Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
“One of our goals one year was for me to stop making exceptions.”
“The pressure of our success created demand.”
“I want our clients to feel like Chick-fil-A, not the DMV.”
Host Scott Lollar is a 35-year veteran of the painting industry and founder of Consulting4Contractors. The 'Success Beyond The Brush' Podcast serves as a touchpoint to painting contractors who have hustled, sacrificed, and worked hard to get their business to where it is today. Now, you need the guidance, expertise, experience, and team to make it into the multi-million-dollar company of your dreams. You'll hear stories and interviews from "Brothers of the Brush" and "Sisters of the Sprayer" who have been where you are and are charting a new course for their company's success. Listen in and go beyond $1,000,000!
SBTB Ep. 12 | From $500K to $6M: What It Really Takes to Lead a Scaling Painting Company
===
[00:00:00]
The Pitfalls of Saying Yes in Business
---
Rick: To build your business, you keep saying yes. And when you say yes, you make exceptions, and then that becomes your detriment when you get bigger because the more exceptions you make at a bigger size, it just creates more and more chaos.
So then you're just overwhelmed with chaos, and then it's like, oh God, now I have to reel everything back in. And it's hard to do because it's the opposite of what you're normally doing, right?
Mark: That's good insight.
Rick: Yeah, you know, you want to please this customer so you bend over backwards to please the customer.
You'll make exceptions with employees to get things done. You'll do all kinds of things, and that's the last thing you want to do when you scale.
Introduction to Success Beyond the Brush
---
Hello and welcome back to Success Beyond the Brush. In today's episode, Mark Black sits down with Rick Holtz, a painting contractor who has grown his company, HJ Holtz and Sons, from under half a million dollars to over $6 million in annual revenue without losing the heart of his organization. [00:01:00] They break down what it really looks like to transition from operator to CEO, how to stop being the bottleneck and what changes when your company becomes bigger than you.
If you're scaling or thinking about scaling. This conversation is going to challenge how you see leadership, systems, and growth. We're excited for this one today. Let's dive in.
Mark: All right.
Meet Rick Holtz: Scaling a Painting Business
---
Mark: Welcome everybody again to a great podcast today in Beyond the Brush podcast. I'm here today with Rick Holtz of Holtz & Sons painting, Richmond, Virginia. Welcome Rick.
Rick: Thank you, Mark. Appreciate you having me.
Mark: Rick is a great friend of ours and also a coach with the C4C organization. Here to get some unique perspectives.
But the perspective that I love that you bring to the table, Rick, is you are doing what we do. You are running a painting company, albeit a little bit larger than most companies that I deal with in my area. And so we are very curious. The question for today is asking a CEO of a large [00:02:00] painting company, and just for reference, how many people do you have in the field, Rick?
Rick: we have roughly like 50 to 55. I think it, I mean, exactly today, I don't know, but somewhere in that range
Mark: Sure. And give us an idea of your total revenue then, sir.
Rick: totals around just over six, 6 million.
Mark: Wow. Well done. Well done. What an impressive business. And I've also gotten the chance to tour Rick's facility, been to his business and got to see the operation. And for us guys that are at a much smaller volume level and just trying to even comprehend what that would look like, I got to admit it's intimidating and it's scary because I know how busy.
I know how busy my life is. And we're like at the $2 million level and I can't even imagine, three times the stress, three times the amount of people, three times the headache.
The Role of a CEO in a Growing Company
---
Mark: How in the world do you manage that and do you find that are you at three times the stress of what you were at the $2 million level?
Rick: I am hanging on by my fingernails, [00:03:00] mark. That's exactly what I'm doing. No, actually I'm not. And you know, I don't know. It's interesting. Once you get a little bit of distance from the day to day, it almost feels a little lighter. And it's hard to explain, but no, I don't feel like I have more stress than I did when I was worried about the individual jobs and this and that.
You know, you kind of look at it at a different level and it takes time to get there. And I'm still transitioning from the day to day to this upper kind of perspective of the business and like a CEO, as you put it.
Mark: Right.
