How to Start a Painting Business

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (38.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | iHeartRadio | Email | RSS | More

Stephen Lange – Lange’s Painting

 

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Starting Lange’s Painting
04:10 “Belief in New Business Venture”
09:20 Assessing Candidates: Listen for Past Complaints
12:22 Direct Communication and Responsiveness Sought
13:00 “Professional Appearance Requirements”
17:32 “Community Growth and Support Evident”
20:54 Sherwin’s Global Painting Expertise
23:41 Understanding Paint Quality Levels
25:59 Employee Training Video Assessment
29:01 Unified Excellence
32:31 Employee Engagement and Support Activities
36:21 “Exploring Trade Careers”
39:14 Miscommunication in Recruitment Spending
43:24 “Create a Default Calendar”
46:38 Prioritize High-Value Tasks
50:54 Networking vs. Backend Efficiency
55:55 Understanding Financial Statements Efficiently

Podcast Transcription:

Stephen Lange [00:00:00]:
I would say make sure that roles are defined Alright. And on paper for what people are responsible for and what their job roles entail. Standards of procedures as far as, hey. Like, if we’re gonna go hire someone, I have a list of questions that I go by every single time. That way, when you wanna come by our company in a couple years because you see that we run on 14% efficiency, you know, you can make

Stephen Lang [00:00:28]:
some bank off of that. You have found Authentic business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumph and successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. We’re locally underwritten by the Lange of Sun Prairie and today, we’re welcoming slash your In to learn from Stephen Lang of Lang’s painting. So Stephen, how is it going today?

James Kademan [00:00:51]:
Good. Thank you for having me on. Busy day so far. We we’ve started in, started in Stoughton and then made it to Verona for a chamber thing. And now I’ve been graced with your presence.

Stephen Lang [00:01:02]:
Nice. I think I’ve been graced with yours, man. So you’ve been hustling, working on the Business. Yeah. Or is it on the Business, not in the business? Yes.

James Kademan [00:01:11]:
Alright. That’s the goal.

Stephen Lang [00:01:12]:
Kissing babies, shaking hands, all that jazz?

James Kademan [00:01:15]:
No babies.

Stephen Lang [00:01:15]:
No babies. I

James Kademan [00:01:16]:
have one, but no no babies today. No.

Stephen Lang [00:01:18]:
Right on. Yeah. Let’s just start with from the bottom chronologically here. K. When did you decide to start Langes painting?

James Kademan [00:01:25]:
Really good. I yeah. Small history about us is we’ve always In been around it. My brother and I own it 5050.

Stephen Lang [00:01:31]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:01:32]:
Born and raised in the Madison area. We have, you know, 11 w two employees that we love and care for every day. But, yeah, we started we’ve kinda always been around paint. It’s a very interesting way. I before we started Langes Painting in 2020, you know, we started right during a, you know, a pandemic, which was Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:01:50]:
Perfect time. Yeah. Great.

James Kademan [00:01:51]:
Let’s go to your house,

Stephen Lang [00:01:52]:
you know. We’re talking January 2020 or we’re talking April 2020? October. October ’20 ’20.

James Kademan [00:01:58]:
So So

Stephen Lang [00:01:59]:
like the world is really ending. We should probably start a business.

James Kademan [00:02:02]:
Well, you know, you you had your meat and potatoes, you know. And so now we’re just we are the ice cream at the end of the year. It’s like, okay. Let’s start this now.

Stephen Lang [00:02:08]:
And so Nice.

James Kademan [00:02:09]:
Bernie actually started in October, and then I left my role with Sherman Williams, as a sales representative for them, them, April of twenty one. So I guess I wasn’t a part of the initial start. Yeah. But, you know, when he left the company he was working for, you know, he just said, hey. I’m I’m gonna start Langes Painting you’re interested in. And so, you know, being that Sherwin treated me really well, I wanted to make sure I exited correctly with them. So

Stephen Lang [00:02:33]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:02:34]:
Yeah. We’ve always been around painting. I worked for, noise painting, on the East Side Draw Highway 51 as a kid. In high school, Bernie painted for chameleon. I don’t know if they’re still around or not. But, yeah, he we’ve always been around it. So it’s just kinda funny. My my father my stepfather, he owned a company in Milwaukee, and Bernie worked for him prior to starting Wang’s.

James Kademan [00:02:55]:
And I was with Sherwin Williams for five years before leaving them to to start it here.

Stephen Lang [00:03:00]:
Nice. Yeah. So what made you and your brother decide In of just sticking around at your own gig or as an employee No. To go off on your own?

James Kademan [00:03:10]:
Well, great question.

Stephen Lang [00:03:13]:
It

James Kademan [00:03:13]:
was kind of the turning Painting. I was offered a role I wasn’t happy about. He was offered a role that he wasn’t quite ready to take on or or for his own reasons. I don’t I’m not sure. But, you know, he we just kinda hit that fork at the right time. And so, we’ve always been, you know, very driven. We’ve had jobs since we were 13. We used to work at Camp Randall.

James Kademan [00:03:31]:
We used to work all the

Stephen Lang [00:03:32]:
Oh, nice.

James Kademan [00:03:33]:
All the home Badger games selling peanuts and stuff. So

Stephen Lang [00:03:35]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:03:36]:
We’ve always been, you know, business driven. He went to school for it and so did I. And so, you know, Sherwin will always be there. There’ll always be people hiring good people, so why not why not shoot our shot? And we’re, you know, five years down the road. Well, we’re starting our fifth year. Excuse me. But five years down the road, I couldn’t be happier.

Stephen Lang [00:03:52]:
Nice. Very cool. So your brother comes to you and he’s like, hey, man. Let’s start a business. And you’re like, totally sounds great. I’m gonna leave my gig gig at Sherwin. And you guys get together, family dynamic. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:04:06]:
It has to be good in order for you guys to go in business together.

James Kademan [00:04:08]:
He’s a year and a

Stephen Lang [00:04:09]:
half older. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:04:10]:
So, I mean, he, you know, he I I believe in him a % In everything that he’s done so far in his life. And so when he said he started a Business, and I just I didn’t have any hesitation on it’s not how successful we are going to be or or if we’re gonna be successful, it’s how successful. And so feeling that way right out of the gate really helped us, launch. But I mean, it was him and I when we started. Alright. No employees and, you know, not, no standards and procedures or workers comp or, you know, any insurances or anything and stuff like that we carry now. So it’s, you know, our pre finishing shop. It’s just all slowly came

Stephen Lang [00:04:49]:
about. You graduate as you grow, I guess.

James Kademan [00:04:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. We we did really well for a while and, you know, we In of hit a Lange. And in our fourth year, end of our third into our fourth, we’re like, hey, like, why aren’t we getting bigger? You know, we doubled in size, doubled in size, doubled in size, and kinda hit a ceiling. And so we pulled the books back out and kinda looked around a little bit. We hired a Business coach.

Stephen Lang [00:05:10]:
Nice. Yep. Alright. And that’s been successful, I imagine?

James Kademan [00:05:14]:
Yeah. We grew oh, man. You know, I would say yeah. I mean, we’re almost $400,000 in a year.

Stephen Lang [00:05:21]:
Okay. And is that attributable to Yes.

James Kademan [00:05:24]:
100,000.

Stephen Lang [00:05:24]:
The advice that you got

James Kademan [00:05:25]:
from that? Okay. We were we knew what was wrong, but we couldn’t figure out how to fix it or how to grow it more.

Stephen Lang [00:05:32]:
Okay. You have an example?

James Kademan [00:05:34]:
Yeah. I mean, like you just said earlier, working on the business instead of, you know, working on In of in it. You know, we could never get out of the field. You know, I talked to a guy earlier today at the at the chamber thing, and he’s like, man, I’m just I feel like, you know, a failure because I’ve just been in my business. And so she has helped us design, you know, I wear the HR hat. You know, Bernie wears a lot of the APAR hats. And so we’ve kind of figured out an org chart and slowly, you know, once we understood what our defined roles were, we were able to stay in our own lanes. Oh.

James Kademan [00:06:04]:
That’s what happened is I was jumping in his pond. You know, he was fishing out of mine. And so eventually, we just In of were like, hey, we’re just stuck. You know, you couldn’t move because I was so far intertwined with him and vice versa that we couldn’t, we couldn’t get out of our own way. So she helped as a, you know I would say, you know, go back to the tripod. You know, we bounce ideas off of her. If him and I have friction, we have someone that can, you know, move that energy around efficiently for us.

Stephen Lang [00:06:30]:
Alright. That makes sense. Yeah. So tell me about first employee.

James Kademan [00:06:35]:
Oh, yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:06:37]:
I didn’t mean to hit a nut there.

James Kademan [00:06:38]:
Well, no. No. It’s, it was, you know, this is one thing that she has taught us is, you know, I have a procedure now that I go through. So that way, I don’t skip some really important questions that, you know, to be honest with you, even this year, I’ve had, you know in ’24, excuse me, I’ve hit my head on a couple of those. Hey. Gotta go by the process. Otherwise, you’re gonna miss these questions that are imperative to our success and also the employee success. Because we’re only bringing people on to not set them up for the most success to either grow with us, you know, or grow as a person themselves.

