The Painting in Decorating Show on Fixed Radio. Welcome to the Painting and Decorating
Show on Fixed Radio. I'm Joel bard All with Top On Joel, and
on today's show, we're talking about being selective with the work we take on
as soul traders and how to avoid taking on jobs you don't want. And
joining us to offer some insight into this is Brian Dennett, a third generation
decorator with decades of experience. What's happening Tvjen, We're saying blood Yeah,
man, I'm good, I'm good. I'm looking forward today's show. I'm
going to bring some positive positivity back on the mic because I can feel that
there might have been a bit of negativity squeezing into my performance. Well hopefully
hopefully in the positive vibes. I know that recently the weather started to just
pick up a little bit of teasings, teases. I actually came to the
Fixed Radio studio just a T shirt, no pants, snow trousers is alwaying
out, but you know, just came to the studio and a T shirt.
But yeah, man, it's it's you only just feel like we've been
saying this for weeks though, Like it's on the horizon. But like recently,
I was in the garden, was doing a bit of gardening. I've
seen the pitch down and sunning up a bit, and it's just it's nice,
man. I just feel that. I think the whole positive thing there
for me when the weather starts just getting a little bit warmer and you're starting
your outside jobs yet or anything in the pipeline. In the pipeline, me
and my power Danny's already checking out my availability. He's the man with the
big ten jobs in Kensington's big outside one four weeks. I did work with
him last year. I'm just starting first a little bit, just a little
bit of nothing major, just a couple of windows and it was really easily
accessible, you know. It's a little bit of ladd of work, but
just a couple of windows, a bit of faceship board, just to sort
of getting the ball rolling. But I did notice as well as the weather
has been warmer recently, what I was working in a living room and I
thought to himself, because it's a bit of a sort yeah, it's a
bit of a shock. And then I thought to myself, I've been sort
of saying and moaning and that I don't want to do as many exterior jobs.
And I thought, oh, you know what, because I did a
whole run of just pure exterior work through the whole, like the summer season.
I'm thinking, I hang on a minute, you know, like,
do I really want to be stuck inside? Will you freak me out?
Because a couple of weeks ago you went up and doing I've been watching the
weather and I'm predicting a wash out this summer and It's played on my mind
and I've never forgotten it because whose mental health cann't handle just this elongated sort
of like spring that's just not really moving over into some of yet. And
imagine that just a wet summer. That mate? That well, fingers cross,
mate. You know, I don't always get everything right, So you
take it with a pinch of salt. Right, Should we get rocking with
the show? Yeah? Man right. Brian Dennett will join us to discuss
how to be selective with the work we take on after Jennifer Lopez only funny
Painting and Decorating show on Fixed Radio. You're listening to the Painting and Decorating
Show. I'm Joel Barder with Tov and Joel and joining us on the phone
now is for a generation decorator and friend of the show, Brian Dennitt.
Brian, welcome to the show mate. We're going to go straight into it.
So we're talking about how to separate the jobs you want from those you
don't. So, Brian, what are some basic red flags you look out
for when in the quoting process? Hi, Joel Hi Todd, Thanks for
having me on the show again. This is a bit of a dodgy area
really. One red flag really is if when you approach a customer's house that
or it's a scruffy house, it's sort of falling too bits, it doesn't
look as though they've got any money, or they've got sort of like motorbike
bits in the garden or whatever. You think, God, you know,
are they going to be able to afford me for a start? That that
would be a red flag. Another one for me would be if they start
telling me a lot of tech speak, like they know the inside out of
my job. You've got to think, well, they've been told that by
somebody else and they're probably just using me as Another one, and probably one
of the really strangest ones that I've ever been asked with a big red flag.
Somebody said to me, is it okay if we pay you in installments,
if we accept your quote? No, definitely not. I've had someone
actually say to me, do I do payment plans? I would early think
no, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. What kind of distances
would you and wouldn't you travel to for work? And why? Back in
the past, when my dad was working with me, we used to go
about fifty sixty miles or about sort of one hour away because we had some
sort of regular jobs we used to do. But luckily now ninety eight percent
of my work is within a three to four mile radius just in my village,
the next village, or the next two villages really, so that's really
handy. I've got one client that's about sixteen miles away. I was there
a couple of weeks ago. And I've got another client that's moved to the
next county. She only used to live down the road from me. I
used to walk to her jobs. But she's in the next county now.
