Effective Strategies for Hiring and Team Building in Painting Business with Amer from Contracting.com

So michael yeah , essentially saw something in me and you know , I saw his , his job application looking for a sales manager . You know , I'm like a young , young guy . At that point I'm like , oh , I would love to have the word manager in my name , like that sounds cool , I can flex on my friends . All it was was door-to-door , so that's all it was .

But he wanted me to progress to like sales manager and learn that . So , uh , he ran a fantastic painting business . I mean , he's one of the most systemized individuals I've ever met and a really great leader . I think some of the greatest leaders are ones that are able to hold their frame in front of different people and under different circumstances .

The values that they create they can really hold . They're not just like a plastic bag in the wind . Michael was like that . So I wanted to make as much money as possible and I wanted to learn under his mentorship on how to build like a great business , and so that's exactly what I did for that summer and picked up on a lot of skills .

Probably one of the most important lessons I took away from Michael was the importance of integrity and doing what you say you're going to do and then also doing what is expected of you .

And the reason that hit well is all business is is a bunch of promises , expectations and agreements that you have with employees , customers and the paint store , and so your ability or I'll say more specifically , my ability to identify these quote unquote contracts and agreements and then execute on them was in direct relation to how successful I could be .

So I took that away . But I learned how to go door to door , I learned how to do estimates , I learned how to train other people to go door to door and I trained how to manage other people that did estimates . And then I learned how to paint .

And then I learned how to manage a painting site and how to manage a paint , a painting site and how to manage multiple crews , and so he had me doing everything . I kind of climbed through the ranks , asked a lot of questions , listened to a lot of books , listened to a lot of great podcasts , like yourself , and that's really what I focused on .

So the end of the year came around and he hated . He lived in Toronto , ontario , canada . He hated the traffic in Toronto , hated it Like out of 10 out of 10 , he's like I can't stand being in the car this long . So he decided to relocate his entire business to White Rock , bc . And so he moved and before he left , I had this conversation with him .

I'm like , hey , michael , because I looked up to the guy , what do you think I should do ? And he looked me square in the eye and he said I think you should run a business , but you should do it with a franchise .

You're still new at this and even , and despite you know , whatever talents you have , there's more structure , more systems , more coaching and support . That's out there for you , that is available . Take advantage of that before going out on your own .

And what he really was talking about was the danger of like ego and different people define it differently , but one of my favorite authors , ryan Holiday , he it as like um , an inflated sense of self , um , and so you know he got me really into self development . Michael holly , and and you know this concept of ego was important .

I know it's kind of a side tangent , but I think till this day I have to be very wary of ego because it kind of just sneaks up on you . I know Warren Buffett talks a lot about like your circle of competence , doing what you're good at , and always marking down your skills to what they really are .

The problem with ego is it makes it seem like you can do you're great at some things that you're not , which causes a lot of problems . And the bigger the business , the more people are responsible for the more dangerous it can be . Ego is the enemy . Ego is the enemy . That's the yeah , a great book man .

I come I come to that , come back to that book , like almost on a yearly basis .

And so , with ego in check , lessons in hand and a good identification of my circle of competence , I decided to join a franchise and , powered with the mentorship I had the mentorship that was available there for me In my first year did around like this was back in 2017 , 18 , something like that Did around 225,000 .

I had a foreman , seven employees and I sold everything through door to door . And what was really powerful about that model was because , again , my name is Amr Abushakra . I'm like this Middle Eastern kid . I grew up in the Middle East , came here when I was 12 years old . I have no connections . I'm the oldest of two brothers .

I had this ambition to build something , but I had no connections , no word of mouth . I looked like a baby , you know . So why would people trust me ? So I had to rely on a marketing method that also didn't cost much money because I had no money . So I had no money , had no prospects , had no reputation .

Door-to-door saved me and getting good at door-to-door continues to give me and my business partner immense power and advantage over any of our competitions . So , powered with all these things , we did really well . I did really well there . The company record at the time the franchise has been around for 40 years .

On average they've overseen around like 70 locations per year . So they've probably we're talking about 2,800 to 3,000 locations they oversaw . So the record for like a first time painting business owner was like 157,000 . So I was able to break that record by a bit , which was cool .

And then when I came back I wanted to do another year with the franchise , but with a goal . Goal number one never touch a painting brush . Goal number two make over 150,000 . Goal number three train and manage a competent project manager and sales rep .

