Jason Leber, Co-Founder of Painter 1 Franchise, reveals 3 major differentiators igniting their growth.

Jason Leber shares 3 takeaways on this episode of the Close The Deal Podcast (Your First Franchise Episode):

👉 "Empower the Owner" Philosophy  PainterOne stands out by prioritizing franchisees with their larger-than-average territories and a 10% owner equity pool. These unique perks ensure owners have the space to grow and share in the system’s success. Their mentor-led training adds a hands-on edge, with seasoned owners guiding new franchisees step-by-step.

👉 Quick Launch with Low Investment Getting started with PainterOne is efficient and affordable, with an average investment of $78,000. Marketing campaigns start before training ends, so franchisees hit the ground running. Most are up to speed and earning within 3–6 months—a rare speed in franchising.

👉 Proprietary Tech for Seamless Operations PainterOne’s all-in-one software handles CRM, reporting, estimating, and more, simplifying business management. Combined with robust marketing support and industry expertise, franchisees get everything they need to succeed from day one.

10 Quotes From Jason Leber That Reveal His Success Mindset:

1. "The biggest challenge is finding those first couple of owners to believe in you, believe in your systems, and put all their money on the line."
2. "Our tagline at PainterOne is 'Empower the Owner,' and everything we do goes back to that mantra."
3. "We decided to carve out 10% of the franchise system for an owner's equity pool, so if we ever sell one day, franchisees will actually benefit from that acquisition."
4. "Most franchise systems have coaches who are hired from the outside, but with us, existing owners who run the business day-to-day mentor new franchisees."
5. "When Five Star Painting sold, the franchisees’ lives didn’t change much. We wanted to create a system where they share in the success."
6. "We don’t need someone familiar with home services or painting; we need someone analytical who understands P&Ls, KPIs, and how to run a business by the numbers."
7. "We’ve built technology that’s a one-stop shop, handling CRM, reporting, estimating, and sales automation all in one system."
8. "Ask tons of questions and focus on validation—talking to existing franchisees is the best way to know if a franchise is the right fit for you."
9. "Most of our owners are already doing jobs and generating cash flow within their first month after training."
10. "The painting industry is fun because it’s visual. Before-and-after transformations are powerful, and you’re delivering happiness to customers."

To learn more about this franchise, set up a time to learn more here.

Thank you for  visiting, we'd like to gift you a copy of Your FIrst Franchise Roadmap, click here.

Close The Deal show notes for Painter 1 Franchise

00:00.01

ewell smith

Alright disruptors, if you have ever wanted to look at a franchise and you wanted something that was in extremely high demand, just about every market in the United States, this episode of your first franchise, special episode, is for you. I've got Jason Lieber. He is a co-founder of Painter One franchise. He is based in Mesa, Arizona, the headquarters up in Ohio. ah Jason, I want to welcome you to the show.

00:29.23

Jason

Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

00:31.32

ewell smith

Yeah, I'm going to come out with a hard question right off the bat for you. What's the biggest challenge you've overcome going into business and how did that turn around to help you?

00:42.61

Jason

That's a really good question. ah Biggest challenge we've had to overcome, I would say, really was finding our first owner or owners ah for the franchise, which is probably most franchise concepts biggest challenge, I would think.

00:58.47

ewell smith

Yes.

00:58.47

Jason

um Typically, I hear, you know, different numbers, but once you get about 510 or so owners, you know, more or less it kind of snowballs a bit from there.

01:08.41

ewell smith

Yeah.

01:08.62

Jason

And, uh, but the real challenge is finding those first couple of owners to believe in you, believe in your systems, you know, put all their money on the line and, uh, you know, buy into it. And so it was a bit of a challenge, but, um, we overcame it for sure.

01:23.59

ewell smith

ah Well, I'm glad you you said it. You see the shirt I've got on is for springboard, which is the conference for emerging brands.

01:29.41

Jason

Yeah. Yep.

