Painter Growth Podcast

Tired of paying thousands upfront for ads that don't convert, or fighting over shared leads on Angie's? In this episode, Mike sits down with Hisham, co-founder of Leads Pilot — a pay-per-lead agency built specifically for painting contractors.

Hisham breaks down exactly how Leads Pilot works: exclusive leads delivered via text outreach (not ads), no monthly fees, no contracts, and no commitment. You pay only for the leads you receive — and you can start getting them within 1 to 3 days of signing up.

We get into:

• Why Leads Pilot was built as an alternative to Angie's and Home Advisor
• How they find homeowners and qualify leads before sending them to you
• Why the pay-per-lead model works better for contractors just starting out and established businesses needing more volume
• What to expect on a discovery call with Hisham
• The difference between good and bad leads — and how they handle quality issues
• Exclusive listener offer: Watch to the end for 4 FREE leads (double the standard offer!)







Whether you're a newer painter trying to keep your schedule full or a seasoned contractor looking to scale without the risk, this episode is packed with practical insight on building a lead pipeline that actually works.

🔗 Book a call: tryleadspilot.com

Coaches Jesse and Kit are back together for a raw, real conversation about one of the biggest silent killers in entrepreneurship — burnout. If you've ever felt like a zombie at the dinner table, dreaded picking up the phone, or wondered why growing your business feels like it's slowly breaking you, this episode is for you.

Kit and Jesse dive deep into what burnout actually looks and feels like from the inside, why so many painting business owners treat it as a badge of honor, and — more importantly — how to escape it. The answer? It comes down to leadership: recruiting the right people, building strong comp models, creating unforgettable onboarding experiences, and crafting a vision so compelling that great people want to be part of it.

They also tackle the #1 mistake owners make that keeps them stuck: holding on too long before hiring an admin, a field marketing manager, or a production manager. Plus, a great tangent on what it really means to deliver a 13-out-of-10 customer experience — from remembering a client's coffee order to letting a curious kid paint a little on the house.

Whether you're grinding through your first few years or scaling toward a fully systemized operation, this episode will challenge you to stop doing more and start doing better.

Key topics covered:

• What burnout really feels like (and why it's not a rite of passage)
• The hiring decisions that free you from the day-to-day
• Building onboarding & training that retains great people
• Creating a vision that enrolls your team
• The "no man's zone" of customer experience and how to escape it
• The power of weekly reflection

Jason Thompson, Director of Mitsuoka & Company Recruiting, joins Mike Gore-Hickman to break down what separates great hires from costly mistakes.

From in-home sales reps to project managers, Jason shares how his team takes a custom, headhunting approach to find people who are the right fit, not just for the business, but for their own life and schedule too.

If you're a painting business owner struggling to find reliable people this season, this episode is packed with practical insight on what to look for, how to assess candidates, and what it actually costs to work with a recruiting firm.

Is your painting business AI-ready — or at risk of being left behind?

In this episode of the Painter Growth Podcast, Jesse and Gavin break down exactly how painting contractors can start using AI right now to do more with less. From writing SOPs in minutes, to building a $100K+ partner outreach list, to automating your recruiting funnel, this episode is packed with real, actionable workflows you can implement today.

73% of business owners say AI is critical to their business. Only 26% are actually using it. Don't be the one who waits too long.

Topics covered:

• The best AI tools for painting business owners (ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. Cowork)
• How to use AI to build partner lists and book hundreds of thousands in work
• Creating SOPs, proposals, and branded documents in a fraction of the time
• AI receptionists that answer your phone and book estimates automatically

🚨 Want to go deeper? Join us for the Painter Growth AI Summit — a live, 2-hour online session where we walk you through specific AI workflows for your painting business, from beginner to implementation.

👉 Register now: https://live.paintergrowth.com/live-ai-summit

In this raw and insightful episode of Brush Busters, coaches Jesse and Gavin dive deep into some of the most pressing (and personal) challenges painting business owners face today:

🎯 How to filter out ghost leads without killing conversions
🧠 The power of personal performance, fasting, biohacking, and recovery
⚒️ Turning production chaos into SOP clarity (using AI to build systems faster than ever)
👫 Navigating the emotional minefield of working with your spouse or family, without wrecking your marriage or your margins

They also explore how to escape the “struggle phase,” tap into flow states, and why your phone might be your biggest operational bottleneck.

From field-tested sales advice to honest talk about burnout, this episode will push you to think differently about your time, your team, and your own energy as a leader.

🔥 Want to get more out of your leads, your team, or your own headspace? Press play now.

Ever finish a job, see solid revenue, and still wonder where the profit went?

In this episode, we break down how painting contractors lose margin during production, even when the estimate “felt right.” From prep work that quietly expands (patch turns into skim) to the classic “while you’re here” requests that bleed hours, the real problem is rarely effort. It’s the lack of a system you can trust.

