Franchise QB

Episode 106: LIME Painting—Mastering the $100M+ High-End Home Improvement Market

• Mike Halpern

Share episode

In this episode, Mike Halpern interviews Nick Lopez, founder of LIME Painting, who shares his journey from a broke college student to a successful entrepreneur in the luxury painting industry. Nick discusses the challenges he faced starting his first business during the 2008 Recession and how he leveraged his experiences to create a scalable franchise model. He emphasizes the importance of grit, perseverance, and the value of community in both sports and business, drawing parallels between his wrestling background and his entrepreneurial journey. Nick also explains the unique positioning of LIME Painting as a $100M+ luxury brand in the home improvement sector, focusing on quality and customer trust.


Watch: 👉 https://youtu.be/0PP93zKaNnA
Visit:   👉 https://limepainting.com/
Free Franchise Info 👉 www.franchiseqb.com/playbook
#FranchiseOwnership #FranchiseOpportunities #OwnABusiness #FranchiseSuccess #FranchiseQB

Free Resource for Franchise QB Listeners:

The Franchise QB Playbook will guide you through the process of finding your perfect franchise fit.

Free Franchise Doc: 👉https://www.franchiseqb.com/playbook
#franchiseownership #FranchiseOpportunities #OwnABusiness #FranchiseSuccess #FranchiseQB

Contact me and my team with any questions along the way. www.calendly.com/franchiseguy
Mike Halpern, CAFC
mike@franchiseqb.com

Joining us on the huddle today is Nick Lopez, founder and steward at Lime Painting. Welcome to the show, Nick. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. It's great to have you here. So you're the founder of Lime Painting, creator of the Get Lined value system and builder of the luxury trades category within franchising and home improvement. You've generated nearly a hundred million of revenue in the luxury painting category. That's a tremendous amount of revenue without private equity, without partners or family. without shortcuts, grit values and systems that scale. love that. You've said that franchising is the greatest wealth building vehicle for values aligned entrepreneurs. And you're just getting started with your business, even though you've already kind of eclipsed the a hundred million Mark. Um, you're also the host of a podcast called the level up show with Nick Lopez. So you're doing it all. Um, so Nick, take us back to the early days at Michigan state and what was the Genesis for becoming an entrepreneur in the first place. was a broke college kid, so originally from Denver and first generation college student. So, you you're 18, you're getting the credit cards in the mail. And there was actually a wrestler at my weight class, my sophomore year in high school. And that's what inspired me to go to Michigan State. Granted, they had a great business school, campus, whatnot. And it was the only school I applied to. got accepted, thankfully. But I took out a $500 credit card to get my flight to head out to Michigan. It was really the first time I flew out of state. And next thing you know, I'm on campus and I wrestled for Michigan State my freshman year. I received a$2,200 tuition bill. And when you don't even have, you know, 2200 cents, it was a ton of money. I had maxed out all my credit cards at the time and I thought I was heading home. But thankfully my now mother, my kid's mother, I four kiddos and I met her in college and... She actually was an athletic tutor. did math and I'd go in there every week. And I pretty much told her that I was done wrestling and whatnot. she friend requested me on Facebook, thank goodness for social media. And she lent me that $2,200. It's how I stayed in school. And that's clearly not sustainable. So out of all things, I started a painting company. And it was called Spartan College Painters. And this was back in 2008, in Detroit, middle of the Great Recession. yeah, um not at all. But it was just a matter of solving the next problem. And clearly, that wasn't scalable, borrowing money like that from my, at the time, girlfriend. so Spartan College Painters is what I did and I looked at the bigger the home, the bigger the college bills it would help me pay. And I had no idea I would stumble on the luxury trade space. But as I got into my business degree, specifically marketing, I started learning about positioning. And I was just drawing on my experience, the big homes I was working on. Again, the bigger the home, the bigger the college bills and Everything that they did from restaurants to the cars to the homes they owned, they wanted to pay more to get more. And they didn't want to overpay, but they cared about quality. And when it came to contracting, it was very fragmented and they struggled to find that kind of option. And frankly, contractors that took that approach. And so they found themselves really lacking trust for the space. And I would hear comments like, are you going to run off with my check? Are you going to charge me more? Are you going to job hop? And that was before I even started the job. then after the fact out here, you know, Nick, thanks for showing up. Thanks for doing a good job. Thanks for answering your phone. And, you know, I'm sitting in business class learning about competitive advantage. And that's when the light bulb really started going off and it's, it's solidified around an opportunity. Um, when I learned about