Rick: I'm not going to say I'm at the promised land yet,
Mark: Hmm.
Rick: but I, I feel like I am definitely getting there for sure.
Mark: I knew that that's how you would answer the question, but then there's going to be a lot of our listeners who are listening to that answer and saying. How can it be different because we all live so much in the day to day and we're buried in all the problems, in the minutia of what happens in [00:04:00] a busy company.
Balancing Sales, Production, and Finance
---
Mark: Can you walk us through your journey and maybe give us a sneak peek into what your actual life does look like in a 40 to 50 hour work week? I don't know how much you work exactly. What does a CEO of a $6 million company, how does he spend his time?
Rick: I still do some sales. I would say that's probably less than 20% of my time. And then I think the other part of my time is split between three parts of the business. Right. It's going to be sales. It's going to be production and then it's going to be financial.
Okay. And I probably, you know, I said 15% of sales. That's sales that I'm doing, but then I also have an estimator that works for me and we spend time together. So I don't spend as much time with sales as I probably do, the financial part of the business or production. I think I spend probably the majority of my time in production because that's where all the people are, right?
That's where most of my managers are, my [00:05:00] operations manager. Underneath him, we have project managers. I have my paint guys, I have my wallpaper guys, I have my carpentry guys. And you know, the more people, the more stuff is going on. So I, I'd probably say 65% of my time I spend in a week is dealing with the production end of business.
Mark: How many direct reports would that be then?
Rick: Well, Kelly is really my, operations manager. He is my number one direct report. But then he has managers under him and we're still in the process of kind of train the trainer. So I still do a lot of working with the people that are direct reports to him. And I have been training them and him at the same time, so that eventually he can kind of take that over.
But I feel like so much of our time is dealing with that. Processes, procedures human resource policies, production issues, you know, [00:06:00] all that sort of stuff. That's where most of your, I don't want to say problems come from, but most of your opportunities come from. And anytime we have issues on particular jobs or we see a trend, we're always trying to identify is that a process problem?
Is it something we've never thought of? Do we need a SOP for this? You know, that sort of stuff.
The Importance of Consistency and Systems
---
Rick: The majority of the problem solving, troubleshooting, training is in that part of the business, is in that production part.
Mark: Yeah. Yeah.
Rick: Sales is sales and marketing. I guess I should have put marketing in there too. I mean, I spend decent time with that too, regular. But that's more of a monthly type task than it is a weekly task.
Mark: Yeah, you had said maybe 15% of your time, not a ton of your time devoted to sales. Do you find that to be more legacy customers, people you've dealt with a long time or are these new?
Rick: Absolutely. It's good PR to be out there as the owner of a company if it's a really strong potential client and if it's a [00:07:00] legacy client. Because I still have a lot of clients that we work for that have my cell number. They call me, you know? And I still like to deal with them because I want them to still feel that personal touch.
Mark: I agree completely and it's good to hear that even at a much higher level, a bigger business that you don't lose that direct contact with good customers.
Rick: Yeah, on a weekly basis as a CEO, what do you want to know? You know, you want to know how much did you bill last week? How much are you going to produce this week? How much time did we lose last week? How much time do you think we're going to lose this week? What does the schedule look like?
What's our backlog? What did we sell last week? What do we think we're going to sell this week? How many sales meetings do we have? All those things that people think about, no matter how big they are. I still think about them. I don't go to all of them and I don't see all of them, but I want to know those metrics because those metrics are what tell us if we feel like things are moving along at a healthy pace or hey, we need to pump in a little [00:08:00] more marketing, or maybe I need to make some phone calls to some legacy clients, or why are we seem to be having issues with this particular type of job?
Or, you know, things like that. What our receivables are. I always feel like I'm dealing with that sometimes as well.
Mark: Let's take an extreme example. Tomorrow you get hit by a bus. You're not dead, but you're incapacitated for three to four weeks.
Rick: Mm-hmm.
Mark: What changes in your business in the next three to four weeks?
