## **How a Central Virginia painting contractor uses Nutshell to standardize follow-up, track won work, and keep projects moving**

**[89-Paint](https://www.89paint.com/)** is a commercial and residential interior/exterior painting contractor serving Central Virginia—primarily in and around Richmond. Co-founders Ethan Wart and his wife Suzanne take on everything from large-scale commercial community projects (multifamily properties, malls, and more) down to smaller residential jobs. They also run a shop dedicated to refinishing cabinetry, built-ins, and custom cabinet work.

With that kind of range, 89-Paint needs more than a place to store contacts—they need a system that keeps every opportunity and every active job organized, visible, and moving forward.

Over a decade of using Nutshell, 89-Paint has logged **5,345 lifetime leads won**—that’s about **534 wins per year**—while building a repeatable, trackable process their whole team can rely on.

### The Challenge

In contracting, **winning the job is only the start**. Once an opportunity turns into a “won” lead, the real work begins: scheduling, coordinating, communicating, and ensuring the job stays on track all the way to completion.

For 89-Paint, that challenge is multiplied by:

- A mix of **commercial and residential work**
- Multiple project types and job sizes happening at the same time
- The need for consistent, fast communication (follow-up is everything)
- The risk of details or next steps slipping through the cracks as volume grows

As Ethan put it, being a successful contractor comes down to the fundamentals—communication and follow-through—and having a process that ensures every client moves through the pipeline correctly.

> “We’re **much less likely to let… things slip through the cracks**.”  
> — Ethan Wart, Co-founder, 89-Paint

### The Solution

89-Paint uses Nutshell as the operational backbone for their sales and post-sale workflow— [customizing the CRM](/content/industries/crm-for-contractors/index.html) to fit how they work.

#### Turning CRM data into a repeatable process

Rather than forcing their business into a rigid template, 89-Paint used Nutshell’s flexibility to build a system that mirrors their real-world process.

They rely heavily on:

- **Custom fields** to capture the details that matter to their team
- **Pipelines** to keep each opportunity and job moving through defined stages
- **A** **built-in workflow-style approach** that lets their team check off key steps as work progresses
- **Reporting and segmentation** to understand performance and workload across the business

Ethan shared that Nutshell makes it easy to analyze performance across multiple angles—so they can understand what’s happening and keep improving:

- By salesperson
- By project manager
- By project type
- By customer type

> “We like the ability to… **dice and splice the data… real easily**.”  
> — Ethan Wart, Co-owner, 89-Paint

### Keeping follow-up consistent (and visible)

With an established pipeline and a standardized process, 89-Paint is able to stay proactive about communication—making sure the right people get contacted at the right time.

That includes tracking key engagement signals like last-contacted activity, so the team can confidently answer questions like:

- “Who needs a follow-up today?”
- “Which opportunities have stalled?”
- “Where are we most likely to lose momentum?”

The result is a workflow that supports what matters most: **responsive service and consistent follow-through**.

### The Results

After building their Nutshell setup around their real sales + delivery process, 89-Paint has seen meaningful, compounding benefits over time—from visibility and accountability to process consistency across the team.

#### Results at a glance

- **5,345 lifetime leads won** tracked in Nutshell over ~10 years
- A CRM process that supports both **winning work** and **tracking work after it’s won**
- A standardized pipeline that helps ensure opportunities don’t get forgotten
- Cleaner reporting across roles, project types, and customer categories

Most importantly, Nutshell helps 89-Paint run a tight operation where follow-up is consistent and nothing critical gets missed.

### What 89-Paint would tell other teams considering Nutshell

Ethan’s advice is simple: Nutshell has a lot of power—but you don’t have to do everything at once to see value.

> “ **Start small, find a win, keep building from there.**”  
> — Ethan Wart, Co-founder, 89-Paint

Focus on one win first (like a pipeline that matches your real process), then build from there. That approach is exactly how 89-Paint turned Nutshell into a system that supports their day-to-day operations—and scales with them as they grow.