It’s not every day that you see a door latch installed backwards, but that’s what I was looking at. Yes, it was installed in the wrong direction relative to the swing of the door. Think about the series of fails that must have led to this. Some so-called tradesperson at some time walked into that almost-finished hotel room to install a door. Somewhere along the line this person’s “training” failed to enlighten them to the fact that the angled side of any door latch needs to face a certain direction. Fail #1.

Presumably, hotel rooms are inspected after completion before the owner signs off on construction. Either the inspection didn’t happen or the inspector missed something obvious. Fail #2.

Every day that the room is occupied, someone from the housekeeping staff enters the bathroom, probably operating the bathroom door at least once in a while, oblivious to the fact that the door doesn’t close all the way nor stay closed. No one reports the bad installation. Fail #3.

While we’re on the topic of incompetence, the latch plate wasn’t chiselled into the edge of the door, and the screws holding the handle mechanism were loose. Sloppy workmanship is one thing and it’s happening more and more often, but failure to understand the theory behind a door latch on a multi-million dollar project, isn’t this one step worse?

Quality never happens by accident, and mistakes are always waiting around every corner. Every conscientious tradesperson knows this, but care and pride of craftsmanship seems to be on a steep decline. Why am I telling you this? As a painter, you’re usually the last trade to see a space before it’s turned over to owners and the public. You can make a difference as a final watchdog, remembering the quality, effort, skills and diligence that used to be much more common in our world than they are today. One measure of the success of any society is how well it deals with the practical matters of life . . . including the installation of door latches.

The post Lessons from a Door Latch first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

If you are a professional painter who values quality, there’s a chance you battle with perfectionism. So did I, back in the day. Luckily, more than 25 years ago I discovered a mental trick for turning the negative effects of perfectionism into something positive and productive. Let me tell you about it – it really works.
Wikipedia defines perfectionism as a personality trait characterized by striving for flawlessness and setting high-performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluation and concerns regarding others’ evaluations. On the surface, this doesn’t sound too bad, does it? After all, if you want to run a successful painting business, you need to set high standards, don’t you? But the problem with perfectionism is that you can’t ever be satisfied. Unhappy with your results, you will drive everyone around you crazy.
The way to harness the power of perfectionism without it making you batty comes down to a small mental flip-flop. Master this flip-flop and it’ll convert damaging perfectionism into something I call the “pursuit of excellence”. Just don’t be fooled. The pursuit of excellence might look like perfectionism on the surface, but it has one feature that makes all the difference.

The problem with perfectionism is that nothing can ever be absolutely perfect in this world. That’s why perfectionism is a game no one can win. In Disney’s classic 1967 movie The Jungle Book, Baloo the bear offers some powerful anti-perfectionist philosophy in the song “The Bare Necessities.”

And don’t spend your time lookin’ around
For something you want that can’t be found

Absolute perfection simply does not exist in this dirty old world of ours, and the root of the distress of the perfectionist is believing the lie that perfection is possible. It’s not. Rejecting this lie is the first step towards freedom, but there’s something even more important.

The thing that delivered me from perfectionism is the understanding that I need to have two states of mind whenever I’m working on any task. The first state involves striving for the best results I can possibly get. This is identical to perfectionism and it’s necessary for high-quality results and improving skills. Nothing good ever happens without effort, and nothing great ever happens without exceptional effort. The thing is, at some point, you need to adopt a certain measure of surrender. You need to do that mental flip-flop I told you about. If you remember that absolute perfection is a mirage, it’ll help you kick into “satisfied mode.” This is the fundamental feature of the pursuit of excellence. Try your guts out within the time, budget, conditions, and skills you’ve got, then flip-flop into a perspective of surrender as you approach completion.

Without this mental flip-flop, all perfectionists do one of two things. Either they go crazy, or they abandon the pursuit of excellence altogether. Both outcomes are negative and unnecessary. If you’re a hard-core perfectionist, you’ll find the “flip-flop of sanity” difficult at first. Keep trying until you master it. It’s worth it.