Rick: Really not much. Not much. I can go away now for a week and probably even more, and it'll run without me. I've got it to the point where I have people in the positions that they're in, finance, operations, sales, that they know what their job is. They've been doing it for so long and they've worked together long enough that they can help each other and hold each other accountable,
that I think I'm in good shape. I think like many business owners, probably the biggest thing is they'd be worried about is [00:09:00] passwords to get into certain things.
Mark: Sure.
Rick: something really just trivial like
Mark: Right,
Rick: But as far as the overall big flow of the business, I think they'd be fine.
Mark: As I think about that question with other business owners, to some business owners and some personalities, that's attractive. You know, I want to be less pivotal. don't want to be the central cog in, in the machine of my business. But then there's other personalities who couldn't imagine not being in the center and, and that almost, terrifies them to not be the center of their business or, you know, that the business could operate without them. They somehow feel a sense of worth when they're that pivotal. Was there a time you were that way?
Rick: Absolutely. It was I was ego driven. It was like, if it's to be, it's up to me. I wanted to be the one that saved the day. I wanted to be the one that solved all the problems. I wanted to be the one that was the hero, right. I think, you know, we spend so much time building a business and it's on our backs, and it's hard to kind of let that go.
I think the new role that I'm [00:10:00] embracing with my people is I want to be the person that they can bounce ideas off, and I can say, yeah that's right. Do it. Do it. I can teach them how to be proactive. I can teach them how to plan I can teach them how to accomplish goals, and I want to be the one there that says, that's awesome,
look what you did. You know what I mean? Almost like a parent.
Or something like that. Yeah, that's a coach. And I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. So I think, you know, I can remember when my dad was involved in the business, my drive was to please him, right? My drive was to make him proud of me, please him.
And I think now the roles are different now. I think I'm the one that people want to please and say he's proud of me, you know? I think that's really cool. I love that.
Mark: I love that too. Did your dad ever make the turn into the coach role?
Rick: No, he was, he, my dad was different. He gave me the [00:11:00] foundation, the, you know, like the core values of what our business really needed to be, but he never ran a business this big, so it was always like unchartered territory for him. And he was like, man, I don't understand how you can manage all this and juggle all this at once.
And I really was hanging on by my fingernails back then for sure.
Mark: A, as somebody who scaled I know a little bit of your history at the time you came into the business, total volume was less than a million dollars,
Rick: Oh, it was less than half a million.
Mark: Oh, wow.
Rick: Yeah, it was less than half a million, and I think within 10 years we had broken, I don't know, we were probably at a couple million within 10 years, so it was like really fast growth.
Mark: Yeah. And then growing to where you are now you carry a perspective as somebody who's been at all the levels. So I'm curious with that perspective, tell our listeners. Obviously we know from growing from, as you said, a half a million dollar mom and pop respectfully organization to even a couple million.
That is a huge change in terms of systems and [00:12:00] processes, key people, hiring people for the first time. Big changes. Have you seen the same, growing from two to four or from four to six, or is that growth a little easier as you get larger?
Rick: I don't think it's easier. I think there's different issues, right? I think when you go from the beginning to two, it's you learning to trust other people to do the work of your business.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: It's trusting others to do things that you always want to do yourself and you're used to doing yourself. So I think that is really important.
Trust. I think once you get from two and upwards, it's all about systems and processes and procedures with people you can trust because then, when you scale like that and expand, you need to have a system that's consistent.
Because to build your business, you keep saying yes. And when you say yes, you make exceptions, and then that becomes your detriment when you get bigger [00:13:00] because the more exceptions you make at a bigger size, it just creates more and more chaos.
So then you're just overwhelmed with chaos, and then it's like, oh God, now I have to reel everything back in. And it's hard to do because it's the opposite of what you're normally doing, right?
Mark: That's good insight.
Rick: yeah, you know, you want to please this customer so you bend over backwards to please the customer.
You'll make exceptions with employees to get things done. You'll do all kinds of things, and that's the last thing you want to do when you scale.
You want something that's running like a machine, you know. If you think about Henry Ford and you think about the way he produced automobiles, you know, at a huge mass productive level.
