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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. 13 | Details Make the Difference: Why Job Documentation Drives Profit & Freedom
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[00:00:00]
The Contractor Who Had No Clue: A Jobsite Wake‑Up Call
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Mark: I said, how about how long is this job? He is like, oh, I have no idea. And I'm just like, every question was just mind blowing how little this guy knew, and it's a pretty good size contractor in our area. But as I have learned about business and how important this topic is in job documentation, we've made some pretty good strides in our business.
I was blown away at how little the guy doing the work knew about the work he was doing. He knew how to do the job physically. I'm sure he did. His skill level was good enough, had no idea what the entire scope, didn't know how much work they were doing there. He's just going to keep working until it's done and then he'll call and they'll tell him what to do next. What? Like how do they make money? They probably don't.
Scott: Yeah. They don't know if they're making money. They don't have a clue.
Mark: Unbelievable.
Podcast Intro: Why Job Documentation Drives Profit & Satisfaction
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Welcome back to Success Beyond the Brush, the podcast for painting contractors who want to grow a business that's profitable, scalable, and doesn't require you [00:01:00] to be on every job site to keep things moving. In today's episode, we're digging into one of the most overlooked drivers of profit and customer satisfaction, and that is job documentation.
Because when the scope isn't crystal clear, when your crew doesn't know what's included, and when the details live in someone's head instead of in a system, the results are predictable. There's confusion in the field. You have frustrated customers, blown schedules, and wasted time on just nonstop clarifying phone calls.
Today, Mark and Scott break down what good documentation really means. What belongs in a work order and how to handle exclusions and how to tie documentation to production time so you can schedule smarter and protect your margins.
Thanks again for listening. Let's dive in.
Mark: Welcome everybody to once again, another great podcast with your host, Mark Black and Scott Lollar. Welcome Scott.
Scott: Hey, Mark. Good to see you again.
Mark: As always, sir, we do have a great topic [00:02:00] today.
Mark’s Work Order Story: ‘How Do You Know What to Do?’
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Mark: Discussing about the details, the importance of job documentation, and I actually have a great story about this to get us started.
So we're working at this job site as many of us do with another contractor on site. This was more of like a GC, like a general carpentry. They were framing up some stairs and building some stuff. And I'm a friendly guy. Struck up a conversation with one of their guys. I was like, so, tell me about your work order.
Like, what are your guys' work orders look like? And he just looks at me. What do you mean? Work order? I was like, well, I mean like, how do you know what to do? Well, the guy just tells me what to do and I, and I do it. Well, how do you know what to do tomorrow? Well, I'm going to do this until I'm done.
I'm like, all right, maybe we're not communicating. Like, I understand you're at this job site, but like, your job, you're framing up these stairs right now. When you get done with the stairs, he's like, I'll just call them and see what they want me to do next. I don't understand. Like, you don't even have a work...
I said, how about how long is this job? He is like, oh, I have no idea. And I'm just like, every question was just mind blowing [00:03:00] how little this guy knew, and it's a pretty good size contractor in our area. But as I have learned about business and how important this topic is in job documentation, we've made some pretty good strides in our business.
I was blown away at how little the guy doing the work knew about the work he was doing. He knew how to do the job physically. I'm sure he did. His skill level was good enough, had no idea what the entire scope, didn't know how much work they were doing there. He's just going to keep working until it's done and then he'll call and they'll tell him what to do next. What? Like how do they make money? They probably don't.
Scott: Yeah. They don't know if they're making money. They don't have a clue.
Mark: Unbelievable. And this is a union outfit, so you know, they're, you know, 120, $130 an hour, like just unlimited time until you get done. Wow.
Scott: Well, I'm guessing he'll be on within his budget then somehow. Right?
Mark: I, but I mean, that's a [00:04:00] crazy story. I don't think every business operates like that out there. But I do think a lot of people do not see the importance of job documentation or informing their crews of, you know, all I need you to do is go paint. Just go paint. Why is this subject so important to us as contractors, Scott, that we have your, you would propose excellent documentation, and then we're going to spend the rest of today's conversation talking about all the ways in which we can document. But in addition to your crew's knowledge of what's going to happen, why is this important to our customers?
