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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. 18 | Hiring Painters in a Seasonal Business – What Actually Works
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[00:00:00]
Three Key Traits
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Rick: You need to be dependable. So you got to know how to work. You know, I've got to be there every day. I got to be on time every day. If I'm running late, I need to notify somebody because people are counting on me. So that's the dependability piece. You got to have a good attitude. If you're going to come in, ho hum and bring everybody down, we don't need you.
We don't need you here. I don't need to be at work when I'm in that mindset, I really don't. It doesn't do anybody else any good. And then the third thing is you want people that have skill, are willing to learn the skill, right? And if you have two of those, but you don't have all three, that's tough.
It's tough. You can have all the skill in the world, you can have a great attitude. But if you're not dependable, what good does that doing the company?
Welcome To Success Beyond The Brush
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Welcome to episode 18 of Success Beyond the Brush, the podcast dedicated to helping contractors build profitable, sustainable businesses. In this episode, Mark Black is going to sit down with Rick Holtz of HJ Holtz and Sons Painting to [00:01:00] talk about one of the biggest challenges in the service industry, and that is hiring and retaining great team members.
So from seasonal hiring strategies to training systems that actually work for you. This conversation is going to explore what it takes to build a reliable team that supports long-term growth. So whether you are running a small crew or managing dozens of employees, this episode is going to help you strengthen your hiring process and develop people who contribute to your company's success.
Let's hop into this conversation with Rick and Mark.
Gear Up For Spring
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Mark: Hey everybody. Welcome again to another great Beyond The Brush podcast. I'm your host, Mark Black. Here again today with Rick Holtz, HJ Holtz and Sons Painting, Richmond, Virginia. Welcome, sir.
Rick: Thank you, Mark. Pleasure to see you once again.
Mark: It's a pleasure to see you as well. It's also a pleasure to look out my window, see green grass and, and budding trees, butterflies. The sun is shining. At least in the Midwest, it [00:02:00] seems as if spring is here. How about on the East Coast?
Rick: Same here, but my burning question is can you paint when pollen's in the air? I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Every year, sorry. I get it every year.
Mark: Yes. Yes. You certainly do.
Seasonal Hiring Rush
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Mark: With Spring brings many specific challenges for painting business owners, which I'm sure you are familiar with. And again, for those that don't know Rick and his company, he runs a fairly large company, 60 something people in the field at any given time.
I am curious for a larger company like yours, Rick, do you do what the rest of us do? Is there kind of a rush to hire a bunch of people in the spring? Do you feel a large need for staffing when springtime rolls around?
Rick: Yeah, definitely. And to be quite honest with you, I feel like we're kind of late to the party.
Mark: Oh, really?
Rick: Yeah. I mean, in years past, I feel like the end of February, early March is a great time to find people because you can get some really good [00:03:00] hires from people that just aren't busy. We just didn't have the work load at the end of February, beginning of March to really bring somebody on. But now all of a sudden it's like a sleeping giant has, you know, woken up and it's like, oh God, we need like three or four or five people. Producers, you know, positions that'll produce work for us.
Winter Workers Dilemma
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Mark: You brought up a good point, and that's happened in our company a few times too, Rick, where people will call during the winter time or the slower times, January, February and say, Hey, I'm looking for work. Do you have any work? But I always get the feeling I'm being used like, Hey, I need you for 30 or 40 days, and then I'm going to go back to my thing as soon as it's busy.
Do you feel the same way? How do you
Rick: Absolutely. Yeah. I've had people that, you know, we hire and carry them through the lean winter, and then once, you know, spring comes out and people can paint exteriors and work is plentiful it's, I'm going to go back and do my own thing.
Mark: True.
Rick: But, you don't always [00:04:00] know and don't want to shut the door before you've really seen what you can do.
Mark: That's true, and I've experienced both ends of that stick. I do have a recent success story. We had a guy reach out in early February who had worked for another painting company and he was looking to see if we had any work and I kind of had that sneaking feeling like he's going to use us for a month or so.
Very highly skilled individual. But the truth is, once he got in here, he loved our team, he loved our culture. He had never worked with a true professional company before, and he isn't going anywhere. He loves it. So I'm just saying, you can't shut the door and assume you're being used either.
