DYB Podcast

Hey guys, Greg here from Green Pro Painting, commercial painting contraction here in Greenville, South Carolina, and also DYB coach.

Today I want to share with you how we just saved our company thousands of dollars on a bid for an exposed ceiling structure.

What I am going to do is I am going to share with you an image from an onscreen tape of an estimating software that we use to measure our ceilings, and I am going to tell you exactly how we saved that money.

So, in the above video, you will see a digital measuring tool that we use to read plans and figure out exactly how many square feet we are working with for a particular job.

What you see in the video is a local grocery store that we repainted last year, it was a renovation, so it’s an existing building, and it was not new construction.

They removed the acoustical ceiling tile as well as all the structure with that, and then we painted the actual roof deck that was there.

And one of the things that you actually want to look out for in this type of work is, what type of material that you are painting, and for this particular one, it is corrugated and metal, and I am going to tell you why you need to know that.

Notice that the area was 12,337 square feet, but this is actually a non-accurate number because there is a note here that says ceiling

So, this is something that you want to look out for when you are bidding a job, and we happen to catch that when we bid this number.

The 12,337 actually gets multiplied by 1 and a half, to account for the corrugated metal and also the included structure, which includes your trustees, your purlins, and all the connecting ceiling structure, as well as H, B and C vents.

So, not only do we go into this drawing, but we also go into the H, B, and C to look at that, and also the fire sprinkler plan, to look at where you are fitting sprinkler pipes.

But when you are measuring the exposed structure, you do want to consider that anything that’s corrugated metal, you times it by 1 and a half. So, the 12,337 actually becomes 18,500.

12,337 x 1.5 =18,500.

So just for an example, if you are using a hundred gallons per square feet, spread rate on a paint product, which is somewhat standard, it is usually a little bit lower than that, just for the sake of numbers we are using that.

You are looking at 185 to 190 gallons per coat, versus 125, so that’s one area right there that we save some money for our company.

In the grand scheme of things, depending on how many coats you are going to be doing, that could add up to a couple thousand dollars right there, not to mention the fact that there were no colors issued.

Even though there’s one referenced in the drawing in this video, there were no colors issued for this particular job.

So when we bid it, we assume that we are using a specific product, which ended up being depicted in ultra-deep base color which required a completely different product that was a premium product.

So we ended up being able to sign a change order for the difference of product and get back all the profit from the purchase of that product.

Right there is one way that you guys can save yourself thousands of dollars, make sure that when you are bidding commercial exposed structures, that you know what type of products that you are looking at on the ceiling.

If it is corrugated metal, you want to make sure that you multiply that square footage number by 1 and a half.

Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to send me an email; [email protected].

P.S. Here's our Free Estimating Bundle: https://dybcoach.com/estimating-bundle/

Hey guys, Greg here from Green Pro Painting, Greenville, South Carolina. Today I wanted to share something with you about commercial painting.

A lot of times I get asked the question, do contractors pay on time? And the answer is, absolutely not, they do not pay on time, unless you file your paperwork properly.

This will give you a little example of how thick a contract is; I know it might be hard to see here but figure it out for a gauge.

Sometimes there are 200 pages, and you really don’t know what you are looking at.

So, one of the things that I would really recommend for you, is to find someone that can help you understand what exactly you are looking at in this contract.

That could be an attorney, who could be your CPA, somebody that has been in business longer than you, who might be a mentor.

Make sure that you read these contract documents, because a lot of the times, they will include the process, forgetting early payments on projects, and if you don’t follow their exact protocol, you will not get paid on time.

So, to answer that question, do contractors pay on time? No, they do not, unless you follow your paperwork.

Thanks for stopping in, this is Greg with DYB coach. And if you would like to see more videos like this, hit the subscribe button at the bottom.
If you’d like to send me a direct question, my email address is [email protected].

P.S. Here's our YouCanBook.Me Free Video Training: https://dybcoach.com/youcanbookdotme/

In this episode of the DYB Podcast, Steve shares the mic with Shawn Derby of Sir Paints a Lot, a painting business that set its roots in Montana and flourished in Oregon.

Shawn discusses the different elements that turned his high school gig into a successful business, including faith, love for his family, and a work culture that empowers his employees.

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- Leadership and Team-Building Tips - How to build an exceptional culture that empowers employees - The role of marriage and family in the success of a business - How to plan the path forward to tripling revenue in 2019

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[03:22] "You just don't hire the first person that you like in an interview. You need to vet them and make sure they have a hunger and a drive to get a job done even if it's not something that they don't particularly enjoy."

[25:14] "I think the biggest paradigm shift has been switching my mind from a technician's background... and really working on your business and trying to empower people to make the choices themselves and let this be their success."

[26:21] "If you're just directing them, all they are is a bunch of go here, go there people. You're not going to deliver the right experience if you have to tell your crew lead to talk to your client and make sure they're happy."

