Why YOU Aren’t Making More Money Painting…

First, let me say this: I know that talking about money is “triggering” to many painters.

Many will claim, loudly, that they “aren’t in it for the money.”

If that’s you and it’s true, there is no need to read this message. Just keep working for peanuts… you’ll always have your pride, right?

For the rest of you… those that see making money as more of a “puzzle” to be solved and less of an emotion to be felt, please read on….

First, let me lay out some conceptual frameworks I think you need to take to heart. These are the mental prerequisites for making money in this business. Without understanding them, you will be led astray – most often by yourself.

These are the foundational principles of REALITY I’ve watched the world’s wealthiest painters use to find financial peace and quality of life. They are, in essence, guideposts that will lead you down the well-worn path of the successful painters that have gone before you.

Here they are, in no particular order…

#1 – Making Money is About MATH, Never Emotions

When you go to the bank, you deposit numbers. When you pay your painters or the paint store, you give them numbers. Not once, ever, have you traded your emotions for something of value in business.

Emotions are not a form of currency. Yet, inexplicably, many painters feel their emotions – how they feel about their painting business or how it should be operated – will change the numbers. It can’t.

If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I’m not a numbers guy,” you’ve sentenced yourself to a life of poverty.

Let me ask you to do something. Say to yourself three times aloud, “I love the math in my painting business. I can learn the math in my painting business. I will improve the math of my painting business.”

I know you can, because I’ve seen hundreds do exactly the same.

#2 – Building Wealth Is a Skill & Discipline You LEARN In Addition to Painting

When you read the birth notices in your local paper, you never hear that a doctor, chemist, plumber or manager was born – yet you read where they die. This means that somewhere between birth and death these skills were learned and developed to a degree of professionalism.

For the life of me I cannot understand why painters will gladly spend years or decades developing what they do with their hands, but never what they can do with their MINDS! It is your MIND that makes real wealth – the kind that isn’t tied to the hourglass – not your hands.

At some point in your career, if you want to build wealth and equity for your family, you must decide to get serious about the “business end” of your business. Not just the trade skills.

#3 – Time Is the BINDER for Wealth

So, I can’t paint and I’ve never painted – even though I ran and sold a successful painting business. That’s why I never give painting advice. Yet, poor painters, inexplicably, are always FULL of business advice for other broke painters. And, as I have been told again and again, they know more than me because they “paint.” Yet, I digress…

However, I will give you a paint lesson today: There are three major components to paint.

First, The body – It’s the bulk of what’s in the paint can, most often the “white stuff”

Second, The pigment – This is what’s squirted into the can to color it.

Third, The binder – This is the small amount of expensive metals and chemicals that BIND the body to the pigment.

Even though the binder is a small part of paint, it is essential for holding everything together.

In like manner, your TIME as the owner is the BINDER for your painting business. The 4 to 8 hours a week you spend doing things that are IMPORTANT but not URGENT. These are the very things that will help you make more money 30, 60 or 90 days from now.

If you cannot manage and prioritize your time, if there’s always some minor emergency or errand that “MUST” be done, you are screwed. And, you can’t be helped.

No amount of wishful thinking or emotionalizing can change this fact. You must be committed to setting aside a certain amount of time each week to build the business of your dreams.

Rich painters use their calendar as shields. Poor painters use them as sponges.

Show me a painter’s calendar, and I can predict his wealth – or lack thereof.

#4 – Your Painting Business Is Made of Stand-Alone Systems

There is no such thing as a car. It’s simply a collection of parts that work together to achieve a specific, designed result. The engine does one thing and the brakes another. The engine turns the transmission, and the transmission spins the wheels and the tires grip the road.

Each part does its own job as designed… unless it doesn’t. If the tires are bald, your car will slide on the road in wet conditions. If the engine is failing, you may not be able to climb a hill over 35 mph.

If the transmission is broken, there may be jerks, shudders or the inability to go in a certain gear.