I mean, it's sort of the same way. You want it to be relatively routine and predictable and I
Mark: why there weren't a lot of options on those original Model T's.
Rick: Absolutely. So it's like, how can you deliver a unique service? How can you [00:14:00] be a unique brand but be consistent.
Because that's everything. You know, one of the goals for us one year was for me not to make exceptions anymore.
Like that was identified by the team. For us to perform at a higher level, Rick needs to stop making exceptions. So I mean, that kind of tells you right there.
Mark: Mm.
Rick: When you get to that certain level, it's like, wait a minute, we can't do that anymore.
Mark: Wow.
Wow.
Rick: It's like you all of a sudden see things so differently.
Your vision is different. You can't unsee things that you never saw before. Like, God, I create a lot of havoc. Or doing this or working for this client creates a lot of havoc. Maybe we can't work for that client anymore, you know?
Mark: That's hard.
Rick: It's really hard. Yeah.
Mark: Well, and none of us would admit that about ourselves and say we create chaos or we allow all kinds of exceptions. But as I'm thinking through my day today, I've made two or three exceptions to what the rule would normally be. But it's alright, let's just go buy a new drill, [00:15:00] because that's what we needed. Like we make an exception. In a smaller business just to get by. But you're exactly right. That does create chaos.
Rick: It's to get by Mark. And it's also because what you're not doing in the moment is you're not able to see the big picture. It's like, okay, we could go get another drill and we can take care of this issue right now today, but is that going to help us the next time this happens? No. You know, it's not. So it's kind of interesting just when you're in the day-to-day and you have your head down, you can't see the horizon and it's, hard to do.
Building a team to manage a company is, like I said, the first challenge to find these people that you can really trust so that you can start looking at your business from a different view.
Mark: Yeah. to keep the conversation about you personally.
Weekly Structure and Meetings
---
Mark: Dive us into a week with Rick. Are you this structured and organized as you talk about your reporting and checking on your metrics? Do you have Monday tasks and Tuesday tasks and so on?
Rick: Monday I do [00:16:00] sales, and catch up on office stuff, projects that I'm working on. Tuesday I have a standing weekly financial meeting with my sister, who's my CFO. I have a management meeting with all the management team on Tuesdays and just get a check on all our KPIs, a weekly KPI kind of check in.
Wednesday I have time to myself. Sometimes I'll have client appointments. I try to go to some job sites on Wednesdays. Thursdays we have meetings again. We have production team meetings and do a lot of training. Sales meeting on Thursdays. And then Fridays, I'm back to kind of a more relaxed kind of personal time for me.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: So Tuesdays and Thursdays are my big meeting days.
Mark: And you protect those violently.
Rick: Yeah, anything that gets scheduled around those meetings because I want everybody to know how important they are so that they schedule around them too. And they don't miss them. They don't miss them either.
Mark: Yeah. [00:17:00] Another valuable part of being a larger company they, you can't make exceptions to meetings and sometimes we make it and sometimes we don't.
Rick: Yeah, I mean, I figure some of them the most, they have two meetings they're required to go to a week, you know, they have another meeting that I don't go to, it's a handoff meeting on Tuesdays, and that's when they get their jobs for the coming weeks. I don't go to that meeting, that's a production and sales meeting.
But but yeah, I don't want to be in meetings all the time, but there is times where we need to get together to talk about what's going on as a group.
Implementing Lessons and Resources
---
We've reached the halfway point in our conversation today with Mark and Rick. And if this conversation is hitting home for you at all, uh, we
wanna
encourage you. Don't just listen to what you are hearing, implement some of the things that they're talking about. Maybe make a list this week of the exceptions that you're making in your business.
Or even ask yourself some hard questions like, is this thing that I'm doing helping me grow? Or is it actually creating chaos in my business environment? If you want more resources like. This on [00:18:00] maybe building your systems or leadership, scaling your business the right way. Please check out the show notes or our video description, wherever you're watching or listening to this for additional tools and links.