Team Culture Hook
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Rick: No you can't because like you said, you know, a lot of people in our industry are one. Work by themselves or have maybe a buddy that they work with and stuff, and that's a whole different feeling of work than when you are part of something that's bigger than yourself. Everybody wants to be on a team.
Everybody wants to be on a winning team. Everybody wants [00:05:00] to feel like they're important. And it's hard to do that when you're by yourself. But when you work for a company that's got goals and they're doing things and they have work. They have equipment, they have vehicles, they're branded. You're proud.
It brings out pride.
And I think you can really hook people on that.
Mark: I agree.
No Need For Layoffs
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Mark: Running a larger company, do you experience, do you just have huge swings from, I know it gets cold in Richmond for seasonality, do you drop 20 or 30 people in the cold season and then ramp back up for the warmer seasons?
Rick: I hate to say this, Mark, I don't want to say this, but, I've never laid anybody off.
Mark: Oh,
Rick: Because of work. Because of not having work.
Mark: Let's knock on some wood.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I hate to say it, but it's true. And I feel very lucky. I've been scared to death that I needed to do that at times.
But no I try to market our company as we are a 12 month employer.
Mark: [00:06:00] Yeah.
Rick: You're working 40 hours a week, you know, you're an hourly person, but you can count on 40 hours a week. If you're not getting 40 hours, it's probably going to be because of you, right.
Mark: On the flip side of that argument though, as it gets warmer and you've got a ton of maybe exterior and interior jobs, do you try and ramp up for the busy season? Do you overstaff or do you just produce it with about the same number of people, 60-ish that you run most of the year?
Rick: You know, we try to ramp up three to four more people, and I feel like in the past few years we've lost them for whatever, you know, we've lost two or three people for whatever reason before we get to winter. Maybe it's we figured out it's not a good fit and we kind of use them in retrospect, kind of like we talked about employees using us for the winter.
I think some of us do that too, right? I mean, let's be honest. We use sometimes people that aren't great fits, but they're almost fits. They're not misfits, but they're [00:07:00] almost fits.
And then when we see things slowing down and the season kind of ending, it's like, eh, then we start looking at their attendance harder.
Then we start looking at their performance more. Then we looked at the quality of their work, and then we're like, eh, this doesn't work.
Mark: Of course.
Ideal Candidate Profile
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Mark: So as we talk about the concept of hiring, which is on everybody's mind, come spring, tell me how that looks like at HJ Holtz and Sons. What does that ideal candidate look like for your company?
Rick: The ideal candidate is somebody that's going to have some skill, are willing to learn, they're dependable and they have a good attitude. Because I really firmly believe you have to have all three. I've said this and preached it a lot. You know, if you have two, two of those things, but you're missing one, probably not a good fit.
Mark: Right.
Rick: You need to be dependable. So you got to know how to work. You know, I've got to be there every day. I got to be on time every day. If I'm running late, I need to notify somebody because people are counting on me. [00:08:00] So that's the dependability piece. You got to have a good attitude. If you're going to come in, ho hum and bring everybody down. We don't need you.
We don't need you here. I don't need to be at work when I'm in that mindset. I really don't. It doesn't do anybody else any good. And then the third thing is, you want people that have skill, are willing to learn the skill, right? And if you have two of those, but you don't have all three, that's tough.
It's tough. You can have all the skill in the world, you can have a great attitude. But if you're not dependable, what good does that doing the company?
Mark: Right.
Rick: Then we can take it the other way. You can be dependable, you can have a great attitude, but you don't have any skill and you don't want to learn.
Mark: Right, and we've all had both.
Rick: So, so, you know, that's what we're looking for. It's kind of simple. The hard part is it takes time to see if they have those things, right?
Mark: Well, I was going to ask, do you find the majority of your applicants or people looking for a job, do they have any [00:09:00] skill or are you training from the ground up?
Rick: It's a mix. It's a mixed bag. It could be both.
It could be both. Lately our last two hires that we've had recently, we hired somebody within the last 30 days, and we have another one starting on April one. They both have skill and they both present themselves very well. They're not overly confident. But they're calmly confident, if that makes sense. You know, you, we always get the employees that come in or the potential employees I've been painting for 20 years, you know, and they're 25 years old, been painting for 25 years. I can go, I can produce more than anybody you have working here at this shop.
That kind of person that's trying to promote themselves, but to the extreme.