[38:07] "These books that these authors write really are peering into the minds of these geniuses so I've been digging through every book I possibly can."

[39:10] "Take pause, capture at least three takeaways and implement them."

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[04:30] Shawn's life before Sir Paints a Lot [19:48] Revenue breakdown from year 1 to present [29:10] A “secret sauce” both Steve and Shawn share [31:29] Shawn discusses the successful programs that he implemented [36:57] Shawn targets 1.5 million in revenue [40:34] Books that had an impact on Shawn

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Join DYB

Burnett Growth Team - Virtual Assistance

Estimate Rocket - Estimating software

PEP Cloud - Estimating softwareGrasshopper - Phone service

Basecamp - Project management software

GroupMe - Team chatting and segmenting work

Pipedrive - CRM system

Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt - Goal-setting planner

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg

Who's In Your Room by Dr. Misner

Schedule Your Free Strategy Call With Steve

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Connect with Shawn Derby on Facebook here

Connect with Nadia Burnett on Facebook here

Connect with Steve on Facebook here

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Press and hold to visit the page

Show Page Notes

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Here's the pictured Shawn mentioned at [2:13] when he worked a 24-hour shift, went home for a 4-hour nap and then got right back up and did another 32 hours of sanding cabinets!

Do you want to increase your yearly sales by $100,000? This was a question I was just asked. How do I increase my sales by $100,000? What do I have to do? The number sounds great, but what do I actually have to do?

So, we did a breakdown, this was a member of the DYB group, and it was so easy once we had the numbers and once we had a plan in place.

I want to show you with roundabout numbers, how easy it is to attain that $100,000 if you look at it in smaller pieces. It’s like how we say, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So, instead of just putting $100,000 extra amount of money that you want to gross this year, let’s make a plan on how to get that, it’s amazing how easier it looks once it’s all broken down.

So, I put on this whiteboard here… We are going to explain it as I go through, so you will see in the green on the top, it’s the $100,000, so I am going to get this straight so you can actually see it.

The $100,000, what we have to know is a couple fact, not a lot. We need an average job size, I rounded all these numbers so the math would be a little easier, but you should know your average job size.

If you don’t know, you can look at your gross sales last year, or last month, how many jobs were completed and divide it, that would be your average job size.

In this example, we have a $4,000 a month average job size. As I said, I rounded this up so the math would be a little easier to show on the board here.

$100,000 divided by the $4,000 is 25. So, its 25 jobs extra done this year will bring us to our $100,000 increase goal. So we know right now, we know our $4,000, we know we need to do 25 more jobs.

Well, at least now, instead of just saying we want to make $100,000, we actually know how many jobs we have to do.

So, now we have to figure out how we are going to get these 25 jobs. So, the other very important number is your close ratio.

Your close ratio is, if you went on 10 estimates, how many of them would you land?

Some of us, depending on where the leads are coming from, where these phone calls are originating from, is sometimes where they are going to come.
If they are just finding you off your Google page, they are finding you as a flier that was stuck in a mailbox, sometimes if they are just finding you from your truck driving by, they don’t know what kind of company you are.

They don’t know what kind of work you do, so your close ratio might be lower if you are actually closing these people, your pricing might scare them off.

But if you are working for us, we work with a lot of past customers, past customer referrals, we actually screen our calls coming in, ask them questions before they are allowed to book an appointment.

Our close ratio is a little higher than 50%. So, we know our average job size is $4,000, we know we need 25 extra jobs this year to reach our additional $100,000 goal. We know we have a 50% close ratio.

So, we know now that, because the close ratio is 50%, so if you times the 25, we need 50 additional leads coming through the door.

And at 50% close ratio, so we are going to close half the leads that come through the door, so we need 50 leads, if we close half of those, that would reach our 25.

Depending on those, you can actually plug in your own numbers there, if you don’t know your close ratio, you should really take a look at that, you take a look at your average job size.

So, we know we have 50 additional opportunities to bid on things, to increase our $100,000.

So, at first, we were looking at, we needed an extra $100,000, now we are breaking it down, now we know we have to complete 25 jobs, and we need 50 leads, how are we going to get those leads?

Networking, Facebook advertising, depending on how you are going to get it, but what a great part is, is to increase that $100,000, you need to close less than 1 lead a week. That is pretty cool, that is more or less 1 lead every 2 weeks.

Now we are going to work on the additional crew to take care of that additional work, and if you want to increase this by $20s0,000, just double all of these.

Of course, you are not going to double your close ratio, you are not going to double your average job size.

You are going to double the amount of jobs you need to close, and you are going to double the number of opportunities that you need to bid on with your close ratio of 50%.

If you want to actually do less bidding, what you have to do is work on increasing your close ratio. I hope this little quick snapshot helped? I’d love to be able to go over this with you, tailor it to your own.

So, if you would like to reach out to me, I am [email protected], it’s late at night when I put this up, I just thought of it right now.

