Current Events > I'm a manager at Sherwin Williams, the paint store. AMA

(+) Yeah! (+)

It actually isn't that bad of a gig if you have a degree.

how much do you make

Funniest customer story?

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Is your paint any different or better than, say, Behr paint from Home Depot?

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What color stain is the best seller?

I bet it's jacobean

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Kaiganeer posted...

how much do you make

$62k a year, plus quarterly bonuses for meeting sales and gallons goals (85% goal is the minimum at around $500, hitting 100% is around $3k, and it can go up even more if you go above the goal) and a yearly goal for hitting a controllable contribution (essentially managing expenses and selling premium paint) that is around $5k
My store does around $2.5 million so a smaller store you make slightly less and a larger store you make more

SrRd_RacinG posted...

Funniest customer story?

So we have different bases for different colors. The white bases are for light colors or pastels, darker or more vivid colors require a deep or ultradeep base. I was explaining to a middle aged woman that we had the product but only in the deep base and I could still force the *light) color into it but we'd have to see how it turned out after I tint it. She looks at me and says something along the lines of "oh yeah, I like it deeper" and bursts out laughing

chrono625 posted...

Is your paint any different or better than, say, Behr paint from Home Depot?

It depends. We have a ton of different products and yes, our best paint is gonna blow the socks off anything you'd get at Home Depot. But our middle of the road stuff is pretty comparable to their good stuff. At that point you're paying a premium to get service from people who only work with paint as opposed to being assigned the paint section that day
We also have cheap contractor grade stuff that is on the lower end, but you don't really want that
Compared to Benjamin Moore (basically our biggest competition), we're about equal. We both have cheap stuff and we both have good stuff

Kobe Bryant posted...

What color stain is the best seller?

I bet it's jacobean

Any of our Walnuts typically sell the most. Jacobean is popular, but people love any dark brown wood stain

Are you actually a monkey

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Shezarr posted...

Are you actually a monkey

Feels like it some days

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Luckily enough no one really does that

What hours do you work

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what's the weirdest color a customer has asked for

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What made you decide to make a new account on GameFAQs.
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What is my girlfriend's favorite color?

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why do painters wear white clothes

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and what's the rough split between commercial sales vs consumer sales? $-value and gallons value. I.e. do consumers buy more expensive shit than commercial guys, or vice versa, or is it relatively the same %?

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SomeLikeItHoth posted...

What hours do you work

Store is open 7am-7pm during the week, 8am-4pm on Saturday, and 10am-4pm on Sunday.
Theoretically you could be working all of those hours depending on staffing.
Realistically you work 48 hours -- Managers typically do like 7-5 M-F and leave early a couple days or do a half day on Friday.
My schedule right now is 7am-7pm on Mondays, 7am-4pm Tuesday - Thursday, and leave early on Friday.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I do have an office, I share it with my Assistant Manager but overall it is my office. I'm usually out on the floor though because it's what I enjoy

We have a 25% off right now until late August and because of the paint shortage you could probably swing a better discount by trying to get paint that's out of stock and forcing them to price match
If you want a consistent better discount, sign up for a commercial account. Basically tell them you're a general handyman and do a little painting on the side, they might call you every couple of months but you could give them a bad number if you want (or just ignore)
Standard contractor discount starts at 30% and usually gets to 50% off
Alternatively just look up painters in your area, they almost certainly have an account with us and you could just say to the store "ABC painting did my house a couple years ago and said I could use their account for touch up, lemme pay cash" and almost no one at Sherwin will argue with you (especially if you go after 5pm or on the weekend, part-time employees aren't paid enough to care about this)

HylianFox posted...

what's the weirdest color a customer has asked for

We have colors called "In the Pink" and "Pussywillow" that always get laughter or embarrassment

bsp77 posted...

What is my girlfriend's favorite color?

Magical SW 6829

Naysaspace posted...

why do painters wear white clothes

Most paint and spackle they deal with is white so it doesn't show up as much.

Naysaspace posted...

and what's the rough split between commercial sales vs consumer sales? $-value and gallons value. I.e. do consumers buy more expensive shit than commercial guys, or vice versa, or is it relatively the same %?

I'm in a more DIY heavy area and even I have mostly 80% commercial vs 20% DIY
Most stores are more like 90/10
My district is closer to 95/5

Contractors buy more paint and get better deals than homeowners. Homeowners exist to pump up our margins.
These aren't real numbers, but say for instance, say a gallon of Superpaint (our middle-of-the-ground paint) costs like $5 to produce. The factory sells it to the distribution center for $15. The Distribution center sells it to the store for $30. We sell it to homeowners for $60. Contractors who have an account with us will get it for like $32 so we barely make money off of it. Homeowners who get it while it's on sale will pay $40 for it.
Since Sherwin owns the factories and the distribution center, the company makes money no matter what. There are some painters who spend over $1 million with us a year and they get Superpaint for like $16. The store "loses" money on it but Sherwin technically still made like $11

We're taught that gallons are the most important area of sales to focus on (since it keeps our factories and DSCs running), then total sales dollars (since that's how much revenue we're getting in), and then margins (since that's the real profit).
Commercial guys spend way more but we don't make much off of them. They're also more likely to buy cheaper products (but again, it depends -- some guys really highlight to customers using our $90 gallon paint even though they get it for $55) than homeowners, but they also take less effort (most homeowners don't know much about paint and need teaching, we seriously have the same conversations ever day with people about how to prep and apply products).

