LIME Painting of Charleston franchise owner, Cory Griggs, talks about his experience with LIME since purchasing his franchise location, what it has meant to diversify and get the best service to the customer, and how the business has grown and gotten stronger.
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This is another episode of the people at LIME. This guest is a single-unit owner in Charleston, South Carolina. He is the owner of LIME Painting in Charleston. Cory Griggs, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Nick.
It’s a pleasure. I couldn’t ask for a better guest to help the audience level up and get a glimpse into the people at LIME. Let’s dive in. Cory, how did you come about this opportunity at LIME Painting?
It’s a great question and I’m glad that you asked it. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and part of the level-up at LIME Painting. I had a corporate job in outside sales. I did a lot of traveling and a lot of time away from home. I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur but didn’t have an opportunity in front of me at the time. I started looking at franchising models. I had a franchise coach that I hired and looked at multiple different franchise opportunities. After looking at about ten, I realized that LIME Painting was the franchise for me. It gave me the opportunities and the flexibility that I needed in my lifestyle.
You said that you were working with somebody. It sounds like you were working with a coach or consultant. What was that process like? You’re looking for your next opportunity and you stumble into this world of franchising. Not everybody just wakes up and says, “I’m going to join the franchise world.” Frankly, a lot of folks don’t even know what franchising is. If you do, you probably think, “It’s quick service restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, or Taco Bell.”
The reality is if it’s ethical, makes money, and is profitable, it can be franchised. That’s pretty much anything such as a painting company, a plumbing company, or whatever it might be. It sounds like you worked with a consultant that helped you navigate this world. There are about 4,000 different brands and opportunities in the franchise world. What was that process like?
I went through three different coaches. The first two did not accommodate my needs and what I was looking for. Although they’re great guys and had great questions, the brands and opportunities they presented to me did not align with what I was looking for. I was very specific. When they were presented to me, I realized, “This is not a good use of my time. I’m not interested in any of these opportunities.” One of the things that I valued the most in looking for a franchise was territory. I looked at a few probably more recognized brands.
LIME being a younger franchise, more territories were available. Some of the ones that I looked at had been around longer but they were trying to sell me territories that I didn’t live in. I wanted to be involved in the community that I lived in. That was very important to me. That was one of the most important factors because I knew if I was going to be advertising and marketing my brand, I didn’t want to have a territory that was a 1, 2, or 3-hour drive away. If I’d be commuting to a territory and taking that time away from my family, that defeated the purpose.
The first two coaches, that’s what they presented to me. Other things didn’t align. The questions that they had were very helpful and they took time to look at what I was looking for and understand but some of these things still didn’t align. I didn’t want a restaurant model. Nights and weekends for me were off limits because family comes first in my life. Brick and mortar, I did not want a storefront. I felt like I didn’t need one. That’s a huge added expense. That was something that I didn’t value and want.
I wanted a turnkey model, one where I didn’t have to be also on call. A couple of other good opportunities I looked at were water mitigation. It’s a great business model but on call 24/7. Somebody’s pipes burst in the middle of the night and you have to be there. I thought maybe that was a breaking point or maybe it wasn’t. One of those brands also was a foreign territory, not right where I lived. Finally, I came across Ron Sacco and he showed me three opportunities. He interviewed me well.
One of those three was LIME painting. He asked me to value. Not just pick 1 but reach out to all 3. He said, “I want you to connect with all three of these brands. That way, you at least get to hear from their side. Don’t just pick one.” After hearing everything that LIME Painting had to offer, I felt confident in the business that you had built and that this was the one for me. I had a background in residential construction as a kid. My father owned a residential construction company.
As a kid, I watched houses being built and torn down. I grew up painting. I know a decent amount about painting. I didn’t know a lot but I felt like I knew more about business, management, and communication, and that I could learn the painting piece. I felt that painting is a business model that never going to go anywhere. What I liked was the values of LIME in terms of offering a high-quality service at a fair price and making sure of customer satisfaction in everything that we do. I mean it when I say it just like you and the values that you put into your business.
Have you noticed that being a competitive advantage doing business the right way in the marketplace?