Also on there, you're gonna find a link for a discovery call. Scott Lollar so he can help you determine what your next step might be in terms of growing your business and stopping the chaos that you're experiencing on a day-to-day basis. We're gonna jump back into the conversation with Mark and Rick.
Thanks again so much for listening.
The Morning Routine of a CEO
---
Mark: So what other things in the life of a $6 million CEO of a business, what would your, what would be something different about your life that those of us that are still in the weeds, if it were?
Rick: I think one of the biggest things is I now tell my wife goodbye in the morning, and she leaves before me.
I don't go, I don't go to the office anymore until at the earliest eight 30, unless we have a company meeting. We still have a monthly company meeting the second Thursday of every month, and that's at [00:19:00] 7:00 AM and I'll get there early for them, but it's no more going to the shop early.
Because what I was doing, even though I'm an early person, I was meddling too much and I was holding my people back from learning and from developing, because as long as I was there, I was answering questions, I was telling them what to do, and it was no benefit to them.
Mark: Yeah.
Adjusting to a New Work Schedule
---
Mark: Is that hard for you though to not rush out the door and go straight to work?
Rick: Oh, not anymore. It was, yeah, it was. It was really hard for a long time. It's like, oh my God, what do I do in the morning now? And it's like, well, you've got all these business things you need to do and deal with, and so I just take my time.
Mark: Man, that sounds amazing. But I'm trying to put myself in your shoes and I know I'd be biting at the bit. I'd want to be there. I know the guys are at the shop. I want to be there at seven 30.
Rick: Yeah, so it's different now because I like to be there at the end of the day and that's when I see a lot of my field employees, where I used to see them in the morning. I see them at the end of the day. Because now it's different, I [00:20:00] don't, my kids are grown. I don't need to hurry up and get home to take them here or take them there.
So I'm much more relaxed in the afternoon than I used to be.
Mark: Are you hanging around work a little longer then staying at the end of the day?
Rick: Yeah, I do stay a little bit longer, you know, because if I'm working on stuff, and I like to talk to people, I like to see people, I like to connect. I think it's really important for them to know I'm interested in what they're doing and I genuinely am,
Mark: Oh, I know you are
Rick: and being interested in what they're doing is very different than, why are you doing that?
Well, who told you to do that? Did you think about this? You know, I'm not drilling them anymore. I'm over it. I'm over that.
Mark: Again, if I put myself in your shoes, that's where I would be. I'd want to know every detail and I'd start quarterbacking and
Rick: Oh, don't worry, mark. I was like that. It's, this is, this transition has taken, I would say three years. Every bit of three years to get me to be where I I'm now.
Yeah.
Focusing on Processes and Procedures
---
Mark: if you could go back let's say that $2 million level if you could take yourself back in that [00:21:00] time and coach yourself, what would you do differently?
Rick: I would get myself to focus on processes and procedures sooner.
And not like all of them at once. Right? But it's like, what are some of these best practices? What are the soft skills that people know need to know how to do? That was one of the big misses, I think, is we're so concerned about the craftsmanship of the trade, which don't get me wrong, is super important,
Mark: Right.
The Importance of Soft Skills
---
Rick: but how do you talk to people? How do you behave when you're on their property? Whether it's a commercial site? How do you carry yourself as an employee of, a company? Communication. How do you handle an altercation? How can you diffuse an altercation? How do you just get along? You know? I think those skills and working on those skills are critical to the success of a business, you know?
Mark: Oh I think often underlooked the whole soft side of the business.
Rick: I mean, we go into places all the time and, like in my area, we give [00:22:00] the DMV a hard time, but you go into DMV to take care of something for your vehicle, and you just don't feel like you're dealing with people who care, But then all of a sudden you go to a Chick-fil-A and you just feel like they've got you the palm of their hands because they're giving you such good customer service and care.
And it's like if we're going to, from a residential standpoint, going to be in someone's home while they're living there, I want them to feel like Chick-fil-A, I don't want them to feel like DMV.
Right? So I think that's as important as being able to put the paint on the wall because it's the whole experience.