That's why I wanted to come back and at the time in the franchise , the all-time record the greatest company that was built within it was $310,000 . That's how much it did in a year . And just for clarification , it's not like sales I'm talking about , like produced work . Okay , yep .

So the year chugs along , I create my goals , I start building these systems and we were able to do it . I did $500,000 . In my second year in the franchise . I had a sales rep that sold for me . He wasn't with me the entire year but he was with me for a little bit . He was able to sell around .

I think it was 150,000 for me and I had a project manager that managed all of the paint , all the material and all six of my job sites . Yes , it was amazing .

It was like an incredible feeling that I feel like every person should take advantage of . And , um , I'm a big proponent of always sharing and talking about not just revenue but also profit . You know this is a business podcast and so I think a lot of us know revenue is vanity . It's a vanity number , profit is sanity , but really cash flow is reality .

You know , which is why I actually like what you're doing with the bookkeeping for painters . You keep people humble . You know you have these guys celebrating they're doing a million dollars and then you look at their cashflow and it's like , hey , bob , you made 50 , grand brother . You know it's like that doesn't work .

So on my 500,000 , I took home just around 180,000 net . So for myself personally , not like money in the business or anything like that which was very proud of .

And then you were leading the team , so we would typically , for someone in your position , we would be like recommending you know , try to hit 25 or higher . And and so you blew that out of the the water 36 , yeah , is it amazing yeah , thank you .

It was pretty , he had like an assistant and a driver , it was kind of like a cool business . But he always kind of reminded me it's like hey , man , like it's all good , you landed this $14,000 full exterior , but like we'll celebrate once you actually deliver on that promise and once you make some good profit . And you know .

That really kind of stuck with me .

I was still a full-time student , by the way , the entire time I'm running this business , um , but there was one incident . There was this painting company in this area in Toronto that was around for 20 years and it was this guy who had like 40 years of experience as a painter Way better of a painter than , I think , al Ivery .

We drove him out of town Way more talented at painting . Way more talented at painting . Way better of a painter . I want to make this clear .

We had no customer complaints , five-star reviews , we accomplished what we needed to accomplish , but the fact that he had to leave his neighborhood , where he was known , was primarily because we outperformed him as business operators , that's it .

And so I was doing some reflection , some some reflecting of July on that last year , that year , and when I was doing that 500 K and I was really asking myself like how many contractors out there are exceptionally amazing , gifted and caring about the trade that they're in , but simply lacked that .

Michael holland simply lacked those systems and insights that I was so fortunate and really feel blessed , uh , to be able to to land . You know , I always think about like luck and you know the role God played in my life and all that . And I think I'm a very hardworking person .

And if my dad decided that me and my brothers were better off in Jordan or for whatever circumstances , I think I would be running a little makeup and perfume business and I wouldn't even know what the hell my potential was .

So I feel very blessed and grateful and I was like , okay , well , how can we maybe create a space to kind of pass on these blessings , these lessons ?

So I got permission from the executives of the franchise and even got it again like the , the blessings of the top guy from there , to be like , okay , hey , you know , um , you can , you can , even , you can go and help these people . You can go , take some of the systems you've learned and you can go share them with the world .

And one of the executives in student works , his name is patrick . He basically took the franchise from five million to this year , 2024 . They're going to finish at 35 million system sales . We're talking about 20 different locations , some painting businesses , some window cleaning , I think , just painting locations . We were talking about a plus across Eastern Canada .

So him and I partnered together in 2020 to start Contractingcom . I'm a majority owner and his role . Really , I wanted to use his clout , his experience in the industry . I needed a partner who was walking the walk on a daily basis , actually practicing what we preach , and then I would go run the consulting firm .

And so him and I developed and started Contractingcom , really from that vision and really , if you ask me what's our mission ? I think I summarized it here perfectly . Our mission is to help contracting business owners combat chaos , complacency and ignorance through learning , coaching and systems , developing them into integrous leaders for their clients , team and family .

So our ICP , our avatar , are moms and dads with kids under the age of 10 . And they've built this business purely from word of mouth and they're starting to realize , holy smokes , I can do much more . And they usually get stuck with hiring competent crews and then hiring a project manager , hiring a sales rep or hiring an office assistant .

And they come to us and we help them find , hire place , train , manage and systemize these people for success , while making sure that there's enough work coming in to feed everybody in the company . So that's a little bit of kind of like some overview .

