Painter sRAG The September 2016 ’ PDCARESIDENTIALFORUM.ORG Inspiration Education Support R E S I D E N T I A L F O R U M P D C A ’ s I N S P I R A T I O N E D U C A T I O N S U P P O R T Painter sRAG The ’ Inspiration Education Support From the President Board of Directors Sponsors In this Issue... Reflections From AST 17 AST 17 Review Save The Date AST 17 Take Aways Thoughts From San Diego A Note From The Editor From the President more self-aware to rejuvenate my personal and business goals. I reaffirmed that my happiness is the joy I feel moving toward my full potential. I want to embrace this joy and look at the world with wonder and fresh eyes. And my potential right now is putting my entrepreneurial spirit to work by building my family business to serve many. Self-awareness, especially our level of self-worth, is a key to being the best version of ourselves we can be while keeping toil at bay. Mark Victor Hanson, author of Chicken Soup of the Soul, asserts that you can double your income when your self-esteem doubles. I understand that to mean your beliefs about self, about employees, about others, and about customers matters a lot. I know this is true in me because I see it in my sales; if I'm confident in my crew's capabilities and my recent customer's satisfac- tion, I am way better at meeting my potential custom- ers needs and expectations. Now if I can keep that attitude at the forefront when toil is overcoming me, I could serve others much better much more of the time. It reminds me of Chuck Swindoll's adage; “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”. Labor Day is an annual commemoration of workers who have contributed to our country’s strength, prosperity, well-being, freedom, and leadership. May we honor the American worker this Labor Day. And I hope you honored yourself by taking the day off to enjoy relaxation time with family and friends, or your favorite pastime. Celebrate the fruits of your work! Toil gives work a bad name. Our work – our ability to use our mental and physical abilities to produce a good result is a great gift. Even the story of Genesis reveals that the first thing God did after creation was to give Adam work to do in the garden. Work is ordained and beneficial for us. I often feel very good, successful, and quite fulfilled after a full day's work. However, the drudgery of work, along with its thorns and thistles, can choke the goodness in our work. This toiling can be relentless and exhausting, taking a physical and emotional toll on us. It can wear us down. Mechanical things don’t always work well, people aren’t always cooperative or supportive. We want to accomplish more, but we begin to lack the endurance because of resistance from the environment around us. Work includes pain, conflict, envy, and fatigue. Not all our goals are met and we can become discouraged. The toil of work can cause our businesses and workplaces to seem pointless, fruitless, and boring. As a result, most experience work not as a gift to be enjoyed, but as a hard, depressing, grinding toil to be endured. That’s a tough way to spend sixty percent of our waking hours. At our recent Advanced Shop Talk Conference in San Diego I was able to step back, humble myself, receive great wisdom from my peers, and become Contract well, Randy Fornoff [email protected]Hard Work
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PaintersRAGThe
September 2016
’PDCARESIDENTIALFORUM.ORG
InspirationEducation
Support
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SI
D
EN
T I A L
FO
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P D C A’s
INS
PI R
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The ’Inspiration
EducationSupport
From the President
Board of Directors
Sponsors
In this Issue...
Re�ections From AST 17
AST 17 Review
Save The Date
AST 17 Take Aways
Thoughts FromSan Diego
A Note From The Editor
From the President more self-aware to rejuvenate my personal and
business goals. I rea�rmed that my happiness is the joy I feel moving toward my full�potential. I want to embrace this joy and look at the world with wonder and fresh eyes. And my potential right now is putting my entrepreneurial spirit to work by building my family business to serve many.
Self-awareness, especially our level of self-worth, is a key to being the best version of ourselves we can be while keeping toil at bay. Mark Victor Hanson, author of Chicken Soup of the Soul, asserts that you can double your income when your self-esteem doubles. I understand that to mean your beliefs about self, about employees, about others, and about customers matters a lot. I know this is true in me because I see it in my sales; if I'm con�dent in my crew's capabilities and my recent customer's satisfac-tion, I am way better at meeting my potential custom-ers needs and expectations. Now if I can keep that attitude at the forefront when toil is overcoming me, I could serve others much better much more of the time. It reminds me of Chuck Swindoll's adage; “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”. Labor Day is an annual commemoration of workers who have contributed to our country’s strength, prosperity, well-being, freedom, and leadership. May we honor the American worker this Labor Day. And I hope you honored yourself by taking the day o� to enjoy relaxation time with family and friends, or your favorite pastime. Celebrate the fruits of your work!