Why Documentation Matters: Contracts, Scope, and Protecting Everyone
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Scott: There's a couple reasons why. First of all, we've had a conversation with somebody and come to a conclusion and agreement of what they wanted done, and we need to document what they wanted done and what we were agreeing to do.
How many coats, what surfaces, how many rooms, all these types of things. We might even have some indication of things we're not doing or things we're not going to warranty for instance. And so first of all, we are [00:05:00] making a legal document. That the customer is going to hold us to and that we're going to perform.
And if they try to get us to do other things or different things, we're going to hold to that document.
Garage Door Lesson: When the Customer Has to Write the Contract
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Scott: Now, case in point, I recently had two single garage doors installed in my house. My house was built in 1887 and my garage was the original carriage house where the horses and the hay loft and the whole thing. So I needed doors installed. And so, you know, I see this Chuck in a truck, as we called him that I knew from driving down the road a million times, so I called him and he said uh, sure, I'll come over.
And he, he wandered over and he looked and he said yeah 4,800 bucks. I said, oh, okay. He's like, if you give me half now, i'll order the doors and I'll get them installed in about five days. I said, okay. He says, here's a little catalog. Your wife can look at it. You know, he asked me some questions.
Do I want, you know, raised panel or whatever, and.
Mark: Sure.
Scott: No, no nothing about what kind of garage door opener, nothing about, [00:06:00] you know, anything else. And so I took the brochure and, my wife and I started looking and we decided we wanted some with some windows in the top panel. So we texted him and he says, that's another thousand dollars.
So I said, okay, all right, 5,800. I'm like, I don't even know if it's a good price or not, it doesn't matter. So I said, fine. I said, are you going to send something or anything like that? He's like, no.
So I created the document. I texted him: Remove, you know, garage door, door opener, and track and remove from the property, dispose of install new doors, new openers, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right?
Mark: You wrote your own contract?
Scott: I wrote my own contract. And so the point of it is. There's no way I was going to let him come install garage doors without some documentation of what
we
Mark: agreed to this right.
Scott: So the point is, you know, what if I thought I was getting this kind of garage door opener, a chain drive or a belt drive or a this? How many [00:07:00] openers was I getting? Or is there a keypad or is there two keypads? And you know, is there an app included? And you know, there's a lot more information that would've been helpful other than I'm just going to replace your garage doors.
Or he could have left the garage doors that he removed sitting in my backyard and said, okay have a nice day. And I would've been like, well, hey, what about these doors? He's like, oh, that's not my, you know, so there was lots of details involved that were important to me, and I'm smart enough to know I'm not just going to, you know, assume that what I assume is going to happen.
So, So that's the documentation. So that's a true story as well.
Paperless Systems & Crew Handoffs: Stop Losing Critical Notes
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Scott: But the reason why documentation's important is because I want our companies, and there's no reason our companies in this day and age shouldn't be paperless. Now, I still have a lot of people that say, ah, my guys like to have a piece of paper.
Okay, fine, print it. But, there's no reason that it can't be a paperless company because all of the tools we're using, [00:08:00] all the apps and software we're using is all in the cloud. At C4C, all of our systems are in the cloud and paperless. Secondly is, it happens all the time. And you know, it does that you have to move a crew or you were going to have crew one do something and then it turns out crew two goes there.
Well, crew one has the paperwork or there's no information, and it becomes a problem. Or all of the notes about "don't let the dog out of the house" or "the lady's crazy", or, "do not knock on this door a minute before 7:30 because a baby's asleep. You know, you know all these examples that you think of right now as you're listening happen.
And yet we never told anybody and we never documented. And our salesperson stood there and made a million promises for us. And then, oh gosh, I forgot to tell you because why? Well, because I'm disorganized. I wrote it on a napkin. Or we just don't have a system to give you that. Those are the things that set us apart when we're trying to win the [00:09:00] bid.
When we're trying to get work, we're selling a white glove service. I've told people we have a white glove service, but then don't deliver it, then we're just like any other painter and you know, the customer could have buyer's remorse and go, I can't believe I, let this person talk me into this project.
I thought they were different. They're not.
