Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business.

As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place.

Let's go.

Jason Phillips: Hello contractors, welcome to the show. Today I have another special treat for you. This guest is one of my favorite people in the business and I love his no nonsense approach. Brandon Lewis, founder and CEO of Painters Academy. Brandon grew his business [00:01:00] from flat broke, like a lot of us, to over 1 million in revenue repaint sales and 20 employees during like the worst recession since the Great Depression, as he likes to say.

And in less than five years, he went on to sell his business for over 440, 000 when the economy was still struggling. Brandon's an author and speaker. His works appeared in American Painting Contractor Magazine, Paint Contractor Magazine, InPaint Magazine, Professional Painting Contractor Magazine, and PCA Educational Outlets, just to name a few.

You probably already know this guy. But Brandon's worked with over 450 franchised and independent contractors in six different countries, ranging all the way from startups to 50 plus million dollar organizations. And he helps owners realize their dreams. Hey, welcome back to the show.

Brandon Lewis: I am excited to be here. [00:02:00] Thank you for that introduction. It was worth the 20 mailed you. And I'm a big fan of Jason. Jason spoke at our Painting Profits Summit a couple, two or three years ago, I can't recall about the very hot topic and it's getting hotter. Right now if my, if the reports from our members and in general in the industry are to be believed the dual employment W2 slash 1099 conversation is getting hot and heavy with the new administration.

And I believe that there's been a few of our members that got caught with their pants down to the tune of a quarter to half a million dollars, and we're going to see where it goes.

Jason Phillips: That is real and I talk to guys regularly that. Do not have that set up and that, that might could be another episode all on its own. We could probably even get a, a labor law attorney in on it as well.

Someone that could officially speak to it, you and I, we can speak our opinions and what we know, obviously we're not attorneys, but that is [00:03:00] definitely a risk and exposure that business owners have for sure. So Brandon, tell me, but by the way, before we get off this. I want to talk about your upcoming summit, but not yet.

I've got some questions I want to ask you. You were originally a painting contractor, right? So what prompted you to cash out there and start doing what you're doing now with Painters Academy?

Brandon Lewis: I've done a variety of things. Before I ran my painting business, I was in politics and non profits. And so I used to run U. S. Senate, U. S. House, state and local races. I wrote a book called How to Raise Money for Political Office. And ran political campaigns and really enjoyed it. I had great success at it.

I ran I think 13 of them and never lost one, but it was just, it was a meat grinder, and so I started looking for franchising opportunities. Couldn't afford it at the time, and ended up starting my own painting business. And after five years of that, I was also simultaneously getting ready, as I sold my business, I was running [00:04:00] Congressman Desjardins re election campaign.

I put his team together when he beat Lincoln Davis and flipped that seat. And I really am not the world's best manager. That is just the God's honest truth. Everybody will tell you they're great at everything. I'm not the world's best manager of people. But what I really was good at was sales, marketing, and putting operational systems in place.

Meaning if there was a problem that existed in a painting business, I would come up with a solution in a way that was reproducible. And it got to where, because everybody else was struggling so much during their session, and we were doing so well, that a couple of times a month, and I know that you get this all the time, somebody calling and saying, I got trouble with my business.

I got trouble with my business. I got trouble with my business. Can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? And after a while, I was like, maybe I'm better suited since there are a lot of contractors and not nearly as many people that really want to help folks, the business into the business.

Maybe I help people do that instead. And so I started out with a mixed [00:05:00] breed approach. And then I quickly just niched down to. Painting contractors, not because I think a man in a van business is much different from one to the next. I don't think it is, fundamentally, but clients do. Clients do. And so rather than have a 20 or 30 minute conversation about how the plumber is different from the painter, from the roofer, from the gutter guy, I decided I just would not have that anymore.

We would be the Academy for Professional Damn Painting Contractors, and I've never since had anybody asked me you would work for painting contractors? Yes, it's in the name.

Jason Phillips: is awesome. Man, where were you when I started back in 1997?

Brandon Lewis: Where was anybody

Jason Phillips: had to learn everything the hard way. I had to, so to say step in the wet paint so many times and trip and fall and waste a lot of time and a lot of money until I finally figured it

Brandon Lewis: lot of money. I wasted a lot of money too. Left a lot of money on the table when I sold my painting business. If I'd done it, if I'd done three or four different things from the beginning I could have sold that thing [00:06:00] for a million something instead of 440 in the same time elapsed, that's.

Wisdom comes from age and experience in most cases, and so that's just life, baby. You don't get to go back in the Wayback Machine. That's for Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and

Jason Phillips: So, you know, Your philosophy, I've been to your summit a number of times. Amazing event. Amazing event. Tremendous value. I hear you constantly talking about the importance of business systems over, making, the craft of painting. I like to call that just making your widget and how did you come to this realization or like you said earlier, maybe you're just a systems thinker.

Brandon Lewis: I suppose so. I can't paint. I've never painted. Two times I think I was 16 Dr. Garrett, I worked for a veterinary and tried to get me to paint a rental house. And three days later, nothing had been done. And what had been done was poorly done. And then again my, I built a wheelchair ramp with, for my grandmother, when she had fallen, I took one of our painters to Alabama.

We loaded up in the van and we built the ramp. I said we own a painting business. I guess we should paint the ramp. [00:07:00] It was terrible. My wife took the brush away from me. She said, you are never to do this again. And because I didn't have any painting responsibilities in running my company, I was like I've got to figure out production rates and job costing.

And I've got to find out how to work these B2B relationships and need to go after commercial repaints. This sales process is not very persuasive. What can I learn about that? And so I really, at the beginning, I had a lot of time on my hands. And I had to spend all that time marketing because in 2008, everybody was holding onto their dollars and you had to put in twice as much marketing to get half as much in the way of leads and revenue.

And so it was put up or shut up time. And I had too much pride to fail even though I probably made a bad decision at the time making my transition, but I wouldn't admit that to anybody then, I'd do it now. And so I was just forced to do it.

Jason Phillips: Man, just talking to you is just making me think back to that time that in 2008, that was, for those that were [00:08:00] in business, that was an interesting time. A lot of contractors went bankrupt during that time. A lot.

Brandon Lewis: Yes I'll tell you a quick story. I founded a thing called the Chattanooga Trades Association, and I'm a big, huge fan of B2B referral relationships. I don't know why people don't invest more time, energy, or effort in them. I think a lot of people just aren't relationship focused, but. I went around this, I've got this idea, we're going to survey our clients we're going to have a bi weekly meeting and we're going to exchange these surveys every time we do an estimate.

It was remarkably successful because, we saw 20 estimates a week or so, they saw, 14, 27, however many they saw. They checked 70 percent of customers would fill it out, they'd check 2. 1 boxes, we got together and swapped these things around. And it amazes me how remarkably receptive in 2008 people were to Anything.

Anything that would make the phone ring. If I went to present that idea, maybe today they'd be a bit similarly interested. But if I had gone to present that idea, two [00:09:00] years ago, everybody turned their nose up at it. But in 2008, everybody's I'll, wha...