Absolutely. When people ask what LIME stands for and then you tell them, they love that LIME stands for Love, Integrity, Mission, and Excellence. We live by it.
It’s pretty incredible that in a space like contracting and specifically painting, you can differentiate yourself by showing up, doing a good job, and doing right by others. That differentiates and starts to create some gaps between you and the competitors. I never thought I would own a paint company. A big reason why I decided to spend my career launching and building a paint company was the competition. Customers struggle to find a reliable and consistent resource in painting. That takes a quality approach.
There are two accesses when you’re positioning yourself in the market. One is price and one is quality. If you’re low price, low quality, you can think of McDonald’s. It’s convenient and fast. Great, that’s positioned in the market. That serves its purpose. It brings a lot of value but if that’s your lane, that’s where you stay. For us being high price, high quality, it doesn’t mean that we’re overcharging but we’re bringing a lot more value. As a result, a higher price but a heck of a lot more quality. That’s our position. That’s where we’re at in the market.
I never thought I would own a paint company or be in the space. Coming to the industry and bringing an experience beyond expertise starts to create something special and to your point, the values. When I had built the values into LIME, it was a customer who said, “Nick, I know that you do business this way but I wouldn’t know it just from seeing your brand. I built this $40 million moving business and we put our values on our t-shirts so that the movers and clients knew what we stood for. There was no question.” I took that to heart and that’s where love, integrity, mission, and excellence came from. I never thought that by doing that, it would become so infectious.
Hearing you say, “Upfront, that was something that I resonated with,” it has become this magnet for attracting like-minded folks and doing the opposite for people that don’t resonate. I’m sure there are many conversations that we don’t have with people because they don’t align with our values. That’s pretty powerful. When you’re building a brand, culture and people are number one. That’s most certainly one of our superpowers at LIME. Cory, you went through this process of doing due diligence, investigating your next opportunity, working with some coaches, and ultimately finding LIME. How long have you been at LIME? How has it been as an owner getting on the other side?
I bought it in June of 2022. I had quit my corporate job and went all in. I hit the ground running and was able to ramp up from the time I bought in June to start production in late August of 2022. I’m about to lap a full year in production in 2023. From the time production hit, I was able to hit the ground running and connect with multiple different people. I’ve always valued networking, talking to people, and communication.
I’ve had consistent production. There’s a few weeks that I haven’t been in production but it’s pretty minimal. At the peak times, I’ve had 3 or 4 jobs going a week, which was a lot on my plate but I’ve been able to balance out managing. I have three crews that I subcontract and they all bring different values. They’re all good painters and people. They show up on time. They do the work. They want to work late hours and Saturdays.
One of the most important things that LIME had said was to find good painters. It’s also something that I shared with the other potential owners, “How do you find good painters?” There are resources within the company and the partnerships that we have with both Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore. If you utilize those resources, you will be able to connect and put yourself in the right position to succeed.
I can see how upfront you’re doing your due diligence, going back to your point of looking into different options. In that phase, it’s a very reasonable concern and question of due diligence. “What is the process for building out subcontractors? Does it work?” It seems so foreign. How has that experience been? Have you had a lot of turnovers? Have you had folks stick around? Have they been able to fulfill the quality standards? What has it been like working with subcontractors?
It’s been great. They’re good at communication. They’re responsive and they show up on time. I have a couple of main crews that I work with closely. They’re looking for work. The value that we bring them is that they don’t have enough work themselves. By having LIME manage the project and pay for the supplies and materials, they can show up and paint. We can guide them and tell them what they need to do.
I’ve let one crew go but that’s probably pretty standard within the industry. I’ve had three that I’ve enjoyed working with. It’s to the point where I can bid out a job and ask my crews what they want or need. If I send that one job out to all three of them, I feel confident that they can all do it well and will do it well. It’s in my best interest to pick the one that will do it the cheapest at that point and help out with my margin.
We’ve reflected on 2023. Thinking about 2024, what do some goals, objectives, or key milestones look like?
