“Built on Integrity: Jay Schumpert’s Journey from Broken Leg to Thriving Business”

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I am Cliff McRae, filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners.

0:45I'm excited to have Jay Shumpert with No Worries Painting as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs Podcast episode today. So, Jay, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer our community. Oh, yeah, Cliff. My name is Jay Shumpert. I'm with No Worries Painting and Pressure Washing here in Columbia, South Carolina. we offer a wide range of residential commercial some light industrial interior exterior coatings and over the last few years we've actually got into a lot of property restoration so the name of the company is painting and pressure washing which is how i started in 2012 and over the last few years we have grown into doing some full remodel things so we offer a wide range of just 70 painting 30 remodel okay okay love it yeah for those who may not know it yet you know who is jay schrumper and what is no worries painting and what problems are you most passionate about solving for your clients um number one i'm a family guy i've got three daughters 22, 19, and 5 and I just became a granddaddy in September of 2025 so that is my whole reason why I do anything I do and I and honestly I'm passionate about coming in and offering a service that I'm able to stand back at the end and have made an improvement no matter what that looks like okay okay i love it i love it and again congratulations on becoming a granddad i'm sure you're very happy about that it's nice to be able to take care of the kid and then be able to give them back to their parents right that that that is the highlight i i utilize that all the time you know should go to fussing a little bit need a diaper change i'm like here you go so jay take us back to the very beginning what made you say yep i'm doing this i'm starting this business

2:58i was in between jobs i broke my leg i was building power lines at first and i broke my leg and it put me down for about nine months i had two different surgeries and it put me down for about nine months so in between time i was just trying to find something easy to do to make some money to pay the bills and I went to work for a guy and I found myself footing the bill for his paint crew and I was like if it's that easy let me do it so I jumped out there said I was going to start my own business and realized really quickly it was nowhere near as easy as I thought it was going to be and just continue just to dig and grind and learn the process and make sure that I stood on integrity and did it right and I started in 2012 and in 2014 things started working out pretty good and I was able to keep a good full crew busy for 40 hours and things have just grown from there.

4:08Nice, nice. I love it. I love it. So if you had to start your business from absolute scratch, no brand, no clients, no safety net, what would you do differently the second time around?

4:23What would I do differently?

4:28I don't know if I would do anything differently besides just not jump out there thinking I knew what was going on. because I realized when I started, I didn't know what was going on, and I had to learn that. I maybe would have went a little slower, but I don't know if I would have done anything any differently. Okay. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. That's a good thing. So what would you say is a lesson you learned the hard way as a business owner that no one really prepares you for? How hard it is. I've got to talk about this. How hard it is. How hard it is. How much people count on you. Just everything that goes into it.

5:05the phone calls, the sleepless nights, the making sure Santa Claus comes to your guy's house before he gets to your house, making sure everybody's straight before I am has always been my main thing. I've always been last in the company. I have to make sure everything else is where it needs to be. The company's where it needs to be. And then, hey, now what can I do for myself and my family? And I've been very fortunate to be able to provide and do what I need to do. Mm hmm. Yeah. So basically the needs of everybody else comes before your own. Absolutely. OK. OK. So what would you say is one very common myth that you hear people believe about running a business that makes you laugh now?

5:52That it's all glory. That it's all easy. People make it seem like they've got everything figured out. and I've been doing this since 2012 and I try to learn something every day and do learn something every day and dealing with the public is just that dealing with the public okay okay so I want you to be 100 % honest are you are you naturally more of an entrepreneur or an employee at heart and what made you realize that um I knew I've always been like I think I'm more of an employee at heart because I like to do the service. I like to be hands-on, but I always knew no matter what would, even with the power company, that I would be a superintendent in a short amount of time.

