In this special edition episode of The People at LIME, Nick Lopez, CEO of LIME Painting, takes center stage to offer an exclusive look into his journey as a franchising visionary. Joined by Erica Sicre, Nick shares how he transformed LIME Painting from a local startup into a nationally recognized leader in home improvement through his innovative franchising strategies. This insightful conversation covers the core values that fuel LIME’s growth, the challenges Nick has overcome, and his vision for the future of the franchise model. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business leader, this episode offers valuable lessons on leadership, business development, and the power of franchising to drive lasting success. Tune in for a deep dive into the mindset and strategies of a true franchising visionary, and discover what it takes to build a purpose-driven brand.
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We have a special episode of the people at LIME and yours truly will be interviewed by our VP of Business Development, Erica Sicre. Thanks for doing this.
Thanks for having me. I’ve been looking forward to being the one to interview you. It’s so super exciting to change it up. I have lots of questions for you. Are you ready to get started?
Let’s do it.
Question number one. A lot of us know your story on why you started LIME, but why exactly did you choose to franchise?
Franchising is one of many ways to deliver services and products. You can expand in a lot of ways. A traditional way is corporate expansion. To your point, franchising, you’ll see it here. The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. That book, back in college, introduced me to franchising. I had no idea what franchising was prior, but what I did know was that the clients I was working with were struggling. They were struggling to find consistent, reliable painters.
They owned a high-end home. They owned many high-end vehicles and probably multiple homes. They have dinner with friends at high-end restaurants. Everywhere where they do business and interact with the marketplace, they want to pay more to get more. I learned about that in college in Marketing. I was in a positioning class learning about that. If you have two axes, one being price and one being quality, as an organization, everything you do, from operations to sales and everything in between, is designed for where you fit in the market. You can’t be everything to everybody.
Here I was in college, painting. That’s how I was paying my way through college. I was an out-of-state student at Michigan State from Colorado. Out-of-state tuition is outrageous. I found myself painting homes. I started a company called Spartan College Painters. I looked at the bigger the homes, the bigger the college bills it would help me pay. That was my logic in college.
Here I am in Business School two years in and I’m learning about simple things like competitive advantage. I’m thinking about my time working for these clients and very basic things like showing up, answering my phone and doing a good job. I was getting those compliments. That was a competitive advantage. Doing what I said I was going to do.
It’s remarkable the lack of trust in the market. I often would hear things like, “Nick, are you going to run off with my deposit? Are you going to charge me more when you start the job? Are you going to job hop?” “Job hop. What does that mean?” “When you start the job. You come back. I don’t hear from you.” I said, “No. I’m going to paint your home and we will gladly start and end on time.”
You overlap that competitive advantage with positioning through my marketing class. The light bulbs went off, and the mentor handed me that book, E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, which is where I learned about franchising. Michael Gerber does such a great job of making the business model and the expansion strategy very simple and straightforward.
There are roles and processes. You create systems that duplicate results, and you do it in a way that allows you to work on the business, not in the business. For me, that was several years ago when I learned about franchising. I loved it because I grew up a gym rat and I wrestled for Michigan State my freshman year. The locker room aspect was very much a way of life.
This idea of having a business which I love because you can work toward goals. You can execute strategies. You can learn techniques and develop them and do that alongside others, and that is a lot like sports. The two go hand-in-hand and that franchise model introduced all of that. That is why I knew that franchising was the way in which I would deliver this need in the market. I was solving in the locally slanting market. Nobody was doing it nationally, this whole high-end focus, this positioning in the market, but yet it’s this massive painting industry.
The beautiful thing about that is franchising is standardizing home improvement in general. If you look over the past few years, it’s been incredible, the amount of momentum that has catapulted different franchise companies within the home improvement sector. The reason is that it creates mutual synergy or mutual value between entrepreneurs coming together in a franchise relationship and working collectively to provide value to the end consumer or customer. That is an incredible model that I could talk about all day. It is so exciting. Those would be some of my initial thoughts.
Thanks for filling in our readers as far as your background and why you came up with LIME and also why I chose to franchise the brand. There are now over 100 territories under LIME Painting. Not only was the concept there, it was proven and it continues to be. Kudos to you for breaking through that luxury space, specifically in home restoration. We’re excited.