But she's quite happy to pay for me to play travel time and expenses for
me to get there and do her work. So I must be doing something
right. Yeah, it sounds like it so I could do with some of
that. I'm doing like one and a half hours most of the time at
one an hour to an hour and a half, and I don't facts are
in travel time or petrol money. Just that just comes with me. You
do you aim to talk too old for that these days? I was going
to say, do you aim to try and be more local these days?
Then I just don't need to travel. I'm very fortunate with my work.
As I say, I've got a lot of repeat customers, word of mouth
recommendation. I don't need to travel, so I'm very fortunate. Yeah,
no, fair enough, I know, and Tod obviously we talk about this
a lot as well. I've always tried to be for quite a few years
now a local decorator. So yeah, I don't do much. I don't
go really beyond never, very rarely now. The only reason why it's ever
now as if there's a heavy traffic, So most of the time it's between
sort of thirty minutes forty five minutes maximum. But yeah, it just I
just feel more productive as well, because you know, when you do that
kind of travel time, Yeah, it is hate. I don't I just
don't like driving. It's because I built up the local decorator sort of like
clients out and then I moved, keeping that I have cited down a lot
from what I was doing. But it does take out of you, Yeah,
oh it does. I'm currently working about maybe a third of a mile
away from home, which is really nice. Traffic was bad this morning,
though, I had to give way at the T junction. Yeah, I
know, I found as well. I had a job quite recently. It
was literally three minutes down the road, and I sort of felt like I
was getting later and later because I thought, well, I don't have to
get a bed just so early, so early, and I could be late
with its three minutes down the road, right, Brian, So how can
you assess your profit margins and figure figure out whether a job is worth the
price you're quoting? I don't think you always can. Sometimes it's not until
you start the job that you realize certain things that will affect your profit.
You know, just something simple like can you park on the job or do
you have to park in a car park down the road and you've got to
carry your stuff backwards and forwards? Things like that, Just simple things like
whatever room you're working in, does the client want that room put back at
night, and you've got to set it all up again in the morning.
It's just all these little half an hour's here and there can add up and
affect your bottom line, bright mayde your profits. Seth When you say that,
do you mean like extra days you've you've put on the job which you
wouldn't be which you wouldn't be working for like labor? How do you what
do you what constitutes profit for you? Talking to me? If if if
I think I'm going to a job's going to take me five days, I
will quote it for five days labor. If I get out of it in
four, then obviously I've made a day's labor on it. That that's that's
profit to me. I know a lot of guys you know sort of stick
got a load of tentages on top. I do to a certain degree,
but it's all in a lump sum. But I still it still works out
on you know, how long I think a job's going to take? Yeah,
same here. Maybe if it's say it's a job that's thirty days,
I might quote thirty two days. But usually the thing is those days get
eaten up, Like you said, anyway, so you're still working on those
days. It's not like Time made a really good point there, because it's
something I'm quite guilty of sometimes where I've actually forget to actually ask the client
safe it's a bedroom and you go, oh, I've priced it for eight
eight hours an eight hour day, and I've actually forgot to say, oh,
do you need that room back of an evening because they go, yeah,
we need to we need to sleep in here. Whenever you think you've
got you can't just leave it sleeping on the dust sheets. You got,
you got pulled out away, like you say, a good half hour sort
of clearing the sort of things, leaving bits and getting the bits out of
the way. So it's you see, it's one of those things you can
easily kind of up over a job. Yeah, have a two week job
half an hour a day, what's that? Ten days, ten times half
and that's five hours half a day's work. Yeah, you know the other
one with the maskulls mate, not me. So I've believe everywhere you say,
Okay, Brian, we've got we've got more to ask you about this
fixed radio. I'm Joel Bardo with Tov and Joel, and we're talking about
how to be selective with the jobs you take on as a decorator. Still
on the line is Brian Dennett, who has decades of experience in our trade,
running his third generation family business. Brian, So, what kind of
work do you personally avoid in decorating and why? Um, papering? Really,
I'm not a lover of papering. I'm not the best paper hanger,
but I've got fed up of clients buying cheap crap paper that's just not fit
for purpose and they expect you to make it perform miracles basically. Yeah.