The post The High Cost of Perfectionism first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

“One reason for me switching from painting to epoxy work exclusively is the increase in demand I’ve seen for it,” explains Dave. “Under my old painting company, we did about 25 garage floors, basements and commercial epoxy jobs – all without seeking the work. So when my old painting partner accepted an amazing offer to run a painting crew, I decided to follow the opportunity and concentrate on epoxy.”

Dave’s specialization has taken him to some impressive places, including a 21,000 sq.ft. mansion, with two mechanical rooms and a workshop. He’s also applied epoxy to campground shower and bathroom facilities, as well as ordinary basements and garages.

How does an epoxy focus compare with regular painting? “First, there’s no climbing ladders and no need for drop cloths except in my mixing/staging area,” explains Dave. “Epoxy coatings need fewer tools and equipment which means fewer trips in and out of the customers’ homes to set up. Estimates are easier, too. I can give a price right there on the spot. With painting it could take me a couple of hours to get the estimate typed.”

“I wear spiked shoes or golf shoes when spreading flakes on uncured epoxy. Typically I have an hour to go back and touch up sparse areas without spike marks remaining.”

Dave advertises with truck and office lettering, yard signs and a 65,000-name email list that he publishes to every two weeks. “I’m also using Facebook paid advertising,” explains Dave. “Word of mouth still works great, too.”

Show the world your best work right here. Send photos and a brief description of the project to: steve@stevemaxwell.ca

The post Floor Specialty first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

When I was a boy, our family had a summer cottage up north, and one day a neighbour friend and I decided to build a bonfire. He lived in cottage country full time, and his dad gave us permission to build the fire in their backyard. We spent a couple of hours gathering brush and sticks from the forest, then used a small amount of it to start the fire in a ring of stones we’d laid out. We were surprised how much effort it took to gather the wood, so we didn’t want to waste it. An hour after lighting the match, the fire was still small, smouldering and disappointing. My friend asked his dad what was wrong.

“You need to lay on more wood!” dad said, and promptly picked up the entire pile we’d gathered and dropped it on our tiny fire. I wasn’t happy that he “wasted” all our wood, completely covering our little ring of stones. But the thing was, he was right. Fifteen minutes later and the flames were as high as we were. There’s nothing like a big bonfire to make boys happy.

Painting businesses can be like backyard bonfires, too. They can smoulder and struggle and disappoint for years, when all they really need to get going is a seemingly outrageous amount of wood thrown on.

So what does “laying on more wood” look like when you’re building a painting business? It’s usually about investing more effort in strategic ideas that don’t immediately contribute to the bottom line. More wood might mean actively recruiting good painters, for example. Or it could mean handing out leaflets door to door in 5- or 6-year-old neighbourhoods where you know a lot of houses are starting to show the limitations of a builders’ paint job. More wood might also mean going to the trouble of tracking the productivity of your paint jobs to find out where money is being made and lost so you can bid better in the future.

The fundamental law of bonfires and business is the same. You’ve got to put something in if you want to get something out. What would throwing more firewood on your particular painting business look like?

The post Throwing More Wood on the Fire first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

By Steve Maxwell

When 16 year-old Mark Dumerton got a job at a gas station owned by Larrie Novak in 1981, there was no way Mark could have known this business connection would eventually lead to his ownership of one of the five largest painting companies in Western Canada. Together Mark and Larrie founded M&L Painting, and by 1982 Mark was the sole owner of a business with a very modest $80,000 in annual sales. Today Mark has more than 80 employees, with offices in Vancouver and Alberta. His team also works on Vancouver Island, in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan. M&L does every kind of painting there is, and Mark has plans to grow the company larger. In this exclusive Pro Painter Q&A interview, Mark shares his wisdom and experience on how sustained growth of a painting company can happen.

Going from working on your own to running a proper painting firm with teams of painters is not an easy process. What are the main factors for success?
You need to begin by understanding something about yourself. Are you a trades person or a business person? You may start out as a tradesperson, but you need to become focused on the business side of things and understand good business practices if you want to succeed. I was lucky to have a wife who worked with me and had a marketing diploma from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. As for me, I’m not a good tradesman so I knew right at the beginning that I needed to hire others to succeed. I did that right away when I took ownership of the business, but stayed on the tools until I had six painters working for me. At that time I decided to take 6 months and go and secure new work and see if it was viable for me to be off the tools. It became clear that I could secure work for more painters and was able to grow to 12 painters very quickly.

