Kara Frenkel from Moving Target ATL- Mobile Axe Throwing and Oscar Velez from Three Brothers Painting, Inc.

Speaker1: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia, it’s time for Cherokee Business Radio.

Speaker2: [00:00:17] Now here’s your host.

Speaker3: [00:00:23] Welcome to Cherokee Business RadioX Stone Payton here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by Alma Coffey, sustainably grown, veteran owned and direct trade, which of course means from Seed to cup, there are no middlemen. Please go check them out at my Alma Coffee Dotcom and go visit their Roastery cafe at thirty four or forty eight, Holly Springs Parkway in Canton. As for Harry or the brains of the outfit Letitia and tell them that Stone sent you. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. A little bit later in the broadcast, we’re going to get a chance to visit with Oscar Vélez with three brothers painting. But first up on Cherokee Business RadioX this morning, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with moving target at Ole Miss. Kara Frankel.

Speaker2: [00:01:15] Good morning. Good morning. Glad to be here.

Speaker3: [00:01:18] I am so delighted to have you in the studio. It’s been this has been a while in the making, a while in the planning. Did we first meet maybe over here at the at Reformation at the Woodstock Business Club, or was

Speaker2: [00:01:31] It was it Woodstock Business Club?

Speaker3: [00:01:32] How many people have begun relationships with at a bar or brewery?

Speaker1: [00:01:39] So I

Speaker3: [00:01:40] Don’t know. But for all of you folks out there trying to grow your business, get something going, put some serious consideration into the bar strategy or the brewery strategy,

Speaker1: [00:01:50] Right

Speaker2: [00:01:52] Now, the cool people hang out.

Speaker3: [00:01:53] So moving target at all. Mission purpose. Tell us a little bit about the about the business and what you’re trying to what you’re trying to create for folks, what you’re trying to do for people.

Speaker2: [00:02:03] Ok, absolutely. Moving Target ATL is an entertainment

Speaker4: [00:02:07] Company that

Speaker2: [00:02:08] Comes to you. So we are 100 percent mobile. We get that often. Where is your location and moving target at all is one hundred percent on the road. So we are an ax throwing business and serving company, which brings a lot of camaraderie, a lot of stress relief, basically Catholicism, whatever you want to call it. And it brings people together and we do any type of event you can think of. We’ve probably already done it or already booked it. So we’ve been on the road since November the 1st and I’m still in our first year of a business, which is pretty exciting.

Speaker3: [00:02:43] Wow. So it’s early for you. So lessons learned so far. Anything surprised you in this last, what is it, eight, ten months?

Speaker4: [00:02:52] A lot has surprised us.

Speaker2: [00:02:54] I’m sure we’ll get into the background of how we got to this point. But the biggest thing is that how many people I mean, it’s a good time also after the pandemic and in covid, but a lot of people just excited to get back together and be able to do something fun. And probably what surprised us the most is how many people were having to turn away. So that supply and demand thing is really has really there’s only so many days on a calendar month to be able to hold events. So that does limit you. Absolutely.

Speaker3: [00:03:21] Well, I hadn’t thought about what a great problem to have.

Speaker1: [00:03:24] Right. Probably three months out. Happy birthday then. I had no right. Exactly.

Speaker3: [00:03:31] But and

Speaker4: [00:03:32] It’s a way to solve

Speaker3: [00:03:33] The problem or mitigate the problem or address the opportunity however you want to frame it. So are you considering maybe having more units? That’s right. We’re going yeah.

Speaker2: [00:03:44] We actually have some things to announce today.

Speaker3: [00:03:46] Oh, OK. All right. OK, so before we still all that thunder. Yes, please. Back story. How did we get here?

Speaker2: [00:03:53] How did we get here. Because at fifty two years old, I never thought I’d be throwing axes for a living, that’s for sure. So how we got here, my history and my background is over. I said twenty five years on the on the website. But honestly now that I look at it it’s probably more like thirty years which is really aged me since I just told you my age too. But what I’ve always done in my past was executive management, mainly in retail. So some big brands and it makes perfect sense.

Speaker1: [00:04:20] Executive absolutely unbelievable skills. Absolutely. Yes.

Speaker2: [00:04:26] So I did big box gems. I did a long time with limited brands, Godiva chocolates, pretty much you name it. And I either ran a district or region and traveled a lot and raised two kids, two amazing children, and got to the point of about four years ago, a little over being an empty nester and trying to figure out what’s next for me. And in doing so, I got a great opportunity with a entertainment company that was locally, locally housed here in Atlanta, but was nationwide. And one of the brands I did multi brands for them across the country, but one of the brands was a ACSA throwing business with I at that point, probably twenty three locations across the country, and it was brick and mortar, one hundred percent and had a great time with it. I mean in all honesty, being able to go from being selling clothing or anything else did. Of course people are happy to buy clothes, but when people are going to you for fun and in our. It I mean, what better place to work than that, right? So had a lot of fun with that and spent a lot of my time on the road traveling and just a different day every day, a different week, every week, which was really fun. And then, as probably most people at this point is that whole thing covid happened almost like right now. Right? One of our brands was escape rooms. So if you think about what an escape room is, you’re touching everything and you’re encouraging them to touch everything. A lot of times. So entertainment took a big hit with that, along with everything else.

Speaker4: [00:05:55] But where you’re in close

Speaker2: [00:05:57] Proximity with a lot of people in closed circumstances and it really did change things. And being across the country, some things, some states open sooner than others and some didn’t. And I was the sole man standing in the entire company other than the owners and the entrepreneur team. And with that said, that lasted a few more months. And then it was time to figure out what’s going to happen after that. And I didn’t really know. I mean, I was starting to look for jobs again and knowing I didn’t want to go back into the corporate world, but knowing it’s what I was good at, that’s where I started looking. And sure, I was fortunate enough to have my business partner slash husband. One night at dinner, we saw a drawing of something that was on a trailer and he said, you know what, we could put extra. We can do it that way. And I thought I was a little bit crazy, which I know I still do.

Speaker3: [00:06:44] I think I still think he’s probably a little

Speaker1: [00:06:46] Crazy, a little crazy.

Speaker2: [00:06:48] But he did it. And I say I’m not the risk taker. And he is. And I’m thankful that he took the risk in me and said, you run businesses before other people do it for yourself. And that’s kind of what led us to what we’re doing right now. So I knew the business model very well. I’ve been in it for over four years in the industry. That’s nice. So that’s very helpful because you learn a lot of the what ifs and what could happens. But then I’ve never done a mobile business, so trying to figure that out. And I’d say we’re still on the cusp of figuring that out because that comes with its own challenges for sure.

Speaker3: [00:07:17] So it’s just the first and only time that you and he have run something together, a business together lately.

Speaker2: [00:07:23] Yes, it is.

Speaker3: [00:07:24] Probably learn a few things on that.

Speaker2: [00:07:25] We have he works what we in the beginning, what I joked, joked about is saying he has a real job. But now that this has gone so well, I said now he has two real jobs and I have a real job too, because our initial introduction to this was, you know what? Let’s just offset your salary. That’s really all we were looking for. Nothing big. You know, we’re in we’re in our mid 50s and we were just ready to do something that, you know, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And it’s turned into a lot more than that. So now I have a real job to do. And we have we’ve learned a lot about each other and we balance each other extremely well. And we’ve learned more than anything we couldn’t do it without the other. So that’s a that’s a good partnership.

Speaker3: [00:08:05] So did you find some some division of labor? Some like you do this. I do that

Speaker2: [00:08:11] One hundred percent division of labor.

Speaker3: [00:08:13] Yeah. You just don’t have to.

Speaker2: [00:08:15] Well, he is for for the people around my age. McGyver, everybody knows who McGyver is. I know he’s always been that that’s what he’s been called by a lot of people. You can troubleshoot and figure out and solve anything. Right. Very handy. So he is the overall the operations management, I would say. So he does everything from he designed our unit. We had very clear and concise thing that we wanted to build. It had to be a certain quality. And he designed it. He built it. He did everything that the welding and made sure it’s going to run efficiently and take care of all of those. If this happens, what would we do? And we’re still learning that as we go. But he’s mainly our driver. So our unit is extremely large and very difficult to drive.