Yeah, on exteriors. Then if a job needs scaffolding and the clients as
all, I'm not paying for that. You know, you can do it
off a ladder. Well no, sorry, no, If it's going to
risk my neck then then no way. I'll have a red flag. Yeah,
yeah, it it is a red flag. Yeah. But getting back
to papering, Um, you know, if a client says, oh,
you know, I'm using top quality paper or whatever, all this is what
I'm going to use and it's a nice one, then I'm happy to do
it. But look this toilet paper crap that they sometimes I just got a
name to it. Yeah, yeah, mentioning no names. Yeah, okay,
So, what's been some instances where you've walked away, either in the
process of quoting, or even at the start, or even during the work
itself when quoting when you realize that the client just wants a very cheap job
done and won't listen to any advice that you give them, and I just
tend to sort of say to them, well, look, sorry, but
my standard of work is beyond your requirements, and I will not lower my
standards and have my name attached to the type of work that you want.
So I would walk away in that sense on a job. In all the
sort of fourteen what five or six years since I've been working, it's only
opened twice. The first instance was a client's husband accused us. When I
say us, it was me and my father at the time, of damaging
a ceiling in a room which was at the opposite end of the house that
we were actually working in. Now, he absolutely flew into a rage.
He was very nearly come to blows that he was I say, he did
it didn't physically attack us, but he was awful, really awful. So
we just he threatened us an all sorts. So we just down tours and
we walked out, and when we never returned, it turned out that another
contractor had damaged the ceiling when he was in the loft above that particular room.
This boat never ever did apologize, although his wife did, but we
never ever went back to work from again. Yeah, yeah, paid,
Did you lose money there as well? No, no, we not paid
for what we did, which which was absolutely fine. But yeah, we
left some materials there, but again it was all paid for, so so
no, we didn't. We didn't lose out. We got paid for what
we did. Now. The other case was on an exterior job where we
were doing we needed to put a ladder in the neighbor's garden to paint about
three meters of facier and soft it right at the end of a job,
but the neighbor refused as he is. Him and the client were feuding,
so we just couldn't finally finish the job, so we had to walk away
to him. You know, you get it, Yeah, you get it
sorted, and we'll come back. Well we did go back because they both
ended up going to court a few months later, custom about two grand in
legal fees. All happy days, and we went back and did the job.
So but that's the only two instances that's ever happened to me. Fair
enough, mate. So last on the last show, we talked about working
for friends and family. So what's been your experiences with that and also what
are some rules you have when doing so? Another difficult one. There's always
a difficult one with friends and family. I tend to do it for free
or very cheap on a favor return basis, but generally you'll never make any
money working for family or friends. Well I don't anyway, Brian face for
your time of knowledge on this show today, right, you're listening to fixed
radio the Builder Station and painting and decorating shows on fixed Radio. This is
the Painting and Decorating show on Fixed Radio. I'm Joel Barter with Tov and
Joel, and we're talking about how to avoid taking on jobs that aren't right
for you and your business. So, when you've taken all the jobs you've
regretted in the past, what do you find is the most common issue.
Well, for me with that, there's sort of two things. One is
the practical issue, where there's clearly a lot more work than I've quoted for,
and the mountain of extra work doesn't really constitute me going to the client
and saying, right, I'm going to need this is going to take another
day or day and a half. It's my own oversight or something that if
I have been a little bit cute when I was putting the quote together,
I would have realized always sort of is bad from a role, and you
know you're gonna have to do a lot more than you thought you were going
to the same price. And the other thing is when you're working with someone
and I don't want to say the relationship turned sour because we're all professionals and
we would never let that happen. But that doesn't mean we're not thinking certain
things. And sometimes when you're working for someone and their personality, you get
to know them and you have issues with their personality or the way they are
that can make things a bit like going in because they're whatever, and you
know what I mean, they're just a bit of they're not right for whatever
reason that could be. I think. So I think there's a lot of
hindsight with what we do as well, I mean, and then sometimes you
don't pick up on things. But I know there's people who are fussy and
I've always made a point of that they've got every right to be fussy.
But there are times you've done a job you think they're going to be a
lot nice people to work for, but then they're beyond fussy, you know,
like they're overboard fussy and it's just nitpicking in the end, and then
you're thinking, oh, this personally, you know, and it's just like
that they look they're actually going out their way to look for imperfections and blemishes.
So I just, you know, like this little minor things is ridiculous.
I finally you get situations with that kind or the other thing I get
is I'm quite sort of I feel I'm quite good at reading people, and
I understand that although having like decorating and work done in the house, in
the long run is a lovely thing, it is an inconvenience and it is
stressful having people in your house. And what I find is sometimes when they
start to resent you being there because they've got to get up every morning and
let you in at eight o'clock or whatever, and you can start to feel
it and you're like, look, I'm just coming here to do a job.
