From The Desk Of…

A Look Back at 20 Years of Greenleaf

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Mixing Family & Business

One of the unanticipated joys of starting my painting business 20 years ago was that I had more time with my son as he was growing up. In some ways that seems counter-intuitive because during the early years of my business I was constantly working. But when I wasn’t driving around checking in on work sites or doing estimates I was working out of my home office.

When my son Gabriel came home from school at the end of the day, he would drop off his book bag, shout a “hi, mom” to Cynthia, and then run to the back office where I would typically be typing up an estimate or sorting receipts. We would often head to the backyard to jump on the trampoline together, put on our baseball gloves and play catch, or go out to our cul-de-sac street with our badminton rackets and hit the birdie back and forth as high as we could into the air.

 

It might have been no more than a half hour before I needed to get back to work and Gabriel onto his homework or having some time with Cynthia, but it afforded us some special connection time.

Sometimes I would need to clock in again in the evenings and on Saturdays, which wasn’t ideal. However, my office door was always, literally, open and I never established a policy that this is my work time so don’t bother me. Gabriel knew he could lean on my doorway anytime to check in about something, or he might ask me to come to his room so he could show me something he was doing.

In the early days I also drove Greenleaf’s one and only van at that time since I was doing all the job starts and closes and all the estimating. On the occasions when I picked up Gabe after school I could tell he was pretty psyched about getting to ride in the big van. He would hop up onto the front seat, roll down the window, turn up the radio just a bit louder, and then proudly nod to his friends waiting for their rides in lowly cars.

Cynthia was also working from home during this time in public relations and writing so she could be more present to Gabe as he was growing up too. And she and I would help each other problem-solve various challenges in our work. After some years Greenleaf hired Cynthia as a paid consultant, and she continues to provide invaluable insights and guidance as Greenleaf continues to improve and excel as a company.

Gabriel worked off and on for Greenleaf for a few years, once during a high school summer and then for a year immediately after college when he also supported the management team checking in on sites and developing social media posts. Now that he is a teacher and also an entrepreneur in his own right as the leader of indie rock band (Sonoa), he attributes some of his leadership and management skills to being in close proximity to me as I built Greenleaf from the ground up.

We didn’t know it at the time but the three of us have gained so much from each other over the years as we mixed business and family, stressful times and fun times. We continue to enjoy seeking out insights and counsel from one another in our pursuit of more excellent ways of being leaders, entrepreneurs, communicators, and good friends and family to each other and beyond.

 

Oh the Places You’ll Go

We’ve had the privilege of painting homes and gathering spaces for twenty years, and we wanted to give you some highlights of unusual projects! Fun facts: when Ryan Munn joined Greenleaf in 2013, he began to track project data more closely. Over those 13 years alone, we completed over 2.8K projects, most of them houses!

Below we highlight some of the unusual features and sites we’ve enjoyed working on:

On the Isles Mill One social profit center in Hamilton, we painted the top rows of new brick to faux match the multi-layered painting appearance of the historic building to adhere to historic preservation guidance. We also painted the renovated interior, the flagpole with the top finial ball painted in gold metallic paint, exterior window frames, and other exterior fixtures.

 

We preserved the stressed look on the Updike Farmstead / Historic Society barn. Plein air painters love to capture this destination wedding spot.Updike-barns

 

 

 

 

 

We painted the full exterior and interior of this historic Princeton home, which included refinishing the winding staircase railings to the 3rd floor where you could lean over and see all the way to the ground floor.

 

 

 

 

 

We also applied acoustic paint to the sanctuary ceiling of the historic Friends Meetinghouse in Trenton and restored their pews, along with painting their entire sanctuary and exterior.

 

 

 

 

 

We scaled some high ladders to hidden windows at a chapel at Nassau Presbyterian Church. We restore the windows you can’t see from the floor, as part of a major interior re-paint for that church. The windows provide beautiful ambient lighting for the chapel.

 

 

 

We’ve spent the past two decades painting and renovating homes and businesses throughout the region, and we THANK YOU for supporting our small, family-owned business!

This year, we marked Greenleaf’s 20th Anniversary of serving the Princeton and Central New
Jersey regions and parts of Bucks County, PA.

I was taught that it’s important to stay humble, and I stick to that gameplan, but 20 years in any business means you are doing something right—and I’d like to take a moment to share my thoughts on how and why Greenleaf Painters has been able to reach this important milestone.

There’s no “I” in “Greenleaf”

When my wife, Cynthia, and I founded Greenleaf Painters back in 2006, it was teamwork that allowed us to get our business squarely off the ground. Since Day One, when we operated out
of our West Windsor home and I would stack painting ladders in our backyard each night, Greenleaf has thrived and grown as a result of our teamwork.

In those early days, Cynthia and I would discuss our plans at the kitchen table, and my wonderful wife, also a published author and writing coach, has contributed mightily over the
years to our ongoing efforts in public relations, marketing, social media, and strategic planning.