James Kademan [00:07:08]:
So,

Stephen Lang [00:07:09]:
questions like, can you climb a ladder or what are we talking about?

James Kademan [00:07:13]:
Valid driver’s license.

Stephen Lang [00:07:14]:
Alright. I

James Kademan [00:07:15]:
mean, you drive a car. That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to drive that car. You know? So Your

Stephen Lang [00:07:20]:
insurance may not like them driving your car.

James Kademan [00:07:22]:
Yeah. They do not touch the fleet vehicles. But, you know, it’s just little things like that. You know, reliable transportation, which, you know, sometimes when you’re seeing a candidate that brings out, you know, kind of the values and the culture that we bring, it’s nice to see all that. It’s like, oh, I don’t have a license. It’s like, why not? You know, it’s just like, you’re so close. Like You’re

Stephen Lang [00:07:40]:
so close.

James Kademan [00:07:40]:
This is almost a perfect a perfect thing for us, but it, so first employee, back to that, he started with us. He had just moved from several states away, and he had lots of Venetian Lange, a lot of the more, I would say, artistic styles of painting. He was really good at mudding and, you know, kind of taking care of some of the repair stuff. Painting, he did a great job. But, you know, his, his means of why he was here wasn’t honest.

Stephen Lang [00:08:08]:
Okay. So

James Kademan [00:08:08]:
he ended up leaving us maybe three or four, months down the road.

Stephen Lang [00:08:13]:
After you hired him?

James Kademan [00:08:14]:
After we hired him. Alright. And, he, you know, he claimed some sort of illness that was, you know, unfortunate that he had it. And we were supporting him for about two months, like, while he was going through these things. And then Adventures found out he moved, like, two more states away and became a truck driver.

Stephen Lang [00:08:28]:
So When you say supporting him, do you mean paying him? Yeah. Or just cheering him

James Kademan [00:08:32]:
on Well, kind of both. He will soon. Kind of both. I mean, he was handling some medical bills, which to this day, I don’t know if In true or not. Right. But, you know, recovering addict. And so, I don’t know what, you know, those missed days here, were they actually going to the hospital? Or are they, you know, the bottle flu or whatever, you know, his his addiction was. But it just seemed like I I put a lot of trust in people.

James Kademan [00:08:55]:
I like to trust them first. I give you, you know, until you give me a reason not to. That’s kinda how we like to operate.

Stephen Lang [00:09:00]:
It’s so I’m laughing here because I had an employee, I don’t know, a year or two ago, and she’s like, James, you have trust issues. And I’m like, if you had gone through all the stuff that just what every employer has to go through with employers Yeah. You would have trust issues. And if you don’t, you’re not paying attention.

James Kademan [00:09:20]:
I learned a valuable lesson once from a gentleman that has, I think, probably 80 or a hundred employees. He said, listen to how they talk about their previous employer because you’re no different. Oh. If they’re bad mouthing them, if they say bad things about them and how they were treated and everything like that, if they were to leave or come on board with you, even if it was a great, harmonious, you know, relationship and, that when they leave or if they’re if they’re ever let go, they’re gonna do the same thing to you. So I it it was true. It was I found it over and over again. So during that interview process, you know, we always try and bring up how the last exit went

Stephen Lang [00:09:53]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:09:53]:
And In try and push some points there to see if, anything, can arise.

Stephen Lang [00:09:58]:
Just poke around and

James Kademan [00:09:59]:
see if you

Stephen Lang [00:09:59]:
can find something.

James Kademan [00:10:00]:
Just in the dark, just fishing around.

Stephen Lang [00:10:01]:
Yeah. No. I get it. I get it. It’s interesting because you can’t ask them straight up because then they’ll deny.

James Kademan [00:10:06]:
Unless against the law In certain terms.

Stephen Lang [00:10:08]:
Well, I guess it just say, like, hey, did you ever get fired or whatever? Things like that. Certain things that you have to tiptoe around.

James Kademan [00:10:13]:
Yes.

Stephen Lang [00:10:14]:
One, to keep it legal. But two, because if you ask it straightforward, they’re not gonna give you an answer. They’re gonna think in their heads or head, what does this guy wanna hear? What is the perfect answer to get me hired? Not what is the most honest answer.

James Kademan [00:10:28]:
Right.

Stephen Lang [00:10:29]:
So I get that totally get that as a challenge.

James Kademan [00:10:31]:
Yeah. And as a younger business owner, we come across, you know, more Lange. That does not you know, we don’t yell, scream, you know, make fun of. We don’t do any of that stuff at our company ever.

Stephen Lang [00:10:43]:
Buckets rolling or anything?

James Kademan [00:10:44]:
No. There’s no abuse at any at any point tolerated. And so that relaxation is, you know, it’s done. It can come off as I can In run them over.

Stephen Lang [00:10:53]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:10:54]:
Or I can do what I want. Until, you know, we kinda pair them with people right when they come on board to kinda, you know, sniff them out and see how they’re doing. But, you know, we we hold pretty strong policies. You know, if I’m there, if I’m there fifteen minutes early, why can’t you be there fifteen minutes early? So Right on. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:11:11]:
So tell me, this is the first employee Yeah. Bails in a little bit of a shady way. Uh-huh. Was that something that you’re just like, what do we do now? Or that was unexpected? Or Call me what your reaction was.

James Kademan [00:11:23]:
So by the time he had been gone by the time he left, we had already hired three more people. So yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:11:28]:
Just because work kept coming In.

James Kademan [00:11:29]:
Work yeah. We had we had a good problem. We had more coming in than we had going out. And so, with that, you know, we we just kinda it was a lot of word-of-mouth. Hey, my friend Painting, you know, he doesn’t like it here, you know, vice versa. And so we In started going that way until we found our sweet spot on where we hire most of our employees now. One is word-of-mouth still. I mean, if someone says, hey, I mean, I worked with them here or, you know.

James Kademan [00:11:53]:
Your resume speaks for itself typically. But when people say they can Painting lot of times, it doesn’t go to the standards that we keep.

Stephen Lang [00:12:01]:
Sure. That’s very vague very vague statement. Right? I think it’s Are we talking

James Kademan [00:12:05]:
Monet? Or are we talking, you know, Picasso?

Stephen Lang [00:12:07]:
I just take the bucket off, spill it, and boom, the floor is painted.

James Kademan [00:12:11]:
I Call pour it anywhere I want.

Stephen Lang [00:12:12]:
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So tell me about the employees, how you find them, and how you figure out that you’re gonna hire them. What are you looking for in an employee?

James Kademan [00:12:22]:
We are looking for, someone that, you know, is on time and early, and we are in constant communication. So we don’t have an office. We have a shop, but we don’t have an office. So I deal with them directly as owners, as does Bernie. And so when there are questions or needs or wants, they’re getting the direct response. They don’t have to call somewhere, wait wait for that call to come back, not talk to the right person. You know, there’s no moving around parts. You get to the top, you get answers, and it goes right back down.

James Kademan [00:12:51]:
And So, I lost my train of thought.

Stephen Lang [00:12:56]:
Oh, finding what are you

James Kademan [00:12:57]:
looking for an employee?

Stephen Lang [00:12:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:00]:
What what we’re looking for In employee is, yeah, someone that is prompt that, you know, knows how to wear a belt around their waist. I’m I’m not looking for yes, sir, no, ma’am, any of that stuff. But, you know, we’re looking for some people that are front facing. You know, as someone that comes into your house, normally, you want them with the right attire on that, you know, that shows, hey. I work for this company. I’ll be entering your dwelling now. Not, hey. I’m here to paint, you know, that kind of thing.

James Kademan [00:13:24]:
We’re looking for just straight up gentlemen, that, that are that are ready to come to work.

Stephen Lang [00:13:29]:
Fair? Yeah. Fair. I can remember we had insulation done in a house long time ago. It was just insulation settled or whatever, so we hired this company to add blow In insulation. And I was working from home at the time. This is before work from home was cool. It was just the home office was cheaper than having an office. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:13:50]:
So these these guys come to the door and I’m like, hey. What’s up? Here’s the way to get in the attic. I gotta go back to work. You guys do your thing. And a few hours later, I come out of the office thinking, I wonder how they’re doing, and they’re gone. And which is fine. Whatever. You did your job.

Stephen Lang [00:14:05]:
But I was like, they didn’t say goodbye. There’s no communication, and there’s trails of the little In thing everywhere. Something like you left a mess. You didn’t say goodbye. I’m assuming They

James Kademan [00:14:15]:
could still be up there.

Stephen Lang [00:14:16]:
Could still be up there. Yeah. It was just one of those things where I’m like, how hard would it have been just to knock on my door and say, hey, man, peace out or hey, we need to get paid or hey, we’ll send you a bill. What are the next steps? I didn’t know. So I had to call the place and say, hey, how do I pay you?

