How has Ryan Amato Painting handled the paint shortage?

Ryan Is Guest On Marketplace News

September 30, 2021 at 7:46 pm | Category: Business, Company News

Ryan was recently asked to explain the paint shortage all painting manufactures are going through on Marketplace

Here is the Audio

Paint Shortage

A mix of factors, from an unusual freeze in Texas to ongoing supply chain issues with raw materials like resin, have resulted in a paint shortage. Sherwin Williams CEO John G. Morikis even told investors that “the persistent and industry-wide raw material availability constraints and pricing inflation we have previously reported have worsened, and we do not expect to see improved supply or lower raw material pricing in our fourth quarter as anticipated.”

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with business owner Ryan Amato of Ryan Amato Painting in Easton, Pennsylvania, to talk about how his business has been weathering the shortages. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: Paint shortages, really?

Ryan Amato: Well, we’ve been hearing about it for well over a year, and then the pandemic hit, so that was an issue. There’s been, obviously, a labor shortage so the truck drivers delivering the paint, that’s been an issue. There was the freeze down in Texas, and they supply a good amount of the resins, which is an ingredient for all the paints that we use.

Ryssdal: Yes, it’s a chemicals-heavy process, right?

Amato: Absolutely. It’s an ingredient. Just like you bake a cake, it’s one of our main ingredients in the paint, and we’ve had a major shortage of it.

Ryssdal: So what are you doing?

Amato: Well, I like to think that we’re well prepared at my company. So, we have great suppliers and vendors. Unfortunately, if you came to our shop, I’m looking at about 500 gallons of untinted paint sitting on pallets; just so we’re prepared for our customers, we’re ordering in very large quantities of paint.

Ryssdal: The catch, of course, is that untinted paint is no good if I need to paint my house blue, right?

Amato: Absolutely, yeah. And there are so many different bases of paint, so if you need a dark blue it’s a different base than white, so we just we’re trying to do the best we can to stay prepared for you, for the customer.

Ryssdal: Alright, so let’s make it about me. I do, in point of fact, actually need to have my house painted. How much of a lead time do I need to give you before you can say, “Yep, I’ll be there on Thursday.”?

Amato: That’s a great question, and it’s been a struggle. Historically, in our business, when we win a job, your job, we send you over a color sheet that you have to fill out. Normally not a big deal, give it to us a week or two before the project starts, and that’s typically in between four and six weeks. Now, we’re really twisting your arm behind your back; we need that color sheet a day or two, after your job is accepted. So we need about two or three weeks to make sure that we have the proper materials for your project.

Ryssdal: And I imagine, Mr. Amato, it’s going to cost me more, too, right?

Amato: It’s certainly going to cost you more. We’ve seen it’s been about 20% since really only about four or five months ago, and [a] 40% increase in our epoxy floors, which is pretty significant.

Ryssdal: I imagine you’ve got to go to your supplier, right? But is this one of those where you could find another source, and try to do it that way? I’m sure you thought of that.

Amato: And that’s what we’ve been doing. The only problem with that is — there’s many different suppliers and we all know them — paint is not all the same; you can’t just grab one gallon of paint and go to another vendor and grab another gallon of paint and it performs the same way. So not only are we seeing issues with paints we haven’t used before. It has also slowed down our production, our labor, because they’re using new paints. It requires different paintbrushes. They all perform differently. It’s been been a learning curve all around, not even to mention just the shortage of materials.

Ryssdal: That’s kind of wild that paint is not paint is not paint. It’s all different.

Amato: Absolutely.

Ryssdal: How long you’ve been in the painting business, Mr. Amato?

Amato: I’ve been in the painting business 30 years. I hate to say that. I feel like I’m getting older.

Ryssdal: Tell me, you ever seen anything like this?

Amato: No, never. The only other issue we had was … it’s always been labor. You know, we had some issues after 9/11 with labor and the amount of jobs. This has been very difficult.