What are the biggest challenges you face in running M&L?
Having the right people working for me, maintaining cash flow, understanding how each client looks at different items as being important, reading clients and giving them what they need and understand. It’s also important to realize that there are some clients that just do not line up with our values and company culture. We need to say no to that work.

How has the business changed in the time you’ve been involved?
We’ve grown from six employees to more than 60 painters. We work across western Canada and we continue to evolve. This includes training and coaching of our executive, our management team and our general superintendents. As we live out our values and emphasize our core competencies, we believe our employees will take these values on, too. We have been working intentionally over the last 4 years to become an “employee first” company. We believe that if we treat our employees as well as we treat our customers, our employees will pass this on, treating our customers the way we want them treated. In a sense, our on-site employees become a kind of sales force. Back in 2014, I began to focus on being an employee first company. After a year I saw the positive change in our company culture as well as our profitability. At that time I hired an executive coach to work with my key people and help continue to implement the employee first approach.

WHAT’S ‘EMPLOYEE FIRST’?
Employee first is a recognized business management style pioneered by award-winning business leaders such as Kip Tindell. “We believe that if we take better care of our employees than anyone else – by paying them better and training them more – that they in turn will take better care of our customers than anyone else”, explains Tindell. “This keeps our customers coming back to see us over and over again.”

How do you monitor painter productivity to ensure you’re making a profit on a given job?
We always start with a budget. Each project manager goes over the details with the painters on site and we track hours and productivity daily through our cost analysis program. The project managers monitor costs for each job with the foreman. Setting expectations and monitoring them as the job unfolds is key. Everyone involved gets to share in the savings whenever we come in under budget.

M&L tackles a wider variety of paint jobs than any other single painting company I’ve seen – everything from residential to commercial including big box stores. Do you keep different crews on different kinds of jobs, or do you use the diversity of work to provide a diversity of experience for your people?
Both. We have enough history on each project manager and foreman to know what types of jobs they’re most successful at. It’s management’s job to put our employees in a position to be successful in order for us to be successful.

M&L places a strong public emphasis on sustainability. How does this play out in day-to-day operations?
Many ways. We use LEED-approved products whenever possible. All wash water for cleaning brushes and rollers is either used to thin paint or brought back to our warehouse to be purified in our onsite system before disposing of it.

Is M&L growing as a business, or is it in a stable, steady state in production and revenue?
We’re in a growth trend right now. We have a strategic plan in place to grow in volume and profit over the next 5 years. Most of our new painters come from referrals from our current painters. Our painters are paid a referral amount for each new painter that stays 3 months, then a further bonus when they stay one year. For our part, we provide a workplace where employees can be part of something to be proud of. We have a clear profit sharing program for our painters as well as loyalty bonuses on years they have been with the company. We have benefits which include extended medical, car allowance, RRSP matching, education allowance, plus employee soccer and hockey tickets. Employee social get-togethers, including our yearend celebration, gets a very high participation rate. We match employee charitable donations, and we have a Watch Club where each employee gets a watch at 10 years of service and the chance at a yearly draw for an all-expense paid holiday for a week. Once an employee is with us for a year they very seldom leave.

Would you consider finding good painters to be a primary challenge for you?
Yes, finding good painters is vital, but it’s a challenge that we meet easily because of how we work. We have a lot of good painters on staff which allows us to take on mediocre painters that we can grow into good ones. Once you set expectations, most people can become good painters. My commitment to my people is that we will not grow beyond the good painters we can attract to work with us. We have a clear profit sharing formula that all painters know and can track.

