Damien Niquette
Hello, welcome to the EvoFoam Pest Control podcast community spotlight episode one. today. We’re excited we have Allan, Alarcon, general manager at That 1 Painter. How’re you doing, Allan?
Allan Alarcon
Hey, buddy. I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.
Damien Niquette
Good. Excellent. We’re, we’re happy to have you. So how’s uh, how’s business? You’ve been pretty busy lately?
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, it’s been pretty nuts. We’ve had a lot of growth. Thank God. And, and yeah, I’m looking forward to you know, we got a year coming up here 2022 and set new goals. And yeah, it should be exciting,
Damien Niquette
man. Nice. Nice. I’m glad to hear that. Yeah, we’ve, we’ve known each other for many years. You know, not too many, you know. So I’ve followed you the last few years. And we’ve been keeping in touch. And I’ve been really excited to see what you guys have been doing some really exciting things. And you guys been doing a great job. And, and just so people know, this whole community spotlight thing, I don’t take this lightly, that they’re the purpose, the mission of this is to get the word out to folks of have good businesses out there doing great quality work that are ethically honest, and you know, and just have a good culture to them. And I couldn’t I couldn’t think of a better fit than that one painter. You guys are phenomenal. I actually, and I know from personal experience, if you recall, I hired you guys, you know, some while a while back to do some drywall painting work. Yeah. And I was, you know, and my background, I came from a family construction company. Yeah, you know, my dad’s a painter, drywall or stucco did all that too. And seeing the quality of work. I was I was pleasantly surprised. And just how you guys, you know, how quick you were to reach out to me get the job completed. And just the whole, the whole experience was extremely positive. So that in that that was one of the obviously the main reasons, just not just because of our relationship, but it’s mainly because of what you guys are doing. So and let’s kind of dive into that a little bit. You know, what, what it is? You know, we’ll talk about first the first question I’d like to ask is, you know, I think it’s important to understand is how did that one painter come about? How, what’s the backstory on that?
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, so that 1 Painter is in we’re almost in our 11th year they got founded and it was founded by Stephen Montgomery, who’s also my cousin. At the time. We were actually roommates in South Austin, just two young guys working hard trying to make a buck. Steven, our uncle, Stephens dad had a paint business growing up. So kind of grew up around the paint world a bit, kind of like kind of like you did with your dad. Anyhow, so it’s kind of just always like a family trade, if you will. And Steven, you know, wanted to get married and then wanted to kind of have more of a serious, actual formal business. And Whoa, yeah, he founded that one painter. In the beginning. I hated the name. Ever when we sat around, and we’re thinking of names, I was like, No, man, that that’s, I don’t know, it sounds corny. It sounds cheesy, you know, it was people always gonna remember, you know, that one painter I hired, you know, yeah. Anyways, that was his deal, founded here in Austin. And I helped him in the early stages, we would do projects together, I was also working in sales at a different company. And, and then, you know, obviously went off and kind of did different things for a while, but always really supported each other. And in pass along referral business. And then I came on board full time with him about three years ago, and have kind of scaled the business into what it is today, which is exciting to say is now officially here in Austin, and we’re one of the largest and residential repaint in the city. And we currently just signed our tents. franchise location as we just started doing franchising this year.
Damien Niquette
Yeah, I went that’s one of the questions. We’ll get to that one. I was gonna ask you about the franchising. I know you jumped the gun on me a little bit there. But I mean, with good reason that you know, I understand I get it so yeah, that’s a great story. Because you know, from my understanding, you know, Stephen was kind of a a one man with a pink can so to speak operation right. I mean, he he started this all by himself rolling house doing houses on his own and just to see, you know, what it’s become and you know, in the last 1011 years is just just amazing. You know, you guys are doing God’s doing phenomenal. I just Seen a lot of your work on on your posts and whatnot. Well, what and in here’s the thing, you know that one painter we knew we know that you do painting, obviously. What other services do you provide?
Allan Alarcon
So yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, we have 18 unique services that we’ve kind of narrowed down there on our website on the day we kind of promote. We do you know, obviously painting we do some drywall repair work. Minor carpentry repairs, here and there caulking sealing pressure washing, some stucco repair. I mean, I like to say that anything is kind of like, part of beautifying the exterior interior of your home. We likely either do it, or at least can point you in the right direction. For I kind of think we’re sort of in the home beautification space. Yeah.