I still think you want somebody that presents themself well. And I feel like, I don't know, Mark, don't you feel like in your company when you hire people, it's a feeling you have.
Mark: I certainly do. I don't know that, my sense is excellent because I like everybody up front. I think everybody's going to be a [00:10:00] rockstar.
Rick: There you go.
Hiring Process Walkthrough
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Mark: and I've been proved wrong many times, but I guess, walk us through your process then. Do you guys have a phone interview process before? Are you even involved in the hiring process at all?
Rick: I'm not involved in it anymore. Yeah, Kelly my operations manager, handles that and some people walk in, some people will fill out a form on our website. Some people will call into Kirsten who answers the phone, and then we're going to try to get them in to fill out an app. We want to see if they can get there, make sure they have transportation.
It tells you a lot. And then if Kelly's in the office, which a lot of times he is, he'll have a conversation with him. If he likes it, he gets him to do a little bit of painting out in our shop and then he'll make an offer right then.
Mark: Yeah.
Training And Job Costing
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Mark: Now after the hiring process and they decide to start, will he put them with a, like a training crew leader? How, what's their integration look like into...
Rick: All of [00:11:00] our crew leaders have a responsibility to welcome and accept new hires, all of them. Now, obviously there's some that do it better than others, but we've pretty much made it clear and we've done that more recently because I don't think it was really clear, but it's like that is part of your job.
Part of your job is to bring new people on and train them how we work in people's homes so that the company can continue to grow and be successful, because we can't grow and be successful if our employees can't train and bring new people in and show them our way.
Mark: Well, and we get this question a lot from listeners, but do you have any allowances for training time when there's a budget on a job, but you have a brand new guy? Is there some allowances there?
Rick: Yes. If there's somebody that has no skill, in the past, we've done half of their hours every week to training. And it goes into overhead, so that they're getting on the job training, but it's not in the job cost of that particular [00:12:00] project. You know only half their time's getting charged to the job.
Mark: Sure, because of course you have some frustrations just in having to slow down and teach somebody. But there's an added frustration if it's taking away from your profitability or making your job look bad.
Rick: Well, yeah, because you know, your crew leader's measured with metrics. So if they're going over hours and it's because they're always training people that you're hiring, then you know, we don't really have a leg to stand on when we say, Hey, you need to do better on your hours. So yeah, you've got to, you got to find a happy medium for sure.
Ninety Day Integration
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Mark: So then depending on skill level, obviously you're hiring people of all different skill levels. What does integration time look like for you? Is that weeks, months?
Rick: I mean, we usually are telling them that we're going to sit back down with them in 90 days.
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: We'll put them, typically they'll be with a crew leader for a while. Sometimes they'll move to another one if like the first one says, I'm not getting good vibes. [00:13:00] Hey, let's try this person with someone else and see if it was just a personality thing.
Mark: right.
Rick: Or if this person is really a good fit.
Fire Faster Gut Check
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Rick: And I think the thing that we haven't been good at, and I don't think we're good at as an industry is firing quick,
Mark: Ah.
Rick: You know, I think it's okay to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know, a person can portray themselves in a certain way.
But once the rubber meets the road and you get them out on a job site, you know, right away.
Mark: I'm guilty of that, Rick. I'm guilty of that a lot. I've been told that I give unmerited grace.
Rick: Yeah.
Mark: They really haven't earned it. We all know what, but I project, you know, if I were in their shoes, this is how I would act. And let's give him another week. Maybe he'll turn it around, you know, hopefully he'll catch onto the culture here.
And I do have a big heart for people, and I'm hoping you know, that they can change or break some bad habits that they've brought into our company. But you're right, 85, 90% of the [00:14:00] time, I should have just trusted my gut. I knew this was a bad fit, and I, took too long.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no, like, we're not going to find any scientific data on your gut instinct, but your gut knows. You just know.
You just know.
Welcoming New Hires
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Rick: Now, the flip side to all of this Mark, that I think is really important is your team needs to know how important new hires are.
Mark: Yeah.
To them,
Rick: To them. Yeah, to them and to the company as a whole. Because you could hire the greatest people that have those three traits that I talked about. And if your team is not welcoming and your team does not embrace new people and trying to show them, you know, your way, your company's culture. Then you're never going to gain any employees, right?
You're never going to get ahead in the employment category. You're just not.
