How To Find All-Star Painters During the Summer

Are you hiring in the middle of summer and there is nobody available to be hired?

I want to tell you how you can work around that and it may help you out a little bit.

I am Ron Ramsden, a DYB coach and a painting contractor in Massachusetts.

I want to tell you a little story.

Few weeks ago I was talking to another contractor, a very large contractor here in Massachusetts.

I told him that I was looking for help and I could use a few more painters.

He replied, “Oh, you are having a hard time finding painters?”

I said, “Yes, I am.”

He said, “Whoa! If you are having a hard time finding two painters, how is it that I can find 120 to 140 painters?”

That made me stop and think, “What am I doing wrong?”

It’s not that we are doing anything wrong, it’s just we are not doing enough!

Think of it this way.

He has 120 to 140 painters and I can’t find two at the time and you might be in the same boat as I am.

Right now, as I am writing this, it is about 10:30 on a Saturday night.

I just finished returning some emails to some applicants who emailed me later on today.

I wanted to get right back to them by picking up the phone and calling them but I want to show you a couple stats before that.

I want you to think about this and maybe we could do something better than this.

As I said earlier, we are not doing enough.

We are all doing the same things.

Most of us are just throwing an ad out there, talking in our networking group or mentioning it at the paint store that we are looking for help.

We have to actually take enough time every single day and work on it like it is part of our business.

It shouldn’t be just about a quick 5 minute ad thrown out there.

We have to dedicate time every day to find a new person and I am going to show you some stats.

As of this month, we are at 3.9% unemployment.

The last time we’ve had 3.9% unemployment was 44 years ago, in 1974.

Many of you painters weren’t even alive then.

You weren’t even a thought in 1974.

1974 was the last time unemployment was this low.

I always say that if someone wants to work, they are working.

This unemployment rate is probably because of the people who really don’t want to work.

That’s just my opinion.

How important is it to really dedicate time every day in your search for your next painter?

I am going to show you some more stats.

According to the industry averages, every employee is worth about 100,000 dollars.

We are going to take a range, an employee worth $75,000 to $100,000.

The average, throughout the painting industry, is about 11% net profit.

I’m not talking gross profit, I’m talking about the net profit in your pocket.

All said and done but at the end of the year, 11% is very low in DYB terms.

We know people who are doubling that on a yearly basis.

Let’s take 11% net profit.

At $75,000, the net profit will be $8,250 and of course at $100,000, it will be $11,000.

If you work on getting a new employee and you are taking 11%, this is what the new employee is worth to you at the end of the year.

On a low, it is $8,250 and 11% of $100,000 is $11,000.

Your net profit is higher than that.

I am hoping it is and if it isn’t higher than that, send me a message and we can work on that.

Let’s take 15% net profit.

It’s a great net profit.

You could be making a little higher than that but we are going for 15%.

15% profit on $75,000 will be $11,250.

On $100,000, 15% profit will be $15,000.

If you look at this, you’ll see that even if you went with 11% on $100,000, that’s $11,000.

That’s almost $1,000 in your pocket at the end of each month.

If you can’t spend half hour a day, working to hire someone, I don’t know what to tell you.

You have to work on those employees.

We have found a couple of different ways that work very well for us.

Ads:

We are all putting ads out there.

We are putting ads on Craig’s List, Indeed, monster.com and some other online places.

We are even using our neighborhood.

We are putting messages out there so all our neighbors know that we are hiring.

We have one ad sign in the back of our vans, to let people know when they pull up behind us.

They might not call on the first one but if we are parked on a job site and little Johnny needs to get a job, at least he knows that we are hiring.

Online Presence:

I am talking about all of social media.

We have Facebook ads.

One useful method is employment services of Facebook.

Post the ad there and give your rewards if someone joins.

Give something extra.

Look at the money you are not going to put in your pocket if you are not giving a $300 signing bonus.

You are eventually going to make up that $300 within 30 days.

Stop and Call:

When you are posting an ad on Indeed, Craig’s list or anywhere else, if someone applies for that job, take a moment to read it.

If it is someone that sounds decent and they want to go on to the next conversation, pick up the phone right there.

Millennials use instant feedback.

They have lived with phones and computers.

They don’t do recordings.

They don’t have a phone on the wall that you can call back later on.

They are applying for the job and they are expecting a call right away.

Signs:

It includes the ad on the back of the vans.

If you are working on a job site then why not put an ad sitting up right up front saying, “We are hiring.”

Put your name and everything else right next to the other one.

Social media:

Write an ad right across your name on social media.

Let everybody know that you are hiring.

ASAP Contact:

If you see that someone has applied for a job, jump right on it and call them right back.

Don’t hang back.

Change your ads:

If the ads you are using are not working, try different ads.

In the DYB community, a lot of us have tried a new ad out there.

The experienced painters are all working.

If they want to work, they are working and that’s true.

There is a whole generation that haven’t done paintings yet and we are willing to teach them.

If we can’t find experience then we are going to have to teach them.

Who are great painters that we can find?

People who have worked with people and customer service.

They are used to working long hours and they’re probably not getting paid enough.

These people are often found in retail.

We have some great ads in the DYB for retail and food services people that you can use.

Share your Culture:

When you are in the paint store and you are talking to the employee behind the counter, there might be a couple other painters out there.

Let the employees at the paint store know that you are taking the entire crew deep sea fishing.

You can try talking loudly so that everyone in the store can hear you.

You could talk about your bonus structure or some other things you do on a monthly basis.

You could talk about your breakfast meeting, “Oh yeah, we are taking the crew out on Monday on a regular breakfast meeting.”

This is going to start turning heads out there.

It’s all part of the grand plan of hiring new employees.

DYB:

We can also help you because we are hiring so many new employees that the DYB system came out with a painter training site.

If you would like a link to the painter’s training site, send me a message on the email I have put at the end of this post.

I would be more than happy to hook you up with that.

Commit more time:

You have to commit more and more time to recruit and to find painters who are currently not happy with their jobs.

Make your culture be known that how great you are treating your employees.

Ask your employees to spread the news.

Once you start working on it you are going to be a magnet who attracts new employees to your business.

If I can help in any way, please let me know.

Share some ideas.

I would love to hear your ideas.

You can reach me at ron@dybcoach.com

You can also send me a Facebook message or we can talk on the phone.

I would love to hear from you.

If you want to know more about DYB, go to joindyb.com.

Hiring is tough, we have to put more effort into hiring.

Half hour or 45-minutes jam session a day can help you alot.

If you do this for a week or two, you are going to find new ways to reach out and you are going to tweak those ads out there.

Make them be seen!

I just wanted to pass this information.

I wouldn’t have written a post at 10:30 on a Saturday night if I didn’t think it was important enough.

Have a great day and happy hiring!