Speaker3: [00:09:01] Just anybody just happened

Speaker2: [00:09:02] To take it to I would never even attempt to. So that is definitely his role. So he is the driver and the set up the take down the breakdown. And if anything goes wrong on site, he’s going to be able to fix it without anybody on the customer side knowing about that.

Speaker3: [00:09:15] Ok, this is a very tactical question, a very self-serving question. Purely hypothetically, if my brother were coming to town around Christmas and renting a place nearby, but the driveway is sloped, is there is there some way to accommodate that stuff?

Speaker2: [00:09:29] All the time? We do. We always do a site visit. And well, let me say and you figure out if you 99 percent of the time we do a site visit and after this past week, it should be one hundred percent of the time from now. Sort of. But we do we also can use Google Earth to be able to see what we’re what we’re contemplating to be driving up to. But there are some things we can have it. It has to be mainly level, clearly balancing abilities.

Speaker3: [00:09:53] So in our case, maybe we should to the Christmas house when we lived in Cobb County, now we’ve moved here, as most of our listeners know, we live right on the edge of town. We’re still the Christmas house. But we live in a patio home now, right? Yeah. And so but people we’re still the Christmas house, at least for this year and probably next. So people are not going to not come. Right. They’re just renting places all over town. But maybe I can talk to Tom and Lori, maybe having having your unit here at the information department somewhere in one of these parking lots, probably.

Speaker2: [00:10:22] Ironically, I just got had somebody from the innovation spot reach out yesterday.

Speaker1: [00:10:25] Ok. OK, but

Speaker3: [00:10:27] That is one of the things that you guys have to think about. And here again, we’re dealing with professionals. We’re not dealing with Cleatus. Yeah. What are you offering? Do extra cinderblocks.

Speaker2: [00:10:37] Right now we know. We know before we get there if it can happen. And the really cool thing about what we do, the majority of our business now is is going to be your corporate business. So everybody usually has a parking lot that’s pretty, pretty level when you go. So it’s really great because we can just drive up during lunch time. They cater a lunch, they provide something for their staff or some type of appreciation from client appreciation. And it’s always easy if they have a parking lot, we can pretty much make anything happen.

Speaker3: [00:11:02] Ok, so how how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a company like yours? Like, do you advertise? Do you have to get out there and and shake the bushes, or is it the kind of thing where they see your trailer and you’re getting phone calls or.

Speaker2: [00:11:16] Yeah, well, a little bit of both. We don’t do any marketing, which is really kind of crazy. We and I think I’ve probably had to close some doors on some of the networking friendships about marketing because we can’t we can’t support any more business right now as we are.

Speaker1: [00:11:30] Let’s you hear this as a problem to have.

Speaker3: [00:11:34] I got we’re definitely going to engage you to for the Christmas house and probably for something for Business RadioX. But I think I want to hire you as my marketing consultant.

Speaker1: [00:11:42] Don’t you ask? I would say that

Speaker5: [00:11:45] That would be a great

Speaker1: [00:11:45] Place to go right

Speaker2: [00:11:48] Now, and it’s very hard to say no do so. I it I can make us burn that candle at both ends most days too. But what we drive is a huge billboard anywhere we go. So it’s kind of fun. We do it in tandem. If we’re going on a long distance. I follow my husband in my vehicle and I’m kind of that wide load car behind the behind. Right, right. But what’s funny about it, I told him one time I had I called him and said, you’re about to be pulled over. This cop is hanging back with me. He doesn’t realize we’re together. You’re about to be pulled over. And he’s going, of course, through what have I done wrong, like what’s going on? And then I look over at the cop and at the stoplight, he’s taking pictures of it. So it’s

Speaker1: [00:12:27] Like people are

Speaker2: [00:12:29] Our target wall fold down. So we’re going down the road. You’re not really sure what this thing is that’s going. And signs it’s a moving target, mobile ax throwing. People can’t really figure it out. So it’s a little intriguing when you do see us parked somewhere driving down the road. But on top of that, it is one hundred percent word of mouth. And social media like what we do is beautiful on social media. We take a lot of photos, a lot of videos, and then people just having a great time. And that’s a really great thing because we’ve seen well over four thousand people that have played with us since we started and we haven’t had one single person that didn’t leave happy. So that’s you

Speaker1: [00:13:04] All that

Speaker2: [00:13:06] Doesn’t happen. That didn’t happen in brick and mortar, I can tell you that. So I’m doing it. Mobley’s we’re doing something right.

Speaker3: [00:13:11] Ok, can’t all be rainbows and unicorns. Surely you have some challenges you’re trying to address in your in your business. Do you still have some challenges or is latest challenge trying to meet the need right now?

Speaker2: [00:13:23] That’s our biggest challenge. But no, there’s definitely challenges. I’d say one of them is we have what we have built is extremely quality unit. So that’s one thing that is we knew if we were going to do it, we weren’t going to try to get in as inexpensively as possible. We were going to do with the investment and do it right. So we didn’t have to tweak or

Speaker3: [00:13:41] And that was hubbies. Influence was part of that. He really good quality.

Speaker2: [00:13:45] We both wanted the quality. His name, by the way, his name is Bill. I’ll give him a

Speaker1: [00:13:49] Shout out to go Bill. Right. I know you

Speaker3: [00:13:52] Both wanted quality companies.

Speaker2: [00:13:53] That was the one thing we didn’t want to have to do something and try to make it better down the road. We wanted to do it. If we were going to invest in it and take the risk, we were going to take the risk all the way. And the reason that that even comes about, there were some other takeoff’s of what we were doing out there across the country. And when we looked at it, we’re like, wow, you know, that’s I don’t know that I’d pay to have that drive up to my house with chicken wire or, you know, chain link fence and some would and hoping it’s going to make it to your place.

Speaker3: [00:14:20] There really is a guy

Speaker1: [00:14:21] Out there named Cleatus who’s doing this.

Speaker2: [00:14:25] So when we when we started back in November, there were some out there. But they just we looked at it and were like, oh, we can definitely do something better than that, but it’s going to cost us to do so. We needed to do that. So with that said, again, I don’t even know where those questions started, but a challenge that we have is in talking to our insurance agent that that right. Sergeant reliability this week, they said, you know, every Tom, Dick and Harry goes out and throws axes somewhere on a Friday night and says they’re going to quit their job and put it on wheels and we will insure them. So that’s one of our challenges in the I guess the mobile industry is making sure that we try. I try to help people along the way that are trying to get into this business because I want them to do it in the same quality or a similar quality and not just try to get into it to think they can make money and learn the industry overnight, because that does hurt the quality. If something pulls up to somebody’s house and they think that’s what mobile access is in, it’s not to the level that we expect.

Speaker2: [00:15:22] Then will they even ever know that we’re out there or will they expect more? Right. And that’s one thing that the challenge of the industry, I think, in mobile is anybody trying to just put it up or try to figure out, hey, will come just build some really fast on your property, and that’s not going to be something that’s safe. And that’s one of our our three characteristics that we really believe in is safety first. And then I guess other challenges would be today we had an event at Emory University and we’re going to have to postpone it. Our unit is completely covered. You can play in the rain. We’ve got a two tiered roof and it’s very solid. But it’s not as much fun for the participants in the spectators at our Hechler bars to be able to to be able to enjoy the event as much. So we try to work with people and I talk to them this morning and they made the judgment that we’re going to schedule it for another day. So Mother Nature is going to be sometimes a factor. So that’s something that’s a challenge.

Speaker3: [00:16:16] So let’s talk about recruiting, developing, retaining good help people on the team. Even in my business, which is not high risk, the worst thing that’s going to happen in

Speaker4: [00:16:27] Here is people won’t enjoy being on the show

Speaker3: [00:16:30] Or listening to the show, which fortunately doesn’t happen. But we have a good time in here and people seem to enjoy our programing. But I’m not worried about anybody getting hurt today. You’ve got to have you have to have tremendous trust. You’ve got to work with. Yeah. Tell me about the people that you bring into your circle and trust with your brand.

Speaker2: [00:16:52] Yeah, and that’s the big thing with my history overall. I get in twenty five to thirty years. Branding is is part of everything I’ve done. And I’ve only wanted to associate myself with certain quality brands and with what we do. That’s the first thing is we can teach anybody the skill, but they have to have the personality that’s going to fit. What we want to sell and what we want to sell is fun, energetic, exciting, engaging team building. Just some good camaraderie all together. And with that, you need somebody with a coaching spirit, but somebody that’s more than that cheerleading background. They want to see somebody succeed. And my husband is the best expert that we have.