It may be cold but it's time to think of your exterior painting

It may be cold outside but it's time 

to think about your exterior painting

It may be cold, rainy or snowy outside but we are already in February and it is certainly time to plan your exterior painting.

Most professional painting companies are already scheduling their Spring and Summer work, I know we are and if you wait too long you could end up with a company you didn't intend on using.

On our end, our exterior estimates have never slowed down, we schedule at least one or two every week throughout the winter, it is also the time facility managers are setting their budgets for their Spring and Summer work which means very large jobs can take a chunk of the schedule at any moment.

So we recommend first knowing what you would like to have painted, is it the entire home, the trim only, some doors or a deck? Have that plan ready when we arrive. A customer who knows exactly what they want painted makes it so much easier to establish the correct price.

We like to walk around the home with the customer, carefully listening to their expectations, timeframe and then the discussion about their budget. Having a discussion about the budget at this time, face to face is the best time to review and adjust as needed.

Your going to have to trust the company you choose to do your painting work and discussing your budget is one of those areas you have to be open and honest. A company you can trust will not take advantage of this discussion.

After all of this is out in the open, we can go over the timeframe and schedule. With exterior painting work, you're going to deal with many things, such as weather, unforeseen things like rotted wood and a few other things. 

In the Northeast where we live and work, we deal with humidity, rain, heat, wind, etc. It seems like we experience every type of weather possible. Being experienced enough to know you have to work around this weather, there is rarely a perfect day to paint in our area.

A professional painter knows how to work around this type of issue, some days starting later in the day pr ending earlier in the afternoon to avoid the sun, freezing temperatures or other things. You have to at this point put your trust in the painter you chose to do your project.

A good exterior painting project will deal with delays, unforeseen issues, weather and more and you as the customer may never even know about these things if you have a good painter who has experience dealing with them.

An open dialogue is also very important, communication is the number one area a project may go wrong. Keeping proper expectations and being open to discussing the project each day is important for a successful paint project.

10 Free Paint Jobs

10 free Paint Jobs

We are offering 10 free painters for the day for property managers, facility managers or operation managers who have not used our painting services before.

Some companies have not used us or do not know about our services and what better way to find out by trying us with a no-risk,no-cost day of painting? 

Why?

Why not? The facility will get a free small paint job and in turn, when the painting is needed in the future "we just ask to be considered for that work, that is all that's expected" says Ryan Amato

If you already have a painting company and are thrilled with them that is awesome, don't lose them or switch just because of a lower price. But if your not happy or have had issues we would love to be able to show you what we can do for your facility or property

The catch?

There is none, you supply the paint and any materials, we will bring one painter for 8 hours of work, typically a painter can paint the walls of a small 8x10 room, or maybe some doors. We won't be able to do exterior work, epoxy floors or anything other than the 8 hours of work which may eliminate some work, heavy patching. What we suggest is contacting us, we can come out and take a look at the work to show you what can be done or not.

Win-Win

It's a win-win, best case you love us, you get a free small paint job, worst case, you don't and we never have to see each other again and you owe nothing except a little paint, tape etc

Contact us through this link 

Why using subs isn't a bad thing

Why using subcontractors doesn't have to be a bad word

We all have heard horror stories about subcontractors, they messed up our yard, or house or insert any other area of your home or business but the same can be said for employee-based companies as well.

We had been there, 25 plus employees working each day, missing work, calling off, their truck broke down, they have no license or any other excuse in the book. Jobs took forever because it didn't matter to them how prompt they completed jobs, they were paid hourly.

Jobs became longer, schedules compacted onto each other, no one was seemingly happy except for the painters who were making money with no cares in the world until one day when it all changed.