Mark: You are right. And as you said earlier we have team members who [00:15:00] are more on board than others. You know, some guys are just open to new guys and some guys just, they're just kind of closed to new guys. They don't want, they don't want the heartache or the headache or really, they just like it the way it's always been.
They don't like change.
Rick: Are there introverts? Like you're an extrovert, right?
So Mark, that's why you love everybody, right? And you want everybody to work because you get energy talking to other people and interacting with people. And we've got to understand that we have a very diverse workforce and not everybody's that way. So we've got to kind of persuade them. We have to convince them that it's important.
Mark: I think you were wise in what you said earlier too, that I don't usually take one person's word for it. You know, you inevitably, after two weeks, Hey, get rid of that guy. He's no good. I'm going to let him work with someone else just to get a second opinion before I just try. That could be a personality issue.
Who knows?
Rick: Yeah. And a company as large as ours, you know, we have, I don't know, [00:16:00] 14 crew leaders, paint crew leaders if within the first four weeks. Four people have said that this person doesn't, isn't going to work. Like we can't keep putting this person with more and more people. That's not fair to
Mark: That's true.
Rick: And that's when you need to have a conversation.
You don't wait until 90 days. You need to have a conversation.
You know, you can't just keep hoping it's going to get better
when it hasn't gotten better in four weeks. Right.
Visit Us Online For A Free Discovery Call!
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Well, if you're out there and you are working to build a stronger team and want proven systems for hiring, leadership and profitability, Consulting4Contractors, help service business owners just like you develop clear processes that support long-term growth, not just for painting companies, but really for any company operating in the service industry space.
Scott Lollar and the Consulting4Contractors team work directly with owners to improve their hiring systems, their leadership structure, their financial clarity, and also their operational efficiency. So visit us [00:17:00] at www.consulting4contractors.com to book a free discovery call and learn how Consulting4Contractors coaching can help you build a team that supports your company's long-term vision.
Be sure to check our show notes or video description for additional resources and links. Let's hop back into the rest of the episode with Mark and Rick.
Hiring Ads Teaser
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Mark: Tell me more about what are your advertising procedures look like when you're hiring? I assume you're using social media.
Hiring Ads That Work
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Mark: Are you paying for ads and leads and such to let people know that you're hiring?
Rick: Yeah. Yeah. And we've had really good, I mean, we have good success doing nothing. Honestly, because we're a third generation business and we're well known in our area. People see our vehicles, they know our brand. So that's one thing. We, in the past three years, I know when we've tried to hire more people, we've used, you know, Facebook and Instagram, use Meta, do Meta ads,
and we've [00:18:00] been really successful with Meta ads,
and that's all.
And that's all we've done.
Mark: Wow.
Rick: We also did flyers and put them in our vans, because I feel like people see our vans at paint stores or places and they could look in the back and say, Hey, they're hiring. You know? Because our trucks don't always say we're hiring. So you know, why not utilize that space when we can?
Because a lot of people see that.
Mark: That's true.
Referral Bonuses And Culture Fit
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Mark: Do you incentivize your employees any other way for,
Rick: Yeah, we've always incentivized for referrals. Yeah. If you get somebody that comes and they make it 90 days, it was 90 days. Now if they make it a year, we'll give them a cash bonus.
Mark: Okay. Yeah, I think that's an another great way to incentivize. We've tried for years, our company's much smaller than yours, but to incentivize people. And it's funny how the employees will protect the company too, because they're like, yeah, I've got a friend who wants a job here, but I don't think he'd be a good fit.
Like, they know the [00:19:00] culture and they won't recommend a friend. And I like, I appreciate that just as much.
Rick: I do. And I think, you know, if we all have employees that have been with us for, you know, a long time, and I think sometimes we fail to realize and see that they care about the companies as much
as we do. They really do. It's their company too.
Mark: And that friend that they hang out with on the weekend, they're thinking, would I want to work with him every single day? Like,
Rick: Couldn't do that.
Mark: I can golf with him on Saturday, but I don't want him working here. And I like that. I like them.
Rick: Yeah. And I could do a side job with them and paint at my buddy's house or, or do something like that. But to work every day, I don't think they have it for whatever reason.
Finding Skilled Painters
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Mark: You mentioned, and I'm jealous that you had a couple recent hires that have some skill that,
Rick: yeah. Yeah.