James Kademan [00:14:34]:
It’s a weird weird concept.

Stephen Lang [00:14:36]:
It was just a weird Yeah. Weird thing. And this is a company that had been around for decades. So I’m like, this is just what you do? It’s In it was interesting how the the salesperson, person you talked about on the phone, they’re Call. But the people that actually did the work, next to no communication skill.

James Kademan [00:14:56]:
We stress that. Alright. We stress that. You know, it’s you walk In, you greet them. If I’m there to start the jobs or the projects or one of our foremen are, there’s names to the people working, whether that’s a superintendent, a project manager In a commercial site, or the homeowner themselves. You know, pretty much everyone likes dogs. So it’s it makes it easy that way. But we are, I would say, more personable than not to where, you know, communication at the end of the day, hey, we’re gonna be back at 07:30AM.

James Kademan [00:15:23]:
Is it okay if we put everything in this corner until tomorrow? Yeah. Hey. Can we commandeer the garage while we’re here? You know, all that communication gets gets planned out either prior to or during the process. I mean, they’re they’re people too. Right? They’re they’re Painting for a service. Let’s give them the best that we know that we can and, you know, move on.

Stephen Lang [00:15:40]:
Fair. You raise an interesting Painting. Because I guess for this particular one, the installation, it was just lowest bidder and I got

James Kademan [00:15:47]:
The lowest bidder.

Stephen Lang [00:15:48]:
I got lowest bidder, man.

James Kademan [00:15:50]:
Huge pay for it.

Stephen Lang [00:15:51]:
Service quality and price. I got price, I guess.

James Kademan [00:15:54]:
Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:15:54]:
Usually, you get to pick two but I don’t In don’t think I get the other ones.

James Kademan [00:15:57]:
It’s seeming these days you have to pick one. Mhmm. So the other two kinda to to leave the window. We like to hold on to we like to hold on to Affirm too.

Stephen Lang [00:16:06]:
Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Tell me, as far as bringing new clients on, I mean, you’re starting the pandemic. It’s just you and your brother. How did people find you? What did you do for marketing?

James Kademan [00:16:17]:
Good question. So we have we we’ve barely spent any money In in their our fifth year, into advertising. We grew up here. People knew that we were back. Okay. My father ran a construction company, on the West Side. So as far as those connections went, it took us a while to crack into the commercial site because you need a lot different equipment. You need a little bit of capital to start kinda running some of those different insurances and stuff like that.

James Kademan [00:16:43]:
So it was residential. I mean, we hopped place to place. There’s a couple properties that, you know, I called on a lot of different Langes, let them know who we were, what we were about, kinda, what our backgrounds were and Commercial properties? Commercial well, I would say, like, student housing.

Stephen Lang [00:16:58]:
Gotcha.

James Kademan [00:16:59]:
Okay. Rentals, property management companies.

Stephen Lang [00:17:02]:
Stuff where they’re gonna be routine.

James Kademan [00:17:03]:
Yeah. Routine. Something that’s planned. That way, you can kinda start to forecast. Say, we have these 50 units in three months. That will get us to this part to be able to plan for the next one. So, the behind the scenes stuff, you know, is is paramount when you’re trying to gain more customers. And, you know, a lot of people Langes, like, hey.

James Kademan [00:17:20]:
You know, oh, the Langes Lang Lange are back. Like, you know, they’re painting now. So then one of them will call us. And, hey. My uncle needs it. My aunt needs it. My next door neighbor said they need a painter. And so we started becoming top of mind to people.

James Kademan [00:17:32]:
And so it just kinda shows the community that, you know, Madison and the surrounding areas are really starting to develop into. You know, if if someone’s gonna vouch for you these days, they mean it because I feel like people whisper, you know, gratitude and yell hate. So I think that, you know, when we get all these, you know, five star reviews on Google and stuff like that, it’s just really encouraging or, you know, really, I would say, uplifting to see that, you know, we care. We’re we’re here. We’re we’re hometown people. We care. We want our communities to succeed and look as best as they can.

Stephen Lang [00:18:03]:
Yeah. Fair. No. Madison’s a small town. I mean, it’s a decent sized town. But when it comes to people talking and stuff like that, totally small.

James Kademan [00:18:11]:
It’s a big high school. Very That’s that’s, why It’s

Stephen Lang [00:18:14]:
got its cliques?

James Kademan [00:18:15]:
Oh, he doesn’t ever.

Stephen Lang [00:18:16]:
Yeah. That is for sure. From a sales point of view, are you the sales guy? Is that your lane with you and your brother? Or both of you doing sales?

James Kademan [00:18:24]:
So there’s a commercial bidding side, which is normally off of plans and stuff like that. He did that for his previous company. Okay. So he tackles a lot more of the commercial stuff, and I handle the residential stuff. When I was with Sherwin Williams, I was, in the residential repaint division of theirs. So when it comes to talking to homeowners, knowing about higher quality products, what’s the process? How do you know. So the accounts that I had with them, I kinda taught those people how to run their own business and help them succeed. That way, I knew they’d buy the paint from me.

James Kademan [00:18:53]:
So as far as sales go, I love it. There’s nothing better than, you know, closing sales and, you know, providing for, you know, not only ourselves, but our families Call also our employees’ families. Like, knowing that they’re getting a check every week, and they don’t have to worry about it.

Stephen Lang [00:19:07]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:19:08]:
You know, that’s they know it’s there. It’s always on time. They they can start In letting that piece of their life go and move on to the fun things that they wanna do.

Stephen Lang [00:19:16]:
Yeah. I wanna talk about product, the paint itself, because I didn’t know that there was a difference between a bucket of paint and a different bucket of paint. So when I went to paint, some offices that I had, I just went to Menards and I was like, I just need white. And this one’s white and that one’s white, so I’m just gonna get the cheap one. And I learned that it takes about 50 coats to do that cheap one. So but I didn’t know. I started digging in online to learn, like, what are the ingredients of paint Because there’s a huge difference. Yes.

Stephen Lang [00:19:48]:
So can you talk on that a little bit?

James Kademan [00:19:50]:
Yeah. I mean, I am the paint nerd. Alright. I worked for Sherman for too Lange. And so, I read a lot of data pages. I worked in the Tucson market. So a lot of heat, a lot of Draw, all the way up back here into the Racine and Milwaukee area. So, learning about the way different things cure and stuff like that.

James Kademan [00:20:08]:
It’s it does come down to a very specific chemical, which is titanium dioxide. Okay. That’s kind of the muscle of the paint. So the higher percentage of that, the better it’ll cover. The better, the better you know, there’s a lot of things. There’s four components that go into a Painting product. But titanium dioxide is the number one thing that homeowners, should look at when purchasing it or when they’re asking, you know, their future contractor. Hey.

James Kademan [00:20:33]:
Like, I understand that how much titanium dioxide it In, you know, has in it.

Stephen Lang [00:20:37]:
They give it as a percentage

James Kademan [00:20:38]:
or what? Yeah. So typically, in a 10,000 gallon batch of paint, there is, they In do a plus or minus two. So if it’s 38%, plus or minus 2%, because in a 10,000 gallon batch, your variance

Stephen Lang [00:20:51]:
could The guys got the measuring companies like, close enough.

James Kademan [00:20:54]:
They take samples of every single one, and they have them labeled and logged. So it’s very it’s very Call that that’s, on the Sherwin side of things, that that’s I I I Langes from, I would say, you know, the best Okay. In in the Business, the biggest, you know, company globally. Yeah. So, I do know too much. So when Bernie has a question, he’s like, hey, we’re gonna do this to this, and we’re gonna paint this, that. And he goes, how do we get there? And I was like, well, this, then this, then that, and then we have to sand it, and then we can get there from this. And so, I In break everything down on that on that on that side.

Stephen Lang [00:21:27]:
So is the idea that the cheaper paint has less titanium dioxide, broadly speaking?

James Kademan [00:21:33]:
I would say that’s 85% accurate.

Stephen Lang [00:21:36]:
Wow. Okay. Yeah. Alright. And then the fancier stuff has? Yeah. More?

James Kademan [00:21:41]:
Yes. Okay. So there’s Is

Stephen Lang [00:21:42]:
there any other difference?

James Kademan [00:21:44]:
I mean, just Yeah. I mean, it goes it goes, you’d have to talk to, someone that’s In, you know, someone that does, like, nuclear power plants, potable water. Those start to change our industrial as far as, like, bridges, stuff like that, salt water.

Stephen Lang [00:21:59]:
Okay. Sure.

James Kademan [00:22:00]:
Like, those products have a little bit of a different makeup. But as far as, like, Midwest Painting goes, exterior, interior, you know, epoxies are a little different. But as far as that goes, titanium dioxide is king.

Stephen Lang [00:22:10]:
Alright. So I was looking at I mean, we’re talking the price difference of probably for the cheap end, the low end, probably the high end stuff more expensive. I guess, it was probably three times the cost. Yeah. It was substantial. Yeah. And I’m like, I just want white paint. And then forget about the whole eggshell gloss, semi gloss, blah blah blah, whatever.

