When Herman Holtz founded H.J. Holtz & Son in 1936, the small business was primarily focused on wallpapering. But as the years went by, Herman began offering painting services to meet the needs of his customers in the Richmond, VA area. His son, Richard, joined and eventually purchased the family business from…

Most business owners recognize that the onboarding stage is an important part of the hiring process, but many still underestimate how important it is to do it right. FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER A recent survey conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that helping new hires make connections within the organization early on…

If you’ve been a paint contractor for any number of years, you understand that for all intents and purposes, tips are the ‘brains’ of airless paint systems. They control just about everything from the width of the spray pattern and paint flow rate to regulating how hard the pump needs to work….

As a painting contractor, helping your customers select the ‘right’ paint color can be a tricky proposition: get it right, and you’ve provided a helpful additional service; miss the mark and you’ve made an unprofitable investment of your time and possibly risked an unhappy customer. Fortunately, there are a number of readily…

A: When I started our business in 2001, I began with both power washing and painting. I thought it made sense to be full-service in the offering. But because of where I’m located, painting is our year-round service, while the power washing is really only an option seven to nine months of…

  1 What drove you to become an ‘elite’ painter versus a ‘commodity’ painter? Painting is a commodity industry. Anyone can pick up the phone and find one of three types of guys: the cheap guy who’s always busy, the middle commodity guy who’s not so busy, or the ‘elite’ guy who…