Whats red and smells like blue paint?

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Why don't you make showcase anymore? The damn seller got us to start using Builders Solution and they stopped making it as well. Now I can't even find conflex paint for stucco. What the fuck is going on? I'm in Texas if it matters.

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Do you wear one of those "cover the earth" shirts?

I have like 30 of them from the 1970s that my dad acquiesced from his teenage job at SW.

The store is still there to this day and looks old AF

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I read this as The Pain store and I was much more interested

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what's up with that magnet paint

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Flauros posted...

The store is still there to this day and looks old AF

they should paint it

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El Mexicano Texano posted...

Why don't you make showcase anymore? The damn seller got us to start using Builders Solution and they stopped making it as well. Now I can't even find conflex paint for stucco. What the fuck is going on? I'm in Texas if it matters.

Lowes still carries Showcase. Probably not as much as you need since you seem to be someone who uses paint quite a bit, but it's an option

Re: Builders Solution and Conflex
Basically SW is in a bind right now. The storm in Texas basically fucked our supply chain and we're making paint as fast as we can and sending it to stores. You being in Texas means you're even more affected than the rest of the country (who is dealing with it as well).
Builders Solution is really crappy paint to where some stores don't even carry it since it's always sold under cost. Since we barely make money off of it the company is going to focus on paint that makes them more.
It's shitty for people who use cheaper paint, but yeah

Conflex is an elastomeric so it takes more resins than traditional acrylic paint does. Thus they're not making any right now since for every pail of Conflex they can make 3 or 4 pails of Superpaint.
Plus Conflex is so thick you need twice as much anyway

It's a really crappy situation and I don't know the best way for the company to keep profits up and keep customers happy

Flauros posted...

Do you wear one of those "cover the earth" shirts?

I have like 30 of them from the 1970s that my dad acquiesced from his teenage job at SW.

The store is still there to this day and looks old AF

My work shirts don't have the "cover the Earth" logo on them but I have a couple sweaters that do.
And yeah, they don't close stores until they start to lose money and traffic. There are stores in my district that have been there for 40+ years

PaintMonkey posted...

Magical SW 6829

I think your telepathy picked up on my ex-wife instead of my girlfriend lol

I think my gf would be more like Vast Sky SW 6506


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bsp77 posted...

I think my gf would be more like Vast Sky SW 6506

wow respect women, man

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OldHorrorGuy posted...

I read this as The Pain store and I was much more interested

That's one of the jokes everyone says. Can't have paint without the pain

The Trent posted...

what's up with that magnet paint

We don't currently have any but can order it from external vendors
It's basically regular paint that has little iron flakes in it that magnets are attracted to. Typically it's used in primer and then you do a thin coat on top and you don't see the flakes

More interesting to me is the dry erase coating. It basically makes a coat of clear gloss that can have dry erase markers used on it. We sell it to churchs and camps quite a bit

bsp77 posted...

I think my gf would be more like Vast Sky SW 6506

Our blues are really nice, Vast Sky gets used in bathrooms and front doors quite a bit

how strong is the magnet
like if i put my wife in some kind of metal backed suit can i stick her to the wall

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PaintMonkey posted...

Lowes still carries Showcase. Probably not as much as you need since you seem to be someone who uses paint quite a bit, but it's an option

Re: Builders Solution and Conflex
Basically SW is in a bind right now. The storm in Texas basically fucked our supply chain and we're making paint as fast as we can and sending it to stores. You being in Texas means you're even more affected than the rest of the country (who is dealing with it as well).
Builders Solution is really crappy paint to where some stores don't even carry it since it's always sold under cost. Since we barely make money off of it the company is going to focus on paint that makes them more.
It's shitty for people who use cheaper paint, but yeah

Conflex is an elastomeric so it takes more resins than traditional acrylic paint does. Thus they're not making any right now since for every pail of Conflex they can make 3 or 4 pails of Superpaint.
Plus Conflex is so thick you need twice as much anyway

It's a really crappy situation and I don't know the best way for the company to keep profits up and keep customers happy

My work shirts don't have the "cover the Earth" logo on them but I have a couple sweaters that do.
And yeah, they don't close stores until they start to lose money and traffic. There are stores in my district that have been there for 40+ years

What he's saying about the supply chain affected the entire paint industry. 2 of the biggest raw material plants for paint were in Texas and froze over, destroying the entire crop. So now everyone is scrambling. SW it prob worse off than anyone because they have 2 million stores. They're basically the 7-11 of paint stores. When you're trying to pull limited products for that many stores, it gets very difficult.

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Lol no, I've heard issues of it failing on small items

My current room color is the color of The Backrooms. I was really thinking of paining it all blood red. What do you think?