Stephen Lang [00:22:32]:
I’m just like, all I want is white paint. How are there possibly this many options? Yeah. It’s insane. So if I’m a homeowner or I got some commercial property apartments or whatever Yeah. And I want them painted, but I don’t wanna spend millions of dollars. And you’re like, hey. What kind of paint do you wanna use? Or do you just tell them what kind of paint?

James Kademan [00:22:53]:
I look at what we’re doing, and we only use top two tiers.

Stephen Lang [00:22:56]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:22:57]:
So there’s a top tier, and we don’t charge. All the savings that we have from our purchasing power, we pass In to our our customers. We don’t mark up our pay. We don’t mark up anything. You know, we pay for what we use on your house because you’re paying us to use that on your house. You know, I don’t mark it up to what if we did, yeah. If we did the MSRP, we’d be, you know, we’d be rolling in dough, essentially. But No

Stephen Lang [00:23:18]:
one would pay. One of the two?

James Kademan [00:23:19]:
Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. It’s like, oh, that’s twice as much as we said or three times the amount. And so,

Stephen Lang [00:23:24]:
How many tiers are there? If you’re using top two, are we talking five, ten?

James Kademan [00:23:28]:
Sure. Five. Okay. I’d say In average, probably five to eight. Wow. Depending upon how commercial grade versus the highest end of residential. I mean, you range on the shelf from $25 to a hundred and $4 a gallon.

Stephen Lang [00:23:41]:
And tell me from your point of view, because I I guess I can see as a guy that’s painted a few rooms, not hundreds, more like five. I can tell or I could tell after about the cheap stuff. I’m like, oh, that other stuff is three times the cost because we had to use this one three times to get what that probably could one time. So I can see that being like, okay, one. But now we’re talking five to eight different tiers. What is the difference?

James Kademan [00:24:08]:
That’s a good question. Some have, I would say, moldicides in them. So, like, if we’re going to a bathroom or In or something, they want a little more scrub ability, especially In in I’ll just stick with the bathroom. But, you know, those little black dots you get on the Lange, some of this paint coating is smart enough to eat that.

Stephen Lang [00:24:23]:
Eat? Oh, wow. Okay. Well,

James Kademan [00:24:26]:
In it it hides it. It consumes it, if you will. So Okay.

Stephen Lang [00:24:31]:
In is it an indefinite thing? Or is that after

James Kademan [00:24:33]:
I’ve I’ve you’re not quoting me on that. Alright. I’m gonna leave that there. I mean, I we warranty our work for two years. If it happens to happen within seven years, I’d be surprised. Okay. Typically, products have fifteen year limited lifetime, but I don’t know what limited lifetime stands for. I’m not a lawyer, but No.

Stephen Lang [00:24:52]:
Fifteen years seems like a while though for paint. Yeah. I would think that

James Kademan [00:24:55]:
It doesn’t include fade. It’s just the actual structural integrity of the paint.

Stephen Lang [00:24:59]:
Okay. It didn’t flake off or something like that.

James Kademan [00:25:01]:
Exactly. Yep. Okay. Yep. In is structurally sound fading. You can’t warranty fade. Gotcha. The sun, you know, like I said, it was in Tucson.

James Kademan [00:25:07]:
The sun there is different than it is here.

Stephen Lang [00:25:09]:
I bet it’s a little bit more intense.

James Kademan [00:25:12]:
Don’t yeah. Don’t do any reds down there.

Stephen Lang [00:25:14]:
Alright. They

James Kademan [00:25:14]:
just they fade into that nice pinky guy.

Stephen Lang [00:25:16]:
You can just see where the window or where the sun moved across the window Yeah. To see there. Yep. The rectangle or whatever Draw is there.

James Kademan [00:25:22]:
Exactly. I think here, what we have is when you move a rug. Yeah. You have that that nice spot there

Stephen Lang [00:25:27]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:25:27]:
Similar to, you know, the sun fade there.

Stephen Lang [00:25:29]:
Interesting. Yeah. I get In cars and old cars in Arizona are great because they’re rust free. But the interior, you touch them wrong and it’s just poof.

James Kademan [00:25:38]:
Yep. Just dust. Dust. Yep.

Stephen Lang [00:25:40]:
Yeah. Crazy crazy intense. So tell me, when you have your employees and they say, I can totally Painting, but I mentioned they have their way, whatever they did before, and then you have your way, whatever you wanna do is systematize and all that stuff. How do you train your employees to do the job the way you want it done?

James Kademan [00:25:59]:
Great question. So we developed a training module that has videos along with them. So, when I hire someone on and they’re ready to go full time, what I have them do is once we get all the, you know, Social Security cards and all that stuff out of the way, what we do is they watch 38 videos. It’s about three hours worth. And then there’s a quiz afterwards that I’ve made, and I put all the videos together so that when those are done and they you know, I’m looking for a 28 out of thirty, twenty nine out of 30. They’re not complicated questions. Some of the latter ones, I would say, are very specific because those are for safety and insurance and their health. Right? But once they complete those, we pay them for the three hours to watch the videos.

James Kademan [00:26:42]:
The test probably takes five minutes. So, you know, a long lunch break, which happens more often than not. But, they complete that quiz. We pay them for it. And that way, they understand our standards moving forward. A lot of people that, I would say have come to work for us have had their own companies. Hey, I’ve always done it this way, is what they say. In, well, our way is still working.

James Kademan [00:27:04]:
It seems like yours In dried up. So we’re gonna stick with our processes. Yeah. Exactly.

Stephen Lang [00:27:10]:
Looking for a job. We have a business.

James Kademan [00:27:13]:
I I I don’t say it that rude. You know? Sure. It’s just like, hey, like, this system works. Can we please use it? Mhmm. And it’s, you know, if there’s something that needs to be talked about behind the door, then we can hash that out then. But when you’re on-site, I mean, we have a process that’s flawless. I mean, it’s working really well and, guys understand why. We don’t just say, hey, we do it this way.

James Kademan [00:27:33]:
The reason why is x y z because then you can do, PQR later. Oh. So that’s why we yes. Exactly. Now we’re moving more efficiently. Everything’s going quicker, and we’re in and out of homes quicker. And we have, you know, when we have buildings like yours under construction now, your return to services faster. That’s what we want.

James Kademan [00:27:50]:
We want those businesses to be back open. We want people’s homes to not be blue taped everywhere and tarps everywhere. Right? Right.

Stephen Lang [00:27:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the commercial side because you mentioned commercial equipment. Is that we In sprayers or what are we talking about?

James Kademan [00:28:05]:
Sprayers, different ladders, rental equipment. Okay. So we rent from a couple different companies around town, as far as jib booms, stuff like that, stick lifts,

Stephen Lang [00:28:14]:
and stuff like that. Oh, so you’re getting way up high.

James Kademan [00:28:16]:
Yeah. I mean, I don’t want if there’s I always tell them I wouldn’t want you to do anything that I wouldn’t do. So, like, I’m not asking you to get on a roof that’s pitched, that’s steep, that’s scary, that without a harness, and anything that’s OSHA binding. So if I wouldn’t do it, I’m not asking your eyes to do it. Even if you’re like, oh, I’ll do it. I’ll do it. It’s like, no. If I’m not gonna do it, we’re gonna get a boom down there.

James Kademan [00:28:36]:
We’re gonna, you know, put plywood down underneath so it doesn’t cave in the, you know, the the person’s, lawn or damage anything flowers wise. And so that’s kind of the commercial equipment side. We don’t own any of ourselves, but, you know, the insurances and certifications for those things are important.

Stephen Lang [00:28:52]:
Yeah. Got it. Got it. Yeah. And as far as your guys go, do you have commercial guys and residential guys? Or is they

James Kademan [00:29:00]:
We’re all

Stephen Lang [00:29:00]:
A Team. Depends on the job.

James Kademan [00:29:01]:
We’re all A Team. Someone’s like, hey. You’re sending your b Draw, your c crew. It’s like, we only have an A Crew. I mean, I’m serious. I mean, our team has never been stronger, more educated, more dedicated to, the success of this company because they’ve seen how it’s grown even, you know, since March of this year. I mean, there’s there’s, a lot of promise for the future and promotions and, you know, it’s just gonna get bigger and better. So

Stephen Lang [00:29:23]:
Tell me about employee turnover.

James Kademan [00:29:26]:
Very funny. We only have two employees from last year still with us.

Stephen Lang [00:29:32]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:29:35]:
Well, actually, we’re almost we’re anyway. So, one’s been with us since 2023.

Stephen Lang [00:29:41]:
He’s our

James Kademan [00:29:42]:
oldest ten year employee.

Stephen Lang [00:29:43]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:29:44]:
So turnover, unfortunately, has been them terminating themselves, whether that’s, you know, time theft or, you know, just absenteeism or, you know, not showing up quality performance. We don’t really we don’t ask a lot. You know, we ask you to come to work, work hard, keep politics off the job site, keep the music down, and, you know, enjoy the rest of your day.