You can also find me on Facebook, I’d love to chat with you, send me a message, and comment on this.

If you would like to go over and see if we could figure out how to increase your sales by $50,000 or $100,000 or maybe even close up your close ratio so it is a little higher, I would love to talk to you.

I am Ron Ramsden, and I am a DYB coach, I am also a painting contractor up here in New England, enjoy the day. I help painters work on their business, so they don’t have to work in their business, have a great day, happy selling.

P.S. Here's our Free 9-Step System to Double Your Business: https://dybcoach.com/dyb-system/

Gorilla marketing? Thinking outside the box? All those strange things. But I want to share what happened to me, how I landed a job that I never thought I’d get by doing something totally different.

This might spark something in you to look at something different and possibly win a decent job.

I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor up here in wonderful New England.

Well, how many times have you been walking through hallways, foyers, public areas that just don’t look very nice, they need a nice fresh coat of paint, and you say whoa! I could do this.

I was headed off to my doctor’s appointment, my annual physical, and they have a foyer and there are about 8 offices, so there are two floors with just a bunch of hallways with a large foyer and one elevator that goes up one floor, nothing fancy.

Well, last year, it needed a paint job, I noticed that because that’s what we do. This year when I went back, guess what? Nothing’s ever happened, it still needs a paint job.

So, as I am getting into the office, the office looks nice. I was underway of my physical, I believe it’s a nose practitioner who does them, and we don’t see the doctor unless you are definitely ill or you want to wait 2 years to get an appointment.

I was chatting with her, she is the same nose practitioner who did my physical last year, and we were chatting, and she asked; how is work going?

And I said, work is great, it’s been a good year, business is up, and I said it looks like you could use our services out in that hallway and foyer.

And I kind of said it jokingly, but I meant it, and her response was; it looks terrible out there, we have been asking for this to be done.

I am like, well, why don’t they do it? She said, there’s a retired doctor who owns this, and he is not around.

So, I thought about it as she was performing the rest of the physical. I said, how about if I put a proposal together, and you can forward it to him? And she said, I have a better idea, why don’t I give you his contact information and email, and you forward it to him?

So, the next day I came back, I measured the hallway, I took some quick pictures, I took a picture of the outside of the building, made it really look nice, put it in my estimate program.

And usually I send it from the estimate program, and I didn’t want to be too generic to him. So, I downloaded a copy of it, I put it in an email, on the subject line, I put his address of the building, and I put; Paint Proposal, and that’s all I did.

But then I wrote something, I said I was inside the offices the other day, and I just wanted to provide a painting proposal. I thought I would never hear from it again or a quick email back that says; no, we are all set.
Well, to my surprise, a couple of days later, I had a missed call, I looked at the number, it was his number, and then I received an email back.

He’s a retired doctor, he lives down south someplace. And he said thank you so much, that was on our list of things to do, he had a few questions for it, and he said, what’s our next step of having the work done?

I sent him a couple of references, I requested a deposit, we talked about some colors, it is on the books for next month.

So, this is something that I traded lightly, but I was performing a service that someone didn’t have time to do, it was out of sight, out of mind for him, he knew he had to protect his investment.

When I sent it to him, it wasn’t just something blank, I put some pictures in there so he could relate to it, but it worked out well.

Well, anyways, I would love to hear some of your crazy stories on how you landed some jobs, put them in the subject line, down here, the comments, I’ll answer them. Or else, find me on Facebook, because many of you people do.

I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, it’s [email protected]. Find me on Facebook, I would love to chat, we can reach out, have a conversation, or even pick up the phone.

I love helping painters remove themselves from the bucket, so they can work on their business, and not in their business.
Hey, happy painting, and have a great day, bye…

DYB members, Greg here from DYB coach. Today, I wanted to share with everyone what some steps are to take when you want to transition into commercial construction or maybe you are just looking to get started.

One of the things you want to really get to know is the local contractors, maybe as you drive by in your area, as you do an estimate, you can see some construction going on, you want to familiarize yourself with the people that are doing a lot of jobs out there and you can tell generally by them, who is doing a good job.

So, make sure you take your time to do your leg work and research before you start diving in.

There are a couple different options that you can do to start to view this projects on the web, and I am going to give you a couple of examples of websites.

One of them is ldiline.com, and what that is, is an online plan room, where projects that are going on in your area are going to be listed, with the specific contractors that are going to be bidding it.

This is a place where you can obtain the drawing sets and the specifications for the job, so you can create an online profile there.

Building Connected is another one that we use a lot, and high square foot.

Now, all of these companies I have listed do have services that you can pay for, where they will send you these information, but as you are getting started I would not recommend doing so.

It’s better for you to just get on there and see what projects are going on first, and then individually contacting the specific contractors that you want to be working with.

So, once you get through that, I would highly recommend you go on to these websites, browse around, one of the first things that you are going to want to do is create a specific email address for your bids.