Is painting a big box store different than other large commercial jobs?
No, it’s not that different. We start work by referring to the appropriate Master Painters Institute (MPI) manual to find best practices for any given situation. 90% of our jobs are bid 3 months to 2 years prior to our crew actually getting on site. Most of our bids are done online using PlanSwift. Once we get the job, there are a number of steps set out in the contract documents and architectural specification’s that give us guidelines to start planning. These include specification reviews for paint systems, products and colour submissions. There are also insurance requirements laid out in the contract (typically $3 million to $5 million liability), and there could also be a performance bond to ensure we finish the job. Every job also has safety requirements which include the company safety manual and safety planning procedures with daily and weekly reporting. There’s also a Certificate of Recognition (COR) independent safety audit of our company. Each employee is also required to have a minimum level of training that increases based on their level of responsibility. All our safety training happens online through an employee portal on the website, and so does most of our skills training. Equipment needed for a project is based on material being used and the specific job. This could include sprayers, power rollers, different types of lifts, boson chairs, swing stages, etc. Regardless of the job, we use an MPI manual to pick our products and systems based on the type of substrate and situation.

What sort of warehouses do you have to store equipment and supplies?
We have a 2,000 square foot space in Vancouver and rent more warehouse space temporarily from time to time to do prefinishing. We also set up an operational office and warehouse whenever we decide to focus in an area.

Have you developed innovations for applying products that help boost efficiency on big jobs?
No, not really. We use sprayers and power rollers for different applications. A big job is just like a lot of small jobs put together.

What are some of the more interesting and unusual jobs M&L has tackled over the years?
Earlier this year, we did the Big Splash Water Park in Tsawwassen, B.C. The facility had a large paint failure from another contractor. We had to figure out how to remove epoxy, ensure adhesion, then recoat with fresh epoxy. We painted the base building of Tsawwassen Mills, a 1.2 million square foot shopping mall in Delta, B.C., as part of initial construction in 2016 – 2017. This was a very time-demanding job and at one point we had over 50 painters on the site. In 2013, we did the Langley Event Centre. This was a large wooden structure that includes gymnasiums and ice rinks, offices and gym so there were many different paint systems on that project. The project included 12 painters. Also that year we did the Victoria’s Secret flagship store in Vancouver. Our work included numerous applications including wall coverings, plaster finishes, faux finishes and painting. We had 15 painters on that project over a 4-month period. Back in 2010, we did the Hotel Georgia project in Vancouver. It was a large restoration component involving faux finishes to replicate the look of the 1920’s. We had 8 to 20 painters on that job and it took more than 36 months to complete.

The post Employee First first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

Brenda Cory’s painting career started the same way many do. She learned the trade from someone who knew it, then built her skills and clientele from there. What makes Brenda different is her level of energy, enthusiasm, professionalism and stamina for plowing through life’s challenges. Not many painters do their thing while raising four kids, surviving a malignant brain tumor and becoming a single mom.

“Back in 2008, I had a friend stay with me for three months while his house was being built”, explains Cory. “He was doing wallpaper and faux finishing for a living, and I was looking for a career change. With four kids to raise I needed flexibility. I made a nuisance of myself going with him to jobs and asking questions, and after a while I thought, “Hey, I can do this.” I started with kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms for friends for not much money. A designer friend gave me my first full house job and I’ve stayed with the work because I really enjoy it.”

90% of Cory’s work has always been residential repainting of condos, houses and renovations, and though she doesn’t paint solo, her business is small. “For many years, I partnered with one phenomenal painter for larger jobs – a European master named Soorin Esvai. At the moment, my son, Adrian, is my painting partner. He’s been working with me from a young age helping out after school and on occasional weekends.”

“Adrian is now 24 and has taken over most of the heavy work. Back when he was younger he’d hold the extension ladder and scrape windows. I taught him to roll, caulk and sand when he was 13. He worked for another painter for a while doing spraying and commercial work, so our skills complement each other. Now he’s as good a painter as they come, capable of any job to the highest standards. At the moment we’re looking for an assistant for the spring, but it’s not easy. Once I hired a man who answered an ad. His work was adequate, but he talked incessantly. This slowed his work and was unprofessional. One time he phoned me drunk and that was the end of him.”

At the moment, my son Adrian is my painting partner. He’s been working with me from a young age, helping out after school and on occasional weekends.

