We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dalton Tomlinson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Dalton, thanks for joining us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
I sold my first business, North Texas Painting, a partnership with my best friend in 1985 when I was 24 years old. The next day Supreme Painting was started, just 8 days before my first daughter was born. In those days we did new tract homes and our first contract was with Centennial Homes that was starting 4-5 houses a month. 5 houses a month was not going to support my growing family. After 5 weeks I got a call from a superintendent working for Gemcraft Homes they were starting 5 homes every Monday. In March of 1986 while everything was going smooth, I got a call from the Centennial Homes people to tell me that they were opening up another subdivision and they wanted Supreme Painting to paint them too. At that time we had 6 employees but we needed to hire more people because the demand was going to get greater. The new Centennial Homes subdivision sold over 200 homes before the streets were completed. That meant as soon as the streets were completed, they would build homes as fast as they could. Also Gemcraft was still building 5 homes every week. By September of 1987 Supreme Painting employed 27 painters, Payroll varied between $10K and $15K every week and the paint bill was $20K per month. If you’re old enough to remember, there was a recession that hit in September’/October of 1987. I remember writing 27 payroll checks one Friday and only writing two the very next Friday. Home construction shut down that fast. The remainder of ’87 and all of’ 88, we worked approximately half the time with a 2-3 person crew. That experience prepared for all the hard times in the future especially the next big recession in 2010.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I work at General Motors at the Arlington plant. After I work there for about a year there was a major layoffs. While I was laid off I went back to work and the painting industry. My layoff from General Motors ended up being about a year-and-a-half. During that layoff I was working for a painting contractor that got fed up and quit in the middle of his contract. My best friend and I that were running the jobs for the painting contractor decided to take over the contract. Since we are both 21 it took us a little while to convince the people at that subdivision. Once General Motors called me back I worked construction in the morning and at General Motors during second shift for about another year. I put in my notice at General Motors and was a full-time painting contractor. After about two and a half years I sold my portion of a company and started Supreme Painting in October of 1985. In the beginning, Supreme Painting, did new track homes and then transitioned into the bigger custom homes from 1988 through 1992. And 1992 we started to phase out new construction and started doing residential repaints. I am proud to say that Supreme Painting is in the business of selling experiences, great experiences. With these great experiences you just happened to get a great paint job along with the great experience. Our goal is to be invisible while working in their home. We arrive on time, respectful of the clients property, and complete the projects as scheduled.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’ve had the pivot several times in my career. The first time was in 1985 when I sold my first business. I was looking to grow and expand the business but my partner was still going to college and had no plans to continue with the business long term. One day I decided to figure out what I thought the business was worth and went into him and gave him the choice of buying me out at that price or selling it to me at that price, he chose to buy me out. Second time that we had to pivot was in 1992 then we could see how the new construction was very up and down and you could not depend on it. I then decided to phase out new work and only work on residential repaints. It took us about five years to completely phase out new construction. Since 2002 Supreme Painting has done mostly residential repaints with a few commercial repaints thrown in.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Our best source of new clients is referrals. Always do what you say you’re going to do and most people are happy to refer you to their friends and family. We also were in a BNI for a few years which is a referral-based group. We work really hard for referrals by keeping in front of our clients with a monthly newsletter and we also ask for referrals from time to time.
Contact Info:
- Website: SupremePainting.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supremepainting/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SupremePainting/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daltontomlinson/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/supremepainting/
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCFiJx1ASbVqdz6XoSitEbOg