Mark: Yeah, and you and I have discussed two pretty major, you know, obvious outlier situations. We know that our customers, our listeners to this podcast probably have a written proposal, you know, with the basic information in there. You've discussed some ideas of, you know, some notes and things that we need good documentation of, but what would some key things be that in your mind is bare minimum, you have to address these four or five particular things to let your crew know how to deliver what the customer's expecting?
Scott: Yeah.
Bare-Minimum Work Order Essentials: Scope, Prep Levels, Photos, Notes
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Scott: Without question, each item specifically. Substrate and number of coats. How many times have we heard the question, [00:10:00] are the closets included? Right? And it happens all the time. Are both sides of the doors included or whatever, you know, these are the types of things we hear because it's not clear.
So clear scope of work. I also like that where companies would have some sort of prep level and if it's outside of that prep level that it's identified and written. I'm a proponent of some good pictures. I like Company Cam very well. I like it a lot actually.
It has some benefits, but I think you start taking pictures at the estimate, and I think those pictures should line up with what's written in the proposal so that I can look at the document. Look at the pictures and without any other questions to anybody could go get that job produced either as the project manager, as or as the painter, or as a subcontractor.
In addition, we do find it on occasion necessary to write some notes. Now, I don't want a lot of notes because if you're giving me information about how something's going to happen, I would just assume see it in the proposal. I [00:11:00] think that's a great way to make it clear to the contract to whoever's doing the work, whether it's a sub or employee, some of the things that you've promised.
Make sure you vacuum thoroughly. Make sure you put up dust barriers. Such and such will be cleaned or degreased or this or that. Giving us an indication that these words were specifically spoken with this client. So there are going to expect you to do something because we promised you were going to do it.
So I'd rather see that in the proposal, but there might be a few notes that are not going to be there, which is, you know, hey, the, this customer's really sensitive about their pets, or they really they told me 10 times, don't trample my plants. Or they told me there's a brand new roof no paint on the roof.
Or, you know, there's these little nuances that happen in the sales call in residential for sure, that we really need to make sure we communicate. And that might be in a note. Now, the estimating programs. That we're using these days all have the capacity to let you leave a note [00:12:00] within that proposal, but not public to the client.
It can be private to your team.
Mark: Yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent. And I think, we're probably not getting many objections from listeners. Like of course, you know, and we go beyond that. I don't know that we have to talk anybody into the fact that there needs to be good job documentation, but I also know.
I, as an owner I'm not particularly good at this. I'm not a detailed guy. I have a ton of notes that I either fail to write down myself, the customer, and I had a good discussion. I know what they want, but I didn't clearly communicate that from the proposal or the estimate to the work order.
From Proposal to Work Order: Checklists, Tools, and Owner-Proof Processes
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Mark: So if we can get into the weeds just a minute technologically, what would be your preferred method of transferring from the proposal to the work order?
Also, knowing that a lot of customers just use the proposal as the work order. Here is the bid, here's what I told the customer and agreed to. That becomes the work order. Or do you feel like [00:13:00] that should be a completely separate document?
Scott: Well, before I answer that, Mark I would tell you that I would put you on a performance plan and probably terminate you because you know, you're just you're not going to follow the rules, you're not going to be able to, you know, follow the process. I would fire you. Unfortunately, you're the owner, so we have a problem with you.
So we're going to talk about our fictitious contractor, not you.
Mark: Right. Not me.
Scott: Because we know you have a fatal flaw and you're quite frankly, unemployable. But.
Mark: It's fair. It's actually fair.
Scott: It's really fair.
Mark: I feel like a complete hypocrite even talking about this subject, because I'm the world's worst.
Scott: All right. This is as do as I say, not as I do.
Mark: We started down the rabbit trail. We're going to continue. Let me tell you something, we've, I am so bad at this, everybody that my team actually protects the company from me. Mark can do the sale, but then they have access to my notes so that they can download the notes into Basecamp to make sure it just gets in all the right places from Paint Scout to the work order.
' [00:14:00] cause they do not trust me to give all the information and that's probably fair.
Scott: in a perfect world, Mark, what I would say is it would start in the estimate request form or the lead form, if you call them. There's some information that we get probably from the first phone call or whether it's an online request and start there. Any cues we're getting or any feedback we're getting.
