The Biggest Challenge of Running a Painting Business

What’s the biggest challenge of running a painting business? Finding and keeping good employees, says Chad Jeffries of Brick City Painting and Drywall. He shares some of his secrets for improving retention.

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Video Transcription:

Chad Jeffries:

The biggest challenge in our business today is, it seems to always be keeping employees. It seems like in the paint industry it’s tough for everybody with that.

Pro on the Go host:

That’s Chad Jeffries of Brick City Painting and Drywall in Mexico, Missouri. Offering employee benefits is one of the methods he used to improve retention.

Chad Jeffries:

The biggest thing we’ve done to overcome it is the benefits, you know. We try bonus systems, also by bringing people to training. Shows that we’re investing in them, really brings up their morale, they know that they have some value and “Hey, this guy wouldn’t be spending this money on us if he didn’t see something.” So, that helps keep those good people. Finding new ones from there, like new painters. We’ve decided to stop chasing after painters, we’re hiring people on attitude. So, we’ve had a lot of success with that, actually. We’ve already hired a couple guys that had no paint experience and within a year, they’ve surpassed guys that I’ve had working for me for three or four years and it’s strictly an attitude thing. They want to do better, where some guys are just happy to do 40 hours, and you know, it’s just a paycheck. So, by not just looking for painters, we’re hiring on attitude and that’s helped a lot.