Ryan Englin on DYB Podcast: Hire Better People Faster for Painting Contractors

I went on the DYB Podcast with Steve Burnett to talk about why painting contractors and trade businesses don't have a hiring problem. They have a retention problem.

Here's the math I walked Steve's listeners through. Think about how many employees you had on December 31st last year. Now think about how many W2s your CPA had to issue. If those numbers don't line up, and they almost never do, you're looking at three, four, five times as many W2s as employees. That's not a hiring problem. That's a keeping-people problem disguised as a hiring problem.

We spent a lot of time on what companies get wrong at the strategic level. Every job ad out there says the same thing. Here's the position, here's the pay, here's the requirements. But people don't leave jobs. They leave people. They leave bosses. They leave cultures. When someone with painting skills goes looking, they already know what the work is. What they want is a different team, a different leader, a different environment. And nobody is speaking to that need. Every ad is about what the company wants. Almost none of them talk about what the candidate gets.

I told Steve that money is the excuse people give when they quit. Not the reason. They use it because they know you won't counter it. If you counter for one person, everyone else lines up. So they say "I got offered more" and walk out. The real reason is almost always relational. They don't feel valued. They don't feel invested in. They don't feel like anyone cares about them as a human being.

That's where I introduced the Growth Accelerator Program. Most owners hear "growth" and think professional development. Better painters, future foremen, leadership pipeline. That matters. But our program is personal growth. How many of your people are living paycheck to paycheck? How many are stressed about money every single day? What if you brought in Dave Ramsey's Smart Dollar program and ran your team through it? What if you did a lunch-and-learn on budgeting or brought in a financial advisor? The investment is tiny. Thirty bucks a month. The return is an employee who says "my company helped me get out of debt." Nobody else is doing that for them.

I told the audience that owners need to spend 30% of their week focused on their people. A day and a half. Every single week. When you do that, your people take care of your customers. They take care of your business. They take care of growth.

Steve asked where companies find good people. I pushed back on the word "find." Stop looking for people and start attracting them. If you're not attracting good people, you're probably not attractive to good people. Sit with that for a minute.

We talked about getting plugged into your community. Habitat for Humanity. Chamber of commerce. Rotary. Your kid's t-ball team. One client started showing up at every local Habitat project and sponsoring events. Employees at other companies noticed and said "my boss doesn't do that. I want to be part of a company that cares about the community I live in." Grassroots campaigns are one of the best things a small company can do.

I also shared a story about a client with a 90% interview no-show rate. We listened to their screening calls and found the recruiters were pencil-whipping through questions. One candidate mentioned he played in a band on Friday nights. The recruiter just checked the box and moved on. That was an opportunity to create an emotional connection. Ask about the band. What instrument? Where do they play? Give the candidate something to lose. A new friend. A boss who cares. Three weeks after we coached the team to connect on personal details, the no-show rate dropped from 90% to less than 10%.

We closed with employee referrals. Less than 6% of people will refer for money. Stop offering a thousand bucks after 90 days. Instead, offer three days of paid time off. And give the new hire three days too after their first 90 days. Now your employee isn't just asking a buddy to quit his job. He's saying "my company will give you paid time off so you and your wife can finally take that trip." That changes the entire conversation.

If you liked this, I go deeper on recruiting as a marketing activity and building a bench of candidates on Titans of the Trades.