And then I think it's perfectly fine to have a pre-production checklist. We have that in Monday.com, and anything that we need to know, we're going to go harvest. Now, in a situation where there's information that is consistently not given or we need, I think I would probably just develop a system. So if I had a fantastic salesperson like Mark, but he always forgets to tell me X, Y, and Z, I think I would put three questions on my pre-production checklist, and I'd ask Mark, question X, Y, and Z. Is that my preference? No, I'd rather Mark actually just do a great job or else get fired. But as we already said, we can't fire Mark, he owns a company. [00:15:00] But you know, I think there are some good questions that we can ask in pre-production.
Is there a, a lockbox or a garage code? Are there any special instructions?
The Customer Experience Problem: Tree Crew Confusion & the Restaurant Analogy
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Scott: One thing that I'm bothered with as a consumer is people that don't hold to an appointment schedule. You know, I'm a business coach and I'm on Zoom calls somewhere six to eight hours a day. So if I've made provisions for you to meet me at eight o'clock and you wander in about 9:15, that's a problem for me.
And I've had those situations where people knock on my door and say, we're here. situations with some tree removal where they knocked on the door. The estimator had not given any instruction. They knocked on my door late, so interrupted a call. I had to excuse myself and they said, show us what we're doing. And it's a true story. It was a tree removal and a whole property tree trimming. And they asked me to show them what I was doing. And I was, it was pretty upsetting because I had made a big deal with the owner of this company that I had chosen him because he was actually a certified arborist.
It [00:16:00] wasn't just a hack and that I really wanted him to give me feedback on my trees and the proper methodology. And we were specific because there was a neighbor involved. There was all this information, he didn't communicate any of it. And they showed up and said, Hey you tell us. And I was just like, sick about it and I was upset and I was really actually upset about it.
And would never refer them or use them again. But that's the kind of information that we're really looking to communicate. Like, Hey, this guy was pretty clear that he needed guidance on this tree trimming that he was a little uncomfortable with. So let's make sure, you know, we communicate these things, take them, you know, let them know we've done all these things.
We let them, you know, that would be what I would expect to communicate to the crew. And we can do that in notes. We could do it in an audio note. There's a lot of ways we can do it.
Mark: That it's kind of like when you go to a restaurant and you order, and your waitress is awesome. She's taking it down and then she disappears. Food finally comes out 15 minutes later and it's a different server, right? And they come [00:17:00] out and with a tray full of food and you're kind of excited, but they have no idea.
Who got where depending on where you're eating. Obviously this is a lowbrow place, who got the chicken fried shake, who got the meatloaf? Like it's always just a little bit disappointing and that person didn't take your order. They obviously have no idea what the order was.
They didn't remember that you asked for extra this or hold the pickle on that, that they don't really care because it's not their table. I'm just here to give you your food. But often we deliver that experience. If we're not careful, we send a team. Yeah, I got a professional team. They're there at the appointed day.
They're there at Monday at eight o'clock. But if that, yeah, if the first, well just show us what we're doing. It does not inspire confidence that I'm going to get what I ordered and that I'm going to get my money's worth.
Scott: And in fact in those moments, as you've talked about the restaurant example, when they do that and they say, who's got the steak? And they look at us and I think, oh shoot, I guess I got to punch in and go to work now. Because they're going to make me, you know, work. Now I got to, I got a direct traffic here and [00:18:00] you know, the got this and mine's this and it really bums me out.
It really does.
We are about halfway through our episode today with Mark and Scott on Success Beyond the Brush. And if anything they're talking about today is hitting home, it's most likely because you've already experienced it. The constant clarifying phone calls, missed scopes of work, that feeling that everything runs through you.
If you want help building systems that give you back control and freedom, connect with the team at Consulting4Contractors. They specialize in helping paint contractors scale with structure. From documentation systems to production processes, even leadership development. You're going to find all these and more when you connect with a coach at Consulting4Contractors.
Check out our resources and links in the show notes or video description. You can also find more information and resources at consulting4contractors.com. That is [00:19:00] consulting4contractors.com. Let's jump into the rest of the episode.