Brenda’s life changed dramatically in 2010 when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Dealing with that challenge took a year of her life. “I had surgery and six weeks of daily radiation. I had four kids at the time and I was off work for a year. I had the support of my husband at the time, thank goodness, but I still had to deal with long lasting cognitive side-effects from radiation. My personality changed. I became more withdrawn because talking was exhausting. I had to relearn to drive all over again. I lost my ability to attach meaning to things, and I had trouble with balance. There were funny moments, too. One time I was trying to get the kids in the car and I told them to get their life jackets on.”

“We made jokes to get through it all and we used dark humour. I have wonderful friends and family who brought meals to my house for months. I just woke up every morning, found I was still alive and the children needed to be fed. I made them breakfast and worked my way through each day. I abandoned feeling sorry for myself very quickly as a non-productive emotion. A few years ago I did some work for Gord Downie, lead singer with The Tragically Hip, before his cancer diagnosis became public. Obviously, I had a great deal of sympathy for his situation. During my illness I forwarded whatever work I had to my friend Soorin Esvai at Regal Painting. When I returned to work in 2010, I still had a business network.”

Brenda’s Rules for Professionalism

“Be professional always – reliable, punctual, neatly dressed and turned out. Speak quietly, evenly, politely. Don’t park in the driveway, don’t wear shoes in the house except on drop cloths, don’t play loud music, don’t talk on the phone unless you have to. Be considerate of people’s homes. Never conduct a “number 2” in a client’s bathroom – go to Tim Horton’s. Clean up at the end of each day and take away garbage, coffee cups, paint cans. Never ask your customer for anything when you’re in their house. Don’t ask for a hammer or a damp cloth or a broom. Make sure you have these things with you.

“When it comes to pricing, I like to stay flexible and competitive. I try to charge a fair price for me and for the customer. I work on a daily rate basis plus a price per piece system. For example, doors are X dollars each, spindles are Y each, ceilings are Z per square foot. I usually separate out the cost of labour and paint supplies. I don’t work by the hour.”

If you’re a new painter, Brenda recommends giving discounted prices to build your client base. Work for family and friends to get started. What’s Brenda’s ideal painting client? “Someone who isn’t at home during the day is usually great because you can go so much faster and get so much more done.” That said, not all absent clients are best.

“One day I was working on the closet doors in the front hall of a house and the owner was away. The doorbell rang and I answered it, forgetting the owner’s 70 pound German Shepherd. As I opened the door, the dog bolted through a tray of white paint and out the front door into the street. I ran out to get him but he wouldn’t come. I ran back inside, grabbed treats and a leash and back outside. The person at the door said to me, “Can’t you control your own dog?” “Not my dog, I answered as I ran past. I managed to get the dog back inside and then spent the better part of an hour taking white paw prints off the flagstone walkway.”

Painting Tips and Wisdom

“In the beginning I tried every brand of paint”, says Cory, “comparing cost versus quality. Today, I primarily use Benjamin Moore. Quality’s outstanding and many homeowners and designers request it. When BM re-designed their fan-decks to incorporate coordinating groups of colours people were able to familiarize themselves to individual colours which they ask for by name. It’s important to be able to do color consultations with customers. A painter must be familiar with designer colors and trends.”

One of the most helpful things Brenda has found is to develop a relationship with a particular paint store, rather than just buying here and there. “It’s okay to ask your paint suppliers questions about products. In fact, you should be asking. Just make sure you’re talking to the most knowledgeable person there. I deal with a paint store owner named Chi. He knows everything there is to know about paint, paint products, colours, and paint application. If there was a Jeopardy for paint, he’d win every time.”

Brenda’s Tips for Bartering

Barter is one of the more unusual things Brenda does on the business side, and she’s found it delivers big gains.”Exchanging work for services has been a tremendous way to boost business”, says Brenda. “I’ve worked in exchange for massage therapy, accounting services, personal training, fitness coaching and nutrition. I’m always the one to bring barter up as a possibility to a customer, but only when I’m acquainted with them. I’d never barter with someone I don’t really know.

The best kind of painters aren’t in it just for the money. There’s always something more there. I still get a tremendous kick out of standing back at the end of a job and thinking: Wow, that looks great! I’m still amazed at how transformative a good paint job is to any space. It may not be brain surgery, but it’s so rewarding when a customer is thrilled about the change Adrian and I have made in their home.”

