painting business, painting contractor, painting, business coach, painting

Painting Contractors: Know When to Say “No”

Hi there, Greg here from DYB Coach, and today I want to share with you a conversation I just had with a contractor.

I am sharing this with you for two reasons:

1. Stand up for your principles

2. Don’t let people take advantage of you

We just recently completed a job with a new contractor that I’m not too familiar with.

Everything went smooth with the job, without a hitch!

The job was completed, we had some serious issues with paperwork, so we had completed some change orders and their project manager did not follow protocol, and return them to us in a timely fashion.

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So, we were not able to bill for a very large portion of the job, which created a huge problem with cash flow for us.

When they finally got to the finish line of getting payment from the owner, they got to send us our payment, and they wanted to do a joint check because the job was completed with our supplier, which is totally fine.

Sometimes, when you do a commercial job, they ask for what is called a “Lien waiver”.

A lien waiver comes from your suppliers and it waives the rights for the suppliers to put a lien on the building for non-payment.

We were totally fine with that, we accepted their offer on it, but they were already two weeks late on their payment.

When they send us the payment, they only send the joint check for our supplier, without our check alongside it, which is not a normal process.

It’s something that they created kind of at the end, they promised they were going to send us the payment.

Two weeks later, it didn’t come, so I already have kind of lost my trust in these people, but we had already signed a contract for another job with them.

After careful consideration in the meeting, internally in the company, we decided to go ahead and cancel that contract, and not proceed to work with them any longer.

We figured, at the end of the day, it was just going to cost us money and time, and it was not going to be a fun thing.

I am sharing this story with you because you have to know when to say “No”, and that’s part of being in business –it’s knowing when something is not going to work out.

Now, it was a mutual agreement between myself and the project manager on the next project, to cancel the contract, we both agreed on it –it was totally amicable.

You guys can do that too.

Keep that in mind when you are out there working on jobs.

You might get a little ahead of yourself with sales, and think that you have to keep things roped in.

But honestly, in my opinion, it’s worth it to let it go.

I hope that’s helpful to you guys in making some decisions in the future.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop in the comments section below or email me at greg@dybcoach.com

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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.