Stephen Lang [00:30:07]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:30:08]:
So Tell

Stephen Lang [00:30:08]:
me about the the you said time time stealing? What did you

James Kademan [00:30:11]:
Time theft.

Stephen Lang [00:30:12]:
Time theft. Tell me more about that.

James Kademan [00:30:14]:
Well, let’s say I was here for a half an hour, and I was here for four hours. Alright. You stole three and a half hours.

Stephen Lang [00:30:20]:
Right. So they’re writing on their time card Right.

James Kademan [00:30:23]:
Or whatever. We found a systematic way to not let them fire themselves anymore that way. Right. We we have a geofence around job sites now. So they go In, they punch it in an app. It recognizes they’re in the geofence. And then if they were to leave, it clocks them out. If they go back in, it clocks them in.

Stephen Lang [00:30:37]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:30:38]:
And by law in Wisconsin, you have to allow a thirty minute break on-site for lunch In a fifteen minute in the morning and a fifteen in the afternoon.

Stephen Lang [00:30:45]:
Mhmm. Yeah. As long as it’s over six hour shift. Right? For the half hour?

James Kademan [00:30:50]:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we we require 40 minimums.

Stephen Lang [00:30:53]:
Alright. That’s yeah. It’s so interesting how I guess, us with our employees that are remote Yeah. We’ve had to get software. It’s a big brother software. But, essentially, you’re well, the same thing with the geo tracking thing where it’s just, like, we shouldn’t have to do this. Right? Can’t people just be honest?

James Kademan [00:31:11]:
They’re grown men. But yeah. But Sometimes

Stephen Lang [00:31:15]:
they act like eighth graders. Well, you

James Kademan [00:31:17]:
know, it’s, everyone’s smarter than everyone else.

Stephen Lang [00:31:21]:
Yeah. Just ask them. Right? Yep. That’s so true.

James Kademan [00:31:25]:
I’ll never get caught. They never knew. Alright. You know, that In, we’re all there once. Come on.

Stephen Lang [00:31:30]:
I don’t know that

James Kademan [00:31:31]:
You’re always smarter than your parents until you realized you weren’t.

Stephen Lang [00:31:34]:
Well, I guess, in that regard, I might still think that I am. But there’s there’s still that little 17 year old in the back of your head. Yeah. But I guess Stephen three and a half hours from a company, that seems a little rich.

James Kademan [00:31:45]:
I mean, that that might be an extreme example. But, you

Stephen Lang [00:31:47]:
know,

James Kademan [00:31:48]:
if you go to have you know, I I put the example together the other day where if you do five minutes a day and you multiply that out, that’s I think it was, like, twenty one hours Yeah. Throughout the course of the

Stephen Lang [00:31:57]:
year. I totally have had have employees.

James Kademan [00:32:00]:
You blow it up on a a yearly scale. It’s like, well, then why don’t I take twenty hours off your next check? You can have lunch on your own time. Yeah. You know, so I I we’re we’re so easy to work with.

Stephen Lang [00:32:12]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:32:12]:
You know, I say that they work with us, not for us, because that’s how I really feel. Yeah. You know, I don’t think that, oh, hey, boss. It’s like, I don’t like that.

Stephen Lang [00:32:21]:
In really don’t It’s so funny you you say that because I hate it when so I have my crew and they’re like, you bet, boss man. And why is it like nails on a chalkboard?

James Kademan [00:32:29]:
It’s terrible.

Stephen Lang [00:32:30]:
It shouldn’t be though.

James Kademan [00:32:31]:
I I that’s why that’s why, you know, every month we take them out bowling or we go axe throwing. We take them out sometimes with their families too. And we also have trainings at the shop. We have our our monthly employee appreciation. And so, you know, I know more about their families than probably any other employer has. You know, we we’ve shared things that, you you know, hey, like, I’m struggling with this. You know, I we’re there for them because we want the best out of them while they’re on the job site. Why can’t we care for them off of it too?

Stephen Lang [00:32:59]:
Mhmm. Has that been good for retention?

James Kademan [00:33:03]:
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Another thing the ActionCOACH put together. She’s like, how are you rewarding them? You know, we work long hours and sometimes it’s a little monotonous and whatever. But how are you rewarding them for this this, you know, good performance? And I was like, what would you suggest? And she just said, you know, you need to do this monthly. Interesting. Okay.

James Kademan [00:33:22]:
Yeah. Alright. Monthly appreciations.

Stephen Lang [00:33:26]:
Yeah. Pre my old Business, I had that printer repair thing. I would take my techs out for lunch every Friday. We usually end up at some bar that was near a job or something like that and just grab lunch and chat. And the rule was we couldn’t talk about printers.

James Kademan [00:33:42]:
Can’t talk about work. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:33:44]:
Can’t talk about can’t talk about work. We usually and I would do everything I could to avoid the topic. But sometimes, they would just be like, what about this jam? And I was like,

James Kademan [00:33:55]:
Yeah. No. Bad you.

Stephen Lang [00:33:57]:
Yeah. But whatever. You know, the bar burger, you move on with your life.

James Kademan [00:34:01]:
It’s the the the employee appreciations are nice, just because you learn, you know, you can In see who’s doing well and who isn’t. Mhmm. You know, if everyone’s engaged and some people are, hey, I’m late and they, you know, they leave early. You know, you can just kinda tell that you get a good feel.

Stephen Lang [00:34:16]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:34:16]:
Right? And, you know, we have our I would say, we have our employees that report back to us directly In, hey, like, this this and this happened this week. Just keep your eye on it. Or, you know, hey, it seems like he’s In down taking a bunch of lunch this week.

Stephen Lang [00:34:30]:
Right

James Kademan [00:34:30]:
In. We we are in the field, you know, enough to to realize most of it, but you can’t see everything. And so, you know, like I said earlier, you know, if that one employee that bad mouthed their previous employer is now bad mouthing you Right. We hear. You know, we hear it. Hey. This guy said that you guys are running, you know, a a a a dishonest business or whatever. And it’s like, hey.

James Kademan [00:34:51]:
I pull him aside. Hey. We heard this. Like, what’s going on? Like, can you tell me about what happened? And I I’ll walk it through. You know, if you had a bad day and you you slipped up and you said some stuff you didn’t mean to, that’s fine. But let’s not move that into infiltrating the rest of our Yeah. You don’t have to worry about Call. Employees.

James Kademan [00:35:08]:
Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s a cancer from the inside.

Stephen Lang [00:35:11]:
Inside. Yeah. Check In. You service it. And if it doesn’t work, then you cut the cancer out.

James Kademan [00:35:16]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Stephen Lang [00:35:18]:
Yeah. Tell me about the worst employee that you’ve ever had.

James Kademan [00:35:23]:
Okay. If

Stephen Lang [00:35:25]:
you can. I don’t know.

James Kademan [00:35:26]:
Oh, I I mean, some of the ones that I haven’t hired, I think. You know, there’s a gentleman that we’re looking to bring on, and three weeks later, I saw him on it wasn’t the news. It was, there was a picture of him somewhere that said, do not let this person into your store. Oh. And I was Call,

Stephen Lang [00:35:42]:
alright. Touch the bullet down.

James Kademan [00:35:43]:
We did? That that’s In spooky

Stephen Lang [00:35:45]:
to me

James Kademan [00:35:46]:
that, you know, their their picture up at a store of theirs Painting, do not let them back

Stephen Lang [00:35:51]:
in. Woah.

James Kademan [00:35:52]:
So, yeah, it’s like the one person’s banned from that bar. It’s like, what did you have to do to get banned from here?

Stephen Lang [00:35:58]:
Right. You know?

James Kademan [00:36:00]:
Yeah. I guess, you know, since we’ve really started to, you know, they always say hire slow and fire fast. Mhmm. Since, we’ve taken that into very serious consideration, you know, we’ve we’ve hit a lot of home runs. A lot of people have come to us because their friends used to work there.

Stephen Lang [00:36:20]:
And they say,

James Kademan [00:36:21]:
hey, I love it here. Or, you know, a lot of word-of-mouth is happening. We’re working with another company that right when they get out of high school, they’re ultra they’re interested in the trades. Mhmm. So we’re In of working with them, a little one on one ish to figure out, hey, like, they’ve only been Painting for three weeks, but they really like it. It’s like, we’re gonna bust them up. Like, we’re we’re gonna get them down and dirty and we’ll see if they cut it. Sure.

James Kademan [00:36:45]:
You know what I mean? Just because, you know, with, the way it seems the workforce is going, a lot of people

Stephen Lang [00:36:51]:
don’t wanna work and get paid. So Turns out turns out it’s better in my mind since, I feel like pre pandemic, maybe, I don’t know, 2018 In 2019, it was tough to find people. Pandemic made it like, oh, you thought 2019 was bad. Watch this. Yeah. And then I feel like it’s coming back to not easy, but I’m judging it purely on the number of people percentage wise that show up to an interview. And pandemic, if we had 50%, we were like, woah. Woah.

