Hello, Ron here live from a porta-potty, yes a porta-potty, I will tell you in a second why.
I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, I’m also a painting contractor north of Boston in Massachusetts.
Why was I at a porta-potty?
Well, that’s what they have at this new construction house, not something I usually do, we don’t paint new construction; this isn’t our niche market.
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The story behind this story, was about a contractor that called me and told me that his friend was building a house and they were looking for a painting contractor.
This home here just happens to be a vocational school home, and they don’t have a painting or wallpaper division trainings in the school, so, they needed someone to come out and look at it and give them a price.
I should have passed it to someone who’s used to doing new construction, but I didn’t. And it all comes down to three (3) things we talk a lot about in DYB.
The “3 P’s of every job”: PROCESS, PROFIT and PEOPLE. Let’s touch based on those for a second.
People: The general contractor who referred me out, great guy, I work for him a lot, also just recently helped him do some renovations and painting on a 1.1 million dollar home.
So this is the vocational school, I assume they are great people, I actually recently interviewed one of the kids and hired him for the summer.
But the people buying the house, I’m not so sure. So, that one; is a maybe…
Profit: I have no idea what we are going to make on this job, because we are not geared for new construction re-paints.
Our level of work is on a different level than this; our typical job will be sending every piece of trim in between coats, priming two coats on most of the woodwork.
Here, right here, it’s spray guns, get in, get out.
We are also working alongside a lot of other trades.
I came in today and there is no water in the house, no electricity, because the trades have cut them off and they have a big hole in the back or upfront.
This is not what we are used to working with, my guys are kind of lost on this, although the job will get done right, this is not our niche.
We know that when we work on jobs, generally the home values is between $750,000 and $1.5 million.
We typically do the re-paints for interior on the higher end, but we are not used to a new construction.
We are not used to using very contractive grade paints on any of these, we are used to using the finer things.
So, it’s not like our nose is up in the air, this is just not our niche.
If you look at the 3 P’s once again:
PEOPLE; they seem to be nice people, but I don’t know who’s moving into this house.
PROFIT; I’m hoping to break even and I am really hoping to make some money, so, that’s an unknown.
PROCESS; the process is not here for us, we are going to lose on this process part.
So, the 3 P’s for this job just aren’t there. So, on every job, you should always be looking at the 3 P’s.
List your last 10 jobs, look at those 3 areas:
Process, how was it? Was it wallpaper removal and you hated it?
Don’t check it out. Was it a repaint, and you loved re-paints? Check that out.
Then look at the people, did you enjoy working for the people?
Were they A-Customers or B-Customers?
Were they watching you every moment when you were working or kind of aggravating you a little bit? Well, that wouldn’t be a check mark.
Were they out of town? Maybe it was a vacation home; that was great for you then because no one was around, that would be a check mark.
Then profit, look at your jobs, every aspect of that job to make sure you made money.
You might have made a little money, but if you did the things that you are really geared to and you could have made more money, that is your niche.
That is the People, Profit, Process, that you should be looking for.
I am Ron Ramsden, and that’s the three 3 P’s; I help painters work on their business, so you don’t have to work in the business. Have a great day!
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