Networking, Marketing, Sales, Business Coach, Painting Contractor

EP40 Mike Katounas: Family Confrontation, Combating Cancer with Faith, while Succeeding in Business

SUMMARY:

Today we sit down with Mike Katounas. He is the owner/operator of Home Works Painting in northern Virginia, just outside of DC.

Mike’s father was a painting contractor and therefore, Mike gained a lot of experience painting. However, when Mike was younger, he had absolutely no interest in being involved in painting long-term.

After completing a master’s degree in health education, Mike looked at job prospects and was not impressed at the pay those jobs offered or what they entailed.

He then received an offer from his father to go back and work for him and eventually take over the business.

Mike accepted, but ten days into working with his father again, he got fired.

After multiple more hardships, Mike eventually decided he wanted to become an entrepreneur by starting his own painting company.

However, the tough times were not over, as Mike was diagnosed with cancer a few years after starting his business.

Mike tells us the story of his business from the beginning to where it is today.

It has gone through an abundance of changes due to Mike’s battle with cancer, the recession, and Mike’s realization that his company’s culture had to change.

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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How important it is to persevere
  • Mike battling cancer while balancing his business
  • Marriage advice for people who run a business and their spouses
  • Dealing with “hitting a wall” and assessing your company’s culture
  • When to decline a job, including getting past approval addiction

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LISTEN HERE:

QUOTES:

“The best advice I got was from a roofing contractor that I met in my first year of business…He said, “do whatever you have to do to survive [a recession], because if you come out on the other side, you will be a lot stronger and a lot better.’”

“When you’re actually wrestling with the idea of ‘you may not be around a year from now, or months from now,’ you start getting a perspective of what’s important and what’s not.

“It just felt like an ‘every man for himself’ kind of culture…I decided I was going to change that and really try to change everything we were doing to make it a place that I wanted to be at and create a team environment.”

“My first ten years of business, I was running based on what my dad taught me. A lot of it worked, but it wasn’t going to help me scale and last for a long time.”

“Never stop learning. No matter how old you get or how long you’ve been doing this, the moment you think you’ve got it figured out is the moment you’re moving backwards.”

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HIGHLIGHTS:

[03:53] How did Mike get started in this business?

[14:14] What were Mike’s thoughts and feelings when his father did a total 180 and started helping him out?

[22:47] Mike gets told he has cancer yet doesn’t freak out?

[32:10] What does it look like with four employees and the leads starting to come again?

[44:15] What did the future look like after growth began? Catching us up to today, is Mike still making the same amount of revenue he was around 2011?

[49:48] What are some things Mike did to make the shift to a better company culture?

[54:45] What does Mike think the biggest paradigm shift has been for him?

[1:01:22] What has made the biggest change in Mike’s business?

[1:12:23] Is there a final point that Mike would like to make?

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LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Join DYB

Traction

Crucial Conversations

Necessary Endings

QuickBooks

TSheets

MailChimp

PipelineDeals

Smartsheet

Basecamp

Yesware

Estimate Rocket

Wunderlist

Schedule Your Free Strategy Call With Steve

mike@homeworkspainting.com

ADDITIONAL FREE RESOURCES:

Schedule Your Free Strategy Call With Steve

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Connect with Mike Katounas on Facebook here

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About the Author

As many of you know, my journey has been one of grit, grace, and transformation. At 19, I was a high school dropout, single father, and struggling paint contractor in Michigan. I later moved to Florida, where I faced both personal and professional hardships. With nothing left to lose, I turned to prayer—and was blessed with a relentless hunger to learn. I devoured books, attended seminars, and discovered better ways to streamline and grow my business—even through the Great Recession (and yes, I did hit the wife lottery along the way!). In 2014, I published How To Double Your Business and later sold the painting business, launching a new chapter: coaching others to grow their businesses. For the past 10 years, I’ve dedicated myself to helping business owners scale through the DYB System, while also drawing from frameworks like EOS, Scaling Up, and The Four Disciplines of Execution. Yet something was still missing—something more adaptive, integrated, and complete. Then I found Pinnacle. After months of research and interviews with other Guides, I joined Pinnacle. Their tools and strategies have exceeded every expectation. Now, as a Pinnacle Business Guide, I help leadership teams implement a custom-tailored operating system that draws from the best in the industry—but flexes with your unique business. It’s a dynamic, proven approach to achieve clarity, momentum, and lasting growth. I’m no longer taking on any more 1:1 coaching clients… Instead, I now specialize in working with visionary business owners who are ready to get their leadership teams aligned—around a clear vision, a focused strategy, and an actionable execution plan. With the tools and process I now have as a Pinnacle Business Guide, I help turn alignment into momentum, and momentum into results. If your business is growing—but your leadership team isn’t fully rowing in the same direction—let’s talk.