Jesse Teron and Josh Eldridge walk through a practical approach to job costing that starts before the job begins. You will learn how to forecast profit to the dollar, set budgeted hours your crew can actually execute, and build production rates based on an average painter so your top performers can beat the budget and earn more.

We also hit the leadership side: how to hold firm when subs ask for more money mid-job, how to stop doing extra work for free, and how detailed proposals and clear exclusions protect you from scope creep.

Inside this episode:

• Why “trusting profit” is really about knowing your numbers

• How to move from job costing in arrears to forecasting materials and labor up front

• Production rate examples (hardy board, fascia, second-level work adjustments)

• How to communicate budgeted hours and deadlines to your crew without drama

• The breakdown that makes it easier to say no to mid-job price changes

• A simple boundary system for change orders so you stop donating labor

If you want cleaner margins, fewer surprises, and a business that scales without chaos, this is the playbook.

Submit your question for a future episode at paintergrowth.com.

In this solo episode, I share the raw lessons I wish I’d known when I started running my painting business.

This episode is about the truths that no one tells you when you start a painting business, the mistakes that cost me time, money, and even my sanity. I open up about the challenges that forced me to rethink what it means to run a business, step into true leadership, and create systems that scale.

If you’re serious about scaling your painting business and stepping into true leadership, this episode is for you.

What I cover in this episode:
✅ The biggest mistake that cost me time, money, and energy
✅ Why doing the painting yourself holds you back from real growth
✅ How to delegate and build a team that takes ownership
✅ What happens when you underprice jobs to win them
✅ The mindset shifts that took me from operator to CEO

Want to grow your painting company without repeating the mistakes I made?

🎧 Tap play and learn from one of my most eye-opening lessons.

This episode is proudly sponsored by⁠⁠ ⁠DripJobs⁠⁠⁠! The CRM built for painting contractors. Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use our code GROWTH60 to get a 60 days trial FOR FREE!

Christian Manhard didn't set out to become a social media influencer. He just started filming his work.

Seventeen years in the painting trade, a personal Instagram account, and a camera phone. That's how it started. No strategy, no editor, no plan, just a guy who loved documenting process the same way he used to film his buddies snowboarding.

But somewhere between the before-and-afters and the timelapses, something clicked. Brands started sliding into his DMs. Partnership offers started coming in. And what began as a way to get better painting clients slowly became an entirely different business, one that now includes media, consulting, and real estate on top of the painting work he still loves.

In this episode, Christian gets into the real story behind building a social media business as a contractor. What it actually takes, how he thinks about brand deals, why follower count isn't what most people think it is, and how saying no to the wrong partnerships is exactly what built the right ones.

This one is for any contractor who has ever picked up their phone on a job site and thought, maybe there's something to this.

In this episode:

• Why documenting your process is the most underrated marketing tool in the trades
• How Christian thinks about brand partnerships and when to say no
• Why a 150 million view video didn't change as much as you'd think
• What it looks like to build multiple income streams without losing focus
• How he and his wife Jessica built a business and a life they actually want to live

Brooke runs a painting business that did $370K last year. He wants to do $750K this year. And he's doing it all while managing chronic migraines, a team that needs leading, and a schedule that barely gives him room to breathe.

This episode is a raw coaching conversation about what it actually looks like to be stuck between operator and owner — and how to make the leap.

Brooke is off the tools, but he's still the estimator, the firefighter, and the person every problem lands on. He knows something has to change. He just can't see how to get there without everything falling apart in the process.

We get into the real reasons he hasn't hired a sales rep yet, why he's terrified to let go of estimating, and what it's actually costing him to hold on to it. We also map out exactly what the next 90 days need to look like for him to stop being the bottleneck in his own business.

If you're somewhere between $300K and $1M and you feel like you're working harder than the number shows — this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why calling yourself an "owner estimator" is keeping you stuck
• How to structure a sales rep compensation plan that limits your risk to almost nothing
• The 5-hour system that can get someone else estimating and selling for you
• What burnout actually does to your decision making — and how to get out of it

Most contractors are using AI like it's a search engine. Here's what they're missing.

I sat down with Arwin, founder of Rebolt HQ, an AI-powered operating system built for service businesses, and we got into what's actually working right now for painting contractors who are serious about running a better business.

We talk about websites that get built in minutes, calls that turn into blog posts automatically, a CRM you can literally talk to, and why the fundamentals still matter more than any hack when it comes to getting found online.

We also get into the bigger picture, why trades is one of the safest places to be right now, and why the contractors who stay curious about this stuff are going to have a real edge over the ones who don't.

If you've ever wondered where to actually start with AI in your business, this episode gives you a practical answer.

In this episode:

• Why your website might be costing you leads, and how to fix it
• The automated workflow that turns finished jobs into marketing content
• What it actually takes to rank on ChatGPT and Google
• The voice-first CRM Rebolt just launched
• 30 minutes a day that puts you ahead of most of your competition
• A limited-time deal for Painter Growth listeners (expires April 27th)