01:31.56

ewell smith

So I, you know, that's, that's why most of the people I attend that show is trying to figure out to do exactly what you've done. So yeah.

01:37.94

Jason

yep

01:38.97

ewell smith

All right. I mean, we didn't plan that, by the way, folks.

01:39.62

Jason

yeah Yeah, happy circumstance.

01:42.82

ewell smith

um All right.

01:44.70

Jason

Yeah.

01:45.92

ewell smith

ah who it So through that process, you learned from some people. Who or what are you grateful for that helped you get you where you are today?

01:54.03

Jason

Yeah. And actually it's a bit of a cheat, if you will, in overcoming that challenge. So who and what I'm grateful for is our, our past, our history. So paint one franchise, as you mentioned, I'm one of the co-founders.

02:07.80

Jason

My partner, Conrad, was the original founder of Five Star Painting, which today they're now the second largest painting franchise out there.

02:11.99

ewell smith

Mm hmm. here

02:15.78

Jason

And so when we first got started with Painter One, and we're looking around trying to find people to join our system, ah lo and behold, our first couple of owners were either owners or people who were running franchises at Five Star beforehand.

02:31.61

ewell smith

Yeah.

02:31.91

Jason

And it was right after the acquisition had occurred. And so we were able to kind of finagle some of them out of, you know, situations and and they were able to sign up with us.

02:42.16

Jason

And so very grateful for them. um We've had some or all but one retire ever since. And we've still got one of those original owners with us to this day, um plugging it out in Boca Raton, Florida.

02:56.03

Jason

So very, very, very grateful for them for sure.

02:56.60

ewell smith

Yeah.

02:59.49

ewell smith

So, and you know, um I knew a little bit about your pedigree because I i know one of the original founders, the other original founder, Scott Abbott of a five-star painting.

03:07.72

Jason

Uh-huh.

03:12.30

ewell smith

So you all do have a phenomenal background to bring to the table. So that begs the question, why did you all decide to go into yet another painting franchise?

03:24.78

Jason

That is the question. Yeah. And so the biggest thing is when, when we were coming to an end with five star painting, um, and I say we, I mean, Conrad and I, we kind of looked around and said, Hey, we've had so much great feedback from our owners throughout the years, ways to improve the system, make things better. Um, you know, not to say that we were following along with the rest of the other, you know, painting franchises out there, but in a lot of ways we were.

03:52.62

Jason

And there are different nuances, different things that, as we all know, once a company, a machine gets to a certain size, and you know it's really hard to backpedal or to go back and change, you know, integral parts of the the framework of the business. And so um we thought, why don't we start something new?

04:11.47

Jason

And from day one, implement a lot of these kind of nuances, these exciting new changes, adaptations that owners have provided to us throughout the years into something new and and better.

04:24.31

Jason

And so our tagline at PainterOne franchise is empower the owner is what we always say.

04:29.13

ewell smith

Okay.

04:29.31

Jason

And so a lot of what we do goes back to that mantra of empowering the owner and that's our why.

04:35.11

ewell smith

Gotcha. Yeah. and And that makes a lot of sense. So you basically have taken the feedback from the experience and created your differentiators from that.

04:44.26

Jason

Exactly right. Yep, you nailed it.

04:45.36

ewell smith

Wow. and you know and And you bring up, and this this is something important too.

04:46.61

Jason

Yeah Something like that.

04:50.45

ewell smith

I know the number one brand out there, but they only have what? I think the statistic is they capture like two or 3% of the potential market, which is, yeah, and they're huge, but the market is so, there's so much demand for your service.

04:59.73

Jason

Yeah. Mm-hmm That's right

05:06.95

ewell smith

That's why I opened up up this podcast with the comment that I made. There's so much demand for painting no matter where you are around the world, really. So ah you you've you've got a ah oh such a unique opportunity having the pedigree behind you, to which which should provide reassurance to anyone considering your brand.