Mark: They talk about measuring EQ as well as IQ and of course we're talking about an emotional quotient or your emotional intelligence. But I wonder if it couldn't also be defined as an experience quotient, right? If that e stood for experience rather than emotion. And that's what we're trying to get our crews and our teams to understand is look at everything you're doing from an experience standpoint.
Is this adding to the experience or is it [00:23:00] taking it away?
Rick: Yeah. because I mean, we could go into a building and do the best paint job ever, but if we've disrupted the whole place
Mark: Right.
Rick: and they can't wait for us to get out of there, it kind of takes away from the wonderful work we've done.
Mark: That's right.
Rick: And I don't really think you can have one without the other. Like, you could give a pleasant experience and do a terrible job, and that's not so good either.
I never took the time or the space to think about what do I really need in my business now?
Balancing Growth and Company Culture
---
Mark: Because I think a lot of our listeners, I often play devil's advocate for the unspoken listener, but a lot of people would say, I don't want to be that large of a company. I never want to have 50 or 60 employees because I'll lose the human touch. And we just become the Walmart of painting with a negative experience.
And it's all about volume and numbers and I happen to know for a fact that your company is not that way. In fact, I think you're a shining example of what a company should be in terms of heart. But how did you avoid the trap of it [00:24:00] not just being about numbers and volume and a big organization, but also has a big heart.
How do you think you've achieved that?
Rick: Stayed humble.
Mark: Hmm
Rick: I mean, honestly, I've stayed humble. I've kept a good core group of the same employees for years. They know who I am. I can't be somebody else. Be authentic. The spreadsheets are great, the numbers are great, but at the end of the day, my philosophy and people might think it's really simple, as long as you treat your customers and your employees right, you're going to be successful.
It's going to happen. And I do think you need to keep an eye on it. You got to keep a balance, in my opinion. You really do. And to be so numbers driven and not pay attention to the people just would feel so uncomfortable to me. It's just not who I am.
Mark: No, it's not. I also, you do a cool thing where I'm not sure how many of your people, but you invite at least some core people into some [00:25:00] planning for each year, and they're actually a part of planning, forecasting, budgeting, making, making opinions about what this year should look like. So it gives them some ownership too.
I really like that.
Rick: Mark the funny thing is we see our business from a certain perspective, but I feel like our employees that are on the job sites every day, they see our business at the perspective that the client does. You know, and I need that perspective because I don't get it anymore.
Mark: right.
Rick: So as long as I can get some of that, I feel like that's where the rubber meets the road in our businesses, where the work is being done. How good is it, how does it feel when we're there, what do we leave the place looking like? How do we keep it while we're there? Do we, are we good guests? You know, whether it's a commercial site or a
residential site we're going to leave it better than we found it every day. So those things are really important and I feel like people yearn to have experiences like that.
Mark: Yeah. And also I think people yearn to [00:26:00] give experiences like that. You know, once you've laid it out of what this can be, your people have taken that on themselves to say I'm going to do a great job for this customer. Not because Rick's going to yell at me if I don't, but because I also want that for my customer.
Rick: Yeah. And they also, others understand Mark, that if they do a good job for this customer, that customer's going to want them back. And that's job security. And you know, and I know in our industry, it's a hard industry because there's so many people that are coming and going and coming and going.
And those people that are serious that want to stay and make a career of it, they give a different level of service because they understand what it means to their future.
Mark: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really good.
Rick: We didn't grow because I kept seeing the numbers grow and I wanted to be bigger and make more money, and make more money. We grew because people saw what we gave and the demand grew, and then we built the business to try to keep up with the demand,
Mark: Ah,
Rick: not because we said, let's make this thing as big as we can so we can make all this money.
You [00:27:00] know, so it's just a different way to look at it.
Mark: Yeah. You were reacting to the pressure of your market.
Rick: The pressure of our success, honestly.
Mark: So I've asked this question to Scott before and I'd be very interested in your response. For those of us that are still scaling, which not to say you're not scaling, but I would say you're at the upper end of the scale. And for those of us that are kind of still climbing through the ranks.