If you I'm sorry you've had to get out of bed or whatever.
This is inconvinced you. But you are employing me to do this. Yeah,
yeah, exactly, and you can sort of sense it a bit.
And also and if you start to feel awkward in the house, like you
just want to be able to use the toilet or make a cup of tea
or or be offered a cup of tea without tiptoeing around people. And like
you said, some people, you can't quite believe how rude they are.
What I know what I don't do. I don't do it at all now.
But I used to do a lot of work for like like blocks of
flats and stuff like that, so you know, like the communal areas.
I don't won't won't going near him now because I've had things in the past
where like when you work communal and then if it's private, then all of
the occupants have to pay together when you're only dealing with one person, and
there's always that one person. One I'm at work, I'm not going to
open up the front door because I'm not here, And you're thinking, well,
how do you want me to paint the front door? How do you
want me to do? How much supposed to get into your balcony. I
supposed to do this, and I've done those jobs in the pass and the
like good money out of them. But I'm like, now I've been asked
and these people have actually worked on and they're going, oh, we actually
want to get the community aries done. Would you quote? No, because
I've just been too many times when I've been on those jobs and I'm thinking,
oh, man, in the end, it's just it's frustrate. You've
got one busybody that's organizing it, and then you've got some people that want
it done, some people that don't really care, and then some people that
don't want it dun because I don't want to pay the money, and they've
argued out amongst themselves, and by the time you get on the job,
the ones that don't want to pay whatever, Yeah, they come out and
have a little weirds just a bit of a weird atmosphere. Yeah, because
you never had any contact with them, never even met them. Every really
said the first time is when you knock on the door and you feel like,
yeah, you get with that sort of attitude. What changes have you
made to your quoting process over the years to avoid taking on unwanted jobs?
I would say the terms and conditions. That is not something that I've always
done. This take me a long time to grasp that and actually implementing every
quote or estimate I do now. So that is a big factor. And
I clearly state certain things. I mean I had a job, really nice
job, nice people. But when I said about getting a deposit for the
materials and we was talking about payment like before the job started, it was
like, oh, yeah, I'll pay you a check, and I said,
no, I don't accept checks. And it's actually on my terms and
conditions I won't accept checks. Now. I know you can get the banking
apps and you can take pictures and stuff, but it's only up to a
certain limit. But who's got the time? Because of shutting down banks left,
right, and center, I ain't got time to go and run down
the bank and do that. And I'm thinking you've had enough time because this
is not like oh this is last minute. I mean, this has all
been organized and it's in black and white on the terms and conditions that I
don't accept checks. It was all fine, but I was a bit like,
you know, man, it's just it's just too much. Yeah.
Twenty three, who's who's dealing with checks. Now, I don't know.
I hate technology, but you won't catch me. Yeah, and I think
there's I know there's some older clients and you have to kind of you know
what I mean. You want to help people out, but at the same
time, you think, you know, you've you've accepted this quote in the
X amount of time, you know, in advance. So it's been months
and months and months and it's there, it's been written out so prepared for
it. So no, it's only like a minor mistake, but on their
part. But yeah, again, terms and conditions for me is so emptying
stuff out of the room. It damages if there's anything. It was Brian
saying about damage on the ceiling, and you know, like sometimes if the
people want to blame you for damage for their property, so you can say,
look, I understand if you want to leave the television and your sofas
in the room because you can't move them out, that's fair enough. But
I won't be liable for any damages. So I put that in terms of
conditions because I'm thinking the end of the day, if there's really valuable bits,
you need to take them out of the room. I understand you have
to stay there. But if I should accidentally smack it, whack it or
anything like that, it's not what you know, what I mean, what
we're supposed to do because yourself. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. My thing.
What I'll do is to add on to that is to do with the
work stuff. So I'll write, for example, exterior faces of cupboards and
then the capitals only because I don't want to go out. You're not doing
inside the cupboards? No, because you said no, and doing inside the
cupboards it's actually much more work than you think it is, exactly And if
you said no, I'm making it clear that we all know I'm not doing
the inside because there's twelve cupboards in the property hallway facing only. I put
things like that. Yeah it's a little detail. Yeah yeah, exactly,
exactly right. We'll talk about distances, would travel and request from customers before
the end of the show, So stay with us Fix Radio time to crack
on. I'm Joe Badle with Tovan Jo and we've been talking about bringing the
wrong kind of job into your business as a decorator. So travel, where
will you and won't you travel to? And why toddn't know you said you
do you do side. You see you done it again? You said you
do a fair few miles, don't you mate? I do? I do
too much. It's because I built up a client base in Surrey and now
I live in Heartford year. I think, what for this for Hartford year?
