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The Story of Schoenfelder Painting
The Early Years
Mark Schoenfelder, founder, was hired in 1991 as a franchise manager for College Pro Painting. He completed about 25 homes that summer. Mark started with nine painters the first day, and finished the week with two painters, Luke Schoenfelder and Jason Burkman. Jason Burkman painted for seven years and Luke Schoenfelder painted for eight years.
In 1993 Mark graduated, went independent, lowered prices and gave raises. Mark’s Painting completed about 55 homes that year.
We started painting year round in 1995. Mark graduated with honors from law school in May of 1997 and was finally able to work full time in the business.
A great example of Schoenfelder Painting’s commitment to customers is Creekside Town Homes of Plymouth. In 1997 we were asked to do a bid at their property because the new paint job was peeling after only six months. The previous painter had completed six buildings in six days and performed almost no surface preparation. The painter blamed the peeling on “bad windows” and refused to honor any warranty. Schoenfelder Painting’s price was similar, but our surface preparation was vastly different. The homeowners were so impressed with the amount of scraping, sanding, priming and caulking that they hired us to paint 50% of the remaining windows on the property (approx 1100). Since then, we have been hired back to do six buildings each year. We have now completed the entire association and the whole property looks great.
The homeowners at Creekside of Plymouth were very happy with the results. Their manager, Judy Davis of Gassen Companies, was so impressed with the quality and service of Schoenfelder Painting that she spread the word at Gassen Companies. The managers at Gassen Companies spread the word about our surface preparation and customer service to other management companies such as New Concepts, Cities Management, Aimco, Gittleman and Sage. Property managers began to choose Schoenfelder Painting because they understand that the bottom line price is only one factor. They also take into account the customer service, warranty, surface preparation,and quality of work. They do not base their decisions on advertising, but on their own experience with the painting company over many projects. Property managers now account for nearly half of our business. Our similar sized competitors spend over ten times more on advertising per year. We choose to spend twice as much on surface preparation. Our clients appreciate the preparation and we appreciate the referrals.
During a bid, Mark was asked by an astute client, “How do I know you will do a good job?” Every company has a few carefully screened references and can make a lot of promises, but how can you KNOW?
The Idea
During Mark’s final year in law school, he took a “Total Quality Management” class at the Carlson School of Business. The instructor pounded on the desk one day and exclaimed, “If management buys into ‘Total Quality’ it actually works incredibly well!” Mark took a chance and tried it out that spring. He quickly became a true believer. The decision to incorporate Total Quality Management into the company was the most important decision ever made by Schoenfelder Painting. It enabled Schoenfelder Painting to complete more jobs and, at the same time, to achieve higher quality than ever.
The painting industry is notorious for everyone having their own standards. It is very hard to tell a homeowner, “This work is ‘Good enough.’” Our bonus system for the painters is concrete, measurable and direct. They receive a bonus on every job that is signed off “Extremely Pleased.” Currently 85% of Schoenfelder Painting’s clients sign off Extremely Pleased”
This commitment to Total Quality has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of referrals we receive. Our ability to keep clients has skyrocketed. Obviously, this leads to rapid growth and a need for additional talent.
Growth
Schoenfelder Painting has been built on the philosophy of growing our client base by doing great work and earning referrals. We build our workforce in the same way. We believe in compensating our workforce very well. Most of our painters were referred to us by their family and friends who already worked with us. Once we find a talented ambitious painter, we work to assist them in reaching their full potential. Most of the office staff, salespersons and all of the production staff started their painting careers on the end of a ladder.
In May of 1998, Sam Schoenfelder, a foreman who contributed six years to the company, hired a beginning painter fresh off the farm. The 18 year old showed great promise and took on tremendous responsibility. He received four raises over the next five months and was promoted to manager that fall. The beginning painter, Steve Kucera, is now in his eighth year with Schoenfelder Painting. He is the Vice President and part owner of the company. He is known for working seven days a week and being willing to do whatever it takes to extremely please a client.
In January of 1999 Matt Schoenfelder rejoined the company as a salesperson. He started out painting during breaks from school. Matt brought a lot of sales experience with him and has proven to be excellent at servicing his clients. He was promoted to Vice President of Sales in 2000. He specializes in property management and commercial work.
The Total Quality Management program was working out great and the new sales talent was expanding our sales tremendously. We needed more painters.
Our commercial business was expanding rapidly but with it came increased pressure. When you have $500,000 of business with one client, you cannot afford to take risks with a new painter. Like most companies, we had tried to do on-the-job training. Mistakes often ended up being extremely expensive.
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We purchased a building in Minnetonka, located near 169 and Crosstown. Inside it, we built two large exterior training walls that measure 50’x 12‘. We also built an interior painting training wall, a deck and a training kitchen. Now when we hire a new painter who says he can spray, we now can test him. If they say they can make their enamel feel like glass, we can have them prove it. If the painter did not know how to do something, they can learn, practice and be tested on our walls, not your walls. This facility allowed us to bring on new painters, but not have to take risks with our valuable clients. See more about our painting training facility here.
Many people think training is expensive. We believe training is not expensive compared to the cost of making a mistake in the field. |
Results
Our training facility combined with our Total Quality Management Program have enabled us to grow quickly. We have tremendous manpower and broad painting experience.
We have 80+ painters and 40+ jobs in progress at any given time. These are coordinated and scheduled by Eric Picha. Eric worked his way up from painter to foreman to job superintendent, and was promoted in 2004 to Production Manager. His broad experience in the field helps him understand the perspectives of the painter and the client. If you need the up-to-the-minute status of your job, contact Misty from 9-5 at 952-345-2900.
We now produce about 1000 projects per year. Sue Meyer is our full time accountant. Sue makes sure all of our bills are paid in full each month, the painters are paid every week and she reports our outstanding receivables to the national credit reporting agency, Experion. She works from 8-4 if you have questions on an invoice.
When you hire Schoenfelder Painting you KNOW you will get a good job because of our Total Quality Management program, our Training program, and our history of Extremely Pleasing our clients.
If you would like a bid, contact an experienced Minnesota painting company.
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