Mark: Boy, I'd pay an arm and a leg for that right now. Do you find that often with your longevity with the generations that you have and the name reputation you have are, are people [00:20:00] jumping from other painting companies to come over to you?
I guess the other question is, are you specifically advertising for that saying, we're looking for skilled painters with this many years experience?
Rick: No, we got lucky.
We got lucky with two of these. Yeah. One, one was a painter that worked for a guy that was kind of exiting his company and just didn't have the work to keep full-time employ going.
He was moving more towards, he was a hybrid model, so he had subcontractors, he had W2 employees. And so this guy wanted to be a W2 employee only. He had kind of moved away from having those, so he said, Hey, if you want to work for a good company go talk to Holtz. And we got really lucky.
Mark: Wow.
Yeah. Super jealous.
Rick: Yeah.
Mark: Because we both know when you get the ground level guy, even if he's got wonderful character and you know, is willing to learn it, it's just going to take a year or two.
Rick: Yeah. It does. It does.
Mark: That [00:21:00] mid-level painter that we want,
Why New Hires Leave
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Rick: Yeah, and I mean, I can think of two or three young guys that we've had the past 12 months that aren't here anymore.
One showed really great promise, but they just realized that painting wasn't for them. They were there in the peak season, and then as it started getting cold, like working outside when it's kind of cold in the morning that's not my thing. Scraping and sanding and getting dirty and after a while is getting old. You know, that sort of thing. Maybe he wasn't, maybe we weren't progressing him in his skills fast enough and he got disenchanted. You know, another one decided I want to be an electrician and had an opportunity to do that and I can't fault a person for trying to find his way.
So, you know, they do come and they do go that not all of them stay. But I think it's up to us as business owners and leaders in our company to, like I said, to put our best foot forward and show them why we're a good place to work.
Mark: Yes, I agree with you. I don't mind [00:22:00] guys leaving the industry or our company for one reason or another. I just don't want our company to be the reason that they left, right.
Rick: Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody always says exit interviews are great things. And I've tried to do them in the past. And sometimes you've, I've gotten that feedback. It wasn't you all, you all were great, but your people are egotistical. And you know, this was years ago. I, don't hear that anymore. People are usually leaving because they want to do something different. They're not into the industry anymore. They want to do a different trade or something like that.
Mark: Sure. Yeah.
Field Training And Skill Gaps
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Mark: So another common question in our industry, Rick, and I'm curious, with a bigger company like yours, everybody's interested, do you have specific training protocols when you're introducing a new person into your team to teach them the Holtz Way? Or are you really just relying on your training crew leader to show them the ropes?
Rick: We're really relying on training in the field. [00:23:00] And when we evaluate our crew leaders and we evaluate our project managers, a part of their evaluation is, are you identifying training needs for employees? Are you letting us know about employees that show promise to do more or learn new skills?
So it's starting to get ingrained in the organization that, it's beneficial for all of us to make sure these folks that are coming in get a well-rounded training and they're exposed. You know, like we don't want somebody just I don't know, just taping all the time, right. You know, we want them to get exposed to rolling and cutting in and brush work and
Mark: Yeah.
Rick: All that.
Mark: We've always trained the same way, but that's exactly the one problem we've had is I can't always dictate the type of work that they've been trained on, because it's just reliant on whatever job they happen to be at. And one of our biggest stories there was we had a guy here for almost two years, did not know how to [00:24:00] caulk.
Now that sounds crazy. Like how can you not know how to caulk? He literally had just skipped through all these jobs and of course every job we were on required caulking, but nobody ever made him do it. And so he just, he had existed. He was a pretty good painter and one day there was a need like, Hey, go caulk.
That he is like, I actually don't know how.
Rick: I've never done, I don't even know how to cut the tube. Don't even know how to cut a tube open. Right?
Mark: What in the world and it, that just, I don't know that I'll ever have a, you know, a dogged, this is exactly how we train. You have to go through this 30 day program, but it did make us create some sheets. Like, here's the skill tree I want to make sure, you know, if this guy's 90 day or his six month or his 12 month interview that we're not missing a major part of his training because.
Rick: Yeah, because you don't want people to get pigeonholed as certain things, but you know, you go on, we'll go on jobs and you'll see a crew leader that you know that's worked for you for years. He always wants to roll. He always wants to roll.