So, for our company, we use [email protected], you can use estimating, whatever you feel comfortable with there, definitely create a separate email where you can keep track of all the documents that are going to come through.

Once you get set up on these websites, create your online profile there, and they are going to ask you some basic company questions that you can easily answer.

But, the more information that you provide there, the better it is going to be.So, for starters, they are going to ask you, where you work, and what type of work that you do.

And for painting, they use division codes, which is going to be 9,900 which is finishes.

So, you are going to want to put what type of work that you do, you are going to select that individually on there.

They are going to ask you what your company size is, so that’s field employees, typically when they are asking that question, and maybe you have access to more employees that you typically bring on board, you might want to list those on there.

They are going to ask you for your insurance limitation, so when you are getting started with commercial work, you need to have your Workman’s Comp. and your liability insurances in place.

So, it varies from job to job, the larger the job size is, the more insurance that you are going to have to carry, but that’s something that would be discussed at a later time when you start getting awarded projects.

They are going to also ask you for your license and that is basically state regulated, it’s not federal.

So, it varies from state to state, you are going to want to check with your local license board and see what the requirements are.

For us here in South Carolina, we had to obtain a general contractor’s license for the size of jobs that we do, and it was a written test, and it was very basic information.

It was open book, very easy to accomplish, and it’s something that you are definitely going to need to do and consider if you are going to be diving into commercial work.

They are also going to ask you for your contact information, and this is an area that I encourage you to be very transparent in.

Give them as much details as possible, because companies that are on these platforms are generally very professional, and they want to be able to get in contact with who they need to.

So depending on how your company is set up, you may want to put your estimator, your accounts payable information, anything that you guys can get on there.

I would encourage you to put as much as possible; fax number, emails, people’s names, whatever they allow you to put, make sure you put it there.

And also, when you start diving into this, I would recommend that you spend some time looking at the different projects, reading through what they entail.
They are going to give you brief descriptions on the website, to tell you the type of facilities being built, it could be a storage facility, a hospital, or fast food/restaurant.

And as you are starting to dive into this type of work, I would really encourage you to take the time and start off with something small, and a great area to start diving in is with small fast food chains.

Although these jobs are usually demanding on time, they are very easy to accomplish, and they don’t cost a lot to carry out.

So, you might only have maybe a couple thousand dollars in labor, and maybe $15 in material, and that could vary from wherever your demographic is, you could work on McDonald’s restaurant, Chipotle, Taco bell, Chick-fil-A.

Generally, they are $10,000 and below jobs, but if you are transitioning from residential to commercial, this is a great area that you guys can get your feet wet.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more videos and future webinars.

P.S. Here's our Free Sundries Spreadsheet: https://dybcoach.com/sundries-cheat-sheet/

Good morning! Good morning!! It’s Jam session time. As I record this, it’s morning, it’s about quarter past 5, Friday morning, I know you could be watching this at any time.

I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor, up here in New England.

What’s a Jam Session? We’ve talked about it before. A Jam Session is when you can concentrate on 1, 2 or 3 items without any outside disturbances. My dogs are in the other room; the door is shut.

I get up in the morning, I have my coffee, I exercise, I am sitting here having my water, and you got to drink your water in the morning. I am concentrating on 3 things.

This morning, my three things are with no other disturbances, no Facebook, unless I am loading subject matter into Facebook.

This morning, I am reviewing my insurance paperwork, I am going to see if I can save any money.

I’ve gotten all my insurance paperwork off to a side, I want to check coverage, get that out of the way so I won’t have to worry about that for about 6 months.

I am also following up on 6 estimates I have, that I gave last week that I haven’t heard either get or nay, so we are going to touch base with them through emails.

But I am actually not going to send them right away, I am going to send them through Banana tag.

If you are not familiar with Banana tag, you can actually delay and schedule when the emails go out, because if you send them too early in the morning, sometimes they get buried in the newer emails that come out.

So, at about quarter past 8, I am going to have these sent over to people, should be in their offices, or should be awake and about by then. So, that’s what we’re using Banana tag also too.

And then I am scheduling out my Facebook post for the week for my business. And the reason for that is I find myself, if I am on Facebook during the week, I kind of go down those rabbit holes, I think we all have, we start watching videos, we start seeing what other people are doing.

This way I can concentrate, I can take the pictures that my crew have sent me over the week or I have taken.

I can write up a little blog, load a video. If I don’t have anything, I will go to the Benjamin Moore or some of the other paint sites, borrow some videos from them and schedule along so we do have some relevant content.

I will get all these done in about 45 minutes. If I did this during the course of the day I would hope to get it done, like I said, I would probably go down some rabbit holes.

But at least this, I know I can head off to the job site to go visit the guys, go do an estimate or something else, and all this is behind me and I don’t have to worry about it.

Years ago, I used to get off, feet off the bed, hit the floor and I would be running. Grab a bite to eat and then head out, and I then wonder why all these estimates weren’t getting done.