05:26.09

ewell smith

um Let's talk about but the model.

05:26.19

Jason

Yeah.

05:29.05

ewell smith

What makes it unique? ah What are some of the things that you took from the past, brought forward, and you know how what what makes it appealing to someone considering a painting franchise?

05:41.50

Jason

Yeah, really great question. So one of the biggest ones that comes to mind is territory. You know, almost everybody within the home services space, they want to make sure that they've got a large enough territory to fulfill their goals, their dreams, aspirations. And so like you mentioned, without going into names, the number one competitor, number two, a lot of the bigger guys out there.

06:03.06

Jason

you know, they've kind of shrunken their territory sizes down to these really small areas. And so for us, we do about three to 400,000 population size territories, which on average is about two or three acts the size of of our competitors.

06:17.43

ewell smith

Mm hmm.

06:17.70

Jason

And again, it goes back to empowering the owner, allowing them to do whatever it is that they want, whether it's a lifestyle business, they just want big numbers, they've got the power to do that with this territory.

06:29.12

Jason

So that's always been a big one. um Another huge one is very unique to us, and that is our 10% owner's equity pool.

06:34.93

ewell smith

Ooh.

06:36.75

Jason

And so going back to our our history, when Five Star sold, really the franchisees, the owners of the the franchise businesses, life didn't really change much for them.

06:49.00

Jason

you know they They had a new owner and and they kind of continued on as as normal, even though this big acquisition took place.

06:49.29

ewell smith

Thank you.

06:57.33

Jason

So when we started PainterOne franchise, we decided, hey, why don't we carve out 10% of the franchise system? And whenever somebody puts all their faith all their you know into PainterOne franchise, they'll be physically in this 10% owner's equity pool.

07:12.95

Jason

So if we ever go to sell one day, something like that, you know they're actually going to benefit from from an acquisition, say.

07:17.79

ewell smith

hey

07:19.92

Jason

So yeah.

07:20.44

ewell smith

They share that, they share in the profits of that.

07:23.56

Jason

That's exactly right. And also, you know, it it helps with with the camaraderie with, you know, the support internally, because obviously, you know, invested not only in your franchise location, but also in the franchise system, because that's going to help, you know, benefit your investment in that regard as well.

07:30.24

ewell smith

I like that. yeah

07:39.62

Jason

We've also done a mentor program where we have existing owners be the ones who train and support new incoming owners. And so the big kind of revelation there was, you know, most franchise systems, you've got these franchise coaches, people who are hired from the outside to come in and train you on your business, how to run it, how to operate it. But where does their training come from? Usually it's the operations manual, it's being told you know, what to do, how to do things, right?

08:08.56

Jason

But they've never actually run a business before. And so with this mentor program, we allow existing owners that are actually doing this day in and day out, be the ones who are helping to train and support new owners coming in and and that kind of thing.

08:22.55

Jason

And we've actually evolved that program quite a bit to where our brand president, now our COO, they're all current or former franchise owners themselves at PainterOne.

08:23.35

ewell smith

Mm hmm.

08:32.65

Jason

And so again,

08:32.68

ewell smith

is

08:34.24

Jason

My role primarily is is franchise development, bringing on new owners. and Whenever I put a prospective owner in front of our brand president, our COO, it's not, you know, all this looks like a great thing.

08:46.47

Jason

I talk to owners all day. I work with them all the time. It's, I was in your shoes two, three, four years ago.

08:52.33

ewell smith

I

08:52.50

Jason

I made the leap. I bought a paint on one franchise. I ran it for X number of years. And you know, here's my outcome. Here's my experience along the way. And so it's really helped us in that regard also.

09:00.10

ewell smith

love it.

09:02.89

ewell smith

I love that. and and you know I want to go back to the first one you mentioned, the size of the territory.

09:09.05

Jason

Yeah.

