Stone Payton
Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. Today's episode is brought to you in part by the Business RadioX® Studio Partner Program, helping franchisees dominate their local market. To learn more about serving your market and growing your business. Go to mybrxstudio.com. Lee this is going to be a fantastic segment. Please join me in welcoming to the show, Founder and CEO with LIME Painting. Mr. Nick Lopez. Good afternoon, sir.
Nick Lopez
Good afternoon. I'm excited to be here.
Lee Kantor
Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about LIME Painting. How are you serving folks?
Nick Lopez
Well, LIME, we're a high-end painting company. We do residential and commercial, as well as interior exterior work. But we're an emerging franchise company in the first and only high-end paint company.
Lee Kantor
So, how'd you get started?
Nick Lopez
Oh, well, my journey begins back in college. I was an independent college student. I'm originally from Denver, Colorado, and I went to school out of state. I went to Michigan State. But I was an independent college student, which basically means I was paying my way through college, I was the guy that took out a $500 credit card, just to get a plane ticket and get out to Michigan.
But yeah, I didn't even have a sheet on my mattress my freshman year. I wasn't even thinking about that. I was truly just on a mission. I was going to college. I think now in hindsight, I kind of reflect back on those things and kind of chuckle, but the reality was that I had a college in mind and I wanted to go to school out of state and I was really just doing what needed to be done to make it happen in. So I grew up wrestling, and my logic at that time was that I would get a wrestling scholarship and that would pay my way through college. So, you know, fast forward to me getting on campus, I introduced myself to the head coach of the wrestling team, and before you know it, I was a preferred walk on.
But by the end of my freshman year, I was basically using credit cards to pay off credit cards. And a scholarship wasn't in the near future. So, I really was at a crossroads.A lot of my identity and a lot of how I viewed myself at the time was a wrestler, I also went to Michigan State because they had a good business program. And so ultimately, I hung up the wrestling shoes, and I needed to find the means to support my business degree. And so, I had heard about other college kids working for college paint companies like college pro and college works and student painters, things like that. I was pretty entrepreneurial growing up, whether it was you know, random network marketing or sales jobs. I felt confident in my ability to sell and as I started a paint company, I didn't feel the need to join a national company. I wanted to start my own company.
And really it was driven by needing to pay for my undergrad. So, I started a company called Spartan College Painters. And that was 2009. Right in the middle of the great recession. I was in East Lansing which is not far from Detroit. And as you guys know, a lot of the economic depression at that time was driven by some of the auto industry. So, Detroit was hit pretty hard. That was kind of the makeup of my launch to my career was, you know, right in the middle of the Great Recession. And so, a lot of the neighborhoods that I was working in, you know, there were tons and tons of foreclosure signs.
But I really didn't know any difference, just like getting the credit card to get to school, kind of that one track mind, I had an objective I was doing it in. And so, with the college, paint company, those foreclosure signs and whatnot, and the economic conditions really weren't a concern to me. Again, I kind of just looking back and reflecting on that. Those are some of the things I kind of took from that time.
Lee Kantor
Do you remember how you got your first client?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, sure. They actually called me. I met my wife my freshman year of college. And so, at the time, she was my girlfriend, and I got a call from this client. And they were calling to book, and I could barely talk. I was excited I had to actually take the phone away from my ear because I, I just couldn't talk. I was just so excited. And my girlfriend was kind of chuckling at me. So yeah, I remember that first job I booked. I could barely take the call. And I think I even ran around the room when the call was over.
Lee Kantor
How did they hear about you? Were you putting out flyers? Like how do they even know you existed?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, I was putting out flyers I actually had knocked on their door. And I followed up, give them an estimate. And yeah, they ended up deciding to work with me. And yeah, the rest kind of history.
Lee Kantor
Now from there you I guess at the time, were you always a high-end painting service? Or was that something that evolved over time after being in the business for a bit?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, that's a great question. I have been really intentional about our niche being high-end. But initially, it was really more so the challenge and the pride that I looked at high-end homes, in my, you know, the result of working in transforming these beautiful homes, it was challenging, and very rewarding. So, I think it was more of just a personal preference at the time.
And something that, incidentally, became a huge competitive advantage and became really a big part of why we're successful. But initially, it was really out of just the challenge and the pride I was able to take in working on high-end homes. But to answer your question, yeah, it was always, it was always a high-end home. But the logic was really, like I said, the challenge and the pride that I could take in working on those types of projects.
Lee Kantor
But even though you were in a challenging financial situation, you weren't taking any job that came your way, you were holding out for just high-end opportunities.
Nick Lopez
Yeah, I guess I went to high-end neighborhoods. So, you know, being a company with no brand recognition at the time, you know, I was 1819 years old. I was really going out and building the company in, I was building it in high-end neighborhoods. I you know, I look back at my website, my business cards, they were something very generic. And something that's really a differentiator for us now is our branding and the level of marketing that we have at LIME.