I always had, “I had to catch up on this”. I get up a little early and get my exercise in, I try about 4 times a week, and then I sit down in my jam session. My wife even knows, when the door is shut, I am in a jam session.

So, no music, we don’t have TVs playing, we are not watching or any other kind of social media. We are getting down and dirty and getting it done, that is a jam session.

So, if you do jam sessions, please let us know what you get done. How long is your jam session? Please put it in the comments, I would love to hear about it.

If you have any questions, you can reach me at [email protected], you can find me on Facebook, on Social media, just send me a message. I would love to hook up with you, grab a chat over the phone or we can message each other through messenger.

Anyways, I am Ron Ramsden, I got to get back to work. It is my jam session, and I interrupted it to tell you what I was doing. Have a great day and go get them.

P.S. Here's Our 52 Blog Post Ideas for Free: https://dybcoach.com/52-blog-post-ideas/

Hi. I am Dalton with DYB coach, and this is part two of the production rate videos that we’ve done.

And this portion is about the production rate calculator that we have put together.

So, if you look at this first tab down here at the bottom, this is the labor tab, this is not required to do production rates, but I do have an extra row that will actually give me my cost per unit, whether it’s a square foot, linear foot or each.

And so, you have to figure out your labor rate to be able to do that. So, this tab under labor will take care of that.

All the yellow cells are the ones that you would put your information in, so in this one right here, the first row, we just put the first name of all the employees, the second row, we put the amounts that they make per hour, I have $19, $18, $15, $13 and $22.50.

Down here at the bottom it adds it up, a total of $87.50 and the average is $17.50.

Now, with my burden, it comes out to $25.09, and the burden is figured out from the sales here, I have unemployment, my matching taxes, and Workman’s comp.

The next one I have is vacation, and this is not normally in burden, but I do have it in my burden, to be added, it’s based on the hours worked.

So, I can figure it out and put it in there. But this $25.09, this is what my labor cost is per hour, including the burden.

So, if we go to this tab here, this ‘walls’, this is set up to paint walls 2 coats, and then it’s measured by square feet, so I put that in its first two yellow cells.

I actually have 3 jobs already set up in here, this first one has 2556 square feet that was done, and the man-hours it took is 24.75.

The second job is 400 square feet, and it took 7 man-hours to do. And then this third job was 6517 square feet, and it took 32.5 man-hours to do.

So, this next row, this would actually figure out the production rate for each one of these jobs, the first one is just a little over 103 square feet per hour, the second one is just over 57 square feet per hour, and the last one is 202.4 square feet per hour.

If you go ahead to the bottom, this will get you an average, it automatically adds up all the production rates, and gives you an average.

So, the average of these 3 jobs is 148.4 square feet per hour. So, that’s whenever you estimate, you are going to estimate that you can do 148.4 square feet per hour.

So, if you get a job that’s 150 square feet, you know it’s going to take a little more than an hour to get it done.

This is the one that has to do… the $25.09 labor cost, it automatically goes up right here, it’s automatic, and you actually don’t have to do it.

But it will multiply your production rate by your labor rate. And so, this job right here, I paid 24 cents per square foot, for the labor, not material, and this is not what I charged the customer, this is what the labor cost me, labor only.

The second one was 44 cents per square foot, and the next one was 12 cents. And again, down here at the bottom, it will average it out.

So, these 3 jobs altogether, I paid 70 cents a square foot, to get the jobs done, and again, that does not include materials.

And then the next tab, this one is not done in square feet. The next tab is ceilings, it is the same way, except it is just for painting ceilings, and you will put all your square footage in that, in the hours.

The next tab is doors, actually, doors and jambs, and they are done by each, so I just count the number of doors.

So, here I have 2 jobs, for the first job, there were 5 doors, and that took 3 man-hours to get done. The next job was 10 doors, and it took 5 man-hours to do.

So, the production rate for the first job is 1 and two-third doors, that’s how many doors I got done in an hour, it’s 1 and two-thirds, or 1.67.

The second job, I did 2 doors per hour, and then down here it will give you the average again, 1.875, that’s how many doors you can do in an hour, with these production rates, in this scenario.

And then, here is my labor cost to paint those doors it cost me $13.38, each one. I have jambs separate from doors, again, you just count the doors, I also have the base, and the base is done by linear feet.

So, you have a base, linear feet, and again, here is my labor cost per hour. So, here’s 3 jobs, one of them is 700 linear feet a base, 160 linear feet a base and 350. So, the first one took 8 hours to do, 1 hour for the next one and 3 for the next.

So, here again, my production rates, 87.5 linear feet of base painted on this one, 160 linear feet of base painted every hour, this is done per hour, and just 116 linear feet on this one.

So, down here my production rate for these 3 is 100.8 linear feet per hour, so I am going to charge, for every 100 linear feet or base that I do.

