The #1 Strategy for Selling More Painting Jobs w/ Tanner Mullen

Jason Phillips: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Contractor Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Phillips. This show exists to help small business owners like you escape the tyranny of Contractor Freedom and enter the bliss of Contractor Freedom so you can have the Time, Money, and Freedom to Live Your Life With Purpose Beyond Your Business.As a certified human behavior consultant in DISC personality styles and motivators, I'll be sharing with you skills for life, love, leadership, and business. I'll also be connecting you with experts that can help you scale your business and your life. So if you want to build the business and life of your dreams, then you are in the right place.Let's go. Jason Phillips: Hello Contractors! I'm excited to be here with you today. I've got a very special guest with you with us here who you can see on the screen and you're going to, you're going to want to tune in till the end because we've got some, we've got some awesome info that's, that, That impacts you guys, so many of you guys who are using a particular software for running your contracting business.I don't know if you [00:01:00] guys know who that is if, what it is, if not, yeah, you'll find out, but I've got a feeling most of you guys already know. I already know what I'm talking about here. We got the one and only, got Tanner Mullen with us here today. Tanner's not only, he's I don't know if I could call him a serial entrepreneur.But he's definitely a visionary. He obviously, you like that? Okay, yeah,he Not only is the owner of premium, painting, but also Dripjobs automation software for contractors. And not to mention, he's got the painting contractors group on Facebook, which has, more people in it than a population of China.Tanner, he's a giver and he's an all around great guy if you haven't interacted with him onlineAnd so Tanner, it's my pleasure to have you on today, man. Tanner Mullen: How are you doing? I was saying, I'm so glad he started a podcast, man. I think this was, long overdue. I respect you fully and, I'm just excited to see what you do with it. Contractor freedom, all the good stuff, man. I'm happy to be here. I really am an honor Jason Phillips: me as well. I feel the same way about you. I'm glad we got to connect. I think we've only met in person, maybe like one time in passing at a PCA event. And we we've been on a couple of podcasts together before. I think [00:02:00] on, I would like that. So I, one of the things, one of my goals, again, this isn't about me today, but.One of my goals is I just, I want to build bridges. I feel like our industry is too fragmented and that's adding to the contractors, feeling like they're on an island. And I believe that a forward thinking people need to unify, build bridges, work together, and we can make this whole community a better place.So that's one of the reasons I decided to have you on today. Hey Tanner, tell us, obviously you're the owner of Premium Painting. And am I, did I hear before that, that, you grew up in the paint business? Is that true? Tanner Mullen: Yeah, I did. Actually, my dad was a painter by trade and you know, just as a kid going on the job site with him.I remember in eighth grade, everyone else had summer where they'd hang out with their friends and I had get up at six o'clock and. Grab your white Dickies and your painter's shirt that had blue tape on it from the day before. But you know, it was, it was interesting. I didn't resent it, but I was like, I will never do this again.When I went off to college, got into the professional things like car sales, and I was really heavy into the restaurant industry. At [00:03:00] 19, I was a manager of a restaurant that I couldn't, I wasn't even old enough. To drink the alcohol that they were serving, you know, so that was interesting because people would look at me and be like, you're too young to be doing this.And I, I just always work seriously, Jason, you know, it was always something to me having a kind of like up upbringing. I just knew that that was my way out and it was something I could just. Put my attention in and focus on. And in retrospect, I look at it as a blessing, like everything to have hit so many different sectors.Many people know that, you know, I was in the restaurant industry. I got to a point where so many things I learned, ordering, learning how to deal with vendors, hiring, customer service, but what I think is so valuable, and we'll get into this later about software, Jason is, with the restaurant, having to manage the back of the house and the front of the house.How often in your business? Are you managing the back of the house and the front of the house? Having to relate to the cooks, the busboys, the dishwashers, but then having to be able to switch gears and be able to communicate effectively with the servers, the hostess, the customers. And that skill set alone has just always been so [00:04:00] instrumental in how I handle my.Developers with drip jobs and the customers, but also my front lines, right, salesperson, customers. It's just interesting just being able to kind of just relate to people. That's what I learned most. So went through the restaurant industry, got into sales. So I packaged so much. Customer service, you know, together with, with the restaurant.Then I got into sales and I learned the art of negotiation. I learned the art of following up with leads. I learned the art of waking up and having to hunt for your pay with nothing in the pipeline and you're not getting paid unless you sell. That was interesting. Look, there was no cushion to fall back on.If I don't sell, I don't eat, Jason. And then finally landing in life insurance, having to go knock doors. I learned the art of door knocking. I mean, all of these experiences, last but not least, I learned, you know, business and transactions and financing and all these things. And again, I can't attribute it to anything else, but God getting me ready for the painting business.I don't know how I, that's how, that's what I landed on. [00:05:00] Jason Phillips: You know, it, it, it doesn't sound glorious, right? I don't think any of us, unless maybe most people don't grow up thinking, Oh, I dream of owning a painting business or being a contractor. It's like a fireman, a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, and then a contractor.But it's amazing what you said. It's like, you look back and I'm like, dude, that's incredible. You've had all of these. different experiences that are just added to the opportunity you've got now and that you're making a difference in the industry. I love that. I didn't know a lot of that about you. I'm glad you shared that.So before you got into the software business, by the way, the whole analogy to me, it's an analogy for you. It's reality of the. Background in the restaurant business. Man, that analogy, I can just see that's on contractors. That's real. And that front of the house and back of the house, that sales and marketing and production, that's real, man.I love, Tanner Mullen: I love that. And this is to bring that even closer to home. I'm sitting in the line restaurant and I think, have you ever worked in a restaurant? No, no, never. Okay. So. [00:06:00] You know, the back Jason is these are the guys that bust their butts and the front of the house gets all the tips, right? You know, they get all the glory, but in some restaurants you have to earn the respect of the kitchen, right?Whether you're a server or whether you're a manager and my things is is like I wanted to earn that respect. I wanted to be considered a leader in the kitchen. Even though I didn't know how to cook, they saw me as someone that didn't overwhelm them with tickets because I needed things done. To be able to ask for things in a respective way and not be demanding.To manage their workload without them getting stressed out. To see an area that's weak, whether they needed to be prepped, something needed cleaned. For them to see that I'm willing to jump in with my team to get it done. And I do the same thing in my painting business. It's amazing. It's like, even though I own the business, I honestly try to earn the respect of my team.And I don't just try to do it once. It's important to me to make sure that they understand that my head hasn't gotten too big. I'm still there with [00:07:00] them. If I go to a job site, I'm looking for trash to pick up. I'm aiding them. What do you need? Do you need something? Good. I'm there. That's kind of how I've, I've transitioned from that.And I, and it's always served me well, just earning the respect of the teammates, trying to showcase to them that I'm no better than them in any regard. I just happened to have learned different things and took different risks and I need them in order to continue. Jason Phillips: Man, that is so inspiring. That is so inspiring.I look at it this way. I was never a craftsman. I was never a painter. I literally painted one house as my first week in training and I had this experience. I'm like, okay, wow, this is not my thing. I love sales and marketing at the time, but we need each other. We don't need a company full of Jasons.Everybody needs to play their part. If we're going to build a bigger future for us all, that's the way I look at it. But at the same time, Hey, I'm, we, we call it executive itis and we don't need any executive itis. I get out, I get out in the field occasionally, not as much as I really want to. And every time I do, it's like a reality check.I'm like, I remember what it was like trying to...