Speaker1: [00:17:33] So that’s what we call them. Expert experts. Are you really good branding thing? Right.

Speaker2: [00:17:39] Well, it’s kind of become who we are. So we eat, we eat, sleep and breathe, exercise now. So he’s the lead expert. And where I think in the beginning I can teach. I’m I’m an excellent trainer and I can teach everything. But now, after nine months, he’s been on the trail or coaching a lot more than I have. So he’s become better than I am, which is a challenge for me. But he’s also better at the coaching aspect. So when we find somebody, we’re looking for somebody on our team, our experts are our personality and are kind of like the host or the the personality on the trailer that’s going to be they’re in charge of their safety, but they’re also just making sure they have a great time at the same point. So if we find somebody out and about, we’ll bring them on our team. If they’ve got the right personality, we’ll train everything else. They just have to be able to love what they love. To play can be a little snarky and be sarcastic in a fun way with our guests, because that’s part of what we do are very edgy and then we teach them everything else. So right now we have on our unit other than myself, my husband and I, and again, him being the lead expert, we have six other experts that work with us. And that’s a combination of when we started thinking about this, we went to our very favorite fine dining server that has the best personality we’ve ever known. And we said this is what we’re going to do. We want you to be a part of it. And she said, I just learned how to throw X’s last weekend, I want to do this. And she’s phenomenal. And then she has a friend of hers that was also a fine dining server. So they work a full time job and they work with us part time

Speaker3: [00:19:11] And they know what service they already have that

Speaker2: [00:19:14] We we already love them for their personality. And then one of my former management managers of a escape room here in town, he was between jobs and going with the police or fire department and he joined us. Phenomenal. Got us through the holiday season, had a great time. And then right now we’ve got our three newest, ah, college students. And they were working all three working at a gym full time and going to school. And now they’re just working with us and going to school. And they all have the personalities and the fun and the drive to to do what we do. And they can do it in short spurts, two to four hours instead of working an eight hour shift at a gym.

Speaker3: [00:19:47] So and how cool are they when they’re hanging out with her buds? What do you do? You know, I work here. I work there. Oh, I’m an expert. Yeah, exactly. Just like really the coolest person in the crowd.

Speaker2: [00:19:58] And how bad is the job when you’re either hanging out at a Bruriah vineyard or a party with cool people? I mean, it’s a lot of fun and you’re playing games, so it’s fun. And we are currently recruiting because we’re going to need some more people as well.

Speaker3: [00:20:10] So tell me about this. Acts of service, counseling service.

Speaker2: [00:20:13] Yeah, that is that’s our take off on fundraising.

Speaker3: [00:20:17] So this lady could be a copywriter, a marketing consultant. You need copyrights, she’ll come up with something with three brothers. This is a group

Speaker2: [00:20:26] Going right are active service is our fundraising campaign and this is kind of the heart of where we are. We like to give back. We like to be involved. And we do so through what we call our acts of service. So instead of having a car wash or whatever it may be, be at a nonprofit, five or one three five oh one C three.

Speaker4: [00:20:45] One of those

Speaker2: [00:20:46] Is. Yeah. Or any other any other.

Speaker3: [00:20:49] Business RadioX Cherki Business RadioX was a nonprofit in February, but we’ve been making money since.

Speaker1: [00:20:54] Ok, that’s.

Speaker2: [00:20:57] Yeah but then we could do for other organizations as well. And we have different options where we can set up at a discounted rate and then share the proceeds that come in. And it’s just a lot of fun because people tend to give back a lot more when they’re having a good time. Right. So we’ve been lucky and fortunate to be able to work with some really great organizations around town.

Speaker3: [00:21:15] Ok, OK, so. So what? Like if Business RadioX. So let’s talk to some of these applications of your service. So if Business RadioX the network

Speaker4: [00:21:24] Or just turkey

Speaker3: [00:21:25] Business, we have five Business RadioX studios here in metro Atlanta. But if it was all of us or maybe it was just Cherokee Business RadioX X, if we had you come out to the parking lot. But what if

Speaker4: [00:21:36] We could somehow?

Speaker3: [00:21:37] Is there some way we could use it, raise the money and then give it to

Speaker2: [00:21:43] One that did recently in Cherokee County was with Goshen Valley. So that was up. And we we positioned ourselves we’re at Canton Reformation, yet Canton and Thrive. It actually was the sponsor. So they purchased us out. And then they the organization actually sold tickets and they sell tickets. And they made a really nice little donation to the cause. I think it was like thirty five thousand seven hundred dollars oh nine people to come out and throw axes. So it was a lot of fun.

Speaker3: [00:22:11] So so the the sponsoring organization or whoever Business RadioX or what good could play, it could pay your fee. Right. So, so now, so now you’re whole. And then we could set up for to buy tickets for the business community. You can buy tickets and we could give that money to whomever.

Speaker2: [00:22:28] Absolutely. So what they did is I think they did like twenty five dollars for a they’d have an X throwing training session, a mini game, and then they had a swag bag of a lot of giveaways from either Goshen Valley, Thrivent Reformation, oh, drink ticket or a partner sometimes with food trucks. And they’ll do a food truck ticket as well. And they just come out and have a great time.

Speaker3: [00:22:47] Oh, man. My mind is friends. I remember visiting like the food truck. Right, though that sounds like so much fun. You’ve already accomplished so much. You get so much going. But I don’t know what’s next. Do you think in the coming months

Speaker2: [00:23:02] We’ve got a lot of things that are next so happy and excited to share today that we’re actually launching our second unit on October the 1st. So we’re going to be having a north side Georgia and a south side Georgia location. And that’s going to be really great to have to be able to do a big business partnership with some young guys down in the South Side area. And we’ve also started working with a franchising mentor and coach, and they’re helping us get ready for Q1 and Q2 of twenty twenty two to be able to start franchising out. Oh my goodness. Now we’re learning a lot and we’re on

Speaker4: [00:23:37] The very early cusp of

Speaker1: [00:23:38] That.

Speaker3: [00:23:41] So when you get ready to do a franchise, it’s my understanding that one of the the key sets of activities is just bottling everything you do. Right, like standard operating procedures. That would be a larger jump for for the people who run the Business RadioX network. I know that because I’m one of them, but I get the sense that you’ve already got a lot of your stuff bottled, standardized. So you’re probably further along than than the typical pre franchise or.

Speaker2: [00:24:13] I’m actually I had it I did it all from my prior company.

Speaker3: [00:24:16] Although, you know,

Speaker2: [00:24:18] I again, I have four years of experience in this industry. So I already have all of the operations manuals, the training manuals, all of that done for brick and mortar. So all I had to do was change it and kind of tweak it for our mobile unit.

Speaker4: [00:24:32] So that part’s done well. So, I mean,

Speaker3: [00:24:34] If they outlawed ax throwing, you could be like a franchise consultant, a marketing consultant, a copywriter. You’re amazing.

Speaker1: [00:24:40] I don’t know about that. But we’ll stick with what we do best right now.

Speaker5: [00:24:44] That’s incredible, though. What a great Head Start experience.

Speaker2: [00:24:47] Yeah, well, it really helps because I tell you what I really enjoyed, there’s a couple of Facebook groups and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know people. I work with somebody that started one a few months ago in San Diego and somebody in Florida. And being able to just if it took me four or five months to figure out something about insurance that I wanted to do differently and be able to save them that time and be able to partner with other other brands out there that are trying to get going. I love that part. Yeah, there’s a lot of fun.

Speaker3: [00:25:15] Well, how can we help the Business RadioX community, the Woodstock business community, which incidentally. Wow. I just I haven’t lived here that long. Don’t you just love the the business landscaping, which

Speaker2: [00:25:29] Is just fantastic. So we were actually right here offor Arnold is where we house our unit here. Oh really. Yes. So but it’s just Cherokee County is is our is our home. So we’re really we want to be as involved here as we can.

Speaker3: [00:25:42] And when people say how can I help, they mean it. And I do too. But what can we do to help just continue to get the word out about what you’re.

