Pro Custom Painting

When I left education, I went from having 50 school counselors I could call for help to sitting alone in my office wondering "who do I even ask?"

That isolation nearly broke me in those first six months. I'd quit on Jose every other weekend because I felt so lost without my professional network.

But here's what saved our business: swallowing my pride and asking for help. I started texting Jason Phillips with random questions. I messaged other contractors. I showed up to PCA events even when I felt like the newest person in the room.

Oscar from Milan Painting literally came to my house for breakfast to teach me production rates because I'm a visual learner and couldn't figure it out over the phone.

The painting industry has this incredible community where people actually want to help each other succeed. Sarah Ross spent hours with me on Zoom fixing our QuickBooks mess. Michael shares resources freely. These aren't my competitors - they're my lifeline.

If you're struggling alone in your painting business, you don't have to. The help is there, but you have to be brave enough to ask for it. The moment I stopped trying to figure everything out by myself was the moment we started actually building something sustainable.

I quit my school counselor job to help my husband grow our painting business, and our household income dropped significantly. We were staying busy with jobs, but something wasn't adding up — one plus one wasn't equaling two.

We were paying our painters by the day and using what I now know was "guesstimation" for pricing. I'd never heard of production rates before attending one of Jason Phillips' contractor events. When he explained why the way most people price jobs doesn't work, it was an eye-opener.

I started digging into our numbers, not even knowing what I was looking for. But when your family's financial security depends on figuring out why you're busy but not profitable, you become really motivated to find answers fast.

The transition from a steady educator's salary to the unpredictable reality of construction cash flow was jarring. But it forced me to understand our business in ways my husband never had to when he was running it solo for years.