positioning and drew on the couple years experience I had. And so I talked to a mentor and he recommended a book called E-Myth. It's actually right there. And it's changed so many people's lives and mine included, but it opened my eyes to the world of franchising. And what I loved about it was this whole idea of being in business with other business owners and not being in business by yourself and being a gym rat. uh An athlete growing up, I really loved the locker room aspect of sports and that combined entrepreneurship business with culture community. know, back in 2010, you know, knew franchising was for me. And so I spent the remaining three years of college. I was on the five year plan, really doing what Michael Gerber talks about, creating simple systems and processes with a simple team. where you can work on the business, not in it. And applied my sales marketing degree in the paint space while I was working with clients. And I just got feedback from professors and homeowners and painters. And next thing you know, in 2013, I'm launching Lime Painting back home in Denver. And yeah. And I wanted to kind of take a step back and talk about, you mentioned that you were a high school wrestler. You had the opportunity to wrestle in Michigan state as a freshman. I it's a big program. That's a pretty prestigious role. Uh, and now you coach your sons in wrestling now, not that you're a father. Um, how is the discipline that you had in wrestling to make way to compete at such a high level? How has that served you in entrepreneurship? my gosh, it, well, first and foremost to not quit and to have grit and perseverance and to see things through and to enjoy the process and not to let things get too big or too small. And again, to enjoy the journey and to maintain consistency when you don't necessarily have all the answers. Uh, in, wrestling, get rewarded through your record, through trophies, medals. Uh, in, in business, you get rewarded by happy clients and positive feedback and revenue and profits and, uh, employees hired and lives changed. um, you know, those are all the, the, the small wins along the way that, that keep you going and that. ultimately bring joy to the process. think athletics helped me to understand that it's a journey to be enjoyed. It's a, you know, it's a saying in wrestling. It's a marathon. Like for me coaching my kiddos, you know, it is a marathon. It's a, it's something I want them to do and love throughout their whole life and to put too much pressure or too much work. too soon or in moments can slow down that appreciation. you even though they compete at a really high level, there is a lot of pressure, there is a lot of expectations, but it's driven by them. And I'm just glad they enjoy it. And it's something we're able to bond over. And it's a great teacher for life, for business, wrestling, is. And so It's something that I didn't know I'd enjoy. yeah, it's a really great analogy between wrestling and business. And I love how you said don't quit like right out of the gate. First thing you said, because you got to persevere. I mean, in that sport, like you have injuries, you have challenges, like I can imagine where your heart rate is when you're about to step on the mat and and compete in that big match. And in business, like you're fighting, especially in the beginning to like get clients, hire good people, run a great business, make sure that there's quality, all the stuff that you touched on. I appreciate you kind of giving me that analogy there. And I want to touch on something you said earlier before about when you launched Spartan back in 2008. So, I mean, this is your first painting business. It's during the Great Recession. I remember living through that as a business owner. It was definitely challenging in the franchise space. You're in Michigan when the auto industry was certainly not at its peak. What were some of the lessons you learned there launching a business during these trying times? I would meet with clients and they would point to neighbors and say, and so, they have a short sale. So and so, it's a foreclosure. And that was just normal lingo. Also heard a lot about corporate greed and ethics and value-based companies really became a norm as a result. And it really showed me that... The painting business is resilient. You fast forward when the pandemic hit, that's when we started expanding from a franchise standpoint. And personally, I never invested more resources from time to financial than in 2020. And what gave me that confidence is what I experienced in 2008. If you're sitting wherever you're at, And watching this, if you drove to your closest airport and then you flew a couple states away, every property inside and out that you pass and fly over has paint and coatings on it. So it's a massive industry. It's a need, not a want. the quality sector. is non-existent in home improvement, not just painting. So it proved out in 2020 we were an essential business. And then you throw in the luxury sector, right? So not only is it contracting and painting that's recession resistant, but also that demographic as well. So, know, 2008 really taught me to continue to execute. We talk a lot about behavior equals outcome, especially when it's the right behavior. And that's the core of franchising, right? Follow the process when it's a proven process. And that's what makes franchising great. You have a community and systems and processes training wrapped around that core process. For us, it's the lime way. yeah, it gave me that confidence to execute and to block out the noise and... really keep those two feet right in front of you and not let too many things outside of your control stop you from executing. so yeah, the space, whether it's the marketplace, the economy, we've gone through supply chain issues after COVID, social unrest, inflation, you name it. And our business, I think my whole career has really just been one thing after the next. going into my 19th season here in 2026, hopefully one of these years, it's quote unquote a booming year. But those are some things I learned. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I mean, look, at the very least you did it in 2008 and then 2020 comes along with pandemic. You had the fortitude to stick it through in the beginning. And now instead of being on your own as this independent business, now you have a franchise system. So let's kind of pivot a little bit to that. Like, why did you decide to take this model that you really refined and worked on and decided to offer it out to franchise owners? Why did you decide to franchise the concept? that, did that come out of reading girl? book, the E-Myth revisited or was it was that something you read previously and it was just kind of planted a seed and then you said at some point, I think I can take this to market as a franchise concept. Right. You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm, I'm unemployable. So, you know, I knew business was for me and never thought that I would be scaling a painting company, but through my education, as I mentioned, the opportunity became clear and the fact that it was a national opportunity, not only was it an underserved sector in Michigan, it was nationally. And so by me spending five years in college in the space, It just gave me five years of experience when I graduate and be able to hit the ground running. I thought I was going to go to South Florida, do commercial real estate. I was going to do a real estate development program at the University of Miami, get a JD. I loved Miami, but the business opportunity and the space, frankly, I fell in love with the business. That really... came about and franchising in particular was the method to expand, to bring the value to customers. you know, I did hit a crossroad in about 2016 or so when I moved to Denver in 2013 and launched Lime. I spent about four years proving out the business, leveling up the business model. and it came time to start franchising. And I really hesitated because I had built a great business in my mid-20s and it was great. And for me to double down on franchising and expand through franchising, it was going to require me to invest everything because that's just the way I operate. If I'm going to do something, I'm all in and obsessed. what really pushed me forward to franchise and be all in was literally seeing the sales reps and the way that their lives were changed, seeing our painters the way that their lives were changed, the amount of market share that we acquired because of the value we delivered in the market. I felt selfish not expanding and giving the opportunity to other business owners. Clearly what it had done for me as an entrepreneur. so here I was exposed to e-myth and this whole idea of franchising and I created this replicatable model that benefited all these folks. I was potentially going to just scale across Colorado. Yeah, being able to go into business with other business owners, it's been one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done for a lot of reasons. And frankly, that is the power of franchising. We've awarded over 100 territories opened over 20 states, 70 something territories operating because of the talent of our owners. And I could just go story after story. of folks that have gone all in to our business and have contributed to helping the next person and innovating our business model. What you see with Lime, yes, my degrees gave us the scalable system, but it's really been our owners and the teams they've built and the folks at Home Office that have brought the brand to life and made it special. far beyond me. And that's what's humbling and beautiful about any community. Going back to my roots with athletics, that was my hope for franchising, that I would live that out. And that's certainly been the case. Yeah, that's awesome. Nick. And you had mentioned. Like it's interesting that the impetus for becoming a franchisor was you found something that was so great for your employees and the consumers that you didn't want to keep it to yourself. You felt selfish holding onto it. And that leads into my next question. When you, you and I emailed before this interview and your email signature says founder and steward of line painting. Most of the emails I see say founder and CEO, and I can tell that's intentional. Why did you use the word steward to kind of compliment you as a founder? That's an interesting question and I would love to answer it. For me, I am a Christian. We don't press our, or my values on anybody at Lime, but personally, that's how I live my life. That's my leadership style. Personally, I consecrated Lime to God and it's not my business, it's his. I felt a calling on my life to be in a position of leadership and do good with folks from a very young age. Business is where I was placed. That's what I'm doing. I'm stewarding something that's not mine. Yeah, it's in the job title, steward. No, that's great. And you can tell that it's faith based. That's really meaningful. It's coming from your heart. So that that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. So, um, Lime painting, Lime L I E is an acronym. Can you explain what that means? I would love to, LIME stands for Love, Integrity, Mission, and Excellence. We also have a slogan, Get LIMED, and that's our larger values, gratitude, enthusiasm, tenacity, love, integrity, mission, excellence, and discipline. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, that's, it's just nice to be able to set that tone with everybody in the system that like we care, you know, like this is a, we're a community. I mean, the words you're saying, it kind of resonates in it kind of explains to franchise owners, customers, what you guys are all about. So that's really great. Um, so I found this interesting, painting at least a few years back. I don't know if it's still consistent. generates about 40 % of revenues for lime painting. What other services do your franchise owners offer which comprise the remaining 60 % of revenue besides the luxury painting? Yeah, you hear the name, lime painting, you would think it's the majority of what we do, right? But I learned that paint is really a type of coating. And here I was recommending these high-grade coatings, extensive preparation, even doing wood replacement, gutter replacement. And there were other surfaces on these high-end homes. Keep in mind, we work on the top third of home values in a market. That's how we award a territory. And so these are generally large estates and there's many surfaces from, frankly, from the concrete or the floor all the way up to the roof. And you have metals and bricks and wood. And every one of those surfaces has, you know, they're exposed to sun and water damage and they're expensive assets. And so each surface has a type of coating that not only makes it look good aesthetically, but from a performance standpoint, durability perspective, protects it. you have metal coatings, plenty of brick coating, stamped concrete, epoxy. If there is a surface in a state that we're working on, we're able to come in and not only apply a coating, but restore anything that might be deteriorated. It could be tuck pointing on the brick, could be carpentry on the wood. I mentioned replacing the gutters. And that's just the outside. You know, the inside as well. We're going to know the surface. We can do any drywall or crown molding, replacement trim boards, replace any of that and then coat it. So on the inside, we're doing cabinet coatings, faux painting, lacquer work. You name it. So we're doing painting coatings and surface restoration on the inside and outside of both residential and commercial properties Okay. Yeah. And it's great that once you build that relationship with the consumer on these estates, all these other opportunities open up. Um, and you know, recently in my community, we have, I don't know, 700 homes and we got letters from the HOA said, Hey, these are the things you got to fix. And I'd imagine as a lime. franchise owner, you're on the lookout for when those notices get distributed because all the home services guys descend upon the neighborhood and it's time to get to work. And when I thought it was a painting job turned out to be a lot more because I looked at my stuff and I'm like, wow, the, you know, the window boxes, there's wood rot, they need to be replaced. and yeah, it becomes a more extensive fix, but it makes the house look beautiful. And I'm like, Hey, I'm not gonna have to do this for another 10 years or maybe longer. So one thing I want to ask you Nick is I've heard you say the word luxury a few times you define lime as a luxury painting brand you don't hear that very often in the painting space what does that mean to you and what makes lime painting different from all the other painting and home services franchises that currently exist Yeah, you're right. You don't hear that term. so we are literally creating the category in one of the largest spaces in the marketplace, which is home improvement. And we're in the paint space. But if you look at virtually every mature industry from restaurants to the auto and residential, you go down the list. There is good old marketing 101. There's segmentation, there's positioning. And as a service provider, you can't be all things to everybody. From a sales perspective and operations perspective, even the folks that you have on board, it starts to break when you try to be all things to everybody. So let's take, for example, McDonald's. Low price, low quality. They can't offer high quality and high prices. It wouldn't make sense. so as the category matured, more options in the market started to become saturated there and to provide clients options in the market. Because when you go to buy something, you don't always want to pay a lot. want to pay a little bit and get low quality. And sometimes you want to pay more and get a lot of quality. And so it just so happens that home improvement's very fragmented. There's a lot of blue collar sophistication. So we take a lot of pride in bringing white collar sophistication to the space and really knowing that client. We work on properties. But specifically, if you look at the residential side, we're