Toil gives work a bad name. Our work – our ability to use our mental and physical abilities to
produce a good result is a great gift. Even the story of Genesis reveals that the �rst thing God did after creation was to give Adam work to do in the garden. Work is ordained and bene�cial for us. I often feel very good, successful, and quite ful�lled after a full day's work. However, the drudgery of work, along with its thorns and thistles, can choke the goodness in our work. This toiling can be relentless and exhausting, taking a physical and emotional toll on us. It can wear us down. Mechanical things don’t always work well, people aren’t always cooperative or supportive.
We want to accomplish more, but we begin to lack the endurance because of resistance from the environment around us. Work includes pain, con�ict, envy, and fatigue. Not all our goals are met and we can become discouraged. The toil of work can cause our businesses and workplaces to seem pointless, fruitless, and boring. As a result, most experience work not as a gift to be enjoyed, but as a hard, depressing, grinding toil to be endured. That’s a tough way to spend sixty percent of our waking hours. At our recent Advanced Shop Talk Conference in San Diego I was able to step back, humble myself, receive great wisdom from my peers, and become
"AST is the place to be to improve your residential painting business."John Busick - Bob Kunst Painting Inc.
"The information and relationships gained here are invaluable - priceless!" Art Snarzyk - InnerView Advisors
"I haven't been to an AST for over 10 years. This group is the epitome of PDCA. Sharing experiences and learned lessons. Well worth the time and money."Rick Holtz - H.J. Holtz & Son, Inc.
"I found the members and their participation this year one of the best."Terry Miller - Tegrey Family of Coatings
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Reflections From AST 17
AST 17 Attendees
First and foremost, a great big thank you to Tony Kozak for �guring out an a�ord-
able way to have an amazing conference in San Diego. I think all who attended will agree
that the accommodations were nothing short of top notch. And a great big thank you
as well to all of our sponsors who also make AST possible every year. For those who did
make the trip, it was great to see old friends and make some new ones as well, and for those
who were unable to attend, here are a few re�ections from members in attendance.
We hope to see you all again next year.
AST 17 TESTIMONIALSInstallation of the new board Rick Holtz shares his story of taking over the family business AST 17 Attendees
If you didn’t go, you really missed a good one. There was more member content from contractors & business owners than before, in fact, there were only 2 short spots taken by outside, or non-industry players – the quality level of the material people brought was top-shelf, there was a buzz in the room for 2 days, it was real boost, psychologically and attitudinally – right in the middle of the blur season – to all the men & women who took time to go.
If you’ve gone to one of these events then you know that the challenge coming back into your business is implementation – it’s hard to do because there are usually so many things you want to do; there is a high risk of non-implementation too because you’re coming back to a busy kitchen and you just jump in and start cookin’ again. Then, 3 months later you �nd your notes and by then the vigor has evaporated somewhat. So the trick is to pick a few and get on it right away when you get back…a short list.
My short list loosely falls under 3 headings: 1 Glad that wasn’t me, 2 Wish I was that cool, and 3 What a great idea!
1 Glad that wasn’t me: How to manage an EPA RRP audit, which had a great Q&A session after, and included some tips for negotiation, and most importantly, for me at least, why it’s important to be RRP Certi�ed, and to report sketchy operators working in your town, not following the laws. This was a view from a new angle and most of us don’t even know anyone who has been a�ected by it, let alone heard the story relayed �rst hand. The pucker
factor was in play here, for sure. When I got back I immediately reached out to a colleague who I know runs a very tight and organized RRP program – also in attendance, by the way; she gladly send a copy of an RRP job binder – a bene�t of involvement, these people share not just stories, but resources!
Next: The biggest, scariest client in the world and his breathtakingly expensive mahogany library-stain-gone-bad-who’s-gonna-pay-for-it now? project (apologies for the clumsy and pedestrian syntax.) which also included a Q&A wherein the contributing contractor (me) just about cried reliving the experience. This story was really inspira-tional too; as it turns out, how often do we get in a thinking-rut, Eyore-style, with clouds and thistles, and forget that there are good people in the world, and we work for them sometimes. This story had a happy ending including a very, very large change order, and a lesson about honesty, transparency, and vulnerability. Anyway, I’m happy to share that story again…just ask me about it. So, although the tale begins as a cautionary one, it ends with ice cream and rainbows.
2 �sh I were that cool: I really got a charge from the round table session about cultivating a strong team – something all of us work at continually, or have given up trying at…either way you were when you sat down, you walked away from that session inspired! How do you make your team members feel like they have the greatest job in the world and can’t wait to get out of bed and go to work every day? Silly thought, they’re only painters after all – right? It depends on how you think about it, and how they do too. Start there, that’s where strong culture comes from – thinking, then acting. The folks in this PDCA residential community have �gured this out, and share their experience willingly. This session has the most notes in my book and also included an unusually large number of books to add to the reading list. I’m totally charged to become the best company to work for in my area; we’ll be a magnet for great painters!