Speaker2: [00:25:50] Absolutely. I mean, I think that’s the great thing is although it’s exploring is actually an ESPN sport. I don’t know if you knew that or not. It’s not. Yeah, it’s a worldwide sport. So there’s world championships once a year and it’s on ESPN. So that’s that’s the cool part. What just happened is that although to me it’s old news. I’ve been doing this for four years and I’m like, how could you not know about this? But but that’s what that’s just the truth. A lot of people just don’t know that that sports out there. And then then they go like, you’re going to do what? You’re going to hand us a weapon and then you’re going to let us do it. But we have three really key areas of our business, and one of them is quality and professionalism, because obviously what we do is very relaxed and very comfortable. But on top of that, we want to know from the very first time you even look at our website, you know, we’re different. Like, you know, we’ve got we’ve got knowledge behind us. It wasn’t somebody that we paid to do that. I did all of the content of our of our website, and that’s important to me and all the way through from the time we don’t let anybody book us online because I want to have that personal connection with them so they know me before they even book our our location or book us to come to their location. So that’s very important. And we want that quality to be all the way through the follow up afterwards. Even if I haven’t been able to service someone, which there was one time a lady that I, I wasn’t able to service because we were already booked. But I got her in touch with somebody that had a version of what we do, and she was happy, but she was devastated that she couldn’t get us. And following up

Speaker1: [00:27:19] Words, well,

Speaker2: [00:27:19] Afterwards, I just said, did it go well? Did you have a good time? She said, we did, but I can’t believe you’re calling me when you did not even work with us. And I said, yeah, I want to make sure it went well in those things does mean a lot. So that’s one of our characteristics that are very important, kind of our three tiered focus. And then on top of that, it would be the customer experience start to finish and then safety we’ve got our general liability is not one that everybody that does mobile access are in can get, because that came along with a resume of having some time behind us in the industry and we make sure that the safety is of utmost importance. We never wanted it to be how many people can we service? We wanted to service them the best quality and the safest way possible. So our first thought when we were going to build this is how do we add additional units off the side, more targets, more people. But when you do that, we found that you also lose a lot of control. So control of the access control of other people’s actions, which is never able you’re never able to control.

Speaker2: [00:28:17] So we determined we wanted to make it the safest unit possible with the best coverage possible and take the risk away from anybody, any location or landowner that we’re going to position this at. And by doing that, we run a very efficient ship so we can we can service quite a few people. I think it goes Goshen. It was like one hundred and eight places and one to one event. So we can do it very well and very we can make people tired throwing axes. But we didn’t have to do it by saying, hey, you know what? Now we’re going to add some more off the side and we’re going to because when you let an ax be able to walk off your unit and go to another another self built or land throw right lane, then what happens is you’ve lost that control. So we didn’t want to take that chance and we wanted everybody to know that they were they were safe. You always have an expert, right, between you. You never have somebody that is left alone to their own ax. So safety is very important to us.

Speaker3: [00:29:10] When I was going to ask her for, like, how are you guys different? And then you just, like, gave me like ten minutes of how you’re different. I mean, really, really are you are different. Wow. What a delight it has been to have you come in and talk. You are working and our listeners can’t see this, but they certainly will when they get a chance to meet you personally. The glint in your eye when you talk about serving people. Thank you. As you just

Speaker1: [00:29:39] Mentioned, Susan Larcker, I want to give people over here, though, right?

Speaker2: [00:29:43] I mean, I want to give people an experience that they’re not even expecting when they pay for us. And that’s what I would want to pay for. So I always say, if I wouldn’t buy it, if I wouldn’t pay for it or I wouldn’t be happy to have invite my guest to it. And we don’t want to provide that.

Speaker3: [00:29:56] Oh, my greatest. All right. So those who are listening, who would like to reach out and have a conversation with you or someone on your team, points of contact, best way to reach out, whatever you’re comfortable with and feel like it’s appropriate from a website, a number of LinkedIn, whatever.

Speaker2: [00:30:12] Ok, so our website is w w w dot moving target attell dot com. Our contact number is seven said. One zero seven five six to nine three seven, which also spells axes a yes, yes.

Speaker1: [00:30:30] Have you not thought of anything?

Speaker2: [00:30:32] Well, I’ll tell you, my husband worked hard to get that phone number. I can tell you that part. He gets full credit for that. And then our email address is info at moving target atle dot com. And if you go to our website, it has everything you need. Fake news all the way down to an easy quote, a lot of photos and a lot of videos. And then if you’ll check us out on Facebook and Instagram at Moving Target ATLE, you’ll see the fun that we provide and then some.

Speaker3: [00:30:59] Well, thank you so much for joining us. And let’s let’s have you come back in. Maybe when you

Speaker4: [00:31:06] When

Speaker3: [00:31:06] You launched that second unit, if you like. Sure. And make it and make that announcement or just any time you’ve got something really cool going well or maybe as you continue to profit, as you continue to partner with some of these nonprofits. Absolutely. And we’ve got something where you want to get a little extra notoriety around an effort to raise some money for a good cause. The platforms at your disposal come on in and we’ll we’ll have you talk about what’s coming if you’re left to.

Speaker2: [00:31:32] Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Speaker4: [00:31:33] Yeah. Hey, listen, how

Speaker3: [00:31:35] About hanging out with us while we visit with our next guest?

Speaker2: [00:31:37] Absolutely. We’d love to.

Speaker3: [00:31:39] I am so sorry that you have to follow that act. I don’t know.

Speaker1: [00:31:42] Yeah, I don’t know. Think this has been a huge mistake. Oh, my. Good for the show.

Speaker5: [00:31:49] You said it. She’s going to set the tone. No, she was going to raise the bar

Speaker1: [00:31:54] To guide

Speaker5: [00:31:56] Us.

Speaker4: [00:31:56] All right. Well, all right.

Speaker1: [00:31:58] Bring it down.

Speaker3: [00:32:00] Next up on Turkey Business RadioX, please join me in welcoming to the show with three brothers painting Mr. Oscar Vélez. Good morning, sir.

Speaker5: [00:32:10] Hey, Stone, how are you?

Speaker3: [00:32:11] I’m doing well, man. You learn anything in that last segment?

Speaker5: [00:32:14] I more than I’m able to process.

Speaker3: [00:32:19] Well, you know, that that that camera and team are going to make it fun. But let’s talk about three brothers. What do they know? I want to know. I don’t know if it’s appropriate for an on air conversation. At some point. I’d like to know how in the world you were able to find Ashley the list,

Speaker1: [00:32:39] Because that is a story that is not going to be told on. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker3: [00:32:44] Is Ashley. I mean, I just I just think the world of Ashley. But but no, let’s talk about three brothers painting what you and your team are out there trying to do for folks. Yeah. Mission purpose. Tell us a little bit about the company and how you’re trying to serve.

Speaker5: [00:32:59] Man So three brothers painting started in nineteen ninety one. It was my dad and two of my uncles. Now I’m thirty eight years old and I do our sales, our lead sales person. And I often get the question, which brother are you with. What people don’t know our history. Right. And my, my go joke is always well I was eight years old when the company started so unfortunately I didn’t make it into the name and were too long established now to change it to three brothers and son. But no, we have been doing this for about 30 something years. My my actually just at thirty years, my pops, you know, we came to this country and he was working for another paint outfit here in the Atlanta area, and he was just the day to day manager, if you will, of his paint team while he had somebody above them that owned the business and were doing reconstruction strictly at the time when that person’s contract came up for renewal. The gentleman that was working day to day with my dad said, I want to keep working with you, but with you, you know, and well, what’s the name of your business? And my dad, my

Speaker1: [00:34:05] Uncle, I guess, is three brothers painting, you know, and

Speaker5: [00:34:08] Started from there. So used to do a lot of new construction work for John Wieland back in the day, back in the early 90s, even go into like mid 2000s, thankfully, right before the crash in 2008. You know, we had already started kind of weaning ourselves out of being in the new construction phase and mainly focusing on residential, because you can bring such a much higher level of quality and service to a residential property than you can. That new construction.

