Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Roxanne Conrad of 360 Painting On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
First of all, as a female in a man’s world, no feelings. Of course, everyone has feelings, but I used to say this in my marketing role all the time. There are no feelings in marketing. Everyone will have an opinion, but what matters is whether something works. In a male-dominated industry, there will be a ton of bravado and opinions, and you’ve got to be able to just say, “Thanks for the feedback,” and let it roll off. Then, take the things that make sense to you and incorporate them. Take the granules that are really helpful and important and incorporate them into your business, and just roll with the rest.
In the United States in 2022, fields such as Aircraft piloting, Agriculture, Architecture, Construction, Finance, and Information technology, are still male-dominated industries. For a woman who is working in a male-dominated environment, what exactly does it take to thrive and succeed? In this interview series, we are talking to successful women who work in a Male-Dominated Industry who can share their stories and experiences about navigating work and life as strong women in a male-dominated industry. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Roxanne Conrad of n360º Painting.
Roxanne, a native of Forest Park, Illinois, is a graduate from the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign. She began her career within a subsidiary of Xerox, starting in sales and eventually creating and launching two different departments from the ground up. Over her 15 years with Xerox, she received various awards and commendations, launching both the escalated customer service call center and a marketing/sales operations team. Roxanne left corporate America in 2018 to join her husband, Brian in growing their 360 Painting franchise location, where they were honored to be named the 2018 Rookie of the Year Franchise.
In 2019, Roxanne was contracted on as Vice President of Marketing with a pet-related call center for the American Kennel Club. Her main responsibility was to build the organization’s brand and market strategy through B2C sales and complimentary acquisitions — to assist in overall revenue growth for a liquidation event. Throughout this time, she continued to run the marketing and HR operations of their family business.
In 2021, Roxanne rejoined Brian within 360 Painting, taking on new roles and leveraging her expertise to not only grow their business, but assist others within the franchise system. Roxanne has been involved in sitting on the Franchise Advisory Council, a Women Owner’s Cohort, and has taken lead on piloting and building out several initiatives within Premium Service Brands.
In October 2023, PSB announced Roxanne as the new President of 360 Painting and would be leading the system beginning November 1st. With 5 successful years in franchise business ownership, Roxanne is extremely excited to take on this new challenge and utilize her experience and expertise to help foster an environment of growth and positivity within the 360 Painting community.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
I grew up in a western suburb of Chicago — in the Oak Park area. It was a town called Forest Park. I think I had a pretty standard childhood, I was very academic; I had straight As and was in the National Honor Society. I also played tennis! Since I’m from this area, I’m very familiar with the territory that we ended up buying into with 360º Painting.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
This actually has to do with a personal relationship of mine. I met my husband at work, and we’ve only ever not worked together for one year of our marriage. I was in marketing at a subsidiary of Xerox, and he was in data analytics. He had always had a dream of owning his own business, so we decided it was probably a good opportunity for us to diversify the family portfolio. We kind of saw the writing on the wall as it correlated to Xerox — there’s only so much work in a paper in a digital world.
We started looking at options, and we were thinking, “Well, what can we do?” He was in data analytics, and I was in marketing, so aside from being consultants, there wasn’t really a great path to opening a business. That’s when we started pursuing franchising.
Really, we settled more on Premium Service Brands than we did the painting industry.. That being said, one of the things that really stood out to us about the painting industry was the opportunity to bring our background in customer service into an industry that was not well known for providing a great overall customer experience.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Our first six months in business, we had a painter who was in one of our customer’s closets, and he was shaking a paint can. The lid wasn’t closed all the way, and it went everywhere. I mean, the paint was just all over her closet. It was all over her clothes, and she was a businesswoman, so she had a lot of suits. Our attention to the customer experience and the quality of the overall job came into play, and we told her we would clean or replace every single one. That’s what we did. And honestly, she’s not only a repeat customer, but she became a great referral!
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Number one is going to be drive. A successful business owner has to have drive, and that’s not something you can teach or train. It is what it is; successful people find a way. When we first started, we recruited some painters. We thought we had way more than we needed, so we went out and sold some jobs, then we realized that if we had five painters lined up, all five could flake and we’d have five jobs with no painters. You need about triple the number of painters you think you do to really provide that great customer experience. Rather than letting that shake us, we went to 10 different Sherwin-Williams locations and hung up flyers. We implemented a hiring bonus and a loyalty bonus, and we held open interviews in the early morning and during lunch hours. So when the crews were rolling through getting ready to go to their jobs for the day, we were sitting there with coffee and donuts, offering stable work.
