not respecting what it takes to complete a job on time and correct, the way they asked for it to be done.

Here is a short video that goes into more detail .

Snow day but not really

A snow day when I was a kid was a day to have fun with friends and not have to go to school and for some adults, this is the same just subtract school and add work in.
But when running a business is there really a day off?
Since I am writing this blog that answer is no.

A day off, while everyone is off, is the perfect day to catch my breath and evaluate things that are moving so fast on a normal day. When no one is in, customers have no demands time moves slow and I can check in on almost every process in our company and trust me there are a ton of them

We are always striving to make each process better for us and our clients, on a typical day they are all work in progress, continually updating, changing and updating.

Wehn things slow down, I can track the success of them, remove some and add others.
I bet the most changes I make come on Sundays and holidays while everyone else if off and it is most likely the least favorite of my employees when they return to work the next day as 100% there will be changes and evaluations

It may be a painting company however, we are really filling the roles of many different trades such as color consultants, psychologists for our customers and employees, human resources, delivery drivers, carpenters, cleaners and much more. Not too mention the sales aspect and accounting.  It seems as if I am pulled in so many different directions.

This is why I am steadfast on my time, I strictly enforce my available time and delegate many tasks to the appropriate person not working on the day to day tasks but managing and training the employees to make their own decisions as I would.

So a snow day to most is fun and relaxing a snow day for me actually means extra work , the normal days are less work as my team is back in.

Who we do not hire

Finding new employees is a difficult process in the first place adding to that finding painters is even harder.

It seems in this business we are lucky if someone has a drivers license, a vehicle, can pass a background check and that usually rules out 75% of potential new hires for us.

I thought I would simplify this and explain exactly what we look for and maybe it can help you in your own business. Being picky for us has been great in most ways, of course we are limited on man power but those we have are all very capable in holding their own

Top Red Flags and personality traits we do not like

• If you live in any city the people who double park when there are multiple spots in front and behind
• People who do not have the courtesy to hold the door for the person behind them AND let them go in first
• Not saying yes sir and yes ma'am , this may seem old school but we offer this respect to everyone we meet daily
• Someone who does not look you in the eye when talking to you, this always is a red flag and we do not hire those people
• No personal accountability, always blaming others or making excuses
• Asking how much they will be paid before they come in for an interview, I have canceled a few interviews because of this, we do not want money to be the number one motivating factor
• Stating you will only come in if the job pays well, again similar to the above issue
• Not showing up early, on time is late for us

We have most certainly limited ourselves as far as the total amount of painters however we have drastically increased morale and quality of work so working off our list above we will continue to be choosy who we bring into our family