Speaker3: [00:34:41] I thought about that would not have occurred to me. I don’t know, care, would you with that

Speaker5: [00:34:45] Its higher level of materials, high quality rather than you just you have a much more personal relationship with that actual individual client than you do. You know, just a homeowner that you’re doing touch ups for from a house that you painted, you know, from the ground up and you never even met them. You just show up X and Y over at whatever construction sent me over to take care of this. Right. And you’re just a face doing work. But when you’re on the residential side, you know, you start building that relationship with that client and, you know, then sometimes it’s been generation. You know, I’ve been doing this for sale site for about 16 years, even though I grew up in the business and used to do, you know, some of the paint, more like getting in the way and

Speaker1: [00:35:29] Let’s be real, you know, but learning

Speaker5: [00:35:32] The trade from the ground up. And some of these folks have seen me, you know, grow up from when I was a teenager. And now I’ve got my own kids and their kids are hiring me now to come out and do work. And they’re like, oh, yeah, I used to paint my bedroom and now, like, I’ve got my kids, you know, so it’s just super cool being able to see families grow. Families, you know, tell us about their friends that need something else done. And then a much like you were saying earlier, we also don’t advertise except for the sense that, you know, our vans are my personal vehicle is actually not even I live in a neighborhood that doesn’t allow it. And I have a personal car in the garage. But we’re just like you guys, you just word of mouth. And the CEO, my my wonderful wife that you mentioned earlier, that’s her. That’s what she does. She she is fantastic at all of the CEO and content and and everything. And she has helped us in the past with that. And folks will ask me, much like you were saying earlier, about those, you know, business relationships that want to get you to advertise in their magazines or billboards or what have you.

Speaker5: [00:36:40] And it’s like, you know. I don’t want to spend two grand on something a month that I know like we’re already getting because, like the war speaks for itself, you know, those those review sites. And for anybody listening, if you ever hire any sort of trade and you’re happy with them, please take the time to write those reviews. They all really, really take stock at those. You know, I have an initial meeting with somebody that, you know, they don’t know me from Adam. And one of the first things that they might say is, you know, our Facebook neighborhood group recommended you. And then I look guys up and you guys have fantastic reviews. I’m like, oh, thank you. We I don’t look at them. I don’t want to get in my own head one way or the other, but I’m told that they’re pretty good, you know, five stars and which is awesome,

Speaker1: [00:37:30] You know,

Speaker5: [00:37:31] But by my very trying to be humble thing is always we try really hard, you know, just to make sure that everybody is as happy as you can make them. You know, we obviously are not going to be able to please everybody. We’re all human. And and we work better with some folks and maybe with a couple of others. But that’s going to happen when you’re 30 years. And, you know, and I think, again, the reviews and the fact that we really only have that CEO and really the word of mouth says a lot.

Speaker3: [00:38:02] So but your business strikes me as an incredibly competitive arena.

Speaker4: [00:38:08] It absolutely

Speaker3: [00:38:08] Is. Like, yeah, if I had not gotten connected to you through in Woodstock and having met actually in that kind

Speaker4: [00:38:16] Of thing and I needed

Speaker3: [00:38:17] Painting services, I don’t even know where I would start. I guess now that I’m in this business community, I would have probably asked Kara or whoever I saw Thursday at the thing. Right. Right. So I would ask someone I’d like to think I wouldn’t I would no longer go to the ER, quote, Yellow Pages. Right, right. But at any rate, you’re your business strikes me as incredibly competitive. So so you do have to be very diligent about being different or doing a great job for the work you do get.

Speaker5: [00:38:47] So that is a fantastic question. And follow up to what I just said in the sense that, you know, we we don’t have that print media and whatnot, but following back into, you know, relationships. Right. We much like hair. You know, I like to go to those networking things. You know what stock is as chock full of business owners. And I was very fortunate as having, you know, a lot of them be our friends, you know, because we have met through these small groups that have grown into big groups. You know, years ago, my wife and I started going to wipe out, which is young professionals of Woodstock, even though I’m a spring chicken anymore.

Speaker1: [00:39:28] I’ve been going through and getting to I’ve been going there, too. It’s fantastic the way I think you’re the

Speaker5: [00:39:36] It’s young at heart professionals at Woodstock and, you know, just building those relationships. And I specifically like that one because I was part of another networking thing years and years ago. That was a very referrals driven, like you have to bring stuff every week and if you don’t, you’re penalized and you have to pay for it and whatnot. And it’s just very nerve racking, like, oh, I didn’t meet anybody that needs pest control this week or what have you. Right. But with young professionals or a lot of the other things that we’re doing, it’s more about the relationships of people that are going to be able to tell people about you because. Yes, Don, you’ve heard about us

Speaker4: [00:40:16] Because you into the same

Speaker5: [00:40:18] Groups that I frequent. And so you need something. Then you go to your people. Right. And go to the people that you know, know, the people that do the thing.

Speaker3: [00:40:28] What I like to be, the guy that knows the guy that we

Speaker5: [00:40:32] All do in this room,

Speaker1: [00:40:33] I think there’s a reason

Speaker5: [00:40:34] We’re all in the

Speaker3: [00:40:36] Army to know, even if I don’t have any painting needs or don’t I don’t perceive any painting needs for another year or two years. I mean, nothing would thrill me more than for someone to shoot me a text today or an email. Still, we’re going to paint the inside of how do you know? How do you know? And I love being able to, you know, send you a note and be that. And I think a lot of people in this community, in this community do. So talk to us a little bit about the dynamics of of a family owned business, because there’s got to be some tremendous pluses to that, some tremendous events. And I wonder if there are some unique challenges, too, though. Oh, of

Speaker1: [00:41:14] Course. And be careful. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker5: [00:41:17] Like I said, you working with you, you’re working with your husband as your business.

Speaker3: [00:41:21] We are broadcasting live and recording. So, you know, between the dangers of

Speaker5: [00:41:26] Working with family has is it’s definitely a double edged sword. It’s nothing that I don’t have to tell anybody here in the sense that, you know, if there is some sort of emergency or whatever, of course, everybody’s extra understanding. You know, if a kid is sick and I have to. Move a couple of appointments or whatever, it’s not even a question of all you’ve got to make up your hours or whatever, right, because we’re family at the same time. You know, I don’t want to be having Sunday dinner. You know, we have a standing Sunday dinner. I live six doors from my parents and my brother lives a three minute drive, you know, in the same neighborhood. I’ve been in the run for twenty one years, you know, and that was by design. In fact, when my wife moved into my I’m a. Like I said, third home there moved into my second place, she was like, is this going to be in Everybody Loves Raymond situation where like the over like all the time. We had a couple of years, she was like, we need to move closer. I was like, are you serious? So we did know. Now we’re just around the corner. All that to say, you know, we have that standing Sunday dinner. Oh, we we make it a point. Not really to discuss business. Well, that’s

Speaker3: [00:42:30] What was going to be my next question. Do you and it’s not we

Speaker5: [00:42:34] Don’t discuss business, you know, during family time, because I like to keep that separate. You know, there’s there’s so much, you know, for the first about to be, you know, hit in 13 years of marriage. And, you know, the first eleven, twelve years, you know, I worked steady six days a week. You know, Saturdays are usually a habit that usually they are a half day for me because I have kids and I want to be home for them. But I’ve just really made it a point that if I’m home, I’m home and home because I’ve put so much time into it over the last couple of years that I need to focus on this chapter of my life because everything that I can do, I can get done during my work day. And there’s, of course, going to be those after hours, you know, client call calling me, hey, are we still on for tomorrow? You know, it might be six thirty or seven or they have a question and they just got off work. So they’re calling me. Of course, I’ll answer the phone, you know, and my guys might be running a project a little bit later. You need to purchase materials. I get calls early and late in the evening. Just ask me to run the credit card for them because we control that at the office to make sure that spending is, you know, where we need it to be and keep track of all our materials, costs and whatnot.

Speaker5: [00:43:46] But I used to tell people, you know, if I’m awake, I’m at work and I still folks like my real estate hours. And then a certain point, you know, that burnout happens and it’s like, you know what? We are in an age where we really have to figure out our work life balance. And that’s actually something that I really learned from my wife, is, you know, we can’t be defined by our work. You know, we also are human beings that, you know, require that social aspect and or make these groups like, you know, young professionals. And I’m actually going to go to a business club tomorrow, which I’ve never been to. Those for me are the social and business aspect. It’s a good blend of the two to be able to grow your business in an organic manner because you spend three grand on fliers and, you know, they had four thousand houses or whatever. How many of those that are actually going to call on, you just don’t know. But if you keep intending to build these relationships, really just going to hang out and meet like minded people. And then, like you said, maybe three months later, somebody calls you and says, hey, Stone, who do you know? Have you met anybody in these groups that you go to or whatever? Because we’re there to be a resource, right? Absolutely. So that’s my approach to where I am now in the business.