Crew Leader vs. Unprepared Tech: Setting Expectations on Day One
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Mark: We're obviously differentiating from, you know, a good crew leader who's asking some clarifying questions to ensure that the customer's satisfied. That's a very different scenario than the guy who hasn't even read his work order, didn't look at the pictures and really just wants the customer to tell him what to do.
Those are two very different scenarios and I do think you can handle it professionally of, Hey, you know, I am here. This is the first day, do you mind if we walk through this work order together? I just want to make sure we're meeting all your expectations.
Scott: A hundred percent.
Production Meeting + First-Day Walkthrough: Preventing Scope Confusion
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Scott: And if, you go back and listen to the podcast about meetings, one of the meetings that I advocate is that production meeting where the jobs that are accepted since our last meeting gets brought out into the light. That production looks through it like I just referred to.
Looks at the pictures, looks at the notes, at the scope of work, and they accept it as I can do this. I get it. And if there's any questions, the sales person's sitting right there. And then they accept it. And [00:20:00] that first of first day walkthrough needs to happen with the crew leader and the client.
At a minimum. If there's a project manager on your team, I would expect that too. And we simply train them to say this. Mrs. Smith, my goal is that you have an excellent experience. You know, if at any time you're not pleased, let me know. I'd like to spend just a few minutes and walk through what I understand we're doing and make sure that there's no misunderstanding and that we can clarify where colors are going and then, if I was doing that, and I would say something like, because you know, Mark, sometimes, you know, he's kind of crazy and he forgets stuff. So I want to make sure if he forgot that, because I really want to make sure you're really happy, right? So that's how you tee that up. And then you do that walkthrough.
But I'm just reading off the scope. I'm just going, yeah, it says we're doing the master bedroom, we're doing the ceiling here, we're doing the walls. There's an accent. We're doing your trim, we're doing your bathroom. You know, here's what we're doing. I'm just reading the work order. This is not like some kind of like, crazy thing.
This is just literally interpreting what was documented so that I can produce the [00:21:00] work.
Handling Exclusions (Closets, Gutters, ‘Paint the Whole House’ Traps)
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Mark: You and I both have been in the scenario though, where, when the crew leader is having that conversation right there, the customer says something to the effect of, I think you were doing the closet too, but it's not on the work order. So how do you handle, how would you like to see exclusions handled?
Scott: Yeah, so we talk about this a lot in commercial painting and uh, in the commercial course that I authored with Eric Barstow, exclusions in commercial to me are almost as important as what you're doing. So, hey, by the way, we're not doing this, that, and the other. We're not going to sandblast this.
We're going to do this, you know. In a residential, I'm a proponent of using that example that you said, is saying all closets are excluded unless specifically referenced in the area that they exist. Something like that. Or maybe on the outside we say, excludes all gutters and downspouts.
A lot of people use very broad term, we're going to paint your whole house. Whoa, like, hey, and then, and they say, well, you didn't paint my [00:22:00] shutters, you didn't paint my brick, you didn't paint my gutters, you didn't paint. All this stuff's like, well, that stuff's not going to be, I not, I don't, we're not painting that. Well, you said we're painting everything and on, and it happens a lot next.
Yeah. So people, this happens all the time where they say I'm painting, you know, all of your trim and people go, well, you didn't paint both sides of my door. Well, that door's on the other side of this room. And I said, I'm painting, you know? So if we don't talk about that and say it specifically, then we're going to have problems.
Why not just say it? It includes a. You know, this much trim or includes, excludes, closets, or you know, whatever this is, right? There's no reason. And you could put that in your boilerplate language and just say what I just said, which is it, all closets are excluded unless I've told you they are included.
Okay? We don't have to say that it's excluded every time, we say it once.
Mark: Yeah, and I think closets should be mentioned specifically because so many homeowners that's part of the room. You said you'd paint the bedroom. Like they don't [00:23:00] differentiate it in their minds. And a lot of times we didn't account for the square footage.
Scott: A hundred
Time Budgets & Production Rates: Turning Estimates into Hours and Materials
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Mark: in addition to being clear on the scope and making sure that we're delivering the expectation of our customer as far as the work being performed, there's also a financial part of this discussion as far as job documentation.