But when I was just launching, I was working on my undergrad full time, and I was a Dean's List student, so I wasn't like I was slacking on my time. I was heavily invested there. So, I didn't really put much stock into my website or SEO or getting or any way of getting clients to reach out to me because I was bootstrapping it so much. And I had limited time. I was more so going out into these neighborhoods and directly introducing myself and gaining exposure and clients that way.
Lee Kantor
Now as a franchisor, though, the business shifts right because you're no longer really painting, you're teaching other people to paint and you're teaching them how to serve clients at that higher level. How did that transition occur?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, absolutely. That's a mental shift. That I don't think of every franchise or makes but that was something I learned early on, you know, just because we have a great paint company. You know, franchising is a totally different business and our and our, you know, instead of serving our homeowners or pro high end property owners are now serving our business owners, but that I really got started in franchising about two years ago. And when I was working on my undergrad, this opportunity became more and more clear in the high-end painting space.
I had sought out a mentor, and he had recommended a book called the myth revisited by Michael Gerber. And in there, I learned about, you know, roles and system process duplication, quality controls, and scaling through franchising. I think one of the biggest things I learned was working on the business, not in it. And I had never really put much thought into franchising. But after talking to this mentor, I'd shared with him the fact that hey, look, I, I've been working for these high-end homeowners, initially, I was just being encouraged by them, I was being thanked for showing up on time doing a good job answering my phone, as an 18-19-year-old, that just was encouraging, kept me doing it, and falling more and more love, in love with the transformation in the craft. But as I got into my business degree, I started learning about competitive advantage and everything else that goes into business.
That's where I started, the dots started connecting that, you know, just because people pay for a service doesn't mean that they are going to get that service. And when I was initially meeting these clients, I was having to earn a lot of their trust, because they've been burned so many times. So, this whole environment started just making the opportunity more and more clear that, you know, there's really very minimal, high-end providers in the home service space, and in particular, the painting space. And so, I looked into high-end paint companies across the country, and there weren't any, so I was telling this to this mentor.
And he, you know, ultimately recommended, you know, I was telling him that I wanted to bring this, this solution to more markets, because there it wasn't being done. And that's why he recommended the myth revisited by Michael Gerber. And that was about eight years ago. So, from that point forward, it was absolutely about franchising. But I needed to finish up my undergrad and time in college. So, I moved back home to Denver six years ago, and I launched LIME Painting. And when I launched it, it was the result of pouring in my business degree and my sales degree into this painting model with the intent to move to a market and launch the founding location. The more I came home to Denver, the more it was clear that the economy was doing well. And it was a good place to launch the business. And so, I did that six years ago. And so, our first four years were about just proving out the unit economics and the model. And so, we grew the business
substantially over those four years. And once we had done that, we felt like there was enough validation in the model that I joined the international franchise Association, and worked on getting the certified franchise executive designation, basically a lot of classes. But what I had learned from my undergrad was that I was able to launch this business, this founding location, and have success because of the roles of the system that the education that I had in college, my business and sales degrees, that was really what allowed the business to thrive.
And so, I valued education. And so, by joining the IFA, it was absolutely about becoming more and more educated around franchising, because like we said at the beginning, franchising and serving franchisees is much different than the product or service that you offer. And so, I wanted to do that due diligence upfront, and learn as much about the franchise spaces I could. And the byproduct of that was that I was able to rub shoulders with a lot of people who were other founders and grant successful multi-unit franchisees and then different suppliers and vendors in the space that made up this IFA world.
You learn a lot about pitfalls and what to do right and what not to do. But more than anything, vendors and suppliers just start surrounding myself. shelf with and start building that infrastructure for the franchise. I got into the IFA two years ago, and traveled around the country for about a year, taking different classes everywhere. And then I met our executive advisors, a team of foreign individuals, I met them, January of 2018. And the four of them really fit a CEO, CMO, and CFO role. But we met, you know, weekly for all of 2018 just working on infrastructure, everything from learning management systems to our marketing plans to our consumer marketing, a franchise owner launch. And everything that goes into supporting the owner says, that's kind of how we got started, we awarded our first franchise in June of 2018.
Lee Kantor
And then how did you develop the kind of the persona of what a good LIME franchisee would look like,
Nick Lopez
Develop the person? Well, I think really, it's a compliment to our model. Our model is unique, and that, because I was really intentional in my undergrad about, you know, working on your business, not in it, we very much have an opportunity for owner-operators. But the model is definitely structured for scaling. So, a multi-unit operator complements our model very well. We have a very sophisticated sales and operations model at LIME. But I think that also goes into play with the fact that we are a premium brand. And we're not necessarily a transactional or a volume company, we're very much a quality company in, you know if you just look at our average account, you know, it's four times higher than the industry average. So as a result, we do a lot less volume. But you know, that.
So, I would say that our persona for a franchisee is definitely circled around somebody that, you know, has a strong aptitude for building and leading teams, a sales aptitude, or an operations aptitude. So, in either case, team building, and being able to train and lead the team, that's, that's the consistent denominator. So those are basically the three main characteristics that we're looking for somebody that has a strong aptitude and sales operations, and then team building.