Stephen Lang [00:37:29]:
Yeah. We got In. On time? Yeah. And now the past three interviews, four interviews, a %.

James Kademan [00:37:37]:
Okay.

Stephen Lang [00:37:38]:
So we’re twenty nineteen. I mean, 50, sometimes you would even have I’d have three people scheduled for an In, and you would hope one showed up

James Kademan [00:37:47]:
kind of thing. No. I’d I’d I’d hear you on that. It seems like also, you know, in the in the trades, for the most part, you know, that seems like, you know, people are kind of coming back out of the woodworks. You know, we get a lot of calls seasonally as we go into the winter. A lot of paint companies will slow down.

Stephen Lang [00:38:04]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:38:05]:
And so sometimes those workers that, I say sometimes we say trim the fat. Mhmm. So you get rid of some of that stuff. That way you’re nice and lean going into winter.

Stephen Lang [00:38:14]:
Gotcha.

James Kademan [00:38:14]:
Some companies don’t have as much work, so they In let those straggle. And so interviewing them is where you gotta be your sharpest because they have the experience. They have the knowledge. But why aren’t they there anymore?

Stephen Lang [00:38:25]:
Oh, gotcha. They cut the b team. Now b team’s knocking on

James Kademan [00:38:28]:
your door. Yeah. So it it’s it’s it’s nice to see that when we put an ad or two out, we’re getting you know, before it was kinda crickets. And now we’re getting four, five, six hits Alright. Per Painting. So

Stephen Lang [00:38:40]:
And what are you using to list? Craigslist. Okay. Really?

James Kademan [00:38:44]:
Yeah. In Call places. Yeah. I mean, other than the word-of-mouth stuff, I think our last I would say, you know, our most tenured employee. Our first form In hire or promotion, I would say, came from Craigslist. I mean, it’s some of our best guys came from Craigslist.

Stephen Lang [00:39:01]:
Wow.

James Kademan [00:39:01]:
I paid In once, and Woof. Yeah. I got the bill and I was like, no one called. They’re like, well, you know, is it specific enough? Is it this? I was like, isn’t aren’t I supposed to have an agent that I

Stephen Lang [00:39:12]:
love it. What are you doing wrong?

James Kademan [00:39:14]:
Oh, In came right back to me. I spent it and, you know, Bernie’s like, hey, man. That Indeed bill came back. He goes, how many did you hire off there? Who who did you talk to? I was like, I I I didn’t think they even started yet because that was, like, how little communication I had with them. And so we realized there’s certain avenues. Facebook does a good job. Okay. You can post something on the marketplace.

Stephen Lang [00:39:34]:
Okay. For employees or good jobs? I didn’t know that. Okay.

James Kademan [00:39:38]:
No. That would be I would say our our biggest traction would definitely be Craigslist.

Stephen Lang [00:39:44]:
That is awesome.

James Kademan [00:39:44]:
It’s very interesting. But, you you know, any search engine where you Call type in painting jobs

Stephen Lang [00:39:49]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:39:49]:
Why not go to Craig?

Stephen Lang [00:39:51]:
What I it’s interesting that you say that. Not necessarily hugely relevant, but I love Craigslist for all kinds of stuff. Right? I mean, motorcycles, cars, all that kind of stuff. Finding some dude to do little electrical job or something like that. Yeah. And I’m like, why do people go towards Facebook Marketplace when it’s so difficult to find something? The algorithm sucks. I can’t just type in

James Kademan [00:40:17]:
Well, you get all the new stuff. And it’s like, I didn’t want the new stuff In here because I don’t want the new stuff.

Stephen Lang [00:40:22]:
It’s garbage. It’s garbage, man. I’ll type In, let’s say, Buick Grand National. Right? That’s on everybody’s mind since the halftime show. Yeah. Everybody that cares about the halftime show as far as Buick Grand

James Kademan [00:40:31]:
National. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:40:31]:
That’s the first thing

James Kademan [00:40:32]:
I saw.

Stephen Lang [00:40:32]:
I was like

James Kademan [00:40:33]:
Good way to put that.

Stephen Lang [00:40:33]:
That Grand National behind that guy. Like, get out of the way. We gotta see the car.

James Kademan [00:40:37]:
Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:40:38]:
So if I were to go on marketplace and type in Buick Grand National, you would see Toyota

James Kademan [00:40:43]:
Subaru. Lange. It’s like, no. My radius is here.

Stephen Lang [00:40:46]:
Right. Or if I go on Craigslist, it’s like, here’s the three that there are.

James Kademan [00:40:51]:
Thank you.

Stephen Lang [00:40:52]:
Thanks. How about some honesty? Thanks.

James Kademan [00:40:53]:
Don’t just keep me scrolling until I buy it.

Stephen Lang [00:40:54]:
Yeah. Yep.

James Kademan [00:40:55]:
I totally hear you on that.

Stephen Lang [00:40:56]:
That’s it. So I wish Craigslist In more popular than like, it had its moment and then, I don’t know.

James Kademan [00:41:01]:
Well, it In got, you know, it got kinda put in the corner with some bad stuff. So

Stephen Lang [00:41:06]:
Yeah. I suppose but there’s weird people everywhere. Right?

James Kademan [00:41:08]:
I agree. But they were the first Stephen.

Stephen Lang [00:41:10]:
Yeah. But it’s not like people In marketplace, you’re like, oh, I won’t get murdered here. The pictures are in color or something.

James Kademan [00:41:15]:
I moved a lot in my younger years and all of my furniture I left behind and I got new stuff off fake Facebook Marketplace when I moved there.

Stephen Lang [00:41:23]:
Yeah. Fair. I’m not seeing some

James Kademan [00:41:25]:
I’ve been to some places I didn’t I don’t wanna say I was, but I mean, I didn’t know where I was. Right? It’s a new city. They’re like, oh, you were there? It’s like, yeah. They’re like, any scratches, bumps, bruises? No. I’m out of there fine. You bought a glass table from, you know, wherever

Stephen Lang [00:41:40]:
Oh, interesting.

James Kademan [00:41:40]:
And you made it out okay. And I was like, yeah. I didn’t know any better. If you’re not from there, you don’t know where the No. The armpits of the town are. No.

Stephen Lang [00:41:48]:
Yeah. All good. All good. Let’s shift gears into just business stuff as a whole.

James Kademan [00:41:54]:
Okay.

Stephen Lang [00:41:55]:
You started Draw five years ago, a little before Yeah. Or a little more than five years ago.

James Kademan [00:41:59]:
Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:41:59]:
What are some things that you’ve learned since then that you wish you knew when you first started?

James Kademan [00:42:05]:
I would say make sure that roles are defined.

Stephen Lang [00:42:10]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:42:10]:
And on paper for what people are responsible for and what their job roles entail. Standards of procedures as far as, hey, like, if we’re gonna go hire someone, I have a list of questions that I go by every single time. That way, when you wanna come by our company in a couple years because you see that we run on 14% efficiency, you know, you can make some bank off of that.

Stephen Lang [00:42:33]:
Operating manual.

James Kademan [00:42:33]:
Yeah. Exactly. So that way, we have a binder Call. Oh, we just hired a new form and, okay, print off pages six, seven, eight, and 13. Okay. Here you go. That way, it’ll be, I would say and we’re not looking to Call, but, like, one day down the road, hopefully, you know, with how easy it is, you know, any company they say over $2,000,000 is a sellable business now. You know, there I can just say, hey.

James Kademan [00:42:56]:
Here you go. Here’s everything.

Stephen Lang [00:42:57]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:42:58]:
Check comes this way. We hand you everything else. En route. Nice. Turnkey.

Stephen Lang [00:43:02]:
Yeah. What is the Lange, I guess? Let’s call it three, five years down the road.

James Kademan [00:43:06]:
I wanna retire tomorrow. Like

Stephen Lang [00:43:08]:
everybody else. Yeah. Right.

James Kademan [00:43:09]:
No. What

Stephen Lang [00:43:10]:
did you do then, though? Right?

James Kademan [00:43:11]:
You know, Bernie and I both had our first kids in ’24.

Stephen Lang [00:43:14]:
Oh, congrats.

James Kademan [00:43:15]:
Okay. So it’s been a a roller coaster ride of a year. It’s been really fun. Yeah. I, my baby was born in August and his was born in May.

Stephen Lang [00:43:23]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:43:24]:
And so they’re not sleeping, managing people. We’re growing, you know, with our coach as well as with each other, as well as our as our business goes. One thing I wish I knew earlier is design a default calendar. Meaning, you know, I would say from Wednesday from noon to six is me catching up with the computer. I’ll answer calls. I’ll, you know but that’s me. That’s my time to where, you know, Mondays from 7AM to, you know, 09:30 is start the jobs, get the process going, get that first, hey, is this gonna be a real Monday or is it gonna be an easy Monday? You know, you can In start to sift that out in the first two hours of work. But a default calendar just kinda allows you to understand where you are in that week.