Speaker3: [00:45:05] Well, for what it’s worth, that’s sort of the the evolution for me. We Holly and I, we sold our home and we’ve downsized material on the edge of town. Historically, I’ve not been very active in, like, this networking kind of thing. I’m a little bit spoiled in that. When you have your own radio show, if you want to meet someone, you just invite them to come on show. And so for years, fifteen plus years of doing, you know, people would come to me if I want to, but here’s what I’m finding. I’m finding that I’m getting to to meet people more people faster and then I’m meeting them outside of the studio and just getting a chance to really build a really deep relationship with people in my my book of those folks that I know that I that I’ve started to really like and trust, like, I feel very confident putting people in touch with each other. I’ve always been that way, like within the industry. Like if it had to do with marketing or media, sometimes I was even a little almost like a quarterback of the team. Right. Do you find yourself in that position sometimes because of your world, like our will someone because they’re working with you, particularly ask you about, I don’t know, you know, roofing, you know, like house related stuff, horse like like I would ask like if I needed to get a roof, I would ask Carol because I because I know her. I like her. I trust

Speaker4: [00:46:34] Her. But I’m thinking

Speaker3: [00:46:35] Now I would really ask Oscar like I was the

Speaker5: [00:46:38] First people ask me all the time for first off, they ask, what else do you do? Because a lot of these guys will go out there and they’re they’re a painting company, but they also might start doing remodels or know or something like that. And for me, you know, I grew up in this business. I know a lot about pain. If you had told, you know, sixteen year old me, I’d be excited about researching a new coding. I been like, you were in say,

Speaker1: [00:47:03] Oh, but,

Speaker5: [00:47:04] You know, for me, it’s interesting. And I know you know enough about it. Convince people that I’m knowledgeable in it

Speaker1: [00:47:10] Right now,

Speaker5: [00:47:12] But I know what I’m good at and it’s our niche, you know, so I always tell people, what do we do aside from painting, what we stain? You know, with you, that’s fine. And we do minor repairs, you know, paint and paint adjacent. You know, if you’ve got wood rod, absolutely. We can come in and replace bruddah brick walls and those silsby’s the soft fascia side, your chimney or whatever. Are we going to reside to your house? No, you know, that’s a different you know,

Speaker3: [00:47:39] But you probably know who you would consider best in class.

Speaker5: [00:47:43] And that’s, you know, from years of building up relationships with other guys that hire out subs for these types of projects. You know, that’s really about the only type of new construction, quote unquote, that we might do is of somebody finishing out their basement. And we have to come in and, of course, do that initial coding or if somebody’s adding an addition to their home, you know, they got to paint the inside and outside of it. It’s not all coming finished. You know, of course, you know where we’re happy to have those relationships and then be able to pass on that name. Can you build me a portico? Nobody I know who can, you know, stuff like that, because we have a very specific place where I want to be. You know, we have 10 crews running for a very long time that’s been with us. At least amount of time is going on, I think five years actually closer to six. And, you know, we just we retain our people by treating them well. You know, we’ll

Speaker3: [00:48:41] Talk about that a little bit in our system. It’s a little more loosely constructed. Most of the people in the Business RadioX system are entrepreneurs of their own, and they may run a studio in North Fulton, in Phenix or Tucson. So they’re not really reporting to me. And I have my corporate hat on. But I, I mean, I am in all or even intimidated by the idea of someone actually reporting to me and them and me not doing a very good job of leading them or even recruiting the right people know for sure.

Speaker5: [00:49:14] Well, in the recruiting sense, to be quite frank, I just don’t have a lot of experience with that because we just don’t really have to.

Speaker1: [00:49:21] Because you retain where, where,

Speaker5: [00:49:23] Where super fall. You know, we will have people call me all the time and say, hey, you know, Sherwin-Williams RPGs or what? Have you told me to give you a call? Are you guys hiring painters? You know, they might have their their full crew ready to go. And, you know, I feel terrible and I’m sorry we. Or full up, you know. But the times that we have added people, it’s actually, you know, my my father is still a little bit involved with with the business. He’s still the the principal owner, but he runs a handful of other businesses as well. So I do along with my sister, we do the day to day managing and running.

Speaker4: [00:49:59] You know, I do sales

Speaker5: [00:50:00] And then project management making sure that I’m on top of the project so that they’re getting done the way that I said that we’re going to be done. Right. So I got guys calling me all day saying, hey, we can’t find this particular product. What’s going to be the closest equivalent? So I have to find it and source it and stuff like that. Aside from sales, that eats up a lot of my days just making sure that, you know, the guys have what they need right now. We are having a lot of supply chain issues with just paint not being painted. Yeah, no, there’s a lot of products that just aren’t available right now. So I’ve told my guys, hey, instead of you driving to for Sherwin-Williams stores, which is a waste of time and call me, I will call our rep and find out where it is, have it presented for you. So by the time you get there, you know, it’s ready to pick up and go, you know, so that’s been, you know, one of our challenges lately is just making sure that we got materials. I mean, yesterday, not that we would have been able to start it anyways because of the rain, but I had a client text me. His color was ahead of time last week, early last week. And I said, great, you know, we’ve got some time to start looking around for it. It’s two very specific coatings that just have not been available for months. One of them specifically, it’s agency Cool Field. It’s a pool patio paint that makes the surface of the pool deck feel about 20 degrees lower than if it was just low. And it’s awesome. My dad has it on his place and you can walk on that and then walk on the tracks right next to it. And it’s like night and day difference, like frying an egg versus, oh, I’m comfortable. You know, however, the manufacturer is not making it right now because they don’t have the raw materials for with everything that’s going on.

Speaker3: [00:51:50] So everything affects everything else because, you know, supply chain all the way.

Speaker5: [00:51:54] Yeah, it’s definitely hit us a little bit later than some of the other industries. Of course, we all heard about lumber and how scarce and how expensive it was. Yeah.

Speaker1: [00:52:03] Yeah, right. Yeah it yeah. For sure.

Speaker5: [00:52:07] And you know, I’ve got guys calling me all the time, hey, you know, we can’t find, you know, super paint. They only have emerald, which is like twice the cost of OK, let me make a call, see if Sherman Williams can do a substitution because instead of paying fifty five dollars for a gallon when we should have been paying thirty something dollars for this other product mix and match the price because they were just out of stock, you know. So if these guys are just going out and just paying for it, then that’s money loss is profit loss, you know, so it’s a whole lot of juggling, you know, to make sure that these guys are getting what they need and that ultimately the client is getting what they need. Because I always tell clients or my guys, you know, if you can’t find a specific product, get the next one up. You know, we can’t go down, right?

Speaker3: [00:52:54] Always go up. So that’s one of those core operational disciplines that you and you probably have dozens. But yeah, for sure, that’s just one of those things. You go up, you don’t go.

Speaker5: [00:53:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and in this particular instance with this project, we couldn’t start yesterday. So, you know, we we don’t want to use these other coatings

Speaker4: [00:53:13] Because they’re

Speaker5: [00:53:13] Not as good, so. There’s none in Georgia.

Speaker1: [00:53:18] I think we just

Speaker5: [00:53:20] Can’t we will see it when we see,

Speaker3: [00:53:21] You know, but I know Oscar was going to tell me the truth and tell me right. Again, because of the relationship. Because of the reputation. Yeah. So where are you going to take this thing? Like, is this puppy going to be like are you going to be running the whole thing at some point?

Speaker5: [00:53:36] Yeah, that’s that’s probably when the next year and a half my plus one.

Speaker3: [00:53:40] Yeah. So this is going to be your baby.

Speaker5: [00:53:44] It absolutely is. You know, I’ve been working I think I started doing the sales side of it when I was 20 years old, maybe twenty one and I’m thirty eight now. You know, my guy has been like getting old.

Speaker1: [00:53:58] Yeah. Yeah I know that bank.

Speaker5: [00:54:01] I’m thirty six thirty seven. They’re married

Speaker1: [00:54:05] Here. I can look at real quick but that’s

Speaker3: [00:54:07] Got to feel intimidating. Might not be the right word but that’s a. I mean you’re filling some big shoes. I mean absolutely. This is not the first time that I’ve heard stories, very marvelous stories about your father.