I am going to charge them for an hour’s worth of labor, and again this is my cost per linear feet, it actually cost 25 cents, a linear foot to paint base.

When you do this, I would start relying on this, say 3 jobs, if you get 5 to 10 jobs in here, it will be more accurate, the more jobs you have in, your average will move a lot less.

But after you hit 10 jobs in here, you pretty much should be able to be pretty much in this job you have and use that and you will be pretty accurate.

If for some reasons you do want to do a job and let’s say your average down here is 100, and you do one job and personal reason.

You only get 50 feed out of it, then I would try to see what the differences of that job has compared to most of your other jobs, because that big a difference, there is something wrong, it was either harder, the guys didn’t go as fast, they took a break in the calendar, or it also could be a mistake.

Maybe they started the time before they actually did it, or they took out the clock out for lunch. Something like that, it could be any of those things.

Also, on these tabs at the bottom, also have things for the outside, I have fascia, like this one here is for fascia on a one-storey, and then I also have fascia for the two-story level, because the production rates would be quite a bit different from those and these are done by linear feet.

And then I have a soffit, for the first storey and second storey, and again by linear feet. And then I also have siding, siding from the first storey level and the second storey level, and these are done by square feet.

And then I have a railing, so like a railing on a front porch. In this case, right here, we had 25 feet of railing, and it took 5 hours to do.

So, my labor rate is 5, I do 5 feet per hour, and there is only one job in here, so this is my average, 5 feet per hour, it is saying it cost $5.02 per linear foot to do this.

So I have another tab, especially for people that use Estimate Rocket, it is just production rates for ER (Estimate Rocket) and Estimate Rocket, you put the production rates in there, you don’t put it in there by the hour, you put it in by what you can do in a minute.

And so, this automatically figures it out, it takes the averages from all these tabs and puts them here. And so, you can see right here, doors, it takes me 32 minutes to paint a door, this one, 0.95 minutes to do a base, basically 0.6.

Right here is 12 minutes to paint one foot of railing.
So, you will just copy these and put in the Estimate Rocket. But again, this is only for people who use Estimate Rocket, it is not going to help anybody else out.

I am Dalton with DYB coach, if you need to get a hold of me, or have any questions, you can reach me at [email protected], thank you.

P.S. Here's our Free Estimating Bundle: https://dybcoach.com/estimating-bundle/

3 mistakes not to make while you are doing your next estimate. I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor here in New England.

I have made thousands of mistakes all over my career being a painting contractor, and these are the 3 that I would like you to avoid or try to avoid on your next one.

1. The guesstimate.

You pull up to a house, you walk inside and they show you the room, and you say yeah, it is going to be about $600 and 2 gallons of paint.

Well, that depends on if you probably know, when you’ve worked your numbers out on a piece of paper or a tablet, it is going to cost that much.

But you are really doing a disservice to the customer and showing your professionalism by not measuring the room, explaining the process while you are there, and then presenting them with the written proposal.

On the written proposal, let them know the prep sequence you are going to do, let them know how many finished coats they are going to do, what brand of caulking you are going to use, and what brand of paint you are going to use.

That is true when they are then comparing your estimate to someone else’s estimate, and you are $600 and 2 gallons of paints, so you are roughly around $700 and the other guy is about the same.

Who are they going to choose? Even if you have $50, $100 more, whatever it is, are they going to choose a professional or they are going to choose chuck on a trial?

So many people want to go from low price and you can avoid that and you don’t want to work for them anyway, but stop guesstimating.

You might guesstimate in your head, and then actually do all your calculations and find out if your guesstimate is even correct.

2. Production Rates.

Everybody hates this, production rates. I have talked about it in videos in the past, how do you get your production rate?

Now, I am going to give you something a little different now, don’t time yourself, because when you are timing yourself during production rates, you tend to go faster.

If you tell someone else, I am going to time you, go! They are going to speed up, at least in the beginning, they are going to speed up and it is going to be a kind of falsified production rate.

But next time when you have someone working with you, time them when they start painting those walls, let them finish first coating the walls and then stop it.

Don’t let them know you are doing it, because those breaks during the production of the painting of the room are normal breaks that someone would take, those all factor into your production rates.

Very rarely we will have someone start cutting and then rolling out a room with a no-stop, the phone doesn’t ring, they don’t pick it up when it rings, and they don’t run out to use the bathroom or have a smoke outside or whatever there is, or chit-chat and then things like that.

Just do a normal timing of someone painting, the next time one of your guys or one of your girls are going to start painting a door, 6-panel door, click your timer on your phone, let them do the entire door.

Let them put the drop cloth underneath it, let them take the door down, let them brush it down, sand it, whatever else you do to the door, and then paint the door for the first coat, stop your timer.

Maybe they stop during that time to use the bathroom, maybe they stop to tell a joke, these are important because these are going to factor to your everyday life, doing your production rates.