How are [00:25:00] you going to put a new person with him and get him to teach him how to roll when he always is doing it right? Or you have a crew leader that always wants to cut in, you know, because his lines are the only lines that are acceptable. It's like sooner or later you've got to let other people learn these things that you're so proud of.
Mark: That's true.
Building A Skill Checklist
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Rick: You know, I feel like we, we are definitely at a spot where we should probably do something more individualized. Something that's more systematic. So, like you said, people don't get forgotten.
Mark: Yeah. And one thing we developed quickly was basically a small skill tree, but we put boxes, you know, literal check boxes by it, and then we had a certain number of hours for each particular task, like caulking. Like for a new guy, I want him to have four hours of caulking, so don't check that box until he's caulked for four hours.
Rick: Yeah, that's, God, that's awesome. That's a great idea.
Mark: And then at least nobody can say, no one ever showed me how to do that. Like I, I literally have the training log. You were [00:26:00] trained and you have this many hours, so this work is unacceptable, or whatever.
Rick: We're talking about hiring now, because exteriors are starting to break because the weather's starting to break. And you could hire somebody now that would get no interior painting experience for three months.
Mark: That's true.
Rick: Right.
Unless it rains and you have an interior project for them to work on. it takes some initiative. People need to be proactive to make sure that hires are getting skills that they need.
Mark: Right.
Onboarding And Owner Orientation
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Mark: So you walked us briefly through your hiring process from placing the ad and then how it comes through your people. Sounds like Kelly's doing most of the hiring as the operations manager and he would have the most direct contact. Is there ever a time in which you interact with a new employee to talk about...
Rick: Yeah, let me back up a little bit. So, so Kelly will do the interview, makes the offer and then if they accept the offer, they'll come in before they start, and they meet with Kirsten who works in our office. And she gets all the [00:27:00] paperwork straight, the I9, all that stuff. We use QuickBooks Workforce as our time app, so she's going to help them load that app on their phone. So on the first day when they come in, they know how to clock in to a job.
We don't want to bring them in and then have to tell them all that stuff. So all of that stuff. Pre-onboarding, I guess we would say, or I guess it's called onboarding. Onboarding.
Sure. She does all that stuff
And they do that and they'll get a uniform, a couple shirts, they get all of that before they come on their first day. Then they'll get assigned to a crew. They'll work on that crew. Within the first week or two, they'll come into the office for three hours, two to three hours with me, and I'll do an orientation. Just me and them in the conference room. I go through all of our policies again and just tell them the ones that are super important. Like these are really important.
Like if you're not going to be here, you need to let us know by a certain time.
Things like that. Tell them a little bit about [00:28:00] the history of the company and then I go over our goals for the year. Because we have a yearly kickoff meeting and if they weren't there when we had it, I still feel like it's crucial that they know what our goals are for the year, what we're working on. We have a profit sharing or incentive program, and I want them to understand how the incentive program works as well. Before that, part of our kickoff meeting every year is to talk about how the company makes money.
And I want to go over that with them so that they understand the basics of how a business works. Because even if they think they know, I think it's a good practice to just remind them.
Mark: It's a really valuable thing that your team does, and a lot of teams never talk about that. They just, why would I tell a painter how my business runs? I just need them to paint, but they don't understand where they fit in the bigger picture.
Rick: Yeah, they don't understand where they fit, and they also think that they see these big numbers for their work that they're doing, and they don't understand where all the money goes. [00:29:00] And I think it's critical that they understand that. So they can focus on how they contribute as opposed to being curious and wondering where it all goes.
Mark: Right. Right, Jesus said it well in the Bible where you are a member of the body. You're a toe or you're a finger. Are you valuable? Of course you are, but you're also only a piece of this larger thing, and you need to understand that although we're grateful for you and we love you, you're a small part of a much bigger machine.
Rick: Yeah. And I also like to tell them to, you know, when I meet with them individually, hey, be patient. But I also want to know if, they don't feel like they're being treated with hospitality.
Mark: Sure.
Rick: Because I think that's critical and that's something I want to know as the owner of the company.
Mark: Right.
Rick: I think it's important.
Pay Ranges And Wage Compression
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Mark: Before we get out of here, Rick, I want to touch on finances just a bit because through the hiring process, obviously at some point probably Kelly is negotiating with them as far as starting [00:30:00] salary. Can you speak to that as to how you decide where people fit? Do you have salary ranges per job description? At the time of hire, you may not know their full skill.