Yeah, living Haartford year. So I'm always on the M twenty five.
Starting to get a few more North London jobs, so which is good,
but even still North London is still forty five fifty minutes away Jay one
and Highgate at the moment. Yeah, do you know what, I'm sort
of ruled myself out at the top end of this. I do travel up
to sort of an hour and forty five minutes at worse sometimes. Yeah,
So you prefer not too Basically, I prefer not to. I prefer to
be a guru and do the walk to work. I think, look,
there's gonna be there's gonna be jobs that are going to be worth your while
if you're traveling like a long distance And again I always feel this is a
bit of a preference thing. If you if it's all about the money and
you're prepared to travel and you don't mind it, then I don't go for
it. But me personally, I just I hate driving. I hate I
was just kinda do you know what even at the moment, I don't know
about you. Have you seen that elephant that's escaped there's on the pogo stick
because I was a horrendous man. And it just feels like I'm doing a
five minute journey and I'm mashing up me van just getting to work. So
it's just everything. I don't like driving, I don't like going to distance,
and I feel like when you do get to after if you've done it
now or so driving or you've been sitting in traffic, I'm so frustrated and
wound up my time get to the job that you know, I don't want
to start a job on the down are like that half an hour does be
fine. You're totally right there. And I think it's a luck shore.
I think you've obviously built up over the years to so your work is like
that. I mean, I know it wasn't always like that, and I
think it's just where I've moved. I think any Decora actually become established and
you build up your client base, usually it'd be kind of near to where
you are, unless you're working for like a big company. Which is sort
of pimping you up over the place. Let's say you you know what you
want to charge your day, and if you're working locally and that's what you
charge your day. If you're going a distance and you're traveling more miles and
you're still charging that same amount, something's really really wrong. You can't be
driving even further so there's more miles and you know you're paying for more diesel,
petrol or whatever, and you've got all that extra time and you're charging
the same money. That's staff if you That's what I'm saying. If you're
traveling but you're earning more money fair enough, that makes it easier. I
think if you're on a good price for that work and you can sort of
justify. But you're right because if you're doing the distances that I'm doing,
sometimes it's like fifteen twenty quid a day and petrol plus I'm stopping the whole
time buying meal deals. Amounts My outgoing is a day can be like thirty
five quids sometimes. Yeah, So, because what kind of radius do you
need to operate in to avoid becoming a busy fault? Again, this is
what I'm saying. See it it's what. It depends on the business.
It depends what kind of business you've got. So if it may make sense
for you to do the traveling, then go these distances and go here,
there and everywhere, and you're earning money out of it, yeah, absolutely,
and you're prepared to do it, then fine. But for me personally,
I've always just tried to be a local, local decorator. And I
mean the other factories as well. It's you've got going to look at the
jobs. So if you've got going price the jobs, imagine driving an hour
or so to or whatever. You're driving all that distance to the job,
and you don't even get the job. I mean, how frustrating would that
be? You know, so you've lost that time, you lost money,
and you've not even won the job. And you've got to think about because
over the course of a year traveling to quote jobs, spending time we all
hate quoting. Whether you think when your phone, your laptop, whatever,
it's probably forty five minutes to get the quote just right. Over the course
of a year, I wonder how many hours and therefore how many days and
maybe how many weeks we spend just traveling and quoting for work. That we're
never going to be like good Will Hunt and give us the maths. I'm
actually not. I'm like, I'm the opposite. But yeah, a lot,
do you know what I mean? Just when you look at it like
that from a business sense, which I don't always look at things like that,
it's like, well, it's like when you go, right, Todd,
how many coffees you buy a day in the meal deal? Two or
three? That's like nine pounds a day just on coffee. Yeah, man
quid day whenever. I probably have three coffees a day and I'll stop off
at characters. Yeah, not every day. But if you look at it
like that, it's like people that smoked, they say smoked twenty a day.
How much is it for a cigarette? Seas scorn hu, that's that
four hundred quid a month. Four hundred times twelve is a lot of money
on grouts. Yeah, but they make you look like though people think they
look like James Dean, they look more like alien mcquine