A Girl Who Paints – Eileen David
Episode 45: Welcome to the She Builds Show, I’m your host, Stefanie Olson. I’m excited to introduce you to my special guest, Eileen David. Eileen is the owner of Georgian Bay Painters, located in Penetanguishene Ontario Canada. She started her business 3 years ago with an all girl team. They focus on mainly exterior in the summer and interior throughout the winter months!
Ready? Let’s go…
SHOWNOTES:
• So I ended up, I took an extra year at high school because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. So after that I went into sport management and I went down to Niagara college, near Niagara Falls. I did that for two years. It was technically a three-year program, but you could opt out at the second year. And that’s what I did because I realized that maybe I would start my own painting business. (03:40)
• I moved up to my cottage when I was 17 by myself and have no problem being away from home at school. So it’s definitely a lot of self motivation, But definitely, It gives a lot of kudos to them for right. Do your mom or a dad own their own business? No, so, well, my dad just started his own property maintenance business and we kind of bounce off what I’m doing so we can like, you know, give each other clients. They never had their own business before. My mom was in graphic design and my dad was in the car business, but once I started the painting business, my dad, he was like, okay, I guess I’m your maintenance guy. So he’ll help me clean all my tools and we’ll organize the garage and he helps out a lot through that. (05:32)
• And then I started making my Instagram and Facebook. So I would post pretty regularly of anything that I painted. It doesn’t matter how big or small, just so I can have a little bit of portfolio when people would try and find me. And then that’s when I started boosting my posts and slowly starting getting recognized in the area. I made one post that for the, I think it was right at the start of the pandemic, saying how I had no work and we weren’t really sure what was going to happen. And that post kind of exploded. And I got a lot of jobs from that one single Facebook post. I think I had like 500 shares or something like that. And then everyone starts talking. All my jobs pretty much now were just word of mouth. (08:32)
• So you didn’t have to go take a test. It’s just experience-based and then obviously if you do a good job, they’re going to tell people, yeah, pretty much anyone can become a painter, but not everyone’s going to be a good one, right? Yeah. I’m in California and you can’t like walk sideways without a license. So all of our painters have to have painting contractor licenses, which is a different thing. But, if you could do it, I’m just curious, like, how are you handling everything? Like, you know, how long has it been? Three years or something like that. That you’ve started. So three and a half now being an entrepreneur is hard. (10:46)
• Like I’ve pretty much trialed tested every single brush I can find here. And the perfect brush is the pro forms. I don’t know where they’re made or where they come from, but we have them at one store in my town and nobody else really sells them. And that will give you the most perfect line ever. Okay. Pro Forms, right? Is what you said. I’ve given it to even my friends to try out who have never painted before, and they’re like, oh my God, this is beautiful. So the good materials matter, like I’ve had some clients saying, oh, like, you can use my roller. It’s been in my garage for a while, but you don’t need to buy materials. Because I have stuff. And I look at it and it’s covered in dirt and it looks like it was pulled out of the trash. So good materials matter. That’s how you get a really good paint job is having good materials and keeping them nice and fresh and clean all the time. (29:51)
ABOUT EILEEN DAVID:
Eileen David is the owner of Georgian Bay Painters, located in Penetanguishene Ontario Canada. She started her business 3 years ago with an all girl team. They focus on mainly exterior in the summer and interior throughout the winter months!
CONNECT WITH EILEEN:
• Website: https://georgianbaypainters.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GbayPainters
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gbaypainters
WAYS TO CONNECT WITH STEFANIE…
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