The two of us have worked together to set a positive and productive tone, eventually bringing on stellar managers and painters. We can now proudly look back on 20 years of completed projects, lifetime memories, and new friendships and partnerships that will never be forgotten.

Then, now, and further on down the road.

Selfie of Cynthia, Gabriel and Jonathan
Cynthia, Gabriel and Jonathan take a road trip, 2007.

To all of our customers, and to all who have appreciated the work we’ve done over the years, Cynthia and I—along with Operations Manager Ryan and Project Managers Frank and Daniel, and the entire team—want to thank you for believing in us and for giving us and our team so many wonderful opportunities to show how much we care about a job well done.

We hope to keep doing things this way for years to come! In the meantime, we wish you peace and prosperity for your family, friends, and loved ones.

-Jonathan Shenk

 

Simple Basics on How to Value Employees

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When I started my painting business 16 years ago, I had no idea that it would grow to the stature our company is today.  Building a company to become a sustainable business enterprise is a heavy lift and finding the right people to do it with you can be one of the biggest challenges. However, I was determined early on to reach out and bring in others who shared my vision, and who could help share the load.

As my company continued to expand and grow from a one- or two-person operation, I brought in people with a variety of temperaments and personalities. I determined to create a work culture in which:

+ both employees and customers were treated with dignity and respect.

+ the work/life balance of my employees would be honored and encouraged.

+ our hard work would become an opportunity to excel, to enjoy working together, and to experience the satisfaction of a job well done.

I quickly realized as an employer that an employee being skilled as a painter or manager was only one of several attributes I valued. I started thinking in terms of a three-legged stool, where each leg is essential for the stool to stand. I wanted people who were:

Leg #1: skilled painters

Leg #2: team players

Leg #3: a person of integrity

I began hiring differently, looking for all three attributes, while also having one-to-one conversations with any current employee who I felt could strengthen one of these areas. Someone whose skilled painter leg needs some strengthening is easier to train than someone who lacks integrity or doesn’t know how to work well with others.

Over the years Greenleaf Painters has grown and flourished, and these fundamentals have helped shape the company culture and have contributed to its prosperity.  Sometimes, of course, I wish there were fewer things I needed to learn from scratch, fewer challenges when it came to figuring out how to find the best employees and retain them. However, it is true that with each challenge we gain some new insight which, in turn, makes us better and stronger.  I am thankful every day for my wonderful team of dedicated managers and painters.

If you are a budding entrepreneur, or you are growing an existing business, I hope this inspires you to reach the next level with your team.

 

-Jonathan C. Shenk

 

Five Principles for Building a Successful Business

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Greenleaf’s owner, Jonathan Shenk, had the incredible opportunity to speak at Kampala University in Uganda, East Africa, in 2018, on the lessons he has learned in building his company. He shared these same principles in a talk at the Princeton Corridor Rotary Club in 2019. Now a year later, we want to share them with you because they apply not only to business but to life in general. You may also learn more about Jonathan and this company in the process. Here is a condensed version of his talk.

Jonathan speaking at Kampala University in 2018

1. Every person has inherent dignity and worth.
We live in a diverse part of the world. It is not our place to judge someone’s culture or faith or to envy their wealth or to criticize their choices. It is also important that we don’t even entertain those thoughts in our heads because our attitudes influence our relationships with our customers. People can feel judged without any words being said. Therefore, it is much simpler to avoid judging in the first place.

2. Every company has a soul.
Each company is like a living, breathing eco-system. And the company’s soul flows through each employee. It also flows through the company’s work space and equipment. Whatever values a company lifts up will be experienced by anyone who interacts with the company. And the company will only function properly if every part of the company is in agreement with those values.

The audience at Kampala University during Jonathan’s talk.

3. Words have meaning.
Words are powerful and need to be aligned with our actions and attitudes. It is important to hold to the commitments we make to our customers and to each other. Words also create and shape our reality. Do our words suggest an attitude of despair or of hope? Do they suggest an attitude of weakness or of strength?

4. Take the long view.
A company’s principles and values take priority over the bottom line. They take priority over making profits on a particular job. In many businesses there will be profitable seasons and un-profitable seasons. There will be profitable jobs and un-profitable jobs. It’s important to take the long view and focus primarily on doing a great job.

“If your team is terrified of making mistakes, then they are less likely to aspire to their full potential.”

5. Practice gratitude and humility.

–Humility: we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. Sometimes we don’t know what choice to make or we don’t have all the information or knowledge we need to make the correct choice. The best leaders and the best companies take a team approach. And they demonstrate compassion and kindness when mistakes are made. If your team is terrified of making mistakes, then they are less likely to aspire to their full potential.

–Gratitude: it is important to walk with a spirit of gratitude as a leader, and to focus on the good things that are happening. It is a choice one needs to make, a choice of perspective and attitude. There are many challenges and difficulties that go along with leadership. It would be easy to fill one’s day with worry and anxiety. That will usually lead someone down further and further into fear and despair. It is better to choose to focus on the good things that are happening.

Thank you for reading!