Andrew Taulbee With LIME Painting

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Andrew Taulbee with Lime Painting. Welcome, Andrew.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:00:42] Thank you, ma’am.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about lime painting.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:00:49] Lime painting is a national paint company based out of Denver, Colorado. It’s very value based. They are very active in supporting charities of different mostly youth and faith based organizations, and they’re expanding rapidly across the US. And I’m actually the first franchise owner here in Georgia.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:01:23] Well, I came out of college playing professional sports. I was a baseball player. I was drafted in the second round by the Giants coming out of college. I played for five years and blew out my shoulder. And the first instinct for me was to go into something financial. I went into financial planning and realized I didn’t get into it at the right time and didn’t really like it. So I went into telecommunications, which I’ve been in that for the last 12 or 13 years or so. I’ve basically sat at a desk and talked to people locally and also around the world, but I realized that I wanted to be more outside and doing something to give back to the community. Lime painting came along after a thorough search of different franchises that were service based, and it was since it’s value based and giving back, it was very intriguing to my wife and myself and that’s kind of how we landed on it.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:21] Can you share a little bit about going through the process of choosing a franchise? Because once you kind of make that decision, okay, I’m going to go franchise as a, you know, kind of a career path. There’s infinite possibilities. And how did you narrow it down and how did you ultimately land online? Did you have help or was this something you did on your own?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:02:45] Sure, it’s a great question. So there are a couple of different ways you can go about getting into a franchise. One, you can just walk by a franchise and they’ll have a sign up there. Says, Interested in being a franchise? That’s a kind of a limited way of looking at it. You can also just look up franchises on the Internet, and once you do that, you’ll probably have a bunch of franchise brokers reaching out to you. And that’s what happened with me. I had a franchise broker come out. They interview you, ask you what your likes and dislikes are, what your hobbies, what you’re interested in, and then they bring back four or five different choices of national franchises. And then you sit there and vet those out over a couple of weeks. Then you go out on Discovery Day for the two or three that you like, and then you ultimately make a decision and sign the paper.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:33] Now you like, how did you get into painting like? Was that in your radar when you first started where you’re like, it’s probably going to be a painting franchise?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:03:43] No, that was one of the first questions the broker asked me is because have you ever thought about going into the painting business? So no, actually the franchises that came our way were a little bit different based on our backgrounds. We were looking for something that was service based, that didn’t have any physical location overhead or lots of it. But they came up with different ones that were one of them was seniors helping seniors, where you have the older community helping seniors in need. One of them was a water restoration business line. Painting was one and then one was was called D one training. It was actually a gym where people of either high school age or college age can go and work out with a professional trainer.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:27] So then what were some of the questions they asked you to kind of narrow it down and ultimately choose lime?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:04:34] Oh, they ask you about your background. What are your attitudes towards owning overhead, how much you want to spend, what your net worth is, things of that nature?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:44] And then what was the like? So what put it over the top for you. Where Line Lime was the right choice?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:04:51] Well, Lime was a service business that allowed me to be outside most of the day. It’s a need that’s COVID proof, recession proof. Because everywhere you look is a coating needs to be placed somewhere, whether it’s in a commercial building or a home. So it’s something that always needs to happen and their value system. Lime stands for Love, Integrity, Mission and Excellence. It just spoke to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:20] So now tell us about the actual lime services you mentioned that you do can work commercial or residential. Can you talk about the types of services that you offer?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:05:31] Sure. So Lime is traditionally a painting company. With painting comes a lot of different things, including exterior, interior, commercial, residential. You also have different services. Services surfaces like wood, metal stamped concrete will also do restoration services like gutters leaking. Or if you have rot on your house, we’ll go in and replace all that for you with quality and custom and premier products. So we do a good job and do it right.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:05] So now as part of the mission of lime is not only to do great work, but it’s also to serve the community. So how are do you plan on serving the Atlanta community?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:06:17] Great question. So my wife and I have been involved in a charity called Lighthouse Family Retreats. It’s a charity that focuses on giving families that have children with cancer some time away like a vacation. So what we do is we raise money for that organization and then go and serve. We serve those families while they’re on vacation. So they have a little time off, a little break from the normal day to day and have time to enjoy some of the cooler things in life, usually on the beach.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] So now in your previous work, you’ve worked for larger organizations. Is this the first time you’ve kind of been the boss and this is your own entrepreneurial venture?