The second characteristic is that I’m 100% committed to quality. It doesn’t matter what industry I’m in, if it’s a new role, or anything else in my life. Now, owning a painting business, quality has to be there because that’s how you continue to grow your business. If you have a bad review, that’s public, and it will drive away customers. Attention to quality is a defining characteristic for successful business owners. Going back to that shaken paint can in the closet story, a 100% commitment to quality doesn’t just mean that we want to do the best painting job; we want to provide the absolute best experience. Even though we made this massive mistake, we took care of our customer.
My third characteristic is attention to employee development. As the owner, everything rolls up to you, whether it’s a subcontractor or a salesperson. Sometimes people forget that development piece. You can hire an employee that has a ton of skills, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to perform the exact way you want them to 100% of the time. The only way to get them there is to continue to have those development conversations and continue to invest in them not just monetarily through salary, bonus and other compensation but also mentally. We have a painter who is a perfect example of this. When we hired him, he was one of the best technical painters out there. But, about a year later, we were almost ready to let him go. Even though he was great technically, his jobs were almost always over hours because he wasn’t managing the whole project, so we were essentially losing money on him. We had to make the difficult decision of pulling him out of the field to have a series of meetings with him to drive that development. We realized that the more time we invested in him, the more he started to understand his role. Now, he’s a salaried employee, he works as our head trainer, and he’s a huge part of our culture.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you help articulate a few of the biggest obstacles or challenges you’ve had to overcome while working in a male-dominated industry?
I will share with you that some of my favorite comments have been, “Well, can you talk to the owner and ask them if… ?” There are two pieces of the puzzle when it comes to working in a male-dominated area.
The first is the customer’s perception. Generally, the customer’s perception is that, as a female in a painter’s world, you couldn’t possibly be either knowledgeable about painting or the owner of the business because you’re a woman. From a customer’s end, those are always fun questions to field. When they start asking technical questions or wanting more information about components of the job, you can either provide the answers or explain that you’re the owner. Either way, that doubt begins to break down rather quickly. Once customers hear that, their perception starts to realign, and they begin to realize that they’re doing business with a company that will provide not only a good service but a great experience. That has actually been a benefit.
The second aspect of it is dealing with employees. Many painters are used to dealing with bosses that are men. In the beginning, I think some employees have this idea that they will be able to talk me into something because I don’t know what they are talking about or don’t have the experience. Part of fixing that is really about setting an expectation. We have a pay structure, it’s set, and there’s not really room for negotiation. We’re going to be looking at the quality of your work and the customer’s experience — both of those are pretty easy to learn about. A customer rates you based on these things, and your scores determine whether or not you work for us. If customers are happy and our painters are doing a great job, then we have a great relationship, but we’re all very clear on expectations.
Can you share a few of the things you have done to gain acceptance among your male peers and the general work community? What did your female co-workers do? Can you share some stories or examples?
Within the industry, I don’t really do anything to change the perception of my competitors. In fact, if they underestimate me, that’s better for me!
Within the larger trades industry, it’s a different story. What I have found extremely beneficial is being involved in a lot of networking groups. I am the one who goes to those meetings as the face of the business, and I’m able to go out and create relationships with plumbers, roofers, electricians and general contractors. What we’ve found is that working with these people within the networking groups gives us business opportunities. At the end of the day, another business owner wants to partner with someone who is going to take care of their customers. Once they see that customer experience is my primary focus, they’re all in. When you’re working with tradespeople, what they really want to know is, “If I bring you into one of my customers’ homes, are you going to take care of them like I would?”
What do you think male-oriented organizations can do to enhance their recruiting efforts to attract more women?
One thing that’s very different with women than it is with men is the way they review a job description. Women tend to be more focused on checking off all of the qualities that are required to perform the role. Men tend to think along the lines of, “Well, I have about 70%, so I should be good.” There are studies that have been done on this!
When we’re recruiting, I think we need to be mindful of who is reading the job descriptions. That’s not to say that they should be written in a gender-specific way, but we have to be mindful. What if we just think about what accomplishments will be required if a person is hired? What are the KPIs going to be? Allow people to bring their varying skill sets into the job and meet those metrics in their own way rather than outlining exactly what skills and qualifications you think are needed. Of course, this is a bit different when you’re hiring a technical person — a painter, for example. But in your infrastructure, if you need a salesperson, territory manager or production manager, talk more about what you’re going to be measuring than the list of qualifications you want them to check off.