Given her experience with brain cancer, Cory is understandably interested in the safest paints possible. The fact that many clients share these values is a bonus, too. “I prefer BM Regal and Eco Spec for residential jobs. Both have zero VOCs, provide excellent coverage and results. When it comes to exterior paints, Sherwin Williams Duration is the absolute best in my experience”, says Cory. “It’s durable, fills cracks, is easy to work with and lasts.” For primers Cory swears by the INSL-X line of primers, her favorite being Aqua Lock.

“DryDex is the product I use most for patching these days. It goes on pink, dries white and I always wear a mask when sanding it. I want someone to find a way to eliminate sanding. I hate dust. Other than dust, the only real drawback with DryDex is the lid. Store it upside down to prevent unused product from drying out. I use Rapid Coat Low Dust for light skim coats and Sheetrock 30 with mesh tape for bigger fixes.”

Brenda’s Business Tips

Brenda’s always busy, with most of her work coming from word-of-mouth and repeat customers. Real estate agents, designers and contractors all send her jobs. “My son Adrian has recently taken over our online presence and has increased our visibility. It sounds simple, but the most successful thing we’ve done is posting before and after photos on the Cory Painting Facebook page. People LOVE before and after pics. In this day and age having an online presence is a requirement for running a successful painting business in my opinion. People need to be able to go onto the internet and find out who you are and what your company is about.”

Brenda shows innovation in other areas of marketing too, with simple practices bringing in good jobs. “In the past I’ve used flyers on garage doors in subdivisions about five years old. All the garage doors and front doors need painting at that point. I got a lot of business this way which leads to other jobs. I follow up by email a week after every job is done every time. This leads to steady referrals and happy customers.”

Success in any business is always about more than the technical work of the business itself, and this may be especially true when it comes to residential painting. How many other careers bring you right into the inner part of people’s homes day after day?

“Aside from mastering the technical skills required, I’ve learned that psychology is almost as important as the painting”, says Brenda. “Being able to read people quickly and assess their requirements and point of view is key. You also need to be aware of cultural differences. Some cultures are more comfortable negotiating a price than others. You have to adapt, especially in the ethnically diverse area where I work.”

Brenda’s Three Tips for Growing Your Business

1.     Build and maintain your network.
Give out business cards everywhere you go. Everywhere. The gym (painters need to stay fit), small businesses you visit, offices you stop at.  I painted a dance studio once when my daughter took dance lessons. Same thing with her pre-school. Send out Christmas cards –even via email. Anything to remind people about you is good.

2.     Keep learning and stay flexible.
Paint companies are always developing new products. Keep up with them. Learn new skills and don’t be afraid to ask questions at your paint store. There are so many different products for different purposes. Every painter needs help keeping up.

3.     Always be professional and generous.
If I have time, I do extra things for people. Maybe they need touch ups in other rooms, or perhaps there was something extra that wasn’t in their budget. I’ve walked dogs, moved furniture, cleaned gutters.

By Steve Maxwell
steve@stevemaxwell.ca

The post Endurance first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

When technology shifts, it creates new profit opportunities. That’s happening in all areas of the economy, including the painting business.

And to understand how, you need to hear a story told by Colin, a rides maintenance mechanic I met while I was working at Canada’s Wonderland, an amusement park north of Toronto, when it opened in 1981.

Before Wonderland, Colin worked in a fiberglass shop making canoes. On his first day there his new boss handed him a 2-inch wide paint brush, a tub of polyester resin and a sack of fiberglass cloth – just like all the other guys were using. The boss paid piecework for every canoe laid up over the molds, and this gave Colin an idea. It wasn’t long before he snuck his own 4-inch wide brush into the shop and, keeping it quiet, nearly doubling his output and his pay. The boss noticed how fast this new guy worked, but whenever he came to ask questions, Colin hid his 4-inch wide brush, pulling out the standard-issue 2-inch brush instead. Eventually Colin’s competitive advantage was discovered, everyone in the shop was given 4-inch brushes and the piecework rate got cut in half.

