November 2025 Mastermind Recap

Another B2B Champ walked through what’s actually working for stores that want to grow paint sales—even in markets dominated by Sherwin-Williams:

• Lean into Benjamin Moore commercial specs. Many jobs require BM paint.
• Deliver faster than SW can. Showing up quickly wins loyalty.
• Stock bulk painter essentials. Painters don’t always plan ahead. Carry CASES of tape, base paint, liners, sprayers, etc., enough to fill a full job.
• Dedicate visible floor space to fill with contractor-focused products. Even 15–20 feet of well-presented 5-gallon inventory and a high-end sprayer that you can drop-ship signal: this store is serious about paint.
• Know the contractor’s name! Say it over and over again to build long-lasting trust. 
• Know the contractor’s job schedule. Get ahead of their next job by offering delivery. 

Little operational upgrades = long-term paint accounts.

B2B Champs discussed how many owners underestimate the value of smaller commercial clients.

A single giant account is nice — but dozens of small, steady businesses purchasing $2,000–$6,000 per year are the backbone of most successful B2B programs.

Small transactions from many accounts create predictable, diversified revenue. And small accounts often grow into larger ones as trust builds.

Two prompts came up repeatedly as low-pressure, high-return conversation starters that position you as a plan B that can quickly become a plan A:

“Where are you getting ___ from?”

“Can I be your backup should you need something in a pinch?”

These simple questions help uncover needs, build rapport, and keep the door open for future business without ever feeling salesy.

A B2B Champ shared that a painter discovered Wooster liners cheaper at Home Depot. They checked and found they were at a 70% margin, so instead of losing that sale, they undercut the big-box competitor’s price while still keeping a healthy 40% margin and preserving years of loyalty. Always check their price and do it in front of them if possible, so they know that you’re on their team when it comes to shopping. 

A small pricing decision like this can lead to more sales down the road and help foster long-term relationship stability.

B2B Champs shared that holiday baskets remain one of their most effective relationship-building tools. They typically create 20–30 baskets for:

• Top 20 accounts
• Long-time accounts
• Newer accounts with strong potential
• Customers who made a notable impact that year
• Fast-growing accounts

Baskets often include a mix of small store merchandise, branded items with the contractor’s logo, and local bakery treats. Grill seasoning might be good for only one member of the crew, whereas cookies ensure everyone gets a treat from you. It’s a personalized gesture that strengthens loyalty.

Marketers discussed a growing trend: customers are openly expressing fatigue with AI-generated posts and overly polished graphics.

One Marketer shared that a simple birthday post for an employee — taken on an iPhone, shared with minimal editing — sparked more engagement than any paid ad that month.

This echoed the group’s larger sentiment:

• Customers want real faces.
• They want real store moments.
• They want to hear from the actual team behind the counter.

Authenticity builds trust; trust drives revenue.

A Marketer shared that by helping someone in a local Facebook support group with a flooding issue, they unintentionally sparked a commercial relationship that resulted in more than $10k in business.

It wasn’t a pitch.
It wasn’t an ad.
It was simply showing up as a helpful neighbor.

One small act of service led to thousands in follow-up sales, so he recommends going into those local groups a few minutes each day to see where your store might be of service and dropping some comments and likes.

Marketers acknowledged that inconsistent posting remains a challenge. A predictable social distribution calendar solves most of these issues.

Posting weekly, even if the content is simple, is far more effective than posting in bursts and then falling silent, both for your customers to see your offerings and for the algorithms to stay active.

Marketers discussed that individual location pages for multistore brands are often the right move when:

• Each store has a different customer base
• Product offerings or hours differ by location
• Teams want to showcase hyper-local content
• Customers prefer to follow only the store they shop at
• The current page feels cluttered or unfocused
• Your team has the resources to post on all of the pages

Creating individual pages isn’t always the right move, but in markets where customers are vocal about wanting more localized communication, it can dramatically improve engagement and relevancy and is one of the big contributors to maintaining the local branding that makes you stick out.

Multiple marketers shared that customers have recently walked in carrying AI-generated images of products that do not exist. Some showed AI-enhanced plumbing diagrams or heavily altered product photos, leading to confusion in-store.

This trend underscores the growing need for authentic, easy-to-identify, and trustworthy content from the store. The more misinformation customers encounter online, the more valuable it becomes for stores to publish accurate images, clear descriptions, and simple education posts. You can entertain your customers without going full AI on them.

Another GM surfaced a major blind spot: several full-time employees, four out of nine in their case, are approaching or have passed retirement age. If all four were to retire tomorrow, they would only replace one position.

What stood out wasn’t the staffing imbalance, but the fact that the GM acknowledged they haven’t had any meaningful career-path or retirement timeline conversations with these employees, so how will he know when they are going to retire? Without those conversations, it’s impossible to plan labor, training, leadership development, or succession.

The group agreed that these conversations don’t have to be formal or intimidating. Even a simple check-in helps GMs understand:

• Whether a team member wants to grow, slow down, or eventually retire
• Whether new roles or training paths should be created
• Whether part-time backfill or future hiring is needed
• When to begin planning for leadership gaps

A short conversation now can prevent months of instability later — especially in regions where hiring and training take longer than average.

One GM shared a powerful insight: if a store doesn’t clearly define its values and expectations, it can’t hire effectively. They emphasized that the problem with many hiring struggles isn’t the available talent — it’s unclear alignment on what the store expects from its team.

This GM’s store has responded by:

• Defining expectations for each position more clearly
• Raising standards for accountability and performance
• Evaluating whether team members can meet those expectations long-term
• Ensuring that decisions to let people go are based on performance, not payroll pressure

They put it simply: hiring works when your expectations and values are clear and when you actually use those values to guide decisions. When they aren’t, stores end up with the wrong people in the wrong roles or on staff when they shouldn’t be, which strains culture, affects the customer experience, and creates long-term staffing issues.

In the GM’s words: hiring without knowing yourself “won’t work out.”

While some stores have detailed financial plans, others don’t — and one GM was open about the fact that they haven’t reached the point of following an exact budget. Instead, they are relying on a forecast. It was a small nuance, but an interesting reframe for those needing some flexibility in their planning. 

If you can’t nail down a full budget, a simple forecast at least offers guardrails. It won’t predict every opportunity or challenge,  but it gives managers a clearer sense of direction than operating month-to-month without a reference point. And for those legacy owners, it offers an opportunity to get Mom and Dad to commit to more disciplined spending habits.

Many GMs reported that wages are rising, while sales are either flat or down. That math creates stress. When you can’t reduce wages, and you can’t rely on growth to cover the difference, you’re forced to get creative.

Some of the creative solutions discussed included:

• Reducing hours strategically without harming the customer experience
• Planning earlier for seasonal part-timers to reduce labor in slower months
• Sharing employees between sister stores one day a week to smooth scheduling gaps
• Being more transparent with the team about the financial realities and brainstorming solutions together
• Increasing expectations for performance rather than cutting jobs

One GM noted that, even though they haven’t grown in several years, they still need to prepare for increased spring volume and may require more part-time help, creating tension between rising need and limited resources.

Across the group, there was agreement that small scheduling adjustments and transparency with staff often help stores maintain coverage while keeping labor budgets survivable.