3. Estimates on the Spot.

Practice doing estimates on the spot. When we started doing estimates on the spot… you can’t do every estimate on the spot, we realized that sometimes you need a little research, maybe it is an entire exterior, there is paint involved, and maybe there is scaffolding.

But probably 8 out of 10 times, you can sit back for about 15 minutes and put the estimate proposal together.

Before I started doing estimates on the spot, I would promise them that I would have the estimate to them within 24 hours, and I would aim to over-deliver and get it done as soon as I can.

And then I started giving myself more time in between estimates, would allow me to sit at their table, or I will sit in my truck to put the estimate together.

With all the new estimating tools out there; Estimate Rocket PEP, Joist, there is no reason why you can’t get to pull it up on a tablet or a laptop, in your truck and put the estimate together and deliver it right then.

One way to do this is you tell the homeowner, if you don’t mind, I am going to take about 10 minutes, 15 minutes off in my truck and then put the proposal together and then I am going to come back and present it to you.

They are thrilled because they are sick and tired of waiting for other people to give them estimates.

How many times have you heard a homeowner say, I called two other contractors, one of them came out, the other guy never returned my call, and I never got the estimate from the other contractor… Don’t be that guy.

In fact, I went out and I purchased canon printers, we keep it in the truck, open it right up, Bluetooth, print, they are not fast, but you can print 2 or 3 pages in no time.

Anyways these are very reasonable and I believe they are worth $100 or $200, but it allows me to present my estimate on the spot, but not only can I provide them the estimate on the spot, but I can also ask them any questions.

There might be something that I am including, the ceilings in the house where I am going to be giving a proposal to, and they say oh no, we don’t want the ceiling.

But we can cross them off and talk to them right there, I know what is going on in their head, you can kind of start reading people after a while, and you get the verbiage where you can kind of answer or ask those questions that are not yet to know, does this work for you?

You don’t want to ask them and say, no, we are all set, any question? Can I explain anything? You’ve got to dig deep to get those questions out of them before you know it, it will be signing right on a spot.

Anyways, so what we want to do is, we want to remember guesstimates, production rates and sell on the spot.

Anyways, I dare you to try this, get rid of those, don’t make the mistakes I did, and try to correct mistakes that you are making.

I am Ron Ramsden and I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor, if you would like to reach me, it is [email protected]. Find me on Facebook, I am on there a lot, send me a message, I would love to chat with you.

Anyways, if you make any mistakes, odd as they are, I would love to hear it, you can write them in the comment line, you can send them my way. Thanks for watching. Happy Estimating…

P.S. Get our FREE estimating bundle here: https://dybcoach.com/estimating-bundle/

I recently heard of a contractor that had a generator stolen from his job site. The question was asked; will his insurance cover the loss? Well, will it?

My name is Scott Lollar, and I'm a DYB coach and I want to talk to you today about the options you have to insure your company against everything from damaging someone's property to yes, having equipment stolen from a job site.

Insurance can be challenging to understand, both what you need and what it will cost you.

There are many classifications, codes and reporting agencies. Insurance is something you hope you never use but if you need it, you better have the proper coverage.

So, the first task is to find an insurance professional that has the expertise in construction insurance.

Not every insurance broker even offers the insurance you need, but more importantly, some insurance agents have more experience in consumer lines like auto and home.

So, even though they might be capable of writing your business policies, I find that an agent experienced in Business Insurance has an advantage, so you can get the right coverage and that the agent is available should you ever need to file a claim.

I have to highlight Federated Insurance. Federated only writes business insurance and I find that they have a very competitive quote and their agents are unmatched in my experience.

They know their industry and also know a lot about yours. So I'd always include them when you're requesting proposals.

Now, let's look at some of the coverages you might consider. The most basic and foundational coverage is General Liability.

This is the most standard coverage and many small or entry level contractors that say they're insured often only have this coverage.

General liability covers any claims or losses due to any damage or injury to a third party as a result of your work.

This could be damage done by anyone employed by your company, to anything on a job site like a furniture or a car.

I once saw an inexperienced painter, not mine, lose control of an extension ladder and drop it on the top of the minivan.

It also would cover medical costs if the customer or any other third party is injured due to your work.

It will not cover your employees or your assets. You can purchase policies with limits that match your exposure and are paid based on your annual projected revenue.

First, there is a rating system that tracks other businesses like yours and comes up with a rate that is based on historical loss rate of other contractors in your industry.

There is a multiplier and outcomes your annual rate or cost. There are also different deductible amounts you can select for these policies.

So, if you have a great cash flow you could insure the first, say $10,000 of losses and your rate would be lower because the insurance company might determine in your industry the claims over that threshold are infrequent.

I will say that increasing deductibles do not typically save you a lot on premiums, but if you happen to have a lot of smaller frivolous claims, you might consider self-paying some of these to protect your long-term rate.