Pay For Performance

We decided to try a production-based pay, now the first thing I knew that would happen is we would lose the underperforming painters, I didn't realize how quick though. When someone realizes they aren't as good as they think I believe the realization the feel hits their ego hard. They blame the company, they point fingers at anyone but themselves, they have zero accountability, for us, this was all a precursor to using subcontractors in our painting business, just like many other companies you use each day such as the cable company, contractors, landscapers, roofers they all may use "subs"

The switch

Once all the underperforming painters were gone it was time to make a switch to using subcontractors, I have to admit I totally changed my perception of this practice from over the years, once I saw there were companies that didn't want to deal with marketing, sales or the other business aspects and solely wanted to perform the work we had a match that was perfect. We are good at finding top talent and making sure they are successful, to be able to do this on your own as a client is a tough task, so we took it all away, we hire, fire, schedule and manage the project, being a liaison between the painters and the client to make sure it is a successful project.

Not always smooth

It wasn't all roses, there were mistakes, bad contractors, jobs that we had to correct just like every other painting contractor.

But what happened is one day we had all these great contractors around us, bringing their positive attitudes, great work and low and behold jobs were getting done at a pace we always expected. Great review after the review came streaming in and in the office, the happiness meter went way up.

Sometimes the preconceived notions about things are completely not true and this was a huge one for us.

The S word

So the next time you hear the word remember it is just a different way to pay someone, a sub receives a 1099 and that is the only difference, you should never feel any sort of different experience when working with any subcontractor, remember they only want to make you happy too. While the other employees are milking the time our subs can come in and get the real work done.

Epoxy Floor Easton,Pa Full Flaked

We recently completed this fully flaked epoxy garage floor in Easton, Pa

This project started with cleaning the concrete as it had oil and other car fluids on it. It is important to do this before you do anything else to the concrete.

After cleaning we used a diamond grinder to properly prepare the concrete for adhesion of the epoxy. Once we cleaned the floor we applied a polyurea/polyspartic product along with a full broadcast of epoxy flakes to the epoxy.

After that step we let the product dry and we removed the extra flakes, cleaned the floor again and applied a clear coat to the entire surface. Needless to say it turned out amazing and the client was thrilled and left a video review for us.

Here is a video of this project

Painting in cold weather

When is it time to stop painting in the Lehigh Valley?

The Fall is on the way and that means leaves changing colors and falling, Halloween, Thanksgiving and yes cold weather.

We are asked each year when is it too cold to paint and that is a great question and it depends on a few different things.

Typically in years past you would need to stop painting around 50 degrees which really limits the season in the Lehigh Valley to paint exteriors but with the new paint formulations Sherwin Williams has many pints that can be used down to 34 degrees. This means we can extend the exterior painting season possibly months ahead. We actually painted well after Christmas a few years ago.

We do have to remember a few things, when we say the temperature needs to be 35 degrees we are referring to the surface temperature of the material you are attempting to paint. So if that is metal such as aluminum siding the surface temperature may be a lot lower thence  the air temps. 

We use the information from the local weather channels and temperature and surface temperature gauges. This is very important to know, you may be able to push it a few degrees but much more than that and you could risk paint failures such as peeling, flaking, discoloration and more. Plus you would void your manufactures warranty from any of the manufacturers and trust me they will go back and look at the dates and local weather reports.

So what happens in the Fall is there is no guarantee an exterior painting project can be done, so we typically tentatively schedule these projects with the risk it may need to be done in the next Spring.

For instance we had approximately 10 projects push into 2019 from last Fall, although they are the first projects to be done it still takes time to go through those jobs, not every person can be the first job.

The Fall can be a great time to paint and do exterior projects, you don’t have the direct sun to contend with much or as much rain as we see in July and August, it’s cooler so we have longer work days as we are not contending with higher temperatures and the paint doesn’t instantly dry which makes it easier for the painters .

Most painting companies will be very experienced dealing with the weather and there is no need to micromanage this or delay the project because of a few degrees here and there and can actually add additional costs because of delays. Trust who you hire and remember in most cases they have been doing this a long time.