09:09.09

ewell smith

but To give people some context, New Orleans population, people think New Orleans a lot bigger than it is, but it is still a sizable city. It's not Chicago, but New Orleans is about 300,000 people.

09:20.86

ewell smith

so Your territory would cover New Orleans, the entire city, which is which is which is really strong. and I love the mentor piece because I'm all about mentorship.

09:27.01

Jason

Yeah.

09:30.17

ewell smith

I've been very fortunate in my career. throughout my entire career to have some amazing mentors who breathed into me because of their immense experience. you know That makes all the difference in the world.

09:40.22

Jason

Mm hmm.

09:42.39

ewell smith

um So somebody so that's that's a lot of support coming in.

09:42.75

Jason

Definitely.

09:46.49

ewell smith

What does the investment level look like for someone looking at this?

09:51.61

Jason

Yeah. So in our FDD, there's the range and the range I believe is something like $72,000, $73,000 all the way up to $120,000.

10:02.26

ewell smith

Okay.

10:02.35

Jason

I kind of gloss over that because what I did is I surveyed our 10 most recent owners to come through and said, hey, what exactly did you spend? What did that all in initial investment look like?

10:13.95

Jason

And I basically averaged out the the answer. And that number was about $78,000. That was kind of the average all in initial investment, which covers the franchise fee, which for us is $49,500 plus, you know, initial marketing and all those other types of things, trainings and that.

10:20.14

ewell smith

wow

10:31.74

Jason

um So it's about $78,000 is the average all in initial investment for a paying one franchise.

10:38.16

ewell smith

how How long does it take? Because your program's a little different. You've got the mentor program.

10:42.28

Jason

the

10:43.86

ewell smith

How long does it take for someone to get up to speed once say once you know once they turn the key and say, OK, now we're going to business. Now you know now we're going ah to the market with to to start selling.

10:55.58

ewell smith

How long does it take them to really get going? what's a

10:58.03

Jason

Man, i my experience, I would say not that long. I mean, three three to six months is is probably a good average.

11:06.16

ewell smith

Wow.

11:06.77

Jason

but But the reality is the way that we operate is we try to get marketing turned on and running before you even come to training. So that way when you're at training, you're getting appointments scheduled booked for when you come back from training so then you come home from training and you're already off to the races doing estimates closed in deals finding crews getting the crews on those and so within your first month you're already doing jobs and collecting money and you know cash flow and and that kind of thing so Think about that extrapolated across you about three months and you know there's not a lot of complexity to this business. And so again, within three months or so, you know you've got a pretty good handle on things. Obviously you're always learning and and there's curve balls and things, but again, within three to six months, surely you've got a ah pretty good handle on it.

11:54.24

ewell smith

Okay, so you have to know the owner is the owner is an owner operator is is can they bring in a manager at some point? What do you how do you all what what's your approach?

12:03.35

Jason

Yeah, great great question. So we we prefer that everybody is owner operator at the onset so that they can get you know fully immersed in the business, totally understand all the roles and what's required.

12:14.16

Jason

And then certainly you can bring on somebody to, you know whether it's a project manager, estimator, um somebody you know GM, general manager to take over operations for you.

12:25.64

Jason

We've had people do it all. So so it's all possible for sure. um Some owners, they

12:30.30

ewell smith

what's what's what What's common? what's what do What do you find people mostly doing?

12:34.55

Jason

You know, mostly I would say and ah project manager is probably your first one to to kind of bring on. Most owners enjoy doing the estimates and and obviously overseeing the business.

12:44.52

ewell smith

Yeah.

12:46.89

Jason

So project manager is probably number one, then an estimator. And then that way the owner has kind of fallen into just that, you know, managing the business, managing the manager's kind of role.

12:57.92

ewell smith

Gotcha.

12:57.97

Jason

And yeah.

12:59.78

ewell smith

And then the, the, the employees hired or 1099.

13:03.62

Jason

Most of it is 1099 subcontractors.