3 �at a great idea: This one falls in the Technology category– this is always a fun part of the weekend because so many di�erent ideas are being shared, it’s really like a tech-idea smorgasbord: time tracking, gps, project manage-ment, organization, job tracking; there really isn’t anything missing here. For me the Project management technology is a key implementation piece.
VendorRound - Robin:We’re blessed to be supported by such great sponsors. And I think it is really cool that each of our great sponsors gets a few minutes at each roundtable to talk about what’s new, and ask what contractors want to see, or what they’re having problems with. Total feedback loop completion here; the best contractors with a direct connection to the best suppliers: collaboration at it’s grass-roots �nest.
Off - Menu:By far the best part of Advanced Shop Talk is what’s not on the program menu list; it’s the relationships that you cultivate and strengthen – this happens over breakfast, lunch, happy hour, and dinner. I can’t say where my business would be if I didn’t have the best-of-the-best on my speed dial.
This conference is the game changer - get thee there next year – CLEVELAND OHIO! See you all there.
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SAVEthe
DATE
For more information, visit paintinganddecoratingexpo.com
San Diego, a chance to get away from the daily grind of being
surrounded by the business. A chance to STOP and THINK about the
business. How to better work on the business instead of in it. To GROW as
owners, in a way that is best for our company, and possibly get RICH with pro�t and accomplishments
during the journey.
I was reminded that Succ�s is not what you get; rather it’s what you become along the way through growth
and accomplishments. That we are not what we think we are, instead WHAT WE THINK we are, as Henry Ford said
“Wheth� we think we can � can’t, we’re right.” How we really have to focus on what goes on in our head.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the daily activities that we lose track of the big picture that we may have painted for ourselves and the direction
of our companies. I was reminded of ideas and attitudes that I have heard in the past and found myself saying; “I know this, why am I not doing �?”
The round table discussions made me aware that I am not alone in my challenges. I am sitting with owners of companies with 1-man shops, as well
as those with 3 million dollars in sales. I have a di�cult time of just watching from the sidelines and letting the employees do the work without
stepping in to assist when it probably is not needed. I need to remember that “I do everything” is not my job description. That I need to have owner-
ship thinking.
We all need remind�s of what we could or should be doing. I now believe that’s why we all need some type of
mentorship. It could be a Life coach or a Business coach. It can be weekly conference call with other owners, a
high intensity tip, or even a daily email to remind us to follow through on a goal we may have set. It needs to
be tailored to our personality, to what works for each of us. To challenge us as Darren Hardy says: “To strive past y�t�days b�t.” We can’t live in the past, but we can remember it, cherish it, re�ect on
it, and learn from it. Most important though is to use it as stepping stone to achieve new heights of
growth with building ourselves and our team.
Frank F Sperry IIISmooth Drywall Finish and Paint LLC
Editor ’s Note:Summer is over, and I almost missed it. Ever y year we kick o� our summer in June by spending a week at the beach with the entire Neill clan. Three generations and a head count of for ty-four of us in total (we were missing a few this summer). It ’s a priceless week, but this year when we got home, I put my head down, got back to work, and didn’t look up until the middle of August.
As I was reviewing ever yone else’s vacation schedules to make sure we had enough coverage in the o�ce, it occurred to me that I hadn’t taken a day off since my return on June 27th. Yikes. I quickly blocked out a few days for myself and booked a trip to the Poconos for some much needed R & R. And truthfully, I didn’t realize how much I needed it until we arrived on Wednesday night and I �nally exhaled. For two days I didn’t think about work (imagine that) and instead enjoyed the beautiful weather, beautiful surroundings, and the company of my eleven-year old daughter and one of her closest friends. I even endured a horseback ride up the mountain at their request (on a stubborn horse named Dark Knight, no less). Upon my return to town (but not to work), unfortunately I got sucked back in and spent the end of what was supposed to be my last day o� back in the o�ce.
It ’s so easy, especially during the busy summer months to keep work at the forefront of our lives, but at what cost? I know I missed some great oppor tunities to take day trips with my daughter while she’s still willing to spend time with me. I also know I missed the opportunity to take a day off to do something just for myself while she was in camp. And I know how irritable I was the fur ther into August I got with no break, and how much less stressed I felt upon my return. So, I’m encouraging you to open your calendar and look back to see when you last took some time o� (AST doesn’t count), and then look ahead and block out a day or two for your-self this fall. I promise when you look back next year, you’ll be happy to have a memor y stored away of a fun activity or adventure as opposed to just a tally of the record breaking number of days you spent at work.
John BusickVice-PresidentBob Kunst Painting, Inc707-933-7822 [email protected]
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