Epoxy Floor Solutions

From the early stages of the installation process to the long-term maintenance needs, Epoxy floor coating offers a number of benefits and advantages for the Commercial property owner. It’s important to mention that the application process must be completed by a team that has been factory trained and certified by the manufacturer of the product so that the installation process will run smoothly and go off without a hitch. When applied correctly by a seasoned team, the Epoxy floor coating service is fast allowing a company team to get back to business in a timely manner. Even the dirtiest, oldest concrete floors can be transformed quickly into beautiful, sophisticated looking surfaces both durable and easy to clean as they are resistant to germs, bacteria and mold. When applying the coating, a variety of colors can be used to create patterns and a unique high-gloss finish. Contrasting colors can be used as well to create safety zones, forklift traffic zones, even the company logo.

Epoxy floor coating not only provides a hard wearing and long lasting surface, but it is also resistant to just about everything — oil, gasoline, chemicals, scratching and chipping, heat and impact which truly make epoxy coatings the ideal flooring solution for warehouses, industrial plants, health care facilities, food distribution, manufacturing, and many more. In addition to these benefits, epoxy floors are cost effective, environmentally friendly and have the ability to increablob:https://www.blogger.com/13fd44e1-0b5d-422d-aa73-4ed8f501b190se productivity by enhancing visibility, reducing wear and tear on transport vehicles and allowing for timely material movement.

At Amato Painting, LLC., we take great pride in having a crew of highly trained experts who are professional, manage their time effectively, and provide top quality craftsmanship. If Epoxy Flooring sounds like a flooring solution for your company, please do not hesitate to reach out to us for an estimate. (484) 821-7112 or email bidrequests@ryanamatopaintingllc.com

Beware of the painting estimate

Beware of the painting estimate

One thing about the contracting business right now is there is plenty of work for everyone which is a great thing or is it?

When you have a surplus of work it means pricing can sometimes go down which could be a good thing for a homeowner but guess what it also means a few bad things which we will list below.

• A surplus of work means lack of qualified painters, with young people not going into the trades as much, as usual, it had become a market of unqualified labor
• Anyone is starting a painting company and can have work, but the bad thing is they are not experienced at business and when you have an issue down the road will they still be in business to correct it?
• Those companies are driving down pricing which again pays for the experienced painters leaving room for unqualified labor to create issues throughout the area
• Those companies are giving estimates that are incorrect, impossible to do a project correctly and changing the industry pricing for the entire area for the time being.

Remember the lowest price usually does not mean the same type of work as the other companies, when you go shopping for a car and look at a BMW and then go to a base model from Ford you cannot expect to get the same quality car, why do you think this is different when working with contractors?

Someone made homeowners believe a contractor is a commodity and we can simply shop from one to the next by simply choosing the lowest price. if someone is choosing the lowest priced contractor I would be leery of working with that client

Of course, I am generalizing here, not every new contractor is bad and not every contractor who has been around is good.

Here are some tips when having an estimate done.

• Be home at the estimate to discuss your expectations
• Develop good communication with the estimator
• Be open and honest on what you need and want
• If your simply shopping prices, let them know up front, they may not want to be a party in that and we can all save some time
• Let them know what is most important to you
• Have you had any issues with contractors in the past?

Simply being open and honest can save a whole lot of issues and missed expectations down the road, no one wants a bad job and no contractor wants to work for a "difficult" client who really is one where the expectations weren't discussed or met

Get To Know Us Episode #1 Meet Chuck The Painter

Get To Know Us Episode #1 

Wouldn't it be great to meet the people who are doing your work? Well we thought the same thing so this is a new segment we will be doing called Get to know us   

In this first episode you will meet one of our senior painters , Chuck has been in the painting industry for a long time, he loves painting as you will hear.

Chuck brings a sense of joy and excitement to every project, he puts his heart and soul into his painting projects and takes them very seriously. After a project is completed he loves to look back at the projects and work he created.