Damien Niquette
Well, yeah. I have a customer that actually used you all to and what’s that? Remind me? What’s it called? Is that like a they call that stonewash? What’s going on recently?
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, it’s super beautiful. It’s lime washing. Washing recently flat. Yeah, some European products that are for here in Texas, we have tons of limestone in brick homes. And it’s just a really cool thing you can do on the exterior, or you can even do it on the interior. If you have like, a brick feature wall or on fireplace, Something like that. And yes, process.
Damien Niquette
Yeah. I’ve seen that firsthand. You know, before and after in person. Yeah, it was it was beautiful. You know? It looked great. It’s cool. Well, awesome. Um, well, so this leads me into my next question, that one painter so obviously, you just don’t have one guy running around painting. How many employees do crew members do you currently have right now.
Allan Alarcon
Because of the franchise’s that’s getting harder and harder to track. But here in Austin, I currently have about 45 painters, or so I have three project managers, two estimators, myself and an Office admin. And that’s kind of the Austin team. And we get out there every day and get after it. And then the franchise’s like I said, I mean, this is all brand new. So we sold 10, we only have two that have launched. Well, a third one is launching, well just launched this Houston launched on Monday. And so yeah, but these are all brand new, and they all have like, you know, four or five pain or something like that. So, yeah, it you know, it’s exciting times, it seems like every day, we’re adding more team members and yes, it’s cool. It’s a cool time.
Damien Niquette
Well, since we’re kind of talking about the franchising level. So I just recently seen on Facebook, I believe that one’s coming here. And we’re, we’re located even located here in Georgetown.
Allan Alarcon
Yeah. So that’s actually going to be a that we’re doing a couple of corporate owned locations, too. And just territories that we feel are emerging, they’re not the best necessarily, as far as data goes, because that was not that big yet. You know, it is big, but it’s not, you know, but maybe like a Georgetown Liberty Hill kind of that far north. It’s still, in my opinion, the Greater Austin area, even though people feel like they’re not right. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a market that we feel, we can, we can definitely do do more work in and we don’t have a strong presence in. And so we have Ricardo, who’s actually been with us for a while now, here is an estimator who’s going to go out there and launch the location for us. So that’ll be exciting. Yeah, nice.
Damien Niquette
Excellent. Yeah, I’m gonna share it. I’m gonna share the screen real quick. Of yalls website. That way, you know, that way, we can put a visual here and show folks where they can go and check everything out. Here’s your website. Let me click back right here. Here’s the main, here’s the main page right here. Obviously, on top menu, you have a franchise tab here. We’ll click on that.
Allan Alarcon
Yep. It’s a good place to learn a lot
Damien Niquette
more on there. And there’s a really good video here. We won’t play the whole thing but it has
Allan Alarcon
an I am the owner of that one painter.
Damien Niquette
Has your cousin talking there? Yeah, and just in one thing that people can do is go on here and click on fill out a form, put their information on, but of course you can they can always contact you as well. And yeah, we’ll put your information back on there. But yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s unbelievable. And I you know, we we’ve been talking about that for a while and I spoke with you and Yeah, seeing all these franchises coming about and you guys went off to some trade shows in Florida recently to kind of market your brand as well, didn’t you?
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, it’s it’s always fun me like even for you Damien like, you know, I remember years ago like talking about your business and EvoFoam and your, your plans and your vision. And it’s always one of those things where it’s, it’s weird when you start to see your baby come to life, right? It’s just like, you know, some people will look at it and go, You know, sometimes people are surprised. And for us this is this is, like I said, from the time I came on board us even three years ago, this was kind of what we had envisioned was was getting to this point and, and it’s taken a lot of effort and a lot of learning the franchise world as a whole kind of thing. And there’s a lot of rules and laws and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it’s homeowners and delivering on good service and delivering on good quality, being quick, having integrity, being generous, all of those things, you know, and you know, it’s the same old, you reap what you sow adage, just implemented in a way that fits our culture and our brand.
Damien Niquette
Absolutely. That’s, that’s, that’s most important to Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. So one other thing that I wanted to talk about, I think it’s important, and it’s amazing what you guys are doing with this. I’ve seen it but you guys do a lot of charity work. And I believe it’s called painted forward. Can you explain that what that means what you’re doing?