So if you work on multi-million dollar houses, a $500,000 policy limit might not be enough for the work you do.
Typical policies are between $500,000 and a million dollars, especially for residential contractors.

There are also different deductible amounts and you can select for these policies. If you do commercial work, these limits will need to be much higher to cover your risk of loss.

Most commercial clients will tell you the limits required to work on their properties and will require a certificate of insurance providing these limits.

In order to insure your employees for lost wages, medical expenses and disability resulting from an accident while working for your company where they sustained an injury, you will need Workman's Compensation Insurance.

This insurance is the most-costly of your policies and it is billed based on your estimated payroll for the year.

Similar to the liability rating, Workman's Compensation has a bureau that collects and reports data on premiums and claims called the National Council on Compensation Insurance or NCCI.

NCCI is owned by the insurance companies to gather data and determine modifications and classifications in order to determine risk levels and premiums for insurance companies to use when quoting Work Comp. policies.

NCCI performs this role on behalf of the insurance companies in 36 of the 50 states.
14 states either have their own reporting bureaus or have a state-run Work Comp. program.

The primary report that they create, that affects your company is the experience modification rate.

An experienced mod is a determination of your claims and premium history compared to the industry you are in.

The average of the loss experience in the industry is 1. So you'll pay more or get a credit based on your Work Comp. claims history or mod rate.

The criteria for determining this rate is simply to gauge the future chances of risk, based on the past cost of claims by your company.

So, below 1 you'll see companies offer you credit based on your low mod or if over one, you'll see a higher cost of insurance.

In addition, there are a couple of benchmarks required in order for you to get an experience modification. That's right… Experience.

In Illinois, a company needs $3,000 of premium, per year for 3 consecutive years or $10,000 of premium in any one of the previous 3 years to get an experienced mod.

Each state can be different in the amount of premium and timeframe so find out yours in your state.

So those that are new to the business or have never had a Work Comp. insurance policy will get dinged until they can get an experienced mod because the insurance industry does not know if you are a high or low risk.

Now at this point, I want to talk about the difference in estimated and actual premium.

When you request a quote and go through underwriting, you are stating what you expect to have in the next 12 months in both revenue and payroll.

This will be the estimated amount of premium that you will pay.
After the 12 months, the insurance company will do an audit of your accounting file and will bill you for what you actually should have paid.

If you've paid too little, then it seems like you almost always do, they will bill you for your shortfall.
This is called an Audit Premium. This additional money you can owe can be a killer.

I have seen contractors owe $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000. And it can be a financial disaster.

You should be tracking monthly what your actual is to your estimated and if you have underestimated for the month, I would take the money and put it into a separate savings account.

This will ensure that when your audit is complete, you will have money set aside to pay the bill without a crisis for your company.

I also want to address those that use subcontractors to perform their work. Subcontractors need their own coverage and you will need a Certificate of Insurance, a COI for your audit.

If they do not have coverage, your insurance company will add that premium to your audit.
Make sure you have proof of full coverage before you ever hire them to do any work for you.

Of course, there's Auto Insurance, to cover your company vehicles.
It is important to make sure you ensure all of the vehicles that are primarily a business vehicle, on a business policy.

Sometimes owners have a vehicle that they ensure personally because it's usually cheaper, but use it for work.

You need to discuss this with an insurance professional, to make sure there is proper coverage to shield you personally from any exposure should you have an accident.

At this point, it is important to look at an umbrella policy, instead of raising individual limits on your policy, an umbrella policy can raise your limits on any one occurrence in several policies where you have liability, specifical liability in auto and if written properly, can sit over parts of Work Comp.

Talk to your insurance broker about the details of this policy. But, it is an inexpensive way to get more coverage in several places.

Moving on, how about insuring your tools and equipment?
There is coverage for that, it is called Inland Marine Insurance and it covers your equipment wherever it is; on a job site, on a truck or in your shop.

There are limits that you need to determine as well as deductibles, so you can determine what makes sense for your business.
And yes, this is what would have been required to pay for the replacement of the generator in my example. Without this insurance, you have no coverage.

A less common insurance is Errors & Omission.
This coverage is a professional liability insurance that covers you, in case there is a failure due to inadequate work.

This is less common for painters, but you can ask about what it would cover and the cost. It typically is not an expensive item.

In addition to these common policies, there is also pollution coverage that might protect you in case of contamination to the environment due to say paint runoff or lead during the course of your work.

Find a good broker which I am not, and look at all the options to see which policies are best for you.

They will help you determine what the proper coverages are and to manage your risk at each point in your journey, and you can determine the amount of risk you can tolerate and how much it will cost you for the peace of mind to know you are covered.

I hope this is helpful, and as always if I can help you in any way build your business. I'm here to help so if I can serve you in any way, email me at [email protected]. Till next time.

P.S. Here's our Free Sundries Spreadsheet to help you save money! https://dybcoach.com/sundries-cheat-sheet/