Chuck's hobby is painting

We are so lucky to have great people and Chuck is a prime example of the awesome people we attract and retain, he is like a big teddy bear but expects the best from his co-workers, to show up on time, do the right thing is just a given on any painting project he is a part of.

Check out our first episode below

Ryan in American Painting Contractor Magazine

Ryan was featured along with some of the best in the painting industry in this months American Painting Contractor Magazine in a column named Personalities in Paint.

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It was highlighting the social media personalities in the painting industry. Ryan has always from the start put out as much information as he could to educate not only other contractors but potential clients. “It is better to know what to expect than to waste time” he says all the time.

By using his YouTube channel a few blogs and many other social media outlets we have been able to reduce the wasted hours spent on going out to estimates that just don’t go anywhere, saving clients time away from work or having to call other contractors because we just were or were not a good fit for each other.

Ryan Amato Painting Wins PDCA PIP Award

Ryan Amato painting has won the PDCA PIP best commercial interior painting project award.
The Painting and Decorating Contractors of America (PDCA) is the only trade association dedicated to the success of painting and decorating contractors. PDCA provides members with industry-specific tools to become better painters and business owners through participation in education programs, local networking meetings, use of PDCA Industry Standards and more. 

"We are honored to be included with some of the best painting contractors and owners in the industry" Ryan Amato said
"To be honored and recognized by your peers is a feeling that is hard to describe."

The project that won this award was right in our hometown of Easton,PA.
The renovation of Paxinosa Elementary school. For us, this was one of the largest projects we had done up to this point. 

With a difficult schedule and always changing paint conditions, we finished the project on time and within the budget.

Why I started a painting company

Why start a new business?
The long hours? Sleepless nights, always constant worry?

It all seems like a ton of fun from the outside, you can set your own hours, have loads of money, freedom, no boss but in reality, you have a hundred times the worries of a normal job.

You now are responsible for the jobs of your employees who sometimes don't appreciate that or understand the worries and concerns you have. You now have thousands of bosses, from the clients to the general contractors, vendors and more, all of them you have to answer to at one point or the other.

You now have overhead, the office, trucks, equipment, bills, taxes, insurances, workers compensation and more.

The, you can set your hour's thing is out the window, how about working from 6am to 10 pm every night when the business first starts and that's a light day.

many things come into play when you are your own boss but fun is not generally one of them most of the time.

So then why do we all do it? We love it and wouldn't want it any other way. The stress you end up feeding off of, the fast-paced lifestyle, the ups, and downs.

Here is a video of why I decided to start a painting company.

Free Touch Ups For Life

News Flash

Amato Painting now offers free touch ups for life on all full residential interior painting projects.

What does this mean to you? Once per year, we are reserving January and February to come out for up to one hour and do minor touch ups of the work we have done.

Areas such as trim, walls can easily be touched up with the remaining paint left from the original project.

It also a great time to get some other things done.

Amato painting continues to be a leader in offering extra value to our clients throughout the Lehigh Valley and beyond.

Details available 484-821-7112 or at bidrequests@ryanamatopaintingllc.com

Paint It Forward

We were thrilled to call our 2017 Paint It Forward winner today.
Thanks to a Sherwin Williams sponsorship and the generosity of our staff we were able to give a $3000 paint job to Peaceable Kingdom , a facility that is a nonprofit shelter for animals.
Animals for us are dear to our heart as Ryan himself has adopted two dogs from the local shelters and have become a huge part of his family.
We cannot thank everyone enough in supporting this cause and we cannot wait to do it again next year.
Stay tuned for before and afters of this project.

Moving to our new location

We have been lucky enough to move to another location.
We have moved to Bethlehem,Pa to service our clients better and have more room for all of our equipment and staff.
None of this is possible without our great painters, staff, and clients.
Please check out our new location in this short video tour.