. Were you born in Amman , jordan ? Or ? Yeah , I'm on jordan . How do you know ? I'm on . I've been there a few times . Uh , it's awesome , I love it . I love it . Are you serious ? What are ?

yeah , I came here when I was 12 , okay , and then started doing the uh , working with your , the painting business that you start out with , and you were just in college or maybe in high school college and then student works painting started that franchise , scaled it to 500K , beating out all these other franchisees that had done it in the past with amazing profit

margin , and then partnering with Patrick to start Contractingcom in 2020 , helping contractors learn and grow their business . No , that's an amazing story .

Maybe you're a painting business owner and you've been doing all the sales and production management . Maybe you have a couple of crews but you need to bring in that first salesperson , that first production manager . What should we be looking ?

I will dive into more the tactics and the strategy and the how-to's , uh . But here's like a self-assessment whether or not you feel like you're an A player . I read this poem and then , depending on how I feel after reading the poem , I'm like oh shit , or okay , cool . It's called the man in the Glass . You may have heard this before , daniel .

When you get what you want in your struggle for wealth and the world makes you king for a day , when you get what you want in your struggle for wealth and the world makes you king for a day , just go to the mirror and look at yourself and see what that man has to say . It isn't your father or mother or wife whose judgment upon you must pass .

The one whose verdict counts most in your life is the one staring back from the glass . He's the one you must satisfy beyond all the rest , for he's with you right up to the end and you've passed your most difficult test . If the man in the glass is your friend , you may be one who got a good break then think you're a wonderful guy .

But the man in the glass says you're only a fake . If you can't look him straight in the eye , you may fool the whole world down the pathway of years and get pats on the back as you pass , but your final reward will be heartache and tears .

If you've cheated the man in the glass , it's awesome I haven't heard that one yeah , man , that's a contractingcom exclusive . Here you're here first . No , I actually got it , uh uh , from university , one of my friends , uh uh , it was a fraternity , sigma chi , and they had a bunch of rituals . This was .

There's some gold in some fraternities , but yeah no , uh . So I say that , daniel , because every time I struggle to retain or hire somebody , it's really because like I just wasn't worth it , man , I just wasn't like worthy , like the best .

I truly believe the best way to get anything you want in life is to deserve it , and like I just didn't deserve to have a good team at certain points . And so I think that level is what made me kind of really understand how important it is to not only have a business that has the cash that deserves to pay people .

Well , like , if you want a top employee , like a sales rep or a foreman , you got to have the cash flow for it , right , so that's why working with you would make sense . But once you have the cash foundations , it's like , are you actually worthy as a leader ? As a leader ? And there were many times in my life where that wasn't the answer .

You know I would show up late in my spare time , I'd watch a bunch of youtube . I'd care about you know , uh , how I looked on instagram . Um , I would delegate things , not out of a place of efficiency , I would delegate out of a place of laziness . Some of my personal habits , you know , wouldn't eat healthy food , fast food here , fast food there .

I mean it's just like all there . Once I've actually cleaned up my shit , then all of a sudden , it's like the right people show up . It's like , oh , this is interesting . Okay , when I actually have integrity , when I work hard , when I lead by example , people want to show up . That's cool when . I work hard .

When I lead by example , people want to show up . That's cool . So these were some of the things I learned with Michael , and I was very lucky because in my first year of business I had no one churn . Every person I hired returned for that second year with me .

And in my second year , with 16 employee , only one person actually ended up quitting and it was all in amicable terms . So I was able to really create and foster this culture of performance , of care , of service for the customer , and here's how I did it . So , number one , I cleaned up my act and then number two it .

So , number one , I cleaned up my act and then number two , I think most people think of hiring as kind of like an admin task , but really it's more like marketing . So what you put in is what you get out , and so I think that's kind of the best analogy is you go to Angie's Leads , for example , and if you're going to Angie's Leads , god help you .

I hope you find a better way to get your leads . It's fine , it's a great company , but I don't know if I would bet the bank on their leads . So let's say you pay for leads , you get the leads , you convert the lead in an estimate and then you then need to service that customer .

The framework is similar when it comes to building the team At least that's how I think about it . I need to generate a bunch of leads zip , recruiter , indeed , direct outreach on LinkedIn . A more complicated , sophisticated way is actually like scripting , writing out , filming and launching Facebook ads . That leads into a hiring funnel .

And please , at any point , you want me to expand into anything ? Just let me know . I'm going to give you the overview of how I think about this . Once you generate the lead , which is in the form of an applicant , you then need to qualify that lead . Is this the right person ?