Speaker5: [00:54:20] So yeah, I know his reputation certainly precedes him. You know you know, certain people here in Wittstock, he certainly has his fingers in a lot of pies, does a lot of, you know, rental properties that that he owns and runs out. He started building last year, you know, building custom homes because, of course, he did.

Speaker1: [00:54:38] You know everything else to do.

Speaker3: [00:54:41] Right.

Speaker1: [00:54:42] You’re doing too good of a job.

Speaker5: [00:54:43] Absolutely right. So, no, I definitely have some big shoes to fill, but I feel that, you know, I’m up to the challenge. I absolutely you know, if I if I don’t take us, I think I did.

Speaker1: [00:54:53] All right. Well, not it.

Speaker5: [00:54:56] And in all honesty, you know, my sister Cindy, who was our office manager, does a great job. You know, when I essentially have been running the business for the last couple of years, my mom was still, you know, he runs it kind of just keeps track of where the money’s going and whatnot. But from day to day operations and making sure, you know, clients are happy, crews are happy and jobs are getting done on time, on schedule. I mean, that’s all that’s all been us, you know, so. Intimidated. Sure, it’s a word to throw out there, but am I actually scared of it? No, no, it’s going to be awesome.

Speaker1: [00:55:33] Well, no, you’re

Speaker3: [00:55:34] The kind of guy that will embrace that. Now, I heard on the grapevine through the grapevine that you really enjoy music. Are you a musician?

Speaker1: [00:55:43] Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:55:44] So I actually it’s funny how I started working in Three Brothers, because when I was 13 years old, I started wanting to play guitar and I told my dad I was like, hey, I want to get this. You know, I had like a cheap little lotus. It’s a Fender Stratocaster copy. And the action was so terrible that the strings were about an inch off of the fretboard. And, you know, so I told my dad I was like, hey, I want to get this Ibanez. It’s about five hundred dollars or whatever. And he goes, OK, we’ll earn half of it, you know? And so he sent me out in the summer, did that to earn money. That’s why I was joking about essentially getting in the way. This was when I was still doing a lot of new construction. So I would go out to these job sites. And if you have ever had to, putting nail holes on Treme from new construction,

Speaker4: [00:56:28] You know, there’s thousands

Speaker5: [00:56:29] Of them in every room. And that was my

Speaker1: [00:56:30] Job, you know, going out there and back, putting all these. I know not very

Speaker5: [00:56:35] Much, you know, and then caulking. And I literally started from the ground up, you know, sweeping the job sites, caulking, putting, you know, doing all the grunt work, cleaning brushes, you know, all of that. And, yeah, sort of playing guitar, jumped on base and then started playing in bands with my friends. You know, I love punk rock music. If it’s fast and melodic and loud, I absolutely love it. I still go to my punk rock shows of my late 30s friends dress and like we’re 80

Speaker1: [00:57:09] Leaves, you know, like

Speaker5: [00:57:11] But yeah, no, I’ve been doing it on and off. And I always joke as far as my skill level goes, I’m very fortunate that I love punk rock because it’s like it’s right in my wheelhouse, you know. So yeah, no, I’ve got a handful of records out on Spotify from over the years and, you know, some projects that are going on and off. But and when

Speaker3: [00:57:31] You play venues with your. But sometimes, you know.

Speaker5: [00:57:34] Yeah, I was I used to tour all the time back in like twenty three. Twenty four. I was on the road all the time. We were you know, there’s one band that I joined, they had lost their bass player and my buddy Joe called me one time while I was hanging with my other band mates from my main band at the time and goes, Hey, you want to play bass for us? Sure. Aren’t you about to go on tour? Yeah.

Speaker1: [00:58:01] All right. And so I

Speaker5: [00:58:03] Learned about, you know, 12, 15 of their songs and hit the road. We were gone for two weeks, you know, hits, you know, Florida and then going on the East Coast under the New York and then came back. And then that essentially was my next, you know, two and a half years is going out of town almost every weekend playing neighboring states. You know, we drive to Myrtle Beach and back the longest we ever drove for one show. We would we did it multiple times. We used to play this. It was called the temple, but it was actually the basement of a while, a Jewish temple up in Brooklyn. And they used to rent it out as just the venue on the. And we would leave on Saturday morning. Drive through the day. Actually, no, we leave Friday, drive overnight, get there,

Speaker4: [00:58:50] Play the show and then leave,

Speaker5: [00:58:52] You know, so and we did that for Miami a handful of times. So it wasn’t out of the question. I wasn’t living at home anymore. I had had my apartment for a little bit. What I mean, this was when I was 19, mind you, you know, going out of town. And I would call my mom and be like, Hey, Mom, no, I’m not going to be there this weekend. I’m going to Miami or like, oh, sorry, we got a show in Birmingham. So, you know, there was a spell there. I missed out on a lot of family stuff. So I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important for me to have that starting Sunday dinner now, because I miss so much when I was, you know, in my late teens. But you kind of supposed to you

Speaker1: [00:59:26] Know, you’re making up for it. Exactly.

Speaker5: [00:59:29] The we we had a ton of fun. And, you know, the music world is a very small community. And we actually because at that point, there wasn’t really a lot of places for small local bands to play like, you know, teenage kids, you know, making their own bands in their garages also need a place to play. They can’t sell out a hundred tickets to the masquerade, you know, so my friends and I, we opened the venue on in Powder Springs and then moved from that one to Bell’s Ferry and Barrett Parkway. That was there for about fifteen, sixteen years. So we would practice our my my band would practice there. We just kept all of our equipment there. But that was like my hangout spot. I’d be at shows, you know, local shows and touring bands coming through five, six nights a week or a couple of years. So it was awesome. I made incredible. You know, from all over the country, from being on the road, yes, they’ll keep in touch with a couple of them.

Speaker3: [01:00:31] I am so glad I asked.

Speaker1: [01:00:32] Yeah, there is

Speaker2: [01:00:34] A lot of layers.

Speaker3: [01:00:36] I should have asked you what instrument

Speaker1: [01:00:38] You play you should not have. I can make something up.

Speaker3: [01:00:43] So before we wrap up,

Speaker4: [01:00:45] Walk us through

Speaker3: [01:00:46] Kind of the three brothers customer experience, if you will. Yeah, someone does

Speaker4: [01:00:51] Need some

Speaker3: [01:00:52] Painting. They’ve been has put them in touch with you. Sure.

Speaker5: [01:00:56] Yeah. What they’re going to do is they’re going to call the office and speak to you know, he’s usually my sister Cindy that’s going to take their info or other call at the office. Mariola, who can, you know, take all your info. We just need your address, phone number, you know, first last name and an email address so we can actually email Jacquot. We don’t you written estimates like with paper anymore. We’ve gone the green route and just kind of shoot everything via email for the last five or six years. And it’s usually only a couple of days turn around because my one of my uncles, one of the original brothers, also helps with sales. It used to be when I was the only one doing our sales calls, I would be a week, week and a half out before even being able to do an estimate for somebody. And a lot of that mean that talk about a pain point. You know, that’s just not something that people are really willing to wait, not even to do the job, but to do that estimate right. Then get the job. So we decided to transition, as you know, crew leader slash, you know, estimates of the certain days of the week

Speaker4: [01:01:59] Where he helps kind of pick up

Speaker5: [01:02:01] Or I’m not able to get to these to these quotes. But, you know, within the next couple of days, I’m going to go out there and meet the person, you know, on site and talk to them about what their needs are. Actually, some of my concerns I had one yesterday comment on. I used to do my quotes on a giant laptop with an air card sticking out of it because it folded over to a tablet. And we have a server set up where, as I’m putting stuff up, you know, in our system, like on on my device, it’s updating lie about our office. Oh, that’s you know, so thankfully, we were able to get a mobile app version of our database, which, you know, they just released or free as long as they had the license, which we do. And for a long time, I was doing quotes on my iPad. Now, as iPhones have gotten bigger and bigger, I carry around a twelve pro Macs because of the larger screen size. So, you know, it’s funny when at this client I hadn’t seen in a while, I pulled up and walked in. He goes, oh, what happened to the laptop or the tablet? You’re doing it on your phone. I was like, it’s like the same size, you

Speaker1: [01:03:04] Know,

Speaker5: [01:03:06] So it’s just that much easier to do. So, you know, I ask them, you know, what, what are you exactly needing? And I’ll tell you what you don’t need. A lot of times folks will think, oh, I need to do walls, treb and ceiling because you’re going to be here. And I’m like, well, what’s wrong with your ceilings? Are you changing color? Are you going to be painting them to the shade of the wall or whatever? No. And I’m like, then why are we looking to do them? They look fantastic, you know, unless you’ve got a bunch of nail pops, water stains, you know, a bunch of cracks happening then. Right. Let’s take a look at them because we itemize everything. You know, I give my clients, you know, for entier specifically, it’s very, very broken down. I always joke and I say I shoot you a menu and then you pick from there because instead of sending out a bid for show, you know, in the stay at home, that might have thirty five forty thousand dollars worth of paint. You know, I break it down by room wallström sealing closet and they’re able to kind of pick and choose what they want to do from there because. We all have budgets, you know, I don’t like getting a bill that says, hey, it’s 5000 to do this project, I’m like, cool, I have thirty eight hundred.

