Q&A with The Idaho Painter

today we're live here to answer your questions once again so if you got any questions for Chris me or Lisa um we're here you never know yeah you never know pay related questions business related questions whatever you got for us today so we're here to answer them we're going to talk about some you know products today that um you know we posted on the internet that people have got some questions and comments about and um we'll be talking about um some products we used in the the latest project we did so a laundry room makeover and and why don't you since we're on YouTube and you've posted some stuff um why don't you some of the comments and questions people had about some of the products you could read those so giving a shout out to the people that are engaging and you could answer some of those okay from YouTube Oh from YouTube yeah cuz we're on YouTube well that now you throw a Twist in things I'm I'm throwing a Twist in things that's going to take me a while fig I could I could I could fill in the the space um okay you fill in so I look so hope everybody's staying safe and warm I know there's a lot of storms going around the US and the world probably and we have quite a bit of snow on Boise so winter finally came it was really late but um yesterday Chris took a little break and if you can guess what he did I have a gift card to give you on our store I have Asher and Caitlyn with us and they could see if anybody could guess what Chris did yesterday he has been working all through the holidays he's been doing so many projects but he took the day off yesterday and did something fun does anybody guess what he did for fun not yet ordinary John has asked what inspired him to get into painting and why would he recommend this trade that's it so far okay you can answer that yeah that's a good question so um what inspired me to get into painting so um I went to college short short version the short version I went to college um got a couple college degrees and you know worked at a desk you know basically suit and tie job and it really didn't fit my personality um I wasn't happy but um you know 2003 um downturn in the economy the company was going out of business um I got moved around um and you know I was eventually offered a job by another tech company and you know I was you know working for somebody for an hourly wage and I made a decision at that point in time to you know attempt to control my own destiny by starting my own business so um instead of relying on a company to give me a paycheck and if the economy got bad and they didn't do things right um then I would be out of a job possibly I just wanted to be able to control it myself so if I had owned my own company I felt like um and and if I did things right and um ran the company right you know even in the ups and downs that I would you know still you know maybe be in business I don't know it it just I I just wanted to control um you grew up in the trades doing everything but you weren't I mean you did some painting growing up but how did you pick painting I mean I I grew up in the trades like you said so I I did it all framing um drywall uh Roofing um I did probably more Roofing than I did of anything else um but you know at the time when I um decided that I wanted to just start my own company and and control my own destiny a good friend of mine who uh I grew kind of grew up with um in California he moved to Idaho um he convinced me to move to Idaho he um worked you know as a just a painting Apprentice you do masking talking um just you know simple task and I said hey Darren you know why don't we start a painting company together he didn't really have experience you you were in the middle of building our own house and you needed help painting so he came over he came over and him and I you know painted you know my house that I built and um that was kind of like the start of you know the painting thing and just because you know he was a painter and he was a friend I was like that was why don't we just start a painting company and so off we went and here I am so um yeah what was the second part of the question um like would you recommend getting into the trade I I would highly recommend not only getting into the painting trades but the trades in general I mean the the there's a massive shortage of people um in the trades and you know if you jump into the trades and and I'll speak specifically of painting there's a massive shortage of painters out there there's there's if you do things right if you Market yourself right there's unlimited work I mean literally there's unlimited work and I got to say from my you know point of view from um my business if you do things right you could make really good M money owning your own company but also if you work for somebody you can make really good money working for somebody and you literally could probably bounce around to any city in the US almost any ENT in the world and get a job in the painting trades yeah I think the trades um there's definitely a huge need for people that are willing to work and if if you're willing to work um if you do what you say you're going to do show up when you say you're going to show up do a quality job um you're going to be successful and I'll say and and I'll speak but this work I'll speak to like painting compared to like um drywall uh framing paint painting is the one thing thing that people eventually sees as the final product and and so you you're constantly being rewarded by you know your customers um having an old worn out house um you're painting it while they're at work they come home and they see a brand new house and they absolutely love you for what you've done to them you put a big you're putting a smile on people's face almost every single day and let me compare that to law enforcement because I was also a police officer you know at one time all I did was make people angry Every Day writing them tickets and you know not solving their problems right in family fights blah blah blah I mean it's a long it's it's interesting so I went from you know um you know a frustrating job you know making people angry every day and dealing with complaints to making people happy every day and uh painting is a very very rewarding career and you'll absolutely love it so I think he answered that and if you hear noise we have three dogs cruising around and they they need to stop cruising around cuz they might be annoying the the noise but any other questions out there Asher and anybody guess what Chris did for his day off uh not yet there are a few questions though okay um let us let us hear them John is asking if