Sometimes I would get like a school bus driver who's applying for a job as a project manager on Indeed and I'm like how the heck did you get in here , man ? Which is okay , that's normal what we actually found for like a project manager , you need around like 300 applicants before you hire one person . That's kind of like the ratio we found .

But once you have that , you got to find a way to swift through it . So you need , like an individual who can look through the resumes , know what to look for , what's a green flag ? What's a red flag ? And then move them into a quick 10 to 15 minute phone interview . Hey , do you have a driver's license ? Hey , are you afraid of heights ?

Hey , can you carry more than five pounds or whatever ? This is a quick competency check and if they are competent because some guys might have like a DUI or something . But part of what allowed me to get the profits that I wanted to get is I found a lot of painting .

Business owners get bogged down with needing to purchase vehicles for the company and so if you can actually just find and hire people with vehicles , you can already just remove like a giant $20,000 to $30,000 expense . So there's like a level and standard that I set for the type of person I would hire , and so all my guys had their own vehicles .

That was key . That was key . Now , of course , what I typically hear , by the way , from contractors we work with is nobody wants to work in my town . The economy is tough , anybody who's worthwhile is already hired . You know the common things .

So I'm just going to break that down quickly , because if you believe these things , then you're not even going to try to hire , and if you're going to try to hire , the first thing you want to do is generate leads . So here's this analogy . Daniel , you ready for it ? I'm going to ask you this question what city are you in ?

Again , remind me orlando , orlando . Um , how many people live in orlando , in city , roughly ?

Let's say I like rented out a football stadium and I got everybody in your city to show up in that stadium where you sat in front of them and you presented what the job is look like . Do you think it's possible that we can find one or two competent individuals to hire for a specific role ? Yes , dude , the answer is absolutely yes .

Now sometimes I get somebody saying to me well , no , not really , amar , because , remember , everybody that's worth hiring already has a job . That line of thinking discounts , daniel , is that there's guys out there who used to run a contracting business , who are retired , guys who are just moving into the city .

Guys who are working at a company that are leaving because their pay was capped . Guys that are working at a company where their boss is shutting down the business .

Guys who are subcontractors that are now realizing I don't want to be a subcontractor anymore , I just want to work for a company , so like , and then guys entering the workforce , guys that are like , just like by graduating university , so that's just now that we've broken that belief down .

We need leads , so we need a like a a metric ton of applicants coming in , and so you bring the

applicants in and then you have to go swift through them . So if you have a good filtering system which I can go more in depth in , like again , because we've probably done like with Patrick's business , my business , the customers we've worked with , like our clients , contractors , I mean we've probably done over um 10 000 like , way more than that .

I really like just kind of like 15 minute interviews and and easily a multiple thousand in-person interviews . So that's what the funnel looks like . You have direct outreach , linkedin zip recruiter . You can use uh recruiters or or placements or or agencies okay , great , you bring those in , you interview them , you do the sales process .

Now , if they're good , you first do like a , a phone interview , an in-person interview , and then you bring it out to audition for the day because you got to test their heart skill . So you measure their heart , their soft skills , over the phone during the in-person interview , like over . Zoom is what I mean by in-person .

And then you bring them out to the job site and here's what's key . It's super simple . Anybody can do this create a list of , like , the top five skills that are required for the role .

So , for a painter , like , you got to know how to put up a ladder , you got to know how to sand , prep putty and you got to know how to roll and you got to know how to like , cut or edge . Okay , great , bring him out to the job site and ask him or her to do those five things and then just observe .

And then then you know , you see them pick up the ladder and they're like nearly breaking the windshield of the car next to them . They don't know the two to one ratio or three to one ratio . They go up on the ladder and looks like they've never climbed a ladder in their life .

Okay , now you see them like sanding and you know they're kind of like sanding way too aggressively and like way too tight . You see them put putty they have no idea how to like . You know navigate , you know the tool and you see them paint and they literally open up a paint can and then dip their entire paintbrush in there .

You know , I'm sure everybody just cringed at that idea right now , but that's how you measure hard skills . You gotta , you gotta , bring them out if they have the soft skills . So that's how you measure hard skills . You got to bring them out if they have the soft skills . So that's what that process looks like .

If you like them , you have a contract sit-down meeting , you get clear on the expectations . You make them an offer . He says yes , now you've got to treat that employee as if he's your own customer . Right , that's how you retain them . So if you have a customer , what would you need to do ? Set expectations and make sure they're taken care of .

Daily communication , you know all these key things . So you got to do the same with the employee . There's got to be a good , solid onboarding program . Hey , here's these YouTube videos you got to watch . Here's these five skills you need to work on . Here's like my garage at home or this charity job that we have that you can practice these skills on .