When your car needs a repair, it’s always a certain part that needs fixing or replacing. Not the whole car.

It’s the same in business. Production rates, job costing, persuasive selling, client retention, client reactivation, commercial prospecting, running effective crew meetings, performance pay, scheduling & managing direct reports are all… STAND-ALONE-SYSTEMS!

And, just as there is a right way and a wrong way to go about painting surfaces with a specific paint with a certain applicator, each business system has a best-practices method that works well in the real world… and ways that do not work at all.

#5 – Yes, Sequencing & Prioritization Matter

When you paint a house, you pressure wash, scrape, sand, spot prime, paint the first coat and then the second coat in that order. Generally speaking, you start at the top and work your way down.

If you did this in reverse order, the results would be disastrous.

There is a proper sequence. And, not all things of are equal importance.

This same principle applies to improving your business systems that build your wealth. Not all business functions or systems are of equal importance.

Just because you “feel” something is essential in your business does not mean it is. Often, painters get stuck “majoring on the minors” or obsessing over things that don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things… while leaving the critical (and often unknown) elements completely broken – or absent.

When you begin to work on improving your business, there is an order of operations that must be followed.

#6 – Wealth Is Attracted to Speed of Implementation & Repelled By Sloth & Indecision

In my line of work, I can only really help people by first conducting a business diagnostic. I need to gather metrics for revenue, cash-flow-to-owner, gross profits, close rates, client list size, average transaction size, charge rates, pay rates, etc.

I need to know, quickly, what business systems are absent, broken or high-functioning.

And I also need to ascertain if the painter is even open to making real changes in their business – much less if they are fully committed and determined to succeed.

As you might expect, some accept my help. Others, despite living in poverty and frustration for decades, still have to “think about it.” Which, for the life of me I cannot understand.

However, I do not push indecisive people into making decisions. Indecisive people are very, very hard to coach… and they often will not take action even if they pay to enroll in our programs. Even though it’s in their best financial interest.

So, most often I’m happy to see them go.

Nonetheless, I have conducted about 200 “2^nd Diagnostics” for painters after a few months or years of someone dragging their feet. I suppose they think things will magically “get better” or they’ll figure it out on their own.

To my knowledge, I’ve never seen it happen. Not once that I can remember. The truth is improving your business is hard enough when you have mentorship, peer support and done-for-you tools and systems that are sequenced properly. However, without them, it’s a fool’s errand.

A painter can no more turn himself into a businessman without practice, training or instruction than I could turn myself into a Master Painter without a similar amount of effort and guidance.

No. Wealth is attracted to SPEED. It’s attracted to BOLDNESS. It’s magnetically pulled to massive action.

Handwringing, waffling, and procrastination are the hallmarks of the poor. Victory is only for the courageous… Sadly, these are virtues that our culture no longer honors.

In Closing

If you’ve read or watched this far, you obviously have the desire to build wealth and change your life. You know, in your heart of hearts, something isn’t right.

You know you need to take action, but what kind of action?

Let me recommend two things:

#1 – Join Me for a Live Training: The Rich Painter’s 5 Factors for Financial Success & Joy!

It’s this Thursday, February 15^th, at 4PM Eastern and I hope you can make it. It’s taken me 10 years of coaching 500 painters to arrive at these conclusions and methods and I dare say you’d benefit to avail yourself of them.

#2 – Let’s just talk.

Email Brandon @ PaintersAcademy.com and I’d be happy – no ecstatic – to speak with you about your painting business, goals, dreams and problems.

No matter what you do, know this: Making money in painting is a learned skill.

It’s a skill I’ve seen mastered by the old and the young.

The black, brown, white and red.

In commercial, residential & industrial painting.

Those in bustling cities and rural countrysides.

And even those in 6 different nations.

You can do it if you have the will.

And I would LOVE to help you.

God bless you in all you do – and good luck!

 

Your Friend in Painting Profits,

Brandon Lewis