This past Tuesday, the Midwest Entrepreneurs class was treated once again to a very insightful presentation by a successful local entrepreneur. Our guest was Joe Thompson of Thompson Brothers Painting. Like most of our guest speakers so far this semester, Mr. Thompson strives to continually generate positive word-of-mouth communication about his business within the community. In other words, he understands that if you want to look good to customers, you have to actually do good.

I now turn things over to today’s student blogger, Jenna Rambow, to provide the details of the Thompson Brothers Painting entrepreneurial story.

Prof. Gabel

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Tuesday’s guest speaker was Mr. Joe Thompson of Thompson Brothers Painting, Inc. The business is located in a “small town USA” called Roseville, IL, and its area of expertise is commercial painting of storage buildings and grain bins along with some houses and interior work.

Mr. Thompson is the youngest of nine brothers and sisters. They were all raised by a mother who was rich with respect, not dollars, and who taught them that if you want something you have to work for it. Therefore, due to that lesson, most of the siblings today either own a business or work for one of their siblings that does.

Throughout the year, all of the outside paint jobs (the majority of the business) are performed beginning early in the spring and all the way through the fall. The interior paint jobs are performed during the winter. In total, Thompson’s company completes about 110 jobs per year. These jobs range from the very small to the very large and are billed at anywhere between $400 and $40,000. For the outside jobs, the weather (like the rain and wind) can be a major obstacle to deal with. Because of the importance of the weather, Mr. Thompson always has his phone with him so that he can check radar and the weather for the day.

During his presentation Tuesday, Mr. Thompson made a couple of points about how to make a business look good to customers, especially in a small town community. Simply put, to look good, you have to do good. One recommendation made is that a business should always do quality work. This is because the word-of-mouth is both essential and inevitable in a small town. Information travels fast and it could either benefit the business or destroy the business. Therefore, the quality of work has to be good. The second point is that it’s important to volunteer and to donate time and money in the community. This is so that you show people that you care about the community. In return, hopefully it attracts current and potential customers to the business. In fact, Mr. Thompson is the President of the Community Center Board and a volunteer coach. He also donates his time to helping friends with their paint projects and donates money to the local FFA program.

Like many of the businesses featured in guest speaker presentations so far this semester, Thompson Brothers Painting business does very little advertising. This is because the company relies mostly on word-of-mouth communication, just like John “Beefy” Huston’s landscaping business. The business also doesn’t have a website or a Facebook page, which is another similarity to Mr. Huston’s landscaping business. However, the business does do some advertising in the Farm Bureau paper due to the fact that it attracts a lot of farmers that have grain bins and storage buildings that eventually need painting and other maintenance.

In the area, there are a lot of painters. However, those painters don’t do exactly what Thompson’s  business does. Therefore, the direct competition is sparse. However, often in the summer, what he referred to as “Southern Painters” come up to the region from the south and try to get  business by knocking on the farmers’ doors and persuading them to have buildings painted while they are in the area. These competitors typically charge less than Thompson Brothers but do far lower quality work. As we were told, many of the local people who do business with the “Southern Painters” regret it and turn to Thompson for their future paintintg needs. This reinforces Mr. Thompson’s recommendation to always do quality work.

In the spring, the business has about 5 employees working on paint projects. In the summer, the number increases to about 8-10 employees. All of these employees are part-time. Mr. Thompson does not have any full-time employees. Therefore, the business does not provide health insurance. However, the business does provide workers’ compensation. Mr. Thompson usually hires people who he knows and who have a good work ethic. He will also ask people in the community if they know of anyone who is looking for a job and is willing to work.

For a paint job, Mr. Thompson normally sends a crew within a 30 mile radius but will go up to about 75 miles. He always sends at least 2 people to the job site for safety reasons. The work is labor intensive. About 80% to 90% of the job is spray painted. For a house, it could take up to 7 days for it to be completed. For a machine shed, it could only take up to 2 days. Furthermore, during the summer, the work week is long as the work is about 80 to 90 hours a week.

In any given year, Thompson will use about 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of paint. At 30 or more dollars per gallon, this obviously represents a major expense for the business. However, the company buys in bulk to get volume discounts and actually ends up making money on the paint.

When asked about major investment in equipment, Thompson said the best investment he has made is in “bucket trucks” that lift workers up to the tops of buildings and virtually do away with the need for ladders and scaffolding. Today, the business has invested in 5 bucket trucks and about a dozen sprayers. The bucket trucks help the workers get the job done faster. It’s also safer for the workers.

Mr. Thompson has no plans to expand the business, nor does he want to. He just thinks it would cause more headaches. He would rather stay local. However, the business does gradually expand every year but not on purpose. Due to the gradual expansion every year, Mr. Thompson does more managing these days. However, he still paints every now and then along with his employees and teaches them how to paint the correct way.

Currently, Mr. Thompson doesn’t really have an exit plan. He also doesn’t necessarily want his 2 children (ages 12 and 14) to take over the business in the future (but you never know). However, if he was to sell the business, the person would have to be an expert in painting and would have to want to do the job. Mr. Thompson is not going to sell his business with his family’s name on it to a person who does not care about the job.

A stressful thing that Mr. Thompson deals with is rules and regulations like OSHA, EPA, and other governmental rules and regulations. He also has had to sue a couple of customers to them not wanting to pay for the work that was done. That process can be very stressful as well.

Mr. Thompson receives several different kinds of complaints after a paint job has been completed such as missing spots, not painting heavily, stepping on plants, accidentally spraying a car, and etc. When this happens, he strives to make things right with the customer as soon as possible.

At the end of Mr. Thompson’s presentation, he left us with several key points to ponder in order to have a successful business, which I thought were all great points.

1) You need to enjoy your work.

2) You need to be motivated to run your business.

3) You need to be dependable.

4) You need to be visible in your community.

5) You need to be sincere.

6) You should listen to your customer by doing what they want done.

7) Don’t be afraid to admit that you made a mistake and don’t be afraid to do whatever you can to fix it.

Jenna Rambow