So it's not an actual client's house , which is a little tip .

If you have a door to door team , just ask them to look for a door where the people need painting but they can't afford it and offer to paint that house throughout the entire year and you're going to use that house to basically bring people that you're training on that house so you can work on the back of the house that nobody could see .

I had a customer like that . She had MS . She couldn't afford to paint the house . We worked on her garage for the entire year . End of year came around , she just paid for the paint . We cleaned it up for her at the very end . We End of year came around , she just paid for the paint . We cleaned it up for her at the very end .

We use that as a job site to just kind of test stuff out so you can find people like that .

And then , uh , all of a sudden you zoom out and you realize , holy smokes , I have a hiring , onboarding and training funnel , and the quality of that hiring , onboarding and training funnel is determined on you and your quality of leadership , which comes back to the man in the mirror . So that's the 30,000-foot view .

We are talking to people , selling to people , selling to people , hiring people , training people , firing people . Yeah , paint is just like the excuse you're knocking on their door with , like that's just like . It's just the vehicle , um , and it just happens to be that , and I get it , I get it . The vehicle for some people is roofing and painting .

But , like , if you had to draw it out as a percentage of like , what percentage of the business is actually related to managing the paint and taking it from the can to the wall ? It's not the majority of it . It's definitely a very important piece , but the majority of it is exactly what we're talking about here . It's managing humans , including yourself .

Before you lead others , you must learn to lead yourself . Before you manage others , you must learn to manage yourself .

You got to continually run that machine and if that machine is falling apart , you're not going to be able to hit your , your goals , cause it's your , your production won't be able to keep up with your , your , your marketing .

So I love , I love how you're looking at it like that , that that hiring is just your hiring process , is just like your marketing process .

You get the leads , or , in this case , candidates , you qualify them and then you interview them , take them through that process and treat them like a customer when you onboard them , to give them that great experience so you can retain them .

I can bring some call recordings that you and I can review together live of a painting contractor doing an interview and the red flags he missed and why that happened . What a good onboarding training is , why most leaders or painting business owners just can't retain people and what character traits they should look out for , how to hold people accountable .

What a good culture looks like when you should create mission , vision , values . I mean , I can go in depth here Because again , we were able to kind of grow this to like 35 million . So there's just like a bunch of little pieces and puzzles .

But if you're listening to this and you're recognizing that you're stuck on the tools , you're working evenings and weekends , you have the work in place , you're booked out like a month or two in advance , but you just can't seem to find a good painter , can't seem to build a solid crew , can't seem to find that pesky foreman or project manager to help replace you

from being that driver driving materials around and driving for like 30 hours a week from job site to job site to shortwing , williams and back and all the other places , um . Then open up your phone , go to go dotcontractingcom , gocontractingcom , fill in your information . We will send you a video .

There should be a video there that explains our methodology , what we do and our guarantee is that we can get you off that job , specifically off the day-to-day task , in 60 days or you don't pay . So if you're stuck on the tools , we can get you off the tools , and if you're stuck , uh , as a foreman , we can get you a foreman .

If you're stuck in the office , we can get you an office assistant . Now , obviously , for that guaranteed to work , you have to carry your own weight and we're very selective in the people we like . We work with um because it just does take and effort . But that's where you can find me , that's what we are world class at .

And if you're curious about our client results , just go to contractingcom slash reviews or you can just Google contractingcom .

I believe we are the most reviewed consulting company for contractors right now in canada and I believe the united states I want to say the united states we literally have like 10 hours plus of client testimonials and and some really incredible , incredible stuff . So our expertise is in painting .

We we run a painting business , but we work with contractors alike because , again , we run people businesses . Whether you're doing roofing or painting is that ? But the nuanced parts of painting we understand wholly . So if you're listening to this and you want to at least jump on a call with my team , see if we can help you out , send you some free resources .

By all means , go to gocontractingcom .

You know , there's this old saying in programmers like for programmers that build softwares they say garbage in , garbage out , and so continue listening to these podcasts , but I would say the biggest lever would be to surround yourself with like-minded people .

So if you're in that Facebook group that Daniel's talking about , I encourage you to message a person today that's in the community , say hello , jump on a call with them , build a relationship , find , find out how they're smarter than you in different things . People are generous . People who have achieved

certain things want to help . So come at it with that frame and don't be afraid to ask questions . So , uh , daniel's obviously built a great community , so use it .