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:07:03] It’s the first time I’ve been the boss in something this this big as an organization. I’ve owned little companies, LLCs before that have done things like hold rental properties and stuff like that. But this is the first time I’ve had employees and manage sales teams. So yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:21] So how has that adventure been? Because that’s a different skill set, right, to lead yourself or, you know, manage your own time and your own kind of the outcomes that you desire versus now leading an organization and training people to get ready to serve and also to be able to create that culture so that your employees understand, you know, the why behind what you do.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:07:47] Yes. Yeah. So I’ve always been a part of teams where I’ve either been the lead, but this is just a little bit different because it’s actually me that’s funding it. It’s just a different, I guess, mindset and that you’re doing it for yourself and the community instead of just for somebody else, the company.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:08] So do you have a mentor or a coach that’s helping you through this?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:08:15] Yes, the community is actually very thorough. So I communicate with the corporation themselves. I’m the head of lineman in Denver. And then also they have a good network of mentors through the franchisees. So we have a call and then I have the ability to talk to them whenever I have a question or a need or an experience. They’re very fast to help out and explain the process and how they handled it and and how to move forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:47] Now, is there any moment so far that has been rewarding that you’ve you’ve kind of got that goosebump feeling like, hey, we’re on the right path. This is something that’s really going to be good for us and the community.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:09:05] Yeah. When we hired our first employee and we came back from training and and she went out the first day and got a couple of prospects that that was very rewarding just to see her to grow and get to that point where she’s able to do it by herself and and manage the process. So that was very rewarding.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:25] Now, you mentioned you were the first lime in Georgia. Is it something that you’re trying to build a lime empire throughout Georgia? Is that the intention or is this kind of a business for you in the in the area that you’re living right now?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:09:39] It would be nice to build a lime empire. It’s going to take some time. And of course, building the reputation is kind of curious. Some of the people I went to training with, they were in Texas and my my territories I have three territories here in Georgia. My three territories fit in one of their territories. So the land is very dense in terms of population. So it would take a lot to get us to grow phenomenally. It’s going to take some time.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:09] So now what is the kind of pain your customer is feeling right now where lime is the right solution?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:10:17] Well, we usually focused on on. The higher end. We’re not usually going out for just any paint job. We’re very custom painters. So we’re we’re usually looking for 500,000 and above. We’re very quality based. So we’re not just going to go out there and paint something and not prepared the surfaces. We’re going to make sure it’s prepped right. There’s a solid substrate and that we can paint and make it look phenomenal. So some people get picky, but we explain the value in that, that if you want it to last and look good for a long time, this is the process and it’s sometimes it’s not going to be your basic paint job.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] So now is this paint job, is it the whole exterior of the house? Is it the whole interior of the house? Could it be just one room? Like what is the typical job?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:11:09] Yeah, typically in painting, usually you start on exteriors because those are the easiest to do and you only have a certain amount of time based on the weather. But we also do interiors as well. We also do cabinets, custom surfaces. It just depends on the job.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:28] So your quote, if anybody has any painting need, you’ll have a conversation with them, right?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:11:33] Correct. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:34] And if somebody wanted to have that more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to get a hold of you?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:11:42] The best way is to call us this way. It’s 34704685599 would be the best way.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:58] And then is there a website for Lyme?

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:00] Yes we’re W WW dot lime painting of Atlanta dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:06] And then if they went to lime painting dot com they can find you through that and drill down to your location as well.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:13] Yes the lime painting dot com would actually go to the one in Denver, but if they put in their zip code or anything like that, it would out back to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:20] Well, Andrew, congratulations on all the success.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:26] Well, thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] All right. So one more time, the website for lime.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:32] It’s a lime painting of Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:35] Its lime painting of Atlanta dot com.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:39] Correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:40] All right, Andrew Taub, lime painting. Thank you for sharing your story today.

Andrew Taulbee: [00:12:45] All right.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:46] Thank you. All right. This Lee Kantor will see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.