My wife and I are working on our goals, and she already started. My thought process is that in my business, I know I need more leads. How do we get more leads? For me, the success has been door-knocking and out-canvassing. That is a role that I’m going to take on more myself and give myself a little bit more of the VRC role. Molly’s going to start with a little bit more production and checking in on the job sites. Also, she’s going to do our proposals.
That is something that the bid team has been extremely good at and helpful but I feel like at this point, it’s something that would better be fit for my wife to do. It would help us build our business in a stronger way. There are a couple of other husband-wife combos that are co-owners. I’m looking forward to helping my wife grow her business, which helps me grow mine, and her setting her goals and me setting my goals.
2024 goals are not too far on the corner and with the two of us working at this together, the goal is going to be $1 million. I want to exceed $1 million in my second full year. The way that we set the goals will be amount of jobs that we can get, the amount of dollars that we need to bid out, and what the average tickets are going to be. In year one, like anybody, I would settle for a pay or a job below what I would think I would have just to get that introduction and help some contractor or property manager out in hopes that they call us back when they need everything done.
I’ve power-washed for Carolina One. They’re a big Charleston vacation destination. There are a lot of property managers here. I’ve power-washed four houses for them. I’ll take the job because there’s a little bit of money to be made on it but it’s more building that relationship in hopes that they call me back when these 4,000 or 5,000-square-foot houses need to be repainted.
You’re going to be more intentional about the jobs that you choose in year 2 than in year 1. In year one, you’re happy to take opportunities and build relationships but you’re raising that standard, the average ticket, too.
I’ve set all my goals and I did it by number of jobs, dollar amount, dollar sales, and then also my income. When I looked at my P&L, my income was above my goal by a little bit but the dollar sales were below, which when you look at it, that’s not a bad thing. That means my margins have been stronger than where I generally projected them to be.
You can take those learnings on the margin side and apply them to higher tickets and have higher rev and strong margins. That’s awesome because, in year one, you’re taking opportunities that you’re not being as selective with. If you’re able to be diligent about margins in opportunities like that, you start getting selective about the types of accounts, average tickets, and the same discipline around margins. It’s a great step into another year of business ownership. Cory, with your previous experience and throughout your career, what do you think has translated most to the skillsets that have helped you to be successful here at LIME?
It’s gaining the trust of the people that you work with. I’ve been told and I believe it’s true in life that the number one thing in a relationship, both personal and professional, is trust. I stand by that. I’ve gotten in with three builders but that takes time. I would tell anybody upfront, “You want to get in with a new builder. The houses around where I live are $2 million, $3 million, and $4 million. To get that job, you’re probably going to have to discount that thing about 10% in my viewpoint to land that job.”
“If you want them to hire you, you’re going to have to probably provide them with a discount price as opposed to because they probably have an established painter. A lot of them do. For them to take a chance on you, you give them a little bit of an incentive by discounting that. You’ll land it and win it. Prove yourself, gain their trust, and then build the momentum off of that.” We are finishing up a new build, the one that you were at here in Charleston. They are there doing the final touches. The stairs, we put a poly on it and it turned to stain. It looked like a little yellow.
Without hesitation, I could tell that the contractor wasn’t happy with the way it looked and asked if we could redo it. I said, “Andrew, absolutely.” My crew was there sanding it down. We’re then going to restain it and re-poly the stairs. At the end of the day, it’s a minimal cost for a relationship that I want, a long-term relationship with this contractor. I didn’t have to think twice about what we needed to do to restain some stairs, re-sand them, and pay a little bit extra to my crew. I take the fault for the wrong product application on there. The poly that we used, I won’t use it again.
Going off of some of the talking points around values, how we do business, the experience, and how that separates us in the marketplace, to your point exactly here, trust is powerful. It happens to be a scarce commodity in contracting being able to do what you say and be relationally focused. An individual who embodies a certain way of doing business creates a lot of trust in a marketplace that doesn’t see that so often. It’s pretty powerful that focusing on how we do business, we need to have the expertise and be able to deliver but the way in which we go about doing business is a competitive advantage.