Lee Kantor
Now, are they typically, what's their age? Are they older? Are they retired? And then that this is kind of a second act for them? Or is this somebody, a young person that could say, you know what, Nick was in college when he was doing this, so I can do this as my career?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, I would definitely say that somebody that is looking to scale a business, go deep in their market, whether that's an owner-operator, or a semi-absentee owner who owns several locations in a market, that could be an individual in their 20s or an individual in their 50s. The other thing that we're looking for is just the culture and values or is this individual LIME person because we definitely have a very unique culture. And it's very much a servant-based culture, high performance-based culture, but whether that individual is in their 20s or 50s, I think the combination of those three denominators we're looking for, and then a good culture fit.
Lee Kantor
If you're just now joining us you're listening to franchise marketing radio stone, Payton Lee canter here with you with the business radio x network, we are visiting with the founder and CEO of LIME Painting, Mr. Nick Lopez, Nick, Stone here, got a couple of questions for you around the whole sales and marketing aspect of things. First of all, from the franchisor perspective for you guys, Are there certain vehicles that you are finding more effective than others in getting the word out about the opportunity, whether it's email, direct mail, pay-per-click social? Are there some things that are working better than others for you in getting the word out about the LIME Painting business opportunity?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, I think a good combination of traditional and New Age marketing, whether that's direct mailers, or publications, or New Age, SEO, or targeted banner ads, or any sort of social media, for us, it's just about getting in front of the right demographic, which is the owner of a high-end property, whether that's commercial or residential. But you know, on the residential side, we definitely do depend on the market, we do more residential than commercial.
On the commercial side, we're looking to do more projects in the scope of country clubs or high-end restaurants, resorts, condominiums, not necessarily any project. But on the residential side, that tops 30% of home values in that market. And so, when you're speaking to the residential side, you know, we're, our branding is so important with our company and plays off of it complements our marketing so well.
But where I'm getting at is that if you can imagine a job site in a, you know, high-end neighborhood, we would have a large lime green metal sign in the yard, all of our painters and lime green t-shirts, lime green vehicles of our account managers and lime green polos. But this color, you know, the neighbors don't necessarily have to know it's LIME Painting, they just know that the green guys paint, you could imagine, as you can imagine, the neighbors are, you know, always more trusting of vendors that are in their neighborhood. Plus, a lot of these neighborhoods are designed with the intent to create community.
So, a lot of the neighbors know each other. And so, networking around job sites is a great way to compound, you know, the portfolio and get the word out and in bring more value to clients, ultimately earn more, more business. That's a big facet of the business is, is door to door canvassing, in networking around job sites.
Lee Kantor
Now talk about the book. How did that come about? And what was the thinking behind that?
Nick Lopez
Well, we what we wanted to, you know, I talked about our advisor team or for advisors, but we, we have a motto that you know, franchise owners coach first, and, you know, how are we bringing more value to franchise owners? So, I think the intent behind the book was really, how are we going to bring more value to a potential franchise owner that's exploring our business opportunity? You know, is this an asset that they really can see themselves growing in? Is this a home for them to build their legacy, and that next chapter for not just them, but their family, or their management team? And so, it was really created with the intent to give more context behind the business opportunity that is, you know, LIME Painting.
Lee Kantor
So now it tells the story, and it gives them kind of an idea of what the culture and the brand is standing for.
Nick Lopez
Yes. Now, everything from culture, to say everything from culture to values, it also begins to get into our marketing and in our sales approach, and the way that we serve and build our business. Now you get into some of the high-level parts of the business, right? The why.
Lee Kantor
Now, talk about you. You mentioned earlier remembering your first sale of painting. Do you remember your first sale of a franchisee trusting you?
Nick Lopez
Yeah, it was just as exciting. Yeah, LIME Painting of Castle Rock. He, he was awarded that location last June, June of 2018. So, he launched his business on Jan, 1 of 2019. So now we're at the tail end of October of 2019. He is coming up on the end of his first year since he launched his business
Lee Kantor
So now what was more rewarding that first paint job or the first franchisee?
Nick Lopez
That's a good question. You know, I would definitely have to say, awarding that that first franchise, you know, my, my, definitely my gift my calling is coaching and it, you know, finding that vision that somebody has for themselves, and coaching them to realize that vision in and so, you know, I, I, I know that I'm doing what I'm called to do, because as a franchise or you know, I'm giving people a platform to realize whatever their vision is for themselves. And this business platform is that vehicle, and I've mastered the business.
And so, you know, I'm humbled to have the opportunity to, you know, coach somebody through how to, you know, best optimize this vehicle to realize their dreams. So, I would definitely have to say that both were very exciting, but I am very much doing what I am supposed to be doing as a franchisor. So, I can definitely see how getting that first owner was, you know, a really special moment.
Lee Kantor
Now if somebody wanted to learn more about the franchise opportunities or website,
Nick Lopez
Lee Kantor
Good stuff, Nick. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today.
Nick Lopez
Absolutely, yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Stone Payton
All right. This is Lee Kantor and Stone Payton. We will see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.