working with clients that are in the top third. of home value. they are used to paying more to get more when it comes to the restaurant that they went to with friends the past weekend, the multiple vehicles that they own. Usually it's a Land Rover, a Porsche, a Mercedes. They own multiple homes. Every home is 6,000, 10,000 square foot plus. So when it comes to contracting, Again, they're working in a marketplace that's very fragmented. so, very underserved clientele just because of the nature of home improvement being just starting to become standardized. And what's awesome is franchising is standardizing home improvement in large part. So as we go forward, you'll start to see more of that saturation. as more options are in the market. Yeah, and you also mentioned Nick that you guys don't just do residential work. Obviously you're in a very specific subset of the high end luxury space, but I went out there to Denver to meet with you and your team a little while back. And I remember seeing an aerial of a, think it was a school that you guys had a pretty big project. Can you touch on the commercial side of the business a little bit? Yeah, that is a very neat video that our videographer put together and that is of a private school. So think of a high-end school, right? That school happened to be Aspen Academy. It's one of the top schools in Colorado. High-end shopping centers, right? High-end restaurants. A lot of the high-end restaurants are similar size to a high-end home. A lot of overlap there. If you look at high-end multi-unit housing, condominiums, townhomes, again, those clients are going to want to use higher-grade solutions and want to pay more to get more. And that's in the budget, frankly. It's just that price point. So yeah, on the commercial side, one of the first things we work with our partners on is understanding how to say no. how to understand who our appropriate clientele is because yeah, frankly, our business model doesn't work if we're not working with the right demographic. so, you know, our solutions, our approach, our sales approach, our operations approach, the products we're using, that is all catered for our niche, our demographic, and that applies on the commercial side. We really love working with high-end builders. And even with high-end builders, there are different types of high-end builders. Some are just using builder grade. They're more production-orientated. So they're really cost-driven. We're working with folks that want custom, more higher-grade solutions, bigger budgets. And again, we're not overcharging. We're just charging more to give more, because that's our model. Those are the types of solutions that we have in our back pocket. Yeah, that makes sense. It looks like a lot of opportunity. mean, within the residential model, having the painting and having all the other kind of coding applications and then being able to work within the commercial and the residential footprint gives your owners a lot to work. And look, I mean, it's kind of interesting that you mentioned that, you know, You have to teach franchise owners to say no, cause there are jobs that are just going to be underneath the threshold where it makes sense to deploy your team and the high end products that you use. It's not, you're not a one size fits all. So that's gotta be something that, you know, it's learned in time. Like you get it. Cause you've been doing it a long time, but new owners, they want to take every job they can get, but, um they probably like realize when they talk to seasoned owners that, this is our lane and let's stay in it. And good things happen when we kind of follow the system, right? Just like you said before, um So Nick, tell us a little bit about your Level Up podcast. I know you have the level up there behind you. Tell us a little bit about why you started it what it's all about. Sure. Well, I have the pleasure of talking to thought leaders in business, franchising, and high performance personal development. so if you're interested in any of those topics, that's really what the show is all about. We just released an internal podcast really focused on leadership development. And that's a category of the Level Up Show. We also have The people at Lime, it's a series and we talk to folks, whether it's franchise partners, their GMs, account managers, vendors, suppliers, you name it. yeah, it's just a great place to come and get great information. And it's not just paint focused or Lime focused, frankly, it's pretty broad. But again, we're talking about business, franchising and high performance. personal development. Love it. And I will place a link to your podcast when I published this one as well. so let's talk a little bit about who you're looking for, right? are you looking for someone that's looking to buy a job or to build an empire? Who is your ideal franchise partner? Frankly, both. We're looking for somebody that is prepared to do a career transition, which upfront could feel like a job. But in the big picture, you're understanding the business and doing it from an ownership leadership perspective with the intention to scale. And so that requires getting into the business. Wherever your skill set may be, whether that's operations or sales, those are really the two main roles. Very simple model. Not a lot of positions we're hiring for, but either one of those two pillars you're going to lean into and