Elite Business Advice Podcast

"I need to build out a more robust sales process... but I don't know where to start." If you're a painting contractor and that sounds like you, this episode gives you the starting point. And it's sitting in the estimates you're running today.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, lays out a simple framework for building a professional sales process in your painting business: pay attention to the questions customers ask and the feedback you get along the way, then build processes that handle those questions and objections before they ever come up.

Before you can build a polished, professionalized sales process, you need a set structure you follow 95% of the time. Chris walks through the 6-step sales process for a painting company:

1. Estimate scheduling phone call
2. Something of value: professional, branded, and informative
3. Walkthrough
4. Numbers and bid creation
5. Presentation
6. Follow up

What you'll learn in this episode:

• The 6 steps every painting contractor's sales process should follow, and why consistency comes before polish
• The FAQs homeowners ask during painting estimates (prep responsibilities, nail hole filling, carpentry and drywall repairs, paint products, crew size, who shows up, and what makes you different) and how to answer them before they're asked
• How to define and communicate your painting company's "Dynamic Difference"
• How to use customer feedback to find what's breaking your flow or costing you jobs
• Why the fix is usually one step back in the process, like using an expectations document or video after the scheduling call
• How to handle "your price is too expensive" by building value from the very first touchpoint: quality, prep, customer service, and professional handouts
• A simple habit to start today: make a list, pay attention, and turn every repeat question or objection into a process

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who want to close more painting estimates, raise their close rate, and run a sales process that sounds professional every single time.

🎯 Want to see how your sales process stacks up? Take our free Business Health Assessment: score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

📞 Want to learn more about how Elite Business Advisors helps painting contractors grow their business? Schedule a discovery call at www.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on sales, estimating, production, hiring, and scaling a profitable painting company.

In a world full of AI tools, custom software, dashboards, and endless business education, it's easy for a painting contractor to lose sight of what a painting business actually does. Strip it all away and there are only four core functions that keep a painting company running.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, goes off on a tangent (with good reason). Continuing this season's focus on first principles reasoning in your painting business, Chris zooms out from individual areas to look at the whole business, and why so many painting business owners are getting pulled away from the basics.

Running a painting company isn't easy. It takes processes, documentation, structure, intentionality, and a plan. But every system you build should amplify one of these four core functions:

1. Generate interest and demand
2. Book painting jobs
3. Produce paint jobs (the most important step)
4. Collect money

What you'll learn in this episode:

• The 4 core functions of a painting business and why producing the work matters most
• The pitfalls Chris sees when painting contractors chase complexity over fundamentals
• Where AI actually helps a painting company: analyzing data, gathering lists, handling tasks, and building automations and workflows
• Where AI and software become too much: complicated dashboards, custom software, and over-built workflows
• Why you shouldn't automate the things you need to stay in the know on, like your monthly numbers
• How to check whether your systems are serving your core functions or just adding noise

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who feel buried in tools, tech, and information and want to get back to the simple steps of running a profitable painting business.

🎯 Not sure if you've lost sight of the basics? Take our free Business Health Assessment: score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on sales, production, systems, and scaling a profitable painting company.

As a painting business grows, someone has to step into the seats that don't exist yet: sales manager, production manager, project manager, estimator. More often than not, that someone is the owner. The question is how you step in, build the role out, and hand it off without the whole thing falling apart when you walk away.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, sits down with Michal Cheney, owner of No Drip Painting, PCA board member, and one of the leaders of the Women in Paint initiative. Over the past year and a half, Michal has moved from seat to seat in her company's org chart, building the structure, systems, and processes for each role before handing it off and moving to the next gap.

With 3 to 4 sales reps and 3 project managers, Michal shares why she stepped back into the sales manager and production manager roles, what she learned by getting back into the day-to-day, and why she knows those seats ultimately need a "real" leader to take her painting company to the next level.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• How to spot where your painting business needs you next (hint: look for chaos and firefighting)
• The "brush update," the production communication process that has spread across the painting industry, and why even Michal's own team stopped doing it
• Why every new process needs to be communicated 8 to 12 times, then followed up with accountability
• Why you already have a process, you just haven't written it down, and how to use AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to document it
• How recording sales calls and grading them against a sales process helped one sales rep raise his close rate by 10% in about a week and a half
• The basic numbers every painting business owner should know: P&L, balance sheet, close rate, and average job size
• Why your own mental, physical, and spiritual health shows up in how your business runs

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who are adding their first estimator, project manager, or sales manager, or building a leadership team to scale a residential painting company.

🎯 Take our free Business Health Assessment to see how you benchmark against a professionalized, systematic painting company: score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on hiring, processes, sales, production, and scaling a profitable painting company.

It's the 24th of the month and you're just now realizing production is going to miss target. Sound familiar? As a painting business grows and the owner steps out of "do it" mode and into leading, managing, and coaching, one question comes up again and again: what should I actually be looking at every week?