Key Hires for Scaling a Business
---
Mark: Who do you hire first? Let's say I'm a million dollar painting company out there. I'm hustling. I've grown this thing, I've gotten through the Death Valley, I've gotten through that million dollar mark. What are the key personnel that you brought into your business and kind of in what order? I guess I'm thinking of importance of probably overhead positions that help you run this company and build a management team.
Rick: I would hire somebody to help me run the field first.
Mark: Okay, so operations or production manager.
Rick: Absolutely. And then I would, worry about sales after that.
Mark: Why in that order?
Rick: It's [00:28:00] critical if I've been selling to the clients for them to keep seeing me sell
and for me to keep that volume up that personal relationship up.
Mark: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rick: Especially at the beginning of the life of a project. I can train people and work with people to produce it, and I can still show my face there, but I need somebody to help me get their first thing in the morning, get all the colors, get the crews assigned, make sure they have what they want.
That's a lot of time. That takes a lot of time. And if I can get somebody to help me do that, that frees me up on the other end.
Mark: Yes. I tend to agree with that as well. And you said sales second, somebody to assist with just volume of sales.
Rick: You get the hang of it and you're like, wow this is starting to run itself. And now let's see if we can grow a little bit. Let's see if we can get a little bit more of the market. And I think it's great to hire a salesperson while you're selling, and then as they develop, If you want to do more you, keep your level and they start doing more. Or [00:29:00] if you want to back away, they start doing more and you wean yourself down and then you cherry pick what you want to sell, you know?
Mark: It's a good place to be. Not many people get there.
Rick: So, I mean, I think you decide what you want to be, but I definitely think a production operations type person is the first hire I make.
Mark: That's
Rick: And that's a hard hire. You might go through several people before you find the right one. To hire that person and it worked on your first hire would be a gift.
Promoting from Within vs. Hiring Externally
---
Mark: We hear so many times that this operation slash production manager often comes from somebody within your organization. Was that how it happened for you?
Rick: It's how it started with me and I think it's okay to evolve that way. But your production person at $2 million is very different from a production person at $4 million.
Right? Because the other thing that I didn't realize when I was at two and growing like my needs and the people I have in chairs and [00:30:00] that sort of thing works and it's going to work forever. No, the business sometimes grow faster than our people do and the business can sometimes grow faster than we can.
But it grows faster than people do, and as it grows faster, if the people can't catch up, then we have to look at replacing them sometimes. So I think it's okay as you're growing to start a promotion from within, but I think there's going to be a ceiling at some point for that person. Because the people that I had doing that, there was a point in time where they couldn't do what I needed them to do anymore.
Mark: It's the Peter Principle.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Mark: So, did you eventually have to hire from outside of your organization to get the type of person you were needing?
Rick: so I have I've started to, yes.
Mark: Yeah. I was going to actually going to commend you just in knowing your operation a little bit you're one of the prime examples of a company who always has a path for their people. If the people want to grow and they have the competence, and you have several long, long [00:31:00] tenured employees who have climbed to the rank that they are.
And I, I love that, that there's always a place to go in your company.
Rick: Yeah. I'm extremely fortunate because the folks I have are extremely loyal, they're just extremely loyal to me.
Mark: Yes, they are. We all know that as business owners, you know, we always ask the question, what do you want out of your company? And of course the business is there to serve the owner and for what their goal is. But I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that it's not just about what Rick Holtz needs for his personal income or maybe your family is very safe and well taken care of.
The Responsibility to Employees and Clients
---
Mark: You have a responsibility to your organization to continue to grow it even beyond what you need for the sake of your people. That there is opportunity for them to climb.
Rick: Yeah, to give them opportunity, to give them stability, to give them something they can count on I think is critical. And it's also, you know, you can look at it, Mark, we owe it to our clients because we have so many [00:32:00] clients that are generational clients and have been with us for so long. We owe it to them to continue to operate at a high level and keep high level people.