6:41I went to work with another company doing wastewater treatment, and I knew within a year that I would be a boss man or a superintendent no matter where I went. Just because I'm wired different than I feel like 99 % of the people in this world. The way I think, the way that I do things, we get to an obstacle. And if I just had to get myself to the finish line, I could get there a lot quicker, but I have to make sure that my team, my group, my organization is standing there together when we get around that obstacle. But I still like to, I like to do the service. I like to be hands-on. The last couple years in my business, I have not been able to be hands-on on the projects like I would like to, but when I do get on a job site and I stay there for a substantial amount of time, I end up leaving on hugging terms with my customers that become clients.

7:43We pray together. We hug at the end of it. I get good tips when I'm on a job site because I am such a people pleaser. I'm a yes man. I go above and beyond every single chance I get. And I think that's what sets me apart. But I feel like I'm an employee at heart. I want to give. And I'll tell you, Jay, just meeting you here, talking with you a little bit, you seem like a great guy. So I definitely agree with that as well. So going further into that a little bit more, how do you personally handle stepping away from the business? you know vacations downtime unplugging without everything falling apart i don't um it's that simple i my so my granddaughter my daughter married a marine he's stationed in california so my granddaughter's in california so just since september i've been in california about five weeks six weeks in total you know three different trips but i have a core group of guys that i've hired that's been with me eight to ten years that they keep it going it may be a lot of phone calls i may still be dealing with the customers but i've got a group of guys that allows me to be able to do that without them i could not do what i do okay they might not be able to run it like i run it but they don't let it burn to the ground they make sure the production continues to happen with standing on integrity with standing on integrity that's my number one thing i need guys that are willing to stand on integrity first and our quality will always follow that but i'm not willing to break my integrity for no amount of money or nobody in the world i love that love that so looking back at it what do you attribute most to your growth so far

9:43my relationship building I don't just look at it as a job I look at it as a family my guys that I hire when I hire them I may not know them but over time they're eating dinner with me I got one guy that has no relation to me that works for me that my five year old calls uncle oh wow Yep, so very family-oriented. I want to see people succeed. I've had my wife's cousin come to work for me. I got one of my cousins that come to work for me that are now running their own paint business with using me as a stepping stone. And I have no animosity towards that. We have great relationships to this day. We let them use my equipment.

10:34I may use their equipment. We may come together and collab on big projects. and I'm a stepping stone for them. I show them everything I know, complete transparency, because I want to be surrounded by a bunch of kings, not just one king and a bunch of doers. I want everybody to succeed in life. And the hard part of that is I've had to come to understand and realize that everybody don't have it. A lot of people just don't have it. You can give it to them. You can lay it out there on a yellow brick road and say, hey, this is what you've got to do. This is how you need to do it. This is what works.

11:10And they just don't have it. Their mindset is not where it needs to be. And it's nothing wrong with that. Everybody has their own process to get to that finish line. But we just need to get there. So, yeah, no, you're totally right. I mean, you can't teach somebody to have it right. Either they have it or they don't. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So when you're when you're building a team, what traits matter more to you than what's on someone's resume? Integrity. I mean, integrity. Yeah, you kind of went into it a little bit. Integrity. Good morals. It's a lot harder to do the right thing.

11:50It's easier to make a selfish decision and what's going to be best for you. But if you do the right thing, it's way more rewarding. It may be harder, but it's rewarding. and that's what i want i want people that's willing to stand on integrity respectful loyalty that's those are my biggest things

12:13okay so what would you say what's one thing you do intentionally to keep your workplace positive motivated and productive it sounds like you're very you're very family oriented you invite people over do stuff like that is there anything else you do to keep your workplace positive and people motivated? I'm good to them. Um, I'm just really good to them. I've, you know, I've got a couple of guys that, you know, they depend on me, you know, I bail them out of some situations that they may get themselves in financially or whatever, but I always make sure that if we go out to eat lunch somewhere and I'm having a ribeye steak, they are too.

12:49Um, I treat everybody fairly. I'm really good to them. and I mean we do team building exercises you know um you know I got a side by side I take you know two or three guys with me we'll go ride some trails and we do things together we hunt together we fish together we do a lot of things together outside of work and I think we just I care about their family like I care about my family and they know that that's not just a show that's not me saying that that's that's me doing it showing them putting myself last me doing what out so they can do with and they've watched it they've seen that happen okay okay okay yeah so let's move on to the quick fire round so basically what i'm going to do here is i'm going to give you one word well and i just want you to give me the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear this word in regards to running your business All right.