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, so paint it forward, kind of came to me, I don’t know, probably a couple years ago, we’re trying to think of a good, you know, name for what we wanted to do through that one painter. So, me and Steven are also very involved in church and in missions, stuff like that. It’s a big part of our background, it’s a big part of why we get up every day and do what we do. And our grandfather was a missionary in Africa for many, many years, he passed away here about a year ago, and paying it forward was something that we were already kind of doing a lot of work in, in missions and, and different like discipleship schools, business schools, in, in Africa and in other countries. And anyways, and long story short, yes. Through corporate and to what we do, we donate not a specific amount, because it kind of varies, we kind of just address needs, as they come up, we support this whole called commission network out there through paying it forward. And the whole ideas giving back. And so we have, we’re currently in nine countries in Africa. And it’s basically these schools that teach, you know, the Bible and the word of God, but they also teach business. And that’s one of our biggest attractions that we teach them in their schools there. A lot of times they don’t really teach them to be entrepreneurs, they don’t really use them, the foundations of business, and they’re so dependent on all these other charities that all they do is give, all they do is give but they do no training, they do no teaching. And it’s better to teach a man to fish, right. So it’s sort of the approach we have, and we’re excited to see, we don’t want an Africa that’s always poor. We don’t want these nations to be always impoverished you, you can give and give and give. But until you equip and train those nations, and those people, more importantly, won’t, won’t be able to drive themselves out of those harsh situations. And so then we also support some orphanages and do some other things as well through it, something we’re very passionate about. And truthfully, we got an invitation in Nepal and one in the Middle East to expand the commission. We’re no longer saying it’s just an Africa we we are hoping we might be able to take it to, to several continents so
Damien Niquette
often, yeah. And plus being kind of a, like you said mentioned kind of a tribute to your grandfather as well carrying on his legacy. That’s yeah. That’s, that’s amazing what you guys are doing. So that’s, you know, what would you say for anyone that’s interested in in franchising, you know, what would you what would you mention?
Allan Alarcon
I would bluntly just say that anybody in any space right now, there’s not a better outlook than Home Services, starting a pest control company, a painting company, plumbing, electrician, whatever home service company right now, every economist out there is telling you, this is the best future outlook business is grueling to be in the restaurant industry. It’s ruined to be in technology where the competition is so high. There’s not a whole lot of other businesses out there that have the future security, as much as home services. And so yeah, finding a brand This speaks to you that aligns to you that you can share the moral vision. And the company culture, I think is super, super exciting for a lot of people. And yeah, I’m proud to say we’re not the only ones, right? Thankfully, you know, it’s not like we’re, we’re not an emerging, you know, it’s not like something that we created. It’s painting as a necessity all throughout the country. And we just want to align ourselves with people who have the same goals, the same vision and the same culture and, and work at it together, you know,
Damien Niquette
yeah. And I know you guys will know, you know, I really appreciate you coming on today. I’ve been wanting to get you on here for a while and really let you talk about what you guys are doing. It’s some very exciting things and you guys are doing an amazing job. Out there needs any painting done on their home their business, you’re interested in becoming a franchisee give Alan a call 512-228-2676 or you can email him at Alan at that one. painter.com or visit their website, fill up the form. I know you’ll be happy to help you out and point you in the right direction. You won’t you won’t be disappointed in the quality of work that I can promise you. And there again, if you have any pest control needs. Give me a call. Damian and Eva phone pest control. 512588298 I’ll put my little thing on the ticker there. But, uh, Alan, it was a pleasure. I appreciate your time. And I look forward to seeing you guys progress and all the all the all the wonderful things that you’re going to you’re going to accomplish in the future.
Allan Alarcon
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on. And yeah, like Damian said, any pest control needs you need to call him to. He’s being very humble. He’s not talking about himself. But EvoFoam home is very impressive. They have a lot of technology. I come a little bit from the background of pest control world Damon used to be my boss years ago. Love the time we had together, man I learned that’s why that’s why you’re so successful. Yeah, well, you’re on your way to and one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met in pest control. So you definitely are in good hands with anything you need that way. So we’re hearing flexes pretty much everybody right? I have his service myself. He comes out to my house. I had a lot of rotations and and I had termite issues at 1.2. And Damien’s always been my man. So yeah, man. Thanks for having me on. And, yeah, likewise, man would love to continue to help promote each other’s businesses and, more importantly, get the word out there to customers, as far as you know, better decisions and better quality of life. Yeah, absolutely.
Damien Niquette
All righty.
Unknown Speaker
All right.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai