Every January, a lot of painting contractors are still trying to figure out what their plan is for the year, let alone how they're going to hit it. The successful painting business owners do it differently. They start planning in early November and have the whole thing locked in by December 15th, so they can actually enjoy the holidays with their friends and family.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors and owner of a residential painting company, walks through the plan before the plan: a simple 6-step framework for 2027 business planning, with target deadlines for where your painting company should be and when.

It's always good to have a plan for your plan. Call Chris the man with the plan for your plan.

The 6-step 2027 planning framework for painting contractors:

1. Goals: time, money, roles, and revenue numbers
2. Hires and your org chart
3. 2027 production numbers (done by the end of November at the latest)
4. 2027 financial planning: overhead, owner pay, and cash cushion
5. Spending plan: budget and track actuals, line by line
6. Q1 Rocks (everything solidified by December 15th to 20th)

What you'll learn in this episode:

• How to set goals for your painting business around time, money, roles, and revenue
• How to map out your hires and org chart for the year ahead
• Why you start with the big production number and then get micro
• How to forecast overhead: which hires you'll make and when, and what marketing you'll add (and whether it ebbs and flows through the year)
• How much you'll take home as the owner, and whether that changes your org chart plan
• How to spot the months your painting company might lose money, and whether your cash cushion can weather them
• Why more painting companies are viewing the year as two stretches: a 4-month stretch from November through February where you bleed as little as possible, and an 8-month stretch where you maximize profitability and stack cash
• How to build a spending plan and track actuals line by line, especially your marketing budget
• How to set Q1 Rocks so you start January with clear priorities instead of a blank page

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who want to finish the year strong, build a realistic 2027 budget and production plan, and walk into January knowing exactly where their painting business is headed.

🎯 Want to know where your painting business stands before you plan 2027? Take our free Business Health Assessment: score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

📞 Want to learn more about how Elite Business Advisors helps painting contractors grow their business? Schedule a discovery call at www.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on planning, job costing, production, hiring, sales, and scaling a profitable painting company.

We all know the Winter Slow Down for Painting Contractors happens each year, the question is are you prepared for it?

In today's episode, co-founder of Hirebus, Dan Fleisher and founder of Elite Business Advisors, Chris Moore, talk about how to prepare for it from a marketing and relationship perspective, what a good financial model looks like to weather the seasonality of a painting business, and some actionable tips you can implement immediately to help push through the next 4 months.

For more information on Hirebus and how they help Painting Contractors with recruiting the right employees, click here!

Interested in taking the new Business Health Assessment? Click Here!

Keeping receipts. It's the administrative task every painting contractor knows is necessary and nobody loves dealing with. But if your receipts are scattered across truck consoles, email inboxes, and a shoebox in the garage, your painting business is exposed in more ways than one.

In this episode of the Elite Business Advice Podcast, host Chris Moore, founder of Elite Business Advisors, goes back to the deep basics of running a painting company. This one's short and tactical: three easy systems for keeping receipts that work for you and your crew, plus the real reason it matters (and no, it's not just because the IRS says so).

And no, a paper copy in a box in your storage unit didn't make the list.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why every painting business owner needs a receipt system before the IRS (or CRA) comes asking
• System 1: iCloud. How to set up a master folder for each year with subfolders by category, upload PDFs, save emails as full-page PDFs, and snap photos of paper receipts, all organized by date for easy audit lookup
• System 2: Google Drive. The more versatile option, with a mobile app and a shareable upload link your painters and project managers can use without a Google account
• System 3: Receipt technology like Ramp, which texts your team right after every transaction to capture the category and what it was for
• Why someone in your painting company has to own receipt accountability, whether that's spot checks or confirming every transaction has a receipt
• How keeping receipts gives you a second set of eyes on what your company is actually spending money on, and what a recent situation with a project manager taught Chris about it

This episode is for painting contractors and painting company owners across the U.S. and Canada who want cleaner books, less tax-season stress, and real accountability over company spending as their painting business grows.

🎯 Want to see how your back office stacks up? Take our free Business Health Assessment: score.elitebusinessadvisors.com

📞 Want to learn more about how Elite Business Advisors helps painting contractors grow their business? Schedule a discovery call at www.elitebusinessadvisors.com

New episodes of the Elite Business Advice Podcast drop weekly with real strategies for painting contractors on operations, job costing, hiring, sales, and scaling a profitable painting company.