That’s neat to be in that mission with you of defining what it is to experience a luxury home service experience. That is exactly what we’re doing at LIME being that we’re the first, only, and largest luxury paint company. There were some folks and brands that came in, standardized painting, and proved that nationally you could standardize the service. There’s not a lot of barriers to entry. If you have a truck and a paintbrush, you’re a painter.
Being able to give that standardized national option, we were able to look at brands that had done that in the space but carved out our niche. We’re in the pursuit. As we come up on the century mark of locations awarded, we’re defining nationally for consumers what it means to have a luxury home service experience. That’s pretty neat. Cory, you’ve been in the business for a year. You’re projecting your next year, starting to grow your team, and becoming a husband-wife duo. I’m sure eventually you’ll start building your team in addition to continuing to work out of your business.
It’s more of that empire mindset but taking the approach of rolling up your sleeves and mastering what makes the business click and what creates success. Once you’re a master of that, you will be very effective in being able to teach and scale beyond yourself because you know what needs to be replicated and you can proactively coach against that. I wanted to ask you with all that being said, how has LIME helped contribute to developing you into the person that you are now?
What I like about LIME, and I wholeheartedly mean this, is the family. We’re all working on this to grow the brand. The more that each one of us owners can build up our territory, it helps LIME grow, and you. We all want to win together. We all are a team. I network with other owners a lot. I talk to 2 or 3 owners a week. I try to utilize my resources and talk to different ones. The home office has been great. The bid support team and the Charleston support that I have has been truly great. Everybody’s so responsive. Also, our marketing team, national success coach, and all these different resources that we have to help when we have questions. We can reach out on the owner wall or the line wall within Slack. We always get responses from each other because we’re all here to help each other.
The people and the culture are going to create the success of any organization. I would echo that, Cory. There’s a genuine sense of partnership in growing the brand equity at LIME and sharing that mission on a national level. That’s the beautiful part of franchising. We’re in business for ourselves but not by ourselves. That two-way partnership as a franchise owner is going deep in the market, acquiring more market share and generating more revenue. That ultimately grows the brand locally.
If nationally, we can replicate that as much as possible by going wide, we are becoming more and more of a household name in defining our niche in the market and ultimately, leaving LIME in the thoughts of consumers when they think about a quality paint job like a coating job. That’s commercial and residential, both sides of the space there. What do you think has been the most rewarding part of being at LIME?
The most rewarding thing in all of this was becoming a business owner and controlling my destiny but having all the support behind me that I needed. I knew that I needed to be in charge of my brand and do my thing as an entrepreneur. I never wanted to answer to the man and that’s the attitude of a true entrepreneur. Whether you want to call it arrogance or anything else, and maybe it partially is that I have, I need to be in charge of my destiny and financial future but I don’t have any ideas and that’s where the ideas come in of franchising.
As I was taught, franchising is a model that works. The three things that they told me were, 1) Follow the system, and 2) Follow the system. The third one is a shocker, which is to follow the system. That was exactly what they said to do. I told the other guys, “If you want to succeed in this business, do it exactly the way that Nick Lopez in line has done it because it works if you work it. That’s the key thing. You have to work on it. Be involved in this business and it will work but don’t try to reinvent the wheel. We have a system in place for a reason. Follow that system. Do what you’re told to do but if you venture too far from that, you might run into headaches and success. Be creative in your way.”
Follow the model and system. Don’t deviate from it. That’s what you’re investing in a franchise, that proven system. Cory, along with those thoughts there, what else would you provide to somebody in terms of a cheat sheet to be successful as a franchise owner at LIME?
Be resourceful, reach out to multiple people within the organization, network, and don’t be afraid to talk to people. There are so many times when you’re in an opportunity so don’t let those opportunities pass you by. I was at a neighborhood barbecue one time. I knew the guy was a contractor. I had never met him. He lived in our neighborhood. I went up and introduced myself to him and told him what I was doing. I’ve then done two jobs with him. I bid up four other jobs for him. We’ve established and built a good and trustful relationship at this point. I feel strongly that we’ll be working more in the future together. He does custom high-end houses in the marketplace.
These basic things that are not rocket science create success. Cory, thinking back on this journey in 2023, what has been a memory that stands out to you, one of your favorite memories?