Ok thank you for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
First of all, as a female in a man’s world, no feelings. Of course, everyone has feelings, but I used to say this in my marketing role all the time. There are no feelings in marketing. Everyone will have an opinion, but what matters is whether something works. In a male-dominated industry, there will be a ton of bravado and opinions, and you’ve got to be able to just say, “Thanks for the feedback,” and let it roll off. Then, take the things that make sense to you and incorporate them. Take the granules that are really helpful and important and incorporate them into your business, and just roll with the rest.
Number two is to always be open to coaching. And I don’t necessarily mean from other people within the industry, but seek that coaching outside. As much as we want our employees to be open to coaching, we have to do the same. We’re never the best version of ourselves; the best version is always yet to come. If we don’t have those experiences, but someone else is willing to offer them, let’s be open to that! That’s less pain that we have to go through. I have been in a couple of different careers in terms of different organizations, levels, and positions, and one of the things that has always been consistent with me is that I have always had a mentor. Even though this person is from a different industry, they can still give me great feedback from a 30,000-foot overview.
Another one is empathy. That sets us apart in male-dominated spaces because I think we have an opportunity to have more employee loyalty than our male counterparts. We tend to listen to our employees and work through things with them more. We had an employee who had a lot of children, and the kids were on state health insurance. One of the things that came from speaking with him was a better understanding of his life and family situation, and that allowed us to create a new type of culture within our organization. We now provide health care and insurance options to our employees, and that’s not very common in the painting industry, but it came through really understanding one of our employees’ family situations and researching options to find a way that we could help him specifically, as well as our entire staff.
The fourth is the ability to really focus on holding people accountable. Especially in a male-dominated industry, as women, we have to put up some rules and guidelines. “Here are the company policies, here are the expectations. If you break those, there will be consequences.” You can’t let people get away with things one, two, three, four or five times because then they start taking advantage of you. Especially as a woman in a male-dominated industry, people will come into a conversation with this perception that they’ll be able to get one past you. This happened with a customer who just did not want to pay any sort of deposit for his project. I explained why we had the policy and that it was something we absolutely had to enforce. He had already signed a contract, but I was willing to let him out of it if he didn’t want to give a deposit. He gave a deposit the day before, and that’s when we went shopping for materials for the project. It all worked out, but I had to hold firm on our company policies.
The last is confidence. You just have to be confident in what you’re saying and doing; people can sniff it out if you’re not. Girl, you know your books, you know your business, you know your employees and you know your customers! There’s a difference between hubris and confidence, and it’s okay to be confident in what you’re doing. I probably have a million stories about this one, but one of the clearest situations I remember was getting on a call with a vendor. We were negotiating pricing, and I knew my numbers going into the conversation. They tried to bring up the market and industry standard, and I had to be confident enough to say, “We’re talking about my account, so let’s talk about my account. Here are my numbers. I’m not going to negotiate my prices based on data from your overall base of business.” Being confident in the data I was bringing to the table allowed me to go into that conversation knowing that I would get the pricing setup I needed or take my business elsewhere.
If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a field that is male-dominated or female-dominated, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I would argue that it would give her a leg-up in a lot of ways. Any kind of market shake-up provides you the opportunity to do exactly that — shake up the market. When you shake up the market, you can cash in on a bigger piece of the market. That said, that advice only applies if the friend is going into it with her eyes wide open. You still have to learn the industry and hire the right people. I would absolutely tell my friends to go into a male-dominated industry because, again, when you can be the horce of a different color, you can stand out more.
Have you seen things change for women working in male-dominated industries, over the past ten years? How do you anticipate that it might improve in the future? Can you please explain what you mean?
I definitely think more and more women are getting past the hurdle of thinking, “This is a male-dominated industry, so I’m not even going to try.” I think if anything, there are a lot of women who just show a level of drive naturally by choosing an industry that they feel like they might not fit in. They decide that they’re going into the industry and they’re going to be successful. There’s really no other choice. You have to be better than everyone else because not only do you have to be successful, but you have to prove yourself first.
We still have things to overcome in terms of perception of technical abilities, but that’s something that will change over time. Just culturally speaking we’re already changing, moving away from this idea that men are technically more inclined in certain areas. I think many customers’ perceptions have already changed, and they’re already seeing that women in some of these male-dominated spaces can be beneficial for them in terms of what sort of service they’ll receive.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Barbara Corcoran. When you think about female entrepreneurs making a splash and turning the market on its head, that’s everything she’s done. And it’s not just one thing, right? She’s done that in various industries! She’s invested in other organizations, and she’s successful across the board. I’d love to just pick her brain about how she spends her money, what she concentrates on and the top three things on her mind every day. When you have that kind of range, you obviously have the right formula.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Roxanne Conrad of 360 Painting On The Five Things… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.