The next question is a two-part question. Number one, again, for some of our readers who may not know what LIME stands for, what does it stand for? The second part is what was the process for coming up with that name for your brand?
LIME stands for Love, Integrity, Mission, and Excellence. It was actually a customer. He had grown a successful moving company and I was working with him on painting his interior. He said, “Nick, after meeting you and working with you, you do business a lot like me and my partners did but you wouldn’t necessarily know that.” What we did when we grew our moving businesses was we put our values everywhere on our t-shirts. You name it.
There wasn’t a customer or mover that didn’t know what we stood for. I took that advice and I thought about, “What are the core aspects of what represents the experience at LIME?” Love, Integrity, Mission, and Excellence are the byproducts. If you look at Get LIMED!, that is also an extension of our values. It stands for Gratitude, Enthusiasm, Tenacity, Love, Integrity, Mission, Excellence, and Discipline.
That is how we show up in the market. It’s how we serve our customers. Those are our superpowers, whether it is the artisans we’re working with, our vendor partners, our end consumers, or our colleagues we choose to show up in the marketplace, reflecting our core values of Get LIMED! That is what it means to Get LIMED!
The color is lime. Is this coincidental? Did it make sense at the time or was this intentional?
It puts a smile on your face. Green is such a happy color. It always puts a smile on my face. You look at lime green and you can’t help but be happy. Those are some of my favorite reasons for the color. You’re catching a theme here. I had a great marketing program and no better sales tool than a job site. I was sitting in a neighborhood in college, my fourth year, looking at all the homes that we had serviced over a couple of streets. There were a lot of them. I couldn’t help but think, “Nobody knows the amount of customers that we have served and the amount of solutions that we provided.”
At the time we were wearing white partner t-shirts and not taking advantage of any branding. Being that I went to Michigan State, The Spartans, they are green. What color stands out more than lime green? We often joke you can see our job site from space. That’s the whole point. Neighbors are often walking by. They’re observing the project. Many times, our projects take 1, 2, or 4-plus weeks.
These are very large projects. We do mini-coatings. We often talk about becoming the friendly neighborhood painter who is an expert. We work in beautiful places for beautiful people with beautiful people. We love seeing our green compound throughout neighborhoods and cities. We know that we are showing up in the market, bringing tremendous value through our core values of Get LIMED!
We touched on this in our first question, but I have a question about the luxury space. This is the demographic that you specifically go after. You touched on competitive advantage and positioning, but it’s a very definitive clientele.
You can’t be everything to everybody. Think about access to price and quality. A couple of axes and one is low price, low quality. I love the quick-service restaurant space. We can all relate to it. Think about McDonald’s. That is certainly low price, low quality, but it’s convenient and it’s fantastic for where it needs to be for us in the market.
When we want to pay more to get more, we’ll do that. When we want to pay less to get less, we do that. Every industry has segmentation from a pricing and quality perspective. As industries mature, think about the movie The Founder. Franchising came into the quick service space and transformed what you used to be diners all across the country in standardized solutions that provided great food in standardized ways, like Michael Gerber talks about.
Process, systems, and roles to create consistent results. That is the beauty of the franchise model. Every franchise organization has its unique process, systems, roles, outcomes, and positioning in the market to the point we’re making right now. Each company is going to settle in and the franchise industry standardized the diners in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. You get that segmentation.
Guess what’s happening in the home improvement space as we speak? COVID set off what has been there the whole time, which is you have these companies that everybody needs and that has to be done commercially and residentially. Much like the dining space, the customer wants consistency. That’s why everybody wins and franchises. You create a standard and consistent result for the marketplace, which creates healthy competition. Companies improve the customer experience. At the end of the day, customers win and that’s what’s most important, but those would be some of my thoughts.
You are Mr. Grand Prize. When I think of someone who embodies it and loves it, it’s you, Nick Lopez. Can you tell us a little bit more about why you love the franchise model?
I love the franchise model because it makes entrepreneurship accessible to the everyday American. It hasn’t always, but we’re in a special time in history where it hasn’t been easier for the everyday American to access business ownership and to do it through franchising. The space is only growing. It’s hit a special place in its history in terms of being accessible. It’s only becoming more understood. It’s picking up legs internationally.