That's another thing that stood out to me when I was talking to my contractor friend who is building a frame for some stairs. He had no idea of the budget. Or, Or the time in which he was supposed to get that done. How would you like to see that delineated to our crews? And are you a fan of breaking that down, how minutely? Like you have this many hours for repair, you have this many hours for ceiling, for wall surface, et cetera.
Scott: I'm a proponent of bundling to a point, but all of the softwares that we advocate, and I'm not even going to name them, so I can't make anybody mad, but they all have production [00:24:00] rate type of estimating, which is I'm an advocate for. Too many people walk into a room and, you know, lick their finger, stick in the air, go, ah, 600 bucks.
Well, okay, maybe you say that because you've done this for a lot of time and that's how much you know, it's going to be 600 bucks. But. Measuring that room, having a production rate for the ceiling, the walls, the trim, the door will be better, first of all, and this is outside a little bit of our topic, but just because you've painted for 20 years and you know that room is going to be 600 bucks, when you grow and have to hire another estimator, you're going to have to clone yourself, and that's going to be a problem. Whereas I'd rather be able to hire somebody with good sales skills and teach them how to measure something and plug it into my program. So the production rate method is critical. We are always selling hours. Okay? Even if you're using subcontractors, we're paying them in hours, right?
A day, eight hours or whatever. So. on the front end of this, we're going to do production rates and come up with a price. On the [00:25:00] back end of this, it's going to convert it to time and materials so that we can give people an indication. How many gallons do they need to paint two coats on these walls?
Now we always suggest that you order less than the full amount because there's, you know, inefficiencies, maybe there's openings and such, but, you know, why would we make people guess and go to the paint store 10 times when we could just look at the work order and go, okay, this room is two gallons, this room needs three gallons.
And so it gives us our gallons, but it also gives us our time per substrate, per room. So that we can budget because to your story, you know, we send someone in there and say, go paint that room. And at the end of the day they got, you know, they got it prepped and they got the ceiling done and you thought they would probably paint the whole thing well.
There's no indication how long that should take. And so I would say at the minimum, application of material paint per substrate, the ceiling is this much time. The walls are [00:26:00] this much time, the doors are the, you know. So trim, if you want to call all painted trim surface is the same thing. Doors are pretty easy to count individually.
Windows, if you paint windows in your area a lot it's pretty easy to come up with a account, but you know, crown molding, baseboard, whatever. But I think some we should be able to look at these and assemble a time. This room is four plus four equals 16, and this is a 16 hour room, and this is how that's broken out. I also am very comfortable with a line item for setup and cleanup, if that's helpful. And also sometimes people like prep. Why I also like prep is because that's where some people get completely in the weeds and they just start going and they can't stop themselves.
And next thing you know, they're patching for four hours. So it can give a little indication to them is this is the way the estimator saw this. It might track back to a conversation they had. And so, hey, they gave us two hours to prep this room. [00:27:00] Let's keep it to two hours. So I'm okay with that as a line item, but, my preference really would be put prep inside of your production rate for your substrate, but either one will work. So, you know, probably we're talking about four different time numbers in a room. It would be pretty common. And then we would be able to manage that and break that out so that we can track them. From now till lunch, you have four hours and you know, the walls are four hours, so we would expect that to be done and then you can go from lunch to the end of the day. So it helps us in our management, so we can teach crew leaders. It also can help us with even our subcontractors, but it absolutely can also help with our scheduling.
How the world can you schedule manpower when you don't have any time increments. You know, you say, well that job's going to take a week. A week for what? Like what does that mean? It means. One person, 40 hours, two people, 80 hours, you know, there's math involved. So I think it also will help you with scheduling.
I don't care if you [00:28:00] still sub it out and you tell someone, I'm going to give you this much money, that's fine. But internally, we still have a schedule to keep. And if we don't have some kind of measurement of how long we expect it to take in time, I don't see how you can successfully schedule out your crews.
Mark: That's exactly right.
Managing to the Plan: Tracking Progress, Scheduling, and Teaching ‘Job Math’
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Mark: I love the point about managing it because it really does free up your, whatever you call them, crew leaders, project managers, supervisors, superintendents the people who are managing that project can easily then look when it's broken down per substrate, per room, per component.