Are you bringing them in lower and hopefully raising them later?
Rick: Yeah. I mean, there's going to be a range for someone who doesn't have any experience at all. They're going to be at the lower end. And then anybody coming in as a, I'm talking mainly about painters because we also employ carpenters. But this is mainly for painters. It is a guess and it's, stressful and you get burned, you know, I mean, we've probably had people that we hired at a wage that was higher than what their skill really was compared to people that we already had working in our company. And that's the tough thing. If you don't have a poster of salary, you know, pay grades. Like the government does, it's a very stressful, slippery slope, and it hardly ever feels good.
Mark: I hate that part of integrating new team members, especially when they have [00:31:00] skill, which we did recently, and I'm sliding them in at a dollar amount. But I'm thinking the whole time in my head, which one of my current team members are going to be really pissed if they find out what this guy's making.
Rick: Yeah. And they will, because that's the, that irritates me more than anything is people that you employ telling everybody what they get paid.
And that's the part that makes all of it stressful. And the unknown. Because let's face it, if you're really, if you really need help, you're probably going to pay somebody a dollar or two more an hour than maybe you normally would, just because you feel like you need them that bad.
Mark: Right, right. and that's exactly where we are. And as inflation rises, you know, all of it's rising. And that doesn't mean I can just raise everybody in my company, but I might have to pay 25 or $26 to get this guy with skill in the door. And it took my guy a long time to get to 25 or 26 as he worked up through the company.
Rick: Yeah. And, I tell you where it's really hard is, you know, we have a father-son [00:32:00] team.
Mark: Oh
Rick: And we have a father that's been with us for a long time and he is a painter. He's not a crew leader.
And you know, there's going to be a time where his son probably catches him, but his, he's going to have a lot more experience than his son. His son could become a crew leader one day and not have as much tenure as him and get paid more than him, because he has more responsibility in the company.
So it's hard.
It is, you know, you're there negotiating a salary with a potential new employee, and all of a sudden you start thinking about the employees you have working for you.
Mark: Right.
Rick: Right?
Because it's like, oh I'm, getting ready to offer this person more than Joe who's been with me for four years and I know how Joe works and I have no idea how this person.
Mark: Right. That is the tough gamble all the time. I'm glad to know I'm not alone and worrying about those types of things. I lay awake thinking about it.
Rick: Yeah. It's very, stressful. very stressful.
Wrap Up And Key Takeaways
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Mark: Rick, it's been a good conversation. Thanks for letting us into the company. Just get a little snapshot of how hiring is done at HJ Holtz & [00:33:00] Sons. I am always amazed in the painting industry where no matter how many guys you have, how many trucks, what kind of revenue you do as a company, we are all dealing with the same types of things and I've connected with several things you've already talked about today.
I see those in my company, though we're not nearly as large, it also, it doesn't give me great hope, knowing someday when I have 60 people working for me,
Rick: You're going to have same problems.
Mark: These problems aren't going away.
Rick: No. No they're not. No, they're not. But the good thing is, every year that goes by, you gain more insight and more experience. You do. And I think that's the fun part of it.
But no, it doesn't change. Whether you have four guys or whether you have 60 guys or ladies or whatever.
It's, you still have these same challenges, hiring, cash flow, marketing, you know, leads, selling jobs. There, it's all the same.
Mark: Yeah, you're exactly right.
Rick: It's just at different scales.
Mark: Appreciate your [00:34:00] time, Rick. Thanks so much for conversating with us today. We'll look forward to another great conversation in the future on the Beyond The Brush podcast.
Rick: Great. I really appreciate you having me. Thank you.
Mark: Thanks, Rick. Talk to you soon. Bye-Bye.
Podcast Outro And Next Steps
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Well that wraps up episode 18 of Success Beyond the Brush. If today's conversation with Mark and Rick helped you think any differently about hiring, leadership, or building a strong team culture, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes of our show. If you're ready to implement systems that help your business grow with confidence, go ahead and visit us at www.consulting4contractors.com
to schedule a free discovery call with Scott. Don't forget to check out our show notes or video description for links, resources, and additional tools mentioned in this episode. Thanks again so much for listening to Success Beyond the Brush. We'll see you in the next one.