you are opposed to pole attachments for cutting in and if you have one that you recommend this example is 18t ceilings without getting up on a ladder or buying scaffolds I mean I got one you know I'd highly recommend and I use it all the time it's the goose neck so um don't have one in front of me here but basically the goose neck is um a paintbrush that has a bendable handle and on the end of it it can be screwed to an extension pole um it's the most versatile uh brush attachment that you could possibly use you know um for extending you know your paintbrush to almost unlimited Heights and you know I've used it to uh three stories up attached to long extension p climb up on a 12T A-frame and cut around a ceiling light you know that we would have had to rent a lot of expensive scaffolding you know for so it's an absolute amazing brush um it's I can't say enough good about it there's some things they can improve on it by you know putting better filaments um on it um Dupont filaments and stuff but it's a great it's a great product and um a specialty product that you should have in your band every professional painter should have one and so can you let him know that if he goes to paint life supply.com and goes to the chat button he could say I won a goose neck brush and they will ask for his mailing information and we'll get a Goos net brush that he could test it himself so basically um who whoever it was that asked that question um go to our store paint supply.com in the bottom right hand corner there's a chat icon get on there tell us hey I was on um YouTube live I won this brush um they're going to ask you for your name and address and we're going to get um give you a free one so paint supply.com come here rain um she's really someone is asking um they say you mentioned you prefer to use the clear Caulking and tape method around trim work how is that done when two coats are needed so um good question and I have um some recent videos really explaining that in detail on YouTube YouTube so uh I'm going to paint down to you know um my um tape my frog tapes I use frog tape um and I use a lot of different I use frog tape blue green uh yellow um and even orange but um most common is frog tape green I'm going to come down to with about A4 of an inch to you know the Frog tape and then that's going to be my first coat on the wall the next coat I'm going to do my cuttings I'm going to apply clear Cofe um and and then I'm going to do my cut ends roll my second coat over the cut ends while it's still wet so I don't get any haloing and then I'm going to pull my masking while everything is still wet and so have you I know you've filmed these have they been posted recently um they have been posted there's one probably fairly recently I believe so okay so if they Googled or typed in you know you I you're going to have to do a little uh research and cuz I got over 1,500 videos on my YouTube channel so so um you're going to have to search but I've got quite a few few videos talking exactly and showing that yeah so um but I've got you know some recent ones where I really explained in detail you know um you know how I do it when I do two coats M um is asking thoughts on door to-door marketing for painting Service uh door to-door marketing is probably um and I'll speak specifically door too door hangers probably one of the most effective ways to get jobs and and for large companies and I know some large companies that are multi-million dollar companies that will attest that they when when I questioned and asked them they say that's their most effective marketing to actually small companies like mine um um so is getting a little too rough where's R where's Lou pick up Louie poor little Lou yeah little doggy Interruption yeah so um today we're dog sitting so um we have we have our daughter and son-in-law special Louis so he was with us on the live show so we talked about a little bit different things on Facebook so if you want to hear I think she should be go put upstairs and walked up yeah I think I think we're going to we're going to the dog that's pacing will be better for your listening ears um just yeah she could just get put in a room so anyways this is Louis sweetest dog in the whole world but um if you want to hear we talked about some different products we just did a Facebook live so you can go over Facebook after this is finished and um watched that where we talked about a few different things but um the dog intermission is taken care of and now dog intermission hopefully the the other the other little wiener dog will sit down and you won't hear her feet walking around okay so was there another question we got interrupted um we had to save Louis for someone is wondering what shop or brand would you recommend for Europeans since getting some basic uh py stuff from Amazon cost is way too high for them and people they work with thank you love what you do what was it um so like pretty brushes and stuff I mean we sell the brand Premiere um we do ship to the UK and and around the world and right now we have a flash sell so it's 20% off so that that could help with the shipping cost I mean I think shipping is just very expensive and I do know um that Premier is selling some of their brushes in the UK so um you know if you messaged us I could maybe look into where you could find those but our store paint life supply.com right now we're having a flash sell 20% off the discounts given right away that could help a little bit on the um the um paint life Brook brush right yes yeah on the paint life Brook which is the paintbrush that um I had you know uh named after my daughter it's made by uh Premier brush and roller in New York all handmade in the USA brushes and when it comes to paint brushes I feel there's um I have my top three yo brushes that I think are absolutely amazing brushes that every professional painter can't go wrong with premier is definitely one of them um probably top one or two so um and I and I believe top I I would say the premier Brook for interior painting is definitely the best paintbrush you know out there you can use all around for interior painting painting and doing Cuttin and in all of Premier brushes are professional line 100% made in the USA and I use them all and they're absolutely amazing so can't go wrong um someone is wondering Leslie Hill is wondering what is the best clean as you go method When painting to avoid cleaning after the job M clean as you go so it probably depends on like if you're doing one room at a time it depends on probably the side size of the project you know I think if you're you're painting one room at a time you're going