then hire for counter positions. And over time, work yourself out of the role and more and more working on the business, especially as you develop. leadership who can help lead and train and move the business forward. We have owners that have done just that and own across multiple states and folks they've trained up have become owners and own across multiple states. So that's the great thing about the business and where we're at. We've been able to see a lot of organic growth and leadership and life's changed through the model and executing on it. And going back to what Michael Gerber talked about, right? Simple processes, a simple org chart where you can duplicate a service over and over. For us, it's providing value. It's a need for that luxury homeowner. And as a result, you're able to benefit from being in business for yourself, but not by yourself, of course. So yeah, it's an empire model in that folks at Lime started with one territory and have upwards of almost 10 across multiple states. And even some have started as entry-level interns in college and have worked their way to be GMs and multi-unit owners, which is pretty awesome. yeah, that's not done. behind a desk, investing into the franchise, then expecting it to scale on its own. It's done by getting your hands involved in the business, learning how to execute against the lime way, creating a culture that is fun to work hard, play hard, and leaders will rise up within your company. that allows you to start to... develop those folks and provide career path opportunities. And that's the fun part of business ownership, but it does take a couple of years to get there. So yeah, I definitely wouldn't want to make the wrong impression in that, being that folks are building legitimate empires, they're scaling, but it does require a lot of intentionality upfront and frankly ongoing. But when you have good folks on the team, they're going to be more than capable of helping run that territory. The folks that own across multiple states, they've done just that. They've developed GMs who are helping train up folks to be leaders within the territory. And that owner's not there all the time. They're in another state. So hopefully that gives some context. Yeah, for sure. And if anyone listening is interested in becoming a Lime owner, what is the startup cost range in item seven? I know there's a variance depending on if they do a single territory, multiple territories, but if you're looking to get in and get started, what's our range of cost? It's anywhere from 120,000 to 270,000. Okay, so I mean if you're using some financing, you know, can get in the deal for in the$50,000 range, give or take, which is really affordable to a lot of first time franchise owners. Absolutely, low cost and we get plenty of work and capital there. So from 120 to 270, that's all work and capital. And that's for building a team and iterations of hiring and development. And so we try to be, you know, pretty generous there with that work and capital, about 150,000 dedicated to marketing and payroll. Yeah. You want to have a nice runway there so that you can make really smart decisions instead of worrying about running out of capital and start making knee jerk reactions to situations. You can invest in building a nice pipeline of clients and investing in people and all the stuff that comes along with longevity in business. So Nick, do you provide any item 19 earnings guidance so that a potential franchisee can learn a little bit more about what it would be like to operate a business and what they can earn. Absolutely. Our average owner volume's about a million dollars. Average ticket per ticket is about 20,000, but that is a combination of both residential and commercial accounts. know, residential anywhere between 10,000, 15,000, depending on the territory, you know, your ticket size, right? And the industry average is about three to 5K. So when you combine all of our services, the size of the homes, it results in those kind of average tickets. Yeah, and I think that speaks to your point earlier about being a luxury brand. You can see that in the tickets. mean, the proof is in the pudding there. Nick, this has been great. I really appreciate all the time you've kind of spent with us here to kind of educate us about yourself and the Lime model. Anything else you want to add to the mix before we wrap up today? Well, it's always a pleasure getting the opportunity to talk to somebody who has been in franchising and has been all in. So Mike, I appreciate everything you do and I love your show. So keep putting out great content. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. And thank you for the compliment. Um, I really enjoy hearing your story. And I, I know you and I have discussed my son who's now a freshman at university of Kentucky, but he was a high school wrestler. And I would sit in there. I I'm not a wrestler. I came up playing other sports like baseball and tennis and football. So like I see the discipline and I love how that's translated to success for you and the people that are working with you as franchise owners. If anyone listening would like to connect with Nick to learn more about becoming a franchise owner with Lime Painting contact me at franchiseqb.com or on x at qb franchise qb and I'll get you connected. Thank you so much Nick for taking the time to get in the huddle with us today. I it. You got it.