The future is bright in franchising because it provides community that rallies behind delivering an exceptional and consistent customer experience and that could be across many different sectors. That’s not what’s always known about franchising. You think franchising is McDonald’s, the quick service space. The nice thing is franchising went out into that industry and made its name there but has continued to do that since in many different spaces. As long as it’s ethical, moral, and makes money, as one of my old mentors used to say all the time, it can be franchised. That includes things like paint companies and all the other home improvement organizations that are being standardized.
Thanks for that insightful response. It’s motivating as well. I’d like to ask you a few questions about yourself. What does the morning of a CEO franchisor look like?
In the morning, I try to keep my first third of the day uninterrupted. It is where I like to do my deep work, not be distracted. Minimize meetings, it doesn’t always go that way, but it is more and more over time. My mornings can also include going to the gym. I go to the gym four days a week. For me, that is important for a lot of reasons.
Going back to that gym rat. Growing up, the athlete in me has never gone away. My parents used to put me in three sports to keep me from tearing the house apart. A lot of energy, so I love going to the gym four days a week. That is so critical for taking care of the temple. You talk about high performance and you talk about being the best version of yourself. I’ve only become more and more aware over time of how many folks depend on me.
I want to invest as much as I can in my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health so that I can consistently show up for all of the folks. I would also say that my mornings are consistent. I am a creature of habit. I love routine. That is so foundational when it comes to one of our core values, discipline. The power of compounding comes because of discipline consistency. I don’t know what I believe in terms of how to approach a morning, but that’s where I have settled in.
The other thing that I would share is that in my mornings that is usually when I read scripture, study the Bible, meditate, and pray. I need to mention that piece because my faith is my superpower. I get time alone in my faith in my mornings. It goes back to showing up for the folks that I serve and work with and lead, that spiritual piece.
The mornings are so critical. You want to get a strong start. A lot of your issues will be taken care of from a time perspective by waking up earlier. Everything that I’m talking about is a marathon. It’s not a race. I don’t beat myself up when I’m not waking up at 3:00, 4:00 or 5:00 AM every day, but I like to get ahead by getting up at 3:00 as many days out of the week as I can. I’m getting up without an alarm. I’m excited. A lot of mornings, especially when I’m working on projects, if I have a clear project and I’m excited about it, you bet I’m going to be up. I’m going to be sad to go to bed at night and stop working on it and I’m going to be excited to wake up shortly after and get back to it. That’s a little bit about my mornings.
It sounds like taking care of the mind, body, and soul, being consistent and disciplined. As you said, this is a marathon, not a race, so it’s doing the behaviors daily. Thanks for sharing that. Outside of your mornings, what does Nick Lopez do in his free time?
Family time is what I do with most of that time. We like to travel. My kids are involved in activities, whether it’s my boys wrestling or my girls doing dance, cheer, or soccer and different events and presentations. Singing, recitals, and so many activities that the kiddos have. My wife and I have to commit to routines.
Every Friday, it is date night with the wife. It’s been that way for so many years. Free time on Fridays, you know that we’re going to be doing something fun, but usually simple. We’re going out to watch sports. We like to catch football games. Anything Spartan related, we’re doing it. As you can tell here, the Broncos and Avalanche. Those Colorado teams. We’re always showing up in our gear.
If I’m not in LIME gear, I’m likely in some sports gear. It could be for my kids. It could be entertainment. What I do with my free time is to travel, sporting events, the family, and whatever activities they have. I met my wife several years ago. I started my painting career several years ago. For me, the painting business has been a lifestyle throughout my entire life, through a lot of stages. The free time is also business time and vice versa. It’s a lifestyle.
It’s hard to imagine you have so much energy left over after being a franchisor, running corporate locations and attending all the events you do. Four kids, a wife, and a home. It is impressive, to say the least. I have a couple more questions for you.
Let me share this. None of that is me. All of that is other folks. It takes a community and I have seen that become true, watching LIME open. We’re open in about 25 states, about 90 territories or so. You were talking about 110 territories awarded, but that has been the reality. It’s been me with these crazy ideas and visions.
A lot of folks with dreams align with that vision. That’s the great thing about LIME Painting and the LIME empire. It’s an empire in a vision and a dream big enough to fit a lot of empires’ visions and dreams. It’s a lot of folks connected within a community. That’s the beautiful thing about a franchise over an organization. We are collaborating and united behind what we do in the marketplace.