13:05.39

ewell smith

Okay.

13:05.96

Jason

Yeah.

13:06.52

ewell smith

Okay. Good. Good. Good. Um, now regarding the, so that's the investment side getting, you know, and putting the team together. What does the revenue side look like died of 19?

13:19.64

Jason

Yeah. Item 19. So. We did an average of all the locations, their revenue, and the average is close to about 600,000 is the average annual revenue.

13:28.74

ewell smith

Okay.

13:30.70

Jason

you know we've got couple owners actually well We've got quite a few now that have passed the million mark, one that's passed the two or $3 million dollar mark. so you can you know Certainly, there's a lot of potential, as you had mentioned, but average system average about 600,000.

13:47.63

ewell smith

Yeah, and and then the way they grow the business, obviously word of mouth as they start getting jobs out there, but you all help them, like you said, you jumpstart the process while they're in training. How long is the training ah to get them trained up?

14:00.63

ewell smith

to to get

14:00.75

Jason

Yeah, so we do about a week, week and a half training.

14:03.53

ewell smith

Okay.

14:03.62

Jason

It's at our Columbus office. And so again, you're meeting with our team led by our COO, who again, was a former franchise owner himself. And so he's got that experience. We also have the existing Columbus franchisee has ah an office in our within our main office.

14:20.58

ewell smith

you Gotcha.

14:20.96

Jason

And so new owners when they come for training. They're not only being trained by our team and and going through all the classroom training, but they're also going to go with the Columbus owner in the field, doing estimates, seeing the projects being done, see how the sausage is made, you know, that kind of thing. And so that week we can have training, you're getting all of it. You're fully immersed in the business. You're seeing how it's all done. Plus you're going through, you know, all the typical classroom style training stuff as well.

14:49.51

ewell smith

Gotcha. ah And what about like back of house support? It's, it's the marketing you all help them turn on all the marketing, accept their website and those things.

14:59.95

Jason

Mm hmm.

15:00.57

ewell smith

Any other back end support? Is that the primary thing?

15:03.50

Jason

That that's probably the.

15:03.87

ewell smith

ah Technology, and technology, so forth.

15:07.17

Jason

Yeah, I mean, technology, that's that's one of our other differentiators I didn't even. You mentioned, but you know, our technology is very unique to us. Conrad's actually the guy that created it, the the technology that would use the software.

15:18.07

ewell smith

Okay. Okay.

15:20.27

Jason

And it's kind of a, what I would call a one-stop shop, do it all for you.

15:23.56

ewell smith

Hmm.

15:24.02

Jason

um And so it's, you know, everything that you need for the business. So you get a lot of training, obviously on that, because it's not just your CRM, it's also your reporting, your estimating, and then a lot of other sales automations built in within ah the software as well.

15:34.62

ewell smith

Hmm.

15:40.09

Jason

So a lot of the training goes into that. As you mentioned, a lot of the marketing, you know we've got a marketing team that creates a website, does all the social media, blasts out you know all that that digital advertising stuff. And then we've got a lot of other operational support. One of our our our director of training and support was a former Sherwin Williams worker employee himself, store manager, I believe.

16:03.88

Jason

And, um, so he does a lot of kind of the operational trainings and, and kind of, uh, shop secrets and things within Sherwin Williams and that kind of thing as well. So, so there's a lot, it's a ton, but but there's a lot that goes into it for sure.

16:17.13

ewell smith

And of course this person is getting out into their community, they're networking with different associations, they're networking at networking groups and so forth to get the word out.

16:24.30

Jason

Definitely. Yeah. That's right.

16:24.94

ewell smith

Yeah. So, so they get in the whole comprehensive package. And and and then the cherry on top is the mentor program, which is, which is, I don't know, another franchise system that does that.