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We're waiting on a 17,000 payment in our commercial department from Sherwin Williams, could you get into your head office for that?

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Sherwin Williams is the one that has the color of white paint for my house.

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PaintMonkey posted...

Lol no, I've heard issues of it failing on small items

are you calling my wife fat?
i'm never doing business at this sherwin williams again

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My builder used some wacky custom paint scheme on my condo. If I have the number, can it be reproduced at will?

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What color paint tastes best?

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Why didn't the company hire me for their manager in training program?

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Have you ever gone to the bone zone in a bat of paint? If yes, which color

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Cpt_Pineapple posted...

can I speak to the manager please?

Respect Karen

Flauros posted...

My current room color is the color of The Backrooms. I was really thinking of paining it all blood red. What do you think?

If you like it, go for it. I've seen some crazy ideas
It'll probably cover like shit though, you'd need several coats

TheAwesomeMatt posted...

We're waiting on a 17,000 payment in our commercial department from Sherwin Williams, could you get into your head office for that?

Sorry about that. The whole company changed to a different payment system. My landscaper still hasn't gotten paid from May and I've submitted three different tickets
It's annoying for us but I definitely feel like someones getting fired for this given how many of you are getting fucked by slow corporation BS

CableZL posted...

Sherwin Williams is the one that has the color of white paint for my house.

A lot of new communities have large companies come in and paint the whole thing before they hit the market, if the previous owners never repainted it's likely it came out of Sherwin Williams since we're so aggressive in getting that done
The color is important but so is the product and sheen for touch up purposes

E_S_M_Z posted...

My builder used some wacky custom paint scheme on my condo. If I have the number, can it be reproduced at will?

Yup. Best thing to do is take a pic of the label on top of the can or just bring in the whole gallon. Every store can reproduce and/or match anything. Sometimes we discontinue certain products so we have to get a little tricky, but we can usually get close no matter what
If you want just the color and are painting something else then it really doesn't matter and we can def give you the color no problem

pikachupwnage posted...

What color paint tastes best?

Never tastes paint but everytime we tint it we do smell it. The Emerald Urethane smells like playdough and Promar 200 smells like bananas, those are my two favorite to tint because of it

Feline_Heart posted...

Why didn't the company hire me for their manager in training program?

Idk man, we hire pretty much everyone. If you're still interested just change your resume a little bit and reapply, I still think it's a good program and I know people in their 30s who are starting. Most districts can't get enough MTPs in to replace promotions so you should be good
That said if this was years ago and you're deep in your career forget I said anything lol

codey posted...

Have you ever gone to the bone zone in a bat of paint? If yes, which color

Not yet but it does sound tempting...

I heard a few weeks ago that you guys are only making 6 colors of paint right now. I believe this was due to Covid and things opening back up. Is that true? I thought it was interesting.

I only heard about it because I work in the Construction field and you hear things like this every now and then.

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Do you sell ThermoChromatic Paint?

Do you sell ElectroLuminescent Paint?

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WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

I heard a few weeks ago that you guys are only making 6 colors of paint right now. I believe this was due to Covid and things opening back up. Is that true? I thought it was interesting.

I only heard about it because I work in the Construction field and you hear things like this every now and then.

We have a shortage on paint products so kinda? We're not at the point where we only have six colors, but we are limited on bases, sheens, and products ( which honestly matter more to us, color is literally the last thing we care about).
But Winter Storm Uri back in February, plus Suez Canal, plus Covid in India, plus places opening back up really fucked up our supply chain

KamenRiderBlade posted...

Do you sell ThermoChromatic Paint?

Do you sell ElectroLuminescent Paint?

I believe the product finishes dept. has it but not architectural which is where I am

Is it okay to use A-100 Satin on stucco? I can't seem to find any type of paint for stucco at all....truck day just passed at all my local stores and no luck.

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El Mexicano Texano posted...

Is it okay to use A-100 Satin on stucco? I can't seem to find any type of paint for stucco at all....truck day just passed at all my local stores and no luck.

I'm surprised you have A-100 available
A lot of my guys who paint on Stucco will use loxon full body primer and then top coat with A-100/SuperPaint/Duration

If you look at the Data Sheet: https://www.paintdocs.com/docs/webPDF.jsp?SITEID=STORECAT&prodno=A6W151&doctype=PDS&lang=E
It does look like you do need the primer (see specs on the right column) but it can go on stucco no problem.

Have you ever just opened up a can of paint and painted something when nobody was looking

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Hardest color of paint to try and match up >_>

or err... the hardest one to try and mix? <_<

also:

Is this the anthem of painters everywhere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij4I67FHMhM

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Do you sell paint for art too or just walls?

Do you sell spray paint for those graffiti artists?

Are certain colours more expensive, or only if they're custom mixed?

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Is pee still an ingredient in paint

If so, which flavor pee

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PaintMonkey posted...

More interesting to me is the dry erase coating. It basically makes a coat of clear gloss that can have dry erase markers used on it. We sell it to churchs and camps quite a bit

Turning all your walls into giant whiteboards sounds kinda fun ngl
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