Hey, here's a rough idea. There's two of you there today. You should be able to get those two bedrooms done, and I know that mathematically. Unless there's some major problem. I know about what should be done today, and if we didn't achieve that goal I need a reason why.
Scott: That's right. And also, in our data report that we advocate with answering a few questions and some pictures, we're asking them, are you on budget, prepared to finish on our pre-agreed upon day? Are you ahead of [00:29:00] schedule or are you behind schedule? How can they answer that question unless they're understanding their production, like how much have we done to the budget? And knowing that budget and tracking. So what we hear is everything's good. And then the last day they go, I need another week. You're like, what? You know, for three, you know? And so, I know that there's some people that treat tradespeople as stupid.
They didn't go to college. They can't do math. I think that's your head trash. They can do math. They want to have more responsibility and learn. Teach them to do math in four or eight hour increments. Hey, this is a 24 hour job. You have three people. It's got to be done today. How are we going to get it done today?
And then if there's a situation that says, well, there's a bunch of patching that's going to require eight hours of dry time, well then we're going to have to figure that out. But that's how we teach people how to keep a schedule and how to be productive. And without that information, that work order, I just think we're setting them up for failure.
Mark: And the truth is we're talking about management [00:30:00] skills that transcend just our industry. Every manager in every industry is controlling output, revenue, production capacity in some way, shape or form. Everybody is managing their people, and I don't know the name of the rule. There's a human psychology rule that basically people are always going to de default to the lowest common denominator. They're going to do as little is possible, and not even necessarily a culture issue. It's simply if I have unlimited time, then the project will take unlimited time.
If I have a time limit and I know that there's going to be consequences, if I don't, I am much statistically, I am much more likely to hit that goal.
Scott: And that's also why I hate a time and material project because man, a time and material project is really an open-ended thing, and I would never enjoy that as a customer and I wouldn't really enjoy that even as a contractor because it's just wide open for, [00:31:00] misinterpretation, for hurt feelings, for disagreements and there's no urgency.
Creating these timelines and these budgets will really be helpful.
Color Schedules & Digital Work Orders: Making Job Info Mobile and Foolproof
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Scott: Another document that I think is really missed is a good electronic color schedule. I'm asking people for colors. Both manufacturer name and number because they can be transposed and miswritten very easily so that. So that we can come up with the color schedule very easily.
Now if all the ceilings are the same white or the same off white, that's fine. They don't need to write it every time. And the same can be said for trim if it's monochromatic through the whole house. But being clear and forcing them into writing that document. Now we do, an electronic form that we send to them through our Monday program when they accept the contract, but this idea of asking them to give you that information per room in the form, so that there's no misunderstanding. There's no confusion. In my world, I would ask [00:32:00] the estimator to predetermined, the sheen. I don't want my customer to have to be an expert about paint and sheen.
So I want them to have that conversation during the estimate and put it in the estimate. But, you know, getting that electronic document, so again, we have the scope of work that we can convert to a work order, which we can link in Monday.com or wherever you want, in a text or in an email.
We have the color schedule, which is a document that we can create a link for. So those two things are Perfect. And so it doesn't matter who we send to the job, we can just tell them to go into the file or go into Monday.com in our case and just click on the link and they can see the work order, open it up on your phone, on your tablet, whatever.
So it really simplifies the ability to move people around or not have people married to the paperwork, Hey, I'm going to have to stop by and get the paperwork. No, you don't. It's in our process. It's in our you know, our tech stack.
Mark: Yeah.
Tech Stack + Systemizing Away Constant Phone Calls (E-Myth Mindset)
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Mark: Speaking of tech, you bring it up as we're coming to the end of the podcast here, are there technological components that help us with our job [00:33:00] documentation? Do you have any recommendations? Don't know if you want to shout out particular companies, but how can technology help us in our search for excellent job documentation?
Scott: Well, a lot of people are using some kind of project management system. there's bunches of them. We are using Monday.com as ours, but a place where you can assemble all this information in one place for easy access in a customer view. So. I suppose you could do this in Google or something like that.