James Kademan [00:44:12]:
Did did Friday come really fast? That week really well. What happened that week that worked well? Well, I went to the gym in the Painting, and I, you know, went to swim lessons in the afternoon instead. Or, you know, that’s I would say it’s minute. But business wise, oh, hey. We had all the fleet trucks loaded Sunday night. Well, if I take two hours In my Sunday and it makes the first eight hours of my week go better, why not start there? So it’s little things like that. Just little tweaks to it. But having a calendar Monday through Friday where you stick to what you say you’re gonna do when you do it.

James Kademan [00:44:41]:
Mhmm. It’s tough. You know? I love it. It you know, one thing too is we did a time study where it showed, you know, from 7AM, till 5PM on Friday, what you did every half an hour. You had to write it down. You did it for two weeks, and it just showed how much blah time there was. You know? Today is a perfect example, unfortunately, where I was in Stoughton, Verona, Sun Prairie, and I’m going back to where Madison meets Verona later.

Stephen Lang [00:45:08]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:45:09]:
Why aren’t those things butted together? Because you’re too popular. Sure. Took so long to get on the show.

Stephen Lang [00:45:13]:
An audience, man.

James Kademan [00:45:14]:
Yeah. No. No. I’ve,

Stephen Lang [00:45:15]:
This is marketing for you.

James Kademan [00:45:17]:
This is perfect. This is a perfect example of not being efficient. Sure. So, I mean, even on knowledge wise, like, you’re asking, hey, what what would I what should I do earlier? I still sometimes you just can’t stick to that mold. I mean, life’s fluid and so

Stephen Lang [00:45:31]:
There’s anomalies.

James Kademan [00:45:32]:
You gotta In yes. Exactly. You know, I I totally agree. But the more you can structure efficient days, whether that be in the office or out in the field, that is what has really changed us, as a whole. And as we’re moving into the business rather than in it. Mhmm. In instead of in it. Excuse me.

James Kademan [00:45:49]:
It’s just showing more and more light.

Stephen Lang [00:45:52]:
Fair.

James Kademan [00:45:53]:
Reading books. Alright. Yeah. Our coach makes us read books a lot.

Stephen Lang [00:45:57]:
Makes It’s

James Kademan [00:45:58]:
like I’m back in school.

Stephen Lang [00:45:59]:
You got homework. What’s a book Oh,

James Kademan [00:46:01]:
I have homework every week.

Stephen Lang [00:46:02]:
Alright.

James Kademan [00:46:03]:
We’re reading How to Buy Back Your Time.

Stephen Lang [00:46:05]:
Oh, interesting.

James Kademan [00:46:06]:
Yeah. It’s kinda I mean, it’s really cool. I’ve listened to it on audiobooks, but it’s definitely more one of those that you have to take in stride, like, as you go through the chapters. Okay. This is my plan. Like, write it down. Here’s a really good Draw matrices in there about how to you know, there’s $1 sign up to four dollar signs, and then there’s a red color and a green color.

Stephen Lang [00:46:26]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:46:27]:
The red $1 signs, get rid of it right away. Hire someone else to do In. It’s wasting your time.

Stephen Lang [00:46:33]:
What does red represent?

James Kademan [00:46:35]:
Red is bad. Green is good.

Stephen Lang [00:46:36]:
Got it. Sorry.

James Kademan [00:46:38]:
That’s I should have started with that. But, red, you know, $1 sign is something you should just outsource right away. You don’t like it, which is red, and it’s a one dollar sign. It’s wasting your time and probably wasting your money. It In of gets to the point where, you know, what you get paid an hour, if you aren’t doing that plus sum, you’re actually losing the company money. So the four the green $4 signs are what you should focus on. You can’t always do that. But if they’re gonna be red, make sure it’s the three or the four.

James Kademan [00:47:05]:
That way, at least, you know, you’re making your your ROIs, at least your time, plus a little bit. Gotcha. It’s fun.

Stephen Lang [00:47:11]:
Very cool.

James Kademan [00:47:12]:
Good book.

Stephen Lang [00:47:12]:
Is that the first book that you’ve been assigned?

James Kademan [00:47:14]:
No. Buying Customers Buying Customers two point o.

Stephen Lang [00:47:18]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:47:19]:
It’s a good book. Goes into depth on how to essentially buy customers. If I were to tell you, hey, on your marketing campaign, for every hundred and $50, you got a new customer. Why don’t we just spend a ton of money on this then?

Stephen Lang [00:47:33]:
Yeah. I’ll make that trade all day long. Exactly.

James Kademan [00:47:35]:
So, you know, I think that is in theory, it’s great. But, you know, have you ever done piece mail before? Like piece advertising? Like throwing it in mailboxes? Mm-mm. We tried it once.

Stephen Lang [00:47:46]:
Oh, like every door direct mail you’re talking about?

James Kademan [00:47:47]:
Yeah. Like, you know, if we were to select this neighborhood, they put a piece of mail in all of

Stephen Lang [00:47:51]:
it. Yes.

James Kademan [00:47:51]:
We didn’t get one call.

Stephen Lang [00:47:52]:
Okay.

James Kademan [00:47:53]:
You know, and then we, you know, we spent a little bit more money here and a little bit more time going to the chambers and Mhmm. Being more involved in the community. I mean, our numbers have absolutely pumped since I’ve just started introducing people to who we are and why we do it.

Stephen Lang [00:48:05]:
Yeah. Every Door Direct Mail, we did a few campaigns. And one of them, we got so little we got nothing from. And I was like, I wonder if the the Call person just threw those in the dumpster.

James Kademan [00:48:21]:
Because we wouldn’t know. We sent out 813 pieces and get one call.

Stephen Lang [00:48:25]:
Yeah. So that I was like, nothing? Like, nothing? Yeah. You almost wanna put one out that’s like free bag of money. Yeah. If you call this number just to see what happens. What you

James Kademan [00:48:36]:
need to do is send it with a quarter attached to it and have those little scratch offs on there. Oh. The people that sit at home Call day will scratch that thing off.

Stephen Lang [00:48:42]:
They don’t

James Kademan [00:48:43]:
know what it’s for Right.

Stephen Lang [00:48:44]:
Until

James Kademan [00:48:44]:
they read the fine print. But once they scratch it off Alright. You know, I think what the some of the furniture stores do that. It’s like, hey, they win this couch and it’s like, you get $4 off. Your second cup of coffee is free. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:48:56]:
Why don’t

James Kademan [00:48:56]:
you go there and get some coffee?

Stephen Lang [00:48:58]:
Oh, it’s funny. Yeah. Tell me about your partnership, right, with your brother.

James Kademan [00:49:02]:
Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:49:02]:
So in my mind, that’s challenging because one, you related to your brothers, and three, it’s business partnership. So, universally, those can go one of two ways, basically. Yeah. What has been the biggest challenge in working with your brother? I He’s not gonna watch this, so it’s cool. Right?

James Kademan [00:49:18]:
No. He hasn’t been on.

Stephen Lang [00:49:19]:
He’s like, pause it right now.

James Kademan [00:49:20]:
No. I good really good question. So since he started it, he was majority owner. He used some of his own money as capital to help buy some of the equipment, some of the other things like that. And so, eventually, when, I moved back and we’re like, hey, like, this is going really well. This is taking off. He’s getting out of it what he needs out of me and vice versa. Then we eventually went to fifty fifty partners.

James Kademan [00:49:42]:
So the company had to buy back that other portion of capital that he had put In, and then I’m slowly paying that off. I mean, it’s it’s paid Draw. But we had to pay him back what he’s owed.

Stephen Lang [00:49:52]:
Gotcha. So you invested in the Business. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:49:54]:
Okay. Yeah. Time, commitment, is more important than the money. You know, everyone says it takes money to make money, which is true, but you gotta have something to start.

Stephen Lang [00:50:04]:
Time, money, and effort. Right? That’s those three commodities that yeah. You can always make more effort. You can always make more money. Time,

James Kademan [00:50:13]:
finite resource. For those those fifty fifty partners or forty nine fifty ones or anything that’s really close like that. Painting someone that’s your mediator, like, even if we hired you for once a once a month, hey. We’re gonna hire you to come on over to our office. We’re gonna just lay it all on the table. I liked the way you did that. Well, you didn’t call them back. Well, like, all that stuff can just get ironed out.

James Kademan [00:50:33]:
Sure. We have had such small amounts of that because of not only of Monica, but then once our organizational chart split out, our our we Stephen tangling each other’s stuff. Well, you responded to the first email. Well, you didn’t call Call. It’s like, why isn’t that just one?

Stephen Lang [00:50:49]:
Alright. So Neutral third party.

James Kademan [00:50:51]:
Neutral third party.

Stephen Lang [00:50:52]:
And everybody’s got their lanes.

James Kademan [00:50:54]:
Stay in your lane. What do you like doing? I like going out and networking, meeting more people, you know, becoming more a part of the community. Burning Lake’s numbers and the hows and the whys as to what we can do more efficiently or why our overheads too much right now. You know what I mean? He likes that tinkering in the back end. So we balance each other out pretty well. Nice. I have to go chase it down. I bring it to him.

