How to start an in house training center for painting?
I am looking for feedback on starting a training center for residential painting. We have a shop but it is kind of small for what I am looking at doing. Is there any creative ways I could go about purchasing, or leasing a building that is specifically for training and education? My goal would be to hire on young men and women who are interested in the painting trade and have a facility to train them in before they every step foot on a job. For example, there would be a class room to learn about products and applications. Then there would be actually rooms built out and small exterior walls build out with different substrates to actually train applications. I would hire some of my current employees to be paid extra to run classes and training. What do you think? Am I dreaming too big or is this something I could accomplish? How could I go about making this happen?Cyber Security! What are you doing?
My bank account got hacked this week... eeeek!!! Made me think of cyber security, use of passwords within the office staff and seeing where we are being too lax. I had a tech guy out to help me fix it and fortunately the damage can be undone but I wanted to see if anyone had some helpful tips on how to avoid this? So far my key learnings are: Use something like lastpass or one password Don't have any matching passwords Don't use the password function in edge or your web browser. That keeps everything on your machine but someone can remote in to that and steal your stuff Change passwords somewhat frequently (if you're using last pass it doesn't matter cuz you aren't memorizing it anyway) What am I missing from this list?Are you using AI in your business yet or still “just curious”?
Where are you at with AI right now? A) Not using it at all B) Using it for basic stuff (e.g., emails, replies) C) Using it for ops (e.g., estimating, training, reporting) D) “We run everything through AI” level—share below how you’re using it! In this episode of Masters of Home Service, PhilRisher and ryaantuttle share real-world ways home service pros are using AI to: Speed up estimating and hiring processes Create ready-to-use marketing content Prep for the shift from traditional SEO to AEO and GEO Want to put these tips into action? Download our free AI starter toolkit (includes scripts and pro tips). Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How I Finally Delegated Estimating (Without Hiring Another Person)
For years, estimating was the one thing I couldn’t take off my plate. We changed the org chart. We hired roles. Delegated everything we could. But estimating? That was always me. Even if I wasn’t doing anything else in the business... I was still stuck quoting jobs. It was the bottleneck I couldn’t fix—until now. I built a ChatGPT-powered estimator trained with my systems, my pricing, and my language. It asks the right questions, runs the math, and delivers estimates like I would—without me being involved. Now I’m no longer the bottleneck. Customers get quick answers. I get my evenings and weekends back. Want to build your own? Map out your estimating logic. Plug it into ChatGPT. Test and refine. If you're stuck working all day and doing estimates at night and on Saturdays anddddd, sometimes even Sunday mornings when everyone's sleeping—this might be your way out. Heres my direct Zoom link if you'd like to learn more: https://calendly.com/ryaan-besthandymancompany/bh-plan-phone-consultationWhat mistake forced you to completely change how you ran your business?
One of the biggest mistakes I made happened during my second year in business. I landed a commercial account that included 5 different properties. At the time, it felt huge. The contract was worth around $5,000/month, which was a massive opportunity for where my business was at back then. I wanted badly to prove we could handle it. The problem was: I agreed to expectations and operational demands that I was not fully prepared to deliver consistently. A lot of it was my fault. I was so focused on landing the account that I did not slow down enough to think through: route logistics communication expectations quality control reporting updates to the property manager scheduling conflicts with my current clients what happens when issues come up across multiple locations at once Eventually, things started slipping. And once trust starts slipping on commercial accounts, it usually compounds fast. We ended up losing the account. At the time, it felt devastating. But honestly, losing that contract forced me to fix a lot of weaknesses in the business that I probably would have ignored much longer otherwise. That experience changed how we handle commercial work completely. We started implementing: clearer onboarding expectations documented scopes of work completion verification per visit better communication with stakeholders clearer escalation procedures when problems happen It also changed how I look at growth. More revenue only helps if the operation underneath it can actually support it consistently. I still think about that account sometimes because I know we could handle it much differently today than we did back then. I'm interested to hear what mistakes ended up forcing positive operational changes for other owners. What failure exposed a weakness in your business that you eventually fixed?What's the best thing you've automated in your business?
Think scheduling, lead follow-ups, and customer reminders. What’s the best automation(s) you’ve set up that's made running your business easier? In this episode of Masters of Home Service, PhilRisher and WiringByron get into: The two automations every business should have How to automate estimates, follow-ups and billing to save 20+ hours/week Why "build the system once, benefit forever" is the real win Want to put these tips into action? Download the 10 automation moves checklist for this episode. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
How do you simplify your operations to reduce overhead and grow faster?
I was watching a video on youtube last night that was talking about how Chick-Fil-A is the most successful restaurant group in the country. Per capita, Chick-Fil-A makes way more money than McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. And their success boils down to the fact that their menu is super simple. This speeds up the ordering process, the making of the food, and cuts down on overhead. So I'm curious: what are ways that you use the KISS (keep is simple, stupid) method in your business?How Do You Manage Sales to Production Hand Offs?
I have two problems I could use some insight on for you companies that have a sales person and a production side of the business: How do you communicate the promises made to your customers in the sales process to those who are executing? Specifically for those GCs and Handymen who have varied scopes from project to project Is there a software that can help with that? Jobber gets you half way there with the Sales tab but it's not expanded (yet, I'm going to message them) so I'd like to have some sort of system so I can see where a project is at a glance. I just hired a production manager but I've always done sales and production managing so it's easy for me to make notes in jobber for the field staff. I'm trying to devise a system that I can get this info to the production manager without having 1000 meetings about every single job.
