By: Kristy Nieboer

I am a fourth year university student in Waterloo, Ontario, and I am absolutely terrified of graduating in 2 months. They say that your four years of education flies by, and they weren’t kidding!  I remember my first year like it was yesterday. Among my peers, I have heard of a number of different plans for after graduation, but I’m not sure any of them are what I am interested in doing. A number of people are continuing their education by applying to post-graduate college or masters programs. Others are prolonging their undergrad by doing an exchange. Some are in direct streams like accounting, and are starting their careers immediately after graduation. Scarily enough, a great number of people have no plans at all. A lot of these options seem like continuous stabs at finding yourself and what you are interested in – which is what we thought would happen during our undergrad. The people I know that are not grouped in this category are those who have run a College Pro franchise.

Of all the College Pro experience stories I have heard, I find the most interesting to be those who changed their entire career path based on what they learned while running their own business. While College Pro’s entrepreneurial opportunities correlate most obviously to business, they involve much more than just business skills. College Pro franchisees develop a wide variety of skills, from leadership and organization to management and marketing. Many franchisees have developed career aspirations out of these skills. I met one franchisee who switched his major at university from science to culinary as a result of their College Pro experience!

Also, College Pro franchisees are in an entirely different league than most of their peers. They stand-out based on the gritty nature of their experience – when employers see “College Pro Franchisee” on a resume, they instantly know that this person has taken on a significant challenge with broad responsibility.  Generally, a person who is capable of running a College Pro business is someone they want on their team.

Ultimately, College Pro’s experience can make the fear of graduation less – whether you love or hate the full-on business experience, you’ll learn a ton about yourself and get a real taste of your strengths and weaknesses… and this can really shape your next steps.

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By: Ian Scheel, College Pro Alumni (painter & franchisee)

Working with College Pro Painters for the summer is unlike any other work experience I have had, and I have had a lot of summer jobs.  You gain so much experience for life as well as making contacts that can last a long time.  My first summer with College Pro Painters was the first time I really felt like I had accomplished something each day of the job.

We worked in Owen Sound, a small town in southern Ontario.  There is a lot of rural space surrounding the town so we experienced a great deal of variety with our work.  Some days we would be painting small homes in the city, and other days we would be working on huge farms out in the country.  We once painted a barn roof silver; you could barely look at it in the sun!  The great thing about this variety is that it kept you guessing and learning each day.  You never knew what hurdles you might have to overcome or where you might find a bee’s nest, ha-ha.  There was never a boring day as a College Pro Painter.

Now, I must say, being a College Pro Painter isn’t all fun and games.  The days are long and hot and the work can be demanding physically and mentally.  Getting very sweaty and dirty was expected, as was the occasional scrape or sliver.  The worst sliver, in my opinion, is the paint chip under the finger nail.  That’s the worst.  That being said, I wouldn’t trade my summers with College Pro Painters for the world.

We, as a group, became a lot like a family.   There was our manager, Shawn, the crazy ‘dad’. Also there was Sam the older brother who was a little strange but always funny. And there were the youngest two that we affectionately called the bobsy-twins, we all looked after them together.  We ended up becoming very good friends. We had a lot of fun that summer and there are many stories to come.

College Pro Painters taught me a lot about hard work and being part of a team.  That summer is one I will never forget.  I not only thwarted some of my fears, but I gained a great deal of confidence as well.

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By: Nikki Borkhuis, past College Pro Franchise Owner

Are you currently a college student? If so, then you are off to a good start! College Pro takes pride in the fact that we are mostly college students taking the initiative to do something many students cannot and do not do, in college or in the future. Being a business owner as a college student provides so many opportunities and open doors with the experience that is gained and personal growth that is achieved. College Pro started with a college student starting their own small summer business in Canada in order to pay for school during the only time possible, summer. It’s important to share this opportunity with other students, not only for a job during school but also to learn valuable life skills.

What about managing a business appeals to you?  Management is similar to leadership. Leadership is necessary in any line of work. You need to realize that you are responsible for every aspect of the business: financials, hiring, training, marketing, and sometimes even firing. Having a strong will to succeed and tremendous ability to work hard will allow you to succeed. If you aren’t so good at one part of a business, find a way to work around it, ask for help, get advice, and/or train others to do better. Be a problem solver.

Are you going to be willing to get your hands dirty?Being a manager or business owner doesn’t make you free from the gritty work; it’s going to consist of more work. There is no reward without work and there is no reward without risk. You may not enjoy going door-to-door or calling customers numerous times. You have to do it, and recognize why you don’t enjoy it. This job requires a lot of self reflection and overcoming obstacles. Being responsible for scheduling enough working hours for the painters you hire, providing quality training and quality services, and having a firm grasp on your financials as far as hitting budgets are all going to weigh heavy on the success of your summer.

Are you College Pro ready?

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By: Tara Barber
College Pro Alumni (Toronto & Boston)

I went to school in London, Ontario at the University of Western Ontario, majoring in Honors Biology. I kept a part time job working retail about 15-20 hours a week, and I had a pretty active social calendar. In the August prior, I had committed to running a business with College Pro, and in January, it really hit me that I had to balance everything above while preparing my business. I knew before that I’d have to balance everything, and people told me how much effort it was going to take, but I didn’t quite grasp it. So, I did what any respectable type A person would do…I started planning it out. I got an organizer and started to plan.

Well my first crack at scheduling something with that many pieces wasn’t as successful as I had hoped. Luckily for me, at the first College Pro training session my General Manager showed me how to block schedule and helped hold me accountable to ensuring I stuck to the schedule and hit all of my goals – and not just my College Pro goals.

During the weekdays I would go to class, study and work on assignments between classes instead of getting a coffee and killing time like I had done years 1 through 3. On days I wasn’t in class, I was working at my part time job.

In the evenings on Monday and Tuesday I would spend 2-3 hours marketing. This would entail touching base with my cold caller, ensuring he was going out, and problem solving how he could get more leads. I would call those leads during that time to set them up for estimates for the weekends I was going to be back in my turf. I would also do call-backs during that time to the estimates I did the previous weekend to see if they were ready to book with me yet. I used this time to do my part of generating new leads by calling through College Pro’s previous customer list, last year’s proposals and my last year’s leads. Those lists were gold for me. I had a great cold caller but he could only do so much for me and when I went home those 2-3 weekends a month I needed them to be full of estimates; between my cold caller and those lists I was able to make it happen.

On Wednesday and Thursday evenings I’d love to say I studied like crazy, but the reality was I was either working at my other job, going to the gym with my cousin, or I was out socializing. The weekends I picked to stay in London were routine for weekends of a fourth year university student; study, sleep, socialize.

The weekends where I was back in my turf however were different. I took the train back and forth from my turf to school. It was awesome, the train was a great use of time to do readings for class, go over my schedule and generally be quite productive. I’d get in Friday night and have a nice meal with my family. Saturday and Sunday I would do estimates throughout the day (9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm). Saturday nights I would typically get together with friends from high school and then Sunday night it was back to University.

Writing everything all down it seems like a lot to manage, and looking back, I guess it was. Thankfully, because of the skill of block scheduling that College Pro taught me, it never felt like it was too much. I was able to get to May 1^st hitting both my personal goals as well as my goals for my College Pro franchise. I had more business booked than I had planned, my painters were hired, I graduated with great marks and I didn’t miss a single celebration including a trip to Cuba over reading week. Block scheduling = success!

By: Tara Barber, College Pro Franchise Owner (

I expected a lot out of my College Pro painters. I gave a lot of myself to them to help them do well and I expected the same back. They did great work, worked long hours, and would put in some serious marketing time after long days of painting to ensure we had work the whole season. It wasn’t uncommon for some of my painters to be bringing in paychecks with 90-100 hours on them.

I have since worked in businesses with many employees and I reflect that few are as hard working and as productive as my painters back when I worked with College Pro. With my painters you would hear things like ‘We have to leave early tomorrow so can we start at 7:00 so we can get the job done?” or “I can’t cold call this weekend so we are going to go Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday, cool?”. They wouldn’t shirk their responsibilities, they would just problem solve how to get it all done.  I would love to take credit for this but I can’t, the credit is due to the kind of people they are as well as the environment we created.

They embraced College Pro’s motto ‘work hard, play hard’ to a tee. They all got along really well and I took advantage of that. We had many social events as a team and always went to the culture events that College Pro put on. We had cold call parties, car rallies, pub nights, camping trips and pool parties. Most of the time the social events came after a marketing blitz – but not always, sometimes you just had to play hard.

I know some people get concerned with “Playing hard” with their employees, and, I agree, you have to make sure you’re still keeping your persona in check, but they need to see you having fun just as much as they need to see you working hard. Absolutely things can get out of hand, people can get in arguments, disputes over haunted houses can break out, car doors can get caulked shut…I’m still not over that one, but you need to take the good with the bad. I believe that the culture and success they had as painters is what led to four of them being promoted to franchise managers, one being promoted to a production manager and many returning to paint and help out the following year. Even though playing hard costs money and sometimes your sanity, it was worth it in the bonds I built with my painters, the relationships they developed with each other, and the love they developed for their jobs as College Pro Painters.

]]> http://collegeprotoronto.com/home-improvements/work-hard-play-hard-painters-edition/feed 0 http://collegeprotoronto.com/working-at-college-pro/work-hard-play-hard-franchisee-edition http://collegeprotoronto.com/working-at-college-pro/work-hard-play-hard-franchisee-edition#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:56:17 +0000 Admin http://collegeprotoronto.com/?p=693

By: Tara Barber

I worked harder in those summer months that I ever had up until that point. I was literally working from 7am – 9pm Monday thru Friday and 9am-5pm on Saturdays and Sundays in May and June. I lost 15 pounds during that time and only saw my boyfriend twice. This wasn’t something College Pro mandated, and not every franchisee in College Pro did, it was what I chose. I wanted to do big numbers and nothing was going to get in my way.

It’s hard to keep that up, not physically but mentally and emotionally.  In your brain you’re always working, always thinking, planning and worrying.  To keep up that pace while keeping a level head for your painters, customers and yourself, you need a release. College Pro promotes these releases, and they recognize that as College Pro franchisee’s you work hard and that you need to play hard.

The events throughout the summer allowed me to keep my sanity. Emerald Lake was a painter appreciation camping event in June where your painters got a chance to meet other painters and let off some steam, and franchisees got to meet up with your fellow franchisees and see their teams. Managers Weekend is a weekend in July for all the franchisees to get together at Wilderness Tours camp, go white water rafting and bungee jumping. It comes at the best time, because typically you’re just finishing up with the crazy time in the summer (May-June), you probably have lost your mind a few times prior to this, you still have a final push to the end of the year but the relative calm is just around the corner. We also had a skydiving event in August which was amazing. It came at a time where I could just enjoy it, my summer was wrapping up, I was making money and I could just jump out of a plane and enjoy it.

The big events were pretty extreme, but so is running a College Pro franchise, so they fit well. Then there were the smaller events, the times that 2-3 franchisees went out for food or drinks, or just boosting each other’s ghetto production vehicles. They were all good times that allowed for that mental release that we need when life starts to blur. That was a big lesson for me that I learned at College Pro.  If I’m going to work that hard I need to play equally hard. College Pro enables those play hard moments better than any other company I’ve worked for, and, thanks to them, I’ve realized I just need to create them for myself.

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If you live in a metropolitan city, such as Montreal, with many homes close together, you will notice a lot of railings. In dense pockets featuring duplexes or triplexes, there is a plethora of railings and staircases accessing each flat. Many of these railings are cast iron and take quite a beating in harsh winter conditions. College Pro has been working with iron railings for over 40 years. Many of our own student painters live in these homes while they attend the nearby Universities. While living in an apartment with cast iron railings doesn’t mean you know how to paint them, spending your summer as a student painter in a city like Montreal does!

Here is a 3-Step process College Pro recommends for dealing with iron railings:

The first two steps address preparation and are crucial to making sure your work lasts.

You are first going to need to scrape off any loose paint. Any sharp and sturdy blade will do but College Pro’s student painters recommend you buy an actual scraper. College Pro would use a grinder and a wire brush in this situation to ensure that even the hard to reach places are taken care of.  A light sand is also recommended to make sure the surface is smooth, especially the top of the railing where people will run their hand.

The second step is often overlooked by many exterior painters and homeowners but is vital to ensure proper protection. You will need a can of anti rust primer. College Pro recommends a red oxide anti rust primer in spray form, however, any color will do. You will need a medium sized rag or piece of cardboard to block the overspray onto other surfaces. It’s important that you spray the primer over all rusty or damaged spots. Allow a few hours for the primer to dry and then you are ready to paint!

Student painters at College Pro recommend you use a high gloss metal paint to cover your railings. The high gloss finish will protect from any hand marks or other dirt. Using a brush and/or small cloth whiz roller will allow you to get into all the cracks and hard to reach places.

One gallon should last you a few years, so take care of it and keep it properly sealed and in a cool place.

We hope these tips help you to spiff up your iron railings… or if you’d rather spend your weekend doing something else, call College Pro 1-800-327-2468

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By: Ian Scheel, College Pro Painter & Franchise Owner

While I was a franchise manager for College Pro in Guelph Ontario, there was one job in particular that will always stand out to me.  It was the largest painting project that I had ever been responsible for.  It was painting all of the wood on a huge historical home on the main street of Guelph, and it was stressful, to say the least.

This project all started one night at a gas station in Guelph.  I was filling up my van that had large College Pro Painters magnets on both side panels.  As I finished fueling, a young man approached me.  He introduced himself and mentioned that he too had once managed a College Pro franchise.  As we talked I learned that he was restoring an old home near Guelph’s downtown.  He was interested in getting an estimate on the painting work that had to be done.  I was, of course, happy to oblige.

When I arrived at the house later in the week, I realized just how big this project was going to be.  It was a three story, turn of the century home, with incredibly detailed trim and woodwork.  There were wood shutters on every floor that the client wanted to be painted black.  There was even a turret like dormer that extended up from the roof, 40 feet up, that was to be painted as well.  Everything on this job was going to be high up and required patience and detail work.  I did my best to estimate the job fairly while taking all the unique challenges into account.  In the end the customer decided to go ahead with me and with College Pro Painters.

This project had many problems. There were not always enough tall ladders available.  There were issues with the paint colors and there always seemed to be some kind of weather issue, either humidity or rain.  The colors that were chosen didn’t always cover properly and there were often other tradespeople working on the site with us.  One day we were almost shut down by the ministry of labor because we didn’t all have hard hats.  Luckily I was able to find a large quantity of hard hats at a local hardware store and we were able to continue painting.

In the end, the project was completed.  The house still looks great to this day, years later.  It stands as a symbol to everyone that drives past it in Guelph.  A symbol of what I can accomplish, with help from College Pro of course.

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One of the most unique aspects of being a College Pro franchisee was getting to manage a significant amount of money over the course of the season. I was a fourth year student at Western University and the most money that I had to manage was my student loans, and they were always in the red.

In my first year with College Pro I ran a $140,000 business. That means that $140,000 came into my account and I had to use that to pay my payroll, my paint store, my cell phone bill, College Pro, WSIB, and the government.  I also had to use that money to buy ladders, equipment, gas for my car, and the list goes on. Through this all I was hoping to bring home enough money to pay off that pesky red student loan.

I, thankfully, wasn’t alone in the daunting task of managing the money, as I was a biology major who had never taken an accounting class. In our second training session, the General Managers of College Pro sat us franchisees down and helped us develop a financial plan based on our goals. College Pro also gave us the tools necessary to track our spending and our sales to ensure we were on track.

There is more to managing all of this money than a good plan and tracking to make sure you have an appropriate amount left over. Here are the top three things I learnt through managing my money with College Pro that I’ve kept at the forefront of my mind.

1. 1.       You cannot manage what you can’t measure

It’s impossible to make smart buying decisions, whether it’s a new 40’ ladder or new flooring for your condo, unless you know where your financials are. As a franchisee I went through my financials once every week or two and I haven’t stopped.

1. 2.       Don’t spend your money until you have it

There’s a difference between ‘I’ll make $40,000 this year’ and ‘I made $40,000 this year’. As a College Pro franchisee it is very easy to assume everything is going to go as planned, and to spend your money before you’ve broken-even…Don’t.

1. 3.       You can follow your budget to a tee but if you’re not hitting your top line goals it doesn’t matter

If you’ve made a financial plan for a $100,000 business volume with $20,000 profit and you followed that financial budget to a tee but only ran a $80,000 business, guess what happens? This is a very important thing to keep an eye on and ensure you’re hitting your goals.

As stressful as managing financials can be, I am very grateful for my time as a College Pro franchisee. I am currently a homeowner, without student or credit card debt, who has had way too much fun travelling and buying shiny things. I do not make a six figure salary; I’ve just learned the best financial lessons out there when I was a franchisee.

Derek Drenth is a first year College Pro Window Cleaning franchisee in the Burlington/Oakville area of Ontario, and he shared his experience with us while at a year-end banquet in Toronto, ON.

Derek says there are ups and downs to running your own business – the most challenging day of his summer was when he didn’t have enough hours for his window cleaning techs, and they decided to find other work. Derek was left frantically trying to find new workers on very short notice.   When reflecting on the best day of his summer, he said it was white water rafting along the Ottawa river during College Pro manager’s weekend, along with all the other young entrepreneurs in Ontario & Quebec.

The most significant thing Derek has taken away from his College Pro Window Cleaning experience is the skills he learned, including: sales, leadership, time management, and problem solving skill.  Derek says College Pro has changed his life – he’s more confident, is more skilled in the business world, and has made some money.

Derek has had a good experience with College Pro Window Cleaning, and says he wouldn’t chose any differently if he had the opportunity anew.  When he first got involved with College Pro, he wasn’t aware of the social aspects of the company.  He was pleasantly surprised to find the culture of College Pro to be very student-based, upbeat and fun, and he enjoyed attending social events with his colleagues.

With regards to his overall experience, Derek says, “It was definitely worth all the effort. I have gained so much experience and so many skills, had a lot of fun, and made a lot of money. I’m really excited to do it again next year.”

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