to clean up as you go and when you're done with the room I like pulling up the masking you don't leave masking long if you're done with the room you pull it up up right away yeah I might like I'm always pulling my masking before my paint dries so um that's clean and and you know I guess clean is you I don't typically work one room at a time if I've got three rooms of paint I'm going to paint all three rooms but I would say um I clean as I go at the end of the day so um I never leave a dirty job site so like especially if I'm working inside the house you know uh we're going to you know work only in um a certain area where we are not going to disturb the customer you know um as little as we can you don't bite off more than you can chew yeah and so you know if we're doing a whole house you know we're going to divide things you know in chunks and pieces and we always if we mask you know whatever we mask one day we try to get that all painted and clean that up and if we're say outside um if we're masking we like we don't want to have masking and paper laying all around and heav dirty job site so if the Wind Blows the plastic down the road or the paper down the road um and then just people driving by we're always like cleaning as we go and picking things up as we go and if you and for instance and this is what I try to teach my guys is you know if I'm if I need a tool and I'm on the back side of the house and I'm going to walk out to grab that tool out of the trailer I'm going to clean as I go so if if I see a piece of trash I'm going to grab that if I see a tool that's laying on the ground that's no longer being used I'm going to grab that I'm going just grab all that stuff take it and put it in the trailer so at the end of the day I don't have as much cleanup but also throughout the day my job site looks clean and it just makes you more efficient CU you're grabbing things as you go and if you're going to grab a tool um that you need for something specific and you see something that you might be using back there you're going to take that with you also so every trip to the trailer should be as efficient I think being a multitasker is super important and you're a very good multitasker you know you can't just focus on what cuz even when paint's drying you're not going to sit there and wait you're going to move on and do another area so yeah I'm definitely really big on um being clean as a painter so jle Pierre is wondering how do you convince people that can afford a local painter to go local rather than a national company um um you know from your experience we were a small owner of I mean I've always like my my company was you know is has been you know a small company I've and yeah I I've always had to compete against National companies um there's multiple probably three or four National companies here in the Treasure Valley that I competed against but it what's I never approached it like um I had any other competitors I always approached it I I would go to the customer and approach it um trying to convince them to use me not to convince them not to use other companies so I was really focused on you know convincing them that I was the painter for the job and and that started by I would meet with them early on my career I'd meet with them and just get to know them talk to them personally and would see things in the house and and um on the wall I talk to them you know hey I see your kid play soccer my kid plays soccer and then they get to know you and get a good feeling you know about you and then you once they feel like they know you it it's it's easier to you know win the jobs and then eventually you're leaving you know after you meet them and then you're presenting them with a bit packet and I was trying to convince people to um you know choose me as a painter by giving them the the best possible bid packet you could you would ever see and to do the exterior of a house it was a 20 to 22 page bid packet that they were presented with and and that was a bid packet that was trying to convince them to use me and I think you for the business that we had is you would say you're going to see me so a lot of the big National companies they're an estimator they've never picked up a paintbrush in their hair in their hair in their life they don't know products I mean they're just there doing the numbers and giving you a bid he would say I'm going to give you this bid and I'm going to be back here with my guys to paint your house like I walked your house I'm going to be painting it I'm going to be the one that if there's any warranty issues I'm going to come back and I'm going to take care of it for you and so just really building that relationship and that trust because you know when you're a big company when you scale things you lose things but then you know they're they're doing more more jobs and you you lose something when you get big I think all all big companies you you can't have that Personal Touch you can't have that I'll be back you're going to be talking to me yeah I think I think that was that was one of the big selling points that that I always you know tried to highlight and that people you know resonated with and um because I think it's it's pretty understood in the trades that there's going to be an estimator come out give you bid and you're never going to see him again and then you can't like question well you said this you said that and that person is long gone and so I always touched on that and and touched on it you know pretty heavily that look I'm the owner of the company I'm here giving you my the estimate I'm going to be here at the start of the job I'm going to be here at the end of the job and then you know 3 months from now if you you have a touchup or a question you're going to be communicating with us and we're going to come back with our team and take care of any warranty related issues it that and it was I always touch on I'm a small familyowned and operated company you know run by me and my wife and um handpicked employees so um I think that people I think that was a really big selling point along with my bid packet and my bid packet is actually it got to a point where I wanted to share it with other people because I had a lot of success um getting a super high rate of um estimates just based on my bid pack CU this is the the interesting phenomenon people would open up the bid pack and they would look at that and just go if his work is any representation of this bid packet I got to hire this guy and so I wanted to share that we've been selling you know our bid packet the cabinet bid packet um fence interior exterior bit baget for years…