Mark: I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, Rick, you continue to serve as just a, a shining example, A), that it can be done, which a lot of us need, because sometimes it feels impossible to climb through the ranks. I, I, I applaud you in what you have taken, what your mom and dad started this business to be, and now what you have grown it in to be.
You're an inspiration to many of us who aspire to that as well, but I think even more than your total volume and your size of your company is, I wish everybody could just have a sneak peek into your business to watch it operationally, and to see how your people love you.
See how your people would do anything for you and how you have this management team around you that always knows the Holtz Way they know. The right thing to do and they're going to do it whether you are there or not.
Rick: Yeah.
Mark: I commend you for that.
Rick: Thank [00:33:00] you. Thank you. I appreciate that. That means a lot. It, when you get to this size, it's not just me anymore. You're right. It's the way of the company. It has its own culture, its own values and everything. So yeah it's, really awesome. It's awesome to be a part of it,
Reflecting on Business Growth and Success
---
Mark: When did business get fun for you?
Rick: business has been fun at different times in my career. I think when my dad was still alive and he was active in the business and it was growing and we'd buy two trucks this year and another crew. I mean, that was exciting and it was fun. It was stressful, but it was exciting.
And I was younger and I had a different passion and energy and it was all about, I'm going to show you right, the world. The painting world in Richmond or whatever. And now it's really awesome to be, like we said, sort of that parent in my business that can see people succeed and see people do things that they never thought they could do.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: and show them how capable they are.
I love it. [00:34:00] I love it. And when you get up in the morning, Mark, and you don't feel like you have to be there, different perspective of happiness and joy too, you know?
Mark: I like your example of being a parent. It's so true, and it's especially true to me right now because the kids that my wife and I are raising, we have five children and they're all upper teenagers, and of them are young adults. You know, we have 21 and 20 and 18, and they're just starting their life.
And it's so cool as a parent to watch them fly, to take the things they've learned and been taught and been trained, and now they're doing it themselves. And I haven't quite achieved that in my business yet, but I'm looking forward to that day where I can be a parent who says, I've invested in you for a long time.
It's time to stand on your own feet.
Rick: Yeah. And how cool is it, Mark, when one of your kids comes to you and says, dad, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think?
You know, and you're like wow. Like I've invested enough in them that they value my opinion. [00:35:00] And you know, they've asked you that before,
but to have an employee do that feels just as awesome as it does when it's your kid. It's like, Rick, this is what I'm thinking of doing. What do you think I should do? And it's like, wow, you respect me and really think I know that much that you would ask me. That's pretty honorable.
It's a huge, it's a huge compliment.
Right. And I love it. I love it.
Mark: I can't wait to experience that myself. That's so neat.
Rick: It's right around the corner, buddy.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
---
Mark: Rick, we always appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us for this discussion today. Looking forward to many more conversations with you in coming podcasts. We've got a lot of stuff that we'd love to get your opinion on and just try and build into the nation of painters around us that are looking for good examples that they can pattern their businesses off of to future success.
Rick: Yeah. Well, thank you. You know, you and I never have a shortage of words.
Mark: Never.
Rick: I always enjoy con, you know, having a conversation with you.
Mark: We will look forward to many more, sir, I appreciate your time.
Thanks so much.
Rick: Thank you. Take [00:36:00] care.
We wanna thank you again for joining us today for this episode of Success Beyond the Brush. If today's conversation challenged you at all, take a minute this week and ask yourself a hard question. Where are you still the hero in your business? And where should you be the coach? Rick's journey from under half a million dollars to over 6 million wasn't about chasing numbers, it was about building the systems, developing as people and learning to stop making exceptions that create chaos. If you are scaling right now, remember this: growth doesn't require more stress from you. It requires a better perspective, stronger processes, and just a willingness really to let your team step up.
If this episode resonated with you at all, share it with another contractor who might be in the middle of that transition from operator to leader. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes designed to help you grow beyond the brush, not just in revenue, but in your leadership, the culture that you create [00:37:00] and your long-term impact for your business.
As always, check the show notes or video description for additional resources and links connected to today's discussion. Thanks again so much for listening. We'll see you again next time.