That is a tremendous strength of a franchise organization. That is a lot of mutual benefit. Not every franchise organization benefits from what we’re talking about, which is culture is king. It beats strategy every time. The culture and strategy is undeniable. I would add that it’s the culture and people at LIME. It’s way beyond me. I oftentimes get in the way.
If you go across all of our departments, there are folks in our departments who are way better at what they do than me and I’m in the way. A lot of smart, talented folks at LIME. Not just at our home office. Think about our franchise partners. They are true entrepreneurs in their markets, living out our values and delivering need to our niche in their community.
Our franchise partners are what makes LIME special. The teams that they build and their personalities, life experiences, and skillsets. We can’t replicate that, but that’s the beauty of the franchise model. We can replicate our process, our sophistication and our white-collar processes in a blue-collar space. We provide that, but our franchise partners provide their talents and their ability to lead folks in their community and provide jobs in their local community.
That’s why I love about the core value of the mission, using our business as a way to get back. We’re delivering value in the market. That’s ultimately why we’re successful, but also remembering to give back to that community and that’s a choice. That’s a way of showing up. That’s a way of doing business. Going back to our core values of how we show up in the market.
There are so many folks, whether it’s our employees in the sales teams who are franchise partners or are bringing on board franchise partners, our home office, and even our vendor partners. We are showing up and choosing the differentiated services that we offer and our core values. That is way beyond any one location and individual. That encompasses a lot of communities, jobs, and opportunities. It is an honor.
That sounds a lot like gratitude. You’re being grateful for the community, culture, franchise partners, and home office vendors. Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge that. What words of advice would you give a new entrepreneur?
I would say, “Just do it.” Think about being a new entrepreneur. So much of what you are facing is a lack of doing. When you are doing this, you only realize how much sooner you should have acted, but that’s okay. Everybody has their story and gets to the point of acting. I’ve always loved that saying, “Just do it.” It’s so true in any high-performance situation. Not just athletics. I love athletics and entrepreneurship, the overlap there. There are so many other spaces that overlap with high performance. That’s some things that come to mind.
Entrepreneurship simplified. Just do it.
Here me out on this. Ninety-five percent of results is what?
Execution.
Five percent is vision. That vision better be good then, but 95% is execution. Operations, just doing it. When you focus on the sophistication around how you’re doing it in combination with doing it, now we’re cooking. That’s what I also love about a franchise model. You have the blueprint. You have the formula, the process, the training, and the support across the aspects of your business because the model has been leaned into and others have operated it and done just that. There’s a community that is aligned around all of the aspects that allow you to scale your business.
Thank you. I do have one more question. What does the future of LIME hold?
The future of LIME is a heck of a lot more folks getting LIMED. That is what the future looks like. If you can close your eyes and imagine a company that is a luxury home improvement company and name it, Iit’s probably unlikely. The future of LIME is stepping more and more into our reality of standardizing the luxury sector and not just painting, but home improvement.
As we talked about, as spaces mature, more segmentation happens. It’s the natural process of a space, standardizing. It is truly an honor to be making history with so many other folks at LIME in so many different communities with so many different talents every day. It is an honor to stay committed to the marathon, which is LIME life, because it is clear that we are providing a solution to customers who struggle to find a solution like ours in the home improvement space.
There will be many other options in the future and that is the entire point. To elevate the industry, the franchise space, and the painting category. All of that results in elevating people’s lives in communities all across the country. That is a special calling, and it is one that we are on at LIME. It’s one that is not just being talked about on the show but one that we often talk about and own in step into.
It’s why we are all united and doing what we’re doing at LIME. It certainly is special and you can’t replicate culture, which is a huge part of our secret sauce at LIME. I hope that the talented, special, and unique folks who believe in our vision will continue to step into leadership, be empowered, and make lasting differences in their communities.
Hopefully, this was as insightful and motivational for our readers as it is for me. Thank you for letting me interview you, Nick.
This was a fun episode, Erica. You stepped in as a host and did a great job. If you would like to get in touch with me or Erica, hop on to our LIME Painting website. You could inquire. We’d be happy to chat one-on-one. Erica, if anyone would like to reach out to you specifically, how can they get in touch with you?
You can find me on LinkedIn, Erica Sicre or you can send me an email at ESicre@LIMEPainting.com.
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