Speaker5: [01:04:10] Like, let’s break this down. So we give folks that flexibility, whether extrudes is a little bit tougher to break it up because it’s like, OK, my front side of my house, right side of my house, my and I’m like well we already have all the equipment out and by the time you’re done doing this, you pay like twice what you should have, you know. But interior, there’s a lot more flexibility, you know, with being able to break things out. So, you know, we meet the client, usually try to have the quote over to them within, you know, a couple of days just because things take time to put together sometimes. Sure. And usually will be able to get them on schedule within three weeks or so. At the height of our busiest time. I will usually give us give us a month’s notice just to be on the safe side. But that’s very common for really any of the trades. I mean, I’ve got another a guy that I recommend all the time. And, you know, I’ve had calls from clients saying, hey, do you know anybody else who’s three months out? Oh, well, good for him, you know.

Speaker1: [01:05:10] Yes.

Speaker5: [01:05:10] I’ve also got this other guy, but he’s the one that mainly work with.

Speaker1: [01:05:14] But yeah. Also know a great

Speaker5: [01:05:17] Problem to have.

Speaker3: [01:05:18] Well, the important thing, I think for most people, certainly for me, is just tell me the truth. And whatever you tell me, do that. If you look will show up next Thursday, you know, around two o’clock, show up next Thursday, around two o’clock, not next Friday.

Speaker5: [01:05:32] And that’s absolutely something that I pride myself on for sure. I you know, Latino folks are very, very famous for not running on time. We have, you know, family parties were like, hey, if they said started, you know, be there at four.

Speaker1: [01:05:48] So there’s a little something to that.

Speaker5: [01:05:49] But seven oh one hundred

Speaker1: [01:05:51] Percent daughter’s Latino that it is a

Speaker5: [01:05:55] Thousand percent, you know, running joke in my family that if there’s any sort of family party show up at least two hours after the start date. And there are many examples of what I have been frustrated because I want to be there on time and then like I’m there as a caterer is showing up,

Speaker1: [01:06:12] You know, or whatever.

Speaker5: [01:06:14] So I take that very much to heart. And if we have an appointment at 11:00, then I’m going to be there at like 11:00 01, you know, or as close to 11:00 as possible. I set myself timers on my phone all the time, like, OK, I’ve got eight minutes, you know, of catch up on something before I got to start driving again to get this appointment and give myself an extra five minutes, you know, for traffic buildup or whatever, because it really does make a great impression. I can’t tell you how many times a day to tell me thanks for showing up on time, because unfortunately, contractors have a very, very in a lot of times well-deserved reputation for not showing up on time right

Speaker1: [01:06:56] Now or answering a

Speaker5: [01:06:58] Car, answering a call all the

Speaker2: [01:06:59] Time, like, thank you for calling. Yeah.

Speaker5: [01:07:01] Yeah, I’ve actually had that as well. Like, what I’ve had is folks, tell me thank you for answering a number you don’t recognize and much like you, it’s like, well, you know, for us a call is money, you know.

Speaker1: [01:07:15] Right. Sorry about that. We’ll figure that out quickly.

Speaker5: [01:07:18] Well, you know, it’s funny you say that because I have unfortunately, in the last couple of months, you know, if somebody got an out of town or out of state, I sometimes do have to screen those until I unless I recognize it right away because I get like fifteen, eighteen spam calls a day because I’m no one is answering my phone, you know, so I don’t know if that tells them that

Speaker1: [01:07:40] Database they track

Speaker5: [01:07:42] This eighty eight actually answers. Let’s add them to all these

Speaker1: [01:07:44] Other lists, you know.

Speaker3: [01:07:46] So it’s a good point that’s surfacing in both of you. Obviously it really take this customer experience thing very seriously. And it’s not like you have to. I think the lesson for us listening in or is you don’t

Speaker4: [01:08:00] Have to do heroic

Speaker3: [01:08:02] Things. They don’t they don’t have to be way crazy over the top

Speaker4: [01:08:06] Things just good, solid human.

Speaker3: [01:08:10] Absolutely.

Speaker2: [01:08:10] Services things use integrity in your business. And it goes a long way.

Speaker3: [01:08:15] Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. All right. We’re can our listeners get in touch with you? What’s the best way for them to reach out and learn more?

Speaker5: [01:08:21] The best way is going to be three brothers. Panting Dotcom that’s going to take you straight to our website. You can learn a little bit more about our history. We have the About US page. I think we still have a couple of videos up there. Were shot about twelve years ago, I think so much different than probably about thirty pounds ago for being real. And we have a you know, I’m narrating our history. Essentially, there are only about two and a half minutes each video, but one of them walks you through the entire interior painting process. Another is going to walk you through the entire exterior painting process. And we shot, you know, a handful of the scenes like on site, like showing the guys actually doing the work. But then we’ve also done a little bit more of an updated one, this was actually in HD, so I apologize for that again,

Speaker1: [01:09:13] But

Speaker5: [01:09:15] That one’s a little bit more updated. And again, just kind of tells you where we’ve been, you know, a little bit more recently, supercool. And, you know, I do have a pull up and folks are like, oh, you’re the guy

Speaker1: [01:09:25] From the video. I’m like, yeah, it’s our family business. And we thought you were not there. I’m like, that’s nice of you to lie to me. You know, you kind

Speaker3: [01:09:35] Of sort of sort of are

Speaker1: [01:09:37] Right.

Speaker3: [01:09:39] All this has been so much fun. Thanks for coming in and hanging out with the office.

Speaker5: [01:09:44] No, real quick is just one seven seven zero nine two eight three six six seven. If you guys here in the local Wittstock and really the metro Atlanta area, I mean, we go as high as far north as Dawsonville is, as far south as like the midtown Buckhead area. So we’ve got a pretty wide, you know, area of coverage. You know, a lot of my, you know, other G.S. and tradespeople really only like to stick to a small room. Good for them if they can stick to a smaller territory. But we believe in going where folks want us, you know, so within a certain limit, we’ve had to turn down jobs like in Tucker and the Lonigan as a bit of a pain to get through. But I tell myself it’s the same as if I was driving in traffic to Atlanta. You know, it’s just no traffic, you know. But yeah, no, we’re just grateful for the opportunity to be here today to let people know a little bit more about us and yeah, hopefully can come back in a year and tell you that I haven’t thanked us, you know,

Speaker1: [01:10:47] So I think that might be

Speaker3: [01:10:48] Fun. Right. Like when you when when the baton gets passed or gets close, why don’t you let’s do that with love that’s planned on doing that. The three brothers painting Dotcom’s is the number three. Are you

Speaker5: [01:11:00] Three brothers? Great. Great question. It’s called our three brothers painting dotcom. I think both. We’ll get you there, to be honest. But I know that in all of our business

Speaker3: [01:11:07] Actually probably bought the other. You are for

Speaker1: [01:11:09] Your sheet at least,

Speaker5: [01:11:11] Troye, smarter than us.

Speaker3: [01:11:14] Well, it’s been so much fun. Oscar, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely.

Speaker4: [01:11:18] Thanks for having me. All right.

Speaker3: [01:11:20] Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guests this morning, Cara Frankel and Oscar Vélez and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next

Speaker4: [01:11:29] Time on Cherokee

Speaker3: [01:11:31] Business Radio.