13:52All right. The first word is education. You don't need it. I don't know. Education. You don't have to have it with what I do. You just got to be able to learn as we go. Ain't nothing I learned in school besides some math taught me anything I do. That's honesty. Okay. Next word is planning. Important. Have a plan. Try to stick to it. It will change, but it's important. Okay. Inspiration. I don't know. Inspiration. Try to find it in whatever you can find it in. The world's hard. Got to find inspiration some kind of way. Okay. Next word is commitment. 100%. If you can't give me 100%, you can only give me 90.

14:49I need all 90 of it. commit okay next word is discipline got to be disciplined very very important there too we still work for the public so we've got to be able to fall in line and do whatever it takes okay next word is risk reward the bigger the bigger the risk the more the reward but you got to be willing to take that chance sometimes having faith has a lot to do with it walking through doors that he's opened or turning around or walking away from doors he's closed and the last word is execution goes back to the planning stick to it we have a plan to execute to get to the finish line things are going to happen in between that we may have to shift one way or the other, but stick to what we know works.

15:53Okay. If a business owner is listening right now, and I want you to be as candid as you can possibly be with this answer. If a business owner is listening right now and feels stuck or overwhelmed, what's a piece of advice you'd want them to hear today? For me, it goes to my faith. Without my faith, without God leading the way, i will get swamped and stay swamped but keep digging keep putting one foot in front of the other when you're going through hell keep moving to get through it don't give up don't give up love that so what's the uh what would you say is next for uh no worries painting and what should people be excited about coming up in the future

16:48you know we're just going to keep digging and keep moving forward for me i'm i need help i need good employees to continue to grow because the work's out here right now we even during covid we never missed an hour my quality is exceptional my integrity rises above most and we got work i I turn down a good bit of work and I need people that are willing to step in with integrity to do the job to continue to grow. Without the manpower, you cannot grow anymore. I offer a skill set. I can teach you to do it. But you have to be committed. You have to be disciplined. And you have to be loyal. And it's hard.

17:37It's hard to find a help out here right now. it's hard okay okay so for anybody listening what's uh you did you did say you're hiring what are you hiring for and uh where can people send uh you know potential resumes um i'm hiring for anything from a laborer to just clean up job sites all the way up to painters carpenters and you can send a resume to my email no worries ts at yahoo.com no worries t is in tom s is in snake no worries ts at yahoo.com perfect I appreciate that yeah and uh you already talked about a way for people to connect with you do you have any social media I have facebook I have facebook jshumpert is my facebook page i also have a business page no worries painting and pressure washing again i'm not very tech savvy i don't really post on there i don't do a lot on the social media platform all my work comes from word of mouth i don't do a lot of marketing don't do any advertising i have in the past because i just thought it was cool radio stations just want to hear your name mentioned somewhere but i just i just don't do it word of mouth for me keeps me all the work i need okay all right perfect jay yeah this has been fantastic yeah thank you so much for sharing your story your perspective and your real behind the scenes of building your business i really appreciate you coming on and appreciate you you know coming on and everything that you're doing so i wish you continued success well cliff i appreciate the opportunity first and foremost.

19:23Um, this has actually been a lighting for me. Some of those quick round questions going to make me think on that today and in the future days on things, how I can improve things I can do differently and, you know, want to be able to, to be able to reflect. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was great. Thank you very much, sir. Hey, thanks for listening to the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast. Here's three things that you can do. Number one, remember to subscribe to the podcast. It takes very little effort on your part. It's going to help you and your fellow entrepreneurs. Plus, you guys know how it works.

20:02The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly. Just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com. That's my personal email that I read. No one else reads it first. It's not screened. It's my real email. Just send it to me. I can't wait to talk to you. Hey, and until then, all the best.