James Kademan [00:51:14]:
We figure out what’s worth it. Yeah. I go back out and say, we’d like to continue partnering or, hey, this is what we see. How do you feel about that? And we just it’s been really good so far.

Stephen Lang [00:51:24]:
That’s awesome. Yeah. How did you find your coach?

James Kademan [00:51:29]:
Through, Eric Fritz. He owns the Kiva Sports Center.

Stephen Lang [00:51:33]:
In, I know the name. But

James Kademan [00:51:34]:
Yeah. So he, we’re downtown. We’re family friends. He and I came to my wedding and stuff like that. We’ve known each other for a really long time. I worked for him at Kiva, raffin’ games, you know, when we were younger. And I worked for Eric’s father as well for a summer. And he just we were downtown for a Badger football tailgate.

James Kademan [00:51:52]:
And he’s like, you know, I was In explaining some of the stuff. And he’s like, you should call ActionCOACH. And so he just kinda went through some of the growing pains of running your own show overhead. You know, and he’s like, I’ve had so many different things going on in my life that, I just didn’t know how to run a business. And so he’s been with them over eighteen years now.

Stephen Lang [00:52:14]:
Wow. That’s a while. Yeah. Wow.

James Kademan [00:52:18]:
So they they come with a price, but I couldn’t recommend it more.

Stephen Lang [00:52:22]:
Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. It’s interesting how people, business owners and I myself am guilty of this as well. When I first started business in 02/2006, I thought I knew it all because I took classes on all these things from small business development center.

James Kademan [00:52:39]:
Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:52:40]:
And I was Painting, just absorbing information, reading books, and all this jazz. But I took for granted the things that I didn’t even know existed, So I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Mhmm. So the whole employee thing threw me off my game. The whole

James Kademan [00:52:54]:
What about it?

Stephen Lang [00:52:56]:
I thought you could hire an employee just by, like, chatting with someone, hire them, pay them, and they do their job, show up, and rinse repeat.

James Kademan [00:53:04]:
K.

Stephen Lang [00:53:05]:
The first time I had an employee not show up and didn’t call, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know that was a thing.

James Kademan [00:53:12]:
It’s like you lost your car keys. You’re like, where’s where did that person go?

Stephen Lang [00:53:15]:
One of those Where’d they go? Like, I’m having a Google search, like, In employees not showing up a thing or something. I don’t know. It wasn’t quite that bad. But I didn’t like, I thought maybe the kid is dead. Right? You don’t know. Well, yeah. You get hit by a bus. Whatever.

Stephen Lang [00:53:28]:
And I just Langes, like, no. No. Just didn’t wake up that day. Whatever. It turned out I learned a very long story about this particular employee, but then over the years, that’s the thing. Mhmm. Or employ the time theft thing or just insert employee issue here.

James Kademan [00:53:47]:
Mhmm.

Stephen Lang [00:53:47]:
Had no idea. Because from my point of view, everyone has a good work ethic, and I’m wrong. I’m totally wrong. I wish it was true.

James Kademan [00:53:56]:
I get called a millennial, and I’m like,

Stephen Lang [00:53:59]:
but I was on the good

James Kademan [00:54:00]:
end. I was on the good end.

Stephen Lang [00:54:02]:
I don’t have a participation award to speak of. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:54:04]:
I can’t help you with that.

Stephen Lang [00:54:06]:
Yeah. So that was one. Another example is net 30. I didn’t know what net 30 was.

James Kademan [00:54:13]:
On payments?

Stephen Lang [00:54:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in my my business plan, the cash flow, I do the job, I get paid. Right? And churn as you grow kinda thing. So I remember fixing my first machine and the Langes like, you can send the invoice here. And I was like, send the In? Wait. That means that I have to create an invoice.

Stephen Lang [00:54:33]:
That means that I’m not getting paid today. That means that I have to wait until you send me a check and I have to deposit that check.

James Kademan [00:54:39]:
Then I have to clear the bank.

Stephen Lang [00:54:40]:
Oh my god. And all the stuff that I was like, oh, in my head, I did the job I got paid. Just like, oh, how much is that? Right? Here’s the money In thing.

James Kademan [00:54:49]:
You’re not ordering Culver’s.

Stephen Lang [00:54:51]:
No. You gotta No. Yep. So it’s in my head now looking back, I’m like, you’re a moron.

James Kademan [00:54:58]:
It’s embarrassing. Some of the stuff that you look back on, you’re like, we thought that was gonna work.

Stephen Lang [00:55:02]:
No. So it’s interesting because I used to teach business planning classes pre pandemic. And I would tell people, like, what is up here? You gotta put that on paper because up here, it makes sense. This will totally work. But when you get on paper and you start doing the numbers and figure out how many hours there are actually in a day for you to do all these things, You’re like, oh, yeah. No. If you get more

James Kademan [00:55:25]:
hours in a day, you let me know.

Stephen Lang [00:55:26]:
Yeah. No. No. I have many stories from that stuff. So I guess my whole point in saying all this is I understand having someone to help guide you and In say, hey, have you thought about this Or this is the thing to be aware of?

James Kademan [00:55:40]:
Or Yeah. I think that’s like I said when we plateaued, it was hire more guys, have more work, revenue. That just that just sell more. It well, you sold more. You have more guys? Why aren’t we making more? Why aren’t we growing more?

Stephen Lang [00:55:54]:
Mhmm.

James Kademan [00:55:55]:
And it just, you know, our efficiency’s never been bad as far as, you know, our operating Yeah. Profit. But it’s, you know, knowing those things too In how to look at a P and O, how to look at a balance statement. And actually, oh, it’s green. Okay. It’s great. Why is it green? And why is it twice as much in this column versus the you know, that kind of the nuts and bolts, was the you know, for school, I learned a lot about that. But she In looked at she always pulls them up, you know, every every month we look at them and say, oh, why is this that this month? Oh, we have an answer for it.

James Kademan [00:56:27]:
Or, hey, that’s not categorized as that because In taxes will hit it differently. You know, there’s just so many different little loopholes that, that she knows about and, I guess, that knows about. But just helps us stay as organized as possible because the second you’re unorganized, I don’t know what else you have.

Stephen Lang [00:56:45]:
It’s a tough hole to get out of. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:56:46]:
Yeah. I mean, the second you don’t have anything in a in a in a a folder or a file or you, like, even you said written down. I always write everything down because I’ll remember it, and then I’m like, oh, I have this to do. And then that just whatever just happened goes away. So writing things down, I do believe, is important.

Stephen Lang [00:57:02]:
That is cool. Yeah. And it keeps you accountable because although it’s interesting that she’s challenging you on the stuff. Like, hey. This is the PNL from last month. This is this month. Tell me about this. And you can’t be just like, ah, don’t look at that.

James Kademan [00:57:15]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:57:17]:
That’s not important. Move along.

James Kademan [00:57:18]:
No. Just don’t worry about that. Yeah. Exactly. And it it opens, you know, even as fifty fifty owners, he does a lot of the books. So, like, I get to get caught up.

Stephen Lang [00:57:27]:
Oh, nice.

James Kademan [00:57:28]:
I don’t look at it that much. Truthfully, I don’t. I mean, I have a lot other things that I’m focusing In, you know. Sometimes, you know, when he’s done with work at, you know, three or 04:00, I have a networking event that starts at 05:30 and goes to eight. So that’s kind of where our our checks and balances work. So, technically, one of us is almost always working, which is great. It’s great.

Stephen Lang [00:57:48]:
I know.

James Kademan [00:57:48]:
That’s good. That’s why you have your own business. Yeah. Work around the clock. Right?

Stephen Lang [00:57:51]:
Yeah. I get it. I get it. You punch in once and

James Kademan [00:57:55]:
put it out. Yeah.

Stephen Lang [00:57:57]:
Steven, where can people find you?

James Kademan [00:57:59]:
Well, our website, languespainting.com. The domain is ours. It’s a great spot to start. We have a start your own inquiry or start your own job on there. So that’s where you fill out your information. In number is listed on their direct line. We don’t, we don’t have anything, answering the phone for us. We we we go straight to it.

Stephen Lang [00:58:24]:
Right on. Yeah. Very cool. Thank you so much for being on the show.

James Kademan [00:58:28]:
You bet.

Stephen Lang [00:58:28]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggles, stories, and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. We’re locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie. If you are listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, and of course, share it with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those that may be interested in the painting business or they need to know what’s going on in the back end of the painting business that they hired to take care of their walls and houses and apartments and stuff like that. We’d like to thank your wonderful Customers, as well as our guest, Stephen Lange of Lange’s Painting. Stephen, can you tell us that website one more time? Yeah. Langespainting.com. Doesn’t get easier than that. Past episodes can be found morning, noon, and night at podcast link In.

Stephen Lang [00:59:14]:
Thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome. And if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.