I just feel like it's going to probably be a lot of folders. I would be more interested in a project management system where they could go in and have access and look at it. You give them permissions to look at certain things, not other things. That would be my feedback there. But all of these things I mean, gosh, whether it's QuickBooks time, whether it's company cam, whether it's one of the many great estimating programs available out there. You know, there's plenty of ways you can leave notes in the estimate. You could use notes. You know, there's just so many ways you can [00:34:00] put this information and collate it to one place and store it in one place.
That's really what I'd advocate. The one thing besides clarity for the field personnel it also gives freedom to the management or the estimator. It's shocking. I'll be on a Zoom call with a client and they say, you know what?
I really got to take this. And so I, it's fine, I'm patient and then they come back, What was that? Tell me what that person asked. Well, they wanted to know if the closets were included, right, or whatever. Right. It creates a waste of time. It's inefficient. We're calling, the phone's ringing all the time, and I hear this from you all the time, whether you're the owner, the estimator, the project manager.
My phone rings all the time. I would go straight to the E-Myth. The principle of key frustration and say, solve that problem, man. Solve it with a system or process and doing it is getting them the information. If I heard 10 times, I don't have the colors, I'd solve [00:35:00] that problem. I mean, I wouldn't listen to that all day.
And I would say, whoever, we're going to fix this and we're going to fix it forever. And that's the E-Myth there. The other one we, I've referenced Michael Hyatt. Well, then you can automate it or delegate it or what, you know how. But fix these problems because if you're going to be a high performance organization, and I don't care how big you are, if you're 500,000 or 5 million, it doesn't matter.
It is not a good use of any of your time or your estimator's time, or project manager's time or office manager's time to answer stupid questions for which we know there's a systematic approach to solving the question. Get the question answered before it's asked, and be efficient. If they're calling because they want to chitchat, well, you better stop by with some coffee then.
But we don't field calls for scope clarification or for colors clarification, unless it's absolutely necessary because we've solved that problem and we've solved it forever.
Scaling for Freedom: Build Documentation Systems Early + Final Wrap-Up
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Mark: Yeah, and a lot of this may sound foreign depending on [00:36:00] the size of the person listening and your company. As you scale, these principles become more and more important. You know, maybe when you're a smaller company, you've got six or eight guys in the field, you can start them off, you know, I'll walk you through on day one.
I'll tell you everything you need to know. You might get away with that kind of stuff at that size. When you're running a 16, 20, 25, 30 man and beyond crew, you would spend half your day answering clarifying questions and that's why this topic of the details and documenting those details, once to your point and never touching it again, is so important.
If you want to have freedom in a scaling company.
Scott: Yes, and that's why a lot of people are afraid to leave and go on vacation, because they have to touch everything. Everything's running through their fingers, through their ears, through their mouth, and if they leave, you know, the machine stops. And that's the, that's [00:37:00] why you started a business, for freedom.
And in fact, what you've done is you've actually created a monster where you can't leave it. So if that's you, just take baby steps to solve it. Fix it, and when and if anyone's listening to this, that's a startup or relatively small, don't think, this isn't for me. I'm too small. No, build your company as a future that is as big as you want it to be. Just because you're small doesn't mean you shouldn't be efficient and do things the right way. So, focus on these things and get them fixed and you're going to be grateful as you grow because you won't have this pain.
Mark: Agreed, a hundred percent. It's been a good discussion, Scott. We appreciate your time as always on another vital subject. If you're interested in learning more about scaling your business or making it more efficient through better documentation systems, processes, your organization should be talking to Consulting4Contractors.
Scott: Thanks, Mark.
Mark: Have a great day.
That wraps [00:38:00] up another episode of Success Beyond the Brush. Documentation isn't just paperwork, it's protection, it's clarity, and it's freedom. When your scope is clear and when your time budgets are defined and your systems are organized, your team is gonna perform better, your customers are gonna feel more confident, and you're gonna stop answering the same questions over and over again. So if you're ready to make the move from reactive chaos to proactive systems, make sure to connect with the people at Consulting4Contractors. You can check them out at their website, www.consulting4contractors.com. As always, check the show notes or video description for links and resources.
Thanks again so much for listening to Success Beyond the Brush. We'll see you on the next one.