Today’s best painting business innovations are like Colin’s wider paintbrush in more than one way. When only a few people have innovations, it translates into more money. But by the time everyone is “using a wide brush” so to speak, market competition eliminates the financial advantage. So what are today’s new advantages in the painting business? The best ones have nothing to do with spreading paint faster and better, but rather about running your business more easily and efficiently. That’s why you’ve really got to read about the experiences of a painter named Brandon Lewis on page 26. If ever there was a “wide brush” to make your business run more profitably, Brandon’s ideas are it.

The trick in all this is discerning the real advances from the imposters, choosing the best ideas for your painting business, then keeping ahead of the crowd. Big brushes are only good when the other guys’ brushes are small.

The post Colin and His Wide Brush first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

March 5, 2018

Rust-Oleum is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew Fedele as Sales Manager, Paint Channel, Hobby and Craft Channels.

Andrew joins Rust-Oleum with over 25 years of sales experience in the Architectural Paint Industry. He brings a wealth of technical knowledge from his previous paint and industry experiences which include Para Paints, General Paints and most recently Sherwin Williams.

Contact Information:
Tel: 905-532 1985
Email: Andrew.fedele@rustoleum.ca

Chris Hatfield
National Sales Manager, Distribution, Paint Channel and Hobby & Craft
Rust-Oleum Consumer Brands Canada

The post Rustoleum Announcement first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

When Daniel Howell and his crew with CertaPro Painters tackled the swimming pool at Calumet High School in Schererville, Indiana, it was a new challenge for them. “This was my first time painting a big pool like this”, says Howell. “I’d done the rim of swimming pools before at a few hotels, but nothing on the size and scale of this job.”

It took Howell’s four-painter crew 200 hours to complete the project, including some fancy work creating logos. “Before prep, we covered the tile floors to protect them”, explains Howell, “then sanded the walls before applying one coat of  PrepRite ProBlock primer. We caulked the corners and used autobody filler to repair holes before applying two coats of two-part epoxy fol-lowed by three coats of Resilience exterior latex for the red stripe along the walls. Other than being careful in the usual way, we didn’t have to take precautions to catch the odd paint drip as we painted the ceiling because the pool has a state-of-the-art filtration system. For logos we used a digital projector to trace outlines onto walls, then taped them out and painted.”

Show the world your best work right here. Send photos and tell us about them at steve@stevemaxwell.ca

The post Pool Party first appeared on Professional Painter Magazine.

When Joseph was 12, he got the urge to buy himself an off-road dirt bike. Nothing large, just something to toot around the country property where we live. Joe had a couple of thousand dollars saved, and that would buy him a decent but used name-brand
bike. Somewhere along the line he discovered that he could buy a brand new discount
motorcycle made in China for half as much as a used Japanese bike cost, so that’s what he did.

The little motorcycle arrived in a wooden crate needing some assembly. Shortly after getting the thing running, an old-timer came over and warned us about something. “The nuts and bolts on those Chinese motorcycles are always coming loose”, he warned. “Better put Loctite on all of them before you lose something.”

This sounded crazy to me, but he was right. It’s not that the motorcycle vibrated much, either. In fact, it ran smoothly and started on the first kick. But sure enough, things fell off that bike every day or two. Sometimes this was no big deal, other times it caused metal parts to break. I spent a lot of time wrenching, welding and delivering TLC to this “bargain” bike. I also bought a big bottle of Loctite.

The problem, as I discovered upon close examination, was something very small but crucial. The fit between the threads on the nuts and bolts was loose. Although they seemed to tighten properly with a wrench, there wasn’t enough friction between the threads to keep nuts and bolts together reliably. Everything else about Joe’s Chinese motorcycle worked great, but it turned out to be a massive make-work project for me because the fit of small but crucial details was deficient.

The deficiency of small but crucial details can affect your painting business, too. Just like Joe’s motorcycle, the difference between success and failure can sometimes be nothing more than a small detail here or a little tweak there. Do you gather and use testimonials from happy clients? Do you capture photos of your best work and use them for promotion? Have you taken steps to connect with contractors you can trust to handle overflow work? All these things and more are the business equivalent of the fit between nuts and bolts on a boy’s hard-earned dirt bike. Are there small things coming loose regularly on your business? Fix them and life will be better.

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