16:36.39

ewell smith

So that's that's pretty, that's pretty cool. All right. Um, who it is the, What makes a great candidate for you guys? Because because for people, if you're new listening to this ah and you're thinking you're just going to go buy a franchise, that's not the way it works. You're doing your homework investigating them. They're going to do their homework. Jason and his team are going to do their homework investigating you because it's got to be a mutual fit culturally and vision wise and so forth. What makes a great candidate for you guys?

17:07.61

Jason

Yes. I love how you teed that up because that's exactly right. Yeah. um What makes a great candidate would be somebody who is very analytical, business savvy, business focused. You know, obviously marketing and sales is a plus or a bonus as well. But yeah, certainly having kind of that business acumen, that analytical mindset, believe it or not, that that's one of the the number one biggest attributes that we look for in a candidate because truly our business is one that is run

17:38.54

Jason

by the numbers. And so we don't want or need somebody who is familiar with home services, um painting, anything like that. Number one, you're not going to be doing any of the painting, but then number two, you know that's not for for you to really be focused on as a business owner.

17:55.81

Jason

And so if you've got that that business experience in, you know you love all those acronyms, the P&Ls, ROIs,

17:55.89

ewell smith

Gotcha.

18:04.39

Jason

KPI's you know that kind of stuff is is your world you like that kind of stuff you would be a great owner at at painter one because that's kind of where we live and that's that's what makes an owner successful is is having that business acumen mindset with the painter one franchise.

18:20.33

ewell smith

That makes sense. All right. i mean It's about time to lay in the plane here. Someone considering a franchise, whether it's paint a one or any franchise, and you've been around this for a while and you've got you've partnered up with people who have just so much experience, what's the number one piece of guidance you give that person, whether it's your brand or any other brand, what's that number one piece of guidance you give them when they're considering a franchise? What's but what's for them to do or look for?

18:47.72

Jason

um I mean the the first thought that came to mind is ask a lot of questions. I would say make sure that you're asking Tons and tons of questions of of each and every brand, each and every person that you talk to. um Validation is paramount. you know Talk with existing owners. I think that's really what tells the story in how these franchises, whether it's ours or any others, are are run and and and how successful they can be or cannot be. right And so validation is is paramount. um you know Business is business, and I think certainly there's lots of different businesses that a person can go into. But at the end of the day, it all comes back to

19:25.99

Jason

How much support you're gonna get how well you're gonna jive with the company and you can't know those things unless you're asking questions diving into validation with existing owners and Really kind of immersing yourself with the brand and once you've done that I think you're gonna get a great sense for it is this a good fit for me or not and nine times out of ten for us and I hear the phrase, I never at the beginning of this process would have ever imagined I'd get into a painting business.

19:44.82

ewell smith

Yeah.

19:53.13

Jason

How silly is that? But after talking to owners, talking to Jay, you know, talking to all these people and going through things, it makes a whole lot of sense. And here they are now. And so that's my number one advice for anybody.

20:04.36

ewell smith

It's a fun business to me for the marketing side. I mean, I love marketing, you know, and that's, just it's just a fun business to show before and afters and show and people have people are happy.

20:12.10

Jason

Oh, yeah.

20:13.34

ewell smith

I mean, you're making people happy with doing what they do.

20:14.33

Jason

Yeah. That's right.

20:16.54

ewell smith

So, so folks, if you're considering this franchise, I'm working with Jason and his team. ah bringing bringing folks in to talk to them. ah Get in touch with me at yourfirstfranchise.com or you can check out out check us out.

20:31.35

ewell smith

We'll post the podcast on closethedeal.com. So you got two choices, closethedeal dot.com or yourfirstfranchise.com. Jason, I want to thank you for your time today.

20:41.85

ewell smith

This has been fantastic. And I love the brand. I love it. Love what you guys are doing.

20:46.20

Jason

Likewise, thank you so much for having me.

20:46.33

ewell smith

I lot ah ah like the approach. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

20:50.28

Jason

Thank you.

20:50.92

ewell smith

Bye-bye.