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, breaks down the three numbers every painting contractor should review every single week. And this isn't just for painting companies over $1M. Whether you're running a small crew or a multi-crew residential painting company, these weekly numbers help you catch problems while you can still fix them.

Proactive beats reactive, always and forever.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Revenue produced this month: why tracking completed work and job margins weekly makes crew debriefs faster and more useful than digging into a job six months (and 27 projects) later
• Revenue projected for the month: how to check your painting schedule against completed production, find scheduling gaps, and build in buffer for weather and call-outs
• What to adjust when you're off pace: subcontractors, scheduling, or sales
• The line between a schedule that's too aggressive and one that's too comfortable
• Revenue scheduled for next month: how this one number should drive your sales, marketing, and hiring decisions (and give you real peace of mind)
• How to track future scheduled revenue in your job costing sheet, since most calendars can't do it
• Bonus: why you should know your accurate cash on hand every week

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who want to stop being surprised by their own numbers and start running their painting business with a weekly scorecard.

🎯 Take our free Business Health Assessment to see where your painting business stands at score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on job costing, production, hiring, sales, and scaling a profitable painting company.

Rapid growth in the painting industry always seems easy in theory, but the day-to-day execution of it can be incredibly difficult. Today, Brad Elllison, Founder of Ellison Painting in Metro Detroit joins us to share their 4 year journey of rapid growth and how they’ve been able to do it by creating win-win relationships, both internally and externally.

If you’re looking to grow your business in a healthy and sustainable way, schedule a free business analysis with us at www.elitebusinessadvisors.com

Curious how your business benchmarks against systematized and professionalized painting contractors across the country? Take our free business health assessment at score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

Same-day Amazon shipping. Grocery delivery. Talk-to-text. An air fryer that cooks dinner in 12 minutes. What do they all have in common? Consumers will pay — often irrationally — for comfort and convenience.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore — founder of Elite Business Advisors and owner of a residential painting company — breaks down why understanding this shift in consumer behavior is one of the biggest untapped opportunities for painting contractors today, and how painting company owners can position their businesses to win more bids by selling an easier experience, not just a better paint job.

Chris traces the evolution of convenience — from attached garages replacing detached ones to same-day delivery replacing the weekly grocery run — and applies it directly to how homeowners choose a painting contractor. You'll learn why customers don't want to babysit another contractor, and how removing friction points at every stage of the customer journey can set your painting company apart from every competitor still doing business the old way.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why people pay more for convenience than for quality alone — and what that means for pricing
• How to meet homeowners where they are: geographically, on their schedule, and with less friction (including self-booking)
• The friction points killing your close rate: color consultations, communication gaps, and jobsite prep
• How to build a value proposition around ease, not just estimates
• Why high communication (like driver tracking and proactive updates) builds trust before you ever pick up a brush

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who want to understand consumer psychology and use it to win more bids, not just work harder for the ones they get.

🎯 Take our free Business Health Assessment to see where your painting business stands visit score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on hiring, sales, operations, and scaling a profitable painting company.

Most painting contractors don't start a painting business for 90-hour weeks — they start it for time and money freedom. So why do so many end up doing estimates at 9 PM, taking customer calls on weekends, and covering jobs when a painter doesn't show?

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore — founder of Elite Business Advisors and owner of a residential painting company — breaks down the Buyback Principle: the framework Elite Business Advisors has used to help hundreds of painting contractors remove themselves from the daily grind and run their painting company like a CEO instead of its hardest-working employee.

You'll hear the real story of a painting contractor who went from 4 employees, $500K in revenue, and 80-90 hour weeks — taking home about the same as his own painters — to scaling toward $1.3M by fixing his job costing, pricing, and delegation.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• How to calculate your Buyback Rate (and your ideal Buyback Rate)
• Why a simple 2-week time audit reveals exactly what to delegate or hire for
• How to reinvest freed-up time into the high-value work only you should be doing
• Why "I can't afford to hire for this" is the myth keeping painting contractors stuck
• The job costing and pricing fixes that unlocked growth for one painting company

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who are ready to build a business that runs without them — not one that runs them into the ground.

🎯 Take our free Business Health Assessment to see where your painting business stands — visit score.elitebusinessadvisors.com!

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on hiring, sales, operations, and scaling a profitable painting company.

What's the story you're telling yourself about your painting business — and is it true?

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, breaks down the #1 factor that determines whether a painting contractor succeeds: mindset. Not capital, not crew size, not experience — the internal stories painting company owners tell themselves every day about their ability to lead, grow, and scale.