It’s probably having you here. That was a pretty cool experience. Also, having Yanni come here and do the videography of Charleston. That goes back to the family and the willingness to help and the support that we have. I mean that. It was exciting to have you here, see Charleston, see what I’ve done, and help build on that momentum. Yanni did such a good job of creating videos of the houses that we’ve done here and how we’ve restored these beautiful homes.
I equally had a great time. Yanni always has a way of making it so cinematic. He’s from Greece. Every time I think of Yanni, I can hear his Greek accent. He is an artist. We can stumble through our words and everything else. He makes it come together and does a great job. That was great. Being able to come out, help capture some footage, and create a promotional video for the brand and you in the local market was awesome. We’ve talked quite a bit about many different things. I’ve given a glimmer into what it means to be a franchise owner at LIME, specifically for you, Cory, there in Charleston. We’ve talked about our values. I’m going to ask you to list our core values and state which one is your favorite and why.
Our core values are love, integrity, mission, and excellence. Although they all have great reasons to pick any of them, I would go for excellence because that’s what I strive for in my job. As I’ll tell my customers or contractors that I’m dealing with, “We’re not leaving the job until you’re happy.” Excellence. “Let’s be as close to perfect as we can on our jobs.” Perfection doesn’t exist but we can come as close to that with excellence and making sure that we have another satisfied customer at the end of each job.
It’s all about the standard that we create for ourselves, our business, and our world. Our standard becomes our reality. What we accept is what we will get. If our thermostat is at 80 degrees and we heat up to 90, meaning that momentum is growing around us, we might want to cool back down to 80. If it’s cooling down to 60, we’re going to say, “Hold on. I’m not going to take steps back. I’m going to heat up here and get back to 80.”
The key is recognizing that we have a baseline. If we raise that baseline or our thermostat is 80 and we start to heat up, we recognize, “I’m creating a new standard or paradigm. I’m breaking a new ceiling.” There are standards and ways that we do everything. I’m a big believer that how you do one thing is how you do everything. That’s an obsessed mentality around high performance. Cory, the fact that you mentioned excellence does not surprise me. The results in the business that you’re building and have built in Charleston, most certainly, reflect excellence.
There’s something we talked about at LIME. You can have a standard of poor, a standard of average, good, great, or excellent. We’ve even raised it to world-class and elite so excellence. In our book, we’ve had to break that ceiling or standard to continue to raise the bar. That’s the mentality at LIME. It’s not just about love and those emotions and values. It’s also about standards. It’s a high-performance organization. That creates a very competitive and fun atmosphere at LIME.
Cory, thanks for sharing a little bit about your world in Charleston as an owner. It’s most certainly been a pleasure having you on the show. I have leveled up and I know our audience has as well. Please, subscribe to the channel, comment, and contribute to our conversation. Give us some thoughts. Let us know what your perspective is on our conversation. Like the show. Cory, I appreciate it. Thank you for being on the show.
Thanks for having me, Nick. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for your time. Get limed.
Cory Griggs, owner of LIME Painting of Charleston, moved to the Charleston area in 2021 after decades of spending summers there for a better quality of life. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Northwood University in West Palm Beach, FL. After college, he moved to Chicago, where he worked in the Natural Foods Industry for 14 years.
Growing up, Cory’s father owned a home renovation business, which gave Cory a strong foundation for running his new business. LIME Painting of Charleston offers interior and exterior painting and preparation services, epoxy coatings, EIFS and Dryvit Stucco systems, direct-to-metal coatings, masonry, and carpentry for residential and commercial properties.
In his spare time, Cory enjoys spending time with his wife, Molly and their 3 children, enjoying everything Charleston has to offer.If you are in need of home renovation or remodeling services for your custom or luxury property in the Charleston area, get in touch with Cory for a free consultation and estimate.
In his spare time, Cory enjoys spending time with his wife, Molly and their 3 children, enjoying everything Charleston has to offer.If you are in need of home renovation or remodeling services for your custom or luxury property in the Charleston area, get in touch with Cory for a free consultation and estimate.