Chris walks through a practical, three-step framework any painting contractor can use to take control of their thinking and, in turn, their results:

• Awareness — Learn to catch the "lies" you believe about yourself as a business owner (a concept borrowed from Craig Groeschel), and why one bad moment doesn't make you a bad leader, bad boss, or bad painting contractor
• Rewire — Use "I am" statements, affirmations, and gratitude practices to physically rewire the brain out of negative thought ruts — even when it feels uncomfortable or "dumb"
• Never Stop — Understand why mindset work isn't a one-time fix but an infinite game every painting business owner has to keep playing

If you're a painting contractor who feels like something invisible is holding your business back — even when the numbers, the crew, and the systems are in place — this episode gets to the root cause.

Your thoughts control your actions. Your actions control your habits. Your habits control your results. Change starts here.

🎧 New episodes every week for painting contractors and painting company owners across North America looking to build smarter, more profitable painting businesses — The Elite Painting Way.

Connect with Chris Moore and Elite Business Advisors:
@elitebusinessadvisors on all social platforms

www.elitebusinessadvisors.com to learn more about how they help Painting Contractors all over North America!

You send your project manager — or go yourself — to check in on a jobsite. You get a great report back. Everything looks fine. Then a week later, it's not fine at all. Sound familiar? In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, breaks down the real reason jobsite check-ins fail: a lack of intentionality about what's actually being checked.

By popular demand, this episode wraps up the Production SOP series with the Check-In Checklist — the exact list of what should be evaluated every single time you or your project manager sets foot on a jobsite mid-project.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "it looks great" isn't a real jobsite report — and how vague check-ins let problems slip through until it's too late
• The 7-point Check-In Checklist — the specific areas every jobsite visit should cover, including: 
  • Client — guiding the color conversation, walking finished areas together, and gauging communication
  • Budget/Progress Plan — staying on track against the project plan
  • Punchlist walkthrough — catching issues early instead of at closeout
  • SOP adherence — is the crew actually following your documented process?
  • Jobsite cleanliness and organization
  • Safety check
  • Getting content — the step contractors forget most, and the one that fuels your marketing
• Why structure beats good intentions — a business without systems is just a job, and the Check-In Checklist is what keeps quality consistent instead of accidental
• What happens when you skip even one item — why every point on this list matters on its own, not just as a group

This episode closes out the 3-part Production SOP series. If you haven't caught the first two, go back and listen to the Job Start SOP and Job Closeout SOP episodes — together, these three form a complete framework for running consistent, professional projects from kickoff to final walkthrough.

Connect with Chris Moore and Elite Business Advisors:
@elitebusinessadvisors on all social platforms

www.elitebusinessadvisors.com to learn more about how they help Painting Contractors all over North America!

This is the Elite Business Advice Podcast — practical business strategy for painting contractors who want to run a tighter, more profitable operation.

#PaintingContractor #PaintingBusiness #SOP #PaintingCompany #ContractorTips #BusinessAdvice #CashflowManagement

There's one fundamental thing that trips up 95% of painting contractors — the Job Closeout SOP. In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, breaks down exactly what a Job Closeout SOP should look like for your painting company, and why the process actually starts on day one of the project — not the last day.

This is part 2 of a two-part Production SOP series. Last week covered the Job Start SOP; this week Chris focuses on the end of the customer experience — the walkthrough, the payment collection, and everything in between that determines whether a project closes clean or drags on with touchups, callbacks, and late payments.

In this episode, you'll learn:

·       Why closeout problems are really structure problems — if you're dealing with late payments, callbacks, or crews saying "done" when it isn't, it likely traces back to a missing closeout process

·       Why the Job Closeout SOP starts on day one — setting expectations for the final walkthrough and payment collection before a single wall is painted

·       The 24-hour check-in — how to find out if the homeowner will be present for the final walkthrough, and how to problem-solve if they won't be

·       The 45-minute walkthrough script — exactly what to say to the homeowner as your crew leader or PM wraps up touchups, invoicing, and payment

·       How to build in reviews and referrals — using the walkthrough moment to hand off a Google Review postcard and introduce your Advocate discount program

·       Why mini-walkthroughs throughout the project make closeout easier — and how to avoid a chaotic final day

·       What closeout impacts — your mental bandwidth, your cashflow, and your schedule

Whether you're closing out jobs yourself or handing that responsibility to a crew leader or PM, this episode gives you a repeatable framework to protect your cashflow, your reputation, and your peace of mind on every project.

Missed part 1? Go back and listen to last week's episode on the Job Start SOP.

Connect with Chris Moore and Elite Business Advisors:
@elitebusinessadvisors on all social platforms

www.elitebusinessadvisors.com to learn more about how they help Painting Contractors all over North America!

This is the Elite Business Advice Podcast — practical business strategy for painting contractors who want to run a tighter, more profitable operation.

#PaintingContractor #PaintingBusiness #SOP #PaintingCompany #ContractorTips #BusinessAdvice #CashflowManagement